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 Sermon > Official Service |
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Title |
Lecture on Genesis Ver.2(54) - Lecture on Genesis Ver.2 (54) |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
Genesis 2:15 |
Date |
2010-12-10 |
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Scripture
Genesis 2:15
"Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it."
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
This is the 54th Lecture on Genesis.
In the last lecture, I explained how dinosaurs became incited by Satan.
Dinosaurs envied the cherubim so much.
Since the cherubim escorted Adam they were always with him.
The dinosaurs' envy grew greater and greater and was reaching a level that could have deteriorated into evil.
Satan kept an eye on the Garden of Eden and immediately sensed this change in the dinosaurs' character.
Satan kept on sending the waves of untruthful thought to the dinosaurs.
Eventually the dinosaurs began to accept the thoughts that Satan sent.
Later, the dinosaurs were tempted by Satan who told the dinosaurs that they could become like cherubim once they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
As a result, the dinosaurs asked Adam to permit them to eat the fruit.
Adam explained to them why they should not eat from it, but he couldn't convince them at all.
They began to look for an opportunity to eat the tree's fruit
I explained everything up to this point in the last lecture.
Dear brothers and sisters.
When parents tell their children that they must never do something, there are some would try even more eagerly to do it.
For example, a mother gives caution to her son, saying, "Don't play with the matches. You may burn down this whole house."
Then, she goes out.
If her son is full of curiosity, he might mischievously play with them to make a fire.
But, sometimes it becomes a real fire.
Though the dinosaurs were sternly warned not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they couldn't control themselves just like little children.
The central area of the Garden of Eden where the tree of knowledge of good and evil is located is a restricted area.
Adam and Eve had access to it, but there are cherubim guarding it so that nothing can enter the area.
Therefore, it was not easy for dinosaurs even to come close to the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
One day, Adam made a grand-scale visit to earth.
Usually Adam didn't take very many cherubim along with him.
Some of them would accompany Adam while others remained to guard the Garden of Eden.
But this was somewhat of a special day.
Adam took all the cherubim along to find the place to construct a symbolic building to show off his authority and dignity on earth.
He even took the cherubim that guarded the center of the Garden of Eden.
The dinosaurs didn't lose this chance to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
A leader of the dinosaurs and some other dinosaurs joined together to walk toward the center of the Garden.
They entered the restricted area and hurried to the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Before they got to the tree, however, they were stopped by God.
And their provocation turned into failure.
Even though dinosaurs didn't eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they committed a violation by trespassing into the restricted area.
And it aroused the wrath of God.
Not only the dinosaurs that entered into the restricted area, but entire population of dinosaurs became cursed.
The reason God poured His wrath onto all dinosaurs was because they were all a party to the violation.
All the other dinosaurs wanted the dinosaurs in leading positions to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and become like cherubim.
They wished their leaders would succeed in eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
It was why God punished not only the dinosaurs that broke into the restricted area but also all the other dinosaurs.
And He gathered them up into something like a net, and moved them to different places on the earth.
Romans 6:16 says, "Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey…-"
Since dinosaurs obeyed Satan and became slaves to Satan, they couldn't live in the Garden of Eden any longer.
Now, is there anyone among you who might think something like the following-
"They didn't eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They just trespassed into the restricted area. Wasn't it too harsh to drive all of them out from the Garden of Eden-"
"Wouldn't it have been ok if they had been warned severely never to do it again, and been forgiven-"
However, it wouldn't do much good to forgive them because it was a matter in the Garden of Eden.
The Garden of Eden should be kept as a pure 'evil-free' place.
Since no evil could be tolerated, an object that comes into contact with evil cannot stay in the Garden of Eden.
God created the Garden of Eden as a clean and pure spiritual place; He didn't create it for human cultivation like the earth.
The Garden of Eden is not a place where someone (or something) understands evil and changes.
It is just a place where all lives protected by the grace of God.
If the slightest evil is tolerated, then evil can become rampant swiftly because it is an uncultivated spiritual place.
A smoldering ember can cause everything to go up in flames.
It was not a small problem that something received a work of Satan in the Garden of Eden like this.
Furthermore, the incident of dinosaurs' disobedience to the command of God was not accidental.
Dinosaurs had accepted thoughts that Satan gave for over a long period of time.
It made it more impossible for God to be able to allow the dinosaurs to stay in the Garden of Eden.
Moreover, dinosaurs were not created to be cultivated just as humans were.
They were not the beings that could realize their fault and turn back, even if they were forgiven.
Unlike the earth, the Garden of Eden is not a place to experience relativity.
In order to keep any evil from taking root in the Garden of Eden, God completely removed any chance of evil from existing there.
And thus, when Adam and Eve later disobeyed, He drove them out to the earth as well.
Of course, the providence of human cultivation was contained there.
By the way, here is another point you should give a thought to.
You may think, "The Garden of Eden is surrounded by light. But then, how could evil spirits like Satan work there and how could dinosaurs have received her work-"
Even if one lives in the environment of light, it is eventually the individual's decision to choose between the light and the darkness.
The environment is important, but what is even more important is whether the individual likes the light better or the darkness.
Even though a person stays within the place surrounded by light, if he has an attribute of darkness in his mind and heart, he can have a contact with evil spirits.
He can be moved by Satan.
For example, God protects this very place, the temple of God, with the fiery wall of the Holy Spirit and by the heavenly host and angels.
Now, once you are inside this place, are you free from any work of Satan-
There are people who fall into idle thoughts, or judge and condemn others while listening to the message during a worship service.
Furthermore, there are even people who receive the work of the devil and commit the works of body such as quarreling inside the temple of God.
Even if works of the Holy Spirit are so strong in the temple, and God protects it with light, there are people who receive the work of Satan or the devil.
It is possible, not because God doesn't protect them, but because they allow for contact with the spirits of darkness due to the untruth in their hearts.
Even before you are sanctified, when an evil thought strikes you, if you immediately reject it, the channel to Satan can be easily broken.
However, people don't reject it, but instead accept it and thus it can develop into a thing of flesh or into a deed of flesh.
Dinosaurs lived in the Garden of Eden which is surrounded by light. But, they still acquired attributes of darkness in their hearts.
And when Satan incited them, they didn't reject it but accepted it.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
After God moved dinosaurs to the earth, Adam couldn't make a visit to the earth for a while.
God didn't allow Adam to meet with the dinosaurs.
Then, how did Adam take this dinosaur incident-
I told you that dinosaurs were like pets to Adam.
Such dinosaurs committed a grave error, the wrath of God was poured onto them, and they were drive out to the earth.
How did Adam feel about it-
Did he feel sad and hurt in his heart-
Or did he become angry at them because they didn't listen to him-
Adam was not angry. He was neither sad nor hurt in his heart.
It is safe to say that the people of the Garden of Eden have almost no feelings such as sadness, sorrow, and anger.
They may have feelings like joy and excitement, but they don't know how happy it is to feel them.
It is because they don't have opposite feeling of joy.
In other words, the beings in the Garden of Eden have no concept of relativity.
That's why Adam couldn't realize how serious the incident of the dinosaurs was.
He couldn't feel it much in his heart.
Until then, Adam had never thought about disobeying the command of God.
He could not even imagine doing anything like that in the future.
Therefore, the incident concerning the dinosaurs didn't make much of an impact on his feelings.
Adam considered that it had little to do with him.
However, through this incident he did come to know what would happen if the command of God were violated.
Let me give you an example to help you understand it better.
Suppose there is a student who has never been sick from the time he was born.
A very close friend of his becomes very sick.
Since his close friend is sick, he may have a sense of sympathy in his heart, but he cannot fully understand his friend's pain.
He may think, "He is sick. He's suffering." But he cannot truly feel the pain of his friend in his heart.
Perhaps he had heard about the pain of diseases, but he had never before felt it himself.
In this same way, even though Adam had witnessed the dinosaurs' disobedience, his heart was not earnestly touched by the consequence of it.
In his heart didn't receive the moral of the lesson from the incident.
As a result, later Adam also went the way of disobedience.
There was another reason why Adam didn't consider the incident of dinosaurs seriously.
Adam thought, "Even though dinosaurs were driven out to the earth, the earth too is under my authority. Once the wrath of God calms down later, I can visit the earth to see them again. In the future, I may able to bring them back to the Garden of Eden."
He was this much at ease with the situation.
Since Adam's heart and mind was like this, he didn't worry about the dinosaurs' incident. He didn't become sad, either.
Moreover, as time passed by after dinosaurs were driven out to the earth even the traces of missing them soon disappeared from Adam's heart.
It was true that dinosaurs gave great joy and pleasure to Adam, but the life without dinosaurs didn't bring much change to Adam.
Adam still enjoyed everything, and he lived a life that was not really different from before...
Some of you might think it weird that Adam forgot about dinosaurs.
Now, put yourself into Adam's shoes.
I said dinosaurs were like pets to Adam.
They were not a necessity in Adam's life. They were not the beings that had to stay with Adam.
Besides, Adam lived his life without needing anything from the very beginning.
Therefore, he didn't consider the true value of all that was given to him, but instead, took it all for granted.
He didn't treasure what he had, and even treated it all with indifference.
Here is a good analogy. Suppose there is a boy who was born into a very wealth family. He had everything he wanted and lacked nothing
He could have any toys he wanted and as many as he wanted.
In fact, he could have the most expensive and most desirable of any toys.
How would this boy feel if one of his toys was missing- How do you think he'd react-
He might look for it, and might ask himself where he put it.
However, if he couldn't find it, he'd soon just forget about it.
Because he has so many other toys that he can play with, He forgets about it.
It was the same situation with Adam after the dinosaurs disappeared from the Garden of Eden.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
God had already fore-known what would happen to dinosaurs.
Then, what was the reason God still gave dinosaurs to Adam-
God also knew when dinosaurs were changing.
If God had wanted to stop them in advance, He could have done it.
But what was the reason God didn't stop them-
God wanted Adam to learn a great lesson from the incident of the dinosaurs.
First of all, He wanted Adam to realize the price that would have to be paid for disobedience.
He wanted Adam to engrave the lesson on his heart that no matter how insignificant the darkness may seem, once it is tolerated, it can bring disastrous results.
In addition, God wanted Adam to indirectly experience how craftily Satan can deceive.
So, He hoped that Adam would remember the incident of dinosaurs and overcome any temptations later.
By the way, God the Father also fore-knew that Adam would eventually disobey.
However, He did His best by allowing for Adam to indirectly experience the consequences of disobedience in advance so that Adam would not walk the path of destruction.
It would leave no room for Adam to offer excuses.
Adam would not be able to make an excuse, saying, "Father God, You already knew that I would eventually disobey, but for the purpose of cultivation, You put the tree of knowledge of good and evil there anyway, didn't You-"
God the Father did His best to teach Adam the truth, and that is also why He gave Adam a chance to understand it.
God the Father planned for human cultivation and prepared for it by following all these procedures and processes.
He didn't put the tree of knowledge of good and evil there with a desire for Adam to commit sin.
Instead, God taught Adam how not to fall into Satan's temptations. He tried to get Adam to realize it, and protected him.
As I said earlier, however, Adam didn't gain much from such a great lesson as is in the incident of dinosaurs.
The lesson "I should never disobey the word of God like this" didn't touch his heart earnestly.
He didn't understand it from his heart. As a result, he eventually committed the sin of disobedience just as the dinosaurs had done.
The disobedience of Adam took place not because he didn't remember the word of God, but because he didn't understand in his heart why he should not do it.
Dear brothers and sisters.
Let me tell you what happened to dinosaurs after they were moved to the earth.
As God moved dinosaurs to the earth, He didn't place them in one place, but rather, He scattered them.
He wrapped them up into something like a net, and moved them to the earth.
Say, there might have been hundreds of dinosaurs in each net.
God placed these nets in many different places on earth.
In some places, He just put a couple of nets. But in other places, He put from just a few to many nets of them in the area.
This is the reason the fossils of dinosaurs are found all over the globe.
The dots on the screen indicate the places where dinosaur fossils were found.
They are scattered throughout the earth, but some of them are more concentrated in certain areas.
Now, are any other animals so widely distributed to live in just about every place on the earth just as the dinosaurs-
No, there are not.
For example, most of lions live in Africa, and a few in India.
Habitats of tigers are found from polar climate area to tropical, but none on the North America continent.
Animals live in an area where the climate is proper, but it is not true that they live in every proper climate area.
The fossils of tigers can be found in an area of the Arctic Ocean and in China.
Elephants live only in tropical rainforests and savannahs.
As you can see, the habitats of other animals are not scattered throughout the earth, but they are quite localized.
However, the fossils of dinosaurs, most of which were much bigger than lions, tigers, or elephants, are found evenly distributed on the entire earth.
It proves that God scattered the dinosaurs all over the earth when He moved them to the earth.
I will explain in the next lecture how dinosaurs became degenerate and what they did after they were driven out to the earth.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
In this lecture, I told you how dinosaurs were detected just as they were about to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and how they were driven out to the earth.
I also told you why God gave dinosaurs to Adam even though He fore-knew what dinosaurs would do and become.
God wished Adam would truly understand the result of disobedience and receive a great lesson from it.
I hope for you to do the same.
A wise man is good at applying others' testimonies or experience to himself.
He doesn't overlook them and consider them as but a memory like Adam did.
Chapter 10 of 1 Corinthians lists the evil acts which cause the destruction of the Israelites' (1st generation) in the wilderness after they escaped from Egypt.
Then 1 Corinthians 10:6 says, "Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved."
And again 1 Corinthians 10:11 says, "Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come."
I hope you will take a lesson from the incident of dinosaurs, and that you will check yourselves.
As you find even a slightest evil, you should never ignore it.
You should understand well that it can grow to become a serious evil even though it looks like nothing for now.
Once you understand it, you should fervently pray until you completely cast it off.
To the one who doesn't cast off evil even though he knows it is evil, James 1:23-24 says,
"For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was."
And it continues to say James 1:25, "But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does."
May you not become like the fool who understands only mentally without putting the knowledge into practice, but become a blessed man who understands it in his heart and puts it into action. In the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, I pray! |
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