Tag: temple

  • The Stone the Builders Rejected

    The Stone the Builders Rejected

    “‘The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone’

    Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” – Luke 20:17b-18

    Jesus had taught at Temple before. He was welcomed as a learned Rabbi (teacher) in synagogues throughout Judea, a Godly teacher with power. He works miracles. No other man did that.

    Prior to this entry into Jerusalem, Jesus had even raised a man from the dead! Lazarus, who walked out of a tomb, would also likely come to Jerusalem for the Passover with this powerful Teacher of the Law.

    Jesus Foretells Destruction of the Temple

    Luke 21:5 And while some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, he said, 6 “As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” 7 And they asked him, “Teacher, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?” 8 And he said, “See that you are not led astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is at hand!’ Do not go after them. 9 And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once.”

     Even so, the multitudes following Jesus hoped for the power of David over God’s enemies and the power of Moses over the rule of God’s Holy Place. 

    32 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

    Watch Yourselves

    34 “But watch yourselves your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. 35 For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

    37 And every day he was teaching in the temple, but at night he went out and lodged on the mount called Olivet. 38 And early in the morning all the people came to him in the temple to hear him.

    Matthew 21:15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant…

    Matthew 21:26 And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.

    What had happened, after Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, with the multitudes of people shouting, ‘Hosanna,’ with the Temple officials standing in their ‘thousand dollar suits’ of religious symbolism among them?

    This ‘Prophet of Nazareth’ went into the marketplace of the Temple, among the tourists and the businessmen in the courtyards of the Holy place where all were doing very well (as at the time of every religious festival). In fact, business was booming and the economy of the rich Jerusalem merchants was never better. They were ready for the huge crowds coming for the BIG EASTER SALE… (that is, Passover sale).

    Matthew 21:

    12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.

    This peaceful Prophet, who had entered Jerusalem on a colt, entered the Temple. The multitudes were ready to hear His teaching once more. But this time, Jesus showed righteous indignation against the merchants. He was a mad man in the mall!

    13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”

    The Place were the Lord IS Present must be made HOLY! Worship presupposes the preparation of the cleansing of the place of worship and most of all, the worshipers.

    REPENT! had been the message of preparation. TURN BACK to the LORD your God!

    Three years of teaching and miracles has brought Jesus to Jerusalem only to find a Temple in need of cleansing. The very priests and officials responsible for preparation of the Holy Place, have defiled the House of the Lord.

     

     

     

     

  • Jerusalem Defiled Awaits Her King

    Jerusalem Defiled Awaits Her King

    THE FOLLOWING IS AN UPDATED POST ABOUT JERUSALEM by Roger Harned originally published on

    TALK OF JESUS .COM

    APRIL 14, A.D. 2014

    stone wall "city of David" in Hebrew and English in Jerusalem

    about Palm Sunday in Jerusalem

    Do you with eyes to see Jerusalem as it is and was in the time of Jesus see it?

    a crowd of people with palm branches processing toward Jerusalem
    Hosanna to the Son of David:

    It is not unlike today.


    Jerusalem is no longer Holy to the Lord!

    The dome of the false prophet boasts victory over the Jesus of the Jews.

    Christ did not claim the city or the mount or the Temple.

    The Messiah King of the Jews did not win the battle of the day.

    AND thus far, JESUS has not won the battle of this day!

    Jerusalem dome of the false prophet towering over temple mount
    Peter, Philip and many others have encountered false teachers and false prophets from the very earliest days of Christ’s Church.

    ~ A.D. 30

    Jerusalem had been taken by Rome, as it once had been conquered by Babylon.

    The enemies of the Jews have their own gods. Stone idols, Myths, false prophets who are mere mortals from their cultural past, men and women who are and will remain dead.

    The enemies of the Jews of Jerusalem have their own cities with their own gods

    For two millennia since that notable kingly entry of the Son of Man worshiped as He approached Jerusalem, anti-Christs have opposed their own Savior, the Messiah and Eternal King of not only the Jews but a KING of KINGS over all of the world for all of time into eternity.

    You must understand that these are battles for God.

    These are battles AGAINST God in every generation until the last.


    CLAIM to Jerusalem is important

    Is it an international island of Palestine?

    Does Jerusalem legitimately reclaim its nation of Israel bequeathed once more to it by a United writ of the Nations which had opposed Zion’s rule for millennia?

    Not even David ruled in Jerusalem for many years of his reign.

    Yet as it is now, and in certain prescribed seasons, the hills of Jerusalem rise into a yearly international spotlight of the world. It was during one of these great feasts that the Messiah of Israel approached its gate on what Christians now call Palm Sunday.


    פֶּסַח

    pesaḥ [Passover]

    Why do the Jews make pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover?

    What were all the Jews commemorating?

    And let us not forget that Jesus was a Jew - a son of man born to the line of David - the Messiah Savior of Israel making His way there on Palm Sunday.

    God had saved the Hebrew people from Egypt and led them by His promise to Israel. Jerusalem was Holy to the Lord for the chosen people of the Lord.


    Moses did not build the Temple.

    THE TEMPLE

    Built by Solomon and completed ~957 Before Christ,

    King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon destroyed Solomon’s temple around 586 or 587 B.C.

    model of the First Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem

    Putting aside the false claims of the false prophet (that Jerusalem was not given to the Jews, but belongs to Arabs), God had a personal relationship with the Hebrew people.  Moses had met with God in the Tabernacle — a tent of worship and forerunner of the Temple.

    God would make His Presence known at various times… in the Tabernacle and in the Temple.

    King David brought the Tabernacle to Jerusalem.

    Yet the LORD commanded that The Temple would be built by King Solomon. This was at a time when the Lord blessed Israel with great power and might for His own glory.

    AND of course no good Jew would neglect a reverence and respect for:

    • Moses who had led them from slavery in Egypt,
    • David who had conquered most of the people and lands of Canaan (Palestine) and
    • Solomon, who not only built the TEMPLE but conquered vast surrounding lands, nations and peoples who then sent great riches to Israel.

    (But all that had been before great division and disobedience to the LORD by generations of Kings who mostly did ‘what was evil in the sight of the LORD.)

    • Therefore the LORD’s Temple built by Solomon had been destroyed, Jerusalem captured and then both eventually restored on a much smaller scale.

    Israel’s false client Kings, The Herod’s

    Herod's temple

    The Temple itself (we ought to remind ourselves) is NOT the Temple Solomon built which was completely destroyed.

    The Temple also was NOT the Temple Nehemiah rebuilt, but a prideful project of Herod to build back bigger than the LORD’s intention.

    A.D. 70

    Herod’s Temple would be destroyed by the Romans just 40 years after Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, crucifixion and resurrection.

    Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and history remain controversial even to this day in the year of our Lord, 2023.


    Jesus had been rumored to have fed thousands in the wilderness just like Moses had fed the Hebrew people by the hand of God for forty years.  

    Word on the street had it that Jesus was approaching Jerusalem, again. AND, as always, the crowds gathered.. this time along the road from Bethany where rumor has it that this JESUS, the Galilean of Nazareth and Capernaum, had raised a man from the dead and told him to follow with the funeral crowds to Jerusalem’s Passover feast.


    This time the crowds (under the watchful eyes of their Roman captors) would pour into the city as Jesus would enter like the conquering King David, look around (doing nothing) — and then leave.

    But the overall purpose of the LORD God (which no mortal man understood at the time) was worship through a NEW COVENANT of grace and a personal filling of the Holy Spirit of God.


    Jesus brought not the Tabernacle of God to Jerusalem, but the Very Presence of God.

    Roger@TalkofJesus.com

    Jesus was coming into Jerusalem for the Passover feast. Everyone would be there… waiting for their King and Savior.

    • Did He really have the power of God?
    • Is He the promised one, as John the Baptizer had preached?

    One more thing about Jerusalem and its buildings:

    Llike any city, people lived there, people worked there, people visited there.

    (Tourism was and still is big, especially during the big religious holidays. And of course the out-of-town tourists here for the festival are NOT all acceptable to our ‘religion‘ which celebrates this feast.)

    Like anywhere else, the rich ran things and the poor just got by.

    The rulers of the city were the leading Jews: Priests, Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Temple guards and Temple police, officials of Herod’s household and officials of Herod’s governments of the city and of the region.

    All of these had their role to play. And not so unlike today the religious establishment managed the money of their patrons well.

    The King IS here. He IS in the Temple.

    This particular Temple was built by Herod, grandfather of this King Herod. With Rome’s help the Great King Herod had been the great builder of many great buildings in Jerusalem and the surrounding area.

    As a point of fact, the Temple (of any era) was just another Grande building used as a place of worship.

    Imagine the grandeur of the present-day Vatican and you will have an image of Herod’s Third Temple, where Jesus would soon make a scene after riding triumphantly to the Gate of Jerusalem on a donkey.

    Vatican City night
    Vatican City

    Yet a church or Cathedral without Jesus is just a building.

    The Temple without God was just a building.

    BUT THIS WAS NEVER GOD’S INTENTION!
    THE LORD’S VICTORY IN JERUSALEM
    WAS NEVER INTENDED FOR A PALM SUNDAY PARADE.
    For this Celebration of Christ’s Holy Presence
    Was just a prelude to His victory
    Of the Cross.


    إشعياء – Isaiæ – Ησαΐας – יְשַׁעְיָהוּ

    56:7 וַהֲבִיאוֹתִים אֶל־הַר קָדְשִׁי וְשִׂמַּחְתִּים בְּבֵית תְּפִלָּתִי עוֹלֹתֵיהֶם וְזִבְחֵיהֶם לְרָצוֹן עַֽל־מִזְבְּחִי כִּי בֵיתִי בֵּית־תְּפִלָּה יִקָּרֵא לְכָל־הָעַמִּֽים׃


    That’s it (for the Palm Sunday procession of Israel’s Messiah to Jerusalem).

    On Monday of HOLY WEEK the Lord Jesus will have something to say about Scripture. Jesus’ ACTS in the TEMPLE will fulfill it.


    Even those I will bring to My holy mountain

    And make them glad in My house of prayer.

    Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar;

    For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.”

    Isaiah 56:7 LSB

    To Be Continued…

  • Samekh

    Samekh

    Depart from me…

    Picture the stoic traditionalist teachers of the Bible venturing out from the mega-cathedral to a far from urban valley of the Jordan and encountering a crowd that should be in church.  They are listening to an unkempt man with uncut hair and rags of animal skins and leather. As they descend the dirty hillside toward the river in their custom-made finery, he acknowledges their addition to the crowds.

    “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance…  Matthew 3:

    Pretty bold talk from a Nazarite to esteemed teachers of the Law from the Temple. Could John have had Psalm 119 in mind?

     Psalm 119 – English Standard Version (ESV)

    Your Word Is a Lamp to My Feet

    Samekh

    113 I hate the double-minded,
    but I love your law.
    114 You are my hiding place and my shield;
    I hope in your word.
    115 Depart from me, you evildoers,
    that I may keep the commandments of my God.

    Although the EST statement ‘I hate the double-minded,’ brings hated hypocrites like the Pharisees, Sadducees, certain preachers and christians to mind, the KJV stated: ‘I hate vain thoughts.’

    Indeed, the Psalmist is not condemning (yet) those with double-minded thoughts.  John, as he baptized and cleansed into repentance those in the crowds with ears to hear was not hiding in the Jordan valley; rather his hiding place was in the Lord and in the hope of God’s word.

    All of us must take heed to vain thoughts and ideas of our own (not of God). Vain thoughts are ambivalent, divided and half-hearted. Of course we are to love the Lord our God with all our mind (not just some of it). Hypocrisy, like that frequently demonstrated by the Pharisees is the intentional action of a double-minded believer.

    John continues his warnings to his audience:

    10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

    This same double-minded, half-hearted faith comes to mind in Jesus parable in Matthew 7:

    17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

    Christ Jesus was also most critical of this half-attitude of belief. In these last days, the axe is at the root of the tree of the church.

    The Psalmist continues his plea to God:

    116 Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live,
    and let me not be put to shame in my hope!
    117 Hold me up, that I may be safe
    and have regard for your statutes continually!
    118 You spurn all who go astray from your statutes,
    for their cunning is in vain.

    119 All the wicked of the earth you discard like dross,
    therefore I love your testimonies.
    120 My flesh trembles for fear of you,
    and I am afraid of your judgments.

    Again, we did not receive the baptism of repentance and the cleansing of the Cross of Christ to appear as dross to a world that looks to the church and christians for every defect and impurity.

    “Be holy, as I am holy,” says the Lord.

     

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