Mark 11:12-14

.

So let us not forget that because sometimes I think we get in the , um, pattern of just coming to church and hearing, but we don't really let the spirit speak to us. So let's really let the spirit speak to us today. Um , Mark 1112 through 21 and if you want to read along, this is the NIV version. The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf. He went to find out if it had any fruit.

When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves because it was not the season for figs. And then he said to the tree, may no one ever eat fruit from you again, and his disciples heard him say it. On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who are buying and selling. There he overturned the tables of money, of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts.

And as he taught them, he said, it is not written. My house will be called a house. Is it not written? My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of robbers. The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him for they feared him because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.

In the morning as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, rabbi, look, the fig tree you cursed has withered.

Have you ever seen somebody get so frustrated with a bad golf game that they take it out on their golf clubs? Have you ever seen somebody gets so frustrated with their car that they take it out on their car? We'll get a load of this guy who seems to have had both a bad golf day and his car is not performing very well. Please play that video.

[inaudible]

And if you're like me, you're kind of, unless it's you, you're shocked with the pointlessness of it, you're shocked with the wastefulness of it. But maybe if that's happened to you or you've been involved in something somewhere , you know how you can be so caught up in frustration that you let your anger pour out of you like that. Well, that is what some, and I underline the words , um, that is what some people say is going on here with the cursing of the fig tree.

That , that there are liberal scholars who point and say that's what Jesus is doing. Jesus is sinning in anger. Jesus is pouring out his frustration, his anger on this inanimate object, this fig tree. It is pointless. It is wasteful. It is a destructive use of his supernatural power. Well, that is uh , I didn't want to say right at the outset, even though I comment on that because that floats around there. That is not at all the way that I look at this. This is not at all.

That's not at all consistent with a true view of who Jesus really is, but it still leaves the question in this text, does it not? What's going on here? Why did he do this? Why did Jesus curse the fig tree? And by the way, I use the word curse very intentionally. What he says in verse 14 may no one ever eat fruit from you again. That is the wording of an old testament curse at something the prophets would say.

And even Peter Recognizes in verse 21 that what Jesus has done has given an old testament prophetic curse of that fig tree. And the effect of that curse of course is seen in verse 20 the fig tree withered from its roots in 24 hours. It goes from a tree with leads to a tree that it is withering, is dying from the roots up. What is going on here? If this is not Jesus taking out his frustration and his anger on this tree, what is going on here? Let's, let's back up and look at the context.

This is Jesus's last week of his earthly ministry. He is going back and forth between Bethany where he is staying and Jerusalem. And on this particular day, verse 12 tells us that he is hungry and right there that reminds us that while Jesus is fully divine, he is fully God. He is also fully human, which makes him the perfect substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. He would not be ineffective savior if he was not both fully divine and fully human. But here we see his humanness.

He becomes hungry like, like you or I become hungry. And we see in verse 13 the first half that as he's on the road, he sees in a distance a fig tree. And notice it's a fig tree in leaf. The , the leaves are out on this fig tree. So he went to see if he could find anything on it. Now the setting is this, this is, we can place this in about April. That's , uh , that's where seasonally this all takes place leading up to Passover and then his crucifixion.

And in April, very few fig trees have come out and leaves, yet that's early in the season. But this tree had, and so having produced leaves, the tree gave the impression that it might also have some kind of fruit. You read a little further in verse 13, the second half of verse 13. And you wonder if mark has just contradicted the, that impression that it might have fruit by his statement.

At the end it was not the season for figs. Again, those liberal scholars pointed that and they say, see , it was unreasonable for Jesus to expect that there would be any fruit on this tree because it was not the season for figs. And so it was unfair for him to expect that from the tree and therefore to curse the tree. But there's more to it than that. Trees and Israel and that part of Israel sprout leaves and late March and early April.

And , uh, and , and then they go through the summer season and they actually produce the figs like you. And I think of them, those juicy flavorable figs from about mid August to mid October, that's the harvest season for figs and at the end of October, late October believes all fall off the fig tree , but the fig trees don't become dormant at that point. All through the winter, the fig trees having lost their leaves, the branches begin to sprout buds.

Those buds remain undeveloped all through the winter, but those buds swell in the early part of the year. They swell into little what are called Knops , k, n, O, p, s, little little bumps, little prefix, and by March or April, a tree has developed even before its leaves.

These little knots, these little prefix , and so those prefigures eventually grow into the figs that we think of that are juicy and flavorful and August through October, but those prefix , even even in March and April and may there they're edible. They don't have the taste of a good juicy fig, but if somebody is really hungry, they can eat them. They are edible and people at that time of the year would eat them. Now I've have a little bit of experience of, of fig trees are living in Florida.

Somebody gave me a couple sprouting of fig trees , um , despite the fact that I planted them both a couple of years ago, though neither is much more than that high, but you can see those little knots develop. Ray Stedman , who pastored for over 40 years in California has lots of experience growing fig trees in his own backyard. And he describes it like this and it's up on the screen with a picture of those little prefix.

He writes, fig trees produce two kinds of figs. The early figs, what I've been calling the prefix that look like figs but are not true figs and the later true figs, which are sweet and tasty. But here's the important point. If a fig tree does not produce the early figs, it will not produce the later truFIX.

So Jesus coming to this tree, seeing the tree leafed out expects to find these knots , these prefix , and since the leaves of the tree of a fig tree develop after these knobs begin to develop a was perfectly reasonable for him to expect that there would be prefixed that he could pick and he could eat there on that tree and leaf. So what do we know about this tree when he comes and he sees it in leaf and finds nothing to eat on it?

We know that this tree had none of the prefix that should have been there. If the tree was going to produce the mature figs and the fall, this is a tree. We see that it has leaves that make it look like a healthy, productive tree, but it's absence of even these any prefix tell us that those appearances are deceiving. This is actually an unproductive tree. Here's the point of the parable of the literal point of the parable. The appearance is different from the true condition.

The fig tree here had plenty of leaves but no fruit. And again, the principle of the, of this parable, the appearance is different from the true condition. Now remember that statement because that has spiritual implications both here and for our lives. The appearance it has is different from the true condition. We look not only to the appearance, we look at the true condition.

So again, even though this fig tree is, is pretentiously unproductive, you know, it doesn't, it still seem kind of needless seem , seem kind of like Jesus is annoyed for him to curse it. And whether it or what I would point out to you is mark gives us here no indication that Jesus is angry, that Jesus is rageful, he gives us no indication, even that Jesus is annoyed or frustrated. There is something more going on here. So we need to look beyond the surface for something deeper.

And I think that the first glimpse beyond the surface comes when we ask the question, why the fig tree? You know, here we have this section on him entering the temple that Luke did such a great job expositive two weeks ago. And on either side is this image of a fig tree. Why a fig tree? Because a fig tree is a powerful symbol in the old testament, a powerful symbol we read through the prophets .

Just do a quick concordance study for fig tree and you will see fig tree turn up time and time again in Isaiah and Jeremiah and Hosea and Joel and Amos and ne . I'm an Habakkuk and Hag guy and Micah and they all use the symbol of the fig tree as a metaphor for the nation of Israel or more accurately for the spiritual condition of the nation of Israel, for the spiritual standing of God of the nation of is the spiritual standing before God of the nation of Israel.

Let me give you one brief prophetic glimpse, Micah being used by God to voice the really the heart of the Messiah coming to Jerusalem writes this, how miserable I am. I feel like a fruit picker after the harvest who can find nothing to eat, not a cluster of greats, not a single early fig can be found to satisfy my hunger. Micah being moved by God to write hundreds of years before Jesus entered the temple in Jerusalem.

Micah records the, the anx, the the anguish of, of the Messiah, of God's Chosen Messiah as he comes to his chosen people and they don't receive him and they reject him. Jesus, I believe, had this verse in mind as he approaches the fig tree as he comes and he sees what is happening in Jerusalem, so Jesus cursing of the fig tree, it is not incidental. It is not coincidental. It is not just an aside. It is a carefully thought out prophetic act.

It is a dramatize parable and I believe mark even wants us to see this in the way that he has structured this passage, which is different. If you read about the same account in Matthew's description of this in his gospel. Look, I've got a diagram on the screen. Look at how this is structured. Do you see that there are three sections and right in the middle is Jesus going into the temple and clearing and condemning the temple, but what are the bookends on either side? What is the sandwich?

The bookends are this, this, this incident of the fig tree, the cursing of the fig tree and the withering of the fig tree. What does those two as bookends as a sandwich, what does that tell us is the subject of the parable? It is what we saw two weeks ago and vis verses 15 through 18 it is about the temple. It is about what happens in the temple. What has been happening in the temple? What is the temple? Well, maybe, maybe a as a backup question or a preliminary question for that.

What is the very first temple? Maybe, maybe you know, it's not the temple that Jesus was looking at here. Herod's Temple. Maybe you think, well, maybe it was Solomon's Temple or maybe some of you, if you know your old testament while you go back and you think God, but maybe it was the tabernacle that in the wilderness that proceeded the temple. I want to take you all the way back to the beginning. The first temple was the garden of Eden, the first temple.

The first experience of the presence of God is Adam and Eve are our four runners. In the human race, in the garden before the fall into sin, experiencing that perfect temple experience, the presence of God in the garden of Eden. But even though they, and they only knew that perfect temple experience, what did they do? They turned away from the fellowship of God. They turned away from his presence. They wanted to live life in their own way without God. And so what happened?

They were, they were barred from the temple. God kicked them out of the garden of Eden. God, God set the angels there with flaming swords to prevent them from coming back into his presence in the garden of Eden is at the end of the temple. Experience is at the end of the ability of man and woman to experience with God to come into his presence.

No , the old covenant that is unfolded through the rest of the old testament shows us that God makes a provision for man's rebellion, man's sin, and what does he do?

He PR prevents or he provides the provision that through the shedding of blood there is forgiveness of sins, the sacrificial system and now the way in the old testament that man and women can come into the presence of God and and have fellowship with him, overcome the barrier of their sin is by offering a blood sacrifice and those blood sacrifices. Those were built up through the Tabernacle in the wilderness and they were built up through the temple and Jerusalem, but what happened to that?

That way of calming and knowing fellowship with God and experiencing his presence. That's what Luke preached about two weeks ago. In verses 15 through 18 Jesus comes in to the temple and what does he see? He sees where it's supposed to be a way for all the nations to come and to know the presence of God and experience fellowship with him, but it has become commercialized. It has become materialistic. It is . It has become perverted. It is no longer a way to come into the presence of God.

It is a distraction. It is a bar. It is a corruption of what God has has provided as a way of coming to him. You could say that the temple that Jesus encountered in visit verses 15 through 18 that whole religious system, plenty of leaves, plenty of religious activity, but no fruit, no righteousness, no truth, no spiritual authenticity. Remember the lesson of the fig tree? The appearance is different from the true condition. What is the appearance of the temple?

All that religious activity, all of those sacrifices being bought and sold and sacrificed. What is the true condition? No fruit, no righteousness, no authenticity. Hendrickson favorite commentator of mine says it this way, that pretentious, but baron fig tree had its counterpart in the temple. Plenty of leaves, but no fruit, bustling religious activity, but no sincerity and truth.

Her tato and other commentators says the temple had the appearance of dedication to God, but its substance fell far short of doing God's will. That's what Jesus encountered in that religious system. In those people who do net did not recognize him as the Messiah, and so this is not incidental. What happens with the fig tree?

Jesus uses this unfruitful fig tree to show them how God will put an end to that, how God will judge the unfruitful temple, how God will judge that unfruitful religious system that rejects it's Messiah, that perverts the way that he has given them to come to him. We see that in verse 14 Jesus says to that fig tree, may no one ever eat fruit from you again, and yes, that's about the fig tree, but that's about the temple. That is not just a warning.

That is an absolute announcement of what will soon take place. And when we see in verse 20 that the tree withered away to its roots. In other words, it's dying and will never produce fruit again. That is exactly what has happened or what will happen just a few years later to the temple Jesus , his curse is very similar to what Jeremiah prophesizes in his scathing denunciation of the unfaithful Jewish nation, Jeremiah eight 13 I will take away their harvest, declares the Lord.

There will be no figs on the tree. What I have given them will be taken away from them. And when was this curse realized? When was it all taken away from them? Well, first of all, when we get to chapter 13 which we'll get there in a few weeks, we see Jesus speak about this. He says of the temple that not one stone will be left on another. Everyone will be thrown down. That is exactly what happened.

In 70 80 and 70 80 the Roman army general Titus laid siege to the city of Jerusalem, eventually knocked down its walls, crucified its leaders and its priests and destroyed the temple. They took the stones of the temple, the Roman troops down one by one, each of these stones weighing several tons and pushed them off of the temple foundation into the street below.

You see a picture there for taking , I took two years ago during my visit to Israel where you can see all those stones pushed off the Temple Mount, the temple foundation in the destruction of the temple. There still there to see how God carried that out. What was God doing? God was making it withered to its roots.

God was eliminating the temple's function, that that whole corrupted religious system, eliminating its function as the way to seek true fellowship with him was that the end is , is, is it no longer that , uh , possible to experience the presence of God? How do we experience fellowship with God if, if God has made it wither from its roots? This seems like a simple answer, but it is. It is the true answer. We, we now seek it through Jesus.

In other words, Jesus has replaced the temple as the center of God's presence. The very one that the people of Jerusalem rejected as the Messiah now has become the way to come into right fellowship with God.

The author of Hebrews tells us this, Hebrews chapter 10 when he reminds us, we now have confidence to enter the holy places through the blood of Jesus by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh, the old curtain, the the old veil that the , that that was that part of the , the temple that divided the holy place where God's presence was from the court of the Israelites. In the court of the gentiles.

You couldn't go past that curtain and Jesus or mark tells us in Chapter 1538 that that veil, that curtain was torn in two from top to bottom. When Jesus was crucified, dramatizing that the temple was no longer the way to approach God. Instead, it's now through the blood of Jesus through his sacrificial death on the cross that has replaced that corrupt temple sacrificial system. What does that mean for you and me?

It means first of all, that we need to examine ourselves and make sure that we aren't holding on. Maybe it's not the temple system of, of, of trying to come to God, but some legal listic way that if we, if we just keep all these certain do lists and we avoid this, this don't do or less, that somehow that's a way to make ourselves right with God. No, that's, that's the same kind of mentality that got perverted into the temple system that Jesus finds here.

And Mark Chapter 11 what this means is that if you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, that you believe, you believe that he is the true son of God. If you put all of your trust, all of your confidence in his substitutionary sacrifice on the cross for your sins, as the writer of Hebrews says, Jesus opens for you a new and living way to peace and fellowship with God.

And maybe you're here this morning and your efforts to be right with God again have been a whole pattern of behaviors of, of trying to be good enough of, of trying to live up to, to some kind of standards. Whether you've heard them from your parents or , or heard them growing up in church, that, that you have tried and tried and tried in vain to measure up and to keep these, and Jesus says to you this morning, if that's where you've been, I offer to you a new and living way.

It is not through the sacrifices. It is not through legal. Listic lists. It's this new and living way through my blood, says Jesus through what I have done for you on the cross and that new and living way is open to you. Even this morning there are people who are going to be at the front and the back after this service.

If you are not sure that they're here to pray through that with you, to talk through that with you, they don't want you to be, we don't want you to be trapped into that old kind of corrupt system. We want you to know the new and living way that is open to you through the blood of Jesus. Well, that is the primary application of this a , this whole story of the cursing of the fake tree.

There is a secondary, there is another application I want to sneak in here before we close another application of what Jesus has done here. That lesson of the fig tree full of leaves, but Barron a fruit is not only a lesson about that religious system and who Jesus is as he replaces it. It is also a spiritual caution to all who claim the identity today as a Christian, and again, I would go back to the lesson of the parable and I'll phrase it as a question.

When we look at ourselves and others and churches and institutions that call themselves Christians, does the appearance differ from the true condition? That's the lesson of the fig tree. Does the appearance differ from the true condition? You see the Christian faith is proven not by appearances. It is proven by whether that faith produces fruit and the lesson of the fig tree is that where the fruit is lacking. No amount of leaves can cover that up.

In fact, Luke 13 Lucca tells one more parable about that Jesus told involving a fig tree, and I won't turn there today other than I will tell you that the illustration of that parable is God is very patient with an unproductive fig tree and he gives it lots of time and lots of opportunities to produce fruits and he fertilizes it and he gives it everything it needs to produce fruit.

But if at some point, if that tree after all of that patients and all of the blessings that it had fails to produce fruit, it is cut down or using Mark's words, it is withers from its roots. If the appearance differs from the true condition, it will one day be cut down. It will one day be withered away to its roots. And that is true of nations. That was certainly true of the nation of Israel, but that is true of nations like the United States.

I am not comparing the United States to Israel, but I would say this about the United States. God has given this nation unparalleled opportunities to follow him and flourish. If there's ever been a nation that God has given years and years and fertilized and done work to help it produce the fruit of righteousness, it's the United States.

But God will not wait forever for a tree, for a nation that fails to bear fruit, and if a nation goes long enough and fails to bear fruit, God will allow it to spiritually wither away to its roots. That's true of churches. Revelation chapter one describes Jesus Christ standing in the midst of his churches and what is he doing in that picture? He's examining them. He's looking for signs of health.

He's looking for fruits and that, that whole illustration there, that whole picture there shows us that Jesus can see beyond the leaves . In fact, Jesus is not impressed by leaves of activity of programs of lots of robust sling religious activity. Jesus is looking for fruit. Jesus is looking for what is true and what is authentic in a church and that this is true as well of you and me. This is true of any of us who identify ourselves as Christians.

Our appearance on a Sunday morning or when we want to present ourselves to other people. As a Christian, our appearance may be like a tree that has all its leaves fully and bloom, but Jesus looks for fruit. Jesus looks for what is happening within the true inner condition. And so the most important question that I think each of us can ask individually this morning and and that most important question we can ask of our churches.

When Jesus examines us, will he find only leaves or will he find true fruit? What do you think that he sees when he looks at Central Church? What do you think that he sees when he looks at your life or my life? Does he see just leaves or does he see fruit? Now I don't want to leave you just hanging on. What kind of fruit is he looking for?

There's probably many things that we could say, but I think the one primarily when he looks for our and our lives and he looks at our church is what is described as fruit, the fruit of the spirit, and Galatians chapter five the fruit of the spirit is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self control. When Jesus looks at Central Church, does he see the fruit of those things growing and growing and reproducing and reproducing?

When Jesus looks at your life and my life, it may be small, but does he see fruit growing? Are we becoming more loving? Are we becoming more joyful? Are we becoming more peaceful, more patient, more kind, more, more good, more faithful, more gentle, more full of self control is , is that the process of the spirit working out our maturity in our lives? What kind of fruit will Jesus find when he comes and walks among our church?

What kind of fruit will Jesus find when he comes and he examines your life and my life? Oh , that we may individually and as a church be men and women and a church that produce fruit that's pray .

If there is anyone here this morning, Lord, who is not come to you through what you have done on the cross, may they be moved by your spirit even this morning to embrace you as savior and Lord, to claim your blood, to claim your substitutionary sacrificial death for their sins. Lord. Secondly, those of us who have done that, we are challenged by this image of the fig tree. Lord , we don't want that to be said about us individually.

We don't want to be people who are all about appearances and not about the true inner condition. This fruit of the spirit growing in us. We don't want to be that as a church, Lord, a Church of beliefs of programs and activity, but no real transformation at the center of us. Yeah , we recognize, Lord, we can't make this fruit grow in ourselves. This is the fruit of the spirit.

We need your spirit to move among us, to convict, to bring to repentance, to bring, to surrender so that you may more and more your fruit, the fruit of the spirit, and not as , and do this work in me. Do this work in us. Do this work in our church. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.