This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you back to our second day of looking through Matthew chapter
21. We're going to see in the verses we look at today, verses 12 to 17, Jesus
cleansing the temple. Before I read these verses, let me get a map in your mind
if I can.

And it's a map of the temple in Jerusalem. The temple building, you might know,
was a fairly small building in all of Jerusalem. And it had two parts to it.

It had an outer part to it, an outer room where sacrifices were done, where the
priest could go in all the time, or more often at least. And it had a Holy of
Holies. It was partitioned off with a curtain that only once a year could the
high priest go into this section.

It's where the Ark of the Covenant was. But when you read the Bible talking
about Jesus being in the temple, it's not talking about Him being in that
building. In fact, in the verses today you're going to hear the words temple
area.

The temple area was the area that we might call them patios today. They called
them courtyards then outside of the temple. So if you go outside of the temple,
first you have the area where the priest could be closer to the temple.

Then a little bit further out, gated off, was an area where the men, the Jewish
men, could be. And then further out was an area where all the Jews could be, men
and women. And then further out was the court of the Gentiles.

This is where anybody could come, or anybody that was allowed to come in, could
come to see what the worship of God was all about. And this is where Jesus is
going to be today, out in this court of the Gentiles, where those most
disconnected from God should be able to come and learn about the one true God.
Jesus came and He saw some things happening in this court and He did something
about it.

Beginning in verse 12, Jesus entered the temple area and He drove out all of
those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money
changers and the benches of those selling doves. It is written, He said to them,
My house will be called a house of prayer, but you're making it into a den of
robbers.

The blind and the lame came to Him at the temple and He healed them. But when
the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things He did
and the children shouting in the temple area, "Hosanna to the Son of David! "
they were indignant.

"Do you hear what these children are saying? " they asked Him. "Yes," replied
Jesus, "Have you never read, from the lips of children and infants you have
ordained praise?

" And He left them and He went out to the city of Bethany where He spent the
night. So Jesus comes and He overturned some tables, He cleaned some things out
of the temple. There were two things that caused Jesus to become angry.

By the way, there is such a thing as a righteous anger. Some things that are
right to be angry over and this was one of them. He saw people selling animals
and He saw people exchanging money.

People selling animals. When you came to the temple, you often had to make a
sacrifice and it had to be a perfect sacrifice. So you had to have your animal
examined by the priest to make sure that you weren't offering to God a maimed
animal or a lame animal.

Had to be a perfect sacrifice. But in the way that things turned out, whatever
sacrifice you brought, it would be examined by the priest and everyone would be
rejected except for those that were being sold in that court of the Gentiles
area. You had to buy a pre-approved perfect animal.

The problem was how much more they charged. A bird outside the temple that might
cost 15 cents in the temple might cost $15. They were upping the ante by a
hundredfold sometimes and because of that, Jesus saw what they were doing and He
overturned their tables.

And then there's these people that are exchanging money. Every Jew over 19 was
required to pay a temple tax. A tax of a half shekel had to be paid in this
special temple coin.

So you had to come in with your other coin and buy the temple coin and they
charged exorbitant rates. Rates that not only were enough for the tax but also
enough for getting extra money for those who were selling the coins. The only
place to get a temple coin was in the temple.

Now both of these things were needed. There was obviously nothing wrong with
making a sacrifice and nothing even wrong with making an offering for the
temple. But they had returned a legitimate opportunity to serve others by
exchanging money, by selling a sacrifice if you hadn't brought one from home
into a way to make a profit, just to make a profit.

So there's this dramatic moment where you hear the noise that's all around you.
Just get this in your mind. You're there.

It's a crazy place. There's selling that's going on all over. And you hear the
clink of the coins over here.

And you hear the animal traders making their deals over here. And you hear the
lambs and the cows and the doves, the baws and the moos and the coos. You hear
all these languages being spoken from all the countries of the world at this
time because it was Passover time.

There's all this din of noise and all of a sudden in the middle of this, Jesus
walks in. "Stop," he says. He turns over benches.

He turns over tables. "Don't turn my father's house into a swap meet. " What
caused this great anger in Jesus?

Well, it was the misuse of this area of worship. But there may have been
something also about the time that this happened. You see, this was during
Passover week.

And during Passover week, during Passover time, Deuteronomy 16. 4 tells the
people that during the seven days of that week, no trace of yeast would be found
in their home. No trace of uncleanness.

There was a sign of uncleanness. So they would go through for the Passover
celebration and a family would clean out every bit of yeast from their house. It
would be painstaking, but it was the law.

You could not have one bit of uncleanness in that house. And at a time when
every other household in Jerusalem was painstakingly being cleansed, Jesus walks
in and says, "My father's house is unclean. How could you do this?

" And so the anger and the rage overwhelmed him, and he drove them out. Now what
does this mean for you today, for me today? Our understanding of God's teaching
for us in this passage hinges on one question.

Where is the temple of God today? Many people read this passage and they think
God's house is the church building, the church house. Now, the idea that we need
to be careful of the things that we do in a church building, I certainly agree
with that.

Of course, it needs to be a place that's special to us, a place that we use as a
stewardship for God. But the building that the church meets in, it is not the
temple of God today. That's not the application for us today.

The New Testament teaches very clearly that the temple of God today is you. The
Holy Spirit resides in you. Many times people call a room where Christians meet
to worship, you may have heard this, they call it the sanctuary.

We're going to go to the sanctuary to worship. But the room is not the
sanctuary. The room is where the sanctuaries meet.

You are a sanctuary. You're a sanctuary of God's Spirit, where God's Spirit
lives. Because each of you, each of us are a sanctuary of the presence of God.

That's what the temple of God today is all about. That's what the temple of God
today is. So when you and I read about Jesus Christ cleansing this temple in
Jerusalem, cleaning it out, we shouldn't think, "Wow, Jesus really got after
those Pharisees.

" We should think, "What about my life? " Because here Jesus shows a divine
refusal to put up with inward impurities. I remember years ago, Shondell, my
wife and I were sleeping and we began to hear in the attic these little noises,
these little like scratching kind of noises up in the attic.

Shondell immediately thought it was a rat. I told her it was a bird on top of
the house because I didn't want to deal with any rats. But they continued and
then I could tell even that they were in the attic.

So finally, at Shondell's continued insistence, I went upstairs, I put some
peanut butter on one of those rat traps and the next day we had captured a rat.
And now Shondell is saying, "Did you said it again? " Because there might be
some other rats up there.

I thought we got the only one. She said, "I want you to said it again. I want to
make sure we get every rat out of this house.

" My wife has an absolute abhorrence to those little rodent kinds of things, an
absolute refusal to live alongside of them in her house. She's not going to say
they're cute with cute little tails. They don't eat much.

So we can just live alongside of them in our house. She will not put up with it.
They've got to be put out of the house.

Jesus looks at my life. He looks at your life and He says, "There's a rat's nest
or two in your life. " He hears the scratching and He has an absolute abhorrence
to those things in our lives because He knows what the rats can do, hidden and
unseen, how they eat things and destroy things.

They can eat wiring and even destroy the power of a household. God knows what
those hidden and unseen things can do in my life, in your life, those things
that have crept in over the years. He knows what those things can do.

Who cleans temples? Jesus does and that includes the temple of your life. He
wants to cleanse us.

He wants to cleanse us so that He can use us. What does He want to see happening
in the temple? In this passage, here, we see immediately that it's a house of
prayer, He says.

He wants prayer happening in the temple. After the temple is cleansed, He
immediately heals. He wants healing happening in the temple.

Praise immediately starts to happen. The children start to praise God in the
temple. Prayer, healing and praise, those are the kinds of things that God wants
happening in the temple of my life, in the temple of your life.

The question isn't just, "What does He want to get out of the temple? " It's,
"What does He want to fill the temple with? " God deals with us in patience, but
don't mistake His patience for acceptance.

When I read about Jesus going into this temple, driving out the sellers, the
real question is, "What does He need to drive out of my life? " Or maybe even
better, "How can I cooperate with what He needs to drive out of my life? " He's
going to drive it out.

He's going to work to do that through my entire life, all the way towards
eternity. But how much better if I recognize it and I cooperate with Him? There
are things in your life right now, you're thinking, "I wish I could let go of
it.

I wish I could push that out of my life. I wish I could push out that wrong
relationship. I could get rid of that way of thinking.

I could let go of that. I wish I could, but I can't. " Jesus cleanses temples.

He can do what we cannot do. So why not start right now? Let me lead us in a
time of prayer, just asking Him to cleanse the temple of our lives.

Would you pray with me? Look to Jesus in your heart and say, "Jesus, there are
some things that I've let creep in. There are some things that I'm struggling
with.

Maybe for you it's the way you handle certain emotions or certain circumstances
or certain relationships. It might have to do with anger or with lust or
self-pity or financial sins. It may have to do with just not serving Christ in
the way that He called you.

Just talk to Him right now and say, "Jesus Christ, you know it's there and I
know it's there. I hear the scratching too. So instead of hiding from it, I come
to you right now and I admit I don't have the strength that I'd like to have to
just let go of it in my life.

And so I come to you, the Son of God, in your power. As your temple, I ask you,
Jesus Christ, come into my life and drive out those things that make me unclean
before you. I recognize your forgiveness.

I walk in freedom from guilt, but I recognize also your power. And I want to
walk in purity of life. So Lord, begin this work in me.

Do this work in me in any way that you want. I do pray you would bring other
people into my life, fellow believers who could be an encouragement in this and
I could be an encouragement to them. I ask you to do this, Jesus, in your name.

Amen.