CLEANSING THE TEMPLE
Scripture Meditation:
John 2:14-17
14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” (NIV)
Comment:
From an economic point of view, the Temple did not need to be cleansed. After all, how can you have blood sacrifices as commanded by God’s law without sheep, goats, cattle and doves. God’s word was that those sacrifices be made and they do not just appear magically. Neither did people come from all over the world bringing their sacrifices with them. The fact of the matter is that they came with money and bought the sacrifices and took the sacrifices into the temple and carried out the commands of God.
In addition, remember that Jews came from all over the Roman world. When it came time to buy their sacrifices, they needed money to do it. When I travelled over the world, when I got to a foreign airport there were always money changing Kiosks where I could convert my American dollars into the coin of the country where I was visiting. In short, there was nothing intrinsically wrong with the sale of sacrificial animals or the exchange of money in order to purchase those animals. The issue is not what was going on but instead the issue was where it was going on.
Jesus went to the Temple expecting to find a “place of prayer.” Instead, the merchants had made it a “den of thieves.”
Jesus was angry. And he had a right to be angry. It was his Father’s house and it is OK to be angry when we see the Father’s house being trampled with pigs. Jesus expected his Father’s house to be a place of prayer, a place of teaching and a place of love. He also expected it to be a place of holiness. I believe that Jesus expects the same things from His church today. Instead, we have made his house a place of commerce. Christianity in America has become a place where money is made. Large ministries are funded, a music industry has grown up around the church, you can buy weight-loss products, self-improvement books, skin care products, and even Starbucks in our churches. We have compromised with the world. Our services are often more like night-clubs in an effort to bring in the lost. We want them to feel at home.
We have become so worldly, that we have become no earthly good. (I am sure that someone has said that before!). We have compromised with the world. Jesus says that when the salt has lost its savor it is good for nothing other than to be thrown out. Compromise has cost us our saltiness. We are like the church at Laodicea. We are neither hot nor cold. As Jesus said in Revelation 3:16: “I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”
The “meek and mild” Jesus which the world loves so much, does not seem so “meek and mild” when it comes to the church. The world loves a Jesus who does not judge and who never gets angry. Unfortunately, when Jesus returns it is not to be meek and mild but to judge. God came into the world to save people from judgment. However, judgment will come. Our modern world wants a Jesus without judgment and they want a universe where sin is always forgiven even if there is no repentance. The world is doomed to be disappointed because without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. Jesus shed his blood for us but that gift must be accepted—not ignored or trampled upon.
We live in a world which loves the “never angry” Jesus. Did Jesus have the right to get angry because his father’s house had been made into a den of thieves. I believe the answer to that question is “YES!” Sometimes we say in our family “Not our circus and not our monkeys.” In other words, in your house you can be as crazy as you please, but you can’t be as crazy as you please when you come into our house. If it is our house, we have the right to decide what monkey business goes on.
Keep in mind, when Jesus got angry, it was his Father’s house and if it was his Father’s house, then he had the right to decide what did and did not go on there. Jesus has the right to decide what goes on in his Father’s house. He also has the right to decide what goes on his holy temple and we, his church, are that holy temple.
I believe that it is time that the Bride of Christ becomes more pure and that involves throwing out the sheep, the cattle, the pigs, the doves, the money changers and the merchants who are using the Body of Christ to make money for themselves.
We have compromised way too much with the world and have excused ourselves for doing it under the guise of saying that we are doing it to bring in the lost.
1 John 2:15-17
15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father[a] is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. (NIV)
James as James 1:27 says:
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
So…what do we do? I believe that holiness begins at home. We seem to be more than willing to begin cleaning up the church but Jesus warns us that we need to get the beam out of our own eyes before plucking out the splinters in the eyes of others. Holiness begins at home. Before Jesus cleansed the temple he had cleansed his own heart. He had also instructed his followers to deal drastically with sin in their own lives. Jesus took a drastic and “no holds barred” approach when he dealt with sin. He told his followers that if your eye leads you into sin then pluck it out. Now I don’t suspect that most of his apostles walked around only with one eye. The message, however, was clear. We must stop compromising with sin. Moreover if that means shedding your own blood to resist sin, then that is what you must do. Most disciples got the message and tried to deal with sin both drastically and definitively in their own lives.
It is time for the people in the Body and Church of Christ to deal drastically with sin. We must cast the sheep, goats, cattle, doves and money changers out of our lives. As we clean up individually, I believe we will see the bridal garments of the Bride of Christ be more attractive and more pleasing to the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ. After all, the church is here to do the work of Jesus and to please Jesus, not the world.
We are not called to be successful or large. We are called to follow Christ. The problem is not that the churches are too small or that we are losing members, the problem is that we are too big and too “successful” because we have compromised with the world. God has called us to the narrow path instead of the broad, successful highway of destruction. We are called to the more narrow path of holiness.
