It Bore No Fruit
Luke 13:6-9 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. 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ’For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ "’Sir,’ the man replied, ’leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’"
“Die when I may,” said Abraham Lincoln, “I want it said of me that I plucked a weed and planted a flower wherever I thought a flower would grow.” Abraham Lincoln wanted it to be said of him that he bore fruit.
You are expected to be productive at your job.
Bubba Jones had died. A wonderful funeral was in progress and the country preacher talked at length of the good traits of the deceased, what an honest man he was, and what a loving husband and kind father he was. Finally, the widow Jones leaned over and whispered to one of her children,
"Go up there and take a look in the coffin and see if that’s your pa."
In this parable Jesus shows that people who occupy space and are not productive are fired. When God fires someone, it is literal. A person is literally placed in flames.
I. The symbolism in the parable.
a. The first item of symbolism is the man who planted the tree.
i. This man is representative of the God of Israel.
b. It is mentioned that the fig tree is growing in a vineyard.
i. The vineyard is symbolic of the Lord’s kingdom on earth.
c. When a tree is fruitful it brings forth something that is useful to other creatures.
i. It is helpful and life giving.
ii. In the Old Testament the fig tree represented security and life.
iii. Micah 4:4 “But everyone shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken.”
iv. The verses of Jesus’ parable are referring to spiritual fruitfulness.
d. The Scripture compares people to trees on many occasions.
i. People can be barren or fruitful.
ii. Those who are fruitful bring life to the people around them.
iii. Christians are fruitful whenever they direct someone to eternal life in Christ Jesus, and bring them the sustenance of God’s Word, which is the Bread of Life.
iv. Psalm 1:1-4 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
v. It is seen that in order to be fruitful one must remain close to the Lord, and keep his Word or the Scripture close to one’s heart.
vi. When the Word of God truly abides in a person’s heart he or she will be obedient to it, and will do as all Christians are commanded to do.
vii. Matthew 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you . . .”
viii. Only when Christians are faithful and obedient to the Word will they become fruitful.
II. The keeper of the vineyard sought fruit on the tree for three years.
a. Mosaic law decreed that fruit-bearing trees be regarded as unclean for three years after planting, as the Lord’s in the fourth year, and to be eaten by the people only in the fifth year. This preserved the health of the tree against premature plucking, and gave God his due place.
b. Jesus condemned the Scribes
i. Luke 11:52 “Woe to you [Scribes]! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered.” The religious leaders were not bearing spiritual fruit.
c. Jude spoke of people who had gone astray from the Lord, and had been disobedient to him.
i. Jude 12 says, “. . . They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots.”
ii. Matthew 3:10 John the Baptist said, “And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
iii. John the Baptist was saying is that anyone who is disobedient to the Word of God will be cut off from God’s kingdom and thrown into the flames of hell.
d. These people will be cut off from the kingdom because they are useless.
e. Gary Davenport says, The fig tree occupied a specially favored position. It was not unusual to see fig trees, thorn-trees and apple-trees in vineyards. The soil was so shallow and poor that trees were grown wherever there was soil to grow them; but the fig-tree had a more than average chance; and it had not proved worthy of it . . . The parable teaches that uselessness invites disaster . . . Nothing which only takes out can survive. The fig tree was drawing strength and sustenance from the soil; and in return was producing nothing. That was precisely its sin. There are . . . people in this world . . . who take out more than they put in . .
III. The man who planted the tree, or God, discussed the condition of the fig tree with the keeper of the vineyard.
a. The keeper is Jesus, God’s only Son.
i. Jesus basically said, “Hold on a minute Father. Let me try a few things before you cut it down.”
ii. The keeper wanted to dig around the tree and fertilize it.
b. Digging around the tree is for aeration of the soil so that the roots and the tree will grow.
i. Breaking up the soil
ii. Getting out of our rut.
c. The fertilization of a fig tree is a more difficult matter.
i. “The fertilization of the fruit is dependent on a tiny wasp, which carries pollen into the inner parts by boring into the center of the fruit.
ii. The fig tree therefore will not bear fruit if the wasp is absent and may even require hand-fertilization by incision.”
d. Jesus wants a heart change from people.
i. He expects our motivation to be different from the motivation of those who don’t know Him.
This is what happened to a Texas minister who was scheduled to speak at an all-day conference. He was running late because his alarm had failed to ring. In his haste to make up for lost time, he cut himself while shaving. Then he found his shirt was not ironed. To make matters worse, running to his car he noticed a tire was flat. Disgusted, and by this time thoroughly distraught, the minister finally got underway with a sudden burst of speed. Racing through town he failed to notice a stop sign and rushed through it. As fate would have it, there was a policeman nearby, and in just moments he heard the scream of a siren. Jumping out of his car, the agitated minister said sharply, "Well, go ahead and give me a ticket. Everything else has gone wrong today." The policeman walked up and said quietly, "Sir, I used to have days like that before I became a Christian."
IV. Within a few verses of Jesus’ cursing of the fig tree, is the story about Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple.
a. At the cleansing of the Temple the heart of Jesus’ teaching to the religious leaders is seen.
b. He said, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves’. ”
c. He confronting the Scribes and Pharisees.
i. The very people who’s hearts should have been different.
d. Jesus spoke the truth, and his words pierced the hearts of those who heard him at that moment.
e. Truly the fig was fertilized that day, but would it bear fruit?
i. In A.D. 70, Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans.
ii. The Temple and its leaders did not bear fruit and it were abolished.
V. If a person does not abide in God’s Word, and live in obedience to it, then he or she will be cut down.
a. How does a person abide in God’s Word?
i. John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
ii. John 1:14 says the Scripture became flesh in the form of the only begotten.
iii. John 15:5-6, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
Dwight L. Moody once demonstrated the principle like this: "Tell me," he said to his audience, "how can I get the air out of the tumbler I have in my hand?" One man said, "Suck it out with a pump." But the evangelist replied, "That would create a vacuum and shatter it." Finally after many suggestions, moody picked up a pitcher and quietly filled the glass with water. "There," he said, "all the air is now removed." He then explained that victory for the child of God does not come by working hard to eliminate sinful habits, but rather by allowing the Holy Spirit to take full possession.
b. If a person knows Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, he or she abides in him and is obedient to him, and the Lord allows that person to live.
c. Through Jesus one has eternal life.
d. If a person does not know Jesus Christ then he or she will be cut off from the Lord and burned, or thrown into the fires of hell.
e. If you are living in disobedience to the Word of God then you are living in separation from the Lord.
i. There are two types of disobedience.
1. One is when a Christian, already saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, rejects God’s Word. This person is separated from God by silence, and is denied the earthly blessings of God.
2. The other type of disobedience is when a person who does not know Jesus Christ rejects the Word made flesh. This person rejects Jesus Christ himself, and is denied eternal life.
A New York skyscraper was being built. Hundreds of people paused one day to watch a ponderous metal beam being lifted into the air to take its place in the steel skeleton. The watching crowd saw a workman lean out from the sixteenth floor to seize the end of the girder. Nearer the girder came and the workman was about to grasp it, when with gasps of horror the spectators saw that he had lost his balance. But as he fell he struck the end of the girder and clutched it with arms and legs. The hoisting engine was stopped. But the weight of the man at one end began to tilt the beam to vertical position, which would eventually cause the workman to lose his grasp, slip off, and fall to his death. With swift decision another workman on the same floor, seeing his friend’s predicament and disregarding his own safety, leaped through space and landed on the other end of the girder, where his weight caused it to keep from tilting further. Amid the applause of the crowd below, both men were safely lowered to the street. Every day all around us young people are losing their balance on moral questions, and making wrong decisions that will ruin character. They need friends who are interested in helping them keep their balance, by exemplary lives, by sacrificial living, by giving up things that they might have enjoyed so that others are led aright. Here no one applauds, but it will be worth it all when we receive the approval of the Master
There is a legend of a great teacher who had a strange experience while walking through an orchard on a windy day. Coming to a fence which divided the grove from an adjoining forest, he imagined hearing the different types of trees talking to each other. Boastfully a common maple said to a nearby fruit tree, "Why don’t your leaves rustle in the breeze like ours so that you can be heard from a distance?" "We don’t need such useless fluttering to draw attention to our presence; our fruit speaks for us!" was the reply.
