I was thinking there's, Brother
Al was reading that about those kings and how each of them, as
he mentioned them, and he said, and as one, or one at the end
of each one, the men and kings of this world
think that they are great and uh... think that they have power
and uh... if they don't have power themselves
they think that by joining themselves to others other nations that
they can then become powerful and that's why we see alliances
in the earth and the nation comes together with another nation
but it does not make any difference how many nations join hand in
hand. In reality, they each stand as
one before the Lord. The Lord said that the nations
are as a drop of the bucket, as the dust upon the balances.
Now if you pause and think about that, That shows you the insignificance
of men, because if the kings and nations of the earth are
considered in such fashion as that, what are the individual,
what are we as ants on a anthill out here? It is an amazing thing
that God has mercy on the individuals that he calls out from among
those ants scurrying around on the anthill. But he does. And so, as we come today to come
to look at his word, we ask that he might give us ears to hear. It's good that he gives someone
else ears to hear. We would delight in him giving
anyone ears to hear. But our prayer, our desire today
is that the Lord might give us, each one of us, me, you, ears
to hear what it is that the Lord would say to us the Lord speaks
to us corporately the Lord says to the churches in the book of
Revelation he spoke those messages to those churches but he speaks
to us individually as well he speaks to us corporately but
he speaks to us individually and if we belong to him we will
hear his voice and we will follow him, even as he said, my sheep
hear my voice, I know them and they follow me. Looking in Mark
chapter 11, Mark chapter 11, and it says, and when they came nigh
or near to Jerusalem unto Bethphage, and Bethany at the Mount of Olives,
he sendeth forth two of his disciples, and saith unto them, go your
way into the village over against you, and as soon as ye be entered
into it, ye shall find a colt tied whereon never man sat, loose
him, and bring him. And if any man say unto you,
why do ye this? Say ye that the Lord hath need
of him, and straightway he will send him hither. And they went
their way and found the coat tied by the door without, in
a place where the two ways met, and they loosed him. And certain
of them that stood there said unto them, what do ye loosing
the coat? And they said unto them, even
as Jesus had commanded, and they let them go. And they brought
the coat to Jesus and cast their garments on him, and he sat upon
him. And many spread their garments
in the way and others cut down branches off the trees and strawed
them in the way. And they that went before and
they that followed cried saying, Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh
in the name of the Lord. Blessed be the kingdom of our
father, David, that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna
in the highest. And Jesus entered into Jerusalem
and into the temple. And when he had looked round
about upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he went
out into Bethany with the 12. And on the morrow, when they
were come from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing a fig tree
afar off having leaves, he came, if happily or if perhaps he might
find anything their own. And when he came to it, he found
nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto
it, no man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever. And his disciples
heard it. And they come to Jerusalem, and
Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold
and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers,
and the seats of them that sold doves, and would not suffer that
any man should carry any vessel through the temple. And he taught,
saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all
nations the house of prayer? But ye have made it a den of
thieves. And the scribes and the chief
priests heard it, and thought how they might destroy him. For
they feared him, because all the people were astonished at
his doctrine. And when even was come, he went
out of the city. And in the morning, as they passed
by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter
calling to remembrance said unto him, Master, behold, the fig
tree which thou curses is withered away. And Jesus answering saith
unto them, have faith in God. For verily I say unto you that
whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed and
be thou cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart,
but shall believe that those things which he says shall come
to pass. He shall have whatsoever he sayeth.
Therefore I say unto you, whatsoever things, soever you desire, when
you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them.
And when you stand praying, forgive, if you have ought against any,
that your Father also, which is in heaven, may forgive you
your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither
will your Father, which is in heaven, forgive your trespasses. And they come again to Jerusalem,
and as he was walking in the temple, there come to him the
chief priests and the scribes and the elders, and say unto
him, by what authority doest thou these things? And who gave
thee this authority to do these things? And Jesus answered and
said unto them, I will also ask of you one question, and answer
me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.
The baptism of John, was it from heaven or of men? Answer me. And they reasoned within themselves,
saying, if we shall say from heaven, he will say, well, why
then did you not believe him? But if we shall say of men, they
feared the people, for all the men counted John, that he was
a prophet indeed. And they answered and said unto
Jesus, we cannot tell. And Jesus answering said unto
them, neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things. And so, as the Lord is going
on his way to Jerusalem, and the disciples, remember, they
were going in fear with him. They say, well, he's gonna go
up there, he's done, he already told us he's gonna be killed,
and I guess we'd probably wind up being killed with him. They
were afraid, but they went. They went with him. And when
they came near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany at the
Mount of Olives, he sent two of them and said, go into the
village and you'll find there when you get there, there will
be a coat tied up upon which man never sat. He said, loose
him and bring him out. And if anybody says anything
to you, then you tell them the Lord has need of it. Now I've
heard preachers who'd like to try to explain how things happen,
saying, well, yeah, evidently the Lord had made arrangements
with these people ahead of time to have this coat tied up ready
there for him. And, you know, I'm not saying
that couldn't possibly be true, but that's certainly not how
I would understand it to have occurred. Now, over in the book
of Zechariah in chapter nine, I believe it is. Let me see if
I can find Zechariah. Zechariah nine, and I believe
it's about verse nine. It says, now this was, 400 years or more before this incident
took place. The Lord never does things by
happenstance. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of
Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem.
Behold, thy king cometh unto thee. He is just, and having
salvation lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the
foal. of an ass. Now the Lord ordered
that this should occur. Should we be surprised that there
was in the town a colt, the foal of an ass, upon which man had
never sat, tied up and waiting for him. I mean, is that amazing? Well, it's amazing in the sense
of when we think of and see the predestinating purpose of God
in all things and how the Lord causes these things to come past,
but it's not amazing that this took place, is it? or that these
people were in a... What are y'all doing with this?
See, they didn't know what was going on. These two disciples
come up there and they get this man's ass, cause I mean, he had
raised this thing and it was there tied up. And I mean, he
wasn't planning on anything happening to it. These guys come up, they
get it and they take it. He said, what are y'all doing?
He said, well, the Lord has need of it. What could he say? Dear
brethren, when the Lord has need of something, now we know that
the Lord doesn't need anything, because he's the one that made
that coat. He's the one that fashioned him
to be just the right, what if this thing had just been some
little old spindly leg deal not able to support his weight? But
you see, the Lord, just like he prepared a fish to swallow
Jonah, he prepared this coat to carry the Lord through the
streets of Jerusalem, because it pleased Him to do so. And
that's a glorious thing. And it doesn't need to be passed
over. It doesn't need to be, you know, sometimes people say,
oh, well, you don't need to talk so much about that. Well, we
do need to talk about such things as that. Because the Lord is
worthy to be praised. And he said he would have glory
in all things. And that he would do all things
according to the good pleasure of his will. And so it is an
amazing thing when we see him unfold these things right before
our very eyes. Now these disciples, they didn't
know what the Lord was going to do with this colt. And they
had no idea what was about to occur. They didn't say, oh, you
know, we need to fulfill this prophecy. We need to see this
thing's done, so we're gonna cause this to happen. No, but
Matthew does record that that's exactly what did happen. Unbeknownst
to them, the Lord did fulfill this prophecy. even as Zechariah
had said that he would. And so the Lord went into Jerusalem. Now, this is an amazing thing.
If you pause and think about it, here he is coming into Jerusalem
with fanfare. I mean, he's coming in there,
people worshiping him, people throwing down palm fronds in
front of him, singing hosanna to the Lord. And yet not many
days later, The same crowd is saying crucify him, crucify him. Men are a fickle lot, are they
not? Whatever's popular, people like. You know, if somebody puts a
bone through their nose, you can be sure that not too long
after that somebody else is going to come up with a bone in their
nose. I mean, you know, people just go around and they look
around and see what people are doing and they say, well, you
know, I think I need to do that. And that's just the way they
are. You know, by and large, just kind of go along with what's
going on. And that's basically, I believe,
much of these people in Jerusalem. Now, I'm not saying they were
not true worshipers of God in their midst, because the Lord
can raise up men, even as He said in one of the, I believe
it was in Matthew, again, might be in Luke, that the Pharisees
came and they rebuked the Lord. and said, you know, you need
to stop this because these people are praising you, they're worshiping
you. And this ought not to be done,
this is blasphemy. He said, listen, I tell you,
he said that the stone, if their mouths were shut, he said the
stones would cry out praise to the Lord. So it's not an unusual
thing to see men worshiping the Lord. In reality, now the Lord
told Nicodemus something. He said, Nicodemus, the father
seeketh such that worship him in spirit and truth. Now I believe
this is a true thing. All men shall worship the Lord.
Now what we read over there when it says every knee shall bow
and every tongue shall confess. But not all men shall worship
him in spirit and truth. Now see, some people are compelled
to worship him with his foot upon their neck. Some people
are compelled to worship him because he has put gladness in
their heart and a delight to magnify his name. And so it is
that they came and worshiped. And some, no doubt, were true
worshipers. But I imagine some was just caught
up in the crowd and wanted to moan through their nose. I mean,
that's just kind of the way it was. They were just going along,
oh man, let's join in with this. And I mean, we see this played
out today. You can go to a lot of places
where they have what they call church worship services and they
get these big crowds going and everybody's jumping and jiving
and carrying on and it's just wonderful. And then when it's
over with, people go on out in their ways and you couldn't tell,
you know, that they was worshiping the Lord tomorrow, you couldn't
tell they had any interest in it. Because they were caught
up in the moment. They were caught up in the outward
experience of it. Oh, that the Lord might give
us a heart to worship Him in spirit and truth. Not in those
things that men see, but with that hidden man of the heart.
See, that's where true worship is. But they said, Blessed is
he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Blessed be the kingdom
of our father David that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna
in the highest. He's worthy to be praised. And
Jesus entered into the temple, into Jerusalem, and then he went
to the temple. And he looked around and as he came in there, he saw something that did not please him. Now, first off, when they would
come from Bethany, He was hungry, it says, and he
saw a fig tree fall having leaves. Now here again, there's nothing
that takes the Lord by surprise. It's an amazing thing as we think
of the humanity of the Lord. that he hungered. Now here he
is, Hosanna, the people sing Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh
in the name of the Lord. And yet, not long after that,
we find out that he was hungry. Now it seems strange, does it
not? That the God of the earth, who was praised by these people,
now is in a place of hunger. But we see that he is a man just
like all men, and as walking in the flesh among men, he was
tried by all the things that try us. He hungered, he thirsted. All of those things he underwent. And so he came up to a fig tree.
Now this wasn't just any fig tree, but it was a fig tree that
he put there at that place. wasn't a random fig tree. The
Lord wasn't coming along and there was four or five fig trees
and he just randomly picked one, but this was a fig tree that
he planted at the point where he did. Maybe a bird dropped
you know, a seed there, and the fig tree sprouted up. I don't
know how that occurred, but anyway, he comes there, and when he comes
to this tree, he finds leaves upon it, but no fruit. Now, I
don't know a whole lot about fig trees, and I'm certainly
no botanist by any means, but I believe that it's generally
true that if you find a fig tree, it's going to have some figs
on it. Now, they might not be ripe figs, but they're going
to be there because the leaves and the figs, as I understand
it, kind of all develop at the same time. I mean, the fig itself
comes on there. So that when the Lord came up
there and this thing had figs, fig tree, it was a fig tree with
fig leaves, but it had no fruit. Now we learn something from this.
I believe primarily the Lord's teaching us a lesson about empty
worship. Now just keep in mind that just
after he had come in to Jerusalem upon this donkey, that all these
people came out and they were worshiping him. Oh, Hosanna,
praise the Lord. And then he goes out and he finds
this tree, and it's a beautiful tree. I mean, to look at it,
you think it's good, but when he goes to find the fruit on
the tree, there was not any. Now is this not like the natural
man? Is this not like the nation of
Israel? Who had all the outward forms
that would indicate that they had fruit upon their tree, but
they had none. Because when the Lord The King
of Glory came into their midst while some were excited about
it. They did not recognize Him for who He really is, nor did
they rejoice in it. And this whole book, this whole
chapter of this book is really about the same thing because
later on He goes into the temple. where the money changers were.
And he turns over these money changers and says, my house is
a house of prayer, but you've made it a den of thieves. That's
the same thing as this fig tree, having leaves, but not having
any fruit. And so, he said this, no man
eat fruit of thee hereafter forever. and his disciples heard it. Now
the decree of the Lord is sudden and it's without remedy. I mean when the Lord said to
his fig tree, no man will eat any fruit from you forever that
was it. There was no coming back from
it. Even as he wrote to the nation of Israel a bill of divorce He said, no fruit shall come
from you from henceforth. And he turned to the Gentiles.
Now we know that the Lord has a people from every kindred,
tribe, and tongue on the face of the earth, but the nation
of Israel considered themselves to be the chosen people of God. They thought they were something
special. And it would only be right for the Lord to come to
their midst and be what they thought he would be. But he came
to show that the kingdom of God is not inherited by flesh and
blood. Any more than a man can worship
the Lord in spirit and truth by the activity of his flesh.
Or by the desire that comes by somebody teaching him what to
do. No, you can teach children to
recite Bible verses. And you should do that. Nothing
better than teaching children the scriptures. I mean, what
else would you want them to know? You should teach your children
those things. But you need to have an understanding that you
can teach them all those things, but unless the Lord opens their
heart and mind to receive those things, they'll be as this tree,
who has the leaves, but no fruit is their own. Only the Lord can
cause a tree to have fruit. Oh, that He might visit us. Brethren,
I don't tell you that to depress you. I tell you that to stir
your heart and mind up to seek after Him, because He alone is
the one that can bring that to pass. You can't do it. And so He overthrew these money
changers. the tables of the money changers. I think how often this is in
the modern, what's called the church in our time. It has become
a den of thieves. Because unfortunately, most churches,
the primary thing that they're concerned about is having enough
money to keep operating, because they got a big budget. They're
doing all these different things for the Lord, of course. You
know, they wouldn't take any glory to themselves. It's all
for the Lord. You know, a lot of these preachers,
they want a new jet plane for the Lord. Now, this is not for
them. You know, all these things, I
mean, these are all things that's, you know, for the Lord. It's
to bring glory to God. The Lord said, you've made this,
my house, a den of thieves. Dear brethren, The church of
God and the money of this world are not connected. Now that comes as a great shock
to the vast majority of Christendom. I hope it doesn't come as a shock
to us because money and the kingdom of God don't have anything to
do with one another. You know, the Lord moves upon
the hearts of his people. To give, God loves a cheerful
giver. And that's the only kind there
is. Because see, a man that gives because it's required of him
is no giver at all. You lay a tax or a tithe upon
somebody and say, you got to pay it. No give, that's nothing, that's
leaves on the tree. It's not any fruit involved in
that. You see, when the Spirit of God
moves in the heart of a man, he says, Lord, all that I have
belongs to thee. I mean, what else would we, why
would we want it unto ourself? Oh, that God might have glory
in all that we say and do, whether therefore you eat or you drink
or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. That's what
he calls us to. He made it a den of thieves,
he said. When even was come... Let me go back here to verse
18. Scribes and chief priests heard it and saw how they might
destroy him. They didn't like that. See, religious men do not
like the truth. They like the things they want
to hear. but they don't like the truth. And the Lord came
and he told them the truth. And they said, well, we can't
put up with this. I mean, what are you trying to
do? You're gonna overturn everything. I've had men tell me, well, you
know, you gotta be careful about what you preach, because if you
go preaching some of the stuff you're preaching, he said, you're
tearing the church apart. He said, won't anybody wanna
listen to you? You know, that may be true, but
it doesn't make any difference. The truth of God must be declared
if we wind up on an island somewhere and we're the only ones left.
I mean, the truth of God must stand, and all of the ways of
men must perish. That's going to happen. And they said, we've got to destroy
him. for they feared him, because
all the people was astonished at his doctrine. Brethren, if
the doctrine that you believe and that you see in the scripture
does not astonish you, it is not the truth of God. Because
you are born, every one of us is born in rebellion against
the truth of God. Now, I didn't say we weren't
born with a religious streak in us, because most men, to some
extent, have a religious streak in them. Most men believe in
God. Why? Because the world, the Lord
said, Paul said, that the Lord's made a witness to men in the
earth of His creation. How can it be denied that there
is a God? But not all men desire to worship
Him. And so the doctrine of the Lord,
it will astonish men. It will be contrary to what they
think. If you don't get mad from time to time about some of the
things I say, then I'm probably not telling you the truth. Because
the word of God is gonna make us angry sometimes. It's going
to make us, because it's gonna cut right to our heart. And it's
gonna take away all of our righteousness. And it's going to cause us to
see what we are by nature. And we don't want to do that.
You know you don't. I mean, we want somebody to pat
us on the back and tell us we're doing a good job and everything's
going to be all right and just keep on going the way you're
going. I mean, that's the way we want it. And you know, you
can just find the Lord anytime you get ready. It's all up to
you. He's waiting. He's just hoping that you'll
help him out. He's hoping that you'll come to him. He's just
waiting, he'll wait. Just like an old faithful hound
sitting by the door, he'll wait till you get there. No dear brethren,
the doctrine of God astonishes people. Because the Lord is a
sovereign God. And he does according to his
will an army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.
And there's none that can stay his hand or say unto him, what
doest thou? We don't like this, they said.
When even was come, he went out of the city. And in the morning
as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up by the roots. Peter, calling to remembrance,
saith unto him, Master, behold the fig tree which thou cursed
is withered away. He was amazed. Now if he'd understood who the
Lord was and he'd had really believed what the Lord said,
he wouldn't have been astonished at all, would he? The Lord said,
he cursed the fig tree. And when he got back there, sure
enough, the fig tree was withered up. And that's where we're gonna
stop. That's a good stopping place. May the Lord help us to
be, and this is the only way it will happen, to be those fig
trees that not only have leaves. Now, the leaves are a good thing.
You see, leaves on a tree are beneficial. They offer shade. They have a certain beauty about
them. But if the only thing we have
on the tree is leaves, then that's of no use. Fig trees are made
to bear figs. And the Lord said that when He,
using the illustration of the vine and the branches, He said,
those branches that beareth not fruit, He prunes them off. And He casts them into a fire
and burns them up, and that's it. But that which is fruitful is
that which he's pleased with. Those whom he loves, those whom
he nurtures. Oh, that the Lord might cause
us to be a people that bear fruit unto the glory of God. Not so
that men might see it. See, the Pharisees, they wanted
men to see what they were doing. Modern religion wants men to
see what we're doing. But the hidden man of the heart
is that place where the fruit of God is born. May He give us
such.