The Gospel of John with Pastor Steve Whinery of Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities

[Applause] [Laughter] [Laughter] so great and mighty god you are with us i'll feel no more from in satan's shadow of your fierce wings of glory we stand and celebrate his death with us with us us your house will never sway when the world has gone away great and mighty gods you are with us foreign you are with us in the shadow of your fears wings of glory we stand and celebrate his death [Laughter] who you are with us good evening my friends and strangers and family and everyone um we're gonna get started let's stand up and we'll pray uh lord uh we just come before you tonight and um we're two or more gathered there's more than two of us here we know that you're here in our presence god and uh we just want to come before you um with the right heart we want we want you to be the one that we have our heart set on our mindset on god um we want to hear you speak we want to in this time praise you for who you are um we want to be just whatever's going on in our lives god we put it all in your hands and in this time we're we're taking our time we want to be a sweet offering of praise sweet sacrifice of of praise god and really just fills us up with joy as we as we just dwell on who you are and so um and dwell with you i just pray that you bless this time and be speaking to your people um be speaking to those who might be watching or hear who don't know you god and reveal yourself to us god in a way a new way um love you let's let's see heavy thunder and the world was born life begins and ends in the just uniform and faith commanded and the mountains move our fear is losing ground to our unstoppable god let your glory go on and on impossible things in your name they shall be done freedom conquers all the chains undone the sin defeated overcome and mercy triumphed when the third day tom darkness was impossible things in your name they shall be done unstoppable god let your glory go on and on impossible things in your name shall be done nothing shall be impossible your kingdom reigns unstoppable and we'll shout your praise forevermore jesus our god unstoppable and nothing shall be impossible as your kingdom reigns unstoppable and we'll shout your praise forevermore jesus our god unstoppable and nothing shall be impossible your kingdom reigns unstoppable and we'll shout your praise forevermore jesus let your glory go on and on impossible things in your name they shall be done the unstoppable god let your glory go on and on the impossible things in your name they shall be done rules we worship the god who was and we worship the god who is but we worship the god whoever more we'll be and he opened the prison doors we pilot the raging yes you're in the house of the lord today then we won't be quiet we shout out your praise but there's joy in the house of the lord i got it surely in this thing and we won't be quiet but we shout out your name we shout out your praise jesus who always cause he hung up on that cross and he rose up from that grave my god there's joy in and we won't be quiet but we shout out your praise it we were the priestess and now we're running free we are forgiven accepted redeemed by his grace we were the priests and now we're running free we are forgiving accepting greedy by his grace let the house of the lords imprison so we won't be quiet there's joy in the house we shout out your praise your love is wild your love is wild for me it isn't shy it's unashamed your love is proud to be seen with me give your heart in peace hide yourself to jesus uncontrolled uncontained your love is a fire burning bright for me it's not just a spark it's not just a flame your love is a lie that all the world will see all the world will see you don't have yourself to do give your heart in please your love's not fractured it's not a troubled mind it isn't anxious it's not the restless it's never disengaged it's always present it hangs on every word we say love keeps his promises it keeps his word it honors what's sacred cause his vows are good is you don't get yourself and peace don't hide yourself through jesus don't give your heart in pieces you don't hide yourself to tease us lord i just want to thank you that you're not passive that you're not distant from us we draw close to you you draw close to us even when we feel like we're we're not worthy of you god you're still seeking out god loves me and he saved me but it's like some sort of contract all the time i've gotta like watch my back you know in case he's always watching us but sometimes we miss the fact that he he simply loves us as a child and when we fall he's not out waiting for us to fall to point us out and laugh at us like a child that's learning how to walk he's there to catch us and to teach us how to walk just to keep on going he doesn't have joy as a father he doesn't have joy in punishment or being distant from us this song is uh just emphasizing how we belong to him last week in junior high we're talking about the different relationships that we have with the lord and there's a lot there's a balance to it right there's he's our lord he's our king he's our master and we're sponsors my choice like coming to him to have no other master because there's no one none other better become part of his family he becomes our father right the verse is about his jealousy for us that he wants our whole heart that he wants everything it's not that he just wants to control he wants to fill our lives he wants us to let go of the things that are getting in the way of our relationships he came and died on that cross to have a bridge into a relationship like nothing we could ever know on this earth this love doesn't have a limit everything is out of darkness and you silence cause i belong to you take what i have to change take what i am take what i am who i will am in the world take what i have who i change am i am you know lord we rejoice in who you are and what you've done for us we rejoice in the fact that our names can be written in your book of life they'll be with you one day god rejoice of how how you've called us and he said enough no one can take us out of your hand nothing can take anything out of your hands god and so we place our lies in your hands god we trust you with it all of it god and help us today to be trusting you with more of it help us to hear what you're you're having to say about it all um thank you for loving us god we love you and we just pray that you'd be here the rest of the night in everything that we're doing as we go home yeah ask us all in jesus name amen say hi to your neighbor all righty hi you guys i decided to come to church all right yeah thanks i appreciate it what's that i'm a little lighter oh i thought you were talking about my tan yeah i i did the covid diet it was awesome would i recommend it uh no i you know i'm a big baby when i'm sick so it's like yeah it wasn't it wasn't any fun i had um nine days of fever before i got my lungs and then when i got in my lungs and it was just it was over so my uh my oxygen got down to like 84 christie uh what do you call those things bob yeah the things you put on your finger that measure i really this is what i heard oxford oximeter okay yeah and so i uh christy uh loaned us her oximeter and so i got down to 84 and i was incoherent you know and my wife came up to me and uh she was touching me and i remember saying this to her to her why are you touching me on stuff that's what i just said why are you touching me why are you touching me anyway yeah and there were other things going on so she called the doctor he said take me in and i went in and they did a ct scan on me and then they stuck me in an ambulance i almost complained about that but i was too out of it i was just like okay fine we'll do an ambulance and uh went over to uh cadillac and sat in that stupid bed for eight days and i was a good patient i was nice to the nurses they were very nice to me and but that was that was they wanted me to lay on my stomach the whole time so and i'm you know i'm trying to do what they say they let me get on my side and stuff but it's i i do not like the hospital that's my first hospital stay and so i don't want to go back there um yeah anything else some of you guys came out excuse me i got the whole pneumonia thing uh some of some of you guys came out and uh uh prayed for me uh when you were came out and got on top of the parking garage there and prayed for me and stuff and so one of them uh actually a couple of nurses came in one of them was she was pretty excited about the whole thing she got me a chair over by the window come on you can come over by the window and stuff and i can't remember if i had uh i started out with the little oxygen tubes then they put a mask on me and then they put the sea hunt thing i mean all all you younger people don't know what sea hunt was but it was a it was a diver thing they just had these big old tubes that went around their head that's what i had a big old tube up my nose it's like putting a leaf blower up your nose they're just blowing air into your and so and then that was that was for a day or two and then they then they started lowering it and and i came out so basically what they did was they gave me oxygen and steroids and then i got out got off oxygen at my house two weeks ago and uh you know still i still get winded all that kind of stuff and i'll go out and do something out in the yard and come in and take a two-hour nap so but there you go god was with me and and uh it was it was uh you know whatever the lord wants um yeah so that was good um but now i'm 27 times less likely to get kova than somebody who's vaccinated so there you go so that's cool okay we are in uh the book of john in chapter two last time uh we were in john we were talking about uh jesus turning water into wine and so we pretty thoroughly did that we're gonna finish up chapter two with uh jesus cleansing the temple and so this this section here is about that um so we're in uh chapter two starting in verse 11 and let's pray uh before we get into it father we thank you so much for the way that you take care of us the way that you watch over us and lord just talking about the hospital and the whole rona thing and all of that father just thank you uh for watching over me and watching over uh my wife uh thank you for the doctor and uh especially for the nurses uh that were involved there thank you for all the prayer that i got from our body and for all the cards and letters and all that stuff um lord uh you're good and you've given us each other uh to be a blessing to each other and this church certainly is that to me father as we get into your word we pray that you'd be speaking to us and that you'd use the time and lord that we walk out of here closer to you because we've spent time with you and in your word and we just ask that you do this all in jesus name amen and i always forget to say hi to all the people online hi all you people online how are you doing and dolores how long have you been back you've been you've been back here for a month oh okay all right awesome this is the first time i got to see you yeah there you go my wife was trying to keep me out till the end of september so i'm i'm i'm trying to balance this stuff verse 11 it says this beginning of signs jesus did in cana of galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him after this he went down to capernaum he his mother his brothers and his disciples and they did not stay there many days now the passover the jews was at hand and jesus went up to jerusalem and he found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers doing business when he made a whip of cords he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen and poured out the changers money and overturned the tables and he said to those who sold doves take these things away do not make my father's house a house of merchandise then his disciples remembered that it was written zeal for your house has eaten me up um you know when you're going through uh the gospel of john one of the things that you need to remember is it's probably written pretty late and so when you get to uh the last chapter of john there's this little um kind of statement that john makes about uh the situation with jesus and peter and specifically john jesus had uh indicated to peter what kind of death he was going to have he basically said when you get old they're going to take you where you don't want to go and uh speaking of excuse me peter's death on the cross he died on a cross actually upside down on a cross and that was his choice in any case uh at that point uh peter turns to john points at him and says what about him and jesus says what's that to you if i want him to be here until i come back not your business is basically what jesus was saying to him and john puts a little editorial comment in there saying he didn't say that i was you know that he was going to stay alive until jesus came back he just said what's it to you if i want him to it's an indication that john was probably older at the time and there's a there's a church tradition that uh the book of john was written from ephesus and so after the destruction of the temple uh john uh went to ephesus with mary jesus's mother and mary actually died in john's house and so she was buried in ephesus in any case context here is he's writing this in 90 a.d and one of the things that john is doing is letting us know what happened to judaism um as you as you go through chapter one uh two and three you you have a number of uh statements um basically teachings that john brings across and the first one is that the jews were blind in john 1 26 it says that john answered them this is talking about john the baptist answered them saying i baptized with water but there stands one among you whom you do not know and then it goes on and you know john goes and talks goes on and talks about the fact that he's going to baptize them with the spirit and in matthew's gospel he says and with fire too and so the point being they didn't know the lord and so all this time the judaism has been pointing forward to jesus pointing forward to the fact that the messiah was going to be coming and when the messiah came the leaders of judaism didn't know him they had no idea who they were dealing with when they were dealing with jesus when you go through john chapter 2 verses 1 through 11 it's a great picture of religion or or life without joy and so they're blind they don't have any joy they don't have any life and when we get into verses 13 through 25 here it's talking about the fact that they're corrupt and so blind without joy without life and corrupt and that's that's what had taken place at the very least with the um elders and the and the leaders of judaism at this point and so christianity comes along when the messiah comes along he brings in christianity as a fulfillment and replacement to judaism of the time and so that's that's basically what john's going through and doing here one of the one of the phrases uh that you'll notice as we're going through john it's a little bit different than the other gospels because they were written before uh 70 a.d this one was written afterwards and john refers to the people of israel as the jews and that's a little bit different and again it has to do with that uh contrast between judaism and christianity there'd been a there'd been a split between judaism and christianity because of the destruction of jerusalem and the fact that the christians had been told by jesus when they saw the city surrounded by armies that they were to get out of dodge and that's exactly what they did it was after that point that the jews threw the christians out of the out of the synagogues because they considered them to be traitors when they were just actually following jesus in verse 12 it talks about after this he went down to capernaum he his mother his brothers and his disciples and they did not stay there many days capernaum becomes a base of operation for jesus and one of the one of the things that happens later on um uh with nicodemus we're gonna run into nicodemus in the next chapter but he's standing before the sanhedrin he's actually part of the sanhedrin and one of the things that he's doing is he's defending jesus because he's a closet follower of christ and when he's defending jesus one of the statements that the that the sanhedrin that some of the leaders in the sanhedrin make is that no prophet comes from galilee right and you've probably heard that before right no prophet comes from galilee um well that's pretty problematic because capernaum you know what capernaum means it's actually in hebrew it's and and it means village of nam and if you know your minor prophets you know that nam is a minor is a prophet and so there were a couple of different prophets that came from uh galilee um obviously besides jesus and these guys didn't know their bibles in any case this is one of the places where it talks about the brothers of jesus specifically his mother his brothers and his disciples and they didn't stay there many days so jesus has brothers and this comes up a number of times in the gospels this is one of those things that catholics have a real problem with uh roman catholic specifically because they believe that that mary was a virgin for the whole time that she was married right okay is that biblical are you allowed to be a virgin when you're married to to somebody no first corinthians chapter seven that when it says that when you get married your body's not your own so ladies when you get married your body becomes your husband's body and men when you get married your body becomes your wife's body and so you know it's like it's like that's the way that it's supposed to go and so what we're supposed to be doing is treating each other um in the physical relationship in a way where we're others centered do under others as you would have them do unto you uh basically is what's going on that just goes throughout a christian's life if mary was a virgin the whole time that she was married she would be in sin and so there goes the sinlessness of mary at that point and so mary not only had jesus she had jesus while she was still a virgin but she had other sons and daughters after that fact and so uh give you example matthew um chapter 12 verse 46 through 50. it says while he was still talking to the multitudes behold his mother and brother stood outside seeking to speak with him then one said to him look your mother and your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak with you but he answered and said to the one who told him who is my mother and who are my brothers and he stretched out his hand towards his disciples and said here are my mother and my brothers for whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother we have this we have this tendency and it's true as far as our relationships go we have this tendency to look at close family family members and believe that they have influence with the people in their family right and so if i know you and i uh or if i'm acquainted with you and i want to um have your good favor towards me one of the things that i might want to do is be really friendly to your brother and it needs to be a brother that you like be really friendly to your brother because your brother will have influence on you or be really friendly with your dad because your dad could have influence on you or be really really friendly with your mom because every boy loves his mom right and so he she would have influence on you you see where i'm going with this right the um again when when you're talking about roman catholicism one of the things that they do is they try to get to jesus through mary and so they think that because mary is jesus's mom every boy loves his mom and so if jesus won't listen to me he'll absolutely listen to mary and so that's where you get this whole thing with praying to mary but jesus before any of that ever took place he circumvented that and told us exactly what his attitude was towards us and you see that in the last part of that verse who is my mother and who are my brothers and he stretched out his hand towards his disciples and said here are my brothers my mother and my brothers for whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother and so we have an influential relationship with jesus and we don't have to go through anybody to get that and so that's one of the cool things that uh you you see in scripture one of the things that that's pretty wild in dealing with god especially in some of the passages in the gospels is over and over you see jesus dealing with issues that are going to come down historically later on and again what he does is he just preempts them and if people are paying attention when they're reading the gospels they wouldn't go in certain directions um there's a another passage in matthew 13 55 where the brothers of jesus are specifically named and uh that that verse says is this not the carpenter's son is not his mother called mary and his brothers james jose's simon and judas and in that passage also it talks about the fact that his sisters are with them the sisters aren't named and so we know we know he has at least four brothers they're all named james josie simon and judas james and and judas were the guys who wrote the book of james and jude they were brothers of jesus james the uh brother of jesus probably the second oldest in the family became the pastor of the church at jerusalem and uh and obviously that was after jesus rose from the dead and so he said jesus has at least two sisters and four brothers one of the one of the things that people try to do to preserve the the perpetual virginity of mary is they try to make the brothers and sisters children from a previous marriage and one of the problems with that would be that joseph uh in matthew's gospel is in the line of the kings right and um it's one of the reasons that jesus is uh in specifically in the line of the kings and he has the right to the throne of david right if if joseph has an older son or four older sons how is the line going to go and jesus is not going to be he's not going to be first that dude's going to be fifth in the line of the in the line of joseph and so the eldest would be the heir to david's throne not jesus and so these guys these these brothers cannot be older than christ for jesus to have uh the right to the to the throne of david and um also when you're talking about the birth of jesus there's nobody mentioned except for mary and joseph and jesus and if you had six young children hanging around with a you know with jesus being the baby in the family it would be weird that they're not mentioned they're not mentioned when they go down to egypt they're not mentioned when jesus is uh when jesus is um being circumcised uh at the visit to the temple nobody's mentioned at all and so jesus's brothers came later here's here's another thing um when jesus dies on the cross remember what he says to mary behold your son and he says to john behold your mother right and so he's taken his mom and taken care of her from the cross and if he wasn't the old the eldest he wouldn't have the right to do that he's the he's the man of the family because joseph by that time had died obviously and so again you have the mother the brothers and of jesus and the disciples and they're all hanging out in capernaum verse 13 it says now the passover the jews was at hand and jesus went up to jerusalem when uh you guys know this because because i've taught on this before but there were three times a year that the that jewish men had to go to jerusalem and one of them was passovers passover the feast of weeks and then uh finally the day of atonement and so they had to go three times a year the day or the feast of weeks and the passover are within um oh you know seven weeks of each other and so generally speaking if you lived any kind of distance from the city of jerusalem you would take and combine those two feasts so you'd go down on the passover and you'd stay till the feast of weeks was done and that's pentecost okay and so you'd stay till pentecost that's gonna that's that's important when we're in the book of acts because there's all kinds of people hanging around in jerusalem from out of town on the day of pentecost and that's why they were there in any case when you went up to the temple that's when uh for passover specifically that's when you brought the tithes in and so um uh basically what they would do is you know you you guys know what a tie is it's a tenth that's literally what tithe means it's a tenth and so every tenth animal that would have been born in the previous year if it was a clean animal would be offered to the lord talking about sheep and sheep and cattle if it was an unclean animal the the uh there would be an offering that would be given for that animal okay and so that's part that's the tithe and so you tithe from your increase and so you're either driving animals down to jerusalem to give them as a tithe or again if you're living far enough away what you're doing is you're taking the the monetary equivalents you're taking the money that would you would have gotten from uh for the sale of those animals and you're taking that money down to jerusalem and that's that's the tithe and you would do the same thing for your produce and that kind of stuff um you either brought the produce or you brought a monetary equivalent and it's just the whole thing with tithing from your increase it's also the time when they would pay the annual tribute of a half shekel every guy had to pay a half shekel and it was also the time obviously when they would sacrifice the passover and so we've talked about the passover enough for uh uh not for me to go over it again but the passover is kind of like jewish thanksgiving it's also like jewish independence day it's when they were delivered from uh egypt uh and specifically delivered from the judgment of god by the blood of a lamb and the blood being put over the doorposts right okay so that's passover you can read about it in exodus chapter 12 if you haven't uh seen it and so they would bring in the tithes and the offerings at that point and that was prior to path passover and so again depending on how far away you are on that you would bring in the tizen offerings either a month to two weeks before um this whole period of time so everybody goes to jerusalem during this time um when they would bring money the only money that uh the uh temple would accept uh would be um tyrion coinage uh coins that came from tire so you remember tyre and sidon tyre had a good reputation uh for their coins uh they were known for uh their accuracy and for their weight and for their purity specifically roman coins were not allowed and so if you brought roman money you're gonna have a problem so when when you get to jerusalem what happens here or when when jesus comes to jerusalem he found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers doing business and when he made a whip of cords he drove them all out of the temple what the sheep in the oxen and poured out the changers money and overturned the tables so what's the money changer thing about and again the money changer thing is about the the fact that they wanted the money uh put into a certain coinage that the temple considered to be clean um when they would look at roman coins they would have little symbols of or little images of caesar on them and they considered that to be idolatry and you could see how that could that could be the case but the problem was the money changers were making making all kinds of bank off of these guys and so they charged what was called a cold ban to receive a half shekel so you bring in a half shekel and it's not of the of the coinage that they want they charge you interest on top of that and the interest that they charge was anywhere from 10 to 12 at the time and at the time you a lot of you guys have credit cards that have higher interest rates than that if jesus um you know saw your credit card he would have a fit and he would flip things over and he would tear it up because because it's a rip-off to have high interest and that's specifically something that you see in the bible in the old testament when you run into usury you see the word usury if you're reading a new king james version it's it's uh it's interest and so charging high interest was something that you weren't supposed to do to people in israel you're an israeli you don't charge interest on other people who are israelis and so you know again these guys have a right to live and stuff but uh in any case they were charging exorbitant amounts and so if you used a shekel to pay that the half shekel there was a charge on the half shekel plus another charge on the change that you got from it and one of the things that you know this is this is kind of like american politics where they tell you that you have to you are mandated to wear a mask at [Music] gatherings that are over 50 people but if you are in the right political uh position you don't have to do that and you can actually televise that and the people on television who say that they're newscasters will be okay with that and say well these people are sophisticated and they're all vaccinated so they don't need to wear masks but you people you other people need to do that and so basically what these guys did what the priest did was they exempted themselves from all the rules that they were putting on the rest of the people and so again we we see that kind of stuff going on all the time as far as our political situation people who think that uh they're above the law people who think that they're a blo uh you know above uh just the normal people and jesus didn't appreciate it just letting you know here's another thing only pure sacrifices are allowed and so in the old testament it says that when you brought a sacrifice to the lord you had to bring a sacrifice that was without blemish you couldn't bring something that was lame you couldn't bring something that was ill and you would you couldn't bring something that was blemished in any kind of way and so you know basically all that is is making sure that when you bring an offering to the lord it's a healthy animal it's something that that costs you something david when he was talking about sacrifice he said i will not sacrifice to the lord that which costs me nothing and so um you know i've been a pastor for quite a while and it doesn't really happen all that much around here but there are times when when people want to offer things to the lord and so they they have they have something that they want to bring to the church uh you know so that we can use it to give to other people and that kind of stuff well sometimes when that's when that's happening it's a really cool thing and so you know they just went out to a store and you know bought extra of something or you know it's one thing or another and they say hey you know what we got some single moms in the fellowship can you take this over to them or you don't let them know you know that that i bought it and that's always a sweet thing and then other times people are bringing in old mattresses with pea stains on them and stuff like not really that's never really happened but you know just junk bringing junk to church and just going hey you know can i give this to church maybe somebody can use it and you know god god told me to give it away are you sure that was god maybe god was telling you take it to the dunk you know that kind of thing and it would be that kind it's that kind of thing that god was watching out for when the sacrifices were happening and so i'm sitting there with all my cattle and i look around and i got i got one that i need to you know i know i need to sacrifice the lord and this one over here isn't looking too good and he's kind of wobbly on his legs and you know he's he's he's got kind of got the runs and that kind of stuff well i'll just offer that one to the lord you know cal's a cow right and that is not the lord's attitude and so there's an aspect of that that was that was absolutely biblical and absolutely reflected a holy walk with the lord like david said i don't want to give to the lord that which cost me nothing when i when i give something to the lord it needs to be a sacrifice it needs to needs to be something that means something and that's the point whether whether i'm talking about my service or whether i'm talking about my monetary giving to the lord whatever i'm doing it needs to be something that's for real and a real offering to god okay and so that was the that was the rule out of the old testament law and these guys took that rule and they tweaked it to again gain advantage over people and make money off the people of god and so some guy would bring in his lamb and he's gone through and he's looked at the lamb and made sure that that it's healthy and it's a good lamb for sacrifice and he'd bring it to the temple and say i want to offer this lamb up to the lord and the priests would come up to it and they'd find some any blemish that they could anything that they could find to make an excuse so that they didn't have to offer that lamb and could force these guys to go over to the sheep that they had the temple and so basically it would go like this hey i want to i want to come and offer this lamb to the lord and the the priest would look at it and go oh you know what you can't and here's why and he makes some stupid excuse and he's he's the guy that's got authority and he goes well this lamb isn't really good enough it's not something that we can really sacrifice to the lord but right over here we have a whole bunch of lambs and for 99.99 you can purchase one and you can you know offer that up to the lord and so again they would find it defect in the lamb and they would they would use this to fleece the flock to take money from the people of god jesus doesn't like that doesn't like it money changers um specifically were found in all the villages a month prior to passover and they moved to jerusalem at the time of the feast originally these guys had been set up outside of the preset uh precincts of the temple itself and so they'd be outside the walls of the of the temple of the temple uh complex uh down on the southern steps and places like that but you know creep sets in they get closer and closer and finally they're sitting inside the temple precincts in the court of the gentiles not only did jesus hate this stuff the rabbis during the time hated this stuff the market in the temple was called the bazaars of the sons of anas now annas had been the high priest from 7ad to 14 a.d but he'd been removed by the romans and his son-in-law caiaphas you read about caiaphas and annis at the at the trial of jesus and at the death of jesus caiaphas had come into power uh as he'd been made hide priest but he was anna's son-in-law and so he was the anus was the de facto high priest he was the high priest in reality and caiaphas was just his front man and caiaphas had the title one rabbi said about the high priestly family they make themselves high priests their sons treasures their sons-in-law assistant treasurers while their servants beat the people with sticks and that was a guy named rabbi shaol there's a passage in malachi 3 and it says behold i send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me and the lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple even the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight behold he's coming says the lord of hosts but who can endure the day of his coming and who can stand when he appears for he's like a refiner's fire and like launderer's soap he will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver he will purify the sons of levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer to the lord in offering in righteousness and this is a partial fulfillment of that passage you have the lord you have the messiah of the covenant who's coming and the first public act besides you know changing water to wine that was a public act but it was somewhat private his first public act was to go into the main house of worship and flip tables that's pretty wild it's the first thing that he did and it's one of the last things that he did when he when he first started his ministry he goes into the temple and he gets rid of all these guys and the uh week before he dies on the cross actually about four days before he dies on the cross he goes into the temple and they're back and jesus is back and he goes and flips their tables again so before and after he's he's taking care of these guys um again when you look at this it says in verse 14 he found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers doing business when he made a whip of courts he drove them out all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen and poured out the changers money and overturned the tables and he said to those who sold doves take these things away do not make my father's house a house of merchandise obviously jesus is not happy this is one of those instances when jesus got angry and i want you to notice he's not angry for a prideful reason he's angry because the worship of god is something that is being defamed obviously if i bring my little lamb to the lord can you imagine first time you do that you're coming to the lord you've picked out the best lamb that you have you bring it and some bozo in in a robe comes up to you and says that's not good enough here go buy this one what what's it going to make me want to do the next year do i even want to go do i even want to be there and so the the worship of god is something that's being defamed by these guys because they're stinking greed and then on top of that you have this this whole situation where they're you know it's not even a situation where these guys are are being decent about it so you basically have a bunch of cattle in the temple precincts in the quarter courts of the gentiles you have all these guys trying to trying to make money off of people sitting in the precincts of the court of the gentiles and jesus again in another passage talks about the my father's house is a house of prayer but you've made it a den of thieves and so again jesus is not happy about that this is one of those passages that speaks about how to handle a problem anger is is a biblical emotion it's something that god's given you specifically to handle problems and so anger is not always wrong um it's um always wrong when it's prideful anger when it's all about me and you know my perceived situation with other people and how they're treating me and that kind of stuff it can be something that's sinful but there is what's called righteous indignation or righteous anger and there are some things that christians are supposed to be angry about and many times they're not and they don't have any business doing that because god's angry about it and the bible makes that clear and so when a little kid you know it's like we we have all these awful stories about about some little kid who's been molested and then killed and then buried out back someplace and you know when when people come up in a in a situation like that when christians come up in a situation like that and just kind of have this mamby pamby attitude towards that that's not how god feels about it god's clear on this stuff god still loves the person who did the whole thing but he deserves to die is what scripture says and that's what god says it's old testament new testament doesn't matter the guy deserves to die he can get saved he can get his life right with the lord and if he was going to die within a week he probably would but usually they die 20 years later and nothing really happens in any case we need to have the lord's attitude towards things we love the things that god loves we need to hate the things that god hates and so there are times when you should be mad about things and it's something that god gives you so that will drive you to solve a problem and so this can be in situations in your marriage this can be in situations with people who are around you this can be in situations where somebody's being hassled for no good reason we need to be people who stand up for the people who are around us you don't let just people get bowled over by by everybody around you one of the one of the problems with many christians is like dolores was saying they're wimps and we we're not we're not supposed to be like that we need to be people who stand up for righteousness and so again uh you know the passage here talks about zeal for your house has eaten me up in psalm 69 verse 9 it says because zeal for your house has eaten me up and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me and one of the things you need to know when you're going to solve a problem is that many times you're going to have to pay the price for solving the problem you when you step up they're going to be people who get all ticked off at you about it even if you're in the right and that's exactly what happened with jesus and so jesus goes into the temple he sees what's going on there and he makes a plan and his plan is implemented by him going out and making a whip of quartz so he goes out gets some get some pieces of rope pieces of cord and puts those things together and he makes himself a whip this is the way that he's going to solve the problem he's going into the temple with a whip what's he going to do with the whip he's gonna hit people with the whip if they give him any kind of hassle the other thing that you see in the passage is that he decides to overturn the tables he literally walks in he drives the sheep and the oxen out uh with the uh with the with the whip then he goes over to the money changers tables he takes their money right these guys are greedy guys he takes their money so they got their money in bags or you know something sitting on top of the tables he takes it and he just dumps it on the ground then he flips their tables over and uh one of the things that we know from history is that the tables were big and they were marble tables these aren't card tables this is in your little dinky dining room table these are these are marble tables and so jesus he's a carpenter and so all of his life up until this point he's he's old school carpenter it's not it's not the lumber yard comes and delivers a lumber package for you you go break the bands and take a few two by fours and and carry them over to where you're going to build whatever you're going to build carpenters back in those days went out and cut the trees down they dragged they dragged their wood to the carpenter's shop and then they then they shaved the bark off and they shaped the wood and they cut it and then they made what they were going to make out of it and so this guy you know jesus is going to be somebody who who's done construction all of his life he wasn't you know every time i see a picture of jesus the guy looks emaciated man looks like he hasn't had a meal in you know in three months or something you know hanging on the cross and you can you can see every rib and that kind of thing uh pilate after he got the one of the worst beatings that anybody could get said behold the man i don't think he was joking about it i think he was talking about the fact that i think pilate was impressed by the fact that jesus was still still standing at that point and he says behold the man. and so um jesus is the kind of guy that can um take and flip marble tables over and so um he walks into the temple he sees a problem he walks out he goes and makes a plan and he comes back and he implements the plan that's what you do with anger anger is not just something that you take and you know you start you know having a fit over and that kind of stuff that becomes or gay and that's a word that means wrath and so in the book of ephesians in chapter 4 it says be angry but do not sin and do not let the sun go down on your wrath and it's the idea that i'm supposed to have anger is fine but if i take it too far it becomes wrath and at that point it becomes sin if i've entered into sin because of my wrath i need to make sure that i make it right with the people i just i just you know dumped all my garbage all over i need to make it right with those people before the before the sun sets and one of the things that happens with righteous anger is you feel like you have the right to lose it with people right and so if i'm just if i'm just doing selfish anger i might be in a situation where i know okay i i i need to fix this you know but if it's righteous anger and i know that i'm in right and i got a moral and i'm sticking to my moral and that kind of stuff i feel like i can do anything i want to people that's part of the problem with you know some of the stuff that's going on in the united united states today people think that they have the right because they think that they have righteous anger just to treat people like all kinds of garbage and have all kinds of wrath on them and just to try to nullify them in society because they found a moral someplace and that's what that's what's being spoken about when it says that you don't let your anger turn into wrath and if it does turn into wrath you have to make it right jesus is controlled when he does this so he goes in and he drives out the the sheep and the oxen he goes over he flips over you know he takes the money and dumps it flips over tables but look at what he does with the doves it says again verse 15 he made a whip of cords drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen so he's not just driving out sheep and oxen with the whip it's the men with the whip too poured out the changers money and overturned the tables and he said to those who sold doves take these things away do not make my father's house a house of merchandise so to the ones who own the doves he left the doves in the cages whenever you see this on tv a lot of times what you see is he goes over and smashes the cages and the doves go flying and the sheep and the oxen are you know blowing and batting and all that stuff and going out and he didn't do that with the doves you know why because the guys would lose their deaths they you know he's he's controlling himself in this situation it's not that he wants them to lose the right to sell these things he doesn't want it done in the temple obviously he doesn't want people ripped off but he wasn't doesn't want it done in the temple so when he comes to the doves he goes get the stuff out of here and so again you see jesus controlled in this situation and so you have anger then you have a plan then you have the implementation of the plan and you have to make sure that there's no wrath and that's that's the biblical way to handle anger and so this can this can be in all kinds of areas areas anger about what your children are doing you don't just lose it with your kids you you need to look at the situation and if you're angry about it you need to step back take take some thought figure out how you're going to fix the problem and then come back and implement it and make sure that you're not losing it on them in fact a lot of times you know i'll do counseling with people who are having problems with their kids if you're losing it with your kids you're usually dealing with the problem way too late you just need to be consistent and when something's out of line you take care of it at the moment that it's not that it's out of line you don't wait three or four days and you don't count to 10 you don't count the 50 you don't count to you know you don't do that what you do is you just take care of the problem right then and that way you're not getting angry or actually you're not getting wrathful with the kid you're just taking care of it that's what god does with you as soon as you sin do you get convicted you know what i mean as soon as you say as soon as you sin god comes to you and goes what are you doing and he and he speaks to your heart you have guilt and that kind of stuff and you can you can refuse that and you can go oh you know i'm not gonna die i've got all these reasons that kind of stuff you do that with god and he'll come back at you come back at you come back at you and if you don't fix it the the paddle is coming out and and god's gonna take care of you he's gonna take care of it because he's not going to leave you the way that you are in any case that's a great picture of that this is this is passover and uh matt on sunday was talking about uh one of the things that they did during passover turn over to first corinthians chapter five first corinthians chapter five so passover is the feast of unleavened bread and again i'm not going to go way into this because i think most of you guys know this stuff because we've talked about it so much but it's the feast of unleavened bread and so there's not supposed to be any leaven in your house and so one of the things that god had these people do is before passover came they had to go through their house and they had to clean it and they had to make sure that there was no leaven there so that they could keep the feast in purity and so you remember they had a whole ceremony they still do this to this day in orthodox households they have a ceremony where they go through and basically this is spring cleaning they go through and clean their whole house make sure that there's no wonder bread anywhere right no you know no friends is bread or you know whatever you buy we buy we buy the cheap bread so anyway there's no there's no leaven bread in the house and then afterwards the dad would take a piece of leavened bread and he would take crumbs and he would hide it around the house and he made it a game for the kids and the kids would go around with a wooden spoon and a feather and they would collect all the all the leaven then they would bring it over to the fireplace the dad would take that he would throw it into the fire and he would proclaim the house clean and free from leaven for the passover and so what they did was they cleaned their house top to bottom right and so in first corinthians chapter five it's it says in verse six your glory is not good do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened for indeed christ our passover was sacrificed for us therefore let us keep the feast not with uh old leaven nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth and so he uses two illustrations there one is baking and all all you all you guys all you ladies that have ever baked bread you know that what you do if you're if you're going to break bake leavened bread like loaves of bread is you take leaven and you put it in in the dough and once you put the leaven in the dough it's going to spread and we you know we do stuff needing it and all that kind of stuff to help at the spread but what paul is doing here is he's making a point about this even if you put the leaven in one place it's going to spread throughout the dough and so little eleven leavens the whole lump so got a lump of dough put a little leaven in there it's going to go throughout the whole lump of dough and it's the same thing with sin in the body of christ it's the same same same thing with sin uh in the nation of israel in judaism little eleven leavens the whole lump and so in this passage paul's talking about making sure that you don't let somebody who is in unrepentant sin especially awful unrepentant sin just continue to be in the body of christ they're to be put out at that point until they repent and when they repent then they're free to come back um he talks about purging out the old leaven and leaven in the bible is always a type of sin and then finally he says let us keep the feasts not with old leaven nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness and he compares christ to the passover there and so that's that whole reference to the fact that they would do a spring cleaning and they would remove leaven from the from their house and so what did jesus call the temple my father's house so he walks in during the passover and there's leaven in the house and so what he does is what a good jewish man would do get the leaven out remove it so so that worship there could be pure and sincere sincere and truthful that is not something that's obviously just confined to judaism obviously paul puts that on us too and says that we need to be pure we need to be truthful we need to be sincere with these things first peter 4 17 says for the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of god and if it begins with us first what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of god anytime god's going to judge a place judge a nation that judgment's going to begin at the house of god he's going to purify the church long before he goes after the unbelievers he's going to make sure that we're right with god long before he deals with people who aren't even following him and people who aren't following him need to be dealt with that's something that's absolutely true but one of the things that we can kind of have an attitude about is you know god destroy those evil people who are doing all this evil stuff to us and you know and it can get all political in that kind of way and we don't realize that we're praying and when we're praying that we're specifically asking god to judge us too because judgment begins at the house of god have you noticed what's happening with churches lately have you have you noticed that that a lot of times in a lot of situations there's sin being called out there are people who have been hiding stuff pastors who've been hiding stuff sexual immorality and that kind of stuff and they're all getting busted and and things are being shown for what they actually are and um that i believe is god preparing the church for for the things that are going to be taking place next i don't know when when jesus is coming back but i think that before jesus jesus comes back for us that what he's going to do is purify the church he's going to do things to make sure that we make choices actually when you get into the when you get into the book of revelation the whole book of revelation is about it's about to end here i'm about to come back and take over and you people on this planet will make a choice you're either going to be for me or you're going to be against me right and so that's what the second coming and that's with people who are there during the tribulation period right and so all these people in the tribulation period start out all of them start out as unbelievers many of them get saved but what jesus is doing is purifying people giving them the very last chance that they're gonna get it's during that time that he um saves a major portion of the jewish people the jews return to christ and it's part of what he's doing it's part of the reason that he's doing this stuff well don't you think that he would do exactly the same thing if the church is about to end if we're about to go home to be with jesus don't you think that he'd be going through doing exactly the same thing making people make a choice making people look at their lives making people decide whether or not they're really going to follow him or not yeah that's what that's what he does and so he's about to judge this nation he's about to judge this world he's about to judge it all and he's going to start with a church and he's going to cleanse us we need to be open to that we need to be ready for that there you know repentance is a good thing do you want to be like how you are 10 years from now do you wanna or would you like to be a little different you know it's like do you you know just just go through your life and i you know i'm not gonna i'm not gonna sit here and pick on everybody but just go just just think in your head the things that that you have going on in your life that you know that are not pleasing to the lord the bad attitudes that you have and the you know and maybe even the hidden sin that you've got things that you would that you wouldn't share with anybody you know that kind of stuff god sees all that stuff right and so you and he know all about it and all of that kind of stuff do you want to continue in that do you want it to last for even another year or would you like to get rid of it and have the life that jesus has for you and again that's why judgment begins at the house of god he wants he wants to have a pure church he wants to have a clean church in this passage it goes on specifically in verse 10 and 11 look at it it says yet i certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world he was talking about you need to not keep company with sexually immoral moral people he says yet i certainly did not mean with the sexually moral people of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or idolaters since then you would need to go out of the world but i've now written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is sexually immoral or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner not even to eat with such a person and so in this passage god specifically through paul mentions covetousness and uh covetousness and being an idolater and the love of money is idolatry it says in ephesians chapter five and so in any case when you're when you're looking at this stuff these are things that god doesn't want in the church and he certainly didn't want it with the people of israel ephesians 5 5 actually this is the passage i was just quoting from ephesians 5 5 says this for this you know that no fornicator unclean person nor covetous man who is an idolater has any inheritance in the kingdom of christ and god and so you know there's stuff that needs to go when we're believers and again the stuff that needed to go these people brought into the temple and it's nothing but an offense to god and so jesus again takes care of that whole thing um again what you what you've got is a situation you turn back over to john uh what you what you've got is a situation where you have a blinded joyless nation that desecrated the temple and that's what jesus starts off with in his ministry and he's going to he's going to take care of it what these guys have is a hollow religion and so again when we're looking at our at our own lives whenever i go through a passage like this and see what jesus did with these guys i wonder what jesus would do with me i just think about those things are there tables that jesus wants to flip with me are there things he wants to drive out of my life and you know just make sure i'm in a right relationship with god so how's your walk how's your prayer life how's your reading you've been reading your bible how's your love for the lord how's it going those are good questions to ask yourself periodically and just make sure that it's right because it's not about going to calvary chapel it's not about going to church it's not about being a nice person it's about a real relationship with jesus so how's your relationship with him is it going well and if it's not going well you know how to fix it if i confess my sin he's faithful and just forgive me and it cleanse me from all my unrighteousness and then i become a person who's no longer walking in the dark i become a person who's walking in the light and i'm right tight with jesus jesus wants to be tight with me and he wants to be tight with you too and there's no there's no reason except for my sin that i love that i don't want to give up there's no reason not to be tight with the lord and so again you know judgment begins with us there's lines drawn verses 18 through 25 it says so the jews answered and said to him what sign do you show to us since you do these things and jesus answered and said to them destroy this temple in three days i'll raise it up then the jews said it's taken 46 years to build this temple and will you raise it up in three days but he was speaking of the temple of his body therefore when he'd risen from the dead his disciples remembered that he had said this to them and they believed the scripture in the word which jesus had said now when he was in jerusalem at the passover during the feast many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did but jesus did not commit himself to them because he knew all men and had no need that anyone should testify of man for he knew what was in man and so you get this this subtle challenge by the leaders one of the things again that i already pointed out is the people were sympathetic to jesus and what he was doing and so the leaders couldn't just come come in and say you know what in the world do you think you're doing we're going to arrest you because all the people who'd been ripped off for all those years would have just risen up against the high priests and the and the political leaders at that point and taking care of them and so they can't just walk in and and stop jesus the fact that jesus could go in and flip those tables without them doing anything shows that they know that what they were doing is wrong and they know that it's not popular and they know that if they step up against jesus that it's going to be a political nightmare for them if not a physical nightmare for them and so they don't because the people were sympathetic with them and so they don't challenge his actions with the challenges as authority um and they come to him and say what sign do you show to us since you do these things and it's a you know it's a subtle way of saying who do you think you are show us something that gives you some kind of authority to do this kind of stuff and so it's kind of a lame thing in the sense that he's already flipped the tables he's already spilt the money all over the ground and all the all the animals are gone now and they come come up and say you know show us a sign well dude i just gave you a sign my sign was i walked in and said don't do this in my father's house and i flipped all your tables that was the sign but they asked for a sign and he gives him one and he talks about the fact that he's going to the cross this is his first public statement to the jewish nation destroy this temple and in three days i will raise it up did jesus start talking about the cross at the end of his ministry it's the first thing that he said to these guys well a second thing don't make my father's house a den of thieves house of merchandise and he said and he talks about the cross jesus was always going to the cross he always knew he was going to the cross he always knew that that was the point and he never got his eyes off the target focused like a laser on the reason that he was he was here and he what he was here was for was to take care of the sins of humanity including these guys sins one of the things again that they're doing here is they're not challenging his actions they're challenging his authority and their hearts never change and they killed jesus for this and he knew it that's why he said that to them destroy this temple and in three days i'll raise it up um again basically what jesus is doing is skipping to the end he can see a bad heart when it talks about the temple um being built in 46 years actually it wasn't finished it was begun right about right around 20 bc 19 bc this would put this whole event right around 28 a.d it's when this has taken place and the temple wasn't finished until 63 a.d and the jewish revolt started in 66 a.d and that temple was torn to the ground literally everything in it everything in everything on top of the temple mount was just shoved over the sides including the temple itself seven years after it was finished and so that's kind of that's kind of interesting verse 23 you have this outward belief here now when he was in jerusalem at the passover during the feast many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did some of them being these which he did but jesus did not commit himself to them because he knew all men and had no need that anyone should testify of man for he knew what was in man again when when you look at how jesus deals with people he deals with reality and there are people who are fair-weather followers of christ when everything's good when everything's nice when everybody likes you i don't mind following jesus and doing the jesus thing when it's popular to to be a christian i don't mind following jesus and doing the jesus thing but one of the things you have to understand is we're living in times the bible says we're going into a tyranny and the tyranny is going to be the tyranny the antichrist you have to have a whole population who is willing to give up all of their rights including including their national sovereignty to follow the antichrist when you get into the tribulation period and so we can see people moving that direction and so um obviously they're moving in a direction where they're going to actually worship not only the antichrist but the the devil who gives them uh gives him his power the devil's back there knocking things over or it's mike was it you mike in any case um the the world's moving in a certain direction and those are the those are the things that are going to take place and there is going to be more and more pressure on christians to compromise to compromise the faith to compromise their morality come to compromise their convictions there's going to be more and more pressure to be just like the world and it's going to be more intense than probably anything that we've ever experienced this is not something that's new to the world this is how the rest of the world is and it's been like this for a long time it just hasn't been like this in the united states and so all this stuff is coming and so what we're going to do is we're going to start finding out who's the real deal who's somebody who says that they believe in jesus and just has an outward belief but an inward cowardice and those people who actually believe in jesus trust in rely on and cling to him and are unwilling to compromise those things and that's that's what was taking place here and jesus knows the difference he didn't commit himself to these people um one of the things that you'll notice in chapter 3 it says there was a man of the pharisees named nicodemus that's not actually what it says in greek it can be translated there was but actually it's there's word day in greek that means but and so actually john chapter 3 starts with but there was a man of the pharisees named nicodemus a ruler of the jews and it's a contrast to these people that jesus didn't commit himself to they have an outward belief but there's an inward cowardice and then nicodemus comes out comes up and there's an outward cowardice but there's an inward belief and that's the guy that jesus has a conversation with that's the guy that jesus that jesus reaches out to and so we need to be and you know again people um there there can be times when when we we can be gutless and we can blow it and and that kind of thing and i've i've been exactly that in certain situations i've told you about being afraid of an eight-year-old on an airplane i have to witness to him i'm afraid i don't know what to say he's eight you pretty much say anything you want you're bigger than him you could take him these are things that heaven was saying to me no not really those are they're all stuff that was going through my head in any case you know these guys have a hollow religion and again um you know we need to be looking at our lives and understanding that our lives need to be pure and something that uh reflects who jesus is um we're the temple now right back then the temple was a building now we're the temple when you give your life to jesus you're the temple of the holy spirit and so again if you look at your life are there things that jesus wants to flip over are there things that jesus wants to drive out and we need to be willing to um have him do that and recognize his authority to do exactly that so that's all i got let's pray get you out of here thanks again lord for the time thank you jesus for the fact that you love us that you watch over us that you care about us thank you for the the fact that you care about what our character looks like you care about reality and you want a real relationship with us lord those of us who've who've been struggling in areas and maybe even you know trying to hide things uh even from you i i think it's weird but a lot of times we think that you know we can just kind of hide from you on some level and david made it clear in psalm 139 that there's no place that we can go there's nothing that we can do uh to hide ourselves from you whether we um go ascend up into the heavens or go down in the lowest hell there's there's no place that you you that you are not and so god we we just need to be uh people who uh really do business with you and who understand that um you're there to take care of us and not to take care of us um you're there to watch over us and care for us as a loving father does his children lord we need to be submissive to that father i just pray for anybody here that's having problems in those areas lord that you just again just convict and uh lord empower and help them to turn away from what whatever it is that's not pleasing to you including myself lord just ask that you do this all in jesus name bless these people uh pray that you go with them and lord i just thank you so much for him and uh we ask all this according to your glory amen all right god bless

Channel: Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities

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Length: 69min 10sec (4150 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021