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It was a terrifying sight. One minute the world was steady and everything in its place, the next minute the ground turned to jelly in a blender, the sky went black as ink hiding the sun, and even twelve hours later the moon looked bloody. The mountains were shaking like trees in a tornado twisting and writhing as if in pain. Then the sky snapped shut like a book.

Ever had a day like that?

This warning comes from Revelation 6:12ff. Most scholars I’ve studied say this is symbolic, especially since the previous five seals being ripped from the scroll are considered symbolic. However, symbolic or not, we know that the day is coming when there will be great turmoil on the earth. The Bible tells us sin causes violence, or even that sin is violence.

A wonderful picture of this is depicted in Psalm 7. See how David pleads for God to close the book on sin. We know God won’t do that until the end, but it is right to pray for it every day, to recognize God’s protective power from sin – if we just allow Him free reign to do it. God is angry against the wickedness done every day, and nobody gets away with it even though it seems as if they do.

See that man shoveling day after day, digging, then concealing, his man-trap down that lonely stretch of road? Go back and look again—you'll see him in it headfirst, legs waving in the breeze. That's what happens: mischief backfires; violence boomerangs. I'm thanking God, who makes things right. I'm singing the fame of heaven-high GOD. Psalm 7:15-17 The Message

That’s on an individual basis, not worldwide as in Revelation.

That judgment day is coming soon. We know it will be bad, and Jesus brings it so crystal clear when He asks the question on the way to His crucifixion, “If they do this to the green tree, what will they do to the dry?”

It is a Jewish expression comparing a good man to a green tree, and a bad man to a dry or dead tree. The green tree bears fruit, gives shade, and is useful for so many things. It is not useful however to make a fire. Have you ever tried to start a fire with green wood? No, the dry wood burns up the green wood, just as our sin consumed Jesus’s physical body.

Green tree (literally wet wood), green fir (Hosea 14:8), an apple tree (Song of Song of Song of Song of Solomon 2:3), vine and nourishing root, Tree of Life have all described Jesus throughout Scripture. The green tree is full of nourishing sap just as Jesus described Himself as Living Water. He is full of wonderful goodness, kindness, peace, joy, long sufferance, and forgiveness: The fruit of the Spirit that He bestows upon us when we take Him into our hearts. As a green tree, He flourished and caused great benefits upon the Jewish people such as healing the sick, the lame to walk, the dead to rise alive again. All these things were spoken by the prophets about the Messiah. Green wood is not fit for fuel for fire. He did nothing worthy of death. He was innocent. He was everything fruitful and useful, and was declared from Heaven the good tidings of great joy for the whole earth.

He did not deserve death.

I have heard that Jews reject Jesus as the Messiah because He died on the cross meaning He died a sinner’s death, meaning He was sinful. He literally did take on all the sins of the world, but He was not sinful.

The sins of the world dried up His body, just as a green tree dries up when cut away from its root. Although, a green tree will stay green for a time after its nourishment is removed especially when we give it life-giving water.

A dead and withered tree is cast on the fire, so Jesus did to our sins. Here's a deep irony. The sinful nailed the Green Tree to the dry wood of the cross. He died so that these same sinful men could have life everlasting filled with living water.

Jesus calling Himself the green tree is our reminder of Ezekiel and Hosea’s words:

And all the trees of the field shall know that I, Jehovah, have brought down the high tree. And have exalted the low tree, and have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree flourish. I, Jehovah, have spoken and acted. (Ezekiel 17:24)

Ephraim shall say, ‘What is it to me any more with idols?’ I answered him, and I regarded him. I am as a green fir tree; your fruit is found from Me. (Hosea 14:8)

One day the mighty of the earth will fall from their lofty places that will be as dark as outer most space. All the world’s governments will quake into nothingness just like the mighty oak splintered and torn apart by a tornado. That day the greatness of the Lord God Almighty cannot be denied by anyone. Jesus knew, and He became the door, and He keeps calling for us to come in.

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.(Jeremiah 17:7-8)

"'Christ in You...'" from Dale Krebbs

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