The Leaves Have Fallen
Introduction
I. 	Each year I look forward to the beautiful fall foliage, but I approach the season with some sadness as well.
A. 	I know that the leaves will soon fall and that the deciduous trees will be bare until Spring.
B. 	The change of seasons implies the passing of our lives from this earth.
1. 	Such changes help us to understand the passing of time and the uncertainty of life on this earth.
2. 	These thoughts should instill in us interest in the eternal life which God provides.
II. 	When, in the eighth grade, we studied O. Henry’s (William Sydney Porter’s) short story, “The Last Leaf.”
A. 	I was impressed with the story some 55 years ago, and read it again last week to refresh my mind about those thoughts which I had long forgotten.
1. 	The story is about two women who were rather poor aspiring artists who lived in Greenwich Village in New York in the early 1900’s.
2. 	One of the young women (Joanna or “Johnsy”) became despondent and “took her bed,” thinking that she would soon die.
a. 	The doctor gave her a ten percent chance of living unless her attitude changed.
b. 	She began to watch the falling leaves of an ivy vine that clung to the wall of the house next door.
c. 	At first she saw almost 100 leaves left, then down to 10 and counting.
d. 	On the day the last leaf was on the tree, she told her friend, Sue, that with the falling of the last leaf she would die.
e. 	Upon opening the shade over the window the next morning, the leaf was still there with green near the stem and yellowing near the edges evidencing its age.
f. 	Because the leaf was still there through the windy night Johnsy began to come out of her despondency, and the doctor raised her chances to fifty-fifty.
g. 	Sue had told an old man, who aspired to paint a masterpiece, about Johnsy’s malady.
h. 	The man, “Old Behrman,” likely a German Jew, considered himself a watchman to help the two poor women upstairs.
i. 	He was waiting to paint his “masterpiece,” but had never gotten around to starting it, possibly because of his own despondency and alcoholism.
j. 	On the cold windy night when the last clinging leaf fell to the ground in the chilling wind, Old Behrman put a ladder up against the wall and in green and yellow had painted his “masterpiece.”
k. 	Two or three days later he died of pneumonia which resulted from his exposure in painting the leaf.
l. 	His “masterpiece” gave hope to Johnsy, and she began to get well.
B. 	As was characteristic of O. Henry’s writing, this story was filled with pathos and heroism that “often beautify the lives of the poor.”
C. 	Perhaps we can learn from this secular narrative.
III. Our lesson today will consider some of the scriptural thoughts about leaves.

Body
I. 	You are, no doubt, familiar with some of the “leaf” accounts in the Bible.
A. 	After the sins of our first parents, Adam and Eve, they sewed fig leaves together to clothe themselves.  Gen. 3:7.
1. 	God was not pleased with the clothing so made them “coats” or “tunics” of the skins of animals.  Gen. 3:21.

The Leaves Have Fallen, Page 2.

B. 	We would have rejoiced with Noah when the dove came back to the ark with an olive leaf in her mouth.  Gen. 8:11.
C. 	Israel was told that if they rebelled against God they would be scattered and would flee at “the sound of a driven leaf.”  Lev. 26:36.
D. 	As Job professes his faith in God (Job 13:14-15), he asks his friends if they would break him as one would break or “harass a driven leaf.”  Job 13:25.
E. 	In their wickedness and rebellion, God tells Israel that they would “be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water.” Isa. 1:30-31; (Jer. 8:13).
F. 	God will punish the nations (non-Jews), and their hosts (leaders) “shall fade away, as the leaf fadeth  from the vine, and as a fading leaf from the fig tree.” Isa. 34:4.
G. 	The unrighteous Jews state their complaint about their sins.  Isa. 64:6.
	
II. 	The kingdom of Judah, under Zedekiah, was going to “wither in all the leaves of her    spring.”  Ezek. 17:1-10.
A. 	God had planted the king of Judah in “a fruitful soil; he placed it beside many waters, he set it as a willow-tree.” Vs. 5.
1. 	In spite of this, Judah did not proper.
2. 	Zedekiah rebelled against God’s will to carry Judah into Babylonian captivity.  
3. 	He had tried to ally himself with the Pharaoh of Egypt.  Ezek. 17:11-21.
a. 	You may recall that Nebuchadnezzar came against Judah, taking the young Zedekiah, to Babylon.  II Chron. 36:11-21.
b. 	Following a nineteen month long siege of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar’s forces took Zedekiah from Jerusalem to Riblah,  Syria to stand before the king who slew Zedekiah’s two sons and then put out his eyes before carrying him to Babylon.     
B. 	A study of Israel and Zedekiah should teach us that we must not rebel against the teaching of God, regardless of what the consequences of obedience may be.

III. 	The righteous are made to stand and will not wither away as the leaves.
A. 	The beautiful first Psalm stresses this blessing.  Ps. 1:1-3.
B. 	The Lord again states the blessings upon the Jews if they would be faithful to Him.      Jer. 17:8. 
C. 	Israel in repentance and faithfulness would be as a tree beside the water “whose leaf shall not wither.” Ezek. 47:12.
	
Conclusion

I. 	We look forward to the time when we shall be in the heavenly city where we may partake of the fruit of the tree of life “whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.”  Rev. 22:2.
II. 	We must be faithful to God so that our “leaf” will not wither.
III. 	Those who need to obey the Lord should do so today before their “leaves” fall.
IV. Obey the truth today, and teach it to others.  I Tim. 4:14-16.

Prepared by:
   David Arnold
   January 2, 2000