The Lord's cursing of the fig tree

COLERAINE EVANGELICAL CHURCH

SERMON NOTES SUNDAY 31 MAY 2026 – MR CRAIG DENNISON

READING: MARK 11 VERSES 1 TO 26

The Lord’s cursing of the fig tree

Our story is set in the last week of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ which is often referred to as the Passion Week. Now, the word ‘passion’ is not a reference to emotion. Rather, it comes from the Latin word ‘passio’ which means suffering.  It is the week of his suffering or the week that leads up to his suffering. And on the first day of this week of the Passion Week, it is the day that we refer to as our Lord's day but for the Jews was the first day of a new week, day one.  the first day, the Sunday is a day of activity. It's a day when the Lord descended down the Mount of Olives and he beheld the city of Jerusalem and he wept over that city. He wept over the people. He wept over the place. On that day he made his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. He sits on the colt as people put their garments on the ground. They cut down branches to welcome him into Jerusalem. and how quickly that is going to change. The people, are full of praise, saying, "Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." And if you didn't know what happened after that, you would think after the first day, this is going to be a glorious week. This is going to be a week when Jerusalem embraces Christ. This is going to be a week when even the religious people fall down and adore him. If you were told after day one what would happen on day seven, you would scarcely believe it. As that day draws to a close, the Lord Jesus Christ retreats to Bethany with the 12 disciples. And it appears for most of that week that the Lord stayed in Bethany with Mary and Martha and Lazarus. In fact, whenever the Lord was in the area, that is generally where he stayed. Bethany was about 2 miles from Jerusalem and it would have taken them an hour to walk there. After all the events in Jerusalem, the Lord and his disciples make the journey out to Bethany. And then we move on to day two. And day two is where we are focusing this morning.  Verse 12 says, "And on the tomorrow when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry." Notice it doesn't say “they were hungry.” It only mentions Christ as being hungry. It is very unlikely that he was not offered breakfast at the house of Martha. We know that Martha had quite the reputation for hospitality. You will remember a previous occasion whenever the Lord was teaching in their house and Martha was cumbered about with much service. And where was Mary? She wasn't helping her sister. She was sat at the feet of Jesus listening. And Martha complained thinking the Lord would tell Mary off. But the Lord praised Mary saying she has chosen the better thing. Why did the Lord leave her house hungry? It is most likely that Christ rose early to pray. We often read about this in the life of the Savior. He got up early in the morning to pray. He went up into mountains late at night to pray. Before everybody else had rose, the Savior was away to pray, seeking the face of his Father early in the morning. And then the disciples meet him. They begin the journey to Jerusalem. And as they journeyed to Jerusalem, the Lord sees a fig tree. As he approaches this tree for fruit he finds no figs. He does something that many people think is strange. He curses the fig tree. He speaks to a tree and he curses it. He pronounces judgment upon it. This miracle stands alone in all the miracles of Christ. Verse 20 tells us, "The next day they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots." The Lord cursed the fig tree and it was cursed. The next day it was dead. It didn't just begin to die, it was fully withered, dried up from the roots. Obviously now a dead tree in the space of 24 hours. What should have taken effectively months to happen the Lord has quickened so that it's obvious even to the disciples that this tree is cursed. Now this miracle is very different. It stands actually in contrast to all the other miracles because all the other miracles of Christ were miracles of mercy. He gives sight to the blind. That's mercy. He made the lame to walk. That is mercy. He fed the 5,000 when they were hungry. That is mercy. He brought the dead to life. That's mercy. But this miracle, it's not a miracle of mercy. This is a miracle of judgment. And it is the only miracle of judgment. The only other miracle that comes close is whenever Christ healed the demoniac of Gedara and then sent the legion of demons into the herd of swine and they ran down into the sea and the swine were drowned. But even that was a miracle of mercy and judgment. But the cursing of the fig tree is the only miracle of judgment in the life of our Saviour. What is so significant about this miracle? Here we see the Lord Jesus Christ displaying his authority over all of creation. He's not just the Lord over the souls of men. He's not just able to physically touch the bodies of men. He's showing that he can even control nature. That if he orders a tree to be cursed, it's cursed. If he orders it to be dried up from the roots, it will come to pass. All things we are told were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. That is John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16. We are told, "For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, dominions, principalities, or powers. All things were created by him and for him." The fig tree was created by Christ and it was created for Christ. You and I, we were made by Christ and we were made for Christ. Your life is not your own. You were made by him for him. The very purpose of your existence is to live for Christ. But Christ did not curse this fig tree without a cause. The gospels do not record this event to fill paper. The Holy Spirit moved the writers to write this down. Christ has a purpose in cursing this fig tree. He had lessons to teach his disciples and because it's in the Bible, there are lessons that you and I are to draw from this here today. Let's think of the miracle of Christ cursing the fig tree.

Number one, notice the appearance of the fig tree.  Most of us are unfamiliar with the design of fig trees. We don't have an awful lot of them here in our beautiful sunny climate. They're more likely to be found over in the Mediterranean and in the hot climate over there. But the fig trees are very resilient. They can live for decades. Some have even been reported to live for over a hundred years. Normally a fig tree will produce two crops every year. But there's something unique about the fig tree. The fruit often comes before or at the same time as the leaves. Now if you think of an apple tree the leaves come before the fruit. Normally the fruit is the end result of the tree flourishing. But the fig tree is different. The figs come before or with the leaves. The leaves very rarely appear before the fruit.  In verse 13 it says, "Seeing a fig tree a far off having leaves." If the leaves are there, that means the fruit is there because the fruit comes first.  This gives the impression or at least an expectation that there's fruit upon this tree. If the tree has leaves it is likely to have fruit.  The profession is that this tree, this fig tree is a fruitbearing tree. But sadly, it is a tree that is giving a false profession. It is a tree that is deceiving people. It has leaves and people come to it expecting to find fruit and they find none. In fact, verse 13 says he found nothing but leaves. Christ came, he searched the tree, he found no figs, he only found leaves. He had been led to believe that this tree had fruit. But as he got closer, as he examined, as he lifted every leaf, looking behind for figs, he found none. This tree was given its moment of inspection. What are we to draw from this? There are great parallels in the life of the fig tree and those who profess to be the Lord's people. Some will call themselves Christians. They will say, "I have the leaves of Christianity. I have the leaves of a profession of faith. I have the leaves of church attendance. I have the leaves of baptism. I have the leaves of living a righteous life.” But they can lack the real fruit of Christianity. They might have the outward leaves showing themselves to be a Christian, but they can lack the fruit. They can lack saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. They can lack the fruit of repentance of sin. They can lack the fruit of regeneration. We can have that outward appearance, the leaves, but we can lack the fruit. We have one opportunity to be fruitful in this lifetime. God gives you your whole life to be fruitful. Not to gather leaves, but to have real fruit. One day the Lord will come and make that final searching of us. And he's not looking for leaves. He's looking for fruit.  Have I the real fruit of genuine Christianity? Do I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do I know him as my Lord and my Savior? Have I repented of sin? Am I daily repenting of sin and living by faith in him?  

Secondly notice the desire of Christ. Verse 13 “if happily he might find anything thereon.” The desire of Christ was to find figs on this tree. He wasn't coming there making some sort of gesture saying, "Well, I will go here, but I hope there's nothing here so that I can curse it." No, he went to the tree genuinely seeking, genuinely desiring figs upon the tree. And just as he desires to find the fruit upon the tree, so he desires to find fruit of real genuine Christianity in my life and your life. The Lord isn't hoping that you fail to produce fruit in your life. The Lord isn't desiring that there would be no faith in your heart. No. The Bible says “he is not willing that any should perish but that all would come to repentance.” The Lord wants there to be in your life and my life real fruit of Christian conversion. Figs are a picture of regeneration. But what is regeneration? It is the change wrought in us by God the Holy Spirit. The Bible paints a picture of us - that we are those who are “dead in trespasses and in sins.” We need new life in Jesus Christ and only the Holy Ghost can work this in us. The Lord Jesus Christ refers to Nicodemus as being “born again.” That is your current life. It is a life of deadness and sins. You need a new life. You need to be born again of the Holy Ghost. Ezekiel speaks of God taking away the old heart, the stony heart, and giving us a new heart, a heart of flesh. This is what Christ desires to find when he searches our life. That change, that regeneration within us. In Luke chapter 13 verse 6 to 9 we have the parable of the vineyard dresser. In that parable we read that for three years the owner came and searched the fig tree for fruit and he found none. The vineyard dresser pleaded for one more year and if there was no more fruit in that last year it would be cut down. We are not actually told what happened at the end of that parable, whether it produced fruit or not but the point isn't the outcome of the tree. The point of that parable is God's patience with the sinner. He gave them one year and there was no fruit. He gave them another year and there was no fruit. He gave them a third year, but this was going to be their last year. There was no fruit that year. The tree will be cut down. As each year passes with us, if we're not saved, if we're not converted, if we don't have the true fruit of Christianity, God one day will decide this is your last chance. This will be the last year that you have upon the earth. It will be the last day. It will be the last minute. It will be the last second. The important thing is that we are prepared to meet our God. That we have the fruit of real Christianity within our lives. The Lord wants to find fruit in the lives of those who profess to be his. He wants to save sinners. That is the whole purpose of his mission, “to come into this world to seek and to save that which was lost.” He freely offers himself in the gospel to sinners to be believed upon. That's what he wants to do. He wants to save lost souls. Christ is desiring fruit in the lives of sinners. He's not setting us up to fail. Christ came to the tree hungry, desiring fruit. Christ is sincere in granting salvation to the whosoever will come to him.  What fruit is Christ looking at in our lives? This is where we go a little bit deeper this morning. If you turn to Galatians 5 verse 22, we see the fruit that Christ wants from us. The Lord doesn't say, "I want fruit in your life, but I'm not going to tell you what it is." No, it is spelt out for us in the word of God, the exact fruit Christ is desiring. “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lust. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit.” Let us start with the first one. The fruit of the spirit is love. God wants us to have love. Not just to love those who love us, not just to love our family. He wants us to love him. He wants our affections to be directed towards God. He wants our emotions to be in tune with his. He wants us to love him for giving us the gift of life. He wants us to love him for sending his son into this world to be our Saviour. He wants us to love him for his mercies that he extends to us day by day, for all the benefits we receive from his hand. He doesn't want us to be cold towards him. He doesn't want us to hate him. He wants us to love him. As you love your spouse, as you love your children, as you love your family, as you love your country, God wants you to love him. And he wants you to love him more than anything else. That is a fruit that God desires in our heart. In fact, it's the very first fruit that God wants. The greatest commandment is this: “to love the Lord thy God with all thy body, soul, mind, and heart.” That is what he wants us to do. He wants the fruit of repentance, the fruit of faith, the fruit of holiness. He wants the fruit of prayer, a fruit of a love for the word of God, a desire to worship him. And we could go on. These are the fruits that Christ is desiring in our lives. He came into the world to be a Saviour. As Saviour, he saves sinners. He gave the Holy Ghost to do that act of regeneration and the work of sanctification. That is holiness within us. It is often a slow work but it will lead to genuine fruitbearing in the life of the Christian. That work should certainly be happening within us. The day we are converted is only the first step. Every day thereafter is another step on the journey to God. We might look in our hearts and realise we are not what we should be but by the grace of God we are not where we started from.

The third heading is the examination of Christ. In verse 13 we read that he found nothing but leaves. Nothing but leaves. There was a false impression given here to the world. Anybody who passed by said “that is a fig tree.” But only when you went to examine it closely you found nothing. We can be guilty of the same. The whole world might look at us and say, "Well, there's a Christian. They go to church. They never miss a meeting. They carry their Bible. They're never seen without it. They're able to quote the Bible. They're able to maybe talk about spiritual things and have a Christian conversation.” We can give that appearance of having leaves. Many people have leaves in the world today. We can think of our Saviour’s day. There were the religious leaders, the scribes and the Pharisees. If you lived 2,000 years ago, you would say, "Well, that's a religious person." But they hated Christ. They put him to death. They had the leaves, but they had no fruit.  Dead religion is only leaves. The sad thing is, we could love our leaves. We could be very proud of our leaves of false profession. And we could be careless, but there's no fruit within us. Like Adam and Eve, we could hide behind our leaves to cover our nakedness and our shame, to try and hide from God the fact that we have no fruit. But God can see the heart. He could see Adam and Eve, but they were naked and ashamed. And he can see us as well. The story of the fig tree is in two parts. You have the cursing of the fig tree and then you have the temple cleansing and finally the last part of the story of the fig tree.  The story of the cleansing of the temple is sandwiched in between this story of the fig tree. It is there for a reason. Just as the leafy fig tree promised fruit but had none, the temple system looked impressive. The temple was just a temple of leaves. It had no fruit, no possession at all. Jews were going in and out of the temple looking religious, sounding religious, acting religious, but it was all leaves. There is no fruit. Picture your spiritual life as a fig tree. Christ is coming to you and searching your life for fruit. If he was here today to go through your life, would he just find the leaves of a false profession? Or would he find true genuine fruit of faith and repentance, love for God? The priority for you and I is to have fruit.

Which leads me to my fourth and final point here today, the judgment of Christ. Some people don’t like this miracle because of its nature. They struggle to think that the lips that spoke words of healing, peace, and love would also speak words of judgment. They like to focus upon the mercy of Christ, the love of Christ, and they reject any thoughts of judgment. Yet Jesus spoke of judgment and condemnation more than 60 times in the 4 gospels.  Why do some people take issue with Christ cursing the tree? Some people don't like to think of being judged by Christ because they don't want to think of the consequences that come with judgment. But to ignore, minimize, or reject this miracle is to basically get a black pen and mark through these verses. The Bible clearly presents Christ as the judge of all the earth. The apostle says that “he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath appointed heir of all things.” The Bible also says we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.  Christ is the judge of all the earth. He has the power to judge, but he also has the power to curse and to pronounce judgment as well.

There are some solemn lessons for us to draw from this miracle. There's some soul searching to do in our own hearts. Do we have the fruit that the Lord is looking for? Has that salvation truly been wrought within us? Are we genuinely converted? Are we the Lord's people? Do we belong to him? Have we a seat in his kingdom and around his table? Do we know with assurance that whenever we leave this world and we enter into the next life that we will hear the words, "Come, ye blessed of my father."

Notice the pronouncement of judgment here in verse 14, "No man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever." The Lord has immediately pronounced a judgment. No second chance, no purgatory. You had your opportunity. The judgment has been pronounced. In Matthew 21 we read the same story.  Matthew records a little bit more of what the Savior said. “Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth forever. And presently the fig tree withered away.” Right before their eyes, Matthew said, the fig tree started to wither. The sentence of death wasn't coming. It came the moment Christ spoke. This is a solemn reminder of the power of Christ. Verse 20. “And in the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots completely dead.” Christ is a judge with power. Some judges in this world have no power. They maybe make a ruling, but then the police don't enforce it. They have no appetite to enforce it. But Christ, he is a judge with power. This fig tree began to wither the next day. It was dried up from the roots. It's obviously a dead tree. Christ has the power to save, but he also has the power to punish. And then in verse 14, we see the purpose of his judgment. “And his disciples heard it.” Christ did this before his disciples as a lesson.  Matthew Henry said, "Christ made an example of this tree, not to other trees." He made an example of this tree to men. Christ was warning men. Judas was there. Judas was warned. Peter was warned. James and John were warned. Peter was amazed at the act of this tree. Verse 21. “And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold the fig tree which thou cursest is withered.” We should not be amazed at the judgment of Christ. His judgment is a righteous judgment. We should tremble at the thought that he would search us, find nothing, and curse us. There's nothing worse in this life than to be cursed by God. To be separated from God for all eternity. It's an awful judgment. You might think it's a terrible affliction to have pain, to have sorrows, to have depressions, and those things are trials in their own right. But it's far worse to be found with no fruit and to be judged by God.

What was the whole purpose of this lesson? Let’s read what Christ says in verse 22. This is the whole purpose of the cursing of the tree. “Have faith in God.” That is the lesson that Christ is teaching from the cursing of this tree fig tree. Not gather more leaves, a false profession. Not clean up your life a little bit more by yourself. No, that's just adding more leaves. The conclusion that Christ wants you to have from the cursing of this fig tree is to have faith in God. And having faith, bear the marks of a child of God. Live like a child of God. Have the true and genuine fruit within your life. The leaves do come with the fruit. We're not despising church attendance. We're not despising Bible reading. Those things are true, but they're part of the fruit. Don't just take the leaves without the fruit. Have the fruit and the leaves going together. It's sometimes the case that those who are the most anxious about the lack of fruit are those who are maybe bearing fruit, although perhaps not as much as they would like. But it's also true that there are some who comfort themselves that they are the Lord's but without any self-examination for fruit in their lives. Peter says, "Brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure.” Be sure that you are the Lord's. Paul said, "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith. Prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you, except you be reprobate."  This is the repeated message of scripture from Jesus, from Peter, from Paul. Examine yourselves whether you are the Lord's. We thought of the curse of Christ. And the curse is to be judged by Christ in your sin. The curse is to be separated from God for all eternity. The curse is to face the wrath of God for your sin. The Bible tells us what's going to happen on that day of judgment. There will be a separation of the believers and the unbelievers. Those who bore fruit and those who had no fruit. Why be cursed by the king when you could be blessed by him? Have faith in God and live a life of faith. It is possible for you and I to have fruit because as Paul said in Galatians 3 verse 13 “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us.” We can be spared the curse because Christ was cursed in our place on the cross. And he doesn't tell you to start a life of good works. He tells you to have faith in him. That's where it all begins. If that's not where you've begun, may you begin there today by looking to Christ, believing in him, trusting in him, knowing that it's not of you that you are saved. It's all of him and his grace. May there be that fruit of faith, repentance, love to God found in all of our hearts here today.