"Finding Eden" (Genesis 2:8-17)

The Closing of Ephesians and the Armor of God

Read to us the last chapter of the book of Ephesians closing out the book so we.

Have beginning in chapter 1 we had our redemption with the lives in Christ and our plate our place in Christ and seated in the heavenly places. In chapter 2 we have being made alive in Christ being alienated from God before Christ came made us alive we have Paul stewardship of the gospel to the Gentiles in chapter 3 that before we have the unity that we have in Christ chapter 5 we have the imitators of Christ or in some translations as imitators of God and instructions to the family.

And as we close out the book chapter 6 has more instructions to the family. Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right honor your father and mother which is the first promise first I'm sorry first commandment with the promise so you may be well that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.

Fathers do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Slaves be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh do it with fear and trembling with sincerity of heart and as to Christ not by way of I service to be a man pleaser but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God from the heart with goodwill render service as to the Lord and not to men knowing that whatever good thing each one does this he will receive back from the Lord whether he be slave or free.

Masters do the same things to them and give up threatening knowing that both their master and yours is in heaven and there is no partiality with him. And finally be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might put on the full armor of God so you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers rulers of darkness of this world and against the spiritual forces in high places. Therefore take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to resist the devil in the evil day and having firmly done everything to stand firm stand firm therefore having girded your loins with truth having put on the breastplate of righteousness having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace and in addition to all take up that shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish the fallen heroes of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God and with all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit and with this in view be on alert with all perseverance and petition for all the Saints and pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me and opening my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains and in proclaiming it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak but that you also may know about my circumstances and how I am doing.

Tychicus the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord will make everything known to you. I have sent him to you for this very purpose so that you may know about us and that he may comfort your hearts.

Peace be to the brethren and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ grace be with all of those who love the Lord Jesus Christ with an incorruptible love.

He's going to lead us in our time of prayer. I'd like to thank Gary and Cindy.

And Rosanna for all their work yesterday and orchestrating our little conference appreciating their service and very very good. And I'm thankful for the time we got to spend together. It was edifying I know to me to hear Andy and Keith preaching the same day.

Prayer for the Church, the Sick, and the Preacher

Let's take a little moment of silence and then we'll.

Go to the Lord in prayer. Most gracious Heavenly Father thank you so much.

Father for sending your son into this world being the light of the world and that light shined in darkness and he was sent into his own and his own received him not. He was rejected he was despised he was a man of sorrows.

He was beaten he was bruised he was crushed he was murdered he was nailed to a tree by wicked men. And father God you would not have it. And you raised him up from the dead. And God you said all who come unto him faith and faith alone with the gift of repentance that God you would grant them life and life eternal.

Father thank you for your son. Thank you that he is the Rizzo resurrected risen son of God he is not a crucified Jew. He is now ascended on the right hand of you and he is ever interceding for his saints.

And that father one day he will split that eastern sky and he will descend on a white charger. And father he will have a sword in his mouth and he will have a robe drenched with the blood of his enemies and on his leg will say King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And father you will make all the wrongs right on that day. And father what a terrible and awesome day it will be. And father how we long to have him return to receive his bride and to himself and to take us to the place as father he said where I'm going I am preparing a place for you.

And if I go I will come and receive you unto myself that where I am there you may be also even Lord. Now come quickly. Father God thank you for this church. Thank you for the people that are here. Thank you for this time that you've ordained for us to be together in a time of corporate worship through the singing and the giving and the preaching of the word and prayer.

And father for the the taking of the the ordinance. God thank you that we can come together corporately and one mind and one spirit and one body and worship you in spirit and in truth. Father God I lift up those in this room that are struggling with illness.

Father I pray that you would strengthen their bodies. I pray that you would give them grace and give them mercy and that you would comfort them in these difficult times. And father I pray that you would heal them if it so choose to glorify you.

God I pray for those who are going through a time of spiritual depression father feeling distressed and downtrodden and perplexed. That God that you would put your hands around them and guard them and and comfort them.

Father spiritually and help them not to lean on their own understanding but in all of their ways acknowledge you and you will guide and direct their paths. Father God I pray for those who are feeling strong in their faith that father they would not take that for granted.

That father you would continue to grow them in the grace and knowledge of your son and helping them to strengthen their faith and to hold on to you. That father that we would finish this race well and we would be able to say all as Paul said that I have fought with good faith I have finished the course and I have kept the faith.

And that we would receive the crown that is before us. Father God I lift up Keith as he comes to open your word. I pray God you would strengthen him. That you would keep him from error. That God you would open his mouth with your words and that you would anoint his speech with the power of your spirits and that it leaves his mouth.

Father God it would go out and it would correct and equip and instruct and exhort and rebuke. And that father you would grant repentance where it is necessary. And father for the young person or the old person or the child whoever it may be here today that does not know you I pray that you would send forth your spirit to them.

That father you would either terrify them in your wrath or melt their heart with your loving kindness. That today would be the day of salvation and they would see Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God to take away the sin and today God we love you.

We thank you for all that you have done.

Be with us the rest of this service. In Christ's name. I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Genesis chapter 2 and continue our study. The book of Genesis. And today we're going to be looking at verses 8 through 17.

Eden as a Real Place in History

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. In the middle of the 17th century an epic poem was penned by the Puritan John Milton in its final form.

It consisted of 12 books and over 10 ,000 lines of verse. It is considered to be one of the greatest English poems of all time. The title of the book the poem was paradise lost. It's a poetic narrative and it tells the story of the fall of man.

It recounts the fall of Satan the temptation of Adam and Eve their expulsion from the garden. And this is what it says in its opening lines of man's first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste brought death into the world and all our woe with loss of Eden to one greater man.

Man Christ restore us and regain the blissful seat. 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. His desire was to help us to understand why God did what he did.

Paradise Lost contains much of what we find in the biblical narrative talks about the garden talks about the serpent talks about Adam and Eve. But it also uses poetic license to construct many narratives that are not found in the Bible.

There are scenes with the heavenly throne room and Satan being expelled and Satan climbing over the wall into the garden. There's all kinds of things in Paradise Lost that are not found in the Bible. Much like Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

It seeks to fill in the unseen details of the spiritual realm. And probably the most famous line in Paradise Lost was Satan when he said better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven. That line has become so commonplace that some people believe it's in the Bible but it's not.

Milton's work is an example of adding fictional elements to a true story. You've all seen that happen. You've all watched movies that say based on a true story 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.

They're going to be parts that no one could have known about and so they have to fill those parts in. But the the scene is based on an actual account. That the film or the movie is based on an actual account.

Well that's what Paradise Lost is. Paradise Lost is a fictional account of an actual event. And that's important because a lot of people when they read about the Garden of Eden they think the whole story is fictional.

Many people doubt the existence of Adam and Eve and by extension they doubt the existence of Eden. But as Christians we have reason to believe that Eden was a real place. 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.

Eden was a real place at a real time in history. And though we cannot know everything about it the Bible does provide us many insights into the reality of it. And that's what I want to talk about today.

The sermon today is going to be a venture through the Garden of Eden. The title is finding Eden. I want to examine the details that the text gives us and I want us to understand that the paradise of Eden is a prototype of the paradise of heaven.

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. So let's stand together. We're going to read verses 8 to 17.

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east and there he put the man whom he had formed out of the ground. The Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

The tree of life was in the midst of the garden the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the ground or excuse me to water the garden and there it divided and became four rivers.

The name of the first is the Pishon. It is one. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Habbalah where there is gold and the gold of that land is good. Delium and Onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon.

It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 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 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.

Let us pray father in heaven. I thank you for your word. May you bless it now as I preach it and may you keep me from error. Open your hearts of your people and Lord God bless us all with the understanding of your truth by the power of your spirit in the name of your son.

Amen. One of the commentaries that I am using for my study is written by James Montgomery Boyce. James Montgomery Boyce was a contemporary of R .C. Sproul. He was a pastor first Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia I believe.

And he is a wonderful man of God. And he wrote two wonderful commentaries 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.

And I want to read a short statement that he made in his commentary on these passages. This is his words. Occasionally in my preparation of studies like this I turn to reference books in which the various literary use of the word such as Eden are recorded.

On this occasion I looked up Eden and 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.

It was listed alongside terms such as utopia paradise heaven Atlantis happy valley fairyland cloud land dreamland land of promise and kingdom come the quotations which in Roget accompany each word section content contain such gems as imagination rules the world by Napoleon.

The center of every man's existence is a dream Chesterton. And all dreams are lies a French proverb. Apparently for the compiler of this thesaurus Eden was no more than a fairyland. You know that's the way most people see the Garden of Eden.

It's like the city of Atlantis. You've all heard the city of Atlantis that great city that was supposed to have fallen into the sea and according to DC Comics created a whole race of people called merpeople and Aquaman is okay nobody cares.

But the point is you have these myths of ancient cities myths of ancient places 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.

How many of you have ever written or written read the book Animal Farm. Animal Farm is a tremendous work by George Orwell. Certainly not a Christian book but a good book nonetheless. And it is a fictional account of a group of animals who take over a farm and farm it themselves.

And it was all about the the Russian Revolution and the rise of the Union. That was the allegory. One of the characters in Animal Farm was a raven named Moses. Moses represented the clergy in Orwell's allegory.

And Moses would fly above the animals and he would tell them about a magical place located in the sky. It was called sugar candy mountain. 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 sugar candy mountain.

And he promised that's where all the animals go when they die. And he said I've seen it because I can fly above you all and I can see above you all. 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.

And it was clear in Orwell's writings that sugar candy 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 wasn't to be seen as real but rather in an allegorical way it was to be seen as comfort for the dying.

And that's what Orwell was charging the clergy with. Orwell was saying that's all the clergy do is the clergy provide you with a hope for sugar candy mountain something that doesn't really exist but something that we can all hope for when we face the inevitable reality of death.

Well it's unfortunate that so many people equate the paradise of God with fairy tales. You talk to the average person. What do you think of heaven. It's a fairy tale. That's what Stephen Hawking said.

Stephen Hawking said that heaven is a fairy tale for people who are afraid of the dark they see it as folklore. It's pie in the sky. It's not real it's make-believe. 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 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.

And what I want us to look at today are three features about the garden which we see in Genesis 2. Three features about the garden that indicate to us that this is a historic place. We're going to look at three things.

We're going to look at the location of the garden. We're going to look at the description of the garden and then we are going to look at the legislation of the garden. So that's the three-point outline today the the location of the garden the description of the garden and the legislation.

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. So let's look first at the location of the garden. Verse 8 says that the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east notice we often say garden of Eden.

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. So the garden of Eden is not a wrong term but that's not the way it's introduced.

It's introduced rather as a garden in Eden referring to Eden as a geographical location like if I said there's a garden in Callahan or if I said there's a garden in at the beaches if I said there's a garden in Ocean Way you're speaking of a larger geographical location in which there is a garden and so God has planted a garden in this place that's called Eden and verse 8 tells us it's in the east of Eden.

So not only is it in a place but it's in a specific place in the place and so we're given a specific reference to where it is within that geographical location. Now some people will say that when it says in the east what it's referring to is that it's east of Israel.

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. In fact you know we still do that today.

Why are we Westerners. Well think about where Israel sits geographically everything to the west we would say is Western and then you have the Middle East and then the Far East in relation to what in relation to Palestine or Israel or that that piece of land and so you have that's the demarcation point.

Even though the world is a globe our maps are still set apart fairly that way. We have the West the Middle East and the Far East in relation to what in relation to Israel. And so when we come here 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 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. It could also be referenced to the fact that it was a garden east of Israel.

So we see a reference to the locations. We also see other locations mentioned we see Assyria mentioned we see Cush mentioned we see Havilah which are mentioned these again act as marking posts. We also see a reference to two rivers that we can name and understand where they are.

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. 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 modern-day Iraq. 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.

And this is important. And why is this important. Why would I even stress this today. Because this is telling us something about the authors understanding. Who's the author who wrote Genesis Moses. 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 that's the point. The simple matter is he's saying this place wasn't sitting on a cloud somewhere.

This wasn't the city of Atlantis that fell off into the ocean somewhere this was a real place in a real space in a real time. This is not a fairyland of make-believe. This is a region on the earth God named and set apart and put a garden in it.

The big question people ask is well where is it now. Where is Eden now. People have searched for centuries you know there's been in expeditions going out into the lands the areas in trying to find this.

This place called Eden it's never been found but it won't ever be found. You know why. Because it was a place that existed in the antediluvian period. Now that's a big fancy word. So let me let me help you understand it.

If you don't know what it means antediluvian means it was a place that existed prior to the flood. Guess what happens when the world floods. Everything changes. When the world floods everything changes.

And therefore I do not think that anyone is going to go find the Garden of Eden. In fact I would even go as far as to say even the Tigris and the 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.

Imagine what a worldwide flood would do to the direction of course of a river. So my point is to simply say this even though we know based on the writing of Moses that it existed in a place at 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.

We now live after the flood. And everything in the antediluvian period everything post or pre-flood is no more. But just because Eden is not on the world map today doesn't mean it was a fictional place.

It was real. It took up a space and time in Earth's history. So that's the location of the garden. Now let's look at the description of the garden. The description of the garden. The garden is described as having three main components.

If you look at your Bible you'll see these three things. The first is the irrigation of the garden. That's verses 10 to 14. Then the vegetation of the garden is mentioned in verse 9. And then the beauty of the garden is mentioned in verse 9.

And then again in verses 11 and 12 let's look at those three things. First the irrigation of the garden. It says beginning in verse 10 a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden and there it divided and became four rivers.

So you have one large spring if you will one large source of water. And that one large source of water then becomes four sources of individual rivers. It fed four rivers and these rivers provided the water necessary to maintain the vegetation.

You say well what's important about that. Well the garden functioned as a garden functions in its standard normal methods. It needed water. Gardens still need water. It wasn't magically water. It wasn't magically irrigated.

God said okay I'm going to plant a garden. A garden needs water. So I'm going to have the garden have a source of water that waters the garden. And again you said what's the point. Why are you stressing this.

Because it points to the reality of it. It doesn't come to us as a myth. It doesn't tell us that cherubs came in with with and even if it did it wouldn't be wrong. But it doesn't tell us if cherubs come in and and and and and and sweat upon it and cause the the dude to know.

It says that the rivers were made. Why. Because rivers are needed and that's what gardens need. And God made it that way. Because that's the way he intended. It's a real place with real irrigation. And you look at history where where the cities and the and the towns are always built around a water source.

Why. Because it's necessary. It's necessary for life. It's necessary for irrigation. It's necessary for for all of those things. So God puts what is there. Because it's what is necessary. So we see irrigation verses 10 to 14.

There are 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. It's presented to us as what.

And when I say this word hear me now when I say this word don't rush to correct me because I'm gonna correct myself. It's natural. What I mean by natural is it's it's working like a garden would work naturally because that's the way God designed it.

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. Yes there are some supernatural elements. But the garden is a garden. It needed water.

So God gave it water. It has vegetation. We see this in verse 9. Vegetation is said 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.

So it has the the vegetation that's needed to eat. It's good for food. Why is this important. Because again not only was it did it have the irrigation that was needed to produce the food. But the food was there to give food to man.

It was natural. And again when I use that word please understand what I'm saying. This is the normal function that would still be today. We still have gardens today. Why. Because we got to eat. God produces a garden.

Why. Because man is going to eat and he's going to enjoy it. It's producing food for Adam to eat. It's not producing magic beans and put in the ground and make a beanstalk to go up and see God. It's producing food.

It's producing fruit and vegetables. And at this time man was a vegetarian and I imagine it was okay with him. I don't wouldn't be okay with me. But it was okay with him to be a vegetarian because everything was good.

It was perfectly nourishing. And I think about this at this moment. This is Adam being given by God a perfect garden a perfect place to eat from. It has water water. And it has vegetation flowing out of it or forming out of it.

And then it also says it has it has beauty. Verse 9 it says it was pleasant to the sight. Verses 11 and 12 says that it had gold and Delian and onyx stone. You know what I I'm gonna I'm gonna tell something about myself.

I don't understand the value of precious metals and jewels because you can't eat them. You can't bury them in the ground and grow stuff. I've always wondered why precious stones and precious metals have been the primary currency of human history.

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. Why so valuable. I kind of joke about that.

Because I don't wear a wedding ring. I don't wear a wedding ring because I don't like anything on me and she gets really upset. She has people are gonna think you're not married. I tell everybody I'm married.

I'll just I'll tell them. But I don't wear a wedding ring because I don't like things touching my hand. It's just a weird thing for me. And I've tried all kinds of tried rubber ones that the soft ones the metal just doesn't work for me.

But I don't understand. I don't understand the value of precious metals. Don't understand the value of gemstones. But I but I do understand this. And maybe this will help some of you who maybe think like I do.

Man needs the world to function but man also craves form and beauty. Why do we spend so much time creating art. Because there's a craving within us for beauty. Who's the greatest artist. God what is his world.

It's a beautiful world even in the fallen state. You go up to Tennessee man when the leaves start to turn and you go up into this mountains of the Smoky Mountains and it's some of the most beautiful country and all the world.

And it's just wonderful to look at. And you can you can sit on a rocking chair and I've done it with Jennifer. We sit on a rocking chair and just look at the beauty of the mountains. And I go back to the garden and I say okay why gold couldn't eat it.

I don't think he was making rings and earrings at that point in time. Why gold. Why Delia. Why onyx. Why. Because man needs form as well as function. Man needs beauty as well as he needs the industrial.

He needs the things that work but he also needs the things that are pretty and beautiful. And so we see here. God is giving man not only what he needs but what will bring him joy and pleasure. There's beauty as well as function.

So we see in the garden the coming together of form and function in one place for man and his enjoyment. 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. You can walk over and touch the gold. You can pick up the stones. It's real. Moses describes the garden as a place that's properly watered properly planted and properly adorned.

That's the description we're given. And finally we've seen the location of the garden. We've seen the description of the garden. Now we're going to look at the final thing. And that is the legislation of the garden.

Within the gardens lush vegetation. There existed two very specific trees. The tree of life which we will learn more about after the fall because they are kept from the tree of life. God bars Adam from the tree of life so that he cannot continue to live forever in his fallen state.

He sets up a cherub there so that Adam can no longer go to the tree of life. We'll learn more about that in chapter 3. But we also see the tree of knowledge. This tree is the only one in the garden which is forbidden.

I call this tree the legislative branch. Okay that's good. I thought of that. I wrote it down highlighted it. So don't forget to say that it's the legislative branch because it's the only law. It's the law.

God has given man one command. You might say well he was given the command to go and subdue and take you know take ownership in these things. But there's there's one prohibition that is the better way of saying.

Certainly God gave Adam things to do. But there's one thing that he must not do. He must not eat this tree. One singular prohibition and one consequence. If you eat of this tree you will die dying. You shall die.

The severest penalty is given for breaking this command. And these trees do represent what I would call the spiritual component of the garden. I've argued already that the garden is a real place in a real space in real time in real history.

But that doesn't mean that it does not have a spiritual component. You're a real person in a real place at a real time in real history. But you have a spiritual component. Right. And likewise the garden was a real place in 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.

Some might say well this is where mythology is creeping in. But no this is not mythology. Just because something resides above the natural does not make it mythical. Only the materialist would say that the only things that exist are natural things.

As Christians we are not materialists. We are supernaturalists. We believe that there are things that rise above the natural. And even though these trees have a supernatural function they still point to the historicity of the garden.

You say how. 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. What is man's biggest problem.

Social injustice. What's man's biggest problem. Systemic racism. What's man's biggest problem. Misogyny. What's man's biggest problem. I can go on and on. You know what man's biggest problem is he's a sinner.

He lives in a group of other centers and they all sin together. And whether you want to call that systemic or whether you want to call that inherent or unconscious bias whatever you call it it's sin. That's man's biggest problem.

It's not a viral disease. It's a heart problem. Man's biggest problem is that he is a sinner. He loves and he craves and he wants and he he lives in a state of total depravity. The Bible says there's none good.

No not one. There's none who understands. There's none who seeks for God. All have turned aside together. They have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive.

The venom of venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood in their paths are ruined and misery. And in the way of peace they have not known.