Mark chapter 11. Beginning in verse 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 he might find anything
thereon. 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 money changers 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 a house
of prayer? But you have made it a den of
thieves. And the scribes and chief priests
heard it and sought how they might destroy him, for they feared
him, because all the people was 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,
Peter calling to remembrance, saith unto him, Master, behold,
the fig tree which thou cursest 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 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. We looked last time at the first
11 verses in this chapter, which tell us of the Lord Jesus Christ
entering into Jerusalem. his triumphal entry into Jerusalem,
and that was to fulfill the prophecy recorded in Zechariah chapter
9 and verse 9. Behold, you daughters of Zion,
behold, your king cometh unto you. That took place on the first
day of the week in which he was crucified. In other words, his
entry into Jerusalem would have taken place on Sunday. Now the
passage which we've just read and we're looking at this morning
took place on Monday and Tuesday of that week. So let's look at
two subjects. There are several other subjects,
no doubt, in these verses, but this morning I want us to look
at two subjects. that we have just read about,
and I would call both of these subjects miracles, two miracles. First, the miracle of the Lord
Jesus cleansing the temple in verses 15 through 18. How many times, when you read
through the gospels, how many times did the Lord Jesus cleanse
the temple? during roughly his ministry,
his public ministry, which lasted three to three and a half years.
How many times did he cleanse the temple? Well, we know of
at least two times that he did this. And this reminds us, it
reminds me, that true reformation, true reformation, must come from
the heart. The outward cleansing of the
temple by force, the force of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the
miracle, might last a day, might last a couple of days, might
last a year, might last a couple of years. But reformation like
this, that doesn't come from the inside, that doesn't come
from the heart, will eventually end. Salvation, we know, is a
work of the heart. With the heart, the scripture
says, man believeth unto righteousness. Salvation is of the heart, and
it is the work of God the Holy Spirit. Now in the new birth,
God gives a person, those that he births again, God gives that
person something that he did not have before, and that is
a new heart or, as we would say, a new nature. Now this old illustration,
I've heard it as long as I've been attending gospel services. I've heard this illustration.
I've used it a few times. It's still a good one. It's still
a good one. What is the illustration? Well,
men, men, a man like you and a man like me, they may take
a pig that wallows in the mud and give it a bath and spray
it with perfume and tape a beautiful bow onto that pig. But just as soon as you turn
that pig loose, it's going to go back to that wallow. Why? because that's what it loves. If it were possible, it's not
of course, but if it were possible to take that pig and give it
a new heart or a new nature, and that being the nature of
a lamb, then when you turn the pig loose, it wouldn't seek the
wallow because it would love something different. In the new
birth, which in the scriptures has several synonyms. There's
several terms in the Bible which speak of the same thing, the
new birth. Our Lord used that term, didn't
he? To Nicodemus, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man
be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. He cannot
see the kingdom of God, and then Repeated that, verily, verily,
I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. It is a work of the Spirit. It goes by several names like
regeneration, giving life, quickening. In Ephesians 2 and verse 1, the
apostle said, and you hath he quickened who were dead. and
trespasses and sins. In the Old Testament it goes
under the term of the circumcision of the heart. But they all come
to the same thing. They all speak to the same thing.
That is, in regeneration or circumcision of the heart or the new birth
or quickening or calling, those whom He called, He also justified. Those whom He justified, He also
glorified. We know that these terms are
all speaking of the same experience that a person must have. It's
not an option. If a person is going to know
God and live eternally with God, blessed of God throughout the
ages, unlimited ages, a person must experience the new birth. Not an option. You must receive a new heart,
a heart that loves God. By nature, the Bible tells us
that we are enmity with God. Men are God-haters. Now you say,
well, I don't believe that. Well, whether you believe it
or not doesn't change the fact. The reason people think they're
not God-haters is because they manufacture a God in their own
mind, and the God of their imagination is a God that they can manipulate,
a God that they can control. But when confronted by the Spirit
of God and the Word of God with a true and living God, who is
a sovereign God and who has the absolute right to do with his
own what he will, men don't want that God. Men are haters of God
by nature. Man must have a new nature to
love God, to love Him as He is. Wouldn't change a thing about
God if we had the possibility of doing that. Love Him as He
reveals Himself in His Word and agree with Him. A new heart to
love God, a new heart to love His Word. Men by nature, they
don't love the word of God. They don't love the worship of
God. I remember a number of years
ago, a person visited here in our service, and she, it was
a woman, she had someone who was part of our church at that
time, no longer here, but was akin to her, and she came several
times, but one Sunday she came, She was overheard to say this.
She said, I've forgotten how boring this is. She hadn't been
here in a while. I've forgotten how boring these
services are. What does it reveal? It reveals
a person who doesn't have a love for the truth, a love for God,
a love to worship him, to be with God's people, to sing hymns
of praise. A desire to please Him. A person that's born of the Spirit
of God wants to please God. I want you to look with me in Titus
chapter 3, just a moment. What I'm pointing out is that
the Lord cleansing the temple, He drove those money grubbers out of the temple,
those deceitful men, but it didn't last. It was an outward reformation,
but their hearts were not changed and they soon went back to doing
the very same thing again. In Titus chapter three, beginning
with verse one, Paul tells Titus, put them in mind to be subject
to principalities and powers. to obey magistrates, to be ready
to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers,
but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. For we ourselves
also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving
divers' lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful
and hating one another. After the kindness and love of
God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the
washing of regeneration. That's the new birth. By the
washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. The new birth
is the work of God the Holy Spirit. Our Lord said it like this, that
which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of
God is of God. The wind bloweth where it listeth,
you hear the sound thereof, you cannot tell from where it's coming
or where it's going, so is everyone that is born of the Spirit. Which he shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ our Lord. that being justified by his grace,
we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. I call this a miracle, the Lord
cleansing the temple, because how else could you explain that
one man, one individual, how he could cause the people to
leave without any opposition, how he could have cleansed the
temple the way he did without anyone opposing him. You know
a good example of outward reformation our Lord gave in a parable when
he spoke about the unclean spirit that goes out of a man. He just goes out on his own.
And the man in the meantime, he sweeps his house, He decorates
his house, and he makes it look real good on the outside. But
when the unclean spirit comes back, it's still his house. And
that's what he says. He returns to his house. And
what does he find? He finds that house swept, not
washed, not washed in the blood of Christ, no, but swept. And he finds it decorated, that
is, there's probably crosses hanging on his neck or on his
lapel. It's decorated, but the truth
of the cross is not in his heart. He finds those so-called pictures
of Christ on the wall. No one knows what Christ looked
like after the flesh, and yet people decorate their houses
and their bodies with these symbols and things like that. But you
see, when the Lord gives a person a new life, the Spirit of God,
He drives that unclean spirit out, and it becomes His house
now, the Lord's house. We are temples of God, the Holy
Spirit. And if that unclean spirit comes
back, he not only finds the house swept, yes, he finds the house
washed, cleansed in the blood of Christ. And it's not empty
either. No, no. Christ lives in the heart
of his people. Someone said there's a fireplace
in his house, but there's no fire in it. But that's not true
when the Lord gives a person a new heart. He's got a heart
to love God, to love the things of God. What I'm saying is an
outward reformation. It may last, a man goes in, sometimes
he's had problems with his marriage, sometimes with his finances,
sometimes with his health. He's talked into some kind of
profession of faith and he cleanses, cleans up his life and makes
a change and it may last for a while. Might, may not last
very long. But that's all it is. It's just
an outward reformation. But when God does a work in a
person's heart, it's forever. It's not temporary. Whatsoever
the Lord doeth. The scripture says he does forever. And I want to remind us that
in reading these accounts, if you read Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John, each one of these accounts of the Lord cleansing the temple,
you will find that no one, none of these individuals who were
conducting business in the temple, none of them suffered loss. What
do I mean? Well, he overturned the tables,
the money changers table, but the money was still there on
the ground. They could recover that. He drove
the oxen out, the beefs and the sheep. He drove those out, but
they could be recovered. And it's interesting that the
doves, those that sold pigeons or doves in the temple, they
would be kept in a cage of some kind. And he didn't open the
door and turn them loose, did he? He told them to take those
things out of here. No one in the temple suffered
any loss by doing that. The temple had three courts.
It had an outward court, which was called the Court of the Gentiles. It had another court, the Court
of Women. and then inside the court for
men. And you better believe that this
outward court that they had made a den of thieves was where this
business was being conducted. In other words, a court for the
Gentiles. You know, I heard a man last
year on the radio, he tried to use this to justify what was
going on in our country in a number of cities with the rioting and
the burning and the looting, he tried to justify those actions
by what the Lord Jesus Christ did. My first thought was this. Buddy, you've overlooked one
important thing. What the Lord Jesus Christ did,
he did in his house. Right? It is written, my house
shall be called a house of prayer. He didn't go into his neighbor's
house and start stealing and burning it down. Oh no, he went
into his house that man had made a den of robbers or den of thieves. What a difference, right? The
Lord here quotes this scripture, my house shall be called a house
of prayer. It's found in Isaiah chapter
56. And reading through that chapter, what we find is that
our Lord promised strangers. Now, a stranger in the scripture
was a Gentile. Strangers from the covenants
and the commonwealth of Israel. They were strangers. But God
promises strangers, which refers to Gentiles, God promises them,
now listen, a place and a name in His house. And that it would
be a house of prayer to all people. But what had these leaders, these
religious leaders made? They had made of his house a
house where they could deceive and take advantage of others,
a den of thieves. The Apostle James in the New
Testament warns us, he warns the church. I want you to look
in James chapter two with me. James chapter two. My brethren, have not the faith
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respective
persons. For if there come unto your assembly
a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also
a poor man in vile raiment. Now, think with me before we
read on. Both of these men come into a
Christian assembly. won by his apparel, it is obvious
is wealthy. The other is poor. Now, if we
show respect to the one that is wealthy, we've become a respecter
of persons. The truth about both men, both
men have a soul. Both men are going to spend eternity
either in heaven or in hell. Both men, no matter how they're
dressed, no matter what their worldly circumstances are, both
men have a soul and both men need a savior. We're not to be respecters of
persons. And when a Gentile, the way these
religious leaders had made the Lord's temple, it was his house. Everything in that temple spoke
of Christ. Everything. Everything spoke
of him. And yet they had made it a den
of thieves. So if a man came in there, a
Gentile came in there, what would he think? Well, this religion
is just for profit. It's just to make men rich. It's
just to take advantage of men. No, no. That was never the purpose. The purpose was to preach Christ,
to show men, Jew or Gentile, But there's only one way to God,
and that's through His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. And you have, read on here in
James 2, and you have respect to Him that weareth the gay clothing,
and say unto Him, Sit thou here in a good place, and say to the poor, Stand thou
there, or sit here under my footstool. Are you not then partial in yourselves
and become judges of evil thoughts? The Lord warns all of us about
places of worship, how we are to conduct ourselves and the
purpose here. It's to glorify Him. It's not
to entertain. I'm not here to entertain. Have
people in to entertain you you know that that's not our purpose
at all No, we're here to hear about God We're here because
we love him and want to worship him Want to know the truth about
God We're not playing churches. This is real We're going to face
God each and every one of us, and it won't be long for any
of us to We must know Him. Whom to know
is life everlasting. That's our purpose here. And
everything we say, the hymns we sing, the prayers we pray,
that it all be for His glory and for His honor. And by the way, those religious
people who make God a respecter of persons over the doctrine
of election, That's what they do. They say God looked down through
the ages, and he saw who would choose him, and so he elected
them. God respected them, respected
their faith, and then elected them. No, no. That's just the
opposite of the truth. God is not a respecter of persons. And when it comes to God's sovereign
election, the word is very clear. In the case of Jacob and Esau,
the children, not yet born, having done neither good nor evil, that
the purpose of God according to election might stand. It is
written, the elder shall serve the younger. Men make God a respecter of persons
when they reject the Bible teaching of God's sovereign election. Now, a second miracle. It was
a miracle, the Lord cleansing the temple the way he did, without
any opposition. They were gone. They left. The second miracle of Jesus cursing
the fig tree. The first thing that we see in
this truth, that the eternal word of God, that is the son
of God, was made flesh. He was made flesh. He took into union, the eternal
son of God took into union with his deity, the body which was
prepared him by God the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary. Now in the days of the apostles
and shortly after that, there arose what is called Gnosticism. And the word Gnosticism or Gnostic
simply means knowledge. And there arose these men who
believed and claimed that they had a special knowledge about
God that no one else had. And one of the things that they
said that they knew about God and believed about God is that
since God is good, And matter is evil. To them, to the Greeks,
matter is evil. Anything you put your hand, this
is evil. This pulpit is evil. It's matter. And since God is good, and God
created the world, the heavens and the earth, matter, then the
good God could not have created this world. But what he did,
he created a lesser God, And then a lesser God, these Aeons,
this is exactly what the Jehovah's Witness cult teaches, that Jesus
is not God. Now, if you ask them, do you
believe that Jesus is God? They'll all say yes. They'll
all say yes. But what they mean by that is,
he was the highest of these creatures that God created and created
him as God, yes. But no, the Lord Jesus Christ,
the eternal Son of God, He's uncreated, just as the Father
is and the Holy Spirit is. He's God. And God created the heavens and
the earth. He didn't use a lesser being
to create matter. And this verse shows us that
he was man, he hungered. It's what the verse tells us. The Lord Jesus Christ was hungry
that morning as they made their way back to Jerusalem. This is a mystery of godliness,
isn't it? God was manifest in the flesh. And let me say this, hear me
now, as a man, He partook of all the sinless infirmities that
are common to man. Sinless infirmities. In other
words, he hungered. It's not a sin to be hungry,
is it? He hungered. He grew weary. It's not a sin
to get tired when you've been out working or traveling as he
was. He thirsted. Who'll ever forget
those words of the Lord from the cross, I thirst. He was a
man, a real man, a holy man. Absolutely, holy, harmless, undefiled,
the scripture says. And the sins of his people were
charged to his account, imputed to him. And he paid, he suffered. for the sins of his people. But
he suffered the sinless infirmities of man. Now, what about him cursing
the fig tree? Well, I see this as a miracle,
but I also see it, as J.C. Rowe said, a parable in deeds. In other words, something that's
full of meaning, as all of our Lord's parables were. When you
compare this, his cursing the fig tree, with what is found
in the next chapter, chapter 12. We're not going to go there,
we don't have the time. But the parable he told about
the householder who took a journey and he left his vineyard into
the care of husbandmen and he sent back a man to get the fruits
and they ran him out of town, and he sent back another man,
more honorable, and they threw stones at him. And so finally
he sent his son, saying, they'll reverence my son, and they said,
here's the heir. We'll take care of him, and the
vineyard will be ours. Who's he talking about? And they
knew who he was talking about, the Pharisees, the leaders of
the nation of Israel. They recognized, he's talking
about us. And immediately, they began to
seek how they could destroy him. You see, Judaism, if I can use
that term, it had the leaves. It had the temple, had the priesthood,
had all the types, had the scriptures. It had all the leaves, just like
that fig tree, covered with leaves. But our Lord wasn't looking for
leaves. He was looking for fruit. And
there was no fruit. Judaism had the leaves, but where
was love? Where was faith? Where was kindness? Where was justice? It wasn't
found among the religious rulers of Israel. And our Lord, just
after this, on the same day actually, is when he wept over Jerusalem.
And what he said was, your house is left unto you desolate. As this fig tree, fruit would
never be found on it again. So the nation of Israel. in A.D. 70, we know, was destroyed. Why? Because there was no fruit.
When he came looking for fruit, there was no fruit. You say,
well, that's a good lesson maybe for you, but what does that have
to do with us? It has everything to do with
us. Fruit. It's not just profession. It's not just putting on your
Sunday go to meeting clothes on Sunday and looking real pious
and singing hymns and all of that. It's more than that, isn't
it? It's bringing forth fruit. Fruit
of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
faith, temperance, kindness, goodness. These things. There must be fruit. Not to earn
salvation, but to show that a person is truly saved. That God the Holy Spirit does
live within. So we close with this question.
Do I? Do I have only a profession of
salvation? Or is there fruit in my life? the fruit of the spirit? That's
a that's a question and all of us must ask ourselves. I pray
that the Lord would bless his message, his word to us here
today.