Matthew 21: 13-16 

Jesus did not come to maintain the status quo and to keep the peace. Maybe that’s the problem with the church today. We are so trying to be liked that we have become almost irrelevant and notoriously insipid and what we have to say is so accommodating that it is almost pointless. Not so, with Jesus. He came to make a change. He came to shake things up and He did without fear and apology.  

The Temple needed cleansing and in spite of all the naysayers and haters, that’s exactly what He did. It would have been the greater scandal if He had left things as they were. Before He left, He visited the temple again and overthrew and cast out some people and some things. Isn’t it a fact, that the temple needs constant renewal and cleansing, radical cleansing not just a reshuffling of things, but an overthrow and casting out of some things. The Temple of God must be the Temple of God. It must be a place where “the Holy” is exalted and the carnal and trivial expunged. 

It is still very astounding to me how utterly contented we as parishioners could become with a defiled, dilapidated, and corrupt temple. They had disgraced the temple by making it a marketplace of the secular, completely oblivious to anything sacred and holy. Jesus had to become drastic with them. The prophet declared that “zeal for the Lord’s house” would not allow Him to remain silent and passive (John 2:17). That same zeal consumes us today to cry out and take action. It makes us revolutionary and activist. It makes us rise up and speak out with intense indignation and authority like Jesus, against the corruption of His house! 

This is a Temple of Prayer. Should we have any doubts or uncertainties, Jesus makes it crystal clear for us again. He declares most emphatically as He runs out the transgressors and overthrows the tables of the mercenaries in the House of God. He declares, “It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” (v13). My assignment as I write these few lines is simply to remind us again as the body of Christ in these parts – This is chiefly and pre-eminently and uniquely and principally – The House of Prayer. May all who enter our sanctuary today feel the sacredness and power and awesomeness of His presence. This is a holy house of praying believers! May the sacredness of God’s presence be powerfully felt in this sacred place today. Less of the secular noisemaking! More of God’s sacred presence fills this place as we pray. Feel the power of the sacred as we reverently spontaneously pray again. 

This is a Temple of Healing! Matthew then says, “The blind and the lame came to the Temple, and He healed them” (14). Prayer leads to healing. Where there is intense, earnest, sacred prayer, healings take place! When Zion travails! Intense intercession induced by the Holy Spirit produces results. Healing still takes place in the temple where the saints chose to pray without ceasing. “. . . . And with His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Healing for body, mind, and soul! 

This is a Temple of Praise. The temple is a place of unstoppable praise even when others ignorantly object and protest (v15). The Psalmist declares “Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Zion . . .” (Psalm 65:1). This is indisputably a place of unrestrained praise. Even the children, especially the little children shall perfectly praise Him, not just the adults. Let us immediately, spontaneously praise Him. Today, we take back the House! We refuse to allow the enemy to hijack this House any longer. The Temple must be the Temple!