To Be With God in His City

Bible Study #804-Church in the Houses Tuesday, March 4-10, 2014

Topic: “To Be With God in His City” Revelations 22:14 Genesis 2:9 “And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” God had placed the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. But, Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and the Lord was sorry they did. Man had become “as one of us (Trinity).” Genesis 3:22 “And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” By eating from the tree of good and evil, the man also received knowledge of what was evil. God wanted man to know only what was good. Everything changed. It is like saying: “For eating what was forbidden for him, look at what has become of man; he has been made like one of us. He who was created in the beginning in our own image to know only good has now known evil. How sad has his condition become now!” To get to know sin is the worst. The sooner you get to know sin, the worse it is. The book of Genesis lets us see that the tree of life was a warranty to the immortal life. 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 three of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” With the command to not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God would reward OBEDIENCE. Man lost all rights to the tree of life when he disobeyed God. So that man would not eat from it or get his hopes up that by eating of it he could recover what he had lost, the Lord exiled man from the garden. God’s wrath was so overwhelming because of sin! Since then, the tree of life was guarded among cherubim to the east (the orient) of the Garden of Eden and with a terrible fire developing around it to guard its path. Genesis 3:24 “After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.” Now the tree would be hidden from man to show him God’s wrath due to sin. Adam and Eve lost the tree of life! The reason: disobedience to God’s commands. Revelations 22:14 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.” To wash your robes means obedience. Obedience is to keep God’s commands. The tree of life in the Garden of Eden was to always live with no knowledge of sin. They would be on earth, in the Garden of Eden, without knowing sin. Therefore, their bodies would not know corruption. This would be somewhat marvelous for man, they would have communion with God for all eternity. Now, the tree of life in heaven is for those who have obeyed His commandments. To wash your robes is to obey the commandments, to be clean. If Adam would have obeyed the commandments or the order God had given him he would not have been expelled from the garden or separated from God. JESUS HAS CLEANSED US FROM SIN AND HAS FORGIVEN US! Blessed are those who wash their robes! We can offer “soap and water” to those who are filthy, but we cannot force anyone to be cleansed. IT IS THAT WE WANT TO ARRIVE AT THE CITY OF GOD! Some think that the Church has rules, but it is that all those who want to arrive at the great city of God have to take care of their robes! We can see in Revelations 21:8 those who were thrown into the lake of fire, “ But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the firing lake of burning sulfur.” I cannot be led by my beliefs, not by my arguments. I only want to believe and follow the orders given by the Lord to those who want to arrive at the great city. God had wanted Adam to be with Him here on earth forever, but they sinned and were expelled

from Eden. The man who does not wash his robes cannot have the right to the tree of life and be able to enter through the gates of the city. Psalm 101:7 “No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence.” All who love or practice falsehood are excluded from the House of God. We will live for what is eternal; well we are cleansed more each day. When Adam wanted to eat, and he ate, he made himself a candidate to be a god, because he could also know evil. He had taken from the tree of knowledge, but he was punished, separated from God and expelled from Eden so that he wouldn’t extend out his hand again to take from the tree of life to later strut himself that he would live forever. Adam and Eve did not obey; they did not wash their robes! The first thing Adam did was to sin by disobeying God, had he eaten again from the tree of life he would have tried to annul the death sentence that God had pronounced against him. Man’s relation with God was interrupted and broken, and man was left broken and distanced. Adam was punished, well, after death, he would return to the dirt where he had come from. Thanks to Jesus, we were delivered from the hell we were living in. If we do not care for our robes we will be expelled from the eternal city. Adam and Eve were never allowed to enter Eden again; cherubim guarded the place so no one would enter and take from the tree of life. The angels were at war with Adam. Salvation is a great gift from God and we must care for it and love it. We need to make an effort and struggle to conserve ourselves clean to not lose something so great! Amen.