Let's open our Bibles to John
chapter 2, titled, The Message is the Zeal of Christ. We begin in verse 12, and after
this, he went down to Capernaum, he and his mother and his brethren
and his disciples, and they continued there not many days. You never
know how long the Lord will stay in a city. He just manifested
his glory in Cana of Galilee with his most important miracle,
and then he left. He went down to Capernaum, but
he didn't stay there very long, just a few days, and he left. Now, the Lord made his kind of
headquarters in Capernaum. He came and went there often.
If you look back at Matthew chapter 11, our Lord was there often. But what happened to Capernaum? after our Lord would come and
go and be there every so often. In Matthew 11, verse 23, And thou, Capernaum, which art
exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell. For if
the mighty works which had been done in thee had been done in
Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto
you that it should be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the
day of judgment than for thee. And maybe people just took it
for granted. The Lord will be here tomorrow. Well, he's leaving
today, but he'll come back. He always comes back. He's here
frequently. And they missed him. They saw the miracle worker,
apparently, but they certainly missed the Savior. They missed
his true glory. If the story ended there. That'd
be kind of depressing, wouldn't it? But somebody heard. Somebody did. Look at verse 25
or Matthew 11. At that time, Jesus answered
and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, but
you revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight. The Lord's going to reveal himself
to somebody. The Lord's here today. Will he
be here tomorrow? I don't know, but he's here today. We'll take advantage of it. Scripture
says, seek the Lord while he may be found. Ask him to reveal
himself to a simple sinner, a babe like you, because that's who
he saves. He may not be here tomorrow,
but he's here today. He was in Capernaum for a time,
just a few days, and he left. In verse 13 in our text of John
2, And the Jews' Passover was at hand and Jesus went up to
Jerusalem. He left Capernaum and went up
to Jerusalem. Now look over in Exodus chapter 12. Here's a key
to understanding this whole passage of scripture. John said that
the Jews' Passover was at hand. Was that how the Passover began?
Did it begin as the Jews' Passover? It did not. In Exodus chapter
12, after the Lord had given the instructions for the first
Passover to Moses. In verse 26 of Exodus 12, Moses
says, and this shall come to pass, when your children shall
say unto you. It's not just if they do, when
they do. Your children are going to ask
you, what do you mean by this service? That ye shall say, it's
the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover. He didn't tell them to say, no,
this is the Jews' Passover. This is the Lord's Passover.
which passed over the houses of the children of Israel in
Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses. And
the people bowed the head and worshipped." Now, the Passover
had degenerated from this point in Exodus 12, in John chapter
2, it's called the Jews' Passover. The Jews' Passover, where the
people no longer bowed their head and worshipped. It wasn't
the Lord's Passover, it was the Jews' Passover. There was no
more true worship because by the time our Lord came in the
flesh, the picture of redemption through the blood of the lamb
was forgotten. Christ was taken out of that
feast and all that was left was the empty form and ceremony of
religion. Now they still had all the same
elements. They had the lamb, they had the blood, they had
the hyssop, but Christ was taken out of their ceremony. And that's
all it was now, was just a ceremony. It was just another way for the
Jews to keep the law and make themselves feel better in their
eyes than the Gentiles that did not have this form of the Passover. And the same thing can happen
to us today. People, they still use the Bible,
they still use the words like righteousness and blood and grace,
but they have an empty form and ceremony of religion because
they quit preaching Christ. And they keep the doctrine. They
preach the doctrine that they think makes them better than
them Armenians. But that's all it is. It's doctrine
and form and ceremony of religion. I'm telling you, be watchful.
If you don't think it can't happen to us, the Lord just may show
us it could happen to us too. The sole purpose of us meeting
here in this building is to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. to preach
His name, He's all. And if He's not here, there's
no reason for us to be here. Sleep in if Christ is not here. Christ is all. He's all in our
preaching. He's all in our worship. He's
all in our lives, in our daily lives. When you go out to work,
Christ is all. And if He's not, it's just the
form and ceremony of religion. And if you look back at Psalm
69, the portion of the psalm we read to open the surface.
This is what happened to that nation Israel because it stopped
being the Lord's Passover and became the Jews Passover. In
Psalm 69 verse 20. Reproach had broken my heart
and I'm full of heaviness. I look for some to take pity,
but there was none and for comforters I found none. They gave me also
gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Let their table, let this Passover table, this table that they put
so much stock in, let their table become a snare before them. And
that which should have been for their welfare, let it become
a trap. Let their eyes be darkened if
they see not, and make their loins continually to shake. Pour
out thine indignation upon them. Let thy wrathful anger take hold
of them. Let their habitation be desolate,
and let none dwell in their tents. For they persecute him whom thou
hast met, and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast
wounded. Add iniquity unto their iniquity, and let them not come
into thy righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the
book of the living, and not be written with the righteous."
Now that's sobering. I mean, that is a sobering passage
of Scripture. That's exactly what's happened
to this day to the nation Israel. Their eyes have been blinded.
They seek unto righteousness, but they can't find it because
they seek it in their own obedience to the law instead of looking
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet despite their worship being
gone from the Passover, even though the Jews had taken Christ
out of the Passover, our Lord went to Jerusalem. to observe
the Passover anyway. Why on earth would he do that?
Because at this point, he was under the law and he must fulfill
all of the law. He must keep all of the law,
even though the worship of it had gone out of it for the nation
Israel. Our Lord must keep the Passover in order to keep the
law and have the obedience that he could impute to you and me.
So he went to Jerusalem. to observe the Passover. And
verse 14, when he got there, he found in the temple those
that sold oxen and sheep and doves and changers of money sitting. Now all Jews were required to
attend the Passover. Many of them traveled many, many
miles to get there. And they would bring with them
the animals that would be sacrificed during the feast at the Passover.
And that made a difficult trip to bring this little lamb with
them, you know, all the way from wherever it was they were coming.
So somebody came up with a bright idea. Let's not make them bring
the animals to the sacrifice. They can just come by themselves
and we'll sell them the oxen and the sheep and the dogs that
are required for Passover when they get here. It'll just make
it easier for people to come to the worship. And at the same
time, everyone's also required at this time of year to pay a
tax for the operation of the temple. Look over in Exodus chapter
30. This is where this first began
in Exodus chapter 30. Everyone was given a half shekel
of silver, and it was a tax for the operation, the cost of the
operation of the temple. And here is where this first
happened in Exodus 30, verse 12. We now take us the sum of the
children of Israel after their number. Then shall they give
every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord. that there be
no plague among them when thou number'st them. This they shall
give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered,
half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary. A shekel is
twenty gears, and half a shekel shall be the offering of the
Lord. Every one that passeth among them that are numbered,
from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering unto the
Lord. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not
give less than half a shekel." when they give an offering unto
the Lord, this is important, to make an atonement for your
souls. This was the atonement money.
And thou shalt take the atonement money of the children of Israel,
and shalt appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of
the congregation, that it may be a memorial unto the children
of Israel before the Lord, to make an atonement for your souls. And this they did as a memorial
every year. They gave this half shekel of silver. This first
collection of silver They melted it down and they used it to make
the silver sockets that were the foundation of the walls of
the tabernacle. And this atonement money is the
foundation of everything we believe. The atonement of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The rich shall not give more
and the poor shall not give less. The atonement's the same. Picturing
the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the atonement's the same. It's
always His blood. And every year when people came
they would give the exact same amount and the exact same currency. Well, eventually, by the time
it got to this point, people were coming from different countries,
from all over the place to Jerusalem, and they'd be bringing different
currencies with them, the currency of their home country. So again,
somebody had the bright idea, let's set up some booths inside
the walls of the tabernacle or the temple there, and we'll have
Money changers, they'll rent some space in these booths and
they can exchange this foreign currency just to make it convenient
for people. So they'll have the right change,
you know, the right currency to give. Capitalism was alive and well,
wasn't it? These people didn't do this for
free. They didn't sell these animals for a sacrifice at their
cost. They charged, well, it's just a small fee. You know, we
just, you know, we have to have some fee for this, that's reasonable.
We're not doing it to make money, mind you. We've got to cover
our expenses. We're not looking to make a profit.
We're just trying to make it more convenient for people to
come to worship. But these livestock dealers and
these money changers were notorious for making bargains that made
them a nice profit. I mean, it must have been an
excessive profit because in Matthew 21, our Lord calls them thieves.
I mean, you're not just businessmen, you're thieves. And the chief
priest probably got in on this act. They made these booze and
they probably charged rent for it that the priest collected.
Just like, you know, pole-landing days and all those booze. Somebody
pays the city a fee for those things. These fellas paid the
chief priest a fee to rent these booze. Their religion. I mean, as soon as you entered
the gates of that massive temple complex, it was a money-making
venture. John, just like when you win
those gates at Disney World, buddy, it's a money-making venture.
That's what this was. That's what it had become, a
money-making venture. And it was not capitalism at
all. It's idolatry. Now you think,
that's pretty harsh. No question it's covetousness,
right? I mean, if you want excessive profit, that's covetousness.
Then it's idolatry. In Colossians chapter 3, Covetousness is trying to get
rich off its idolatry. In Colossians 3 verse 5, mortify
therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication,
uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness,
which is what? Idolatry. Their religion was
no religion at all. It was idolatry. That's what
the whole place was. And modern-day religion is the
exact same thing. Don't call what they're doing
worship. It's not worship. It's idolatry. Tara told me the other day, when
she visited Westminster Abbey, it reminded her of this scene
here, John chapter 2. People are selling something
everywhere. It's incredible. That's what they're doing. And
that's what modern-day religion is. And they'll tell you, well,
we're not in it for the money. Yet somehow they keep getting
rich. How'd that happen? If you're not in it for the money,
you keep getting rich. They're in it for the money. They tell
you, well, we're just trying to make it more convenient for
people to come to worship. You know, we're going to make
it easier for people. You know, if we make it easier, then more
people will hear the word. But they replace reverence with
contemporary worship. They replace worship with something
that appeals to the flesh so more people will be interested
and come. They replace preaching with plays and discussion groups,
so more people will come, because that appeals to the flesh more
than preaching. I mean, who's interested in preaching? Who
has the attention span for preaching? So let's do something different,
you know, to appeal to the flesh so more people will come. And
that sounds like good logic to the flesh, but I'm telling you,
they're thieves. That's what they are. That's
what our Lord called them. They're thieves. They steal God's glory
and they rob men and women of their souls, and it's infuriating
to rob men and women of their souls and rob God of His glory. And what they're doing is just
another way to make a good living. They're seeking to be rich, and
in doing so, they're making merchandise of men's souls, and it's inexcusable. They're not church buildings.
Don't ever call them church buildings. They're houses of merchandise
and dens of thieves. that the money changers were
selling, they're not exchanging it, they're selling it, making
a profit on it. It's the ransom for the souls of Israel. And
modern day religion is doing the exact same thing. They're
selling the atonement money. They're making a business out
of the atonement. They're making a profit off a
sinner's desire to worship. Now I know men are dead in trespasses
and sins. But there's something in man
that makes us know. I'm not right with God, something's
not equal here, something needs to be done, and they're making
the know that the ransom must be paid. Now, they don't know
what the ransom price is. You know, they think they've
got to do something or, you know, whatever, but they know a ransom
must be paid. And these thieves are making
a profit on their desire to have the ransom be paid for their
souls. You see these TV preachers, they sell these overpriced trinkets,
you know, and they say, well, now it'll help you in your Christian
walk. We're not selling this to make a profit for us. We're
selling this to help you. Is that any different than what
these money changers were doing? It's not different at all. They're
offering entertainment as a way to get people to come and leave
their offering. Well, is that any different than
what these people, livestock sellers were doing? We ought
to come to worship. and bring an offering. But this
is the house of worship. This is not a place of business.
This is the house of worship. We're not selling salvation because
salvation cannot be sold. It cannot be bought. It's already
been bought with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Passover
lamb. Well, this infuriates you and
me. How did our Lord react when he
comes face to face with this? Verse 15, when he had made a
scourge of small cores, he drove them all out of the temple. And
the sheep and the oxen, he poured out the changers' money over
through the tables, and he said unto them that sold doves, take
these things hence. Make not my father's house a
house of merchandise. Our Lord goes into this money-making
venture. We don't read that he said anything.
He just goes to work, making him a scourge of small cords.
And these cords were probably the cords that held the sheep
and oxen, you know, that would be sold. After they were sold,
they just threw the cord, you know, tied it to the post and
they threw it down on the ground. Waldorf picked them up and made
him a whip. And he used that whip and he drove out those people,
those livestock dealers. He drove them out. He drove the
money changers out. He drove the sheep out. He drove
the oxen out. He dumped the money on the ground.
He overthrew their tables. I mean, one man did all of this. I mean, can you imagine? The
scene people just watch is one man. I mean, just in energy and
zeal that he inserted to drive out all those people and all
those animals. And look, they're just standing
there. They're just watching. And then the Lord calmly goes
up. He gives them these cages that held the doves. He said,
you take these things out of here. Don't make my father's
house a house of merchandise. And it's interesting. The Lord
drove out the cattle. He drove out the sheep. He drove
out the money changers. He drove out those livestock
dealers. But you know, the sheep and the oxen, they drove out
in the city. Somebody catch them. I mean,
they're going to be easy to catch there in the city. He dumped
the money on the ground. Somebody picked that up. You
can rest assured of that. But if he let the doves go, they'd
fly away and be gone. So he told them, you take these
cages with these doves and get out of here. Our Lord in his
zeal drove them out. But nobody suffered loss. He
didn't even make them suffer loss for the things that they'd
done. I don't know why. He'd have been right if he'd
have done it, but that's not what he did. And maybe the Lord
chose this particular time to show his zeal, because this is
the time of the Passover. This is the time that so clearly
pictures deliverance from sin in the blood of the sacrifice,
when the blood is applied to the doorposts. God said, when
I see the blood, I'll pass over you. The only reason you're delivered
is the blood has been shed and the blood has been applied. But
that had degenerated to the Jews Passover, just a religious ceremony. And our Lord was deeply offended
and drove him out. And someone might say, you know,
that's pretty drastic. Him making a whip and whipping
these people and driving them out. Didn't our Lord have right
to do this? Where he did it? I mean, first
of all, he's the Lord. He has a right to do whatever
he wants to do. Whatever he does is right because he did it. This
is his father's house. And Christ is the son over his
own house. That's what Paul said in Hebrews
3. It's his house. He has the right to do in his
house what he will. And in his house, at this time,
this is exactly what he should have done. What did the law require
before the Passover? It required all the leaven be
taken out of the house. And it required you to search
for the leaven. Search diligently for it and
get it out of the house. Leaven's a picture of sin. And
the leaven must be out of the house before the Passover. That's
what Christ did to his house. He drove that wickedness, the
leaven, out of his house, out of his father's house. First,
purge out the old leaven. Then observe the feast. Then
keep the feast. And that's what he did in his
house. And when our Savior did this, he revealed several things
about his character. He showed first his deity. This
man drove out these religious pretenders because he's God.
This is my father's house, he said. He's the son of God. He's
God. And as God, he drove them out
of his house. Second, he showed his power and
his authority. One man makes a whip of small
cords, so that leads me to believe it wasn't a very big whip. And
a pretty good-sized crowd of people ran in terror. with one
man with this small whip. The area, I read, inside the
walls of that temple was 14 acres. I bet it was full. At this, the
Passover, everybody's coming to Jerusalem, it's full. They
probably did what we do. They made the booze one year
and rented out all the booze. The next year, they made them
a little smaller. And the next year, they made them a little
smaller. So they could fit more and more booze in, more and more people. I think
the place was full. And our Savior, by himself, drove
them out because he's got the power and the authority to do
so. And purging the leaven, purging
the sin out of his people is a work that the Savior does by
himself with his power and his authority. Third, he showed us
his character. Now John just identified our
Lord as the Lamb of God. And we all think of a lamb as
a kind of timid, meek, preacher, and it is. But here our Lord
showed both the righteousness and the wrath of the Lamb. Our
Lord is kind and gentle, but that's not all He is. Our Lord,
because He's kind and gentle, the world sees this Jesus as
just this poor little helpless Jesus. He just wants to save
you if you'll just let Him. And if you won't, there's really
nothing you can do about it. That's not just Jesus, is it? That's
not this man that appeared in this temple. The world sees Jesus
as a man who loves everybody. Now, he wouldn't even hurt a
fly. This Jesus is nothing like that. This lamb has wrath, too. Our Lord is infinitely gracious,
and I'm so thankful. Aren't you thankful he's infinitely
gracious? It takes infinite grace to save
a sinner who's as vile as I am. Infinite grace. I'm thankful.
But our Lord is also inflexibly righteous. He will by no means
clear the guilty. He will pour out His wrath upon
sin. And we do well to remind ourselves
it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.
Look at Malachi chapter 3, the last book in the Old Testament,
Malachi chapter 3. What our Lord did when he suddenly
appeared in his temple at this time of the Passover should have
been a surprise to no one. Malachi told us this was going
to happen. In Malachi chapter 3, verse 1, Behold, I will send
my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me and the whom
ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger
of the covenant, whom ye delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith
the Lord of hosts." And we typically end our quotation of this there,
and I would imagine the Jews did too. But, verse 2, he's going
to suddenly come to his temple. Who may abide the day of his
coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like
a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap. Who's going to stand when
he appears? This lamb is bringing the refiner's
fire. He's bringing wrath against sin
when he comes and he suddenly appears. This is not the man
who won't hurt a fly with it. This is the man who comes to
execute judgment against sin and drive it out. Now, verse
17, back in our text. All this crowd of people watched
in amazement as our Lord, that one small whip drove all those
people out and his disciples remembered that it was written,
the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up. And our Lord had great
zeal. And it wasn't just for this building
that we call the temple. The Lord Jesus Christ had great
zeal for his people who make up the house of God. The church
of God is not a building. It's people. I'm looking at the
church of God. People have been saved by God's
grace. And Christ loved his people so
much that his zeal for their salvation consumed him. He didn't just have a zeal to
drive out these religious hucksters. His zeal was for the salvation
of his people that he loved. And he loved them so much, he
went about all of their salvation with great zeal. He willingly
humbled himself to assume our nature because he had zeal in
redeeming us. He showed zeal in teaching his
people and correcting their bad doctrine and showing them their
wrong attitudes about worship. He showed great zeal, that shepherd
going out to find the one. Ninety-nine are in the fold.
The one's out there lost. He showed great zeal to go out
and get that one. He must, needs go through Samaria. Jews don't go that way. The Lord
must go that way. Why must he go through Samaria?
There's a lost sheep there. And in His zeal, He's going to
go have her. He must go through Jericho. Why
do you want to go through that wicked city? Because once He
gets outside the gates, there's a little fellow sitting up in
a tree. And I must go abide in His house. He went to great lengths
to go find all of His sheep. And nothing has changed to this
day. Our Lord's disciples saw this happen and God's Word was
brought to their mind. A quotation from Psalm 69, 9.
If you want a good explanation of what happened in John chapter
2, God's Word gives us an explanation of what happened there. The zeal
that those disciples witnessed was the Savior's zeal for the
salvation of His people. Our Lord was so zealous for the
salvation of His people, He delighted to keep the law for them. He
kept the law for them So that he would have an obedience to
impute to his people. He was so zealous to work out
this perfect obedience. He even suffered through observing
the Jews Passover. You know how that grated on his
soul. But he went. So he had an obedience
to impute to you and me. Now look over Psalm 69. This is the psalm that came to
the mind of these disciples. And this psalm explains the zeal
of our Savior. In verse 4, David says, They that hate me
without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head. They
that would destroy me, be mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty. Then I restored that which I
took not away. Now when Adam fell in the garden,
Man lost all righteousness in Adam. When Adam fell, every one
of us became guilty and we lost righteousness. And when Adam
fell, he lost fellowship with God. And all mankind lost fellowship
with God in him, too. Now, God didn't take those things
away. Adam lost them. He lost righteousness. God didn't
take his righteousness away. He lost it. God didn't just arbitrarily
take his fellowship away from Adam. Adam lost it. because of
his sin and his rebellion. Christ, speaking through David,
said, I came to restore that which I took not away. This would
have been a good verse to read Wednesday night and looking at
that Psalm Jehovah Revealed, Psalm 23. He restored my soul. I'm going to restore that which
I took not away. Christ restored righteousness
for his people by working out this perfect obedience and imputing
that obedience to his people. Christ is the only righteousness
you and I can ever have. The only righteousness. We can't
obtain it through our works. We can't restore that which we
lost in Adam through our works. Christ came and He restored that
and took not away by working out a perfect righteousness that
He would impute to His people. And then our Lord restored fellowship
with God by taking the sin of His people and His own body on
the tree. and suffering the full penalty
of the broken law for that sin. And he paid that entire sin debt
with his own blood. He blotted it out with the blood
of his sacrifice. Now, God's not angry anymore.
The sin that made him angry has been removed and fellowship has
been restored. And Christ came and he told men
the truth. The truth, of course, told the
truth. He told the truth about God and
the truth about man. Christ showed us that man is
totally depraved. He showed us we're completely
sinful and it is impossible for us to restore what was lost in
Adam. And by God's grace, there is
salvation to be had freely in the Lord Jesus Christ, in His
life and His sacrifice. And men hated Him for it. The
best news that's ever been told and men hated Him for it. Because
men by nature hate to be shown what we are. We hate to have
that mirror put up in front of us so we see who and what we
are. How sinful we are. And even if
we admit, you know, I'm kind of sinful. I'm not as bad as
somebody else, but I'm kind of sinful. We'd still rather work
out our own righteousness. Rather than submit ourselves
to the righteousness of Christ. And our Savior was so zealous,
He endured the hatred of nearly all men. for telling them the
truth and offering up the one sacrifice that would put away
sin. And whether we love that truth
or we hate that truth, it doesn't change the truth. It doesn't
change the fact there's salvation in no other. I hope we love the
truth. But even if we hate it, it's
not going to change the fact there's no salvation outside
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm thankful Our Savior was
so zealous in the salvation of His people. Well, how zealous
was He? Well, first of all, He was so
zealous, He bore the reproach of the sin of His people. Look
at verse 7 here, Psalm 69. For thy sake I have borne reproach. The Holy Son of God was made
to be sin, and He bore the reproach of that sin. So much so, it cost
Him His life. He bore it to his death. And
he did it, he said, for thy sake. He's speaking to the Father here.
Christ was zealous of the salvation of his people. And he was zealous
for the glory of his Father. For thy sake, I bore reproach. For the sake of the Father, I
bore the reproach of the sin of my people. Christ bore that
reproach to enable his Father to be just and justified. He
did that to glorify his father and to save his people from their
sins. He was zealous so that he bore the reproach of his people.
Second, he was so zealous, he willingly endured shame. At the
end of verse seven here, shame hath covered my face. He gave
his back to the smiters. He gave his face to those who
had beaten him, those who had plucked out his beard. And then
that swollen, bruised face was covered in the spit of vile men. And even worse than that, the
shame of being made sin for his people. Now, you and I can't
imagine the shame the Holy Son of God endured to be made sin
because sin's all we've ever known. But he was made to be
sin. He was stripped naked before
his Father and the Savior. willingly endured all that shame
because he was so zealous of the salvation of his people.
Him enduring the shame that our sin deserves compelled him to
endure it because he loves his people and he's zealous to save
them. Third, he was so zealous he suffered
alone. Verse 8, I became a stranger
to my brethren and an alien unto my mother's children. He was
so zealous he suffered alone, forsaken by his father. Those
disciples that swore they'd die with him were nowhere to be found.
They were gone. The sheep he was saving were
scattered and he suffered alone. Fourth, he was so zealous that
his zeal consumed him to death. He bore the reproach of his people
to the grave. Verse nine, for the zeal of thine
house have eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproach
thee are fallen upon me." Our Savior was zealous for the salvation
of His people. Now, I tell you the big problem
that I see in what these livestock sellers were doing is this. They must have haggled over the
price of those animals. I don't think they just put a
one price on there. They haggled over it. Janet loves
to go bargain hunting. She loves to go over there to
Grandview Outlet where the price is always negotiable. She goes
in there, she wants to negotiate. Next time you want to buy a new
car, take Isaac and Brady with you. I mean, they love to go
negotiate. That's what these guys, when
you go to the flea market, that's what these guys were doing. They're negotiating
over the price of the sacrifice. Trying to get the atonement at
a cheaper price. I know this is a stereotype,
but the Jews are known to be good negotiators in business.
Wouldn't it be a shame if those skills were honed here? Trying
to get the atonement at a cheaper price, to pay the minimum for
salvation. And the Jews are not alone in
this. Men do the same thing today. If I do this, God will do this. If I do this, God will save me.
You know, if I walk an aisle, I clean up my act, God will save
me. If I dedicate my life to Jesus, or if I mess up and I
rededicate my life to Jesus, then He'll save me. If I give
a certain amount of money, or I give up certain pleasures of
the flesh, God will save me. Now you listen to what I'm about
to say. Men, do not bargain with God for salvation. Men beg God
for salvation. We don't bargain with God for
salvation. Look at Matthew chapter 21. Here's another time. The
Lord cleansed his temple, cleansed his father's house, drove him
out. And look what he says about this. In John, he says, you've made
my father's house a house of merchandise. In Matthew 21, verse
13. And said unto them, it's written,
my house shall be called the house of prayer, but you've made
it Again, thieves. God's house is not the house
of merchandise. It's not a house of bargain hunting.
It's the house of salvation. It's a house of worship. It's
a house of thanksgiving. It's a house of fellowship. And
it is the house of prayer. Now, what is prayer? Prayer is
begging for salvation. True prayer. It's praise, isn't
it? It's thanksgiving. in his petition,
begging, begging God for salvation. The house of the Lord is not
a place for worldly gain. It's a place for spiritual gain.
It's a place where spiritual blessings cannot be bought with
silver and gold because they've already been bought, bought and
paid for by the blood of the lamb. Now that may not be good
news to money changers and livestock dealers. But that's good news
to sinners that don't have anything to negotiate with. Look at verse
14 here, Matthew 21. These people heard our Lord say
this. And what happened? The blind and the lame came to
Him in the temple. And He healed them. This was
good news to people that don't have anything to negotiate with.
They don't have any power. You know, if you've got some
power, you've got some leverage, you've got something to negotiate
with. These people are poor. They're lame. They're blind.
They can't work. They don't have anything to give. They don't
have anything to offer in this haggling process because they
don't have anything to contribute to anybody. But they came to
the house of prayer. They found the Savior and they
begged him. And what did he do? He healed
them. He healed them freely. At the
end of John, chapter two, The Lord would not commit himself
to those who believed on him because they saw the miracles. And I read that and I wonder
this. Am I a mere professor or am I a true believer? And if
you wonder the same thing, I've got a few thoughts. Are you a
true believer or a mere professor? Well, are you a bargain hunter
or a beggar? Do you have something to offer? Are you blind and lame? And the
only way you're going to have anything is if you beg. Beggars
are true believers. Are you fascinated by the miracles?
Or do you need a Savior who's zealous to save from sin? Are
you zealous for the glory of Christ? Has His grace made you
zealous for His glory so that you cannot tolerate someone lying
on Him? Does God's Word mean anything
to you? Is His Word your life? You know,
the apostles saw this and God's Word was brought to their mind.
Do you enjoy thinking about God's Word? Do you enjoy it? Are you
thankful when God's Word comes into your mind? Well, how did
that happen? God the Holy Spirit brought His
Word to your mind. That's a child of God. And last,
do you want the leaven to be driven out? Or do you just wish
God to leave you alone? Driving the leaven out is painful
business. It happens with the scourge.
And Christ purges the hearts of His people. He gives a new
heart where there's no sin, there's no corruption. But as long as
we're in this flesh, there's leaven in us. And it's got to
be driven out. It's a painful process. God leaves
His sheep. The Good Shepherd leads His sheep,
but He drives out the leaven. And I pray that the Lord would
give us, in this place, a zeal for His glory. Not so we can
drive somebody out. A zeal for His glory, because
He's been so merciful and gracious and zealous in saving sinful
men and women like we are. All right. Well, I hope the Lord
will bless that to you.