The miracles of Jesus - Classical Christian Literature by Athleo.net

384 THE BARREN FIG-TREE
ment more to be dreaded than that. To lose the
power of loving because we would not love ; to
have the guidance of conscience no longer because
we refused to listen to its voice ;
to feel no more
sensible to divine goodness because we steel our
hearts against it for years ;
to be banished from
Christ because we would not come to Him—this
is a sentence so just that no one can question it,
but a sentence so terrible that we may well tremble
at the possibility of it. Before us, in nature, stands
that barren fig-tree ;
before us, in history, stands the
outcast Jewish nation ;
and
over these the Apostle
says, in words of solemn warning, "If God spared
not the natural branches, take heed lest He also
spare not thee."
But let us rejoice that besides this miracle our
Lord gives us a parable from the fig-tree. He shows
in the miracle how suddenly and resistlessly
retribution
may come, but He shows in the parable how again
and again the husbandman asks, in regard even to the
useless tree, "Let it alone this year also." Opportunity
is still given for penitence and prayer, and for
that faith in God to which the Saviour refers in the
following verse : a faith which is able to overthrow
every mountain of difficulty, and to give us hope in
the place of despondency, life in the stead of death.
Therefore let the prayer of each of us be that of
Charles Wesley :
" Give me the faith which can remove
And sink the mountain to a plain ;
Give me the childlike, praying love,
Which longs to build Thy house again ;
Thy love, let it my heart o'erpower,
Let it my ransomed soul devour."