The Whisperer

“Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (Genesis 3:1)

There was a comedian in the early 1970's named Flip Wilson, who played a character called Geraldine, and whose catchphrase was “the devil made me do it”. Though it was used in a humorous sense, it has been used far too often by God’s people as a way of attempting to explain away their failure to stand against the enemy.

The word “serpent” in Hebrew holds the meaning of “hiss”, and comes from the idea of “a whisper”. Now, this may not seem to be too profound, but we need to understand what it is that the Lord is telling us.

You see, the bottom line is simply this: the enemy really can’t do anything to us. True: he can stir up others against us, but, as for him getting us to walk in disobedience to God?

No way!

In a sense, there’s an element of truth to the old cartoon of an angel sitting on one shoulder and the devil on the other, both speaking to us. All he can do is to “whisper” to us, make suggestions to us; and then he leaves us to allow our Adamic nature to take over.

The only power that the enemy has over us is what we allow him to have. He can’t force us to disobey God; and, believe or not, God won’t force us to obey Him.

Our CHOICE to obey or disobey the Lord lies wholly within our hands.

For those of us who have CHOSEN to follow the Lord, we’re a mixture. Inside of us is our original carnal Adamic spirit vying against the relatively newer Holy Spirit of God. And every moment of every day, we have the opportunity to obey the still small voice of the Lord, or the whisper of the enemy. But who we heed determines whether we’re walking in obedience and life, or disobedience and death.

That’s why John was able to say, “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not” (1 John 2:1). He wasn’t making an hypothetical statement, an impossible request. It was very simple, understandable, and attainable.

In a nutshell, we have the Spirit of God dwelling within us to guide us and to strengthen us. When we obey His voice, we’re walking without sin at that time, but when we disregard His voice, we walk in sin.

So, can we not sin? Can we walk perfectly?

Most definitely!

That’s because, as children of God, with His Spirit dwelling within us, we can CHOOSE to obey or not obey His Spirit.

And since sin is disobedience, then our sin nature is our propensity to sin; but it isn’t a guarantee. We aren’t relegated to being unable to control sin in our lives.

We can’t use the excuse that “the devil made me do it”.

We DO, however, have the choice of listening to the whisperer, or to the Spirit of God.

The first guarantees judgment and death.

The second guarantees freedom and life.