When the Holy Spirit gave us a picture of the sinner, it was "spreading himself like a green bay tree." A glance at the margin of this text will reveal that the green bay tree indicates one that is growing in its own soil. It has never been transplanted. It remains in the same old conditions and environments. It spreads out on the earth and clings to things terrestrial. Thus, the sinner, growing in the same soil, in the same surroundings and conditions of sin year after year, having never been transplanted nor translated from nature's darkness to the marvelous light of God, pushes out along worldly lines and worldly pleasures, knowing nothing of the internal developments of grace, nor upward growth toward God and glory.
Whenever a professing Christian spreads out with worldly ambitions, is determined to lay up his treasures upon earth, hungering more for the adjoining quarter section of land than for the mansions beyond, determined to have a name down here at the risk of having none in heaven, he certainly is far from the palm tree type.
With Christ crowned inside, and all the elements of Christian growth firmly planted within the heart, no wonder there are inward developments unseen by mortal eye, that expand the saint's soul more and more as the years roll on, and enable him to rise more and more above terrestrial things to heights in the heavenlies.
With the secret of growth internal, it is not hindered by elements external, for one's life "is hid with Christ in God." How comforting, then, to the soul, to know that his secret growth is so far from external things, that neither trials, tests, troubles, tribulations, persecutions, disappointments, losses, crosses, circumstances, men, nor devils can necessarily hinder him from pushing out and up in the divine life.
In the earlier days of persecution of holiness professors, how often the fighting faction has tried to snow some of God's fire-baptized saints under, only to see them rise up through the snowdrift, with perennial freshness and smiling face ready for the next cold blizzard of snow. Or, perhaps it was a wet blanket suddenly thrown over them and their testimony, but the fire within only burnt its way through and turned the wet into steam and proved the possessor to be practically invulnerable. It is indeed hard to cut off one's growth when it comes from within. There may be a momentary check at times when unforeseen obstacles are thrust in one's way, but the growth producing qualities within assert themselves and burst out with increasing force which make the tormentors wonder "what next?"
CHAPTER XIV
THE PALM TREE HAS A COARSE, ROUGH EXTERIOR; BUT IT IS SOFT AT HEART
In spite of its symmetry, its wonderful beauty and its perennial freshness, the palm tree has rather a harsh exterior. But being an endogenous tree, its pithy interior makes it always soft at the center, or heart.