Mark's Gospel chapter 11 and
verse 20. And the Lord is here travelling
once again towards Jerusalem with his disciples and they pass
the fig tree that the Lord had spoken to the previous day. And in verse 20 we read these
words. And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the
fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance,
saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursed
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 saith shall come
to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto
you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye
receive them, and ye shall have them. And when ye stand praying,
forgive, if ye have ought against any, that your Father also, which
is in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do
not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive
your trespasses. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. The miracles of Jesus' ministry
as we've seen I trust you appreciate this many times, were intended
as teaching aids for his disciples. That's a principle that we should
grasp and attend to whenever we read about these miracles. And yes, they often served for
the immediate advantage of particular individuals. and they also spoke
more broadly of gospel principles. But they helped immeasurably
in the Lord's dealings with his own disciples to train and equip
these men for their own ministry when the Lord left them and ascended
back into heaven. The Lord showed his power over
life and death in these miracles. He showed his power over sickness,
disease and demon possession. He stilled the waves in a storm. He walked on the water. He multiplied loaves and fishes. Several times he changed water
to wine. He rode on the back of an unbroken
coat in spite of a boisterous crowd. And he caused a fig tree
to wither overnight from its roots upwards. And we could go on with the examples
of the Lord's miracles. But these were not just evidence
of supernatural power, though they certainly proved Christ's
divinity. Nor were they spectacular incidents
to draw crowds or to draw attention to himself. Each was a lesson,
a memorable work or experience, as it was sometimes for the disciples,
to highlight spiritual truth, to reveal a divine purpose and
especially to equip these disciples to serve their Master in that
great commission to the ends of the earth and to prepare them
for that task. Remember we're only days away
from that point at which the Lord Jesus Christ is going to
be arrested and crucified. we might wonder what lesson could
be learned from a barren fig tree. But as we saw in that little
introduction that I sent out yesterday, that fig tree spoke
no doubt about barren religion. Religion that's void of true
spirituality and that is without faith. That's why the Lord position
these two thoughts about the barren fig tree and the need
for faith together. Religion that can never feed
or nourish the souls of men and women and boys and girls is of
no use. I take seriously my duty week
by week to bring a message from the Lord to all who hear me preach. I take seriously the burden that
I feel to endeavour to bring a blessing, to endeavour to comfort
your hearts, the hearts of poor sinners, and to challenge unbelievers
who are as yet without Christ. Because if this is me, if this
is just me speaking, If I bring no help to your heart, I'm wasting
your time and I'm wasting mine. There's no point in a show of
leaves and greenery without there being anything sustaining on
the branches of the fig tree. Empty religion does no one any
good. Rituals, ceremony, will do no
one any good. There must be faith, there must
be true spirituality. The Lord tells Jeremiah, he says
this, it's in Jeremiah chapter 8, he says, From the prophet,
even unto the priest, every one dealeth falsely. What a statement
for the Lord to make about the religious activities of priest
and prophet in the age of Jeremiah. If it was so then, is it different
now? He says, from the prophet even
unto the priest, everyone dealeth falsely. For they have healed
the heart of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, peace,
peace, when there is no peace. And so the Lord, this is me speaking
now, so the Lord brings judgment on the false teachers. And the
Lord goes on to say through Jeremiah, I will surely consume them, saith
the Lord. There shall be no grapes on the
vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade, and
the things that I have given them shall pass away from them. And that prophecy was the very
thing that Christ was vividly demonstrating to his disciples
here this day. The time of the accountability
of these false prophets and vain priests had come. That time was now. That time
was there in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ at the culmination
and completion of his ministry and on the eve of his successful
redemption of his people. The Lord, as it were, was drawing
a line under this religious legalism that the Jews had worked up. Empty of faith, empty of spirituality. He was saying to his disciples,
the Lord's flock deserves better and the Lord's flock will have
better. He himself, the Lord himself
will prepare a table before them in the presence of their enemies
where they will come and dine and where the apostles would
serve the Lord's people. Jeremiah chapter 3 verse 15 says,
And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed
you with knowledge and understanding. That is to be our desire. That
is to be our longing. Let us say it. That is to be
our prayer to the Lord. Lord, give us such pastors according
to your own heart. that will feed us with knowledge
and understanding of Christ, knowledge and understanding of
spiritual truth in the Gospel. The Saviour took the opportunity
of the withered fig tree and the disciples' wonder at the
speed of its destruction, we're told that it was from the roots
up, to show that the men he would soon commission to carry his
Gospel to the ends of the earth must do so the strength of God. They had to do so with a power
that would accompany them to the ends of the earth and it
would be faith that would characterize their ministry. It would be faith
that would enable their usefulness and it would be by faith that
they would accomplish the great feats that they did. and bring about the ends that
they accomplished. It was as though the Lord was
saying to them, this withered fig tree is but a little thing.
With faith in God, you'll move mountains. With faith in God,
you will drain oceans. With faith in God you will straighten
paths and open gates for the elect whom I shall call by your
ministry and by your preaching. And here are three things with
respect to the Saviour's counsel and guidance to his disciples
that we may draw from this lovely little phrase that the Lord was
emphasising in their hearing. Have faith in God. Here are three
things that we can learn from that little phrase. The first
thing is this. Have faith in God. God is worthy. of our trust. God is worthy of
our faith. The glory of the triune God in
all his attributes, in all his majesty, is worthy of our confidence
and our trust. Now when we think about God,
when we When we try to conceive, when we try to understand, when
we try to comprehend, what was it Moses saw according to the
writer of the Hebrews? He saw the invisible. Well, when we try to comprehend
the incomprehensible, when we try to understand that which
cannot be understood, we run up against a barrier of realising
that we are human and God is divine. We find it difficult
to explain or to describe God because we're created beings
trying to understand our creator. And we're fallen creatures so
that our sinful minds and our intellects are darkened and limited
and constrained. And even our words, even our
vocabulary, even our thinking processes, limit our ability to define God
so that the highest concepts of the human mind I don't know,
such as infinity, or unchangeableness, or eternity, or immensity. All which characterise God are
merely words and concepts and ideas that are beyond our powers
of description and knowledge. I've said it many times before,
here I am repeating myself, but I am sure that the distances
of outer space or of space are given to us to humble us and
to remind us just how small we are and then to realise that
God created it with a word and that he is much bigger than even the limitlessness apparently
of space. Our God is all wise, all holy,
all powerful, all good and so is his wisdom and his holiness
and his power and his goodness is without limits. It is always
perfect, it never alters, it never changes. This is our God. And then when we consider God's
love, His unconditional love, when we consider His willingness
to save, when we consider His purpose of redemption, His revealed
will to save sinners, His promises of mercy, We might find those concepts,
those ideas unbelievable when we think about what we are and
who he is and yet here is this testimony given to us that this
is how God views us. and acts on our behalf, we might
shake our head in wonder. But if that same God himself
says it is so, says it is true, we have no grounds to doubt it. But we have every reason to believe
it. And furthermore, when we see
these purposes of God, these revelations of God, worked out
in the accomplished salvation of his people by the death of
the Son of God by the anointed Christ on the cross and his resurrection
and his ascension into glory When we realise that He has broken
the power of death and hear in His Gospel the overtures of grace
and discover the reasonings of God with our heart by the power
of the Holy Spirit, we must confess that He has done all things well
and He alone is worthy. the worthy object of our faith
and our trust and our hope. So that when the Lord Jesus Christ
says, have faith in God, it's our privilege to do so. It's
our delight to do so. To comply with the Lord's words
is right. And our only regret is that these
doubting hearts and earthbound affections Don't let us trust
him more because he deserves that we do. And here's the second
thing that that little phrase says to us. Learning, have faith
in God, learning what we can of God from scripture and from
the testimony and the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, of
whom it is said, in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. We ought to be convinced that
not only should we have faith in God, but our slightest doubt
is unfounded. For nothing can be too hard for
such a God. Nothing can be too complicated
for such a God. Nothing can be too bad or evil
or awful to such a God as this. No obstacle is insurmountable. And I chose that word intentionally. Insurmountable. It means that
there is no mountain that God cannot get over. Nothing that
he finds insurmountable. Why? Because he delights to move
mountains out of our way. He tells us that mountains will
move. And we've no reason to doubt
it. The glorious attributes of God command our confidence. Doubt is asserting our knowledge
over God's knowledge, our wisdom over God's wisdom. It's denying
His clear revelation and challenging his ability to do what he has
said that he will do. That's what doubt is. That's
what lack of faith is. So that notwithstanding the Lord's
words, have faith in God, failure to trust God is out and out rebellion
against God. It's not ignorance. It's not
even caution. It's contradiction. And God calls
that man a fool who will not believe in him. As the Lord Jesus Christ was
preparing for his crucifixion, as he was working his last hours,
his last few days before his death, see him, see him, and
see his heart reach out to his disciples as he seeks to prepare
them for the great challenges that lie before them. It was
as though the Lord was saying to them, look at this tree. It's barren, it's empty. Just
like the sinful hearts of men and their self-honouring religions. It's as if he's saying to them,
I will show you how withered they are. They're withered from
their roots. They're dried up from deep within
themselves. They have nothing to offer sinful
men and women. But you have, but you have, he
says to his disciples. You are going to carry the gospel
of saving grace and eternal life to these empty sinners. And you
are going to gather up all those who are mine and for whom I shall
give my life in redemption. And furthermore, says the Lord,
do not doubt it will be so. Have faith in God. For the very
mountains that stand before you and seem to be so unassailable
and insurmountable will run to your assistance. The very mountains
will be your assistants in the gathering in of my elect. They will fill the valleys. The mountains will fill the valleys. Now what happens if a mountain
fills a valley? What happens if a mountain displaces
a sea? It makes the path smooth. It
makes your path straight and level and safe passage for the
gospel. And every single soul to whom
you, the disciples, will be purposefully sent will find that word coming
to their door, coming to their ears, because the path, the pathway
of the gospel will be made straight. as the mountains are moved and
fill the seas. I have spoken, it shall be so,
saith the Lord, have faith in God. And here's the third thing,
and with this we'll be finished. Let us not try to get too clever
with the Lord. Don't try to get too clever with
God. Don't tell him you can't believe
as though your failure to believe is the first insurmountable problem,
the first insurmountable mountain that the eternal God has ever
encountered and he can't overcome it. Now I hope we've long dispensed
with the foolish notion of free will salvation. It is as stupid
as it is unbiblical. Our Lord does not rely upon men
and women to accomplish his purposes. but he enables men and women
to do his bidding, and he places within them a heart to serve,
a desire to follow, and all the grace we need to achieve his
purposes. Salvation is of the Lord. He
is bringing his people to himself, but God be praised, he has used
men and women like these disciples, like you and like me, to accomplish
his purposes. And if you need any supply that
by nature is lacking, He delights to supply all your need according
to His riches in glory. All fitness for God's service
will be supplied. Have faith in God, the Master
said. Faith is a gift. Faith is a gift. If you don't have enough of it,
if you feel a lack of it, then ask the Lord for more. Forgiveness is God's mercy. Grace is free. What we have freely
received, we delight to freely give. And this is the lesson
the disciples were being taught. I sometimes think that we make
too much of our doubts and our fears. We give Satan too much
credit. Our self-criticism becomes so
familiar that we're loath to take God's promise of victory
at face value. And we always find some other
little, little cave, some other little hole, some other little
crack upon which we can hold on to and cause ourselves to
legitimise our unbelief. If the Saviour says, have faith
in God, and the Lord says, ask and ye shall receive, we really
have no excuse. The Lord's closing reference
here to forgiveness reminds us that it's grace and not law that
regulates our conduct. And if you have enjoyed divine
forgiveness and have been shown a way of life in fellowship with
God and in communion with Jesus Christ, that is a blessed mercy. and we have been touched with
the love and the grace of God himself. Now such qualities from
God, such divine blessings from God, they don't come alone. But once experienced, they will
be exhibited and they will be evident to others. The Lord makes
fruitful trees. He doesn't make barren trees. Having been forgiven, we forgive
one another. Having been loved of God, we
love Him who first loved us and we love one another for His sake. We care for one another, having
tasted the Lord's goodness and mercy for our own souls. and
in such ways the elect of God bear fruit for our Lord, revealing
Christ in us our hope of glory. Our dear Saviour was preparing
His disciples for the great calling that lay ahead, and He prepares
us too. He says, have faith in God. We shall. We do. and we shall serve our Lord in
the gathering of his church until the day that he is pleased to
come or call for us and to take us home to our rest. May the
Lord bless these thoughts to us and encourage our hearts in
them. Amen.