Mark 11/15. And they came to Jerusalem, and
he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and
those who bought in the temple. And he overturned the tables of
the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.
And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the
temple. And he was teaching them, and
saying to them, Is it not written, My house shall be
called the House of prayer for all nations.
But you have made it a den of robbers, and the chief priests
and the scribes heard it. And they were seeking a way to
destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was
astonished at his teaching. And when evening came, they went
out of the city. Lord, help us, nourish us,
revive us, restore us. Do what you need to do in us,
that you may be pleased with those whom you have purchased.
In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
Like the cursing of the fig tree.
What you and I just read here, the actions of the Lord Jesus
Christ may be startling, may be shocking.
What is commonly known as the cleansing of the temple may be
something uncomfortable for the unfamiliar reader.
This outburst that we just quickly glanced at seems to be
out of character for Christ, and even the student of the Gospels,
the one who knows the truths of this book, may find difficulty
trying to reconcile this Christ with the same Christ who
famously declared learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in
heart. This seems to be a challenge for
those who have a concept of who Christ is and what he does, with
conflict and with sinners and even with compromise.
But prayerfully, this message that will be expounded before us
today will provide enough clarity to silence any claim of
contradiction or even contention with what we see here with the
Lord in His temple on this morning of Passover week, 2000
years ago. And prayerfully also by the end
of this message, I hope that you and I will be reinforcing our
belief of just how absolutely vital it is to read and study
and be acquainted with the Old Testament.
If we are to mine the New Testament successfully, if we
are to uncover greater revelations, unearth deeper
truths, it's going to demand a commitment and a conviction that
I must know as much of the Bible as possible.
I must travel through terrain that I might have been
intimidated by or see no value in, for He will surely reward
those who hunger and thirst for greater light.
I'm not going to make this a lengthy introduction because we
have limited time today and we must break bread together as we
always do in the beginning of every month.
But I will say that this is a meaty message and it will
require you to have greater focus and me to have a greater
willingness to visit many Old Testament passages if we want to
have a greater reward with this text.
And so let's cut this short and get straight into it.
The spiritual meal that has been prepared for us will be divided
into 4 portions, and if you're a note taker, hopefully this will
help Right at the outset of the message.
This text will be divided in four ways.
The first thing that you and I are going to consider is the
typology of the cleansing. What's the theme of what's
happening here? Does this fulfil a shadow of the
past? Does this showcase some kind of
fulfilment of a previous revelation or hint of what's to
come? The typology of the cleansing?
And then from there we're going to look at the target of the
cleansing. What is it that Jesus cleansed
the House of God from exactly. And then from there, we're going
to consider the teaching of the cleansing.
We just read that Jesus taught them.
After he demonstrated this righteous inignation, he said
some things about why he did what he did.
The teaching of the cleansing. Lastly, the threat of the
cleansing. The threat that it posed on
those who were opposers of Christ.
Let's come back again to verse 15 and 16 as we consider the
typology of the cleansing. The deeper significance of this
dramatic scene can only happen if you and I acknowledge
something, a very simple fact that some don't hold to, And it
is this. This is Jesus.
A second time of cleansing the Temple in Jerusalem.
The first time was at the beginning of his ministry, and
it was recorded exclusively by John.
John is the only one who writes to us about what Jesus did at
the beginning of His public ministry.
It's found in John chapter 2, and what we see here in Mark
Chapter 11 is Jesus cleansing the Temple yet again, but at the
end of his ministry, the final week of his earthly life.
And with Mark you have Matthew and Luke who also give us the
same event. And why that is important is
because you have some who who tried to harmonize these two
cleansings and say that there are one in the same.
And not only is that a desperate reach, in my opinion, to try to
reconcile this, it's also a robbery of the richness of this
cleansing, this two-part cleansing, if you will, that
Christ performs. When you and I see the purgings,
the purifications that Jesus does as a pair, it is a powerful
declaration. Listen very carefully to Christ
fulfilling his priestly role. And the only way that can even
be considered is if you and I have a familiar grasp on a book
of the Bible that is rarely referenced, read, and
unfortunately neglected by so many.
Can you guess what book I'm talking about in the Old
Testament? Leviticus.
Here's what I mean.
In Leviticus chapter 14, you have God providing instructions
for the people and the priest on how to go about two types of
cleansings concerning infectious diseases.
So in the first part of Leviticus 14, you have laws and
instructions and regulations dealing with a person, an
individual who suffers from leprosy.
Now the second part is interesting.
The second part deals with the cleansing not of a person but of
a place, namely the home of an individual and the word that is
used There is also leprosy. If leprosy infects the walls or
the furnishings the interior of a house, there's also protocol
of how the owner of the house, in partnership with the priest,
is to go about investigating and determining the verdict of the
condition of that house. The word there that's used in
Leviticus 14 concerning the home is also leprosy.
That that may seem strange. What the houses can be infected
with this contagion? Not necessarily so.
The Hebrew word for leprosy is much broader, and it can include
mold or mildew or some kind of decay that even effects
materials and what may seem to be irrelevant to us as
Christians, at best to us. Some historical document that we
can refer back to is in fact a sign pointing to the Lord Jesus
Christ in one of his offices in some measure.
Don't take my word for it. Take the Bible in your hands and
go to Leviticus 14 with me. And let's look together at verse
33 as we consider the introduction to the instructions
for this nation, Israel, about what they were to do when
something happened to their home.
In this way, Leviticus 14 verses 33 to 35 the Lord spoke to Moses
and Aaron, saying, When you come into the land of Canaan, which I
give you for a possession, and I put a case of leprous disease in
a house in the land of your possession, then he who owns the
house shall come tell the priest, there seems to be to be
some case of disease in my house.
Here's the first instruction that the Lord gives.
It was the owner of the home who was to call for an investigation
about the suspecting condition of his abode.
On a practical level, this protected owners of the home,
having other people pry into their home and try to determine
what's going on in it. And so the one who was to
initiate this process was in fact the owner of the home, who
had a concern that this would affect his family, this would
affect himself, this would affect visitors to his home.
And so he was to initiate this undertaking.
But notice again at the part here, verse 35, he who owns the
house shall come and tell the priest.
So he was not to determine the condition himself.
He was not to evaluate the symptoms and make a case in his
own subjective reasoning. He was to call the priest to
come into the house. Now what's interesting is when
you go to John chapter 2 and you don't have to turn there.
When Jesus at the first cleansing enters into the
temple, he makes this comment. He makes this statement to
remind his audience of who really owns the vicinities, who
is the true possessor and the owner of the deed of this place
of worship. This is what Jesus says in John
216, and he told those who sold the pigeons take these things
away. Do not make my father's house,
my father's house, a House of trade.
It's clear, isn't it? Jesus declares that the temple
is His Father's house. It's not just a holy sanctuary,
it's a home. It's the earthly abode of the
Almighty God, and He makes this known in the context of Him
identifying and doing what? Cleansing.
Cleansing the spiritual corruption that spread in the
temple in the early days of His ministry.
And just like in Leviticus 1435, we see God the Father calling
for the purifying procedure to take place.
By doing what? Summoning his Son.
Summoning his son, who is what also a priest, to enter into the
Father's house, and to evaluate and examine the condition of
that home. And you and I know this about
Jesus. And he declared himself
confidently in John chapter 5, that he does not do anything
unless he first sees the Father doing it.
In other words, he took every marching order of every day,
every moment of the day, every second of the day by God's
orchestration by the Father's leading.
And so even when Jesus initially in John Two goes into the
temple, that was something that was instigated by the Father.
So the Father with his house calls the Son, who is the priest
into it to investigate it. Which brings us to the next part
of Leviticus 14. Look at verse 36 Leviticus 1436.
Then the priest shall command that they empty the house before
the priest goes to examine the disease, lest all that is in the
house be declared unclean. And afterward, the priest shall
go in to see the house, and he shall examine the disease.
And if the disease is in the walls of the house with greenish
or reddish spots, and if it appears to be deeper than the
surface, then the priest shall go out of the house, to the door
of the house, and shut up the house.
Seven days. Here's the emphasis in this next
set of instructions. You see it more than once.
The priest is to come, and he is to examine.
He's not to be quick to make a determined decision of what's to
take place in this house. He's not to make a verdict.
It's repeated twice here to emphasize the importance of
careful investigation. And this is a decision that the
priest would have to make after looking carefully, scanning,
surveying, seeing if this is something deeper than just
surface level issues. Ring a bell.
Do you remember not too long ago in Mark Chapter 11, verse 11,
when Jesus, after his triumphal entry, comes into what?
The temple? Mark 1111?
And when he came into the temple, we were told that he
looked at everything. Why was he looking to
investigate? What is the condition of this
place? Is this place operating the way
it was designed to operate? And what's amazing is that Jesus
does the same in the first time he visits the temple in John
chapter two. Let me read this to you in John
214. This is when Jesus comes the
first time in the temple he found those who were selling
oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting
there. One of the definitions of the
Greek word for found denotes after searching or to find a
thing sought. So when Jesus found the activity
in the temple in the way it was, it wasn't Jesus accidentally
stumbling upon it. It was Jesus knowing that there
was something wrong here, Jesus being led by the Father entering
into it and finding something that he was intentionally
looking for. So Jesus, like the priest in
Leviticus, was careful to search for any legitimate concerns, any
signs of corruption that may be deeper than the surface.
And he was not to be quick, as the priest was instructed in
Leviticus 14, but to be just to be cautious, to be careful.
But there's more. We read in Leviticus 14 that the
priest was to come in, but not just come in, He was to remove
the objects and the interior furnishings and then wait for
seven days. And after the seven days also we
read that he because we don't have time to read the rest, he
was to actually remove the stones from inside of the house
and scrape off the plaster on the walls, empty it completely,
and then to pause yet again and to revisit the house to
determine if that was enough to cleanse it.
And if not, if you see a resurfacing of the disease, then
there must be another approach to make.
So let's read this again. You're still in Leviticus 14,
right? Maybe.
Yes. Leviticus 14.
Look at verse 43. If the disease breaks out again
in the house after he has taken out the stones and scraped the
house and and plastered it, then the priest shall go and look.
If the the disease has spread in the house, it is a persistent
leprous disease in the house. It is unclean.
So remember the priest before this went in The first time?
He sees signs, he sees problems, he sees flags, So he empties the
house. He removes the stones, he
scrapes off the plaster, he puts a new stones, fresh plaster.
He was to leave again, and then he was to make a second visit,
And the second visit was to see if what happened the first time
worked, if it's sufficed, if it's satisfied, and if he was to
come. And this disease resurfaces
again, revisits again. Then there's a different and
more defined diagnosis. This is a persistent disease,
and it requires a different approach to solve it.
Do you want to know what the approach was?
You don't know what the priest, what to do, would have to do in
order to deal with this? Look at verse 45, analyticus 14,
and he shall break down the house.
It's stones and timber and all the plaster of the house, and he
shall carry them out of the city to an unclean place.
Do you see the parallel? Is it?
Is it clear? Christ and John 2 enters into
the temple. He removes all the corruption
from within, and there is a pause.
There is a reprieve, and he revisits the House of God a
second time. And when he revisits it, as
we're about to discover, he sees that the disease resurfaced.
And just like in Leviticus 14, it was deemed A persistent
spiritual disease and would require a different solution.
Now you remember what Jesus said in Matthew 24 And verse one and
two. Jesus left the temple and was
going away when his disciples came to point out to him the
buildings of the temple, but he answered them.
You see all these, do you not truly?
I say to you, there will be not left here, one stone upon
another that will not be thrown down.
Jesus in Mark 11 fulfills the role of a priest when he
cleanses the temple. And why do I bring that up to
you? Yes, to show how Jesus is a
greater priest, but to also show you just how much the Bible is a
masterpiece. I did that move.
I couldn't stop thinking about it all week.
I had to keep my mouth shut, lest I preach the sermon before
Sunday to so many people. I was so fascinated.
This this book humbles me. Does it not humble you?
The more you read it, The more you study, the more you preach
it, the more comfortable you get with certain doctrines.
The Lord is never short and showing you and revealing to
you, You can't exhaust my word. You cannot exhaust it.
The moment you think that you reach the bottom of the well,
you realize there's 100 feet to go.
And then when you get there after 10 years, you realize
there's 200 feet to go. You cannot wring this thing dry.
It is a supernatural book. It's a glorious book.
Yes, you can even benefit from Leviticus chapter 14.
This is God's book. This is supernatural.
I have to get that out of my system.
I've been holding it in all week.
How can you be bored with the Bible?
Impossible. Absolutely impossible.
It's life. It vibrates.
It speaks. It connects.
It shows. It shines not just to stuff your
head, but to bring you to your knees.
You realize this book is not from earth.
Yes, God moved by the Holy Spirit upon men and spoke and
wrote this word. Yes, but it came from heaven.
And it's at your disposal. Don't let it be like a vacuum in
your house, only collecting the the dust on your night stand.
Don't let it do that. Open it.
Let it speak to you. Talk to it with other people.
See. Struggle with it.
Yes, struggle with it. Wrestle with it.
God, what are you saying here? And that's an exciting life to
live. So we come to now the target of
the cleansing. We looked at the prophetic
significance, the prophetic significance of what took place
here on this day. But the student of the Old
Testament still see Jesus's actions here to be unexpected
and unsettling, mainly because of another text in the Hebrew
scriptures that seem to conflict with the Lord's decision here,
his actions. Here Deuteronomy records a
helpful regulation for those who live the great distance away
from the land. And as we know, 3 * a year,
right. The the the Jewish people were
instructed of mandatory immediate physical attendance to
the temple, three particular feasts, and in great part the
requirement to come to the House of God.
To worship in those feasts was to bring sacrifices.
And those sacrifices generally were animals, some large
animals, some smaller animals, bulls, oxen, goats, sheep,
pigeons, also amounts of grain and even wine.
And so the Lord gives a law in Deuteronomy.
And this law was to relieve the worshippers of the difficulty of
transporting these animals specifically from great long
ways, from the the House of God. And this is what He gave, this
is what He provided for the people.
Then turn with me to Deuteronomy 14.
I gave you a heads up. We're going to be in the Old
Testament a lot. Today in Deuteronomy 14, verse
24. I'm reading Deuteronomy and my
personal readings and this chapter came to me early in the
week and it was just perfect. It was a reminder for what we're
studying and learning today. Look at Deuteronomy 1424 and if
the way is too long for you, pause.
He's speaking to the people who would be placed in different
parts of the Promised Land, and there was 1 central place of
worship. So here is for those who are far
from the temple, and if the way is too long for you, so that
you're not able to carry the tide when the Lord your God
blesses you because the place is too far from you which the Lord
your God chooses to set his name there, then you shall turn it
into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place
that the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever
you desire, oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever
your appetite craves, and you shall eat it there before the
Lord your God and rejoice you and your household.
This passage is rarely quoted. When people teach on the Lord
cleansing the temple. Most people read this section of
scripture in the New Testament Mark 11 and other parts of the
people turning the House of God into a business.
And that is the point. But the activity here in itself
is not wrong. But you just read it right.
If you were from a far place, you could bring money, go to the
place of worship, and instead of hauling the beast, you can just
buy one right there and then and sacrifice and so how?
If you're reading this, if you're going through the
scriptures and you come to this and it's in the back of your
mind, now you're in the New Testament.
You see Jesus cleansing the temple of people who are selling
animals. How does this make sense?
They Didn't God sanction this? Didn't he permit this?
Didn't he allow for travelers and pilgrims and gentile
converts to do this? What is the Lord getting at from
here? And here's the point.
It's very simple. According to this text,
according to what you read in Mark 11, Jesus here is
correcting what many people do with God's graces.
What was meant to offer relief and assistance to worshippers
was eventually abused for personal gain.
What started out as assistance to worship God.
Assistance to worship God? OK, if you're coming from far,
here's some help. Here's some help for you to
worship more effectively and with less burden.
What became assistance to worship turned into worship.
Assisting the greed of men and the hints to the essence of this
crime is found in back in Mark 11 verse 17.
But you have made it a den of robbers, your thieves, your
crooks, and it's most likely what Jesus is getting at.
The heart of the matter is that there's extortion here, there's
unfair exchange rates that was being implemented here.
And what you had is these pilgrims who came from so far,
and you had also these other gentile converts with Roman
currency who came and had no choice, had no choice but to
submit to the strategize inflation of these wicked men.
There's no other option. So they upped the price they
made. Ridiculous price is there for
people to give in and then they stuff their pockets.
That's what Jesus is cleansing. Here you had these merchants who
took advantage of the genuine need of worshippers in order to
satisfy their own bank book. And the fact that Jesus cleansed
the temple twice, twice, twice that he had to do this again
reveals that humanity faces the ever present temptation to
exploit the name of God, the House of God, and the people of
God for personal profit. It was true then.
It's true today. It is a dangerous game to play
to leverage the House of God or the people of God, and to treat
it as a lucrative business or as a pool of social and political
opportunities. You know what you do when you
play that game with God's house then and today?
You risk God doing something to you, or the leadership that
tolerates it, or eventually shutting down the whole ministry
that hosts such activity. Jesus doesn't display much
righteous indignation in the Gospels, but when he does, it
reveals what really touches his nerves.
And this is one of them Taking the House of God and doing
something with it that was not intended to do, to satisfy your
ambitions, your selfish pursuits.
And Jesus here does something in Mark 11, verse 16.
Mark alone adds this detail. No other synoptic gospel does.
Look at verse 16. This is something that's unique
to our study of this book. And he being Jesus and he would
not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple
that's not in Luke, it's not in John, it's not in Matthew and
Mark's Gospel. It's highlighted that what Jesus
also did, after he flipped tables and the coins rang
through the Plaza and the animals were running out of
their places, Jesus also found people walking through and he
stopped them. You can't walk through here like
that. Go back to where you came from.
What's happening here? Evidently, the temple also
became something else. It became a detour for
commuters. It became a place for carriers
of vessels and goods to travel by.
Why? Because if you look up just how
big the temple was after Herod renovated, it was massive.
You can fit multiple football fields in it, and for people
they realize well to go around, the temple makes our journey
much longer. And so they would use the
courtyards to cut corners and they would use the House of God
as just a convenient place for transportation to make their
journey a little shorter. And Jesus saw this.
He saw these individuals desecrating the sacredness of
his house, treating as just as a shortcut through their GPS.
And he even stopped that. You realize what this place is.
You realize where we are. You realize that this is a place
for worship, not a place for convenience.
How does happen? How do you have these people
taking advantage of others? How do you have other people
around? We're taking advantage of the
House of God for although and he's I mean it went from selling
beasts at a upscale price and the corruption trickling down to
people who were just walking by the House of God like it was a
front lawn instead of walking around on the sidewalk.
I'll tell you how it happens. This all began with a gracious
law that aim to relieve worshippers in the pursuit of
honoring the king. And like many truths about God's
grace, man is not slow to apply them to justify irreverence and
justify carelessness and justify selfish ambition, even through
spiritual means. Can I tell you what God's grace
really should do when somebody really tastes it?
One's enjoyment of the grace of Jesus Christ provokes greater
reverence, not less of it. And a person who is not
stimulated to greater awe and fear of God, even when you drink
from the cup of salvation and grace and mercy, is
questionable. And I learned something about
Jesus. Here are Jesus.
My Jesus, your Jesus, gentle Jesus, loving Jesus, praying for
babies. Jesus healing the sick.
Jesus visiting those who need visits.
Jesus. That Jesus.
You know what? I learned something about Jesus
here. Precious Shepherd, The Lamb of
God, the Bridegroom. Irreverence irritates him.
Irreverence irritates Jesus. And John explained it this way
with Jesus's first visit to the temple in John 2 verse 17.
His disciples remember that it was written zeal for your house
will consume me. When they saw Jesus doing this
in John chapter 2A, scripture came to mind from Psalms.
Zeal for your house will consume me.
Do you want to be like Jesus? I want to be like Jesus in every
way, not in some ways zeal for his house.
You know, you have different extremes here.
You have some who have no zeal for the House of God, and then
you have those who have zeal in the context of the House of God,
but for the wrong things. I call them legalists.
They're very zealous for things that don't matter.
Have you met people like that? Nitpicking and this and that
about every single thing? And they justify it with the
zeal for righteousness, zeal for God's zeal for holiness?
No, it's misguided passion. And so you have extremes with
anything, right? With any emotion, with any
conviction. You have two sided extremes.
My concern at this point, I touched on the legal list a
little bit, but my concern is for those who don't have zeal
for God's house. Where's that?
You know, something happened to
the world a few years ago. You remember what happened,
right? The whole world shut down.
And I remember having a conversation with a pastor at
the peak of churches not being able to meet and all the
craziness. And he said something to me that
stuck with me to this day still rings in my mind from time to
time. It it, it caused me to stop in
my tracks. I remember I was walking in
front of the house when we were talking.
He's like, brother, churches are meeting, Christians are
gathering. He's like, I wonder what
Christians would have done 200 years ago if this mandate went
out. He's like, I, I, I think
Christians maybe I'm wrong, would have gathered in their
hundreds and cried out to God. Lord, we can't meet here.
Lord, there's something happening.
They're restricting our ability to come and worship you and hear
you and give to you. Lord, do something.
He's like he's like, brother, I don't know about your end of the
world, but on my end of the I'm not seeing that zeal for the
House of God to protect the honor of it, to preserve the joy
of it, to stay on track of the intent of it.
Zeal for your house consumes me. I can tell you if that zeal is
in your or not by this one simple evaluation of our own
hearts. It's Sunday.
Just another day to us for the Christian who goes to a Bible
believing church, Not a perfect church, a Bible believing, Bible
preaching, Bible submitting church.
Sunday should be the most exciting day of the week,
shouldn't it? Shouldn't it?
We get to go to the House of God.
We get to go to the place of worship.
We get to go where God said He would meet us and speak to us
and honor us and where gifts of the Spirit would manifest before
us and through US. God's house.
Zeal for your house. This is Jesus consumes me.
That zeal for positive rejoicing, Thanksgiving,
gratitude, and also a defensive zeal.
A protective zeal. When the enemy or the flesh
tries to corrupt it, it does something to your soul.
That's Jesus. I love Jesus.
Let's go to the teaching of the cleansing.
And he was teaching them verse 17 and Sanctum.
Is it not written? My house shall be called the
House of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it a
den of robbers. Jesus in his teaching quotes 2
Old Testament passages and puts them together.
He quotes one the first part from Isaiah and the 2nd from
Jeremiah 7. We won't focus on the latter
part for the sake of time. It's pretty straightforward.
You've turned my house into a den of robbers.
You've turned the House of God into a gathering place for
criminals. You've turned the House of God
into a place where criminals can feel comfortable in corrupting
and manipulating and taking advantage of the people of God.
The name of God, the House of God.
That's pretty straightforward. But let's look at the first
part, my house. Let me remind you of the intent,
the design, the plan, the purpose of my gathering place
shall be called, of all things House of prayer.
And let me give you that quote. Turn with me to Isaiah 56 and
verse 7. Here's where Jesus is getting
this from Isaiah 56, verse seven.
These I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in
my House of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their
sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house shall be
called a House of prayer for all peoples.
God's intent for His house is that it would be an inviting
place for all peoples of all nations for the purpose of
corporately participating an honest, heartfelt prayer in an
atmosphere of reverence. Just Just peel through what was
just quoted and and and look for God's heart in Isaiah 56, seven
What does it say about God's heart that his longings for when
his people gathered they would pray.
Well, prayer is a vertical expression.
Prayer is US contacting God and that's what God wants from us.
The goal of our gatherings is to meet with God.
That's the goal. We meet together, yes, but we
meet together for that purpose, to meet with God.
Because that's what prayer is. Prayer is the door in which we
enter into the room of fellowship with with him.
And so you know what God designed his house to be like.
You know what should be filling this atmosphere?
Every time we do gather, oh, God longs to hear, please for
forgiveness. God longs to see our honest
laments for a brokenness. God longs to hear our needs and
our cries, whether they're small or great.
God longs to hear the shouts of Thanksgiving.
God longs to see the rejoicing response to his word declared.
God longs to hear us. He, He, he wants to fellowship
with us. He wants us to gather with that
aim. We're here to meet with him
because he said my house shall be called the House of prayer.
What's another word of prayer? What is prayer really?
Communion. Communion with God.
And this is what God wants. And God must be the goal.
And as the owner of his temple, then and now, our relation to
the House of God is very simple, very simple, very, very easy
actually, to honor His wishes, Honor His wishes.
None of us, no matter how gifted a ministry, is our ministers,
elders, none of us have the right to make the House of God
something other than what God made it to be.
And the reward of honoring His wishes is found in this very
verse. Did you see it?
Look back at Isaiah 56, verse seven.
He said my house shall be called the House of prayer.
But look what the Lord would do when it would be a House of
prayer. Verse 7.
These things I will bring to my holy mountain and make them
joyful in my House of prayer. That's the reward for honoring
His wishes. When you come to the House of
God with the intent and the heart posture and the design of
what I had in mind for it, your reward will be joy.
I will make them rejoice. A joy greater than a place that
entertains. A joy greater than a place that
puts on things to again maybe help this person in in in there,
in that area of of business or politics or social, whatever the
case may be. There's a joy greater than you
taking advantage of the place of God for personal profit or gain.
They can only come when we honor it the way he wants it to be
honored. For my house shall be called the
House of prayer. And when you do that, you'll be
joyful. You'll be joyful.
Let's come, because of our time here, to the threat of the
cleansing. Verse 18 of Mark 11.
And the chief priests and the scribes heard it.
And we're seeking a way to destroy him, For they feared
him, was astonished at his teaching.
And when evening came, they went out of the city.
The chief priests weren't there. The chief.
Priests and the scribes heard. It so news came quickly to the
leaders of this time. Jesus of Nazareth wiped the
place clean today. And we're told here.
That they were seeking a way to destroy him.
And here's the reason for They feared him.
This is not a God honoring fear. This is not an awe and a
reverence that Jesus deserves. This is a fear of what Christ
would do to them. Because all the crowd was.
Astonished at his teaching, they were fearful that the popularity
was going to Christ. They were fearful that now the
allegiance of the people that once esteemed these religious
figures as the authority of the faith are now shifting towards
this Jesus. And that's what they were afraid
of. We have to do something now.
In a way, Jesus, by doing this, really sealed his faith.
No more time to waste. No more games to play.
If he was audacious enough to come to the temple during
Passover week and put this on, what else does he have in mind?
We. Must deal with him.
And they feared him and. I want to make this.
Case that there are some who do not believe in Christ, give
themselves to Christ, surrendered to Christ because of
fear. Fear, like these scribes.
And like these elders, that if Jesus is to do what he is to do
as Lord, he would. Displace some things in your.
Life. You know what?
These guys were worried about our position.
Our power is now at risk. If he cleanse the temple, what
do you? What about us?
We got to do something. And I'll tell you, there are
people like that who will not come to Christ because they're
afraid that if Christ enters into the life, He's going to
rearrange everything. Let me tell you confidently, He
will. He will.
He's Lord. He has to.
He must. If He loves you, He will.
I've talked to enough Young. People various youth meetings
that are honest off after a sermon on giving your life to
Christ, surrendering to Christ, being consecrated to Christ,
thinking. They have their whole life.
Ahead of them thinking that and their strength and their vigor.
All these plans and all these ideas.
I don't want Jesus to mess it up.
I don't want Jesus. To lead me.
Somewhere I don't want to go. I don't want Jesus to give me an
occupation that I don't want to do.
I don't want Jesus to make me marry somebody that I don't want
to marry. They're.
Afraid of his. Lordship, Can I tell?
You, whatever fear you. Have in your resistance of
surrender Christ is a lie. It's a lie from Satan.
It's a lie of the flesh because he is good.
You've been Lord of your. Life long enough to realize that
you are a terrible master. You've been subject to other
Lords in your life to realize that they do not satisfy you.
Served money for years, right? Are you happy?
Scripture says he who has money, loves money, wants more of it.
You've been jumping from. Woman to woman For how long now?
OK, so why is there? A vacuum in your soul.
Still, from man to man, relationship to relationship,
you've done so many things to your body.
You hope that if you posted that you would get this amount of
likes and that'll make you good and feel satisfied.
Only for what? Another week and there you are
in. That week because your latest.
Post was less likes than the former one.
Here you are depressed for days. Christ deserves.
To rearrange everything Christ deserves to Lord over your life
because he knows what you need and in his.
Great love. He's not.
Like Pharaoh, that makes things more burdensome.
He is a God who comes to. Take from you and then give you
what you were designed to have. Intimacy with him.
Peace, joy, and the Holy Spirit. Righteousness enabled by his
powerful mercies running through your veins as you walk in the
Spirit. If you're a person in here who's
afraid to make Jesus Lord, I beckon you.
That's a lie. Come to him and express your
fears. And even if you express your
fears concerning him, he's gracious enough to heal you.
Of that He is. Take it from A.
Room filled with people who love to serve Jesus, and I'll tell.
You this as a person. Who served Jesus?
The longer you serve him, the sweeter he grows.
Today we're coming to this. Table because we.
Realize that he is not. Someone to be feared in the
wrong way, but someone that longs to embrace us and forgive
us and wash us and restore us and redeem us if you're not a.
Christian in this. Place we kindly ask that you
observe what Christians are about to do.
Jesus gave his church 2 ordinances, just two.
The first one is believers baptism, where you with your
conscious decision decide to get in a body of water after
confessing and repenting of your sin to be identified with him by
being buried in that water signifying you being buried with
Christ and it coming out of that water signifying new life in
Christ. And then what the Bible
prescribes as a pattern is, after you have done that, you
then partake in a continual ordinance, which is the Lord's
table, where you take the element of the bread and the
element of the cup, and you approach the table, and you
rehearse that you have been forgiven and you've been saved
upon the performance of Christ, not your own.
And if you have not confessed, Christ believed in Christ,
giving your life to Christ. And this is not for you,
respectfully, because this is for those who are his.
And believer, you're coming to this.
Table also remembering, yes, the body and the blood, but also the
oneness of the body of Christ today that like this one loaf we
are one, we are connected, we are inseparable by the Spirit.
And if in practice that is not true, if in practice there's
divide, there's tension, there's something that's not there, then
you would honor Christ more. And leaving your gift at the
altar and reconciling with the Brother, and saying, I can in
good conscience say we are one body when you and I have an
issue. And so that's what.
This is for it's it's for the church.
And it's a sanctifying thing that reminds US1, you're saved
by grace. Like you're saved by grace.
Yeah. OK, You had a bad week.
Thank God for grace. You're forgiven by faith.
And two, am I right with my brother and sister?
Am I right? With them?
If not, no one's here to judge. No one has the.
Right to judge, but I'll pause on this and I will do something
that's going to honor Christ more and find that brother and
sister and have an honest conversation.
Let's prepare our hearts to take.
Together, Lord, we just pause now.
And meditate on this holy moment, Lord, if you.
Long for reverence we. Give it to you and.
Thank you, Lord, that reverence. Is not in competition with joy
for you? Said I will make them.
Rejoice in my House of prayer. Lord, we sit and we thank.
You for the word that you've provided us and now.
We prepare Lord to. Do what you commanded your
church to do that as often. As we eat and.
Drink. We would remember what you've
done for us. And so, Lord, as we sing these
songs. To reflect.
And as we even pause to examine our own hearts, we.
Pray Lord, that your holy. Spirit would minister to us.
We love you. And we are honored to be invited
to this table. The privileged Lord is.
Ours. And to have this fellowship
means that you've accepted us, and that we belong to you
forever. And so Lord in.
This moment let. Sins.
Be repented of. Let discouragement disappear.
Let even if needed relationships be restored, just be glorified.
And Lord, if your house. Shall be called the House of
prayer. Then hear our prayers.
Hear our prayers in Jesus name we pray.
Amen. As the praise team comes.
Up invite you to stand. We're going to sing about the
very truth that you heard me. Explain briefly.
And just I encourage you, please just engage with the Lord,
engage with the Lord. Just let this be a precious time
between you and him to remember that 2000 years ago he did
something that would save you forever.
Amen. Would you join me as we stand?
Thank you.