FBC Morning Light – July 29, 2022

A good Friday morning to you, and here we are at the end of another week and approaching the end of another month, just a couple of days left in the month of July.

So this coming Lord's Day will be July 31st, last day of the month. Going to be a good day.

Looking forward to it. We're doing something a little special on this coming Lord's Day at Faith Baptist.

I've got a guest speaker going to be speaking in the morning service, a man by the name of Al Huber.

He's in a ministry up in Rockford, going to be here for the day.

So he's speaking in the morning service, and then we're having a dinner together after the morning service, and then rounding out the day's activities at one o 'clock with an afternoon service.

And again, Al Huber is going to speak in that afternoon service. So we're looking forward to that good day.

And of course, we do still have the Sunday Bible study time at 9 .30, and I've been working through the book

Gentle and Lowly, learning about the heart of Christ, where Christ said that his heart is gentle and lowly.

So if you can make it to Faith Baptist on Sunday morning, I encourage you to come for the

Bible study at 9 .30, morning service 10 .30, stay for dinner, and enjoy an afternoon service at one o 'clock.

So that's what's coming up on the Lord's Day. Let me ask you this. Do you like figs?

One of my favorite cookies when I was a kid, besides Oreos, you know, Oreos, you always had to eat those by taking them apart, eat the filling, and then the cookie part, yeah, you get that.

But besides Oreos, one of my favorite cookies was Fig Newtons. I just loved those cakey things, the fig fruit inside, and dunk them in milk, let them soak in the milk and get the cake stuff good and soggy with the milk, and so I loved eating those figs.

I don't think I've ever eaten rotten figs or unripe figs.

Now at our house, there are two different places where our daughter a few years ago planted some figs, fig plants, trees, whatever they're supposed to be,

I don't know. But the first couple of years, they didn't really do anything, they just grew leaves.

Last year, it looked like they were starting to grow some fruit, but the fruit never matured, it never ripened.

It just was a small, green, bulby -looking thing and was worthless.

So if I had to pick those, I could put them in a basket and I'd say, well, this is a basket of bad figs, and I would like to have compared them to a basket of good figs.

I'd take the good figs and make some Fig Newtons out of them. I say all that to say this, in Jeremiah chapter 24, the

Lord shows Jeremiah a sign, a vision of a couple of baskets of figs.

One of the baskets is delicious -looking figs that would make wonderful Fig Newtons, and the other basket is figs that are so bad that they're good for nothing but throwing them away.

What does all this mean? The Lord uses that vision to illustrate two different kinds of people that comprise

Israel, his people, those who claim to be God's people. There are those who are good figs, and there are those who are bad figs.

He describes what the good figs are like. He says, like those good figs, he says,

I will acknowledge those who are carried away from Judah. The Lord is bringing judgment upon his people in this captivity, the

Babylonian captivity. It's going to happen to the whole nation, but not everybody in the nation is bad.

Not everybody's a bad fig. There are some who are going to be taken captive who are good figs.

The Lord says, I've got my eye on them, and I'm going to treat them well.

This is what he says. He says, I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land.

What are these people like? What are the good figs like? He tells us. He says,

I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people, and I will be their

God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart. What are the marks of a good fig?

Marks of a good fig is one who has a heart to know the

Lord, who is one of God's people, who returns to the

Lord with his whole heart, even in times of sin and failure.

The good fig nevertheless returns to the Lord with his whole heart.

That marks a good fig. What about a bad fig? The bad figs are those who go after other gods to serve them and won't listen to God's word, do not have a heart for God, don't want to obey him, don't want to worship him, really don't want to have anything to do with him.

They're the bad figs. Even though they claim to be God's people, they're bad figs, and they're not worth eating, they're not worth doing anything with, they're not even worth making fig newtons out of.

I think this passage challenges us to ask ourselves, am I a good fig or a bad fig?

I trust that just the fact that you're listening to this broadcast today indicates the heart of a good fig, one whom

God will bless, because you have a heart for him, and you want to follow after him.

You want to hear what he has to say. It's not that you never do anything wrong, it's not that you're never bad, it's impossible in his life.

But what do you do with it? What happens after the fact? Do you return to the Lord? You go back to him?

You're a good fig. You do. Father, I pray today that you would challenge us with this passage of Scripture, to even examine our own hearts and how our attitude toward you and toward your word, our heart's attitude toward obedience to the word.

Lord, I pray, make us good figs and bless us in that we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen. Have a good rest of your Friday, have a wonderful weekend, and join us in God's house on the