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A lHI(Q)1UslE (Q) IF IPlltA,1flE lltMark 11:12-24
There have always been men and women figuring out ways to
separate other men and women fromtheir assets-some legally and some
illegally. But the most despicable of all are those who do it in
thename of God
One of the most popular began his ministry in 1959 with only $70
and has profited handsomely. Hiscurrent personal wealth, though
unknown for sure, is estimated at $500 million to $2 billion. His
empireis comprised of both non-profit and for-profit operations. He
created "The Family Channel" in 1977 witha personal investment of
$183,000 and sold it to Fox in 1997, for about $1.5 billion. He
owns or has ownedDorothy Hamil's Ice Capades, Mary Tyler Moore
Entertainment, a hotel, International Jet Charter, andinterests in
diamond and gold extraction businesses in Africa.
There is something fundamentally flawed when a "preacher" can
take $70 and funds from donors forspreading the gospel, gain
personal control of much of it and multiply it in twenty or so
years to becomeone of the wealthiest men in America.
And there are many just like him with private jets, massive
ministries, and luxurious homes whohave turned God's house, a house
of prayer, into a den of robbers.
This past week Evan Davis loaned me an interesting book by Dave
Shiflett, Exodus, Why AmericansAre Fleeing Liberal Churches for
Conservative Christianity. His fundamental conclusion is that
people areleaving liberal churches in droves because those churches
have abandoned the gospel, biblical truthsabout the deity,
incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, as well as
biblical standards of mo-rality. Consequently, they have nothing to
offer that cannot be found in most civic clubs. He quotes
theEnglish theologian P. T. Forsythe who said, "If within us we
have nothing above us we soon succumb towhat is around us." The
standard sermon in liberal churches runs something like this: "God
is love.God's love is inclusive. God acts in justice to see that
everyone is included. We therefore ought to be co-actors and
co-creators with God to make the world over in the way he wishes."
He continiues:
. . . churches that abandon traditional faith and take up
worldlycauses ... are likely to embrace severe decline, if not
extinction. Theremay not be much left ... now: by one accounting,
there are nearly twiceas many lesbians in the United States as
Episcopalians (1.5 percent of thepopulation as opposed to 0.78
percent) .
. . . (theological) innovators have reduced God to about
one-third ofHis former self. This God .... has ideals for the
future, and he tries tolure us to actualize those ideals, but he
does not control each individualor occasion. ..
This 30 percent God is a Wee Deity-WD-30, we might call Him-and
attractive in the sense that no one need fear such a God, or heed
Himeither. .. What percentage of power, then, does God have in
thisscheme? Does he have 20 percent and the advancing world has the
other80 percent? Is it 30/70? And if that's the case, why is he
worth worship-ping?"
In Jesus' day, as we see in today's text, there were religious
leaders who turned the temple that wasmeant to be a house of prayer
into a den of robbers where the poor were exploited for pure profit
That'swhat I want to talk. about, but first
LET'S PRAY ABOUT IT!Merciful and gracious God in heaven, we
thank You for Your sure word that has stood and will stand
the test of time. We ask You to guide us as we consider this
difficult passage. Keep us faithful to the textthat we may clearly
hear from You. Deliver us from even the temptation to make You like
ourselves. Iask all these things in Jesus' name, for his sake, and
by his merit alone. Amen.
Turn in your pew Bibles to the passage we read earlier, Mark
11:12-24 (Page 994). As I said earlier,this passage about the
Lord's cursing the fig tree is a very difficult and troublesome
passage. WilliamBarclay, who has difficulty with almost everything
supernatural, contends that it is, without exception,the most
difficult story in the gospel narrative and to take it as literal,
factual history presents difficulties,which are well-nigh
impossible to overcome. He writes, and several commentators to a
greater or lesserextent reflect his views, that
(1) The story does not ring true. ... the whole incident does
notseem worthy of Jesus. There seems a certain petulance to it. It
is just thekind of story that is told of other wonder-workers but
which is never
1Dave Shiflett, Exodus- Why Americans Are Fleeing Liberal
Churches for Conservative Christianity (NewYork: The Penguin Group,
2005), P'P: 41-42, 57-58.
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told of Jesus. Still further, we have this basic difficulty.
Jesus ... wouldnot tum the stones into bread in the desert to
satisfy His own hunger. Hewould not use His own miraculous powers
to escape from His enemies.He never used His power for His own
sake; ..
(2) Still worse, the whole action was unreasonable. This was
thePassover Season, that is the middle of April. The fig-tree in a
shelteredspot may bear fig leaves as early as March, but never did
a fig-tree bearfigs until late Mayor early June. Mark says it was
not the season for figs.Why blast the tree for failing to do that
which it was not possible for it todo? It is both unreasonable and
unjust.'
Others contend that fig-trees in early April produce quite a
crop of small knobs, not real figs but akind of early forerunner
that grow to the size of green almonds that are eaten by peasants
and otherswhen they are hungry.' Some commentators note that they
are a delicacy and others that they are not atall tasty.
Look at the text where we see that Mark begins his account of
the fig-tree incident (verses 12-14),sandwiches Jesus' activity in
the temple (verses 15-19), and then returns to his account of the
fig tree(verses 20-24). Remember, Jesus had made His entry into
Jerusalem amid the worshipping crowds,where the whole
city-according to Matthew-had been moved or shaken (the Greek word
from whichwe get our English word "seismic") by His presence. And
as we saw last week, He looked around thetemple area as if
surveying a scene for battle, did nothing, and went to Bethany to
spend the night
Let's consider the text the way Matthew has it-first Jesus on
the temple mount and then the cursingof the fig-tree-verses 15-17.
Put your finger at Matthew 21:10-17 (Page 968).
15 So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple
and be-gan to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple,
and over-turned the tables of the money changers and the seats of
those who solddoves. 16And He would not allow anyone to carry wares
through thetemple. 17 Then He taught, saying to them, "Is it not
written, "My houseshall be called a house of prayer for all
nations'? But you have made it a'den of thieves.' "
Here's the picture. It's Monday and only days before the Lord's
crucifixion. He has come to Jerusa-lem to die for the sins of His
people. He had, just the day before, ridden into the city on a
donkey as apeaceful and gentle king and accepted the praise and
adoration of the people as Messiah. Now He re-turns to the city and
the temple area to begin the Messiah's work as prophesied in
Malachi 3:1-4 (Page942).
I "Behold, I send My messenget, and he will prepare the way
before Me.And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His
temple, eventhe Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight.
Behold, He is com-ing," says the LORD of hosts. 2. "But who can
endure the day of Hiscoming? And who can stand when He appears? For
He is like a refiner'sfire and like launderers' soap. ~ He will sit
as a refiner and a purifier ofsilver; He will purify the sons of
Levi, and purge them as gold and silver,that they may offer to the
LORD an offering in righteousness. ~ Thenthe offering of Judah and
Jerusalem will be pleasant to the LORD, as inthe days of old, as in
former years.
When Jesus strode through the temple grounds overturning the
tables of the moneychangers andthose who sold sacrificial animals,
He was presenting an acted-out parable. Matthew, who wrote
primar-ily for a Jewish audience and was attuned to nuances that
spoke more clearly to Jews, begins his accountof the temple
incident by noting that the multitudes described Him as Jesus, the
prophet from Nazarethof Galilee, not "a" prophet, but "the" prophet
in fulfillment of Moses declaration in Deuteronomy 18:15that the
Lord God would raise up a prophet like himself.
By looking at both Mark and Matthew we get a clear picture of
the Lord Jesus, the Pharisees andpriests, and what angered each of
them. For the Lord Jesus, the supreme blasphemy was that this
place-the outer court of the Gentiles-which was to have been a
place of prayer for non-Jewish people of every
2 William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark - The Daily Study Bible
Series (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press,1956), p.p.
28O-28l.3Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Peter H. Davids, F. F. Bruce, and
Manfred T. Brauch, Hard Sayings oj the Bible,(Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1996), P'P: 441-442.
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nation had become a place of business and dishonest business at
that. 4 You see, the temple area was ahuge religious complex. The
temple itself consisted of the Holy Place, where the priests
ministered andthe Most Holy Place where only the high priest
entered once a year. James Montgomery Boice writes that
... this comparatively small building was surrounded by
severalconcentric courts, the outermost of which was the very large
Court of theGentiles. This is where the money changing and selling
of sacrificialanimals took place because ... it was not thought of
as particularly sa-cred.
Two kinds of business were transacted. The first was the
exchangeof various national currencies for the temple coins used to
pay the tem-ple tax ...
The other kind of trade was the sale of sacrificial animals. W
orship-ers did not need to buy them at the temple; they could bring
their sacri-fices with them. But this was inconvenient for pilgrims
coming from dis-tant areas ... Moreover, the law stipulated that
the animals had to bewithout blemish. Whether they were or not was
determined by thepriests, and there was always a chance that the
priests would reject an of-fering even after it had been brought a
long way.
The money changers charge ... was about half a day's wage for a
la-boring man ... and a pair of doves (the poor man's sacrifice)
could costfifty times more inside the temple area than outside. ..
Clearly, by thetime of the Passover at which Jesus presented
Himself as Israel's Kingand Messiah, the temple had become a
bazaar."
And it is true that the high priestly families did gain wealth
from their control of the merchants andtheir stalls and were guilty
of corruption. Part of the problem was an unholy mixture of
religion andmoney.
David Garland, on the other hand, suggests that Jesus had more
in mind than dealing with the cor-rupt merchants and religious
leaders who. profited from scalping the poor. He believes that the
events inthe temple area that day were intended not to attack and
purify abuses but to signal an end of the templeitself and its
function. He writes:
Ifmoney cannot be exchanged into the holy currency, then
monetarysupport for the temple sacrifices and the priesthood must
end. If sacrifi-cial animals cannot be purchased, then sacrifice
must end. .. Jesus doesnot seek to purify current temple worship
but symbolically attacks thevery function of the temple and heralds
its destruction."
He also contends that the reference to the "den of robbers" has
nothing to with the trade in the tem-ple but denounces the false
security the temple sacrifices breed.
In other words, the robbers are not swindlers but bandits, and
theydo not do their robbing in their den. The den is the place
where robbersretreat after having committed their crimes. It is
their hideout, a place ofsecurity and refuge. Calling the temple a
robbers' den is therefore not acry of outrage against any dishonest
business practices in the temple. Je-sus indirectly attacks them
for allowing the temple to degenerate into asafe hiding place where
people think that they find forgiveness and fel-lowship with God no
matter how they act on the outside. .. The leadersof the people
think that they can rob widows' houses (Mark 12:40) andthen perform
the prescribed sacrifices according to the prescribed pat-terns at
the prescribed times in the prescribed purity in the
prescribedsacred space and then be safe and secure from all alarms
...
The sanctuary, supposedly sanctified by God, has become a
sanctu-ary for bandits who think that they are protected from God's
judgmentThe phrase "I have been watching" (Jeremiah 7:11) matches
the descrip-tion of Jesus' visit to the temple on the previous day,
when he "looked
4 R. Alan Cole, Mark=Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerd-mans Publishing Co., 1961 [1999]), p. 252.5
James Montgomery Boice, The Gospelof Matthew: Volume 2, The Triumph
of the King 18-28 (Grand Rapids:Baker Publishing Co., 2001), p. p.
442-443.6 David E. Garland, The NW Application Commentary-Mark
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), p.p. 436-437.
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around at everything" (Mark 11:11) turning that visit into an
inspection ... He has seen what the people are doing and pronounces
God's judg-ment,"
The Pharisees and priests on the other hand were offended,
according to Matthew (21:14-16 Page968), by the words of the
children calling out in the temple.
14 Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He
healedthem. 15But when the chief priests and scribes saw the
wonderful thingsthat He did, and the children crying out in the
temple and saying, "Ho-sanna to the Son of David!" they were
indignant 16 and said to Him,"Do You hear what these are saying?"
And Jesus said to them, "Yes.Have you never read, 'Out of the mouth
of babes and nursing infants Youhave perfected praise'?"
They understood the implication of the fact that while He drove
out the money changers and mer-chants, He welcomed the blind and
lame the authorities kept from the temple grounds and healed
them.They understood the cries of the children as well as Jesus'
quotation from Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11and determined to
eliminate Him as we see in Mark 11:18-19.
18 And the scribes and chief priests heard it and sought how
they mightdestroy Him; far they feared Him, because all the people
were astonishedat His teaching. 19 When evening had come, He went
out of the city.
Look at the text again, verses 12-14 and 20-21 and the fig tree
episode.12. Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany,
He washungry. 13And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He
went to seeif perhaps He would find something on it. When He came
to it, Hefound nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for
figs. 14 In re-sponse Jesus said to it, "Let no one eat fruit from
you ever again." AndHis disciples heard it. .. ~ Now in the
morning, as they passed by, theysaw the fig tree dried up from the
roots. 21 And Peter, remembering, saidto Him, "Rabbi, look! The fig
tree which You cursed has withered away."
Alan Cole reminds us that unless we realize that this whole
event was an acted parable we will bepuzzled by all sorts of
irrelevant questions, such as the ones raised by Barclay and
others. Again, Gar-land is very helpful.
This action is not about a particular unfruitful fig tree; it
has to dowith the temple. The :word "season" (kairos) is not the
botanical termfrom the growing season but the religious term found
in 1:14-15 denot-ing the time of the kingdom of God ...
Time can run out for fruitless trees and prayerless temples ...
Just asthe fig tree was not pruned and manured so that it might
bear fruit butcursed so that it died, so the temple was not
cleansed so that it couldcontinue in more fitting service to God,
rather, it would soon come to anend ... The locus of salvation now
shifts from the temple to Jesus and hisdeath and resurrection. ..
Thus when Jesus dies, the curtain of the tem-ple is tom from top to
bottom .
. . . For a fig tree in full leaf to shrivel so completely
within a day is amiracle, and it conveys that the temple's
condemnation is not a tempo-rary measure."
Listen! Frederick Bruner had it right when he wrote:The Lord
Jesus comes, not only as a merciful and modest king, he is
also a mighty and awful judge. He is not only love; he is also
justice."And for this we should say, "Hallelujah! Praise His holy
name!Now look at the text again and the Lord Jesus' response in
verses 22-26.
22 So Jesus answered and said to them, "Have faith in God. 23
For as-suredly/ I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be
removed andbe cast into the sea/ and does not doubt in his heart,
but believes thatthose things he says will be done, he will have
whatever he says. 24
7 David E. Garland, The NIV Application Commentary-Mark (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), p.p. 438-439.8David E. Garland, The NIV
Application Commentary-Mark (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), p.
440.9 Frederick L. Bruner, Matthew- Volume 2, The
Churchbook,Matthew 13-28 (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1987),p.753.
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Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray,
believethat you receive them, and you will have them. 25 And
whenever youstand praying, if you have anything against anyone,
forgive him, thatyour Father in heaven may also forgive you your
trespasses. 26 But ifyou do not forgive, neither will your Father
in heaven forgive your tres-passes."
This is an interesting and often misused passage and so it's
important that we keep it in its context. Itis not, as many claim,
a blank check with God. Jesus is not saying How To Write Your Own
Ticket With Godas one author wrote in a full page advertisement
promoting his ministry. Nor as the late Kenneth Haginwho said the
Lord Jesus promised him, "If anybody, anywhere, will take these
four steps or put thesefour principles into operation, he will
always receive whatever he wants from Me or from God the
Fa-ther."
Listen! If the disciples are a model of anything in the gospels,
it is of little faith and incredulity. Pe-ter's response in verse
21 to the cursed fig tree, even after witnessing miracle after
miracle after miraclefor three years was, "Wow! Look at that! The
fig tree you cursed is already withered!"
So what is the Lord Jesus teaching? First, he is rebuking the
disciples' unbelief and amazement at thefig tree. Second, He is not
speaking of literally moving mountains. That was a common rabbinic
sayingrelated to any extremely difficult task. Second, faith is not
chosen arbitrarily as a condition of prayer butthe basic condition
of all our relationship with God (Hebrews 11:6). Third, some have
taken His words,"Have faith in God," or as Matthew puts it, "if you
have faith and do not doubt," "you can have anythingyou ask for,"
as a command to work on having more faith. But it is also possible
that Jesus was encourag-ing them to remember that God's promises
are grounded in God's faithfulness and not man's ability tobanish
every doubt from his heart. As William Lane put it
The man who bows his head before the hidden glory of God in
thefullness of faith does so in the certainty that God can deal
with everysituation and any difficulty and that with him nothing is
impossible."
Finally, as we see in verses 25-26, Jesus gives another
"condition" of prayer-the forgiveness of oth-ers. Listen! We have
no inherent right to be heard by God! It is all by His grace and
undeserved favor!But, unless we forgive others, it shows we have no
consciousness of the grace that we ourselves have re-ceived and
need and shows that we are expecting to be heard on our own merits
and that cannot be.'!
Let's wrap this up. This is an important passage for us because
of our attachment to things. Severalyears ago Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, in a graduation speech at Harvard said that practical
Western materi-alism is as bad and perhaps even worse than the
philosophical materialism of communism. Communismclaims that matter
is all that is. But Western materialism believes that matter is all
that matters. We talk ofheaven but we strive for things. For most
of us, enough is never enough. We see this, as James Mont-gomery
Boice noted, in denominations in which the only "unforgivable sin"
is for a congregation to at-tempt to leave the denomination with
its property. And many churches are property centered. This
issomething we must be particularly cautious about. It is a great
blessing to have been on this piece ofproperty for 200 years and to
have a beautiful and historic sanctuary. But we must always
remember thatit is to be used for God's glory and honor lest it
become an object of worship-an idol in our lives.
As we look at the church at large, we see that we live in an age
of advertising and promotion withbillboards, newspaper and TV
advertising, and clever direct mail pieces that sometimes betrays
moretrust in method than message. We have, in many cases, made the
word "prayer" little more than code for"financial support."
A trip to many, if not most, Christian bookstores is enough to
make one sick. For example, some ofyou will remember the popular
WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) bracelets and plaques. Others will
re-member the Prayer of [abez craze with every conceivable ''Prayer
of [abez" trinket. Do things like thesehonor God or fundamentally
take His name in vain.
Then there are the ubiquitous televangelists promising power,
fame, and riches to any and all whowill plant a seed of faith,
a.k.a. "money" in their ministry.
Finally, there is the liberal church Dave Shiflett wrote about,
churches that don't care whether Jesuswas crucified at Calvary or
shot at Bunker Hill but are determined to be on the cutting edge of
societalaccommodation and evolution.
We must also remember that the faith that moves mountains is
nothing more or less than confidencein God's power, wisdom, and
goodwill towards believers--grounded in His promises, His Word,
and
10William L. Lane, The GospelofMark- The New International
Commentary on the New Testament (GrandRapids: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1974), p. 410.IIR Alan Cole, Mark- Tyndale New
Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans
PublishingCo., 1961 [1999]), p. 256.
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His character. It is not faith in faith and cannot be. The last
words of Jesus in today's passage was thesobering reminder that no
prayers can be heard that come from an unforgiving heart because we
have noright to look for mercy if we are not ready to extend mercy
to our brothers and sisters in Christ, in thechurch, in Zion
church. Bishop Ryle put it this way:
Do we know what it is to be of a forgiving spirit? Can we look
overthe injuries that we receive from time to time in this evil
world? ... Ifnot, where is our Christianity? ... Let us resolve to
amend our ways inthis matter. Let us determine by God's grace to
forgive, even as we hopeto be forgiven."
Question? Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of
God and Savior of sinners? Are youtrusting in Him alone for
salvation as he is offered in the gospel? Rev. Martyn Minns, a high
profilemember of the (conservative) American Anglican Council was
right on the money in his 2004 Easter mes-sage, a message that was
once common in mainline churches but now marks him as a dissident.
He re-minded his hearers that
God will not be mocked if we declare what God callssin to be not
sin.
God will not be mocked even ifwe claim that God'sWord is no
longer relevant to the complexitiesof modern life.
God will not be mocked by a church that believesthat it can
change foundational truth by amajority vote.
God will not be mocked even if we do seem to begetting away with
for a while.
God win have the final word.13SHALL WE PRAY
Great God in heaven, make Your Word alive in our hearts and
minds. Grant us faith that movesmountains, a life of fruitfulness,
and a forgiving heart to others. I ask this in Jesus' name, for His
sake,and by His merit alone. Amen.
[4147)
12 J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels -Matthew &
Mark (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co. Ltd.,[1856] 1983), Mark, p.
24013Dave Shiflett, Exodus- Why Americans Are Fleeing Liberal
Churches for Conservative Christianity (NewYork: The Penguin Group,
2005), p.p. 41-42.
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