House of Prayer - Zeal for His House
October 19, 2019      |     By: Sam McVay, Jr.      |      Category: Sermons      |      Location: Wichita
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John 2:13-22 (ESV)
13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there.
15 And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.
16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.”
17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”
19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”
21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body.
22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

The focus of the Temple was not on the Divine PERSON but rather on Temple PROCESS.

When we shift from the PERSON of our faith to the PROCESS of our faith, we digress into a “market mentality” with the Lord.

Yes, there was unfair trade happening around the sacred sacrificial system but it did not start there. It started when it surrendered its core identity and culture of being a House of Prayer.

Jesus, at the beginning and the end of His ministry, deals with the central location, heart, of Israel’s worship.

He knows that they have lost a culture of worship and prayer and thus will miss His coming.

But he passionately moves to make His prophetic declarations about their hearts.

They remember Psalm 69:9 which literally says, “Zeal for your house has eaten me up.”

This zeal has a dimension of Holy anger but it is rooted in passionate love!

It is His love for their hearts not His frustration about their process that motivates His cleansing work.

Just as he was not talking about the literal Temple when he said “tear it down and I will rebuild in three days”, I believe he is talking about more when he says “Do not make my Father’s House a House of Trade”.

This has two significant applications for us in these last days.
1) Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, with Zealous Love, is tearing through the Temple that is His people in order to overturn our compromising process to restore us to His glorious Person.
2) The Lord is raising up a people Zealous for the restoration of His House of Prayer who are resisting a critical spirit yet boldly praying for and proclaiming the true identity of the Lord’s House.

We are globally in the midst of a mighty cleansing that will shift us to another place of Presence, Purpose, and Power!

So be not be dismayed or shocked with the intensity of the Zeal that the Lord is manifesting as He restores His House of Prayer for all Nations.