If you have your Bible, take it and turn it to Genesis chapter 3.
It says, Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.
He drove out the man and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
If you would please pray with me. Lord we have your word before us now and God we ask for your grace that we might have eyes to see. Things that you have imprinted into this world Lord from the dawn of time. Help us as we hear your word Lord to love it, to cherish it. Every precious ray of grace that we have here Father. And then give us hearts and hands that are quick to obey Lord all that you reveal to us. For we ask it in Jesus name and all God's people said. Amen.
Please be seated. It's wonderful to be back with you here at Grace Church. Our family feels at home here and we are always feeling as if we're in fellowship with this church. For the last three years I don't think we could have made it to General Assembly if it hadn't been for Grace Church.
We have such a good time with the folks at Grace when we go. We're really grateful to you and as I was trying to decide a text to preach today I came to a fork in the road. I had to make a choice about what I was going to pick and we all have choices.
Forks in the road. Whether it's what we're going to have for lunch or dinner or if it's going to be where we're going to live and raise our kids. The car that we drive we can't drive one and then try to drive another at the same time. In every choice we make in large and small ways it affects our lives.
It sets the course and the direction of our lives and this is true spiritually. The word of God tells us that there are two doors. There's two paths to take. That there's two ways to live. One spiritual fork in the road for us and Jesus said it like this.
Matthew 7. Enter by the narrow gate. The gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction and those who enter by it are many. The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few.
I've often wondered where this idea of the narrow gate and the hard way comes from in Jesus' teaching. So I started doing some scriptural research here and I found it all over the Bible. Deuteronomy 30 verse 19.
Moses speaking as God's prophet before the people enter the promised land. I've set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life that you and your descendants may live.
Joshua 24. Choose this day which God you will serve. As for me and my house we will serve the Lord. Psalm chapter 1. The way of the righteous or the way of the wicked. Proverbs 15. The way of the upright or the way of idleness. I think the first time the narrow gate and the hard way is mentioned in the Bible is right here in our passage before us today. Where we see a flaming sword and a cherubim placed guarding the way back into the presence of God. A narrow gate. An east gate.
One way in. And then we find here that it is a hard path to tread. Flaming sword sharpened with God's anger. His righteous anger. Death all along the way. Verse 21. The grief of God in verse 22.
Only one way back through an east gate guarded by cherubim and a flaming sword. And if we truly want eternal life with God. If we would enjoy the happiness that God has planned for us. If we would be rid of our guilt, our shame, our misery, our loathing.
If we would have the strength that we need to hate sin as God does. To live in his presence. Unaffected by his holy gaze but blessed by it. We must enter through this gate. This narrow gate leading to life. And one way we see this taught is in verse 23 where we see a death for a life. Verse 21.
A death for a life. Up to this point the only covering for the couple has been leaves and trees. After their sin they're snatching leaves. They're making garments for themselves. One claws that will only fit around their waist. Barely holding together.
They're running from one tree to the next. Hiding from God in the garden. But then this act of sheer sovereign mercy from the Lord.
And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Something that only God would conceive of. The death of an animal in the garden temple.
Where he resides with his people. A work that Adam and Eve at this point would have never thought of. Death for us in life is a bit cheap. But here in the garden this would have been shocking for them to see. At least two thoughts must have gone through Adam and Eve's mind. Horrified at death itself.
A once living creature with the ability to breathe, respond, move. They would have had an implicit trust of Adam and Eve as the caretakers. God's vice regents in the garden. And there right before their eyes lies death. The first time that they've ever seen it.
And then as they had time to process all of this. They must have realized at some measure as God is making these clothes for them. This animal died to cover my shame, my nakedness, my guilt before a holy God. A Scottish preacher of the 19th century.
It's always the Scots that have these key little gems. Made a helpful observation. It is to be remarked that the clothing which God provided was in itself different from what man had thought of. Adam took leaves from an inanimate unfeeling tree. God deprived an animal of life. That the shame of his creature might be relieved. This was the last thing Adam would have thought of doing.
To us life is cheap, death familiar. But for Adam he recognized this death as punishment for his sin. Death was to early man a sign of God's anger. And he had to learn that sin could not be covered by a bunch of leaves snatched from a bush as he passed by.
But only by pain and blood. Sin cannot be atoned for by any mechanical action without expenditure of feeling. Suffering must ever follow wrongdoing. From the first sin to the last the track of the sinner is marked with blood. It was made apparent that sin was real. A deep evil that no easy and cheap process by which the sinner could be restored. Men have found that their sin reaches beyond their life, their person.
It inflicts injury and involves disturbance, distress. That it changes utterly our relation to life and to God. And that we cannot rise above its consequences except by the intervention of God himself. An intervention which tells us of the sorrows he will suffer on our account. The gospel right here. Death for life. And we know looking back from the New Testament that the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin.
It could never cover our shame. This was simply an emblem of what God had ordained before the foundation of the world. That Jesus would be the Lamb of God and take away our sin.
Right here at the beginning of time. Stamped right here for Adam and Eve to see a covering for their sin. You know I think sometimes we believe that our fig leaves, the things that we can do with our own hands will often cover ourselves, cover our guilt, cover our shame, make us look acceptable.
And sometimes that works. In this life when we look at one another we see our fig leaves and we think that looks very nice. I would love to have that in my life, that accomplishment, that achievement.
Anything that our hands can do this side of heaven without the work of God involved in them will always be insufficient, wholly insufficient to have any acceptability in God's sight. I don't know if you remember, I don't know how many of you have watched the Ingalls family and Little House on the Prairie. Our family loves to watch those episodes. There's one episode where Charles Ingalls is expecting an inheritance from his deceased father or uncle.
I can't remember which one it is. And as he's expecting this inheritance the banker brings a box and on such a date he's going to get a key. And Charles imagining what's in the box begins to buy things on credit throughout. And he amasses a small fortune in the things that he's bought on credit and then when the banker brings the key he opens the box and there inside the box is confederate money. It will not spend in the union.
It has no ability to do anything for Charles. And so it is with us. All the things we think we can amass in this life, all the things that we think we can do to cover our sin, our shame, to make ourselves look acceptable, it's wholly insufficient in God's sight to do what we need. But God gives them a picture of His grace, the way of grace. And these skins, Adam and Eve, have a picture that they're going to need as they lose life in the garden. In verses 22 and 23, this is the principle theme of these verses.
They're to be removed from God's presence, removed from life. Look at verse 22. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, and knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life, eat and live forever.
And notice it's a hard stop. Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken and drove out the man. And at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the chair of him and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. In Eden, in their sinlessness, Adam and Eve had opportunity to enjoy eternal life with God. They had access to the source of life himself. Now they're removed from the garden, the place where God would normally meet with them.
And they're consigned to an existence away from him where they will have to work the ground. This is the reason why the tree of life is so important. It's like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
This is a genuine tree, a real tree in the garden, but it's not magical. It's not something that possesses within itself something that God hasn't designated for it. This is, as John Calvin said, a sacrament, a tangible sign, a visible representation of all that Adam and Eve could enjoy in the garden with God. But they took of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They violated God's command, they broke his law, and interestingly we're told, God affirms, behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. In what way had they become like God? They already knew goodness.
They were in a garden paradise with God. They knew all of God's goodness, and now they did know evil. But that evil was one of disobedience. It was very unlike God. God, as the standard of right and wrong and good, could look upon everything and judge it as good or evil.
Adam and Eve, now they have an internal evil within them, a disobedience and a guilt that continues with them. One commentator, Donald Gray Barnhouse, illustrated this with the illustration of a person flying in an airplane, wanting the knowledge of flight without the pilot, without the plane. He walks out the back hatch and jumps out, and he experiences the skies, but it's a free fall. He'll never enter the cockpit again on his own, and death is looming. Soon the ground will come to him, and because Adam and Eve violated God's law, they no longer have the right to remain in God's presence, and it will not be tolerated, that hard stop. As soon as God says it, it is done. He is removing them.
He's pressing them away from him. What we see here is that you can't take the tree of life by your own hand. You can't gain or require from God eternal life as you live east of Eden. This is the saddest moment in all of scripture, and the truth is, it's not just a moment for Adam and Eve.
This is our story too. You wonder why the direction is talked about here, why Adam and Eve are banished east of Eden. Verse 24, Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to work the ground. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and the flaming sword. The text could have said, God could have said, I drove them to the north, to the south. The text could have just noted that God drove them from the garden, but Moses wants us to know the direction under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
Why? Because throughout the book of Genesis, living to the east is where misery is. It's where death abides.
Think about it. After Cain kills his brother in the next chapter, he's driven to the east. When pride rises in man, and they move into the plains of Shinar, where do they go? They go to the east. When Lot pitches his tent in Sodom and Gomorrah, it notes that he goes to the east toward Sodom.
When Abraham listened to Sarah and had a child, Ishmael, they were told that he sent Hagar and Ishmael away and that they traveled to the east. An east wind will bring about the seven years of famine that eats up the plenty in Joseph's dream. Throughout the book of Genesis, east of Eden is the minor key in the song.
It's the spooky music in the film. It tells you that death is hounding the steps of mankind throughout. The question for all of us tonight is a gospel-centered question. Which direction are you headed? Are you walking along the road that leads to destruction the wide way? Or are you pursuing life with God headed toward the east gate?
Which direction are you traveling in life? In the next few chapters in Genesis, there's going to be murder, hate, pain, difficulty, lies, sin. Think the Ten Commandments.
They're all broken within the first two chapters after this text. And death hounds the steps of man. Misery hounds the steps of man. A loss of life east of Eden.
And this is our story. And the sadness is compounded when you come to verse 24, when you first look at it. He drove out the man and at the east of the Garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the tree of life. Now when you hear the word cherubim, please don't think cute little angel on some sort of commercial. The western world has ruined the image of the cherub and the cherubim. If you look in Ezekiel 1 or 10, Isaiah 6, the book of Revelation, the cherubim are mighty angels.
These are the 18. They show up and when they do, the weight is sealed shut. There is no way through. They guard that gate. They are mighty powerful angels before the Lord. But what is more, there is a flaming sword that turns every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Most of the time we picture this scene and we see an angel holding a sword.
But the text doesn't seem to indicate that. It's almost as if God is guarding the sword. As if the sword is turning on its own. Sharp, flaming, guarding every way. There is no entrance.
What you are greeted with as you approach any home tells you a lot about the host. Another throwback TV show, Andy Griffith. There is an episode where a nurse is trying to give a farmer in the community, Rafe Hollister, his shot. He won't take that shot. So she decides to take one bullet Barney with him to take care of Rafe. When Barney gets out of the squad car, he says, Rafe, now you come over here and you take that shot.
And Rafe throws down his pitchfork, picks up his gun and starts shooting at Barney and the nurse. And they realize that day he is not going to receive that shot. This approach to the garden tells Adam and Eve and anyone that God is not favorable to them.
He is not disposed to receive them. They will not enter back into God's garden palace. Jonathan Edwards wrote a sermon on this passage and he puts this scene like this. The flaming sword turned every way. There was no way he could come at this blessedness. He could not rush through for it was a flaming sword. It is the sword of God's dreadful wrath. The sword of divine justice wielded by infinite power. A sword aflame with a holy abhorrence of sin and the filthiness of it. A sword sharpened by divine resentment at the affront to his holy majesty.
This is a grave scene. But it's, thank God, not the only message of this passage. Because this is here to show us the way, not only the way God blocks our way into the kingdom but the way God actually opens the way back for us. The author of Hebrews in chapter 10 tells us this. Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
There's only one way back. And it's through the new and living way that our Lord Jesus opened. How did he open this way? Well our Lord Jesus who ever stood in the presence of his heavenly father, son of God and son of man, always looking upon the radiant face of his father. He came into our wilderness, into our darkness. He came east of Eden and he didn't have to come. He wasn't forced out of God's holy presence. He came voluntarily. He volunteered and the father sent him in love. And as he came and he walked this earth and he lived the life that we could not live eventually our Lord Jesus took it upon himself to advance against the sword of God's justice.
He marched toward that east gate. And as he did and the sword struck our Lord's blood quenched the flame. Our Lord's body blunted the blade for all who will look to him in faith.
And now we have the way open for us. Did not Jesus say so? He said, I am the way, the truth, the life. No man comes to the father but by me. John 10, I am the door. If anyone enters by me he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. Our Lord Jesus is the open door for us.
He has opened the way. And now we have access into our almighty God's presence through the work of our Lord Jesus. Though judgment falls in this passage, though this passage paints a picture for us that shows us in many ways our own life east of Eden. Though this chapter is bleak, there are rays of grace all over this wonderful passage.
Apart from Christ, east of Eden, we feel the effects of the fall. And sin is a constant wrestle for us. But we have access and the way is opened in this narrow gate. And it is also a hard way as we follow our Lord Jesus. Because repentance is impossible to the natural man. It hurts to turn the guns on ourselves, to say what Jesus received is what we deserve.
But the way is open and now we must come and say it's not what these hands have done that can cleanse this guilty soul, these guilty souls. We must be willing to see and know that this judgment is what we deserve outside of Christ. And then use that gospel, week in and week out, to draw near to Him and to follow Him in His steps.
By God's grace, we must learn to hate what sin makes us. And learn to love what grace and life make us through the power of the gospel. He is the way.
He is the door. Through Him we have access into the Holy Place. And through Him we have the power of the Holy Spirit to live new, obedient lives to Him. May we ever treasure this gospel.
It's everywhere in the Bible. Even in some of the bleakest passages in Genesis as we pray together. Gracious God, we thank you for your Word, Lord, as it shines light upon the gospel path. Lord, we pray that we would enter, if there's anyone here that has not entered by that narrow gate, God, that you would work in their hearts. And that, Lord, you would remind us that faith and repentance is not a one-time thing.
That God is an everyday experience for the believer. Help us treasure Christ more. Father, humble us for our sin and what it cost our first parents, what it cost the last Adam, our Lord Jesus. And help us follow closely along His way. For we ask it in Jesus' name, in all God's people said. Amen.
