SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/12/2023 9:30 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-1
“He Demonstrated Divine Authority”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
21:12b
Message of the verses: “and cast out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who were selling doves.”
I believe that those who have followed my blogs know
that the Jewish Temple was very important to the children of Israel. When Abraham was told by God to sacrifice his
son Isaac as an offering to the Lord he took him to the place called Mt. Moriah
and there was about to sacrifice him, knowing that God would raise him from the
dead. However the Lord stopped him from
sacrificing his son and provided another sacrifice to offer. That place, Mt. Moriah is the very place
where the temple was built by Solomon. King
David sinned by numbering the people when it was more of a pride thing, rather
that something the Lord wanted him to do.
God stopped the plague that killed many children of Israel at the place
where Abraham was to offer his son as we have just talked about. David bought that place from Araunah the Jebusite and offered a
sacrifice at that very spot. You can see
that this place was very special to the children of Israel.
We know from our story that is
unfolding in Matthew 21:12-17 that the high priest and the chief priest of
Israel were making a mockery of the worship that was supposed to be going on in
this very sacred place and this disturbed the Lord Jesus Christ. As you can see from the title of his SD, “He
Demonstrated Divine Authority” that because of whom Jesus is that He was going
to do something about what was going on in the Temple.
John MacArthur writes that “Jewish
law required death for any non-Jew who went further into the Temple than the
Court of the Gentiles, the Romans had given approval for the Temple guards to
slay an offender on the spot.”
This was not going to happen to the Lord Jesus Christ,
first of all because He was Jewish, but second He was God’s Son, God who came
in the flesh. So we can see that Jesus
confronts the high priest, the chief priests, the Temple guards, and the Temple
merchants with impunity. These people
were about to meet someone over whom they had absolutely no power. It is true that many of these men would be
involved in the arrest of Jesus and eventually have Him crucified; the truth is
that it would be Jesus who would be in charge of that act too. God was totally in charge of that just as He
is in charge of what is going on in our world today. Jesus told Pilate that the only reason that
he could do what was going to be done to Jesus was because God was allowing it
to happen. Let us look at John 10:17-18 “17 “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down
My life so that I may take it again. 18 “No one has taken it away from Me, but
I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have
authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.’”
This would happen in a few days from the time that
Jesus went into the Temple, as on this occasion they were powerless to prevent
Him from making a final demonstration of His divine authority. This all happened without warning and also
without resistance, as Jesus cast out both the merchants and thousands of
worshipers, the bewildered merchants, and their customers and overturned the
tables of the moneychangers. Before the
thousands of worshipers, the bewildered merchants, and the priests who happened
to be present, Jesus made a shambles of the bazaar and declared the shame of
those who profited from it. This whole
arena was in confusion and disarray, with animals running loose, doves flying
around, and money of all kinds rolling across the courtyard. Nobody raised a hand or even a voice against
the Lord, anymore that the lions could bite the prophet Daniel.
6/12/2023 10:12 AM
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