OPEN: I read the true story of a little girl who was sick and home from school. She and her mother got to talking about what they’d learned in Sunday School the day before and the little girl said: “If it weren’t for Adam and Eve, I wouldn’t be sick.”
Her mother was about to comment on that when the daughter then said:
“But, come to think about it, if they hadn’t eaten that apple, we’d still be sitting around naked.”
(Sarah Ames, Kobe, Japan)
ILLUS: One night, a father heard his son in his bedroom saying: “You're gonna get it... you're gonna get it.”
Curious, the father opened his son's door and asked what was going on and he saw his son laying on the bed reading a book. “Everything ok?” he asked.
The boy looked up from a book he was reading and said: “Oh, I just get so frustrated with this story. The bad guy always seems to take advantage of the good guy. It so disturbed me that yesterday I turned to the back of the book and read the last chapter. And you know what? The hero wins. Now whenever I read about the bad guy beating up my hero it makes me feel better to yell ‘You're gonna get it.’”
NOW that he knew the end of the story - that young boy wasn’t so upset when his hero appeared to be losing.
And you know, the Bible is like that.
It’s filled with stories that – if you didn’t read the last chapter – you’d wonder what was going on.
Because it sounds so often like God’s people are losing.
One such story is the one we’re reading today.
Adam and Eve had been given a beautiful garden and they have everything they could possibly want. Their life is filled with purpose and pleasure and they get to talk to God every day.
But then, on to the scene comes the enemy.
The serpent.
Satan.
And Satan has destroyed everything God had created.
The Garden was gone.
The tree of life was gone.
Adam and Eve began to die.
And the world they once knew was filled with sadness and pain.
God’s people had lost.
Satan had won.
And death now reigned where God had once created life.
Of course… that wasn’t the last chapter.
But from that point, God began to let us know what that ‘last chapter’ was going to be.
Right after confronting Adam and Eve, God turned to the serpent and decreed that – one day – the son of a woman would crush his head.
One day, God decreed, Satan was “Gonna Get It!”
Now, DID that happen?
Was there a boy-child who came along and crushed the head…?
That’s right. Jesus was that male child of a woman who was to come and crush Satan’s head.
And Hebrews tells us how He did that:
“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death— that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” Hebrews 2:14-15
Satan was crushed - destroyed by Jesus on the cross.
And the power of death that he held over the heads of mankind was removed.
Now we are free from fear of death.
THAT was the last chapter.
And that last chapter of the Story was so important to God, that everything in Scripture is built around its message. Everything in the Old Testament pointed forward to this one great event.
Jesus – the fulfillment of the prophecy.
Jesus – the destroyer of the serpent.
Jesus – the one who had come to free us from sin and death.
The last chapter of the story was written on the cross and on the walls of the empty tomb. And everything in the Old Testament pointed forward to that great event. AND everything in the NEW testament tells why this was such a significant chapter in God’s story.
ILLUS: Do you like to read?
I love to read. I’ll read biographies and autobiographies and mysteries and science fiction stories. One time I couldn’t find anything but the “National Enquirer”… and I read THAT! I’ve always got to have a book to read.
But if I start reading a book and I find – after the first couple chapters – that the story’s not going anywhere, I’ll put that book down and pick up something else. I don’t want a story that doesn’t have a good plot line and an obvious intentional story that tells me something.
That’s why I love the Bible. It’s a book that’s “going somewhere”.
It’s a book that tells me something.
It’s a story with a plot line.
And that plot line is so intricate and interlaced throughout the whole Bible – I never get bored.
But there are people out there who don’t believe that.
They believe the Bible is just a collection of myths compiled by a multitude of authors who really didn’t have much a plot line they were worried about. They just wanted to build a religion and they created these stories to keep themselves entertained.
But that’s not true.
There weren’t a multitude of authors.
There may have been many “scribes” but there was only ONE author.
Do you know who that "one author" was?
That’s right – God.
“All Scripture is GOD-breathed…”
There’s one author and one theme and it never ceases to amaze me at how intricate and interwoven His plot line is.
And we see it especially in this story in Genesis 3.
God tells us the beginning of the story… and then, centuries later He completes the story using 3 separate things to tie the story all together.
What we’re going to do this morning is look at those three things God used.
Those three things were: a man, a garden, and a tree.
In Genesis 3 God tells us about man.
Who was that man?
Adam!
Adam was a man created in the image of God.
A man formed from the dust of the earth and into whom God breathed the breath of life.
God said “Let us make man in OUR image and in OUR likeness…”
But that man, Adam, gave into sin and destroyed what God had created.
But centuries later Paul wrote:
“Adam… was a pattern of the one to come.” Romans 5:14
“The one to come?”
Who would that be?
That’s right Adam was the pattern (in God’s mind) of what Jesus was to be.
In I Corinthians Paul notes that: "The first man Adam became a living being";
BUT “the last Adam (Jesus), a life-giving spirit. 1 Corinthians 15:45
Adam was the FIRST MAN in God’s story.
BUT Jesus the LAST MAN.
Jesus came to undo the damage that the Man – Adam - had brought on us.
But then God got into word games.
Does anybody know what Adam’s name means?
Adam means “Man”.
God starts out His story saying “Let me tell you the story of a MAN named Adam.”
But then God writes the last chapter by having Jesus introduce Himself as “the Son of Man.”
Jesus said: “The Son of MAN must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.” Luke 24:7
By my count, Jesus referred to Himself as the “Son of Man”at least 30 times.
And that is no accident.
Jesus came to be the MAN that Adam wasn’t.
Jesus came as the Son of Man to undo the damage the Adam (the man) had done.
Someone once noted that the reason: “The Son of God became the Son of man was so that the sons of men might become the sons of God.” Terry Fullam
Jesus came to undo Adam’s sin.
And He became LIKE Adam so that we might become LIKE God.
And that’s what happened.
John 1:12 tells us “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
And so God tied the His story together around a MAN.
But He also tied His story together around… a Garden.
Do you remember the name of Garden in Genesis 3?
Eden.
It was a beautiful place. Eden means “pleasure, and it was not only a place of pleasure but it was also a place where they walked and talked with God.
But when Adam and Eve sinned… they lost it all.
From that day forward, the Garden of Eden became symbol of what had been lost through sin.
But then Jesus came.
And He introduced us … to a different garden.
Do you remember the name of that Garden?
That’s right – Gethsemane.
The first garden – the Garden of Eden - became symbol of what had been lost through sin.
But the 2nd garden – the Garden of Gethsemane – became the symbol of the battle Jesus waged for our souls.
Gethsemane was located on the Mt. of Olives. And Luke 22:39 tells us “Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him.”
Now Jesus spent the majority of His time ministering around the Sea of Galilee, but at least once a year He made His way down to Jerusalem for Passover. And whenever He came to Jerusalem, He invariably spent time in the Garden of Gethsemane.
But we don’t read much about this garden until Jesus is about to be betrayed. Matthew 26:36 tells us - “Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’”
ILLUS: Last month you folks sent me over to Israel, and it was a wonderful trip.I learned all kinds of things while I was there and one of those things was about Garden of Gethsemane.
Does anybody know what Gethsemane means?
Gethsemane means: “Olive Press”.
(I showed a picture of an Olive “crusher” on the overhead - http://wingsofeaglesct.com/LIFE_OF_JESUS/026_Ministry6Capernaum.htm.)
While I was in Israel I visited an olive press and they told me the most interesting story. Do you see that stone basin there? Farmers would put their olives in that basin and a donkey or human would pull that huge round stone, that’s attached to that beam, around the basin, crushing the olives.
(Next I showed a man holding a woven reed basket. http://emp.byui.edu/satterfieldb/Gethsemane/OliveCrushCollection.JPG )
Then a man would take those crushed olives and put them in baskets like the one you see here and would stack 5 or 6 of them on the olive press itself.
(I had a picture of a “weighted” press on the screen. http://emp.byui.edu/satterfieldb/Gethsemane/OlivePressScrewJuice.JPG).
These baskets would be stacked about 5 or 6 high and placed inside what I would call a “weighted press” to press the olive oil out of the crushed olives. As the press came down on the bags, the juice would come out along groves into a container.
(We showed a beam with stone weights - http://emp.byui.edu/satterfieldb/Gethsemane/OlivePressbeamtighten.JPG)
These olives would be pressed 3 times.
On the first pressing, a stone weight would be attached to the beam and press the olives lightly crushing out the purest of the oil… what we’d call “virgin oil”. This oil would be reserved for use for special occasions such as use in the Temple.
A 2nd crushing would be made then by adding another stone weight to the beam. This oil would be less pure, but it would be usable for things like cooking.
A 3rd weight would be added for the 3rd pressing. This would be the dregs of the oil and was often used mostly for use in the oil lamps people would use in their homes for light.
(https://lucept.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/lit-oil-lamp-ancient-hebrew.jpg)
So this was how the Jews pressed their oil at their olive press… just like at Gethsemane.
And here was Jesus in the GARDEN of Gethsemane.
How many times did the Jews press their olives? Three.
And how many times did Jesus pray in the Garden before He was taken to be crucified?
“So he left them and went away once more and prayed the THIRD time...” Matthew 26:44
It was at the first Garden that Adam failed to stand against sin
It was at the 2nd Garden that Jesus was pressed down by the weight of our sin
At the first garden… Adam DECIDED to sin
At the 2nd garden… Jesus DECIDED to save us.
It was at that 2nd garden that Jesus “knelt down and prayed, ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.’ An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” Luke 22:41-44
Jesus was pressed down at THAT Garden.
And it was at that Garden that Jesus prepared for His ultimate mission.
His death on the cross.
So God built His story around a man, a Garden… And lastly around a TREE.
God told Adam and Eve "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Genesis 2:16-17
It was their sin at the tree in the Garden that brought sin into their world.
It was their sin at the tree that robbed Adam and Eve of life.
But it was on another tree, that Jesus came died for our sin.
And it was on that other tree, that Jesus died to give us life.
Was that an accident?
Did it just “happen” that Jesus was condemned in a society that used crosses for execution?
No. God allows nothing to happen by chance in this story.
In Isaiah 53:4-5 we’re told that “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”
Jesus took our curse upon Him.
Did Jesus deserve to die on that cross?
Was there something in Jesus’ life that made it so that He should be punished by dying that way?
Of course not.
It was on the cross that Jesus was cursed for us.
To drive that home, In the Law of Moses, God decreed: “anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse…” Deuteronomy 21:22-23
Jesus hadn’t sinned
There was no reason He should have been cursed.
But because Jesus needed to be cursed so we wouldn’t be, God had him hung on a tree.
One commentator noted:
1. The first tree was planted by God.
But the second tree was planted by man.
2. God warned man NOT to eat of the first tree.
But God freely invites us to draw near and eat of the fruit of the 2nd tree.
3. The eating of the first tree brought sin and death.
But by eating of the second tree comes life and salvation. (A.W. Pink)
Do you see how beautifully God tied everything together?
It was the MAN, in the GARDEN on the TREE that God used to teach us about our salvation.
It was that Son of Man who crushed the head of Satan.
Now all of that is interesting.
It’s encouraging to know that God spent that kind of effort in telling His story.
And it’s frankly an exercise in theology.
But if that’s all it was, then it would worth very little.
If that’s all it was… but it lacked one significant truth it would mean nothing.
Think about this.
Adam and Eve had sinned.
They’d disobeyed God and now they were hiding in shame.
They’d done that which God warned them would bring death.
The deserved exactly what they got.
Now I know all kinds of people in this world who are getting exactly what they deserve.
There are times I look at people like that I think “What a bunch of losers.”
They did something stupid and now… well, they don’t deserve my help.
I want to just walk away and leave them to face their own punishment.
Now let’s get back to the Garden of Eden.
Did God KNOW that Adam and Eve had sinned?
That they had eaten of the fruit He’d commanded them NOT to eat of?
Sure He did. He’s God. He knows that stuff.
He knew WHERE they were… and WHAT they’d done.
And He could have just walked away and said… “what a bunch of losers” and destroyed the whole thing and just started over again.
But He didn’t do that.
Do you remember the first thing God said when He came walking in the Garden?
“Where are you?”
Didn’t God know?
Of course He did.
You know what God was doing?
He was looking for them.
He’d come to FIND them and fix what they’d broken.
He could have walked away… but He didn’t.
He went looking for them in spite of their sin.
And God is still out looking for US, despite our sin.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever would believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
“God doesn’t want anyone to perish but that everyone should come to repentance.”
God is in the business of looking for the lost.
And in Jesus, God came looking for us.
NOW, the question is…
Where are you?
Have you seen that God is looking for you too?
INVITATION
