Mark 11:1-25 - Dead Trees and Extortionary Exchange Rates

Well, a very happy Tuesday to you here on Tabernacle Talk, and we are continuing in the Gospel of Mark. We are actually, believe it or not, we are in the last week of Jesus' life right now.

Mark 11 through the end of chapter 16 takes place over the course of one week. This is it. Like this is Jesus' entire life is going to be done in these next five chapters.

Now, over the past 10 chapters, we've looked at about three years of Jesus' life, and Mark, as I mentioned at the very beginning of our study, he's just going kind of with the really, really important things, the action points.

Doesn't take a whole ton of time for maybe sermons or stories in the same way that Matthew or Luke might. Mark's very interested in the action.

And so he's been going through, though over the past couple of chapters, we've seen more of Jesus' words than we did in the first beginning portion when it was just miracle after miracle after demon exorcism, after demon exorcism.

And now we arrive at Jerusalem. And we're going to pick up right there in Mark 11 verse 1.

It says, When they approached Jerusalem at Bethphage and Bethany near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and told them, go into the village ahead of you.

As soon as you enter it, you will find a cult tied there on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, why are you doing this?

Say, the Lord needs it and we'll send it back here right away. Here Jesus gives kind of an odd command, and one would wonder why did he do this?

And this is where having all four of the Gospels is very helpful to us because as we see in Matthew 21, Matthew gives the why of this. He says, this took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled.

Tell daughter Zion, see your king is coming to you, gentle and mounted on a donkey and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

So here Jesus is fulfilling prophecy through doing this, that he says, hey, bring a donkey's kid, someone that has never ever been ridden before.

This would kind of be a miracle in and of itself, because as you might know, donkeys and horses and mules, they're not normally just immediately grateful to have someone sitting on them. There would be a lot of bucking and some of that.

But kind of the implication from the prophecy in Zechariah 9 is that this king, this messiah for Israel, he was going to be one that would bring calm and peace to the nation. And he would show that by bringing calm and peace to even the animals.

And so here's some of what Jesus is doing. Verse number four, So they went and found a colt outside in the street, tied by a door. They untied it, and some of those standing there said to them, What are you doing untying the colt?

They answered them just as Jesus had said, so they let them go. Here there's this danger almost that they're like, Whoa, what in the world? Why are you stealing this?

But they just, they say what Jesus said, and they let them go. And man, what a good thing for us to remember. Let us be faithful to say exactly what Jesus has said.

It might not mean that we get out of every circumstance as these disciples here did, but man, it sure couldn't hurt to say what Jesus has said.

I think one other aspect too of this unwritten cult, this untamed cult, or full of a donkey, is that just as Israel was rebellious, and just as we as people, sinners, were untamed and unruly, uncontrolled, that this is what Jesus came to do.

He came to bring us into God's family. He came to, if you will, tame us, to give us that gift of self-control that we so desperately need. Verse number seven, they brought the donkey to Jesus and threw their clothes on it, and he sat on it.

They were probably not just traveling around with a saddle to put on this donkey.

Jesus was not well off, and so it would have been very unlikely that at particular times they would have had a donkey or a horse, and so they're using their clothes as kind of a saddle for the Lord to sit on. Pardon me.

Verse eight, many people spread their clothes on the road, and others spread leafy branches cut from the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

They're quoting from Psalm 118 and verse number 26, which I'll turn over to just because I can't. Psalm 118 and verse number 26, where the Psalm writer there says, Yahweh save us, Yahweh please grant us success.

He who comes in the name of Yahweh is blessed. From the house of Yahweh we bless you. Yahweh is God and has given us light.

Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar. You are my God and I will give you thanks. You are my God, I will exalt you.

Give thanks to Yahweh for he is good, for his love endures forever. So that's the praise that they're bringing. They also say in verse 10, blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David, Hosanna in the highest heaven.

Here it's a praise and exaltation of the Lord, a save us God, come be with us, rescue us. Verse number 11, he went into Jerusalem and into the temple.

After looking around at everything, since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. Here there is this call, and often this is celebrated as Palm Sunday.

And so if you think again about that week, this is Palm Sunday all the way up to Resurrection Sunday is Mark 11 to 16. So here these people are excited about Jesus, and they are following him. They are treating him as an incoming king.

But I also want us to remember this. Yes, this is a great moment, but very temporarily.

This crowd that thinks that Jesus is going to bring in the kingdom of David, that he's going to bring a national kingdom, they are also the ones that just a few short days later are going to cry out, crucify him, crucify him.

And what a reminder to us that we can have days where we are exalting Jesus, and we are so proud of everything that we have done and lifting him up, and we think that God is amazing, and we're going to maybe give to him, we're going to serve his

church, we're going to tell others about him. But I think of the words that Paul writes, let the one that stands be careful, lest they fall.

And here though everything they are saying is true, that he is the son of David, he is the coming Messiah, he is the one who comes in the name, the authority, the mission of Yahweh, that it didn't really change their hearts and how they interacted

with him. I think it's so interesting in verse 11, it says he went into Jerusalem and into the temple, into the place where God was to be worshiped.

And it says after looking around at everything, since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. That there's a moment of going, man, these are my last days here in the temple.

Frankly, as we look at the forty days after Jesus' resurrection, it's not specifically mentioned that he would ever enter into the temple again. So this is one of the last times that he was here.

And as we'll read, I'm going to continue here because we've got a few minutes. We're going to continue and see what did Jesus see and what did he care about as he looked at the temple. So, verse number 12.

Verse number 12. Okay, so this is kind of a weird little story. Okay, why did Jesus curse this fig tree?

It had leaves, but it wasn't actually the time for figs, and Jesus said, no one's ever gonna eat figs from you again. What does this mean? Well, we can find out when we look at verses 15 and on.

It says, they came to Jerusalem and he went into the temple and began to throw out those buying and selling.

He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves and would not permit anyone to carry goods through the temple. He was teaching them, is it not written my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations?

They are quoting from Isaiah 56. He says, but you have made it a den of thieves. And there he quotes from Jeremiah chapter 7 and verse number 11.

OK, this is one of those stories that really gets thrown around a lot sometimes when people want to be angry and when they want to justify their anger or maybe how they talk about someone.

They say, oh man, well, you know, Jesus put together a whip and drove out people in the temple. OK, well, what did that entail? Well, we can see this first.

He says those buying and selling. So here there's been a almost a marketplace made of the temple. So here's the kind of things that would take place.

People would come to Jerusalem from many different areas, some from northern Galilee. Some people perhaps from the Decapolis, some people from Judea and other people from other portions of the Roman Empire.

And for those that maybe had a great distance to go, they might not bring actual physical animals or different things to the temple because it would be too difficult to do so.

Instead, what they would do is they would bring money and they would have to transfer in, they would take their Roman coins or something and trade them in for temple coins because the Jews at that time had a specific currency for the things in the

temple because they didn't want you to buy a dove or purchase a lamb or something from the temple with pagan money. So they said, okay, you need temple coins.

But they would jack up the interest rates on it so that they would receive more and they would get more from when people were trading in their Roman coinage. That went directly against God's word on charging interest or usury to fellow Jews.

So number one, it was something that they were not supposed to do. Number two, this was then so they could purchase animals to sacrifice. So it was an act of worship that they were doing.

And these money changers were extorting people and making money off of God's worship. And not in a healthy way, like the priests or the Levites. They offer the sacrifices.

They don't have outside jobs. And so that's the only way that they live. Here, these money changers, this was not their job.

God hadn't ordained this. Here are the people that need to be able to eat from what's going on. And we can see that through the fact that Jesus doesn't drive out the priests and the Levites, even though at times they have been wicked.

He says, this is uniquely evil. He also overturned the chairs of those selling doves, those that were selling the things that would be for the poorest people, the ones that couldn't afford any better, that they were taking advantage of people.

And then verse number 16, that some people were just using the temple as like a shortcut to get where they really wanted to go. And Jesus goes, no, like God's sanctuary, God's worship is important and holy.

And it's not something that you're just flippant about, that you can just treat like it's nothing. This is God's worship, and you need to care for other people.

You need to care for the holiness and the respectability of where God's worship is happening. This is bad. You should not be doing this.

Verse 18, the chief priests and the scribes heard it and started looking for a way to kill him. Here, why would they do that? Well, because Jesus is messing with their setup.

They were totally fine with people extorting others. They were fine with the poor being taken advantage of. They were fine with the temple just being a thoroughfare, because then you could get people to buy more things.

But it says, they were afraid of him. Verse 18, because the whole crowd was astonished by his teaching. They want to kill Jesus, but they can't, because they're afraid of people.

Verse 19, whenever evening came, they would go out of the city. Okay, so now we're sitting at Tuesday morning in verse number 20. Early in the morning, as they were passing by, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up.

Then Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. Okay, now we're back to that fig tree that we met earlier. Verse 22, Jesus replied to them, have faith in God.

Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, be lifted up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.

Therefore I tell you, everything you pray and ask for, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in Heaven will also forgive you your wrongdoing.

So Peter here is amazed that what Jesus says happens, which as we've journeyed through, that shouldn't have been a shock. But Jesus wants to remind him first about prayer.

And so he tells him, hey, when you're praying and asking God for things, actually believe that God will work.

The implication there would be that when Jesus had said this, like, curse me, no one ever eat fruit from you again, there had not been a belief in Peter's heart that that would actually happen. Now, here's the flip side.

When we look at the rest of scripture, it colors how we read these verses.

So we see, okay, if we believe in our heart that what God, here, let me read one more time, be lifted up and thrown in the scene, does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.

Therefore, I tell you, everything you pray and ask for, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. So we see this statement and we think, okay, well, I know that I've prayed for the healing of a loved one.

I know that I've prayed for someone to be saved. I know I've prayed for opportunity, or I've prayed for this kind of job or something, and I didn't receive it. I really did think that God would give it to me.

What gifts? Well, as we look at the book of 1 John, we know that John there says, whatever we ask according to his will, he hears us. And anything that we ask of him, we receive.

The very, very important part to remember in our prayer is God is the one that's in charge, and whatever he wants to happen, he will make happen. That if we pray according to his will, he will hear, and that hearing is making it happen.

It is obeying. And there are times when we think that God should do something. We think that something should be God's will, but it's not in God's plan.

But that should change in our hearts how we view a situation. That if we wanted something to happen, we prayed for it to happen, and God didn't have it happen, then we concretely know what God's will is.

God's will was that that thing would not take place, and that should supply some comfort to our heart. Why? We realize, okay, I'm not God.

Jesus is God, and I want His will to be done. I'm not just looking for my will to be done. That takes some humility to go, okay, God, if it was up to me, I would choose for this to take place.

But you didn't choose for it to take place.

And because I believe that you are good, and you are wise, and that you are working all things out, Romans 8.28, for my good and for your glory, I'm going to trust your plan, that I realize you're not just my genie, you're not someone I can demand

around. But anything that I ask you, that you do want to happen, you will make it happen. It doesn't matter how impossible it is, if it's in your will, you will accomplish it.

To rest on the sovereignty of God, and realizing that He does ask us to pray. It's not just a foregone conclusion of, don't even bother praying, just whatever happens will happen.

God commands us to pray, in everything we are to give thanks, to pray without stopping, pray without ceasing. That we are always to be praying in the Spirit, with all supplication and prayer for all saints.

There are so many challenges to us in Scripture to pray, but when you pray, genuinely believe, God, if this is in your will, I know that you can see this done. And it doesn't matter how impossible it is.

Here the hyperbole is, if you ask a mountain to move, it will be gone. And have faith in God that says, God, I do believe that you will act. What's the point of the fig tree, though?

Is it just a lesson on prayer? No, it is to help us realize, frankly, that Israel had been those that there were some leaves, but there was not the fruit. That they had a lot of religiosity.

They had a functioning temple, but there was no actual life. There wasn't a fruit of God that was coming out of their religion.

And so Jesus was going to work not just through a nation, not just through a religious system, but he was going to work in hearts.

And as we would look at world history, that the nation of Israel was destroyed and scattered in 78 AD with Jerusalem itself and the temple being destroyed, and that that particular religious system that they had had at that time was kind of

eradicated. And that while there are many Jews today, they aren't able to do the sacrifices and things that they once did. And they don't have the whole system of the Sanhedrin and all of that that they once enjoyed.

And so Jesus says, hey, that fig tree is gone now. Now I'm working in a new way. We're going to see some more great things at the end of Chapter 11 and into Chapter 12 tomorrow.

But I want to challenge you. Do you have faith that what you ask of God, if it's according to His will, that you will receive it? Are you praying prayers with genuine faith that says, I absolutely believe that God can do this?

I know right now there's a big prayer request on my heart that I have no idea how God could do it. And I don't want to have unbelief. I want to be like that man that we read about a couple chapters ago that says, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.

Because our God is the miracle working God. He's the one that can make trees no longer bear fruit. He's the one that can make the blind to see.

He's the one that can bring the dead to life. There is nothing that he can't do. So let's believe in him and let's follow him.

Let's obey him. And when he doesn't answer our prayers in the way that we want it, he always answers our prayers. It's either yes, no, or wait.

When he doesn't answer our prayer requests in the way that we want, let's not abandon him. Let our faith be in him. Let our faith not be in, God, if you do everything I want, then I'll follow and obey you.

Let's determine that what he wants done in our life and in our prayers, that we're okay with that. We're okay with the world as he sees fit. But let's pray expectantly, knowing that he can answer prayer.

And as we looked at the very beginning of the chapter, may we have a heart that says, God, I don't want to be praising you one day and one week later cursing you. Would you help my heart to remain steady and faithful to you?

Thanks for tuning in today. Hope you have a great day.