| All that was there was good. All authority and dominion over the land and the animals created was given to mankind. All was available for mankind's use, except one tree. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and of this tree man and woman were forbidden to eat. God told them that in that day they ate of it, they would die. So why did God put the tree there to enable Satan to deceive the people and make them go against God's word? It is presumptuous to say we can know all of God's thoughts or reasons, but one reason is fairly clear. God had just had a terrible disappointment in Heaven. The angels who served Him had turned on Him, and evil was born. God was looking for a people that would be His children, His beloved. The Bible says that God has written our names on the palms of His hands so that He will never forget us. It also says that He pities us in our problems as a father pities his children. This is a very loving, trusting God without a trace of darkness or evil in Him. God does not tempt man, the Bible tells us this. But God does provide ways of escape for our mistakes and gives us a choice. He hopes that we will always choose the higher, better circumstance, but just like earth parents, knows that we may in our juvenile state, (even as "adults" we're still spiritually juvenile), make mistakes. The resolution of a problem, or the conquering of a situation, makes one stronger and gives the "child" a deeper understanding and love of the rescuer. He gave us a choice to follow Satan's ways of pride (Satan told the people that to eat of that fruit would make them as Gods themselves), or to remain innocent and in perfect fellowship with Him. Even though we chose unwisely, and deserve death, God had in place a back up plan to redeem us and give us another chance. When man followed Satan, he gave over control of this earth to him. Sin and death, disease and hardship were born. These were not in the original plan, there were no such things before. But in the beginning, before He made man, he put in motion a basic law to operate on this earth. As He created plants and all living things, He declared that everything would bear fruit after it's own kind. Whatsoever was sown, would be reaped. The harvest of disobedience is death. Death literally translated means separation from God. It's not hard to understand why Adam and Eve's transgression would instantly cause separation from God - after all, the Bible says when God came to visit that day, they hid from Him because of their shame and their nakedness. As Satan laughed and gloated over the fall of mankind, Adam and Eve suffered tremendously in their failure. God's heart was not broken, because He is great enough to have foreseen and prepared for that choice to have been made, though He certainly wasn't happy. There were consequences to their behavior that had to be dealt with. They could no longer live in child-like innocence in such a paradise, because their hearts were stained and God knew more violence and problems were coming. They had to learn now to make it in a world that was owned and operated by Satan. God told Adam and Eve that He was going to redeem them spiritually, with a messiah, (Jesus), but that before He would come, their physical bodies would soon wear out and they would die. He instructed them to make sacrifices of animals to help them understand the seriousness of their actions, that blood and death |