look at satan’s simple primary trick for snagging people:

genesis 3.1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.
8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

+____)(*^@!!!@^*)(____+~~~+____)(*^@!!!@^*)(____+~~~+____)(*^@!!!@^*)(____+

he pulls this constantly to this day. it’s not a blatant, “serve me, not God.” it’s “why should you have to listen to God or anyone else tell you how to live your life…why not be a free agent?”

this is the lie of secular humanism today that it’s high time we get the floodlight on. look at it like this: you’re in a dune buggy, & you’ve got a steering wheel & a gas pedal & gear shift & a brake. only rule is you can’t go backwards (in time). if you hit the gas, you speed up. if you pull the wheel right, you go right. obstacles may come up, but you figure ways around them, over them, whatever. you are totally the captain of your own destiny, & you feel that.

only thing is…you & everybody else around you is headed for a 1000ft cliff, & you all know it. it could be 4000 miles down the road or it could be around the next bend, but it’s definitely coming. & the minute you hit it, the brakes don’t work. in fact, nothing works. your gas pedal does nothing in mid-air, neither does your steering wheel. neither do all the obstacle-maneuvering skills you’ve developed in all your years in the dune buggy.

please…the point is not to argue or debate or lock horns with anybody. the point is to allow the Holy Spirit to shine the light of eternity so powerfully through us that eternal souls can suddenly see clearly – & cry out to God who absolutely will hear & save.

you’re an eternal spiritual being stuck in a perishable wrapper. the minute each of us goes off that cliff, it becomes totally apparent that we never actually were independent spiritually for one moment. if the whole ‘free agent’ argument satan’s been pulling hasn’t already gone threadbare on you (as in how much more obvious can it be that the wages of sin is death and ‘free agent’ didn’t really mean FREE)…what about the moment you take your last breath?