Don Fortner wrote that him in
three months time he'll be here speaking to us. He'll be just
here for those four days from the 11th to the 13th of May. So it's really good to put circles
around your events in your calendars and And we just pray that the
Lord would bless his visit to us, that he would come as the
Lord's messenger, he would hold up the Lord Jesus before us,
and we would be again just delighted in the wonders of saving grace
and redeeming love. It would be good to pray for
him and all that he has before him before then. So if you turn
in your Bibles to Mark chapter 11, as we began last week, we
are now in Monday, on Monday of the week in which our Lord
Jesus was to be crucified. On Thursday night He would be
taken captive, on Friday morning He would be hung on a cross,
Friday evening he would be put in that borrowed tomb. And so the events of this last
week take up much of the Gospel story. And so before us we have
As so much of the scriptures show us, we have the wonder of
the blessings of grace in the midst of the wonders of God's
judgment. Wonders, I say, because they
are fearsome, they are deadly serious, they are eternal, and
they are sure. And as we saw last week, the
Lord Jesus in verse 12 of Mark 11, He left from Bethany. And so on one side in Jerusalem
we have this magnificent city with this extraordinary temple. But one of the great signs that
the Lord Jesus brings during this week is that He doesn't
stay there. Jerusalem, with all its religious
rituals and all of its human magnificence, is not the place
where the Lord of Glory dwells. In fact, He dwells on the other
side of the Mount of Olives, and He dwells most likely with
the family of His love. with Mary and Martha and Lazarus. And we mustn't forget that picture,
that each day during this week the Lord Jesus goes to the temple,
goes to the temple to show the religious world and to show us
the dangers of man-made religion, man-inspired religion, and to
bring judgment fearsome judgment upon them. And at the same time
each night he goes back to his own, back to the people who are
his own, the objects of his love. What a beautiful picture it must
have been to be in that house in the evening when the Lord
Jesus was there. What fellowship was there amongst
those people. What wonders of grace and mercy. And so on one side we have the
Lord Jesus dwelling with his people in the simplicity of their
lives and on the other side of the Mount of Olives we have this
extraordinary religious edifice which the Lord Jesus is going
to destroy. The next day, verse 12, on Monday
when he left Bethany, he became hungry. As we have seen all the
way through Mark's Gospel, our Lord Jesus is a real man. He's a real man who wept. He's a real man who rejoiced. He's a real man who felt pain. rejected by his family, rejected
by people who should have been close to him. He's a real man
who got tired and needed to rest. He's a real man who got thirsty
and needed to drink. And he's a real man who was hungry
and needed to eat. We should rejoice always when
we read in the scriptures of the humanity of our Saviour. As Norm read to us earlier from
Hebrews, a real man, who is really God, sits on a throne of this
universe, ruling and upholding it by the word of his power. Right now, a real man who knows
what it is to live in this world, who we can go to, as Simon said,
we go into his presence with boldness because there's nothing
that ever comes into our lives with which he is not perfectly
familiar. We can come to him openly and
honestly. We can't and we mustn't come
to God as these religious people did, with a pretense. We come
to God honestly, laying our lives out before Him, laying our sins
out before Him. Know again and again that it's
the throne of grace we come to and He loves His own intimately. And in verse 13, the Lord Jesus,
seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if perhaps
he would find anything on it. And when he came to it, he found
nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And
so here we have this fig tree. A fig tree which for some reason,
maybe because it was in a warm corner, had come into leaf months
before it was due. Obviously God the Holy Spirit
has given us this picture of the fig tree as a lesson for
us. A lesson for us today. The fig tree with its leaves
promised much. The temple in Jerusalem and all
the religious ceremonies of men promised much, but they were
fruitless. It was promise without performance. The Lord Jesus, in judgment,
the judgment that's foreshadowed for Jerusalem, said to it, may
no one ever eat fruit from you again. And his disciples were
listening. The fig tree is a picture of
that religion, that religion that was based on man's activities,
that religion that took God's law and said that from God's
Law and by obedience to God's Law we can earn a righteousness
by our activities that says this is our entrance to Heaven. We are thankful for God and we
are thankful for His Word but I will add my activities and
when I come before God That will be my confidence. If I am not
speaking about many, many people in religion that we have spoken
to over this last five or six years in Australia, if that is
not the testimony that we have witnessed again and again, then
you have before you a blind guide. Again and again we meet with
people who ultimately when they are pushed are really trusting
at the end of the day in their activities. They are really trusting
in something that they have done. They are thankful for Jesus,
but they are really thankful for themselves and what they
have been able to do. They see the law as something
which tells them what to do. And then they believe that they
can do it to God's standard. And by doing it to God's standard,
they can weave for themselves a robe of righteousness. And
as we see from that enormous temple complex over the hill,
this religion can build enormous edifices. This religion can draw
hundreds of thousands of followers, and in our world today draws
billions of followers. They are thankful to God, but
they are really thankful to themselves. And again I need to remind you
that if you have anything for your confidence other than the
perfect finished work of the Lord Jesus, then in reality you
are worshipping that thing, whatever it might be. That is what you
are really worshipping. I pray that God would continue
His work amongst us, that He would build a house where He
dwells because His gospel is proclaimed, a gospel which declares
a finished work, a gospel which declares a satisfied Saviour,
a gospel that declares our Saviour who is fully man and fully God. Our gospel declares a God who
speaks spiritual realities into existence. We have before us in the fig
tree a picture of God's judgment. The Lord Jesus just speaks a
word. He said to it in verse 14, may
no one ever eat fruit from you again. He's declaring in the
condemnation and the death of the fig tree that the religion
of Judaism, the religion that's just over the hill, is a religion
that no one will ever eat fruit from again. There is no fruit
to be found there. The fruit is found in free grace
because of the finished work of our Lord Jesus. And just to take the picture
further, we have when the Lord Jesus condemns the temple, condemns
the people in it. He entered the temple in verse
15, and he drove out those, and we'll come back to these verses
in a minute. And he began to say to them, his words to them
were, is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all nations. But you have made it into a robber's
den. The Lord Jesus, who knows all
things and controls all things, knows that in barely 35 years
time from this, this city is going to be surrounded by Titus,
the Roman general. This city is going to suffer The ultimate curse of the law
of God, which is written in Deuteronomy 28. Such are the words in Deuteronomy
that they cause us to be chilled. The ultimate curse of God's people
is for what they thought as their sanctuary, what they thought
as their safety, to be surrounded by enemies, for the people inside
to starve, and in their starvation be led to a depravity where fathers
will eat their children and mothers will eat their babies. and they
will not share the flesh with the other starving members of
their family. The Lord Jesus knew that that
was going to happen. In 70 AD when Titus came and
besieged Jerusalem and took it, The Jews, these religious Jews
who had rejected the Lord Jesus throughout their lives and rejected
Him at His crucifixion, rejected Him and the witness of Him at
the resurrection. The Jews, when the Roman army
came, thought that the safest place in all the world was as
close to the temple as they could possibly get. And so all of the
priests and the Pharisees streamed into Jerusalem thinking that
this is the place of safety. And God sent a prophecy to his
people and his people all left Jerusalem, were taken out of
Jerusalem by the hand of God like Lot was out of Sodom and
Gomorrah. And the historians say that possibly
3 million people died in Jerusalem. This has happened before. It
happened in the days of Jeremiah. If you turn in your Bibles to
Jeremiah, we'll see why the judgment of God is a just judgment and
a righteous judgment. We'll start in Jeremiah chapter
6. When we come to the Den of Thieves in chapter 7 and in chapter
8, there is mention again of a fig tree. One of the reasons
we have the bulletin articles that Jen works so hard to find
for us is that, and we have articles from people of hundreds of years
ago is that we want to keep reminding you that we haven't discovered
some new form of Christianity in this place. We have discovered
something that our friends and our forebears and our brothers
and sisters held dear and loved. and were persecuted for as they
stood for free grace against a world that loves legalism. Jeremiah 6 verse 16 is a great
comfort and reminder to us. It says, stand in the ways and
seas and ask for the old path where the good way is and walk
in it Then you will find rest for your souls. But they said,
we will not walk in it. Also, I set watchmen over you,
saying, listen to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, we
will not listen. Therefore hear, you nations,
and know a congregation what is among them. Here, O earth,
behold, I will certainly bring calamity on this people, the
fruit of their thoughts, because they have not heeded my words,
nor my law, but rejected it." Verse 21, God brings that judgment. He said, Behold, I will lay stumbling
blocks before this people, and fathers and sons together shall
fall on them, and neighbor and his friend shall perish. And the Lord, as He does in Ezekiel,
gives a description of what was in the hearts. of the people
who are coming under this condemnation. In chapter 7 verse 8, Behold,
you trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will you steal,
murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal,
and walk after other gods whom you do not know, and then come
and stand before me in this house which is called by my name and
say, we are delivered to do all these abominations. They take what they presume is
a position before God, their election as they would call it.
And they use it as a means for justifying their wickedness. But remember in Jerusalem, in
Jeremiah's day, as in the Jerusalem of the Lord Jesus' day, there
was a huge, huge population of people in Jerusalem. And the
voices that stood against them were just a few. The Lord preserved his people
and he knew who they were. And so one of the problems we
have in the religious world today is that they say, look at all
these other people that are saying what we say. Look at all these
Bible colleges that are teaching the same things that we teach.
Look at the tens of thousands of people that follow these things.
Look at all the churches that we are planting. Look at all
that we are doing. And against them, is just one
man, Jeremiah, who speaks God's words. It's a solemn warning
to us, isn't it? That we hear what God says, and
we test what God says, test what men say, sorry, against God's
word. And we be very, very careful
Wherever there is popularity and numbers in religion, you
can guarantee that God is not there, except in judgment. In verse 11 is the verse of the
Lord Jesus. Quotes to these people. Has this
house which is called by my name You've got to remember the word
name there is not just the word Jehovah. The word name encompasses
all of the character of God, His holiness, His justice. Has this house which is called
by my name become a den of thieves in your eyes? The remarkable
thing My friends, is that the people who the Lord Jesus quoted
this to possibly knew Jeremiah off by heart. When the Lord Jesus
quoted those words to them, they were not ignorant people. They would have been able to
take you to the very words and continue the sentences. Such
is the blindness of religion. Then in verse 12 and 13 he reminds
them what happened in Shiloh. This place that looks so magnificent
will be like Shiloh. The place where Eli and his daughter-in-law
died. The place that became a place
of desolation. Verse 13, I spoke to you rising
up early and I called you but you did not answer. Therefore
I will do to the house which is called by my name, in which
you trust." See, their trust was in the things they could
see, not in the God of the house. "...to this place which I gave
you and your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast
you out of my sight, as I cast out all your brethren, the whole
posterity of Ephraim." Three times, verse 16 here and in chapter
14 verse 11, Jeremiah is told not to even pray for these people. It's a horrifying thing when
God says to his prophets and his people, do not pray for these
people. The judgment is coming, verse
20. Behold my anger and my fury will
be poured out on this place, on man and on beast, on the trees
of the field and the fruit of the ground, and it will burn
and not be quenched. And again and again, despite
the warnings from God, they did not obey, 24, yet they did not
obey or incline their ears, but followed the counsel and the
dictates of their evil hearts and went backwards and not forward. Therefore you shall speak to
them, verse 27, all these words to them, but they will not obey
you. You shall call to them, but they
will not answer you. Verse 28, truth has perished
and has been cut off from their mouth. Verse 30. The children of Judah have done
evil in my sight, said the Lord. They have set their abominations
in the house, which is called by my name, to pollute it. And over in chapter 8, in verse
7, he talks about the people of Israel being more ignorant
than the dumb animals. The stork in the heavens knows
her appointed time. The turtle dove, the swift and
the swallow observe the time of their coming. They know when
to leave when the cold weather's coming, to leave for warmer climates. But my people do not know the
judgment of the Lord. And they have their prophets,
they have their spokesmen. Everyone, in verse 10, everyone
is given to covetousness, from the prophet to the priest, everyone
deals falsely, for they have healed the hurt of the daughter
of my people slightly, saying, peace, peace, when there is no
peace. I don't know what that means
in our day unless it's the modern gospel that God loves you, Jesus
has died for you, and the Holy Spirit wishes to save you. That is the message. that young people in our day
learn from their teachers, learn from their prophets, and learn
from their priests. And I'm not talking about Catholicism
or Pentecostalism here. I'm talking about conservative
evangelical young people, young people who go to evangelical
union at universities. have been taught the scriptures
in one way or another from their childhood and they hold passionately
to it. Peace, peace is being given to
people all over this land and all over this world. And they
have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying,
Peace, peace, when there is no peace. Were they ashamed that
they had committed abomination? Abomination is not just the activities
of men, abomination in God's sight is polluting and perverting
his gospel and changing it into something which is not the gospel
at all. In fact, it is no gospel. It
is no good news. No, they were not ashamed, nor
did they know how to blush. They didn't even know how to
blush when they are challenged about what they are saying. Verse
13, I will surely consume them, says the Lord. No grapes shall
be on the vine, nor figs on the tree. And the leaf will fade,
and the things I have given them shall pass away from them. These are the verses that the
Lord Jesus took the people in the temple, in Jerusalem, the
leaders of the people, the priests of the people. These are the
verses the Lord Jesus took them to. And he took to them, having
established in verse 15 and 16, having established again evidence of His deity. What a miracle it is for the
Lord Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth, to walk into this magnificent
temple, full of people. There were 7,000 Pharisees in Israel. There would have been
none of them away from the temple at this special Passover time
of the year. There were hundreds of thousands
of visitors, a huge crowd of people. They had temple guards, police, soldiers with weapons,
the same people who came to arrest the Lord Jesus on this Thursday
night. And he walks into this temple
As he did at the beginning of his ministry, he walks into this
temple and he began to drive out those who were buying and
selling in the temple and overturn the tables of the money changers
and the seats of those who were selling doves. You can just imagine
what it was like in the temple. The temple which was meant to
be a house of prayer, a place where God was acknowledged as
holy, a place where God was honoured for what he had done to this
nation for the last 2000 years. And there there were thousands
of animals and birds And the people who were not organized
to get their shekel for the temple in Hebrew, Jewish money, had
to change their Roman money. All of it was a marketplace with
the noise and the chaos and the smell, the stench, the busyness
of it all. This in a house of prayer. And he would not permit anyone
to carry merchandise through the temple. And not a word was
said to him. What a remarkable testimony.
The same in John chapter 2. He just marches in there as God. Establishes his deity before
them. Calls the house, my house. As I said to you earlier in Matthew
chapter 16, Lord Jesus said to his apostles, I will build my
church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. This is just a wonderful picture
of our Lord Jesus' sovereignty and rule over His enemies. They are counted before Him as
absolutely nothing. They have no place to stand before
Him and He reduces them to silence. These proud religious people
And wherever there is legalism and self-righteousness and human
pride flourishes, hypocrisy will go along with it. Just think
of what this meant for those zealous religious people who
came to the Lord Jesus and accused Him of wickedness by letting
His disciples pluck grain. Accused Him of wickedness, of
healing people on the Sabbath, there at the very heart of Judaism. At its epicentre, there are these
people turning God's house into a marketplace. What hypocrisy
there is always in legalism. This house, which is the house
of prayer, called a house of prayer for all nations, a picture
It was in the temple, wasn't it, with the court of the Gentiles.
God's activities were bigger than the physical nation Israel. God had a people scattered throughout
this world. I have other sheep, said the
Lord Jesus. These I must bring in, and He will. But you, by
your activity, have made it into a robber's den. They've made
this place which was to be a light that shone on the world to show
the world who God was. They've made it into a place,
a cave, a dark hiding place, it means, for thieves. And such is the darkness of the
hearts of these people. We see their response. The chief
priests in verse 18 and the scribes heard this and began seeking
how to destroy him. Just as Jeremiah was treated
so abysmally by the leaders of Israel. Also it shows that these
people were fearful of men. They were afraid of him. They
were afraid of him because the whole crowd was astonished at
his teaching. They weren't prepared to act
from principle or act out of honour. They were just cowardly people.
It says later on in Mark's Gospel, they looked for some sly way
to entrap him and to kill him. And so in verse 19 we have a
great picture of the Lord Jesus turning his back and all of this,
and going each night to his own people. And there's a great promise
in verse 20. As they were passing in the morning,
they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up. The Lord Jesus will attack the roots of false
religion. In his own people, he will attack
the roots of it. The roots of it in our puffed
up notion of our self-worth. The pride we have in our free
will. He'll attack the roots of it
in his people for cleansing and purity. And he'll attack the
roots of it by destroying Satan and defeating his kingdom and
letting his prisoners go free. He'll deal with the roots of
it. Being reminded of this, Peter
in verse 21 said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree which you
cursed, in fact the Lord Jesus hadn't cursed it, He just said,
may no one ever eat fruit from you again, has withered. And the Lord Jesus has a beautiful
answer for us, as for his disciples. He answered saying to them, have
faith in God. In the midst of a world which
was going the way of Jeremiah's Jerusalem and was going the way
of Jesus' Jerusalem, The answer for God's people is have faith
in God. Trust God. He knows what He is doing. He
knows what He is doing in this world. He knows His own who are
in this world. He knows what His own need to
go through in this world. Just trust God. Have faith in
God. True Christianity is the rest
of our souls upon the finished work of the Lord Jesus. It's
a bit like John at the Last Supper. It's leaning back and resting
our head on the Saviour's bosom. has faith at its centre, has
faith as its desire. Lord, I believe. Please help
my unbelief. It has faith as its encouragement. Your faith has healed you. It
has faith as its fruit. All false religion is faithless. It operates on the basis of external
activities, things that can be seen, things that can be seen
and honoured by people, things that can be copied by men. It
holds on to tradition and these traditions will be protected
even if the truth, honour, righteousness and dignity is sacrificed and
ultimately It will destroy, if it can, the very Word of God. But true faith rests in the promises
of God. So when judgment falls, as it
has upon this world, and as it will increasingly upon this world,
trust God. Have confidence in God. And the other thing that God's
people do is that they come out from among them. He took his
people out every night. He took his people out to the
best blessed fellowship of that little house in Bethany where
love and grace and mercy and fellowship abounded. May God
keep taking us out. May He keep giving us the faith
to stand against that edifice of religion all around us. And
may He give us the peace that must have dwelt so beautifully
in that house in Bethany. Amen.