The Need For A New Man

It was a garden; fresh, peaceful, beautiful. Different animals of different patterns and colors were placed around. It was an Eden. Actually, it was a replica of Eden at the Creation Museum and my little 2 1/2 year old brother Andrew LOVED it. He wanted to see all the different animals. Sweetly, he would stop me and say, "Pick me up, peeeeeessss," because he wanted to see everything and touch the dinosaurs. I must admit, I really liked the garden too. I really got a sense of what a peaceful, beautiful place the real one must have been. We passed a waterfall......gorgeous....and then stepped into a hallway.
The walls were painted black, making the journey to the next room a dark trek. We saw the serpent, and Eve giving Adam some of the forbidden fruit and then we stepped into a room with pictures displaying the pain and depravity of sinful man. For me, it was a very saddening moment as I saw the stark contrast between the beautiful paradise of Eden and the world of sin and death. Andrew had tensed up as I held him. He didn't like this room. It was scary. But he was terrified.....and I mean terrified.....when we stepped into the next room which showed a dinosaur, now in a fallen state, that was growling and snapping as he turned his head from his lunch of another beast to Andrew. Little Andrew's fear really helped send the message home to my head a little further. We are a lost people, living in a world gone very far astray. The difference between God's ways and man's ways was quite clear, and it was heartbreaking.
There were several more exhibits and lots more info, but they ended the museum walk with a movie about the last Adam, which is Christ. I didn't actually watch the video there at their theater because I've seen it a few times at home. After seeing Eden and after seeing man's sin, I was greatly reminded of the hope we find in salvation. I am that sinful, broken man (lady...you know what I'm tryin' to say), but when Christ saved me, He made me a new creation. Colossians 3: 9 &10 tell us that "...ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:" When Christ saves us, He gives us the new man which is made in the image and likeness of His own self.
Friends, that is GLORIOUS!!!
But, we have to see the need for a new man. If we look at our lives and see "good" people, then why would we need a new man? We are not "good" people. We are bad; very, very, bad. We were born with hearts full of sin. That is why we need a new man. We need Christ.