East of Eden

Stories are stories. My mind has been dwelling east of Eden for the past months. I would have loved to have been there with Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel and little Seth. What did Adam’s house look like? Did he ride a horse? How did Eve wash the diapers? Or, for that matter, what did Eve use for diapers? Itchy sheep wool? Help! At any rate it was a wonderful world in spite of the newly added thorns and thistles that had not been in the Garden. So, this is just a story from the depths of a very fertile imagination. We simply do not know how it really was. I’m guessing and probably it was quite different from any thing I could imagine, but perhaps not. This is NOT Bible based theology. This is not meant to be taken seriously like doctrine. This is a story. Simply a fictional story with a moral teaching. Sit back and enjoy it!

Duane Howe, tribal missionary in Brasil and an old story teller
The roar of the waterfall was so appealing to the two little boys. They often came to the falls and played in the shallow pool at the foot of the falls. It was a wonderful world of green with big salmon-like fish darting this way and that. Cain was about ten-years-old and Abel was two years younger. There, of course, wasn’t another boy, or girl, in the whole country! Just little Seth who was going on six. They did not go to school because schools had not been invented yet. I suppose you could truthfully say they were the first “home schoolers” to walk on the face of the earth. And their dad and mom were students in that home school just like they were and God, who came in the cool of the late afternoon, was their teacher. Very quick learning little boys, but boys are boys and always have been!
“Abel,” Cain said hurriedly to his brother, “let’s go see the angel that guards the entrance to the Garden!” “Well, I don’t know”, said Abel seriously, ” we had better ask Dad and Mom first!”
“No way,” retorted Cain quickly and with a bit of anger in his voice, “we can make our own decisions and we don’t have to ask permission for anything! I don’t believe Mom’s snake story either! Boy, where did she make that up from? And Dad believes it! Talking snakes? Abel, have you ever seen a talking snake? All the snakes around here are pretty quiet. Does she think we are stupid or something to believe she talked to a snake?”
Abel often saw rebellion in his older brother and wondered why Cain just could not accept what he was told to do without arguing. But Abel was the younger and Cain always assumed the leadersip and made the plans, “OK,” Abel said timidly, “Let’s go see the angel…if he is still there!”
When Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden after their disobedience to Almighty God their Creator, they had moved to a nice place east of Eden. They had not wanted to get too far from the Garden of Paradise in case God would someday change His mind and allow them to return. There was only one entrance into the Garden where Adam had been made from the dust of the earth and a short time later Eve had been made from one of his ribs. But the entrance was impossible to pass because cherubim were there. They were not cherub babies either, they were special guard angels and God had stationed them at the entrance giving them a sword that was a divine flame thrower and it sprayed fire here and there. Nothing entered the Garden.
The two little boys had to go through the woods quite a distance, but they soon got to the entrance to Eden and sure enough there was the fire! Cain had come other times and just sat and looked in amazement at the flaming sword which turns all directions shooting out long tongues of white-blue fire. But today he had Abel with him and he wanted to be tougher and show his brother he was afraid of nothing. Abel was just bug-eyed and shaking and nearly crying. “No, Cain, no! Let’s go back home! Dad and Mom said we should never come here!”
Cain stepped out into the clearing that made a little path towards the entrance to Eden and with a crooked smile he took a step forward. Then another. He could hear Abel crying and pleading for him to come back. Still another step closer. He felt the heat. He still could not see the cherubim through the fire and smoke. One more step closer. And just then SWOOSH the flame came leaping right towards him and as he turned to run it sent out a firey tongue that burned a spot on his behind! Just a tiny bit, but Cain felt the pain. And he cried too. Two little boys raced back to the safety of home. What would be the future of these two adventurous little boys?
How about you? Are you an adventurous person? Do you like to be daring and do things that are scary? Some of us are born timid…and others of us are born stubborn and with strong wills of our own. The important thing is that we submit our lives to God and walk and talk with him when He “comes in the cool of the day” to be with us. Have you felt God close to you? Have you talked to God in prayer? Do you read His Word in the cool of the day? Don’t disobey your parents or other people in authority! You don’t want to get burned do you?