From Whence To Where Series

Series: THE STORY GOD IS TELLING

Title: “From Whence to Where?”

Introduction:

A. It has been said that “everyone loves a good story.”

1. The enduring qualities of Aesop’s Fables and Grimms’ Fairy Tales are all the proof we need.

2. Who doesn’t remember Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White?

3. And what of this famous fable?

Once when a Lion was asleep a little Mouse began running up and down upon him; this soon wakened the Lion, who placed his huge paw upon him, and opened his big jaws to swallow him.

"Pardon, O King," cried the little Mouse: "forgive me this time, I shall never forget it: who knows but what I may be able to do you a turn some of these days?" The Lion was so tickled at the idea of the mouse being able to help him, that he lifted up his paw and let him go.

Some time after the Lion was caught in a trap, and the hunters who desired to carry him alive to the King, tied him to a tree while they went in search of a wagon to carry him on. Just then the little Mouse happened to pass by, and seeing the sad plight the Lion was in, went up to him and soon gnawed away the ropes that bound the King of the Beasts. "Was I not right?" said the little Mouse.

B. It is their inherent truth that makes such stories endure.

1. This morning I want us to begin a story. How long it shall last I have no idea.

2. You see, this story is nothing less than the story God is telling us in this book. And in that sense it never ends.

3. But for the next several Sundays … and perhaps months … we’re going to look at the highlights of this story.

4. We’re going to begin with a survey …

Central Idea: “The Story God is Telling” has but three chapters. Each chapter answers one of the following questions: [1] Where did we come from? [2] Where are we going? and [3] How are we going to get there?

I. Where Did We Come From? The answer is found in Genesis 1-2.

A. We came from Eden.

1. Genesis 2:8—The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man He had formed.

2. Eden means “delight.” And what a delightful place it must have been. From Milton’s Paradise Lost I read

Inside, all around grew trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, or taste--trees laden with fairest fruit and blossoms of bright rainbow colors on which the glad Sun mixed his golden hue. Amid them all, the Tree of Life, the middle tree and highest that grew there, bloomed ambrosial fruit of living gold; and next to life, our death, the Tree of Knowledge, grew.

Southward through Eden flowed a large river upon which sat the garden Paradise. Its course was not deflected by the mountain, but engulfed and swallowed underneath. Through veins of porous earth, its water was drawn up with natural thirst to a fresh fountain spring at the highest part, and with many a bubbly brook and stream the whole garden was fed. The waters meandered and rippled over pearly rocks and sands of gold under hanging branches, to visit each plant and flower of Paradise, both where the morning Sun first warmed the open field and where unpierced shade enveloped the bowers even at noontide. Between rich delicious groves were interposed level grassy expanses, where flocks grazed the tender herb. Here sat a palmy hillock; there the lap of some watered valley, spreading her store of flowers in every hue. These grew not in fastidious, carefully planted beds, but poured forth in nature’s profuse bounty. On another side, shady grottoes of cool recess were cloaked with gently creeping vines luxuriant with purple grape and rose without thorn. Murmuring waters cascaded down the hills’ diverging slopes, or united their streams in a lake that held her crystal mirror to the leafy fringed bank. Birds added their choir to harmonize with leaves dancing in the breeze in celebration of the Assyrian garden’s eternal season of spring.

Among all the living creatures, walked two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, godlike in … majesty, the seeming worthy lords of all. In their looks the divine image of their glorious Maker shone, though differently in each.

3. Modern scholarship, of course, suggests Africa as the cradle of humanity. Since we know that continents drift … and Eden is pre-Noah … the earth must have looked different that it does today … so I have no problem with this conclusion.

4. Geography doesn’t deny the reality … We came from Eden.

B. We came from the earth.