A Day of Rebuke -- Looks can be Deceiving!

Introduction

Good morning Church. Today we will continue on in our study of the Book of Matthew and this final week of our Lord’s life.

If you will remember we titled this series “The Road to the Resurrection.”

Last week we looked at a message titled “The Beginning of the End” and we looked at the Triumphal Entry of our Lord into the city of Jerusalem.

The people were shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David” as they laid their garments in the way along with palm branches and they were making such noise that the Pharisees got upset and told Jesus to quieten the people to which Jesus replied… “I tell you that even if they were to hold their peace the stones would begin to cry out!”

This was His moment and His time to receive the praise, honor and glory He was justly due from the creation whom He had come to save!

As Jesus made His way down the slope of the Mount of Olives and looked upon the city of Jerusalem, the Bible tells us He wept over the city because they knew not the time of their visitation!

They did not understand, nor would believe, that the one and only Son of God had come to save them from themselves and the main reason they could not understand, nor would believe, is because of they had been lifted up by their pride!

So many people today find themselves in the same situation. They will not believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ because they don’t think they need Him.

They think they are doing just fine on their own. Things are going good; life is good; why do I need this man named Jesus.

Dear friend, if you are one of those people here today, the reason you need to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ is because without Him you cannot be saved.

You cannot save yourself.

Your sin has separated you from the God who created you and the only way for that relationship to be restored is through the precious blood of His dear Son who died to pardon you from your sins.

His blood, precious and perfect, is the only thing that can cleanse a man, woman, boy or girl from the sin that separates them from the God who created them.

The Bible says in:

Romans 6:23 KJV 1900

23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 3:10 KJV 1900

10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

Romans 3:23 KJV 1900

23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

And because of our sin, we deserve death.

But the God who created us loved us so much that instead of leaving us lost and undone in our sins, doomed and destined for an eternity separated from Him, He made a way for us to be reconciled unto Him.

This way involved giving the greatest gift He had, His Son, as a sacrifice for our sins.

Hebrews 9:22 KJV 1900

22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

From the very beginning of time, the only way a man could be forgiven of his sins is by making a sacrifice for those sins and it was the blood of that sacrifice that cleansed a man of his wrongdoings.

The problem was, man could never be eternally forgiven because the blood of bulls, goats, sheep, doves and so on was not a perfect blood.

These animals were mortal just as man was mortal and therefore they had to sacrifice over and over and over in order that they might be forgiven.

But that wasn’t good enough. God wanted to give His creation a way that they could be eternally forgiven and He provided that way by giving His Son, His one and only Son, immortal and eternal, as a sacrifice for every man’s sins.

And because of this amazing grace that has been shed abroad for all who call upon His name and believe in Him, they are eternally forgiven and forever cleansed in the eyes of our righteous and Holy God.

Sadly though, many people today don’t believe in God, or His Son and ultimately when they die, they will meet Him face to face and there’s no doubt in my mind that they will cry out in belief and beg and plead for forgiveness but it will be too late.

Judgment will be passed and they will be eternally separated from God and condemned to the lake of fire and brimstone.

This morning, I pray there is not a lost person among us but if you are, if you have never trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ to save you, please stop putting it off.

Look unto Him, the creator and sustainer of life, and be ye saved before it’s too late!

The last time I checked, death didn’t allow people to make appointments.

You never know when your last second on this earth is going to be.

It could very well be today, even right now this very moment.

And if death were to come for you right now, are you 100% sure you’re ready?

If not, change that today. Change that right now.

We don’t even have to get into the sermon if God is dealing with your heart.

You come right now and you get on this alter and you do business with God.

I’ll just keep on preaching and we’ll let God do what needs to be done, Amen!

Eternity is not a matter you want to play with. You better be certain you know where you’re going to spend it!

There were many in Jerusalem who thought they were ok. They thought they had it all figured out.

But as we are going to see today, looks can be deceiving!

So, with no further ado, if you have your Bible’s turned to Matthew 21 and Verse 18, would you say, Amen?

The Curse of the Fig Tree – (Vs. 18-22)

Now if you’re not careful, you will miss two very important lessons that come here from this story of the barren fig tree. The first one I want to talk to you about this morning is…

A Lesson on Failure – (Vs. 18-19)

The Fig Tree was a symbol of the hypocrisy that had befallen the Jews in Jerusalem. From the outside they looked like a God-fearing nation but little did they know, inwardly they had become a Godless nation!

Matthew 23:27–28 KJV 1900

27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. 28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

Mark 7:6 KJV 1900

6 He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

Titus 1:16 KJV 1900

16 They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.

The Jews had forgotten the reason behind their religion. They had gotten so caught up in their man made laws that they had forgotten the true law giver!

And as I got to thinking about this fig tree and it’s representation this week I began to think about it’s application to us today.

And as I began to ponder on it’s application to us, I couldn’t help but to think how many, not all but many, Churches all over the world are representative of this fig tree.

On the outside they look like a place where a person might come and find some spiritual fruit, a place where a person might come and get spiritually fed but once inside, they find it to be fruitless.

There’s no meat of the word being fed.

It’s all about the show.

They have colored lights and smoke shows.

They have fancy speakers who tickle their ears but never call the people to repentance.

They have facilities that make the Taj Mahal look small and yet God is nowhere to be found.

Like the fig tree, they have leaves, they have appeal, but sadly, are fruitless!

And listen friend, the reality is, the reason many of our Churches are fruitless today is because many of our members are fruitless!

Charles Spurgeon – It is of no use for any of you to try to be soul-winners if you are not bearing fruit in your own lives. How can you serve the Lord with your lips if you do not serve Him with your lives?

Listen Church, the Bible says in...

Romans 14:12 KJV 1900

12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

1 Corinthians 3:13–15 KJV 1900

13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. 14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

Did you know there are 4 types of people in our world today?

There are those who are like Verse 14 here and every day they try to live for God and every opportunity they are given to tell someone about Jesus they take it.

They are sold out for the Lord Jesus Christ because they understand the magnitude of what He did for them and dear friend, one day those folks are going to receive unspeakable rewards when they get to Heaven!

Then there are some and they’re saved, they’ve trusted in Christ and they live decent lives, but their priorities are all messed up. They allow the things of the world to keep them from being and doing all they can for God and the reality is, they haven’t bore any fruit since the Spirit bore them!

These are the ones he’s talking about in Verse 15. They’re gonna make it into Heaven by the skin of their teeth and the sad part is, they’re ok with that!

Can I ask you all something though this morning?

Why would you want to settle for second best? Why not go for the gusto? Why not go for broke? Why not give God everything you got?

After all, He gave everything He had for us, right?

I mean, heaven and everything it entails is but a short lifetime away and we can have it all and all the rewards one could ever want when we get there if we’ll just be willing to live our lives according to God’s will and tell a lost and dying world about His Son, Jesus!

The Bible says in:

1 Peter 4:17a – For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God

Romans 13:11 KJV 1900

11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

It’s time we wake up this morning Church and take to heart what Jesus said in John 15:8, “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.”

God is happy when we bear much fruit! Not no fruit or a little fruit but rather much fruit!

Then there are those and they’re like this fig tree that Jesus cursed here!

They look good on the outside, they claim to have been saved, they go to Church every Sunday morning, they’re a member and have been for 15 or 20 years and you know what, they may even participate in some of the Churches extracurricular activities but deep down inside, they know there’s never been a change take place in their life!

They’ve never fully and completely surrendered their lives to Christ and sadly they’re lost! And the worst part is, if they don’t change their ways before it’s too late, they’ll die a member of a Church and still bust hell wide open.

Listen Church, the devil would just as soon see people die lost and undone sitting in a Church pew as he would anywhere!

I hope we don’t have any lost Church Members in our midst today but please hear this…if you have your name on the role of this Church but you know your lost, please don’t stay that way for sake of pride or fear of what others may think.

I’d rather die with snooty Church Members looking down their noses at me and know I’m going to heaven than care what they think and die and go hell, amen!

Lastly, there are those and possibly even some here this morning who are just flat out lost!

They’ve never taken the step of asking Jesus to come into their lives and honestly they have no desire to!

Can I tell you this morning friend that it’s not God’s will that any should perish but that all should come to repentance!

That’s why He sent his Son to die the most horrible death and take upon himself the sins of the whole world so that all who will believe in him would have everlasting life!

The Bible says in:

Romans 10:9–10 KJV 1900

9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

If you’re here and lost this morning, you can have eternal life by simply believing upon the Lord Jesus Christ!

Won’t you make that move today? Don’t wait one more day to make Jesus your King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

Not only do we see a Lesson of Failure here, but we also see a Lesson of Faith in the next few verses!

A Lesson on Faith – (Vs. 19-20)

Pray with Conviction!

James 1:6–7 KJV 1900

6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. 7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

Pray with Confidence!

1 John 5:14–15 KJV 1900

14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: 15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.

The purpose of Prayer is not to get man’s will done in heaven, but to get God’s will done on earth!

Now that we’ve looked at The Cursing of the Fig Tree, next let’s look at the Cleansing of the Temple.

The Cleansing of the Temple — (Vs. 12-13)

Now, Mark’s gospel tells us that this event actually takes place the next morning after the incident with the fig tree and most believe this to be a more chronological order of how things took place than Matthew’s order of things.

The Lord’s Fearlessness – (Vs. 12-13)

If you remember back to last week, Mark’s gospel says that the evening before Jesus had come into the temple and looked around upon all things and then went out to Bethany with the twelve, right?

Now, I want you to get this picture in your mind here.

When Jesus saw all the buying and selling that was taking place in God’s holy temple it caused Him to get angry and we see Him enter the temple with a fearlessness like never before!

Up to this point, we have only seen this side of Him one other time and that was when He cleansed the temple in the beginning of His ministry!

The Bible says over in:

John 2:12-17- 12 After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days. 13 And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, 14 And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: 15 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; 16 And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise. 17 And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.

Listen Church, if there was anything that could get our Lord Jesus Christ’s blood boiling it was the misuse of “His” house!

Two times throughout His ministry He fearlessly burst into the Temple and cleansed it from the filth that this world that had infiltrated it with!

The people had forgotten how sacred a place they were in!

This was God’s house and when you stepped foot in God’s house it was to be a time of seriousness and reverence!

And this morning Church, we need to remember who’s house this really is.

Yes, we foot the bill for it. We make repairs to it. We may upgrade it or even build a new one but we need to remember who this house belongs to and is for!

It’s not so we can gather together and fellowship. It’s not so we can come together and have a good time…although that’s the outcome we desire. We ought to be coming to this place for one reason and one reason only and that’s to praise and worship God the Father, His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ and we need to come with an expectation that God the Holy Spirit is going to help us do just that, amen!

When we forget why we’re here and who we’re here for, dear friend we might as well pack it up and head to the house!

If you will remember, roughly 2-2.5 million Jews would show up to Jerusalem for the passover feast in expectation that God would show up.

Listen Church, we get up on Sunday morning’s and we start getting ready to head this way, we ought to do it with an expectation that when we get here, we’re gonna see God show up!

We ought to come to Church with and expectation to meet with God, amen!

If we ain’t coming with an expectation of meeting with God then there’s a really good possibility He ain’t gonna show up, amen!

But when we’re prayed up, we’re bubbling up inside with an anticipation and expectation that God’s gonna show up and do something, dear friend there’s a much greater possibility that’s He’s gonna do so!

Can I just say, God wants to be where He’s wanted, amen!

Do we want God here this morning?

I sure hope so! If not, I’m turning in my keys and moving on somewhere else where the presence of God is desired!

And lastly this morning, I want you to see that because of this cleansing by our Lord Jesus Christ, he upset some people made some foes!

The Lord’s Foes – (Vs. 23-46)

Close

Are you bearing fruit or is your tree hanging fruitless like the fig tree we learned about?

Are you serious about worshipping God? Have you been giving God the respect he’s due?