Now you recall in the last message,
Christ came upon this fig tree, the barren fig tree that had
leaves, but had no figs. And of course, that's not the
way it goes. If the fig tree over there, when
it's time for it to bloom, if it has leaves, it has figs. But
this tree had no figs. And that's why we call it the
barren fig tree. So what it was, it had the look of fruitfulness,
but no power therein. And I made the point that the
barren fig tree was like apostate Israel. You remember Christ?
He rode into Jerusalem, I think that was on a Monday, on the
donkey. The people cried Hosanna, which
means Lord save us. And he came into the temple and
we saw how the temple was nothing but in the minds of most of the
people there and what they were doing, the money changers, selling
of sacrifices, the Pharisees and the elders who were over
the temple, the Sadducees. It was nothing more than vain
religion. And it looked good to the natural
eye. But it wasn't any good, and that's
what we call vain religion. You remember, it was the Passover. And they were celebrating the
Passover, but the majority of them didn't understand the real
issue and meaning of the Passover, which is the gospel of how God
saves sinners by the blood of Christ. When I see the blood,
I'll pass over you. But they didn't understand that.
But they were going through the motions. And then here's the
temple, this beautiful temple, which is a picture of Christ
and his church. All of the ceremonies, the high
priest, the sacrifices, the holiest of all. Of course, at that time,
the Ark of the Covenant wasn't even there, because, you know,
it had been taken away about, what, 500, somewhere around years
before, when the Babylonian army destroyed the original Temple
of Solomon. And somebody said, I think I
read somewhere in a historical account that all that was in
the holiest of all at that time was just a big rock. And I don't
know all that for sure. But anyway, it was just vain
religion. And that barren fig tree portrayed
that. And you remember Christ cursed
the barren fig tree. And he said, let all of it wither
away. And the disciples came, we'll look at verse 19. He says,
and when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, found
nothing thereon but leaves only, and said unto it, let no fruit
grow on thee henceforward forever. And presently the fig tree withered
away. Now verse 20 is where this lesson
begins. And when the disciples saw it,
they marveled, they were amazed, saying, how soon is the fig tree
withered away? And Jesus answered and said unto
them, Verily I say unto you, if you have faith and doubt not,
you shall not only do that which is done to the fig tree, but
also if you shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and
be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done. Now you remember
he'd used that metaphor once before. if you say to this mountain,
if you had that kind of faith. And we're gonna talk about this
in a minute. It's not the power of faith,
it's the power of Christ in whom we have faith. We understand
that. And it says, in all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer,
believing, you shall receive. And we'll talk about that in
just a minute. But here's this, you'd think,
that the disciples, after having seen all the things that they
had seen Christ do, I mean, think about it, all the miracles that
he had performed. You think, well, what's so amazing
about this fig tree when he said, you know, bear no fruit, and
it withered. But they were still amazed. That's
human nature, you know. And they had doubts, just like
all of us do, even sinners saved by grace. We're still plagued
with the doubts, with the sins of the flesh, the doubts. I mentioned
last week in Hebrews 12.1 where Paul, where the apostle Paul,
which who I believe was the human instrument to write Hebrews,
but it doesn't matter that, it's God's word. But Hebrews 12 says,
talks about the sin that so easily besets us, and it's talking about
the sin of doubt. And the reason is, is because
so many times in our lives, even as believers, we get plagued
by the flesh, we look to things as we see them naturally, and
not on the word of God, but God will not let us go He will not
forsake us and all of that. So what's the remedy for our
sinful deaths? Well, we're to engage in the
warfare of the flesh and the spirit. And the way we do that
is in Hebrews 12 too. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. We look to Christ for salvation. We look to Christ for assurance. We don't look outside to the
world. We don't look within ourselves.
We can examine ourselves now. There's nothing wrong with that.
People say, well, I need to do better at certain things. Well,
we all do. We all do. And we ought to strive to do
better. Not to be saved, but because we already are. Because
Christ is the author and the finisher of our faith. And that's
how we run the race of grace. Here he's showing the difference
between the true religion of the gospel of salvation by God's
grace through and by the Lord Jesus Christ based upon the blood
that he shed to put away all our sins Again, God said, when
I see the blood, I'll pass over you. And the righteousness that
he established by which we are in right standing with God. Our
sins, think about this now. Our sins cannot be charged to
our account. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. And
that's on a just ground. Who can condemn us? It's Christ
that died. Yea, rather He's risen again
and seated at the right hand of God, ever living to make intercession
for us, based on His righteousness. Now, the Jewish people, on the
whole, the majority, were following false preachers, false teachers,
scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, whoever. And what was their problem? And the Apostle Paul explained
this perfectly and pointedly in Romans chapter nine. What
are we gonna say to these things? That Israel, who sought after
righteousness, but did not find it, they didn't find the righteousness
they were seeking after, they wanted to be right with God,
they wanted to be saved, they wanted to be forgiven, but they
didn't find it, why? Because they sought it not by
faith, but as it were, by works of the law. and that's an impossibility. He cursed this fig tree. Well,
the Bible says, cursed is everyone that continues not in all things
which are written in the book of the law to do them. And that's
Galatians 3.10. So here's a picture of Israel
being cursed by God. Why? Because they're seeking
righteousness by the law and not in Christ. To seek righteousness
by faith is to seek it in Christ. Romans 10, 4, for Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. But
they were seeking it by their works and the Lord, He exposed
them, His very presence and the power. Next week, I think it
comes down to an issue of authority. And this, you know, they ask
Him, you know, where do you get your authority to say the things
that you do? You know, well, where do we get
the authority that we say what we say and believe what we believe?
It's from the word of God. That's our authority. Well, they
wanted to know. They questioned him. They hated
his message because it exposed theirs to be vain religion, to
be nothing. He said, you appear outwardly
righteous unto men, just like this fig tree appeared to be
fruitful. But inwardly, you're full of
dead men's bones, like an open grave. that's what vain religion
does. So here the disciples come along
and they marveled that he did this and what is he telling them? He said, he says, Verily I say
unto you if you have faith and doubt not. If you had a perfect
faith without any any mixture of doubts and misgivings He says
you could do anything you wanted to do within the bounds of God's
will and God's word. That's what that's talking about.
It's not saying that you can have anything you want at any
time if you believe it hard enough because this is not portraying
God as some genie in a bottle and I'll give you three wishes
and all that stuff because that doesn't happen. But he says,
in all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing
you shall receive. Not only could you do that which
he did to the fig tree, he said, but metaphorically, you could
move mountains. And I suppose, you know, some
people say, well, that's a literal thing. I guess, I'm sure the
Lord, if he looked at a mountain and said, be moved, and they
throw it into the sea, that's what would happen. Don't you
believe that? He calmed the storm. He controls
all things and he did have perfect faith. Christ, even in his humanity,
sinless humanity, never had a doubt. of anything he was doing. And
these people who talk about Christ being made a sinner or being
corrupted, that's heresy. And we need to see that now.
We don't need to just look over that and say, oh, well, you know,
they're just, you know, they got a different view. Yeah, they
got a different view, a heretical view. Christ was the perfect
God-man. And he never had a doubt when
he was on that cross. Look at the sayings that he spoke
on the cross. It showed forth his perfect faith
and his perfect love for the Father, yet he himself was cursed
for sin. But how? It was for our sins
imputed to him, and that was it. In himself, he remained the
perfect lamb without blemish and without spot, dying for the
sin, and he died justly. He said, my God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? He wasn't asking a question there.
He was making a point that even the son of God incarnate was
forsaken by the father because of our sins laid upon him. He was made sin in that sense. Well, he says in all things whatsoever
you shall ask in prayer, believing you shall receive. As I said,
we think that the disciples by this time, that it wouldn't be
too astounded by the miracles. After all, they've seen just
this fig tree. But again, as sinners saved by grace, as having
been given the gift of saving faith, we still have to fight
off our doubts and our misgivings. We have to fight sin. lot of
praise. Look at verse 22 again, and all
things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer believing you shall
receive. Now we know that's not an open checkbook to get anything
you want. What are the keys to prayer?
Well we pray unto God by faith in Jesus Christ pleading his
merits not our own When we desire something, we're not saying,
God, give it to me because I've earned it, or give it to me because
I deserve it. We come to the throne of grace
to find help in time of need. And why do we do it? Because
we have a great high priest who's passed through into the heavens.
Christ did all the work. He did all the earning. And he
is the one who deserves. So we pray unto God through him.
And here's the key. We pray, thy will be done. Now,
I pray for things that I desire. And now, I'm not talking about
things that are opposed to God's glory and God's word, you know. But we pray for things within
the bounds of God's word. You know, I mean, it's kind of
like, you know, if somebody makes me mad, you know, if I'd go down
on my knees and say, God, kill that person. Well, that's sin,
you know. Well, if God did it, it wouldn't
be, but I'm talking about my desire. You see, so don't pray
for sinful things, but here's the key, thy will be done. So I pray for things that I want
that are not sinful, but it may not be God's will that I have
those things. And so far, that's about the
way it's worked. And I'm 71, so I'm running out of time. So
if I say, God, give me a million dollars, well, he ain't done
that. So it's not his will that I have it. Now, maybe tomorrow
will be different. I don't know. But the thing about
it is, we're to pray unto a holy God for things that glorify and
honor him, not just for things that we want, you know, in our
fleshly desires or whatever. So think about that. God's will
be done. And that's what he's talking
about. Whatsoever you ask in prayer, believing, you shall
receive. And especially when John, in
his epistle, in 1 John 5, I think it is, when he's talking about
salvation. Lord, save us. Hosanna. Lord,
save us. Well, he's gonna save his people
from their sins. We know that. And if he saved
you, that means you're one of his people. And that's according
to his will. Well, he goes to another parable
now. And well, this is when he talks
about authority now. All right, he says in verse 23,
and when he was come to the temple, the chief priest and the elders
of the people came unto him. And he was teaching and said,
by what authority doest thou these things? And who gave thee
this authority? Now the question of authority
is a good question. And of course, Now, I've gotten
your lesson, this was about Wednesday morning, he returned to the temple,
and he's teaching the people. Now, you know he's teaching the
people the very opposite of what the Pharisees and the elders
taught. They're teaching salvation by works. He's teaching salvation
by grace. He's claiming to be the Messiah
sin of God. God manifests in the flesh. They
claim that he's a fraud. What he teaches exposes what
they teach as being false and heretical. That's why people
hate the gospel. We know that. We've seen that. I always go to John 3, 19 and
20. This is the light, this is the
condemnation, that light has come into the world and men love
darkness and hate the light. How in the world can you say
that people love darkness and hate the light? Well, preach
the gospel to them. That salvation comes to sinners
who don't deserve it, don't earn it. It's totally by the grace
of God based upon the righteousness of Christ. And any other way
is a false way. So that if they're standing there
hearing you and they believe another way, you're telling them
your hope is vain. You're lost. You need salvation. And that makes people mad. Because
they love their works, they love their wills, they love to hear
about salvation conditioned on them. That's what people wanna
hear. And you go to different denominations
of what they call Christianity, and you'll have different conditions.
To the Church of Christ, which is a misnomer, because it's not
the Church of Christ, that denomination I'm talking about. They believe
salvation comes by baptism. Well, that's a lie. You go tell
them that. I'm telling them that right now,
they'll hear it. I tell them that on my television program,
our television program. Well, it makes them mad. Just like Catholicism, it's a
lie. Salvation's not in Mary or in
the Pope or in the church, it's in Christ. And that's what they
need to hear. But it makes them mad, I know
that. It makes them angry. And we don't like to make people
angry. But here's Christ standing there teaching the people, and
they're hearing what he's saying, and they hate it, so they gotta
know. By what authority are you saying
these things? Well, the authority is the word
of God. I've often said that the most fundamental truth of
true Christianity, true religion, is that the Bible is God's word.
Now why is that the most fundamental? Because everything we believe
about God, who he is, what he does, everything we believe about
ourselves as sinful people, totally depraved, spiritually dead, fallen
in Adam, none righteous, no not one, everything we believe about
ourselves, before salvation, before the new birth and after,
during the new birth and after the new birth, where do we get
it from? We get it from the Bible. The word of God, this is our
authority. Everything we believe about Christ and salvation by
the grace of God and his righteousness imputed, where do we get it from?
Right here. This is our authority, the word
of God. And so many people today believe
things that are not in the word of God. The idea of a universal
love for all without exception or a universal atonement. whereby
Christ died for everybody, now the rest is up to you. That's
not in the Bible. Now, I know people say, well,
read John 3, 16, read these words. That's not what those verses
say. The Bible teaches plainly that
God chose a people before the foundation of the world and gave
them to Christ, made him their surety, sent him to be their
substitute and redeemer. and that he accomplished all
that was required so that their salvation is assured based upon
his person and work. And that's what the gospel is
about. But so many people believe things that are not true, and
so many people deny things that are in the Bible. You know, I
told you the story about the man who called me one time. He'd
heard me preach on TV, and he said, he said, I want you to
know, I said, what do you want me to know? He said, I don't
believe in that predestination. I said, you don't? And he said,
no. And I said, you don't believe
God's word? Oh, I believe every word in God's, in the Bible.
I said, well, you don't believe that word, because it's there.
But he didn't even realize that. It's like we were talking about,
Tim, people hear those things and it just rolls over their
head. He said, well, I don't believe
it like you do. I said, I bet you can't even tell me what you
believe about that. And he couldn't, he hung up on
me. But anyway, these are things that are in God's word. And they
want to know by what authority because that's important. Well,
look at verse 24. Jesus answered and said unto
them, I also will ask you one thing, which if you tell me,
I and likewise will tell you by what authority I do those
things. Now, first of all, he had already told them that he
spoke as he spoke and did what he did, as directed by the will
of the Father. He'd already talked to them about
the authority. The miracles he performed, you know, his deity,
his humanity, and they didn't believe him. So he basically
said, you didn't believe me before, I'm not gonna tell you again
unless you can answer one question for me. And here it is, look
at verse 25. He says, the baptism of John,
whence was it? Where did it come from? Now you
know who he's talking about, John the Baptist. Did it come
from heaven? or of men? Was John's authority
to preach and to baptize from God or from men? Answer me that. Well, here's what happens. Now,
you know, John the Baptist was popular with the people. And
these Pharisees and elders, they were more politically astute.
than to just come out and say, well, John the Baptist was a
false preacher, because it says, they reasoned with themselves,
saying, if we shall say from heaven, he will say in us, why
did you not then believe him? Why didn't you believe what he
preached? Well, you remember what John preached to the Pharisees? You remember that? Look, it's
in Matthew chapter three. Here, John, it said, look at
verse seven of Matthew chapter three. Here's John baptizing
out there in the wilderness. It says, but when he saw many
of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said
unto them, now here's what he said, O generation of vipers. Now you know what a viper is,
don't you? That's a poisonous snake. He says, O generation
of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come,
bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance." And don't
say that you're right with God because you're Abraham's physical
descendants. He said, if God just wanted to
populate heaven, he can raise up these stones to do that. So what do you tell him? He says,
you need to repent of your religion. Your religion is vain. You need
to repent and turn to Christ. And that's what John did. He
pointed sinners to Jesus of Nazareth. Remember when Christ came upon
the scene, and John said, I'm not worthy to baptize you, and
he baptized him. And then later on in John 1,
29, behold the Lamb of God, which beareth away the sins of the
world. God's elect all over the world. We'll go back to Matthew
21. So what authority did John have? And so they understood
that if they spoke and said, well, it was from heaven, he
was gonna say, why did you not believe him? In verse 26 of Matthew
21, they went on their reasoning and said, but if we shall say
of men, we fear the people for all hold John as a prophet. John
was popular. And so in verse 27, they answered
Jesus and said, we cannot tell. Well, good politicians, aren't
they? Well, we got them today, don't we? All over the place.
They're not gonna answer the question. We cannot tell, and
he said to them, neither tell I you by what authority I do
these things. Then I'm not gonna repeat myself.
And he trapped them, that's what he did. I like that. Because that shows them for what
they are in their vain religion. Well, look at verse 28. It says,
but what think ye Now he gives the parable. A certain man had
two sons and he came to the first and said, son, go work today
in my vineyard. And verse 29, he answered and
said, I will not go and work in your vineyard. But afterward
he repented and went. And he came to the second and
said, likewise, and he answered and said, I go, sir, and went
not. First son said, I will not go
and work in your vineyard. But later on, he repented and
went to work. The second son said, I'll go
and I'll work, but he didn't do it. So he says to the Pharisees,
he says in verse 31, Whither of them twain, which of the two,
did the will of his father? And they understood enough about
this, they said unto him the first, the one who said he wouldn't
but did, not the one who said he would and didn't. So Jesus
saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, that the publicans
and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you." My goodness. Now that parable is showing the
same lesson as the barren fig tree. He was teaching them that
their religion was vain. They are in need of repentance.
The first son represents all of God's elect by nature who
will not receive Christ, who will not believe. But later on,
God grants them repentance and brings them to faith in Christ
and repentance of dead works. The second son represents vain
religion, the religion that has no substance, who says, I will
do this, but doesn't do it. Just like the Pharisees. They
said, we're going to do the will of the Father, but they didn't
do the will of the Father. They did their own will. And
that's what he's showing them. That's their vain religion, see? And so he says, In verse 32,
for John, John the Baptist, came unto you in the way of righteousness,
and you believed him not. But the publicans and the harlots
believed him, and you, when you had seen it, repented not afterward
that you might believe him. Now, when he says John went in
the way of righteousness, what's he talking about? John preached
the gospel of God's righteousness in Christ. He pointed sinners
to Christ. And when he baptized him, remember
what Christ said? Suffer to be so that we might
fulfill all righteousness. Christ was showing them that
in his life and death and resurrection, righteousness was established
by him according to the grace of God and not by the works of
men. So that's the way of righteousness.
The way of righteousness is the way of salvation by God's grace. in Christ, the glory of his person,
the power of his finished work. Now when he says the publicans
and harlots, he's not saying that it's okay to be a publican
and okay to be a harlot. He's talking about those publicans
and harlots whom God brought to repentance. Repentance of
their vain religion, repentance of their lifestyle, all of that.
So all of this, it's simply this. If you reject Christ, continue
in sins, no matter how righteous you appear before men, and be
condemned by the Lamb of God, whose righteousness is the standard
of all judgment. There's no other way of righteousness,
no other way of salvation, no other way of forgiveness, but
by the grace of God in Christ. And that's just as good for the
publicans and the harlots as it is for the Pharisee and the
elders. There's only one way for any
sinner, no matter how they appear. The publicans and harlots, they
didn't appear outwardly righteous. Pharisees did, but they weren't.
Vain religion versus true religion, the gospel of salvation by God's
grace in Christ. Okay.