Jesus Christ Drives The Money-Changers From The Temple Series

"While Josh McDowell was attending seminary in California, his father went Home to be with the Lord. His mother had died years earlier, but Josh was not sure of her salvation. He became depressed, thinking that she might be lost. Was she a Christian or not? The thought obsessed him. "Lord," he prayed, "somehow give me the answer so I can get back to normal. I've just got to know." It seemed like an impossible request.

Two days later, Josh drove out to the ocean. He walked to the end of a pier to be alone. There sat an old woman in a lawnchair, fishing. "Where's your home originally?" she asked.

"Michigan -- Union City," Josh replied. "Nobody's heard of it. I tell people it's a suburb of --" "Battle Creek," interrupted the woman. "I had a cousin from there. Did you know the McDowell family?"

Stunned, Josh responded, "Yes, I'm Josh McDowell!"

"I can't believe it," said the woman. "I'm a cousin to your mother."

"Do you remember anything at all about my mother's spiritual life?" asked Josh. "Why sure -- your mom and I were just girls -- teenagers -- when a tent revival came to town. It was the fourth night -- we both went forward to accept Christ."

"Praise God!" shouted Josh, startling the surrounding fishermen."

-Our Daily Bread.

The Lord Jesus victoriously burst forth into the capital city at the beginning of Mark chapter 11. The entire book of Mark, indeed the books of Mark, Luke and Matthew all build up to the moment when Jesus the jewish messiah rode triumphantly into the great capital of Israel, Jerusalem.

Jesus entered the temple, looked around, and then left, and went to Bethany.

This is the grand stage of Christ’s ministry, his time in Jerusalem. The time has come, at last, for the show down between the true messiah, and the religious leaders, pharisees, and roman officials.

But first Jesus strategically departs for a moment, until the right time, and now it’s the next day, and he’s leaving Bethany, back toward Jerusalem.

Let’s take a look at verses 12-14: The next day, Jesus was leaving Bethany. He was hungry. 13 He saw a fig tree with leaves. So he went to the tree to see if it had any figs growing on it. But he found no figs on the tree. There were only leaves, because it was not the right time for figs to grow. 14 So Jesus said to the tree, “People will never eat fruit from you again.” His followers heard him say this.”

The environmentalists and climate change people will be upset with this one, I think. Jesus curses this fig tree. It was in full leaf, some translations say, yet he found no figs on it. When a fig tree is in full leaf, it’s quite possible to find early figs on it, but in this case, he finds only leaves.

And this is going to be a teaching moment for the disciples. This is not done out of frustration, just because he was hungry and couldn’t find a fig. No, this was a message about prayer he was sharing with his disciples. That’s one layer.

One layer deeper, this is also a symbolic message about Israel. Israel is often represented in the scriptures as a fig tree. As God’s fig tree, you could say. But, when Jesus came, he found a people that largely rejected him. And as a result they were cursed, like the fig tree is cursed, to be destroyed, and to be driven into the nations for a long time. Today we call it the great diaspora. It happened in AD 70 when Israel led a rebellion against Rome, and declared independence from them. But it was not God’s will. So the Romans raised an army and attacked Israel, Israel fought bravely, but step by step they were slowly defeated. There’s a great documentary about the destruction of Israel in AD 70, it’s called “The Siege of Jerusalem (70 AD) - The Great Jewish Revolt.” It’s free on YouTube by the channel Invicta. It’s absolutely brilliant!

Messiah Jesus knew all this would happen ahead of time. The cursing of the fig tree was symbolic of the destruction of the nation.

Next, we see Jesus again coming to Jerusalem. It says in verses 15-16:

15 On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts 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, 16 and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts.”

Messiah Jesus clears the temple of the money changers. This is symbolic of the fact that Jesus would make the way of the gentiles to come into God’s kingdom as well.