Jesus Was Raised

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John 2:13–22 Pastor Rob Kimsey April 7, 2024

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John would record later and throughout his gospel about eight different signed wonders, and the Apostle John notes in this first part of Chapter 2, the wedding at Cana, that this was the first sign that Jesus had done.
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And then we move in the narrative to Jesus cleansing the temple. Last week was
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Resurrection Sunday and we took a brief detour out of the Gospel of John to spend some time with Paul in the letter to the
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Philippians. As we contemplated Paul's description of our resurrected bodies being transformed after the body of Christ, the body of His glory.
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What an amazing, really just beautiful truth, an eternal promise that we all have waiting for us.
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Now clearly in this passage, we see the same doctrine here because Jesus is talking about the resurrection.
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So as I was sort of thinking about what I was going to preach on Resurrection Sunday, I was thinking, oh, this is perfect.
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God's sovereignty, I can just stay right here in John. But I have to selfishly admit, I wanted to sort of extend the resurrection theology.
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So I thought, oh, I'll preach something about the resurrection and then next week we will continue to consider the resurrection.
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And now as I'm thinking about that and what a beautiful passage this is, is Jesus says that He will raise
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His body. We can think about last week. There was something that happened last week besides the glorious day for the
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Christians across the world to celebrate and worship the beautiful resurrection of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. Something happened from the secular world as well, sort of pushing in and kind of stealing the spotlight a bit.
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So you may or may not have heard about this, but the President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, issued a proclamation from the
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White House called Transgender Visibility Day. And so they said this was going to be on March 31st, the same day as Easter Sunday.
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The statement from the White House, from really the leader of the free world, said, on Transgender Day of Visibility, we honor the extraordinary courage and contributions of transgender
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Americans and reaffirm our nation's commitment to forming a more perfect union where all people are created equal and treated equally throughout their lives.
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And as I was reading that, I thought, oh, he got so close, where all people are created equal. If he had just kept reading, it seems almost like he's citing
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Genesis there. Genesis chapter five says, in the day when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.
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He created them male and female, and he blessed them and named them man in the day when they were created.
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It's the Hebrew word adam. President Biden said, in witness whereof,
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I have here unto set my hand this 29th day of March in the year of our
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Lord, 2024, and of the independence of the United States of America, the 248th.
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And as I was reading this proclamation, I thought, wow, he's almost citing scripture, and he's calling on this proclamation coming from the
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Lord, capital L. Makes you wonder what Lord he's talking about. Luke chapter six, now why do you call me
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Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? Clearly, this proclamation is an attack on the
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Word of God. It's an attack on Christ. It's an attack on the gospel itself. The day of visibility chosen to be on Resurrection Sunday said this, transgender
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Americans are part of the fabric of our nation. And here he's talking about those that would oppose this really cultish ideology of transgenderism.
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He says, but extremists are proposing hundreds of hateful laws that target and terrify transgender kids and their families, silencing teachers, banning books, and even threatening parents, doctors, and nurses with prison for helping parents get care for their children.
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These bills attack our most basic American values, the freedom to be yourself, the freedom to make your own healthcare decisions, even the right to raise your own child.
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Let me be clear, all of these attacks are un -American and must end. So as I'm reading that statement,
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I'm asking myself a question, what is he referring to? These extremists who want to stop this from happening.
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Well, he's talking about kids that are four years old and older, teenagers that are gonna either be castrated or take puberty blockers.
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And he's saying that to say, no, this isn't right. We shouldn't allow five -year -olds to make these kind of decisions.
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We shouldn't allow teenagers to make these kind of decisions. That is an extremist position, that you're hateful or you're bigoted if you think that this decision should be made by families or the parents, and they want to essentially get rid of laws that would protect kids from doing this.
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So an eight -year -old could decide, I want to have a sexual reassignment surgery or take puberty blockers, and they can do that without permission from their parents.
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And the government has the right to make that decision. And if you say that's wrong, you're an extremist.
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That's what's going on, and this proclamation comes on all days. On all the days it could come, it came on Resurrection Sunday.
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And now we know that Resurrection Sunday will also be in April, so it's this time of year, but this was not a coincidence.
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This was an attack on the gospel, an attack on the resurrection.
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But let me tell you why I'm glad that they did this, and you can say, well, how could you be glad they did this?
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Here's why I'm glad that they did this. It exposes dark versus light.
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It exposes good versus evil. And it's crystal clear to see that there are two kingdoms.
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There's a kingdom of darkness and a kingdom of light, and it made it so crystal clear and transparent where you can see these two kingdoms at war with one another.
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It's a good reminder of who is behind the governments of the world. Paul says in Ephesians, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
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So we know ultimately that it's not just President Joe Biden. There's a spiritual element that is standing behind this kind of proclamation.
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The cultural pull away from biblical truth is very real for us as we live in this modern time, but remembering the truth is extremely important.
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Remembering the truth is extremely important for us as Christians. Last week, as we spent time with Paul, we learned again that our citizenship is not of this earth.
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Our citizenship is in heaven. In other words, we are a colony here on earth, an outpost of Christ's kingdom to call those who don't know
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God, to snatch some out of the fire. We are a colony. This is an outpost.
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Our lives are not bound up here on earth. We are not citizens of earth. We are citizens of heaven.
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The eternal promise of the resurrection is real. These are the things that we have to remind ourselves of as we stand in the face of great evil in our society, where things that are evil, they call good, and things that are good, they call evil.
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One commentator pointed this out on our passage this morning. John used this section where Jesus cleansed the temple in righteous indignation to reinforce his main theme that he was the promised
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Messiah and Son of God. In this section, he highlighted three attributes of Jesus that confirm his deity.
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Number one, his passion for reverence, verses 13 through 17. Number two, his power of resurrection in verses 18 through 22.
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And number three, his perception of reality in verses 23 through 25.
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This morning, we're going to look at verses 13 through 22. Today we'll look at Jesus's passion for reverence and his power in resurrection.
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In verses 13 through 22, the apostle John describes Jesus's cleansing of the temple and Jesus's prediction of his death and resurrection so that you can remember the resurrection and believe in the
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Bible. And there's four elements to this description of Jesus's cleansing of the temple.
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We just chop up the verses like this. Number one, the setting. The setting in verses 13 and 14.
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Number two, the zeal. The zeal, verses 15 through 17. Number three, the scoffing.
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The scoffing in verses 18 through 20. And number four, the so that. The so that in verses 21 and 22.
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The description of Jesus's cleansing of the temple, his prediction of his death and resurrection so that you can remember the resurrection and believe in the
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Bible. Number one, the setting. Verses 13 and 14, the setting.
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And the Passover of the Jews was near and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and he found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers seated at their tables.
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This is really an historical narrative setting the scene for what is about to happen.
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John gives us even more precise detail here as he paints the picture of the scene that he's about to walk us into.
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This scene is the first of three Passover scenarios recorded in his gospel.
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Of course, the celebration of Passover took place annually at the temple, which is located in Jerusalem.
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The Jewish people would have selected the sacrificial lamb on the 10th of the month. Passover would have been celebrated four days later, about halfway through the lunar month of Nisan, which is for us at the end of March or in the beginning of April.
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Historically, Passover commemorates the deliverance of the Jews from slavery or bondage of slavery out of Egypt when the angel of death passed over the homes of the
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Israelites. According to the customs of the Jews, in the command of God, Yahweh, Jewish males were expected to make the trip to Jerusalem every time of year, every time at this point of the year.
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This goes back even to the Old Testament commands, Deuteronomy 16. Three times in a year, all your males shall appear before Yahweh, your
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God, in the place which he chooses, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread and at the
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Feast of Weeks and at the Feast of Booths, and they shall not appear before Yahweh empty -handed.
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Although Passover was one day, this would have been a week -long festival with Passover being the start and the
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Festival of Unleavened Bread taking place the rest of the week. Here's a definition, the Feast of Unleavened Bread followed immediately after Passover and lasted one week, during which time the
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Israelites ate no bread with yeast in remembrance of their haste in preparing for their exodus from Egypt.
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So that's why they're doing this celebration or this festival. John's point isn't location, although these details are helpful and brings added weight of clarity to what he's about to explain happened on that day.
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It's not the place that he's emphasizing, but he's about to tell us what Jesus found at the place of worship.
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What did Jesus find in the temple? Well, just in a practical way, we should understand that the temple would have been extremely crowded at this point, and there could likely be up to thousands of visitors.
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These are people who didn't live in the area and had traveled great distances to attend.
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As John sets the table to demonstrate the zeal for God's reverence coming from Jesus, we see what he found in the temple.
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Even with the temple being extremely crowded, the religious elite of the day didn't do any favors for themselves here, because they allowed money changers and merchants to set up booths in what would have been known as the
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Court of the Gentiles. This is the area before the entrance to the temple. And that's the point that we're going to see here, is that the religious leaders of the day were lacking in reverence to God.
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They allowed the temple to become sort of like a swap meet. I'm sure they would have rationalized or justified this.
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They could rationalize or justify allowing this to happen because it was a convenience for the worshipers who had come.
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But it's really intellectually dishonest. In reality, it's fair to say that there was a financial motive.
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The money that could be made from the money changers and the merchants was a way for them to pay for things, to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of the temple.
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But the problem was the Court of the Gentiles would have been so full of money changers and merchants that actual true worshipers wouldn't have been able to worship.
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And what was the point of attending Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread for that week? It was worship.
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It was worship. Celebrating Passover wasn't about going and eating food and having a good time with other people.
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That took place, but the main point or purpose for visiting the temple was to worship
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God. To remember what God had done for them and what God had commanded them to do.
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Generation after generation in worship as a reminder of God's great protection, of his mercy, of passing over them in the judgment of the 10th plague, the death of the firstborn for the
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Egyptians. Beyond just the practical side of people paying a temple tax and local currency, the foreigners or the travelers, the visitors would have had to have their money changed over.
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And that was an opportunity for some of these vultures to charge extremely high rates.
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The Mosaic law requirement for those visiting to make animal sacrifices. Remember, you don't go to Yahweh empty -handed.
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They have to make animal sacrifices for their sins. Practically, if you were traveling, you probably didn't want to carry all of those animals with you from wherever you were coming from.
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So they would have shown up with a lot of money to spend, and these people knew it. They were hiking the prices.
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They were charging more than a farmer normally would to sell an animal for sacrifice.
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In some cases, we can probably imagine that even those who brought their own animals, some of those selling animals would have pointed out some slight imperfections just so that they could reject what had been brought and thereby force the person to buy from them instead.
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It's sad to think that the temple, in the selling of animals and changing money, had become an extremely profitable side business for the religious leaders.
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A sacrificial animal costing more at the temple than anywhere else in the area.
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These people had demonstrated zero reverence for God. And above that, they had made the worship of God into a mockery.
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And the Apostle John records Jesus' reaction to witnessing this righteous anger, righteous indignation, zeal.
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Here's the first point, the setting. The setting of this historical account helps us to understand that these events actually took place and gives added weight to John's gospel.
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And we can think about that even in our current time and sort of like where our heart is really like when we come to church.
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Are we here to worship? Not much has changed in Israel. One of the things that I was blessed to do is
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I was able to visit Israel in 2019. And the sad part of visiting Israel, the city of Jerusalem, and the
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Temple Mount is that not much has changed. It's kind of like a tourist trap. The city is cut up in four ways where it's just two straight lines.
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So then you have basically this, you can go into the Jewish quarter, the Muslim quarter, the
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Christian quarter, the Armenian quarter, and you'd go there and you buy t -shirts and you buy trinkets and jewelry and it's kind of like just a giant swap meet.
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It's a tourist destination. So the old city of Jerusalem as it stands today is just a place to go shopping, really.
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The Temple Mount, it's almost sad to see. There's no temple there. What is there instead? There's these mosques of the nation of Islam.
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I can only imagine as God is viewing what is happening now to His city, remember
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Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem in God's long suffering how much
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He must desire to rebuild Jerusalem, the new heavens and the new earth. Yeah, it's very sad to see that.
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We can reflect this in our own hearts. How do we view coming to church as a church building?
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You know, what are we thinking of when we come here? Are we here to worship Jesus? The setting of this historical account helps us to understand that these events actually took place and gives added weight to John's gospel.
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And then in verses 15 through 17, we see the zeal, the zeal. And he made a scourge of cords and drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen and he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
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And to those who were selling the doves, he said, take these things away. Stop making my father's house a place of business.
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His disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me.
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This is really a foreshadow of Christ's perfect wrath in this display of righteous anger, overturning tables, holding a whip in his hand, perfect and sinless, perfect holiness.
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Before Jesus spoke, he acted. His response is immediate and purposeful. John tells us he made a whip, a scourge of cords.
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The Greek noun scourge means a whip or lash consisting of a thong or thongs, frequently with metal tips to increase the severity of the punishment.
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The weapon of the Roman army to flog enemies or prisoners. It would have tore their flesh open.
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It can also be a whip or a lash made up of ropes. Here it is the latter. John tells the reader the lash was just made up of cords, so no metal tips here.
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Rope or cord originally of rushes than generally of other material. It's used to elevate something.
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Think of like the ropes that hold a ship's boat in place. Even if it did not have the metal tips on the end, this was a weapon of discipline and punishment.
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The passion for God's reverence and the zeal for God's holiness in worship is on display here from our
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Lord. What he saw sickened him and he immediately acted. He made a lash out of ropes that are strong enough to hold up a boat and he went into the court of the
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Gentiles and drove them out. John says that he drove them all out along with all of the animals that were on sale.
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He cleansed the temple. He poured out the coins of the money changers and demonstrated his extreme zeal and anger for their lack of reverence to Yahweh.
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He overturned their tables. This isn't the lovely, feely, warm and fuzzy, feeble, cultural, he gets us
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Jesus. This is the true Jesus who is on fire for God's holiness and honor.
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And John tells us when he was done doing that, he went to those who were selling the doves and he said, take these things away.
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Take these things away. Stop making my father's house a place of business. And there is another important thing to be observed here in that Jesus is publicly saying that the temple is his father's house.
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Well, what took place at the temple? Worship. Worship of Yahweh. Everyone knew that the sanctuary was the temple of Yahweh, the temple of God.
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And Jesus here reacting to what looks like people just doing business and even taking advantage of those who have traveled is that he makes a public claim that the temple that belongs to Yahweh is his father's house.
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And this wasn't the first time Jesus had made a statement like this. The gospel, according to Luke, recorded the boy
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Jesus in the temple. We can find this in Luke chapter two. It says his parents would go to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the
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Passover. And when he became 12 years old, they went up there according to the custom of the feast.
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And as they were returning after finishing the days of the feast, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem.
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But his parents did not know. But supposing him to be in the caravan, they went a day's journey and they began searching for him among their relatives and acquaintances.
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When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem searching for him. And it happened that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.
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And all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When they saw him, they were astonished.
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And his mother said to him, child, why have you treated us this way? Behold, your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.
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And he said to them, why is it that you were searching for me? Did you not know that I had to be in my father's house?
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And John includes this little insert in verse 17 where he explains that Jesus, the disciples had remembered what the
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Old Testament said about the Messiah, that the Messiah would have zeal.
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He would have zeal for Yahweh's house. Literally, zeal for your house will consume me.
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And John here says that the disciples remembered the Psalms. This is from Psalm chapter 69, verse 9, for zeal for your house has consumed me and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.
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One commentator noted this on Psalm 69 as a messianic psalm, quote, this psalm is a prayer of desperation.
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David realizes that because he is hated by others, he may shortly be killed. Though he begs for rescue and calls down curses on his enemies, he concludes the psalm with a high note of praise with inferences concerning the coming messianic kingdom.
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When all enemies of God's people are dealt with swiftly and severely, much of this psalm was applied to Christ by the
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New Testament writers. This psalm expresses the feelings of any believer who is being horribly ridiculed, but it uniquely refers to Christ.
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We can think of verse 9 like this. The psalmist has brought hatred and hostility on himself by his unyielding insistence that the behavior of the people measure up to their outward claim of devotion to God.
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The behavior of the people measure up to their outward claim of devotion to God.
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Whenever God was dishonored, he felt the pain because he loved
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God so greatly. Jesus claimed for himself this attitude as indicated in John chapter 2 verse 17 or even
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Romans 15 3. For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproach you fell on me.
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So those that hated God, their reproach fell on Christ. And it's the same for us today.
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As we love God, the reproaches of those who hate Christ, their reproach will fall on us as Christians.
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In this section, we see Jesus' zeal for God's reverence as he witnessed really the temple being misused.
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Instead of a place of worship, it had become a marketplace. The opportunity to make money and to turn profit had caused them either to forget altogether or just have apathy and not care that God's house, his temple, is a place of worship.
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The building that a local congregation worships in isn't the temple of God.
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We know we're not in Jerusalem. But the building that a local congregation worships in is a place of worship.
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We shouldn't attend church for personal contacts or for any other reason than to worship
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God. And we shouldn't miss from this passage the relational aspect of the
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Lord Jesus. As he witnessed some of the merchants and religious leaders exploiting true worshipers who had come to God's temple to worship him, we should be clear that the example of Jesus in righteous indignation is not an excuse for us to engage in uncontrolled rage or anger.
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The Bible clearly teaches that man's anger does not accomplish the righteousness of God.
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As Christians, we need to be very careful in our emotions, in our anger. But also, we can look at Jesus' example of zeal and passion for God's holiness as a good thing.
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As Christians, we should be angry about injustice. We should be angry about sin.
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But we should never be offensive or look for opportunities to be offended at perceived slights.
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We are called as Christians to be kind to one another, to be tenderhearted, forgiving each other.
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Just as God in Christ has graciously forgiven us, we are called to graciously forgive one another, to bear up with one another, to put away wrath and anger and malice and slander and put on love and patience and bearing up with one another and forgiving one another.
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Jesus clearly saw what we could think of as a lesser sin as a great act of evil and an insult against God himself.
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Jesus' passion for reverence and zeal for God meant that he dealt with them purposefully and defended
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God's honor. Jesus and perfect righteousness are what are on display here.
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In his perfect righteousness, he was consumed with righteous indignation for blatant disrespect for God.
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But the Bible says that God will honor those who honor him. And this is a New Testament theology, but Old Testament teaching as well, 1
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Samuel chapter 2. Therefore, Yahweh, the God of Israel, declares, now
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Yahweh declares, far be it from me, for those who honor me,
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I will honor, and those who despise me will be cursed.
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Here's the next point, the zeal. The zeal for God's holiness and honor in worship displayed by Jesus is a pattern of example for every true worshiper of God to follow.
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Now, we live in a time when God's honor is not defended and there is little to no zeal for God's holiness.
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We've really seen this even in the last like five years, going back to 2019. We saw this with the
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BLM riots, critical race theory, pulpits that are preaching socialism and Marxism.
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We saw this transform into really a weird time of the COVID epidemic.
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That sort of morphed into a thing of Christians affirming the LGBTQ community and embracing women pastors on whole at a point where we don't even do church the way the
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Bible says anymore. There's just a lack of reverence for God's Word, a lack of reverence for an affront against God.
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I once went and listened to a preacher and he was preaching from Romans and he was telling a story about false
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Christians. And he gave the example of a woman in the church who had come to him for counsel who wanted to leave her husband because she was bored in the marriage, a professing
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Christian, Christian man, Christian wife. And as the pastor of the church, he counseled her and said, yeah, you can't leave your husband for this reason.
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And she didn't listen to the counsel. She ended up leaving the church. A couple of years goes by and he's ready to preach and he notices she's walking in the door with a new guy on her arm and she kind of makes a beeline to him and she's proud about it.
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She says, oh, here's my new husband. And as he's thinking about this, he's about ready to preach and that she's in a place of worship.
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She didn't listen to the pastor. She doesn't care about the Bible. And he said from the pulpit, it was everything
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I, it took everything I had not to spit in her face. And I was like, whoa, like what a, that's an old man preaching game.
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I don't know if I could say that. But he's not saying he's going to do that.
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But it's like, she doesn't care at all about God's honor. Doesn't care about God's holiness.
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Like do we care what the Bible says? Do we want to defend
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God's honor and all of these cultural things are pulling us away from the scripture.
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And what happens is it affects the feelings and the emotions. So it's an emotional response and the way you feel or your experience is elevated to the point of scripture.
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If the Bible says something, that's what it is. It's not how we feel or offended or get emotional about it or what our friends say or being carried away by gossip and other things that are just not biblical.
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Coming to God's house with bitterness and resentment in your heart. We're here to worship
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God. Do we care about God's honor and holiness? The zeal for God's holiness and honor and worship displayed by Jesus is a pattern of example for every true worshiper of God to follow.
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And then in verses 18 through 20, the scoffing, the scoffing. Verse 18, the
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Jews then said to him, what sign do you show us as your authority for doing these things?
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Jesus answered them, destroy this sanctuary and in three days I will raise it up.
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The Jews then said, it took 46 years to build this sanctuary and you will raise it up in three days?
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This is the worldly challenge displayed. The worldly challenge displayed reflects the resistant mindset to those who oppose the word of God, to those who oppose
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Jesus. And the sense of irony is surely not lost on the Apostle John as he includes this statement from the
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Jews who had witnessed Jesus' response to seeing the temple turned into a marketplace.
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Look at what they ask in light of what John had said just happened previously, recorded for us time, place, setting and the actual words of the event of the first signed miracle of Jesus demonstrating his
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Messiahship, the wedding at Cana. It literally just happened in the narrative. And then John includes this statement, the wedding at Cana, the sign of turning water into wine.
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And the very next thing we see in the following account is Jesus cleansing the temple and what are the
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Jews asking for? What sign do you show us? And John gives us the response to their scoffing accusation.
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Jesus doesn't explain what he had just done at the wedding at Cana. He certainly could have.
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He could have actually just done something right there in front of him. No, as God, Jesus knew the heart of men.
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You don't answer a fool, you don't answer a scoffer. He actually answers them with theology of the resurrection, a prediction.
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You don't answer a fool, you don't answer a scoffer. Proverbs 9, he who disciplines a scoffer receives disgrace for himself.
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And he who reproves a wicked man receives injury for himself. Do not reprove a scoffer lest he hate you.
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Reprove a wise man and he will love you. As the author of Scripture, Jesus knew that. There may be some clues to his response here in knowing their hearts with the intention of their scoffing.
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You can imagine they must have been angry at witnessing this scene. Their attitude comes across in the question, who do you think you are?
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It seems there was some kind of an evil intent in their question and then their response to what they had just witnessed in Jesus' righteous indignation toward them, actually.
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He simply answered and said, destroy this sanctuary and in three days I will raise it up.
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The Greek word John uses, it records really the place or structure specifically associated with or set apart for a deity who is frequently perceived to be using it as a dwelling, hence temple.
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Of course, based on their response in verse 20, they clearly did not understand what he was talking about, the temple of his body.
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John will make that clear in verse 21 in what Jesus was actually referring to. Clearly, the
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Jews that had witnessed the righteous anger displayed by Jesus understood that Jesus was talking about the temple or rather misunderstood.
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And it's helpful for us to remember that this was not the original temple that Solomon had built.
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That temple was destroyed in 586 BC by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. After 70 years under Zerubbabel with the help of Ezra and Nehemiah, the second temple had already been built.
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That was about 500 years before Jesus was standing here in the court of the Gentiles.
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It's probably wrong to think of the temple as completely finished and immaculate as in the day of Solomon.
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No, not the case. In the historical record, King Herod had been actively remodeling the temple at the time of Jesus, making it larger and larger with the desire to make it more aesthetically pleasing.
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That would have started about 20 BC, so it had been about 46 years since Herod had started this remodeling construction project on the temple.
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And at the time of this narrative, it was not complete. History tells us it took Herod about 10 years to complete the main part, but other areas were still under construction for many years, many years later.
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So obviously, the Jews that had witnessed this event and were gathered there and asking him this question, they understood that he was referring to the temple being torn down and rebuilt in three days.
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And we can sort of, you know, you can hear the sort of scoffing, startled questioning in their response.
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It took 46 years to build this sanctuary. Here they're just referring to Herod's building project.
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We know the second temple was finished about 500 years earlier. So one could maybe see some incomplete brick or maybe something obvious to the eye that they could look at and say, you're going to raise this up in three days?
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Totally lost and not tracking with Jesus at all because he was answering scoffing arrogance but not genuine truth -seeking.
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One commentator made this observation, the Jews demanded that Jesus show some type of miraculous sign that would indicate his authority for the actions that he had just taken in regulating the activities of the temple.
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Their demand of a sign reveals that they had not grasped the significance of Jesus' rebuke that centered in their need for proper attitudes and holiness and worship.
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Such an action itself constituted a sign of Jesus' person and authority.
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Moreover, they were requesting from Jesus a crass display of miracles on demand, further displaying their unbelief.
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Interesting observation that unbelief always demands a sign. Unbelief demands proof.
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Scoffing unbelievers demand proof. Here's the next point.
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The scoffing shows a resistant and defiant attitude that is not genuinely seeking the truth.
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I recently saw a video of a scoffing unbeliever very arrogantly arguing with a
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Christian street preacher. The unbeliever was a young woman and she said this, you're reporting that Jesus lived but I don't see any evidence that he lived.
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The Jewish text that says that he lives says he supposedly rose from the dead.
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Is there any evidence of that? The apologist answered and said this, yes, the evidence is crystal clear in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, James, Peter.
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The unbelieving woman gave a scoffing demand, pardon me, I want 100 % evidence that Jesus raised from the dead because if you cannot give me that, that makes the
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Bible not credible, okay? Jesus died 2 ,000 years ago, if you're talking about something that happened in the future, you can give me 100 % truth.
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Jesus died 2 ,000 years ago, I'm pretty sure by now that we could figure out if he died or not.
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Sort of just a scoffing response. The Christian says, ma 'am, I don't base my life on 100 % truth or 100 % proof.
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And she says mockingly, well, maybe that's your problem. So he asks her genuinely, you do?
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You base your life on 100 % proof? And defiantly she says, yes.
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So he asks her again skeptically, oh, really, everything? So that means you take a chemistry kit to the pharmacy and when the pharmacist hands you that bottle of medicine, you chemically analyze it to make sure there's no mistakes or no poison in there, right?
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She says, well, that's why I don't take medicine, you can just kind of... He follows up and says, that's why because unless you have 100 % proof, you would never take that pill and put it in your mouth because maybe the pharmacist made a mistake and put poison in there, question mark.
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And the woman says, yes, I don't base it all on 100%. And the man says, thank you.
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So don't tell me you base your life on 100 % proof, none of us do, that's not possible.
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You can't do that, you've got to learn to trust. If you don't learn to trust, you're gonna be a very lonely person.
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You've got to make reasonable decisions, but you can't be 100 % skeptic, you can't be 100 % proving, not proof, evidence.
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What's the evidence? An amazing life. Look at Christ's life, he lived a life of amazing integrity and incredible compassion.
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So that's one reason to trust him. Secondly, read his teachings, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
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If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other one also. Tremendous teachings that demand respect.
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Thirdly, the way he dies, a wooden cross. And instead of cursing his enemies, he prays,
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Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Fourth, and most importantly, three days after he dies, he bodily rises from the dead.
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And over a period of 40 days, he appears to over 500 people at different times, different places, risen from the dead.
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It's evidence, not proof, not 100 % proof, but the overwhelming evidence is that you can trust this man.
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He loves you, you can trust him. But actually in this encounter, the girl just shook her head in unbelieving defiance.
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And you may all have met someone like this at some point in your Christian life, somebody that upon hearing the gospel or even hearing your personal testimony responds with a comment like this.
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I've heard this one so many times, I don't believe in anything I can't see. If I can't see it,
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I don't believe it. And I always want to say, like, I want to hold myself back from saying, can you see your brain? It's like, you must not have a brain.
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But I don't say that. I actually saw a meme online with a man sitting in a chair in his living room and he makes this comment and it says above the man,
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I don't believe in anything I can't see. And in the picture, he's listening to a radio that has an invisible radio signal.
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He's sitting in a chair made up of invisible atoms. He's talking, he's thinking about something.
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His thoughts are invisible. He's watching TV with an invisible TV signal.
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The TV is using electricity that is not visible to him. He's holding a cup of coffee made up of invisible molecules.
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He's sitting in the chair under the invisible weight of gravity with the window open that shows the sun setting with invisible photons as time invisibly passes by.
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I don't believe in anything I can't see. The scoffing shows a resistant and defiant attitude that is not genuinely seeking the truth.
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And lastly, number four, the so that. Here's the meat of the passage, the so that, verses 21 and 22.
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But he was speaking about the sanctuary of his body. So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered.
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His disciples remembered that he said this, and they believed the scripture and the word which
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Jesus had spoken. The explanation from John and the so that of this historical event.
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We know being on the other side of history and the added revelation of the New Testament with the gospel eyewitness accounts that Jesus was not talking about the temple.
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He was not talking about what made up the building. John makes it clear for us that Jesus was talking about the temple of his body.
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The scoffing Jews or religious leaders that were gathered that day were just not tracking with him.
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They did not realize what he was referring to. Jesus is greater than the temple mount.
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Matthew chapter 12. Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and his disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat.
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But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, look, your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a
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Sabbath. But he said to them, have you not read what David did when he became hungry?
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He and his companions, how he entered the house of God and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those with him, but for the priests alone.
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Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple break the
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Sabbath and are innocent. But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here.
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Jesus is greater than the temple mount. The words of Christ were for his lost sheep.
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The disciples gathered there. These words were for those that would believe in him by faith.
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His words had a specific meaning for his disciples after his death and resurrection.
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For us, we can think that Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah completely fulfilled this prediction.
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The statements that Jesus made about his own death and resurrection in some ways have become the strongest evidence for his claims to be the son of God.
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And this goes back to the statement of purpose and why John wrote his record of eyewitness to the events of Jesus's life.
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John chapter 20, therefore many other signs Jesus also did in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book.
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But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the
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Christ, the son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. Jesus was about the business of causing belief.
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At this point early on in John's account, he's already made four statements about believing.
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You're going to see this theme throughout the gospel. John chapter 1, verse 7, the Baptist came as a witness to bear witness about the light
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Jesus so that all might believe through him. John chapter 1, verse 12, but as many as received him to them, he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name.
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John chapter 2, verse 11, Jesus did this in Cana of Galilee as the beginning of his signs and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him.
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And John chapter 2, verse 22, so when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he said this and they believed the scripture and the word which
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Jesus had spoken. Here is the so that of this passage, that people would believe, not just in the resurrection, but in the perfect accuracy of God's word.
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The so that of Jesus' prediction is to cause his sheep to believe in the resurrection and trust completely in what the
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Bible says. The 16th century Puritan, Matthew Henry, had this to say on the passage.
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He said, the first public work in which we find Christ engaged was driving from the temple the traders whom the covetous priests and rulers encouraged to make a marketplace of its courts.
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Those now make God's house a house of merchandise whose minds are filled with cares about worldly business when attending religious exercises or who perform divine offices for love of gain.
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Christ, having thus cleansed the temple, gave a sign to those who demanded it. To prove his authority for doing so, he foretells his death by the
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Jews' malice. Destroy ye this temple, I will permit you to destroy it.
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He foretells his resurrection by his own power. In three days, I will raise it up.
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Christ took again his own life. Men mistake by understanding what according to the letter which the scripture speaks by way of figure, when
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Jesus was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered he has said this.
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It helps much in understanding the divine word to observe the fulfilling of the scriptures.
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Paul explains the gospel in his letter to the Romans. He says that if you confess with your mouth
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Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him, that Jesus was raised from the dead, then you shall be saved.
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That's a real tangible hope that all can claim. As believers, the promise of eternal life with a sin -free glorified body like our
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Lord Jesus' resurrected body is the truth we must take a stand for.
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As we think about things like transgender visibility day or other things in the news cycle that are disturbing to us, we need to remember the resurrection.
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We need to remember the word of God. It's very easy to become despairing and melancholy and downcast if we look at the evil things going on in the world.
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Satan wants you to take your eyes off of Christ. The devil loves to steal your joy and cause you to take your eyes off of the cross.
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John reminds us this morning that we have the reality of the resurrection. John is reminding his readers to put their eyes back on Christ, back on the cross.
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Take your eyes off of the latest news cycle filled with bad news after bad news.
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Remember the divine word and put your eyes in the Bible. Remember where your hope comes from.
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Psalm 27 says this, hope in Yahweh. Be strong and let your heart take courage.
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Hope in Yahweh. In today's passage, the apostle John describes
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Jesus' cleansing of the temple and Jesus' prediction of his death and resurrection so that you can remember the resurrection and believe in the
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Bible. The setting of this historical account helps us to understand that these events actually took place and gives added weight to John's gospel.
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The zeal for Yahweh's holiness and honor in worship displayed by Jesus is a pattern of example for every true worshiper of God to follow.
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The scoffing shows a resistant and defiant attitude that is not genuinely seeking the truth.
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The so that of Jesus' prediction is to cause his sheep to believe in the resurrection and trust completely in what the
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Bible says. I pray this morning that you would put your hope in the resurrection and put your hope, put your trust in the
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Bible. Confess Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead so that you may hear the shepherd's voice and have everlasting life.