Doomed People
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that the open sinner is less guilty than is he who professes to serve
God, but who bears no fruit to His glory.
The parable of the fig tree, spoken before Christ’s visit to
Jerusalem, had a direct connection with the lesson He taught in curs-
ing the fruitless tree. For the barren tree of the parable the gardener
pleaded, Let it alone this year, until I shall dig about it and dress it;
and if it bear fruit, well; but if not, then after that thou shalt cut it
down. Increased care was to be given the unfruitful tree. It was to have
every advantage. But if it remained fruitless, nothing could save it
from destruction. In the parable the result of the gardener’s work was
not foretold. It depended upon that people to whom Christ’s words
were spoken. They were represented by the fruitless tree, and it rested
with them to decide their own destiny. Every advantage that Heaven
could bestow was given them, but they did not profit by their increased
blessings. By Christ’s act in cursing the barren fig tree, the result was
shown. They had determined their own destruction.
For more than a thousand years the Jewish nation had abused God’s
mercy and invited His judgments. They had rejected His warnings
and slain His prophets. For these sins the people of Christ’s day made
themselves responsible by following the same course. In the rejection
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of their present mercies and warnings lay the guilt of that generation.
The fetters which the nation had for centuries been forging, the people
of Christ’s day were fastening upon themselves.
In every age there is given to men their day of light and privilege,
a probationary time in which they may become reconciled to God.
But there is a limit to this grace. Mercy may plead for years and be
slighted and rejected; but there comes a time when mercy makes her
last plea. The heart becomes so hardened that it ceases to respond to
the Spirit of God. Then the sweet, winning voice entreats the sinner
no longer, and reproofs and warnings cease.
That day had come to Jerusalem. Jesus wept in anguish over the
doomed city, but He could not deliver her. He had exhausted every
resource. In rejecting the warnings of God’s Spirit, Israel had rejected
the only means of help. There was no other power by which they could
be delivered.
The Jewish nation was a symbol of the people of all ages who
scorn the pleadings of Infinite Love. The tears of Christ when He
wept over Jerusalem were for the sins of all time. In the judgments