Firstly, let's address those people who have yet to make a decision. Yes, a decision is required! We're not forced to become a Christian nor are we born to be one. Just as Adam and Eve made a choice to select what was forbidden over what was freely available, we too select the life we want to live. There are two choices: 1) Love God or 2) Reject God. Can you imagine how God felt when his creation rejected him! Knowing that his man and woman would reject him was known beforehand, but they still made the choice. God has foreknowledge.
Romans 11:2 "God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.""Foreknowledge" is knowing that something will be before it is. It's part of God's omniscience. He knows what everyone will do with their choice before they make the choice. If we look at Job, God removed the hedge of protection from around him. Job could still choose to abandon God as Satan tempted him, but he didn't and God knew he wouldn't. God told the devil that he wouldn't interfere and he didn't, knowing in advance that Job would remain righteous! It was Job's choice. God didn't force him to choose righteousness, he just knew in advance the outcome of the events. Satan was unable to corrupt Job, Job was righteous and God knew that he would be!
I won't discuss this instant "free will" vs. "predestination", but God's foreknowledge does not mean that he predestined Adam and Eve or Job for that matter. He knew the choices they would make: 1) Adam and Eve made a wrong choice and 2) Job the right choice. God certainly didn't desire by predestination that all men should die spiritually (original sin), nor does he by random selection choose in advance who will be a Christian and who will not be. He has predestined all mankind to become Christians, leaving to them the ability to accept what he predestines or rejecting it at their peril.
Before we proceed to the "low hanging fruit", let's continue for awhile to look at what everyone's two choices are.
I believe that scripture is the inspired word of God. Within scripture are different examples of teaching. It can be literal, concealed in poetry, in parables, allegorical, metaphorical or prophesy. The word can apply to the "here and now" at the time it was written, it can apply to future events or both. Most of the entire Old Testament, although much of it is literal, also applies to the future. The actual events in the Old Testament are also a "picture" of Jesus or a foreshadowing of the Covenant of Grace. With that said, I believe the story of the Creation is real and true, and the trees literally there, but that the "test" of the free will of Adam and Eve was allegorical. . The meaning of this "choice" seems obvious, but there is a deep and hidden choice there! Eating of the wrong tree is symbolic of a greater wrong!
The "tree of life" has not been destroyed. It still stands in Paradise and is with God:
Revelation 2:7 ""He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’Furthermore, Revelation 22:2 indicates that Jesus is the "Tree of Life" still standing right there in Paradise!
Revelation 22:1 (ESV) "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever."
Hence, allegorically the "Tree of Life" represents Jesus. He wasn't an actual tree, but the tree is symbolic of Him. The "Word" was with God in the beginning, so He had to be someplace. Jesus, the Word made flesh was right there in the middle of the Garden of Eden. He yielded twelve kinds of fruit, not one, and his leaves were for healing! What's more the "Tree of Life" was physical as well as spiritual. He walked in the Garden:
Genesis 3:8a "And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day..."The "Word" is the "voice of the Lord God"! He was walking in the garden. And the Word made one "command". DO NOT EAT of "The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil"! In essence, God was saying "Love me and me only!". All the commands of God boil down to one command "Love God"! By eating of the other tree, Adam and Eve failed to love God. They rebelled in opposition to God's authority and his one and only command. That's the same command Jesus made after he put on flesh!
Matthew 22:36 "Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind."You say "But there was another commandment." Study it closely:
Matthew 22:39 " 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."Yes, there is another commandment, but "the second is like unto it (the Greatest Commandment). This means that the other commandment is just like the first! It's a corollary if the Greatest Commandment! You show your love for God by loving others. Scripture tells us that even if our brother has something against us, God will not accept our offering:
Matthew 5:23 "Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; 24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."This shows that loving others is the way we demonstrate our love for God.
John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.My point is made. There is one commandment and there has always been! The Greatest Commandment equals the Ten Commandments equals the Love of God equals "Don't eat of that other tree"! Back in the Garden it was Jesus (before he was incarnated) saying "Adam and Eve... Love Me and Me Only! Love me " with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." He just used different words. He said:
Genesis 2:16 "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17a But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it..."Adam and Eve were COMMANDED "thou shalt not eat". There is only one Commandment of God. It's to love God! Hence, God was saying "Show me that you love me!" As Jesus is the Word and "the voice" of God, Jesus spoke to Adam and he spoke to his disciples! Jesus said the same Command in two different ways. And then he appeared as the "burning bush" which was never consumed, that "Voice" gave the same Commandment again. It was more detailed, but it was one Commandment and with a corollary. The first three were how to directly to love God and the latter seven was how a Christian shows that love! They are how you love others.
Now that it's clear that it was Jesus in the Garden, he walked there and he was represented by the Tree of Life, then it follows that we should look at what fruit that tree bore! The "Tree of Life" bore twelve fruits. These may be hope, love, faith, grace (gentleness), mercy (temperance), truth, and even found joy, dependence (meekness), self-control (long-suffering), protection (peace), righteousness (goodness), and modesty. (Eternal life is the reward! Catholics have a slightly different list.) Three of the gifts are from 1 Corinthians 13:13: hope, faith and charity (love). The other fruits can also be found in scripture. Some are:
Galatians 5:22 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."Ezekiel knew the mystery! He spoke of it:
Ezekiel 47:12 "Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing."Ezekiel was speaking of the "Tree of Life" of which John spoke in his Revelation. Ezekiel knew by inspiration that the Tree of Life was Jesus and he knew that the Tree stood in Paradise!
If we look at the graphic of the tree of life, there is low-hanging fruit and some hanging almost out of reach, but still obtainable! Adam was born immortal. By eating of the wrong tree, making a bad choice, he became mortal. With his disobedience, lack of love for God, came death:
Genesis 2:17b "for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."By deduction if eating of the"Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" results in death, if Adam and Eve had eaten of the "Tree of Life" they would have lived forever! The "Tree of Life" is allegorical for eternal life! Who is the offering for eternal life?
John 3:15 "That whosoever believeth in him (Jesus) should not perish, but have eternal life."Salvation saves from something! What does being "born again" save us from? Eternal death! With belief in the Tree of Life we obtain eternal life! That's sums up the mystery of God!
Colossians 1:26 "Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: 27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:"The Jews in general didn't know that all they did was all about Jesus. They knew the covenants and that they were God's people, but it took the gentiles to accept Jesus to reveal the mystery. That mystery is that Jesus was there from the beginning and was the way to salvation for all mankind. That everyone could have the healing fruit of the Tree of Life and that tree is Jesus! Mystery solved! Jesus was here all the time and few beyond the patriarchs knew that. They couldn't "see the Tree for the forest." Jesus was there, but he was hidden by the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil"! We don't know what other allegorical trees were there, but there were many. Jesus became a mystery because he was camouflaged! The crucifixion rent into the curtain in the synagogue and the mystery was finally revealed.
The man who died on the Cross was "the Word". He was finally revealed to all mankind. Ironically, God chose his own death for it was him that died on that Cross:
Acts 5:30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.The "Tree of Life" was hanged on a tree; the Cross of Calvary. God knew how he would die! He knew it back in the Garden. It was his plan from the beginning because of his foreknowledge. He knew that his creation would choose death over life; pleasure over devotion and reason over innocence!
On both trees are low-hanging fruit! Let's look at the tree of life first. Which fruits are low-hanging? Remember the choices: hope, love, faith, gentleness, temperance, truth, joy, meekness, long-suffering, peace, goodness, and modesty.
For me "hope" is the lowest hanging! Because I believe I have hope. The entire salvation experience is based on hope.
Romans 8:24 (ESV) "For in this hope (adoption) we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?""Adoption" is to become a child of God. We are "born again", not to man, but to God. By believing we are an adopted son and like a child without a father, our hope to be adopted is what saves us. We can't see it, but it's there, for if we could see hope it would be reality, not something which we strongly desire! There is more low-hanging fruit. How about faith? If we believe we have faith and it takes faith to be saved:
Ephesians 2:8a "For by grace are ye saved through faith;"This low-hanging fruit is a "must" to have! You are required to take of this lowest-hanging fruit before your hope is fulfilled. You hope to be adopted, but to become a member of the community of God, you must have faith. You must first believe to have faith. Faith is a confident belief in God. It's not a casual acknowledgement, but a living his truth. Hence, we walk in faith, not just "believe" at a cross-section in time. Faith is a practicing belief. Yes, belief is required to have faith, but faith is the practice of believing without doubt!
Is love low-hanging fruit? This is a special type of love. It's hard to define, but it's more than the love of a fellow being and it's even different. It's a deep and sincere appreciation for God because he sacrificed himself for you. It should be low-hanging fruit, but is it? Most of us seek salvation to save our own wretched skin. God realizes that and knows the humanity of us. I submit that "love" should be low-hanging fruit, but yet it's so high on the tree that God made it a command:
John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.You see that love is so hard to reach that it has to be commanded! However, we know how to love God. It's to do what he says. Since love is a fruit, it's not a work though! If we read scripture and pray we will develop and loving relationship with God and our love will grow! You see, loving him, is a fruit of the spirit. Just as in a romance, one who truly loves grows more in love with time. With time two individuals become one! With communion with God our love grows for him. The more we "do" for him, the more we realize that we love him.
1 John 4:12b "...If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. 15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.It would appear that the "corollary" to the Greatest Commandment is also the assurance of our salvation. If we don't love others, we don't love God. If we love others we have an assurance that God dwells in us! Since, loving others is proof that we love God and a Christian's biggest shortcoming is loving others, then loving God is the highest-hanging fruit! Face it; we get saved because we love ourselves! However,we grow away from loving self to loving God as we commune with him. We're like babies at the start!
1 Corinthians 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.Babies are interested in themselves. They want to be loved and cuddled and spoiled. They want protection and security. With time they grow to focus on the caretaker rather than themselves. They go from being a parasite looking for a host to loving the host! That's the same with new Christians and God. We grow to love him as he nurtures us!
There are several more fruits. Look at each one and ask, "Are they low-hanging" or "are they really high up?" Some of us stand taller than others. We take the fruits as God hands them out. However, we must desire the fruit in order for it to be picked. The Holy Spirit helps us in this orchard. He draws us nearer and nearer to God and as we get nearer the more fruits we want to pick!
How about the other tree? Of course my belief is that this tree has many fruits, but are of three varieties: wealth, pleasure and reason. The name itself means that man seeks knowledge. Then later we are told that they wanted to be "as God". That's reason. They know the difference between good and bad and are no longer innocent. Reason causes them to be deceived. Some worship Reason as a God! It's agnosticism or what Paul called "The Unknown God" when he spoke to the Greeks; Agnostos Theos.
When I say that the variety of fruit is "wealth" I'm taking that from Adam and Eve. They saw that the tree "was good for food". God already supplied good food for them, but they were Epicureans; they wanted food for rich tastes. Hence, I believe they sought a wealthy lifestyle. This is reinforced by
1 Timothy 6:10 "For the love of money is the root of all evil..."Then we're told that the tree was pleasurable. Pleasure is self-worship. We adore ourselves and want to please ourselves.
Ephesians 5:29 "For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it..."Self-esteem isn't lacking in man; lack of Christ-esteem is what's missing. If we moan and groan in our failing, the Lord will lift us up! That's Christ-esteem. Now it is clear that the three varieties of fruit are in fact wealth, pleasure and reason.
There is no unreachable fruit on that tree, but it's still a tree from which we all pick! What are specific fruits of the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil":
Mark 7:21 "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:23 All these evil things come from within, and defile the man."Here are thirteen fruits of that awful tree! They can be categorized by variety. For example, "thefts" is of the variety of a "desire for wealth", "fornications" are the variety of "pleasure" and "deceit" is of the variety of "reason". We certainly don't want to pick any low-hanging fruit here, but we can avoid those fruits. Some fruits are easier to avoid than others. If I quit the easy things to quit, that's avoiding the low-hanging fruit!
It's easy not to steal, not to murder, and not to blaspheme. Those easy fruits to avoid are a first step in loving God! As we mature we grow in spiritual stature, then we can tackle the high-hanging fruit (to avoid). Way up there is "pride"! It's at the top of the tree and is the hardest to hand over to God. Pride was Adam's sin. He wanted to be like God. We're like Adam and that will be the last fruit we put in God's basket! Let's go with that! Rather than picking the low-hanging fruit for our own consumption, let's go ahead and pick it, but put it into God's basket. He will handle our fruit from this evil tree himself!
1 John 1:9 (ESV) "If we confess our sins, he(God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."As we pick the fruit off the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" we put it into God's basket. Picking the fruit is "repentance"! Rather than pleasuring in what we pick, we turn it over to God and he forgives us our pleasure! By picking of this tree which doesn't belong to the Christian, we're trespassing. God will forgive our trespasses!
Some of the fruit on this tree is really rotten!
Proverbs 6:16 "These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, 19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren."Those sins most disgusting to the Lord are: 1) pride, 2) gossip, 3) murder, 4) a wicked heart, 5) trouble-making, 6) lies and 7) slandering.
Since the Lord finds these seven things disgusting, if we love him, we won't do them! These are high-hanging fruit to put in God's basket for many of us, but they can be reached! The ladder is the Holy Spirit. He helps us with those high-hanging rotten fruits!
However, there is a large list of abominations to the Lord: homosexuality, idol worship, worshiping false Gods, disobedience to God, incest, unrighteousness, selfish giving, doing as the pagans do, cross-dressing, defiling God's house, and many more. God finds them all disgusting! Some are low-hanging fruit and easy to put into God's basket, but others are harder to take from our hand and put into his!
If we keep some of this rotten fruit for ourselves and secretly consume it, we anger our Lord. He expects us to give over all the fruit we've handled and put on his shoulders. After all he did that on the cross. He took on all the rotten fruits from this rotten tree forever:
1 Peter 2:24 "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed."Look at this! God took all the fruit from the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" and bare it on the "Tree of Life"! The Tree of Life had the stripes where he was demeaned and finally died, but because he was the "root" the tree lives again!
Look at the Tree of Life graphic. Below the tree with its twelve fruits is a "root". That is allegorical for God!
Revelation 22:16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”Jesus is the "root" of the Tree of Life. and he's God! The "root" is God! And Jesus IS the Tree of Life. Likewise, he's speaks of "Living Water":
John 4:10 "Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water."
John 7:37 "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. 38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. 39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)"The graphic of the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" has for it's root "the love of money" which is "the root of all evil" (1 Tim 6:10). Death lies below that tree, symbolized by the raging fires of hell. It's not that some don't love God, they just love money (or sin more). Men may believe in God, but fail because they value wealth, pleasure or reason more. An example of this is the rich young man who wanted to follow Jesus, but was told that he must leave his wealth behind. Although he had a desire to follow Jesus because he believed in him, his first love was money! If we look at Judas, he was chosen to be an apostle. He followed Jesus, but it turns out that he wanted the thirty pieces of silver more! His love of money was in fact the root of all evil! God doesn't stand for us to have two masters! We're either for him or against him.
The graphic of the Tree is a representation of the three personalities of God. Jesus is the Tree of Life. He is of the "root" which is God and the Living Water provided by God is the Holy Spirit. The "system" consisting of the water, root and tree is the Trinity and is the Godhead. That Godhead still exists in Paradise just as it did in Eden!
Let's go to Revelation again:
Revelation 22:2 "In the midst of the street of it (Paradise), and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."
Here we again show the Trinity. God is at the center of the "street" in heaven and thereby is a "river" which is the Holy Spirit and beside the street (God) and the river (Spirit) there was the "Tree of Life" (Jesus).
This is the mystery of God! It's no longer a mystery. The "Unknown God" is now known if you have read about him in scripture and believe in him.
Acts 17:23 "For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you."
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