Here is another excerpt from my upcoming book. The working title for the book is What was God doing?

It’s just me and Jesus, right? I’m trying as hard as I can, but things just aren’t working out. What I need is a little help from Jesus, and everything will work out just fine.
Have you ever thought like that? I have. Things didn’t get better. I was forgetting about the serpent. He was there in the Garden of Eden, asking “Did God really tell you that? He’s just trying to keep you from seeing things as they really are.” That was horrible advice and it got Adam and Eve evicted from their home in Paradise. We’ve been trying to get back there ever since, and the devil keeps giving us bad advice on how to accomplish that.

Cain and Abel prepared offerings. God accepted Abel’s, ignored Cain’s. Satan helped Cain understand what had gone wrong. It was his brother’s fault, things would get better if he got rid of his brother. He did, and things got worse. Cain, in his monumental pride, was never able to admit that he’d done anything wrong. Does that sound just a little bit familiar? Admitting that I have done something wrong is very hard to do.

The Bible tells us that Satan was one of the most important angels. It also tells us that he rebelled against God, yet doesn’t say when it happened. But it must have happened before Creation because he has always been right there, as close as our thoughts, to tell us that when things go wrong it’s somebody else’s fault, maybe even God’s fault.

The Old Testament records how us humans have got things wrong in every possible way. It also tells of some who were able to admit when they had done wrong and seek God’s forgiveness, like King David. We read about the same God in the Old Testament as in the New, a God who loves us, who is always ready to forgive if we admit our sin and repent, but does not force anyone to submit to Him.

The same serpent, devil, Satan, Lucifer is present in both the New and the Old Testament. In the New Testament we see how the devil tempted Jesus; “Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” (Matthew 4:8-9). Jesus wasn’t interested in that kind of power and glory; we shouldn’t be either. He had not come to earth to set things right in the political realm, but to open the way so that whosoever really wanted to could be saved and enter the heavenly kingdom.