Mat 21:12 And Jesus entered
the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple,
and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were
selling doves.
Deuteronomy
12:5-7 instructs the Jewish people to bring their sacrifices to the temple and
verse 7 says “There, in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in
everything you have put your hand to, because the Lord your God has blessed you”. This house was a place for
worshiping and praising God together as a family or by yourself, but what it
was not was a shopping mart. Imagine being in your church and while the pastor
is at the pulpit and someone is walking up and down the aisle selling hotdogs. During
the pastors pray the vendor is collecting money for what he has sold. What
would your feelings be? This was God’s house, if you remember in the Old Testament,
when a Levite priest would enter the Holy of Holy’s they would tie a rope on
his leg. That was to pull him out if God struck him dead. God takes the church
very seriously.
Mat 21:13 And He said to them, "It is written, 'MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF
PRAYER'; but you are making it a ROBBERS' DEN."
Life Application
New Testament says: “The high priest had authorized a market with merchants
and money changers to be set up right in the Court of the Gentiles, the
huge outer court of the Temple. The Court of the Gentiles was the only place
Gentile converts to Judaism could worship. But the market filled their worship
space with merchants so that these foreigners, who had traveled long distances,
found it impossible to worship. The chaos in that Court must have been tremendous.
The money changers exchanged all international currency for the special Temple
coins—the only money the merchants would accept. The money changers did big
business during Passover with those who came from foreign countries. The
inflated exchange rate often enriched the money changers, and the exorbitant
prices of animals made the merchants wealthy.
Because both those who bought and those who sold were going
against God’s commands regarding the sacrifices, Jesus began to drive
them out. This is the second time that Jesus cleared the Temple (see John_2:13-17). Jesus became angry because God’s
house of worship had become a place of extortion and a barrier to Gentiles who
wanted to worship. Jesus quoted from Isa_56:7
and used it to explain that God’s Temple was meant to be a place of
prayer, but the merchants and money changers had turned it into a den of
thieves”.
These are the same
priests that question whether or not Jesus was the Son of God.
Mat 21:14 And the blind and the
lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. Mat
21:15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful
things that He had done, and the children who were shouting in the temple,
"Hosanna to the Son of David," they became indignant Mat 21:16 and said to Him, "Do You hear what
these children are saying?" And
Jesus *said to them, "Yes; have you never read,
'OUT OF THE MOUTH OF INFANTS AND NURSING BABIES YOU HAVE PREPARED PRAISE FOR
YOURSELF'?" Mat 21:17 And He left
them and went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.
Jesus again was healing but it was in on the temple grounds.
2 Samuel 5:8. The blind and the lame were not allowed on the temple grounds.
Check that verse out, in our day and age we would invite them to be in. It
was also predicted in
Isaiah 35:4-6 that this would change, Jesus was the change. Once again
Jesus was infuriating the Priests and Scribes who would certainly do harm. Jesus
left the grounds and retreated to Bethany.
Mat 21:18 Now in the
morning, when He was returning to the city, He became hungry. Mat 21:19
Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on
it except leaves only; and He said to it, "No
longer shall there ever be any fruit from you." And at once the fig tree
withered.
Fig trees were a source of edible buds that appear prior to
the figs and after the leaves. When the leaves were out the buds were supposed
to be there. So why would Jesus kill the tree? It was another example of
religion of day. There were beautiful temples but the Israelites were
spiritually barren.
Mat 21:20 Seeing this, the disciples were amazed and asked,
"How did the fig tree wither all at
once?" Mat 21:21 And Jesus answered and
said to them, "Truly I say to you, if you have
faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but
even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' it will
happen. Mat 21:22 "And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will
receive
Our pastor has had sessions
of Mountain Moving Prayers. We were not trying to move any mountain, actually
Wisconsin doesn’t have any mountains. Our pastor was trying to further God’s
plan for our church. There were many startling answers to our churches prays. Matthew21:21 is for the obstacles that the Disciples would have in there journey after
Jesus leaves.
Life Application
New Testament says: “Prayer must be in harmony with the
principles of God’s Kingdom. They must be made in Jesus’ name (Joh_14:13-14).
The stronger our faith, the more likely our prayers will be in union with
Christ and in line with God’s will; then God will be happy to grant them. God
can do anything, even what seems humanly impossible”.
Agape
Dave
No comments:
Post a Comment