This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, May 31, 1992.

Tonight we are reading from 2 Kings chapter 2, beginning with verse 1. It came about when the Lord was about to take up Elijah. by a whirlwind to heaven, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. And Elijah said to Elisha, Stay here, please, for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel. And Elisha said, As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.

So they went down to Bethel. And the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, Do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today? And he said, Yes, I know. Be still. And Elijah said to him, Elisha, please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho. But he said, As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you. So they came to Jericho. The sons of the prophets who were at Jericho approached Elisha and said to him, Do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today? And he answered, Yes, I know. Be still. Then Elijah said to him, Please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan. He said, As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you. So the two of them went on.

Fifty men of the sons of the prophets went and stood opposite them at a distance, while the two of them stood by the Jordan. And Elijah took his mantle and folded it together and struck the waters, and they were divided here and there, so that the two of them crossed over on dry ground. It came about when they had crossed over that Elijah said to Elisha, Ask what I shall do for you before I am taken from you,” and Elisha said, please, with a double portion of your spirit be upon me.

He said, you have asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if not, it shall not be so. When it came about, as they were going along and talking, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire, which separated the two of them, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven.

And Elisha saw it and cried out, My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen. And he saw him no more, and he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.” He also took up the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and returned and stood by the bank of the Jordan. And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and he struck the waters and said, Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah? And when he also had struck the waters, they were divided here and there, and Elisha crossed over.” Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden toward the east in Eden, and there He placed the man whom He had formed.

Now, I want you to notice the progression here as we move from verse 7 to verse 8 in the second chapter in Genesis. We’ve spent some time on this progression in previous messages, but I want you to look at that once more. For it is not without reason that we are told that God first creates man, and that in the seventh verse. And then, afterwards, in verse 8, God plants a garden toward the east in Eden, into which he shall then place, set, the man. Move with the thought as you traverse the ground from verse 7 to verse 8.

The impression conveyed by the account is that the garden was planted after the creation of the man. Where was the man while God planted the garden? Where was the man while God planted the garden? Was he left standing somewhere? Was he left alone in that place where he had been created, right there near the place where God had taken the dust out of the ground to form him? Was he left standing there while God went elsewhere toward the east to plant the garden to prepare a place for the man, then God returning to pick man up and then transport him and place him in that garden.

Was it that man’s first conscious moments in this world were then marked specifically by a departure by God? As God left and went elsewhere, the man, in effect, to content himself with the general presence of God, but the specific presence of God no longer apparent. Now, we may reason that such a departure by God was in fact good therapy for man for what lay ahead. As if God were thinking, this creature of mine needs to be toughened up.

He needs to be prepared for the eventuality that are down the road, eventualities that do in fact include a rugged and lonely existence. Besides, I’m not going to be around in my specific presence with this man, even in the garden that I’ve made for him. for I will be coming and going. So it’s better to leave him by himself for a while. In fact, I’ll be interested to see how he does. I’ll be interested to see if he’s actually a survivor.”

Now, there’s nothing at all in the text to suggest that God was the first marine drill sergeant. Instead, we are given the distinct impression that rather than separation, God and man were most wonderfully bound together at this time, seemingly inseparable. even as that relates to the specific presence of God. And I have in here a theophany. God actually appearing. The man seeing God. There is then most definitely the move by God toward the East for the sake of the garden which He is to plant, but it is a move by God of man as well. God moves and man moves. God takes man with him when he moves toward the east for the purpose of planting the garden.

Now, such movement as this, such movement as this, is reflected upon in later stories in the history of salvation. And when such movement as this is described, it is depicted for us in the most tender terms. When God saves Israel from Egypt and brings His people to Sinai for the purpose of receiving His law, He says to them in Exodus chapter 19, verse 4, You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. God here in this text, Exodus 19 verse 4, speaks of himself as a great eagle, a great bird that carries its young on the wing. Later on, similar language will be used in that great chapter in Deuteronomy. Chapter 32, verse 11. Like an eagle that stirs up its nest that hovers over its young, he, that is God, spread his wings and caught them, that is the people of God, and carried them on his pinions. of turns.

The point is that God, in moving Israel from one place to another, has afforded Israel the most intimate of contact with Himself and the surest protection. You may recall The blessings of Moses, a chapter later in Deuteronomy, as he speaks of Benjamin. Verse 12. Of Benjamin he said, May the beloved of the Lord dwell in security by him who shields him all the day, and he dwells between his shoulders. You catch the image?

Between the shoulders as it were, God the great bird bearing his young between his shoulders, carrying them. The place, then, of most intimate contact with God, and the place of surest protection. Now, there is the subjective and personal realization of this intimacy and safety, which translates into a sort of inner journey for the people of God. as they, because of this close contact with God and their safety in God’s protection, begin to take on the features ascribed to God Himself. For not only is God the great eagle that carries His people, but we ourselves become like eagles.

Now, I remind you of Psalm 103, a portion of Scripture well known to you. Remember the opening of that psalm? Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Forget not all his benefits. who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns your life with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your life or your years with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.

And what about Isaiah chapter 40, another familiar text? Verse 28 of that fortieth chapter in Isaiah, “‘Do you not know? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.

So there is that subjective and personal dimension that personal realization of this intimacy and safety that translates into a sort of inner transformation for us, whereby the very characteristics of this one to whom we are intimately bound now are ascribed to us. Yes, God the eagle, but we too, as it were, with wings of eagles. Drew, however, is not just some sort of inner transformation or journey on our behalf, as if it were some sort of inner spiritual pilgrimage. God will move us more than just in renewal. He will move us in more than just regeneration. He will literally translate us soul and body. Psalm 18 speaks about the rescue that the servant of the Lord experiences, but it begins with a description of God.

Verse ten, And he rode upon a cherub and flew, and he sped upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his hiding place, his canopy around him, darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies. From the brightness before him passed his thick clouds, hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered His voice, hailstones and coals of fire. and he sent out his arrows and scattered them, the lightning flashes in abundance and routed them. Then the channels of water appeared and the foundations of the world were laid bare at thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.”

He sent from on high. He took me. He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my stay. He brought me forth also into a broad place. He rescued me because He delighted in me.”

Psalm 18 then changes the image of God from that of an eagle to that of a charioteer who crosses the sky, but then descends to rescue his servant, whom he sees in anguish and in distress. becomes a picture of this very reality as he is taken to heaven by God in a fiery chariot.

It is not that God has merely sent some vehicle to pick Elijah up. As if some sort of heavenly limousine has been dispensed from heaven for the purpose of picking up Elijah along the way. Rather, God himself has come for Elijah for the purpose of transporting him someplace else. And, of course, Elijah is matched with Enoch. who is spoken of in Genesis chapter 5 verse 24.

We are told that Enoch walked with God there, the language of intimacy. There also suggested the protection that Enoch experiences in the presence of God, but more than that, we are told that Enoch was not because God took him. These texts then speak about God’s wonderful care and protection. They speak about his saving work, the renewal of his servants, their eventual translation to glory. But they have their primitive expression in the movement of man from the place of his creation to the garden in the east, spoken of in Genesis chapter 2.

Job then takes the man with him. He carries the man to the place he intends to place him. The scene suggests the deepest intimacy. It suggests something that is most touching in the very best sense of that word. The man carried by God. Think of it. This means then that man’s first conscious moments are full of God. God is the one the man sees first upon his awakening to life. He is in the presence of God. and he is in the most intimate contact with God. And underscored is the exclusivity of this relationship that exists between him and God.

The intimacy of this relationship between God and man is implied by what we read in Genesis chapter 2. Later on, after the ravages of sin have taken their toll, it is this text that will provide background for the explicit representation that is given us in John’s Gospel, the thirteenth chapter, the twenty-third verse, where we read about the beloved disciple who rests his head upon Jesus’ breast. In this scene, we are given a glimpse into the most intimate of contact with the Divine. We are given a glimpse into the seriousness of the lost communion between God and man, and now its restoration in and through Jesus Christ.

The intimate communion and fellowship for which man was made and for which he was destined flashes before us as we see this special disciple rest his head on Jesus’ breast. Utterly restored. Communally restored. In the fall, the tragedy is, of course, that this sweet communion and the prospect for its fullest realization are shattered.

But further, there are the implications of this for the man, and that specifically in his manhood, in his maleness, the harshness the coldness, the distance, the remoteness, the implacability, all now characteristics that we ascribe to strength, manliness, masculinity, the harshness, the coldness, the masculine, the male indifference to and even hostility towards any intimacy at all.

All of this becomes expressive of the sinfulness into which man has fallen. Men in their maleness now pride themselves in their aloofness. The fact that they cannot and will not be moved that they are as hard as stone, as immovable as rock. This implacability towards intimacy, towards communion, towards fellowship is expressive of the sinfulness into which males have fallen. It is a curse. The world bears the brunt of it, and women most specifically bear the brunt of it. the man, the male, now covers his longing, for he can’t deny the longing.

It is there, it rises nonetheless. He now covers his longing for lost intimacy with God through a denial of God and an imperviousness to those around him. This imperviousness, this callousness, this obliviousness often holds others accountable for that which is personally lacking in the man himself. The modern macho man from Hollywood prototype to inner city streetwise punk constantly lives with an internal rage directed against those he holds accountable for his own alienation.

You are to blame, and I’m going to make you pay. That is the attitude. You will pay for my sin. You are accountable for my alienation and my lostness. and the frustration, the utter and desperate frustration that I feel internally because I no longer can be intimate.

And how tragic when this internal rage finds external expression. as it did recently in Los Angeles. But how appropriate, in the sham capital of the world, Los Angeles, presided over by King Johnny, the champion of true intimacy. How appropriate in the sham capital of the world that all hell should break out. A city completely oblivious to its own hypocrisy, making money off of gratuitous violence, showing it in all its gore on the great silver screen, and then recoiling in horror when it actually erupts in the streets.

What absurdity! The reason I’m sad in this sinful world, and this too paraded on King Johnny’s show, is the flipside into which the lost communion with God has meant The generation of every form of sham, idolatrous substitute. Sex without feeling, without intimacy, without love, without commitment. Let’s joke about how many times I’ve been married. Years after all, a big joke isn’t dead.

The search then for intimacy has led man in his maleness to make gods out of other people. To worship such things as sensitivity. To worship such things as bonding, as caring relationships. out of which has now arisen the abomination of the feminization of the male in our society, and homosexuality. Whatever the answer is to these people, it is not restoration to God. It is not grasping again, intimate communion with God. But think of that experience.

When God carries man to the place where the garden is to be, can you imagine the inner state of the man? No question about it, and no embarrassment about it, he knows himself perfectly well. He knows himself perfectly secure. Can you imagine living without fear? And not only this, but he loves the God who carries him, and he trusts him with not even the faintest thought that God will let him fall.

And such fellowship as this is to be then the ground of the entirety of this man’s existence. Now even though all that has been lost by the fall, you see, by grace once more man is carried. He is conveyed. He is translated. this time from the dust of this creation order to the glory of the paradise of God above.

He should know as he is being carried in Christ, should he not, that he is perfectly loved. Do you doubt it? You are perfectly loved. You need not be embarrassed by such love, nor the intimacy that that love brings. And you are serenely secure, safe, so that you need not fear. Don’t be afraid. In Christ, God’s love for you is confirmed. You are reconciled to God. His love for you is restored. You in Christ rest in God perfectly, now trusting in Him.

Look then at the ascendancy of faith, trusting in Him, enjoying that fellowship which now is the ground for the entirety of your existence. And thus it is, as you are conveyed from one place to another, from this world to the next, you are carried by God himself into a garden which he has prepared, from which he nor you will ever depart.

Our Father, we are. asking that the full range of that fellowship and the deepest reaches of that intimacy with you that have been restored in Christ would be grasped by us, that we would know, Lord, of your love, and that without doubt, and that we would be confident of the care that you grant us that care preaching to us that we need not be afraid. Make us bold, Lord, also in our lives that we would not then hide from you, run from you. And Lord, we ask that we would not then turn into God those things that are of this creation because of our disappointment and our attempt to justify our own alienation from thee. O Lord, bear with us, as we, Lord, would be all that we should be, growing up into our

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