We're back in Mark's gospel, or you could say the gospel according to Mark. And we're going to pick back up on that last verse we looked at last time. And that's verse 11. And then we'll jump into the new scripture text where we are. Let me pray for the word. Our Father and our God, we pause before we even begin to read your word, Lord, that we might remind ourselves that we're handling the very word of God. And Lord, we understand it's powerful, divinely inspired. Father, we know, Lord, also our own weakness. So Father, we pray that you'd help us to be attentive to your word. Lord, give us ears that can hear and hearts that can receive, minds that can understand. And Father, for this, we're grateful. In Jesus' name, amen. So I ended last week's study in verse 11, and I wanna go back and reread verse 11, which reads like this. It says, and Jesus went into Jerusalem and into the temple. So when he had looked around at all things, as the hour was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. I had read you last week a quote from the Holman New Testament commentary that I'd like to read again. We studied last week the triumphant entry. And the Holman reads, true to Mark's gospel, the triumphant entry into Jerusalem is a bit more somber here than that which is recorded in Matthew. The gospel of Matthew states that the city was stirred, and Luke says that the crowd was singing joyfully, but Mark records that when these events were finished, He went to the temple, had a look around, and then went back to Bethany, most likely to the home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. This verse shows Jesus as thoughtful and deliberate. This thoughtful pause here and the actions that follow remind us of a prophecy of judgment in Daniel, quote, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting, unquote. The guilty verdict was in, the sentence will be carried out the next day. And that's where we are in today's reading, the next day. So I'm gonna read, because it's all so interconnected, I wanna read from verse 12 all the way down to verse 21, and then we'll unpack this a little bit. So let's read this together. And if you're reading along, I'm in the New King James here, but let's read this. He says, now the next day, when they come out from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, he went to see if perhaps he would find something on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. In response, Jesus said to it, let no one eat fruit from you ever again. and his disciples heard it. So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold doves. And he would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. Then he taught, saying to them, Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of thieves. And the scribes and chief priests heard it and sought how they might destroy him. For they feared him, because all the people were astonished at his teaching. When evening had come, he went out of the city. Now in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter, remembering, said to him, Rabbi, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered away." Well, thus far, the reading of God's holy word. Let's try to unpack this a little bit. First, some observations regarding the fig tree. The Bible tells us here in the Synoptics that from a distance, it had the appearance of being fruitful. That's what the Bible says. Jesus sees it from a distance, sees it as full of leaves. It has the appearance to Jesus, obviously, in the story, of being fruitful. But under closer examine, he found no fruit. So that's the significance of at least what's going on with this fig tree. Now, Mark tells us, because it was not the season for figs or for fruit, And I tell you that some of the liberals take this passage, like Bertrand Russell, the atheist, and they say, this is why I'm not a Christian. Look at this guy. You have this rash young rabbi who's just hungry, and he doesn't find any food. And almost like a kid with a magic wand decides to curse the tree because he didn't get what he wants, and then it's withered up. And that's the kind of Jesus you guys worship. Well, obviously, these liberals that say these type of things know nothing of the depths of scripture and what Jesus is actually teaching here. And hopefully we can bring that to bear. What does it mean that it wasn't the season for fruit? Let's start with that, because why would Jesus be upset there's no fruit if it's not the season for fruit? And I could take you down a whole bunch of trails with a whole bunch of different commentaries, but I won't. I'll just read you two. But here's Adam Clark on that. Adam Clark says, as it was not yet the time for gathering in the fruits, and yet about the time when they were ready to be gathered, our Lord with propriety expected to find some. Or Robertson, the old Greek scholar of yesteryear, says, the early figs start in spring before the leaves, and they develop after the leaves. The main fig crop was early autumn. There should have been figs on the tree with a crop of leaves. It was a vivid, Object lesson, and that's the point I would say to the liberals, is this is a vivid object lesson that Jesus is teaching here. So we want to understand what is it that Jesus is teaching. Now remember the Old Testament prophets and Jesus, one of his offices is the office of prophet. The Old Testament prophets, God would use object lessons all the time. You think of Jeremiah, who had to wear a yoke and talk to the people, and that was his object lesson. He literally wore a yoke and had to teach on that. Or Jeremiah was told to hide his linen cloth, which we would call underwear, and then later was told to go dig it up. And when he dug it up, God says, now put it on. He goes, I can't. It's completely worthless. And then God launches into a teaching about the worthlessness of the people. And now Jeremiah gets it because of this object lesson. And then Jesus is doing the same thing in the office of prophet. He's using this fig tree as an object lesson to his disciples. Mark, who likes to put stories within stories, just brilliantly, through the inspiration of the Spirit, really bookends the whole episode of the cleansing of the temple with a story about the fig tree. It's an object lesson. What's the object lesson? Israel, from a distance, from maybe a casual observer, had the appearance that it would bear fruit. It was seemingly healthy with leaves. It had outward religion. But upon the closer examination of our Lord, he found no fruit." And he's really beginning to tell Israel that judgment was coming. You're going to be just like this fig tree, should have had fruit, looked like it was going to have fruit, but when I really examined it closely, it had no fruit. And so judgment came, the curse came to the tree. So a curse or a judgment is going to fall on Israel. And we know that that actually did occur in 70 AD when Rome just besieged the city. And Josephus tells of the horrors of what followed after that. Jesus, in his Passion Week, the week leading to the cross, will be rejected outright by the Jewish leadership and the people as a whole. Now, God's always got his remnant, and we'll get into that. But as a whole, the nation rejects the Lord, and judgment is going to come. So regarding the leadership, and I'll turn to Matthew a little bit. Matthew 23, to me, is a hard chapter to just read audibly out loud. It's so scathing. And I won't read all of it, but just a little bit of what Jesus has to say about the leadership at that time. In Matthew 23, 13, Jesus says, But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." Let me pause before I read the rest of that verse to say, I think a lot of people don't know what a hypocrite is. Because I've heard people tell me they don't go to church because the church is full of hypocrites. And what they mean by that is the church has people that still fall into sin. And that might be true, that's not what a hypocrite is. Do those same people repent when they're brought under conviction by the Holy Spirit? Do they turn back to the Lord? Do they wash their hands? Are they covered by the blood of Jesus? Do they walk around saying they're holier than thou? Do they think they're better than everybody, but then you catch them up the street and, oh my goodness, they're sinning, they're yelling at somebody, or whatever it might be. No, the person who knows that they struggle in sin, their only hope is the blood of Jesus. They confess their sin to each other and before the Lord. They repent when they're brought under conviction. That's not what a hypocrite is, right? That's somebody who's a Christian going through this life on their path heading to glory. So a hypocrite is somebody who is a play actor. On the outside, you would think there's somebody, but on the inside, there's somebody else. They're trying to fool everybody around them. That's the hypocrite. So he says to them, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. For you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. And these are the religious leaders, and what he's saying is you're blockading the doors to the kingdom with the way you conduct yourselves, with the way you lead, with the way you teach. You're blocking people from getting into the kingdom. Then one little section further, Matthew 23, down to verse 25, He says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they're full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and the dish, and the outside of them may be clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you're like whitewashed tombs, which indeed appear beautifully outwardly. Do you get that? The outward, what the public would see. Remember the Bible talks about how they would pray standing up, that men would see them and hear their prayers, because they just were praying to the audience of men. They really weren't beseeching God Almighty. And then he says, I'm sorry. He says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you like whitewashed tombs indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So Jesus cuts through all the hypocrisy right to the core of the heart issue with the leadership there. And even regarding the nation itself in Matthew 23, it says in verse 37, as Jesus looks out over Jerusalem and says, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. See, your house is left to you desolate. For I say to you, you shall see me no more till you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. It's judgment. And it's always with an attitude by our Lord of beseeching people to come and repent. Come and be reconciled. Repent of your sins. See your heart issue. Turn to the Lord for salvation. It's always that heart with God. In Isaiah 9.10, the Old Testament prophecy says, I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first fruits on the fig tree in its first season. But they went to Baal Peor and separated themselves to that shame. They became an abomination like the thing they loved. And if you know anything about the history of Israel and Baal Peor, they gave themselves over to Baal worship, which involves sexual sin. They were enticed because of the sexual sin, and they really gave themselves over to a pagan god. And God says, you started out as good fruit, but then you turned. And did you notice another thing in his little sub-note, is that he says, they became like that which they loved. He says, what you loved was an aberration, so you became a bored yourself. You became defiled. And that's true of anybody. You'll find if we love the Lord Jesus, even though we're in the path of sanctification, we're not there yet, He will make you over more and more to be like the Lord you love. But when you set your heart on sinful things, you become more and more like the sin that you've wrapped your heart around. So the fig tree is cursed. In Matthew's gospel, Jesus uses words in the original language that were a little bit more predictive. In other words, this is what's going to befall him. This is a prophetic predictive of this is what's going to happen to Israel. But in Mark, it's much stronger. In Mark, it's really simply him pronouncing, as Peter says later, a curse upon the tree that the outcome was exactly what the Lord, if you will, inflicted upon it. F.F. Bruce, the old Scotsman, he wrote, the cursing of the fig tree has always been regarded as of symbolic import, the tree being in Christ's mind an emblem of the Jewish people with a great show of religion and no fruit of real godliness. And once more, Adam Clark says, It was a proper time for them to have borne fruit. Now he's talking about the nation. It was a proper time for them to have borne fruit. Jesus had been preaching the doctrine of repentance and salvation among them for more than three years. The choicest influences of heaven had descended upon them, and everything was done in this vineyard that ought to have been done in order to make it fruitful. The time was now at hand in which God would require fruit, good fruit, and if it did not produce such, the tree would be hewn down by the Roman axe. His cursing the fig tree was not occasioned by any resentment at being disappointed at not finding fruit on it, but to point out unto his disciples the wrath which was coming upon a people who had now nearly filled up the measure of their iniquity." And then he writes, a warning to us, and says, "'A fruitless soul that has had much cultivation bestowed on it may expect to be dealt with as God did with this unrighteous nation.'" The Baptist, John, had warned about this early in the ministry, before he even pointed out Jesus as the lamb that would take away the sin of the world. In Matthew 3, it says in verse 8, worthy of repentance. And do not think to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father, for I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. And even now the axe is laid at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. But he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." And this is how he describes the coming Jesus. He says, his winnowing fan is in his hand. and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Now that's the picture of threshing wheat. You crack the wheat, and the kernel is separated from the husk, and then they would lift up with a winnowing fork, and the winds would blow the chaff, and some would get stuck in the corners of the threshing floor. But the hard, solid grain would fall straight back down. And after a while, you had a pile of good grain that would be boxed up or put into some type of a container and brought into the barn for storage. And he's using that language to say the good wheat will come into the barn. That's a picture of heaven. But he says, but the chaff, that outer husk, that outward religion, those people who didn't truly repent and come to Christ, that chaff would be burned up with an inquenchable fire. In light of all that, let me say this, that the Bible tells us over and over and over again one of the most beautiful attributes of the Lord, His long-suffering, His patience. God is incredibly patient with sinful people. In Nehemiah 9.17 it says, They refused to obey, and they were not mindful of your wonders that you did among them. But they hardened their necks, and in the rebellion they appointed a leader to return to their bondage. But you are God." Listen to how he describes God here. But you are God, ready to pardon. Gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and you did not forsake them. I mean, look, the obstinance of wicked sinners, and yet God, in His goodness, still doesn't forsake us. He retains us, if you will, and He continues to work with us. But this nation was warned over and over again, and national Israel was going to be sieged upon by Rome and destroyed in 70 AD. Let me read you, speaking of the patience of our Lord with all of this, And it's the same illustration, really, just coming from a different angle. Jesus teaches this beautiful parable, and it's in Luke 13, verse 6, where Jesus teaches like this. He says, had a fig tree, right? Same illustration, a fig tree. Certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. And he came seeking fruit on it and found none. Then he said to the keeper of the vineyard, look for three years." Hong, are we talking about Jesus's earthly ministry? Look, for three years I've come seeking fruit on this fig tree and I 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 until I dig around it and I fertilize it. And if it bears fruit, well, but if not, after that you can cut it down. And what the Lord's teaching is in his patience, in his long-suffering, he continues to work and nurture. And our Lord taught and walked and did miracles and preached the gospel and called them to repentance over and over and over again. It wasn't as if, no fruit today, you're chopped down tomorrow. In his patience, just let me try it one more time to just dig around the soil, loosen up around the roots. Maybe this thing will produce after all. But in the end, Jesus finds no fruit." The present condition of Israel. This is a little bit of a side track I want to take you down. I don't have time to read you all of this, but I want to read you a few verses, because the Apostle Paul deals with this in depth in Romans chapter 9, chapter 10, chapter 11. So I just want to point out a few things. There's a lot of eschatological, end-time views on this, and I'm not going to get into all that. Just some basic stuff that's clearly in the text, as far as the present condition of Israel. So Romans 9, beginning in verse 30, the Apostle Paul says, What shall we say then? The Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith. And what he's talking about there is the imputed righteousness of Christ that we receive through the instrumentality of faith. Then he says, but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at the stumbling stone. As it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense. Whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. It's talking about Jesus. He comes and He's teaching repentance and faith in Him. He said to His disciples, you believe in God, believe also in Me. Remember that? In the upper room. So here, you see, He's a stumbling stone and they continue to try to pursue God and glory through their own works, rather than recognizing that they lacked any good works and they needed a Savior. He says in Romans 10, beginning in one, he says, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I hear them witness, I'm sorry, for I bear them witness that they have zeal for God. but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, in other words, his perfect righteousness, his standard, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." Again, it's by Christ alone. And we embrace Christ through faith alone. Now Israel's rejection, Paul says, is not total. Remember we talked about a remnant. And Paul uses himself as that example. He goes, did God forsake every Jew? Of course not. Paul says, I'm Jewish. So in Romans 11.1 he says, I say then, has God cast away his people? Certainly not. He says, for I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. He uses the example of Elijah, who thought he was the only one left, right? He's hiding away, tells God, I'm the last guy. You have nobody else that has faith in you. And God says, well, actually, I've got 7,000 tucked away that haven't bowed their knee to Baal. Sometimes we get like, as Christians, we think it's just us. Where's everybody else at? But no, there's a remnant. God always has preserved his Jewish remnant. And Israel's rejection is not final. It says in Romans 11, 11, and then I'll read verse 15. He says, I say then, have they stumbled, that they should fall? And he means completely and finally. Is that what's happened? He says, certainly not. But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?" And the Apostle Paul anticipates, after this time of the bringing in of the Gentiles, some type of outpouring of the Spirit of God upon the Jewish people. Now there's all kinds of theologies, I'm not going to go down any of those trails, but it seems pretty clear to me in Scripture that that's what the Bible's teaching. Some kind of outpouring will take place towards the end, before Christ returns. He says in Romans 11.25, For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until, there's that word, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And I believe, whenever that day is, that God will pour out His Spirit abundantly. But there's Jewish believers. I mean, certainly you've met them. It's not as if the Jews don't come to the Lord. There's a whole ministry, several ministries, of really renowned Jewish believers in Jesus. Then Paul, and I don't want to leave this without saying this, that Paul in that whole argument of Romans 9, 10, 11, then uses Israel's unbelief as a warning to you and me. and that we wouldn't be complacent. He says in Romans 11, 19, he says, you will say then branches were broken off that I might be grafted in. Now here he's giving an illustration of an olive tree, and it's a natural olive tree. It's got its own root system, its own branches, but branches were cut off. And then these other branches are grafted in, and they begin to take the sap from the root, and they live, and they become a part of the tree. And he's using that as an illustration of us Gentiles, if you're a Gentile, that we've been grafted into the natural root, which is Israel. And so he's using that illustration, but he says, you will say then branches were broken off that I might be grafted in. Well said, he says, because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty. I like that. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he may not spare you either. Therefore, consider the goodness and the severity of God on those who fell severity, but towards you goodness, if you continue in his goodness." And his goodness is added in my translation. He says, if you continue. If you endure, right? So there's this call to endurance on our part, that we would keep on keeping on, cling to Christ by faith, that we would be under those fountains of His grace, where we grow by His grace, unto the preached word, coming to the Lord's table, that type of thing. He says there, and I'll back it up and reread it. He says, therefore, consider the goodness and the severity of God on those who fell severity toward you goodness, if you continue in his goodness, otherwise you also will be cut off. And you look at the story, and it's easy to look at historical Israel, look in the Old Testament, see how many times God called them to repentance, raised up a prophet, and they would wander off into sin again. They would once again turn to idols instead of the true and living God. But the warning is really to us, that we would be inspired by God's Word to endure in our faith, to endure. And if we ever find that our wick is starting to flicker a little bit and starting to go out, that we would go to those places where God tends to fan that flame back up again. Which is again, His Word, the preached Word, good instruction, good teaching. Because God expects fruit from His people. Not just ancient Israel. God expects fruit from you and me. He expects fruit. Jesus said in John 15 to his disciples, in verse 16, He says to them, 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, that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give you." In other words, I chose you and I'm sending you forth to go and bear fruit. Jesus expects His people to serve Him and to bear fruit. The Holman on that passage says, in the context of love, this mission for the master goes on and goes out. These abiding, fruit-bearing, loving branches, Christian believers who obey the Father and the Son, are candidates for answered prayer, as these men learned in the following years. Here, the reference to fruit can possibly be stretched to the concept of making new converts, although we dare not dismiss the idea of living out the spiritual fruit found in Galatians chapter 5. Jesus expects us to bear fruit. And certainly the fruit of the Spirit, which is what? Love, and joy, and peace, and long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That we would have this as a fruit of the Spirit in greater and greater measure. And that would flow out of that work within us into the works that we lend our hands to. That there would actually be fruit that could be observed by our Lord. I mean, everything that we produce as a tree, if you will, the fruit will come under his examination. And we should be ready for that. When he returns, he would come and find that we did indeed, through his work, through his power, produce fruit. He was able to produce fruit through us. Jesus teaches on this in Matthew 7, I won't read it too deep, but in Matthew 7 about false prophets. And he says, you'll know them by their fruit. You'll know them by their fruit. Be very careful of who is running around saying they're a prophet and speaking for God. You'll know them by their fruit. And he says to the Christian, his people, you should be bearing fruit as well. So then the cleansing of the temple, and all this object lesson is really honing in, it's bookending, this whole episode of Jesus going and cleansing the temple. They tell me that the Herodian temple, remember the temple was rebuilt, it had been destroyed. Nehemiah, Ezra come back after the captivity, and so there's a history to the temple, but this is the Herodian temple. This was expanded upon, the Solomon Temple. It had been built out and expanded upon. They tell me that the court itself, the entirety size of it was about 1,500 feet by 1,000 feet, which is 35 acres. So you have to have in mind here, if you haven't been to Israel, an incredibly huge expanse. Now, I've been able to see models of the temple in the city, and even that's kind of mind-boggling. It was huge. It was almost like one of the wonders of the world. There was a court of Gentiles. That was the outer courts. It's a huge, huge outer court area. The court of women, where the women would gather. The court of the Jews. Of course, there was the temple itself, the holy place, the Holy of Holies. And what was the purpose of the court of the Gentiles? I thought, you know, God was the God of Israel. Why was there a court of the Gentiles? Because God had expected Israel to be going forth to the nations and making converts. They were to bring the good news of Yahweh to the nations. And when they came, there was a place all right. Can you imagine as a Gentile, if somebody had came to you in some foreign country, and you came and you say, well, this is the God of the Jews, but this whole outer court is for you guys. This is the Gentile court. God expected you to come and then look towards the temple, and you can worship the living God right here in the court of the Gentiles. And that's recorded, I'll read it to you. It's 1 Kings and the dedication of the temple. In chapter 8 of 1 Kings, verse 41 says, "'Moreover, concerning a foreigner who is not of your people Israel, but has come from a far country for your namesake, for they will hear of your great name, and your strong hand, and your outstretched arm, when he comes and prays toward this temple, hear in heaven your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, that all peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel. and that they may know that this temple which I have built, says Solomon, is called by your name." He's expecting, with great anticipation, that court to be filled with Gentiles worshiping the true and living God, because they had gone forth into the nations and preached the good news of Yahweh, and that they would come to worship Him. Now, what's going on in this cleansing of the temple? You have to imagine. And Josephus talks in his historical writings about how many animals were slaughtered at the feast. And it's hundreds of thousands. A lot of people think Josephus exaggerated his numbers. But it was a lot of animals that were sacrificed. And they were ripping people off. They would say that their animal wasn't pure enough. It had an impurity or imperfection. And they really needed to buy another one because this one didn't qualify. And they would go and get this other one. But then they had to pay through the nose, if you will, to purchase this animal. And all that business that was going on was being conducted in the Gentile courts. One of the commentators said, when Jesus went and examined the temple, and he saw what was going on in the courts that were dedicated to the worship of God by Gentiles, that had turned it into a stockyard for animals, that they had a disdain for the Gentile people, and Jesus became enraged. He says, this house is to be a house of prayer. How can anybody possibly come here in any sense of reverence and turn to the temple and worship and pray to God with all this chaos? It says also that in verse 16 of Mark 11, that he wouldn't allow anybody to carry wares through the temple. In other words, they were using it as a cut-through to get from the city out to the Mount of Olives and back and forth. People were just cutting through one gate and coming out the other because it was a shortcut. And they were carrying their wares, vessels. I think a King James says vessels. That word in the original actually can mean a bunch of things. It just meant their commodities, the stuff they were going to go sell. So business is just constantly going forward. Can you imagine that going on in here? And you guys are trying to hear a sermon, or we're trying to worship God or take the Lord's Supper, and the place is half filled up with sheep and cattle and people coming in that door and going out that door? That's what was going on. And Jesus, in His holy righteousness, is outraged by it and cleanses the temple. When he does this, and he goes back, and the next morning, Peter looks down and goes, Hey, Jesus, Lord, the tree that you cursed, it's dried up, what, from the roots. In other words, it's completely destroyed. It's gone. It's dead. And he's amazed by that. And when Jesus hears that, he launches into a teaching on prayer and forgiveness, which that's hopefully whetting your appetite. I'm looking at the clock, and guess what we're going to do next week, God willing? We're going to launch into the other part of this, which is Jesus teaching on prayer and forgiveness, how that's linked. And that's good, because I told my wife, I said, I think I'm going to run out of time today. But that's OK, because it's a good stopping point. So let me end there, and we'll close in prayer. Our Father and our God, thank you so much for your word. Lord, that's a lot to take in, a lot of scripture today, Lord. And as I said at the beginning, we're a weak people. So Lord, that was quite a buffet of scripture. So Lord, I just pray that you do the work that only you can do and just massage all of that into our thinking, into our being. Lord, help us to think upon these things this week. And Lord, we thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen. Receive the benediction and the blessing of the Lord. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Go in the peace of Christ Jesus to a world that desperately needs to hear the gospel. In Jesus' name, amen.