Posted on 12/31/2011 9:43:02 PM PST by pastorbillrandles
And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.(Genesis 3:22-24)
Once we were happy, back in the garden, but a lie broke the stillness,and our hearts began to harden…Larry Norman
Adam and Eve were convicted and sentenced for their crime against God. They had broken faith with the One who had made them, and forfeited their privileged place in God’s Holy garden.
But in mercy , the guilty couple had also been given the gospel of deliverance through the “seed of the woman” and taught the importance of worship through the blood of an innocent substitute.
What now?
They must be driven out of the garden. God forcibly evicted them. They would have to live in a hostile world , suffering the consequences of the false wisdom they had opted for. Adam and Eve must toil and sweat, raise fallen children, and see the constant out working of their transgression, from generation to generation until death.
They had to go out of the garden, for should they now, in their fallen state, illegitimately eat of the “tree of Life”, they would be locked into the fallen state, forever. Their doom would be irrevocable. God’s love was severe in putting them out, but if He would save them He must do so.
But ever since then, the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve have sought to gain some kind of access back into the garden. the whole world of sinful experiences; mind altering drugs, sexual sin, euphoric false religion, the occult, all are examples of attempts to recreate the conditions of the garden, even if for but a few fleeting moments.
Fallen man would smash through the gates, or create his own (godless) version of the garden. Pagans and humanists alike lust either for the good old days tha once were, or the “golden age” that is just around the corner again, according to the rhetoric of the various political and religious messiah’s.
The Second Psalm warns us that the world’s masses are being prepared for the arrival of an ultimate “messiah” to inaugurate the new (godless) Eden.This is why the “Kings of the earth and their rulers” are busy eradicating every public trace possible of the West’s Judeo Christian past.
Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.(Psalm 2:1-3)
The fact that God put a turning sword at the entrance and deployed awesome living creatures, the Cherubim implies that if he could, fallen man may try violently to seize the garden for himself. The fallen sons of Adam would crash through the walls just to grasp a few minutes of Edenic bliss if possible.
This lust for something of Eden (without repentance) runs deep in men’s hearts. Isn’t that what our modern drug craze is all about? The obsession with illicit sex? As our troubled culture departs from God, many just want to feel better no matter what the cost.
Fallen man lusts for a respite from the sentence pronounced upon us by God in the fall, but never by turning in humble repentance to God.
On a larger scale consider the spectacle of the last century, atheistic Communism which sought by violence to create an earthly Eden, in the name of a promised Utopia. As Stalin once famously said about the massive slaughter, the artificial famine of his own people, and the violent repression he instituted,
“One death is always a tragedy, millions of deaths are a statistic”.
As human history has shown from the French Revolution, through the various Marxist revolutions, up to our own turbulent time, when fallen man wants to re-create Eden(Utopia), it always ends up looking a lot like Hell. Even if man could concoct a godless Eden he would only corrupt it, for man’s heart is not right.
The social and sexual revolution of the 1960′s was in the same vein, as this famous line from the song “Woodstock” attests,
We are Stardust, we are golden, and we have got to get ourselves back to the garden…Joni Mitchell
It was another naive attempt to cast off all of our traditional Judeo Christian restraints in an attempt to liberate mankind, hoping to get back to his natural state. Unfortunately they ignored the truth that since the fall, man’s natural state isn’t love, harmony and and peace, it is violent, selfish and grasping.
God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden, there will never be a return to Eden. God’s plan for man is not backwards looking, but forward. No, we can not ever recover “paradise lost” , but as pilgrims we look forward to the arrival of the ,b>“city whose builder and maker is God”.
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.(Hebrews 11:8-10)
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.(Hebrews 11:14-16)
thanks - thought provoking.
You’ve got to know where it is, first. But on the other hand, what if someone accidentally wandered into it?
From the text itself, it is not so obvious to me that eating of the tree of life would lock them into a fallen state forever.
There is a strong implication that eating of both the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and of the tree of life would make them like God.
The fact that there is a flaming sword guarding Eden from man indicates 1) Eden still exists and 2) There is a possibility that man could possibly find or stumble upon Eden and probably will.
A little more food for thought.
They’d have to kill you.
I figure that angel waving the sword back and forth, his arms are getting kind of tired by now.
People are going to wrongly attempt to correct you on that Woodstock reference. Joni Mitchell did indeed write the song, based upon something she overheard her then-boyfriend Graham Nash say.
Sounding biblical and being self-righteous is one of those carefully honed techniques that the hippies used to distract attention from their tendency towards debauchery and avoiding responsibility for anything.
bookmark
Thanks again, Pastor Bill. Never thought about hedonism that way before, an attempt to “get back to the garden”. Makes sense.
Happy New Year!
God bless you pastor Bill;
We have become a people that want salvation without a Saviour, redemption without a Redeemer. (Maybe we want to be our own saviours, and our own redeemers?)
We cannot escape: “By mercy and truth iniquitiy is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.” (Proverbs 16:6)
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin......”(Romans 5:12a)
“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one [Jesus Christ] shall many be made righteous.” (Romans 5:19)
“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:22)
“For He[Jesus] must reign, till He[Jesus] hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy to that shall be destroyed is death.” (1 corinthians 15:25-26)
“For He[God] hath made Him[Jesus]to be sin for us[sinners]who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
If it still exists, it must be on a plane outside our perception. The Creator doesn't need to store anything as He can make/un-make it any time it suits Him. Even the "outside" are did not need to exist in the form it was when they stepped out of the Garden - it may have come into being at that instant. Besides, He has a plan for those that believe in His Son and a mansion with many rooms to accommodate us. He has prepared a place that will give us eternal joy and which will never grow old - we don't need the original Garden.
“Crosby Stills Nash Young and Whatsisface. Either way, I can’t stand hippies. Wish they’d go away and get permanently stoned somewhere. That’s as close as they’ll ever get to Eden.”
Heh, heh! Vietnam vet ping! Problem is, many of those hippie stoners occupy positions of power.
Never liked “Jeremiah was a bullfrog” either.
;^)
Take another look Pastor Bill. In Revelation 22 we are back in the Garden, having been reconciled to God through the finished work of Jesus. 1. And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of lthe tree were for the healing of the nations. 3. And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him.
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