Cleansing the temple, then and now.

Day Two  Luke 19:41-48    from Jesus Last Days, A Model For Our Days

⁴¹ When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, ⁴² saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. ⁴³ For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, ⁴⁴ and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

Traders Driven from the Temple

⁴⁵ Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling, ⁴⁶ saying to them, “It is written, ‘And My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a robbers’ den.”

⁴⁷ And He was teaching daily in the temple; but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him, ⁴⁸ and they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people were hanging on to every word He said.

Jesus knew what the people wanted. He knew that they were looking to Him to lead them in a rebbellion against the harsh oppression they faced. What did He do? The first thing Jesus did when He arrived was to let them know things would get worse politically. One thing we can always count on is that God's Word is 100% true. The truth of God's Word is not that as Christians, followeres of Christ, we are guarenteed a fairytale type of life without problems. The truth is that  what we  are promised is that he will never leave us in our times of trial. Hebrews 13:5 says: ...For He Himself has said "I will never leave you or forsake you"(KJV).   God will faithfully guide, guard and completely sustain us through every trial we face. In the text we see that Jesus, rather than assuming the political position the people hope for, begins to address spiritual matters. In this too, the church today today can learn an important lesson. Far too often the church allows itself to be distracted from it's purpose and it's realm of authority by trying to become a political force. This is not to say that Christians should not be active and aware of political matters. I am thankful for those believers who have been called into the political arena and serve both God and us well. It simply does not require a great deal of study of our current political, judicial, or cultural situation to recognize that we are not willingly  "One Nation Under God". While we as Christians should try to win back as much ground as possible, we need to recognize that when the church battles in the political ans judicial arenas it is not battling and engaging the enemy in the area of authority God has given it/us. Ephesians 6:12 says:   For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual host of wickedness in heavenly places.   Through Jesus we have authortiy and victory in the spiritual realm and in spiritual matters. Our efforts to fight in the natrual political and judicial systems often do more to perpetuate misunderstandings and division than they do to actually win any battle. Two or three gathered in Jesus name have more power and authority, in prayer, than two or three thousand gathered at a political rally. Again it's not that we don't do the political, it is just that we need to prioritize prayer over politics.

Jesus knew His purpose was spiritual not political. Not only does He make it clear that He is not going to free them from Rome, He issues a harsh warning and rebuke. In stead of coming against those responsible for the political oppression, Jesus begins His message against those responsible for the religious, spiritual oppression. Jesus certainly would not make a good political candidate today. Actions like that are not good for one's approval rating. Neither was it good for Jesus approval in the eyes of the Pharisees. Jesus however only sought the approval of one, His Father.

What a contrast we see  in Jesus words and actions here. Throughout the Gospels we see over and over His patience and compassion for sinners. Now we see His disdain and contempt, the righteous indignation He has for the religious hypocrites. People sometimes cite the anger Jesus showed in the temple to justify there own anger. They say even Jesus lost His temper. We must remember the truth though, Jesus never showed anger at the tremendous cruelty and offenses directed at Him, even to the point of His crucifixion. It was only those things which were an offense to the Father which elicited an angry response from Jesus. We too should reserve our anger for the things that offend God not ourselves. We are called to die to self. A dead man can not be offended.

Sadly many in the church today sadly resemble the religious establishment of Jesus day. We become angry and offended when the Lord, by the Holy Spirit convicts us of wrong. Our bodies are to be God's temple and Jesus wants to cleanse our temple as He did the one in Jerusalem. We want the right to hold onto our improper thoughts and actions, our traditions and the things we have placed before God. We feel that at the very least we should be able to deal with our stuff in our time as long as we acknowledge it. We say things like I know I need to give up a bad habit, or stop worrying, or forgive, or study more or pray more, but we say I'm working on that, I'll get to it, I'm just not ready yet. Jesus didn't say, excuse me guys but this stuff in the temple really isn't appropriate. I'll give you two weeks to get it cleaned up and out of here. How dare we take that kind of liberty with the things revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. Worse yet when Jesus overturns the tables of selfish indulgance in our lives, do we not often set them right back up? Lord forgive us. We must earnestly seek what God would cleanse from our lives. Inviting Jesus to inspect every corner of our thoughts and actions, nothing is hidden from Him anyway. We need not to resist, but rather to thank Him as He overturns anything we have wrongly established. We should not hesitate, we should cleanse our temples today. Then we should go on.