Good morning everyone. Welcome here again to our morning service at Calvary Baptist Church of Trehearne. And once again, welcome Hudos Indri Das via internet all over the world. Please open your Himalayan number 17. One, seven. Come, thou fount. Number 17. Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing Thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing, Cover songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by fleeting of thy redeeming love. Here I rise, thy heaven is earth, neither And I hope by thy good pleasure, safe with you I'll arrive at home. Jesus sought me with a stranger, wandering from the fold of God. He shall rescue me from danger, And repose his precious blood, Till the ways of greater danger. Daily I'm constrained to be Fled by goodness like a veteran Bind my wandering heart to Thee Proud to wander, Lord, I feel it Proud to live the God I love Here my heart to take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful this morning that we have the opportunity to come together and to welcome Thee into our service. We're thankful that we can have a true church, that we can have Thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the head of this body. And we pray that our ears would be tuned to hear what Thy Word says, that we are directed by truth and not by the world, not by feelings. And we pray that we can be a help to others to know the truth in these days of grace. Pray for our government, that we would see many government officials get saved as we are supposed to be getting our first budget under this new government this week and possibly the call for an election. And we just pray that the Christians in this country would wake up. and that we would be praying for our government officials, but we would also be speaking up, not just hiding in our prayer closets, but speaking up, helping them to see their responsibility before Thee, that they are answerable to Thee. We do pray that we would be faithful, pray for continued protection, that we can continue to function as a church here and continue to minister to the needs of people in Canada and across the world. We thank you for our internet connection. Pray that the government would not be able to pass laws that would restrict our use of the internet. but that we can help others to know the truth as well. Pray for the Christians in China, North Korea, Venezuela, Nigeria, other countries like that where they are oppressed. We pray that the Christians would be encouraged in thee and be able to help others to know the truth as well. May thy will be done here, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. And over to number 39. This is my father's word. Number 39. this is my father's world and to my listening ears all nature sings and round me rings the music of the fears this is I rest me in the touch of rocks and trees, of skies and seas, and the wondrous flood. This is my Father's Word. This is my father's word. He shines in all that fear. In the rustling grass I hear him pass. He speaks to me every word. This is my father's word. let me near forget. Not though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. This is my father's sword, the battle is And over to 222. There is a fountain. Number 222. ♪ There will be a fountain filled with blood ♪ ♪ That comes from Emmanuel's veins ♪ Consider what's beneath the sea. Lose all their guilty stains Lose all their guilty stains Lose all their guilty stains And sinner's blood beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains Crying, Thib rejoiced to see that fountain in his day. And there behind the while a sea washed all my sins away. wash all my sins away, wash all my sins away. And there be I, lo, while I sleep, wash all my sins away. Their dying love, thy precious blood, Shall never lose its power. Tell all around some chance of good Be safe to say no more Be safe to say no more Be safe to say no more All around, soldiers of God, be safe to say no more. E'er since, by faith, I saw the stream, thy flowing water supply, Redeeming love has been my theme and shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. Redeeming love has been my theme and shall be till I die. When this pearl lifts its dimming flood, Lies silent in the grave, Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I'll sing thy part to save. I'll sing thy part to save. I'll sing thy part to save. Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I'll sing thy part to save. Take your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 13. Luke chapter 13, we're going to read there verses 6 through 9. We'll stand please for the reading of God's word, Luke chapter 13, reading there verses six through nine. He spake also this parable. A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came and sought fruit thereon and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of the vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none. Cut it down. Why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it. And if it bear fruit, well, and if not, then after that, thou shalt cut it down. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful this morning again that we have thy word, thankful again for thy love for mankind, thy love for the nation of Israel, that people would wake up, see the need to be saved and get saved, and then bear fruit for thee. We are not saved just to go to heaven. We are saved to be a light in this dark world. We are saved to be that light which will expose the darkness. It will expose the sin. And we pray that we can be a help to people in this community and across the world to see the importance of truth in these last days. May thy will be accomplished as we look at these verses. Pray for each one listening. that they would have the discipline needed to set aside the distractions so that they could receive a blessing from this time together. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. The title of the message this morning is Christians Must Bear Good Fruit. Christians must bear good fruit. The world is not a dull place. There's a lot of things going on in our world. And we see that in the news. If you pay attention to the news, there's a lot of things going on. The Middle East, of course, remains the center of attention. And the Hamas still has not released all the dead hostages that they promised to do. And they are using them as a way to keep Israel off balance. and they have released a few dead people that were not part of the hostages so they who knows how many dead bodies they even have and one of the people they released they staged a a burial and then a digging it up for the sake of the cameras but it was all a lie. This week of course on our calendars we had a pagan Day marked as Halloween, a day that is designed to elevate the devil. And many people, including many professing Christian people, participate in that event. They purchase candy. I can't remember the millions of dollars that was spent a few years ago on candy and costumes for Halloween. It's a big business. That is carried on in our country, United States and other countries as well. Meanwhile, the devil is busy in the Middle East, in Canada, across the world, destroying lives. And here we have, I had to go for blood work at the hospital, and in the room where you go to give your paperwork to them, they have two human, well, they're dummy hands, but they're from about the elbow down, laying on a counter as part of their Halloween display. Now, would you really want to go to a hospital that chops your hands off? But you know, that's what Halloween is. It's gory stuff. And that's what the world celebrates and they think it's funny. That's the world we're living in. And in the midst of that, Christians must bear good fruit. So on the 31st, the devotional that I put out spoke to Christians about the fact that we should not be keeping Halloween. Should have no part in it. Our house, we have the lights on. We don't hide. Lights are on, but we don't, nobody came to our door. I guess they know who we are already, but if they would, we wouldn't answer the door. We're not going to give out candy. It's not that we're against giving candy. We give candy here every Sunday and we give them to our grandchildren too, but I'm not going to honor that day. That's a pagan day and Christians need to wake up and speak out. We have in the past, we have given out tracts during that when somebody came to our door. Of course, they don't appreciate that. They don't want a tract, they want candy. But we're not going to do that. So we have a responsibility as Christians. And as we look at this passage here, the primary context of this passage is to the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel in the Old Testament is sometimes referred to as a fig tree. So as we look at this passage, the first thing that we want to remind ourselves of is what was the purpose of Jesus speaking in parables? Why did he speak in parables? It tells us in verse six, he spake also this parable. Jesus had a specific reason for using parables. And we can find his explanation for that in Matthew chapter 13. If you turn there in your Bibles, he explained to the disciples why he spoke in parables. So in Matthew chapter 13, verses 10 to 17, it says there, and the disciples came and said unto him, why speakest thou unto them in parables? So the disciples were curious. We should as well, we should be curious. A lot of people, they read the Bible and there's things that they don't understand, but they just read over them and that's it. They don't ask questions. God wants us to know the truth. That's why in Matthew chapter 28, We are told, those who are Christians, to go into all the world and teach them. And then after they're saved, we're to teach them further. So that's what we're doing here today. We're teaching the lost, but we're also teaching the saved. Verse 11, Matthew 13, 11. He answered and said unto them, because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance, but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I unto them in parables, because they seeing see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see, but shall not perceive. For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and their and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them. And to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them. So one of the things that we find, and it's not so common anymore, but it was up until a couple years ago, is that there would be prophecy conferences. Used to have them in Winnipeg, then they moved it to Winkler, and then Friends of Israel took it over and they kept it in Winkler for a while. I don't know if they're still going on there or not. But there would be many people that would go to these prophecy conferences. We know some people from this area that would go to those conferences. But for many of them, they were very interested in the prophecy, but they did not allow the Holy Spirit to bring the meaning of the prophecy and the purpose of the prophecy to their heart. And so there are people, I was talking with one just a few days ago, talking about the things going on in the middle east and this man is a lost man he's catholic and yet he's very interested in talking about prophecy but he does not allow the holy spirit to bring to bear upon his own heart the need to be saved and that's what jesus is talking about here he says why did he speak in prophecy says well it says there in verse 13. Therefore speak I to them in parables because they seeing see not and hearing they hear not neither do they understand. So they're seeing the things that are being said they're hearing it but not with their spiritual ear. They're not comprehending it. They're not allowing the Holy Spirit to bring that conviction to their heart that would bring them to repentance and salvation. Any lost person that reads prophecy should be shaking in their boots. Someone said before the service that they're scared of heights and their knees shake when they get up too high. Well, that's okay. But if you're listening to the word of God and you're not saved, you should be shaking in your boots because you are going to face the consequences of your rebellion against God. But again, many people don't shake in their boots because they shut out the Holy Spirit. Even children can do that. They just ignore what the Holy Spirit is saying to them. They're too full of this life. And we as parents, again, need to be careful that we don't put distractions in our children's way that can keep them preoccupied rather than listening to the Holy Spirit. There's a lot of things that we as parents can do to our children to keep them from hearing the voice of God. And there's things that we can do that can make it easier for them to hear the voice of God. Now, again, if parents have their primary goal is to be friends of their children, they're going to run into trouble. They may have their children very happy to be around them, but lost and going to hell. That's not a good thing. No godly parent wants that. And yet sometimes we do things that keep our children from hearing the truth. So in our text, in Luke chapter 13, Jesus spoke a parable. He was speaking to the lost and he was going to show the nation of Israel, remember, Jesus came unto his own and his own received him not. And so parables were designed so that those who did not want to hear the truth would not hear it. because they didn't care. Well, it's a story, and it's okay. It may be entertaining, it may not be, and we'll just go on with something else. They're not really allowing their curiosity to lead them to ask the needed questions, and that's a problem. So our country of Canada today is in a situation, we've talked about that before, there are people, they go past this building every day. There are articles that we put into the paper. We talk to people. We've given out tracts. But very few people from this town come to this church. Why is that? Because they're not interested. They're lost. They can hear, they can read what I put out, but they don't pay attention to it. They just brush it off. Because they've hardened themselves against the truth. That's a tragic place to be at that place where God kind of brushes you aside and says, well, you're not interested, so I'm going to leave you alone. That's a very sad place to be. And our system is designed to keep people away from the truth. We have for years, as long as I've been alive and long before that, because Charles Darwin lived in the 1800s. But from that time on, the world has been promoting a lie called evolution. And that lie is being taught in all the public schools. That's what they teach. That's how our world came into being. That's how things are happening today. So as a result of that, we have now, this younger generation right now, is being taught that climate change is a man-made phenomena. We have to stop driving cars. And yet, these same people that are promoting climate change and saying, we have to stop driving cars, they get on their jets and they fly all over the place, spewing out hundreds of gallons of aviation fuel and polluting the air, and they don't care. Because they say they are doing important work. But when you drive your car to go to work, that's not important work. You should stay home and starve. Because when you're starving, they can tell you what to do, and you'll do it because you're hungry. And so you have to think a little bit. What's behind what's going on with our current system? And it's all designed to control us. That's the purpose of it. But the world is not paying attention. Things are happening. They're not paying attention. They're asleep. And that's not a good thing. That's a very dangerous thing. So we see how that God has been working across the world, not just in Israel, but across the world to deal with people who have rejected him. You take, for instance, the name that used to be out there called Great Britain. Why was it called Great Britain? Because Britain controlled England and Ireland, Scotland, parts of Africa, and other places as well, and so it was called Great Britain. But back in the time of the Second World War, when the nation of Israel was given back a part of its land after the war, Britain decided they were not going to support Israel as they settled back in their land. The result of that is that Britain lost their place of power and some of their colonies that they had broke away. And so it's no longer Great Britain, it's Britain Sometimes it's called the United Kingdom, but Britain today is not very united. The Muslims are taking over and there's a lot of unrest in England right now, which you wouldn't hear about very much in the mainstream media because they're not talking about that. They're not interested in that because Islam has bought its way into much of the media. And the media is scared to expose Islam for who they really are. And so Britain has lost its place. It's no longer Great Britain. It can't even control its own country anymore. And it has fallen from its place of prominence because it has rejected the word of God. So parables, again, going back to our text, Jesus spoke in parables to keep those who don't wanna know the truth from actually hearing the truth. So that's common in our own country. Our country is on the brink of falling. In BC, the Indians, Most people call them First Nations, but that's not who they are. They're Indians. They have claimed a city in British Columbia that they now own that whole city. So everybody that owns property now in that city has problems on their hands. Some people are trying to renew their mortgages and they can't because the government isn't sure who owns that property. and they're not gonna give a mortgage to somebody that doesn't actually own the property. So just this morning, I read that the Indians actually have claimed all of BC as their territory. Now, if that actually holds up in the courts, then everybody in BC, one of the most expensive provinces to live in, everybody is going to lose ownership of their property. And they're going to have to pay an extra tax to the Indians just to live there. It's not that the Indians are going to push all the non-Indians out of there, but what they're doing is they're going to try to take away the prosperity and steal it for themselves, not by working, but simply by claiming ownership. And because the North Americans, the Europeans, are too ignorant because they don't believe the Bible, Therefore, they are looking for a way to appease the Indians, and they're going to keep doing that. And that's why this country is on the verge of falling apart. So we need to be careful, those of us who are Christians. We still have it pretty good in Canada, but things could change very suddenly. And you need to be aware of that. And we need to be prepared for that change that is going to come someday, maybe in our lifetime. The second thing that we look at here is a fruitless tree. Tells us in this passage in verse six, a certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. And he came and sought fruit thereof and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down. Why comberth it the ground? Now, in Hosea chapter nine and verse 10, Hosea chapter nine and verse 10, it says there, I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at her first time. But they went to Baal Peor and separated themselves unto that shame, and their abominations are according as they loved. " So in that verse, God compares Israel to wild grapes, first of all, like grapes in the wilderness. If you've ever gone walking in the bush and found grape vines, and at the right season, you'll find grapes on them. But if you find those grapes, you will see that they are much smaller than grapes that you plant in your yard and you nurture them. and then later on pick the grapes off. The grapes in the wilderness are very sweet. They're very tasty. But they're much smaller because they don't have the same opportunity to grow that they do in your yard. They get more water, more sunshine, and so on. They can grow bigger. And then, of course, man manipulates them, too. And with crossbreeding, they change the structure of the grapes so that they grow bigger. Now, that's not always true because we know that when Israel, the spies went into Canaan, they found a grape cluster that required two of them to carry it. But God here is comparing Israel in the time of Hosea to this wild grape. Then it says, I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at her first time. So he's talking here about the beginnings of Israel. Israel started from one man who was raised in an idol-worshipping country. That man's name was Abram. Abram had a wife named Sarai. God saw something in Abram and Sarai that he did not see in the rest of the world. Abram in spite of being raised in an idol-worshipping country, he had a fear of God in his heart. He heard God telling him to separate from his family. He heard that. He knew that God wanted him to go somewhere else. Other people didn't hear that. And so God took this fledgling nation, just like the first ripe figs on a fig tree, When you plant a fruit tree, the first year of that, well the first year doesn't produce anything usually, but the second year you might see a few blossoms, you might see some fruit, but not very much. And that fruit is not very big because the tree is still developing itself. It's developing its root system. It's developing the tree that you see. It's growing branches. The stalk of it is getting bigger to be able to support the branches and the fruit that's going to come in the following years. So it takes up to, usually for a apple tree, a fig tree probably similar, it takes three years before you get fruit that you can actually harvest. But you don't get very much. And as that tree develops, it produces more. And so Israel in the book of Hosea is compared to this new fig tree. But in our text, Jesus is talking about this fig tree that's been planted in the man's vineyard, and he comes to the tree and he's looking for fruit, and there's none on it. Now obviously this fig tree has been there long enough that it should have fruit on it. It should be bearing fruit, there should be figs there, and there's none there. And Jesus is using this as a picture of the nation of Israel. Israel, at the time of Jesus, should have been a fruitful nation. The Gentile nations living around there, the Roman Empire, for instance, which was controlling Israel, controlling Jerusalem, the Roman Empire should have been impacted by the fact that the Jews were living there. You remember in the book of Acts that the Roman government again, the world of that time, complained that the small group of Christians that were there at that time were turning their world upside down. That's in the book of Acts. That was not the case when Jesus was on the earth. The Jews were not turning their world upside down and turning the world to Christ. In fact, it was the Jews who led the attack against Jesus while he was on earth. It wasn't the Romans. He came unto his own and his own received him not. They rejected him. And so Jesus here is looking at the nation of Israel and he's giving a rebuke to them here in the form of a parable. They're not wanting to hear the truth, so he's gonna tell them a story. And sometimes the word parable is described as an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. And that's what we see here. Jesus isn't really concerned about fig trees. And so in this parable, the certain man in verse six, that would be God the Father, The dresser that we have in verse seven would be Jesus Christ. So God the Father is the one who established Israel as a nation. Started from one man, one woman, changed their names, told them to leave their homeland, go to a new land, promised them a son, And they had to wait for many years to get that son because God needed to teach them some things first before he could give them a son. You see, God knew what he was doing. It wasn't that he could have given Abraham and Sarah 12 children instead of waiting for Jacob to have them. He could have given them to Abraham, but he gave Abraham one son, Isaac, that's all. Abraham had a son in adultery with Agar, but that son would turn out to be an enemy of God and an enemy of Israel. And in fact, an enemy to all other people outside of his descendants. In fact, the Muslims can't get along with themselves. So God started with this little body. And from that little body, he developed a great nation. And during the time of King David, they produced fruit. The nations around saw how powerful Israel was, not because they were so smart, but because God was behind that army. And they prospered as well. During the time of Solomon, the nation of Israel was very rich. They didn't even regard silver. Today, if you listen to the news, they tell you to collect silver, invest in silver, gold as well. But silver, they say, is a very precious metal. And if you have extra money, they're saying, invest in silver, because you're going to need that investment later on when the dollar crashes. Well, the fact is, if the dollar crashes, silver will too. So will gold. You can't go to the store with gold and buy anything. You might have a piece of gold that's worth $1,000. You go to the store and you might want to buy a jug of milk, and they'll take your gold for that jug of milk, but you're not going to get your $1,000 value out of it. You're going to lose money if you try to go to the store and buy with gold or with silver. We see that our country values the wrong things and we don't value that which is true. But in the days of Solomon, they had so much silver that it didn't have much value. They had a lot of gold too. The nation of Israel was rich in that time. But instead of recognizing where that wealth came from, Solomon married 700 wives and 300 concubines. Instead of trusting God to protect the nation of Israel, he married foreign king's daughters because if he married the daughters, the king wouldn't attack Israel. And that's true. But God wanted Solomon to trust in him. God told the nation of Israel before they were a nation in their own land, they were already a nation, but not in their own land. He said, don't multiply, multiply horses to yourselves. What did Solomon do? He multiplied horses. He had many stables for horses, chariots as well, because he turned his trust away from God and he looked at the nations around him and he said, I want to be bigger than they are. And he thought that by having horses and chariots, he would be bigger than they were. And the fact is that when Solomon died, God split the nation in half, not because an enemy came in, but in judgment against the rebellion of Solomon. The nation of Israel was broken in half and two, not in half, but in two parts. And it was weakened. because of that. And yet, in spite of that fact, the South, Judah, was still able to defend itself against enemies for several hundred years. Because, for a while, Judah trusted in God. So it's not the size of the nation, it's not the size of the army that matters. It's a matter of who are you trusting. And the reason for all of that was that God wanted Israel to be a light to the Egyptians, to the Assyrians, to the Syrians, to the Babylonians, to all the other nations in showing them, if you want to prosper, you need to know me, the true God. So as Jesus gives this parable here, he's looking at this fig tree and there's no figs on it. Instead of Israel being a light to the Roman government, the Pharisees had befriended the Roman government. They weren't interested in converting Herod. They weren't interested in converting Pilate. They weren't interested in converting the soldiers. All they wanted is to get along with them until their hope was their Messiah would come and overthrow the Roman government. So they were liars. They were deceivers. They were acting like they wanted to be friends of Rome, but they were only doing that to bide the time until they would be strong enough to overthrow them. That was their whole purpose. But they weren't interested in evangelizing the Roman government. And that's a problem. And so today, if we look at that and we look at Matthew chapter 16 and verse 18, where Jesus said, upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Churches are supposed to be here, as we already mentioned from the book of Acts, we're supposed to be here to turn our world upside down. and in reality, to turn our world right side up. So that our world would see the importance of knowing the true God. But most churches today are infiltrated by the world. They're not a light to the world, they're part of the world. I watched a part of a religious service this week on the internet, And the music was the 7-Eleven variety. In fact, they had more than 7-Eleven in the one song that they were singing. They kept repeating it over and over and over. And as I was watching that, I was watching the crowd, and there was a crowd. And the longer they repeated those few words, the crowd got wilder. Hands were going up and people were swaying and noise, lots of noise and stuff. And the crowd, they were eating it up. But there was nothing there that could satisfy the soul of the people. It was an empty noise session. It was like Aaron when he made the golden calf and Moses and Joshua came down from the mount and they heard a noise. And Joshua says it's a noise of people going to war, but they're not striving for mastery. So it was confusion. And when they got closer, they saw that the people were naked. They weren't ready for war. They were naked. They were in big trouble. And that's what Jesus sees here as he's speaking to his own people. This fig tree, it's got no figs. And so the certain man, it tells us there in verse seven, and he said unto the dresser of his vineyard, behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down. Why cometh it the earth? Taking up space. This tree is there, taking up space, eating up the nutrients that God puts into the soil, drinking up the sunshine and the rain that God provides, but it's nothing on it. No fruit. Just some leaves. Cut it down. Let's replace it with a tree that's actually going to give us some fruit. So what happened? Well, after Jesus went to the cross, the Jews were still in charge then. They're the ones that cried out, crucify him, crucify him. He went to the cross, he died on the cross, shed his blood there, was buried, rose again, ascended back to heaven. And what happened after that? Churches. Jesus started the Jerusalem church while he was on earth, but after he left this earth, churches were started. Romans chapter 11 talks about cutting off Israel at the root and grafting in Gentiles. So that's what God is telling the dresser here, cut this fig tree down. And that's exactly what happened. Israel wasn't destroyed, but it was cut down at the root. And so what do we got then? We have Israel, even today, on the sidelines, and we have churches are supposed to be the light. The sad thing is that most churches today are no better than the Jews were at Jesus' time. There's a tree there. There's leaves there. They rustle in the wind. There's no fruit. So you look at most churches today, I was talking to someone this week, and they profess to be Christians, and they got major family problems. And they've got those problems because they chose, rather than trusting in God, they chose to follow the secular route to deal with their problems. And I said to the person, I said, look at your situation. What have you gained in following what the world wants you to do? What have you gained? You've made it worse. You've got a bigger wall up now than you had before. You haven't helped anything. You see, that's the trouble when people who profess to be Christians don't act like Christians. So the third thing we see is that we see God's care for the careless. God's care for the careless. So here, the dresser, that's Jesus, verse eight, and he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it, and if it bear fruit well, and if not, then after that thou shall cut it down. So Jesus here, he's still on the earth now, in this time, he's talking about the nation of Israel. He came, and when he came, he came to the nation of Israel to preach the message of salvation to the nation of Israel. He didn't go to the outside nations. You remember the Syrophoenician woman who came to him wanting help. And Jesus said, I didn't come, I came for the lost sheep of Israel. He didn't come to help the outlying nations. That wasn't why he came, because Israel was supposed to repent and get right with him, and then they were supposed to reach out to the nations around them. And so Jesus here, the dresser in this passage says, don't cut it down yet. Give me one more year. Give me one more season with this tree. And I'm going to dig around the roots because sometimes things get tight around there depending on the type of soil. And the moisture can't get down into the roots. So you've got to loosen it up. and then he's going to put some dung, he's going to put some manure around that freshly dug up soil and as the rain comes, the nutrients from that manure is going to go down into the roots and that tree is going to flourish. Surely it'll have fruit then. Because you see, if a tree is not nourished properly when the blossoms come on, the tree is not strong enough and the blossoms fall off before they're pollinated. You don't get any fruit. So if you fix the soil conditions, Then the tree can take in those nutrients. Now when the blossoms come, there's enough strength in that tree that it holds the blossom. The bees can come along and pollinate them. The new fruit that's on there can stay. It doesn't fall off because there's not enough nutrients. Our apple tree this year, we had a lot of apples on it. We could have put some fertilizer on it, we didn't. But I noticed that as the season was progressing, some of the apples fell off prematurely because there were too many. The tree couldn't handle all the apples. Now, we didn't care because I figured at least that if all of those apples would have stayed on that tree, we might have had some broken branches because it would have gotten too heavy as those apples got bigger. So according to God's design for that tree, it dropped some of its fruit so that the rest of the fruit could survive and the tree could survive. I did then take some of the apples off myself when they were developing for the same reason. I didn't want the branches to break. So you have to kind of figure out how much do you think that branch can hold? And then you have to take care of it so that it doesn't have too much that you're going to lose the whole branch because what do you have then? Then you have nothing. So you have to pay attention to the tree and you have to look after it. So here the dresser, he's going to look after this tree. And when Jesus was on the earth, he taught the Jews The Pharisees came to him time and time again, tempting him. He kept teaching them. He rebuked them. He exposed them for their hypocrisy, but he kept teaching them. But what was the end result? Well, Jesus says, at the end of the year, if there's no fruit, then you can cut it down. Well, what happened after Jesus spent those three and a half years teaching the Jews? What happened? They stood before Pilate and said, crucify him, crucify him. All that nutrient that he gave them, all that nurturing that he did to them as a nation, they rejected it. All the miracles he did, they rejected it all and said, crucify him. So what did God do? He allowed them to crucify Jesus. He allowed them to cut him off. Read Daniel chapter nine. At a specific time, Messiah would be cut off. That's what happened. He was cut off. He went to the cross. But it wasn't a waste. Because on that cross, he shed his blood, making it possible for Jew and Gentile to be able to be forgiven and saved. But the nation of Israel suffered loss. They're sitting on the sidelines right now. They're waiting for United States to supply them weapons. United States says after Israel attacked Qatar because Qatar was housing Hamas leaders, United States says to Israel, you're not going to attack, you're not going to attack Qatar anymore. And he promised Qatar, we will protect you from any further attack. Qatar is a terrorist nation. United States is protecting them against Israel. So on the one hand, we have the United States supplying weapons to Israel. We have United States sending money to Israel. We have United States working on a so-called peace deal between Israel and its enemies. On the other hand, we have the United States protecting a terrorist nation. Does that make sense? No. Does it have to make sense in a messed up world? No. But again, Christians, we can see past the parable and we can see what's going on. And we need to be awake. I was listening to a Jew, a Jewish woman who was speaking at a Jewish forum this week. And she was praising Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for their great work in the peace deal that they monkeyed together in Israel. That is not a great peace deal. It's a terrible deal that is going to backfire on Israel and on the world. But this Jewish woman doesn't understand the facts because she's lost. She's a Jew, but she's lost. So she can't see what's actually happening. And so she looks at this so-called peace deal, and because the word peace is in it, and because Hamas has given back the living hostages, oh, this is a peace deal, even though Hamas is still right now killing any Hamas people that do not agree with what Hamas is doing. Any Muslim people that don't agree with what Hamas is doing, they're killing them out in the public. They don't care. They're not hiding it. So this parable is still applicable to today. The Jews are blind. They can't see what's going on. And they're not acting according to God's will. They're trusting in man. And so that's why they're struggling. That's why they can't find peace in that region. And they are not going to find peace in that region until Jesus Christ comes back at the end of the tribulation. And then finally, the Jews are going to repent. Now there are individual Jews getting saved in our time, but the nation is not. and the nation has no interest in the truth. They're only interested in gaining control of their land for themselves in a secular way, not spiritually. They're not interested. So as Gentiles, we also need to learn and understand that our country of Canada, we're not Israel, but our country of Canada has had A number of years where the gospel was preached. Churches were established in this country. Some true churches were established. Evangelists were sent out from this country to different parts of the world. People have gotten saved through the spiritual activity from true churches in this country. But what's happening now? Right now, the majority of churches, as I mentioned already, participate in a pagan festival like Halloween, a pagan festival like Christmas, a pagan festival like Easter, a pagan festival like Valentine's. Many churches participate in those things. The world has come in and more or less taken over most churches. And churches today are no longer a beacon of light, as we're learning in our memory verse, and they're no longer turning the world upside down, but the world is turning churches upside down. And so most churches are afraid to speak out against the murder of the unborn. They're afraid to speak out against the sodomite junk that's going on. They're afraid to speak the truth about what a marriage is, and many other things they're afraid. We're no longer that light that we're supposed to be. So the day is coming, just as here with Israel, when God says, cut it down, the day is coming, the Bible talks about the being caught up, we call it the rapture, when Jesus is going to come and he's gonna call all the saints out of the world. There will be no true church on this earth at the beginning of the tribulation. The Antichrist is going to come in and the world is going to run to him and embrace him, even in a greater way than the Jews did this current so-called peace treaty. The world is going to run and embrace the Antichrist. And he's going to come in and talk peace. Just like Trump is doing, only to a greater extent. And the world is going to swallow it up. but there's gonna be a lot of trouble because God is merciful and so he's gonna raise up 144,000 Jewish virgin men, plus he's gonna have the two witnesses in Jerusalem, and they're gonna be preaching the gospel. And so there will be people that have not heard the gospel now who will get saved in the tribulation. Those who have heard the gospel now, the Bible says that God, not Satan, God is going to send them strong delusion. Why? So they're gonna believe a lie. Why is he gonna do that? Because they rejected the truth in this time when they have opportunity to receive the truth. So sitting there and listening to the truth and saying, nah, not today, not interested, and keeping on doing that, You're in grave danger because the Lord's return is imminent. It could be today. It could be tomorrow. It could be a hundred years from now. We don't know. But regardless, if you don't trust in Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, whether he comes back and the tribulation starts or whether you die in your sin, it's all the same. You're going to hell. So you need to wake up. and you need to listen to the convicting work of the Holy Spirit in your life right now and get saved. Stop wasting precious time. Trust in the Lord now and know his peace today. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we're thankful that we have thy word, thankful that we can know the truth, and the truth is what will make us free. We're thankful for the power of thy word. And we pray for each one that's listening. We pray for the nation of Israel, which is still cut off at the root today. Pray for many Jews that they would get saved. Even Jared Kushner would get saved and see the wickedness that's in his heart. We do pray for the Gentiles as well in Canada and across the world that many would be saved. Pray that we as a church here, we would be bold and faithful to Thee to be able to help lost people to see the importance of truth. We're thankful that we have opportunity to reach across the world. Help us to be faithful, to be bold. Pray for health and strength to be able to continue on with the work that Thy will would be accomplished in these last days in which we're living. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.