History records some unprincipled explorers, who, making contact with native people in newly discovered lands, gained their confidence in order to plunder their wealth. They offered the natives worthless baubles bright, colorful beads, pins, yarns or other stuff in order to steal from those naive people treasures of jewels, gold and silver. Had some wise person been present who loved the natives, perhaps those cultures would not have been so easily pillaged, ravaged and eventually destroyed.
Yet in all the annals of history, none has been more brutally devastated by a more cunning enemy than the human race a devastation that took place in the beautiful, pristine Garden of Eden. There Satan, the master of deception, gained entrance, beginning from that moment his awful work of beguiling the woman, offering for her innocence those forbidden baubles of the knowledge of good and evil.
But the serpent’s master stroke was the way in which he circumvented Eve’s husband, the responsible head over creation. God had given Adam the charge of guarding and keeping that beautiful place (Gen. 2:15-1715And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 16And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Genesis 2:15‑17)). The enemy, knowing he was responsible for its care and administration, avoided him, speaking directly to his wife. Yet, as far as we can find in Scripture, God gave no warning or instructions to Eve concerning the Garden that was all delivered to her husband. Thus the wily enemy immediately begins his evil work by first questioning and then planting doubts in Adam’s wife’s mind.
Eve, rather than asking her husband’s advice (or better yet, allowing him to reply since he was the responsible one), took it upon herself to answer the serpent (she became a teacher) and was quickly fooled into doubting God’s goodness. The treasures of life and innocence were stolen from her by what appeared so inviting and desirable, yet led to death.
But the worst failure was Adam’s. Where was he when Eve was being tempted? Perhaps standing right by her? Yet he did nothing to protect save his beloved companion from falling prey to the evil suggestions of the enemy. Oh! If Adam had only loved his wife enough to save her from such awful danger!
In Ephesians 5:2323For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. (Ephesians 5:23) we read, “The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.” Adam, who had said of Eve, “this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh,” did not “save” his body from her greatest danger. Yet he had received God’s word enough to have defeated Satan then, even as the Lord later used it to defeat the devil in the wilderness (Luke 4).
May God stir up us husbands to so love our wives that we will protect them from what appears inviting, yet is really the work of the enemy that angel of light who seeks to destroy the beautiful garden of our marriages. Husbands, do we love our wives enough to daily bear the responsibility of being their “saviour”—in love, keeping them from what ultimately will produce harm and sorrow?
Ed.