The first event that demands our attention, is our Lord's visit to the temple. He found His Father's house in a state which too truly shadowed forth the general con- dition of the whole Jewish church — everything out of order^ and out of course. He found the courts of that holy building disgracefully profaned by worldly trans- actions. Trading, and buying, and selling, were actually going on within its walls. There stood dealers ready to supply the Jew who came from distant countries, with any sacrifice he wanted. There sat the money-changer, ready to change his foreign money for the current coin of the land. Bullocks, and sheep, and goats, and pigeons, were there exposed for sale, as if the place had been a market. The jingling of money might there be heard, as if these holy courts had been a bank or an exchange. Such were the scenes that met our Lord's eyes. He saw it all with holy indignation. " He cast out all them that sold and bought." He " overthrew the tables of the money-changers." Kesistance there was none, for men knew that He was right. Objection there was none, for all felt that he was only reforming a notorious abuse, which had been basely permitted for the sake of gain. Well might He sound in the ears of the astonished traders, as they fled from the temple : " It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer ; but ye have made it a den of thieves."
Let us see in our Lord's conduct on this occasion, a striking type of what He will do when He comes again the second time. He will purify His visible church as He purified the temple. He will cleanse it from every- thing that defiles and works iniquity, and cast every
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worldly professor out of its pale. He will allow no worshij^per of money, or lover of gain, to have a place in that glorious temple, which He will finally exhibit before the world. May we all strive to live in the daily ex- pectation of that coming ! May we judge ourselves, that we be not condemned and cast out in that searching and sifting day ! We should often study those words of Malachi : " Who may abide the day of His coming ? and who shall stand when He appeareth ? for He is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap/' (Mai. iii. 2.)
The second event that demands our attention in these verses, is our Lord's curse upon the fruitless fig-tree. We are told, that being hungry He came to a fig-tree in the way, and " found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig-tree withered away.'' This is an incident almost without parallel in all our Lord's ministry. It is almost the only occasion on which we find Him making one of His creatures sufier, in order to teach a spiritual truth. There was a heart-searching lesson in that withered fig-tree. It preaches a sermon we shall all do well to hear.
That fig-tree, full of leaves, but barren of fruit, was a striking emblem of the Jewish church, when our Lord was upon earth. The Jewish church had everything to make an outward show. It had the temple, the priesthood, the daily service, the yearly feasts, the Old Testament Scriptures, the courses of the Levites, the morning and evening sacrifice. But beneath these goodly leaves, the Jewish church was utterly destitute of fruit. It had no grace, no faith, no love, no humility, no spirituality, no