Three tests of the gospel, Mark 12:13-34

When I was in school, I used to hate tests.  Usually, that was because I had either forgotten to study for it, or I was too preoccupied with sports or other activities to study for it.  So consequently, when the teacher would say, “now put away everything off your desk and take out a pencil and a blank sheet of paper for your test,” I would get this horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, and look around in a panic at my classmates all calmly putting away their books,  in hopes that somehow this was all some great misunderstanding.  

But teachers give tests in school not usually to cause extreme heart palpitations in their students, but rather to gage their knowledge and understanding.  And likewise, students ask questions of their teachers in order that they might gain knowledge and understanding. 

However, as we look at the passage before us today, we see three sets of people who ask questions of the Lord Jesus in order to test Him, but not so that they might gain understanding or knowledge, but so that they can trap Him in something that He said in order to use it against Him.  Their ultimate goal is to put Him to death, so they are looking for some sort of justification in order to do that.  

What’s also interesting is that Jesus has managed in three short years of teaching to invoke such hatred against Him, that His enemies, who were also enemies of one another, have unified in their common cause to have Him killed, and so they set aside their differences to try to accomplish their common goal.

We see that particularly in the first incident in which the Pharisees team up with the Herodians to try to test Him, or trick Him into making a statement they can use against Him.  All of you are probably aware of who the Pharisees were; strict, sanctimonious religious teachers who prided themselves on keeping the law.  The Herodians though are less  known; they were Hellenists, lovers of Greek culture, people who were about as wordy as you could be and still be a Jew.  These folks normally could not stand one another.  But they come together in their common hatred of Jesus and what He represented.  There is an ancient saying which predates Christ by some 400 years which states “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  That is especially true in the case of the enemies of Christ.  In a minute we will look at another group here which is the Sadducees, and they and the Pharisees were like Democrats and Republicans.  So there is a bipartisan effort here to eliminate Jesus and the gospel He is teaching. 

Now in true political style, they come to Jesus with lofty titles and sly flattery in order to try to disarm Him in hopes of tripping Him up. They start off with calling Him Teacher, and yet they themselves claimed to be teachers.  Jesus called the Pharisees the blind leading the blind. They fawningly say “Teacher, we know that You are truthful and defer to no one; for You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth.”  

Wow, that’s laying it on heavy isn’t it?  Especially when we know that they were plotting to kill Him at that very moment.  If they really believed what they were saying, then they would have recognized that He who isn’t partial to anyone, but tells the truth regardless, would not be fooled by crass flattery.  So all of that simply tells us that their question was not sincere.  As Mark said in vs 12, they were buttering Jesus up “in order to trap Him in a statement.”

So the test they proposed to Him was “is it lawful to pay a poll-tax to Caesar, or not?” Now to understand the full significance of this question, you need to understand a couple of things.  First, a poll tax was the annual capitation tax, or per capita tax on every adult in Judea, and it was imposed by the Romans upon the Jews.  

The other important thing to consider is that the Jews were in a constant state of rebellion over this tax, because they hated the Roman oppression, and furthermore, the devoutly patriotic Jews considered it a sacrilege to give the Emperor honor, because he claimed to be deity. So some of the most fastidious considered it an affront to God. 

So the question put to Jesus was very clever.  If He said that you should pay the tax, then He risked alienating many devout, patriotic Jews.  And if He said that you should not pay the tax, then He was possibly guilty of sedition against Rome.  So they thought that they had Him, no matter which way He answered the question.

But notice the response of Jesus.  Remember, God sees the heart; vs 15, But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, “Why are you testing Me? Bring Me a denarius to look at.”  A denarius was the common coin of Rome.  It was equal to a laborer’s wage for a day’s work. And it was also the amount due for the poll tax.

They give Jesus a denarius and He asks, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” And they said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

I am told that such a denarius has been found, and that on the obverse is a picture of the head of Tiberius, and on the reverse he is shown sitting on a throne.  But the really interesting thing is the inscription, which reads; Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus, Highest Priest. 

Yet in spite of this blasphemous inscription, Jesus acknowledges that this was Roman currency, and as the governing authority, it was issued by them, and as the governing authority it was due certain taxes for the blessings such government provided.  Rome had achieved a measure of peace that the world had scarcely seen before.  They had built roads and bridges and waterworks.  They gave protection and liberty so that the people were able to live their lives in relative peace and prosperity.  And for all that government provides, Jesus said you should render to Caesar that which is due to Caesar.  Jesus is saying government has a right to exert taxes for the services it renders to it’s citizens.

For us that translates to pay your taxes.  Give what is due to the government for it’s services.  Paul makes this principle clear in Romans 13:1-2 saying, “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.”  In other words, give the government it’s due, and if you do not, you will receive condemnation not only by the government, but also from God.

There is another principle though that Jesus makes which should be given equal attention.  And that is “render unto God the things which are God’s.”  What is due to God?  Well, as we will see in a few verses later, our duty to God is to love Him above all, with all our being. Jesus said elsewhere that if you love Me you will keep My commandments. So we owe God our obedience.  He is the origin of our life.  So we are to render unto Him our very life.  Considering all that He has done for us, how can we not give Him our all? So God has priority over government, but government has authority over us, as an extension of God’s authority.

Now there is much more we could say about that, but we have to move quickly as there is a lot yet to cover.  So let’s look at the next test, the next question employed this time by the Sadducees to try to trap Him.  Now who were the Sadducees?  Mark tells us the defining characteristic of the Sadducees in vs18, they said there was no resurrection.  So how ironic and hypocritical then is their question posed about the resurrection.  But additionally, it should be noted that the Sadducees did not believe in angels, they only believed in the inspiration of the Pentateuch, that is the first 5 books of the OT written by Moses, and also that they were the party of the high priest.  The high priests were selected from this party.  Considering that Jesus had just the day before entered the temple which was the high priest’s domain and cleaned out the merchants and disrupted the money making scheme they were running there, there is no doubt that these guys were gunning for Jesus and hoping to catch Him in saying something that could be used against Him and at the very least they are trying to make Him lose favor among the people by sounding ridiculous.

Well, we’ve read the fictitious scenario that these guys have concocted concerning a woman who had seven husbands.  I won’t take the time to reread it.  But it was obviously a fictional situation which was designed to make the doctrine of the resurrection sound absurd.  And here is the deal; the kingdom of God which Jesus was preaching was founded on the doctrine of the resurrection.  They wanted a temporal kingdom of God, a physical, immediate kingdom in which they had the chief positions and which benefited them in this life.  Jesus was preaching a spiritual kingdom which has it’s origin and culmination primarily in heaven, and so therefore is dependent upon the resurrection for it’s fulfillment.  So in asking this absurd question they were trying to undermine the credibility of His gospel. 

We have the same thing happen today in attacks from liberals on the gospel.  They will try to show the absurdity of hell and the judgment to come. “God is really going to burn billions of people for eternity?”  They will try to show the absurdity of heaven.  “Who wants to live forever and ever with these right wing hypocrites anyway?  What are you going to do, sing hymns for millions of years?”  They try to show the absurdity of faith in God as Creator in contrast to the intellectualism of science.  

But the answer Jesus gives the Sadducees contains the answer to the naysayers down through the ages. vs24,  “Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God?”  It’s amazing to me that those who would deny the supernatural in regards to God will accept so many other ludicrous ideas.  They would rather believe in space aliens than in a divine creator.  They would rather believe in things like evolution which took billions and billions of years rather than believe in a literal creation.  They would rather believe in the improbability that out of chaos could come a universe so precise and ordered that it follows exact mathematical equations.

Jesus says there are two areas in which you are mistaken and therefore without understanding.  First is that you don’t understand the scriptures.  In the case of the Sadducees, they said they believed the Pentateuch, but they didn’t really know the scriptures in the Pentateuch which clearly taught that there was life after death.  The problem with the Sadducees is very similar to the problem with many critics today; they focus on scriptures that they like, that fit their agenda, but disregard those that they don’t like.  

Secondly Jesus says that they don’t understand the power of God.  If they truly understood the power of God, then the  doctrine of the resurrection should not have been that difficult to accept.  Certainly the God who made all life and everything in the universe by the word of His mouth could raise the dead.  The secret to understanding and knowledge is studying the scriptures.  It’s not through some vision, it’s not through some ecstatic experience, it’s through studying the scriptures.  That is how we come to know God and how we are able to worship God in spirit and in truth.  God is revealed in scripture.

Jesus then tells them the truth about the resurrection and marriage.  vs 25, “For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” First note that in heaven there will not be the need for marriage, because there will be no need for procreation.  We will live forever.  Secondly, marriage on earth is a picture of our relationship as the church with Jesus Christ.  In the resurrection, our fidelity is to Christ.  He is our bride groom and we are His bride.

I also want to point out that Jesus is declaring that there will be a resurrection.  Many churches don’t really talk about our resurrection from the dead.  The common doctrine that a lot of people are being taught is that when you die you go to heaven.  The Bible however speaks of the dead being raised at the resurrection.  And then after the resurrection the Lord will institute a new heaven and a new earth.  Jesus spoke of the dead in the story of Lazarus and the rich man as being in the bowels of the earth in Hades.  Lazarus was in Abraham’s bosom, a Jewish way of speaking of Paradise, and the rich man was in torment, that is in the flames of hell.  And Jesus said between the two there was a great gulf which no one could cross. Now a lot of people want to dismiss all of that, because they don’t understand it, or it doesn’t fit their template.  But that is what Jesus told us in Luke 16.  

At the resurrection then those that are in Paradise will be resurrected with a new body. 1Thess. 4:16 “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”  Some have construed that to mean that our old physical bodies will be lifted from the graves.  That may not be necessarily true.  Consider what Paul said concerning the resurrection and this heavenly body in 1Cor. 15:36-44, 50, “That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies;  and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own.  All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish. There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another.  There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.  So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body;  it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;  it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ...  Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”  

Notice Paul said, it is sown, that is it dies and is put in the ground as a natural body, but it is raised a spiritual body.  So then what Paul says is that what is put in the ground is natural, but what comes out of the ground is spiritual.  What manner of beings are in Paradise?  They are spirits, and they will be raised with spiritual bodies.  And if you really want to start speculating what that looks like, then I will tell you that a oak seed doesn’t look anything like an oak tree.  What will we look like?  Consider what John says in 1John 3:2 “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”  In our eternal bodies we will be like Christ. That’s good enough for me.

Then Jesus turns to the scriptures to refute the Sadducees, and He picks a scripture from the Pentateuch.  He quotes from Exodus 3 in the passage about the burning bush.  Vs26, “But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, AND THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken.”

What Jesus is saying is that God speaks of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as being still alive.  The point is that they are alive awaiting the resurrection.  In fact, going back to the story Jesus told in Luke 16, He said  Lazarus was in Paradise being comforted by Abraham.  Abraham had a dialogue with the rich man.  So Abraham was obviously very much alive.  At the transfiguration, Jesus appeared with Moses and Elijah, and they were talking about the things to come.  They were alive and cognizant and able to have a conversation about what was going on in the world at that time.  Jesus said in John 11:26  “and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”  This is the hope of the Christian, ladies and gentlemen.  This is how we face the future without fear.  We will never die.  At death we will be alive in spirit with those who have gone on before us.  We will be with the Lord forever.  And furthermore, at the last trumpet we will be resurrected from the dead with a new body, a glorified, spiritual body that is far beyond what we can imagine, but it will be like the Lord’s body.  That’s a tremendous hope.

Well, there is yet one more test.  This time it’s a lawyer who comes to test Jesus.  Mark doesn’t make it clear that this was a set up as well, but Matthew does.  The question asked by this lawyer is which of the commandments or laws was the foremost? Not the first, but the foremost in importance. Now there were much more than 10 commandments.  The scribes and lawyers had determined that there were no less than 613 commandments, 248 of them positive, and 365 negative.  One for every day, it would seem.  The Pharisees seemed to focus on the negative.  Jesus, however, is going to give the positive.

Furthermore, in this exercise, there is a sense in which the entire law is being boiled down to it’s essence, synthesized, or summarized into one brief sentence.  I wonder if you could very easily condense the gospel into one sentence.  It’s not that easy.  But Jesus does so readily, once again quoting from scripture.  He quotes from Deut. 6:4, 5, ‘HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’

In the original Hebrew, the first word “hear” is from the original Shema.  Today in Jewish synagogues, it is still called the Shema, and is recited at the beginning of their service. But what Jesus is teaching is that the whole law can be summed up with one word; love. The duty of man is to love God supremely above all things with all his being.  The elements of this love is broken down into somewhat overlapping dimensions.  The heart is a dimension of the soul, the mainspring of all thoughts, words and deeds.  The soul encompasses the mind, will and emotions.  The mind speaks of the intellect, another dimension of the soul.  And strength I believe emphasizes the will of man.  They are overlapping, as I said.  I think that they all are various dimensions of what might be rightly called the heart or the soul; which encompasses the mind, emotions, and will. 

And I like that because it shows that we don’t just love God emotionally, but also intellectually.  And we don’t just love God with a dry intellectualism, but also emotionally.  And that we don’t just love God with our intellectually, but with our will, which produces action and strength.  I think further understanding comes from the fourfold use of the word “all.”  Four times Jesus says “all.”  God’s wholehearted love for us must not be answered in half hearted love from us. But we love Him above all, and with all our being.  We love Him above all other love, even the love of family, even the love of ourselves.  We put Him first above all things.

Secondly, Jesus said that this love not only must be directed towards God first, but that the second most important commandment is that we must love our neighbor as ourselves.  Once again Jesus quotes scripture, this time from Lev. 19:18  “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD.”

The second commandment resembles the first in this respect; they both require love.  In the case of the second, it is love towards those who bear the image of God.  When Jesus held up the denarius and asked whose image was there, He said “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”  So by similar application, when we look at our fellow man, we need to see that he bears the likeness of God, man was made in the image of God. Gen 1:26 “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.”  Gen 1:27, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” 

How do you love mankind who was made in God’s image?  As you would love yourself.  That is the measure by which you measure to another.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. (Luke 6:31)

And who is my neighbor?  According to Jesus’s parable in Luke 10:30, it is anyone who God places in your path for sympathy and help.  Furthermore, in Matthew 5:43 Jesus even includes our enemies as those we should love.

Well, hearing this answer, the lawyer is so impressed by the wisdom of Christ that he cannot help but offer his praise, saying in vs32, ”Right, Teacher; You have truly stated that HE IS ONE, AND THERE IS NO ONE ELSE BESIDES HIM;  AND TO LOVE HIM WITH ALL THE HEART AND WITH ALL THE UNDERSTANDING AND WITH ALL THE STRENGTH, AND TO LOVE ONE'S NEIGHBOR AS HIMSELF, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”  His enthusiasm indicates that Jesus has just made one of His enemies into a possible disciple. And Jesus recognizing that says in return, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

Listen, what an answer to those today who would offer the sacrifices of praise and worship and not the sacrifice of obedience.   What an answer to those who would offer lip service, but will not surrender their lives in service to the Lord.  In our study of the life of David, we heard Samuel emphasize a similar point to Saul that this lawyer made to the Lord.  Samuel says in 1Samuel 15:22, “Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.”  

Love towards God cannot truly exist without obedience towards the Lord.  There was just one more step needed by this lawyer to go from being not far from the kingdom of God to being in the kingdom of God.  And that was believing in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.  Jesus said in John 6:40  "For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”  

In John 11:25-26 Jesus said to Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,  and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

I would close today in asking you the same question.  Have you believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God who came into the world to offer the complete sacrifice for your sins?  And are you willing to obey Him and give your life to live for Him as your Lord and Savior?  If you will but believe in Him and surrender your life to Him, He will give you life, He will supervise your resurrection and you will never die but live eternally with Him in glory.  I pray that you have surrendered to Jesus today and will learn to love Him with all your heart and soul. 

The authority of the gospel, Mark 11:27-12:12

In Hebrews 1:3 the scripture tells us concerning Jesus that “He is the radiance of [God’s] glory and the exact representation of [God’s] nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” And to that end, in the last couple of chapters we have seen Mark present Jesus in various ways, each displaying a dimension of the character of God.  In chapter 10 we see Jesus presented as the Good God, as the Savior, as our Sacrifice, as the Suffering Servant, as the Son of Man, and as the Son of David.  In chapter 11, we see Jesus described as the Lord, as the coming King, and as the Righteous Judge. 

These chapters show that it’s simply wrong to emphasize the characteristics God in only one dimension, as in God is love, without also taking into consideration His Lordship, His sovereignty, His righteousness and His right to judge the world.  A lot of people are willing to accept the idea of a God, even Jesus as the Son of God, as long as it conforms to their idea of what God should be. God is ok as long as He is serving me and insuring that I have a good life.  But a God that judges me, that determines what is right or wrong for me, that may send to either heaven or hell, that’s a God that most people do not want to accept nor believe in.  However, a god that you control is not a god at all; it’s an idol formed according to your design.  God is who He is, and who He has been through the ages past, and we must worship Him in spirit and in truth according to how He has disclosed Himself to the world through the Word.

Now that’s the issue that we see before the religious leaders of Israel in the passage we are studying today.  They cannot dispute His manifested power to heal or raise the dead or feed thousands of people from a few loaves of bread.  Nor can they dismiss  the truth of His teaching.  But yet they will not submit to His Lordship.  They will not submit to His rule and authority over them.  They have determined that they will not have this man rule over them.  And yet I believe that they had more than enough evidence to convince them that Jesus may have been the Messiah.  Yet they would reject Him and plot to kill Him because they would not have Him be Lord over them. And that really is the issue today as well.  People are willing to believe that Jesus existed, even believe that He is the Savior, yet for a lot of people their faith fails at the point of declaring Jesus as Lord.  They refuse to acknowledge His authority to rule their lives and as such they will not let Him be the Lord of their life.

Now as we saw in the first part of the chapter, Jesus entered into the temple after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem and looked around quietly during the evening, assessing what was going on.  And then the next morning, Jesus came back to the temple with a vengeance, sweeping aside the money changers and the vendors in sacrificial animals, and basically putting a stop to all commerce in the temple.  He disrupted the daily sacrifices, He stopped them from making money off of the temple service, and He basically asserted His authority over the temple as His house and His domain.

Well, we pick it up the story the following morning as Jesus and His disciples come back into Jerusalem and Jesus is walking through the temple, and the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to Him, and began saying to Him, “By what authority are You doing these things, or who gave You this authority to do these things?”

Now lest you miss it, these are the top brass of Israel.  These are the chief priests and the rulers of the Sanhedrin.  They control the temple worship and all practices in the temple and thus, they control Israel. They are very powerful and very wealthy men.  And at this point, they are very angry men.  Their income has been interrupted and called into question during what was the busiest week for sacrifices and offerings of the year.  It’s the equivalent of the week before Christmas in the Mall of America. Imagine someone shut off the power and stopped everyone from doing business.  There would be an uproar.  And that’s what is happening here.

So they stop Jesus as He is teaching, which is of course one of the foremost things God had ordained to be done in the temple, and they ask Him, “By what authority are you doing these things?”  What authority do you have to disrupt the temple service and determine what is appropriate?

And this really is a key question that they keep coming back to.  They have previously accused Jesus of operating under  or by the Devil’s authority.  They have resolutely refused to recognize Jesus’ authority as the Messiah, although they have had plenty of evidence for it, and of all people  they should have been the first to acknowledge Him as the Messiah.

Well, Jesus answers their two questions with a question of His own.  It’s interesting to note that 8 times in Mark’s gospel, the critics of Jesus ask Him a question in order to attack Him or try to trap Him, and each time Jesus answers with a question of His own. I think what that shows us is that often people are asking the wrong questions.  It’s possible to ask a question designed to provoke a certain answer.  I imagine that is what the pollsters do.  That’s why their polls are usually skewed to show the results that they want to show.  But rather than play their game, Jesus asks His own question.  And in that very thing, He shows His authority.  God is not subject to our questions.  God will ask the questions of us.

Jesus says to them, “I will ask you one question, and you answer Me, and then I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven, or from men? Answer Me.” That’s an important question we need to ask ourselves in our ministry and in our worship even today.  Is it from God or from men?  If we really consider our worship, our ministry, our church from that perspective, then I think there are a lot of sacred cows in the church that might fail the test.  A lot of what we take for granted in church should be subjected to that paradigm. Is it from God or from men?

Now according to Mark chapter 1 the baptism from John was the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  It was the conclusion to the message of “prepare the way, the kingdom of God is at hand.”  The Messiah is coming.  So in preparation for the coming of the Messiah, John urged the Jews to repent and be baptized.  And when John eventually saw Jesus coming to him, he said in John 1:29, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”  

The scribes and the chief priests knew all of that of course.  They had come out to the baptism of John and been rebuked as being a “brood of vipers.”  So they weren’t fans of John the Baptist.  But Jesus had them cornered with this question, because if they said John’s baptism was of God, then the obvious question was why did you not believe him?  And if they said it was of men, then they feared the people, because the people believed John to be a mighty prophet of God.  And they did their deeds to be seen and approved of by men. 

So the religious leaders considered their options, and they didn’t like them.  So they said “We don’t know.” They would have been more honest had they said, “We won’t say.”  And Jesus responds to that unsaid answer.  Jesus *said to them, “Nor will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

The question that comes to my mind is why didn’t Jesus tell them who He was? Why not state outright that He was the Son of God?  People are still debating today whether or not Jesus said He was the Son of God.  The Pharisees said to him on another occasion, in John 10:24, “how long will you keep us in suspense?  If you are the Christ, (that is the Messiah) tell us plainly.”  And when Jesus said in response, “I and the Father are one,”  they took up stones to kill Him.

Now they still want to kill Him.  They want to accuse Him of blasphemy and put Him to death.  And at His trial in a few days, they will do exactly that, and make that same accusation.  But that is still to come. Jesus has an appointed time to die, and that is on the Passover, when the Lamb of God will be slain for the sin of the world.  And that’s still three days away.  It is not yet the appointed time to die, so Jesus doesn’t give them the answer they want to hear.

So rather than give them an outright, plain answer, Jesus gives them a parable.  Remember why Jesus said He used parables?  Back in chapter 4 vs 11 Jesus told His disciples, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, so that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND BE FORGIVEN.”

The parable then He gives is based on Isaiah 5:1-7.  This is one of the most clear parables that Jesus has given, because it is so obviously based on Isaiah 5 that they would have known exactly what He was referring to. Most parables Jesus gave He also needed to explain how to understand them.  But in this case, their knowledge of Isaiah would provide them the key. Isaiah says, “Let me sing now for my well-beloved A song of my beloved concerning His vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill.  He dug it all around, removed its stones, And planted it with the choicest vine. And He built a tower in the middle of it And also hewed out a wine vat in it; Then He expected it to produce good grapes, But it produced only worthless ones. "And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, Judge between Me and My vineyard.  "What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?  "So now let Me tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard: I will remove its hedge and it will be consumed; I will break down its wall and it will become trampled ground.  "I will lay it waste; It will not be pruned or hoed, But briars and thorns will come up. I will also charge the clouds to rain no rain on it."  For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel And the men of Judah His delightful plant. Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.”

God is obviously referring to Israel as His vineyard.  He planted the vineyard, and tilled it, and took care of it, and protected it, and yet it did not produce fruit.  So He pronounces judgment upon it.  

Now in that context, let’s look at the parable which Jesus gives the religious leaders at the beginning of chapter 12. "A man PLANTED A VINEYARD AND PUT A WALL AROUND IT, AND DUG A VAT UNDER THE WINE PRESS AND BUILT A TOWER, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey.  "At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, in order to receive some of the produce of the vineyard from the vine-growers. "They took him, and beat him and sent him away empty-handed.  "Again he sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully.  "And he sent another, and that one they killed; and so with many others, beating some and killing others.  "He had one more to send, a beloved son; he sent him last of all to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.'  "But those vine-growers said to one another, 'This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!'  "They took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. "What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vine-growers, and will give the vineyard to others.  "Have you not even read this Scripture: 'THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone; THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD, AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES’?"

The correlation to Isaiah 5 is obvious.  But Jesus adds a new element.  He says the owner sent his servants to receive some of the produce from the vine growers.  So in this case, the vine growers are those who have been given stewardship over the vineyard.  My father, when he was a young man, grew up during the Depression.  And like a lot of people back then, they did not have very much money.  They lived on a farm in eastern North Carolina, and they were sharecroppers.  Sharecroppers lived on someone else’s farm, they took care of the farm and tended it for the landowner.  Then at harvest time, they would reap the crops and pay the owner a percentage of the yield.  That was the way they made a living.  They didn’t own the land, they didn’t pay for the seed, etc, they simply were stewards of the owners farm and investment.  

So what Jesus is describing is that when the servants of the landowner come to receive his share, the sharecroppers attack the servant and send him back empty handed.  The amazing thing is that when the servant comes back to the owner, the owner doesn’t go and take retribution on the tenants, but instead he patiently sends another servant, and then another one, each time having his servants beaten and rejected by the sharecroppers.  That shows tremendous patience and long-suffering of the landowner.  

And of course, Jesus is portraying a picture of the patience of God and prophets that He sent to Israel,  His vineyard.  And again and again they persecuted and even killed His prophets.  But God was patient with Israel, sending HIs prophets one after another down through the centuries until at last God sends His only Beloved Son.  There is a poignancy in Jesus’s statement, “he sent him last of all to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’”  But  instead of respect, Jesus says instead they conspire together and say, “‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ They took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.”

We would be remiss if we did not recognize the boldness of Jesus, who is looking into the angry, arrogant faces of the very ones who in three days would arrest Him and try Him and crucify Him, thinking that they had kept the nation of Israel for their own selfish gain.  He knows at that very moment they are plotting to kill Him.  And in a not so subtle way He is calling them out and exposing their evil hearts.  

So Jesus concludes according to Matthew’s version with a question, which Mark records for us the answer in vs9 "What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vine-growers, and will give the vineyard to others.”  Because of the hardness of their hearts and their rejection and murder of God’s Son, the gospel of salvation, the kingdom of God, will be taken from Israel and be given to another people, or nations, who will render fruit in due season. There we see the justice and the wrath of God.  God is loving, God is long suffering and patient towards us, not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance.  But there will come a day when God will come to the vineyard, fully expecting His due, and on that day every deed will be judged, whether good or bad.  The day of judgment had come upon Israel.  They thought they were judging Jesus.  But in effect they were condemning themselves.  In just three days, the curtain of the temple would be rent from top to bottom. The Spirit of God would depart from the temple. And in one generation, just 40 years, the temple would lay in ruins and the religious leaders would be scattered and killed because they rejected the Holy Son of God during His visitation.

Now to the question of by what authority did Jesus do these things, the answer is obviously that Jesus is the Son who came to visit His vineyard.  And so to make that point unmistakably clear, Jesus quotes from Psalm 118:22, 23, Jesus said, "Have you not even read this Scripture: 'THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone; THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD, AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES’?"

Jesus is saying that He is the stone which they the builders had rejected, but God had made Him the cornerstone of His building.  They would reject Him and even crucify Him, but marvelously God would raise Him from the dead, and He would be the cornerstone of the church, the new nation who would be given the custody of the vineyard of God.  

In answer to the priests question, Jesus Himself is the authority.  When God would raise Him up from the dead Jesus would say according to Matt. 28:18"All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” Jesus is the Lord of the vineyard, He is the King of heaven and all the earth.  He has the authority over all  and we as His people must submit to Him as both Lord and Savior.  If we reject Him, we do so to our own eternal condemnation.  

Mark concludes this passage by telling us that the religious leaders knew that Jesus had spoken this parable about them.  He had pronounced judgment upon them, and they in turn pronounced judgment upon Christ.  Vs 12 “And they were seeking to seize Him, and yet they feared the people, for they understood that He spoke the parable against them. And so they left Him and went away.”  Within a few days time they would act to kill Him and in so doing they would seal their own fate.  The patience of God would soon come to an end for the nation of Israel and God would give the kingdom to the Gentiles as the Church of God.

But the principle that was in effect for Israel is also in effect for the church.  The church is God’s house.  He is the builder of it.  He is the Lord of the church.  We are His temple, and He is the cornerstone.  Christ has laid down His life for the church.  Christ has planted carefully His church by the word of God.  He has sown it with the seed of truth.  He has watered it, sent His prophets to tend to it.  And one day Christ will come again to receive the fruit of His church.

Phil. 2:8-11 says, “Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,  so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

We need to understand that He is the authority in the church.  We need to ask ourselves if what we are doing in response to that authority is of God or man.  And we need to bow to Him and submit to His authority over our lives. That is what it means to worship Him.  1Cor. 6:19-20 says, “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.”

In connection with the events of the Passion Week we have seen two figures in which God has presented the church as a fruit yielding plant; the fig tree, and the vineyard.  The symbolism is intended to teach us that our purpose is to bear fruit.  Jesus said in John 15:8, "My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” That’s the first principle of the WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM which asks,  What is the chief end of man? And the answer is Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.  Jesus said we glorify God when we bear fruit.  And we bear fruit when we bear a resemblance to the image of Jesus Christ.  When we act like He acted, when we look like He looked, and when we do as He did.  In short, when we are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ then we bear fruit and the Father is glorified.  And we are able to be like Christ because we have the Spirit of Christ working in us.  Let us therefore walk not in the flesh, but by the Spirit of God, and bear the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.  

The triumph of the gospel, Mark 11: 1-26

The events that are recorded before us today are probably very familiar to many of you.  If you’ve been at church at all on the major holidays during your life then you’ve probably heard a few messages on Palm Sunday, and may have been given little palm branches to take home.  Well, today is not Palm Sunday, but we are going to be looking at events that start on what is called Palm Sunday and continue to Tuesday in what is known as the Passion week.  

However, I would like to forego a lot of the traditional emphasis that is usually placed on these events and instead focus our attention on the spiritual aspects of what is recorded here for us.  Because as you are probably aware, the Jews were looking for the Messiah to resurrect the Davidic kingdom and the overthrow of Israel’s oppressors.  And as such they missed out completely on the significance of what was happening.  Jesus came the first time, some 2000 years ago, to enact a spiritual kingdom.  He will return again one day to usher in the physical consummation of all things at His second coming.  In the meanwhile, we are concerned about entering into the spiritual kingdom of God.  This is where Christ rules and reigns in the hearts of His people.  So that is the focus of this message and what I would like to try to show as we study this passage.  It’s a rather long passage, covering a lot of material and we could spend three or four Sundays exploring all the references and cross references that have to do with this passage.  But just as I believe Mark does in his record, I want to narrow our focus on the spiritual characteristics  of the kingdom of God, as Christ comes riding into Jerusalem in triumphant procession and enters into the temple of God.

As we finished up the previous chapter, the Lord Jesus was resolutely leading His followers towards Jerusalem.  Mark has really focused practically all of his gospel on the last few months of Jesus’s ministry, and now  we are at the last week before His crucifixion.  There are just 16 chapters in Mark’s gospel, and we are already on chapter 11, and in verse one it is Sunday morning, the first day of the passion week.  Mark is rushing us towards the climax of the gospel story, and in this first day of the week we see what I am calling the triumph of the gospel.  A triumph refers to the Roman victory procession when the victorious general would parade into the city with his captives in his train, and his soldiers following him, and he would be celebrated and praised by his people.  And that is essentially what we see here in spiritual terms as Christ enters Jerusalem.

As the chapter opens, we see Jesus instructing two of His disciples to go into the next village, Bethany or Bethpage which was practically a suburb of Jerusalem, and find there a colt of a donkey which was tied there near the entrance.  Mark says it was a colt that was unbroken, no one had ever ridden it.  And so the unnamed disciples go there and find the colt as Jesus had described it would be, and as they started to take it, those who were nearby said “why are you taking the colt?”  And they said, “The Lord has need of it.”  All of that discourse was exactly as Jesus had said it would be.  

Some commentators find it necessary to explain that Jesus must have prearranged this sometime in advance in order for this to work out in this way.  But I believe that Jesus knew that the donkey would be there.  And furthermore, Jesus knew who the donkey belonged to.  And this owner was undoubtedly a follower of Christ.  I believe that because Jesus tells them to say “the Lord has need of it.”  If they were not a believer, then it would have been necessary to say “Jesus of Nazareth has need of it.”  But since they were a believer, all that was necessary was to say “the Lord has need of it.”

And I think that this is an indication of the all encompassing nature of the kingdom of God.  Here was this secret disciple, or at the least, a not so obvious follower of Christ who was unknown to the rest of the disciples.  I’m reminded of the time Elijah was discouraged and said to God, “I alone am left.”  And the Lord said I have 7000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.  The spiritual kingdom of God would extend far beyond the immediate circle of the disciples, to the far reaches of Israel, and to include all the nations of the earth, as Mark records Jesus adds in vs 17, saying that the house of God would be a house of prayer for all the nations.  The disciples had a limited view of the kingdom.  They were picking out the chief seats for themselves around the throne.  But the Lord had a view to reach the nations with the gospel, which they were at this point unaware of.

And I think it also speaks to the necessity of our involvement in the establishment of the kingdom.  The Lord desires to work with us and through us to establish His kingdom.  We are to participate.  We see that in the praise and worship of the multitudes, the obedience of the two disciples who fulfilled their mission, and the sacrifice and faith of the person that gave his colt to be used by the Lord.  Some served in great acts, some in lessor acts, but God uses both great and small gifts in the furtherance of His kingdom. Everyone contributes according to his ability and his stewardship. So in the words of the Lord, let us not despise the day of small things.  One man gave a lowly donkey, and yet it was used to usher in the Lord of Hosts in the triumph of the gospel.  It was used in fulfillment of prophecy, particularly Zechariah 9:9 which says “  Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass.”

I would urge you here today, if you are a follower of Christ, to consider how you are contributing to the furtherance of the kingdom.  What resources has God given you that you might give back to God for His use?  God would like to use you, to bless you, if you are willing to use your stewardship for His glory.  “The Lord has need of it.”  What is your response? “No, I need it more?”  Or rather acknowledge that if He is Lord, then it is His to use as He sees fit.

So the disciples bring the donkey to Jesus and they laid their garments on it’s back as a saddle, and the Lord begins to ride into Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives.  There is a large crowd following Him now, and they lay their robes on the ground that He might ride upon them, and then they lay down palm branches in the road, all the while the enthusiasm and excitement is building and they cry out “Hosanna!” which means “save now”.  “Hosanna! BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David;  Hosanna in the highest!” Notice that there is an element of sacrifice in their worship, as they laid down their cloaks in His path.  Worship always involves sacrificial obeisance. 

However, though it’s true that they call out praise to the Lord because they believe He is the Messiah, yet it’s pretty obvious as the events roll out during the week that their praise was founded on wrong expectations concerning the Messiah.  That is indicated perhaps in the phrase, “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David.”  They are looking for Christ to take the throne of David, not in a spiritual sense, but in a physical way, to sweep away the enemies of Israel and resume the throne in Jerusalem and reestablish Israels sovereignty. 

But lest we think too little of these poor peasant people who are following Jesus into the city from Galilee, let’s make sure that we are not suffering under the same delusion.  Do we also  put undue emphasis on the gospel of the kingdom in regards to fulfilling our physical expectations?  Do we expect God to fill our cupboards as He fed the multitudes?  Do we expect God to heal our diseases as He healed blind Bartimaeus?  Do we become disgruntled and dissatisfied with God when He doesn’t fulfill our expectations of physical deliverance from whatever difficulties we are encountering?  I know I have to restrain my discouragement when God doesn’t act on my perceived difficulties as I expect Him to.  And I am sure that many of you as well find yourselves at times disgruntled with God that He does not deliver you from whatever difficulty you are dealing with.  Sometimes I think we would rather have a physical or political Messiah than a spiritual one.

Now notice vs11, “Jesus entered Jerusalem and came into the temple; and after looking around at everything, He left for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late.”  The temple was of course designed to be the center of spiritual, religious life in Israel.  And here we see Jesus going there late in the evening and looking around.  It would be easy to skim over that and not see the importance of this incident. 

Many years ago I used to work in a very large luxury hotel in Florida.  And the hotel general manager was notorious for going through the hotel at night after many of the department managers had left for the day and doing an inspection.  And it was a terrible thing to come in the next morning and find these write ups that he had done on your department the night before.  Things that he had found lacking.  

Perhaps to some extent that’s what is going on here.  Jesus has come back to Jerusalem after being gone for some time.  And He goes into the temple, what He has previously called “His Father’s house,”  and He makes an inspection.  If you read between the lines it would seem that He did this without any fanfare.  Perhaps He even disguised Himself.  I don’t know.  But He looks around at His house, and He is not happy with what He finds there.

I don’t know about you, but I tremble to consider what kind of invisible inspections the Lord must do in our houses.  We are the house of God, not this building, but you people are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  1Cor. 6:19  “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?”  

I wonder if Christ secretly walked through your house last night and did an inspection.  I wonder what He saw that He may have been displeased about, or what He found that He was pleased with.  I wonder what HIs assessment of our temple would be? Paul said, We are not our own, we are bought with a price.  What are we doing with this temple to glorify God?  In the next few verses we will see that Jesus comes back the next morning in judgment against the temple. He accuses them that they have made what should have been a house of prayer a house of merchandise, a  place of thieves and robbers.  They had made the temple into a commercial enterprise.  I can’t help but wonder if we are not guilty of the same, of making what should be for holy use, to be used in profane and unholy things.  Are we so busy serving mammon that we do not serve the Lord?

But before we look at that incident later the next day, we see that first thing in the morning there is a symbolic illustration of the situation Jesus found in the temple the night before.  This is really like a living parable, it is an earthly illustration of a spiritual principle.  And we see that unfold as they are walking back to Jerusalem, Jesus is hungry and He sees a fig tree in the distance in full bloom.  I am told that fig trees produce figs as soon as they produce leaves.  And so seeing the leaves, it was to be expected that it would have figs that were ripened and ready to eat.  But when Jesus went to the tree, it had no figs.  And so Jesus does something that seems shocking, at least on the surface.  He curses the fig tree, saying, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!”  And His disciples took note of what He said.  

We will look at this again later, but suffice it for now to note that Israel is pictured in the fig tree.  They are the fig tree which the land owner planted and checked for three years to see if it had produced fruit, and finding none, cursed the tree and cut it down, according to the parable of the fig tree found in Luke 13:6-9.

So leaving there, Jesus goes back into Jerusalem and  enters straight away into the temple. This time He doesn’t come quietly or secretly.  This time Jesus comes with a vengeance.  This, by the way, is the second time that Jesus comes to the temple and cleanses it.  The first time was at the beginning of His ministry and the gospels tell us that He made a whip and used it to drive out the money changers and the merchants.  This time, no whip is mentioned, but I would like to think that He once again picked up a ox whip or something and began to lay it about on the tables and the backs of the brokers.

And I think that those two visits to the temple are an illustration of Christ’s first and second coming.  The first time He came was in His incarnation, to initiate His kingdom by making a way for man to be reconciled to God.  The second time He comes is in the consummation of His Kingdom, to take possession of His church, to gather the fruit and to bring judgment upon the tares.  And even in the first coming, Jesus caused division between the gospel and religion.  He said He came not to bring peace but a sword, to cause division between a man and his family.  

So this incident as Christ cleans out the temple is correlated to the incident when Christ cursed the fig tree. The temple is full of activity, it is conducting a lively business, but there is no spiritual fruit there.  It’s a picture of the church at large far too often today; full of activity, programs, people running here and there, but no real spiritual fruit.  Fruit being the evidence of Christ in the lives of His people.  Fruit being not just lip service, but a life lived in obedience to the seed which is the  word of God.

Now what was going on in the temple was a commercial enterprise that was organized and approved by the priests and Sanhedrin.  It was a scam really, in which the priests would examine the animal you brought in to have sacrificed, and tell you that it had some imperfection which rendered it unfit, and so you were forced to buy a pre approved animal from one of their vendors.  That one would of course be priced at an exorbitant amount, but you had really no choice if you wanted to offer an acceptable sacrifice.  The priests of course were getting a kick back from the vendors.  And the same thing happened with the temple tax.  The tax was required to be paid in Jewish coin.  So again for a fee, they had people there who would exchange your Roman coins for Jewish coins so you could pay the temple tax. And so Jesus turns over the tables of the merchants and drives them out of the temple and doesn’t allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple.  

Mark understates what this must have done to the proceedings of the temple that day.  It was the Passover week.  Thousands of pilgrims are coming to the temple to offer sacrifices.  It was like turning off the power in the mall the week before Christmas. No one could do business.  And so as a result of His actions the wrath of the priests and the Sanhedrin would reach a fever pitch, resulting in their plot to murder Jesus.

And unfortunately, that is one of the repercussions of preaching the truth of the gospel today.  People are content in the activity of religion however corrupt it may have become - however far from the truth it may be.  But if you call out that activity as hypocrisy, the kick back is that they hate you and try to destroy you.  No repentance, no contrition, just a resentment that their commerce or corruption or hypocrisy has been uncovered.  But nevertheless, I take my cue from Jesus Himself.  He didn’t mince words.  He didn’t try to coddle them.  He called it what it was and He told them to get out.  vs.17, “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.” They were robbing God in His own house.

Now at the possibility of raising the ire of some, let me make this application on a subject that if you are honest you have to admit I don’t often speak of, if at all.  But if you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, is there an application that you possibly rob God as well?  Malachi 3:8-11 says,  "Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, 'How have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you! Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this," says the LORD of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes," says the LORD of hosts.

Now let me hasten to say that I don’t say this, but God says it.  I would rather not say it.  I would rather the Lord deal with those who are disobedient in this, and not even mention it.  But for your sakes I mention it, because I think that to be disobedient in this is to bring upon yourself a curse, even as God said, “You are cursed with a curse.”  If you want to have that curse removed, then render to God to things that are God’s, and then God said He will pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.  Now let’s move on before someone throws stones.  

Well, vs 18 says, “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.”  That’s the effect of sound biblical preaching, some get mad and some are afraid and some are astonished.  But preaching should have some cleansing effect.  Preaching that makes everyone feel warm and fuzzy isn’t the preaching of the gospel, I’m afraid.  As Jesus said, “I came not to bring peace, but a sword.”

So in vs19, Jesus and His disciples leave the city that night again as was their custom.  I think they are sleeping out on the Mount of Olives each night.  That’s how Judas is able to betray Him to the high priests.  He knows that is where Jesus and the disciples spend the night. 

The next morning, Tuesday, as they come back to Jerusalem, Peter sees the fig tree, and it has withered from the roots up.  This is a symbolic reference to the prophecy Jesus made concerning Israel in Matt. 3:10  "The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”  So Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look, the fig tree which You cursed has withered.”  I think that there is surprise among the disciples that the apparently  healthy tree they saw the day before had so quickly withered.  And that suddenness is a picture of how quickly Israel would wither as well, as in less than 40 years later the temple would be destroyed and the Jews dispersed. In one day the tree withered, and in one generation Israel would be destroyed.

And Jesus answered Peter, "Have faith in God." Now doesn’t that seem like a strange way to answer him?  Isn’t this a strange transition to start talking about how to move mountains?  A lot of people take these next verses out of context, as some sort of formula whereby we can do miracles or get whatever we want. But Jesus is not telling us how to curse fig trees or work miracles, but how not to be cursed like the fig tree.   The nation of Israel was cursed because it did not seek the kingdom of God through faith but through dead works. They substituted ritual and ceremony for faith in Christ, and so they had become cursed.  They had an outward form of religion, but inwardly they were dead.

"Have faith in God," means that faith is the way to life in Christ. This is the way to have life that is fruitful.  To trust that the Lord knows what is best for us, to believe what he says, to obey what he commands, to do what He asks.  Faith in Him makes us a fruitful person, or a fruitful church, as the case may be.  

Then Jesus went on to say something even more puzzling: "Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him." Once again, this is not a formula for miracle working.  But the mountain Jesus speaks of is the Mount of Olives.  The sea is the Dead Sea.  They are standing there looking at this mountain and contemplating throwing it into the Dead Sea?   That is impossible.  The mountain is a figure of the impossible.

But Jesus is not giving us a formula here for throwing mountains into the sea. He is telling us that to have faith in God at times is difficult to do. He knows that. There are mountains which oppose our faith and make it difficult for us. There are obstacles to faith.  There are impossibles in our Christian life.  But in chapter 9:23 we read Jesus said, “All things are possible to him who believes.”  And in chapter 10 vs 27 Jesus said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”

But remember what we said at the beginning. This is the spiritual kingdom of God that Jesus is establishing.  These impossible things are things which are spiritual.  The mountain, though literal and physical, is but a figure of the obstacles to the  spiritual. Faith is the means by which we overcome the world and we are saved spiritually.  Faith is the means by which we receive eternal life, even the abundant life in Christ.

And then he goes on to tell us how in vs24, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you will receive it, and you will. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses." 

What Jesus is saying is, that repentance is necessary for faith. ”The great hindrance to having faith in God is sin, and that’s illustrated by the sin which refuses to forgive. Sin is like a mountain which hinders your faith. Your prayers are hindered.  David prayed, “if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me.”  Before we can have the proper expression of our faith which is effective prayer, we must repent of the sin in our lives. 

Maybe that means we need to forgive someone who has injured us, even as Christ has forgiven us for injury against God.  Maybe unforgiveness is the sin that is hindering your fruitfulness.  Jesus, when He taught us to pray said pray this way, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  

In conclusion then, faith is the means of gaining spiritual life.  Faith is expressed in prayer.  As the temple of God, we are to be a house of prayer.  Faith by the way, is not a fervent belief that whatever we ask for God will give us.  But faith is a fervent belief in what God has promised He is faithful to perform.  Then finally, if we are to  have effective prayer, it must be prayer from clean hands and a clean heart.  We must not harbor sin if we would have effective prayer.  May God help us, then, to forgive one another.  That is the fruit of faith, that we love one another, even as Christ loved the church and gave up His life for her.