Not the Season for Figs

So, ten days ago or so, Ruby was sitting at her desk and she quoted a verse and she told me that there was something that God had, years ago, spoken to her about and gave her great confidence something was going to happen. I didn't know what Craig was going to preach. I didn't, having been in Lebanon, I didn't know where Craig was at.

So, I didn't know what he was going to preach last week. And when Ruby quoted the text, I looked at it and I thought, well, Mark 11, Craig's not going to get there for maybe a couple months. So, I figure you'll all forget what I preached by the time Craig gets to this.

Brethren, if you would turn, I want to read both accounts to you. I want to read the Matthew account and the Mark account. When Ruby read the text to me from Mark's gospel, I just thought I need to preach on that.

And I went and started scribbling some notes and it came really fast. And so, I did that like ten days ago. And then I heard Craig preach last week and I thought, oh, there's some similarities.

And even as Craig prayed for him, I had no idea I was going to be here being prayed for. Craig talked about prayer of faith as he was praying. I had no idea ten days ago about any of this stuff, other than I really felt a burden to preach on Mark 11.

But I'm going to read from Matthew 21. If you want to open your Bibles there, Matthew 21, verse 18. And before we read, I'd like to go to the Lord in prayer.

Lord, we sing the words unto Thee, O Lord, unto Thee, O Lord. Lord, do I lift up my heart? Do I lift up my voice? Do I lift up my prayer? Do I lift up my hope? Do I lift up my confidence? Lord, it's all to You. And I just, Lord, I pray that You would make these words that I speak in this next hour just somehow profitable to the souls of Your people.

I ask You for it in Christ's name. Amen. So, Matthew 21, verse 18.

Of course, this is the account of Christ cursing the fig tree. And I want to read both accounts just simply because I want to focus on Mark's text. But Matthew does give us a few details that Mark leaves out.

In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it.

So, I mean, you get the picture. He's speaking to the tree. And he's got an audience.

The disciples are watching him talk to the tree. He said to it, May no fruit ever come from you again. And the fig tree withered at once.

When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, How did the fig tree wither at once? And Jesus answered them, Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive if you have faith. Okay, now let's turn to Mark's account.

And you can pretty much part here the rest of the time. Any other verses I quote, you don't need to turn there. Because this is the primary text.

And of course, Mark breaks this up into two pieces. Matthew doesn't interrupt the account with Jesus cleansing the temple, but Mark does. And so check this out.

Mark 11, 12. On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree and leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it.

When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves. For it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, may no one ever eat fruit from you again.

And his disciples heard it. And then here you get the cleansing of the temple account. And in verse 20, we come back as they passed by in the morning.

So it's the next morning. Now, yes, Matthew said the fig tree withered at once. At once is a relative term there.

And it may have withered at once, but the next day they're passing by in the morning and they see that fig tree there next to the road. And it's withered away to its roots. So the thing is dead, withered.

And Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. And Jesus answered them, have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass.

And brethren, you need to hear these words here because we get, you know, the Kenneth Copelands in this world. And you guys know how stuff like this is abused. But you got to hear Jesus and don't write this off.

God has given us this. He says, verse 23 again, truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes, believes what? That what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.

And whenever you stand praying, forgive. And if you have anything against anyone, so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. And I'm calling this sermon, not the season for figs.

I don't know if that's the best title, but not the season for figs. And I got a lot of questions and maybe a few observations here. But I want to start with a question.

And brethren, we got to ask questions, got to ask questions of, you should be asking questions of scripture all the time. Why? Because there's all sorts of things in God's word that we don't know the answer to. And you can just read across things.

And brethren, we got to be asking, what does that mean? What does that mean? What does that mean? Notice this, notice verse 13. And seen in the distance a fig tree in leaf. So you got it.

He sees a fig tree. It has leaves on it. He went to see if he could find anything on it.

Is that my phone? It's really bad. It's a good time to change the batteries. Okay.

Yeah, I see. We had to change the batteries anyways. That's probably my, hopefully my pharmacist.

What's that? Yeah. So brethren, back to verse 13. And you all have this question.

I have a question for you, but you're going to say, you know, you're going to just sit there and say, well, I hope he answers it for us. Seen in the distance a fig tree in leaf. Jesus, you can see him.

He's walking down the road. You understand the thing. You're walking down the road.

You see a tree beside the road. Up ahead. He sees it.

It's in leaf. So he sees the thing is alive. It's got leaves on it.

He went to see if he could find anything on it. Now that's very interesting. You got to recognize he is completely 100% man.

Because we think, well, wait, he's God too. And isn't he omniscient? I mean, brethren, he did not know if there was fruit on that tree until he went over and looked. That's clearly the intent here.

He went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves. And then the crazy thing is there's a four.

And that gives us cause. That's a conjunction that is going to produce some reasons as to why what was just said is true. And why? What does it say? Why didn't it have anything on it but leaves? What does it say? And the King James says, for the time of figs was not yet.

Young's literal says, for it was not a time of figs. Now who is saying that? Who is saying right here that it was not the time for figs? So John Mark is saying it. He's the one commenting here.

Who do we think Mark in writing his Gospel was influenced by? Do you think Peter might have told him this? The Holy Spirit. But you know what? Did Jesus know that it wasn't the season for figs? You would think perhaps he did. There's no immediate indication that there's a defect with the tree.

Not immediately. Look, if it's got leaves on it, there's a time for trees to have leaves and not have fruit. Especially if it's not time for the fruit.

And so it's alive. It has leaves. It sure seems like it might have fruit too if only the proper season for figs were to come.

But since the season of harvest or since that season of figs isn't yet, I mean then the question I have is, why curse the tree if it's simply doing what all fig trees do? It basically, winter comes, winter ends, leaves come out, and sometime after that the fruit begins to develop. But if it's not a time for figs, why curse the tree if it's simply doing what all fig trees do? They produce figs in season, but it's not fig season. What do you make of that? I mean, my question is just, why curse the tree? Or Albert Barnes says this, that when it says it was not the season for figs, he said it wasn't yet the time for fig harvest.

He said certainly, and the whole point is this, since the harvest time, see if you already got to harvest time, then there wouldn't be any figs because they'd all be harvested. But his thinking is that, well certainly Jesus would have known not to go up to the tree and look if it wasn't the time for figs, but because he was expecting to find figs there, that's why he was of a mind to curse the tree. What do you think? I just say this, when you read where this phrase falls in the sentence in verse 13, it says he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.

The place it shows up in, I mean it just sounds like, it sounds like not that it wasn't the season for fig harvest, it doesn't sound like that, and I could mean that, but either way, why curse the tree? Why curse it? I mean one reason, but clearly we have it here, he was hungry. Both accounts, Matthew and Mark tell us that. He was hungry.

He saw, he specifically saw the tree, he specifically went to that tree because he was hungry, and he meant to assuage his hunger. He meant to go there and find something to eat, and that's what it says. He genuinely went to the tree looking for food.

No indication that divine omniscience held him back. Apparently he didn't know whether he was going to find them or not. Even, even, I mean there's not even any indication of even a human understanding of the science of fig trees that would have held him back, and what I mean by that, if it wasn't time for figs, and there wasn't even supposed to be figs on the tree, because I think we kind of know where this falls out, about what time of the year it was, and you know, I was just over there in the Middle East, and it was a little bit after this time, and I believe we saw, I mean Dan was taking us to his different farms, and I saw, I believe I saw a fig tree over there, and there were no figs on it.

So it's not the time. So perhaps that was, but there's no indication that even his understanding of how fig trees work held him back. Whatever he knew, whatever he didn't know, he went looking for fruit.

Why? Because he was hungry. That's what it says. Now, just an observation here.

Jesus seems to not know if there are figs until he goes and looks. I mean his complete humanity is certainly put on display here. But here's the thing.

I mean, here's what I observe in this. Jesus doesn't know, and you know what? If he would have found figs, we wouldn't have had this account at all. Why? Because he wouldn't have cursed the tree.

It seems like the hunger and the cursing of the tree, they go together. If his hunger would have been satisfied, you're not going to get any cursing here. But what I notice is this.

God is about to do a miracle through Christ. If Jesus is hungry and about to do a miracle on this tree, then why not command the tree to bring forth fruit? I mean, think about it. It's like so that when they pass by the next day, because in Mark's account, we know they pass by it the next day.

And you know, if you're hungry today, well, yeah, you'll probably eat later on in the day and you'll go back to Bethany and you'll get fed again. But the thing is, okay, he might be hungry the next morning. So why curse it? Why not bless it so that the next day the thing's loaded with figs? I mean, what I would say here is Jesus acting this way is really unexpected.

Now, I don't know if that jumps right out yet, but think about the miracles that Jesus did. Jesus did not come into the world destroying things. You ever notice that? His miracles were basically miracles of kindness, miracles of compassion, miracles that gave life, not that took it away.

And so that jumps out at me. It's like I can imagine it's unexpected to us and it's probably unexpected to the disciples as well. I mean, Jesus' miracles tended to feed and heal and help.

It's odd for him to curse. In fact, can you think of anywhere else where he curses? It's just, it may not jump out at you, but in all the things that he does, we're so used to it because we've read the gospel so many times, most of us. But the reality, this is odd for him to kill or destroy.

Now, I never recognized it's a plant. You know, he obviously ate wheat and whatever. It's not like it's an animal.

It's not like it's a human being. But I just go back to the question, why curse the tree? Why not bless the tree? Now, I have encountered, this is so common. I have encountered resources through the years.

I've heard this over and over and over that they believe that Jesus cursed the fig tree to give us a God-given example of the nation of fruitless Israel. You ever heard that? Anybody ever heard that? There's a very common interpretation of this, or of fruitless Christianity. And the truth is, yes, did Jesus ever teach on, you know, branches that aren't fruitful, even fig trees that aren't fruitful? I mean, we have this.

He told this parable, man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard. He came seeking fruit on it and found none. Then he said to the vine dresser, look, for three years, I've come seeking fruit on this fig tree and I find none.

Cut it down. Why should it use the ground? And he answered him, sir, let it alone this year also. And until I dig around it and put on manure, if it should bear fruit next year, well and good.

And the problem with trying to draw this truth out of these passages in Mark 11, I mean, one thing would just be verse 22. Look at Mark 11, 22. Jesus answered them, have faith in God.

See the disciples see that fig tree withered the next day. They recognize that a miracle has happened. Peter says, hey, Lord, check out the tree you cursed.

Jesus does not open a discourse about Israel not being fruitful. He does not open up a discourse about barren disciples being cursed. Yes, he teaches about that in other places, but he's not teaching.

That's not the point here. This is not a lesson about being fruitful. And I know it isn't.

Why? Because Jesus very specifically points out what it is a lesson on. And you all see it. What does verse 22 say? What's the lesson on? See, faith.

Wow. Perhaps that's the main reason he curses the tree. The main reason.

Yes, he was hungry. But his unsatisfied hunger is an opportunity to instruct not only those disciples back then and there, but each one of us here and now. It's an opportunity.

There's a word that Matthew uses that Mark leaves out. Listen to this word. When the disciples saw it, they saw this withered tree.

They marveled. Now catch that. They marveled.

How did the fig tree wither at once? What does it mean to marvel? I mean, it's a strong word. It's an emphatic word. What is it? What's the idea? What would you something supernatural? I mean, that might be a reason to marvel.

It's the idea of being extraordinarily impressed or maybe even distressed or disturbed. It's a height of wonderment and astonishment. It seems to be only one reason Matthew and Mark record this account.

Why? Jesus means to pull them and us into the marvelous. They marveled. I think that was the whole point.

I think that's the primary reason he cursed this thing was to produce. I mean, it's a lesson of faith doing the marvelous. And that's where he's headed with all this because when he starts talking about faith here, he makes it very personal.

He's talking about, hey, you guys need to recognize something here. This has to do with you. Don't think you're just going to be an observer as far as cursing trees and moving mountains.

Don't just expect that I'm going to do it because I'm the Lord. You're my followers. And you guys can do exactly what I did if you have faith.

The lesson is that we're to take all of this personally. And brethren, Jesus' lesson, it has to do with you. It has to do with me.

It has to do with the marvelous. It has to do with faith. It may not be the season for figs, but I'll tell you, it's a season for a lesson.

It's a season for a lesson in the marvelous. The, listen, brethren, do you recognize, did you actually hear these promises? Sometimes we talk about potential energy. Somebody was just asking me the other day about potential and kinetic energy.

You know what potential energy is? What is potential energy? Stored. Yeah, it's got potential. It's like if you put a rock up on the rooftop and you got it out there at the edge, there's real potential in that thing if you just push it off the edge.

It's something that's stored. It's potential. You recognize the potential energy? The energy in prayer that's being set forth here, we hardly even believe it.

It's like the words are almost too fantastic. The potential of doing the same thing he did and then he moves from cursing the fig tree to actually throwing a mountain, not just moving a mountain, as he says someplace, but throwing a mountain, throwing. We can do greater things than he did, but there's that little two-letter word, if.

It's a gargantuan if. It's a huge small thing. Truly I say to you, if, this is Matthew's account, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, it will happen.

Now, here's a question. Why would I, why would you want to curse a fig tree? Jesus says that if you have faith, you will do what he did to the fig tree. Is that desirable? Do you even want to do that? Look, the fact is, I don't think Jesus means for us to be so literal as that.

Trees and mountains are clearly meant to lead to an even bigger word. It's that word, whatever. I mean, look, Mark 11 24.

Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, that can have to do with mountains, that can have to do with bigger things than mountains. Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you've received it and it will be yours. And brethren, this is a repetition of the remarkable promise that Craig quoted last week that comes out of Matthew 17 when they were seeking to cast out that demon.

Truly I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move. Nothing will be impossible. You see, he moves from mountains to nothing will be impossible.

He moves from mountains to whatever you ask. It's like he's just, he's moving to Jesus. Jesus doesn't, brethren, Jesus doesn't give us just these ridiculous little promises if we're his people.

This is massive, massive. The mountain there in Matthew 17, 20, we know when it flows from the disciple's inability to cast out this fallen angel, we should see fig trees and mountains as pointing to nothing will be impossible for us. But you don't believe that because you can probably start to think already of exceptions and limitations and it can't really, whatever we ask in prayer, it will be ours if we believe we've received it.

Both shriveling fig trees and throwing mountains are in the same category. What category? Well, the category of the impossibility. Brethren, I want to deal with this as much as anything because I want us to deal with the possibilities of what it means to be a Christian.

If you, oh, we don't want to write this off. You just look at this promise, it's like, wow. I mean, it's like promises like this stagger the imagination.

I believe the thing above all things is this. Brethren, don't limit this promise. Don't do it.

I know that everything within us wants to do that. And Jesus is very dogmatic. 11.23, it will be done for him.

24, it will be yours. And that's it. One condition, if you believe that you have what you've asked for, if you don't doubt, if you have faith, it will be done.

It will be ours. And why? Why not give more? Aren't there more conditions to prayer than that? Just listen to it again. Truly, I say to you, whoever, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.

Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you've received it, it will be yours. It's almost like, wait, what? Jesus, don't you know you can't talk like this? People might actually be led to believe that they can get whatever they ask for. Seriously? I mean, aren't there limitations? If I say fig tree be cursed, and I believe that what I say will come to pass, then it will be done for me? Rather than all I say, I love this.

Thank you, Lord, for speaking this way to us. Question, what do answers to prayer depend on? Now you can give me various things, but we're not looking at various passages. And what I find is very interesting.

Oh, yes, you can go to verses that say that we know we have what we ask of Him if we're keeping His commandments and doing what pleases Him. Can you think of verses that say that? Or if we do His will, you can think of passages that say that. But that's interesting.

He leaves all those things out. He doesn't feel the need to bring them in. I always believe this, that Scripture doesn't say certain things just as intentionally as what it does say.

It's like, why? Listen, I'm going to ask you this again. What do answers to prayer depend on, according to this verse? Faith. Okay, but what do we usually mean by faith? What do we usually mean? What was that? Somebody's saying something.

But I mean, faith, typically by faith, we mean the idea of believing that God is, believing who God is, believing what God's promises are. What strikes me is the way Mark says this. The faith seems to be about believing what? Yeah, whether or not it will happen.

You can't get away from it. You'd have to totally reword this thing entirely different from the way it comes in the original. Brethren, the reason it sounds the way it sounds is because that's how Jesus spoke it.

It's like the faith is believing that I already, it's like I already received it. I'm asking and I believe I've already, like it's already done. It's already coming.

It's already mine. And only then will it be mine. I mean, doesn't it sound like that? You all can see what it says.

If he does that doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says, isn't that interesting? He believes that what he says will come to pass. It will be done for him. And believe that you have received it and it will be yours.

Does it make you uncomfortable? Are you happy that such a promise is created? Do you live on that kind of promise? I mean, that raises another question. How do I just believe that what I say will come to pass if I'm not sure if it will? I mean, isn't that a good question? Don't we pray for certain things that the reality is we hope for them, but we're kind of uncertain as to whether it's God's will or not. I mean, how can I keep from doubting if I don't know what God intends to do? And you might get two different people praying against each other.

One's praying one thing will happen and somebody's praying a thing won't happen. I mean, can you just not have doubts when you're not sure if your prayer's in line with God's will or not? So how do I get this faith if I don't have it? Well, the question that comes to my mind is, is Jesus trying to raise our expectations when we pray or lower them? You see, I heard maybe one or two people kind of mumble, but what do you think? Does Jesus give us these promises to raise our expectations about what should happen as a result of our prayers? Or is He trying to lower them? Does He think that we think too highly of what we can get from God through prayer? Or do we think too low? I mean, He's obviously telling His disciples something. Hey, you'll be able to do this.

You'll be able to say to that mountain and whatever. I mean, you can imagine those guys are like, whoa, if you have faith. I mean, I know this.

Jesus is trying to raise our expectations. And so that thought alone, I hope, raises some of your expectations in your prayers. I think if you'll just grasp that the Lord would even give such a promise as this, clearly He's trying to raise our confidence level when we pray.

Look, Jesus full well knows what this sort of language sounds like in our ears. It's almost unbelievable. He knows that.

Seems like He's practically giving a blank check to faith. Does it not sound like that? It does. If you say it doesn't, then you're just not being honest with the text.

That's exactly what it sounds like. Now, I recognize we don't cancel out any other Scripture and we have to compare Scripture with Scripture. But the way He states it here, yeah, it sounds like a blank check to faith with no other condition or exception or restriction except that we believe we already have a yes answer.

While we're praying, if I have faith, nothing will be impossible. Whatever I ask and believe I received, it's mine. No other conditions being stressed.

Brethren, the thing is, we love to give exceptions and limitations and conditions to everything. But you know what? A lot of times unbelief does that. Why do we give limitations? Well, because we're afraid somebody is presumptuously going to try to push beyond the boundaries.

You don't give those things. You don't give all the limitations and all the exceptions and all the restrictions. You leave them out when you want to get people to be entirely free to take the promise in its fullness, to press people upward and outward and onward and to hope bigger and to brace the reality of something more and more and more.

Jesus knows how this sounds. Why did Jesus do in the fig tree? Well, brethren, one of the primary reasons is to be a shocking, a marvelous, a shocking lesson to us. It's meant to shake us.

It's meant to startle us, make us think. It's meant to make us ask questions. And it's meant to make you ask questions about your prayer life.

Where are you at in your prayer life? We should be asking all sorts of questions. Why did He do this? Brethren, do we ask for things so big that somehow it might actually seem like a mountain being thrown? And brethren, I know relatively small things can be mountainous to us. Brethren, I'll tell you where my concern comes from when I read things like this.

I'm afraid. I feel this. Brethren, I thank the Lord for all that has happened through GCC over these years.

But smallness seems to be written over so much. And I just mean across America and its churches. Smallness.

What we really accomplish. Brethren, you know, James puts these books out there on the Internet these days. And if any of you are readers of biography, I was so struck by this when Ruby and I, we went to Bristol and we saw.

You're just thinking, oh, my life is so small. So it's just small, small, small. Christ shed His blood for us.

Is this really all that He gave the Spirit to the church for? Could we be? Brethren, sometimes you just don't you feel it? It's like, what's our Christianity? To see if a reformed guy can come and make it through a sermon on Sunday. Is that what it's all about? We can keep up our attendance on. And the midweek meeting, sometimes it just seems like that is at all.

It's like little, little, little, just get stamped on things. And Jesus has given us promises like this. Sometimes it makes me feel like we're just, we dare not do because we hardly are daring to ask what we could ask for.

Brethren, this is our risk taking. Sometimes, sometimes we're not asking for these. Brethren, we obviously know.

These kind of promises are not given to us so that we can have mansions and Mercedes Benz. Basically have a lawn that looks like a golf course. That's the health wealth, guys.

But brethren, these promises go hand in hand with what Jesus was. He was about His Father's business. And now we have been given that baton.

And now the race is ours. Brethren, you've got to know that these kind of promises come with the backdrop of Jesus' ministry and what He saw His apostles doing and the church doing after that. Brethren, we dare not ask big.

So often we're afraid of the big things. But brethren, if there's anything, it just strikes me. I'm inclined to think that until we see some great daring endeavor even set out on.

Brethren, if there's one thing that I think would give us more of the kind of faith, or maybe you say it this way, if there's something that we might find that God would give us the kind of faith to really believe that we have something before we've even seen the answer come, is if we simply are giving ourselves to the kind of endeavors that Jesus would have us give ourselves to. And so, brethren, we can do things, but so often, as Tozer said it, our risk-taking can be so nicely within these boundaries of safety. We do it safe.

And there's a whole world out there in the power of the evil one. Brethren, we don't want smallness written over so much of what we do. Some great marvelous thing done for Christ.

It's just, brethren, if we're ready to do something, I think there's a place to have an expectation that God's going to come through. And we're not going to see the glory of the Lord revealed. I mean, we have to ask ourselves, what do we do in here when we have... You see, Jesus didn't give us promises like this to be passive and sit at home and pray for more luxury and pray for a better TV and pray for just stuff and money.

And that's not what He gave His promises like this for. He gave us promises like this because we're called to follow Him. We're called to stay in His tracks.

And so, I just ask this question, how do I get greater faith? A faith to believe that what I ask for I will receive. Well, brethren, there's two primary ways. And I mean, one is, can you pray to God for your sanctification and believe beyond any shadow of a doubt it's coming? Why? You'll find in 1 Thessalonians that it is the will of God, our sanctification.

You will find that we are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. Right? And so when you pray that, you can know... Now, just be careful because you remember our brother John Newton prayed that he might grow. And sometimes it happens in ways you don't expect.

But you can be sure it's coming. The other way that we end up with faith like this is God... It's a very personal thing. God confirms it to us individually.

And that's really what Ruby was dealing with when she quoted this verse. She said, God spoke. And you know what? I've had that happen a number of times in my Christian life.

I just knew that what I was asking for... And sometimes I was... You know, one time I was working as an engineer, but my former employee asked me if I would do a job for him. And so I spoke to the chief engineer and he said, sure, you can do that. And the job was going to take me to Turkey.

And when I prayed about it, God affirmed to me, you are going to Turkey. And you know what? The job dissipated and I wasn't needed. I was perplexed.

And then I went to Turkey because we all of a sudden had missionaries over there that we were involved with. But that's just one example. And we hear sometimes of the prayer of faith.

If anyone among you is sick, let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick. What are we talking about when we talk about the prayer of faith? We're talking about this mountain moving kind of prayer by which we have some deep inner confidence that God will give us what we've prayed for.

And I mean, I know that I had that so distinct with my daughter, Grace. Well, there's just, there's a number of things. I mean, I can remember Brother Don Johnson praying for his eldest son out on his front porch.

And he came in and he told me, it's done. Our son is going to be saved. And brethren, if you read Christian biography, you come across this.

And probably many of you, you know something of this. God really confirming. But brethren, we want to be searching the word of God because there are a whole number of things that God has promised.

He's promised to never leave us. He's promised to never forsake us. He's promised to give us the Holy Spirit if we ask.

He's given us promise that he is indeed going to conform us to the image of Christ. He's given us the promise that sin's not going to have dominion over us. Is it God's will, your sanctification? Yes, but it's God's will that you be sanctified.

What does it say after that in 1 Thessalonians 4? Sexual immorality. You know what? If you've got any kind of struggle with sexual immorality, do you have a God-given idea that it is God's will for your purity? I mean, he promises help. Does he not? There's a throne of grace.

He promises if you go there. He's promised in James. We saw it in chapter one.

He's promised wisdom. He's promised that believers, rivers of living water. He's also promised to believers that the works that he did will do and greater works.

Isn't that exactly what's coming out in these promises? He says you can do it to the fig tree and you can do even greater things. It's crazy the kind of... I mean, we've been promised the baptism of the Spirit. We've been promised that God's never going to put us into any kind of temptation that we can't handle.

He's given us promise of these things, promise of fruitfulness, promise of all things working together for our good. But listen, he's promised that big trees and mountains will respond to us. That is a promise.

Now, what you have to figure out is if your fig tree... What's a fig tree? Fig tree is probably a picture of something that isn't right. A fig tree without figs is just not right. I mean, there are things we might like to curse.

I like to curse those bacteria that are in me. There are things that aren't right. That seems to be fig trees without figs, something's wrong.

God, vindicate the wrongness in this thing. Mountains in our way. What are mountains? Well, mountains are great hindrances.

That demon is a good picture of a mountain. He was a hindrance. They couldn't get rid of it.

They couldn't cast it out. They couldn't make the boy free. I mean, this kind goes out.

Brethren, we get into kinds of situations that they're just wrong or there's some great big hindrance in our way, difficulties, problems. But brethren, you have the promise. You will say to them, now brethren, you don't want to be passive.

You know what? You're going to say to that mountain, move. You get your shovel and you go start trying to move it. There are some times where we're confronted by situations.

There's just absolutely nothing we can do. But we don't want to be passive. I mean, oftentimes you saw the miracles in Scripture when God's people were going about God's business.

You have a mountain in your life. Why doesn't Jesus define exactly what he means by these two terms? Well, here's a promise for you to take whatever it is. You sit in the shadow of some mountain and there it is, and it's in your way.

You can say to him, Lord, if you promised that I can say to this mountain, be taken away and thrown into the sea and believe it. Jesus gave us these sort of magnificent promises to compel us and propel us upward in our prayer life. I mean, take Jesus' own words to him.

Lord, you said. And there can be great confidence as you just start to think on what he has said. And he said mountains.

It's like, Lord, we've got this big mountain. There's numerous, probably every one of you. I remember one time years ago in a prayer meeting, and I just went around the room and I asked everybody, what is the biggest mountain in your life that you want us to pray for? Brethren, you've all got them.

You've all got the biggest mountain in your life. And if you take a promise like this, take Jesus' words to your heavenly father, plead those words. Lord, I've got a mountain.

I've got this thing like a figless fig tree. Your son gave this promise. Am I supposed to believe that promise? Am I supposed to live on that promise? I mean, look, if you said, if you told anybody that promise in any other religion, when they think, wow, like that can't even be true.

That's over the top. Nobody can promise that. Nobody could expect that.

I mean, you know what that does? That is virtually making every Christian into some supernatural being. They got the ability to go around praying and they can actually move a mountain and it'll be done. Yeah, but that's right.

We are supernatural. This passage shows that the true test of faith, brethren, oh, it's so often lies in our prayers. Christ, you can see it here in this promise.

What is he demanding of his people? A firm and undoubting confidence in obtaining an answer for him. And yes, there's times that it's going to come through the promises in his Word that are going to be a very rock beneath our faith. And there are times, brethren, he whispers to our soul and maybe it comes more like thunder, where there's just a certainty.

When the guys prayed over me, did I have, I mean, I was praying, did I have a prayer of faith like I know for a fact I'm healed? Nope. Now, I hope despite that it happens. Same group of elders prayed over my wife when she had eczema.

You remember that? Basically, almost leprosy across the majority of her body. And when the elders prayed over her, she had that sense, I'm healed. In fact, she felt it so strongly, she actually thought she was going to go look in the mirror.

It was going to be totally gone already. Now, it took months and then it was gone. But brethren, we should have this expectation.

Our anticipation should be ever increasing. Jesus, I'm just going to emphasize this right here at the end, Jesus gave us these promises to certainly expand our expectation in prayer. Don't settle for littleness.

Brethren, don't live your life and you get to the end and everything about it was just little. Because mountains aren't little. Clearly, what Jesus is promising to His people is you have the potential through your prayers clinging to the Lord of accomplishing great things.

And Father, I pray, may You just increase our faith. Oh Lord, heighten our expectation. Quicken the prayer life of the brethren here in the secret place, in the prayer meetings.

I just pray in Christ's name, Lord, we'll see these promises lived out in our lives, lived out before us in a way that'll, Lord, be exciting and marvelous to us. I pray in Christ's name, Amen.