A Memo from the Produce Manager
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This morning we are going to talk about figs. More than just figs though. We are going to look at how Jesus illustrated the idea that what is in our hearts will manifest in what we do, how we act, how we speak, and how we live. In our passage today, Jesus speaks of good fruit and bad fruit, and goes on to use a further illustration of spiritual life, a house built either upon the rock, or a house with no foundation. Let’s look at the whole passage, and then we will look at the two parts of it. Part 1 will be good and bad fruit, and in part 2 we will look at where our foundations lie.
“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit,
for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.
The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?
Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like:
he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.
But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”
When I was preparing for the sermon last week, I happened to be visiting the website of One for Israel, which is a ministry dedicated to sharing with the Jewish people that Jesus is their Messiah. They have many wonderful resources, and I particularly enjoy the videos of testimonies of Jewish people who have found their Messiah. I have often found myself watching many in a row, because they are encouraging. It happened that on their website was a short article on figs, which I will read some portions of for you:
The Symbolism of Figs in the Bible
The Symbolism of Figs in the Bible
God gives good gifts. When he gave Israel to the Jewish people, it was not just any old piece of land… God says in Deuteronomy 8,
“The Lord your God is bringing you into a good land… a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey”.
There are seven species of food mentioned here, which would be abundant in the land promised to His people […] There is so much richness in what God has created and placed in this land for His people—not just in their good taste and nutrition, but in their meaning too. And the fig tree in the Bible is a fruit that crops up again and again, because God does nothing without purpose.
[…] There is something that just feels rich and decadent about figs. The amazing deep colors, the distinctive shape and glorious gentle smell. It is no wonder that this feature of God’s creation crops up repeatedly in the Bible in wonderfully symbolic ways. First of all, we see the figs in the garden of Eden—covering up the shame of Adam and Eve. In fact, it’s the only tree specified that we know for sure was in the garden. Throughout the Scriptures, the plant becomes a symbol of prosperity, wellbeing, and security. Along with the vine, to sit under the plentiful shade of your own fig tree is the epitome of safety, peace and wellbeing in many biblical passages. These plants don’t grow overnight, and it takes time to culture and nurture them—their maturity indicates that the gardener has been continuously and steadfastly there, tending to their growth over the years. For Israel, exile and wandering has been a byword for punishment and so sitting under your own vine and fig tree is a sign of blessing and security.
The fig tree in the bible is also symbolic of Israel itself—it often symbolized the health of the nation both spiritually and physically.1 Hosea 9:10 says,
“When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree.”
Later, the Bible tells us of the glorious time when,
“Judah and Israel lived in safety, every man under his vine and his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.” (1 Kings 4:25)
Later still, following the minor prophets we can see warnings to the nation of how God would bring destruction and failure of crops as part of His judgement against them, specifying empty fig trees that were stripped bare and fruitless. (Joel, Habakkuk and Haggai) It’s almost as if the fig was something of a barometer of the health of the nation – taken away as punishment, and flourishing in times of restoration.
In the New Testament we can also see Yeshua using the symbolic fig tree – firstly in the calling of Nathanael who was “sitting under a fig tree” like a “true Israelite” in John 1:48-50. Later he curses the fruitless fig tree, representing unfruitfulness (Mark 11:12-21), and then uses the fig as a metaphor of how we should recognise the signs of the times (Matthew 24:32). This end-times warning system with the fig analogy is picked up again in Revelation 6:13. So from Genesis to Revelation, the fig features strongly in scriptural symbolism. There are many more interesting references not mentioned here which are also worth exploring in Judges, Song of Songs, and parables of Yeshua.
Today Israel is full of fig trees—huge, well developed, shady and mature. They produce two harvests of fruit a year, the early crop around Passover time in the spring, even before the leaves have unfurled, and the biggest, best, most juicy fruits come into their own in September, close to the Jewish holidays of Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot (Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement and Feast of Tabernacles respectively). It is possible to consider that the flourishing of figs today in Israel is a Messianic sign in itself – the people are back in the land, the fig trees are abundant and plentiful, and the nation is now waiting for restoration to come. We know that the restoration will be a spiritual revival, and all his people greeting their Messiah Yeshua, saying “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”, or “Welcome Yeshua, our Messiah!” Come, Lord Jesus, and find us ready!
So this short article was very interesting to me and I felt it gave our study this morning a little extra flavor. Let’s try to see what Jesus was teaching now towards the end of Luke chapter 6. Luke6.43-44
“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit,
for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.
If you ever want to strike up a conversation with the produce manager at your favorite grocery store, here you go. “How are you finding things today?” “Well, let me tell you. I see fruit here. Some good, some not so great. You know through, Jesus said no good tree bears bad fruit...”
At first glance, what Jesus is saying here may seem unnecessary because it is a very obvious thing. Of course bad trees don’t produce good fruit, nor bad trees good fruit! But clearly Jesus isn’t just making a horticultural observation here, because he proceeds to say:
The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
So then, the lesson is about the heart, and produce is just the illustration. Jesus was speaking to people from an agricultural society, they knew all about farming and produce and they knew that fruit trees produce after their own kind. Jesus’ illustration then, is both simple and powerful. This is one of those illustrations where next to no one would walk away saying, “I wonder what he meant by that?”. Now, other times Jesus gave parables that many people did not understand. This was fulfillment of some of the prophecies about him, that seeing they would not see and hearing they would not hear. Many people missed the messages given in parables. In some cases, his followers understood what others did not. Sometimes he took his disciples aside to explain the parable to them, as he did with the parable of the sower.
Now, we do well to remember some of our little Bible study habits here. Remember that scripture cannot mean anything differently than it meant to the first audience, the first ones to hear or read a particular teaching. So we like to see who the audience is when we are looking at any particular passage. Paul’s letters were to churches and individuals named in the letters. The OT prophets were speaking at times to the people of Israel and other times to other nations. Sometimes a prophet spoke directly to someone individually, as Nathan did with King David. Usually you do not have to look very far to learn who is being addressed by a certain portion of scripture, and our text this morning is no different.
If we go all the way back to Luke 6.20 we are told exactly who Jesus is speaking to on this occasion. “And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”
So the original audience that heard this passage was his disciples. It is people who are following him and trying to learn from him. If you were here last week, you will remember that immediately proceeding our passage this morning was a warning about judging others. If you missed that sermon, I recommend you go to the website or the app or wherever to listen to it, because we discussed the fact that many people have a wrong idea about Jesus’ command to judge not. We are to judge with right judgment.
So after warning about not judging, Jesus tells us something about rightful judging. That we know trees by their fruits. In other words, actions, behaviors, and words of people often manifest something that is in their hearts. And we would do well to pay attention especially to the words we hear and the words we speak, since Jesus taught that out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. James wrote quite a bit about the tongue and its evils. James 3.7-12
For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind,
but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.
From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.
Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water?
Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.
I wonder where James learned this? Could it be that he listened carefully to His Master, Jesus, and took very seriously this teaching? Jesus said it, James said it, and I believe that in a sense we know this innately. This is why it is dangerous to joke about things that can be taken to be mean or hurtful, because what Jesus is teaching, and what James is teaching, is that what we say really does have something to do with our hearts.
But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
The proverbs have many, many warnings about the tongue. In fact, in one of my bibles, I underlined every Proverb that had to do with communication. I found at least 124. I have made a list of them for anyone interested. You are free to look them up on your own. Maybe underline them in your bible. Try to memorize some of them. I find it to be a very sobering reminder to myself of how I need to be in control of my tongue. I am not going to read all 124, but here are some of the Proverbs about communication:
Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense, but a man of understanding remains silent.
The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked, what is perverse.
A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech,
winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger,
with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord;
therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing.
There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.
The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
The heart of the wise makes his speech judicious and adds persuasiveness to his lips.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.
A man of great wrath will pay the penalty, for if you deliver him, you will only have to do it again.
Drive out a scoffer, and strife will go out, and quarreling and abuse will cease.
He who loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious, will have the king as his friend.
Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man,
lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.
Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears.
For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases.
Again and again we learn from scripture that it matters what we say, and Jesus teaches us that what we say, and the actions we do, are fruits of what it within. Now, it is important to distinguish some important things here. First, note that James said if anyone could control their tongue, they would be a perfect person. We know that only Jesus was perfect, so where does that leave the rest of us?
Remember, if you are in Christ, what you nature was and what it is now. We were dead in sin, but now we are alive in Christ: Romans6.3-4
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
Paul is teaching believers that before they came to Christ, they were dead in sin and slaves to sin. But now, in Christ, we have a new Master. Our new Master is Jesus, and we are slaves of His, meaning we are now slaves to righteousness.
So before we came to Christ, our fruit was bad fruit, because it was fruit from a bad tree. A tree full of the rot of sin. But now we have been made new. 2Cor5.17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Yet sometimes our fruit still looks like bad fruit. Why? Well, even though a healthy tree does not bear bad fruit, yet even a healthy tree may have some of its fruit damaged by pests. Our nature now in Christ is to produce good fruit, but sometimes the flesh we still battle with us causes damage to that fruit. Don’t despair, Christian, when you produce bad fruit, but rather, get out the pruning shears. You see, if you have ever had a fruit tree, or something like a hibiscus tree, or roses, you may see nothing but lots of buds, and yet the good gardener will prune, even sometimes pruning out buds that have not yet budded.
Or perhaps the tree is generally healthy, but some leaves or some branches have been damaged by bugs attacking, then you cut those off, because if you want the entire tree healthy, you must cut out those parts that are not. Your nature, if you are in Christ, is that you are a healthy tree. Yet the pruning must continue on, because sin is always knocking at your door.
For the person not in Christ, the nature is sick, desperately sick, and full of deceit. They may produce some ok fruit by accident, but it will never be truly good fruit. Their nature will be to produce bad fruit. Even what may appear good will have some issues with it, even if not seen immediately. That is because the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. Good or bad, whatever our nature is, that is they type of fruit that we will produce.
Well then, we must consider that the tree needs to be healthy. Now Jesus gives another metaphor for spiritual life, and that is the foundation it is laid upon.
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?
Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like:
he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.
But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”
Jesus is challenging those who would say they are His but act nothing like him. He wants disciples who do what he tells them to. James said we need to be doers and not hearers only of the word of God. Jesus said if you love me you will keep my commands. If then, we claim to be His, we must live as though we truly are. If we do the things he teaches, we are like that man who made sure the foundation was set on rock. If not we are like the one who built without a foundation.
Of course, we know what happens to the two houses in Jesus’ metaphor, both houses built, but one on stable rock, the other with no foundation at all. Every now and then, a building collapses, and it makes the news, and very often once everything has been investigated and the report comes in, there was a problem with the foundation. On the other hand, a good foundation can withstand quite a bit. Everyone remembers the 2001 attack on the world trade center towers, but not everyone knows that in 1993 Al Queda terrorists set off a massive bomb in the parking garage of the world trade center. It was supposed to cause one of the towers to fall into the other tower.
The bomb went off, it did kill some people, and injured many, but the tower did not fall. Why? It was on a very solid footing. The steel supports of the building went down very deep into the bedrock below. Now, the towers did fall in 2001, but that was because of a bad foundation. What is our foundation?
What is the foundation of the church? The foundation of the church is the prophets and apostles. Christ himself is the cornerstone. Where do we find out what Christ said, what the apostles and prophets taught? In the scriptures. So where should our foundation be? It must be based on the Word of God. This Word of God that never fails and always hold up, no matter what comes against it. If that is our foundation, then we will be able to stand, even when we are under distress.
If we need good roots and good health to bear good fruit, if we need a foundation to stand on, let it be the Word of God!
God is pleased to use Scripture to pierce the heart and awaken us to faith. . . . History is replete with stories of how great people were converted through the power of the Word.
R. C. Sproul
Scripture … is the only revelation of the mind and will of God available to us. This is what the finality of Scripture means to us; it is the only extant revelatory Word of God.
John Murray
It is scripture that protects us from ourselves, protects us from false teachers and bad doctrine.
I have observed that all the heresies and errors have arisen not from Scripture’s own plain statements, but when that plainness of statement is ignored, and men follow the Scholastic arguments of their own brains.
Martin Luther
This is why the Bible must be preached, and not merely taught.
A sermon, moreover, comes with far greater power to the consciences of the hearers when it is plainly the very word of God—not a lecture about the Scripture, but Scripture itself opened up and enforced.
Charles Spurgeon
May scripture be our only source, because it goes beyond the head knowledge, and pierces our very hearts! The Word of God, living and active, the Word of God, the hammer and the fire of Jeremiah, the Word of God, our very life! Where will we go?
When Jesus preached a hard message about marriage and divorce, and then told his disciples that no one can come to him unless it is granted him by the father, some of his disciples left him. And Jesus looked at the tweleve and asked them if they wanted to leave, but Peter said no, you have the Words of eternal life!
But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this?
Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.)
And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.
So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,
The words of eternal life. Given to us in the Bible, God’s Holy Word. and these words of eternal life are for all who come to Christ, and only those granted by the Father. Still today, people get furious at the idea that one can only truly come to Christ if it is granted by the Father. They rail against it and say this goes against free will! Yet this is what scripture teaches, that no one comes to the Father unless the Spirit draws him. He does this through His word, and He owes to no one an automatic pass. Yet he gives graciously to those who are His.
Salvation only comes through the Word of God, heard, preached, read. And when salvation comes, we are to know His word better as we go, so that we have a strong foundation, and healthy roots so that we can produce good fruit.
We need God’s Word, we need to know the doctrines of God, they are not unimportant. We cannot be those who say we have faith in Christ, and that is enough and I don’t want to confuse things by making a huge study of it. No, we must do the hard work of studying scripture together. That is one of my constant prayers for our church, that God would put into all of our hearts a desire to go deeper, to know Him better so that our foundations get stronger to withstand attack, and so our roots get healthier, so that we may produce good fruit.