Going Back to Where We Started
Going back to where we started – I used to be a serious hunter–as much as my schedule would permit. As my life continued, I especially enjoyed deer hunting. The attraction was not in killing something. Had that been the attraction, I would have quit when I was a novice–the deer fooled or detected me far more often than I detected the deer.
Going back to where we started – The attraction was being in the woods. I loved the quiet. I loved the beauty. I loved seeing creatures that never saw me. Two of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed are sunrise in the woods and sunset in the woods. I love to see God’s creation wake up and God’s creation go to sleep.
Once I was slipping, scouting, and just generally observing in some woods when I suddenly realized I did not know where I was. With the fear of being lost instantly came everything taking on a strange appearance. The familiar became unfamiliar. Immediately I had no clue about direction.
Going back to where we started – I was less than 50 yards from being out of the woods–and did not know it! I almost headed in the wrong direction, back deeper into the woods. When I came to a fence and instantly knew where I was, I marveled at how close I was to being out of the woods and how easily I could have gone deeper into the woods wandering aimlessly around. If I had made that mistake, I could have wandered a long, long time.
Getting back to where I started could have been a long, long journey–simply because I did not know where I was or where I was going.
Going back to where we started – This evening I want to make a simple comparison between the garden of Eden in Genesis 2 and the new Jerusalem in Revelation 21, 22.
Going back to where we started – I want to make a single point: it has been and is a long journey to get back to our beginning.
David Chadwell lesson – Going Back to Where We Started
I.  I would like to begin by reading Genesis 2:7-9 and then 2:15-17.
Genesis 2:7-9 Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 2:15-17 Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

* Let me call some things to your attention.

* God provided the human being he brought into existence with a home and placed him in that home.

* In that home there was beauty.
* In that home there was security–there was no need for fear.
* In that home there was no need–never was there anxiety of starving.
* In that home there was responsibility–Adam was cultivate and keep the garden (scripture does not say what was involved in doing that).
* There were also prohibitions: there were tragic consequences to eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

* In that early existence there was no knowledge of evil.

 

* Having the knowledge of evil was not a good thing.

* To understand evil only as it contrasts to good was a destructive understandin...