Parable Of The Olive Tree-New Life Revelation Series

The Parable of the Olive Tree-New Life Revelation

Care of God in Grafting

Careful of Pride

Careful of Complacency

Careful of God’s Goodness

There once was a brier growing in a ditch when a gardener came along with his spade and dug it up. He dug around it and gently lifted it out of the ground, bringing the brier to ask itself, “What is he doing? Doesn’t he know I’m a worthless brier?” But the gardener took it and placed it in his garden anyway. He planted it among his most prized and beautiful roses, prompting the brier to think once more, “What is this guy doing? What a mistake he’s made.” But then the gardener did an even more unusual thing in the brier’s mind. He came once more and made a slit in the brier with his knife. He grafted it with a rose and when the summer came to close there were lovely flowers blooming from the brier that previously had none. Then the gardener said, “Your beauty is not due to what came out of you, but to what I put in.” “Your beauty is not due to what came out of you, but to what I put in.” Now everyone knows, of course, that plants don’t speak or have minds of their own; but this personified account of a well-known, readily accepted and often practiced procedure called grafting is quite apropos…re: new birth (or…being born again). It’s especially applicable when one considers how many speak of this conversion to Christ or this “being born again” as “their” coming to Christ, “their” decision to follow him. For the new birth is an inner recreation of our fallen human nature by the Holy Spirit. It changes us from lawless, godless self-seekers into those who love and trust. It moves us to repentance for past rebelliousness and unbelief. It works a loving compliance with God’s law and enlightens, liberates and energizes us to serve the Lord. The regenerate man has forever ceased to be the man he was; his old life is over and a new life has begun; he is a new creature in Christ, buried with him out of reach of condemnation and raised with him into a new life of righteousness. Contributed by: Karl Eckhoff

Praise God for New Life revelation it allows us to change that we no longer have to fail at our New Year’s Resolutions…

Care of God in Grafting

And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; Romans 11:17

The olive tree was the most useful, productive, and valuable tree in Israel; it was precious both economically and for the welfare of the nation.

In light of this, Israel’s relationship to God was often pictured as an olive tree.

The natural branches…Israel, and the grafted ...us

The olive tree is a picture of believers to God and a right relationship with HIM.

Some natural branches are broken off and rejected. But, “only some of the branches were broken off.”

Some Israelites accept Christ as the Messiah and maintain a right relationship with God.

“Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (Matthew 21:43).

“I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper” (Luke 14:24).

“He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others. And when they heard it, they said, God forbid” (Luke 20:16).

“And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree” (Romans 11:17).

Some wild olive branches were grafted into the tree. Individually grafted in.

The Gentile believer had been a wild olive branch.

We were:

·part of the wilderness and desert, the uncultivated world.

·growing loose and uncontrolled.

·useless and worthless.

·uncared for and unprotected.

·insect-infested, sour and inferior.

The Gentile believer is now grafted into the olive tree.

We are now attached to God, fed and nourished by God.

“And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice” (Genesis 22:18).

“All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee” (Psalm 22:27).

“All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name” (Psalm 86:9).

“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined” (Isaiah 9:2).