Terrorizing and Teaching in the Temple

Today, if you have your Bible, I would invite you to turn with me to Luke chapter 19. Luke chapter 19. It has been a while since we have been in our study of Luke's gospel. But don't worry, we're going to be there for a lot longer than you can ever imagine. We are going to embark on the last week of our Lord's life. And understand every conversation, every interaction, every communication that he has with his disciples and with those there in the temple. That we might begin to understand more about the identity of the Christ as we worship our Lord.

The Gospel of Luke, or Matthew, Mark, or John are all Gospels that explain to us the character and nature of Christ. The Messiah of Israel, the Lord of the universe. And in our efforts to study the Gospels, we begin to understand this Christ and how it is He is to be worshipped and why He is the way He is. And so we are of all people most richly blessed to be able to spend time in God's Word studying the God who wrote the word, who is the word. That we might come to grips with who he is and what he's done.

And that's where we are in Luke's Gospel. We find ourselves in the 45th. Verse of Luke chapter 19. This is the last section in this chapter. And I have done everything in my power to restrain myself from reviewing for you. Because that would take me weeks to review and get you caught up. So I'm going to trust that you're really, really smart people. And you're able to read the text for yourself. You know where our media ministry is in case you missed something. But we're going to pick up the narrative in verse number 45 to understand this last week of our Lord's life.

And this is the day after the comm title of Palm Sunday or the triumphal entry. All right, that's where we left off on Luke 19. And everything about that entry, and everything about what happens today, and everything about what happens this week is all on a divine timetable. You're going to see where we have three main points today. It's about temple terror, it's about temple teaching, and it's about temple trouble. And that's our brief outline for the few verses we're going to cover this morning.

But you need to understand that this is the time in which our Lord had predicted so many years ago. In fact, 500 years before this d, in the book of Zach, in the book of Malachi, we're able to understand some of the. Different prophecies that were given concerning this day. You know the story about how the Lord told his men to go into the village and find the colt, and there they're going to find the colt tied and one that had never been. written before and they are to ask for that colt and when they say, why do you ask?

You're going to the Lord has need of it. Everything happened just exactly as the Lord God had described it was going to happen because He was in control of everything. And that's exactly what took place. And he would ride this colt as he would descend the Mount of Olives. He has made his way. From Jericho up to Bethany, up to the backside of the Mount of Olives. And now he's going to descend the Mount of Olives in this triumphal entry. And there are some 200,000, maybe 300,000 people. Involved in this entry process, historians tell us.

There were a multitude of people following Christ. They were all going to Jerusalem for the Passover. And so they were all about the Christ and what was happening. With the miracles of the two blind men healed in Jericho, that would arouse much more interest from that city and the people that were. along with him. And so there was a huge amount of people following Christ, let alone as he would begin to descend the Mount of Olives. There would be a lot more people. Understand this: that Jewish law said that you had to spend the night in Jerusalem during Passover.

That's where you had to be. So Jerusalem became a tent city. That's the way it was. And that tent city began to expand more and more and more. It would extend towards Bethlehem. It would extend up the Mount of Olives and around the surrounding area because there were so many people. Some would say that there were even somewhere of upwards to two. Million Jews in Jerusalem during Passover. Well, if you come to Jerusalem and you have a family that lives there, you can stay with them. But if you don't have a family, you don't have relatives, you don't have a good friend that will take you in, you're going to have to spend the night there in the city or in the surrounding elements of the city.

Okay? And so all these people are there. Well, here is Jesus descending the Mount of Olives. And as he descends on this cult, everything about that Was a prophecy that was given by Zach in Zach chapter nine, verse number nine. This is what it says. It says these words: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. That's the Jewish people. Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you. He is just and endowed with salvation, humble, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the full of a donkey.

Well, that's exactly what Jesus is doing. And so if you're Jewish and you've been raised in the synagogue like all of them had been, you would begin to put two and two together, supposedly. You begin to understand that this is the king coming. So when he arrives, they take off their garments, they lay them down, and they begin to say these words in Luke 19: Blessed is the king. Who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest? Now, when you read Mark's account and you read Matthew's account, you're able to get all the verbiage that was being said that day.

But they were attributing to Christ kingship. They saw him at that time as the possibility that this would be their king. And so the emotion was high, the anticipation was high as to what it is the king was going to be able to do at this time. You need to understand the set. The praise was all foretold. The way he came into the city was all predicted. Everything went on schedule. Everything was on time. Everything was moving to Calvary. That's at the end of this week. I told you it's going to take us five months to cover five days, the last five days of our Lord's life on this earth.

Because we're going to give it to you in great detail. You can't afford to miss anything that he says and anything that he does. And so we're going to spend a lot of time understand this so that you know this last week of his life. More so than any other week of his life, because this is what he came for. He came to die. And so, as we begin to study this, we begin to understand what is happening. But they would say, bl is he. Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Remember, he was called the coming one.

A title for the Messiah, the coming one, based on Psalm 118, based on Malachi chapter 3. Malachi chapter 3. Turn there back with there, if you would, just for a moment to Malachi chapter 3, last book in our Old Testament. The book of Malach, that's the Italian prophet. Go back to his book, and we'll see exactly what he says in Malachi 3, verse number 1. You need to understand this because this is what a Jew would have in mind. Behold, I am going to send my messenger. This is the Lord God speaking.

That, by the way, is John the Baptist. That's why John the Baptist would ask the question when he was in prison: Are you the coming one? Why? Because the coming one is the title for the Messiah. John knew who he was. John had no identity crisis. He knew that he was a forerunner to the Messiah. He wondered if Jesus had an identity crisis. Do you know who you are? Are you the coming one? Because I'm the forerunner. If I'm the forerunner and you're the coming one, that makes you the Messiah. But if you're the Messiah, why am I in prison?

That was the question that John asked when he would send his men to ask Jesus: Are you the Arach, the coming one, a title for the Messiah? Because he knows Malachi 3, verse number 1. His dad was a priest of the temple, Zach. So John knows Malachi 3, verse number 1. Behold, I 'm going to send my messenger. That's John the Baptist. And he will clear the way before me, that's the Messiah, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The one that you're seeking will suddenly come to his temple.

And the messenger of the covenant. In whom you delight, that's the Messiah, that's Jesus Christ, Haggai chapter 2, verse number 7, calls him the desire of the nations or the delight of the nations. The one that you delight in, the one that you desire, is going to come to you. He's going to come suddenly to his temple. Now, when Malach wrote the last book here in our Old Testament, okay? He wrote after the destruction of the first temple, there was no temple.

So there had to be a temple for The messenger to pave the way for the Messiah. You with me so far? Are you all together? Are you all awake? Are you all with me? I want you to be with me because this is important. You need to get this. This is crucial. If I'm a Jew and I'm in Luke 19, 2,000 years ago, I got to realize that this stuff's going around in my mind. Zach 9:9, Malachi 3, verse number 1. They know their Old Testament, supposedly. They're supposed to know what the Old Testament says. And so in their mind, they're thinking about this one who was to suddenly come to his temple.

And the messenger of the covenant whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. Why is he coming? Because he is the coming one. Tyler for the Messiah. So, the question comes: Is Luke 9:1 a fulfillment of the Messiah coming suddenly to his temple? Answer, yes. But there's more to it than that. As we've gone through Luke's gospel, we know that in Luke chapter 2, he would suddenly come eight days after his birth. Because eight days after his birth, he was presented to Simeon, and Simeon would bless him because Simeon had been given a promise that he would not die until he saw the Lord's Messiah.

So at his dedication in Luke 2, he would suddenly come to his temple. Later in Luke chapter 2, when he was 12, The Messiah would suddenly come to his temple because that would be his first Passover at his bar mitzvah, okay, where he becomes a son of the law and where his parents leave him behind and for three days they got come back and find him and he's Interacting with the leaders there in Israel, there in the temple.

He says to his parents, Don't you know I have to be about my father's business? So the Lord suddenly came to his temple at his dedication. Number two, he suddenly came to his temple at his declaration about being about his father's business.

He was on a mission. He knew at 12 years old what his mission was. He knew at 12 years old that he was a sacrificial lamb. He knew at 12 years old what exactly was going to happen at the end of his earthly ministry. He knew that. Now he suddenly comes not just by way of dedication, not just by way of declaration, but now he comes by way of denunciation. Now he comes and denounces the religious system of Israel. He does it two times in John chapter 2 at the beginning of his earthly ministry. And in Luke chapter 19, at the end of his earthly ministry, because not much has changed.

Can you imagine that? Here is the Son of God. In the land of Israel, not a real huge land. Those of you who've been there with me, you know it's not very big. He was there for three years. And not much has changed in three years. Even though the Son of God is preaching every day, even though the Son of God is healing people every day, not much has changed in three years from John 2 to Luke chapter 19, as we will see in just a few moments. And so that's the setting, that's where you're at. So he comes into the city on the backside of this cult that's never been ridden before to fulfill Zechariah 9, verse number 9.

To let his men know that he's in complete control of everything. The people hail him as the king. There's great anticipation surrounding him. And I told you I wasn't going to review, but that's exactly what I'm doing. See, it's hard for me not to do that. It is. I've got to get you caught up to speed. You've got to know what's going on. You've got to know context. You have to understand exactly where we're at. And so here is Jesus doing exactly what he said he was going to do in the fulfillment of Scripture.

And they hail him as their king. They take off the garments. They lay him down, saying, Here, you take us. We are submissive to you. It's an act of submission. You are the king. Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. And so they see him at this time as king. This is crucial. Crucial. And at this time he says to them, Oh, Jerusalem, if you had known, says Luke chapter 19. In this day, and we talked to you about this day, what day is that? That is the 1, day. From the time that King Artaxerxes had made the decree that Israel would go back to rebuild the temple and rebuild the walls around the temple, back to Nehemiah.

And so you have to realize that everything was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Daniel chapter 9, verses 24 to 27. You see, it's all a fulfillment of prophecy. If you haven't been with us, you need to go back and listen to those CDs to understand exactly how everything was a fulfillment of Daniel's 69 weeks prophecy. Remember Daniel's prophecy of Daniel's 70th week? 70 weeks and 69 were fulfilled at the coming of the Messiah into Jerusalem, and the Messiah would be cut off at that time. He would die.

All of it's the fulfillment of prophecy. Everything is on a divine timetable. God is in charge of everything. It makes me feel a lot better about my life because God's in charge of my life too. Like He is, by the way, your life. Nothing happens by accident. Everything by divine appointment. Once you begin to understand that, you can sleep a lot easier at night. Everything in your life is by divine app. As it was for the Messiah. Now we can read our text for today. Luke 19, verse number 45. And he entered the temple and began to cast out those who were selling.

Saying to them, It is written, and my house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a robber's den. And he was teaching daily in the temple. But the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy him. And they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people were hanging upon all his wor. This is a great day. This is a great day. He goes into the temple in Luke 19. Mark 11: says that when he entered the temple, let me read it to you: Mark 11, verse number 11.

Says these words, and he entered Jerusalem. This is when he, in the triumphal entry, and came into the temple, and after looking all around, he departed for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late. So, during his triumphal entry, he came down the Mount of Olives. There was this great. Hymn of praise by the people. He actually went to the temple because he would descend the Mount of Olives, cross over the Kid Brook, go in toward the temple area, the temple court area. There he would stay just for a brief moment.

He'd peruse the area. He'd look at what was happening there. And because it was late, he would go back. He would ascend back up the Mount of Olives, back to the backside where Bethany was with Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and his disciples. Spend the night, and now he comes back the next day. You with me so far? That's where he is. And he enters the temple on the next day after the triumphal entry. That's where he is, that's what he comes to. And this becomes an incredible day. The people were expect him to do great things.

The expectation was at its peak. Remember John 6 at the feeding of the 5,000 early on in his ministry. In John 6, the Bible says that they wanted to take him by force to be their king.

He'd fed upwards of 25,000 people with just a few loaves of bread and a few fishes. And he knew that they wanted to take him by force to be king, and so he would escape away to a lonely place. On the next day, they were looking for Jesus, they couldn find him, and they were running around on the edge of the Sea of Galilee trying to find Jesus. When they finally found him, he, Where have you been?

Wait, we've been looking all over for you. And he says to them, You're looking for me because you're hungry. It's breakfast now.

Yesterday you were fed, you were filled. And now it's breakfast, you're hungry again, you're looking for me because you're hungry. You see, this is the problem with the Jews. They were about everything that didn't matter. They were about all the externals. They weren't about the internal. They were all about the external. They were all about the physical appetite. They were all about the issues surrounding them. They had missed what was going on on the inside of them, and that's why Jesus came. See?

He came to deal with the inside of a man. Not what was happening around man. And so you need to understand that because when you come to this point in Luke chapter 19, they are expecting him to do something. Maybe go to Antonio's fortress, which was. Right there around the temple area. Maybe they would go to Pilate's house. Maybe he would go and set himself up as king and overthrow them. That's what they were expecting. And after all, if he is the king, he is our Messiah, he is going to be a revolutionary.

And he is going to be a warrior. And he is going to win the battle. And you go back to the Old Testament, you read all those prophecies concerning the great warrior king who comes, but that's going to happen at his second coming.

They missed the whole aspect of his first coming. And so, excuse me, he would come and they had high expectations about what the Messiah was going to do. And what he does is the direct opposite of what they expected him to do. Oh, by the way, that's you and me. We expect the Messiah to do certain things for us. And when he doesn't, what do we do? Well, they yell, cruc him. That's what they yelled. We can get pretty upset with Jesus because of our expectation level. Because we expect Jesus to do certain things for us.

We expect Jesus to do things our way. Jesus never does things our way. Because we're not in charge. He does it his way. He's in charge. So they had this expectation level that here was this Messiah. He was going to overthrow Rome, their oppressor. He'd take care of the taxation that just had destroyed their lives. But instead, instead, he att the soul of the nation. Instead, he attacks the religious system. Instead, he attacks their worship. Instead, he attacks that which was. The most revered in their lives, the temple area, and the people who ran the temple area.

Instead, he came to attack religion. You see, we think that if Jesus came today, he'd go to Washington, D. C. I got news for you. Number one, if he did come today, he wouldn't come to America.

That's number one. And number two, if he did come, he wouldn't come to Washington, D. C. Where would he go? He'd go to the church. That's where he'd go. Because you see, in the Jewish mind, Social reform, economic reform, political reform, all that was major to them. In Jesus' mind, he didn't care less about that stuff. And by the way, neither should you. He didn't care less about that stuff. Why? That's like arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It's going down anyway, right? It's just going to go down maybe a little neater than if the deck chairs weren't arranged properly, right?

It's still going down. It's still going down. Jesus knows that. He's not there to arrange the deck chairs of economic reform and social reform and moral reform in Israel. He's there to change the hearts of people. That's why he came preaching the gospel. He came to deal with the soul of a man. He came to die for your soul and my soul. That's why he came. And so he attacks their worship because their worship was so perverted. It was so wrong. A lot like it is in America. Our worship is so perverted, it's so out of whack, that if Jesus was to come as He did in this day, He would come to the church and He would deal with the people in the church.

Because Israel was supposed to represent him, and they did not do a very good job of that. He came to attack their hypocrisy. He came to attack the phonies, the fakes. Because when Jesus came, he said, My Father seeks true worship, not false worship. True worship, those who worship Him in spirit and in truth. You see, society's relationship to God is what's most important. Worship is the issue. That is the issue. Worship. Who do you worship? Who do you honor? Who do you magnify? Who do you glorify?

Worship is the issue. Who takes up first place in your heart? It must be Christ. If not, you're in need of a temple cleansing. Like they were in need of a temple cleansing. We need to stand. With Christ. It doesn't mean, listen, listen what I'm saying. It doesn't mean that what was happening in Rome did not grieve our Lord because his people were oppressed. Just like what happens in Washington, D. C. should grieve us on the inside. We should be grieved over what's happening in our country morally, politically, socially, economically.

It weighs on us. But the mission should be the same as Messiah's mission. The souls of each individual who walks this planet. That somehow they might come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. That's the mission. That was his mission. We need to stand with Christ on that. Where did Christ go? He went to the temple area. He went to the court of the Gentiles. Remember.

That when you go into the temple, the first thing you enter into is a court of the Gentiles. Anybody could go there: Jew, man or woman, and Gentiles. And that's where he was. Now, if you were to leave that area, you'd go through a gate called the Beautiful Gate, and that would be the court of women. Women could go there, and Jews could go there, but no Gentiles could go there. And if you were to leave the court of the women, you would go through Nic's gate, and that would be a huge golden gate that took 20 men to open and 20 men to close.

And that would take you into the court of the Israelites. And that was only for Jewish men to ent. And they would be able to see the workings of the priest in the court of the priest as they would view that. They could not go in there. And then beyond that was the Holy of Holies. Jesus was in the court of the Gentiles. And in the court of the Gentiles, there was this bazaar called the Bazaar of Annas that was taking place. You need to understand what's happening here. This is huge. This is not a few little shops set up here and there, like when you walk down the mall and you see a kiosk in the middle and there's one every 20 feet or so.

Oh, no, no. They're slammed up side by side, back to back. They are jam-packed with these little, what we would call kiosks, but we would call them traitors' tables in the court of the Gentiles. And Jesus walks in there and because it became a huge business. Why? Well, you'd have to be involved in sacrifice. So you could bring your lamb, okay? But the problem with that is that it was inspected by the priests, and the priests were corrupt. And they would inspect your lamb, and they would say either it was yay or nay.

Thumbs up, thumbs down, on whether or not that lamb was the spotless lamb, the kind of lamb that could be sacrificed to atone for your sins. And the chances of them accepting that were very, very rare. So you'd have to buy one of their lambs. See, they weren't stupid. They would inspect your lamb and say, nah, it's not good enough. Try this one over here. And it would be marked up some ten times the market price. It makes the money. And let's say you were too poor and you couldn't offer a land, you'd offer.

Two doves, because according to Levitica law, you could do that, and they would be $10 each. And then, when you came, you had to pay what's called a temple tax. And this is amazing because you just couldn't give your money. You had to give a certain kind of coinage. Well, if you didn't have that, you had to buy it. And it was 25% markup. That would be like you come into church today and say, we only accept certain coin. And so, because you don't have that coinage, you got to buy our coins. It's going to cost you 25% more to buy our coins.

See, you wouldn't be very happy when the offering plate went by, would you? Okay? Why? Because you'd have to spend 25% more just to get the proper coinage to give your gift. You'd be all right. You wouldn't come back. But that's the way it was. This was a money-making business. I mean, there was money flying all over the place. The priests were corrupt. They were rich, but they were corrupt. And Jesus saw this the day previously, and now he comes back to deal with it. That's why our outline is temple terror, temple teaching, temple trouble.

It begins with temple terror. What does it say? And he entered the temple and began to cast out those who were selling, saying, It is written. And my house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a robber's den. Wow. My house. My house, Isaiah fifty-six, verse number seven, Isaiah fifty Excuse me. Verse number se reads this way: even those I will bring to my holy mountain. And make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.

Jesus comes and says that you have taken my house, which is designed to be a house of prayer. He takes them back to Isaiah 56, verse number 7, because if you're a Jew, And you're raised in the synagogue, and you're in the synagogue every day, twice on Saturday, then you begin to know what Isaiah 56, verse number 7 says: that the temple is designed to be a house of prayer on the holy mountain of God. So he takes them back to Isaiah 56, verse number 7, to understand exactly what is happening. He goes and he says, You have corrupted my father's house.

You have corrupted it with your worship. You have corrupted it with your worship. And therefore, he assaults their religious system. It says, and he began to cast out those who were selling. Now that's kind of a minor aspect of it when you just first of all read it.

Okay? If you go back to Matthew's account. It says in Matthew, it says, and Jesus entered the temple and cast out all those who were buying and selling in the temple and overturned the tables. Of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. If you read Mark's account in Mark eleven, it says this And he entered Jerusalem and came into the temple. After looking all around, he departed from Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late. And on the next day, when they had departed from Bethany, he became hungry.

And seeing, I'm sorry, I go down to verse 15. My bad. And they came to Jerusalem and he entered the temple and began to cast out those who were buying and selling in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And he would not permit anyone to carry goods to the temple. Now, you have to understand the picture. Not only, now, remember, this is not a kiosk every 20 feet. They're all mapped up. You have hundreds of money changers. You don't have a hundred.

You don't have 200. You have hundreds of them. Okay? You have upwards of two to five to seven hundred of these little quote kiosks there in the Court of the Gentiles. Hundreds of them. And Jesus begins to turn over the tables. Now, that's a violent act. You just don't take a table and lift it up and put it on its side and say, okay, you guys got to go. That's not how it works. He's flipping them. He's flipping the chairs. On top of that, he will not let anyone carry anything out. How do you do that?

How does one man take care of somewhere between 500 and 1,000 men? How does one man do that and make sure that none of them carries anything out? How does one man disrupt the whole system? How does one man make that happen? Did they line up? Were they willing participants? Not in your life. Do you think they were willing? Do you think they said, oh, yeah, turn this one over, Jesus? Flip this one over three or four times. Let me see what you can do with this one over here.

Do you think they willingly participated or lined up to be tossed out of the temple area? No. No. He had done this earlier in John chapter 2, where zeal for my father's house consumes me, the disciples would recall in Psalm 69. So they knew that there was a zealousness about the purity of worship and the holiness of this place. Well, now, and there he made a whip. Here, he's just using his bare hands. He's taking everything out. You can't carry, some guys are trying to carry their stuff 500 to 1,000 men.

Trying to carry their stuff. He's not letting any of them take it. Not one. How does one man do that? He went all Jack Bauer on them. I mean, but Jack Bauer can't do a thousand men. He might do four or five or six, but he did hundreds of them. How did he do that? He's a son of God. Oh, by the way, he's the king. He's the king. Talk about temple terror. They were scared to death. Of what he was doing. He had taken control of everything. And he was running people out of there. And they were running.

They were scared. He started throwing them out. His physical power. Was beyond anything that was natural. It was supernatural. He is the Son of God. He kicked over the stools. He turned over the tables. He didn't let anybody carry anything out of there. He emptied the place of all of those corrupt people who were taking people's Money. What did Peter say? If judgment's going to begin, let it begin where? In the house of God. That's where it began. God hates those who pervert worship and use his name to do that.

Perverted worship is a heinous, blasphemous sin against God. You better do it his way, or you're in need of a temple cleansing. And that's exactly what was taking place in the land of Israel on this day. He comes, he repeatedly says, the text says he's repeating this: My father's house is a house of prayer, you made it a den of thieves. My father's house is a house of prayer. He made it a deadly thesis. He repeats it over and over and over again as he turns the table over, as he casts out another individual, as he kicks over another stool, as he begins to move them off.

Can you imagine all the doves and pigeons? fluttering all around of all of their all of the the uh um uh the almost like it was in slow motion all the feathers falling down all the Coin going up in the air and falling all over the place, man. And there it all goes, man. Just real slow motion, like, man. It was everywhere. All the coinage just banging on the stones there. And the feathers flying all over the place, the birds taking off, and people running out of there. Can you imagine to see? Oh, boy, I wish there was a DVD in heaven about this.

I'd love to be able to go back in time and say, well, let's see that DVD. It's just an amazing thing. And so.

Jesus keeps saying it over and over again because in 1 Kings chapter 8, I don't have time to read that for you, but if you go back to 1 Kings chapter 8, Solomon had dedicated the temple. And everything was about it being a place of prayer. And God has, This is a place of prayer. When you sit, you here to pray. This is a place of confession. This is a place of meditation. This is a place of That's why a psal said in Psalm 27, verse 4: This one thing I desire, yea, this one thing that I aspire to, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I might meditate upon the Lord to behold his beauty, right?

Okay, it's all about the meditation, it's all about the worship, it's all about the praise, it's all about the honor, it's all about communion with God. That's what it was all about. Over in Psalm 6, the psalm said these words. Psalm 65, I'm sorry, Psalm 65, verse number 4. How blessed is the one thou dost choose and bring near to thee to dwell in thy courts. We will be satisfied with the goodness of thy house. Thy holy temple. It was all about the worship of God, the honoring of God, and that's not what was happening.

Nothing like that was going on. There was no communion, there was no worship, there was no praise, there was no silent meditation. It was a bizarre. It was like a farmhouse. The stench, the smell, the animals. The corruption, the perversion, it was everywhere. And here was a holy God walking into his father's house, realizing that nothing was happening as it had been prescribed to take place. And he was Angry, to say the least, furious because of how his father's name was blasphemed. And so temple terror took front and center.

You've made this place a den of robbers. That's from Jeremiah 7, verse number 11. Robbers used to hang out in caves in secret places, but they didn't have to do that anymore. They could go and they could buy their own little section there on the temple courts. And they could go there and they could sell and make money and be involved in thievery and rob people blind. And you've made it a den of robbers. This is what you've done with my place. God was so angry that when it was destroyed some 40 years later, it has never been rebuilt.

Never. That's how angry God was. It has never been rebuilt in two thousand years. Because their worship was so corrupt. From temple terror, we moved to temple teaching. Because look at the compassion of God.

And he was teaching daily in the temple. Get the scene. As the feathers fall from the pigeons and the doves, as the coins are being are rolling across the stone, and as it The chairs are continually falling down the stairs, and everything is happening. Jesus begins to teach. Now he can. You got to get all that corruption out of there because the holy man is going to speak. And therefore, everything else must go. What did he say? What did he teach on? Well, chapter 20, verse number 1. What's it say?

And it came about on one of the days while he was teaching the people in the temple and preaching. What? The gospel. What else is he going to say? Same thing as always said: if any man come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and fo me. He was speaking about the forgiveness of sins. He was speaking about the lordship of Christ. He was speaking about the kingdom of God. That's what he came to do. He came to preach about that. In fact, over in chapter 20, verse number 21, it says. You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth.

That's what he's doing. He's teaching them about the ways of God, he's teaching them the truth of God. At the same time, he's teaching them, as we will see, about the judgment of God, because if he's going to show compassion to the people of God. He must teach them about the judgment of God. And we'll see as we go through each of these days: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, he speaks about God's judgment. He speaks about the gospel. He exposes the heretics. He exposes the phonies. He calls them out for what they really are in front of everybody in the temple court.

And the longer he preaches, the angrier the leaders become. The angrier the religious leaders become because he calls them into account on their turf. Which really is his turf, because it's his father's house. And so he begins to teach that he might expose the error that was there. In chapter 21, verse number 3, they would ascend to the Mount of Olives because at night, that's what they did. They would leave the temple area, they'd go to the Mount of Olives, they'd go to sleep, they'd come back out of the Mount of Olives after teaching them a while, they'd go back into the temple courts and teach again.

That 's what he did. One last opportunity. He knows on Friday he's going to die. He knows exactly everything is on a divine timetable. So he's going to get out as much as he possibly can. To tell the people exactly what they need to know. That's why it's going to take us five months to cover five days because you got to know that what he's going to say is what everybody needs to hear. And if you know somebody who's not here, you better bring them next week. You better make sure they're sitting right next to you next week because if everybody in Israel needed to hear those last words of Christ, you can be sure that everybody in this church needs to hear those last words of Christ.

And you better make sure they're here next week, and the week after that, and the week after that, because they need to know exactly what Jesus is saying. They got to digest it, they got to understand it because Jesus is speaking. And Jesus knows that on Friday he's going to die. He's getting everything out he needs to get out one last time. It's powerful stuff. It's good stuff. It's great stuff. And so he teaches. Would this be enough to convince them? That he's right, that he's the king. I mean, can you imagine moving hundreds of people as one man?

And nobody being convicted. Can you imagine the power of his words? Because it says people were hanging on every word that he said. His words were powerful. Matthew's account says, Never a man spoke like this man spoke. Nobody was like Jesus. But this didn't convince them of anything. It just led from temple terror to temple teaching to temple trouble. Look what it says. But the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy him. And they could not find anything that they might do.

Why? Because they couldn't destroy him. Because no one would take his life from him. He'd have to lay it down on his own initiative. For all the people were hanging upon his word. This is temple trouble. They were so angry. He had upset their whole system. Their whole mon system. This is how they got rich. And Jesus had destroyed that. This didn't make them happy. On top of that, all the things he's going to say, not only to them, about them, in front of them, just made them irate. Oh, they just wanted to kill him.

Mark's account says they wanted to kill him. But they couldn't find anything or any way to kill him. They couldn't figure it out. Oh, they will. They're going to come up with a plan, a plan that was really not theirs, it was really ordained by God, but it was a plan that they would finally be able to come up with that would allow them to get him to Calvary to be crucified.

But it was really on God's timetable. So you can call it temple trouble or temple timet, because everything is on God's timetable. No pun intended with the table word there, but everything is on God's timetable. He's in charge. They were hanging on every word that he said. They were unable to find a strategy, the Greek says. They couldn't conjure up in their mind a way to kill him. Remember now, at this point, As he goes through this day and the next day, he's the king. Everybody's seen him as the king, hailed him as the king.

Expect him to do the king thing. They expect that to happen. At any moment, now, at any moment, he going to ascend the throne. At any moment, he's going to take. Control at any moment, he will rule Rome at any moment. That's gonna happen. So they're living in anticipation that the king is gonna do the king thing. So they're hanging on every word he's saying. Every word he's saying. They're hanging on it as if it's the most important word he's ever going to say. And there are hundreds, literally thousands of people gathering around him as he begins to teach and as he begins to To speak.

It's Passover. What better time for all this to take place? And they listen, hanging on to every word that he says. They expected him to do something for them. And when he doesn't, they yell cruc him. And while you might not yell, cruc him, there are some of you today that are probably expecting Jesus to do something for you, and he's not doing it. And you're not very happy with them. Be careful that your expectations don't govern the way you live. But that God's expectations control everything that you do.

What does God expect to happen in your life, your marriage, your family, your soul? What does God expect? God is the divine purifier. That's what He is. And when he came that first time in John 2 and took the whip and cleansed the temple, ran everybody out that first time, you notice he's doing the same thing again.

Because as much as he has taught the word of God, as many people that have heard the word of God, listen carefully to what I'm going to say, very few people. Ever truly believed. Very few did. By the way, the same is true today. Same thing is true today. Very few believe. Only a few find the narrow way. And as great as the miracles were, and they were astronomical because he pretty much banished all disease from the land of Israel. Nobody can do that today. Healed everybody who came to him, raised the dead.

The miracles were off the charts to prove his messianic credentials. But they still didn't believe. Still didn't believe. Only a few did. So when Jesus comes that first time and he cleanses the temple.

Do you know what happened before that? There was a wedding at Cena in Galilee. And that's where he performed his first miracle, his first one.

His mother had come to him and said, They had no joy because the wine is gone. And he says, Woman, what is it you want me to do? And he would take those. Water pots used for the purification of your hands, the washing of your hands, filled with murky, dirty water, and turn them into the finest of wine. Because it was his first miracle, and that's what he came to do: to take the murky, dirty, sinful lives of people.

And trans it into the finest, purest of all wine. To accentuate that, the very next scene is a temple cleansing. Because Jesus is in to cleanliness. You heard the phrase, cleanliness is next to godliness? In Christianity, cleanliness is godliness. Cleanliness is godliness because he cleans you so you can be godly. And he goes to the temple cleansing. And the very next scene after the temple cleansing is his conversation with who? Nicodemus. And the whole conversation about Nicodemus is being able to be washed with the washing of the water of the Word.

It's all about cleansing. Because he's the divine purifier. That's what he came to do. He came to erase the dirtiness of our lives, that we might be made clean, righteous, and holy before him. At the end of his ministry, very few are holy. Very few have been cleansed. A lot of it had to do with the perverted, corrupted worship that was happening in the land of Israel, and he was irate. So he dealt with it. In the most majestic, divine, holy manner possible. And he ran everybody out. And as the feathers began to slowly fall to the ground from all the doves and pigeons that have been scattered.

As the coinage began to continue to roll down the steps and over the stones, Jesus sits down and says it's time to have a conversation. It's time to talk. And now that everything is corrupt is gone, now he can begin to speak clearly. So, people will hear. He's got their und attention. Would you not agree? I wonder if he has your attention today. That you'd be willing to listen to the next few day of his earthly life. Let 's pray. Pray. Father, we thank you, Lord, for your word, the truth that's there, the opportunity we have to study it.

We are truly a blessed people. Thank you for recording this event in your word, that we might read it, understand it, and live in light of it. If there be one among us who is not saved, may today be the day of their salvation. May they come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Lord. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.