FRUITLESS LIMBS

Isaiah 17:6
“Yet gleanings shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the upper-most bough, four or five in the outermost fruitful branches thereof, saith Jehovah, God of Israel.”

In this statement the prophet is foretelling of a day of sorrow and leanness which was surely coming to the idolatrous apostates of a nation who had treated Jehovah with perverse thanklessness and abject disregard.

The prophecy stood as warning to an ancient nation and to the peoples of that nation.

The same prophecy could be a warning to a modern nation and the peoples of that nation who have embraced apostasy with a heart blinded and hardened by the deceit of self.

It shall be for them as with the olive tree after is crop of berries has been removed by the “thrashing” or beating of its boughs and branches; just “two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough” where the sticks of the beaters had not reached, and only “four or five on the outmost branches.”

Even now some are in such a barren condition spiritually, with faith and hope and love and joy and peace and strength and prayer and testimony and service, at the very best, lean and languishing.

If this is you, then why?

And what can be done about it, when the mirror of your heart convicts of the truth?

Isaiah 17:10
“Because thou has forgotten the God of thy salvation,………” There has been a forgetfulness of God.
It is evidenced in the fact that we have allowed ourselves to become immersed in the mundane things, in business, in pleasure, in domestic concerns, in social and political affairs, in getting and spending, in working and playing, in so much “coming and going” (Mark 6:31).

Our lives have become so full of worldly concerns that we are spiritually empty!

We have forgotten the one thing which is really needful.

That is one of the reasons that we are as the lean olive tree with only “two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough.”

“and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength…………..” Indeed we have developed and unspiritually minded self sufficiency.

We have been neglectful of prayer.
We have foolishly preferred to manage (or mismanage) our own affairs.

We have forgotten how truly weak we are and imagined that the unsteady little lamb is a lion instead.

And now we have become as an olive tree, without the fruit of its branches.

In verse 8 read the words “altars” and “images” things that the Israelites had made with their own hands.

Could a part of the problem be that we have allowed ourselves to become idolatrous?

Have we allowed a friendship or some other ambition to take the place of God in our hearts desire and devotion?

If so then there is judgment against our altars and idols, our olive tree is stripped clean of all but “two or three berries in the top bough.”

Is there anything that we can do to remedy our leanness?

The answer is found in verses 7 and 8 “At that day a man shall look to his Maker….”

Whenever adversity begins to strip our olive tree of all but the “two or three berries”, it is a prodding to turn us from our self-made altars and back to the true God, our gracious covenant keeping Jehovah.

How ever hard it is to believe at times, God could do nothing more unkind than to allow believers a continued prosperity when we are self-willed, wayward, prayer less and backslidden.

Adversity must beat the olive tree with hard strokes which leave only “two or three berries.”

God loves us far too much to think more of our natural pleasures than of our spiritual profit.

Brother or Sister, turn your hearts and souls back to Him.
Make those wrong things right, according to His standards.

Cast off those idols.
Get back to the joy of prayer, the heart of faith, the act of love, and the life of new consecration.

Then shall the branches of our olive trees be bent with the fullness of fruit.