The Two Trees, Part 2

First thing tonight – even though I want to leave Adams Road behind – there is one item that keeps pressing in on me that I have to share.

I have been defending Lila, the girl who at 18 years of age was sent to live with the group years ago and I have assumed that Micah preyed on her once she arrived at their hotel in Winter Park Florida.

He may have still, all things considered, as he had the choice to respect her, but the place from whence she came appears to have issued a statement that says that they STAND behind Micah and her relationship.

This leads me to believe that her going there in the first place was, in fact, to be another wife to him – and perhaps she knew it.

That alters my initial take on the matter and adds insight to the whole situation. Could be wrong, but it’s something to think about.

Addressing Criticism

A Comment from Kalene Rassmussen

Had someone named Kalene Rassmussen 460 leave the following comment on a recent video where I invited cowardly pastors who criticize me to come on the show and talk. She wrote,

“Shawn why do you keep saying that your critiques won’t talk to you face to face? That’s untrue! You say you are honest but that’s not honest! You have shows where they came onto your show and talked to you face to face. How many times do they need to come on? How many times do they have to talk to you face to face before they just shake the dust off of their feet? I know pastor Wallace has confronted you to your face more than once, you called him a coward and he came on your show and confronted you and you still say they won’t talk to you face to face. James White has confronted you face to face and Matt Slick has confronted you face to face along with many others. At some point they have to just shake the dust off of their feet and leave you to yourself. Matt 18 tells them to confront you once and then twice with two or more and then after that to leave you alone.”

My Response

Let’s think about this. Really look at it, folks.

I questioned the Trinity ten years ago and just because I just don’t roll over and accept it and the views of most Christians, which is a man-made doctrine, I’m criticized and maligned for the questioning for the rest of my life?

I mean anything and everything I say is forever placed in a box of radical heretical he’s not a Christian box?

Is that how it works?

I’m judged by an orthodox pastor with yards of public petitions against me a decade ago, along with a few of his cronies but all the while I have not ceased preaching Christ, teaching the Bible verse by verse, promoting faith and love, and trying to serve Him with all of my life but I question and challenge ONE traditional view constructed by men and it’s all over in terms of communication?

The Control of Religious Narratives

Can you see that this is the MEANS by which religious souls control the narrative, and that it is literally the means by which falsehoods remain obscured – for centuries?

Do you know how many people, seekers of God in spirit and truth have been maligned, shut down, castigated in the public eye, mocked, and have even been imprisoned and put to death for differing with what men have concluded as inerrant?

Through this very activity acted out by controlling men and women, the Spirit of Truth and all that it brings has been squelched and silenced – and you, Miss Rassmussen typify the standard mindless approach that supports it.

Misinterpretation of Scripture

Additionally, your use of Yeshua’s instructions cited in Matthew miss the fact that:

• They were to a Jewish audience of His day whom He came to save.
• He was speaking of the Old Testament ecclesia (there was no new for nearly half a century thereafter).
• It was for His apostles, who were first-hand witnesses of His Resurrection to Govern the Bride.

Again, your citing it goes to show how BADLY people continue to interpret scripture and your stance is a perfect example of people brainwashed by culture and tradition instead of being moved by the Spirit of truth.

There is so, so much to be discussed openly from our end but the historic game of controlling the narrative is alive and well as those who dare question ANY Tradition are ostensibly put to death with people like you holding their coats.

This is all an exact repeat of what Yeshua faced at the hands of the religious leaders who killed Him.

No, I’m no Jesus, actually, I’m His opposite in my flesh, but if you can’t see the parallels to that day and age you’re as blinded by religion as those who rejected Him then.

Have you ever asked yourself why YOU don’t come talk to me instead of relying on pastors?

Here is a direct invitation to you, sister.

We need to crack this stupid game open – the faith is of the spirit, not traditions – and until we do, the faith will continue to be controlled by fleshly men as it has for nearly 2000 years!

We need unity in the faith, love among all people of faith, and the death of these cringy behind-the-scenes cabals that police open thinking.

The Fulfillment of Scripture

OKAY THEN –

Here at the Great News Network, we ardently stand on the biblically based view that all material items mentioned in scripture, including:

• Prophecy
• Religion
• Authority
• Rites and rituals
• Or material mandates
• Frankly, even the Bible itself

The Finished Work of Christ

These have been completed (or fulfilled) and that the faith, because of the FINISHED work of Christ for the world, is operating without religion.

We agree with the scriptural narrative that since the fulfillment of all of these things, God now has a direct relationship with all human beings, that He writes His laws on our hearts and minds, and that we are all, believer and not, individually and subjectively led by the Spirit of Truth and are free to receive it or reject it.

This point of view eliminates the need for religion – which, from its onset, has proven to be nothing short of a vile mess for nearly 2000 years.

All one has to do is look at what religion has done collectively and individually, and the importance of God’s approach becomes more than apparent.

Religion and Human Efforts

Instead of letting the Titanic of church-playing sink into the icy dark waters where it belongs, human beings keep trying to patch the hull with paper and tape.

Take a look at what someone sent me recently. It’s a link to something called, “Ministry Watch” – which again, would be wholly unnecessary if playing church through men and women of false authority became obsolete.

Take a look at the front page:

(SHOW LINK AND SLOWLY SCROLL THROUGH THE FIRST PAGE AS I DESCRIBE IT)

Would any of this be necessary if people came to see that God literally works directly on individuals via His Spirit and not through organizations and all of their human tree of knowledge errancy?

Direct Relationship with God

I mean, how can we trust Ministry Watch? Before long, we are going to have to establish “ministry watches” over “ministry watches?” Maybe.

God knew, when He sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, that after Christ took His Bride and obliterated Jerusalem, its temple, priesthood, genealogies, and all the rest, religion ended and should have never continued.

There is a better way – supported by the ancient text. It begins with seekers of Him in spirit and truth turning from organized religion, raising their families in faith without religion, and educating each other without any false man-made intermediaries.

Trust Him alone. Refuse to follow men – me included. Seek, read the scripture, and let the Spirit guide.

This advice moves us to show you a few simple methods to help you test all things that you discover and to help you vet your conclusions as an individual in pursuit of God without religion.

It looks like this

Do you need a pastor, church or intercessor to do this?  

Not in the least.  Especially with all the tools available to you online today.  And in the face of this I will be so bold to say the following:

IF you choose to play church and look to men to tell you how to believe and live today you have frankly taken a short-cut to a direct unencumbered relationship with your Maker and deserve what you get.  So don’t complain when you are misled, cast out, mistreated, manipulated or used.

The Two Trees

The Tree of Life

Okay, three weeks ago we introduced the view of the Two Trees – the first tree, called the Tree of Life, might be described as looking to YAHAVAH alone, without ANY – ANY, intermediaries – other than His Son.

Not church or people who claim to represent Him. Not the Bible except as a book of contextual principles. Not your righteous works. Nor this world and its ways. Nor your reputation. OR ANY OTHER THING – EVER.

We hope that this description is plain and that anything we put equal or at His level in terms of reliance, worship, or DEVOTION is frankly a form of idolatry.

Does He know our human need for intermediaries, even idols?

I think He does.

Is there grace, patience, and long-suffering on His part as we drop the idols of youth and turn more and more to Him directly?

Of course! But the Biblical reality remains . . .

There is One God, and true believers are to have no others before Him. This validates the words of Yeshua when he said in Matthew 7:13-14,

“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

(As an aside, strait here does not mean straight, it actually means confined, twisty, and very difficult to navigate through).

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

Then we also gave a general description of that “other tree” that most people choose to eat from all the days of their lives – and it comes from the second tree God called “the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

We are about to start a dive deep into the subject as it can be incomprehensibly nuanced and multi-faceted – as you would expect when discussing a tree that provides knowledge of Good and Evil that caused God to even say after the first couple ate of it, “They have become as one of us, knowing Good and evil.”

So, without concern for viewership, we are going to work through the topic processionally.

The Knowledge from the Forbidden Tree

Right out the gate we must admit the following about this emblematic tree –

Eating it gave its consumer knowledge of Good and Evil. KNOWLEDGE of WHAT?

KNOWLEDGE of BOTH “GOOD” and EVIL.

Again, eating it made our first parents “like God” who, by the way, did not want our first parents to become like Him in this way or through this means because while He perfectly knows GOOD and Evil and how to manage it – something humans do not – which is why consuming it always leads to death.

Now listen – KNOWING is not faith – and faith is not knowing.

This is a tree of knowledge, given to the wrong party. God wanted his Creations to eat of the Tree of Life by Faith.

So, I wish I could drum this into the heads of believers – to “know something” is to erase or eliminate faith. And since faith is the ONLY way that we can please God, (Hebrews 11:6) believers should seek to walk by faith, and not according to what that second tree offers, which is called, “knowledge.”

The Dangers of Seeking Knowledge

The Misconception of Knowledge as Faith

Now listen, imperfect knowledge can be described as evidence – it is not knowing anything.

Christian apologists who try to PROVE things (the existence of God, the flood, the resurrection, the validity of scripture) through “knowledge” are jousting with windmills and in my estimation ought to instead admit that what pleases God is faith and stand firm on this fact.

Instead, our apologists are always trying to prove things that are unprovable. If they were provable, they would not require faith.

I mean why would or should believers try and “prove things” that God Himself wants all of us to take by faith? And why do we enter into arenas of debate from this approach, trying to outwit critics?

When it comes to proving God or anything else in the faith that is of substance, we must honestly admit that we do not have proof of anything, we only have evidences or partial knowledge, which leaves every human being ON EARTH in a place of choosing how to interpret and apply the evidences around them as leading to them having faith in God . . . or not.

I see a sunset, nature and its orders, the birth of children, the cosmos, the sea, the land, and all the strata of life from the macro to the micro; I see scientific advances, amazing human achievements and I choose to see them as evidences valid enough to believe in a God who created and governs – WHILE others do not.

They have that right.

The Role of Evidence

Ironically, even “non-faith” choices are not proofs but only amount to evidences people do not see as enough to validate faith in God.

So neither side stands on proofs – we are all just choosing to use evidences around us to substantiate faith or to deny the need for it.

Scripturally speaking, the only irrefutable proof any believer has is the subjectively understood “presence of God” within them and the otherworldly peace and guidance they claim to receive from such a presence.

That can be testified to by the possessor, but the proof is only subjective and personal. It can be illustrated and shown by the life they live and the love they share, but even this is not proof – it’s all just evidence.

The Consequences of Consuming the Forbidden Knowledge

In any case, the other fruit, forbidden by God, is something He said would lead to their death.

Perhaps that fruit represented all the knowledge God possesses of both Good and Evil; perhaps it’s information that was secreted away in the vast expanse of all eternity and wrongly offered to Man by traitorous angels or gods.

Whatever we decide that knowledge is, the fact of the matter is God is pleased by faith, not by the “knowledge of Good and Evil” our first parents obtained by turning away from it.

Let me restate this with a Graphic:

“God is pleased by faith, not by knowledge, because the possession of the forbidden knowledge, via the short-cut the fruit of that the forbidden tree provides, is NOT faith, THEREFORE, the knowledge gained, whether GOOD or EVIL, even if it makes us like God, leads to our DEATH no matter how profitable or functional it appears to be to us in the here and now.”

That said, understand something I have learned is super important and really applicable,

“YAHAVAH will ultimately bring all who choose to walk by faith to an even greater understanding of His Knowledge of Good and Evil but only in and through His tutoring them, His leading them, His timing, His lessons and through His protracted processes which He uses to mature us.”

To turn from Him, and to look to the short-cut approach for this knowledge, again, is akin to turning to idols, spiritual and material, and trusting them to govern and guide us.

The Nature of Human Idolatry

Now, before talking specifically and in greater detail about this forbidden tree of knowledge of Good and Evil (in all of its forms) understand something central to our make-up as fleshly fallen carnal human beings – something we really have a hard time getting around.

“Human beings naturally love idols.”

Because idols are in such abundance and present themselves in both the physical world and from the spiritual world, they are almost too overwhelming to resist altogether.

It’s one reason we all have sin and fall short – our nature seeks such. I am not only talking about the obvious idols like our entertainers or substances or money or materialism.

I’m talking about very simple items all humans need to even stay alive.

Think about it – can we truly have our eye on Him alone when we are really hungry or really thirsty? Very hard to do.

Our natural desires for sexual fulfillment almost make idolaters out of us all – especially when our hormones are at a peak.

This natural trait is part of being human.

Think about our material comforts too – a comfy bed when we are exhausted, a roof over our head to shelter us in inclement weather – all very normal, albeit NATURAL, drivers, right?

This is why anciently religions focused on fasting, living ascetic lives, and religious renunciations focused on submitting the flesh to abstinence, self-flagellations, monastic living, minimalism, and other forms of fleshly self-governance.

Early church historian Eusebius reports that the church leader Origen had a physician actually castrate him as a means to rid his life of carnal temptation so he could work more freely among females.

But this is all religion. Why? Our FLESH will never be good – ever. It will always choose something for self, something other than God, when the rubber meets the road.

God’s Solution to Human Weakness

The fact of the matter is this is one reason God became incarnate! To clothe himself in flesh and overcome all of these natural drivers given to all us which our first parents failed to do.

Because of Him we are free from the onus of our natural idolatrous appeals to self and the flesh that surrounds us.

Religion is always focusing on reforming the flesh or subjugating the flesh while ignoring the fact that it is “by the Spirit that we put to death the deeds of the body” not by or through our flesh or what is called, “self-will,” self-renunciation,” or self-improvement.”

So, it is looking to God and God alone in faith, trusting in Him alone to fortify us spiritually with His power and strength, we refuse any and all other intermediaries that promise to do the job.

The Temptation of Knowledge

Nevertheless, the fruit our first parents chose to eat, KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL, steps in and tries to usurp the role of God, promising huge even visible and tangible returns for those who partake of it in the form of worldly wisdom, health and wealth, power and fame and we see these results as evidence that they are of or from God!

They are not!

It is all from the knowledge obtained when our first parents ate of the forbidden tree.

Some of that knowledge is intellectual, some of it is spiritual, emotional, social, and educational.

Some of it operates on Dark powers, some from Good principles – none of it lends to faith – all of it, Good or Evil – leads to death.

Here’s the paradoxical thing about us human beings – even in our desire to have God teach us to overcome our flesh by the Spirit, most of us, even the most “spiritually inclined,” (because we are so prone to idolatry) will allow ourselves to insert tangible, material, human ways or means into our lives as things representing Him or things that we justify as worthy additions to Him.

Common Forms of Idolatry

These things include:

Men and women who claim to be prophets, apostles, teachers, leaders, pastors, reverends, gurus and/or spiritual guides who claim to somehow have “authority” to speak for or act on God’s behalf and/or to even speak to God on OUR behalf!

They also include:

Religious systems that offer proprietary memberships, rites, rituals, and access to secret knowledge, secret passwords, social groups, clubs, and human priesthoods – all of which claim to make people more lovable, more worthy, and more acceptable to God.

They also include:

Icons, medallions, artifacts, good-luck charms, incantations, special prayers, sacred books – including the Bible, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, and may call upon dark spirits, evil orders, fallen angels, and gods – even in the world of Christianity.

It’s our NATURE to pursue them. They “feel so right,” “seem so logical,” and appear so normal to our desires to reach and serve Him.

But they don’t!

He wants us to look to Him directly without any intermediaries involved, as evidenced by the first Tree.

He wants us to choose to do this by faith.

The Choice Between Faith and Idolatry

Ultimately, in this age, every single person has to make the choice to seek and follow Him and Him alone (while refusing all others no matter what they offer them) or to choose to dine on a fruit that leads to death (meaning, an absence of light and real living).

Because of the finished work of His Son opening the way to God His Father completely, God is calling to all to come to Him directly, by and through His Spirit, and to more and more reject anything and everything that others justify as worthy or rightful intercessors.

Hard as this may be to believe, this includes religion and it includes adoration of the Bible itself.

AGAIN, WHY?

Because they are all idols and quite frankly, they all lead to some “form of death” to the direct access we all have to Him.

Understanding the Allure of Knowledge

Understanding these principles (made plain through the scripture) we are better equipped to comprehend the allure, false validation, and seduction of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which Eve consumed.

Ask yourselves, what caused Eve to consume the Tree God told her not to eat? She saw that:

“the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise,”

Break these enticements down with me. First, she saw that the fruit

“was good for food.”

It had a practical application to their existence. It functioned. It made sense. It was material. It could feed them and sustain their physical lives. Her focus therefore was on material mortal existence in this world, on filling the flesh – this was the first benefit she saw in it.

Then,

“It was pleasant to the eyes.”

It was impressive to her, it looked good, it was “appealing” to her perspective of beauty. It seduced her. We note that the Bread of Life, meaning, Yeshua Himself, was the opposite, according to Isaiah.

That He was not handsome and He had NOTHING that man would desire of Him.

Just look at what religion even does with His very image – they make Him pleasant to the eyes, don’t they? Look at that picture behind me!

He wasn’t and for good reason.

Finally, and probably the biggie, the fruit appealed to her pride as we read,

“and it would make one wise.”

How? By giving her knowledge she otherwise would have had to obtain by trusting directly in God. This was a straight-up appeal to pride. We KNOW things! Things like how to make money, how to thrive in this world, how to compete, and dominate, and make ourselves a name.

It brought the Pride Man believes they are entitled to have, self-made men, men and women of power, insights, secret knowledge, right?

It promised to fill her with knowledge she lacked, which is both very admirable and very seductive to walking by faith.

Conclusion

In the end, she ate the fruit because it had the capacity to make her equal to God.

Our LDS friends, from the top down to those who study, embrace the notion that Eve made a good choice to eat of that forbidden tree.

My friends, my brothers, and sisters in the LDS institution, there is no teaching more diabolical than this.

And we will continue to talk on this point next week.

Let’s open up the phone lines

220-222-hotm

And while we wait, let’s consider some things orbiting around us.