A survey taken among men and women from particular professions revealed their favorite hymns. Among dentists, their favorite hymn was, Crown Him With Many Crowns. Among opticians, Open My Eyes That I May See. Among electricians, Send the Light. and among IRS auditors, all to thee. Now one primary function of an introduction of any kind of public address is to capture the attention of the audience. And so far, I have also brought a smile to your face. However, I've done this in a negative way. because I have provided you with an unholy focus on hymns which are intended to wholly focus our attention on the Lord. But is that not what we do frequently in our worship? What is intended to bring focused attention to the creator, we give a twisted and corrupt attention to the creature. Westminster Confession of Faith, larger catechism begins. What is the chief end of man? The answer to that question is the chief end of man is to Glorify God and we get that from verses like this in first Corinthians 10 whether then you eat or drink whatever you do do all to the glory of God and the catechism continues to Enjoy him forever My devotion my delight my life is focused on My attention, my affection is fixed on worshiping God, glorifying Him, enjoying Him forever. I am extolling His name. I am celebrating His person, His presence, His power. Psalm 73, the psalmist writes, whom have I in heaven but you? Besides you, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. A. W. Tozer wrote this, he said, we are called to an everlasting preoccupation with God. In his book, The Root of the Righteous, he wrote this. There is a place in the religious experience where we love God for himself alone and with never a thought of his benefits. We are preoccupied with God in all that we do. When Moses was on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights, He received instruction from the Lord. He received the instruction of the law, and he received the instructions for the construction of the tabernacle. And with these two sets of instructions, God informed Moses and the people of Israel how to live and how to worship. how to live and how to worship. That continues to this day. God has left us his word that we know how to live. He has left us his spirit. He has given us the son that we might know how to worship. This morning in our continuing study through the fourth gospel, we find Jesus in a difficult spot. He's in the temple and as is common with all of us too much of the time, we have given an unholy focus to the things of the Lord. And Jesus cleans up the worship in the temple. And I pray as a result of our time in the scriptures, we will find him cleaning up our own worship of the Holy One. Turn with me to the book of John, chapter two. beginning at verse 12. After this, Jesus went down to Capernaum, he and his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there a few days. The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And he found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers seated at their tables. And he made a scourge of cords and drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And to those who were selling doves, he said, take these things away. Stop making my father's house a place of business. His disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me. The Jews then said to him, what sign do you have to show us as your authority for doing these things? Jesus answered them, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again. The Jews then said, it took 46 years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days? But he was speaking of the temple of his body. So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scriptures and the word which Jesus had spoken. I've divided this section into three parts. The setup, as we begin to look at the account itself, then we'll look at Jesus' anger, followed by Jesus' authority. If you notice in the text, verse 12, It says that Jesus, along with his earthly family, his mom and his brothers, and his disciples, they went down to Capernaum. Now, probably they are in Cana still. and it's from there that they are traveling east, oh, about 13 miles as the crow flies, to the northern portion of the Sea of Galilee. Now, the Sea of Galilee is part of the Rift Valley, and it is, the Rift Valley there is part of the lowest, geographically, the lowest part on the dry surface of the earth. The Dead Sea is still lower, but the Sea of Galilee is about 700 feet below sea level. So geographically, if you were traveling to the sea from anywhere in the surrounding area, you go down to Capernaum. Capernaum was on the North Shore. part of the trade route that went from Damascus, Syria to the Mediterranean Sea. Now we don't know if this is the occasion, we know that Peter, James, and John had relocated to the city of Capernaum, and Jesus was moving to Capernaum himself, and maybe with his mother and his brothers, we're not sure. It may be on this occasion that Jesus took advantage of the extra hands and they relocated there. Maybe they had already done so, and they were simply there in Capernaum for a few days, washing, taking care of the mail, paying a few bills maybe. And then, verse 13, onto Jerusalem. There was a feast in Jerusalem, namely Passover, that they had to attend. Deuteronomy 16, 16, there were three feasts each year that the Jewish men had to attend, and certainly families were welcome, but it was required of the men that they present themselves before the Lord. There were three times in John's gospel that we find a Passover celebration occurring in chapter two, chapter six, and chapter 11. It's also possible that the unnamed feast in chapter five, verse one, is another Passover meal. A lot of commentators believe that it is. If that's the case, then we know over these four Passovers that Jesus's earthly ministry took place over more than three years. Right? So Jesus is headed toward Jerusalem. Because of the elevation of Jerusalem, everywhere around it, when you are traveling to the city, you go up in elevation. So Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Verse 14 sets the scene and we find out what Jesus finds when he arrives there. Of course, the temple is the focal point, the hub of the Passover celebration. And Jesus found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers seated at their tables. Verse 15, and he made a scourge of cords, drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen, poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And to those who were selling doves, he said, get out of here. It's a loose paraphrase. You are making my father's house a place of business. Does this, does this, Particular events surprise you about Jesus. Elsewhere in scripture we read that Jesus is meek and mild, Jesus is gentle and gracious, and he's not showing any of these qualities here. Jesus is red hot angry. He is full of rage, full of fury. He takes some cords and he is driving the animals away from the temple area. Let me read to you what one Anglican scholar, Frederick Farrar, says about this scene. He paints it well. there in the actual court of the Gentiles, steaming with heat in the burning April day, and filling the temple with stench and filth, were penned whole flocks of sheep and oxen, while the drovers and pilgrims stood bartering and bargaining around them. There were the men with the wicker cages filled with doves, and under the shadows of the arcade formed by quadruple rows of Corinthian columns sat the money changers, which their tables covered with piles of various small coins, while, as they reckoned and wrangled in the most dishonest of trades, their greedy eyes twinkled with the lust of gain. And this was the entrance court of the Most High. The court, which was a witness that that house should be a house of prayer for all the nations, had been degraded into a place which for foulness was more like shambles and for bustling commerce more like a densely crowded bazaar. while the lowing of oxen and the bleating of sheep, the babble of many languages, the huckstering and wrangling, the clanking of money and of balances, perhaps not always just, might be heard in the adjoining courts, disturbing the chant of the Levites and the prayers of the priests. And into this situation, Jesus walks. He looks around. He sees all of this commerce taking place, and Jesus is angry. He is good and angry. Never was Jesus angry out of control. Never was Jesus angry in a cruel manner or in an unjust way. He always had a lid on his anger. His anger was always righteous. This is not the only time we find Jesus good and angry. Mark chapter 5, we find the religious leaders stalking Jesus. They were watching, waiting, looking to see if he was going to heal a man on the Sabbath. Jesus, knowing their hearts, looked at them, and he was angry, the Scriptures say. Never out of control, however, never was he unjust. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4, be angry, yet do not sin. Sometimes we are angry at the wrong things. It's good to be angry for the right reasons. 19th century Scottish English writer and philosopher John Ruskin said this, the crowning wickedness of this age is that they have starved and chilled our faculty of indignation. meaning in his age, 19th century, people were no longer angry and indignant at the right things. Similarly in our age, we are passive when we should be angry, angry at the right things, angry in the same way Jesus was angry. So let me ask you, How did this situation arise when Jesus walked into the temple and he saw all of this commerce taking place? How did the temple become a place of commerce? How did that corruption take place? Well, think about it for a minute. All Jewish males were required to go to Jerusalem for the celebration of the feast, of feasts three times a year, and Passover was chief among them. Travelers came from a distance. There were sacrifices that needed to be made once arrived in Jerusalem. And it was impractical for those travelers to take animals with them. So it made sense that they would be able to buy animals there in Jerusalem for the sacrifice. Also, it was at this time that the religious leaders collected what's called the temple tax. in Exodus chapter 30, verse 13, it reads this way. This is what everyone who is numbered shall give, half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary as a contribution to the Lord. So every year, the temple tax, which was a head tax paid by every Jewish male, every year, half a shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel that had to be paid. And it was at this time that that was collected. Well, if you lived in a foreign land and you lived using a foreign currency, You came into Jerusalem, and according to the law, you had to have a sanctuary shekel as your payment of the temple tax. Well, it made sense that if you carried coinage that was from another land, that you had some kind of capability to exchange that money for the right currency to be accepted as your payment of the temple tax. Makes sense. Well, given that situation, there were many who saw this as a business opportunity. but it quickly degraded. You may have thought that the animal you had, maybe you brought with you, was without blemish and acceptable to God. But the Jews found a way to, you know, authenticate, or to verify, or to give their stamp of approval that this particular animal is acceptable for sacrifice, but yours is not, forcing you to have to buy their animal. And then, of course, there was the opportunity that some saw in the exchange of money from foreign currencies. One noted New Testament scholar, F.F. Bruce, said that the exchange rate to take foreign money into sanctuary shekels was 12.5% over whatever it was that you were exchanging. So these kind of practices were horrendous. And then, to make matters worse, During the time of the high priest Annas, all of this commerce didn't happen outside of the temple walls. They were brought into the temple. They called it the Bazaar of Annas. Annas was the high priest. And no doubt there was some kind of financial kickback to the high priest family for the privilege of doing business inside the temple walls for the benefit of the worshipers. This is greed and corruption run amok. Second page of your notes. Let me explore with you for just a moment why Jesus was good and angry. I put two reasons in front of you. First, the temple was to be the place to worship Yahweh. And that was compromised, that was corrupted. The worship of Yahweh was very, very secondary to the people that were involved in these business practices. When you come to worship here, you see it printed on your bulletin. We want you to come into this place of sanctuary, quiet, reflective, in a reverent manner, seeking the Lord. Now we come to this building on a Sunday morning, eagerly looking forward to having fellowship, talking with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and that's a good thing. But when we come into this room at this time for the purpose of worship, we want to turn off all of our electronic gadgets. We want to focus our attention in quietness upon the Lord. And when the Jews went to the temple, they were to have the same kind of quiet focus before Yahweh. Let me explain the restrictions that were placed on the temple. At the very heart of the temple was the most holy place. That was restricted to the high priest and he could only go into that room once a year at Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement, in the fall of each year. That was surrounded by, or that was another part of the temple proper was the holy place where the incense was burning and Priests that were on duty, only those priests on duty could enter that particular part of the temple structure. Around that temple structure was the court of the Levites. This is where the sacrifices took place. This is where all of the Levites could gather there. And surrounding that was the court of the Israelites. This was the court for the male worshipers, the Jewish men to come. And they would come and they would present their animal at the gate there that would lead to the court of the priests, of the Levites. Surrounding that was the court of women. where the Israelite women would go for prayer and for worship. And surrounding that was the court of the Gentiles. If you were a Gentile proselyte to Judaism, this was as close as you could get to the temple proper. This outer court was as far as you could go. And according to Mark chapter 11, this was to be the place where prayers for the nation were uttered. But it was here in the court of the Gentiles that the bazaar of Annas was set up. And all of these animals, by herds, herds of sheep, Or, no, it's, I guess, a flock of sheep, right? No, that's a flock of birds. What is it? A bunch of sheep. And cattle were there, and all of these animals, and all of the noise, and all of the filth, and all of the stench, it permeated the entire Temple Mount. There was no prayer there. There was no worship there. This is the first reason why Jesus was spittin' angry, is because the temple was no longer a place of prayer, a place of worship, it was a place of commerce. And they pushed aside prayer and worship. Secondly, the temple was used to prop up worthless religiosity. What I mean by that is just mere external religious works. The Lord instructed his people that he was not interested in the multiplication of their religious deeds. Let me I put these these references in your notes, but I want you just to listen listen to me Isaiah chapter 1 What are your multiplied sacrifices to me? Says the Lord I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls lambs or goats When you come to appear before me, who requires of you this trampling of my courts? Bring your worthless offerings no longer. Incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath, the calling of assemblies. I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly. Put away your religiosity. Jeremiah 7, for I did not speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices, but this is what I commanded them saying, obey my voice and I will be your God and you will be my people and you will walk in all the way which I command you that it may be well with you. David wrote in Psalm 51, for you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it. You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, oh God, you will not despise. God is not interested in the multiplication of religious things. God is not interested in us simply coming to worship, simply showing up, simply giving money in the offering. He's not interested in the mere multiplication of prayers. God wants nothing to do with that. What he's interested in is a heart that is broken and contrite. and the worship and the giving of our financial resources and praying will follow. But he's not interested in simply external religious work. That's exactly what worship had devolved to in the day of Jesus. as he walked into the temple. Point number three, Jesus, authority. Look at verse 18. The Jews said to him, what sign do you show us as your authority for doing these things? I picture as Jesus is in the temple area and he is making noise over and above all of what the animals are doing and the hucksters, you know, trying to drum up business. I imagine Jesus is making noise and he has created this whip, if you will, to drive the animals out of the temple area. There is chaos, he's overturning tables, money's flying everywhere, people are yelling back at him, hey, what do you think you're doing? And in the midst of this chaos, this cacophony, comes a posse. made up of the Sanhedrin, religious leaders, and probably the temple police right behind them. And they walk up to Jesus and they say, by what authority are you doing this? Now they probably would have responded to Jesus differently if they had discerned that he was mentally unstable, Or if he simply was looking for publicity, some kind of publicity stunt, they probably would have put him in handcuffs and ushered him away. But there was something about his presence that was different. Remember, Jesus is probably about 30 years of age at this point, at least. from the time that he was 12, maybe longer than that, earlier than that in his life. He had been up to Jerusalem three times a year. He was not a stranger to those parts. Now, this is the first time where he has publicly revealed himself to be Messiah. He has divine authority to do what he's doing. Thank you very much. But they knew him to be a man who was mentally stable and certainly not one who was simply looking to pull some kind of publicity stunt. So almost out of respect, but with A note of fear and a demand, they say, why are you doing this? Specifically, they ask, what sign do you show us as your authority for doing these things? They are not going to accept a reasoned response to their question. They want to have a sign, a show of power. Now as we talked last week, a sign, a miraculous attestation is a display of divine power and authority that is intended to demonstrate who Jesus is and what they need to do. That Jesus is Messiah and they need to believe. They need to follow and step in line to be obedient to him. The Jews here thumping Jesus on the chest are not interested in believing. Their demand for a sign is not going to stop Would not have stopped had Jesus Performed some kind of miracle at that point It would have simply caused them to say well, yeah, but what else could you do? More and more they would be looking for how they could personally benefit from the power and authority that Jesus is Jesus wielded Bottom line is, these religious leaders were looking to see who had the biggest club to demand conformity. Could they outmuscle Jesus and cause him to go away so they can continue their business? They weren't interested in right worship. You'll notice Jesus' response, verse 18. Destroy this temple. Caleb, could you check and see who's here? Jesus' response in verse 19. Jesus said, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it Let me give you some perspective here. Historical perspective, legal perspective, and personal perspective. Jesus said, destroy this temple and in three days I'm going to raise it. When Moses was given the instruction for the tabernacle, they had the necessary blueprint to construct that place, a restrictive place where God would meet his people, the tabernacle, that later came to be the temple. David's son Solomon was the one who constructed it and it was completed after seven years of construction in 959 BC. It stood for almost four centuries and then it was flattened, leveled, reduced to rubble by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. at which time, well actually previous to this, a few years previous, the Israelites were taken into their Babylonian captivity. When they were released from that exile and allowed to return, they rebuilt the temple. That's what they call the second temple. the post-exilic temple, sometimes called Zerubbabel's temple. It was 20 years in construction and a mere shadow of the glory of the Salmonic temple. That particular temple was in use for many centuries, and then at the end of the BC era, the end of the first century, Herod, called Herod the Great, or Herod the Builder, he built things like Masada, the Herodium, Caesarea. He built a seaport. If you know the east end of the Mediterranean Sea, it's so smooth. There's no natural seaport, but he built one at Caesarea. I was absolutely fascinated when I was there. I ran around with my camera. I cannot believe he did this. But he was best known for his work on the temple. Now, there are some that say, well, this is a third temple. Technically, it's still the post-exilic temple or Zerubbabel's temple, but he When Herod took out the permits to begin construction project on the temple, he labeled it a remodeled job. But it was so extensive, so massive was the building there that it was, in essence, another temple, although the sacrifices still continued at Zerubbabel's temple. It was a massive structure that Herod sought to build. He began construction in 19 BC. And it was being constructed, that is the whole process from beginning to end, took 83 years. It stood for only six years completed before the Romans completely decimated it in 70 AD. Now, scripture tells us in verse 20, that they were at year 46 of 83. And so they were a little bit more than halfway done. And the Jews were absolutely incredulous when they heard Jesus say, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. They were thinking to themselves, if not saying it verbally, this is pure fantasy. You are absolutely out of your mind. To get to where we are right now, it has taken 46 years. to build this temple, and you're gonna rebuild it in three days? You are not even rational, sir. But Jesus wasn't talking about his physical body. Now let me make a comment or two from a legal perspective. In ancient Greek, Greece and Rome history, in this period of time where paganism was everywhere, to desecrate or to destroy a temple, any temple, doesn't matter what god or goddess you're talking about, to desecrate or destroy any temple was a capital offense. So they took this kind of a threat very, very seriously. You couldn't just, you couldn't talk this way. However, if someone were to destroy and then rebuild in, A very, very, very, very, very, very short period of time, like three days. You know that that person would have the authority to speak on how the affairs of that temple were to be governed. But again, we're not talking about a physical temple. Verse 20. Jesus said, or the Jews said, it took 46 years to build this temple. Will you raise it up in three days? But Jesus, verse 21, was speaking of the temple of his body. His body was the temple of the Holy Spirit. As your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit if you're a believer in Christ. Now let me speak to this situation from a personal perspective. Notice what Jesus does not say in verse 19. He does not say, I will destroy this temple. He does not say that. He uses the second person plural. You destroy this temple. That would be a literal rendering of the text. Now, if you look over at Mark's gospel, chapter 14, we find that there were some that tried to pin this kind of responsibility on Jesus. Mark 14, verse 57, this is at his trial, his fake trial. Some stood up, began to give false testimony against him, saying, verse 58, we heard him say, I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands. Verse 59, but even in this respect was their testimony, not even in this respect, was their testimony consistent? They couldn't even get their lies straight. No, Jesus never said, I will destroy this temple. No, he said, you destroyed this temple. Speaking of his body, namely that they would kill him, they would crucify him, which is exactly what they were going to do. He said, here's the sign. You kill me. And in three days, I will raise myself back from the dead. Well, that's pretty amazing. He's going to raise himself? There's no dead anything, person, animal, plant, that can Rays itself, if it's dead, there's no life, there's no energy, there's no potential there. But Jesus says, here's the sign I'm going to give you. You want a sign? After you destroy my body, I will raise it up after three days. It's very much like the sign of Jonah. In Matthew chapter 12, verse 38, we read this. Some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, teachers, we wanna see a sign from you. Prove it, who are you? Jesus answered them, an evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it, but the sign of Jonah the prophet, for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the south will rise up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And behold, something greater than Solomon is here. The sign of Jonah was a sign of infinite grace to those who would believe, and of eternal judgment to those who refused. Now from a historical perspective, The Temple of Solomon, followed by the Temple of Zerubbabel, followed by the Temple of Herod, all of these, from one point of view, three temples, but actually, these two temples, they stood and were used for almost 1,030 years. Put that number in your mind, 1,030 years. In the 600s AD, the Muslims came in and took over Jerusalem. And on that same spot, the Temple Mount, they built the famed Dome of the Rock. over the exact same place where the Holy of Holies stood. Of course the Holy of Holies was long gone, but the Dome of the Rock has stood there, defiling, desecrating the Temple Mount. venerated by the Muslims and guarded by the Muslims. For how long? 1,330 years and counting. The destruction of the physical temple in Jerusalem was intended to redirect the focused attention of the Jew off of the physical structure and onto the one that physical structure pointed to. Worship was restricted to the temple in Jerusalem as a way to point to worship being restricted to the one who was to come. Jesus is the fulfillment of the temple. which is why it has not been rebuilt by the Jews. Back in our text, verse 22, when Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this. And they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken. The scriptures, the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures. And what Jesus said came together. They were consistent. And when Jesus had raised from the dead, raised himself from the dead, The disciples understood all of what Jesus said, all of what the scriptures had prophesied, and they believed. Sadly, the religious leaders did not. But it was in this cleansing that Jesus sought to remove their unholy focus and put a concentrated effort to have them wholly focus on the Lord, their God, that they must worship alone. At the beginning of his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, Tozer explained why he wrote that piece. He said this, quote, With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence. Modern Christianity is simply not producing the kind of Christian who can appreciate or experience the life in the Spirit. The words, be still and know that I am God, mean next to nothing to the self-confident, bustling worshiper in this middle period of the 20th century, unquote. Tozer wrote that in 1961. 61 years ago. And he knew nothing of the 21st century techno-worshipers sipping their lattes in a so-called worship service that they purchased from the barista in the church foyer. we would do well to clean our worship and make sure that we are wholly focused on the Lord and the Lord alone. Amen? Father, we thank you for your scriptures that you have preserved for us. Would you find in us hearts that are broken and contrite? Believers who want to meet with you in purity and in holiness, those who understand that we have nothing, are nothing, and we must come to you on your terms. purify our hearts, cleanse our worship that it might be true and honoring to you. Amen.