March 2016 USPS Volume 55 Number 3. In This Issue: THE TALE OF TWO TREES

Transcription

1 March 2016 USPS Volume 55 Number 3 In This Issue: THE TALE OF TWO TREES TREE

2 We celebrate life during the Easter season, because Jesus is the Prince of life whom God raised from the dead (Acts 3:15). God is all about life. Anything connected to death in any way is not from God. Satan is the author of death. Jesus said he came to steal, kill, and destroy (Jn.10:10). This message is about two trees: One is the tree of life. The other is a tree of suffering and death, but Jesus transformed this tree of death into a tree of life. Jesus said in Revelation 2:7: He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God. This is the revelation John had when he was caught up in the Spirit, and saw a door open up in heaven, and a voice said, Come up hither. (This is a preview of what will occur in the rapture when we are caught up into God s presence.) One of the things John saw in Heaven was the tree of life: 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 (Jesus Christ). In the midst of the street of it, and of either side of the river was there the tree of life, which bear twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter into the gates into the city (Rev.22:1-2, 14). And He Died When we get to Heaven, God s Paradise, we will see the tree of life. The original place of the tree of life was on this earth in the garden of Eden God planted. Genesis 5:1-5: This is the book of the generations of Adam 2

3 (the genealogy of Adam). 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. This is interesting: God called their name Adam, because Adam does not refer to masculine, but to mankind. Let s look briefly at its etymology: It started with the word dam which means blood. From this came edom and means the color red. From this came adamah which means dirt, soil. If you have ever seen on TV scenes in Africa, you may have noticed how red the dirt is. Because the dirt was red, the word for soil, adamah comes from edom. Since God created man out of the soil, the word for mankind is Adam. And Adam lived 130 years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth. (Previously, Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. When Cain became jealous of Abel, he killed him, and Eve cried out for God to give her another son, who was Seth.) And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were 800 years: and he beget sons and daughters. And all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. The words he died are the saddest words in the Bible. You might say, But he lived to be 930 years old, and that s a long time! Yes, it is a very long time. In fact, there were only two men who lived longer than Adam: His grandson Noah who lived to be 950, and his great, great, great, great, great grandson Methuselah, who lived to be 969 years old. I agree, 930 years is a very long time, but he still died, and he was not supposed to die! Reading more of the genealogy, we see his son Seth lived to be 912 years, and he died. His son Enos lived to be 905 years, and he died. His son Canaan lived to be 910, and he died. His son Mahalaleel lived to be 895, and he died, and his son Jared lived to be 962, and he died. Then his son Methuselah managed to live to 969 longer than anyone and he died. Each of these men lived almost a millennium. They almost made it to 1,000 years, but they died! After this, the human lifespan decreased rapidly, and by the flood of Noah, it was down to 175 years. In Moses time it went down to 120 years, and look at our lifespan today, a mere 80 years! Adam and Eve were created to live forever. They were not supposed to die, but that changed when they chose the wrong tree. The Trees in Eden And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul (Gen.2:7). In Hebrew 3

4 the word for life is chaim which is plural: He breathed into him the breath of lives. He not only gave him physical life, but spiritual life. And the Lord planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed out of the ground. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil (vv.8-9). God put Adam in this beautiful garden and was commanded to dress it and keep it (v.15). 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 die (vv.16-17). The garden was filled with many beautiful lush trees, pleasing to the eye, and good for food. God is the God of generosity and blessing, so He said, Of all the trees you may freely eat! Only this one tree you may not eat, because in the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die. God could have said it with a negative emphasis: Whatever you do, don t eat of this tree! Only eat of the rest. God wanted man to understand the blessings he was given: I m giving you this beautiful garden, THE TALE OF TWO TREES 4 so you can enjoy yourself, and you can freely eat of all its trees but one. Imagine all the fruit trees and nut trees that were there and God said, Freely eat of all, but this one tree. The tragedy: Adam and Eve never ate of the tree of life! They never got to eat of it, because they chose the wrong tree first! Genesis 3:1: Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Can you see how he flipped this to the negative? God had said that they could freely eat of all the trees of the garden, but one! And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden (v.2). (She was on the right track here.) But of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. (vv.3-4). (Satan went from a twisted suggestion to an outright lie!) For God doth know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, 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

5 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 (vv.5-8). How sad to have to hide from the presence of God! We see right here that they chose the wrong tree. They disobeyed God and ate from the one tree that God had said not to eat. Immediately their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked. Adam not only failed to keep his wife from eating of the tree, but he ate of it also. Bible scholars believe that when God told Adam not to eat of this particular tree, Eve was not present: And the Lord God commanded the man (Gen.2:16). Later when Eve was created, Adam would have told her, and often when something is secondhand, it is weaker. It may not be exactly in words or tone as it was when first spoken. Clearly Eve changed God s surely into lest: Lest we die. When God said surely, He meant exactly what He said. The serpent said, You shall not surely die, and turned it into a lie against God s word. Adam should have stepped up and 5 said, Wait a minute! That is not what God said! But he let the lie stand. The Birth of Conscience Immediately their eyes were opened. This is metaphoric, meaning their understanding was opened; they knew something they didn t know before; they understood they were naked. This was the beginning of conscience in man. In Greek, conscience is two words: con means with and science means knowledge. From this point forward, man has a conscience; he is with knowledge of good and evil. Prior to this event, he was innocent. He didn t know evil. God did not intend for man to know evil, but now he has a conscience by which he must discern good and evil. A conscience is a good thing if it s healthy. Even if someone is not born again, not serving God and living by the Word of God, if he has a healthy conscience, when he does something wrong, he will get that little twinge in his spirit that tells him it is wrong. People get in trouble when they get that check in their heart, and their conscience is warning them of wrong, but 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, so they start arguing with their conscience to try to justify themselves. They eventually learn to stifle their conscience.

6 Paul told us in Romans 2:14-16 that all have a law written on their hearts. It is the instinctive knowledge of right and wrong. Whether they know the Bible or not, God has written a law on their hearts, and it either accuses or excuses them. If you re doing something wrong, it s going to accuse you. When Cain slew his brother Abel, he knew that it was wrong or he would not have bothered to bury him. God said, Where is your brother? He said, Am I my brother s keeper? God said, What have you done? Do you think God needed information? He was giving Cain an opportunity to confess his sin, but he said, I don t keep track of him. When the Spirit of God knocks at the door of your heart and says, What you re doing is not right; you know you re living in sin; you know you are not walking in the truth, whatever you do, don t push it away! Don t try to make an excuse for it, because when you do, you get a layer of callous over your conscience. This is how people can progress to do heinous things and feel no remorse. Paul said, Having their conscience seared as with a hot iron (1Tim.3:9). Adam and Eve disobeyed God s direct commandment, and there was going to be a penalty. God told them up front the penalty was death. Because God breathed into them the breath of THE TALE OF TWO TREES 6 lives, they were going to die a double death. First, they were going to die physically. Adam lived to be 930 years old, but he died, and he wasn t supposed to die, but he never ate from the tree of life. At that point, the earth was beautiful and perfect. There were no diseases such as we have to contend with today. We have mutations in the human gene pool, and we live in a world that s polluted with all kinds of poisons and toxins, including manmade, and we don t live as long as they did. He lived over nine centuries, but he still died. The second death was separation from the presence of God. I say to you, to be separated from the presence of God is the greater death! In Genesis 3:9 God pronounced judgment on them. God said to Adam, Who told you that were naked? What have you done? God was giving Adam a chance to fess up, to say, I broke your law. Instead, he said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the fruit tree, and I did eat (v.12). Here we have the introduction of the original blame game. How you play today is to throw enough blame on several people, and hope it sticks to one of them. Adam said, The woman YOU gave me. He wasn t really blaming the woman! He was saying, It is your fault, God, for giving me this woman! An interesting verse, Job 31:33,

7 says: Adam covered his transgressions and hid iniquity in his bosom. Next God turned to the woman: What have you done? She answered: The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. She said, I can play the blame game too. You will notice that God did not address the serpent, because the serpent did exactly what he intended to do: steal, kill, and destroy! The Sentence Passed And unto Adam he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and has eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt 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 shalt 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 wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return (vv.17-19). The final blow: You re going to go back to the very ground from which I formed you back to dust! The Godhead held a conference, and the decision was made to send them out of the garden. This proves they had not yet eaten of the tree of life. When we look at what God said, two words are especially indicative: lest and also. God said, Lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life and live forever (v.22). Lest meant in case it would happen, we have to do something to prevent it. Also means in addition to. We know he had already eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If in addition to eating of that tree, he would eat of the tree of life, we ve got to stop it. So God drove him out of the garden. That meant it was too late for Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of life! God put cherubim with a flaming sword to keep them from the way of the tree of life (vv.23-24). Now they could never eat of that tree. I think it begs the question: Why didn t they eat of the tree of life first? Why did they even bother to eat of the forbidden tree? The Bible says it was in the middle of the garden amongst many trees. I have to believe it was a gorgeous tree, beautiful and perfect. We read in Revelation it has 12 different kinds of fruit. I don t know of any trees like that. I don t know of a tree that even brings forth two different fruit. If you want peaches, you must plant a peach tree. If you want apples, you have to plant an apple tree. This tree was superlative in beauty and perfection, why wouldn t they have eaten of it first? It is the tree of life! I don t know about you, but it s the first tree that I 7

8 would go to! But Adam and Even didn t go to that tree, and we have to wonder Why? I can only give you my sanctified speculation: First, and this is important, they knew nothing of death. Having never seen nor experienced death, they could not have realized (like we would) how precious the tree of life is. They had no knowledge of evil, and only knew good up to that point. They could have no conception of the disastrous consequences that would unfold once they ate from the wrong tree. THE TALE OF TWO TREES 8 The Pandora Effect If you can, go way back in the file cabinet of your brain to middle school, and recall if you had a course in English on Greek mythology. Please know, it s what it s called a myth and it s not equal to the Bible! However, some things are interesting and may aptly depict human nature, such as the story of Pandora. She was supposedly the first woman created, and Zeus gave her a box and told her never, ever to open it. But created within her was something called curiosity, and eventually curiosity got the better of Pandora. She opened the box, and out came all the ills and evils that plague mankind, and she could not get them back into the box. Likewise, Adam and Eve had no idea of all the evil that would happen when they ate from that fateful tree. Secondly, the serpent was very subtle. He was able to quickly get their attention and sidetrack them with the discussion about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He was able to convince them they would not die, because they didn t understand death and knew nothing of evil. He persuaded them to eat of the wrong tree, tricking them, saying, God knows if you eat of this tree, you re going to be like God. They were already like God. They were created in His image and after His likeness. Adam was a Brainiac he named every animal. Do you know, in general, we humans only use 10% of our brains. Imagine if we could use the other 90%, what we could do! But it was lost through sin, through the curses that came on Adam and all his posterity. Satan tricked them to believe they wouldn t die, and he does the same thing today. He tells people the same old lie: You re not going to die, and you are surely not going to Hell! You know there is no Hell, so why are you worried about Hell? It s just something preachers made up to scare people to get them into church. That is what the devil tells people. Ask people out on the streets, Do you believe in Heaven? and 9 out of 10 will say, Yes. But if you ask the same people if they believe in Hell, they will say, No. Yet the

9 same Book, the same Word of God that preaches Heaven, preaches Hell. You may be surprised to know Jesus taught more on Hell than He did Heaven. Yet these people believe they re going to Heaven even though they are living in the sins the Bible condemns. The alternate lie of Satan is also deadly; that there is no Hell or Heaven, and when you die, you just go into the ground, and that is the end of you. So then: Let us eat and drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die! Live any way you want; do what feels good to you, because there are no eternal consequences. If the devil can convince our young people in school of evolution, it teaches them they were not created with a purpose, but by accident and cosmic randomness. If we are just some chemicals that happened to come together perfectly without a design or plan, then what does it matter how you live your life? If we were not created by a Creator, and were not designed by a Designer, then what is our purpose? Without a purpose, and without an eternal destiny, people feel no need to believe or obey the truths God set forth in the Bible. Truth can be whatever you deem it to be. Sometimes I am amazed by what people say they believe. I think to myself: It sounds wonderful, but what is it based on? Is it based on some imagination they have concocted in their brains because they feel uncomfortable when anyone talks about their mortality? The Bible says, It is appointed unto every man once to die (but there is something after death), and after death, the judgment (Heb.9:27). If you want to know what God says about life and death, Heaven and Hell, read His Book. God has made Himself and His will clear and plain, and He is not willing that even one should perish, but that all might come to eternal life (2Pet.3:9). There is not one person God wants to go to Hell, but they must accept His way. Satan the Serpent Satan is a Hebrew word which was transliterated straight into English. Hebrew is an ancient language, and originally the 22 letters of their alephbet were written in word pictures. This means if we know the word pictures for the letters in the spelling of a word, they reveal another layer of meaning to the word. Not only was Hebrew originally written in word pictures, but the vowels were not written out, only consonants. One more thing: Most Hebrew words have a three-letter root. Without the vowels, the three-letter root of satan is shin-tet-nun. The word picture for shin is either flames or teeth; they mean the same thing to devour. Teeth devour food and flames devour matter. The word picture for tet is a snake ready to 9

10 strike. It means snake. The word picture for nun is a fish darting in water, and it means life. Together the word pictures for satan mean the snake who devours life! This is what Jesus meant when He said, The thief, Satan, has come to steal, and to kill, and to destroy This is Satan s MO. He is a destroyer. Jesus called him a liar, the father of lies, and a murderer from the beginning (Jn.8:44). This refers to when he tricked Adam and Eve to sin which resulted in their death and passed the death sentence to all their posterity. This is what he is after. No matter how he comes, the bottom line is, he is a murderer and a liar this is his nature! This story of a turtle and a scorpion illustrates this: They were on the river bank wanting to cross over, but the scorpion is a terrible swimmer, so he asked the turtle to give him a ride on his back. The turtle said, Are you crazy? I know what you ll do! You will sting me, and then I will sink and drown. The scorpion replied in a reasonable tone: Now why would I do that? That doesn t make any sense. If I sting you, and you drown, I will drown with you, and we will both be doomed. The turtle thought THE TALE OF TWO TREES 10 about it and said: You are right; that makes sense. Hop on. The scorpion got on the turtle s back and off they went. They got about halfway when the scorpion stung the turtle, and the turtle as he was sinking, said, What did you do? You promised you wouldn t sting me! Now we are both going to drown! The scorpion sadly replied, I couldn t help it it s my nature to sting. It is Satan s nature to kill. It is Satan s nature to destroy, but he will hide his stinger. He ll let people think: Let the good times roll I m okay, you re okay, we re all okay, while they are on their way to Hell. Adam s Long Fall When they chose the wrong tree, they chose death. They were banished and kicked out of the garden of God, out of Paradise. And now they were under curses: The ground was cursed. It would produce thorns and thistles. There were no thorns and thistles and weeds in Eden. You may be ready to get out in your garden and plant tomato plants and flowers. But first you will have to dig up all the weeds and thistles and thorns. It wasn t supposed to be that way. Man was not supposed to have to work hard until he wore his body

11 down and died, and then returned to the same dirt. The New Testament commentary on this is Romans 5: We will look at two key verses: Wherefore, as by one man (that one man was Adam) sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (v.12). It was bad enough that Adam and Eve got kicked out of the garden; it was bad enough they were not going to live forever, but were going to die, but he also passed down this death sentence to all his sons and daughters! This is the bad news, Folks because Adam died, we are all going to die! Sin never travels alone. It always travels with death. The wise man said in James 1:15: When lust has conceived, it brings forth sin, and sin when it is finished, brings forth death. Every time! Adam passed down his sinful nature to all of us: For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Rom.3:23). I don t care if your mama had you on a church pew, you were still born in sin. David said, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me (Ps.51:5). It s all because of Adam. For as by one man s disobedience many were made sinners (v.19). That one act of disobedience Adam committed caused every one of us to be made sinners. Join me in saying: Thanks a lot, Adam! In 1777, the first book used in public elementary schools of New England was The New England Primer. Today we teach our little ones the alphabet by word association: A is for Apple, B is for ball, C is for cat, etc. This book did the same thing, but look at the biblical truths it espoused: A is for Adam in Adam s fall, we sinned all. B is for the Bible Heaven to find, the Bible mind. C is for Christ Christ crucified, for sinners he died. When our nation was founded, this was how little five-years old learned their alphabet. While learning their ABCs, they also learned we are all born in sin and need a Savior, but if you go to the Bible, you can get to Christ who was crucified for you! Teaching little kids the Gospel! Today, when students choose to write about Jesus, even if they were told to write about any historical person they want, their work is torn up, and they are sent to the office and often ridiculed. The second part of verse 19: For as by one man s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Join me in saying, Thanks a lot, Jesus! By one man s sin we were all made sinners, and death follows sin, so we all died. We died a double death: physically, even if we live to be 99, we are still going 11

12 to go back to the grave. And we died spiritually: And you who were dead in your trespasses and sins. (Eph.2:1). This means to be dead to God, to have no relationship, no fellowship with Him, and this is the greatest death. We were all made sinners in Adam, but in Jesus Christ, the second Adam, we all can be made righteous and receive eternal life. In 1Corinthians 15:45-49, Jesus is called the second Adam. In other words, he took Adam s place to represent humanity. Remember, Adam means mankind, and Jesus became the second Adam, because He was born of the natural seed of a woman, Mary. But His Father is God, so He can represent God to us, and He can represent us to God. This is why He is a faithful high priest who ever lives to make intercession for us (Heb.2:17). One man s sin brought us death, but one man s obedience brings us life; one man s sin brought us judgment, but one man s obedience brings grace and forgiveness. All of this is in Jesus. While preparing this message, I read a little tract about Rembrandt, one of the greatest painters of all times, and in one of his paintings, The Raising of the Cross, he did something remarkable. It depicts Jesus on the cross being pulled up from the ground with ropes. Amongst the crowd standing at the bottom of the THE TALE OF TWO TREES 12 cross, he included a self-portrait. He painted himself in. He stands out from the rest, because he s wearing the blue beret that all painters of his era, the 1600s wore, and his dress was out of character amongst those of that first century. By painting himself with those who were crucifying Jesus, he was saying, I crucified Jesus. My sins nailed him to the tree. What a revelation! To come to the place we realize it was our sins that crucified Jesus! Did Herod crucify Jesus? Did Pilate crucify Jesus? Did the chief priests crucify Jesus? Did the Jews crucify Jesus? Yes, yes, yes, yes, but so did I, and so did you! Before they crucified Him, Jesus was sent to Pilate, and then to Herod, and then back to Pilate. First the Jewish leaders held their trial and condemned Him as a blasphemer because He said that He is the Son of God. Finding Him worthy of death, they took Him to Pilate. Pilate knew little about their religion and didn t want to get into it. He told them to judge Him and punish Him according to their law. They had already decided He should die, but they didn t have the authority to put Him to death. Only Pilate, the representative of Rome, could put Him to death. So Pilate tried to talk to Jesus. At first, Jesus didn t answer him, but in time a conversation developed, because the people were saying that He

13 claimed to be the king of the Jews. This got Pilate s attention. This would be insurrection against Caesar. Are you a king? he asked. Jesus replied: If my kingdom were of this world, then would my disciples fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews. (Jn.18:36). It pierced Pilate s heart with truth. Jesus did not deny that He was a king, but that His kingdom is not of this world, and the holy fear of God came upon Pilate. Not only this, his wife sent word to him and said, Have nothing to do with this just man, for I have suffered many things this day in a dream about him (Mt.27:19). Now Pilate was under great pressure what to do? The chief priests were insisting He be put to death, and somewhere in the conversation somebody mentioned that Jesus was from Galilee. Pilate breathed a sigh of relief when he realized Galilee was Herod s jurisdiction, and sent him to Herod. Herod was the puppet king of the Jews whom Rome put in place to pacify the Jews, but they hated him. He was an evil man, a paranoid egomaniac. His father, Herod the Great, ordered the slaughter of all the babies in Bethlehem when Jesus was born. He killed his own wife and son, because he thought they were trying to take his throne. All the Herods were wicked. When they brought Jesus to Herod, he was actually glad, 13 because he heard so much about the miracles He did. He wanted Jesus to do a miracle for him, but Jesus didn t open His mouth to answer a word. After a while, Herod was bored and said sent Him back to Pilate. This is all happened overnight. Have you ever heard of going to trial in the middle of the night? You don t have a lawyer; you don t have anyone but false witnesses. This is what they did to Jesus, but Pilate kept saying, I have examined Him, and I find nothing worthy of death. He was going to let Him go when they delivered their coup de grace: If you let Him go, you are not Caesar s friend. When he heard Caesar, and thought he could lose his job if this guy really was trying to be a king, he folded out of fear of man and political pressure. He ordered Jesus crucified. He Chose the Tree Jesus said, No man takes my life, but I lay it down of myself Not Pilate. Not Herod. Not the chief priests or high priest. This commandment have I received of My Father. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again (Jn.10:18). He was saying: I choose the tree of death. I choose to die on the tree of death, to restore Adam s children to the tree of life. In Gethsemane He agonized to the point of hematridrosis when His sweat mingled

14 with blood fell to the ground, and He cried with strong tears, Abba, Father, all things are possible with You. If there is a way You can take this cup of suffering and death away, take it. He prayed three times, to be delivered from death, but He understood that in order to restore us back to the tree of life, He had to die on the cross the tree of death. The third time He said, Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done! (Lk.22:42-44). Many times He had escaped death. When He went to His hometown of Nazareth to preach, and they tried to push Him off the cliff, He disappeared. Several times His enemies tried to stone Him, and He disappeared. Why? Because He was afraid to die? No! He came to die! But He could not die anywhere but on the cross. The prophecy said: Accursed is he who hangs on a tree (Deut.21:23). Paul cited this in Galatians 3:13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on the tree. Jesus could not die anywhere but on the cross. He chose to be nailed to that tree of death, hanging mutilated, with nails in His hands and feet, and holes in His bloodied head; His back laid open with 39 cruel lashes. The spectators mocked Him: If you be the Son of God, come down from the cross THE TALE OF TWO TREES 14 and save yourself! One of the thieves crucified with Him said, Yeah, come down off the cross and save yourself, and save us too. But He did not come down from the cross, because He could not save Himself and save us too! That s Not Fair! Because Adam chose the wrong tree, we all inherited sin and death. Maybe you re thinking That s not fair! Why should I inherit Adam s debt of sin and death? I didn t sin Adam did It isn t fair! It would be true that it isn t fair if you were stuck in that condition with no way out. I agree, that would be unfair, but there is a way out! God gave us all a way out, but there is only one way, and that is through His Son Jesus Christ. Because Adam chose the wrong tree, and never ate from the tree of life, Jesus had to die on the tree of death. In order to restore us back to Paradise, back to that garden, back to the tree of life, He had to choose the tree of death. Today you must choose the Son of God to be your Savior. He s not willing that anyone, not one person, should die in sin. Regardless how good a person you are; you might be a fine man or woman, a good husband or wife, a good parent, a great employee, an honorable citizen, but none of that matters if you ve never had your sins forgiven. The Bible says, All have

15 sinned and come short of the glory of God (Rom.3:23). There is only one Savior, and you have to confess Him as your Savior. He is the way to the tree of life. Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but by me (Jn.14:6). Now that you have come to know the truth, it will follow you all the days of your life; whether you embrace it and follow it to Heaven to the Paradise of God, or reject it. The truth can set you free, if you receive it. The Bible says, Choose this day whom you shall serve. Who will you serve? Jesus said that no one can serve two masters: He will either love one and hate the other, or cling to one and despise the other, but he can t serve Jesus and serve the world too. If you re serving the world, you may not have realized it before, but you are serving Satan, because the Bible says Satan is the god of this world. When Adam and Eve sinned, they gave the dominion and authority they had to the devil. If you are not absolutely certain that if you were to die today, you are ready to meet God and would go to Heaven, and you want to be certain, you must receive Jesus here and now. The Bible is clear: Only those whose names are written in the Lamb s Book of Life may enter into that city (Rev.21:27). You need to make things right with God today, because no one is promised tomorrow. Today, if you hear His voice, don t harden your heart, because every time you don t surrender to the Lord, your heart gets harder, and you become deceived by sin. If you are ready to receive Jesus as your Savior, pray this prayer: Father in Heaven, I receive Your free gift of salvation and life through the death of Your Son on the cross. Cleanse me now from all my sins in His blood, and set me free from sin s power over me. Deliver me from the power of Satan, and save me right now. I confess Jesus as my Lord, and I receive Him as my Savior. I thank You for forgiving me of all my sin, and writing my name in the Book of Life. And by your grace, I will serve you all the days of my life. In Jesus Name, Amen. 15