When man was created and placed in the garden, there is a sense he was sandwiched between the garden and the Lord.
By that I mean that he had garden responsibilities and he had God responsibilities.
And when Adam sinned, the expression of that sin was in stealing something from the material world.
There have been heathen philosophies which taught that everything material was evil.
We have cults like the Christian Scientists with wild ideas about what is real and what isn’t.
And then we have professing Christians who say that the possession of worldly goods is proof of God’s satisfaction of us.
And probably nearly all of us have too many of the things of the world in our lives.
In my reading the other day I ran across an idea which, I thought would develop into an interesting message.
I don’t know if you’d call this is a sermon or just a devotional.
Whichever, here are some things about which at the very least I’d like you to think about.
It’s illustrated in the opening of the iron gate from the prison into the city.
And Adam and Eve had some responsibilities toward those things.
“The LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”
What do you suppose were some of the things that Adam had to do to keep the Lord’s garden?
Did he have to weed that garden?
But did he have to keep some species of plants from encroaching on others so that they could both prosper as God intended? Possibly.
Did he have to keep the caterpillars and other bugs from eating the tomatoes and peaches?
Do you think that if Adam didn’t want to gather the fruit of the garden, the Lord would have miraculously or intravenously fed the man?
Genesis 1:27-28 says,
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
And over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
According to my dictionary there is “a silvery-white, lustrous, malleable, ductile, magnetic or magnetizable,
Metallic element occurring abundantly in combined forms,
Which “is used alloyed in a wide range of important structural materials.”
Iron is one of those common substances which is not so common.
Before it can be made into things useful to man.
You might say that man has learned to conquer iron and to make it his servant.
Obviously, with the possession of something comes responsibility for its use or its welfare.
Iron, along with carbon, is the main component in another substance we call STEEL.
Steel has been used in thousands of different things through the centuries.
Another prominent use of steel over the last few centuries has been in SWORDS.
That would all depend on the man you were asking and the day in which you asked it.
Did the man who made the iron door of the prison in Rome do it for the glory of God?
There are still a lot of people who are deathly afraid of computers and the internet.
They have been told that the world-wide web is filled with pornographers and pedophiles.
But I know that it’s nearly impossible to accidentally bump into either of those.
On the other hand, I have become thoroughly dependent upon my computer to prepare myself to be a blessing to you in our church services.
Computers can be blessing or they can be a curse.
What I’m trying to say is that there are things in the world which can and should be conquered and made to serve the saint of God.
One reason why computers can be expensive is because some of the parts are made with gold.
Gold is a semi-rare mineral which is dug out of the ground just like iron.
Both iron and gold ought to be used for the glory of God.
And gold not only can be misused, but it can actually become the master over the man.
In that case, something from the inanimate material world dictates to sinful men how to behave.
Something is dreadfully wrong here.
Between Peter and freedom stood a big heavy difficulty: there was an iron gate that lead into the city.
It appears that he was so dazed and surprised by the visit of this angel that he was having a hard time taking everything in.
It wasn’t until the angel was gone and the cool night breeze hit him in the face that he realized that this wasn’t a dream or a vision, but a real prison break.
But the fact that Luke brings it to our attention tells me that Peter spent some time enjoying the memory of that door opening.
But when that door opened to Peter it was the first he had ever seen one with an angelic eye.
Can you remember, or can you imagine what it would be like at the grocery store NOT to have the automatic doors?
First, what may at first appear to be problems are nothing to the Lord.
“Oh, no, there is a big heavy door in front of me, and there is no other way to get out.”
Or, He makes another door for us to use.
Or, He shows us how to make the most out of staying behind that door and serving Him in our prison.
History is filled with people, who were injured or suffered some loss,
But when they got to the end of their lives, and the end of that path,
They looked back and praised God for making that choice on their behalf.
Their loss and that original pain was in reality a great blessing.
I’ve been to places where they had automatic doors, but they worked slowly, and I almost got hurt trying to go faster than the door.
I sure hope that Peter didn’t later run into any iron doors expecting them all to open to his presence.
And then trusted the Lord to do the best thing whether they opened or they didn’t.
Iron gates can be a good thing for the saint.
What has been your most recent trial?
Are you in one now, or have you been going through some rough times over the last couple of years?
Have you stopped to look back at the iron doors that you’ve gone through?
Have you learned anything from those trials?
Has your dependence upon the Lord grown and your self-reliance diminished?
Because “all things work together to good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”
Let’s contrast some contrasts:
When Peter obeyed the Lord’s angel, he went from darkness to light.
He went from the presence of evil to the presence of the saints of God.
A good preacher should be able to make a message out of those ideas.
And then there was Herod:
He went from pride to abject humiliation.
Truly, “pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
It was not through his personal wisdom and strength.
It was not by way of planning and education.
The angel said, “Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me,” and that is what the apostle did.
When the iron gates of our lives loom up in front of us and block our way,
It’s our job to cast our garments around us and synch up our belts,
And then its to follow the leadership of the Lord.