Serpent Voice
by Terry Wane Benton
It is surprising that the adversary of God and man, Satan, could use a serpent and project words through such a creature, but he had such power to trick Eve (Genesis 3). She was not discerning enough to know that evil was at work, undermining the character of God and the truthfulness of His word. Confusing reality and doubt about God and the absolute dependability of His word is the first step toward breaking fellowship with God. Eve knew that all that God had made and provided was “good,” but Satan’s mission is to get people to forget the good we know and become suspicious that good is an illusion, a trick with some evil conspiracy to control us for evil purposes. That is the voice of the Serpent.
"And he said to the woman, 'Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’” (Genesis 3:1).
The voice she heard from Satan was to question what she recalls the Lord to have said, or the validity of what she understood from God. This sets in motion the suspicion that God is limiting your potential rather than protecting you. “You could be so much more, so much better off if God were not imposing needless laws and limitations upon you” is the alien thought now maneuvering our minds. That is the Serpent’s voice even to this day. Eve had no misunderstanding of the actual words she heard from God. She knew it was a simple command not to eat from that one tree in the middle of the Garden. It was only that now she does not understand why God was motivated to give that particular command.
God said, “baptism does also now save us” (I Peter 3:21), and the great adversary says, “Did God indeed say that baptism is before salvation?” “Did God really put salvation in the water? Surely, water and salvation have nothing to do with each other,” But we had no problem understanding what God said. It is now the serpent’s voice making you question why He said what He said. The Serpent whispers, “baptism is a work, and works are after salvation, not part of coming into salvation.” Now, magically, we have justified ourselves in not believing what God said, even when we understood the words, until a new voice entered to make us forget or ignore what God said. Oh, that additional voice! It may not be from a serpentine creature, but a nice-acting preacher or “disciple.” The voice is still from that deceiver, Satan, the one who wants us to forget God’s word.
If Eve had trusted God and His word more and did more questioning of the Serpent, she would have questioned the Serpent with, “Why are you contradicting what God said?” She would have fought back with, “I have been blessed with all the trees in the garden, but this one is off limits to me. Let’s stick with what God said. If I need to ask Him more about the why of the command, I will take time to do it. Now is not the time to rationalize away what He commanded.” A little resistance to that new voice can go a long way. If only the questions were for this new voice instead of God’s voice.
The water is not the means of salvation, but it is the moment of faith in which the blessing is promised. Remission of sins follows our faith that leads to repentance and baptism (Acts 2:38). That is stated in no uncertain terms. Baptism is not a work of law to earn right standing. It is the moment of faith when right standing with God is given by God to a sinner who is pleading for forgiveness, not boasting of earning it. The Serpent’s voice is still casting doubt over words that are easy to understand. Naaman had no trouble understanding what the prophet told him: to wash in the Jordan to receive the gift of healing his leprosy. He got angry because a whisper of doubt entered as to why that was commanded instead of something else, and why another body of water wouldn’t work as well (II Kings 5). But when reason came back into focus, he may not have understood why God would connect healing leprosy to dipping in the Jordan seven times, but he did understand the plain words. His hesitancy at first was simply due to giving ear to the Serpent’s voice. When someone reasoned him back to the ease and clarity of the original words of healing, he cast aside the serpent’s voice and obeyed the command of God, at which time a wonderful healing was his by the grace of God.
The simple words of God are filtered through the Serpent’s questioning of God’s words, and the problem is that we were clear in our understanding of what God said until we heard the Serpent spin them through his web of questions and doubts. Who do you let spin God’s word into confusion and contradiction? Don’t we need to believe God and question that other voice?
