Untitled Sermon (6)

“But he that shall endure unto the end [telos], the same shall be saved” (24:13)—saved in the sense of “delivered,” as in 1 Thessalonians 1:10.

Those who base a falling-away doctrine on Matthew 24:13 do violence to the context. The verse has nothing to do with losing salvation in the age of grace; it has everything to do with being delivered out of the great tribulation by the second coming of Christ to set up His millennial kingdom.

In Scripture three trees symbolize the nation of Israel. The vine represents the nation of Israel from the time it becomes a nation until the time it rejects Christ (Matthew 21:33–44; Isaiah 5:1–7). In the upper room the Lord told His disciples that henceforth He was the true vine and His Father was the husbandman (John 15:1–6). Israel’s national failure was complete.

The olive tree represents Israel after the return of Christ and the national repentance of Israel (Romans 11). During our present age the Jews have been broken off from the place of religious privilege that was theirs in Old Testament times. The Gentiles (the wild olive branches) have been grafted in and now occupy the place forfeited by the Jews when they rejected Christ.

The church is predominantly Gentile in composition. However, in a coming day God will graft the Jewish people back in to the place of religious privilege, so Gentiles should not boast about the rich spiritual things they now enjoy. Paul said in effect, “If the breaking off of the natural branches has been such a blessing to the Gentile world, what will it be like when they are grafted back in, when Israel finally manifests the enormous spiritual potential that is rightfully hers?” Well, we know what it will be like; it will be the millennium!

The fig tree represents Israel from the time the nation rejects Christ to the time when Israel as a nation accepts Christ. The cursing of the literal fig tree by Israel’s rejected King was a symbolic act. It was a parable as well as a miracle. The symbolic cursing (Matthew 21) was followed by the actual cursing of the nation that the tree symbolized (Matthew 23).

Exploring the Gospel of Matthew: An Expository Commentary (a) A Comparison (24:32–33)

“Now,” said the Lord, “learn a parable of the fig tree” (24:32). The fig tree (the nation of Israel) that died under its Creator’s curse will come back to life. The tree will again have an abundance of leaves—not fruit, but leaves. In other words, the nation of Israel, which began to disintegrate in A.D. 70 and was finally evicted from the promised land in A.D. 135 at the time of the Bar Kokhba rebellion, is to come back to life as a nation just prior to the consummation of end-time events. The reconstitution of the nation will be in unbelief; Israel will still be rejecting Christ. Accordingly the Lord did not indicate that the fig tree would bring forth fruit when it came back to life.

That is exactly what has happened. The Zionists had no thought of fulfilling prophecy in their crusade for a revived state in Palestine. The leaders of the movement were secularists and they conceived a secular state. Theodore Hertzl, the founder of Zionism, was a thoroughly secularized pragmatist and visionary.[42] Just the same, the rebirth of the state of Israel in our lifetime is an extraordinary miracle; it is the sign that the church age has about run its course, that the rapture is imminent, and that God is about to begin His end-time dealing with the Jewish people. He will pick up where He left off when the church-age parenthesis was inserted into His dealings with mankind.