AUGUST 16 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#24 “Is the power and authority of baptism from heaven or from men?”” (Matthew 21:25)

 AUGUST 16  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#24  “Is the power and authority of baptism from heaven or from men?””  (Matthew 21:25)

LIVING FOR JESUS Daily Prayer    

JESUS, thank You Lord for Your daily “Manifest Presence” that You bless us through the Filling of the Holy Spirit in the lives of all who keep a place prepared for You in our humble and contrite hearts. King David who was known as a man “after God’s own heart” knew about Your Manifest Presence and prayed that You would create in him a clean heart and a steadfast spirit for it was through preparation of his heart by the Holy Spirit that David would again know the “joy of salvation” and David pleaded as I do, “And uphold me by Your generous Spirit” (Psalm 51) Daily Lord Jesus I stand in need of Your Mercies that are renewed each morning so I rise and give You Praise and lift up my offering of Thanksgiving ——— You have answered my prayer and You are leading me down paths of righteousness for Your name’s sake, the Name above all names, JESUS!   AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus left the conflict in Jerusalem and strolled through the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives to the humble town of Bethany where He “lodged” in a home where He obviously felt welcomed, He needed a good night’s rest in the company of loved ones for He is going to return to Jerusalem in the morning and this is going to be a very intensive week for Him which will result in His death on a cross on the eve of the Passover Feast. (Matthew 21:17) Jesus spent the refreshing night in Bethany and rose early and headed back to the Eastern Gate: “Now in the morning as He returned to the city, He was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, ‘Let no fruit grow on you ever again.’ Immediately the fig tree withered away.” (Matthew 21:18) This “curse” on the fig tree has received a lot of questions and there has been much debate — for Jesus to pronounce this “curse” had to be significant! This fig tree has been defended with excuses that it was “not the season for figs” — but those that defend the “fig tree” and suggest that  Jesus could have made a “mistake” here are probably doing so from inside the walls of Jerusalem and have never themselves considered what possible motive might Jesus have had to “curse” a poor defenseless fig tree outside the Eastern Gate!?!?  I must admit that for years and years that I would feel uncomfortable reading this passage in Matthew 21:18-22 and the other uncomfortable passage where Jesus said, “I never knew you.” (Matthew 7:23) but when the “curse” is looked at as part of a “Divine Statement” that Jesus makes about the “doctrines of men” and the religious leaders that were promoting “traditions of men” for their convenience, the context surrounding this debated passage of the fig tree curse makes sense. The context begins with Jesus and the disciples “when they drew near Jerusalem” (Matthew 21:1) and Jesus sent two disciples to collect a donkey and her colt from the village of Bethphage just outside the Eastern Gate. (Matthew 21:2-6) Jesus then made His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday where He was greeted with mixed reviews; some asked “who is this?”, while others cried “Hosanna to the Son of David”, and others were wrongly explaining “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.” (Matthew 21:7-11) However, once Jesus was inside the city “Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, ‘It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer’, but you have made it a den of thieves.” (Matthew 21:12-13) While in the temple Jesus began to use the temple for its intended purpose to minister to the multitudes but even though Jesus was healing all that were brought to Him in the temple, the chief priests and scribes saw “the wonderful things that [Jesus] did” but they became “indignant”. Jesus rebuked the chief priests and scribes in the temple and then left the city to lodge in Bethany for the night. (Matthew 21:14-17) “Now in the morning, as [Jesus] returned to the city, He was hungry.” (Matthew 21:18) If we fail to understand the “context” of the “curse” on the fig tree, then we are left to be blown about by the winds of ignorance and apathy and all we can hope to do is to not be blown over a precipice or into a pit, however if we study “where and when” Jesus did what He did and “who” Jesus did it to, then we will have the Truth of God revealed to us. Clue: Bethphage is located just outside the eastern gate and it was a walled village built by the Sanhedrin (the Supreme Court of Israel) and was populated by priests. The name Bethphage means “house of unripe figs” and the Sanhedrin that was controlling the religious lives of Israel by handing down their “doctrines of men” to the multitudes and claimed the “authority” over their lives that is reserved only for God Himself. Since Jesus was returning to Jerusalem from Bethany and was heading to the eastern gate, then it is most likely that Jesus is in Bethphage and possibly near some of the chief priests and scribes that Jesus had confronted on Palm Sunday! It makes more sense to think of the “curse” being on the Sanhedrin in Bethphage and not just this one poor defenseless fig tree because the “curse” happened after bookend confrontations between Jesus and the chief priests and elders. This is a pretty important final week in the earthly ministry of Jesus and I am sure He would not waste His time on “petty curses” against a fig tree, or do you think there is some mistake here and it just happened to get caught on “tape” {{how utterly careless is that of God to let a mistake made by His Perfect Son get written down in God’s Holy Bible for all generations to read?}}