by Don Hatfield
is what He is still doing. He is still giving sinners a chance to confess their sin and come into fellowship with Him. It is such a simple thing that a child could do it. I stood there with my head held down in shame waiting for Eve to answer and answer she did. It hurts me to say but she answered as I did and shifted the blame away from herself and onto the serpent. She said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” I wonder to this day what would have happened if we both would have just been honest with the one who already knew what had happened. Would we still be in Eden? Would He have cast out the serpent and shut the gates on him forever. I have never been told but I do know that He was waiting for the truth from His children. It always hurts so much when your own children lie to you and so with a look of sadness, disappointment and resignation our Father turned to the serpent and said.
“Because thou has done this thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field, upon thou belly shall thou go and dust shall thou eat all the days of thy life.
The Father’s judgement began with where the disobedience started. The evil one had already been judged a long time ago and was just waiting for the execution of his sentence. We think that God is slack concerning His promises but He is not for they are always fulfilled. Sometimes in an instant and sometimes not for years but they are always fulfilled. I can look back and remember the serpent and how he would glide through the garden in all of his beauty. We would sometimes play with him. Often we would play hide and seek for he was a very intelligent creation. What made him choose to disobey God and follow the evil one is a mystery to me just as my own choice still remains a mystery to me. The Lord continued with His righteous judgement of the serpent and said, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel.” I know now that our Creator was talking about Jesus when He said this but at the time it only meant that the serpent who had been a playmate of ours was now our enemy. We had never had an enemy before at least not one that we knew of but in an instant the serpent fell to the ground and hissed and struck at Eve. And in an instant she tried to crush it with her foot only wounding it and it slithered into the forest. We both knew what was coming next not only because of our disobedience but more so because of our refusal to own up to it. Even then our Lord was not asking for perfection but only asking for us to be honest which we had refused to be. Then He spoke to Eve.
“He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shall bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.”
Eve said nothing as I said nothing for what is there to say when you are confronted with your sin by a Holy God. All shall be confronted one day for each of us is to give an account to the one who gave to us the gift of free choice. Neither Eve nor I knew exactly what the Lord meant for we had only seen the animals giving birth before this time. When we observed them there was no pain in their conception. The cost of disobedience is very high even though there is the opportunity for forgiveness. The price is everlasting darkness for those who do not accept it. Then He spoke to me.
“Because thou has harkened unto the voice of thy wife and has eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee saying thou shall not eat of it…”
He stopped for moment before continuing and the shame that I felt was more than I could bear. I dropped to my knees and began to weep for I knew how much I had disappointed the one who had given me so much. I also realized how little it had taken for me to abandon it. How quickly I could abandon that which was eternal for that which was temporal. And so it is today. I have watched for 930 years my sons and daughters do the same. Thoughts came racing to my mind for I knew that the serpent who was intelligent had been deceived. I knew that Eve had also been deceived and that was no excuse for their disobedience and that their punishment was just. But as for me I knew what I was doing. Theirs was because of deception. Mine was the result of intentional disobedience. I intentionally choose the woman over my Father. I waited and after what seemed like an eternity the Lord spoke.
“Cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow thou shall eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee and thou shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out it was thou taken for dust thou are and unto dust shall thou return.
I noticed for the first time in my life sweat running down my face. I had already encountered the thorns and the thistles when we tumbled down the hill from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I had never had to till the ground because it always seem to cooperate with me if I planted something. It was a joy but now it was to become a chore. But above all this I knew nothing of death for there was no death in Eden. I had never seen an animal die or lie rotting on the ground. I had never experienced sickness or pain. I had never thought about death but all that had changed. Sin always promises so much but in the end only delivers death to whatever it touches. I was overwhelmed with grief and sorrow. I knew that I could never make right the wrong that I had done. Then the Father did the most remarkable thing He forgave us. We who had done nothing to earn forgiveness were the recipients of His grace. He looked at us who had become the miserable and the afflicted and His love went out to us. Eve was my wife the mother of all that was to live for all were to descend from her and me.
“Unto Adam also and unto his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them.”
He made coats of skins as we stood there in our nakedness and shame and put them on us. We did nothing to deserve this covering. We did nothing to earn it. He did it all, though the punishment remained. The deed was forgiven and so it has been down through the years of my life. Forgiveness that cannot be earned accompanied by the grace of the Father. Forgiveness that reaches to all who will partake of it but they must partake of it in the way prescribed by the grace of the Lord. Though we were covered with His forgiveness He could not let us stay in the garden because we had become as He was knowing good and evil and now the temptation would be there to still partake of the tree of life. If we did that we would have had to live forever in this sinfulness that had come upon us. I sometimes think that was the plan of the evil one from the beginning. A plan to make us like he is. Evil for eternity with no chance of forgiveness and so our Father who loved us so much had to do what He did next. He drove us from the garden and the tree of life.
“Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from where he was taken.
Then it was over paradise was lost and chaos had entered the world. We had begun in glory only to end in shame. When He sent us forth I believe it hurt our Father as much as it did us. Yet today, we try to believe that there is no discipline for sin. Many of us who believe seem to think that grace is the license to sin instead of the power to stop it. As fathers and mother we discipline our own children and somehow think that our own Father will not discipline us. I have watched for 930 years the same action take place over and over. It seems we are ever learning but always ignoring the truth. We walked out of the garden heads hung in shame. Eyes filled with tears and hearts broken from our disobedience. Never to entered paradise again. And as I was soon to discover to even lose the path that led to its gates.
"So He drove out the man and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubim’s and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life.”
We went forth down by the river and made a place to live. Every morning we would travel back to the gate to see if we could enter Eden again. Each morning the path that led there was a little harder to walk on because the weeds were over taking it. It also seemed as if it got farther and farther away although we had not moved our camp. After a while Eve quite coming with me for she was now with child. Then one day it was lost to me forever. I could not find the gate anymore. I reconciled myself to the fact that I would never again enter Ed
en. Often when we sin we try to go back and change the fact but that is impossible to do. I have observed that many live their whole lives trying to do this. I realized that my Father’s forgiveness was there and that now it was time to move forward and no longer linger with a memory.
