Alright, let's turn to Isaiah
chapter 14. When I was home visiting with my parents about
a month and a half ago, I walked down behind their home to see
the woods, the forest where I spent so much time when I was a child. And I remember what it looked
like when I was a child. There was giant, giant white
oak trees, pin oak trees, hickory nut trees, beech trees, pine
trees, just huge, huge timber. And the timber company that owned
that land, 4,000, over 4,000 acres, that owned that land the
entire time I was growing up, they've come in and cut on occasion
in that area. And they always left some tall
seed pine. And those seed pine dropped their
cones. And over time, more and more
pine trees grew. And that's what they want. They
want the pine timber. And this time, when I walked
back there, it's been, I don't know, how many years
since I've walked back there and looked. And when I walked
back there this time, there was nothing there. They had clear
cut it, which means they take everything and don't leave anything. and it was completely clear cut.
Now, the message that I have for you is not a message against
the timber industry. I live in a house and I sit at
a table. I preach from a pulpit. I've
sat in pews. Everything that we do requires
wood. If we're against the timber man,
we need to make everything out of mud. So don't misunderstand. That's
not what this is about. Everybody in my neighborhood,
everybody in my family has either been an ax man working in the
timber industry, or they have been in a related field that
supplied something for people that worked in the timber industry.
So it's a It's a main industry where I grew up. So that's not
what this message is about. But when I saw that, I thought
of one scripture. And the whole week I was there,
I was back there hunting and kept looking at that and seeing
it. And I kept thinking about this
scripture. And I've been thinking about
this scripture and that for this whole time since I've gotten
back. And I think I have a message for you. Isaiah 14 verse 8. Yea, the fir trees rejoice at
thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down,
no feller is come up against us. You've seen the TV program
called Axemen. That's what this word feller
means. Axemen. In the text, the one
that's been laid down is the king of Babylon. And he represents
the devil, Satan, Lucifer. The kingdom is a picture, his
kingdom is a picture of that which is false, that which is
contrary, opposite to the word of God. It is a great problem
in our flesh. It represents what is in our
flesh, what we're born with in our flesh. God crushed Satan's
head through His Son, Christ Jesus. And through the Holy Spirit,
He binds the strong man within His people, entering into His
redeemed, giving us life and faith in Christ. And here's our
rejoicing. Look at verse 4. "...that thou
shalt take up this proverb, against the king of Babylon and say,
How hath the oppressor ceased? The golden city ceased. The Lord hath broken the staff
of the wicked and the scepter of the rulers. He who smote the
people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations
in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth. The whole earth
is at rest and is quiet. They break forth into singing.
Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee. and the cedars of Lebanon
saying, since thou art laid down, no axe man is come up against
us." The title of the message is, No More Axe Man. No more axe man. The devil, represented here by Lucifer, desired to be as the Most High
God. By His own will, by the work
of His own hand, He desired to be as the Most High God. We're
not told exactly what happened, but we can gather from the Scriptures
that whenever God the Father announced The covenant of grace,
the decree of God concerning His Son, Christ Jesus, that His
Son would receive all the glory and would accomplish all the
work and the salvation of His people. This is in eternity,
before the world ever was made. Lucifer, this angel created of
God, and a third of the host of angels fell with him. Because this one did not like
that Christ, the Most High God, would receive all the glory. And he said this within himself. Look at verse 12. How art thou
fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the
ground which did weaken the nations? For thou hast said in thine heart,
I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount
of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High
God. Now God won't share His glory
with another. He won't share his glory with
another. And so in order to build his kingdom, this one who determined
that he would be as the Most High God, in order to build his
kingdom, the devil, he needed men to do it. You know, in our
text, earthly kings desired those cedars of Lebanon and those fir
trees that grew in Lebanon. They wanted those trees to build
their their houses, to build their
temples, to build their ships, to build their weapons of war,
to build their kingdoms. They needed those cedars for
that reason. And those cedars are a picture,
a type of God's people, of Christ's elect, those that he came to
redeem. And so when Satan entered into
the garden, the first thing he entered into the garden to do
was to take for himself men to take them for himself to build
up his kingdom. And he entered that garden with
the same doctrine that's described here that was in his heart. Will,
I will. That doctrine of by his will
he would be as the Most High God. And when he enters the garden,
look at Genesis 3. When he enters the garden, This
is his doctrine, and this is always his doctrine. This is
how you recognize the doctrine of the devil. It's the promise
of freedom, of liberty for man, if man will do the opposite of
what God says. It's a promise of freedom if
man will do the opposite of what God says. If he'll just reach
forth his own hand to get for himself what God alone is able
to give. That's what Lucifer was attempting
to do. That's what the devil has always
attempted to do. To get for himself the glory
that belongs to God, to get for himself what only God can give. And he's determined to do it
in a way opposite to how God gets glory to himself. Now look
here what his message was. Genesis 3, 4. His message was
to Eve, the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. God said, man takes the fruit
of the garden, have that one tree forbidden by God, he's going
to die. And Satan said, you shall not surely die. For God doth
know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as God's, knowing good and evil. He said to her
the opposite of what God said. He said to her, there's a way
you can get liberty, and it's by reaching forth your own hand,
exactly opposite to what God said, and by your own will, you
can get something God hasn't given you. That's his doctrine. That's his doctrine. And then,
when God came, He comes in the covenant of grace that He makes
in the hearts of the believer. God's gospel is this. It's done. It's done. All is done. And He
says not to do, but He tells you to believe on Christ who
accomplished, who kept the law. That very law Adam broke, He
kept it. And He brought in everlasting
righteousness for His people and justified us from that sin
we broke. And He says to us now, believe
on Him. Through faith, believe in God,
we establish the law of God. How so? Because Christ is the
righteousness of the law. And through faith we establish
the law. We're justified from it and we
have fully kept it through faith in it. And to just live by faith. We don't just start by faith,
we live by faith. And everything we do, faith worketh
by love. The fruit of the Spirit is love,
it's joy, it's goodness, it's long-suffering, it's temperance,
it's faith. Against these, there is no law. And those that are Christ, who
by God's grace have believed on Him, have crucified the flesh
with the affections and the lusts of the flesh. We've been crucified
when Christ was crucified. Paul said, I was crucified with
him, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
And the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son
of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And he said,
I don't frustrate this grace because if righteousness comes
any other way, if it comes by me reaching forth my hand to
obtain it in a way opposite to how God says it's accomplished,
then I make Christ's death vanity. I make it vain. But Satan comes
and Satan says, do just the opposite of that. He says, except you
keep the law, you can by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven. His doctrine is always opposite. And when a believer believes
on Christ and trusts, I am free from the law, I am saved by grace,
Satan and his messengers, their word is, oh now then, You just
run free in sin and you run free in all the ways of your flesh,
in adultery and fornication and murder and drunkenness and revelings. Just live as free in those things
as you want to. The point I'm making is the devil's
doctrine is always opposite to God's doctrine. It's always opposite
to God's doctrine. Peter said, while they promised
them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption,
for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in
bondage. Now you listen to this. Man who's dead in sin thinks
that his freedom is by his will and his work. Everybody wants
to be free. Everybody wants liberty. And
men try to get it one of two ways. Men try to get it by their
works of righteousness that they've done, or men go the opposite
direction and try to be as free as they can by saying no holes
barred. Everything's open and free to
me. I can live in all sensuality that I want to live in. But a man who thinks his will
is free is a man in bondage under Satan. A man who is freed from Satan
is a man who's made willing to serve God under grace. Willing to serve God under grace. Satan and false religion, even
all our fleshly man, Any who attempt to build a kingdom, any
who attempt to ascend and be as the Most High God by our will,
by our work, any who do so, reproaches the true and living God. And
yet, God gets glory to Himself even
in that. Even in that. Look at 2 Kings
chapter 19. 2 Kings chapter 19. Satan entered that garden. You
know, when those saws came, back into those woods behind
my parents' home, those trees were helpless. Those trees were
just standing there. And those saws came in and cut
them down. And that's what Satan did in the garden. When Adam
sinned, he was just cut down. Helpless. Cut down. And all mankind
fell in him. And when we did, we're no match
for the feller, for the axe man. When he comes because it's the
lust of our flesh to do what's opposite of God. It's no great
feat for Him to cause us to walk in that which is opposite to
God. But look here, this king of Assyria, he's an example of
how this is a reproach to God and how God even gets glory to
Himself in the midst of it. Look at 2 Kings 19-22. Whom hast thou reproached and
blasphemed? He's talking to the king of Assyria.
And against whom hast thou exalted thy voice and lifted up thine
eyes on high, even against the Holy One of Israel? By thy messengers
thou hast reproached the Lord. How so? What did he say? This was the reproach. He said,
with the multitude of my chariots, I am come up to the height of
the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the
tall cedar trees thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof,
and I will enter into the lodging of his borders, and into the
forest of his caramel. I have digged in drunk strange
waters, and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the
rivers of besieged places. See, it's a reproach to God to
say, I will, I will, I will. Christ didn't say that when He
came. He said, I didn't come to do my own will. Even though
His will and the Father's will were one and the same, He's teaching
us, I didn't come to do my will. I came to do the will of humanity.
And this is the will that God gives to His people. the willingness
to do as God has said, to trust his son and love one another
even as he has said. But look what God says to these
ones who reproach him. Has thou not heard long ago how
I have done it and of ancient times that I have formed it?
Now have I brought it to pass that thou shouldest be to lay
waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps. Do you think that what
happened in the garden was out of God's will and purpose to
glorify His Son, it was exactly accomplished to glorify His Son. Therefore, their inhabitants
were of small power. They were dismayed and confounded.
They were as the grass of the field, as the green herb, as
the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be
grown up. But I, God says, know thy abode,
and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me,
because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine
ears. Therefore I will put my hook
in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee
back by the way which thou camest. Now, first thing I want you to
see there, what we just looked at, is we were cut down. Just
as helpless trees are cut down, we were cut down by Satan in
the garden. So that when we come forth, whether
we be in religion or whether we be just running wild in this
world, whichever the case, Satan is instructing us by His doctrine,
by His teaching, through His messengers, whether they be a
preacher or whether they be somebody you're out behind the barn with. Whoever. He's using His messengers
to teach you. It's good to do the opposite
of what God says. If you do the opposite of what
God says, you will get some liberty that you can only get by your
hand. That's the lie of Satan. That's the lie of Satan. Now
secondly, I want you to see that Christ cut down the devil and
he builds his house, his children. Now listen to this. Those cedars
that were in Lebanon, those cedars could only be cut down by the
decree of royalty. They can only be cut down by
the decree of a king. No, no other way. No other way. When we were in Maine on our
honeymoon, you remember we talked to some folks when
we went through the north country and they told us about how large
those those pines were when when the first settlers came and the
king The king commanded that the biggest, best ones be marked
and they were his and they couldn't be cut down unless the king said
cut them down. Well, those cedars in Lebanon
were the same way. They couldn't be cut down unless
they were cut down by a royal decree. That's why it was such
a reproach when the king of Assyria came up and said, I'm going to
send up the Mount of Lebanon myself and I'm going to cut down
those cedars and I'm going to take them back with me and I'm
going to build my empire with them. That's why the picture
is the reproach it was when Satan entered the garden and said,
I'm cutting them down and I'm building my empire with men. I'm taking men, God's people,
out of his hand. I'm taking his choice firs, his
choice cedars out of his hand and I'm going to build my own
kingdom, the devil said. Well, whenever The Lord builds
His house. He's the King that gives the
decree. And the decree by His covenant
is how this house is built. You remember all of these trees,
these cedars of Lebanon. You know what Solomon's temple
was built with? It was built with the cedars
of Lebanon. You know how it was built? Solomon, the King, gave
a decree, and entered into a covenant with Hiram, the king of Tyre,
where the cedars were. And the king of Tyre sent all
those cedars to Solomon, and he built the Lord's house with
those cedars, using those cedars as the foundation. You see, the
elect of God are trees of righteousness. They're chosen by the king. And God the King sent forth God
the King, who is Christ the King, who came forth, and He brings
all God's choice cedars, all His choice firs, all His trees,
He brings unto God. And Christ builds them up, His
spiritual house, His temple, by what He's done and what He's
accomplished. That's the picture here that we get in the decree. And Christ accomplished this
work when he came forth and he cut down the devil, the king
of Babylon. That's what the trees are rejoicing
in here. They're rejoicing that since
you're laid down, oh king of Babylon, there's nobody now,
no ax man that's come up against us and cut us down. Look in the
wilderness, Luke 4 verse 5. Luke 4, verse 5. Don't you think
it's interesting that Adam began, and that Satan began his work
in a garden, in a garden. And he made it a wilderness by
what he did, by what Satan did in the garden. Through Adam's
one transgression, it became a wilderness. Well, you know
where Christ came to? He came to a wilderness. He came
to a wilderness. And He went into that wilderness,
and there Satan, the devil himself, tried to make that same, bring
him that same doctrine, that same false doctrine. Listen to
it. Luke 4, 5. The devil, taking
him up into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms
of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him,
All this power will I give thee. and the glory of them for that
is delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will I give it." Do you see
this? Do you see how false that is?
Do you see how completely opposite to God that is? This is what
he told Eve in the garden. This is what he told when he
beguiled her. And the devil said unto him,
he said, if thou, here's what he demanded, if thou therefore
will worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and
said unto him, get thee behind me, Satan, for
it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only
shalt thou serve. In the garden of Gethsemane,
John 14.30 says, the Lord said, Hereafter, I'm not going to talk
much with you. And He said, For the Prince of
this world cometh. That's what He's called, the
Prince of this world, the King of Babylon. He's coming. And
He says, And He's not going to find anything in me, but that
the world may know. that I love the Father as the
Father gave me commandment, even so I do, Christ said. And he
said, let us go hence. You know what Christ is doing?
Everything he's doing in defeating, he's defeating the devil. He's crushing his head. and He's
doing it for a people as the last Adam, as the representative
of all His people because His people were cut down by Satan
and made a wilderness so that they couldn't do what He's doing.
On the cross, after everything else had failed, when all else
had failed and He didn't have anything in Him, Satan unleashed
all His fury, and all His army, and all His axe men. He unleashed
them all, and He nailed Christ Jesus to a cross. But just like
the Lord told the king of Assyria, you've only done that which I
have allowed you to do. And in doing it, when He did
it, though He bruised the heel of Christ, Christ crushed his
head. He crushed his head. Why? He took away that power that
he had. He took away all the sin of his
people. He took away the power of a broken
law that Satan used to accuse his people with because Christ
fulfilled it. He took away the power Satan
had of that fleshly dominion because
as we'll see, Christ not only defeated Satan on the cross,
he defeats him in his people too. He did all this that through
death he might deliver them who through fear of death were all
their lifetime subject to bondage. He delivered them from the power
of death, that is the devil. He took all his power from him.
He took everything from him that he had to use against his people. And then he does this within
us. Look at Ephesians 2.2. Ephesians 2.2. Now this is what the scripture
says of all God's elect people, Ephesians 2.2, in time past he
walked according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air. The spirit, that same spirit
that now worketh in the children of disobedience, walked according
You walked under your king. We walked under our king, and
our king was the prince of the power of the air. Our king was
the devil. Though we might have thought
we were religious, though we might have memorized the Ten
Commandments and thought by that we knew our sin, or though we
might have memorized the Five Points of Calvinism and thought
by that we knew Christ, we were still under the dominion of Satan,
walking in disobedience. under the prince of the power
of the air until Christ did something within us through the Spirit
of God. This is what he said in 2 Corinthians 4 verse 4. 2
Corinthians 4 verse 4. He says Verse 3, If our gospel be hid,
it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not. The God of
this world, the Prince of the power of the air, hath blinded
the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto
them. You remember, what our Lord said,
let's look at this, Matthew 12, verse 28. Matthew 12, 28. All of those works that our Lord
did in casting out devils, out of men, that was to show us,
brethren, His power, what He literally does when He comes
and puts a new spirit in His people and binds that spirit
of flesh, that spirit of the Prince of the Power of the Air.
Look at Matthew 12, 28. He said, if I cast out devils
by the Spirit of God, that's how he did it then, that's how
he does it now. If I cast out devils by the Spirit
of God, then the Kingdom of God has come unto you. He's saying,
if I do this, then you know I'm the Christ, I'm the Messiah.
And he says this, or else, How can one enter into a strong man's
house and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man,
then he will spoil his house? That's what Christ does. That's
what I read to you, that example of that demon-possessed man who
was a Gadarene. This man lived among the dead. That's whatever man does that
comes forth from his mother's womb. He lives among the dead.
This man was often cutting himself. That's what religion will make
you do. Religion will make you constantly keep cutting yourself
and cutting yourself, trying to get rid of what you are. The
people had bound this man. They had tried to make this man
be in his right mind and make this man live and make him act
like, act right. And they couldn't do anything.
That's what I'm, by the will and the works of men, by the
will and works of the flesh, we can't do anything. We can't
satisfy. This man didn't have any clothes
on. We don't have any clothes on by nature. We're not robed
in the garment of Christ's righteousness by nature. But Christ came to
this man and Christ spoke a word. You know what I hope he's doing
right now? I hope Christ is speaking. I hope he's speaking. And Christ spoke a word. And
when he spoke this word, those devils, and there was a legion
in that man showing us what kind of power he has. There was a
legion in that man. And they said, please, please
let us go into those swine. And the Lord said, go, but get
out of this man. This is a certain man who I came
for. Get out of him. This is a man
whom I've redeemed by all my own blood. You get out of him. Get out of him. You know, I heard
this other day. I know this is what you're laughing
at. I heard this the other day. You know when people sneeze and
people say, bless you. They say, bless you. You know
why that's a Just a superstitious act, people do say, bless you.
And it came from the fact that when people sneezed, it was supposed
to be that demons were coming out of them, unclean spirits
were coming out. And I heard somebody say, so
you are to say, when somebody sneezes, get out of him! And that's what Christ does. He comes, that's what it is to
be blessed of God. It's for Him to come and say,
get out of him. Get out of him. And when He did
that, and those people came, and they looked and saw this
man. This man, they saw him sitting at the feet of Jesus,
clothed, and in His right mind. That's where they saw it. And
this man went about, from then on, publishing. At Christ's command,
he went about publishing. He didn't go about telling men,
now, if you'll just come out of the tombs, and if you'll just
cut yourself enough, and if you'll just listen to religion enough,
and if you'll just bind yourself enough, and if you'll just do
things by your will and by your work enough, You can be like
I am. He went and told them, this is
how I was. And there wasn't a thing I could
do about it, wasn't a thing anybody else could do about it. And Christ
did this for me. He did this for me. And you know
what happened? When those fellas came back and
they saw this man in his right mind, Even though they had tried
to get Him to be in His right mind, when they saw what Christ
had done, and that Christ had done what they couldn't do, you
know what they said? They told Christ, you get out. We don't want you here. You've
shown us up. And we're ones in whom the Spirit
of the Prince of the Power of the Air dwells, and we don't
want to be shown up. But when Christ comes, we're
going to be shown up. He's going to show us. What do
you call it? He's going to give us our comeuppance.
He's going to show us he's greater than we are, greater than we
are. And so the trees here rejoice. And they say, you're falling.
And now there's no ax man. Look at verse 12. How art thou
fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou
cut down to the ground that didst weaken the nation? You were cutting
us down. Now they say, you're cut down. Now here's the last thing. I
want to show you this rejoicing of the trees which God has planted.
Verse 8 says, Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee in the cedars
of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller has
come up against us. Alright, let's look at a couple
of scriptures. My battery went out on my watch, so I don't know
how long I've been up here, what time it is. Look with me, I want
you to see this. Song of Solomon 5. Song of Solomon
verse 5. Well, chapter 5, I'm sorry. Look at verse 10. You know what
a cedar is? The wood of a cedar is... The cedars of Lebanon is different
than our cedars, than the cedars we have, than the fir trees we
have. The cedars of Lebanon were a
bright, bright wood. And it was a red wood. This word right here, and those
cedars were the chiefest, tallest among 10,000 trees. They were the greatest. Look
at Song of Solomon 510. This is the bride's song to Christ,
our beloved. My beloved is white and ruddy. The chiefest among 10,000. Look
down at verse 15 at the last part. His countenance, that's
what we're talking about, is as Lebanon. Excellent as the
cedars. Excellent as the cedars. You
see, He became one with His people. He's made us one of His choice
cedars because He became the choice cedar. And He's made it
so we can't be cut down because He was cut down. Hosea 14.8,
Ephraim shall say, if you want to turn there, I'll give you
time. Hosea 14.8, Ephraim shall say, let's just picture his people. Ephraim shall say, what have
I to do anymore with idols? And that's what that Gadarene
said, and that's what we're going to say if he speaks in our heart. What have I to do anymore with
idols? I have heard Him and observed
Him. I've heard Him and I've seen
Him. And this is what He said to me. This is Christ speaking. I am like a green fir tree. From Me is thy fruit found. Do you see that? We're talking
about the fir trees rejoicing and the cedars rejoicing because
we've been made one with Christ. Therefore, the psalmist said,
the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He shall
grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Now, I'm going to give you some
characteristics about a cedar. That's what we're going to close
with. And all of these characteristics are so of God's people, of the
believer, because this is so of Christ. And this is what we
are in Christ. Because of what He's done for
us and who we are. I'm going to quote some scriptures,
so I'll let you turn to them. Isaiah 61-3. You know what a
cedar is? It's full of oil. We know with kindling, and we
know if you find a piece of cedar, you found something that's going
to start a fire. It's going to start a fire. Isaiah 61. It's
going to start a fire because it's full of oil. Full of oil. While you're tending there, I'll
tell you this story. I was out at Flooded Creek Bottom one time,
and we got lost in this Flooded Creek Bottom. And it was dark. And we come walking along, and
we come across one piece of cedar, kindling, growing up. A piece
of, we called it lighter pine, growing up. And we took that
piece of pine out there and found one little mound out there that
was just out of the water. Everything, it had all been under
water. Everything was wet. We took that lighter pine and
took enough twigs and stuff and just set it down there. And before
we got finished, we had a blazing fire going. Because that cedar's
full of oil. And you know what will happen
when one's full of oil? He'll start a fire. He'll start
a fire. Christ's people will start a
fire. Because they're full of oil. Look at Isaiah 61, 3. The oil of joy for mourning. That's what He's given us. The
oil of joy. The oil of the Spirit of God. In the place of all our sorrow.
The garment of praise for the Spirit of heaviness. That they
might be called trees of righteousness. The planting of the Lord. That
He might be glorified. What are these trees doing in
our text? They're rejoicing. Why? We're not going to be cut
down anymore. These cedars grew in rich soil. They grew where there was much
water. They were evergreen and always
fragrant. Look at Jeremiah 17.8. Jeremiah
17.8. Verse 7 says, Blessed is the
man that trusteth in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is. For
he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth
out her roots by the river. Christ is the waters. A man shall
be waters, Isaiah said. Spreadeth out her roots by the
river, and shall not see when he cometh, but her leaf shall
be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither
shall cease from yielding fruit. This is God's people. They're
trees. ever watered, growing in the
rich soil of His grace, whose roots spread out, who are ever
green, ever green by His grace. And here's something else. Look
over at Joel chapter 2. Joel chapter 2. This is the last
thing. Joel chapter 2. A cedar will never be eaten by
wood-boring pests. Never will. Never will. Psalm 91 5 says, Thou shalt not
be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flyeth
by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor
for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. Look at Joel 2 25.
Are we there yet? Joel 2 25. Look at this. And I will restore to you the
years that the locust had eaten, the canker worm, and the caterpillar,
and the palmer worm, my great army which I sent among you.
And you shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise
the name of the Lord your God that hath dealt wondrously with
you, and my people shall never be ashamed. Now here's one thing
that we have in common, the believer does, with the fir tree, or that
we have in common with each other, that the fir tree and the cedar
tree does not have in common with us. It's our text. Because Christ has conquered
Satan. For us and in us. We never will have an axe man
come up against us and separate us from the love of God, which
is in Christ Jesus. There is no more axe man for
God's trees. No more. Is that good news? I've been thinking about this.
I know I preach from this text, but I've been thinking about
this, thinking about this ever since I saw that cut over. And
I thought, I don't ever have to worry about that tree of God's
planting. Amen.