The Beauty Of The Olive Tree

The Beauty Of The Olive Tree

(No. 3176)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1909.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL
17, 1879.

"His beauty shall be as the olive tree." Hosea 14:6.

[This Sermon was one of several preached by Mr. Spurgeon after various
visits to the Riviera. He had intended to prepare a volume upon the
olive, but illness and the pressure of other work prevented. He had
revised nearly half of the manuscript of this discourse and the
revision of the remainder has followed as closely as possible the lines
laid down by him.]

OUR present objective will be to bring out the resemblance in point of
beauty between the godly man and the olive tree. But please note that
the parallel does not hold good of all who profess and call themselves
Christians–it is only true of those whose backsliding has been
healed–to whom the Lord has been as a refreshing dew. It is the
Believer in a healthy, growing and useful condition whose beauty is "as
the olive tree."

Things of beauty were evidently intended to be gazed upon. God created
beauty on purpose that it might enchain our eyes, rivet our attention
and command our thoughts. Whether it is the beauty of a tree or the
beauty of a man, it was meant to be a joy forever, but this it cannot
be if it is left unnoticed. Beautiful objects are intended to be
thought upon and spoken of–and we shall not be doing ill if we now
consider and commend a Christian. We shall be doing no dishonor to the
Master if we admire the disciple, if we confess, at the very outset,
that our whole intent is not to magnify Believers, but to glorify God
in them. There is no beauty in anything which charms our eyes but what
the Creator has put upon it and, assuredly, there is no spiritual
beauty about any man but what the Holy Spirit has worked in him, "for
we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works." If
the olive tree is beautiful, we are not so doting as to fall down and
worship it! And if a man is made comely by the Grace of God, we do not
worship the man, but we praise the Lord on his behalf! Glory be to God
who has done such marvelous things for poor human nature that he has
made it lovely–so lovely that even He, Himself, beholds a beauty in
it, for remember that the text is not only the word of a Prophet, but
the word of Jehovah, Himself, who says, "I will be as the dew unto
Israel… and his beauty shall be as the olive tree."

Having spent many months under the olive trees of the Riviera, my soul
has them still in remembrance. From morning till sunset I have rested
in the peaceful groves–at one time basking in the sunshine, and soon
seeking the shade to escape the heat of the sun which gave to the
invalid, summer in the months of winter! The very color of the olive
tree rests the eyes. I delight in its emerald gray, its silver green,
its unique foliage–and the song of the birds which sing among its
branches refreshes the ears! As I have looked upon the olive trees and
thought of them over and over again, my mind has sought for matter
whereby I might edify the people of God. My observations have always
been made with that desire. And as I now present them to my readers, it
is with many prayers that they may minister Divine Grace to those who
read them.

I. The Believer in a healthy spiritual state, refreshed by the Holy
Spirit as with the dew of Heaven, has a beauty like that of the olive
tree in this respect, that IT IS A BEAUTY WHICH GROWS UPON YOU.

Louis Figuier, in his, " Vegetable World," says peremptorily, "The
olive is of a sober grayish green aspect and without beauty, having a
rugged stunted aspect." We object to this verdict, but we freely admit
that at first sight, there is little or nothing attractive about the
olive tree. We have even heard persons pronounce it an unsightly tree
which has quite disappointed them. We were sure that they had never
sought its company and conversed with it hour after hour as we have
done, or they would not have spoken so slightingly of what we have
found, "a gracious tree for fruit, for leaf, for flower." Truth to
tell, it is not the most shapely of the sons of the forest. And though
the trees, as we are told in Jotham's

parable, sought it for a king, it does not, like Saul, lift its head
above its fellows. Neither does it, like Absalom, claim to be praised
beyond all others for comeliness. It is not a tree which would at once
strike the beholder with admiration, like some giant oak, or lofty
elm–nor charm him with its elegance, like a weeping willow–nor
astonish him with its grandeur, like a cedar of Lebanon. In order to
perceive its beauty, you must linger a little. You must look and look
again! And then, if you do not at last feel a deep respect for the
olive, and a quiet delight in its beauty, it must be because you are
not of a thoughtful spirit, or else because you have little poetry in
your soul. The more familiar you become with the olive tree, the more
will you take pleasure in it!

Now all this is also abundantly true of the lively Christian who is
full of the Grace of God. He may not at first charm you. Your
prejudices may lead you to avoid, if not to oppose him. He appears to
be somewhat singular and, perhaps, rugged. He differs materially from
the rest of mankind, for he does not run with the multitude–and you
are apt to think that his singularity is an affectation. Possibly, at
first, he is somewhat cold and distant in his manner towards you. That
is the way of many Christians until they know those to whom they are
speaking, for they do not wish to cast their pearls before swine. As
you watch them, you will perhaps, at first sight, see more of their
imperfections than of their virtues–it being a habit with them not to
parade their own attainments either by wearing professional
phylacteries or by sounding a trumpet before them. They often put their
worst foot foremost out of the very desire not to be seen of men in any
Pharisaic fashion. Persevere, however, in observing the spiritual man
and you will surely see much that is beautiful about him. Look and look
again and, perhaps in time you will come to admire as an excellence
that which you now think to be a defect! Be not in a hurry–the best
things are not usually glittering and superficial in their attractions.
A Christian is assuredly the noblest work of God! In Heaven, itself,
there stands nothing superior in the way of a creature to a man of God!
And on earth there is nothing that can match him. Watch, therefore, the
believer in Jesus, for his moral beauty will repay your study.

The olive grove is, to my mind, supremely lovely when the sun darts his
beams through it in long slants of brightness so that you see here a
golden lane of light, and there a mass of silver shadows directly
beneath the trees. I do not know anything that charms me more than to
look into the spotted shadow and light created by the irregular
planting of a forest of olive trees! They are all the more delightful
because of their disorder and the varied dark and bright hues which
meet the eyes and gratify them with their exquisite checkered work. In
like manner, when Christians enjoy the Light of God's Countenance and
it is sunny weather with them, then will you see their beauty if you
have true spiritual insight! When their faith is flourishing and their
hope is beaming–then their love is full of freshness and the joy of
the Lord flashes on them–then, if you have a spiritual eye for such
beauty as angels care to gaze upon, you will wish to be numbered with
good men and to mingle in their sacred society!

Perhaps the finest idea of the beauty of olive trees is obtained when
you see them in a mass. Stand upon the open common at Bordighera and
look beneath you towards Ventimille and Mentone, marking where the
mountains shelve to the sea and all their sides are clothed with olive
groves–and you will clap your hands with delight! Before you is a very
sea of olives, with billowy waves of silver brightness reaching as far
as the eyes can see–with here and there a stately palm rising up above
them all. Even thus, when we shall be privileged to look upon the
entire Church of God gathered in one countless multitude at the last,
what a sight it will be! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing
out before the Lord and the mountains and the hills shall join their
rapturous song. What a sight will that complete Church be to the pure
eyes of holy men when they see all the trees of the Lord's right hand
planting standing together in one glorious garden far excelling Eden
before the Fall! Yes, the perfection of the Church of God and of each
individual member of it will be seen at the last when the separated
ones shall be gathered together in one great general assembly and the
beauty of holiness shall be over them all! Till then, let us always
believe that Christians are lovely objects to look upon. Some seek the
company of the rich and the great, but it is cold comfort that any will
gain from mere rank and birth. Some delight in the society of the
witty, but their sparks, though they glitter for a moment, are too soon
extinguished to minister comfort to mourning spirits. Some delight to
associate with those who are highly esteemed among men, but surely, he
is wiser who selects his companions from those who are precious in the
sight of the Lord! O Beloved, whatever others may say of the people of
God, and of the Church of God, let us each one say–

"There my best friends, my kindred, dwell, There God my Savior reigns."

There, then, is the first point of resemblance between the beauty of a
Christian and the beauty of the olive tree. It grows upon you–the more
you are with the excellent of the earth, the more will you delight in
them!

II. Secondly, in both the case of the olive tree and of the Christian,
IT IS A BEAUTY OF A VERY SOBER KIND. The color of the olive foliage is
a gray green or, if you will, an emerald drab. I do not quite know how
to speak of it,

but would remind you that it belongs to the same family as the ash and
is of somewhat similar color, only of a lighter green–one side of the
leaf being much paler than the other. I have heard giddy people observe
that the olive groves are very dreary. These are the ladies and
gentlemen who prefer the fashionable esplanades where they can display
their fi-nery–or the deadly gambling saloons of Monte Carlo where they
can ruin others, or be themselves ruined! Everyone to his taste–ours
lies in another direction! In an olive grove, where all sounds are
hushed but the singing of birds, I prefer to sit the whole day with a
good book, or even without one, and muse the hours away and feel a deep
serenity of soul akin to the everlasting rest. Truly, good Lord–

"The calm retreat, the silent shade With prayer and praise agree, And
seem by Your kind bounty made For those that worship Thee."

If you want to see true beauty, you will find it in the olive gardens,
but it will be of a serious quiet type–not the luxurious beauty of the
orange or the lemon with their apples of gold, nor that of the goodly
cedar with its regal dignity, nor even of the stalwart oak with its
glory of strength! Much less of the flowers of spring which in the land
of the olive rival the hues of the rainbow–but an unobtrusive, calm,
rugged beauty, dearest to those who seek restfulness of heart and
shrink from "the madding crowd's ignoble strife!"

Thus far the true Believer and olive are like to the letter. There is
nothing showy about him, but much that is serious and reposeful. He has
thought of things and gone to the root of the matter. He has sorrowed
under the burden of sin and the delight he has known in being delivered
from it is a deep mysterious joy. His happiness does not display itself
like the anemones and wild tulips which grow in such profusion on the
terraces of Mentone, but it is content with more subdued tints which
will last when flowers and their comeliness will be forgotten! The true
Christian is not always smiling–he can laugh as every honest man can
and should–but he is not a constant giggler and hunter after childish
merriment as many are. His is real, substantial, thoughtful happiness
which can bear the test of meditation and examination. He can give a
reason for the hope that is in him. He does not need to dance and
fiddle in order to enjoy himself. His joy is made of nobler stuff. It
is such merriment as angels have when they see prodigal sons returning
and rejoice before the Father's face! Give me the quiet delight of the
genuine Christian. Oh, that some professors had more of it! Not so
fast, good Friend, take your joy more calmly! Not quite so much fire
and fury–pause for a little thought at least now and then. If you go
too fast, today, you will be out of breath before tomorrow! You are so
very joyful, disappointment, I fear, will tame you into despondency!
"Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." Believe and act
according to the common-sense guidance of faith and go calmly through
the world as God enables you, for if you do, you will have the beauty
of the olive tree–and what more would you have?

III. Thirdly, the beauty of the olive and the beauty of the Christian
are alike in this respect, they are ever-abiding. You saw yonder plane
or beech, a few months ago, adorned with luxuriant foliage. But there
came a chilly blast and the leaves began to fall–and when you passed
the other day, the tree was like a vessel in a storm under bare
poles–not a green leaf was to be seen! In these wintry days you will
see the trees lifting their naked arms into the frosty air as if they
longed to be clothed once more. Not so the olive! Its leaf is always
green and its branch never bare. No wintry wind ever strips its boughs
and though it looks more full of foliage at some periods than at
others, yet it always seems well clad and in flourishing condition!
Perpetually it clothes the bare hills as with the downy feathers of the
dove's breast and knows no nakedness. Such is the true Christian–he is
evermore as a green olive tree in the courts of the Lord. You shall
find him not always alike, happy, but always blessed! Not always alike,
restful, but still at peace! Not always alike, useful, but still
fruitful–always rejoicing in a blest estate such that even at his
worst, he would not change with the proudest sons of earth! His
branches may be at times disturbed and tossed about, but his heart is
not troubled, nor his joy taken from him! At bottom, he still believes
in God, rests in the Covenant promises and rejoices in Christ Jesus!

Many professors know nothing of this constancy of joy. They rejoice for
a season and then lose their first love. Like the deciduous tree which
puts on its greenery in the early spring, but is stripped in winter, so
do they lose their zeal, love, earnestness and joy. This is not as it
should be with you who profess to be God's children! This is not having
the dew of the Lord upon you! Final perseverance is the test of vital
godliness! To continue in the Truth, grounded and settled–to abide in
Christ Jesus, to constantly bring forth the fruits of the Spirit–this
it is to be a Christian! Constancy is the beauty and glory of a
Christian. We all like the man of whom we can say that we know where to
find him, but there are some whom we never know where we can find them.
And if we did, they would not be worth finding. He is the man who
really adorns his profession who is consistent and persistent, who
abides steadfastly in the Truth which he has received and is not
"carried about with every wind of Doctrine." The Lord grant unto us the
Grace to have a perpetual spiritual health which shall be our beauty,
just as constant greenery is the beauty of the olive tree!

IV. Let us now notice, in the fourth place, that the beauty of the
Christian is like that of the olive tree IN ITS DELIGHTFUL VARIETY.

Each season, each day and, I might almost say, each hour, the olive
presents a new aspect.

I have recently watched olive trees almost every day for three months
and they always appeared somewhat different, varying in color and tint
as the day was cloudless, overcast, or decidedly wet. Even the position
of the sun caused a change in their appearance! And a little wind
turning up the silver side of the leaves presented a new phase of
beauty. After a shower of rain, the green appeared predominant, but on
a hot and dusty day, the gray was in the ascendant. In the evening,
they sometimes seemed dark or drab. And another time they wore a
silvery sheen. Like certain other colors which vary with the light, the
tint of the olive leaf is peculiar in yielding to its surroundings. I
cannot describe it, for it seems as if it follows the mood of Nature
and blends it with its own. I do not think I am very fanciful, but it
seemed to me that this tree was in wonderful sympathy with the weather,
the sun, the sky, the clouds, the morning and the evening!

Even thus, Believers in Christ Jesus, if they are the right kind of
Believers, when you come to know them, have peculiar lights and shades
and differences of mood and temperament–but in each variation there is
beauty. The true Christian is a Christian in all his moods and,
therefore, is worthy of careful observation. When he is brightly happy,
see how Grace sobers him! And when he has a heavy heart, see how that
same Grace brightens his spirit. Watch him in the world and see how
unworldly he is–observe him in the midst of his Brothers and Sisters
and note how unreserved he is, even as a child is at home. On his knees
or at his work in the house of God or in his own house, in controversy
or in communion, at rest or in labor, he is always the same! Yet you
constantly see a new phase of his character and scarcely know which one
pleases you the most. There are sometimes strange lights glowing around
Christian character and if you study the biographies of the godly, or
watch the living saints, you will continually find fresh charms in
them. I am old enough to be weary with observing the imperfections of
my Brothers and Sisters in Christ–I prefer to spy out their
excellences and to take delight in them. I find it better to think too
well of God's people than to think too ill of them–and better to
commend them and to help them by commending them, than to censure them
and dispirit them by the censure. Do you the same! You will see some
beauty even about the feeblest of God's own people if you will but
watch them long enough– and especially if you will study the lives of
the saints given to us in the Inspired Word–you will not fail to see
lights and shades which are only new forms of the same "beauty of
holiness."

The olive tree changes with the seasons. Just before I left Mentone, it
had put forth new shoots and slender branches which drooped like the
boughs of the weeping willow. In a few weeks, that same olive will be
covered with a vast multitude of flowers–little white stars, countless
in number–somewhat like the flowers of the lilac. Near each leaf, they
tell me, there is a bunch of blossoms with a host of very tiny flowers.
The whole tree becomes one great mass of bloom and whitens the ground
with a snowfall of flowers. A very lovely sight is the olive tree in
bloom! I do not doubt, however, that the peasants like best to see the
fruit. The brown beads of the ripened olive have a beauty, too, and
when these are gone, the foliage is still attractive. It does not
matter to an olive tree whether it is spring, summer, autumn, or
winter– it is a thing of beauty and joy all the year round and every
day of the year! And such is the Christian when the dew of the Lord is
upon him! He has his changes, but he does not lose his beauty, though
men do not always have the eyes to perceive it.

Look at David, especially as he is revealed to us in the Book of
Psalms. There you see him like a green olive tree in the courts of the
Lord. Look at the blossoms of joy that are on him, covering him with a
beauteous garment of praise!

When you read the 103rd Psalm and similar joyous odes, he seems to be
smothered with the delicious bloom which yields a most pleasing perfume
of thanksgiving! Watch him at another time, when he is putting forth
the green shoots of holy desire–his heart thirsting after God as the
panting hart thirsts for the water brooks, his inmost soul longing to
drink a deep draught of the Divine Grace that comes from the Most High!
Then see him at another time when, as an old man, his fruit grows ripe
and you observe his rich experience full of unction, bearing fruit unto
the Lord. Everywhere David is beautiful, except when he sins–and so
are all those who seek to follow David's Lord and make Him their
All-in-All.

Some Christians seem to be always the same. I wish I could always be
the same by being always at my best, but it is very bad to always be
the same at your worst! And I know some professors who appear to be
just like that. They have a faulty string in their harp, yet they
always want to play on that string whenever we are with them! Indeed,
they seem to think that that particular string of theirs is the one
upon which we all ought to play. And if our harp strings do not happen
to be faulty like theirs, they fancy that our harp can scarcely be
right–that our spot is not the spot of God's children. Yet you know
that if one child in your family happens to have a defect somewhere or
other, you would not think it essential or desirable that all of your
children should have the same defect! It is well that they should all
have the family likeness, but there is no need that there should be a
family deformity peculiar to them all! Yet some Christians seem to
think that there is such a need. I hardly think that many Christians
are always at their worse, though, in another sense, I hope some are,
because if they are ever worse than I have seen them, they must be bad,
indeed! But I do wish we could all be always as we are at our
best–only then I would wish that we could be something even better
than that and keep on advancing "till we all come in the unity of the
faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Yet it may be
that these varying modes of feeling and ways of looking at things are,
after all, as far as they are not sinful, the various parts that help
to make up the complete beauty of the Christian character!

V. Now, fifthly, (I hope you will not be wearied with so many
divisions. I cannot help having them, for the olive tree has so many
branches)–another point of resemblance between the olive and the
genuine, lively, healthy Christian–and another point of beauty in each
case is INDIVIDUALITY.

I think no one ever saw two olive trees that were exactly alike. They
are wondrously varied. The twists and turns of the branches, the
singular way in which they grow down where you think they never can
grow and the equally remarkable way in which they do not grow where you
think they should–the curious shapes and the shapeless shapes that
they take, I cannot describe to you–it would be necessary for you to
see them to understand what I mean. Sometimes some of the branches seem
as if they were turned to serpents, coiling themselves around the
bigger branches. The olive trees always appear to me to be in an
agony–twisting and turning like one in excruciating pain as if they
remembered the griefs and woes of Him who sweat, as it were, great
drops of blood when He agonized beneath the shade of the olives in
Geth-semane!

The trunk of the olive is often split into many separate parts and each
part seems to be full of vitality. You scarcely ever see one that
appears to be entire–they are rent and torn as though sundered by
volcanic eruptions–and they are turned into all manner of shapes so
that no one of them is like its fellows! Here and there one sees a
young tree that seems, for a while, to have a definite shape and to
grow up in some sort of comely form. But you see another by its side,
still smaller, which has not grown three feet above the ground before
it takes a twist and goes down again, and then comes up again, once
more, forming letters something like a W, or an S, or a V, but never
reaching the shape that you would have thought it might have done!

This individuality in the olive tree is a part of the charm of the
olive grove. And so it is among Christians. There are certain sets of
professing Christians about who are very much of one type. You must
have noticed them if you have gone about with your eyes open. There is
a Methodist type, a Particular Baptist type, a Bible Christian type, a
Church of England type and many others. Somehow or other, they are cut
and trimmed according to certain prescribed rules and regulations–like
the lines of little olive trees that we pass on our way to Mentone
which have nothing of the grandeur and glory of the beautiful olive
groves with which we are familiar. The more we get out of this attempt
at securing uniformity, the better will it be for us and for the whole
Church of God! Egyptian art laid down certain laws that had to be
kept–the nose must bear such-and-such a proportion to the mouth, and
the eye must be of just such-and-such a form

and so on–and, therefore, Egyptian art remained forever where it was.
True art knows that there must be individuality and that no rule can be
made of universal application!

It is so among Christians. Here is one man who is naturally of a
cheerful spirit, yet he condemns himself because he does not mourn like
his sorrowful Brother over yonder. But, my dear Friend, God did not
intend you to be like he is! Here is another Brother who is naturally
of a very desponding spirit and he often blames himself because he has
not the exhilaration that he sees manifested in others. My dear Friend,
you were not to be as they are and it is no use for you to try to
imitate them! Be yourself, for that will be much better! I have
sometimes compared myself with my fellow Christians until I have felt
not only humbled, which is a good thing, but I have been despondent,
which is a bad thing! I have found that the better plan is to remember
that in a great house there are many different kinds of vessels and
they are not all of the same size or shape because they are not all to
be put to the same use! In a large garden there are various orders of
flowers, but they are not all of the same color, neither do all exhale
the same perfume, neither do their seeds, when they come to perfection,
all assume the same form! So is it among Christians–there are some who
sing sweet, solemn melodies with a strain of despondency always running
through their matchless music, for to me it seems the sweetest of all
harmonies. There are others who are more like the lark. As they sing,
they soar! The Countess of Huntingdon was a singer of this sort and,
therefore, she sang–

"Teach me some melodious sonnet Sung by flaming tongues above."

Well, shall I chide the lark because it is not a nightingale, or the
linnet because it sings not like the canary or the goldfinch? No, let
every bird have its own distinct note. Let every flower have its own
special hue. Let every tree have its own peculiar form and let all the
Lord's people grow as they are guided by the Divine Nature that is in
them! And then one shall grow in this shape and another shall grow in
that style, and others shall grow differently from either of them!
Although there is not one olive tree that is exactly like another, yet
all the olives are olives and you never mistake them for any other
tree. And, in like manner, though no one Christian is exactly like
another in all respects, yet they are all Christians and you should not
be able to mistake them for worldlings! The all-important matter is not
that you should be like I, or that I should be like you, but that both
of us should be like Christ! "Ah, but then," you say, "we shall be like
each other, shall we not?" No. It is strange, but it is quite true that
Christians may be like Christ and yet very little like each other.
There may be a thousand minor diversities in the imitators of the one
great Exemplar–and the individuality of everyone of them shall be as
definite as the identity of the whole of them as followers of Christ!

VI. Sixthly, much of the beauty of an olive tree and much of the beauty
of a Christian is found in the fact that THE OLIVE TREE IS FULL OF
LIFE, AND SO IS THE CHRISTIAN.

In the olive, it seems to be always a struggling life. It is true that
it is full of life, but as you get a glimpse of some olive trees, you
say to yourself, "That tree must have had a hard time of it." The
gnarled and knotted old trunk is split up just as if an axe had been
driven through it. You can see the white wood inside and on the surface
the rugged bark appears in places as if it were rotten, yet you find
that it is still alive. Then you see the branches that grow out of
these various divisions of the trunk, twisting, twirling and wriggling
in and out as if they lived in perpetual agony, for they have to draw
oil out of the flinty rock. It would involve much hard labor for men to
accomplish that task, yet the olive tree is continually doing it,
yielding the precious oil which not only makes the face of man to
shine, but which supplies him with food and light the whole year round!
This the olive tree often does in a sterile soil where there appears to
be no nourishment for it whatever. It seems as if the olive tree,
though always in an agony, is always full of life. It is not an easy
matter to kill an olive tree–even if you hew it down, yet leave the
stump, or a portion of its roots in the ground–it will begin to sprout
and grow again. If you let the tree stand for a thousand years or more,
it will still bring forth fruit in old age! And when it is, at last,
worn out and decayed, its children will have grown up into a fruitful
grove all around it!

The olive must live and it will live! And, to my mind, it is one of the
beauties of the olive tree that under the sternest circumstances, it
seems invincibly to live. And that is also the glory of a true
Christian. He must live and will live. The Grace of God within him will
enable him to live when men would think he must die. Persecute him, but
the axe, or the stake, or even the lions have no terrors for him. Try
to crush the Church of Christ and the more you try to crush it, the
more it will live and flourish! Seek to exterminate the Christians and
in the futile attempt you shall multiply them like the stars of the sky
or the sands of the seashore! There is no way of killing the Life of
God when it is once implanted in the

heart of a Believer in Jesus! All the devils in Hell, if they set all
their demoniacal powers to work to blow out the feeblest light that
ever glowed in a Christian's heart, could not put it out even if they
took an age to do it! The Christian must live, must grow and must bring
forth fruit unto God! I love, therefore, to study the lives of
Believers and to watch the struggles of the saints of God. You may
study this conflict in your own heart and see how the Divine Life
within you struggles on under affliction, adversity, trial and
temptation–but conquers all! You may watch it also in your fellow
Christians who are poor and despised, who have to suffer much sickness,
pain, weakness and who, perhaps, are bedridden year after year–yet you
will see how the Divine Life still lives and triumphs over all
obstacles! Is there not a wondrous beauty in it upon which we delight
to look and for which we praise God with all our hearts?

VII. Now, seventhly–and coming to the number of perfection, we come to
that which the olive tree might well regard as its greatest beauty,
namely, ITS FRUITFULNESS. "Oh, yes!" the peasant says, "the olive is a
beautiful tree, for it bears its berries full of oil and the olive crop
is the best crop that can possibly be grown." There is no known root or
seed that can be grown by the most skillful farming that can produce
anything like so much return in a year as the olive does with little or
no labor from its proprietor! It simply stands still and makes him
rich. When he eats his bread, he uses no butter or animal fat as we do,
but he spreads a little olive oil upon it and so is nourished by it.
When he lights his lamp at night, he does not use the pungent petroleum
that we burn–but he takes some good sweet olive oil and so gets all
the light he needs! Mosquitoes and other insects sting him, or he has
some irritation of his skin and he anoints his flesh with oil and
obtains immediate relief. When he is sick, or his body is wounded, he
anoints himself with oil and it proves to be one of the best medicines
in the world! And, at any rate, it is not so disagreeable as some of
the medicines of modern invention. If he is working a machine, the
olive oil helps to prevent both the danger and the discomfort caused by
the friction. In fact, the man puts the tree to so many uses that he
says it is a lovely tree because its fruitfulness helps him in so many
ways.

In like manner, the most beautiful Christian in the world is the most
fruitful one. Our old proverb is true, "Handsome is that handsome does"
and, in the sight of God, those who do the most good works and who thus
most glorify their Father who is in Heaven, are the most lovely of all
Christians. It is not every Christian who is lovely in this way, but if
you have the "dew" of which this Chapter speaks, if the roots of your
spiritual nature are refreshed by the river of the Water of Life and
if, by blessed fellowship with God and the entire consecration of your
body, soul and spirit to Him, you bring forth an abundance of fruit
unto God, then you have the beauty of the olive tree whose greatest
glory is its fruitfulness!

You may, perhaps, have stood in an orchard in the autumn when the
apples are getting rosy red and are weighing down the boughs, so that
they would break if the owner did not prop them up. Or you may have
been in a cottager's garden and he has said to you, "Look at that tree,
Sir. Ain't it a beauty?" Possibly you had not been thinking of the
beauty of the tree, for you were admiring some of the lovely flowers
that were growing at your feet–but the cottager does not care much
about them–but he does care about those apples which are so abundant.
After a good look at the tree so well laden with ruddy-cheeked fruit,
you agree with him, for there is a practical beauty in the tree's
fruitfulness. Try to have that beauty, dear Friends! To be commended
for the eloquent way in which you speak, or for the elegant way in
which you dress, or for the admirable way in which you practice
deportment is praise that is empty as the wind! But to be useful in
your day and generation–to glorify God by doing something to benefit
your fellow creatures, instructing the ignorant, helping the poor and
needy, bringing the lost and erring ones to the feet of Jesus–this is
a practical kind of beauty that is worth having! Let your beauty in
this respect, be as the olive tree.

VIII. Eighthly, THE BEAUTY OF THE OLIVE TREE OFTEN LIES IN ITS PROGENY.

The writer of the 128th Psalm says of the man who fears the Lord and
walks in His ways, "Your wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides
of your house: your children like olive plants round about your table."
If you have ever been in the olive groves you must frequently have
noticed around the parent olive tree, two, three, four, sometimes as
many as eight, ten, or 12 little trees all growing up from the old
root–some of them also beginning to bear fruit and standing there
ready, when the old tree in the middle is taken away–to do all they
can to supply its place. I have occasionally seen an olive tree felled
and the white trunk left flat like a table, with several little trees
growing all around it–and that sight seemed to bring the text I just
quoted very vividly to my mind, "your children like olive plants round
about your table." May your children, Beloved, be like young olive
trees springing up around your table to bring forth fruit unto God when
you have done with fruit-bearing! Or even like the old and young olive
trees, may you all be fruitful together! It is to me a very beautiful
sight to see a godly man succeeded by gracious sons and daughters. It
is a privilege beyond comparison, a delight beyond description to see
those whom you have nursed and nurtured come under the nurture and
admonition of the Lord and be so taught in His ways as to become true
disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ! The aged Apostle John wrote, "I
have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in Truth." Do
not you, dear parents, desire this joy for yourselves? I believe you
will have it if the dew of the Lord is upon your souls.

I have frequently heard it said that many children of professing
Christian parents do not turn out well. How is this? We know that
Solomon said, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is
old, he will not depart from it." Now I do not wish to say anything
unkind or too severe, but I have noticed that in many such cases the
children have not been trained up in the way they should go! The father
was a very good man–so people said–yet he never had family prayer!
How could he train up his children aright without it? No prayer in the
family? Why, the training of a tree on a wall requires that you should
have some shreds of cloth and some nails so as to fasten securely every
little branch or shoot as it comes out! And I call family prayers our
shreds and nails to help to train up our boys and girls as they begin
to grow. Besides, if a professing Christian finds his children turning
out ungodly, let him ask himself this question, "Did I ever personally
pray with my sons? Did I ever personally plead with my daughters? Have
I been loving and kind in my conduct towards my children?" If you
cannot say, "Yes," to these and similar questions, then you did not
train your child up in the way he should go!

I verily believe that there are many fathers who make religion nauseous
to their children. A young man said to me, "My father is a good man,
but he will never let his children have any sport or mirth, and he
condemns everybody who indulges in anything of the kind. His religion
consists in saying, You shall not! You shall not! You shall not! You
shall not!" Well, that may be Mosaic, but according to the religion of
Jesus Christ, there is something else beside the negative! There is a
positive joy and a real delight in true religion–and where that is set
before our young people in a proper spirit, we may expect that God's
Grace will bring them to desire the same joy and delight for
themselves! We have proved that God often gives us the happiness of
seeing that instead of the fathers, shall be the children whom He makes
princes in the earth. He who loved Abraham loved Isaac, and loved
Jacob, and loved Joseph, and loved Ephraim and Manasseh, for although
Grace does not run in the blood, it often runs side by side with it.
And when you once get God to be Friend of your family, it is not easy
to get Him out of it. If His Grace calls the father, is it not likely
to also call the son, and the grandson, and the children's children's
children–not only unto the third and fourth generation, but as long as
the earth remains? Yes, blessed be His name, it shall be so and this is
one of the beauties of the life of a Christian–that his beauty is
perpetuated through his progeny as he stands like an old olive tree
with the young olives growing up around him and so "his beauty shall be
as the olive tree."

IX. Now, ninthly, I must remind you that THE BEAUTY OF THE OLIVE TREE
SOMETIMES SUFFERS DECREASE.

At Mentone, I went up a valley between the mountains and I came to an
olive garden which certainly did not charm me by its beauty. The
natives had been lopping the olives and they had cut them most
mercilessly, hacking away huge branches here and there and leaving the
poor trees standing there piteously lifting up their mutilated arms to
Heaven as though they were imploring someone to take pity upon them and
deliver them from their present wrenched condition! Why had they been
lopped and cut about like that? Simply because some of the branches had
ceased to yield fruit, so they had to be cut away. And then, where one
old branch was cut off, there might come five or six smaller branches,
all of which would, in due season, bear olive berries! So all that
cutting and hacking and hewing was intended to improve the olive and
make it much more beautiful by making it far more fruitful than it
would otherwise have been.

Christians do not look very pretty when they are thus lopped. You had
better not come to see some of us when we are full of aches and pains,
when the brain is so weary that we cannot think, when the breath is
short and the throat is so dry that we cannot sing the high praises of
our God! Do not say concerning any of your dear relatives who are very,
very ill, "I cannot see much that is Christlike about them." Ah, dear
Friend, they are under the rod and about the only thing a child can do
when he is under the rod, is to cry! At least that is what I used to do
when I was under the rod and I suppose that is what most of you would
do under similar circumstances–there is not much else that seems in
season then. The olive certainly does not look very lovely when it is
being lopped, but remember this text, "Now no chastening for the

present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it
yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are
exercised thereby." So, then, you may expect to find fruit afterwards,
and you may expect to see the beauty of the Christian afterwards, and
not while they are under the pruning process. "Father!" said a child,
"Did you not cut those fruit trees this morning?" "Yes, my Child, I
did." "Why did you cut them, Father?" "To make them bring forth more
fruit." "I thought so, Father, so, after dinner I ran down the garden
to see if they had brought forth fruit, but there is not a single pear
or apple on any of them." "No, dear Child," replied the father, "it is
not immediately after the cutting that the fruit comes. We must wait
till its proper season, and then I hope we shall see it." You all know
how to interpret that little parable! Do not expect to see the full
results of sickness and trial immediately, but believe that in due time
they will be seen.

X. Lastly, dear Friends, to me the very choicest beauty of the olive
grove is that IT ALWAYS REMINDS ME OF

THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

This is also the point in which every Christian who has the dew of the
Lord upon him has a beauty like that of the olive tree, namely, that he
reminds those about him of his Master! They take note of him that he
has been with Jesus. When you are under the olives, you cannot help
thinking of Gethsemane, of the dark night in the garden, of the
disciples asleep, and of our Savior, Himself, in an agony of grief. A
poetess sweetly sings–

"But you, pale olive, in your branches lie

Far deeper spells than Prophet groves of old

Can ever enshrine. I could not hear you sigh

To the wind's faintest whisper, or behold

One shiver of your leaves dim silvery green

Without high thoughts and solemn of that scene

When in the Garden the Redeemer prayed.

When pale stars looked upon His fainting head

And angels ministering in silent dread

Trembled, perchance, within your trembling shade." Well, just as all
right-minded people would be sure to think of Christ when under the
olive groves, so ought we to compel men, whether they are right-minded
or not, to think of the Lord Jesus Christ when they come into
association with ourselves! Not because we are always talking about
religion, but because we are always practicing it. And as frequently as
we can, adding suitable verbal expression to the practical testimony of
our lives–speaking and singing of our Beloved Lord whose name should
never long be off our tongue!

We should so act when we are provoked, bearing it so gently that
observers should be compelled to say, "How Christlike they are!" We
should, when offended, so readily, so truthfully, so thoroughly forgive
the offenders that if they do not say, they should at least feel, "How
Christlike they are!" We should be so unselfish, so generous, so
anxious to serve others and to please them rather than ourselves. We
should be so kind in our judgment, so truthful, so tender, so upright,
so calm, so strong, so brave and yet so free from all Phariseeism and
affectation that men should not have to look at us long before they
would be obliged to say, "They have been with Jesus. They never learned
that lesson anywhere but at the feet of the Crucified."

The Lord bless you, dear Friends, and give you faith in Jesus! And
then, by His Spirit, impart to you all this beauty of which I have
spoken–and a great deal more of which no tongue can adequately
speak–even the beauty of holiness– and so your beauty shall be as the
olive tree! God grant it for His dear Son's sake! Amen and Amen.