HAVE WE MADE IT A DEN OF THIEVES?

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MEMORY VERSE

MATTHEW 21:13

 And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.

LESSON BACKGROUND:

Taken from: https://bethelhouseofprayer.com/about/what-is-a-house-of-prayer/

What exactly is a House of Prayer?

The first reference given to a house of prayer is found in the Old Testament in Isaiah 56:7 “For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.”(all Nations) parenthesis mine. The next time this passage is mentioned is in the New Testament and Jesus quote the same verse in Matthew 21:12-13 after He entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling and the money changers and Jesus quotes the passage from Isaiah. In Matthew 21:13, Jesus says “It is written, ‘MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER’; but you are making it a DEN OF THIEVES.” There are two other times in the New Testament this same verse is quoted and those are found in Mark 11:17 and Luke 19:46.

Why would Jesus refer to His the house as a House of Prayer?

First of all, Christ himself was a house of prayer and he was teaching his disciples to become one by modeling this for them when He continually withdrew and was talking with His Father and drawing strength from that intimate relationship He had in heaven. This same intimate relationship is one we can have because of Jesus Christ came and hung on a cross to pay the price for us with his life, a perfect sacrifice shedding His blood for the forgiveness of all of our sins (John 3:16-17) “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

Remember, the Father in heaven sent His Son, Jesus Christ to be born of the virgin Mary, through the Holy Spirit, as a child to live with a real earthly mother, father and family and experience life as we know it. Think about it this way. As a the child you have an intimate relationship with your earthly father or mother and you want to be around them and you depend upon them for certain things like food, clothing, a home to live in, and all the good things you like and need. Well, even though Jesus had those earthly parents, He came from heaven and longed for the intimate relationship with His Father in heaven. Prayer was the connection of intimacy that He left behind when He came to earth. He was modeling this for His disciples, and for us to follow, He restored the relationship for us with the Father by His death, burial, and resurrection.

There was such a longing in Jesus’ heart for heaven even though he lived as a man on this earth. Philippians 3:20 puts it this way, “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence we also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is the thing Jesus longed for while He was here upon the earth because He came from heaven and knew He would be returning there upon His resurrection. So, you see, even though we live on this earth and live out our lives here, as we give our hearts and lives to Jesus Christ to become Savior and Lord we then also become citizens of heaven as we are restored to our Heavenly Father.

What is prayer?

Prayer is that longing and intimacy restored and brought back to life which was dead in our sinful state, apart from Jesus Christ. Prayer is that intimate communication with the Father in heaven and the house of prayer is the earthly expression of what is in heaven. And that is why Jesus was so adamant about it in Matthew 21:12-13 when He came into His house and saw what it had become–this house includes two types of houses explained below.

In Luke 11:1 Jesus’ disciples came and asked Him, “Teach us how to pray”. This desire must have grown out of them as they watched and heard Jesus have intimate conversations (read: prayers) with His heavenly Father, which Christ modeled for them day by day. Eventually, that led them to ask Him the above question. We see in Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:1-4 Jesus gives them insight and instruction into what He has been praying all along and this has become known to most of us as “The Lord’s Prayer.” Many of us learned this prayer growing up and could recite it at will or could at least enter into it when the congregation was reciting it. This is not the only thing that Jesus prayed but he gave it as instruction or as a “how to.” To Jesus, prayer was a joy and that’s why the scriptures say there will be, “Joy in My house of prayer.”

Defining the House of Prayer

I will attempt to give some definition and expression to the House of Prayer. As I understand, there are two expressions of it, so here they are.

-       YOU ARE PERSONALLY A HOUSE OF PRAYER. After you receive Jesus Christ as Savior, you become the temple of the Holy Spirit. I Corinthians 6:19 says, “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”

-       THE CHURCH IS A HOUSE OF PRAYER. As we assemble together we are the corporate expression of prayer. Matthew 18:20 says, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” Hebrews 10:24-25 puts it this way, “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” 1 Peter 2:5 says it this way, “Ye also, as lively, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”

INTRODUCTION:

When we visited our sister and her family in Kentucky, USA my nephew invited me to go to a Christian church to worship. The church was so wide and big. As we went to our destinations, we used the escalators; I don’t know how many escalators we used because I felt dizzy going up. I think we went to the 4^th floor.  Along the way, I saw many things: bookstore, coffee shop, restaurant and many more. I asked my nephew where the church gets, its financial needs and he responded in their tithes. Then I said to myself, “what these stores for?” Maybe the stores are for church members’ business. This kind of environment is hard to be monitored by the pastors who attend the worship service or not. Do they have a schedule so others can attend? Whatever strict the church board members (if they have) are, these situations are prone to the sin of not attending. The people are given distractions.

Jesus began his ministry at the Passover just as he now ended at a Passover. He is just about to cleanse the Temple just as had done on one other occasion three years earlier recorded in John 2:14-16, “And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money-changers doing business. (15) When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. (16) And He said to those who sold doves, "Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!" Now we read in Matthew 21:12-17 how he cleansed the Temple once again and his reasons for doing so. “Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple and overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves. (13) 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.’" (14) Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. (15) But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" they were indignant (16) and said to Him, "Do You hear what these are saying?" And Jesus said to them, "Yes. Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise’?" (17) Then He left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and He lodged there.” As we continue our study of Christ’s Commands the next command we want to examine is found in the 21:13 where Jesus says, "It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’" The command is found in the phrase “you have made” (polite) the command seems to center on what these people have made God’s house into. In verse thirteen Jesus says that they have made the temple into a “den of thieves.”

LESSON PROPER:

This the scenario makes me think the question: how we make the church and ourselves a den of thieves?

    1)   IF WE HAVE MORE TIME IN OUR JOB AND NO TIME LEFT IN PRAYER.

-       We have read that Jesus got angry and clean the temple. Some commentaries explained that Jesus was angry because commerce, that there is buying and selling of anything being done in God’s house. Some use this verse as a defense of denial of allowing anything, at any time to be sold in the church. Yet the provision of animals for sacrifice was in its self-vital for worship as it existed at that time.

-       Personally, I see this scene as also in our present times: we are busy working in our job, sometimes we go to church, but our hearts are not there and possibly we still do something; we’re there but we’re not worshipping and praying.

   2)  IF WE CHEAT AT SOME POINT

-       Other commentaries said that it is not that commerce was being done in the Temple that is the problem but that the people are being “ripped off” in the process. According to Old Testament law, any animal approved by the priests could be offered for sacrifice in the Temple. But the chief priests made certain that animals not bought in one of their franchises would be judged unacceptable.  Annas, the High Priest had sold franchises for the concession stands to the various merchants and money-changers… to the highest bidder. The business enterprises in the outer court came to be known as the “Bazaar of Annas” whose chief priest and associates oversaw the Temple franchises. Merchants would buy the right to sell sacrificial animals, wine, oil or salt, or exchanging money into the proper currency used in the Temple. According to historian Alfred Edersheim, a person would have to pay as much as ten times what an animal normally costs. And when their foreign currency was exchanged they were charged a twenty-five percent fee.

-       Personally, I have seen lessons from these situations. The priests have the wrong judgment regarding the offerings of the people. The people at some point have created God in their tithes and offerings. If we come to worship we make ourselves ready even our tithes and offerings.

   3)  USING OUR POSITION NOT AS AN OPPORTUNITY FROM GOD BUT RATHER TO ACCUMULATE MORE MONEY

-       One other possibility of why Jesus was angry is that if we stop to think that the term “A den of thieves” is not where a robbery takes place but where the thieves live. The godlessness that in the Temple is not so much that money was exchanged or that doves were sold; but rather that He was distressed that the priests were using their position to make themselves rich.

-       Personally, we have all the reasons why we go to church but above all things, we must have that purpose of talking to God and worship Him. We must see that our service in the church is an opportunity for God’s given. It’s worth to worship our God.

   4)  THE SUPPOSEDLY HOUSE OF PRAYER IS FULL OF DISTRACTIONS AND YOU CAN’T REALLY PRAY PROPERLY.

-       They used the OUTER COURT for this Mall. There were four courts in the Temple. The COURT OF THE PRIESTS, which was the inner court, where only the Priests could go. The COURT OF THE JEWS, where only natural-born Jews were allowed. It was this court where they handed over their sacrifices to the Priests. The COURT OF WOMEN, where the women were allowed and could go in no further. The COURT OF THE GENTILES was outside, and it was the large open area that had turned into a shopping mall … or a Super-WalMart!

-       The COURT OF THE GENTILES was a place set aside for those who were not born Jewish … but had converted to Judaism. They had seen that Jehovah God was the one and only true God … and they renounced their pagan ways and turned to the God of the Jews.

-       All this buying and selling was being done in what was called the outer court but it had another name, the “court of the Gentiles.” It was the only area in the Temple into which a Gentile believer could go to worship. Can you imagine trying to worship in such a place?

A pastor from sermon.com shared on how Kent Hughes describes the scene as he imagines it, “The noise of this court of the Gentiles was terrific. Merchants shouted from their stalls to the customers, noisy, haggling, pushy pilgrims jostled one another for the position. The incredible din was heightened by the constant bawling of livestock, the aroma of the livestock, accentuated by the enclosure, made it like a county fair and the Stock Exchange all rolled into one.” [ R. Kent Hughes. Mark: Jesus, Servant, and Savior. Vol II ( Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1989) p. 87] In the end it would have to be said that this was a desecration of the Court of the Gentiles and as such was a massive national sin against God and the lost people of the world. So which of these possibilities is what Jesus was saying about making his house into a “den of thieves.”

Jesus never said, “My house shall be a called a place of preaching.” Nor did he say, “My house shall be called a house of music or singing.” Obviously, those things are good and a part of our worship experience but the Lord said, “My house shall be called a place of prayer.” And I don’t think that he meant by this that prayer was to be a perfunctory thing that we do at the beginning and end of a service. If you examine the birth of the church in the book of acts you quickly see the vital connection between the church and prayer. In Acts chapter four when the apostles were unjustly arrested, imprisoned, and threatened, they did not lodge a protest; they did not look for some political leverage instead they prayed. The early church had this instinct; when in trouble, pray. When intimidated, pray. When challenged, pray. When persecuted, pray. Acts 4:31 records, “And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.”

CONCLUSION:

God’s house is to be called a house of prayer. To be a house of prayer, we must be people of prayer and to be people of prayer we must

1. PRAY IN ACCORDANCE WITH GOD’S WILL. We must be desire God’s will in our lives more than our own will. Jesus provides the supreme example in his prayer in Gethsemane where he boldly states, “Not my will, but you will be done.”

2. PRAY CONFIDENTLY. When Christians pray in Jesus’ name we can be confident that our prayers will be answered if they are compatible with his will. There are some things Christians should not ask for and some things that God will not give us. Consequently, we may receive answers we do not want and find things we are not looking for.

3. PRAY WITH A FORGIVING SPIRIT. We have animosity with others it will hinder our prayers.

Have we made the church a den of thieves? Have we made our body, the temple of God, a den of thieves?