Now if you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 21. This morning verses 18 through 22. And this morning we come to the curse of the fig tree. Jesus finds a fig tree full of leaves, but no fruit.
Not unlike Paul's concern in our scripture reading in 2 Corinthians 5, which just struck me today, is quite a providence where he talked about the outward appearance, versus the inward reality. And so the fig tree had leaves but no fruit, and he commands it to bear fruit never again, and it withers and dies. And his disciples have questions. As do we, I suppose.
Why does Jesus do such a thing? What does it mean? How did he do it? What does it teach us about him?
And what does he teach us about ourselves? Let's hear the story and consider the holy and inspired word of God from Matthew chapter 21, beginning at verse 18. In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry. And seeing the fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it, but only leaves.
And he said to it, may no fruit ever come from you again. And the fig tree withered at once. When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, how did the fig tree wither at once? And Jesus answered them.
Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, it will happen. Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive if you have faith. Amen. This is God's word.
May he write it on our hearts. Let's look into the prayer. Our Father speak to us, we ask, through your word, by the help of the Holy Spirit, help us to see Jesus, right? And help us even to know our own hearts.
And so transform us by your truth and grace. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. A couple of comments on the story as we have it. And then let's get to the story itself.
The story of the cursing of the fig tree has been the source of, well, not insignificant critical assessments of Jesus and of Matthew. And so just a few thoughts here, TW Manson, for instance, the famous critic of the New Testament, speaks of the story as a story of miraculous power wasted in the interest of ill temper. William Barkley, author of the famous New Testament commentary series says, well, of the story of the story, it just doesn't ring true. And even J.B.
Phillips speaks of Jesus, quote, venting his feeling of frustration and despair upon the fig tree. Now, is that what's really happening? Those critics, well, there's a lot of shock and consternation over a tree. A tree that Jesus uses as a kind of parable as we're going to see in a bit.
And I just chuckled when I read him. My old professor, Derek Thomas, says, for the life of me, I don't understand why people get bent out of shape for using a tree as a parable. If the tree had feelings, I'm sure the tree would be honored to be used as a parable in the interest of the kingdom of God. Well, some people do get bent out of shape over Jesus here.
Others over Matthew and for a different reason, because the story, as we have it here in Matthew, and it's also in Mark's Gospel, in Mark's Gospel, it's split into two parts with the temple's cleansing in between. But we've already read about the cleansing of the temple. So what's going on? Well, at your first reading of the passages, the both of them, it's easy to think either that Matthew or Mark got the chronology of the story wrong.
And if so, though, that would call into question whether either or both are reliable. And so whether you can trust this to be the authoritative and invaluable word of God, yet Paul reminds us in his epistle to Timothy that all scriptures breathed out by God himself in the apostle Peter in his second letter, says men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And of this we can be sure God, the Holy Spirit, isn't ignorant and doesn't make errors. So now that Matthew nor Mark, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, got the story wrong.
In fact, a charitable reading of both Gospels reveals that Mark is following the story chronologically, and Matthew is following the story thematically. That is, in Mark's Gospel, in chapter 11, you have the story chronologically as it happened. On Sunday, Paul and Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem on the cult of Adonchae in his Haldis king. On Monday morning, he curses the fig tree before cleansing the temple.
And then on Tuesday, on the way back in, the disciples noticed the fig tree is already withered. That's the story in the Gospel of Mark. But Matthew tells you the story thematically, putting the whole story of the fig tree cursing together. So in verse 18, now look at your passage, when he says, in the morning, as Jesus was returning to the city, he became hungry.
He's referring to that same morning as the day of the temple cleansing we read about last week. He doesn't say the next morning, he doesn't say the day after, he just says in the morning, which is the time of day that Jesus got hungry and then cursed the fig tree before cleansing the temple. So I think that's a fair reading of the story that doesn't pit one author against the other in some sort of ultimately contradictory way. So well, as we come to the story, then let's begin with that.
Jesus isn't being mean and Matthew isn't confused. Now what do we learn from this story? And the meaning of the tree's cursing and the lessons Jesus teaches. I want you to think about the curse of the fig tree and then a lesson about fruitlessness and a lesson about faith.
First the curse of the fig tree in verses 18 and 19. In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry and singing a fig tree by the way he said he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves and he said to it may no fruit ever come from you again in the fig tree withered at once. Alright, it's an interesting story. And it reminds us in the first place, notice I've both the humanity and the deity of our Lord Jesus.
He's hungry because he's human and evidently he hasn't had enough breakfast. Everybody can relate to that I suppose and Jesus can relate to us. His stomach growls. He's human.
But then he curses the fig tree and whithers it once. He simply speaks a word and the whole tree dries up because why creation obeys the voice of its creator. He's truly God. Jesus is truly man and truly God.
We're catching a glimpse of that here, that in the incarnation he has united a true human body and soul to his true divine eternal nature in one divine person and so God in the flesh gets hungry. And we should just marvel at him and recognize he can sympathize with us in all our human circumstance and weakness. Now what's going on particularly here? Did Jesus find a barren fig tree and suddenly grow petulant?
Like a little child angry to find the fruit loot boxes empty and big brother ate it all? No of course not. Is Jesus hangry here and his hunger got the better of his emotions and he lashed out at the tree? No that's not what's happening here either.
But then why if he has the power to whither a fig tree by speaking a word why not simply empower the fig tree to suddenly produce right figs and fill his belly? I mean he could have just as easily done so. This is after all Jesus who walked on the water and Matthew's already told us that as well as he's turned a few loaves of bread and fishes into a feast for 4,000 and another one for 5,000. But Jesus has a different purpose in mind other than simply feeding his own hunger.
He withers the fig tree as a kind of enacted parable to show the judgment that is due to those who are truly and merely hypocrites. Well how so? Well Jesus found a fig tree with nothing on it but only leaves. There's no fruit.
What's the significance of there being no fruit? Well remember the time of year. It's Passover week in the life of Israel and that means it's sometime in late March or early April which means it's too early for ripe figs. Now the fig trees there produce two crops a year.
The largest crop is the second crop and a commercial success. Its harvest runs typically from August until winter. But there is an earlier crop, not the harvest that's commercially successful. There's an earlier crop that typically ripens in June and this crop would have normally begun to grow from the buds that overwintered the prior winter and that were attached to the stems and as they budded so the tree would fill out with its leaves.
And so as they began to grow the leaves on the tree would grow and so the presence of leaves on the tree suggested the presence of small early unripe figs on the stem. They would not have been ripe and Jesus wouldn't have been ignorant of that but Mark tells us it was not the season for figs and by that he means it was evidently too early for the ripening of the figs and so there would have been unripe green figs as it were that are actually nonetheless edible however distasteful and bitter they might be. So we had a persimetry, had never encountered one until we moved in and then there were these green things growing on the tree and we had some buddy over and I don't even know what this is and they plucked it and they bit it and then they gave it to me and we bit it. We didn't know what the persimmon is fantastic after the fall and actually after the first frost that's when it ripens but otherwise it's kind of nasty but it's still edible.
And that's what Jesus was going to grab because he was hungry and so it's that early fig that Jesus expected to find but he found none. I don't know if you can imagine how the reality didn't mean expectations. I watched a fig tree in my garden in a pot and waited years for that thing to finally fruit and one year it did and we went on vacation as they were coming right and we invited some friends over to water the garden for us while we were gone and I told them you know take any produce that you want while we're away and when we left I had a couple of dozen of almost perfectly right figs and I was so excited to come home and gobble them up but when we got home they were all gone. The tree was bare and I couldn't believe it and I immediately because I'm wicked I judged them in my heart curses you know and I didn't judge the tree but the friends who I had very uncharitably assumed they all my figs I later asked how they were and they said what but they had me in any of them.
No, no it turns out it was a no good fluffy tailed rat we call a squirrel a fig tree fruit thief. How disappointing. Now did Jesus feel about the fig tree like I feel about that squirrel? It might seem so until you realize Jesus has a much larger perspective in view as most any commentator will tell you Jesus was portraying the curse that is deserved for the lifeless hypocrites in Israel who put on a show of religion but don't bear the fruit of true faith.
Don Carson puts it this way the point was that the tree by its leaves announced that it was bearing fruit when in fact it was not the cursing of the tree became a model that pronounced as judgment on religious hypocrites people who make a show of piety but who bear no genuine fruit of piety and that's the lesson. It's a lesson about fruitlessness and the vital necessity of fruit fullness. Think what Jesus is doing here in chapter 21 he's arrived in Jerusalem the capital of Israel as the true king and he finds many in Israel especially in her leadership who give lip servants to obedience to God and who reject him as their true Messiah the true king come in the flesh and in the temple as the true priest he finds that the Israel's priests have allowed the temple to be polluted and corrupted by buyers and sellers and money changers they've turned God's house of prayer into a den of robbers and the priests of the tribes don't recognize him as the true Messiah and son of David and they didn't raise their voices and praise of him like the little children dead who cried out hosanna to the king of Israel. What Jesus instead finds is people who are very religious organizing themselves for another yearly festival of offering thousands and ten thousands of slaughtered lambs supposedly for their sins in a grand temple built on a massive scale by king errant to perpetuate the religious practice of the people but like the fig tree with its big green leaves and no fruit the outward display of religion is very showy it's a magnificent temple the priests are in their white robes and golden tassels and the lambs are being bought and sold for sacrifice but all the while there is no true life or repentance in the heart of the people no fruit of the Holy Spirit at least in many in the hypocrites the true hypocrites you remember Jesus previously had taught us this when he said these people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me they have an outward show of leafy green but inwardly they're just dead wood it's that hypocrisy that Jesus is going to charge them with in Matthew 23 and while I have no desire to have Jesus expose the hypocrisy in my own heart when we get to that passage where he says woe to you hypocrites you Pharisees and scribes they're like seven or eight woe's and we're going to take them Lord willing one at a time each week and we're going to explore the woe that Jesus brings take one example Matthew 23 27 woe to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness so you also outwardly appear righteous to others but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness they're like fig trees without figs and into the display of judgment Jesus curses that fig tree and says may no fruit ever come from you again in the fig tree withered at once and on the next days they're coming back to disciples as Martelsus they notice that it's been withered and this is the danger that Israel was in at least all who were truly hypocrites simply play acting religion with no repentance and no faith and it is the same danger churches called Christian churches are in if we are ourselves indeed fruitless you remember that church at Ephesus that Jesus wrote to and said a letter to you through John in Revelation 2 that had lost its first love he said I have this against you that you have abandoned the love you had at first remember therefore from where you have fallen repent and do the works you did at first and then he threatened if they wouldn't they would lose their light and you know what the history of the world demonstrates that there is no Christian church in Ephesus today it's just an archaeological dig it's a place to visit talk about way back when with there used to be people who hear who love the Lord and who repented of sin and who trusted the Messiah it can happen it's happening in various places all over the world in places where Christianity particularly is on decline many a church building has been sold off to become houses apartments bars hotels movie theaters and offices now that that's just a building it's just a building and apartments and houses and offices aren't bad in themselves but where are the people so often gone from the church so often through spiritual deadness passed on until the church just just shrivels away it's the same danger of course for individual people if in fact we don't bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit if we don't have the fruit of the Holy Spirit is because we don't have the Holy Spirit which means we are still dead in our trespasses and sins and so this passage reminds us that Christ judges and will judge hypocrisy but of course it's also a passage that is full of mercy why because his very actions were against a tree and not people in that moment for the glorious gracious intention to jolt people into thinking soberly about their true condition so that they would be appalled by their unsinfulness and fruitless lives and be spurred to repentance and faith that they would escape the judgment of God let them as Knox Chamberlain said be thankful that Jesus only cursed a tree on this occasion and take care less in the end they be among the accursed ones now before you think Jesus is hasty or impatient in judgment the point of this was a mercy but we also can remember in Luke 13 in verses 6 through 9 another parable about a fig tree where it says a man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it and found on and he said to the vine dresser look for three years now I've come seeking fruit on this fig tree and I find none cut it down why should it use up the ground and he answered him sure let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put on manure then if he should bear fruit next year well and good but if not you can cut it down a baron tree barren for years is in danger of being cut down and the question is asked why should it take up space in the pew and the answer is get out no that's not the answer at all the answer is there's a vine dresser who well he knows a little bit about fig trees and he can dig around the roots and he can make sure it's the water and the fertilizer it needs and then let's see what fruit comes of this there is hope for the barren fig tree and it's hope is our only true hope the vine dresser who is God himself who plows the soil of the heart who nourishes on the sunshine and water and fertilizer of his word and grace and who can bring about by the Holy Spirit fruitfulness unless you be too discouraged about yourself or too unshareably judgmental of others just remember that Jesus said when his seed bears fruit well some bears 30 fold and some bears 60 fold and some bears 100 fold and we're not all 100 fold bearers of fruitfulness but is there anything of genuine repentance genuine faith in Christ to be your Savior and your Lord and so is there any manifest nation even the beginnings of love joy peace patience kindness goodness gentleness faithfulness and self-control which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit that's the first lesson about fruitlessness and judgment and our need for fruitfulness the second lesson flows from the question the disciples asked and we expect the disciples to ask now why Jesus did you curse the tree and instead they asked how did you do it as a dandorionis as true to form the 12th partially missed the main point focusing on the wrong thing they were thinking that was amazing how did you do that and could you teach us to do that too the question was misguided but Jesus turns it into something useful a lesson on faith and prayer and so that's our last point a lesson on faith and prayer verse 20 when the disciples saw it they marveled saying how did the fig tree with her at once and Jesus answered them truly I say to you if you have faith and do not doubt you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree but even if you say to this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea it will happen if you have faith and do not doubt he means don't be double-minded when you ask of something from God when you're trusting in the Messiah don't be double-minded about it do you want God to bless you and bless you with the fruit of the Holy Spirit then ask for it don't waffle about it and God is after all like a good parent who knows our needs he delights to give good gifts but he also wants the recipient to want what is being given so the question is not whether God is ready to give but whether we are ready to receive and the truth is the heavenly Father never spoils his children says John Stott he does not shower us with gifts whether we want them or not whether we are ready for them or not instead he waits until we recognize our need and turn to him in humility and trust this is why Jesus taught us in chapter 7 ask and it will be given to you and James added and you do not have because you do not ask God wants us to mature to know our needs to appreciate the gifts that satisfy them and so to ask and what is it can happen if we have faith and in verse 21 even if you say to the mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea it will happen now he's obviously using hyperbole it's a picture of God doing the impossible in answer to faith it's not though some of us would like it if it was it's not Jesus promising that God will give you a Corvette if you really have faith that he will that is not what it's teaching it is not name it and claim it Jesus is not saying if you just have faith without doubting whatever you speak into existence it will actually come into it I mean whatever you speak in words will come into existence no what he's doing is he is inviting us to believe that God does do what we cannot do according to his will and you can pray for God's will for his glory and for yourself for instance you can pray hallowed be your name but your name be honored and revered oh lord and God can answer that prayer in the heart of a person who finds they don't revere him nearly enough and can't drum up the reverence they know they ought to have but he gives what he commands us even to pray he answers prayers for his own glory like your kingdom come oh lord your will be done on earth as it is in heaven all of those prayers are God's will you can ask in faith and he will do it you can pray for God's will in your own eating this you can pray give me this day my daily bread forgive me my debts as I forgive my debtors and leave me not into temptation but deliver me from the evil wand all of that is God's will for his children and you can ask in faith and he will do it some things of course are worthy of prayer even though you don't know God's will I mean will he heal you of some disease when you ask or will he leave you with it for a season or will he leave it with you for a lifetime will it be actually the immediate cause of your home going to heaven sometimes you just really don't know the doctors don't either but you pray lord if it be your will take this away heal me of my diseases we pray this all the time and we leave it to him to answer the prayer more wisely than we have prayed it but there are plenty of things we know to be God's will and we can trust him for them in faith things that he has promised you and then there are other things well like at get so many when Jesus prayed if it be your will oh lord take this cup from me and the father said no you need to drink that cup to the drinks but Jesus is teaching us to pray what we can't do for ourselves and then Jesus corrects another potential mistake it's to assume that we have the power that he has that that is just as he spoke a word and caused the tree to wither so you might think Jesus is saying you just speak a word and it'll do likewise and that's not what he means because verse 22 qualifies what he's saying about faith when it says and whatever you ask in prayer you will receive if you have faith in other words he's pointing us to God in prayer and so we ask because we aren't capable and we ask well not because prayer is capable but we ask because God is capable because nothing is impossible with God so that the power of prayer some call it is not power in our prayer or power in our faith but power in the Almighty Lord of heaven to whom we are speaking and if he chooses to say yes to our prayer we have what we asked and so Jesus is encouraging us to pray in possible prayers that is things we are helpless to accomplish things like the Lord's prayers mentioned or or think of praying for others to be saved from their sins and enrolled in the kingdom of heaven remember the disciples in chapter 19 asked who then can be saved and Jesus said well with man it is impossible but with God all things are possible God can give spiritual life to the spiritually dead God can save a thief at the last moment upon a cross God can show a prodigal child the foolishness of their ways and the filth of their sins and turn them back and bring them home or you may be in what feels like an impossibly tight financial situation and you can see no way out of it but you pray Lord give me my daily bread and somehow the flower doesn't run out but the freezer doesn't remain empty your gas mileage is inexplicably better than advertised or some check comes in the mail or a bag of clothes or food suddenly appears on your porch or in some other way the Lord sees you through when you are helpless because God is the God of the impossible and he can find a way what is it you want Jesus to do what's the impossible thing you want God to do are you too timid to ask the point isn't to be powerful in prayer but to be what you are weak humble needy a beggar hungry and thirsty desperate and to look away from yourself and to your father in heaven and so Jesus is not telling us here that in all the weakness of our humanity we can wither fig trees like some God but that in all the weakness of his humanity touched with the feelings of our infirmity he is yet God and he can wither a tree or cause it to bear fruit and he the lights to answer our prayers for things agreeable to his will which things he has taught us in his word and he invites us to ask God then to do what is impossible for us to do for ourselves so you remember when you pray two things one as john newton put it thou art coming to a king large petitions with the bring for his grace and power are such none can ever ask too much that's the first thing in the second is would you remember this yes jesus cursed a fig tree and yes it's an enacted parable of that final day when some will experience the curse of God but this table reminds you that jesus bore the curse for all who trust in him put your hope in him and you'll have life let's pray father thank you for the gift of your son whom you did not spare that we might have all things in him all good things and so help us to trust you help us to lean on you depend on you certainly grant us genuine faith in repentance and grant the strength and grace of the holy spirit in jesus name we pray amen let's stand together and sing