Joshua 24:25 So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.

Yesterday I said I had complicated don’t. God said don’t and Adam did. It is as simple as that. At what point do we have to understand motivations, thinking, communications, emotions or external influences to substitute obedience with personal judgment? The issue came down to disobedience and nothing else. Why wasn’t God’s judgment sufficient?

Here in 24:25 the people have just told Joshua that they would obey the word of God. Joshua now sets a covenant, statutes and ordinances before his people. Why wasn’t obedience to God’s word enough?

Joshua is demonstrating the inherent nature of creating complexity and it seems to be prevalent in all of us to some degree or another.

My simple answer, as simple as I can make it for general understanding is this; Adam and Eve walked with God in the Garden, in close personal relationship, without the written word I rely on so heavily. In His presence is a complex concept upon which I rely on His written Word to achieve. Apart from it, I have no experience upon which I can trust myself. Without His Word I am vanity run amok.

I didn’t always have God’s written Word to guide me. There was a time I was ignorant of His Word. There was however an inane desire to complicate things and it manifested itself at an early age. We have said it and we have heard it and we have all had to deal with it. Why? Why? Why?

Immaturity questions maturity because it lacks understanding. Now that I am mature I have the ability to examine my own lack of understanding. What was it I did not understand then, that I have come to understand now with this God given maturity?

Loneliness.

Genesis 2:17 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.

K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Students

I was listening this morning to an old sermon about security of the believer. In the opening section he mentioned that mankind by nature likes to complicate things. I had not thought of that being a natural state, one we are born with and develop with experience without giving much thought to why it happens.

Here in Genesis 2:17 is the simplicity of command. Don’t. You cannot get much simpler than that. Now look to see what happens next.

Genesis 3:1-6 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman 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, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Eve didn’t name the tree only that it was in the middle of the garden. She said she was not to touch it. God never said don’t touch. Where did Eve get her instructions and who had the correct understanding of what God said? Did Adam add don’t touch because he could not trust Eve to obey?

I just complicated don’t.