12.8.19 Matthew 3:10
Already the ax is ready to strike the root of the trees. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
God has compared Himself to a dove, an eagle, a lion, a tower, a fortress, a counselor and a friend. Today God puts on the flannel shirt and boots, grabs an axe in His hands, and plays the part of the great and mighty lumberjack: the Paul Bunyan of heaven. He sharpens His axe and heads out into the forest. He’s ready to chop some trees down. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. If you’ve ever chopped down a tree, you know how refreshing and powerful it can make you feel as they fall to the ground.
In the Old Testament lesson we have a vivid example of God chopping down a tree. God chopped down a mighty tree by the name of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who nobody thought could fall. He was full of pride, as he felt that he had success and riches because of his own power. He thought he was a god of sorts, and he had no qualms about oppressing his people. The true God gave him a vision of a mighty tree being chopped down. When Daniel interpreted the dream, he warned the king that if he didn’t repent, the Lord God of Israel would chop him down to size. Nebuchadnezzar wouldn’t listen, so God made him temporarily insane. He thought he was an animal and ate grass like a cow would. His hair and nails grew out. When God finally restored his sanity, he then realized how weak he was, and how powerful God was. The axe of the Lumberjack had swung.
When John was baptizing by the Jordan River, he said that the Pharisees and the Sadducees were on the chopping block. I’m not sure why they came out to see John baptizing. Did they want to go through baptism too, or were they just going there as an inspection of John? Either way, even if they were planning on being baptized, it was only for show. They didn’t think they really needed baptism, because they thought they were acceptable to God just for being members of the Jewish race. So John threatened them with God the Lumberjack. He said that the axe was at the foot of the tree. God was sizing it up. He also threatened them that they would be thrown into the fires of hell when they were cut off. And that’s the worst part of all.
John must have seemed half crazy, and maybe he had to look that way with the people he was dealing with. He dressed in camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist. He was such an open contrast to the Pharisees and Sadducees, who were all about their flowing gowns and robes. They seemed to me to be very prim and proper. A clean Mormon type of religion. John was anything but that. There was a reason for it. Everything that he was was meant to paint a picture of repentance. He went into a barren land, to represent the barren-ness of sin that was rampant in the land. He wore camel’s hair because he wanted the people to feel uncomfortable about their sins. He didn’t spend time gorging himself on fine food because he wanted the people to see that it was no time to feast when they were about to be judged. But the Pharisees and Sadducees felt that they were the ultimate Jews because of how they behaved and how they dressed. Repentance wasn’t really part of their language. John threatened them. God the lumberjack was going to cut them down.
We need to hear this too, even as Christians. It is the message of Advent. We are more used to the pleasant God, the smiling God, the generous God, the friendly God, who holds us by the hand as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. These are pictures of God that we like - and they’re good pictures that are meant to comfort us. We feel safe with baby Jesus in the crib, lying in a manger. We don’t feel threatened by a God who is dying on a cross and allowing us to crucify Him. What harm is He? He’s all about love and forgiveness. He’s willing to die for me. He loves me with an unconditional love. This God doesn’t scare me at all.
But here, He’s sharpening his axe and He’s getting ready to violently cut someone down right at the roots. He’s scary. He seems much too aggressive for today’s Christian. He looks too mean, too masculine, and too threatening. But when you read God’s Word, He threatens all the time. We’ve lived under so much prosperity, and today’s parents never use threats any more, so younger Christians don’t know how to respond when the Lumberjack comes. They tend to get easily angry or be offended if they are told they are sinning and threatened with God’s wrath. They walk away and ignore the message. They say, “I don’t believe in bullies.”
But if you take the Bible seriously, you have to see that God isn’t afraid to swing the axe. Just look at the Flood! Look at Nebuchadnezzar. Do you think that EVERYTHING that happens in this world is just by natural causes? Or could it be that the Lumberjack God has laid down the axe, purposefully, angrily? Do you think that God would never do such a thing to you? God wants us to take His threats seriously. Why? So that we repent! So that we see a real need for a real Savior from real wrath of the Lumberjack God.
But does he really need an axe? Bring the pruners. Bring the clippers even. Clip me a little here and there so I can grow. I can live with God the Gardener who wants to improve me. But don’t bring the axe! Don’t cut me down to nothing but a stump!
Truth be told, we all need to be chopped down from time to time in life. It will happen to all of you if you live long enough. Anderson Silva was an extremely skilled MMA fighter in the UFC. He would taunt people to hit him and then could make them look foolish as he beat them senseless. He felt he was invincible inside the Octagon cage that he fought in. But one day in 2013 he taunted one too many times. He was caught on the jaw by Chris Weidman and knocked out cold. He’s never been the same. The tree was chopped down.
I recall walking into a hospital room where a man was incapacitated and had to use the bathroom from the hospital bed. The nurses had to come in and clean up after him. It was very humbling for him. He was embarrassed, but there was nothing he could do about it but say, “Sorry.” This is something that the elderly have to go through regularly. These were people that were strong and active for many years, now reduced to helplessness, unable to even go to the bathroom on their own. It’s a very humbling thing. Everything that you derive your life and your identity from as a businessman, a mom, a husband, it can all be pulled up and chopped off from you. It doesn’t take much for you to feel so weak and helpless, to get chopped down to nothing. A bad case of the flu. A slipped disk in your back. You go from feeling on top of the world to feeling like nothing in a matter of minutes. We tend to think, “That won’t happen to me.” Until it does. It’s humbling. It’s sad. It’s angering too, when you’re the one being cut down.
It happens spiritually too. We all have a little Pharisee in us, that thinks we’re pretty good. When you think you’re living a great Christian life, and you’re happy with your progress, you do something that brings you down to size. You embarrass yourself over a foolish and sinful moment in your life, and you can never take it back. Then you realize, “I’m nothing but a filthy sinner.” When you read the Word and it condemns you for things you didn’t really think were that bad, it’s like He’s taking an axe and chopping you down. He calls us “worthless” and “ungodly,” “sinners” and “rebels.” The Lumberjack God doesn’t hold back. He swings the axe at all of us in one way or another.
But maybe it isn’t fair to picture God as holding the axe, maliciously cutting people down, not in every case. When I was growing up we used to be able to go in a forest in my friend’s backyard. We’d look for old and rotted trees. We could easily push them over without need of an axe. They’d rotted from the inside out. Sometimes people cut themselves down by their own actions of drug abuse or alcohol abuse. Many times it’s not necessarily the act of God intervening with an axe. It’s just the natural progression of getting old. Sooner or later, the tree will wither and fall. Yet we have to realize that axe or not, we all wither and fall sooner or later, and it’s not good. The wages of sin is death.
The lumberjack God is more of a threat made against people who think they are standing firm: who think that God could never or would never take them down: people like the Pharisees or Nebuchadnezzar; who were filled with pride and arrogance. They didn’t think they had to answer to God, and they weren’t fulfilling the purpose for which God sent them. Nebuchadnezzar wasn’t taking care of the people under his charge. Daniel said, “Break away from your sins with righteousness and from your guilty deeds by showing mercy to the poor. Perhaps your prosperity will be extended.” Therefore when he failed to repent, God had no problem cutting him down. The Pharisees and Sadducees were abusing the people with their legalistic rules and regulations. When they then failed to repent even after crucifying Jesus, the Romans came in about 40 years later and destroyed Herod’s temple and chopped down the tree. The temple has not been rebuilt to this day. There’s nothing but a stump there - the foundation of the temple and a few of the bricks from the walls that Herod built around the temple area. Many of them most likely ended up in the fires of hell.
But even when the Lumberjack swings, He can still work good from the chopped down tree. Not everyone is thrown in the fire. Think about what you can do with chopped down wood. Wood can be very useful in building a house. When God cuts us down to size, He can also build us into HIS house, the church. He can replant us into His garden and make us grow good fruit that pleases HIM! Nebuchadnezzar ended up being humbled from his experience as a wild animal. He realized how weak he truly was. He ended up praising God and at least fearing His power.
Then of course we remember Jesus, and what Isaiah said about Him. When God cut off the Jews from the land of Israel, He returned a remnant of a few people to live there. Isaiah said what would then happen in chapter 11,
1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
3 and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
This is talking about Jesus, the One who was cut off from the land of the living, but came forth as the Tree of Life, to give salvation to all who believe in Him. God cut Him off through the death on the cross and threw Him into the fires of God’s wrath, only to have Him live through the fires and open up heaven. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection the Lumberjack also turned into quite the Builder as well. He built a house in heaven for sinners to come and find forgiveness and salvation.
Sometimes the greatest blessing people can receive is when they are cut down to size and they lose everything, especially when they are proud and don’t think they need God. It’s only then that they realize how weak they are and how much they need a Savior. The Lumberjack always wants to save. He’d rather build than burn. It just depends on how you respond to being cut down to size. God can work a stronger faith in us when we realize how weak we truly are. That’s what Paul said when he couldn’t get rid of a thorn in the flesh. He concluded, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” Nebuchadnezzar also came to his senses and gave God the respect He deserved after Nebuchadnezzar was reinstated. If you’ve been cut down, God can build you up too.
For years and years we used to use a fake tree and put it up in our living room. Over the past few years we’ve gone back to the real tree. We like the experience of going out to the yard with a saw and chopping it down ourselves. We don’t use an axe. We just use a hacksaw. It comes down pretty easily. Then we take it home and decorate it. About a month later we throw it out to the curb as it has inevitably dried out and finished its purpose. It’s fun to decorate a real tree.
God doesn’t cut down trees just for his own temporary enjoyment. He doesn’t do it to keep Himself warm. He does it because He is just. He does it to call people to repentance, so that a new tree can branch forth and grow. The Lumberjack knows how to run a tree farm. He knows when to prune and He knows when to chop down. He knows what to do with the wood, what to build with and what to throw in the fire. Just look at what He did with the wood of the cross!
As God the Lumberjack threatens to swing the axe, we are called on to listen and bow before Him. When we see Him chop people down to size, we humbly ask Him to spare us. Yet even if He chooses to swing, we know that the Lumberjack knows best, to use our failure or our fall as a way of building His church all the bigger and better. He has the power to take a stump and transplant it into His kingdom, water it and make it grow. We pray for His mercy and strength, to keep growing in Christ, and to keep from pride as we grow. We pray that God would open our ears to listen to His warnings, clinging to the cross, waiting for Jesus to come as our Savior. Amen.
