A Devastating Question

Gen 3:1  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?

Has GOD said? is the most devastating question that has ever been put into language.
 
All the history of sin, of misery, and disruption, all the evil story of suspicion, disintegration, hatred, war and the rest came out of that question.

The whole situation in the creation which we so deeply deplore had its roots in that question.

Satan’s whole evil, sinister purpose was summed up in that apparently harmless form...“Has GOD said?”

A question aimed at the very integrity of GOD, at the very goodwill of GOD, aimed at the purpose of GOD for man...

Aimed at GOD as method with man by which that great purpose should be realized, the method of faith, of confidence, of obedience.

Yes, it was all in a very brief sentence in the form of a question Has God said?
 
And that question, without betraying the subtlety and guile behind it, being admitted by the one to whom it was offered, resulted in a question becoming a very constituent of human nature, a very part of man’s being.

Right at the center of every child of Adam there is a question; it is this question.

Life itself, human life, is a question, a big question, a question which, all through the ages, men have sought to answer, to solve, by countless means, in countless ways, to answer the question that lies there deep in the heart of man.

If you trace that question deeply enough, you will find that it is a question about GOD and GOD'S intention in creating man. 

Yes, it is in us; it is a part of us.
 
The question mark is a bent thing, it is a crooked thing and anything that is bent and crooked is the symbol of weakness.

It signifies that the thing is not to be relied upon, it
cannot be trusted.

It is weak, there is something uncertain about it, there is a doubt in it, and that doubt of the question mark has a long and terrible history.

From its simplest form of uncertainty it grows to definite doubt, and on to positive suspicion, then to disintegration and ultimately to death.

That is the history of a question.

A question is a very terrible thing, especially when it involves man’s relationship with GOD. “Has God said?”

You and I know quite well that we are all in some way or other, some degree or other, caught in the meshes of that original question, and it forms the battleground of life. 

But that, of course, is a very dark side.

~T. Austin Sparks~