We find out that when God made a paradise garden for Adam and Eve, He packed it with “every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food”, and that in the middle of the garden God put two trees, the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (this is all found in one verse, Genesis 2.9).
Now, in my experience as a pastor, many Christians are still eating at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and not the Tree of Life. Many Christians think these two trees were in an old garden centuries ago and have nothing to do with their lives. It was just a poisonous tree that hurt Eve and made her and Adam mortal.
No – it runs so much deeper than that. Yes, Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and then died. But the truth is that them eating from this tree has changed the entire human race.
And – listen very carefully – eating the Tree was a disobedience to what God had told them, it was taking an alternative path to the path God gave them. You have the same temptation in your life. Over and over, satan, your own flesh, and the world system on this planet, are tempting you to choose an alternative to God’s plan for your life.
When Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, she knew what was right and what was wrong; she knew what was good and what was evil. People think this information makes them a better Christian, but it makes you a worse Christian!
I know, I know, I have to explain that to you, so I will. Once you know what is good and what is evil, you now think you know everything and you think you don’t know God. Knowing the difference between good and evil doesn’t make you free, doesn’t make you know what God’s will for your life is, doesn’t protect you from choosing the wrong good, doesn’t protect you from becoming proud and arrogant. By eating the Tree, Adam and Eve disconnected themselves from God – they did not get closer to God.
When you decide that one thing is good and one thing is not good, and you do it without God, that is the worst thing possible. You cannot be guided by God while thinking you know what is good and evil. You cannot be dependent on Him.
Now, as you mature in life – you assimilate the knowledge of good and evil. If you are not careful, in your mid-late teens, or definitely in your early twenties, you have learned so many things on a soulish level about good and evil, that you think you know more than God. This is the case whether you were raised by Christians or non-Christians, this is the case whether you accepted Christ as a youngster or did not.
You then have to make a choice. You have to decide to stop living a life of evil while justifying yourself because you occasionally do some good. That is a very shallow and immature level of thinking, but because you think you know good and evil, you will get upset when the Holy Spirit tries to lead to you deeper waters. This is the moment where you decide whether to grow as a Christian and sell out for God’s plan for your life or whether to just live a mediocre, normal life just like the world.
A lot of people are fooled by the wrong tree. They do not live lives of pure evil or they would wake up and realize they went to the wrong Tree! But they live lives of some good and some evil. They go to church but criticize the preacher after. They give a little money to charity, but do not tithe to their local church. They are nice people but at the same time look down on others. They read one page of a daily reading book every other day or so, but never read or study Scripture. They sing during the worship but do not mean a word of it:
- They sing “man’s empty praise and treasures that fade are never enough” – but live their lives for the praise of others.
- They sing “Way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper” on Sunday, and on Monday they are terrified of their bills, of sickness, of all sorts of things that show they have no idea God is the promise keeper.
- They sing “When I was broken, you were my healing, now your love is the air I’m breathing” and walk out of the church and laugh at the guest speaker for having a funny accent.
This is what the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil looks like – a bit of good and a bit of evil. It’s a total mixture of both good and evil.
That’s why it fools so many people when especially Christians eat from it. Someone lies about you, and other people say “no way they would lie, they are so so nice” – no they are eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they think they know what is right and wrong so well, they feel good to lie to you. They feel they are doing God a favour by gossiping about you. They feel that they are doing the right thing by not going to church.
They have never gone to the Tree of Life and never eaten the fruit of the Tree of Life. And so they have no life – just their own opinions of what is right and wrong, and heaven help anyone who does not fit into their opinions. I have been told I am evil for practising Biblical church discipline, for having expectations of people I platform, for living by faith, for praying for the sick, for going on TV – you name it, someone has called it evil because they eat at the wrong tree!
Once they have done a few good things, the people that eat at the wrong tree, well – they use that as a justification for any evil they have done.
I know a pastor that ran away with his mistress for a weekend and disappeared. There was a national manhunt for him (this was in Scotland) and he just turned up on Monday in the church office as if nothing had happened, and could not understand when his board fired him. He actually said to many people that he had served God for twenty years and so deserved three days to himself. That is the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It is never 100% sold out for God. After doing a few good works, it presses pause and justifies some really selfish behaviour.
I know someone else who with his fists in the air shouted at me with an unearthly anger in his voice: “I will never give a penny to your church again, I don’t tithe, I just give to better ministries” but still wanted to preach and minister in the church regularly! That’s someone who ate at the wrong tree for a long time!
Some people will be nice to their friends and therefore decide they are such a good person they don’t really need to go to church, they definitely don’t need to tithe and go to a mid-week meeting, and as for reading the Bible it’s a waste of time for someone as good as them! Someone in one of our churches told one of our pastors last week they were so spiritual they do not need to go to our summer conference. That’s the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Sadly, the same fruit of this tree is how the homosexual movement has invaded the nation. They feel because some homosexuals have done some nice things and are nice people, homosexuality is now good. It’s somehow on the good side, and because we know more than God and went to that tree – there are even churches that engage in that sort of behaviour. I know Christians who have justified rioting, destroying property and looting. That’s the wrong tree!
Eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil ends up with the person doing the eating determining what is good and what is evil for themselves. This self-appointed, self-created standard of what is good and what is evil twists the entire world, ruins the lives of many Christians and has even split churches.
Imagine being raised Christian, with Christian values with Christian parents, getting saved at a young age, and then becoming an adult that does not go to church, does not get involved with church, does not tithe, does not pray or read the Bible, is arrogant and nasty about people – how on earth can that happen. They then decide Hamas are a good group of people to support, that the LGBTQ+ philosophies are correct and celebrate a man marrying a man and celebrating that it is taught in church and even in schools to children! This happens and it happens far far too often, and is heart breaking.
They have eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They think having family over Sunday morning is good and going to church would be bad. They see church really as unimportant and even silly, certainly unnecessary to their lifestyle. The Word of God is dismissed as ancient and silly stories. This is the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and it is destroying the UK right now. It has removed God from our lives and families and culture, and created a nation where most people are lost, lonely, and do not know right from wrong at all.
Imagine thinking you know more about what is right or wrong than the Word of God! That is a crazy place to be in, but I am meeting more and more people – even in church – who think that. You give them a Scripture and they say “I don’t care what the Scripture says, my favourite celebrity says… TikTok says… my cousin says…” – they would rather listen to anyone than God!
It seems to me that people who are raised Christian can easily become casual about the Word and be vulnerable to eating at the wrong tree. They exclude God from their lives by holding onto habits they know are wrong, they know are foolish, but they twist themselves up in knots justifying behaviour that is evil and selfish.
Why is it revival is often all about first generation Christians? I was at an evangelist training conference recently, and it seemed well over half the people there sharing their faith on the street were first generation Christians. I praise the Lord that my children are often on the street sharing their faith with others! But I know that often people who have grown up with God or just served Him for a long time often exclude Him from their planning, their lives, their financial decisions, their family decisions and their future decisions. That is the reality of what happens, and quite frankly, it daunts me.
This blog is my limited attempt to help you leave the tree of knowledge of good and evil behind and come and eat at Tree of Life before your mind is killed by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and you become too stupid to think. Next week we will look at the religious people in the time of Jesus who were capable of doing great evil and thinking it was good.
Tree of Life Blog 