I want to use this verse to launch into an exploration of what exactly happened in the Garden of Eden with Eve’s deception. This is the way Paul is characterizing it: “fully deceived.”

We can see this from Eve's own words when God asked, “Why did you eat the fruit?” She said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate it” (Genesis 3:13, NET).

The kind of influence that the serpent exerted over Eve is what you can call soft power. There is no coercion, there is no use of force. There was persuasion. There was a replacement of the words of God in her heart with the words of the devil. So, in a way, she was mirroring the devil’s rebellion. That is what it means to be fully deceived.

It was like copy and paste. Through the words, through that interaction. There was a transfer of the devil’s, the serpent’s own rebellion, the serpent’s own rejection of God’s truth, to Eve. It was a complete takeover.

That is what I am trying to say. That is what Paul is saying: she was fully deceived. Her whole thinking process was taken over through that interaction. She was captured. It was an entrapment. That conversation led into a trap—fully deceived, fully enclosed in the devil’s will.

Paul also describes other people in this way. He says they “have been captured by him to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:26, NET). That is what we are talking about. It is Eve mirroring the devil’s own position against God. Eve has positioned herself against the word of God, against God's will.

And where is this coming from? That is why there has to be an inquiry. Where is this coming from? God has to inquire because that is not the way you were made. You were not made with this rebellion.

When Paul writes to the Galatian church, he says, “This persuasion does not come from the one who calls you” (Galatians 5:8, NET). This bent does not come from the One who called you.

So you see Eve in the full grip of this. Her perception and her conclusions became different. Her understanding became different, her conclusions became different. Her interpretation of facts became different. Therefore, her action had to be different. She had to take the action of rebellion against God.

The deception is the adoption of the devil’s framing of reality, not God’s. That is the deception. The “when” now is the point in time when the deception kicked in. It came with a persuasion, and the deception kicked in. You need to be aware of the dynamics that are taking place.

Persuasion has to come.

What kind of persuasion are you exposing yourself to? Because once you come into the grip of that deception, it is too late. It is like James saying, “Then when desire conceives, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is full grown, it gives birth to death” (James 1:15). This whole interaction with the devil is the beginning of the conception of sin.

It was a process of persuasion.

Her whole frame of perception became captured. She is now going to be perceiving black as blue. That is being fully captured in deception. And it was targeted. It was not erroneous. The deception was targeted. It was deliberate so that she could be moved from her standing with God. Simple.

We need to understand what is happening, and abort—abort, abort—the persuasion. Recognize vessels of demonic persuasions and cut off from them. Jesus Christ said it is better to lose an eye or a limb than to be cast into the lake of fire (see Mark 9:43–47, NET). He is trying to tell you that some things are more valuable than other things. Eve’s life is more valuable than her friendship with the deceiver, the serpent.

God bless you.