Michigan Camp Meeting 2016: The Harvest is Great

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Personal Encounters with Jesus

Doug Batchelor

1. A Cold Confession

2. A Tree of Life: Zacchaeus

3. Seeing Is Believing: The Man Born Blind

4. The Secret Christian: Nicodemus

5. Finding Living Water: The Woman at The Well

This evening I'd like to talk about 1 of my favorite stories in the Bible.

I'm going to do it a little differently than I ever have before.

You know I do new amazing facts just about every week.

You know every now and then we have a rerun.

I think this week Pastor Ross, I'll be here, he'll be doing the program.

But 1 that came to us recently is regarding the Endicott pear tree.

Among the first wave of English settlers that came to the shores of Plymouth Rock back in 1629 was a Puritan named John Endicott.

And they asked him to be the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

And he was given the task of trying to make the settlers coming from Europe feel at home.

Most of them were Puritans that were fleeing religious persecution over there.

They didn't have a lot of the same scenery and trees and shrubs.

So he imported from his estate in England a pear tree.

There is some record that as he planted the pear tree, his children said, this appears to be good soil, and I hope this tree as it takes root in this new country will be here long after we're gone.

There was something just he was musing out a prayer.

Well, that tree did not only outlive John Endicott, it outlived his children and his grandchildren and many generations beyond that.

1760 it was being celebrated as a very old tree.

By 1809 it was such a famous tree that they sent a box of the pears from this pear tree to President John Adams.

And he wrote a letter thanking them for it.

The pears, though, were not especially tasty.

They were just sort of average, but just the idea of what it lacked in flavor it made up for in endurance.

In the 19th century, that pear tree survived many hurricanes, some drought, some drought, all kinds of extreme weather.

In 1964, vandals went by the tree and hacked it up.

But even though they sort of butchered the branches, it continued to sprout and it fully recovered.

And now that tree is still alive and producing pears 383 years after it was planted.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, he will be like a tree.

Turn with me and your Bibles to the book of Hezekiah.

Some of you are still looking through your contents.

You only find the story of Zacchaeus 1 place in the Bible, unlike some of the other stories are repeated through the Gospels.

Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho, and behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich.

And he sought to see Jesus who he was, but he could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature.

So he ran ahead and he climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was going to pass that way." Trees.

You know, you find trees from cover to cover in the Bible.

The whole episode of sin and the test revolved around how people responded, our first parents, to the right tree and the wrong tree.

And you find in the last chapters of the Bible that there on either side of the river grows the tree of life.

Not only is it in the end of Revelation, in the very beginning of Revelation in his messages to the churches, he says to him that overcomes, I will give of the fruit from the tree of life.

I always thought it was interesting in the New Testament, In the Gospel of John, it begins by Jesus.

He meets Nathanael and he says, Ah, behold, an Israelite in whom there is no guile.

And Nathanael says, Master, how do you know me?

He said, I saw you when you were under the tree praying.

He actually says under the fig tree praying.

1 of the great visions in the story of Daniel, you can find this in Daniel chapter 4, talks about this vision King Nebuchadnezzar has of this great tree.

You find that in Daniel 4 and I'll just read verse maybe 10 through 12.

These were the visions of my head while on my bed I was looking and behold a tree in the midst of the earth." It says, you know, the tree of life was in the midst of the garden.

And its height was great and the tree grew and became strong and its height reached to the heavens And it could be seen to the ends of the earth, and its leaves were lovely, and its fruit abundant, and in it was food for all.

And the beasts of the field found their shade under it, and the birds of heaven dwelt in its branches, and all flesh was fed from it." And you know the story.

Daniel comes and interprets that and tells Nebuchadnezzar that he is the tree, and that king, because of his pride, was going to be abased, but he would not be destroyed.

The roots would be left in the ground and he would return after 7 times.

I've always wondered sometimes also if that vision was not telling us something about Jesus, who is the King of kings, and all the earth was fed by him, and all were shaded and supplied, and he humbled himself and came down to the earth and he bore all the sins, and then he resurrected and was restored to his glory.

It's almost like there's an analogy in there, but I don't want to take that too far because I know there's a lot of good theologians out there that'll discover my caveman theology.

All through the Bible, you have these stories about trees.

And the Bible says in Isaiah 65 verse 22 for as the days of a tree So are the days of my people and mine elect will long enjoy The long enjoy the work of their hands, you know I guess 1 reason I'm interested in trees is because I spent several years and my occupation was up in trees.

I lived in a cave, but I didn't live in trees.

You know what the most dangerous occupation is according to the insurance industry?

People think it's crab fishing, firemen, roofers, and those are dangerous.

But statistically the most dangerous occupation is logging.

More people die per 100, 000 from logging, And I believe it.

I was selling firewood, cutting down trees, skidding trees, driving a dozer through the trees, working with a chainsaw, and a lot of close calls with the widow makers.

But the reason I say that is I also sort of developed an affection for trees.

But the big ones I'd cut down, they were dead or sick and, you know, making firewood, you don't want to cut down the good trees.

And sometimes I'd cut them down and I'd count their rings, and I'd think, wow, this tree is 3 to 500 years old.

Dendrochronology is the study of trees and especially counting the rings in trees.

The dendrochronologists can't really find a tree in the world that predates the flood.

Now you'll hear some will say, oh this tree they think it's 5, 000 years old, but you know sometimes a tree will produce more than 1 ring in a year depending on the weather.

If there's a burst of rain and then a real hot spell it kind of gets stunted, then another burst of growth and you can get more than 1 ring in a year.

Now it's still a matter of conjecture what was the tallest tree in the world, but in 1872 in Victoria, Australia, lumberjacks fell a mountain ash they believe was 500 feet tall.

Just by perspective, right now the tallest tree in the world, and National Geographic knows where it is and some others in the National Park.

It's a redwood, a coastal redwood, and they say it's 365 feet tallest tree.

They say there was a mountain ash in Australia 500 feet.

They have confirmed that there was a tree that was 417 feet tall.

It wasn't a redwood, it was a Douglas fir.

Now I've seen some very tall Douglas fir trees.

And the stoutest tree, the widest girth, is in Mexico.

It has a girth of 112 to 113 feet, 5 feet up.

There's a European chestnut that once was measured.

It was called the tree of a hundred horses.

Series

Personal Encounters with Jesus

2. A Tree of Life: Zacchaeus

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Encounters With Jesus

Jesus’ Encounter with Zacchaeus

36m

The True Medical Missionary

56m

Freedom From Fear 2006

Poor Satan

56m

Restoration 2023

The Zombie Apocalypse

1h 21m

Restoration 2025: Revelation Speaks Life

The Fire of His Love

1h 3m

Plenary

Truth Only

51m

GYC SE 2012 Plenary Sessions

Why Is There Evil?

1h

Accessing the Supernatural: From New Age to Scripture Memory

58m

Plenary

Building On the Rock

1h 44m

The Big Questions (Evening Meetings)

9. A Poisoned Lottery Ticket Winner

1h 38m

Christian Cult, Love Triangle, and Art School: My Story

58m

Plenary

The One Thing Jesus Can’t Give You

55m

Sound Doctrine