All That Jesus Taught Bible Study - Part 63 — Zac Poonen

Jesus’ Balanced Christlikeness: Grace, Truth, and Cleansing

We continue our study today and all that Jesus taught and are now looking at Matthew chapter 21. In our last episode we considered the cleansing of the temple. Jesus entered the temple verse 12 and cast out all those who were buying and selling in the temple and overturned the seats of the those who were selling doves.

We need to understand Jesus completely in a balanced way. He was full of grace and truth. Not only grace, not only truth, but grace and truth. He knew how to speak compassionately to lepers and adulterous women, divorced women like the woman in Samaria.

But he also knew how to call the Pharisees a generation of vipers and to overturn the tables of people who were making money in the name of religion in the temple. This is the balanced understanding of Christlikeness that every Christian must have.

Very often when we use the word Christlike, we only think of the tenderness with which he speaks to sinful people or putting his arms around lepers. That's the only understanding of the word Christlikeness that most Christians have.

I would say 99 .99 of Christians. You would never think that if a man calls somebody a generation of vipers, a group of people, that he's Christlike. You wouldn't think that somebody who turns over tables and tells people to get out of the temple is Christlike.

That's where the devil has hidden true Christlikeness from the minds of most Christians and the end result of that is most churches are in a pathetic state when it comes to purity. It needs cleansing, but there's nobody to cleanse it because everybody's trying to have this to be Christlike in this false way.

Even preaching, there's a lot of preaching where people say we must be gracious and gentle. True, but this is the other aspect of Christlikeness that at least some people in the body must fulfill. I'm not saying that everybody in the body of Christ is called to fulfill this ministry, but there must be some and I'll tell you there's a pathetic lack of preachers in the church today who will drive out these money-loving preachers who are out to squeeze money from poor people in order to live in grand style themselves.

Especially a lot of television Christian television preachers who are asking and asking and asking people for money and take money from poor people and live in grand style themselves. These are the equivalent of these money changers today and Jesus did it twice at the beginning and at the end of his ministry.

He turned out of the temple those who are making money in the name of God and that's exactly what he would do today and he does it through his body and if God calls you to such a ministry, fulfill it and don't care what men think about you.

And Jesus said to them my house is to be called a house of prayer, but you're making it a robber's den. It's really become the church has become a robber's den. The preachers are robbers, many of them, taking money from poor people, sending reports to Western countries from India, reporting of all types of things in order to get a lot of money which lines the pockets of many preachers.

Talking about their orphanages and their Bible schools and some of which only exist on paper and fooling simple gullible people in the West. You see this type of preaching is offensive to some people because they haven't seen what Christlikeness is.

We need to be Christlike in cleansing the Church of God and at the same time you see the balance here immediately after that the blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he was so tender and he healed them.

Jesus could immediately switch from one to the other depending on who was in front of him. This is how it must be with us too that when the blind, the spiritually blind and the spiritually lame come into the church we must be tender and kind and with encouraging words lift them up just as just like we use strong words to drive out the crooks.

And when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that Jesus had done and there were two sides to it. One was driving out these crooks and the other was healing the blind and the lame and they heard the children crying out in the temple saying, Save us, O son of David, save us, save us.

That's what hosanna means. They became very angry. Imagine that they became angry because they saw the children praising the Lord and their idea was children must keep quiet. But Jesus said, haven't you?

They asked him, don't you hear what they're saying? And Jesus said, yes. Have you never read what it says in the scriptures in Psalm 8 verse 2? Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes thou has prepared praise for thyself.

Praise as Spiritual Warfare

If you actually look at Psalm 8 you learn something very interesting. I want to encourage all of you whenever you read a quotation from the Old Testament in the New Testament go back to the Old Testament and look at that verse and you will find something very very profitable.

For example, I'll show you something right now. Jesus said in Matthew 21 16, out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes you have prepared praise for yourself. Now we go back to Psalm 8 and verse 2 where that's quoted from.

It says from the mouth of infants and nursing babes thou has established strength or a bulwark, a strong wall of defense from the mouth of babes because of your enemies to make the enemy and the revengeful keep quiet or cease to finish their activity.

So there it's speaking about in Psalm 8 verse 2 it's speaking about strength to silence and defeat our enemies. Remember that. From the mouth of infants and nursing babes comes strength to defeat our enemies and Jesus said from the mouth of infants and babes comes praise for God.

Put the two together and what do we learn? The way we can silence Satan and overcome him is by praising God. You see you learn something there by comparing scripture with scripture. Both are inspired by the Holy Spirit and Jesus preferred to use praise and that is how we silence Satan.

Whenever you find that your prayers don't seem to be going through or you're finding yourself heavy in a time of prayer or you're finding yourself sleepy when you are praying or you don't seem to make contact with heaven don't kneel down get up and walk up and down and raise your hands and start praising God and you'll find it's very easy to contact heaven when you praise God may be difficult when you pray and once you've made established contact with praise the enemies hosts are cleared the way into the heavens is clear then you can pray.

This is the way we should do it. So we learn something there just by comparing the quotation in the New Testament with the Old Testament. There are numerous examples of this that I found throughout the New Testament in my study of this subject.

Jesus’ Humanity and the Fig Tree

And then Jesus left them and went out to Bethany. In the morning Matthew 21 verse 18 when he returned to the city we are trying to understand all that Jesus taught and I believe he taught something here about the power of praise.

When he returned to the city he became hungry and he saw a lone fig tree by the road and he came to it and found nothing on it except leaves. There we see something of his humanity. The fact that Jesus was completely a man.

He did not use the resources and power that he had as God when he was on this earth. He could have used it, but he didn't use it. He refused to use that power because he had relinquished it voluntarily when he came to the earth.

He was like a billionaire who had a credit card but would never use that credit card when he lived on this slum called the earth in order to teach people how to live without using any of his own resources as God.

You know, it's like a billionaire supposing a billionaire from some western land comes here to teach people in the slums how to live clean and simple with very little income with say a thousand rupees a month and he comes here and works like them and earns a thousand rupees a month and teaches people how to live on a thousand rupees a month and to live clean in a little hut in the slums.

But he is a billionaire. But he says I will not use my credit card. I've got a credit card, but I'll never use it. And this is how Jesus lived. He never used his heavenly credit card as God. He lived only with the resources, first of all with the limitations we have, tempted as we are, tired like we're tired, hungry like we are hungry and with all the desires and passions that we have that normal human beings have apart from sin and yet he did not sin even though he lived on earth as a man.

He came in the flesh and his spirit was pure. This is the secret of godliness. It says in 2nd Timothy 3 16. 1 Timothy 3 16. Now here we see that he came near a fig tree in order to see whether there was fruit in it.

I mean if he had used his resources as God he could find out whether there's fruit in a fig tree on the other side of the earth or from a million miles away. But he had to come near it and then he found nothing in it but leaves.

The little things like this we see the fact that he was 100 human just like us and he said to the fig tree, no longer shall there ever be any fruit from you and at once the fig tree withered. Now this is his not his acting as God.

No, we need to understand this. This is his acting as an anointed prophet of God which God can do through a prophet even now. So even in those supernatural things that Jesus did remember he didn't act as God.

The only place where he acted as God was where he forgave sins and he received worship. You remove those two things receiving worship, forgiving people's sins, everything else he did was as an anointed prophet of God, the supernatural things which God can do through any man and then we read that the fig tree withered away and seeing this the disciples marveled and said how did the fig tree wither at once?

The root had withered immediately as soon as Jesus spoke but the tree itself took about a day to become, to appear withered because in another passage it says it's the next day that the disciples asked this question.

How did the fig tree wither up? And Jesus answered and said to them, I say to you if you have faith and you don't doubt, you shall not only do what is done to the fig tree but even if you say to this mountain be taken up, cast into the sea, it shall happen.

And all things you ask in prayer believing you shall receive. Now some people think why? Was Jesus angry that he couldn't get fruit on the fig tree? Certainly not. Jesus wasn't a slave to food. Not at all.

But he wanted to teach his disciples a lesson in faith. And it was worth withering up a fig tree to teach his disciples a lesson in faith and to teach us for 2 ,000 years all Christians a lesson in faith.

That's why he cursed that fig tree and got it withered up. To teach his disciples that if you have faith you can have authority over situations like this. You can even tell a mountain to get out of the way.

The Fig Tree as a Picture of Religious Emptiness and Israel

And the other reason is this. In the Old Testament, the fig tree is a picture of Israel. Just like the vine is a picture of the church in the New Covenant. The fig tree is throughout the Old Testament the picture of Israel.

And here Jesus came to Israel, symbolically speaking, looking for fruit. That means looking for spiritual desire and hunger, fruit for the glory of God. But what did he see in the Israeli fig tree? The leaves of religion.

The leaves of religiosity. Empty religious rituals and traditions. And he cursed it. He cursed that religious system, which was actually driving people away from God. And he curses every single religious system in a church today that would turn people away from God.

Where there are leaves and no fruit. A lot of churches today and a lot of Christians, all they have is leaves. Leaves referred to empty rituals, going to church, singing prayers, reading, praying and singing songs and reading the Bible.

And a lot of activity as well. But not fruit for the glory of God. It's not the fruit of overcoming sin, the fruit of purity, victory over sin, the fruit of a godly, peaceful life at home and godly children being brought up in a home.

That's not there. But only a lot of leaves of activity and singing and praising and emptiness. Jesus curses that even today. So that's what we see here. And later on in Matthew 24, Jesus said, let me point that out to you.

He said, learn a parable from the fig tree, Matthew 24, 32. When its branches become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. Even so, you too, when you see all these things, recognize that Christ is near, right at the door.

And that generation will not pass away which sees all these things before the Lord returns. He is talking about his second coming and certain signs that would be there in the world before he returns again.

And one of the signs, one specific sign, he said, was Israel, which was withered up, coming back into becoming a nation. You know, in the history of Israel, we read that they were already being ruled by the Romans when Jesus was there.

They were not really a free nation. But when they rejected Christ and crucified him, 40 years later, they were scattered by God all across the face of the earth. The fig tree had really withered. The root withered as soon as they crucified Christ.

It became evident 40 years later. Like it says, the fig tree, they saw the next day it had withered and they were scattered all over the earth. But then he said, keep a watch on that fig tree. One day you will see it's putting out its leaves again.

No fruit yet, but you'll see that nation of Israel coming back to the land and starting again to be a religious nation, just like in Jesus' time, an independent nation. And that happened in 1948. And they came to the city of Jerusalem in 1967.

And these are signs that Jesus said, that's a sign that the coming of the Lord is very near. And that generation that sees these signs will not pass away till all these things be fulfilled. I mean Jesus said that 2 ,000 years ago.

And that's why we who are living in this time when we have seen these things have the hope that in our lifetime, we will see Christ return. If our understanding of prophecy is right, then that is how we see it.

The fig tree is putting forth its leaves. So Jesus was teaching them faith. And as they would understand it later, it was also a parable of the nation of Israel. Further, in Matthew 21 and verse 23, when Jesus came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him.

Authority, Discernment, and the Holy Spirit

And, you know, they had seen him chasing people out of the temple and doing all that. And they asked him, by what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority? Who gave you the right?

To do all this in the temple. First of all, I asked this question, why the chief priests and scribes allow these people to make the temple, the courtyard of the temple, a place where of merchandise and business?

I have a feeling it's because those traders were giving a huge commission to the chief priests and scribes for allowing them to do that. I can't imagine the chief priests and scribes allowing them to do that without a commission.

It's the same thing that happens in a lot of Christian churches today. Yeah, what pastors get is a commission to allow things in the church, which Christ would not allow. They get their salary so that their mouths are shut against the rich people in the church who cannot be rebuked anymore, because they are the ones who pay the pastor's salary.

And so here someone like Christ comes along, and there's hardly anybody like that today, who will come up and denounce the whole thing and say, this is all Babylon. And Jesus refused to answer that question because they wouldn't understand it in any case.

So he said to them, before I tell you that, I want to ask you something. Tell me, was the baptism of John from heaven or from men? I mean, there's a clear-cut answer to that. Everybody knew it was from heaven, but they began to think, if we answer like this, what will people say?

If we answer like that, then what will they say? So they began to think, now if we say it's from heaven, then Jesus will say, then why didn't you believe in it? Because they had rejected John the Baptist.

But if we say, no, that was from men, all the people will turn against us because they all recognize John as a prophet. So they were caught in a dilemma. We can't say yes, we can't say no. And so they told a lie.

They knew it was from heaven. They said, we don't know. They were diplomatic, exactly like a lot of today's preachers. And he said to them, well, then I'm not going to tell you either, by what authority you do these things.

There's something we learned from here about the way Jesus lived. When people came to him with these tough questions, he could discern whether this was a genuine question or whether they were just trying to trap him.

And every true servant of God and preacher and prophet who wants to live for God needs to have that same type of discernment when people come to him with tough questions. Are they trying to trap him into some answer?

And we need to seek God at such times and say, Lord, give me a word that I can give us a reply. This is how Jesus lived. He lived in constant touch with his father so he could know exactly what to say to each person.

He didn't live by a law which gave him some set of rules as to how to speak to people. Neither must we live by rules. We must live by the leading of the Holy Spirit and then we shall have the same wisdom and discernment that Jesus had.

Because the same Holy Spirit that dwelt in his earthly body is the one who is now dwelling in us. It's a wonderful truth. On the day of Pentecost, the same Holy Spirit that lived in Jesus' body for 33 and a half years now could come and dwell in the bodies of Christians.

That's why we need to be open to be filled with the Holy Spirit and keep our being sensitive to sin and keep ourselves pure so that the Holy Spirit can have free flow through us so that our minds will be sharp.

That's the only way we can effectively serve God in this sin-cursed earth with so much of deceptive spirits roaming around in Christendom. Then Jesus said in Matthew 21 and verse 28, what do you think?

A man had two sons and he came to the first and said, son, go work today in the vineyard. And he answered and said, I will, sir, and he didn't go. And he came to the second and said the same thing and he answered saying, I will not go.

Yet afterward he regretted it and went. So which of the two did the will of his father? And he said, the latter. He said to them, truly I say to you that tax collectors and harlots will get into the kingdom of God before you.

For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him. But the tax gatherers and harlots did believe him and you seeing this did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.

Repentance, Obedience, and the Danger of Religious Presumption

Very often you see that those to whom God comes first reject him. He came to the Jewish people first and they rejected Christ. Then he moved to the Gentiles and they accepted him. So this is what he's trying to say here to these very religious people who thought that God would only accept them.

Now, this is a mistake that a lot of Christian groups can make too. We can just because God has used us maybe or used us to restore some truth that's unknown to others or made us a blessing to others.

We can begin to think that we're sort of God's special favorites and that God can only use us and then we begin to be casual in our attitude towards sin. See, this is a picture of people who say one saved always saved.

Son, go work today in my vineyard. They say yes, sure and they don't do it meaning that they have asked Christ to come into their heart, but they never obey him and they think yeah, I'm okay. Then there are others who initially may not have responded right but who later repent.

The main thing there is they repent and their repentance leads to life and they obey the Lord and the Lord says who did the will of God tell me? These first people are the second people. The answer is the second and then Jesus said to these religious people who knew so much of the Bible that tax collectors and prostitutes will go into the kingdom of God before you.

The crooked cheats and the prostitutes will go into the kingdom of God before you religious people who keep preaching the Bible. I believe that's a very important word that needs to be preached today in today's churches.

We need to understand this is the God we worship and this is the one we must proclaim. We'll continue in our next episode.