Today on real life radio. Jesus never said, thus saith the Lord. Why? Because he says, I say to you. I say to you, no one had ever done this before.
You shall see me no more till you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Yah, Yahweh. Look at, in your Bible, it's capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, isn't it? Jesus now announces that He is Yah. Y A H, that's the name of God. God.
This is real life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible.
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So if you haven't checked it out already, that's the Real Life Network streaming the best in Christian and conservative content. Sign up and start streaming today for free at RealLifeNetwork.com. That's RealLifeNetwork.com. On today's edition of Real Life Radio. Pastor Jack continues his series now called The Parables of Jesus.
And a message titled The Parable of the Fig Tree, Part 1. A parable is a picture story painted by Jesus that really makes the truth crystal clear. In this parable, Jesus likens his return to a fig tree. You see, this parable was given by Jesus shortly before his death, burial, and resurrection.
So, this puts an added urgency to its message. When you see that the fig tree has leaves on its branches, you know that the summer is near, and it's just as you'll know the time is near for Jesus' return.
So today, Pastor Jack teaches that the sequence of prophetic events is as certain as the sequence of natural events. The Pharisees of Jesus' time missed it, but as Christ followers, we wait for his return with eager anticipation.
Now with his message called Parable of the Fig Tree, Part 1. Here's Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.
Okay. Listen, church, grab your Bibles tonight and turn, if you would, to Matthew chapter 24. Matthew chapter 24. And tonight. We begin A series within a series, I think it's safe to say.
The Wednesday nights that we're going to be dealing with, this parable, I hope, rocks this house. I hope rocks this church. and shakes things up. And I'm going to tell you the reason why. This parable that we're going to be looking at.
is unlike any other parable that Jesus gave. And you remember that the parable, parable, parabolic, parabolos teaching is Jesus' divine form of teaching. That para alongside balos to cast, Jesus is casting alongside truth. in front of the listener's ears. And remember, we announced it last time together that when you speak like this, or when the parable goes out, or when Jesus gives the word like this, as he does in the parables.
Remember, Isaiah told us that the Messiah would come speaking to the crowds in parables. The disciples asked him, Why do you speak to the crowds in parables? It was a masterful, God-ordained, divine way of communicating because. Unadulterated, pure truth goes out in such a way that it actually judges the human heart and mind. Only God can do this.
The truth goes out and it lands right alongside a human mind, a heart, and that. person's thinking looks at it and it They either get it, if their heart's open, they'll get it, or if their heart is closed, they won't get it. And it's divine communication, a parable. It's absolutely awesome. One person gets it, the other person doesn't get it.
Why is that? Is it that God doesn't want this person to get it, but He wants that person? No. It's that their heart's open and their heart's not open. And it's really an amazing thing.
This parable is absolutely amazing because it arises in the middle or in the context of how the parable is to be interpreted. It's unlike any other parable.
So, we're going to read a lot of Bible tonight. There's going to be this portion of scripture, and then right in the middle is this parable. And watch, everybody, the parable, Jesus intends for it to pull the context together as it becomes the nucleus. Does that make sense to you? You have that.
It's vitally, vitally important. The parable of the fig tree.
Now In Matthew 24, Verse 32 and 33 is where it's announced, though we'll be reading much more about it. By the way, tonight will be the introduction into this parable. That's how extensive it is. Matthew 24, 32 says, Jesus speaking, now learn this parable from the fig tree. You've not heard that in any other parable, have you?
He says, Now learn this. It's strong. He's saying, get this. Don't miss this one. This is vital.
And learn it from the fig tree. Luke tells us that you learn it from the fig tree. Any tree. or all trees in the spring. Jesus goes on and he says, When its branches have already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.
So you also, when you see all these things, will you mark that down? All these things.
Some of you may be of the Preterist movement persuasion. I don't know. You need to mark this down. Because you'll use this portion of Scripture, but you'll use it actually if you're watching and listening to your own demise. Jesus lists a grand scheme of things, and he says, Not some of these things will happen, not most of these things will happen.
What does he say? All of these things. Will happen. When you see all these things, know that it, you ought to circle the word it, is near at the doors. In Mark 13:28, Jesus says, Now learn this parable from the fig tree, two times recorded.
Now learn this. He's forcing And in a sense, urging the listeners: do everything you can to get this parable and to put into practice. Why? This parable was one of the most mighty. Teachings that Jesus has ever given.
And that's not some easily said statement I'm making. This is none other than part of what's called the Olive It Discourse. Bible students, you ought to jot it down. The Olivet Discourse comes out of the core and centrality of this parable. The all of it discourse.
By the way, Jesus. Gave this teaching that we're going to look at on the Tuesday. Of Passion Week. What does that mean? Palm Sunday, you guys know that.
Remember, we'll talk about it again tonight. He came into Jerusalem, presented himself as king on Palm Sunday. We just celebrated that recently. There was Passion Monday, Jesus ministered. There was Passion Tuesday, that's when not only this message took place, but Passion Tuesday, most scholars have been able to figure out that that Tuesday in his sacrificial week, Jesus ministered somewhere around 18 to 21 hours on that day.
It's the longest ministry day that we know of in Jesus' earthly ministry. And it's on that Tuesday of Passion Week, and this is where you see the olive discourse. And why is it important? It's absolutely important. Why?
Because, listen, this. Parable puts an added urgency to the context. To the context. In your mind's eye, as we prepare to get into this parable, keep this in mind if you can look at it this way. Imagine a beautiful tub.
or basin of water. And it's very Placid, it's very calm, it's very still. And we pull the plug. And you don't know that exactly just yet, but we pull the plug. You may hear something, but the point is the water begins to move.
Listen, from the outside, slower, inside quicker, and it begins to. Whirlpool downward, are you with me? Until everything you see is brought down into a column and it goes through a small opening. all the truth on the page, as it were. Jesus says, this parable is so important that what is being said all comes together around a very, very key issue, and that is this.
Jesus says, get this parable, don't miss it. You've got to understand this. Are you a Christian tonight? Jesus is saying tonight, learn this parable. You say, well, how do you know?
Maybe you know. He gave it 2,000 years ago. That's another fantastic thing about this parable, it encompasses. From the moment he said it. All the way out.
To the establishment of the millennial kingdom when Christ returns in the second coming. Oh man. That is awesome. That's how and why this parable is so, so important. It's awesome.
So, in fact, turn in your Bible. I know you're there. Just go a little bit to the left. Look at Matthew 23. Verse thirty-seven.
Matthew 23. Thirty-seven. I want you to follow along with me. Jesus is speaking and he says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those. who are sent to her.
How often circle this He says, I. Wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.
Well, keep reading. Keep your finger right there. You ought to circle the word I. Don't let anybody ever tell you that Jesus never Claim to be deity or God. Jesus in this statement, in this passage is announcing.
That he, in fact, has been the one responsible for sending the prophets. To Jerusalem, to Israel.
Okay. This is an awesome statement. It's undeniable. Regarding the deity of Jesus Christ, but it gets better. Notice he's speaking.
Two The house of Israel, the nation of Israel, that's important. Verse 38: See, or behold, your house has left you desolate. For I say to you, will you mark those words? For I say to you, why? Jesus Christ, the centrality.
A figure of the Bible never once said, Thus saith the Lord. Ever did Jesus say thus saith the Lord? Did Isaiah say thus saith the Lord? Did Jeremiah say thus saith the Lord? Did Ezekiel say thus saith the Lord?
Absolutely. Jesus never said thus saith the Lord. Why? Because he says I say to you. He is the Lord.
I say to you, no one had ever done this before. I say to you, You shall see me no more till you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Yah, Yahweh. Look at in your Bible, it's capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, isn't it? Jesus now announces that he is Yah. Y A H, that's the name of God.
You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.
Chapter 24, verse 1. Then Jesus went out, and that's this is not a then like it was a month later. This is right then and there. Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and his disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, Do you not see all these things?
And I'm sure they're going, yeah, yeah, of course, how could you miss it? 13 stories tall, trimmed in gold. You can see this thing from 50 miles away. And Jesus says, Do you see all these things? It's like, yeah.
Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down. Shock. You guys, listen. The temple Was adorned like you can't believe. In Jesus' day, the Holy Spirit for almost 600 years had been gone from the temple.
The glory departed. It's recorded in the book of Ezekiel. The glory had long departed. But listen, the Romans, or I should say, under Roman support, Herod had rebuilt for the Jews what The temple was during Jesus' day. And it was awesome.
It wasn't as grand as Solomon's temple, but it was bigger in size, Herod's was. During his era, the one, the temple that Jesus saw, it was glorious, it was fantastic. But it was spiritually dead. But the Bible announces, Jesus says, not one stone is going to be left upon another. Listen, if you're a skeptic in the house, you need to sit up and take notice of this.
Guys, I think we have some slides. We have a few slides. You want to throw them up there? Pictures. You guys, now, this is okay.
We'll have a few more slides in a moment, but don't change this picture. When Through archaeological Digs and removal of rubble, you gotta look at go up about one, two, three, four, five, six. See the big dark line on the wall? That's the western wall, by the way. Sand was there.
That was not there. And it was unearthed. When it was unearthed, these stones, when you got down to the bedrock area, These stones were unearthed.
Now, the unfortunate thing is, I wish we could see a human being in there amongst those stones, specifically in the back. But we have a few other pictures. But before we go to those other pictures, do you see these large stones on the wall, the actual wall itself? Those stones, those walls. Uh Jesus saw those walls.
Those are literally walls that Jesus saw. Again, that's part of the Western Retaining Wall, and it is massive. I wish we had a, we should have superimposed like a semi-truck trailer to show you the massive size. 500 tons.
Some of the stones weigh. There are two stones, subterranean, that when we go to Israel, we go down underneath that Roman highway right there. There's a Roman roadway. We go down underneath those stones in a tunnel that takes us about 60 feet down to areas of bedrock. And there are two stones there that were brought and put into place by.
Solomon, not Herod. Goes back to Solomon's day. And the stones are considered the two largest man-made hewn stones on planet Earth. They dwarf the stones at, for example, the pyramids in Egypt. Two largest known stones.
or cut rocks, cut stones in the world.
Next slide. This is, by the way, when you come up out of that tunnel, you come up and you see these. These are massive. It's hard for you to get a. Um a scale or a size to that.
Next slide. Um Well, here's the, again, it's just beyond, but here's the deal. Uh there is a national park sign. That you can barely see. You'd have to know where to look.
But there's a national park sign that announces that.
Now, you gotta remember, this is the. Israeli National Park Service, it says right there that these stones came from the top of the Temple Mount. When Titus Vespasian of the fifth Roman Legion, General Titus, came And threw down the stones from the temple that was being destroyed, threw down the stones. To reclaim the gold that had melted in between them from the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. It tells you right there, in 70 AD.
You say, well, okay, that's cool, that's cool.
Well, here's what's really cool. That's right, the National Park Service, we were just there a few weeks ago, living proof. In your eyes, Jesus said, Not very long from now, these stones are all going to come down. Not one stone's going to be lift upon another. Guess what?
By the time Rome got done scraping the melted gold and silver out from the cracks. Not one of those stones up on top where the temple was was left on top of the other. They were all stripped and scraped of the gold and silver. Exactly as Jesus said. Absolutely awesome.
This is one of those things. Of course, you know, more and more as you read the Bible, more and more. The joy of all this comes true is the fact of the matter that you are not being invited by anybody to put your faith in some storybook fairy tale, but Christians have their faith as long as it's biblically based, which would make you a Christian. Your faith is founded upon the Word of God, the Bible. That's faith founded upon fact.
You need to remember that. Don't let somebody push you around about your faith. Oh, you guys, you're blind, you silly. No, no, no, no. We're Christians because our faith is founded upon fact.
And Jesus said. Not one stone will be left upon another that shall be thrown down. Verse three, we are indebted forever to the disciples here.
Now as he sat on the Mount of Olives, that's just opposite Probably about an Quarter of a mile or less from the Temple Mount, now he's on the Mount of Olives. The disciples came to him privately, saying, Tell us, there's three questions they ask if you look carefully. Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age? Not the end of the world, the end of the age as we know it. When will all of man's self Governance concludes, and the kingdom be established.
That's what they're asking.
So, church, everybody listen, get your pen ready. They ask. Three great questions. They're questions that you want to know about. When will the end be?
What's going to be the signs? What are going to be the indicators of the very end of all these things? Coming to pass and your kingdom being established. The first thing out of Jesus' mouth should warn all of us tonight, and please don't forget this. Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no one deceives you.
Don't you think he would have said, watch for this, look for the other thing, you'll see people wearing this, there'll be that. No, he says, watch out. That nobody deceives you. And I need to pause right here for a moment. Church, family of God, please.
Spend more time reading your Bibles. Deception is afoot. People are being led astray. And listen, you can get. All that you need To be safe to the end, if you read your Bible.
Turn off the T V or stop listening to I don't care what you're doing. If you're not reading the Bible, whatever the other thing is, is wrong.
Well, I listen to Christian radio. Turn it off. Read the Bible. and you will not be led astray. Jesus is saying, watch out, know the word of God.
Why? Verse 5: For many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ. And will deceive many. There's a promise for you. Many will be deceived.
And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation. Ethnos against ethnos, ethnicity against ethnicity, and kingdom against kingdom. That's a reference to world wars.
The word kingdom here is political powers on a global scale will war against political powers, and there will be famines, pestilence. Pestilence is incurable diseases. Earthquakes in various places. And strong winds that blow your trees over. I'm kidding.
All these are the beginning of sorrows. Verse 9. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my namesake.
Now, notice this. Jesus is speaking to the disciples, but it's going to go out from the disciples all the way to the age in which you and I live in, all the way to his second coming regarding the establishment of his kingdom. Church, do you have this? Do you get this? This is vital.
This is vitally important. And then many will be offended and betray one another and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will arise and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, isn't that interesting? You think it's bad right now where governments and elected officials and the magistrates will not enforce the law?
We ain't seen nothing yet. Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio with his message called Parable of the Fig Tree Part 1. Thanks for taking the time to be with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Parables of Jesus. It's a series that highlights the teachings of Jesus while he was right here on this earth and will continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
So, Pastor Jack, this month's featured resources, they're both aimed at kids, right?
So, put down the device, pick up the book. One of the books is focused on American history. The other is on spiritual growth.
So, what made you want to spotlight these two books, you know, together?
Well, first of all, obviously being summertime, we're trying to get people in our lives away from the devices and to actually create, even if it's for a few moments, maybe 30 minutes, where parents can sit down with their kids or grandkids. And so, we've got these two resources. They're fantastic. Prayers and Promises for Kids. It's a book that walks kids through how to take the promises of God and pray them into their lives.
And I got to tell you, you might read this to your little one or read it together with them. But listen, it doesn't matter what age you are, you're going to get a lot out of these two featured items. And then, of course, the second one, Davey, you well know, is that the red coats are coming. This is written for kids. It's set back in 1770.
75, and it's a thrilling, wonderful read for children. regarding our nation's founding.
So you're a grandfather. I'm a grandfather. You've got my grandson standing right there in the studio if you wanted to come see what we do. As a pastor, though, what are some practical ways that parents and grandparents can use these two books to disciple the next generation? Yeah, great question.
To bring the Word of God alive.
Now, don't get me wrong. The Word of God is alive. It stands alone. It's living. For us to bring it to our children, this is a great, great set of resources that can help your child cause their prayer life and their understanding of God to really become very, very clear, very simple.
And I think that's the way the Lord wants it. And so it helps us be very intentional. About teaching our kids not only these historical truths, but these biblical truths. That's The Red Coats Are Coming and Prayers and Promises for Kids. A couple of great books.
Available as a bundle for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And did you know that along with the radio program, Pastor Jack also has a TV show with more of the Pastor Jack Hibbs content that you like? It's called Real Life TV. If you enjoy Pastor Jack on the radio, you're going to love him on TV.
So check out your local listings or visit jackhibbs.com and catch the latest episodes. That's jackhibbs.com. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com.
Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
