sermon: Imagining the Garden of Eden (Part 8)
Tend and Keep
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 13-Nov-10; Sermon #1019; 80 minutes
Description: (hide)
Richard Ritenbaugh, continuing his series on imagining in the Garden of Eden, reminds us that gardens provide enclaves of rest. God placed Adam and Eve in a garden to provide them food and shelter, as well as work and pleasure. Aesthetic delights are suggested by Song of Songs, in which the Shulamite is likened to a garden of delight and the venue of the courtship between the Shulamite and the Beloved consists of a merger of gardens. Similarly, Christ and His Church will be sharing their wedded bliss in a garden. Jesus Christ earlier had used the Garden of Gethsemane as a venue of teaching and edification. The Beloved’s garden shelters sheep, anticipating Christ as the Good Shepherd. The Shulamite calls for the wind (symbolic of God’s Holy Spirit) to blow upon her garden, enabling her to produce sweet fruit to please her lover. The Shulamite has not only been called, but she has been set apart to develop holy, righteous character. The Garden of Eden, God’s garden, was the perfect place for mankind to get its start, a place where Adam and Eve could become acquainted with God, a place they could have developed godly character, providing a home for the God family. The Garden of Eden symbolizes God’s rest. The nuach rest is only possible in the presence of God. The Second Adam had this nuach rest as an inherent part of His Nature, having God’s Holy Spirit without measure. Jesus responded to this power by obedience, unlike our original parents. Through the New Covenant, when God’s Law will be placed in our hearts, and we respond to it, we will attain this nuach rest, a state which we partially experience in properly observing God’s Sabbath. We have to respond to this current obligation to tend and keep, or laboring in service, in order to attain the full measure of this Godly nuach rest later. Tending and guarding, or feeding and tending, in the physical dimension anticipates love and leadership in the spiritual dimension.
Topics: (show)
Abad Adam and Eve Beloved Come quickly Deuteronomy 38:29 Dress and keep Embellish Ecclesiastes 5:12 Exodus 3:11; 12:17; 20:5, 9 I Corinthians 2 I Samuel 30:23 Food Garden of Gethsemane Garden Genesis 2:15;18:17-18; 27:26 God’s Holy Spirit God’s rest Guard Imagining in the garden Hebrews 4:3-11 Isaiah 11:1-5; 19:9; 28:21; 59:1-3,62:6 Job 10:12 John 4; 10; 8:1; 21:15 Judges 7:19 Keep Kidron Kyle and Delish Leviticus 18:24 Living waters Love and leadership Malachi 2:7, 9, 15 Medication Nobody to noble Nuach rest Nuach Numbers 8:14-15; 23:11-12 Proverbs 12:5 Psalm 21; 31:6 Put Pure living water Purity of the water Revelation 21-22 Saffron Serve Service Shamar Shulamite as an enclosed garden Spikenard Spirit of God Song of Songs 4:12; 5:1; 6:1-3, 11; 8:13 Streams of water Take care of Tend and keep Till To expend labor upon a thing Unity in plurality Watch over Watch
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