In today’s episode of The Sound of Faith, explore the profound symbolism and theological implications of the trees within the Garden of Eden. Sharon Knotts guides listeners through the initial sin and its repercussions on humanity, revealing how the narrative extends beyond Genesis to the redemptive power of Jesus’s sacrifice. Discover the spiritual truths about sin and salvation that resonate through this powerful tale of disobedience and divine love.
Greetings friends and new listeners and welcome to The Sound of Faith. I’m Sharon Knotts thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Today’s message, The Tale of Two Trees, begins in a beautiful garden, the original site of the Tree of Life. Today that Garden of Eden is gone and the Tree of Life now stands in heaven. Because Adam and Eve disobeyed God and chose the wrong tree, their sin brought death to themselves and all their progeny. But the second Adam, Jesus Christ, God’s son, chose to die on the tree of death to restore us to the tree of life. This is the incomparable story of the tale of two trees. Now, this was what God said. He went on to the woman and said, and because of what you did, now your sorrows of conception and childbearing are going to be multiplied. Amen. Somebody say, other ladies can say, thanks a lot, Eve. Thanks a lot, Eve. Amen. Because of this, you’re going to, because you know we watch other animals in the animal kingdom give birth and they don’t go through what women go through. Amen. He said, because of what you have done, you’re going to have sorrow in your birth. When you give birth, the birth pains are going to be greater. Amen. And he did not pass judgment on the serpent. Well, he said to the serpent, you’re going to crawl on your belly and you’ll have dust to eat for the rest of your time. Amen? But now, here’s what I want you to see in verse 22. Let’s look at verse 22. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us. Are you catching these plural pronouns? Anybody catching them? How many see them in there? Okay, so we have here, we have a consultation amongst the Godhead. Amen. Amongst the God, the creator and the word of God and the Holy Spirit, they make up the Godhead. And the Lord God said, behold, the man has become as one of us to know good and evil. And now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God. Wait a minute. He didn’t finish his sentence. Grammatically, this is incorrect. He just stopped. He says the man has become like one of us. Oh my goodness, do you know what that means? Do you know what that means, that he’s become like one of us? He knows good and evil. So if he reaches forth his hand and plucks a piece of fruit off the tree of life and eats it, then you know what? The consequences are unimaginable. I will not even give life to them. I will not even speak it. Have you ever been discussing something and talking about something and you’re going along in your discussion and all of a sudden you come to that point where you know about, you see and recognize what you’re about to say is so terrible you don’t even want to think about it. And you say, you know, I’m not even going to go there. And you just drop it, let it hang in the air. And that is exactly what’s going on here. And to the credit of the translators, they did not try to manufacture something and put something in there that they thought maybe God would have said, could have said, or should have said. They let it hang just like it is. God said it would be so terrible, it would be so awful, if it is now his fallen sinful condition… He would eat of the tree of life and live forever. Live forever in that fallen state. God said, I won’t even think that way. So what are we going to do? Let’s read the next verse and see what God said. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground for whence he was taken. So he drove out the man. And he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life. So God said we have to send him out of the garden. Now this here to me proves the fact that they had not eaten yet. Look at what God said. Two words we especially want to look at. Lest and also. Lest and also. So God said, lest he put forth his hand. What does the word lest mean? It means in case he would. But it hasn’t happened yet. It could happen. It could happen. But in case that would happen, we’ve got to do something to prevent it. Lest he also eat of the tree of life. How many know what also means? In addition to. Therefore, we know we already ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And lest or in case that he would also, in addition to eating of that tree, eat of the tree of life, we’ve got to stop it. We can’t let it happen. Amen? And so he drove the man out of the garden. And that means now it’s too late. It’s too late for Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of life. God drove them out of the garden and put flaming cherubim there to keep them from the way of the tree of life. And I preached about this really in great detail at the reunion last year in the message, The Way to Paradise. But now it’s too late for them to eat of that tree. And I think it begs the question, why? Why didn’t they eat of the tree of life first? Why? Why didn’t they even bother to go in need of that tree? The Bible says it was in the midst of. That means it was in the middle. And there were many trees. We just read he hid himself. If you read on, he hid himself amongst the trees. Why didn’t he go to the tree of life? I have to believe it was a really gorgeous tree. I mean, I have to believe it was so beautiful. Perfect and beautiful. Now we read in Revelation that it’s going to have 12 different kind of fruit. How many know, I don’t know any trees like that. Do you know any trees like that? No. You can’t even get a tree to bring forth two different fruit. If you want peaches, you’ve got to plant a peach tree. If you want apples, you’ve got to plant an apple tree. But this tree is just, it is just superlative in beauty and perfection. It must have been so gorgeous. Why wouldn’t they go there and eat of that tree first? It’s the tree of life. Now, come on, let’s put ourselves in a garden. And God says, this is the tree of life. And look at all these other beautiful trees. Amen. Even if there was no tree of good knowledge, we don’t even know that. Here’s the tree of life. I don’t know about you, but that’s the first tree I would go to. Amen? That’s the first tree I would go to, but they didn’t. And why? We have to ask the question why. You know, I can only give you my sanctified speculation. But this is what I speculate. First of all, and importantly, they had never known death. They’d never known death. They’d never experienced death. They could not realize like we would realize how precious the tree of life is. They had no conception of death. And having no conception of death, they could not appreciate how beautiful, how wonderful the tree of life is. Amen? So they had no conception of death. Amen? And they had no knowledge of evil. They had no knowledge of evil. They only knew good up to that point. They only knew good and they could have no conception of what it would be like, the disastrous consequences that would unfold. How many can go way back in the file cabinet of your brain and you go back to probably middle school? Amen. And you had a course in English called Greek Mythology. How many remember a little bit about that? Now, I hesitate to bring stuff like that in when I’m preaching the Bible because I want you to know it’s what it says. It’s a myth. Exactly that. It’s a myth. It’s not equal to the Bible. It’s nowhere near it. But it’s interesting, some of the things. How many remember the story of Pandora? You remember that? And she was supposedly the first woman created. And Zeus came and gave her, we say box, but it was actually a jar, but we’ll say box, gave her a box and told her, whatever you do, don’t ever open this box. Ever, ever, ever, ever open this box. But they had created with her with something called curiosity. Curiosity. And so eventually, curiosity got the better of Pandora, and what did she do? She opened the box, and what came out? All the ills and evil, etc., that have plagued mankind. Amen? And so you can see that they had no idea of all of the evil that was going to happen when they ate that tree. And third, the serpent was very subtle. Did we not read that he was more subtle than every other beast of the field? And he was able to quickly get their attention and sidetrack them and get them on the… Discussing the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He was able to convince them because they didn’t understand death and they did not understand evil. Amen? And so he could persuade them to eat of the wrong tree. He tricked them. He said, you shall not surely die. Amen? Because God knows if you eat of this tree, you’re going to be like God’s. They were already like God. They were already created in his image and after his likeness. Hey, Adam was a brainiac like none you’ve ever heard of. He named every animal. You know, you’ll meet some smart people in your life. And even the smartest person that we could ever meet, a genius, you know, even like maybe Albert Einstein or something, do you know that in general man only uses 10% of his brain? 10%. Now, you can imagine if you could use the other 90% what you could do. Amen? But we lost it through the sin of the curse of Adam. We lost that. Amen? And he tricked them. He said, you eat this tree and you’re going to be like God. And you won’t die. And the devil does the same thing today. He tells people the same old lie. You’re not going to die. And you’re surely not going to go to hell. Why? You know there isn’t even a hell. There is no hell. So why are you worried about hell? That’s something that preachers made up to scare people. To scare them into church. That’s what the devil tells people. And sometimes I’m amazed that if you would go and have a survey and you’d say to, not church people, but people out in the street, do you believe in heaven? You know what, nine out of ten will say, yeah, I believe in heaven. But ask them if they believe in hell. No, I don’t believe in hell. Well, the same book, the same word of God preaches and teaches both. In fact, you may be amazed to know that Jesus taught more on hell than he did heaven. Amen. Amen? But that’s the lie of Satan. Because if there is no hell and all you do is go into the ground and that’s the end of you, then let’s eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die and that’s it. And then if the devil can convince our young people in school, in evolution, that means they were not created with a purpose. They were just created by accident, by randomness. Amen? No purpose. Amen? We are just some chemical thing that all got together just perfectly and voila, here we are. But if we are not created by a creator and not designed by a designer, we have no purpose. And if the devil can convince you of that, then what does it matter what you do? Or how you live your life? Because you don’t have a purpose. So do what feels good. How many remember not too long ago the saying was, if it feels good, do it. Amen. And so now, well, it feels good to me. Well, that’s what you believe and this is what I believe. Sometimes amazed when people say what they believe. They believe all these things and I think to myself, well, that’s wonderful, but what is it based on? Amen. Some imagination that you’ve had? Something that you’ve concocted up in your brain because you feel uncomfortable when anybody talks to you about your mortality? For the Bible says it is appointed unto every man wants to die, but there’s something after death. And after that, the judgment. Amen? And people say, well, I don’t think God would do this, and I don’t think God would do that, and I don’t… If you want to know what God says, go read his book. Go read what God said. Amen. God has made himself very clear and very plain. And he said that he’s not willing that even one should perish. But that all might come unto eternal life. Not one does God want to go to hell. Amen. But Satan tricks them like he tricked Adam and Eve. And boy, he’s got a lot of experience. Amen? He’s still tricking people. Let me tell you. Can I throw out a little bit of Hebrew lesson to you about Satan? Satan is a Hebrew word. It comes straight out of the Hebrew into the English. Satan. Only they say Satan. And you all know that come regularly. I’ll try to make this real quick. That the Hebrew language is ancient. How many know it’s ancient? I mean, English comes out of all these other languages. But Hebrew was an original ancient language. And before they had letters in their alphabet, they had word pictures. In other words, they have 22 letters in their alphabet today. But originally they weren’t 22 letters, they were 22 pictures. And the picture stood for something. Now we can get a real weak, weak analogy by saying when little kids are in kindergarten, we say A is for apple. And we draw a big picture of an apple. So we’re kind of making them understand apple A. But it’s even more concise than that in the original Hebrew. So… Not only was it written of word pictures, but almost every Hebrew word originally has a three-letter root. Amen? So if we take the word Satan and we take out the vowels, take out the vowels because the language was not written with vowels, what do we have left? Just tell me in English, what letters do we have left? S, T, and N. How many agree that’s the three letters we have to work with? Okay. So what you want to know and what I’m going to tell you is what the pictures look like. The picture for S. In Hebrew, it’s pronounced sin or shin. And that, you know, sometimes it’s shin, the sound, and sometimes it’s the S sound. It really doesn’t matter. It’s the same word picture. And it’s a picture of… You can either think of it as flames. It’s like three things like this. Either flames or teeth. Either way, it means the same thing. Devour. Teeth devour food. And flames devour matter. So the word S in Hebrew means devour. T. This one, you know they have two T’s in Hebrew. The final T is a Tav and it’s a cross. And I told you about that a few weeks ago. But this is Tet. This is another T in their alphabet. Tet. Guess what the picture of Tet is? It’s a snake ready to strike. And it means snake. The last one is N is Nun. It’s a fish swimming in water. And that means life. It’s not a dead fish, it’s a living fish. Put it all together, what does Satan mean? The snake who devours life. The snake who devours life. And this is what Jesus meant in John 10.10 when he said, The thief Satan has come to steal and to kill and to destroy. But I have come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly. Amen? This is Satan’s M.O. He’s a destroyer. Jesus said he’s a liar, the father of lies, and a murderer. He said he was a murderer from the beginning. Because actually we can see that because he tricked Adam and Eve, he brought on their death. And that’s what he’s after. Amen? No matter how he comes, the bottom line is that he is a murderer and a liar. That is his nature. I’ve told this little story before, but let me throw it out there because sometimes the young people will get this when they miss all the other things. And so let’s give something for them. It’s the story of a turtle and a scorpion. And they were on the side of the river bank. And the scorpion is a terrible swimmer. And he said to the turtle, how about if you give me a ride over to the other side on your back? And the turtle looked at him and says, are you crazy? Are you crazy? I know what you’ll do. You will sting me and then I will sink and drown. Now listen to Satan, the scorpion. Well, now, why would I do that? Well, that doesn’t even make any sense. Why would I sting you? If I sting you and then you begin to sink and drown, I’m going to drown with you. We will both be doomed. I wouldn’t do that. And the turtle says, no, you’re right. That makes sense to me. Hop on. So the scorpion gets on the back of the turtle and off they go. And they get about halfway over. And what did the scorpion do? He stung the turtle. And the turtle’s now starting to sink. And the turtle said, what did you do? You promised. You promised you wouldn’t sting me. Now we’re both going to drown and die. And the scorpion sadly said, I can’t help it. It’s my nature to sting. And it’s Satan’s nature to kill. It’s Satan’s nature to destroy. Amen. But he’s going to hide it. He’s going to cover it. He’s going to let you think, let the good times roll. I’m okay. You’re okay. We’re all okay. And they’re all on their way to hell. Amen. But Jesus said, I have come to give you life. And I’ve come to give you life more abundantly. Amen. But because they chose the wrong tree, they chose death. And now, banishment. They are kicked out of the garden of God. They’re kicked out of paradise. And now, they’re under these curses. Curses. The ground is cursed. It’s going to be thorns and thistles. There weren’t any thorns and thistles and weeds in that garden. Some of you are going to get out probably in the next few weeks and you’re going to plant some tomato plants and flowers. Man, you’re going to have to dig up all them weeds and thistles and thorns and all that. Amen? It wasn’t supposed to be that way. Man wasn’t supposed to work hard by the sweat of his brow until he wore his body down and dies and goes back to the dirt. Wasn’t supposed to be like that. Amen? And here’s the New Testament commentary on this. Turn, if you will, to Romans, the fifth chapter. Now, it’s a very long chapter, but I’m only going to read two verses, and you might want to read it all on your own. But to me, these two verses say it all in Romans, the fifth chapter. And we will begin with verse 12. Wherefore, as by one man, somebody say one man. One man. Do you know who that one man is? God. You see, it was bad enough that Adam and Eve got kicked out of the garden. It was bad enough that now they weren’t going to live forever and they were going to die. Right? But he passed it down to all his progeny. All his sons and all his daughters. This is the bad news, folks. Because Adam died, we’re all going to die. Because Adam died, we’re all going to die. Because we see clearly here that sin never travels alone. Please remember this. Sin never travels alone. It always travels with death. The wise man said in the book of James, when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin. And when sin is finished, it brings forth death. Amen. Every time. Every time. Amen. So Adam passed down his sinful nature to all of us. That’s why the Bible says in Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I don’t care if your mama had you on the church pew. Amen? David said, in sin my mother conceived me. In iniquity I was shapen in my mother’s womb. Amen? And it’s all because of Adam. Somebody say, thanks a lot, Adam. Let’s drop down to verse 19. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners. That one act of disobedience that Adam committed caused all of us, every one of us, to be made sinners. Amen? I brought something. I think, yeah, here it is. I thought you might enjoy hearing this. This little book. It’s a little book, isn’t it? You see that says the New England Primer? Mm-hmm. This was the first book that was put in the schools in 1777. up in New England the kids that I guess kindergarten first grade whatever the grade was I don’t know but this is the first elementary school book I mentioned a moment ago how that we say A is for apple and B is for ball and C is for cat and D is for dog and that’s how we teach our little kids you know how to spell and all well that’s what this book was I’m telling this book is amazing but anyway I’m not gonna I’m gonna go to the one point we’re gonna teach our kids the alphabet Little kids now, we are not talking about high schoolers. We’re not talking about middle schoolers. We’re talking about the little ones going to learn their alphabet. This book was written in 1777. Our country was only one year old. And guess what it says for A? See all these little pictures? Can you see these little pictures here? They’re real small. Okay. I’m just going to read A, B, C. How many want to hear A, B, C? Okay. A is for Adam. In Adam’s fall, we send all. B, B is for the Bible. Heaven defined the Bible mind. C, C is for Christ. Christ crucified. For sinners he died. This is what our nation was founded on. This is what our little five-year-olds learned. This is how they learned their alphabet. They didn’t learn A is for apple and B is for ball. They learned that A is for Adam. And in Adam’s fall, we sinned all. In other words, telling a little five-year-old, already letting them know, you are already in sin. You need a Savior. But if you can get to the Bible, it’ll take you to B, it’ll get you to C, and you can get to the Christ who was crucified for you. That’s the best ABCs I know. And I don’t want to get off on it, but come on, people. Today, if a child chooses to write about Jesus when they’re sent, write about any historical person you want. Just write about them. And if they choose Jesus, their work will be torn up. They’ll be sent to the office. They’ll be ridiculed and mocked. And think about teaching little kids. The gospel. The gospel. In Adam’s fall, we sinned all. I don’t care how good you are, what a good person you are. You say, I’m not a bad person, Sister Sharon. I don’t lie, steal, cheat. I don’t do none of that stuff. But it doesn’t matter. In Adam, we all received the sin nature. We all inherited the sin nature. Just like we inherited the physical nature. Two eyes, two ears, a nose, mouth. No, we inherited the sin nature. But let’s finish reading verse 19 because I stopped halfway through. Got to read it all. For it’s by one man. Somebody say thanks a lot, Adam. Thanks a lot, Adam. Disobedience. Many were made sinners. So by the obedience of one. Shall many be made righteous. Somebody say thanks a lot Jesus. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot Jesus. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thanks a lot Jesus. Because just like by one man’s sin. We were all made sinners. And remember, death follows sin. So we all die. We die a double death. We die physically. If we even live to be 99, we’re still going to go back to the grave. And we die spiritually. The Bible tells us in Ephesians, the second chapter, and you who are dead in your trespasses and sin, meaning dead to God. You have no relationship, no fellowship with him. That’s the greatest death. Amen? So, we were all made sinners in Adam, but in Jesus Christ we are all made righteous. Let me just give it to you like this. This whole chapter, Romans 5 is this. By one man, Jesus Christ, we are made righteous and we receive eternal life. Amen. What a marvelous story, the tale of two trees. Some of the most tragic words in the Bible are, and he died. Adam lived to be 939, but he still died, and he wasn’t supposed to die. Why did he die? Because he chose the wrong tree, and he never ate from the tree of life. We can only imagine how superbly beautiful the Garden of Eden was, adorned with all manner of fruit trees, and in the very heart the tree of life, bearing twelve different fruits. Yet Adam and Eve never ate from this luscious tree. They chose the wrong tree, and sin entered the world through their disobedience. Sin never travels alone, it always brings death. And God had to banish them lest they should eat from the tree of life and live forever in their fallen state. Today that tree stands on the bank of heaven’s crystal sea, unattainable to fallen man. But there is a second Adam, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came to undo what the first Adam did. But in order to restore us back to that garden of innocence and the tree of life, he chose to die on the cross, the tree of death. There are dozens of interesting nuggets in this message, and it would be an excellent addition to your spiritual library. You can order The Tale of Two Trees on CD for a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry. Request SK184. Mail to soundoffaithpobox1744.com. baltimore maryland 21203 or go online to soundoffaith.org where you may also order on mp3s but to order by mail send your minimum love gift of ten dollars and mail to p.o box 1744 baltimore maryland 21203 and request sk 184 till next time this is sharon not saying maranatha
