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Life-Giving Fruit, November 13
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.
Revelation 22:2
.
The fruit of the tree of life in the Garden of Eden possessed supernatural
virtue. To eat of it was to live forever. Its fruit was the antidote of death....
After the entrance of sin the heavenly Husbandman transplanted the
tree of life to the Paradise above.
The redeemed saints, who have loved God and kept His commandments
here, will enter in through the gates of the city, and have right to the tree
of life. They will eat freely of it as our first parents did before their fall.
The leaves of that immortal widespread tree will be for the healing of the
nations. All their woes will then be gone. Sickness, sorrow, and death
they will never again feel, for the leaves of the tree of life have healed
them. Jesus will then see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied, when
the redeemed, who have been subject to sorrow, toil, and afflictions, who
have groaned beneath the curse, are gathered up around that tree of life
to eat of its immortal fruit, that our first parents forfeited all right to, by
breaking God’s commands. There will be no danger of their ever losing
right to the tree of life again, for he that tempted our first parents to sin will
be destroyed by the second death.
Obedience to all the commandments of God was the condition of eating
of the tree of life. Adam fell by disobedience....
Obedience through Jesus Christ gives to man perfection of character
and a right to that tree of life. The conditions of again partaking of the
fruit of the tree are plainly stated in the testimony of Jesus Christ to John:
“Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to
the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.”
Restored to the tree of life in the long-lost Eden, the redeemed will
“grow up” to the full stature of the race in its primeval glory. The last
lingering traces of the curse of sin will be removed, and Christ’s faithful
ones will appear in “the beauty of the Lord our God,” in mind and soul and
body reflecting the perfect image of their Lord. Oh, wonderful redemption!
long talked of, long hoped for, contemplated with eager anticipation, but
never fully understood.
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