Gardens, Trees, and Thieves

Tonight we're turning back to the first book of the Bible, a

book of Genesis and chapter 2. Book of Genesis and chapter 2.

And tonight, just for the sake of time, I'll just read the two

verses that I want to preach upon times rapidly disappearing

this evening. Genesis chapter 2 And actually

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

we'll read 3 verses. We'll break in at verse 15.

Genesis chapter 2 and the verse 15.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of

Eden to dress it and to keep it. 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

shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest

thereof thou shalt surely die. Amen.

Let's just bow together in prayer.

Father in Heaven, as we come now to thy precious word, we turn

unto Thee, the Author and the finisher of our faith.

And Father, we do come tonight and we do pray and love for each

and every soul in this meeting. Lord, we come tonight as a

relative stranger to the congregation.

Lord, we don't know everybody, but Father, we thank Thee that

you know each and every one of us by name.

You know us by nature. And Lord, we pray tonight for

any in this meeting, that Lord may still be outside the family

and fold of God, or following the afar off, that even this

night thou would come, Lord, and touch their hearts and draw them

with the chords of Calvary love. To that end we do pray.

Emptiest now of self and of sin. Now the old flesh to the cross

breathe upon us. And Lord, fill us tonight with

thy Holy Spirit, and with faith and with fire and with power

from on high. And oh, that thou would open up

thy word to us, for we ask it in Jesus name, Amen and Amen.

So Genesis chapter 2 and those 3 verses there verses 15 to 17, my

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

text for this evening. And you'll find here we've got

the Lord's words way back to Adam and Eve, when he says in

the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.

There was Adam and Eve put into a lovely garden.

They were told they could eat of the the fruit of every tree in

their garden with the exception of 1.

And then the Lord gave them the warning that in the day that

thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die.

And whenever you come to consider this passage of

Scripture, here is man placed into a beautiful garden.

He's given absolutely everything that he needs for indescribable

happiness, joy and fulfilment. But in order that man might have

a will, and Adam did have a free will, God gave him the moral

opportunity of a choice. And so God created a tree, and

he planted that tree in the Garden of Eden.

It was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And man was forbidden to eat of that tree.

And I want us to think about that tree tonight.

And then I also want to think about another tree.

And that's the tree that Peter just sung about, the old rugged

tree of Calvary. And I want to look at those two

trees tonight. There's some similarities.

There's also some contrast between them.

You'll find that in this first tree we want to consider the

tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

We can call this one the tree of death, because the Lord says

here in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.

And then the second tree we want to compare and contrast is that

tree of Calvary. And we can call this tree the

tree of life because the Lord said I am come that they might

have life and that they might have it more abundantly.

Two different trees, one the tree of death, the other one the

tree of life. Now let me say that both of

these trees are found in a garden.

Did you notice that you'll see here in verse 8 we're told in

the Lord God planted a garden Eastwood in Eden and there he

put man whom he had formed and out of the ground made the Lord

God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the site and good

for food. The tree of life also in the

midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and

evil. So the tree of the knowledge of

good and evil was planted in the garden in the Garden of Eden.

But you know, whenever you think about the old rugged cross, that

tree upon which the Lord Jesus Christ bled and died, did you

know that that cross was also planted in a garden?

Did you know that the Lord Jesus Christ hung in agony and in

blood in a garden? In John chapter 19, the Bible

John 19 · chapter mention

tells us now in the place where he was crucified, there was a

garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre wherein was never man

yet laid. So the first Adam and the last

Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, both of them died in a garden.

So it's interesting that the tree of death was in the garden

of Eden and the tree of life, the cross of our Lord Jesus

Christ where He died so that we might have life, was also,

strangely enough, in a garden. What's the significance of this?

Well, it means that original sin was committed in a beautiful and

perfect environment and surrounding.

And that's very, very important tonight.

You see, sometimes we get the idea that man's problems are

just sociological. Some people think that man's

problems are really because of the environment that he lives

in. And we're told today, if we

could just change man's environment, then we would

change men. A better environment would give

us a better man. And there are those who think

that if everyone is properly fed, properly clothed, properly

educated, then you'll usher in a good environment and all of

man's problems will be solved. Now I'm not knocking a good

environment, but the bottom line is, well, you can put a new suit

on a man, only Christ can put a new man in the suit and what man

needs is much more than a better environment you see, or else all

you get is a well fed, well clothed, well educated Sinner.

Then there are those in this computerised age in which we

live, and they try and tell us that man's just a little bit

like a computer and he's just programmed wrongly.

And if we could just reprogram the computer, then he'd be all

right. But I'm afraid that's not true

either, because if man is only a computer that's been programmed

wrongly, then it's logical that you can't blame him for his sin.

In other words, he's not evil, but he's, I'll, he's not sinful,

but he's sick. He's not really wicked, he's

just underprivileged. And all of that thinking is just

humanism. The Bible teaches that man is a

Sinner. All have sinned and come short

of the glory of God. And that includes me tonight,

and that includes you. Everyone of us have sinned.

We've fallen short of the glory of God.

You see, man was made in the image of God.

Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

But how many people are there out there tonight who have taken

the life that God has given them and they're just living for

themselves and they've abandoned God and turned their back upon

Him? We learned from the book of

Genesis that original sin entered into this world through

Adam, and since then all of us as descendants of Adam have

inherited that sinful nature. That's also taught in the New

Testament in Romans chapter 5. Wherefore as by one man sin

Romans 5 · chapter mention

entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death

passed upon all men, for that all have sinned, so we find

here, as we think about these two trees tonight, the tree of

the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree upon which the Lord

Jesus Christ died, both of them are found in a garden.

Let me also say that through these two trees we learn good

and evil. You see, Calvary's tree was also

a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but there's a vast

difference between them. Because if man had of obeyed God

there at the first tree, then there would never have been a

need for the second tree. But yet God who is the Alpha and

the Omega who knows the beginning from the end, knew

that man would disobey him there in that Garden of Eden.

And that is why the Lord Jesus Christ came as the Lamb of God,

who was slain from the foundation of the world.

What does that phrase mean? It means that when God created

this world, before He created Adam, before He created Eve,

before there was ever indeed a Sinner, the Lord knew that man

would sin and that man would need a Saviour.

But the difference between these two trees is much more than the

difference between cause and effect, because there are two

ways in life that you can know good and evil.

You can know good and evil through personal

experimentation, or you can know good and evil by revelation.

Now Adam wanted to know good and evil by personal experience.

The Lord said to Adam, here's a tree that's the tree of the

knowledge of good and evil. And Adam, you can eat of every

tree in the garden, but don't eat of this tree, for in the day

that they'll eat us there of thou shalt surely die.

And that should have been enough for Adam.

You know, if you ever go out into the garage and you see

indeed a bottle up on the shelf and it's got poison written on

it, you don't need to pick it up and start drinking it to see

whether it's really poisonous or not.

That's the worst way to learn. And you find that Adam should

have had the wisdom to obey God, but he didn't.

And it's just something that's in our human nature, isn't it?

There's something about us that when we're told not to do

something, we want to do it. You ever walk through the park

and you've just seen the park bench there and there's a big

sign on it? Wet paint, don't touch.

And what's the first thing you do?

2 fingers straight on it. In fact, I always love walking

through and seeing the nicely painted benches and I like

leaning over and just seeing how many fingerprints there are on

them. There's something in US, isn't

there? No matter what the sign says, no

matter what the warning is, we want to find out for ourself.

And the devil knew that about human nature.

He was more subtle than any beast of the field.

The Bible says so. The devil comes along to Eve,

and what does he do? He questions the word of God.

Yeah. Hath God said ye shall not eat

of every tree of the garden? The Lord never said that.

He said to them, You can eat of all the trees of the garden,

There's so many there, but just don't eat of this one.

And already the first time the devil opens his mouth in the

Bible, he's twisting and questioning the word of God.

And therefore you find that he says, Yeah, hath God said.

And now Eve replies and says, We may eat of the fruit of the

trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in

the midst of the garden, God hath said he shall not eat of

it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die.

I think it's interesting here. It's always fascinated me that

before Adam and Eve fell into sin, she's, she's already adding

here to the word of God. The Lord never mentioned

anything about touching this tree.

He said don't eat it. He didn't say anything about

don't touch it. And the devil says she shall not

surely die. For God doth know that in the

day that ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye

shall be as God's knowing good and evil.

Now here how Notice how the devil comes and he appeals here

to Eve. So Eve has to choose.

She has to choose between believing God or believing the

devil, believing the word of God or disbelieving it.

And you know that same choice faces each and everyone of us in

this meeting tonight. Will you believe the word of God

or will you disbelieve it tonight?

Eve had to choose between knowing good and evil by

revelation or by personally experimenting.

And we often say in life, experience is the best teacher.

But when it comes to sin, experience is the worst teacher.

Eve listens to the devil, she partakes of the forbidden fruit,

and then Adam partakes of it as well.

And then comes the knowledge. But it's not the kind of

knowledge that a person wants. How did they know good now?

They know good by its absence. How do they know evil by its

presence? They learnt the destructive and

the deadly power of sin and the anguish and the heartache and

the ruin and the woe that was going to come into their family.

Now, because of sin, we don't have time to go into it.

But the very first murder, Adam and Eve's two sons, one murders

the other. Oh, the high price of sin there

is to pay in this family. And that's why there's wisdom in

believing the Word of God. Rather than finding out for

yourself that when you dabble with sin, it'll bring heartache

and anguish, it's much better to listen to the Word of God.

And when the Bible says thou shalt not, it's not because the

Lord's holding back from you something that'll be good, but

rather it's because He's coming as a loving father trying to

save you from heartache and ruin.

Now, that first tree was called the tree of the knowledge of

good and evil, But I want to say that this second tree, Calvis

tree, is also, in a real sense, a tree of the knowledge of good

and evil. If we start with the evil first,

you'll never understand evil, you'll never really understand

sin until you get a glimpse of Calvary.

Right now you may think that humanity is not bad, that sins

not really that bad, that it's just some sort of small problem.

But when you see by faith God's darling Son, the one in whom is

no sin, who did no sin, when you see Him being taken by the hands

of cruel men and nailed to that old rugged cross, and you see

everything that led up to it, from indeed the mockery

discouraging, the hellishness, the hatefulness, the sinfulness

that was poured out upon God's dear Son, then you begin to get

a glimpse of sin. Yes, on that second tree is the

knowledge of evil. You see here we see sin for what

it is, we see the presence of sin, we see the power of sin,

and we see that sin was what nailed the Saviour to the tree.

That wasn't indeed the nails that held him there, but it was

the love of God for sinners that kept him upon that tree.

You see, when you behold the cross of Calvary as it is

revealed in the Bible, then you have a knowledge of sin, that

you'll have no other way. You see indeed how he suffered

upon that cross. And why did he suffer?

The New Testament says, For he hath made him to be sin for us.

He who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God

in him, such as the love of God for sinners, that he came and

died, the just for the unjust, that he might reconcile us to

God. That's why the Bible says that

God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.

Sometimes you meet people and you ask them if they're saved

and if they're ready indeed to face death, and where will they

be in eternity? And they say, Oh well, I'm not

saved, but I think I'll be all right.

And I always say that when they say that.

I say, have you ever heard of Christ?

God spared not his own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

He was the sinless Son of God, and if God spared not his own

sinless Son, I said, do you think God will spare you if you

leave the scene of time without Christ?

There's a great challenge and a great warning that indeed comes.

So you see here this knowledge of evil.

Calvary's tree is also a tree of the knowledge of good.

Because when you look at that old rugged cross, there alone in

the midst of all the suffering and the agony and the pain and

the death of Christ, what else do we see?

We see the goodness of God, we see the glory of God.

We see the grace of God, the righteousness of God, the

majesty of God, the love of God. What greater love hath any man

than this, than that he lay down his life for his friends?

You may be sitting in this meeting tonight and you may look

upon God as your enemy, but the Bible says that He laid down His

life to save sinners. And tonight if you'll just come

and place your faith and your trust in Him, because the Bible

says God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were

yet sinners, Christ died for us. Just think, He died around 2000

years ago before you and I were born.

That means that 2000 years ago, the Lord was able to look down

through the corridors of time and see you and see me.

He knew all about us from the moment we'd be born to the

moment we die. He knew every sin, every

failing, everything we would do wrong in life.

The Lord knows you at your worst.

And yet, while we were yet sinners, while we were at our

worst, He commends His love toward us in the God so loved

the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever

believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting

life. Just think about it.

There are some people that indeed you may know, and they

don't know you too well, and they don't really like you even

at your best. But the Lord says He knows all

about you, the very worst, every secret sin, and yet He still

reaches out those nail pierced arms, those nail pierced hands

indeed, to draw you to Himself and save you.

Both of these trees are found in a garden.

Both. Through these trees we learn

good and evil, and then notice last of all what we can glean

from these trees. Both of these trees we find have

great power. When Adam partook of the first

tree, he became a thief. The fruit of that tree did not

belong to him. The fruit of every other tree in

the garden was his. The Lord gave it to him, but the

fruit of this tree was not his. So Adam indeed became a thief

that moment that he took it, and as a result the Lord then drove

him out of that garden. When he became a thief, he took

it, and at that moment when he stole it.

He was then going to be banished, banished from

paradise. In fact, in the next chapter in

Genesis 3 and verse 23, we're told.

Therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from or out of the Garden

of Eden to till the ground from whence 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.

So out of the garden goes Adam, expelled from Paradise for being

a thief. Now think about that for a

moment. Adam is expelled from paradise

for being a thief. Now when we come to look at

Calvary in the New Testament and passages like Luke chapter 23,

Luke 23 · chapter mention

you'll find here. Here we've got the story about a

second thief, and you'll find this second thief is at the

second tree called Calvary. And in Luke 23 and 39 it says,

and one of the malefactors, that word malefactor means evil doer.

We know from the other gospels that this man was a thief.

And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him,

saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.

But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear

God, saying, thou art in the same condemnation?

And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our

deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss.

And he said unto Jesus, Lord, Remember Me when thou comest

into thy Kingdom. And then listen to this in Luke

23 and verse 43. And Jesus said unto him, Verily

I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in paradise.

In paradise. Do you see the link here?

The first Adam ate of the first tree and became a thief, and he

was driven out of paradise. But now in Luke 23, here's a

thief, and he eats the fruit of the second tree, Calvary, and

he's invited into paradise. Now this second thief had

previously been a shut out, as Adam was when he sinned.

But as he hung upon that cross that day, dying, and he looked

at Calvary and he saw that one dying beside him, he knew that

he was innocent. He has done nothing amiss, he

said to the thief on the other side of him.

Suddenly it dawned upon his soul who he was.

And just think, this man also was nailed to a cross.

He too was going to die that day.

There's no .1 of these old ecumenical ministers coming

along and saying, well look, if you come along and join my

church, I'll be all right, but I'm going to die today.

Well, if you just go and do some good works, no, I'm nailed to a

cross. If you pay into the church, if

you take communion, no, he could do none of those things.

But today thou shalt be with me in paradise.

Here was a man who was saved by faith, by looking to the

crucified Saviour as he died to take our sins in his body to the

tree. What a difference, what a

difference. That's why the Lord says, I am

the way come unto me. And I wonder if there's someone

here denied and you're not saved.

And perhaps so far in your life, when you look at the life God

has given you and the years that God has given you, you've taken

that life and you've just done with it as you will.

And when God your Creator looks down upon you, do you know what

he says? You're a thief.

You've taken the life I've given you, and you haven't used it for

the purpose that I created you. But yet he doesn't come with a

big stick. Instead, he points you to that

old rugged cross. And he says, greater love hath

no man than this, than that a man lay down his life for his

friends. And in that second garden, at

that second tree, Christ took our sins in his body to the

tree. As I was saying this morning, I

was an atheist until I was 23 years of age, never went to

church, never went to Sunday school, got converted at 23,

hearing the gospel for the first time through a man that I worked

with. And I can tell you, I would

never want to go back to that old life.

If you're here tonight and you're living a life without

Christ, I've been there, I've done it.

I thought I was living, I thought I was in charge of my

life. Little did I realise until after

I got saved just how empty that life was.

Now I've got the joy of salvation.

Now I've got assurance of salvation.

Now I've got the knowledge of God and the presence of Christ

on a day by day basis, plus all the blessings that awaiting

glory. One day I'll be absent from the

body and present with the Lord. Tell me, where will you be on

that day? Where will you be when that day

comes and the Lord either comes or calls for you?

You know God forbid man to eat of that first tree and the devil

did everything he could to talk them into eating it.

And tonight God now invites you to come by faith to that second

tree of Calvary, and to come and bow the knee in repentance and

accept Christ as your own and personal Saviour.

And tonight the devil will do everything he can to make you

put it off and ignore it. Don't worry about what anyone

else will think. Don't worry indeed about what

tomorrow may bring. Someone once said your friends

can laugh you into hell, but they can't laugh you out of

hell. The Lord invites you tonight.

Will you come to Him? Will you come to Him?

Those nail pierced hands are outstretched tonight.

The Lord knows all about you. There's nothing about you that

he doesn't know. And yet tonight he still reaches

out. And love, don't turn your back

upon him. The Bible says whosoever will

may come, that includes you tonight whosoever.

And he also says, all that the Father giveth me shall come unto

me, and him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.

Not only does the Lord reach out tonight to save you, but He

promises that He won't cast you out.

But if you die as you live without Him, then you'll be cast

out for eternity. But tonight you can be locked in

to eternal life. Will you come tonight?

Will you come to Christ for Jesus sake?

Amen.