Good and Evil

Good and Evil

3/17/18

Most people are aware of this phrase and what it represents to our lives for it is a choice that we face then complete every day.  It is amazing just how many times we argue these points with others and do not even take the time to consider whether our points are valid according to God or not, but that is what our world teaches.  It is this phrase that defines our lives and how we live it and what we consider to be valued and from the looks of things our values have fallen tremendously without care or consideration.  God set a perfect standard before we were created and it is this standard that we have allowed to be dulled and until we revisit and then plant His Standard back into our routines our lives shall not become better but worse on all levels.

One of my author friends just shared a couple of pictures from the house that she had lived in for a few decades.  When she lived there the place both inside and outside was immaculate and it is obvious that she took great care in what was hers.  She decided to move to another location and ventured into the renter’s market as a means to justify supplement her income.  Real estate has always been a good investment venture for those who wish to pursue those grounds but as many also will attest some of the hazards can be horrifying and a further drain on the personal economy present, not to mention the personal anguish if something goes wrong with the house.  When we rented a long time ago we loved that little house and tried our best to keep it as neat, clean, and “healthy” as possible for we knew we would see the owners of the house around town and knew them on a very personal level as well.  We did not wish to harm that relationship in any way and to our knowledge, we did not and are still great friends today.

Trust is a keyword that homeowners place with renters and that they will take care of the property and have pride in where they are living even though their surroundings technically do not belong to them.  To be honest, it is this aspect of renting that my wife and I have not ventured into such a market and is content to have just one house that we call our own.  While sometimes our house looks like a hurricane went through it we keep it as neat as possible, especially when you have grandkids coming in and out almost every day.  My friend’s tenants decided to move out suddenly and it was this action that posed some questions in her head that made her a bit unnerved.  As soon as she had the opportunity to travel back down to her house her worst fears were confirmed for the people had just up and left that part was true but when they said to her over the phone that the house was in great shape, that blind statement was a complete lie.

The pictures of the house that she posted after the renters moved out were heartbreaking, for the people had totally demolished the house including the outside yard which had been in pristine condition upon their arrival.  It took my friend a couple of days to find out some facts but she was told that the people actually had pigs pinned up inside the house and from the looks of the pictures she posted that was a true statement.  We have heard the phrase living in a pig pen, well this was a real condition that she has found appalling but somehow needs to regroup and fix.  Once again, when asked the people said there was nothing wrong with the house and that everything was in good shape when they left, a deviant and varied truth about what they considered to be good and worthy of others living in the house in the near future.  Sadly, it is this deception of good and truth that gives us the perfect example of how good is overruled by evil through the connective word “and” which demonstrates how evil came to be a part of our lives.  It was the renters’ choice to demolish the condition of the house and while they may not have exactly believed that they did any harm the end result was that the house is uninhabitable until great amounts of repairs are completed, a complex project that we should all personally recognize when it comes to our lives as well.

All who live in the western societies and who have attended church at one point in their lives around this globe probably are familiar with the story of God’s Creation in the first two chapters of Genesis.  For as many who believe in this Book, there are just as many and with today’s standards of beliefs probably more that do not believe that what is written in the Book of Genesis is true.  There is only one entity to blame for that disbelief and he is the one who we now embrace as our leader which further deepens our need for God, another truth that we kick out with every breath we take.  It is amazing how we quickly dismiss what is written in Genesis as a myth or fake because while we take the time to read those words it is our creative minds that God gave us that initiates and then falls for the lies that our enemy plants.  But in these first two chapters of the Bible, we have the key elements of how our lives were made and what conditions we were created to live within and it is through these two chapters that we have our defining moments along with the direction that God lives, breathes, acts, and creates.

Genesis Chapter 1 is filled with what we consider to be the creation of our world and how He made everything in their perfect order.  The entire first chapter of Genesis gives us a beautiful view of how God operates and creates then makes mention of His Word with the completion of the respected day.  From many of the articles that God has shared with us over the past few years, we have found out that when God completes something it is always in a perfect and in order fashion which means that it is “good”.  God states this word after many of the creation days for when He looked at the work completed He knew that it was a good thing which meant that as He completed such deeds He was advancing His Kingdom.  If we take a closer look at this setting we will notice one detail that is present and one detail that is not there.  The detail that is present includes the word “good” and the detail that is not there is any imperfection, only one side of the creative process is around at this time.

To be honest and fair, God could have stopped at this point, brought His perfect tenure into play and just stuck with the opportunity of good being the only way possible for His new creations to exist.  God is God and He has never done anything that would slow or even stop His Kingdom from advancing so this is an absolute right that He would and could accomplish.  But we all should recognize that God is not of this one-sided venture and that He is always for and has always been for free will for He is not a slave master demanding His service or else.  It is the patterns of this type of creation that God intended for His children to live in at all times of their existence but while He established these perfect conditions He knew that when free will followed its creative pattern it had the possibility to change positions, a heartbreaking thought but one that had to be in place or God could not claim to be all-knowing.

Through this demonstration of God’s Divine way of creating the world, it should not have been too difficult for Adam and Eve to want to continue living in such arrangements.  They did not have to want anything for in Genesis Chapter 2 God gives us a small glimpse about how all of Adam and Eve’s needs were met all the way down to the food issue of their existence.  We can also conclude that the food that was provided to Adam and Eve was good for their lives and that it gave them the needed nutrients in order for their functioning for the day another baffling truth of God’s goodness that is hard for us to imagine being true.  But how many times have we had a good thing come into our lives just to have us throw it away at some point then regret our actions at another time?  Hence the phrase that God uses in Genesis 2:9 when He introduces Adam to the one off-limits tree for food, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

This phrase is the key to the point in which God wants us to understand in this article for it is the single word “and” that sets the stage and order for what became of God’s Kingdom and the defeated kingdom of His enemy and our enemy.  Every detailed word that is written in the Bible is of great importance and the order in which these words are placed has a significant definition of themselves.  This phrase “good and evil” states a great deal of information about who came first and the status of each kingdom at the same time.  The word “good” is mentioned first and it is here that God authorizes His presence as being first in every aspect of life and of everything that represents as good.  This fact also sets the tone for what type of conditions were and still are present in the realm of God for God Himself gives us nothing but good to refer to Him and His Ways, it is our selfish and limited ideologies that prohibit us from understanding this eternal goodness that God can only provide.

The next word in line is the word “and” and it is this word that engages our brains to know that there is another aspect that is present and should be understood.  Through the word “and” we know that God is good for if He wanted to control our every move He could have done so by defeating His enemy and placing him into his rightful separation way before God created mankind.  But through this word “and” alone God reiterates that He is not a controlling God at all and that He created us out of love and for a specific and holy purpose for it is through this word that He makes clear that there is another side that we will face.  It is this other side that God did not hide us from but warned us right from our beginning when He was handing out His single rule.  It is this word that ignites our minds to figure out that with all of the good that God showed Adam that His blessings and goodness should be noticed today as well.

How important is this word “and” being used in this phrase by God?  It is this word that tells us that these two words, one before and one after, are in constant motion against each other and if one is moved in one direction the other is moved in the opposite.  Since God spoke this phrase it means that both of the words plus the word “and” represent an eternal movement and as we know the object being fought over is us.  It is also this word that God sets into motion the ability for humans to choose which side of the word “and” we will believe in and move, a brilliant mechanism to advance His Kingdom through His own eternal Creations.

However, for many reasons, we would rather incorporate the third and last word of this phrase “evil” into our lives instead.  The word evil cannot have anything to do with good and by definition of both words they are the complete opposite of each other.  Through this phrase, both warring kingdoms are defined and by each individual definition of the words it cannot be denied that a battle is raging and since God spoke to Adam concerning these words that battle was for him and every future human creation that was to come.  It is impossible to think that Adam missed this point of grace by God or did he just take matters into his own hands and play around with God when it came to this inspective item of eternity?  There cannot be any question that God made Himself clear when He told Adam what he could do and what he could not do and to top measures off God even told Adam in clear language what would occur if he did break this single command.  God makes it clear that when He discusses and uses the term “evil” He means that there is an opponent out there that wants to see His Kingdom stopped and pushed backward.  The issue at hand here is our eternal setting and since God is the Creator of everything good that means that Satan is the representative of this word “evil” and should be taken seriously at all times.  It is this specific issue that God tried His best to get across to Adam when He was telling him how important it was not to eat from the tree.  It was not the tree itself but the act of obedience to God’s Word that was the issue and we see in a few verses down the line that God’s Word was already being used for selfish gain instead of God’s gain.

One last point to make is that when God speaks to Adam in this verse He wants Adam to understand that both the good kingdom and the evil kingdom already exist and are present in the world of Adam.  See, God gave Lucifer a choice and he made such choice some point in time long before God created Adam which confirms that this separation in Heaven had occurred before God created the Garden of Eden and mankind.  According to the order of the words, God used the good Kingdom came first and serves as the standard for which all others must follow to serve as measure.  Evil equals disobedience which is defined as sin and according to its order of wordage from God in this verse came after the perfect state in Heaven., thus implicating Adam to be aware of this condition if allowed into his existence.  It is through this verse that God gives humans the adequate supply of defending their existence from eternal death and through these keywords used by God provides them with the ability to know what is good (God’s Word) and what is not (words contrary to God’s Word).  Seems simple enough, right?

Before we proceed, I want to just to clarify a minor yet important detail about the word “good” that is used in these passages and to show how specific God’s Word is let’s take a look at the word “good” used here.  The word “good” that God uses to describe His work on each day of creation is the Hebrew word “towb” which means it comes from a perfect origin since God directly gives this word as a descriptive term about what He has completed.  Now, the exciting part about such word usage is that when we next see this word being used by God for a description is when He is directing Adam about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  For the word “good” that God uses here is the exact same word “towb” that is used when God is looking over His Creative days.  This is a confirmation that this tree is referring to kingdom principles and since God is saying them it also means that He is referring to eternal standards.

If one wants to place it into modern terms and thinking then the serpent was using the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as a progressive stance to a conservative notion of Adam and Eve’s existence.  Some people may not like such a comparison and others may accuse of bias through this statement but when you break down the meaning of those two words it is clearly correct.  Now, having stated that fact, we must consider that the opening for Satan to present himself to Adam and Eve was already present and thus had free grounds to do what he specifically did in Genesis 3:6.  While there is nothing wrong with human progression, it needs to be done in a manner in which the process follows God’s Ways so that its completion can be on a sure and solid foundation because if it isn’t then we are a guaranteed a huge fall.  Just think of it as this way, Lucifer fell because of his lust for greater power and status and if we seek after his ways and not obey God’s Ways then we are guaranteed to fall just as Lucifer did.

From what we are seeing unfolding in today’s societies it cannot be missed that we are headed for some certain disaster.  The Church should be licking her chops with anticipation of so many people wanting to flock to their services, yet this type of action is not occurring.  Instead, the Church is participating in such worldly activities and condoning the eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Yes, I said it because God told me to say it, the Church is playing the role of the serpent through her actions concerning the world and the acceptance thereof.  The Church has forgotten that these two kingdoms are on opposite ends of truth and within this truth lies the choice of our eternal position.  She has become complacent with the world and antagonistic to God’s Word which states her eyes are on the tree and lusting after its great qualities.  God established His prized creations to be first in everything not second as the choice of the world is, we need to change this pattern quickly or we shall partake of that forbidden fruit and regret those bites immediately.

It is time that we once again are a light unto the darkness by allowing God to enter into our lives and provide the eternal light that the dying world needs.  It is time that we leave the tree of the knowledge of good and evil alone and begin to obey the work command that God gave Adam to dress and keep the Garden of Eden.  I find it very conclusive that the command that God gave to Adam in the Garden of Eden is the exact same command that Jesus gave when He was on the earth to His disciples and to those who listened and understood His Words and that is to go and to teach the gospel of Christ, salvation, restoration, and eternal life.  In other words, which tree are your eyes fixated upon, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or on the cross?

DLB