213: Andy Walton - The Fruit

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:13

   Welcome to good for selfie and talks. I’m Levi and I’m Chris and I’m Brian, thank you for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one taco week to help us get the Bible in our daily news feed. We post a new episode of the start of each week with a short intro before. Hand to kind of set the stage for the talk. You’re about to listen to.

2. 0:33

   And now let’s talk more about this week’s talk. Hello and welcome back to another talk. Before we get into the subject of this week’s talk, I have a couple of housekeeping items that I wanted to mention to start things off. The first off is that we are very excited to announce that we have a website.

3. 1:04

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4. 1:44

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5. 2:45

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6. 3:00

   So now let’s get into the talk for this week. For our talk this week, we are looking at a class that was given by Brother. Andy Walton at the recordings of which are all on YouTube. I actually heard it through Verdugo Hills has Bible class where we just watch the recordings together. So we’re listening to the first class and he’s taking a look at the biblical meaning of the Fig Tree. All three classes are really, really interesting. This first one, we’re looking specifically at the fruit and there’s a lot of really interesting nuggets about the Tree.

7. 3:34

   How they pollinate. All sorts of things that I won’t necessarily go into, because I want you to be able to enjoy them. When you hear the class, it is a little funny in the first class, when he is recording his talk. He has a random Zoom issue which made it really funny when you were listening to it on Bible class because our Verdugo Hills does our Bible class over Zoom. So it felt very much like you were right in there for Zoom which was I thought was kind of funny. So in the show notes I will have the link to the playlist of all three classes and then also the audio No version will be on the good.

8. 4:04

   Crystal fiend. Talks extended podcast feed. So either way, I highly recommend you listen to all three of them to really interesting. There are he makes mention of some videos during the class, but the audio is still good enough that you can get an idea of what they’re talking about in the story. But if you want to go back and get the visuals, you can jump over and watch the Youtube video and kind of see it as well.

9. 4:27

   Thank you for listening. We hope that this class is an encouragement to you and we thank you for continue to come back and listen. So That I will turn it over to Brother, Andy Walton for his class on the fig tree, right? So this subject is a already said is that the Fig Tree assigned for all time. And the reason that our thought I would do it today is because I only did it last Saturday at a youth weekend for lapworth with about 80 children.

10. 4:54

    While say yeah, there were children their age 13 to 17 and because it was on my mind, I thought, maybe it’s a good time, you know, to do it for for others, as well as the young people that were there, last Saturday, there were three talks that I did on Saturday for them. The first one was called the fruit. The second one was called the tree and the third talk was called the future, but tonight, you’ll be glad to know. It’s only one talk and we’re just going to look at the first talk that I gave on Saturday, which is the fruit and I thought I’d just start off by Saying how this talk actually came about to start with because well I just found it found it a little bit interesting but what happened was last November we were down in Cornwall.

11. 5:47

    It was my birthday on the day that we got down there and it happened to be the day that I caught covid. So we’d only been there once 24 hours Huntley and then we have to head all the way back up from Cornwall back here with the windows wide open. So Angie Didn’t catch it.

12. 6:04

    And then, of course, Angie ensured that was in quarantine then for like days and days and days with the door shuts, I’m in the spare room upstairs and I guess for the first few days, all it did was, okay, slept or watched a bit of Netflix and then after a couple of days, I thought to myself this is a complete waste of my life and time.

13. 6:30

    I’m starting to feel a little bit better but I’m still Allowed outside the bedroom. So I thought, what can I do? That’s a bit more productive than just lying in bed, feeling sorry for myself. And for some reason, I thought I would maybe look at the Bible and maybe I don’t often get time just to stop and think. So I started praying to God because I didn’t know what to do with Don and I was sleeping and praying and thinking and getting my computer out.

14. 7:00

    And in the end, the thought I know. I’m going to look at the parable. About the fig tree that Jesus told in Luke and then I was just about to start looking at that Parable. When I thought to myself well I remember hearing a long time ago. The best way of studying any subject is to go back to the first time that something’s mentioned and so I went back to looking at figs and fig trees right the way through the Bible and ended up of course in in Genesis and I would think I must have spent at least I was on on this my the bed was covered in paper and the computer was full of notes and I was finding out stuff that I never knew before about the Fig Tree, I read and read and read and read stuff about the Fig Tree and looked at the Bible and eventually then I thought I’ll put it all into slides and so I created 128 PowerPoint slides on the back of that or while I’m still with covid. And then I went back to work and forgot about it and then About three or four weeks after that, Mark Bateman phone me up from lapworth and said, Andy the, you want to do a youth weekend for us, because your names come up and I said, yeah, and I thought, I said, I’ve got four different subjects, take your pick. And I wondered if you pick the Fig Tree and lo and behold, that’s the one they picked.

15. 8:22

    So I thought, well, you know, that’s good. We’ll give it its first outing at the, the youth weekend, which I did on Saturday. So that’s the sort of history as to why this Why I put it together. Really suppose the lid, the lesson from my point of view is that aren’t a very horrible times because I didn’t covid-19 pretty nasty for myself and others have had it a lot worse than I had it. You know, good things can come out of it because I’m telling you this.

16. 8:52

    Now, if I didn’t have had, if I hadn’t have had covid, I would never ever have done this talk or at least, I can’t think I would have done it because I wouldn’t have had the time. So with that, A little bit of background, let’s open the curtains and let’s crack on with this talk, which is all about the fruit. So, the first thing that was sort of really interesting to me was that when you’re actually looked at the Bible, and, of course, right, the way through creation, and through the establishment of the kingdom and the Jews, coming back into Israel.

17. 9:30

    And then into the New Testament, with the Holes in the establishments of the of the church in the meetings, the closures. And in fact, right the way through into Revelation, what I found was the Fig Tree was just everywhere and those are all the books in the Bible, where fix and fig trees and mentions Genesis.

18. 9:52

    To Deuteronomy judges Psalms Kings proverb Song of Solomon, Isaiah Jeremiah Hozier, Amos Mike and Nahum habakkuk Aggie. I zachari Matthew Mark, Luke, John James and revelation. So you think that isn’t, you know, it’s an incredible number, in fact, as it turns out the Fig Tree and the Fig and mention more than any other tree in the Bible, by a considerable margin around about 200 times, the Fig Tree and fix and mentioned.

19. 10:24

    The Olive Tree is mentioned, only a fraction of times and I thought Olive would have come out number one by, you know, a long way but it doesn’t The Fig Tree Way, way out in front. So that was sort of quite interesting that that was the case. And so the three talks, one was effectively looking at the fruit based on Genesis.

20. 10:45

    The second talk was based on the tree, which is looking at the Kingdom of Israel. And the third talk was basically looking at all the references to the Fig Tree in the gospels, and also the references to the Future. Because as it turns out the fig tree, Three effectively covers the whole plan and purpose of God in a lot of detail.

21. 11:13

    So this is say tonight, we just going to be considering the fruit. Now, one of the things I when I started reading up about the Fig Tree, one of the things that came out that was really surprising to me was that it is a completely unique Tree. In fact, if you got all the fruit trees in the world and there’s many, many different varieties of fruit trees, the Fig Tree would be on its own as a unique. Really versus every single other tree that is that’s on planet Earth from a fruit point of view. And in fact, if you later on, get the time, go onto Google and type in this phrase what makes a fig tree unique and you’ll find the answer comes up.

22. 12:02

    This is still the number one answer that comes up when you type it into Google. It says fig trees have no Blossom on their branches, the blossom. Is inside the fruit, and this makes the Fig Tree completely unique because every single of the fruit tree has blossoms on the branches and from the blossoms, come the fruit.

23. 12:26

    And so I thought, well, that’s pretty interesting that all of the fruit trees operate in a particular way apart from the Fig Tree. And then I started swatting up about fruit and it says Fruit is an edible and usually sweet product of the plant or tree that can st. Contains seeds when the flower is pollinated, the ovary begins to grow and it becomes the fruit.

24. 12:53

    So I thought, well, wait a minute, this this is odd then because if all the fruit trees have got a flower, and the flower and the ovary becomes, the fruit wasn’t Earth is happening with the Fig Tree, and why is it different and, and What’s going on. And clearly it’s an important tree from a Biblical point of view, because it’s mentioned all the time more than any other tree.

25. 13:20

    So, Yeah. So here we are. Here’s here’s some figs. I don’t know when your last day to Fig, I haven’t eaten. In fact, tried to buy the kids a fig each. But you try getting hold of a fresh fig at the minute. It is absolutely not an impossible unless you unless you want to spend a huge amount of money. So I gave them all a fig roll instead, which were 45 p 4 monsters, which saved a lot of money. But anyway, so as I’ve said, the victories unique no blossoms on the branches.

26. 13:52

    So I then said to myself, well, there must be some flowers somewhere because surely, there’s got to be some seeds, it’s got to be some flowers, something stock to be pollinated and it turns out of course that the flowers are on the inside of the fruit itself. This is again, completely unique. So there are flowers but they’re hidden inside the Fig. So then I thought to myself, Well, that’s sort of quite interesting, but how on Earth do flowers on the inside of the fruit get pollinated because I can understand a bee or something like that.

27. 14:34

    Pollinating a flower that you can see, but what, and how would these little flowers get pollinated? When they’re wrapped tightly inside the fruit because things have to be pollinated. If they aint got seeds, then the that tree. Comes extinct very, very quickly. So I’m going to show you a couple of videos now and when you’re listening to these videos, hopefully, you can hear it really think about the language that they’re using in the videos, but this is about to show you exactly how the Fig gets pollinated.

28. 15:19

    Now, why isn’t that playing? Sorry about this. Sure. Pens on a bizarre creature, it depends on a bizarre creature that you might have never even heard of the Fig wasp. This miniscule. Insect is just around two millimeters long, the Wasps life cycle is deeply intertwined with the Fig. She knows that the only way to get into the fruit is through a tiny hole on the bottom. She has to sacrifice her wings in order to get through the tight nozzle.

29. 16:14

    But she won’t mind as she knows that she’ll never fly again. Once inside the Strangler fig shuts the entrance to its fruit. Thus the Final Act of the Wasps life is to lay her eggs in the cavity. After that, she will die in there over time, the flowers and the WASP eggs, develop and the Fig transforms into a mature fruit from today.

30. 16:49

    You are, that’s the first video. Have a look at this next video and so the pollen Laden Wast reaches an immature fig, but her journey is far from. Over ahead lies, the greatest challenge of her brief life clawing and squeezing her way through the gate, her wings and antennae are ripped from her.

31. 17:09

    She makes the ultimate sacrifice as the final push to enter burst her abdomen. In an epic struggle, between sacrifice and survival. The mother wasp crawls through the narrow Labyrinth towards the inner chamber. She is wounded and week airing only her eggs and the pollen gift from the former fake. If the WASP fails to pollinate the flowers, No Seeds will ever develop big fruits with no future are costly to the tree. So they will not receive an inflow of nutrient. If the WASP does not pollinate the entire fake may be aborted. However, if she devotes herself to Pollination as well as laying eggs Ginger’s, the Fig will hold the promise of seeds. The tree will pump sugars and nutrients into the Fig, securing the future of seeds and larvae.

32. 17:55

    Like, when they mature and leave the fake will ripen, thus completing the cycle of mutual benefit and just one more that will be the end. The Fig is not a fruit but a hollow Garden of Flowers. A female fig wasp has laid her eggs and pollinated the flowers, which have now reached maturity.

33. 18:15

    The Fig is a nursery. It is cared for the future wasp by protecting them within its Gap. So, just to put it into perspective, by the way, the female that you can see there. The female fig was is no more than two millimeters long so it’s not like the WASP that you’d see flying around in your But when I actually played this video already the kids that latched onto something, I don’t know whether you’ve latched onto this, but when it talks about a wasp dying inside the Fig, that’s exactly what happens.

34. 18:50

    And so, effectively, and we’ll get on to this a bit later in. Almost all of the fix that you eat is a decomposed dead wasp, but it completely is decomposed. Cuz the fruit itself, pump some feikin into the WASP which completely dissolves it. So you’re not crunching on a dead wasp, but it’s interesting for the kids, instantly picked up on that.

35. 19:20

    But here’s the, here’s the interesting thing, right? So I watch those videos, many many, many times and was thinking about it and dreaming about it in my covid state and it’s suddenly what I did then was write down all the key phrase. Is that came out of those videos that I’ve given you edited versions of.

36. 19:41

    And here’s the key phrases that you will have heard in those few videos. First of all, it talks about the Fig being like an enclosed Garden. Secondly, it said that there was only one and very narrow way into this Garden. There was talk about the alter. The phrase was used the ultimate sacrifice, so don’t know where the you heard that as the wings were undone 10 Ayo, torn off the Fig wasp and it as it makes its way into the Fig.

37. 20:16

    It’s no way out because the the door is closed, effectively the figs or automatically seals itself up. When a fig wasp has gone in the door is closed and therefore it’s going to die inside you. You have heard the words if you’re listening carefully, Either the Fig wasp was wounded and week. You’d have also heard the words that the Fig wasp is devoted to pollination you would have also heard these words as well. The promise of seeds.

38. 20:53

    So basically the Fig wasp is all about providing the promise of future seed and the last thing that you’ll have heard is that the future of the Fig, Is secured of put of the Fig in Brackets there but the future is secured or the future of the figures secured because of the work of this tiny minuscule little fig wasp so I was like staring at these things.

39. 21:23

    Thinking to myself this is these are quite amazing little phrases that none of these by the way or anything to do with Christian videos. Nothing, what’s over there? Just fig wasp videos that on all sorts of different Channels. And I said to the children at the youth weekend, I said, does this ring any bells with any of you that if we weren’t thinking about figs and fig wasps necessarily does do these words on the right hand side, take you two anywhere at all in the Bible and about half a dozen hands. Go up.

40. 21:57

    And they said it sounds a bit. Like the Garden of Eden, with an enclosed garden and, and sort of seeds. And even perhaps mention of a fig, And I said, well, that’s where my mind went so my mind went into the Garden of Eden. In fact, the word Garden in Hebrew means something that is enclosed and the phrase of that was in the video, was a fig is like an enclosed Garden. So, here we are in the Garden of Eden that God made at the beginning and what we’re going to discover Is that all of those things that we’ve just been talking about all of those key phrases in relation to the Fig wasp? Every last one of them are there in Genesis chapter 3, that Andy kindly read the first seven verses for us. Now, one of the key things that we know, of course, in the Garden of Eden is that and this is, this is the center of the story, of course, is that there was a tree of knowledge of Good and Evil.

41. 23:05

    That was in the Center of the garden and what we’ve just been reading about in Genesis chapter 3 is basically what happened. Reference, the serpent, the woman and atom in relation to this particular tree. So what we have read and I’ll just read these words again and oh we know them. So so well but the internet is 3:1-5.

42. 23:34

    Bearing in mind, we’re in an enclosed Garden at this point and we’re looking for those other key phrases. It says, now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made and he said unto the woman. Yea hath. God said, You shall not eat of every tree of of the garden and the woman said unto the serpent. We may eat of the fruit of the Trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden. God had said, You shall not eat a bit, neither shall you, touch it, lest you die.

43. 24:06

    And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die for. God knows that in the day you eat of it, then your eyes shall be opened and you will be as God’s knowing Good and Evil. So here, we’ve got this, we’ve got the woman being deceived by the serpent because the serpent said, You shall not surely die and we know that that was an absolute Lie. By the way, of course, half of it was true, and half of it was lies because their eyes were opened and they did understand good and evil at that point.

44. 24:40

    But of course, the lie. Part was that you, you won’t die now. Of course, at that very point in time, it says, Is that both of them realize that they were naked? It says the eyes of both were opened, they knew that they were naked and here we’ve now got a reference to Fig leaves because it says they sewed fig leaves together of all trees and made themselves aprons.

45. 25:06

    So, we’ve even got sort of a reference here to fix, but the other bit that we read about, which we haven’t read. Just now, of course, is the really key purse. Probably at this point in the Bible, I would suggest which is Genesis 3:15. And here, now, we’ve also got mention of seeds. Remember, one of the quotes from the video All there. That’s the question, right?

46. 25:40

    Okay, give me a moment. I will get the show back on the road, but you’re coping with this, right? Hold on a minute, right? Bear with me.

47. 25:58

    Yeah. The internet just literally just switched itself completely off. Right Alfie. Can you see that? And you can you see that? Give me a thumbs up with back on. Okay, right. So sorry about that little interlude. I’ll see if I can still benefit still recording or what it’s doing. I think it’s still recording. Okay, so sorry about that.

48. 26:23

    So I’ll try and get my brain back into gave us where we are. So yeah. So I was saying that God is talking to the serpent. I will put enmity hatred between you mr. Serpent. The woman who’s even between your seed or your descendants, mr. Serpent, and the woman seed or her descendants it, or he shall bruise thy head.

49. 26:48

    So in other words, the descendant of the woman, he’s going to bruise the head of the serpent and you or did he cendant of the serpent. It’s going to bruise his heel. So we’ve talked a lot about this verse in the past. We know what it actually means so just putting it on the Blackboard here. We know, of course was the lead original cause of sin and became symbolic of sin itself throughout the throughout the scriptures because it was the serpent that put the deceased, the deceptive thought into Eve’s mind. He was 10.

50. 27:28

    He was testing Eve and tempting, even making her think things that were different. To what God had said. And again, what we said with the children was look, are we expecting the seed of the serpent to be literal baby? Serpents in the future and they said, no, we don’t think that’s what we’re looking for. And I said, no, we’re not what we’re looking for, isn’t little baby future serpents that are going to cause a problem, what we’re looking for our future sins, causing a problem that down the line.

51. 28:02

    So the Seed of the serpent is really code for future sins. You might say human nature in terms of the woman. Well, we know who the woman was it’s eve. And in terms of the seed of the woman, a descendant of the woman we’re clearly being told there’s going to be a future son that was going to come along. And what God’s saying is that there’s going to be friction or emnity.

52. 28:34

    The future sins that come along and this future son. In other words, it’s almost like a battle that goes on between a future, son, and future, sins, or human nature. And what God is telling us almost in symbolic code form in the in Genesis 3:15, is that the future Son of Eve is going to fatally wound or bruise, the head of the serpent, which is Sin. So there’s there is some sort of fight if you want to call it. That going on between a future Son of Eve. And and what we obviously understand is that if you if you whack somebody on the head to cause a bruise, then that can be fatal.

53. 29:21

    And in fact sin we’re told is going to bruise. The future sons heel in other words, seen in a sense is going to cause Some pain to this future Son of Eve and what we’re going to find out of course and as we know this is the temporary pain of sacrifice. So remember talking about the Fig wasps going back to that that we, you know, we were saying that there’s some key things that we’re looking for here, the promise of seeds, we’re looking for, sacrifice wounding. All of those things were happening inside the Fig, and we’ve got very similar themes here in Genesis 3:15, Now what I found was a really I think this is a brilliant image. I don’t know what you think to this that sums up Genesis 3:15 really, really well because as you can see there on the left, you’ve got the legs of Jesus Christ on the cross with a nail that’s going through his feet.

54. 30:21

    But of course it’s the nail also is going through the snake. Now we know there wasn’t a snake when Jesus was crucified, it’s a symbolic thing. But you notice that the way they depicted I think this is that the nails gone through his feet and has gone through the head of the serpent and I think this is a really good way of understanding Genesis 3:15.

55. 30:47

    In fact, all the evidence from crucifixion is that the nail would have come out through the back of the heel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And actually there’s a whole talk and listen to him. This about how it would have burst apart the Achilles heel. The tendon at the back of your heel which is one of the most, very painful things that the body can endure is, this is the complete rupture in tearing of that. So really when God said that sin would bruise the heel of the Lord Jesus Christ, if they actively, that’s exactly what happened because because Jesus had human nature, he did have to die and therefore sin, Did causing that that literally that that terrible pain.

56. 31:39

    However, I said to the children, you know, how was it that Jesus defeated sin just by dying because how does that defeat sin by dying and they correctly said, well, it’s because he overcame sin, he didn’t let sin win and I said, Sin only wins if we if we sort of you know let’s see it only wins if we let the Temptation overcome us and Jesus didn’t once let the Temptation overcome him and that’s how he defeated sin.

57. 32:19

    He didn’t give in to it. That’s right. Sin only wins if we give in to sin. That’s what I said. And in fact, look talking about his sacrifice, it says he was bruised for our iniquities, it preheat pleased, the Lord to bruise him to make him an offering for sin. And because of that, he will see his seed in Isaiah 53, verse 5 and verse 10.

58. 32:47

    So again it seemed to me that in Genesis 3, we’ve got all these sort of From space to wounding two bruising to sacrifice all sort of. They’re pretty clearly in Genesis 3:15 and in the whole chapter effectively the other bit. That was interesting, of course in Genesis chapter 3 is that there was only one way into the garden and that way ultimately was protected by the Caribbean so in Genesis Three verse 24. So he got drove out the man and placed at the east of the Garden of Eden, cherubims, and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way to the tree of life. So if you go back to those key phrases that I was talking about earlier, and bearing in mind, I just got these videos from just, you know, sort of videos, just about the Fig and how the Fig got pollinated.

59. 33:49

    We’ve got an enclosed. Garden, only one very narrow way. In the phrase. Ultimate sacrifice was used wounded and weak reduce Devotion, to Polynesian was used the promise of seeds and the future being secured because of the work of this tiny insignificant little insect called the Fig wasp. So I’m just going to play again that video that I played earlier just to remind you of these words and listen to it again it’s exactly the same video but listen to the words just so you know that I’m sort of not making these things up.

60. 34:28

    And so the pollinated Wast reaches an immature fig, but her journey is far from. Over ahead lies, the greatest challenge of her brief life clawing and squeezing her way through the gate, her wings and antennae are ripped from her. She makes the ultimate sacrifice as the final push to enter burst her abdomen. In an epic struggle, between sacrifice and survival. The mother wasp crawls through the narrow Labyrinth towards the inner chamber.

61. 34:56

    She is wounded and week airing only her eggs in the pollen gift from the former fake. If the WASP fails to pollinate the flowers, No Seeds will ever develop big fruits with no future are costly to the tree. So they will not receive an inflow of nutrient. If the WASP does not pollinate the entire fake may be aborted. However, if she devotes herself to Pollination as well as laying eggs Ginger’s, the Fig will hold the promise of seeds. The tree will pump sugars and nutrients into the fake, securing the future of seeds and larvae. Like, when they mature and leave, the Fig will ripen thus completing the cycle of mutual, and he had all of those phrases. So, I now come back to the Garden of Eden and something struck me.

62. 35:42

    As I was staring at this picture because of course, in the center of the garden was the tree of knowledge. Each of Good and Evil. And it suddenly occurred to me that this tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. I actually know truly truly believe is a fig tree and I’m going to prove to you as best as I can.

63. 36:03

    That without any, I put question marks there because they were question marks to start with. But I’m going to do my best in the last 10 or 15 minutes to prove to you beyond all reasonable doubt that the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil itself was The Fig Tree a fig tree, just the normal fig tree, like we’ve got fig trees right now and we’ve got a huge clue that it was the victory that God gives us in the fact that, of course, as soon as they ate from the fruit, their eyes were opened. And God doesn’t say by the way that they went and found the Fig Tree and took its leaves.

64. 36:40

    You notice it just says that they sewed fig leaves and reading some stuff from some rabbis on. This subject, they say from a hebraic point of view, God would have mentioned the fact that they had gone to another tree because the last tree that was spoken of was the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. And the way Hebrew works is that you wouldn’t, they’re necessarily just say they’ve taken fig leaves without it automatically as potentially associating itself back to the tree.

65. 37:13

    That had just previously been mentioned the way Hebrew would normally work and even in our She would say there’s the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil and they went and found the Fig Tree and took the leaves their of, or something like that, but it doesn’t do that and it’s almost a clue.

66. 37:31

    Therefore, I mean, you imagine right. Adam and Eve have just eaten of the fruits and they saw, they were naked. Do we honestly imagine that they’re then going to start walking around as ashamed as they are looking for a tree? Free to cover themselves with leaves. And the answer is, well, they wouldn’t, in fact, the leaves of the Fig Tree, a very rough and very cause then they’re probably the last leaves that you would normally pick to rub against your skin.

67. 38:02

    They’re very unpleasant to the touch and it’s far more likely there. For the very first thing that they did was grab the leaves that were right next to them. And I don’t think there are lots of other trees, very close fire, think that, you know, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, which In the center of the garden would have been distinguishable and not just in like a forest and so on sort of packed together with other trees. So it’s, it’s almost unbelievable to think that they wandered around the garden to try and find some very rough course, leaves to try and Stitch together. It seems much more likely that they did do exactly that. Now, supposing there for the Fig Tree is the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil.

68. 38:49

    Suddenly, this makes this whole wasp situation pretty astounding because if the Fig was the forbidden fruit effectively, then they both ate from it, didn’t they? They both ate of the the thing that means of course they were eating a fruit that had got every single part of symbology for salvation built into it. Jesus, we know it’s the one and only way that we can be saved. Jesus was wounded terribly?

69. 39:28

    Just like the Fig wasp was wounded, Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice just as the Fig wasp offers itself as a sacrifice, Jesus devoted himself to God just as the think was, we’re told is devoted to this one, cause they don’t live another life, you know, the Fig wasp doesn’t have a A lovely time flying around it just goes straight and does this one sole purpose? Jesus created, of course, future seeds. He guaranteed future seeds by his work and Jesus thereby through his work just as the Fig wasp guaranteed, the future of the fruit.

70. 40:14

    So Jesus has guaranteed us a future. Ur life as well. And what was blowing my mind as I was doing this for thinking the very thing that God had got as a test for them, had got the solution to their problem if they failed. I mean, how amazing is that? The very symbolic solution for them, if they failed the test which God, of course, knew they would was actually planned in the very fruit that they were eating.

71. 40:52

    I mean II just find that utterly utterly astounding and to be honest. So did the kids, I’ve been inundated with emails from from the kids up to this saying, we it’s just amazing now. He is another thing because I then started thinking, if this is true surely there’s going to be some references in the Bible to it and look at this, right?

72. 41:18

    So I’m saying to the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil is a fig tree and lo and behold in Jeremiah chapter, 24, verses 2 and 3, which have words that we know. Well, it says, talking about fix that one basket, had very good figs. Even like figs that our first tribe and the other basket had very Naughty figs and that word naughty is exactly the same word as evil for the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. And these evil things were so bad that they couldn’t be eaten. They were so evil.

73. 41:50

    They could not be eaten because they were so evil. Then the Lord said unto me. What’s the Astana Jeremiah? And I said fix the good things, very good and the evil, very evil that they cannot be eaten. They are so evil. So here we’ve got a clear reference to figs being related to Good and Evil, which is exactly the point of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. There’s good Phoenix and evil fixed. So then I started wondering well what makes a fig evil, you know? I can understand eating a nice fig but what makes an evil fig and this also gets extremely interesting because what I haven’t told you so far Is that there are two types of fix. There is a female fig and a male figure. And this also is very, very, very unusual in the fruit world. There’s male figs and female fix and we cannot eat male figs. All male figs are inedible.

74. 42:58

    You can’t eat them. And what the reason is, is that when a fig wasp goes into a male fig, it is able to It’s own eggs inside that inside the male fig, when it goes inside a female figure, it cannot lay its eggs. Now, the problem of a fig wasps playing its own eggs inside and male fig is as follows, watch the screen and watch this fig and what’s inside it.

75. 43:40

    Yeah, and then going to be 13. Okay, fine. Eating ones and soul egg, big ones. But I don’t want to be back. So all male figs are inedible and I and these are evil fix. We can’t eat them. They’re no good for us, they’re not tasty at all. And the other type of evil fig are unpolished, nated, female fix, because some things grow and they’re not pollinated.

76. 44:18

    And if the, if the figure is not pollinated by the Fig wasp as you saw in the video, the tree stops Eating rat individual figure, it cuts off nutrition and because it cuts off nutrition. Then it falls to the ground and it goes rotten. So, um, pollinated. Female figs are also I would suggest evil in God’s language.

77. 44:42

    The other point is as well that if you, if you leave fixed too long, they actually are only fresh for seven days after seven days. You can’t eat them. They go off. They rot. And that’s why you rarely you. You do see figs in in supermarkets, but they very, very expensive because the shelf life is very, very small. So, I’m just going to play you another quick video here, which sort of again, encapsulates, a lot of the things that we’ve been talking about Hi, I’m Lauren and this is brainstuff Imagine for a minute that you’re a pregnant woman. Still with me guys, okay?

78. 45:27

    Now in this scenario, the only way you can give birth is if you crawl into a small cave made out of chocolate and the tunnel to this cave is so cramped that the only way you can get through is by cutting off. Your own arms 127 Hours style, but once you’re in this cave, then you can actually give birth and then die from either exhaustion or Nation.

79. 45:50

    Now this all sounds pretty Grim, as if giving birth wasn’t difficult enough, but what I just described is the life cycle of the Fig wasp their role in the pollination of pigs is crucial both to the propagation of their species. And to the survival of the fig trees, this Arrangement between wasp and plant is called mutualism.

80. 46:10

    So you wouldn’t have figs and vice versa. And yes, this means that most of the figs we eat. Contain at least one dead wasp. But more on that later. First, let’s talk about pollination. The Fig is technically, just a flower with its petals folded inside. Now, there are male figs, which are inedible and called, Capra, figs and female figs, which are the ones that we eat. But in order to create seeds, and tasty tasty fruit, the female figs need to receive some pollen from the male figs, since the figs reproductive bits are tucked away inside though, wind and bees can’t help the way they do with lots of other plants. Answer.

81. 46:48

    The Fig wasp, For a dude, fig plant to share its pollen, with a lady, fig plant, a female fig. Wasp needs to enter a male figure. She crawls through a narrow passage in the Fig called the Osteo. It’s so cramped that her wings and antennae break off along the way. But the messed-up thing here is that the lady fig wasp doesn’t know whether she’s entering a male Capra fig or a female fig if it is, in fact, care for fig, she’ll find its male flower parts.

82. 47:15

    Perfectly shaped for her to lay her eggs into the eggs. Hatch into larvae and grow within the figs petals. The male wasps hatch. First and are born, blind and flightless, they mate, with their female counterparts, which I guess. They are technically, brothers and sisters wasps are basically all targaryens. It’s fine. And the male wasps will start eating and exit tunnel through the Fig.

83. 47:38

    They can’t escape though, so they die inside. But the females collect, the figs pollen crawl out of the tunnel that their brothers created and fly away in search of a new fig plant to lay. O-negs in, but if a female wasp enters a female figure, she won’t be able to lay her eggs because of this long part of the flower, called The Stylist.

84. 47:58

    She’ll probably die of loneliness and exhaustion, but at least she’s delivered the pollen. Yeah. And hey, good news for us and enzyme inside the Fig called vikon breaks down her corpse into protein. So it just ingests the dead wasp and makes it part of the delicious ripened fruit for us to eat. Just so we’re clear those crunchy bits. You’re chewing in, figs are not bits of dead wasp or larvae. They really are the figs seeds.

85. 48:28

    And anyway, you should probably get used to the idea of occasionally eating an insect by accident, the FDA, considers certain amounts of insect content in various foods, natural, and unavoidable and it’s really not hazardous just grow. So there we go, right last couple of slides. So imagine the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil is a fig tree is a fit Tree.

86. 48:49

    And on that Victory, there are female figs which are good. And there are male figs that aren’t evil, right? And I’ve depicted them. There is green and black. Hopefully, you can see that. And the point is that, it’s only the female ones that are the ones that are good, are the ones that you can finally eat and a good for you right now.

87. 49:11

    What we’re staying there for is that the Fig wasp is going to go in to a female fix. So, That we are then able to eat it because it’s pollinated. It and the other point therefore, is that if Jesus is symbolic of the Fig wasp going into the good fruit, I said to the children and the youth weekend, I use it that it’s a female fig that’s good.

88. 49:39

    And a male fig that is bad and amazingly between them or they worked out the answer. And the answer is quite simply that if you To balance it, Jesus is coming as the bridegroom to marry the bride. And therefore we are symbolic of females. All of us are symbolic of females because we’re symbolic of the bride, and it’s only the female fruit that was good on this tree.

89. 50:11

    And, of course, as we’ve already said, they can be fruit on the tree that is female but is never pollinated by the Fig wasp and those fruit lose the nutrients and drop to the ground. So some female figs also become evil because I haven’t let Christ effectively Into their lives. It’s only the sacrifice of Jesus into our lives.

90. 50:37

    That turns us into a fruit that is edible and a fruit, that is good to eat. Now, the last couple of points, I just wanted to make was this because what your mind I know is saying, is while surely to goodness, it can’t be the Fig because it says that when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired and is Is the Fig Tree any of those things you know, if I look at that fig, well good for food, surely means something that is Bounty for with lots and lots and lots and lots of food and surely. There are other fruit varieties out there that look much better for food and surely if its pleasant to the eyes, it’s sort of okay but it’s other fruit.

91. 51:28

    That’s a lot more pleasant to the eyes than the fear. And in terms of a tree to be desired, well, it’s sort of, okay, but it’s there’s this trees that have far far better and bigger and grander than ever, the Fig Tree is, but you know, something to me this actually makes it even more of a case for being the Fig Tree than anything else.

92. 51:51

    Because God hasn’t over-engineered the Temptation, he hasn’t made something in the center of the garden with fruit almost too. To die for something that was spectacularly different and better than all the other fruits and a tree that was bigger and grander and and all the rest of it, God almost downplayed the tree in the middle of the garden. The Fig Tree was made to look slightly, not a tree to be tempted by.

93. 52:23

    In fact, God, gave them every other fruit that he’d made look, probably even better than the Fig Tree. But as with all things, Brothers and sisters. The problem is this that if we’re told that we can’t have something to us, it looks like a delicious cake, whatever it is. Isn’t that true? God says you can’t have that.

94. 52:46

    Well it then becomes the one thing that we do want and they looked at this fig tree into a, why can’t I eat that? And look at that fruit, it is interesting. And look at the tree and look at the leaves and why can’t I eat it? And then the serpent gets involved and suddenly we’ve got a problem and maybe, you know, a lot of people don’t give a fig about figs, but my study of this and this is only the beginning because of caused it.

95. 53:13

    Goes on and on and on from here and the other two talks do but suddenly perhaps we should give a fig about the fit because the Fig is the plan and purpose of God at the very, very beginning on the tree at the very very beginning and became, in fact, the test and in the in the in the in the subsequent tour.

96. 53:32

    It shows how the Fig Tree became symbolic of Israel. And Israel became the exact same test that they had. In the garden as well. And that to, me also became even more incredible. So, the key lessons that I think we take personally from this perhaps he’s, I mean one is just how amazing use God to have design, the solution in the very thing that was causing them to sin.

97. 54:03

    But we are also tempted to do wrong, like, Adam and Eve, and we succumb to sin when we Do the wrong thing and deserve death because of it. Exactly like Adam and Eve but if we accept Christ into our lives then we can be saved. We have to let that fig wasp effectively into our lives.

98. 54:30

    Otherwise we lose all of the goodness from the tree which is supplying energy to the fruit and we will ultimately die Christ willing sacrifice enables us to To survive IEEE to be forgiven. He turns us into something sweet and wonderful for God, God in turn, strengthens us and gives us all we need. The tree is pumping, lots and lots of goodness into the fruit for those that have let the Fig wasp in effectively, Let Jesus into their lives and look awesome ately. As we know we are going to be it will almost Go full cycle. Won’t it that actually won?

99. 55:13

    We will live in a New Garden of Eden on this Earth but the ultimate Garden of Eden won’t have a test that we can fail. The test has been overcome by the Fig wasp, in other words the Lord Jesus Christ and his sacrifice.

100. 55:43

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101. 55:59

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102. 56:39

     God, bless and talk to you next week.