"On the next day, when they had left Bethany, He became hungry. Seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see
if perhaps He would find anything on it; and when He came to it, He
found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” And His disciples were listening. Then they *came to Jerusalem. And He
entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and
selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers
and the seats of those who were selling doves; and He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. And He began to teach and say to them, "Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a robbers’ den." The chief priests and the scribes heard this, and began seeking how to destroy Him; for they were afraid of Him, for the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching. When evening came, they would go out of the city. As they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up. Being reminded, Peter *said to Him, "Rabbi, look, the fig tree which You cursed has withered."
Good Morning my beloved,
I believe there are a great deal of religious people in the church today, and very few true followers of Christ. Religious people may look impressive, they are always busy doing religious acts, but they fail to produce the kind of spiritual fruit God is looking for. They have different priorities than God does. Religious people are offended by the truth, God is Truth. Religious people may have the outward appearance of being alive, believing God is going to be friendly toward them, He surely bless them with good fortune, that it’s in some way deserved because of their good deeds. When the reality is they're spiritually dead. As believers, if we’re not conducting ourselves with integrity, consistently living out the Gospel message in both our public and private lives, people won’t believe what we confess.
We are often tempted to think the greatest weapon of the church is to compromise with the world by preaching a substitute gospel, in order for sinners to accept God’s Word, but there is no greater message than the Truth, that by His grace, through Christ, God will forgive all your sins. In Matthew 7:13, Jesus emphatically says, you must "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it." You cannot enter through the narrow gate unless you're willing to drop everything and walk through it. That's why He says at the end of verse 14, "there are few who find it." Rebellious people will always follow their own thoughts and sinful desires, going in the wrong direction that leads to destruction, we must be willing to proclaim this is the way that leads into God's presence and eternal life, walk in it. Therefore, we must preach the Gospel not to fill the church, but to point people to Christ, to save them from Hell.
Hebrews 4:12, "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." The Truth is the most powerful thing we can say to a unbelieving and perverted generation.
We have before us, what I believe is very a profound portion of Scripture in which our Lord Jesus pronounces a curse on a fig tree, it is the only miracle recorded in the Bible of a destructive nature of the thirty-seven miracles Christ performed throughout His earthly ministry. Critics claim that He acted impulsively when He cursed this
tree, and demonstrating His impatience, perhaps without realizing it, overlooking that Jesus never acted out of impulse; every action, every miracle He performed, was deliberate. This miracle was not performed impulsively, but so that man might not lose sight of His judicial character, that He alone has
the right and authority to exercise divine judgment. Secondly, Jesus' actions serve as a reminder, that He will be the judge of all, even on a soulless tree. A curse that extends well beyond simply a tree, a preview of the judgment on the coming destruction of the temple, the elite Jewish religious leaders and a prediction of judgment essentially on the whole corrupt nation of Israel.
Many professing Christians want Jesus, just not the one of the Bible, the One Who came to confront with their sins and call them to repentance, that doesn't fit the image of the all loving, sin tolerating Jesus they want Him to be. We would do well to remember that we will all one day they will stand before Him, either at the
Great White Throne Judgment, in which unbelievers will be judged
according to their works, punished and sentenced to everlasting
punishment in the lake of fire, or the Bema Seat Judgment, in which Christians are held accountable for their actions from the time of their conversion. It doesn't matter how righteous you appear to others, you cannot fool Him with superficial religious activities because you want to feel more spiritual about yourselves. The bottomline is, that unless you have been washed in the
blood of Jesus Christ and your sins forgiven, you will have no entrance
into God’s kingdom and the severest eternal judgment will be upon the hypocrite. God will never settle for a counterfeit Christian, so don’t be a religious phony, examine to your heart now and pay close attention to your walk with Christ. The difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow is the issue of genuine repentance, not remorse.
Let us pray,
Heavenly Father,
Father, thank You for Your Word for us today. May it cause each of us to examine our hearts, to make sure there is fruit there. Father, we pray that if there are those with us today whose lives are but nothing leaves, we pray by the work of Your Spirit they would become faithful, fruit-filled followers of Christ. We thank You and praise You for that work now in faith believing that it will be done according to Your will, to bring You glory. Lord, may those of us who are fruit-bearing Christians, never be found
unfaithful in our commitment to praying for those who are lost or deceived. We pray for Your mercy on our church family, our extended families, our community, our country, and our world.
In Jesus' name we ask and pray
Amen
Today's Message: Spiritual Fruit Or Religious Nuts?
Open your Bibles with me to the eleventh chapter of Mark, verses 12 through 21. I invite you to follow along with me, if you will, as I read this text to you to set it in your mind and then we’re going to start to unpack it.
"On the next day, when they had left Bethany, He became hungry. Seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see
if perhaps He would find anything on it; and when He came to it, He
found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” And His disciples were listening. Then they *came to Jerusalem. And He
entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and
selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers
and the seats of those who were selling doves; and He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. And He began to teach and say to them, "Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a robbers’ den." The chief priests and the scribes heard this, and began seeking how to destroy Him; for they were afraid of Him, for the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching. When evening came, they would go out of the city. As they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up. Being reminded, Peter *said to Him, "Rabbi, look, the fig tree which You cursed has withered."
In our society today, people have become obsessed with looking good. They spend a lot on clothing, cosmetics, Botox and plastic surgeries, gym memberships et cetera. Now, there is wrong in wanting to look good unless of course, it becomes an idol. The cosmetic industry is expected to surge even higher, reaching more than 91 billion dollars in the United States alone. However, when it comes to our spiritual life, it's not quite the same. God hates hypocrisy, people who want to look good when they are dead on the inside. In Matthew 23:27-28, Jesus condemned the religious leaders saying, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."
Many people think that the fig tree and the temple are completely unrelated events, but these two separate events are both previews of the same thing, a prediction of God's judgment, one by analogy and the other by action as to the fate of an apostate Israel because of their hypocrisy. The fig tree is very significant in Israel, of course, because of the fruit, but also because of it’s luscious leaves, it is quite common for them to grow to 20 feet high, 20 feet wide, providing people a place to rest in the shade under the fig tree. In fact, in John 1:48, when "Nathanael *said to Him, "How do You know me?" Jesus answered and said to him, "Before Philip called you, Nathaniel, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." The temple had become a symbol of false religion and superficial worship because the leaders were corrupt. If the leaders are corrupt, the temple and the nation of Israel were therefore corrupt. That's why when the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., there has never been a temple in Jerusalem since.
Let's look at verse 12, "On the next day, when they had left Bethany, He became hungry." I have been asked numerous times, "Why was Jesus hungry?" I believe the best answer is it reveals the essence of His humanness, but we can't be dogmatic about the reason, He was probably up early praying, before Mary and Martha were awake and began journeying toward Jerusalem. I know there have been many occasions I have become totally absorbed while praying and immersed in studying Scripture, that I didn't even think about eating until I was finished, then I realized I was hungry. Perhaps He needed food for strength and energy to face the day ahead of Him. Scripture doesn't tell us why He was hungry, just that He was. God’s Word is not given to us to interpolate, corrupting the text, we must take it as it is and extrapolate what we can from it.
Verse 13, "Seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see
if perhaps He would find anything on it; and when He came to it, He
found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs." Seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf, you have to understand that the fruit comes first, the leaves come second. In the spring, at the time of Passover, the fig tree should have had some small, immature but edible fruit, so He was right to expect to find fruit if there were leaves, but when He came to it, He
found nothing but leaves. The leaves were kind of saying, the fruits are already here. Now, the fruit wouldn't have been fully mature that doesn't come until the harvest in the fall, which grows from a new branch, that's why the text says it was not the season for figs, but there should have been some evidence of the smaller fruit. Fig trees were are very common to that part of the world, but this fig tree was unlike most fig trees because there shouldn't have been leaves on it, unless there was fruit. Remember, the fruit comes before the leaves, so the absence of fruit is the mark of the judgment. The first Adam came to the fig tree looking for leaves to cover his shame, the second Adam came to the fig tree looking for fruit in His people.
I believe that Jesus is teaching us about the importance of bearing spiritual fruit in our own lives. By the way, fig trees grew everywhere, the land of Israel was abundant with fig trees, so it was growing by the side of the road rather than someone's private orchard as some have suggested, to imply Jesus was attempting to steal fruit from some poor farmer because Matthews adds this was "a lone fig tree by the road."
Verse 14, "He said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again!" And His disciples were listening."
He is denouncing the fruitless nation of Israel for their false profession. Matthew tells us He said, "No longer shall there ever be any fruit from you." And at once the fig tree withered." That's how we can be sure this is a curse, the fruitless tree immediately died. Why is this significant? Because fruit is always the manifestation of true salvation. In Matthew 7:16, He says "You will know them by their fruits." It's interesting to note, there aren't nearly as many fig trees as there once were because they made a law that every man was taxed according to the number of trees
he had, so many people cut down their trees. In John 9:39, Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind." Throughout Israel’s history, blind unfaithfulness and disobedience has continued to produce curse after curse, a
mark of God’s judgment on a people claiming to be holy, zealous for God, but thinking they could establish their own righteousness was utterly fruitless, nothing but leaves. Sadly, even today, they don’t recognize that the Messiah they rejected is the only One Who can restore them. John 15, Jesus says, "I
am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you,
you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."
In fact, threats against Israel have become so common, they're constantly in a state of alert, that's why they have no rest. There are military planes literally flying over head constantly, just waiting for the enemy to cross her boarders. And, as we well know today, they have. While God continues to preserve His people, they will not know peace until they are redeemed, which Scripture assures us will happen.
In verse 15, we move from the analogy to the direct application of the curse. "Then they *came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were
buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money
changers and the seats of those who were selling doves." I imagine the disciples were still processing the curse on the fig tree and now they see Him set His divine judgment on the ungodly activity that was going on in the temple, nothing escaped His notice. Jesus is teaching His disciples very important spiritual lesson, the empty false worship that you see in
the temple is out of character with what God wants, and they will be judged.
Let this be a clear lesson folks, God's judgment is going to come upon all who have phony religion. The church is made up with many professing Christians, whose faith is just an outward superficial profession but their real confidence is in their own the flesh rather than God. God desires true worshipers, not false professors. Remember in John 4, when Jesus said the Samaritan woman, "Believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father." It's interesting that He cleansed the temple at the beginning of His ministry and now, here again at the end, and in the middle He confronted their corruption, calling them to repentance and true worship. That is why Peter said in 1 Peter 4 says, Judgment always begins with the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will become of the godless man and the sinner?" He got it didn't he? The house of God is the heart of worship, if it's corrupt there, it is corrupt everywhere. That's what we are experiencing today, corrupt leaders, corrupt people and a corrupt nation! And people wonder why I am so confrontational about what’s wrong with the church today, it's because that's always where judgment starts. Nothing will protect this nation from God's Judgment if people don't have a right relationship to God on His terms, not our own. God is patient, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. But His patience is not indefinite. Judgment is coming!
Verse 16, "And He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple." Why? Because the entire enterprise was a horrendous sham, it was more like a flea market than a true place of worship,
buyers and sellers were coming in and going out all the time, thousands of people. So, He drove everybody all out, overturning the tables, scattering their money everywhere, knocking over the stools that the money changers sat on. Jesus completely evacuated the place, and stopped the entire operation in it's tracks, with crates and debris flying, animals running all over everywhere! This is really quite an amazing display of righteous anger, a picture of what is to come for many who have their own ideas of how things are to be done, and there was absolutely no way to stop Him. As you can imagine, they weren’t very happy about it when Jesus starts to do a little cleaning in His house. If you want to know how God feels about the prosperity gospel, read verses 15 through 17 again! How might Christ demonstrate His divine Authority in your temple? Will He make a huge scene, holding nothing back on those who have sold-out true salvation to maintain their lustful desires and personally comfortable lives? I pray that you won't miss the point.
By the way, this strikes a pretty devastating death blow to the popular view of the passive, timid Jesus we hear so much about today, doesn't it? This is a massive display of His power and authority to judge the ungodly, a warning of what is coming. Jesus is on a divine mission to show them how God really feels about the evils of men, He hates those who pervert worship, this Jesus is not an easy one for many satisfied in their corruption to accept, rejecting the Truth, but I encourage you to open your eyes and ears, this is the heart of Christ when the church is corrupt. Over two thousand years later, it's exactly the same thing, "We will not have this Jesus reigning over us!" You don't get to redefine Jesus on your terms! Truth is eternal and unchanging, it's not subject to the self-expression of one's opinion, interpretation or perspective. Because God is embodiment of all that is true, truth must be defined in terms of God.
Verse 17, "And He began to teach and say to them, "Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a Robbers’ Den." Jesus gets right to the point, quoting from Isaiah 56, to make a very bold statement, one that cannot be easily misunderstood or denied. "For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples." And, in Jeremiah 7:11, says "Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” declares the Lord."
God’s desire was that all people would have opportunity to draw near to Him. Israel thought that they were the sole recipient of God’s blessing, they didn't anybody worshiping their God, especially the Gentiles. Even the inscription on the inner wall of the temple was in direct contrast to God's desire:
"No foreigner is to enter the barriers surrounding the sanctuary. He
who is caught will have himself to blame for his death which will
follow." Jesus cared about worship then and He cares about worship now. Make no mistake, He has not mellowed with age! Jesus didn't recognize their phony piety, self-righteousness, self ascribed
holiness, He confronted them as just what they were, sinners, in need of something they did
not possess, a Savior! How often do we reject someone who comes into our lives, telling us we're not worshiping God as He wants God to because they don't look like what we would expect? Let me tell you something, Jesus Christ has the authority to cleanse the temple, to demonstrate His condemnation of what the leaders are allowing in the temple complex, anyway that He wants. This gives you a pretty good idea of the righteous indignation that God must feel about the church today. "This is My house!" What you allow in your body depicts your worship. That's why Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body."
Verse 18, "The chief priests and the scribes heard this, and began seeking how to destroy Him; for they were afraid of Him, for the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching." This escalates their resentment and hatred of Him even more which is important because He needs die as the Passover Lamb, the problem is they're afraid of Him, they're afraid of being rejected by the people, losing their popularity because the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching. Luke adds that they were trying to destroy him and they could not find anything that they might do, for people were hanging on to every word He said. So, He was teaching daily in the temple to further escalate their anger and hatred, because He needs to be dead by Friday.
Verses 19-20, "When evening came, they would go out of the city. As they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up." He continued teaching at the temple during the day and then they would go back to Bethany in the evening. As they were passing by Wednesday morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up, because that is what happens when our Lord pronounces a curse on something, it will be destroyed. It happened to Sodom and Gomorrah, it happened to the fig tree and it happened to the second Temple and Genesis 12:3 assures us judgment will happen to all who curse Israel, "And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse." And Revelation 19, guarantees us that anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life will be thrown into the lake of fire in the coming judgment for their sin.
That brings us to verse 21, "Being reminded, Peter *said to Him, "Rabbi, look, the fig tree which You cursed has withered." Peter’s comment tells us they put it together, Jesus didn't cleanse the temple, He cursed it on Tuesday, destroying the false worship of Judaism at its core. On Friday, in a destructive act by God, the temple curtain between the outer courts and the Holy of Holies was ripped in two, from top to bottom. And the job was finished when the second temple was destroyed by the Roman army led by Titus during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. A simple act that speaks volumes, that's not up for discussion; there is no place to worship the One True God but at the cross. Unfortunately, many are still so spiritually blind, they still can't see it. Thank God, He has not rejected His people whom He foreknew, He set them aside and one day Israel will be saved.
In Closing..
Regardless of whatever was going on around Him, Jesus never lost His focus. The world around is changing, and it's not for the better. Biblical
values are not only being challenged, and condemned, unrighteous
government leaders are attempting to removed them from public view. I believe Christ is calling His Church not to get distracted, to wake up and make a difference, not by over turning tables, remember that you are not Jesus. But each one of us can make a difference by our radical discipleship, to confront our own hypocrisy and change the way we are living, to impact those around us in the world. We can't do that by living like the world, those outside the Kingdom, whose lives do not reflect Christ, while claiming to love Him. The church isn't about fundraisers, programs, parades or social justice reform, it's about bringing people to Jesus Christ. I believe the church must refuse to be content with those who exhibit no faith and no fruit. It's time to be accountable! Repent from her sins of pride and of her acts of immorality and ask God be merciful to us.
May it be so..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
Copyright © 2019-2023 All Rights Reserved
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
Copyright © 2019-2023 All Rights Reserved