The Gospel of John has many familiar stories.
But when we take a deep look at it, we see many spiritual truths.

Today’s text is also very familiar.
Jesus cleansed the temple.
The story shows up in the Synoptics, but that is at the end of Jesus’ ministry, and this story, today, is at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

There were people selling oxen, sheep, pigeons, and also money changers.
They exchanged currency for offering and also sold animals needed for sacrifice.
(Back-door deals were made with the priests.)
Jesus made a whip of cords and drove them out, and also overturned the tables.
Jesus refused to see the place of worship become a market place.

We know the lesson here.
What needs to happen at the temple? Worship.
We need to worship God wholeheartedly, and the temple was the place for that.

But there are so many other things going on in the temple/church.
• First, you need to offer up worship. You are not an audience.
• Rather than worship, some people come for their own gains.
• There are ministers who wants to show themselves off through the church (some pastors are so prideful that they lead a large church).
• Korean churches are focused on kingdom building, but it’s not God’s kingdom.
Why do you come to church?

If true worship does not happen, then it is no longer a church.

Jesus understood the purpose of the temple.
And he would not allow it to become a den of robbers.

Let’s look at this deeper.
We need to worship, as we will look at in chapter 4, in spirit and in truth.
Then how do we do that?

We need to know right things about God.
We need to have right spiritual truths, and that only happens through Scriptures.
(One Bible Teacher – I know just enough of the Bible to know that there is so much more that I need to learn.)
It is not something we can know through human reasoning, small voices in our heads, or through events or miraculous signs.
We can only know the truths through Scriptures.
Arthur Pink – “I believe that we can state categorically that there is no knowledge of God apart from Jesus Christ and that there is no knowledge of Jesus Christ apart from a knowledge of the Bible.”

Today’s text.
v. 18 – “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”
He had already shown them a sign.
He cleansed the temple, which was fulfillment of the Scripture.
Psalm 69:9 – “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
v. 23 – “they saw the signs that he was doing.”
But the leaders wanted something more.
What other sign could he give?
v. 19 – “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
No one got it – because they were looking at it from their own perspectives and reasoning.

In Vegas, people put money into slot machines and often, nothing happens.
So it is with these people when spiritual things are told to them.
Same thing happens in other parts of John:
• Nicodemus – born again? How?
• Samaritan woman – I have a living water – sir, please let me have it, so I don’t have to come to draw water any more.
• Disciples – I have food you do not know about – who gave him food?

No one understood what Jesus said, because they tried to understand it from their perspectives.
And they didn’t even have wisdom to ask “what did you mean by that?”
They just understood it in their own terms. V. 20 – “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”

They didn’t understand, because they didn’t look at it scripturally.
Also they didn’t want to listen.
They didn’t listen to the bible, so they won’t listen to Jesus.
They were in their own world.
Also they didn’t want to hear something that would cost them something.

What did Jesus exactly mean? It says that he was speaking about the temple of his body.
He was illustrating his eventual death and resurrection.
But he was also pointing to the fact that this world’s temple will not last, as their religion will not last, forever.
This temple – built by Zerrubbabel about 500 years prior  20BC Herod started renovation and expansion  Today’s text is about 26AD  would be completed about 37 years later in 63AD  7 years later in 70AD, it would be destroyed completely by Romans army.
This temple, the symbol of Judaism itself, will not last.
New world is coming.
And leaders were threatened by it.
They did not want to hear it.

If our minds are also filled with things of this world, we will not be able to listen to God.

But the Gospel is this.
Disciples began to understand bit by bit.
v. 17 = Psalm 69:9
v. 19 – disciples realized later, as they lived scripturally. V. 22 – “When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”

We need to look at this world scripturally.
And we need to worship God in spirit and in truth, through Jesus Christ, the true temple.
Let us meet God through Jesus, the true temple that will last.