Is Jesus clearing His temple…again?

I wonder what the atmosphere in the room was like after Jesus cleared the temple. Scripture really doesn’t say, it’s just Jesus kicking people out and turning tables.

Absolute chaos. But what about the moments after?

Maybe it was quiet.
An empty room.

Was Jesus left standing alone in the temple?
Were the disciples close by?

What was the aftermath of the storm of Jesus blowing through that place?

I bet there was confusion.
People who liked Jesus probably stopped enjoying His company.

I wonder if people were angry.
And what were they angry about?

Well scripture says Jesus wasn’t just turning over tables for fun, this was specific and incredibly personal. The temple had lost its purpose and the people had lost their purpose for gathering there.

This wasn’t new.
This had been the story from the beginning.
And Jesus was there, from the beginning.
May I also add, this is still the story.

In the last hours that 2020 offers and the first breath of 2021, Jesus is still clearing His temple. The words Jesus chooses to speak come from Jeremiah 7, allow me to reference them here.

¹ The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ² “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. ³ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. ⁴ Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

Jeremiah 7:1-4

I realized something, not unfamiliar to believers, that reminded me of the why behind all God does. I was reminded that God has done everything He has done for one purpose and one purpose alone, to be in relationship with His creation.

It was the purpose of the garden.
It was the purpose of the temple in the Old Testament.
It was the purpose of Jesus.
It is the purpose of His Spirit.

To be with us.

But so often we forget that, we forget why God has done all He has done.

The prophet Jeremiah spoke the words of the Lord to the church for all generations in the book given his name, and Jesus affirmed it again in His ministry.

Jeremiah stands at the gate, declaring to Judah, God’s people, that God is not pleased with the way they are carrying out their lives. That coming to the temple was not enough and didn’t even come close to the purpose for gathering there in the first place.

In the Old Testament, there was such an intense and purposeful instruction given about the way the temple should be built and kept and what it should be used for. When these statutes were not followed, God’s presence leaves the temple, for He cannot dwell in the midst of unholiness and impure environment.

Remember, God didn’t have to tell us He was leaving, but He does.

He gives instruction and warning because He wants to be with us, He wants us to know Him and be known.

⁵ “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, ⁶ if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, ⁷ then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.

Jeremiah 7:5-7

Years after these words from Jeremiah, Jesus would do the incredible work of atonement and salvation on the cross and raising from the dead. This not only eradicates the void between us and God, but it radically shifts the location of the temple of God.

Jesus makes a way for the temple of God to be inside the life of every believer, the presence of God now resides in the essence of all those who love Jesus. Incredible.

But this would only intensify the necessity to be a house that’s pure and a person that the Spirit of God would want to dwell. Paul spends almost all of his time discussing this and imploring readers to take inventory and clear house so that God may dwell in us.

¹⁶ Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

1 Corinthians 3:16-17

Then we come to the words of Jeremiah, echoed by Jesus in Jeremiah 7.

⁸ “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. ⁹ Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, ¹⁰ and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? ¹¹ Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 7:8-11

Behold, I myself have seen it.

And now we find ourselves in another time of confusion.

Many people who seemed to follow Jesus, have all but disappeared, maybe to never find themselves in church again. And many people, are angry.

Is it possible that Jesus once again is clearing the temple?

The only difference is this time, the temple He gave everything to build, is in you and me.

Part of the reason I raise this question is because of how angry we are at our churches closing because of COVID-19. Regardless of my opinion about whether or not church doors should be open, I wonder if we are again declaring like those in the times of Jeremiah…

‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

When in fact, it is not.

The temple of the Lord has left the dwellings of man and the halls in which our finite hands have built. The temple of the Lord is in you and in me.

Is it possible that God is not going to allow you to go back to places of worship until you and I realize that we can’t keep going to these buildings on Sunday without allowing Him to cleanse the temple of our hearts first?

Imagine it in your mind.
Watch Jesus clear the crap out from the temple in your heart.
He’s flipping that table of greed and malice.
He’s smashing the ornaments of lust and sexual immorality.
He’s kicking out the lukewarm dust that’s gathered on the seats.
He’s upset at the way His temple is being kept.

In 2020, is it possible that Jesus has cleared out the aspects of our “spiritual” lives that needed to cease for a season? How about out entire Sunday routine?

What was left in the temple of our hearts as soon as Sunday was gone?

Where are we spiritually without the Sunday experience, what’s left in God’s temple without that day? If we aren’t serving and worshiping the lord outside of Sunday then we may not be too far off from those we read about in Jeremiah…“This is the temple of the Lord!”

Before we fight to regain our man-made temples, which I love, we first must allow Jesus to cleanse the temple He loves, the one in our hearts.

We need to receive the words of Jeremiah and Jesus from Jeremiah 7.

It’s isn’t just a word to another people from another time; look around, this is to us.
2020 left us confused, worried, and angry.
So be it.

Stand in the aftermath of your temple being cleared.
Be there alone with Jesus in the silence that follows the chaos of tables getting tossed.

Jesus only takes the time to toss out the junk from the places He loves.
Jesus loves His temple and that temple resides in the hearts of every believer.

We can no longer be people who serve other gods and enter into church buildings to sing…

‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

Lord, forgive us.
Lord, restore us.

Let Jesus complete His work in the temple of our hearts, so that in 2021, even without our buildings we can declare in Spirit and in Truth…

This is the Temple of the Lord