MIRACLES
JESUS CURSES THE FIG TREE
DR. JIM DIXON
MARK 11:11-21
AUGUST 7, 1983
His name was Tenskwatawa, but his people called him the prophet. He was a 19th century Shawnee Indian with alleged prophetic powers. He had one great hatred in his life. He hated William Henry Harrison. It was Harrison who in 1809 as governor of the Indiana Territory, negotiated a treaty which took 2,900,000 acres of land away from the Indians. It was Harrison who in 1811 led the United States forces at the Battle of Tippecanoe, a battle at which the power of the Shawnee Indian nation was broken. And it was Harrison who in the war of 1812 led the American forces at the battle of Thames, a battle at which the Shawnee Indian Chief Tecumseh was killed.
Tenskwatawa the prophet was the brother of Tecumseh and he hated William Harrison. It was in 1840 that William Henry Harrison became the ninth president of our United States. It was about that time that Tenskwatawa died, and it is said that the prophet placed a dying curse upon Harrison and upon the presidency—that he decreed that every 20 years, beginning with Harrison, the person elected to the presidency would die in office. And so it was that in 1840, William Harrison was elected president of the United States. And on the day he took office, he came down with a cold. 30 days later he had pneumonia and he died.
And 1860, 20 years later, Abraham Lincoln became president of the United States. He too died in office, assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. In 1880, James Garfield became president of the United States, and he too died in office, assassinated a few months after he took the oath. In 1900, William McKinley became president of the United States. He too died in office, assassinated six months after he became president.
In 1920, Warren Harding became president of the United States. He too died in office, perhaps the victim of food poisoning. In 1940, Franklin Roosevelt became president of the United States. He too died in office, a victim of a cerebral hemorrhage. In 1960, John Kennedy became president. He too died in office, assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. Seven men. Every 20 years. All died in office. Coincidence, perhaps. In 1980, Ronald Reagan became president of the United States. He was shot. He did not die. And by the grace of God, he will not.
I’m sure Ronald Reagan has no fear of a Shawnee Indian curse. I’m sure he gives no heed to a man called the prophet who lived 150 years ago. But there was another prophet who lived more than 1,900 years ago. And to him, all men everywhere must give heed. And he too pronounced a curse, on a roadway between Bethany and Jerusalem. He cursed a fig tree and it withered to the ground. And from this strange miracle, he gave two messages to two groups of people.
His first message was to the nation of Israel. As the fig tree was cursed and withered, so now Israel was cursed and destined to die. The fig tree in both biblical and non-biblical literature was oftentimes a symbol of Israel. This fig tree was barren. Israel was barren. This tree was cursed. Israel was cursed.
The son of God took no pleasure in killing a tree. He is the source of life, the Creator of all things. But this tree was made to be a vivid illustration of Israel’s barrenness and destiny. When you think of barrenness, perhaps you think of dry arid deserts such as the Gobi Desert or the Sahara Desert. You’re told that one seventh of this planet’s landmass consists of desert. Or maybe when you think of barrenness, you think of the Arctic waste. You think of Greenland, the largest island in the world. 85% of its land surface is covered by a sheet of ice so deep that it is more than one mile thick. But when the Jew thought of barrenness, the Jew did not think primarily of geography or even of agriculture. When the Jew thought of barrenness, he thought primarily of a woman’s womb. He thought of an empty womb. He thought of an infertile woman.
The Greek word for barren is the word “steros,” from which we get the word sterile. And in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, this word is used to describe Sarah, Rachel, and Rebecca. The Jews believe that an empty womb was a curse of God. But the truth is that it is not an empty womb which is cursed by God, but it is an empty soul. It is an empty spirit. And Israel was empty in its soul. Israel was spiritually barren, spiritually dead. Israel was cursed, and there was no place in which Israel’s barrenness was more manifested than in the apostasy of the temple. The cursing of the fig tree and the cleansing of the temple are joined in meaning and sequence.
It was on a Sunday night of Passover week when Jesus went into Jerusalem and he went into the temple and he looked around at the court of the Gentiles and he saw all the stalls of animals. He saw the sheep. He saw the ox and the goats. He saw the cages of birds. He saw the multitudes of people buying and selling. He saw the merchants at their stands and he was appalled. But he said nothing. It was late, and He and His disciples went to Bethany that night. Perhaps they stayed in the home of Mary and Martha. It was the next day as He was returning to the temple that He cursed the barren fig tree. And then He went into the temple and He drove out those who bought and sold. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers, the seats of those who sold pigeons. He would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And He said, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer for all the nations’? Yet you have made it a den of thieves.”
The Israel temple was barren. The Israel temple was cursed. The temple was built on a hill called the Hill of David, Mount Zion. It covered an area of 30 acres with great walls surrounding—each wall, 1,000 to 1,300 feet in length. And inside those walls were many courts. The outer court was called the Court of the Gentiles. And in that court, both Jew and Gentile could go, but a Gentile could progress no further under penalty of death. But the Court of the Gentiles was meant to be a place of prayer. It was meant to be a place of communion with God, of preparation. It was meant to be a place where the God of Israel could be shared with all the nations of the world. But through the decades and through the centuries, the Court of the Gentiles had become a house of trade.
Throughout the Court of the Gentiles, there were the tables of the moneychangers. Jewish pilgrims came from throughout Palestine once a year at Passover to pay the temple tax, the equivalent of one half shekel, two days’ wage. But they were made to pay the temple tax in Tyrian coinage—coins that were minted in the city of Tyre and were rich in silver content. This was a burden to them. Normally, they could use a multitude of coins throughout Palestine. They could use Roman currency such as the denarii. They could use Greek coins such as the drachma, the tetradrachm. They could use Egyptian, Phoenician, and Syrian coins. But they were required to pay the temple tax in Tyrian coins. And so, the pilgrims made their way into the court of the Gentiles where all the changing tables were set up. And there they changed their currency and they were charged a half day’s wage just to change their coins.
It was a gimmick. And the priests were robbers. When the pilgrims came to the temple, they would buy a pigeon or a dove outside to make a sacrificial offering for cleansing. And then they would go into the temple and a priest would tell them oftentimes that their bird was not without spot or blemish. It was not adequate. And they would have to buy a new dove, a new pigeon inside the temple. There they would be charged two days’ wage for one bird. They were robbers. And therefore, Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers, and He overturned the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple, because the temple had become a shortcut between Eastern Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. Many travelers by the hundreds and thousands would pour through the court of the Gentiles on their way somewhere else, carrying their gear and their baggage.
And many merchants had set up shops and they were selling various goods, and they divided their profits with the priests. The temple of God had become a kind of merchant’s barn, ankle deep in the mud of animals, with a maze of stalls, with screaming vendors taking money from the people, cheating under the table, dividing their profits with the priests, with a never ending flow of human traffic. The temple was doing a landslide business in sheep and birds. The whole sick business was perpetrated to fleece and to exploit the poor. The temple of God had become a den of robbers. The Son of God was enraged. Israel was barren. Israel was cursed. Their spirituality had degenerated into greed and in materialism. They were no longer servants of God. They had become servants of self.
They were dead spiritually, bloated with the blessings of God, they refused to be a blessing to the nations. They refused to be a blessing to each other. They were dead and they were cursed. It was 2,000 years earlier that God had called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees and brought him into the land of Canaan. He had blessed his wife Sarah, giving her power to conceive when she was well past the age, that she might become the mother of a great nation people. He had raised up Isaac and Jacob, and through Joseph, He had led His people to the land of Egypt to preserve them in a time of famine. In Egypt, He had raised up Moses to deliver them from bondage. He brought plagues upon the Egyptians. He led the Israelites through the Red Sea, as if upon dry land. When the armies of Pharaoh tried to do the same, they were drowned.
He gave His law on Mount Sinai inscribed in stone to guide them that they might be blessed. He preserved them in the wilderness. He gave them manna from heaven. They ate the bread of angels. He gave them water from the supernatural rock. He surrounded them by His divine presence with the Shekinah glory as the glory cloud hovered in front of them and behind them and over the temple. He brought them into the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Before the armies of Joshua, the walls of Jericho fell down by His divine power. He gave them victory over the Ammonites and the Moabites, the Philistines, and over the Canaanites. In the course of their history, He had raised up the patriarchs, the judges, the kings, and the prophets. And now He had sent His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. But as they had rejected the prophets before Him, so now they rejected the Son of God.
He stood on a hill overlooking Jerusalem and He wept, and He said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem stoning the prophets and killing those who are sent to you. How often I would’ve gathered you to Myself as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. But you would not. Truly, truly, I say to you, you will not see Me again until you can say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’” They were barren and they were cursed. He told them that Jerusalem would fall, the temple would fall to ruin. Not one stone would be left lying on another. So it was that in 70 AD the armies of Rome under Titus swept over the city of Jerusalem and the temple fell. The city was left in ruin. For 2,000 years, the Jews have been scattered among the nations, strangers and sojourners on this earth, abused by governments, the most hideous expression of which was the incineration of Jews in Nazi ovens by Adolf Hitler.
Once blessed, they are now cursed, though they are destined to be blessed again in accordance with biblical prophecy at the consummation of the age. Perhaps we are seeing this unfold. But the first message of the cursing of the fig tree is this: barrenness is cursed, and Israel was barren.
There’s a second message in this miracle, and it is not given to the nation of Israel. It is given to the church. It is given to what the Bible calls the assembly of the firstborn. It is given to those who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It’s given to you and it’s given to me. And that message is that we now are called to bear fruit.
Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome. He told them that Israel was like a branch cut off of the tree of God. and that we as the church are like a new branch grafted onto that tree in their place. But Paul warned them that they now were called to bear fruit. We are blessed to be a blessing. As Christians, we have been blessed with blessings far beyond what Israel ever knew. Each and every one of you in this place who believes in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior has have received forgiveness of sins through the atoning death of Jesus Christ. You have been indwelt by the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of God Himself has come to dwell within you. You have been brought into the family of God as children of God, sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. And you have been sent forth into the world in His name as ambassadors. You are prophets and you are priests, and you’ve been called to the ministry of reconciliation.
We have been given a promise of an inheritance, which is eternal in the heavens. And we look forward to resurrected, glorified bodies that are incorruptible and not subject to decay. We have been given eternal life, but we have been blessed to be a blessing. We are called to bear fruit.
In 1978, I was in Edinburgh, Scotland and my brother and I took the train to go to St. Andrews because we wanted to see the university there and also we wanted to play golf at the old course. It is said by many that golf began at St. Andrews. The golf course there is older than this country. My brother is a very good golfer. He has a two or three handicap. I am a horrible golfer.
I found that course extremely difficult. It’s a links course with no trees, but with rolling hills overlooking the ocean. And the fairways were narrow and the bunkers were deep and the rough was rough. I lost probably 17 golf balls in the first 17 holes. It was a total disaster. But I came to the 18th hole. I was about 220 yards away. I took out a long iron. I hit my one good shot of the day, a beautiful shot that lofted high and came down just 10 feet from the flag. My brother and I began to walk to the green and we noticed some Scottish men all around the 18th green by the royal and ancient clubhouse there. They began to applaud my shot. Well, my brother began to smile. He thought that was humorous. We got onto the green and I stood over the ball and I hit the ball and putted it right into the cup. There was some more applause. As I walked off the green, they came over to congratulate me on a round well played and wanted to know how the course was. My brother was on the ground laughing.
Have you ever wondered what it’s going to be like when you come to the end of this course called life? When you come to the 18th hole? How is heaven going to respond to you? What is God going to say to you? He sees the whole course, not just the 18th hole. The Bible says that before Him, no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. And as a Christian, the Lord wants to be able to applaud you. When you come to the end of this course, He wants to be able to congratulate you. As in the parable of the talents, He wants to be able to say to you, “Well done, My good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little and I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your Master.”
He wants you to be able to say with the Apostle Paul, “I have finished the race. I have fought the good fight. I have kept the faith. And henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of life.” He wants you to bear fruit. But I have found that many Christians, perhaps most Christians, do not feel like they are playing this course called life very well. Most Christians feel barren. They see no fruit.
When I was in college one summer, I took various odd jobs—mowing lawns, pulling weeds, watering yards. In a newspaper, I saw an ad where a woman living in Montecito near Santa Barbara wanted someone to come and water for the summer. I called her up and she asked me to come over to the house. I came to her house. She answered the door. She was an older woman. She said, come on in, I’d like you to meet Jolly. I thought, well, maybe she has a daughter named Jolly. I went into the living room and I soon realized that Jolly was a dog sitting in the corner of the living room there. She began to ask me various questions, this woman did. And I answered her questions. And after a time, she said, “Well, Jolly’s pleased with you. And Jolly says you can have the job.” Well, I looked over at the dog and I nodded. And the dog didn’t even seem to know I was there.
The woman told me that she’d like me to water her backyard. She said, “I’d like you to water my backyard for one hour every day.” I thought that seemed reasonable enough. So she took me to the backyard, opened the door, and I couldn’t believe it. The backyard was a solid slab of cement from fence to fence, nothing but cement. Well, I brought that up. I said, “You want me to water cement?” And she said, “No.” She said, “I don’t want you to water cement. Jolly wants you to water cement. She wants you to water the cement for an hour every day.” I said, “All right.” And I began to come to the house every day and I’d water the cement for an hour in the backyard.
Sometimes she’d come out and she’d say, “Jolly wants you to water another half hour.” So I’d water for an hour and a half. Every day before I’d leave, she’d write me a check. I remember one day she wrote me out a particularly large check, and she said Jolly was particularly pleased and wanted me to get more. Well, day after day of watering the cement in the backyard, in spite of the fact I was getting paid, it began to seem empty. After a while, I began to feel like I was totally wasting my time. What am I doing watering the cement? There’s no fruit, there’s no results. I’m wasting my time. And I found that many Christians feel just like that. They feel like they’re watering cement. They feel like they’re wasting their time. They see no fruit. They see no results and they don’t know why. But there’s no need for that to occur in our lives because in the 15th chapter of John, our Lord Jesus tells us how to bear fruit.
He said, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vine dresser. Every branch of Mine which bears no fruit, He takes away. Every branch which does bear fruit, He prunes it that it might bear more fruit. You are already made clean. That is to say, you are already pruned by the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I’m the vine. You are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he it is who bears much fruit. For apart from Me, you can do nothing.” It seems to me that in this passage, our Lord tells us two things. First of all, he tells us that if we would bear fruit, we must be pruned by the Word.
I know many Christians who are rarely pruned by the Word. We need to be in the Word of God each day. The psalmist writes, “Blessed is he who walks not in the council of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. For his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by rivers of living water that brings forth its fruit in its season. His leaves do not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.”
The Word of God assures us that if as Christians we abide in the Word, that Word will prune us and we will bear fruit. But there’s a second thought here and it’s even more important. And that is this: Jesus tells us that if we would bear fruit, we must learn to abide in Him. And the Greek word for abide is the word “meno.” It means literally “to remain, to stay, to dwell.” The Greeks used it to refer to a person’s relationship to his home and to his family.
It was used to refer to a person’s relationship, to his dwelling, to his abode, to the place at which he was abiding. And this passage of scripture tells us that, if we would abide in Christ, we must begin to view Christ as our home, as our dwelling, as our abode, as our family. It was a person’s dwelling and abode that they lived for, that they lived in. It was their family home that gave them purpose, that gave them energy and life. That’s how it is with Christ. That’s how it should be. If we are to bear fruit, if you would abide in Christ, then He must be the home in which you live, the family for which you work and labor. And if you would do that by His Spirit, He begins to empower you and bear fruit in you.
You may be a very successful person by the world’s standards. You may have made hundreds of thousands of dollars. You may even have made millions. But when you finish this course and you stand before God, if you do not know Christ, you will be barren. When you come to Christ, you begin to abide in Him. You learn to use all things—money, talents, possessions, abilities—for His kingdom and for His glory.
I love the story of Rigby. It’s my favorite story. Rigby was a businessman. He lived in Scotland. He loved the Lord Jesus Christ with all of his heart. He spent time in the Word. He spent time in prayer. He longed to bear fruit and he wanted the kingdom of Christ to grow.
But he was a shy man—a successful businessman, but a shy man when it came to speaking to others. And he found it hard to share his faith boldly. He prayed about this and he felt led to simply invite people to church. He oftentimes would go to Edinburgh, Scotland, on his business trips. And when he was there, he would go to St. George’s Church where Alexander White was the preacher. So every Sunday morning he would get up at his hotel and he would go down into the lobby and he’d find someone that he could invite to St. George’s Church. He wasn’t forceful, he wasn’t arrogant. He would go up to somebody reading the paper or something in the lobby and just ask them to come to church. And if they said no, that was all right. But oftentimes people went with him.
This went on for years. One morning in the lobby of a hotel, he invited someone to go to St. George’s Church and they said, sure, I’d love to go. And so Rigby and this man went. Alexander White preached. The Holy Spirit was working in a great and powerful way. And this visitor who Rigby brought was convicted in his heart. And he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
Well, Rigby was excited. He could see fruit. This was the first time anyone he had ever brought to that church had accepted Christ. He was so excited. He felt like he had a role in the fruit that came in this person’s life. And that afternoon, he was walking around Edinburgh and he was just feeling great. He went by Alexander White’s house, the pastor of the church. He had never met Alexander White, but he thought he would go to the door and speak to Pastor White and just tell him how this person he brought had accepted Christ. He thought Mr. White might like to hear that.
So he went and he knocked on the door and Alexander White answered the door and he said, hello, my name is Rigby. And I just wanted to let you know that I brought a visitor to your church this morning. He was moved when you spoke, and he accepted Christ as Lord and Savior. Well, Alexander White appreciated that. And he said, “What was your name again?” And he said, “My name is Rigby.” And tears came to Alexander White’s eyes. He began to cry. He said, “Rigby, I’ve been wanting to meet you for years. Come on into the house.” And Pastor White took him into the back study and he came out of the study with a stack of letters more than 12 inches high. Each letter was written from a person who had been sitting in the lobby of a hotel when a man named Rigby came up and invited them to St. George’s Church. Most of them had accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, and nine of them had entered the full-time Gospel Minister. I love that story because, you see, Rigby was a man who loved Christ.
He was a man who had learned to abide in Christ. He was not a man gifted by this world’s standards. He did not even know the measure of the fruit that was coming from his life. God was using him in a mighty way. We’re not called to be fruit inspectors. We’re simply called to abide in Christ and seek to serve Christ. And by the power of Christ and His Spirit, ministry occurs and fruit develops. There are many different kinds of fruit that we can bear for the kingdom of Christ. Evangelism is not the only fruit. Some people sow, some water, some reap. God gets the increase.
There are ministries for the kingdom of Christ here in this church. We have Sunday school teachers. We have elders. We’re soon to have deacons. We have koinonia leaders. We have committee members. We have prayer chain warriors who pray regularly.
But there are many ministries out in the world to which God has called you in your neighborhoods and at work with your friends and in your families. God has said, “Go you into all the world and bear fruit.” I sometimes wonder if as Christians we’re bearing fruit in this world. Statistics tell us that there are 1 billion Christians on this planet. Almost one quarter of the world’s population claims to believe in Jesus Christ. In this country alone, there are 150 million people who say they believe in Jesus Christ. Two thirds of the adult population of this country, 70 million people, go to church regularly.
But is the world being changed? There was an article in Wall Street Journal just a few months ago. That’s a secular publication of course. But the title of the article was simply, “Where are the Christians?” And it points to a growth in pornography, a growth in crime, a tragic growth in poverty in this nation. It points to moral and ethical confusion among the people of this country. And it says, where are the Christians? God has called us to bear fruit, even if it means giving a cup of water in the name of Jesus Christ. Before Jesus left this earth, He said, “The Son of Man will come from heaven, return from heaven in power and great glory. And He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations. He will separate them one from the other as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”
And He will say to those on His right hand, “’Come, oh, blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave Me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave Me to drink. I was sick and in prison and you visited Me. I was naked and you clothed Me.’ And they shall say to Him, ‘When, Lord, when did we do these things?’ Then He will say, ‘Insofar as you have done it unto the least of these, My brethren, you’ve done it unto Me.’ Jesus said, ‘You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and I have appointed you to go and bear much fruit that your fruit may abide.’” Shall we look to the Lord with a word of prayer?
Lord Jesus, You are the vine. We are the branches. Apart from You, we are nothing. Lord, we thank You for the privilege of being a branch on the tree of life. We thank You for forgiveness of sins, for the indwelling presence of Your spirit, for the ministry You’ve given us in the world, for the hope that You’ve laid out for us in heaven. Lord, we know You’ve called us to be a blessing on this earth. You’ve called us to bear fruit in Your name, to share the good news of the gospel, to share our love for You, to invite people into Your family through faith in You, and to minister to the needs of people in Your name that Your kingdom might grow. Lord, help us to be pruned by Your Word and abide in You. Help us to live in You and for You. Anoint us and empower us by Your Spirit as we go from this place. Use us in our lifetimes that when this course is done, You might say, “Well done, My good and faithful servant.” Lord Jesus, we pray in Your name. Amen.