Let's turn to Matthew chapter
21. The title of the lesson this morning
is, The House of God. Let's read here in Matthew 21
beginning with verse 12. 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. And the blind and the lame came
to him in the temple, and he healed them. And when the chief
priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children
crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David,
they were sore displeased and said unto him, no doubt in absolute
disgust, hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them,
yea, have you never read out of the mouth of babes and sucklings
Thou hast perfected praise." And he left them. And he went
out of the city into Bethany. And he lodged there. Now there
are a lot of things that we could spend an entire lesson on in
these verses. We could spend an entire lesson
on the fulfillment of Scripture. His riding into Jerusalem on
the back of a of the foal of an ass, a wild ass's coat, exactly
as the Scriptures predicted that he would, declared that he would. Our folks in our day call it
predictions. They weren't predictions, they
were prophecies, declarations of God of future events concerning
the Christ. And then we could deal with this
subject, righteous anger. Somebody told me one time that
They said even Jesus Christ wasn't perfect. He got angry. Well,
there's a righteous anger. And this was a righteous anger,
a righteous wrath that was being shown here in Matthew 21. But this morning I want us to
just focus our attention on just one thing, the house of God. And I've got four things concerning
the house of God that I believe will help us to better understand
what it is, and what it's about, and how God regards its activities,
and how He blesses what He Himself brings order into. So let's begin
here with the house itself. Whose house is this? Whose house
is this? He entered into the temple. The
Pharisees thought it was theirs. And so they did what they did
in the temple. But does this house belong to
the people, or does it belong to God? If it belongs to us, then we
can organize it. If it belongs to us, then we
can structure it. If it belongs to us, then we
can do what we see fit, build it where we want it to be, build
it how it pleases us, build it how it pleases this work. If
it belongs to us, then we can have whatever motives we want
when we come to it. And we can say what we want to,
and we can say it how we want to, and we can hire somebody
to run things, and we can do things. We can get together and
vote on what we do and all this type of thing if it's our house.
If it's our house. And we can make up the rules
to govern it and vote on all these things and appoint somebody
over it. But it's not our house. He tells
us here in verse 13. It's my house. It's my house. What right had he? That's what
these Pharisees looked upon what he'd done. Now, in John 2, if
you'll read that account, you'll find out that he sat down and
took some cords and plaited together a whip. He didn't just go in
there yelling and screaming. He sat down and plaited a whip
and he beat them out. And he drove out the animals.
And he drove out those old sacrifices. And he kicked over the money
changers. There was people in there who
came from all these different countries round about. And they
came into Jerusalem. And they come into that temple.
And they had foreign currency. And these Pharisees had allowed
the money changers to come in. Let's just say if you had $10,
but you had it in English coin, and it had to be converted to
American, well, they'd convert it for you for a charge. And
they'd convert those coins and so on, and they'd make profit
on that. And so it was full of money changers. And then there
were sacrifices to be offered. And not everybody brought a sacrifice. So in this temple, they made
it easy on everybody. They had cages in there full
of doves. And they had calves. And they
had goats. And they had lambs. And they
had all of these things. And naturally, they guaranteed
this was a lamb without spot or blemish, according to the
law. We've already done that. Now, you have to pay us for our
services. but we're going to sell you a lamb. And so here's
this place and it's just full of people. It's just full of
people. And if it's his house and he said it's my house, what
right did he have to come in and drive out those money changers
and kick over them tables and just drive them out? This is
a miracle in itself. He was so meek. and mild when
it comes to his dealing with people. And all of a sudden,
this man takes charge. He takes sovereign rule over
the priest. He didn't consider priests. He
didn't consider high priests. He didn't consider guards. He
didn't consider anything. He just come in there and flat
drove them out of the temple. And he said, this is my house.
This is my house. This is God's house. He designed
it. He ordained it. He bought it. He orders it. He judges it. And
he uses it as he sees fit. It's God's house. And then secondly,
what is it? What is it? We know whose it
is. He said, this is my house. That
temple, he said, is my house. And now he's going to tell us
what it is. What it is. Is God's house a
building? Is that what it is? Is God's
house an organization? What is the house of God? What
is that? Well, turn with me to I Timothy
chapter 3. I Timothy chapter 3. The house
of God as it's manifested in this world is the visible saints. Visible saints of God gathering
themselves together for worship. And I don't care if it's in a
chicken house. It's God's house. I Timothy 3, verse 14. Paul said, These things write
I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly. But if I tarry
long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself
in the house of God. Now listen to this. which is
the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the
truth. So if we want to know what the
house of God is, here it is. It's the church of the living
God. The church of the living God. God's house is not a building,
it's not an association, it's not a denomination. It's the
saints assembled in this world to worship God. And then let
me give you just another verse or two to nail this thing down
over in 1 Peter 2. 1 Peter 2, verse 5. Now Peter had
just finished telling us, talking about those strangers. And we'll
deal with that here in just a little while in my main message. He works Himself through the
new birth. He works Himself down saying, if so be you tasted that
the Lord is gracious. Desire His work as newborn babes. Desire that sincere milk of the
Word. And then He begins to talk to
them about what they're a part of. What is this thing that they've
been called into and born into? And He tells us here in verse
5, Ye also as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house,
a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable
to God by Jesus Christ. And then one more over in Ephesians
chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2 beginning
with verse 20. He tells us here that this house
of God is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets
Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all
the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in
the Lord, in whom ye also are built together for a habitation
of God through the Spirit." So this temple into which our Lord
entered was His house. And He's not talking about that
building, but He's talking about the gathering together within
this building, which was what this Passover was all about.
It was the Passover. That's why he came to Jerusalem. That's why he came to this temple.
And this was a sacred time. This was a time that pointed
to the death of Christ, pointed to that Passover feast. And so
he begins to talk to them here about his house. And then secondly,
he tells us what this house is for. Prayer. and praise in the preaching of
the gospel. It's a place to offer up, Peter
said, spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. A place
to worship God in spirit and in truth. God's house is not
some gaudy building with high pinnacles, which are nothing
but monuments to religion and monuments to man's works. That's all they are. You sit
back. I've listened to people up there
in Washington, D.C. You'd have to back off a block
and a half just to get it in your camera so you can get a
picture of it. They call it the National Cathedral.
And you back off and you get a picture of this big Catholic
cathedral there, and you look at those high pinnacles, and
everybody around was talking about the men who built it, the
architects, the design of it, all those. They're monuments
to men's works. and works religion. That's all
they are. The house of God is made up of monuments of His mercy
and grace. Every man born of God is a vessel
of honor. Isn't that what I talked to you
about here back in Romans 9? It's a vessel that Potter has
formed for himself, a form prepared unto glory. And you come in,
you look around, and all you see is just flesh and bones and
coats and people just like everybody else. But you can't see inside. Inside, there are monuments to
the mercy and grace of our God and of our Lord. Man looks on
the outward countenance. God looks on the heart. And these
men and these women are the living testimony of God's greatest work
in His Son. They are the pillar, He said,
and ground of the truth, this church. Then as children of God
by faith in Christ Jesus, we have only two reasons, as far
as I can find in the Scripture, we have only two reasons for
being left in this world. The first reason is to warn men
and women about God's impending judgment, about God's judgment
of man and Adam, and about God's judgment of men right now, and
about God's impending judgment in that day. And then the second
reason is this. We're fellow laborers with the
Lord to call out God's elect. And that's the main reason we're
here. We're searching for God's elect. Somebody told Brother
Mayhem one time, well, if only the elect's going to be saved.
That's the only ones I'd preach to. He said, if they had a mark
on them, I would. I'd do that very thing. But I
don't know who they are. So I preach to everybody. Everybody. And God will mark out those that
are His. And then God's house is one house. They're not divided. He tells us in the Scripture
they are one body, one spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one hope of their calling, one God, and one Father of all who
is above all and through all and in you all. They're not divided. And the house of God is not a
religious clubhouse. that men and women join for the
benefit, schools and sports programs and exercise rooms and entertainment
and daycare and whatever else will appeal to this world. God's
house, he said, is a house of prayer. That's what our Lord
emphasized. He walked in this place and it
looked like a religious flea market. This great wonderful,
beautiful temple of God, this picture of Christ and His body.
And actually, in the book of John, in his account, they said,
well, give us a sign. Give us some sign of this authority
that you're exercising in here, taking all these things out,
running all these things out, and putting us down, and making
us look like fools. Give us some sign. He said, all
right, here's the sign. Tear this temple down three days,
I'll raise it up. They said, this building was
46 years in the building, and you're going to redo it in three
days? And they understood not that
he spoke of his body. And his body in Colossians 1,
he tells us, is his church. That's his church. God's house is the house of prayer,
and prayer is worship. In prayer, we acknowledge our
God. We praise His high and wonderful name, and we give thanks for
His benefits and His promises, and we justify Him in all His
works. God's house also is a place where
He promises to meet with His people. We say, wouldn't God
meet with the man out on the lake? Well, He might and He might
not. I don't know. But I've got only one place where
he tells me for sure that he'll meet, and that's where two or
more gather together in his name. You can read about that, Matthew
18, verse 20. But God's house is a house of
worship. It's not filled with ceremonialism,
tradition, sensualism. We don't assemble ourselves together
to be entertained. We don't hire professional musicians
to come in here and play so we can entertain folks and draw
folks in. I don't tell our folks to have
bake sales and bingo and all these other things. It's not
the waving of arms when we sing. People wave and close their eyes
and do all these shenanigans. And some churches worse, jump
up and run around the room and all these things that they do.
It's not a place to honor special days. like Mother's Day, and
Father's Day, and Easter, and Christmas, and all these other
things. It's the house of God. It's the house of prayer. And
it's the house of worship. And it involves the reading of
the word of God, the preaching of the gospel, singing from the
heart gospel hymns honoring to God, the giving of our gifts
out of gratitude and thanksgiving, prayer, and the observing of
the gospel ordinances. You know, to sing a hymn that's
not honoring to God is like preaching a false gospel. It's the same
thing. There's no difference. And we
used to stand in the church that I used to go to, and we'd stand
there, and we'd sing songs like, I'll Fly Away. And me and Jesus
got a good thing going, and all these kind of God dishonoring
hymns. That's a false gospel. And you're
singing this thing in a pretense of praise to God, and you're
not even thinking about the words that you're muttering, not even
thinking about the things that you're saying before a holy gospel. Paul said this. They accused
him of being this and being that and being something else. And
he said, I'm not any of those things. And I didn't come here
doing any of those things that they accused me of. But he said,
I will say this. Here's the charge. Here's the
rightful charge. After the way they call heresy,
so worship I the living God. And I want you to see this in
this text. Now, here's what they say. It
says when they saw the wonderful things that he did in his house. When they saw it, when these
Pharisees, when these religious folks saw the wonderful things
that he did in his house, it says they were sore displeased. They were upset. They were upset. And sometimes folks come in here.
And they see those wonderful things that Christ has done sitting
all around them, testimonies of God's grace. They hear His
gospel. They read from His book, the
wonderful things. They see these things as they
are declared to them. And they are sore displeased.
They are angry and upset. Why? Why? This is the long-sought-after
Messiah who came into His house declaring who He is. bringing
order into his house, into the very house of worship, bringing
order to it. And they were sore displeased.
Why? Why would they do that? Because
it's contrary to everything they thought they believed. Contrary. And that brings me to the third
thing I want you to see. And that is the contempt of our
God upon any and all who will change the design of his house. or try to add to it. Our Lord came into His temple.
It looked like a cattle auction. It didn't look like a place of
worship. It was buzzing with business and money and changing
and tales being told. And John said he sat down and
plaited a whip and whipped the money changers out of the temple
and overturned their tables driving out the livestock. He cleared
the house of everything but worship. And I'll tell you this, when
Christ comes into His house, wherever it is, He said, that's
where I'm going to be, where they gather together in My name.
And I'll tell you this, where the saints are gathered together
in His name, and He comes in with His presence, He's going
to drive everything out the back door that's contrary to true
worship. Now, he's going to do that. He's
not going to tolerate it. Other churches will tolerate
it. You want to stand up and give a testimony, they'll tolerate
it. You want to run up and down the aisles or shake your fanny
or shake your hands or whatever it is you want to shake, they'll
tolerate it. But I won't. I'm not going to tolerate it
here. This is God's house. This is a house of worship. And
we come in here to worship. It might not be very sophisticated,
but what we sing is going to be honoring to God. Those hymns
will be on what we pray. We're going to pray in line with
the character of our God. And what we preach, we're going
to preach in line with the character of our God. Those who gather in pretense,
for whatever reason they do it, and they go through the motions,
but they're never enabled of God to enter into true worship. are going to be driven out from
His presence. Worship is not a ceremony, it's
a heart work. And it's the highest of privileges
here on this earth. And it's a great honor. And it
demands respect and forethought. Don't ever just wake up on Sunday
morning and grab your clothes and, well, I'm late. And down
the road you go and try to get here. Prepare yourself. This
is going to be the day of worship. Don't sleep in on some other
morning. Don't sleep in on Sunday. Get
up. Get up and prepare your hearts for worship. Prepare yourself.
I write bulletins and set them out here in the vestibule. And
I do that so that those who are not prepared for worship might
read these articles and read these things and help prepare
you for worship. Those old Levitical priests back
in the types and figures, They didn't just jump out of bed and
run out there and start dragging lambs out to the altar and doing
this and doing that. They went through the awfulest
rigmarole of preparation you've ever seen. We're going to get
into that. We're studying the tabernacle right now. And when
we come to it, we'll get into it and talk about it a little
bit. But they had washings they had to go through. They had sprinklings
they had to go through. They had special dress to put
on. And the dress had to be cleansed
a certain way. There was a lot of preparation
involved in these things. And it was to turn and tune their
mind to what it was they were about to do. And all these things
were done in figure. We do those things in the spiritual
realm. We prepare our hearts for worship. There's preparations for worship.
Paul said, our spiritual walk calls for shoes, which have to
do with the preparation of the gospel of peace. He told Timothy
to give himself to the reading of God's Word and to meditate
on those things, to consider the things of God. And I will
advise you what my old pastor advised me. He said, commit as
much of this book as you can to memory. Commit it to memory. So during the day you can think
on those things. You can think on those things.
And spend some time in prayer. And I'll tell you this, the Bible
is full of examples of men and women who treated the things
of God as commonplace. Commonplace. They become the
same as some of you all do grocery shopping on Monday or Friday
or whatever. That's the day. You get upset
when you can't go on that day because that's the day we buy
groceries. And then Sunday, that's the day of worship. So we go
down and worship on Sundays. It's commonplace. Don't let it
become commonplace. Don't let these things of God
become commonplace with you. Treat these things. Ananias and
Sapphira, they got caught up. There was a real, we talk about
revivals, but there was a real revival going on then. And people
were so caught up into it and the reality of it was so near
and so great that they assumed that the Lord was going to appear
at any moment. I wish I could live that way.
And their possessions meant nothing. They were selling houses and
land so that nobody suffered. Anybody who had a need could
have it. And they sold their possessions, sold everything
they had, their houses and lands and all. And Ananas and Sapphire
got all caught up in this. And it said, and they brought
a possession down. But then when they sold it, they
got thinking about it. And they said, well, you know,
that's a lot of money. I think maybe we ought to keep
some of it. What God do? They lied to the Holy Spirit
and God killed both of them. He killed both of them. You remember
David back in the Old Testament going down to get the ark and
bring it back up to Jerusalem? And he went down there and in
all of his excitement, he got all excited and he went down
there and he sent down a wagon with some oxen. And he put that
ark up on the wagon. God didn't command that ark to
be moved on a wagon. He designed that thing with rings
in it and staves, and it was to be carried by the priest in
a certain manner with those staves, wrapped a certain way, all of
these things put together with it and moved by hand. All of those things, that table
had rings in the side of it. That golden altar in there had
rings in the side of it and staves. It was to be carried. It was
never to be put on a wagon. But David put it on a wagon,
and then the oxen pulling this thing, that wagon wheel went
off in a hole and jostled, and that ark started to fall, and
old Uzzah reached up to get it. And God killed him dead as a
whip. Now, Uzzah should have known
better and tried to touch that, but the one who really should
have known better was David. And it was his lackness in counting
this thing as commonplace and not entering into this thing
with any preparation. And then Demas. This man was
one time a fellow laborer with the Apostle Paul. But slowly
and surely, his dedication and devotion took second place to
the world. And Paul said he forsook him
for this present world. Well, let me end this off with
a positive note. When our Lord cleared that temple,
when He cleared His house, all these obstructions and all of
these things that He that weren't designed, weren't designated
to be done. When he drove all those money
changers out and all those people out and got rid of the crud,
he made room for those who had need. And the blind and the hawk
came to him and said, he healed them. He healed them. Having run out the thieves and
robbers, now there's room for the needy. And this is the sure
end of God's house. When He comes in and orders it,
and structures it, and sets it up the way He'd have it to be,
those who are truly needy can come and hear. And I guarantee
you, those who need Him, who seek Him with all their heart,
will find Him. They'll find Him. And they'll
come to Him, and they'll be healed. I don't know how many times it
tells us. It said, and they came to Him in the temple. They came
to Him in the house. We don't want you to, we're not
trying to build a house here for you to come to the house.
We want you to come to Him in the house. That's why we assemble. We pray for His presence. If
my presence and my voice is all you hear, you're going to go
away the same way you come in. You don't want that. We want
His presence. We want His voice to be heard.
We want you to come to Him in the temple. And when they did,
they were healed. They were healed. Come unto Me. Look unto Me. Seek Me with all
your heart. Accept you. Eat of My flesh and drink of
My blood. He said you have no life in you.
And it's a person that we gather together to worship, a person
we preach, and a person we point men to. And yes, we preach doctrines,
but they're specifically called in the Scripture the doctrines
of Christ. And they're joined to Him for
a reason, because you can't understand these doctrines apart from Him.
And if you do, you've gone awry.