Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Gen. 2:17

Evil stalks the earth and lurks with sin in every sinner’s heart.  That is why the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, as the Bible says.  Like a magnet near the needle of a compass it throws everything “off.”  But evil is more.  Evil is a choice.  In the garden there was a choice.  What God said and what the smooth talking stranger said.  While we are free to choose, we are not free to choose the consequences of that choice.  Standing before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil God’s creatures made a bad choice. Eventually the first Psalm would say, “blessed is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly.” That is a warning to avoid the world’s bad advice.  It is impossible to count the tears that have been shed from eyes that have “known” and chosen evil.

Again man stands before a tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  This tree has been fashioned into a cross.  In it is the knowledge of the greatest good and the greatest evil.  The greatest evil was when the creatures took Jesus Christ, God’s Son and nailed his hands and feet to the gibbet.  A darkness fell that day, blacker than the blackest black hole ever known in the universe.  How evil is man?  Just look at the cross and see. 
But wait, something else is there, the knowledge of the greatest good.  Jesus took upon Himself our sin, which He bore in His body on the tree (1Pet 2:24). And with that self sacrifice paid a debt, lanced a wound, and broke the back of sin. 
Again man stands before a tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  He stands before the cross.  Again he is given an opportunity to make a choice, to bow his head over his broken heart and choose Jesus.  -idWhat a horrible thought.  What horrible condition: Without God in the world.

A mariner without a compass, a wise man without a star,  a boat without an ocean, a court without a bar; a fireman who has no water,  a lung that has no air, a house without foundation, upper room without a stair. Somehow each would be tolerable, but to be without God in the world, no! that is a fearful thing.  Better to be a  warrior who goes to battle without a sword or shield, or to be a farmer who has no field. Imagine!  Imagine the sick without physician or a wound that never healed.  Imagine!  To be without God, is worse. 

 Yet this is what we were before, this is what we were without Christ, but we were too blind to see, too dense to know.  In Christ, God came below.  Our condition was dangerous, dreadful, and desperate, but we were oblivious to it all.  We were a hair’s breadth from hell and did not know it. 

 Imagine the tortoise without its shell, the one that he pulls himself into when he perceives  danger.  How pathetic looking would be such a naked creature.   A turtle’s shell is its glory.  Imagine an eagle without its plume.  Not only would it be unable to fly, it would be exposed to a certain doom.  Imagine a toothless tiger, how pathetic would be such a beast, but such was the case of man in the fall.  When he sinned he was ushered to the gates of Eden and expelled from the garden into the world, but because of his choice, he would be in the world without God.  When the door clanged shut, man became a fugitive and a vagabond and would have to live by his wits. Wits are not enough for a man without God. 

 He so desperately wanted to know and taste the fruit of good and evil, now he would have to find for himself what was ivy and what was poison ivy the hard way.  Now he would have to suck his bleeding finger pierced by the thorn that was hiding near the rose.  Now he would no longer have the Almighty to talk to in the cool of the day, and the chair at the head of the table in his heart would sit empty.   Who in their right mind would wish such a thing on a single soul?  Go with God.      

                                                                                             -id