1912 Watch Tower - A2Z.org

to our first parents the whole procedure, saying,"Cursed [unfit] is the ground for thy sake; in sorrowshalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns andthistles shall it bring forth unto thee...In the sweatof thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou return untothe ground;...for dust thou art and unto dust shaltthou return."--Genesis 3:17-19.WHY EVIL WAS PERMITTEDThe Bible distinctly tells us that God foreknew the fallof man, and that before the foundation of the world, inHis purpose, He had provided the Lamb of God to takeaway the sin of the world and thus to effect ultimately areconciliation for all of Adam's race desirous of livingrighteously. God had a glorious purpose interwoven withHis permission of sin, which the majority, even of Biblestudents, evidently but faintly discerned until lately.The words of Jesus intimate that shortly, before theestablishment of His Kingdom, His Church will be likea company of virgins, all pure and justified, but some ofthem wise and some of them foolish. He intimates thatat that time the Wise Virgin class will understand featuresof the Divine Plan previously kept secret. Evidentlywe are living in such a time now. It is on this accountand not by their own superior wisdom that the Wise Virginclass is today attaining an appreciation of God's Plan,including His reasons for having permitted a reign ofSin and Death amongst mankind for six thousand years--which is to be abolished by Messiah's Reign of Righteousnessduring the Seventh Great Thousand-Year Day.We may deal with this subject in a later study.THE TEMPTATION OF EVEHow Lucifer and holy angels became disloyal to God,and how Lucifer acquired the name Satan, or Adversaryof God, we will inquire into later. In this lesson he isshown as seeking to alienate the affections of our firstparents from the Creator, and, by tempting them to sin, tobring them under the death penalty, that he might enslavethem as servants of sin. A spirit being, he wouldbe unseen to Mother Eve, except as he would assumesome kind of a material body. It suited his purposes topossess a serpent and through it to tempt Mother Eve.The serpent doubtless spoke by signs, as we sometimessay, "Actions speak louder than words." The serpent ateof the forbidden fruit in the sight of the woman and thenmanifested its wisdom, its sagacity. The woman perceived.She craved knowledge. Why had God forbiddenthat particular fruit? It did not kill the serpent. Whyshould it kill her? The serpent seemed wise. Why shouldnot that fruit make her more wise? Could it be that Godwished to keep them in ignorance, and for that reason hadforbidden their eating of the fruit?Such disloyal thoughts should have been promptly