Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

² Accordingly, when the disciples marvelled at the withering of the tree, He set forth to them the value of faith, and said to them, “If you have faith, and doubt not;” that is, if in all things you have trust in God; and do not say, “God can do this, this He cannot do;” but rely on the omnipotence of the Almighty; “you shall not only do this, but also if you shall say to this mountain, Be removed, and be cast into the sea, it shall be done. And all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.” Now we read that miracles were wrought by the disciples, yea rather by the Lord through the disciples; for, “without Me,” He says, “ye can do nothing.” The Lord could do many things without the disciples, but the disciples nothing without the Lord.

He who could make even the disciples themselves, was not certainly assisted by them to make them. We read then of the Apostles' miracles, but we nowhere read of a tree being withered by them, nor of a mountain removed into the sea. Let us enquire therefore where this was done. For the words of the Lord could not be without effect. If you are thinking of “trees” and “mountains” in their ordinary and familiar sense, it has not been done. But if you think of that tree of which He spoke, and of that mountain of the Lord of which the Prophet said, “In the last days the mountain of the Lord's house shall be manifest;” if you think of it, and understand it thus, it has been done, and done by the Apostles.

The tree is the Jewish nation, but I say again, that part of it which was reprobate, not that which was called; that tree which we have spoken of is the Jewish nation. The mountain, as the prophetic testimony has taught us, is the Lord Himself. The withered tree is the Jewish nation reft of the honour of Christ; the sea is this world with all the nations. Now see the Apostles speaking to this tree which was about to be withered away, and casting the mountain into the sea. In the Acts of the Apostles they speak to the Jews who gainsay and resist the word of truth, that is, who have leaves and have no fruit, and they say to them, “It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing you have put it from you” (for you use the words of the Prophets, yet do not acknowledge Him whom the Prophets foretold, that is, you have leaves only), “lo, we turn to the Gentiles.”

For this also was foretold by the Prophets; “Behold, I have given You for a light of the Gentiles, that You may be My salvation unto the end of the earth.” See then, the tree has withered away; and Christ has been removed unto the Gentiles, the mountain into the sea. For how should not the tree wither away which is planted in that vineyard, of which it was said, “I will command my clouds that they rain no rain upon it”?