Gems In Genesis: Garden Theology - What We Know About the Devil: "He Craves"

The devil is a created being who is crafty. In his craftiness his aim was and remain to deceive the people of God in such a way that we act in ways unbecoming of saints of Christ. Yet, at the heart of his craftiness is something more than our deception. He wants us deceived because, by deceiving us, he gains our praise. This is an important factor that we cannot miss.

The devil wants worship! He wants to be seen as and greater than God, his Creator. The entirety of his operation, from its inception, has involved an attempted coup of the throne of the Lord, the throne he once stood guard. Satan, as an angel, once walked and enjoyed the presence of God in an extraordinary way. He was ordained a Cherub which, in angeology, is of no small rank since God is said to have sat right above the cherub according to Isaiah 37:16. This proximity would be the context in which his cravings to worship his Creator would change to a craving to be worshipped.

We read of this craving from the lips of the prophet Isaiah,

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the

ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above

the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far

reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the

Most High’ (Isaiah 14:12–14, emphasis added).

There it is! He wanted to be like the Most High. In a way in which none of us can understand, Satan's worship became distorted. He was created to worship the Lord but, out of a reckless abandonment of adoration for his Creator his worship was misplaced and self-centered. He understood that Adam and Eve were Created by the same God but in a unique way - they were in God's image. The purpose of Adam and Eve was to be fruitful and multiply and so fill the earth with a multiplication of God-images. That was not only their duty, but it was also an expressed form of worship.

The craving devil tempts and distorts Eve's worship by, you guessed it: addressing and seeking to change her cravings. We see it being played out with masterful deception, luring, and enticing Eve to think and, therefore, to feel and behave in defiance of her Creator. Read and see the subtle, but eternally destructive, shift:

"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,

knowing good and evil.” So, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it

was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its

fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate"

(Genesis 3:5-6).

Notice how the devil changes how Eve sees the tree. She had seen this tree for many days, and not once did she see it other than the way God intended for her to see it. Now, the enemy paints a different picture, leading Eve to question God's character (Genesis 3:2,3) and, as a result, changing how she saw the tree. At one point it was a tree of prohibition but now, after the dressing Satan gave to it, it was a tree of passion. Note the words: the tree was now, good... a delight to the eyes... to be desired.

In truth, at that moment, Eve's worship had changed because her craving had changed. Once created to worship her Creator, she was deceived by the crafty craver to crave as he did and now, she, due to a shift in worship, entered into the realm of spiritual death. What is powerful, but often not understood, is that sin is not simply an act of defiance; sin is an act of worship. It is a bowing down to the false throne of the false god of this world, Satan, and paying him adoration and honor and glory. This is what the Puritans called the sinfulness of sin.

We must come to see that the cravings we have within us are all gifts from the Lord but were distorted and deformed in the garden due to the rebellion of Adam and Eve. If I could trust have trusted my cravings prior to the fall, I am foolish to trust them now, outside of the Word shaping, correcting, and clarifying them to a Christ-centered aim. The enemy is still crafty, and he is still craving our worship. So, he craftily seeks to change our cravings so that our worship becomes self-centered which, in truth, means Satan-centered.

Jesus teaches us this aspect of the devil when, during His own battles with him. During the last temptation note Jesus’ response:

And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then

Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and

him only shall you serve’ ” (Matthew 4:9–10 emphasis added).

The craver is so stupid that he tried to change the cravings of the Creator, Christ. Do you now think he is fighting tooth and nail to change yours?