Matthew 21:12-22: “Jesus’ Acts In
by
Jim Bomkamp
1.
INTRO
1.1.
In our last study, we saw how that Jesus had
orchestrated the bringing together of a multitude and all of the necessary circumstances
so that He could make His, ‘Triumphal Entry’ into
1.1.1.
We saw that for pomp and circumstance that Jesus
merely came into the city upon a lowly beast of burden, a young donkey, not upon
the mighty and valiant victor’s stallion, as king’s normally came into a city
or kingdom they were taking over or claiming as their own. This was appropriate for Jesus because:
1.1.1.1.That Jesus
would come upon a lowly donkey to
1.1.1.2.Jesus’ first
mission to the earth was to be as one who was coming as the suffering Savior,
not the conquering King, and thus it was fitting that He come in humility to
His people
1.1.1.3.Jesus’
humility is sen everywhere in the gospels
1.1.1.4.We saw also
that in Rev. 19, at the end of the 7 year Tribulation of the book of
Revelation, that Jesus will come upon the victor’s stallion, followed by the
armies of heaven, as He comes to setup His Millenial Reign upon the earth
1.1.2.
I also mentioned in our last study that though this
multitude was excited to hail Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah on this day,
that Jesus really wasn’t the kind of Messiah that they wanted, they wanted a
Messiah fashioned according to their own way, and thus it was this same group
who just a week later was crying out to Pontius Pilate to crucify Jesus and
release to them Barabas
1.2.
In our study today, we are going to look at what Jesus
did after He arrived via His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem
2.
VS 21:12-13 -
“12 And Jesus entered the temple and cast out all those who were buying and
selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the
seats of those who were selling doves. 13 And He *said to them, “It is written,
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers‘
den.”” - Jesus cleansed the
2.1.
Most believe that the events of these two verses occurred on the day
after Jesus’ Triumphal Entry, after He had had time to look around
2.2.
In John 2:13-16, we read about the fact that at the very beginning of His
ministry, three years before this time, He cleaned out the temple just as He
did here at the beginning of His last week, the ‘Passion Week’.
2.2.1.
In Psalm 69:9, it was prophesied of the Messiah that ‘zeal’ for God’s
house would consume Him, and thus In John 2:17 John writes that at that first
cleansing of the temple that the disciples remembered this prophesy in the
Psalms.
2.2.2.
I have mentioned previously that the sin that seems to anger God the most
is when people who are designated as the spiritual leaders over God’s people
actually hinder people from entering God’s kingdom instead of helping them to
enter into it, and thus Jesus viciously confronted and rebuked the Pharisees,
pronouncing woes upon them, etc. Well,
the Jews were called to be a ‘light to the Gentiles’ (Isaiah 49:6), and the
Gentiles who had not converted to Judaism could only come into the temple as
far as the ‘Court of the Gentiles’, however this place was to be a place where
Gentiles could come and pray, hear the scripture read, and worship. However, it was in the ‘Court of the
Gentiles’ in which the money changers and those who sold the animals ran their
filthy business.
2.2.2.1. Not only was this business
held in the ‘Court of the Gentiles’, the men who ran these businesses under
partnership with the Pharisees and Saducees also charged exorbitant prices for
each of the animals, up to four times market value, and then if anyone tried to
bring their own animals for sacrifice the Pharisees and Saducees would find
some flaw in the animal and tell the person that they would have to buy their
animals for sacrifice from their own approved merchandisers.
2.2.2.2.Since Gentiles would often
have come from far away places to worship at the temple, they would sometimes
also need to exchange their foreign money, and the men who ran these businesses
would also perform this function, but at a huge inflated profit.
2.2.3.
We can see now why Jesus called those who ran these businesses in the
temple thieves and that the place was a ‘robber’s den’.
2.3.
It is interesting to note how that a solitary man could have in both
accounts have run out of the temple those many men who were doing the
merchandising, however we have to realize the force of His person acting upon
the consciences of these men who were convicted by Him of their sin in carrying
on their business in this way in God’s house.
2.3.1.
These men fled from the searing heat and brightness of Jesus’
condemnation of them, and like rats fleeing to their nests they ran off in
every which way to avoid danger and further detection.
3.
VS 21:14 - “14 And
the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them.”
- Those with infirmities came to Jesus
in the temple to be healed
3.1.
This is a beautiful picture here, for after Jesus had cleansed God’s
temple of the things that were corrupting it, the temple now for a short period
of time became what God intended it to be, ‘a house of prayer for the nations’.
3.2.
With all of the crooks gone, the blind and lame now came right into the
temple and sought Jesus out for healing, and as always He healed them fully and
completely.
4.
VS 21:15-16 -
“15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that
He had done, and the children who were crying out in the temple and saying,
“Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became indignant, 16 and said to Him, “Do
You hear what these are saying?” And Jesus *said to them, “Yes; have you never
read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes Thou hast prepared praise
for Thyself’?”” - The chief priests
and scribes came to Jesus indignantly to ask Him to make the children who were
in the temple to quit saying to Him, “Hosanna to the Son of David”
4.1.
The children were chanting the same thing that the people on the day
before were hailing Jesus with, “Hosanna to the Son of David”, a phrase that
was filled Messianic implications.
4.1.1.
As mentioned last week, ‘Son of David’, was a title for the Messiah from
the promises made to David about the Messiah coming through one of his
descendants.
4.1.2.
Remember, last week I mentioned that the phrase, ‘Hosanna’, that the
people cried out to Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem meant, ‘Lord save us!’, or,
‘The Lord saves!’
4.2.
These children were surely there with the multitude on the day before
when Jesus made His ‘Triumphal Entry’
4.3.
It is very sad that Matthew includes that the chief priests and scribes
were not only indignant because of what the children in the temple were hailing
Jesus with, but also because they saw the wonderful things that He did.
4.4.
Jesus yet again chides the chief priests and scribes for not knowing
their own scriptures as He says, ‘Have you never read’, and then He quotes
Psalm 8:2 as a verse that says that the Lord has chosen to receive and be
blessed by the praises of children.
4.4.1.
I should ask the question, “What makes praise something that the Lord
enjoys and is blessed with?”
4.4.1.1.The answer is it is when the
praise comes from the genuine and sincere heart that loves God. The heart attitude for any praise is what
matters.
5.
VS 21:17 - “17 And
He left them and went out of the city to
5.1.
6.
VS 21:18-22 -
“18 Now in the morning, when He returned to the city, He became hungry. 19
And seeing a lone fig tree by the road, He came to it, and found nothing on it
except leaves only; and He *said to it, “No longer shall there ever be any
fruit from you.” And at once the fig tree withered. 20 And seeing this, the
disciples marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” 21 And Jesus
answered and said to them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith, and do not
doubt, you shall not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say
to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it shall happen. 22 “And
all things you ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.” - In the morning as Jesus returned into
6.1.
In stating that Jesus was hungry, this story reveals Jesus’ humanness,
and it is a good thing that we have sections of scripture which do reveal His
humanness, because throughout history there has been a tendency by groups to
believe wrongly concerning the nature of Jesus, for some groups want to see Him
totally as God, unsullied by anything of earth, and others want to make to be
totally man and controlled by the same base nature and limitations as any other
man.
6.1.1.
It is important for us to realize that as a man Jesus faced and overcame
temptations of the flesh just as we have, and that His also being God didn’t
make those easier to deal with.
6.1.1.1.If Jesus was really tempted
as a man in every way as we are tempted, as it says of Him in the book of
Hebrews, then Jesus can be our example to follow as a man who obtained victory
over the flesh.
6.1.2.
Jesus was totally God and totally man, the perfect union of both natures.
6.2.
We know from the gospel accounts that Jesus was an early riser, and it
appears that on this particular day that the Lord had arisen so early in the
morning that He left before He had had a chance to eat anything. So, as He and His disciples were walking
Jesus was looking for something to eat.
6.3.
Observing this story here, I find that it is interesting that the story
is full of symbolism that is not really elaborated on by the author, but we
cannot help but ponder the meaning of this incident:
6.3.1.
Every creation of God’s has a purpose for which He created it. Fig trees in
6.3.2.
The cursing of the Fig Tree because of it’s lack of fruit was symbolizing
the cursing that He was about to perform upon Israel for rebelling against the
Lord and rejecting her own Messiah, and the fulfillment of that curse came in
70A.D. when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, burned down its temple, and then
slaughtered perhaps three million men, women, and children of the Jews,
bringing an end to it’s existence as a nation.
6.3.3.
Those who consider themselves to be ‘God’s people’ are all called to bear
fruit for Him, and if we stubbornly decide that we will not abide in Christ and
bear fruit for Him, then we have no good purpose, and if we don’t repent but
continue in that state, God will kick us out of His kingdom into everlasting
punishment (see John 15:6).
6.4.
Mark also has an account of this incident, and in Mark
11:12-14,20-24, we notice that Mark’s account of this incident differs a little from
Matthew’s, “12 And on the next day, when they had departed
from
6.4.1.
Mark gives us further detail than Matthew by saying that it was actually
on the next day when they noticed that the fig tree had withered. I was probably the case that since the tree
was a ways away when they first had walked near it, that only Jesus had seen
the tree wither right away.
6.4.1.1.The fig tree appears to have
been in such an advanced state of being withered, that it must have withered
right away just as Matthew includes in his account.
6.5.
Jesus used this incident to teach His disciples one more lesson on what
faith was and how it could be used:
6.5.1.
The disciples did a wise thing here, they came to Jesus and asked Him a
sincere question, “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?”
6.5.2.
This teaching was actually a repeat of what He had already taught them in
Matt. 17:20, when Jesus rebuked His disciples for not being able to cast a
demon out of a boy, and then began to tell them about needing only to have
faith as a grain of mustard seed in order to remove mountains.
6.5.3.
Whenever Jesus taught His disciples the principles concerned having
prayers answered, He always used ‘limitless’ language in order to keep them
from trying to think too small about the types of things and situations for
which they could bring before God and claim His promises over. He always phrased His teachings like this,
“Whatever you ask…”. Here, I like the
fact that Jesus even includes in the things that His disciples might be used in
prayer concerning could even be the ‘cursing of a fig tree’.