In this sermon, the preacher discusses the second cleansing of the temple by Jesus. He explains that this event is a picture of the heart and ministry of Jesus. Jesus enters the temple and drives out those who were selling, declaring that the temple should be a house of prayer, not a den of robbers. The religious leaders try to destroy Jesus, but he continues to teach daily in the temple. The sermon also suggests studying the story in the context of the history of the convenience animals and the contrast between outer glory and inner corruption.

Our Father, we do praise you again that we can come to this place, pause for these moments and meditate upon your precious word. We know that when we see the Lord Jesus, then we are satisfied, then we are changed. And so we'd ask to guide our meditations this morning that we might focus indeed upon him and seeing him that we might become more like him. We pray that we might be completely detached from all that would concern us and capture our attention and that we would be able to focus with simplicity and clarity upon the Lord himself. Guide us, we pray, in our fellowship and we thank you in advance in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus. Amen. Okay, I'll ask you to turn please to Luke chapter 19, the end of Luke 19 and while you're turning there I'll sort of catch you up on the background where we are. Last week we introduced this final section of Luke's gospel from chapter 19 verse 29 to the end to chapter 24. We see our Lord Jesus as the savior and the hope of all mankind. We have seen him as the son of all mankind, we've seen him as the teacher of all mankind and now we're going to look at Jesus as the savior of all mankind. This is now the climax of Luke, the victory of the son of man. Last week we looked at the first event in Passion Week. In other words, we've come to the last week in the life of the Lord Jesus and last week we studied or we looked at Palm Sunday. Now according to Luke, his account, God gives us two foundational stories and the whole victory of the son of man then follows with six stories. So two foundations and then he gives us six things that show us the victory of our savior as the son of man. The first we've looked at, the triumphal entry and then today I'd like us to look at verses 45 to 48, the second cleansing of the temple. These two events give us in a picture this final stage of his ministry. In other words, the triumphal entry answers the question, who is this? And then the cleansing of the temple answers the question, what is he coming to do, what's he doing? Last time we answered the question, who is this who's on his way to the cross? And the answer is, he is the Lord of the universe. If you missed that tape, just ask Lillian and she'll be glad to give that to you. He's the Lord of the universe, riding meekly on a humble animal and crying his eyes out for all who reject. That's who he is, we saw that last time. The story we look at this morning, Luke chapter 19, beginning in verse 45, gives us the second answer. The question is, why is he coming, what's he going to do? And the answer is, he's coming to cleanse his temple. This is an object lesson, it's a picture and it tells us the heart and the ministry of our Lord Jesus. Glance, if you would, at verse 45, let's read through verse 48. Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling, saying to them, it is written, my house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers. And he was teaching daily in the temple, but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy him. They could not find anything that they might do for all the people were hanging on every word that he said. Rather than discuss the verse by, or the section by going verse by verse, let me give you a little historical background and suggest an approach to this passage. In other words, there are several suggestions that will help you get the maximum benefit out of this cleansing of the temple. Let me set that before you and then we'll home in on the principles. My first observation, and it's important, is that this is the second cleansing of the temple. He did it twice. He did it once at the beginning of his ministry. John is the only one that records that. John chapter 2, verses 12 to 25, almost immediately after he turned the water to wine, he went from Capernaum up to Jerusalem and cleansed the temple. John gives us great detail about that first cleansing, how he made a scourge and drove out the people and drove out the animals, overthrew tables and chairs and the money changers and money was all over the place. The Bible says, zeal for my father's house has eaten me up. The word zeal in the original is the word jealous. Jealousy has eaten me up and it was love that caused him to cleanse the temple. But now we're at the end of his ministry. He began his ministry by cleansing the temple and now at the end he does the same thing again. Luke doesn't mention the violence with which he cleansed the temple this second time. All we get in Luke is verse 45, he began to drive out those who were selling and buying. He doesn't tell us as Matthew does that he overturned tables and chairs and threw the money on the floor again as he did the first time. Mark tells us that he blocked the entrance. Some people were not going through the temple in order to worship. They were going through the temple because it was a handy shortcut and they could get from point A to B just by going through the temple course. Well he put a stop to that too. He said no shortcuts through the temple. We'll talk about that in another connection. But my point is when we come to this passage it is instructive to remember that this is the second cleansing of the temple. All things being equal you would just guess if he began his ministry with a certain symbolic act and then he ended his ministry with the same symbolic act that that symbolic act must have a tremendous significance. And so that's the first suggestion, study it as the second cleansing, the consummation of his ministry, which we will do in a moment. My second suggestion is study this cleansing in the light of Jeremiah chapter 7. Jeremiah chapter 7 sheds a great deal of light on this second cleansing. One reason that you'll get to Jeremiah 7 is Luke quotes it. In Luke chapter 1946 it's written, my house shall be a house of prayer. You've made it a den of thieves. See that's in Jeremiah chapter 7. Jeremiah chapter 7 is very interesting because this is not the first time the temple was cleansed. Listen as I quote Jeremiah 7, 1 and 2. The word came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, stand in the gate of the Lord's house, proclaim there this word, say, hear the word of the Lord all you of Judah who enter the gates to worship the Lord. Jeremiah cleansed the temple hundreds of years before this. Jesus was pattering and patterning his cleansing after Jeremiah. When we read the scriptures it helps to think like those who were there. We sort of come and slap on our own culture and what we know. There's no doubt in my mind the religious leaders, they knew their Bible and when this started they thought Jeremiah again. Here he is all over again. They thought Jeremiah 7. Jeremiah didn't flip over tables and chairs and things like that but he certainly busted up the service back then. They were in the temple and he ran into the temple and here's his opening word. Jeremiah 7, 4. Do not trust in deceptive words saying this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. That's how he started. Right in the middle of their service. He said deceptive words. You see they were using the temple as an asylum to hide from their sin. They were wicked, wicked people. Listen to Jeremiah 7, 9. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, walk after other gods, then come stand before me in this house which is called by my name and say we are delivered. He said that's it. How can you do it? You come to the temple, you're wicked in your heart and then you come to the temple as the cover up. And it's for that reason that Jeremiah called it a den of robbers. In verse 11 of chapter 7, this house called by my name has become a den of robbers. Behold I, even I have seen it, declares the Lord. A den of robbers is where robbers hide out after the crime is done. They don't rob the den. That's their hideout. That's their asylum. That's where they go after the crime is done. And Jeremiah said you are wicked in your heart and then you come to the temple and pretend you're so spiritual. And you use the temple as a hiding place for your sin. And that's why he called it a den of thieves and a den of robbers because thieves were going in there and they were hiding behind the altar and the sacrifices and the prayer book and the song book and the table and the book, the Bible, and they were hiding behind that pretending that they were spiritual. But he said God sees your heart. You can't use the temple as a hiding place. And that's why he cleansed the temple because on the outside it looked good but the people who were going in there were rogues. They were scoundrels and their hearts were dirty. And so he cleansed the temple to illustrate that. If you get a chance to read Jeremiah 7, I think it will cast a lot of light on Luke chapter 19. By the way, if you're planning to do something like that, go into somebody's temple and flip over tables, make sure you have the mind of the Lord on that. I tell you that because in my old days when I had, before I saw the Lord really, I knew the Lord but I didn't see him as my life. And I thought God had saved me to change the world and all. And I had zeal that was not with wisdom and knowledge. I won't tell you the name of the church, but in Chicago there was a church and I felt like they weren't teaching the truth. And so I stood on the church steps as people filed in and I warned them about all the error inside that church. And I got arrested. I was taken away in Chicago. So make sure if you're going to try to do something like that, that you really know the Lord's mind on that. I honestly believe that nobody in this room would have liked me back then. If you had seen the things, poor Lillian stuck with me, she's a gem, but it was quite a terrible time. Anyway, that's my second suggestion, study the cleansing in the light of Luke, I mean of Jeremiah chapter 7. My third suggestion to gain the maximum benefit in this cleansing of the temple is to contrast the outer glory with the inner corruption. And that'll give you the point. There's no doubt about it, the physical temple in the days of the Lord Jesus was magnificent. It had been destroyed by the Babylonians. It had been rebuilt in the restoration by Zerubbabel. It had been broken down a little since then. And in the days of Herod, there was this great enlargement and beautification of the temple. They worked on it for almost 50 years, thousands of workers for about 50 years. The temple was magnificent. Josephus, the historian, tells us there was so much polished brass and gold on the outside of the temple that it was almost virtually impossible to see, to look at the temple in the morning sun. It was so magnificent and it was blinding to your eyes. The outside of the temple was actually planned that way, to catch the rays of the sun and reflect it. And so it was just a blinding thing. Listen to Matthew 24-1. Jesus came out from the temple and was going away and his disciples came up to him and pointed out to him, as if he needed that, all the temple buildings. See, they were awestruck. And as they went there, the disciples said to Jesus, did you see that? Look at that temple, it is so beautiful, it's so magnificent. Have you ever seen anything like it? Look at the courts, look at the porticoes, look at the pillars, look at the radiance of the... and they are trying to impress Jesus. The disciples are saying, look at those buildings, have you ever seen anything like that? And then the Bible says that the Lord Jesus broke out in tears. Not just tears that run down your cheek, the Hebrew word, I mean the Greek word is so very strong, it's wailing. He began to cry out and to wail and to sob. They saw the glory of the temple. Here is what he saw, verse 41 of 19. When he approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept and said, if you had known this day the things which make for beasts, now they are hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, surround you, and you in on every side. They will level you to the ground, your children within you. They'll not leave one stone upon another because you did not recognize the day of your visitation. In other words, Jesus saw devastation. He didn't see that beautiful temple. He saw ashes and not one stone left upon another. He saw an army coming against him. There's no doubt that he was talking about the invasion 40 years after this when Titus, the Roman emperor, went and destroyed Jerusalem. But the point I'm making is if you're going to understand this, they're looking at the outside and they're seeing all the glory. He sees what's going on on the inside and his heart is so moved. His jealousy begins to eat him up because of what he sees on the inside. The reality is when he predicts the destruction of the temple, what he was saying in effect is this. I'm flipping over tables today. I'm flipping over chairs today. If you don't respond, there'll be a day when I'll flip over the whole temple and not one stone will be left upon another. Sadly, that came to pass. So that's the third way to get the maximum benefit. Study it as a second cleansing, a climax of his ministry. Study it in the light of Jeremiah chapter 7. Study it in the contrast between outer glory and inner corruption. One more suggestion. To gain the maximum benefit from this wonderful story, study it in the background, the history of the convenience animals. Let me just tell you that story and ask you to trust me on it. And then go home and look it up. You have a responsibility to check it out yourself. It was required for all Jewish men. It was allowed for the women and children, but they weren't commanded. But the Jewish men were commanded three times a year to make an annual pilgrimage or pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Once in the first month at Passover, once in the third month, and then in the seventh month. If God ordered vacation, they had to take it or disobey God. Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing if God commanded you to take a vacation? Well, they had to do that. And what they had to do was they had to come to Jerusalem and bring their animals and offer sacrifices, especially on this high day, the Passover day. But, you know, as you do that year after year after year, the old mind begins to work and says there must be an easier way. They have to come and bring all these bulls and all these sheep and some could only afford doves and those who couldn't afford doves were allowed to come with a pinch of flour. God would accept that in the place of a lamb. It is such a marvelous provision. God wanted everybody to come. So what they came up with was these convenience animals. You've come all these miles, you don't have to bring a lamb with you. Tell you what, we'll have one here and all you have to do is buy it. We'll have a bull here and all you have to do is buy it. So they set up a marketplace inside what was called the court of the Gentiles and they had all of these animals. There's a good chance, remember when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the shepherds were out watching their flock. Probably they had these animals that were going to be sold for these annual pilgrimages. For a fee, you could rent your space for an animal. And for another fee, you could pay a priest to examine your animal to make sure it was ceremonially clean, that there were no marks or blemishes on it. For another fee, you could pay for feed. For another fee, you could pay for the animal. And Roman money was not accepted in the Holy Temple, so they had money changers. They had these booths where you could change Roman currency into temple currency for a fee. And this became a big money making operation. And that's what was going on when Jesus came, and I'm going to touch on that background again. But if you study this second cleansing in the light of the fact that it's a summary of his ministry, it's in the background of Jeremiah chapter 7, it's contrasting the inner corruption with the outer glory, and that it's in terms of these convenience animals, which, by the way, foreshadowed our Lord Jesus. They were pictures of what he was going to do. Then I think it will help you get to the heart of God and see the message. Having said that, and I've done some of that donkey work for you, so let's begin to look at this section. Why did Jesus begin and end his ministry with the cleansing of the temple? And I think the answer is because the temple was God's picture of his people in union with him. Now every word of that is important, as you'll see throughout this study. His heart was set on living in a clean temple. Glance, if you would, at verse 45. Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and buying. He only began to drive them out. When did he finish driving them out? And the answer is four days later, when he hung upon the cross. This was the beginning of the final cleansing, and that was finally done when he died upon the cross. That was always his mission, right at the start all the way to the end, that God would have a clean temple in which to live and to express himself. Now let me give you the spiritual side of the temple, and then we'll try to home in on God's heart. We just sort of think that the temple was always with us. You open the Old Testament, and they always had the temple. No, they didn't always have the temple. The temple was not given for 3,000 years after Adam. In other words, there was no temple before that. God created man, and it was 3,000 years later that he gave the temple. What did he give before the temple? I like to picture it as the seed, and the seed grows, and there's a blossom, and the blossom grows, and there's a fruit. That's how the Bible's written, by the way. The Old Testament is the seed. The New Testament was the tabernacle. Remember, God gave the tabernacle. Now, he did that on purpose, because that's the seed. I'm not going to get into the whole tabernacle, but I'll give you the heart of it. What was the tabernacle? And the answer is, of course, it was portable. They could carry it with them. It was their little temple. The tabernacle was a house made out of skin in which he wanted to put his glory. Now, that's the fact. Now, just think about that. A house made out of skin. In which God's glory would dwell. You don't have to take a giant step to just look at yourself and see yourself as a house made out of skin in which he desires to fill with his glory. That was the first picture that God gave. He said, I want you to understand. I want to dwell in my people. I want to live in them and fill them with my glory and radiate through them. Later, God moved to the temple in the days of David and Solomon. The temple was the most glorious thing you could ever look at with human eyes. It was magnificent. What did they do with the tabernacle when God gave the temple? Did they throw it away? Did they sell it? Did they burn it? What did they do with the tabernacle? And the answer is, God said, fold it up and put it in the temple. And so, there's your seed. And the seed now becomes the temple. The tabernacle grew into the temple. The house of skin grew into the house of glory. The next stage we have, I'm going to just quote you some verses. Here you have a house of skin. Picture. Then you have a house of glory. Picture. But the house of skin is in the house of glory. So I'll fold it up. And it now becomes the house of skin and the house of glory. God takes the next step, which is not the final step. Listen as I quote these verses. 1 Corinthians 3.16 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells in you? House of skin. House of glory. You. That's the next step. The tabernacle. The temple. His people. Us. We. 1 Corinthians 3.17 If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy and that is what you are. 1 Corinthians 6.19 Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. 2 Corinthians 6.16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? We are the temple of the living God. Just as God said, I will dwell in them. I will walk among them. I will be their God. They shall be my people. 1 Peter 2.5 You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. We just sort of read, Jesus cleansed the temple. Think of the temple. What is the temple? Because that's an object lesson. And the answer is, we are the temple in union with Christ. So it's the tabernacle house of skin, the temple house of glory, the Christian house of skin, house of glory. There's one more development. I won't give you that. I'll give it to you before today. I mean before we're finished, but not right now. Let me illustrate a couple of the cheap things. As God comes to cleanse this temple, that's why we started singing that song. Some of you missed our beautiful singing. But we sang, Search me, O God, and know my heart today. Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray. See if there be some wicked way in me. Cleanse me from every sin. Set me free. See, that's the temple singing. We sang. We were his temple. And we're asking him to throw the tables over in our heart, to flip over the chair. I want to show you a little bit of what that means in a practical way. Verse 45, 1945, Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and buying. These dear folks, I'm not saying it was intentional. I know some of the religious leaders had wicked hearts. But they began to take for granted that which pictured the precious blood of the Lord Jesus. They began to put a price tag on salvation. The Lord Jesus came in. Now, you've got to remember, where is he going? This is Passion Week, folks. He's on his way to the cross. There has been oceans of animal blood shed on Jewish altars. Oceans of blood to picture the ocean fullness of the blood of the Lord Jesus. He's on his way to the cross. And he goes into the temple. And they had set up these convenience animals. And it's noisy. A temple should be a place where you can meditate and praise the Lord and worship and adore him. He comes in and there's the cooing of the doves and the mooing of the cows and whatever other animals make their noises. And the buying of the sheep. And as he goes through, everybody's trying to make a dollar and save a dollar. And he's on his way to the cross. He's going to go down. He is the lamb. And he looks at the lamb. And this table is competing with this table. And this one is crying. They're crying out. They're huckstering. And they're crying out and saying, Over here. Buy your sheep here. Cheap sheep. What do you think went through his mind when he heard cheap sheep? He is the lamb of God. They had lost the glory, the fullness of all that this meant. Everything was convenience now. They had money in their pocket. They could just buy it. Get your sin cleansed. Ten dollars. And that's how it was going. And he was about to pour out his blood in an infinite cost. And you could see how his pure heart was so overwhelmed with this. They had the money table set up, you know. They wouldn't accept foreign money. I think this speaks of mixture in God's holy temple. You know, the world brings its coin. We say, Well, now we're Christians. We can't accept that. But we'll change it for you. And we'll make a little change to make it acceptable. And so they had that change. We see the money changes in the temple today where presumption is allowed to pass for trust. Laziness is allowed to pass for rest in the Lord. And form is allowed to pass for reality. And positive thinking is allowed to pass for faith. And scholarship is allowed to pass for revelation. We have our own money tables. Okay, we'll exchange it just to make it acceptable. It must have broken the heart of our Lord Jesus to see. Now, we don't have today. We don't offer animal sacrifices. By the way, we're still under the sacrificial system. Someone said, I'm glad I didn't live back then. Got to bring all those animals. You do live back then. You still have to bring a sacrifice. I hope you don't try to get to God without a sacrifice. You say, I haven't had to bring a sacrifice. Yes, you have. You see, you bring the reality. You don't bring the picture. They brought the picture. But when we come to God, we hold up Jesus. That's our sacrifice. We're still bringing a sacrifice. Only we're bringing the reality now. And so, it broke his heart. We don't have those sacrifices today. I suppose the closest picture we have is the Lord's table. You know, the Eucharist. And I think we can do the same thing they did. We can lose the value of that and cheapen salvation and take it in an unthinking way. That pictures the death of our Savior. And we ought to have real worship when we come in. Anyway, that's the first picture. Grace. The house of the Lord is a house of grace. It's not cheap. It's not this easy going believism. It costs him everything. It's also a house of prayer. Verse 46. It's written, my house shall be a house of prayer. By the way, that doesn't mean a house where prayers are said. That's not what he's saying. It's a house of prayer. Prayer is the wider word there. It's a place of fellowship with God. A place of communion. A place of worship. That's the true house of God. And Mark adds, a house of prayer for all nations. You see, one of the things that grieved the Lord as he walked in, they had what was called the court of the Gentiles. See, the Gentile, not a Jew, he could only go that far in the temple. Don't you go any further, you're a Gentile. That broke his heart. He said, this is a house of prayer for all nations. There should be no court of the Gentiles in this temple. This is for everybody to come. And that also broke the heart of the Lord Jesus. Then finally, in verse 47, he was teaching daily in the temple. Did you notice that? Don't forget, this is Passion Week. You say, how did every morning of Passion Week begin? And the answer is with Jesus teaching in the temple. Not every day of Passion Week. This stopped on Wednesday for reasons we'll touch on later. But what is the temple? It's a house of grace. It's a house of prayer. It's a house of instruction. And he can only instruct after the cleansing. In order to make this intensely practical, let me close by taking the fact and then illustrating a principle and maybe applying it just a little bit. Let me mention six things that are illustrated here. He wants to cleanse my temple, he wants to cleanse your temple. How does he do it? Number one, he weeps over and cleanses the temple of hypocrisy illustrated by the outer glory, externalism. He wants inward glory, not outer glory. If we use the temple as a cover-up, as a den, he's got to cleanse it. Number two, he weeps over the convenience animal. Anytime we look in a light-hearted way at that which pictures Christ. Anytime we get lost in the money side. He weeps over worldliness. He calls what they did, making the house a house of merchandise. All they cared about is making money. We're not going to call out any names, and I hope you don't think of any. But you know that a lot of God's people, those who claim to be delivered, they just want to get their hand in your purse and in your pocketbook. It's a tragic thing. And that's what they were doing here. Everybody trying to earn money. That makes him weep and cleanse the temple. He weeps over mixture, as I suggested, when we baptize worldly things to make it acceptable in the temple of God. He weeps over prejudice. When we have a court of the Gentiles, that we aren't all on level ground when it comes to the knowledge of God. Someone says, I go to church A, I go to church B, I belong to this denomination, that denomination. Can I suggest a denomination for you? I'll tell you which one to join. You want to join one? This is the right one. Psalm 119, verse 63. I'm a companion to all those who fear thy name. Isn't that a great church to join? A companion of everyone who fears the Lord. And that's what he was grieving over. Here's an interesting thing. Mark 11, 16. I told you that they were making shortcuts. See, they'd shop over on Jerusalem Avenue and they'd want to go to Bethlehem Court. And it was faster to go through the temple. And so they took a shortcut. Well, Jesus put a stop to that. According to Mark 11, 16, He refused to allow anyone to make a shortcut through the temple to accomplish His own thing. Let me try to illustrate that. Just in a couple of practical ways. We can make a shortcut through the temple. We're going our own place. We're going to do our own thing. But it's easier to go through the temple. It makes it more acceptable, you know. For example, we can hobnob with names, spiritual people, in order to get doors of opportunity open for us. I think that's taking a shortcut through the temple. God won't allow that. Or we can try to cozy up to those who love the Lord and have meaning. See, that sounds so spiritual. And then you talk about this big need for sin in your heart. You have cheapened. You are inclined. Rather than, cleanse me from that. If in any way you baptize worldly things to man, and a medium of exchange in the house of God, cleanse me from that. If in any way there's a court of Gentiles in your heart that you think you're better than some other Christian or some other group, that you belong to some esoteric band of spiritual hotshots, cleanse me from that. If in any way you take a shortcut through the temple, in order to get to the place you want to be, but using God and God's people and the resources of God. We need to be cleansed. Did you notice what this looks like? It's amazing to me. I read this and it's called, The Cleansing of the Temple. Right! Did you see this place after he cleansed it? Tables are upside down. Animals are stampeding through it. Chairs are on the floor. Money is everywhere. He says, there, it's clean. That's how my kids used to clean their bedroom. We call it, The Cleansing of the Temple. You know, this is the heart of God. Sometime, he comes into our life, he flips over chairs, he flips over our desires, he turns over our ambition, and we say, what is happening? He says, I'm cleaning you. I have to cleanse you. Don't despise it if God flips over a few things in your life, because you are his temple. And he must dwell in a clean temple. Let me climax with the final step. When the temple was a baby, it was a tabernacle, house of skin. And then God turned it into a house of glory. And then the Christian became the house of skin, house of glory. What's the final picture of the temple? What is the temple in fully developed form according to the scripture? It's hinted at in the first cleansing of the temple. Jesus said in John 2, 19, Destroy this temple, and in three days I'll raise it up. The Jews said it took 46 years to build this temple. Will you raise it up in three days? But he was speaking, can you finish it? The temple of his body. See, they were looking at this other temple. And he said, destroy this temple. Himself. Listen as I describe for you, Heaven. Revelation 7, 15. They are before the throne of God. They serve him day and night in his temple. And he that sits on his throne shall spread the tabernacle over them. Those that you know that have gone on in the Lord serve God day and night in his temple. Now hold that. Here's the last mention of temple in the Bible. Revelation 21, 22. And I saw no temple there for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are. The final picture of the temple is Christ. The temple is him. That's why when you study the tabernacle that's a picture of the Lord. And when you study the temple that's a picture of the Lord. And when you study the Christian it's the Christian. What does it mean to go to heaven to worship day and night in a temple and there's no temple there? He's the temple. How can you worship in a temple when there's no temple? He's the temple. It's us worshiping God in God. And that is where we are now. Christ is the temple. When he cleanses what does he do? And the answer is he flips over everything that is not Christ. He is the temple. He doesn't just leave it flipped over. That's why it says that after he cleansed it he taught daily, daily. When God flips something over in your heart then ask him to teach. What is this all about? And he'll instruct you. The temple is Christ himself. And so the house of skin, the house of glory you say God's my temple. Yes. I'm his temple. Yes. The message of union with Christ. I'm in him. You're in him. And he's in you. Say what is God's temple? You are. What is your temple? He is. And it's this great picture of union with Christ. God went to the cross so that we would understand this fellowship, union with Christ. Cleansing of the temple is turning over, changing, upsetting anything that is not union with Christ. That's the pure temple. When you can worship God in God someday we'll all be there. Someday in heaven we'll taste the reality. But now we have heaven in the bud. I hope you're living in the suburbs of heaven. I hope you're not waiting until you get there to taste some of these things. Right now you're his temple. House of skin. House of glory. Christ himself. Worship God in God. Well we'll close there. Comments or questions? I want to say something. It's bitter. It happens. It's bitter. And so, um, the light never came. But, um, anyways, um. You're scaring me. First thing, of course. Can I say something? Surely. Oh, that's. You. I hear you.