If you would open your Bibles
with me to Revelation chapter 22. Revelation chapter 22. And he showed me a pure river
of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne
of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of
it and on either side of the river was there the tree of life,
which bear 12 manner of fruits and yielded her fruit every month.
And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
And there should be no more curse, but the throne of God and of
the lamb should be in it and his servants shall serve him.
And they shall see his face and his name should be in their foreheads.
And there should be no night there. And they need no candle,
neither light of the sun for the Lord God giveth them light
and they shall reign forever and ever. And he said unto me,
these sayings are faithful and true. And the Lord God of the
Holy prophets sent his angel to show unto his servants the
things which must, must shortly be done. And here's a precious
promise. Behold, I come quickly. Blessed
is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy. this book. We'll end our reading there.
Alright, Sean. Okay, if you would, turn to song number 92. O little town of Bethlehem, how
still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless
sleep the silent stars go by. Yet in thy dark streets shine
up the everlasting light. The hopes and fears of all the
years are met in thee tonight. For Christ is born of Mary and
gathered all above. While mortals sleep, the angels
keep their watch of wandering love. O morning stars, together
proclaim the holy birth, and praises sing to God the King,
and peace to men on earth. how silently, how silently the
wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of His heaven. No ear may hear His coming, but
in this world of sin Where meek souls will receive Him still,
The dear Christ enters in. O holy Child of Bethlehem, Descend
to us, we pray. Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born in us today. We hear the Christmas angels,
the great glad tidings tell. O come to us, abide with us,
our Lord Emmanuel. Okay, and now if you would turn
to song number 471. Love Found A Way The love that rescued me sunk
deep in sin. Guilty and vile as I could be,
no hope within. When every ray of light had fled,
O glorious day! Raising my soul from out the
dead, love found a way. Love found a way to redeem my
soul. Love found a way that could make
me whole. Love sent my Lord to the cross
of shame. Love found the way, O praise
His holy name. Love brought my Savior here to
die on Calvary. For such a sinful wretch as I,
how can it be? Love bridged the gulf twixt me
and heaven, taught me to pray. I am redeemed, set free, forgiven,
love found a way. Love found a way to redeem my
soul. Love found a way that could make
me whole. Love sent my Lord to the cross
of shame. Love found a way, O praise His
holy name. I'll open wide the gates of life
to heaven's domain, where in eternal power and might Jesus
shall reign. Love lifted me from depths of
woe to endless day. There was no hope in earth below. Love found a way. Love found a way to redeem my
soul. ? Love found a way that could
make me whole ? ? Love sent my Lord to the cross of shame ?
? Love found a way, oh praise his holy name ? Let's open our Bibles now to
Genesis chapter two. Genesis chapter two, we're gonna
look at two different passages here this evening in the book
of Genesis. We'll read both of them, come
back and make some comments. Genesis chapter two, we'll begin
reading in verse 15. And the Lord God took the man
and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to 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 of it. For in the day
that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. I look over
in chapter three of Genesis, verse 22. You know the story. Of course, Adam did eat of that
tree. In verse 22, Genesis three. And the Lord God said, behold,
the man has become as one of us to know good and evil. And
now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of
life, and eat and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God sent
him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from
whence he was taken. So he drove out the man and he
placed at the east end of the Garden of Eden cherubims with
a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of
the tree of life. Let's bow before our Lord together. Our Father, Lord, we thank you
that in your goodness mercy and grace to your people, that you've
given us one more opportunity to meet together, to hear your
gospel preached, to hear Christ our Savior extolled and magnified. And Father, I beg of you that
you would not let us take tonight this blessed privilege for granted,
but that you would give us an attentive ear, a heart that is
ready to hear believe the things of Christ our Savior, that you
might be pleased to call out your sheep by the preaching of
your son, that you might be pleased to comfort, strengthen the hearts
of your people, feed the hearts of your people by the preaching
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, let him be preeminent
in everything that we say and do here tonight and In every
service, let Him be preeminent in everything that we do as we
go about our daily routines, that we might go about the things
that you've given us to do, raising our families, taking care of
them, taking care of our jobs and our homes, all the while
looking for the return of Christ our Savior, looking for Him who
promised us, behold, I come quickly. And we say with the bride, even
so come, Lord Jesus. Father, we pray that you'd be
with the sick and the afflicted of our number, those who are
hurting and need you especially. We continue to pray for Novi
that you'd undertaken her behalf and that you'd provide a way
that she could be made whole, feel much better. Pray for Barb
and others, Father, who are in great difficulty. Father, we
pray you'd comfort their hearts with your presence and that you
would deliver as soon as it could be thy will. Father, we thank
you for our children, the little ones of this number that you've
given to us. Father, we pray your mercy upon
them. We pray you'd protect them from this wicked generation in
which they are growing up, and that above all, you'd have mercy
on their souls. Father, make us faithful to them. Make us faithful to teach them
Christ, to teach them the scriptures, that you might cause it to grow
to faith in Christ our Savior. For it's in his blessed name
we pray and give thanks. Amen. All right, I've titled the message
this evening, Two Trees, Law and Grace. Now, I want us to
look at these two trees, the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, the tree of life. These two trees represent law
and grace. You know how often things are
in scriptures in twos to give us a picture, to represent law
and grace, to represent man's way and God's way, to represent
man's works and God's work. They're Cain and Abel. Cain and
Abel represented two ways to try to come to God. Cain by man's
work, Abel by God's lamb, sacrificed for sin. Abraham had two sons,
Ishmael, who represented the works of the flesh, trying to
help God keep his promise. God needs some help from us to
keep his promise. And Isaac, who was the son of
God's promise. Isaac was the son, that's how
God kept his promise. And Isaac shall I see be called.
And then Isaac had two sons. Jacob, representing God's grace. Esau hated God. God hated him,
he refused the birthright, God let him have his way. When the
flood of Noah came, you're in the ark or you're out of the
ark. You're either in Christ or you're out of Christ. Life
can only be had by being in Christ. There's two ways, isn't there?
There's only one way of salvation, one way to live. And these two
trees that I want us to look at tonight are the same way.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents the
law. God had one commandment. It was
concerning that tree. That tree represents the law.
It represents you and me trying to come to God by our obedience
to the law. It represents salvation by our
works. And then there's the tree of
life. The tree of life represents salvation by God's grace. It
represents life being given by the promise of God through the
doing and dying of Christ our Savior. And everyone who believes
on Christ shall be saved. Everyone who believes on Christ
shall have life. And that life can never be lost.
Now the tree of life was a real tree, and I'm just certain of
this. If Adam had eaten of the fruit
of that tree, he'd live forever. That's what God said. He said
in verse 22 of Genesis 3. And Lord God said, behold, the
man has become of one of us, no good and evil. And now lest
he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and
eat and live forever. Sounds like if Adam had ate whatever
fruit that was, he would have lived forever. That's what it
sounds like, doesn't it? And he could have done that. I don't
know how long Adam was in the garden, but he could have eaten
of that tree. And I promise you this, he would have if God told
him not to. God didn't mention it, so he
just didn't eat of it. But Adam didn't eat of that fruit. How
many ever times he passed by that tree of life, he did not
eat that fruit. You ever think of that? And you know that was
God's mercy to Adam. It really was. God stopped him
from eating that fruit. Can you imagine how horrible
it would have been for Adam to eating of that fruit, the tree
of life, and then sin. Then ate of the tree the knowledge
of good and evil. And he would have been living
over 6,000 years, living with his sin, living with that horrible
weight on him, looking at the whole human race, seeing how
they're all like they are because of him. He lived with his sin
against God. He would have lived in a body
of sin, in a world of sin. This has been over 6,000 years. Adam being one miserable fellow.
You talk about a grouchy old man. Oh my goodness. God, His
mercy stopped that. That's God's mercy. Now, all
of us are trusting in one of these two trees. All of us are.
All of us are trusting in one of these two ways of righteousness.
It's either by our works or by God's grace, one or the other.
And I don't think anybody here is well-taught enough not to
really think you're going to come to God by obeying the Ten
Commandments or something like that. But we've got our own ways
of working out our own righteousness. Oh, I'm a Calvinist. I know the
right doctrine. I know the right people. I go
to the right places. I'm just saying that because
I know what I'm talking about. I grew up knowing I could never
keep God's law, but I thought I was awful righteous because
I was a Calvinist. Just saying. We're trusting one of these two
trees. One of these two ways. God's grace or our works. One
or the other. The power of God's grace or the
arm of the flesh. One of those two is what we're trusting in.
Now I thought about in school, all of us had tests in school,
have an essay question. And the teacher says he wants
you to compare and contrast. Compare and contrast two things.
Well, that's what I want us to do tonight. I want us to compare
and contrast these two trees with this goal. So that we look
at these two trees, these two ways of righteousness, these
two ways of coming to God, that we'll see there's no hope for
our souls other than trusting in Christ. And that's why I pray
all of us will leave here tonight trusting in Christ, resting in
Him, and not trusting and depending on our works in any way. So number
one, compare and contrast these two trees. The tree of the knowledge
of good and evil was pleasant to look at. It was a good looking
tree. It had good looking fruit. In chapter three, verse six,
when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it
was pleasant to the eyes, the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil Remember now what represents our works. It represents salvation
by our works. And there's absolutely nothing
more pleasant to fleshly eyes than our works bringing us to
God. The flesh just can't find anything
more pleasant to look at than earning our salvation by our
works. Because that brings glory to this flesh and the flesh loves
it. It's pleasant to the flesh to
try to keep the law. Because we get some glory in
this thing of salvation. Oh yeah, Christ can do His part,
but if I do my part, that brings glory to the flesh. That's pleasant
to the flesh. Look at 1 John chapter 2. And our flesh is so dead, we'll
look at this in a week or two. When Adam sinned, we died. And
the proof of how dead our flesh really is, is we actually think
we can keep the law. We actually think that we can
do something good enough that God will accept us. It's the pride of what's pleasant
for our eyes to look at, ourselves. 1 John 2, verse 16. For all that's in the world,
this is all that you can find in the world, the lust of the
flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. It's not
of the Father, that's of the world. Now that's all you'll
find in the world. You can't find anything else
other than the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the
pride of life. actually thinking we can do something
to earn life, to earn righteousness from God. And the flesh loves
it. And that's all that's in the
flesh. Not only is that all that's in the world, that's all you
can find in this dead flesh. And I mean yours and mine too.
This thing that's so pleasant to try to earn our way to God.
But look over at Malachi chapter two, the last book in the Old
Testament. I'll show you what God calls these. Religious works
that our flesh loves to look at our flesh loves to try to
use to bring to God If we're gonna bring these things to God,
we're gonna bring our works to God our morality our religious
orthodoxy If that's what we're gonna bring to God, don't you
reckon? It's a good idea to find out
what God thinks of them Let's look and see Malachi chapter
2 verse 1 And now you priest this commandment is for you If
you'll not hear, if you'll not lay it to heart to give glory
to my name, saith the Lord of hosts, I'll even send a curse
upon you and I'll curse your blessings. Yeah, I've cursed
them already because you do not lay it to heart. Now when God
talks here about your blessings, what he means is all their religious
ceremonies that they did, that they thought would bring them
blessings from God. And this is what the Lord's telling
them, you're trusting in your works. You're trusting in these,
all this religious ceremony, these things to make you righteous
and to make you blessed instead of trusting in me. And God said,
that kind of a religion is not a blessing. It's a curse. It's the curse of sin. Now read
on verse three. He says, behold, I will corrupt
your seed and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of
your solemn feasts and one shall take you away with it. even the
dung of your solemn feast." Now, solemn feast, that's the best. That is the most holy, religious
ceremonies that we can have. You know, we're coming up on
this time of year, Christmas. Here in a few weeks, churches,
you know what I mean, not churches, coat farms, whatever, places
of religious talk, are going to be full of people. People
that won't darken the door again till Easter. Right? Those are
the two high religious holidays. They had them. The Jews had them.
We had them too. They got nothing on us. Your
solemn feast. That's the most high, holy, religious
feast that you have. The religious ceremonies that
you have that make you feel so good. You know why they make
you feel good? Because you're trusting in them.
You're trusting in the ceremony. You're not trusting in the one
that they picture. You're not trusting in Christ. You're trusting
in the ceremony. You're trusting in how well you
observe these things. Aren't I good? I go to church
on Christmas morning before I open my presents. Look how good I
am. Men think that that's righteousness.
You know what God calls that? God calls it dung. That's exactly
what he calls it. All of our best works, our best,
most orthodox religion, is nothing more than cow dung. Just worthless,
stinking, defiling cow manure. That's what it is. I thought
of how back in the dark ages when somebody used to have a
wound, they packed it with cow manure. And they thought, oh,
it's best, you know, to pack it with fresh cow manure. And
people, they got infected. They get their arms cut off.
Brother, that's our works. They don't heal anything, they
just make it worse. Saul of Tarsus had more of those
good, religious, orthodox works than anybody. And what did the
Apostle Paul call those things? Dung. Dung. Now that's the best
we have to offer to God. It's no wonder God won't accept
it. Now that's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That's
man's works. Aren't you glad there's a second tree? There's
no salvation in our works. But I'll tell you what, there's
salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no life in our works,
but there's life in Christ. And that's who the tree of life
pictures. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was pleasant
to the eyes. But the Lord Jesus Christ, he's
not pleasant to the eyes of the flesh. There's no beauty about
him that we should desire him. But there's life in him. There's
life in him. That's where life is found. And
you and I can only see Him if God will give us an eye of faith.
And if we ever see Christ by faith, somebody can preach Him
to us and preach Him to us and preach Him to them. And if God
ever turns the light on and gives us eyes to see, you know what
we'll see? He's altogether lovely. The half's
not been dulled. Oh, He's beautiful. All right,
number two. forbid eating the fruit of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He forbid it. And God
commands us to eat of Christ. Look back in Genesis chapter
two, verse 16. And 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 of it. For in the day that thou eatest
thereof, thou shalt surely die. Now God commanded Adam not to
eat of the tree of good need. Just don't eat of it. Now for
Adam, the entire law of God was one commandment and it was a
simple one at that, but just one simple command. I think about
the law of Moses. If you lived under that law of
Moses, could you possibly have remembered all those commandments?
I mean, I'd have broke them all the time, and I realized I was
breaking it, and you know what they say, ignorance of the law
is no excuse. Adam didn't have that problem, did he? It was
one commandment. One, it wasn't hard to understand,
it was one commandment, and it was a commandment that did not
hurt Adam at all. It didn't take anything away
from, there were so many other trees Adam could eat from, God
didn't plant some just little bare garden here. This is a lush,
gorgeous garden full of fruit, full of fruit trees. He had plenty
to eat. And he just had one law. And he couldn't keep it. Couldn't
keep it. Now what makes you and me think
that we can keep the whole law of God? Adam couldn't keep one.
We can't either. We can't either. But God never
gave the law. as a way for man to earn righteousness. God did not plant that tree of
the knowledge of good and evil in that garden to give Adam a
way to earn a righteousness. That's not why he planted that
tree. God gave us the law to show us we can't keep it. God
gave us the law to show us how sinful we really are. The Apostle
Paul said, I thought I was alive without the law once. Then I
saw what the law said. Then I saw the spirituality of
the law. And tell you what happened when
I saw that? I died. I didn't think I was good anymore.
That's why God gave us the law. God gave us the law to show us
how much we need the Lord Jesus Christ. I need somebody to come
and do for me what I can't do for myself. And God commands
us, don't you come to me based on your law keeping. Don't you
come to me that way. And it's open rebellion when
we do it anyway. Thinking somehow I can be good
enough. I'm going to be the exception. God will accept me. Look at 1
John 3. 1 John 3. Now, God forbids us to come to
Him through the law. But there's another way to come
to Him, thankfully. And He commands us to come to Him that way. He
commands us to come to Him in Christ. And if you do, you'll
be accepted. 1 John 3, verse 22. And this is His commandment.
Here it is, this is his commandment, that we should believe on the
name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he gave
us commandment. Look up verse 22. Whatsoever
we ask, we receive of him because we keep his commandments and
do those things that are pleasing in his sight. Now, do you want
to believe God? Do you want to please God? I'll tell you how
to do it. Here's how you please God. Do
what he commands you to do. Believe. on the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust Christ to be all your righteousness. Trust Christ to be your salvation.
Faith in Christ pleases God. It pleases and He commands us
to do it. Don't try to help out. Don't do like Abraham and Sarah
and Hagar did. Try to help God out by your works. Faith in Christ. Just trust in
Christ to be everything I need. That pleases God. It pleases
the Father. And what a gracious Wise commandment
that the father gives to dead sinners. Believe on my son. Trust in him and you'll have
life. You'll have life. Look over to
Revelations chapter 22 again. The passage we read to open the
service. Revelations chapter 22. You come to Christ and you will
have life. Revelation 22 verse 13. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning
and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do
His commandments. What is His commandment? John
told us, is to believe on Christ. Blessed are they that do His
commandments. Blessed are they that believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may
enter in through the gates of the city. The Lord commands us,
you come to Christ, and when you do, you'll have life. It's as simple as that. Now,
what a blessed commandment. He says, come to Christ. He says,
all things are ready. Come and dine. Are you hungry? All things are ready, come and
dine. Oh, taste, David said, and see that the Lord's good.
Taste, God says, come eat. Taste and see that he's good.
God commands us not to eat of the tree of our works, and he
commands us to eat of Christ. And the proof of our sinful nature
is we got it all backwards, don't we? We got it all backwards. We never will believe on Christ
and never will quit trusting in our works until God gives
us a new nature. But when we, when he gives it,
we're going to find out, oh, the Lord's good. Oh, this is
good. This tastes good. Come and dine. There's nothing tastes better
than grace. There's nothing tastes better than mercy. There's nothing
that tastes better than Christ. All right, number three. Think
about this. Satan does everything he can
do to get you to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. He does everything he can do. And Satan does everything he
can do to get us to not eat of the tree of life. He does everything
he can do to get us to not trust Christ. Now that ought to tell
us a whole lot, shouldn't it? If Satan wants me to do something,
I don't have to be right, right to figure out, I'll not do that.
I mean, does that make sense? We should just do the opposite
of what Satan wants us to do. But you know why we don't do
it? Because we're under the power, the influence of the prince of
the power of the air. That's exactly why. That's what, this
is what, look at Genesis chapter three. This is what Satan did
to our mother Eve. Genesis chapter three. Verse one. Now the serpent was
more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God
had made. And he said unto the woman, yea, God said, you should
not eat of every tree of the garden. And the woman said unto
the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden,
but of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the
garden, God has said, you should not eat of it. Neither shall
you touch it lest you die. And the serpent said unto the
woman, you should not surely die for God doth know than the
day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Now, we'll get to
this, like I said, here in a week or two, but Eve did add to what
God said. She said, neither shall you touch
it lest you die. Maybe Satan touched it. Maybe. I don't know if he did or not,
but he said, see, nothing happened. Nothing would happen if Satan
ate the fruit. He's already dead. Nothing would happen. He's not
the representative of anybody. Nothing would happen. But he
deceived her in that way, the pride of life, the lust of the
flesh. And listen, Satan hadn't changed
any from then till now. He hadn't learned anything. He
doesn't have another mode of attack. He deceives people. And it's not by getting people
to live in open sin and all those things we find so disgusting.
Satan doesn't have to get people to do that. We do that naturally.
I tell you where Satan works, in the pulpit. He starts out
in the pulpit, he works in the pew, getting people to be so
religious that they trust their religion rather than trusting
Christ. That's subtle, but that's exactly
what he does. Look at 2 Thessalonians chapter
two. I'll show you this, 2 Thessalonians 2. We would be mighty wise to
keep this in mind. Brother, Christ is the issue.
Christ is the issue. We need to just not so much be
on our high horse about all of our orthodoxy and look to Christ. Focus on Christ. Cry out to Christ.
Try to find Christ in the scriptures. 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 8. And then shall that wicked be
revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his
mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.
Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all
power and signs and lying wonders and with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness and them that perish because they received
not the love of the truth that they might be saved. Now here's
how Satan deceives people. He gets them in religion and
he deceives them. He fascinates them with the religious
signs and wonders. He fascinates them with all the
impressive motions of religion. And it's just a, it's a magic
show. I don't know any magic tricks
or anything. I wouldn't know a sleight of
hand, but this is what I understand about a magician. He does something
to get you watching over here so you don't see what he's doing
over here. That's what Satan's doing. He just gets people so
caught up in looking at all this junk that they don't look to
Christ. They don't see Christ and trust
Him. They just trust in all this impressive
stuff that they're doing. But the Lord Jesus Christ came
to destroy that. He came to destroy the power
of the devil and to give his people life. You, when you think
about Satan deceiving people and getting them all caught up
in all these, you know, what we would call good things. That's
how he gets them deceived. Gets them from looking at those
things instead of looking to Christ. Does that scare you to
death? It does me. I mean, how easily
would I be deceived? I know how he could deceive Eve. She had to be smarter than me.
She had to be. God created her. God made her
with his fingers. How easily she was deceived. Well, what's
my hope of not being deceived? What's my hope of not getting
swept away? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He
came to destroy the power of the devil over His people. The
Lord Jesus Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice to the Father,
to pay for, to put away the sin of His people. And that sacrifice,
the sacrifice of the perfect Son of God, the Lamb without
blemish and without spot, crushed Satan's head. And you know how
it crushed Satan's head? By taking away the power of Satan. Satan's the accuser of the brethren.
If you believe Christ, Satan can accuse you of one thing.
Christ made you perfect. Satan can't hold you in sin anymore.
Christ broke that power of sin. He can't hold you. The Lord Jesus
Christ, the mighty conqueror, he comes in and he drives out
the darkness of unbelief by turning on the light. by being the light,
by revealing himself, by giving his people light. Christ the
mighty conqueror comes in and he drives out death by giving
his people life. Death can't be where life is.
Darkness can't be where life is. Christ comes and drives that
out. And the life he gives is life eternal. Life that can never
be lost. Life that Satan can't deceive
you and pull you away from Christ with. Can't do it. It's eternal
life. Now that you have life, come
to Christ. Come to Christ and believe on
Him and rest in Him. All right, fourthly, eating the
tree, eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil brought sin and death. Eating Christ brings righteousness
and life. Look at verse 17 back in our
text. Genesis chapter two, verse 17. The Lord told Adam, but of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat
of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely
die. You shall surely immediately
die spiritually. And that's just exactly what
happened in the very moment Adam ate of that fruit of the tree,
the knowledge of good and evil, Adam died and his whole race
died with him. Even Eve. Eve didn't die when
she ate that fruit, did she? Eve ate that fruit. She was still
naked. Not ashamed. But when Adam ate that fruit,
everything changed, didn't it? Eve died. Eve died because Adam,
her federal head, died. And Adam showed almost immediately,
he's dead. He's dead. Remember, we looked
at this a week or two ago. God made Eve and he brought the
woman to the man. Oh, he was so, she's just the
most beautiful woman's ever lived. He just, oh, he just, he just
couldn't quit talking about her. He just, everything he said about
Eve was so loving. Oh, she's bone of my bone. She's
flesh of my flesh. For this, for this, a wife? Oh, a man will leave his father
and his mother and he'll cleave to his wife and there'll be one
flesh. And he just went on and on and on and on, didn't he?
One bite of that fruit, Adam sure was acting like he hated
old Eve, wasn't he? Threw her under the bus, blaming her for
his sin, trying to get God to punish her and leave him alone.
Adam, you think about Adam. He walked with God. He walked
with the pre-incarnate appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ in the
cool of the day. Wonder what they talked about.
My goodness. Whatever it was, this is what
it was. Fellowship with God. He had fellowship with God. Now,
Adam's hiding in the bushes, thinking those bushes can hide
him from God. He's wearing a fig leaf apron, thinking that can
hide his shame from God. Now, instead of having fellowship
with God, Adam resents God. He resents he gave him this law
in the first place. He resents he gave him his wife.
He resents he put him in his garden. He hates God. He's blaming
God for his sin. Wait a minute, what happened?
Adam died. just exactly like God said He
would, spiritually dead. And Adam puts you and me in the
same bowl, spiritually dead. We're born spiritually dead,
so we cannot keep cuts long. We don't even want to keep cuts
long. We can't love God and don't want to. We love the God of our
imagination, but not the God of the Bible, not the true living
God. We can't love the Lord Jesus Christ, we don't want to. By
nature, we see no need for Him. We can't see Christ. We can't
believe Him. We can't see and understand who
He is. We can't understand His kingdom. We can't believe or
love the gospel of grace. We can teach our children the
ABCs of the gospel, but we can't teach them to love the gospel.
And you know why? We love our free will works so
much. We love our own works of righteousness
so much. Yet the Savior says, Now, you're
dead in that. You're dead. You're dead in Adam.
Your own sin hadn't improved your situation any at all. And
the Savior says to a dead, sinful people who were rebels against
Him, who hate Him, who are contrary to Him, whose carnal mind is
enmity against God, not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can be, who shook their fists in the face of God Almighty and
said, I'll not have this man to reign over me. You sent your
darling son here to this world to save his people from their
sins? Tell you what I think about him. I'll hang him on a tree
and mock him while he dies. And the Savior says to those
people, you come to me that you might have life. Come to me and
drink, and out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water. He says, come, come, have salvation
for free. He said, let's raise them together
now. He said, you come, you drink the milk and the wine of the
gospel. without money and without price, come and you'll have life. Yet we don't do it, do we? We
don't do it. Why don't we do it? Because when
Adam ate that fruit, you and I became dead in sin. And we
cannot and will not come to Christ that we might have life. And
if we continue, if we continue trying to make ourselves fig
leaf aprons out of our own works and our own righteousness, Think
we can cover ourselves and make ourselves acceptable in God's
sight? And we do not submit ourselves to the righteousness of Christ
to see what's going to happen. We're already dead spiritually.
Then we're going to die the second death and die eternally. And
thankfully, God makes His people come to Him. He makes them. He
gives them life where they can't stay away from. He comes and
grabs hold of them. and brings them up out of the
miry pit. He goes and lays hold of them like old Mephibosheth
was down there. Lame. He can't come. He can't
do anything. He's dirty. He's unshaven. He's
disrespectful. Who wants a stinky smelling guy
in my house? And David goes and lays hold
on him. And fetches him. And brings him
to the king's table. Dresses him in the king's clothes.
And sits him down at the table. My table. One of my sons. Mephibosheth
didn't have any choice in the matter, did he? He'd come and
David said, fetch him. And that's what God does to his
people. He brings them to Christ. And when he brings them, they
believe. They believe. And that's what
eating, this eating of the fruit or the tree of life, that's what
all this has to do with. It has to do with believing.
Look at John chapter six. You know, if we eat of the law,
We think that we can somehow make ourselves righteous by the
law. We're going to die eternally. That's God's promise to us. But
if we eat of Christ, believing on Him, believing that He's all
I need, we'll have life. And the scriptures use this matter
of eating as a picture of believing Christ. John 6, verse 47. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. That's simple. And he that believeth on me hath
everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your
fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and they're dead.
This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man
may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came
down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The
Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, how can this man give
us his flesh to eat? They're thinking, are we going
to be cannibals? Then Jesus said unto them, verily, verily, I
say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and
drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoso eateth my
flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I'll raise
him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed, He that eateth my flesh, and
drinketh my blood, liveth in me, and I in him. As the living
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so that he that
eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which
came down from heaven. Now as your fathers did eat manna
and are dead, he that eateth of this bread shall live forever. Now you know, just like the Jews
were wondering there, that the Lord's not talking about being
cannibal. He's actually eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
This all has to do with faith. Eating represents belief. It's
faith. That Christ is all I need. So I take and eat. Eating is
union with Christ. Now when we eat something, it
has union with our body. It actually becomes our flesh,
our bones, our body. If you believe on Christ, Christ
dwells in you. You're one with Christ. He dwells
in you, you dwell in Him. And you have life through union
with Christ. Now look over Revelation chapter
22 again. You have life by believing Christ,
through union with Him. You think about what Adam did
to us by this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He made us
dead, dead in sin. And Adam gave us every spiritual
disease that there is. Scriptures describe our sin in
so many different ways. Deadness, spiritual blindness,
spiritual deafness, lepers, it's something that's unclean. But
I tell you what, you believe on Christ and you will be healed
from every spiritual disease Adam gave you. Christ is the
answer to everything Adam did to us. Revelation 22 verse one. And he showed me a pure river
of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne
of God and of the land in the midst of the street of it. And
on either side of the river was there the tree of life, which
bear 12 manner of fruits and yielded her fruit every month.
And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Now this is the apostle John describing heaven. And he's not
talking about a literal tree here. This tree is Christ. Christ who is our life. It's
the tree of life. And He's everywhere. He's on
both sides of the street. He's everywhere. He's always
near. His fruit blossoms year-round. He is always exactly what we
need. And the leaves of that tree are
for the healing of the nations. There is never a time that Christ
cannot heal His people. There's never a time He can't
give them life and sustain that life. All life is in Him. All healing is in Him. Let me
tell you again, you believe on Him. You take Him and eat. You
believe on Him and you'll have everlasting life. All right,
here's the fifth thing. Eating of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil got us kicked out of paradise, didn't it? The
Lord Jesus Christ brings His people into paradise. Adam, after
he ate that fruit, we read it earlier, he was kicked out of
the garden. The Garden of Eden had to be a paradise. I mean,
you think God himself planted a garden? Ooh, that garden was
something. I mean, oh, even God said when
he got it all done and he looked at it, what did God say? It's
very good. It's very good. What a garden.
There has just never been a more beautiful place on earth. And
because of his sin, eating that fruit God told him not to eat,
Adam got us all kicked out of paradise. And God put cherubims
surrounding that with those flaming swords which turned every which
way. You can't come back. You can't come back to that tree
of life. Justice is stopping you. The sword of justice will
stop us and kill us. But the Lord Jesus Christ came.
See, there's a second tree. The Lord Jesus Christ came and
He took that flaming sword of justice into His own heart. In
His own soul, the Father plunged that sword into His fellow. And
He did it for the sin of His people. He's made sin for his
people and the sword of justice went into him for that sin. Now,
justice is satisfied. If Christ died for you, justice
is satisfied and you can come back to the throne of God freely,
without any fear. You can come boldly without any
fear. It's all because of the sacrifice
of Christ. Now believe him, you come to
God freely. Our Lord gave us A striking example of that, or
illustration of it. Here the Lord was dying. Remember
those two thieves? They're both mocking him, making
fun of him. One's saying all this stuff to
him, the other casts the same in his teeth. But something happened
to that one thief, didn't he? He said, Lord, would you remember
me when you come into your kingdom? Something happened. Somehow the
Holy Spirit revealed Christ to him. You know, they say that
the Savior was quoting scripture, quoting Psalms, quoting scripture.
Maybe it was hearing that. Maybe, I don't know what he heard,
but somehow he knew this is the Lord. This is the Savior. He
trusted him. Lord, would you remember me?
And what did the Savior tell him? Today, shalt thou be with
me in paradise. Paradise. I don't know a lot
about what that is, Paradise is wherever Christ is. And that's
the way He described heaven. It's paradise. Now, the only
way you come there is through His sacrifice. Through His sacrifice
for your sin, now you come to Him believing. That sacrifice
is all it takes. Six, both of these trees were
planted by the Lord. Both trees were planted by the
Lord, just like He gave both the law and the covenant of grace. If this tree of the knowledge
of good and evil is gonna cause so much trouble, we could have
just avoided a lot of it if the Lord hadn't planted it, couldn't
we? But he did, he planted it. And you know what? He planted
it knowing Adam was gonna eat that tree. He planted it knowing
Adam was gonna sin. He said, Adam, when you eat of
this tree, not if you eat of it, but when you do. God knew
he was gonna eat that tree. Well, couldn't the Lord have
stopped him from eating that fruit? Couldn't the Lord have
stopped all this from happening? Of course He could have. He's God.
He can do whatever He pleases. But I'm thankful He didn't. I'm
thankful He didn't stop Adam from eating that fruit. God didn't
stop Adam from eating that fruit for His purpose. That His glory
and the redemption of His people through the sacrifice of our
Lord Jesus Christ would be made known to sinners. God didn't
stop Adam from sinning so that God's greatest glory in showing
mercy to sinners put on full display for all of creation to
see. Now God planted the second tree
too, the tree of life. That tree of life represents
God's covenant of grace. See, that covenant is eternal.
It doesn't have a beginning or an ending. The law, the covenant
of law, that had a beginning, didn't it? It had an ending too,
Christ put it away. But the covenant of grace didn't
have a beginning. It didn't have an ending. God has always purposed
to save his people, always. through the sacrifice of His
Son. Always by grace, never by works. And God planted. He made that covenant of grace
first. And then God planted the second
tree. He made that covenant, the covenant of the law. Now,
it's first in human time. It's the first thing we saw.
But it's second to the covenant of grace. And God gave that law
to show us our need of Christ and to see His glory when He
would come and put the sin of His people away. what the law
could not do, Christ did. Made his people righteous. Gave
them life. And then here's the last thing.
Both of these trees let us see something we couldn't have seen
otherwise. Satan told Eve, you eating this
fruit? You eat this fruit, the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil. He promised her, he deceived
her. He said, your eyes will be open and you'll see good and
evil. Now I'll tell you what he really meant there. is you're
gonna be able to choose between good and evil. You're gonna know
the difference. You can choose between good and
evil. You can even make up your own rules. You can decide what's
good and what's evil. And that was a lie. And you know,
we know it was a lie now on this side of Adam's fall. After Adam
ate that fruit, all we can see is evil. We can't see good. We can't see We can't see God as He is. We
can't see His goodness. We can't see His grace. We can't
see anything good. We can't choose anything good.
All we can do is sin. Well, I'll tell you the way we'll see
good. We know the way we see evil is by Adam's sin. Let me
tell you how we do see good. It's by believing Christ. Oh,
then we see good. When we believe on Christ, now
I see the goodness of God. When I believe on Christ, now
I see Oh, here's how God can make me holy. Here's how God
can make me righteous. Here's how God can save me without
violating His holiness and His justice. When we believe on Christ,
you see something you can't see anywhere else. You know what
you see? The glory of God. Where do you
see it? In the face of Jesus Christ.
Aren't you thankful for that second tree? Aren't you thankful
for that tree of life? Oh God, help us. Like I said
when I opened the service, this is my prayer that we'll all leave
here tonight believing in Christ, resting in Him. And if we do,
we'll have life. All right, let's bow together.
Our Father, we thank you for this glorious revelation of Christ
your Son. Father, I pray that you'd bless
your word as it's been preached. Pray that you'd send it forth
to reveal to us the glory of Christ our Savior. to give us
faith, to trust in Him, rest in Him. Father, I pray you can
go with us and that you'd bring us to our home safely, bring
us to our homes rejoicing in Christ our Savior. Let us get
up tomorrow and go through the rest of this week feeding on
and rejoicing in the things that we've heard of our Savior this
evening. It's in the precious name of our Savior, in His name
we pray, amen. All right, Sean. OK, if you would turn to song
number 199 and stand as we sing. Christ receiveth sinful men. Senders Jesus will receive, Sound
this word of grace to all, Who the heavenly pathway lead, All
who linger, all who fall, Sing it o'er and o'er again, Christ
receive a sinful man. Make the message clear and plain,
Christ, receive a sinful man. Come and He will give you rest. Trust Him, for His word is plain. He will take the sinfulest. Christ, receive a sinful man. Cling it o'er and o'er again. Christ, receive a sinful man. Make the message clear and plain
Christ, receive us and fulfillment Now my heart condemns me not,
Pure before the law I stand. He who cleansed me from all spot,
Satisfied its last demand, Sing it o'er and o'er again, Make the message clear and plain,
Christ, receive a sinful man. Christ receiveth sinful men,
even me with all my sin. Purged from every spot and stain,
heaven with Him I enter in. Sing it o'er and o'er again,
Christ receiveth sinful men. Make the message clear and plain. Christ, receive us and fulfill
us.