“I WOULD NOT HAVE YOU IGNORANT,” Sermon for 10th Sunday after Trinity, 4 August 2024 Anno Domini, the Anglican Orthodox Communion Worldwide
Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. I Corinthians 12:1
And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought; saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves. And he taught daily in the temple. Luke 19:45-46
We find in both the Gospel text and the Epistle a grave warning and a comforting counsel. Upon His last entry into Jerusalem, Jesus wept over the city. He knew full well what judgment was shortly to befall those who practiced false and unloving religion. Being made in the image of God, He saw, with deep sorrow, the depths of darkness into which those who had claimed an adherence to the Law of God without the essential ingredient of LOVE had sunk. Their hearts were turned to hate and envy. We see traces of the same in our modern churches of today.
In today’s Gospel, we see Jesus cleansing the Temple the second time. He cleansed the Temple once before as the His first act of ministry following the miracle at the marriage feast in John 2. And now, He once more cleanses the Temple – but for what purpose? I believe the first cleansing was to herald His coming as the true Temple of God and to demonstrate the nature thereof; but the second cleansing pointed to the rejection of the Jews to the new Light of truth that His ministry had made known. The first was done to reveal the sad state of their religion at the beginning; the second was perhaps to demonstrate the coming judgment of their rejection of the King of Love and Heaven. The Temple of the heart must not become cluttered with concerns of pelf and power, but of love and faith.
How, indeed, has the modern church come to place so much emphasis on money, elaborate structures, and prideful disposition? Why all the car washes, yard sales, and cake-selling? Do these things glorify the God of Heaven? I think not. Great size of buildings and members is by no means evidence of the Christian faith; as a matter of fact, it often points to just the opposite.
The love of Jesus for the Jewish people was painful to Him in at last finding them in rejection of the Law and Prophets who told of His coming. Instead, they violently opposed Him, and to what a terrible end! The believer is, indeed, the Temple of God only because it is the abode of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Great Temple and we are the lesser. His first cleansing was a revelation of Himself as the Temple of God: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” This first declaration to the Jewish rulers confused them for the hardness of their hearts. They could little comprehend that He was the real Temple of God made without hands. His words were prophetic of His resurrection in which, after three days, He would rise from the dead. From that moment on, they despised Him for speaking the truth. The world today still demonstrates an unreasonable hatred of the truth and Gospel of Christ. Even the mention of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in public is condemned by both government and society at large in our own nation.
Many, perhaps most, of our churches today have become ”a den of theives.” They have rejected the truth of the Bible and resorted to crowd-pleasing schemes of money and mammon. We perhaps have made ourselves too fat and comfortable in living for self and rejecting the higher laws of God. You may find these words judgmental on my part, and surely they are; but they do not reflect my judgment, but the judgment of God revealed in His inerrant Word.
In the Epistle, we learn that the Lord desires that we be knowledgeable of all things concerning Himself through the enlightening Word of God. Often, in our time, single verses are taken out of context to establish a completely new doctrine inconsistent with the clear biblical truth as a whole. God desires that we be knowledgeable, in not only handling the Word of God, but in living it out in our lives. He would not have us to be ignorant. Ignorance can result in lack of opportunity to hear the Word – a failing of others who believe; or, it may be a result of slothful disposition to seek and to find truth of the individual.
The cleansing of the Temple was directed at unbelievers and those who vehemently reject
Christ; but in the Epistle, we find comforting counsel to the believer concerning the gifts and graces of God.
Graces are given for the wholesome faith of the believer; however, gifts are given for the benefit
and salvation of others in showing the love and power of God.
The words of Paul in this Epistle are addressed as much to us of the modern day as to the Corinthians inasmuch as they were Gentiles who were invited to become members of the household o God and beneficiaries of the blessings of Israel – that is, becoming the true sons and daughters of Israel through the Spirit and not the flesh. “7 Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. 8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. 9 So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. 10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” Galatians 3:7-10
Paul admonishes the Corinthians of failure to adhere to their spiritual heritage in Christ. “Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols.” The key word here is the past tense verb – WERE! If the Jews had truly received Christ in their hearts after the first cleansing of the Temple, neither would the second cleansing have been necessary. Once we have come to Christ by faith, we dare not turn back to the filth and horror of the wicked. As the Apostle Peter confirms, “ 22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” Why would any man or woman, coming into the grace and light of Christ, ever desire to return to that unhappy and perishing state of the rebellious sinner?
In today’s ancient Prayer of Collect, we find these words: “LET thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of thy humble servants; and, that they may obtain their petitions, make them to ask such things as shall please thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. The great freedom of the believers is his pleasure in owning the same will that is the Mind of Christ. The old sinful desires have been abandoned and the new hope in Christ rules in his heart. If we ask for those things that are the will and pleasure of god, why would God not grant us our petitions to that effect? We ask out of humility and not out of a sense of entitlement. The Lord is our Sovereign – not Mammon.
