Our conversation today is on the topic-The Fall of Man.

Satan was a fallen angel. He saw that Adam and Eve were the crown of God’s Creation and that God loved them very much. He was filled with jealousy towards man and animosity towards God. So he devised a way to destroy God’s relationship with man.

To fully appreciate what happened when man fell, we need to recognise that the world consists of a spiritual and physical realm. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are spirit beings. Ephesians 6:12 declares:

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”.

So Satan is also a spirit who with his demons operates in the spiritual demonic realm.

So God is a Spirit. Satan is a spirit. Man is also spirit and lives in a physical body. Because man lives in a physical body, he must partake either of God’s nature or Satan’s nature. Satan knew the only way he could sever the relationship between man and God was to bring man under his dominion; to breathe his nature into man. This was Satan’s goal when he approached Eve and tempted her.

Satan’s strategy in his craftiness was to distort and misrepresent the word of God.

God had told Adam:
“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Genesis 2:16-17

But Satan said to Eve in Genesis 3:1: “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?'”

When Eve corrected Satan by explaining:
“We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die,'” Genesis 3:2-3, Satan went further to question God’s authority and misrepresent His words:
“You will not surely die, For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:4-5

Unfortunately, Eve, and later Adam, who had dominion over the Serpent succumbed to his distortion and misrepresentation of the Word of God.

When Satan told Eve that her eyes would be opened to know good and evil he was speaking a half truth. Because as soon as they ate the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve lost their innocence. They realised they were naked! It was this consciousness of the flesh that God wanted to protect us from.

The Devil’s approach till today is to deceive Christians by distorting and misrepresenting the Word of God. I hear such misrepresentation of the Word of God on a daily basis. This is why we need to study the Word of God personally to know what it says about our situation.

The dominion of Satan over man began the moment Adam and Eve disobeyed God.

As I said in my last teaching, God had given such complete and unfettered authority over the earth to Adam. Adam could do whatever he wanted with that authority.

Adam chose to transfer his authority and dominion over the earth to Satan.

I used to wonder why God did not take the authority back from Satan. God could have taken the authority back from Satan. But because of His perfect justice God never takes back His word. He gave complete authority to Adam to exercise anyway he wanted. Adam legally transferred the authority that God vested in him over to Satan. He gave Satan the dominion that God gave to him willingly. God could not interfere because He does not take back His word!

During the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, Satan reminded Jesus that authority over the earth had been given to him and that he, in turn, could give it out:
“And he said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.'” Luke 4:6-7

As usual, Satan was speaking half truth. God did not give him the authority. It was Adam that gave him authority over the earth.