During the last week of Jesus’ life before the crucifixion, He spent much time teaching. While much of it was for the disciples, He was speaking directly to those who did not believe on Him, trying to open closed minds and penetrate callused hearts with His final messages.Matthew devotes four chapters, while Mark and Luke have 2 chapter each on these teachings. Obviously there is a lot of teachings to cover, which we won’t do that at this time. But I would like to give an overview and get a sense of why Jesus was addressing those topics at that time in His ministry, and how those teachings would have impacted the disciples, how it impacted the crowd and the religious leaders, and how those teachings can impact us.Mark 11 tells us that Jesus and the disciples were coming back to Jerusalem and passed by the fig tree that Jesus had cursed the day before. He cursed the tree because it showed all the signs of being fruitful, but it was not. This was a symbolic gesture as He was thinking about the leaders and priests of Israel. They showed all the trappings of being fruitful, and they were not.Just the day before, the tree had been green and healthy, but now it was dry and dead. The disciples were amazed and as usual, Peter spoke up, saying, “Look what happened to the fig tree you cursed!” Then Jesus took that moment to drive home the point that they will be able to do what He did through faith and prayer.Jesus wanted these disciples and His disciples today to know that God’s power is available to accomplish God’s kingdom purposes by faith and prayer. God wants His people to be able to move mountains of evil and sin and fear so they can remain faithful and build God’s kingdom.Matthew then records three parables of Jesus – the parable of the 2 sons, the parable of the tenants, and the parable of the wedding banquet. So we have a landowner and a king whose servants and messengers are ignored, beaten and even killed. Jesus was painting a picture of a very patient and determined God. But as both stories conclude, we see that the patience of the landowner and king has run out.Matthew, Mark and Luke all report that the Jewish religious leaders knew that Jesus had spoken these parables against ...
