[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered on the 4th Sunday in Lent, the 14th of March, 2021, at Pilgrim Reformed Church. This was an abbreviated service due to constraints put in place from the COVID-19 pandemic. Our YouTube streaming channel is:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDIz4WuP8igQstkEOq1AMTg. Look for the video of our recorded services on our Vimeo channel: http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]
Today is the 4th Sunday in Lent, as we continue our walk with Jesus so we can remember all He did for us. The time when Jesus is arrested, tortured, and nailed to a cross, when He dies and is buried, and then rises again from the dead is rapidly approaching. So let’s continue looking at these weeks as Jesus experienced them, the final days before His death and resurrection.
The incident I want to look at this morning was recorded for us by Matthew, Mark, and John in each of their Gospel accounts. According to John, this occurred fairly early in Jesus’ ministry, right after His first miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana. But Matthew and Mark both have this coming shortly after Jesus made His triumphal and final entry into Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday. I don’t think the exact timing matters as much in this case as the message the words carry. And toward the end of the passage, we should see that the message indeed relates to the time we are observing now.
So, please listen and follow along to how the Apostle John, the beloved disciple, related the cleansing of the Temple. This comes from the 2nd chapter of his Gospel account, verses 13 through 22, and I’ll be reading this from the Contemporary English Version of our Holy Bible…
13 Not long before the Jewish festival of Passover, Jesus went to Jerusalem. 14 There He found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves in the temple. He also saw moneychangers sitting at their tables. 15 So He took some rope and made a whip. Then He chased everyone out of the temple, together with their sheep and cattle. He turned over the tables of the moneychangers and scattered their coins.16 Jesus said to the people who had been selling doves, “Get those doves out of here! Don’t make My Father’s house a marketplace.”17 The disciples then remembered that the Scriptures say, “My love for Your house burns in Me like a fire.”18 The Jewish leaders asked Jesus, “What miracle will You work to show us why You have done this?”19 “Destroy this temple,” Jesus answered, “and in three days I will build it again!”20 The leaders replied, “It took forty-six years to build this temple. What makes You think you can rebuild it in three days?”21 But Jesus was talking about His body as a temple. 22 And when He was raised from death, His disciples remembered what He had told them. Then they believed the Scriptures and the words of Jesus.
--John 2:13-22 (CEV)
Let us pray… Father God, even today, some make a marketplace of what should be Your temple. Some churches go to the extreme to bring more money into their coffers, including having ATM’s in the Narthex to encourage more giving into the offering plates. Thank You, Father, for showing us how Your Son felt about this sort of activity, and how He handled in in His day. Thank You for everything You give us in our Bible, saved for us for our benefit. Please help us bring honor and glory to You, and not to ourselves in any way. May we give generously and willingly to support our church and the work of our Lord Jesus through it, and may we be proper and good stewards of all we collect for the church. And Father, please keep us safe from Satan’s traps and snares and from those who do his evil works for him. Please keep us strong in our faith, of one mind and purpose in our love and worship, and healthy and safe through these trying times.
Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit and better understand the message You have for us this day. Teach us Your word so that we may be more righteous in Your eyes. This we pray in the blessed name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Economist Edgar Fiedler once gave these rules for forecasting:
(1) It is very difficult to forecast, especially about the future.
(2) He who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass.
(3) The moment you forecast, you know you're going to be wrong -- you just don't know when and in which direction.
(4) If you're ever right, never let them forget it.
Physicist Niels Bohr echoed Fiedler's rule #1 when he said, "Prediction is a very difficult art, especially when it involves the future."
And all this just goes to show that we humans are not very good at looking into the future and predicting, with any degree of accuracy, what will happen. Even when it comes to the weather, with all the fancy technical tools at their disposal, the forecasters still get it wrong way too often. And if you understand how Niels Bohr put it, we don’t always correctly report on what is happening in the present, or in the past, without wildly divergent views.
But here’s something to think about… Have you ever noticed that the predictions found in the Book of Revelation are often written in the past tense? This is because, although the Apostle John is writing of future events, he has already "seen" them happen. Also, since God resides outside of time, for Him the events have already occurred. As Christians, we know what's ahead for this world, and that knowledge should keep us living closer to God, should make us strive to be more righteous.
Now, this isn’t about forecasting and predictions, but let’s face it – most of our Bible is involved with forecasting the future. Many of those predictions have already occurred, and the biggest one, the most important one, is yet to happen but eagerly awaited by all who truly believe. For all the Bible points to Jesus and what He has done and will do for mankind.
Much of what Jesus said was to impart to His followers, including us, what was going to happen, not only during His time on earth but also at the end of the age. And here’s the point: everything that Jesus said would happen while He walked among us, did happen! Everything God said, through His prophets, would happen, did happen.
Our church reading this morning was one of those predictions. It came from God’s prophet Isaiah, who lived and spoke those words hundreds of years before Jesus was born! Yet in them he describes exactly what Jesus did for us, what He suffered for us, and why.
This is just one prophecy in scripture come true. And I’m talking about those predictions that have already come to pass, not those yet to occur. But because all those predictions came true, we can certainly have good reason to believe that those yet to occur will indeed occur! This is why we can believe the scriptures, like the disciples finally did.
We humans might do a lousy job of predicting the future, but for God, everything is His knowledge. For Him, the future is the past and the past is the present and time is merely a tool for us mortals.
Believe in the scriptures. As we’ve seen, a lot of what Jesus told His disciples centered on what would happen when they made what turned out to be Jesus’ last trip into Jerusalem. And as that time grew closer, His message grew ever more urgent.
Today, we are three weeks away from celebrating our Lord being released from the grasp of death. In Jesus’ day, at this point in time, He was predicting His death and resurrection for the third time. Listen to what the Apostle Luke recorded for us in chapter 18 of his Gospel account, verses 31 through 34…
31 Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. 32 For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. 33 They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.”34 But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.
--Luke 18:31-34 (NKJV)
Jesus told His friends exactly what was about to happen. He would be handed over to the Gentiles, the Romans. He would be mocked, insulted, and spit upon. He would be scourged – severely whipped and beaten. He would be killed, executed in a horrible fashion. And He would rise again on the third day, freed from the bonds of death and the hold of the grave. All of this He predicted three weeks before the events, and all of this happened, just as He said it would.
But note that the full implications of these words were actually hidden from His disciples, so that they could not understand. It wasn’t time for them to understand, not yet. But they soon would, and then they would believe in everything the scriptures say, and everything Jesus said.
When Jesus walked the earth, the only scriptures His followers had to go by were what we call the Old Testament. The Gospel accounts and all the letters of the Apostles had not yet been written. But we today have both sets readily at our hands, the Old and the New Testaments. Our scriptures include the Old Testament with all its predictions about the coming of Jesus, the Messiah. Some even predict His second coming. And we have the New Testament, where we can see how all those predictions were fulfilled in Jesus, the Son of Man come to offer salvation to the world. We can read of His life and His teachings. And we can see what will happen when He returns.
All of the predictions of both Testaments that have already come to pass happened just as we were told they would. So we have no reason to doubt that those predictions that are yet to come won’t also happen just as we are told they will. We can believe the scriptures.
We are living through the last few weeks of Jesus’ mortal life on earth. Soon, we will again be shocked at the treatment He receives at the hands of those He came to save. We will watch as He is arrested, mocked, beaten, hung on a cruel cross. We will listen as He cries out to His Father with His last breath. And then we will celebrate in wonder as we look into the empty tomb, knowing He has risen from the dead just as He said He would.
And someday, maybe soon, He will come back to us. He will return to take His church home to be with Him in heaven, and He will then judge the world. We can believe in this, because He said it. Believe in the scriptures.
In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord, the one true Son of God, our Savior and our Redeemer. Amen.
Let us pray… Father God, we thank You for our Bible, the scriptures, Your word written down and saved for us. Through these words we can learn how we should live each day, and we can see what will happen as our days come to an end. Thank You, Father, for Your word. We can trust and believe in the scriptures. Father, please help us keep our faith and belief strong and active. Help us be more obedient to Jesus and do as He commands us. Help us trust Him in everything He says. For everything You and He tells us is indeed trustworthy.
Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more faithful and true, putting all our trust in You and Jesus, and seeking Your help as we do so…
Lord Jesus, You often told the people and Your disciples what to expect as Your time on this earth neared an end. Much of this – the true meaning of Your predictions - was hidden from them, for it was not yet time for them to know. But Jesus, it has all been revealed to us today, and we can see how it all came to pass as You said it would. We who believe in You can believe in the scriptures, for it has all been saved for our benefit. Thank You, Jesus, for letting us know what is to come. Please, Lord, help us understand the full impact of what You have predicted. Help us be prepared for what is to come by keeping our faith strong and alive. And help us always to do as You commanded us, to love others and tell them all about You. And Jesus, please help us keep our sights on the needs of others rather than on anything this life might offer. This we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior. Amen.
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