The Tale of Two Trees, Part 1

Greetings, friends and new listeners and welcome to The Sound of Faith.

I'm Sharon Notts thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Today's message, The Tale of Two Trees, begins in a beautiful garden, the original site of the tree of life. Today that Garden of Eden is gone and the tree of life now stands in heaven. Because Adam and Eve disobeyed God and chose the wrong tree, their sin brought death to themselves and all their progeny. But the second Adam, Jesus Christ, God's Son, chose to die on the tree of death to restore us to the tree of life.

This is the incomparable story of The Tale of Two Trees. How many can say I've been redeemed? I've been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, not with corruptible things as silver or gold, which to man is precious and much to be desired.

But that wasn't good enough. It took the precious blood of the Lamb of God without spot and without blemish. Amen. And the Bible says, let the redeemed say so.

Hallelujah. And so we celebrate life today because Jesus is the Prince of life. God is all about life. Anything that's connected to death in any way is not from God. Amen.

Satan is the author of death. But this morning we're going to talk about two trees and one is the tree of life. Amen. The other is the tree of suffering.

But Jesus transformed it in the tree of death into a tree of life. So let's begin and read a couple verses in the book of Revelation. We're going to go all the way to the back of the book and we'll get the good stuff right up front.

Amen. Because this is what we're looking forward to in Revelation chapter 2. We'll read one verse. Verse 7. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Let me preface this by saying the speaker is Jesus Christ.

Amen. This is the revelation that John had and this is Jesus speaking. And he said to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God. Now remember John was caught up in the Spirit. He saw a door open up in heaven and a voice said come up hither.

And he was caught up. So that's kind of like a token of what it's going to be like in the rapture. Because the Bible says that God's going to sound the trumpet with a shout.

When you shout that means you say something. And I believe he's going to say what John's heard, come up hither. And we're going to be caught up in God's presence. So John was caught up and when he got there he saw that in heaven is the tree of life. Turn all the way to Revelation, let's go to chapter 22, the last chapter in the book and read a couple of verses. 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.

The Lamb is Jesus Christ. In the midst of the street of it and on either side of the river was there the tree of life which bear 12 manners of fruits and yielded her fruit every month and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Let's jump over to verse 14. Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city. So when we get to heaven, amen, we're going to find that in God's paradise there is the tree of life. But do you know that the original paradise of God and the original place of the tree of life was on this earth?

How many knew that? So turn in your Bibles with me to Genesis. We're going to read some and I'll paraphrase some for the sake of time. But let's read Genesis the fifth chapter, the first five verses. Now this is the book of the generations of Adam. In other words, this is the genealogy of Adam.

There's a show on television now and it's quite interesting and a lot of people are using a lot of the things that you can do now. You know there's programs on computers and such that you can trace your genealogy and if you came, you know we all came from somewhere on the other side of the ocean. Wherever it may be we all came from that side and so you can trace your genealogy back and even to the very country, the very town, the very city and the very people. Well this is Adam's genealogy and that's why we call it the family tree, amen. So in the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him, male and female created he them and blessed them and called their name Adam in the day that they were created.

And so this is interesting, God called their name Adam because the word Adam is not just referring to masculine, it refers to mankind. Let me give you a little etymology of the word. It started off with the word dam and that means blood. Then we have the word edam and that means the color red. Then we have the word adama and that means the dirt, the soil. If you've ever looked on television and you see when they show pictures of Africa, have you ever noticed how red the dirt is? It's very red.

It just jumps out at you. That's because the dirt over there is the color of red so adama from dam to edam to adama we have soil and then we come to adam which is for mankind because God created man out of the soil, amen. Because we know that Adam is the one who named his wife. The Bible says he called her name Eve because she was the mother of all living. So technically Adam refers to humankind, amen.

So just keep that in mind. Verse 3, and Adam lived a hundred and thirty years and begat a son in his own likeness after his image and called his name Seth. Now we all know that prior to the birth of Seth, Adam and Eve had sons named Cain and Abel and we believe that they were twins but we also know that Cain was jealous of Abel and he killed him.

He slew him. So Eve cried out for God to give her another son and this is the son that we see here Seth. And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years and he begat sons and daughters and all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years and he died. Somebody say and he died.

These have got to be some of the saddest words in the Bible. And he died, amen. You say but sister Sharon he lived to be nine hundred and thirty years old. That's a long time to live.

Yes it is. It's a very long time, amen. In fact only one man lived longer than Adam and that was his great great great great great grandson Methuselah who lived to be nine hundred and sixty nine years old. Only Noah lived longer to age nine hundred and fifty, amen. And so nine hundred and thirty years for Adam to live was a very long time but he still died and he was not supposed to die, amen.

He wasn't supposed to die. If we would go on and read the genealogy we would find out that his son Seth lived to be nine hundred and twelve years and he died. His son Enos lived to be nine hundred and five years and he died. His son Canaan lived to be nine hundred and ten and he died.

Mahalel his son lived to be eight hundred and ninety five and somebody help me and he died. And his son Jared lived to be nine hundred and sixty two and he died. And finally Methuselah managed to live the nine hundred and sixty nine years and he died.

We could go on but let's stop here. All of these men lived almost a millennium. They almost made a thousand years, amen. But they died. And after this we see the human life span decreases and decreases and decreases and when we get to the time of the flood after the flood it takes a big hit, amen. And by then they're down to a hundred and seventy five and then they're getting down to a hundred and twenty and look at our life span today, amen. But you see Adam and Eve were created to live forever.

They were not supposed to die but something happened because of a choice that they made, amen. Flip over to chapter two in Genesis. Look at verse seven. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living soul.

Well we say where we read in our English breath of life in the Hebrew it's kaim and it's plural. He breathed into man the breath of lives because he not only breathed into him physical life but spiritual life, amen. And the Lord planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed and of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food and the tree of life also was in the midst or in the middle of the garden but there was another tree and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So God put Adam in this beautiful garden and he was supposed to dress it and keep it and guard it, amen.

And the word there keep where God put him in the garden and told him to keep it. That means that it's a veiled threat that there is someone that's going to come and challenge Adam for the dominion and authority of the garden and God is basically giving him a warning. I'm putting you in a position, I'm giving you, if I read all of Genesis you'd see God said, he said you have dominion.

You have dominion over this earth and I'm putting you in charge and giving you authority. Now guard it and keep it and by the way here's the tree of life. Over here is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, amen.

And God, let's drop down to verse 15. And the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it which I just discussed 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 shall not eat of it for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely, somebody say surely, thou shall surely die, amen. So God said here, here's the deal and we go on and read, we find out that the garden was filled with many, many trees and they were, we read they were good to look at, pleasant to the eye and good for food and because God is a God of generosity and blessing he said of all the trees you may freely eat. Only this one you may not eat because in the day that you eat thereof you shall die.

Now you know he could have said it in the negative. He could have started off by saying whatever you do don't eat of this tree just eat the rest of them but God wanted a man to understand I'm giving you this beautiful garden, you can enjoy yourself, you can freely eat. I can't imagine all the trees that must have been there that were represented all the fruit trees and the nut trees and such and he said just freely eat but of this one tree don't eat of it because in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die and here's the sad thing. The sad thing is that Adam and Eve never ate of the tree of life. They never ate of it. I'm going to show you in a minute.

I'm going to prove it to you. He chose the wrong tree. Let's drop over to chapter 3. 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 hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. Now do you see the way do you see the way this is flipped?

How many caught it? Has God said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden. God said you shall freely eat of every tree of the garden but this one. Amen. And the woman said unto the serpent we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden.

So she's on the right track here. She says we may eat of them but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God said you shall not eat of it neither shall you touch it lest you die. Lest you die. And the serpent said unto the woman you shall not surely die.

Now he's going from a suggestion to an outright lie. For God doth know that in the day you eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as God's knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons and they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

How sad to have to hide from the presence of God. Amen. So we see right here they chose the wrong tree. They disobeyed God and they ate of the tree that God said the one and only tree that God said don't eat of and immediately as soon as they ate of that tree their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked. Amen. You see Adam not only failed to keep his wife from eating of that tree but he ate of it also. And Bible scholars believe that when God told Adam this that Eve was not present because we read it already to the man he said and then later that she would have told Eve. And how many know that when you get something second handed it gets a little weaker. Amen.

It gets a little weaker and a lot of times by the time that you get something it's not exactly at all or near like it was when it was first spoken. You see she changed God surely into a lest. Amen. Lest you die. Amen. And when God says surely he means exactly what he said.

Amen. And the serpent said you shall not surely die. He turned it into a lie and went against God's word and Adam should have stepped up. He should have stepped up and said wait a minute that's not what God said. God said it in the day. Don't make any mistake about it in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die.

Amen. And in that moment immediately their eyes were opened and we know that this is a metaphor. We know this means their understanding was open. They knew something now that they didn't know before. They understood that they were naked and this is the beginning of conscience in man. The word conscience means con means with and science means knowledge. With knowledge from this moment on he has a conscience. Prior to this he was innocent. He didn't know evil. God did not intend for man to know evil.

Amen. But now he has a conscience. But a conscience is a good thing to have.

A healthy conscience. Even if you're not born again. Even if you're not serving God. Even if you're not following the word of God. If you got a healthy conscience when you do something wrong you'll get that little ugh. Amen.

You'll get that little twitch. That little twang in your spirit and you'll know this is wrong. Where people get in trouble is when they get that little thing in their heart and tells them this is wrong and they don't want to face the fact that it's wrong because they don't want to change.

They want to continue in their behavior. That's when they have to start arguing and trying to justify themselves. Amen. But Paul told us in the second chapter of Romans that every man has a law written on their heart. Whether they know the Bible or don't know the Bible. They have a law written on their heart that God has written there and he says it either accuses you or excuses you.

Amen. If you're doing something wrong it's going to accuse you. When Cain slew his brother Abel he knew that was wrong. Why did he bother to go bury him? But God said where is your brother? He said am I my brother's keeper? God said what have you done? Now do you think that God needed information? He was given Cain an opportunity to confess his sin. He was given an opportunity to say I have done a terrible thing.

But what did Cain say? Am I my brother's keeper? In other words how do I know where he is?

I don't keep checking on him. Amen. And when the Spirit of God comes knocking at the door of your heart and says you know what you're doing is not right. You know that you're living in sin. You know the truth and you're not walking in the truth.

If you're not ready to get right whatever you do don't push it away and try to make an excuse for it because when you do that you get a layer of callous over your conscience and over your heart. And this is how people can progress to a point that they can do heinous things and it not bother them anymore. Amen. And so here we have that they knew now that they were naked. They understood it. And because they had disobeyed God's direct commandment there was going to have to be a penalty. And God told them upfront what the penalty was.

What was it? Death. And we got to understand that because God breathed into them the breath of lives they were going to die a double death. First of all they were going to die physically. He lived to be 930 years old but he died and he wasn't supposed to die. But because they never ate from the tree of life he was going to die. Now at that point the earth was beautiful and perfect. There weren't diseases and all of that.

They didn't have all the stuff that we have to contend with today. We have gene mutations in the human gene pool. We have a world that's been filled with all kinds of poisons and toxins from man-made things and so we don't live that long. And he lived a long time but he still died. And the other part of death was that he was to be separated from the presence of God. And folks I say to you that that is the greater death. Is to be separated from the presence of God.

Let's read that in Genesis, drop down to verse 17. Now God has pronounced judgment on them. Amen. God said to Adam, what have you done?

Amen. Who told you you were naked? What have you done? God was giving Adam a chance to fess up. He was giving him a chance to say, I broke your law. But what did he do?

He said the woman that you gave me, the woman that you gave me, gave me of the fruit and I did eat. Now we have the introduction of the original blame game. Amen. The original blame game and how you do that today is you throw blame out there on several people.

You throw it around and hope it sticks to one of them. Amen. He said the woman you gave me. He wasn't really blaming the woman. He was saying you gave me that woman. It's your fault God for giving me that woman.

Amen. He had a chance to confess then. And there's an interesting scripture in Job, the 31st chapter that says that Adam hid iniquity in his bosom.

He didn't fess up. God turned to the woman and said, woman, what have you done? What did she do? The serpent, the serpent beguiled me. She said, I can play the blame game too. Amen.

And how many know by now people have become very adept at playing the blame game. The serpent you gave me, he's the one who beguiled me and gave me to eat. Amen. And you know, God didn't say anything to the serpent.

You know why? The serpent did exactly what he intended to do. Amen. So we're in Genesis, the third chapter. Let's look at verse 17 and unto Adam, he said, because thou has hearkened under the voice of thy wife and has eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee say, and thou shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee and thou shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out of it you were taken for dust you are or dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return.

Here's the biggie. Amen. God said, you're going to go back to the very ground from which I formed you. Amen.

You're going to return to the dust. Amen. Now, this was what God said. He went on to, he went on to the woman and said, and because of what you did now, your sorrows of conception and childbearing are going to be multiplied. Somebody say, although ladies can say, thanks a lot, Eve.

Thanks a lot, Eve. Amen. Because of this, you're going to, because you know, we watch other animals in our, in the animal kingdom give birth and they don't go through what women go through. Amen. He said, because of what you have done, you're going to have sorrow in your birth.

When you give birth, the birth pangs are going to be greater. Amen. And he did not, he did not pass judgment on this. Well, he said to the serpent, you're going to be, you know, you're going to crawl on your belly and you'll have dust to eat for the rest of your time. Amen. But now here's what I want you to see in verse 22. Let's look at verse 22. And the Lord God said, behold, the man has become as one of us. Are you catching these plural pronouns?

Anybody catching them? How many see them in there? Okay. So we have here, we have a consultation amongst the Godhead. Amen. Amongst the God, the creator and the word of God and the Holy Spirit. They make up the Godhead. 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, wait a minute. He didn't finish his sentence grammatically. This is incorrect.

He just stopped. He says the man has become like one of us. Oh my goodness. Does you know what that means? Do you know that? What means they become like one of us. He knows good and evil.

So if he reaches forth his hand and plucks a piece of fruit off the tree of life and eats it, then you know what? The consequences are unimaginable. I will not even give life to them. I will not even speak it. Have you ever been discussing something and talking about something and you're going along and you're in your discussion and all of a sudden you come to that point where you know about you see and recognize what you're about to say is so terrible. You don't even want to think about it and you say, you know, I'm not even going to go there and you just drop it.

Let it hang in the air. And that is exactly what's going on here. And to the credit of the translators, they did not try to manufacture something and put something in there that they thought maybe God would have said, could have said or should have said they let it hang just like it is. God said it would be so terrible. It would be so awful if it is now his fallen sinful condition.

He would eat of the tree of life and live forever. Live forever in that fallen state. God said that is I won't even think that way.

So what are we going to do? Let's read the next verse and see what God said. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground for once he was taken. So he drove out the man and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life.

Amen. What a marvelous story. The tale of two trees. Some of the most tragic words in the Bible are and he died. Adam lived to be 939 but he still died and he wasn't supposed to die.

Why did he die? Because he chose the wrong tree and he never ate from the tree of life. We can only imagine how superbly beautiful the Garden of Eden was.

Adorned with all manner of fruit trees and in the very heart the tree of life bearing twelve different fruits. Yet Adam and Eve never ate from this luscious tree. They chose the wrong tree and sin entered the world through their disobedience. Sin never travels alone.

It always brings death. And God had to banish them lest they should eat from the tree of life and live forever in their fallen state. Today that tree stands on the bank of Heaven's crystal sea unattainable to fallen man. But there is a second Adam, Jesus Christ the Son of God who came to undo what the first Adam did.

But in order to restore us back to that garden of innocence and the tree of life he chose to die on the cross, the tree of death. There are dozens of interesting nuggets in this message and it would be an excellent addition to your spiritual library. You can order the tale of two trees on CD for Love Gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry. Request SK184, Mail to Sound of Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203 or go online to soundoffaith.org where you may also order on MP3s. But to order by mail, send your minimum Love Gift of $10 and mail to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203 and request SK184. Until next time, this is Sharon Ott saying Maranatha.