Taken to the cleaners

The story is told of a wise man who owned a dry-cleaning business. Periodically, he would hire young men to help him run his shop. The first day on the job, every new employee was instructed to carefully check the pockets of each bundle of dirty clothing. Unknown to that new employee, the owner had secretly placed a coin in the pocket of one pair of trousers that the beginner was to check.

If the new employee, upon discovering the coin, brought it to his employer so that it could be returned to its rightful owner, he was hired permanently. If the trainee pocketed the coin, at the end of the day he was asked not to return, and for good reason: The owner had learned that the man who can’t be trusted with small things is not going to prove himself trustworthy with larger things. If an employee would steal a customer’s money, he certainly couldn’t be trusted to operate the cash register when the owner was absent.

It’s a funny thing about tests; we often don’t recognize them as such until they are over. The first people to be tested were the first people, Adam and Eve. As people who were given free will, they had to be tested to see if they would obey or disobey. For that same reason, all free moral agents must be tested.

God did not create you or I as robots but, rather—as theologians like to say—as “free moral agents.” We are not programmed to obey or disobey, how we react in any situation is not governed by genetics, but rather we are given a choice.

The reason for this is so obvious that we often overlook it. If God had created us as robots, we would not have possessed a capacity to love Him. If you want to know how God would have felt with a race of robots, just place a puppet on your hand and have it turn toward you and tell you that it loves you. Is your heart warmed? Of course not, because that puppet is only saying what you are making it say.

How are we tested…? Any situation that reveals our love (or lack of love) for God’s Word is a test!

Jesus said… “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” John 14:15

People often feel that Adam and Eve got a poor deal; they ask “If God didn’t want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then why did He ever place that tree in the Garden of Eden?”

That’s a valid question, with a simple answer. Although God did not want them to eat the forbidden fruit, He did want to see if they would eat from a tree that He had designated as forbidden. If Adam and Eve had been placed in an environment where nothing was prohibited, then it would have been the same as if God had created them as robots without free choice.

Think about the tree for a moment…. What was so special about the tree? Nothing! Many have tried to “theologize” the tree of the knowledge of good and evil into something that it wasn’t. The Bible, however, tells us it was a literal tree with literal fruit. The fruit looked good and tasted good just like every other tree in the garden. The forbidden fruit contained no magical or special power. The only difference between the forbidden fruit and all the other fruits was that it was forbidden.

It was not Satan who placed the tree of knowledge in the garden—it was God Himself. God didn’t have to place it there, but He did. Yet no one can accuse Him of tempting Adam and Eve because He placed every other tree in the garden that was “pleasing to the sight and good for food” (Genesis. 2:9). Adam and Eve could never justifiably say to God, “It’s your fault that we ate the forbidden fruit because there was nothing else for us to eat,” or “It’s your fault that we ate of this tree because all the other fruit looked unappetizing to us!”

There is a world of between difference between tempting and testing. God never tempts anyone, but He tests everyone. It was Satan who tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit—not God.