FRUIITLESS TREES
The Need for Repentance
Text: Luke 13:1-9
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 5:1-7
INTRODUCTION:
1. Fruit trees are nice to have.
2. They give us beautiful blossoms, nice shade, and most of all delicious fruit to eat.
3. When a tree no longer produces the fruit desired, it is no longer useful for its purpose and is usually cut down burned and replaced.
4. Fruit trees can teach us much about the Christian life.
5. (READ TEXT)
6. We will look at the context of the parable of the Barren Fig Tree
7. Then we will look at two aspects of the story
a. The troublesome tree
b. The tolerant owner
8. The story of this tree will show us the need for repentance as Christians.
TRANSITION: What is this story all about?
I. The context of the story
A. The crowd tells a story
1. The story is of a massacre in Galilee
2. Some Galileans were killed by Pilate’s soldiers while making sacrifices in the temple.
3. The crowd apparently believed that the slaughter was the fault of the ones slaughtered.
B. Doctrine of retribution
1. The concept wrestled in Job
2. The tower of Siloam
a. Fell on innocent people and killed 18
b. Not because they were bad, but in wrong place at wrong time
3. Connection of Siloam to correction of DOR
a. John 9:1, disciples thought man at Siloam was blind due to sin
b. Jesus corrected there also
4. Not all suffering is due to sin, but some is
C. Verse 5, "If you do not repent, you will all likewise perish."
1. The definition of likewise is "in the same manner."
2. Not a tower necessarily, but death, separation and misery
D. Then he tells the story of the barren fig tree
1. Two questions:
a. Who is the fig tree?
b. When are the three years?
2. The fig tree is the Jewish nation.
a. Isaiah 5 bears this out to some detail.
b. The good vineyard who produces worthless fruit or none at all due to the thorns and thistles let in
c. God was continually trying to replant the Jews and work and hone them into what he wanted them to be
d. But they kept on being fruitless and barren
3. The three years
a. Some say this is the three years of teaching Jesus did on earth.
b. One question becomes what is the forth?
c. Jesus was not here an extra year, some number of days, then he ascended
d. The time is not likely literal, but figuratively represents the years and years God waited on his people to respond and correct their fruitlessness.
E. God is the patient owner who waits year after year to destroy the wicked and gives chance after chance.
1. Even after his patience wears thin he gives another opportunity
2. He waits another year for the desired affects of fruit bearing
3. With the Jews this was to no avail, they would not repent
4. They were cut down
TRANSITION: For not repenting the Jews were cut down. Let us take another look at the troublesome tree
II. Troublesome tree
A. As we discussed, the tree was the Jewish nation, God’s people of old.
B. Galatians 3:24, "Therefore the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith."
1. The purpose of this old law is to teach us how to come to Christ.
2. Those who do not study history are bound to repeat it.
a. Is the cutting down that the Jews experienced something we wish to repeat?
b. If not we must understand what went wrong with them.
C. What went wrong with Judah?
1. They did not repent.
2. The troublesome tree refused to produce fruit for the tolerant owner.
3. As he pleaded for production they whined about the work.
4. As he asked for compliance they ignored him.
5. As he warned of the doom to come they waved their hand in disbelief.
6. As he brought down punishment from on high they then cried out in sorrow and repented
7. Only to let a generation go by and lose sight again.
D. Jewish repentance lacked two things:
1. Timeliness
a. They waited until judgment was coming to repent.
b. They were in captivity when they repented in Nehemiah’s day
c. And when Ezra read the law at the Water Gate and the people repented and tore their clothes in chapters 8-9
d. This is nearly 300 years after Assyria conquered Israel and 200 after Babylon conquered Judah and Nebuchadnezzar takes the first captives from Judah.
e. They were obstinate and refused to repent of their sin when they were warned repeatedly.
2. It also lacked depth.
a. They cried out in repentance, but we see that they were a conquered nation from then on.
b. They went from one conqueror to another until the Romans ruled at the turn of time when Christ was born and taught for a time.
c. Their repentance was honest but shallow.
d. Even Nehemiah had to continue to correct their corruption not many years after the reconstruction of the temple. (Nehemiah 13)
e. Tobiah had to be expelled and the temple cleansed.
f. The priests were not being paid and this was corrected and the Levites restored.
g. The Sabbath was not being honored
h. Men were marrying outside the Jewish race and mixing with the world.
i. Just after the heart-wrenching repentance, people were already wandering off.
E. Repentance must be timely and genuine
1. How long do we have to live with sin in our lives?
a. Ask the tsunami survivors who saw all the people on the coast disappear just how long life will last.
b. We can be gone in a second.
c. We take life in our hands in cars, eating, as a regular part of daily activities we run the risk of dying
d. The tower in Siloam fell with no notice.
e. If we are living with sin in our lives and do not repent of our sinful lifestyle and die in those sins, we have separated ourselves from God’s grace and are subject to spending life in eternal punishment.
2. It must come from the heart.
a. Experts say that to truly change a person’s behavior the change must start with the person’s attitude, thoughts, and feelings.
b. In other words, you must deal with the heart of the individual.
c. Both the cognitive and mental parts of the heart must be changed and then behavioral changes will accompany.
d. Repentance, going from that to this, must start with a desire to be something else.
F. Trees that do not bear fruit must wish to bear fruit if they ever hope to
TRANSITION: The tree must wish to bear fruit if it is going to survive. Who decides how long it will survive?
III. The tolerant owner.
A. The owner in the story waited years before he decides to cut down the tree and burn it.
1. He waited three years and then was persuaded to wait a forth.
2. He was not waiting for the first time he found a barren tree to give up and cut it down.
a. In fact we see great patience in these years.
b. In going he inspected the tree more than once per year.
c. There were at least three seasons for the tree to produce in the Palestine area
d. Spring, early summer, and late summer.
e. He inspected the tree at least 9 times before his decision and granted one extra year (three more inspections)
3. Equate the tree to the Jews and see even more patience, thousands of years
B. II Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance."
1. God is holding back his judgment until such time as many will repent and come to him for salvation.
2. Verse 10 says, "But the day of the Lord will come…"
3. Just as sure as you are that you are here today, you can be sure the Lord will come back.
4. Like a thief in the night he will come and you will not be able to prepare for it.
5. If you are ready you will be accepted in.
6. If not you will be cast out.
C. The tolerant owner, God, is hoping to claim you as his own.
1. He does not want us lost.
2. In fact, we condemn our selves, just like the unbarren tree did.
3. Any tree that does not produce fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire (Matthew 7:19)
4. It is not the fault of the soil or the rain, the garden or the gardener, it was the fault of the tree, it did not produce
5. It is not the fault of God or the church, the preacher or the bible, it is the fault of each individual if one day they are told, "Depart from me you worker of iniquity into everlasting torment where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
CONCLUSION:
1. If you are in the middle of one of those times when you are unfruitful, repent.
a. Change your heart
b. Change your mind
c. Change your life
d. Do not be like the tree of the Jews who refused to produce and was cut down and cast into the fire.
2. Understand that God is on your side.
a. He wants you to come to him.
b. He is waiting for you to come to him.
c. But he will not wait forever
