In the sermon 'Hungry for Fruit' by Scott Brown, the focus is on Matthew 21:12-22, where Jesus cleanses the temple and curses the fig tree. Brown emphasizes the importance of understanding the true nature of Jesus' kingdom, which is characterized by healing and fruitfulness. He explains that the temple had become a place of commerce rather than worship, and Jesus' actions reflect His desire for genuine worship and fruit-bearing in His followers. The sermon underscores the dual aspects of God's wrath and love, highlighting that judgment precedes redemption. Brown encourages self-examination in worship, urging believers to seek a faith that leads to healing and fruitfulness. Jesus' actions are seen as a call to understand His authority and the importance of abiding in Him to bear spiritual fruit. The sermon concludes with the significance of prayer and faith in the believer's life, inviting them to participate in Jesus' mission of seeking and saving the lost.

Before Scott comes, I'd like to read to you all Matthew 21, verses 12 through 22. Then Jesus went into the temple of God, and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And he said to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves." Then the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the son of David! They were indignant and said to him, Do you hear what these are saying?

And Jesus said to them, Yes, have you never read, out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, you have perfected praise? Then he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and he lodged there. Now in the morning, as he returned to the city, he was hungry, and seeing a fig tree by the road, he came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, Let no fruit grow on you ever again. Immediately, the fig tree withered away. And when the disciples saw it, they marveled saying, How did the fig tree wither away so soon?

So Jesus answered and said to them, Assuredly I say to you, if you have faith, and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, be removed and be cast into the sea, it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." Let's ask God's blessing on this time together. Oh God, as we come to worship and bow down and to kneel before the Lord our God our Maker. Father, I just pray you would open our ears to hear and our eyes to see and that you would be with Scott as he comes to expound this portion of Scripture to us. O God, may it be counted a joy and a blessing to be here today.

And Lord, let your kingdom advance through it, and we praise you now. Amen. In this great passage in Matthew 21, 12-22, our Lord is demonstrating to His disciples and to those who are around him, the true nature of his kingdom. And it's a beautiful kingdom. It's a kingdom of healing, and it's a kingdom of fruitfulness.

And it's a kingdom that is so real that you're actually healing. Something is happening to you. And that's one of the things that's being communicated in Jesus' interaction with those who are in the temple. Because the temple had ceased to be like that. It had ceased to be so real that you were actually healing.

On the contrary, you were just buying and selling. You were just shucking and jiving. You were just doing your own thing. And then in the story of the fig tree, you learn about this kingdom that is so good that you bear fruit. Fruit, fruit, something that is succulent and tasty, something that God created that is beautiful.

That's His kingdom. It's a place of healing and it's a place of fruit bearing. And, you know, as we're gathered here today, you know, we're gathered here for that purpose. But there are always things going on in our minds. There are always things that have happened during the week that just sort of disconnect us from that world of healing, that world of fruit bearing that God so desires for those who are members of His Kingdom.

And so we've gathered here for that purpose, for those two purposes. There are many longings here, there are disappointments, in every congregation that's meeting today, all over this country, there's confusion, There are hard things that people are carrying. But they've come into a house of healing and the growing of fruit. And it's a wonderful thing that God has done. Now on the one hand, you see Jesus Christ's anger, His wrath against those who are not allowing the healing and the fruit bearing to take place.

But in His wrath, the things that God hates, you can always learn what he loves. And both of those are in this passage. You see both of them. You see what he hates and what makes his wrath burn. And at the same time, he shows you what he loves.

And so As we consider this passage, we have to think about our own lives individually, we have to think about our families, we have to think about our church and how we are. Are we like that or are there things where the wrath of the Lord Jesus might burn. And so here the Lord, he points not only to what is wrong, but he also offers the cure. And what we learn is that he himself is the cure. He is the Lord of the temple.

He's the Lord of His own house. It's His house. And it should be conducted His way. And He's also the only one that can make you bear fruit. That's why He said, �Abide in Me and I in you.� So there's just some things of introduction I want to try to cover here.

First of all, there's a timeline that I want us to understand in this whole narrative here. First of all, it signals the Lord's final week in his walk toward the cross. Now, the most significant event that has ever happened in history is happening this week. And so this this text is so significant that It explains the reason that He came. He came to seek and save the lost.

He came to give His life as a ransom for many. He came to break the power of sin. He came to take the punishment that repentant sinners deserved on himself. He's taking the hit. He's taking all the cup of the wrath of God on himself.

This is the most significant week in all of history. And So here, from now, from chapter 21 all the way to the end, is a record of the last week of Jesus' life. He's been with his disciples for three years. And we've spoken a couple of weeks ago about the fact that there's an incredible emphasis on this last week in Scripture. You know, fully one-fourth of Matthew is about this last week.

One third of Mark, one fifth of Luke, one half, fully one half of the Gospel of John is dedicated to this last week. So an enormous amount of writing is given to this last week. He is coming to seek and save the lost It is the cross it is this suffering it is substitutionary Atonement and I think that's why there is so much emphasis here because it it is the center of the Christian life. The beginning of it, the middle of it, and the end of it. So that's sort of the timeline.

We have to understand where we are. And then secondly, the message. The message here really surrounds a disclosure of the Messiahship of Jesus Christ. He presents himself not as a political ruler, he's a humble, suffering servant, he bears the weaknesses of his people, and he also rules. And in this passage he's revealing who he really is.

He's a prophet, he's a priest, and he's a king. And he comes in recognized as a king, he rides into Jerusalem proclaiming himself to be the Messiah. He comes into his temple, as he does in this passage, as the priest, as the one who goes into his own house. And then he comes to a fig tree as a judge. But all along the way, he's speaking to his people like a prophet.

So he's establishing himself by defining the very nature of his discipleship. Who is Jesus Christ? And he's declared here. Now, The central message of this whole passage, I think you can boil it down to one word, fruit. The whole chapter is about fruit.

If you read the whole chapter, you'll recognize we're actually stopping short of the whole instruction that's here. We'll pick it up next week. But the whole chapter is about fruit. And that's why if you look in your Bibles in verse 28 in chapter 21, What do you think? A man had two sons and he came to the first son and said, Go work in my vineyard.

And he answered, I will not. But afterward he regretted it. This is a story of two sons. One bore fruit, the other one didn't. One said he wouldn't but did.

The other one said he would but didn't. And then in verse 43 you see the same thing. Therefore I say to you the kingdom of heaven will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing fruits of it. The whole chapter is about fruit bearing. And you see this further on as you go on in chapter 22 and in chapter 23.

And when you get to chapter 23 and the woes against the Pharisees, it's all about bearing fruit. Bring forth fruit in keeping with your repentance. The Lord Jesus Christ desires fruit and He requires it of those who are his. And then there's the method. The method of the instruction here is the coming into the temple and assessing it.

He is assessing the nature of the temple and he's also assessing the productivity of Israel in the story of the fig tree. The temple is cleansed, number one, and number two, the fig tree is cursed Because Jesus Christ is seeking fruit. He's hungry for it. We find him on the road hungry for fruit, and he doesn't see it in his people at all. And what he desires among his people is something so real that you are healing, something so good that you're actually bearing fruit in your life.

This is the Kingdom of Heaven. As he describes it here. And this is part of His whole nature. He came to seek and save the lost. He came to heal and to save.

And that means corporately, nationally, denominationally, individually, in your family, in your church, in your organizations. Jesus Christ has come to set things in order. That His rulership would reign. That's what His Kingdom is. His Kingdom is His rulership.

Wherever you find His authority, you'll find healing and fruit. That's what you get. That's what you get for your submission. That's what you get for your repentance. You get such a bountiful and helpful and wonderful result.

So in this last week of Christ's life, he is demonstrating his devotion to the salvation of sinners, and he continues deliberately and resolutely to press himself toward the cross to atone for our sins. Christ's devotion to restore his people is astonishing. He wants to restore genuine worship. He wants to restore fruit bearing and healing. He wants his people to be like what was spoken in Isaiah 56-7, that his people would be joyful in his house of prayer.

That is his method. And what we find here in the method is that there's no redemption without wrath. There's no healing and no joy without judgment. The judgment always comes before redemption. That's why in the Lord's Supper you always examine yourself.

And then you drink the cup of blessing. It's always that way. Death always precedes life. The seed falls to the ground and dies and then it rises up and it bears fruit. This is the Kingdom of Heaven.

You cannot have the blessing unless you understand the wrath of God towards sin. And the Bible always holds those together. They're never separated. You cannot separate the wrath and the love of God. They are two sides to one single thing, the Kingdom of God.

Now in this text, we're studying what happens on two days, Monday and Tuesday. And what's really interesting to me is that in the first 24 hours of Jesus being in Jerusalem He performs these three fulfillments of prophecy. He triumphantly enters as the Messiah, he cleanses the temple as the priest, and he curses the fig tree as the judge. And he fulfills prophecy all along the way. Of course, we've seen this over and over again.

Matthew is always going back and looking at, in this case, Isaiah 56. This is that. Jeremiah 7. This is that. That's what he's doing throughout this thing.

Now the outline is a very simple outline. And the first element of what we are encountering here in this text is the cleansing of the temple and It's really about both the judgment against worldly man-made practices, men who are not under the authority of God creating whatever they want in the temple, and His restorative power, the power of God to restore the beauty and the wonder of the worship of God by driving out the corruption. You have to remove the corruption before the healing can come. And so that you can have a faith so real that you're healing, that it can be so good that you bear fruit. So there's this restorative section that begins with the discipline of the Lord.

And then there's, I'm just going to say it's a prophetic section on the cursing of the fig tree. He's declaring the bankruptcy of outward religion, the religion of Israel, and how the disciples can participate in exposing and delivering from that dead religion through their prayers as they follow him in prayer. And they find the same power in prayer that he does to heal and to save, to divide the light from the darkness, to show the sheep and the goats, to say the fruitful, to divide the fruitful and the unfruitful. This will be the ministry of the disciples, and they'll do it partially by prayer. So that's the basic outline.

It's restorative on the one hand, and it's prophetic on the other hand. He's illustrating a vingered owner looking for fruit. And he sees a fig tree and it has no fruit. OK, so in this first section on the cleansing of the temple there, there, there, I want to make six observations, I'll just state them very quickly. The inspection of the temple, the cleansing of the temple, the activity in the temple, Christ's assessment of what's happening in the temple, its restoration, and the debate that ensues as a result of it.

So those are the six things I want us to walk through as we're looking at this section. First, the inspection. Mark says that he inspected the temple. He went into the temple and he looked around. Says that he looked around at everything.

And he didn't seem to say anything. He walked into the temple, and he just looked around. He was making an assessment of what was happening there. You know, what was the temple like at that time? It was gigantic.

Earlier in the week, I sent out a visual representation, sort of a videographic walk through the temple. And I don't know if you thought, if you were astonished at how big it was. I mean, just the court of the Gentiles was 25 acres. It was the most magnificent building in the Roman world. It was an astonishment.

The stones were huge. And it was a stunning structure. It wasn't Solomon's temple that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed. It was the second temple that Zerubbabel built, and it was exceedingly magnificent. It was beautiful for situation.

It was really an amazing building. And Jesus is walking through this very large structure. And he's just looking around. How long do you think it took him to do that? He walked through it.

It took time. In John, the very first time, he cleansed the temple. It says that he walked through, and then he went and he wove ropes together to make a whip. And you just have to think of the contemplation, the meditation that the Lord Jesus was engaged in in this as he walked into the temple. And he had time to make his whip as he was considering all these things.

It was a highly considered action that he took. And there he is in the midst of these huge shining blocks of marble with probably thousands of animals. Bulls and goats and birds and all of the aroma and all of the voices that have to accompany a scene like that. You had to have been there. It was a remarkable moment.

So he is inspecting the temple. And then he goes into the temple, and he cleanses the temple. That's the second thing that we see in verse 12. Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. Now again, the Lord Jesus is presenting himself not as a political ruler as he demonstrated when he came into Jerusalem on a donkey.

He now instead of goes into the palace, he goes into the temple. He's not a political or a military ruler. And he drives them out. He chases the corruptors out. And in doing so, he's displaying his wrath, his powerful anger.

Is this Jesus meek and mild? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is not one that you can put in your little box of sweet and happy. Here he is going through a very, very large structure with perhaps thousands of people defying them, flipping over tables. Have you ever flipped over a table? Have you ever gotten so mad that you flipped over a table at your house?

You know, the last time I did that, well, actually, you should try it. You've never done it, but it's quite a spectacle, I would expect. He's flipping over tables with things on them. He's offending people. He is encroaching on other people's jurisdictions in a big way.

And he's not making people happy. And the Gospel writers tell us that he's... And he stops people from coming in, he stops the commerce, he's going around just stopping everything. You had to have been there. What a spectacle it must have been to see the love of God being played out because his anger is an expression of his love.

You cannot separate them. And so this is the second cleansing of the temple. The first, the first, and during Passover, he cleanses the temple. And now the last. Isn't that interesting?

That at the beginning and the end of his ministry, he does the very same thing. And then there's all of the activity in the temple. There are all those who bought and sold in the temple. And there's a convenience factor that the temple was providing. People would bring their animal.

They would come from long distance. Are you going to drive your lamb 200 miles, or 100 miles, or even 30 miles to go to the temple? No. You go. It's way more convenient.

You can buy a priest authorized lamb right there, right on the spot. You can go and just buy it. Or if you bring your own and the priest inspect it and find that it's not clean, then you have to go buy another one. Unfortunately, it costs a lot more money to do it that way, convenience costs. It always has and it always will.

And it did in the temple. And so they were also exchanging money. Since foreign coinage was not accepted in the temple, money had to be exchanged for the Jewish half shekel. And the money changers were charging some say as much as 25% uplift on it. So they were making, I mean, with every transaction making 25% of their money.

Hey, that's not too bad. How would you like to do that every day? Every day. 25% return on every penny. So that's what they were doing.

And So while the court of the Gentiles had now become a market, it could hardly be called a house of prayer, a place of healing. It had completely lost that quality. So in the midst of all these man-made conveniences and inventions that seemed to serve some of the things that the temple needed, the convenience of the people and things like that, a whole system had grown up that actually had robbed the temple of its true nature. That there would be people joyful in His house of prayer, as Isaiah 56 says. So where is the joy?

Where is the healing? It's not happening. None of that is there. The people, the broken-hearted people, just like the broken-hearted people in this room, are coming into the temple, and their hearts aren't getting healed at all. And God is not the center.

The majesty, the beauty, the goodness of His kingdom is not raining down. The heavens are like brass now. And no one is getting any help. There's a lot of activity. Everybody's there.

They're showing up. But where's the love? Where's the mercy? Where's the healing of the brokenhearted? Where's the joy in the house of the Lord?

Where's the real prayer? Where's the kingdom that is so real that you're getting healed? Where's the kingdom that is so good that you're bearing fruit? Where is it? That's what happens to the people of God.

Has it happened to us? That's the question. Oh, do you think that we're exempt? I mean, this is the age of the Spirit, right? So everything is perfect.

Well, it is the age of the Spirit. God has poured out such Merciful grace toward us by giving a spirit But we can quench the spirit and our house Of prayer which We're so devoted to can be just a house of merchandise. In other words, we're just doing our own thing, looking for our own stuff. And where's God? Where's the heart lifted up toward God?

Where is the healing? Where is the prayer? Where is the joy in His presence? Where is it? It can get so easily lost as it was lost at that time.

Now, I don't know, you may not agree with me. I think it can be lost just as easy today as it was lost then, when you quench the Spirit of God. And so, the court of the Gentiles is now essentially a market. It could hardly be called a house of prayer. It was the high priest, the bazaar, every man was paying his temple tax, they were doing their duty.

And it became a money changing operation. And so as a result of that, the Lord Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He was looking for a house that was so real and so good, but it had become so lost in the shuffle of everybody's personal motivations. And then you see Christ's assessment in verse 13, and He said to them, it is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you've made it a den of thieves. Now the basis of his assessment, you need to really see this clearly, the basis of his assessment is three English words.

It is written. It is written. He says this in many other places, this phrase is all over the Bible. But when someone genuinely in their heart loves what is written, Now that's the beginning of all Reformation. That's where the healing starts, where you go back to what was written.

He also expresses his authority by saying, it's my house. Do you see this? My house. This is not your church. It's his church.

He owns it. So he has a right to say, what should happen in it? He has authority over his house. Now we happen to live in a day where people don't like authority all that much. They don't like people telling them what they do.

They don't want the Bible to tell them how to order things. Nope. We just live, that's just where we live. You know, my generation grew up, you know, in the day of, you know, if it feels good, do it, do your own thing. That's how everybody lived.

Then we had children and we raised them to go to the next level. And now the whole world is filled with those people. We don't like authority. And when the Lord says, it is written, my house, this is about authority. God has authority in His Church.

Now, the Church is always blessed When it listens to the authority of God and attempts with a genuine heart to do it. Now, you know, we'll always be crying out to God, Lord teach us your ways, help us to know better how to fulfill your will. We'll never completely arrive. We'll be in our deathbeds and we'll be saying, oh Lord, it is written, please help me with that. That's what we'll always be doing.

But it's that heart that desires the authority of God. And then He actually states something that's really critical to recognize in this passage. And that is he states one of the great purposes of the temple, his house, of which things are written. It says, it shall be called. It shall be called.

In other words, people are going to call it something. What do people call the church today? What do they call it? What do they call the temple on that day? Well, the church is meant to have a reputation, a certain kind of reputation.

That's why he says, it shall be called this. And you know, it's important what your church is called. My house shall be called a house of prayer." And then he uses an Old Testament passage to prove the point. Isaiah 56, please open your Bibles to Isaiah 56. We've already been there.

But the whole context of Isaiah 56 is about the inclusion of the Gentiles. It's about that God's love is going to spread further than the Jews themselves. And Jesus is demonstrating that in the next segment of Cursing the Fig Tree. He is declaring the spiritual bankruptcy of Israel. But it's all about those who were never included now being included.

And in verse 7 we read, For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations. But verse 7 before it, even them I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar. Jesus is talking about the fruit of His instruction. He goes into His house and He corrects them.

And there will be some who will find themselves joyful in His house of prayer for all the nations. Who will have true salvation. Who will know a kingdom that is so real that you're actually healing, that is so good that you're actually bearing fruit. It's His kingdom. It's a beautiful kingdom.

And He's talking about the inclusion of the wretched, sinful, immoral, wrong-headed, wacky worldview people that are going to come to Jesus Christ. And they're going to enter this kingdom that is so real and it's so good. And that's what this prophecy in Isaiah 56 is about and the Lord Jesus is speaking of how it will be inaugurated through His own ministry. Now We could also go to Jeremiah chapter 7, and again, the whole context of Jeremiah 7 is implied here. And I really wish we had time to do a full exposition of both Isaiah 56 and Jeremiah chapter 7.

Because they really help you understand what Jesus is thinking. What does he think? When Jesus is quoting an Old Testament passage, he's not just ripping a few interesting words out of context that sort of fit his thought at that moment. He's fulfilling prophecy. He is the Word of God, right?

He is summing up the law. He's fulfilling the prophets. He is taking everything that was written in the Old Testament, and he is fulfilling it in his own life. And so that's what he's doing here. So when he takes Jeremiah 7-11, he's not just ripping that bleeding and screaming out of context, he means what Jeremiah meant, and he's fulfilling it.

So Let's look at verse 1 in Jeremiah 7. You'll see what I mean. He's talking about worship. He's talking about true worship. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, stand in the gate of the Lord's house and proclaim there this word and say, hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who enter in these gates to worship the Lord.

Now, it's a picture of worship. Jesus is quoting this because this is that. Now look at verse 3. Thus says the Lord of hosts, amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Do not trust in these lying words, saying, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these.

He's talking about people who, they're upset, they want to do their religious duties. I'm in the temple of the Lord. I'm in the temple of the Lord. I'm in the temple of the Lord. I go to church.

I do this. I take the Lord's Supper. I do all, hey, What problem do you have with me? I've made a confession of faith." He says, no, amend your ways. Verse 5, for if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor.

This has to do with relationships, broken relationships, amending broken relationships. The inability to do that has to do with worship. That's why Jesus says, if there's something wrong with your brother, leave your offering there at the altar and go and be reconciled to your brother. Because your relationships have to do with your worship. If you're angry with your brother, if you're disconnected with him, if you have bitterness toward him, It says something about your worship.

And so, thoroughly amend your ways. Execute judgment between a man and his neighbor. If you do not oppress the stranger, that has to do with the people that come from across borders, you can say go home if you want, but God says, no, bless the stranger. Or the fatherless or the widow and not shed innocent blood in this place or walk after other gods to your hurt. Then I will cause you to dwell in this place in the land that I gave your fathers forever and ever.

But behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely? Burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know. He's talking about worldliness now. Your worldliness has to do with your worship as well.

In verse 10 he says, and then come and stand before me in this house which is called by my name and say, we are delivered to do all these abominations. And then verse 11, which Jesus quotes, has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of thieves in your eyes. Behold, I, even I have seen it, says the Lord. I have seen it. Does that remind you of anything?

Does that remind you of Jesus walking in the temple and looking around and saying nothing? He says, Behold, I have seen it. He sees everything. No one can stand outside of the view of the eyes of Jesus Christ. He sees everything.

He knows everything. He knows everything about you. He knows your thoughts that you have now. He knows everything. He says, behold, I have seen.

And now because you've done all these works, says the Lord, and I spoke to you rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, and I called you, but you did not answer. Therefore, I will do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to this place which I gave to you and your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren the whole posterity of Ephraim." Now we could finish this. I would just encourage you, this afternoon, read this in your family. Finish it.

But The Lord is cleansing the temple and He's fulfilling this prophecy that He is going to cast out those who have made His house a den of thieves. Those who do not know his kingdom that is so real that you're healing and so good that you're bearing fruit, he's going to cast those out. That's what he's saying. This story is about his wrath to cast out all those who do not have joy in his house of prayer. That's what he's saying.

And then we see its restoration in verse 14. Now this is my favorite part right here. Verse 14, Then the blind and the lame came into the temple and He healed them. They came to Him in the temple. That's what Isaiah 56 is all about.

It's about the outcasts being brought in. And so here, this is just a picture of that. This is that kingdom that is so real that you're being healed. And then there's this debate that's going on in the temple in verses 15 to 17, because there's indignation of the chief priests and the scribes against all this that's happening. They don't like the healing.

There's a few other things they don't like. They don't like the joy. For some reason they have a problem with children crying out with joy in the marketplace, in the temple. But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, It was wonderful. He was wonderful in his temple.

He desires so much to go person to person, heart to heart, family to family, church to church, and do wonderful things. That's what he desires in His Kingdom, in His Church, in His temple. So that it's the place where His saints are there praying with joy in His temple. And they're crying out, like those children, Hoseannas are the son of David. And all this goodness causes a debate.

Sometimes And, you know, all this goodness, you know, causes a debate. You know, sometimes sweet things, you know, kick out an argument. And that's what happened here. And they, you know, they're indignant and they said to Jesus, do you hear what these are saying? Do you hear?

As if it was blasphemous. And Jesus said yes, have you never read? And now he's gonna go back and quote the Old Testament again. Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, you have perfected praise. Then he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and he lodged there.

So they were indignant. But it was because of the wonderful things that God has done. You know, Revelation, you know, the people cry out in Revelation 15-3, great and marvelous are your works. Oh, Lord God Almighty. Great and marvelous are your works.

God desires a church, a temple. He has a kingdom. It's so real and it's so good that marvelous works are being done. So much that the children are crying out in the temple. Now, the word that Matthew uses here that Jesus utters is the word, cradzo.

It's a word like croaking. It's kind of a guttural, rough, roshish sound. The croaking of ravens. I don't know if you've ever heard children sing really loud. They can't carry a tune all that great.

And it's really loud. It's discordant. It's the sweetest sound in the world. Absolutely, it is When children sing loud. I love that.

But they were crying out in the marketplace of the temple. So I mean, when the temple is being returned to a place of healing and prayer. For the people of God, the children will cry out. You see the kindness of the Lord here in cleansing His temple. He's restoring it to a place of healing, a place of joy where children are crying out.

It is like Isaiah 56 says. It is his joyful house of prayer. He's delivering it from its hypocrisy, its lack of reality, its lack of healing, and he's restoring it. Before we exit this part of the text and go to the next, I want to give you just a few applications real quick. Number one, fake worship is the most dangerous activity happening on the earth to those who practice it and who continue it.

There's no healing in it. It's a way you can make the house of worship into the house of entertainment. You can make the house of loving one another into a house of social life and friends. You can make the house of worship into the house of entertainment. You can make the house of loving one another into a house of social life and friends.

You can make the house of identification with Christ into a house of social acceptability. You can make the house of the centrality of the gospel into a house of just family togetherness. There's so many ways that fake worship comes upon the people of God. We're so concerned about ourselves. We want people to talk to us.

We're looking to have our needs met. We're not thinking about God at all. It's fake worship. It's narcissistic, selfish, me first worship. It's really no different than the inclinations of man that created this kind of worship in Israel.

It's being created all the time by men. Fake worship that's just centered on me and how many friends I have and who massages my soul and whether I'm entertained or whether the preacher's really good enough to keep me engaged. Fake worship is very dangerous. But worship that is so real, that you're so hungry for God, And it's so good that you're bearing fruit. You are joyful in his house of prayer.

That's the kind of worship that is the worship in the kingdom of heaven. And then we always want to compensate for the work of the Holy Spirit. We always want to do things to sort of make it more interesting and helpful to us. Here's John Calvin on this text. If the Church of God has contracted any pollutions, all the children of God ought to burn with grief.

But as God has not put arms into the hands of all, let all private individuals groan till God brings the remedy. In other words, cry out to God for beginning in your own heart for something so real that you're actually healing, that you see your wounds, you bring them before Him, You cast all your cares upon Him. You examine yourself and you lay them down before the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. His blood that cleanses you from all unrighteousness. His Word that's seven times pure.

His sovereignty that's perfect. That will carry you to exactly the place that He's ordained for you. Nothing can stay His hand. You can be happy. You can be joyful in His house of prayer.

Also we have to have an actual picture of Jesus. At the triumphal entry, He's presenting Himself as the Messiah. At the inspection and cleansing the temple, He presents Himself as the Judge with wrath towards sin. He displays His anger. Some people don't want to hear that.

People are disturbed to hear that there is wrath, and they don't want people to hear it. But this is exactly what we have here. The modern church wants an effeminate, sweet, nice, delicate Jesus flower child. That's what they want. And that's not Jesus.

A commentator by the name of Bruner commenting says, when a church exists for comfort to the exclusion of challenge, for grace and not ever for judgment, she becomes a hideout for thieves rather than a house of God. She also abandons faithful exposition of scripture, which regularly treats both grace and judgment. I think this text does that so beautifully. It presents the wrath of God and the love of God. It shows the kingdom so real and so good, but it also shows the anger of Jesus Christ toward joyless, meaningless worship, selfish, narcissistic church life.

That's what he's angry about in this text. And he's actually going to set people aside for that. And that's what this text says. You have to grasp that. You have to grapple with that in this text.

So we ought to examine ourselves in worship. Now, God has always set up worship for his people. In the garden, he dwelt with mankind. Then man was driven from the garden and then he dwelt with mankind through the tabernacle and traveled with the people of God to the promised land. And then the promised land, there was a sanctuary that was built.

And the door was never closed, there were no bars, access was always granted. God was welcoming sinners. Then there was Solomon's temple, and it was destroyed, and then it was rebuilt again. But it was always a place of beauty and purity. And here Jesus is chasing the corruptors out of the temple.

And He's also clarifying the purpose of His death, to atone for sins and to separate the sheep and the goats. And they're separated by the quality of their worship. Is it worship that's so real that they're being healed or not? Or is it just selfish, all about me, narcissism? And then the story changes to the second part, the cleansing, or I'm sorry, the cursing of the fig tree in verse 18.

Now, just a note, you know, Mark treats this chronologically, Matthew treats it thematically. In Mark, we know that Jesus walked by the tree, he looked at it, and then the next day he comes and curses it. Matthew makes it seem like it just happens at one time. Because Matthew and Mark are just rendering the exact same event in a different way. And so Jesus is, He's going back and forth this week from Bethany to Jerusalem.

And He's passing, every time he's passing over the Mount of Olives. It's about a two mile walk. And here he's probably coming out of the house of Lazarus and Mary and Martha and he's coming over the Mount of Olives. He's on the road and he's hungry. He's looking for fruit And he sees this tree and it's full of leaves.

It looks like a fig tree. It's full of leaves like a fig tree, but it has no fruit. Now it says that it wasn't the time of ripening for figs. So what's that all about? Why is he cursing a tree that wasn't even the time of ripening?

Well, the reason is that there really was a kind of fruit on the tree. Fig trees begin to bear fruit in the early spring. Jesus is later than this. And this tree should have had these small, hard, sour figs on them that really weren't all that edible, but they weren't there. They didn't, they weren't, they should have been there, but they weren't there.

The ripening would come later, but these sort of pre-figs, you know, not all that edible figs, weren't there. They should have been there because there was this luxuriant tree and He's looking for fruit. And this whole section portrays his judgment against barrenness and how he will be engaging his disciples through prayer for exposing barrenness and how they can tap into the same power source. Now, there are four observations I want to make here. The leaves, number one, the fruit, the killing of the tree, and fourth, the lesson for the disciples.

That's kind of the range of what I'd like to try to cover here in the time remaining. The leaves, first of all, it was full of leaves. It had an outward appearance. It looked healthy. It was like the temple.

There was so much action going on. It looked like people were engaged on the surface, but really it was like what Jesus said earlier. Matthew, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, Cast out demons in your name, done many wonders in your name, and He will say, He will say, I never knew you. Depart from me. That's what's happening with this tree.

It's the exact same theme that we see in Matthew. Why have we been talking about this all the time? Jesus is talking about it all the time. And He isn't going to stop until we get to the Great Commission in this book. And so, They had a temple, they had a priesthood, they had sacrifices, they had holy days, they had fastings, they had prayer, they had all this structure, they had all this convenience for everybody, trying to make it work for everybody.

But it was all phony. Now, does anybody want to be phony? Does anybody want to be a whitewashed tomb? Does anyone want to appear one way and be another? Well, that's what was happening here.

And so the leaves were there. It looked like a fig tree. It was where a fig tree should have been, but it wasn't a fruitful fig tree. And that was the problem. It was full of leaves.

If you go to Isaiah 5, you can see a representation of this. It's stunningly consistent with this section. And then there's no fruit. And this represents the nation of Israel. And it speaks of how central fruit bearing is.

And he, if you go to Luke chapter 13, please turn there, Luke 13 and find verse 6. Luke 13, 6, there's something very, very much like this. He also spoke this parable, a certain man had dug, had a fig tree and planted, a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. Jesus is telling this parable. There's a man that came seeking fruit.

He's talking about himself. He is seeking fruit. Then he said to the keeper of the vineyard, look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. For three years. How long was Jesus' ministry?

It was about three years. Jesus is talking about Himself. He is seeking fruit. For three years. He's going about Israel seeking fruit, but he could find none.

Cut it down. Why does it use up the ground? But he answered and said to him, Sir, let it alone this year also. I will dig around it and fertilize it and if it bears fruit well. But if not, after that you can cut it down." Most likely this is a summary of the ministry of Jesus Christ.

He came, He looked, He ministered, He spoke the Word of God, and now He's at the place of cutting it down. Now The Bible has so much to say about bearing fruit. My temptation in our time this morning was to just talk about fruit bearing. That is the heart of the text. But the Bible tells us so much about it.

Like for example, the Bible tells us how we bear fruit. How do you bear fruit? In John 15, verses 4 and 5, He teaches us, he says, abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you. This is the gospel right here, abiding.

Unless you abide in me, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing." In other words, you can't even bear fruit. Yes, you can be a good person. You can be a very nice person, a very productive person, but you can't bear the kind of fruit he's talking about here. He says, apart from me, you can do nothing.

How do you bear fruit? You abide in Him, in the vine. He answers the question, what is good fruit? In Galatians chapter 5, 22-25, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against these there's no law.

And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." So fruit is born as a result of the presence of the Spirit of God. Of the Spirit of God. You might ask yourselves, you know, how do you... What's the bottom line here?

Jesus says that we show ourselves to be disciples of Christ by bearing fruit in John 15 verse 8. By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples. And he says that this is why he chose us. He says, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain. And whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you." Here fruit bearing is related to prayer in the same way that it is in this passage with the disciples, And as he's explaining the death of the fig tree, he chose us to bear fruit.

He teaches us how you can know the faults from the true disciple. In Matthew 7, verses 15 and 16, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Oh, there's the figs again.

You can know who are the false and true disciples by fruit bearing. Jesus tells us that we can't bear fruit without the power of God. We learn that fruit comes from, good fruit comes from a Good heart and bad fruit comes from a bad heart in Matthew 12. We learn about the consequences of being unfruitful. This is true, communicated in both the Old and the New Testament.

Jeremiah 17 says, ìEvery branch in me that does not bear fruit, I'm sorry, this is John 15, every branch that is in me does not bear fruit, he takes away. And then Jeremiah 17, 8, for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters which spreads out its roots by the river and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit." Ezekiel 47, 12 says essentially the same thing. So you know when the Apostle Paul prays for the Colossian Church, he prays for fruit bearing and Colossians 1 10 he says he prays that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. So this is why it was such a big deal that there was no fruit on the tree. It's a very big deal because in the kingdom of heaven it is so good that you bear fruit.

And then he curses the tree. It's a little bit like the church in Sardis where the Lord Jesus says in Revelation 3, 1-6, you have a name that you are alive but you are dead. Be watchful and strengthen the things that remain, or you are ready to die." And then the lesson for the disciples is found in verse 20 to the end. The disciples ask him a question. They marvel and they say, How did the fig tree wither away so soon?

Now notice the question. You've got to understand, they could have asked two questions. How or why? But they ask him how, not why. And he says he did it by faith.

And he commands them to do the same thing. He did it by faith. He says, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also, if you say to this mountain, be removed and be cast into the sea, it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive. So the disciples are going to be involved in binding and loosing in the earth.

And he's, he's, he's commending his disciples to the same kind of faith and the same kind of work that he has. In John 14, he says, greater things that you will do than even I. Greater works will you do. I believe that's what this is all about. It's about the prayerful kingdom person who's aware of how the kingdom of heaven really is, of fruitfulness and fruitlessness, and who has faith, genuine faith, who is a member of a kingdom that is so real that there's healing, and a kingdom that's so good that there's fruit bearing.

And they do the work of Jesus. And they do it through believing prayer. And it takes faith without doubting. Here the Lord is just inviting His disciples to enter into His ministry, to His life. In the same way that He says, come to Me all you who are weary and heavy laden, now I think He's saying, come to Me all you who want to serve this kingdom and be people of prayer, believing without any doubting.

The mark of the kingdom person is that he prays. You can tell about your intensity for God with your passion for prayer. And I know of times of greater and lesser passion in prayer. Maybe you're in a season of lesser passion. Let's be a people of prayer.

Let's be a people who are joining the work of Jesus Christ to seek and save the lost, to say the truth about the world, that those that bear fruit and those that don't, those that don't will be cut off. This is one aspect of the message of the Gospel, that Jesus Christ came to seek and save the lost, but if those lost do not repent, they will be cut off for all eternity. And Jesus is inviting His disciples to enter into that kind of work in the world. To know those who are lost. To be part of their lives and invite them to repent and to believe in the Gospel.

Why? So that they would have something for the first time in their life that is so real that they really start healing. They're not just putting band-aids all over their bodies of psychology and activity and success. They quit that, and they now begin to be healed from the inside out by Jesus. A kingdom that is so good that they begin to bear fruit and their fruit will remain.

Jesus is inviting his disciples to come and enter into that kind of life that he is demonstrating before them to seek and save the lost. And he'll give them the power to discern, he'll give them faith to move mountains, He'll show them that even the smallest amount of faith can be incredibly potent. If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, be pulled up by its roots and be planted into the sea, and it will obey you. This is figurative. So here are just some brief applications to consider.

First of all, remember when Jesus said, you know, it is written, It is written. You know, to enter into the sweetness of life that Jesus has, that's really the beginning of all Reformation, to find ourselves saturated with the goodness of the Word of God, to be cleansed by it, our consciences conformed by it, to go back to what is written. And, you know, to go back to what we're supposed to be, at least in this case, in our church, that it's a house of prayer for all the nations. It's not primarily for you to get your needs, it is a house of prayer for the nations. And it is a place where the healing waters of Jesus Christ flow because your heart is turned toward Him.

That's how it happens. And out of your innermost being will flow rivers of living water. This He said of the Spirit, which would be poured out. And then I think we should just consider how our faith is affecting our prayers. You know, God has placed us in a garden.

He's placed us in a vineyard. And we're being watered. You're in a place where there is the water of the Word. You have shepherds. There's worship.

There's prayer. There's service. And this is the life God has called us to, to do this in spirit and in truth, to do it genuinely from our hearts. And so here, just finally, the Lord has placed Two things before us. Number one, the suddenness of judgment for those who do not bear fruit.

And secondly, his desire for beauty and truth. Because He came that we might bear fruit. He came that we might have life, and that more abundantly. He came to bring His people into a life that is so real that you're actually being healed into a kingdom that is so good that you bear fruit and that you actually become a joyful in His house of prayer. And that's the word of the Lord Jesus Christ today.

Would you pray with me? Lord, you're marvelous in all of your ways. I thank you for your love. I thank you for your mercy towards sinners. I thank you that you call people out of the marketplace to love you, to be found with hearts truly turned toward you.

Oh God, give us hearts like that. I pray that you would give us such a church that you desire. You've shown us what you love. You've shown us what you can do and you've shown us what you hate, but oh Lord that you would work in us such a work of life. We know it only can happen through your mercy and your grace.

I pray that you would pour it out on this people. Amen.