THE BARREN FIG-TREE

Our liveliest feelings perhaps on entering a new year, are those of thankfulness for the goodness and mercy, the abounding goodness and never failing mercy, which have brought us hitherto. But there are other feelings which ought to have a place in our minds at this time. We have blessings to be answerable for as well as thankful for — personal blessings, family blessings, national blessings, and, above all, spiritual privileges and blessings. It is of these last, that the parable in the text speaks; and our church is now speaking to us of them. By calling on us to commemorate the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, it reminds us of the privileges which we enjoy above our heathen fathers in consequence of that manifestation. The Lord grant that we may leave these walls this morning impressed anew with our deep responsibility for them!

“A certain man,” says our Lord, “had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard.” This certain man represents God, this fig-tree a nominal Christian.

I. Notice the situation of the tree, the place where it stands. It is in God’s vineyard, and our Lord tells us how it came there. The vineyard was not its natural situation. It did not spring up there, nor was it brought there by accident. God himself had it planted there. An emblem, brethren, of our situation at this hour, and of the way in which we came into it. You and I are in God’s vineyard. We are standing in the midst of God’s church, and it is God himself who has placed us in it. Our spiritual privileges are not things of course. They are not, like the air and the light, our natural inheritance, the common bounties of God’s providence. Look through the world — how many of our fellow creatures can we find who are blessed as we are? The heart aches as we attempt to answer the question. It is no vineyard, it is a wilderness, in which the great mass of our fellow-sinners are standing, a desolate wilderness; whereas we in Christian nation and in this Christian parish, are in a cultivated and fertile field, or rather in a garden which the Lord has taken out of that wilderness, and set apart for himself.

II. See next what is expected from this tree. Is it that it shall take root and grow where it is planted, and receive the showers of heaven as they fall on it? We may say, “Yes;” but God says, “No, this will not satisfy me. I come to it seeking fruit.”

And what is this fruit? It is not those things which some of us perhaps have now in our minds, the social and moral virtues, charity, honesty, and such like. These are all good in their way, but these are fruits of nature’s growth. The wild fig-tree will produce them. The heathen and idolater will bring them forth. The tree our Lord speaks of, is a tree in a vineyard, a planted and cultivated tree, and something more than fruit of this common kind is expected from it.

Turn to the fifth chapter of Isaiah. God is described there as enclosing and planting a vineyard for himself. He goes to it for fruit, and he finds it, but of what kind? Of just the same kind as these vines would have produced if he had left them alone, if he had suffered them to grow in the desert in nature’s wildness. Twice over he says, “I looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes;” and for this he lays that vineyard waste. So with us. Social virtues and heathen virtues will not satisfy God in us. He wants fruit from us corresponding to the privileges he has bestowed upon us; not only more fruit than any heathen could render him, but fruit of another kind, Christian fruit, such fruit as nothing but the gospel of Christ can produce, and none but men planted in his church and brought under the influence of that gospel, ever yielded him.

He addresses us in his gospel as sinners. He makes himself known to us as the sinner’s Saviour and God. He tells us that he is full of pity and love for sinners, and has done more for them than for any other creatures in his universe; and what he demands from us is, that we should feel towards him and act towards him as sinners ought to feel and act toward such a God. He wants in us sorrowful hearts for the sins we have committed against him, and believing hearts to embrace and confide in the love he bears us, and thankful hearts to praise and adore him for the wonderful mercy he has shown us. The husbandman desires from his vines and fig-trees such fruit as will testify to every beholder of the care and culture he has bestowed on them; so God desires from us such fruit as will proclaim to every one what he has done for us. Look again to the prophecy of Isaiah. There, in the sixty-first chapter, the whole work of Christ in his church is set forth; and what is the great object he is said to be aiming at in it all? It is that his people “may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.” The fruits God wants in us are “the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.”

III. And now go on to another point in the parable—the scrutiny this fig-tree draws on itself.

Observe, the owner of the vineyard does not forget the tree when he has planted it, nor does he sit at home waiting for his servants to bring him the produce of it when there is any; he is described as coming again and again into his vineyard, and going up to this tree and examining it. “He came and sought fruit thereon”; he was anxious about the matter, anxious, not only to gather the fruit if he could find any, but also not to overlook it if there should be some.

How anxiously, brethren, do we ministers sometimes look among our people for the fruits of the gospel! And those who are parents among us, how earnestly do we watch our children in order, if possible, to find some good thing in them to gladden us! And look at the gardener and the husbandman going over the scene of their labors, and examining, the one every field, and the other almost every tree and plant. But what is all this to the scrutiny which the living God takes of us? Our Christian friends watch us, our unchristian enemies watch us, angels in heaven watch us, and the devils that roam the earth watch us, but none watch us like God. We do not see him as he stands by our side; the great Observer of us is invisible and his scrutiny a silent one; we think no more of him perhaps than a tree in our garden thinks of us as we walk by it; but he marks every one of us every hour with the most searching attention. He listens to our words, he acquaints himself with our doings. He follows us wherever we go, from our beds to our tables, and then to our beds again. We cannot for one moment get away from his eye. And all this while he is not taking a merely superficial glance at us; he is searching our inmost hearts, looking us through and through. David felt this. “Thou art about my path,” he says, “and about my bed, and spiest out all my ways. Thou has searched me and known me; thou understandest my thoughts.”

It is surely an awful thing, brethren, for creatures such as we are, to be subject to such a scrutiny as this; and yet there is something cheering as well as solemn in the thought of it, cheering, I mean, to the sincere and contrite soul. “I am ready to tremble,” such a man says, “when I think that a holy God is continually searching me, but yet I am thankful that he thus searches me. I can sometimes find no fruit of the gospel within my heart, but even then perhaps he can. If it is there, I know he will find it. No matter how low down it lies, what corruptions hide it, with what a heap of rubbish it is mixed, if he has put any good thing in my heart towards him, he sees it in my heart; yes, and it may be, that while I am tempted to regard myself as one of the vilest cumberers of the ground that the ground bears, cankered, and blighted, and fit only for the axe and the burning, it may be that my God is rejoicing over the work of his own grace in my soul; is pointing it out to his angels, and bidding them mark how he will cherish and increase it.”

IV. Observe the marvellous patience of God with this unfruitful tree; “Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and find none.”

There is surprise, you observe, expressed in this language; surprise, it may be, at the unfruitfulness of such a tree in such a place. And if there is a wonderful thing to be found in the universe, it is a sinner planted in the church of Christ, and listening year after year to the gospel of Christ, and unmoved, unaffected, by that gospel, the same in heart and life as though he heard it not.

But though surprise at the sinner’s unfruitfulness may be implied here, yet it is surprise at God’s patience towards him, that these words seem chiefly to express. The Lord speaks in them as though he himself were wondering at his own patience. You and I, brethren, cannot estimate this patience, but consider—God has placed us in his vineyard, not secretly, but in the face of all heaven and hell. His creatures in other worlds are watching his proceedings with us. They have knowledge of all the spiritual mercies with which he has surrounded us, and all the means of grace and salvation he has vouchsafed us. That precious Bible he has placed in our hands, they see; the sermons that are preached to us, they hear; and as they hear them, they look on us to see their effects on us. Now for God to be, as it were, baffled in his purposes; for him to plant the tree, and the tree to bring forth no fruit; for him to be watching us week after week and year after year, longing to see this and that effect of his gospel in us, and yet never seeing it; and all the while for him to bear this, and go on bearing it—we may think lightly of such forbearance, but be assured that there is wonder in heaven and wonder in hell on account of it. The Lord did not deal thus with the angels who rebelled against him. Patience in their case was not heard of. In his righteous anger, he drove them at once into a world of darkness. But look at some of us—we have been rebels against him ever since we were born, sinning against him every hour of our existence, despising alike his displeasure and his favor, his goodness and his justice, making light of his law and light of his gospel; and yet where are we? Living still in a world of mercy, left standing even yet in the vineyard of his church, objects at this very moment of his thoughts and care. “Behold,” he says, “I still come seeking fruit of thee, though I have come to thee all thy life long and have found none.” O brethren, if any of you feel at the beginning of this year that you have nothing else to bless God for, bless him for his patience, his wonderful patience, towards you. Bless him that you are still breathing the air of this favored world, and listening still to his often heard and long despised offers of peace.

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V. But mark the displeasure expressed at last against this unfruitful tree.

And we no sooner look at this, than we discover a new light thrown by it on the divine patience. We think little of God’s forbearance with us, because we do not know how we are every moment displeasing and provoking him. We regard him as an indifferent observer of his vineyard; as a careless father of his family, as one to whom, in the multiplicity of his affairs, it is a matter of little concern how his children feel towards him or how they act; but there is no father among us, who cares for his children as God cares for us; there is no father who hates that which is evil in his children, as God hates it in us. All the time he is bearing with us, we are grieving his Holy Spirit; he is bearing with us, if I may so speak, with a tried and wounded heart, with a heart that many an anguished father can understand—it loves, but yet mourns over the object that it loves; in spite of all its fond affection for it, it is constrained to be angry with it and displeased. And this makes the displeasure of God so fearful when at last it comes. It is a displeasure which has long been kept under. It comes upon us after long forbearance with us. It is something which has triumphed over great love and great patience; not the flowing of a stream that has always had a free course, moving along in an unobstructed channel, it is a river bursting through barriers which have long dammed it up, and pouring forth its accumulated waters in a desolating heap. Look here. The patient owner of this tree becomes all at once determined on its destruction. For three years he goes up to it, searching among its leaves for fruit; he comes away disappointed, but yet silent. There is no blaming of the tree, no complaining of it. The people in the vineyard, who have witnessed all this, may have ceased to notice it, or if they still notice it, they may say, “That tree is safe. Unfruitful as it is, for some strange reason our master loves it, and so well does he love it, that he will never remove it.” But all at once comes the command, “Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?” And what follows? Is the tree at once levelled? No; for notice,

VI. The intercession made for it. The dresser of the vineyard 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.”

Here we must observe that our Lord’s parables, though generally very simple, are sometimes very lofty. It is easy to see that they come from a mind familiar with heavenly things, and not easily forgetting them even when stooping down to low earthly things. We think, as we read them hastily, of ourselves only and of what is going on among ourselves, but the instant we closely examine them, they lift us up; we discover that the thoughts of Christ must have been in heaven as he delivered them. Here doubtless a heavenly scene is laid open to us. There is but once Mediator who can interpose effectually between God and man. Ministers, parents, and friends, may say concerning this or that sinner, “Lord, let him alone;” but Christ is not thinking here of any of these. He has himself in his thoughts; he is anticipating his employment at his Father’s right hand whither he is going. He is the vinedresser who pleads for this worthless tree to save it from destruction.

And how natural and touching are the terms in which his intercession is made! Could you follow a Christian minister, brethren, into his privacy, and hear his secret pleadings with God for the people he loves, you would find but little disposition in him to blame those among them, who have withstood his words. With feelings which none but himself can understand, he is far more ready to blame himself. “How,” he says, “can I expect to see the fruits of the gospel in these men? I have not preached it among them with half the earnestness that I ought. They are unfruitful, but it is because I have been slothful. I have never really labored for their souls.” Now look to the parable. We find something like the same spirit in this great Vinedresser. Not one word does he utter against this barren tree. Not one word does he say of all the labor he has bestowed upon it. With a wonderful pity and condescension, he seems to trace its long unfruitfulness to his own neglect. “Lord, let it alone. The fault may be mine. I have not done for it all I might. Henceforth I will do more. I will dig about it and dung it. It shall not only have all the means of fruitfulness every tree in thy vineyard enjoys, it shall have more. It shall become the special object of my labor and care.”

And who can tell, brethren, what pleadings may now be going on in the unseen heavens for some of us? Who can tell what new and untried means our unwearied Lord is now declaring he will employ with us? “Lord, let them alone this year also, Leave this and that sinner in my hands one year more. I have sent him warnings, but I will send him now plainer and louder warnings. I have visited him with afflictions, I will visit him now with sharper and more cutting sorrows. The spade shall go deeper; it shall disburb the man’s very roots. His conscience too I have disquieted, but now I will make his conscience a daily scourge to him. He shall not come into my house, but he shall hear something there to disquiet him; he shall not lay down his head on his pillow, but a voice within him shall say, ‘Thou are a guilty, miserable man.’ I have told him of my great salvation. I have offered it to him times out of number without money or price; he shall hear of it in the coming year yet more often; it shall be pressed on his acceptance with greater earnestness and force. Lord, let him alone. It may be that he will at last bring forth the fruits thou hast so long desired in him.”

And then comes in these words a glancing at the glorious consequences that would follow. “If it bear fruit, well,” our translators say, but there is no word answering to “well” in the original. Our Lord does not say what would follow the fruitfulness of this tree. He breaks off as though he could not say. It seems as though all the glory and delight resulting to his Father and himself from a sinner’s salvation had rushed into his mind and silenced him. “If it bear fruit — O the happiness for that poor sinner, and O the unutterable joy for thee and me!”

But mark — it is only a year that the Intercessor asks for this tree, one year, a limited season. After that, he says, he will interpose no longer; and more — he will consent in the sentence of its destruction; “Thou shalt cut it down.”

I know not, brethren, how this language may strike some of you, but there seems to me something very fearful in it. Who is it that promises here to consent after a little in the entire destruction of every unfruitful hearer of God’s truth among us? It is none other than he who has shed his heart’s blood for our salvation, and who has all our life long been pleading that we may be spared. It is painful to have a kind earthly friend give us up, but to be given up, and given up to certain destruction, by the blessed Jesus, the kindest of all friends, one who bears with and loves us as none but himself can bear and love — think what we will of it, there is something appalling in this. It is like a father who has cherished fondly a son, a worthless son, while all around have been calling out for justice on him—it is like that father’s being at last forced to say, “I can hold out no longer. I can do no more. Let justice have him.”

And here the parable ends. The fate of this tree, you perceive, is left in uncertainty; we know not the result of the Vinedresser’s intercession and care. And who, as he looks round on this congregation, can tell how it will be at the last with many assembled here? Of some we can say with almost certainty, “It will be well with them. Let me die their death, and let my last end be like theirs.” They are now bringing forth the fruits of the gospel, and we want nothing more to assure us that the gospel will save their souls. There is that in them, which tells us that God even now delights in them, as a man delights in the fruitful tree he himself has planted; that he will watch over them, and keep them, and gather fruit from them with joy forever. Let such see in this parable what they owe to him. Let them see what they owe to him also who has interceded for them, and digged round them, and made them by his grace and Spirit what they are.

As for you whose character and end are doubtful, you may see here why they are so. Ask some of your Christian neighbors, the very men perhaps who are now sitting by your side, whether they would have their souls in your soul’s stead; they would tell you, if they told you any thing, “No, not for worlds.” And if you ask them why not, their answer would be simply this. “The gospel of Jesus Christ has had hitherto no visible, no decided effect on you. We cannot see that it has done any thing whatever within your hearts.” You have heard it, brethren, as others have; you have acknowledged it perhaps as others do, to be a blessed and glorious gospel, but when we say to you, what has it done for you? has it really convinced you of your sin? has it broken your hearts? has it beaten down your self-righteousness, and that self-confidence and self-love within you, which nothing else could ever shake? has it filled you with self-loathing? has it caused the world to seem poor to you, and Christ precious, and heaven near? has it made a breach between you and all sin, and put within you a hungering and thirsting after righteousness, which nothing but righteousness can satisfy? —when we ask you such questions as these, and you say “No” to them, or wish to put them away and give us no answer at all, then we must tell you as you look forward to years to come, that darkness hangs over them; we know no more how it will be with you when this year ends, then we know whether the day which ends it, will be a cloudy or a bright one. O may the God of all grace excite in you this year, or rather this day, close and prayerful thought! “What shall I eat? What shall I drink? Wherewithal shall I be clothed? Where shall I bestow my fruits and my goods?” Beloved brethren, have done with these miserable questions. Put them aside. Take up others. “Where am I? What am I? Where and what shall I be when all my years on earth are ended? Will it be well with me at the last, or would it have been good for me never to have been born?” These are questions worth the asking. O that you felt them to be such! O that from this moment you may never know one hour’s rest, till you have obtained from the living God something like a peaceful answer to them!

“What is prayer? It is the communion of the spiritual life in the soul of man with its divine Author; it is a breathing back the divine life into the bosom of God from whence it came; it is holy, spiritual, humble converse with God.”

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