Finding Eden

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Genesis chapter 2.
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We're going to continue our study of the book of Genesis, and today we're going to be looking at verses 8 through 17.
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That's going to be the focus of today's message, verses 8 through 17, and as you're turning there I want to give a few words of preliminary introduction.
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In the middle of the 17th century, an epic poem was penned by the Puritan John Milton.
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In its final form, it consisted of 12 books and over 10,000 lines of verse.
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It is considered to be one of the greatest English poems of all time.
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The title of the book, the poem, was Paradise Lost.
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It's a poetic narrative and it tells the story of the fall of man.
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It recounts the fall of Satan, the temptation of Adam and Eve, their expulsion from the garden.
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And this is what it says in its opening lines.
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Of man's first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste brought death into the world.
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And all our woe with loss of Eden till one greater man, Christ, restore us and regain the blissful seat.
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Milton's purpose, as he states in his introduction to Paradise Lost, was to justify the ways of man with God, to justify the ways of God to man.
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His desire was to help us to understand why God did what He did.
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Paradise Lost contains much of what we find in the biblical narrative.
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Talks about the garden, talks about the serpent, talks about Adam and Eve.
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But it also uses poetic license to construct many narratives that are not found in the Bible.
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There are scenes with the heavenly throne room and Satan being expelled and Satan climbing over the wall into the garden.
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There's all kinds of things in Paradise Lost that are not found in the Bible.
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Much like Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, it seeks to fill in the unseen details of the spiritual realm.
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And probably the most famous line in Paradise Lost was Satan when he said, Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.
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That line has become so commonplace that some people believe it's in the Bible.
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But it's not.
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Milton's work is an example of adding fictional elements to a true story.
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You've all seen that happen.
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You've all watched movies that say, based on a true story.
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And you know that when you see anything that's based on a true story, that there's going to be elements of it that are going to be fictional.
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They're going to be parts that no one could have known about.
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And so they have to fill those parts in.
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But the scene is based on an actual account.
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The film or the movie is based on an actual account.
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Well, that's what Paradise Lost is.
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Paradise Lost is a fictional account of an actual event.
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And that's important because a lot of people, when they read about the Garden of Eden, they think the whole story is fictional.
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Many people doubt the existence of Adam and Eve.
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And by extension, they doubt the existence of Eden.
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But as Christians, we have reason to believe that Eden was a real place.
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Even though Paradise Lost and many other accounts have sought to fictionalize elements of Eden, we must never allow that to make us think that the place itself is a fictional place.
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Eden was a real place at a real time in history.
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And though we cannot know everything about it, the Bible does provide us many insights into the reality of it.
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And that's what I want to talk about today.
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The sermon today is going to be a venture through the Garden of Eden.
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The title is Finding Eden.
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I want to examine the details that the text gives us.
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And I want us to understand that the Paradise of Eden is a prototype of the Paradise of Heaven.
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Most importantly, I want us to understand that as much as the original paradise was real, the coming paradise that we have to look forward to is just as real.
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So let's stand together and we're going to read verses 8 to 17.
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And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there He put the man whom He had formed.
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And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.
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The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
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A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.
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The name of the first is the Pishon.
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It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.
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And the gold of that land is good.
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Delium and onyx stone are there.
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The name of the second river is the Gihon.
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It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush.
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The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria.
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And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
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The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
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And the Lord 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.
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For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
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Let us pray.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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May you bless it now as I preach it, and may you keep me from error.
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Open your hearts of your people.
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And Lord God, bless us all with the understanding of your truth.
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By the power of your spirit, in the name of your son, amen.
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One of the commentaries that I am using for my study is written by James Montgomery Boyce.
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James Montgomery Boyce was a contemporary of R.C.
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Sproul.
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He was a pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, I believe.
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And he was a wonderful man of God.
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And he wrote two wonderful commentaries.
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He wrote one commentary on the book of Romans and one commentary on the book of Genesis, both of which I've used in teaching for years.
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And I want to read a short statement that he made in his commentary on these passages.
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This is his words.
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Occasionally in my preparation of studies like this, I turn to reference books in which the various literary use of a word such as Eden are recorded.
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On this occasion, I looked up Eden in Roget's International Thesaurus and was surprised to find it not under a section dealing with historical names and places, but under the section dealing with imagination.
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It was listed alongside terms such as utopia, paradise, heaven, Atlantis, happy valley, fairy land, cloud land, dream land, land of promise, and kingdom come.
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The quotations which in Roget accompany each word section contain such gems as imagination rules the world by Napoleon.
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The center of every man's existence is a dream, Chesterton.
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And all dreams are lies, a French proverb.
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Apparently, for the compiler of this thesaurus, Eden was no more than a fairy land.
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You know, that's the way most people see the Garden of Eden.
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It's like the city of Atlantis.
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You've all heard of the city of Atlantis, that great city that was supposed to have fallen into the sea.
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And according to DC Comics, created a whole race of people called merpeople.
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And Aquaman is the strongest of them.
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Okay, nobody cares.
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But the point is, you have these myths of ancient cities, myths of ancient places.
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And a lot of people, rather than putting Eden within the historical framework of a historical place in time, they put Eden into the same category as Atlantis or another lost city.
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How many of you have ever read the book Animal Farm? Animal Farm is a tremendous work by George Orwell, certainly not a Christian book, but a good book nonetheless.
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And it is a fictional account of a group of animals who take over a farm and farm it themselves.
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And it was all about the Russian Revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union.
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That was the allegory.
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One of the characters in Animal Farm was a raven named Moses.
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Moses represented the clergy in Orwell's allegory.
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And Moses would fly above the animals and he would tell them about a magical place located in the sky.
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It was called Sugarcandy Mountain.
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And he would say, as long as you understand that your labor is not in vain, but one day you will perish and you will go to this place called Sugarcandy Mountain.
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And he promised that's where all the animals go when they die.
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And he said, I've seen it because I can fly above you all and I can see above you all.
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And there is this place, this candy coated paradise where you will all lay in luxury one day and eat of the sweet of the trees which is candy coated all around.
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And it was clear in Orwell's writings that Sugarcandy Mountain was not to be seen as a literal place, but rather it was meant to be a comfort for those who were facing the impending doom of death.
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It wasn't to be seen as real, but rather in an allegorical way, it was to be seen as a comfort for the dying.
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And that's what Orwell was charging the clergy with.
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Orwell was saying that's all the clergy do, is the clergy provide you with a hope for Sugarcandy Mountain, something that doesn't really exist, but something that we can all hope for when we face the inevitable reality of death.
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Well, it's unfortunate that so many people equate the paradise of God with fairy tales.
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You talk to the average person, what do you think of heaven? It's a fairy tale.
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That's what Stephen Hawking said.
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Stephen Hawking said that heaven is a fairy tale for people who are afraid of the dark.
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They see it as folklore.
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It's pie in the sky.
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It's not real.
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It's make believe.
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But when we come to Genesis 2, and we read Genesis 2, what we find is that the garden that is described here in this text is not a garden that is written as a mythological place, but it's written as an actual place that existed at a certain place and a certain time and for a certain purpose.
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And what I want us to look at today are three features about the garden, which we see in Genesis 2.
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Three features about the garden that indicate to us that this is a historic place.
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We're going to look at three things.
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We're going to look at the location of the garden.
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We're going to look at the description of the garden.
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And then we're going to look at the legislation of the garden.
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So that's the three-point outline today.
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The location of the garden, the description of the garden, and the legislation.
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And my point in all of this is to show you that all three of those things point to the fact that the garden was real.
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So let's look first at the location of the garden.
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Verse 8 says, And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east.
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Notice, we often say, Garden of Eden.
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And that's not wrong to say because that phrase is used in chapter 2, verse 15, chapter 3, verse 23, and chapter 3, verse 24.
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So the Garden of Eden is not a wrong term, but that's not the way it's introduced.
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It's introduced rather as a garden in Eden, referring to Eden as a geographical location.
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Like if I said there's a garden in Callahan, or if I said there's a garden at the beaches, or if I said there's a garden in Ocean Way.
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You're speaking of a larger geographical location in which there is a garden.
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And so God has planted a garden in this place that's called Eden.
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And verse 8 tells us it's in the east of Eden.
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So not only is it in a place, but it's in a specific place in the place.
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And so we're given a specific reference to where it is within that geographical location.
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Now, some people will say that when it says in the east, what it's referring to is that it's east of Israel.
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Because if you read through the Bible, what you will find, and this is true, that in general when they talk about north, south, east, or west, it's almost always in reference to Israel.
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In fact, you know we still do that today.
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Why are we westerners? Well, think about where Israel sits geographically.
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Everything to the west we would say is western.
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And then you have the Middle East and then the Far East.
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In relation to what? In relation to Palestine or Israel, that piece of land.
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And so you have, that's the demarcation point.
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Even though the world is a globe, our maps are still set apart fairly that way.
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We have the west, the Middle East, and the Far East.
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In relation to what? In relation to Israel.
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And so when we come here, and it says it was a garden in the east, that could be a reference to the fact that the garden was in the east of Israel.
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But it could also be a reference to the fact that it was a garden east, or excuse me, a garden in the east of Eden.
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It could also be reference to the fact that it was a garden east of Israel.
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So, we see a reference to the locations.
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We also see other locations mentioned.
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We see Assyria mentioned.
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We see Cush mentioned.
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We see HaBalah, which are mentioned.
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These, again, act as marking posts.
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We also see a reference to two rivers that we can name and understand where they are.
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There's four rivers mentioned, but only two that we would reference as rivers that we would still know, and that's the rivers of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
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But where would this be? Where would this be today? Well, if you go to Israel and you go to the east, you come to a land that used to be known as Mesopotamia.
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Modern-day Iraq.
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So we look at that as the possible location, as the possible, and I keep stressing possible location, based on the reference to the rivers, based on the reference to its relationship to Israel, and based on the fact of what is that area and how it's structured.
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And this is important, and why is this important? Why would I even stress this today? Because this is telling us something about the author's understanding of Eden.
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Who's the author? Who wrote Genesis? Moses.
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What is he doing in writing that it was here, it was east of Eden, it was here, it had these rivers, it was here, in relation to Assyria and Cush and Havilah? What is the point that he's making? It's a real place, y'all.
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That's the point.
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The simple matter is he's saying, this place wasn't sitting on a cloud somewhere.
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This wasn't the city of Atlantis that fell off into the ocean somewhere.
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This was a real place and a real space and a real time.
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This is not a fairyland of make-believe.
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This is a region on the earth God named and set apart and put a garden in it.
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And the big question people ask is, well, where is it now? Where is Eden now? People have searched for centuries.
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You know, there's been expeditions going out into the lands, the areas, and trying to find this place called Eden.
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And it's never been found, but it won't ever be found.
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Do you know why? Because it was a place that existed in the Antediluvian period.
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Now, that's a big, fancy word, so let me help you understand it.
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If you don't know what it means, Antediluvian means it was a place that existed prior to the flood.
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Guess what happens when the world floods? Everything changes.
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When the world floods, everything changes.
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And therefore, I do not think that anyone is going to go find the Garden of Eden.
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In fact, I would even go as far as to say even the Tigris and Euphrates that we have today are probably not the same place that they were then because even a small flood can change the direction and course of a river.
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Imagine what a worldwide flood would do to the direction, of course, of a river.
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So my point is to simply say this, even though we know based on the writing of Moses that it existed at a place and a point in time, we don't know exactly where it is because everything has changed and we're not going to find it because everything before the flood was destroyed.
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We now live after the flood.
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And everything in the Antediluvian period, everything post or pre-flood is no more.
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But just because Eden is not on the world map today doesn't mean it was a fictional place.
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It was real.
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It took up a space and time in Earth's history.
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So that's the location of the Garden.
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Now let's look at the description of the Garden.
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The description of the Garden.
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The Garden is described as having three main components.
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If you look at your Bible, you'll see these three things.
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The first is the irrigation of the Garden.
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That's verses 10 to 14.
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Then the vegetation of the Garden is mentioned in verse 9.
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And then the beauty of the Garden is mentioned in verse 9.
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And then again in verses 11 and 12.
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Let's look at those three things.
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First, the irrigation of the Garden.
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It says, beginning in verse 10, a river flowed out of Eden to water the Garden and there it divided and became four rivers.
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So you have one large spring, if you will.
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One large source of water.
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And that one large source of water then becomes four sources of individual rivers.
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It fed four rivers.
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And these rivers provided the water necessary to maintain the vegetation.
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You say, well, what's important about that? Well, the Garden functioned, as a Garden functions, in its standard, normal methods.
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It needed water.
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Gardens still need water.
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It wasn't magically watered.
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It wasn't magically irrigated.
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God said, okay, I'm going to plant a Garden.
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A Garden needs water.
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So I'm going to have the Garden have a source of water that waters the Garden.
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And again, you say, well, what's the point? Why are you stressing this? Because it points to the reality of it.
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It doesn't come to us as a myth.
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It doesn't tell us that cherubs came in with, and even if it did, it wouldn't be wrong, but it doesn't tell us that cherubs come in and sweat upon it and cause the dew to...
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No, it says that the rivers were made.
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Why? Because rivers are needed.
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And that's what Gardens need.
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And God made it that way because that's the way He intended.
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It's a real place with real irrigation.
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And you look at history.
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Where are the cities and the towns? They're always built around a water source.
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Why? Because it's necessary.
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It's necessary for life.
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It's necessary for irrigation.
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It's necessary for all of those things.
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So God puts what is there because it's what is necessary.
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So we see irrigation, verses 10 to 14.
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There's some interesting things about those rivers, but the most important thing that we need to understand is while the Garden is special, it's not presented to us as magical.
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It's presented to us as what...
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And when I say this word, hear me now.
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When I say this word, don't rush to correct me because I'm going to correct myself.
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It's natural.
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What I mean by natural is it's working like a garden would work naturally because that's the way God designed.
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Now, are there some supernatural elements? Yes, we're going to talk about the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the tree of life.
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Yes, there are some supernatural elements.
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But the Garden is a garden.
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It needed water.
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So God gave it water.
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It has vegetation.
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We see this in verse 9.
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Vegetation is said.
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It says that, And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.
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So it has the vegetation that's needed to eat.
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It's good for food.
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Why is this important? Because again, not only did it have the irrigation that was needed to produce the food, but the food was there to give food to man.
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It was natural.
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And again, when I use that word, please understand what I'm saying.
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This is the normal function that would still be today.
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We still have gardens today.
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Why? Because we got to eat.
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God produces a garden.
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Why? Because man is going to eat and he's going to enjoy it.
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It's producing food for Adam to eat.
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It's not producing magic beans to put in the ground and make a beanstalk to go up and see God.
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It's producing food.
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It's producing fruit and vegetables.
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And at this time, man was a vegetarian.
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And I imagine it was okay with him.
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I don't know.
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It wouldn't be okay with me, but it was okay with him to be a vegetarian.
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Because everything was good and it was perfectly nourishing.
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And I think about this at this moment.
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This is Adam being given by God a perfect garden.
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A perfect place to eat from.
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It has water to water it.
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It has vegetation flowing out of it or forming out of it.
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And then it also says it has beauty.
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Verse 9, it says, it was pleasant to the sight.
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Verses 11 and 12 says that it had gold and delium and onyx stone.
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You know what? I'm going to tell something about myself.
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I don't understand the value of precious metals and jewels.
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Because you can't eat them.
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You can't bury them in the ground and grow stuff.
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I've always wondered why precious stones and precious metals have been the primary currency of human history.
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I mean, outside of food and agrarian societies, most people who accumulated wealth, accumulated wealth by what? By the amount of gold or the amount of precious stones.
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Why so valuable? Because I don't wear a wedding ring.
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I don't wear a wedding ring because I don't like anything on me.
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And she gets really upset.
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She goes, people are going to think you're not married.
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I tell everybody I'm married.
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I'll just, I'll tell them.
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But I don't wear a wedding ring because I don't like things touching my hand.
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It's just a weird thing for me.
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And I've tried all kinds.
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I've tried rubber ones, the soft ones, the metal.
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It just doesn't work for me.
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But I don't understand.
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I don't understand the value of precious metals.
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I don't understand the value of gemstones, but I do understand this, and maybe this will help some of you who maybe think like I do.
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Man needs the world to function, but man also craves form and beauty.
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Why do we spend so much time creating art? Because there's a craving within us for beauty.
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Who's the greatest artist? God.
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What is his world? It's a beautiful world, even in the fallen state.
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You go up to Tennessee, man, when the leaves start to turn, and you go up into the mountains of the Smoky Mountains, and it's some of the most beautiful country in all the world.
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And it's just wonderful to look at.
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And you can sit on a rocking chair, and I've done it with Jennifer.
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We sit on a rocking chair and just look at the beauty of the mountains.
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And I go back to the garden, and I say, okay, why gold? Couldn't eat it.
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I don't think he was making rings and earrings at that point in time.
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Why gold? Why delium? Why onyx? Why? Because man needs form as well as function.
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Man needs beauty as well as he needs the industrial.
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He needs the things that work, but he also needs the things that are pretty and beautiful.
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And so we see here, God is giving man not only what he needs, but what will bring him joy and pleasure.
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There's beauty as well as function.
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So we see in the garden, the coming together of form and function in one place for man and his enjoyment.
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That man would enjoy the food that he puts into his mouth, that he will enjoy the sight of what he sees around him, and this is, again, real.
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You can walk over and touch the gold.
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You can pick up the stones.
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It's real.
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Moses describes the garden as a place that's properly watered, properly planted, and properly adorned.
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That's the description we're given.
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And finally, we've seen the location of the garden.
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We've seen the description of the garden.
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Now we are going to look at the final thing, and that is the legislation of the garden.
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Within the garden's lush vegetation, there existed two very specific trees.
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The tree of life, which we will learn more about after the fall, because they are kept from the tree of life.
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God bars Adam from the tree of life so that he cannot continue to live forever in his fallen state.
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He sets up a cherub there so that Adam can no longer go to the tree of life.
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We'll learn more about that in Chapter 3.
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But we also see the tree of knowledge.
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And this tree is the only one in the garden which is forbidden.
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I call this tree the legislative branch.
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Oh, come on, that's good.
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I thought of that.
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I wrote it down.
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I highlighted it.
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I said, don't forget to say that.
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It's the legislative branch because it's the only law.
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It's the law.
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God has given man one command.
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You might say, well, he was given the command to go and subdue and take, you know, take ownership in these things.
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But there's one prohibition, maybe it's a better way of saying.
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Certainly God gave Adam things to do.
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But there's one thing that he must not do.
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He must not eat of this tree.
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One singular prohibition and one consequence.
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If you eat of this tree, you will die.
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Dying, you shall die.
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The severest penalty is given for breaking this command.
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And these trees do represent what I would call the spiritual component of the garden.
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I've argued already that the garden is a real place and a real space and real time and real history.
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But that doesn't mean that it does not have a spiritual component.
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You're a real person in a real place at a real time in real history, but you have a spiritual component, right? Right.
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And likewise, the garden was a real place and a real space at a real time in real history, but it had a spiritual component and the spiritual component was the trees, the tree of knowledge and the tree of life.
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And some might say, well, this is where mythology is creeping in.
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But no, this is not mythology.
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Just because something resides above the natural does not make it mythical.
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Only the materialist would say that the only things that exist are natural things.
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As Christians, we are not materialists.
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We are supernaturalists.
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We believe that there are things that rise above the natural.
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And even though these trees have a supernatural function, they still point to the historicity of the garden.
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You say, how? Well, how can a supernatural tree point to the historicity of the garden? And the reason, the answer to that is because these trees give the answer to man's perpetual predicament.
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What is man's biggest problem? Social injustice.
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What's man's biggest problem? Systemic racism.
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What's man's biggest problem? Misogyny.
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What's man's biggest problem? I can go on and on.
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You know what man's biggest problem is? He's a sinner.
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He lives in a group of other sinners, and they all sin together.
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And whether you want to call that systemic, or whether you want to call that inherent, or unconscious bias, whatever you want to call it, it's sin.
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That's man's biggest problem.
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It's not a viral disease, it's a heart problem.
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Man's biggest problem is that he is a sinner.
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He loves sin.
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He craves sin.
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He wants sin.
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He lives in a state of total depravity.
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The Bible says there's none good, no not one.
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There's none who understands.
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There's none who seeks for God.
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All have turned aside.
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Together they have become worthless.
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No one does good, not even one.
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Their throat is an open grave.
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They use their tongues to deceive.
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The venom of asps is under their lips.
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Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.
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Their feet are swift to shed blood.
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In their paths are ruin and misery, and in the way of peace they have not known.
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There is no fear of God before their eyes.
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That's the problem with man.
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And this issue poses the most serious threat, and that's death.
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The wages of sin is death.
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All men die because all men sin, but sin did not rise out of the ether.
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Sin had an origin point.
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Sin began as the first breach of the first law by the first man.
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I'll say it again.
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Sin began as the first breach of the first law by the first man.
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The world around us is testimony to the existence of Eden.
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Because without Eden there would be no tree of knowledge.
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Without the tree of knowledge there would be no original command.
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Without the original command there would be no first transgression.
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Without the first transgression there would be no sin nature.
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Without the sin nature there would be no need of redemption, and without the need of redemption there would be no cause for the cross.
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And therefore the sinfulness of man is testimony to the original sin of man which happened where? In the garden.
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The entire New Testament relies on the existence of the garden.
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Adam, our first father.
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Eden, his first home.
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The tree, his first command.
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All of these are part of the history of redemption upon which the Bible is built.
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If Eden is a myth, so is Adam.
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If Adam is a myth, so is the original transgression.
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And if the original transgression is a myth, so is the work of Christ that was meant to undo it.
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Paul is clear that the existence of Adam and therefore the existence of the garden are essential to Christian theology.
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Romans 5, 19, For as by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.
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1 Corinthians 15, 22, In Adam all die, in Christ are all made alive.
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Paul does not doubt the existence of Adam.
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He does not doubt the existence of the tree.
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He does not doubt the existence of the sin that caused the fall of man.
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And neither should we.
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Now, why is it essential that we stress the reality of Adam's garden home? Because his paradise, the paradise that he lived in, is an analogy to the paradise that we look forward to as believers.
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If his garden in Eden was a myth, then it is not that big of a step to say the same is true of our heaven.
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And that's what has happened in theological liberalism.
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Theological liberalism long ago did away with the garden.
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Long ago did away with the historic Adam.
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They have replaced the historic Adam with an evolutionary human tree.
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They have replaced the garden of Eden as myth and they have said it didn't happen.
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But you know what has happened as a result of that? Many of them have given up the hope of heaven.
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They don't believe in the original paradise, neither do they believe in the paradise to come.
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The Pew Research Center did an entire study on one question.
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Christians who do not believe in heaven.
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That was the whole study.
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Go look it up.
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Look up Pew Research Center, Christians who do not believe in heaven.
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And not only will you find the percentage, but you will find it broken up by category.
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Educated versus, highly educated versus lowly educated, men versus women, age, all of this.
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The numbers are mind boggling.
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Christians who don't believe in heaven.
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The more people begin to put away the belief in Eden, the more people will put away a belief in heaven.
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The Bible's grand story is simple.
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And by the way, you should probably know this if you don't already.
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You can break down the Bible into four grand meta-narratives.
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Well, it's one big meta-narrative, four grand narratives.
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The grand narrative is creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.
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That is the entire story of the Bible in four parts.
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Creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.
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Without creation, there is no fall.
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Without fall, there is no need for redemption.
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Without redemption, there will be no restoration.
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As believers, we look back at the garden with a hope for what will one day come in an even greater form.
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For those who believe in Christ, we look back at Eden and we look forward to heaven.
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Earlier, I spoke about Paradise Lost.
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That was how I introduced that.
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I'm going to begin to draw to a close.
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Paradise Lost is all about how man fell in the garden.
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One of the greatest works of English literature.
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One of the most well-known works of English literature.
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But there is another lesser known work by the same author.
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And it is entitled Paradise Regained.
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Rather than 12 books, it was only 4.
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And what it tells in Paradise Regained is while Adam fell, Christ succeeded.
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And what Adam lost, Christ has regained.
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And what's interesting is John Milton, in that, he gives the picture of Jesus before Satan in the wilderness.
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What does Satan do with Jesus? Here's this rock, turn it to bread.
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Here, you're on the pinnacle of the temple, throw yourself down.
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Look at all the nations of the world.
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I will give them all to you if you will bow to me.
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And Satan is put away thrice by the Lord Jesus Christ as it is written.
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As it is written.
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As it is written.
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Jesus does not fall to the temptations of the devil.
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This is how he is the new Adam.
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Adam falls with his wife to the tempter who says what? You will be like God.
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Jesus is given the same temptation by the devil.
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All of this will be yours.
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Worship me.
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And Jesus does not fall to that temptation.
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James Boyce in his commentary says there are two gardens in the Bible that we should never forget their connection.
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The garden of Eden and the garden of Gethsemane.
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Because in the garden of Eden, man transgressed the law of God and was put away.
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But beginning in the garden of Gethsemane, Christ began the journey to the cross where he would regain what man lost in that first garden.
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And we're faced then with two humanities.
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The humanity that is in Adam and the humanity which is in Christ.
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Where do you find yourself today? Where do you find yourself? Do you find yourself still in doubt? Wondering if all of this is just some dramatic mythology? Do you find yourself still in rebellion? Knowing the truth but unwilling to submit? Or do you find yourself in Christ? The new Adam.
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The last Adam.
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The one who came to redeem what the first Adam had lost.
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For those who are in Christ, paradise is no myth.
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For those who are in Christ, paradise is the promise of God.
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What did Jesus say to the man on the cross? Today thou shalt be with me in paradise.
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What did Jesus say to his disciples? Let not your hearts be troubled.
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Believe in God.
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Believe also in me.
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For in my Father's house there are many rooms.
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And if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and I will take you to where I am.
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That where I am, you may be also.
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And you know the way to where I am going.
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Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going.
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How can we know the way? Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life.
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No one comes to the Father.
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No one comes to paradise but by me.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the opportunity to again talk about the wonderful paradise of God.
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That which was created.
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That which was destroyed and lost.
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But that which is regained in Christ.
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An even more wonderful paradise.
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Not a myth, but a true place.
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Jesus told us, if it were not so, He would have told us.
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But it is so.
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We have every reason to believe that it is so.
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Because our Savior who came back from the dead has told us that it is so.
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Lord God, let us trust in Him.
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Let us find in Him the great comfort for our souls.
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As we look at a world that is seemingly going to hell, let us know that Lord, for those who believe in Christ, this is as close to hell as we will ever get.
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Lord, may we trust in Him.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.