Only Mark points out that Jesus would not suffer anyone to carry any vessel through the temple. No explanation is offered by Mark as to why Jesus would not allow this. It is probable that Jesus wanted His Father’s house to be dedicated completely to prayer and the ministry of God. Also, as with the Sabbath, work symbolizes our own effort, and our own effort will always fall short of what God demands for salvation. Therefore, anything that resembled work was inappropriate in the house of God.

What are “works of the law?” Any rule, command or law that a person observes in an attempt to be accepted in right standing with God is a “work of the law.” In other words, “works of the law” are a righteousness produced by one’s self, a righteousness belonging to one’s self, offered to God as a means of meeting God’s standard for acceptance.

It takes a radical revelation of the gospel of grace to abandon faith in the works of the law. God’s standard of righteousness is the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD alone. God has designed salvation in such a way as to eliminate any boasting from man. If salvation was by works either partially or wholly, then man could boast. But grace and faith eliminate man’s boasting altogether. Faith towards God and what He has done through Christ Jesus is the only means of receiving His free gift of salvation. Salvation by grace brings praise and glory to God. If we could save ourselves, either partially or wholly, we would take the credit for it. But that is not the case. All the glory goes to God.

When we, who are the temple of the Lord, are occupied with the cares of this life, the needs of others are not met. However, when we are cleansed (Jn. 15:3), then the Lord can accomplish His ministry through us.

Jesus tells us not to worry or be anxious about our material needs being met. It would be impossible to never think about our physical needs, even Jesus thought about His need for money to pay taxes. We are simply not to be occupied with thinking about riches or spend time worrying about our necessities. They will be added unto us as we seek first the kingdom of God.

Prosperity can be damaging to the Body of Christ. God wants to bless His children with things, but a preoccupation with these things will choke God’s Word and make it unfruitful. If we follow God’s formula for prosperity found in Matthew 6:19-34, then the Word will bring forth fruit and we will enjoy the physical blessings of this life too.

There are people who have received God’s Word, committed themselves to it to the degree that they are able to remain faithful in persecution, but because of being occupied with the affairs of this life, the Word sown in their heart is choked and no fruit is produced. Just as weeds in a garden will steal the nutrients and starve the plant, so the pleasures of this life, if we allow them to dominate our thinking, will stop the fruit of the Word from producing.

It takes time, effort, and diligence to be a fruitful Christian. It’s quicker and easier to raise weeds than it is to raise tomatoes or corn. Let God’s Word produce fruit in you.

Notice that this verse says that Jesus “answered” this fig tree. The tree had not spoken to Him verbally but it communicated that it had figs by the leaves on it. It is a fact that a fig tree should have figs by the time the leaves are evident. A fig tree actually produces green figs before the leaves appear and if no figs are produced by that time, then the tree will not have any figs that year. This fig tree was professing something that it didn’t have even though it was still too early for figs.

Not only plants, but other things can communicate with us too. Circumstances can tell you that you have failed. Your body can tell you that your prayer didn’t work – the Lord didn’t heal you, etc. You need to follow Jesus’ example and answer these things with a positive statement of your faith.

What good could it do to talk to a tree or an inanimate object? God created the heavens, the earth, and everything that is in the earth, by His words (Heb. 11:3). The whole creation was made by and responds to words. Our words, when spoken in faith, release either life or death (Prov. 18:21). They also affect people, things, and circumstances. We can release the power that is in faith by our words.

Speaking God’s Word in faith brings the Holy Spirit into action. In Luke 4, when Jesus was tempted of the devil for forty days, it was the Word of God that Jesus used to defeat the enemy at His temptation. We must take advantage of God’s Word by placing it in our hearts so that the Holy Spirit may bring it forth at the appropriate time to accomplish a complete and total victory.

Speak to that mountain in your life.

This could be interpreted as the ultimate teaching in predestination. That interpretation would be that these people were never given the opportunity to believe because of Isaiah’s prophecies. However, the Word of God makes it clear that “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13); “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20); and “whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17). No one has ever been denied the opportunity to accept salvation (Ti. 2:11).

Mark 6:5 says that “he (Jesus) could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.” In that instance, it is evident that the reason Jesus couldn’t do any mighty work was not because He didn’t possess the power, but because He chose not to use that power against a person’s will. He couldn’t perform the mighty works because of His decision to uphold our freedom of choice.

Likewise, these Jews could not believe because of their choice to reject Jesus. They could not believe because they chose not to believe. “They stumbled at the stumblingstone” (Rom. 9:32), which was Jesus.

Isaiah did not predestine them to this fate. Rather he saw that very few would receive the report (Isa. 53:1) about the Messiah, and therefore would be kept from the knowledge of salvation because they rejected Him in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found (Col. 2:3). This is what Isaiah prophesied, and it came to pass. Be careful what you choose.

The only reason Satan ever had any right to become a prince or rule over us was because we yielded ourselves to him through sin (Rom. 6:16). Since Jesus “bore our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24), Satan no longer has power or authority over those who accept Jesus’ gift of salvation. Satan has been “cast out” — stripped of any power he had. Now he can only deceive, and if we fall for his lies, we stop God’s blessings from flowing in our lives.

The reason why a believer must live a holy life, is to avoid Satan’s bondage. When we obey sin, we yield ourselves to Satan, the author of that sin.Yielding to sin is yielding to a person, Satan. God doesn’t impute the sin to us but the devil does. Our actions either release the power of Satan or the power of God in us.

Although God is not imputing our sins unto us, we cannot afford the luxury of sin because it allows Satan to have access to us. When a Christian does sin and gives the devil an opportunity to produce death in his life, the way to stop him is to confess the sin. God is faithful and just to take the forgiveness that is already present in our born-again spirit and release it in our flesh, thereby removing Satan and his strongholds.

A person who abandons himself to sin is actually becoming a slave to the devil while a person who obeys righteousness is yielding himself to the Lord. This is why a Christian should live a holy life.

There is still a future judgment of the world coming, where the wicked will be separated from the righteous and cast into the lake of fire. This verse refers to the sins of the world that were about to be placed on Jesus and that He would suffer our punishment.

Jesus suffered the punishment for our sins, so there is no reason why we should suffer for them too. The price for sin has already been paid by the only one who could fully pay it and that is Jesus. All Jesus asks of us to make His redemption ours, is faith in Him as our Lord.

Sin has a wage it must pay and no one can avoid payday without faith in Jesus. Anyone who does not receive the new birth will be held liable for all the wrong they committed as a result of their sinful nature. However, those who receive the new birth through faith in Jesus, don’t have a sin nature and therefore, will not receive the payment of death.

Physical death as well as every result of the sin nature (i.e. sickness, depression, fear, etc.) is only a by-product of the spiritual death that was already inside of us. The Lord told Adam that in the day he ate of the forbidden tree, he would surely die (Gen. 2:17). Adam didn’t die physically that day but he did die spiritually. Physical death came 930 years later for Adam (Gen. 5:5) as a by-product of his spiritual death.

Eternal life is a gift. The dictionary defines a gift as “something that is bestowed voluntarily and without compensation; a present.” We have nothing to do with earning this gift. All you have to do is receive it by faith.

This is the third time recorded in the gospels that the Father spoke in an audible voice to or about Jesus (First, at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River and second, at the transfiguration of Jesus).

This verse makes it clear that it was a voice that the Father spoke in; however, there were different reports of the same event. Some people heard a voice and thought it was an angel who spoke. Others thought it was thunder.

This illustrates “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). A carnal man with a hardened heart will always find some natural explanation for the supernatural even if he heard an audible voice from God.

A hard heart keeps us from perceiving spiritual truths and stops us from understanding. When a person doesn’t understand God’s Word, Satan finds no resistance when he comes to steal it away. A hard heart keeps us from remembering. This isn’t to say that facts or scriptures can’t be recalled, it’s the spiritual lessons learned that have been forgotten. Likewise, some people can quote scripture or remember what the sermon was about, but they can’t perceive the spiritual life in it or retain what they did perceive, because of a hardened heart.

Jesus didn’t need to hear this audible voice of God because he had a more sure word of prophecy than the audible voice of God from heaven (2 Pet. 1:18-20). Jesus knew the “voice” of the Old Testament scriptures that spoke of the Christ being glorified and He could also hear the Father’s voice in His heart as He had on so many other occasions. This audible voice didn’t come to reassure Jesus, but it came to those who had ears to hear, so that they might believe.

Philip and Andrew had just brought word to Jesus that certain Greeks or Gentiles were seeking Him at the feast. He had ministered to other Gentiles, but this is the first time that the Gentiles came specifically to seek Him instead of what He could do. Apparently, this was an added signal to Jesus that His time had come and that He could no longer confine His ministry to only the Jews. Therefore, He made statements about His death and glorification, that would break down the middle wall of partition between the Jew and the Gentile.

There was a physical wall of partition that symbolized this division in the Jerusalem temple. The Gentiles could come into a designated area of the temple known as the court of the Gentiles, but a stone wall, about five feet high, stopped them from going further. A sign standing before the wall stated, “No man of another nation is to enter, and whosoever is caught will have himself to blame for his death!”

Many regulations and rules separated Jews and Gentiles for centuries. Christ’s work on the cross abolished that separation by removing the law and thus removing the barrier between these two groups. Instead of changing the Gentiles into Jews or the Jews into Gentiles, God made a brand new creation.

It’s like crossing a horse and a donkey. The result is not a horse or a donkey, but a brand new animal called a mule.

In the New Testament church there is no such thing as Jew or Gentile, bond or free, for God has created something absolutely new. It’s the “one new man,” the new creation in Christ Jesus, the church, Christ’s body, the fullness of Him, that filleth all in all (Eph. 1:23). Remember who you are “in Him.”

There is nothing wrong with praising God. It is encouraged and commanded thousands of times in the scriptures. The reason the Pharisees were so upset was because they didn’t accept Jesus as God. Indeed, it would be blasphemy for Jesus to accept worship if He wasn’t God. This is another confirmation of the deity of Christ.

Only Luke records this instance of the Pharisees’ objection and Jesus’ answer. This was the triumphant entry of Israel’s King that was prophesied and anticipated for centuries. The excitement could not be contained. If people refused to praise Him, the creation would have broken out in spontaneous praise. No rock should have to do what God created us to do.

By compiling all of the writers’ accounts of what the multitudes were saying, we have this record: “Hosanna to the Son of David” (Mt. only). “Blessed is he” (“the King”–Lk.; “the King of Israel”–Jn.) “that cometh in the name of the Lord. Blessed be the kingdom of our father David that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Mk. only). “Hosanna in the highest” (Mt. and Mk. only). “Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest” (Lk. only).

Pride was what caused Satan’s original sin according to Isaiah 14:12-14. He wanted to be like the most High. One thing reserved for God alone is worship, and the devil has always sought that. If he can’t be the one to receive worship, then he seeks to turn others away from giving true worship to the most High God. This is the reason why praise and worship to the Lord are such powerful tools against Satan. He can’t stand to see God worshiped. Worship Him with all of your heart today.