A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on January 11, 2026.
There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down’” (Luke 13:1–9).[1]
If you live long enough, you will witness or experience tragedy of some kind. Perhaps you would be amazed at the tragedies experienced by those seated around you. I don’t know everyone’s story, but I do know this: tragedy is common to the fallen human condition. And because it is, and because we were created reasonable beings, we may wonder, why do bad things happen?
Sometimes, the question is motivated by intellectual curiosity: Why did this happen, specifically or technically, so I may understand? Other times, the intention is prevention: Why did this happen so I can prevent it from happening again? But more often than not, the question of why is for God, sometimes in the form of a cry of desperation, asking God why such a tragedy occurred.
Consider, for example, the tragedy told to Jesus as he and his followers continued on their way to Jerusalem. We are not told why, but the Roman governor, Pilate, had killed some Galileans worshipers in Jerusalem, mixing their shed blood with the blood of their sacrifices. Consider what was conveyed in such a succinct account: the tragic loss of life, religious offense, and display of political power and injustice. Such news not only incites a sense of justice but also helps explain why many of the Jews of Jesus’s day were looking for a Messiah to overthrow Roman rule.
But imagine if you were there: If told such tragic news, how would you respond? Would you snarl with outrage through your social media? Would you join the zealots and plot to storm the Praetorium? Or, would you move away and join the other expatriates in Alexandria? The list of options is perhaps long, but do any of them align with Jesus’ response? He says nothing about Pilate, nothing about the Roman government, and nothing about the blatant sacrilege. He does reference the suffering of those murdered but expresses no outrage. He simply and brilliantly asks a question: “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?” (13:2). To consider this question, let us consider human depravity and the providence of God.
The Providence of God
It has been asked, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” To which it has been replied, “They don’t.” Not because bad things don’t happen but because there are no good people. When compared with one another, we may rightly claim to be good, but compared to the righteous standard of God almighty, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). From here all the way around planet earth, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. . . . no one does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:10-12). Such is the total depravity of fallen humanity.
So essential is this to a right understanding of who we are and what the gospel is, Jesus chooses not to engage in mundane banter or social commentary on the news of the day but instead asks a question that transcends the momentary and confronts the self-righteousness of sinners: “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?” Were “these Galileans” sinners? Jesus says as much. Did they suffer? Jesus says they did. But were they “worse sinners” than others? That’s the confronting question.
Jesus adds to this scenario another newsworthy tragedy of their day, the falling of “the tower of Siloam,” in Jerusalem, crushing and killing eighteen. Unlike the first scenario, there was no villain, like Pilate, nor the sacrilege of commingling human and sacrificial blood. There was simply a tower, probably part of the wall surrounding Jerusalem, that unexpectedly fell. But the question remains: Were the eighteen that died “worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?” (13:4).
A popular belief in Jesus’s day, and alive and well today, is that tragedy befalls those who deserve it. If the reigning governor executes you and sprinkles your blood as a religious mockery, shall we consider the wicked deeds you’ve done to warrant it? If a stone tower falls from its precipice and crushes you to death, shall we pontificate on what you did to deserve it? But if neither nor the like happens to the rest of us, may we deduce that we’re not the sinner you are? You can see how over time such bad theology could serve as a preserver of self-righteousness, based on our supposed best behavior.
To be clear, Scripture does teach that we reap what we sow,[2] but such truth is not a mathematical formula used to determine correlation between tragedy and personal sin. Dale Ralph Davis puts it, “human tragedy is not index of immense human sinfulness.”[3] Remember, Job was “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1) and yet endured significant tragedy in his life. Did Job earn it? Hardly. Did he deserve it? Surely, but not any more than you or me. In fact, every moment of our existence is better than we deserve. But why?
The Westminster Shorter Catechism helpfully defines the providence of God as “his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions.”[4] It is God who preserves life and God who takes it, and why he does what he does is among the secret things of God. So, we must beware of making deductions that belong to God alone, knowing that sin taints our perspective but trusting that there is purpose in all that he does.
The Purpose of God
Because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), we all deserve any tragedy that befalls us. But we don’t all get what we deserve, saint and sinner alike. “For [God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). Such is the common grace of God. But this will not always be the case. A day is coming when the blood of sinners will flow through the streets as high as a horse’s bridle.[5] A day is coming when judgment will fall like a tower from the sky crushing self-righteousness and life with it.
What then is God’s purpose in the tragedies we witness or encounter? John Calvin says, “All the calamities which happen in the world are so many demonstrations of the wrath of God; and hence we learn what an awful destruction awaits us, if we do not avert it.”[6] The “awful destruction” Calvin references is not a tragic death here but the judgment to come, and to avert such destruction is not of our own doing nor a result of works. Such aversion is through the saving grace of repentance, by which we have a true sense of our sin and realization of the mercy of God in Christ and then with grief and hatred of our sin turn from it to God fully intending and striving after new obedience.[7]
Let us remember Job, who endured tragedy after tragedy but eventually realized the purpose of God in it, confessing to God, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. . . . therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:2, 6). Seeing God’s purpose led him not to boasting in his righteousness but repentance. And while we may not endure the tragedies of Job, the disasters we witness and the tragedies we encounter should lead us to repentance too.
Repentance “begins with knowledge of sin,” J.C. Ryle explains, but it doesn’t stop there. Ryle says,
It goes on to work sorrow for sin. It leads to confession of sin before God. It shows itself before man by a thorough breaking off from sin. It is inseparably connected with lively faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance like this is the characteristic of all true Christians.[8]
The Holy Spirit does this work in us, leading us first to confession, then contrition, then change. As the Westminster Confession describes it,
a sinner, out of the sight and sense not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins, as contrary to the holy nature, and righteous law of God . . . so grieves for, and hates his sins, as to turn from them all unto God, purposing and endeavoring to walk with him in all the ways of his commandments.”[9]
True repentance never leaves us where we are but to a deeper appreciation and gratitude for the grace and mercy of God given to us in Christ Jesus, leading us to walk in obedience to Christ’s commands.
The Patience of God.
Let us recall that John the Baptist came preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2), calling Israel to repentance in preparation for the coming of her King. And so came the King, not in regal robes but humble and lowly, preaching the same, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17). But neither the herald’s nor the King’s message were new but echoed the prophets before them. Jeremiah, for example, declared, “‘Return, faithless Israel, declares the LORD. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the LORD; I will not be angry forever” (Jeremiah 3:12). And Ezekiel proclaimed, “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 18:30-31).
It is then to the house of Israel that Jesus tells the following parable of a fig tree, a symbol often used to refer to ancient Israel:
“A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down’” ( Luke 13:6-9).
We should not read too much into the specifics of this parable but deduce that the owner of the vineyard’s patience was coming to an end with his fig tree, as the Lord’s patience was with Israel. With simply a cursory reading of Scripture, it may be discerned that out of all the people in the world, God chose the children of Israel, bestowing upon them alone the oracles of God, his law, his ordinances, even a land. They were favored by God unlike any other people, and yet they spurned the Lord’s grace and did not yield the fruits of faith, repentance, holiness, and godliness. And yet, in God’s mercy, he sent Israel’s promised Messiah, his only begotten Son, born not a Gentile but a Jew, born under the law,[10] telling them clearly, repeatedly, “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (13:5). But as a nation, Israel did not repent but executed their Savior, and so the divine axe was swung at the root of the fig tree in AD 70, when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, and the temple, and so the nation.
But Jesus’ parable is not merely a history lesson for us of ancient Israel’s demise, but revelation to us of what awaits the hardened hearts of his people. Where is our faith and our repentance of sin? Where are the fruits of Christ’s Spirit and the good works he gives? Is our fig tree yielding the sweet fruit God intended, or are we barren? Do we live lives of repentance and faith, or, do we, like the Jews to whom Paul wrote, “presume on the riches of [God’s] kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead [us] to repentance?” (Rom. 2:4).
Let us then heed Jesus’ call to repent, for great is the mercy of God, who is patient, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:8-9). J.C. Ryle says,
We have probably not the least conception how much we all owe to God’s long-suffering. The last day will prove that all mankind were debtors to God’s mercy, and Christ’s mediation. Even those who are finally lost will discover to their shame, that it was ‘of the Lord’s mercies they were not consumed’ long before they died. As for those who are saved, covenant-mercy will be all their plea.”[11]
Ryle is right: “covenant-mercy” is all we will and all we may plea, for in Christ we have received infinitely better than we deserve, indeed, the kingdom of heaven.
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
(Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] Gal. 6:7
[3] Dale Ralph Davis, Luke: The Year of the Lord’s Favor (Fearn: Christian Focus Publications, 2021), 237.
[4] “The Shorter Catechism” Q. 11, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 362-363.
[5] Rev. 14:20
[6] “The Right Response to Tragedy,” Tabletalk, Vol. 47, No. 7 (July 2023): 29.
[7] Green, Nezamutdinov, Preston, The Illustrated Westminster Shorter Catechism Q. 87 (Fearn: Christian Focus Publications, 2022), 75.
[8] J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke, Vol. 2 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 82.
[9] “The Confession of Faith” 15.2, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 64-65.
[10] Gal. 4:4
[11] J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke, Vol. 2 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 87.
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