Dutch Elm Disease And The Christian

by R. Darke, Victoria, B.C. | Category: Fingerpost | Jul 1977

Dutch elm disease has spread across Europe, jumped the Channel to England, and is now being found 6,000 miles away in Canada and the U.S.A. A beetle, one of the smallest of God's creatures, is held responsible for the fatal infection. Nothing; so far, seems able to hinder its deadly work. Thousands of trees have already died, and thousands more are doomed. The elm is being destroyed by a fungus which cuts off the water supply to the leaf, and the massive, green-leafed, healthy elm tree withers and dies. It must then be uprooted as a precautionary measure. The name, Dutch elm disease, is somewhat misleading. The tree is not a Dutch elm, but the link is brought about through the discovery fifty years ago in Holland of the fungus responsible for the death of the elm. It is not always possible to diagnose the disease until the fatal damage has occurred, and because a tree cannot cry for help, the outward symptoms are the only indicators of imminent death.

Trees play such an important part in God's dealings with man, and the fact that He speaks of us individually as trees (Psa. 1:3), and desires us to be green-leafed and fruitful, causes us to consider the tragedy of the elm as a parable with spiritual significance to Christians. Israel were forbidden to destroy trees when they besieged a city (Deut. 20:19 AV). It appears as if God sees us in a church of God collectively as a miniature garden of Eden. Paul told the Corinthians that they were God's husbandry (1 Cor. 3:9). They were His tilled land, a productive garden, a place of delights, an enclosed area. We are His husbandry, and the Lord Jesus confirms that His Father is the Husbandman (John 15:1). In Eden,

Adam was the husbandman, and God loved to walk and talk with him amidst the beauty and the fragrance of the place He gave Adam to keep. It was a place fenced off from the field, and God must have grieved when "the serpent... the beast of the field" (Gen. 3:1) entered the husbandry of God. Satan must be kept out or he will wreak havoc in churches of God today.

From the beginning the Lord intended that blessing should be derived from trees, and the following descriptions might help us to see what should characterize us as trees planted by the rivers of water. The vine is associated with the wine of joy, and the fig with satisfying fruit; the cedar is a wood of great usefulness and most pleasant fragrance; the oak indicates strength, while the apple and the pomegranate provide pleasant, refreshing fruit; and the olive produces fresh oil for a healthy countenance. There are also trees for rest (Gen. 18:4), and for sweetness (Exod. 15:25). From these illustrations we can see the worth of what we have to protect, and because of this the enemy will be using things little and great to ruin with the blight, mildew, and fungus of sin and temptation our lives as trees for God. Let us make it our aim to be "trees of the LORD. . . full of sap" (Psa. 104:16 AV) and 'like a green olive tree in the house of God" (Psa. 52:8).

R. Darke, Victoria, B.C. | Jul 1977
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