Parables No.8 Cursing the Fig Tree

Father, we do offer this service to you. And we pray that we might be conscious of your presence and your nearness. Speak to us, Lord, and make everything very meaningful.

We ask that our praise may be glorious. Give to us an understanding of your word as we come around it and explain it. And then make this table and its message meaningful to us all, for the Saviour's sake.

Amen. Mark chapter 11, beginning to read at verse 12. The next day, as they, that's Jesus and his disciples, were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry.

Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, May no one ever eat fruit from you again.

And his disciples heard him say it. On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts.

And as he taught them, he said, Is it not written, My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of robbers. The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. When evening came, they went out of the city.

In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from its roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, Rabbi, look, the fig tree you cursed has withered. Have faith in God, Jesus answered.

I'll tell you the truth. If anyone says to this mountain, Go, throw yourself into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have already received it and it will be yours.

And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him so that your father in heaven may forgive you your sins. May the Lord add his blessing to that word. I'd be glad if you had your Bibles open at the Gospel of Mark and the eleventh chapter.

In one sense, what we're looking at this evening is not a parable inasmuch as it has a literal act that is behind what is read here. It's part of the ministry of our Lord Jesus, and it's most important that you and I understand what he has to say when he, in an incredible fashion, curses a tree. And then, in a sort of second stage, goes into Jerusalem and then returns to the scene of where he has spoken against the tree and causes the disciples, if not immediately, ultimately to appreciate what is the significance of that parabolic, dramatic action.

I don't suppose there's been anything that Jesus did that has brought more criticism to him than this incident. Here he is in Bethany. He leaves Bethany where his friends Mary and Martha are, and he sets off early in the morning, and he approaches Jerusalem, and he's hungry, and so he goes over to a tree, a fig tree.

There's no fruit on the fig tree at all, so he spins around, and in a way that seems to be quite uncharacteristic of him, he says, "'May no one ever eat from you again.'" And we're told that his disciples heard what he had to say. And then he makes his journey onwards to Jerusalem, and when he's in Jerusalem, again, he does something that's out of character, apart from some related incident right at the beginning of his ministry. He goes into the temple, and there's, if you like, a violence about him, about his activity, as he finds the temple filled with money changers and a hive of commercial activity, and he's infuriated by this, and so he sends them all out.

He handles them in a rough fashion, and as he concludes his stay in Jerusalem that day, having engaged in some teaching, he comes back to the point where he'd been the following day, and then later on he goes back to Bethlehem, and then later on in the morning, the following morning, they go back to the fig tree, and Peter recalls all that Jesus has said, and he points out that the fig tree has withered. Well, that in sort of compressed fashion is what we're looking at. I tell it in my own words, having already got you to listen to it from Colin, because I want you to follow just the scenario as to what's happened.

In one sense, there's an A and a B and an A in this story. What do you mean? Well, A is the fig tree, our Lord Jesus with it, standing by it with his disciples. The B, the Saviour and the disciples in Jerusalem at the temple, and then you go back to A, the fig tree again, as though what is in the center is actually a commentary on what is on either side.

What I'm arguing is this, that you'll never understand our Lord's dramatic parable in cursing the fig tree if you don't also grasp what happened in Jerusalem. Someone, as I have said, more than someone, quite a number of scholars have rejected this in terms of just a little legend that's found its way into the Scripture. Listen to T. W. Manson, a learned theologian, he says, it is a tale of miraculous power wasted in the service of ill temper.

And none other than William Barclay seems to suggest that it is such an extraordinary thing that, well, maybe it's questionable whether it actually happened. In fact, the problem becomes a little bit more when you look into the thirteenth verse and you discover that the Lord Jesus, when He goes to the fig tree to discover if it has any fruit, finds nothing but leaves, and the evangelist says, it wasn't the season for figs in any case. So, what do you accuse the Lord Jesus of? An outburst of childish temperament, this is an act of spite, this is something that is utterly unbelievable.

And that's what many people say as they look upon our Lord Jesus acting in this dramatic and violent fashion. This is the only occasion when you could argue our Lord exercises miraculous power in a destructive way. Did you hear that? The only time when the Lord Jesus exercises miraculous power in a destructive way.

Now, just before we proceed, you have to know this, that our Lord comes onto the surge of history not just with the potentiality of a king and that of a priest, He's also a prophet. Now, prophets are very interesting people. I sometimes think that if some of the Old Testament prophets had applied for membership of the respectable, worthy tabernacle, we wouldn't have had them in.

Occasionally, they will do the most outrageous things. Sometimes their teaching will be through dramatic activity. Sometimes they will engage in actions which seem to be utterly extraordinary.

Read through the life of Ezekiel if you want some examples of this. Now, our Lord is in the prophetic tradition He wants to make an impact upon His disciples. He's got a little entourage of eleven good men and one dud who are with Him on this occasion, and He wants to do something that's going to hit them in their minds that they will never forget because of the astonishing fashion in which He behaves.

The second thing that you need to bear in mind is this, that sometimes in the Old Testament the Jewish nation and God's relationship with her is likened to a fig tree. You say, well, that's extraordinary. Indeed it is, but nonetheless that is the case.

Let me give you an example. There are several that I could quote, but here is one from the prophecy of Hosea in the ninth chapter and the tenth verse. Here is the Lord God, and He's remembering the time when He came across the children of Israel with all the needs that they had as a pilgrim people in Sinai.

And He says in the tenth verse of Hosea 9, when I found Israel it was like finding grapes in the desert. When I saw your fathers it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree. Did you hear that? It was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree.

I could give you several other references of a similar nature that emphasize the point that I'm making, that often in the Old Testament Scriptures the Jewish people are likened to a fruitful fig tree. There are however other occasions in the Old Testament Scriptures when the fig tree and its withering is an illustration of judgment. For example, if you go to Isaiah in chapter 34, you read of God's judgment against the nations.

Come you nations, near and listen. Pay attention you peoples. And then as God indicates something of the consequence of human sinfulness, He says verse 4, all the stars of the heavens will be dissolved, and the sky rolled up like a scroll, and the starry hosts will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like shriveled figs from the fig tree.

You get it? I found Israel like a fig tree in Sinai. Here are withered figs that indicate that God is against a people. Alright, if you're liking categories, that is A. Now let's go on to B. The disciples have heard our Lord Jesus as He pronounces against this fig tree.

Now they find Him, now they're with Him in Jerusalem. On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus enters the temple. Magnificent building was that temple.

It was a sort of epitome of religious extravaganza. There were courts that sort of encircled the main part, the holy place of the temple. There were courts for the Orthodox Jew.

There were courts for the women. There were courts for the Gentiles. And even as far as the eye can see on the Mount of Olives, the land is controlled by the temple authorities.

Some people wrongly think that the Old Testament is directed exclusively to the Jews. It's not. The Old Testament is directed primarily to the Jews, but then to the Gentiles, as the gospel is primarily to the Jews and to the Gentiles.

Now there's a remarkable statement in the prophecy of Isaiah, the fifty-sixth chapter and the seventh verse, which speaks of the temple and it says, my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. All right? Let's imagine that you were a Gentile, that is a non-Jew in our Lord's day, and you've moved out of paganism from worshipping many gods because you realize that the Jews have got a significant knowledge as to who God is. They uniquely possess it, and you want to enter into some of the benefits.

Now you could have done that as a Gentile, because Judaism has a place for Gentiles. And there's a part of the court of the temple that is reserved for you. You remember the fellow Caiaphas who becomes very prominent in the narratives that deal with the arrest and the ultimate slaying of our Lord Jesus? Some forty years before the death of Jesus, he determined that he'd make a quick shackle or two.

And the way he did it was by bringing the markets of which there were four on the Mount of Olives in the Olivet area, he brought the commercial activity into the temple area reserved for the Gentile who wanted to come to the God of Abraham and Isaac and to pray to Him in one of the most holy shrines that Judaism affords, found that the area allocated to the Gentiles was a center of activity, a sort of stock market. And Jesus comes and he's disgusted. He's seen a fig tree that gives all the appearance of having fruit, but actually it's nature's extravaganza.

There are no figs. He goes into the temple, which is to be the house of prayer, which is to stand for fruitfulness. And he finds that as he pushes the foliage back, there's really nothing left for which the temple originally stood.

And thus with righteous indignation, he overturns the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. And he will not allow anyone to carry their goods and chattels through the temple courts. He will no longer allow the quiet time of the Gentiles to be disturbed by insensitive people who want to engage in commercial activity.

Now listen further, or else you'll misunderstand our Lord Jesus and make some wrong conclusions as alas the church has done off and down its history. The finger of accusation that Jesus pointed on this occasion was not against the Jewish nation as a whole, but the leaders that prostituted Judaism. It was the priestly caste, the Sadducees, those who were in the escalons of religious authority that Jesus was gunning for.

And he says of these, you've turned this temple into a den of robbers. Now Jesus is engaged in this activity because of his concern for Gentiles. Now it's important that you understand that as you come to the eighteenth verse, because here you get the confederacy of the chief priests and the teachers of the law listening to what Jesus has been doing, as they've heard report, and they begin to look for a way to kill him.

So one of the contributory factors to Jesus being pinned to the cross of Calvary was his defense of Gentiles coming to the Father to worship him. Our Lord does not condemn his nation. He condemns the leadership that have misled the people.

And you understand from this very story, if you feel its fabric, that the ordinary people are spellbound when they hear of what Jesus has not only done, but they're mesmerized by his teaching. When evening comes, the disciples go out of the city, probably back to Bethany. Now listen, those of you who are skilled in the Word of God, who lives at Bethany? I gave you some hint on that, didn't I, a little while ago.

There's that loving family, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Now I think that Jesus often went to Bethany for hospitality when he was in Jerusalem. There's scriptural proof for that.

Can you imagine Mary and Martha letting Jesus go to Jerusalem without breakfast? I meet with Tim and Hugh and sometimes some of the leaders of churches in Worthing on a fairly frequent basis, and often we take breakfast together at McDonald's. You'll see us there occasionally, this little religious bunch having the benefits of McDonald's at eight o'clock in the morning. I reckon that Jesus would have had far more sumptuous fare than McDonald's could ever have given.

But he came the previous day hungry from Bethany. Maybe he'd skipped breakfast, or maybe he'd spent one of those long, sleepless nights in prayer and fasting, and he goes as a man with a double hunger, a hunger in his stomach and a hunger in his spirit as he approaches Jerusalem. And he wants to show to his disciples once and forever the bankruptcy of a so-called developed faith which has at its helm irreligious men.

And Jesus, having passed condemnation on the fig tree, then engages in this violent activity in the temple. And the following day, verse twenty-one, Peter remembers. Remembers as he sees this withered fig tree, what had happened twenty-four hours earlier, and he says to the silent Christ, look, the fig tree you cursed has withered.

And Jesus makes no further comment apart from to enforce their faith in God and to teach them about the power of prayer. Jesus always loved his own nation. When he died on the cross of Calvary, it was not the Jews who can be held as responsible as a whole.

It was those who had corrupted the headquarters of Judaism. But even for them, Jesus prayed, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Jesus is on the cross to bring the salvation of Jews about and to bring about the salvation of Gentiles.

For all that the temple stood for, approach to God, is now encapsuled in our Lord Jesus, and he declares a faith which is to the children of Israel and to the children of Ishmael and to the overall family of Adam. And our Lord sets up this principle that when he examines individuals as well as when he examines communities, he wants to see reality. He wants to see the true thing, not some church masquerading as a vibrant center of spiritual life, not a place where there's necessarily religiosity and smells and bells, oh, I've got nothing against liturgy in and of itself.

Nor does he want to come into a church where the Bible is preached but people are not affected by the message of the proclamation of the Bible. Our Lord looks for reality. He looks for life.

And it's the gentle Jesus who will, ninety-nine percent of using his miraculous power, use it for the benefit of humankind, who will reserve for himself one miracle in which he will show the power of destruction. And he will warn people who are sensitive that not to respond to the hand of grace that he extends is in effect to embrace the only other hand of justice and law. Now, Jesus offers Jew and Gentile either his forgiveness or his justice.

And he will discover which hand you have embraced as he looks into your life and finds there the fruit of salvation and a sensitivity towards helping others into a faith relationship with God. That, my friends, as I understand it, is the teaching of our Lord behind this dramatic parable which finds its own commentary in what he does in Jerusalem. Let's turn in our supplement and sing a song that is a good response to what we have learned about the feelingfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ and the way that we ourselves ought to love him for all that he has done for us and for Jewish people.

Jesus Christ, Son of God, Lifted up, Willingly to die. He will reign over us, Still freely flowing, Still blessing, Still living. Some while ago now, Mary was contacted by the Mormons.

She had just come through a very difficult spell. And in some ways, I suppose you would say you were rather easy prey for them. They came along just at the right time.

How long ago was that? About 14 months. About 14 months ago. And since then, you've come to know the Lord Jesus as your own savior and Lord and your God.

How long ago is that, more or less? March. March. Tremendous.

So we do rejoice with Mary and all that God has done for her. Now, Mary did express a desire to just renounce publicly the baptism which she had into the Mormon Church a year and a half ago now. And we feel this is right.

The Lord Jesus Christ has set her free. And just as he raised Lazarus from the tomb, all the power is his and all the glory will go to him. And nothing that we're going to be doing tonight will in any sense add to that deliverance that he has given you, Mary.