Jesus' cleansing of the temple and cursing of the fig tree are presented as pivotal events on the road to Calvary, highlighting his role as the King of Israel. The sermon details Jesus' forceful expulsion of merchants from the temple, declaring it a house of prayer, and his subsequent withering of a fruitless fig tree, symbolizing Israel's rejection of him. The core lesson emphasizes that true worship involves sincere prayer and spiritual fruitfulness, not commercialism, and that rejection of God's purpose leads to divine judgment. The message concludes by connecting these events to prophetic signs of the end times, urging listeners to recognize the spiritual state of Israel and the imminent return of Christ.
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be please open our Bibles to Matthew chapter twenty one and try and pick up the threads where we left them on Sunday I think I said on Sunday we would try and call this week the road to Calvary since next Sunday is Easter Sunday I thought it'd be very fitting to spend this week treading along the road with the Lord Jesus God that last week. So Sunday morning we spoke about the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Now Sunday evening we spoke from the sixteenth chapter of Matthew where the Lord foretells his passion.
Really the evening message should have been in the morning, the morning message in the evening, but because it was Tom Sunday as the world called it, we did start off in the morning with the Palm Sunday message or the entrance into Jerusalem. I would like to pick up the pledge from there and read from Matthew twenty one and verse twelve. Matthew twenty one verse twelve. And Jesus went into the temple of God and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple and overthrew the tables of the money changers. and the seats of them that sowed dove, and said unto them, It is written, My house should be called the house of prayer, for ye have made it a den of thieves.
And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the son of David, they were sure to flee. And he said unto them, Here is thou what ye say, and Jesus said unto them, Have ye, ye not read, out of the mouths of babes and sufferings thou hast perfected praise? And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany, and he lodged there. Now in the morning, as he returned into the city, he hungered.
And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it. and found nothing thereon but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward forever, and presently the fig tree withered away. And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away? Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith and doubt not, You shall not only do this, which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, and ye thou cast into the sea, it shall be done.
And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer. Say anything, ye shall receive. Thank God bless the reading of these words. Shall we pray? Blessed God our Father, we thank you for thy precious words of the Bible. We thank you for the way thou hast broken it up for us. We thank thee for the various writers. We thank thee for Matthew and Mark and Luke and John and Paul. And all the angels who have subscribed to this wonderful book we have in our hands. We thank thee, Lord, they were inspired, led by the Holy Spirit to write these wonderful things. And we thank thee that in this Word of God there is light. We pray that thou take the Word of God this morning, apply it to our hearts.
Show us the things thou would have us learn. And we pray, Lord, that our hearts might be drawn closer to thee as a result of our Bible study this morning. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Mr. Richards, did you mind closing the outside door? It's swinging through and fro in the wind. Thank you. Now, I think we could call our subject this morning my house. If you look at verse... He said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer. We're trying to take our studies this week from Matthew's Gospel.
Through a period of many months, I spoke here from this platform on John's Gospel. And we went all through John's Gospel, verse by verse. Of course, in the summertime, we speak on rare occasions. It's divided up among... visiting brethren and ourselves and and It took just five years Five years to get through John's Gospel verse by verse But of course we weren't speaking any so every Sunday by any means So we covered a lot of this ground in John's Gospel, but I want to look at it this week from the Matthews Matthews Gospel point of view we said on Sunday that there are three Synoptics where they look together at the Lord's life.
And one autopsy, which is where John looks at it alone, standing out alone, when he looks upon him as the Son of God. But in Matthew we get the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, as the King of Israel. And always remember, in dealing with Matthew, you're dealing with Israel. Now it is true, and we quoted it Sunday and preached about it Sunday. The first time the word church comes in the New Testament is in Matthew. Upon this rock will I build my church. But Matthew is not so much dealing with the church as it is dealing with Israel. He was the king of Israel and he came to his own. Well, John says he came to his own and his own, but he did come to Israel as the king and of course they rejected him.
And we saw him on Sunday coming into the city of Jerusalem, riding lowly in meekness. upon an hour into the city of Jerusalem. We have read other scriptures and we quoted them Sunday, of a day when it will be said, Lift up ye, lift up your heads, go ye gates and the King of Glory shall come in. And that great eastern gate of Jerusalem that's been closed down for centuries is going to be open, and the King of Glory is going to come in, Psalm twenty-four. But not yet. When he entered this time, I think he went through the Eastern Gate. Yes.
But he didn't come in in pomp and splendor, except the lowly pomp and the wonderful splendor of the meekness and the loneliness and the humility of the beloved Son of God when he came the first time. When he comes the second time, it's going to be another story. And as we said Sunday morning, Revelation chapter, she's coming out of heaven, riding on a white horse. He's coming out with a sword of God, going from his mouth to destroy the nation, and a set of his kingdom, and rule and reign. But, as we said on Sunday evening, when he talked about my church, upon this rock I will build my church, immediately it says, From that time.
That's in the sixteenth chapter. It says, From that time forth. What time forth? from the time when he mentioned a church. From the time when he mentioned a church, from that time forth, Jesus began to show unto his disciples, How did he thus go up unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be reigned again the third day? There could not be a church if there had not been a crowd. So from that time forth, He began to tell them the basis upon which the church could be built, the basis upon which you and I could ever get into the church, the freshest blood of Christ, the cross of Christ, the death of Christ.
And that's our theme we're leading up to this week. This Passion Week, as the world calls it, the Lord is treading now the road to Jerusalem. In John's Gospel, John tells us how the Lord came up from a down... where he was staying beyond Jericho, beyond Jordan, and almost immediately he takes us into the upper room. And we see him sitting around the table with his disciples, and we spend chapter after chapter, listening to his wonderful voice, as he tells his disciples, those precious, real, near, warm, warm-hearted things about his love for them and their witness for him in the world.
But Matthew is different. Matthew is not going to take us into the upper room just like John did. Matthew we're not going to see the lonely servant washing disciples' feet. In Matthew we see the king. In Matthew we see the king of Israel. And the subject, as I said before, is more to do with Israel's in Matthew than it is in John. Now the other Gospels, they give us the same story, the story of the same week, but they each have their own viewpoint. And I want to try if we can and read it from Matthew this week. So when Jesus drove in on the donkey, they spread the their garments in the way, and cut down branches, and strawed them in the way, and the multitudes that went before, and that followed, pride, saying, Hosanna to the son of David, blessed is he that he becomet in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.
This is where the final week of the Lord's life on earth started. With these praises, people singing these praises, he's driving into his own city. He should have come in his royal splendor. He should be seated upon a throne, and all the nations should have bowed at his feet. But it wasn't that many. Children sang Hosea, Hosea. Those that followed him and loved him, those who'd been healed by his kindness and his goodness, they sang Hosea. Hosea. But the very ones they should have received him, the leaders of the Jewish people.
They rejected him. And so he came into the city. Verse ten. When he was coming to Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the mother she said, This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth, of Galilee. Now verse twelve, where we start today. And Jesus went into the temple of God. Now mark the words, the temple of God. And in the next verse, my house. the temple of God and my house. You know, the feast used to be called in the Old Testament, the feast of Jehovah, the feast of the Lord.
But you notice in John's Gospel, when he talks about the Lord going up to the Passover, three times in John's Gospel, the Lord went up to the Passover. And John always writes, the feast of the Jews. He doesn't call it the feast of the Lord anymore. the Feast of the Jews. They had, it was their Feast, the Jewish Feast. But in Leviticus twenty-three, when God institutes all these feasts, they called the Feast of Jehovah, the Feast of the Lord. But here, Matthew is using the term, the Temple of God. Jesus went into the Temple, and he cast out all them in the world. When he got into the Temple, his own house, he founded a shambles, He found it a marketplace.
There was a bleating of the sheep and the loying of the oxen and the noise and the thirst of a farmer's market. That's what it became. That's what it became. They went to the temple to offer sacrifice. But instead of rearing and raising their own animals and bringing them, as I'm sure God originally intended, men who wanted to make merchandise out of the things of God. They raised, that way they raised them, they bought them some animals, they didn't care what they were like. And they sold them in the temple precinct to people so they could offer something that they had bought with their money, not something they had raised with their own labor.
I think I see a picture of Christendom in this today, don't you? I remember when I came across to this country, I was so dead. I hadn't been here a few days. I was so dead. Never mind who said it to me, but I could tell you who that was. But I was so dead. Now, in this country, many Christians are very keen Christians. very keen business men and they spend their time in business. And they have not had the time to study the Word of God. And this friend had said this to me, he said, Back there in England, he said, You used to go to the Bible studies, the Bible readings.
When God saved me at ten, from ten years of age on, I was at Wednesday night at the Bible readings. And I was sitting at the feet of the brethren. I never said a word. I just listened. I didn't leave home till I was twenty-five. So for fifteen years, except for a period of a year and a half of serving in the Army, in the Air Force, in World War I, I was singing every Wednesday night and listening to the brethren. As they took the Word of God and expounded it and discussed it in conversation with Bible students. That was my Bible school. I didn't need an amaze. I learned it at the feet of the brethren. I know what lessons we've learned.
And I was studying evenings at the University of Bristol. I was studying engineering. I would never go there on a Wednesday night. Follow the lesson. Follow the engineering. Wednesday was the night that be at the feet of the brethren listening to the study of the word of God. That's where I learned it. And this brother said to me that You'll find that the young men in this country, don't do that too much. The old Bible reading seems to have gone out, but he said, this is what we do. Those of us that can, instead of God, good job, we can pay the men to come and preach. This is the very one he said.
We can pay those men who care to give their time to the study of God's work, and we'll pay them some preach to them. I thought, oh, that's a long way from what I've heard. I learned at the feet of the bread and what more. Because one day I wanted to teach the word of God myself, not to pay somebody else to do it. And this seems to me what's happening in the temple here. Instead of the people ranging the animals and bringing them, they went about their business and they paid somebody else to do it. And the Lord came into his temple and he cast out all them that sold and bought. Think of selling and buying in the temple. Can you understand this?
Selling and buying in the temple of God? Making a market of it? I can't understand it. And yet when I get, as I do get, you all get, all the begging, begging letters we get, all the schemes and plans of modern Christendom to raise money for the Lord's work. I see just the same thing going on today and a thousand times. Any old scheme to raise money, any kind of a party or whatever you like, is ours we can raise money for the church, our money for this cause, our money for that cause.
Oh, we ought, why don't we get all of this? story of George Mueller and read it over again. Why don't we get older than the story of some of these men like Hudson Taylor and others? They trusted God. They didn't raise money by competition and business. They just asked God. And I believe in our own position here at Clarks and Farms, if we have enough faith and we ask God, we can do all we need without any of our schemes and plans. It's when we started our schemes. The whole thing went wrong. It's not man, so he says now. It's God's. Let's be more in prayer. And the Lord came into the temple.
Now let's look at what he took. He says this. He overthrew the tables of the money changers and the seats of them that sold dove. And he said, it is written, My house should be called the house of prayer, but he had made it a den of thieves. Let's look at Isaiah fifty-six. Isaiah fifty-six verse seven. In fact, we'll read my two verses there. Isaiah fifty-six. Verse seven.
Even then will I bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Now the Lord said, It is written, My house should be called the house of prayer. And so he said, It reads here, I will make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices should be accepted upon mine altar. And mine house should be called a house of prayer for all people. The Lord God, which gathered the outcasts of Israel, said, yet will I gather others with him, and besides those that have gathered him unto him.
And so he called and quotes and he says, It is written, My house should be called the house of prayer. But ye have made it a den of thieves. Look at Jeremiah verse seven. Jeremiah verse seven, chapter seven and verse eleven, he says, And this house, Jeremiah seven verse eleven, this house which is called by my name. No, if you ask me the question, is this house which is called by my name become a den of robbers in your eyes?
Behold, even I have seen it. And so the Lord quotes, he always quotes from the Old Testament. He says, my house is called a house of prayer. But ye have made it a den of thee. And how terrible that must have been. For the blessed son of God, that holy one, the king of Israel, when he went into his house, my house, and he found instead of the holy worship of the Lord going on there, men were buying and selling and exchanging money with him. And he overthrew the tables. and drove the beasts out.
Then, of course, they were very angry. And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed. But when the sheep-priest and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, the children crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna, to the son of David, that they were sure this thing. And he said unto them, and he said unto him, and they said unto him, Here is thou what thee say, and Jesus said unto them, Ye have ye never read, out of the mouths of babes and suffering God hath perfected praise. Psalm eight verse two.
That's where he's quoting. The Lord is quoting always from the Old Testament. Psalm eight verse two. Where he says in Psalm eight O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, who has set thy glory above the heaven? How to the mouth of babes and sucklings, as thou ordained strength because of thine enemy, that thou mightest fill the enemy and the advent of the Lord. Thou shalt tell me verse two, have he never read, he said to the scribes, these men who knew the Bible, these men who read the Bible, these scribes with tragedies and Pharisees, Have he never read, tell me?
Out of the mouths of babes and supples, God has perfected praise. He was there. He proved that he was Son of God. But they blinded their eyes with it. Every act he did, and everything he did, too, from the Old Testament he was the Messiah. But they wouldn't have him. Because he didn't fit into their patterns and their business and their commercialized church that they had made, a synagogue or a temple as it was in those days. But God is not in that commercialized church, in that commercialized religion. He's outside of it.
And the Lord Jesus said, out of the mouths of babes and something. And the children were crazy. These men of learning, he scribes and Pharisees. They didn't praise him. They condemned him. But the little children, those whom he healed and touched, he took them upon his knees, the little children, he said. Hosanna, blessed is he the son of David, and the Pharisees and the leaders, were sore at birth. The chief priests and scribes were sore distressed. None of the next were his health policies.
For his seven years. And he left them and went out of the city. We were showing him the last verse of the twelve chapter of Matthew on Sunday night, or the first verse of the thirteenth chapter, it says, He went out of the house. That's to say, He left Israel. He came as the king of Israel and rejected him, and he went out of their house. He said, Here again he comes back into the temple. He comes back into my house, he said. But he left them again. And he went to Bethany. Now, don't bet any... There was a home. I rather think that he spent the last, the nights of that last week, I rather think he spent it in the home in Bethany than June.
Because if you read the other scriptures, you read Mark, it says so clearly. And he went to Bethany. Each night he went to Bethany. And then in the morning he came back to Jerusalem. And I know one home in Bethany. where Mary and Martha lived and Lazarus lived. And you think that way he spent the night. He had other friends down. There was Simon the Leopard, the supper we'll talk about that tonight, God willing. The supper was in the house of Simon the Leopard in Bethany. Maybe he stayed there, I don't know. But I like to think that amidst the heartless rejection of this world, so that the Son of God could say, Pockies have holes and birds in the air, have nests, And the Son of Man has not wear the lace head.
I like to think, sit down there in Bethany. Yet somewhere the lace head. It's a great thing, you know, to have a prophet's chamber. From the time we first got, I know most of you have done the same thing. From the time we first got married, we put an extra bedroom. The first home we had, and he said, that's the prophet's chamber. Where the preacher could stay, where God's people could stay. And Martha and Mary and Lazarus, they had a prophet Shavu. They had a little home. And they had some... I think they had a bedroom.
I think that bed had some beautiful white sheets. Probably had some beautiful handwork, linen embroidery work that those sisters had done. I think there were days of flowers in that bedroom when he went there. grown in that little garden there. And I think he found trees and red in that quiet little room down there in Bethany. He should do something like that. Now quickly, for our time's going, quickly look at the next verse. In the morning, as he returned into the city, he hungered. And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it and found nothing there on but leaves only.
and said unto him, Let no fruit grow upon thee henceforward forever. And presently the fig tree withered away. Now the fig tree is a picture of Israel. The fig tree is mentioned three times in the New Testament. In this case, now let's turn to Luke thirteen and verse six in the Gospels. I mean, Luke thirteen and verse six. The Lord mentions the fig tree again. He said this parable unto them, A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. And he came and found fruit thereon, and found, he came and sought fruit thereon and found none.
Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down. Why, Cumbres is the ground. You notice he came three years. Do you know the Lord Jesus was here? Three years. In his ministry, I mean, three years. He started his ministry at thirty years of age, and he was crucified in you, thirty-three years. And he said, I came three years to the house of Israel, the fig tree, looking for proof. And I found no proof. Why cumberth hit the ground?
And he answered and said to him, Lord, that is alone this year also. till I should dig about it and dung it. And is it there fruit? Well, if not, then after that, cut it down. And the Lord came back on this occasion, and he found the fig tree and no fruit. No fruit. Let's turn to Matthew twenty-four and verse thirty-two. Matthew twenty-four and verse thirty-two. Now learn a parable of the fig tree. When his branch is yet tender, and put his forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh, so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the door.
Verily, I say unto thee, this generation shall not pass, that all these things shall be fulfilled. What things would he talk of them? Meet the previous verses. The sign of the coming of the Son of God. The fig tree putting forth her branches. You and I have lived, I brought up here, the scarcity time to read, but I brought up here how in this book, The Late Great Planet Earth. And I like the way he put it here. He said, when the signs just didn't, the signs were of course, the signs were of course Israel going back into the land.
When the signs just given begin to multiply and increase in scope, it's similar to the certainty of leaves coming on the fig tree. But the most important sign in Matthew as to be the restoration of the Jews to the land in the rebirth of Israel, even the figure of each fig tree has been a historic symbol of national Israel. When the Jewish people, after nearly two thousand years of exile, under the relentless persecution under a rented persecution, became a nation again. On the fourteenth of May, nineteen forty-eight, the fig tree put forth its first leaf. Jesus said this.
Jesus said that this would indicate that he was at the door ready to return. Then he said, Surely I failed to do. This ignorant, much ignorant. This generation will not pass away until all these things take place. What generation? Obviously, in context, the generation that would see the signs, keep among them the rebirth of Israel. A generation in the Bible is something like forty years. If this is correct, if this is correct deduction, then within forty years or so of nineteen forty-eight All these things could take place.
Many scholars who study the Bible, who study Bible prophecy all their lives, believe that this is so. What he's saying right here on me is this, that we are this generation. When he's to see these things take place, and we see them taking place all around us, I used to wonder why God allowed World War I. But when General Annamby marched into Jerusalem without firing a shot and took Jerusalem and took it away from the Muslims and took it away from the church and the church retreated, I could see God's plans.
I was only a youngster, well, I was in the Air Force in those days, but I could see God's plans. It is the work for his people to go back to Israel. I remember a man said to me when I was about twelve, he said, my boy, You will live to see Israel go back. You will live to see the Jews go back to Jerusalem. I've done it. And I used to wonder about World War I. But when I saw Jerusalem captured and the British mandate coming and take over, and the church driven out, I thought, God is preparing for his people to go back. Then along came World War II.
And I used to wonder why all this. And when Churchill and Stalin and all these and Roosevelt had their great meeting at Casablanca, and Churchill wanted so badly to enter what they call the soft belly of Europe, to enter in the Balkans and march straight up through to Berlin that way, Stalin said no, and Roosevelt agreed. They didn't know, because he agreed with Stalin, as we all know now. And they didn't go that way. He entered from France. And that allowed a Russia to come down. Churchill's plan was to get in there and get there first before Russia could come.
But Russia came down. And Russia is down to the River Elbe. And the River Elbe was the edge of the old Roman Empire. We know the old Roman Empire is going to be set up under the Ten Kings. We know that. And the edge was the River Elbe. One's right through the middle of Jerusalem. Right through the middle of Berlin. And then they put the stone wall up there and divided. But that's the division in the scripture. That's where the Roman Empire meets. And I saw in World War II, I used to think these things out. I saw in World War II God's plan to bring the countries of Europe into shape, ready for the coming of history.
When you should see all these things coming to pass... know that the fig tree is putting forth her branches. But when in nineteen forty-eight Israel became a nation again? This man puts it very clearly and I think he's right. We are the generation that smell that. He says this generation is not going to pass away until all these things did come to us. And he talks about forty years rightly or wrongly, he talks about nineteen eight He said, rightly or wrongly, I don't know, we can kind of fix dates. The Lord tells us we're not to. But all I know is this. There's a fig tree.
He speaks about it. And when the Lord came that morning up from Bethany up to Middleton, he saw fig tree bearing no fruit. Of course he knew there was no fruit there. He could see under the leaves. He knew there was no fruit. But he went to the fig tree. and found nothing thereon but leaves only. He said, let no fruit grow on it, on thee henceforth, forever, and present in the fig tree withered away. How to of Israel. They crucified the son of God, together with his incarnations, of course, for how quickly the fig tree withered away, how quickly did The armies of Titus surrounded Jerusalem and destroyed the city and the Jews were dispersed all over the world for two thousand years.
And so the Lord making his journey to the place called Calvin. We're on the road to Calvin. He comes in as the king, riding lowly on that mule. He goes into his temple and finds a den of thieves and cleanses them. He goes back to a little home in Bethany where they loved him. He comes back next morning to his nation. He finds his nation with no food at all. And he says, let no fruit grow upon thee. And all these two cows, he says, they're back in the land here, but there's no food. He says, then you see the leaves?
Sure, any the leaves, but not the fruits, the leaves are there. She's putting forth her leaves, but I don't see any proof, you know. If the Lord Jesus went there today, they couldn't find them the same. They don't believe in the Messiah. They're sitting in faces. They're sitting in your face, too. It's not only for the Messiah. There's no proof. There's leaves. But the leaves are putting out, they're being put out. Therefore we know by the signs of the times it will get in here at the end time. He shows the Lord Jesus in that wonderful trip, that wonderful luxury, the wonderful road to Calvary, that he's treading the sea.
He shows us so many things, prophetic things, truth, things, things about his church, things about his people, and things that should affect your life and mind. May God bless us as we go further. Tonight we'll skip over those wonderful prophetic things. and we'll tick over all those arguments in the temple. We'll mention them and then we'll come on to the supple of death in the tonight's argument. Shall we pray? Blessed God, our Father, we thank thee for these last footsteps of thy beloved son. And he trod that road we've been thinking about it this morning. And he trod the road which the nature shall be.
And blessed God, we pray thou make thee seem very dear to our heart this week. as we seek to study and follow the footsteps of thy beloved Son, as he trod the road which led to the Via Dolorosa and the place where it's all governed. Touch our hearts, if we please pray thee, and bring us to a wonderful climax through our wonderful company, we ask you in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ.