A tree is a tree is a tree… by sid fredericksen

Today would have been my dear Sid’s 80th birthday. Maybe we’d have put on a party. He sometimes said he’d like to have a big birthday party, but we never got around to doing that. His life was cut short in 2020 by cancer.

But Sid left a godly legacy in words and songs for all of us. This book was the first present he gave me, the second time we got together. He’d written it several years previously, during a period between a tree-falling career and a semi-retirement job as a commissionaire.

He had loved his years in the logging industry–out there in nature, alone with God. It comes through in his thoughts. I share with you the Introduction to the book today.

A tree is a tree is a tree… and not other than a tree shall it be.

In all the years I’ve worked in the logging industry (as a faller) I have never seen a spruce tree re-create itself into a cedar – or a fir. And if you know, or are familiar with, commercial fishermen, you know that they would know – a cod is not a salmon, nor could a salmon become a whale. Everything is designed by God to create after its kind. It’s called order.

Try to imagine… a fish jumps too high. “Oops! I landed on the beach, I must be a lizard. Maybe I’ll climb up this tree. Hey! I must be a monkey… maybe I’ll climb back down. O.K., I’m a man (not a very smart one… but a man nevertheless).” I don’t think so.

God made everything to create “after its own kind”. That’s the way it was in the beginning and that’s the way it’ll stay. No less than ten times in the first chapter of the Bible, the phrase, “after its own kind” is used. Do you suppose, just maybe, God is trying to tell us something? And then in v26-27 He decides to make man… “in His image“. Wouldn’t you say this is… “after His kind“?

So all of God’s good nature creates “after its kind“.

So-called science gone haywire.

And when roses are hybridized, they’re still roses… but the fragrance is gone. Same thing with carnations. Thanks but no-thanks. You may say, “Well they’re just for looks anyway.” Well then, let’s just get silk… you don’t even have to water those.

After God had created everything (to bring forth of its kind) and had put His man in charge, He said “it is very good.” But science (so-called) doesn’t seem to appreciate what is. No-o-o-o, they would like to change everything they can. Can you believe… men who want to be women. And women getting changed into men. What’s this world coming to?

And I think I know why these ‘so-called’ scientists like to add countless zeros onto the millions (even billions) of years they’ve dreamed it would take to put all this together. Now there’s no way for us ‘so-called’ lay people to dispute their theories. Would someone please write a book called “Zeroes for Dummies”. I’m sure they fancy to impress each other, when in actuality they make themselves to be fools. Romans 1:22. It’s amazing how a little thing like a zero [0] can negate an Almighty Creator. This gives a whole new meaning to 1 Corinthians 14:38… “but if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.” Seems to me as though they’re embalmed with speculation.

But for now, let’s take another look at this nature thing. You take a donkey and breed it with a horse. What do you get? Mule. If it’s male, it’s ‘mule’. If it’ female, it’s ‘jenny’. Either way… it’s kaput. No longer is this animal able to reproduce. When it’s God’s will for a ll His creation to keep ‘its kind’ going.

The natural and the spiritual

In Genesis 8:22 the LORD told Noah… “as long as the earth remains, there will be seedtime and harvest.” Seedtime and harvest is a Biblical principle… or law, which will work, in the natural AND in the spiritual.

First, let’s talk about the natural. 1 Corinthians 15… first that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.

A law, to begin with, is an established principle; something that works a certain way each and every time. This ‘law’ we’re talking about here is not what we know as ‘civil law’ or ‘custom’ or in the sense of ‘law of the land’ e.g. criminal law… or even the ‘law of Moses’. We’ll call this ‘natural law’… and we’ll transpose this into ‘spiritual law’.

The LORD had told Noah… “as long as the earth remains, there will be seedtime and harvest.” Then when we come over to the New Testament, we hear Jesus saying in Mark 4:26… “the kingdom is like if a man cast seed into the ground.” Cast seed. How does one cast seed? What does it even mean… cast seed? We know that if we sow a natural seed, the ground will cause the seed to grow. And that seed will produce what it is. After its kind. This is a ‘natural law’. Let’s call this “the Law of Genesis“. The ‘law of Genesis’ is such that everything creates after its own kind.

But Jesus wasn’t talking about natural seed… in natural ground… with a natural harvest. He was talking about ‘seedtime and harvest’, but He referred to it now, as how it worked in the kingdom. When Jesus talked about trees, houses, lands or mountains, etc., He was usually talking about kingdom stuff.

First, we have natural… now we have spiritual.

Words are like seeds.

Words are like seeds. That can be sown. Sown in the heart of man. Received and conceived in the heart… to be brought forth ‘after their kind’. Law of Genesis.

Thoughts and knowledge work the same way. Thoughts create ‘after their kind’. One may think they’ve come up with a briliant revelation, but the Spirit of Truth will never ‘bear withness’ to perverted knowledge.

Let me give you an example from Genesis 6:4. Someone picked up a thought, went along with, and expanded upon the idea that sons of God (angels) came in unto the daughters of men (women). Angels and women? Spirit and flesh… reproducing? When God had already said “everything will produce… after its kind“. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Spirit can motivate, influence, even possess, but could never create. Without blood? Give me a Pentecostal break. No blood, no sperm, no way. We know, of course, that there is life (zoe) apart from the blood, but Satan doesn’t have that kind of life (or his demons) because he’s a DEAD spirit. Not dead as we think of, as in graveyard dead, but dead in the sense of being cut off from God. Even Adam, and we ‘in him’ (Adam, that is) were cut off until Jesus made a way BACK. There is NO WAY back for Satan… or his own.

It never ceases to amaze me how a story like this can take on a life of its own. Sounds like a bad plot, for an even worse movie.

There is nowhere that I’m aware of, that anything like this actually happened. There were instances in the Bible where demons possessed people, and angels visited (even to this present day), fought for, and even protected ‘heirs of salvation’, but never even once did a spirit being create a body of flesh. With the exception of Jesus, being born of the Holy Spirit. God is the only One capable of doing such a thing. God is life; Satan is death. God is a creator; Satan has no creative ability, so can only pervert what is already there. Satan can only counterfeit and/or destroy.

This has to be a real stretch for even the most graphic imagination–to suggest that a ‘fallen angel’ would have (or ever has had) creative ability.

We’ll stay with the word of the Lord, that… everything creates ‘after his kind’.

This goes for natural AND spiritual.

EVERYTHING CREATES… ‘after its kind’.

A tree is a tree is a tree…

Me-thinks this may border on poetic… perhaps even prophetic. “A tree is a tree is a tree… and not other than a tree shall it be.”

Let’s get back to what Jesus said when explaining the parable of ‘the sower and the seed’. Jess said, “If you don’t understand this… HOW WILL YOU UNDERSTAND ANYTHING.” (Concerning the kingdom.) Illustrations of the kingdom of God were always given in parables. We need to understand the principle of ‘sowing and reaping’ or shall we say, ‘seedtime and harvest’.

The seed is the word.

The sower went forth to sow.

The sower went forth to sow “the word”.

The word ‘brings forth’… ‘of its kind’.

Our words will bring forth… after their own kind.

This is the purpose of this writing. I’m hoping to bring something forth… after its kind.

So, let’s work at keeping things running parallel. A continuity of thought. As the law of seedtime and harvest applies to the natural… the same law (sowing and reaping) or we could say, ‘saying and doing’, applies to the spiritual. First natural… then spiritual.

Don’t mix it up. Keep it straight. The LORD is very straight-forward when He says in Isaiah 5:20 “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” And back in Leviticus 19:19 we read… “don’t sow your field with mingled seed.” I understand this to be natural but we’re remembering the words of Jesus, when He said… “the KINGDOM is as if a man were to cast seed.” Cast seed where? Into your heart. Your heart is your field, and the type of seed (good or bad) determines the type of harvest. And we don’t need a P. D. in Plant Biology to realize that the ‘growing’ will be greater than the ‘sowing’.

So, we translate or transpose, from the natural to the spiritual. We can do that. Jesus did it all the time. And the Apostle Paul said that the things that happened to Israel “in the flesh” happen to us “in the spirit” and again in 1 Corinthians 15:46… “that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.”

Think about it. Disobedience will lead to defeat and captivity, while obedience will lead to victory and liberty.

EVERYTHING CREATES AFTER ITS OWN KIND.

Get a Bible by clicking here: https://amzn.to/3FfwlND. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.