In the Bible, there's a story of Jesus cursing a fig tree for being sick.
It was fruitless and within a day it had withered. Are we also in danger of becoming the objects of God's wrath like the withered fig tree? If we are spiritually fruitless, what is the spiritual fruit Jesus wants to see in our lives? Alistair Begg has answers for us today on Truth for Life. And to chapter 11, and then to the Gospel of Matthew, and to chapter 18. We looked this morning at the cursing of the fig tree, and we didn't get as far as verse 22 to 25, so we read them. "'Have faith in God,' Jesus answered.
I tell you the truth. If anyone says to this mountain, go throw yourself into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins." And then, in chapter 18 of Matthew and verse 21, then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?
Up to seven times? Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. Be patient with me, he begged, and I will pay back everything—something that he couldn't possibly do. The servant's master took pity on him and canceled the debt and let him go. But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.
He grabbed him and began to choke him. Pay back what you owe me, he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.
But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in. You wicked servant, he said, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had on you?
In anger, his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you. Unless you forgive your brother from your heart. Amen. Father, we ask for your help now. We really need the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit to be able to speak and hear and understand and believe your Word. And so we ask you, a God who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we could ask or imagine, to do this for us now, so that we might, beyond the voice of a mere man, hear your voice and submit to it. For we pray in Christ's name.
Amen. Well, let's go to chapter 11, to a narrative which bristles with difficulties—a narrative bristling with difficulties. And we said that we would seek to come to terms with the instruction of this section by, first of all, addressing the question of fruit, and then the issue of faith, and then the issue of forgiveness.
I think it's really questionable whether we have actually so far dealt with the difficult part of this particular section, or whether the difficult part is before us right now. We noted that the withered fig tree provides a sorry picture of unbelieving Judaism—that what we discovered Jesus doing was in fact prophetic symbolism, that it was an acted parable, and that what happened to this fig tree was an indication of the judgment of God that was coming upon the temple and upon the ceremonial and legalistic externalism that was represented in so much of the teaching and actions of the Pharisees. And what Jesus did on that occasion was dramatic, it was unmistakable, it was shocking, and it was a warning. It was supposed to jolt the observer into a response. It was supposed to shock the disciples—not simply the fact of the withering but the speed with which the withering took place. And God, in his mercy, does this in this parable, choosing to curse only a tree in an act of mercy, in order that the observers would be forced to ask whether those were observers present at the time or observers such as ourselves who are now reading the record, that we would be caused to ask the question, Is this in any sense a picture of me?
Am I in any sense represented by this withered, from-the-root-up tree? Jesus had come to his temple looking for fruitfulness. He had come to his temple looking for faith.
He was finding neither. And we're supposed to look at this and say, When Jesus comes and scrutinizes me, is he finding in my life fruitfulness? Is he finding in my life faith? And as I say, it was merciful of Jesus only on this occasion to curse a tree, because he makes it clear later on in the gospel that a day is coming when the King will say, Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. So in other words, if the cursing of a tree is alarming to any of us, let that alarm be sufficient to cause us to examine our own hearts so that we do not find ourselves faced with the inevitable cursing which we represented on the day of judgment. Now, the challenge that we were left with was, How do you get relief from verse 21 to verse 22? And if you read the parallel section in Matthew's gospel, you will find that it gives us a help in this regard. Because in Matthew's record, he records Jesus as saying, Hey, listen, guys, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, Go, throw yourself into the sea, and it will do it. So in other words, Jesus helps us in the transition by saying, Here has been a dramatic display of the power of God, but I want to remind you, my followers, that you have the power of God at your disposal when you act in believing faith. So in other words, what Jesus has just done in this dramatic act serves as a model for how true believers might draw on the power of God. I'm also attracted to the notion—but I don't want to work it out now, just give it to those of you who are doing the Masters course—but for those of you who are interested to think this out, I'm attracted to the view that there is actually a strong link here between the absence of prayer in the temple in verse 17, that the temple has now become defunct as a place of prayer, and now Jesus is giving instruction to his disciples so that they might become a community of prayer, and that the prayer that they exercise will be the prayers of believing faith and not the shibboleths and routine prayers that had now been represented in a temple that was going south. And if we regard these verses between 22 and 25 as instruction on prayer, then that helps us to understand why our two remaining points would be faith and forgiveness. We will spend the vast majority of time on this question of faith and just a small amount of time in the end on the question of forgiveness, at least for this evening.
Have faith in God. Jesus said, I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, go throw yourself into the sea, and doesn't doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Not very hard to understand that, is it?
It's pretty straightforward. And yet the misapplication of these verses have scared some of us so much that we scarcely give any kind of attention to the encouragement and the challenge that they contain. Some of us, if we're honest, are in danger of essentially sidestepping verses like this, trying to bury them under, if you like, a hundred qualifications. As soon as somebody raises the verse, we immediately explain to them that it doesn't really mean what it says, and it means this and it means that and it means the next thing—so much so that the people are left saying, Well, I wonder why the verse is even in the Bible at all.
That's why it's so important to keep these principles of interpretation in mind as we mentioned them this morning. That will help us to notice, first of all, that the object of faith here in verse 22 is no one other than God himself. Have faith in God.
Have faith in God. It is a very contemporary notion for people to talk about faith. In a way that wasn't true in the sixties, when I was growing up as a teenager, people weren't opposed to any notion of faith.
Scientific rationalism held sway. No well-meaning, sensible individual would ever say, And we'll be praying for you," or, We have some faith ideas that we wanted to mention. Nobody would ever have said that then. Apparently everybody's happy to say it now, because faith means whatever you want it to mean. And faith may actually be nothing more than faith in faith. So people say, Well, have faith. And people say, Yes.
And then they walk away and go, What does that mean? Because the issue is always the object of faith. It is the ground of faith that gives faith its significance. This is not faith in faith, or faith in myself, but faith in God. I believe in God the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, and I believe in his only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who suffered under Pontius Pilate and so on.
Right? In other words, when we say the Apostles' Creed, we are affirming all that underpins the exhortation of Jesus here when he says, Have faith in God. Notice also the nature or the extent of faith. What Jesus is saying here is, I want you boys to have an audacious faith. An audacious faith. I want you to have such confidence in God that you are prepared to ask him to do things that are seemingly impossible.
Now, look at the verse and tell me, Is that not what Jesus is saying? I want you, he says, to do in this respect that which says you actually believe in a God who is too wise to make mistakes, who is too kind to be cruel, and who is too powerful to be subjugated to the normal forces of the natural universe—unless and because he chooses so. Now, the terminology that he employs—"If anyone says to this mountain, if anyone roots out this mountain"—was actually familiar terminology. And in rabbinic circles, this very phraseology was used figuratively for the accomplishing of something that was impossible or incredible. And so they used this terminology—"saying to the mountain, do this," or, saying to the mountain, do that.
It just is so patently impossible. If you have faith and do not doubt—I'm quoting, again, Matthew's reference—"If you have faith and do not doubt"—sounds a bit like James, doesn't it? James 1.6. Not only says, Jesus, can you do what has been done to this fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, go throw yourself into the sea, and it will be done. Now, do you think that the disciples were standing there on the Mount of Olives, and they said, Oh, I get it now. What you're suggesting is that we will be able to turn around and say to the Mount of Olives, Throw yourself down into the sea below, which would be a maneuver of some four thousand feet once it got itself up in order that it could go back down. No, they didn't think that for a moment. And the idea of pressing this into some kind of literal fulfillment will result in immediate disappointment for the individuals who hold this out as a possibility. You're gonna spend a lot of your time in mountain ranges, you know, trying to move things, and it'll be thoroughly disappointing for you.
I don't recommend it. And to the extent that you want to argue for a literalistic fulfillment of this, then you will discover that you are playing into the hands of your atheist friends. I say that because I went to check. I thought I'd just check this afternoon what atheists do with this verse. And I didn't spend very long on it, but I spent enough time on it to prove at least to myself that what I imagined was the case is actually the case. This is one of the passages that is used in atheist literature to show, from the perspective of such an individual, that there is absolutely no basis for belief in God. They actually use this passage. And I can't go through the whole thing with you. Well, this is how they summarize it. Once they've gone through it, they say, These verses are wrong, because clearly God doesn't answer prayer.
Have you seen anybody throwing mountains around lately, they say? And the reason God doesn't answer prayer, they then say, is because God is imaginary. He is a figment of your imagination. So, do you understand why it's so important that in seeking to be true to the Bible, we don't try to be truer to the Bible than the Bible is to itself, or truer to the Bible than is Christ to the Scriptures? It is important that when we read the Bible, we say, What is the language, what is the genre in which this is being expressed? And as I suggested to you, this is a figurative, proverbial kind of statement, akin to a camel going through the eye of a needle. Now, when we're pressed upon like that, and when these things come at us—and it's not uncommon that people would say these kind of things—I'm not suggesting for a moment that we back down from the audacious challenge and encouragement that Jesus is giving.
No. We need to affirm our convictions and to assert that we are absolutely confident that God is more than willing to respond to our cries of faith. It says Hendrickson, we should not try in any way whatever to minimize the force of this saying or to subtract from its meaning. I'm going to read that to you again.
I think it's jolly good. We should not try in any way whatever to minimize the force of this saying or to subtract from its meaning. And some people immediately go and say, Well, he said that it wasn't literal. He said it was just figurative. What he's trying to do is minimize the force of his meaning and subtract from its significance. Wrong, twice wrong. No. What we're actually doing is we're saying, To understand this allows us, then, to have the Scriptures say exactly what they're saying, and not in any way to detract from the audacious way in which Jesus says to his followers, God wants to do things for you that are incredible and that are apparently impossible.
That's what he's saying. We've just come from the temple. It's defunct. We've come from the place that used to be the house of prayer.
There's no prayer going on. It's been turned into a market. Now, you are my man. You've seen what has happened to this tree. That is a model of what you will do one day when you take me at my word and when you do what God designs for you. Now, we could illustrate this in so many ways, but the man that came to mind is probably the man that's in your mind right now as a wonderful illustration of the deep-seated conviction that God is able to do what seems totally impossible. I have Abraham in mind. Abraham, the old man. Abraham, the old man with the old wife. Abraham, the increasingly old man with the increasingly old wife, who's been hanging on to a promise about becoming a father, and every day that he lives, it is increasingly incredible that he could ever become a father.
In fact, frankly, from a human perspective, there is no way that he is going to become a father. And so Paul says, let me tell you about Abraham. Romans 4 18. Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed, and so became the father of many nations. Just as it had been said to him, So shall your offspring be. Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead.
We don't need to go into that. Since he was about a hundred years old. And that Sarah's womb was also dead. So he has a promise. You are going to become the father of many nations. And every day that passes, when they're having their breakfast, they must have said to one another, This is totally unbelievable. This is incredible.
Frankly, this is impossible. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith, and he gave glory to God—here we go—being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. That is faith. That is faith. And Jesus now takes these fellows, who are on this side of the cross, and he directs them in this way. And if you read the Acts of the Apostles, the Acts of the Apostles are there in part as vibrant proof of what Jesus is actually teaching.
Because it is impossible to go into the Acts of the Apostles and not find some of the fulfillment of this. The beggar says to Peter and John, You got anything for me? Did Peter swallow before he then said to them? Did he go, I want to try this, I don't know?
I mean, what did he do? Did he just go? I don't know. What do you got for me? Well, silver and gold, have I none? Here we go, hold my hand. But such as I have, I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, just stand up and walk. That's faith. That's faith. Did he remember when the man said, Give me something, what Jesus had said to him? You see this fig tree?
You see that mess? Now let me tell you guys, this is what you need to understand. God is able to do beyond all of your capacity to even imagine. You could even say, as it were, to this mountain, Throw yourself in the sea, and it would actually be accomplished.
It is a picture of the doing of the impossible. That is Alistair Begg exhorting each one of us to have an audacious faith. You're listening to Truth for Life. We'll hear the conclusion of today's message tomorrow.
It's easier to be bold in your faith and in your prayers when you actually understand who it is you're praying to and why he is worthy of worship. We are recommending a book currently called A Hundred Proofs that Jesus is God. Whether you are a skeptic searching for answers or a believer aiming to enrich your faith, this is a book that provides a compelling and easy to read exploration of one of the foundational truths of the Christian faith that Jesus and God are one. The book A Hundred Proofs that Jesus is God is yours when you give a donation to Truth for Life today.
You can give a one-time donation at truthforlife.org slash donate, or you can arrange to set up an automatic monthly gift when you visit truthforlife.org slash truth partner. And by the way, if you enjoy studying the Bible with Alistair, it's not too late to join him in person on a New England cruise in September. He'll be teaching God's word on a tour aboard a Holland America ship. It will depart out of Boston, Massachusetts on September 21st. You'll enjoy Christian fellowship as you take in the beautiful fall colors of the New England and Eastern Canadian coastlines from Massachusetts all the way to Quebec. The ship will stop for visits in Rockland, Maine, Halifax, and Sydney, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Quebec City in Quebec. For more information or to book your cabin, visit deeperfaithcruise.com. I'm Bob Lapine. What's the difference between praying with audacious faith and treating Jesus like a genie who's waiting to grant your wishes? Alistair Begg provides answers tomorrow, and I hope you can join us. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
