Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
In the last session, I explained to you about why God made the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I told you that He made it to give men true happiness.
If men do not experience unhappiness, they cannot feel happiness either. Only after they experience sadness, pain, and unhappiness, can they realize in their heart the true value of happiness and be thankful for that they are happy.
God made and placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Eden to let men experience relativity, and this tree of knowledge was placed along with the tree of life.
God placed these two kinds of trees that had the relativity and explained to Adam about each tree. The tree of life gives eternal life, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil leads to death.
God explained what death and its pain are like, and commanded Adam not to eat from it so that he would not suffer that kind of pain.
But whether to obey God's command or not was up to Adam's freewill, so that he could choose on his own. Since Adam did not experience sins and death, he could not fully keep God's explanation in his heart, so he was finally deceived by Satan and ate from the tree of knowledge.
Some people ask, "How could Adam commit a sin since he had no sin at all? Isn't it that Adam ate from the tree of knowledge because he had evil?"
But it is not that Adam ate from the tree because he had evil from the beginning. He could eat from the tree not because he had evil but because he had the freewill to accept evil.
According to his freewill, he disobeyed God and ate from the tree. By doing this, evil came into being, and he came to know what evil is.
Namely, Adam, who knew only good things, came to see what was evil and fleshly also. Today, when we look at the process of people getting stained with sins, we can understand how evil came into Adam. For example, even a child who frequently hits other children was not born to hit others from the beginning.
Of course, since he is born with the original sin, he has the nature of sin, but until he made beating others his habit, there needs to be the process of accepting it. First, he sees another person beating others, and repeats after that person.
When he himself hits another child, the one who is beaten begins to cry. He feels it is fun, so he repeats it once again.
If he keeps on repeating it, it becomes a habit completely, and he habitually beats other children.
It is the same when grown-ups learn drinking and smoking. They do not know the taste when they first smoke and drink, but as they keep on doing them, they gain the taste of them.
As they continue to take those things, they cannot quit and they get addicted to them. It is the same with those who speak bad words or those who easily get angered.
They keep on accepting sins in them, so those sins are planted in their heart as their own.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, what was the result of men accepting the temptation of the serpent and eating from the tree of the knowledge?
As God said, "you will surely die," they had to face death.
Namely, their spirit died, so their communication with God was disconnected, and they became a servant of the enemy devil and Satan.
Romans 6:16 says, "Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?"
As said, Adam obeyed sin, so he became a servant of the enemy devil, the ruler of the power of darkness. By doing this, Adam handed over all his authority to the enemy devil.
Genesis 1:28 says, "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'" As said, the first man Adam had the authority to rule over everything.
But since Adam became a servant of the enemy devil, his authority and glory as the lord of all creation was handed over to the enemy devil.
We can find this fact in Luke 4:6. The devil told Jesus as it was showing Him all the kingdoms of the world, "And he said to him, 'I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.'"
The devil did not have all the authority and splendor of all the kingdoms of the world from the beginning, but "it had been given to him." Namely, it was handed over to him from Adam.
The enemy devil, who received the authority to rule over all creation, made the mankind stained with more and more sins and evil since they became servants of sin after Adam's disobedience.
As the generations passed, people's heart became more and more evil, and the world became filled with sins more and more.
To those who live in sins like this, the enemy devil brings about poverty, disasters, tears, sorrow, and pain. And finally, he leads them to hell, the eternal death.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, now, what should men do? Do they have to be servants of the enemy devil for their entire life and finally go to hell?
If God was to let men fall into hell, He, knowing everything, did not have to create them in the first place. Also, He did not have to place the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to let men experience the relativity.
The will of God in creating men is to lead them to the eternal kingdom of heaven after they receive the cultivation and experience the relativity.
But even though we experience the relativity, we cannot go into the kingdom of heaven being servants of sins.
Because God had known that Adam would eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil even before He planned the cultivation of mankind, He also prepared the way from the beginning to save mankind who would fall into sin.
That way is our Lord Jesus Christ.
I hope you will clearly understand about Jesus Christ who is the way of salvation, through this message.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will accept the Lord and reach the heavenly kingdom.
http://www.manmin.org/foreign/02_sermon/en/content.asp?id=299&cat=1&page=1
http://www.manmin.org/foreign/02_sermon/en/search.asp?find=The%20Message%20of%20the%20Cross&kind=1
https://www.urimbooks.com/en/bbs/board.php?bo_table=tbl_book_list&sca=English
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