Matthew 24:32 From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near.
Yeshua (Jesus) didn’t merely offer a suggestion–He issued a command: “Learn the parable.” In Greek, the word manthano (μανθάνω) implies disciplined learning, not casual observation. In Hebraic thought, to “learn” a parable means to press into its hidden meaning until it transforms how you live. The fig tree is not just a poetic image–it’s a prophetic mandate. And Yeshua expected His disciples, including us, to understand it deeply.
The fig tree often symbolizes Israel throughout Scripture (Hosea 9:10; Jeremiah 24; Joel 1:7). When Yeshua told this parable just days before His crucifixion, He had already cursed a fig tree that bore no fruit (Matthew 21:19), symbolizing Israel’s spiritual barrenness at the time. But in this parable, the fig tree is coming back to life. Its tender branches and new leaves are signs of renewal and return.
What is the most visible sign that this fig tree is budding? The miraculous rebirth of the nation of Israel in 1948, after nearly 2,000 years of dispersion. This event marked the start of a prophetic countdown–Israel is now the major signpost in the convergence of end-time events. Just as a budding fig tree tells you summer is near, the rebirth of Israel tells you the end-time season has begun.
Yeshua said, “When you see all these things”–not just Israel’s rebirth, but deception, wars, lawlessness, global shaking, and the gospel going to all nations–“know that it is near, at the doors” (Matthew 24:33). Like a fig tree responding to the sun, soil, and rain all at once, the prophetic signs are responding to a divine convergence. Israel is the centerpiece, but not the only branch.
So Yeshua’s call to “learn the parable” is not just about agriculture–it’s about prophetic awakening. To learn is to perceive the time, understand the signs, and prepare our hearts for the return of the King. Israel’s restoration is not a coincidence — it’s a trumpet blast to the nations (Isaiah 11:11-12). The fig tree has budded. Now we must ask: are we watching, learning, and responding as we were commanded to?
The ancient promises are sprouting before your eyes. The Lord of the harvest calls you–not to slumber, but to learn the parable, discern the season, and awaken the sleeping. This is no time for apathy. It is the hour of prophetic clarity. You are commissioned to perceive the signs, hear the sound of convergence, and prepare the way of the Lord with boldness and truth. For the One who spoke of the fig tree is near–even at the door. “Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning… for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Luke 12:35-40) Blessed is that servant whom the Master finds watching when He comes. Amen. So be it. Sound the trumpet.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Revivals, that is, genuine Divinely ordained seasons of the activity of God among men, have a universally unusual character. Normal activities and behaviors give way to the tangible influence of God’s Holy Spirit, whose inspiration brings a freedom of expression, emotion, conviction, worship, and other variations from normal experience.
During the Catholic inquisitions, as millions of Christians were being killed by the Jesuit Priests for apostasy, throughout Europe, Christians were fleeing. In Bohemia alone, there were an estimated 4,000,000 Christians before the Jesuit inquisition, and ten years later, only 800,000 people remained in Bohemia – all of whom were Catholic. These terrible events prepared the ground for one of the greatest moves of God that have ever been recorded, the Moravian Revival, which lasted for over 100 years. Gustav Warneck, the German Historian of Protestant Missions, testified, “This small church in twenty years called into being more missions than the whole Evangelical Church has done in two centuries.”
I love to study past revivals and in studying them, there are two recurring themes that stand out:
First, that He has often used obscure and unknown individuals to lead revivals, and that even these men whom He used so powerfully never considered themselves to be “special”, but often wanted to stay out of the limelight.
During the Great Depression, poverty swept across America like a whirling tornado, ripping up dreams and scattering hopes to the wind. One such poverty twister hit a small part of Texas where a man named Yates ran a sheep ranch. Struggling even to keep food on the table, Yates and his wife did all they could to survive. Finally, they had to accept a government subsidy or lose their home and land to the creditors.
When Joseph was thrown into prison, his life was thought to be over. How could anyone escape an Egyptian prison? But then, in one day, according to God’s perfect timing, he was instantly promoted to reign over all Egypt with only the Pharoah, (“god on earth”) as his Lord…
As we continue our study of Mashiach ben Yosef, we observe that both Joseph and Yeshua (Jesus) were chosen or ‘anointed’ for a special task. When Jacob gifted his son Joseph with a coat of many colors, lifting him up above his brothers, he reflected Joseph’s calling by the Lord for a life work as a leader.
Joseph interpreted dreams and revealed their meaning to those around him, and so Pharaoh gave him the name, Tsofnat Paneach (Zaphnathpaaneah) which means the “Decipherer or Revealer of Secrets”. Yeshua, (Jesus) at his first advent as “Mashiach ben Yosef” also came revealing secrets; not as an interpreter of dreams, but as one who disclosed the secrets of men…