Pretty Leaves

Luke 19:10, "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." Jesus wasn’t just looking for figs – that was an object lesson in what He was really looking for – a people who were bearing fruit for the Kingdom of God.

I wonder how many of us, right here in the Louisiana District of the PCG, are what we appear to be? Are we bearing fruit or are we just covered by a bunch of pretty leaves that hides our nakedness and barrenness from the eyes of the world? Are we trying to hide from God and hope that He can’t see us for what we really are? Are we what we should be? Are we bearing the fruit that Jesus is looking for?

Matthew 21:19 says that, "…when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away."

Now I’m no Greek scholar, and I certainly can’t translate from the original Greek on the spot like Dr. Hunt, but in my studies for this message I ran across a tasty little tidbit from some of the materials that I studied.

It seems that there is a difference of opinion on what this verse says in that first line. Some translators tell us that it says, “when he say “one fig tree” in the way – one very special looking little fig tree that stood out among all the others.

I think that this is significant, simply because of the context of what Jesus saw as he walked the road between Bethany and Jerusalem. The very name of Bethany meant “house of early figs”.

I’ve heard it preached on a number of occasions that Jesus was unfair to this fig tree because they say that it was not the time of ripened figs. Well you can believe that Jesus was unfair if you want to but I prefer to believe that Jesus was without sin and without partiality, even when it comes to fig trees. Whatever Jesus was expecting should have been there and when it wasn’t, then that tree deserved the curse that was put upon it by our Lord.

Along the road from Bethany to Jerusalem there were a lot of fig trees. This road leads over the Mount of Olives where there were orchards of Olive Trees and Fig Trees. It was the time of the year when all of the fig trees are budding and putting forth leaves. But this little fig tree had better leaves than all the rest of the trees did. It seemed to stand out, stand alone, among all the trees in the orchard.

The Bible says that this tree was “in the way”. It was growing wild, by the side of the road, just doing its thing. It didn’t receive any real attention from those who tended the orchards because it was on the side of the road, not in the vineyard. It somehow managed to get its green leaves all on its own. It was putting forth a real showing of its outward appearance, but under the leaves, when Jesus pulled them back and exposed what it really was – it was nothing more than a fruitless tree, good for nothing but to look at.

I know a lot of people who are “in the way”. I know of churches that are “in the way”. I know people who won’t get out of the way, so Jesus can have His way, because they want their way. I know churches that attempt to build by doing things their way and not letting God have His way, because they are steeped in traditional ways. The fact is that all of them look pretty on the outside, but like that fig tree on the road, they only appear to be fruitful from “afar off”. When you get down close and examine them, peeling away the façade, you find that they are dead, dry and fruitless – lukewarm and waiting for Jesus to spit them out.