SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/20/2023 10:21 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-1 “The Parable”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
21:19b
Message of the verse: “and He said to it, “No longer shall there be any fruit from you.” And at once the fig tree withered.”
The reason that Jesus said “No longer shall there be
any fruit from you,” is because the tree should have had fruit on it, and it
did not. When He said that to the tree
He pronounced its doom, and Mark 11:21 tell us “Being
reminded, Peter said to Him, "Rabbi, look, the fig tree which You cursed
has withered." MacArthur writes “In
Matthew’s account it appears that the fig tree withered instantly. But as already noted, although the tree may
have died at once, the withering was not evident until the next morning when
Jesus and the disciples passed by it again and saw it the roots up” (Mark 11:20).”
Now the title to this SD is “The Parable” and so
there has to be a point to it in a spiritual perspective. What does the fig tree represent? It represents spiritually dead Israel, and it
leaves represent Israel’s outward religiousness, and its lack of fruit
represented Israel’s spiritual barrenness.
Paul would later describe his fellow Jews by saying they had “zeal for God, but
not in accordance with knowledge” (Rom. 10:2), a form of godliness but no godly
power. “Holding to a form of godliness,
although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these” (2 Tim. 3:5).
I have mentioned that fruit is something that a true
born-again believer produces through the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Word
of God. Without fruit, which is what
this parable is showing, you do not truly belong to God. MacArthur seems to agree with what I just
wrote “Fruit is always an indication of salvation, of a transformed life in
which operates the power of God. People’s
right relation to God is evidenced by the fruit they bear. ‘A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor
can a bad tree produce good fruit,’ Jesus said (Matt. 7:18). In the parable of the soils, the good soil is
proven by the fact that it yields a crop—sometimes a hundredfold, sometimes
sixty, and sometimes thirty, but always a crop (Matt. 13:8). The good soil, Jesus went on to explain, is
the person in whom the seed of “God’s Word takes root and grows. It ‘is the man who hears the word and
understands it; who indeed bears fruit (v-23).
Using another figure involving fruit, Jesus said, ‘I am the vine, you are
the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit’ (John
15:5). Fruit is always the manifestation
of true salvation.”
Jesus’ point regarding the fig tree
was that Israel as a nation had an impressive pretense of religion, represented
by the leaves, however the fact that the nation bore no spiritual fruit was
positive proof she was unredeemed, therefore cut off from the life and the
power of God. In the same way that
fruitfulness is always evidence of salvation and godliness, barrenness is
always evidence of lostness and ungodliness.
Let us take a moment and talk about
empty religions, as they almost invariably have many outward trappings in the
form of clerical garments and vestments, ornate vessels, involved rituals, and
other such physical paraphernalia. Israel,
as mentioned represented the leaves, and so it became a works oriented type of
religion. This is certainly not what God
taught it to be in the Old Testament, but it is what it became. A long time ago before I became a believer I
had friends who like me liked to ride motorcycles and we hung out a lot
together. There was one who, although I
did not know it at the time was a devout catholic. I reunited with some of these men a while
back and I was told that this man, who drives truck for a living goes to mass
each morning before going to work. I was
told that every morning he drives his big dump truck into the parking lot of a
catholic church to participate in the mass.
I know that there are many Catholics, who are true believers, but I don’t
know about him, and it is my prayer to be able to talk to him about this sometime.
6/20/2023 11:01 AM
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