I'm going to show you how to get the most out of your invention. I'm going to show you how to get the most out of your invention. Thank you. All right. All right. Yeah. so so CCoSp4 3.50 Good morning, everyone. Thank you for that. And to you online as well, happy October. A few announcements that I'll bring to your attention in addition, of course, to the ones And the bulletin is the motorcycle ride, which is planned for October 16, for those of you who do ride, is still a go. The problem is we need to wait for Patrick to get back. to assign a time to it, and to inflate his tire, he said. He's got a puncture. Anyway, he'll be returning by then. But October 16th is a Saturday. Unfortunately, or fortunately, however you look at it, there's a Presbytery meeting that morning, and so the ride can't occur until the afternoon. That's why we're a little bit unsure about the time. Couple more highlights. And by the way, you don't need to sign up for that. Just show up once we announce what the showtime is here at the church. Couple more announcements, there is, despite Patrick and Amanda being out of town, there is Little Lambs this evening at 5.30, and there is a youth group to be had this evening at 5.30 as well, so we look forward to you all attending that. The church office is closed. We have Stephanie on vacation this week. Tuesday through Friday, the church office is closed. So if you have to get something into the bulletin for next week, she requested a deadline of tomorrow, Monday, by nine o'clock, everything be submitted. And that's all I have, I think, that's worth highlighting. Everything else is in the details in your bulletins. On that, I will conclude the announcements. If you have any questions, of course, you can call Stephanie in the morning or certainly reach out to me or an elder in Patrick's absence. And Charlene, if you'll begin the prelude, please. so so so so so so Our call to worship this morning is short, but it's a call that fixes our hearts on the one who made us from Psalm 95, our call to worship. Come, let us bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker, for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Let's pray. Our heavenly Father, We are here this morning, we're here before you and with each other to worship you. Help us, we pray. Help us to do that rightly, to please you and to honor you. And we ask, Lord, that in doing so that we'd be refreshed by your spirit and by your word and by the fellowship of each other, your church, for whom you sent your son to die. And so God, we raise our prayers up to you as one voice, praying as Jesus taught us to pray by saying, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Amen. The Apostles' Creed, it begins with the words, I believe. And we know that, we understand that, we've been taught that belief is not merely intellectual assent. Right, it's not simple agreement. Genuine belief comes from the heart, it comes from desire that results in action. And so, I ask you, if these truths in the Apostles' Creed, if they shape the way you think and behave, if they describe your Christian faith as a living faith, then confess them aloud with me now. I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. The third day he rose again from the dead. ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Please, let's remain seated as we continue to worship God. We'll be singing from the Red Hymnal this morning, number 385, what a friend we have in Jesus, all three verses. For all that there may be in Jesus, all our sins and bliss to bear, all our debt, all that's to bear, Earth, rain, sun, moon, fire, and grass. All the creatures love and mourn them. All the world needs is a new heaven. we are ♪ He is, He is the Lamb of God ♪ ♪ He is the Lord to me, O Lord ♪ ♪ Lord of my heart, I sing of Him ♪ ♪ He is, He is the Lamb of God ♪ Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Children's Church may be dismissed at this time. Anyone who qualifies can get up now. Got a couple, that's terrific. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Per our tradition, which I like, we'll start off with some silent prayer first, and then I'll interrupt that by leading us in corporate prayer, the pastoral prayer. Let's go to our God in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for preparing our hearts with silent prayer so that each one of us can lift up our personal voice to you with our personal care. It's our joy to come before you with our prayers this morning, and you're never wanting to hear from us, and you still desire to fulfill our needs and requests. All the glory is yours, and yet you condescend to care for us, even to the point of saving us while we are in rebellion against you. There's, of course, Lord, nothing that we can do to repay you, and that's not even what you asked for. The only thing you want from us is our thankfulness for your immeasurable gift, for your son, and for us to trust and obey you. You want our hearts, Lord, and so this morning we ask for your help. to help us to give our hearts to you. And Lord, without compromise. As we just sung, what a privilege it is to carry everything to you in prayer. But in just these few minutes, it's impossible to lift up all that we want to say. We're ever thankful for your blessings, Lord, but they're too numerous to list. And our sins far outweigh our ability to confess all of them in this moment. but you know how great they are, and you know how many they are. The truth is, God, we probably don't even remember many defenses which we've committed against you, and so it will take a God of your immensity, of your omniscience, a God with your everlasting love to forgive us for all of our trespasses. Indeed, Father, we ask that you would cleanse us from the stain of wickedness that still lingers in our hearts, Restore us to Yourself in the righteousness of Your Son, Jesus, and enable us to walk blamelessly according to Your will. Father, each one of us here has unique talents. We ask that Your hand would be upon us to use those gifts, the talents that You've uniquely blessed us with, to use them well this week to serve Your people and to serve our families with our labor and skills. to share Jesus with others, perhaps with words, but certainly with our actions, if not just by a living faith, living in your spirit who works in us and through us. And Father, we raise up our many concerns for the health of our brothers and sisters at Old Providence, those who aren't feeling physically well. We thank you for the doctors and medicines and the various health professionals Lord, some of are even here this morning with us. They provide care every day, and we ask that those who are sick, Lord, those who are ill, that they be healed by your great hand, that those undergoing surgeries would receive care under your watchful eye. We lift up those who are struggling with employment to find financial relief and to be emotionally supported. God, our value, our identity, it's not in our jobs, but it's as your children. We are special because you've made us so. Father, we also pray for all the marriages at Old Providence, the husbands and the wives who are newly married, as well as those who have had many decades together. These couples, they head our families, God, and they raise our children. They're the mainstay of our congregation. But in our fallenness, God, marriage is not always easy. It's not always blissful. We get impatient with each other. We get frustrated with each other. We take each other for granted, and God, we forget what it was like when we first fell in love. And sometimes, Lord, we're even unkind with one another. And so we ask that you would refresh the bonds of our families and that you would rejuvenate us with the joy and stability of Christ. And lastly, Father, we pray for our Pastor Patrick and his family as they travel far away over this week. Help them to not only enjoy their friends and the beauty of Alaska, but we ask that you would return them home safely to us. For they are indeed, Lord, they're precious to us. It's in the name of our Lord Jesus that we pray all these things this morning. In the year 1172, it's a long time ago. Right in the middle of the medieval age, a Catholic widow, she gave 60 silver coins to the Roman church for a project to build a tower. The widow's name was Donna Berta DiBernardo. And her money was used to cut the foundation stones for this tower. But several years into construction, after only three stories were completed, progress was halted for almost 100 years due to various wars. These wars, they sapped the resources. And so construction halted. About another 100 years after that, with the addition of the crowning bell chamber, the seven-story tower was declared complete. Although it took almost another 300 years after that to add the final bell. It was a three-and-a-half-tonner, which completed the tower's seven bells. It was one for each of the musical notes on the major scale. So if you're tracking with me, that's about 500 years of construction and adornment. After 500 years, the widow Donna Berta di Bernardo's dream was achieved. Well, almost achieved. The result was this. What we now know as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. obviously somewhere along the line. From conception to completion, mistakes were made. History is sometimes gray about the details of who's at fault or who had responsibility. Maybe we could lay blame on the Catholic clergyman who had responsibility for the overall plan of the Pisa Square. Maybe the original architect bears some fault. Or the engineers, or the builders who failed to correct the errors once they were discovered after only a few stories were erected. But ultimately, the cause of the tower's lean was simply because someone did not devaluate the soil. It was too soft. And when it, the foundation, was dug, it only went five to nine feet, which was far too shallow to support a structure of this height, especially one without the use of steel, which hadn't been invented yet. And so the Tower of Pisa in Pisa, Italy, was in trouble from the get-go. Now I tell you this story because what the interested parties failed to do was to properly evaluate the big picture. They lost the forest for the trees, so to speak. And that can happen to us today in relation to interpreting the scriptures. We get laser focused on a passage or a text and we build some sort of conclusion or dogma from it that's in contradiction to the bigger picture of what the scriptures teach. to our interpretive peril when looking at a text, we don't consider the whole counsel of God. We don't consider all of his revealed word, all of the canon of scripture, which includes all of its 66 books. And so that is something we must bear in mind as we look together at today's passage in Mark, wherein Jesus encounters a fig tree. I invite you this morning to turn with me to the 11th chapter of the Gospel of Mark, We'll be looking at a narrative that describes Jesus and his disciples as they were heading from Jerusalem to Bethany at the end of a very, very long day. Jesus and his disciples are going to Bethany on a late afternoon or perhaps an early evening in spring, a distance of almost two miles, not quite two miles. They were gonna spend the night in Bethany after he had triumphantly entered Jerusalem on a donkey with crowds hailing him with hosannas earlier in the day. Before we engage with the word of the Lord, let's have a brief prayer. Let's invoke God's word, let's appeal to him, together for his blessing upon the reading and preaching of his word. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, this morning we ask that you would enable us to see you, you in this story, what you require of us. and for we, your children, to live under immaturity, God, being more conformed to the nature of your Son. In Jesus' name, amen. If you're able this morning, I invite you to stand with me as we read from the Gospel of Mark, from the Word of God. The Word of God, Mark chapter 11, verses 12 through 14, and then 20 through 25. On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry, and seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. And when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, may no one ever eat fruit from you again. And his disciples heard it. And now verses 20 through 25. As they passed, Excuse me, as they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. And Jesus answered them, have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says that this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you've received it and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive. If you have anything against anyone, so that your Father, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you and your trespasses. Amen. You may be seated, please. This passage as one of those that come to us with some difficulty. And because of its difficulty, it's become infamous as a breeding ground for irrelevant questions and implausible answers. So to avoid that, we must remember to hold tightly to our principles that guide us in right interpretation of the Bible. I remind you that we Protestants, we believe in the private interpretation of the scriptures. Actually, in their responsible private interpretation. In fact, that's a pillar of the Reformation because during that time, the Catholic Church would not allow the scriptures to be privately read or interpreted. It was, according to the Roman Catholic Church, the institution's responsibility to read the scriptures to you and to tell you what they meant. Of course, there were multiple problems with that. Not the least of which is that they read them in Latin to people who didn't speak Latin. And the Catholic priest himself, he was not always skilled in Latin. And so even without human corruption, people were often misled and misfed. We, of course, have heroes of the faith to thank for translations into our languages and for getting those translations into our hands. John Wycliffe. and William Tyndale. They were pre-Reformation pioneers who brought the scriptures to us into English. Wycliffe died of a heart attack while preaching, but he was posthumously declared a heretic by the Catholic Church for his translation efforts, and his bones were promptly dug up and burned. Tyndale, he was declared a heretic during his lifetime, and so he was strangled and burned at the stake, specifically for his commitment to translate the scriptures into English. And of course, we all know of Martin Luther. He brought the word of God to us in the German language, its distribution being seriously aided by the invention, the coincident invention, providential invention of the Gutenberg printing press. Now the point I'm trying to make is that interpreting scripture texts are not to be done without certain rules within a biblical framework. One of the worst things that a small group Bible study can do is to go around the room and ask what the text means to you. No, don't do that. There's a meaning to the text and it is just that. It's the meaning. What it personally means to you can be very different than what the text personally means to someone else. And so we must dispense with subjective interpretations, and we have to get to the heart of what the scripture's trying to teach us, whether we like it or not. That's why we're studying covenant theology on Wednesday evenings, because it's a biblical lens. It's just one of the biblical lenses through which we can interpret how God redeems us, and why he does some of the things that he does. Remember the Apostle Philip in the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. Philip finds him in a chariot reading Isaiah. Philip asks him, do you understand what you're reading? Remember in the answer to the Ethiopian eunuch, he replies, how can I? Unless someone explains it to me. And that's why we go to Sabbath school, Sunday school, right? That's why we have midweek Bible studies. That's why we have preachers and teachers so that we're not left unto ourselves to subjectively conclude what the text means. That's why the reformers rejected the idea. You may have heard this idea that some people claim, which is that they need nothing other than themselves, their Bible, and God to understand the scriptures. That stance is not one of maturity, certainly not one of spiritual maturity. First of all, one of those three things is flawed. It's not God or the scriptures. It's the finite and the sinful one. Indeed, we need good preachers and teachers to train us in the way. In addition to delivering the word, the chief role in preaching is not just to provide the fish, but to enable the congregant to fish for himself or herself. This helps you to become a responsible private interpreter as you read the scriptures on your own. To become at least increasingly responsible over time as you see how it was done. Y'all know you become a better chef when you see how the cake is repeatedly baked. You see it, you taste it, you do it. In my library, I personally have a very large cookbook, it's almost a coffee table book, on the recipes of the French Laundry. For those of you who might think that I'm talking about clothing or bed sheets, let me clarify. French Laundry is a world-renowned restaurant in California run by Culinary Hall of Famer Thomas Keller. Not Tim Keller, Tom Keller. Now in reading these recipes that make up the creative farming and foraging menus and even cooking them, if I think that on attempt number one or number two that I'm gonna get it right, that somehow I can produce a plate such as Thomas Keller can. I've probably been inhaling too many diesel fumes over at our truck stop. It'll never happen, right? If I pick up a guitar and have lessons one through three and think that I can play like Eric Clapton, uh-uh. It will never happen. I can understand the ingredients. I can understand the instructions. I can appreciate how to set an oven to 450 degrees, but I don't have the experience, the skill, and the artisan necessities. I don't have all that to pull it together. On time and culinary dynamics of blending and seasoning and temperature, all that stuff that you know that makes it work. So why am I spending precious pulpit time on these preliminaries? You'd be right to say, come on pastor, you haven't even gotten to the text that we read about this morning. And you'd be right. But I wanna arm you with all this so that you can see how we're going to get to where we're going in the text. And so that you can further study the scriptures in responsible ways that guard against a myriad of bizarre, very bizarre interpretations, especially within the text that we're gonna read this morning and next week. This is part one of two parts. So when we look at the scriptures, here are some principles that we must live by. First, interpret the obscure by the clear. If an interpretation of a difficult passage goes against the scriptures, which we know to be clear, then you know you've reached an incorrect conclusion. So interpret the obscure, right, the things that are uncertain, by the clear, those things which we know to be certain. Secondly, interpret the partial by the more complete. An example, which you may be thinking of already, is to interpret the incomplete Old Testament, the unfulfilled Old Testament, in light of its fulfillment. To see the Old Testament rightly, we must see it in the light of the New Testament. And thirdly, this is no surprise, certain texts are extremely difficult to comprehend, to understand in and of themselves. For example, isolated unto itself, how can we interpret why God commanded the destruction of an entire people, the Canaanites? Doesn't that sound unloving? Doesn't that sound like it's a problem? On its surface, maybe. But under the whole counsel of God, biblically, no, it's not. Fourthly, and maybe I should have made this my first interpretive principle that you must apply when looking at scripture, but here it is now. It's the realization that you, that I, that we are not God. We're not. Sounds obvious, but some of us sometimes behave that way or we think that way. Consider Job 38.4. Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Great question, this understanding of position, that God is God, and that you are not. It demands, or at least it should result in a posture of humility. If you don't understand something in the Bible, it's not because the Bible's wrong, or that somehow it's contradictory, which it never is. Surely there are mysteries in Scripture, There are paradoxes, and of course there are hard sayings, but there's never contradiction. And so we rely not on our own understanding independent of the word, but we actually lean on the scripture itself as a crutch to interpret itself with itself. We must be certain to interpret scripture in light of scripture, because only the perfect can be a check and balance to the perfect. So every passage under examination needs to be seen in the context not only of its surrounding paragraphs, but within its entire book and within the entire Word, capital W, God's Word, the entire canon of scripture. To do otherwise will invite error. It will be narrow-minded and invite error. Okay, so lastly, I think I'm on point number five, if we're keeping count. Each passage has a meaning. which will include the meaning to the author's original audience as well as its application to the modern audience. We're looking for both of those. So let's look at today's passage and see where it takes us. We'll need to investigate fig trees. We'll need to investigate what's happened leading up to this event to put it into context. We should investigate if there's any other passages in scripture wherein Jesus destroys something as a teaching example. and we'll have to evaluate the expression of this example, the actual grammatical expression of this example, whether or not it's literal or figurative, whether it's actual or metaphorical, proverbial language, like camels going through the eye of a needle, or like I am the door. Understanding Bible text figuratively isn't wrong, necessarily, if that's the language and how it's used. In fact, if that's how the author used it figuratively, then taking it literally is wrong. So you have to be able to discern these things. So in our text under examination, we have talk of a mountain being cast into the sea, verse 23. We'll have to determine if that's literal or proverbial language. And by the way, this is a good segue into discussing whether or not the Bible should be taken literally or not. And that's a topic for another day, but for now, I want to suggest to you that we interpret the Bible literarily. In other words, narratives should be understood as narratives. Poetry as poetry. Prophecy should be understood as prophecy. And history, historical writing, should be understood as history, as historical writings. That may sound obvious to you, but you'd be amazed at the wacky interpretations that result from people mixing these up, taking poetry literally. or exaggeration as actual or proverbial sayings, which are general truths, but taking them as blanket truths in every situation. Okay, so back to our text, verse 11. It concludes the story of the triumphal entry, but it also tees Jesus up for the events of the next day. All that unfolds between this verse and the beginning of chapter 13 takes place within the temple. In this section, we have the cleansing of the temple, right, chapter 11, verse 15, and it ends with the prophecy of the temple's destruction beginning in chapter 13. So we have to understand this fig tree event that is set within the context of prophecy, that judgment is coming upon Israel. Two verses tie this together. All right, so chapter 11, verse 21, Peter says, look, rabbi, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. And then in verse 1 of chapter 13, one of the disciples says, look teacher, what wonderful stones and beautiful buildings. To which Jesus replies, there will not be one stone that will be left upon another. They will all be thrown down. So we have to see this, including our fig tree text. This is all set within the context that judgment is coming. The judgment for unbelief, which is proven by disobedience. The scenario in Luke's gospel, Luke 19, 41, we find Jesus weeps. He weeps over Jerusalem. In his tears, he gets it down to brass tacks. He essentially says, you would not come to me. You would not come to me. And therefore, there's a dreadful judgment coming your way. So while the topic of the temple may not mean much to our modern-day Old Providence audience, you have to understand that Mark was written to first century humans, for whom the temple, it meant everything. The temple was the heart of Israel's religious life and was the symbol of Israel's national identity. Here we have the Messiah King, right, the fulfillment of all the Old Testament expectations. He's ridden into the heart of Israel's religious center, Jerusalem. He's looking for religious fruit and worship of God, but what does he find? He discovers a tree that makes a promise that it cannot fulfill, and a temple full of activity contrary to holiness and contrary to a heart after God. The king comes into the center of religious life and what he discovers is that there is no fruit. What should be the epitome of the expression of love of the living God. The house of prayer and worship. It's been turned into a marketplace and bazaar for the buying and the selling of stuff. Chapter 11, verse 13. And seeing in the distance a fig tree and leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. All right, I don't wanna make too much of this, it's not the season for figs, so let's get this out of the way. So just a brief word, a comment, that Jesus found this tree outside of the season for figs. You can do your own research on this, but for now, you're going to have to trust me on this. Jesus is hungry, we're told, and he's looking for fruit to satisfy his hunger, but he finds only leaves. He can, and he does, at least expect immature fruit. During Palestine's springtime, which this is, under the story, this is what it is, right, it's the season of the Passover, it's spring, fig trees produce what they call toksh. You look that up, it's an Aramaic word, an Arabic word rather, T-A-K-S-H, T-A-K-S-H, taksh. It's Arabic for immature edible figs. The ripe sweet figs are harvested in the summer, which is the season for figs that Mark's gospel refers to. Lush foliage, which Jesus was looking at, lush foliage signals that taksh should be present. Thus in his human nature, remember he's hungry, that's human nature, in his human nature Jesus rightly expects some fruit when he combs through the leaves. Yet appearances are deceiving in this case. And so he says to the tree, may no one ever eat fruit from you again. So what's happening here? Is Jesus simply employing his supernatural power in a destructive way because he's disappointed or he's angry? We can deduce that, but that would go against our principle of interpretation, right? To conclude that Jesus is simply acting arbitrarily or callously is to go against everything else we know about Jesus throughout the rest of the scriptures. And so we must conclude that he has something else in mind by cursing the fig tree. It's obvious, indeed, this is a miracle of destruction. Yet everything else we've seen of Jesus and his miracles has to do with restoration, it's restoring transformation. So why is this miracle different? Remember that I've urged you and I've implored you to have a grasp of the Old Testament? Well, here's an example of why. In the Old Testament, both the vine and the fig tree are routinely used as metaphors for the status of the people of Israel before God. The Old Testament sometimes speaks of covenant-breaking Israel as a barren fig tree. And Jesus' curse is a foreshadowing of what will happen to hypocrites, those Israelites who, like fig trees with leaves, they promise fruit, but they fail to deliver. Just one example is found here in Hosea 9, verse 10. Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season. I saw your fathers. But Hosea also tells us what God will do as a result of Israel's infidelity to him. In Hosea 2, verse 12, I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she says were her pay from her lovers. I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them. That's Hosea, right? That's the Old Testament. In his natural experience of being hungry and finding no figs, Jesus, who likely had the entire Old Testament memorized, he must have spiritually had Micah 7.1 in mind, it says this, woe is me. Woe is me, for I have become as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned. There is no cluster to eat, no first ripe fig that my soul desires. There are leaves on this tree. It looks good. Even from afar, it looks good. The leaves are green. And in this, Jesus sees the parallel of the religious activity going on in the temple. And so when Jesus cursed it, he performed a symbolic act in the spirit of Jeremiah. Now for the sake of time, I'm not gonna read the Jeremiah passage. I'll leave that to you on your own. You have time to do it this week perhaps. It's Jeremiah 19, one through 11. 19, one through 11. The fig tree symbolizes Israel. As the fig tree had leaves but no fruit, Israel had a temple, but no spiritual life. Its gleaming buildings with beautiful immense stones were polluted with robbery, hypocrisy, and dead ceremony, whitewashed tombs. It appears good from afar, but once up close and personal, there's no fruit. The vine is empty. Israel's status before God is fruitless. And so now our conclusion. Jesus is acting out a parable, the act of prophetic symbolism. He's using the fig tree to display the judgment that's about to fall on Jerusalem. In his action, he's showing an example of what he's about to do in the cleansing of the temple, which follows in verses 15 through 19. He shuts down the marketplace in the temple by driving up the vendors and the buyers with cords of whips and righteous rage. He's turning over tables and he's driving them out. Righteous indignation. At the beginning of Mark, we find Jesus announcing that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. But in Luke 19.44, we see the judgments coming because the people, they didn't recognize it. They didn't come to him. Now here's an aha moment. In our text, people are going about their day-to-day without any consideration of these things at all. Now I ask you, is this unique to first century Jews? Or is there something akin to that going on today, right now? Are people going about their daily routines without any consideration to the call of the Lord? Are we, we, who claim to be His, are we living in faith as though our lives depended on it? Which they do. Do our lives have figs on them? Spiritual fruit? Does your life demonstrate peace? Patience? Gentleness? Joy? goodness, self-control, kindness, faithfulness, love? Or are we pretenders whose leaves are merely green? If so, that's pharisaical. That's externalism. What happens to those people? Well, Jesus shows us in this parable. He shows us when he curses the fig tree, they are destroyed. Look, the next morning, Peter's surprised. Just 12 or so hours before, this tree, it was healthy. It had evident greenness, but now it's decayed beyond what is natural. It's withered at its roots. Now, I've often wondered how the disciples knew that it was withered at its roots. Roots are underground, typically, right? Well, that's not entirely the case for fig trees. I had to do a little bit of research on this. This is just one example of a fig tree. You can find a bazillion of them online. Yep, it's a mature old fig tree you're looking at right there. The disciples see this entire tree's expedited death as supernatural, right? So fig trees have surface roots. So here's an aside for those of you who might wonder about these things. Jesus, as we know, and John, right at the wedding feast at Cana, he can create wine in a moment when he miraculously turned wine into water. Wine, good wine, certainly takes a long time, years, to develop, to ferment, and to tend to. He can accelerate the death of a tree, which takes time, certainly more than 12 hours. And he can reverse the decay of death as evidenced by his raising Lazarus after his body would have been in a state of decay, a state of rot. He can calm a tempest, right? A storm, a tempest of weather, in just an instance, which would require, naturally, lots of time to subside. And perhaps, just perhaps, there's something to this idea that God can create a universe in a week that has an appearance of very old age. I am not stumping for a six solar day creation. nor am I stumping for a young earth, old earth type theory, but I offer these possibilities as considerations, as you might personally look into these things. At a minimum, though, we must admit that Jesus performs the supernatural. As a creator of the universe, he's in charge of all of it. Jesus makes no strides to interpret the fig tree event to the disciples, at least none that's recorded. But he does tell Peter in verse 22 that we're to have faith in God. He immediately takes Peter's surprise of the withered fig tree and he points him to faith and forgiveness, which we're gonna look at next week. But for now, as the application for part one of our looking at this text, we see a warning of impending judgment. And it's still correct to tell people today to repent. It's still correct to tell ourselves that. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. In Romans 11, Paul teaches about the remnant of Israel, the purposes of God to put together a people for himself. Paul gives instructions to the Gentiles here in Romans 11, that's us non-Jews, right? So that we might understand our place He says that we're grafted into something that God has already begun to do. That God hasn't changed his plans or his mind, that before the world began, God chose whom he would save, the elect. And so we have the privilege of being marked under the covenant of Abraham. We who believe God by faith are declared righteous. And Paul then says in verse 17, if some of the branches have been broken off, Jews and some have been grafted in the Gentiles don't boast over your in grafting branches were broken off by unbelief by having no faith but those who are to remain in him are to remain in him by faith he says if God did not spare the natural branches he will not spare you says Paul Now Old Providence, this is a wake-up call. It's a wake-up call to get right with God. John 15.5, I am the vine and you are the branches. He cuts off every branch that bears no fruit. The barren fig tree. The barren fig tree is emblematic of a ceremonial legalism that created the notion of satisfying the hungry heart. But when the people got up to it, there was nothing to satisfy. There were just rules and regulations. No grace. No freedom from sin. No relief. How disappointing. How debilitating. But in Christ, we are free from the bondage of sin. We're free from the ultimate destruction of death. In Christ we live, and only in Christ we live. Matthew 11, in Matthew 11, Jesus declares himself as the rest, that rest. He calls to his listeners, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. We sang that in our first hymn, heavy laden. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." And this, this is the application of today's sermon for those of you who are saved and know Him, as well as for those of you who have never trusted Christ for salvation. The call is to repent For the kingdom of heaven is at hand to come to the Lord who will give you rest. By Jesus you are saved, and in Jesus you live. So if you've never confessed your sins to the Lord, then here's your call to do that now. But if you have done so, then you're called to have more than just a tract of green leaves. You are called, we are called to bear fruit. to be the branch that looks like, behaves like, and bears fruit like the vine to which we're attached. You are called to reflect the spirit of the living God with your service and with your spiritual maturity. You are called to grow up in Christ. We're called to cooperate with the Holy Spirit so that we become sanctified for his kingdom. Right? That's our home. This isn't our home. We're pilgrims. That's our home, the kingdom. I point to myself as I say this. I point it to myself as I wrote it. Let's be about the Lord's work. He died for us. He died for his church. Amen? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, a simple prayer. We are yours. Lord, we are yours in whom there is life. We ask that you would cause us to go forth this day and upcoming week protected by you, by your hand, and that we're blessed with your grace. We so very much need it. Make these words that we've heard from you this morning, your words, make them live to us, Lord. It's in the name of Jesus we pray, amen. Our closing hymn this morning, also in your red hymnals, number 101, this is My Father's World. Yes, it's my Father's will, and to my lips he leaves. How briefly sings every lonely wind the music of those years. Yes, it's my Father's will, and to my lips he leaves. God sent three sons and three daughters to the Lord. These three sons and three daughters were born to the Lord. The Lord made them like a raven, and the raven made them like a bird. This is my Father's Word, which I divulge to you. For the Spirit's coming and His presence will be everywhere. ♪ Let our hearts be our senses ♪ ♪ The wisdom of living and living ♪ ♪ His sight is like the light of the world ♪ ♪ Like a flash of wisdom of love ♪ ♪ Jesus, you are the source of wisdom ♪ ♪ And you are the light of living and living ♪ Amen. Thank you for joining us in worship this morning. Our benediction this morning is to each other. The words are up on the screen. Let's please recite the words aloud together to each other as a mutual blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance to you and give you peace. Amen. Please go in peace. you