Young Person： Do You Believe That God Is Against You — Tim Conway

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

Genesis 2. My desire this morning is that we keep our eyes on the tree of knowledge. I want us to follow this tree. If you're visiting with us, we've been in the midst of a study in Ephesians for a number of years.

And since coming back from Romania, I have determined to take some of these summer months and do a mini-study out of the first chapters of Genesis. This is the fifth message I believe out of Genesis.

Genesis. Today, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I want us to track this tree. I want us to think about it. Look with me at Genesis 2 .7. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

And the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east. There's a direction in the east. Like, this is a real place. It's over there in the east. This isn't fiction.

There He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground, the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. And then we get this. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden.

A real tree. And the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And what's interesting is it says God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. Every tree. Lots of different kinds of tree.

We can imagine the peach tree was there. The apple tree was there. What's interesting is of all the trees, there's two that get special recognition and attention. Think about it. This isn't just an apple tree or a tree with plums.

In fact, these trees aren't even called primarily by their fruit. There's a tree of life. It's more what the fruit brings to you if you eat it. The tree of life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

God's Commandment and the Promise of Death

Genesis 2 v. 15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree. There's that again. God made to spring up every tree pleasant to sight, good for food.

Well, here's the every tree again. You may surely eat of every tree of the garden. And you know something, that includes the tree of life. But, verse 17,. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.

For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Now go to Genesis 3. This is the next place we find our tree show up again. 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 of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die.

But the serpent said to the woman, you will 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 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. Verse 7, then the eyes of both were opened. And they knew that they were naked. And they sowed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

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 God 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. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?

And then if we drop down to v. 22, then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.

Imagining Life Beside the Forbidden Tree

He drove out the man and at the east of the garden of Eden, He placed the chair of him and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.". Now, I'm thinking, how long did Adam and Eve live alongside that tree?

That tree. You imagine, you're walking through the garden. If there was one thing that stood out in that garden to those two first parents of all of ours, we're all related. There was that tree. That tree was different from everything else because they couldn't eat of it.

And I just wonder, how long? That one thing that was different, how long did they see it? How long did they observe it? The truth is we don't know. You know what the time marker is that we have for Adam?

We have this fact. When he was 130 years old, Seth, his third son, was born. Well, what do we know happened before that? Cain, Abel, they had to get old enough to be a keeper of sheep. One who tended the ground.

How old do you have to be to be that old? 12? 15? 18? 20? 30? Here's the fact. If you do the numbers, it is possible Cain was born after Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden. They could have been in there for 100 years.

We don't know. But I was just thinking about that tree. How do you imagine it? I don't imagine it a little sapling, do you? I imagine it like a great big live oak. And you know what it says? It was in the midst of the garden.

God didn't put it out on the edge somewhere. It was there in the midst. It was there in the middle. And I think about them. You think, God told them, everything is open to you but that tree. How did they look at that tree?

I wonder about it. How many days did the sun set and the last rays of daylight fell on? I'm imagining it almost towering above other trees. I'm imagining it prominent somehow. And I'm imagining them looking at it.

Whether it was days or whether it was a century that they lived alongside that tree. And you know they would walk with the Lord in the cool of the day. I wonder if the Lord ever walked them over to that tree and said, behold, the forbidden tree.

I mean, did He never refer to it after the first day? He came and walked with them in the cool of the day. There was fellowship. They were communing with Him. Did He never mention that tree ever again?

I doubt it. Why would He purposely not mention it? In fact, I wonder if He walked them over to it. I wonder if they ever went over when He wasn't there and they ever looked at its fruit. Or were they afraid of it?

Eve was even at the place with the serpent. Well, He told us not even to touch it. That isn't what He said. I wonder if they'd gotten to the place where they just thought it best not to touch it. Maybe Adam told his wife that.

He knew that God really didn't say it, but he wanted to protect. Don't even touch that tree. You just stay away from it. That's where we're best off. Did they even know what death was? And the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die.

I mean, they could imagine what it was like not to exist. But did they really recognize? And some people say, well, you see, the Bible's not even true. They didn't die. Well, they did die. They were put out of the garden.

Death doesn't have to do with whether we exist or not. Death has to do with communion with God. And they were put out of the garden and they were put out of that close communion that they had. And I imagine them thinking about that tree and looking at that tree and maybe studying that tree.

The Fall and the Entrance of Death

And you know what else I wonder? How many days did they walk by the tree of life and not eat? I mean, you ever think about that? They're prevented. God said, we don't want them to eat of the tree of life because now that they know good and evil, if they eat of that, they're going to live forever.

And we need to stick a cherubim with a flaming sword there to keep them back. How many days did they walk by? You know what? They ate. They ate. Their days in the garden, they ate. And I wonder how many days did they walk past that tree?

What did that tree look like? Did that tree not look impressive? No, don't go pick fruit from that tree. Why do we want to eat from that tree? We've got all these other ones over here. I mean, if there was any tree in the garden that they should have been eating from, you'd think it was that one.

We don't really know what happened. But then here's Genesis 3. Not a day like every other day. Notice verse 8. Chapter 3, verse 8. They heard the sound. A sound. Now I'm thinking about that sound. Oh, brethren, those of us that can say that we pant after the Lord as the deer pants after the water brooks, can you imagine, can you imagine if you were told you were going to go today, later today, you were going to be taken out into the woods and you're going to hear a sound and it's going to be the Lord Jesus Christ and He's going to come back to walk with you and talk with you today.

Can you imagine hearing that sound? I imagine them hearing that sound in previous days. Thrilled their heart. It caused them to want to run to the sound. Something's different this day. Something's altogether different.

That sound. They're experiencing a new feeling. This is a feeling they have not had before. Everything is screaming to them, run, get away, go hide. There they are. They're trying to get away. They're trying to hide themselves.

They're in this miserable shape filled with a sense of fear and shame. They're afraid to show themselves. They don't know what to do with themselves. And the Lord God is coming. That's what the sound is.

When I read Romans 8, I find the creation is groaning. You know what happened when they ate that fruit? Creation let out a groan. Something happened. You may think it a small thing. I mean, I used to be an engineer.

We looked carefully at the second law of thermodynamics. It's the law of entropy. Basically, this universe began to decay. People began to age. Do you realize what happened right at that moment? Think of hell.

Hell opened its mouth for the first time. Gaping wide to receive man. Never before that. Something happened. Something's wrong. Something has changed. Adam, what have you done? I remember one time years back, Brother Andy said he was in a car.

He was being taken somewhere in China. He said they were driving down the road. He said they came to a peasant, a man, dead in the road. He said it was like an armadillo. Road kill. He said this man was in about 15 pieces.

And nobody picked up the pieces. They just kept driving over him. Andy said, he whispered to himself, Adam, Adam, what have you done? Do you realize what was set in motion that day? The evil. We just heard recently, they are harvesting the young ladies out of Burma so that people can eat their organs.

Adam, what have you done? Paradise was lost. And it produces an ache in man's heart. But it's lost. And what's come in? Pain and suffering and sorrow and a cherubim with a flaming sword that says stay back from eternal life.

Stay back, man! You are no longer welcome here. And death has taken hold. Oh, we fear it. We fear it. And there are graveyards out here. Adam, what have you done? What have you done? And it's all got to do with this tree.

God's Sovereignty and the Purpose of the Commandment

Notice v. 9 of chapter 2 again. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And of all the trees, two get raised above the others. Two get this special identification.

Two prominent above all the others. And it's almost like it's said in passing. Here they are, tree of life, tree of knowledge. And then the author just kind of goes on. Almost momentarily forgets about them.

We hear about rivers. Again, I remind you, this was a real place. We hear about rivers. We hear that it had gold and bdellium and there were precious metals and precious stones. But then in v. 16, our attention gets called back to the trees.

And the Lord God commanded. You might just pay attention to that. God didn't suggest. God commanded the man, saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.

For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. You know what I find when it comes to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? I find that man, the world today, it's ready to mock and criticize.

This tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it's a joke. Have you ever noticed that? I mean, most people are quick to write this off as myth, as fiction. If it's even entertained for a moment that it could be real or true, God is viewed, I was thinking, three ways.

Typically, by the world, God is viewed as overreacting. I mean, all they did was eat an apple. It wasn't an apple. The world likes to say it was. But seriously, isn't this a little bit of an overreaction?

They just ate an apple. It's a bit trifling on God's part. What's so bad about that?

And after all, Eve, she was the weaker vessel. She was a woman. She was vulnerable. She was naked. This serpent comes along. He beguiled her.

He deceived her. She was innocent. It was their first offense. Is God really going to get so bent out of shape over such a petty thing as this? And after all, is it really so bad to know good from evil?

I thought God was forgiving. I thought God was loving. This sounds like a total overreaction on His part. Or, God is viewed as foolish. I mean, come on, the easiest way to have protected Adam and Eve would be not to put a tree right in the center of the garden with a do not touch sign on it.

Why not put the tree outside the garden or up on a mountain or put it in America? Put it on the other side of the earth. Why not just create a garden in which it's permissible to eat the tree of knowledge?

I mean, wouldn't that fix everything? Or God is viewed as sinister, like He laid a trap for them. He put that tree in the garden and then He let the devil in there. What did He think would happen? I want us to consider three facts.

One, God's greatest objective was not to preserve man at all costs. You need to recognize that. God was teaching us something about Himself by putting that tree there. And it's something that we need and we do well to learn in our day as well.

But God's greatest interest has never been preserving man at all costs. God is in the business of preserving His glory at all costs. But we need to remember we are but men. We know that it's not God's greatest objective to preserve man at all costs because the Lord God did not and never has preserved man at all costs.

Two, God could have created a thousand trees of life and put them in that garden with no tree of knowledge. He could have done that. But He did not. Three, there is a word that ought to jump off the page at us that I already called your attention to.

Notice Genesis 2 .16. The Lord God commanded the man. See, follow me. You're Adam and you're Eve. And you're walking through the garden. Listen, before the fall, do you know as they awoke every morning, they would be reminded God created all of this.

They would have looked out over the beautiful water of a lake and the streams. You can imagine waterfalls and mountains and the clouds and birds flying and animals everywhere. And it's precursed. The animals are not afraid of them.

They're not eating the animals. Animals and people alike, they're eating what grows on the plants. And it's paradise. And they walk through this and they're reminded every single day God is a Creator.

God is a good Creator. But you know what else they were reminded with every single day? They saw that tree. You know what that reminded them of? God is the Lawgiver. God is the Creator. God creates. And God is the Commander.

He has given commandment. And those two realities were before their faces every single day. God is Creator. And God is Sovereign. God is the Master. Think with me here. God had made them. God had blessed them.

God had surrounded them with all the beauty, all the benefits, all the blessings of life in this paradise. They didn't have to toil. I mean, I'm imagining the trees hung with fruit. All they had to do was go over and pick it off.

And what did they do? I imagine they explored. And then what would happen? In the cool of the day, there would be that sound. They'd be thrilled. They'd run. They'd get to walk with the Lord. Where did He come from?

What did He look like? Was it like Jesus appearing among the disciples there when they were locked for fear? The Jews in the room? I don't know what it was like. All they had to do was enjoy their communion with God.

God said to them that they could go on living forever. That's what would have happened. They would have gone on living forever. There was only one thing that promised death. And what we recognize is this, it was almost like the test was which tree are they going to eat of first?

Are they going to eat of the tree of life? Are they going to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Because it's obvious. He kept them from eating from the tree of life because if they would have eaten from the tree of life, they would have lived forever.

And yet all the days that they had in the garden, why didn't they eat of it? But all they had to do was pick. And as long as they would have stayed away from that tree, they would have gone on forever and ever and ever in that paradise enjoying it all, enjoying God.

It was all theirs. On one condition. The condition was that they obeyed God. He didn't give them a list of a thousand commandments. There was just one. And every day that tree declared that one great reality to them.

God is the Lawgiver. That tree was there to proclaim God's supreme authority. You think about that. Sometimes we think about the Garden of Eden. And you know, they're living their life. And it's beautiful.

Divine Law as Protection and the Human Rebellion

And you can imagine them swimming and running and climbing and just life in paradise. No death. No sin. Your conscience never troubles you. Everything is good. Everything is joyful. Everything is wholesome.

Everything is complete. And we're fellowshipping with God. And God is the Creator. And it's all so fresh. Because you're new. Whether it was days, months, or into the years, or even decades, it was so new.

And we've been created. And God created us just recently. And just all this, everything. And this reality, God is the Creator. But God is the supreme authority. And that tree reminds us, we have us a God who commands.

We have us a God who wants to be obeyed. Yes, God could have put that tree up on a mountain or on the moon. But He did no such thing. This tree says to us all, God is God. And we are not God. And Adam was not God.

And Eve was not God. And God owns us. And He owns the garden. And He owns the trees. And He owns the fruit. And He owns the sun. And He owns the clouds. And He owns it all. And He can do with His own what He will.

And what He determined to do was to say to them, there is a tree. But you know, God doesn't give His laws to be restrictive. He gives His laws and His commandments for good. You know there was safety in His commandments?

There always is. There is always safety in obeying the Lord. This tree speaks to the fact that God really does desire the good of man. His commands are always for the best of man. This was the position.

This was the case. This is what we're faced with. But where is Adam now? He's over there cowering in the bushes. What's happened? Why is he over there? Why does a peasant lie dead in pieces on a Chinese road with nobody to pick up the pieces?

And here's the answer. And it's a very simple one. Man ceased to listen to God. There's really nothing more that needs to be said than that. That's the truth. And that's the severity of the matter. Disobeying this God is no trifle.

It threw the entire human race into wreckage of sin. It wrecked us. There's only one explanation as to why the world is as it is at this moment. But you know, as well as I do, this fact. Neither Eve at first or Adam who followed her into sin, neither of them ate that fruit in a vacuum.

Something happened in their thinking before they ate it. Something was going on up here. And that's what I want to ask. What were they thinking? What went on in their brains? How do you get to the place where you actually eat this fruit?

The Serpent's Lie About God's Goodness

I mean, the serpent only said three sentences. Have you ever noticed that? That ever jumped out at you? He didn't preach a sermon to Eve. He said three sentences. That's all. That's it. Genesis 3 .1, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

Verse 4, you will not surely die. Verse 5, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. You know, said the devil to our first parents, I've been feeling sorry for you for a long time.

I've been watching you. I've seen the way God treats you. And I've watched how He's trying to frighten you with this death thing if you eat that tree. Trying to scare you. All along, I've been wanting to tell you the truth.

I hate to be the one to have to tell you this. But God's holding out on you. He's secretly jealous of you. He knows what you might become. He knows what you could become. He knows what you ought to become.

He doesn't want you to become what you ought to be, what you might be. You could be just like God Himself. And God knows it. And so He's bluffed you with this threat of death to keep you from the one thing in the garden that would really do you the most good.

He's holding out. See, God's jealous. He doesn't want you to become God's like Him. Three sentences. What's going on up here? What's going on in her brain? You see, the issue wasn't so much the fruit.

The issue up here was what she was thinking about God Himself. That's always the issue. Every sin comes down to that. It comes down to what you think about God. It comes down to what you're going to do with God.

Whether you're going to trust God. You see what happened in their minds before they ever ate? This is the real issue behind sin. There's always activity in the head, always activity in the brain, in the mind, before the act is carried out.

The minds are already operating. And how did her mind operate? She doubted the justice. She doubted the righteousness, the benevolence of God, His goodness, His sincerity. And that's exactly what the devil went after.

See, it wasn't so much the devil came over and shined up the fruit. Yes, it says that she saw that the fruit was desirable. But you know what he did? He tarnished the reputation of God. That was the big issue.

And she looked at that and said, oh, I see, God's not so great. God's small. God's jealous. God's selfish. You know what happened? She began to regard God as a monster, as someone against her. He's against me.

Oh, He's withholding from me. Now I see Him. You know what she saw Him? She saw Him as someone who delights in spoiling her life. And that lie plunged the whole human race into destruction. Let me just tell you this, there is no excuse for Eve or for Adam.

God gives them no excuse. Their sin was an entirely inexcusable piece of rebellion. Why? Because they knew God. They had walked with God. All that God had given to them, the very fact that He was willing to come into that garden and give Himself to them, and commune with them, and walk with them, they knew what God had said.

There was no doubt in their mind. What happened? Eve allowed wicked thoughts about God to come in. I don't know what happened with Adam. We don't really know. All we know is Adam followed Eve into the sin.

And in fact, the Apostle Paul says, it wasn't the man who was deceived, it was the woman. What happened to the man? We're not exactly told. But I'll tell you this, something happened in his mind too, whether he loved his wife more than he loved God, why he did it, whether...

I don't know all that happened. But I'll tell you this, they did what God had explicitly told them not to do. And it was really foolish. This talking serpent shows up in the garden, somebody they don't know, somebody that hasn't proven himself reliable to them.

God has. They just, seriously, three sentences and I'm eating the fruit? See, that was foolish on her part. That was, oh, there's lots of words we could put there. This was the crime of the ages. And paradise was lost, and the whole human race was lost.

Iniquity and sin and rebellion. And all sin comes from this reality. It comes from distrusting and mistrusting God. Let me ask you this question. Isn't the whole matter of the Gospel exactly this? God has given us commandment.

The Gospel's Command to Repent and Believe

It's this way today. It's this way 6 ,000 years later. God has given us commandment. And you know what? The commandment pertains to life. God has sent His only begotten Son into the world. And what does He do?

He commands all men everywhere to repent. Change your minds about your sin, about how good you are, about how bad you need a Savior. Change your minds about all that. And there's this commandment. This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ.

And you know what it is? It's the promise of paradise all over again. Jesus says to the one who conquers, He says, there will be paradise. Paradise. That's what this is all about. It's the promise of eternal life that Adam forfeited.

In other words, the Gospel is not just some pleasant message that says, go and do anything you like, God loves you. That's not it. It'll be all right. No, it's always coupled with the blessings. There's also the commandment.

There's the demands. And what does God demand? What you need to see is this. This is amazing. If you really think about God's commandments, it's like there's a path that leads to life. And God commands us to stay within the boundaries of life.

I mean, if you really think about it, His commandments, He commands you to repent and believe on His Son. He's basically commanding you to stay within the confines of life. It's always to keep you safe.

He tells us, there is a voice. I am going to send a voice into the world. And you listen to that voice. And that voice will tell you and command you to stay on the way of life. Have you not heard it? This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased.

Listen to Him. The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like Me. This is Moses speaking. From among your brothers, you shall listen to Him and whatever He tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people.

The author of Hebrews, see that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused Him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject Him who warns from heaven.

God's Goodness and the Young Person's Doubt

And I just wonder, I wonder this, whether I'm speaking just now to any perhaps young person, anybody that's got parents that are Christians here. Maybe you're an adult. Do you have thoughts? This is the question.

Especially you young people. Do any of you have thoughts in your heart that are exactly like the ones that Eve had right before she ate? God's holding out. You've got some idea God is some sort of monster.

He's against you. He's against me. It just feels like He's against me. It feels like I can never do right. It feels like He's always trying to take away the fun. He's always trying to take away the fulfillment.

He's always trying to spoil the enjoyment of life. Do you think to yourself, you know what, I'm going to give up this Christianity stuff. I don't like this. I don't like it that my parents bring me here.

I've got to get away. Do you feel like it's holding you down? It's so restrictive. It's so inconvenient. It's robbed you of so much. It's so narrow. Perhaps you dream about life out there. Oh, I'm missing it!

I mean, you can watch the movies or you can watch the commercials and young people in all the glory, right? The beautiful cars and they go to the beach and they climb the mountains and they're skiing.

And you watch all this and it's like, wow, I'm being robbed of something. I've got to go to that church on Sunday with my parents. The Christians look so miserable. People out there look like they're having such fun and they're at the bars.

They've got all these women and all these men and everybody's beautiful. And I come here and it's on the east side and it looks like an old warehouse. We go in there and we hear this and all it is is rules, rules, rules.

And you see the devil, Eve, it's just rules. He won't let you eat of any tree in the garden. And you know that's how he put it at first. As God said, you can't eat of any tree in the garden. He's trying to put that thought in there.

It's just so restrictive. See how restrictive he is? He won't let you eat of any tree in the garden. But she messed up. You don't start dialoguing with him. Hell no, that's not exactly what he said. Any of you young people?

You're waiting. Eager. Just waiting to really start living. By the way, you wouldn't be the first one to feel that way. David's over here nodding. You know what? I was 16 one time. I was 18 one time. I was 21 one time.

The sound of the word Gospel, that just sounds kind of religious and more religious than... I don't know what all that means, but it doesn't sound like good news in my ears. It sounds narrow. It sounds like it's going to cramp my style.

I want the kind of religion where there's a God. He smiles on me. When I die, I'm going to go to heaven, but let me have my sin. Let me live it up. That's what I wanted. All that stuff? That sounds like rattling chains that you're going to tie me up with.

And seriously, I would have been. You put me in a church on a Sunday morning, I would have been like a caged animal. Like let me out of here. So you wouldn't be the first one that's felt that way. Lots of us have felt that way.

Do you imagine somehow God and this Christian way of life, it's against you. God is against me. That's what Satan wanted her to feel. God is against you. God's an enemy. God's a monster. God's jealous.

God's small. God's selfish. The real issue isn't how shiny the fruit is. The real issue is this is a God you've got to get away from. Break free from. This is a God who is opposed to your best interest.

Opposed to your joy. Opposed to your fun. Opposed to your happiness. God's unfair. He wants you to doubt His goodness. You see this for what it is. It's the same old thing that Adam and Eve did then. And it just gets repeated today.

God's Gifts and the Evidence of His Kindness

You say, what do you mean? Do you know what God did for them? There's a peach tree. No worms. Try that. I don't know how it was, but can you imagine the Lord walking with them in the cool of the garden?

He takes them over to the peach tree and He says, Adam and Eve, try this one. I mean, I designed this one. And it's good.

Try this one. They're like, wow, that's really good. Have you ever had a strawberry? What's that?

Come over here. Try that. In spite of all that God had done for them, they believed the lie. And that's what people go on believing today. People look at family. I have family. I mean, I get together with them at Thanksgiving or Christmas.