<TITLE>13. Par -</TITLE>L-20-2 These battles has raged since the day of the garden of Eden, the battle in the human mind. Satan started it. What did he do when he met Eve? He didn't deny God's Word, but he whitewashed It. He stopped up some little channels here somewhere. He said, "But surely God... (Genesis 3:1. See?) Surely God... All these things that he--he--he promised..." He knowed the Word was right, but he knowed he couldn't just come right out and blast It out blarry like that, but he--he sugar coated It.

L-20-3 Like mama used to get us to take medicine, and--and she'd try to put orange juice in castor oil. My, just rather take the castor oil without the orange juice. Anything that's hypocritical... See? She... We used to have to get up at nighttime, and she'd give us coal oil for croup. And she'd put coal oil and put sugar on it. See? Kinda hypocritical, but it'd just burn your tonsils out nearly going down after the sugar left.

L-20-4 Well, that's the way it is, friends. Satan tries to--to be hypocritical about it. He tries to show you something better, a easier way, a more sensible plan. But there is no more sensible plan then that God laid down at the beginning: His Word. Hold that Word; get a grip on It. Let It get a grip on you. Stay there with It. That's the--that's the thing.

L-21-1 The battle raged when Eve opened up her mind to listen to her reasonings. That's the flue it come in; that's the--the channel it run down: her reasoning. She in her soul, she reasoned. Her eyes, with sight she saw the serpent. He was beautiful, handsome, far better than her own husband. He was the most subtil of all the beast of the field. And be was probably a fairer man than her husband; he look like a great masculine beast standing there. How great he was, and he was trying to tell her what a great thing it was. And the first thing she did, she opened up her mind. And when she did, human reasonings caught it. "Why, wouldn't that be a thrill."

L-21-2 That's the thing he does to a woman today. Some woman with a lovely little husband finds some great, big masculine man; this man will try to opening up the reasonings. Remember, that's Satan; that's the devil. Or vice versa, man to woman, woman to man, either way... What does he do? Work in that reasoning power, that conscience where something begins to move through, but give God's Word the first place.

L-21-3 A man can't even come to... he can't sin. Hallelujah. Here it is, this coming fresh. A man cannot sin until first he casts aside God's Word. He can't even sin (that's disbelieve) until first he gets rid of the Word of God, the Presence of God; he cannot sin.
Eve could not sin, until she laid aside God's Word, opening up her channel of reasons to her soul and begin to reason. "Why certainly, my husband's never told me these things, but I believe that you... He told me I shouldn't do this, but you know, you make it so real; it's so plain. I--I believe it would be wonderful, because you're making it so plain to me."
See? There was the first battle. And through that battle has caused every other war and every bloodshed that ever come was caused right there at Eden. She disbelieved God's Word.

L-21-6 And if one little iota of God's Word was disbelieve, caused all this trouble, how we going to get back, disbelieving the Word? You can't do it. You got to shut off all these other things, conscience, memories and say--reasonings, and all these other things, "casting down reasonings." We don't reason about it at all, nothing at all. We just accept the Word upon the basis, "God said so"; and it sets a stream between you and God. Every channel comes open between you and God then. There's the battle, the very first front line.


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