In this sermon, the preacher discusses the story of Adam and Eve being driven out of the Garden of Eden. He emphasizes the idea that in this world, we cannot find what we are looking for and must work hard to try and find it. The preacher highlights the image of Adam looking back at the tree of life, now guarded by a flaming sword, symbolizing that false coverings cannot bring us back into fellowship with God. However, God provides a way for us to come back into His presence through a branch from the tree of life, which represents the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The preacher concludes by emphasizing that through Jesus, God takes away our filthiness and gives us a new heart, mind, and spirit, allowing us to have assurance that we belong to God in the last moments of our lives.

Now behind the walls of this city are thousands and thousands of people covered now in man-made garments, man-made efforts as it is to prove to God and themselves that everything is okay. And he looks and there's no fruit, no stranger can find life there. There's nothing in religion, there's nothing in man's attempt to get back to God in his own strength, absolutely nothing. It's fruitless, it looks holy until you get close to it. Folks, you can approach all kinds of religion in the world today, even in Christ's name and it looks holy until you get close to it and there's no fruit on it. There's no, there's nothing of God's life in it. There's nothing that satisfies the hungry soul. There's nothing that provides comfort for the stranger or provides nourishment for the fatherless or the widow or the orphan. There's nothing in it. And Jesus stands there and says, let no fruit grow on you forever. It's a pronouncement on religion, folks. It's not just about a fig tree. You see, Jesus had come and he was now going to put an end to all man-made attempts to get back into right relationship with God. He was going to open up anew in a living way. He was going to do something that man could not do for himself. He was speaking through time from the time he came into the Garden of Eden. I'm sure Jesus had Adam in his mind. No fruit grow on you anymore forever. No more covering, no more phoniness, no more hypocrisy, no more appearance of godliness without genuine fruit in your life. No more of this phony religion that professes to be my representative on the earth and that has deceived itself into thinking that it's coming back into heaven with me for all of eternity. No more, no more of this fruit of deception. The Lord speaks something to Adam, which goes down through the quarters of time and touches all of religion that has attempted to portray itself as living in right relationship. Of course, in the only way we know that that can be is that our sin has to be covered. We have to have a newness of life. In Genesis 3, 17, here's what the Lord said to Adam. And unto Adam he said, Because you hearken to the voice of your wife that has eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for thy sake, and sorrow shall thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the ground, for out of it was thou taken. For dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. Now here's what the Lord is saying now. You see, this is Adam. This is Adam who covered himself in fig leaves. And the Lord says, You'll find no fulfillment from all that the world produces to cover you. You try all you want, but you'll find nothing that covers you. A sense of sorrowful emptiness will become part of your daily life. What you produce in your own efforts will never satisfy you. You'll produce it, you'll color it, you'll dye it, you'll sew great borders on it, you'll make it appear to be holy, but it will never satisfy you. And then he says, You will sweat and live with a sense of finality that you will not be able to escape. In verse 23 it says, Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. In other words, you think in this world that you can find what you're looking for? Go try to find it. Work the ground real hard. Work everything that this world has got to offer. Work it as deeply as you can. Sweat in working it and see if you can find what you lost. So he drove the man and he placed, he drove out the man, verse 24, 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. This is amazing. When you look at the picture, you think for a moment of Adam. By this time now, of course, he's covered in animal skins. He's heading out from the garden, looking back, and there's the tree of life. There is God's provision for eternity. And Adam looks back upon it and there's a sword now. And that sword represents to me the word of God. And God says you cannot come back here. You cannot return to this through any effort or covering of your own. You cannot come back here. Human effort will not bring you back here because I've placed a sword here. I've placed my word here. You can't come back here. This tree is shut off to you. All of humanity, this tree is shut off to every man or woman who tries to come back at their own strength, who tries to produce a covering and say, God, how does this look? Will you accept this? How does this look? I'm not swearing anymore. I'm carrying a big Bible and I'm wearing a $500 Armani suit. Is that okay? Can I come back in now? Can I get in? And God says, no, you cannot come back. You cannot come to this place through any human effort or any covering of your own. He says, hear now, oh Joshua, the high priest down, thy fellows who sit before thee for their men wondered at, for behold, I'll bring forth my servant, the branch. That's very symbolic because in the Hebrew text, it means that which produces new growth, that which causes there to be productivity or fruit starting to grow again. It's the source from which a new covering from man would come. It's a graft as it is of the tree of life. God says, you can't come back to the tree of life. Human effort can't bring you back. False covering can't bring you in because you can't come back in. I'm going to come out to you. I'm going to take a branch as it is from the tree of life. The tree of life is ultimately father, son, and Holy spirit. God says, I'm going to take a branch and I'm going to bring that branch to you. And that branch is going to be the way that you come back again into fellowship with God. And in verse four, in chapter three, verse four, he said, and he answered to those that sit before him, said, take away the filthy garments from him. And he said to him, behold, I caused your iniquity to pass from you. And I will clothe thee with a change of Raymond. The Lord says, I'm going to do something. I'm going to take away your filthiness. I'm going to take away all of the human struggles and trials to get back into my presence. I'm going to take it all away. And I'm going to give you a change of clothing. I'm going to hand it to you. You don't have to make it. You don't have to sell it. You don't have to put it on. You don't have to clean it. You don't have to keep it on. I'm going to give it to you. If you will reach out by faith, I'm going to stretch my hand out to you. And I'm going to give you a covering that only can come from the hand of God. And again, in verse nine, he says, for behold, the stone I've laid before Joshua on one stone shall be seven eyes. I will engrave the engravings thereof, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. Iniquity means the depraved actions of man, which he does in his separation from God. And God says, no, you've sinned. You've fallen short of the glory. No one can come back into my presence in his own effort. But I'm going to come. The branch is going to come. Someone from the tree of life is going to come to you. And I'm going to give you a change of clothing. I'm going to do something that is going to take away the power of sin in one day. And I'm going to open again the way to the tree of life. All the mercy of God, the incredible, unspeakable mercy of God. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Not that I came to God, but God came to me. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God that he came to me. Hallelujah. The branch came, gave me a covering and took away my sin, allowed himself to be nailed on a cross and paid the price for all the wrong things that I've done and for all the foolish ways I've tried to reason my way back into the presence of God. God Almighty did it all himself in a day. What I could never accomplish in a lifetime, he did it a day. He made the way back into his presence for eternity. Verse 10, he says, In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall you call every man his neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree? That's amazing. He says, You're going to call everyone out of every place where they've sought some kind of covering to get back into my presence again. You're going to call and say, No, you don't need those things. You don't need fig leaves anymore. I found the branch. I found the covering. I found the redemption. I found the redeemer. I found the Messiah. In John chapter one, verse 47, there was a man called Nathanael and it says Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him and he said to him, Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile or that means deceit. Nathanael, verse 48, John one says, Whence knowest thou me? How do you know me? Jesus' answer said, Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Amazing. Jesus says, Now, you're a man with no guile because you're under the fig tree. You're in a place where many before you have chosen a fruitless covering of self-deception. But you've not chosen this. You want something more. You're not a man who's deceitful. You're not seeking to get into heaven with deceptive clothing. He said, You're a man without guile. You want the real thing. You could have done the very same thing that Adam did in the Garden of Eden. You could be covering yourself with these fig leaves and all of the religion that's available to you today. But I saw you under the fig tree and you were a man who just said, No, not for me. If this is real, if God is alive, I want to know who he is. I want to know the whole thing. I want everything that God has for me. Oh, folks, don't miss heaven. Don't miss heaven. Don't miss heaven. Heaven is open to you. Why would you choose to go to hell? Why would you choose to live in deception? Why, why, why would you choose this when the life of God can be yours? The redemption of God can be freely given to you. Why would you die in your sin? Now, back in Matthew, where we started in 21, verse 20, and when the disciples saw it, he said to the fig tree, verse 19, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth forever. And presently the fig tree withered away. And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away? Then Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, If you have faith and doubt not, you shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, Be removed and cast into the sea, it shall be done. And all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive. You see, the moment we're in right relationship with Jesus Christ, he will command religious falseness to die. The words of his mouth will bring an instantaneous death. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. The old things are passed away and all things are become new. God says, I'll begin to speak and all the religious falseness and all the fruit of deception will begin to die. It will wither right before your eyes. You said, Well, what is my part in all of this? If this is what God does, if God's word is what will cause this deception to literally dissipate and pass away, what is my part? And Jesus said in verse 21, If you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do this, which is done to the fig tree. In other words, I'll give you the power if you believe to cast these things down, bring all thoughts and imaginations into the obedience of Jesus Christ. I'll give you the power over all your enemies. I'll give you the power over deceptive reasoning. I'll bring you into truth. You will understand truth. You'll know truth and the truth will set you free. But you'll say to this mountain, be removed and cast into the sea and it shall be done. Now, I don't know why you drew the illustration, but I have a picture in my mind of one fig tree is withered and died. And on the mountain is most likely many more of them. And Jesus now turns from their focuses on one tree and he turns to the mountain in a sense that is the nurturing source of many more of these things. The mountain is my nature, my fallen nature. It's your fallen nature. It's the source. It's the fuel source of all of this empty, fruitless religion. And he says, If you don't doubt, you can say to this mountain, be removed and be cast into the sea and it shall be done. You can say, you can look in the mirror, say, hey, you, you're finished. You're over, over, get it? You're finished. You're not dominating my life anymore. I have a new life source within me. And so fear, leave me and go into the sea. Depression, go into the sea. Unbelief, into the sea with you. Selfishness, into the sea. Lying tongue, into the sea. Lustful heart, into the sea. All of it, into the sea. All this old dead fruit, into the sea. Religious garments, into the sea. Deception, into the sea with you. The whole mountain of you into the sea. Be gone from me. That's my part. That's my part, folks, to get into this book and agree with God and everything that disagrees with God's nature in me. I simply agree and say, away from me. In the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the living bread, get away from me and get into the sea. You have no more dominion over my life. And then he says in verse 22, and all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing you shall receive. All things. That's the, that's the fruit of the root of that, the whole story. It starts with the fig tree. It starts with religious deception. It's got to go. It's all got to go. And then he says, all things. First we cast off. Then we say, Lord, I'd like to be like you. I'd like a heart of love. I'd like to know what it is to be a father, a mother, a brother, a friend. I'd like courage to preach the gospel. I'd like a willing heart. I'd like giving hands. God, I'd like a mind that sees things and eyes that see what I've never seen before. And do you realize that Jesus said, if your desire is to follow me in truth, all things will be yours. I'll give you a new mind, a new heart, a new spirit. You'll be a new creation. The glory of God will be upon you. And most of all, most of all, and last of all, you and I will have an assurance that the feet that come down the hallway for you in the last moment of your life belong to God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. There'll be no surprise at the end. Hallelujah. The one you knew was coming. You didn't hope. You didn't suppose. You knew he was coming. Hallelujah. You knew those last moments belonged to God. You knew that the prince was coming to receive you unto himself. You knew because his life was your life. His heart was your heart. You had received the covering that he offered through the shed blood that he died, gave on the cross on Calvary. You had given up all hope except God's hand stretched out to you.