One of the questions most often debated among amateur
philosophers is whether or not a tree falling in the woods makes
any noise is no one is around to hear it? From a biblical
perspective there is never a time when the trees are not being
heard, for if we take seriously the Lordship of Christ over all
creation, then we know he hears not only the music of the spheres,
but the songs of the forests as well. They are perpetually making
sound, even when they are not falling.
Trees are very musical in the Bible. In I Chron. 16:33 we read,
"then shall the trees of the wood sing for joy before the Lord." In
Ps. 96:12 we read again, "Then shall the trees of the wood sing for
joy before the Lord." Isaiah mentions the trees getting excited
several times. In 44:23 they break forth in singing, and in 55:12 all
the trees of the field clap their hands. All of this is figurative and
poetic language, but trees do literally make a variety of noises.
Bark peels off some with noise; bamboo grows so fast it whines.
The canon-ball and shotgun trees actually have fruit that explodes
and send seed flying up to 200 ft. There are crying trees on Pacific
Ocean islands. The flowers make a peculiar crying sound when
they open. The tropical Asian tree called the woman's tongue
rattles like mad from the seeds in a foot long pod as the wind
blows.
We seldom think about it, but trees do have more than a poetic
connection with music. Many of the musical instruments of the Old
Testament were made of wood, just as they are today. Man in his
dominion over the trees has used them to produce music for the
praise of God. We have modified trees in our piano and organ.
Trees have other connections as well, for they have inspired men to
write great music. One of the greatest examples is Beethoven.
Listen to his prayer to God in the woods. "Almighty One, in the
woods I am blessed...Every tree speaks through Thee, O God!
What glory is in the woodland! On the heights is peace, peace to
serve Him."
Bernard of Clairvoux wrote a number of hymns. The best
known is Jesus The Very Thought Of Thee. He wrote this in the
12th century. "What I know of the divine sciences and Holy
Scriptures, I learned in the woods and the fields. I have had no
other masters than the beeches and the oaks." Many true lovers
claim to learn much from the trees. This should not be surprising
to the Bible student, for the first reference to knowledge in the
Bible is connected with a tree. God filled the Garden of Eden with
trees of beautiful and delicious fruit, and one of them was the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil. Another unique tree that was
there was the tree of life. All who love Jesus Christ will one day ear
of this tree in heaven. It is the most unique tree ever, for Rev. 22:2
says it has 12 kinds of fruit, and yields its fruit each month. It will
be a perpetual fruit of the month club to have access to this tree in
heaven.
There is so much in Scripture about trees that we can only
survey the subject in one message. There are over 500 reference to
trees, and they play a major role in God's revelation. The text we
are looking at in Judges 9 is not the most important, but it is the
most conspicuous. There are only two fables in all of the Bible, and
both of them re fables of talking trees. Here and the other one is in
II Kings 14:9. The one here has a powerful political message.
Gideon, the great judge of Israel had 70 sons, and when he died one
of his sons by the name of Abimelech decided to eliminate all the
competition. He killed all of the sons of Gideon except Jotham. He
was the youngest, and he hid. The people then made Abimelech
their king by a great oak tree.
Jotham heard of this, and he came and stood on the side of the
mountain overlooking them. He spoke this fable as a political
speech. It has many valuable implications we cannot get into now,
but the gist of it is this: The highest places in the state should be
given only to the best of men. The tragedy, however, is that the
best men are often content to let someone else do the job. The
result is the greedy and unscrupulous get into places of leadership
and everyone suffers. Bad men become leaders because good men
would rather not get involved. The end result is they are involved
in a fire that consumes good and bad alike.
The olive, the fig, and the vine represented the finest trees of the
society. The bramble was good for nothing but fuel. The bramble
represented Abimelech. He was the worst possible choice, but they
chose him, and if you read on, you see the fable fulfilled. He
became a treacherous tyrant, and he set fire to over a thousand
men and women in the tower of Shechem. Many feel this is
probably the oldest fable in history. It is different than most of the
references to trees in the Bible in that it is quite negative. This is
due to them being used to illustrate human nature. They are made
to be complacent, foolish, gullible, and dangerous. Literal trees can
have some negative aspects too. One little boy complained,
I've one complaint against the trees,
It doesn't seem just right,
The way they stand with outstretched arms
To catch a fellows kite.
We have little to complain about, however, compared to David's
son Absolom. He got his hair caught in an oak tree, and as he hung
there he was killed. A tree helped get him murdered. On the other
hand, it was the sycamore tree that aided little Zaccheaus to see
Jesus, and Jesus him, and so a tree helped him to salvation and
getting into the kingdom of God. The positive values of trees
outweigh any negatives. "Cursed in every man who is hung on a
tree." That is the negative side of the cross. But that tree split time
in half and opened the door to eternity for all who put their trust in
the Christ of the cross. He bore our sins their, and makes it
possible for us to be reconciled to God.
The tree has always been associated with man's salvation. God
commanded Noah to make an ark of gopher wood, for only trees
could save man in the flood. We are being saved every day by the
trees, for they keep our atmosphere so it is breathable for us.
Without them we would soon perish. In Isa. 11:1 we read, "There
shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch
shall grow out of his roots." This is a tree being used to illustrate
the coming of the Messiah. You have, no doubt, seen a stump of a
tree that looks dead, and yet out of it will come shoots with new
life. We have just such a tree in the back of our house. It was cut
off, and yet out of the stump has come an entire new tree with
many branches. Zech. 3:8 also refers to the Messiah as The
Branch.
Jesus said he was the vine and we are the branches. Paul devotes
almost the whole of chapter 11 of his letter to the Romans in
describing the Church and Israel as branches being cut off and
grafted into the olive tree. Tree imagery is everywhere in
Scripture. Why is it that the tree is so prominent in biblical
imagery? It is because the tree is the source of life in so many
ways. The more you study their role in keeping life going in
creation, the more you can understand Joyce Kilmer's poem
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
The breath of life comes from trees. They take in carbon
dioxide and give off the oxygen necessary for man to breathe.
When you look at a tree, remember it is your friend providing you
with the breath of life. So the tree of Calvary makes it possible for
us to receive the Spirit of God, or the breath of God, that gives life
to our spirit. All that the Holy Spirit does in our life is called the
fruit of the Spirit, and again we see the tree image with its fruit. A
tree is know by its fruit, and so is the believer.
In the Song of Solomon 2:3 Jesus Christ is described as fruitful
tree among the trees of the woods. Jesus stands out from all the
others in his value and usefulness to mankind. Like a fruit bearing
tree in the midst of trees with nothing but leaves, is our Lord. As
trees are the source of so much medicine for the health of man, so
Jesus is the Great Physician. Trees play a role in healing, and are
symbolic of Jesus.
Jonathan Edwards is most known for his hell fire preaching, but
he also used trees in much of his teaching. He refers to the balm in
Gilead, the chief medicine for healing wounds in the land of Israel.
It is procured by piercing the balsam tree and the tree bleeds this
healing balm. So the piercing of Christ and the flowing of his blood
provides the healing stream for our souls. Moses cast a tree into
the bitter water and they became sweet waters, and so Jesus when
taken into the bitter waters of our life makes them sweeter, and we
become like Ps. 1 says, "trees planted by the rivers of water, that
brings forth its fruit in its season, and it leaf does not wither, and in
all that he does he prospers."
Ps. 92:12-14 says, "The righteous flourish like the palm tree,
and grow like a cedar inn Lebanon. They are planted in the house
of the Lord, they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bring
forth fruit in old age, they are ever full of sap and green,..." God
delights in fruit trees that bear much fruit. They are one of the
marvels of his genius, and he loves them. He was concerned lest
men in the heat of war be destructive of fruit trees and so in Deut
20:19 he command his people, "When you besiege a city for a long
time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not
destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them; for you may eat
of them, but you shall not cut them down." God was concerned
about ecology long before it became an issue with man.
Fruit trees that bore not fruit could be cut down. Jesus cursed a
fig tree in a parabolic act to symbolize that Israel was a fruitless
tree, and so the axe was to be wielded against it. But if Israel would
repent she would become a fruitful tree, and the remnant who
became the church did just that. God spoke the same language in
the Old Testament. God says this if his people will repent and
return to him in Hos. 14:5-6, "I will be as the dew to Israel; he
shall blossom as the lily, he shall strike root as the poplar; his
shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive, and his
fragrance like Lebanon."
God even identifies himself with the evergreen in Hos. 14:8
where he says, "I am like a green pine; your fruitfulness comes
from me." All through the Bible the tree plays a major role in
imagery to illustrate the Persons of the Godhead. Trees also play a
major role in the spread of the Gospel, and all of God's revelation
in that the Bible is made from trees in most cases.
Tree illustrations do not always convey a message that gets
across, however. A teacher was telling her class of how Sir Isaac
Newton sat under an apple tree and watched an apple fall, and it
led him to the discovery of gravitation. She said, "Isn't that
wonderful?" "Yeah," said one guy in the back of the room. "But if
he would have been sitting in school like we are now it never would
have happened."
God is a great tree lover and planter. Just a few of the many
verses will give you the picture. In Gen. 2:8-9 we read that God
planted a garden in Eden, and out of the ground he made to grow
every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. God
created many trees just for their beauty. They serve no other
purpose than that of pleasing the eye. God loves order and beauty.
In Num. 24:5-6 Balaam in blessing Israel describes her beauty.
"How fair are your tents, of Jacob.....like valleys that stretch afar,
like gardens beside a river, like aloes that the Lord planted, like
cedar trees beside the waters." God's creation, and especially his
trees, become a standard for testing the beauty of man made
things. When man conforms to the order of God he achieves true
beauty in his planning. When man plans a beautiful setting in the
home or business, or office, he plant trees of some kind to enhance
the beauty of the man made with the Creator made images.
When man becomes careless with trees and destroys them with
no thought of their importance, he brings judgment on himself. So
much sorrow and famine have been caused by the willful
destruction of trees. But so many blessings have come to man by
the preservation of trees. Arbor day used to be a popular holiday
in America. It was a day for planting trees, and it had an impact on
schools and churches, and it transformed the state of Nebraska.
God is the great tree planter. In Ps. 104:16 we read, "The trees
of the Lord are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon which
he planted." Jesus also speaks of the green thumb of his heavenly
Father in Matt. 15:13. "Every plant which my heavenly Father has
not planted will be rooted up." All of nature is the garden of God.
Trees are the oldest living things on this planet. Some are four and
five thousand years old, and so they have survived through almost
all of the known history of man. They are marvels of God's
handiwork.
Martin Luther loved his apple tree. It was a time of great
turmoil and trial, but he said, "Even if I knew that tomorrow the
world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." The
planting of a tree is a symbol of hope for the future. We had a tree
in the back of our house in South Dakota that bore delicious
apples. It was planted by a pastor of the church I was serving over
20 years before I came. I was so grateful for a man who looked
ahead and planted a tree that would be a blessing to other in the
future.
The Bible implies that a man of wisdom will have a love of, and
a knowledge of trees. Solomon was the wisest man of his time by
God's grace. I Kings 4:29 says, "And God gave Solomon wisdom
and understanding beyond measure, and largeness of mind like the
sand on the seashore." How did he use his wisdom, and how did he
express it so as to draw kings and queens of all the nation to hear
him? Verse 33 tells us: "He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in
Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall."
The Bible refers to 37 specific trees, and many of them with
practical and symbolic value. The little we have considered of this
forest of beauty and wealth is just enough to stimulate your
awareness of God's love for trees, and the vast resource they are
for growth in spiritual wisdom. One prominent educator said,
"Any teacher who has not taste for trees, shrubs or flowers is unfit
to be placed in charge of children." This may be extreme, but there
is no doubt one would be better teacher if they had a taste for
trees. One would also be a more effective Christian witness if they
had a taste for trees. Southey, the poet, wrote,
O Reader! Hast thou ever stood to see
The Holly tree?
The eye that contemplates it well perceives its glossy leaves
Order'd by an intelligence so wise'
As might confound the atheist's sophistries.
There are over 20 references to leaves alone in Scripture.
Many of the most sacred objects in Israel's worship were made
from trees. You have the Ark of the Covenant, and the cherubim.
It was no accident that the Son of God incarnate was a worker with
wood as a carpenter, and no mere accident that he was not stoned,
but instead, nailed to a tree. God deliberately made the tree the
most prominent symbol in his plan from paradise lost to paradise
regained. The carpenter of Nazareth built a bridge to God on the
tree of Calvary.
If we want to be deeply rooted in God's will; if we want the
stability of Cedar of Lebanon, and the fruit of a tree planted by
the river of water; if we long to be as pleasant and helpful as the
palm in the desert, and if we want to be a tree of righteousness and
one day eat of the fruit of the tree of life, then we must come to the
Master of trees who died on a tree to set us free from the power
and penalty of sin. We are not talking poetry, but plain fact. If we
do not receive Jesus as Savior, and walk in the light of his love, we
will have no right to eat from that tree of life. The cross is the
greatest talking tree, for it is saying to all, "Come and taste of the
fruit of salvation. Come and find rest, and receive from Christ
God's very best."
