Season 4 Podcast 172 The Stories of the New Testament, Matthew Ch 21:12-17, Pt 2 B, “Cleansing of the Temple.”
Season 4 Podcast 172 The Stories of the New Testament, Matthew Ch 21:12-17, Pt 2 B, “Cleansing of the Temple.”
In last week’s podcast we presented the first half of Cleansing the Temple. If you have not listened to Podcast 172 may we invite you to do so first. In this podcast we complete the theme. It is clear that the Lord’s house is to be the center of their worship because Jehovah, who of course is Jesus Christ, dwells in his Holy Temple, and Christ is to be the center of their lives. Solomon prays that even when the people sin and are scattered over the earth that when they humble themselves before the Lord and turn their hearts back toward the temple of the Lord even if they are in foreign lands among enemies that the Lord will hear their prayer and that the Lord will maintain their cause, as recorded in Solomon’s Dedicatory prayer of Solomon’s Temple in 1 Kings 8:
46 If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near;
47 Yet if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives, and repent, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captives, saying, We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness;
48 And so return unto thee with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies, which led them away captive, and pray unto thee toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built for thy name:
49 Then hear thou their prayer and their supplication in heaven thy dwelling place, and maintain their cause,
It is clear that Solomon’s dedicatory prayer is about the covenants the chosen people have made with the Lord. It is about repentance when those covenants are broken that if they return to the Lord the Lord will return to them. The prayer continues:
50 And forgive thy people that have sinned against thee, and all their transgressions wherein they have transgressed against thee, and give them compassion before them who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them:
51 For they be thy people, and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest forth out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron:
52 That thine eyes may be open unto the supplication of thy servant, and unto the supplication of thy people Israel, to hearken unto them in all that they call for unto thee.
53 For thou didst separate them from among all the people of the earth, to be thine inheritance, as thou spakest by the hand of Moses thy servant, when thou broughtest our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord God.
Solomon ends his dedicatory prayer and then turns directly to the people and blesses them directly. He tells them that the Lord will fulfill all of his promises.
54 And it was so, that when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication unto the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread up to heaven.
55 And he stood, and blessed all the congregation of Israel with a loud voice, saying,
56 Blessed be the Lord, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant.
Promises, of course, are covenants between the Lord and his people. They are based on a simple formula, ‘If you keep my commandments, I will bless you. If you do not keep my commandments, you shall not receive the blessings.’
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