Why Did Jesus Clear the Temple? | Matthew 21:12-13

[00:00:00] Real Truth Daily, This is Daily Truths with Dave Ahlman

[00:00:08] Hi everybody, welcome back to Daily Truths. What was the purpose of the temple back in Jesus' day?

[00:00:13] And what is the purpose of churches today? They are very similar and we're going to be answering

[00:00:17] that question or those questions here in just a few minutes. But to set it up, we understand

[00:00:23] that Jewish men made three pilgrimages to Jerusalem for three different festivals

[00:00:28] every year. What were they? The festival of tabernacles, the festival of weeks, and the

[00:00:34] festival of Passover. And Passover was just beginning so you have all these young men from all around

[00:00:40] the Mediterranean Sea, Jewish young men descending on Jerusalem. Now it just so happened that they

[00:00:45] needed to make sacrifices to the Lord in the temple. It used to be that these money changers

[00:00:52] and these merchants selling pigeons and other animals and exchanging money and we'll talk

[00:00:56] about that here in a minute would set up shop in the Mount of Olives. But gradually as time went by,

[00:01:02] it was happening in the Gentilian courts of the temple. In other words, Gentiles that had converted

[00:01:08] to Judaism could not enter the temple proper but there were temple courts for just the Gentiles

[00:01:14] to worship. It was in that place that these pigeons were being sold, animals were being sold,

[00:01:20] and money was being exchanged. It wasn't the purpose originally set and established by God

[00:01:26] for the Gentiles and so they were turning it into a marketplace, right? And that's why Jesus gets so

[00:01:32] angry. Now we pick it up in Matthew chapter 21 verse 12 and Jesus entered the temple and drove out

[00:01:38] all those who sold and bought in the temple. And again there's a picture of it right there as

[00:01:42] you take a look. This was in the Gentilian courts on the south side of the temple itself.

[00:01:48] And he verse 12 and he overturned the tables of the money changers. What were the money

[00:01:54] changers? So people came to town with their own currency from their foreign place, right?

[00:01:59] And they had to exchange it in the temple courts if you will so that they could use currency that

[00:02:04] was endorsed by the Jews without any Caesar inscription on it, okay? So but here's the

[00:02:11] problem. Those money changers charged an exorbitant fee. Oh we've heard about fees and banks.

[00:02:18] They charged an exorbitant fee to have the money exchanged and Jesus said of course this

[00:02:23] isn't good. And then it says so he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats

[00:02:29] of those who sold pigeons. A lot of the Jewish folks who descended on Jerusalem didn't have enough

[00:02:34] money to buy more expensive animals and so they could sacrifice pigeons instead. Now again,

[00:02:39] where was this supposed to take place? All this exchanging of money and selling of pigeons

[00:02:44] and the like. It was supposed to happen in the Mount of Olives. That's originally where

[00:02:48] it was taking place. Now they had changed the temple courts into a den of robbers as Jesus said.

[00:02:54] Why did he say that by the way? Because they were charging more than they should have, right?

[00:02:59] And the money changers as we said before were charging exorbitant fees. So Jesus gets upset

[00:03:05] and he says this in verse 13. It is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer

[00:03:12] but you have made it a den of robbers. Jesus is saying the temple or places of worship including

[00:03:20] the synagogue is to be a house of prayer, not a place where money is exchanged, not a place of

[00:03:28] marketing, not a place of carrying out business. So in other words this place had been turned into

[00:03:34] a place of marketing and business instead of a place of worship and prayer. Now I asked the

[00:03:41] question at the beginning of this little presentation today, this little devotion. What is the church and

[00:03:46] what is the temple? It's not only a house of prayer as Jesus indicated but it's so much more than that.

[00:03:51] It's a place where we meet God. When you get up in the morning on Sunday morning you can literally

[00:03:57] say I am going to meet God and what happens in worship when you go there? Well you're

[00:04:02] fellowshiping with other Christians for one thing but also God is meeting you in that

[00:04:07] place. He's coming to you in the proclamation of the word and receiving of the sacrament where

[00:04:13] you receive the bread and wine, yes the body and blood of Christ but also the word is being

[00:04:18] proclaimed it's God's word so God is meeting you in that place and then what's your response

[00:04:24] when you go to church? You pray, you praise God through hymns and songs and you adore God

[00:04:30] by lifting up your voices to the Lord. You're fellowshiping together with other Christians

[00:04:35] this is why we go to church. God meeting us in this place and us responding to God

[00:04:41] with prayer and praise and thanksgiving so this is what church is all about in a nutshell

[00:04:48] and of course in Jesus' day the temple was changed into a marketplace and Jesus obviously did not

[00:04:54] like that. Now one final thing we have to say about this, this happened as we said probably on

[00:04:59] the Sunday evening or Monday of Holy Week. Now remember who were the ones who were responsible

[00:05:06] for the crucifixion of Jesus? Ultimately it was the Jewish leaders. This did not help so when

[00:05:13] Caiaphas and the other religious leaders had Jesus stand before them they brought this up.

[00:05:18] Why did you do that to our temple? Why did you do that? So this was another mark

[00:05:22] against Jesus not only that he proclaimed himself to be the Son of God the promised Messiah

[00:05:28] but also that he did what he did to the temple during that week. Okay so why do we go to church?

[00:05:34] We go to church to worship God. What happened with the temple? People were making it a marketplace

[00:05:39] and Jesus said this is not good. Go to church, meet the Lord there, receive the sacrament,

[00:05:44] receive the proclamation of the word of God, lift up your arms and gratitude and praise to

[00:05:49] God for what he's done. Lift up your voices to him in songs of hymn and praise and let

[00:05:54] him know just how incredible, how wonderful our God the only God really is when you go to a place

[00:06:02] of worship. So that is today's Daily Truth. Have a great day in the Lord Jesus Christ.

[00:06:08] Thank you for tuning in to Daily Truths with Dave Alman. Pastor Dave Alman is the pastor of

[00:06:13] Mount Hope Church in Boulder, Colorado. If this ministry is blessing you please consider supporting

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