SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/19/2023 9:20 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: “The Predicament”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 21:18-19a
Message of the verses: “Now in the morning, when He returned to the city, He became hungry. And seeing a lone fig tree by the road, He came to it, and found nothing on it except leaves;”
I have stated before that the day that Matthew is
talking about here is Wednesday, the day after the cleansing of the Temple and
two days after the triumphal entry.
Jesus returned to the city of Jerusalem after spending the night in
Bethany, where He doubtlessly was staying with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. “Jesus entered
Jerusalem and came into the temple; and after looking around at
everything, He left for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late”
Mark 11:11).
I suppose the question arises as to why was Jesus
hungry, seeing that it is pretty certain that Mary and Martha would have fixed
Him some breakfast. As I look at the
pattern of Jesus in other parts of the gospels it seems that on many occasions
that He goes out early to pray and perhaps that is what happened here thus that
is possibly why He was hungry. He was near the Mount of Olives and that is
where we see Him praying before. As I
look at where Jesus and His disciples stayed most of this week which as stated
was probably with Mary and Martha, along with Lazarus, I wonder what the conversation
would have been. The thing that I wonder
about was how much time was spent on what was about to happen to Jesus a few
days from then.
Again I don’t know why Jesus was
hungry, but the text says that He was and so that is where I will leave it. One thing for sure is that this certainly
shows the humanness of Jesus as in His incarnation Jesus had all the normal
physical needs characteristic of human beings.
Therefore, when He saw a lone fig tree by the road, He would have hoped
to find fruit on it to be able to satisfy His hunger.
The following quote from John MacArthur
is about fig trees: “Fig trees were
common in Palestine and much prized. It was
not uncommon for them to grow to a height of twenty feet and equally as wide,
making them an excellent shade tree.
When Jesus called him to discipleship, Nathanael was sitting under a fig
tree, probably in his own yard (John 1:48).
Before the Jews had entered the Promised Land, the Lord described it to
them as ‘a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a
land of olive oil and honey’ (Deut. 8:8).
Through Zechariah the Lord promised His people that at Messiah’s second
coming, He would ‘remove the iniquity of that land in one day’ and ‘every one
of you will invite his neighbor to sit under his vine and under his fig tree’
(Zech. 3:9-10). A favorite place for
people to gather was under a fig tree.”
We can see from this quotation and
from the Scriptures that are quoted in it that the presence of the fig tree was
a symbol of blessing and prosperity for the nation of Israel, and its absence would
become a symbol of judgment and deprivation.
It was largely because of the many conquests of Palestine after the
rejection of Christ, the land became greatly denuded and barren. There were many sieges that took place in
places like Jerusalem and that would require wood, and so many of the trees
around there would have ben cut down and used for siege walls to get into the
city. Many of the trees were cut down
for making a fire, and this too would have been reason that many trees were
used up. I have to believe that over
time the topology of the Promised Land changed.
Looking at it when Israel came into the Promised Land we see that it
took two men to carry stalks of grapes, which showed the people of Israel that
this was a great land to live in. John
MacArthur writes “During one occupation the rulers began taxing according to
the number of trees on a piece of property, with the predictable result that
many landowners cut down some of their remaining trees in order to lower their
taxes.”
Now fig trees produced fruit before
it sprouted leaves as this is the way God planned for them to be. With that truth known as we look at the tree
Jesus looked at we see that He found nothing on it except leaves. This made Him very disappointed, because a
tree with leaves should already have had fruit on it. Fig trees bore fruit twice a year, the first
time in early summer. Now because of the
difference in elevation from Jericho and Jerusalem the fig trees in Jericho
would have had fruit much earlier than Jerusalem because of the fact it would
be warmer earlier in Jericho than Jerusalem.
However in April, a fig tree at the altitude of Jerusalem would not
usually have either fruit or leaves, because, as Mark observes, “it was not the
season for figs” (Mark 11:13). I think
that you may be getting the idea that this has great spiritual applications in
it.
If the tree that is described here
had leaves on it then it should have had figs on it too. This tree was not functioning like it should
have been, and thus it had leaves but no figs on it.
MacArthur concludes this short
section by writing, “Jesus used many subjects from nature—birds, water,
animals, weather, trees flowers, and others—to illustrate His teaching. On this occasion He used a barren fig tree to
illustrate a spiritually barren nation.
The illustration was a visual parable designed to portray the
spiritually degenerated nation of Israel.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: One of
the things that shows that a person is a believer is the bearing of spiritual
fruit. If a person says that he is a
true believer and yet there is not fruit bearing going on then it is very
possible that the salvation experience is not real.
My Steps of Faith for Today: It is my
desire to be bearing fruit for the cause of Christ, and in order to do that
being filled with the Holy Spirit each day is how He can use me to bear fruit
for the cause of Christ.
6/19/2023 10:02
AM
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