Luke 19:41-44
41As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
Matthew 21:12-16
12Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13″It is written,” he said to them, ” ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’”
14The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. 15But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.
16″Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.
“Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read,
” ‘From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise’?”
Related Text:
Psalm 8
Isaiah 56
Jeremiah 7:9-11
Mark 11:15-18
John 2:13-17
You can get a feel for the anger of Jesus by reading this event. He was mad! His anger was directed at the people who had turned the temple into a place to make a profit for themselves. The anger was directed at those who were more concerned about selling their overpriced doves and sacrificial animals than they were for the house of God.
Jesus is concerned about your inner world, your motives and the condition of your heart. On this occasion, the merchants and the money changers didn’t have the motive to please God with their business. They intended to make a quick dollar by cheating the worshipers into buying unfit animals at high prices. Ask yourself, if He had the chance, what would Jesus clean out of you? What “tables” would He overturn? What areas of your life would He redirect?
