Tag: Matthew 21:43-44
Jesus offended the religious leaders
Scripture reading for August 15th: 2nd Kings 15-16, Matthew 21
Matthew 21:12-16 “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 seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers.” And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple and He healed them. 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, and they said to Him, “Do You hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes, have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise’?”
After His triumphal entry into Jerusalem for His last Passover week, Jesus went to the temple and found corruption and idolatry there. Jesus drove out the money-changers and those selling sacrifices decreeing what Scripture had decreed: God’s House would be a ‘House of Prayer’. Those in charge of the temple were indignant! Their source of income was being disrupted by someone outside their ranks! Jesus then did many miracles of healing in the temple but these religious leaders were offended and sought to eliminate Jesus. Hardened hearts and offense go hand in hand and close the door to Heaven’s message of grace!
Matthew 21:43-44 “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”
Prayer: Father God, Thank You for making Your House a House of prayer for all nations. Thank You for cleansing my heart from idolatry, and making me a person of prayer for all people. I desire to see fruit from Your indwelling me and my abiding in You. Use me to fulfill Your plans and purposes in my time and generation to pass the torch of faith to those still to come.
2nd Kings 16:2-5 “Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God, as his father David had done, but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and the hills and under every green tree.”