Who Do We Worship?

The doctrine I am speaking of is the two trees. The two trees doctrine is not preached very often in the churches of God anymore; however, the two trees is the foundation of what the ministry teaches. The church has 1/3 of church doctrine built on the foundation of the two trees. This is the fifth book I have written. There were over 300 pages (which is unreadable) to begin with, the book I sent LCG was 70 pages, but that is still too long. I will try to make this book shorter than that, hitting only the high points that disprove what is being preached with the two trees and prove the origins of the idea of the two trees.

Disproving the two trees is not the problem, there is no proof of the two trees idea in the Bible. The problem is with the deception that the two trees idea was a revelation to Mr. Armstrong. The two trees doctrine is Mr. Armstrong’s version of the Protestant’s inherited sin doctrine. God did not reveal this knowledge to Mr. Armstrong, but everything Mr. Armstrong set as the foundation of the two trees comes from the Catholic original sin, the Protestant inherited sin, and Jewish tradition. The Catholic original sin has been around for thousands of years, the Jewish tradition goes back farther than that, and the Protestant’s inherited sin goes back to at least the 1500’s. Here is the layout Mr. Armstrong gave as the two trees doctrine.

The two trees represent the two ways of life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was Satan’s tree and represented Satan’s way of life. The tree of Life is God’s tree. The tree of Life represents God’s way of life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil teaches a mixture of good and evil. Adam could freely eat of every tree in the garden including the tree of Life, he just could not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God could not allow man to eat of His tree (the tree of Life) after man ate of Satan’s tree, so God removed man from the tree of life. God removed Adam from the garden and placed His angels with a flaming sword to guard the tree of life. With the tree of Life being God’s way of life, this means God cut off the Holy Spirit to mankind. Mr. Armstrong preached God, called out a very few people and blinded the rest of the world in this age. Mr. Armstrong preached we take from the tree of life while in the flesh and will eat of the tree of life in the kingdom.

Here are the Jewish teachings, the Tree of Knowledge and the eating of its fruit represents the beginning of the mixture of good and evil together. Before that time, the two were separate, and evil had only a nebulous existence in potential. While free choice did exist before eating the fruit, evil existed as an entity separate from the human psyche, and it was not in human nature to desire it. Eating and internalizing the forbidden fruit changed this and thus was born the yeitzer hara, the Evil Inclination.

The tree of life is mentioned in the Book of Genesis; it is distinct from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were driven out of the Garden of Eden. Remaining in the garden, however, was the tree of life. To prevent their access to this tree in the future, Cherubim with a flaming sword were placed at the east of the garden. (Genesis 3:22-24)
Christianity[edit]

In Catholicism teaching, Augustine of Hippo taught that the tree should be understood both symbolically and as a real tree – similarly to Jerusalem being both a real city and a figure of Heavenly Jerusalem. [15] Augustine underlined that the fruits of that tree were not evil by themselves, because everything that God created was good (Gen 1:12). It was the disobedience of Adam and Eve, who had been told by God not to eat of the tree (Gen 2:17), that caused disorder in the creation,[16] thus humanity inherited sin and guilt from Adam and Eve’s sin.[17]
During the time within the Garden of Eden the Tree of Life had little prominence within the story until now. God states that if Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the Tree of Life they would regain their immortality and this combined with the access to the powers gained from eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, this would place them on the same level as God and the Angels. ‘Now he must be prevented from putting forth his hand and also taking from the Tree of Life, for He can eat it and live forever!’ (Genesis, 3:22).

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil goes far beyond being a simple tree of a particular flora. Although it was indeed a specific kind of tree with an edible fruit (to be considered in this work), this tree represented far more than a natural fruit forbidden to man. By its own name we understand that partaking of this tree was to bring a knowledge of both good and evil. What could this mean?

The book of Genesis shows that God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They were allowed to eat the fruit of all trees, including the tree of life, but not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2-3). Eating the fruit of the tree of life represented choosing total reliance on God to show what is good or evil (through His law and Holy Spirit). Eating the fruit of the latter tree represented human beings choosing for themselves what is good and evil, rejecting any direction from God.

Mr. Armstrong has a twist on this, and we will see the twist as we go along but up to this point in the foundation of the two trees is someone else’s idea not Mr. Armstrong’s. These ideas have been around for hundreds of years just going through the list, the two trees are the two ways of life that did not come from Mr. Armstrong. Neither did Adam being allowed to eat of the tree of life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil being Satan’s tree did not come from him. The tree of Life being cut off did not come from Mr. Armstrong. Adam eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil prevented God from allowing Adam to eat of His tree of Life, because man would live in sin forever, that came from someone else.

Catholicism: It was disobedience of Adam and Eve, who had been told by God not to eat of the tree (Gen 2:17), that caused disorder in the creation,[16] thus humanity inherited sin and guilt from Adam and Eve’s sin.[17]

Here is a big one, Mr. Armstrong’s foundation is the Protestant foundation. They are the same at this point in proving the two trees. This is Protestant teaching that has been around for hundreds of years before Mr. Armstrong was born. The two trees doctrine is Mr. Armstrong’s version of inherited sin, and there is no arguing with the facts of the origins of this idea. At this point in the proof of the two trees we find a perfect copy of the Protestant’s inherited sin, showing the two trees foundation is built on the Protestant inherited sin, both ideas teach the same thing at the foundation.

What is inherited sin? I will show an example with this. A few years ago I went back to LCG with all the information I added in the last 12 years with the information I had already shown them years ago. I had finished my book and I was going to send them, so I asked for a meeting with the local minister. I am not going to give lower rank ministers names, only the higher rank ministers will I name by name. After, I met with this local minister, and asked him this very question, WHAT IS INHERITED SIN?

I have learned a lot in 26 years, and I have dealt with this ministry for 10 years and know what they are about. I tested the leadership with Mr. Meredith, and I tested the leadership under Mr. Weston. I did not come into this meeting to hear a minister go around and around, I had 10 years of that. I went into this meeting to test if this man had any knowledge. That is the reason I asked him did he know what inherited sin is? He had some knowledge but not much, so I explained inherited sin in this way. Inherited sin is an Anti-Christ message and the ministry does not teach inherited sin, what the church preaches is inherited punishment. I explained Inherited sin’s belief that mankind all inherited the sin of Adam. It is an Anti-Christ message because Christ could not have come fully in the flesh if He inherited Adam’s sins, so Christ did not inherit sin, so He was not just like us. I told him the church does not believe in inherited sin, the church believes in inherited punishment.

This minister was fast to condemn the Protestant belief of inherited sin, and just as fast to defend his inherited punishment by misquoting Paul. What this man did not know was that I was there to test to see if this was a minister or ministry I am looking for. I explained this to him in the final letter I sent him. There is no such doctrine as inherited punishment. I just made it up to hide the Protestant belief of inherited sin. Inherited sin is inherited sin. It doesn’t matter if we call it by another name like inherited punishment. Inherited punishment is inherited sin. What he did was agree he believed in inherited sin by saying he believed in inherited punishment, because they are the same thing. Inherited sin is the belief we all inherited Adam’s sin, the two trees are the same belief, punishment comes after the sin so there must be a sin to be punished, both ideas say that sin was Adam’s. The two trees and the Protestant inherited sin have the same physical punishments, where the two ideas differ is in the spiritual punishments. The Protestants say the punishment is both physical and spiritual punishment, with the spiritual punishment being eternal hell fire.

The Protestants are wrong about the punishments, and the two trees have much more understanding, but that is not what we are looking at here. The Church has the understanding of the resurrections, but punishments are not what we are looking at, we are looking at the reason for the punishment in the first place, and both ideas say mankind inherited sin from Adam. The two trees are inherited sin and I just proved it to you, so what are you going to do with the information?