e WAICH TOW
LD
AND HERALD OF CHRIST'S PRESENCE
Vou. LV
Fesruary 1, 1934
No. 3
HOPE OF A TREE
“For there is hope of a tree, tf it be cut down, that it ‘ill sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof
will not cease. Though the root thereof waz old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet
through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.”’—Job 14:7-9.
all creation who live must learn. All, therefore,
must know that Jchovah is the Almighty God,
besides whom there is none. It is Jehovah who
has placed his own great name upon his beloved Sen
and made him his Vindicator; and now he says to the
peoples of the earth: ‘‘In his name shall the nations
hope.’’? Those who come to an appreciation of God’s
gracious provision for man are delighted to know that
there is no other name given under heaven whereby
life ean come to the members of the human race save
that of his beloved Son, which provision God has made.
? Jehovah has eaused his prophesies to be written
that men of honest desires may sce at this time and
discern the purpose of the Most High to give ever-
lasting life to those of the human race who love and
serve him. The words recorded in the book of Job
above quoted are prophetic and refer to the fall of
mankind, and his overlord, and Jehovah’s gracious
provision for the recovery of fallen man that he may
again live.
- Job was a man of wide experience, and doubtless
had walked through the forest where the trees grew by the water’s edge. The ccdar tree is symbolic of a living creation and, being an evergreen, it symbolized that God’s creature, man, may have everlasting life; and this would be true with reference to all creation that live and obey Jchovah. Deubtless Job had ob- served the peculiarities of the cedar tree, which under certain conditions will produce a new tree out of a dead stump. If so, he saw where the eedar tree once stood and lifted its evergreen arms heavenward, and later its foliage had fallen to the earth, the trunk was cut down and decayed, and only the stump remained, and even it appeared to be entirely dead. The roots of the tree had grown old in the soil of the earth, and there appeared to be nothing remaining that indicated life about the tree. Again when he visited that old stump he saw a tender root had stretched its little arms out to the waters and had drunk deeply of that life-giving and life-sustaining substance, and now a new tree was growing up in the place of the one that Jat eect is the souree of life. That eternal truth lay dead. Year after year he saw that new tree con- tinuing to grow, its branches reaching out and it ever lifting 1ts green arms heavenward in an expression of its gratitude to him who had provided water and had given it life. When the new tree had grown large, probably Job sat under that tree while listening to the song birds in its boughs singing the praises of the Giver of every good and perfeet gift. Then the Lord Cod moved the mind of Job to write, and prophetically he wrote: ‘‘For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thercof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.’”? (Job 14: 7-9) That propheey is an expression of Jehovah's purpose to again give life to the obedient ones of the human race, even as he caused the new tree to grow up out of the roots of the old stump. God works in a plain and simple though mysterious way his wondrous acts to perform and to reveal them to those who love him. THE GREAT TREE Qn another occasion more than 2,500 years prior to this present day Jehovah caused a man to have a dream which now we are enabled to sce related to the same thing about which Job prophetically wrote con- cerning the tree. Nebuchadnezzar was then the head of the third world power, hence the king over all the peoples, nations and languages that dwelt upon tlie earth. God had punished the unfaithful nation of Israel by permitting the king of Babylon to defeat the Israelites at war and to carry away the survivors as captives, Among those captives carried to Babylon was faithful Daniel. This occurred eleven years pre- vious to the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonish king. Daniel, who now was in the king's service by the king’s command, was honored by the king, and, doubtless by the Lord’s provision, he was there to perform his divinely appointed part in the prophetic pieture which God had him record and which relates to the fall and restoration of the hu- man race.
