Transcript

Let’s go back to Luke as we resume our study through the Gospel of Luke. We’re in chapter 21. Luke 21. Jesus has been coming into the city, into the temple in particular, by the way, the temple is a huge place, and within the temple, he’s been preaching and teaching regularly, and we come to this particular section of his teaching and preaching, Luke 21, and for our text today we’re just going to go three verses, verses 5, 6 and 7. I was going to go all the way through verse 36 and I couldn’t do it. Luke 21:5,

5 And while some were talking about the temple, that it was adorned with beautiful stones and votive gifts, He said, 6 “As for these things which you are looking at, the days will come in which there will not be left one stone upon another which will not be torn down.” 7 They questioned Him, saying, “Teacher, when therefore will these things happen? And what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?”

Now, if you continue on all the way through verse 36, Jesus gives a prophetic word about what’s going to happen; how things are going to unfold and the complete destruction, destitution of the temple particularly, and included in that prophetic word will be the prophecies about what the world will be like before his second coming. Now, Lord willing, we will dive into those particulars more next Sunday morning.

First of all, I. let me do some background for us. Let’s look at some insights into prophetic interpretation. Insights into prophetic interpretation. How are we to understand Bible prophecy. How are we to understand how it unfolds and how are we going to properly interpret it. One foundational principle that we need to always remember in interpreting Old Testament prophecy in particular, is that Old Testament prophecy most of the time had a more immediate partial fulfillment for the people to whom the prophet was speaking to in that day, so you have the more immediate and partial fulfillment of the prophecy, but it also had a full and final fulfillment later on and typically that was later in Christ or in Christ’s first coming, or even his second coming. So you’ve got to keep that in mind when you’re studying the Bible. The prophecy should have made some sense to the people of the day it was given and at least partially fulfilled to them, but it also had an ultimate and final fulfillment in primarily around the person of Christ and to his ministry.

Now, another thought, that is the phrase “progressive revelation.” You and I and all conservative Bible levers and Bible scholars hold to progressive revelation. That is that God so composed the Bible that it progressively unfolds the truth as you progress chronologically through the Old Testament, and even into the New Testament through the Gospels, through the epistles, and finally to the book of Revelation. So things become clearer. One thing builds upon the another progressively as you journey through the Old Testament into the New. So, in essence, you cannot understand the full meaning of Old Testament prophecy unless you interpret it in a forward direction, realizing that the Old Testament is preparatory for the New Testament. We must interpret the Old Testament in light of New Testament revelation. As someone has said, what is contained in the Old Testament is explained in the New Testament. What was concealed in the Old Testament is revealed in the New Testament. You’ll note that as you’re studying through the New Testament, the word “mystery” will come up. Christ will say, “I tell you a mystery.” He didn’t mean something that’s a riddle or hard to understand, what he meant was, “This was taught to you in your Old Testament Scriptures but it wasn’t very clear. Now I’m making it very clear. I’m telling you the meaning of it. I’m unfolding it and unveiling it before you.”

One scholar says that the Old Testament or Old Testament prophecy in particular, undergoes a transmutation as it passes out of its partial fulfillment to the Jews of the Old Testament day, and passes into its final fulfillment in the New Testament and in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Now, King David is an example of this. Over and over and over, the Old Testament gives prophecies about the greatness and the prominence of David, but then the wording around those prophecies would say something that was much grander and more glorious than anything David could ever achieve. So David fulfilled part of that in that he was the greatest king to sit on the throne of Israel, but the true and final full fulfillment of the prophecies was the one who is of the seed of David, of the lineage of David, Jesus Christ himself. Partial fulfillment in David, final full fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

Now, we don’t want to suggest that every Old Testament prophecy has an ultimate future fulfillment. Sometimes God just gave a word to those people and it was only to those people of that particular point in time. But much of it does and most of that which does have a future final fulfillment is centered around Christ. A couple of real quick examples. Isaiah 7:14, that is the prophecy that a virgin will be with child and she will bear this son and she will call his name Immanuel. Very familiar passage of Scripture. We know that the Hebrew word there for “child” is “almah,” it’s a word, wait, check that, I don’t think it is “almah.” It’s a different Hebrew word, anyway, it’s the Hebrew word that is one of several words that could be used for a woman but it means a very young maiden. It could mean a married woman of childbearing age, but it most likely means a younger woman who is not married. So the scholar or the prophet rather, uses a word that can apply to a married woman, but also would be just a young maiden, an unmarried woman. So what’s the interpretation of that prophecy, a virgin will be with child? Well, it has two: she was Isaiah’s wife and she did indeed have a child, and the child born to Isaiah was a testimony to the nation that God is with us, but we know as prophecy unfolds and everything about the truth surrounding that prophecy is exegeted in Isaiah 7, that there is a much greater and more glorious fulfillment, of course, in the Lord Jesus Christ. It has a partial, more immediate fulfillment, but it had a final and ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 53, the whole chapter, the suffering servant verses of Isaiah, has a partial fulfillment in the nation of Israel. Israel was God’s servant and she did suffer greatly being God’s servant, but as you read Isaiah 53, there are scores of things unfolding in that chapter that the nation of Israel could have never fulfilled and they are only and absolutely only fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Again, partial fulfillment to the people it was originally written to, ultimate final fulfillment in the New Testament as it unfolds and in Christ, in his person and in his work.

Now, chapter 21, Jesus is preaching and teaching in the temple. He is the one true and final prophet sent from God, God’s own Son. And Jesus beginning in chapter 21, verse 5, begins to unfold a prophetic word about what is to come, and one of the startling things he says here, what is it, verse 6? Yeah, he’s going, he’s prophesying rather, that the temple is going to be completely destroyed and laid desolate. Now, you’re not a Jew. You can’t grasp this, but for a Jew in that day to be standing in Herod’s Temple and to know that everything they have ever been taught, everything they held dear, their entire hope for the present and for the future centered in that temple, and Jesus is in the temple, he’s preaching and he says, “Do you see this temple? Every bit of it is going to be destroyed.” Wow.

Not only that, starting in verse 8, going all the way through 36, Jesus does what is common among the prophets of God, he unfolds a series of events that have both a more immediate fulfillment for the Jews of the day he’s preaching it, but has a final and ultimate fulfillment when he returns to set up his eternal kingdom, or right before he returns to set up his eternal kingdom in the earth. So keep that in mind as we journey through here because, indeed, what we’re actually seeing here is Jesus’ final sermon. He does some more teaching with his disciples but in a public context with everyone and anyone who would hear him, he’s been doing this regularly now for many days, this is his final sermon.

Now, II. Let’s pull a great theological truth out of here that I just think we need to spend some time looking at today. II. The true temple. The true temple. Well, let’s look at verse 5 again and it says, “while some were talking about the temple,” that means when they went to the temple, when they looked at the temple, you just could not help but talk about it. It was a marvel. These apostles of Jesus themselves were amazed; they were held in awe by the greatness and the beauty of the temple, and I think the context is it’s kind of like when you have a new guy in town and you want to show him some neat things in your town, “Golly, do you see that? That’s da, da, da, da, whatever it is.” I think that’s where these apostles are, they’re saying, “Jesus, just check the temple out. Is it not amazing? Is it not wonderful beyond compare?” Now, we do know the temple took 46 years to build and trustworthy historians told us, now listen, 8,000-10,000 people worked continuously for 46 years to build this building. Think about that. The best materials and the best craftsmen on earth worked on this temple.

In verse 5, these guys, these apostles are saying to Jesus, in effect, “Look at the whole thing,” and they were taken in, the Bible says, verse 5, by the beautiful stones. Researchers tell us that these stones were of purest marble. Some of them were 37 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 8 feet high. The foundation stones under those were 67 feet long and 7 feet high. That comes from Josephus who was proven very accurate in all of his historical recordings of the day. And the temple itself was a massive structure. I used to think you could set maybe three of them in this room. No, it was massive, just huge areas and corridors and hallways, and all of this built. And those huge stones above the foundation stones were made of the purest white marble.

Votive gifts were there also, verse 5 says. People would bring crowns and jewels and silver and vases and arms and so it was just a magnificent display. There was a vine with grapes of solid gold that surrounded the nine gates around the temple. The outer face of the temple was covered with plates of gold and from a distance if you looked on the temple when the sun was shining, you’d see the brilliance of the gold and the whiteness of the marble and they said it looked like a mountain of gold and snow. Jewish rabbis of the day said, “He who never saw Herod’s Temple never saw a building.”

So it was a magnificent thing, but they missed the point. The temple, its building, its ritual, and its worship had become an idol. The people had begun to center their lives around just the motions and the glories and the beauties of this thing and its religious exercises associated with it, and they’d lost God. Now, again, the temple itself was an item not to be looked so much at, it was something to be looked through. The temple was intended to be a type of Christ. It was to point men to Christ. The temple was a foreshadow of the majesty and the beauty of the one true temple, Jesus Christ.

You know, in our own fallenness, as we just get mixed up in the world, we are ever tempted to look at the marbles around us and fail to look up. We too often are enamored with earthly beauties that are void of any true spiritual life, and as far as spiritual life is concerned, the temple was as cold and as lifeless as the gold that plated it’s exterior walls. We have poor, poor eyes today. We have poor, poor hearts because we are ever amused over the shadowy temporal glories of physical things in the earth and miss the great things. Jesus will soon see to it that this cold, massive, lifeless idol, the temple, will be destroyed and that’s what he’s pointing out here. “Do you see this temple? Not one stone is going to be left upon the other.” And in the context, it was almost like the apostles, the disciples of Jesus are something of intercessors on behalf of the temple. Like, “Wait a minute, let’s don’t get out of balance, Jesus. You know, don’t be too harsh. Don’t be too condemning of this.”

You know, every inch of that edifice which was the temple and every aspect of its function was about Jesus Christ. Everything about the temple was pointing to him and everything the temple stood for was fulfilled in him, but overwhelmingly so, almost none of them could see it, and those who did begin to see it only saw partially. A testament, again, to the total depravity and darkness of men’s hearts. They loved, were in awe, by the physical temple and the Lord of glory stood right in their midst. That’s what he’s saying to them.

Verse 6 again, “As for these things,” Jesus says, “which you are looking at, the days will come in which there will not be left one stone upon another which will not be torn down.” They would look and see lasting glory in that temple, all Jesus saw was something that was vanity and that was passing. This wonderful house had become but a spiritual ruin and Jesus would have nothing to do with it except he has determined to destroy it.

Now, the text does not say but to a varying degree, probably to a great degree among some, what Jesus just said had to be radical and shocking. Don’t you love Jesus? I just can’t figure him out. I would think he would pull the disciples aside and just very gently lead to this because this is devastating. This is like your mama’s dying. I mean, this is devastating. I mean, it’s just devastating news, and Jesus just, wham! brings it right out of the gate and just lays it on them, “I’m destroying everything you’re looking at.” Powerful. But hasn’t he as we’ve it journeyed through Luke, formed something of a pattern of saying shocking things to the people or things at least they would see as shocking? God thinks it’s shocking what men do in their godlessness and unbelief but men in their darkened, godless unbelief think the things of God are shocking. Jesus constantly publicly corrected, rebuked, and embarrassed the religious leaders of the day. That was shocking to them and to everyone else.

Jesus disappointed and angered the common folks like the people of Capernaum because he would not hang around and just heal them and perform all the little miracles they wanted to ease their temporal discomforts because he was on a higher mission than just helping us have our best life now, and that made them, the Bible says the folks at Capernaum were enraged at him. Jesus would show kindness and mercy to scores of folks who were considered unworthy and unclean by the religious doctrine of the day, yet he would go into Samaria, you’re not supposed to do that. He would actually talk to a Samaritan, you’re sure not to do that. And a woman of all things, and you absolutely were forbidden to do that. And especially a woman of ill reputation, and he did all of that. They just couldn’t figure him out. Just shocking stuff.

Now, he’s coming to the end of his earthly ministry and you’ll remember as we’ve gone through these last few chapters of Luke, he begins to tell them, “I’m going to Jerusalem,” and they’re probably going, “Hallelujah, it’s coming. He’s going there. He’s going to overthrow Rome. He’s going to install himself as King and Lord of glory from Jerusalem. We’re going to conquer the world. We’re going to come into a blessed age of peace and utopia and blessing, better than Barack Obama.” I say that because isn’t it foolish that we put hope in people like that. Isn’t it foolish we put hope in men. By the way, there’s no Republican going to do it either. So they must have been excited, he’s going to Jerusalem, and right after he says, “I’m going. We’re headed there, and there I’m going to be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes and they are going to crucify me, and I’ll rise again.” Shocking. Shocking stuff to these people following him in this day.

So here these guys are on this day when Jesus is giving this sermon and just out of the gate as they’re adoring the temple, he says, “It’s all going to be destroyed,” and all their present and future hopes that had been bound up in that temple in Jerusalem have to be just crushed at this point. Jesus, in effect, is actually stretching these disciples. So just in the last few days, he’s devastated them, “I’m going to Jerusalem and I’m going to die and, by the way, the temple all your hopes have been in, that’s going to be destroyed too.” I mean, it’s just a wonder they didn’t just go jump off the highest bridge they could find. This is just, I’ve said it, you say, “Pastor, you keep saying it.” You just can’t grasp how radical and shocking this had to be to these folks on this day. But the Holy Spirit helps us, amen? There was the seed of understanding blossoming in the hearts and the minds of the disciples and others who believed. Hey, have you understood that in your Christian pilgrimage you can have genuine faith that’s getting it and at the same time be scared to death? That’s where they were. Many of them had genuine faith. It was coming, but they were still frightened. A lot of you joined Grace Life Church knowing the Bible and the Spirit of God led you here and it was right, but you were scared to death at the same time just because you hadn’t been around it before. These guys were in a much greater extent like that.

So Jesus began this sermon on this day and then the Bible says he leaves the temple. By the way, he leaves on this day never to go back in it again. This was it. So Jesus goes out to the Mount of Olives, verse 7 is where this picks up, and we know this from the balance of the other Gospels. “They question Him, saying, ‘Teacher, when therefore will these things happen? And what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?'” Now, again, Jesus is on the Mount of Olives and from that vantage point, the temple would reflect in the sun and it would be a magnificent show of light and beauty, and in that context, he answers their question and we’re not going to go into that but we’re going to go into the theology behind what Jesus is pointing out at this time because as Jesus left the temple on this day never to return, so left from the temple the gracious presence of God and the whole service and economy of religious Israel was now given over to destruction. It was just a matter of time.

As Jesus answers the disciples’ questions as we begin in verse 8 when we look at it later, this is going to be his last public discourse, and he will begin unfolding all the events that are going to take place. Now, the immediate and partial fulfillment of what he’s already said, this temple is going to be destroyed, that was fulfilled in 70 A.D. when Titus, the Roman general, marched against Jerusalem. Josephus and other faithful historians of the day tell us that it was an unbelievable slaughter; that people all over the countryside were running from the Romans. Folks, they were not taking prisoners, they were slaughtering everyone. Estimates are that 250,000 to 1.1 million Jews were killed and slaughtered by Titus’ Roman army. They marched into Jerusalem, people are fleeing the countryside trying to escape into what they hoped would be the safety of the walls of Jerusalem. It’s even the Passover so everybody had already crowded in there, and the slaughter is undertaken by Titus and the city is laid desolate, and the temple is completely destroyed just exactly as Jesus said would happen.

That was the more immediate and partial fulfillment, but then the true temple begins to be made manifest. The disciples are filled with power by the Holy Spirit. They begin to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. People began to be converted and the new temple of God begins to be presented. I might say, the new and true temple of God begins to be established and presented in the earth. Ephesians 2:18 through 22, it should be on your screen, “For through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household,” household having the same idea as a temple. Verse 20, “having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,” that means the original preaching of the early church fathers preached that Gospel and it built from there, “Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone.” God’s building this new temple and there’s a sense in which all of us are part of it who are converted. Jesus is the foundation stone, the corner stone. Verse 21, “in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord,” there it is, “in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

Now, the essence of a temple is twofold, it’s where God dwells, and where men find God. It’s where God is and where men find God. All physical earthly temples fail in this and that’s why Jesus was saying, “You missed the whole thing. You got caught up in the physical glories and majesties of the temple and missed what the temple was pointing to. No one has ever found God, forgiveness of sins, and intimacy with the Father through the rituals of a physical building or connected to a physical building.” By the way, including the evangelical and Baptistic tradition of walking down aisles and taking preachers’ hands. That never saved anyone in and of itself. It is the Christ pictured by the old Jewish temple, it is the Christ foreshadowed in the old Jewish temple, it is the Christ pointed to by the old Jewish temple that saves, and the only thing that saves, that is the only way you know God, and the only way you know salvation from your sin. That’s the point Jesus is making.

In John 2:22, Jesus was speaking of the temple being his own body. His body is the temple. Jesus is our temple. We find God in Jesus. We find God in him and through him. Isn’t it just like God to do it that way? I found God in my car driving through Columbia, Tennessee as a freshman in college because I heard about Jesus on the radio. I did not have to travel to Nashville. You say, “What’s in Nashville?” It’s the headquarters of Southern Baptists. I didn’t have to go to the headquarters. I didn’t have to go to the temple. I found Christ and found God because he is the true temple.

Jesus is the truth about God and he is the true way to God, therefore there is now no need for an earthly temple anywhere including in Jerusalem. You know, when you’re traveling, you watch the signs. I’ve been doing a lot of traveling lately so I watch the signs. To get to so-and-so city, you turn here. To get to so-and-so city it’s so many miles. But you know what I figured out? Once you get to the city, you don’t need to think about the sign anymore. You’re through with the sign. That’s what the Jews were to do. Everything about their old economy that was centered in the temple was to get them to the reality, the city, Jesus. But it’s just like if somebody says, “I love Muscle Shoals,” and every day you see them out there hugging the sign that says, “Welcome to Muscle Shoals.” You think, “Well, son, you’re missing the whole thing. You’re missing everything. You’re just enamored with the sign and missed the reality.” Think of all the many ways God ordained that the temple pointed to Jesus. Now, in the tabernacle that preceded the temple, there was only one gate, one entrance, and when you get into the temple, Herod’s Temple, there’s only one entrance into the holy place and then into the Holy of Holies where God’s presence was supposedly dwelling. Well, Jesus is the gate. He said, “I am,” not a door, “the door.” He’s the gate pictured by the gate of the temple.

The inner court was the court of the priests. It was the area where the priests enjoyed the presence of God in service in the presence of God, but through Jesus Christ, we are all, the Bible says, a kingdom of priests. We can all through Christ enjoy the outer court, the priests’ court.

The brazen altar pointed to Jesus Christ. The brazen altar was the place of sacrifice and they would bring doves and pigeons and bullocks and goats depending on the sin and the offering. None of them took away sin, they all pointed to Christ and his death for us on the cross.

There was a laver out in the priestly court where the priests would do all these elaborate washings to cleanse themselves so they would be qualified to minister before God. Jesus is our washing. He is the living water that cleanses us from all sin.

There was the lampstand in the candlestick that they would light when they were doing their priestly observances. Jesus is the light of the world.

There was the show bread or the bread of presence, pictured spiritual sustenance and Jesus said, “I am the true bread. I have come down out of heaven.”

The altar of incense, the priest would light the incense and the smoke would go up, reflecting or picturing the prayers of the people. The Bible says Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father, ever interceding for us. It points to Jesus.

The veil, it’s a massive veil that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies. To get into the presence of God, the Shekinah glory of God, you had to pass through that veil. Jesus is our veil. The Bible says when Jesus died, the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom. A great big rent, hole was made in that veil. Why? Because we’re great big sinners. It took a big hole to get us in. Jesus’ body was rent and in the tearing of his body for our sin in our place, we enter in and know God.

The mercy seat sat in the Holy of Holies. It was a gold seat over that ark of the covenant and there the priest would come only one time a year. The great high priest would come in and sprinkle blood on the mercy seat picturing the rolling back of sins. I want to tell you, you listen to me: Jesus is our mercy seat. Jesus’ blood is the blood that was shed and applied on the eternal mercy seat in heaven for the redemption and removal of all of our sins.

Even the goat represents Jesus. You say, “How could a goat represent Jesus?” Because when he took on your sin, God saw him as a goat, unclean and unfit. The great day of atonement before the priest went into the outer court, the holy place or the Holy of Holies, a goat was brought to him and the high priest would take his hands and he would put it on the head of that goat and there he would confess the sins of the nation of Israel. After that confession, that goat would be led astray out into the wilderness, never to return, picturing the taking away of our sins. Jesus is the one who takes away our sins. It all pointed to him. It’s all about him. In John 5:39, Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures,” some of the Jews, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it all testifies of Me.”

So Jesus is in the temple on this day. Later he journeys out from the temple to the Mount of Olives to continue teaching his disciples. The disciples as they stood there with Jesus in the temple, are in awe of the greatness and the beauty of the temple there in Jerusalem, and Jesus knows if he does not wean them off the watered down milk of temple worship and instead lead them to embrace himself, they will never have forgiveness of sins and know the endless pleasures of the one true God.

So Jesus said, “Hey, guys, there’s a powerful lesson coming for Israel. There’s a powerful lesson coming for all of mankind because very soon,” he doesn’t say Titus of Rome, but history records it was Titus of Rome, “very soon this temple is going to be destroyed, be laid desolate, and all who place their hope in religion, in ritual, in temples, their hopes will be laid desolate also. So in bringing this temple you so esteem to absolute ruin, it’s painful medicine, but it’s medicine needful for the cure.”

On another occasion, the religious leaders were condemning Jesus and his disciples and they were saying, “Jesus, you and your disciples, y’all do some labor on the Sabbath. Everyone knows that that’s against the law given by Moses. You can’t do labor on the Sabbath.” And Jesus answered, he said, “Do you not remember how when David was desperate fighting for Israel, he was hungry and he ate some of the sacred bread in the temple? Do you not understand when the priests minister, that they minister working, laboring in the temple?” What was Jesus’ point? Jesus’ point was the ordinary rules and laws about the temple apply ordinarily, but they give way to higher and greater laws like when the Lord of the temple shows up. The law and the temple with its ordinances are secondary and must yield to the Lord of the temple who is the giver of the law.

So Jesus ends that little debate on that day with this statement, Matthew 12:6, “But I tell you something greater than the temple is here. Something greater than the temple is here. This temple is going to be completely destroyed but I will remain forever.” Jesus will one day split the heavens and return to earth. Next week, Lord willing, we’re going to look at some of the things that will unfold leading up to that, and when he returns after he has punished sin and sinners and all unbelievers, he will establish his eternal kingdom in the earth. In Revelation 21:22, John describes a little about what that’s like. Revelation 21:22, “I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” For now, don’t look to a building. Don’t look to a religion. Don’t look for an exercise to go through. Don’t look to the guidance of a spiritual guru. Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus.

Look to Jesus. He is the true temple. And that’s the theology, the truth behind why Jesus says, “You are enamored with this glorious temple, I’m going to destroy every bit of it. Somehow that will get your attention off of that and on to me.”

So, congregation, I leave you this morning completely dependent on Jesus, but I want to tell you, I wish I wasn’t losing my voice, I’d be a lot louder right now, he is mighty to save. Mighty to save. Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus. As a matter of fact, you know, we ought to get re-saved every week. What I mean by that is actually we get re-saved every day or a thousand times a day because our heart should be constantly calling on the Lord. You didn’t just call on the Lord, you became a caller on the Lord when you got saved, where you just constantly, “Lord, I’m a sinner. If Christ isn’t sufficient, I’m sunk.” That’s what we are now. We’re callers on the Lord. But for some of you, today should be the day you begin being a genuine caller on the Lord. “Lord, I abandon my hope in a prayer. I abandon my hope in walking an aisle. I abandon my hope in baptism. I abandon my hope in works. I abandon my hope in the ordinances of the church. I reject all of that. I repent of looking to anything and everything but Christ and Christ alone.” He’s the true temple of God.

The Bible says, “Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.” I don’t want to go to far here but do you know how many Baptists are going to be in hell because they trusted a prayer instead of trusting Jesus? There’s a huge difference. Now, everyone prays when they come to know Jesus, true, but you can just go through the motions of a prayer just as if you walked down an aisle and took a priest’s hand in a Catholic Church and it doesn’t do you any good. A lot of Baptists are going to be in hell because they walked down an aisle. That’s fine to walk down an aisle but I want to know have you embraced the true temple? Have you said, “I am a sinner and, O Christ, my hope is you.”

I have said enough so we’re going to pray and then we’re going to go home and you’re going to think about some silly ballgame that’s going to be played tomorrow. I’m going to come to your pew in a minute, so hang on. I plan on watching that game and I believe and I hope that stirring in my heart will say, “Yeah for my team,” no, my team is not playing, but thank God for Jesus because there is something greater than a ballgame here. Now, thank God for ball games, that’s okay, but there’s something greater than a ballgame, there’s something greater than a temple, there’s something greater than being a Baptist, walking an aisle: do you know Christ?

Let’s stand.