Let's open our Bibles this evening
to John chapter 2. John chapter 2. Last Sunday evening
we looked at the first 11 verses in this chapter, which records
the Lord's first miracle. That is, at the wedding in Cana,
He turned the water into wine. And now beginning with verse
12, John records that the Lord Jesus Christ came to the city
of Capernaum. After this he went down to Capernaum. Capernaum was a city in Galilee
and it was located on the Sea of Galilee. It was a populous
city. And the Lord Jesus Christ later
said this about the city of Capernaum. He said it was exalted unto heaven. It was exalted unto heaven. It
was exalted unto heaven because the Lord Jesus Christ spent much
of his ministry in Capernaum. He taught in the synagogue of
Capernaum. He worked many miracles in Capernaum. And even though the Lord Jesus
Christ said that it was exalted unto heaven, He said it would
be brought down to hell. He said that the city of Sodom,
the wicked city of Sodom, that it would be more tolerable for
that wicked city of Sodom in the day of judgment than for
the city of Capernaum. The reason being They did not
recognize the day of their visitation. The city of Sodom did not have
the advantages that the city of Capernaum had.
Can you imagine the Lord Jesus Christ spending much time in
this city, teaching in this city, working many miracles in the
city, exalted exalted unto heaven, and yet it would be brought down
to hell. It's a sad thing, it really is,
when people do not realize the day of their visitation. God visits a place, God saves
sinners in a place, and people assume that things will always
remain the same. But we know from history And
not just from history, but also from experience. That is not
true. The Lord visits a place, and
sometimes He leaves that place. And Capernaum is an example. Now John tells us here in verse
12 that along with Him, when He came down to Capernaum, came
His mother, His brethren, and His disciples. Now we know from
later in the Gospel of John, chapter 7, that some of those
who John called his brethren did not believe in him. They
did not believe in him as the Christ. And we are shown in another
place of the Word of God that one's relationship, physical
relationship, kinship, is not what is all important. Many people
depend upon the fact that their father was a pastor, their grandfather
was a pastor. Many people depend upon the fact
that their parents were members of the church and very active
in a church. Their dad was a deacon. But our
Lord makes it clear. That it's not that birth that
is important, but it is rather the new birth, the second birth. Look with me, if you will, in
Matthew, just a moment. Matthew chapter 12. I very seldom ever meet with
anyone for the first time, and they find out that I'm a preacher,
that they do not tell me of someone that They were kin to who was
a pastor, a missionary, a preacher, or somebody. People just have
the mistaken idea that being kin to somebody, that's going
to help us. But that's not the case. Notice
here in Matthew chapter 12, beginning with verse 46, it says, While
he, that is the Lord Jesus, while he yet talked to the people,
behold, his mother and his brethren stood without. desiring to speak
with him. Then one said unto him, Behold,
thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to speak with
thee. But he answered and said unto
him that told him, Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand
toward his disciples and said, Behold, my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will
of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister
and mother. When you read that verse of Scripture,
what question should come into your mind? I hope it does. But just in case, let me tell
you what should come into your mind. He said, for whosoever
shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same
is my brother and sister and mother. The question that should
come into all of our minds is this, what is, what is the will
of the Father? What is His will? And let me
tell you the Lord's answer. This is the will of Him that
sent me, that you believe on Him, that you believe on Him
that has sent me. That's God's will. That's God's
will. This is His commandment, that
we believe on Him and love one another. Now back in our text
tonight, John chapter 2, There are three subjects in the remainder
of this chapter that, God willing, I want us to see. The first is
Christ cleansing the temple. That's the first subject. Then
the second subject is Christ's future sign that He gives unto
them. And the third subject is Christ
not committing himself to the many who believed on his name. Now we're not going to try to
look at all three of those tonight. Tonight we're only going to look
at the Lord Jesus Christ cleansing the temple. Beginning in verse
13. 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 poured out the changers' 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. I've pointed this out to us previously
in messages since we began studying here in this gospel, that John,
this is the last of the gospels, of the four gospels, this is
the last one that was written. And John was an old man when
he wrote this gospel. And he was writing primarily
to Gentiles. And that's the reason he explained
so much. Things that would have been commonplace
to the Jews, he had to explain to the Gentiles. Notice in verse
13, And the Jews' Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now to a Jew, he would never
have to explain At this time of the year, the Jews' Passover
was at hand. What was it? What was the Passover? Well, it was one of the annual
feasts that God charged upon the Jews to keep. This feast commemorated God's
deliverance of them from bondage in Egypt. Now, that's the greatest
picture, the greatest type, as far as I'm concerned, in the
Old Testament of salvation, that is, the Passover. It was to be
observed until the true Passover. Christ, remember the Apostle
Paul, says, but Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. So this
Passover feast was commanded the Jews to observe until the
true Passover, till the true Lamb of God came and shed His
blood. In that Passover feast, it commemorated
God delivering the nation of Israel from bondage in Egypt. But we know that Christ, our
Passover, He delivers His people, He delivers us from a much greater
bondage, a much greater slavery and servitude than that which
the Jews had in Egypt. He delivers us from the bondage
from the slavery of sin, the bondage and the slavery of Satan. What a sacrifice is that of Christ,
His blood which was shed to deliver us from the curse of the law. Remember Paul's words to the
Galatians when he said, when in the fullness of the time God
sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem
them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption
of sons. Christ, our Passover, He came
into this world, and He was made a curse that He might redeem
us from the curse of the law. God's law, not just the law of
Moses, but God's law from the very beginning, cursed everyone
who did not perfectly obey. I mean, if you disobeyed God's
law in thought, you were under the curse. And because all of
us come into this world, since our father Adam sinned with a
sinful nature, we all come into this world under that curse.
And the curse of the law is death, eternal death. Christ, our Passover,
has delivered us from the curse of the law. This Passover feast was one of
the three annual feasts that every Jewish male had to observe. In other words, he had to go
to Jerusalem when the Passover was first instituted. Of course,
God had not placed his name in any city. But once they came
into the land of Canaan, God placed His name, He put His name
in Jerusalem, and that was the only place, that was the only
place there at that altar, at the mercy seat, that God would
meet with men. And so every year, three times
a year, Every male above 12 years of age had to go to Jerusalem.
One of those times was to observe the Passover feast. Now this
means, think about it, we know the Lord Jesus Christ was at
this feast when he was 12 years of age. He may have come before
that. We don't know. But this means at this Passover,
18 times, Eighteen times the Lord Jesus
Christ had come to this Passover feast in Jerusalem when He came
this time. Eighteen times. He had to obey
the law. God's law. He had to obey it
perfectly. And He obeyed that law establishing
a righteousness. It's called the righteousness
of God, isn't it? And it is the righteousness You
know, if the Lord had only died, let's just say, and I shouldn't
use that word only, but in His death, He paid our sin debt,
that would just bring us up to zero. That's all. But we need a righteousness which
will allow us to enter into the presence of God. We not only
needed our sin debt paid, which He paid at the cross, but we
need a righteousness, a perfect righteousness that will allow
a person like myself and you to enter into the holy, the holy
presence of God. We have that case in Isaiah,
don't we, where Isaiah, he was enabled to have a vision into
the presence of God. And he saw those seraphim there.
They had three sets of wings. And with two, they covered their
face. With two, they covered their feet. With two, they did
fly. But they called one to the other, continuously, holy, holy,
holy, holy, holy. Many people refer to God's holiness
as his chief attribute. His chief attribute. Every other
attribute is holy. His love, holy. His wrath, holy. His grace, holy. Someone gave this example one
time I heard years ago. It's like a wheel and spokes
on the wheel. And all these spokes, you know,
they run to the center. You think of those spokes as
various attributes of God, but they all run into the center.
Holy, holy, holy. We can't even, I don't, I just
don't believe that any of us can even begin to appreciate
how holy God is. Scripture refers to Him as a
consuming fire. And we, you know, we live in
a generation where people just think, well, they'll just run
into the presence of God. Yeah, you'll run in, you'll be
burned. You'll be consumed. You've got
to have a righteousness. And that righteousness is Christ.
He is our righteousness. The law cursed us, but the Lord
Jesus Christ, as a surety of this new covenant, as a surety
for His people, He obeyed, fulfilled the law of God every jot and
every tittle, not one thing left undone. He finished the work
which the Father gave him to do. Now notice these three things
in these verses concerning Christ's cleansing the temple. First,
Christ found God's temple turned into a house of merchandise.
When he went up to the temple. He's begun his public ministry. I'm sure this had been going
on for a while when he had gone up before. But never before did
he cleanse it. But now, since his baptism, he's
entered into what we refer to as his public ministry. And he
found God's temple turned into a house of merchandise. The temple
was divided into several divisions called courts. And we know that
the outer court was the court of the Gentiles. The court closer
to the center was the court of the females, and then the court
of the males, and then finally you got to where the priest could
go, and into the temple the priest could go in there to minister,
but into the Holy of Holies, remember, the high priest could
only go in there once a year, and not without blood. So it
was in this outer court, the court of the Gentiles, where
these men had set up shop. They had set up shop to sell
animals for sacrifice and exchange money so that people could pay
the tribute that they were required under the law to pay. Now the
priests, no doubt they had figured out a way to profit from this.
They would rent stalls and locations, tables there in that outer court,
where people could conduct business. God, in His law, allowed men,
if they traveled a great distance, they came to Jerusalem, they
needed an animal to sacrifice, they didn't have to bring an
animal all that distance, they could buy an animal. And they would have to pay temple
tax They could exchange their money for money that was allowed
to be used in the temple. So what was going on here was
all legal and good and just, but not in the temple. These were necessary things to
take place, no doubt, but not in the temple. God's house was
never intended to be a house of merchandise. And do you know, as I thought
about this this past week, I thought to myself, I know, I have a pretty
good idea how the priest got this into the temple. I have
a pretty good idea. You know what they did? They
said, you know, we want to make this easier for you. We want
to make this easier for you. Don't go to any trouble. Don't expend any energy in worship. We want to make this as easy
for you as we possibly can. So we'll have these animals that
have already been inspected, they've already been certified
as animals which were cleaned without spot or blemish to be
offered in sacrifice. We want to make this easy for
you when you come to worship. Remember, that's what King Rehoboam
did. When God had said, you will worship
me in Jerusalem. And once those ten tribes separated,
he was afraid that they would go back to Jerusalem and they
would become loyal to the King of Judah. So what does he do?
He sets up two places of worship, two calves, to make it easy. So it's not too much trouble
to worship God. Well, that's what I say the Lord
found God's temple turned into a house of merchandise. Second,
Christ emptied God's temple of the merchandise. Now look at
this as a display of His power. A display of His power. Something like He displayed in
chapter 18 of the Gospel of John when those men came to arrest
Him in the garden. You know, they came out with
weapons, the Scripture says, and He simply asked them, Whom
seek you? They answered, Jesus of Nazareth. And He said, I am. And they went
backward and fell to the ground. With just a small scourge, he
cleansed the temple. You have to look at this as a
miracle. As a miracle. They did not oppose
him. He had no trouble in cleansing
the temple. As much a miracle as other miracles
which our Lord wrought. displaying his omnipotent power,
not only over sicknesses and diseases and demon spirits, but
over these rebels, these men. And he did it, I noticed that
he did it in such a way that no one suffered loss, no one
of these men of commerce, they suffered any loss by this. Because
the Scripture said he drove the cattle out of the temple. Well, they could easily run after
them, you know, and catch them. They didn't suffer the loss of
their cattle. The money tables, he just turned
over and the money fell on the ground. So they didn't suffer
any loss. They just had to get down on
their hands and knees, I guess, and get their money. And then
the doves, the pigeons that they used for the poor people to offer
sacrifices, he didn't open the cage and shoo the birds out,
did he? He said, take this, take this
out of here. So the Lord cleansed the temple,
but he did it in such a way that there was no resistance and no
one lost anything. Now the third Point is, Christ
cleansing God's temple fulfilled prophecy. Notice in verse 17,
we read, And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal
of thine house hath eaten me up. John doesn't tell us when
these disciples remembered this prophecy. He did later promise
them, the Lord Jesus Christ later promised his disciples that with
the coming of the Holy Spirit, one of the things that He would
achieve, He would bring all things to your remembrance. All things
to your remembrance. You know, the disciples, until
the Lord, actually until the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit
of God came upon them, they were slow learners. They did not understand. They did not understand much.
They certainly did not understand that the Lord would die and rise
again on the third day. They didn't understand that.
And so, in all probability, when John says the disciples remembered
that it was written, this was after, after our Lord's resurrection,
after God the Holy Spirit had come upon them to bring things
to their remembrance, and also you will remember That after
His resurrection, He opened their understandings that they might
understand the Scriptures. He opened their understandings. When you study the Word of God,
the first thing we should all do is pray and ask God the Holy
Spirit to open our understandings. To understand God's Word. God's Word is unlike every other
book, isn't it? It's a spiritual book. It was
written by God the Holy Spirit, as far as it's author's concerned.
But the scripture that they have reference to, they remembered
the prophecy, it's found in Psalm 69, verse 6. It says, for the
zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches of
them that reproach thee are fallen upon me. The Lord Jesus Christ
was marked by love. Everybody agrees to that. He
was marked by love. But let me remind us tonight,
He was also marked by zeal. The zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up. How do you define zeal? How would you define zeal? Well, it's easy to see zeal. Men have zeal. They're zealous
for different things. For instance, this past week,
if you had been in Chicago, it would have been easy to see the
zeal that the Chicago Cubs fans had for their team. You just
went out to Wrigley Field and you could have got a ticket,
which you couldn't probably, but if you had looked in there
you would see a sea of blue. They're zealous for their team.
They have their blue caps on and their blue jerseys. They're
zealous, and even though they had to get up early the next
morning and go to work, they would stay up till the game ended,
even after a rain delay. They were zealous, and they're
zeal for their team. They were fanatics. They were
zealous. Sometimes you can see this in
a man who has a zeal to be rich. That's his zeal. He's just zealous. He wants to be rich. That's what
he wants to achieve. And he'll go without sleep. He'll
work two or three jobs. He'll neglect his health. He'll
neglect his family. Why? Because he is zealous to
be wealthy. It's easy to see how people have
zeal in the things of this world. But what is it to be zealous
in the things of God? Well, here's a good definition.
It is to have a burning desire to please God. A burning desire. Paul said it's good to be zealously
affected in a good thing. Zeal is to have a burning desire
to please God, to do His will, and to advance His glory in this
world in every possible way. Bishop J.C. Raw, he said this
about a person zealous in the things of God, and I'll quote. He is preeminently a man of one
thing. A man who is zealous in the things
of God. He is preeminently a man of one
thing. It is not enough to say that
he's earnest, hardy, uncompromising, thoroughgoing, wholehearted,
and fervent in spirit. He only sees one thing. He cares
for one thing. He lives for one thing. He is
swallowed up in one thing, and that one thing is to please God. His desire to please God is so
strong that it impels him to make any sacrifice, go through
any trouble, deny himself to any amount, to suffer, to work,
to labor, to toil, to spend himself and be spent, and even to die. if only he can please God and
honor Christ. What is it to be zealous in the
things of God? Basically, according to this
man, it is to be a person of one thing, one thing, to please God. In his chapter on zeal, Bishop
Robb went on to give these five marks, and I want to give them
to us, and I'll be through. Five marks of true zeal. True
zeal is zeal according to knowledge. Paul spoke about his countrymen,
didn't he, in Romans chapter 10. They were zealous, but not
according to knowledge. They were zealous trying to establish
their own righteousness, going about to establish their own
righteousness. They thought by their works,
by their doings, whatever it was, that they could make themselves
righteous and accepted by God. They were zealous, but not in
a good way, not in a good thing. True zeal is according to knowledge. Number two, true zeal is from
true motives. true motives, to please God. True zeal is sanctioned by plain
examples in God's Word. When I think of zeal, now we
know the Lord Jesus Christ was zealous. He set his face like
a flint to go to Jerusalem, even though he knew what awaited him
there. He had one desire, he was a man
of one thing, and that was to please God. And I think of the
Apostle Paul. We know more about him than the
other apostles. And it may be that these things
were true of them as well. But the Apostle Paul was a man
who was zealous. He was zealous in the things
of God. And number four, true zeal is
tempered with love. And lastly, True zeal is joined
with deep humility. One of those kings in the Old
Testament, he was zealous, wasn't he? He said, come see my zeal
for the Lord. He didn't have zeal for the Lord,
he had zeal for himself. True zeal will always be accompanied
with humility. The zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up. I want to tell you a story, and
I hope this doesn't take away from the message. One of the men who became president
of the United States when he was just a small boy, his parents
took him to church, took him to the Presbyterian Church. And he told someone one time
he loved nature. He studied nature from youth. But he told someone one time
the animal that he feared the most was the animal named zeal. And someone said, zeal? There's
no animal named zeal. He said, I know there is, because
the Bible says, zeal of the Lord hath eaten me. He said, I know
there's an animal named zeal. Of course, he learned later.
Why don't you pray for me and let's pray for each other that
God would increase our zeal in the things of God. Well, I'm
going to ask the men, if you will, to come at this time.