The Tree Of Life

The Bible is one large orchestration of a beautiful picture from cover to cover.

 

• Most people see it as disjointed rules.

• A boring set of what to do and what not to do.

• But it’s a wonder to be sure!

• It is an awesome plan of God.

• Today I want to show you a theme that runs through the Bible showing

God’s desires for all of us.

 

• God is eternal, and is not limited to time like we are.

• And when you study this book that covers thousands of years, and see an

issue coming up again and again, you know that only a God who has been

around forever could do that.

In the Garden the serpent possessed by Satan succeeded in taking Adam and Eve’s

eyes off the tree of life and not another tree.

Similarly, the devil would like to tear our eyes off Jesus.

I want to show us today how this is so significant in our lives.

Why did the devil want to take their eyes off the tree of life?

Why does he want to take our eyes off Jesus?

 

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was

set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the

right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction

of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not

yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

 

(Heb 12:2-4)

 

And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to

the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and

the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

 

(Genesis 2:9)

 

And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good

and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and

eat, and live forever:

 

(Genesis 3:22)

 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am

that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.

This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof,

and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat

of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which

I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves,

saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them,

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink

his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood,

hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat

indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my

blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by

the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

 

(John 6:47-57)

Seeds are in fruit (Gen 1:11) and are the means of the tree’s propagation of itself.

• The seed is planted in the earth and is germinated to reproduce the very

sort of tree from which the seed came.

• After its kind.

Man was made from earth.

• Jesus even called Man’s heart the earth in the parable of the sower and the

seed.

And God wanted man to eat the fruit of life which had seed within itself to

reproduce the tree of life.

• Man did not physically start growing a tree of life in his body after he ate

fruit, but there is a message in the idea of seed and earth.

• Seeds and earth go quite well together.

• Propagation of the tree occurs in that manner.

• And God wanted man to have LIFE form with himself.

• The tree of life and its fruit show us this principle.

• Spiritually speaking, man was to see the tree of life reproduced in himself.

It must be noted that Adam was going to live forever whether he ate the fruit of

life or not.

• Romans 5:12 tells us that the only reason death came was due to sin.

• Had Adam never sinned, he would never have died.

• And the reason God told Adam to leave the Garden lest he take of the fruit

of life and live forever, was because Adam had sinned.

• And he would die.

• But notice that God said, ” lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the

tree of life, and eat, and live forever: “

• ALSO.

• God did not want Adam to MIX fruit of life in his system with fruit of the

knowledge of good and evil.

• He does not want us straddling the fence and living for Jesus and for the

world.

• It’s one or the other.

• And if its forbidden fruit, then man is out of the Garden and will not have

fruit of life ALSO.

Just as the tree of life was too large for Adam to be able to receive, on its

branches were fruit of life that he could eat.

• We cannot obtain God as God.

• He had to be manifest in flesh for us to accept Him.

• We do not eat the tree of life but we do eat the fruit on the tree.

• God made something we can receive.

• All the fullness of the tree is in the fruit.

• The fullness of the Godhead was in Jesus bodily.

 

For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in

him, which is the head of all principality and power:

 

(Col 2:9-10)

God was pleased with that sacrifice.

• Go to Him in order to please God.

• Everything is in His body.

• Since man is physical, God came in the physical to retrieve man.

When we enter the Body of Christ, it’s like entering the Garden of Eden.

• His broken body is like a doorway for us.

 

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and

out, and find pasture.

 

(John 10:9)

 

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto

the Father, but by me.

 

(John 14:6)

In Jesus there are treasures.

 

In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

 

(Col 2:3)

Until His body was rent in death, man could not enter that Body.

• The broken body is a doorway.

So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden

Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the

tree of life.

(Gen 3:24)

The Kingdom of God is in Jesus.

• Jesus is referred to as a room in which we can dwell.

 

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

(1Co 15:22)

Like new clothes, or entering a door into a new kingdom.

He is the door and in Him is righteousness.

So the whole tragedy of man surrounded a tree of life in the Garden.

• God casts man out because he eats another tree’s fruits.

• Adam is then barred out.

• A sacrifice is required after this.

• And all of this was a message that Jesus Christ was going to come and fix

things up one day.

• The lambs that were sacrificed speak of Jesus who would come and die to

pay for the sin man committed, because sin demands a payment of death.

• We must understand clearly that sin demands a payment of death.

• The soul that sins it shall die.

Now, when Jesus comes as that sacrifice, to die for sins, the altar He died upon

was quite different from a casual altar.

• Lambs and bullocks and other sacrifices were offered on a brazen altar with

a grate and fire beneath, or the earliest forms of stones piled up and a pit

made in the stones for fire.

• But Jesus was sacrificed on a TREE.

• A cross was called the tree.

This takes our minds BACK TO THE GARDEN.

• Where we had fellowship with God.

• We walk up to the tree of life in the Garden when we had no sin, and we

take its fruit and eat it.

But the Bible says a strange thing.

 

O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.

 

(Psalm 34:8)

Taste and see that the Lord is good?

• The Bible uses language that always goes back to eating food.

• And this is the root of the problem in Genesis.

• Man ate the forbidden fruit and sinned.

• But here we see allusions to tasting the Lord!

Dealing with God is said to be tasting the Lord.

I do want to urge all to TASTE it.

We read John 6 and Jesus’ words telling disciples to eat his flesh and drink his

blood.

When everyone wondered what he was talking about, He explained it:

After saying those who do not eat his flesh and drink his blood have no eternal life

in them, he explained it all by saying:

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak

unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believenot

. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and

who should betray him.

 

(John 6:63-64)

The actual flesh is not the point.

• The flesh represented the WORDS he spoke.

• The eternal life they would get were from His words that are spirit and LIFE.

• The spirit quickeneth, or makes alive.

• And His words are Spirit.

• But there were those who WOULD NOT BELIEVE.

• In other words, believing is eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

• Since His flesh was crucified and his blood was shed on the cross, He is

speaking particularly about His words concerning the Cross.

• Peter knew He was talking about WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE when he spoke

of eating His flesh to get eternal life…

 

Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter

answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.

And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.

 

(John 6:67-69)

Peter Believed!

And after we read about this…

 

Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If

any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or

whether I speak of myself.

 

(John 7:16-17)

TASTE AND SEE.

Try it.

DO HIS WILL, and don’t just look at it and form an opinion that has no experience.

Recall that man was made from dust of the ground.

Thinking of a tree of life with Fruit of life, as a seed is in fruit and goes into the

earth of our lives, the seed grows and a tree begins to form similar to the tree

form which the seed and fruit originally came from.

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are

changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the

Lord.

 

 

(2 Corinthians 3:18)

When we receive LIGHT, we are changed into the same image.

It says Jesus is not fruit of life on the tree of life, whose seed is planted in the soil

of our hearts, to produce a tree in our lives Like Him, but He is also like LIGHT that

shines on us and changes us into the same image.

Both the pictures of a tree whose fruit we eat and light that shines on us show the

same end result… we are made like Him.

The idea of TREES and LIGHT both come together in the Bible.

 

And he made the candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work made he the

candlestick; his shaft, and his branch, his bowls, his knops, and his flowers, were

of the same: And six branches going out of the sides thereof; three branches of

the candlestick out of the one side thereof, and three branches of the candlestick

out of the other side thereof: Three bowls made after the fashion of almonds in

one branch, a knop and a flower; and three bowls made like almonds in another

branch, a knop and a flower: so throughout the six branches going out of the

candlestick.

 

(Exo 37:17-19)

A seven-branched candlestick SHAPED LIKE AN ALMOND TREE WITH BRANCHES

FOR CANDLESTICKS.

In Zechariah’s prophecy, we read of a vision he had of the following:

 

And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is

wakened out of his sleep, And said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have

looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and

his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the

top thereof:

 

(Zec 4:1-2)

There was more, but this very important part of the vision has to do with my

sermon.

• The seven lamps were in the form of branches of an almond tree.

• In other words, this TREE had LIGHTS or LAMPS.

• SEVEN LAMPS.

• In the same chapter we read what these lamps represent.

 

For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see

the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of

the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth.

 

(Zec 4:10)

Those seven are the SEVEN EYES OF THE LORD.

• The eyes of the Lord.

• Run through the WHOLE EARTH.

• ALL the earth.

• Seven means complete.

• Seven eyes see all the earth.

• These seven eyes of the Lord pop up again in the Bible in Revelation.

• There they are eyes on the lamb.

• Recall we spoke about how all lamb sacrifices and bullock sacrifices

represented Jesus who would be sacrificed for our sins.

• Well in Revelation Jesus is represented by a lamb with seven eyes.

• We just discovered that The seven eyes were also associated with the

SEVEN LAMP CANDLESTICK.

• The seven eyes and the seven lamps all are speaking of the same thing!

• Its the same point in each vision, but using different pictures and symbols.

 

And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the

midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and

 

seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

 

(Rev 5:6)

SEVEN EYES ARE SEVEN SPIRITS of God.

And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow

out of his roots: And (1) the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the (2) spiritof wisdom

and (3) understanding, the (4) spirit of counsel and (5) might, the (6)spirit of knowledge and of (7) the fear of the LORD; And shall make him of quick

understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of

his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness

shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and

he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips

shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and

faithfulness the girdle of his reins.

 

(Isaiah 11:1-5)

Isaiah speaks of SEVEN SPIRITS.

(1) Spirit of the Lord

(2 & 3) Spirit of wisdom and understanding.

(4 & 5) Spirit of counsel and might.

(6 & 7) Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.

And it says they would give him quick understanding.

• He would not judge after the sight of His eyes.

• He would not reprove after the hearing of his ears.

• In other words He would not use faulty basis for determining the truth.

• Eyes see and hears hear, but what we see and what we hear is often not

enough to prove anything.

• When you judged someone, to know their hearts and their intentions will

make you a perfect judge.

• Not just relying upon what you outwardly see and hear.

• Jesus looks into our hearts!

• And these seven spirits are upon Him to enable him to judge RIGHTEOUS

JUDGMENT.

Jesus is seen as a lamb with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits, and the

candlestick is seen as having seven spirits of God.,

Corinthians said that beholding the LIGHT/GLORY OF JESUS causes us to turn into

the same image.

Eating fruit of life propagates the Tree of life into our lives.

Jesus spoke of eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

• He referred to His sacrifice in that instance, because His body was later

represented by bread to eat when He spoke of His flesh dying on the cross.

• His blood was spoken of as wine to drink when it would be shed on the

cross.

• And eating that would cause us to have eternal life.

• Eternal life – the same life Adam would receive upon eating the fruit of life.

• Fruit of life is devoured to get life and Jesus’ flesh is devoured to get life.

So we see the TREE and the SACRIFICE both providing food of life.

• By eating.

And the point of a LAMB with seven eyes, as the tree of the candlestick had seven

eyes, speaks of sacrifice.

• Jesus is seen as a lamb in Rev 5 because He was sacrificed! For our sin.

• And priests actually ate part of the sacrificial beast that was offered to God.

• In fact, the lamb whose blood was put on the doors in Egypt to save Israel

from DEATH, was EATEN inside beyond the door, showing the same picture

of the FRUIT OF LIFE being eaten in the Garden.

And the idea of a TREE OF LIFE mingled with the sacrifice of Christ whose FLESH

WE EAT and whose BLOOD WE DRINK to gain life come together with BOTH THE

CANDLESTICK (tree) and the LAMB having SEVEN EYES!

Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. And yet if I judge, my judgment is true:

for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. It is also written in your law,

that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and

the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.

 

(John 8:15-18)

Isaiah 11 spoke of Jesus!

And it speaks of Him as a TREE — a rod from the stem.. a branch.

• And this tree has seven spirits.

• Seven spirits are seven eyes of Lord in Zechariah vision of the candlesticks.

• Revelation has the seven spirits as seven eyes on the lamb.

• It all fits together.

Look what the ALMOND tree is associated with in the Bible.

 

Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way,

and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and

desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about

the streets:

 

(Ecc 12:5)

OLD AGE.

• It has WHITE BLOSSOMS that bloom early in spring.

• In Hebrew the name actually means HASTE.

• The almond blossoms are a sure sign that spring is near.

• White hair is a sure sign old age is near — unexpected.

So almond blossoms speak of MATURITY and WISDOM.

Jesus was MATURE SPIRITUALLY to be able to judge and determine things

RIGHTEOUSLY and not just from eyesight and ear-sound.

 

Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

 

(John 7:24)

 

Then he says WE SHOULD DO THIS!

 

How?

We come to Him as to a TREE OF LIFE.

• He shines on our lives and 2 Cor 3:18 says we have Hi slight shine on us and

are thereby changed into His same image.

• From glory to glory.

• WE MATURE, LIKE HIM.

7 means PERFECTION.

• We stand in His perfect light.

 

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for

he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak:

and he will show you things to come.

 

(John 16:13)

IN HIS LIGHT.

In the temple, the only light to show you the veil behind which was the most holy

place, where God’s Spirit dwelt in those days, instead of in our lives, was the

seven lamps of the candlestick.

Without these candles you could not see the veiled entrance into the holiest.

• So the DOOR AND THE LIGHT are associated together!

• Jesus is BOTH!

And when we are changed into His image, what happens spiritually is that we are

caused to enter the most holy place of God.

Moses saw the hinder parts of God’s glory and shone.

• We see the full glory of God, and we shine more so.

 

And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the

midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and

seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

 

(Rev 5:6)

SPIRITS SENT FORTH INTO ALL THE EARTH.

• He knows it all.

• Nothing is hidden from Him.

 

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged

sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints

and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is

there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and

opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

 

(Heb 4:12-13)

So no wonder He uses righteous judgment.

• He sees the whole earth.