Temple Attitudes – Part 1
Matthew 21:12-17
June 1, 2008
Introduction
There’s a term we like to use when describing anger about something regarding things we love or the things of God.
That term is “righteous anger.”
We might feel righteous anger when we hear the name of Jesus being slandered or someone we know being talked about behind their back.
It’s the anger that a husband would feel if he heard someone insult his wife.
You know what I’m talking about.
Often we think of anger as being a sin. But Scripture doesn’t say anger is a sin. Rather the Bible says to not sin in our anger. In other words, don’t let your anger lead you to sin.
This “righteous anger” is what Jesus experienced when he came upon the moneychangers and merchants in the temple area.
His zeal for His Father’s house drove Him to do something to rid it of the insult that was being put upon the temple by these people.
God: We continue our walk through the Gospel of Matthew, and we’re now in the last week of Jesus’ life before He offers Himself up as the perfect sacrifice for our sins.
He’s just recently had His triumphal entry, with the people shouting and calling Him by the title “Son of David,” which was a title reserved for the coming Messiah.
Shortly after this, we find Jesus coming into the temple area, and that’s where we pick it up for today.
Matthew 21:12-17 (p. 698) –
12 Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 "It is written," he said to them, "’My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ’den of robbers.’"
14 The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, "Hosanna to the Son of David," they were indignant.
16 "Do you hear what these children are saying?" they asked him.
"Yes," replied Jesus, "have you never read, "’From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’?"
17 And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.
We’re not going to be able to cover everything that can be touched about what Jesus did and said at the temple, so we’ll be visiting this for the next two or three weeks, but I do want us to take a look at some things today that I think will help us understand a bit of what Jesus was trying to communicate here.
This was probably a second cleansing. The first took place toward the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and is described in John 2.
The place where this happened was in the area known as “The Court of the Gentiles,” which is an area well outside the place where the Jews offered their sacrifices.
To kind of give you an idea of where this was, let’s pretend that the sanctuary we’re in right now is the sanctuary of the temple.
The sanctuary of the temple had two main areas: the Holy Place, where the priests performed their regular duties, and the Most Holy Place, where the ark of the covenant and the atonement cover were.
The Most Holy Place, or the Holy of Holies as it is sometimes called, was separated by two large, thick curtains 90 feet high.
It would be like if we hung a huge curtain in front of the platform. Everything behind it would be the Most Holy Place, the rest would be the Holy Place.
The lobby would be the Priests’ Court, which was reserved exclusively for the priests.
If we put a walled area off to the side of the lobby, that would be what was called the “Israel Court” which was for the men.
If we put another wall outside the lobby to create another area, that would be the “Women’s Court.”
Another walled area outside of that would be the “Sacred Enclosure” a Gentile entering this area or attempting to get any closer to the temple could be put to death, even under Roman rule.
Outside of that area was the “Court of the Gentiles.” It was quite a ways off from where the sacrifices were offered on behalf of Israel.
Yesterday my Community Emergency Response Team was asked to help with traffic control for Barak Obama’s speech at the Civic Arena.
The security was tight, and most people had to park a long way away, then walk around a perimeter a block long on each side of the arena.
No one could just walk up to the building and enter any door, because now that Obama is one of the contenders, he is given the protection of the Secret Service, and that means all sorts of precautions.
After the speech, people were gathered around the building and in the parking lot just to the south of the Civic Arena, hoping to get another glance before he flew out of town.
But as he was getting closer to leaving, they had us remove all the people in that parking lot, shoving them back another half-block.
By the time he actually came out, these folks almost needed binoculars to see him.
That’s kind of how it was with the Court of the Gentiles, even more so. Looking at diagrams of the temple area, this was almost half a mile from the sanctuary.
But this was the only place that Gentile converts to Judaism could worship, and it was here that we find Jesus in this episode.
From this story we can find a number of lessons, and we’re not going to be able to cover them all today.
But there are three facts that I want us to see here.
The first is that…
* The main issue Jesus was addressing was the extortion of the pilgrims.
A lot of people think that Jesus was upset about buying and selling in the temple. And they extrapolate that to believe that it is wrong to buy and sell things in a church, or at least the sanctuary.
But I don’t think that’s an accurate description of what Jesus was upset with here.
If it were, we certainly wouldn’t let people sell their CD’s and things when they come to minister to us, even though those sales are used to support their families and ministries.
I don’t think that the issue was commercialism as much as it was that many people were being ripped off in obtaining sacrifices for the Passover feast.
The high priest had authorized a market with merchants and money changers to be set up in the court.
The animals were sold for sacrifices. It was far easier for a pilgrim in Jerusalem to purchase one that was guaranteed kosher than to have to bring an animal with him and have it inspected for meeting the kosher requirements.
The money changers exchanged all international currency for the special Temple coins—the only money the merchants would accept.
The money changers did big business during Passover with those who came from foreign countries. The inflated exchange rate often enriched the money changers, and the exorbitant prices of animals made the merchants wealthy.
I mentioned a moment ago that the Court of the Gentiles was the only place Gentile converts to Judaism could worship. But the market filled their worship space with merchants so that these foreigners, who had traveled long distances, found it impossible to worship. The chaos in that Court must have been tremendous.
By (cleansing the temple), Jesus was directly challenging the authority of the high priest, because they were there on his authorization. (Expositor’s Bible Commentary – Mark)
He was saying, “Stop ripping my people off when they’ve come to worship my Father!”
The second fact I want us to look at is that…
* The temple not the church building, but you and me.
There is a mindset that this building we’re in today, or at least this part of it is the New Testament equivalent of the temple. But that is an erroneous idea.
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 –
16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
“Here” (hand on heart) is where God meets with us as He speaks to us through His Word and in prayer.
“Here” (the sanctuary) is where we gather for corporate worship.
This building and this room are not the temple. They are tools to help us in worship.
Let me say that I’m all in favor of church buildings and sanctuaries. It’s great to have a place where we can meet together in worship.
But you also need to understand that first of all, there is nothing in Scripture that says such things are necessary for corporate worship. The early church didn’t have anything like we have today.
Often you’ll hear something on a Sunday like “It’s great to be here in God’s house.” And of course, they mean the church.
But the phrase “God’s house” doesn’t even appear in the Bible except in one instance in The Message, and in that instance, you know what it was referring to? Just what I’ve been telling you: you are God’s house.
I searched through 20 different Bible translations (gotta love Bible software!) and the phrase “Gods house” doesn’t appear in any but the one I just mentioned.
I also searched “house of God.” That phrase showed up a few times, but never in the context of referring to a building for Christian worship.
I can’t emphasize it enough. You are God’s house. This isn’t God’s house. And if worship isn’t happening in you, it’s not going to happen in here.
So many churches today are filled with people who have absolutely no relationship with God outside of a sanctuary.
And because of that, their worship in the sanctuary is cold and stagnant. They go through the motions, sing the songs and listen to a sermon, but nothing happens in their hearts.
So the real house of God remains empty and lukewarm.
May it not be so with us and other Bible-believing churches in this area.
My hope is that our churches would be filled with people who take seriously this last fact, and that is that…
* The temple should be a place of prayer.
Prayer is generally seen as something to do at church or at the dinner table, or even during devotional times. And all that’s good.
But do you pray during the day? Do you pray about and during your work? Do you pray about your family as you go through the day? Do you pray about the people you pass on the street?
Yesterday Dani left for Rainbow Bible Ranch. By herself. In her car. For the first time.
You wanna bet I was praying mighty heavily for a bunch of hours yesterday? You’d better believe I was!
Do you pray about everything? Most people think God’s only interested in the “spiritual” part of our lives.
But the truth of the matter is that everything is the “spiritual” part of our lives.
And therefore we can pray about every area of our life.
You: So what do I want you to really take away from this today?
Don’t allow yourself to be robbed.
Don’t allow the world to rip you off and extort you and keep you from worshiping God and living for Him.
Guard your life. Guard your heart. Guard the sanctuary of your life.
Ask yourself: what are the things that are robbing me of meeting with God in the temple of my heart like I should?
Is it my schedule? Is it my worries and anxieties? Is it simply my apathetic attitude toward the things of God? Could it be that I don’t really understand that God actually wants to meet with me?
What is it?
Ask Got to help you identify what these are and to help you prevent them from robbing you any further.
We: I think all of us want a positive, if not awesome, worship experience when we come to church on Sundays.
One of the keys to that is worshiping throughout the week – taking time to be in His Word and in prayer, seeking His face and His blessing and guidance as you live for Him in whatever situation you find yourself.
When you can really get a handle on that, then your times here on Sundays will be all the more joyous and all the more life-changing.
But I can’t force you to do that. That’s something that you and God need to take care of between yourselves.
My prayer is that you won’t go to bed tonight without making an intentional decision to incorporate personal worship into your life so that as we gather in this setting, your worship will be all the more special because your “temple” is ready to receive from God.
Let’s pray.
Communion
Focus today on maybe asking the Holy Spirit to show you someone you need to forgive.
