Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / Faith - the Fig Tree and the Mustard Seed

Transcript

Faith - the Fig Tree and the Mustard Seed · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Five hundred years ago Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the wall, actually began the reformation of the church and brought us out of works, sacraments, um, rites, rituals, and faith in a priesthood of man and a church, and brought us into saved by grace through faith.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: By grace alone, were we saved?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that happened exactly 500 years ago this week.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: For a man who didn't know that long it was.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And um and there was a man, he happened, he actually was a priest up in the church.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And he and his really all he wanted to do, he wasn't trying to start a new revolution, he wasn't trying to start a new uh denomination, he wasn't trying to start the Protestant movement, he wanted to debate, which they normally would do.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: The uh the the the the the the pre the leaders and would get together and he he submitted that so that the cardinals and those they could at least talk about these things because he had this his really big gripe was that the pope at the time, Pope Leo, who happened to take that uh position politically, really, he wasn't even in he wasn't even in the priesthood, but he became the Pope at 38 years old, and uh uh he was very um self-indulgent.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: He loved extravagance, he spent a lot of money, got the uh the the wealthy Catholic Church into debt, he was borrowing money, and so he wanted to uh build or actually restore St.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Peter's Basilica, rebuild it actually.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so he uh initiated this thing called uh indulgences, uh, which was that you could actually buy your loved ones out of their purgatory.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it all it was was a building program.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so it would entice people to give lots of money, because the more money you gave, the better chance you had, especially if they were had had a lot of sins that they were going to spend some time in purgatory for.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and so he just he wanted to talk about it.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: He says, you know, here's what's wrong with it, it's not scriptural, da da da.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, and and and it keeps people from from being able to give to more worthy causes like helping the poor and you know, feeding people and building, helping with roads and things like that.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh and uh he wanted to talk about it, but the pope got mad at him and and called him a heretic and didn't even want to discuss it.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they eventually, of course, excommunicated him, but he continued to continue in his ministry, actually got married, and he uh he was he you know sort of started that whole thing to where ministry could actually marry.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he married a nun, who, of course, she was she was an ex-nun.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so they started started that thing.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: But his whole thing was the beginning.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: That was the moment when, you know, that was called the Dark Ages.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Medieval times, the Middle Ages, it was also known as the Dark Ages.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And one reason it was called the Dark Ages is because there was not much knowledge about anything.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible was not, people were not encouraged to read the Bible, in fact, they were discouraged, uh uh, and it was not something to be understood by the poor and normal uh people.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was only by the wealthy who could understand uh uh be schooled in Latin, and that was the only thing that it was ever uh the scriptures were ever read in.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so Martin Luther actually was really the first translator from that from that time, or he got it, he he he got it uh translated into the German language, and the German language had many different factions.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: There were all kinds of German languages, and it really wasn't a unified language until he, Martin Luther, did that.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh then there was a man named Tyndall, William Tyndall, who actually put it into English for the first time, and I believe he was killed for it.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it was dark, it wasn't, you weren't supposed to know things, but it was all this this light came in.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: God did not leave us in the dark, and he used this man to bring light back to the church, and that light was this light of truth that brought a change in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, it brought a change.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the change was this thing that we now take for granted so much that we are saved by grace through faith.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: He he he he he's he's uh attributed to many many good quotes, but one thing he said was this: Martin Luther said, Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and so certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he did.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: They demanded that he recant his his belief.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he stood there, and if you read his story, he he he he was tempted, he thought about it.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: He thought about all the the, you know, he was threatened actually with not just excommunication but with death.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he thought he could die, the church could actually kill him.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um because they weren't beyond doing that in those dark ages.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so he got called, you know, to on the floor of what they call the Council of Worms, and he stood there before the Pope and all of them.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, Now what is your answer?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Do you recant these things?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I cannot, and I will not recant anything, because to go against conscious is neither right nor is it safe.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: So here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he stood on this thing called trusting in the grace of God, so sure that he could stake his life on it a thousand times, and he did.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what does that mean to us?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: What does that bring us to?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that I relate to because it's something that I stake my my life on, I stake my faith on, I stake my day-by-day living upon.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm certainly staking my relationship with God upon it, that it's by his goodness, his grace.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: We just heard a love song about how great his love is for us.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it was shown through that gracious work on the cross with the death, burial, and the resurrection.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he he brought us to this life that was promised to us.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really a resurrection life.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and and it's something we talk about a lot, and and you know, and and I suppose it needs to be just we need to continue just to talk about it and bring it clear and illustrate it because we're talking about the kingdom of heaven here and it's real, and he did it.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he did finish that work.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right there, oh, you know, when he did that whole death, burial, and resurrection thing, he finished the work.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so, understanding it's a finished work, then if it's finished, then what work is really left to be done?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's a matter of faith.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: See, God's working in us, causing us to will and do his good pleasure.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: We sang about how he loves us and how he's so kind to keep working on us, but he's working in us, causing us to will and do his good pleasure.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what he's doing, the Holy Spirit is convicting us or convincing us of this righteousness by faith.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it happened with this man named Martin Luther.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: He got a conviction that he couldn't turn around from.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: He believed in it so strong that he staked his life on this thing when the whole world was against him and he was one man against all these authorities that say we are the authority of God, we are endued with authority from God, we are the Pope is infallible, and the dictates of the church are infallible.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you're one man telling us that we're wrong and you're right?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: But he had a conviction of righteousness by faith alone.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: What would you do with that conviction of faith?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: What would you do with that conviction of faith that everything is finished and there's nowhere else for you to go except right there in that place where you're at with Him?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: That there's nothing else to be attained, for all things are laid out before us now.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: That everything that pertains to life and godliness is now right there in your hand.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not something you're trying to gain or attain to, it's not something that you need to get better for in order to get it.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we worship him because he did finish it.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And there is no more sacrifice for it.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to read Luke 17, and I want to get into something here.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: It talks about this because all we're really talking about, we're talking about walking in the kingdom, walking in the blessings of God, walking in this wholeness that he's attained for us.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, Colossians 2.10 says, we are complete in him.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: All about him, all because of him.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're not going to get better in order to get complete.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're not getting stronger in order to be complete.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're not getting cleaner in order to be complete.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you can see the truth, and that means it has to have to do with faith.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you can believe it, if you can receive it, if you can see it with the eye of your spirit, you know and you're convinced of this thing, just like Martin Luther was of this revelation of grace.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're convinced that you are now complete in Him, and there's nowhere else for you to go because you are now with Him in those heavenly places.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're not trying to get there.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: You were once called up higher, you answered that call, now look at where you're at.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like the statement, you know, I used to hear this all the time.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: God loves you.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: He loves you so much, but he loves you too much to leave you where you're at.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: You ever heard of that?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: It probably came out of my mouth, my own mouth, sometimes in the past.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now that sounds right to a person who's still more in tune to carnality than faith.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because you look at carnality, you look around and say, yep, he don't want to leave me here.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: I still do this and I look like that and I still act like that, da-da-da-da-da.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: But then faith says, no, you're complete in him.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if he doesn't, if the truth is that if he didn't want to leave you where you're at, then where are you at?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're complete in him.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're seated with him in heavenly places.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: So why doesn't he want to leave you seated in heavenly places?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: But only by faith can you understand and know that as a reality.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because without faith, that's foolishness.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Without faith, that makes no sense.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not reality.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: But with faith, you know.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And when you know, that's when you've got eyes like fire, you're convinced nothing can shake it and take it from you.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Circumstances come and they tell you that you're not there, but you know.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why you stand because of that faith.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all hearing me?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the truth is, when you were lost, you didn't know him.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: God loved you too much to leave you there.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: But he brought you here.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: He brought you into him, he brought you into the kingdom.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: He brought you into heavenly places, he brought you into completion.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: He brought you out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: So he didn't want to leave you where you were, but he does want to leave you where you are.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all understanding it?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: See, it's a faith thing.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: So let's look at this faith thing.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 17.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus talks about faith.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 4, let's start in verse 4.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Talking about a situation between people.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: He says, or look at verse 3.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Take heed to yourselves.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: If your brother sins against you, rebuke him.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're if he repents, forgive him.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if he sins against you seven times a day, and seven times in a day returns to you saying, I repent, then you shall forgive him.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now stop and look at me for a second.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Seven times.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, see, for you read this too fast, you miss it.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: When I look at this, I think I deal with people in my life, in our travels.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: We deal with people that we are counseling with and are you know being uh in uh in a place of ministering to where they've got one offense years ago that they still can't get over.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this guy says seven times a day.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: So understand, understand.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're they're recognizing, they're saying, you know, once is hard enough.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: He says, if he sins against you, and if he repents, forgive him.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: If he changes his mind about what's it mean?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: He says, he comes to you and says, hey, I was wrong, he says, forgive him.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Some people that even once, even that one time's not good enough because they say, Well, I'll wait and see if there's some real change.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: So even once is not that easy for a lot of people.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Do it seven times daily.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: No wonder the apostles gave him, made the next statement, verse 5.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: The apostles said to him, Lord, increase our faith.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Help us seven times.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: We need more faith.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So the Lord said, If you have faith like a mustard seed, just this one moment of faith, this one bit of faith, but it's real.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: It produces.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you have faith like a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, my my Bible says mulberry tree.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Most of your Bibles will say sycamine tree if you've got a King James or something close to it.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, see, most of us around here in America, we think of sycamore because it's a close word.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: It actually is a fig tree.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a soucamor, which is more how the Greek would pronounce it, and it's souka means fig.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it happens to be a certain variety of a fig fig tree.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's actually talking about a fig tree.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's important as we'll we'll read on.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: He says, you can say to this fig tree, sukkamarine tree, be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it would obey you.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we we see that one.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us that have studied a little bit of faith, we we're familiar with that.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: So what he's talking about is that if we had this little faith, we could have we could do great things with it.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: We could actually do something like that.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: We could just say to this tree, and we see it getting up and getting flying over into the ocean and being cast into that sea.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, wow.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: So what he's saying is faith can do everything.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's that's right, that's there, but there's an important reason that he used this fig tree.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And which of you having a servant ploughing or tending sheep?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me, for time's sake, let me just, you know, this story here.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: He says, what he's in essence saying is if you've got a servant, you don't thank him and you don't feed him first.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: He does what he's supposed to do, he feeds you.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: You don't you don't serve him, he serves you.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then when he does it, you don't even give him thanks because he's done what's expected of him.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, look at what he's talking about, and I'll give you a clue here.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: What he's talking about with the faith that says to this tree, this fig tree, be plucked up and cast in the sea, he is talking about, I'm gonna have to give you some just a minute of some history here.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: This fig tree is the symbolic thing.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I am convinced of it through all my studies, it's symbolic of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's the one that when John the Baptist said when announcing Jesus' coming, he said, now the axe is laid to the root of the tree.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: When Adam and Eve ate of the knowledge, the fruit of that tree of knowledge of good and evil, they ate of it.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't specifically say it was figs, but then it does say that we used fig leaves to cover ourselves.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it only makes sense that the thing that gave us the knowledge of good and evil, we are going to use of that knowledge of good and evil to cover ourselves, and that's what people do.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's what religion is.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's why, that's why Pope Leo and all this religious church that we were talking about just a moment ago, and all religious churches do it.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: They cover themselves in fig leaves, that which comes from the knowledge of good and evil.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: In this case, that we were looking at with Martin Luther and Pope Leo and all that.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: This whole thing of purgatory in the first place.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if none of you have ever been around Catholicism, you think, where does that whole thing even come from?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: It comes from the knowledge of good and evil.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: It makes sense.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's not of faith, it has nothing to do with the trust in Jesus at all.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that makes sense to a mind full of knowledge of good and evil.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what it says is that you may be very sincere and devout in your service toward God, but when you die, it's common knowledge that people are not perfect and they may still have fits of anger, they still may have some kind of sins.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're worthy of temporal punishment.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're not mortal sins that would put you in eternal damnation, they say, but there's these other kinds, even the categories of sins is the knowledge of good and evil.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: But there's these venal sins that when you die with them, say you still have some habits, you still, you know, whatever.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: That you don't go to heaven, you go to purgatory because there is a time of temporary punishing, of purging, that goes on where you will pay for those things.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that has nothing to do with grace or faith or Jesus, but it's the knowledge of good and evil.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: It makes sense.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: They can't had to come up with some way for God to deal with these imperfections because they don't have faith that says we're complete in Him.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have faith that says our sins are washed and we are white as snow.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have faith in that, so they have to do the next best thing they can, deal with it according to the fig knowledge of good and evil.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: So they add all these fig leaves to try to cover for it.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so and so then when he starts, when he's talking about these sermons, he's talking there about being under the law.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: He says there again, he's in this fig tree, he's basically he's saying, if you had faith like a mustard seed, you would tell that knowledge of good and evil, don't be cast into the sea, and I'll never look at you again.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: The sea of forgetfulness.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: It will be removed from you if you had faith.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you just believed, that knowledge of good and evil would be gone.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Woo! I know what he's talking about.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it truly makes you very peculiar to live according to this kingdom of God thing, this realm of faith, where you're staking everything with your faith in the grace of this God that we worship and sing about all the time.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Glorify because of his goodness, his love, his grace.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you live by law, he says, you don't really get, there's no reward.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're just doing what you're supposed to do.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: You don't get a thank you from God?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: You don't feel like you deserve thanks.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: All you feel like is that you're defiled and you're doing what you're supposed to do.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we as Christians, what we ought to do, what we should be doing, what what's what we're called to do is do this.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, yep, we've got to come up higher and get to that place where we can fulfill what we're called to do.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're just doing, we at least got to do our Christian duty.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: D-U-T-Y or D-O-O-D-Y, how occurred Christian duty.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then something happened right then.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 11.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now it happened.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: So he's talking about this, and now we get an illustration.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now it happened, as he went to Jerusalem, he passed through the midst of Samaria, as he entered a certain village, there were ten men who were lepers.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: They lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: He looked at them and he said, Go show yourself to the priests.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Why did he say that?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because according to law, there again, according to law, that when they were cleansed, that they would go and show themselves to the priest to be approved by the priesthood as cleansed of their leprosy.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: So he was basically telling them, It's done, go your way.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And they did get up and go.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now watch this.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: They did get up and go to show themselves to the priest.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now that shows a faith to me in a sense, but verse 15.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, he returned.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: My Bible says he turned again, turned back.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: He turned back.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't make it to the priest.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: He turned back.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: And with a loud voice glorified God and fell down on his face at his feet and gave him thanks.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he was a Samaritan.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, Well, did not ten of you get cleansed?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Where are the other nine?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except for this foreigner?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: He said to them, rise and go your way.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Your faith has made you whole.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what you normally hear preached from this message is a message about giving God glory, and that message.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Just here.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can preach that from this.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very good thing.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: They make what they make the big point of is that one was thankful enough to come back and give him glory.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: The point that Jesus was making, though, was faith.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And here's where the faith is.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: This man, when he was when he was cleansed, he believed that he didn't have to go to that priesthood anymore.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: He believed it was not necessary to fulfill the law like the other nine, even though they were healed also.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: They still believed that it was necessary, y'all hearing me, to fulfill the law.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was spelled out.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: This one said, Man, I'm beyond that now.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm healed.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he came back and he glorified God and God alone.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Had nothing to do with the priesthood, had nothing to do with the law, had nothing to do with what he was expected to do where there were going to be no thanks for it anyway.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: But he came back and he glorified God because God healed him in his condition by his faith.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: He just believed and he said, Go, your faith has made you whole.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Faith as opposed to fulfilling the law.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all seeing this?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: What happened?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's on his way to see the priest, and he's like, I'm healed.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm already healed.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm healed.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm healed.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And sometime in that moment, that fig tree was cast into the sea.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to go do that.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about them, it's God.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he comes back and he glorifies God.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: It brings an automatic response.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Faith in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Faith brings an automatic response.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that comes simply because you have seen this amazing grace.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: You have tasted and seen how good He is.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we talk about His goodness, His love, His grace all the time.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's tasting that allows you to know and see and you have this faith to where you're totally different because somebody is always with you, someone's always loving you, somebody is always for you.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it has nothing to do with what you do according to the law of the prophets.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because everything they were saying was not talking about you, it was talking about Jesus.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: They all pointed out to Jesus, and Jesus would fulfill that law that you thought he was asking you to fulfill.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, go with me to Mark 11.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: I went, was trained in a Bible college where we heard this probably every day.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I love it.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: I love this, love this passage.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was so beneficial to me.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: But this is this is faith.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Go back to look to verse.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go to verse um twelve.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's going out from Bethany to Jerusalem.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Bethany.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Beth means house, if you know.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Bethany, it's interesting.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do more of a study on this with these trees.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: But Bethany means the date house.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know there's dates and figs.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: When he came out from the date house, when he came out from Bethany, he was hungry.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And he saw a fig tree having leaves, and he went to see if perhaps he would find something on it.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: But King James says, and he went, he went as if happily he would find something to eat.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so the disciples are watching him, and they're watching him, and he sees a fig tree, and he goes over there like, hey, I'm gonna get me some figs.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he knows there's no figs on it, but he's gonna show them something.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: And when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves because it wasn't the season for figs.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus wasn't stupid.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: He knew there were gonna be no figs on it, but he was showing something.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: In response, Jesus said to it, Let no one eat fruit from you forever again.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I first would read this earlier on, I thought, boy, Jesus got mad.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, boy, Jesus hated that tree.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: He got mad simply because Jesus wanted to eat a fig.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that tree wasn't ready yet to have figs, and it wasn't the tree's fault, because it wasn't time for figs.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus just, it almost looked to me like Jesus threw a flesh fit.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: He like, I'm gonna go get me some figs.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: When no figs! And like a big baby, he said, I curse you, you'll you know.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: But he wasn't a big baby, he wasn't doing that at all.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: He knew what he was doing, he was teaching them something.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: He was teaching them about the faith that would remove the fig tree.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Let nobody eat fruit from you forever.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: If this tree, there again, symbolizes the knowledge of good and evil, that we look at what Jesus was dealing with.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a lot of these times, this will help you in understanding the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of times we think that he was in all of them talking strictly toward us about the about morality issues.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's in there, but what you what he was really doing, why do you think he was sent only to the house of Israel?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because he was dealing with this thing of law versus faith.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: He was dealing with this issue of works and the works of the law, and he was dealing with that, and he kept exposing it and exposing it and exposing it in his teaching.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: He would use hyperbole to show them the foolishness of it and to show them how how how vain it was to follow that way, and he would point them to scriptures that would point to him and talk about what it's really all about.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, so here he's saying, Let nobody eat fruit from you ever again.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, what he's dealing with primarily in his three and a half years of ministry here was deconstructing their confidence in the law that never gave anything to them that it was promising.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like this fig tree.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Nobody will eat fruit from you ever again.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one one thing about this fig tree, it wasn't the fig tree's fault, it wasn't time.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: But that was a that was an issue too.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: He that tree of knowledge of good and evil, it always had it doesn't bear fruit all the time.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's why people that are living in it are still looking for the fruit from God, are still wishing that God would still do something, still wondering why God's not answering prayer, still wondering, you know, what else do I need to do to get God to answer my prayer?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm just not smart enough, maybe I don't have enough faith.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: They said increase our faith.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: He says, if you just have the faith, the faith, the measure of faith, faith like a faith.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about that this one's got a little faith, this one's got big faith.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's a conviction of faith.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: A faith that says that simply says, listen, these people, why was a leper?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Watch this.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: This happened over and over again.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed this?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: He sends these these lepers, lepers, and not, and one of them happens to be a Samaritan leper.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's got strikes against him everywhere.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Lepers, unclean, Samaritan, outcast.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Hears one word from Jesus.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Get up and go show yourself to the priest, and they're healed.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: And Christians are still trying to get healed.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Christians are learning scriptures for decades trying to walk in healing.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: These guys would hear one word.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: All through the Bible, they would hear one word.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they would believe it.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he'd say, Your faith is made you whole.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why would they believe it?
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because they could see clearly that it was about him.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: They believed in him.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: No more of this thing about who sinned, me or my parents, and why, you know, and and and and and the reason the the blessed the promise of healing, which the which the law had.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: The law had the promise of healing, but you had to do so much.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, of course, there's condemnation on them, of course they're not good enough.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Of course they deserve where they're at.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is willing to throw that whole fig tree away and say, Arise, be healed.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: See, you've got to throw your fig tree away.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to be willing, for one thing.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people just aren't willing.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I don't throw my fig tree, if I throw my fig tree away, that means I gotta forgive so-and-so.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's such a hellacious thing to forgive somebody.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're in the fig tree, when you're in the knowledge of good and evil, it seems hellacious.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do it.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: If I do, and you're afraid.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I just forgive, if I let it go, they'll run loose.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: They'll do worse to me.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: They won't learn.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: There'll be no penalty.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, loose them and let them go.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can't do it.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Unless you've got faith in the grace of God so secure and so strong that you'll stake your own life on it, and you'll forgive the unforgivable and love the unlovable.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you get to that place where there the automatic response, like we see here, is the automatic response is that you just don't take any more account of people's sins against you anymore.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Love doesn't do that.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because you come to that place by faith.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: You understand that?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: You don't come because you sat on the pew for 40 years.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: You don't get there because you heard the deepest of the deep, far-out fringe teaching to get you there.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's faith in him that died on that cross and rose again to finish the work for us.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: People want to go to churches, oh, they're getting so deep and so mystical, and they're getting into this surreal.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: A Samaritan leper looked at Jesus, believed what he said, and was there.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Faith, like a mustard seed, says, I'm there.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all getting this?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: You ain't got nowhere to go.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Your faith's affected by acknowledging what you got.
• 33:12
  unknown: Woo!
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Boy, I can preach me happy.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: So then they came to Jerusalem and then he drives out all those people out of the temple, huh?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all temper tantrum people.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all like Jesus doing that, don't you?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: That justifies a little bit of our problem here.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: There again, Jesus was not overcome with flesh.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't throw a temper tantrum.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: He was teaching again.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: He fashioned a whip.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: He took his time.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: He was about to teach again.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he was showing them what he's doing here.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's showing them that you guys have defiled this thing and all that, and this is not where it's at.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: And God is now going to cleanse this.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he demonstrated that.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, then he goes on down.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: He went out of the city, verse 20.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now in the morning when they passed by, they saw the fig tree.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Fig tree was dried up from the roots.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: Peter said, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered away.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus answered and said to him, Have faith in God.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's all just about faith.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Because surely I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, now in Luke he said, says to this fig tree, be cast in the sea.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here he says, Whoever says to this mountain, well, it's the same kind of thing, because where are they at?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're at Jerusalem here.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, and there's that, there's that mountain.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: What did Paul say?
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: He says, he says, there's Mount Sinai, which is of the law, and he says, and that's where this now Jerusalem is with all of her children.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's that same mountain.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: Babylon.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Religion covered with fig leaves and the knowledge of good and evil.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, if you got faith, you'll tell that whole mountain be cast into the sea.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Woo! I don't have that mountain anymore.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have that so much of that knowledge of good and evil anymore.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: My faith has turned me from that and made caused me to repent and change my thinking.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: And my faith has convinced me that this is where it's at.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is where it's at.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that he has finished the work.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like Frankie was telling us this morning.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: He has finished the work.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's a finished work.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're home.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're there.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: We have come not to that mountain that burned with blackness where the law was given.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: We have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're there.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: Would you all stand up?