Well, he went into the garden
with his disciples, and I want us to spend a little bit of time
looking at the four gardens, and I'm taking a little bit of
license with the last one, but when there's a stream and there
are trees on either side of the stream, I figure it's a garden.
That's the garden in Revelation chapter 22, and it's a glorious
garden. I want us to know again and see
from the scriptures again what happened in the gardens. Quite
simply, I want us to know what happened in the Garden of Eden. And then what happened in the
Garden of Gethsemane? And what happened in the Garden
of Calvary? And why? What happened in those three
gardens is why God's children can enter into that garden in
the new creation. I can't... I remember there was
a young trainee pastor went to see an
old fellow dying in hospital and he had a picture window outside
of his area and he had a beautiful garden with flowers in it. And
the young fellow said to the old man, won't it be wonderful? Won't the flowers in heaven be
wonderful? And the old guy looked at him
and said, I'm not much interested in the flowers in heaven. I just
want to see Jesus and say thank you. be in His presence. I want us to just know that God's
word is truth. We are saved by the truth. Multitudes,
according to God, die with a lie in their right hand. Their right
hand is the hand of power, the right hand the hand of which
they trust. There are many that see themselves
as clean and as right with God, But we have read in John Chapter
17 of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, the glory of His eternal
union, the glory of His triumph in and over this world and His
people. And God commands me and all of
those who are sent to preach in his behalf and to preach the
glories of his dear and precious Son, we are to comfort the children
of God. And I want there to be comfort
for us. I want there to be assurance. I want us to have, in Colossians
2, it speaks of their hearts being comforted, being knit together
in love unto all the riches of full assurance of understanding
and to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the
Father and of Christ. Paul when he's writing to Thessalonians
says, Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in
power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. That's not assurance about themselves
being right, but it's much assurance about the fact that this is the
word from God. You can read it in the next chapter.
These words are the words of God, they're not the words of
men. And you know what manner of men we were among you for
your sake. Hebrews speaks of the full assurance
in chapter 6 verse 11, the full assurance of hope. unto the end. In Hebrews chapter 10, verse
22, he says, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance
of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our
bodies washed in pure water. Eternal life according to the
Lord Jesus Christ is knowing Him, knowing Him in the truth
of who He is and the truth of who He declares Himself to be. And God is revealed in these
four gardens in particular and wonderful ways. What happened
in the Garden of Eden? We won't understand what happened
in these other gardens unless we understand what happened in
the Garden of Eden. We won't know what's in the brook
Kidron and we won't know what's in the cup unless we know what
happened in the Garden of Eden. So turn with me back to Genesis.
I know we go there often, but it's a very, very good thing
to do. right at the very beginning of
the scriptures. In verse 26 of chapter one, God says, let us
make man in our image after our likeness. Let them have dominion
over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, over the
cattle, over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth. He sends them forth. Male and
female, he created them in verse 28, and God blessed them and
said unto them, be fruitful and multiply. In verse 31, God gives
his judgment, his assessment of all that he'd done. And as
you can imagine, God saw everything that he had made, and behold,
it was very good. In the evening of the morning
of the sixth day, Over to Genesis chapter 2, across the page. And
the Lord God, verse 7, and the Lord God formed the man out of
the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of the life, and man became a living soul. He's not like the rest
of creation. He's not some hyper-souped-up
monkey or something that people want to say that we are. We have
the breath of God breathe into us. The man became a living soul
and the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden. There he put
the man whom he had formed. Verse 15, and the Lord God took
the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and
keep it. And the Lord God commanded the
man saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt
not eat it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt
surely die. In chapter 3 we have the story
of the temptation and verse 6, for want of time we'll go down
there. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food
and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired
to make one wise, she took the fruit thereof and did eat, and
gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of both of them
were opened, and they knew they were naked. And they sewed fig
leaves together, and they made themselves apron. And they heard
the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of
the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence
of the Lord God among the trees in the garden. So what happened
in the garden of Eden? Man died. We know that Adam lives
for hundreds of years after this, and Eve as well, most likely. Man died instantly, spiritually,
in that day when Adam ate, 100% of humanity was there, and 100%
of humanity died spiritually. What does that mean? What happened? What does it mean? It means that
all mankind, all mankind is dead to God's existence, God's glory,
God's holiness, God's righteousness, God's justice, God's truth, God's
love, God's beauty, God's sovereignty, God's wisdom. His will is dead
to God, to himself, and to his salvation. We are commanded, isn't we, taste
and see that the Lord is gracious. Dead people can't taste. Come
unto me, says our Lord Jesus Christ, but dead people can't
move. Believe on me, but dead people can't see or believe.
Call on the name of the Lord, but dead people can't call. They're
not just sick, they're dead. They're not just disabled, they
are dead. They're not just hindered by
circumstances of their life or others around them, they're dead.
They're not injured, they're dead. They're not ignorant, they're
dead. They're not just disobedient,
they're dead. Dead and separated from God. What happened in the Garden of
Eden? Mankind died. Mankind died, and secondly, mankind
earned something from God. Romans 6.23, the wages of sin
is death, and God will have no debtors, and God will be a debtor
to none. He will pay. Man earned a debt. Man became deserving of something. He is owed death from God. Listen to how Romans 5.12 says
it. Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men, in that all have sinned. As 1 Corinthians 15 says, in
Adam all die. See man doesn't need reformation. He needs life. If he's dead,
he needs life. There was a sign on a church
up the road here that used to say, life remastered. That's what religion of men is
doing, isn't it? Life remastered. You take some
of the old movie that's all sort of scratched and faded and something,
and you put it through some sort of computer system. You know
more about it than I do. I wouldn't have a foggiest notion.
But it comes out as this brand sparkling new movie, doesn't
it? Remastered. They used to brag
about the fact that this is the place where you get remastered.
If you were dead, you don't need remastering. You don't need reformation. You need life. He doesn't need a support group.
He doesn't need good advice. He doesn't need religion, no
matter how sincere and how zealous. He doesn't need an education.
He doesn't need moral reformation. God's put man in a situation
where he needs life. You must be born again. The Lord Jesus says to the most
religious man in all of Jerusalem, in all of Israel, the teacher
of Israel, you can't see. He could see all sorts of things,
Nicodemus, but he couldn't see the kingdom of God. He couldn't
see the king of the kingdom, even when the king of the kingdom
was standing before him saying, I am the king of the kingdom
and proving it. Man needs life from God. Man needs life from God. Can God cast man out of the garden? Listen to the judgment of God,
verse 24 of Genesis 3. So he drove out the man and he
placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming
sword which turned every way to keep the way of the Tree of
Life. to guard the way to the Tree
of Life. If you don't get to the Tree
of Life, you cannot live forever. Adam was cast out as a sinner
because if he got to the Tree of Life, he would have lived
as a sinner forever. It was a mercy that God cast
him out. But also, that flaming sword
indicates that there is absolutely no way that man, by anything
he does, can get back to the Tree of Life. Someone from outside,
someone from inside the garden must come out. That sword, that
sword is the sword that God the Father used to slay his son,
Zechariah 1370, says, awake, O sword, against my fellow, against
my servant. How does a man get back? The wages of sin is death. His
problem is sin. There's only one answer. How
does a man get life? If a man is dead in trespasses
and sins, the only possible hope of having life is having your
sins removed. Sin doesn't just need to be tamed
and it ought to be tamed. that has to be removed. It's
not just the sins have to be forgiven, they have to be forgiven,
but they have to be removed. And so, now we come to the next
garden, and this is the garden that's before us here in John
chapter 18. What happened in the garden of
Gethsemane? What happened in the garden of Gethsemane? As
I said earlier, the Lord Jesus Christ, for the only time in
all of creation's history, was groaning in agony and sweating
great drops of blood with his heart broken. Was he turning
from the mission when he says, Oh, my father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will.
But thou, was he turning from the mission for which he'd come
into this world? He says he set his face like
a flint. He says, for the joy that was
set before him, he went to the cross. He says, for this cause
came I into the world. This is why he was here. Listen
to what he says. If this cup may not pass from
me except I drink it, thy will be done. He was crushed under
the weight of sin. the sin that was in that cup. It pleased the Father to crush
him. The Father gave the Lord Jesus
Christ a cup in the garden. Not a physical cup, but a cup
nonetheless. We use cups in cooking. What
does a cup do? It measures things, doesn't it?
It measures things precisely and exactly. There was a cup
given him. The wrath of God was in the cup. But the wrath of God is only
expended where there is sin. The wrath of God is attached
to the sin. Now Wanda, we should go back
to John 17 all the time, isn't it? The last part of his prayer
is a righteous father. This was a righteous act. It was a righteous act of God
the Father to give a cup into the hands of his son for him
to drink. It was a righteous act of God the Father to crush
his son. It was a righteous act of God
the Father to make His Son to be sin. All the sins of all those
He was in union with, those the Father gave Him from the foundation
of the world, God took all of the sins of all of those people
And in his omniscience, who knows all, and in his omnipotence and
power over all, they're all in a cup. They're all placed in
a cup. And he gave it to his son, and
he said to his son, you drink this cup, you drink it dry. That was what was happening in
the garden. He laid on him the iniquity of
us all. The sins weren't Christ's sins
until he was sinless. He never sinned and he never
could sin. He never did sin and he never
could sin. It was impossible for him to
sin. And yet, those sins, when he was made sin, he drank all
those sins into himself. and those sins which cursed this
creation and put all mankind under the curse of the law. He
was made a curse. He was made sin. Sin cannot be
righteously and justly in two places at the same time. All that sin was taken from all
of God's children and became truthfully as promised and as
pictured throughout all of the Old Testament. What happened
to all that sin? What did he do with it? When
it entered him as he drank that cup, what happened? We'd have
to go to the garden of Calvary. What happened at the cross of
Calvary? What was going on? during those
hours and those hours of darkness when our Lord and Saviour was
hanging on that tree. Listen to what Colossians chapter
2 says about it. He says, And you being dead in
your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened
together with him, having forgiven you Listen to what he goes on to
say. What happened to all of our sins? He nailed it to his cross. Some
people in religion think that He took away all of my sins when
I first come to faith and repentance and now I'm responsible for keeping
myself clean and I'm responsible for dealing with my sins and
I have to be in this continual state of repentance and faith
and coming and bowing and coming back to Him. and God's children
do in some sense, but that's not living in the faithfulness
of what he says. He nailed it to the cross, having
forgiven you all your trespasses. When he said to that lady in
Luke 7, Thy sins are forgiven. Go in peace, thy faith has saved
you. How many of her sins were forgiven? 100% of her sins were forgiven. He
fulfilled the wages, the wages of sin is death. He owed something,
didn't he? Death. He bowed his mighty head and
he gave up the ghost. What did he accomplish? Did he
actually do something? Did he actually achieve something
at the cross at Calvary? Did he actually achieve something
by taking that cup and drinking it down and drinking that dry? Did he accomplish something with
his death? Or did he just try and make something
possible? Did he make it such that he's
now making an offer of salvation? Never in the scriptures does
it speak of that. He made an offering of himself
to God and he saved his people. He bought his people. That's
what redemption means, is to buy back at a price, a set price. Did he get what he paid for?
It says in Acts chapter 20 that he purchased the church of God
which he had bought. Listen to what it says. You take
he therefore of yourselves and all the flock over which the
Holy Ghost has made you overseas. Feed the church of God which
he has purchased with his own blood. Get what he paid for. Religion says he tried. And if
you'll do something, it'll work for you. They must be saved. There's absolutely
no way in the world they cannot be saved. In fact they were saved
from before the foundation of the world. Listen to what Hebrews
chapter 9 says. I do love Hebrews 9 so much. These verses are just glorious.
In Hebrews 9, and as you know I love reading on
into Hebrews chapter 10, it says, Verse 12, neither by the blood
of goats and cows, but by his own blood, he entered in once
into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. He saved his people from their
sins. You'll call his name Jesus. He
shall save his people from their sins. Verse 28 of the same chapter. It says, so Christ was offered
once to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him
he shall appear the second time without sin. Why can he appear
without sin? It's all gone. It's all gone. It doesn't exist any longer. In Hebrews 10, 14, for by one
offering, He has perfected forever them that are sanctified. What happened in the Garden of
Eden? Man sinned and died. What happened in the Garden of
Gethsemane? Christ willingly took the sin of his people to
himself and the penalty of death into his own body. What happened
at the Garden of Calvary? Through his death on the cross,
he put away those sins forever. The sin of all of his people
ran its course in his own body. until he died. Without the shedding
of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. His blood is precious
blood. He forgave the sins. By his life
and his death all the sin is gone from his people and it will
never ever be seen again. And we are made the very righteousness
of God in him. We read in Genesis, didn't we,
that the Lord saw everything that he'd made after he'd made
man. He said, it's very good. Now
every time God looks at one of his children, this is what he
says. Very good. Very good. I'm so pleased. I'm pleased with
you and I love you as I love my son, and we can come and take
up our residence in you. Well done, our good and faithful
servant. Enter into the joy of your inheritance. Let's finish by looking at the
last garden and I'm aware I'm taking some liberties because
New Jerusalem is conceived as a city that comes down from heaven
beautifully adorned for her bride. But I have no doubt that in the
new creation there will be so much. to cause us to rejoice
in God our Saviour as we look in the new creation. Revelation
21, let's go to verse 23. And the city had no need of the
sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of
the Lord did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which
are saved shall walk in the light of it, and the kings of the earth
do bring their glory and honor into it. And there shall in no
wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever
worketh abomination or maketh a lie. but they that are written
in the Lamb's book of life. Some people want to go back to
the Garden of Eden. I don't want to go back to the Garden of Eden
where there are talking snakes and there's a possibility of
sinning. God's children are going to a much better place than the
Garden of Eden, a much, much better place. Let's go to verse
3 of chapter 22. And there shall be no more curse,
but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall begin, and His
servants shall serve Him, and they shall see His face. And
they shall see his face, and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there,
they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord
God giveth them light. and they shall reign forever
and ever. There is in this city Verse 1
of chapter 22, And he showed me a pure river of the water
of life, as clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne
of God and of the Lamb. And in the midst of the street
of it, on either side of the river, there was a tree of life,
which bared twelve manner of fruits, which yielded her fruit
every month. And the leaves of the tree were
for the healing of the nation. There is a garden and there is
healing and there is a stream which makes glad the city of
God. How do we know it's true? How
can I find that comfort and that assurance? How can I know that
God is pleased enough with what Christ did? How can I know? We just rely on Him. Acts 17
verse 31 says, Sin is what keeps a man dead. Sin gone keeps a
man alive forever. I'm alive because I live, you
also shall live. The missionary was trying to
convey the gospel to some people who had very little of his language. And he asked at the end of the
service if someone could give him some sort of summary of what
he had preached. got up and said, he die or me
die. He die, me no die. He die, me no die. May the Lord bless his words
to our hearts.