The Tree: Genesis 3:1-14

Good morning again, we're going to be reading out of Genesis chapter 2 verses 16 and 17 and then right to chapter 3 verses 1 through 13, it's pages 2 and 3 in your pew

Bible. Genesis chapter 2 starting at verse 16, once again hear now

God's inspired word. 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. Now to Genesis 3,

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman,

Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent,

We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die.

But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened.

You will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

And they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the

Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord called to the man and said to him, Where are you?

And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, as we come before you today, Lord, I ask for your help.

I ask you, Lord God, that you would set me aside and that we would hear the voice of your son. That you would empower my mind and my mouth to bring forth the words that would properly reflect your truth and that your people would be edified to grow in the grace and knowledge of our

Savior. Father, may we give you glory, honor, and praise as you take center stage. It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Please be seated. Have you ever been in a position where you're lost and you ask somebody for directions?

And as they start giving you the directions, you realize this person has absolutely no sense of direction whatsoever.

They are directionally challenged. They don't know north, they don't know south, they don't know east or west.

Lots of people have a bad sense or no sense of direction and therefore cannot give you those directions or take them, even with the

GPS. You know, when I first started to drive, we didn't have GPS. We had

Hagstrom maps. Remember the ones, they're like this big and you folded them out and it looked like a giant tablecloth in your car you were hiding behind.

Right? And you gotta look up the street name. Okay, that's box D4. A, B, C, D, 1, 2, 3, 4.

Oh, right? You got a lesson in map reading and origami at the same time.

So let me ask you this. Let's say I'm giving you directions. I want you to go five miles, then make a left, go another two miles, bear right at the fork and look for the blue house on the left.

Would you be able to get there? Some of you who aren't directionally challenged will rightly ask, well, where are we starting from?

Where do you start? Where am I facing when you tell me to go five miles?

Right? Because I could tell you to go five miles if you're facing east, but if I mean south, you're not going to get there.

It all depends on your vantage point, where you are at the time. I can recall a time when my kids were going to Grace Christian Academy in Merrick and my wife picked them up from school and bringing them home and there must have been an accident on the

Southern State Parkway and they're directing all of the traffic off the Southern State Parkway. So I get a phone call, a panic.

Honey, I need you to help get me home. It's all right, no problem. What exit did you get off? I don't know.

Okay. What direction are you going? South, north? I don't know. Okay. What town are you in?

I don't know. What street are you on? I don't know.

I said, honey, where are you? Her response, I'm right here. Now I had permission before I told that.

If you want to arrive at the proper destination, you need to know where to start and what direction you're going.

If you start in the wrong place, you are going to end up at the wrong destination. Even if you start in the right place, but you're faced in the wrong direction, you will still end up in the wrong place.

Your starting point is imperative. When I read Genesis 3, the passage this morning,

I wanted to know, where is this? I started asking questions, lots of them, like we learned this morning in Sunday school, about asking questions of the text.

We need to probe. We need to be like private eyes, asking, what does this text mean?

Where is it in the scriptures? Raise questions. So here are some of the questions

I had regarding the text that we read this morning in Genesis 3. What is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

What does fruit have to do with knowing good and evil? Why did

God single out a tree? Why this particular tree? Why would

God prohibit Adam and Eve from eating of the tree if he knows they're going to fail and fall into sin anyway?

I mean, God's omniscient. He knows the end from the beginning. Why decree this situation for humanity and their subsequent fall and plunge the entire world into sin?

Were they set up to fail? Why would God allow

Satan into the garden? Why would God allow or decree any of this or all of this in the first place?

Those are some of the questions I had. And other Christians have had these very same questions and grappling with this for centuries.

And it's usually aimed at the Reformed view of salvation because we hold to an exhaustive view of God's sovereignty and that God actually decreed the fall of man into sin.

Now, I'm not going to be able to answer all of those questions. Nor will I try to. But I want to try to give us some insight.

So let's start with the most common answer behind the reason given for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of the fall, and Adam and Eve's eating the forbidden fruit.

And the explanation goes like this. The tree in the Garden of Eden was a test for Adam and Eve.

It's a tree of testing. It's designed to test Adam and Eve's love for God based on their free will.

Will they trust and obey God? Will they remain faithful to what God has told them to do?

Will they trust their own knowledge? Or will they disobey and trust in their own knowledge?

This explanation of the tree and the fall stresses the free will choice of man as we're told that true love involves a choice.

This explanation includes the capacity for moral freedom and the ability to love or not love.

It includes the sovereignty of God to rule over Adam and Eve but not make their decision for them.

And it includes an adversary, Satan, that wants to harm them. And you know what?

There is some truth to that explanation. Because it's sometimes in the test that you really learn who someone is.

You may never really know if someone loves you until that love is tested. For instance, if a man proclaims his love for his wife but then another woman comes along and garners his attention and he seeks her out, you might say he really didn't love his wife.

His words do not show his actions. His actions don't line up with what he said.

If it's real love, the man will pass the test and not pursue another woman and vice versa.

She would never seek out another man. The testing would prove their fidelity, prove their loyalty, prove their conviction and their love for one another.

It would be a test of the truth of their love. A man's love for his wife would be proven true by being faithful.

But you would only know that because his love was put to the test. Anyone can sing along with Whitney Houston when things are going bad, going good and belt out,

I will always love you. Now I'm going to spare your hearing and my sinning and not sing that for you.

But the point is this. It's only when things don't go well that the reality of a couple's love can be tested and proven.

Real love is proven when a real test is presented. That's where the rubber meets the road.

Real love is proven by a real test to be really true or not in the event it fails.

We witnessed a wedding here two weeks ago on Thursday. Praise God, it was beautiful. Honored to be a part of it and honored to know you guys.

We were witnesses to Dan and Sarah's marriage and their vows.

In a marriage ceremony, we recite vows that include for better or worse.

Oh how that is gone by the wayside. And it's only through the trials of life that those vows will be tested and proved.

Now let me inform you of something guys. The test is coming whether you like it or not. We all get that test.

Jesus says in this world you will have trouble. That's the promise none of the health, wealth, and prosperity guys cling to.

He says through much tribulation we will enter the kingdom of God. C .S.

Lewis says this. You recite vows not in preparation for when things are going well but to prepare you for when things don't go well.

That's when you need the vows and that's when you need to remember them. No one would need vows if everything in life was rosy.

That's where the rubber meets the road. And your profession of love will get put to the test to prove if it's a profession of love for the other person or the true possession of love for the other person.

We will all encounter many tests, many successes, and many failures.

The only way you know for sure and prove that your profession is true is when the test comes and your relationship survives.

So, what does this have to do with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Is it conceivable that God sets up a test with the tree and he allows the test?

He allows Satan into the garden to test Adam's and Eve's faithfulness and love for God.

Yes, I think that view has merit and we actually have biblical precedent for it. But we have to make sure that we do not go too far and say that it was

God tempting them in the garden. God is not the tempter. He tempts no one.

There is temptation, but it's Satan that's tempting them. And here's our precedent. God is not the tempter.

If you want to turn with me in your Bibles to Deuteronomy 8, I'm going to be reading verses 2 and 3.

And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord has led you these 40 years in the wilderness.

So this is the Israelites coming out of Egypt and now brought into the wilderness. He has led you these 40 years in the wilderness that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

So the test comes, not so that God discovers information, but that we would discover something.

What's in our heart continues. And God humbled you and let you hunger.

Hunger is pain. Hunger is suffering. He let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

We are not to be dependent on just physical sustenance. We are to be dependent on God's spiritual sustenance.

This applies to prophecy as well. Deuteronomy 13. If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass.

But then he says, let us go after other gods, which you have not known. You shall not listen to the

Lord, to the words of that prophet or that dreamer. Why? For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the

Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. The test is to reveal something to us.

You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice. And you shall serve him and hold fast to him.

But that prophet, that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death. We actually see

Jesus employ this in the New Testament, Matthew 7 .21. Scariest words in all of scripture.

Many will come to me on that day saying, Lord, Lord. Oh, we know you,

Lord. We know who you are. Didn't we prophesy in your name, cast out demons, perform miracles.

Jesus looks at them, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you. There are people who think they know the

Lord, doing things they shouldn't. They consider the law not binding.

I never knew you. Psalm 7 .9. Let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous.

You who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God. God tests the minds and the hearts. He's testing us, not tempting us.

Jeremiah 17. I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.

God tests the minds. In Psalm 105, the psalmist says the Lord tested Joseph when he was thrown into the pit.

Testing is a proving ground for the human mind and heart, and initiated by God.

So how are you doing? How are you doing with the test that God has been giving you? Are you passing?

Are you failing? Tests are a proving ground of love through obedience.

So the tree in the garden is a true test. It's a tree of testing. Let's look at what we read about this morning out of Job chapter 1.

After walking around on the earth looking for someone to tempt, this is

Satan, Satan comes before the Lord. And how does God respond to Satan? God offers

Job up to Satan. Here, try him. Have you considered my servant

Job? That there's none like him on all the earth? Don't do that to me.

Please. Why? We ask, why would God do that to Job? But listen how

Job responds. He says, shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?

Shall we accept good but not adversity? Do you and I respond that way when we're tested?

You might respond, I might respond, what did I do to deserve this? Not Job.

John MacArthur says this, God's servant Job doesn't deny that he suffered. He does deny, however, that his suffering is a result of sin.

He doesn't understand why he suffers. Job simply commits his ordeal with a devout heart of worship and humility to a sovereign and perfectly wise creator.

That's good counsel. Commit yourself to a sovereign and perfectly wise creator.

So we see, we learn in this case, suffering is not necessarily the result of sinfulness. So what exactly is

Job being taught through the test? Another commentator notes, the book of Job does not provide a direct explanation for why

God tests Job in the way he does. God never gives any explanation to Job for his suffering, nor does he mention

Satan. In fact, at the end of the book, it's Job who's getting grilled by God and being asked questions that he can't answer.

Gird up your loins, prepare yourself for action, Job. Here's what I'm going to ask you. Where were you when

I created the heavens and the earth? Where were you when I created Leviathan? Where were you?

Job is a sinner just like us. He does remain faithful, and he does suffer, and he is upright.

But we're never told why he suffers. We might ask, was the test given to Job to see if Job loved

God for who God is or for what God gives? Did Job love

God for the benefits God offers? Does Job love the giver or the gift?

If you love the giver, if you love the gift more than the giver, the gifts are going to stop. It's a good question to ask yourself.

Do you love God because he's God, or do you love God because of what he gives you? So God offers

Job up to Satan to test him, but Satan desires to tempt him.

This is the same thing that happened in the garden with a different result. Satan tempted and successfully deceived

Eve in the garden. She traded the giver for the gift. I want the fruit. Satan says, oh, you can have the fruit.

You should have the fruit. You're not going to die. Because God knows when you eat of it, you're going to be just like him.

God doesn't want you to know that. He's withholding it. You deserve the fruit.

Here, Satan is tempting Eve and Adam while God is testing Eve and Adam.

Satan was tempting Job while God was testing

Adam and Eve. So from God's vantage point, he intends and uses this tree as a tree of testing, but from Satan's vantage point, he intends it as a tree of temptation.

Same tree, two different directions, two different intentions, two very different vantage points.

One good, one evil. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a tree of testing and a tree of temptation.

From God's vantage point, he's never the tempter. He's the tester. In fact, we know that God works all things together for good.

He means it for the good of those who love him. In contrast, however, Satan is the tempter.

He is the one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. We see this in Matthew 4.

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. I go four hours without eating, I'm hungry.

40 days, 40 nights, and the tempter comes to him and says, if you're the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread, gold to an

Italian's ears. Satan tempts him with food.

What does Jesus say? Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word out of the mouth of God. Satan, if you're the son of God, throw yourself down.

Angels will help you. You won't get hurt. He tempts him with protection. Jesus, you shall not put the

Lord your God to the test. Satan, fall down and worship me, and I will give you the entire kingdom.

He tries to tempt Jesus with power. Jesus, be gone, Satan, written in your word.

It is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Jesus passes the test.

But did you catch Jesus' first answer? He responds, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.

Where did we just hear that? Deuteronomy 8. The Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness.

Jesus is in the wilderness 40 days. That he might humble you, testing you.

Jesus is being tested to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

This is a test for Jesus from God. To know what was in his heart.

And you know what was in Jesus' heart? Love for the Father. I have come to do your will, and I'm going to do it.

I love the giver. Jesus will not be tempted by Satan as he passes the test given to him by God.

He's valuing the giver and his every word, not the gifts.

Incidentally, the next time Jesus would hear that phrase, if you're the son of God, would be when he's hanging on a cross.

If you're the son of God, get yourself down from there. Like Adam in the garden,

Jesus is being tested by God. The devil tries to tempt him, but Jesus is

God in the flesh. He's impeccable. It won't happen. We also know that Jesus is the last

Adam. So this is a recapitulation of the event in the garden. And Jesus doesn't fail.

But why would God continue testing the hearts of man and reveal their continual failings?

We do sometimes pass the test, and we're happy. But not all times. Sometimes we fail.

Maybe we need to take another look at this tree. To re -look at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from a different vantage point and ask more questions.

Are we starting from the right position? Are we facing in the right direction? What might we be missing as we read this account?

You see, as human beings, creatures with fallen human nature, we often ask the why question with our own self -serving interests as the priority.

We ask as if the answer to the question centers or hinges around our own comfort and pleasure.

We put me in the center. About eight years ago, there was a conference called

Code Orange. And a popular pastor went into the conference, and he was speaking to a decidedly me -centered congregation.

And he went through this story of David and Goliath. How David picks up the stones, hurls it at Goliath, knocks him over.

And this preacher told the congregation, you're not David. Give him five stones, you're going to miss every time.

If you put yourself in the story, you're more like the Israelites hanging out behind the weeds saying, he's going to get me next.

That's where you belong. That's one way we misinterpret the scripture by making ourselves the center of attention.

By putting ourselves in the center and saying, this is about me. David is a type and shadow of a greater

David, Jesus. That's who that's pointing to. We need to know who the main character of the

Bible is. It's not you. It's not me. Another way we do this is by not accurately reading the

Bible in context. Remember Matthew 24? When Jesus says he's coming on the clouds of heaven, so many people think, oh, this is coming,

Jesus coming down to earth. This is his second coming. Why does it say that?

The book of Daniel says that Jesus, the son of man, is approaching the ancient of days, his father in heaven.

So that would mean Jesus is going up, not down. And coming on the clouds is a sign of judgment, not joy.

Your vantage point, what direction you're facing, matters here. This also holds true when we're examining the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

We need to get ourselves out of the center of that narrative. Is it possible that the tree in the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, is not just a proving ground for humanity, but also a proving ground for God?

It's where he proves to Adam, Eve, and Satan that his love never fails, that Satan doesn't have a chance, that he is a defeated foe.

I propose to you that the tree is a proving ground for both man and God, designed to reveal to us

God's commitment to his people. God is the center and the focus of this account, and he is the one who's going to get the glory.

So God puts the tree in the center of the garden to prove that, if tested, all of humanity would disobey him, while also proving and revealing to humanity his abundant mercy, his abundant grace, and his rescuing him even after they disobey.

He says, eat the fruit and you will die. Did they die? Spiritually, yes, but they're still alive.

If they're still alive, that's mercy. That's getting what you don't deserve, not getting what you deserve,

I should say. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. In addition, God pursues them. They run away.

He pursues them. God finds them and clothes them with animal skins. What's that? Grace.

Getting what you don't deserve. They got what they didn't deserve. God intervened.

He could have walked away. In the New Testament, we know this as but God. But God. But God.

This is the first but God without but God. Then God also displays justice towards the serpent.

Remember, this is the tree that was to reveal, to impart the knowledge of good and evil.

So we should better understand good and evil after this, correct? The fall shows that given the right circumstances at the right time, all of humanity would turn away and rebel.

We are all capable of unthinkable rebellion in the middle of paradise. They had everything they could want.

Nothing is wrong. You can eat from the fruit of any tree. Just not that one.

You have communion with God. You're in paradise. And their minds had not been stained by sin yet.

Man is mutable. We are capable of change. God is not.

But put in the very same set of circumstances, God will use this scene to display his mercy, display his grace, display his goodness.

Where man turns away from God, God turns toward man and pursues him. This is what we learn.

Only God is good. Only God is good. If you can grab that and stick that in your head and heart, changes everything.

The tree reveals the capacity for evil in the heart of mankind, while also revealing the unfathomable, vast, profound goodness and compassion of God.

This is the knowledge of good and evil. Only God is good. Humanity is capable of horrendous evil.

The fall also allows God to show Adam and Eve and us the depth of his love for us, while exposing their lack, our lack of love for him.

Look at us on this side of the cross. How often we fail. Have you loved

God with all your heart or your soul, all your mind and all of your strength?

If our salvation depends on our love for God in the midst of a test, we're sunk. It's over.

This will truly be the tree that reveals the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of the goodness of God and the knowledge of the capacity for evil in the human heart.

Remember the new covenant in Ezekiel 36. I say this over and over again. You get all the

I wills in Ezekiel 36. God says, I will cleanse you from your uncleanness.

I will deliver you. I will place you in the land. I will give you a new heart. I will write my laws upon your heart.

I will place my spirit in you and keep you from turning to the right or the left. I will, I will,

I will. And then we get down to the two you wills. Then you will remember your evil deeds and your ways that were not good and you will loathe yourself.

You will recognize the depth of the evil of your own heart. But that's a good thing.

The tree proves. It reveals man's disobedience and rebellion, but it also proves

God's mercy and grace and commitment in forgiving them. God is the one who pursues

Adam and Eve. They were not looking for him. They went into hiding. He went looking for them. And he asks, where are you?

That's a question of direction. Where are you? You turned. You left me. You need to repent.

You need to turn back. When God said to Adam, where are you? You know what his answer wasn't? I'm right here.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not plan B. It was always plan

A from the beginning. Here's our problem. As depraved humanity, we always put ourselves in the center of the story and try to see how the story of the tree revolves around us.

Humanity questions, why would God allow this? I got to talk to him. Why allow

Satan in the garden? Why forbid a piece of fruit? Me, self, me, me, me, self, me, me, meology.

Adam and Eve were given everything they needed, everything they could have wanted in the middle of paradise, and yet still sin.

And so would we. And still some complain, why did he allow this?

What a wicked sense of entitlement we have. In a conversation I had this week online, someone said this, because our position is

God's the one who does the saving. The response I got was, if God could have saved everyone, he ought to have done that.

Imagine the creature telling the creator what he ought to have done.

Wicked, wicked. What we need to do is pause, humble ourselves, and consider how this account revolves around God.

What is his vantage point? What is his purpose in the midst of this? How does this serve to reveal

God's character and glorify him? What humanity usually sees is man's failure to obey the test, and that's true.

And what they assume is God's setting them up to fail. Or worse, that their own choice to love

God is the determining factor. Man -centered. However, what we miss when we place ourselves in the center, but what we need to see, is

God's faithfulness and victory over sin through love, because true love does involve a choice.

God's. Are you counting on the strength of your love for God, or the strength of God's love for you?

God could have left all of humanity alone and walked away, because none of us has, or could, love

God the way we're supposed to. The tree in the Garden of Eden is the tree of testing and the tree of temptation.

However, there were two trees in the garden. There was another tree. This tree, the tree of life, is a foreshadow of the cross.

Remember, the tree at Calvary. A cross. Galatians 3.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not plan B, it was plan A from the beginning, and so was the tree at Calvary.

Why? Because God is going to get the glory in rescuing his sinners. When Abraham was about to sacrifice his son,

God says, stop, stop. Now I know you love me. This would be a foreshadow of something else.

The fulfillment of this would eventually come when God, the Father, does the very same thing to his son, yet not stop when it came to crushing his own son.

Isaiah 53. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. We esteemed him stricken, struck by God, and afflicted.

He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

The tree of life in the garden was a foreshadow of the tree at Calvary. Without that tree, without that test, we would never understand the unfathomable depths of the love

God has for us. Like, I'm running out of adjectives to describe this love. How do you describe

God's love? How should we respond to God's love?

Paul tells us in Ephesians 3, and I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, the love that God has for us, being rooted and established in God's love, you may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.

This is the 4K love of God. Height, depth, weight, deep, long.

And when Jesus says for better or worse, he means it.

He loves you for better or worse. We could never, would never perceive, know experientially the depth of God's love for us had he not decreed the fall to take place and demonstrate through the cross his unfailing, chesed, steadfast love through sacrifice of his only son.

The tree in the garden was intentional, and so was the tree at Calvary. Herod, Pontius Pilate, the

Jews, and the Romans all did what your hand predestined them to do, to put

Jesus on the cross. That was determined before creation. This is not plan

B. The tree in the garden is a tree of testing from man's vantage point, and it's the tree of temptation from Satan's vantage point, but it becomes the tree of triumph from God's vantage point.

It's where he wins. He wins. He conquers and subdues us with the sacrificial love he showed at the cross.

Jesus would say in John 15, Great a love has no man than this. Then he lay his life down for his friends.

That's an enormously great and sacrificial love, but that doesn't capture what

Jesus did at the cross. It's at the cross that Jesus lays down his life for his enemies, for you and I.

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He demonstrates it so we see it.

That's a kind of love not rooted in anything human. It's divine.

Ironic, though, is humanity's perception. While on one hand they claim that we were set up to fail and it's not fair, none of them ever say that about Jesus.

Somehow Jesus suffering and going to the cross is fair. That's okay.

See, how our fallen perception needs to change.

We deserve the curse. He didn't. But think about what would happen without the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, without the fall of mankind.

Humanity would never know, have actual knowledge experientially of the hesed, steadfast, covenantal love of God, the abundant grace of God, the incredible mercy of God, and the unbreakable blessed peace with God through Jesus.

We read this morning, how does the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ? The Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ by working faith in us and thereby uniting us to Christ in our calling.

We are united to him because of what he did. And the only way humanity would ever know and experience that would be through a test.

So there was a tree, there was a test, and here's God's answer. Yes, I will love my people.

I will love my enemies and pursue them. I will love you to death, for better or worse.

We can trust the God of redemption more than we can trust ourselves. And God eliminates any hypotheticals when he decrees the fall of man and then pursues his image bearers to save them.

He is a God of great love, great mercy, abounding grace. And he displays that at the moment of the first sin.

And then he proves his love in the most amazing way possible at the cross. What we need to see from our vantage point is that we were created to be dependent on God for everything.

We were not created to be independent. The very fabric of reality in philosophy, it's called the metaphysic of reality, is relational.

Everything in the fabric of this world is related to one another. Why? Because it represents the nature of God, which is relational.

Father, Son, and Spirit. A unity in community and a community in unity. God is love.

You cannot live by bread alone. Yes, you need physical sustenance, but you need to eat every word out of the mouth of God.

And God's love is the type of love that never fails, which brings me back to Job 1.

Satan says, does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has?

You've blessed the work of his hands, so his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.

In other words, Satan's telling God, Job doesn't really love you,

God. He just loves the gifts you give him. Stop giving him the gifts, and we'll see what happens.

Now, we know Job passes the test. But why? Was Job a super saint?

God did say he was upright and blameless. But why does Job or anyone else love

God? We love him because he first loved us.

Job was loved by God. It's true of him as well. Listen, total depravity didn't start in the

New Testament. Total depravity has its origin and its ground in the Old Testament at the fall.

So anyone who's going to be saved, if Job's a believer, it's because God has changed his heart.

He has been born of God's spirit. Old Testament saints were born again by faith in the future coming of Jesus.

We look back at the cross and we have faith in that. They had faith in what was to come. Think of it from a different vantage point.

The test that God allows for Job doesn't just prove Job's love for God, it proves

God's love for Job. Remember, to him who is able to keep you from falling and present you before his throne, spotless, without blemish.

That's God. Job was a sinner like us. He was a recipient of eternal life.

He was the recipient of a new heart from God with his laws written on it so that he would not turn to the right or to the left.

Yes, Satan attacked his externals. You know what he couldn't attack? His internals.

He was born of imperishable seed. Satan can't touch that. Because Job's heart was changed, regenerated, he would now know to love the giver more than the gifts.

He would love God and cherish his relationship with God over and above everything else.

We too know by God's spirit who we're to love. Now sometimes we pass, sometimes we fail, but we know the one who passed forever.

Satan could attack his possessions but could not attack his possessor. Job belonged to God.

Job points us to the one who would not only suffer for us but would volunteer and suffer in our place.

Satan's test really proved, Satan's temptation and test really proved

God's love for Job as well as Job's love for God because apart from God's salvation, no human being would love

God. Let me ask you, do you really think God was just confident in Job's human ability? Oh, he's a good guy, watch.

As if man, unaided, had the innate power in and of himself to remain faithful during the attacks of Satan, a very powerful angel.

Jesus said, apart from me, you can do nothing. God was in the midst of this with Job, sustaining him.

God was confident in his own saving, transforming love for Job.

Job received a transforming, salvific love that would survive the most extreme test that Job could ever face because he was born of God's seed, imperishable.

Which loves, which love, yours or God's, would you be more confident in? Which one would you choose?

Would you like to put your love for God up against his love for you? It's not our love for God that saves us.

It's his love for us that saves us. It's his love for us that changes us. It's his love for us that sustains us.

It's his love for us that perfects us. It's God's amazing love for us that transforms us and preserves us through the trials that come our way, not the other way around.

Your love for God is not where the power comes from. That's not where the power lies. It's the gospel that's the power of God unto salvation.

Rely on him. It's his love for us that changes our destiny. It's his love for us that wins the day.

It's his love for us that secures our victory. Lest you think that the power lies in your love for God. Ironically, that's the lie.

The tree in the garden and the tree at Calvary was God's proving ground to humanity that he is love.

God didn't commit sin or tempt us, but he did decree a fall so that he would be glorified in overcoming it.

He would be glorified in conquering sin. It would become the tree of triumph. And in doing so, he used it to demonstrate his deep, unfailing, steadfast love for his people.

Yes, God still tests us to see what's in our hearts. And he allows us to hunger. In fact, our confession says this.

God allows us to stray for a while so that we understand and know, apart from God, we're nothing.

So that we depend and feed on every word out of his mouth. But he also sends

Jesus to show us what's in his heart so that we depend on his unfailing love through each and every trial.

This account is all about God's great grace, all about God's great mercy, in spite of our wickedness.

If you're going to ask the question, why would God cause me to suffer or allow me to suffer?

You had better ask that question in light of another question. Why would God cause you to be born again?

Why would he allow you to be his child? It is because of him that you're in Christ Jesus.

The father would put his son on the tree at Calvary to once again display for us what true evil deserves, but what true love is willing to do.

Men, love your wife like Christ loved the church. How could you do that?

That's divine love. But that's the bar, that's the standard.

Our failing this test, and so many others, not only shows us how frail and weak our love is for God, but it also shows, it proves, how real and true is his love for us.

The tree highlights for us God's nature, immutable, versus our nature, mutable.

God's ability, unfailing, versus our inability. God's devotion, pure, our devotion, defiled.

It highlights God's hesed, steadfast love, versus our fluctuating love.

His is dependable, ours is not. The tree in the garden and the tree at Calvary are vital.

Now, I know I didn't answer all of our questions that I posed this morning, but I hope I helped you see from God's vantage point how this is about him and his victory.

When you're asking for directions or giving someone else directions, it's very important to know what your starting point and your direction is to face, because that's gonna determine your destination.

In following directions, where you start is just as important as where you finish, and it's crucial to your salvation as well.

Do you think God's here for you and everything revolves around you? Or are you here for God and realize it's his creation and everything revolves around him?

Your vantage point will make all the difference. If you're running away, it's a different direction.

Change your direction. The word is repent. Turn back. Come towards God.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, as we come to you this morning, even the very words we use to describe you and your love are inadequate.

Father, may we never get over the wonder and the awe of our own salvation. This is your work from beginning to end, out of your great grace and your great mercy.

Father, may we receive this with great joy and properly reflect you to the people around us.

Help us to be merciful. Help us to love you the way you love us. Father, it's a daunting task, but Father, you are worthy of it all.

Father, we thank you and we praise you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You have been listening to the

Reformed Rookie Podcast, where we aim to teach Reformed Theology to beginners or rookies. Be sure to look us up on the web at www .reformedrookie

.com, where you will find many more learning tools and aids to help you grow in your understanding of all things

Reformed. And remember, Semper Reformanda! Dr.

Luther, are you prepared to retract these writings? In Psalm I discuss faith and good works.

If I were to retract these, I should be denying accepted Christian truths. Dr. Luther, you have not yet answered the question.

Will you recant or will you not? Here it is. I am bound to my beliefs by the text of the

Bible. My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant.

Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.