What do I know with Isaac Carroll
What do I know with Isaac Carroll
The Fig Tree Without Fruit Teaches Us About Our Spiritual Lives, walking thru Mark 11
The spiritual journey from blindness to sight forms the heart of today's powerful exploration of Mark 10-11. We unpack the profound symbolism behind blind Bartimaeus—whose very name means "son of the highly esteemed"—and discover how his story mirrors our own spiritual condition. Like Bartimaeus, we're all blind children crying out for restoration, seeking the sight that only Jesus can provide.
When Jesus enters Jerusalem to shouts of "Hosanna" (save us now!), we witness prophecy fulfilled before our eyes. But the most striking lesson comes through Jesus' encounter with a leafy yet fruitless fig tree. This seemingly simple moment unveils a profound truth: appearances can deceive. Many Christians try to manufacture spiritual fruit through sheer willpower, but Jesus teaches us that genuine fruit only comes through connection to Him as the true vine. Without this vital connection, we remain beautiful yet barren trees.
The cleansing of the temple reminds us of God's jealousy for pure worship. His house should be a place of prayer for all nations, not a marketplace for religious exploitation. This episode, alongside Jesus' teachings on prayer and authority, calls us to approach God with both confidence and reverence. As we reflect on these passages, we're challenged to examine our own spiritual condition. Are we crying out for healing like Bartimaeus? Are we connected to the vine and bearing fruit? Are we approaching God with proper reverence? Join us as we continue our journey through Mark's Gospel, discovering timeless truths that transform our relationship with the divine. Subscribe now and share your thoughts on how these teachings are reshaping your spiritual walk!
May God bless you and lead you always.
Welcome to the podcast. I'm Isaac Carroll, and this is what Do I Know? All right, in today's Bible study we're going to be back in Mark, the 10th chapter, and we're going to pick up at verse 46 where we left off. They came to Jericho and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples in a great crowd, bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside and when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent, but he cried out all the more son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stopped and said call him. And they called the blind man, saying to him Take heart, get up, he is calling for you. And, throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus and Jesus said to him what do you want me to do for you? And the blind man said to him Rabbi, let me recover my sight. And Jesus said to him Go your way, your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight and he followed him on the way.
Speaker 1:All right, we have come to the end of mark, the 10th chapter. You know, it's easy to come to these miracles and say, all right, jesus performs another miracle, he, he heals another blind man. But as we grow in our faith and we truly study God's word, the significance of each thing that he does comes to light, because everything has a significance, everything has a meaning, and sometimes that meaning isn't truly found until we dig deep. It's interesting that the writer wanted us to know that Bartimaeus was the son of Timaeus, and what's interesting about it is that Bartimaeus in Hebrew means the son of Timaeus. Now it's obvious that the writer knew that Bartimaeus meant the son of Timaeus, and to write Bartimaeus son of Timaeus was almost like saying it twice. He's trying to draw our attention to this point, so we know what Bartimaeus means. So what does Timaeus mean? Timaeus means highly valued or highly esteemed. So Mark wanted us to know that blind Bartimaeus, which means son of Timaeus, was a son of the highly esteemed.
Speaker 1:This is actually the story of us. We are children of the highly esteemed. God wants us as the father, but we're blind children. The world is blind. It has eyes, but it cannot see, cannot understand or comprehend that it needs God and as Jesus passes by this blind Bartimaeus, he cries out to Jesus. And that's us. We're crying out to Jesus. Jesus hears our voice, he hears our cry, even though the world tells us to be quiet, tells us to be quiet when we cry out, all the more because we're blind and we want to recover our sight. We want to recover our relationship with God and we cry out to Jesus and he hears us. He's willing to give us our sight, he's willing to renew our relationship. Blind Bartimaeus is the story of us and it's a beautiful story. And, as you see, when blind Bartimaeus received his sight, he began to follow Jesus. We too, when we receive our sight back, we are to follow after Jesus. Let's move on to chapter 11. We'll begin in verse 1.
Speaker 1:Now, when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, jesus sent two of his disciples and he said to them Go into the village in front of you and immediately you will enter it. You will find a colt tied on which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it. If anyone, anyone says to you why are you doing this, say that the lord has need of it and he will send it back here immediately. And they went away and found the colt tied at the door outside in the street and they untied it and some of those standing there said to them what are you doing untying that colt? And they told them what jesus said and they let them go and they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it and he sat on it and many spread their cloaks on the road and others had spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields and those who went before him and those who followed were shouting Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, blessed is the coming kingdom of our father, david. Hosanna in the highest. And he entered Jerusalem and he went into the temple and he looked around at everything. As it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. All right, let's stop here at verse 11.
Speaker 1:One thing I really don't want to do is to just repeat myself over and over as I go through the Gospels. I mean these significant moments in the life of Christ will be repeated, like Hosanna. I'm sure we've said this before, but what does Hosanna mean? Hosanna comes from the root word in Hebrew called yasha, and yasha means to deliver us or to save, and Na Yashana, which means now, we pray Now. This is translated into Greek, but in the Hebrew word, as they were calling in, hebrew, was Yashana, which means save us, we pray. Hebrew was Yashana, which means save us, we pray Now. This is also fulfillment of scripture and we read it in several places, like Psalms 118, 25 through 26, which says O Lord, save us, we pray, we beseech you, o Lord, cause us to prosper. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:Zechariah 9, verse 9. Isaiah 40 and 9. Get up on a high mountain, o Zion, herald the good news. Raise your voice loudly. O Jerusalem Herald of good news, lift it up and do not be afraid. Say to the cities of Judah here is your God. Now the one who saves has entered Jerusalem.
Speaker 1:It says that he looked around and then he left for the 12th because it was already late. Jesus looked at it, all that was going on in the temple, and they immediately left. He didn't react to what he saw there, he didn't say anything. He didn't react to the things that made him angry or upsetting. No, he went away and prayed and on his return we get the interaction with the fig tree, which is quite significant In Jerusalem and in Judea area, when the fig tree becomes a leaf, what appears with the leaves is little edible buds of fruit. And this tree had all the appearances of having those buds, those little pieces of fruit. And obviously Jesus knew there was no fruit there, but he went there as a point. He went to a tree that was full of leaf. That was a beautiful fig tree. It had all the appearances, but it had no fruit.
Speaker 1:Jesus many times uses this example to teach us about fruit. Now we know that fruit are outer signs of the holiness that's within the spirit, that is within us Patience and kindness, love, fruits of the spirit. Jesus gives us the parable of the soils. The seed falls on the hard ground or on the path, it gets choked out or it has no root, but it fails to produce fruit. And when it falls on good ground, it grows up and produces fruit. He also gives us the example that no limb, no tree can produce fruit without being attached to the vine. A branch has to be a part of the tree. It has to be a part of the vine. It has to be a part of the tree. It has to be a part of the vine. It has to be a part of the root for it to produce fruit.
Speaker 1:Many times, as Christians, we try to perform these fruits on our own. We try to manifest these fruits out of our own will. We know that they're supposed to be there, so we try to manifest them, hephaestus. But Jesus says that without him we cannot bear fruit, the correct fruit. So how do we produce the correct fruit? If Jesus is the reason why we produce fruit, then shouldn't we seek Jesus in our life? Shouldn't that be the source from which we are looking for to produce these fruit? If we seek Jesus in all that we do, the fruit will come naturally. We won't have to worry about producing fruit. He'll produce the fruit in us. But when we seek him and he becomes the focus of our pursuit, then we don't have anything else to worry about. Let's continue at verse 15.
Speaker 1:And they came to Jerusalem and he entered the temple and he began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them Is it not written. My house shall be called the house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of thieves. The chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him. But they feared him because all the crowd were astonished at his teachings. And when evening came they went away out of the city and as they passed by the morning, they saw the fig tree wither away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. And Jesus answered him and said have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive If you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also, who is in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses.
Speaker 1:They came again in Jerusalem and as he was walking into the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him. They said to him by what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them? Jesus said to them I will ask you one question Answer me and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me. And they discussed it with one another, saying if we say it's from heaven, he will say why then did you not believe him? But shall we say from man? They were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet. So they answered Jesus and said we do not know. And Jesus said to them neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. All right, we have come to the end of chapter 11. All right, we have come to the end of chapter 11.
Speaker 1:Jesus comes in after praying all night and he starts overturning tables and he starts running people off. He says that he won't allow anyone to carry anything to the temple. He tells them that God's house was a house of prayer for all nations, because what they were doing they were doing in the Gentile area. They were making a profit on them, selling them the right sacrifices. They were making a small fortune by robbing those who came to serve God, jesus tells them that this house was not meant for that. This house was meant to honor God. It was a house for all nations to come and honor Him. Yet they were defiling God's house by making a den of thieves.
Speaker 1:That's what worries me about us as Christians today. We're supposed to treat everything to do with God with respect and reverence. I mean, this is the reason why the children of Israel were chosen was to show us what was required to serve God. God was harsh with Israel. I mean, he showed them love and he showed them grace and he performed great signs for them. But it was at a great cost. Also, when those people came to worship God, and if they were unclean and they came into a certain area, they could die. A priest, when he went to the Holy Holy, if he wasn't cleansed, completely cleansed, and had performed all the requirements it was to go into the Holy Holy he would die. They would actually tie a rope to his ankle and he wore a bell and if he died and the bell stopped ringing, they would drag him out. That's how serious it was to enter into the Holy of Holies when the children of Israel carried the Ark of the Covenant, one of the soldiers, to stop the cart from moving forward, put his hands on the cart to stop it and he died.
Speaker 1:He didn't show the correct reverence for a thing of God's. Not that he was doing anything wrong, but God wanted to prove a point to the world that anything to do with him is to be revered. Above all things, we are to show the right mindset, the right heart, the right fear. Paul writes this in Hebrews 10, starting in verse 30,. It says, for we know him who said Vengeance is mine, I will repay, and again the Lord will judge his people. Well then, paul goes on to say in verse 31, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. God is to be revered. He was harsh with Israel so that he would have to be with us. The lessons that were given to Israel, the harsh lessons that they received, should be a reminder to us that God is to be revered, he is to be feared, he is to be treated as holy. When we come to God, we're going to come to God with the right heart, the right mindset, the right reverence.
Speaker 1:A lot of people want to forget Israel, forget the sacrifices they made. Forget the harsh lessons they learned, because God didn't leave them unpunished. We're no different than them. We're just as hard-headed, we're just as stubborn, stiff-necked, disobedient. But God has been very gracious to us. But one day Jesus said when he comes back, he's going to unleash that vengeance. He's going to bring with him punishment. He came the first time as the Redeemer, the Savior, the Lamb. He's coming the next time as the Lion. He's coming next time as the Judge. We are to be mindful of this and to revere God as God. I don't tell you this to promote fear. I'm not one who wants to promote fear. I just want us to remember God and treat him with the reverence that he deserves. I'm going to end this one here. We'll be in chapter 12 in our next Bible study. Until then, I love you guys. God bless you. Goodbye.