Trees

TREES
A Poem- by Joyce Kilmer
“I think that I shall never see-- a poem lovely as a tree,
A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed-against the earth’s sweet flowing breast,
A tree that looks at God all day, and lifts her leafy arms to pray,
A tree that may in summer wear- a nest of robins in her hair,
Upon whose bosom snow has lain, who intimately lives, with rain?
Poems are made… by fools like me, but only God… can make a tree.”
This poem is not Scripture, but it is good enough to be Scripture. The Bible clearly says on the very first page, that God made trees. In Gen: 1: 11 it states this truth, that only God can make trees, and he has made lots of them. He has made, not hundreds, or thousands, or millions, or billions, but trillions plus. He got carried away when it came to trees. He made all sizes, shapes, kinds, and varieties.
About 150 miles southeast of where I live, stands the largest tree in the world. About 100 miles in the same direction, is the tree with the largest diameter, 44’ plus. About 300 miles northwest, is the tallest tree in the world, over 370’ tall. Within the San Joaquin valley are billions of nut and fruit trees of many kinds and varieties. I live in a forest of beautiful oak and pine trees. The stately pine and fir tree of the mountains grow in abundant, extravagant beauty, just a short way from my house. In Alaska you can drive far hours at a time through beautiful birch and spruce forests, unable to see anything but the sky and trees.
I like trees. They provide shade, food, fruit, nuts, healing, and beauty. They provide support for swings, limbs for climbing, wood for buildings, paper, and many other manufactured goods. Their roots hold the soil from erosion. They provide homes for animals and birds, and insects live in their bark. They heat my home. God really did a great thing, when he made trees.
God must have liked them, as well. He created a botanical garden second to none. He named it the “Garden of Eden”, and placed Adam and Eve there to live and care for it. In Gen. 2:9 he created a very special tree. He called it the “Tree of Life”, and placed it in the middle of the garden. It had a special fruit. If man ate it, he would live forever.
Somehow Adam and Eve never did get around to tasting the tree of life. What a shame! If they had eaten the fruit of the tree of life, they would have never died, spiritually. And they probably would not have died physically. If they had eaten it, their children would have been born with eternal life as well. If Adam and Eve made it to heaven, and you do as well, try not to be too hard on them. We all make mistakes!
God made one other very special tree. It, too, was placed in the middle of the garden. It was called the “tree of knowledge of good and evil”. Maybe a better name for it would be, “the tree of death”. God told Adam and Eve they could eat from any tree in the garden, including the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But if they ate of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil”, they would die.
They did not eat of the “tree of life”, but did eat of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil”. They immediately suffered spiritual death. The word “death” means separation. They were separated from God, (physical death is separation from our body). He drove them from the garden, and placed an angel to guard it, to keep them from eating its fruit of eternal life, Gen. 3:24.
Paul explains what happened in Rom. 5:12, “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin.”
The reason God placed the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden, with it dire consequences, was to test man’s willingness to serve and love him. He had created man so he could love and glorify Him. For man to be able to do this, he had to do it voluntarily. God, in creating man in his image, gave him sovereignty over his will. The all powerful God of creation restricted his power and would not force man to love him. Love is not love, unless it is freely given. Love cannot be forced or manipulated. To love God is to want to please him.
In creating us in his image, he also gave us His holiness. When Adam abused his sovereignty and choose to disobey God, he lost his holiness.
The best definition of holiness is- “my will being in perfect accord with God’s will”. Choosing to disobey God, set his will opposite of God’s will, and he was no longer holy. Sin is always expensive. This one was very expensive, for Adam lost his fellowship with God. He was put out of the garden, and he was unable to eat of the tree of life. To make matters much worse, God put a curse on the world, Gen. 3:17. It turned a paradise into a sin- cursed world, with pain, death, hardship, thorns, thistles, weeds, pests, sickness, hard work, etc. Sin is never a bargain.
Adam traded eternal life, Eden, fellowship with God, living on easy street- for pain, sweat, death, thorns, and hell. All he got in return was the selfish knowledge that, “I did it my way”. Everyone since then, because of their “carnal nature” inherited from Adam has said, “Don’t tell me what to do”. We say that we would rather do it our way, and go to hell, than do it God’s way and have joy, peace, love, and heaven.
The tree of life died. It disappeared. The river that was in the garden is still in Iraq, but the place where the Garden of Eden was, is now just a desert.
Mankind still desperately needs the tree of life. Being created in God’s image, we have immortality, so it is either -“eternal life or eternal punishment”, Matt.25:46. Without the tree of life there is only eternal punishment.
Search through the Bible, book after book, chapter after chapter, and verse after verse. It is not there. In the first chapter of the Bible, God created fruit trees. In chapter 2, it tells of the tree of life, but then it disappears. It is not to be seen on the earth again. (Solomon mentions certain things as a tree of life, but is not referring to the “tree of Life”.
But in the last chapter of the Bible, when John is describing heaven, the tree of life reappears. At the very beginning of the Bible, the tree of life exists, and at the very end of the Bible it reappears. The tree of life is like book-ends. Between them is the total history of God’s dealing with man. From the paradise of the Garden of Eden to the paradise of Heaven, both ends of the history of mankind are anchored by the TREE IF LIFE.


Have you ever noticed the similarities between the Garden of Eden and Heaven?



The Garden of Eden
Gen 2:9 The Tree of Life

Many kinds of fruit

Gen 2:10 River

Gen 2:11 Gold

Gen 2:12 Onyx

Gen 3:8 Fellowship

Gen 3:24 Purity

Gen 3:17 No curse
Heaven
Rev. 22:2 The Tree of Life

Many kinds of Fruit

Rev. 22:1 River

Rev. 21:21 Gold

Rev.21:22 Jewels

Rev. 21:13 Fellowship

Rev. 21:17 Purity

Rev. 22:3 No curse


God started man out in heaven (Eden), And wanted him to end up in His heaven.

What a problem Adam and mankind have gotten themselves into. Created in God’s image, they have free will, holiness, and immortality. By misusing their free will, they lost their holiness, and now are faced with immortality, without eternal life. After their spiritual death, and separation from God, man needed access to the TREE OF LIFE more than ever. Sin, having entered the picture, forbade access to the tree for man, even if it still existed. Sin also forbids access to heaven, for heaven is a place without sin.
What a helpless state man is in! What a hopeless place he has come to, in clinging to his self sufficiency. From the farthest reaches of the cosmos, there is no help in sight. His immortal soul is condemned lost. No one can help him, and certainly not himself. What a price he is paying for the privilege of, “doing it my way”.
But wait, maybe there is hope. The verse after the one that tells us of the tree of life in heaven, Rev. 22:3, tells us that the Throne of God and the Lamb are in the city, the “New Jerusalem”. We hear of a lot of “The Lamb” in the Scripture. He is the same as the one John the Baptist introduced to his disciples, when he said in John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”. He is the same one that Isaiah prophesied about in Is 53:7,12- “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. He was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”
This is the same Lamb that John prophesied about in Rev. 5:6, 8, 9-13 “Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain; standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders…the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp…And they sang a new song-
You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals,
Because you were slain,
And with your blood you purchased men for God
From every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
And they will reign on the earth.
Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang;
Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise:
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:
To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
Be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever;”
In the Garden of Eden, God created only beautiful trees. Later, he created one very ugly tree .Peter explained it in I Pet. 2:24, “Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the TREE, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness, ”Three times Peter calls the cross, “the tree”, and Paul called it ,“the tree”, two times.
The TREE OF LIFE has been in the Bible every since Matt. 27:32. It was just called by another name. We know it now as, “The old rugged cross”. No wonder Isaac Watts wrote, “Was it for crimes that I have done, He groaned upon the TREE? Amazing pity! Grace unknown! And love beyond degree”!
The present day -“Tree of Life”
George Bernard summed it up quite well when he wrote:
“On a hill far away, stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame. And I love that old cross, where the dearest and best, for a world of lost sinners was slain.
So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross, till my trophies at last I lay down. I will cling to the old rugged cross, and exchange it someday for a crown.
O the old rugged cross, so despised by the world, has a wondrous attraction for me. For the dear Lamb of God, left His glory above, to bear it to dark Calvary.
In the old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine, a wondrous beauty I see. For twas on that old cross, Jesus suffered and died, to pardon and sanctify me.
To the old rugged cross I will ever be true, its shame and reproach gladly bear. Then He’ll call me some day, to my home far away, where His glory forever I’ll share.”
The ugliest of trees, has become the most beautiful of trees, because of the Lamb.
The present day tree of life has fruit as well. It is forgiveness, peace, joy, hope, heaven, freedom from guilt, the power of Satan, and the gift of the Holy Spirit and so much more.
It is so ironic that the present tree of life was created as an instrument of death. Because Jesus died on it, it miraculous became our “Tree of Life”.
Eating of the tree of life is as close as we can get to Eden, until we get to heaven.
The main point of this sermon is-you can still eat from the “Tree of Life”. God has recreated it through Jesus Christ, “The Lamb of God”. You can eat, and have eternal life restored to you. Paul made it clear in Rom 6:6, “For we know that our old self was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.” Verse 18 says that, “You have been set free from sin”. God has reversed the curse of the “tree of knowledge of Good and Evil”! He has overcome death! Rom 8:16 says, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”
David told us in Psalms 34:8, “Taste and see that the Lord is good”. We can do it now by simply confessing and repenting of sins, and believing in Jesus Christ the Son of the Living God, the “Lamb”, that takes away the sins of the world.
Can you imagine any good excuse why Adam and Eve did not taste the “Tree of Life”? They had no excuse! It was there! They were invited to eat from it! It was as close as the “tree of death”, of which they did eat!
What excuse are you using to not eat of the “New Tree of Life” that Jesus has provided?