Matthew 21. We have a very arresting subject
today. Okay? We have a very arresting
subject today. We have been going through the
book of Matthew for about two and a half years. And if you're going to go through
a book, it's important that you don't skip over anything that
God has said in his word. It's important. Every word in
this book has been written for our learning, but more importantly,
it has been written for God's glory. More importantly, it has been
written for God's glory. And our text today is definitely
no exception. My prayer is, it has been, and
it is that number one, God will show us his glory. And I pray
God will make this clear. I pray he will give me liberty
to communicate this in a right spirit, but in honesty, okay? This chapter begins with our
Lord riding into Jerusalem. Last week, we began this chapter
with our Lord riding into Jerusalem on a colt and he was headed to
the cross. And as he was riding in, it says
that his disciples, all of his followers, were throwing their
coats and palm branches in his way, crying, Hosanna. That means, oh, save us. Can you enter into that? Oh,
save us. Thank God that's exactly what
he was headed to do. Thank God. He was headed to save
his people from their sin. The commentary writers say that
he wrote into Jerusalem five days before the Passover. So
this was the beginning of the same week that he would be crucified. We got Matthew 22 coming, Matthew
23, Matthew 24. This is all happening the week
of his crucifixion. If this was five days before
the Passover, this would have been four days before his crucifixion,
his death by him giving up his own ghost, laying down his own
life for his people. And we're about to read that
when he came into Jerusalem, the first thing that he did was
he went into the temple of God, the house of worship, And what he saw when he went
in there, and let me just point out that he was not surprised,
okay? The all-knowing God knew what
was in there. It was prophesied in the Old
Testament what he would find, and it was prophesied what his
reaction to it would be. And in the fulfillment of that
Old Testament prophecy, when he went into the house of the
Lord and saw what was going on, it angered him greatly. Look with me at verse 12, Matthew
21, verse 12. It says, and Jesus went into
the temple of God and cast out all them that sold and bought
in the temple. and overthrew the tables of the
money changers and the seats of them that sold doves and said
unto them, it is written, my house shall be called the house
of prayer. But you have made it a den of
thieves. You all have heard this account
before. You know of this. Can you envision
our Lord doing that, going in? He rides into Jerusalem. He's
headed to the cross. He's going to the cross. And
the first thing he does is he comes into the temple and he
sees what is going on. And I just go ahead and tell
you it was false religion. That's what was going on. And
it angered him. It angered him. He saw all of
these tables of money, and he saw all these crates full of
doves, and he saw all of these things sitting there. In Exodus
30, a law was given that everyone who was 20 years old and above,
when that person came to the temple of God to worship, He
had to bring a ransom offering to the Lord. And that offering
was exactly one half shekel, okay? A coin worth one half shekel. It said, the rich shall not pay
more and the poor shall not pay less. Everyone that passes among
them shall give exactly one half shekel to the Lord. And quite
often people didn't have a half shekel coin on them. So they
had to go get one. They had to figure out a way
to go get one. Well, some saw this as a good business opportunity. So they set up tables right there
in the courtyard of the temple with a whole bunch of half shekels
sitting on it. And people now had the convenience. They turned worship into a thing
of convenience. How can we make this more convenient? They now had the convenience
of just coming right to the temple and bringing something to barter
with. And they could get their half shekel right there for a
fee. And those guys were not, they
were a little heavy handed on the scale and things like that.
The money changers were making money off of the offerings of
the people. And they were not just doing
this with half shekels, they were doing this with doves, they
were doing this with all kinds of things that were required
to be offered for different reasons. One of the commentary writers
said, lambs were a big business during the time of Passover.
Every house had to have a lamb. It's kind of like flowers on
Valentine's Day, you know. At Passover, buddy, they were
running lambs through there. Big business. And let me just
ask this question. Is there anything wrong with
making a profit on a service that's rendered? You say, well,
they did something and they turned a profit on it. Is there anything
wrong with making a profit on a service rendered, making money
on a job done? Here's the answer. No. No. But there is something wrong
with turning the house of the Lord into a den of thieves. There's something wrong with
that. I don't want to get hung up on
this because I really have something to say this morning. But if 1
Corinthians 9 didn't say that this position of being a full-time
preacher was a paid position, we wouldn't do it. You wouldn't
pay me to do this. You all pay me very well. I want
everybody to know that. You all pay me a full family
man's salary. And to that, I'm very thankful
to you. It enables me to study and preach this word completely. But with that being said, it
sickens me to watch false religion come up with every way under
the sun to suck money out of people. It really does. It's turned into a money racket. And they're doing it for their
own gain and they're doing it in the name of God's work. They are extorting God. They
are extorting the name of God for their own wicked gain. Somebody
joins a church and they make them turn in their tax return
and a routing number so they can start an automatic draw on
their account. And they tell them they're doing
that as a favor to them so they can keep them in line with their
tithes. It's important. If God's gonna be happy with
you, you gotta pay tithe. So we'll help you out by making
sure you get that payment in. We'll do an automatic draw on
your account. And I say this humbly, and I
thought about changing my wording on this, but I'm not going to
because of this portion of scripture here. I'm going to say it this
way. False religion will slap a cross on anything to sell it. They just will. They don't care that that is
a graven image and God is repulsed by it. Just for the record, Exodus
20 verse 4 tells us a graven image is anything formed with
the hands, painted, colored, drawn, cut, made, anything formed
with the hands that represents worship or God or religion. That's called a graven image
of religion. And the Ten Commandments says
don't make it. Don't make anything in heaven
above. You'll see paintings with, you know, like God's hands coming
out of the clouds and the sun. Don't do that. It says don't
make a graven image out of anything in heaven above, doves and, you
know, I don't have any problem with a dove, but as soon as you
put an olive branch in its mouth and it becomes a symbol of religion,
that's now a graven image. Okay, so nothing in heaven above,
nothing on the earth, That's what a cross is. And nothing
in the water under the sea. And that's what a fish is. And
that is the symbol of, you know, Christianity. And all of those
things are graven images. But they don't care that it says
that. And they don't care that it's
a graven image. And they'll just slap it on a t-shirt and sell
it. And they'll slap it on a bumper sticker and sell it. And they'll
go around telling everybody that that's their ministry for the
Lord. I don't tell you all, but I am bombarded here. I bet you I get two emails a
week for gospel singing groups that want to come through here
and put on a show for us. And they want to, you know, sell
the paraphernalia and all that kind of stuff. And, um, you know,
they tell everybody, well, this is our ministry for the Lord.
It's not, this is our gain for ourselves. That's what it is. Nothing to me is as slimy and
repulsive as the business of false religion. Nothing is. I
just, I'm not a big fan. Weaseling money out of people
in the name of God. I absolutely adore the fact that
when visitors come here, they cannot hardly find our offering
box to save their life. It's like we have camouflaged
it. To the point that people usually
ask, where is it? I had a brother ask me one time,
I've been trying to give to this church for three Sundays in a
row and I can't find your offering box. Where is it? Gabe, are you trying to encourage
people not to give? No, that's a commandment of God. It's a
blessing. It's a blessing, but that's between you and God. That's
between you and God. Our business here is to preach
the gospel of Jesus Christ freely. That's our business. You just
come on. You just come. The gospel is
free here. The gospel is free. Free grace. We declare a free gift in every
way, shape, and form. Ho, everyone that thirsteth,
just come ye to the waters. He that has no money, come on.
You come by and eat. Our Lord was so repulsed by the
merchandising of false religion, He went into that temple, and
it doesn't say that He told them to leave. It says He cast them
out. He cast them out. He walked up
to those tables with those half shekels and he, buddy, he turned,
half shekels went flying everywhere. He turned them over. I can see him busting dove crates
and doves just flying away. I can see him kicking sheep gates
open and lambs just running away. The truth himself setting them
free. This is the second time that
he did this. The first time was in John chapter
2 and it says there that he braided himself a whip and went in and
whipped him out. Turn over there with me to John
chapter 2. John 2 verse 13, it says, And the Jews Passover was at
hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and found in the temple those
that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of money
sitting. And when he had made a scourge
of small cords, He drove them all out of the temple and the
sheep and the oxen and purged out the changers of money and
overthrew the tables and said unto them that sold doves, take
these things hence, make not my father's house and house of
merchandise. And his disciples remembered
that it was written, the zeal of thine house hath eaten me
up. That was the prophecy of the
Lord's reaction to what was going on in false religion. The zeal
of thine house hath eaten me up. Now let me ask us two questions. Can we see that God is not happy
with all of this mess that's going on in false religion? I'm
not gonna take the time to do it, but go over to Jeremiah 23
sometime and just read what God has to say about false prophets
and what He's gonna do to them. He's telling the people, I didn't
send them and what they're saying to you, I did not tell them to
say that to you. And it's woe to them, woe to
them. But number one, can we see that
God is not happy with all of this mess that's going on in
false religion? If we can, if we can see that,
then here's the second question. Why? Can we see that God is not
happy? Here's the second question. Why
is God not happy with all of this mess that's going on in
false religion? I'm going to tell us the answer.
And before I do, I want to tell you that this is critical that
we know and understand this. Our acceptance or rejection from
God will be evidenced by whether we understand this right here
or not, whether God has revealed this to us. Why is God so repulsed
by all of this false religion mess that man has gotten himself
into? Why? Here's the reason. It all
comes down to law and grace. It all comes down to man's works
or God's works. It all comes down to what man
is doing or what God has done. When our Lord turned over those
tables of half shekels, what he was saying to them was, This
is not your offering to God. I'm your offering to God. That's what he was saying. People
were going there and doing everything they could do to make their way.
Well, there you go. There's my offering to God. And he told them, this is not
your offering to God. I'm your offering to God. This was only a picture pointing
you to me. Everything in the law is only
a picture pointing us to Christ. Everything. When He drove out
those doves and sheep and oxen, what He was saying was, these
doves are not your ransom payment. I'm your ransom payment. The blood of that sheep is not
your atonement. I'm your atonement. What he was telling them was
stop looking to idols. That's what false religion needs
to hear. That's what all of us need to hear. Stop looking to
idols and form and ceremony and law and turn your eyes to me. Serve me. That's what he said
in Malachi 3. Serve me. Don't serve yourself, don't serve
the flesh, don't serve the law, serve me, turn to me. All those
animals were there so people could make their sacrifice to
God. And he told them all, stop trying
to appease God on your own behalf and turn your eyes to me. All
of those money changers represent false prophets that are making
merchandise of men and women's souls by profiting off of telling
them that they have to keep this up if they want to be saved.
They have to keep business going. If you want to be saved, you're
going to have to keep my business going. You're going to have to
keep all this up. You're going to have to keep
this law up. You're going to have to keep your own salvation
up if you want to be saved. The soul who believes that is
in the bondage of a den of thieves. Stealing the truth from people.
Stealing the credit from Christ. Stealing the glory from God.
Turn with me over to Matthew chapter 12. Matthew chapter 12. I pray we will really enter into
this right here. Matthew 12 verse one, it says, at that time, Jesus went on the
Sabbath day through the corn and his disciples were in hungered
and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat on the Sabbath
day. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold,
thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath
day." They're breaking the commandment of God. Your disciples are breaking
the commandment of God. Verse 3, But he said unto them,
Have you not read what David did, when he was in hunger, and
they that were with him? How he entered into the house
of God and did eat the showbread, which was not lawful for him
to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the
priest. Or have you not read in the law
how that on the Sabbath days, the priests in the temple profane
the Sabbath? They are working and working
and working on the Sabbath day and are blameless. Watch verse
six. But I say unto you, that in this
place is one greater than the temple. That's what men are missing.
That's what men and women are missing. Is he condoning his
people to break the law right here? Is he saying it's okay
to break the law right here? Absolutely not. He is declaring
the fact that he is the fulfillment of the law for his people. He
said, I did not come to put away the law. I came to fulfill it. I came to fulfill it for my people
and it is fulfilled. That's what he's saying. It is
complete. The law is satisfied. Our Lord
went into that temple and they were still trying to satisfy
the law and keep the law. He said the law satisfied. The law said they had to bring
an offering. He said, I brought their offering. The law said
they had to make a sacrifice. I made their sacrifice. The law said they have to rest
on the Sabbath. I am their Sabbath. I am their
Sabbath. I am their rest. They're resting
on me. They accused the religious Pharisees,
accused the disciples, they're not resting on the Sabbath. He
said, oh yes, they are. I'm their Sabbath, they're resting
on me. Verse six, but I say unto you that in this place is one
greater than the temple, one greater than the law, one greater
than the form, one greater than the ceremony. Verse seven, but
if you had known, he said this was critical information, but
you didn't know it. If you had known what this meaneth,
I will have mercy and not sacrifice. You would not have condemned
the guiltless, for the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath
day. It is of critical importance
that we understand the glory of Christ's finished work. It is of critical importance
that we understand the glory of Christ's finished work. It is of critical importance
that we stop trying to accomplish what Christ has already accomplished.
Because by trying to live by the deeds of the law, we are
insulting the accomplishment of Jesus Christ. You know that,
really? What we're doing by trying to
continue it is saying it's not accomplished. We're insulting
His accomplishment by trying to accomplish it ourselves. We're glorifying the sinful flesh
of man by saying we have the ability to accomplish it. Sinful
flesh cannot accomplish what Christ accomplished. And the soul who goes to meet
God on those terms is going to have his or her world turned
upside down. And his own words will be cast
out. Cast out. Thank God. God's people
do not live by the deeds of the law. Thank God. Aren't you so
glad for that? Let me ask this question. Do
God's people love the Holy Claw of God? Yes, they do. Every word. I want to be this
so badly. One day in glory, I will be this. This will be the character of
all of God's people because this is the character of Jesus Christ
and I cannot wait. I'll be satisfied when I awake
with his likeness right here. But until that day comes, I realize
that Christ is the only man that can fulfill the law and demands
of this book. And all my hope is in him. All
of my hope is in him. God's people do not live by the
deeds of the law. They live by the faith of the
Lord Jesus Christ who loved them and gave himself for them. They
realize, God's people realize, I have no offering but Him. Christ is my offering, half shekel,
Jesus Christ. I have no sacrifice but Him,
a dove, a lamb. Jesus Christ. I have no ransom. I have no atonement. That means
covering, blood covering. But Jesus Christ, he's the only
one I have. In my hand, no price I bring. Simply to his cross I cling. He brought the price. He brought
the payment. He is my all. And all this other
mess is nothing at all. It is nothing at all. Look with
me at Romans 11. Almost finished. Romans 11. Romans 11 verse 1, it says, I
say then, hath God cast away his people? God forbid. He cast
away those money changers, didn't he? But He will not cast away
His people. He will not cast away one soul
that He chose and loved and redeemed and has caused that soul to totally
turn their eyes to Him and look to Him. Verse 1 says, I say then,
hath God cast away His people? God forbid. For I also am an
Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God
hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew. Know ye not
what the scripture saith of Elijah, how he maketh intercession to
God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets
and digged down thine altars, and I am left alone, and they
seek my life. But what sayeth the answer of
God unto him? I have reserved to myself 7,000
men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so
then, at this present time also, there is a remnant according
to the election of grace. Now verse six is the one I wanted
to get to. And if by grace, and it is no
more of works, Otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it be
of works, then it is no more grace. Otherwise, work is no
more works. What that's saying is it's one
or the other. You can't mix the two. It's not
the gift of Christ plus the gift of me. It's not the sacrifice
of Christ plus the sacrifice of me. It's Christ alone. It is Christ alone. It is not
man's works and God's grace. God's grace alone. God's mercy
and grace alone in the blood of Christ. That's what our Lord
was saying when he went in and purged his temple. He was saying
salvation is not by the fleshly deeds of man. It is by the free
grace of God in the person and the work, in the life and the
death, in the righteousness and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our all. He's our all. Let's cast our all on him. Amen.