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It is my sincere desire that all who read them and hear them may be lifted up to a higher relationship with God.
Most of the scriptures quoted in these sermons are copies and quoted from the New Living Translation of the Holy Bible.
I do at times use scripture from several different versions of the Bible such as NIV, New King James Version, King James Version etc.
Any and all ministers may freely use any of my sermons and post them anywhere that they want to.
After all, it is Gods Word and not our own!
Pastor Ed Pruitt
IF YOU WANT TO HAVE THE POWER YOU HAVE GOT TO CLEAN THE TOWER
Sunday November 05, 2006
Matthew 21:12-17
12 Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out the merchants and their customers. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the stalls of those selling doves.
13 He said, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a place of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!”
14 The blind and the lame came to him, and he healed them there in the Temple.
15 The leading priests and the teachers of religious law saw these wonderful miracles and heard even the little children in the Temple shouting, “Praise God for the Son of David.” But they were indignant
16 and asked Jesus, “Do you hear what these children are saying?”
“Yes,” Jesus replied. “Haven’t you ever read the Scriptures? For they say, ‘You have taught children and infants to give you praise.’ ”
17 Then he returned to Bethany, where he stayed overnight.
In our text this morning, our Lord took inventory of the temple!
He most certainly did not like what he saw!
My challenge from the Word to you is – there needs to be a spring cleaning spiritually, in our personal lives and in our churches today!
This is a must if we wish to have God’s power and blessing in our lives and in our church!
First and foremost Jesus Christ needs to be present!
We find that in the 12th verse, Jesus was very much there and what He found was the Temple was being abused!
Buying & selling taking place in temple!
Money changers! Loan-sharks!
Christ had purged the temple once before, what happened?
Bottom line – Christ did not have rightful place in the Temple!
We often do not allow Christ to take center stage and therefore our motives become less than godly!
Where does He stand in your personal life?
Is He even present?
Where does He stand in our church?
There is a reason for the Lord’s Anger!
There was a lack of spiritual guidance!
There was a lack of moral conscience!
There were moneychangers preying on poor!
There was a lack of proper priorities!
Most of all!
Man was prominent in the temple and not the Lord!
Fits many folks today!
The House of God is NOT for a lot of the things that churches are used for today!
So often we cheapen His prominence both in the church and in our lives by doing these things!
Leviticus 19:30 tells us,
30 Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary:
I am the LORD.
Our bodies, are the Temple of God as we are told in
1 Corinthians 3:16-17
16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
Folks, we are doing things in and with the temple that were never designed or intended to go on – we have relegated Jesus Christ to mere visitor status!
Our churches today should be a place where we meet to worship, praise and adore our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
We need lighthouses in this day we live in!
Not Sunday and Wednesday adult daycare services!
Verse 13 tells us,
13 He said, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a place of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!”
Christ must be ever proclaimed!
We can proclaim Christ through the preaching of the Word!
Paul preached Jesus everywhere he went!
Paul was never ashamed to talk to anyone about Jesus!
Paul understood how people felt about preaching!
1 Corinthians 1:18
18 I know very well how foolish the message of the cross sounds to those who are on the road to destruction. But we who are being saved recognize this message as the very power of God.
Christians can proclaim Christ through many ways
Preaching of your own testimony!
Your personal life speaks loudly if you are doing the things that God wants us to do!
We need to quit stalling around and running to and fro and get busy telling others about Christ!
It never ceases to amaze me how people still get baffled as to why they do not have the power of God in their lives!
It has a lot to do with the way that we live!
Backsliding removes God’s hand from your life!
Unconfessed sin removes God’s hand from your life!
Pride removes God’s hand from your life
Unfaithfulness to God and His work removes God’s hand from your life
Failure to support your pastor and your church will remove God’s blessing from your life!
Resisting God’s will for your life will keep God’s hand off of you!
Daily prayer and cleansing keeps God’s hand of power on your life!
Daily communication and teaching from God’s Word keeps His Hand of power on your life!
When we live the way that God wants us to live and act the way that God wants us to act, things will start to happen!
Notice verse 14 – blind and lame were healed!
Why?
The House was now in order!
Priorities were set correctly; proper authority was now recognized; the Lord’s hand of power was back on that place!
If you don’t feel His presence, Christian – you have lost the power of His touch because of sin in your life!
Is Christ prominent in your life?
Is Christ proclaimed in your life?
Is Christ’s Power on you in a mighty way?
For those who are leading God’s Church, God is not only concerned whether we’re doing God’s work, but also How and Why we’re doing it.
When I stand before the Judgment seat of Christ, his main questions for me will not have to do with the growth or the budget of the Church, but with Why I taught in this church, and in what Spirit.
If your teaching a Sunday School class, God will not be asking you If you taught a class, but instead the question will be Did you teach that class with a heart that radiated God’s love for the students?
Are you teaching for the right reasons?
If your serving in the church, whether on the board, on the cleaning team, on the calling team, on the Worship team, no matter the position.
The question is not so much that you are serving, but instead, How are you serving?
With a good spirit, for the right reasons?
I’m sure the money changers would tell you that they were providing a ministry, but as we can see, God wasn’t pleased with their motive, He wasn’t impressed with their service.
Back in the Camp meeting days their used to be a saying that if people left a meeting talking about what a wonderful sermon the preacher gave or how beautifully the singers sang, the meeting had failed.
But if the people went home saying things like, “Isn’t God good?”
He met me this morning in such a wonderful way,” then it was a good meeting.
There was to be no sharing the stage with the Lord.
This morning friends, it’s not about the music, it’s not about how well the sermon is delivered, but instead it’s,
“Did you have an encounter with the Living God?”
Did God come and speak to your heart?”
Did you come into His House today with the mindset of
“God has something He wants me to hear today, and I’m not leaving until I hear it?”
When we will come in to our worship time expecting God to visit us, and through prayer, we seek Him with all our heart, through Prayer we call out to Him, through Prayer we admit our need for Him.
He will answer us!
How did you come into the service this morning?
I know you didn’t bring in your animals this morning.
But I wonder if some don’t come into worship with the same kind of mindset.
God, here I am.
It’s Sunday morning, God instead of my sheep or cows, Here’s my two hours of time, I could be in bed, but God I want to give this time to you, so here you go.
Now, please bless me, and please answer all my prayers.
Now, I hope none of you actually thought that way when you walked in, but my question is, what is our attitude about our Sunday worship?
Are we coming in to punch our spiritual ticket.
Or have you come today knowing and expecting that God wants to have a personal encounter with you.
An encounter that will affect your life, an encounter that will transform your life.
When we encounter the Lord. It changes us!
The distinguishing Feature of the Christian Church, of Christian People, of Christian Gatherings is the aroma of prayer.
Jesus didn’t say, “My house shall be called the house of Preaching.”
Does it ever say, “My house shall be called a house of music?”
I don’t think so.
The Word of God does say, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
Preaching, Music, the Reading of God’s Word, are obviously things we must incorporate into our lives, and in our worship.
But the overriding, defining mark of God’s dwelling is prayer.
The honest truth is that God can do more in people’s lives during ten minutes of prayer, real prayer, than in ten of my speaking.
What does it say about our churches today that God birthed the church in a prayer meeting, in the upper room on Pentecost!
Today, the prayer meetings in a lot of churches is almost extinct?
Do we need to ask why our churches aren’t growing?
Do we need to ask why we aren’t seeing people being saved?
Do we need to ask why marriages and families in the church are just as at risk, as those who don’t even attend church?
We have more nice buildings to worship in than ever before!
We have more books, better education on how to save our marriages and families than ever before, we have more money coming into the church than ever before.
But even with all this.
Over 95% of all Christian churches in America and Canada are either in decline or are their growth has stopped.
We’ve got to go back to where we started!
We’ve got to look at the early church and understand what they were doing that allowed these untrained, uneducated, untested disciples to start a revolution for Jesus Christ.
In Acts 4, when the apostles were unjustly arrested, imprisoned, and threatened, they didn’t call for a protest; they didn’t reach for some political leverage, they didn’t call a lawyer!
Instead, they headed to a prayer meeting.
And soon the place was vibrating with the power of the Holy Spirit.
Listen to the words found in Acts 4:31
After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
The early church had this instinct:
When in trouble, pray. When intimidated, pray.
When challenged, pray. When persecuted, pray.
We need to understand the real force for the Christian in our Prayer life.
Satan’s main strategy with God’s people has always been to whisper,
“Don’t call, don’t ask, don’t depend on God to do great things.
You’ll get along fine if you just rely on your own cleverness and energy.”
The truth of the matter is that the devil is not terribly frightened of our human efforts and credentials.
Be he knows his kingdom will be damaged when we lift up our hearts to God in prayer.
Do you have some heavy burdens today that your tired of trying to carry around all by yourself?
Do you have an unsaved family member that your heart aches for?
Do you have a neighbor, a friend that you know needs to find Jesus as Lord?
Are you in a financial fix, where there seems like there is no way out, and you feel like your drowning?
Do you have a big decision to make, and your torn, you don’t really know what your supposed to do?
Friends, whatever the need is today, the answer can be found through Prayer!
Crying out to God.
The truth is we need to make this place a House of Prayer, not just on the Sunday when the Pastor preaches on Prayer, but every time we come here, every time the doors are open, we need to realize that the real reason we come is to Find
God through prayer!
Jim Cymballa, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, who tells a personal story of the power of prayer.
He said, “I was alone in Florida when I received a call from a minister whom I had persuaded Chrissy (Jim’s daughter) to talk to.
“Jim’, he said, “I love you and your wife, but truth of the matter is, Chrissy’s going to do what Chrissy’s going to do.
You really don’t have much choice, now that she’s 18.
She’s determined.
Your going to have to accept whatever she decides.”
I hung up the phone.
Something very deep within me began to cry out. “Never”.
I will never accept Chrissy being away from the Lord!”
I knew that if she continued on the present path, there would be nothing but destruction awaiting her.
There came a divine showdown. God strongly impressed me to stop crying, screaming, or talking to anyone else about Chrissy.
I was to converse with no one but God. In fact, I knew I should have no further contact with Chrissy Until God acted.
I was just to believe and obey what I had preached so often,
“Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will answer you.”
Jim said, I dissolved in a flood of tears, I knew I had to let go of this situation.
I began to pray with an intensity and growing faith as never before.
Whatever bad news I would receive about Chrissy, I kept interceding and actually began praising God for what I knew he would do soon.
I made no attempts to see her.
Carol and I endured the Christmas season with real sadness.
I was pathetic, sitting around trying to open presents with our other two children, without Chrissy.
February came. One cold Tuesday night during the prayer meeting, I talked from Acts 4 about the church boldly calling on God in the face of persecution.
We entered into a time of prayer, everyone reaching out to the Lord in concert together.
An usher handed me a note.
A young women whom I felt to be spiritually sensitive had written: “Pastor Cymbala, I feel impressed that we should stop the meeting and all pray for your daughter.”
I hesitated.
Was it right to change to flow of the service and focus on my personal need?
Yet something in the note seemed to ring true. In a few minutes I picked up the microphone and told the congregation what had just happened.
“The truth of the matter,”
I said, “although I haven’t talked much about it, is that my daughter is very far from God these days.
She thinks up is down, and down is up; dark is light, and light is dark.
But I know God can break through to her, and so I’m going to ask Pastor Boekstaaf to lead us in praying for Chrissy.
Let’s all join hands across the sanctuary.”
As my associate began to lead the people, I stood behind him with my hand on his back.
My tear ducts had run dry, but I prayed as best I knew.
To describe what happened in the next minutes, I can only employ a metaphor:
The church turned into a labor room.
The sounds of women giving birth are not pleasant,
but the results are wonderful.
Paul knew this when he wrote, “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.”
There arose a groaning... a sense of desperate determination, as if to say, “Satan, you will not have this girl.
Take your hands off her, she’s coming back!”
I was overwhelmed.
The force of that vast throng calling on God almost literally knocked me over.
When I got home that night, Carol was waiting up for me.
We sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee, and I said, “It’s over.”
What’s over?” she wondered.
“It’s over with Chrissy.
You would have had to be in the prayer meeting tonight.
I tell you, if there’s a God in heaven, this whole nightmare is finally over.”
I described what had taken place.
32 hours later, on Thursday morning, as I was shaving, Carol suddenly burst through the door, her eyes wide.
“Go downstairs!” she blurted. “Chrissy’s here.”
“Chrissy’s here?” “Yes, Go down!” “Just Go down, she urged, “It’s you she wants to see.”
I wiped off the shaving cream and headed down the stairs, my heart pounding.
As I came around the corner, I saw my daughter on the kitchen floor, rocking on her hands and knees, sobbing.
Cautiously I spoke to her name:
“Chrissy?”
She grabbed my pant leg and began pouring out her anguish. Daddy, Daddy.
I’ve sinned against God.
I’ve sinned against myself.
I’ve sinned against you and Mommy.
Please forgive me.
My vision was clouded by tears .... I pulled her up from the floor and held her close as we cried together.
“Suddenly she drew back.
Daddy, Who was praying for me?
Who was praying for me?
Her voice was like that of a cross-examining attorney.
What do you mean, Chrissy?
On Tuesday night, daddy -- who was praying for me?
I didn’t say anything, so she went on.
In the middle of the night, God woke me up and showed me I was heading toward this abyss.
There was no bottom to it.... it scared me to death.
I was so frightened.
I realized how hard I’ve been, how wrong, how rebellious.
But at the same time, it was like God wrapped his arms around me and held me tight.
He kept me from sliding any farther as he said, I still love you.
Daddy, tell me the truth, who was praying for me Tuesday night?
Jim said, I looked into her bloodshot eyes, and once again I recognized the daughter we had raised.
Chrissy’s return to the Lord became evident immediately.
By that fall, God had opened a miraculous door for her to enroll at a Bible college, today she’s a Pastor’s wife in the mid west with three wonderful children.
My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations?
Will this be a house of Prayer?
Will we be a people of Prayer?
Will we cry out to God until we hear from Him?
Do you have a Chrissy in your life?
We need to call upon the Lord in this place, every Lord’s Day,
We need to all take the prayer requests home and pray until something happens!
If your serious about seeing God’s Hand work in your own life, and in the life of the church, it will only come through consistent and persistent prayer.
I can’t think of anything more important, can you?
I want to close this service with a concert of prayer.
If you have come here this morning with a need, come and pray, if God has put something, or someone on your heart, come and let’s lift our voices to God in prayer.
I’m guessing this morning that everyone of us has something that we need to take to the Lord.
As we lift our voices together.
The God of Heaven will hear us.
