Our New Testament reading this morning is Luke chapter 13, verses 1 through 9. Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, Do you think these Galileans were worse sinners than all the Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those 18 who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them. Do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all perish. Then he told this parable. A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, for three years now I have been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down. Why should it be using up the soil? Sir, the man replied, leave it alone for one more year, and I will dig around it and fertilizer it. If it bears fruit next year, fine. If not, then cut it down. Let's pray and ask God's blessing on the reading of his word. Father, this word that was read within the hearing of our ears is food to us. May it nourish our souls. May we understand better who Christ is, what his ministry is. May we better understand Christ himself through what we read today. Take this word, Father, bless it to our hearts. Use it to make us more like your son. I pray, Father, should there be anyone here who doesn't have a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ or a saving belief in Jesus Christ, that you would bring them to faith even this morning. May they heed the warnings of your word. May they understand that there is no excuse. For each one of us here, Father, who loves you, we pray, Lord, that you would help us also to heed your warnings, that we would never take our spiritual life for granted, but we would always revel in the glory of who you are and what you've done through your Son. Teach us. shape us, mold us, make us like Christ, in whose name we ask these things, amen. I once went to the store. I was in a particular mood for some fruit. and I came across a bag of cherries. I looked at the price. The price seemed pretty reasonable to me. I walked up to the cashier. I put them down on the conveyor belt. I waited my turn. When that bag got to the cashier, a sizable line had formed behind me. The cashier took that bag of cherries, and put them on a scale. That was the per pound price. I was too embarrassed to get out of line and that day I think I spent $30 on a bag of cherries and hid the receipt so that my wife would never ever find out about it. $30 for a bag of cherries. In Israel, there's a fruit. It's called a citron. How much do you think you would pay for one citron? Would you pay $30 for one citron? Well, as you all know, I wouldn't pay $30 for a Citron unless there was a large line forming behind me and I was trying to save face. The end of that story, by the way, as you can look around, my children didn't starve, nor did I. So it all turned out OK. How much would you pay for a citron? A citron is a kind of citrus, obviously, from its name. It's sort of related to a lemon. Citrons get huge. They can get as big as a football. For ones that are much smaller, about that big, they're usually across the circumference, I think they're as much as five inches. And four of those inches can be rind. So the fruit inside is just this tiny little thing inside. And by the way, How much would you pay for a citron if you didn't get to eat it? Well, every year during Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Booths, Jewish people pay up to $1,000 for one citron. More likely that they'll pay around $100. The rabbis recommend that you not pay any less than $100, though you could probably buy a citron that's of lesser quality for as low as $5. The rabbis say the ones that are $5 are not sufficient. They will not suffice in the ceremony. The citron is taken with other implements, some reeds, some leaves, and they're moved in every direction, north, south, east, west, up and down, seven times. And then they're placed on the table and left there until the feast of tabernacles is done. People usually pay between $100 and $500 for a citron. 100 years before Christ, there's a story that was told that a group of people, upon seeing the Roman leader, the Roman ruler, come into town during the Feast of Tabernacles, took their citrons, their very expensive citrons, and began pelting him with them. In response, the Roman leader, the Roman ruler, slaughtered 6,000 of them. A handful of Jews threw fruit at him, and for that, he killed 6,000 Jews. This really is the standard of Roman cruelty. Romans were known for their absolute cruelty in how they punished people. Among those who are listed as rulers over the area of Israel, particularly Judah, there was one man who stands out in history who is particularly cruel, who is known to be particularly cruel, and he is known in the scriptures as Pilate. You'll notice that Pilate was the one responsible for crucifying Jesus. In our passage today, we read about this cruel man, Pilate, and we read of his cruelty. The first situation that they bring before Jesus has to do with Pilate's cruelty. The second situation that Jesus himself brings up is what could be called an act of God. One of them was an act of man and one of them was an act of God. Both of these circumstances though are introduced in verse one and really introduced with a call for a political statement from Jesus. Knowing the cruelty of Pilate and what a horrible leader and ruler he was, some of the Jews came before him and said, can you believe that Pilate did this? What do you have to say about this? Now we don't know whether they were being genuine in their inquiry about Jesus's opinion of the Roman ruler or if they were trying to get him with a gotcha question. But they asked him for a political statement concerning Pilate and Jesus refused. Jesus refused to give a political statement, rather he did four things that we're gonna look at in this passage. First of all, he corrects their errant theology. He corrects their errant theology. Second, he warns them of impending calamity. Third, he calls them to repentance twice. And fourth, he illustrates for them the relationship between God and Jerusalem with a parable. He does it by using a parable. We wanna look at how this unfolds this morning, and we're gonna do so by simply asking the question about each one of those points. How did he correct their theology? How did he warn them of impending calamity? How did he call for their repentance, and how did he use this parable to illustrate the relationship between God and Jerusalem? So the first question, how did he correct their theology? Verse one starts, there were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. This is where they tried to engage him in politics. They tried to engage him in politics. And by the way, there's a reason that we obsess and we fixate on politics, folks. I think it's a very clear psychological reason. And if you can get this in your mind, if you can get this in your head, I think you can break the hold that politics has on your brain, if you can get this through your head. The reason we like to fixate on politics, or let me just say this to be fair, or pop culture figures in general, It's because we are so much better than they are. And I don't mean that sarcastically. We literally are better than, 95% of us in here are better than 95% of politicians on the national scale, state, local, whatever. Politicians tend to not be very humble and nice people. And so it's really easy for us to go and look at a politician, especially one who doesn't hold our, whatever our political predilection is, and to say, oh, this politician is the worst politician that's ever lived. And if you're on the other side, you say, wait a minute, that's hypocritical, because no, this politician on your side is the worst politician that ever lived. And guess what? You're both kind of right, because they all really stink. They're all really bad people and it's really easy for us to look at these bad people and go, you know what? I am so much better than that guy. Let me judge him a little bit. Okay, political tirade over. The Jews had a method of interpreting scripture and a method of interpreting life and circumstance and reality called middah k'naged middah. Middah k'naged middah. That literally means measure for measure. And what they mean by that, what this is, was a principle of interpreting scripture, but it was also a principle of interpreting circumstances that said this, God is going to punish a person in the same way that that person punished others. God will punish that person according to what he has done. This is the reason that Jesus turns to these Jews who ask him about Pilate, and he says to them, do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way? Well, the answer to that has to be yes. Because if those Galileans died and then their blood was humiliatingly mingled with the blood of the sacrifice, by definition, according to the Jewish Mishnah that recommends you interpret circumstances this way, according to the Mishnah, that would have to mean that these people were necessarily worse than the people who didn't die that way. Jesus even asks about the 18, do you think that those 18 on whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all others who lived in Jerusalem? Now, folks, according to their own method of interpreting circumstances, the answer to that question has to be yes. Some people died. Others didn't die. Some people died horrifically. Other people may have died in peace. Therefore, those who died horrifically were necessarily worse than those who died peacefully. Now, where do they get this from? They get this from the fact that when you look at the Old Testament, you read that God looked down at Egypt and God said, essentially, if you're going to worship a river, then I'm going to take your river and I'm going to turn it into blood. If you're going to worship frogs, then I'm going to take your frogs and I'm going to multiply them to the extent that it is almost impossible for you to live. If you're going to worship the sun, then for a little bit of time, I'm going to block Ra, the sun god, from getting through to any of you. And if you're going to worship Pharaoh and his dynasty, then I am going to execute myself, the firstborn in Pharaoh's house. And so the sin that Egypt committed in their idolatry, the Lord takes and punishes Egypt according to that sin. And that's not isolated just to that part of scripture. Certainly we read about Samson in the book of the Shoftim, right? The book of the judges. And Samson is one of these rescuers, one of these saviors. in the book of Judges. And what we find is Samson is given, because of his Nazarite vow, he's given this incredible gift of unparalleled strength, supernatural strength. And his downfall ends up being the fact that he sees these women and they're just so beautiful. And he cannot fight the romantic urges that come from looking at these women. And ultimately, Delilah comes across his path and Delilah discovers the truth of his strength. And do you remember how Samson is punished? Samson is taken out into the public square, but in order to completely immobilize him, they put out his eyes. The eyes with which he lusted after the Philistine women. You'll remember that David had a son named Absalom. David had a son named Absalom and Absalom was well known for his beauty and one of the most beautiful things about him were the long locks of hair that he toted around and was so proud of. And folks, you'll remember that when Absalom was running to try and escape after he had tried to usurp and tried to overthrow David's rulership, that Absalom's hair gets caught in the bushes in a tree, and it's his hair that ultimately his undoing. So as Israel, as the Jews read these things, they say, wait a minute, it seems that what God is always doing is he is punishing measure for measure. If your downfall is your beauty, God will punish you by virtue of your beauty. If your downfall is your eyes, he'll take your eyes. If you put your faith in a river, then he will take that river. And why not, right? But what's missing in their judgment? If you do this, then God will do this. Let me relay to you what's missing in their judgment. They tried to apply This idea of measure for measure in every single circumstance. And so when you come to Numbers chapter 12, Miriam, you remember Miriam and Aaron at one point, and Miriam is involved and they try to actually incite a rebellion against Moses. Do you remember that? They even attack Moses' wife. They say Moses married this woman that we don't approve of. And for that, listen to this, Numbers chapter 12 verse 15 says, so Miriam was shut out of the camp seven days and the people did not journey till Miriam was brought in again. And why didn't they journey? Well, One rabbinic interpretation of this, using that principle of measure for measure, says this, that when Miriam went down to the river, when Moses was an infant, Moses was placed into a basket into the river. And if you'll remember, Miriam goes down to the river and she actually keeps watch over Moses' basket. Now, if you've ever watched National Geographic, you can imagine why someone would need to keep watch over a basket on the edge of the Nile River, right? Crocodiles! And Miriam watches over, and so the rabbinic interpretation is this. The reason that Israel stood still for seven days waiting until Miriam is brought back in the camp is because Miriam looked over Moses' basket for seven days. And so she watched for seven days and they stood still for seven days. She waited for Moses, now Israel would wait for her. Here's the problem. When we read through the book of Numbers, there is a specific reason given why it is that Israel moves and why it is that Israel stands still. Do you remember what that is? There is a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud that moves. Israel follows that cloud. Israel follows that fire. Now who is responsible for moving that cloud and that fire? It's not Moses. It's not some unseen karmic force. Who's responsible? Yahweh is. So Miriam is outside the camp for seven days and Israel doesn't move. Why doesn't Israel move? Because the cloud and the fire don't move. What is that called, folks? It's called grace. What is it that's missing from this interpretation of measure for measure? You do this, God's gonna do this. It's grace. The only reason that Miriam isn't abandoned in the middle of the wilderness in her weakened state is because God was gracious and God was merciful to her. I mean, when you think about the rebellion, she wasn't the only one involved, right? She had a brother, Aaron. Well, what happened to Aaron? Nothing. Now, folks, we might look at that and say, that's not fair, and you'd be absolutely correct. It's not fair, it's gracious. It's gracious. I mean, Aaron also, do you remember when Israel worshiped the golden calf? And then when the golden calf is destroyed, it's pounded into a powder, and it's put in the water, and they're forced to drink it, then all of a sudden, a group of Israelites comes and kills all the rest of them. Do you remember who's responsible for killing the Israelites? It's the Levites among them. What is Aaron? He's a Levite. Now wait a minute. Who made that calf? Aaron did. Why is Aaron not punished when he's the one that started the whole thing? It's God's grace. It's God's grace. What's missing then in this interpretation of circumstance and scripture from the Jewish interpretation is yes, sometimes God does choose to do measure for measure, but fundamentally, God is a God of grace. And that's why Jesus can turn to them and say, do you think that these were worse than these? You misunderstand completely. Their judgment was missing grace. God doesn't work according to our twisted views and interpretation. God gives to people grace. So the first thing that Jesus does in all of this is he actually corrects their theology. You guys are viewing this all wrong. You're completely out of line in this. The second thing we said that Jesus does is he warns them of impending calamity, but how does he do that? Look at verses three and five. Verse three says, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will likewise perish. Now look at the end of verse five. Also, I tell you, unless you repent, you will likewise perish. The point here is if you don't repent, you will suffer the same kind of calamity that those whose blood was mixed with the blood of the sacrifice, shamefully, humiliatingly, or those who had the tower fall on them, you're gonna suffer the same kind of calamity. If you do not repent, your blood will be mixed with the blood of sacrifices. If you do not repent, the walls of the city will fall down on you. Now folks. as distasteful as those predictions are. And I don't know if you gather that the prediction of the mixing of the blood could be the idea that they were killed so close to where the sacrifices were made that their blood spilled onto the ground and and the sacrifice blood was on the ground and they just sort of mixed together, but I don't think that that's what the text is saying because it literally says that Pilate did this. What I think happened is Pilate killed these men, took their blood, and took the blood of the sacrifice, knowing what a shameful thing it was in Judaism, and publicly somehow he mixed it together. negating in their minds, it may or may not have been true, but negating in their minds the effectiveness of what that sacrifice was supposed to do. It was sacrilege. Now folks, after somebody dies and you desecrate their body, it's a shameful thing and essentially this is what Pilate did. He desecrated their blood. desecrated their sacrifice in the most humiliating way that he could. Now as distasteful as these predictions are, I want you to keep them in mind as we move forward because it plays a role into something that comes a little bit later. The third question then we want to ask is how does he call them to repentance? Same two verses. He simply says in verse 3, unless you repent. In verse 5, I tell you, unless you repent. If you don't repent, then these types of calamities are going to befall you. If you don't repent, you're going to suffer the same kind of calamity. If you don't repent. Now what does he mean when he says repent? Well, the word repent, broken down into its constituent parts, the Greek word is metanoia. And meta has the idea of changing something. At least it can have the idea of changing something. And noia comes from the Greek word nous, which is mind. And so the idea of metanous or metanoia is to change your mind. What are we changing our minds about? My mind is made up already. There's nothing to change, right? Perhaps he could be talking about their dependence on tradition. Now sometimes you see Jesus attack the religious leaders because of their dependence on tradition. And folks, it is absolutely certain that we should not ever depend on the tradition, I was gonna say the tradition of Israel, but the tradition of the church for that matter. We shouldn't depend on our traditions. Our traditions, whatever they may be, cannot and will not Rescue us from anything. Earlier in this passage, they talked about how they, Jesus talked about how these people loved money. So perhaps we could look at this and we could say they needed a metanoia, they needed a change of mind concerning their love of money. Maybe that was the central issue. If you would change your mind about how much you love money, then somehow God will keep you from these impending calamities. They depended also on religious ritual. Perhaps that what is being said here is that what you need to do is stop depending on religious ritual, that religious ritual is what is going to get you into trouble, that these rituals are ultimately going to turn your heart against God and you need to change your mind about ritual. But I don't think any of these things is the fundamental, essential lesson that he's getting at. Because in all of history, folks, we're not going to be judged based on our understanding of ritual, our understanding of money, our understanding of tradition. Your entire eternal destiny is not going to rest on what you think you ought to do with a 401K. Your entire eternity rests on one point. Who is Jesus? Now folks, your answer to that question is going to affect what you do about money. It's going to affect the way you view tradition. It's going to affect the way you think about religious ritual. But fundamentally, the only thing that these people would be judged on was this. Jesus is the Messiah. Now for most of them they didn't believe this. They didn't think this was true. And Jesus is telling them, you need to change your mind. You need to change your mind about what you think of me. So Jesus is saying to these people, unless you change your mind about who I am, you will have your blood mixed with the blood of sacrifices. You will find the structures of Jerusalem falling down around your head unless you change your mind about who I am. This is how Jesus calls them to repentance. You must change your mind. Number four. In the scenario of God bringing judgment, how does Jesus illustrate God's relationship with the people of Jerusalem using this parable? Right? We have this parable, and remember that in interpreting parables, parables are not allegories. Parables don't have a point of comparison in every little thing, unless Jesus says they do. In general, a parable is there to illustrate one thing. And what is this illustration? That's what we're getting at. Listen to what the parable says. He told this parable, a man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vine dresser, look for three years now, I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground? And he answered, sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put manure on it. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good. But if not, you can cut it down. Now what is the point of illustration? is the point of illustration here that somehow God is disappointed in Israel. Well, I think that's baked into the story here, but I don't think that that is the main message of this parable. I think the main message of this parable is that God is going to give Israel a brief time of reprieve. He's going to give them a little extra time, perhaps a year or so. and then he would come and cut them down. Their immediate rejection of the Messiah wasn't going to immediately precipitate God's judgment. God was going to give them a time to repent. So the farmer wants to cut down the unproductive tree, and the vine dresser says, hold on, give it an extra year. So it was with Jerusalem in their rejection of the Messiah. They were going to be given some extra time, and certainly after the death of Jesus, we find that they're given an extra 40 years. Jesus is rejected, ultimately he's crucified, and after his crucifixion, which it's very difficult to conceive of a way you would reject him more than putting him to death. After that rejection, 40 years occurs, and then the judgment on Jerusalem, and his commentary on the life of Christ called Yeshua. Life of Messiah from a Jewish Perspective, Arnold Fruchtenbaum surveys the account of the destruction of Jerusalem that happened in AD 70. And he looks at the reports from Josephus, who was a contemporaneous historian who lived at the time, and the things that he said. And this was Fruchtenbaum's conclusion. As the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem, They undermined the foundation upon which the defensive towers were built. When the towers collapsed, many died in like manner." Fruchtenbaum goes on to say that the battle for the temple was one of the last battles. The fight occurred at the time of the sacrifice. It was the time of Passover. when they laid siege and Jewish blood was again mingled with the blood of sacrifices and the people perished in like manner. Do you see, folks, the fulfillment even of this parable? God gave them 40 years to repent of their sin. Even in the Talmud, the Talmud reveals that in the 40 years that intervene from the time of Christ to the time of the destruction of the temple, there were lots of mystical things that absolutely changed. The Talmud tells us that when the high priest would go into the into the Holy of Holies that there was a man that appeared there, an apparition of sorts that appeared there and it said that it stopped and the Talmud literally says that this apparition stopped appearing in the temple somewhere around 40 years before the temple was destroyed. Can you fathom that? that when they would send the scapegoat out into the wilderness, they would watch as the red cord that was tied around its neck would be bleached white and they would send report back that the scapegoat was accepted because the scarlet cord that represented their sin had become white as wool. And they said that stopped happening. And the Talmud goes on to record that it happened sometime around 40 years before the destruction of Jerusalem. There is circumstance after circumstance and incident after incident that was a warning to the people of Jerusalem. Something has changed. You need to change your mind about Jesus. And they never repented. And because they didn't repent, they didn't listen to Jesus's correction of their theology, they didn't heed his warning of impending calamity, they didn't heed his warning to repent. They didn't discern his illustration of God's relationship to Jerusalem, that he was giving them a specific time to repent. Because of that, their blood was mingled with the blood of sacrifices. And because of that, the walls of Jerusalem and the towers of Jerusalem fell down upon their heads. Now, I don't want this for us to be simply an interesting historical fact. I want us to understand that this does apply to us, because the fact of the matter, folks, is that many of us cling to damnable heresies and theologies. Why? Just because of the traditions that we've been given. It's just what my family has always believed. It's just what I've always believed. So we cling to damnable theologies because of the traditions of our fathers. We focus our attention on the lesser things of this world. The words of Jesus can apply to us. Listen folks, listen to me. You need to change your mind about who Jesus is. You need to understand who he is. You literally need to repent. Jesus is not a helpful tool that kind of gets us to some place we want to be in life. And God is not, Jesus isn't even a helpful tool that gets us to salvation. Jesus is salvation. Outside of Him, there is no salvation. Outside of Him, there is no life. There is no hope. Outside of Him, you might get rich, but you will be miserable in your wealth. Lose the excuses, folks. Repent. Understand who Jesus is for the Jews of that generation. The warning was this, you will suffer in like manner. I want you to understand that for those who will not repent, the warning for us today is actually more dire. You will suffer not in like manner, repent or you will suffer in worse manner. And folks, it is no joy ever to tell people that they're in impending danger. The fact is, is that at that time Jesus stood at the ready to shed his blood for all who would repent. And the truth is he still stands at the ready this morning to intercede on behalf of all those who would change their mind about who he is today. Whether you're young or you're old, whether you've rejected him a thousand times, The writer of Hebrews says he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them. Folks, if the call to repentance is loud and clear for that generation because of the temporal punishment that they would undergo, The call to repent is louder and more urgent for us today, that we would turn from our milquetoast understanding of who Jesus is, that he's some floating hippie in a dress. We need to understand that unless we repent, it'll be worse for us. than for our blood to be mingled or for a wall to fall down on our heads. Let's pray. Father, our hope is Jesus. Our hope is him and only him. May you squash our ambivalence. May you make us passionate followers. Mimics, as Aaron prayed earlier, that we might imitate who he is. Help us to change our minds about who he is and worship him. As our Lord and our Savior. In whose name we ask these things. Amen.