A Savior for All Nations

Only Mark includes the crucial phrase “for all the nations.” Consider the context of Isaiah 56:7, beginning with verse 3:

God’s temple is to be a house of prayer, a place of worship that attracts and blesses all the nations! It is not a shrine to be admired and praised. It is to exhibit no geographical, national, racial, or ethnic segregation or discrimination. I love the way John Piper puts it:

Israel missed this, and too many of our churches do as well—both at home and in their concern for the nations. And as the chief priest was mainly at fault, so are many pastors today. A genuine revival in this area will succeed or fail on the back of our religious leaders.

The context of Jeremiah 7:11 is painfully instructive. Jesus is declaring the fulfillment of that ominous prophecy by His symbolic act on this very day. It is a long passage, but Jeremiah 7:1-29 is worth reading.

It was popularly believed that when the Messiah came He would purge the temple of Gentiles. Instead, Jesus comes and cleanses the temple for Gentiles. Israel’s religious show with all its glitz and fanfare was an empty embarrassment. Instead of bringing people into God’s presence they obscured it until no one could find Him. Jesus effectively said, “Enough! Your charade is over.”

Jesus’ protest caught the attention of the Sanhedrin (v. 18; see also v. 27)! He had called them out. Little wonder that the religious elite wanted to destroy Him. And the stakes are now much higher. It was one thing for Jesus to antagonize the country lay preachers, the Pharisees. It is something else to take on the chief priest and the powerful Sanhedrin. A showdown is on the horizon. However, fear paralyzed them on this day. As for the crowds, they were “astonished,” not sure what to make of all this teaching.256 Jesus would, with sadness and grief, leave and go home to Bethany (v. 19). Tomorrow would bring another day of teaching. He would press on.

Mark 11:20-25

Andrew Murray well said, “Christ actually meant prayer to be the great power by which His church should do its work and the neglect of prayer is the great reason the church has not greater power over the masses in Christian and heathen countries.... The power of the church to truly bless rests on intercession: asking and receiving Heavenly gifts to carry to men” (Murray, Ministry of Intercession, 12-13).

Mark concludes the fig tree/temple story with lessons on faith, prayer, and forgiveness, the very things the people should have found through God’s temple. The fig tree event brackets and interprets the temple story. Jesus did not just cleanse the temple, He cursed it. It had failed in the divine assignment, and it would be destroyed. With no fruit, its use was at an end. God would remove it: in less than a generation (ad 70), the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the temple.

Jesus uses all of this as an opportunity to teach His disciples two more valuable spiritual truths.

When they passed the fig tree the next day, it was dead (v. 20). Any sympathy for a soulless tree in our day is badly misplaced and says much about our sloppy, sentimental culture and its tragic perversion of real values. God had told Jonah to weep over lost people, not a plant (Jonah 4:10-11)! Jesus says to weep over a dead temple, not a dead tree.

Peter, an eyewitness to all that has happened, remembers our Lord’s words (v. 14) and notes they have come to fruition immediately (v. 21): “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that You cursed has withered.” John 15:6 warns us, “If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.” Sinclair Ferguson is spot on: “The question of our spiritual fruitfulness is one of immense seriousness which we ignore at our peril.... Jesus means what He says!” (Mark, 185).

Jesus’ response at first glance seems out of place:

“Have faith in God.” The great missionary Hudson Taylor said, “God uses men who are weak and feeble enough to lean on Him.” He is faithful when the religious establishment and its institutions fail. Trust the One who judges hypocrisy with severity and extends amazing grace to those who seek it in faith.

Have mountain-moving faith that does not doubt but asks in prayer. The “mountain” is a hyperbole. It represents what appears to be impossible, immovable, beyond our finite ability. Good! This is where faith begins. Believing faith taps into God’s power to accomplish His purpose. Again hear Andrew Murray: “We have a God who delights in impossibilities” (Cowman, Streams, 336).

True and believing prayer is not attempting to get God to change His will to fit our plans. It is a passionate pursuit to see God’s plans accomplished in us! Prayer is not conjuring God up like some “genie in a bottle” obligated to grant us whatever we wish. Read Matthew 6:9-10; Mark 14:36; John 14:13-14; 15:7; 16:23-24; and 1 John 5:14-15 before you draw such a foolish theological conclusion.

When we pray with mountain-moving faith, our God will give us what we need to glorify His name. Here is a “house of prayer” you can bring your petitions to! In one of his hymns, John Newton said,

So when we pray, we trust not only in His power to give us what we ask but also in His wisdom to give us what we need! I trust Him enough to have Him turn me down if that is what He chooses. That means “we may receive answers we do not want, find things we are not looking for, and have doors opened [and closed] we do not expect” (Garland, Mark, 449).

We can forgive because we have been forgiven through the atoning work of Jesus on the cross. Forgiveness so freely and graciously extended to us can now be graciously and freely extended to others. The theme of prayer finds its contextual connection in the fact that God’s temple, which is what we258 now are, is to be “a house of prayer for all nations.” Jesus is such a temple, for as Hebrews 7:25 says, “Therefore, He is always able to save those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to intercede for them.” And we are to be such a temple extending the same forgiveness that we have received from the God we now call Father (Mark 11:25). By means of the temple named Jesus and through millions of temples called Christians—who are unrestricted by geography—pagans and unclean Gentiles can find the Savior for all nations and receive the forgiveness so freely offered from the Father who is watching over all the earth.

Are you a barren fig tree? Am I? Are our churches? Let me be specific: Can you forgive those you once hated and who have wronged you, and can you to get the gospel to them? Can you? Can we? Can you remove any and all barriers that would keep them from a genuine face-to-face encounter with the Savior for all nations? Can you? Will we? Will we pay any price necessary that all the nations might hear of King Jesus?

The missionary C. T. Studd said, “Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell!” Now that is a great place to plant a temple! That is a great place to plant a life with a sign that reads, “A Savior for All Nations! Come on in! All are welcomed! None will be turned away!”