Cleansing the Temple

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. We open your Bibles with me to the book of Mark, Mark chapter 11. Mark chapter 11, and we'll be reading this morning verses 11 through 26. Mark chapter 11, verse 12 through 26. If you're using your pew bibles, you'll find Mark chapter 11 on page 895. Remember the steps that have come to this point.

Jesus healed blind Bartimaeus down in Jericho. He's walked up the windy mountain road through Bethpage and Bethany. And as he's descended into the Mount of Olives, entering into Jericho, the people were crying out, Hosanna in the highest. As he rode in on a colt, and as the palm branches and other branches from the field were laid on the road, Jesus, the triumphant king, had entered into the city, looked around, and now goes back to Bethany, and this is where we pick up verse 12. Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, he went to see if perhaps he would find something on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.

In response, Jesus said to it, Let no one eat fruit from you ever again. And his disciples heard it. So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. Then He taught, saying to them, Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of thieves.

And the scribes and the chief priests heard it, and thought how they might destroy Him, for they feared Him, because all the people were astonished at His teaching. When evening had come, he went out of the city. Now in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter, remembering, said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree which you cursed has withered away. So Jesus answered and said to them, have faith in God.

For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be removed and be cast into the sea. and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them and you will have them. And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him.

Prayer for Illumination

That your Father in heaven may also forgive your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. And God, I plead with you this morning, as we come to, as some people call it, one of the most difficult passages in Mark, that you would help us to understand it. and that your spirit would apply it to our lives. Please, Father, be with us this morning in Jesus' name. Amen. We come to one of the hardest passages in the book of Mark. Because a lot of people come to this passage and they scratch their heads trying to figure out what in the world does this mean? Why is Jesus doing this? Why did Mark write it this way?

Sermon

The reason for that, if you notice, verses 12 through 14 is a story. Jesus cursing the fig tree. And then you move into Jesus cleansing the temple, right after that, verses 15 through 19. And then right after that, the fig tree reappears. And Jesus teaches them about what that means. And so, my hope is this morning, as we work through this passage together, that you'll make the connection that what was happening in Jerusalem was empty ritualism, and not faith. That what Jesus, the triumphant King, sees when he enters into Jerusalem is not a people who are living out their faith, but a people who are living by the commandments of men and going after their own hearts. And then we'll see how that applies to us.

First Point

So first we need to see how Jesus curses the fig tree in verses 12 through 14. The next day he leaves Jerusalem, he goes to Bethany and he's coming back, it's early in the morning and there's a fig tree. Jesus sees it from afar, he's at a distance, and Jesus walks to the fig tree, and the fig tree is full of leaves. But Jesus goes and he inspects the fig tree and he finds zilp, zich, nada.

Nothing there. And this might not be surprising if the chapter ended there. But the story goes on. In verse 13 it says, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And so people will come to this and they'll scratch their heads now and say, why would Jesus curse a fig tree if it's not time for figs?

Right? Is Jesus like Brian? Is he just ignorant of all agricultural cycles? Is Jesus just totally, you know, outside his mind? Is Jesus just a little bit hangry because it's first thing in the morning and he can't get breakfast yet? Is that what's going on in this passage? Is Jesus that capricious?

No. Now see, when it's the springtime in Israel, figs are one of these interesting plants that they would actually have the leaves come out in the spring and then you would have little tiny green, almost like berries. Most people didn't eat those berries except for poor people. They normally just fell off and then later on the flower would come and from that flower then you would have the full fig that would grow. But you knew that if the little berries in the spring didn't show up first, you weren't going to have any figs later on. That means that the tree had all the looks of being alive, it might have all the leaves there, but in all reality it was dying. Sooner or later, it would grow old and wouldn't be worth anything. So Jesus curses the fig tree. In verse 14, in response to this, when he sees a fig tree that's not actually doing what it's supposed to be doing, what it was made for, he says, let no one eat fruit from you ever again.

And His disciples hear it, right? The guys around Him, they hear this, and then it's kind of like in the back of their minds, and they go into Jerusalem. I'm going to suggest to you this morning that Mark likes to use this. He did it with, in other passages as well, but you might call it like a Mark hamburger, or a Mark sandwich, right? He likes to put one part of a story, and then some meat in it, and then another part of the story, and you have to understand all of it together to get the full flavor. So what's the middle part here? What's the story? Well, Jesus goes into the temple. Jesus goes into the temple and he finds something that he ought not to have found. There's a few things we would have missed here if we don't slow down a little bit.

One is that the fig tree is often used in the Old Testament for God's people. Both as they're supposed to be fruitful, both as they're supposed to be full of flavor like the fig, but also God judges His people and calls them withered fig trees. I've listed them in the outline for you. One of the fun things you might do later on this afternoon is go look them up when you go home. This is how God speaks about His people regularly with the fig tree.

But as Jesus walks down that hill, remember the Mount of Olives is about 800 feet higher than Jerusalem, it's in the morning, the temple faces the east, and as Jesus is walking in the morning, the sunrise would have been coming up behind Jesus, and as He's coming down the Mount of Olives, the front face of the temple, of Herod's temple, was covered in gold. It's so valuable that when the Romans destroy the temple, they literally pulverize the stones, light it on fire to collect the gold that runs off the columns and off the bricks. There's a grandeur of the temple as Jesus walks into it, and He is expecting what we sang in Psalm 84. This is the joy.

They're going to go into God's presence where even the birds get to nest and find rest. This is the place where there's a sanctity and a sense in which all the nations are called to God's temple to go and find wholeness, go and find satisfaction, go and find health for their souls.

But the people, the people had turned From trusting the God who the temple was meant to be, this housing, even though the temple could never actually contain God, to trusting the temple themselves, itself, that they would actually say, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. They would think that somehow they were special because they had the temple of the Lord, but what they were missing was the Lord Himself. It's really easy to get caught up in the glitz and the glamour of the temple and miss the heart of it. Miss what's at the very core, the Holy of Holies, the One who sits upon His throne.

Jesus walks into the temple courts and His nostrils are immediately filled with the smell of animals. And he hears the coins of the money changers. He was expecting and he should have walked in and heard the prayers of the saints. He should have smelt the sacrifices. He should have smelt the incense. There were certain smells that God had instituted when he was the one who instituted the worship, but yet he walks in there and it's a totally different scene.

It's like a flea market in there. People are coming and they brought their blemished free animals and they're going to sell them, right? Well, just instead of bringing your lamb all the way from Galilee, right? That's a long trip. Why don't you just bring your money instead and we'll sell you richly clean animals that you could buy here. But of course, what do they do? Their desire isn't actually for these people's ease, but their desire is that they can line their pockets.

And it's like going to Disneyland. Never buy lemonade at Disneyland. Or the Iowa State Fair, for that matter. The reality is, I'm not saying capitalism is evil. Don't hear that. Brian thinks profit is bad. That's not what I'm saying. But this is not the place for it. Right? People are going there and the people who are selling are motivated by greed.

The same way that they instituted in the temple that to pay the temple tax, you had to pay half a shekel. And they were the ones, the priests said, you can only use this certain type of shekel from Tyre. And so it was constantly being recirculated, right? People would bring their Roman coins from their different areas and they would hand them in and they would get a shekel.

But I'm not sure if you've ever gone to a foreign country and had exchange rates that were unfair before. But this is what was going on in the temple. They're getting rich off of God's people. Guess who are the ones who control those special animals? And that's special cash. It's the priests and the friends of the priests. So the religious authorities are getting wealthy far beyond what they were ever allowed.

Jesus had expected to go into the tavern, into the temple, and when he had went into the temple, he was expecting to see poor people cared for, but instead, if you were the poorest of the dirt poor of Israel, and you couldn't afford a lamb, you couldn't afford a goat, you couldn't afford a ram, you couldn't afford a bull, you could buy a dove. They're even exploiting the poorest of the poor in the temple. Jesus was going expecting to see a fig tree full of leaves and fruit, and instead he finds no fruit. In the temple it has all the outward signs of health and vitality, but inwardly something has gone desperately wrong.

In vain they worship God, teaching the commandments of men. lining their own pockets at the expense of the poor, crowding out the glory of God with their own service to themselves. The priest might carry upon his forehead the gold inscription, Holiness to the Lord, all the while running a racketeering scheme in the court of the Gentiles. The place where the non-Jewish people could come and they could say, we want to see the glory of God, we want to see the holiness of God. There they come, and what do they find? Greed. And corruption. They look like they have piety, but in reality their practice is far from it. And this isn't right. And it's not true religion.

And it's still happening today. Just because people might name the name of Jesus Christ now does not mean that the modern church doesn't still and hasn't historically done this. I'm always somewhat, like, I get it, right? People go to Italy, and they want to go to Rome, and they want to see St. Peter's Basilica, but every time I see my friends who have traveled abroad, and they go to Rome, and they take pictures of the Sistine Chapel, and they'll take pictures of St. Peter's Basilica, and I think of the German peasants, who are in absolute starving as they paid their taxes, and they paid the Pope to build that on false promises. And don't think that evangelicalism isn't this way today.

In a whole bunch of evangelical churches, you walk in the church and what's the first thing you find in the vestibule? Overpriced coffee. You can buy all the merch for the church, but when you come into the worship, where's the prayer? Where's the holiness? Where's the sense that it's God who needs to be worshipped and not we who need to be entertained?

Jesus is mad at this. We just need to put it right out there, right? Jesus is mad. He is furious at this, this corruption and of this taking advantage of people. And Jesus goes in and it's his adrenaline gets pumping. His heart is beating. He grabs the table and with his strength, imagine how much a table weighs with all of the money on it. And he flips over the tables. John tells us that he didn't just do this in a spur of a moment, but he went over to the side, he put together a whip, and he chased out the people who were selling their wares. And he lays it upon them real heavy.

Verse 17, is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations. Isaiah 56, what we read before. This is the place where the eunuch is supposed to be able to come and know that there's a God and find mercy. This is a place where the chaldean is supposed to be able to come and have repentance. This is a place where the Ethiopian is supposed to be able to come and find the holiness of God. But he points it out to them in verse 17, he says, but you, You have made it a den of thieves.

In the Greek, he could have just said this in one word, but instead he decides to double emphasize the you. You. You have made this a den of thieves. You're robbing people. You're corrupt. This is evil. And he calls it out. And of course, this is setting things up.

What's the natural response to the priest to this? Are they just going to be like, oof, man, he just told us, we better repent, better start making our money the right way, we better just, guys, stop selling the temple merch, no more I love Jerusalem shirts, go take that home, sell it on another day, right? No. They're mad. As furious as Jesus was at their corruption, they want to destroy Him.

Their answer is not, oh man, maybe we should listen. Their answer, and this is often the case with sin, when somebody says, you are the man. It's the work of the Holy Spirit that we actually take that to heart. Most of the time, people go, man, I hate that guy. How dare he tell me I'm wrong? And that's what they do here. And the scribes and chief priests heard it and saw how they might destroy him. For they feared him. Why did they fear him? Because all the people were astonished at his teaching.

When evening had come, he went out of the city. And there as Jesus goes out of the city, we have the bottom part of the sandwich. We've had the fig tree, we've had the temple, now we're back to the fig tree. They go out. It's night. And as they go back the next day in the morning, as they pass by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.

You know, I've tried to kill trees before. Sometimes not on purpose. But even if you get like that poison to kill trees, you know, you drill a hole in it, you drop the stuff down in it, you wait until the fall time and you're supposed to light it on fire or whatever. I don't know how this works. I never do it well. But the point is, whenever this happens, right, it doesn't kill the tree overnight. It takes time. But somehow this tree that was green and flourishing and looked great is dead.

And Peter is amazed, verse 21, and Peter remembers saying to him, Rabbi, look, the tree which you cursed has withered away. And Jesus takes things in a different direction. Notice verses 22 through 26, Jesus starts off by saying all of this has been about faith. Did you catch that? So Jesus, verse 22, answered and said to them, have faith in God. Jesus is going to explain to Peter how he was able to say to a fig tree, you're cursed and no one's ever going to eat of you again and the next day it's dead.

And why he would also be able to say to the Jewish people in Jerusalem, we learn in the other Gospels, that in three days the temple is going to be destroyed, in three days it's going to be raised up again. When he prophesies the destruction of the temple, and people think he's absolutely nuts. But guess what happens? 70 AD, the Romans do destroy the temple. But Jesus wasn't even talking about that temple, He was talking about the temple of His own body that they would destroy and three days later it would be raised up from the dead. And Jesus says to the disciples, for assuredly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be removed and be cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

Now this is the good part, right? Right, kids? You get to pray and whatever you pray about, God's gonna give you. Is that what this is saying? Right? I remember when I was a kid, I really, really, really wanted a new BMX bike with the pegs in the front and the back. Right? I could pray for it and God's just gonna magically make it appear, right? You want a new Porsche? What about a new combine? Why don't we just pray for it? Is that what this is saying? Is God just going to dump blessing and prosperity on you if you just believe hard enough?

Brothers and sisters, I've seen this used in a horrible way. I remember when we lived in Pittsburgh, and there was a pastor who said junk like this, but took it to the extreme and told a family member, if you pray hard enough, if you pray hard enough, your daughter who's in that casket will rise again from the dead. If you just pray hard enough and believe hard enough. And then they watch that casket be buried in the ground.

And he wasn't talking about on the resurrection day. He was saying right then and there before their own eyes. There are liars who will try to use this verse and say that if you just pray for whatever you want, whether it's health, wealth, prosperity, anything, God will give it to you. That is not what Jesus is saying here. It's not what the Kingdom of Heaven is about. 1 John will teach us that. Yes, whenever we pray, our Father hears us, but we must pray according to His will. He hears us. But what Jesus is getting at is something even far greater. What the temple was meant to point to.

And what Jesus is going to accomplish, therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them and you will have them. And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him. That your Father in heaven may also forgive your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses. Something more miraculous and moving mountains is going to happen.

Jesus is saying that if we are people of faith, even our sins can be forgiven. The question is, do you believe that? Because God had to move heaven and earth to make it happen. God sent His only begotten Son, in whom the full deity of God dwelled, humbled Himself in the form of the likeness of man, and truly did enter into that temple as the King and God-man Himself. And He's declaring, something more miraculous is happening, and something better than the temple is with you. And if you pray, your Father in Heaven will forgive you of your sins.

And then we, as redeemed people, get to do the miraculous thing as well. We get to turn around and forgive others. That is not the way the world wants to teach you. The world wants to teach you today to do what's good for you. It's okay to hold a grudge. It's okay to be bitter. It's okay to hold that person off at a distance and never forgive them for the slights that they have done to you.

But that's not how Jesus Christ came. He came while we were yet sinners and saved us. He moved heaven and earth to make it happen. And this is why He calls us together now to come and worship Him in spirit and truth. not to have empty religion, not to trust in signs and symbols, but to have a vital faith that clings to Jesus Christ Himself.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Father, we pray that You would forgive us for how often we don't want to forgive others. Lord, we pray that you would do the miraculous and that you might even change our own hearts. Lord, that you would make us believe in you, that we would have faith, and that we would not get sucked into the trappings of religion, in a formulaic way, but that we would truly trust you. Lord, we pray whether we've just started along that path or whether we've lived it our whole lives and now we're old and gray. Father, we pray that you would please even cleanse the temple of our own hearts, that we would come to you and that we would worship you. In Jesus's name.

We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.