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?}}