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In ancient Roman and Greek mythology, they taught that trees had spirits and that late at night when nobody was around, the trees pulled up their roots and danced and frolicked and played in the moonlight. Of course, no human had ever "seen that happen" because the trees only did so when they were alone and so many mythological beliefs were based upon the faulty logic of "what if it were so?"

I just recently reread the Christian-based science fiction stories of C.S. Lewis called the Chronicles of Narnia where he describes a fictional "another world" in which the trees have spirits and "are alive." And then there was that big oak tree when I was growing up that faced one of the roads that we often drove home on which had a huge knot and twisted trunk that looked very much like an old man's face and of which there was tons of local legends and stories told. Let me just set the record straight -- I don't believe that the physical trees of our world have souls and spirits and secret dances and such -- but I have been thinking about trees as humans, lately. Call it too much time at the office. Call it too many make-believe stories read. Call it too many trips staring at that oak tree as a kid. Call it too many hayrides among Louisiana oaks that looked like they were grabbing at you. Call it too many golf balls knocked off the trees at the golf course. Whatever the reason, I've been thinking about "men as trees." When I prayed this week for direction for these services, I couldn't get that phrase out of my mind.

The phrase is scriptural. We read Mark's account of Jesus healing the blind man who required a second touch to be completely healed. The first time Jesus touched him, the blind man only received a partial revelation of his sight. When Jesus asked him what he saw, the blind man replied "I see men as trees, walking." Jesus then healed him completely. I know that the point of this story is to teach us that sometimes we don't get everything that we need with just one experience with Jesus in a given area of our life. Some people receive the Holy Ghost or respond in one service and when their life is not completely and totally healed as it should be, they give up on Christianity. But most times, they just need a second touch. We ought to have faith to be honest with God and if we have not received everything that we need we ought to allow God to touch us again and again until we are complete!

I also know that the man's reply is recorded to show us that obviously he had at one time had sight and lost it because he knew what the images of trees looked like. And yet, the phrase got me looking around at scripture and I began to realize that the scriptures are full of references to comparing men to trees. It's almost like God created trees to teach us about ourselves in many ways, or at least you could get that impression from reading the many scriptures on the subject. Hundreds and hundreds of time throughout God's Word, man is compared to trees and vice versa.

There is an interesting scripture found in Moses' instructions of dealing with trees in the Promised Land. It's found in the book of Deuteronomy:

What Moses was saying was that God did not want the Israeli army cutting down all of the trees to serve as battering rams and such when they attacked a city. The Egyptians and Amorites were known for cutting down all of the trees outside of a city to use in the war and to also destroy any source of fruit and such and God wanted Israel to be different. The enemy wanted to destroy trees, but God's people were to preserve them as much as possible. This scripture is interesting because there is a phrase that gives translators fits. In the original Hebrew it says "you shall not cut them down, for the tree of the field is man's life." This is a difficult passage because we know that trees aren't literally men and so translators have to figure out what is meant by such a phrase. "for the tree of the field is man's life." Most of them rephrase it in translation to say something like "men live by eating the fruit of trees" or by putting it in a question "are the trees in the fields human so that you should attack them?" And that may be close to what the phrase meant, but literally it reads in the Hebrew: "for the tree of the field is man's life." I think God was trying to teach us something else, however, and not that you and I are trees, but that we can learn a lot of important things by -- like the blind man -- temporarily looking at men as trees. I think that God intended for trees to be living object lessons of our spiritual lives, and for that fact, God didn't want Israel cutting down and destroying all of the trees in the Promised Land.

Some of the similarities between men and trees ought to be obvious. Bro. Dillon preached from the scripture in Ecclesiastes:

And so we find that a tree falls in the direction that it was leaning and where it falls it stays and such is how men's lives ends. You will die and fall into a grave either right with God or not right with God and that will be determined by how you were leaning in life. And when you fall, you will stay where you fell.

On the other end of life, we can see that as a tree, we start spiritually as a seed that must grow in order to be what we were intended to be. Jesus said that we needed to have faith "as a grain of mustard seed" which is the smallest seed and yet produces the largest tree of all the herbs. In other words, like trees, men must take their faith and plant it in one place and allow it to be watered by the rain of the Spirit and allow it to grow to become what God wants them to become! We start out small, but we should not remain insignificant but grow into greatness in God's kingdom. And everyone has the ability to do God's Will and be what God's design says that they should be, but not everyone plants their faith and grows up in God with the nutrients of the Holy Ghost rain! Not everyone allows the seed of the Word of God to fall on good ground in their heart. And living for God is a growing process. Such are some of the most basic lessons that can be gleaned from "seeing men as trees."

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You also can't study "men as trees" in the Bible without quickly coming to the importance of praise. We preach often about the Passover and the Day of Atonement and the tremendous lessons that can be learned from those Old Testament festivals, but we tend to forget about the Feast of Tabernacles. Within this feast, God commanded Israel to do something unique:

They were to offer God fruit, because that represents giving of their first fruits. Most of us understand that, but let's go on. They were also commanded to take the branch of palm trees and praise God by waving them around and rejoicing with them. Palms represent "good times" in the Bible. When traveling through the desert, it was a welcome relief to see palms because that meant that refreshing water was near. When Jesus was entering the city of Jerusalem as King, His disciples were so excited about it that they began to rip palm branches from the trees and wave them crying out "Hosannah!" He had just raised Lazarus from the dead. He had been doing many mighty miracles. It was a time of excitement. It was a time of "highs." And so they praised Him with the palm branches.

Let me say this: it is appropriate to praise God when things are going good. We ought to be thankful when God does something great for us! We ought to give Him praise. We ought to show our gratitude with palms.

But Israel was also commanded to praise God with willow tree branches. That would be the willow trees known as "weeping willows" because they hang droopy and sad looking. Willows represent "bad times" or "times of sadness" in the Bible. We find that in captivity in Babylon, Israel was so depressed that they would not sing the Lord's songs and so that they "hung their harps upon the willows." They were in bad times. They were mourning.

But Israel was commanded to "rejoice" with palm branches AND with willow branches! They were to rejoice in the good times and in the bad times! Their praise was to be based not upon their own present circumstances but upon God's greatness, which doesn't change from day to day! Therefore, whether they found a palm branch, or a willow in their hand, they were to praise Him!

When you see men as trees, there are times when we will see each other and ourselves as "palms." There will be times where the praise comes naturally and where we feel as if we are in an oasis of God's power. But there will be times of mourning also, but can I remind you that even in those times, God is worthy to be praised! If you see yourself as a palm today, praise Him! If you see yourself as a willow, praise Him! He's worthy of all of the praise, in good times and in bad!

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In our other text, we find a very familiar passage and one that Pentecostal preachers like to preach from though not necessarily because of "trees."

This is the scripture from Isaiah that Jesus read in the temple to introduce Himself and begin His earthly ministry. It's a good scripture and Jesus said that He fulfilled this scripture. That means that the true purpose for which Jesus has come is so that He could preach good news to those who were able to receive it, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to those who are captive, and to open the prisons of those who are bound, to proclaim that now is the time for God to move in your life. To comfort all that are mourning, and then to offer us an exchange program! Jesus is willing to give those that mourn in the church, beauty for ashes, the oil of joy in place of their sorrow, and a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness! It's more than just a song that we sing, but you can trade in your depression, heaviness, and mourning for beauty, joy, and praise because that was the purpose for which Jesus came! But it's a trade program. If you are not willing to give up the depression, He won't give you the joy. You've got to be willing to drop your worry and heaviness in exchange for what He wants to do in your life! You've got to trade Him, but what a trade! Don't leave here holding onto your trials and worries, but exchange them for true contentment in Jesus Christ today! Somebody needs to make up in your mind to trade in your spirit of heaviness for a garment of praise!

That's a good sermon in itself, but we tend to focus on the good things that Jesus came to do and forget to read the rest of the verse that says why He is willing to make such a trade. God is willing to do such great things in man's life so "that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD." Ahhhh: you were wondering what this had to do with the subject! God blesses us and does great things in our lives because He desires that we might be called "trees of righteousness." That's an interesting phrase and does not become very clear what is meant until you learn that the Hebrew word for "trees" here is literally "oaks." It's not just any sort of tree, that God wants us to be called unto, but the oak tree that He has in mind. If we are to "see men as trees" as God does, then we should see that He wants us to become "oaks of righteousness."

It has been said that a mighty oak tree is "simply a little nut that stood it's ground" but the true point is this: the oak tree grows into the sturdiest tree on earth. It doesn't win any growing contests for the fastest to a certain height, and in fact it grows the slowest of all the trees, but it lasts and lasts and lasts and a little wind or storm doesn't bother it much. It may shed a little dead weight, but it won't break apart in a crisis.

In front of our house in San Antonio, we had a big ash tree. I thought that the tree was pretty until I actually moved in the house and lived there for a little while. Every time that the wind got a little brisk or we had any thunder storm at all, I would walk out the next morning to see huge branches all over the yard. Branches that had been alive and well the day before. And then I would have to cut them up and pick them up and I would always grumble about it. One day, I got a catalog in the mail that would mail you tree saplings and they had a chart measuring strength and rate of growth. On the one chart, the ash was one of the fastest growing trees and the oak was the slowest grower. And on the other chart, their positions were reversed with the ash being the weakest and wimpiest and the oak being the most lasting. I learned a valuable lesson as to why my ash tree was always falling apart in a little wind or storm.

As trees are, so are men and women living for God. Never forget that it's not the person who starts out the best or the fastest that is important to God. It's not the person who first shows the most potential or shows the leaves of the most talent that God's interested in. God cares less on "how fast you grew up" and more about "what you are when you've grown up." I'm preaching to some of you that when you received the Holy Ghost or first started coming to church, you didn't "get the things of God" as fast as some around you. It took you longer to learn the principles and things that seemed to come so naturally for others, took you a while to link up with and it seems that you have to struggle longer and work harder to have noticeable results in your walk with God compared with other people. You've seen people that seemed to be able to just naturally lock in and didn't have to put as much sacrifice and time into living for God as you have to, and because of all of that, you tend to think of yourself as spiritually inferior and unable to be something great in God's kingdom.

But you need to remember something: the reason that an oak doesn't grow as fast as the other trees is because it spends more of the nutrients that it receives in developing it's root systems. The other trees grow quicker to our eyes because they use more of the nutrients to the trunk and branches and things that are noticeable and apparent to all. The other trees look more impressive the fastest but let a storm come up and what looked so impressive suddenly falls apart! But the oak has it's roots firmly in place before it starts reaching for the heavens! And so a little storm or even a big storm doesn't bother it. It's going to be there because it is firmly grounded and rooted where it is. It ain't moving, it ain't going anywhere, and it will survive!

And so I'm preaching to you! We are to be "oaks of righteousness." And some of you need to realize that it doesn't matter who starts out the best and who looks the most impressive spiritually, but rather God is looking for someone to put some time into their root system. If someone gets the Holy Ghost when they are nine years old, then that's great, but if they then live their life for themselves and allow the gift to be dormant in their lives, then what good did their early start help them? If someone starts out with a bang and grasps easily the first things of God and grows quickly in visible areas, and yet never puts down some good roots in truth, then what good did that fast growth really do? My Bible says that the race is not given to the swift or the strong, but rather to the faithful. It's not a race to see who can get the furthest the fastest, but who can endure until the end! It's not how you start out, but how you finish that matters!

Never forget that the reason that God has anointed us and blessed us and changed us is so that we can be oaks of righteousness that will last and last, and that the only way that we will last is to spend time on the spiritual root system of our life. Time and effort spent developing a prayer life will pay off in the end. Fasting is important. Personal devotion and time with God and His Word is vital. Listening to teaching and learning doctrine may not be the most "appealing" of church activities, but it's the most important! The root system is vital if we are to make it into eternal life. And eventually those who cut corners on the root system and didn't get well grounded into the Word of God and a personal devotion with Jesus Christ and who didn't completely sell out inside, will be revealed because there will be a storm that comes up. There will be a time where the winds of life will blow hard against you and where you will go through a valley of the shadow of death. There will be a catastrophe in your life.

You say, "even with Jesus?" yes, the disciples learned that even with Jesus on your boat, you will have to face some storms. And it's after the storms of life and the time of testing and the time where the winds of adversity has blown that you can look around and tell who had been really putting down some spiritual roots, because they will still be standing -- minus a little dead weight -- and ready to keep growing, but those who used the time of blessings just to build themselves up in the eyes of others and didn't put down an ample root system will find that their world is torn apart and shattered. Those who spent time putting a root system of doctrine and teaching and submission and obedience will come through the storm still praising God and ready to reach for the skies, but those who took shortcuts will be broken and not able to stand as they did before. It all depends upon what kind of tree you become for God. It all depends upon how you use His blessings! Now you can know why the Psalmist wrote:

God wants us to stand tall as "oaks of righteousness!" Put a root system down! Plant yourself by the waters of the Holy Ghost! Weather the storms and keep growing! God didn't save you to live joyful in Him for six months or a few years or so and then die in a storm but rather to live for Him for forever! Keep God's Word in mind day and night, and you are putting down some roots that will keep you through every situation.

Because of their sturdiness and longevity, oak trees were important in the Bible as landmarks for others. They used oak trees to mark an important path or to mark the way to buried treasure. The Word of God and blessings and promises were given several times beneath an oak tree so that when people in future generations saw that tree, they would remember the words spoken underneath it. People knew that if they wanted future generations to remember something, then they had better use a landmark that would last for generations! And so they chose the oak.

And let me throw this in here about praise. You've all seen the pictures of the palm trees bowing almost to the ground during a hurricane. Scientists have discovered a miraculous thing: during that bending and bowing in the storm, the palm trees grow on average over a foot in height! When the storm's over, they are standing taller and stronger than they were before! Every one of us will have a time when our palms of praise on good days will bow down to the winds of adversity, but if your root system is grounded enough, it will not destroy you but will cause you to grow even further in God and after the storm, you will be stronger and standing taller than ever before! That's the power of praising God through your storm will do when you've also put down some strong roots.

God is looking for people who will put down some Apostolic roots and sacrifice and weather some storms in His name and be an Oak of Righteousness in this community while never losing their Palms of Praise! He wants to use your life as a testament to the longevity and the lasting blessings of what God does in the lives of those who are grounded in Him! He wants to take your life and use it as a landmark to show others the path to Him! But what's your root system look like? You've been blessed of God, but to what end? If we were to view men as trees today, then where would you rate when the storm comes!? God's looking for those who will be stable and faithful. He's looking for some men and women to be "oaks of righteousness" and "palms of praise."

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When you consider "men as trees" you must also realize that God is looking for some people that will be fruitful for Him. You were not saved to just sit on a pew and take up space in God's garden, but to produce the fruit of the Spirit in your life. You were saved to reproduce and win others to God. You were saved and blessed so that you could be fruitful and bless God with your life and efforts and gifts. We are to be fruitful.

Jesus taught a parable of a tree in a vineyard that had not produced fruit in three years and so the owner of the garden told the keeper of the garden to "cut it down." The tree was given mercy for one more year so that the keeper could "dung it" and try to get it to produce fruit. And so we teach and believe that it's a definite principle that if you do not begin to produce fruit after three years, then something is dreadfully wrong. Think about it and it applies to the spiritual man. If someone has been in church for three years and still has the same filthy vocabulary as they did when they first got in, something's wrong with their growth. If someone is still battling the same old battles three years in, then something is haywire in their relationship with God. If people have had the Holy Ghost for three years and they are not contributing to the kingdom of God and the church in some way, then something is askew.

But we forget something. That tree was going to be cut down because it had "no fruit." Not even a bud. It was just taking up space for three years. And so for most of us, that doesn't apply to our lives. Let me read you an interesting scripture that does apply:

When Israel planted a fruit tree in the Promised Land, God commanded that they could not eat of it's fruit or even pick the fruit for three years. They were to just let it stay on the vine, ripen, and then fall off. The fourth year, they were to pick the fruit and offer it unto the Lord, and then the fifth year and on they could partake. They were to do this, God said, "to increase its yield for you."

Today, science has born out that God knew what He was talking about (surprised?)! A tree gathers it's nutrients and then decides how to best use those nutrients. It can use nutrients one of two ways: it can strengthen and spread it's root systems with those nutrients, or it can send them to the upper branches and produce fruit. It usually determines this by the season that it's going through. If it's cold outside, the tree puts all of the nutrients toward the root system. If it's warming up, then it begins to send the nutrients to produce fruit. If the fruit if picked, then the tree sends more nutrients to produce even more fruit.

But what God knew is that in the first three years, the tree's root system is not large enough to collect enough nutrients for truly great fruit, neither is it large enough to support a tree heavily laden with fruit. And so God commanded Israel -- "when the first fruit comes, leave it there." In doing so, they would ensure that after producing some semblance of fruit, the rest of the nutrients would go back down and help expand the root system. Therefore, next year there could be more fruit and sweeter. And by the third year, the root system would be in place to produce sweet and good fruit and also to keep growing and do so for many years.

And so I'm preaching to you. The reason God allows you to go through "winter" seasons in your spiritual walk where you don't feel His warmth as you normally did and you feel "spiritually cold" is that He knows that it will drive you back to prayer and back to fasting and back to searching your inner man and putting your roots deeper and your commitment further into His kingdom!

And that's also why He allows your fruit for the first three years to not seem quite up to par and accepted. When people first start trying to do something for God: they teach a Bible Study, or they begin to learn to pray, or they witness, or they start teaching Sunday School, or whatever. Invariably, their first efforts are not quite as good as they should be. They also invariably will go through a time where they feel as if God is not using them as they should be used. He's just "leaving the fruit there" and is not picking it. God does that on purpose because He knows that if your first fruits were perfect and great that you would quickly put all your time and energy into more fruit and eventually you would outgrow your stability with a lot of fruit that aren't as sweet as they potentially can be. So God let's you fall flat on your face when you start trying to produce fruit. He allows you to mess up. He allows you to give your best effort a few times and yet not quite be up to par. He does that because He knows that it will drive you back to prayer and fasting and study. If you allow Him to keep working in your life, you will do some soul searching to see what was wrong and what else you can change to do better. And as you put down an even better root system, then eventually, there comes a day where you are ready to produce the finest fruit that is worthy of God's kingdom and that you will be able to do so for a long amount of time!

Don't get discouraged if you try something and can't do it as well as someone who has been in church longer! Don't get discouraged if you stepped out on faith to try to be fruitful for the kingdom of God and yet fell flat on your face! Just work on your root system again! Don't beat yourself up with the story of the tree being cut down because of a lack of fruit: that only applies to people who won't try and be fruitful at all! If you are trying and yet don't seem to have reached what God wants, keep trying because God is working on you to get you to what you need to be!

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I close with this:

When viewing men as trees, you must realize that some trees in the Bible lived their whole lives for one moment in time and to fulfill one purpose. Their success depended upon whether or not they were prepared for that moment. There is a story in scripture that illustrates this perfectly and is found in the Gospel of Luke:

That tree existed for one purpose: to let somebody see Jesus better! There was one moment in time and one day when Jesus was passing by, when it would become very, very important. Zacchaeus ended up serving God. All because of one tree being in the right place at the right time. It's very possible that God allowed that tree to be planted in that one place just to help Zacchaeus get to Jesus!

But what if, it had not properly put down a root system to weather the storms that it faced in it's life? What if it had not properly used it's nutrients to be high enough for Zacchaeus to climb it to see the Savior? What if it had decided that it was inferior to all of the other trees around it and therefore there was no use in going through another winter? What would have happened? It would have missed it's opportunity to bless God's kingdom.

The fig tree that Jesus cursed was like that. It's possible that it existed for the sole purpose of feeding our Savior breakfast in two mornings of His final week, but when He came to it, it had no figs, although it was the time where it should have been loaded. And so it was cursed because it did not fulfill it's God-given purpose by being ready when the Master needed it!

Your life is much the same way. You may not can see what God's purpose for your life right now, but there's a reason that you are here. It could be that God is developing you for a key part of the revival in Medina County. It could be that you would live your whole life in order to lead one man to Jesus. But it could also be that this one man will lead many and thus you must be ready for your moment.

Your success in life will be defined by whether or not you are ready when the Master passes by your way and has need of you. If you are, then every storm and winter will have been worth it and every bit of time spend developing your roots will have been time and effort well spent! But if you do not prepare yourself for whatever His will might be, then you will be cursed! Let's stick to faithfulness and sell out to God! We are not trees, we are men and women, and God has a purpose for our life!