Matthew-080

Our two-part study on the nature of faith extends from Mark 10:46-11:25. Last week, we studied the last section of Mark 10:46-52, and today, we continue our exposition in Mark 11:12-25, the second part of our study concerning the nature of faith, and what God seeks and hopes to find in his people. Mark 11:1-11 was the triumphal entry of the Lord Jesus into Jerusalem, but we shall begin at verse 12.

Jesus was on his way from Bethany to Jerusalem. Perhaps, you need to know just a little geography in order to understand this. Bethany was to the east of Jerusalem, and in order to get from Bethany to Jerusalem, you had to come around on the south side of the Mount of Olives, go down the Kidron Valley, and come up into Jerusalem. So the Lord Jesus had come out of this village of Bethany which was on the other side of the Mount of Olives, and was now walking along this road on the south side of the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem.

In verse 16, the reason “he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple” is that they used the temple as a short cut. They went through the temple courtyard in order not to have to walk around the temple. They simply used the temple grounds as a path to walk through, carrying their merchandise or fetching water from the well, and so on.

 

A parabolic miracle

Let us now turn our attention to this very important passage. This passage is very disturbing to many Christians, needless to say, because it seems to be the only occasion on which the Lord Jesus exercised God’s power in him to destroy. All along in the Gospels, we see this power to heal. And here, to our astonishment, he exercises this power to destroy. Power can be used for good, to heal or for judgment, to destroy. The Lord Jesus wants us to understand well that although God sent him to save, God will also send him to judge. Let us not forget that.

Here he exercises his power in judgment. With one word, he has destroyed the fig tree and caused it to wither from the roots upward. The Lord Jesus is not always to be imagined as “gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” as the temple scene here will also remind us. A man who cannot be angry at evil is not a man of righteousness. A man who is willing to compromise with anything, even if it is unrighteous, evil, unjust, untrue, is not a man of righteousness. But the anger of a righteous man who represents the anger of a righteous God is greatly to be feared. And we don’t like to see the Lord Jesus using the power God has given him for destruction.

We want to look carefully at this parable because it is an acted para­ble, a parable that is acted out. It is a parable which is emphasized by the very character of this miracle. Or to use the words of another scholar, Louis Marin, a French professor, he calls it quite rightly, “a parabolic miracle.” A parabolic miracle is a miracle which is intended to be a parable; a miracle which is there to teach a powerful lesson.

 

A “difficult” passage to Bible scholars

So difficult do some scholars find this passage – difficult only because it is so contrary to our feeling – that Professor Eduard Schweizer of Switzerland simply left the whole passage out in his commentary of Matthew. He doesn’t treat it. He just threw it out altogether. I just wanted to see what he had to say, but there was nothing at all to be found. Just take a pair of scissors and cut out whatever you do not like in the Scriptures, or paste it over with something. That’s a quick way to solve the problem, but it is not a very effective way. The problem gets even deeper as verse 13 tells us plainly that the tree got cursed for not bearing fruit because it was not the season for figs. Now you can understand why Schweitzer decided not to comment on this passage. It would save a lot of problems not to talk about it at all.

 

I. You must build your faith on absolute confidence in God

We don’t have much confidence regarding the Lord Jesus’ justice. We feel very upset that when the Lord Jesus doesn’t find any fruit on this fig tree that had luscious green leaves, he curses it, and the poor tree withers and dies. But it was not the season of figs! Now you will say, “If God’s Christ is like this, we don’t have to read the Bible.”

How are we to understand this incident? Well, I’m not about to run away from any problem. I am about to look every problem in the face, and see what it has to say to us. I thank God for passages like this in the Bible. One very important thing is that it tells us more about ourselves than it tells us about God. This parable is not meant to be diagnostic, but every parable contains a diagnostic aspect intended to reveal something about oneself or to help someone understand themselves better. When people ask a question, it tells me more about the questioner than about the problem. It imme­diately reveals his mind. In fact, any statement reveals the person’s mind.

 

Doubting God’s justice is no foundation to build your faith

What is interesting about this parable is that you can see how you react to it. You immediately feel it seems so unfair, and our reaction is more revealing than what is actually said there. What is our reaction? Our reaction diagnoses for us that we have very limited confidence in the justice of Christ. It shows you that you don’t really believe that Christ Jesus, who acts under the authority of God is just and righteous. You don’t quite believe it deep down. If you truly believe that God is just, you would never believe that he would do anything unrighteous. Do you believe God will do something unrighteous? The answer of the majority of Christians seems to be “yes.” If you have that kind of feeling regarding God, how can you have faith at all?

I said that this is the second part on the exposition regarding faith. Here at the very foundation, your faith is already shaken because you don’t really believe in the justice of God. God causes an earthquake and innocent people are killed. Where is God’s justice? It is unjust that children were killed on the road by a car. At least we can blame this on the driver. We cannot even blame an earthquake on the driver, we have to blame it on God. God is unjust. He allowed the earthquake to happen and no one can say he did not allow it to happen, because surely, God is in control of the earthquake; man doesn’t control any earthquake. This is what I mean by the diagnos­tic element of the Word of God, and indeed of every parable. We cannot have faith in God because the very foundation of our faith is insecure. We don’t believe that he is just, at least not in these cases. We might say, “He is 98% just, okay, maybe 99% just, but we concede he is 1% not so just.” Let’s be honest with ourselves.

How can the Lord Jesus expect to find figs on the fig tree when it is not the season of figs? And why does he curse the tree? This is plain ridiculous! You don’t want to listen to this kind of thing anymore. As for me, I don’t have to preach this anymore! This is the end! That is one way. Now I want to put the challenge right in front of you and let you say, “Jesus is unjust. He is unfair.” Say it at your heart. “Jesus is unjust.” After all, that’s what you believe. Don’t pretend you don’t. If you say, “No, he is just,” then try and explain it. I’ll have you in a corner in no time at all.

When you see an over-religious Christian getting all eloquent, you can say, “Come, sit down a minute. I’m going to read you Mark 11:13-14, and I’m going to take all the steam out of your sails.” You watch how he just doesn’t know what to say. Even the great professor, Eduard Schweizer decides to cut it out of his commentary. Perhaps some malicious fellow inserted this word into Mark to ruin the reputation of the Bible. Maybe it was never there originally. So we just cut the whole passage out. This was done by the devil, sowing the darnel among the wheat of the Bible. So we can throw out the darnel and forget about the whole thing.

How can we have faith in God when we are shaken at the very foundations of our faith, and doubt God’s justice? Will God do anything unjust? Answer it very honestly in your mind, will God do anything unjust? Will he do something unrighteous? Or do you think that because God is God, if he wants to do evil, it’s up to him because he’s the definition of the law? You and I are not God, so you and I cannot do it. It’s like a citizen gets hanged for committing murder, but if the king commits murder, he gets away with it. You cannot quarrel with the king, who is the law unto himself. And so we think of God like this. What God defines as right is right. If he says murder is right, then it’s right. If he says murder is wrong, then it’s wrong. It’s up to him to say so. And if he decides to say murder is wrong for you, but it’s right for me, then that’s also fine, because he is God and who can argue with him? If that is your concept of God, then face it. Let’s be very honest with ourselves because we want to build faith, and faith must have a solid foundation. If that’s the way you think, then be very honest about it, because you cannot build faith on a foundation like this, when you are not sure whether God is just or not.

Maybe you’ll say, “I don’t understand this passage. I’m not sure about God’s justice. I think that most of the time God does what is right. Occasionally, he might do some things which I have to admit are unjust, but maybe there is another explanation.” All this shows that we are rather insecure. The degree of confidence we have in God, will vary from person to person.

Now if I am absolutely confident as I should be that God will never do anything that is unjust, no passage will worry me. He will never do anything that is wrong. And so, although I say I may not under­stand what the explanation of the passage is at this moment, I will nevertheless say I am absolutely sure that God’s character is holy; and because he is holy, he will never do anything unholy.

It’s so strange how quickly our confidence is shaken, how quickly we become unsure of ourselves. More seriously, we are unsure of God. How can I have faith in God when I cannot even settle so basic a question as this in my mind? You must settle it once and for all in your mind, “Is God just or isn’t he?” because when you go on further, you have no foundation to build your faith.

 

Doubt God – no effective prayer, no spiritual gain

So long as you halt between two opinions, then you have doubt. And if you have doubt, you cannot pray effectively. If you cannot pray effectively, you cannot ask God for anything, therefore, you get nothing spiritually.

Therefore, look at verse 23:

Where is the man who does not doubt? If you search into the roots of your so-called “faith,” how much doubt is really hidden there? And this hidden doubt is what is frightening. That is why I want to confront you with it right now. I want to have it exposed.

Make up your mind. If God is God, then serve him. If God is not God, then don’t serve him. If God is not real, forget it! Even if he is real but he is unjust, then forget it as well! Who wants to serve a God that is unrighteous and unjust, who does things according to his own definition of righteousness? What kind of holiness is this? If I can remove or stretch the bounds of righteousness whenever it suits me, that’s not holiness. Do you have an unshakable confidence in the righteousness of God? Do you or don’t you doubt? Be very honest. You must settle this question. Unless you do, all talk about faith is in vain.

Now I want to confront you with the stark problem of doubt, because you may not have the means of solving it. This problem is not insoluble, and we don’t have to back down. There are very good reasons that we can look at, but I don’t want our faith to be built on our own power to reason, because there are always going to be problems in this world that your puny mind, and my puny mind cannot solve. If we build our faith upon our capacity to reason, then how pitiful is our condition! All of those problems can be solved but we may not be able to deal with these problems, because we don’t have the know-how, the training, the knowledge, or even the logical capacity to grapple with this type of problem. If you insist on building your faith upon your ability to reason, or on the amount of knowledge you have, then alas, you are going to doubt all the time! It’s because you have not settled one fundamental issue about the character of God: Is he or isn’t he just?

 

Your foundation of faith is: God is always right; he is never wrong!

I am determined that we face this problem honestly. Over the years of knowing God, I have come to one definite conclusion: God is absolutely righteous. I may not understand his dealings, but I can say with Abraham, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Gen. 18:25) He will certainly do right even if we cannot understand it for the moment. I must have the confidence God will always do what is right. He will never do what is unrighteous. He will never do what is evil.

I may not understand; I don’t know what things go from eternity to eternity; I don’t have the mass of information necessary to judge any particular situation; I don’t know why an earthquake may kill an infant who did no wrong. What I do know is that infant will be treated with absolute justice in eternity. My God will not do anything wrong. He will not do anything false. He will see to it that justice will be done.

I don’t know why the gangster in New York can live in luxury, and have five or six limousines at his disposal, why he owns endless amounts of property; while the righteous man is struggling to support a large family. That’s not justice. I may not be able to answer these questions, or I may be able to answer them. Whether or not I can or cannot answer these questions should not be the point. The point is whether I have absolute confidence in the character of God.

The Bible tells us sin has corrupted the whole structure of society, therefore, injustices do occur. In fact, Romans 8:19-22 tells us that even earthquakes have their origin in the sin of man; that man’s sin affects not only the functioning of this world but also the functioning of the entire universe. Sin is not a localized event, and it doesn’t affect human beings only. For example, pollution affects the animals and the trees in obvious ways, and in less obvious ways, it affects the entire functioning of the world system. Now you may or may not know that Scripture taught these things, but if your faith is based on your knowledge, clearly, every time you don’t understand anything, you are going to doubt God. That shows the foundation of your faith is like jelly, that every time something shakes it, it’s shaking all over the place! How can you build faith on this?

You and I must make up our minds whether God is or isn’t just. Be absolutely honest. If God is not just, even though he is the living God, we don’t want to be Christians. Who wants to serve an unjust God? Do I serve him just because He is powerful? Let him exterminate me then. I would rather be crushed out of existence. I don’t want to serve God if he is unjust, unholy, unrighteous! The only reason I serve God is that I must have, and by God’s grace, I do have, an unshakable confidence that God is holy, that God is just.

Now we return to this passage. You may or may not have the information to handle a passage like this, so what do you do? Jesus, the Christ God sent to act as his plenipotentiary, cursed the fig tree for having no figs when it’s not the season for figs, and do I say that God is just? Your faith in the justice of God is put to the acid test. Can you still say, “I have an unshakable faith in the justice of God whom Jesus represents?” Can you still say, “I am certain that even if I don’t understand why, I know that Jesus has a reason”? We don’t like that kind of answer, do we? We are all intellectuals who don’t accept this kind of woolly reply. We will say, “All my intellectual training revolts against that. You either make it clear to me, or I don’t believe in it. For me, reason is the measure of all things.” There we go again! We build our faith on our puny capacity to reason. We put our whole confidence upon our limited knowledge. How do we see the matter? I really want to face you with this powerful dilemma before I begin to analyze the meaning of this.

I find that the solution to this passage is not all that difficult. In fact, I am surprised that there is much problem with it at all. Where is the problem? I want to show you that it is perfectly easy to understand, but I don’t want you to build your faith on that analysis. You must build your faith on God not on the explanation. That is my first point. Whether there is an explanation or not should not affect our decision concerning the character of God. There is an explanation to every­thing although we may not know it.

 

II. Why does Jesus curse this particular fig tree?

Now I can proceed to the second part to show you that there is nothing all that difficult or even unreasonable to understand. Let us put the question the other way round. Why did the Lord Jesus come to this particular fig tree and not to all those other fig trees all over the hill on the Mount of Olives? Since all the fig trees were not in the season for fruit, why did he not curse all of them? Why did he select this particular tree to curse? Since he was hungry, and none of the trees were producing any fruit at the time, why not curse them all? If you know the answer to that, you’ve got the answer.

 

Soon after a fig tree is in leaf, it will have fruit

In order to understand something about this passage, I also had to read up quite a lot about figs. I suppose I can plant figs by now! I learned that a fig tree produces no blossoms, as you may know. In Chinese, we call it 无花果树 (wu hua guo shu), which means a tree that produces its fruit without flowers. Soon after it has leaves, it will have fruit. There are many varieties of figs, and some varieties have fruit for ten months of the year!

Did Mark not see what kind of confusion it would produce for having said that there was no fruit and then go on to say it was not the season for fruit? He saw no problem at all. When you look at it again, you will see no problem at all, at least I don’t see any problem. Do you think that Mark would not have immediately sensed the obvious difficulty, if he had said that there was no fruit but it was not the season of fruit? What did he expect the readers to think after reading a sentence like this? Clearly for Mark, there was no problem. That sentence simply explains why the Lord Jesus dealt with this particu­lar tree and not with all other trees.

Once you know that for fig trees, the fruit follows very soon after the leaves come out, then you will realize why the Lord Jesus came to this tree. This particular tree was already in leaf and therefore the Lord Jesus expected to find some fruit on it. He did not curse all the other fig trees because they had no leaves, which is a sign of promise to offer fruit. It was not the season for figs.

 

This fig tree, in a warmer location, had leaves showing promise of fruit

An agriculture specialist points out in his book concerning figs bearing fruit, that depending upon the location and the kind of ferti­lization certain fig trees got, they would bloom very much earlier than others. This is no surprising knowledge to those of us who do have some fruit trees. We have some plum trees in our garden, and they don’t bloom at the same time. In fact, one plum tree bloomed several months ahead of the other one last year. There can be a great gap in time between the blooming of different trees of the same type of fruit. This depends on the fertilizers we put in and whether the tree is located facing south where it gets more sun, or facing north where the atmosphere is colder. You may have heard the news that there was a sudden increase in temperature in Calgary, so that the trees began to bloom in the middle of winter because of the warmth.

Remember again, this particular fig tree was on the south side of the Mount of Olives, so it got all the warm sunshine, and the hill pro­tected it against the colder north. Hence, it’s not surprising that this tree was actually in leaf earlier than the other trees. Once we know all this, we understand why the Lord Jesus directed his attention to this particular tree. Mark’s statement, “it was not the season of figs” was simply to explain why the Lord Jesus did not deal with all the trees which were not bringing forth fruit, but with this particular tree that was showing promise of having fruit because of the abundance of leaves.

So there is an explanation. It’s not incomprehensible at all, if only we spend a little time to study the nature of fig trees. You can see that if you build your faith upon your non-existent knowledge about fig trees or fruit trees in general, as in the case of the theologian, you will be utterly puzzled and not understand the Lord Jesus. Whereas if you consult the agricultural expert who has knowledge of the fruits in Palestine, he finds no problem with Mark 11:13 at all, the meaning is so easy to understand. You see how insecure your confidence in the Lord Jesus and in God is, if you build your faith upon knowledge, because there is so much you don’t know. However, when you know all the facts, the meaning is so easy to understand.

 

The all-take-and no-give, spiritually fruitless fig tree represents Israel

There is more to it than that. Let us look at this passage still further because we must not miss the parabolic element. As we said right at the beginning, it’s an acted parable, and to miss the point of the para­ble is exceedingly foolish. Now we reserve for ourselves the right to cut down a fruit tree that belongs to us. Yet, the Lord Jesus has much less right than we do presumably, if he decides to destroy a fruit tree to teach a very important parable. What does the Lord Jesus want to teach by this?

First, anyone with even a basically superficial knowledge of Scripture would know that the fig tree was an emblem of Israel. The Lord Jesus used the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree in Luke 13:6-9 to emphasize that the fig tree is taking everything and giving nothing in return represented Israel. Did the vinedresser put nutrients into the ground to fertilize this fig tree, and it soaks everything up but produces no fruit? This is so characteristic of the spiritually barren Israelites at the time, who were yet willing to accept every blessing that God cared to bestow upon them. This is like so many Christians who say, “God, give me this and give me that.” They want to take anything that God has to give, but return nothing to him. There is no fruit, no spiritual evidence of life in them. So the fig tree is an emblem of this very spiritual fruitlessness of the nation of Israel.

 

Cleansing the temple occurs between cursing the fig tree and its dying

Hence, note the astonishing beauty of the timing of this event, that the cursing of the fig tree is divided into two sections, with the clean­sing of the temple inserted in between in verses 15-19. The Lord Jesus cursed the fig tree on his way into Jerusalem in verse 14, and he left it in the evening. The next day, when he was going back to Jerusalem, the disciples “saw the fig tree withered away to its roots” in verse 20. That is by no means a matter of chance. That is part of the beautiful structure of the timing in the way Christ does things. He wanted his disciples to get a lesson deeply impressed upon their minds.

It was the Passover season, and what happens during that time? Pilgrims were coming from all over Israel into Jerusalem to worship at the temple at the Passover, this special religious feast of the Jews. It was hustle and bustle, crowds and activity in Jerusalem, and the temple was crowded with worshippers from everywhere.

The money changers were doing a really good business there, and why was this? There were figures on the Roman coin which the Jews regarded as idolatrous, so they wouldn’t have this kind of money in the temple. If you wanted to put your offering into the temple, you had to change whatever Roman money you had into Tyrian coinage which was used in the temple. Also, there were pilgrims from all over Israel and other parts of the world, and they also needed to change their money. So the money changers made a profit on every transaction in the temple.

Then, worshippers had to offer sacrifices in the temple. They did not bring their sacrificial animal from Italy, or Egypt, or Syria or from within Israel. They would buy them on the spot. So you will hear the sheep bleating, the pigeons cooing, and all kinds of animal sounds when you get into the temple. It’s like a market!

 

God looks for a living faith in his people, not a lot of religious activity

What does this scene in the temple that is full of religious activity, of pilgrims coming in and going out, tell you? The temple is all full of leaves! Everything is religious activity, but where is the spiritual fruit? It’s nowhere to be found! So the Lord Jesus just clears out the money changers, merchants and pilgrims. “My house was meant to be a house of prayer, and you have turned it into a den of thieves.” Look at the scene of all this outward religious activity in the temple, but what is deep down? Prayer has been replaced by commerce, by stark materialism.

There were also those who thought godliness was a means of making some money. Do you want to worship God? Then you have to do business with me! All this superfluous religion, all this outward activity is what God already condemned in Isaiah 1:11-20: “Who required of you all this slaughtering of animals? Who required all these sacrifices and offerings from you? I want righteousness, I want holiness. I want spiritual reality!” But the nation of Israel was back to what it was in the days of Isaiah; back to what it was before the destruction of the temple; back to the days when they were about to go into exile and be taken away. Israel was back to those days once more.

The tree was going to be cut down just as the prophet John the Baptist said in Matthew 3:10, “The axe is already laid to the root of the tree.” God has already lined up his axe so that at the next blow, it will strike into the tree and cut it down, as it said in the parable in Luke 13:7. The fig tree should have yielded fruit for three years but it did not, so it was time to cut it down. Yahweh God, the owner of the vineyard said, “Cut that tree down!” Christ Jesus, the vinedresser in the parable, asks for one more year, and God gave one more year. Israel got one last year to repent, but of course, they would not repent. So now they would be cut down.

The exceedingly powerful spiritual lesson of this parable is: The Lord Jesus teaches that his God and Father is looking for faith. God doesn’t want your religious activity. He wants to look into your heart and see if there is a living faith there. If he doesn’t see faith in you, He doesn’t care how religious you are; he doesn’t care how big your Bible is; He doesn’t care how many times you go to church in a week; He doesn’t want to hear all the right religious lingo and pious evangelical phrases you know how to say. He looked at Israel and could not find a living faith. They were all lots of leaves but there was no spiritual fruit of faith inside. What God is forever looking for among his people is this very faith.

In Luke 18:1-8, the Lord Jesus is teaching a parable about prayer. Prayer is the expression of genuine faith. God’s justice and right­eousness that we talked about is also in this parable. Notice how the Lord Jesus concludes this parable in verse 8:

God is the God of righteousness, and he will vindicate those who have faith. But will God who is coming in Christ find faith when he comes again? (Rev. 22:6-7)

 

God will cut down the “full-of-leaves” Christian who is fruitless and taking

Now the key word is “find.” The Greek word for “find”, euriskō in Luke 18:8 is exactly the same Greek word here in Mark 11:13. It’s also the same Greek word which occurs two times, once in each verse in Luke 13:6-7. The owner of the vineyard also came to “look for” or “seek” fruit upon the fig tree, and could not “find” it. What is God looking for? Will God who lives in all his fullness in Christ find faith when Christ comes?

Understand well that there is no way you can please God without faith, because if you have a lot of religion without faith, you will be cut down by God. Don’t think yourself to be righteous because you have a lot of religion. God has no patience for any type of religion. He looks for genuine faith in the heart. Ask yourself this question and understand that the parable is spoken not only to Israel but also to every one of us who are the new Israel, the church.

When God comes again in Christ, he is going to look for faith. Remember the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 11:21, “If God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.” If he cut down the fig tree of Israel, don’t be so foolish as to think that he will spare the fig tree of the church. God is the God of absolute justice and righteousness. He will not treat one person one way and another person in another way. If Israel got cut down, foolish are the Christians who think that they will not be cut down on any kind of doctrine or dogma they hold. Paul says in Romans 11:21 very honestly that if God cut Israel down, neither will he spare you, if you don’t bring forth fruit.

Do not deceive yourself by the outward appearances of your religion. Don’t think that you are a good Christian because you read your Bible a lot and do your quiet time every morning. Rather, ask yourself honestly, “Do I have genuine faith in God in my heart?” Your salvation hangs on that. We are saved by faith not by religion. But faith is something that is genuinely found deep down in the heart which expresses itself in commitment to God in utter confidence. There are Christians who are like the fig tree with lots of leaves. We think they are outstanding Christians because they preach well, talk eloquently, and are very active in church. Do not think on those lines.

Many Christians are like the turtle we have at home. A brother gave my child a little turtle, and I have since had the chance to observe the character of turtles. I know something about fig trees and something about turtles now. My knowledge is increasing in the areas of agri­culture and zoology! I thought to myself, “How Christians are like turtles!” Why do I say that? Throughout the day, the turtle doesn’t take too much notice of your existence, but in the evening when it starts getting hungry, it gets interested in you. Up to that point, when it isn’t hungry, he has no use for you. You can walk back and forth, but he hardly bats an eye to look at you. Only when it gets hungry does it begin to find you interesting, because you are the source of its food. In other words, it’s only interested in you when it needs you. When it doesn’t need you, you don’t have to exist!

To me, that is an excellent picture of what Christians are like. We are only interested in God or in the church when we find they can meet our need. We never think in terms of giving something to others. We are always thinking in terms of what we can get. When that preacher is preaching, we think: “His preaching is so empty or is rubbish, I don’t want to waste my time going to his church.” We don’t think that we go to church to help brothers and sisters. Perhaps I can go because someone there needs me today. Perhaps I can cheer someone up, I can give someone some consolation, or I can give someone some joy. I will go to church for that.” Did you think like that when you came to church today? Let us be honest as honesty is so essential to faith. Or do we go to church because we think, “My last spiritual meal was one week ago, so I’m coming to church for the refill I need”?

Look at a fruit tree. Does the fruit tree eat its own fruit? No, the fruit is “all give” to other people, “no take” for the tree itself. The tree cannot eat its own fruit, but the leaves are for the tree itself. So it’s better to have more leaves and less fruit as far as the tree is concerned, because the more leaves you have, the greater is your capacity for photosynthesis whereby the tree gets more nourish­ment. So we become the kind of Christian that is all take and no give. What kind of tree is a fruitless fruit tree?

Beware! So much of religion, like the religion of Israel, is simply for ourselves. Was all the hustle and bustle in the temple for the glory of God? Was it for the blessing of someone else? No, of course, it was for themselves. “It’s all for me. I come to church so that God can bless me some more.” When do we think of others? Our life is so self-centered. May the Lord have pity on us! It’s so essential for us to be changed!

 

The three steps of faith

Finally, let us come to the understanding of the nature of faith. You can see by now that in order to exercise faith, the whole direction of our life has to change from an outward, religious-orientated type of Christianity to a deep, inward commitment to God. Until that time, you cannot exercise faith.

 

1. Be clearly convinced that God is always just, holy and right

The first step is: make a clear decision on what God is like. Without that, we cannot make a commitment to him. I will not commit myself to the God whom I am not sure is absolutely righteous and just. I settle once and for all that I would not build my faith on my puny knowledge and understanding, but I build my faith on the unshaka­ble, unchangeable character of God, namely, that he is holy and he is love. But when I have settled that issue, I have only taken one step to faith. That’s not yet enough.

 

2. Ask God to change you: from being externally active to truly spiritual and deep

I must be determined to take the next step of faith, and let God change the whole direction of my life, from doing all for show, for religious activities, for the sake of satisfying my own selfish, religious and emotional desires as in all human beings. Henceforth, I don’t increase my leaves but my fruit; that I may live to bring blessing, to communicate God’s life to others. My whole direction of life must change from the external to the internal, from the carnal to the spiritual. That is a powerful change! That is what the Bible calls “regeneration,” or to be “born again.” The whole direction of your life changes. This can only be done by faith. It’s a step of faith whereby I say, “I cannot do it, but God, you can change the whole direction of my life to become like the Lord Jesus’.” That is the step of faith.

 

3. Have faith in God, who has exposed himself to be tested by us

When we have taken these two steps, we are ready to go on to the third step to which the Lord Jesus challenged his disciples. What is the third step? In Mark 11:22, Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God.” That fig tree is the symbol of an Israel that has no faith. But as for you, you must have faith in God. Let your life, your Christianity be spiritual, deep within.

Then, he continues in verse 23,

Here, there is a powerful certainty about faith because the foundations are well-laid. Today, we talk a lot about assurance in the churches; there is a true assurance and a false assurance. If you build your life on a false assurance, you will certainly be swept away like the house on the sand. You must build your faith on an inward assurance that comes from the deep commitment of faith.

The Lord Jesus goes on to verse 24 and says,

Jesus says, “If you have the faith to follow these words of mine, to ask whatever you want and not doubt that it has been granted to you, it will be yours.” If anyone wants to prove whether or not God is the living God, God has exposed himself to be tested by us. This is marvelous! I have said many times, if God is not the living God, don’t believe in him. Don’t waste your time believing in fables, mythology and other such nonsense. We have no time for superstitions. We must have the certainty. Is God true or is he false? If he is false, don’t listen to this preaching anymore.

Then you will say, “Isn’t it dangerous for Jesus to make a statement like this?” We will all be claiming, “I want a car. I want this house – this big one, not the small one. And I believe the house is mine!” I look at that beautiful car and say, “‘By faith, I claim it! I don’t doubt one moment!’ Then that car will be mine! We came to church to learn such wonderful magic!” Would the Lord Jesus’ teaching not be misused? No, because we have already gone through the first two steps of faith. When God has changed a person in the direction of his life, he becomes truly spiritual, and he’s not going to ask for houses and cars for himself. To think like this is not to understand the Lord Jesus’ teaching. The change of direction in our life means that we live for the glory of God to the blessing of others, not for ourselves. If that’s the case, we will certainly not be asking these things.

If I claim a car or a house for someone else who needs it, I will surely get it. But if I do these things simply for myself, it won’t do at all. The fact is, you cannot misuse the Scriptures. You cannot exploit God, making him like some spiritual grandfather from whom you ask for lollipops and ice-cream cones, or whatever you want. No! Under­stand that when we have become truly spiritual, we will ask for things which are according to God’s will, because we are moving in the same direction as he is moving, and you will see his power. I have proved it again and again, that God does it!

 

God’s power is also used for destruction for the blessing of others

Finally, let me give you some illustrations of how God’s power can also be used for destruction for the blessing of others.

Actually, we have several instances of this in the Bible, when a ser­vant of God exercises church discipline. In 1 Corinthians 5:1-5, the apostle Paul committed this man who committed incest to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. God’s power comes in to destroy the man like destroying the fig tree, that in the process of the destruction, he may repent and be saved. He would know that he is dealing with the living God. As the apostle Paul says plainly in verse 5, “…for the destruction of his flesh that his soul may be saved in the Day of Judgment.” I beg of you to understand, God’s power can and will be exercised in judgment.

Or take Acts 13:11 for example, when the apostle Paul again exer­cised the power of God to destroy. He was confronted by a magician who tried to prevent Sergius Paulus, the governor from turning to God. With one word, the apostle Paul struck him with blindness. God’s power can be exercised in judgment.

I mentioned to you last week about that servant of God called Guy Bevington. In his testimony, he constantly refers to this verse here in Mark 11:24.

He is one who constantly believed that God had given it to him. He claimed it and he got it without any exception. As he comes to the close of his testimony, he says that in all his life of serving God, and he was by that time 74 years old, never once did God fail to grant what he had asked for because he had prayed spiritually. His book is called Remarkable Miracles and it is full of incidents of miracles.

I close with one instance of how he exercised the power of God to destroy since this is the character of this particular parable. Interestingly enough, in that whole book, that is the only incident of the power of God being used to destroy, but for the blessing of man. The case was like this. He was staying as the guest of a young couple who had just been married. They had got together everything they managed to acquire, and with some help, bought six acres of farming land. But they were extremely poor and had great difficulty in managing this farm. His two horses that were used for plowing were both lame, so that he even had difficulty to get on with plowing. Since he failed to plow the ground in winter, the whole field was attacked by worms, grubs. The soil should be turned over so that the winter cold would kill the worms, but he couldn’t do this since his horses were lame. The result was that worms infested the whole ground, and were eating away the crop of corn that he had sown. Consequently, he was faced with bankruptcy and disaster.

Brother Bevington overheard this man talking with his brother about this disaster that he was facing, so he intervened. He asked this man who was a Christian (also his wife), “Do you believe that God can help you in this time of disaster?”

The man replied, “Well, I guess he could, but I don’t know if he wants to.”

He said, “Do you think that God can destroy those worms in your field?”

Again the man said, “Well, I suppose he could, but I don’t know if he wants to.”

That is the great problem. We don’t have the certainty of the will of God when we have not yet entered into that second step of faith – the complete change in direction of our lives. So Brother Bevington had to spend a whole day trying to build their faith up in God. They were not sure of God at all. By the next day, through the teaching of brother Bevington, they had begun to have greater confidence in God. Then when he saw that their faith was arriving at the stage where they were about to trust in God, he said, “Let’s go out into the middle of the field, six acres of it, and ask God to destroy these worms that are eating away the crop.”

At the time, every handful of soil that was scooped up was wriggling with worms, which were eating away everything that was sown. So they walked to the center of the field and knelt down, and they began to pray that God will destroy those worms. They asked Brother Bevington, “Do you have the certainty that God will answer?” and he replied, “Yes, I am absolutely certain he will answer!” So they continued to pray. He was really praying for them, not for himself, that God would bring them through to the place of faith.

Then after some time of prayer, the wife began to say, “Oh! Glory! Glory!” He knew she was coming through now. And he had to wait for the husband to come through. After a while, the husband was saying, “Amen! Amen!” Ah! Both had come through! And so, he could now take hold of the Word of God, “where two or three of you agreed on any one thing, it shall be done for you.” He thanked the Lord, got up, scooped up some soil from the ground, and counted 10 worms in the soil. All 10 were dead! God had killed all the worms during that time of prayer! The wife scooped up another handful of soil and counted the worms, 7, all dead! The husband took up another scoop of soil, counted the worms, 8, all dead!

After a while, the man’s brother who was engaged in the conver­sation earlier on came back from town, and urged this man to hire a team of horses to plow up the field. So Brother Bevington waited to hear whether the husband and wife would say anything, but they were so timid they dared not say anything. And this man’s brother said, “Just now as I came in, I scooped up the soil and counted 9 worms in your soil.” The husband said nothing, and the wife also said nothing. Their faith was still uncertain.

Brother Bevington said to the man, “Every one of those worms that you saw in the soil just now was dead.” That man did not believe it, because he had not stopped long enough to see if they moved or not. So Brother Bevington said to this man, “Go out there, for every live worm you can find anywhere in this field of six acres, I will give you a penny.” Now a penny, one cent, was a lot of money in the 1920s. A penny is less today. And if every scoop of soil had say, 7 or 8 or 9 or 10 worms in it, that means he would get perhaps up to 10 cents for every handful. How rich would Brother Bevington have to be to pay him, when he had gone through the whole field of six acres! Do you have that confidence in God?

So the man’s brother jumped for joy, grabbed the biggest basket he could find to put all the worms in, and rushed into the field. The sister went upstairs to look from the window to see how many live worms he was going to bring in. The man went through the field on to its other side and disappeared altogether. He never came back to the house. He could not find a live worm anywhere to claim his one cent for each one of them.

Never doubt! Brother Bevington says, “My God has said it. I have ful­filled his conditions, and he will do it!” So wonderful indeed is God!

Let us be quiet before God and pray.