Episode 5: Savior - Chapter 1 Verse 5b

Why did God put the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden?

Am I good enough to get to Heaven?

Do I need to be perfect?

If you have ever asked any of these questions, this episode is for you! Continuing their deep dive into Revelation, Elizabeth and Christine tackle some hard hitting questions.

Listen and know that God loves you immensely and wants you to be with Him for all eternity!

Watch Christine's Revelation Study video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gHxKQYbLdQ

Music by Good_B_Music from Pixabay

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Thank you for tuning in to Coffee with Jesus. I'm one of your co-hosts, Elizabeth Bristol, and today Christine Hobbs and I are going to continue our discussion about chapter one in the Book of Revelation. And like I've said before, Christine records bite-sized, they're about 10 minutes or so, portions of the book of Revelation. And we always aim to put a link to that in the show notes, the one that matches this one. And she breaks each chapter down line by line. And then these chats that the two of us have make up a companion series of podcasts where we take another bite. We discuss some of these topics in more detail. So we would love it if you would click the like button or share the podcast because it helps us reach more people who might be interested in learning what the Bible says about end times. So they too can prepare. So thank you. And let's get back to chapter number one, where we're learning that John, the disciple of Jesus, is the transcriber of the book of Revelation, because the actual author is Jesus Christ. And that's huge, right, Christine?

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Absolutely. Yeah. That's the piece that you know people um they're like, oh, it's just man who wrote the Bible, right? And really, in in reality, it it's the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ breathing life into their words. They're just the transcribers.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Right. Because 66 books with all those different authors, I mean, how could they line up without the Holy Spirit? Correct.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Right. It would be impossible. And people would contradict themselves, never mind the other writers of the book. So yeah. So shall we dive in? Let's do it. Yes. Right. I think the last time we talked, we spoke about Christ being the faithful witness. We spoke about him being the firstborn of the dead and what's meant by that, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. And today we discuss um him being the one who loves us. He releases us from our sins by his blood. And that's a concept we all are aware of. We know the story. We celebrate every Easter. But what does that really mean? Yeah. Yeah. You know, and then it says he's made us to be a kingdom of priests to his God and Father, to him, Jesus, be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. So it sounds like we would know what this means, but there's so much more. As always.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

I do like the way, even though the two of us have both been Christians for a long time, that it's helping us to wrestle all this stuff out again, right? Like to remember the sticking points or the things that held us up back in the day from wanting to come into a relationship with him. And even the things that now still it's not easy to explain, or you know, it's good. I don't know, I'm excited to wrestle through some of that together.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Right. So I think in order to understand this passage, we have to back way up to Genesis because we have to understand why Jesus had to die and shed his blood. Because that in and of itself is like, well, what kind of father would do that to his son?

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Right? Like, why did that have to happen? Yeah. And so um, you know, you get into the whole discussion about Adam and Eve. Is it literal? Is it figurative? Like, there's a lot of different takes on that. I'm gonna say up front, I take it literally. The story doesn't make sense figuratively for me, right? Like I'm sure there's people who would argue that with me, but I've walked through um the entire book of Genesis, and that would be a good one to do as well, um, equally as meaty. Um, but it doesn't make sense if it's not literal because somebody had to die, and Jesus took that place. So, why? What why did somebody have to die? It goes back to the idea that God created mankind um as his prize creation, but we are above the angels, like he created the angels and the heavens and all of that, and then he created us, and and we were his prize creation. So when Adam was placed in the garden, he said to Adam, I am going to enter into a covenant with you. And here's the deal: I'm gonna, as God, walk with you, talk with you, be with you, and give you all of these wonderful things and dominion over the earth. I'm gonna have you share in in ruling the animal kingdom in the earthly kingdom. And the only thing, because God's big on covenants, I'll do this, you do that.

SPEAKER_03 5:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Okay. Um, the only thing that he required of Adam is his love and and making the choice to love God first and foremost. So now you get into the whole idea of okay, well, why would God plant a tree that he was forbidden to eat from?

SPEAKER_02 6:15

Exactly. When we were preparing for this, I liked that question. Why did God put that tree in the garden anyway?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Right? Like if you didn't want him to eat it, why'd you put it there? Right. And it and the only way that I can think to describe it is God gives us a picture of marriage as a covidential picture. You step up and say, I choose you over all others. That's why he gives us marriage so that we can we can make that choice. That's the picture we're given here. God says to Adam, I give you free will, but don't eat of this tree. That's your part so that I know you love me. It's not a pet, it's not a forced marriage, it's not an arranged marriage. He had to give Adam the opportunity to make a choice to love God or not to love God.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

So there had to be a tree in the garden or something like that that gave him the ability to uh use his free will and do what God asked him to do or not, so that he wasn't uh right, like a robot. Otherwise, it's not love, right? Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

It's a right, yeah. You're being forced, and that's the picture that I think we all need to understand. God does not force us to love him. No, it's a free choice, and and he waits for us to come to love him. He already loves us. That's what the first line here says to him who loves us, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:59

And the other interesting thing that reminds me of is as we were talking about this beforehand, um, just like that, you know how um, right, all these things happen before we come to have a relationship with him, right? We're uh we we might be struggling with, you know, if God's a God of love, why did he do that? If you know, who knows? There's so many sticking points that keep us from him. And then once we do make this decision to follow him, to be a Christian, to make our faith important in this way, um, it is really funny how many things come together. Like, I don't really feel like I did love him along the way. It wasn't until I made that commitment that somehow love grew. Like, I don't know even when it happened, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Right, right. Yeah, I think um the the piece that trips us up is God gave Adam the Garden of Eden paradise, right? Right, he gave us this paradise that we were meant to live in, but the minute sin entered the world, he said, Here's the deal: if you eat from this tree, right, surely you will die. And then he put in place the redemptive process of taking the place because somebody had to pay the fine for the sin. That was the deal. You step up to the altar, we're now in a covenant. Adam broke the covenant, he said, Love me above all else. He gives them Eve. In actuality, Eve was the one who took the fruit from the tree, right? And Adam loved her so much that when she ate from that tree, he knew better, chose to eat it too, because he thought she would die. And he wanted to be with her more than he wanted to be with God. So sin entered the world, and now the world is dying.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Let's define that. I remember we talked about that too. Two deaths, there's the right.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

So here's the thing people get confused with what death actually means. So death is not uh uh ceasing to exist, death actually means a separation. So when we die, our soul is separated from our bodies, and this is why, and we'll get to this more when we start studying the churches, but there's a place where um the Bible says, Don't be afraid, be of the first death, your your body dying, be afraid of the second death. Man can't do anything to your soul, but I can. So, meaning God, God has the right to, you know, for the second death. Let's understand this for a minute. The first death, separation of the body, the second death is separation from God, so we never cease to exist, we just will be separated from God in that second death for all eternity if we never choose him. And just like Adam, he was given free will, we're given free will. And unfortunately, most people don't pay attention to the choice that's being made, right? And so this verse that we're looking at to him who loved us and release us from our sins by his blood, that's the offer, that's the covenant for us today, and we can choose to walk away from that.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Does that make sense? Well, yes, because it's always free will, and yep. And again, we don't have to accept the covenant, no, no, or the relationship with him, and again, I think back to when okay, what kept me from God is I thought life was gonna be boring and I'd have no cool friends, okay? Yep, and again, just like all these sticking points that I have these conversations with other people, why they don't want him because they see it as rules, and they're yeah, none of it's true, which is so bizarre to me. Like every single one of them are not true, like I didn't want God to boss me around. Well, he doesn't exactly. I've come to a place where I was like, okay, I knew he wanted me. Honestly, it was something as simple as walk an old lady across the road. I mean, it was something help her with her, you know, with the and I knew he wanted me to do it, and I knew I wasn't gonna. I don't know why. I thought she was gonna bash me with her purse or there was something really weird about the situation. And I remember going, okay, Lord, you do it. Because I want to do it, but I'm just struggling again with my own free will. And um, he said, I can't, you know. You you I you I really do give you choice and I don't make you do anything, right? Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

And so that is huge. But I think again, if we go back to the marriage picture, right? That and and God gave us marriage as a picture of what related with him. Yes, he created that picture so we would understand what intimacy looks like, and that that's what he wants with us. He loves us, he wants us to love him, he wants us to put him in first place above all other things. It would be like stepping up to the altar, knowing that you have four other mistresses. So you're saying I do to this wife that you're entering into a covenant to with. And meanwhile, you're you know, in the back of your head, oh, but I'm never gonna break it off with these others because yeah, I want my cake and eat it too. And it doesn't work that way, right? It's the same with God. We cannot say, yeah, yeah, I believe in you, and then have an affair with everything else in this world and never give him the commitment that he's looking for. You know, I always use the example, um, you know, I know Brad Pitt exists. Oh, right. Right? I know he exists. I think that I know him because I see him in movies, but I don't really know him. And surely if I showed up at his doorstep on Christmas Day saying, Hey, Brad, it's me, I'm here, he'd be like, Who are you? Right? Get her out of here, security. You know, he'd have me removed. Well, there's a line in the Bible that says um that they'll knock and he'll say, I do not know you. That scares me. It's the same thing, yeah, right. So we have this lifetime to get to know him. We're never going to be perfect, and he doesn't require our perfection, but he does require us desiring his love and wanting to know him because you don't marry somebody you don't know. Right. And that's the thing that drives me crazy because Christians are like, Well, yeah, I believe there's a God. They don't go to church, they don't open their scriptures, they don't know him. So, how do they know that they love him? They see him as a rule person, somebody who's gonna crack the whip. You got to do this, you got to do that. That's not who he is at all.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Yeah, I do. I see that. I cringe sometimes when I'll be at a funeral, and you know, it'll be friends that have nothing to do with him, but all of a sudden at the funeral, you know, it's all this God talk, and it's like, wow, wow. Because, you know, in the midst of this whole thing as a single person, I actually do think of him as my husband. Uh, you know, like this crazy, you know, we live in Massachusetts, so we've been going through this crazy blizzard and snow popallips or whatever they're calling it. And I've got a generator, but the furnace, even though it was still on, wasn't heating the house.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Without thinking, I'm crying out to God, like, you are my husband, please help. And this is funny, but I walked around the house checking the breaker box and and you know, checking everything, turning the thermostat off and on, really doing nothing, nothing that should have made it work. Um, trying to find out if the pilot light was on, and I couldn't even find it where the pilot light was. I need to learn that. But in the process, the heat came back on. And I just, as my husband, I don't know, I sit with him, I spend time with him. It's not just uh, you know, I I grab a cup of coffee in the morning and I sit down with my journal and my Bible, and it it starts with um reading the word, but it's also, I don't know, it turns into having coffee with my husband. And I love the way he speaks into my life. Um, and again, in the beginning, you don't always know how to do that, and I understand that, but he tells us that my sheep hear my voice, right? That's his covenant to help us to learn how to hear his voice. And each one of us who does that has made the time, basically, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:45

To well, it's like when you know, yeah, when you have a friend and you know each other so well, you don't even even have to speak. Yeah, you can flash each other a look and you know exactly what each other are thinking. Absolutely. Or or you know, you you see your husband across the way, and just by the facial expression, you know if they're in a good mood, a bad mood, because you know them. And the same is true with God. Like when you're walking with the Lord, you you know when I like a sentence can leave my mouth, and I can be convicted in that second, like, oh, I shouldn't have said that. Yeah, like my husband is like, uh-uh, uh-uh, you're gossiping. Like, and I can choose to keep going, right? Or I can choose to be like, oh, okay, yeah, that's enough.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

You know, so we're not gonna be perfect, no, but but that is the cool thing, because there's another sticking point, right? People expect sometimes that, oh, if you take this faith so seriously, let's see you be perfect as if we possibly could. But again, the bonus or whatever of all this is there is no way we possibly could, but someone did need to pay for our sin, and Jesus was perfect, is perfect.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Well, and and I use the example of my son. Yeah, my son, there's a big difference between blowing it and knowing you blew it, and sinning knowing you're sinning. Like my son can come up to me and be like, sorry. And I know he doesn't mean it, right? Like, and of course, I want to forgive him because he's my son, I love him. But uh when he says that I get so angry, I'm like, oh my word, you're not sorry at all. And then he and other times he can come to me and just be like, Oh my word, mom, I blew it. I'm so and I know it's genuine, right? That's the difference. We're gonna blow it. And hopefully we go to God and we say, Lord, I blew it again. I'm so sorry. And it's and we mean it, yes, and we repent. And he says, Okay, today's a new slate, let's get up and move on. Versus, yeah, yeah, I believe in God, but boy, was it fun going out and getting trash last night and doing all the things that aren't good for us, the temptations that the enemy is dangling? Yeah, that's not of God. It only leads to trouble.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

So and I love that again, here's that question you sent me. You know, have you ever asked someone why they will go to heaven? And what do I think is the most common answer? And that was like, how often do we hear that? Because I'm not really that bad, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

This person You will actually hear somebody say, I didn't murder somebody, so I'm not that bad as if that's like the the cutoff, you know.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

But there's I love that video that you put on there.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Um, is it on this exact yes, it's on this particular one? Yeah, and we talked about that briefly before because he does such a great job of of getting to the the heart of the way people think, right? Um, you know, and he talks about there's no one, there's none good but God. Right, Christ is the only one that was good, and so you know, Romans 6.23 says the the wages of sin is death. So any sin without the blood of Christ covering us leads to death.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

And if we're honest with ourselves, we all know our hearts, right? We know when we've judged or gossiped or exaggerated or told white lies, not to mention it after someone in our hearts or killed someone in our hearts, because yeah, verse, right, says whatever we've done in our mind is just the same as doing it.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Right, right. And um yeah, I think that we can Lie to ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 22:01

You know, if if God admit that we deserve hell.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

That's the reality. Every single one of us deserves hell. And we minimize our sins because what we do is we compare ourselves to the neighbor. Yeah. Right? Like there's always people worse, but we treat it like there's this cutoff line, like the top one million people will make it into heaven, and the rest that fall below that line don't. And it doesn't work that way because God is not comparing us to each other, looking for the top one billion. He's comparing us to him. He said, I created you in my image, and you're no longer in my image. And I, being holy and perfect, cannot exist amongst sin. So it's a perm any sin is a permanent separation from him. So how do you rectify that? You have to have somebody pay the fine, like the court case that Ray Comfort always talks about. It's like a courtroom. You walk into the courtroom and the judge says guilty, he gives you a fine. In this case, the fine is death because you're guilty. Somebody has to pay the death penalty. Jesus does that on our behalf. Right. The only one who hasn't correct. Okay. And so he pays the fine. Well, we can say, no, no, no, no. I don't want your handout. I'll go it alone. I think I'm good enough. Oh no. And if you die and you step into the courtroom of heaven without a lawyer, well, guess what? You're in trouble. That's the whole principle of his blood. His blood had to be shed so that we have the covering of so when when God judges us, he doesn't judge us by our record. Christ is standing in front of us and he judges us by Christ's record. But we have to make that decision on this side of life.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Yeah. And that's how he takes the death sentence off of us. That's the only way that he can legally really let us live forever. Um, it's not that he's being mean, he's he's a righteous judge, and it has to go across the board, righteousness, right? I mean, we talked about some of those other ways where we would probably judge God.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Well, and and you know, if we see it in today's culture, right? We see somebody get thrown into prison, and somebody else, because they knew the judge, doesn't, or they had enough money to pay off somebody. And you think, well, that's not fair. God's perfectly just and fair, and he cannot turn a blind eye to your sin.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

And he loves us and he wants us to be with him, so he has offered this free gift, and it's the most expensive gift that ever could have been purchased, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Like he basically paid the price for us, and it was, you know, it wasn't like he didn't feel the pain and the torture that he went through. And he did that thinking about every single one of us, hoping and wishing we'll love him back.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

And we always say eternal life as if as if it's about not going to hell. But when we invite Christ into our hearts, that eternal life starts immediately, right? And we make that time to hang out with God, like we were talking about. He changes everything. I remember, I remember wanting to go to heaven. I did want that, I knew that, but I didn't know why I would want a relationship with him. Like I didn't know why I, you know, I didn't want him to tell me what to do. I didn't want him to have me stop doing anything I was doing, you know, but it isn't like that. And again, it's so hard to explain until you go through it. Um, because like you said, we will always have free will. I didn't have to stop doing drugs or living with my boyfriend. And man, that list can go on a long way, right? But in this new space with God, he helps us to do what's good for us. He helped me to do what I wanted to do, you know, to overcome addiction, to find freedom in my life because he loves us, he heals our hearts, and he knows the destiny that he has in mind for us. So he knows how to lead us into it. Even sometimes it's funny to me. He leads me into something I end up loving, but it's a little scary at first, you know. And like whoever thought we'd be doing these podcasts way back when, you know, but we love sharing what he's done in our lives so that if anyone else wants it, we can show them how to get it. Right. Anyone who's listening, um, yeah, we don't want to end without inviting everyone who's out there into this amazing eternal life that starts right here with this prayer, if you want. Um, again, it has to be free will. If you've never prayed like this and you want to, that's key.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

And you don't have to get cleaned up before you come. You come as you are, and God does the cleaning, he'll reveal and clean. It's just saying, I'm willing and I want to and I accept because I want eternity with God, not without God.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

It's just like agreeing in your mind, like you know, he can hear, he he knows your agreement. Right. And um, so if you want that, um, just feel free to pray, pray along with me, Lord. I am sorry for all the ways I've let you down and done wrong. And I want to turn away from the things that I still do wrong, and I need your help. Thank you for making a way for me, for us, to spend eternity in heaven. I want that amazing experience with you, not just then, but now. Help me to learn how to recognize when you're trying to communicate with me and give me a desire. Uh, help me to really make a point to spend time with you, to hear what you have to say to me. I want what we've been talking about today. And so I ask you for it in Jesus' name. Amen.