The Cleansing Of The Temple

The Money Changers and Dove Sellers in the Temple Courts 3:08

“Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.”

— Matthew 21:12 (NKJV)

What were they doing? Well, we're going to find out. If you would, let's look at verse 12. We'll spend a certain part of today's text looking at the money changers, and then we're going to move into the study of the fig tree.

You've probably never heard them condensed. I'm convinced that they should be, and I'll explain why as we go. Verse 12: Then Jesus went into the temple of God, and he drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and He overturned the tables of the money changers, and the seats of those who sold doves.

All right, let's step back again for a moment and remember the context.

The Triumphal Entry and the Passover Pilgrimage 3:43

Well, as we said before, the context is that Jesus has just engaged in what we call the triumphal entry. This is at the outset of his Passion Week. He's coming to Jerusalem to die, and as He rode into town on the donkey to start his Passion Week, there's all manner of hosannas going on.

There's the palm branches and the like, and all sorts of declarations. Now, the people didn't know what they were doing. That's going to be made clear in today's text. The people didn't understand what they were doing when they were saying Hosanna.

They wanted a Messiah. They didn't want this Messiah. And they had realized that days later when they would proclaim crucify him, crucify him. Whatever the case, what happens is you have the triumphal entry.

He rides into town in the back of the donkey. The palm branches have been waving. And where does He go? He goes to the temple.

He goes to the temple because that's where everyone was going. You understand that at the start of the Passover week, the whole reason He was going there is because everyone was going there. All of Israel was traveling. Those who could, I'm sure that Galilee still had some folks left, but those who could, generally speaking, were making a pilgrimage, a pilgrimage by which millions of people were heading into Jerusalem.

So He's there with just tons of other people, and the majority of them, at some juncture during the travels, are going to go to the temple. That's the object, is to go to the temple for the Passover celebration.

Seeking the Unblemished Lamb: The Passover Sacrifice 5:00

Now, as part of the Passover celebration, what were the people going to do? Well, if you remember, right, like way back in the time of Moses, when they slaughtered the Passover lamb, they put the blood of the lamb on the doorpost and lintel, and the angel of death passed them over as he slaughtered the Egyptians.

Well, ever since, ever since, they had celebrated Passover by seeking out this perfect, unblemished lamb amongst all the lambs of Israel. They would all seek out the best lamb that they could, the perfect, unblemished lamb, to sacrifice at Passover. So here you have everyone coming into town, coming in to celebrate Passover, but they have a need.

And the need is what? Well, they've got to have a lamb. Most of them have been traveling from upstate, so to speak. They weren't hauling around the perfect lamb all the way.

So when they got there, they looked for sacrifices. Lamb Selection Day is the day that Jesus showed up. When everyone is saying Hosanna, the Lamb of God is coming right in the city while people are looking for lambs. Now, let's say that you couldn't afford a lamb.

What were your options then? Well, Scripture has your back. Scripture has the answer, and the answer is this: you could sacrifice a dove, a turtle dove, as an alternative. That was acceptable practice for those who were poor, to sacrifice a dove instead.

So that was what a lot of folks did. But the same issue applied: if you would come from up north or way down south or what have you, you just didn't take all your animals to be slaughtered all that distance in order to kill them there. So what did you do? Well, you arrived in Jerusalem and you went around and you purchased.

Again, you either sought out the perfect lamb or in the case of doves, you sought out the dove. And once again, where there was a need, people found a way to fill that need. You had dove salesmen. I don't know what kind of job that is, but you had dove salesmen.

And the dove salesmen would go where? They'd go into the temple in order to sell the doves to the people who wanted to sacrifice the doves. Now, so far, so good. There's really nothing wrong about doves being sold and so forth.

But as we start to drill into where it was going down, and then some of the logistics of how it was taking place, you stand back and go, all right, there's something shifty taking place, and here's what it is.

Extortion in the House of God: Gouging the Poor Pilgrims 7:05

Have you ever gone to a ballpark? You go to a baseball stadium, what have you, and you say, I'm feeling kind of peckish, kind of hungry. I think I'll get a hot dog. Now, when you go get a hot dog and soda at the ballpark, do you expect to pay normal prices or inflated prices?

Not just inflated, but super inflated, you know, eight, nine bucks for a thing of soda, you know, eight bucks for a hot dog. The level inflation is just crazy when you go to the ballpark. Well, that's what was going on in Jerusalem. You'd have the dove salesmen and everyone else gouging the poor pilgrims who'd traveled days just to get there to the temple.

They're being gouged for these transactions. Now, not only that, but when people came to the temple, they were to bring the temple tax. Now, when we hear the word tax, we rebel to that right away, but it is a biblical precedent. Nothing wrong with them making a contribution.

However, let's say that you're coming from one of these paganized cities, or let's say that you're in one of these cities where the Roman currency is dominant, with Caesar on the coin. Could you walk into the temple and just plunk down your Caesar money and have it be accepted? No. So what did you have to do?

Well, there was a currency exchange. It's kind of like when you're at the airport and you've just come from Europe or Greece, and you come to America and you exchange the currency because your Greek money won't do you any good here. Same principle applies. People had to bring their currency from wherever they were and had to exchange it for that which would be acceptable payment for the temple tax.

Now, can you guess what happened when they exchanged the money? Well, there were people there that were willing to exchange the money. They were called money changers. The ones who were about to get tossed out on their keister here.

The money changers. Well, what were the money changers doing? Well, the money changers were exchanging the funds, but they were doing it for give or take six percent on each transaction. And they weren't doing this like down the street from the temple or outside the walls of Jerusalem, but where were they doing it?

In the temple courts. Not necessarily in the Holy of Holies, so to speak, but in the temple courts. In fact, the whole temple courts were filled with commercialization. You would think you'd go to the temple and there'd be people in devout prayer and adoration and praise, maybe some psalms being sung and the like, you'd think it's the temple of God.

You'd think that's what you'd see. Jesus comes into town, He walks into the temple, and He sees the exact opposite. At the time, just prior to the Passover, it's vast commercialization. You know, we complain about the commercialization of Christmas.

This was the commercialization of everything wrong and the abdication of everything right.

A House of Prayer Made a Den of Thieves 9:33

“And He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.”

— Matthew 21:13 (NKJV)

Jesus says, this is supposed to be a house of prayer. This is supposed to be a house of prayer, and everywhere I look, there's greedy people profiting on poor people and on pilgrims and the like. It's a commercial enterprise. The house of God has been turned into a place for greedy sinners to get wealthy.

And so you notice He doesn't chase out the pilgrims. Who does He chase out? Chase out the money changers, the vendors, those who are there to make a profit. People came to worship God.

People came to adore God. They came to sacrifice that pointed to Him. And while they were trying to do so, there was people getting rich off the efforts. And so He determines to act.

The action we see there in verse 12 as He tosses the tables, upsets the seats of the people selling doves. All right, let's look at verse 13. Now Jesus is going to explain again His rationale for us a little bit more. Verse 13, and he said to them.

It is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.

Malachi 3 Fulfilled: The Lord Suddenly Comes to His Temple 10:40

“Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple.”

— Malachi 3:1 (NKJV)

Let me ask you a question. Does anyone know what the last book in the Old Testament is? What's the last book in the Old Testament? Malachi.

Now, in Malachi 3, you can look at it a little bit later if you like, but Malachi 3, there's a prophecy that points forward to this day and to this occurrence and to what's going on in the temple. In Malachi 3, you see a prophecy of two things. Number one, a prophecy that John the Baptist would come, but not only would John the Baptist come, but he would point to someone else who would go into the temple and get mad.

Here's the prophecy in Malachi chapter 3. Behold, behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me. This is a reference to John the Baptist, the last prophet, the last great prophet who would point to Jesus. All the other prophets pointed to Jesus by the writing of the pen.

He pointed with his finger, said, this is the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. So here in Malachi 3, we see this prophecy. Behold, I'll send my messenger, my prophet, my ambassador, and he will prepare the way before me, which is exactly what John did. And then it goes on to say this — and then, then the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come into His temple.

I'll send my messenger to prepare the way before me, and then the Lord who you seek will suddenly come into His temple. Even though it's the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure it when he comes? Who can stand when he appears?

He's like a refiner's fire, like launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. He will purify the sons of Levi. He will purge them as gold and silver that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.

Malachi 3 declares that a day will come when suddenly the people who've been expecting the Messiah to show up, who've been anticipating and desiring God to send the Messiah for centuries, a day would come when he would show. The messenger would come first, then the Son of God would show in the temple.

Suddenly He would be there. But Malachi 3 says that when he comes, when he shows up, he will be like a refiner's fire. Who can endure it? He will come, and His reaction upon arriving in the temple will be one of refinement and even wrath, is what we see here.

And the reason He'd be angry and there'd need to be refining is because of what He would find when He arrived. Scripture says He would come to the temple, He would find it tainted, sinful, and so it'd be time for refinement to occur. Well, in today's text here in Matthew, we see this event that was anticipated, Malachi 3 fulfilled, when Jesus suddenly shows up in the temple.

He's suddenly there — there He is. And what's His reaction upon showing up? Does He go in and say, oh my people, ah, let's group hug? Does He do that?

No, He comes in, and the first thing He does is He looks around, and when He sees what He sees, He says, let the refinement begin. And you can see He just goes over and starts throwing the tables. This is gentle, loving, peaceful, gracious, forbearing Jesus. And He's tossing the tables, and He's chasing the people selling the doves.

Malachi 3 anticipated that this very day would come. With that said, after Jesus is done chasing them out and upending the tables, and after everyone's standing back and aghast at what has just happened, how does Jesus then explain the crime that's just gone down? How does He explain the crime in verse 13?

Well, He says this. He says, my father's house is intended to be a house of prayer. See all those pilgrims, all the people who've traveled miles and miles and days to be here? Is this what they came for, the commercialization they could have found at home, or did they come to find something better?

Well, you know the answer. They came to find an opportunity to worship God in His own house, to pray to God, maybe to sing the Psalms. And instead, what they found when they came in was something that just kneecapped their faith, so to speak, or kneecapped their intentions. They come in hoping to see one thing, and instead they find something different.

They find a den of thieves. At some point in your life, you may have entered into a church somewhere, and you may have been shocked by what you encountered. You may have said, this is commercialization. This is not the way this is supposed to be.

There's something about what's happening here that doesn't jive with what the book says. Well, this is what is going on in this case, but to a greater magnitude by far. Jesus looks to hear the Psalms. He doesn't hear them.

Instead, He hears the carnival barkers. He looks around to see penitent people. Instead, He sees pompous Pharisees. And so He's angry.

Commercialization in Church History: Luther and the Indulgences 15:16

In Jerusalem, the worship was drowned out by the commerce. Side note. Do you think that's the last time that would occur in church history? Ask a man named Martin Luther whether commercialization ever found its way into the church of his age there in the 16th century.

Well, you know the answer if you know the story. You know the answer is that in the time of Luther, that Rome, for all of its few strengths and all its great weaknesses, one of the things that they were doing especially wrong was that they were selling indulgences. They were telling people that Aunt Hilda is dead, and if you loved Aunt Hilda, well, here's the thing.

Aunt Hilda didn't have her act together when she died. She's probably in purgatory, and if she's in purgatory, she's probably facing a certain amount of discipline, and it's an unpleasant thing, and if you love Aunt Hilda, don't you love Aunt Hilda? If you love Aunt Hilda, you can do something about it. When a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs.

This is just one example of many, but the point is commercialization had taken over. Luther looks around, he sees the same things. He sees people plunking money into coffers and then climbing up steps on their bloody kneecaps. And he looks at all this and he says, this isn't what this is supposed to be.

We turn the church, so to speak, into a charade without a dime of true religion in it. In a sense, the anger of Luther mirrors the anger of Christ. You know, back 20 years ago, when we had this thing called TV that didn't have streaming, I would turn on TV in seminary and, you know, late at night, I'm studying hard and, you know, I'm up late at night, changing diapers and things like that, and I'd turn on the TV.

Well, back then, you just watched, you know, what you watched. At 2 a.m., there's not a lot of good options. But one of the things that occupies a whole lot of television landscape at that hour of the night were the televangelists. Now, of course, I'm in seminary, so any time I turn a channel and there's someone saying something about Jesus, you know, I'm attuned to what's going on.

What did I find? Was I well-fed by these televangelists at 2 in the morning? Well, you know, if you've ever watched them yourselves, you know not so much. Instead, what did I find?

I found guys on the television telling me to touch my screen, send them my money, and receive the blessing. Maybe they'd send me a prayer cloth that they had touched, and if I touch it too, I'd be extra blessed. This is commercialization. It took place in Rome.

It took place in Christ's time. It takes place in our own day, and it's silly. We should not have this. Christian bookstores.

I think it was R.C. Sproul who said this, so if you don't like it, you can blame him. But Christian bookstores. Dear heavens, do you think Jesus, if he walked in and saw some of the merchandise being sold there and some of the books that are being perpetuated, would he walk in there and do you think he would say, ah, amen and amen, or would he tilt over, would he throw down some of these racks?

I think you know the answer. The commercialization that occurred back then has never really stopped. There will always be people looking to make a dime off of hurting the folks. And it breaks the heart of God to see it.

These people were extorting people, and they were doing it in the house of God to pad their own pockets. And you wonder why Jesus got angry. All right, we've talked about his anger now. Let's move forward.

He doesn't stay angry forever. Thank goodness he doesn't.

The Indignant Pharisees and the Praise of Children 18:29

Let's look at verses 14 through 17. Verse 14. Then the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and 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 saying, Hosanna to the son of David, they were indignant, and they said to him, Do you hear what they are saying?

And Jesus said to them, Yes, have you not read? Out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants you have perfected praise. Then He left them, He went out of the city to Bethany, and He lodged there. All right, all the bad, naughty, nasty stuff has been going on in the temple courts.

All the commercialization, all the stuff that made Christ's blood boil, have been going on for years in the temple. Now, what have the Pharisees been doing about it? The religious leaders, the scribes, the priests, what had they been doing about it? Apparently nothing.

Apparently they've been sitting on their hands. There may even have been a system of kickbacks by which they wanted these individuals there. You ever wonder why people do what they do? It's because they want to, and there's usually reasons why they want to do it.

The Pharisees, the priests, the scribes, the leaders had evidently endorsed these practices. And yet, when the Messiah shows up and He heals blind people and heals the lame, and when small children have the temerity to praise Him for it, these guys who sat on their hands when all the crime was going down, oh, at this point, what do they do?

At this point, they raise up, and they're indignant. At this point, at this point, after healings and miracles have taken place and children are praising the healer, that's when they decide to lose it. That's when they say, no, no, no, no, no, no. Bring back the money changers and the dove salesmen and all those guys.

We like them. You, not so much. You, the guy healing, doing miracles and life, not so much. There's this cruel irony.

The Pharisees had this uncanny knack of upending that which is good and that which was evil. The amount of times they would accuse Jesus, who had just done something marvelous, of doing something wicked. It's virtually every occurrence that they're there.

The Messiah Rejected by the Torchbearers of Israel 20:48

Now, at this point, Jesus, He's come into the city. He's come to the temple. Everything has just gone dreadfully. He hasn't seen an ounce of righteousness, so to speak, here — outside of the babes, outside the kids.

But amongst the generations that were supposed to be the light bearers, the torch bearers, that when the Messiah showed up, they would lend Him their light — amongst the generations that were supposed to be anticipating Him and then embracing Him when He showed up, what He found was faithlessness, overt rebellion. Which is why, when Jesus had come to the city just prior and stared at it from the hillside, what was His reaction?

He wept over it because He knew what was going to happen. He knew that they hated Him. He knew that they would kill Him. He knew that this was a first century Gomorrah, a place that had just lost the plot — there was scarcely a righteous person in it.

On the day the long-awaited Messiah entered the temple, His heart was broken over what He found. The fig tree, so to speak, in God's vineyard was devoid of any fruit.

The Cursing of the Barren Fig Tree as an Object Lesson 21:51

Now, speaking of fig trees, let's look at verses 18 and 19. Verse 18. Now in the morning, as He returned to the city, He was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it, but He found nothing on it but leaves.

And so He said to it, let no fruit grow on you ever again. And immediately the fig tree withered away. All right, what's going on with this? You read this, especially if you read this without any real context or understanding of the faith, you look at this and just seems like Jesus is kind of arbitrary.

Hey, figs, I like me some figs in the morning. Let me get a fig. Oh, no figs. Well, curse this tree.

And He goes on His way. We look at that and say, yeah, that seems kind of like an emotional thing to do. We look at that and we don't make a lot of sense of it.

The Fig Tree as a Type of Fruitless Israel 22:39

But there is sense. Once again, let's go back to the book of Hosea, another Old Testament prophet. In Hosea chapter 9, we see that the fig tree represents something. The fig tree is representative of something else.

When you read this text about Jesus cursing a fig tree, it's a curse on something else of which the fig tree typifies. Back in Hosea chapter 9, God said this. He says, I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first fruits on the fig tree in its first season.

This is one reference. There's several others we could choose from in which the fig tree is typified for the people of God. Now, figs were commonplace throughout Israel. There was figs that grew largely in one season, but certain fig varieties grew in other seasons as well, and fig trees were just about everywhere that you looked in this region.

With that said, as we look at the Old Testament scriptures, we can see that when the fig tree comes up, it's usually not referring to an actual tree with actual figs. It's suggestive of God's people. Now, let's talk about God's people for a moment. Were they fruitful?

Well, no, we've just established. They were not. They were all leaves, no figs. That's what Israel was.

At 10,000 feet, if you look down at Israel and say, well, what a pious group they are. I can tell they're pious because they have a temple. I can tell they're pious because they have priests in tall pointy hats. Look, they're sacrificing things to their God.

They sure must be pious. They had a lot of leaves that looked religious, but no fruit. That's what Jesus found when He actually, not from 10,000 feet, but from 10 inches, went into the temple and looked around. Israel wasn't bearing any fruit at all.

Israel had been called here in Hosea 9, God's special fig tree, right? God's special fig tree, the first fruits and the like. But Jesus had just gone into the temple just the day before and found no figs, found a completely fruitless lot from the priests just on down. Again, there was undoubtedly, like Simeon, there was undoubtedly others across the scope of Christ's life in Israel that were faithful, certainly his own disciples and the like, but it was a vast minority or a tiny minority of the whole.

Just like this barren fig tree he encounters here on the side of the road, Israel was all appearance and no fruit. And in the same way as Jesus approaching the fig tree looking for some nourishment, what had happened to the pilgrims who'd gone in the temple just the day before? They found no nourishment to be had.

They left hungry. Well, that's Jesus' encounter with the fig tree outside the city walls. He looks to this tree. He sees its leaves.

The leaves suggest — the way you knew that a fig tree had figs was based on the leaves. The quantity of leaves suggested the quantity of fruit. So He sees from a distance this particular tree that should be fruitful, and He comes on it, and there's nothing. If there had been a fig, He would have eaten that, but there was none.

It was all leaves and no fruit. And so what does He do? Well, He curses it. But He's not just cursing a single tree in the Middle East — you understand this.

It's not about this one naughty tree. This is a curse that is being placed upon those that the tree typified. He says, let no fruit grow on you ever again. Again, this is an object lesson, which Jesus did all the time.

Jesus used parables and object lessons all the time to explain what he meant, and this is the same thing.

The Curse Explained: Israel's Rejection and the Gentiles Engrafted 26:08

He curses this tree because it is fruitless. Now, in Paul's writings, in Romans chapter 10 and 11, Paul talks about Israel. Remember, he talks about Israel. Paul was an Israelite.

Paul talks about Israel, and he says this. He explains the curse further in Romans 10. He says, Israel has not obtained what it seeks, but the elect have obtained it and the rest were blinded. This is the curse.

The rest were blinded. Just as it's written, God has given them a spirit of stupor, eyes that should not see and ears that should not hear to this very day. David says, let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a recompense to them. Let their eyes be darkened so that they do not see and bow down their back always.

I say then, have they stumbled so that they should fall? Certainly not. But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. These are references to the very curse that Jesus had talked about and that the whole Old Testament anticipated.

His rejection wasn't a surprise to Jesus. It wasn't a surprise to God. There was an anticipation of this rejection. And through the Old Testament prophets and then Paul in the New Testament, it's explained.

The rejection of the light they've been given, of the Son of God that came into their midst, their crucifixion of this one — it is to their shame, but it is to the benefit of all the Gentiles, because to this one true tree, as Israel, Gentiles now would be engrafted in. And the good news for Israel is this: that in Romans chapter 11, Paul says that although they're cursed, although certainly all this has befallen them as a function of what they did and the rejection of Jesus — although that's true, God is not done with them.

And that is true to this day. God is not done with Israel.

The Withered Fig Tree and the Coming Destruction of the Temple 27:52

That's the focus of another sermon. All right, let's look at our final verses, verses 20 through 22. And when the disciples saw it, meaning when they saw this fig tree wither up, they marveled. And they said, How?

How did the fig tree wither away so soon? So Jesus answered and said to them, Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and you do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to the mountain — which would have been the mountain of Olives, that's where they would have been at — but you say to this mountain, be removed to be cast into the sea, and it will be done.

Whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive. All right, in verse 19, Jesus curses the fig tree, and the response of the fig tree is to wither under the curse — and not, like, you know, far down the road, but speedily. Now, the speed with which it withered shocks the disciples. They're like, wow, that was fast how that went down.

Jesus cursed it, and it was like withered almost immediately. Now, here's the thing. Do you remember, we'll study this in a few weeks, but do you remember the story in Matthew 24 when Jesus and His disciples, they would leave the temple, and they would go outside the temple, the same temple filled with all this commercialization, and the disciples, they probably knew that Jesus didn't like the commercial stuff, so what do they choose to brag about?

They say, well, at least it's beautiful. This is an impressive building. Jesus says, you probably don't like some of the stuff that's gone on inside of it, but the temple, come on, the temple's awesome. Look how strong, how sturdy it is.

Well, what does Jesus tell them? He says, within a generation, the very thing you're bragging about and you think is awesome and strong and sturdy is going to be cast down in such a way that not a stone will be left on another stone. Speedily would be its demise, faster than they could expect.

They thought this would stand forever. The Herodian temple, this pillar of strength there in the Middle East, they thought it would stand forever. And Jesus says, no, like the fig tree, you won't believe how fast it's going to wither. You won't believe how fast this temple is going to go down.

Just like the fig tree, the temple's demise was imminent. Before the very eyes of some of them standing there, they would see this happen. Everything — as we wrap up this morning — everything that we're seeing in this chapter and in many other chapters we've looked at is this picture of a Savior, a Messiah who came to the very people who should have been expecting them and instead was rejected at every turn.

And that rejection would have consequences. Do you know how many times Jesus tells the people what's about to happen in a generation? We're going to get to that in Matthew 24 when we talk about the Olivet Discourse and all the destruction that would occur. But Jesus didn't leave them shocked that it would happen.

He regularly, consistently talks about what's going to happen. And this fig tree is a picture of that. Its demise would be speedily just as the demise of the temple would be. Judgment was coming soon.

Faith and Prayer That Moves Mountains 30:42

With that said, I want you to notice something from the last verse, verse 22. Earlier in today's reading, we saw that one of the things that hurt the heart of Christ most was that the house of prayer, the temple, had been turned into a house of commerce. And because of that, the temple had no future.

It would be destroyed. A prayerless temple is like a fruitless fig tree. It's just a husk, just a shell, just a mirage, just a facade of what it otherwise should be. With that said, what does He say about prayer in this last verse?

Well, He tells His disciples that the very thing that the Jews had thrown out of the temple — the house of prayer, meh, how about house of dove salesmen, right? They had done that. The very thing that they had kicked out was the praying, or at least that's what he identifies as the singular most important thing.

They had taken the house of prayer and turned it into a den of thieves. And yet, at the very end of this selection, at the end of this passage, verse 22, he says, now you, my disciples, I don't want you to make the same mistake. I don't want you to miss the point.

The Jews there in that temple that's about to go down, they missed the point. They forgot about the house of prayer. They forgot that which God has given us as the means by which the world turns or mountains can be cast into the sea, but you don't forget it. You don't forget it.

He says faith can move mountains. Now across the history from that point forward, there's no record of anyone literally praying a mountain into the ocean, but it wasn't the point. Again, object lesson, object lesson, object lesson. His point is this, that your faith through prayer is capable of more than you possibly understand.

It is capable of doing more strong and impressive things than you possibly can articulate. People who pray for great things see great results. It might not be the very result that they desired when they prayed, but that doesn't mean that God doesn't listen or doesn't respond in some significant way. People who pray for great things see great results.

In our day, churches are looking for secrets to growth and keys to success and the like. There's all manner of books that'll tell them how to attain it. The keys, the secrets, the 10 steps, and so forth — pragmatic ways to achieve their ends. With that said, prayer.

Prayer is what moves the heart and the hands of God. And as we as a church round the bend into the next year for all the amazing things God is doing in our midst, next year my hope, my desire is that prayer in a corporate sense would become more of a centerpiece of our activities.

If that should happen, watch out. Let's pray.