Visiting the Garden - Part 1
Hello and welcome back.
I don’t know about you but I’m glad the weather is getting warmer. I don’t mind winter because God made all the seasons for His purpose and His glory. But I sure like the sunshine. I love being outdoors. And I really love riding my bike with Mrs. Craig. I bet if you have a bike, you like riding it too.
We like to ride our bikes all around so we can see God’s amazing creation. And these days as we ride around we’re starting to notice all the flowers. Have you seen them? Aren’t they wonderful? The other day we were out riding and we saw a man planting flowers in his garden. It was beautiful! Do you have a garden at your house? Maybe somebody you know has a garden.
You can find gardens all over the world. Except maybe in the really cold places. Some gardens are very small. Some are really big. Some are so big, it can take hours to walk around the whole thing.
Some gardens have flowers. Some have vegetables. Some even have trees.
God’s story in the Bible starts out in a garden, the Garden of Eden. Open your Bibles to Genesis 2. I would like to start reading in verse 4. Are you there? OK, let’s read verses 4-9 together.
4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. 5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up-for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground- 7 then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Moses, who wrote the Book of Genesis, tells us God made man and named him Adam. Then God put Adam in the Garden to live and be the keeper of the Garden. How cool is that?
The Garden was a wonderful place. What made it so wonderful is that there was nothing evil in the world yet. Nobody got in trouble. Nobody got hurt. No plants ever died. Nothing ever died. And the work of caring for the Garden was not hard to do.
The Garden of Eden had all kinds of trees and fruits and vegetables. I’m thinking it had a flower or two as well. But Adam didn’t have anybody to give those flowers to. He was all alone. So, God made him a wife. She was called Eve. They were very happy because God would come and visit them in the Garden all the time. Adam and God would actually walk together in the Garden. Can you imagine?
But that wonderful place would not stay wonderful. Do you remember what important thing happened in the Garden of Eden? Let’s read about it. Look at Genesis chapter 3. Let’s start reading together in verse 1. Ready?
1 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'?" 2 And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 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.'"
4 But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 6 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 to be desired 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. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
Satan tempted our first parents, Adam and Eve. Just like he tempted Jesus in the wilderness. We see that Satan really hates God and he really hates God’s people. He wants to destroy all the wonderful things God made. He wants to get us to sin so that God has to destroy us. So he tempted both Adam and Eve to disobey and not trust God.
Adam and Eve didn’t resist the temptation. Instead, they sinned and disobeyed God. It was a sad day for the whole human race because that’s how sin came into the world. But how was it a sad day for the whole human race if only Adam and Eve sinned? Listen to Romans 5:12:
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, [Adam] and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned-
It’s just like we were all there in the garden and did what Adam and Eve did.
If you really were there in the Garden with Adam and Eve...
And if I was really there in the Garden...
We would have done the very same thing they did. We would have disobeyed God just like them. A little bit earlier in Romans we read that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. A little bit farther along in Romans we read that the wages of sin is death. That means we are all sinners and we will all die as punishment for our sin. That’s bad news. Bad news for everybody.
But there is also Good News. The Good News is that Jesus died for our sin. That Good News is also connected with a Garden. Next week we’re going to visit that other Garden. What happened in that Garden is so very very better than what happened in the Garden of Eden.
Lord willing, see you next week.
Thanks for listening.