"From Eden to Eden -- Exploring the Saga of Salvation History"

Part II: God's Grace at Edengate

Sermon Presented by Dale Wolcott

November 11, 2000

(All scriptures are from the New King James Version unless otherwise noted.)

Presidential election campaign, 1972. The incumbent candidate, Richard M. Nixon, had never forgotten his razor-thin loss to John F. Kennedy in 1960 by 1/10 of 1% of the popular vote, and he was determined it would never happen to him again. So in 1972 he commissioned his top aides, including a young lawyer by the name of Charles W. Colson, to pull out all the stops and make sure every possible base was covered to keep the Democrats from winning the election.

And so it happened that one night in June, 1972, an undercover employee of the Nixon campaign by the name of G. Gordon Liddy, along with one or two others, broke into a suite of offices in the Watergate Apartments complex in Washington D.C., in an attempt to plant a secret microphone in the headquarters office of the Democratic National Committee.

And the rest is history. The Watergate burglars got caught. The Watergate cover-up began. The Watergate defendants, including Charles Colson, were convicted. The Watergate President resigned to avoid impeachment.

The Watergate scandal changed the course of American history. "Watergate" became synonymous with deceit, distrust, and abuse of power. Since then we've had Iran-gate; Travel-gate; and who knows how many more.

But you didn't come here to talk about presidential elections or American history, and neither did I. Open your Bibles with me to the very first pages of Genesis. Our Scripture focus this morning will be the third chapter of Genesis: the story of Edengate.

But first let's step back and look at the big picture.

(Thanks to some very artistic and dedicated ladies, we have some visual aids for our "Eden to Eden" sermon series which will continue through June of 2001. If you're not quite sure what these six banners represent, keep coming! For now, I'll just tell you that the idea is that you read them clockwise, left to right, beginning with creation, and ending with the death of death, the resurrection morning, the Second Advent of Jesus.)

You may remember the first message in this series, which we called "The Truth about Star Wars." (If you missed it, it is also posted on the website.) It focused on the story behind all the Bible stories: the tragic beginning of evil and trouble, the choice made by one of the highest angels in heaven, Lucifer who became the devil or Satan, to experiment with selfishness and grasping and pride as an alternative lifestyle to God's way of life, the way of love; to be a law unto himself, in rebellion against the rule of God's law, which is the law of love.

That all took place in heaven, apparently not long before the creation of this world. You know, the Bible describes God as the One who made "the worlds," plural (Hebrews1:10). We're only one tiny spot in a universe vaster than even the Hubble Space Telescope can begin to encompass. And by the way, we're the only spot where sin has gotten a toehold. This is the only place where anybody at all has turned a sympathetic ear to Satan's lies. So the Bible begins by saying, "In the beginning God created" not only the earth but "the heavens and the earth."

But He DID create this earth, our earth, and the first chapter of Genesis describes in majestic simplicity the origins of life and beauty, of color and form, of rocks and trees and skies and seas; of the biochemical complexity of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA); of the unerring instincts of an Arctic tern; of the elegant simplicity of a water lily, and then to top it all off a man and a woman, made in his own image, to enjoy it all -- all done in six short days, one evening and one morning for each, and when He was finished it says He "saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good."

Then chapter 2 begins by describing the celebration, the very first Sabbath day, and goes on to depict the perfect environment, the pristine ecology, of which Adam and Eve were the superintendents. There was a garden, and a river, and a Tree of Life with fruit that apparently contained the ultimate antioxidant; it prevented aging, and was designed to keep the human body and mind vigorous, healthy, and fully alive, indefinitely.

And then verse 9 mentions another tree, and an alien word creeps into this marvelous unspoiled scenario: "The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil". Evil. Here's the first hint in theGenesis story that an Edengate conspiracy was already lurking in the shadows.

Do you remember the passage in Ezekiel 28, about the war in heaven? It says of Lucifer, "You were in Eden the garden of God." We saw last time how God had already made a choice that He would win the love and loyalty, the affection and obedience, of His intelligent creation, rather than forcing it. So he put a single tree in the Garden, a very simple testing spot; an opportunity for Adam and Eve to choose to trust God or someone else; to stay within the circle of the Creator's will and way, or to step outside it.

We're not going to focus this morning on the story of the "Fall." I encourage you to read the first chapter in that marvelous book Patriarchs and Prophets by Ellen G. White, "Why Was Sin Permitted?" And remember what we said last time: The existence of evil is a mystery. To explain it would be to excuse it.

We can understand one thing very clearly though: the issue was not the color, flavor, or nutritional qualities of the so-called "apple." The issue was not what they ate, any more than Watergate was about a third-rate burglary in an apartment building. It was about where to place one's trust.

Would they trust their Heavenly Father, their Creator; that He was really leveling with them when He said, "You do not want to eat from that particular tree. You don't need that"? Or would they trust somebody else?

And the first verses of chapter 3 reveal that lies and deception, concealment and cover-up were not invented by the Watergate gang. The New Testament says that Satan can transform himself into an "angel of light" (1 Corinthians 11:14). And so he takes the form of the most beautiful creature in the garden, and he casts a very subtle, very artful doubt on the goodness, the trustworthiness, of the Creator: "Is God perhaps holding out on you?" Satan suggests. "There is something that I know about Him that you don't know. You won't really die. Here, have a taste and you'll see what I mean."

And it says Eve listened. She bought into the lie. And she gave to Adam, and he bought into the lie. But they didn't live happily ever after; we have all been dying unhappily ever after, for 6,000 years now.

There's a fundamental principle of God's government, the unvarying law of His created universe: Choices have consequences. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. (Ezekiel 18:4) The wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23) He who seeks life on his own terms, apart from the Lifegiver, shall lose it. (Matthew 10:39) Only the law of love can be the law of life in earth or in heaven. (Desire of Ages, p. 19) God said "If you will eat, you will die." Satan said, "you will not surely die." Who was right? God, of course.

But now comes the marvel of this amazing story. When God sees His children trapped by their own choice in the tangled web of Edengate, He reveals something about Himself that even the loyal angels in heaven didn't know was in Him. It was love for the unlovable; kindness to the ungrateful; mercy toward the undeserving.

Our English word for it -- and it's a very inadequate word, but it's the best we have -- is grace. You see, God's law had been there from the very beginning. It will always be there. His law describes His character. His law says, "love and live; be selfish and die." "Trust Me, and you'll walk in the light. Trust the rebel angel and you'll stumble into darkness forever." That's law. It's holy and just and good (Romans 7:12). It's inevitable, immutable, inescapable.

But until now, there had never been a need for grace. Lucifer was unprepared for it.

The loyal angels were amazed by it. It was God's secret weapon in this new stage of the ultimate-reality Star Wars, the Great Controversy between Jesus and Satan.

And if you and I are ever going to stand with Jesus on that Sea of Glass in front of the throne where Lucifer used to walk up and down in the midst of the stones of fire, it will be because you and I understood and experienced and accepted God's amazing grace, first revealed at the gates of the Garden of Eden; God's Grace at Edengate.

Has it ever seemed unlikely to you that God would care very much about you when you mess up? Does it sometimes look to you as if the odds are pretty long that you will ever actually get to taste that tree of life? If that's you, please look with me right now at three ways God unveiled His grace right there at the gates of Eden.

Now we're ready to use the worksheet in your bulletin: "Three gracious gifts from God to Adam and Eve; and to you and me."

We're skimming over some very important parts of this story, but let's come down to chapter 3, verse 8. "And they heard the sound 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 among the trees of the garden."

The picture I get here is of God acting as if nothing has happened!

He has watched it all, of course. His heart is breaking. The consequences of this hell-bent rebellion have already been set in motion. He knows that the trust has been broken and that it's going to be a long, long haul to build it back.

But He comes down for the evening fellowship time, just as usual. The separation between man and God is not God's doing! I saw it once on a bumper sticker in California. I'd like to reprint it sometime and spread it around Midland. It said: "Do you feel far from God? Guess who moved."

Grace-Gift #1: God's very first gift of grace at Eden's gate was the gift of His presence. God takes the initiative in this Saga of Salvation History. That's what makes this Book unique.

Every other religion in the world is about man's search for God. But the Bible tells a radical, unbelievable story about God's search for man! It's right here in verse 9: "Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, 'Where are you?'"

All through the Old Testament, like a refrain sung after every verse of a song, this theme keeps coming back: God came down at the time of Noah (next week's sermon); God came down and spoke to Abraham (December's topic); God came down and visited the children of Israel and led them out of slavery (January's theme); God came down in answer to Elijah's prayer on Mt. Carmel; God came down and walked around in the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. And then in the New Testament the Gospel story starts out by saying "and the Word became flesh and [came down and] dwelt among us."

Then later in the New Testament, in the book of Acts, Paul is preaching to a whole crowd of sophisticated, educated people who didn't know God at all, and one of the things he says to them is, "He is not far from every one of us." (Acts 17:27)

Have you been running from God? It's a very normal thing to do. Sometimes we feel rather ashamed, don't we, just like Adam and Eve did.

I remember as a five-year-old, running out and hiding behind the house from the babysitter because I'd done something I knew she wouldn't like. But she came and found me. She went looking for me because she cared.

And I want to tell you this morning, God is pursuing you. And that is Good News! He cares about you, wants a close relationship with you. He loves you, and "we love Him because He first loved us." Love is our response to gift #1.

So God starts a conversation with Adam & Eve; it's given here in verses 10-13; then in verse 14 he turns to the serpent, and then in verse 15 He speaks to the voice behind the serpent; and when we get to verse 15 we're looking at the second of the three gracious gifts we find in the Edengate story.

God is talking to Satan, who has disguised himself as a serpent, sort of like a 1972 Presidential campaign employee trying to pretend he's just an ordinary street burglar.

Verse 15, "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel."

A Child would be born who would turn the tables on all Satan's lies and cover-ups. The Truth would be told by Someone who would say "I am the Way the Truth, and the Life" (John 14:6). And Satan would turn out to be a loser even though that day it looked like he had come out on top.

Can you imagine what those words did to the despair in Adam and Eve's heart? They'd been told that the day they would eat of it, they would die; and they expected that God had come to execute the sentence. But now as they listened they heard Him talking about a future; about Eve having children; about God and humans being allied together to fight against this lying rebel angel.

God went on in verses 16-19 to spell out the consequences of the choice they had made. But first he gave them a promise.

Grace-gift #2: He gave Adam and Eve a promise. This is another theme that comes back again and again as a constant refrain all through the Old Testament; a Savior, a Messiah, a Redeemer, the promised Seed of the Woman. And then the New Testament tells us that "when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman." (Galatians 4:4)

And Paul gets excited about it and he says, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" If He spared not His own Son, will "He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:31, 32) And then at the very end of the letter to the Romans he quotes Genesis 3:15: "The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly." (16:20)

The whole story of the plan of salvation zeroes in on the promise of a Resurrection Day (which is depicted in banner #6, hanging here in our sanctuary). That's where our whole series is leading us. The Bible says that the Garden of Eden is up in heaven right now, and the day is coming when you and I, if we choose, can eat from that tree of life again!

That's why this church is called the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Jesus is coming soon. He promised! "We have this hope that burns within our hearts," that has burned in every believer's heart since the gates of Eden, "hope in the coming of the Lord." Hope is our response to gift #2.

Back to Genesis 3, the most horrible day of human history. God wasn't finished yet with His unveiling of His amazing grace. Verse 21, "also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them."

Where did He get skins to make coats? Are you awake? Look at what's happening here: God had said, "In the day you eat of it you will surely die." Satan had said, "You will not surely die."

God is a God of law; actions have consequences; what goes around comes around; the wages of sin is death. He's not going to shrug this off and say, "Well, I was just kidding, I'm not going to hold one piece of fruit against you."

But, wonder of wonders, this same God who never changes, who can always be depended on to do exactly what He says He's going to do, this righteous, holy God of all justice is also the God of all grace. And so He brings to the gates of Eden not only His presence, and His promise, but a third gift of grace:

Grace-gift #3: God makes provision. On the very day Adam and Eve sinned, someone had to die for that sin; a substitute, an animal sacrifice, blood being shed in place of Adam and Eve's blood. All through the Old Testament, we find this shedding of blood, sacrifices being made for sins. And all those sacrifices, starting with the very first one right here at Edengate, were object lessons pointing forward to Jesus, "the lamb slain from the foundation of the world." (Revelation 13:8)

So Adam must have had to slay that innocent lamb with his own hand. And then God took the fleece and covered Adam's naked body, and when Adam saw this tangible, substantial provision for his need, he knew he could trust God. The provision was the evidence on which he could base his faith. The Bible says, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Some people wonder whether Adam will be saved. I believe he will. Do you suppose he put on that garment God provided him? Did he accept the provision? Did he have faith? I believe he did, and I believe we'll see Adam someday at the Tree of Life.

So . . . Have you seen any evidence of God's grace in your life? Has he provided for you? If He has, then you can trust Him; you can have faith.

President Nixon's famous "hatchet man," Chuck Colson, tells his Watergate story in his book Born Again. It's a story worth reading. When he was first accused of being part of the Watergate cover-up, he was a proud, godless man who had no need of religion. He had

never even thought seriously about who Jesus was. But as the cover-up unraveled around him, he began to feel the nakedness and fear that always comes when lies are brought to light.

Mr. Colson left the White House staff and went back into private law practice. One day in Boston he was sitting in the office of a client who was president of a major corporation. He tells how his mouth almost fell open when he heart this bigtime executive say, "Chuck, I've committed my life to Jesus Christ and it has been the most marvelous experience of my whole life."

He began coming back to hear more from this man, and after reading C. S. Lewis' book, Mere Christianity, Chuck Colson invited Jesus into his life.

The change that Jesus made in Chuck Colson is the story of God's grace at Watergate.

He started telling the truth to the investigators. He made friends with people who had been his enemies. He pled guilty to the things he was guilty of (which was not nearly everything he'd been accused of). He spent time in prison and eventually founded a Christian organization called. "Prison Fellowship," which has grown into a global ministry that continues to this day.

That's what God's grace is all about. Because God is good, He can take bad people and make them good. He did it at Edengate. He did it at Watergate. And He's doing it in this church, and in this town, and in my life. He'll do it for you too.

I hope you'll walk with us through this great Bible drama in the next few months. You're going to find that His presence in your life will make you able to love. His promises, found in this Book, will give you what the Bible calls a "blessed hope," a "lively hope."

As you take notice of His daily provision for your daily needs, and as you ponder the story of His eternal provision of His only begotten Son, you'll find you are more and more able to truly have faith in Him; and "whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). That's the Good News of God's grace at Edengate!

Our hymn of response is #109, "Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, . . . grace that is greater than all our sin."