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We're going to talk about temples specifically. I want to address this question that I had from a viewer. Why did the Lord call the temple? His father's house and clear the merchants from its outer courts? If God didn't see some value to the building, what was it in that temple that he valued? Was it a place that God could come visit? He says, uh I don't think the people attending the temple were righteous enough were worthy to be in God's presence. So, what was it? Why didn't Jesus call it a house of abomination? Why did so? I'm sorry, why? Yeah. Why didn't Jesus call it a house of abomination? Was it because God still valued the rights performed there? And he asked if God will use whatever rusty tools he has available to help us advance to the next level. Well, this is a nice meaty question. And so we're gonna hit sub scriptures to answer it and um I've pulled them up here, but I omitted one that I am pulling up now. Ok. Well, that, see, there's a whole lot to talk about here. Um And we'll do our best to weave through it without taking too much time. I mean, it's just, it's just gonna take a lot of time. We could talk about this for a week easily right now. Um, ok, so first let me address , I think I can chop off a little piece of this before we do the deep dive. Um So that one part, he, he asked if God saw value to the building. So Jesus called it uh his father's house, right? Well, we'll get to that. But let's talk about the value of the building. So first off, Jesus said, i it's quite a phenomenal situation, Jesus was, he had at at least at a time, he had some friends who were in the Sanhedrin. Uh how reliable these people were. I'm not sure we know that uh Joseph of Arimathea was one of them and he's, he's the one that secured jesus' body and placed it in his own tomb after his death , which is highly symbolic. But anyway, um so, so at least some people were willing to publicly admit that there were followers of him after the fact, not people uh the rulers, the Pharisees. But during his life, we have the example of Jo in John three of Nicodemus coming by night to profess his faith in Jesus, which is a very off-putting thing to the Lord. And so Jesus lays into him quite a bit in John chapter three. I'm not sure if you noticed. Um But anyway, so So the there were various members of the Sanhedrin that did believe that Jesus was at least a wise teacher. And they invited him, some subset of them, invited him to come tour the temple grounds thinking that it was an opportunity to sort of show them how, how well they had been stewards of this, this place. Again, recognizing him as at least a holy teacher, um, perhaps not much more than that. And that is the context of where Jesus said that the whole place was going to be torn down. So that one stone didn't remain on another. And so that was quite a direct attack on everything they thought was the most valuable uh part of their faith and the most powerful symbol of their acceptance from God. Do you recall the, the, um, let's see , I guess I could pull this up. Do you, do you recall when, um let's see, there's a quite famous scripture um in, well, it's in Matthew 24 and Luke 17, we'll, we'll go to Luke just to give Luke some love. All right. So if we look at Luke 17, let's see. All right. So we've got this one uh as with many scriptures where we've heard many times, we, we just miss all the context that's quite important, but we will also skip a bit of that right now because, because I just want to tell you that, that um, this pattern here that's given with Noah and lot. And Luke 17 also in Matthew 24. It says uh as it was in the days of Noah. So shall it also, so shall it be also in the days of the son of man? They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise. Also it was in the days of lot, they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built it. But the same day that lot went out sodom, out of sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. And it'll be that way when the son of man is revealed now without getting too deep into, into what might be mysteries for you. Um This is not talking about the meridian of time when the Lord was ministering and he said these things talking about the end of time. So this is a pattern that has happened before and will happen again. And what's that pattern when God sends a uh a righteous representative to demonstrate how he is to the world. Uh That person will come with teachings and warnings and arguments as to why people should improve. And when they're rejected, the reasons they are rejected are that the people look at what is going on in their lives and then they interpret that as evidence that God has accepted them . Therefore, what they're hearing from this messenger that God's displeased couldn't possibly be true. Right. So, in this, you know, no one understands this, but they did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage without going into the details of exactly what that means. These are religious rights and what the people told. Noah. So this came up a little while ago, some folks contended against what I had said saying if, if God wanted to fix things, he'd call someone from within the religious hierarchy to do it. Now, besides the fact that that reveals gross, gross ignorance of the scriptures because that is the predominant pattern is that he calls from without to fix the people within and more often than not, it's actually just to tell the people within that they're messed up because they won't listen and then to establish something new. Remember uh new wine, old bottles , new patch, old garment, I come to make all things new. You have heard it said of old blah, blah, blah. But I say unto you blah, blah, blah, right? That's the pattern. But religious folks don't want to hear that they wanna hear. No, no, no, no, no. We're, we're God's people. And if we weren't, he'd tell us, well, maybe he has told you how many times would you like him to tell you? What ways do you require him to tell you in? What, what could he possibly say or do that? You would recognize. And they say, well, basically, the only thing is if he took the leaders of my preferred religious flavor and made them tell me that I messed up. Ok. How'd that go for Noah. Noah was the lineal descendant of Adam in a patriarchal system. And therefore he had the only authority uh according to the culture of the people, right? That was the established way. And yet how did they reply to his warnings and teachings ? He said, um everything's messed up. So Noah's father was apostate. You might not know that it's there in the scriptures. And Noah said, look, I've rediscovered what Adam taught and everything that you guys believe is really off base and we need to fix ourselves or else God's gonna destroy the world . How did they reply? They said, no, look at us, we're doing all these religious things. Therefore, God accepts us and you must be crazy. You, you are obviously wrong and it wasn't just, you must be crazy. Eventually they tried to kill him. And that's when the door of the Ark shut. Ok. That's the pattern . What about with lot? Well, with a lot, not only were they doing the religious things they had given up on marriage, they were doing some really nasty things instead of that, but they also had all this prosperity. And we know from another scripture that one of the cardinal sins of Sodom and Gomorrah was their, their financial wickedness So there were a bunch of fat cats living in cities while someone else was out in the fields doing all their work and they didn't care for the poor and they had no regard for life. So, um but they looked to that and they said, look, our prosperity is evidence that God accepts us. Why would we be so prosperous if this weren't the case? Now, these were the same exact idiots that had just been taken captive by foreign invaders and they had, they were saved by Abraham's intervention. Remember that same people, they had all been hauled away and brought back by Abraham , not by themselves. They were destroyed in battle and then they came back or conquered, I guess they weren't destroyed. They were conquered and that wasn't enough and lot preached to them as well. I'm not sure how well he did, but he was a lesser messenger after Abraham because of course they weren't interested in what Abraham had to say. And so they thought that that their prosperity was a sign of acceptance by God. And the second lot left, it all collapsed. It all burned down literally because fire came down from heaven and destroyed them all. It's interesting what the messengers who came to lot said, they said, go get anyone who will listen to you and flee from this city and who listened to him. Well, just his daughters, his wife kind of listened and then she changed her mind. But his daughters were married and their husbands mocked him. They wouldn't listen, they wouldn't listen. So they were all destroyed. Ok. So how is this related to our topic at hand? Well, the, the, the Jews in the days of Jesus, they looked to the temple as a sign of God's acceptance of them. That's what they used for that. They said, no, look, we've got this temple. That's what God gave us when Moses brought us out of Egypt. It's our connection to God. It's the symbol that he accepts us. Well, this has always been the pattern and maybe the details shift around a little. But do people do that today? Pretty much every Christian does that today. If you say, look, things aren't right, there's a better way they will point to something and say nope, I have this. Therefore, God accepts me. Therefore, there can't possibly be anything more than what I have. And this is uh this is pretty sad because it's a pattern that happens over and over again. And not only that, there's, there's a passage I really wanna take you through in the Old Testament about Jehu. And uh you can look it up and read it for yourself if you'd like if, if uh I might come back to it, I, I really don't have time um anytime soon and, and you don't, apparently most of you don't have time to listen to it either. So I'm trying to slow down a lot in the videos that I publish. But anyway, uh I'm only making this one because someone asked me a specific question. So obviously, I already knew all this stuff. I could have told you a while ago. Um, anyway, but you can look at Jehu for a great example of, of the fact that or the, the recurring pattern that people can be zealous towards God in limited ways. So just intensity is something that's absolutely necessary in our walk with God. And it's something that most people are desperately lacking and they're not gonna make it and receive what they think they're going to receive because they just don't have any intensity. But zeal towards God can be partial just like honesty or sincerity, you can be, you can express it in limited context and that's no good. So Jehu is an example of this, but there are many kings in Israel who are examples of this and you'll say see the pattern is something like and he did all these good things, but his heart still wasn't right with God. And he didn't do these other things that he should have done or he did these things that he should not have done. And Jehu, he, he, he slays all the wicked priests. He clears them out of the kingdom in a really extreme way and he's commended for doing so. But then he stopped short of all the stuff that he should have done after that. Or you look at Gideon and he did all these wonderful things for the Lord, but he stopped short and he ended up causing a whole lot of trouble for himself, his family and, and others. But why? Because it turns out it's extraordinarily rare to have a, a human who loves God so much that he goes all the way or she goes all the way and the flow comes through unimpeded throughout their whole life. It's a super rare thing. I, I mean, throughout the rest of their life because if we're all sinners, there's a turning point. But from the turning point, they just keep going and they never stop, they never look back, like lot's wife looked back or like lot looked back and he took, he took a lower road when he had the choice when, when everything he had uh received from Abraham. Uh it, it, it uh it, it grew to a point where where a there's nothing that could be done by Abraham to preserve the illusion that lot was independent from him in any way. That's really the, the splitting point which tends to be the case as we progress towards God. There comes a point. It doesn't matter what the specific situation is. There comes a point where our independence can no longer, that illusion can no longer be persisted. And so conflict arises. In this case, the servants of lot were fighting with the servants of Abraham and Abraham said, well, this just isn't gonna work. We gotta make a change. And uh why don't the whole lands before us? You pick a side and I'll go wherever you don't, which was an extremely meek thing for him to say. And uh lot being a doofus. He said, well, I'm gonna take the best land. Thanks. But no, thanks. See you. And uh what he should have done is he should have said to his uncle, I'm alive because of you and I thrive because of you. Everything I have is because of you. Take it back. All I care about is continuing to be with you. And because he didn't, his whole life turned into a raging dumpster fire. So because he trusted in his own uh illusory capability, which is the arm of the flesh instead of the power God was flowing into his life through his uncle. And that's the same thing that happened to the prodigal son. And it's the same thing that happened to people, happens to people that point to the temple or whatever specific fulfillment of this pattern is in your life and say, look because of this, I am great. This means that I am great. No, if there's anything good in something, it just means that God is great and we are only great to the extent that we submit to that we adopt God into our lives. So we'll put this away, we'll get back to this. So let's continue with this question now and transition over to uh Matthew 21. And this is the verse that this gentleman was referring to in his question. So Jesus, he goes into the temple and he cleanses it. He casts out all the money changers and he says, and the seats of them that sold doves. I wish I had time to go into that one. That's very important verse 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 and there's more here. That's important that maybe we'll get to. But before and after, but let's dive into this. What, what was he quoting? Anytime you see it is written, it means that the person speaking is quoting scripture and so you should go look it up. So who's he quoting here? Well, he's quoting Jeremiah. So if we go to Jeremiah seven, this is what he's quoting. Let's see is this house which is called by my name. Become a den of robbers in your eyes . Behold. Even I have seen it saith the Lord. Now, usually when this is said it, it won't be quoted exactly like Paul quotes Psalms all the time. But there are slight changes in the words he uses versus what's in the original. And, and some of this is just because the New Testament, we have it in Greek , the Old Testament, we have it in Hebrew. And then the translators translated these independently. They didn't go and make sure the two translations were, were matched. They just worked off of their little transcript. But, um, there also may have been some paraphrasing. So, um, sometimes though there might be some intentional changes, so it's, it's always good to just read through this. So Jesus says, my house shall be called the house of Prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. But Jeremiah says, and, and it's the Lord speaking here is this house which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes. So this is parts missing. And the quote, what does it mean to be called by his name just in general? And I was speaking about this house, we'll get to that. What does it mean to be called by his name? His name is his character to be called by it is to be given an invitation to become that way. That's what it means to be called by. The name of the Lord is you're being invited to become that way unless you're already that way. And then it's your name because it's who you have become. So remember when, when um the Lord renames Abraham Abraham, he's inviting him to his destiny, his potential . But then at some point he comes up to that and now it's not an invitation. It's a description. So names from God are either invitations or descriptions. And it's important to distinguish between those two things. So, um that's what it means to be called by his name. So then he says, or before that he says in this house, what is a house? Well, you read that and you probably think, well, it's a building. You dummy. Yep, that's correct. But it's also a family. It's a family. So a house is a family and, and family doesn't just mean nuclear connections. So David's house, he was a king, his house, technically it was his whole kingdom, but it certainly included his whole court, the house of David or the people that eat at his table. And that's not just going to be um his Children, his wife and, and kids or his wives and kids. I guess there is a big table but um also his servants and also the people that live there, his ministers, his generals, everybody, the court, the courtesans, right? People in his court. So when you read house, you can think if he's talking about a building and you can also think, well, he's talking about his family and both are correct. But the building, the building is only important because of the name and the family. So I'm just pulling up a scripture here. So give me a second. Uh There's a lot for this. But uh so there's this, this uh this phrase, name and standing, right, name and standing, I guess we don't have to go through that. But um, yeah, we'll, we'll skip over that. But the my, my point here is that um all you can't just, you can't just slice out a tiny piece of this and say, oh, we have a building. Therefore we have everything that's associated with this idea. No, it's a package deal. You have everything or you have nothing, right? So this being called by his name is an integral part of it. Let me, let me bring this one over. Do you remember this conversation where the Lord this is in Matthew 23? He's ripping apart the Pharisees and scribes. This is a really important chapter. I wish I could take the time to go through it with you. They're really important things that you need to hear. But one of the practices that these Pharisees and scribes had was that they would, they would consider oaths more or less breakable depending on if they were based on the temple or the gold of the temple. Uh among other things, the altar or the things on it. And so Jesus, it's kind of a weird situation for our modern context because people don't really do things like that. Um not in a directly recognizable way but, but people do things like this in the same pattern. What is the pattern? Well, people don't swear oaths on the temple, right? But they do, they do consider certain religious things that they do to be sacrosanct while freely committing what they should readily recognize as sin. And so they are uneven in their dedication to God. Why? Because instead of using Him as their example, they use what they say are His commandments or some weird idea of his will dissociated from how he actually is. Instead of thinking, what would Jesus do they say? What does my pastor or my church or whatever, tell me to do? And that's God's commandments. And that's, and I have to pray to know God's will as if his will in my situation is anything different than what he would do in my place . You see, humans have a remarkable capability of modeling someone's character. You can talk to someone for 30 seconds and already have an idea of what they might do in certain situations. Now, it might not be the most accurate idea in the world, but it's remarkably accurate given the input. If you spent your life or any significant amount of time reading the scriptures, you ought to have an amazingly descriptive model of what Jesus would do in your place. And if not, you should get working on that. But instead what modern Christianity teaches people to do is they say, yeah, read the scriptures, great , whatever. But let me tell you hearken unto my precept and I will tell you what God wants from you and it's ok to lie a little and steal a little and take advantage of, of your neighbor. A little because, you know, in the end, God, God understands you could sin. A little. God understands. As long as you keep this list of commandments that I'm telling you are the most important ones. And by the way, they're always gonna have something to do with our specific flavor of what we call religion, just like the Pharisees said, as long as we have this building and we do all the things that our pharisee leaders tell us to do in regards to this building. We're good with God and then we can go off and devour widows' houses and make a pretense of prayer and mock God in the, in every aspect of the rest of our lives and lust after husbands and wives and God will accept us. We're still holy people as long as we keep the list. It's the same problem today. And so what Jesus says here in the, in Matthew 23 he says, look, why do you care about anything having to do with the temple in the first place? It's because of the source of its holiness. What makes a temple different than any other building? Now, going back to the question of the viewer, he paraphrases the holiness of the, the temple, quote unquote as a place God could come visit or a place where rites were performed. Well, guess what? That's not the point. Let's start with the rights. What's the purpose? So, in, in the Old Testament they had rights, they had religious practices that they did in the temple and they were given to them through Moses. Could you do all those things and still be wicked? Yes, you could did the rights sanctify the people. No, they didn't. They provided information that if the person chose, they could use it to better understand what God would do in their place. And if they did that they would come closer to his name or his character. This is important. Jesus says, if you swear by the altar, you also swear by anything that's on it. Who did the sacrifices in the temple represent all these animals who do they represent. You might say the sinner, a sinner cannot be a sacrifice. That's why they had all the ro rules about perfection of the animals offered. They weren't allowed to have blemishes or anything else. The animals did not represent the people. Ultimately, they represented Jesus and they also represented his servants, the prescribed ordinances prefigure certain people who do certain things in the space of creation and their gods, holy servants and Christ himself at the pinnacle, you might never have heard that might not have heard that before. But that's the case. The point is the animals are the example that you bring this animal in saying I know that I have nothing to offer God of myself. But if I follow this example, starting right now, then this holy being's sacrifice can forestall the judgment of God while I sort myself out that when Jesus forgives us of our sins, it buys us more time to prepare to meet God. And so continue with this. If you swear by the temple, you don't just swear by a building. What makes it count for something? Is that God dwells there in? That's what makes that, you know, you don't go swear by Walmart, right? Or the county DMV. That, why would you do that? It doesn't make any sense. What makes this building different that God dwells in it? And if you swear by heaven, that also would be meaningless, except for the fact that God's throne is there and he sits on it and all of these things they orient you up higher towards, towards God following the example of God. That's what makes it meaningful . And then he lays into them because they basically search heaven and earth for anything they can do to pretend that they care about God without actually changing. It's like, what can I do? That's easy to fake like I care about God. So I feel less guilty about being a knucklehead about disobeying, obeying him all the time. What can I do? What's what, what exciting tantalizing gospel topic? Can I obsess over instead of actually changing to become more like God? What ridiculous external ordinance can I do all the time? What, what food item can I stop eating or drink item? Can I stop drinking? That's really , really easy to do compared to the actual sacrifice of the heart so that I can pretend that I care about God. What arbitrary a moral part of modern culture, can I exclude from my life to pretend that I'm righteous? So I don't feel so guilty about secretly hating this thing that God asked me to do or fearing this thing that God tells me not to do or whatever you see, Those are the big deal. Not those little stupid things that people invent so they can run on the hamster wheel of religion without ever getting nearer to God. How, what do we mean by nearer to God more like him at the end of the day ? Does it make you more like God? If the answer is no, it's not from Him. It's at best a distraction and at worst a detour and, you know, straining it a net and swallowing a camel. It's like, oh, I'll break my back to go to the temple. I'll sell my last whatever to afford the trip, but I won't help someone who needs my help in my own house, my own neighbor. I won't help them or taking it even further because also caring for the poor. It's an important thing. It's extremely important and that's a hill worth dying on for anyone who hasn't already done. So, but that's the beginning, not the end. There are even weightier things, even more weighty things in your in your own house. Are you the father? Do you serve your family as God would? Do you run the ship? Like a king? A Godly king? Not a, a tyrant, but like Jesus who gave his life for the church or do you just let things fly to the winds and you're a bum, you're just a normal bum. You're not taking upon yourself the duty to be a manifestation of God to your family, meaning you know Him better than they do. And you're more like Him than they are. And in everything you do, you provide such a good example that they would draw nearer to God by emulating you in every way. If you're a mother, are you consummately dedicated to the welfare of your husband and Children? Or do you walk around so engaged in your phone that you could walk into a pole and not even notice? You know, are your kids? Are they growing up in the Lord? Are you conveying to them all the wisdom that God has taught you? Are you helping them escape the world or he's just letting them float down the river of life and they're just like every other kid this matters. It's a big deal. What did he do? You take your kids to church most Sundays? Are they more like God than other kids? And are you more like God than other people? Because if the answer is no, you're all going to hell anyway? It's time to wake up and start doing what you say, you believe. So, if we go back to Jeremiah seven and we start reading this at the beginning, it's very important. Stand in the gate of the Lord's house and proclaim there this word and say, hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah that enter in at these gates to worship the Lord. So these are people who are going to the temple, they're devout, right? They're zealous for the Lord. They're not sitting at home, they're going to the temple. What did he do? What did he do? They needed a prophet to come and stand in the gate and help them understand what they're actually doing. Even though they're going to the temple, they're an abomination before God. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, amend your ways and your doings and I will cause you to dwell in this place. You see they were going but they weren't dwelling there. Why? Because they weren't taking upon themselves, the name of the Lord, they'd go and they'd as Isaiah says, trample down the house of the Lord, the the the courts of his temple like cattle, like brainless cattle. But they weren't actually thinking about what they were doing. They weren't actually becoming more like God. So they weren't dwelling in the place even though they visited there and did all the things they were told to do by the religious leaders, but everybody was off base. He says, trust ye not in lying words , saying the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. This is you do this too. All Christians do this. It's not about what you think. It's about whatever the idol is. The point is that you become more like Jesus by doing it. If that's not happening, you're either doing the wrong thing or you're doing it incorrectly. What you should be saying is I am the temple of the Lord. I am the temple of the Lord, whether that's the invitation and you're working on it or whether you've made it true by admitting into your desires, the spirit of the Lord and, and thus becoming his house, not just in the sense that you are a part of his family, a son or daughter of God, an heir of God, one who is worthy to take the place of because they are the same quality. So either through housing the spirit of the Lord or uh becoming part of his family. And those two things are actually you can't separate them. They're inseparable, they're the same. But if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor. In other words, being just in your life, being fair. If you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless and the widow and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt. Let's talk about that one. So, you know, is, is I read you this or any other passage? I'm sure you're saying, well, that's not me. I don't do things that bad. Yes, you do. That's the same thing those people would have said when Jeremiah was saying this to them, you do misjudge between a man and his neighbor because you work a job where you get paid way more than you should. Because what you do doesn't actually make the world a better place. It's a, it's one of these nonsense jobs, you know, that's the case for some people. But we could go through the list when John, the Baptist called people to repentance in the wilderness. He wasn't saying do this tremendous new thing and that's how you repent. He said, oh, you're a soldier. How do you treat the people that you're, you're assigned to, um, oh, gosh, to this in the cities that you're, you're assigned to occupy. Do you treat them respectfully and fairly? And he just went down the line. You're a tax collector. Do you take more than you're supposed to? And he went right down the line and he, he put his finger right in their everyday lives. And they said, this is how you're a sinner. He said this is how you're a sinner in what you do every single day. Oppress not the stranger. Do you oppress the stranger? Well, if you support policies that reallocate, that misappropriate other people's fruits of their labor, the, the, the fruit of other people's labors. If you support tax programs that reallocate money, you oppress the stranger because you don't know that person and you're oppressing them, you're taking what is rightfully theirs? The fatherless. Do you oppress the fatherless? How would that happen in today's society? Do you support programs that take Children away from their fathers or unfairly, uh, or, or unfairly biased towards the mothers? Like divorce, court, family, court, child support or the widow. Do we have many widows among us today? No, not really, not really. What about shedding blood? How offensive do you think it was for Jeremiah to tell them that they were shedding innocent blood in the temple just by going? How does that work? Remember what Paul said about crucifying Christ? An new, it's any time you're not following his example in your life, knowing something about him and not doing exactly what you believe he would do in your place. You are nailing him to the cross. And how, how, how much do you think it hurts God for people to come into his temple? Who are doing that in the very moment? What mockery is that neither walk after other gods? And you'd say, well, I don't walk after other gods. I'm a Christian. Are you? Because what, what is a God? Really? What does it mean to walk after a God, it means to place the character of God as the highest priority in your priority hierarchy. It means for something to be the pinnacle of all of your actions, desires and words. You probably don't even know how to do that with God if we sat down and walked through just any day of your life from start to finish. And I said, what would God do in that situation, you'd say? I don't know, I guess he just doesn't care what I do in that situation. No, you don't care what he cares about. That's the problem. Go read your scriptures and pray and ask God what he would do in these situations and find the answer, find the answer and keep doing that until your questions are answered. If you're learning a foreign language, the best way to do it is to immerse yourself in it. And every time you hear something you don't understand or you want to say something that you don't know how to say. You write it down and then you go look it up and then you practice it until you've got it. So if we can learn foreign languages, why can't we learn the character of God? It's the same process. In fact, I'd say we have a whole lot more help with learning the character of God. So yes, you do. Walk after other Gods to your heart. You do it every day because every day, many times a day you're arbitrarily placing at the pinnacle of your priority pyramid, some random thing that has nothing to do with God. Or at least you don't understand what it has to do with God. So you are walking after other Gods incidentally to walk with God is to have him where he belongs in your priority. Hi hierarchy. And then all of a sudden whatever you're doing, no matter how temporal it looks. You're actually walking with God and that's what we're called to do. That's the privilege we have before us. That's what it takes to dwell in this place in the land that he gave to your fathers. Now, you don't have a place to dwell in. You don't have a land that he has given you or those who have a responsibility to you. But if you want that to happen one day, the Jews do, it's still Israel and maybe we'll get to that point. Maybe now is as good a time as any to talk about this. Did you know? Now, there are a lot of people in the world. I don't know a lot. There are at least some people in the world who are Jews and they don't, I, I should say Hebrews who are Hebrews and they don't know it. And there are people in the world who are not Hebrews, but they think they are. So it's a really confusing, confusing thing. However, all Hebrews have a right to this day to go to Israel and do exactly what the law of Moses says and they will receive all the blessings of the law of Moses. You probably didn't know that and a lot of them are going to do exactly that in our day. You heard it here, however you don't have, unless you're in that category, you don't have a place you can go and things you can do to tie into that. But if you want that, a version of that, you're not going to get it while you're failing to live up to the things already before you, we can keep going. Do you trust in lying words that can't profit? Do you believe things that are not efficacious? Do you act in a way that does not align with your beliefs? Do you say you want a thing? But you don't even bother to look for how to get it or do you act in ways that are contrary to what you say you want? Then you also trust in lying words that cannot profit. Do you say things you don't believe or do you not say things that you do believe? Then this applies to you verse nine. Will ye steal murder and commit adultery and swear falsely and burn incense unto ball and wa walk after other gods whom ye know not for time. I'm gonna skip over that but suffice it to say that all those terrible sounding things you are actually doing in ways that you don't recognize. Ok. And here's the punch line verse 10 and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name and say we are delivered to do all these abominations. In other words, the house is called in his name. But whether you answer that call or not is the question. That's the question. And the fact is that the time does come when, if enough of the people are acting sufficiently contrary to that name. For long enough, he destroys the house, the building, he destroys the building. In other words, he cuts off access to the real house, which is the family because here's the deal. Folks, I don't like this open heavens, closed heavens language that people like throwing around the heavens are always open because God is no respecter of persons, the latter to him is the same for all people. It's the path of improvement. That's the mo the highway of the Lord is the path to improvement. Everyone has to access to it at all times. However, it's a long road. He mercifully arranges for the faithful acts of holy people, which they're not shortcuts, but they facilitate the journey. They facilitate the journey and through, through our collective actions, we can, and of course, individually, we can either gain greater access to those advantages or destroy our access to them. And so when the temple existed in Israel, anyone who was of the house of Israel could go there and be bombarded with demonstrations of how God is that they would not get in their tent at home. But once it was destroyed, that was no longer available. Well, how did it come through Moses if it weren't for Moses, that temple wouldn't exist, right? And so there you have it, there, you have it. Ok. So now let's get back. So we started on 11 and now we're back at 11. Actually, I'm just gonna put a pin in that we're gonna come back, we're gonna keep going. But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh where I set my name at the first and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people. Israel. What did he do in Shiloh? Well, he destroyed it. So what was Shiloh? Shiloh was the place that um where they set up the Tabernacle when they got to the promised land? And the ark was captured by the Philistines. And um and then Shiloh was destroyed. So that had happened ancient to those people. Uh by the time Jeremiah came around, but they knew the story and what God was saying here is, look just because you have a temple does not mean you're righteous, nor does it mean that my favor will continue with you. There's mercy. But if you're out of the way, you better fix that because mercy is always temporary. Justice is permanent. Mercy is temporary. Ok? And, and then he goes into how he sent servants to tell them how jacked up they were, but they don't listen. Right. So he says, if you don't shape up, I'm going to do to you as was done to Shiloh. And that's exactly what he did, isn't it? All right. So now we're done with this and now we're gonna go to John 10. So I said we're gonna go back to verse 11. I'll just reread that in this house, which is called by my name is this house which is called by my name. Become a den of robbers in your eyes. Behold, even I have seen it saith the Lord. Now let's go to John 10. This is where the Lord is, is teaching about his being the good shepherd verily verily I say unto you, he that endeth not by the door into the sheepfold. Remember we were talking about the gate of the house of the Lord. He that endeth not by the door into the sheepfold but climb up some other way. The same as a thief and a robber. Now, what's the door? Jesus says right here in verse seven, I am the door. What does it mean to enter by the door? What does it mean to enter into the gate of the way it means to reconcile yourself completely to how you sincerely believe the Lord to be, that is the gate. That is when, when you covenant with God to follow Him, you symbolize that by baptism. But the promise you're making, you're saying I am going to follow your example in all things till I die. Recognizing that you're going to continuously teach me more than I know about how you are. You cannot make that covenant until you've actually done that already as far as you know Him so far. Otherwise, you know, you may as well baptize a bag of sand. It's pointless unless you've already reconciled yourself to God . That is the fruit meat for repentance. Meat equal to that is the fruit that repentance requires. That's what it means. This, if you're not, if you have not done this, you have not repented, that's what that means. Fruit meat for repentance. This is what it means to repent. And if you haven't done it , you haven't repented. Ok. Now, here's an interesting thing. Climb up some other way. So, uh, bear with me. Yeah. Yeah. What does it mean to climb up, climb up? So why would the Lord describe entering by the door as preceding, climbing up? So, did you know that the straight and narrow path is an upright path? It's an incline that's important. Once you get through the gate, it's not a flat path and it's not a straight, a stationary point, you keep going and going is going up. You climb up. Jesus was very clear about the sym symbolism of him hanging on the cross and he said, just as the world will raise me up to the father, you have to raise yourself up to me. You have to climb up to my example. And that's the standard to go to heaven. That's the standard to be in his kingdom is we follow his example. All right. Now he says any other way is to be a thief and a robber, the thief comes to steal and to kill and to destroy. But he comes so that people can have life and that they might have it more abundantly. He does it by giving his life. He didn't just give his life by dying. He gave his life by showing his life coming down and showing us how the father is because as he said, elsewhere, he said, you have, you have neither seen or heard the father. So he is our connection to the father. He is our demonstration of what we could not otherwise see or hear. Now, why did Jesus say that they had made his house a den of thieves because they had taken something that was designed to show people how to become more like God. But the way they were using it, it was actually being used to steal and to kill and to destroy cause that's what thieves do. How well it's true that the money changers worth stealing, they had a separate set of weights depending on whether the money was coming in or going out. So that they could shave some off of every transaction in addition to their advertised fee. But the more significant part of this, so, by doing that, he was showing them something else. He didn't go in and beat all the Pharisees. He didn't go into the part the priests only could go into and start beating them and kicking them out. They would have killed him right then and there he still had things to do. So he beat the money changers as a symbol and overturned the tables as a symbol of what, um, of the crime occurring in the more important part, which was that the priests and the leaders, we're thieves and robbers too because they were taking the people and turning them into twofold Children of hell or people that were way worse off because of going to the temple than they would have been if they hadn't gone at all. Do you see that's the problem. So let's return to the question. Is it about a place that God could come visit? No, God can visit anywhere. That's not the purpose of temples. The purpose of temples is not to make a place God can visit. It's to provide a mechanism to help people become more receptive to what he he he provides when he does visit because otherwise they probably wouldn't even notice him coming. Now, we could do a deep dive into Elijah and this and that and, but I'm not doing that right. Now these are, if you don't get the fundamentals, there's no point in moving on. So he says, I don't think the people attending the temple were righteous enough or worthy to be in God's presence . They were not worthy to be in God's presence, but they were righteous. Some of them were righteous enough to participate in temple. Um, the temple ordinances righteously like the, the widow who put in the two mites. She definitely had a place there. So why didn't he call it a house of abomination? Well, the money changing business happened in the courtyard, but we don't read about anything going awry in terms of the actual ordinances. At that time, there were times when the priests had messed up the rituals. So like Eli and his sons and the Lord took care of that, right? There were times when the high priest was killed on the day of atonement, that's why they tied a rope around him so they could pull him out if he died in there because it had happened before. So uh and put bells on him so they could hear him moving still. So they knew when to pull on the rope. So, so God had a way of taking care of that. It wasn't about that now when the temple was destroyed and I'm not going to go into this, but that was some 70 years later. Um You know, you can look into why that happened and how that happened. But you'll come back to the whole thing about Noah. And lot so I think that that answers these questions. So I hope that you found this uh useful. But, you know, at the end of the day, the point of everything I've said, it always comes back to Lord. Is it? I the question is, what can we do in our lives to more clearly see how we've deviated from God and make those corrections so that we are taking him as the most important thing in our lives. We're setting him in his throne where he belongs in our heart and in our mind and in every external thing that we do, we're making sure that our purposes are determined by learning and adopting his. That's the point of all of this.