Wild Olives

Thank you very much, Mr. Miller. Good afternoon once again, everyone. It is good to be here with you all. It's good to be together. It's good to come together and have those embers catch energy and catch fire and heat up as we come together in one another's presence as well as in the presence of God. So it's good to be here with you all. Welcome all of those that are with us at home on the webcast.

I know there's an extra number of you there today because the hall is a little bit lighter here, so we know that there's a number of you that are home as a result of a variety of things, so we wish you all the best and hope soon that we can all be back together again very, very quickly.

Well, there was a few years back a co-worker of mine back when I taught at the middle school had an opportunity to travel to Israel. I know some of you have probably traveled to Israel before. You've probably had experiences in that realm of things. I have not. I've actually never been to Israel. It's on my list. It's on my bucket list of places to travel and places to visit, but I've not ever been.

She was a woman that I worked with at this middle school that I taught at. She was an Episcopalian, and she had been bitten by the Israel bug. Well, what do I mean by that? Interested in all things Israel.

Travel. Interested in the buildings and the history, the language. She started taking Hebrew classes. In fact, I think it's been probably five years or so. She's almost functionally fluent at this point in Hebrew. She just jumped in whole hog, got bit by the Israel bug. Well, she started asking a number of very pointed questions of me at one point in time regarding the Sabbath and the Holy Days, because in her estimation, those were very Jewish things to be doing.

So I must have some knowledge of Israel, or I must have some knowledge of some of those things. We had some wonderful conversations. We had some excellent conversations over the years that we worked together regarding God, regarding His way, regarding the role of Jesus Christ in those days, and how those are absolutely days that God expects for us to keep today. And as we talked about these things, ultimately, as we discussed it, she had made the point that she really desired to hold on to a number of the customs of the Episcopalian faith, as well as it was just so weird for her to jump from worshiping on Sunday her entire life to that big step of keeping God's Sabbath.

Regardless of that, our conversations were always amicable. You know, we always had a wonderful set of conversations, and she maintained this interest in the Holy Land for a number of years. I think at this point she's actually been to Israel now more than three times, and again, as I mentioned, she's practically learned the language at this point in time, both written and verbally, so that she's able to communicate, read things, and stuff while she's there, which I have to give her props in.

That seems like a very difficult language to learn. I get this email, though, and the reason I'm telling you this story is it segues into where we're going to be heading today, but I got this mysterious email from her one day, and I noticed that there were a number of other folks on the list that I worked with, but not everyone. So this is one of those emails that was kind of like covertly sent to a small group of people, and I was intrigued. You know, the email said, hey, meet in the library after school today, and she had something she said she wanted to share with us.

It felt very clandestine, felt super spy-y. I was all over it, besides the fact that the only thing I had left in my office to work on was grading, and quite frankly, that could wait until at least the day after that or the day after that. When I got to the library, I finally realized the connection. I realized why it was this smaller group that was invited to come down here to this particular gathering.

The reason was, as I looked around that room, these were all the individuals in the school that I was aware of that were people of faith. These were the folks that either identified as Christians, these are the folks that she had had conversations with regarding faith or regarding Christianity or other things. She had invited us there because she had a whole bunch of photos of the Holy Land that she wanted to share with us. She was so excited about it. She wanted to show us the slideshow of her trip. She went through the photos and she took us through the tour. It was really wonderful, actually. It was a very wonderful opportunity. She went to most of the traditional visitation locations. She went to the presumed location of Christ baptism, the town of Nazareth, you know, Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea, Jerusalem. Spent multiple days in Jerusalem.

Visited the Garden of Gethsemane, Jericho, I mean, just to name a few. I mean, she had all the highlights, all the big things that if you were to go and book a tour of the Holy Land, these are the places you're going to. Now, we can argue whether those are the actual locations of those places or not, but this is the presumed and at least accepted location of these things by a vast majority. After she went through all of her trip and showed all the photos, I had a couple of questions about a couple of the sites that were there and just kind of wanted to get her thoughts. And she said, oh, wait, wait, I got you something. And she reaches into her pocket and she digs out this little plastic bag with a small card inside. And it's going to be impossible for you to see this from where you're at, but I can leave it up here on the podium so you can take a look at it today if you'd like. But it was just a plastic bag. It had a small card in it and inside was a small rock. The inscription on the card is John 11 verse 25. You don't have to turn there, but John 11 verse 25 says, I'm the resurrection and the life he that believes in me, though he were dead, shall yet live. Inside the baggie was a small piece of white limestone which she stole from the Garden of Gethsemane. You're not supposed to take anything out of the Garden of Gethsemane. She pretended to tie her shoes and stole me a rock. So I'm in possession of stolen Gethsemane property at this point in time. I have no way of returning it. I can't throw it that far.

So I decided I'm just going to hang on to it because at least it's a good conversation piece and it's kind of interesting. I've joked with friends and family that honestly, it's probably just like the Israeli version of Bark Boys that brought that rock into the Garden of Gethsemane and have deposited it. Chances of it actually being any of the original rock from that area is slim to zero, but it's the thought that counts. You know, it's the thought that counts.

Some of you may be familiar with the Garden of Gethsemane overall. Garden of Gethsemane is a interesting location and I've been fascinated with it for a number of years. It's located across from the Kidron Valley. It's on the lower northwestern slope of the Mount of Olives and kind of in that general vicinity. It's east of Jerusalem then and the Mount of Olives, as you might guess, got its name from plentiful olive groves that were growing on the sides and the slopes of that particular ridge there east of Jerusalem. Gethsemane is one of those areas inside of the Mount of Olives and it gets its name from a Hebrew and Aramaic term Gachimane. Gachimane, which means olive press. So Gethsemane was the location of an olive press.

And that particular garden and its surrounding groves of olives was a productive agricultural place in Israel. It was in this area where olives were grown, they were collected, they were pressed into oil, they were potentially collected for food, they were collected for preservation. Biblically, if we take a look in Scripture, Gethsemane is the place where Christ went out to after the final Passover. After him and his disciples sang a hymn, they left the location where they had gathered for Passover that night. They walked through the city from the old town out through that eastern gate and ultimately entered into the Garden of Gethsemane.

It was a location where the prayer that Christ prayed to God is recorded in Mark 14 in Matthew 26 and in Luke 22 when he prayed to God that the cup of what was about to happen to him, if it was God's will, that it could pass from him. Because as he considered what was about to come, he was unsure as to whether he had the strength to do it. And so he asked God if it was his will to allow that cup to pass from him, but ultimately concludes with, but God, whatever your will be, let that will be done. It was in this garden where his disciples fell asleep while keeping watch, and Christ talked with them and rebuked them for falling asleep after such a little time of trying to keep watch. It was a place where Christ sweat droplets of blood as he prayed the night before or the night of, I should say, his arrest ultimately and his betrayal by Judas Iscariot.

Now, whether the Gethsemane that this person visited and ripped off this rock from is the actual Gethsemane or not, that's frankly up for some debate. Gethsemane could have been located anywhere on that northwestern slope, but it's interesting. The church that's there currently is called the Church of All Nations, and it's built over the ruins of a fourth-century Byzantine church that allegedly was built on the location of the Garden of Gethsemane. So, it at least seems to have some archaeological backing that that would be the location. For those that have seen the pictures, if you have not ever seen the pictures in Garden of Gethsemane, I would highly suggest tonight googling the Garden of Gethsemane in the images and seeing these groves of ancient olive trees that are present inside of this particular area. There's a small handful of them. It's about eight to ten of them, ultimately, that are there. Those olive trees have been dated back to 900 to 1200 years of age. They're among the oldest olive trees on the planet. Now, timing-wise, we know that's not, you know, ultimately the original olive trees that were there at the time. These weren't the olive trees, per se, that Jesus Christ knelt under to pray, I guess is what I'm saying. But because of some of the scientific testing that's been done, they do believe that those trees that are present in the Garden of Gethsemane today are the third or fourth generation cuttings from those original trees that were on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. All of those trees share a common lineage. They all share a common DNA lineage, and so they all came from the same thing. They all came from the same cuttings, which in the case of olives is not uncommon. Interestingly enough, most of those trees that were on the slopes of Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane were chopped down and burned by the Romans in 70 AD during the siege of Jerusalem. And then those that were taken from the cuttings that remained when those trees threw off offshoots were put in the ground and they were grown. And then the subsequent wars for Jerusalem over the years, they were burned down and ripped up as well. But it's absolutely evident when you look at these trees that are in the Garden of Gethsemane, they have been cultivated. They have been cared for. You can see the old, and these old giant, giant trunks on these olive trees. You can see where the branches have been woven together in the past and then have grown. So you've seen this location where these guys tended and they cultivated these trees to make them more fruitful and make them more productive. Propagation of olive trees is really interesting. It's really interesting. And I'm going to ask you to permit me to provide a brief botany lesson today because it's going to be crucial for the understanding of where we're going. Okay, I mean, I could take you where we're going, but if I don't explain this part first, where we're going is not going to make as much sense. Propagation of olive trees is interesting.

The cultivated olives that we have in the world today. So the olives that we get that we use for olive oil, that we use for food, that we use for preservation, those that are jarred, sold, pressed for oil, those olives come from a cultivated variety of olive. Okay, they're called Olaya Europa. They're a, that's a scientific name for them, they're a cultivated olive. And they've been, over the years, artificially selected over the years for a very specific set of purposes. Okay, for a very specific either high oil production, you know, size of fruit, you know, less firmness of fruit, you know, whether or not it's able to be palatable a little bit better, get rid of some of the phenols and the bitterness that sometimes comes in them. But those cultivated olives somewhere in time throughout history, and it's uncertain as to exactly when, someone began husbandry practices on these plants. Because the original olive, the one that comes and ultimately is a subspecies of this existing domesticated olive at this time, are known as wild olive plants. And wild olive plants, I'll just read you a brief section here from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, as a rule, the wild olive is but a shrub. You look at olive trees, sometimes they can grow 20-30 feet high. You know, they try not to, they try to keep them lower so they can be worked. But as a rule, the wild olive is a shrub. It has small leaves, most domesticated olives have much longer leaves. It has a stem that is more or less prickly, say sometimes are thorned, and they have a very small hard droop, which is the fruit, that's the actual olive, with little or no oil in them. So the wild variety of the olive, you can get oil out of them, but not very much of it. And the oil that you do get out of them is not very high quality. It's very bitter, it's full of phenolic compounds, and ancient cultures have used it for medicine for years. But it's not what you go and buy when you go buy extra virgin olive oil down at the store. That came from a cultivated olive, not a wild olive. So as a result, these wild olives that ultimately these domesticated olives came from, they weren't very notable agriculturally. They weren't typically grown very frequently from an agricultural standpoint to be able to get to the fruit. However, what's interesting about wild olives is they grow very fast, very heartily, and in conditions that other plants don't like to necessarily grow in.

And so people began to realize early on that it made a perfect stock for grafting other olive branches too. We'll talk about that here in just a second. So it's believed these cultivated olives that people experience today ultimately had their beginnings in groves throughout the Middle East. The Greeks took them worldwide. The Greeks loved their olives, they loved their olive oil, and where they went and where they conquered, they brought olives with them and they set them down and they took care of things planting groves all throughout the Greek empire at that point in time. Now what's fascinating about this is that if you take a cultivated olive and that cultivated olive falls off of that tree and that seed germinates and grows, the olive that results from that seed falling off will not be the same as the tree that it fell from. Because of the way that the genetics combine, it will be a wild olive. It will be an olive that does not have the same characteristics as the parent olive. In fact, most of the olives that are cultivated today are grown through grafting and so you have a wild olive stalk at the bottom and then cultivated branches coming off of the top. The branches that grow out of the bottom, the shoots that come out off the bottom of the tree, are wild olive shoots. They're not above the graft.

So when we talk about this particular methodology of how these things are propagated, I trust me, it's a long walk but we're getting somewhere, okay? It is a long walk to get there but we're getting somewhere. Once they began to realize that they could graft these branches onto these wild stalks, in order to begin these groves what they would do is go in and they would plant a whole bunch of these wild olives. They'd plant them spaced out just where they wanted them in the groves and they'd let them grow for about three years. These trees would grow shoots. They'd root very quickly. They'd grow very rapidly. They'd hack off the shoots that were growing out so they didn't overrun the place and they kept them in their nice little lines and then three years in, after very careful tending and working the ground and keeping it fertilized, doing everything they needed to do, they would cut the branches back, graft on cultivated olive branches, and allow the cultivated olives to grow on top of the wild stalk. The wild stalk was hardy. It had a solid root system and those cultivated branches got plenty of sap, plenty of ability to grow, and they proliferated. You would have a solid olive crop in anywhere from three to five years. They would reach full production anywhere from 20 to 30. And so you would have these substantial groves of cultivated olives throughout the Middle East. The trees that are present in Gethsemane show evidence of cultivation. They show evidence of cultivation. They show evidence of nurturing. They show evidence of someone having taken the time to care for these trees to ensure that these trees produce as much fruit as humanly possible and are productive as possible. Now, interestingly enough, the Bible makes a difference between the cultivated olive and the wild olive. Let's go ahead and turn over to Nehemiah 8 today to begin. Title for the message today is wild olives. Nehemiah 8. And we're going to take a look. In this case, it's a slightly unrelated command, but I want to show you that the Bible does differentiate between cultivated olives and wild olives. And it's an important distinction because as we build this concept, you're going to see when we get into the New Testament that this concept does exist.

Nehemiah 8. And we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 13 of Nehemiah. And this particular passage is not necessarily related to the concept that we're necessarily talking about today, but it has a mention of wild olives. Nehemiah 8, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 13, says, "...now on the second day the heads of the fathers' houses of all the people with the priests and the Levites were gathered to Ezra the scribe. In order to understand the words of the law," verse 14, "...they found written in the law which the Lord had commanded by Moses that the children of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month." So just the time frame we're coming out of. These were the instructions that they had received and that they understood. "...and that they should announce and proclaim," verse 15, "...in all their cities and in Jerusalem, saying, Go out to the mountain and bring olive branches, branches of oil trees, myrtle branches, palm branches, branches of leafy trees, to make booths as it is written." And so we see a command here that instructs them to go out and define olive branches, but depending on your translation of the Bible, I read from the New King James, other translations list oil trees as pine, but yet other translations list it as wild olive.

Wild olive. The tree with which they would get oil from. Oil trees.

In EMI 8 and verse 15, the branches the Israelites were commanded to go and take up to make their sukkots, to make these temporary dwellings, the booths that they would stay in. They're olive branches. That's the first branch that's mentioned, right? Is olive branches. Now the Hebrew word there for olive is za'ith. It's za'ith. It's H2132, and it specifically references in Hebrew branches of olive trees. Okay, it's specifically referencing olive trees, but it's important for us to keep in mind that the reference that it's making is to your typical agricultural olive tree, what we would call a cultivated olive.

Za'ith is the specific word that is used in scripture to describe olives in Hebrew, and this is the commercial crop that they would eat, that they would preserve, and that ultimately they would process for oil. And it's very different than the next word that's used. The next word that's used to describe oil trees is ez' shemen. Ez' shemen. And there's a number of translations that translate ez' shemen as wild olive. Specifically, this plant that was used as a rootstock for these cultivated olives. Again, certain translations translate it pine. 1 Kings 6 records that it was that wild olive wood that was used to build the doors of the temple and other parts of the temple. So it had some, it appears, commercial use. Jewish Encyclopedia in Volume 9, page 394 under the entry, olives, says the following. It says, olive is an evergreen tree, one of the most characteristic of Palestine. The term za'ith is applied in the Old Testament only to the cultivated olive tree. The wild olive, the oleaster of the ancients, being designated as ez' shemen. So we see in Scripture that there is a difference in reference between the cultivated olive and ultimately the products that it creates, the food, the oil, etc., and this wild olive, which was used for wood, which was used for oil, to a certain degree. Let's go over to Deuteronomy 8 and verse 6. Again, as we build this, Deuteronomy 8 and verse 6, I assure you at some point it will make sense where we are going. Just follow along for the ride. Deuteronomy 8 and verse 6, as you're turning over there, it's interesting, Kiel and Delish, which is a kind of a Jewish-esque commentary, corroborates that translation of ez' shemen as olive would, giving again a linguistic language, delineation between a cultivated olive and a wild olive from which those cultivated olives were developed. Deuteronomy 8 and verse 6 says, Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God to walk in his ways and to fear him. Verse 7, for the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs that flow out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and you are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which he has given you.

So Israel was provided a land that flowed with olive oil. Deuteronomy 6 verse 11 says that Israel received vineyards and olive trees which they did not cultivate, which they did not plan.

They didn't plan for these things. They didn't plant them. They didn't cultivate them. God gave these groves to Israel when he displaced the people of Canaan. When the Israelites came into that land that God had promised him, God told him to keep those commandments, to walk in his ways, to fear him, because it was a land of plenty. It was a land full of, and the word here in Hebrew is za'ith. These commercial, you might say, or cultivated olive. They were plentiful with oil and with food. This za'ith oil that we look at and that we see is the fine olive oil that we see referenced throughout scripture. It was from these plants that they would get the oil that they used to light their lamps. Ultimately, that they used in the anointing oil as the base of the anointing oil. It was that pure olive oil that was used. It was that olive oil that ran down the beard of Aaron and that anointed kings as it was mixed in this particular oil, in this particular formula. It's this oil in scripture that we see connected in part, scripturally, to God's Holy Spirit. It's this fine, pure olive oil that we see connected to God's Holy Spirit. Let's turn to Luke 4 and verse 18. Luke 4 and verse 18. And we'll see Christ reading from the words of Isaiah here in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. Christ has had a homecoming. He's come in and he's reading in the synagogue and he's teaching and he's, you know, attempting to get those in Nazareth to understand who and what he is. The words that he said stirred them up. It made them angry. In fact, near the end, they drag him out of the synagogue and try to throw him off of a cliff as a result of what he said. He manages to duck in through the crowd and disappear. But what does he say? What made them so upset? What made them so frustrated? He says in Luke 4 and verse 18, he says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He says God's Spirit is upon me because he has anointed me.

So there's a connection here that we start to see built between this idea of anointing one's head with oil, with this fine oil, za'ith, and God's Holy Spirit. And so Jesus Christ is saying, he has been anointed. And why was he anointed? What was he anointed to do? He's been anointed to preach the Gospel. He's been set apart to preach the Gospel to the poor. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who were oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And so Christ is mixing information from Isaiah 61, Isaiah 58 into the statement that he tells them who are gathered there. But he makes the point that he has been anointed by the Spirit of God. Acts 10 and verse 38, we'll just reference it. You can jot it in your notes. Acts 10 38 corroborates that statement. It says that Christ was anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power. Again, drawing a direct connection between the receipt of God's Holy Spirit and being anointed, so to speak, with oil. There's a connection there. There's a similar parallelness that is provided. It was this zayit oil that was produced by these cultivated olives that formed, again, the base of that anointing oil, this described in Exodus.

It's also that zayit oil that illuminated lamps in Matthew 25 of the wise and the foolish virgins.

And when they were instructed, or when they were instructed that the bridegroom had come and the foolish virgins didn't have their oil, they cried out for some from the wise and the wise said, go and buy your own. They've always understood that parable to mean that they hadn't prepared.

They weren't ready. They hadn't been doing the things that they needed to do.

So where are we going with this? Let's go over to the book of Romans. Let's go over to the book of Romans. The Apostle Paul further delineates these two trees using a very specific analogy that's found in Romans 11. Romans 11, we're going to go ahead and pick it up in verse 13. Romans 11 and verse 13. Apostle Paul here is addressing the church in Rome. You know, Rome had its issues. You know, it had a mixed multitude, so to speak, as its congregation. There were Romans, there were Jews, there were Gentiles, people of many different stripes, so to speak. And so he's addressing the church in Rome. He's writing this letter to them, this epistle to them, and he writes in verse 13.

Romans 11 and verse 13. He says, For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am an apostle, to the Gentiles I magnify my ministry. If by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? So Paul makes the point to those that are receiving this letter, those who are getting this epistle, that his goal in some ways, in some capacity, is to provoke some of his brethren who are of Jewish descent, who are his flesh, but to provoke them to jealousy as they see Gentiles coming to the faith. As they see them coming in, Paul says his goal is to kind of nudge his own brethren, his own flesh, to recognize, hey guys, look what God is doing.

He was hoping with that jealousy to bring those Jews to repentance, to restoration, and he makes the point that if the casting away of the Jews who were not accepted, those who had not, you know, who had rejected Christ, who would not believe, those that were not accepted, he said, if that opened the door, so to speak, for the reconciling of the world, if them being cast away in their disbelief opened the world of salvation to the Gentiles, he said, imagine how much greater it will be when they accept it. Imagine how much greater it'll be when they have that opportunity to understand and they accept it. This will be incredible. And we know that opportunity is coming. We know that even if they were cast away in their lifetime, that they will have, it's one of the beautiful, beautiful messages of the eighth day, that they will have an opportunity again to learn, to understand, to have an opportunity to make a choice. He goes on in verse 15. He says, if the first fruit is holy, the lump is also holy.

And then Paul, as some speakers do, myself included, mixes metaphors. He says, if the root is holy, well so are the branches. You go, wait a minute, dough? Branches? What's happening here? His point is, if the first fruit portion of the dough is holy and it's been set apart, he says, so too is the rest of the lump, because it came from that lump. It says, if the harvest, rest of the harvest, ultimately, because of the first fruit harvest, if the rest of the harvest would ultimately be set apart as well. His point is that as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were set apart, and as they were holy before God, their descendants were also set apart and were holy as well. Israel was a set apart, holy people, to God. Now as a whole, we know their story because we're able to see it, we're able to read it. As a whole, they didn't live up to that requirement of holiness, and they were cast away as a result of their disbelief. They became, as it says in the book of Hosea, they became lo ami.

They became lo ruhamah. They became not my people, God said. They became without mercy.

But we also know that the rest of the story of Hosea shows that they'll be restored, that they will return to God at that point and become, instead of lo ami and lo ruhamah, that they would be called sons of the living God. And so in Romans 11 here, it's this eventual restoration of the Jewish people that Paul is referencing, but he's also referencing what God is doing with the Gentiles at the time of his epistle. Verse 17, again, middle of verse 16, the metaphor mixes. It shifts. Verse 17, he says the following.

He says, And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and the fatness of the olive tree, verse 18, do not boast against the branches, but if you do boast, remember, you do not support the root, but the root supports you. Paul uses an interesting concept here.

Throughout most of the New Testament, if you go through and you do a search in whatever Bible software you want to use, you search for the word olive. What is going to come back is a Greek word, Elia, E-L-A-I-A, G-1-6-3-6. That is the general word that is used for olive. Okay, that's the general word. Mount of Olives, Mount of Elia. You know, olive press, Elia press. Okay, that's the word that's used. It's a general reference to olive.

But it's important for us to keep in mind that because of the agricultural prevalence prevalence of the cultivated varietal of olive, when it says olive and the Mount of Olives, and it says olive in reference to about everything else, it's talking about that variety that is cultivated. It's not talking about the wild olive. It's talking about the cultivated variety. But what's interesting is Paul makes a very clear distinction here by using the words in Greek for wild olive and cultivated olive specifically. So in verse 17, the word that is used for wild olive in Greek, again describing the Gentiles that were grafted into the rootstock of this olive plant, is the Greek word Agriallos. Agriallos, which is G65, and it's a compound word that literally means wild olive. So Paul is making it clear. I'm not talking about a regular olive here.

I'm talking about a wild olive. I'm talking about the wild variety that ordinarily root- cultivated olives are grafted onto. The word used for cultivated olive is Kalleleion.

Kalleleion, which is G2565, and it literally means good or fine olives. These are the good olives. These are the ones that are used for oil and for food. These are the good ones. Not the wild ones. These are the good ones. Paul's point to the Gentiles is that some of the branches were broken off of that olive tree, and they, being wild olives, were grafted to that tree.

They were grafted to the olive tree, and they benefited from the root and of the fatness of that tree. Now what's fascinating is that's a complete opposite of the normal olive cultivar process. You don't put the wild on top of the cultivated, you put the cultivated on top of the wild. Because why would you want to grow wild olives? There wasn't a point in that. It's contrary to nature, right? It doesn't make sense. Expositor's Bible commentary states, as regards Palestine, but no other Mediterranean country, he, and this is referencing a gentleman named Professor Theobald Fisher, points out that the process which Paul had in view is still, even today, in use in exceptional circumstances at the present day. He mentions that it is sometimes customary to reinvigorate an olive tree which has ceased to bear fruit.

And the way they would do that is by grafting it with a shoot of wild olive. So they would put the wild olive on top of the cultivated branches. They would graft that together.

And the hope was that that wild tree, or that wild olive, in the sap that is being transferred, would cause that cultivated tree to once again bear fruit.

Cutting away of the old branches was required to admit air, to admit light to the graft, it says, as well as to prevent the vitality of the tree from being widely distributed among a large number of branches. So they would hack away a number of the cultivated olive branches and allow that one or two, perhaps, or three wild olive branches that they grafted on to grow and grow and grow, and in doing so, they would wake that tree back up. And suddenly now that cultivated olive would begin producing again. It would begin bearing fruit. In other words, grafting wild stock could provoke the tree, you might say, to jealousy as Paul is making his point, that it would cause his countrymen to wake up and to realize what God was doing. He goes on in verse 19, he says, you will say then branches were broken off that I might be grafted in. He says, well said, because of unbelief they were broken off and yet you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he may not spare you either. Therefore, he says, consider the goodness and the severity of God on those who fell, severity, he says, but towards you goodness that you continue in his goodness. Otherwise, you will also be cut off.

Verse 23, and they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in. For God is able to graft them in again. He's saying those that have been cast out, it's not over for them.

God can graft them right back into the tree that he cut them out of like that. It takes nothing.

He says, for if you were cut out of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, saying you as the Gentiles were wild olives that were cut and grafted in. He says here in verse 24, grafted in contrary to nature. In other words, this isn't what normally happens. This is reverse of the process here. We're taking wild and we're putting on cultivated. That doesn't make sense. He says, if that were the case with you, how much more will those who are natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree when God has that opportunity to open their eyes and to help them to understand? God is able to graft in those who were cut out earlier. And if the Gentiles who were cut out of the wild olive tree are grafted into that cultivated olive, contrary to nature, the opposite of the way things are done, how much easier will it be for God to graft in those original branches again when it comes time to do so? In the wild olive branches in Paul's analogy, are sustained by the cultivated tree. The room was made for their grafting by the removal of those branches they didn't believe, those who refused to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. And so, brethren, it's important to remember, yes, this is describing covenantal blessings, but it's also very much describing the presence and the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit in those branches who remained, who accepted Jesus Christ, who submitted themselves to baptism, who were baptized and received God's Holy Spirit, whether they were Jew or whether they were Gentile, they were part of that tree. And they were part of that tree because of that indwelling of God's Holy Spirit. Let's turn over to Psalm 128. I promised you I would make my point.

Long walk for a fairly short drink of water, but I hope it will make my point today. Psalm 128, again, you might be sitting here listening to this going, yeah, I like olives too, Ben, but where are you going? Psalm 128, today's a blessing of little children. All of us are aware fully of the blessing that little children are. You know, it's incredible the potential that they illustrate, that they have in their lives, the just open-ended future that each one of them represents. That they, through their decisions, can take themselves and their lives in any one of millions of directions. It's truly incredible. Psalm 128, again, as we're gathered here on the blessing of little children, we commonly recognize and we commonly read passages that deal with children and blessings which children represent. This is one of those passages. Psalm 128, just about guaranteed. You go find, after today, you go find a, you know, blessing of little children sermons somewhere online. Psalm 128 will be there. It's just, it's a go-to. Psalm 128, verse 1, we'll see again a description of the blessings here that come to those who fear the Lord and who walk in His ways. Psalm 128, verse 1, says, Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord and who walks in His ways. When you eat the labor of your hands, you shall be happy and it shall be well with you. Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the very heart of your house. Your children like, what?

Like olive plants all around your table. Children like olive plants all around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The Lord bless you out of Zion and may you see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life. Yes, may you see your children's children. Peace, peace be upon Israel. You know, it's interesting, the international symbol of peace is the olive branch. And the reason that is, is because, you know, existent olive groves take centuries to get to the point where they are really, I mean, you could have centuries worth of work in an olive grove that can be undone by a marauding army in a matter of hours as they chop all of those olive trees down and they burn them. The presence of an existing ancient olive grove in a land is a symbol that that land has been at peace for many, many, many, many years. It says, peace be upon Israel. Peace be upon Israel. It's interesting when you look back over this particular passage to see the reference to children here. It says your wife should be a truth or a truthful vine, better be a truthful vine, a fruitful vine in the heart of your home. And it says your children shall be like olive plants around the table. You dig into the Hebrew of that term, the Hebrew of that term, what olive plants mean. The word is satile, satile, S-A-T-I-L-E-H-8-3-6-3, which is a word that describes the shoots or the suckers that grow up off of the roots of that plant.

They are the suckers that grow up off the roots of that plant. So it is saying your children are like root suckers of the olive. Children don't take offense. But what it's used to do is it's used to describe and illustrate the numerous offspring that are provided to this family. You can imagine the the the father in this case and the being the the main trunk of the olive branch, and there's just suckers coming up all over the place. It's fruitful. It's out there. It's growing up all over, and these children are like that. Those that fear the Lord and walk in His way, their children will be gathered around that table like olive shoots. And that's one way to interpret the passage. It's one way to look at it. But brethren, I think there's another analogy that we can consider in this as well, and it's that that I'd like to bring out today. Given what we now know about olive propagation in Israel, the fact that most of these cultivated olive trees were grown upon wild root stock, those shoots that are coming up off of the bottom of that tree below the graft, would those be cultivated or would those be wild olives? They're wild olives. They're wild olives. Which means that if they are left to themselves, and if they are allowed to just do their own thing, they're going to grow everywhere.

They're going to grow completely out of control. They're going to have shoots in everything. They're going to be growing up and sending up suckers all over the place. The fruit is going to be bitter. The fruit is going to be bitter. The oil is going to be phenolic. It's not going to be palatable.

But what's fascinating is when you consider these wild olives, therein lies the most incredible responsibility that we have and we face as parents in this life.

You know, our youth by nature, they're human just like us. They're human just like us. We've learned, we've accepted, we've come to terms with God's calling. We've accepted God's Spirit into our lives through baptism and through the covenant that we've entered into with Him. We're yielding to that Spirit, hopefully each day, getting closer and closer and excising and pruning away the things that shouldn't be there in our lives. Brethren, we could say that we, as parents, have been grafted in. We were wild olives, too, at one point in time, just like the Gentiles that Paul was referencing.

But we've been grafted into that cultivated olive.

You know, we know God's Spirit works with our youth. We know that, you know, our faith as parents have sanctified them in God's eyes. We know that they've been blessed by God. We know that God's hand of protection is on them. We know that He sees them, that He works with them.

But we also know that the decision as to whether they also submit to this way of life in the long term is theirs to make. You know, it's interesting. I went upon a mission a few years back, talking to people whose kids were still in the church and talking to people who still had faith and were still believing the things that they learned when they were younger. And I talked with people whose children did not. And you know, it was fascinating. I didn't find much of a difference in how they were raised. I really, I mean, in some cases, absolutely, right? I mean, in the extremes, I didn't find much of a difference. You know, one parent would say, oh, yeah, we sat down and we did, you know, Bible instruction on Friday nights, and we did this, and we did that. And then I would talk to a family whose children decided this wasn't their thing. They did the exact same thing. Ultimately, the decision as to whether this life is for our children, frighteningly, folks, comes down to them. Whether they will choose to be grafted to that tree that Paul described in Romans 11 ultimately is up to them. But what's really fascinating, and this was what made it really, really interesting to me, Professor Theobald Fisher continued his statement regarding this concept of reverse grafting that Paul is describing, this idea of taking that wild root and placing it on top of the cultivated olive, just like us, rather than just like us being grafted into that tree as that wild olive to cultivate an olive. He said, the sap of the wild olive is ennobled, and the tree again bears fruit. So again, we know that already. We already heard that earlier in Theobald Fisher's point, but then he says the following. He says the grafted shoot affects the stalk below the graft as well. The fruit that is grown off of those new shoots after that wild root has been added in, they become an almost in between.

That new shoot will have fleshier fruits. It'll produce more oil. It almost is like it becomes semi-cultivated in the process. It's not just a wild olive anymore. It's almost an in-between, the cultivated olive and the wild olive. So not only can additional grafts invigorate the tree as Paul's desire was for his people, but it can cause those shoots that grow up off the main graft to be more similar to a cultivated olive. Just the mere presence of a wild graft on that cultivated olive, with the branches removed, giving that wild olive space to grow, giving it space to get light and grow, increases sap flow to invigorate the tree, and as a result of that invigoration, it causes those shoots that come up, these shoots that are around the table described in Psalm 128, to become what we might say are semi-cultivated. They have a fleshier fruit. They're richer in oil. They produce better fruit than a purely wild olive. That's why it's so crucial for us as parents, and even as grandparents, to set a good example for us to exhibit the fruits of God's Spirit in our life, and to really truly live as that grafted branch on that cultivated tree.

We've mentioned this before, but I think it's important to mention again, brethren, we are raising our own spiritual brothers and sisters. These children that are gathered here with us today, yeah, we have a responsibility for them in this life. We're their parents, and we have responsibility for them in this life, but brethren, we are raising our spiritual brothers and sisters.

Not just our children, but future members of God's family, our brothers, our sisters, fellow servants throughout the millennium, fellow kings and priests.

That is a task that has been entrusted to us as parents, and with proper pruning and nurturing and preparation, helping them to grow and helping to train them up, as the scripture says, and the way that they should go, we increase the likelihood that they will choose to be grafted to that tree.

We increase the likelihood. Is it a guarantee? Sadly, no. But we increase the likelihood.

It takes incredible hard work. As people are making groves, the ground has to be tilled regularly. For the first two to three years, that ground around those trees has to constantly be broken up, constantly be made to where water can get down to those roots.

They have to be able to trim away errant branches that block sunlight, getting things out and taking things out that get in the way and prevent growth. The plant has to be fertilized, it has to be fed well, it has to be watered as it's needed. But brethren, the end result of that is beautiful. The end result of that is beautiful. The end result are wild olives that have been grafted into a beautiful, oil-rich, cultivated olive that God is growing, that He is keeping, that He is training, that He is nurturing, and we have a responsibility and an ability to be a part of that. Hope you all have a wonderful Sabbath, and hope you have a wonderful opportunity for fellowship afterwards.