Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 8 - Jesus Defends God's Honor

Lord, we thank you so much for this time for us to be together in your presence as your children, your people. Thank you for your wisdom and giving us this day. On Sunday, where your church all around the world meets and sets aside time from their secular labors to come and labor as it were for you to find our spiritual rest. We pray that you'd fill us with your spirit as we look at your word now.

We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of your mouth, and so we know there's something here for our spiritual benefit. We pray for those that are teaching our children, those that are ministering their gifts in various ways. I pray that you're, all of the service of your people this morning would be a sweet savior to you and Lord, that You would meet our needs. In Christ's name, we pray.

Amen. OK, so we want to start with this question. How do we normally see Jesus depicted in art? What pictures do you guys frequently see of Jesus?

A halo. OK. Yeah, he's got a halo. He's a white guy with blue eyes.

Yeah, yeah, he looks like a sixties dude. Looks like he could be a surfer down at Newport or Huntington Beach. Yes, he always speaks in King James Elizabethan English. That's true.

And he does go to Calvert Chapel, exactly. Yeah, and many of the, depictions, at least that I grew up with, you would never get the impression that he was a Middle Eastern Jewish man, right? Well, here, here's, here's a real famous one. Jesus holding a lamb.

I like that image, right? Jesus taking care of the lambs, taking care of the sheep. And, there's precedent for this concept of Christ caring for the sheep, caring for the lambs. He is called the good shepherd.

but what would be your reaction to this depiction from Valentine de Bon? I don't know how to say the French words, but he's, this is a painter. From the 1600s. That's Jesus over there on your left.

And what is he doing there? Yeah, he's turning tables over and he's whipping up on people. And the expressions here, you can just look at the expressions of the people like what in the world is going on? What are you doing?

Yeah Yeah, he looks a little too Jewish there. So But this is, yeah, I, this is a very interesting depiction. Of Christ. I don't know about you, but I don't normally think of Christ in these terms of his cleansing of the temple.

I'm just going through this passage this week, it was just a fresh awakening for me of this aspect of God's character, of Christ's character. And, and so we're gonna spend some time talking about this this morning. What, why did Jesus do this? And as we'll see, he doesn't just do it once, but he does it twice in his ministry.

and what man has the authority to, to just come into a place where there's hundreds of people and just drive them all out and nobody, no, you're telling me that nobody stands up and says, wait a second, this is my business. I'm not taking this. I've never been in an instant like this, but I have friends who have walked into bars to get into fights, right? When they were BC days.

And it's on her. I, I've never talked to anybody that walked into a bar, got into a fight, and everybody just ran out. Right? but in this case, Jesus goes into a place where there's hundreds of people.

And everybody runs out. What guy can do that? That's one of my questions in this text. Let's just do a little bit of review from last week.

We're, we're talking about Christ defending his honor and this, by the way, I just want to give a little bit of a preview. Next week, we'll be talking about the parables. I'm already geeking out about that, so, so you gotta come back for the parables. What stood out to you last week about our study of Sermon on the Mount?

Anything stand out to you? Yeah, Kim Hm Right. E Mhm. Mhm Right.

There you go. Yeah, that's great. That's awesome. Yeah, so Kim's just saying the, just the, the thesis of being porn spirit being drawn out throughout the text, throughout the chapter.

Yeah, I don't know if I said this last week, but I've, I feel like I've always avoided the Sermon on the Mount. Like I'll read through it for my Bible reading, but then I don't really enjoy it a whole lot except for certain parts. And if somebody would have said, hey, we're doing a series on the Sermon on the Mount, Mike, would you like to participate? I'd be like.

That's cause there, it's, there's hard text in there and it's difficult to interpret. But this, having done the study this last time and looking through the notes that we had and, and comparing what they're saying with what other people, I was like, wow, this is, wow, puzzle pieces are coming together here. This makes a lot more sense. Yeah, Allison.

Oh yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, I got to go to Allison's work where their son attends school and basically take the same message, use it for chapel.

And talked about those 4 ways of reading. Actually, I had 3 ways and then Kim reminded us of that 4th way is this is the way we will be. And so I incorporated that on Friday. Yeah.

Mm. Totally. Every hour, yeah, not just salvation, but every day. Yeah, and that's, I, I don't know about you, but it's like I feel like if I were to track my spiritual life, like the stock exchange, by the way, what's going on with the stock exchange lately?

Every time I open it up, it's like up and down, but it's like if I were to track my spiritual life. I feel like there's these. I'll, I'll be walking, or maybe I should go like this. The Lord will give me humility and I'll be doing OK for a while.

But then it's almost like the, the spiritual gains start to cause, I'm starting to, I'll start to grow in pride and my stock goes up in pride, right? And then the Lord has to bring some suffering into my life again, which is part of His goodness. Knocks me back down and now my eyes get open again, there's more fresh poverty of spirit. So I'd like, it'd be real nice if I could stay down here, right?

But I always, it seems like my stock, I'm talking about in the pride sense always keeps rising. The Lord's like boom in love, get me back down, and then that's, and that's all good for us, right? It's good for us to stay down there. Was that Jonathan Edwards used to say, I wanna be the lowest of the low.

I wanna be down in the dirt. And unbelievers don't understand what he means by that, but if you've been walking with the Lord for a while, what he means by that. I want to stay down there in that poverty of spirit. All right, let's go ahead and move into today's Lesson then.

so, open up to John 2. I, I don't know if we're gonna get to the other text. We may end up spending most of our time here in John 2. I'd love to get to the Matthew 23 and, and the worksheet on biblical anger, we'll see how that rolls.

But we're gonna look at basically 6 developments of Christ's zeal for his father's house. as we look at 13 to 25, and the, the first development is where he went. Where he went, if you want, you can. Take some of these notes off to the side on your outline if you wish.

But starting in verse 13, now the Passover of the Jews was at hand and Jesus went up. To Jerusalem So we've got the Passover. You guys remember that the Passover is a, it's one of the big feasts that was established all the way back when God pulled Israel out of Egypt, punished Pharaoh, the angel of death passes over all of the houses that have the blood, but the firstborns killed in all the other houses. And so in springtime, there would be a selection of the lamb, and then there would be a, the killing of the lamb and the eating of the meat and And so it's this reminder that happens every year.

And so people would pilgrimage. Now it says that Jesus went up to Jerusalem. If you were looking on a map, which way would Jesus be going from Capernaum? Say it again.

Yeah, so he's actually going down on a map. So Capernaum's way up here because somebody told me years ago that the way you can think of Israel is think of a Q-tip. And like the top of the Q-tip is one C and then the bottom of the Q-tip is the other sea, and then, you got Copernum on the top and then Jerusalem down at the bottom. That's like.

The way that you have it, right, it's the Sea of, is it the Sea of Galilee up. And the Dead Sea down at the bottom. There you go. OK.

So, and the Jordan Rivers, yeah, connecting the two. So, so he's really walking down the Q-tip. So why does it say he goes up to Jerusalem again? Yeah, it's higher in elevation and it's considered, the, the, you're moving up for worship, so to speak.

And so, so Jesus comes down, so it goes up to Jerusalem and notice that this is part of his fulfillment of all righteousness, right? You would, what were you gonna say, Alvin? OK. Oh, OK.

OK, so it's 2, 2400, so it's a little bit shorter than Box Springs, but higher than Sugarloaf. Oh, that's a good reference. that's interesting you say that when I'm, when I drive around this area, it often occurs to me that these are probably about the size of the mountains. In, in Israel, I, I haven't been to Israel, but from what I hear, it's like this view.

It's not Mount Baldy, right? It's more like box springs and that stuff. But yeah, so. dip is below sea level.

Right. The, the actual sea itself, right? Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, so, yeah, you're going from a very low area to a very high area.

That's true. So Jesus comes down, or up to Jerusalem, and he's, this is partially in fulfillment of all righteousness, right? A good Jew would be pilgrimaging. to Jerusalem.

By the way, so this happens after the first miracle of Cana. So he's turned the water to wine. And remember his, he tells his mom, my hour is not yet come, but he got, he, he does the sign anyway and And then he comes to perform this really first big feat, so to speak, of his ministry. And by the way, this is the first of 3 Passovers that Christ is going to participate in during his, his ministry on earth before His crucifixion.

So you see this Passover, then later in the book, we're gonna see another one and then toward more right before his death, you'll see a 3rd 1. And so that's, so that would be our where he went. by the way, there is some discussion about, Is this, did Christ cleanse the temple one time or cause the other gospels put his cleansing of the temple all right during the Passion Week. so when you look at Mark 11, Mark 19, Matthew 21, you have a cleansing of the temple, but here we see the cleansing of the temple while John the Baptist is actually still alive.

In fact, if you look over at John chapter 3, Verse 22 and 23, it says these things, after these things, Jesus and his disciples came to the land of Judea, and they remained with them and baptized. Now, John was baptizing in Annon near Salim. so, this cleansing happens before John the Baptist and John the Baptist is clearly alive. The other cleansings, John the Baptist has already passed away, and it's right before Passion Week.

Which, which leads conservative Bible teachers and scholars to say, no, there's two cleansings of the temple. The other gospels choose not to discuss those, but John, who is really a, really great friend of Jesus, has led the Holy Spirit to include this. In his gospel. so let's talk about what he found.

So verse 14, when Jesus arrives, he found in the temple those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves. And the money changers doing business. So let's make a, a couple of comments here. I wanna suggest to you that there's nothing necessarily Evil.

About people selling. Oxen. Sheep and doves, and there's nothing necessarily evil about money changers being around at this time of year. Why would I say that?

Well, everybody's coming to offer sacrifice for the Passover. It would not be the wisest thing to do, to be coming down from Capernum. You're bringing your cattle with you. All of a sudden the wolf jumps out from behind a rock, nips your, your sacrificial lamb.

Now you've got to go all the way back home because this lamb had to be perfect, right, without blemish. And so, It was very common for animals to be sold at this time so that people could buy their animals. why would they want to have money changers? Well, to, to go in and pay the temple tax, which had to be a half shekel, that's basically, it's not like coinage, it's not like stamped coins.

They needed to have basically a certain weight of silver in order to, accommodate Exodus 30. So every Jew, didn't matter if I don't know if you guys remember this passage, but, the law of Moses specifically said it was for part of their atonement. It was, it was a redemption tax, and it was the same amount for everybody. It didn't matter if you were rich or poor, everybody had to pay this half shekel, which is very interesting that after hundreds of years, it's still a half shekel, this half shekel of silver.

so in order to, to convert your money into shekels, you had to have somebody there like saying, OK, I'll take, you've got this coin, I'll take that coin and give you your half shekels. They wouldn't be allowed to bring in some pagan coin that had a pagan emblem on it. And so everybody converted their stuff to these, these little silver pieces. And so, I don't know that we would say that.

That Jesus, as we're going to see here in a moment, that that it's a Doing this business is bad. This is a necessary business, but I wanna, what I wanna suggest to you, I think, and part of what's taught and applied in the text is location, location, location. Right? Where is this business being conducted?

Inside the temple. Now, this isn't the holy holies, they would have been annihilated, right? This isn't even the holy place, but we have, it's in the outer courts, what we would refer to as the court of nations or court of Gentiles in all likelihood. they had set up shop.

And so you're clearly in the temple, which is a place of God's presence to be a place of worship. Instead of outside of the temple. There, there doesn't seem to be any reason why they couldn't necessarily have done this business outside of the temple, but for convenience sake, I don't know, perhaps over the years, it just slowly moved into the temple. Clearly, the leadership, the Pharisees and, and the Sadducees, everybody seems to be fine with this.

Not only that, but there does seem to be some implication. At least by what Jesus says the second time. This time, we're gonna see in a moment that he tells them, why have you turned my father's house into a house of merchandise? the next time he has to talk to them, he says that you've made it a den of thieves.

That, that phrase den of thieves seems to imply that they're making undue there's an undue profit margin. They're actually robbing people as they're coming to worship the Lord. Does that make sense? So it seems like Jesus would perhaps be not real happy about the location of the business, not that the business was unnecessary.

And the fact that it seems like people are are getting rich on something that probably should be done not necessarily pro bono but at cost perhaps, right? Or maybe it it is gonna cost you some to be able to get the, the animals and so on here, for people to make a little bit of money for their living would probably be appropriate, but We're, we're reading a little bit into it, but for him to say den of thieves, yeah, I envision that, you got a, a perfect land. And yeah, oh no, this, this land's got a blemish on it.

You can't use it.

And then, 5 minutes later, they sell it to somebody else. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I'm not sure that, that's possible. yeah, whatever the case, the den of thieves, label seems to Seems to be.

Imply something that's going on here. So, so he finds this business going on. I was gonna say, we just had the, the women's, fall event on Saturday which I heard just was really a blessing. but imagine, this, this event, costs us a certain amount of money but we're charging people, $100.

a person to attend the event and, and then all of our pastors are pocketing the, the profits afterwards. Like, man, that was a great event. Well, we can go out to You go out to Roots Chris now, that, that would, I think people would have a problem with that, right? but you'll, you'll, you'll find that virtually anything that's going on here at Cornerstone, we're trying to do it at cost, we're just trying to bless people.

Things like that. Yeah, Kim. Yeah, so it was $5. Yeah.

In fact, a lot of the events we do, we, we, we try to break even, but a lot of times we end up in the red, which is OK, that's fine, the people give and, and that covers those, those costs. But yeah, so, so these guys are probably, probably making an undue profit margin on the backs of worshippers. So let's, let's take a look at Christ. What does, what does he do, verse 15 and 16.

When he had made a whip of cords. He drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and oxen and poured out the changer's money and overturned the tables. And he said to those who sold doves, Take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house.

Of merchandise. I don't know about you, but this is just an amazing scene to me that I don't often, I don't know that I've thought about this for a long time. He makes a whip of cords. Now, it was not allowed to bring weapons into the temple.

This was actually a law. I'm not sure if it was a Jewish law or Roman law, but you couldn't even bring a staff into the temple. So Jesus would have made this whip from either like pieces of, of skin from the animals or he perhaps some of the ropes that were used to bring animals in there, he would have grabbed some and formed some whip. And.

And then he drove them all out of the temple. And all of the animals too. So he's, I don't know about you, but I get freaked out even just being around a horse. And Jesus is whipping people out of the temple, including oxen.

Turning over these, these money tables and pouring out their money and then the doves, why can't he drive out the doves? Probably because they're caged, right? So he goes up to the dove keepers and basically says, you get these out of here. This is my father's house.

Yeah, exactly. This is, this is Jesus who is without sin. So clearly, by implication, what he's doing is not sinful. but one of the questions that comes up in my mind that, and I implied earlier is what human being has this gusto just to walk into hundreds of people and everybody run, what I imagine is people are running out of there.

They're not like, hey buddy, leave me alone, or no, this is my business. There's no indication of any, any altercations or wrestling matches or people start punching Jesus and he has to block their punches. no, they just get up and he drives them out. And all of the animals go, go running.

And I don't, to me, also, it's like, when I think about people selling animals on the outer courts, I don't know about you, but, I'm not I'm not Jewish. I wasn't there at the time. It feels like a, like a minor thing. Like Jesus, this is a necessary business.

OK, the location was wrong. but Jesus just goes gangbusters on this thing. And so this obviously, my evaluation of the sin is wrong because Jesus is, is really, really mad. But it makes me wonder what if Jesus is getting this ticked at this sin, what other sins, what ire or wrath would come out on other types of sins?

what's gonna happen on the day of the Lord? just turn to Revelation, you see the wrath that's being poured out on the planet. So Jesus is just giving people a little tiny taste of the wrath of God here, as he chases them out. It makes, John Gill has this to say, John Gill's a, a pastor and scholar from I believe he's in the 1700s.

He says this, this action of his driving out of the merchants with their cattle shows, and was a surprising instance of his divine power and is equal to other miracles of his that a single person, a stranger, one of no power and authority in the government. Unassisted, unarmed, with only a scourge of small cords, should carry such awe and majesty with him and inject such terror into and drive such a number of men before him who were selling things for religious uses and were supported in it by the priests and sanhedrin of the nation.

so I, I, I agree with John Gill. This, this feels miraculous, not just, just Jesus coming as a, a regular guy, but he comes into town and, and there's this sense of, of his power and perhaps deity.

Almost it reminds me later in John, when they come to arrest Jesus in the garden, they say, we're looking for Jesus as Nazareth, and he says, I am. And then everybody falls back on their backs. You get a feeling it's almost like a Raiders of the Lost Ark thing. They just like boom, fall back, and then they still get up and say, we're looking for Jesus and they arrest him after that.

Oh my goodness. John, Gill goes on to say this, it is surprising that they did not rise up and destroy him at once. A single man unarmed without assistance, having so highly provoked them. The restraint upon them must be his almighty power.

Nor do they deny what he suggested that they made his father's house a house of merchandise, nor do they offer to vindicate their profanation of the temple or object to the purging of it, only demand a proof of his right to do it. so I think we do see, the second miracle of Christ here. He turns water into wine, but then he shows up to begin his ministry, and he cleanses this temple, and everybody goes running out. Let's talk about fourthly, why he did it.

He says very clearly, starts in verse in the middle of verse 16, he says, do not make my father's house a house of merchandise. So first of all, he did this because it's his father's house. There, nobody would be able to speak this way other than Jesus. Jesus is like, this is my father's house, very much implying his connection to the father, the unique relationship that he had with the father, that goes well beyond any relationship that these, Jews would have had.

And, so it's his father's house and they've turned it into a house of merchandise. and it should be, we see in the, in the second cleansing of the temple, it should be a house of prayer, it should be a house of worship. It's a place where God is choosing to reveal a special presence. At this point before the coming of the Holy Spirit, this is the one place on earth where you'd, you could experience the special presence of Yahweh.

In fact, the whole Old Testament is building up to this idea that God wants to dwell with His people and be their God. And so when you have the tabernacle and then the building of the temple, it is a huge exclamation point on the pages of the Old Testament, that God is now dwelling with His people. And then when Ezra and Nehemiah, when you have the rebuilding of the temple and they lay the foundation and everybody's rejoicing and crying at the same time. there's just a, it's a big deal to come and to be able to experience the immediate presence of God on earth.

And so when Jesus comes in to experience the immediate presence of his Father on earth, and he sees merchandizing going on, and even if it's in the outer courts, the, the courts of the nations, he is not happy with this. But then in verse 17, his disciples remember something. His disciples remember that it was written, zeal for your house has eaten me up. Now, there are a couple of things that are interesting here.

One is the disciples knew their Old Testament. So these are just fishermen, but they had been to synagogue enough. They were around the reading and teaching of God's word enough to where they were familiar with the Psalms, and for them to remember the Psalm and to connect it in some way to the Messiah while they may not have a full idea of what that means, shows. That they had been taught that there were messianic Psalms.

There were Psalms of David that moved beyond David and pointed to some future person. And so when they see what Jesus does here, suddenly it hits them, there's some material in their brain that allows them to interpret the event as being connected to the, the greater David, zeal for your house has eaten me up. Which, I think by application, it, it, it says something about our own input of God's word and memorization of God's word and, and putting God's word into the minds of our young people, our children is don't underestimate the impact that, that verses read and committed to memory can have on you or your children, as they move out into life, how the Holy Spirit can just take the word of God and then suddenly you're making connections.

Out in life.

so they had the material in their brain and the Holy Spirit was, making those connections for them as they saw Christ do this. but fifthly, We see now the signs that he gave or did not give. so, in verse 18, we see the Jews, and when you see the Jews in the book of John, many times what you should read is the Jewish leadership. Obviously, everybody here is Jew, Jewish.

Jesus is Jewish, the disciples are Jewish, but John uses this as a technical term in this book for Jewish leadership or those who were in charge at the time. So the Jews answered and said to him, what sign do you show us since you do these things? And just like John Gill said, they don't say, get out of here. They don't call for his arrest, which is, it's very interesting why Jesus didn't get arrested because there would have been Roman.

Guards who would have observed this, but they don't bother to come arrest him. I got my, I'm reading into the text, but my input, my guess is, is that the Roman guards were freaked out too. And so they just turned a blind eye to this event. but the leadership does come and ask this question, what sign are you giving?

The implication here is Jesus is acting like a prophet in his behavior here. And so, while they no doubt don't like what he's done, the question they come up and say, OK, give us a sign to, to coordinate with this activity. If you think back to the prophetic type of behavior that you see in the Old Testament, you've got like Elijah calling fire down from heaven, you've got sometimes unusual behavior like Elijah laying on his side, no, Ezekiel laying on his side for days on end and Ezekiel 49 bread, that's a very interesting one.

You should read that sometime.

And Yeah, it's the healthy Ezekiel 4:9 bread that's cooked over human feces and so on. that's a whole another Bible message. I always laugh when I see Ezekiel 4:9 bread in the store, this bread of judgment being eaten as health bread. Anyway, So then you've got, where was I?

I lost like Ezekiel 4 bread. oh, Elisha, Nehemiah, this whole scene, I think, would have to raise visions of Nehemiah. Remember, Nehemiah, he's the one that's always offering these breath prayers, and, he goes down to the temple after a, a, a, a trip up to Sierrata Xerxes, comes back, and Tobiah is living. In the outer courts, probably the same area that should have been the storehouses for grain and frankincense, and it was there to help keep the Levites supplied so they didn't have to go work in the fields.

He shows up. The the Levites are out working in the fields and Tobias has taken up residence in the temple. And what does Nehemiah do? He kicks him out.

He goes and he drives Tobias out, who would have been considered, he had, the reason he was in that position is he had made a connection with the current priest. He had placed himself into some area of authority, no doubt. Nehemiah just goes crazy on the guy, kicks him out, throws everything out, has the, the temple cleansed, then he gets mad because everybody's, selling stuff on the Sabbath, so he kicks all those people out. Then he finds out that there's intermarriage going on and he goes and he starts slapping people and pulling their hair out.

How, what would you do if one of our pastors got really messed, like, hey, man, there's people divorcing wives here and stuff like that, where they start slapping people around and pulling hair out. You'd be like, what sign are you gonna give us that allows you to do this thing? so Nehemiah, as a, a leader and a prophet of God goes out and does this thing. So Jesus comes and does something that very much is in the spirit of Nehemiah.

So they're like, OK. Who are you? Give us a sign. Now, so, but notice what Jesus does, they asked for a sign and as Jesus, we're gonna see this throughout the rest of his ministry.

He does this conceal reveal game, right? He conceals himself to the proud and the, the leadership. He reveals himself to the poor and the ignorant and the people that humble themselves. And right, we're gonna see it right here in this text.

So, so verse 19, he says, Jesus answered and said to them, destroy this temple, and in 3 days, I will raise it up. They say verse 20, then the Jews said to him, it has been taken 46 years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in 3 days, implying they have no idea what he's talking about. Some commentators say that Jesus is pointing at his body. I don't think so.

I think he just says, he's just letting them be confused. Destroy this temple in 3 days, I'm gonna raise it up. And so they have no idea what he's talking about. They start referring to the current temple which had been refurbished by Herod.

In fact, it was still being refurbished at this time. We're not really sure what the 46 years refers to because it's probably part of the refurbishment of, of Herod of the second temple period. It's a long, big mouthful, but, so 46 years from some point to some point of refurbishment under Herod, and they clearly don't know what is going on, but John, who was there, knows, he says in verse 21, but he was speaking of the temple of his body. So he gives that commentary.

Yeah, Joe. Just lays it out there, doesn't even bother to explain it. Yeah, Yeah, they didn't, yeah, exactly. So Joe says they didn't even get till after the resurrection, which we see in verse 22.

Therefore, when he had risen from the dead, his disciples remembered, OK OK, there's that remember word again, that he had said this to them, and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had said. So this puts scripture and Jesus's words on on par with one another. They remember the scripture, they remember his words after the fact. By the way, this is the first use of the word believe in this particular paragraph.

we're going to see this word believe happened 3 different times. So they believe, after the fact when they remembered that Jesus was talking about his temple, oh, he's raised from the dead. Now I understand. And so, so they get it.

But notice what happens in verse 23. Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast, many believe that's the second use of that term, in his name when they saw the signs, which he did. The Jewish leadership asks for a sign and he gives some crypt cryptic statement that nobody knows what, what it means until many years later after he's been raised from the dead, and it's just the disciples that really get it. But then he goes out amongst the, the people and he performs signs.

This would be by implication when we compare this with the other gospels. He's out healing people, he's out healing the blind, and so on and so forth. And so they're seeing these signs and they believe, and even Nicodemus, if you look down just a few verses down in verse 2, Nicodemus says, no one could do the signs that you do unless God is with them. So Nicodemus had seen those signs too.

And that's why he wanted to meet with Jesus in the night and talk to him about what was going on. And so Jesus gives this concealment, revealment thing, a cryptic statement to the Jewish leadership, but then he goes out and starts healing a bunch of people. And if the Jewish leadership were paying attention like Nicodemus was, they should have said, oh, there's the signs. You're now behaving just like the Messiah was predicted to behave.

That's what gives you the right to come in and regulate our worship in the presence of your Father. But as the story develops, we see that they, they clearly did not get that, which takes us to the last development, number 6, the commitment he withheld. This is an odd, you wouldn't really expect this narrative to end this way. You would expect, especially based on what happens in verse 23, that Everybody's believing there's this big revival meeting.

Jesus cleanses the temple, he goes out and heals, he preaches the gospel. There's lots of people making professions of faith. And so Jesus then commits himself to them and hangs around for a while and begins to really do discipleship and develop this young group of believers. But John tells us that's not what happened, verse 24, but Jesus did not commit himself to them.

That word commit. is from the same Greek word for believe. He did not believe himself to them or he did not entrust himself to them. because, why?

Because he knew all men. That's a scary statement. Because he knew all men. Even though these folks had just believed in his name because of the signs, he did not believe as it were in them because he knew them.

He knew all men. Verse 25, and had no need that anyone should testify of men. That means he didn't need anybody to come up and say, hey, Jesus, Hezekiah over there who just says he believes in you. He's really a hypocrite.

Behind the scene, he's saying he believes in you and the signs, but behind the scenes, he's doing really bad stuff. Jesus didn't need anybody to come up to him and tell him anything about anybody. He, there was no need for court duty or anything like that. He knew everything.

He didn't need any testimony of men, for he knew what was in. Man, No evidence needed at all. so all these people who, when he said that wraps things up for us a little bit when he walks in this place that's supposed to be a place of prayer where the immediate presence of his Father dwells or the God dwells, he sees people selling Sheep and oxen, and there's money changers. He knows the motives of everybody there.

They're in a bad location. They should have known the location they were in. You don't come into the temple and start doing this stuff, but he also knows the motives. He knows the profit margins that everybody has.

And when he evaluates what's in the hearts of all these people, he goes, holy berserk, right? Righteous anger and whips everybody out of there, and he, he knows he's the discerner of the heart. Hebrews 4 talks about how the Word of God is sharper than any other two-edged sword. Jesus is sharp, and he looks and he can discern the motives of everybody there.

And even when he goes out and does the signs, we clearly can see that the Jewish leadership has some, some bad motives. Jesus goes out and starts doing his miracles. They're all saying, we believe in your name, but Jesus does not entrust Himself to them. It means he, that the implication there is he does not give over more of his revelation to them because he knows what's really in their hearts.

which is really a spooky thing if you think about it. It's like the same Jesus that knew what was in the hearts of the Pharisees or the Jewish leadership, knew what was in the hearts of those that were selling and exchanging money, knew what was in the hearts of those that saw his miracles. He knows what's in your heart, and he knows what's in my heart. Right now, when I get up here to lead worship on Sundays, or I'm up here teaching Sunday school, and I'm Pastor Mike, and so on and so forth, Jesus can peer right down and he can see all the motives, every, is Mike motivated to help God's people and they give glory to the Lord?

Is Mike motivated because he really likes people watching him and coming to hear him and so on and so forth. Is Mike, what are, what are all the mixed up motives that are in Mike's heart? Man, that's spooky to me. I don't know about you.

cause I know, I don't even know half of it. I don't even know a quarter of it. But Jesus, Jesus knows all of my motives. And no doubt there's, there's times where I've done things that, might start out good, but then by the end, it's really motivated by pride.

Or it might be, I might start out in a bad place. And if you just start reflecting back upon what you've done and what you deserve, and you give some time for that, I think it, it should bring about a little bit of the fear of God in us. That Jesus would react this way to merchandizing in the temple and just show a little bit of his wrath. What about Nadab and Abayou?

These guys who come and bring strange fire into the presence of God and God just breaks out and slays them and tells Aaron, do not mourn for your sons. What about Uza, who they're, they're bringing along the Ark of the Covenant. David should have known better. It's really, in my view, it was David's fault.

David should have known that's not the way you carry the ark. The oxen stumble, Uza comes out, puts his hand on the ark, boom, slain. We see that, this is a holy God that we're dealing with and Jesus Christ knows every single motive. And if he gets this angry at these kinds of sins, what sins of my life deserve nadab and a bayou treatment?

I don't know about I know, I, I, I know that there's sins I've done that I think would probably outrank the, the money exchangers, would outrank those that are selling in the temple. And yet I think this is part of, I think God's grace in our life is to, to show us what our sins deserve. And yet in the very next chapter, we're not gonna get into it. You have this scene of Nicodemus who is part of the leadership, who seeks out Jesus and humility and says, you gotta tell me what's going on here.

Nobody does these works, these signs, and I personally, after studying this text this week, I think that Nicodemus isn't just referring to the healings, he's referring to the cleansing of the temple. Who are you that you can do these kinds of things, that you can walk into a room and command that attention and make everybody run for their lives. You are somebody beyond what it appears, and I need to know who you are. And so they have this dialogue in the night and you sense Christ's gentleness with Nehemiah as he talks to him about being born again.

And that's, I think, where a text like this should bring us. Let's kinda Let's ask some Some application questions here., we've asked this already, but just what man can scare. all the people out of this temple. This is, I think people are getting a view of who God, who God is.

just a little bit of an opening of the fear of God. What man knows everything in a person? I think that's a good meditation point for us to, in, in our prayer time at some point, to sit down and just think about the fact that God knows every motive in your heart and allow the hair to come up on the back of your neck for a little bit. But then don't stay there, right?

Go back to the fact that Jesus. Absorb the wrath of God on your behalf. Do I want him to come with a cord with wrath or with love? even Paul says, shall I come to you?

And, and discipline, or do you want me to come to you in love, right? And there's all throughout the Old Testament, we see God warning his people and if they repent, he just jumps out in love and forgiveness. but when they resist, right? Eventually, the hammer comes and the Lord in His grace will send out warnings to us through His word to either preached and or read.

And, and then he'll actually grant us the ability to repent if we just cry out, Lord, humble me. But the other thing that hit me here is is when you think about what's going on here, this is the immediate presence of God. Jesus has a great zeal for the immediate presence of God and the worship, and the purity of worship of God's people as they come to experience God's presence. And so when something gets in the way of the experience of God's presence, his people's experience of God's presence, that does not make him happy.

And so just think about the fact that in the New Testament, the dwelling of the, the temple, the Spirit dwells within the temple of his people, which is the Church of God, right? We are the New Testament temple that the Holy Spirit dwells as we gather together and so on and so forth. And anything that would disrupt or harm that temple that is the body of Christ, that really does not sit well with Christ. So, as I've been meditating on this, it's like, When the devil's attacking the church, this temple of the New Testament, that does not sit well with Christ.

He didn't sit back and just say, well, there's a lion out roaring, trying to seek whom he may devour. No, that doesn't sit well with Jesus. When the world is out there trying to disparage the church, when there's false teachers that come in that are trying to steal away sheep, even get the sense of the apostle Paul, it's like, who is made to stumble in it? Do I not burn?

I think Paul is reflecting the heart of God there that when the true children of God are made to stumble, it makes God burn. and so I find, some comfort in that, that Christ feels a great passion towards the enemies of his temple, his church, which means I think Christ has a great passion towards my enemies. now, I believe with all my heart that God has, he has made me a child of God, so the wrath of God has been absorbed, so I don't never need to fear the wrath. I do need to be careful about chastisement and discipline, hear those warnings, right?

And, and try to repent of them as early as possible, but. But. God feels very passionately about my protection. So let's end on this.

Open up to 2 Thessalonians. This is another vision of Christ that we don't very often think of. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. Where you have true children of God.

That are being hammered by persecution. And just to get, it's a long, at least in the New King James, it's a long sentence. And so to get the context, we're gonna start way up at the top, verse 32 Thessalonians 1 verse 3, Paul says, we are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as is fitting because your faith grows exceedingly and the love of every one of you, all are bound towards one another so that we ourselves boast among. The churches of God for your patience, faith, and all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure.

So, we're praising the Lord because you're enduring tribulations. What tribulations? These guys are getting hammered, at this point in church history, probably by Jewish persecutors like Paul went out to kill Christians. That's probably what's happening here.

Notice what happens in verse 5, which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God. How is my persecution or the persecution of the Thessalonians evidence of God's judgment, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom for which you suffer, since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you. It's right for God to repay those who are troubling you. He's going to get mad at those who are troubling you.

Verse 7, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God, on those who do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, from the glory of His power, when he comes in that day to be glorified in the saints and to be admired among all those who believe because of our testimony among you is believed.

Shorthannd, what is he saying? God gets mad at those who pick on his kids.

Righteous anger. And in this instance, you have people who are terribly persecuting the Thessalonians. Paul says, it's a righteous thing for God. Don't worry.

God's gonna, Christ is gonna come back. He's gonna whip up on them and that's gonna give you peace. And, the world actually seems, I think sometimes to understand this better than Christians sometimes. That, why are the big phase with all these superhero movies and the Avengers, there's always some injustice that's been done, right?

And then some superhero rises up to go out and deal with the injustice and that, and, the same thing with like Oh, I don't know. Like a lot of those old karate kung fu movies, something really bad happens. This guy's trying not to use his kung fu anymore, but suddenly he realizes somebody's got avenge, and then he goes up and he uses his kung fu again. And in, in those movies, there's always some like lame preacher, right?

Lame pastor that's like, don't do this. We're supposed to love one another. Please don't go do your vengeance upon this person. And, and I think a misapplication of the full scope of Christian teaching.

but people in the world seem to get the idea that there's injustices that must at some point be rectified. And if we read the full scope of scripture, it will be rectified. Yes, Jesus is the one who holds the lamb, right? And he is the one that keeps the lamb in his arm.

But guess what? He's also got a rod and a staff and there's wolves around and he's gonna beat them up. And, and so the Lord takes care of his own and to me, that gives me very, it's, it's very comforting and humbling if we really think about it, because Jesus knows everything that's inside of me. He knows all my bad motives.

And yet, Jesus pours out his grace and love on me, and he helps me with my spiritual stock market, keeping me humble, and he keeps, he, he, he, he, he says I'm, I'm pluckable, right? Nobody can pluck me out of the Father's hands. And, and yet there's coming this day when the devil's gonna get his, the anti-Christ is gonna get his, and everybody who followed the devil and the anti-Christ are gonna get theirs, and we'll all just stand back and just praise the Lord. And we'll say, you are just, you are right.

And And we'll realize that, that, yeah, this is the way it is. God loves his children, and He will take care of those that pick on his kids. Yeah, Steve. Oh man.

The lifespan Yeah, that he would humble himself on the cross. The very people that he's whipping out of the temple, he eventually just lays himself down and dies, right? And, and lets them take him. Those people that come to arrest him, he says, I am, they all fall over and then he lets them take them.

It's just amazing. Yeah, Dan had some. Yeah John writing Oh right. Right.

That's a good point. Yeah, so Revelation, you have Jesus walking amongst the candlesticks, paying attention to those churches. Good point. Yeah, Kim.

Yeah. Totally. Yeah, Jesus with the lamb, then revelation Jesus. I've got a painting, you can walk by my office if you want later.

Vernon Anderson, when he passed away, he, well, before he passed away, he gave me this picture that's the Revelation 17 portrait of Jesus coming back with a, a sword coming out of his mouth and his hair's all white and his eyes. It's a freaky looking picture, but I just love it. It just reminds me of Christ coming back. At a second coming.

I just wonder what some of the non-Cornerstone people think though when they walk by my office. They're like, who is that? that whole thing about I look at my own life. I go, why did God save?

Yeah. I wrath of God. Hard thing for me to put together. Yeah.

Why Yeah. Peace and joy in that aspect. Yeah, it's, it's a hard. It's a hard, Steve's asking just why, why, why did I get chosen and there's other people that are getting his wrath.

And those are within the mysterious counsels of God. It's, I don't know that it's, that's for us to try to figure out the secret things belong to God, the things revealed belong to us and our children. But, but I do take comfort in the fact that like in John was at 6 and so on, for some reason, I'm unpluckable. Nobody can pluck me out of the Father's hands, even though I'm just as worthy of the nadab and Abayo treatment as anybody else.

All you gotta do is go like look at what we've been covering in Genesis and see the way God's treating Jacob versus like say the Shechemites and other people. It's like. I can see, it's like, why is he so kind to these people? It's just within his mysteries.

Yeah, Alvin and then Joe. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah Yeah Yeah That's a really good point. Yeah, so, Alvin's just emphasizing the fact that this is God's mercy that Jesus drives them out of the temple, cause he's, he, they could have gotten the Naba Abayo treatment, right? But he drives him out and says, you shouldn't be here. How many times Lord done that for me, where I, I've been waiting for God just to boom, bring some big time judgment.

And the Lord, he does freak me out, but then like he just follows it right up with love. just amazing. Yeah, Joe. Yeah.

No, that's a good point. Yeah, that's, and that we never really got to that this morning is this, what made Christ angry? What makes us angry, and, is it, where, where's that line of appropriate anger for righteousness' sake and or just getting mad because I'm inconvenienced. Oh yeah.

Yeah, Totally. Yeah. when people, God's people are being taken advantage of, no doubt. Well, let's go ahead and pray.

if you have other questions, you can come on up. Next week, we will be getting into the parables, which should be really exciting. Parables are another section that It can be challenging to understand, but it's got that conceal, reveal type stuff, and it should be a lot of fun. But let's go ahead and pray.

Lord, we thank you, we've just touched the surface on, this whole scene of your cleansing of your father's house, your zeal for your father's house. We thank you for just what we've seen this morning through your word. the power that you have, the power that you command, the mercy. and, in bringing about this discipline, without the full weight of wrath.

We thank you, Jesus, for the, even just on display the healing that you did afterwards and, and just wooing Nicodemus, to your presence. We thank you, Lord, that though what is in our hearts, what's in the hearts of all men, Lord, you are so kind and gracious. you have the authority to come into our lives and to clean house. We pray that you would, we pray, Father, that you continue to reveal and open up rooms in our hearts that need to be, cleaned out and that you would help us to continually walk humbly before you when we rise up in pride, even unknowingly, Lord, that by your grace you would show us that we may stay poor before you.

we pray, Father, that you protect our church here, this expression of your body here at Cornerstone, Lord, from enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. We thank you, Lord, for the passion that you have for this body, and we thank you, Lord, for the passion that you have to protect your kids. And, Lord, that you are willing to. To go to battle, to, to protect your loved ones.

We ask that you'd be with us as we just continue to worship this morning and hear your word preached from the pulpit and sing and give of our offerings, and we thank you in Christ's name. Amen.