ACORNS AND STONES

ACORNS AND STONES

Eph. 2:1 “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.”

There is in front of us, a garden, well watered, carefully tilled, properly tended. The soil is rich and fertile. I hold in my hand two things; a pebble that I have picked from the seashore, and an acorn that has just been shaken from the oak tree by autumn’s blast. I suppose for the moment that I do not know the nature of these two things they are about the same size. They are not unlike in appearance. I put a pebble in the garden; I put the acorn in the garden. The environment is the same in both cases, the soil is the same, and the same sun with shafts of light will permeate the soil and the same soft showers will reach the pebble and the acorn.

They acorn will burst his shell and spring, and we pass rapidly over the intervening centuries, and there it stands a proud oak battling against the blasts of winter, and in its turn, shedding acorns to the ground. Where is the pebble? No one has disturbed its resting place. There was in it no germ of life. In God we live and move and have our being; there is no exception. 
Life to one man means growth, advancement, movement, even on until that man is as a tree planted by the rivers of water. The other man living in the same environment is unmoved, thereby. In him the spirit life is dead. The physical basis is there, but that never consciously touches God. 
The spirit neglected, starved, is dead. He is dead in his trespasses and sins.

He is able to make oaks out of stones through His quickening of the spirit.