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When Jesus Speaks to Women - Part 6

Hello and welcome to the Women’s Weekly Bible Challenge! I’m Lisa Ann Spencer.

Today we continue in the book of Luke for Part 6 of our series on When Jesus Speaks to Women.

Luke Chapter 13

Before we look at the next occurrence of Jesus speaking to a woman, I want to cover a very important parable in this chapter:

Read Luke 13:6-9

For Context: This chapter begins with Jesus urging the nation of Israel to ‘repent’.  Repent in the Bible does not mean to stop sinning; it does not even mean to feel sorry for your sins.  Repent in scripture means to change your mind.  The first time the word is used in the Bible is Genesis 6:6 and it is the LORD who is repenting.  The LORD has no sin to turn from or to feel sorry for. 

Jesus uses the word ‘YE’ in verses 3 and 5 when He urges repentance, because YE is plural and refers to the entire nation. The nation as a whole had to change their mind, acknowledge Jesus as Messiah, be water baptized and keep the law.

In the Parable we just read, Jesus gave Israel a timeline to indicate how long they had until the Nation of Israel would be cut off for not repenting.

CONSIDER THE PARABLE

Verse 6 - Jesus is the man who came to His fig tree for three years seeking for fruit.  The vineyard is the land of Israel; the Fig Tree is the people or the nation of Israel.

📔NOTE: You might like to use your concordance to study the Fig Tree.  Israel is also referred to as an Olive Tree, A Vine Tree and a Bramble.  Each of these have a particular meaning, and it is a worthwhile study to gain more insight into the nation of Israel and their special relationship with God.

Verse 7 - He tells the dresser of the vineyard that since He has not found any fruit, cut the tree down.  It is using up the blessings of fresh air, sunshine and fertile soil without giving anything back.

The fruit He is seeking is FAITH. Let’s look at the second half of Luke 18:8.

Luke 18:8 …Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? (Cf. Proverbs 20:6)

Verse 8 - The dresser tells him to let it alone for ONE YEAR while He digs and dungs it.  This means to cultivate and fertilize it – to give the Fig Tree special attention.

The dresser of the vineyard is the Holy Ghost.  To dig and to dung means to fertilize and give extra attention that it may produce fruit.  The Holy Ghost would fill the men of Israel and make them able to have faith and produce fruit.

Ezekiel 36:27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

Verse 9 - The expectation is that the Fig Tree will bear fruit, but if not, then cut it down.

The timeline to Israel’s judgment is ONE YEAR.  After Jesus’s resurrection He sent the Holy Ghost to Israel, and His apostles and evangelists offered the nation of Israel another opportunity to repent. 

Acts chapters 1-7 covers this ONE YEAR GRACE PERIOD. 

ACTS CHAPTER TWO

Peter addresses “ye men of Judea” (Acts 2:14), “ye men of Israel” (Acts 2:22) and “all the house of Israel” (Acts 2:36) after they were filled with the Holy Ghost.

Acts 3:19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; 20 And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: 21 Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.

📔NOTE: Roman 16:25 Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,… Peter and Paul are not preaching the same message.

We read in Acts 2:41 that three thousand men of Israel believed that day, and in Acts 4:4, another five thousand men believed, BUT there were millions of the nation of Israel that rejected Jesus as their resurrected Messiah.

The year of grace extended to Israel ended when they stoned Stephen, a man full of the Holy Ghost (Acts 6:5,8).. 

This is the reason God saved Saul!  God cut off the fig tree (temporarily). Israel lost their “peculiar people” status (Deuteronomy 14:2) and God  “concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all” (Romans 11:32).

The reason Jesus did not come back to judge Israel when He said He would was because of this Dispensation of Grace that was given to the Apostle Paul; called, the Mystery, which God had kept secret since the world began.  (Ephesians 3:1-8; Romans 16:25).

I hope this helps you understand the times in which we are now living.  It is a time of GRACE wherein God is not judging anyone for their sins, but instead offering reconciliation to anyone who will trust that Jesus’s work on the cross and His resurrection from the dead is sufficient to pay for our sins.

Now let’s consider another occurrence of Jesus speaking to a woman in the book of Luke.

A WOMAN WITH A SPIRIT OF INFIRMITY 18 YEARS

Read Luke 13:10-17

Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath day.

Luke 13:12  And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.

She had been bound; now she is loosed. 

Q: Who bound her? 

A: Satan (v. 16)

Another search you might do for yourself is the word ‘CAPTIVE’.  There are 55 results in the KJB, most of which pertain to the nation of Israel in her rebellion being removed from the land and led into captivity to foreign lands. However, the Apostle Paul makes it clear that we can also be taken captive spiritually today by false doctrine.

Here are two specific references to Israel being captive eighteen years as was this woman:

  • Judges 3:14 So the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years
  • Judges 10:8 And that year they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel: eighteen years, in the land of the Amorites.

At the time of Jesus’s earthly ministry, Satan was the nation of Israel’s adversary because Jesus had come to set them free from captivity.

Satan does not work that way in this dispensation of grace.  The way he works today is what the Apostle Paul calls, the mystery of iniquity.  

2 Thessalonians 2:7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.

📓NOTE: The modern versions corrupt this phrase and say “the mystery of lawlessness”.  That is a false doctrine.  The mystery of iniquity is actually teaching the law – i.e. putting those who are saved under a set of laws that no longer apply to us, which we cannot keep and put us in doubt of our salvation.  For example, you must tithe or you will be cursed, you must be water baptized or you’re not saved, you must take communion or you are not a part of the body, you must not eat unclean foods or you will be unclean, you must speak in an unknown tongue….  Etc., etc., ad nauseum.

Satan is in the pulpit of modern churches masquerading as a minister of light, when in actuality he is  a deceiver teaching false doctrine.  The only way to be free from Satan’s captivity today is to know the word of God, so that you won’t be fooled by his counterfeit.  This is the reason why the apostle Paul’s letters focus on learning sound doctrine.  To be ignorant of doctrine today is to be deceived by Satan’s mystery of iniquity.

JESUS SPEAKS TO THE DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM

Luke 23:28 -31

On His way to Calvary, with the beam of his cross on His back, Jesus passes a group of women from Jerusalem.  It is important for you to know that these women are not His followers;  Jerusalem  has a history of wickedness and rejection of truth.  These women are more like professional mourners.  We know this because the women who were His devoted followers are referenced in verses 49 and 55, the women from Galilee.

The title, Daughters of Jerusalem, is found 8 times in the King James Bible; once here and 7 times in the Song of Solomon.  The Daughters of Jerusalem are those women who are deceived by Solomon, who represents Satan. These women fail to recognize their true Messiah, the shepherd of Israel, and instead will be deceived into worshiping the antichrist, believing that he is their messiah.

Jesus’s comment regarding ‘blessed are the barren’ means that these women of Jerusalem will wish they and their children had never been born due to the punishment that God will pour out on them.  That is a sobering truth.

Even though God has postponed the judgment of Israel and the world, the cutting off of the Fig Tree is TEMPORARY.  After the mystery church is raptured out of this world, God will continue where He left off with Israel and keep all of His word.

The time to be saved is TODAY!

That completes the book of Luke. Next week we will begin in the book of John.  I encourage you to read through it this week, as we continue to consider When Jesus Speaks to Women.

The material covered in this Blog can be viewed here: 



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