Every season has a beauty of its own and Autumn is no exception. Walking through leaves that have fallen makes such a satisfying crunch – fortunately it hasn’t rained, it would be a very difficult slippery walk then. Thinking about the fallen leaves does bring a melancholic sense of an end, a death of something that was so beautiful …. and so it should, because you see, it shouldn’t have happened.
When God created the earth, it was perfect with no sin and therefore no death. Adam and Eve sinned by ignoring God’s one very simple command, not to eat of one particular tree – only one tree! The first book of the Bible Genesis says in chapter 2 v 16 & 17
“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shaly not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”.
At that point everything was wrong because sin entered the perfect world that God had created. Chapter 3 v 7 tells how they clumsily tried to cover up what they had done by sewing fig leaves together to make a pathetic, flimsy covering for their nakedness.
Sin has been in the world ever since, with one exception thankfully – the Lord Jesus Christ, who NEVER sinned and therefore made a way for all who follow Him to also overcome sin, by His death and resurrection. Now we Christadelphians are not saying that we do not sin, because being weak creatures, of course we do, but when we do sin we pray for forgiveness and strength not to repeat that sin in the future, so that we can be judged righteous in the coming Kingdom.
There are several other passages in the Bible on our theme of leaves which make very interesting, different points, but we started this blog in the first Book of the Bible it is fitting that we finish with the last Book of the Bible, Revelation, to bring our thoughts about leaves to a wonderful conclusion, when everything will be made right again.
Revelation 22 v 1 & 2
“And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations”.
We pray that day will be very soon.
