Jack Rendel

J & Z Publications

MARK: WORKING MESSIAH

FIFTH DIVISION: WHEN WILL THE MESSIAH ESTABLISH HIS KINGDOM?  10:1-13:37

THIRD SECTION: FRUIT AT HARVEST TIME 11:12 - 12:12

(The corresponding PowerPoint® presentations is Mark 5^th Division 3^rd Section HARVEST TIME or click on Mark Fifth Division Harvest Time PP or on this title on the Mark studies home page.)

The Outline: 

Bowls Of Fruit

A Disappointing Harvest Time

I. The Fig Tree 11:12-14

Desperately Hungry

No Breakfast For Jesus

II. The House of Prayer for the Nations 11:15-19

A Den Of Thieves

IHOP = International House Of Prayer

Am I A Temple Of Prayer?

III. How To Pray 11:20-26

Oh Go Throw A Mountain In The Sea!

Mixing Faith And Forgiveness

IV. Divine Authority 11:27-33

The Challenge

Authority To Enter The Port Of Lagos

V. The Vineyard, the Evil Tenants and the Harvest 12:1-12

Receiving The Fruit

Faith And Forgiveness

Fruitful Outreach

Questions To Aid In The Study Of Mark 11:12-12:12

Bowls Of Fruit

One of the foods I enjoy the most is a bowl of various kinds of fruit cut up and topped with ice cream! When we look out our back window at the apple tree it is wonderful to see the white blossoms followed later by the dark red apples. Fruitfulness! It is a wonder. The first chapters of Genesis tell us that God created a fruitful world and placed man in the middle of it. Man’s rebellion against God spoiled all that and led man into a fruitless spiritual existence.

A Disappointing Harvest Time

The five stories we will look at now have to do with fruitfulness, or the lack of it, both physically and spiritually. I call it 'Harvest Time'. Harvest is when the fruit is gathered in. Jesus visited the temple, the center of religious life in Israel, looking for evidence of spiritual fruit, but the visit was disappointing. There was no spiritual harvest to gather in. The stories begin with a fruitless fig tree; then move on to the temple which needed cleansing from a fruitless spiritual existence; then back to the fig tree which Jesus had cursed for its fruitlessness; then on to the temple where Jesus’ authority is questioned; and finally Jesus’ parable which accused the religious leaders of stealing the spiritual life of Israel from the Lord.

I. The Fig Tree 11:12-14

Desperately Hungry

I have always enjoyed the custom in Spain of eating fruit for dessert, and it is a healthy practice!

We see in Mark 11:12 to 14 that…

The Lord was looking for fruit from a fig tree which he saw on the way into Jerusalem. The text says that he was hungry.

Do you know what is to be truly hungry?

Sometime ago I read the book entitled, I’ll Dress You In Mourning. It’s the story of the famous torero “El Cordobes”. He was of a very poor family in the province of Cordoba, Spain. The book is a great story of the perseverance of a young man who sought for an opportunity to bull fight in the big rings.

One of the scenes that impressed me the most, was the one in which is described how the four brothers and sisters spent their last Christmas together, after their parents died, at 40 years of age, following the Spanish civil war. The 3 older children slept in their parents' bed. In order to eat they had to sell the furniture. That Christmas the only furniture that remained was the bed, a table and two chairs. Benito, the smallest of them, and the one who became “El Cordobes”, had a bed, by joining together the two chairs.

That Christmas they didn't even have strength to get up. It was the hunger that they suffered. They spent the day at home looking at each other, curled up on the floor like snails. It was a day of mourning, without parties and everything else that we associate with the Christmas. (Llevarás Luto Por Mi, [I’ll Dress You In Mourning]), Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins, Plaza y Janes Editores, S. A., 1968, 216-218.)

No Breakfast For Jesus

Although the hunger that we have experienced may not be of the same intensity that the four children suffered, we all know what it is like to want to eat. That day Jesus was hungry, physically hungry. But he was not only hungry physically, but also hungry to see spiritual fruit in the life of his people, the Jews. He was looking for spiritual fruit in his visit to the temple in Jerusalem.

II. The House of Prayer for the Nations 11:15-19

A Den Of Thieves

What did Jesus find in the temple? Verses 11:15-19 explain.

That day when he arrived at the temple he found there what he called “a den of thieves”. What were they doing in the temple that Jesus should speak so derogatorily?

Alfred Edersheim explains it all very clearly. Here are just a few of the details. People coming to worship and sacrifice at the temple could bring the animals they brought from home or buy from stock sold on the Mount of Olives but they ran the risk of having their animals rejected because of some fault in the animal. The temple offered animals which were already inspected and accepted. The price on the inspected animal tended to be higher and one can easily see the abuse that this system could lend itself to. Besides this the Jews and proselytes, who arrived from other lands, had to exchange their money for the local currency of the temple in order to buy many things connected with the purification and sacrifices, and the High Priests, especially the family of Anas, gained enormously, with all the abuses. They controlled the business and so did what they pleased. Alfred Edersheim also contends that the market they had set up was occupying the court of the Gentiles. Other rabbis had objected to the practices as well, but Jesus did his objecting in dramatic and effective fashion. (La vida y los tiempos de Jesús el Mesías, Tomo 1 [The Life And Times Of Jesus The Messiah, Volume 1], Alfred Edersheim, CLIE: Terassa, Barcelona, 1988, 416-425.)

Jesus made a whip of small ropes and drove them all out, cleansing the temple and … taught them what the purpose of that house was. He said, quoting Isaiah, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations (11:17 ASV).'

International House Of Prayer

Did you know your church should be an International House Of Prayer? The temple was supposed to be, and our churches should be, "a house of prayer for all the nations" in two ways:

1.  1. A house from which the knowledge of God would spread into all the world. For us, the church, it is the same today. We should be praying for all the nations in our churches. From our churches and through our churches the Lord's message should go out into the earth.

2.  2. A house into which people from all the nations could come to know and to worship God having seen and heard the testimony of the people of God. This should be true for us and our churches today.

Am I A Temple Of Prayer?

You yourself, personally, are the temple of God, according to 1 Corinthians 6:19and 20, Do you not know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body (NIV).

What is your reaction to these things? Rejecting the Lord as they did? Verse 18 says that they sought to kill him. Are you willing to put aside your own desires, and embrace the Lord, and his will for your life, of being a temple, a church, dedicated to the purpose of being a house of prayer for all the nations?

One of the spiritual movements declared June 24, of one the years towards the end of the 1990s, as a special day of prayer to pray, above all, for the unreached. In reality every week, if not every day, should be a week of prayer because we are a house of prayer!

But how should we pray?

III. How To Pray 11:20-26

Oh Go Throw A Mountain In The Sea!

In the third scene (11:20-26), Jesus teaches his followers how to pray.

Peter saw that the fig tree had dried up from the roots and said so. Jesus responded to Peter in a surprising way. He spoke of throwing a mountain into the sea by faith. I do not know of any apostolic case of literally “throwing a mountain into the sea”. When Jesus spoke about mountains he was speaking about the religious and political authorities of his day. The apostles were going to face these authorities in the establishment of his kingdom, his people.

Later Peter and John had to appear before the Jewish council, the Sanhedrin. They were threatened and persecuted. To preach to the people in “that name of Jesus” was prohibited. Through their faith in the Lord, they gained huge victories in the middle of those frightening circumstances. They continued preaching. Thousands believed and were baptized.

Sometimes in the Scriptures mountains represent temporal and eternal authorities.

Jeremiah 51:24-26 says, 24 And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the LORD. 25 Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the LORD, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain. 26 And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the LORD (AV/KJV).

And in the prophet Zachariah 4:7 we find the following,

7 Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it (AV/KJV).

The Jews were rebuilding the temple but after laying the foundation and erecting the altar, their enemies discouraged them, and they abandoned the work for sixteen years. Under the preaching of Haggai and Zachariah they returned to the job and the Lord opened the way, changing the heart of Darius, the emperor of the Medes and Persians. He had proclaimed a decree denying them the permission to continue with the construction of the temple.

The prophet Daniel in 2:34 and 35 speaks about the kingdom of God. The kingdom is compared to a great mountain that fills the earth. Daniel was explaining the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had had, and what the God of heaven was going to do in the last days, destroying the kingdoms of this world and establishing his own.

34 Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. 35 Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth (AV/KJV).

And now what was Jesus going to do? Well he simply continued to establish his kingdom through the disciples, the ones that had believed in him, without the disciples having any earthly authority, but how did he do it? He did it with the authority that comes from heaven. Look what Psalm 125:1 says,

They that trust in the LORD shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever (AV/KJV). This is what authority from heaven is like!

Mixing Faith And Forgiveness

But here we find something else as well. It is forgiveness. Together with the subject of faith Jesus taught forgiveness. If we are not willing to forgive our neighbor, our faith will not get us very far at all.

When we think about sharing the good news about Jesus with the nations we have to accept that people have things against each other. The Jews, at that time, held things against the Romans! To reach the Romans the Lord had to do an enormous work in the hearts of his Jewish disciples. Are we as US citizens harboring ill will towards certain peoples? I hope not. How will we share the gospel of the Lord Jesus, let alone anything else, with those we reject? Remember that just as all Americans are not alike neither are all Iranians or Arabs alike. Many Arabs and many Iranians want American friends. How will Armenians reach out to Turks, or Spaniards share with North Africans, or Hausas bless Fulanis, or southerners tell the good news to northerners in Sudan unless they forgive them?

What about forgiving our neighbors? Does your neighbor’s dog leave his mess on your drive way? Is your neighbor a person who loves to turn up the volume on his stereo and bombard your ear drums? Have you considered going to speak with him or her firmly and lovingly about it. Pray for them. You may have to take further steps, or even just leave it with the Lord, but don’t hate them! Look for opportunities to love them and share Jesus with them in both the way you act and the way you talk.

IV. Divine Authority 11:27-33

The theme of the fourth scene is authority.

The Challenge

The priests approached Jesus and challenged him. They asked, “By what authority do you do these things?” He answered with the same question and applied it to John the Baptist. He asked them where John's authority had come from. They would not want to answer him for fear of the people. In this scene we see the two options that we have. Our authority either comes from heaven or from men. Which will it be? As local churches, as missions, as families, as individuals, where does our authority come from, from heaven or from men? We have to decide. If it is from men the one who wins will be the one who is most impressive, who is most intelligent, who has the most money, who is the brashest, who is most influential, or who has the best army.

Forty years later the Jews had to suffer under a Roman siege, when they watched the destruction, stone by stone, of their temple. So much for human authority!

Authority To Enter The Port Of Lagos

When I was preparing for the visit of the ship Logos to the city of Lagos, Nigeria, in 1977, I had to get a series of permissions in order for the ship to enter Lagos harbor, dock along side the yet unfinished section of quayside, invite the public on board and sell books. I had secured all the permissions I thought necessary being guided by our agent. But when the Logos arrived at Lagos and we thought it would be pulling in, it did not! It was waiting at anchor and did not have permission to enter! I was stunned, because I was at the quayside with half the invited guests for the official opening and there was no ship! Later upon talking with the agent I learned that the Port captain had not granted permission for the ship to enter. Only by his authority could Logos enter Lagos! Apparently the agent had forgotten to tell me to ask for this permission or I had not heard him tell me I had to ask for this permission. It is important to have the authority to take a particular action.

V. The Vineyard, the Evil Tenants and the Harvest 12:1-12

Receiving The Fruit

Then to help the Jewish authorities understand their situation before God, he told them the parable that is given in 12:1-12. It was the story of a man who had a vineyard, who sent his servants to the tenants in order to receive the fruit of the vineyard from them.

Here we return to the theme of the fruit that God looked for in his people, and now in us. Galatians 5:22 and 23 says, 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law (AV/KJV).

The owner of the vineyard sent his servants looking for fruit from his vineyard. They were badly treated and killed. At last he sent his son. But they said, “Here comes the heir, let's kill him and we'll keep the vineyard. What will the Lord of the vineyard do? He will destroy them and he will give his vineyard to others. This is what the Lord did. He took his vineyard, his kingdom, from the priests and elders of Israel, and he gave it to his disciples.

For me this is a huge warning! We see later in Acts 6:7 that even many of the priests obeyed the faith, but as a group they lost their authority and testimony amongst the people of God.

Faith And Forgiveness

Jesus said:

1. “Have faith in God!”

2. “Forgive others!”

In this way God will be able to produce his fruit in our lives, and thus we will be able to be a house of prayer for the nations, for Uruguay, Spain, Turkey, Algeria, India and many other nations and peoples who live in these places. Dalit people are showing an interest in becoming Christians but we need to pray that they will be discipled by the churches, that the Dalits may truly know what it means to follow Jesus and bear fruit.

Fruitful Outreach

Over 100 adults and children accepted Christ during an outreach in Latin America at the end of last year.  Twenty-four people took part in the ten day program in Trifinio on the border between El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. There was much opposition because this is an area dominated by witchcraft and some of the team members were threatened with knives. 

One worker wrote, "We walked for two hours to get to a place called Salama where there was no electricity, no fresh water, and they have just one toilet for the whole community. We organized an international program with dramas and a costume parade. At the end of the program, I talked with a woman who had to flee from the capital city with her family because someone wanted to kill them. She ... passed by the place where we were. I shared the gospel with her. She accepted Jesus with her two daughters.  About fifteen hundred adults heard the gospel, and almost one hundred accepted Jesus. We shared with four hundred children and more than one hundred made a decision for Christ. Please pray for the follow up." (Pilar Castro, OM Guatemala, January 2005)

Brothers and sisters, the Lord comes looking for fruit in our lives.

Questions To Aid In The Study Of Mark 11:12-12:12

1. While Jesus cursed the fig tree he did not curse the temple or people who oversaw it. What did he do instead, and why (11:15-19)?

2. Why was Jesus so concerned about the buying and selling in the temple? In which part of the temple was this market held? How did this market not fulfill the purpose of the temple?

3. What did Jesus mean by throwing a mountain into the sea? Is this literal or figurative? Explain why (11:20-26).

4. What is difficult to do if you do not forgive others? Explain (11:20-26).

5. How did the Chief Priests and other leaders attack Jesus at that moment? What did they not yet think they could do because of the people (11:20-12:12)?

6. When the owner of the vineyard sent his servants and eventually his son what was he looking for in the vineyard (12:1-12)? When the Lord looks at my life and your life what is he looking for?

©Copyright 2006-2046 John (Jack) W Rendel. All rights reserved.

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