In December, the funerals of 20 young children took place in Newtown, Conn. Many seek closure to the tragedy, but our nation continues to be mired in questions about the cause of the Sandy Hook shooting. How could this massacre happen? Gun laws, mental health care, and our violent culture are all topics being bantered about as problems and solutions to what happened in Newtown.
Could the monstrous actions of a deranged 20-year-old have anything to do with his family environment? How strong was Adam Lanza’s relationship with his father? What impact did the fracturing relationship and divorce of his father and mother have?
No one answers these questions. Even the experts don’t know the cause. Why can’t we find the answers to keep our marriages and families united? Why don’t we know how to raise happy, caring, responsible children? How have we produced children who murder women and six-year-olds en masse?
The Real Cause
In a timely article about the two trees in Genesis, Gerald Flurry shows us why we suffer such troubles today: “Our knowledge is not solving our problems. In fact, as our knowledge increases, so do our problems. Clearly, something is missing in our knowledge. The reason we cannot gain ground on these civilization-destroying troubles is that we fail to confront their real cause. That cause is rooted in the very foundation of our civilization—a foundation well-documented in history.”
Mr. Flurry’s article details the great paradox we experience today. We’ve made incredible advancements in technology and physical knowledge. Yet at the same time our social problems are increasing. In order to identify the real cause of our problems today, we must look at the roots of our civilization. This early biblical history reveals the real cause our world is plagued with violence and division.
The Important Choice
When God created Adam and Eve, He gave the necessary instructions to achieve happy, successful lives. This God-given, fundamental instruction revolves around a simple, but important, choice between two trees.
One tree represented an independent, self-reliant attitude and approach to life. Man could decide for himself what was right and wrong, what was good and evil. He could develop his own knowledge through observation, experimentation and human reasoning. This choice was a mixture of good and evil. It emphasized self and the way of get. Choosing this independent way of life also meant separating himself from God’s law, and it made him vulnerable to a very different, very powerful spiritual influence. The fruit of this tree looks good, but it leads to suffering—and, ultimately, death (Proverbs 14:12).
Eating from the other tree represented not independence, but dependence. The tree of life symbolized relying on God and living life in submission to His law and government. This choice yields to God’s spiritual influence. It relies on His Holy Spirit. Choosing this tree actually means rejecting reliance on our own understanding and depending instead on God’s revealed knowledge (Proverbs 3:5). This choice requires loving God and loving others. It is a give way of life! When we choose to eat from this tree, our lives, marriages, families and communities become stronger. This choice—that almost nobody makes—leads to unity, peace, abundance, happiness and true liberty. It ultimately leads to eternal life!
Dealing With the Tragic Effects
If you wonder which choice Adam and Eve made, just look at what has happened. Their firstborn son had no access to guns or violent entertainment. He didn’t need mental healthcare. Genesis 4:6-8 show what a strong influence the tree of the knowledge of good and evil had on the world’s first son. Even though the Creator Himself tried to work with Cain, he became a murderer and a liar. He followed the same way of life as his parents—and mankind has done the same ever since.
In his book Mystery of the Ages, Herbert W. Armstrong explained the all-important history of what happened after Adam and Eve chose the wrong tree:
When God “drove out the man” from the Garden of Eden, and barred reentrance—lest he go back and receive eternal life in sin (Genesis 3:22-24)—God pronounced sentence!
God said, in effect: “You have made the decision for yourself and the world that shall spring from you. You have rejected me as the basic source of knowledge—you have rejected power from me through my Spirit to live the righteous way—you have rebelled against my command and my government—you have chosen the ‘getting,’ ‘taking’ way of Satan. Therefore I sentence you and the world you shall beget to 6,000 years of being cut off from access to me and my Spirit—except for the exceedingly few I shall specially call. And that few shall be called for special service preparatory for the Kingdom of God. They shall be required to do what you have failed to do—reject, resist and overcome Satan and his ways, and follow the ways of my spiritual law.
“Go, therefore, Adam, and all your progeny that shall form the world, produce your own fund of knowledge. Decide for yourself what is good and what is evil. Produce your own educational systems and means of disseminating knowledge, as your god Satan shall mislead you. Form your own concepts of what is god, your own religions, your own governments, your own lifestyles and forms of society and civilization. In all this Satan will deceive your world with his attitude of self-centeredness—with vanity, lust and greed, jealousy and envy, competition and strife and violence and wars, rebellion against me and my law of love.”
The choice of our first parents has influenced every aspect of society. It affects our families and children most of all, the basis of society. We witness the suffering daily. Losing 20 children is heartrending, but think about the millions of unborn children who lose their lives each year through abortion, the millions of children growing up in broken homes, the neglect, the lack of proper education, instruction and love that would help our children develop stable, responsible and fulfilling lives. It is a vicious cycle—and, as God warned Adam and Eve, it ends in death.
Something is dreadfully wrong with man’s thinking! (Jeremiah 17:9). He continues to reject God’s influence, disobeys His laws, and wonders why he is still unhappy.
Choose the Tree of Life
God taught Adam and Eve His purpose for mankind after He created them. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). We are made in God’s likeness, which means we look like God—in our features and physical shape. God also made us in His image! This means we were made to think and act like God—to love, care and share like God—to give like God! So not only did God create us to appear like Him, but also to have thoughts and motives like His!
The two trees represent a simple choice: Do we want to be like God, or do we want to “do our own thing” independent from Him? Do we want to teach our children and our families to forsake their own ways and obey God’s law of love, or do we value “independence” and rebellion more?
Almost every human being since Adam and Eve has chosen the wrong tree and has fallen under Satan’s influence. Our entire world—including the tragic outrage of Sandy Hook and millions of things much more subtle—has branched out from this evil tree.
All because mankind is cut off from the tree of life! (For more information on this subject request our free reprint article, Mystery of the Two Trees).
However, from the beginning, God desired that all mankind choose the tree of life (2 Peter 3:9). His plan offers that chance to everyone, even as our society continues to make the wrong choices, and has past the point of no return.
The tree of life is available to the select few whom God works with today. Individually, those whom He calls, can make the right choice now. God shares with them His Holy Spirit and the understanding and power needed to change lives. But soon the tree of life will be available for everyone!
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them” (Ezekiel 36:26-27). What a beautiful prophecy and promise! God’s purpose is to change our hearts, the way that we think, so that we can learn the right way to live. Mankind will soon learn to do it God’s way.
When God opens up the tree of life to all mankind, and man begins to choose the tree of life, there will be no more broken families with neglected children, no more senseless violence and murder and no more Sandy Hooks. The blessings that will flow from a way of life that is rooted in God’s Holy Spirit, will be astounding beyond human comprehension. May God speed that day!