The Palm Tree Blessing Part 5

Are you flourishing like that? Is there something divine in your very being that makes you ambitious to rise as far above this world of sin and as near heaven as it is possible to get? Can you sing from experience,

"I rise to walk in heaven's own light, Above the world and sin; With heart made pure and garments white, And Christ enthroned within?"

G.o.d has chosen us to sit together in heavenly places above the mist and fog and spiritual malaria of this sin-laden world. With the palm tree blessing in our souls, we are not yearning for the flesh-pots of Egypt.

The leeks and garlic and onions of the past Egyptian diet have no charms for such a one. He has risen to heavenly heights, where he catches the smiles of his Savior and is enabled really to look down on things terrestrial.

When Pharaoh was pressed by Moses and Aaron to let the children of Israel go, he first refused, then tried to compromise by letting them worship the Lord "in the land." When this failed, he tried the second compromise and said he would let them go, "only ye shall not go very far away." Pharaoh was certainly a long-headed schemer. He knew if they did not get very far away, he would not have very far to go after them.

Then, again, he knew if they were not very far away, and had a hard time to get something to eat, they would not have far to get back and fill up on garlic and onions.

It is just that way with Pharaoh's ant.i.type, the Devil. He first refuses to let his subjects go. Then if they are bound to go and be Christians he tries to get them to do their religion "in the land;" that is, remain in the world and be worldly professors. How many are really deceived at this point! When the Devil sees that this compromise will not take, he tries the next one and says if they are bound to be Christians, all right and good, but "ye shall not go very far away."

How many poor deluded souls bite at this bait! They do not get very far away from Egypt, and certainly the Devil has not very far to go after them. Then, when they fail to get enough in their religion to satisfy the longing desires of their hearts, they naturally turn toward the flesh-pots of Egypt, and should they feel abashed because of their church profession in going outright to the theater, dance, card parties and other worldly amus.e.m.e.nts, they get them up in the name of the church and religion, and have a fourth cla.s.s performance in the church, or enjoy the fun and frolic of strawberry festivals, bean suppers, oyster stews, grab-bags, fish ponds, and so on _ad libitum_. They may try to hide the smell of their Egyptian diet, but anybody can tell when one has been eating onions and garlic.

Thank G.o.d some folks got such a boost when they left Egypt, that they never long for any of the former life. Like the palm tree, they are above it all.

Imagine the Apostle Paul attending the performances which some churches have these days! There are pilgrims scattered over the world today so lofty in their spiritual makeup, that to stoop to the level of the pleasures of the worldly professors would be so utterly incongruous that it would border on the ridiculous.

The palm tree blessing is a high blessing. It is the "higher life"

indeed. "And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pa.s.s over it" (Isa. 35:8).

"There is a path which no vulture's eye hath seen." This is the path of the pilgrim. It is so high that the vulture in his aerial flights has never yet been able to look down upon it. Pity such a person? Never! The world thinks they are looking down upon us, but no worldling on this mundane globe ever looks down on the palm tree saint as he walks the narrow, heavenly trail, practically oblivious of conditions below. Let not any worldling think that he is looking down on G.o.d's holy ones; they are looking down on him and they are so far above, that he looks like a mere dot upon the surface.

The minds of many are turned toward the airships of the day. The aviators are vying with each other in long distances, speed, alt.i.tudes, and endurance; but the palm tree saints have solved the problems of aviation long ago. They have an heirship, though it may not be spelled exactly like those of the world, yet, for alt.i.tude, endurance, speed, and long traveling, it perfectly eclipses them all. The aviator of the world may break the world's record today, and break his neck tomorrow, but the possibilities of the Christian aviator are exceedingly charming and the dangers are reduced to naught. He is safer in his heirship than on the earth. Borne upward on the wings of faith, pushed onward by the propeller of perfect love, with a lateral stability which is a marvel to many who gave him "just three weeks to hold out," he is still rushing on toward the meridian sun, and has been out of sight for years. He never expects to come down again. Some day he will fly so far away from earth's attraction, and get so near heaven, that the gravitation, inversely to the square of their distances, will pull so in the other direction, that he will sail into glory and drop his pardon and purity biplane on the gold-paved streets of the New Jerusalem, amidst the shouts and cheers of the angelic host and the mult.i.tudes that have sailed in before, there to enjoy an eternal "aviation meet" with prizes and crowns of glory for all.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PALM TREE IS PECULIAR IN ITS GROWTH

We have in the botanical world the exogenous and the endogenous tree.

The exogenous tree grows by adding to its exterior. Year after year adds layers or rings to the outside, thus increasing its size. It is in this way that scientists are enabled to determine the age of trees. Some of the mammoth trees of California show an age of many hundred years. Most of the trees with which we have to do are of the exogenous type.

The endogenous tree increases by internal growth. The palm tree is endogenous. Its growth is internal; out from the center and out at the top.

How exact to the a.n.a.logy was the Holy Spirit when He inspired the statement, that "the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree"! The palm tree saint does not have his growth from the external, pushing out along the lines of earth, and parallel to things of the world; but his growth is internal, and upward toward G.o.d and heaven, and perpendicular or diametrically opposed to the world, the flesh and the Devil.

When the Holy Spirit gave us a picture of the sinner, it was "spreading himself like a green bay tree." A glance at the margin of this text will reveal that the green bay tree indicates one that is growing in its own soil. It has never been transplanted. It remains in the same old conditions and environments. It spreads out on the earth and clings to things terrestrial. Thus, the sinner, growing in the same soil, in the same surroundings and conditions of sin year after year, having never been transplanted nor translated from nature's darkness to the marvelous light of G.o.d, pushes out along worldly lines and worldly pleasures, knowing nothing of the internal developments of grace, nor upward growth toward G.o.d and glory.

Whenever a professing Christian spreads out with worldly ambitions, is determined to lay up his treasures upon earth, hungering more for the adjoining quarter section of land than for the mansions beyond, determined to have a name down here at the risk of having none in heaven, he certainly is far from the palm tree type.

With Christ crowned inside, and all the elements of Christian growth firmly planted within the heart, no wonder there are inward developments unseen by mortal eye, that expand the saint's soul more and more as the years roll on, and enable him to rise more and more above terrestrial things to heights in the heavenlies.

With the secret of growth internal, it is not hindered by elements external, for one's life "is hid with Christ in G.o.d." How comforting, then, to the soul, to know that his secret growth is so far from external things, that neither trials, tests, troubles, tribulations, persecutions, disappointments, losses, crosses, circ.u.mstances, men, nor devils can necessarily hinder him from pushing out and up in the divine life.

In the earlier days of persecution of holiness professors, how often the fighting faction has tried to snow some of G.o.d's fire-baptized saints under, only to see them rise up through the snowdrift, with perennial freshness and smiling face ready for the next cold blizzard of snow. Or, perhaps it was a wet blanket suddenly thrown over them and their testimony, but the fire within only burnt its way through and turned the wet into steam and proved the possessor to be practically invulnerable.

It is indeed hard to cut off one's growth when it comes from within.

There may be a momentary check at times when unforeseen obstacles are thrust in one's way, but the growth producing qualities within a.s.sert themselves and burst out with increasing force which make the tormentors wonder "what next?"

CHAPTER XIV

THE PALM TREE HAS A COa.r.s.e, ROUGH EXTERIOR; BUT IT IS SOFT AT HEART

In spite of its symmetry, its wonderful beauty and its perennial freshness, the palm tree has rather a harsh exterior. But being an endogenous tree, its pithy interior makes it always soft at the center, or heart.

In the realm of grace, we often find some of G.o.d's best saints with a somewhat coa.r.s.e-grained exterior. They may be uncouth, unlettered, uncultured, and reared in the backwoods, but they can look up with Job and say, "He maketh my heart soft."

While Christian education is to be prized, and culture to be much esteemed, there are some who have not had these advantages, yet have proved by actual experience that G.o.d's grace is free for all, and a clean, soft heart can abide beneath a rough exterior.

Methinks Elijah, with his rough garments and s.h.a.ggy hair, had underneath his crude exterior one of the softest hearts of his time. John the Baptist, with camel's hair clothing, leathern girdle, and locust pabulum had a kind, soft heart within.

Sometimes G.o.d's people are much misunderstood because of their natural uncouthness and blunt manners, when, if their hearts could be seen, they would appear whiter than snow and softer than silk. Thank G.o.d, He knows.

The beautiful blessing of "perfect love" has been often misunderstood.

Some seem to think it is a sort of lovey-dovey, sentimental something that makes its possessor smile on everybody and everything no matter what the moral quality may be. Perfect love sometimes a.s.sumes the rugged type, and deals along drastic lines. It can weep with those who weep, but when there is a very critical operation to perform, there may be no place for tears just then, for tears would blind the eyes.

Elijah, whose heart was full of perfect love, came to a place where the false prophets had to be exterminated, and he had grace and grit enough to carry out the heaven-appointed program.

John the Baptist, whose experience Jesus Christ himself did not question, could face the hypocritical church members and say, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance" (Matt. 3:7, 8).

No, perfect love deals death blows where death blows are needed. A mad dog is running loose in the street. Children are playing on the opposite corner. Some one rushes out with a bludgeon in his hand, and jeopardizes his life, but he lays out the mad dog. Some sentimental on-looker asks, "Was that love that prompted you to treat that dog thus?" He answers, "Yes; love for those innocent children over on the corner."

A man is drowning. In vain he struggles and screams. He is about to perish, when a stalwart specimen of humanity swims out and deals the poor man a terrible blow in the proper place to stun him. He ceases to struggle, and the expert life-saver swims ash.o.r.e and lays his man at the feet of rejoicing friends. Some one says, "Was that love that made you strike that poor, helpless man?" He replies, "Yes; if I hadn't stunned him, he would have drowned himself and me too."

A freight train was pulling into an Illinois town in the night. The crew saw a building on fire and had reason to believe that a friend was upstairs in a certain room. The train was stopped and two men rushed to the scene of the fire. Up the stairs they mounted and never stopped to knock at the chamber door, but rushed to the slumberer. There was no time for ceremonies. They grabbed the man and dragged him down the stairs most abruptly. They had scarcely reached the outside when the stairway fell in, and had they been a minute later all would have been lost. Imagine that rescued victim complaining of harsh treatment, skinned shins and sprained ankles! Love made the rescuers adopt speedy and most drastic measures and nothing else would have saved.

When the writer was a small boy in Iowa, a presiding elder of the M. E.

church lived in his town. He was an exceedingly corpulent man, weighing something over three hundred fifty pounds. One day he was taken very sick and a physician prescribed for him, leaving the medicine in the form of powders for him to take. The great, big preacher looked at the small powders and then at his bigness, and said to himself: "I am so large I think I would better take two of them." He accordingly took a double dose and soon discovered that they were putting him to sleep. His family and friends saw the awful mistake he had made, and determined to use desperate measures to keep him awake, or they well knew they would soon have a dead presiding elder on their hands. Accordingly, love went to work. They walked him about, switched him, and punished him in any way their quickened ingenuity could invent. In vain he begged them to let him alone and sleep, but they threshed him and punished him till they wore off the effect of the opiate and saved his life. Would any one question the promptings of love that led those people to give their presiding elder such a beating? I trow not.

Did Jesus Christ love when He drove the money changers out of the temple at the end of a whip? Did Daniel have love when he faced the wicked Belshazzar and told him of his sins at the risk of his own life? Was there love in Jeremiah's heart when he swore to the truth and changed not, even if he did land in the dark, miry dungeon? Where was Joshua's love when he put his foot on the necks of the Canaanitish kings? What about Samuel and Agag? Look over the history of the Old and New Testaments and note some of the rugged measures taken by G.o.d's prophets and others, and see that it was not always of the easy-going, soft-gloved, alligator-teared type.

In the far North, when it was an object to get the mail over those bleak, barren plains, with the thermometer many degrees below zero, one frightfully frigid morning the express driver was bundled up for his long, cold ride in his sleigh. Just as he was about to start, a rather scantily dressed woman came up with a baby in her arms, and told the driver that she had just received news of her husband's death, and she must go to him. He remonstrated with her and tried to show her that she could never stand the cold trip; that she would certainly freeze on the way. But his words were futile, for she climbed into the sleigh and was determined to go to her husband. Finding that he could not prevail upon her to desist, he tucked her in the bottom of the sleigh, piled the straw around, placed the wraps about her and her baby and started on. As they progressed, the cold grew more and more intense. The icy flakes began to fill the air, and the wind was cutting its way through to the very marrow. Finally, the driver saw the poor woman nodding, and discovered the sleepy droop of her eyelids. He thought, "Oh, the poor woman is freezing to death and what shall I do?" He hastily tried to think of some way of saving her life, when suddenly he stopped the sleigh, and quietly, without saying a word, took the baby from her arms and lifted the freezing form of the woman into the road; then he took the babe in his own arms and drove on. At first she staggered and stumbled around and then seemed to come to herself and discovered that the driver was actually running off with her baby. The chase then began in good earnest. He managed to keep just far enough ahead to encourage her in her desperate run. Finally, he saw the glow return to her cheek, and knew that the warm blood was again coursing through her body, and then he quietly let her in, placed the babe in her arms, snugly tucked them in and drove on to their destination. At the journey's end she said, "Oh, how I thank you for what you did! If you had not done that, my baby would have been an orphan tonight." Rough treatment was that; but it was prompted by love. Judging from the exterior appearance, it surely looked rough and frightfully cruel; but a heart of kindness was beneath it all.

A certain phrenologist was giving a public exhibition showing the science of phrenology. A well-known citizen was on the platform having his cranium and physiognomy examined, the result of which was being communicated to the audience. The man had some very prominent b.u.mps and features which indicated a disposition far from pleasant, and the examiner was telling it out to the congregation as one striking, ugly point after another was discovered. As the phrenologist proceeded from one statement to another, delineating the man's character, the congregation first smiled, and then burst into laughter. The professor was actually describing the man opposite to what he really was. They knew the man, and it excited their risibilities to see the scientist so far miss the mark. Of course it was embarra.s.sing to him, but on concluding his talk, the gentleman who had been examined asked if he might say a word. He then told the people that the phrenologist had told the truth and had given a very accurate description of his natural disposition; that he had perfectly pictured out his former life; that the reason why he was not that way now, was because of the grace of G.o.d that had come into his life. Grace had made the change, but the old, rough exterior was not worn off, and the phrenologist had judged from the appearance.

Let us not judge by the external simply. Like the palm tree, one may be crude and rough outside, but inside he may meet the loving approbation of G.o.d.

CHAPTER XV