Daily Reading: (Mark 11:12-13):
“The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs.”
When the fig leaves appear about the end of March, they are accompanied by a crop of small knobs, called taqsh, a sort of fore-runner of the real figs. These taqsh are eaten by peasants and others when hungry. They drop off before the real fig is formed. But if the leaves appear unaccompanied by taqsh, there will be no figs that year. The absence of the taqsh meant that there would be no figs when the time of figs came.
Jesus cursed the barren fig tree as a prophetic picture of the curse unbelieving Israel had brought on itself. The fig tree was in leaf so it appeared to be alive, but had no fruit and would bear no fruit. Israel appeared to be alive on the outside as well, but just like the tree, the nation was bearing no fruit for God. In Israel’s case it should have been the season for bearing fruit because the Messiah was in their midst, there should have been taqsh, but they didn’t recognize Him and were completely barren like the fig tree.
The timing of the cursing of the fig tree to when they returned back to the tree was only a single day. (Mark 11:14,20). This is a miracle as I have used Round-Up before on a 90-degree day with no moisture and it still took three to four days to kill a single weed. This is not a weed but a tree with an established root system.
Jesus’ words are so powerful and shows us there is power when we will speak to our situation in the authority of Jesus name by faith, and trust that God is working on our behalf.
If you have been praying for something and do not see any tangible difference Jesus has a word for you, “Have faith in God”. Faith looks at something that isn’t (a healthy tree) and believes that God is working on changing the outcome (the tree is already dead). Jesus’ actions teach us to move forward by faith believing that you will see the fruit of your belief in God (Mark 11:22).
In Mark 11:20 the disciples remarked that the tree was withered from the root. This was to demonstrate that Israel was dead at its roots, meaning that their religious leaders were the cause of their disease.
“The mountain cast into the sea” is broken down as such:
The sea is a metaphor for judgment
The mountain is a metaphor for the Temple (Mark 11:23).
This is a prophecy and tells us that Jesus is the true and final temple. The temple is where you would go to find “forgiveness” but now forgiveness is found in Christ alone. There is no need for the Temple anymore.