Jack Graham - Jesus Is In the House

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Would you now take God's Word which is the story of Jesus from beginning to end? The Bible tells us after the resurrection that Jesus took a couple of disciples along the road to Emmaus and He showed them in all the Scriptures those things concerning Himself. This is the Jesus Book. So let's open His book today to the twenty-first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. We're going to read together verses 12 to 26. Again, this is at the beginning of Jesus' last week in His earthly ministry, before the cross and the resurrection. It's a story that is told in all four of the Gospels. Very important story.

"And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he said to them, 'It is written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer," but you have made it a den of thieves (or robbers).' And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did". Note that: "the wonderful things that he did". What a wonder is Jesus our Lord! Miracles, powerful acts of changed lives. "Snd the children were crying out in the temple, 'Hosanna to the Son of David!'" Meaning Jesus is the Messiah! Jesus is Lord and Christ.

And these religious leaders, they were indignant, infuriated: "and they said to him, 'Do you hear what these are saying?' And Jesus said to them, 'Yes; have you never heard or read, "Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babes you have prepared praise"?'" The cleansing of the temple, and in this cleansing or consecrating of the temple by Christ, we have really a blueprint for the believer as to how we also can experience a powerful cleansing and consecration before the Lord, which is really what revival is. That we get our lives right with God and revive in His presence; that we fulfill the purpose for which we have been created, which is to praise God. The greatest lesson that we can learn as followers of Jesus is that we are indwelt, that Christ is alive in us, that we are temples of the Holy Spirit!

The temple in the Old Testament is God's object lesson for His temple in the New Testament which is His people. It's been said that in the Old Testament God had a temple for His people, and now in the New Testament era following Christ, God has a people for His temple. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. But what happened at the temple so long ago with Christ cleansing that temple can happen in you and me and needs to happen in you and me today.

Now Jesus, as we've learning along the way in this journey telling the story of Jesus, He is love incarnate. He is filled with compassion and kindness, full of grace and mercy. What happens in the temple in this case follows Jesus standing beside the Mount of Olives over Jerusalem and with copious tears He is pouring out His heart before God. He is weeping that He is now being rejected. He said, "Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you to myself like a hen gathers its brood". Jesus weep on several occasions. So the great heart of God is throbbing in the body of Jesus. Yes, He is the Savior of love, full of grace. But the God who is full of love is also full of life. He is full of grace and truth.

And Jesus is righteous and holy! He is not only "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," But at times He displays the fact that He is the Lion of the tribe of Judea. And here we see Jesus the Lamb who becomes Jesus the Lion, boldly staking His claim on what is rightfully His in the temple. It might surprise you to know that the common view that many have of Jesus as being a sanctimonious, pale recluse is not the picture of Jesus we have in the Gospels. Jesus was a man's man. He was God's man, but masculine through and through. And He was at times, when needed, when necessary, confrontational and combative. And He was controversial. This is what ultimately lead Him to the cross, rejected in order that He might redeem us. But Jesus confronts error; He combats false religion. And in this case what we are reading in the Gospels is Jesus attacks the corruption of the religion that is expressed going on right in the temple. Jesus is in the house!

So Jesus walks up and he cleansed the temple. And I have three simple points today in this passage. We're going to talk about the right of Jesus to cleanse the temple. We're going to talk about the reason that Jesus cleanses the temple and then we're going to see the results of what happened when Jesus cleansed the temple. What is His right? He has a right because Jesus said "My House shall be called a house of prayer". What did He say? "My house". The temple is the house of the Lord in the sense that the church, according to Ephesians chapter 2, is also like the temple, a house of the Lord.

Now this building is not the house of the Lord in the sense that, though it is dedicate to God and set aside as a sanctuary of worship and place of God, this place is not a temple. Nor is any other human building on earth. The temple is now gone in Jerusalem; awaits a rebuilding of the temple in the coming years. But today the temple is this: You are the Holy Spirit's dwelling place. Christ lives in you! You are the temple of God. First Corinthians chapter 6, verses 19 and 20, the Scripture says: "Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own". What did Jesus say? "My house is a house of prayer". Say, "my house". And he said, "for you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God..."

To glorify God is to magnify Him; it is to honor Him in all things, in your body and in your spirit which are who's? God's! So Jesus is in the house today. I believe He is in this place because we have prayed and asked for His presence to be here. Yes, He is in this place when His people gather, whether it's just a few or many, but He is in your life. This is the most important lesson you can learn in your Christian life: "that Christ is alive in you. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit and He has the right, therefore", He is Lord of the temple, He has the right just as He did in the New Testament to cleansed the temple and consecrate it for the purpose that it is made. He has the right to demand, not just to desire but demand that we be sanctified as the sanctuary of God.

After all, the Spirit who is in is who? The Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God. And therefore, let this house be cleansed and consecrated to God. When Jesus walked in to the temple that day, you wonder what He would have seen? I brought a couple of artist's renderings of the temple, the second temple if we could throw it up. And that's actually a very good one. That's what it looked like in the day of Christ. And surrounding the temple were these magnificent columns, colonnades around the temple. The court of the Gentiles where people of all nations could come. You did not have to be Jewish to enter into the court of the Gentiles. It was several football fields long.

And, Josephus tells us at Passover (and this was the Passover season for the Jewish people) that they would slaughter several million lambs for the sacrifices of the Passover, and upwards of two to three million people would have been living in tents outside of Jerusalem. Pilgrims that would come from all over Israel and other parts of the world to celebrate the Passover, the one time of year in which the sacrifice was made and redemption was offered. Remission for sin for the people of Israel. And, of course, we know that Jesus is our Passover Lamb. And it's all predicted and preparatory for Him. But around and within these huge marble walls and golden pillars and these buildings glistening in the sun, Jesus walks in.

And when Jesus walked in that day, the noise would have been terrific Merchants were selling animals, birds and sheep and cattle. It might have sounded something like the Ft. Worth stockyards at full throttle, because, and it might have smelled like it as well. Because you had all this merchandising going on with the money-changers in the temple. You say what was a money-changer? A money-changer, it was a cottage industry, if you will, because if you came from somewhere else and you had coins, especially if you had Roman coins or Roman money was not usable in the temple so you had to exchange your money for temple-approved money. And guess what the money-changers were doing? They were greedy and therefore they were up-charging the people.

So if you gave them, if you needed a dollar, a temple coin to pay your temple taxes and give your offerings, then they might charge you a $1.50 for that. They were scamming. These money-changers and people selling the animals, another thing that was happening. You bring your little sheep from the shepherd's field maybe out in Bethlehem. Someone looks at an official looks at it and says this won't do. This one is blemished here. You have to have one of the sheep that we have prepared here. And so that's going to cost you cha-ching, cha-ching. These guys were con men. They were scammers, they were shysters, they were hypocrites. And all of this and it's the high priest at that time welcomed this exchange.

Jesus walks up in the midst of all of this noise and all the rattling of the money and in the midst of all the hypocrisy that was going on, and He attacks religious corruption. He confronts it head-to-head. And he began to flip over the tables and kick down the chairs. Why didn't they stop Him? There would have been Roman soldiers observing this; there to keep the peace. Why didn't the Romans stop Him? There were temple police. We would meet these temple guards and police later in the arrest of Christ. They were certainly there. There were tens of thousands of people huddling around. Why didn't they stop Him? Why didn't someone arrest Him and take Him right there? One reason. Wasn't time. And His authority, His moral and physical authority, His spiritual authority was greater than all this religion and all the Romans and all the rest. He had power and authority and anointing as the King and the Lord of the temple.

And so He turns it all upside down. He's eaten up with righteous anger. He would quote the Old Testament earlier by saying "The zeal of your house is eaten me up"! He was burning with the heartburn of holiness. So He's flipping tables and He's turning over chairs and He's scattering the money-changers. What did He do? He threw them all out! He threw the bums out! That's what He did. Our mighty, miraculous Savior! He's doing wonderful things. He's changing lives, but He's also battling for the souls of men. Yes, it was a battle that He fought for you and for me! So when we think of Christ, it's not Jesus always meek and mild, soft and sentimental. No! He is a strong and powerful Savior who deals with error, who deals with sin, who deals with corruption, who deals with injustice! He makes things right!

And therefore, He has the right to cleanse the temple! And the same Jesus who cleansed the temple that day has the right to cleanse my temple and yours. Maybe to turn some things upside down in our lives in order to get our attention. To flip some tables, if you will; to confront our sin, because what these people had done is to turn the house of prayer, the house of God, the temple of the Lord into a den of thieves, a cave of robbers. The robbers were wide out in the open. No longer living in caves out in the hills around Jerusalem, but they turned the temple into a cave where robbers would hide in plain sight! And Jesus said, No! The fact is that Jesus started His ministry, it's recorded in John chapter 2 with the cleansing of the temple. And now He's back to do the same thing because they were back to their old ways, doing the same thing.

Jesus was passionate about the people and about the place of prayer. There's a great sermon delivered a number of years ago by a man by the name of Robert Boyd Munger and the title of his sermon is "My Heart, Christ's Home", and he pictures his own life and his fellowship with God. So he begins this sermon with a beautiful description of what it means to know Christ.

He said: "One evening, I invited Jesus Christ into my heart. What an entrance He made! It was not a spectacular, emotional thing, but very real. Something happened at the very center of my life (has this happened to you?) Something happened," he said, "at the very center of my life. He came into the darkness of my heart and turned on the light. (Has that happened to you?) He built a fire on the hearth and banished the chill. (Amen?) He started music where there had been silence. He filled the emptiness with His own loving, wonderful fellowship. (And then he says) I've never regretted opening the door to Christ and I never will. (That's true!) In the joy of this new relationship, I said to Jesus, 'Lord, I want this heart of mine to be Yours. I want You to settle down in here and be perfectly at home in my heart. And everything that I have belongs to You. Let me show You around.'"

And then the preacher begins to show Jesus around his house. And one day Jesus says to him, "There's something smelling in this house". He said, "I knew exactly what He was talking about because upstairs there was a hidden closet and I had stuffed a lot of secret things in that closet and put it under lock and key. And I didn't want to tell Jesus what was in there. I didn't want Jesus to know what was in there". And Jesus said, "Give Me the key to that lock". And reluctantly, though repentantly he gave Him the key and He unlocks that dirty, filthy, smelly closet. The man said, He cleans it all up, gets all that junk out, gets all the filth out. He cleansed the temple, if you will. And then He repainted it.

And now Christ has every nook and cranny of the man's life. When Jesus comes to cleanse the temple, this is what He does. Is Christ at home in your heart? Is He the Lord of your temple? He has the right to do it! And the reason to do it is because, "My house shall be called a house of prayer to honor and glorify". What is prayer? Prayer is worship; prayer is repentance; prayer is the exaltation of Christ; prayer is singing; prayer is serving; prayer is what we do because it's who we are. We are the house of prayer. We are God's prayer center and God has called us to pray for the nations and pray for our neighbors and to live in a constant state of steady prayers in our lives.

Jesus said, "You ought always to pray and never to give up". Why did God make you? Not for you; He made you to be a house of prayer and a house of praise to God. And in order for revival to come in this church and we are praying for a massive movement of the Spirit of God in churches today. Isn't it interesting, more than interesting, it's a fact that is so true, that when Jesus came to Jerusalem, He didn't head to the Antonio fortress and take on the Romans. Pilate was there. Roman officials were there, but Jesus didn't go to the Romans. He went to the Church, as it were. He went to the spiritual core of the nation. The fact is, we can influence politicians and we can pray for politicians and government and in the political and all things social and economic in our country, we can be concerned about those things and care about those things. But ultimately what must happen is that judgment must begin at the house of God!

That's what Peter said, that's what Jesus did. The judgment began in the house of God. And if I'm going to have revival in my life, if we're going to have revival in the church, if we're going to have revival in the nation, it's not going to take place with the Republicans or the Democrats or the White House or the Congress; it's going to take place in the church! Judgment by Jesus in the church, cleansing and consecrating His people to Him! When Solomon dedicated the temple to the Lord in 2 Chronicles, he said this: "If my people which are called by My name will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land".

That is the reason that Jesus cleansed the temple, to restore it to its former glory. Not it's physical glory but the glory of God! He turned things upside down, He ran these people out of the temple area because He removed them from the temple compound. Just threw them all out because He was bringing redemption to His people. The salvation, that the glory of God that it would be once again of praise and a house of prayer. And that's exactly what happened. These men were religious leaders were, they were indignant and sensed that Jesus was doing all of this, this is what ultimately put Jesus on the cross. Religion, corrupt religion put Jesus on the cross. The Romans had their part, the secular world had their part but ultimately the people who rejected Jesus, "He can unto His own; His own received Him not, but as many as received Him to them gave He the right to be called the children of God".

So what did Jesus do when the temple was cleansed? Do you know what happens when the temple is cleansed? Lives are changed. He's healing the lame, recovering sight to the blind. The Bible tells us that the god of this age has blinded the eyes of those who do not know God. And when the church is revived, when the temple is cleansed there will be the opening of blind eyes; salvation and spiritual rebirth. Those whose lives are lame and broken by sin will recover and get up and begin walking in purpose again. Why? Because then the church is revived.

Evangelism can happen apart from revival but revival can never happen apart from evangelism. And what happened in the Jesus movement, when those young people were being revived in their spirits before God, they went out everywhere, telling people about Jesus. Up and down the coast and all across America, and of course, that's what I believe is going to happen with these college students. I'm praying God will raise up a new generation of preachers and missionaries and witness and church people who are going to change the world by bringing the lost to Jesus. This is what the cleansed temple does when Jesus is in the house, everyone is welcome, the broken, the lame, the blind, all can come to Jesus. And the little children were praising Him. Your house will become the house where Jesus lives will be a house of prayer; it will be a house of power and it will be a house of praise, as your life then praises God in the purity and the sanctity of a life lived out in the presence of Jesus.

God's cleaning house. Could it be that Jesus wants to clean house in you today? To declutter your life, to discard some things in us that will cleanse us and consecrate us to Himself. Let's begin a spiritual journey today to the cross, and let's open our lives up. You know, Jesus may choose to take the whip. In John chapter 2 it tells us that He took a whip of cords and He drove them out. How did He throw all these guys out this second time? I don't know maybe He made another whip. But Jesus may take the whip of discipline at times in us in order to cleanse the temple. "Whom the Lord loves, He chasten and scourges every son". - Hebrews. So God, let God discipline me and discard those things in our lives that are unholy and unclean and ungodly. And may we be once again a temple where the Lord is the Lord of all. Amen?