#160 Lu. 19:45-48  JESUS CLEANSING THE TEMPLE

Introduction:

    In this text Jesus goes into the temple at Jerusalem and
drives out the money changers and those who sell sacrificial
animals.  John, in his gospel, tells of a similar event which took
place in the very early part of the ministry of Jesus.  So this is
actually the second time that Jesus cleansed the temple.  He did
it once in the beginning of His ministry and now again in the
closing part of His ministry.

I.  What happened when Jesus arrived at Jerusalem

    We should know that long before Jesus arrived at Jerusalem for
this occasion, the Jewish religious leaders had met in counsel and
had already decided that when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem to
observe the passover that they would put Him to death.  At that
time, they did not have a public execution in mind.  Rather, they
had it in mind to murder Him.  It is hard for me to grasp that a
group of religious leaders would plot a mafia style murder, but
they did.  The news was quietly passed around that whenever Jesus
and His disciples showed up, that His arrival should be reported
immediately to the top officials of the Sanhedrin Council.  They
intended to quietly have Him killed.
    It didn't work out that way.  When Jesus rode down the Mt. of
Olives to Jerusalem there was a crowd of several thousand Jews
with Him shouting to the top of their voices proclaiming Jesus to
be the Messiah-King.  According to Mark's account, Jesus rode
right up to the temple on the colt, dismounted, entered the
temple, looked around, left and the Jewish leaders did not dare to
lay a finger on Him.

II.  What Jesus saw when He entered the temple

    When Jesus entered the temple He would enter first into the
Court of the Gentiles.  When He looked around, what did He see?
He saw the very same things He had seen on that first occasion
back in the beginning of His ministry when He had cleansed the
temple.
    He saw the money tables where temple officials sat exchanging
Hebrew coins for foreign coins.  Each man had to pay a temple tax
for the upkeep of the temple and temple grounds.  He had to pay
with a particular Hebrew coin.  Since many of the Jews present on
this occasion came from foreign countries, they did not have
Hebrew coins.  So they would stop at the tables and buy Hebrew
coins so that they could pay the temple tax.  Needless to say, the
temple officials always made a huge profit off of the Hebrew coins
which they sold.  The prices which they charged were outright
robbery.  It was not really highway robbery.  It was worse.  It
was temple robbery.
    Also inside the temple courtyard, Jesus saw stall after stall
of sacrificial animals waiting to be sold.  Each man was to bring
a lamb without spot and without blemish to be offered in sacrifice
to the Lord.  However, many who traveled from afar found it more
convenient to buy a lamb right there in the temple itself and the
temple officials made it very convenient for them to do so.  They
had animals for sale right there within the temple grounds.  The
prices, of course, were jacked way up high so that again, it was
outright robbery.
    In addition, Jesus saw cage after cage of doves which were for
sale.  The poor, who could not afford to sacrifice a lamb, were
permitted to offer two doves instead.  So the temple officials
sold doves to the poor.  Yet their prices were so exorbitant that
they were guilty of robbing even the poor.
    Jesus saw all this on that first afternoon when He rode into
the city and looked around in the temple.  However, Mark said that
He did not do anything about it that afternoon.  Instead, He left
the temple, went back to the village of Bethany and spent the
night there.

III.  What Jesus did when He came back to the temple

    The next morning, however, when He arrived at the temple it
was a different matter.  V. 45-46, "And he went into the temple,
and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that
bought; Saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of
prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves."  According to the
other gospel writers He also overturned the money tables and drove
out the temple officials who sat at the tables.  You can sense
holy anger in His voice as He quoted from Isaiah 56:7 saying, "My
house is a house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves."
    It was almost impossible to have a worship service in that
atmosphere.  There was the bleating of lambs, the cooing of doves,
people hassling over prices, people talking about all manner of
things as they milled about shopping.  It would be like trying to
hold a prayer service in the middle of busy shopping mall.  Then
there was the awful stench of the animals.  It smelled like a
barnyard.  It was not at all conducive to worship and prayer.  It
was a shame and a disgrace, but it was just what the temple
officials wanted because they were more interested in the money
than they were in the worship of God.
    So on the morning after He arrived, when Jesus went into the
temple, He immediately went into action.  Pandemonium broke loose.
He drove out everybody engaged in marketing animals.  He
overturned the money tables and drove out the money changers.  I
gather that He also drove out the animals.  Judging from the
language used here in the Scripture, He did not just politely ask
them to leave.  He angrily, forcefully drove them out.  From the
volume and tone of His voice, from the expression on His face and
from the look in His eyes, they dared not resist.  They knew He
meant business and they ran as though their lives depended on it.
They fled out of there.  The picture I get is that they did not
dare to return during this whole passover celebration.  They
may have sold animals somewhere else, but they did not do so
inside the temple.

IV.  How the common people reacted

    V. 47, "And he taught daily in the temple..."  After Jesus
finished driving out the money changers and those who sold
animals, great crowds of people closed in around Him.  They were
not there to harm Him.  They were there to hear Him.  Apparently
the people were well pleased by what they had seen Jesus do.  They
were happy that He had stood up against the corruption of the
temple leaders and denounced them for their robbery of the people.
Luke says that Jesus taught them daily there in the temple.  We
are not told specifically just what He said to them.  But whatever
it was we know that it was good and the people were very very
enthused to hear it.  Every day when He entered the temple within
minutes great crowds gathered around Him to hear whatever He had
to say.
    Just how many days He taught them in the temple we are not
told.  It is believed that He may have come daily to the temple
for as many as five or six days in a row.  Each night He stayed at
Bethany and each day He taught in the temple.

V.  How the Jewish leaders reacted

    (V. 47), "...But the chief priests and the scribes and the
chief of the people sought to destroy him."  Can you not just see
 them sizzle!  It had been their plan from the beginning to kill
Him, but they had been unable to do anything to Him because of the
masses of people who thronged around Him.  They were certainly
more determined to kill Him now that He had stopped their
lucrative business.
    Furthermore, they did not like for Jesus to teach in the
temple.  They most certainly had not given Him permission to teach
there and they thought that nobody had a right to teach in the
temple without their consent.
    This just goes to show how far man can be out of the will of
God.  It is a sad day when mere men think that the God of heaven
cannot teach in His own temple without their permission.
    V. 48, "And could not find what they might do: for all the
people were very attentive to hear him."  Yet try as they may to
destroy Him, they were not able at this time to lift a finger
against Him because they feared the great masses of people who
were so enthusiastic about hearing Him.  The people were literally
hanging upon His every word.  So there was nothing that the Jewish
leaders could do except to stand helplessly by and watch and wait.
They were afraid that if they laid a hand on Jesus they would be
torn limb from limb by this great mob of people.
    You may wonder why they did not grab Jesus in the evening
after He left the temple and kill Him somewhere away form the
crowd.  The reason is that they couldn't.  They didn't know where
He was.  This city of about 600,000 people during the Passover
season swelled to about 3 million people.  So, in the evening when
Jesus would leave the temple He would just disappear into a crowd
of about 3 million people and they did not know where He was.
    Needless to say, the Jewish leaders had not yet been
approached by Judas Iscariot offering to lead them to the place
where Jesus would be at night well away from the crowd of people.

VI.  A contrast between the first cleansing of the temple and this
     second cleansing

    But let me show you a sharp contrast between the cleansing of
the temple in the early part of the ministry of Jesus and the
cleansing which took place now in the closing part of His
ministry.  On that first occasion when Jesus walked into that
temple and drove out the money changers and those who sold the
animals, He was not at that time publicly proclaiming Himself to
be the Christ.  Rather, His actions would be taken as proclaiming
Himself to be a prophet of God.
    However, on this occasion it was clear that Jesus was claiming
to be more than just a prophet.  He was claiming to be the very
Christ of God.  He had ridden into the city on a colt in the
manner of a king.  He had accepted the action of the crowd when
they proclaimed Him to be the Messiah-King.  He had marched into
the temple and overturned the money tables, driven out the money
changers and driven out those who sold animals.  Then He taught
the people daily in the temple.  Clearly He was claiming to be the
Christ of God, the Savior of men.

VII.  Looking ahead to our Lord's return

    As it stand right now, Jesus is in heaven seated at the right
hand of God the Father.  But one day He will return to this world.
When He does, He will purge more than just a temple.  He will
purge the whole world.  He is going to drive out the Anti-Christ,
who will be in power at the time of His arrival.  He will destroy
the Anti-Christ and His armies.
    He will purge the world of all false religions.  He will purge
out all non-Christian religions.  He will purge out all religious
cults.
    He will also purge a lot out of what is known "Christian
religion."  He will purge out many of the big name TV evangelists.
They have turned the television ministry into a mere money making
enterprise.  They have turned it into a multi-million dollar
industry.  What would the Jewish temple officials have given for a
television ministry!  Boy!  The money that they made at the temple
was but a drop in the bucket compared to what some of the
television evangelists have made.  I'm not saying that they have
all done that.  But you know full well that a lot of them are
merely robbing the people.  It's a rip-off.  But the Lord will
purge out all the bad ones and get them off the air.  He will
purge out all the heretical so-called "Christian religions" that
are in the world.  Not everything that is preached and practiced
in the realm of Christianity is Christian.  Some of it is and a
whole lot of it is not.  Jesus will purge out all heretical
teachers and heretical practices.  When Jesus establishes His
throne in Jerusalem, there will not be one heretical group
tolerated in this whole world.  There will not be one heresy
tolerated in this whole world.  For the first time truth and
righteousness will prevail in the whole world.
    It is sad that as things stand right now in this world, the
great majority of people have never trusted Jesus Christ and have
never been saved.  Just as it was when He was in the temple in
that day, very few out of the three million people gathered there
had trusted in Jesus as their Savior.  It is sad to say that right
now, very few people in this world have ever trusted Jesus and
been saved.
    Don't worry about the world getting straightened out.  When
Jesus returns, He will straighten out the world.  Jesus will purge
out everything that is corrupt.  Jesus will purge out all that is
evil and bad.
    What each one of us needs to be concerned about is "Am I right
with God?"  Let me tell you that if you are not right with God ,
then it is high time that you get right.
    Get right with God right here right now today.  If you are not
saved, then come right now and trust Jesus Christ and be saved.
If you are saved, then come right now and get your life
straightened out with God.  If you are saved and you wish to unite
with this church, then come and present yourself for membership.