Touching the Tree

I was going through the first five chapters of Genesis and was thinking about Eve's encounter with the Serpent in chapter 3.

I find it interesting when Eve is asked about what God said about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that she said God told them not to touch it. He didn't actually say that at all.

God said not to eat from the tree or they would die. Why would Eve add that? I wonder if perhaps she had been thinking about the tree and about what it would be like just to touch the fruit, not eat it of course, but just touch it to see what it felt like.

For us, contemplating sin is often what gets us to fall for the enemy's temptations. We can't imagine ourselves actually doing that thing we know is wrong, but we imagine what it might be like to be close to doing it, to just feel what the options would be like if we were "free" to do that.

Doing things that are against God's character isn't actually freeing at all but enslaving, but that doesn't stop us from contemplating touching the forbidden fruit.

My encouragement to us is to stop it there. When the thoughts come, arrest them and throw them out by the power of the Spirit.

Pastor Tom