There was again that soft rustle of turning leaves that had struck Tom Hammond as so remarkable. Someone behind him, at the same instant, passed a Bible, open at the reference, to him over his shoulder. With a grateful glance and a murmured word of thanks, he accepted the loan of the book.
“I will read a verse or two here and there,” the major announced. “You who know your Bibles, friends, will readily recall the subject-matter of the previous chapter, and how our Lord after His terrible prediction upon Jerusalem, added, ‘Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.’
“This is Jewish, of course, but the whole matter of the future of the Jews and of the return of the Lord for His Church, and, later on, with His Church, are bound up together. Presently, after uttering His last prediction, the disciples came to Him privately, saying,
“‘Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?”
“Keep your Bibles open where you now have them, friends, and note this—that the two-fold answer of our Lord’s is in the reverse order to the disciples’ question. In verses four and five He points out what should not be the sign of His coming. While, in verse six, He shows what should not be the sign of the end of the world. With these distinctions I shall have more to say another day.
“This afternoon I want to keep close to the signs of the coming of the Lord. Read then the thirty-second and third verses: ‘Now learn a parable of the fig-tree: when its branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that’—look in the margins of your Bible, please, and note that the ‘it’ of the text becomes ‘He,’ which is certainly the only wise translation—‘when ye shall see all these things, know that He is near, even at your doors.’
“Now, I hardly need remind the bulk of you, friends, gathered here this afternoon, that the fig-tree, in the Gospels, represents Israel. The Bible uses three trees to represent Israel at different periods of her history, and in different aspects of her responsibility.
“The Old Testament uses the vine as the symbol of Israel, the Gospels the fig, and the Epistles the olive. At your leisure, friends, if you have never studied this, do so. You will not be puzzled much over the blasting of the barren fig-tree when you have made a study of the whole of this subject, because you will see that it was parabolic of God’s judgment on the unfruitful Jewish race.
“Now, with this key of interpretation before us, how pointed becomes this first sign of the return of our Lord. ‘When,’ He says, ‘the fig-tree putteth forth her leaves’—when the Jewish nation shows signs of a revival of national life and vitality,—‘then know that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.’
“The careful reader of the daily press, even though not a Christian, ought to have long ago been awakened to the startling fact that, after thousands of years, the national life of Israel is awakening. The Jew is returning to his own land—Palestine.