Our C.O. really put his foot in his mouth last night. He went to illustrate how we should be diligent and unwavering in our ministry and used Luke 13: 6-9 where it says;
“Then he went on to tell this illustration: “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it, but found none. 7 Then he said to the vinedresser, ‘Here it is three years that I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, but have found none. Cut it down! Why really should it keep the ground useless?’ 8 In reply he said to him, ‘Master, let it alone also this year, until I dig around it and put on manure; 9 and if then it produces fruit in the future, [well and good]; but if not, you shall cut it down.”
He said Jesus represented the vinedresser and the Master was Jehovah. Three years into Jesus ministry Jehovah was ready to throw in the towel to the despondent Jews but Jesus pleaded with his father to give him more time. So Jehovah did just that-six months to be exact.
Today we are like the vinedresser that needs to work even harder to cultivate our territory and as it says in verse 8 to “fertilize our territory.”
I laughed out loud because for the first time this C.O. nailed it as verse 8 says the vinedresser used MANURE-more precisely SH_T! How true - our preaching work was referred to as spreading crap-finally they got it right!!