Hezekiah quoted a couple verses while talking about his beliefs. I want to show you something that the devil doesn't want you to see. I want you to see how the serpent is still there and how we keep repeating the same mistake again and again. The only way to break out of this cycle is to TRUST G-d. When the bible uses the word "belief" its mainly talking about "TRUST" not whether or not you think something is true. The things we go through right now are related to trust as we're going to see. And as we go over these texts I ask that you pray and put your mind into these scenes so that you can see the bible "alive" as I do. The scene (like a movie) says more than what the words say. Come and see...
Genesis 3:22 And YHWH G-d said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Revelation 22:13:14 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
People, Eden was a TEST. Is there anyone without common sense who doubts this?
TEST
2 a : a means of testing: as (1) : a procedure, reaction, or reagent used to identify or characterize a substance or constituent (2) : something (as a series of questions or exercises) for measuring the skill, knowledge, intelligence, capacities, or aptitudes of an individual or group b : a positive result in such a test
I cannot do like Hezekiah on this and show you a scripture explicitly stating this fact. However, it is true. If you read Genesis 3, the serpent asks a peculiar question for someone just trying to deceive.
1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which YHWH elohim(G-d) had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath G-d said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
This serpent wanted to know what Eve knew. That in itself is a test. He's testing her to see if he can get her to rebel against G-d, with full knowledge that what he was asking her to do was against the command of her Creator.
The Commandment...
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, G-d hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
The command was simple. They were not to eat from a particular tree; the very tree she is about to eat from. Well if she was given such a simple commandment then WHY is she about to eat from this tree? Is it so hard? Is it really so hard to NOT eat from this ONE tree when they had ALL THE OTHER TREES in the garden. And she knows this. That's why she said, seemingly in defense of YHWH, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden". I say this fruit is a test because it is symbolic of all sin.
It is strange to me that we get so much resistance when it comes to teaching that you should keep the commandments. Strange. Why? BECAUSE YOU CAN STILL DO SO MANY THINGS! Even if you want to calculate it out to over 500 things that you should/shouldn't do there are millions of things you shouldn't do but millions more things that you can do with no problem. You can do whatever you like.... so long as its "GOOD". But do you know what good is? What evil is? The law is your "schoolmaster" until you do. Adam and Eve had to be TOLD by their Creator which fruit would cause them to lose their immortality and die. How are you any better than them that you don't need to be told by your Creator about the things that can hurt you but that you don't know can hurt you because you've never experienced it.
The real reason Eve ate the fruit was because she didn't trust G-d. If she had she would have believed him over a serpent.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For G-d doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
What the serpent told Eve was contrary to what her Creator had told them (or told Adam who told her) but he basically made up a PLAUSIBLE excuse that CONFUSED her into thinking that eating the fruit was the right thing to do. Can you see? Can you see?
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
When she "saw".... She didn't know the tree was good for food. She saw what the serpent WANTED HER TO SEE. She saw, through IGNORANCE, exactly what the serpent was trying to convince her of. If she was smart she might have said "YOU eat it! And if YOU live and become a god then I'll go ask my Creator why it is that YOU didn't die." That would have been smart but Eve wasn't thinking clearly because the desire to have the ONE thing she knew she was told she couldn't was already tempting. The IDEA (which was not true) of what it could do to her was more than enough to push her over the edge of reason. That is what deception is. Deception is a cunning use of trickery in order to fool someone into thinking one thing is another. When she saw the fruit she wasn't seeing what YHWH had said about the fruit, only what the serpent said.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
It says their eyes were opened. It doesn't say they were gods. What its basically saying is they had lost their innocence and they knew it. They had been tricked.