Stones Thrown Down

Good morning, church.

Today's reading is from the book of Mark, chapter 13, verses 1 to 2.

Mark 13:1–2

And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, Look, teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings.

And Jesus said to him, Do you see these great buildings?

There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

And uh I always look forward to gathering together with you and um have been looking forward slash uh uh what is the word?

It's not dread.

But uh this passage uh looking forward to with anticipation, hopeful anticipation.

This is a uh we're moving into Mark 13 this week.

And Mark 13 uh is one of the most challenging interpretive passages in the Gospel of Mark.

It's a long discourse of Jesus, of which we're just looking at the introduction this morning.

And I hope that as we look through this and Jesus' prophecy of the destruction of the temple, that we'll be able to gain a clarity of insight which shapes the way that we view our whole hope as Christians of what we're looking forward to for this world and the age to come.

And how we see a picture of that in Jesus' prophecy, which he announces here, which is the destruction of the temple.

So that's what we're gonna try and do.

So would you pray with me this morning?

Holy Father, we praise you that you are you sent your son to be the prophet, priest, and king that we needed.

Lord, and that in Jesus' prophetic words we see this incredible testimony because we can look back in history and see that the words of Christ have proven absolutely true.

And that means that all of his words are trustworthy.

Lord, we pray that our hearts would be able to receive the trustworthiness of his words, that we would receive you, Lord, with hearts that are open to your correction and to your welcome.

That when you say that all who come to you, none would be turned away, Lord, that we would trust you when you say that.

And we would come to you.

Father, help us to see the story that you have woven in history of our redemption, and help us to glorify you for being a part of it.

We lift that up in Jesus' name, amen.

So I've gotten a lot of uh uh news on JP preaching here, uh, which was two weeks ago.

We're how many of y'all were here for that?

Wow, great.

Uh that was I heard it was great.

I like him a lot.

Uh JP is another pastor in the presbytery, and uh he's been uh pastor for about 10 years in the PCA.

And so I heard that all these things that he did that I thought were so cool, and I was like, oh, that's a good idea.

So one of the things that he did is he brought greetings from his church to our church.

Never thought of that.

That's a pretty good idea.

Another thing that he did was he talked to the kids that are sitting with us, and he said, pay attention for these particular words while I'm preaching.

So some words to listen out for today are temple, stones, and then I want you to listen for when I talk about this is a weird one, Leviticus, and listen for when I talk about Ezekiel.

Now I don't know how many words he did, but I have six more.

Now listen for all right, so temple stones, Leviticus, Ezekiel.

You ready?

And all the adults are thinking, there are only two verses this morning.

I thought this would be a shorter one.

Oh, how unfortunate for you all.

About a thousand years prior to the story we're reading today, which is this simple introduction where Jesus leaves the temple.

Some of his disciples say, look at how beautiful the stones of the temple are.

And Jesus says, they will all be torn down.

That's the story that we're looking at today.

Well, about a thousand years prior to this story, in the 960s BC, this temple that they are talking about was first constructed.

Now it was set into the heart of King David that he would build the Lord a temple, because King David was living in a palace, as the Lord had established his kingdom, which he promised would be an eternal kingdom.

And then he recognized that the place of worship of the Lord, the dwelling place of the Lord with his people, was still the tabernacle.

And the tabernacle was a tent.

It was a tent which could be set up and torn down, which was an instruction given by the Lord to the people of Israel and to Moses in Exodus, so that they might have the Lord in their midst, the place of worship with him in their midst, while they were wandering in the wilderness.

So David says, I'm living in this palace, and the Lord is dwelling in this tent.

This needs to be rectified.

And David prays to the Lord and he says, I will build you a house.

And God says, Build, you build me a house, I build you a house.

And he says that he will give him this everlasting throne, this everlasting kingdom.

That will be the house of David.

And he says, It's good that you desire to build this temple for me, but you will not be the one that builds the temple.

There's too much blood on your hands.

Your son will be the ones who build, will be the one who builds the temple.

And so David begins storing up all the tools and the materials and making deals with other nations so that they would bring, be able to bring the materials in, uh, so that uh all that that would be needed to build the temple would be present when Solomon finally took the throne and built the temple.

And Solomon does.

He takes the throne and he establishes this glorious, wonderful temple of the Lord.

And at the coronation ceremony of this temple, when Solomon prays to the Lord that the Lord would be here and that he would be rightly worshipped in this place, there's a moment where the Shekinah glory of the Lord, which is like a bright cloud of the Lord's glory, comes and inhabits the temple, particularly the innermost sanctuary of the temple, the holy of holies.

And it inhabits the glory of the Lord, it inhabits the temple in such a way that all who were ministering to the Lord were not able to even be in the temple.

Such was the weight of the glory of the Lord in this place.

The temple, like the tabernacle, was at the center of the city.

And the tribes were gathered around the temple.

They were dispersed in such a way where this was the central place of Israel.

And in that central place, God himself dwelt.

I will be your God, you will be my people.

God dwelt with his people.

That's what the temple means.

So after that coronation ceremony, the history of the temple is things just got better and better.

And everything got more and more awesome every single day.

And it's still awesome now.

So that's not the history of the temple.

The history of the temple is a history of neglect and false worship and idolatry taking place within the very temple itself.

The history of the temple finally culminates, this temple culminates with uh neglect to such a point where God Himself says, I'm going to leave the temple, and the temple will be destroyed.

And you all, since your city, since you as a people was held together by the worship of God, just as Zach was explaining this morning, our lives are held together by the worship of God.

The worship of God has died in this place.

And you use this place to worship your idols.

And therefore the Lord leaves the temple, and the temple is left desolate and destroyed.

In 586 BC, the Chaldeans destroyed the temple, and they carry off all the furniture that is inside the temple, and it is an abandoned structure that is torn down.

After, what is that, 960 BC to 586 BC?

There's technically no way of knowing how many years that is.

But that many years, there was consistent worship within the temple, and then it ceased.

For about 50 to 70 years, when the people were exiled in Babylon.

And at the end of this exile, God, actually during the exile, but then at the end of the exile, he fulfills it, God promised that he would bring his people back and they would rebuild the temple.

That this this punishment that they had received of God not dwelling in their midst in this visible place that that would be undone and there would be a reconciliation and a redemption.

And God would send his people back to Jerusalem and they would rebuild the temple.

And they do.

These are the stories of Ezra and Nehemiah.

And they go back, these returned exiles, to Jerusalem, and they begin to rebuild the temple.

And at the rebuilding of the temple, when the foundations are laid, there's this great celebration ceremony, and the this demonstration of the faithfulness of the Lord to his people is fully on display because note the people had not been faithful to the Lord.

But the Lord had been faithful to them to return them to this place.

But the ones who were old enough to have seen the temple that Solomon built, and who were able at the laying of the foundations of this new temple to remember what the Solomonic temple was.

When they saw the new temple, they wept.

Because they remembered the former glory, and the glory that they saw now is a pretty lackluster temple.

You ever been to one of those?

Now, this last this lackluster temple becomes the center of worship again for the people of God until about 19 BC.

And then in 19 BC, Herod the Great becomes ruler over this area, king over Jerusalem under the Roman authorities.

And he sets his mind to make the temple as glorious as it ought to be.

And so in 19 BC, he begins to build the temple complex, and it reaches a glory that is perhaps beyond any ancient building, probably beyond any modern building that has been constructed in the history of the world.

The glory of this temple is almost unimaginable.

And so we see that the history of this temple is something that there's this neglect and then destruction and then rebuilding into this incredible glory.

And there's a thousand years of nearly uninterrupted worship in this temple.

But what we will hear Jesus say today is that this temple, there will not be one stone left upon another.

This temple will be finally and completely and forever destroyed.

Now that the the temple, the construction continues.

In fact, after Jesus had said this around 33 A.D., then uh you would think Jesus must not be telling the truth because every week you would show up and the temple becomes more glorious.

And look, they finished this project over here, and look, there's new marble here, and there's new gold inlaid here.

And the temple is not completed until around A.D.

64.

But then a war begins shortly thereafter, and in A.D.

70, the worship in the temple ceases, and the temple is destroyed, never to be built again, never to have worship in that place again.

This is Jesus' prophecy of the destruction of the temple of the Jews forever.

So when we're talking about the temple, of course, we have to keep in mind, we have to remember that this is not just architectural history.

Because everything, just about everything that I've told you this morning, you could find in the public records.

You know, it was built by this person, and then it was exchanged hands over here and was ruled by this empire, and then this person came in and did some renovation to the temple.

But we have to remember what it is that the temple means, what the temple has meant from the very beginning.

Temple means God is with his people.

It means that God has made his dwelling place with man.

That is what God is like.

That's what the love of God is like.

You know, when God's people were wandering around the desert, living in tents, you know where God was?

He was wandering around the desert, living in a tent.

When God's people were established in their city, God dwelled among his people.

But, you know, dwelling with God is not just like getting a new roommate.

It's different than that.

Because, as you remember, when God moved into the temple at the very first time, the ministers, the ones who are most equipped to worship in the presence of God, were driven out from the presence of God.

And so the temple shows us these two aspects of who God is.

One is his presence, because he is in the midst of us, in our very city, at the place that we all gather.

And the other is his transcendence, his unapproachability.

Because it's not that you just book a time and go into the temple and have a meeting with God, unless you're Moses, who didn't even really have to book a time.

But for the the rest of us, you don't just walk into the temple.

You do not simply walk into the temple.

Thanks, Matthew.

That's from the Lord of the Rings.

It's this set of movies that came out several years ago.

Now is this Amazon Prime series.

I've made famous on Amazon Prime.

Groan.

So the temple shows us his radical transcendence that although he is close, he we can't go up to him.

He's also distant.

He's unapproachable in his holiness.

And so the way that he could be approached is through the sacrifice, the blood sacrifices of bulls and goats.

And the only real approaching that took place was once a year, the Day of Atonement, in the Holy of Holies, when the high priest, after sacrificing for himself, and then sacrifice, would go in to in purifying himself, would then go into the Holy of Holies, that most central place that contained the Ark of the Covenant.

Within the ark is the Ten Commandments.

On top of the ark are carved the cherubim.

Remember the angels, the angel with the flaming sword at the gates of Eden, are what are carved on top of that ark.

And on top of that ark, what takes place is an event.

It is an event of propitiation, it is an event of atonement.

That the blood is sprinkled there, and God counts that as sufficient for the atonement of the sins of his people.

And that is where the Lord is met, in that place by the blood of sacrifices, where the cherubim are.

And so the temple shows us that God is close.

He is in our midst.

He dwells among us.

And the temple shows us that God is unapproachable, that God is holy, and that we are separated, distinctly separated from God by our sin.

And so the history of the temple is something like this it is the place of true worship of God.

But when the temple worship neglects who God is, and when the temple worship becomes idolatrous or greedy or corrupt, then the whole nation becomes idolatrous and greedy and corrupt.

And in this loss, the temple becomes, in a sense, meaningless, desolate.

And in that place, God removes himself from his people, saying, You have not been my people, you have not treated me as your God.

And the temple is rendered desolate.

So that has happened before, we've seen that the temple has been rendered desolate.

And the temple has been destroyed before.

We've seen this pattern throughout the history of Israel.

We've been taught to see what this looks like in the scriptures.

And here again, we see a priest come in, who is Jesus, inspect the temple, and find that it is utterly corrupt.

And Jesus, after coming in and inspecting the temple and seeing there is only false worship here.

And all of those who are in charge of the worship at the temple are only worshiping falsely.

And so he says that the temple would be destroyed.

So this is what this section of Mark is about.

It is about this moment in the history of Israel where the sins of Israel and their rejection of God mount to this climactic point.

And Jesus announces judgment is coming.

So there's this long discourse over the next couple of weeks.

For us, we'll be over the next couple of weeks.

It's probably like half hour for Jesus.

This long discourse, which we'll see over the next couple of weeks, takes place just outside the temple complex, takes place on the Mount of Olives, which overlooks the temple complex.

And this long discourse of Jesus is recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke in very similar fashions.

It is not recorded in John.

Now the reason, perhaps the reason that it is not recorded in John, is because John didn't just include it in his gospel, but John wrote a whole book about it called Revelation.

And this is Jesus' revelation.

If you're reading John and you're like, wow, where did all this come from?

It came from a vision from the Lord.

But if you're reading, say, Thessalonians, and you're thinking, how did Paul get all this information?

Well, he heard it from Jesus.

Or you're reading 1 Peter and you're wondering, how is he able to speak about these false teachers that are coming in?

And how is he able to prophesy these things?

Well, he he heard it from Jesus, just like we're about to do.

We'll hear it from Jesus.

So in this speech, Jesus prophesies, the he warns against the plainly up front, the destruction of the temple.

It's what we heard in our reading this morning.

Not one stone will stand upon another.

That's what this is about.

The temple will be destroyed.

And then he tells about the decades in this intermediary period before the destruction of the temple.

These decades leading up to the destruction of the temple will include people that are coming in and claiming to be Jesus returned.

There will be false teachers and false prophets that move in among the converted Christians.

There will be wars and rumors of wars, which will be mere distractions, because that will make it look like it's going to happen any day now, but it's not going to happen any day now.

It's not for another 40 years that this will happen.

And then finally, Jesus says that you will know the sign because you will see the absolute desolation of the temple.

The temple will be empty and then will be finally destroyed.

So that we know when we're talking about, Jesus is very plain.

He says at the end of this discourse in Mark 13, verse 30, truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.

Mark 13:30

And by that he meant, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.

He meant that the very people he was speaking to, what is a generation in Scripture?

It's about 40 years.

And he's saying, You will see this happen.

This very temple, which seems impossible to tear down, that for thousands of years has stood and is yet getting more and more glorious by the week, within this generation, it will be destroyed, and what it stands for will be gone.

Christ's coming in judgment on the temple and his prophecy of the temple's destruction is so extreme and is such a such a climactic moment in the history of redemption that its only analogy is the second coming of Christ himself, when he will sit upon the great white throne of judgment.

And all the living and the dead, as we confess this morning when we read what it is that we believe, all the living and the dead are gathered before Christ, resurrected before him, and Christ will sit on the great white throne of judgment, and he will tell those that he knew to come into his glory, and he will tell those that he did not know to go into eternal destruction in hell.

This is a type of that event.

This is an image of that event.

Where Jesus is saying, What will happen is there will be a dividing line which divides on Jesus.

And that dividing line will sort to the right hand and to the left hand, the sheep and the goats.

What is it sorting?

True worship and false worship.

And this temple is the destruction of the temple is a warning that one day all false worship will be destroyed and punished forever.

And there will only be true worship remaining.

And God will dwell in our midst, and he will be our God, and we will be his people.

This is the warning of the temple.

So these warnings are for, these particular warnings are for the disciples who are hearing them and for this generation.

But these warnings are also for us.

Because there is another judgment coming.

And so we see how it is that God does things.

You know, he likes to do things over and over again, if you've noticed.

Like, for example, the sun rising.

Another example, the temple being destroyed and then rebuilt.

He kind of shows you what he's gonna do, and then he does it for real.

So let's look at our two verses for today.

Mark 13, one.

And as he came out of the temple, one of the one of his disciples said to him, Look, teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings.

It's so hopeful and sweet, and he's about to get crushed.

Jesus comes out of the temple for the last time.

It's less obvious in Mark, but it's more obvious in Matthew what the structure of his coming out of the temple means.

You know, if you just read Mark, uh, then you'll think, uh, wow, the preacher sure made a lot out of that little phrase, and he came out of the temple.

But if you read it in Matthew, you see that this is not just a leaving for the day.

That this is a, I'm leaving here never to return.

His walking out of the temple at this point is an act of judgment.

And we know this because right before he does this, in Matthew, it's recorded that the last thing that he said was this: Matthew 23, verses 37 to 39.

Matthew 23:37–39

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.

How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.

See, your house is left to you desolate.

For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

See, your house is left to you desolate.

What is a desolate temple?

What does it mean when the temple experiences desolation?

It's empty.

God does not dwell here.

God does not live in this place with us.

He is showing us we are not his people.

When we go to worship him here, we will not be heard.

Ezekiel saw a vision of this event.

In Ezekiel verses 8 through 11.

Now Ezekiel's weird, right?

I don't know the last time you've read Ezekiel, but it's a lot of spinning wheels.

Wheels within wheels, and the wheels within the wheels are covered in eyes.

So if you're into that type of thing, you're gonna really like Ezekiel.

And there's this moment in Ezekiel, and Ezekiel's written during the exile, just before and then during, and there's this moment in Ezekiel where Ezekiel is with the elders of Jerusalem, and he's given a vision, and he's given a vision of the Holy Spirit, and then one who looks like a son of man.

And the one who looks like a son of man leads him in Ezekiel chapter 8 throughout the temple, and he says, Look at how they're worshiping here.

Ezekiel 8 · chapter mention

And what's on the temple walls is there's idols, false gods that they had begun to worship.

And then he goes to the altar itself, and the son of man says, This is an altar of jealousy.

It is not an altar of worship of the true God.

This is an altar that all it does is it makes God jealous over his people.

And he sees the false worship as he's led in this vision by the Holy Spirit and one who looks like a son of man.

I have to meditate on that further to figure out who that might be.

Jesus.

And the one who's looking like the Son of Man leads him to the temple.

And then there's this moment where the Spirit says that he's, he, he rises, the spirit of the Lord rises up over the cherubim, which are like the monster throne of God, which is another cool heavy metal band name.

And they are, they rise up over the cherubim, and then God says that he's going to leave the temple, and he goes to the threshold of the temple, and then he pauses.

The spirit pauses.

He waits at the threshold of the temple.

And he waits at the threshold of the temple, and he calls another man to mark people.

And he says, Go out and mark the ones who are saddened by the false worship that they see.

Go out and mark the ones whose hearts also break by what is seen.

You see, he pauses to show mercy at the temple one last time before the Holy Spirit leaves the temple.

And then, after pausing to show mercy, the Holy Spirit leaves the temple.

And then, do you know where the Spirit and the Son of Man lead Ezekiel immediately after they go out of the temple?

The Mount of Olives.

The Mount of Olives.

That's where Jesus is teaching his disciples right now.

Now, that might be just like a nice coincidence until you know this little interpretive feature for the Bible, which is that Jesus is God.

And then you start to notice that Jesus is doing the things that God does.

This is his temple.

Now, what would you need to see?

What type of false worship would need to be witnessed in the temple for God to leave it again?

Well, you might need to see things like the scribes in their glory and wonder being celebrated, although their worship is utterly false.

And you might need to see things like a widow who only gives two coins being utterly neglected, although her worship is pure and true.

And finally, you might need to see God in the flesh walk into the temple and be rejected by the ones who are in charge of the worship there.

Now, if the rejection of God were that plain, that explicit within the temple, then it would make sense that God would leave the temple in the way that God leaves it, which is a pause and a cry for mercy, which is what we hear.

Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I would have gathered your children together.

He pauses and cries for mercy.

And then we would see him do what God does, which is go out of the temple, go to the Mount of Olives, and then pronounce the judgment that is to come.

And this is precisely what Jesus does.

Jesus has been rejected within the temple.

And at his rejection in the temple, he moves outside of it.

God has left the temple.

It is desolate in his leaving.

And he pronounces judgment on the false worship and the false worshipers that are operating within the temple.

And he says, this will be destroyed.

So let's return to our two verses for today.

In verse one again, and as he came out of the temple, now do you hear, as he came out of the temple, here's I want you to see more completely what's happening here.

One of his disciples said to him, Look, teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings.

Although the temple would not be completed for another 30 years, it was wonderful.

And the stones of the temple were particularly incredible.

The temple was constructed with stones where one stone was 67 feet long and seven and a half feet tall.

That's impressive.

It's because it was built by ancient aliens.

No, I don't know how something like that gets constructed with ancient technologies, but this is these are the this is unimaginable wonder.

It would have been 60 feet in the main entrance with another 60 feet on top.

This is like a skyscraper of just this vaulted glory.

They say that if you were to walk towards Jerusalem, it would look like there was a snow-covered mountain in the middle of Jerusalem.

Because the marble was white, and it uh inlaid within the white marble was pure gold.

It is an unimaginably beautiful, beautiful thing to behold.

And so when the disciples walk out and they say, What wonderful buildings and what wonderful stones, and what have they seen?

You know, they they were born when it was about 20 years in into completion, and then it just kept getting better all the time.

They go year after year, and this place just keeps getting better as Herod pours more and more resources into it.

And it ought to be beautiful, it ought to be wonderful and glorious, because this is the dwelling place of God with his people.

This is where true worship is meant to take place.

And so it ought to be as befitting to him as humans could afford or their skill would allow.

But Jesus is not deceived by the internal signs of the temple.

Jesus, in fact, when he we know that Jesus is not deceived because he is not deceived by the external signals of glory.

He just taught us this.

Remember, last week he looked at the scribes and he saw how they enjoyed looking so glorious and wonderful in their splendor of their robes.

And he said, They will receive the greater condemnation.

And then he looked at the widow who only gave the two pennies, and she said, She gave more than anyone else gave today.

It's because Jesus, when he looks at the worship that is given towards his Father, he looks at the heart.

And so he's not deceived by the glory of what he sees in the temple.

When he is walking out, what he says is all of this glory that the temple shows is just a witness against the false worship that's taking place within it.

That's all it is.

On the library at CU Boulder on Norland Quadr, uh, right above the library, it says, He who knows only his own his own generation remains always a child.

And uh I will tell you that most of my instruction at CU Boulder was everything anyone has written before a couple of French people in the 1960s was horrible and wrong.

Now that's funny.

Because the building now stands as a witness against the education that's happening within it.

I was in the philosophy department.

I'm sure electromagnetism is great, Brandon.

Alan.

These stones stand as that same sort of witness to the false worship that's taking place within the temple.

They're actually an embarrassment.

The beauty of the temple is an embarrassment for what's happening inside the temple.

And it points towards, of course, the embarrassment that stacks up over a thousand years of worship.

So Jesus responds and he said to them, Do you see these great buildings?

There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.

This is the pronouncement of judgment on the temple.

Do you see this temple?

And from what we have seen, it will be destroyed.

Now, this is not the first time in Jesus' ministry that he has said the temple will be destroyed.

In fact, the first time in Jesus' ministry that he said the temple would be destroyed was at the very beginning of his ministry, when he first went into the temple.

And this was the first time that Jesus cleansed the temple.

Remember in John 2 when he makes the whip, and he makes the whip to go in and drive out the money changers and turns over their tables?

And they ask him, which we should be familiar with this question after spending all the time in Mark that we have, they asked him, uh, so in John 2, verses 18 to 22, I'll just read it.

John 2:18–22

So the Jews said to him, What sign do you show us for doing these things?

Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

That's a wild sign.

But it makes sense.

They're always asking for signs.

Can you give us a sign so that we can know you're allowed to do this?

I know that you just drove out all the money changers, but I did you have a permit for that?

Can I see your credentials?

Your temple cleansing credentials?

And so here's the sign that Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

Now, now that we have a sense of what the temple looks like, you know, that's it's it must have felt just completely absurd.

The Jews then said, It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?

But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Jesus is the true high priest.

And one of the priestly responsibilities is to inspect and condemn unclean buildings.

You know those odd parts of Leviticus?

Where because the priests were kind of like they did worship, they offered sacrifices, they knew the exchange rates for certain sacrifices, they were also dermatologists, and they also were home inspectors.

The priests wore a lot of hats.

And one of the things they did was they inspected a home.

Now, if a home became infected with leprosy, it was unclean.

And you would call the priest, and the priest would come and inspect the home.

This is in Leviticus, kids.

And in Leviticus, uh, the priest comes and inspects the home, and he in he inspects it the first time, and then he says, wait, and all if it's we'll take everything out of the temple, and then we'll come back and we'll see what it looks like.

We'll give it some time.

Jesus shows up to the temple the first time and clears everyone out of it, and then he waits, and then he comes back again.

They're supposed to inspect it three times before they condemn it.

The second time is at the beginning of Holy Week, where he comes to the temple and he does the same thing again and he drives them out again because he sees the uncleanness that has corrupted this temple.

And then finally, as he comes back the next day, and we've spent all of this time of him preaching and teaching and facing opposition within the temple, he's inspecting.

And he sees again that this temple ought to be condemned.

And so he walks out of the temple and he announces, there should not be one stone left among another.

In Leviticus 14, 40 through 42, it says, Then the priest shall command that they take out the stones in which is the disease and throw them into an unclean place outside the city.

That's when the building's been inspected a third time and found unclean.

Then in verse 42, then they shall take other stones and put them in the place of those stones, and he shall take other plaster and plaster the house.

That is his priestly duty after the inspections.

And he commands it, he prophesies it.

This temple will be destroyed.

How?

In the very pattern that's commanded in Leviticus, not one stone will remain upon another.

But that is not the end of the process for the priest, because there's the other command in verse 42, which says, And then they shall take other stones, and they shall rebuild the place that was found unclean.

What Jesus does is he pronounces this judgment upon the false worship that had infected the temple, the rejection of himself by his own people.

And in that rejection, that whole pattern of worship will be destroyed.

Jesus will see to it that it will be destroyed.

But there is another destruction that will take place, which is one of a truer temple, which is one of Jesus' own body, so that the true worship, which was meant to take place within the temple, would be fulfilled completely in him, so that the true sacrifice, which was not happening in the temple, would take place with him, because he is this type of high priest, not the one who goes in and lays down the blood of.

Bulls and goats, so that he might atone for himself and then atone for others.

He is the high priest who is perfect and lays down himself so that he would be destroyed, so that he might be raised back up again.

And any might come to him, present to God, with him, made clean by his blood.

And that is a new temple, a new pattern of worship.

Because Christ is raised, and the new temple that he builds is not one of beautiful stones, 67 feet long and seven and a half feet tall, inlaid with gold.

He makes them out of living stones.

In this very section of Ezekiel that I have been reading, the next part, he says, I will take your heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh.

And he's talking about this is why Paul does all that talk about your temple of living stones being built up.

This is why Jesus began this the discourse in the temple with, I am the stone that was rejected, and it will become the cornerstone.

He's saying the old covenant will come to an end where you went towards the Lord by the sacrifice of bulls and goats, which have been insufficient this whole time and have only reminded you of your distance from him.

He's saying, I'm destroying this old pattern of idolatrous worship.

I myself am laying myself down, and I will rebuild the temple on me, a temple of living stones by his sacrifice.

And that temple is the church.

You're in it today.

You can look around right now and see it in the flesh.

The temple of living stones that are being made by Jesus and by his sacrifice.

He lays it down so he can take it up again.

So here's the warning of this whole passage: the false worship is seen and will be destroyed.

But the promise of Jesus Christ is that he will take that destruction upon himself for all of your false worship, atone for you to the Father, and rebuild you into the true temple filled with his Holy Spirit.

Salvation through judgment.

He takes the judgment.

This is our hope in Jesus Christ.

Are there any questions today?

I can't imagine there would be.

Is the cursed fig tree a symbol of the desolation of the temple?

Wow.

Yes, it is.

In fact, in verse uh 30 29 or 30, Jesus says, remember the sign of the fig tree, so that you will see these things coming.

Great job.

Great Bible study, everyone.

All right.

Now let's take communion.

I like these yes or no questions.

First Corinthians eleven twenty-three says, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Zack talked about it this morning.

But our lives are full of false worship.

And so let's take the temple analogy and let's make it about your soul.

That false worship of those things in your life, uh, the false hopes of our world.

I think part of what's so taxing of uh of an election season seeing the false hopes of of our world.

I was very discouraged and seeing the types of things which were up for our own state, the enshrinement of abortion into our constitution.

The we're voting to in Denver, if you're voting in Denver, you have the opportunity to eliminate slaughterhouses for animals and then enshrine into our constitution a guaranteed right of slaughterhouses for infants, babies.

That's not good.

And there can be this sort of discouragement, a deep discouragement of what we see.

Now, even that's probably too far away because I know in your own heart this week, there are sins in false worship that are working in your own heart.

And that false worship you know leads to desolation.

Desolation.

Ooh, you're a coward and indecisive.

I was like, oh, me next.

No, I don't want to play.

This guy just explained, I've just been depressed and I just feel like nothing matters, and that there's no meaning to anything.

It's desolation.

We're surrounded by desolation.

Now, what can be done about that?

You need God to draw near you.

Jesus Christ, for you, took on that desolation.

Took on his body that destruction.

So that you might be raised up into true worship of the true God.

Have your life rightly oriented to him by grace alone.

And so for those of you who are in Christ, we invite you to the table this morning.

Jesus took the bread and he broke it and he said, This is my body which is broken for you.

And he took the cup, which isn't here, which is fine.

Because we've got these little cups.

And he said, This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood.

And it's poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins.

Which means that his atonement for your sins worked, which means that the shame that you feel can be gone.

Peace of conscience before the Lord.

And then he invites you to a feast of true worship with him, in the true temple of the Lord's people, his church.

This is the nature of our God.

This is what he's like.

That's the good news.

So we invite all of you who have been baptized and who confess the name of Jesus to come and proclaim by feasting with him in this meal that he invites you to, on his body and his blood, remembering the sacrifice that he has made, at the temple he has destroyed, the temple he is rebuilding.

And if you aren't in Christ, don't come and partake and proclaim something that isn't there, but know that you can be in him.

You are invited to his feast by him in the sacrifice that he has made.

Come to Jesus.

Come to Jesus.

He has laid his life down so that you might be saved.

This is the goodness of our God.

Holy Father, I pray that you would bless this meal.

Lord, that you would work in our hearts to see your working throughout history and the sharpness of the prophetic language and the warnings that you give us and the hope that you show us in your resurrection.

Lord, let us live within the truths of what you've shared with us as we come to celebrate the victory that you have made over the grave, over our sin, that we might be with you, dwelling in your presence, in the temple of your church, Lord.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.