Matthew chapter twenty one, verse twelve. Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, it is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it into a den of robbers. And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple. He healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, Hosanna to the Son of David, they were indignant. They said to him, do you hear what they're saying? And Jesus said to them, yes. Have you never read out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies, you have prepared praise. This is the Word of God, and you pray that he would seal it into your hearts. Jesus entered the temple on this Monday of Passover week, and it is such a change from Sunday from yesterday. We studied the passage last week where he's entering Jerusalem for the first time in Matthew's Gospel. He's been doing ministry in Galilee and in Lebanon and Syria. This is his first time entering Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the city that the Lord chose to place his name, where the Lord said that he would meet with people. Now we know he's been to Jerusalem. Other times in his life, John records those. But in Matthew's gospel, this is in a sense, his grand entrance. Jerusalem was the place where God said he would meet with mankind, where Abraham walked three days away and went up onto the mountain and was about to sacrifice his son Isaac. And God stopped the knife and said that he would one day provide a substitute at that same place. That is the place that David bought as the threshing floor to build the temple. That is the place where Solomon built the temple and said, the nations will come and will meet with God here in this place. That is the place where the Spirit of God filled the temple. And so for hundreds of years God dwelt on earth with mankind through His Spirit in the temple. And if anyone from any nation, anywhere in the world, wanted to have an encounter with the living God, they could go to Jerusalem and they could worship God in His temple, where His Spirit dwelt with man. This is Jerusalem. That didn't last forever. Eventually the temple was torn down about five hundred years before Jesus's life. Six hundred years. It was torn stone by stone. The Israelites were taken into exile. Then they come back and they rebuild the shell of a temple. This is under Ezra and Nehemiah. Haggai. And then Herod comes and makes the temple bigger and better and stronger, massive, so that God could meet with his people there. That's what's going on. What takes place in the temple is the sacrificial system. What takes place there is people offer a lamb. God says without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness of sin. This goes back to the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve sinned against God. They were thrown out of the garden. But God immediately killed an animal and covered their sin and told them that they can approach him through sacrifice. They are now stained with sin, but their sin can be atoned for, covered by God through the shedding of blood. He told Cain and Abel that, remember, Cain chose to approach God by bringing a grain offering instead, and God rejected his offering. Abel brought an animal sacrifice. God received his offering. Cain was angry. God told Cain it. I've told you what's required of you a sacrifice for sin, a sin offering. It's crouching next to you. Take it and offer it. And of course, Cain rejected that and instead offered his brother murdering his brother. This is the place that God designed for people to bring their sacrifices to him, to approach him in worship. The sacrificial demand is before the Torah. It's before the law. It's not only for Jews, it is for Jew and Gentile. Before the the law was given, Noah offered sacrifices, but long before Noah, Adam and Eve. Cain and Abel knew that to approach God, it had to be through sacrifices. That's what's happening here. And of course, the biggest week of the year is the Passover week. This is the week that Jesus arrives in Jerusalem. Now, last week we looked at him coming on to the top of the Mount of Olives, where he weeps over Jerusalem for their unbelief. He then walks down the Mount of Olives, which is, you know, not that long of a walk, thirty minutes max. It is lined with people who are cheering for him and waving the palm branches and shouting, Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna! He's the Son of David, which means God saves us. They're recognizing Jesus is the Messiah. But then it had a very anticlimactic twist at the end, didn't it, that Jesus goes down and enters the temple, but it's closing time. People are packing up and going home. It's like walking into target right at closing time. Everyone looks at you like what? No, you can't buy anything. And Jesus goes two miles away to Bethany, where he's staying all passion week. So all that pomp and circumstance, all the ceremony, all the cheering and shouting, the grand triumphal entry. He walks in and looks around and goes home. This passage picks up on Monday the next morning. This time Jesus gets up early before the crowds are up and walks back to Jerusalem. Mark tells us he only brought the twelve with him. So he asked his disciples in tow. He makes a two mile walk back. There's no roads lined with palm branches today. He walks into the temple at probably the busiest day of the year in the temple. The crowds from outside or not up. But Jerusalem is alive and buzzing. Jerusalem's population this week grows from thirty five thousand to close to a million people. Historians tell us this week, are in Jerusalem or the surrounding area. It's such a small town, thirty five zero zero zero booming two million people, Josephus, the early church historian, says in Passion Week they would often sacrifice two hundred and sixty thousand lambs that week, one per family. Again, this place is insanely crowded and alive with people. The Passover lamb comes back from the time the Israelites were in Egypt, where God was going to deliver from Egypt, and he sends the angel of death, who kills the firstborn in every household, but passes over the Jewish households. If they sacrificed a lamb and rubbed the blood of the lamb on the doorpost, the angel of death passed by. So it becomes inscribed in the Torah, the Jewish law, that every year they will offer a lamb to remember how God passed over them. The Lamb would come into their house and spend a couple of months in the house with the family. The kids would know the lamb. They would. They would name the lamb. Oftentimes the lamb would be sacrificed at home. They would do this every year, and the father would bring the kids around and explain to the kids the Passover story how they deserve to die for their sin. But God does not kill the family. He does not kill the kids in the family. He passes over their sin through the blood of this Lamb. The innocent Lamb that had not sinned against God will have his throat slit. The father would then slit the throat of the lamb, bleed it out in front of the kids. I mean, this is horrific. That happens every year. But many Jews will travel to Jerusalem and offer their lamb in the temple instead of in their home. They didn't have to do it, but most do. Maybe they don't do it every year, but as often as they can. And they travel from around the Empire, from Rome and Asia Minor, Turkey from Egypt. They funnel into Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices. But over time, this is what developed. The law also commands that the Lamb that is sacrificed be an unblemished lamb. There be no defect with it. Now, I'm sure you understand this. The category of unblemished is a little bit subjective. It's a little bit arbitrary. Who decides if the lamb that you just drug with you from Egypt is indeed an unblemished lamb? Well, the priests and this creates some conflict. Maybe the lamb was unblemished when it left Egypt, but now maybe its ear got bit in transit and it's missing a piece of its ear. Maybe it hurt its leg. Who knows? And so it was common for the priest to reject a sacrifice and say no. Fortunately to help you out. They have certified unblemished lambs right here for sale. They'll do a little trade, even. There's a fee, of course, for the trade transaction fee. It's a convenience fee. They would call it probably hundreds of dollars. The other catch is you had to pay that fee in a specific coin. The tire shekel, which is a Roman coin. It's not uniquely Jewish coin. It's a coin in circulation in the Roman Empire. It's the only coin in the Roman system that doesn't have an image on it. There's no image of a king or a leader on it. The Jews would only use that in the temple because the Jews understood. And he coined with an image. An image on the coin was a violation of the second commandment, not to make an image of anything in heaven or on earth. And so they would use the normal coins for grocery shopping and to pay their taxes and all of that. But when it came to offering something in the the temple, especially during Passion Week, they would only use the tire currency. You wouldn't have that. It would be like the American equivalent of saying, you know, to buy something at this store, you have to only use a two dollar bill. It's legal currency, but it takes a little work to get it. And so people would bring their sheep from wherever the in the world they're coming from. And they would bring their money and they would exchange the sheep at the temple for the, you know, certified unblemished sheep. And to pay for that, they would first need to exchange their money into the tire shekel. There's a transaction fee for that, of course, also. And so it's a massive amounts of money changing massive amounts of animal changing. And of course, the Old Testament does not require everybody to do a lamb. If you cannot afford a lamb, you can offer a pigeon, a turtledove, which are free. I mean, you just have to catch them. They're everywhere. And some of those birds are fat. They're not hard to catch. The Jews were pretty good at catching them. They have nets and you can toss them on top of these chubby pigeons. And boom, there you have your offering. And you would bring that to the temple. But the pigeon you offer also has to be unblemished. And I don't know what can be wrong with the pigeon. His wing is bent from the net. You used to catch it or whatever. And so they would mandate that you only use the pigeons that you purchase in the temple. So again, you would trade your pigeon or buy your pigeon. And so the temple area is filled with people exchanging livestock this week. Two hundred zero zero zero plus lambs, birds everywhere in cages for sale. Money changing, happening all over the place. This is taking place in the court of the Gentiles. The court of the Gentiles is the largest part of the temple. It was huge. Thirty five acres is what I read. I don't know what an acre is, so let me translate it into English. You could fit the entire RFK Stadium in the court of the Gentiles, not just the grass. The whole stadium structure would fit there. It's huge. Huge. So don't picture a few food trucks lined up and people swapping out pigeons would change. Picture a massive bazaar with one hundred thousand people crammed in it at one time. Buying and selling and animals everywhere and all of that. That's the scene. The court of the Gentiles filled with this. So on Monday, Jesus walks in to that court. He's not pleased. Verse twelve, he entered the temple and drove out everyone who sold and bought in the temple. He overturned the tables of the money changers. They, you know, they didn't have cash registers. They had these tables with coins stacked up on them. Massive amounts of currency. It was secure. There was a tunnel from the court of the Gentiles over to the Roman barracks. Soldiers can be there in an instant. Nobody's going to go in there and steal money. And so the tables are covered with money. Jesus comes in and starts flipping the tables over coins everywhere. Why didn't the police come for him? Well, we're going to find out in a few weeks. Matthew, let's you know why they they don't, but we'll save that for a few weeks from now. He then is turning out the people who are buying and selling the doves, turning over the seats of them. It's an image of him unlocking the cages and the birds going everywhere. The birds can still fly. If you're a bird that got caught like three days ago and find yourself boxed in in the temple court, you're out of there. The first chance you get. That bird is flying back to Egypt. So that's what takes place. Jesus walks in. He's got the whip with him. Of course, the other gospels tell us, driving out the animals. And he's not Jesus. Lowly, gentle, meek and mild. Jesus did not wake up this morning in Bethany that Jesus with a whip, woke up this morning. He knows how to drive animals, not like kids at a petting zoo, like with grain and hair. Sheep trying to get him over to you. More like the owner of the petting zoo who just kicks him into the truck. That's Jesus with the whip driving the animals out one gate, letting all the birds free, knocking over all the tables with money on it. Change everywhere. Birds everywhere. Animals everywhere. It's an insane scene. You misunderstand what is wrong with the temple in Jesus's lifetime. If you think the issue was the exchange rate. I have heard people say things like Jesus was upset over the interest charge on the transaction, as if it would be okay if it was an even changed bird for bird. It's not that. Certainly they were corrupt. Of course, I've been in an airport where you send your stuff through the security in a clear plastic bag. But they tell you, no, not the secure plastic bag that Americans bring from home. Not the ziplock bag. You have to buy one of their plastic bags for a low price of nine point nine nine, and that can go through the X-ray machine. That's lame. It's not. That's what was happening here. It's not just that the price of the pigeons was too high, it's that the whole system is broken. The system was designed to allow the nations of the world to come to God. It's been exchanged with controlling access to God for money, for controlling access to God, for their for their structure. Jesus is as mad at the sellers as he is at the buyers. Notice what verse twelve says he drove out all who sold and bought. So you misunderstand this. If you think the people who are buying are the victims here, they may be being victimized, but they're not innocent victims. The same thing will be true two days from now. When the woman comes, the widow comes and puts her last mite in. Sometimes people think, oh, she is the innocent victim who's being exploited. Well, she is a victim and she is being exploited, but she stands condemned as well as the whole system. It's not that she is innocent and the system is bad. It's. The whole thing is condemned, including the participants in it. Yes, it is sad that widows are being fleeced. Yes, it is sad that Gentiles are being turned away. But the heart issue is that the whole system is corrupt. The idea that you can buy access to God, forget the exchange rate, the idea that you need to pay to get access to God. That's what Jesus rebukes, including those who think that they can buy it. The buyers and sellers are all condemned and he drives them all out. And then he responds with this. Verse thirteen. It is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer. This is the question that's raised. Whose house is this? Jesus says, it is written, my house. Now he's not speaking just as like a Jew with a noble stake in what's happening in the temple. I've read those who have argued that. I mean, this week there's been all kinds of lawsuits in DC between people suing Trump over the reflecting pond, and somebody sued over the the UFC fighting cage that apparently is in the white House lawn. I haven't seen it, but I've heard about it. And the basis of the lawsuit is these people claim aesthetic suffering, aesthetic damage. Like they one guy goes for walks along the monument and it's aesthetically harming to him to see the water go from bluish green to greenish blue, or whichever way the change went, I don't know. Or it's disrupting the skyline view with the you know, is that what he's claiming? Jesus here? That as a member of the Israelite society, what's happening in the temple is not aesthetically pleasing to him. No, it's more than that. He's not driving them out as a member of the line of the tribe of Judah, born in Bethlehem, lived in Nazareth from Galilee, here for Passover week. So he has a right to object to it. That's not his basis here. He is objecting to it because he says it is his house. He says it is my house. He doesn't say, have you not read where God says, this is his house? No. He says, have you not read? This is my house. My house shall be called a house of prayer. It's his. Now. God had designed this place to be a point of access for Gentiles. It predates the law, predates the law. It's supposed to be a place where the Gentiles can come in and worship God. When Solomon built the temple and dedicated it, he prayed and he said, one day the nations will come. Those who are called by my name will come and turn their face towards this place when they pray. That's why Daniel opens the window and prays towards Jerusalem and those who are not of my people Israel. They too can come to this place, Solomon says, and have an encounter with God right here. That's the court of the Gentiles. It's that court that is filled with the moneychangers as that court. Jesus goes to the idea that you could approach God through sacrifice from anywhere in the world was true. As I mentioned, the command to sacrifice goes back to Adam and Eve. It predates the law. When they get kicked out of the garden, people grope around in the dark trying to find a way back to God. And God builds a giant temple in Jerusalem and invites them all to come there. He gives them a court, a Gentile court. Isaiah describes this. Isaiah chapter fifty six. I know it's small font. I'll read it for you. Isaiah fifty six verse three. No foreigner who is converted to Yahweh should ever say, Yahweh will exclude me from his people. The eunuch should never say, look, I'm a dried up tree, which is a wordplay in Hebrew that actually works pretty well in English, because Yahweh says this for the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths and choose what pleases me and hold firmly to my covenant, I will give them in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give each of them an everlasting name that will never be cut off. That phrase, I'm going to give them a place to come to me better than the one given to Israel. The idea is that Gentiles big, Israel. Small court of the Gentiles. Huge. Israel's court small. Have you seen a drawing or a picture of the temple court? The place is massive. That's given to the Gentiles and completely filled in Jesus's lifetime. It's not supposed to be that way. He says, I will give them access and this outer court, through an everlasting name that will never be cut off. By the way, that phrase is repeated in revelation as a reward for those who endure in faith through Christ. They'll be given a new name that will never be taken away. Verse six the foreigners who convert to Yahweh minister to him who love Yahweh's name, and are his servants, who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it. Who hold firmly to my covenant. This is the crux of the passage Jesus quotes from. I will bring them to my holy mountain. That's Mount Zion, that's the temple. I will let them rejoice in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar. My house will be called A prayer for all Nations. That's the promise. People from every tribe, every nation, every tongue, every language group can go to Israel and worship God right at the place that he chose, where His Spirit would dwell. They would have access to him. And what does Jesus find when he shows up? No access for Gentiles. No room for Gentiles. It is not a place of prayer. It is the staging ground for the Jewish sacrifices, completely reversing the whole system. The system they have was very financially lucrative. Of course, it was a pillar of Jewish society. As I mentioned, the temple towered over all of Jerusalem. Herod, the so-called great, the Butcher of Bethlehem, when he expanded the shell of a temple that Ezra and Nehemiah built when Herod expanded it. He made it massive, and he entered into a kind of a tacit agreement with the Jewish leaders. You can have this temple do your whole system. It's fine if you submit to Roman rule everywhere else. It works out great. The Jews got rich and had their temple. I've told you this before. A few years ago, I may have shared in the sermon, but the neighbors were Dedra and I live. The house next to us was occupied by squatters. People had moved into it, but they had signed a lease to pay rent, and they paid rent every month. But to somebody who didn't own the house. And so that guy was getting money and it was a low rent. It was a couple hundred bucks or eight hundred bucks a month for a house that was worth way more than that. So it was kind of a good deal all around. Like this family gets a great deal. Family? Not really a family. This group of people gets a great deal on the house they're renting. The guy who's renting it to them gets money. And this goes on, I think, for eight years. What a great system. The only thing that could possibly go wrong is if the rightful owner of the house shows up. Which eventually came in the form of the sheriff's department. This is sort of what you have going on in Israel. The temple is alive and buzzing. Massive activity. What a wonderful system. Everybody's getting rich and all the Jews get the right animals. The only thing that could ever possibly go wrong with this is if the rightful owner shows up. Well, that's what happens. Jesus walks in and claims that it's his house. It is his house. It was not designed to be filled with moneychangers. He calls it. Instead of a house, it's become his. A den of robbers. Here. You've made it. A den of robbers. Notice this is a rebuke of both the buyers and the sellers. You don't go to a den of robbers in order to get robbed, right? If you walked into a store and had a sign on the wall that said Den of Robbers, you would out know a den is where the robbers go to live. That's what he's saying. The buyers and the sellers both have made their home religiously, at least in this place. They've turned it into a den of robbers. And Jesus clears it out. Whose house is it? Well, the answer to that question, Jesus proclaims, is even more radical than claiming to be God. The answer is our house. Whose house is it? It is our house. Notice he drives them all out. Verse fourteen they're replaced. So I pictured the animals going out one gate. And now verse fourteen, the blind and the lame are streaming into the temple, streaming into the court of the Gentiles. And he's healing them. So Jesus has already driven illness essentially out of Capernaum, out of Galilee, out of Jericho, out of Tyre and Sidon, out of Lebanon and Syria, Damascus, Syria. He's gone all around that area with his healing ministry already. All those who've been brought to him have been healed. But do you know what? He has never done that in Jerusalem. Don't miss the fact that Jesus has healed, in a sense, healed the world before he's healed Jerusalem. He has done a few healings in Jerusalem before, both of which got everybody in trouble. Remember, he healed the blind guy by spitting and making mud. The blind guy gets in trouble because the mud was made on the Sabbath. He heals the the lame guy who is next to the fountain. That fountain, by the way, is right next to the temple, surrounded with lame beggars. They can't move. They're hoping somebody sets them in the water when an angel touches the water, or whatever the story was, that was the idea. Jesus healed one guy there. One, and they arrested him because he carried his mat on the Sabbath. Now there's untold numbers of the blind, untold numbers of the the lame people being carried streaming into the the temple court. And he's healing all of them. This is very different than the first time he cleansed the temple. Remember the first time in John two he cleansed the temple? People didn't know who he was. Nicodemus came to him at night and was like, who are you? Not this time. This time he cleanses the temple and the blind and the lame and the children are flooding in. Thousands, if not tens of thousands of people pouring in to see Jesus. They all know who he is. They're chanting what they chanted yesterday. Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna is the Son of David. Lord, save us. Save us now. Save us, Son of David. That's the chant. Notice in verse fifteen it says, they're crying out. It's this imperfect tense over and over and over again. It's more of a chant. Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna. As he's healing everybody. What a raucous scene. Animals everywhere. Birds everywhere. Money everywhere. Blind and lame and children with chants. Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna! Nothing like this has ever happened before. Son of David, the crowd is chanting. That's the messianic title. That is the promise given to David in two Samuel seven, repeated in Psalm eighty nine, that a descendant of David would build God's house, but not only if you look carefully would he build God's house. He would also be God's house. He would build it and be it. How can he both build it and be it? It's a great mystery until you get to Christ. And so here he is. And the crowds recognizing it. This is the Son of David. The house of David had fallen when the temple was destroyed. And now it is being built up in Jesus Christ. The first time Jesus did this to the temple, he said, I can tear down the whole thing, and three days later it'll be built back up again. And he was speaking about his own body. They didn't get that. They didn't get it at all. Tear it down and he will build it back up. He is the temple. Now I love this. This massive chanting, the massive singing. It says in verse fifteen, the scribes and the chief priests were indignant. Notice I love how Matthew wrote this. Notice Matthew in verse fifteen says, they saw the wonderful things Jesus did and the children worshipping, and they were indignant. You never want that said after you're like, that guy was doing amazing things. And these other people were so mad at it. Jesus was healing everyone and the Pharisees were super mad, big mad. And Jesus responded to them, well, look, first of all, their question is hilarious in verse sixteen, the chanting and the cheering and the whole scene. And they say to Jesus, do you hear what they're saying? That's funny. A crowd of tens of thousands chanting to Jesus. And the question is, do you hear that? What do you want Jesus to say? Yeah, he hears it. Jesus responds with the question. And there's a whole genre of this question. They're my favorite Jesus questions, where he asks the scribes and Pharisees a question about their law that he starts with have you never read these scribes? Have the law memorized? They know how many words are in every scroll of the Old Testament. Okay? They know the law. They know how many words are in every line of every scroll. They know the law. And so when Jesus asks, have you never read and follows it? Not with some obscure passage somewhere, but from a monumental passage. It's it's meant sarcastic. It's funny. Nice religious degree you have. Have you never read Psalm eight? Psalm eight is not an obscure psalm. Maybe it is as some of us, but it is one of the most important Old Testament psalms. If you were to rank the Old Testament songs by importance, I would put Psalm eight in the top five for sure. It is not an obscure passage. This would be like going up to a preacher, a Christian preacher, after he preaches and saying, nice sermon. Have you ever heard of John three sixteen? That's what Jesus is doing here with the scribes. Jesus, do you hear what they're saying? Have you forget hearing? Have you even read Psalm eight? Now this is Psalm eight. What is man that you are mindful of him? What is the Son of Man that you take notice of him? People are so small. People are so sick and frail and finite. Why does God even take notice of us? We're so far beneath him. I would understand angels. Angels go to and fro in front of God's presence all the time. They do his will. They're right in front of him, the worshipping of his throne. Of course God sees the angels. Why would God stoop to look at mankind? I read a book recently by an astronaut who spent more time in space than any other person on the space station. And just this passage I can't get out of my mind. He describes one day in the space station going around, and Africa was totally cloudless in front of him. He could see all of Africa at once, the whole continent. And he just let his mind go. And he imagined how many countries are at war. How many families are at war? How many interpersonal conflict? Families fighting families and people die unexpectedly. People betrayed, like all of the interpersonal conflict and the national conflict in this continent. And it's in front of him in a moment. And then a minute later, it's gone. The whole continent is gone. He's over the ocean. It's in front of him all at once. And then he says, if you haven't had that experience, you don't understand how it messes with your mind, how important people are to themselves, and how small and insignificant they are. And soul mate says, what is man that you're mindful of him? That God would care about us at all, and then he makes us lower than the angels. And then it says, he puts the oxen and sheep under our feet so we can rule them, which I take as an image of sacrifice. There's ten reasons Psalm eight says that, but one of them is that it could be quoted by Jesus in the temple. Well, all the animals are running this way and that. And then he says, yet you have crowned man with dignity and praise. You have decreed this is the passage that he quotes right here out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies. You have prepared praise. It's all of the weak people that are there. This is what it means when the Scripture says Jesus is gentle and lowly. He comes to those who are weak and low. He comes to the children who are lost. He comes to the people who are losing their fights against cancer. He comes to the people whose marriages are a wreck whose kids won't talk to them, whose spouse won't talk to them. He comes to the people that are lame and forgotten, been piled up by a fountain for years, waiting for some kind of healing. That's who he's coming to. We sometimes switch it and think that the those who are strong and powerful and successful and get the promotion and all that have the happy family. Those are the people that are closer to the Lord. But the Scripture says, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted. He is closer, in a sense, to the lame and the blind and the children and the broken and the lost, than he is to the centurion and the generals and the governor. When the Scripture says he's gentle and lowly, it doesn't mean he doesn't take a whip. It doesn't mean he doesn't turn over tables and yell at people and let all the birds go. When the scripture says he's gentle and lowly, it means he comes to the broken hearted. Children were made in God's image, and the Lord is near to them, and he is near to us in our failures and in our suffering and in our trials. That is when we have the closest and most rich experience, the Lord that is being acted out in the temple of the court of the Gentiles right here. And of course, they don't receive this at all. They're going to kill him four days later, largely for this. He shut down the temple court on the busiest day of the year, like closing a shopping mall on Black Friday. He does it in judgment on them. Two days from now, he's going to stand and overlook the temple. When the widow puts in her coin and say, every one of these bricks is coming down, God is going to judge this place and tear it stone from stone. and that happens. They kill Jesus, put him in a grave. He resurrects three days later, thirty or forty years later, they tear the temple down, brick by brick. Out of God's judgment. You can go to Jerusalem today and you can go in what they call a Temple Mount tour. You go in a tunnel underground along the mount of the temple was built on, and the temple, the tunnel winds to and fro, and eventually you get to one stone. And they used to say, this is the stone. This is a stone that was used in the temple. They still weren't here. Now they've updated the sign and it says historians are divided. If the stone was used in the temple, or maybe it was rejected by the builders, we don't know. Which makes it even funnier. That's what's left. One stone. You buy a ticket to go in a tunnel underground for thirty minutes, to see all that is left of what the temple used to be. That's how severely God judged this place. He ripped the place down, brick by brick. But is the promise that the people of the world can still meet with God alive and well. And the answer is yes. You still go to his temple. But how? It's not in Jerusalem anymore. The body of Christ is the temple. He resurrected from the grave on the third day. All the nations come in acts chapter two. A few months after his resurrection, all the nations come to in acts two to worship at the temple. Only now they don't need to buy their sacrifice. Now they put their faith in Christ as a sacrifice. People from every tribe, every language place their faith in Jesus Christ and they are baptized into his body through faith. You have a spiritual union with Christ. Through baptism you are joined to his body from every nation, every tribe, every language group, every people group. There is one body. There's no court of the Gentiles. The church now is the body of Christ where everyone is invited. The blind are welcome, the lamer welcome. The children are welcome. Gentiles are welcome. Most of all sinners are welcome. Because the house that Jesus builds is not a renewed temple, the house that he builds is his own body, his church. The temple Jesus cleansed here. Like I said, forty years, it's gone. But the promise remains that you have access to God through the sacrifice of Christ being joined to him in the body of Christ. What remains is the church. This is the gathering place of God's people. When everything is stripped away, all the ministries, all the staff, the parking, the pews, the coffee, the abfs everything about church is stripped away. What's left is this command. The body of Christ would be a place of prayer, a place of worship. God, we're grateful that you've given us access to heaven through your son. He is the sacrifice. We worship from him to him, through him for him. He gave his life so that we can approach you. He is the temple of God, torn down three days later. Resurrected. We're joined to him through faith and baptism. We're thankful for the promise of worship and prayer that transcends the centuries. Your house is indeed open to all people. I pray for anyone here today that has never come to you in faith. I pray today that their hearts would be softened, that the truth of the gospel would penetrate them, and they would join themselves to your people through faith. It's in his name we pray. Amen. And now for parting words from Pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc dot church. If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to TMZ dot edu. Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C. area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service. But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now, may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly. Serve the Lord faithfully and share the gospel boldly.