THE GARDEN AS TREES WALKING

  Many enjoy gardens. Memories of childhood are walks through the garden, smelling the flowers, and eating the fruits therein: tomatoes, squash, potatoes, corn and so forth. Some have orchards as part of their garden. My neighbors did, Joe and Mabel Davidson, but also beneath the fruit trees were tombstones. That “garden of dead souls” was the Old Mennonite Cemetery in Coatesville, Indiana. It extended from the Davidson garden, through the plains of Albert Buffo, to the Hampton “Hoot” Gibson property that Elston Herrin, my Dad, rented for $50 monthly. Hoot was gracious to our family as he could have received double that amount, but never raised the rent. Hoot was gracious to the Herrin family and provided us children with much work.

  Beneath the raised back porch of our house were graves. The “garden of dead souls” was where we lived. My brother, Dale, and I would crawl beneath that porch and bring out tombstones. As such, our creaking old house had parts that were unfinished which we called “ghost rooms.”

  The Herrins were “living souls” among the dead bodies, which of course, had turned to dust years over the years. I write, “living souls,” because Herrin-House housed Christians. Hoot’s old building was at the edge of the “garden of dead souls” and was as much our “cave” as Adam’s when he was cast out of the Garden of Eden. Christians are the true living, and sinners the living dead. In the end, both the living and the dead will be “harvested,” to wit:

¹⁵… We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: ¹⁷ Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thes 4:15-17)

  That Old Mennonite Cemetery contained four categories of people: us that lived there, those that live there but are spiritually dead, the dead in Christ, and the dead in Satan. People still live in Hoot’s old house. They are now part of the “garden.” Sometime, without warning, God will come to pick His “crop.” As God, the Husbandman, snatches up (raptures) the harvest, each “plant” will be separated to be prepared in God’s “greenhouse” or to wither in Satan’s “hell house,” When the time comes, those of the harvest will either be burnt or perfected in God’s gentle Light.

  It should be obvious; the Old Mennonite Cemetery is allegorical to the world and those who lived and died in that cemetery symbolize mankind in the world. The first buried in the world was Cain. It is unknown who was first buried in Coatesville, but it is my bet that due to its age, Coatesville’s “Adam” was buried where I lived, somewhere in that plat. Now to the real Garden!

KEY VERSES: ⁶ There went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. ⁷ And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. ⁸ And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. ⁹ And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Gen 2:6-9)

  In the previous scripture, God related that He had planted a vegetable garden of plants and herbs (verse 5). The reader may not have thought of it this way, but Adam was the next to be planted. The key verses are how the Husbandman (God) planted mankind. Adam was the first of God’s seed of human-kind. He called his “sapling” Adam. That was not a name, but a genus (kind) for the crop to come, Adam-kind which in English is mankind. That new species that God planted had one extra characteristic; the ablest would live forever. The ones that were there for God to nourish and keep from the elements would be eternal.

  Adam was the first “man-vine” to be planted. From him, he would multiply until the “trees” of the Garden was plentiful. He was told to “dress and keep” the offshoots of his vine, or to “serve and preserve” them in the same manner the Husbandman and served him and would preserve him.

  The “Adam Tree” was commanded to multiply. God had not planted Adam to be by himself, so to multiply the vines of the Garden, a female of the species would be required.

  Then God made a hybrid from Adam, and from the vine of Adam, a shoot sprung forth that God would call “‘ishshah” (the opposite of man, or according to Strong’s, “adulteress.” It turned out that “Eva” the female “Adam” of all “plants” would be the adulterous when she listened to the “Seraph’s” wooing, rather than God’s Words from Adam’s lips.

  Of all the other kinds that God had planted (Jesus was the Hand that did so; John 1), all would be immobile, and God would spread their seed with His Will. Man would be his only mobile plant, but rather than God spreading that plant’s seed where He Willed. But Adam-kind could walk wherever they willed and plant themselves elsewhere.

  Adam was to multiply beneath the Tree of Life, but rather than that, Eve awaited “fertilization” beneath the forbidden tree that most certainly was the “scarecrow” in the Garden, intended to keep the Fiery Flying Seraph out. But rather than Adam, the first to seed Eve, the Fiery flying Seraph did so. Eve mutated and failed to realize that she began to wither.

  Then came Adam, he mutated as well. Because Eve seemed vibrant because of the great fertilization that she had consumed, Adam was beguiled. The fruit of that tree were forbidden because its fruit would be the opiate of the people.

  Adam ate with her, and committed adultery, not with Eve but chose a new “father’ to be his husbandman. With his purpose intact, Satan made a new hybrid that God rejected. The “tree” that God planted had mutated; God cast it out into the elements to wither, much as Elston Herrin cast out plants that would not produce in his Garden.

  Henceforth, almost all the saplings from Adam are vibrant when planted until they are harvested, but some are burned in the womb because of the sin of Eve. Adulteresses against God pull up their own “plants’ and throw them in the fire, as the women in ancient times, threw their “saplings” into the furnace of the belly of Molech to perish.

  Perhaps by now you can see the allegory. I have wrongly called Paradise, a “Garden of Metaphors” but now, “Garden of Allegories” as that is much better… or perhaps the “Garden of Living Souls.” The “trees” of the Garden are the souls of men that God planted there to grow. Adam was to be a “farmer” like his Dad. Yes, another description of God is “Farmer” because His “crops” are many.

  It may be harsh that God called the woman “Eve” (adulterer) but all her seed are the same as her. Adam even became like Eve rather than Eve like Adam!  How so? The crop is now all hybrids, to wit: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). How did that happen? Blame the Farmer’s son: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned (Rom 5:12).

  Adam-kind are all adulterers because the Farmer’s son transgressed. He failed to “dress and keep the Garden” per his Father’s instructions. Not only did his nature change, but the “bark” of the tree itself. Rather than incorruptible bark, the Seraph who had no seed, mutated God’s. He implanted a virus in Adam that changed his DNA. Then when they were cast out of God’s Perfect Garden, they would have to grow their own crops and provide for their saplings thereafter, by the sweat of Adam’s own face (Gen 3:19).

  Adam would be allowed to grow his own garden as he pleased without God’s direction, or with it. By grace, God’s Hand (Jesus) covered the bark of Adam’s tree with the skin of a lamb which he provided for that purpose. (Note that the wooden Ark of God was covered with skin to protect it.) Finally, with the death of God’s planted kind, Adam understood the death of his kind.

  The Lamb was God’s crop from the kind that He had planted before Adam. That dead lamb who gave his skin without a struggle, represents the Lamb of God that would do the same, ironically as a “Tree” on a “tree” (Acts 5:30).

  When Jesus put on Adam a coat of skin (Gen 3:21), He covered that bark with white, clean wool, so that he would be protected inside. That safe covering would protect Adam’s soul from the big bad lion that would devour him (1Pet 5:8). Over time, the Seraph in the Serpent has taken on a new skin. He is a lion in our time, and in the end, the Seraph of old will be a Beast of a man. He will put on the skin, not of the Lamb of God, but of an Adamic man! Beware the scary crow and his bride the screech owl, Lilith.

  Reread the key verses. Like the plants before, God then planted living trees in His Garden Paradise. Were they really trees or some other kind? It was revealed to John that Paradise has within it, the “City of God.” The “Great City” spoken of in Revelation chapter 18 was at one time, the “Harlot Babylon.” That may be present-day Jerusalem who is a whore, and an adulterous now— the city of Adam and Eve — but one day will again be God’s Paradise — the City of God.

  Yesterday, I wondered, How could there be a Garden in Jerusalem in another realm with the hustle and bustle of Jerusalem? I thought what God had revealed to me earlier; that people are as trees walking.

  How did that come to me? The Word showed me… the blind Larry, something that I had not seen before: Blind Bartimaeus, as his sight began to come, said, “I see men; as trees walking” (Mark 8:24). Then a memory came to me: As an innocent child, I saw graves as trees in the orchard. As the tress lived, so had the people buried in the Garden. Then when I matured, I understood… graves of the dead are indeed “trees that would again walk when Jesus snatches them from the dust and makes them grow again. God will again breath life unto them at the Resurrection when the mutation in them will have the breath of God breathed unto them again! The Farmer will replant His “crop” again, and they will have new skin and a bright nature, full of Light!

  Farmer God will, as he promises, make some a Good crop of trees. Just as in the Garden where the trees surrounded God, in the end, the “living trees of God” will surround God on His throne with the Farmer’s Son to His right. They farmed well; it was well-planned. Trees walking will again have the Tree of Life in their midst (Rev 22:2), and the leaves of that Tree are for the many Trees of the World that will trust the Farmer’s methods of growing.

  Joe Davidson was like a second father to me. He had an adopted daughter, but he had several adopted sons: Dale, Larry, Carroll, and Charles Herrin. Even Judy was an adoptive daughter. Dale and I spent many hours in Joe’s orchard, eating from his trees. Joe knew we were eating his fruit but never cared. Why? I think he thought of us as sons. To him, we were two of his “trees” in his orchard, and when I matured, I think often of Joe Davidson. He, my own Dad, and God molded me!

  There were other “trees” beyond the orchard that grew me as well. I think of Bill and Bonnie Jamison, Tubby Wingler, Lewis Hadley, Wilbur Jones, Harmon Hathaway, Albert Buffo, Gene Winks, Grandpa McCloud, Cassie Cassity, and many others that help grow me.

  Next, I will write of other “Trees” in the Bible that both grew me and hindered me. Indeed, we are all as trees walking!

  Who did Bartimaeus see as his eyes opened?  He saw Jesus walking toward him, perhaps with His Limb extended, and the fruit of love in Hand. Bartimaeus surely saw Jesus, “As a tree walking.” Perhaps Bartimaeus saw that invisible Garden in Jerusalem as the Garden Paradise, and people as trees walking. Although blind, Bartimaeus knew what trees looked like! How did he know? He saw through the sea of glass unto heaven and there He saw God’s “Garden” as a Great City.

  He surely saw the harlot Jerusalem all restored again and in the Garden of God with trees walking and souls with new ”bark.” Eve had been redeemed, and her seed through Mary was perfectly clean. The Sower of the Seed had always been there but in another world. He revealed Himself to Bartimaeus and Paul, and if you look closely, you can see men as trees walking that we must dress and keep.

picture credit: mamabishop; "Walking Trees")