I understand that there’s a tree someplace out in the southend that Alan Simonson has been toying with and he’s grafted a tree that’s going to bear all manner of fruit. Have you got twelve yet? Well, when you get twelve manner of fruit let us know and we’ll come out and see the tree. But what he is doing is cloning the tree. He is taking sprouts from other trees and joining them, grafting them into the tree. And there used to be a song, I remember Hilding Halverson singing, I don’t remember exactly how it went. But it was something about tying apples on the lilac tree. Apparently in the song, she had made a promise that when apples grew on the lilac tree that she would marry him. It was a song that was sometimes sung at weddings or receptions or things of that nature. It wasn’t a spiritual song, it was just one of those songs. So, the young man was out tying apples on the lilac tree. Well, you can go out to brother Simonson’s one of these days and you can see hanging on the tree apples and pears and peaches and all kinds of good things. Because he’s cloning the tree.
I look again in the word of God and I see that there came a time when man tried to usurp the authority of God. It started first of all with a man named Nimrod. And in that day and hour the earth was one, men were one. There was unity, at least as far as language was concerned. And they attempted to build a tower and to reach unto God. Wonderful thing to be on a stretch for God or reaching out for God but not in that fashion, in God’s way.
We go a little farther in the word of God and there are many examples that we could give you tonight but will not take time for them. We do want to mention another one that is very symbolic. And that is Nebuchadnezzar in the days of Daniel. For Nebuchadnezzar built an image. And that image became an object of worship throughout the land of Babylon. That image was sixty cubits high and six cubit wide. It had the number of man upon it, two sixes. And it was because of their integrity and their desire to worship God that some of God’s people in that day and hour got into trouble. They refused to bow. They refused to worship the image of Nebuchadnezzar.
And then I turn to the New Testament, I read these words found in the book of Romans, the first chapter of Romans verses twenty-two and twenty-three. Where Paul said, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorrupitible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.”