The King Cleanses His Temple

And Matthew just mentions Him going into the temple. But the idea was He’s observing, He’s looking because His heart is there. Think about it, with all the bad at this point in history, the next, in the school of scripture that we kicked off on Friday night with talking about study of the Bible, and I’ve been thinking about what the next class might be. I think we’re going to go in the direction of New Testament survey.

And that’s one of the things that is the background of the New Testament is what the religious life of the Jews were like in the first century. And it is not good. It is not good. And yet, even though that’s all what we’ll see tonight, even though all of that is true and you have so much corruption and evil among the religious parties in this day, yet the Lord is, He hasn’t blackballed, He hasn’t cast away the temple and said, well, it’s useless.

No, no, His heart is still there. His heart is still there among the place that the Lord established for His worship. Verse number 12. And Jesus went into the temple of God and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple and overthrew the tables of the money changers and the seats of them that sold doves and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the temple of the house of prayer.

But ye have made it a den of thieves. Now what’s interesting is this statement was made, and I don’t know how many times He said it on this day, but this statement was made actually while He was teaching people in the temple. Verse 14. And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple and He healed them. And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did and the children crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the son of David, they were sore displeased and said unto Him, Hear us thou what these say?

And Jesus saith unto them, Yea, which is to say, Yea, I hear. Have you never read? Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? And He left them and went out of the city into Bethany and He lodged there. Would you pray with me? Our Lord in heaven, thank you once again for the opportunity to study your word and we Lord, we just ask you to open our hearts and bless your word to our hearts, to our hearing.

Lord, please give us eyes to see, ears to hear, a heart to understand and to receive the truths and especially to see your character so clearly displayed here. Lord, we might have the same character as you have. Lord, we are so glad that you gave us such a great example. And Lord, that you are our Savior and our Lord, we look to you in all things. And so Lord, bless our time together in your word we ask in Jesus’ name.

Amen. John chapter 2, I want to show you this as well. John 2, John 2 verse number 12, or verse 13 rather. As you can probably tell, John, we’re in Matthew chapter 21 and I’m turning to John 2, which is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Verse 13, and the Jews’ Passover was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. So as I said this morning, the entry into Jerusalem in Matthew 21 was not the only time He had ever been to Jerusalem.

In fact, this entrance into Jerusalem, this Passover is not the same Passover that is near in Matthew 21, which is the final Passover, the Passover at which He will die. This is an earlier Passover. Verse 14, and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of money sitting. And when He had made a scourge of small cords, He drove them all out of the temple and the sheep and the oxen and poured out the changers of money and overthrew the tables and said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence, make not my father’s house an house of merchandise.

And His disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. And so notice what we’re reading in Matthew 21 is not the first time Jesus has taken care of business in the temple. At the earlier part of His ministry, when He first went to the temple during the Passover, He also cleansed the temple. Now it does however lead us to a conclusion which is this, why are they back in the temple?

They’ve reverted and obviously they probably, now truth, that day in John 2, they probably, the next day were probably back in the temple selling. The truth be told, that’s probably what happened. Soon as they found out Jesus was gone, they probably were right back there, maybe even the very same day. But we see this tendency to revert and you know, this is a, you know, you can use this kind of as a picture, a tendency we have of reverting back to the things the Lord fixes in our lives.

But when we get to Matthew chapter 21, we see the Lord is doing it again. He’s cleansing the temple again. I notice verse number 12 back in Matthew 21, And Jesus went into the temple of God and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple and overthrew the tables of the money changers and the seats of them that sold doves. Now notice what the Lord says.

Notice what the Lord says. Verse 13, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves. Now hold your place here and go to the book of Isaiah and chapter 56. Because when the Lord quotes, when the Lord says these things, it is written. He’s quoting from two different places and I want to point those out really quick before we get into the rest of the message.

Isaiah 56 and verse number seven. Really verse number six to pick up the context. Isaiah 56 verse six. Verse six says this, Also the sons of the stranger. Now this is a stranger is a non-Hebrew person, a Gentile, okay, which is remarkable here. Also the sons of the stranger that joined themselves to the Lord to serve him and to love the name of the Lord to be his servants.

Everyone that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it and taketh hold of my covenant, even them, the son of the stranger will I bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Now pause here a second. Gentiles were not allowed in the temple. They were not allowed in the temple. The only way a non-Jew was allowed in the temple in the first century as well as in previous times was if that Jew had converted, fully converted and been circumcised and been accepted as a proselyte into the faith of the Hebrews.

And that’s because only at that point were they within the covenant by circumcision among the people of Israel. That’s the only way. But that’s what the Lord’s talking about here. Notice what he continues and says this, even them, verse seven, will I bring into my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. That’s the first time. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar for mine house shall be called and house of prayer for all people.

All being referring to the son of the stranger that we’ve seen. Notice though it’s called and house of prayer. And that tells us something about the house of God, the temple, as the Lord established it for the purpose for which the Lord established it. Why did the Lord establish the temple? He established the temple obviously for sacrifices. But in the Lord’s mind all of that is related to man’s communicating with God.

It was supposed to be a place of prayer, not just for the Jews, but also for those faithful Gentiles which this is most likely has its eye into even the future in the millennial temple. The point being is the house of God’s purpose was to be a house of prayer. It was to pray. It was to seek him. And often the prayer is related in scripture to sacrifice.

People would seek the Lord and they would inquire of God often with a sacrifice in the temple. You see, you remember you saw Hannah when she wanted a child and they went to the temple, remember? She prayed in the temple asking God for a baby which she got Samuel. That was her prayer in the temple. And so God established the house of God as a house of prayer.

And that’s what Jesus says back in Matthew 21 verse 13. And so he’s saying in essence, what are you doing? This is not a marketplace. This is a place that God has established for a different purpose altogether. He established the house of God for prayer. And you’ve turned it into a market. And it shows us something. It shows us something. Now we know we don’t have a temple in this same way.

We are the temple of God. The church of God is the temple of God. But think about the Lord takes great offense at the temple of God being used for something different than what God intended it to be used for. They have altered its use. And this alteration, this corruption as we’ll see is profound. Now we might be tempted to look at these passages here and see that they were exchanging money and selling doves and sheep and oxen and different things like that.

We might be tempted to look at it and say, well, I mean, what’s wrong with that? Well, the first thing that’s wrong with it is that it wasn’t the reason God established the temple. God established it as a place of prayer. He had a purpose. And that purpose should not be violated. That reminds me of the temple of God. We are the temple of God. The church, the congregation of the saints, that’s the temple of God in the New Testament.

The church has a purpose. You know that? The church of God has a purpose established by God. Now this is not a, we might tend to call it a house of prayer, but really what we’re talking about is the church of God was established based upon what God established it to do and be. And the Lord is jealous of that. He doesn’t want the church to morph into something different than his original plan and purpose.

And the best example of that, the prototype of that is in the book of Acts. And you see the church in its infancy, if you want to call it that, you see the church as it was originally intended to be, a simple group of saints who gather together regularly, observe the Lord’s Supper, and who worship, who hear the word, who sing, who pray, and then who go tell people about Jesus.

It is really that simple. Everything else that we deal with in the church, whether it be buildings, the tax things, and financial, all of those things, there are necessities, there are practical matters we have to deal with, but the church’s purpose is that, is that thing. And really, I think the Lord is very jealous. I think the Lord is displeased when churches get derailed from the purpose for which the Lord established them.

And that’s what’s happened in the house of God here. It was supposed to be a house of prayer. There’s no prayer going on here. You know why? It’s too much noise. It’s a market. Have any of you ever been to a market in a developing country? That’s a loud thing. It’s loud, it’s noisy, gabbing people, bartering, and what do they call it? Not bartering, what’s the word?

Haggling, back and forth, trying to get the price, and you know, there’s carrying on conversations, it’s a social place as well as a place of commerce, and it’s just pandemonium. There’s no prayer going on there. That’s not holy at all. In fact, it’s not sanctified at all. You see, our tendency is to think, well, if it’s done at the church, it’s sanctified. No, no. What had happened is, it’s not that the temple sanctified everything that happened within It was, they brought that stuff into the temple and thereby were defiling it, not the reverse.

And so the Lord was not pleased that the temple of God was being used for something other than its God-given purpose, buying and selling. Now, we know buying and selling is not a sin. Everybody, give me a, kind of give me a nod. We all know that buying and selling is not a sin. But sometimes things that are not wrong, put in the wrong place, become wrong.

Right? Buying and selling is not a sin, but it was not supposed to be in the house of God. And you could think there’s all kinds of things that happen outside of the congregation of the saints, right? Outside of the church that are okay in their place, but brought into the church. It again, it derails the purpose of the church. We’ve got to be careful. We have to be careful.

Now notice what it says here. They were, there were, in verse 12, there were people that bought and sold, there were money changers, and there were people that sold doves. And by extension, we could assume there were other animals there as well. So here’s what’s happening here. These people, these buyers, these sellers, these people had set up shop in the temple. It was their market. They were making a living off of the temple worship.

So think about this, the money changers, so basically you have to understand the context a little bit. This is the New Testament, the background of the New Testament. Rome ruled Judea as a province. And so there was Roman coinage that was being used for commerce. But that wasn’t allowed in the temple because it was only supposed to be the shekel, right? That’s what the Old Testament said.

And so that’s the only money that was allowed to be received for the temple tax was the shekel, half shekel for every person. That’s what the Old Testament said. And so if you came from Roman Judea or Caesarea or Galilee or wherever, and you were a Jew and you brought your money with you, well, you had to change your money. You had to change your currency so that you could pay in the temple.

Well how convenient. You don’t even have to go outside of the temple. You can change your money right there in the temple because these nice, scrupulous, caring entrepreneurs were there to change your money for you. So that if you brought the Roman denarius, you could bring that in and they could say, we can take care of it. We have a great exchange rate. We’ll give you such and such shekels for your denarius and we’ll make sure that you have the money you need for the temple.

How kind and sweet of them. How convenient. Absolutely not. That’s not what they were doing. Not only that, these people would come in with money from distant places like the Lord told them to do. They would come in for the Passover, which is, the Passover is nigh. So you got to think there are hordes of people coming in from various parts of Israel that are coming like God told them to and to give sacrifices at the Passover because the Passover is one of the three festivals where all the males were to appear in Jerusalem at the temple.

And so here they come. They didn’t bring all their animals with them. They brought their money and they were going to bring their money so that they could purchase the required sacrifices and then they could make the sacrifices. Well what do you know? You don’t have to go outside of the temple. There are people in the temple that are ready to, that are waiting to sell you the very things that you need.

What brother? It gets worse. People would bring their animal. They would find some fault with it even though there wasn’t one, there’s an anti-fascist one. Then they get you to trade that and pay more and turn around and sell that same animal. That sounds familiar. Sounds like goodwill. So I don’t mean to offend everyone. We got some goodwillers in here. I said I don’t care. I don’t like goodwill.

Their prices are way too high. I want to tell you that. Their prices are way too high. And even the goodwillers are nodding. So that’s exactly right. So the people would come and they were doing commerce. That’s why they had animals. They did not just have animals though. Take a peek if you would at, I think it’s in Mark. Let me find it. Mark 11. Hold your place here and go to Mark 11.

Verse number, Mark 11 verse number 16 I believe. Notice this. Now this is the same context but there’s a little bit more information in Mark. Verse 16 says this. So Jesus overthrows the tables and the money changers and all that. And then verse 16 he says this. And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple. That was part of his cleansing of the temple.

So what do you think there’s vessels of? There’s bowls and jars and flasks and all kinds of things like that. You know why? Because it wasn’t just animals. It wasn’t just changing of currency. It was olive oil. It was wine. It was salt. It was flour. All of which were used in some degree or another for the sacrifices in the temple. And they’re right there convenient for everybody.

Ready to be used. And you know what? All of those things were needed. The animals were required for sacrifice. The meat offerings were done with flour and oil. We’ve studied that on Wednesday night in the past. All those things are legitimate. The changing of money. That’s legitimate. They had to change their money to be the right kind of money to give for the temple. That’s all legitimate.

But here’s the problem. These buyers and sellers had begun to make a living off of the temple worship. And they were doing that. That’s number one. But number two, they had already been doing it for quite some time within the grounds of the temple itself. So if you can think of a temple, if you have in your mind when you think of the temple of God as like a big building, you’ve got to alter that a little bit.

Because within the temple, there was a temple. So the temple was, it just depends on what you’re referring to. Sometimes when you say the word temple, you’re referring to the edifice that has the doors and you go in where there was the table of showbread and the lamp stand, the candlestick, and you saw the ultra-ven-sense and the ark and all that. That’s the temple. But sometimes when you say temple, you’re referring to the entire complex.

It was huge. I mean huge. In fact, if you look at pictures of Jerusalem and you see the Dome of the Rock on the eastern side of the city of Jerusalem, you’ve seen it with the gold dome. That dome sits on a big flat pavement. That entire pavement was the temple ground. It’s huge. And around the edges of the temple ground was a portico. And what a portico is, is a covered area.

So the temple is open, the temple pavement is open, and then around the edges there’s a little shelter that goes all around in their columns, all around, Roman columns. And so you could go, in Cambodia, some of the temples in Cambodia were set up similar to this and they had porticos. So you could go underneath the shelter of the portico and walk all the way around the perimeter of the temple grounds.

And that’s often where people would meet, where you see Jesus teaching in the temple. That’s what it’s talking about. He’s not in the holy place teaching. He’s on the temple grounds. And so this is where people would sell. They would sell. They turned the temple grounds into a place of doing business. Now here’s the bad part. So they were selling and making a profit off of the worship of God.

And then they were doing that within the temple itself, which was supposed to be dedicated to prayer and teaching and those kinds of things. But the price of convenience, the price of convenience. Do you think, now just speaking human, the Bible doesn’t speak to this directly, but just as a, let me give you an example. You go to the airport. You already know what I’m going to say, don’t you?

And you want to buy a Chick-fil-A sandwich. I don’t think they have one in Greenville. They should, but they have one in Atlanta. You want to go buy a Chick-fil-A sandwich and all of a sudden what was normally a $7 sandwich is like a $12 sandwich. Why do you think that is? Is it because the chicken in the airport is more expensive than the chicken outside of the airport?

No. Why do you think that is? It’s convenience, that’s one, but there’s another reason. That’s true, but there’s another reason. Yeah. Well, that’s also true for convenience, but even back of that. Chick-fil-A and those other restaurants and shops pay a premium for that space because they have a captive audience and they know people will pay it. So they pay a premium to rent that space and they pass that on to the customers, right?

And so what we do is we pay a much higher price for the same goods than we would outside the airport. Now, come back to the first century. Do you think anybody was allowed to set up shop in the temple? If it is a limited amount of space, there are markets in Jerusalem, obviously. Do you think just anybody was allowed to do that? It was no doubt tightly regulated.

By whom, perhaps you might ask? The priests. And what do you think had to be done in order to get access to the temple grounds to sell? You had to grease the palms of the priests. Now, does the Bible say that? No, but it is so easy to see that that would be the case. You see there’s an additional layer of corruption. Of course the priests allowed it.

They were profiting, no doubt, from it. Because the priests were the ones that were the ones over the temple grounds. They were the ones in charge of the temple grounds. So those people probably gave, I don’t know, a hundred bucks a day to the priests so that they could set up shop that day knowing they have a captive audience and it’s convenient. And knowing that they have all of these people who, by the word of God, are required to have all these sacrifices.

And like Brother Joseph said, if they bring their own animal, well you can’t bring that animal into the temple. It has to be our animal. You see these layers of corruption that are not just feasible but highly likely. That happens today in our day. This kind of thing. Government contracts do like this. You know how it goes. Exactly. And this is, listen, this is human. This is so human.

Every part of this is so human. And so, all of that being said, these people for convenience, captive audience, they grease the palms of the priests, no doubt, they get there. And these poor souls, some of whom probably are sincere, come into the temple to give sacrifice and to pray to God and have to pay exorbitant prices to change their money, to buy their animals, to buy their olive oil and their salt and the various things needed.

And so you see these vessels being carried, no doubt all these other things, and Jesus says, get that out of here. This has no place in God’s temple. You think, well, I mean, but that’s the free market. That’s capitalism. Capitalism has no place inside the house of God. God rules in the house of God. This is where we’ve got to be careful, do we not? As Americans, we don’t allow American ideas to rule the church of God.

God alone rules that. Right? It’s not our culture. It’s what God says. Right? Outside of that, we might say, hey, if the price is right, people willing to pay it. I don’t have a problem with that. Of course, I have a problem with the corruption. But the problem that the Lord Jesus had was that people, those poor people coming in to the house of God to give offerings were being absolutely fleeced in order to give sacrifice to God.

You know what that is? It’s a barrier. And the Lord Jesus is not pleased with that. It does show us something about his character, something about the way he views the worship and service to his father. He takes this seriously. He does not look lightly upon people that create barriers and introduce corruption into the service of God. He takes that very seriously. So these people knew they had a captive audience, knew the captive audience was bound to worship three times a year, knew they needed the sheep and the various other implements for sacrifice, knew that they could only get them in one place, knew that they had to pay the price.

And so you know what they did? They used religion to make money. That’s the problem. In Cambodia, when we were there, there were people who sold, you know, the incense is being burned everywhere. We would see people’s houses with stacks and stacks and stacks and stacks of bundles of incense. They made money off that. So anytime there was a reason to burn incense, of course they were in support of that.

There was one time, there was a, I don’t know if you remember, what year was that? My kids remember when there was that stampede on that bridge? 20, was it 2010? Anyway, there was a stampede on a bridge, a newly opened bridge, and like 370 people died on this pedestrian bridge. It was, go look it up. And when you get home, go look it up. I think it was satanic, to be honest with you, I think it was satanic because there were hundreds, maybe even thousands of people on this bridge stuck.

Both ends of the bridges are open and these people are literally stuck. You ask yourself, how is that possible? I have no idea, but it was photographed. 370 people died, ish. You know what happened in wake of that, because of the way the Cambodian faith is, their idea is all the ghosts of these people are going to be wandering around the city, so all these people bought bunches of bananas and set them out as an offering to the spirit saying basically, here leave us alone.

And the price of bananas went through the roof. And a lot of people made a lot of money on bananas. You know how? Fleecing those poor people, using their religion to fleece them. Does this happen in Christianity? It absolutely does. The prosperity gospel is one, not the only, but is one example. Promises given on the basis of religion, promises offered, kind of dangling these temporal benefits, but wrapping it in spiritual language for the sole purpose of fleecing the people of God, using religion for profit.

That is wicked. And the Lord Jesus is not happy with it in the temple of God. And it shouldn’t happen in the church of God. Is it not easy to look at the prosperity gospel and the people that are involved in that and say, well that’s bad, but we’ve got to be careful that it doesn’t creep into our church, or the churches that are trying to live for God and do God’s will, because it will.

Because you know what the base of it, the root of it all, you know what it is? 1 Timothy 6, 10. It’s the root of all evil. The love of money. The love of money. You see, this love of money was constantly driving this kind of enterprise. But the temple of God was not the place for this kind of enterprise. Because it brought all this love of money, brought all the evils inherent in buying and selling, and there are a lot of evils inherent.

You might not know this, but a lot of deception happens in the commerce world, where people twist the truth and bend it and that kind of thing and make people think it costs more than, you know how that goes. There’s a lot of deception that happens, sinful deception, when people make merchandise of the worship of God. In fact, in John chapter 2, verse number 16, we read it a minute ago, but I’ll just read it real quick just to remind you of what it says.

John 2, verse 16, says this, Take these things hence, make not my father’s house and house of, what does it say, merchandise. So we can say this before I get into the New Testament. Anywhere there’s an assembly of people who have a necessity for religious reasons to spend money, there will be people waiting to take advantage of that opportunity to use religion to line their coffers. That is a fact.

Jesus says in Matthew 21, he says, but ye have made it a den of thieves. So sad. These people had brought this commerce in here, with it corruption, and they had turned what was supposed to be a place of prayer and teaching the word and will of God into a market where they could fleece the customers and line their pockets for greed. They had done all of this and it had become a den of thieves.

What is a den? D-E-N, den. Am I saying that right? Den, or den, you English people. A den is like a lair, it’s a place where thieves hang out, it’s a place where they assemble, right? It’s where they live. And this is a den of thieves. Think of what the Lord is, the accusation the Lord is making of the temple. He’s saying the temple of God is now a place where thieves find refuge.

How shameful, right? But beware of the church of God. This is why we have to be very careful on issues of money, and very careful when we look at the purpose of our church. Because churches can very easily be places where thieves and liars and extortioners and abusers and corruptors find shelter. This happens all the time. We got to be vigilant. You see that what the Lord is, he’s vigilant.

He’s vigilant. He doesn’t want the thieves to think that the temple’s a place where they can congregate and feel secure. He wants to kick them out. Indeed the church of God should not be a place where people like that feel secure. They should not feel secure. But think about the effect upon God’s people. Would you be inclined to go to a temple if you knew it was full of thieves and liars and extortioners?

No. You would avoid it. If you had a sincere heart for the Lord, you would avoid it. And now what’s the effect? You’re now avoiding the temple of God. Do you think the Lord’s happy with that situation? What if the church is filled with people like that? How do you think it’s going to affect people that come to worship God, come to fellowship, come to hear the word, and they’re met with extortioners and liars and thieves and the dishonest and abusers and all these other wicked things that have found a lodging and abode within the congregation of the saints?

Oh man, that cannot be. It cannot be. In 1 Samuel, when the sons of Eli, you remember when they were corruptly controlling the offerings of God, taking what they wanted from the offerings and lying with the women at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, the Bible says this, wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord. Now here’s why. For men abhorred the offering of the Lord.

Why? Because of the evil that was allowed to abide there. And so now we go to the New Testament, and I’m hurrying to the end. Look at 2 Peter and Jude, right? Right near each other. This is not just an Old Testament problem. This is absolutely a New Testament problem. 2 Peter 2, 2 Peter 2, verse number 1. Now follow these words carefully.

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be, so that’s past, even as there shall be, future, false teachers among you. Now he’s talking to the people of God, the church, who, the false teachers, privilege shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. All right? We’re still talking about false teachers now, verse 2.

So these false teachers are actually, because of what they’re doing, are going to cause other people to slander the truth unjustly. You get it? Boy, that... And so, if they’re slandering, if by these false teachers, their way of life is causing others to slander the truth, that means that even though it is the truth, people are not going to come to it. They’re going to abhor it, even though it’s true.

Verse 3. Do you see what I’m seeing here? They’re making the people of God the means of getting rich, of making money, the same thing they were doing in the temple. Drop down, if you would, to verse 15. Still talking about these false teachers, which have forsaken the right way and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bozor, a son of the king of the temple, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bozor, who loved...

Notice what it says, the wages of unrighteousness. Look at Jude, if you would. Jude, after 1st, 2nd and 3rd John. Look at Jude, verse 11. He says this. and ran greedily,” notice greed, after the error of Balaam for reward. And are perished in the gain saying of Cory. What was Balaam’s sin? You know what he’s doing? He was using his prophetic business to make money. That’s what he was doing.

He was using the faith of the Lord, making merchandise of the faith of the Lord. And when the Lord would not let him do it and gave him a blessing instead of a curse for Israel, you know what he did? He instead took the king of Moab’s money and then instructed him how to make Israel fall. You know how that was? The Moabite, the Midian-Itish women. Get them to fornicate and get them to worship idols and God will judge them because he couldn’t get God to curse them.

So he got them to sin. Why? Wages of unrighteousness, love of money, making merchandise of God’s people. Look back if you would back at Matthew 23. And this is a truth that goes throughout the New Testament and I just want to fly through some of these verses and then we’ll be finished. Matthew 23 verse number 14. This was a common thing in the New Testament, making merchandise of God’s people.

23 verse 14. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye devour widows’ houses. See that? Devour widows’ houses. That’s the idea of, it’s the same as, it’s the same when churches try to manipulate older ladies who have property to try to get them to write the church into the will.

And manipulating, that is vile and wicked. And that’s what the Pharisees were doing, making merchandise of God’s people. Look at Acts chapter 8. Look at Acts chapter 8 verse, verse number 18.

This is Simon the sorcerer, Acts 18. And when Simon saw, and he saw the sorcerer, Acts 18, and when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying, give me also this power that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. And Peter said unto him, thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.

He wanted, he thought, listen, if I invest a thousand bucks and give it to Peter and grease his palms, he gives me this power to give people the Holy Spirit. Imagine how much of a return, a ROI, a return of investment I can get on that thousand bucks. I can charge people 20 or 50, maybe even $200 a head to give them the Spirit of God. And what is that?

Making merchandise of God’s people, turning the faith of God into a way to make money. Look at, if you would, Acts chapter 19. Verse number 24. It wasn’t, it’s not just in Christianity. It’s not just in Judaism. Verse 24. For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, that is, he makes silver statues, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsmen. Now just stop for a second.

Is there a conflict of interest when you are making silver idols for your religion? Of course you’re going to promote your religion. And if you know the history of Acts chapter 19, you’ll see that they stirred everybody up, stirred everybody up to do what? Great is Diana of the Ephesians. Great is Diana. So they were stirring up religious fervor for money. Not for the religion, not for the faith, but for money, to line their pockets.

First Timothy chapter 3. Look at that. First Timothy chapter 3. First Timothy chapter 3, verse number 3. The qualifications in the church for a bishop, for a deacon, notice what it says. Chapter 3, verse 3. Not given to wine. No striker. Not greedy of filthy lucre. But patient. Not a brawler. Not covetous. See this? It’s not just for pastors. Bishops says also for deacons. Look at, excuse me, verse 8.

Likewise must the deacons be grave. Not double-tongued. Not given to much wine. Not greedy of filthy lucre. Why? Why, why, why? Why can’t the church leadership be greedy, be covetous, be concerned with money? Here’s why. Because it is so easy to use the people of God to make merchandise of them.

So the Lord puts it in writing. It precludes anyone from having spiritual leadership, if that’s the case. Lastly, look at Titus chapter 1. Titus 1. Verse number 11. Oh, I’ll start in verse 10. It says this. For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses teaching things which they ought not. Now, why did they teach these things?

For filthy lucres’ sake. That’s why they’re teaching them. It’s not that they believe it necessarily. You know, I actually met people in Cambodia that joined a Christian religion, a Christian church, who were on the dole getting paid to proselytize. And they would just switch, whichever one would pay them.

And here our Lord stands going into the temple and saying, the faith of God is not to be used to line one’s pockets. You want to make money? Make money. There’s nothing wrong with making money. I’ve done honestly, of course, but it is not the place among the people of God in the house of God. That is not the place to do it. It messes everything up.

The last thing I want to show you is in Mark chapter 11. You’re not going to be surprised at what I read here. Mark 11, verse number 18. Right after Jesus says, my house shall be called of all nations a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves. Verse 18. And the scribes and chief priests heard it and sought how they might destroy him, for they feared him.

Because all the people was astonished at his doctrine. You see this? Jesus is now in Jerusalem for the last time. It’s coming to a head. They are bloodthirsty for Jesus’ blood. They want him dead. Why?

Because Jesus is interrupting their commerce in the temple. Not the only reason, but in the temple. Not the only reason, but in verse 18, that’s one of them. So Jesus cleansing the temple was in fact one of the direct human causes for the crucifixion. It was what prompted their ire. We got to get rid of this guy. He’s messing up our capitalism or whatever. He’s messing up our enterprise here.

But man, in all cases, do we not see our Lord loving righteousness? Just seriously jealous of the things of God, of the house of God, of the people of God. Seriously jealous to guard it from things that would dissuade people from coming to it. Right? And this is the way we need to be with the congregation of the saints. Have the same seriousness, the same gravity about honesty and matters of money.

Right? Transparency and truthfulness in all things. To fight against that tendency that’s always there trying to corrupt the gospel, trying to corrupt the church. Let’s pray.