An Online Devotional from Pastor Chad Carter

W e ' r e m o r e t h a n j u s t a C h u r c h . . . W e ' r e a F A M I L Y !

"The God of the Garden"

Pastor Chad Carter

Excerpts from Pastor Carter's message on

Resurrection Seed Easter Sunday 2007

To gain the greatest understanding of where we find ourselves today, it’s always best to start at the beginning of the whole thing! This morning, we start at the book of beginnings – the Book of Genesis. There we find God’s decision to create a being in His image and after His likeness:

Genesis 1:26-28:

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and

let them have dominion...

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he

him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and

multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion...

Genesis 2:7-8:

7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed

into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

8 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put

the man whom he had formed.

Through the rest of chapter two, we

have the discovery of the wonderful utopia

Adam had in the garden. From this place

of perfect fellowship with God, Adam was

the king of all the earth. He was given

dominion to rule and reign, all because

of the relationship he had with the God

of the Garden.

From this garden, Adam named

every animal that the Lord God had

formed. From this garden, rivers would

branch to water the earth. It was in this garden that God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and created a help meet for him – a wife. In this garden, the man and the woman ate their fill of all that which was good.

What a place. What a privacy. What a communion creation had with the Creator. What a place of bliss and happiness. Imagine it… man walking in complete unison and agreement with the one who had reached down into the cool clay of earth and formed you as you are. We have a hard time understanding it – we have a hard time placing ourselves in that situation.

Can you imagine… waking up from a night of peaceful sleep, with no aches and pains, with no concerns or confusions, with no worries or wants? Can you imagine waking up as the sun rose over the eastern hills of Eden, and as the dew sat gently on the ground and the mist of morning began to clear, taking a walk in the cool of the morning to talk with God Himself? Oh we have difficulty grasping the thought, yet Adam and Eve enjoyed that very thing.

It’s a hard thought to comprehend that having such perfect fellowship with God could be broken! It’s hard to imagine that such a wonderful fellowship between a temporal man and an eternal God could be forfeited. But Adam and Eve, disobeyed God in the garden. They violated His commands. They disobeyed and lost it all!

...Hard to believe, that man who had been created to have no fear, have no worry, have no strife, have no sickness or pain, that had not death and damnation to deal with, would bring such a curse upon themselves through a simple act of disobedience.

This, God of the Garden, had given Adam the rule and reign over all the earth. He had been given complete and total liberty of all that God had created, with just one stipulation – do not eat the fruit from the tree placed in the center of the garden. This, tree of the knowledge of good and evil, contained forbidden fruit that God had said, “eat all the other fruit of the Garden – eat whatever you want, but leave this one tree alone.”

Those of you who are parents know that when you point out something specific that you instruct your children NOT to do, that it just heightens their curiosity about doing it and tempts them to do it.

But the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the garden is what gave your children that drive to do what they’ve been told not to do… such a temptation did not exist at the time. Therefore, such a scenario cannot be placed upon Adam and Eve. The temptation of doing what you’ve been told not to do had never existed. They invented "doing what you were told not to do."

Allow me to remind you, that it was not God’s instruction for them to leave the fruit from that tree alone that tempted them to partake of it. It was the enemy that tempted them. It wasn’t the command to not eat of the tree that caused them to desire to do so. It was the temptation of the enemy of God that dangled the carrot, so to speak, in front of them.

The enemy said to Eve, “if you eat of the fruit of this tree, you will be like God!” There was just one problem with that temptation, it was based on the premise that they were not already like God. God had made man in His image, did He not? Adam and Eve were created in His likeness and after His image. Eve should have looked at the enemy and said, “I don’t have to eat of the fruit of this tree to be like God… I already am.”

When she decided to eat of the fruit of that tree anyway, and then persuaded Adam to do the same, they took it upon themselves to become what God had already created them to be… LIKE HIM. They were already rulers. They already possessed dominion. They already had power and authority over all created beings. They already had eternal life. They already had immortality and death was not in their future.

But the moment they laid down who they were, at the feet of the temptation to become what they already knew they were, something happened. They had violated the simple commandment of the God of the Garden.

Why would one in such a state of immortality and rulership jeopardize everything he was created to be, in the image of God, all for the temptation of the enemy of God. Why would one who would not taste death enter in to the curse of disobedience, and lay his kingship, his rulership, his immortality down for a piece of fruit?

We may never know in this life why Adam fell prey to the temptation of the enemy though the persuasion of Eve. What we do know is this….

Adam, created in the image of God the eternal Creator, took it upon himself to bring something into this world; something we wish he had not. Through his disobedience, a curse came into play. Through his disobedience, death for the human race entered into the world. Through his disobedience, sin had entered into the world and infected the bloodline of a sinless man.

Through the disobedience of one man, a communicable disease entered into the world that would ultimately infect every single son and daughter of the human race! Through the disobedience of one man, the perfect relationship that man had with God had suddenly come to a screeching halt – suddenly there was a division – suddenly there was a separation that occurred – suddenly there was a huge and impassable chasm that had been dug which no man could pass!

Suddenly, the fellowship ceased. Suddenly, the communication crashed. Suddenly, the perfect utopia of the Garden became imperfect and infected with the sin of disobedience.

How must God have felt in that moment, when all He had created for man had been let go of in an instant. How tragic it must have been for God to have now not only looked on at the insurrection of the angelic beings He had created, but now He suddenly felt the sting of separation from the creatures He had created to love Him intimately.

Can you imagine, God, in that moment, feeling the separation from the Creation he had hoped would love Him with the same love He had for man?

Genesis 3:7-8 records for us what happened when Adam and Eve ate of the tree and suddenly their eyes were opened to their shame. At that moment, the God of the Garden came searching for them.

Verse 8 says that they, “heard the voice of the Lord” – the God of the Garden – “walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” They heard Him coming, as He had so many times before. But this time, instead of running out to meet Him, they ran away and hid in the trees.

God called out to him in verse 9, and said, “Adam, Where are you?” Oh, He knew where they were. His search was not to find them - His search was so they could find themselves and face Him whom they had disobeyed and offended.

Because of their transgression against the command of their Lord, sin entered into the world; death entered into the world. The fruit of the tree of life, which sustained them and maintained their immortality, was denied, and they were driven away from the Garden they had called home, and the God of the Garden they had called, Father.

What a sad, pitiful shape, a sorry specimen of “what once was” has man become, all because of the sin of the father and mother of humanity.

Every situation man finds himself in today can be traced back to this one event in human history. …Every problem, every fear, every sickness and disease. …Every pain, every frustration, every brokenness of the heart, can all be traced back to this one event of sin.

…Think of the mother who finds herself at the bedside of her son or daughter, with a basin of ice water and fragments of wash cloths and towels, wiping the fevered brow of her little one who suffers in pain and lies at the point of death. …It’s all because of sin!

…Think of the son or daughter and the hospital bed of a mother or father who is nearing the point of death. There is only a few minutes left now – there is only the fleeting hope that their loved one will hear them say “I love you” just one last time before they slip off into a slumber from which they will not awake… …It’s all because of sin!

…Think of the one sitting on the edge of a table in a doctor’s office, as the doctor leaves the room. There in the quiet… there in the loneliness… there in the aloneness of that little room she begins to lose herself in a blank stare toward the wall on the other side. Think of her, sitting there, as she begins to shake her head and tears well up inside her eyes until they burst forth and run down her cheeks onto her quivering chin and fall to the ground beneath her as the words of the doctor echo in her ears louder and louder. …Was it a dream? Did she imagine it? Did he really say what she thought she heard him say? Yes, it was true… and it rings in her ears as her life flashes before her eyes, because the doctor has told her, “there is no treatment, there is no cure, there is no hope!” …It’s all because of sin!

…Think of the one sitting, crouched down in the corner of the stall of a city restroom. He’s tough on the outside. He puts on a good show for his buddies that he lives in the street with. But in here, in the stall alone, while he shoots up on crack or heroine, there’s no one to bother him. Here he sits, in the corner, with a wall to his right, and a nasty toilet seat to his left. He holds his arm tightly as the drugs begin their course though his veins. Oh, he puts on a good show out there, but in here, he can’t help but lean his head on the toilet seat next to him as he begins to cry. …It’s all because of sin!

…Think of the one sitting on the bar stool, who’s wife has left him – or who’s children hate him – or who’s boss just fired him, as he sits there and tries to numb himself from the pain on the inside with alcohol. He drinks his booze all night long, and then goes home and physically abuses his family, and beats his wife and children who already despise him and would just as soon see him dead as come home drunk again. Now the son that he has abused and mistreated finds his way out of the house, hoping to gain relief of some kind, but winds up turning to the bottle… bound by the same destructive devil that possesses his father, and keeping that generational curse alive in the family.

Let me parenthetically insert this right here – God forgive you so-called preachers and teachers who stand up before God’s people and teach them, and then walk backstage and suck the wine down like its water! God forgive you so-called Christian leaders – hypocrites and wolves in sheep’s clothing, I call you – who stand up and tell God’s people “it’s ok to drink socially once in awhile, it never hurt anybody.” Yah, walk with me into any bar in America or any home that has been ravaged by the effects of alcohol and say that, you worthless, hypocritical viper! You go ahead and help yourself to your little hypocritical wine-bibbing, and I’ll open you the pages of the Word of God from which you claim you teach and show you the very first verse of Proverbs 20 that STILL, to this very day, declares, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” Now if the Word of God says that, who do you think you are to be telling anybody anything otherwise? Go on and be a drunkard if you want to… Go on and be an adulterer if you want to… Go on and be a hypocrite if you want to… but at least have the decency to quit pretending like you speak for God in the process. You’re just securing your place in hell, and deceiving a lot of other people into going with you, too.

Somebody ought to be shouting unto God and giving Him a handclap of praise on this resurrection day…

…Think of the one who has found themselves behind bars for atrocious acts of crime. Think of them sitting there in a 6 x 8 concrete cell block with nothing but a toilet and a three inch window through which a tray of food slides through. …It’s all because of sin!

…Think of the young teenage girl who is whisked away from her mother in a Planned Parenthood office as she is persuaded by devils dressed in nurses costumes that the life within her is not a life at all… it’s just a blob of tissue that she has the right to have vacuumed from within her if she chooses, with or without her mother’s knowledge or consent.

Think of that young lady sitting there, frightened and deceived about to make the decision to commit the murder of an innocent life within her. Oh yes, it was sin that found her in this situation in the first place, but now she sits contemplating, with encouragement, the decision of committing another one. Worse than all that, this brutal form of assassination is LEGAL! …It’s all because of sin!

…Imagine the innocent life within her, helplessly waiting on the day its mother would give birth to it, and hold it tightly in her arms with loving eyes and loving voice. She’s supposed to protect it; not murder it! …And yet she gives permission for that doctor to perform one of the most brutal acts of murder the human race has ever devised. They take the little life from the womb of the mother whom God intended to protect the baby. They take it out and suck its brains out of its little head, leaving a shriveled, shrunken, crushed skull behind! God help us! …What kind of a world are we living in?

What kind of world are we living in when lust has driven men to the place of committing, without embarrassment or inhibition, perverse acts of self gratification that the world hasn’t seen since the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, which I will remind you, were destroyed by God!

They not only want you to allow them to commit their perverseness openly, now they want to get married and degrade the holy institution that you and your wife enjoy to being nothing more than a social right!

What kind of a world are we living in when children still go to bed hungry, in the most prosperous nation on earth? What kind of world are we living in, when it’s ok for drug lords and porn stars, and pimps and prostitutes, and bankers and lawyers to have the best that money can buy, and yet God’s preachers are expected to live on meager means and drive the antiquated vehicles held together with Christian bumper stickers!

What kind of a world are we living in? I’ll tell you what kind of a world we are living in… we are living in a world where sin has become the infecting factor in each and every life. We are living in a world where man has convinced himself that he is self-sufficient and has lost the need for a relationship with the God of the Garden.

Sin… God help us… Sin has driven such an insurmountable chasm between man and God that it seems there is no possibility of repair!

Oh, but thanks be to the God of the Garden, He was not willing to leave us destitute, deprived and destroyed!

Fast forward thousands of years, and you’ll find Him yet again, in another garden... the Garden of Gethsemane.

This time, we don’t see Him walking in the cool of the morning communing with man, but we see Him in agony because of man. This time, we see Him on His face in the darkness of night, crying out in agony for the task He had before Him. Luke’s Gospel records that He was in such agony that His sweat became great drops of blood and splashed on the ground beneath Him.

Jesus, the only begotten Son of God… God in the flesh… had come with a goal in mind – to reverse the curse of sin and death and put you back in the place you had with God in the Garden at the beginning.

From this Garden of Gethsemane, a struggle for your soul was under way. In this garden, there was a great warfare taking place. Here, Jesus was faced with the reality that He was about to endure the punishment for someone else. Here, in this garden, Jesus was faced with the reality of His own death in order to purchase your eternal life.

He struggled and He struggled, and He prayed and He prayed, until finally an angel of God came to comfort Him as He declared, “Not my will, Father, but Yours be done… There, in that garden, Jesus relinquished His will to the Father, and found the strength to go to the cross for you!

Moments later, 500 Roman Centurions came to take Jesus… Jesus knew they were coming for Him, but He had a point to make, so He asked them anyway, “Who do you seek?” They said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” And Jesus responded, “I am he.”

John’s Gospel records that at the moment He declared, “I am he,” the Centurions fell backwards to the ground. You see, they had come in the authority of the Roman Empire… but when they found Jesus, they had come into contact with the authority of the God of the Garden.

They took Jesus away, and after trials, and floggings, and beatings, and public ridicule and shame, they took him to the hill called Golgotha - the place of the skull - the place of suffering… Calvary!

THERE, they took the spotless Lamb of God, and hung Him on a cruel rigged beam! THERE, they lifted Him high between Heaven and earth! THERE, in the place of darkness, light and deliverance! THERE, in the place of torture, healing would triumph! THERE, in the place of shame and separation, salvation would come! THERE, in the place of death, life would spring forth! THERE, in the place of deception, revelation would once again shine upon the earth!

THERE, at the cross, sin would be exposed! There, at the cross, salvation would take hold! There, at the cross, the relationship with the Father was restored! It was there, at the cross! …At the cross...

"At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light, and the burden on my soul rolled away; it was there by faith, I received my sight, and now I am happy all the day!"

There, with blood streaming down His naked side, the prince of God, Jesus our Savior, suffered and bled and died a death not only in the physical, but in the spiritual, for upon His shoulders were cast the sin of the entire world, and there, hanging between heaven and earth, He carried the weight of your sin. He suffered for your sin… He died for your sin!

After hours of agony and pain, Jesus looked into heaven and declared to the Father, “IT IS FINISHED,” signifying that the work had been done! He had successfully repaired the breach between God and man!

From the cross they carried His body and placed it in the borrowed tomb of Joseph of Arimethea, and for two days His body lay sealed in a tomb, with a great stone that had been rolled over the door.

Oh, how quickly they had forgotten! Oh, how quickly they had forgotten how He had raised up Jairus’ daughter from the dead! How they had forgotten the funeral processional He interrupted and called off by raising the woman’s dead son back to life! Oh, how quickly they forgot how He had raised Lazarus back to life and declared, “I am the resurrection and the life! He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live!”

How quickly they had forgotten that He had said, “no man takes my life… I have the power to lay it down, and the power to take it back up again!” Surely they must have remembered hearing him say, “Tear this temple down, and in three days I will raise it up again.”

That brings us to our third stop in the garden this morning. Turn with me to John, chapter 20. All four gospels give wonderful accounts of the resurrection, but we look this morning to John chapter 20, beginning at verse 1 in The Message Bible:

1-2 Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,

Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away

from the entrance. She ran at once to Simon Peter and the other disciple,

the one Jesus loved, breathlessly panting, "They took the Master from the

tomb. We don't know where they've put him."

3-10 Peter and the other disciple left immediately for the tomb. They ran,

neck and neck. The other disciple got to the tomb first, outrunning Peter.

Stooping to look in, he saw the pieces of linen cloth lying there, but he didn't

go in. Simon Peter arrived after him, entered the tomb, observed the linen

cloths lying there, and the kerchief used to cover his head not lying with the

linen cloths but separate, neatly folded by itself. Then the other disciple, the

one who had gotten there first, went into the tomb, took one look at the

evidence, and believed. No one yet knew from the Scripture that he had to

rise from the dead. The disciples then went back home.

11-13 But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt

to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one

at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus' body had been laid. They

said to her, "Woman, why do you weep?"

13-14 "They took my Master," she said, "and I don't know where they put

him." After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But

she didn't recognize him.

15 Jesus spoke to her, "Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking

for?" She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, "Mister, if you took him,

tell me where you put him so I can care for him."

16 Jesus said, "Mary." Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew,

"Rabboni!" meaning "Teacher!"

What happened on this first Easter Resurrection morning? Mary had an encounter with the God of the Garden! ...My Jesus!

God had taken the human race full circle, from the point in a garden where the first Adam entered into the curse of sin and death, to another garden in which the second Adam had broken the curse of sin and death and brought life once again!

According to Romans chapter 5, by one man, sin and death entered into the world, but by one man, grace and righteousness took its place! By one man in a garden, judgment came upon all, and by one man in another garden, righteousness became the free gift of all! By the disobedience of one man in the garden, all were made sinners, but by the obedience of one man in another garden, many were made righteous!

1 Corinthians 15 tells us that death entered the world through a man, so resurrection had to enter through a man as well. In Adam, all would die, but in Christ, all can live!

Through the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ, a bridge has been built! The chasm has been made crossable. Through Jesus, there is now an escape from the communicable disease of sin that has infected the world!

As heinous and horrific the world is today - as deadly and perverse and sinful as it is - there is still the hope of forgiveness today, because of the work Jesus did on the cross and His resurrection from the dead!

The resurrection! Hallelujah! The crown jewel of our faith in God – the resurrection! It’s what separates Christianity from all other world religions! It’s the cause of our hope in Christ! 1 Corinthians 15:14, “…if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching in vain, and [our] faith is also vain.”

You can go to the tomb of Buddha, and find he’s still in there! You can go to the tomb of Gandhi, Krishna and Rev. Moon, and make a discovery; they're still in there too!

To the precious Muslim people… You can go to the tomb of your “prophet” Mohammed, and make a little discovery - your “prophet” is still dead and in the grave, without the power to save or forgive, without the power to love or heal!

But when you get on over to the issue of Jesus of Nazareth, you'll find He's the only figurehead of any religion whose grave site people visit, not to see who’s there, but to see who’s not there!

Christianity is the only religion with a virgin womb at one end, and an empty tomb at the other!

Some would ask, “well then, preacher, how do you know He’s alive? How do you know it’s real? How do you know this 'resurrection' is true? How do you know Christ lives?”

He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today!

He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way!

He lives, He lives, salvation to impart…

You ask me how I know He lives?

He lives within my heart!

How do I know it’s real? ‘Cause He woke me up this morning, and started me on my way! He gave me breath in my body! He gave a spring in my step and a song in my heart!

How do I know He’s real? Because I heard Him speak my name this morning! I talked with him before I came to church, and I’ve talked to Him since I got here today!

How do I know He’s real? Because in the moments of my life when all hell breaks loose, heaven steps in and intervenes! In all the moments when I needed Him the most, He’s never left he hopeless or helpless! …He’s always been right there, right when I needed Him the most!

How do I know it’s real? Because He got me through yesterday, and He’s getting me through today, and I have confidence that whatever I have to go through, whatever I have to face tomorrow, He’ll be there, too!

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow!

Because He lives, all fear is gone!

Because I know He holds the future,

My life is worth the living just because He lives!

Whatever your situation right now… however dark it appears… regardless of how much death surrounds your life right now… come to the God of the Garden... Come to Jesus and Live!

Report: After the preaching of this message, fifteen people responded

to the salvation invitation and gave their lives to Jesus Christ. Countless

more watching by television or listening by way of radio also heard the

Gospel. Only God knows the number of people who responded to His

call on this Resurrection morning.

If you would like to accept Christ as your Savior, we would love to

lead you in that process. Click Here.