Amen. Remain standing for the reading of God's word. We will turn, first of all, to Mark chapter eight. It takes us back to our studies in Mark. Some of you weren't here then. We spent a long time in this gospel. Mark chapter eight. In fact, I think we might have been outside for all I remember in Pearsall Picnic Shelter. Mark chapter eight, verse 22. I actually remember we made it back inside the sanctuary by then. Mark 8, 22. This is the word of God. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then he came to Bethsaida and they brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. So he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when he had spit on his eyes and put his hands on him, he asked him if he saw anything. And he looked up and said, I see men like trees walking. And he put his hands on his eyes again and made him look up and he was restored and saw everyone clearly. And then he sent him away to his house, saying, neither go into the town, nor tell anyone in the town. This is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's turn now to our Old Testament lesson and sermon texts. Hopefully you've noticed a theme as we've sung Psalm 1, read Mark 8, and now turn to Jeremiah 17, as we read of two trees. Jeremiah 17, we'll read verses five to eight. Thus says the Lord. Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness in a salt land which is not inhabited. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope is the Lord, for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters which spreads out its roots by the river and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit. The grass withers, flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Amen. You may be seated. Barbara Walters became famous or infamous for asking Katharine Hepburn a variation of the question, if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? Now that might be a silly question for a journalist to ask a celebrity, but theologically speaking, it's a great question. It's a profound question. Because in the Bible, men, women, and children are often represented by trees. Trees serve as ladders to heaven. And even so, men stand in between heaven and earth. Think of Absalom caught by his hair in a tree, hanging, the Bible says, between earth and heaven. In Psalm 1, which we sang, the blessed man is like a tree planted by the rivers of water, but the ungodly are not so. They are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. In Genesis 4, we could say that Abel is a tree of righteousness, while Cain is a thorn of sin. In Judges 9, atop Mount Gerizim, Jotham compared the men of Shechem to a grove of trees, potential rulers to an olive tree, a fig tree, and a grape vine, Abimelech to a bramble, and the men of Shechem and Beth Milo to the cedars of Lebanon. In Isaiah 10, the king of Assyria is referred to as a cedar tree, and then finally in Mark 8, which we just read, The blind man healed in stages to illustrate the gradual understanding of the disciples about the mission and identity of Jesus initially says, when Jesus touches his eyes, I see men like trees walking. Well, if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? Or we could restate the question. Spiritually speaking, you are a tree, but what kind of tree are you? Well, Jeremiah 17 tells us the tale of two trees. The cursed man shall be like a shrub in the desert, while the blessed man shall be like a tree planted by the waters. Although there are important differences between Jeremiah 17 and Genesis 2, it is interesting that in the beginning, God planted two trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This whole context sets us up for arboreal imagery, tree imagery, in verse three, where it talks about their idolatry by the green trees on the high hills. And here the prophet, with that context, talks about two kinds of people represented by two trees. And to drive home the contrast between the two, he uses a form of prophetic word, an oracle. Two kinds of oracles, an oracle of woe and an oracle of weal. In the Bible, an oracle of woe pronounces a curse, while an oracle of weal pronounces a blessing. And you can pick out the difference by how these oracles begin. An oracle of woe begins like this. Cursed is the man who bears these marks. Or woe to those who do such and such. While The flip side, an oracle of weal begins like this. Blessed is the man who bears these marks, who does such and such. Cursed, blessed, blasts, woe. Two prophetic words. In Matthew's gospel, Jesus is a true prophet. Used both kinds of oracles. The beatitudes are an oracle of weal. Blessed are the meek. for they shall inherit the earth. Later in chapter 23, he declares an oracle of woe, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers, therefore you will receive greater condemnation. Oracles of woe. Oracles of weal. And in Jeremiah 17 we find both kinds of oracles in the contrast between two trees that represent two kinds of people. We have death and we have life. We have cursing and we have blessing. We have doom and we have glory. We have the worst kind of news and we have the best kind of news. We have woe and we have weal. We have a shrub, we have a tree. Key question throughout that I wanna encourage you to ask of yourself, that I ask of myself. Spiritually speaking, you are a tree, but what kind of tree are you? We're gonna do this in two parts. We'll look first at the shrub of death in verses five and six, and then we'll look at the tree of life in verses seven to eight. First, are you a shrub of death? Are you a shrub of death? This is the oracle of woe, where Jeremiah pronounces curse, and then he gives the reason for the curse. Look first at its pronouncement in verse five. Thus says the Lord. This is really the prophet recording the very words of Jehovah. Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. What are the marks? What are the signs? What are the symptoms of the cursed man? They are three. First, you can identify the cursed man by the object of his faith, who trusts in man. Location, location, location. His trust is in man. Second, the source of his strength, it says, who makes flesh his strength. The source of his power, his security, is the arm of the flesh. It's life under the sun. It's the things of this world. It's the resources of this age. And then third, the trajectory of his affections, whose heart departs from the Lord, that there is a slow fade. There is a slow burn. There is a path that perhaps once was orbiting the sun of righteousness, but like a wandering planet, he is drifting farther and farther away, even if he doesn't realize it yet or not. Cursed is that man, God says. And there's a reason for this. There's an expression of this cursing in verse six. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert. and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. Congregation, the cursed man, the man outside of Christ, the woman outside of Christ, the child outside of Christ, is like a shrub of the desert. It has no life. It's dry. It's barren. And the lack of fruit is but an indicator of a lack of faith. Like a shrub in the desert, the text says. And this should take us back to Psalm 1, verse four. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff, which the wind driveth away. Just as Jotham called Abimelech a bramble, even so the cursed man is a shrub. He's a picture of the ultimate missing out. Some of you have the fear of missing out. Well, the ultimate missing out, he shall not see when good comes. Isolation, he's in an uninhabited land, he cuts himself off from good company, and he's left alone. Sterility, parched places and salt land. In context, this is a code for exile. The cursed man, the cursed nation, the cursed assembly departs into exile, is taken into Babylonian captivity. Spiritually speaking, we're all trees. So what kind of tree are we? Are we shrubs of death? Are we a shrub in the desert? Well, we can answer that question biblically by testing ourselves. In whom do we trust? Where is our strength? What is the trajectory of our affections? What path are we on? And I ask you to soberly test yourself by the touchstone of God's word. Let us together take on this experimental application, this exploratory application. You might be a shrub if you trust in man to solve your problems. You trust in your investments for security. Trust in your friends for protection. Trust in your pedigree for promotion. Trust in your status for your sense of self-worth. Trust in your ordination credentials as the value of your identity in God's kingdom. You might be a shrub if you make flesh your strength Where do you look to for your strength? Is it worldly power? Status? Athleticism? Good looks? Money? Because if that's the source of your strength, then what you are doing is you are doing what the children of Israel were tempted to do, even in Jeremiah's day, to go back to Egypt. They actually did that, and they dragged Jeremiah with them back to Egypt, thinking we'll be safe from Nebuchadnezzar. And what they did is they put their hand on a sharp stick for support that pierced them through. as Nebuchadnezzar marched upon Egypt. Well, the shrub makes flesh his strength. You might be a shrub if your heart is getting farther and farther away from the Lord. Again, think of the planet. A planet literally means wandering one. A planet that gets farther and farther away from the sun. It used to be close. There used to be quick confession of sin. There used to be an eager desire for reconciliation with your brothers and sisters. There used to be a heart, a desire for the Lord, and then even when you struggled in the lukewarmness of your affections, you desired to desire God. And hopefully you know what that's like. David Brainerd talked about that. There were times where he wept in the snow, crying holy, holy, holy, because he sensed that he did not desire God as he knew he should, and as he wanted to, and he desired to have the desire for God that he knew was missing. And sometimes we lose even that desire. And we get farther, and farther, and colder, and colder, and maybe we confess God with our lips, and in our prayers, and in our preaching, but our hearts are growing farther away from the Lord. And we end up loving the world, and the things of the world, and the acknowledgement of the world more than the approval of God. And I say this can be a slow fade, this can be a slow burn, this can be like it was said of Achilles, he was like a shooting star that burned brightly and then burned out. If any of these marks are true of you, I want to give you a way forward though. If any of these marks are true of you, trajectory, strength, object of faith. This is not a reason for despair. That's what Satan would want you to do. He would want you to see the sin in your heart, which is there, the deceitfulness of your own heart, which is there, it's desperately wicked, and he would want to take a magnifying glass upon that and say, look at your sin, you should despair. And God has a way of saying, actually, it's even worse than that. You're probably underestimating the sinfulness of your own sins. You're probably shortchanging the desperately wicked state of your own heart. You're not here, you're here, but by the grace of God, he says, I can grab you from the miry pit. I can take you from the clay. I can reach down. I can dive down to the deepest ocean in the marinara trench and I can grab you there and resuscitate you there and breathe life into you there and bring you up again. That's the good news of the gospel. It's not a reason to despair. It is a reason for reflection and repentance, to turn back to the Lord, to go back to basics, to go back to the zeros and ones, the nuts and bolts of the Christian life, repentance and faith. to turn to the Lord, and to look to the Lord for help, to draw near to God, knowing that when you do so, He has promised to draw near to you, to come to the waters of life, to repent and believe in the gospel, and say, Lord. I've been trusting in man, but now I trust in you. I've looked to Pharaoh and the things of this world for support, but now I'm coming back to you and your kingdom, and I have allowed my heart to grow cold. And even now, perhaps your heart is cold, but Lord, cultivate in me a desire to desire God. Kindle that flame in my heart again. Take the embers that might feel like ashes and breathe Fire into them again. Lord, create in me a clean heart. Renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away. Take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Pray that prayer. The Lord loves to hear that prayer. He loves it. That's the first kind of treat. That's the first kind of person. That's the first oracle. It's one of woe. But there's another one. That leads us to a second question. Are you a tree of life? Are you a tree of life? And this is the Oracle of Weal. Again, same structure. There's a pronouncement of blessing, and then there's a reason given for that blessing. Look first at verse seven, where the Bible says, blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord, for he shall be like a tree. So what are the marks? What are the signs? What are the symptoms of a man, a woman, a child who is in a blessed state, a blessed condition? Not ephemeral happiness, but truly blessed by our God. Well here, Jeremiah, under inspiration, lists two marks of the blessed man, the blessed woman, the blessed child. First, again, the object of his faith. Location, location, location. Who trusts. in the Lord, who trusts in Jehovah, who trusts in Yahweh, who trusts in the great I Am, who trusts in the God who is who He is, the God who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. And just notice in passing that everyone exercises faith. Absolutely everyone exercises faith. If someone tells you, well, I don't believe in faith, I believe in reason. Or they say, I don't believe in religion, I believe in science. They are living behind a smoke screen because everybody, as a finite creature, exercises faith. Believers and unbelievers, Christians and pagans, theists and atheists, the difference is the object. In whom do you trust? Do you trust in your faculties? Do you trust in your reason? Do you trust in expert opinion? Do you trust the powers that be? Do you trust the World Health Organization? Do you trust Harvard Business School reports? Do you trust the media? Do you trust your own experiential vision? Location, location, location. The blessed man is the one who trusts, who relies, who depends on the Lord. Full stop. Not Jesus plus this, but Christ alone. That's the first mark. The second is like unto it. It's the identity of his hope, whose hope is the Lord. And we need hope. Just as a psychological observation, we need hope to live. If you lose hope, then you despair. If you lose hope, you die, spiritually speaking. You lose all perspective, all vision for the future. And part of the challenge of being human is to cultivate the torch of hope. And here, the Bible, when it uses the language of hope, it's not talking about wishful thinking. It is talking about a confident expectation. It is talking about a firm prospect in the future. And here, it is amazing, but God sets himself as the hope of the blessed man. Not merely that his hope is in the Lord, but his hope is the Lord's. God himself is the blessed man's hope. I was reading Ian Murray's book, The Puritan Hope, this past week, and one of the quotations early on from John Howe is this, is a kind of anticipated enjoyment and gives a present participation in the expected pleasantness of those days. I can't help but think about the children of Israel who, before they'd ever come into the promised land, received the grapes of Eshkol from the scouts who spent 40 days doing reconnaissance work in the land, and they brought back a foretaste of the land before they were there. And they tasted of the good things of Canaan before they'd ever entered that land. And congregation, every time we celebrate the Lord's Supper, what do we do? We get a foretaste of heaven on earth. We taste the power of the age to come now. We not merely have a hope that is future, it's a future hope that is present in God himself by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the blessed man, he trusts in the Lord, the Lord is his hope, and there's a reason for this blessing, there's an expression of this blessing in verse eight. For he shall be like a tree, not a shrub, but a tree planted by the rivers, planted by the waters. which spreads out its roots by the river and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth its fruit and its season, its leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. This is the consistent biblical imagery of the blessed man. And it extends to our words, Proverbs 15, for a wholesome tongue is a tree of life. It extends to our deeds, Proverbs 11 30, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. But also here. It pertains to our persons, not just our words, not just our deeds, but God looks upon us in Christ as trees of life. Here we find an image of fruitfulness and growth, a fruitful tree because it's planted by the waters. It's drawing nutrients and vitality from the Lord himself and from his word. It's growing. spreading out its roots by the river. Its borders are expanded. There's an increased radius of fruitfulness by this tree. Started perhaps as an acorn of faith, but it's grown into a mighty oak. It's an image of courage and confidence. It says, of the blessed man and will not fear when heat comes. The heat that would blast the trees and dry them out. Probably a reference to invasion from the north. They're thinking about the possibility that Babylonians are gonna march on Judah, but its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit. Here, fruitfulness is linked to peace. Growth in winter means grace under fire. These are blessed promises. And don't misunderstand what I'm saying. This is not saying that we will be spared affliction. Don't count it a strange thing if you suffer for Christ in this age, or even just experience the miseries of this life. Jesus did. A servant's not above his master. It's not saying we're gonna be spared affliction. It's not saying that the heat's not gonna come. It's not saying that we won't sin and others won't sin against us. It's not saying that all will go well and all will go easy. It's not saying that. But it is saying that the Lord will grant us courage and confidence to endure affliction. God sometimes, as we said in recent days, doesn't save us out of the fire, or out of the water, or out of the trial. He saves us through these things. And what's blessed is He promises to go with us. If you're going through something tonight and You think, I just want to be snatched out of the fire. I just want to be removed from the flood. I just want to be taken off the ark. I just want to be taken out of this trial. Oh God, please just remove this thorn of flesh. Realize that God's purpose for your sanctification and his glory might just mean, no, I'm not going to take you out. I'm going to take you through. But guess what? I'm going to go with you. Moses said, Lord, If you're not going to go with us to the promised land, we don't want to go. We'll turn back. We don't want to go forward unless we know that you're going with us. We want to see the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night and the glory cloud overhead. We want us to arise because you have arisen and we follow you. You're our GPS. More than that, you are our very present help in time of need. And God promises to go with you through the trial. Again, like the fourth man in the fire, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They say, oh king, if not, so be it, we're still not gonna bow down to this statue. And then the fourth man, one like the son of God, appears in the midst of the flames and they pass throughout the other side because Jesus was with them. It's amazing what fallen, finite people can do if Jesus is with them. I mean, the early disciples, it was evident. They'd been with Jesus. They'd been with Jesus. My peace, Jesus says, I give to you, not as the world gives, the peace of God which passes understanding will guard your heart and your mind through Christ Jesus. The peace of God, the love of Christ that passes knowledge. This is what carries us through. We can truly heed Paul's words, be anxious for nothing. Some of you, because of the circumstances you're dealing with, or because of your own personal constitution, or even biological factors, you struggle with anxiety more than others. Or maybe you struggle with anxiety at certain times in your life more than others. Well, take heart. In addition to common grace remedies, Take heart from the gospel, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God. You are of more value than sparrows. Its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought. Spiritually speaking, I'm a tree, you're a tree, what kind of trees are we? Are we shrubs of death or are we trees of life? Are we shrubs in the desert or are we trees planted by the rivers of water? In whom do we trust? In whom do we hope? Let's test ourselves. You are a tree of life if you trust in the Lord, not merely believing true propositions about God, though we should, but personally trusting, depending, relying on God himself. This is the ultimate trust fall, where you just fall back and trust God to catch you. not to tempt him, but because you're trusting him, receiving him, resting upon him, trusting, depending, relying on Jesus Christ, the only mediator between God and men, alone for your salvation as he's offered to you in the gospel. You are a tree of life if your hope is the Lord's. not cultural transformation or political power, however useful and desirable those things might be, but your ultimate hope is God Himself. You've pinned all your hopes on Him. You've staked everything on His promises so that He is your hope, the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. That's what we're living for. Not even a kind of golden age revival, however glorious that would be. But the apostle Paul says, no, your hope is not a golden age revival in this world. Your hope is the coming of Christ to descend from heaven upon the mountain and for us to be caught up in the air with him and so shall we ever be with the Lord. This is the only kind of hope that can sustain us. Anything less than this will let us down. Anything less than this will set us up for failure. But is our hope in the Lord our help? is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. That is not a vain confession of dependence. It must be the pulse beat of our hearts. I look under the hills and whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. If any of these marks, these signs, these symptoms are not true of you, again, I plead with you, do not despair. You need not despair. It's but a reason for reflection and repentance. And so repent and trust in the Lord. Repent and make God your hope. Repent and believe in the gospel. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You and your household, you will be declared. If you come to Jesus, you will be declared and you will become a tree of life. You will be like a wild olive branch grafted into the olive tree. And if you're not sure tonight, if you're a shrub or a tree. And there's one last place I wanna point you to. And that is, you need to look beyond yourself to another tree. A tree I haven't mentioned yet. A tree outside yourself completely. Do you know what that tree is? It's the most beautiful tree in all the world. Do you know what it looks like? It's made of wood and it's an instrument of execution used by the Romans to crucify and humiliate criminals in the empire. It's a stauros. It's a tree, the Bible says. It's a tree outside yourself. I'm not asking you now to look at your leaves to see if they're green, or your bark to see if it's healthy. I'm asking you to look outside of yourself completely. Look outside of your heart. Your heart's gonna lead you astray, and look beyond. Look to Calvary. Look to an old, rugged, horrific, grotesque, and beautiful cross. Look to the cross. More than that, look to Jesus, who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, crucified upon a cross, placarded before the world, hung as a curse upon a tree, because on that tree, on that cross, Jesus, though he was innocent, was reckoned a shrub of death. He was declared a curse so that you and me, so that all of us could taste of the tree of life so that we could inherit the blessing. Revelation 22, and he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb in the middle of its street, and on either side of the river was the tree of life, which bore 12 fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Spiritually speaking, you are a tree. You're all trees. What kind of tree are you? The only tree that can save you is the cross of Christ, so look to him and be blessed forevermore. Let us pray.