How did our world get from the Garden of Eden to the evil we see in our world today? Evil that drives wholesale destruction in places like Ukraine but closer to home, evil that lurks in our own hearts which we struggle with on a daily basis. How did a perfect creation become such a ruin? How did we get from peace and tranquility to conflict, relational disconnect and the effects of brokenness we see all around us?

The answer lies in the greatest fraud perpetrated in the history of mankind by the greatest deceiver: Satan. We are all familiar with the story of Eve and the serpents (Satan in disguise) discussion followed by Eve and Adam eating of the one tree in the entire Garden that was forbidden to them. What is important to understand is what lay behind the conversation between Satan and Eve and the consequences of Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”

The Woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.” “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

This discussion reveals the methodology of Satan’s fraud perpetrated in the Garden and what he does with us. Satan questions and twists God’s words: “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” He knew all too well what God had said but in raising doubts about God’s instructions, he was intentionally raising doubts about God in the mind of Eve.

When Eve corrects him by saying that there was only one tree that was forbidden to them on pain of death, Satan directly challenges God’s word. “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Not only is God not telling the truth, says Satan, but by keeping the fruit of this one tree from you, He is holding something back from you. God has tricked you and held out on you. In fact, if you eat the fruit it you will not only be like Him but you will know both good and evil.

It was a grand lie, for not only would Adam and Eve not be like God but the consequence of eating from the tree would be separation from God. Part of his promise was true: now they would know good and evil when previously they had known only good. But where his implication was that this would be positive for Adam and Eve, that one act of rebellion brought sin and evil into Adam and Eve’s world and into ours. It literally brought us from the garden to the brokenness we experience in our world and in our own lives. It was a massive, pain filled, fraud that has infected our world from that moment to this.

At the root of Satan’s lie to Eve was this: God is not really good and His word is not entirely true. Once we believe that, all truth is relative. And once all truth is relative, how we live our lives is our choice. And the more that happens the more broken our lives and world becomes.

Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God is called the fall because in that one act, the image they had been given was broken and they fell out of fellowship with God. 

Paul puts the affair this way. “Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of t