Everyone loves a good story and a good storyteller.

But there is no storyteller like the Lord Jesus,

and there are no greater stories told than the ones Jesus shared.

In this study, spiritual stories, we consider the parables Jesus told and their

application to us. These are truly the greatest stories ever told, and the Lord has something

he wants to say to you through them. Let's join Scott Pauley now.

I hope you've seen by now that Christ used the simplest things to teach the most profound truth.

He used natural things to reveal spiritual realities, and he was a master at doing it.

We've come to another one of those today in Matthew chapter number 24, where Jesus uses a tree,

just a common tree that they would walk by every day to represent something and to teach something. And I would just ask you to back up a second and be reminded that Christ is the creator.

Colossian says all things were made by him and for him and without him was not anything made that was made,

which means that every tree the Lord created, that everything that exists in nature, it belongs to

the one who sustains it. And so he uses it as an object lesson, as a picture of a great

principle. We find the parable in Matthew chapter 24, beginning in verse number number 32 now learn a parable of the fig tree

all right let's pause there for just a moment because this ought to sound familiar to you if you've

read through the gospel records you know that jesus from time to time would use the fig tree in a symbolic

way and almost without exception it is symbolic of the nation of Israel.

For example, do you remember the miracle near the end of his earthly ministry when he walked

by the fig tree, found no fruit on it, cursed it, no more fruit will be on this tree forever,

and it shriveled up?

Well, that was a picture of Israel.

He came, he found no fruit there, and so he turned away from Israel because they had turned

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