Looking at the the knowledge of good and evil and the effect it can have on our lives.  

The one thing God warned Adam about in the garden of Eden was eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  

If the one thing God warned Adam about was eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  We don’t want to be ignorant of the effect the knowledge of good and evil has on us and the way it tries to bring forth the fruit of death in our lives.  

When Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil what happened is his conscience was filled with the knowing of what is good and what is evil.  

What is the knowledge of good and evil?  

Before Adam’s conscience was filled with the knowledge of good and evil, the scriptures say he was naked and not ashamed.  He was like those 3 little chimpanzees.  You know the ones that see no evil, hear no evil, think no evil.  

Adam didnt see anything wrong with being naked.  Its not that he couldnt see he wasnt wearing clothes its just that nothing was telling him that it wasnt right for him to not be clothed.  Its like with a toddler.  They can run outside naked and they feel no shame at all.  Its not that they dont see they arent wearing any clothes its that their conscience hasnt been filled with a knowledge that says there is something wrong with not being clothed. 

At its root the knowledge of good and evil is that life is good and death is evil.  Its good to have life and its evil not to have life.  Its right to have life and its wrong not to have life.  The knowledge of good and evil says the thing that would be just is for me to have life, and it is unjust should I find myself in the place where I dont have what is needed for life.  Thats why Adam tried to cloth himself after he ate from the tree.  His conscience was filled with the knowing that its good to be clothed with life and its evil not to be clothed with life.  

To be clothed in the scriptures is to be clothed with eternal life.  Paul talked about desiring for his mortal body to be clothed in immortality.  To not be clothed would be to not have life. 

Now should a person walk by that knowledge.  Should a persons life be shaped by that knowledge it can branch off into them making their own judgments about what equals life and what equals death in many different scenarios.  If you just look at politics.  One side says their way is unto life and the other sides way is unto death and they go about to establish their way and destroy the other way because they say it is unto death.  

In Genesis 3 God says behold the man is become as one of us, knowing good and evil.  What is the good and evil that God knows about?  

If you look back to genesis 1 God said let there be light and the scriptures say light appeared in the earth and separated the darkness and then God said it was good.  God said it was good for the light to enter the earth that was filled with darkness and to separate the darkness.  The light entered the earth and made a distinction between itself and the darkness.  The light is good and the darkness is evil.  

Light is a sign of life.  Darkness is a sign of death.  The scriptures talk about the earth being shadowed by death.  Which means for there to be darkness in the earth on account of death.  

The apostle John says in Jesus was life and the life was a light unto men.  And the light shined in the midst of the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.   The life of Jesus shined as a light in the midst of a world that was shadowed with the darkness of death.  God saw the death was evil and the appearing of His life in Jesus was good.

Have you ever wondered why we dont like death, or tribulation, or calamity?  Why does it bother us so much to see injustice and tribulation?  Why does it agitate our soul?  Why does it bother us to the very core of our being?  Why arent we just indifferent and like no big deal?  

Where did that come from?  No one has to tell us death and injustice is evil.  We feel it from before we can remember.  It isnt a learned thing.  We didnt need a law to tell us not to murder in order to know murder was evil.  

Why aren’t we like Adam before he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil when he was naked and not clothed with life and yet not ashamed or filled with fear and anxiety?  Its because of the knowledge of good and evil.  The reason we are so moved by tribulation and injustice is because of the knowledge of good and evil.

Why do you think we can feel condemned if we see the works of the flesh in our lives?  Its because we know those things are the fruit of death and not the fruit of life and so we judge them to mean we are separated from what we need to have life. 

Why do you think Paul said the gentiles who didn’t have the law were a law unto themselves.  Their conscience bearing witness to the fruit manifesting in their lives, and either condemning or approving them?  The gentiles didn’t have the law but their conscience was filled with the knowledge of good and evil, and their conscience condemned them or approved them based on whether they judged themselves to be possessing life or not.  

Now what effect does it have for our conscience to be filled with the knowledge of good and evil?  How does it affect our lives and the fruit we see manifesting in our lives.  

The knowledge of good and evil causes you to judge your life as good or evil by the fruit you see manifesting.  It fills your mind with all the things you say arent right.  It fills your mind with all the things you say are inconsistent with life, and tells you if you can just make those things straight then you can have the life that you need.  

What happens is we see that life is good and death is evil.  And that knowledge sends us off to try and establish the life we say is good.  It sends us off to try and eradicate what is contrary to the life we say is good. 

The knowledge of good and evil is full of labors and annoyances.  It uncovers our nakedness by telling us we dont have what is needed for life.  It points to everything that can be seen in our lives and the world around us that is not consistent with what is needed for us to have the life we say is right.  It agitates our souls by filling our conscience with all the things that are contrary to the kind of life we long for.  

We need a certain kind of life.  Not just any Ol’ life will do.  We need the kind of life that within it is contained all that is just.  We need the kind of life that is able to serve us with peace and love and joy.  

Now in the day we judge the life we have to be lacking in that which is just, and lacking in the ability to serve us with peace and love and joy.  That judgment will fill us with annoyances and agitation and try to compel us to look to the strength we possess in our own hand to try and attain to the kind of life we say is just.  

The knowledge of good and evil uncovered Adams nakedness.  Once he knew it was good to have life and it was evil not to have life he was aware that he wasn’t clothed with life.  His nakedness now carried with it a judgment of being evil.  It carried with it a judgment that it wasnt right for him to be naked.  It carried with it the judgement his life was lacking in the way of having what was right or needed.  And that took him captive to trying to be clothed upon by the sweat of his brow.  

Listen if you see something that is contrary to life and contrary to you having the life you say is good, it will try and excite your members with carnal passions.  It will try and give birth to a lust for life in your heart.  It will try and cause you to lust after life through the strength contained in your own hand.  The problem is the strength contained in your own hand can never cloth upon you with the life you say is right.  It will always leave you knowing your nakedness because the only life that can satisfy you is a life that is incorruptible and without beginning or end.  

Cain was living by the knowledge of good and evil ... he saw it was good to be exalted and it was evil not to be exalted.  When he wasnt exalted because he tried to be exalted by his ability to produce the fruit of Gods life.  The knowledge he had of what is good and what is evil agitated his soul.  It excited his members with a lust for life.  It caused him to look to the strength contained in his own hand to be exalted and the fruit that brought forth in him was the fruit of death.  He murdered Abel in an attempt to be exalted because the flesh doesnt possess within itself the ability to exalt you to life. 

The question is now that we have the knowledge of good and evil are we going to live by that knowledge?  Are we going to look to that knowledge to be the power behind our lives being established.  Are we going to look to that knowledge to establish for ourselves the kind of life that contains what is just and able to serve us with peace?  Certainly Not.  

We can discern that it is full of labors and annoyances.  We can discern that it can only serve us with thorns and thistles. 

We can see the effect the knowledge of good and evil had on Adam.  We see it excited his members with a passion to attain to life by uncovering his nakedness.  We can see it told Adam he didnt have what was needed for life and through that it agitated his soul unto laboring to try and cloth himself with life.  We see his labors couldnt produce a just life for him.  We see Adams labors couldnt produce the kind of life that could put him to rest or serve him with peace.  We see that in all his laboring he was never able to cleanse himself from the wound of death.  We see that through Adams life being taken captive by the knowledge of good and evil all the fruit that manifested in him was all the time the fruit of death. 

Heb 5:14  says those who are skilled in the word of Gods righteousness have their senses exercised and are able to discern both good and evil.

This isn’t the same thing as living by the knowledge of good and evil.  This isnt saying that we are now able to find life by the knowledge of good and evil.  Its also not saying we will discern what people around us are doing and decide whether it is right or not.  

Its saying those who are skilled in the word of Gods righteousness towards them are able to discern that its evil to look to the strength contained in their own hand to be sanctified from sin, and its good to look to Gods lamb to be sanctified from sin. 

Hebrews 12 says looking unto Jesus the beginning and end of the faith we live by.  Hebrews is saying that because of the faith that came in the person of Jesus we can now discern the knowledge that is good and the knowledge that is evil.  We can now discern between the wisdom that is from above and the wisdom that is from below.  

We can see the wisdom that agitates our soul, and causes us to look to the strength contained in our hand to be sanctified from sin, is evil.  Meaning we can see it is unto death and the manifestation of the fruit of death.  And we can also see that the wisdom that puts our flesh to rest and causes us to cease from our works to be sanctified from sin is good.  Meaning we can see it is unto life and the manifestation of the fruit of life.  

Abel discerned it was good to look to Gods strength to be exalted unto life, and it was evil to look to the strength contained in his own hand to be exalted unto life.  He saw that which is unto life is to look to the strength contained in Gods hand, and that which is unto death is to look to the strength contained in his own hand.  

Jesus knew good and evil.  Jesus knew death was evil.  He knew the death he was dying at the cross was unjust.  But he didn’t live by the knowledge of good and evil.  Jesus discerned the knowledge of good and evil to be full of labors.  He saw it couldnt sanctify him from the wound of death.  Jesus judged the idea that he could be clothed with life through his own labor as evil.  He saw it was sensual and devilish and full of bitter envying and strife .....  Jesus discerned that the strength contained in his dying flesh did not possess the ability to cloth him with the life he longed for.  He lived by the knowledge of God.  He saw Gods promise of life was full of rest.  He lived by the knowledge that within Gods hand was the strength for him to be cleansed from the wound of death.  He lived by the knowledge that within Gods hand was the strength for him to be exalted above the injustice of the cross.  

Now that the knowledge of good and evil is in the earth, the way we find salvation from the agitation that comes to our souls; the way we find salvation from the fruit of death we see in the world is through the knowledge of the Son of God.  We discern the knowledge of good and evil to be from below and evil and unto death, and we judge the faith that Jesus brought into the earth through his death and resurrection to be from above and good and unto life.  We walk in the Spirit of what God has done in Christ to serve us with eternal life, and that saves us from the effect that death and the fruit of death has on us.

The world is all the time trying to get us to weigh our lives in the balance by the good and evil we see.

I can see there are a lot of evil devices and injustices in this world.  I can see there are a lot of evil principalities and powers in this world.  And when I see those things I can think they’re not right and are contrary to the kind of life i need to experience peace, and they can try to uncover my nakedness.  In that place I dont want to be intimate with my nakedness I want to be intimate with the knowing that God has swaddled me with His life through Christ.  

The life we live now in the world we live by the knowledge of the Son of God and not the knowledge of good and evil.  When we weigh our lives in the balance we weigh them in light of what we see in Jesus.  We see in Jesus that now we possess eternal life.  We see in Jesus we possess a life that will vindicate us from the injustices of the world.  We see in Jesus we possess a life that will vindicate us from every accusation and evil report that comes against us in this world.  We see in Jesus we possess a life that will justify us and exalt us above everything that seeks to tear us down and harm our lives.  We see in Jesus we possess the life that is good.  We see in Jesus we possess a life that is full of that which is just and able to serve us with the peace and the love and the joy that is good.