The Trees of the Field,

The Trees of the Field, and Their Appointed Destiny

"And all the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree--have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish. I the Lord have spoken, and have done it." Ezekiel 17:24

It seems impossible, as Deer justly speaks, to chalk out a path of Christian experience, and to say that all the children of God shall walk in some precise path, which shall be particularly laid down. The all-wise God has various ways of bringing his children to the knowledge of himself; and he will baffle all the wisdom of man, so that none shall be able to prescribe a path for God, or confine him within those narrow limits which our fallen mind is continually attempting to assign to the Almighty.

But though we can lay down no one path of Christian experience, nor set up one rigorous standard whereby to measure all the children of God, yet doubtless there are certain great outlines of Divine teaching which are to be traced out in the hearts and consciences of all the elect family. There is a vast difference between setting up one rigorous standard, and cutting off every one that does not come up to these prescribed limits, and casting aside all standards altogether. There are certain great branches of truth which must be experimentally felt and known; there are certain leading outlines of Divine teaching which must be engraved by the Spirit upon every quickened heart; and he that is not personally and individually acquainted with these grand outlines, does not bear the stamp of being one of God's regenerated family.

For instance, "Repent and believe the Gospel;" if there is no repentance, if there is no believing the Gospel, there must be the absence of Divine teaching. "This is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent," if there is no internal, spiritual, experimental knowledge of the only true God, and of Jesus Christ the Mediator, there must be the absence of eternal life in the soul. If there are no convictions of sin, there must be an absence of the work of the Spirit, who "convinces of sin," and brings the soul in "guilty before God." If there is a lack of faith in the Mediator, there is the absence of another decisive stamp, whereby God has marked his people. And so we might enlarge upon the various outlines of Christian truth and the grand branches of internal experience, and say that where these grand outlines are lacking, where these branches of Divine truth are not experimentally known, there we have decisive evidence that God the Holy Spirit has not quickened that soul into spiritual and eternal life.

Now the Lord, in his word, seems to have laid down certain grand rules of procedure by which he works. For instance – "Every one that exalts himself shall be abased, and he that humbles himself shall be exalted." That is a rule of the Divine procedure, according to which he works, which rule never can be violated in one instance. And in this verse the last of the chapter, from which I hope, with God's blessing, to deliver a few thoughts this evening, we have a rule of the Divine procedure, analogous to that which I have just quoted – "And all the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree – have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish – I the Lord have spoken and have done it." Therefore, if our experience--think of it what we may--does not run in the channel which God himself has marked out – if it is not in strict accordance with the grand outlines which the Holy Spirit himself has drawn in the word of truth – upon that experience we must write "Tekel, weighed in the balances, and found wanting."

We will, then, with God's blessing, apply this rule, which the Lord himself has laid down, and according to which he works, to our experience, such as it is; and if our experience cannot stand the test of that rule, we must write "Ichabod" upon it; we must stamp "Tekel" in large letters upon its forehead. "All the trees of the field know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish."

The Lord speaks here of four different trees, or rather of four trees in different states; and he tells us in this verse what his work is towards and upon these trees. And in the unfolding of this, I shall endeavor, with the Lord's blessing, to employ the time that we shall remain together this evening.

"All the trees of the field, then, shall know" a certain truth. What are these "trees of the field?" "The field" seems to set forth the visible Church of God; and "the trees of the field" seem to set forth all the professors of Divine truth, whether they are possessors or not. "The trees of the field" do not here seem to signify the quickened family of God, but those trees which openly stand in the field – those people that have an outward standing in Christ's visible church here below. We find that the Scriptures often speak of people, not as they really are, but as they profess to be. For instance, the Lord says, "Every branch in me that bears not fruit he takes away." Now, he speaks of that "branch," not as it really is, but as it professes to be. The branch never was "in him;" but the branch professed to be in him, and therefore, in using those words he spoke of the branch as what it professed to be, and not what it really was.

So with respect to the "trees of the field," the Lord takes them upon the broad basis of profession. They profess to be "trees of righteousness which the Lord has planted;" they profess to stand forth in the woods of the Lord's own implantation. The Lord takes them according to their own profession; not now passing any decisive sentence as to what they really are in his sight, but assuming, upon the broad basis of their own profession, that they are "trees of the field," that is, members of his visible Church here below. The trees, then, of this field are all that stand in the visible Church of God, all whose eyes are in any measure open, naturally or spiritually, to see truth, all that have made any separation from a "world lying in wickedness," all that profess to receive "the truth as it is in Jesus," all that stand forth to contend for the Gospel in its purity and power. All these trees, whether they be trees of God's planting, or whether they be planted by Satan – all these members of professing churches, all these branches of the vine, whether in it by reality, or in it only by profession – all these "trees of the field" shall know a certain truth.

Now, what is this certain truth? That the Lord will do a certain work towards, and a certain work in characters, which he himself has delineated; and that it shall be visible to the Church of God what he does to those characters, which his own hand has drawn as they really stand before his heart-searching eye.

I. Now, the first character of which the Lord speaks is the "HIGH tree;" which is to be "brought down." That expression – a "high tree" – seems to bear two significations.

1. There is the "high tree" – that is, a nominal professor, who is destitute of the fear of God, who has nothing of the grace of God in his soul, but stands in the visible Church of Christ in a profession of godliness, while he is inwardly devoid of its power. With such the Church is overrun, and I believe that there is no Church--let us talk of the purity of a Church as much as we please--that is free from these trees, which are not "trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that he may be glorified," but have been introduced by Satan into the Church with a profession of religion, when their hearts are utterly devoid of the power of vital godliness experienced therein.

This "high tree," then, is a high, towering, lofty, soaring, presumptuous professor, whose head is thoroughly stored with the doctrines of grace, but who is destitute of the feeling power of vital godliness in his soul; one unburdened, unexercised, untempted, untried; who has never felt the powerful hand of God upon him to crush him into the dust; who has never fallen down before the throne of God's majesty and mercy as a ruined wretch without hope or help; who has never been brought in guilty before the Lord – never been reduced to complete beggary, poverty, and insolvency in self; but is a natural man still in a profession of religion, and has experienced nothing of the sovereign teachings and Divine operations of God the Holy Spirit in his conscience.

Now the Lord the Spirit has stamped him with a certain mark – that he is a "high tree." He is not the creeping ivy; he is not the vine that cannot climb without a support; but he towers aloft in head-knowledge, soars upward in presumptuous confidence, rises up to the clouds in the lofty imaginations of his unhumbled heart, and looks down with haughty contempt and pride of heart upon those who are groaning, and sighing, and mourning, beneath a body of sin and death. In this woods of trees, the first object that catches the eye is "the high tree," that soars above them all. You will find this nominal professor in the Church of Christ always ready to come forward, he never hangs back through a sense of his weakness and ignorance; he is never plagued with doubts and fear as to his state before God; he never puts his mouth in the dust from a deep sense of his vileness and baseness before him; but let him be present in any company, or on any occasion, he is ready to speak, to exalt himself, and to tower high above the family of God, who are mourning and sighing over the burden of sin, guilt, and corruption, and are suing after the Lord's manifestations of favor to their souls.

Now the Lord says, "All the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree." Then this "high tree" must be "brought down;" and not merely brought down, but visibly brought down – brought down in the sight of the trees of the field, laid low in the sight of all who have eyes to see, who have ears to hear, who have minds to understand what God's dealings are.

Some of these "high trees" the Lord "brings down," by allowing them to fall into open sin. No man has sin subdued in him, except that man who has the fear of God in his heart, "as a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death;" all others are under the dominion of sin; they are, as the Lord declares, "the servants of sin;" they think themselves free, but sin secretly "reigns in their mortal body, and they obey it in the lusts thereof." Now the Lord, in order that all the trees of the woods may "know that God brings down the high tree," often allows these high towering professors to fall into some notorious sin, whereby they stand disgraced before the eyes of Christ's Church, and are branded as mere professors of vital godliness, utterly destitute of the feeling power. But the Lord has another way of "bringing down" this high tree; and that is, by smiting him with the stroke of vengeance in his conscience, so as to plunge him into all the horrors of despair. There is many a towering professor, who has soared high in false liberty, and reared his presumptuous head into the heaven of his high notions, that when he has come to die, has "howled upon his bed," as smitten with the rod of God's eternal vengeance, and breathed forth his guilty soul in all the horrors of despair in whose gnawing conscience the foretaste of eternal wrath and the flames of a devouring hell are kindled before be is precipitated by the avenging hand of God into it. And thus the Lord makes this man a manifest spectacle before others, by "bringing down the high tree," and casting him from his towering altitude into the depths of hell.

2. But the expression "high tree," bears another signification. Whence comes the presumption of self-confident professors? Does it not spring from an internal principle of PRIDE in them? And are not all, without exception, possessed of the same "deceitful and desperately wicked" heart? Then if the towering confidence of a presumptuous professor springs frominnate pride, is there not the same principle at work in the heart of a living child? Cases continually occur – no, if the Lord did not mercifully prevent, every one of us would fall into the snare – cases continually occur, where a living soul, one whom God has taken in hand and taught by his Spirit, through the subtlety of Satan, the pride of his heart and the workings of a deceitful nature, is elevated into a false confidence, stands in false liberty, and towers high in notion beyond the work of grace upon his heart.

Were "Jerusalem searched as with candles," we would find many such among the real people of God. And whence come they? What makes the tree spindle up in a forest? Is it not the company of other high towering trees? What draws them up into an unnatural altitude, and causes them to spindle high, without throwing out their branches horizontally, or spreading their roots in the soil? Why, it is the neighborhood of other lofty trees, which draws them up to this unnatural height. Now, so it is in the churches. "Bad company corrupts good manners." Three or four presumptuous professors in a church of the living God will draw up into high notions and presumptuous confidence, if God permits it, even some of the living family.

And there is another source of this presumption and vain confidence in the hearts of God's children; which is, sitting under ministers who stand themselves in a presumptuous confidence, who shoot their arrows against the exercises of God's tried family, who ridicule with sarcasm and bitter contempt the doubts and fears and guilt and trouble of the living family of Zion, and have their bolt to shoot at every one that stands not in the same presumptuous liberty with themselves. Under these tall upas trees, these lofty soaring ministers in the letter, are the family of God sometimes drawn up out of their real stature. They are drawn up into an ambitious aim to be like those, under whose ministry they continually sit; and they get fostered in presumption by constantly hearing a ministry which is full of it. Thus they become "high trees."

But the Lord will never allow his dear children to walk in vain confidence; he will never allow them, for a long season together, to stand in false liberty; and therefore he will "bring them down." "All the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree." The Lord will "bring down the high tree" in a way of judgment to the reprobate, but in a way of mercy to the elect.

And how does he "bring it down?" By letting the soul know a little of what it really is, by opening up some of the secrets of that deep fountain of internal corruption, which we carry about with us; by bringing perhaps heavy trials in providence, so as to strip us of every hope and of every help, but that which stands in God only; and by shooting his arrows of conviction into our conscience, whereby distress and anguish and guilt and misery and condemnation are internally felt. The Lord has but to touch us with his finger, and down comes all vain confidence. He has but to look upon us with one frown, and he will bruise into nothingness all our presumptuous liberty. He has but to take the veil for a moment off our hearts, and discover to us what we are, and discover to us what he is, and we shall fall down before him, as Isaiah fell when he saw the glory of the Lord in the temple. Our "loveliness will be turned into corruption," as it was when Daniel saw the "great vision;" and we shall "abhor ourselves in dust and ashes," as did Job, when he had "heard of God by the hearing of the ear, but now saw him with his eye." Thus the "high tree" must be "brought down."

The Lord sometimes allows his people to go on for years in a kind of half confidence, they themselves all the time suspecting that there is something wrong, but still not brought to the light clearly – "hoping against hope," – endeavoring to bolster up themselves with rotten props; but the moment he puts his hand upon them, the moment he discovers his holy indignation and wrath against sin in them, he strips them of their vain confidence, and down they go into the deep billows of trouble and despair, "deep calling unto deep at the noise of God's waterfalls," and all the waves and billows of God's wrath seem to roll over their heads. Then they are "brought down." Their false liberty disappears; their vain confidence is destroyed; their hope is removed; their faith seems to vanish out of their hearts; and they stand as on the very brink of hell in the sight of God, fearing lest every moment should thrust them into eternal perdition. Here is the "high tree brought down." And depend upon it, friends, if you are never "brought down," you will never be lifted up; depend upon it, if the grace of God has never humbled you, and broken you into nothingness before God, you will never be sweetly exalted by the manifestations of Christ to lift you up into himself.

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