Mark: The Tree and the Temple {part 1: The Temple} [Mark 11:12-26]

Mark: The Tree and the Temple {part 1: the temple} []

In our next section in Mark, Mark uses what is called in Hebrew literature an inclusio, which is a literary device where two teachings are wrapped around one central lesson. The cursing of the fig tree story is bracketed around Jesus cleansing the temple. The purpose being the bracketed material, the fig tree, is an enacted parable, as it were, for the purpose Jesus cleanses the temple. Enacted parables were common to the prophets of the OT as well [ex. The broken flask].

While these two accounts [from Mark’s gospel] are difficult for us to deal with, in that if you look at one account by itself you might be tempted to think this is Jesus acting out of character, but when placed together they help us understand the lesson of what is going on here. What I plan on doing is breaking this up into two sermons, this weeks focus will be on the cleansing of the temple and next week we’ll focus on the lesson of the fig tree and hopefully we’ll see a little better and with more clarity why these two events are so important.

It’s easy to come across stories like these in the bible and find it hard to apply them to our modern 21st century lives…but my prayer is I can convey to you these are more applicable than we might think.

We are going to read from a couple different passages first and then we’ll read Marks account…first we’ll read from ; then ; then .

Stand for the reading of the word of God: ; ; .

Several years ago I took my dad to a St. Cardinals game where Levi and some of his classmates were to sing the national anthem. Before the game my dad and I stopped at a concession stand to get a bite to eat. We each got one hot dog and one soda to the tune of about 30 bucks! I remember dad saying that was a ridiculous amount of money for a hot dog and soda…to which I agreed. Anyone who has been to a Cardinals game or any other professional sporting event you are familiar with this scenario. Supply an demand they call it, but we know it’s grossly over charging people for financial gain. This is not uncommon to us today, taking advantage financially of people when they need something…well this is the same kind of scenario in our text today. But this isn’t charging people to much for a hot dog and soda, this is exploiting people in the name of God…this is serious! Thus Jesus reaction is fitting.

Last week we look at the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, we noticed the the people praising Jesus were passionate and quoting scripture but they were confused about what the Messiah had come to do. We saw passionate, bible quoting people, who were confused about the things of God. We see that same thing today, people passionate and quoting scripture but flat out wrong about the kingdom of God.

As Jesus entered the city we saw in verse 11 of , Jesus looked around at all things, we also asked last week, what would Jesus see if he came into our church and looked around at all things? Would he see passionate confused people or people who put the gospel at the center of all things? What Jesus saw in Jerusalem when he entered was not good, and he acted accordingly. It’s evident what Jesus saw was, a people and a place that God had intended to be a light to the nations [i.e. all people] as we read in our OT scriptures, had become a den of thieves, keeping people from God instead of bring them to God. The assignment God had given Israel to do, be a light to the nations, they had failed at…so what would Jesus’ response be?

We notice there are three motives influencing people in the temple from our text today. You can see it in your outline…the three motives are…motivated by money, power or position, and zealousness for God. Let’s examine verse 15-19 and see what motivates us?

Motivated by money []

If we start with verse 15 it would appear Jesus just goes into the temple and losses his cool…but what we know is he entered the city the prior day and evaluated everything [v.11]. Not to give away next week but verse 12-14, the cursing of the fig tree give us an acted illustration of what and why Jesus would cleanse the temple. Like the fig tree Israel, and Judaism had the appearance of being fruitful, but on closer examination…it had no fruit at all…and by Jesus’ own words, those branches that do not bear fruit will be cut off. So we have here in the temple Jesus response to false religion. First

Some lined their pockets at the expense of others [Jesus began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple.] Now, when it says Jesus entered the temple, that covers the entire complex of buildings and courtyards that existed in Jesus day. The temple area had been lavishly embellished and expanded by the sponsorship of Herod the Great. It was a 35 acre area broke up into sections…the court of the Gentiles or outer court, which most likely where all the selling and trading is going on. There was the court of women [for Jewish women], the Israelite court [Jewish men only], the court of the priests [for Jewish leaders], and the Temple proper [reserved for the Sanhedrin].

It’s the time of the Passover celebration so traveling pilgrims often would not have brought with them animals for sacrifice because of the long hard road they traveled so some saw opportunity to benefit financially from this. Even the process of inspection of the animals had become corrupt…the sacrifice had to pass the inspection of the religious powers of the day and off course that made it to where you could only use the animals they approved, so even if you brought your own animal, odds were it would pass their inspection so you’d have to buy one of theirs.

The mark up was shamefully and immorally ridiculous…it was estimated the mark up was 16 times the normal price [so two pigeons normally sold for $0.25, now sold for $4.00.]

The money changers did the same thing, they overcharged people for the exchange of currency. The common currency in the day was Roman minted, some may have had Greek coinage as well…but this was known as foreign coinage and was not acceptable for use in the temple area. So one would have to exchange their common money for the Hebrew shekel, the original Hebrew shekel was none existent in that day so they used the Tyrian shekel, shekel of Tyre, that was the closest thing to the Hebrew shekel of the OT. The exchange fee was outrageous as well.

Some exploited the poor [sold doves]. Mark specifically mentions those who sold doves because the dove was sold to the poor. In the OT God’s law [Levitical system] demanded all gave a sacrifice, but not all could afford a cow or sheep or goat, so God made provision for the poor and said a sacrifice of doves would work…yet these money hungry leeches saw another opportunity by exploiting the poor…disgusting.

Some showed disregard for the temple [v.16] This is an interesting detail given in verse 16. Because of all the extortion and exploiting going on in the temple area, people just started to have a blatant disregard for the temple. People were just passing through areas that were supposed to be holy and sacred as if they were just shortcuts to where they needed to be…a display of disregard for the sacred places. Even thought this was forbidden in Judaism...Disrespect, contempt for the things of God had become the norm and it displeased Jesus…he put a stop to it. It would be like someone just barging in and walking through your house because it was a shorter route then to walk around on the sidewalk…you would be offended by the lack of respect by that person just walking in and through your private place.

Many in that day were motivated by money…lining their pockets at the expense of others, exploiting the poor, and showing utter disregard for the things of God…not much has changed. There are still those today who are motivated by money and exploit others in the name of God or religion. I turned on the TV a few weeks ago and heard this man with a funny accent tell people if you send him money you’ll experience blessing beyond your understanding…I thought he got the beyond understanding part right…his understanding of the things of God are amiss.

Motivated by power and position []

Verse 18. The scribes and chief priests represent the leadership of official Judaism at that time. the “scribes” were mostly committed to the rabbinic traditions subscribed by the Pharisees, the “priests” were most often aligned with the Sadducees and controlled the Temple ritual. Jesus is targeting both groups, who were not usually on the same side of any issue, accept hatred of Jesus. Those mentioned here represent the parties that make up the Sanhedrin. He called them out…they were supposed to be taking care of keeping the temple area a sacred place not profiting from it…but they were concerned with their place of power.

Power and position have a way of making people compromise what they belief to be right. Notice they didn’t challenge Jesus actions in the temple, they challenged his authority to do so. In John’s gospel it records the chief priests response to Jesus cleansing the temple was to ask by what authority do you do this…Jesus responds, “destroy this temple and in three days I will rebuild it.” Jesus was telling them the sign of authority to condemn the actions of Judaism is in the death and resurrection of Jesus…i.e. God has the authority to do this!

These religious leaders didn’t say anything about the actions, they knew the corruption that had been taken place under their watch…but a desire for power had corrupted their own view of what is right and wrong. We still see this today, ultimate power corrupts, a desire for power and position can easily cause people to compromise, whether in politics, business, or the church compromise takes place when power is desired.

These religious leaders angry by what Jesus had done sought to destroy Him. They wanted to put him to death and get rid of the tension they thought He had created, but in reality the tension was created by them and their compromise of the things of God which they were entrusted with. Isn’t it something how quickly we blame others for things we have done wrong? “If they hadn’t of done that then I wouldn’t have responded like this.” You are responsible for your actions! You have no control over others actions but you do over yours.

Even though they were angry with Jesus and sought to destroy him they feared Jesus. Those motivated by power and position are often paralyzed by fear of losing that power or position. They feared because they were astonished at His teaching. They knew Jesus was right in his actions and teaching…and that paralyzed them with fear and anger. I think it’s interesting how these two things, fear and anger, go hand in hand. Are you in fear? Are you angry? perhaps it’s because God’s Holy Word has convicted you and instead of yielding to God’s authority you’ve responded in fear or anger…so what do we do with that?

That leads into our final point…the zealousness of Jesus for the things of God, which we’ll use as points of application for ourselves.

Zealous for God []

We look back to verse 17, which brings us to the heart of our Lord’s righteous anger over what the temple had become. The texts we read earlier says, “my house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations.” , “you have made it a den of thieves.” God’s temple was supposed to be a house of prayer, a place of worship that attracted and blessed people from all the nations, but it had become a place keeping people from having access to God.

In the days of Jesus it was popular believe among many Jews that the Messiah would come and purge the temple of Gentiles. Instead, Jesus comes and cleanses the temple for the Gentiles. Israel’s religious show was empty and embarrassing. Instead of bringing people to God, which is what they were supposed to be doing, they obscured people from access to God. Jesus effectively said… “enough! This charade is over!” We need to take note of this today in the church…are we bringing people to God or keeping people from God with our actions?

I want to make four points of application from Jesus’ actions that I believe can help us be zealous for God.

1. Drive out what doesn’t belong. [v.15]. The bible tells us that as believers we are the temple of God. The Holy Spirit resides in the believer. Just like the things that didn’t belong in the temple in Jesus day, there are things that do not belong in the life of a believer…drive them out! Each of us are different and struggle with various things, but some things just don’t belong in the life of a believer. Lust and perversion don’t belong in the life of a believer, pride and arrogance don’t belong in the life of a believer, alcohol and drug abuse don’t belong in the life of a believer, gossip and idle talk don’t belong in the life of a believer....the list could go on but you get the point....drive those things out.

You can’t do this in your own power, but by God’s grace and in the power of Christ who lives in you…they can be driven out. Pray Lord help me to drive out the things in my life that do not bring you honor and glorify your name. In fact, that’s a good way to identify what doesn’t belong…if it doesn’t honor God or bring God glory…it probably doesn’t belong.

2. Overturn what’s been wronged [v.15]: we’ve all been wronged in some way, but like wise, we all have wronged someone else as well. You may not be able to do anything about how you’ve been wrong, but you can do something about who you have wronged. This is not something pleasant. Nobody wants to go to someone and say, I was wrong for how I treated you…and I’m sorry. But if we are truly going to be zealous for God we must overturn where we’ve wronged others.

Jesus and Paul taught this, if you are at the altar and you recall your brother has something against you, go and make it right and then come back and worship. A couple of years ago I ran into an old friend from High School, I hadn’t seen for a long time. The Lord brought back to my mind an argument we had had that was never settled. I tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t help the guilt. I told them how sorry I was for behaving the way I did and how sorry I was for it. They didn’t even remember the incident I recalled to them so I kind of felt silly, but that didn’t matter, I was wrong and I had to overturn it.

3. Do not allow disregard. [v.16]: Just as Jesus wouldn’t allow disregard for the temple of God, we should not allow disregard in our own walk with God. What do I mean by that? Both of these prior points lead to a disregard for the things of God. If we are the temple of the Holy Spirit as believers, as the bible says we are, then to allow things to stay in our life that don’t belong, and to not overturn when we’ve wrong others is to show disregard for God…and that’s not being zealous for God. Does the sin in your life bother you to the point it drives you to our knees and you plead for God’s mercy? Or do you disregard it as, Oh I’m a sinner and I’ll always be a sinner. True, but do we sin so that grace may abound??? Absolutely not!!! that’s blatant disregard for God! Yes we are sinners and always will be but as redeemed people we should strive to be Christ like, we should want to imitate Christ, we should have a holy zeal for the things of God. If we are truly going to be zealous people for God we must...

4. cling to the teaching of the scripture [v.17]: Jesus quoted scripture to show the people that they had become what God told then not to become. Last week we saw the people cheering for Jesus coming into the city, passionate and quoting scripture…but they were wrong in how they understood the scriptures. If we are to be truly zealous for God, we must, must, must cling to the clear and true teaching of the holy scripture.

Popular today is cut and paste the word of God to fit my believes…no, no, no our belief is founded on what the word of God says…period. Not what we want it to say. Are you zealous for God? If you are you do all these things, throwing out what doesn’t belong, overturning wrongs, not allowing disregard in, and clinging to the scriptures…if you want to be zealous for God respond like Jesus.

let’s pray…we’ll return to this again next week