This week, we continue our time in Matthew in Jesus’ last week before the crucifixion. Jesus enters the temple and cleanses it. He drives out all those who are exploiting the people through profiting off of the temple. Afterwards the disabled entered the temple to see Jesus, and He healed them. By doing these things, Jesus was showing that the old way of coming to God was passing away and that He was bringing a new way. The religious elite who saw all that went on in the temple were indignant. Jesus then uses a fig tree to pronounce judgment on the house of Israel, saying that the presence of God is gone from it. Thankfully, Jesus through the cross is making a new man not only from the people of Israel but from the Gentiles we were far from God as well.