When God made this wonderful garden out of nothing at all for Adam and Eve to tend. He asked something very simple in return. God made the world for His people and He just told them to take care of it and obey Him in some simple ways.
· Genesis 1:28a: “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it…”
· Genesis 1:28b: “Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’”
· Genesis 2:16-17: “And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’”
God says 1) populate the earth (Genesis 1:28a), 2) take care of everything in it (Genesis 1:28b) and 3) in doing this I’ll let you eat anything you want in the garden – but just not the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it’s not safe. I’m saving that for something (Genesis 2:16-17).
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This is like if you, as parents, are going out on a Saturday night leaving your older children to baby-sit their younger sibling for the first time. “Be good and take care of the house”, you say. “I want you to unload the dishwasher and you can have whatever treats you want before bed but just don’t touch the cupcakes; they’re for church on Sunday, so don’t eat the cupcakes or there will be real trouble.” Then you come home, very pleased with your children that they are now old enough to be left alone, you look in the kitchen for something to eat and you notice that where the cupcakes should be… they are gone. That disappointment, sadness and anger must be a reflection of the disappointment God felt when He came back to the garden and saw that – even though there was only one fruit He was saving – He came back and it was gone. As parents, of course, if our children ate the cupcakes we would realize that they are not quite ready for the responsibility of being left alone at home and so we would wait awhile before trusting them to take care of the house again. The children would certainly have a time-out from that responsibility. It was the same with God. He wasn’t about to leave His children in the garden when they betrayed His trust. Adam and Eve couldn’t be trusted to take care of the garden. People couldn’t be trusted. We couldn’t be trusted. That responsibility was thus removed from us until we are more able to handle it (Genesis 3).
Humanity has aged quite a bit since Adam and Eve. Jesus now provides us again the opportunity to have access to the tree of eternal life. We also have a responsibility, like older children, to take care of our younger siblings and point them to the fullness of that eternal life with Christ. How do we doing with this responsibility?
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