Paradise Restored

0:00Good morning again. There it is. Wonderful. Thank y'all. Man, that is so so and so kind of y'all. Turn with me to uh Genesis chapter 2. We're going to cover verse uh from verse 4 of chapter 2 all the way through the entirety of chapter 3. Ginormous section. The focus for this morning will be on man and the first law, the fall, and the hope of paradise restored. I'm sure this won't be the last time that I say this, but it's difficult to grab on to a singular uh theme in such a large section of texts, uh. Especially when there are in respect to this text so many options available. Uh I made the promise, though, last week that we would look to Christ in all things and the hope that is offered by him. So, with that as our guide, I pray that God will show us this morning that there is hope in the midst of suffering. That is what I want us to see this morning, that there is hope in the midst of suffering, that despite the curse that has fallen upon us as the result of transgressing the law of God, he was then and is still now offering us his grace. Despite the fact that we have been cast out of Eden to labor in the brambles, our God has promised that paradise will once again be restored. Most importantly, we can be assured that despite the enemy's best efforts, there is nothing the deceiver can do to stop it. And it's a great hope, especially for those who might be going through some things right now. Paradise is coming. We will get there. So, with that as a backdrop, and before we reread the text, I want to put a few things on your mind that I pray will be clearer as we go through the text this morning. And that is that God places the tree in the garden, and we know that, and we reread that. God places the tree in the garden and establishes the first covenant with man. Don't eat, and you will live. And he does this knowing how it will end, right? Why? And that's certainly a question we have wrestled with since the day of the fall. And God gave man freedom to obey or to not obey, knowing that in this freedom to choose, he would try to take what he does not have and what is not his. Even in a perfect world, freedom to choose often chooses wrong. We love freedom until it turns against us. We fly the banner of free will, high and proud. But you do see where that got us, right? It was the desire for freedom, the desire for autonomy from God that got us into trouble in the first place. And this is the same desire that gets us into trouble every day now. Don't believe me? Go read uh Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Judges, just to name a few, but it's all there. It is for this reason that Christ essentially says to us when you're done playing around with your freedom, that always gets you in trouble. I'll be here waiting. When you're tired of eating with the pigs, I've got a yoke for you here. But I've made it light. And I have a burden for you here, but it's an easy one. And by the way, he says, We'll slaughter the fattened calf and feast when you come home. This is grace. This is forgiveness. This is willing slavery. This is the gospel. That is only possible if we walk the lonely road where freedom takes us. So that's where we will begin. Uh so stand with me real quick, if you don't mind, and if you're able, uh, and we're gonna read uh verses uh starting in verse five of chapter two, and we're gonna skip around just a little bit. Sorry, I'm gonna I've got to take my notes so I know where I'm stopping and starting here. Uh we're starting in uh verse five of chapter two. When no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. The Lord formed the man uh from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God uh planted in the garden uh in Eden in the east, and there he put the man who he had formed, and out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant in the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Skip down to verse fifteen. The Lord God took man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it, for the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Now skip over to verse uh one of chapter three. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit that is of the tree in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, You shall not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree um that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sowed fig leaves together, and made themselves loincloths. Let's keep reading in verse eight. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord called to the man and said to him, Where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And he said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, The woman gave whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit, and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the said to the woman, What is this that you have done? And the woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate. And finally, in verse fourteen, the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and the dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray once more. Thank you again, Lord, for this word, and we pray and ask now that you would speak for Christ's sake, and it is in his name that I pray. Amen. Amen. That was a long reading. My apologies, so thank y'all. I don't apologize for reading the word, uh, but that was long. Has anyone ever learned from their mistakes? You don't have to raise your hands, but that's the question. Has anyone ever learned from their mistakes? It's become somewhat of a trite or overused thought, but we learn far more from our failures than we do from our successes, right? Much the same way as the Lord. I burnt my tongue on some coffee this morning, and I'm having trouble. Much the same way as the word tells us that we are refined and sanctified by our trials, not by our triumphs. It is fire that refines us, not a cool breeze. As much as I do enjoy a metaphorical cool breeze, and I guess even a real one, character is built in the furnace. The law, and providentially, as we talked about this in Sunday school, the law was never intended to be the thing by which we could prove ourselves to God. Because God knew, even back in the garden, with a law as simple as don't eat from this one tree that we would fail. The law was meant to condemn us. It was meant to show us, at least primarily, that we are not God. And this is perhaps why the deception of the enemy was so clever. The thing that was meant to show us that we aren't God and can never be God was the same thing that was twisted to make us think we could be like him. The law, then, even the first law, was always meant to point us to our need of a savior. Not that we can ever, by some action of our own, be like God, but that his righteousness and his likeness is something that can only be given to us by grace. The law then points to Christ. It always has. And I told you that I'm going to point everything to Christ. The law points to Christ. But in this case, it isn't even a stretch to try to say that the law points to Christ. Hear the words of Peter in 1 Peter 1, 20 to 21. He was foreknown before the foundations of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. We talked about this at length. We went through 1 Peter, but Christ was always the plan. Christ was always the plan. That's what Peter says. He was foreknown before the foundations of the world. The obvious rhetorical question then is how could Christ have been the plan since the foundation of the world if the first law was not intended to condemn us ultimately? And point us to the salvation is offered by Christ as a gift. Christ was made manifest, that is, he became flesh in real time and in real space to really save people from their sins. And as a result, our faith and hope are in him. This was not a reaction, but a foreordained plan of God. Still don't believe me? Words of Paul in Romans 3, 20 to 26. We just got done working through this in the morning. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Christ Jesus for all who believe. There is no distinction, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift. As a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forth as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he passed over our former sins. It was to show his righteousness as the present time, so that he might be the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. This is all a plan from the very beginning. And you may be thinking, as I still wrestle with at times in our and your very finite and limited capacity of understanding, that's not an insult. That's just, you have a very finite and limited capacity of understanding. Why would God even give the first law then? If the intent was ultimately to condemn us by it and reveal sin through it. Doesn't that make God mean? If he did all of this knowing what would happen? And not just knowing what would happen, but planning everything. Doesn't that make him mean? To that I say this, then. In our very humble minds. That also is not an insult, just humble minds. We will always assign something negative or some negative attribute to God when we attempt to comprehend him. It's just how we operate. You can either call him mean because he planned all of this, or he must be weak because he didn't. The alternative to the mean God is a weak God. A God who didn't foresee all of these things. Who put the tree in the garden and issued the first law with a hope and a smile, crossing his celestial fingers that everything was going to turn out okay. A God who, since that first creation and that first law has been running along behind man, cleaning up his mess, and will ultimately just have to return again after man has all but utterly destroyed everything that God has made. Is that our God? If my theological, if your theological position and understanding of God's will and plan paints him as mean and the minds of the foolish, I will gladly concede to that human label over a position that paints him as weak. Our God is a lot of things. But weak and reactionary, those are not among them. And that I can be certain of. But our God is anything but mean, right? He is anything but mean. Christ is not mean. Here again, the words of Colossians 1, 18 to 23, he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. Surpassing all others is what preeminence means. He might surpass all others. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross. And you, meaning you, who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. If indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. That's Colossians 1, 18 to 23. And also in Colossians 1, 25 to 29, to make known the word of the word of God fully known. The mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints, right? This mystery. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ, and for this I toil, struggling with all his energies, that he might powerfully work within me. That he powerfully works within me. What I want us to see then is in the giving of this first law, we should see the holy otherness of God. That is, as Colossians says, the preeminence of Christ. That he surpasses all others. The reality that he surpasses everything. The reality that no matter how hard we try, we will never be like him, and we will never see like him, not fully. He is transcendent, he is so far beyond us, and we have no hope of ever getting to him. This is what the law reveals to us. Who can know the mind of God? His ways are so much higher than ours, but in his grace, and through his providence, by the work of Christ, he has revealed to us the riches of his glory, the loving kindness of his nature, and how desperately we need his mercy. And that is what we must see in the first law and more specifically the giving of this first law. And now let us turn our attention to uh the fall. I want to focus in, this is um in chapter three, verse one, the second half of verse one. I want to focus in on the four words that crippled the first human and every human that has lived after. Did God actually say? Did God actually say this? These words sparked the first fall, but both physically and spiritually for a man. And this continues today. And what is veiled in those words is a questioning of the validity and efficacy of the true words of God. I know that's what his word says, or in Adam's and Eve's case, what he told you, but did he actually say that? I mean, think about culture. Think about how we're supposed to love people. Doesn't he want you to be happy and prosperous? Doesn't he want to see, doesn't he want his creation to see as he sees? Did God actually say that? And even taking it now personally, I'm hungry. I'm tired, I'm sad and lonely, I'm struggling, I'm depressed, I just want a little morsel of bread to fill my emptiness. Can't I just get a little bread? And fortunately for us, when Christ was faced with that same temptation that our first parents faced and that we all faced, he responded not with, did God actually say? But with what God actually said. Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Of course, I sympathize, and we should all sympathize with hunger pains, right? Physically and metaphorically, because our God sympathizes with them. He became like us in every way, right? He walked with us in every way. And I'm sure that all of us have had many good intentions. Potentially, when we ask that question, did God actually say? We may have had good intentions with that. The reality, though, is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Or as C.S. Lewis puts it in the screw tape letters, the safest road. The road to hell is the gradual one. The gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. Even the context of the word of God to the Israelites who were wandering in the wilderness for forty years, this should also inform us on this topic. It says, this, and you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you, and he let you hunger, and he fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know, that he might make you know, that man does not live on bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. The question, sorry, the questioning of the word of God and failing to submit to it and obey it is always the problem, right? Still is the problem. And Jesus faced this with his disciples as well, didn't he? When he taught hard things. When he gave difficult commands, people walked away from him. They turned their backs on him. Specifically, in one instance, when he said, This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father. We don't have time to go off on that to Angel this morning. But listen to those words in response. After he said, This is why, the words of Christ said, This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father. The response, after many, after this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go away as well? And Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and come to know that you are the Holy One of God. So all that to say, let us not make the same mistakes that our first parents made here, and so many after them. We don't get to decide which words to obey. Nor do we find life in anything else other than the words of God. The words of eternal life, as Peter said. Does that make life tougher? More uncomfortable? Does it mean we don't always get what we want? When we want it. Does it mean that we are going to be pulled, constrained? Yes to all. But man does not live on bread alone. And there is great hope for those who live on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. There is great hope. And the hope begins in the text we read this morning. In the fact that even in our sin, God seeks us out. If you remember that text. Adam and Eve in their sin hid from God because of their shame. Didn't they? Maybe we did read that. Adam and Eve hid from God in their shame, right? They didn't want to see him or his face, so they hid. But the Lord God called to the man and he said, Where are you? Where are you? This in and of itself is a grace that in man's hiding the Lord seeks and calls. The Lord seeks and calls. Where are you? I venture to guess that there's much more in those words, where are you, than just location, for surely the Lord God knew where they were physically. I wish I had more time to explore that further. I'll leave that for your personal study. I will say, though, that even here, before we have, in this instance when God calls, where are you? This is before we have the pronounced curses of the fall and before the promise of restoration, but even before that, we see the true character of God who doesn't leave us hiding. But seeks us out. And calls us to come out to face him. And face him, we must. We must. Adam and Eve had to walk out from behind those bushes to face God in their sin, didn't they? And while the consequences were painful, they weren't as bad as they could have been. They didn't surely die physically. They were shown mercy and they were given hope. And the tragedy in that was that those things which would have otherwise been a blessing are now a curse to them. And that's what we read. The woman, we didn't get quite that far, but the woman bringing children into the world and fulfilling the command of God to fill the earth, right? That command that we know to fill the earth, that should have been the greatest blessing and delight for her. Shouldn't it have been. But now it's painful, it's difficult. Such that now many dread the very thing that was meant to be a blessing originally. And the man as well, whose command it was to subdue the earth, right? We talked about that last week. Working it, that is, working the land, should have been a great blessing to him, but it is now difficult. It is painful, difficult. The land itself wages war against him. The animals which Adam knew and named now flee and fight with him. And can you just imagine that? Pain and sorrow of being in paradise only to have it all melt away like wax and a candle. To have all those great blessings now become curses to you. What a tragedy. This is what turning from the word of God has done. This is what deception and the twisting of God's word has done. But again, there is hope, right? The first gospel proclamation was made by God Himself. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. The first gospel proclamation. Side note there. The offspring of the serpent, the offspring of the serpent are not snakes. And God is not saying here that part of the curse is that the women will be afraid of snakes. That's not what he's saying. The deceiver in the garden, which we read about, was not a snake, as perhaps you have been led to believe, but I'll save that conversation for the next wine and charcuterie, which apparently needs to be a thing. I don't know. You can laugh, it's okay. What this amounts to, then, is the first promise of paradise restored. As paradise was lost, we have God promising that it will be restored. Right in the midst of pronouncing the curse upon creation for sin is the promise that the curse will not last forever. The vision of Eden covering the whole earth, this is an eternal one. And granted, it has been slightly delayed, and we're presently taking the long way around to get there, but we're still going to get there. What man meant for evil, God has meant for good. When paradise is finally restored, I have no doubt that we shall know why we wandered in the wilderness for so long. We shall one day hear the Lord our God walking in the garden, but we will not hide from him in our shame. He will wipe every tear from our eye, and we shall be with him forever. Also, I'll say one final thing in conclusion here with regards to the fall and the first to sin. After man sinned, God banished him from the direct presence and access to the tree of life. This is the very verse 23 and 24. Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden, out of Eden, to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed a cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Or perhaps the cherubim, many even, and a flaming sword to guard the entrance into the tree of life. And that picture is used many times throughout Scripture. But most importantly, for our purposes this morning in Exodus, when God commanded Moses to build, when he was commanding Moses on the building of the tabernacle, specifically the veil guarding the entrance to the Holy of Holies, what do you suppose he commanded to be embroidered on that veil? I'll read you the words of Exodus 26, 31. And you shall make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet yarns of fine twined linen. It shall be made with cherubim, skillfully worked into it. So cherubim shall guard the entrance into the holy presence of God. And what happened when our Lord finished his work on the cross? The veil separating the presence of God was torn, right? The veil which was adorned with cherubim. And surely we see the connection that God was drawing for us is that in Christ we not only find the path into the presence of God, but we also now have the access to the tree of life, the entrance to Eden. In the name of Christ and through his work, we are given access back into paradise. The cherubim have stepped aside. The veil is torn, the curse is broken, paradise and eternal life are open once again. Not because of anything else other than God made good on his promise to restore what was lost in our sin. Now here are the words finally of Revelation 22, verse 1. The angel showed me the river of the water of life, brightest crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also on either side of the river the tree of life, with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healings of the nations. And no longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of the God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads, and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. Where are you? Will you stay hidden? Or will you come to him to receive the promise of eternal life? Entrance back into paradise. And come to him this morning, broken sinners. Come to him. And receive the gift of salvation and eternal life. And we must thank, and we must and let us thank our God that in Christ paradise is restored. Amen. Let's pray. I thank you again, Lord, for your word. Thank you for all of these beautiful pictures that you have given us throughout your word, Lord, to point us and to show us and to remind us of the promise that you have made, Lord. Way back when that first sin occurred, that you would restore this. That you would send us a Savior, Lord, who would rescue us from our sins and from the curse that we have put ourselves in. Lord, we thank you for that, Lord. We thank you for the picture that you have painted for us all throughout Scripture. And we pray and ask, Lord, that you would help us to hold on to that and to believe that, Lord. To come out from our hiding and see your face and trust you, Lord, that you are not counting our sins against us, Lord. But we can confess them to you, and you shall cover us, Lord. Not with a uh a handmade fig leaf, Lord, but with the true covering the blood of Christ, Lord. And the righteousness that you have for us is an eternal righteousness that was earned for us, Lord, and freely given to us. We thank you, Lord. We do not deserve this. But we thank you for it. And we proclaim that now, Lord, as we uh enter into this time of supper, Lord. Open our hearts. We ask all these things in the name of Jesus.