Ch. 16 In His Temple

This chapter is based on John 2:12-22

It is a hot potato..because of how the incident is explained/perceived.
It is a matter of inspiration, experience, perception and maturity to even get close to what transpired.....without the aid of an audio visual record.

Notice that Jesus didn't call any of them aside privately and request to discuss the matter.

He didn't ask to see the person in charge and file a formal complaint.

He didn't contact a lawyer and file a lawsuit.

He didn't say..oh vey, Father, this is really disappointing.

This is one of the most interesting chapters of Jesus’ life. For 18 years he lived in quiet obscurity. Maybe he visited the Temple in Jerusalem several times a year as required, or maybe he just hung around Nazareth and didn’t travel. Following his baptism and connection to the Holy Spirit, he does something quite out of character with his gentle nature.

The Great Keepers of Religion, guarding their little nugget of truth, didn’t even understand what little they had. Their religion had degenerated into a set of mostly man-made rules. These “Guardians of Truth” instead used the system of confession of sin and sacrifices for repentance, ordained by God, to make obscene profits from the honest-hearted worshippers who wanted to obey the LORD’s commands.

These so-called Guardians valued money far more than they valued people, because their hearts had turned into stone, one of the symptoms of greed. Oblivious to the importance of the act of confession and repentance, and ignorant that their own thoughts and acts were being recorded in their life records, instead of helping someone who didn’t have enough money to buy a sacrifice, they turned them away.

As he stood on the Temple steps, Jesus could read the minds of those present with Spirit power, and the guilty knew he was reading their thoughts, too. Maybe that’s why he didn’t clear the Temple much sooner, not until he received Holy Spirit power.

Only the Holy Spirit can connect us to God to save us from the curse of selfishness. Only the Holy Spirit can protect us from closing our hearts and minds to revelation. Today, we must be careful not to straight-jacket ourselves into a belief system, making it difficult to accept new truth when it arrives. Then we, too, would completely miss the target, like the Keepers of Religion did, wearing their blinders in days of old.

We can look back at some of Jesus' actions and words to those who opposed him, thinking that maybe he was a little too harsh for our modern sensibilities. One advantage Jesus had was that he already knew who would choose to be a subject of his Kingdom. Having already seen the future before he became one of us, he knew who would never accept his teachings, and who would turn against him, no matter how daintily they were treated. They had already chosen their master.

He had to rebuke the leaders and their practices publicly so the common people would become aware that there was problem with the current system. His rebukes were aimed at leaders with great influence and responsibility. Jesus never treated the common people with any severity at all, only with patience and kindness and gentleness.

The religion had turned into a highly profitable business for the priests and leaders, with little or no spiritual impact. The Keepers of Religion became angry that Jesus interrupted their scamming and profiteering and caused them to lose money. Maybe his attack on the money tables and his release of the sacrificial animals jeopardized their retirement plans.

Their outrage and accusations of blasphemy were only a cover story. He was a threat to their beliefs and practices and income, so they had to find something to prove him wrong and themselves right, typical human nature. We all do that until we become humble.

It probably didn't take long for things to return to "normal", though. Three years later Jesus had to repeat the scene, another reminder that the religious leaders had misread the roadmap to the Kingdom of the Stars, lost their way, and were giving the wrong directions to the people.

The Keepers of Religion and the Temple merchants had no connection to God. All they had were the rules, regulations, and income from their religion. When Jesus read their minds, the guilty attempted to cover their faces, trying to hide from the One who laid bare their selfish motives.

During a long, painful silence, a sense of awe overpowered the assembly, now stopped in its tracks. Jesus' voice thunders, echoing through the Temple complex. It was the same voice that thundered from Mt. Sinai, striking fear into the primitive little Earthlings far below. He picked up a simple whip made of cords, which to the crowd about to flee, looked as deadly as a flaming sword.

Shaken, the merchants, priests, and officials all bolt for the exits. Even his disciples react in fear as the crowd rushes to escape from those burning eyes. After all of the tables were down and the animals were running loose on the streets of Jerusalem, peace descended onto the Holy Site. After enduring a marketplace experience of many, many years, Jesus at last brought silence to the Temple erected in his honor.

This Act of Expulsion was a parable, also. The Temple, so recently polluted by greed and noise and scandal, is like the heart of man, darkened and defiled by evil. When evil desires are removed from the heart, the Spirit of God can make its home within. Only Christ can cleanse the soul temple, the place where our spirit dwells, but only if he is asked. He will remove our evil desires and fill our hearts with hope and purity and peace and healing.

Remaining behind during the sudden exodus were the sick and the poor, the very ones despised by the Keepers of Religion, Guardians of Nothing, the Teachers of Selfishness and Intolerance.

After those who fled recovered from their panic, the priests and rulers returned to find the very people they despised praising God for being healed. The Poor of Earth are the kind of people who will populate the Kingdom of the Stars, not those who try to control other peoples lives or try to make a lot of money off of them or buy a lot of stuff for themselves.

The Temple of those days was a miniature model of the system used to delete evil acts and thoughts from an individual's life record, located far, far away across space and time. It wasn't the rituals and ceremonies of that time that cleared one's records: It was the prayer of a contrite heart. The Lord instituted the object lesson of confession of repented sins and killing the now-contaminated animals to explain a concept otherwise difficult to visualize.

All who are contaminated by the Virus of Evil must be completely destroyed someday. Anyone free of the virus will have their purified memories downloaded into perfect bodies at the End of the World. Only Jesus can remove evil from our life records, and only if we ask. This is the lesson of the Sanctuary we must understand and share, not as preachers, but as friends.

When Jesus responded to the priests' demands for a sign to prove his authority to clear the Temple of commercial operations, he answered them in a parable, fully knowing that they would misconstrue his words and later use them against him. Even his followers weren't ready to to know that he would be dead in less than 3 years. Only after rising from the dead would his disciples understand what he meant.

The Earthly Sanctuary was just a temporary structure, a primitive copy of something much more fabulous. Both the Priesthood and the Sacrifices foreshadowed his mission. Without Christ, the Earthly Temple and its sacrifices were worthless.

So it is with us today. Without Christ, our wealthy, worldwide organizations are worthless and our churches degenerate into social clubs. Anyone who doesn't work for God works against him, and will be cast into outer darkness, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

We can read what Jesus wants us to do. If we don't do what he asks, we don't love him, or the Father. If we do what he asks, he will come into us, and dwell with us. We can cling to our precious, stinking Earth-garbage, or throw it away, wash up, and hold our hands out to receive something infinitely better, the Gift of Life.

There's a good sermon on this topic at:

http://www.amazingfacts.org/media/everlasting_gospel.asp

titled "Cleansing the temple".

I listened to the amazing facts sermon linked above and thought it was well said. I'd like to work for that organization. Their evangelistic worker training program is rather costly, though. Sometimes I wonder if more church members=more money, to some.

Lately, I've been thinking about getting baptized. The last time I was baptized was with a group that turned out to be a cult. Its leader, Wayne Bent, is now in Arizona, so I've heard, apparently claiming to be Michael, the archangel.

I hope my thinking is no longer colored by that experience. They were so merciless to those who didn't conform or obey. That's why I was excommunicated: failure to obey their commands, more than 15 years ago. It's a sorry, unhappy existence, when your religion goes amok. Makes me want to stay away from church and preachers.

This has been such a fantastic chapter, Clearing the Temple. Personally, there's still too much space in my own temple occupied by selfishness and negativity. Remodeling is in progress, though. I hope to replace s&n with generosity and positivity as we study this great book and the Bible.

Hey Aliensanctuary, I'm glad you checked it out! That's awesome you want to work with Amazing Facts. They seem like a great organization. As far as the tuition, I believe that they have subsidies for it if it's needed. Hope you decide to get rebaptized. That'd be wonderful.