Zeal. The zeal of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's beaten him up. It's consumed
him. It's devoured him. It obviously
speaks of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ, in his zeal for
his Father's glory, for his name, Of course, as other persons never
understood by this religious world, the Jews had no clue what
he was doing. And as we may Lord willing see
next week, the Lord Jesus Christ gives them an answer to their
questions, which are impossible for them to understand. He wasn't
there to humor them. He was there to reveal the depths
of their faith. his zeal for his father's house,
his zeal for the glory of that temple which reflected his father's
character and reflected his salvation that he would win. The Lord cleansed this temple twice. In verse 12 in Matthew chapter
21, Jesus went into the temple of God. This is at the end of
his ministry. and they'll only be repentant
when God brings repentance. They'll only have faith when
God gives faith and they'll only have love when God gives it.
Went to the temple and cast out all them that sold and bought
in the temple and overthrew the tables and the money changers
and the seats of them that sold doves. And he said unto them,
it is written, my house. Here in John 2, he calls it my
father's house. He says, my house. They're both
the same. They're both right. My house
shall be called the house of prayer, but you have made it
into a den of thieves." Well, that started out in obedience
to the command of God that they were able to sell their sheep
and goats that traveled some considerable distance and exchange
them for money where they had them and then change that money
back into money suitable for the temple. And there was a requirement for
them to provide the half shekel of the temple tax. And it was
only that half shekel that could be accepted. So there was a need
for them to change their Roman money or other money they had
into that money that was acceptable in the temple. But what the desecration
of the temple and what religion, again, and it ends up so, so, so far
removed from the worship and the glory of God. Though zealous, the Lord is never
understood for what he was doing. They called him self-righteous. They said that he was possessed
of the devil. Though I said, who has the right?
Who gave you the right to be critical of us? That's exactly
what the religious world says today in its marketplace of ideas,
isn't it? We're all Christians, we're all
going to heaven, we're all going to the same place. Why are you
so particular? Why are you so nitpicking? Why are you so dogmatic? Why
are you saying it's either your way or the higher way? Well,
I'm not saying that. God is saying that. God is saying that. We live in an age of compromise
and tolerance. And the one thing that's intolerable
is a zeal for the glory of God and His name. And one thing that this tolerating
age will not tolerate is an intolerance for that which is opposed to
the glory of God. We have in the scripture many,
many pictures of what it is And remarkably, nearly all of
them come in situations where it's just one man or another
standing opposed to a multitude. And it has been so throughout
history. Let's turn to our Bibles to Numbers
chapter 25. the activities of Balaam where
he caused the Israelites to fall into idolatry and fornication
just by being camp next door. Verse 7, let's just begin at
verse 7. At your leisure, you might go
and read it more fully because it's a remarkable story. But
when Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest,
saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, took a javelin
in his hand, and he went after, he went after the man and of
Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through. This was
a man of Israel who had joined himself to a Midianite woman
and he brought her, as it were, in the sight of all the congregation
and then into his tent. And he thrust them through, both
of them, the man of Israel and the woman through of her belly.
So the plague was stained from the children of Israel. And those
that died in the plague were 20 and 4,000. And the Lord spoke
unto Moses, saying, Phinehas, the son of Eliezer, the son of
Aaron, the priest, hath turned away my wrath from the children
of Israel. For he was zealous for my sake
among them, that I consume not the children of Israel with my
jealousy. The word zeal and the word jealousy
are interchangeable in so many of the scriptures. He was zealous for my sake. Wherefore say, Behold, I give
unto him my covenant of peace. And he shall have of any seed
after him even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because
he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the children
of Israel. It's the zeal of thine house.
You might be with me recalling those remarkable words in Isaiah
chapter 9 that people read and sing all the time without understanding
the depths of what is being said and the context of it even. There
was a darkness over the land In verse 2 it speaks of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that the people that walked in darkness have
seen a great light. They that dwell in the land of
the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Let's go down to verse 6, these
famous words. For unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his
shoulder, and he shall be called Wonderful Counselor. who holds the counsel of God. The mighty God, the everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace, of the increase of His government
and peace, there shall be no end. What a glorious King we
have, what a glorious Savior. Upon the throne of David and
upon His kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment
and with justice from henceforth forever. The zeal, the zeal,
of the Lord of Hosts will perform this. He's given, a child is born,
a son is given. The government shall be upon
his shoulder. The government's still on his
shoulder. The government has always been upon his shoulder.
You've given him power over all flesh that he might give eternal
life to as many as you've given him. Zeal, the zeal of the Lord
of Hosts. will perform this. We don't have time to look at
it in any detail but in Isaiah 37 you might recall that there
was an army of 185,000 men outside of Jerusalem. And they were taunting and mocking
Hezekiah and the people of Israel, saying, we've marched all the
way down through all of these cities and through all of these
towns. And who are you, little Jerusalem, to stand against this
mighty, mighty army? In Isaiah 37, Isaiah 37 verse
32, remnant. You might recall that
an angel of God came and slew the 185,000 in one evening. He says, For out of Jerusalem,
verse 32, shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of Mount
Zion, the zeal of the Lord of hosts, shall do this. So zeal is expressed in triumph
over open enemies of the gospel. Zeal is expressed in triumph
of a few versus a multitude. Zeal is expressed in faithfulness
to the promises of God that he will protect and preserve. This
is zeal, to go back to our text in John 2, it's a zeal of thine
house. It's a zeal of thine house. Our
God is more zealous and more jealous for his name, for his
house, for his people than we can ever possibly comprehend,
brothers and sisters. Zeal. I love what David said
when he went down and he heard Goliath taunting The armies of
God, the armies of Israel. And David says in 1 Samuel 17,
he says, is there not a cause? There is a cause. Moses at the
foot of Mount Sinai when Aaron had miraculously made a golden
calf that just popped out of the fire. And Moses came down
and he saw these people dancing naked around this golden calf. expressed it in Psalm 69, as
we saw earlier, and expresses it in the way that he comes and
gathers his people to himself. The question that is before us,
isn't it, is what is, what is, what defines the zeal of the
Lord of Hosts? And how can I know that the zeal
that I have is a zeal that's from God, the zeal of thine house. Throughout the scriptures we
are given pictures again and again and again of zealous people. The people that stoned Stephen to
death were zealous. Stephen was zealous for the glory
of God. he was dying and those men with
the most extraordinary zeal and soul amongst them was there. their teeth at him, but he, verse
55 of Acts 7, but he being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up
steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing
at the right hand of God. And he says, behold, I said,
heaven's opened. What a remarkable picture. What
a remarkable work our Lord Jesus Christ has done to open heaven
for us. And the Son of Man standing Zeal has an end. We quote those
verses out of Romans chapter 10. Paul, who was there, was
zealous, wasn't he? And he remained remarkably zealous
for the cause of the religion that he'd been
brought up in. There's no time until he met
the Lord Jesus Christ did he think that there was anything
wrong with his zeal. In fact, he thought that he was the one
honoring God. He says of himself, and he says
of his brethren, in Romans 10, he said, brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be
saved. For I bear the record that they
have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. They don't have
a zeal of God according to the knowledge of who they are. They
don't have a zeal of God according to the knowledge of who God is.
In the true character of God, they don't have a zeal of God
according to what is written in the scriptures. and his first statement was,
who are you, Lord? When he met the Lord Jesus Christ.
For they, this is the reason, isn't it? For they being ignorant
of God's righteousness. And what's the expression always
of people who are ignorant of God's righteousness? He goes
on to say, going about, they're always busy, are going about
to establish their own righteousness. have not submitted, they haven't
humbled themselves unto the righteousness of God, for Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. There is a religious zeal, and
it's a zeal without knowledge, a zeal without humility, a zeal
without understanding of the righteousness of God. There is
a zeal that's expressed in those people that were zealous for
the law. Paul went back to Jerusalem in Acts chapter 22 and he says
they are zealous for the law. There are many in Jerusalem that
are told what he was told by the apostles. They are zealous for the law. revealed aren't there? There
is the true zeal of our God, that the zeal of the Lord Jesus
Christ is expressed in what happened to him in his life, in his coming,
in his death. And there is a religious zeal
as they mocked him and went home from that crucifixion, commending
themselves as having done God's service. There are two zeals
extra revealed when the gospel is preached. There is How can I know that my zeal is
from God? Well, firstly, it's the zeal
of thine house. It's a zeal that has its origin
in God doing a work in the hearts of man, the hearts of his children,
in revealing the Lord Jesus Christ, in revealing to them. How can
I know that my zeal is from God? Who gets the glory? Who gets
the glory? Does God get the glory only? Why does God do what he does?
For the praise of the glory of his grace. He does all things
for his name's sake and for his glory. How do I know my savior is from
God? Who speaks the truth of thy salvation? Who speaks the truth about the
character of God? Who speaks the truth about the
character of man? Who speaks the truth about the
salvation wrought and won by our triumphant Saviour? See zeal,
true zeal, What stirs up your feelings?
See, Paul in Athens flipped around and he was grieved at the idolatry. Paul in Antioch was grieved at
Peter's dissimulation, his hypocrisy. Paul in Antioch was grieved at
those false teachers that came and said that the children of
God must be put back under the law. Paul was grieved and his
zeal was stirred up when he heard of those false teachers and their
success in Galatians. But there is a zeal of the God.
It's a zeal of Thine house. It's a zeal that comes from God
doing a work. It's a zeal of the new creature. created in righteousness and
true holiness in so many ways that mirrors the zeal of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Jeremiah is one of my favorite
prophets and one of my favorite passages in all of Jeremiah is
in Jeremiah chapter 20. And Jeremiah is complaining and
calling out to God. And then he, because there he
is as one man, zealous for the glory of God, one man zealous
for the good of his people, Israel. One man speaking on God's behalf
in that world and he met with absolutely no success whatsoever. The king took the very words
of God that Jeremiah wrote and sat beside his father and cut
them up with a scribe's knife and burned them. Listen to what
Jeremiah says in verse eight of Jeremiah 20, since I spake,
I cried out, I cried violence and spoil, because the word of
the Lord was made a reproach under me and derision daily. Then I said, I will not make
mention of him, I'm gonna lay down my tools, nor speak any
more in his name. But, this is what stirs up the
hearts of God's people. was in my heart as a burning
fire shut up in my bones. I was weary with forebearing
and I could not stay. Is the zeal, is the zeal, the
zeal of thine house Is it the burning of the word
of God that reveals the living word of God burning in your heart? Paul, on his journey to Jerusalem
and then on to Rome, is told in Acts chapter 21, he's told
that there is danger awaiting him everywhere he went on that
journey. and he says in verse 13 of these
people that were telling him all this was happening he says
what do you mean what do you mean you to weep and break my
heart for I am ready not only to be bound only but also to
die die, but what's he ready to die
for? He's ready to die for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you might, you might think
much of Paul being ready to express that, but his zeal was for the
name of the Lord Zeal is expressed in what you
love. What you love. I'm often chilled by those words
in Ephesians, in Revelation chapter 2, about you have forsaken your
first love. Any of us who know the Lord,
and any of us who know anything of our own hearts, we're often
grieved at the coldness of our hearts. And we wonder whether
our love should even be called love. It's so weak and pathetic. But there is a love, isn't there?
There is a love that God brings into the new creation. It's a
love that comes from Him. We love Him. We love Him because
He first loved us. And if we love Him, we love His
house. We love His people. We love Him because we are forgiven
much, just like that sinner that came before the Lord Jesus Christ. been forgiven much, you will
love much. Zeal is expressed in the fact
that God's zealous people, made zealous by Him, will not compromise,
will not compromise His glory. And it doesn't matter that the
religious world will never understand we have of the zeal of our Restorer
in Psalm 69, the zeal that took him to the depths of those extraordinary
agonies we read of. He steadfastly sent his face,
sent his face like a flint to go to Jerusalem. He didn't go
there as a victim, he didn't go there coerced, he went there
as a triumphant servant and a triumphant That house that's established
on the basis of the finished work of the Kinsman Redeemer.
What a glorious house that's established by Ruth, at the hands
of her Kinsman Redeemer. I love it. They only said, he
will not rest. He will not rest until he's finished. He will not rest until he's done
his work as the Kinsman Redeemer. He does it because he is a near
Kinsman. He calls us his brethren. He
does it as a Kingsman Redeemer because he's able and he's powerful,
but most of all he does it willingly. He redeems those who are slaves. He redeems those who have sold
themselves and have nothing. They're impoverished captives. He redeems as a Kingsman Redeemer
those who have no ability. He redeems those who've lost
everything because glorious, glorious gospel we
have to declare. The salvation of our God is never
ever spoken of as an offer, it's always an act. It's never a potential,
it's a purchase. He doesn't try and redeem, He
redeems. He will save His people. my savior this zeal to go back
to our text in john chapter 2 verse 16 is expressed in a possessive
pronoun it's expressed in a word it's my my father's house as
i said earlier in matthew chapter 21 he calls it my house zeal
is always expressed as personal isn't it and his and he is mine. Everything about salvation is
personal. He's my Lord and he's my God. He's my Saviour. And he says
of his people, of his house, he says they're mine. They're
mine as the Father's gift to me. They're mine because I love
them personally. They are my sheep. Mine that he brought back. Mine They restored the zeal of
our Restorer, the Lord Jesus Christ, full of grace and full
of truth. All these acts are good and gracious
and holy and perfect. He would say, in judgment of
those whose organized religion, whose organized man-made You make merchandise of men's
souls. You make merchandise of the glory
of God and the law of God. As true as it was in his day
and in the days of John the Baptist, if you want to hear from God,
if you want to meet with God, if you want to be in the presence
of God, if you want to be in the company of God, you went
to a wilderness, and not to man-made organized religion. You can write
it down. He's not there. And that's what
this temple cleansing, among so many other things, shows. This seal, is expressed in these
events which are momentous. But also we need to remember
that the sovereignty of God is never an idle sovereignty. For
18 years, from the age of 12, when he went there as a boy of
12, and his parents missed him, and like so many in religion,
they supposed that he'd been with them, and he wasn't for
a whole day. And they went back and they searched and searched
and found him, and he told them, he says, I must be about my father's
business. saw the Emporium, and it doesn't
appear that he said a word or did a thing. So often it appears
as if the Lord is doing nothing and we say, where is thy God?
And people will mock us and say, if you say your God is on the
throne of heaven, it doesn't look like he's on the throne
of heaven. If you say that he's defeated Satan and he has him
on a chain, then people will say, well, it's a very long chain
and Satan rules this world. Rubbish. Our God and even when sin appears rampant. These men, the Lord will save
them, they loved darkness rather than light. And the great judgment
of God on the reprobate world is that God gave them over. See,
Pharaoh thought he was secure with his mighty army and his
great suit of power. And he thought that a man with
a stick And he says, who is the Lord? Who is the Lord that I
should serve him? He was going to find out. It
was ripening, wasn't it? The sin of the Canaanites had
to reach its full measure until the Lord came. Suddenly the world
in Noah's day mocked Noah until that extraordinary flood came
upon them all. As the Lord says in 1 Thessalonians
1, men are saying, peace, peace. to each other. In religion they're
saying peace, peace to each other, aren't they? God loves you, Jesus died for
you, God wants to save you, God's trying to save you. You have salvation in your hands
and you can take it at a time of your choosing. And they're
saying peace like that. Destruction will come for my house." It's a zeal for
my father's house. It's a zeal expressed in an object,
isn't it? It's my father's house. It's
a house that God has given to his son, a house that God has
promised to his son. I love how David responded when
Samuel spoke to him of the house that the Lord would build in
2 Samuel 7, verses 12 and 13, in remarkable words. He says,
And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy
fathers, I will set up thy seat after thee, which shalt proceed
out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. And he
shall build a house for my name, and I will It's only in very, very simple
terms, speaking of Solomon, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. I love
what Joshua said at the end of his life. You might recall Joshua
having led the people into the promised land. Joshua, his name
means Jesus. And he says, as for me and my You choose who you will serve. If you can make a choice, you'll
serve that choice. God's people don't have a choice.
We will serve the Lord. We will serve the Lord. Joshua's house, if you read on
in the book of Judges and further on, you'll see that Joshua's
house didn't serve the Lord for very long at all. It's the Lord
Jesus Christ speaking. His house will serve the Lord. As we saw in Psalm 69, he does
it for the sake. This is expressed in the fact
that he does it for his father's sake. I love what Ezekiel 36
says, he says, I'm not doing it for your sake, I'm doing it
for my holy name's sake. Ezekiel is expressed in the glory
of God. He does all things for his father's
house. The house where he chooses to
place his name, the house where he reveals his character, the
house where he ordains his worship, the house seal there is no other name this
seal is a zeal that consumes i know the lord caused us to
be consumed in some small way with the glory
of god it's devoured it devoured him it devoured him a zeal of his father's house, drove
his obedience, drove his faithfulness, drove him to bear reproach, in love, it's in love for his
name. It is that love, that first love,
for you who are converted you might recall and sometimes with
sadness you might recall those first days when you learned that
you have and you are the very righteousness of God by imputation
and by impartation and all by the work of another and your
sins are gone. Gone completely, they're born
by the Lord Jesus Christ and they're born away and God remembers
them no more. And we rejoiced in sovereign
electing love and we rejoiced in a covenant of mercy, a covenant
in the blood of His Son forever. May God stir us to love Him and
to love His Word. See, zeal's also expressed in
hatred, isn't it? To be zealous for what is right
is to hate what is wrong. In Psalm 119, verse 128, the
psalmist says, Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all
things to be right, and I hate every false way. If your zeal is from God, and
your zeal is for the house of God and for the glory of God,
you will hate, you will hate those things that dishonor him. As David said in Psalm 139 verse
21, do I not hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? If there is no
love, there will be no hatred. And we live, as I began earlier,
in a world of compromise, a world of tolerance, a world that says,
don't take this whole business of the Word of God and the Gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, don't take it so seriously. I remember
saying that to a man at a conference some years ago, and I said, the
continual word I get from the religious people around me is,
don't take it so seriously. Surely we can all get along.
Surely there's a place where we can all meet together. Surely
we can join hands with them all. Surely we can march down the
broad road of this world of ours and we can join hands with all
of those other so-called Christians and that we can show, we can
show by our joining hands the wonder and on the cross of Calvary you
will find that in a heartbeat they'll be blaspheming him and
in another heartbeat they'll be telling you about their own
righteousness and they'll be telling you that they will not
have this God to reign over us a selfless person is not a lukewarm
person the Lord Jesus Christ I'd like us to finish just briefly,
and I pray the Lord might cause us to come and look at some of
these things in greater detail and find them all wonderful.
I began by reminding us that what happened at the beginning
of the Lord's ministry happened at the end of the Lord's ministry. He went to the temple and cleansed
it in Matthew chapter 21 verse 13. that says and is written
in my house, my house, shall be called a house of prayer,
a house of prayer. Could you have made it a den
of these? Stir in me the zeal that I can't
find in my flesh. Without you I can do nothing.
Lord give me faith. Lord save me. Lord cause me to love you. Lord
grant me repentance. See prayer charity from him alone who can
provide what an extraordinary contrast a house of prayer and
a den of thieves the cleansing of the temple is
likened so much and it should be in our thinking to the fact
that his people. The religious people,
when they heard him and saw him doing these things, they thought
how they might destroy him. But I want us to look at verse
14 of Matthew chapter 21. We have again this remarkable
contrast, this great division between humanity. And it says,
And in the midst of all of that, in the midst of all of that drama,
in the midst of all of the whipping and the stampeding animals and
the money flying all over the place, and the blind and the
lame came to him in the temple. Can you see absolutely nothing
in yourself that would cause God to look upon you with favour? Is all that you see in yourself
that you are a sinful man? I'm a sinful man, not a God. And you can't see any reason
in you why God would be merciful and gracious. The only thing
that you can see is that there is a Lord in the temple and he
draws you to himself. The blind, healed, the lame,
the self-righteous can walk in this world in their own right. walk as they would like. And
they come and they are healed. So they don't come to a place
of merchandise. They don't come to a place of
exchange, bargaining. They come to Him. They came to Him. May the Lord in His zeal cause
us to I'll finish with those wonderful
words of the Lord in Isaiah 55 verse 1. He says, come, come
buy wine and milk without money, without price. Don't bargain
with God. We have nothing to bargain with. Come, come and receive. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we pray that you would cause us to be delighting in the zeal
of your dear and precious son. Cause us, Heavenly Father, to
be in awe of the fact that his zeal ate him up. To be in wonder,
Heavenly Father, that his zeal is a zeal for his house, a zeal
for his bride. a zeal that His Bride might all
be gathered together with Him. We praise You, Heavenly Father,
that we come into Your presence because our reigning and successful
Saviour is there now, and we, by His glorious work, a zeal for the honouring of your
dear son in this world and in this little time Heavenly Father
that we have on this planet to exercise faith and to live for
his glory. We pray you will grant us the
zeal to do so Heavenly Father. of their faith. Bless your word,
heavenly Father, to our hearts and cause your Son