The Blessings and Curses of Jesus

Covenant Baptist Church

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So if you remember last week, I told you that we had ended a section, and that section was bookended by blindness.

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And so if you end a section, that means that we start a new one. And I'm just going to warn you right now.

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For this section, you need to buckle up, because there is a lot of judgment, and there's also going to be some things that a lot of you guys have probably never heard.

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We live in an evangelical environment where what I am going to teach and what

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I firmly believe the Word of God says is probably not exactly how you've heard it for a lot of your life.

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So it falls on me to defend the teaching and defend what the Scripture says and to defend it in context.

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So I titled this one, in full disclosure, I was behind the wheel of a semi -truck for much of the week, and you're kind of like dead to the world when you're in there.

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You can't look at your phone, you can't do any of that stuff, and I was late in the week in getting to the structure of this text, and the newsletter goes out, and I have to have a title.

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And so I've titled this one, The Blessing and Curses of Jesus. The title that I probably would have gone with had I known it earlier would be

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Fig Sandwich Hold the Fig, because that's kind of what's going on here, is that we have this metaphor of a fig tree in the middle of blessings.

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So if you want to think about it, the dour, pessimistic way to look at this is this is a cursed sandwich today in the text.

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So the bread is the good part, and what's in the middle is not good. It's really bad, actually.

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So the rhythm of this passage is hope, then curse, then judgment, then hope.

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So what happens is we have to understand that Jesus, we don't think of this often, but Jesus brings both blessing and curse, and he's always done that in his ministry, and there are two types of people.

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There are those who are blessed by God, and there are those who are cursed. If you have faith in King Jesus, then you are blessed.

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If you don't have faith, then you are cursed. And so Jesus brings a dividing line.

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He brings it to families. He brings it to friends. He brings it to communities. He brings it to nations, that you will bow the knee to Jesus and be blessed, or you will deny

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Christ and you will be cursed. And here's what we have to understand about cursing. I think all of us get blessing, but I don't think we get it when we're thinking about God.

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So quick example, could be humorous. There was a lot of this yesterday, but we were playing scrambles golf.

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I was on a team with Brady and Joe Price from over at Grace. We get on this hole. It's probably one of the easiest holes on the course.

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It's a short par four. There's a creek you got to cross that's like, I mean, it's 30 yards in front of you.

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No big deal. So Brady steps up to the tee, smokes it in the water. Joe steps up to the tee, dribbles it into the water.

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I step up to the tee, I'm like, okay, just an easy one. Right down the middle, smoke it under the bridge into the water.

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Okay? And at that moment, the thought, every thought of my mind was cursing this ball, right?

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And not cursing myself, kind of, but cursing the situation. But the problem is we curse all the time and we think about cursing all the time, but the issue is we don't have the power to really curse anything.

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But when God curses, then that's death. And that's death without recovery.

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So I think as we look at this, there's a marvel to the disciples as they see what happens.

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And they are blown away by the fig tree, but I think what's going on in the temple is ultimately what's going to confuse them and blow them away even more as we go into this section where much is going to be taught about the temple.

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So I've looked at the first part. The first part is hope, and as is apt, I've labeled this part of the sermon, the return of the king.

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Okay? I know, I know. Eye roll. There it is. So the first 11 verses, this is a very famous piece of scripture.

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It's called the triumphal entry, right? Palm Sunday. And so Jesus has approached Jerusalem and he is there.

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And now he's staying in these two villages that are right up on the

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Mount of Olives, okay? And so as he's making camp there, he's going to show us right away, as this is a triumphal entry of a king, right?

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The people recognize him as a king. And the king, this is a different kind of king because this kind of king brings spiritual blessings and curses.

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But before we get into that, we have to remember what's just happened with Mark, and it's really brilliant when you look at it.

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If you remember the last section, what was it about? Blindness and sight, right? So what is the coming of this king?

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Is Jesus going to walk in to Jerusalem or ride into Jerusalem on the colt? The first thing that he demonstrates is that he is a king who has supernatural perfect sight.

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There is no shadow in the sight of Jesus Christ because what he does is he says that his triumphal entry has been long prepared and he prepared it.

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And so he's going to speak to the disciples to do something that no human being could have possibly known was going to happen.

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Jesus tells them to go to a village opposite and to find a colt immediately as they enter this village that's tied up.

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In other words, this is a preordained, predestined foal of a donkey.

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This donkey was delivered before the dawn of time to be tied up in this village for the king to send his elect before the dawn of time disciples to come and get his ride.

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So they walk into the village and there is the colt just as Jesus said that he would be there.

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And he says, tell them the Lord has need of it if they ask questions. Very curious, we see something right away.

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This is a word that Mark has not used very often. This word for Lord is the word kurios. And that word has a meaning of dominion and overlord.

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This is often how we say the Lord in the Greek. This is what

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Mark is doing and it's rare in the text. We've seen a lot of teacher. We've seen a lot of son of man using that kind of Jewish kingly title.

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But here it is the Lord and the Lord has need of this foal. Isn't that strange? Isn't that strange because we see here both

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Jesus' deity in knowing the prophecy, but we also see Jesus' manliness, right?

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He is a man. He has need of this foal to ride in. And so everything is as they say.

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And they bring the colt back and so Jesus is going to ride into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey.

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Now, it would be normal for a pedestrian to walk in to Jerusalem and if they were important to have maybe some fanfare, but it would be fitting for a king to ride in with the fanfare.

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But we get from the donkey that this is a different kind of king, right? He is the king who is a humble servant.

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He is the fulfillment of all the suffering servant prophecies of Isaiah, that he has come in to die, that he is humble.

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He has perfect vision, but the people are hoping for something different. And we know this, right?

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Not as Americans so much, but we know in America we have a weak king, right? A very weak king that's called a president.

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It's kind of become more and more like a king as time has gone by where they just declare things to happen and they happen and the

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Congress doesn't do anything and then the court kind of gripes a little bit, but they don't really do anything either.

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But in this day, if you understand, like this is all happening where we have just seen one of the most monumental kings of all time in Augustus Caesar, right?

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Where what happens is when Augustus Caesar becomes the king, he brings peace. And the reason he brings peace is because to war against him is to die.

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And so this is the context as Jesus comes in and the Jews in Jerusalem are proclaiming this thing and they're saying that this king has come, the son of David, that the throne is going to be rebuilt.

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That's a dangerous thing they're saying because Augustus Caesar is king, right? And Augustus Caesar will squash you if you want to interfere with Pax Romana.

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It truly is peace through strength. And so what happens is as Jesus is walking in, he has this power and we have to understand that faith in the king is going to be rewarded.

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Those who are laying the palm branches down, those who are laying their garments down, this symbolically show we are subservient, right?

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You are making your way, you're a king that's a victor, that's coming in to get his spoils. If we have faith in Christ, we gain all of the spoils and the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven.

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Jesus has secured those for his people. And as he rides in, the prophecy begins to unfold and it had to happen just this way.

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See Zechariah 9, 9 said, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Make a loud shout,

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O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and endowed with salvation.

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Boy, that's curious, isn't it? He is righteous. That means he is completely lawful, right?

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He has followed all the law and he is endowed with salvation. But the paradox, he is lowly and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a pack animal.

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So as Jesus enters, it should recall another picture and I remembered it as soon as we got here in this text.

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I remembered the Philistines' fear of God in 1 Samuel 6, 7. And I remember dad reading this text.

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So there's a curious word in this. You'll get it. 1 Samuel 6, 7 says, So now take and make a new cart and two milch cows on which there has never been a yoke and hitch the cows to the cart and take their calves home away from them.

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Now if you remember this section in Samuel, what had happened is the Philistines had whipped the Israelites, had taken the

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Ark of the Covenant, and their idol, Dagon, kept falling down.

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And eventually he fell down and had his hands and his head cut off. And the Philistines are going, whoa, whoa, we don't want this

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Ark here anymore. So what they do is they take a cart and they put the Ark on it and they put a bunch of like golden pieces.

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And what they're doing is they are making a procession on lowly animals for the King of Kings.

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And so in this sense, I see that this donkey, it mirrors something that's happened before. That many times there's a paradox and the

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King of Kings or the Ark of the Covenant or God Almighty comes in among his people and he comes in with humble exterior trappings, which would be like the

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Advent, right? Where the God and the King of all creation comes and is born in a manger with swaddling cloths.

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And there's no fanfare, right? There is no royal ceremony or anything like that.

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And I think that here we have an illusion of God returning to his kingdom as he has done many times in the past, many, many times.

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So everything happened just as the Lord had said in the people, quote, Psalm 118, 25 and 26, as it says in the

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Psalm, O Lord, save, O Lord, succeed. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the

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Lord. We have blessed you from the house of the Lord. This is a Hallel of Egypt. That Psalm is.

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And the idea was that it was recalling just as we sung this morning, right? In that rich Psalm 78, it is recalling this idea that God had saved his people from Egypt through the waters and that he was going to provide for them.

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If you had just crossed the Red Sea in the high of that salvation, you would have been praising God and thinking who can ever come against God's people.

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He splits seas for his people. And so the people are hopeful and they quote this

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Psalm and they say Hosanna, which means literally save us, we pray. Save us, we pray,

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O King of David, son of David, save us, we pray. And so once again, the people desire the kingdom.

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But the question for Jerusalem is, do they desire the king? Because there's only one way to get this kingdom and that is to have faith in this king.

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There is no other way. So that is the fanfare. And everything looks like it's going exactly right, doesn't it?

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The prophecies being fulfilled, the people greeting their king as he walks into town, shouts of acclamation, we recognize

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God is here, save us God, we pray. That's the right thing to say, isn't it? And as Jesus comes in, he gets tired and they leave for the night, okay?

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And the next morning we have a far different scene. And this is the metaphor of the fig tree. I'm going to read it in its entirety, starting in verse 12.

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I think this is the key passage of this text, okay? So follow along with me in verse 12 through 14.

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And on the next day, when they had left Bethany, he became hungry. And seeing at a distance a fig tree that had leaves, he went to see if perhaps he would find anything on it.

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

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And his disciples were listening. A couple of curiosities before we get to the main thing, okay?

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I mean, my first question, it's probably yours, right, if you're reading closely. The question that I would have is, what did the fig tree do wrong, okay?

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What's wrong? This fig tree, it's not even supposed to have figs right now, right? No figs. And it gets cursed and withers and dies because it had no figs when it was out of season.

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But I think there's something very important going on with that. A couple of things. This is another piece of how church tradition puts

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Easter where we put it, right? Is that the fig tree would have been out of season between March and May, okay?

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And it would have been leafy and greened out, but not time for fruit. And so this is another marker, as we saw, the triumphal entry, and this is the time of year.

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So guess what? Contrary to what the pagans say, we're not following like solstice, equinox stuff to place

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Easter. That's a bunch of nonsense, and it's not about rabbits, okay? Church history has held that Easter comes in the spring, and this is one of those reasons, okay?

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So we date it here. But the other thing that you absolutely must get here, that everyone understand, no matter what stripe you are, and if you know, you know, but I'll tell you, both covenantal theologians and dispensationalists believe this same thing.

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And that thing is very clear here, and that is the fig tree obviously represents

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Israel. Obviously. There is no debate about that, okay? The fig tree represents

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Israel. That brings us to some controversial places, though. So let's look.

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Why do we get that? Why does it obviously represent Israel? Because of what's going on, and because of what happens afterward, and what happened before.

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But we also have prophecies, Jeremiah 8 13, I will surely gather them up, declares Yahweh. There will be no grapes on the vine, and no figs on the fig tree, and the leaf will wither, and what

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I have given them will pass away. That is a very important prophecy, okay? Remember that one.

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Very important. Jeremiah 8 13, if you need to mark it down. Go back there. Hosea 9 16,

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Ephraim is stricken. Their root is dried up. They will bear no fruit.

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Even though they bear children, I will put to death the desirable ones of their womb. So what's going on here?

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The fig tree is cursed. The fig tree does not have fruit, and it's out of season. And Jesus curses it, and says that no one will ever eat from it again.

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And this is a metaphor for Israel. And so that brings us to several points here, okay?

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First of all, we're going to see it in the next section. Israel has a lot of activity, but there's no fruit.

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There's a lot of signs of apparent life, right? The temple is beautiful, and it's blossoming out, and the

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Jews are very proud of their temple, and there's tons of people in there, and there's a lot of religious activity going on in the temple.

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The problem is, there's absolutely no fruit. So what is fruit? We have to define that, right?

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The fig tree's fruit is easy to find. It's figs. What was supposed to be the fruit of Israel? Well, let's go back to that very basic thing that Ted Cruz got very, very wrong, okay?

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And that is this. That is this. The fruit was to be the covenant with Abraham that the

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Jews put all of their stock in, right? The covenant with Abraham was going to be that his descendants would be like the sands of the seashore and the stars of the night, and that anyone who blessed him would be blessed, and anyone who cursed him would be cursed.

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The nations would be saved through the witness of Abraham. And so when

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Jesus comes back, it's not arbitrary that he starts giving all these parables about vine dressers and vineyards, because the thing is is that Israel had wild grapes that were no good.

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They were not cultivated grapes. They were definitely not those cotton candy grapes or whatever that are like that big around and like weigh a pound apiece.

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They were not like that. They had no grapes. They had no fruit. They had dried up. Israel was not a blessing to the nations, because what they had done is they had holed up inside and said, salvation is not for the nations.

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Salvation's for us and us only, and we will shun everybody out there. You are unclean, and we don't want you.

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Sound like anybody we know today. That's what Israel was doing.

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They holed up in their enclave, and they held all of their heritage and all of their oracle, all of those prophets and prophecies, and one branch of them had even cut off the prophecies.

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They said, ah, we don't need that. We just need Torah. They blasphemed the word of God, and if Israel is the fig tree, then we see the first point is that Israel has no fruit, just like the fig tree had no fruit.

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Now it gets worse. I'm sorry. It gets worse. This is going to be bad, okay? The tree was out of season, and it was cursed from the roots, right?

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It dies. That's to show how much more severe it is for Israel, because guess what?

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Israel's in season. How do we know that? How do we know that? Well, I'll tell you this.

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What was going to be the high point of Israel? They would have all told you. The high point is when their king comes back onto the throne.

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They had looked for it. They had been exiled. The kingdom had been split, because Solomon's son had, in his rashness, had split the kingdom, and then they were waiting and waiting and waiting, and they never recovered their full glory, and it's

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Gentile oppressor after Gentile oppressor, and here they go. They finally got a temple back that was built by a pagan that they absolutely hated, but they love the temple, okay?

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They are sitting here, and they're doing all this religious activity, and the season hits. It's the prime time for fruit, because their king has returned, and he teaches with authority, and he has given the words of life, and he's brought salvation and forgiveness, and he's brought the new covenant that is pushing in here, and the old covenant is going away, and it's being fulfilled and shown in glorious light, and in this season, in the prime time for figs,

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Israel has no fruit. So what's the Lord going to do with his people when they look at the promise that they based their whole way of life on with Abraham, and they say, no, that's not for the nations, that's for us only, and what's

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God going to do when the people who, they acknowledge God with their lips, but with their actions, they turn everyone away from his oracles, they store up religiosity, and they rip off the masses by dispensing it at a high price.

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What's God going to do with that? Well, we know from Amos, we know from Micah, that what

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God is going to do is when he sees the upper crust class of his people who sit in leisure, and they put heavy oppressions and burdens on the poor, and they store up riches for themselves, and they covet it all, and they bring it all in, that God is going to bring calamity on that people.

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So that's what's going on. See, this fig tree, the reason that it was cursed is because it didn't have fruit at the right time, did it?

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What was the right time for this fig tree to have fruit? Was it not when the Lord required it of the tree?

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Does it matter if it's a season? We've already seen Jesus demonstrate that the weather is nothing to him.

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The climate is nothing to him. Sickness and disease is nothing to him. The forces of the enemy are nothing to him.

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With a word, he disarms all of that. He calms the wind and the storms. We saw it two times, that he calms them with his word.

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And so what we see here is that the fig tree is judged because the fig tree was preordained as a vessel of destruction to show that God has ordained both his enemies and his friends.

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And from that time out of mind, when this fig tree grew from a seed, it was appointed one time, just like Judas, to be an object of destruction and curse because when the

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Lord required fruit, it didn't have fruit. It was really the only time in this fig tree's history that it needed to bear fruit, and it didn't.

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And the reason why is because God appoints the seasons, and this fig tree had no fruit.

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Now, if that wasn't hard enough, let me do one more thing, okay? May no one eat fruit from you again.

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Controversial, but true, and the disciples definitely would have understood this. Understand very clearly, this fig tree would never again produce fruit for anyone to eat.

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Similarly, what does that mean? The Lord's salvation plan would never again come through this fig tree, which is

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Israel. Israel is not, is not the oracle of God's salvation anymore.

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Unless you define Israel as being the church. And the church is

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God's agent and God's people who go on mission to make disciples and teach them.

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The authority of God goes behind the church because in the new covenant, there's a new Israel. And this new

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Israel has secured all of the promises given to Abraham because every promise given to Abraham, Moses, Noah, Adam, David find their yes in Jesus.

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That's what that means in the New Testament. When it says all the promises find their yes in Jesus, it means all of the covenants find their yes in Jesus.

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He fulfilled every single one of them. So what happened is Jesus came to wrap up the old covenant and institute the new.

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And the reason the time of the old covenant was ending was because Israel was out of fruit when it was in season and they had been out of fruit for centuries.

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No fruit. And the covenant is old. And God would say in the new covenant, in Hebrews, he would say that there was a fault in the old covenant.

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And the fault was that all of this was mixed together because it was a covenant of flesh, right?

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To be a Jew, there were national promises. You would be circumcised and you're in with the people. You got to access the holy places of the temple as a

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Jew because of your circumcision. But that was a fault because we couldn't tell by looking who's who.

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And today in the new covenant, there is no such fault because every person in the church has been spiritually regenerated.

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And we don't have to be taught the law because the Holy Spirit is inside of us and he gives us the law. Just like the ones in the

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Old Testament who had the Holy Spirit, they knew the law, but the fault was not that the Holy Spirit didn't indwell people in those days.

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The fault of the old covenant was that they were all mixed together. You couldn't look at somebody and go, God's elect.

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No, you saw a Jew and that was God's elect. And that's how the people walked. But never again, never again.

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See, Jesus lived a righteous one, just as the prophet described. He was righteous and he brought salvation.

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He was endowed with it and he would become the chief cornerstone of the new temple, which is absolutely and emphatically the church.

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The temple of God is the church. Jesus has come and God has come to live among his people in the church.

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And you are living stones of this temple. The old temple, as we'll see, would be torn down and not one stone would stand upon another.

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That means the complete annihilation of the old covenant because the new covenant has come in. The old covenant is obsolete.

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And today you are the living stones. That's what we learned from the fig tree.

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Let's recap. It didn't have fruit when the Lord required it, so it was cursed. It had a lot of leaves.

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It looked like it was very healthy, but it wasn't doing what it was designed to do, so it was cursed.

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No one would ever eat from it again out of its curse. So it is that Israel also,

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Israel also would be cursed for their lack of fruit in season, not even out of season, a worse judgment.

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That Israel would be cursed because they had a lot of religious activity with no heart for the

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Lord. Their mouths were near him, but their hearts were far, far away. And finally, salvation does not come from Israel anymore.

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It came from the root of Jesse and it came from the tree itself. We are branches, not the roots and not the stump.

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Jesus is the root. He is the vine. He is the source and the wellspring of all salvation.

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And that's what he brought. So now we look at the curse of Jesus as he walks in. This has been in a way really, really badly mistitled in a lot of your subheadings.

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This is not the cleansing of the temple. Understand Jesus doesn't cling in anything here. This is a teardown.

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OK, this is an inspection. And I found you are out of chances.

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You have broken the health violations like Leviticus says for the last time and you will be destroyed. Inspection, inspection, final judgment.

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So let's read it. Verse 15. Then they came to Jerusalem and he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves.

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And he was not permitting anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. And he began to teach and say to them, is it not written?

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My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations. But you have made it a robber's den. And the chief priest and the scribes heard this and began seeking how to destroy him.

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For they were afraid of him. For the whole crowd was astonished at his teaching.

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Now we see that the picture is even worse than we were given an impression with the fig tree, didn't we?

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We just saw that the fig tree had no fruit. What we see in this passage is that the fig tree of Israel, not only does it have no fruit, it has anti -fruit.

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Not only does it not bear fruit, it hates fruit. It doesn't want anything to do with it.

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So what's going on? Visitors to Israel plundered. You walk into Israel, you're going to get stolen from.

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You think that you're going to be a God -fearing Jew? Guess what's going to happen from the ruling elites? They're going to steal from you and they're going to pull back all of the riches that you have and they're going to bring it into the inner sanctum of the temple.

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They have made the house of worship into a robber's den, like Alibaba and the 40 thieves.

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Open Sesame and you see all the treasures that they'd raided from every village around.

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That's what's going on. Do you see that Jerusalem has become a curse on the people of Israel? Instead of it being the center where you come and you pray and you're sacrificially washed and you're made clean and the priests make mediation for you, instead of that being the case, what happened is

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Jerusalem became the seat of thievery and robbery. And so the country was being pillaged.

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They were being pillaged with their physical goods. Their money was being taken. Their animals were being taken. But more importantly than that, and much more costly than that, they were being spiritually ravaged by the priests and the scribes.

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They came for salvation. They came to be right with God. And what they were given was dead legalism and dead works.

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They were far from God. And we know that if the sheep don't have a shepherd, then they will be scattered and the wolf will devour.

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And so as Jesus comes onto the scene in Israel, he comes at a time where we've seen over and over and over and mark that there is a hard -headed, hard -hearted generation that does not care about the things of God and they use religion for money.

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Buy low, sell high was the way it went with clean animals in town.

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You want to come worship God rightly? Well, you're going to have to pay a price, brother, because your animals aren't very clean and ours are the cleanest anywhere.

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So if you don't want to be like Cain, then you better bring your pocketbook and you better dole out.

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You bringing Roman coins in here with a picture of Caesar on them? Forget you. Those are unholy Gentile coins.

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You come over this table and exchange those for some holy shekels. And with these holy shekels, we're going to give you a rate on that exchange.

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Okay? That's what's going to happen. Oh, and by the way, this whole temple, you know, it's really beautiful and all that, but it's a long way to walk around the city.

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If you've got to get from one side to the other, you can just cut through the temple. It's a shortcut. No big deal. Just drive on through there.

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Drive your cattle, drive everything through there. It'll be okay. It's just the court of the Gentiles anyway.

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And who cares about those filthy dogs? That's the situation in the temple. And so what happens is when

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Jesus comes in, he blocks the way. You're not going to be coming through here anymore. He throws over the tables.

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And then most importantly, I think we miss this a lot. And people in our camp like to do this. They like to say, well, you think

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Jesus is low? We remember when he turned over the temples or the tables. I've heard that so many times. Okay? I don't want to focus on that this morning.

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What Jesus does most importantly in this section is he teaches. And he teaches with authority.

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And it's the teaching that scares the absolute living daylights out of the chief, the scribes, and all of the chief priests in there.

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Because the teaching is with authority. And the teaching is just what he said, isn't it? He brings out scripture and he says, you are destroying this temple.

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You are defiling it. When Daniel talked about an abomination of desolation, you guys sure are mirroring it right now.

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You look like Eli's sons in this temple, don't you? You remember them? Where they were coming in, you would go into the temple and they would just steal your stuff.

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And God's anger burned against Eli's sons. And so as Jesus himself comes in and he teaches in the temple and he gives the word of God in the temple and the response of the leaders in the temple is that they have to find a way to kill him.

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Is God going to take that lightly? No. And what we have to understand is this for us.

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We're not Jesus, right? But when we make righteous stands as Jesus did here, guess what's going to happen? People are going to get mad at you.

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You know who's going to really get mad at you? Elites. The people who are in charge. Because by definition, elites don't like things to get changed around and turned upside down, right?

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Elites are comfortable in the way things are operating. And so they want to keep it that way. And so if you come in and start acting like a bull in a china shop and declaring like John the

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Baptist did that you need to not take someone else's wife or you're going to burn in hell for that, you start saying things like that, it makes people angry and they're going to fight back.

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But you know what we've not seen in the church in a long time is we've not seen people who are willing to do that and who are willing to stand firm and we are discouraged and the sheep are discouraged as time after time after time our leaders bow to the culture and bow to the desires of those who would steal spiritually and we're disappointed over and over again.

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Because as it says in the great movie Braveheart, men don't follow titles, they follow courage. And that's the truth.

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But guess what? In the absence of courage, do you know what we follow? Titles. Titles.

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We follow celebrities. We follow titles. We follow that. And when there's no courage, we follow them to nowhere.

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See, understand the lesson of the fig tree was very clear to us. Jesus didn't come to cleanse the temple to destroy it.

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Listen to this passage, 1 Corinthians 3, 16 and 17. We'll be here again soon. Do you not know that you are a sanctuary of God?

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This is after the new covenant, right? And that the spirit of God dwells in you. If any man destroys the sanctuary of God, God will destroy him.

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For the sanctuary of God is holy and that is what you are. Isn't the new covenant amazing?

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I'm pulled over by the hope of it. Can you imagine thinking of this? God has declared it, right?

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You are the sanctuary of God and the sanctuary of God is holy.

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That's what you are. You know your thoughts on a daily basis, don't you? You know when you sin.

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And did you know that what you are is holy? Isn't that an incredible thing? That's because God has done that.

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But we also see with a lesson that this temple, Herod's temple in Jerusalem is far from being holy.

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And what's going to happen when people destroy the temple, when they destroy the holiness of the temple, the temple will be destroyed.

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See, the temple was for the nations. The promise of Abraham was always first for the Jew, but then to the Gentile, because they were supposed to give the nations the law of God.

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It was supposed to be a magnet that people would come in and they would say, wow, Israel, your laws are so amazing.

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How do you have this wisdom? And that's what happened with Solomon, wasn't it? Solomon's administration of the law brought all of the kings of other nations to come in and marvel at his wisdom.

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What was Solomon's wisdom? He properly interpreted and applied God's law. That's what happened.

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And the people came in and it was always supposed to be that way. But in this temple, it was hold off and there was third -class citizen area for the

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Gentiles. And this is where all of this happens. Jesus comes in and he teaches and he throws over these tables in the court of the

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Gentiles so that everyone can see it. And he quotes Isaiah 56, 7 about this is a house of prayer.

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And he quotes Jeremiah 7, 11, which is talking about it being a den of robbers. And I would encourage you to read it.

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If you go back, I've got you Jeremiah 8 already. I'm going to give you Jeremiah 7, verses 12 through 15. That was speaking of the promised destruction of Solomon's temple.

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So understand this is an edict. When Jesus says that you have made it a den of robbers, what he is saying there is that I'm going to destroy it just like Solomon's temple was destroyed.

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Who destroyed that? The evil Babylonians. And then there's a connection, right? What did the

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Babylonians do? They had the greatest king, the head of gold, who we knew was going to be crushed by a rock.

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That is the son of man, right? It all happened right there. And Jesus is saying this temple is about to be destroyed and the

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Jews would be amazed by that. How are we doing?

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How is God's church today? We know that we are the temple. We are the sanctuary. But we also know that as a body, that there's a special thing.

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Houston taught us that from the 1689 on Wednesday, that the local expression is a beautiful thing.

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The local expression is a means of grace. The local expression is how God sanctifies his people.

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That's the boots on the ground. And so we have to ask, are we in it for the money? Are we in it for power?

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Are we defiling? Are we closed off and not preaching the message to those who are outside the walls?

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And I think we have to answer soberly. And we have to understand this. It is an incredibly fearful thing to blaspheme the house of God.

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You should be very, very afraid. I can think of few things in scripture that God takes more seriously than the purity of the worship in his house.

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Because it's God's house. And he instituted it. And every single one of you today was appointed before time to be here this morning.

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That's an incredible thought. God has ordained it. God has ordained that you would hear it.

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And what we see today is that we need reformation. Do we not? We have to have reformation.

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Because as we see, time after time, our leaders fall. They fall into moral depravity.

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They fall into cowardice. Over and over again, we have pulpits that are occupied by men or women who are trying to get as much treasure as they can possibly get.

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It is making the house of God a den of robbers. Come give me some seed money so you can grow your wealth.

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That's what was going on in the temple. It's the same thing. When it's about me having a laid -back, cushy job so that I can prepare to talk to you for 40 minutes a week, that's not good.

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The ox is supposed to be threshing out the grain. That means that he is tied to that heavy load pulling it all day long.

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That's the picture of a pastor that's worthy of double honor. It's not the guy who's country clubbing it, playing golf with his buddies, maybe taking a couple of lunch meetings and then talking to you guys for 40 minutes a week.

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Let me give you something. That's not a hard job. Do you understand that? That's a very easy job.

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Working three hours a week is not taxing on anyone. Pastors are not to work three hours a week.

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They're to labor for their flock. Pastors are to earn their wages because by example, you follow.

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It's an important concept. But what's happening is we see in vivid display, what was going on in the temple is we had chief priests and religious leaders who were fleecing their people.

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They didn't care about their people. Their people were walking money bags to them, just offering farms that you milk every once in a while.

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That's what happened. It was distasteful. So let's turn the corner and look at the blessings and on a positive note.

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When the evening came, they were going out of the city and as they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots and being reminded, that's funny to me, being reminded,

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I'm pretty sure he remembered pretty well, right? Rabbi, look at the fig tree which you cursed.

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It's withered. Now, understand this and this is sober.

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Jesus' curses will surely come to pass. John 3 reminds us, right? That the son of man, he did not come into the world to condemn the world, but through him, the world might be saved.

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But those who saw the light were saved, but those who did not see the light, that they were sons of darkness, they were condemned already.

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Because what light does is it exposes dark deeds. There are people who are cursed by Jesus.

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They are made just like the fig tree before time to be cursed by Jesus. We don't know who they are, so we preach the gospel that all men would hear and believe and repent.

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But Jesus' curses are strong and they will come to pass and that's why we should not make a mockery by invoking

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God's name and cursing people. That's blasphemy. That's using the Lord's name in vain.

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That's what it really means, taking something that is uncommon and emptying it of its power. But we see something else in this passage, and this is it.

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Jesus turns and he says, have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him.

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For this reason, I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them and they will be granted to you.

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And whatever you stand, whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone so that your

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Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. This is really harmonizes with John 15, 7.

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We've been there with the vine already this morning. He says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

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See, doubt comes when we have a lack of faith in the promises of God. If your prayer life is dull, if your prayer life seems ineffective, probably the first thing you need to do is actually start praying, okay?

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That's a good step. We should pray. You know what? We don't got this. Did you know that, people?

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We don't have it. We don't have it under control. You ever tried to forgive somebody with willpower?

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You can't. You can't. The human heart does not allow offenses to go by unpunished.

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It does not. If you want to forgive, you have to pray to the Holy Spirit that he would give you those riches of God to forgive.

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And the reason that we need to forgive is there's added incentive in it. Don't we want God to forgive us? He has forgiven us of 10 billion times as much as we'll ever be asked to forgive anyone.

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Anyone else have. No one has committed high treason against God against you.

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Did you know that? But you have committed high treason against God. And it stirs up his wrath.

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But as we sang this morning, his wrath is given away in his mercy to those who love him. But if your prayer life is ineffectual, let me give you a few things to do here.

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You're gonna have to be a student of the word and you're gonna have to listen to teaching. But if you want your prayer life to be better, do these things.

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First of all, do it, okay? Pray. Set aside time to do it. It's the most important thing you can do. I'm not saying that because I have to as a

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Christian TM. I'm saying it because you have to pray. You will not walk the Christian life if you don't pray.

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You will not have holiness if you don't pray. This church will succeed in nothing if we don't pray.

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We must pray. But when we pray, how do we pray? Well, let's do this.

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We pray God's promises. To pray God's promises, we have to know God's promises.

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So read, study, know God's promises, and then pray for them. And this is very linked. We pray scripture.

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We pray scripture. We quote it back to him. It honors God when we pray his words to him because his words are far more powerful and just far better than anything we have to say.

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We pray from a forgiving heart. We pray from a forgiving heart. And like unto that, we pray for forgiveness.

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We pray for forgiveness from God. We also pray for forgiveness from people that have wronged us and people that we've wronged.

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And finally, we pray humbly. We don't have the power. We never will.

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God is in control. See, understand this when we pray. This is what it means. These verses always confused me when

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I was a kid. It was like, pray for a mountain to go in the sea and it'll happen. No, it won't.

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What's Jesus doing? Would it be hard for God to answer a prayer that a mountain would be thrown into the sea? No, it would not be difficult at all.

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But what God is showing you here is that when you pray according to God's will, it will surely happen. So if your prayer requests are not being answered, it's time to take a look in the mirror and understand that you might be praying selfishly.

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Will God progress the mission of making disciples? Absolutely. He's promised that we will do it.

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He has promised to give authority to that endeavor. See, there's not one shred, not one tiny piece of God's promises that will ever fail.

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So we can pray for them in confidence. That's why it's so important that we pray God's promises. Will we weep as those who grieve without hope?

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No, even in death, we pray God's promises that he will comfort us, that he will bring that spirit who comforts us and brings the peace that passes all understanding.

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That is a promise to God's people. He will deliver. Don't doubt. Don't doubt.

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See, let me give you some prayers for this week, some things to think about that God will surely answer. Here we go.

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He has promised these things. Pray that we can live and be more sanctified day by day.

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Pray that. He will answer it. Pray that we can love one another. Pray that we can make disciples.

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Pray that we can teach and learn God's commands. Pray that we will be united in the church.

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That's an important prayer for this afternoon, isn't it? It's an important prayer always, but today is a big day.

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Pray that we would be united. Pray in your house that you will uphold your marriage vows. When's the last time you did that?

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Day by day. Lord, I pray that I will be faithful and true and uphold all the vows that I made in front of my family and friends to my wife.

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I don't think I've ever prayed that prayer. Shame on me. That's a promise of God. He will hold you to it.

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Pray that we will teach and disciple our kids. We need that here, don't we? Pray that we will do it.

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Finally, last one. There could be hundreds. Pray that we will humble ourselves and that we will serve.

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Pray that we would do that. Pray that we would have servants here. Pray that we would have humility. Guys, one last thing.

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Conflict is coming for us. There's no avoiding it. He used to talk about in the confession, it's there, right?

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It's there, that we're gonna have issues with each other. When we have issues with one another, we should pray for humility, and we should pray to forgive, and we should pray for forgiveness, and God will surely answer those things.

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This church, this church, if we wanna be unified, we have to pray for unity. You ever tried to willpower your way into unity with someone?

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It's not gonna happen. You're just gonna get madder and madder. You're gonna see every slight. Pray for unity, and maybe we will be unified.

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Not maybe, surely, right? God has promised it to his people. He will unify us in the spirit.

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Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we are thankful for your promises.

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We're thankful for your blessings, Lord. We know as your people that you have not given us some blessings,

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Lord, but you have opened the storehouses of heaven, and you have lavished riches on your people, riches that we can hardly even imagine.

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Lord, chief among those is the hope, the blessed hope that one day we will open our eyes, and we will see you.

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Lord, the old covenant passed away with its shadows, and the new covenant came with more clarity, and we are benefactors of that.

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We see it, Lord. We see the beautiful clarity of the new covenant, but Lord, we long for even more clarity, where one day this will look like a shadow as we look on your face, and we no longer have need of faith,

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Lord, because the reality of your promises is looking us right in the face. Lord, what a blessed day that will be.

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Help us as we take communion today to understand that it's a foretaste and a shadow of what you have promised for your people.

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Promises of redemption, promises of grace, promises of holiness, promises of unity and fellowship, promises of victory over our enemies, promises of eternal life, abundant life, rich life, every spiritual blessing, and one day, every physical blessing.

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Lord, help us to believe we don't believe. Take away our unbelief and give us belief,

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Lord, that we would trust in your promises, that we would not doubt, and then finally, Lord, that we would ask according to what you will.

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Lord, you've revealed it to us through Scripture. I pray that we would be a people of Scripture who pray it back to you and pray on your promises knowing that there is an unseen conviction that they will happen.

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They are more sure than anything we see with our eyes. Help us to see, Lord. Help us to see that the tent we're in right now is as nothing compared to the eternal dwellings that you have prepared for us.

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And maybe our faith will grow, Lord, but it definitely will if we trust. Give us trust,