From our Sunday service on October 12, 2025, Luke 13, Matthew 18, Mark 11 and Luke 11. This is part 9 of our Parables of Christ series. Watch the full message: A Tree Without Fruit – The Parables of Christ #9 on YouTube.
We have been talking about surrender and doing good in the Lord’s name. Today we start a new section I am going to call the parables of warning. A lot of the parables are positive and uplifting. Even the parable of the sower, where we started, is encouraging, because there is good ground and the gospel is being spread. These parables are a stern warning about those who choose not to produce spiritual fruit. God wants you to know that the gospel needs to change you.
The Fruitless Fig Tree
Some come to Jesus about Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. They are shaken. These Galileans were trying to be faithful, and they want to know why this was allowed to happen. Jesus says they were not worse sinners than others. Then He brings up another recent tragedy: eighteen people on whom the tower in Siloam fell. They were not worse than all who dwelt in Jerusalem. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Then He tells the parable.
A vineyard owner plants a fig tree and, within three years, expects fruit. He finds none. What does fruit represent? In the parables, fruit almost always represents the Christian walk. The first fruit is salvation, and the fruit after that is what we do for God through good works. Usually if a fig tree has not produced by the third year, it is a dud, and you cut it down. The gardener says, Give it one more year. We will dig a trench, put water in it, put some manure in there, and give it every opportunity. If it bears fruit, well; if not, then cut it down.
God is patient. He gives us every opportunity for salvation. But His patience is not unlimited. Even those of us who are already saved should take this to heart. We have already produced a fruit. What would that farmer say if he came the next year and found one fruit, and the next year no more than that? God does not keep us on this earth merely to live life to the fullest. He leaves us here so that we can serve Him and continue producing fruit after the first one. If we do not continue to produce fruit and point others to Christ, we too are at risk of being pruned when we hinder the work of the Lord with our lives.
The Unmerciful Servant
In Matthew 18, Peter asks how often he should forgive, until seven times? Jesus says, Until seventy times seven. If you remember our Daniel series, seventy times seven is the time God gave Israel to repent: seventy weeks, seventy sets of seven years, 490 years of forgiveness. If they were not ready to accept the Messiah, He would go to the Gentiles and do something new. I think Jesus is not merely saying it is a big number. He is saying we should forgive as much as God has forgiven us, because we will never forgive someone more than God has already forgiven us.
A king going over his accounts finds a servant who owes him ten thousand talents. What is a talent? Ten thousand talents is the equivalent of about 150,000 years of wages. This man earns a year’s wage every year, and he owes 150,000 years’ worth of his pay. That is never coming back. The king orders him sold into bond servitude, and his wife and children as well. That was the prison system of the day.
The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.
Matthew 18:26–27
Worship here, in the Greek, literally means to bend the knee. He is not worshiping the king as God. He falls and bows, as people in some cultures bow in respect, and he makes a promise he can never fulfill. If I were the king, I would think, You are going to pay me 150,000 years of wages? But the king is moved with compassion, looses him, and writes the debt off. You would think he would go home and celebrate. Instead he finds a fellow servant who owes him an hundred pence, a hundred days’ worth of wages, about a third of a year’s pay. He takes him by the throat. The man says the same words he had just said to the king: Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. This smaller debt he might actually have worked off. The servant has no mercy and casts him into prison.
When the fellow servants see it, they tell their lord. The king is angry. He had just spared this man the very judgment he then inflicted on someone else, and he delivers him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due. Jesus says His heavenly Father will do likewise if we do not forgive from the heart. Here is the hard truth. There are people who have been forgiven and have decided that one fruit was enough. God has forgiven me, they think, but my coworker, my family member, the person who cut me off in traffic, I am not going to forgive them. Jesus talks about what that means in Mark 11.
And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
Mark 11:25–26
Is this saying you will go to hell if you do not forgive people? No. It is talking about prayer. If you are still talking badly about something that happened some time ago, still mad at the coworker who wronged you two years ago, or have cut off a family member, do not expect your prayers to be answered. If you cannot forgive, God is not going to forgive you, and the Bible says that if God has not forgiven you, He is not going to answer your prayers. Do not expect your life to be blessed if your life is a curse to other people. Jesus died for you when you were His enemy. If He could forgive you an unpayable debt, you can forgive the much smaller debts owed to you.
The Strong Man Bound
In Luke 11, Jesus casts out a demon from a man who was mute, and Matthew tells us he was also blind. Everyone is amazed when he suddenly speaks. Some say He does it by Beelzebub. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, says a kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falleth. Then He asks, If I am casting out demons through Satan, how are your sons casting them out? He is talking about the students of the Pharisees and scribes, who did exorcisms in the community. Why is it all right for your students, but not for Me? If God allows Him to do this, the kingdom of God has arrived. So they come up with an excuse: He is on the other side. This is a conspiracy.
Jesus compares Satan to a strong man, a warrior with weapons and armor who owns riches in a large home. The Greek word for the home describes one with outer walls and the house built in the middle. The King James translates it as a palace, but it is a walled home with a courtyard. If you want to rob this strong man, you first have to disarm him and restrain him. Who is more powerful than Satan? Jesus Christ. Only God can cast out demons. Jesus came to this earth to disarm Satan and steal back His people from his household.
Then comes a hard truth: He that is not with me is against me. There are only two sides in this battle. Think of the lukewarm water in Revelation: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, I will spue thee out of my mouth. A lot of times we misunderstand that to mean, I would rather you be totally for Me or totally against Me than apathetic. That is not what it is saying. Cold water is refreshing and hot water soothes, but lukewarm water is not useful for anything. Jesus says there is no middle ground. Either you are with Him, gathering people back from Satan by your life, showing forgiveness and love, and telling people what Jesus has done, or you are against Him. This passage leads into the parable of the sower, where we started our series. Are you going to get the field ready for Jesus, or ruin the field? Someone may say, I am stepping out of the way. I am not doing anything, but I am not in the way either. That is not how it works. The apathetic Christian is not neutral. A Christian who steps out of the way is a hindrance to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Change is not optional. Forgiveness is not negotiable. Loyalty to Christ is not a middle position. God is patient, but His patience is not endless. Repentance must change how we treat other people. And there is no neutral ground: we are standing with Him, or we are standing against Him. God wants you to know that the gospel needs to change you. Will you allow the gospel to change you today?
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