Trees...And the Christmas Story

Throughout the Bible, trees play a pretty significant role. Here's Stephen Davey with an opening thought.

I have been to France and I have seen where America is going. As we elevate creation over the Creator, I have watched people literally hugging 250-year-old trees, believing they were receiving a spiritual energy, a connection. I'm not headed there. But has it ever occurred to you that the Christmas story has, in its fullest sense, the connection to a couple of trees? Merry Christmas and welcome to Wisdom for the Heart. During the Christmas season, many of us decorate trees as part of our festivities. You might be gathering near a tree today to exchange gifts with those you love. Have you considered the significant role that trees have in Scripture? There was a prohibited tree in Eden, our Savior died on a tree, and there's a tree of life in our future eternal home.

These trees form the basis of our lesson today here on Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. I hope you'll be encouraged on this Christmas day with this lesson Stephen's calling, Trees and the Christmas Story. I love Christmas and its beautiful decorations. I enjoy Christmas trees. My wife has kept all of the trees, the artificial trees we've had over the years, and I love the way they're decorated. The girls surprised me by putting one in my study with lights and ornaments and it's just so nice.

I just love the season. Some probably could argue that they're a corrupted symbol of pagan worship, the trees. We can trace the evergreen back, of course, including mistletoe and holly to pagan mythology and ceremony. The Romans, during this season, used to decorate their temples with greenery and candles, and some of these things have found their way into Christmas custom. Some would say we're borrowing a little too heavily or maybe too dangerously, but I happen to believe the pagans weren't the first ones that came up with it.

I think they borrowed from us. You could track a number of different things through the scriptures, but I think if you study the religions of the world, it's really interesting to read and to hear the kernels of truth embedded in their repackaging of lies and superstition. I've been reading a little bit of what's happening with Hinduism, how they have basically admitted to the fact that back 1900 years ago or 2000 years ago, they adapted some of their beliefs, some of their key core doctrine.

They changed to conform to Christianity. This sacred text called the Vishnu Purana reveals how their god Vishnu had several incarnations. The most important one was Krishna. According to the story, Krishna's foster earth father journeyed with his wife to pay their taxes. The result is that Krishna is born while on their journey in a cow stall with shepherds coming to adore the baby. A powerful meteor appeared at the birthplace and a prophet told the king the child would overthrow him and the king, whose name is Kanza, orders all the male children of the country put to death.

Sound vaguely familiar? You take the use of the tree and the beauty of the tree and you think of what Isaiah wrote when he quoted God saying the glory of Lebanon will come to you, the juniper and the cypress tree together to beautify the place of my sanctuary. We have no idea the beauty of the decoration and the material in the sanctuary, but God was honored by it.

These were things he created. So it would be no surprise that pagans would take from this and wrestle from the truth things used to honor God and use them to honor, as it were, their unbelief or their disbelief and their faith in other gods. Martin Luther, it's interesting, in the middle of fifteen hundreds, this converted monk took the Christmas tree, the evergreen, and attached to its significance by being, we believe, the first person to hang from the limbs glowed candles. He said it would be a way of signifying during this season that Jesus Christ is the light of the world. So he kind of wrestled back from paganism. This and identified it with the gospel gave a new meaning. I kind of like to take things like that away from the world and use them for our own benefit. So on with the decorations.

I didn't say on Prancer and Dixon. I said on with the decorations. I have been thinking a lot about Christmas trees these last days, perhaps because one's been in my study.

But I wanted to do something a little differently today. What initially prompted my thinking was a magazine I received in the mail, which listed sort of randomly verses of scripture on the back of the magazine, the back cover without any statement, just verses. And as I reread those verses that summarize God's plan of redemption beginning in Genesis, ending in Revelation, it struck me that the gospel of God is undeniably, uniquely related to a couple of trees.

And I say that and I feel like a new ager, you know, and if you know me very well, you know, I have none of that in me. I have been to France and I have seen where America is going as we elevate creation over the creator. I have watched people literally hugging 250 year old trees, believing they were receiving a spiritual energy, a connection.

And I'm not headed there. But has it ever occurred to you that the Christmas story has, in its fullest sense, the connection to a couple of trees? If you open your Bibles to Genesis chapter two, I'll take you to the first tree, a very special tree created by God in the garden. There are two trees there that are specifically mentioned.

One is the tree of life and the other is a tree that would represent prohibition. If you look at verse 15, you read that God took the man and he put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. Verse 16 says, the Lord God commanded the man, saying, out of any tree of the garden, you can freely eat.

It's all yours. However, from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for in the day you eat from it, you will die. You will experience separation in your fellowship with me and you will begin to physically and ultimately experience death. And so this tree would represent the only prohibition in this Garden of Delight, which is what the Hebrew word Eden means. Adam, you can have anything you want in the Garden of Delights. But this one thing, that prohibition would reveal the preeminence of God in the heart of Adam. What would Adam follow? Who would Adam obey? Would he obey and worship and follow and fellowship with God, or would his selfish desire and disobedience and independence from God be viewed in this choice that he had to make?

And of course, you know the answer. Satan came to Eve and gave the first recorded question in human history. Half God said he was crafty to begin with that question because he knew that she hadn't heard God say it.

She hadn't been fashioned yet. God had said it to Adam. God had held Adam responsible to safeguard his bride, to teach her what God had taught him. And he had evidently expected him, serving as the head of his wife, to communicate and to explain the prohibition of this tree.

And so even in this very first marriage, we have the implication that God intended the man to theologically safeguard his wife. Did Adam shepherd her? Evidently not well enough. Did he teach her? Evidently not well enough. Did he give her the reasons why God prohibited the tree?

Evidently not. In fact, when Satan came to her and asked her, had God said she exaggerated her answer, some could believe that she made it up out of disgust for God by adding, well, he said, we can't even touch it. Others could easily take it that Adam had never really given her the answer.

She was not to eat it. And maybe Adam in a very cynical way said, yeah, well, God just said, don't touch it. She, Paul wrote to Timothy, was deceived.

She literally thought she was doing the best thing. Adam was not deceived. Adam defied the word of God.

He knew full well when she handed him this fruit, what it meant. And he defied God. He acted in independence of the will of God. He disobeyed the word of God. And they both fell. They lost their innocence before each other. They lost their intimacy with God. Eve doubted the word of God and Adam defied the word of God.

I find it interesting. We can take a little rabbit trail for just a minute that when the second Adam Jesus Christ came and was introduced by the prophet John the baptizer as his ministry began. It's interesting that at that moment, that's when Satan comes. Jesus is led into the wilderness, perhaps a significant illustration of paradise lost. He's in the wilderness and Satan hurls at him three temptations. The question is, will Jesus honor the word of his father or will he defy it? Will he disobey it? And Jesus Christ responds to each of the three temptations by saying three times.

It is what? Written. It is written. It is written. God has spoken and he follows the word.

And I want you to let the Messiah teach you a lesson and myself as well. The path to spiritual victory is bound up in those three words. No matter what the attraction, no matter what the allure meant, no matter what the pressure, no matter what the temptation, if you will obey what has been written, if you will follow what has been written, if you will apply what has been written, if you'll surrender to that which has been written, you will stand and not stumble. But Adam and Eve both stumbled and they ran from God and Adam would later explain to God who came and found him. I heard the sound of thee in the garden and I hid myself because I was afraid.

This is the first time in human history that you have the experience of fear. This is the very first time in the word of God that the word afraid appears because of sin. When God came to the garden to visit, they ran from God rather than to God because they are now afraid of God. Now, before God expelled them from the garden, he revealed a lot to them that we're not even told. We just see the action occurring through the death of the sacrificial animals, through their sons. Before he expelled them, though, he did tell them this promise in Genesis three, verse 15. If you look over there, God is explaining to them that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.

The seed of the woman is the Messiah. He will come and he will crush the serpent's head. He will be victorious over the serpent.

However, he will have his heel bruised. That is, he will suffer, but it will only be temporary. This text is called the proto-evangelium. This is the first evangelism. This is the first gospel, the first mention of it in the word and plan of God. The coming Messiah, who would bear the penalty of Adam's sin, will be bruised in the process, but in that same redemptive plan, he will crush the strategy.

He will crush the plan of Satan by defeating death and conquering the grave. You see, then, there at the first tree, Adam and Eve are in effect told that something is going to happen, and we know it will happen on another tree. You say, but did the Old Testament saint understand the gospel? Did they know it?

But we know from some texts that they know, and they knew far more than we could ever imagine. According to Galatians three, we're told that Abraham had preached to him the gospel. And the gospel defined by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 is the death of Christ, the burial of Christ, and the resurrection of Christ. Micah told us where the Messiah would be born. Isaiah told us what he'd look like, told us that he would be born of a virgin. David specifically refers to, in one of his Messianic Psalms, the crucifixion. He writes in Psalm 22, they have pierced my hands and my feet.

They cast lots for my clothing. They knew a lot more than we give them credit for knowing. The gospel for the Old Testament believer was a look forward to the second tree. The gospel for us is to look backward to the one who hung there. And I think of these fearful people right here, Adam and Eve, terrified of the consequence of their sin.

I think it's a wonderful thing that the angels deliver on that night, the message of Christ's birth, that he, the Messiah, in fact, has come. He, the one who would crush the head of the serpent and defeat death forever. He has come and I find it fascinating that their very first words to the shepherds were, do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid. God was coming back as it were to the garden, lost as it was, infested with sin as it was. It was indeed groaning under its guilt. But God was coming back as it were to physically walk this time in the flesh on planet Earth with lost man and woman. But more than that, Jesus Christ came, headed for the second tree. Paul would write to the Galatians that truth when he would say, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is every one who hangs upon a what?

A tree, Galatians 3, 13. Cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree. In ancient Judaism, a criminal who was executed usually by stoning would be tied to a tree until sunset, where his body would hang as a visible representation of rejection by God. He did not become cursed because he hung there. He hung there because he was cursed. And so Jesus Christ will hang on a tree, a representation of the rejection of God, burying in his own body all of our rejection, all of our guilt, all of our sin, all of our curses.

It'll be upon him. So you see, the critical issue of Christmas is not that Jesus came, but why? There was no salvation in his birth alone. There was no salvation in his sinless life alone. There was no salvation in his incredible teaching alone. He had to die. Jesus Christ was born headed for a tree.

And I know it's Christmas, but I want to talk about that tree for a minute. The Persians believed the earth was sacred and they didn't want to defile it. And so they created this form of execution that had been around for centuries.

They sort of perfected it. And Alexander the Great seemed fond of this form of execution. On one occasion, he crucified two thousand prisoners of war at one time. He introduced the practice to the Carthaginians, who later gave it to the Romans, who perfected it even further in its torture and its slow death.

To prolong the process, the Romans introduced something new. It was called the sedulum. It was a block of wood called the seat, which would allow the criminal to live up to four or five days or more. They usually died from a combination of malnutrition, dehydration, shock, blood loss, paralysis of the diaphragm and sometimes impatient vultures. Sometimes the Roman soldiers would come along really out of an act of pity or mercy and break their legs, pushing them off the sedulum. They would be unable then to push back up and they would die of asphyxiation, unable to exhale properly. They would be pinned there with stakes through their hands. You need to know the hand to the ancients included not only the fingers in the palm, but the wrists. Because the spikes would have torn through the flesh and fragile bones of the hand, they would pin the one to the tree through their wrists. We know from historical accounts that the Romans actually drove those stakes, as it were, through the wrist. Next, the feet would be nailed. The legs would be put together and bent in a crouched position and then turned to one side and one nail would be driven through the ankles.

It's interesting, in the last 24 months, a young man's skeleton was found in the Middle East dating back to this time. His wrist bones were punctured and a spike was still embedded in the bones of his ankles. Pain would have been excruciating. It's interesting that the word excruciating is a Latin word which comes from ex crucio, out of the cross. It literally means out of the cross, which means that this was such a torturous death that it created its own vocabulary. Godly men, typically godly women of the city, took upon themselves a ministry of mercy.

We know from historical records that have been preserved that more than a thousand people were crucified the same year Christ was. These women, in obedience to Proverbs 31, 6, which says, give strong drink to him who is perishing, they would mix a narcotic with wine and they would go out to the sites of crucifixion and they would offer this drink to mute the pain. Jesus, you remember from the story, refused this narcotic. He would allow no alleviation through this drink of his pain and suffering. He would maintain his lucidness so that he could minister to the one thief who would believe in him and those who'd gathered around him and utter those incredible words, including the last ones.

It is finished. There was a tree in Eden, but there was a tree on Calvary. The first was a tree of prohibition.

This one was a tree of pardon. If you are a Roman citizen, you never feared death this way. Cicero, the Roman historian said, let the cross never come near the body of a Roman citizen, nay, not even near his thoughts or his eyes or his ears.

Cultured gentiles would never even say the word cross, which I find fascinating because the record of the New Testament glories in it. We are told we're crucified with Christ. The apostle Paul said, God forbid that I should ever glory, except in the what?

The cross of Jesus Christ, our Lord. In the 17th century, a popular devotional writer wrote a book, a little book that was given to John Bunyan, the man who wrote Pilgrim's Progress. And I want to read a few lines of an imaginary yet profound conversation in this little devotional book between a soul and its Lord. Lord, why wouldst thou be taken when thou mightest have escaped thine enemies? The answer that thy spiritual enemies should not take thee and cast thee into the prison of utter darkness. Lord, why wouldst thou be bound that I might loose the cords of thine iniquities? Lord, why wouldst thou be lifted up upon a cross that I might lift thee up with me to heaven? Lord, why were thy hands and feet nailed to the cross to enlarge thy hands, to do the work of righteousness and to set thy feet at liberty? But Lord, why wouldst thou have thine arms nailed abroad? Oh, that I might embrace thee more lovingly. Lord, why was thy side opened with a spear?

Oh, that thou mightest have a way to my heart. The tree in Eden represented the pride of man. The tree on Calvary represented the pardon of God. The first tree brought separation from God. The second tree offers reconciliation to God.

And if that were all, that would be enough. But there is another tree. There is another reference to a unique tree that appears yet future for all of us here today. When John saw heaven and he described his tour and his visit of this magnificent place, he described the New Jerusalem, which will hang suspended above the old city. He even gives its measurements. He talks of its material, rare and precious gems, translucent gold made throughout, gates of singular pearl. The dimensions he gives are interesting enough, even it's a cube, the city, you can travel up and down and left and right.

And we're not sure how all those dimensions work, but we know just the ground floor is 40 times the size of England. The city has a main boulevard that comes, as it were, from the throne of God. And in the middle of the boulevard is a flowing, crystal clear river and planted along the side of the river is what? The tree of life.

It was back there in the garden. And when Adam and Eve fell, God posted a sentinel of angels so that fallen man and woman could not eat of that fruit and live physically immortal, bound to their sin. And here's a reference again to that tree in the heavenly city, whose fruit abounds with a fresh crop. Now, the original construction and revelation may indicate that it's not just one tree, but here in the heavenly city, it is an orchard as paradise is, in effect, recreated in the new heaven and the new earth. My friend, if you have been cursed by the first tree and you have been for all have sinned and fall, what? Short of the glory of God, you must run to the second tree and find there the savior who became a curse for you, who became reviled for your sake, who bore your sin in his body on that tree.

Peter writes. And if you come there discovering the pardon from God, you have in your future another tree, the tree of life, signifying the eternal splendor and celebration of the redeemed in the new heaven and the new earth. So when you look at a Christmas tree, I want you to remember the fuller story. I want you to remember the trees of Christmas, the trees of this gospel story. The first tree communicated prohibition. The second tree communicated pardon. The third tree communicates paradise. The first tree represented the pride of man. The second tree represented the humility of God. And the third tree reveals the glory of heaven and the eternal joy and celebration of the redeemed. With the lavish grace poured out in this new heaven and new earth. Thanks for joining us on this Christmas day.

This is Wisdom for the Heart. I'm your host, Scott Wiley. And on behalf of Stephen and the entire Wisdom team, I wish you and your family a very merry Christmas. I want to share with you some notes we received from some of your fellow listeners.

They encouraged us and I hope they encourage you as well. This first one comes from David in Oak Ridge, North Carolina. He says, I've been a believer since I was a child and I'm now 62 years old. Your sermons on Hebrews have been the most profound messages from my spiritual life and walk with Christ than anything else I've ever heard.

The truths of Christ that creation proclaims leaves me filled with gratitude and a deeper sense of love for the Savior. Thanks, David. This note is from Lottie, who listens from Alabama. My grandson was serving in the armed forces in Hawaii and I sent him a copy of the Titus commentary. A few weeks later, he told his mom that he was feeling called to serve the Lord as a chaplain. I believe that Stephen's Titus commentary played a large role in my sweet grandson's call to serve the Lord. And just one more from Jeannie, who listens from Germany.

She writes, I wanted to send a note thanking you for your email to me. I've enjoyed the wisdom for the heart ministry and for over eight years I've begun to send monthly support in order to help the ministry continue. I'm a 68 year old widow from South Carolina, but I'm presently living most of the year in Berlin, Germany. My husband passed away very suddenly in 2012. My daughter and son in law began a ministry to the refugees in Berlin and they asked me to come with them.

We've been here since July of 2017. I began listening to the wisdom broadcast on the radio and continue to use the resources online while in the States and in Germany. I'm very thankful for all that's available. It's a blessing to me daily. So thank you to everyone involved in this ministry and especially Stephen. I pray that God will richly bless wisdom for the heart.

Well, thanks, Jeannie. We have so much to be thankful for. And on this Christmas Day, we're most thankful for Jesus Christ. He came to this world to bring us salvation and everything we do is centered on him. We're also thankful for you, our wisdom family. So again, we wish you a very Merry Christmas from all of us here at Wisdom for the Heart. Thank you.