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Zeal For Real Trinity Bible Church 9-4-05
Introduction: John 2:13-17 Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. 15 When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables. 16 And He said to those who sold doves, "Take these things away! Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise!" 17 Then His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up." NKJV
What are you excited about? What would you be zealous for? A new car, house, clothes? Who’s your favorite sports team? Have you ever been to a professional sports game, what were the people like that were zealous for their team? *Painted, yelling, uniform of players…
Jesus is zealous too, but not for an earthly team or possessions. We will see today what He fights for - His own glory. May God grant us the same zeal the Lord Jesus had!
I. The Actions of Jesus. Mark 11:15-17
So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 16 And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. 17 Then He taught, saying to them, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it a 'den of thieves.'" NKJV
A. Gentle but zealous. Many look at Him as “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild”, and He is, but He is much more than that! Too many think only of Jesus as the guy who likes to put kids on His lap and make them laugh. That is a truth about Him that needs to be jealously guarded, but not w/o understanding His manly characteristics as well. He is a “man’s man”, very masculine and quite capable of handling a crowd of contentious people!
B. Made a whip. In John 2:15 it says He, “made a whip of cords”. Have you ever made something? Did it take some effort, some planning?
Jesus knew what He was doing, He took time, expended effort, intentionally braiding cords of rope together, He knew what and why He was doing it. In just a little while He was going to explode in the temple with holy rage and the tables and wares would be flying every which way!
C. Authority. Mk. 11:16 He would not allow.
Jesus, the Good Shepherd, won’t allow certain things either. He is jealous for His church and has been and will continue to watch over her.
All things - He can sovereignly withstand anything that would threaten His church but, He expects the leaders of the local church to join with Him as “Under-shepherds” of the flock of God - * Rev. 2-3; Annias and Saphira; …
*Throughout the years we’ve had troublemakers rise up and cause a stir. This has been one of the most unpleasant parts of the ministry for me and my family. But, as we looked to the Lord and called on His name, we were empowered to do the right thing and let the consequences of public opinion be what it may. The only concern is what is the most honoring to Him and His will.
II. The Teaching of Jesus Mark 11:17-19 Then He taught, saying to them, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it a 'den of thieves.'" 18 And the scribes and chief priests heard it and sought how they might destroy Him; for they feared Him, because all the people were astonished at His teaching. NKJV
A. Honor For God’s House – Jesus had a zeal for real for God’s house!
Did you know that God is present each and every Sunday morning here at TBC? *Our usher crew was concerned here a couple months ago, about all the in and our, up and down, to the bathroom, getting a drink of water… It was inappropriate behavior for a people desiring to show honor to God. Something had to be done, they suggested chairs at the back of the sanctuary for during the song service or sermon time, it has worked out well and we commend them for the hope of honoring God each service.
Our behavior is not the end, I don’t want to be misunderstood, it is only a means to an end. Our respectful behavior is not what He desires, it is our worship. It is our hearts that are continually thankful for the Gospel of the Lord Jesus that gladden the heart of God.
*My son’s college band was asked to play at a Twin Cities church service so I attended as well to support our son. During the song service, the band members were worshipping with audible praise and hands lifted up, the first few row of members were doing the same. I was sitting closer to the back as I had come to watch and learn, more than enter in and participate in enthusiastic worship.
What I saw was appalling! While the song leader labored to bring people into the presence of God, the ones in the couple rows in front of me might as well of been at a rock concert. They were coming in and going out w/regularity, a new one would enter, and the obligatory greetings and high fives would ensue. The young women would quickly show off their new clothes to their friends, the entire scene was disgusting from a Biblical standpoint. It makes you want to say: “Where’s some cords of rope, I feel an anointing for a woopin’ coming on!” 1 Tim 3:15 says: I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. NKJV
Jesus cares about this place being a place of worship, He taught this in word and deed!
B. Honor For God’s Son. John 2:17-21 Then His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up." 18 So the Jews answered and said to Him, “What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?" 19 Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." 20 Then the Jews said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?" 21 But He was speaking of the temple of His body. NKJV
1. Jesus taught the honor for God’s house but also the honor for God’s Son!
2. The devil hates the Son of God and has done and will do anything he can to overcome the honor due Jesus as God’s promised One.
The Devil hates the Son of God, throughout history he has done all he can to outright destroy the promised One of God or get God’s people to sin so as to incur the wrath of God in judgment. But God watches over His word to perform it!
The teaching of Jesus? “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” Even His disciples didn’t understand that He spoke of His own body, but it was true even if they didn’t understand it!
John 5:23 that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. NKJV
When I teach on audible praise and worship, I encourage you to say, “Praise you Jesus, thank you Jesus, Jesus I love you…” Someone may complain and say, “Aren’t we suppose to pray to the Father in Jesus name?” Yes, that’s true and I will teach on that when we talk of prayer, but this is a time to “Honor the Son”. Have you ever read Psalm 2? (Your assignment for this afternoon! See bottom of page.)
III. The Works of Jesus. Matt 21:12-15 Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 And He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.'" 14 Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. NKJV
A. What Happened. I was impressed with this experience that only Matthew tells us about. After Jesus revealed His holy anger against hypocrites, He shows His holy compassion for the afflicted. Listen to Matthew Henry:
The temple was profane and abused when it was made a market-place, but it was graced and honored when it was made an hospital; to be doing good in God's house, is more honorable, and better becomes it, than to be getting money there. (from Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)
B. Why It Happened. Could it be, that the devil was up to his old tricks again? Could it be that the desire of the devil was to ruin God’s people so much as to get God to judge the house? But instead, Jesus, in zeal for God’s house, cleanses the temple and promotes God’s kingdom once again! People hear God’s word and feel God’s power.
Do you know of a church that is going through conflict right now? Could it be that the devil has a plan? Could it be that if we concentrate on the devil and what he is doing we will miss the reason God has allowed the controversy?
What is the reason for the church? Is it a place of “No conflicts”? Do you believe the message, “Why can’t we all just get along?” The only place like that will be the glorified church in heaven, but right now, we are a in the company of redeemed sinners. The reason for the church is to have a place on earth where the Gospel of the Lord Jesus is preached, promoted, guarded, lived, loved, embraced, shared,… Jesus kicked out the hypocrites to reveal the Gospel. The “Good News”, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.
If you know of a church in the middle of conflict, pray for it. Perhaps what the devil is doing is not so powerful as what God wants to do?!
Conclusion: John 2:22 Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said. NKJV
Do you believe the Scriptures? Do you believe what Jesus says? Today He’s saying He wants you to have the same love and zeal He has for His church and for His own name.
Take time to consider this and pray about your zeal for what’s real!
(Supplementary material for further study)
Ps 2
WHY DO the nations assemble with commotion [uproar and confusion of voices], and why do the people imagine (meditate upon and devise) an empty scheme?
2 The kings of the earth take their places; the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and His Anointed One (the Messiah, the Christ). They say, [Acts 4:25-27.]
3 Let us break Their bands [of restraint] asunder and cast Their cords [of control] from us.
4 He Who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision [and in supreme contempt He mocks them].
5 He speaks to them in His deep anger and troubles (terrifies and confounds) them in His displeasure and fury, saying,
6 Yet have I anointed (installed and placed) My King [firmly] on My holy hill of Zion.
7 I will declare the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, You are My Son; this day [I declare] I have begotten You. [Heb 1:5; 3:5,6; 2 Peter 1:17,18.]
8 Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations as Your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth as Your possession.
9 You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them in pieces like potters' ware. [Rev 12:5; 19:15.]
10 Now therefore, O you kings, act wisely; be instructed and warned, O you rulers of the earth.
11 Serve the Lord with reverent awe and worshipful fear; rejoice and be in high spirits with trembling [lest you displease Him].
12 Kiss the Son [pay homage to Him in purity], lest He be angry and you perish in the way, for soon shall His wrath be kindled. O blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied) are all those who seek refuge and put their trust in Him! AMP
Matt 21:12-17
When Christ came into Jerusalem, he did not go up to the court or the palace, though he came in as a King, but into the temple; for his kingdom is spiritual, and not of this world; it is in holy things that he rules, in the temple of God that he exercises authority. Now, what did he do there? I. Thence he drove the buyers and sellers. Abuses must first be purged out, and the plants not of God's planting be plucked up, before that which is right can be established. The great Redeemer appear as a great Reformer, that turns away ungodliness, Rom 11:26. Here we are told, 1. What he did (v. 12); He cast out all them that sold and bought; he had done this once before (John 2:14-15), but there was occasion to do it again. Note, Buyers and sellers driven out of the temple, will return and nestle there again, if there be not a continual care and oversight to prevent it, and if the blow be not followed, and often repeated. (1.) The abuse was, buying and selling, and changing money, in the temple. Note, Lawful things, ill timed and ill placed, may become sinful things. That which was decent enough in another place, and not only lawful, but laudable, on another day, defiles the sanctuary, and profanes the Sabbath. This buying and selling, and changing money, though secular employments, yet had the pretence of being in ordine ad spiritualia-for spiritual purposes. They sold beasts for sacrifice, for the convenience of those that could more easily bring their money with them than their beast; and they changed money for those that wanted the half shekel, which was their yearly poll, or redemption-money; or, upon the bills of return; so that this might pass for the outward business of the house of God; and yet Christ will not allow of it. Note, Great corruptions and abuses come into the church by the practices of those whose gain is godliness, that is, who make worldly gain the end of their godliness, and counterfeit godliness their way to worldly gain (1 Tim 6:5); from such withdraw thyself. (2.) The purging out of this abuse. Christ cast them out that sold. He did it before with a scourge of small cords (John 2:15); now he did it with a look, with a frown, with a word of command. Some reckon this none of the least of Christ's miracles, that he should himself thus clear the temple, and not be opposed in it by them who by this craft got their living, and were backed in it by the priests and elders. It is an instance of his power over the spirits of men, and the hold he has of them by their own consciences. This was the only act of regal authority and coercive power that Christ did in the days of his flesh; he began with it, John 2 and here ended with it. Tradition says, that his face shone, and beams of light darted from his blessed eyes, which astonished these market-people, and compelled them to yield to his command; if so, the scripture was fulfilled, Prov 20:8, A King that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes. He overthrew the tables of the money-changers; he did not take the money to himself, but scattered it, threw it to the ground, the fittest place for it. The Jews, in Esther's time, on the spoil laid not their hand, Est 9:10. 2. What he said, to justify himself, and to convict them (v. 13); It is written. Note, In the reformation of the church, the eye must be upon the scripture, and that must be adhered to as the rule, the pattern in the mount; and we must go no further than we can justify ourselves with, It is written. Reformation is then right, when corrupted ordinances are reduced to their primitive institution. (1.) He shows, from a scripture prophecy, what the temple should be, and was designed to be; My house shall be called the house of prayer; which is quoted from Isa 56:7. Note, All the ceremonial institutions were intended to be subservient to moral duties; the house of sacrifices was to be a house of prayer, for that was the substance and soul of all those services; the temple was in a special manner sanctified to be a house of prayer, for it was not only the place of that worship, but the medium of it, so that the prayers made in or toward that house had a particular promise of acceptance (2 Chron 6:21), as it was a type of Christ; therefore Daniel looked that way in prayer; and in this sense no house or place is now, or can be, a house of prayer, for Christ is our Temple; yet in some sense the appointed places of our religious assemblies may be so called, as places where prayer is wont to be made, Acts 16:13. (2.) He shows, from a scripture reproof, how they had abused the temple, and perverted the intention of it; Ye have made it a den of thieves. This is quoted from Jer 7:11, Is this house become a den of robbers in your eyes? When dissembled piety is made the cloak and cover of iniquity, it may be said that the house of prayer is become a den of thieves, in which they lurk, and shelter themselves. Markets are too often dens of thieves, so many are the corrupt and cheating practices in buying and selling; but markets in the temple are certainly so, for they rob God of his honour, the worst of thieves, Mal 3:8. The priests lived, and lived plentifully, upon the altar; but, not content with that, they found other ways and means to squeeze money out of the people; and therefore Christ here calls them thieves, for they exacted that which did not belong to them. II. There, in the temple, he healed the blind and the lame, v. 14. When he had driven the buyers and sellers out of the temple, he invited the blind and lame into it; for he fills the hungry with good things, but the rich he sends empty away. Christ, in the temple, by his word there preached, and in answer to the prayers there made, heals those that are spiritually blind and lame. It is good coming to the temple, when Christ is there, who, as he shows himself jealous for the honor of his temple, in expelling those who profane it, so he shows himself gracious to those who humbly seek him. The blind and the lame were debarred David's palace (2 Sam 5:8), but were admitted into God's house; for the state and honor of his temple lie not in those things wherein the magnificence of princes' palaces is supposed to consist; from them blind and lame must keep their distance, but from God's temple only the wicked and profane. The temple was profane and abused when it was made a market-place, but it was graced and honored when it was made an hospital; to be doing good in God's, is more honorable, and better becomes it, than to be getting money there. Christ's healing was a real answer to that question, Who is this? His works testified of him more than the hosannas; and his healing in the temple was the fulfilling of the promise, that the glory of the latter house should be greater than the glory of the former. There also he silenced the offence which the chief priests and scribes took at the acclamations with which he was attended, v. 15, 16. They that should have been most forward to give him honor, were his worst enemies. (from Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)
John 2:22
(2) Had this remarkable clearing of the temple-court not actually occurred, what inventor of a life that never was lived would have thought of such a thing? Or, if the idea itself should not have been so entirely beyond the range of probable conception, who would ever have thought of introducing the idea of the whip of small cords? Of all things, this at least, one should think, must have been real, else it could never have been written. But if this was real, the whole scene must have been so-the sanctity claimed for the temple-service and the desecration which kindled the jealousy of this Holy One of God, the Son for the honour of His Father's house; the demand for a sign, tacitly owning the actual exercise of resistless authority, with the remarkable reply, too special to have been penned except as having been uttered; and the darkness of the speech even to the disciples themselves until the resurrection of their Lord cleared it all up. No wonder that the bare reading of such a Narrative carries its own evidence in the minds of all the unprejudiced.
(3) In Christ's jealousy for the sanctity and honour of His Father's house-both when He came first to it, in His official character, and when He came to it for the last time-what a glorious commentary have we on those words of the last of the prophets: "The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But 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: And He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness" (Mal 3:1-3). Thus was He revealed as "a Son over His own House," the Lord of the temple, the Refiner and Purifier of the Church, of all its assemblies, and of each of its worshippers.
Compare this: "Yahweh (OT:3068) is in His holy temple; His eyes behold, His eyelids try, the children of men" (Ps 11:4) - with this: "Unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith THE SON OF GOD, who hath His eyes as a flame of fire, and His feet are like fine brass; I know thy works ... and all the churches shall know that I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works" (Rev 2:18-19,23). This whip of small cords was like the fan in His hand with which He purged His floor;" not "throughly" indeed, but sufficiently to foreshadow His last act toward that faithless people-sweeping them out of God's house. The sign which He gives of His authority to do this is a very remarkable one-the announcement, at this the very outset of His ministry, of that coming death by their hands and resurrection by His own, which were to pave the way for their judicial ejection. This, however, was uttered-as was fitting at so early a period-in language only to be fully understood, even by His disciples, after His resurrection.
(4) When Christ says He will Himself rear up the temple of His body, in three days after they had destroyed it, He makes a claim and uses language which would be manifest presumption in any creature-claiming absolute power over His own life. But on this important subject, see more at John 10:1,8.
The three last verses of the second chapter, and the first 21 verses of the third, form manifestly one subject, in two divisions; the former one brief, because unsatisfactory, the latter of too deep importance in itself and too pregnant with instruction for all, not to be given in full detail.
(from Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft)
Matt 21:12-15 Having condemned the profane use of the temple, he now shows the proper use of it. It is a house of prayer, where God is to manifest his goodness and power in giving sight to the spiritually blind, and feet to the lame. The church or chapel in which the blind and the lame are not healed has no Christ in it, and is not worthy of attendance. (from Adam Clarke's Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Biblesoft)
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