Not quite finished...
/
And mist He sends down from the earth and He irrigated all of the face
of the ground. And Yahweh God is forming the man of soil from the ground
and He is blowing in His nostrils breath of life and the man is becoming
to soul living. And Yahweh God is planting a garden in Eden from east
and He is placing there the man which He formed, and He is causing to
sprout from the ground every tree coveted in sight and good in food and
tree of life in the middle of the garden and a tree of the knowledge of
good and evil...and Yahweh God is taking the man and he is leaving him
in a garden of Eden to serve it and keep it, and Yahweh God is
instructing on the man to say, "From any of tree of the garden to eat,
you shall eat, and from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you
shall not eat from it for in a day of your eating from it, you will die."/
God only provides good food. But when I was a young boy, I didn't
consider cooked spinach to be a *good food*. I begged my mother not to
make it, but she did anyway. I went so far as to make a deal with my
sister to eat her broccoli if she would eat my cooked spinach. Although
I didn't believe cooked spinach was a good thing at the time, my mother
did think so, and realizing the iron, vitamins, and fiber of spinach,
now I do too.
Indeed, the Lord only gives us good food. Just as Jesus, thru a miracle,
provided good food to the hungry crowd, so too does God give you your
daily bread each day. Your heavenly Father has always been in the
business of providing good food for His children. He did that in the
Garden of Eden for Adam & Eve, creating all kinds of trees with good
fruit for them to eat. Even the Tree of Life was placed there so man
could live forever!
Oh, I know what you are thinking..."What about the other tree in that
Garden--the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil? That one wasn't very
good, was it?" But the answer to that question might surprise you. Like
everything else which God created, the Tree of knowledge of good and
evil is actually good! Really! For God looked out on all creation after
those 6 days, and declared that everything He had made was very
good--perfect!
But that doesn't seem right, somehow, to our way of thinking. God told
them not to eat of that forbidden fruit, yet Eve & then Adam ate of it,
and all mankind has suffered the consequences since then. But that's not
to say that the tree or it's fruit was evil at all. For God knows the
difference between good & evil, and He's not bad is he? The commandments
spell out to us the difference between good & evil, and they aren't bad.
The fact is, the Law of God is good and wise, as we sing in one of our
hymns. Knowing good from evil is actually a good thing! How would you
know what behavior pleases God to distinguish it from what is sin
without the knowledge of good & evil? So the problem is not in the good
food God provides in the Garden from the tree of Knowledge of good and
evil. The problem was in Eve & Adam, who wanted that knowledge in a way
God forbade.
That's your problem too. You wish to be like God, knowing good & evil
like He does, but you seek that knowledge in all the wrong places. You
trust in your own thinking, opinions, or feelings as though they will
tell you what is right...but they won't. You rely on public opinion of
what's popular to tell you what is good, but it misleads you quite
often. You even listen to the devil when He tempts you to seek knowledge
apart from God's word.
So, what is the solution to this problem of seeking knowledge in all the
wrong places? Like Adam & Eve, you who have abandoned God's word are
brought to repentance, to confess your sins to God and receive
forgiveness from the pastor, as from Christ Himself. You like Adam
return to the mist of your baptism which watered you to become a living
child of God. You feast on the Tree of Life at the Lord's Table as you
eat Christ's body & drink His blood which He gave for you on the +.
Yes, God provides only *good* food. He has fed you with the knowledge
of good & evil--the Law which He has written on the consciences of your
hearts so that His Spirit convicts you of your sinful confidence in
false knowledge. And He feeds you with His forgiving Gospel word which
you read, mark, learn & inwardly digest by faith, a word that even comes
to you intimately in the Lord's Supper.
John C. Drosendahl, Pastor
[email protected]
