Jesus to the Hypocrites - "OUT!"

John 2

“And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple...” John 2:15

If you’ve ever been disheartened to look at the church and think, “There are so many hypocrites in church,...”, then you’ll like this Jesus. The temple of His day wasn’t the Church as we know it now. It was a place to worship God for sure, but worship itself was different. They hadn’t received Christ as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, so they were still buying animals and sacrificing them, as a symbol of their desire to be made right with God.

In time, there were people who soon figured out they could profit from this. So they brought the market to the temple. They had found a way to profit from the failings and sorrows of others. Christ was not cool with that, and He still isn’t fine with it today.

The temple was to be, as the church is today, where honest sinners could come to be reconciled to the God of the universe. It was not to be a feeding ground for predators. You’ve seen that haven’t you? Unless you live in a cave, you have heard of people in the church taking advantage of others. You have heard of leaders sexually exploiting the people entrusted into their care. You’ve heard of swindlers siphoning off cash from the treasury. You’ve heard of others who convince the people of the church to buy into their fraudulent investment schemes. The church should be a place with open doors, but it also needs to be a safe place, and part of that infers that the wolves don’t really belong. These examples might be among the very sort that Jesus would have driven out with a whip.

The church isn’t for perfect people. It is in fact a place for people who really have done wrong, who earnestly want to be made right. Does that describe you? I was in conversation last week with a guy who likes to sleep with multiple women. He told me he thought that if he walked into church that he might spontaneously combust or something. The church may or may not be a place for such a guy. If he wanted to go to church to look for his next bed partner, there would be something horribly wrong with that. If the day comes when he really wants to walk with Christ, there is a place for him. He seemed like a pretty authentic guy, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him walk in some day, and I don’t believe he’d be there to be a wolf.

There is a place to make money. The temple just was not that place. Christ was not speaking against commercial agriculture. If getting rich is what you’re really after, then I would encourage you to seek out a qualified financial advisor. Or if you really want to pursue sin, pursue it somewhere else other than among His people. If you’re tired of the filth of life and want to walk with God, there’s room for you. Some call that good news. Others might judge you as being one of the many hypocrites and that has to be okay. They aren’t your judge anyway. Only God really knows your heart.

I hope to see you some day.