Welcome to PowerPoint with Jack Graham. If I'm going to have revival in my life, if we're going to have revival in the church, if we're going to have revival in the nation, it's not going to take place with the Republicans or the Democrats or the White House. It's going to take place in the church. On today's PowerPoint, Dr. Graham brings a message about how you can have a powerful cleansing and consecration before the Lord.
Now here's Dr. Graham with his message, Jesus is in the house. Take God's Word to the 21st chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. We're going to read together verses 12 to 26. And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple.
And He overturned the tables of the money changers and the saints of those who sold pigeons. And He said to them, it is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer. but you have made it a den of thieves or robbers. And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them. But when the chief priest and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, note that, the wonderful things that he did.
What a wonder is Jesus our Lord. Miracles, powerful acts have changed lives. And the children were crying out in the temple, Hosanna to the Son of David. meaning Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is Lord and Christ.
And these religious leaders, they were indignant, infuriated. And they said to Him, do you hear what these are saying? And Jesus said to them, yes. Have you never heard or read out of the mouths of infants and nursing babes, you have prepared praise. The cleansing of the temple.
and in this cleansing or consecrating of the temple by Christ we have really a blueprint for the believer as to how we also can experience a powerful cleansing and consecration before the Lord which is really what revival is. That we get our lives right with God and revived in His presence, that we fulfill the purpose for which we have been created, which is to praise God. The greatest lesson that we can learn as followers of Jesus is that we are indwelt, that Christ is alive in us, that we are temples of the Holy Spirit. The temple in the Old Testament is God's object lesson for His temple in the New Testament which is His people. It's been said that in the Old Testament God had a temple for His people.
And now in the New Testament era following Christ God has a people for His temple. You, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. But what happened at the temple so long ago with Christ cleansing that temple can happen in you and me and needs to happen in you and me today.
Now Jesus, He is love incarnate. He is filled with compassion and kindness, full of grace and mercy. What happens in the temple in this case follows Jesus standing beside the Mount of Olives over Jerusalem and with copious tears he is pouring out his heart before God. He is weeping that he is now being rejected. He said, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you to myself like a hen would gather its brute.
Jesus wept on several occasions.
So the great heart of God is throbbing in the body of Jesus. Yes, He is the Savior of love, full of grace, but The God who is full of love is also full of light. He is full of grace and truth. And Jesus is righteous and holy. He is not only the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, but at times He displays the fact that He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
And here we see Jesus the Lamb who becomes Jesus the Lion, boldly staking His claim on what is rightfully His in the temple. It might surprise you to know that the common view that many have of Jesus as being a sanctimonious, pale recluse is not the picture of Jesus we have in the Gospels. Jesus was a man's man. He was God's man. but masculine through and through and he was at times when needed, when necessary confrontational and combative and he was controversial.
This is what ultimately led him to the cross. Rejected in order that he might redeem us. but Jesus confronts error. He combats false religion and in this case what we're reading in the Gospels is Jesus attacks corruption of religion. The corruption of the religion that is expressed going on right in the temple.
Jesus is in the house so Jesus walks up and he cleansed the temple. And I have three simple points today in this passage and we're going to talk about his right, the right of Jesus to cleanse the temple. We're going to talk about the reason that Jesus cleanses the temple. And then we're going to see the results of what happened when Jesus cleansed the temple. What is his right?
He has a right because Jesus said, my house shall be called a house of prayer. What did he say? My house. The temple is the house of the Lord. Christ lives in you.
You are the temple of God. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 19 and 20, the scripture says, do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, who you have from God, and you are not your own. For you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God. To glorify God is to magnify Him.
It is to honor Him in all things, in your body and in your spirit which are whose God So Jesus is in the house today I believe He in this place because we have prayed and asked for His presence to be here. Yes, He is in this place when His people gather, whether it's just a few or many, but He is in your life. This is the most important lesson you can learn in your Christian life that Christ is alive in you. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And He has the right, therefore, to cleanse the temple and consecrate it for the purpose that it was made.
This is God's work. And He has the right to cleanse the temple because He purchased us by His own blood on the cross, therefore we belong to Him and not only the right to purchase us because He has purchased us, but also He has the right to cleanse because He possesses us. Christ in you and you in Christ.
So He has the right to say to every one of us that your eyes and your ears and your mouth, your heart, your life, your mind, the most intimate parts of you, your feet, your hands, everything belongs to Jesus. And your house, this house, is to honor Him as a place of adoration and celebration of Christ in you. This is why He has the right to do it. He has the right to demand, not just to desire, but demand that we be sanctified as the sanctuary of God. After all, the Spirit who is in us is who?
The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God. Therefore, let this house be cleansed and consecrated to God. When Jesus walked in to the temple that day, do you wonder what He would have seen?
Josephus tells us at Passover, and this was the Passover season for the Jewish people, that they would slaughter several million lambs for the sacrifices of the Passover, and that upwards to two to three million people would have been living in tents outside of Jerusalem. pilgrims that had come from all over Israel and other parts of the world to celebrate the Passover, the one time of year in which the sacrifice was made and redemption was offered, remission for sins for the people of Israel. And of course we know that Jesus is our Passover lamb. And it's all predictive and preparatory for Him. But around and within these huge marble walls and golden pillars and these buildings glistening in the sun, Jesus walks in.
Now when Jesus walked in that day, the noise would have been terrific because all of these hundreds of thousands of people were pushing their way into the temple. The noise was terrific as well. Merchants were selling animals, birds and sheep and cattle. It might have sounded something like the Fort Worth stockyards at full throttle. And it might have smelled like it as well.
Because you had all this merchandising going on with the money changers in the temple. And you say, what was a money changer? A money changer, it was a cottage industry, if you will. Because if you came from somewhere else and you had coin, especially if you had Roman coin, or Roman money was not usable in the temple so you had to exchange your money for temple-approved money. And guess what the money changers were doing?
They were greedy and therefore they were upcharging the people.
So if you gave them, if you needed a dollar of temple coin to pay your taxes and give your offerings then they might charge you a dollar fifty for that. They were scamming. These money changers and people selling the animals, another thing that was happening, you bring your little sheep from the shepherd's field, maybe out in Bethlehem, someone looks at it, an official looks at it and says, this won't do, this one is blemished here. You have to have one of the sheep that we have prepared here, and so that's going to cost you cha-ching, cha-ching. These guys were con men.
And all of this, and it's the high priest at that time welcomed this exchange.
So Jesus walks up in the midst of all of this noise and all the rattling of the money and in the midst of all of the hypocrisy that was going on and He attacks religious corruption. He confronts it head to head and He began to flip over the tables and kicked down the chairs. Why didn't they stop him? One reason wasn't time. And his authority, his moral and physical authority, his spiritual authority was greater than all this religion and all the Romans and all the rest.
He had power and authority and anointing as the king and the Lord of the temple. And so he turns it all upside down. He's eaten up with righteous anger. He would quote the Old Testament earlier by saying, the zeal of your house has eaten me up. He is burning with the heartburn of holiness.
So he's flipping tables, and he's turning over chairs and he's scattering the money changers. What did he do? He threw them all out. He threw the bums out. That's what he did.
You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and the message, Jesus is in the house. Did you know that you can join Dr. Graham for his daily devotion? It's a study of God's word that will help you grow in your faith, encourage you in your walk with Christ and show you how to navigate through the challenges of life. To sign up, text DEVO to 59789 and begin receiving Dr.
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Now let's get back to today's message, Jesus is in the house. This is one of the scenes in the Bible that I wish I could have been there to see this. I'm hoping when we get to heaven we get to push a button and maybe see scenes from the Bible. The opening of the Red Sea, the feeding of the 5,000, and so on.
Well, this is a button I'm going to push. Maybe if we can't do that we can talk to the disciples who were front and center. They saw the whole thing. John, what did you see when this happened? our mighty miraculous Savior.
He's doing wonderful things. He's changing lives, but He's also battling for the souls of men. Yes, it was a battle that He fought for you and for me.
So, when we speak of Christ, it's not Jesus always meek and mild, soft and sentimental. No, He is a strong and powerful Savior who deals with error, who deals with sin, who deals with corruption, who deals with injustice. He makes things right and therefore He has the right to cleanse the temple. And the same Jesus who cleansed the temple that day has the right to cleanse my temple and yours. Maybe to turn some things upside down.
in our lives in order to get our attention. To flip some tables, if you will. To confront our sin. Because what these people had done was to turn the house of prayer, the house of God, the temple of the Lord into a den of thieves, of caves, of robbers. The robbers were wide out in the open, no longer living in caves out in the hills around Jerusalem.
but they turned the temple into a cave where robbers would hide in plain sight. And Jesus said no. Fact is that Jesus started His ministry as recorded in John chapter 2 with the cleansing of the temple. And now He's back to do the same thing because they were back to their old ways doing the same thing. Jesus was passionate about the people and about the place of prayer.
Is Christ at home in your heart? Is He the Lord of your temple? He has the right to do it. And the reason to do it is because my house shall be called a house of prayer. To honor and glorify.
What is prayer? Prayer is worship. Prayer is repentance. Prayer is the exaltation of Christ. Prayer is singing.
Prayer is serving. Prayer is what we do because it's who we are. We are the house of prayer. We are God's prayer center. And God has called us to pray for the nations and pray for our neighbors and to live in a constant state and steady prayer in our lives.
Jesus said you ought always to pray and never to give up. Why did God make you? Not for you. He made you to be a house of prayer and a house of praise to God. And in order for a revival to come in His church, and we are praying for a massive movement of the Spirit of God in churches today.
Isn't it interesting? It's more than interesting. It's a fact that is so true that when Jesus came to Jerusalem, He didn't head to the Antonio Fortress and take on the Romans. Pilate was there, Roman officials were there, but Jesus didn't go to the Romans. He went to the church as it were.
He went to the spiritual core of the nation. The fact is we can influence politicians and we can pray for politicians and government and the political and all the things social and economic in our country. We can be concerned about those and care about those things, but ultimately what must happen is that judgment must begin at the house of God. That's what Peter said, that's what Jesus did. The judgment began in the house of God.
And if I'm going to have revival in my life, if we're going to have revival in the church, if we're going to have revival in the nation, it's not going to take place where the Republicans or the Democrats or the White House or the Congress, it's going to take place in the church judgment by Jesus in the church, cleansing and consecrating His people to Him. When Solomon dedicated the temple to the Lord in 2 Chronicles, he said this, if my people which are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face turn from their wicked ways then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land. That was the reason that Jesus cleansed the temple. To restore it to his former glory, not His physical glory but the glory of God. He turned things upside down.
He ran these people out of the temple area because then He removed them from the temple compound. This threw them all out because He is bringing redemption to His people. His salvation that the glory of God that it would be once again a house of praise in a house of prayer and that's exactly what happened. These men were, religious leaders were, they were indignant in sense that Jesus was doing all of this. This is what ultimately put Jesus on the cross.
Religion, corrupt religion put Jesus on the cross. The Romans had their part, the secular world had their part, but ultimately the people who rejected Jesus, he came into his own, his own received him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to be called the children of God.
So what does Jesus do when the temple is cleansed? You know what happens when the temple is cleansed? Lives are changed. He healing the lame recovering sight to the blind The Bible tells us that the God of this age has blinded the eyes of those who do not know God And when the church is revived when the temple is cleansed there will be the opening of blind eyes, salvation, and spiritual rebirth. Those whose lives are lamed and broken by sin will recover and get up and begin walking and purpose again.
Why? Because then the church is revived. I said it last week, evangelism can happen apart from revival, but revival can never happen apart from evangelism. And what happened in the Jesus movement when those young people were being revived in their spirits before God, they went out everywhere telling people about Jesus up and down the coast and all across America. This is what the cleansed temple does when Jesus is in the house.
everyone is welcome. The broken, the lame, the blind, all can come to Jesus. And the little children were praising Him. Your house will become a house of, the house where Jesus lives will be a house of prayer, it will be a house of power, and it will be a house of praise as your life then praises God in the purity and the sanctity of a life lived out in the presence of Jesus. God's cleaning house.
You know decluttering is a thing now. We're talking about decluttering your house. No mess, no stress. Could it be that Jesus wants to clean house in you today? To declutter your life, to discard some things in us that will cleanse us and consecrate us to Himself.
Let's begin a spiritual journey today to the cross. And let's open our lives up. You know, Jesus may choose to take the whip. In John chapter 2 it tells us that He took a whip of cords and He drove them out. How did He throw all these guys out this second time?
I don't know, maybe He made another whip. but Jesus may take the whip of discipline at times in us in order to cleanse the temple. Whom the Lord loves, He chastens and scourges every son. Hebrews.
So God, let God discipline you. And discard those things in our lives that are unholy and unclean and ungodly. May we be once again a temple where the Lord is the Lord of all. Thank you. text September to 59789.
Did you know that you can join Dr. Graham for his daily devotion? It's a study of God's word that will help you grow in your faith, encourage you in your walk with Christ, and show you how to navigate through the challenges of life. To sign up, text Devo to 59789 and begin receiving Dr. Graham's devotional every day.
Again, text Devo to 59789. Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today? The goal of every believer's life should be to honor King Jesus, to live for His glory, to magnify Him in His worship, in His will, in His ways, in His work every day. The Bible tells us that we are, we believers, are the temple of the Holy Spirit, that we are not our own, that we have been bought with the price, the precious blood of Jesus, that we now belong to him. Jesus belongs to us, but first and foremost, we belong to him.
And I want to challenge you today to consider any and everything that is coming before your eyes or into your heart, into your mind that doesn't honor or please God, that you would ask him to remove those things, that you would ask him for the strength and the power to overcome temptation in your life so that your body, your mind, your soul, your spirit would please him in every way. Give him your thoughts, your ideas, your imagination. Ask him to take control of you, every part of you. I remember as a young person going to youth camp, we had a camp song that really was instrumental in helping me to hear the will of God for my life. And it simply said, I take hands off my life.
I take hands off my life. It is no longer mine. And somehow that stuck in my heart and I still remember it all these years that I want to take hands off and give my life completely to the Lord Jesus and honor him and please him with every part of my life. If you find yourself way behind in this, if you find yourself failing in this, then right now, stop wherever you are. Ask God to cleanse your temple, your body, forgive you of your sin.
And if there are areas specifically in your life that need changing, ask God for the power and the strength to change your life through the work of the Holy Spirit in you. Jesus loves you and he loves you with the greatest love imaginable. And this love should prompt us to live for him and to love him with all of our hearts. And that is today's PowerPoint. Remember, when you give a gift of $10 or more, we'll send you Dr.
Graham's book, The Lord is My Shepherd. Just text September to 59789. And join us again next time as Dr. Graham brings a message about a kind of love that only comes from knowing God. That's next time on PowerPoint with Jack Graham.
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