Playing The Blame Game

The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.”
–Genesis 3:12

I read one time about a robber who tried to break into a vending machine at a convenience store. He tried and tried to break into that vending machine, but he was unsuccessful. Frustrated, he started pulling on the machine, and it fell on him, leaving him trapped for several hours. He sustained numerous injuries. His response? He sued the convenience store for the injuries he sustained while toppling the machine on himself.

Satan is a lot like that thief. It was Satan’s own pride, discontent, and independence that led him to be ousted from heaven. Yet instead of taking the blame for his actions, he had to blame somebody else, and the biggest target for his blame was God. Satan became filled with bitterness, blaming God for his predicament, and that is why he launched his worldwide assault on the kingdom of God. Today, every sin in the world can be traced back to Satan’s resentment toward God. So it is no surprise that after Adam and Eve started to feel the fallout of their rebellion against God, Satan came to the couple with a fourth lie, one that is built on bitterness: “You have been mistreated.” Satan taught them to blame others for the situation they were in, and they learned how to do that very, very quickly.

God called a meeting to confront Adam and Eve about their rebellion. When He asked Adam for an explanation, Adam said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12). Do you see what Adam was saying? “God, I was doing just fine all by myself, enjoying the birds and communing with the hippopotami. But then You had to give me this woman. She is the one who made me do this thing. Go talk to her!”

Eve had also learned how to play the blame game. Look at verse 13: “Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ And the woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’” In other words, “God, if You had not created this slime-ball creature, I never would have taken fruit from that tree.” You see, that is Satan’s trick to keep us from taking responsibility for our actions. Whenever we blame other people or God for the problems we are facing, it blinds us to our need for God’s forgiveness, and it holds us hostage to the patterns of behavior that were responsible for our predicament to begin with. Satan knows the most effective blindfold to our need for forgiveness and change in our lives is the blindfold called “bitterness.” As long as we are blaming someone else, we cannot receive forgiveness, and we will not make the changes we need to make. Satan knew that all too well.

Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Satan’s Four Favorite Lies” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2010.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.