The Three Trees

1
The Three Trees

• of
• Tough Love,
• True Love,
• Timeless Love

2
The Tree of Tough Love

• The Tree of Life
• Genesis 126-27... 27-9, 15-17... 31-11, 17-19,
  22-24
• The LORD God said, The man has now become like
  one of Us, knowing good and evil. He must not be
  allowed to reach out his hand and take also from
  the tree of life and eat, and life forever. So
  the LORD God banished him from the Garden of
  Eden (322-23).

3
The Tree of Tough Love

• The Tree of Life
• We were created in the most delicate and
  dedicated way, in the very likeness and
  personality of God Himself.
• He set us apart as the creation which He loved
  most. All that He asked of His beloved creation
  was that we love Him back by obeying Him.

4
The Tree of Tough Love

• The Tree of Life
• Ill give you a million things to make you
  happy, minus one stay away from the Tree in the
  center of the garden.
• As the Tree was the center of the garden, so
  should God have been the center of our lives. He
  wanted our trust and obedience.
• Instead of trusting that Gods instruction was
  enough to have everything we wanted, we chose to
  believe we should want more.

5
The Tree of Tough Love

• The Tree of Life
• What is sin?
• To sin means to go outside of Gods will. It
  means to cross over the mark or the boundary line
  that was set for your protection.
• Just like car lanes protect a car from danger
  death
• Because Adam and Eve sinned, mankind crossed over
  into a lane of danger and death death came in
  the form of a curse.
• The nature of sin was transmitted into our
  genetic code. The tendency to do good and evil
  was now going to be a natural part of our lives.

6
The Tree of Tough Love

• The Tree of Life
• It couldve been worse the Tree of Life was
  still out there.
• What would happen if sin-tainted Adam and Eve
  went to eat from that Tree of Life?
• He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and
  take also from the Tree of life and eat, and live
  forever (Genesis 322).

7
The Tree of Tough Love

• The Tree of Life
• Whats wrong with living forever?
• God kept us out of reach of the Tree of Life
  because He loved us. He kicked us out because of
  Tough Love.
• Adam and all his descendants would have had to
  live forever in their fallen and terminal
  condition of complete lostness.
• He prevented us so that He could preserve us.

8
The Tree of Tough Love

• The Tree of Life
• It wasnt for no reason that an all-knowing God
  had to call out to sinful Adam, Where are you?
• God was highlighting the fact that sin had now
  broken the sweet fellowship that God and man once
  enjoyed. No more exchanging pleasantries in close
  intimacy there was a broken relationship.

9
The Tree of Tough Love

• The Tree of Life
• Mankind would have lived forever with the curse
  that even death could not allow them escape from
  eternal separation from God.
• He needed us to remain saveable, so that He could
  undo our mistake and reverse the curse of death.

10
The Tree of True Love

• Anyone who is hung on a tree is under Gods
  curse (Deuteronomy 2123).
• Criminals who faced the death penalty under
  capital punishment were hung from a tree as a
  public spectacle of the consequence of sin.

11
The Tree of True Love

• God had prevented mankind as a whole from being
  locked-in to death forever, but without the cure,
  death still occurred individually.
• Not only physical death due to physical crimes,
  but spiritual death since sin is spiritually
  rooted.
• Weve all spiritually worked sin in our lives we
  deserve a spiritual death as our paycheck (Romans
  623). Sinners deserve a sinners death.

12
The Tree of True Love

• The Cross That Rid the Curse
• God equated the cross to a tree Christ has
  rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law.
  When he was hung on the cross, he took upon
  himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is
  written... Cursed is everyone who is hung on a
  tree (Galatians 313).
• Christ hung on the Tree of True Love to take our
  curse and die our death. No truer love has anyone
  ever shown than this.

13
The Tree of True Love

• The Cross That Rid the Curse
• The gift of God to us is eternal life in heaven
  because of what Jesus Christ has done for us
  (Romans 623).
• The Bible says that His love for us is so wide,
  so long, so high, so deep... so big, that youll
  never be able to fully understand it (Ephesians
  318-19).

14
The Tree of Timeless Love

• The Return to the Tree of Life
• To him who overcomes, I will give the right to
  eat from the tree of life, which is in the
  paradise of God (Revelation 27).
• The angel showed me the river of the water of
  life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the
  throne of God and of the Lamb... On each side of
  the river stood the tree of life... The leaves of
  the tree are for the healing of the nations. No
  longer will there be any curse (Revelation
  221-3).

15
The Tree of Timeless Love

• The Return to the Tree of Life
• Jesus will only invite true Christians,
  overcomers, to have eternal life in heaven with
  Him (27 Romans 837 1 John 54).
• A literal symbol of God forever healing all that
  the curse had corrupted in the world. His Love
  will Timelessly complete us as Hell be the
  center of our lives forever.

16
The Tree of Timeless Love

• The Return to the Tree of Life
• The Tree of Timeless Love demonstrates what
  Christ has accomplished for us because of Him,
  we will timelessly be living a fully satisfying
  life in heaven (Revelation 223-6).
• We will worship Him, He will shine on us, and we
  will live forever and ever.

17
The Three Trees

• Protected from one tree, because of tough love,
  to remain saveable...
• Redeemed from the curse of another tree, because
  of true love, so that we could be saved...
• Restored completely, because of one last tree,
  into an intimate relationship of timeless love,
  bringing a healing which forever reverses the
  curse that sin held over all things.

18
The Three Trees

• Where are you?

19
The Three Trees

• May you have the power to understand,
  as all Gods people should, how
  wide, how long, how high, and how
  deep his love really is.
• May you experience the love of Christ,
  though it is so great you will
  never fully understand
  it.
• Then you will be filled with the
  fullness of life and power
  that comes from God.
• 
  -Ephesians 318-19