Genesis 2:4-17
God, the Provider and Ruler

When a poor child from the slums turns to a life of drugs and crime, we understand. We don't condone the behavior, but we understand. What could he look backward to with pride? What could he look forward to with hope? We shake our hand say, "Theeads in horror re but for the grace of God go I." Would I really make different choices if I lived in such a financial and cultural dead end?

But when a rich child with a Harvard education and a million dollar trust fund turns to a life of robbing convenience stores, we can't fathom it. Why would he do it? What did he lack that his father would not freely give him? What did he need that he couldn't afford?

This is the situation into which Adam is placed. A garden full of good food, a job to fulfil for which he was created, and a God who has proven able to supply everything he needs. Adam is the man who had everything. And we are told this at great length so we will understand how utterly crazy it was to throw it all away.

"This is the history" or "These are the generations" = title of the major sections of Genesis. The heavens and the earth have been created, and now the question is being answered: So, what came out of that? To answer that, we backtrack a little to Day 3 and Day 6 of the creation account.

  1. God, the problem-solver
    1. Two deficits, two reasons, and two solutions
      1. Deficit 1 - No plant of the field
        1. This is the wild growth on the hills that requires no cultivation
        2. We have similar geography in Southern California.
        3. You stare around and all these dead brown hills, they seem lifeless
        4. But when the rains come, plants spring up and everything turns green.
        5. It's important to understand this. These are not plants that are watered by rivers and streams but by the dew and the rain.
      2. Deficit 2 - No herb of the field
        1. This is cultivated growth - oats, wheat, barley
        2. the things that grow, or grow best, when a man plows the field and sows the seed.
      3. Reason 1 - No rain
        1. God could have created the wild growth and sustained it miraculously.
        2. But this tells us that was not his mode of operation during the creation.
        3. Rather, Genesis tells us that after he created things by the word of his power, his intention was to sustain them by ordinary providence
        4. Thus, the absence of rain means that the wild growth hasn't yet been created.
      4. Reason 2 - No man
        1. Again, God could have miraculously plowed fields
        2. But this says he isn't going to create oats and barley unless the ordinary means by which such grains are cultivated is present
      5. Solution 1 - rain
        1. This is what we're expecting in verse 6
        2. After all, doesn't the very next verse solve problem 2?
        3. yet the translations speak of a mist or a stream
        4. Is that really what's going on here?
        5. If this isn't about rain, then God isn't really solving the problem so much as finding a clever way around it.
        6. For the text to communicate the power of God, it must tell us there wasn't rain, and then God brought rain.
        7. Just as it tells us there wasn't a man, and then God made a man.
        8. This is why I read my own translation for v. 6 in the reading of the Word.
      6. Solution 2 - man
    2. The significance of the rain
      1. God is teaching Adam what it means to be in God's image
        1. Just as God cultivates the grass of the field
        2. So Adam must cultivate the grains
      2. Adam is dependent on God
        1. He cannot cultivate these grains without the rain that God will send
        2. So to fulfil his task, Adam relies not on his own strength, but on the power and providence of God
      3. And Adam knows that he cannot turn to anyone but God to provide this all-important rain which God supplies in abundance from the beginning.
      4. Israel must know that God is the rain-giver
        1. And he has been from the beginning
        2. This is what Elijah on Mount Carmel was all about Is the LORD God or is Baal? I.e. who can bring rain
        3. Rain is the sign of God's blessing on those who keep his commandments
        4. Deuteronomy 11:8-16 - "Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, 9and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, "a land flowing with milk and honey." 10For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; 11but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, 12a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year. 13And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. 15And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled. 16Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them.
        5. So the rain is God's response to their obedience to his law
      5. Rain is the sign of God's gospel blessing as well
        1. When Adam forfeited any right to this rain, yet God promises he will again come like the rain (Hosea 6.3)
        2. Isaiah 30:23 - Then He will give the rain for your seed With which you sow the ground, And bread of the increase of the earth; It will be fat and plentiful. In that day your cattle will feed In large pastures.
    3. The significance of the man
      1. He's created with a pupose
        1. He solves the problem of no cultivated growth
        2. more on this later
      2. dependent on God for life
        1. God breathed into his nostrils breath
        2. In an intimate way, his life is in God's hands
        3. He lives and moves and has his being in God
      3. Like the animals
        1. He's made of the dust
        2. He's a "living being"
      4. Different from the animals
        1. The animals don't derive their breath from God
        2. There is something special about the man, some connection with God that the animals don't have
      5. He is created to be body and soul
        1. Two distinct parts of his nature; he is incomplete without either
        2. This is why even physical death is horrible
        3. This is why we look forward to the resurrection
        4. The salvation of your soul isn't enough
      6. This is inconsistent with the theory of evolution
      7. This is history!
  2. God, the abundant supplier
    1. God provides a garden, food, water, and wealth
      1. God plants a garden, a perfect habitation for Adam
      2. He gives him trees that look good and trees that taste good
        1. Among these trees are two special trees that we'll deal with more in a moment
        2. But first, let's see generally what's there
      3. This land is surrounded by rivers which provide water for the garden (in addition to the rain God sends)
      4. And in the surrounding lands are gold - good gold - and onyx
      5. Look at how rich Adam is!
        1. He has no reason to complain against God
        2. Has not God given him a beautiful inheritance?
        3. Has not God spread out a sumptuous banqueting table before him?
      6. And what does God require? Only that Adam obey and serve the Lord his God (which he was created capable of doing)
        1. How could he throw all this away?
        2. What could motivate him to render less than perfect obedience
        3. He is, truly, the man who has everything
      7. Israel is meant to see their situation in this
      8. And we are meant to see the superiority of ours
        1. Christ, the 2nd Adam, restored what the first Adam lost
        2. Christ, who did not begin in a garden but in a desert
          1. Adam was tempted in the midst of this garden, surrounded by all that God had freely given him, able to eat freely of all the trees but one.
          2. Christ was tempted in the desert, hungry from 40 days of fasting
          3. Yet he knew what Adam forgot, Man does not live by bread alone, but depends upon God for his sustenance and existence
          4. Thus he triumphed over Satan and bought back the favor of God
        3. And now he spreads that banqueting table before us in heaven
        4. He is preparing for us a rich inheritance there which we will never lose
        5. He will perfect us in his own perfect righteousness and bring us into that perfect place.
    2. God provides a promise and a warning
      1. The Tree of Life
        1. promises eternal life
        2. Not just prolonging of days, but something qualitatively different
        3. He is offered the entrance into God's rest
      2. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
        1. This is not just knowing what good and evil are.
        2. This is discerning between good and evil
        3. It is the sense in which King Solomon is said to have an understanding mind, able to discern good and evil (1 Kings 3.9)
        4. And it is choosing good over evil on the basis of what God judges to be good and evil
        5. It is here that Satan will tempt Eve to believe herself rather than God, to judge the tree good when God has called it evil.
        6. Here is man's ultimate dependence on God
          1. He must not decide for himself what is good and what is evil
          2. But he must declare God's decisions in that matter and rule according to God's Law
    3. Thus, man is dependent on God
      1. The whole creation story of Genesis 1 led up to man
        1. He is the pinnacle of creation, but he is not the goal
        2. The goal is the glory of God and all things are created for that purpose
        3. So man is constantly reminded of his dependence on God for every good thing lest he rebel and strike out on his own
      2. He is dependent upon God for food and water and every good thing
      3. He is dependent upon God for the eternal life that is held out to him
      4. And he is dependent upon God to tell him what is good and what is evil so that he may judge rightly
  3. God, the ultimate ruler
    1. God gives man a task
      1. God does not leave man to decide what he would like to do with his life; God creates man with a purpose.
      2. He is to tend and keep the garden
        1. He is to till the soil
        2. And he is to guard it from evil
        3. It was his failure to do the second that resulted in the Fall
      3. Work is not a result of the curse, toil is
    2. God gives man a command
      1. Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
      2. This is equivalent of "Don't decide for yourself what is good and evil"
      3. And if you reject my authority in this way, you will also lose my blessing and favor
        1. No more garden
        2. No more rain or water
        3. No more wealth
        4. No more life
      4. This is what's at stake: obey and live; disobey and die - eternal in both cases.

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