In Revelation 7:9, the Apostle John recorded this extraordinary prophetic vision: “After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.”

This innumerable multitude are the people who repent during the Great Tribulation. They are dressed in white robes, and they have palm branches in their hands.

“What is the significance of this detail?” Gerald Flurry asked in his article “Learn the Lesson of the Great Multitude” (Trumpet, March 2022). He pointed to the similarity with John 12:12-13, where a horde of people met Jesus as He was coming to Jerusalem for Passover. These people “[t]ook branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.”

“These people came with palm branches to meet Christ at His first coming,” Mr. Flurry wrote. “When Christ came the first time, God began harvesting His firstfruits, the small harvest that is continuing to this day. Those who understand God’s way of life are being prepared today to help Christ rule the whole world in the 1,000-year rule of Jesus Christ on Earth, when the whole world will experience peace, prosperity and joy. God is giving these firstfruits an absolutely staggering reward.

“God wants these people to flourish like palm trees (Exodus 15:27; Numbers 33:9)” (ibid).

God’s firstfruits are the beginning of that small harvest, God wants them to flourish like the palm! What does that mean—to flourish like the palm?

Millennial Palms

Leviticus 23:39-40 give instructions for keeping the Feast of Tabernacles. Verse 40 says, “And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.” The construction of a temporary tabernacle during the Feast included palm trees.

Link this with John 12:13, where the people met Christ with palm trees in their hands. The palm tree is connected with God’s firstfruits and the Millennium. Mr. Flurry linked these two on a Key of David program on this subject. “[God is] harvesting His firstfruits, those people that will be used to help Him rule over the world because they will understand all about God’s way of life,” he said. “[I]t’s just an absolutely staggering reward when you think about it that God gives to those firstfruits. So we see as we go along here that the palm tree is actually a symbol of God’s way of life, and really of salvation” (Nov. 26, 2010).

God’s world headquarters in the Millennium will be a temple in Jerusalem. The Prophet Ezekiel described this in vision, and he included a fascinating detail about the reliefs found throughout the temple: The entire structure was adorned with carvings of cherubim and palm trees! This design was repeated throughout the entire house, including on the walls of the temple (see Ezekiel 41:16-20). Palm trees were carved into the “posts,” meaning all the pillars in this temple! (Ezekiel 40:16, 26, 31, 34, 37).

Connect that symbolism with Revelation 3:12: “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out ….” God’s firstfruits will be the spiritual pillars in the God Family in the World Tomorrow. And they are represented by palm trees carved into the physical pillars in the temple of the World Tomorrow!

The palm tree symbolizes God’s way of life. When we live and flourish in that way, we prepare ourselves to be harvested by God as His firstfruits and to take our place in the Family of God in the World Tomorrow.

This is why the psalmist wrote, “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree …” (Psalm 92:12).

This leads to a question: What qualities of the palm tree can we learn from and apply spiritually in our life—to flourish like the palm?

Renew the Inner Man

The palm is an endogen, a plant that increases in size by internal growth. It grows from within, unlike exogens, or “outside growers.” Its living tissue is in the column of the trunk. The hardened outer layer of the palm is there to protect and support it.

The Apostle Paul wrote, “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). Our physical body is our support structure, but it is our inward man that should be alive and growing!

To flourish like the palm, we must renew that inner man day by day.

“It is the renewing of the inner man through daily contact with God that enables us to change from within. In other words, to be an overcomer means that the real changes we effect in our lives must not come from the outside in; rather, they must come from the inside out, through the added dimension of God’s Holy Spirit” (Royal Vision, May-June 2004). Growth from the inside out! Just as the palm draws up nutrients and water from the ground, so must we go to God daily and ask Him to supply us with living water, His Holy Spirit.

“The Holy Spirit is the only source of power that can pierce through … and go right into the inner man! It can reach the deepest part of you—even the most wounded, scarred part of your very being—and right there, it can generate a fountainhead of spiritual power!” (Royal Vision, May-June 2007).

When we ask God to renew that inner man, to generate that fountainhead of spiritual power, we can do so with confidence. Paul was bold in this prayer: “That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man … And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God” (Ephesians 3:16, 19). Be bold and ask for that power, the fullness of the Holy Spirit!

It is vital that we renew that inner man day by day and use that fountainhead of spiritual power to grow from the inside out!

Produce Fruit

The date palm is the most common form of palm in Judah. The first four years of the date palm’s life, it produces no fruit. From years five through eight, it will produce 17 to 22 pounds of fruit per year. By year 13, that will increase to 130 to 175 pounds. And between 30 and 35 years old, it will reach peak production at 200 pounds annually! Productivity starts to decline from 60 to 80 years, but even at that age it still produces. Over its lifetime, it can produce up to four tons of fruit. It is an incredibly productive plant!

We need to be like the palm and bear much fruit!

What fruit? “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).

Notice: “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree …. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing” (Psalm 92:12-14). God wants to “plant” us in His house, where we will flourish and bring forth fruit. Whether one is 25 or 85 years of age, like the palm, we need to be productive our entire lives.

To flourish like the palm, we must grow in the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

Withstand Worldly Pressure

“The palm grows slowly but steadily, uninfluenced by those alternations of the seasons which affect other trees. It does not rejoice overmuch in winter’s copious rain, nor does it droop under the drought and burning sun of summer. Neither heavy weights, which man place upon its head, nor the importunate urgency of the wind, can sway it aside from perfect uprightness” (William M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, Vol. 1). The palm grows slowly but steadily, uninfluenced by weather and conditions.

To flourish like the palm, we must not be influenced by the world.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world …” (Romans 12:1-2). Conformed means to adapt to or fashion oneself after the same pattern—in this context, the pattern of this world. We don’t consciously go about conforming to this world—it occurs because of the influence and pressure that Satan, society and the self bring to bear on us.

Paul describes us before our calling: “at one time you walked habitual. You were following the same course and fashion of this world (were under the sway of the tendency of this present age), following the prince of the power of the air. (You were obedient to and under the control of) the (demon) spirit that still constantly works in the sons of disobedience (the careless, the rebellious, and the unbelieving, who go against the purposes of God)” (Ephesians 2:2; Amplified). Yet even after our calling, Satan continues to broadcast his thoughts, emotions and attitudes, and we are still tuned in to and susceptible to that influence.

The palm flourishes because it is uninfluenced by the alterations of the seasons. We too must be uninfluenced by the influences of this world.

Paul continues, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2). To be uninfluenced by wrong influences, we must have our minds renewed
with God’s mind, God’s thinking. We must use the power of the Holy Spirit to reject Satan’s broadcasts in moods, impulses and influences.

This links back to point 1: To flourish like the palm we must renew that inner man day by day. When we submit to God and let Him transform our lives, He will help us fashion ourselves after the God kind!

Pressure is another tactic Satan uses on us—directly and through other people. “It won’t come easy!” Mr. Armstrong wrote about living God’s way. “All your temptations, trials, persecutions and hardships will come from other people—or from the devil—or from the consequences of sin, which means violations of God’s laws and ways. You must remember you still have to live in a world organized and living in disregard of God’s laws—a world governed by the sway of Satan, and according to the impulses of pride and vanity, the lusts of the flesh and the greed and tempers of human nature” (“An Open Letter to Our Newly Begotten Brethren Recently Baptized,” Good News, September 1954).

The fact that such pressure should come from other people should not surprise us. As Jesus said, “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own, but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19).

Pressure is a given. What can we do to combat it?

God commands: “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment” (Exodus 23:2). And again: “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not” (Proverbs 1:10).

“This world’s society and its customs are based on human nature—which is to say, on Satan’s ways—and are diametrically contrary to God’s ways!” Mr. Armstrong wrote. “Go along with the crowd, and you are stumbling along with the other dumb sheep to the slaughter! Why be one of the crowd? Why not stand out from the crowd of ignoramuses and weaklings, as one who has knowledge, wisdom and character? Any old dead fish can float downstream but it takes a live one to swim against the current!” (The Missing Dimension in Sex).

The key is simple, but hard to put into practice: Resist. Resist the pressures. Consent not unto evil. Don’t follow others like dumb sheep to the slaughter. Instead, remain committed, focused and faithful to God.

The pressure can mount at times, causing us to feel overwhelmed and discouraged. But draw strength and encouragement from Psalm 118:5-6: “I called upon the Lord in distress: the Lord answered me, and set me in a large place.
The Lord is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?” Call on God! He is on your side! Exercising that faith in our lives, practicing it by rejecting the pressures imposed on us, enables us to say with confidence, What can man do to me?

To flourish like the palm, we need to be uninfluenced by this world.

A Royal, Lordly Tree

“The palms are the princes of the vegetable kingdom. With the cylindrical stem, unbroken by branches, springing high into the air and unfurling a canopy of enormous leaves, fan-shaped or feathery, in the shadow of which are suspended great clusters of fruit, no tree can look more lordly or more beautiful” (McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia). The palm is a royal, lordly plant!

When Jesus came to Jerusalem, the people welcomed Him as “the King of Israel” while laying palm branches before Him. How fitting, because the palm represents royalty!

To flourish like the palm, we must grow in God’s royal character.

It is “the righteous” who flourish like the palm (Psalm 92:12). So, what does it mean to be righteous? Human righteousness is but filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6); so we need God’s righteousness.

Psalm 119:172 defines it: “all thy commandments are righteousness.” Keeping God’s law is the way to godly righteousness and character.

James 2:8 adds an important dimension to God’s law, calling it “the royal law.”
“How do we all learn to be royalty?” Mr. Flurry asks. He then quotes verse 8 and writes: “We learn to be royalty by fulfilling the royal law, which is the Ten Commandments” (The Key of David).

We grow in God’s righteousness by keeping His royal law. In the end—like the beautiful, royal, lordly palm tree—we will become the very Bride of Christ, God beings of great beauty, character and royalty! God “shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body …” (Philippians 3:21). God’s glorious body is described in Revelation 1:13-16: head and hair white as snow, eyes as flames of fire, feet like fine burnished brass!

David understood and was inspired by this precious truth: “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness” (Psalm 17:15). When David awakens, he will look like God!

True beauty comes through righteousness! Keeping the royal law leads to God having a royal Family and Christ having a royal wife.

The qualities of the palm are qualities we need to develop in our lives to be in God’s headquarters temple forever. Just as those palms engraved into the pillars of Ezekiel’s temple, we have a royal destiny with God!