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Well, the scripture reading today
will be from Mark chapter 11. You can find that on page 1573. I promise you that I wasn't trying
to steal Reverend Miller's thunder by skipping a couple chapters,
because we've been going through Mark. I think we were in Mark
9, 10, I believe, last. But just by the Lord's providence,
it was a passage that was assigned to me at Mars. So the Lord wants
us to review it, and I think this evening we also are going
through Mark in advance. The Lord is wanting us to review
these things. So we're gonna be at verse 11, we're gonna start,
Mark 11, starting at verse 11 and going through to 25. Jesus entered Jerusalem and went
to the temple. He looked around at everything,
but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the
12. The next day, as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry.
Seeing in the distance a fig tree and leaf, he went to find
out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found
nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs.
Then he said to the tree, may no one ever eat fruit from you
again. and his disciples heard him say it. On reaching Jerusalem,
Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who
were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the
money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would
not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And
as he taught them, he said, is it not written, my house will
be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made
it a den of robbers. The chief priests and the teachers
of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him,
for they feared him because the whole crowd was amazed at his
teaching. When evening came, they went out of the city. In
the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered
from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, Rabbi, look,
the fig tree you cursed has withered. 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. Let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, this is
your word. It speaks truly to us and clearly,
though at times, because of a slowness of heart and mind, we get confused,
and we pray that today this would become clear, that Christ would
be preached directly to our hearts. So we pray for the spirit to
receive. And for the speaker, we pray for clarity of mind and
calmness of nerves. We pray this in your name, amen. Well, up to this point, we've
been seeing, as we've been going through Mark, our pastor has
been pointing out to us, the spiritual battle that's been
taking place between all of these encounters that Christ has. And
for a second, if you will imagine this battle, spiritual battle,
as the kingdom of darkness, and John kind of puts it this way,
that the light has come. So you can imagine a globe surrounded
by storm clouds, And when Christ is born, a light touches down.
But that light is really more like a lightning bolt. And when
it hits, the kingdom of light starts to spread. And all of
Christ's ministry is what we see. He's healing, he's pushing
back, he's casting out demons. And in a lot of ways, what we're
approaching here in the temple, this is the heart of the storm.
It was interesting this week, it was brought up by one of my
professors that in Luke, there's a section that we've reached
right now where in Reverend Miller's series, where Christ turns his
face to Jerusalem and he starts making his way to Jerusalem.
And in Luke, there's an additional ten or so chapters that happens
between now, where we are in Reverend Miller's sermon series,
and where we are this morning. And so it is interesting that
Mark, his gospel is really characterized by the importance. He says immediately,
immediately, immediately. And it gives you this idea of
this battle happening between Christ and the kingdom of darkness.
Now Christ is, it's not really much of a battle in a way. Christ
is coming and conquering, right? And so here we have Christ arriving,
again, like I said, at the kind of center of the storm cloud.
But the interesting thing is, where is that, the center? We
find that it's in Jerusalem, on the mountain of God. And even
more so in the temple of God. So could the question be asked,
how? How did that happen? Well, that's our first point
we wanna go over. How did that happen? We wanna look at when
Christ goes in and sees everything, what is he seeing? As this battle
is set up, what does this battle look like? And then our second
point is really the exciting part. It's that battle that happens
where Christ enters the temple. But I also want to point out
to you a common theme that goes through, and I think this is
illustrated by the story of the fig tree that Christ uses to
teach, and that is the hypocrisy of Israel, that they outwardly
worship the Lord, that they give their sacrifices, that they speak
words of repentance, but inwardly, it's pride. Inwardly, it's hatred
for the Lord. We see that in the way that they
reject Jesus. They seek to kill him. And we find that only Jesus
can cleanse our heart. And we want to apply this to
ourselves. The theme, beware the hypocrisy of the heart. Repent
and believe. Point number one, beware the
hypocrisy of the heart. The devil makes his den. As I
said, we're gonna set up what we're seeing. And number two,
the devil makes his den. Until Jesus storms in, repent
and believe. So point number one, beware the
hypocrisy of the heart. The devil makes his den. Now
if you look at me, look with me, at verse 11, Jesus enters
the Jerusalem. So we're thinking about the triumphal
entry has just taken place. And where does Christ go first?
Immediately he goes to the temple. And it says here, he looks at
everything. What is everything? Well, before
we get to that, I think it's important that we remind ourselves,
what is the temple of God? And the temple of God, as he
said, is a permanent place for God's dwelling. It's a mediatorial
location amongst the people of Israel. And the people who were
destined or who God appointed to take care of the temple were
the priests. Their job was to offer on behalf of the people,
they are the representatives of the people. They represented
all Israel. They would give forth offerings
in repentance for the people and they would teach But here
we have the temple representing Israel. And so Christ, he goes
immediately to the temple, and he surveys. And we're to get
back to what he sees exactly. But if you hear here that at
the end of 11, he leaves. And the next morning, we have
this teaching of the fig tree, which can be a little confusing
when you're reading it. But I think that there are two
important things to keep in mind. to help translate it, to help
understand it. The first point is at the end
of verse 14. It says, and his disciples heard
him say it. We have to remember that this
is not reactionary by Jesus, it's not haphazard, that when
he uses the fig tree, he's using it purposefully to teach them
what's about to happen. He's saying to them, watch me,
watch what I'm doing closely, because he's about to do this
in the temple of God in just a moment. The other thing that
we need to know, not only is it not haphazard, the fig tree,
it's very purposeful, but the second thing to interpret it
is that, and maybe you could think of many passages in the
Bible where a tree is used to represent either the people of
God or a person of God, and here again in the Old Testament, oftentimes
Israel is represented by a fig tree, and God many times will
not find fruit, and he will judge the people, but there are times
where he finds fruit, And you hear the warmth and the love
of God when he sees fruit on the tree. So those are the two
key points that we need to remember. So let's look at what Christ
is saying. He paints a picture here for his disciples, because
it says that Christ is hungry, and he approaches the tree. The
tree has big green leaves, and the green leaves here are telling
whoever's passing by that there's fruit. Now, in our culture today,
we just go to the grocery store and we can easily find fruit.
But back then, it didn't work that way. And so people would
be more in tune and understanding when things were ripe. And they
could see on this tree that this tree would be offering fruit
given by the leaves that it had. So people that were hungry, this
tree would call out to them, look at my leaves, there's fruit
here, come to me and be satisfied. But as we see too, Christ left
hungry. And for anyone who approached
this tree, This tree was nothing but leaves, and it says it in
a negative way, as if it was worthless, a worthless tree that
lies. Now again, I'll point you to the fact that Christ is not
doing this randomly, but that he's pointing to Israel. Okay,
what is Israel doing? And when I say Israel, I'm talking
specifically about the representatives of Israel, the high priests.
Okay, so when we look at the leaves of the tree that calls
without there being any inward fruit, We see that as well in
Israel. And I think this is so important.
And this was a lot of fun for me to research this. And if you
have time later, maybe you can look online for what Herod's
temple was, how grand it really was. They have models and animations.
It was beautiful. But all of that was outward.
Herod's temple took 10,000 workers to build. The court of the Gentiles
alone was the equivalent of 30 soccer fields side by side, 30.
And we know Christ cleanses that area of the temple. When you're
looking at it from an aerial perspective, so you can see the
whole court, people would be smaller than ants. And we know also in AD 70 that
the temple was destroyed by the Romans. But today, there still
are stones at the foundation. And the largest stone that they
have, which was brought from a quarry close by, the largest
stone is 600 tons. It's one stone that people had
to bring that down to the temple. So it's quite a structure. And
the temple itself had a crown of gold. Surely the people were
thinking, there must be fruit here. We are fruitful. Look at
the grandeur of the temple. If there was a building that's
worthy to hold God, this would be that building. And perhaps
also you're aware, this past year I looked up statistics for
the Super Bowl. Because this wasn't any time of year. The
Passover was a week away. And Josephus, a historian, recorded
that hundreds of thousands of people would be coming to Jerusalem
during this time. The Super Bowl had 70,000 people in attendance.
And if you're aware, they shut down cities for those kind of
things. And it could be dangerous with that many people. So here,
if we compare it to that, many more times the people were here.
So they must have been thinking, we're doing something right.
And everyone might have been thinking that. This is a fruitful temple.
But these are all outside things. We know that they had moved a
market in, we read that in verse 15, but we also are familiar
now with how people tend to spin things. We always put a spin
on them. So they might have been thinking, well traditionally
up to this point there was a market that was across the valley on
the other side where you could go and you could purchase animals
to sacrifice. They might have been thinking,
or at least spinning it, Well, let's bring that market in so
people that are lame or that are hard for them to walk around
will have the animals and things like that easier for them to
access. Let's bring it in the temple. Now, of course, the high priest
would know that would profane the temple. But again, they could
spin it. We're fruitful. Look at us. We're
generous. And it talks about here that
people will be walking through the temple because it had become
a spectacle for people to see, a tourist attraction. And even
that. The high priest might be thinking
it's our evangelism plan. We have people coming in and
coming out. It's a house, a temple for all people. Of course, again,
that profaned it and people weren't able to worship in that area
of the temple. But we could spin it, right? We can always spin
things and we can always look at things that we pretend are
fruit, but really these are just outward leaves. And Christ comes
and he inspects and he pushes past the leaves and he sees that
there's no fruit. So the question I think we need
to ask is what is the fruit that God was looking for in Israel?
Hundreds of thousands of offerings were going up, but no heart. In verse 17, we hear the purpose
of the temple. He says, my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations. Now that's a reference to Isaiah
chapter 56, talking about the Gentiles and how the Gentiles
would be taken in to be saved. But I wanna focus more on a reference. And if you have time, either
this afternoon or this week, maybe you can read this chapter.
It's 1 Kings chapter eight. It's a wonderful chapter. And
it's Solomon's prayer of the dedication to the temple. And it's so important because
we hear there, he talks about the reason for the temple. Well,
first of all, his temple was grand. But one of the first things
he says to the Lord is that we know that you can't dwell in
a building. What building can hold you? So he's not looking
at the outward aspect of things. He knows that it's inward. Even
the heavens of heavens can't hold you, he says. And then he
goes on in his prayer to say, he repeats the same thing. He
says, if the people of God are dying in wars, he says, hear
our prayers and forgive us. If the harvest is dry and we
don't have any food, hear our prayers of repentance and forgive
us. And he goes on and on. If you
can read that later this week, 1 Kings 8, you'll see, hear and
forgive, hear and forgive, hear and forgive. That is the fruit
that Christ is looking for. The fruit of repentance. So even
as they were giving offerings for repentance, their heart was
not there. Because they said, we have the outward things, we
have the temple. And if you can also remember that John the Baptist,
early in his ministry, when he was baptizing the wilderness,
and the Pharisees and the rulers of the Jews went out to see him,
what did he say? You brood of vipers, who told you to come
out here? What is it he said, what are
we looking for? You need a bare fruits of repentance. It's the
same men that we see here. This is what the Lord is looking
for, fruits of repentance. So much blood was shed in those
animals, but no heart. Many outside signs, but no inward
change. And now in verse 14 of the fig
tree, we read there's judgment. May no one ever eat fruit from
you again. Yes, this was judgment on Israel.
And as we know, and a little bit later he talks about this,
that the temple will be destroyed, But this is judgment on Israel
because the people who represented Israel, and Israel as a nation,
had forgotten God. And just before we move on to
the next point, I want to point out this, it's very visual here. It's almost visceral, this idea
of this temple, how grand the temple was, how huge the walls
were. Could you imagine when they built this? If we're thinking
about the spiritual battle that was happening, the kingdom of
darkness, this was like building a fortress for Satan. And watching all of the 10,000s
of people that built it, it was like an army. And as they brought
those massive stones down and as the cranes lifted them up,
the picture of that is like an army against the Lord. Machines
of war. But it wasn't just that Satan
had built high walls, but that the infestation was deep. And
much more so that was important. The high priests. So as man had
forgotten God and Satan had set up shop, and the temple of God. Could we ask what hope there
would be for man? And I know that you know the answer to that.
It's the Sunday school question, isn't it? It's Jesus. But let's
talk about that in the second point. The devil makes his den,
yes, but until, I should say, Jesus storms in, repent and believe. And just as we go on to that,
I want to pause for a second. I want you to ponder the question
because we ultimately need to ask ourselves this question.
Do we bear fruits of repentance? Or do we produce leaves? I think
the bigger question is how? How do we bear fruits of repentance?
What does it look like? Is it emotion? Is it just sorrow? Is it being particularly sad?
Is it a particular doctrine that we hold? Is it the fact that
we pray before our meals? There's so many things that are
good and healthy, but those things in and of themselves can even
become leaves. So let's think about that. How do we bear fruits
of repentance? Let's move on to point number
two. A little bit before this, in the ministry of God, I want
to draw your attention to a story where Christ is casting out a
demon. And the Pharisees are there, and they accuse Christ.
They say that he's casting out demons by the power of demons,
which is kind of a ridiculous statement. I was trying to explain
it to one of my kids last night, and they didn't understand it.
And that's good, because it doesn't really make sense, that argument, to
cast out demons. And Christ calls that out, and he says, really,
that you're making no sense. Because if demons cast out demons,
then what kingdom would there be? Because they would be destroyed.
But then he says that the strong man must be bound, and he's talking
about Satan, then he could plunder his goods. And I want to be honest
with you, that the whole Gospel of Mark, when I talked about
the kingdom of darkness and light coming down, and Christ spreading
that light and taking the kingdom back, that's the binding of Satan.
the binding of the strongman. He's been doing that. But now
in the temple cleansing, we get to see that in a more physical
way. So let's read 15 through 18.
On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area. And
if you notice here, there's a lot of times where Jesus teaches
or he asks questions, not here. You can imagine how sudden this
would be. Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those
who were buying and selling there. Not just those that were selling,
but those that were buying. He overturned the tables of the
money changers and the benches of those selling doves. Just
a quick comment, in the original Greek, when he's talking about
overturning the tables, that was the word for catastrophe.
Literally, that's the word that they used, catastrophe. And would not allow anyone to
carry merchandise through the temple courts. And that's why
I said those were people that would kind of cut through to
just be in awe of the temple. And as he taught them, he said,
Is it not written, my house will be called a house of prayer for
all nations? But you, talking to the chief priests, you have
made it a den of robbers. When you look at this picture,
why is there no opposition? Again, we think about how large
30 soccer fields, how many people there might have been. It's not
Passover yet, but there are probably thousands of people, and Christ
clears them out. If you think about that today,
if someone tried to do that, wouldn't he be stopped? I mean, think about
the money that would be made there. Yes, certainly he would
be stopped. No one tries to stop him, and why? because Satan is
bound. Satan has been bound. And the
chief priests, basically, it's like they're standing in the
corner as Christ accuses them in front of the people. These
are the people, he says later, don't pray like these people.
In a way, when he comes, he sets up shop in the temple and he
teaches them. That's the next section if you read the next
couple chapters. He is there teaching and many times he points
to them and says, don't do what they do. Do everything but what
they do. And they have to sit there and accept it because Satan
has been bound, they have been bound. And if I can, I'd like
to read If you'd like to turn with me to Malachi chapter 3,
it's 1490 in your Bibles, Malachi chapter 3, 1490. But when you think about the
size of the temple, you may ask, what man could clear such a temple?
So many animals, so many people, such a scale, it's hard for us
to imagine that. But in Malachi chapter three,
you'll read the first six, five verses. This is a prophecy even
of this, temple cleansing. Chapter three. See, I will send
my messenger who will prepare the way before me. And listen
to this. Then suddenly, the Lord you are
seeking will come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant
whom you desire will come, says the Lord Almighty, But who can
endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?
For he will be like a refiner's fire or launderer's soap. He
will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. He will purify the
Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord
will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness. And
that is what Christ does. He clears the temple and prepares
it again for worship. And the offerings of Judah and
Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord as in the days gone
by, as in former years. So I will come near to you for
judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers. And
brothers and sisters, this is exactly what he does after he
cleanses the temple. He then judges the people. He
judges the leaders of Israel. So I will come near to you for
judgment. I will be quick to testify against
sorcerers, adulterers, and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers
of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and
deprive aliens of justice. But do not fear me, says the
Lord God Almighty. So I'll put the question before
you again. What man could clear such a temple? Whereas the question
we should be asking ourselves is what man could stand before
such a God? Yes, this is a divine act. Christ is revealing himself as
God. And the first thing that he does, it says, if we go back
to Mark, it says he teaches. 17, and as he taught them. And again, I wanna bring that
before you, that that was one of the acts of the high priest, to offer
a sacrifice for sins, but they would teach the people the law
of God. And this is what Christ, our true high priest, is now
doing. We know that he will give the ultimate and the final sacrifice
of himself, but here he teaches. And again, if you read through
the next couple chapters, that's what you're gonna see. He continues
to teach the people. And what does he teach? What's the first
thing? You have made it a den of robbers.
It should be a house of prayer for all nations, but you have
made it a den of robbers. It's an act of judgment, just like
for the tree. The phrase, den of robbers, is taken from Jeremiah
chapter 7, and I think that helps us when I read that. That helped
me to understand better what that means, because den of robbers,
I immediately thought, well, now they've set up shop, they're
selling to the people, they're selling them the animals, they're
exchanging money, and they're not fair about how they're doing
it. That's true, they're not fair. And I thought maybe that's
what it meant, they're robbing from them their money. And again,
that probably is part of it. But if you read Jeremiah chapter
7, you'll see that it's much worse than that. Because in Jeremiah
chapter seven, Jeremiah, in a very similar way, has found a temple
where the people of God, they go out during the day, and they
serve other gods, and they even sacrifice to their children.
They're burning their children to other gods. And they come
back before the Lord in the temple, they congregate, and they say,
it's the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple
of the Lord. I don't know if that's a hymn, but certainly
they're pointing to the outside works. They say we go out and
we do evil, and we come back, and God has redeemed us, he saved
us. Look, we're here in the temple. I think that when he says the
den of robbers, it's more focusing to a wicked gathering of people
where they have decided to come live. This is where the filth
has gathered, in the temple of the Lord. And if we compare that
to the purpose of the temple, when I said Solomon was saying
and repeating over and over again, Hear us and forgive, hear us
and forgive. These men were saying, this is
the temple of the Lord. They're talking about the outward
aspects of the temple when it needs to be an inner heart. How
far from God they had fallen. I think you can see that as well.
Because they had no fear for him. In verse 18, the chief priests
and the teachers of the law heard this. and began looking for a
way to kill him, for they feared him, yes, but why? Because the
whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. There was an illustration
that went through my mind as I was reading this and preparing
this exhortation, a picture of a group of scavengers going through
the forest looking for food, and they come upon a den, and
in that den there's bones scattered everywhere, and there's fresh
kilt. Clearly it's a lion's den. And they decide, hey, let's sit
here and let's eat this. Why would we keep scavenging?
Here's our meal. So they sit down, they eat it. And one of them
gets the bright idea, why don't we just stay here for the night?
Let's just sleep here. And they do. And in the middle
of the night, the lion comes back. And they're standing in
front of the lion. And you can think about Daniel
as well, when the accusers of Daniel were thrown into the lion's
den. And there's a picture of the lions jumping and leaping
and crushing their bones before they hit the ground. That's the
picture we have here. The lion is standing before them,
but they don't fear the lion. Isn't that amazing? They fear the people, losing
the people, because these shepherds have been eating from the sheep.
There's a parable just after this where Christ talks about
the vineyard, and when he sends his son to the vineyard to go
collect the fruit, what do they want? They want to kill the son
for his inheritance. They believe that the inheritance
of the son, which is the people of God, is theirs. And they've
been eating from them this whole time. But he's back. He says,
it's my house. He's back to take it and he's
bound the strong man. And that's what they fear. They fear that
they're losing the people. And again, I have to bring this
before you, but in John, in the triumphal entry, Greeks come
up and they say, show us Jesus. Where is Jesus? Even the Greeks.
And the Jews say, we're losing the whole world. The whole world
is going after him. You can hear the panic in their
voice. They didn't fear God, even after
seeing the cleansing of the temple and after hearing the judgment
given, they did not fear. But if we read in 19 through
21, the judgment of God is sure. When evening came, they went
out of the city. In the morning, as they went along, they saw
the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said,
Jesus, Rabbi, look, the fig tree you cursed has withered. And
that is ultimately what happens with Israel. As a nation, they
reject Christ. So now in the means of application,
we have to ask ourselves, how can we avoid the same fate? How
can we bring forth fruits of repentance that aren't leaves,
but true fruit? Again, I asked, is it emotions,
is it doctrine, is it habits, is it reading scripture? Those
things are all very, very important for us. But those things in themselves
will become leaves. No, Jesus tells us in verse 22,
this is the answer, have faith in God. It has to be a work of
God. And if we feel, if we read the
doctrine of God, if we're reading scripture, it has to be a work
of God in us to make those things meaningful. And just quickly, the next section,
23 through 25, about prayer, I'm not gonna go in detail there,
Perhaps it won't be surprising to you that this is a verse that
is oftentimes misinterpreted People in the health and wealth
gospel say, if you pray, if you really believe, you can pray
and anything will come true. It's really ridiculous. We don't
need to spend any time on that. But isn't it also ridiculous
that Israel thought that the blood of a bird could satisfy
God? That that's what God wanted?
That they could hate him? That they could reject Christ
and they could offer an animal? Slay the blood of the animal?
Isn't that ridiculous? And for us as well. If we believe
that prayers at certain times of the day, or if we believe
that being sad when we're confessing our sins, or tears, if we believe
that those things in and of themselves can atone for what we have done
and how we've rejected the Lord, that is ridiculous. So what is
God saying here in these verses when he says, believe in God?
And he talks about the power of God. He's saying look to God,
don't look at yourself. Even a mountain can be turned
over and tossed into the sea. It's the work of God and only
the work of God that can bring fruit in our lives. And only
God can turn our heart. But there had to be payment. It's interesting because for us in order to believe, there
had to be payment for sins, that is Christ's blood. But when Christ
was on the cross, the Pharisees and leaders of the Jews said
to him, they mocked him and they said, You said you could save
others. Can't you save yourself? He can't
even save himself. But if he comes down from that
cross, then we'll believe. If he comes down from the cross,
then we'll believe. Isn't that so backwards? If he came down
from the cross, none of us could believe because that was the
act. When we pray, there has to be blood, and there is in
Christ, his one sacrifice. When we pray, a heart changed
and blood and payment that is from Christ. It is all the work
of God alone. So what can we do? We must cling. We must cling to him. And just in conclusion, I wanna
read this from John 15, if you'd like to turn with me there. It's
page 1676. It's a passage we're all very
familiar with. John 15, 1676. So vine and the branches. I just
want to read the first eight verses here, and if you see the
connectedness to our passage today, how do we bear fruit's
repentance? John 15, I am the true vine.
My father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me
that bears no fruit. While every branch that does
bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to
you. Remain in me and I will remain in you. No branch can
bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither
can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine,
you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I
in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing.
If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that
is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up,
thrown into the fire, and burned. If you remain in me, and my words
remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.
This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing
yourselves to be my disciples. Yes, we must cling to him. We
must find our all in him. It's fruitful. It's joyful, excuse
me, it's joyful to be able to bear fruit of repentance. Oftentimes
we can think about it as something that we have to do, or something
very somber, and it is. But isn't it amazing that God,
He enjoys the fruit. He looks forward to the fruit.
We see that Christ is hungry. He's looking into the branches
for fruit. It's a glorious thing to know that the Lord is waiting
for us to come to Him in repentance, in His Son, and He can enjoy
that. And when we're united to Christ
as our vine, then our repentance can bring forth true sorrow.
Then we can have joy in reading his scripture. And more than
anything, we can have renewed life in him. Amen. Let's pray. Father, our God, we thank you
for your word. We thank you for the reminder,
Lord, that we must have our all in you. We pray that you would
teach us what it means to have true repentance in Christ, that
you would help us to see and to fight against any leaves that
we would put out, but that we would rely totally and only in
Christ's sacrifice, that you would, by your Spirit, give us
a changed heart and a heart that is true sorrow for our sins.
We pray this in Christ's name, amen. If you're able, please rise. And bring your hymnal with you.
We're gonna sing number 95, Gracious God, My Heart Renew, but just
after that, I'll pray for the benediction. And we're gonna
sing doxology number 493, Praise God, From Whom All Blessings
Flow. So first, number 95, and then we'll do the doxology.
[04/30/2023 AM] - "Jesus Cleanses the Temple" - Mark 11:11-22
Series The Gospel of Mark
This Lord's day we will come into the house of the Lord to worship Him, for His glory. As we do so Mr. Anthony Sato will lead us for the morning worship and Rev. John Gorter for the evening worship. It looks like both AM and PM sermons will be previews of where we will be going in our Mark series.
In the morning Mr. Sato will bring us to consider the Lord cleansing the temple at Mark 11.11-22. It will be a blessing for our congregation to hear Anthony exhort from a pulpit for the first time. Pray for our brother as the Lord works through Him!
Scripture Reading: Mark 11:11-22
Text: Mark 11:11-22
Message: "Jesus Cleanses The Temple"
| Sermon ID | 430231920584544 |
| Duration | 34:55 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Mark 11:11-22 |
| Language | English |
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