The Serpent’s Poison in Man

Satan wanted to be like the Most High. He wanted to deprive God of His authority. He said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” The first lie that Satan planted here in the world was to attribute an untruth to God. He cast doubt on God’s love. The next step was to draw the woman’s attention to herself. He said, “God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Gen. 3:5. He drew her attention to herself, and afterward he compared her to God. She was to be like God, knowing good and evil.

Satan broke away from God, shouting, “I will be like the Most High!” He has not forsaken this poison, and he is pursuing this course that he once chose. Now he is planting that same personality into mankind. You will be like God. You will be great. Thus man left his relationship of obedience to God and became obedient to Satan.

There are three things that follow from this: man wants to possess; he wants to enjoy, he wants to be something. Now he is seeking for a purpose outside of God, his happiness in Satan’s deception—the poison that forces man’s entire life into Satan’s thought process and into his course. Paul says in Ephesians 2:2 that the children of this world walk “according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.” People are willing to be driven by the spirit of Satan. However, Satan has been cast out from before God’s face. He has been condemned. Now that man has taken from the tree, this means that he was driven by this condemned spirit. Therefore they hid from God when He called them. People do the same thing even in these days. They hide from God when He wants to speak to them. The Spirit of man is restless just like Cain after he had murdered his brother; for man had destroyed his own exalted state—he had left his proper domain—therefore he now has this spirit of restlessness. This is evident in daily life in innumerable ways. God always speaks to man in the present moment, but it is difficult for man to stand still so he can hear God in the present moment. Therefore people flee from the moment in order not to meet their God. “Killing time” is to kill the moment. But if a person is to kill time, there has to be something living in time. That which is living in time is God’s voice in the depths of the heart, calling, “Adam, where are you?” By killing time, people are hurrying away at full speed. They don’t have the courage to encounter the voice that is still ringing in each child of Adam, for they have chosen to flee together with the condemned spirit of Satan.

How do people flee from the moment? They live their life either in the past or in the future. They think about the past, living on their reminiscences, or they live a dream life in the future by thinking about happiness or by being anxious. Or the busyness of the times and their striving wastes their time. People say, “It is good that it is noon; it is good that it is evening; it is wonderful that time goes by so fast.” Wishing that time would go by fast is wishing a quick end to your life. People rush through time like a hunted animal. They want “time to pass”; they must have something with which to “spend the time,” driving it from their presence. Therefore people want to have entertainment, something they can set up as a counterweight to their condemned conscience. If they have nothing to do, they are bored, dissatisfied with themselves and with others because there isn’t anything of sufficient substance to hinder the demands of the inner man from becoming manifest. We see that people support each other with mind-distracting inventions. The things with which time can be killed can be bought with money. Theater, novels, enjoyments of all kinds,; drunkenness and immorality—everything leads to this one goal: to satisfy an agonizing human heart that speedily rushes through time in order to reach eternity.

Poor you, why don’t you stop? Hide no longer from God! Hear His voice! Your conscience is condemning you, but listen to what God is saying: I have so loved the world that I gave My Son, so that you—if you believe in Him—should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Notice that when God finally laid hold of man, Adam blamed God, saying, “The woman You gave me, she gave me of the tree.” The woman blamed Satan, saying, “The serpent deceived me.” Excuses are the first offspring of sin. Making excuses is blaming people and circumstances for the offense that you have committed. People don’t want to acknowledge that they are as thoroughly corrupt as they are.

Satan’s poison had a terrible effect on man. Paul says in Romans 3:10, ff.: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands. They have all gone out of the way. They have all become unprofitable; not one of them does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open grave; with their tongues they have practiced deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness,” etc. What a terrible picture of man in his fallen condition! This is what every person looks like. He may be a more or less polished person on the outside, but this is how he is on the inside.

How difficult it is for people to acknowledge their depravity. Oh, how they fight in desperation to keep up an appearance. And the bitter irony with which they surround themselves! They confine the criminal in man in a cage of laws so that he does not have an opportunity to follow his lusts. Every person sees a criminal in his neighbor; he is to be rendered harmless by a whole lot of laws—but he is to be punished if he shows too much of his nature. In the meantime they pass through the world with a proud neck. One person tries to be great at the cost of the other person. One person’s ruin is another person’s step to fame. Everyone tries to be something. Satan’s method goes around like a phantom—and even more so, like a heart-rending reality in every person.

Satan said, “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.” Look at mankind! They act like their father. They want to be something. In the world there is a race to be something—to be at the top. Look at the average person. One person compares himself to the next, measuring his own greatness. “I have more education than you; I have more money than you; I have a more advantageous appearance than you; I look better than you. Therefore I am greater than you; I have more to say than you; I am even so great that it would be a shame for me to be in the other person’s presence.” What folly! Everyone is trying to fool and impress each other that “they are something.” And people are willing to be fooled. Everyone wants to exalt his throne over his neighbor and rule over him. They are truly following in Satan’s steps. Everyone desires to “put on a good show.” Vanity, the offspring of pride, always asks, “How do I look?” Everyone wants to be great; all of them glory in their shame; for it must be shameful to follow Satan regardless of how he decorates himself.

People often believe that the kingdom and the power of darkness must be something terribly dark and ominous. It is close at hand in daily life. You will find the kingdom of darkness even in a beguiling smile from human beauty. Satan comes just as often with a charming smile as he does like a ferocious bear. Many people exalt their throne and rule over others by deceiving them with smiles, money, clothing, etc., and people love to be fooled if only they can be great through it and climb on top of the others. The effort that mothers expend on their children to prevent the criminal in them from appearing! They cherish one folly in order to cover the next. The children must be proud, so proud that they do not go beyond the opinion of the masses about what is proper. People are too proud to commit base criminal acts. The one person is an open grave that stinks; another person is a closed grave—often whitewashed.

One person sells himself to another for the sake of comfort—for the sake of honor. What is honor? It is a titillating feeling of well-being in the flesh because of other people’s comments, for right away the person feels that he is climbing higher. People like to flatter someone in order to elicit a smile from a person who despises them in his heart.

To be like the Most High, just as Satan did, (he fosters man in his own image), man desires three things as mentioned previously: 1) To possess. The person who possesses the most can shine the most; he can captivate the others with his pomp; he is admired and worshiped because of his possessions, for his knowledge, and for his education. 2) To enjoy. The person, who can speak about the choicest enjoyments, thinks that he is the greatest; the person who has been active in the most endeavors is admired the most, for he can charm other people and egg on other people’s envy by his titillating rhetoric. The entire world speaks about how to satisfy their lusts. Everyone is alike on this point—starting with the poor man and up to royalty. People are greedy because they are self-indulgent. 3) To be something. Everyone wants to be something. Pride is the undercurrent in a person’s life. Greed wants to have what is outside the body; self-indulgence is to satisfy the lusts of the body—the lust of the eyes, the lust of the ears—all the lusts of the body. Pride has the deepest roots; it resides in the spirit of man. These three things work together in order to support each other.

Man’s greed gives birth to self-interest, competition, and criminal acts against the laws.

Self-indulgence feeds all kinds of desires.

Arrogance feeds contempt, mockery, and scorn.

All these things are summarized by Paul in Galatians 5:19: “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

All these things reveal a person’s attitude of mind and his works so that he can satisfy all his desires.