Cleansing the Temple

So the Jesus story we are going to look at this morning comes immediately after

the first miracle, Jesus' first miracle of turning water into wine,

which I spoke about last week.

And that story follows shortly after the calling of the first disciples and

Jesus' first days of ministry.

The other gospel writers do not record this first cleansing of the temple at

the beginning of Christ's ministry, but as we all know, they tell of a similar

act at the close of Jesus' ministry.

John, on the other hand, does not mention the later incident.

The question then arises, are these different accounts recording the same event?

While the recording incidents are similar, they do not appear to be completely

the same. In the story according to John, the words that Jesus speaks are not

the same as they are recorded in the other three Gospels.

And John very specifically records this story as occurring at the beginning

of Jesus' ministry and not at the end of it.

After John's recording of the incident, it seems that the.

Priests are more inquisitive about Jesus' authority with the coming of Nicodemus

in the night than they are of the event recorded in the latter part of his ministry.

At that point, the priests are out to get Jesus at all costs,

because he's messing with their power structure and he's messing with their bottom line.

It's very possible that while the prophet-taking arm of the priesthood has gone from,

bad to worse since Jesus' presentation at the temple and his visit to the temple

at the Passover when he was 12 years old, Jesus is becoming increasingly angry I'll see you next time.

As he sees the abuse of his father's

kingdom being heaped up by those corrupt men acting as men of God.

We never see that nowadays, where men acting as men of God corrupt the religious structure, do we?

So the answer to whether the four gospel writers are records of the same event seems to be know.

We find in Jesus's ministry more times than one that one occasion is—a certain

event is repeated over again, at least twice oftentimes, or something similar.

He repeatedly healed people.

He miraculously fed large crowds on at least two occasions, 5,000 on one, 4,000 on another.

He raised at least two people from the dead, Lazarus and his widow's son.

But why shouldn't he be able to repeat himself? He was with them every day over

the course of three years, and certainly some things would be done more than once.

Also, it's very evident that by recording the same or similar events more than

once, the Bible seems to solidify those events as facts that actually happened that cannot be refuted.

When they're reported more than once, or it occurred more than once,

it seems like that's a pattern, that this is something that's important.

And there were eyewitnesses to each of those events.

So we may learn from the repetition of this cleansing of the temple,

the solemn lesson that outward reformation of religious corruptions is of small and passing worth.

But in this passage, we can see this lesson, God desires pure worship in the

innermost man. We're going to be looking at three things today.

We're going to be looking at the Passover in the temple.

We're going to be looking at purifying the temple. and we're looking at the passion for the temple.

So if you would follow with me, if you have your Bibles, you may follow along or you may read on this.

John chapter 2 verses 13 through 17 is where our passage is coming from today.

John 2:13–17

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

In the temple courts, he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves,

and others sitting at tables exchanging money.

So he made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle.

He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.

To those who sold doves, he said, Get these out of here. Stop turning my father's house into a market.

His disciples remembered that it is written, Zeal, for your house will consume me.

So the first thing we see in here is the Passover in the temple.

John records this specifically as the Jewish Passover because of his many non-Jewish readers.

John's purpose in writing his gospel is to once and for all line out the facts

that Jesus is the Son of God and that he's for all people, not just the Jews, but first to the Jews.

The Passover was the annual commemoration of the great deliverance of the Israelites

from the land of slavery. You remember that time?

Well, you don't remember it personally. But anyway, you remember the story of

the Passover, the first Passover, when they were to spread the blood,

of a perfect unblemished land on the doorpost and lintel of their home,

signifying almost a meaning of a cross.

On their doorposts.

A one-year-old male lamb without blemish was killed in the afternoon of the

14th day of the third month of the Jewish calendar, the month of Nisan.

That evening, a detailed family celebration took place, and even to this day,

some of our Jewish family members around the area still observe the Passover

in their homes, where they recite all of these things and hold these festivals.

The Passover observance actually began on the 15th day of the month,

and the Festival of Unleavened Bread continued for seven more days,

with many oxen and sheep being offered in sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem.

John, in his gospel, speaks of three, possibly even four, Passovers,

including the Passover season during which Jesus was crucified.

It was one of the three occasions in the year when the law required males 12

years and older to appear before Yahweh.

Jerusalem was both the religious and political capital of Palestine and the

place where the Messiah was expected to arrive.

Jewish families from all over the world would travel to the imposing temple for the feasts.

Verse 14 records what Jesus found when he was going into the temple.

And he found in the temple, it says, And he found in the temple those who were

selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.

Now, I don't know how many times Jesus might have gone to Jerusalem for the

Passover between his 12th year and this story.

But it appears that the chaos and abuse of God's house has become progressively worse over that time.

Isn't that the way it is with sin and selfishness?

Left unchecked and unrepented, sin and selfishness take control of our lives.

The temple area was always crowded during the Passover. In fact,

it's recorded that at times there were as many as two million people in and

around Jerusalem during the time of Passovers.

The temple, as I said, was always crowded. The religious leaders crowded it

even further by allowing money

changers and merchants to set up booths in the court of the Gentiles.

Originally, the money changers and merchants would have been outside of the

temple courts before people entered in, but they have been moved closer to the

actual place of worship and sacrifice by the greed of the religious leaders.

We don't have any of that Today, we don't have any greedy religious leaders.

They rationalized this practice as a convenience for the worshipers and a way

to make money for temple upkeep.

The temple tax had to be paid in the local temple currency, so foreigners had

to have their money exchanged.

And according to FF proofs, the money changers often would charge exorbitant,

exchange rates with commissions being 12.5% to 15% for trading the money into the appropriate temple.

Money. The people were required to make substitutionary sacrifices as offerings

for their sins, and because of the long journey that was required of many of

these to come to Jerusalem, they could not bring animals with them.

Some who did bring animals would find out that their animals would be rejected

by the priests because of imperfections.

The merchants would just so happen to have animals available for them to purchase

that had been accepted as unblemished by the religious leaders.

And so they would buy these new animals, give up their blemished ones, and.

Then the celebrants' unaccepted animal was taken from them, moved around the

back, blessed as unblemished by the religious leaders, and then moved back out

front to be sold to another worshiper.

So animal merchants had a thriving business, a business they moved into the temple courtyard,

it was profitable to the sellers and no doubt to the priests,

who were probably silent partners in this concern or who received rent for the

ground on which the stalls stood.

And so being convenient for all and profitable to many, the thing became a recognized institution.

But the religious leaders did not seem to care that the court of the Gentiles

was so full of merchants that foreigners found it difficult to worship.

And worship was the main purpose of coming to the temple, right?

The temple was the one place that Gentiles could come to pray,

but there was no atmosphere nor room for prayer.

They turned worshipers into attenders and the place of worship into a place of worldliness.

No wonder that Jesus was so angry.

Jesus was angry at the dishonest, greedy practices of the money changers and

merchants, and he particularly disliked their displacement of worship in the temple grounds.

They were making a mockery of God's house of worship.

They were making a place of a market. John records this first clearing or cleansing of the temple.

Second clearing occurred at the end of the ministry about three years later,

as I said before. At that later incident, Jesus appeared even more irate about.

The abuse of God's temple.

The second thing we see is the purifying of the temple. Verses 15 and 16 record Jesus's reaction.

It says that Jesus fashioned a whip out of cords and drove out everyone and

everything that was in the temple court, and he poured out the money and overturned

the temples. He said, get these out of here.

How dare you turn my father's house into a market? Apparently,

Jesus had not yet read Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

I want you to picture the seed if you can. To say that Jesus's actions would

have caused a commotion is a serious understatement.

Jesus's actions would have caused a wild commotion.

Animals would have been bawling and stampeding with their owners chasing after them.

Doves and pigeons would have been flying in the face of men,

women, and children running for cover and probably dropping nice gifts all over the scene.

And I'm not sure about you, but the last place I'd want to be is underneath

the backside of a frantic pigeon or in the path of a rampaging bull.

Money changers would be fleeting, leaving their coins in the dust and.

Yet he didn't destroy anyone's property, but Jesus's whip was not meant for

punishment, but for the cleansing of God's house.

Worldly-minded men in God's house were exercising worldly wisdom in order to

get their worldly riches, and the root of all sin is self.

God's temple was being misused by people who had turned it into a marketplace.

They had forgotten it or didn't care that God's house is a place of worship

and a place of prayer and a place for the care of people, not a business or

a place for making a profit,

and for the abuse and misuse of God's temple by taking advantage of people.

In Malachi 3 verse 1, God promised that he would purify his temple.

Malachi 3:1

And it seems that this is the time to do it.

If this base was taken up with trading, it could not be used for its intended purpose.

So Jesus' actions were reinforcing God's words that he was going to purify his temple.

Jesus was obviously angry at the merchants who exploited those who had come

to God's house to pray and worship.

But there's a difference between an uncontrolled rage and a righteous indignation,

yet they're both called anger.

We must be very careful how we use the powerful emotion of anger.

It is right to be angry about injustice and sin. It is wrong to be angry over

trivial personal offenses.

But these people were violating Jesus' Father and the God of all.

This was Jesus' first public appearance to the nation of Israel as the Messiah.

He inaugurated his work by a cleansing and a claim.

He cleansed the temple of distractors and distractions and claimed that it was

his right by an act of authority that indicated him to be the king of Israel

and the Lord of the temple.

So we've seen the Passover temple.

We've seen him purifying the temple. And now we look at the passion for the temple.

His disciples recorded in this passage, it says, and his disciples remembered

that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me. What does it mean to be consumed.

All in, completely overwhelmed, completely all in, nothing held back.

The effect of Jesus's courageous zeal on the disciples was to remind them of

this passage, these words, zeal for your house will consume me,

that were found in Psalm chapter 69, verse 9, where it was originally recorded.

Psalms 69:9

The action of Jesus revealed the inward passion he had for God.

It gave evidence of a consuming zeal for the house of God in ancient scriptures,

found their fulfillment in what he did. I wonder if we still look at the temple

of God as a place of worship.

And where is that temple?

You are the temple of God. Think about that as we look at the Passover and the

purifying and the passion.

Even when Jesus was in the temple at the age of 10, he astounded the teachers,

with his wisdom and authority.

When questioned by his family, he said, didn't you know I must be about my father's business?

Not Joseph's, but his father God. Jesus exercised the right as the only begotten son of God.

He took the oppressive, disruptive, evil dealings in the temple as an insult

against God, and he didn't deal with that half-heartedly.

He was consumed with righteous anger against such flagrant disrespect of God's place of worship.

Jesus came to purify the temple, showing that he had come to remove all the

barriers there were to a true worship of God.

He came to open the way to the true worship, and that's where Jesus comes to us today.

He comes to open up any barriers that there might be to us coming into worship.

The real temple, the replace of God where God wants to live,

is the heart, is the human heart.

If Jesus exhibited such zeal in cleansing a temporary earthly temple which used

an outmoded religious system, imagine what he wants to do in cleansing the temple that exists in you.

Search me, O God, and know my heart.

See if there is any wicked way in me, and cleanse me by your righteousness.

He has a passion that your heart not become cluttered with the world,

but be set aside as a place of prayer and worship.

The only way to keep the world out of my heart is to have Christ filling it.

The more we have Christ and the Holy Spirit within us, the less garbage can be there, right?

In Colossians chapter 3, we're told to put to death and rid ourselves of the

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

things and attitudes and behaviors that are not Christ-like,

and to fill ourselves with the things of God.

Philippians chapter 4 verse 8 says, whatsoever things appear,

Philippians 4:8

lovely, righteous, holy, noble, think on these things, put those in your heart

and dwell on those all day long.

If we ask God for the filling of the Holy Spirit, we will receive it as we allow,

the Holy Spirit to cleanse the temple of our heart.

The whip that was in Jesus' hand is not for punishment, it's for cleansing.

And he wants to cleanse us and purify us for his use. The word sanctification

and consecration kind of go hand in hand.

The idea is cleansing something, purifying it, and then setting it apart for holy use.

That's exactly what God wants to do with the temple in us. He wants to cleanse

us, and he wants to set us apart for a holy use in his kingdom.

Ask, and he will come. And when he enters, it will be like the rising of the

sun, when all the beasts of the forest slink away and lie down in their dens.

It will be like the carrying of the ark of the covenant of the Lord of the whole

earth and to the temple of Dagon. You remember that in the Old Testament?

When this fish-like image, the statue, fell face first, defeated and broken

and prostrate on the floor of the temple.

If we say to him, come Lord, make this place yours, a place of prayer and worship,

Christ will enter in and by his entrance will make the place where his feet

land, glorious and undefiled.

Let Christ cleanse you. Let him purify the temple that's in you,

and his praise in you will be purposeful, powerful, passionate,

and pure. Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you.

For these words from your gospel writer, John, who recorded these things different

from the other three gospel writers. But Father, we know that these things are true.

And we think of the passion that you had, the anger that you had at the way

God was being misused, not just the temple, but God.

And so, Father, we help us to be angry at ways that your temple and us are being misused.

I pray, Father, that you would cleanse us and purify us and set us apart for you, Jesus.

In Jesus' name, amen.