No Household Equipment

I. EXORDIUM:

Do you entertain phone calls during worship in a sacred place?

II. AUDIENCE PROFILE:

Believers

III. OBJECTIVES:

To show that in little things we can display GOD's order.

IV. TEXT:

Mark 11:16 (Amplified Bible)

11:16 And He would not permit anyone to carry any household equipment through the temple enclosure [thus making the temple area a short-cut traffic lane].

V. THESIS:

Focus on worship and praise when in church.

VI. TITLE:

No household equipment

Study of Mark 11

VII. EXPLICATION:

A. Author: Mark, son of Mary of Jerusalem; referred to as John Mark

B. Date written: 58 B.C.

C. Purpose: To present JESUS of Nazareth as GOD's Suffering Servant, the Redeemer of the world

D. To whom written: Roman or Gentile Christians

E. Main Theme: CHRIST is the tireless servant of GOD and humanity.

F. Key word: Immediately

G. Key verse: Mark 10:45

Mark 10:45 (Amplified Bible)

10:45 For even the Son of Man came not to have service rendered to Him, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for (instead of) many.

VIII. MAIN BODY:

A. CHRIST would not permit anyone

"And He would not permit anyone"

The Temple has it's purposes:

1. House of prayer

Isaiah 56:7 (Amplified Bible)

56:7 All 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 will be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

Matthew 21:13 (Amplified Bible)

21:13 He said to them, The Scripture says, My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of robbers.

Luke 19:46 (Amplified Bible)

19:46 Telling them, It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer; but you have made it a cave of robbers.

2. Sacred place

Genesis 28:22 (Amplified Bible)

28:22 And this stone which I have set up as a pillar (monument) shall be God’s house [a sacred place to me], and of all [the increase of possessions] that You give me I will give the tenth to You.

Matthew 21:12 (Amplified Bible)

21:12 And Jesus went into the temple (whole temple enclosure) and drove out all who bought and sold in the sacred place, and He turned over the four-footed tables of the money changers and the chairs of those who sold doves.

Numbers 18:10 (Amplified Bible)

18:10 As the most holy thing and in a sacred place shall you eat of it; every male [of your house] shall eat of it. It shall be holy to you.

B. To carry any household equipment

"to carry any household equipment"

The "househould equipment" is "vessel" in the Greek, meaning "vessel", "implement", "equipment" or "apparatus" or in modern-day language, "appliances" that has nothing to do with the temple being a house of prayer and a sacred place.

Today we carry a lot of equipment, cell phones, tablets, ipads, smart phones, these are perfectly all right, as long as they have bibles, greek and hebrews on it, or bible encyclopedia, or worship.

In this world, when we enter a worldly place such as a theater, we leave the camera, videos or even guns at the security guard's table, how come we can't understand that we need to make holy our sanctuary. In our church, we usually advise people to turn off cell phones while in worship or make it in silent mode at the least not to disturb the place being sacred.

I remember Nehemiah forbidding these equipments or merchandise, because it desecrates a holy place, it's not respectful of GOD's Presence.

Nehemiah 13:16-21 (Amplified Bible)

13:16 There dwelt men of Tyre there also who brought fish and all kinds of wares and sold on the Sabbath to the people of Judah and in Jerusalem.

13:17 Then I reproved the nobles of Judah and said, What evil thing is this that you do—profaning the Sabbath day?

13:18 Did not your fathers do thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us and upon this city? Yet you bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath.

13:19 And when it began to get dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath [day began], I commanded that the gates should be shut and not be opened till after the Sabbath. And I set some of my servants at the gates to prevent any burden being brought in on the Sabbath day.

13:20 So the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice.

13:21 But I reproved and warned them, saying, Why do you lodge by the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you. Then they stopped coming on the Sabbath.

C. Thru the temple