In Matthew 21, the Lord, the
King of glory had just come to His temple, and the people, it
says, were moved. Up in verse 10, all the people,
the city was moved, stirred up, stirred up as they were everywhere
He went, any time, Anywhere he went, everywhere he went, everyone
was stirred up like light coming into a dark place. Then and now,
because no one is indifferent to the Lord Jesus Christ. No
one is indifferent. His mention of His name stirs
everything up. The chief priest and the scribes
saw, verse 15, saw the wonderful things he did. I heard children
crying, Hosanna, save us, O God, Son of God, Son of David. And
they were sore displeased. They were jealous because the
people followed Him. Children, it says, were crying
in the temple. Later, the adults, anyway, were
all crying, crucify Him. Crucify Him. But I have to believe
because the Lord rejoiced here. He said, Have you never read
out of the mouths of David, and suckling hast thou perfected
praise? I have to believe that there
were at least some little children sincerely crying out, Save, O
save us, Son of David. But verse 17, here's where he
stops. Verse 17, it says, He left them
and went out of the city into Bethany. He left them. He left
these scribes and these Pharisees. They were unworthy of his presence. They were unworthy of his Word,
to hear it. They were unworthy of saving. And he left them. He left them. He left the multitude. He left
this vast multitude to go into Bethany itself. Bethany, you
remember that? Bethany was where Mary and Martha
and Lazarus were. He went there always, constantly,
because he said, where two or three are gathered in my name.
If there are two or three genuine worshipers of Christ that need
him, that need to sit at his feet and hear his word, that's
where he is. So he left them and went into
a little house in Bethlehem where two or three were gathered. He
left Jerusalem to go outside the camp. He left Jerusalem. And it says he lodged there in
Bethany. He lodged there with Mary and
Martha. And I thought, oh Lord, please
lodge here. Lodge in this little village.
Bethany was a small village like Rocky Mountain, not much different. Oh Lord, lodge here in this little
village, in this little tabernacle here in this village among us
poor sinners. May the Lord find a Mary and
a Martha and a Lazarus here this morning. Lodge here. Abide with
us, the disciples said. Don't leave. Stay here. Don't
leave us like you left the multitude. Verse 18, in the morning, as
he returned into the city, he hungered. In the morning. The
Lord always rose early. He always rose early, sometimes
before the sun, but always at sunrise. Isn't that fitting? And the Son
is coming up. He is too. The Son of Righteousness. This is He. The Son of Righteousness,
arisen with healing in His wings. And we need to do that. David
said, I myself will arise early. One time he says, I will arise
at midnight. And do what? Praise Thee. He told us to commune
with our hearts upon our beds. and be still. We looked at that
Wednesday night, didn't we? The Son of Righteousness arisen
with healing in His wings. And how we need to literally
get up in the morning and raise the shades. And when we see that
Son coming up, think of the Lord Jesus Christ. Commune with Him. Go to His Word. Commune with
Him. Call on Him. Lord, bless this day. Shine in
my heart. Because His presence is salvation.
His presence is health. help. We looked at that, the
Son of Righteousness. Mindy's not here, I can tell
this now. And your husband's going to get mad at me for saying
this, but every morning I bring her coffee in bed. The Queen
lies in bed while I bring her coffee and I raise the shade
so she can watch that sun come up. She accuses me, she says,
what you really want me to do is stay in bed so you can be
in there and not be disturbed, which is true. Nevertheless,
we raise that shade, that blind, and we watch that sun come up
every morning. It's a good thing. And when you
do, you should always think that our Lord has arisen and He's
seated. at the right hand of God, reigning
and ruling over all. And think of Him, and start your
day by thinking of Him. So He arose in the morning, as
He always did in the morning. He returned into the city, and
it says He hungered. He hungered. Great mystery. Great is the mystery of God.
God was manifest in the flesh. The flesh. God took the likeness
of sinful flesh without sin. He took upon Himself the weakness
of flesh. I love, we love to think about
this, how our Lord lives in the flesh, in the weakness of the
flesh. Folks, He never performed a miracle
on His behalf, His own behalf. He never produced bread for Himself,
never. Remember that? Satan said, do
this, show it. If you're the Son of God, make
these stones breads. No, no. No, he lived by faith. He's touched with the feeling
of our infirmity. We live by faith. We depend upon
our Father for everything. We look to Him for everything.
We must receive everything from His hand. And Christ, as a man,
had to live by faith in the flesh, the weakness of the flesh, and
depend upon God. And he was hungry. He was hungry. Touched with the
feeling of our infirmity. We get hungry. We will never
suffer hunger. Kelly and I were talking about
that. God's people never are hungry, that is, suffer hunger.
Isn't that what David wrote? I've been young and I'm now old.
I've never seen the righteous forsaken or God's seed begging
bread. Our brethren down in Mexico are
dirt poor. Literally, some of them live
in grasshouses with dirt floors. But they don't suffer hunger,
do they? They do not go hungry. They are not going to go hungry.
The sparrows don't. He said, Are you not worth much
more than sparrows? Your father feedeth them. How
much more shall he feed you, O ye of little faith? We're not
going to go hungry. We're not going to suffer hunger,
but we do get hungry, don't we? We had these needs, and our Lord,
as a man in flesh, hungered. Isn't that amazing? Great mystery. Now, he didn't ask Martha to
get up and fix him breakfast. He could have, couldn't he? And
she would have been delighted to do so, wouldn't she? But he did this for this story
to happen. Depend on the Father. He's going
to go out, and the Lord's going to provide him something. Miraculously. But he didn't ask Martha for
food because this is the God who in Psalm 50 said, if I were
hungry, I wouldn't ask you. This is the God. He said all
the cattle on a thousand hills are mine. The gold and the silver. If I needed money, I wouldn't
ask you. I wouldn't ask the world. We
wouldn't have the fundraising. See, this is the God of the Bible.
And He doesn't ask men. He doesn't ask men to feed Him.
He called on the Father, and the Father fed Him. He sent the
angels. Remember, after He tempted 40
days and hungered, who fed Him? Angels did. And that's fitting.
That's our next message. But this is amazing, isn't it? He lived by faith. And he saw
a fig tree, verse 19, when he was hungered, and when he saw
a fig tree in the way, he came to it, saw it afar off, Mark's
Gospel said, and found nothing thereon but leaves only. He saw a fig tree in the way,
on his way. There was a fig tree, one fig
tree, one fig tree in the way. Now that fig tree was planted
by someone years before this, or else a bird picked up the
seed and planted it there. But it was there in that way
because the Lord planted it. The Lord had it planted, whoever
did it. And maybe somebody said, well, you've cut that fig tree
down. It's no good. No, the Lord had it put there
to show forth His glory for this illustration. for us to read
it. Like that sycamore tree. You
remember, there was a sycamore tree in the Scripture. Everything
is on purpose. Every tree is planted. And the Lord had that
one sycamore tree in the way that he was coming through so
a man would be able to climb up it. He had his elect, Zacchaeus,
up a tree on purpose. And after that, there was no
more need for this tree. That's what this tree is for.
He put this tree there to show forth his glory, as everything
is created for his glory. Are and were created for his
glory. But he found this fig tree with
nothing on it. Leaves only. There was no fruit.
No fruit. Did not our Lord say to His disciple,
Herein is the Father glorified that you bear much fruit? Didn't He? That's the purpose. Fruit for the Master's use. Fruit for the glory of the Master. Fruit for others. Others in His
house. Fruit. Herein is the Father glorified
that you bear much fruit. Always. All the time. In Mark's
Gospel, this is recorded, and it says, it was not time for
figs yet, but he still cursed it. It wasn't time. It wasn't
time a year for figs to be on a tree, but he still cursed it.
Now, isn't that significant? In other words, for us, there's
not certain times we're to bear fruit. Love, joy, peace, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, longsuffering, patience. It's
not just certain times on Sunday or something. No, no, no. Always,
abundantly, bear fruit. Herein is the Father glorified
that you bear much fruit. Now, this is convicting. I know
it will be. It is. It was to me. But it's
comforting, okay? It's comforting, though. Because
He did not say that when He came to this tree, He found just a
little fruit. That He found one fig on it.
He wouldn't have cursed it. if he'd found just one fig on
it. One little fig on it. He didn't
say that. He didn't say he found just a
little fruit, so he cursed it. He didn't find any fruit. There
was no fruit on it, just leaves only. Now, in the garden, you
remember, there were three trees. He said, oh, there's two trees.
There were three trees. There's a tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, the tree of life, and there's a fig tree. There's a fig tree. All right? You know the story, don't you?
Most of you. Maybe somebody doesn't know this.
But the Lord God in the garden... Now, let me say this first before
we get to that. I've got it written down here,
and I want to tell it. The Lord didn't say that he found just
a little fruit. I was in my garden last September
or October, at the end of the year. You know, that's when you're
pulling tomato plants up, tomato vines up. You're pulling them
up, right? Well, I found this little skinny old vine. It just
looked dead. It looked dead. But there's one
little, one little tomato, green, one little green tomato left
on that vine. And I thought of this prayer. I thought of all
this. And I thought, nope, I'm not
going to touch you. I wouldn't pluck you up from
nothing. I said, well done, now good and faithful man, one little
green tomato. One little green tomato. If there's
one ounce of love for God, love for the brethren, if there's
one mustard seed of joy, of faith, if there's one mustard seed of
faith, that's fruit. That's fruit. Aren't you glad
I told you that? But he found nothing there on.
All he found was leaves only. It looked like a fig tree. It
had leaves. It looked alive. It looked healthy.
It had all these green leaves, but there was no fruit. It was
barren. A fig tree, say, is not just
for looks. It's not for looks. It's for
fruit. It's for fruit. done and what all is done today
in God's name and in Christ's name when His glory is not in
it. What all do men and women do today in the name of God,
in the name of Christ, all the religion that goes on, all the
religion that's going to go on today, all the preaching that's
going to go on, all the people that come and sit, and how many
are really going to worship God in spirit? How many preachers
are going to stand up and give God All the glory. How many men
are going to stand up and preach Christ and Him crucified? Very
few. Very few. Ichabod. The glory
is departed. No fruit in it. The glory of
God, fruit to His glory, the glory of God is in the saving
of sinners through the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the glory of
God. Sovereign mercy, sovereign electing
grace, sovereign love, that is the glory of God. His word is
his glory. His gospel is his glory. That's
fruit. And there's so many who say,
who seem, Paul said, seem to be somewhat. They look the parts. They dress the parts. There's
no fruit. Leaves only. Fig leaves. Now,
let's get to that in Genesis 3. There was a, when Adam and
Eve, sinned against God. It says the Lord came walking
in the garden and said, Adam, where art thou? And they were
naked. They were naked before. We didn't
realize it. But after they sinned, they felt
naked. They felt exposed. And they were
afraid. And they were cold for the first
time ever. They were ashamed for the first
time ever because of sin. They felt all these emotions.
And they tried to cover themselves. There's a fig tree there and
they plucked off, fig leaves are big leaves, and they plucked
off these fig leaves from this fig tree and sewed them together. They worked real hard to make
them aprons, covering for their nakedness. They, with their own
hands, sewed this covering up to cover their nakedness. And you know, Everyone in here
knows that that's man's attempt to make himself a covering for
his sin, to make his own righteousness, morality or goodness, to try
to make himself look good to God so that he doesn't feel this
guilt, this nakedness. Now, there's one thing wrong
with that. There's a lot wrong with that. Leaves, once they're
plucked, what are they? Dead. They're dead. Once you pluck those leaves from
that live tree, that's dead. And dead works won't cover our
sin. No matter how good we appear,
no matter how much morality we practice, no matter what leaves
we turn over. Why did somebody come up with
that, turn over a new leaf? Where did that come from? Google
that, Dan. Go over and find out. Somebody one day said, well,
he's going to change, so he's going to turn over a new leaf.
The problem with that is the leaf withers. Always. Dead leaves wither. They won't
cover. It won't last. And the all-seeing
eye of God, God can't see through those leaves? See through your
facade, see through your religion, see through your black clothes
and see your black heart. Got yourself all, look, these
popes and all people dress up, you know, in religion and robes
and try to make themselves appear righteous. God can't see through
that. God doesn't look on the outward
appearance. He looks on the heart. There's only one thing that will
cover a naked sinner. There's only one thing that God
can't see through, can't see sins because of. Only one thing. All right. When Adam and Eve
tried to cover themselves, they still felt naked. They're still
afraid. But God, but Christ, who was
there in that garden that day, Went over and took a lamb without
spot, without blemish, an innocent lamb, and killed that lamb, slew
that lamb, a lamb slain, poured out its precious blood as they
watched. And he told them, there's no
atonement without shedding of blood. There's no covering without
my righteousness. And he took the skin of that
lamb. that innocent, spotless lamb, which is the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. See, the king's daughter, in
Psalm 45, they're covered. They have a robe. They have a
covering, and it's the king. The king did this. The king of
glory did this. He made this covering. And it's
the skin of that innocent lamb. It's the righteousness of Christ.
It's that robe without sin. And Christ Himself took the skin
of that lamb and covered those two naked sinners. And for the
first time since they'd sinned, they felt warm again. Their shame
began to dissipate. Their guilt began to go away
as He spoke peace to their hearts. Only one thing will cover them,
and that's the blood of Christ, the righteousness of Christ.
Fig leaves won't do it. Leaves. One thing is needful. His righteousness. His blood.
Leaves. You can turn over as many as
you want. All our righteousnesses, Isaiah
64, 6 says, all our righteousnesses, all that we try to do to make
ourselves acceptable to God are as filthy rags. Faded leaves. Faded leaves. Well, look at our
text here. It's no wonder our Lord cursed
this fig tree, isn't it? It wasn't an apple tree. It wasn't
a peach tree. It was a fig tree. And that's
all by design. The Lord's marvelous wisdom.
So He cursed it. He said, Let no fruit grow on
thee henceforward forever. Verse 19, Presently the fig tree
withered away. No fruit forever. No fruits. John 15, and I don't know, we
may look at it Wednesday night. We may look at another verse
I'm thinking about. But our Lord said in John 15,
He said, I am the vine, you're the branches. In me is your fruit. Without me, you can do nothing.
You don't have any fruit. But in me, He said in John 15, Verse 16, I believe it is, he
said, I have ordained, I've chosen you, you didn't choose me. He
said, and I have ordained you that you should bring forth fruit
and that your fruit should remain. Isn't that good news? If you're
going to have fruit, faith, it's not of yourself, it's the gift
of God. Love, we love Him because He first loved us. If you're
going to have fruit, it's the gift of God. And he ordained
it, and he said, and I'm going to make sure that it remains.
There's always going to be fruit there. Always going to be fruit. Our prayer is, Lord, abide with
us, and you and me, and me and you. And he said, every tree
that bringeth not forth fruit, the Father takes it away. Every
branch that bringeth not forth fruit, He takes it away and casts
it into the fire. doesn't give him all the glory.
Whoever doesn't love his son, love, joy. Whoever doesn't rejoice
in Christ the Gospel, love, joy, peace. Whoever's peace is not
found in him, but making their own. Cast them into the fire. Cast them into the fire. Like
this barren fig tree. And wither away. All religion,
all professions of religion will wither. Away, the Lord has promised it. He's cursed
the fruit of the ground. He's cursed it, like He did in
the garden. And our prayer should be like
that barren fig tree the Lord, they were going to cut down.
Remember that? It was a barren fig tree. It's always a fig tree
in it. But there was a barren fig tree.
that somebody said, cut it down. I said, no, no, no, no, no, don't
do that yet. Let's dig around it and dung it. And maybe it'll bring forth fruit.
And isn't that a picture of us? We feel so barren so often. And
we say, Lord, dig my ears. Dig down deep. Let these sayings
sink down in my ear and dung. Dung is not a pleasant thing.
Dung's not a pretty thing, is it? Doesn't smell good, does
it? And when the Lord takes the gospel,
the first thing He does is put us on a dung heap. Make us realize where we are. Save us from that. And He says
things that cause us to realize that we stink. We stink. We're filthy. And that causes
us to need Christ to be cleansing from his blood and go to him.
So he raises these beggars off the dung heap. See, this gospel
really is for sinners and it really is for those who can't
stand the smell of themselves. And if the gospel's not sweet
anymore, I'll tell you what it is. We either left our first
love, we either lost or we have grown self-righteous or something,
and the Lord is going to have to dun us. And dig, dig. Pile up that fallow
ground all over again. And pour in the dung, and bloody,
we hope, fruit comes out of it. All right, how soon? They said, how soon? They marveled
at how soon the fig tree withered away. How soon, verse 20, it
withered away. And you know, lots of people
come and lots of people go very quickly. They don't last long.
But I marvel at this, more at this, that this old fig tree
produces so little fruit after all these years. That's what
I marvel at. But this miracle was not only
to show forth His power, His literal power. The disciples
marveled. Wow! He just withered that fig
tree. Amazing. They marvel at His power. Like when He stilled the ocean. What manner of man is this? Even
the winds obey Him. The trees, He speaks and they
wither. But that's not why He wrote this. That's not why this is recorded.
But for what we have been listening to about the fig tree. And this. Prayer. The power of faithful
prayer. Now, stay with me, okay? This was revelation to me. I
thought I don't know anything about this kind of power. Hold
on. I think we do. I think we do. All right. Look at verse 21.
Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you,
I say unto you, if you have faith and doubt not, you shall not
only do this which is done to the fig tree, wither it away,
kill it, this barren, fruitless tree, kill it. But also it shall
say unto this mountain, as Mount of Olives, be thou removed and
be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done. And all things
whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive. If you're like me, you're thinking,
I don't know anything about this at all. Now, first of all, who
was he talking to? His apostles. The Lord gave them
miracles and signs and wonders and authority like no man had
ever had before them. Well, some of the prophets had.
Elijah had. And Elisha had great power, God-given
power. These men were given miracles
and signs and wonders to validate who they were, who sent them.
They were sent by God. What they said was the Word of
God. What these apostles said was
the Word of God. They were the hands of God. They were the instruments of
God. Men sent by God. They were the rake and the hoe
and the shovel and the axe, like John. He was the axe of God,
going to lay to the root. Incidentally, it says in Mark's
Gospel, this fig tree was withered from the roots up. And that's
what John said, the axe is laid to the root. We'll get right
down. But these men were given authority
such as no men had ever had before or since. Simon, one time, later
on, after when the Lord left, and years later, Simon, there
was a man, a woman, and an eisensteiner. And they pretended that they'd
done something, some act, some alms, some acts of righteousness. And Peter saw that, didn't he? He said, you're lying to God.
He killed them both. They carried their bodies like
that, like that fig tree. Much, much, this is much more
than a fig tree. These are people, and they said,
die. Now, you and I weren't given
that. No, no, no, no. He's not talking to us right
there about that. But they did. And had there been a need for
any great, huge obstacle like the Mount of Olives to be moved,
They never did anything like that. They never moved huge literal
objects. There was no need for that. All
right. But to all his disciples, to
us, every one of us, this is all written for our learning
by prayer. Faith, what is faith? Well, it's
not a what, it's a who. Faith is in a person. Faith is
looking to Christ. Faith is dependent upon Trusting
in, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Believing God. Trusting
Him. Believing Christ. Looking to
Him. It's not something we do. It's someone we look to. It's
someone we believe in. We don't believe in the power
of faith. No, no, no, no. It's not the power of faith.
No, it's the power of the One whose faith, who our faith is
in. Okay? Alright? To all His disciples,
there are mountainous obstacles in our way. Mountainous obstacles. And these
fig leaves of our righteousness need to be withered, don't they?
They need to be killed. We've still got lots of fig tree
in us, and they need to be gone, don't they? And these mountainous
obstacles are these. Listen to me. There are mountainous
obstacles in us, around us, and they need removing. Our sin.
David said, pardon my iniquity. It is great. It's over my head. It's a mountain. We've got mountains
of pride, don't we? We've got mountains of lust. We've got mountains of sin. There's
only one way to remove those. We can't do it. We can't remove
one sin, any guilt, one lust. We're no match for any of it.
He said, look unto Me. He said, call on Me. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. and thou shalt be saved from
that awful sin that so easily besets you, which is unbelief,
which is pride, which is self-righteousness, which is lust. There's only one
way. Oh, the Scripture says, thy righteousness
is like mountains, high soaring above. Mount Sinai stands between us and God. This is what this means. Mount
Sinai stands between. There's a mountain. We have to
keep the law to be saved. It shall be perfect to be accepted.
God's holy. He will by no means clear the
guilty. And to offend in one point of the law is to be guilty
of it all. You must keep the law to be saved. But it's a mountain
we can't climb. Mount Sinai. We cannot, we can't
keep the first one. Have no other gods before you. Covetousness is our doubt. We've
broken the first one. And we've broken all of them.
And our Lord said to look on someone with love, guilty. To
get mad at somebody, you've killed them, guilty. To covet, to want
what you don't have, guilty. Broken it all. Broken all the
law. This mountain looms before us. How are we going to get through
this mountain? You can't get through it. You
can't climb it. Somebody's got to take it out
of the way and cast it into the sea. And it says, our Lord said, He
taketh away the first, that He may establish the second. What's
that? Straight path. Smooth. It's a narrow way. The way of the transgressor is
hard, and the way of religion is hard. Climb Mount Sinai, you'll
be climbing all your life, and you'll never summit. You'll never
reach the top. And in the end, you'll be burnt.
Everything that touched that mountain, God says, is going
to be burned up. Come with me. We're not coming
to that mountain that burned with fire. We're coming to the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one that climbed it,
went right up Mount Sinai on Calvary's Cross and said, I've
kept this. I've kept the law. He summited
it and planted a flag. We have a banner in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ who climbed Mount Sinai and planted
a flag that said, Kept. And He took that mountain and
removed it. Our enemies, many, aren't they? Satan is a foe. Devils. It's a world with devils
filled. Temptations. This old man in
us. But the Scripture says this,
that the Lord took Pharaoh and his army and cast them into the
sea. The children of Israel, the sons
of Jacob, were running from Pharaoh with no weapons. And his army,
they were on foot, and Pharaoh's army was on horses. and chariots,
and fast, and many, and they were strong, and they were mighty,
and they thought they were more than the children of Israel.
But what God did, says He took Pharaoh and his army and cast
them into the depths of the sea. And it says that when they all
reached the other side, they looked and saw them all dead
on the seashore. That's what that means. That's
what they meant. There's no need for any mountain
to be removed, literal. We don't live on fig trees. We
don't need fig trees. But there's a fig tree in us
that still needs to be withered in. And there are mountains that
need to be removed. And there's only one way. Way?
One way? Christ is the way. Okay. Thank you very much.