LAWS PUBLISHING

A CLOSED GARDEN and AN OPEN CITY

JIM LAWS

Perhaps you have not thought of the matter previously, but as you begin to read the Bible, you soon learn of a garden God prepared for man.  However, man quickly loses the benefit bestowed upon him due to sin and is cast out of the Garden of Eden.  “Therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.  So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden Cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life” (Gen. 3: 23,24).  Man was created a moral being with the power of choice, which he soon exercised to disobey God.  As it happened, the steps in this spiritual spiral downward included: 1) unbelief, 2) disobedience, 3) guilt, 4) banishment from God, and 5) death.  In this way sin came into the world and in the same way is perpetuated today.  Man simply listened to an alien influence and set up his own will against the will of God.  The fact of the closed garden is the common experience of mankind.  Every responsible person knows that it is impossible for him to re-enter into the garden of man’s original innocence.  That garden is closed forever, and men are declared to be sinners (Rom. 3: 10, 23).  This story, however, did not preach any gospel; it simply told the facts which make a gospel necessary.  The remainder of the Bible is but the unfolding of God’s scheme of human redemption.  The inspired revelation boldly proclaims though there is a closed garden, there is also an open city at the end of the way.  Detailed instruction is given so that any wayward soul may finally reach the gates of the eternal abiding place, and, passing within the walls, never go out again.  There are two things a person must learn and accept, before he has any right to hope to enter the gates of the city of God.  He must learn that he is hopelessly lost, insofar as his own power to save himself is concerned (Eph. 2:11, 12), and he must learn that only Jesus can save him (John 14:6).  When a person learns this, he is ready to ask the question, “What shall I do Lord?”  Since man has degenerated from his original state of purity, it must be understood the only way back is through regeneration (See John 3: 3-5).  What Jesus specifically meant by “being born-again” is found in His own words to his disciples (Matt. 28: 19, 20; Mark 16: 16).  Therefore, the way from the closed garden to the open city is 1) belief, 2) obedience, 3) forgiveness, 4) fellowship with God, and 5) eternal life.  Each of us can make that trip, if we will but trust and obey.

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