Transcript

Grab your Bibles and let’s go to Luke 19. If you’re visiting with us today, we’re going straight through the Gospel of Luke and we come to the end of chapter 19 and going into chapter 20. I have entitled this “The Messiah Comes Into His Temple.” The Messiah comes into his temple.

Now, when you come to a narrative text, it’s absolutely essential that you understand what the writer was intending to portray. Now, three things I want us to think about as we pick up and review a little bit from last week and then we continue on with new material. First of all, this is likely Monday or very close to it. Jesus will be crucified on Friday so the time, the appointed time has come, the time ordained from the foundation of the world set by God the Father for Jesus to go to Jerusalem and there he goes into his temple and, of course, there he will be crucified.

So this narrative is a part of these last days narratives of our Lord’s earthly ministry where we have the climactic conclusion of the Savior’s ministry and, of course, the climax being his death, burial and resurrection for his church. But also there is a powerful spiritual lesson here that is there is a paradigm here for today’s ministry. What the Lord faced in his ministry in this day is a parallel to what we face in our ministries today but it is, thirdly, a prophetic statement of what’s going to happen in the end time, alright? It’s the climactic conclusion of the Savior’s ministry. It’s a paradigm for us today; a pattern for us to be expecting today; and it’s prophetic of the way the Lord is going to shut everything down at the end time.

Let’s look at it together. Luke 19, beginning in verse 45,

45 Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling, 46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘AND MY HOUSE SHALL BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER,’ but you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN.” 47 And He was teaching daily in the temple; but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him, 48 and they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people were hanging on to every word He said.

Chapter 20, verse 1, 1 On one of the days while He was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders confronted Him, 2 and they spoke, saying to Him, “Tell us by what authority You are doing these things, or who is the one who gave You this authority?” 3 Jesus answered and said to them, “I will also ask you a question, and you tell Me: 4 “Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?” 5 They reasoned among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ 6 But if we say, ‘From men,’ all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.” 7 So they answered that they did not know where it came from. 8 And Jesus said to them, “Nor will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

Jesus comes into Jerusalem. The text tells us he immediately goes to his temple and there we have, I. The righteous reformer. He doesn’t go in and call a committee meeting. He doesn’t go in and consult with the powers that be. He immediately goes in and absolutely takes charge. In a very physical and quite violent manner, he turns over the tables and runs over, or runs out, rather though probably ran over some of them, but runs out those who are buying and selling there in the temple yard and we know a couple of things were going on. First of all, they would exchange money there because only certain currencies were allowed to purchase sacrifices to be rendered within the temple. So you had to change your money out and then buy your sacrifice and then, of course, there was the selling of the sacrifices but the heart was gone out of it. It became a cold, ritualistic, going through the motions thing without any devotion to God and, furthermore, it’s highly likely the text doesn’t spell it out, but knowing the Jews of this day, it was highly likely it became a very profitable commercial enterprise where they were just using the worship of God to gain a financial profit without a heart for God. That’s why Jesus said, “My house is to be a house of prayer. It’s to be a place where people could seek God and find God and commune with God and instead of it being that, you’ve made it a robber’s den. You’re robbing me,” Jesus says, “of the worship I deserve and I ought to receive from all the people. Instead of emphasizing what men might do to find God, you use God’s religion for your own carnal profits.” So he in a rage of righteous indignation, exposes this worldliness and drives them out of the temple. Again, Jesus is a man’s man. He was a physical specimen, I’m convinced, and knew how to handle himself in a rough and difficult environment.

Subpoint B, and this righteous reformer as he’s going into the temple to reform it and make it more right, we see him teaching also and preaching the word. Teaching and preaching the word. In verses 47 and 48 of chapter 19, it says, “He was teaching daily in the temple.” Again, these religious authorities are listening to him trying to find him saying something that they could use to destroy him, but they couldn’t really find anything and we pointed out that this is the pattern for ministry of all times. Any righteous God-ordained ministry is going to have a driving out, a purging effect, a purifying effect of pushing out the world.

Now, often in a ministry, there are some huge mountains of worldliness that have to be removed and that takes quite a bit of time and sometimes it takes quite a few years to purge out the worldliness that gets into God’s church, I might say, God’s professing church. And I think it’s true, Spurgeon alluded to this and good godly men who went before us alluded to this and it’s certainly been our experience that usually there are some real difficult seasons to move those big mountains of worldliness and then after that, it’s not so difficult anymore. You have to continue reforming and continue challenging and dealing with things but the big stuff is done.

Well, that’s what Jesus does. He comes into his temple and immediately has some huge things that need to be dealt with that he begins to deal with and after he begins purging and removing, he begins to replace the error with truth so he’s teaching and preaching the word of God. By the way, teaching and preaching is the primary fundamental ministry of God’s local church, but it doesn’t stand alone because if you preach and teach the truth without any real disciplines or accountability to remove the error, you’ve not done anything. As a matter of fact, you may have done the worst harm of all in suggesting that truth and error can reside side-by-side and Jesus showed they cannot and they will not.

So he purges out error and brings in the truth and that’s what every reformer, every church planter, every faithful pastor has to do today. You never get through with that. I told you earlier that’s one of the things that challenges me as sort of a goal-oriented strategist kind of person. I would like to adapt a system and a strategy and achieve the goal but as a Christian pastor, you can labor as diligently and as faithfully as you possibly can and at the end of your life there’s going to still be work to do. You never get done until he comes back and purifies and glorifies his church, amen? He finishes, well, he does it all from start to finish, but when we get done, he’ll finish the rest of it with his personal presence.

So here Jesus is preaching and teaching these things and I was just talking to Brother Steve this morning and, man, our team had a great, great ministry there in Vienna, Austria as they’re trying to help this little church planter there get a glory of God focus, Christ honoring, Bible saturated, Spirit empowered, local church centered, missions and evangelism empassioned local church planted there. It’s a mouth full, isn’t it? But that’s what he’s trying to do and he was just thrilled. We received, Brother Barry King, the head of Grace Baptist partnership in London has already said, “Man, your team was a blessing. They always are.” But do you know what that pastor told Brother Steve? They were reaching up in the 30s in attendance and then the pastor began to reform the church to more sound doctrine and do you know what happened? They lost about half their attendance. They’ve dropped back down to about 15, 16 or 17 now. Jesus goes into the temple and he didn’t say, “Hey, y’all come on in!” He didn’t do that. He ran in and said, “Y’all going to get out of here.” The first thing he did was open the back door before he opened the front door.

So there’s always going to be a purifying and a purging effect in a faithful ministry and there’s always going to be the faithful teaching and preaching of the word of God, getting out the error and planting the truth. Getting out the error and planting. As a matter of fact, that sounds like the journey I’ve been on for now 36 or 37 years. If you’re a child of God, that’s what’s going on in your heart all the time. Now, some big stuff the Lord has to dislodge and cut out and it’s like having a major surgery sometimes. It’s kind of painful, but then if God can get, well, can, he gets it done the way, he doesn’t have any problem with you, by the way. You’re no challenge for God. If he wants to purge you, he can purge you. If he wants to fix you, he can fix you. But often he’ll do some big stuff and then the rest of our pilgrimage, but he keeps on reforming us, amen? He keeps purging. He keeps purifying and taking out old thoughts, old viewpoints, old habits.

Do you know how hard it’s been for your pastor to have ministry systems, now listen to me, ministry systems and things that I put enormous amount of work and energy into only for God to come in with his word of truth and say, “Okay, smart aleck, you weren’t totally wrong but you’re out of balance here,” and I had to die to some stuff and repent and let him purify some things and get things back in perspective. And you’ve got to do that as a husband. You’ve got to do that in your role as a wife. You’ve got to do that as your role as a young person to your parents. You’ve got to do that. You’re always purifying and reforming, letting the old air go out and the truth come in. So Jesus comes into his temple, see how this is a paradigm for today? It’s what we always are doing in our personal lives and in our churches. Jesus comes in, cleans up some stuff and brings the truth to bear in its place.

Alright, let’s go to II. now and notice that the established religious authorities of the day do not take this lying down. The religious authorities here in Jerusalem do not like the power, the control and the reforms that Jesus is wanting to bring in so notice, they challenge him. First of all notice, II. Their diligent opposition and A. under that: their unrighteous demand. They come to Jesus in such a galling, offensive, even blasphemous way, challenging Jesus. Good night. God shows up and they’ve got a problem with God.

Look at verse 1 and 2, in verse 1 it says, “On one of the days while He was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders confronted Him.” They confronted him. What a word that is. Now, let me amplify how I think this probably came down. These guys, the chief leaders of Judaism, come to Jesus and they said, “Jesus, we have been meeting together. You know, we are the pillars of Israel. We’re the pillars of this whole thing, our religion. And Jesus, we’ve been meeting and talking among ourselves and we think we need to talk to you. Jesus, we are concerned about the things you’re teaching and we are concerned about the direction you’re heading.” Look, Jesus teaching and where he was heading was not the issue, really, with these guys. Look, they always cloak it in theological garments. They always say, “Well, those doctrines, I just don’t…” it’s never really about that. What are these guys about? You’ve heard me say it a hundred times: it’s all about power and control and financial profit because as long as they had power and control, they could get the financial profits.

And they see these crowds thronging to Jesus and their power and control is threatened. That’s why you can only have a good godly spiritual church if across the board your congregation has what we call a Gospel humility. God has humbled us all at the cross and, listen to me, to a great extent when you’ve been humbled at the cross, you got over yourself. You may be a powerful so-and-so out in the world and, by the way, I hope a lot of good godly Spirit-filled men are powerful leaders, prosperous and blessed out in the world, but when they walk in these doors, we’re just all brothers in Jesus Christ. We’ve been to the cross. We know we’re all wretched before this holy God.

Well, these guys were not like that. They’re not concerned that Jesus is bringing some false doctrine into Judaism, they’re threatened about their power and control. They’re vile hypocrites. Here they are parading around like they’re the defenders of the truth and the truth shows up and they don’t even see it. They parade around like they’re the protectors of the church and they are truly her destroyers. But here they are coming against Christ, the Lord, and so it has been in every generation that has ever existed. There will always be those in positions of religious authority who hate it when true religion starts up and takes off. They hate it. Jesus said in Matthew 25, he said, “When you did not do it unto the least of these my brethren,” or some translations will say, “these brothers of mine, you did not do it to me.” What is his point? “You did not support my true work when you came upon it. You had a religion but you didn’t know me.” Acts 9:4, Saul of Tarsus is persecuting the church of the Lord Jesus Christ and he fell to the ground and he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me?” The point was by persecuting the true church of the Lord Jesus Christ, Saul at that time was persecuting Christ himself. They were against Christ just as these men in the temple on this day are against Christ, so in every age when men are against the true church, they’re against Christ.

Now, you know that I spend a lot of my energies counseling and mentoring and trying to encourage pastors who are trying to build sound churches for the glory of God and I see them over and over and over and over again coming up against headwinds, coming up against opposition and I want to say to you that when a church or a group within a church insidiously and often maliciously come against a pastor who is trying his best to lead the church to hold to and practice the truth, they are in effect not coming against just that pastor but they are coming against Jesus Christ. Now, unfortunately there are times when godly men have to stand against a so-called pastor because there are impostors and false teachers that creep into the church, but if you ever come against a pastor, you need to have a boatload of sound theology on your side. You never come against a man of God based on opinion or personal preference or, “We think or we feel.” It’s got to be the word of God is being radically, clearly violated and he’s unwilling to change so we must do something about that. Now that’s a good case.

That’s not what we’re finding. We’re finding the same thing Jesus found. These guys have not a thimble full of Scripture behind their position. There they are with the Incarnate Word in front of them and they attack him and oppose him and undermine him, not out of a desire for truth but to guard their own position. That’s what it’s about. You know, we find that it’s always the case that wicked men will always try to rule or to ruin a faithful minister who reproves them. Did you hear that? Wicked men will always try to ruin and/or to ruin a faithful minister who tries to reprove them with the truth. They tried to do it to Jesus. It happened before Jesus’ day, it’s happened every since.

Now, the converse of that, the opposite of that is godly Gospel humbled people gladly receive the reproofs and the corrections of the word of God. They want to be under a ministry that preaches and teaches the truth, even though sometimes it’s difficult to sit under because they know it’s healing to the soul. What is it John MacArthur said? If you preach faithfully against sin, you’ll build a congregation that want their sins dealt with. That’s good. I mean, it’s very simple but it’s very good.

Well, these guys attacking Jesus on this day, they’re not concerned about truth and theology and the true religion of Israel, they’re concerned about losing their power and control. So they continue on, verse 2, in this unrighteous demand and here’s the specific demand, verse 2, “and they spoke, saying to Him, ‘Tell us by what authority You are doing these things, or who is the one who gave You this authority?'” First of all, I’m convinced they know full well who he is. His miracles have vindicated the reality of who he is. They claimed already they believed in John the Baptist’s ministry through they really didn’t from their hearts. They’re just pragmatic politicians who stuck their finger in the air when John the Baptist got a big following and they kind of went along with it. They didn’t love John or his message because what was John’s message? John’s message was, “Jesus of Nazareth is the Savior.”

They know who he is. “Who gave you authority to do these things?” Now, they’re probably talking about the miracles but most likely they’re very specifically talking about, “Who gave you the authority to come in here and tear up our house like this? Who gave you the authority to come in here and turn over the moneychangers and drive out the sellers? Who gave you the authority to do that?” Their point is, “We didn’t give you the authority and we’re the guys in charge.” Listen to me: when Jesus Christ enters the building, it matters not which building or where or what type, he’s always in charge. There’s not a square inch on anyplace in any galaxy, any solar system, any heavenly body, any earthly domain that exists anywhere in the world where Christ cannot point to and say, “Mine,” much less his own temple. “You’re not under our authority. What’s going on here?” What a contemptible nonsense, challenging Christ to defend his own rights in his own house.

Well, we see their unrighteous demand but notice their undoing and dismissal, Jesus being the stern and firm man’s man that he is. By the way, how many times have we come to this already in Luke where I’ve told you, once again, publicly, without apology and in a very cutting and embarrassing way, he destroys these hypocrites. Just rebukes them out in front of everybody and he’s going to deal firmly with them again here. “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘I will also ask you a question, and you tell Me.'” You want to know what authority I’m doing this on, let me ask you a question? “‘Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?’ They reasoned among themselves,” what pragmatic politicians.

Boy, don’t you long for some principled men of God? Let me go under, let me decline, I’m standing on the truth. Aren’t you tired of politicians who are political pragmatists. “Oh, I believe marriage is traditional marriage. Marriage is only a man and a woman.” Three or four or five years, “I have evolved in my position. I believe marriage is any bizarre or weird lust you have. Just go for it and we’ll bless it and celebrate it as long as I get the votes.” Unprincipled. Unprincipled to the core. We need men who will stand up and swear to their own hurt and changeth not, no matter the cost. You do understand in the United States of America we have probably reached the state that principled men will never be elected again. We don’t deserve them. We don’t deserve a good man to lead us so we get these little effeminate worldlings who don’t have a backbone and don’t have courage and don’t have principles and don’t have values and, by the way, don’t even understand what America is. Am I chasing a rabbit? Do I need to get back to my notes? Well, it does apply.

Jesus is going to dismantle these guys. He’s going to convict them. He’s going to completely condemn them and he’s going to dismiss them. Somebody sent me the funniest little parody, it’s a little video and it had all of these modern day false teachers including Joel Osteen in it, and they were in a big wrestling thing and all of a sudden Spurgeon walks out. You know, Spurgeon is the great Baptist preacher who preached the word of God. He had a lot of enemies but, boy, he was faithful to the true doctrines of the faith and he just slam dunks, I think he did a choke clam on Joel Osteen, just slams him down to the ground. Now, I’m not wishing bad on Joel, don’t misunderstand me, okay? But that’s what comes in my mind when I see the way Jesus handles stuff. I mean, he comes in and puts his hands on the situation and slams it down.

Now, ladies, don’t get upset with me. I understand last Sunday some people thought that I might have upset some people and I do want to be honest that, as your pastor, it’s good and right for you to know something in my personality but my personality can be crude and quirky and my humor can be crude and quirky. So on the one hand, I’m just a real guy like you, a sinner saved by grace, and there is some good in that but listen, you’ve got to be careful with humor from the pulpit and you’ve got to be careful with your own personality because you don’t want that to distract from God’s truth. And when I said something crude and quirky about cremation last week, it came out wrong and, again, my position is the Bible is silent on it. If that’s something someone chooses to do, we certainly don’t judge you for that. I personally think since God’s going to take the care to resurrect these old bodies, that we ought to have some care toward them in putting them in the grave but that’s just my personal view. No Bible on that, okay? Where there’s not Bible, we’ve got grace, amen? Where there is no Bible, you can do whatever. Anyway, I ask your forgiveness. Nobody said they were offended. Nobody said, “You messed up,” but if I did, I ask your forgiveness. I don’t want to distract from God’s truth.

Well, they’re confronting Jesus. He’s going to expose them and dismiss them. Here’s the way he does it, he says, “Let me ask you a question: Whose authority was John under? John the Baptist?” You see, he knows they already went along with saying, “Oh, John’s a prophet,” and they only did that because they’re pragmatic politicians because so many of the people were behind John and they know and he knows, everybody knows John said Jesus is the Messiah. So they’re stuck. They’re stuck. They say, “We can’t say he’s not from heaven,” people will stone us. They believe he’s a prophet from heaven. “We can’t say from men,” we’ve already said he’s from God. Jesus just nailed them. Publicly shamed and embarrassed these guys again. So what we have here is these religious leaders of the day were nothing but snakes and unprincipled politicians exposed and embarrassed by Jesus once again.

Now, it’s interesting that Jesus doesn’t answer their question which leads us to another real practical application for all of us today, to pastors in a very real sense, but to all of you if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ and that is this: there are some people you don’t respond to. There are some people you do not give an answer to. There are some people who do not deserve an explanation about your love for Christ and your faith in Christian truth. The Bible teaches this very clearly. Matthew 7:6, “Do not give what is holy to dogs,” now I didn’t say that, Jesus said that. Some people are so ungodly and so against the truth of God, God has classified them as dogs. “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” Now, whatever else that verse is saying, it’s saying there are some people that don’t deserve a witness or response. Proverbs 26:4-5, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, Or you will also be like him. Answer a fool as his folly deserves, That he not be wise in his own eyes.” So you’re very careful that you do not in any way give a hearing to those who are wickedly acting foolish about the things of God. Proverbs 14:7, “Leave the presence of a fool, Or you will not discern words of knowledge.” In other words, you refuse to waste time with those who will not be taught.

If somebody wants to discuss something, I don’t care, if it’s the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Mormons or whoever it is, if they will open their Bibles and listen and be taught, I’ll spend all day with them, but if they want to chase rabbits and get on extra-biblical stuff, I don’t have any time for that. Look, I’m not a psychologist, I’m not a psychiatrist, I’m a Gospel minister and if you want to open the book and look at truth and discuss it, I’m with you all day long, but these guys were not about that. They would not be taught. They would not learn their error and repent and learn who the truth of who Jesus Christ really was.

One quick illustration and we’ll go home and just to show you how these paradigms are continuously taught throughout the Bible. Nehemiah was the cup bearer for Persian King Artaxerxes and Artaxerxes loved Nehemiah and he noticed as Nehemiah would serve the cup to King Artaxerxes, that Nehemiah’s countenance was downcast. Artaxerxes inquired, “Nehemiah, why are you so downcast and discouraged?” He explained to the king that he was heartbroken because he had heard about the ruin of Jerusalem and how Jerusalem and her walls and the temple lay in total ruin and he desired deeply to want to go back and repair the damage that was done. Artaxerxes granted that request and even gave him provisions and a military guard. So Nehemiah goes back to Jerusalem and he’s inquiring about starting the work but when he gets to that region, some Syrians, Sanballat and Tobiah specifically, were kind of councilman, you might say, over this region, and they hated the Jews and furthermore, they loved having the power and control over that area. So when they heard Nehemiah was going to rebuild Jerusalem, they did not like it and they were going to try to stand in the way of it.

Nehemiah 2:10, “When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about it, it was very displeasing to them that someone had come to seek the welfare of the sons of Israel.” Nehemiah 2:19-20, “But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard it, they mocked us and despised us and said, ‘What is this thing you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?'” So they are saying to Nehemiah, “You can’t be right with Artaxerxes rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.” Verse 20, “So I answered them and said to them, ‘The God of heaven will give us success; therefore we His servants will arise and build, but you have no portion, right or memorial in Jerusalem.'” In other words, “This is none of your business. We don’t owe you an answer. Get out of our way, we’re doing God’s work.” The same principle Jesus said to these scribes and Pharisees, “I’m not answering you. I don’t have time to fool with you guys.” Now, in chapter 4, Sanballat and Tobiah thought they would just ridicule the work. They even said, “Men, if a little fox goes and jumps upon the wall, those guys are building and it will fall all apart.”

Now let’s continue on. Nehemiah 6:1-3, “Now when it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, to Geshem the Arab and to the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall, and that no breach remained in it, although at that time I had not set up the doors in the gates, then Sanballat and Geshem sent a message to me, saying, ‘Come, let us meet together at Chephirim in the plain of Ono.’ But they were planning to harm me.” Now, they had heard that Nehemiah had success. He had rebuilt the wall and they said, “We need to ask Nehemiah about this.” In other words, Sanballat and Tobiah were saying, “Some of us have been talking and we’re concerned about the direction Nehemiah is going here. We’re concerned about the good for everybody involved here.”

Verse 3, Nehemiah gets this request, he’s to come off the wall and talk to these troublemakers and so in verse 3 of Nehemiah 6, “So I sent messengers to them, saying, ‘I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?'” I love that. Another place where the man of God says, “You don’t deserve an answer. You don’t deserve my time. I’m not talking to you, I’m going back to God’s work.”

Now listen to me: a pastor doing God’s work has to learn to have a blind eye and a deaf ear. If you listen to every criticism, every caution, every request, every concern, you will never, ever, ever get back to God’s work. Now look, there are some good folks you need to listen to, amen? Some godly folks who help you and I try to listen to those folks, but at the end of the day, Satan will always have dozens and dozens if not hundreds and hundreds of those who wear the cloak of Christianity but don’t really care about righteousness and the work of God and their whole goal is just to distract you and discourage you and to tire you out.

Nehemiah said, “I’ve got a job to do. God gave me the blessing through King Artaxerxes. I’m going to do the work and I don’t have time for Sanballat and Tobiah. I know what you guys are up to. I’m staying on the wall, you guys get out of my way.” Later the Bible says that Sanballat and Tobiah did the next best thing, they went out and hired them a preacher. They went out and hired them a preacher. “We couldn’t get that preacher to go along with us, so we’ll just hire us one.” And they got that preacher to prophesy against what Nehemiah was doing. It didn’t affect them. Nehemiah 6:12, “Then I perceived that surely God had not sent him,” that’s the hired preacher, “but he uttered his prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him.”

So get off that story and let’s get back to Jesus. The time has been established from the foundation of the world when he would leave his ministry in Galilee, turn and set his face like flint to go to Jerusalem. He goes into Jerusalem. He walks through the gate and goes straight to his house, the temple, and immediately with manliness, a firmness, and physical aggression, cleans out the moneychangers and the sellers in the temple. Then he immediately begins to preach the word of God and teach the word of God in the temple. Many of the people are starting to hear him. These troublemakers, the Sanballats and Tobiahs of the day, try to cause him trouble, challenge his authority, “Why are you doing this?” and he says, “I’m about my Father’s work.” I’m paraphrasing, “I’m about my Father’s work. I don’t have time to mess with you fellas. I’m doing what my Father sent me here to do.”

So Christ fulfills his Father’s will, comes to Jerusalem where he will go to the cross and redeem his bride. After he goes to the cross and pays for the sins of his people, he’s going to, through his apostles, split off his true church from the false church, Israel. Did you hear that? Exactly what he does. Starting in Acts 2, the day of Pentecost, the Spirit falls, God’s power anoints the Gospel, people start getting saved and they start coming out from old Israel which was supposed to be God’s people in truth but they had fallen into error and wickedness and worldliness. He calls them out from that collectivity into his new true church and then we have the new church, the true church being established with the New Testament Scriptures bearing out more completely the doctrines and the practices of how God wants his church to function.

One final text. Did I say that awhile ago? I’m sorry. This one will be quick. 1 Corinthians 6:14. As the apostle talks to these Gentiles in this case, they’re steeped in Roman and Greek philosophy and worldliness where the Jews were steeped in the men’s traditions that had taken over Judaism and worldliness. You see, worldliness can be a lot of religious worldliness or you can have a lot of worldly worldliness. It’s all worldliness.

1 Corinthians 6:14, did I say first? It’s second. 2 Corinthians 6:14, “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?” In other words, don’t join up with and hang with those who knowingly live to dishonor and not be followers of Jesus Christ.

Verse 15, “Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?” Verse 16, “Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.'” Now here it is, verse 17, “Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord. And do not touch what is unclean; And I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,’ Says the Lord Almighty.” So, once again, as the apostles develop, they say the same thing continues to happen just like happened to Nehemiah as he separated from those worldlings and said, “I cannot fellowship with you guys. I’m doing God’s work.” Jesus comes into the temple and what does he do? He says, “I don’t have time for the traditions of men and the worldliness and your distractions. I’m doing God’s work.” Paul writes to the church at Corinth and says, “When you come to Christ, you separate from your old connections.” It doesn’t mean you’re mean to everybody. It doesn’t mean you don’t have any association with the world. But in your heart and the people you choose to be intimate with, you join up with a new group, God’s people, God’s true church and serve God and serve the Lord with them. That principle is taught over and over and over and over and over again throughout the Bible.

The Messiah comes into his temple and he purges it and purifies it and brings the truth to bear and doesn’t let the troublemakers get in the way and we have to be that way as a church too and go on for the glory of God.

One final little exhortation: there is no place for pride and there is no place for arrogance. Even when we have to stand firm and even in times when we have to tell somebody, “I don’t have time for you,” we should always have a grace and a humility in our hearts and in our tones. Amen? A Gospel true humility.

Let’s stand together in prayer.