12 The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13 Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. 14 Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it. Mark 11:12-14
Quite a bit of analysis has been done regarding this entire passage. This is the first part of three parts to this passage.
According to VersebyVerseMinistry.org
“Jesus statements to the tree were a demonstration conducted for the sake of the disciples to teach a spiritual truth concerning the generation of Israel who had rejected His claims to be Messiah. Israel is often pictured in Scripture as a fig tree, and this tree becomes a picture of the generation of Israel in Jesus’ day who rejected His clam to be Messiah. Though this generation in Israel gave an outward appearance of piety and religious belief (just as the tree appeared to be in season for fruit), in reality Israel was producing no spiritual fruit by their unwillingness to believe in the Messiah they claimed to seek.
Therefore, Jesus condemned the fruitless tree as an picture of what would happen to this unbelieving generation of Israel. If the Lord was willing to condemn a fruit tree for failing to produce fruit out of season, how much more will He bring judgment against Israel for failing to show spiritual fruit in the face of clear evidence that Jesus was the Messiah? Jesus Himself says He will judge the generation of Israel that rejected Him by condemning it greatly:
Luke 11:49 “For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute,
Luke 11:50 so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation,
Luke 11:51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation.’”
The general question for us becomes, what spiritual fruit are we producing for the next generation of believers?
In other words, are we making it easy or difficult for others to follow Him by our actions and words?