Matthew-082

I. What is zeal in the Bible?

1. Zeal is: Innermost transformation of the heart by the transforming grace of God

By now we are all extremely familiar with the words of the camp theme, but not necessarily with its meaning. Do we really know what zeal is? What is zeal? I would like to only pause a few more moments on the subject of zeal since the co-workers have already paid considerable attention to this subject.

I think you will have already observed in my opening remarks, in my thanksgiving to all those who have labored in this camp, in leading us in worship, but not forgetting our camp managers who also have put in countless hours of labor behind the scenes, and all the others who have made this camp possible. In those opening remarks, I stressed again and again that I want to express thanksgiving from the depth of my being. We, Chinese people, are often a very polite people. At least we used to be. If you go to China or Hong Kong, you might be puzzled as to what happened to Chinese culture. Courtesy seems to be no longer a meaningful subject. We are not talking about courtesy on the superficial level, but a deep inner sense of appreciation. Superficiality has now taken over. If this camp theme is going to mean anything to any of us, when we talk about zeal, we are talking about a new quality of life that you may not be familiar with. The quality of life we are talking about is depth.

Our lives are so superficial the way man lives it. What we need to be saved from is superficiality, where we all walk around with a mask. A mask is so thin but it is amazing how it can hide an entire personality. So many people fall in love, get married to one another, then within a few weeks or a few months, they are talking about divorce! Do you know why? Before they were married, they only saw each other’s masks and not the inner depth. In fact, the great tragedy is that many people don’t even know what is inside the inner depth of their being, so that when they become a Christian, they have to ask the Lord, “Reveal my true self to me. I don’t even know what I really am. I don’t even know why I behave the way I do.” As Paul said, “I can’t do the very good thing I want to do, but I do the bad thing I don’t want to do. I don’t even understand myself. What’s with me?” When people build up relationships, and those of you who are married understand very well what I am talking about. Even a few days after your marriage, you suddenly wake up and say to yourself, “Is this the person I married?” Before the marriage, he was a different man, and after the marriage, another personality has come out. You never knew he was so bad-tempered, so selfish. Why did you never know those things? It’s because all you saw was the superficial external, the mask. Perhaps you don’t need to be too hard on him because even he or she probably didn’t know what he or she really was like.

So when we talk about zeal, we are not talking about adding some­thing more on top of everything else you have got. We are talking about a fundamental transformation at the very depth of your being. If we don’t deal with this fact, we can talk our mouths dry about zeal and we will not be talking about Biblical zeal.

There are two kinds of zeal motivated by two different things. One is spiritual, godly zeal in which God is the center of that zeal. The other kind is a selfish, self-centered zeal, zeal for oneself: “I believe in myself. I live for myself. My whole zeal is directed for me.” What is ambition? Ambition is simply selfish zeal to achieve one’s own selfish desires and goals. Are we talking about that kind of zeal? God forbid! Then what kind of zeal are we talking about? Zeal for God, a spiritual zeal from the depth of our innermost being. But that is not possible if we are still the very center of our being, not God.

Let me ask the question straightaway, does this camp theme have any meaning for you? Will it have any meaning for you? Not unless God becomes the center at the very depth of your innermost being. The Lord Jesus—the Messiah-king God sent to reconcile us to himself and to save—gave a wonderful promise in John 7:38-39. “He that believes in me, out of his mouth will flow living water.” I didn’t hear anyone correcting me. “He that believes in me, out of his hair will flow rivers of living water.” Oh no, “out of his skin he will sweat rivers of living water.” What’s wrong with my quotation? We can read a passage and don’t understand what “out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water” mean. Unless the gospel touches you not just in your mouth, not just in your hair, not just in your skin, but in the innermost depth of your being, how can rivers of living water flow out of your innermost being? It hasn’t even touched you there! Now the first point you must grasp is that zeal is nothing unless it has touched you in the very depth of your being.

We want to ask: Why would zeal touch us in the innermost depth of our being? Fortunately, that question is not so difficult to under­stand, because there is something that works in the innermost depth of our being. What is it? Our selfish interest! Every one of us is utterly selfish at the innermost core of our being. That is the reason why we are so touchy. Have you noticed how touchy people are? Why did this sister say this and that to me? What did that brother imply? The genius mind has gone to work to figure out what was behind those words. The other person probably meant nothing at all. But you thought the other person was totally superficial, and you, in your profound depth of self-interest, were able to read into the other person’s statement all kinds of things that were not even there before! Do you see how deep you are when it comes to selfish interest? You can work day and night until your glasses become so thick for your selfish ambition. You will burn the midnight oil to study so that you can get better grades. You will take your boss to lunch at the Hilton or the Sheraton, or other schemes go through your mind, so that he will promote you and give you a better salary. Selfish interest is at the depth of our being. God has a hard job to do in you!

To talk about zeal, we must talk about transformation. Scripture tells us if there is going to be true zeal, our unbelievable selfish con­cern, self-centered interest at the very core of our being has to be taken out, and a totally new concern implanted. Ezekiel 36:26 says that God will take out of you the dead heart (of stone), and implant a living heart (of flesh). The Bible knew about heart transplant in the days of Ezekiel. He used that picture long before the 20^th Century began to do this on the physical level. We only blow hot air talking about zeal unless we understand that it means a heart transplant, changing a carnal heart into a spiritual heart, a self-centered heart into a God-centered heart. We will accomplish nothing whatever.

Are you willing to get a heart transplant?

So my question right away is this: Are you willing to get a heart transplant? I am talking to Christians as well because it is amazing how many Christians have a superficial Christianity. They know the jargon, “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!” We are sick and tired of our external performances. People wave their big Bibles in our faces, quoting Scripture verses to us. They are so zealous to drag us to church that you wonder whether they get points or get paid by the church! Or maybe it just makes them feel good to be able to say, “This person was brought by me.” It proves to the church how spiritual and active they are. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t discourage you from bringing people to church or Bible studies. I am talking about motives in the depth of our hearts.

Are you willing to say to God, “I realize now that I am a totally superficial Christian”? It’s only when you realize that you pray for 2 minutes and you’re worn out, but you watch TV for 2 hours and it’s not long enough. You watch the soap opera and saliva is running down your chin, but the very thought of prayer makes you tired! You say, “I’ve had a hard day God, so excuse me. I think what I need is not prayer but TV.” I think we all need some relaxation because prayer is not enjoyable for us. But if you say, “How about visiting your boyfriend or your girlfriend?” your eyes brighten up! You will say, “Can I go for two hours? Five hours?” Even if you spend the whole day with your boyfriend or girlfriend, you will say, “How come the day is over so fast?” But if you pray for one hour, you will say, “Oh! When will this ever end?” Do you think we are not superficial? We are in the grip of superficiality.

Those of you who have the task of teaching Commitment Training, or Basic Training, or Intermediate Training will soon discover how superficial everyone is. You look at that assignment and you will say, “I think I could have written this in about 5 minutes!” You gave them 2 months to write the assignment and this entire performance required no more than 5 minutes. Neither time nor substance was put in. Superficiality!

Let us not be hard on church members. How many times have you gone to a church and listened to a sermon and you wondered wheth­er the pastor required so much as two minutes to prepare it, because the entire substance of that message could be summed up in one sentence, and he managed to drag on for 45 minutes so that you needed toothpicks to keep your eyes open! It’s nothing but super­ficiality. You and I all know this. We, pastors are guilty. We ourselves must be saved by the grace of God from superficiality.

The whole church needs salvation from superficiality which is one of the subtlest and most dangerous form of sin in our character. It expresses the sin of sloth, carelessness, a lack of concern, but above all, disobedience to God’s call: that you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart. We are not talking about with all your skin, but with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your strength. The very call of the gospel is to zeal. Zeal is at the very core of the Christian life. How can you love God with your whole being without being zealous?

Why are we talking about zealousness? Precisely because the church is not zealous! Therefore, in having this camp theme, we are making a confession to our own shame, that we have to talk about this subject at all. We admit that we have very little zeal, not enough zeal, and in some cases, no zeal at all. May God give us the conviction in the depth of our hearts!

What is zeal? The first point I have made is that it means the innermost transformation of our hearts by the transforming grace of God. Have you got that? And if not, are you willing to let God perform by his resurrection power, a transformation in the very depth of your being?

2. Zeal is: Intensity, a depth of devotion to God straight from the heart

If Christianity is the superficial thing it is today, I’m in the wrong job. I don’t know what I’m doing in the church. I would like to go out into the world and get myself another job which will probably pay me five or ten times more, and where I can put myself into the work with all intensity. What grieves me is that there is greater commitment, greater intensity in the secular institutions – where the employees and the bosses will work over-time without complaint to make their companies successful. And Christians complain that too much is required of them. The standards are too high. So help me God! Why don’t you just go into the world and join them? Why shouldn’t I go and join them?

A friend of mine, a millionaire in Hong Kong once said to me, “You’re wasting your energy and talents in the church. If we had you in the world, our companies would be successful. Why don’t you come? I’ll hand over to you one of my companies and you run the company as the General Manager. I know it will be a tremendous success.” He feels that quality is simply wasted in the church because he knows that the church is nothing but pure superficiality. It is garbage, to put it in plain language without mincing our words! I can say gladly that he didn’t know our church. He only knew other churches that he has been to before, and now he doesn’t go to church at all. In fact, he hasn’t been to church for so many years. We used to be students together in London, England. He despised the lukewarmness of the church, the superficiality of the church, the mediocrity of the church. He feels that anyone with quality is wasting their life in this kind of place, and I can’t blame him.

What is the second point I would like to say about zeal? When you see me speaking, you see that I speak with an intensity which comes straight from my heart. I don’t do any acting. It burns within my heart when I think of the state of the church today. I have put in the best years of my life. I turned my back upon the academic career. I turned my back on entering a Ph.D. program that my professor offered to me. I turned my back on what this world has to offer. What did I do this for? To find a church that is corrupt and doesn’t like to hear it when I denounce it. That is why so many pastors today attack me. I will denounce the church because I will not see it in corruption and sin. I speak with intensity because God has placed that concern in my heart.

Look at the passage in John chapter 2 that you have been studying in your Bible studies. “Zeal for your house has consumed me.” In John 2:17, do you remember what goes before that? It says, when the disciples saw Jesus’ action in the temple, they remembered a verse from the Old Testament, from Psalm 69:9 which says, “Zeal for your house has consumed me.” Now there must have been something remarkable in Jesus’ action in the temple that made them think about Scripture.

Is anything that you do reminding other people of the Bible? Do you become a living Word of God that when people see your lives they think about the Bible and remember what the Bible says? Jesus lived out the Scriptures by God’s power because God lives in him, and when the disciples saw his action, they remembered the Scripture.

What was it about his action that caused them to think about the Scripture? What do you think they saw? When you read the descrip­tion there, he drove out from the temple the people selling sheep and oxen, and hollering about their merchandise. The money changers were clanking their coins while others were trying to pray, if it was even possible to pray in such a circumstance. He overturned their tables. What was Jesus’ frame of mind? He was exceedingly angry! Have you ever seen a righteous man angry? It’s quite a frightening thought, isn’t it? He was burning with a holy, controlled but intense anger, not losing his temper. Even the money changers and those selling doves, cattle and sheep, who were rough people, dared not resist him when they took one look at him. The western churches bring up their children in Sunday School on singing the song, “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” Well, there was nothing very gentle or meek and mild in the intensity of his divine fury. There is the zeal that expresses itself in intense anger.

I am sure you have been angry. Anger is not a new emotion to you. Would you please raise your hand if you have never been angry before in your life? I don’t see anyone raising their hand. I presume that every one of you admit anger is not a foreign experience to you. The question is what caused you to be angry? Was it because you were wearing a pair of new shoes and someone stepped on them and made a mark on the new shoes? Oh, you can flatten his nose! Or you were driving your new car, and some careless person put a scratch or a dent in your car? Oh, the fire of anger burns in you! Or you came home very hungry, and your wife burned your pork chops? So you had a tremendous row with your wife. You banged on the table and shouted, “What did I marry you for? I sweat the whole day, and you burn my pork chops?” We all know that form of expression of zeal is anger, but what motivated the anger? Self.

I don’t mean to say that you should be delighted to have your pork chops burned: “Thank you for burning my pork chops. Would you please burn them again next time?” Or you say, “I’m so delighted you put a dent in my new car!” I am not saying there is anything wrong to feel angry over some of these things. But the problem is we only know the kind of anger that concerns our personal interest until God changes our hearts.

Has sin in the church or the tragedy of the church ever caused you any deep concern? Or has it only perhaps made you think smugly: “See, I’m not that bad after all! There are also other sinners in the church. Even the pastor is a sinner! Good! After all, at the Judgment, if my case is not so good, his case is even worse!” You are concerned about yourself again. You are not concerned, or grieved, or angry because God’s name is being dishonored. You are just concerned about the reputation of your church. It’s always this question of motive.

3. Zeal is: Intense sorrow

Zeal also has another aspect: intense sorrow. Are you capable of intense sorrow for anything other than your own interests again? Have you read the book of Lamentations in the Old Testament? Very few people read Lamentations. How many of you have read the book of Lamentations twice? Will you please raise your hand? Praise the Lord! We have a few people who have actually read the book, Lamentations twice or maybe more! Most of us find that reading it once is just about more than enough. Twice is too many times. Life is about so many difficulties, so many problems. Who wants to lament?

Romans 12:15 says, “Weep with those who weep.” When did we ever weep with those who weep? Do we know any such intense feelings? If some brother or sister in our church has a tragedy, we just say, “Oh, sorry.” Do you see how superficial we are? Does it touch us enough in the depth of our being to bring tears to our eyes? No, we can weep for ourselves, for the insults or unfairness that we have to suffer. When did you weep for a brother or a sister? That is why I said the camp theme is a confession that we as a church, have failed in the depth of our devotion. We have failed. Let’s not pat ourselves on the back. We have a long way to go. May God help us to become the kind of people who can think as Jesus thinks. Jesus’ zeal was expressed not only in the passage, but do you remember what happened in Matthew 23:37-38? Can you feel the intensity of the sorrow?

When Lazarus died, the shortest verse in the Bible in John 11:35 has only two words: “Jesus wept.” When did we ever weep for the pain and sorrows of other people? We weep for ourselves. Do we know how to genuinely, deeply weep from the depth of our hearts, not because the anthem was so touching. When we go to the funeral home, I see people wiping their tears. Do you think they are worried so much about this person who is in the coffin? I think they are really weeping for themselves thinking, “When is my turn to be buried there?” I’m sorry to be so blunt but I think that is the truth.

4. Zeal is: Intense joy

The fourth thing is that zeal expresses itself in yet another form: the intensity of joy. Zeal is very complex. It can express itself in intense concern, in intense anger as an expression of that concern, in intense grief or also in intense joy. Do you remember when the Lord Jesus saw the disciples’ eyes were open, and they came back from their mission rejoicing at what God was doing through them, he was filled with joy! He lifted up his heart in praise and adoration to the Father and said, “I thank You, Father, that you have revealed these things not to the wise of this world but to the foolish, to the babes, to my disciples, to those who are willing to follow You.” He was filled with intense joy, not for himself but for what God was doing in their lives. Do you know this kind of intense joy?

Of course, you all know joy. When you got your last pay raise – a 5% brought 5% increase of joy, and 20% brought 20% increase of joy. You wished that you had 100% so that you would have 100% increase of joy! But when did you rejoice for the blessing that God gave to other people? Will we be able to rejoice over those people who are receiving baptism? Or do we sit there and say, “Every camp we have a baptism. How many baptisms do we have to have? I’ve been to this kind of camp for 10 years already and it’s 10 years of baptism!” Or are you able to say, “Lord, I thank you for this dear one! I thank you for that dear one!” Can you feel that your heart is filled with thanksgiving and joy? No, you cannot. Not until the Lord changes the way you think.

5. Zeal is: Intense spiritual thinking

The fifth is the intensity of spiritual thinking. I must stress this point. Why? From what I have said up to now, you may think that zeal only has to do with intense emotions: the emotion of anger, the emotion of grief, the emotion of joy. No, zeal is much more than that. The emotions impel and motivate us, but that’s not all there is to zeal. Zeal has to do with the intensity of thought: to love the Lord your God not only with all your heart but also with all your mind. This is what I have called “intelligent zeal.” It’s not some superficial, nit wit, foolish, foolhardy zeal that rushes headlong and brainlessly into every endeavor. The person with intense zeal is a person who now learns to think for God. Every scholar who studies the passage in John chapter 2 has already perceived that Jesus’ action in the temple was a carefully planned, carefully thought out action. The time was carefully chosen – at Passover time. It was not a haphazard action on the spur of the moment that he blew up in righteous zeal. No, it was a highly intelligent, carefully planned action. His dynamic zeal was guided by spiritual wisdom and intelligence, and he carried out a symbolic action to declare a message to the religious leaders of his nation and to the nation as a whole.

So I am not advocating that you leave this camp and the next moment you are rushing into anger, and the next moment tears are running down your face, and the next moment you are laughing and jumping with joy. People will say, “What have we got here? Idiots!” We must understand that zeal has to do with loving God with our whole intelligence, with our whole mind, just like Jesus. When you read the Gospels carefully, you will understand that every move that Jesus made was not only guided by intense devotion but also by intense, careful, strategic, spiritual planning. Every move was planned. Nothing was haphazard. How many Christians do you know, who live their lives with this kind of spiritual intelligence?

The same is true of the apostle Paul who followed carefully in the steps of his master: burning devotion, but marvelous intelligence and planning. When he went to Jerusalem, it was all part of a plan. He planned to go there and he knew that the moment he got to Israel and to Jerusalem, he would be arrested. Even the prophet Agabus made this very clear both to him and to all the churches. Read Acts 21:13 and you can see that Paul knew that. He did not need the prophet to tell him that. With cool and careful calculation, he went forward to Jerusalem to be arrested.

Then when the governor of Palestine was about to release him, he deliberately stopped his own release by appealing to Caesar as you can read in Acts 25:21, 25 where the governor said, “Had he not appealed to Caesar, I could have released him. But since he’s a Roman citizen, and he has appealed to Caesar, I have no choice but to send him on to Rome.” Why? Because as part of his carefully calculated plan, as an expression of his intense devotion, Paul had already planned to go as a prisoner to Rome and to die there if necessary. As he said in Acts 21:134, “I am prepared not merely to suffer but also to die for the sake of my Lord.” This is not crazy, mindless fanaticism. This is carefully thought-out zeal.

In everything Paul did, he had burning but intelligent zeal. As you study the book of Acts, which you should, if you wish to grow in the Lord, you will see that all three of his missionary campaigns were strategic, spiritual operations, carefully thought out. He carefully chose the targets that he would hone in on like a guided missile. He chose particular centers for example, Corinth for very, very good reasons. It was not that he landed in Athens or Rome by some happening or by some accident, and so he began to preach there. No, he carefully executed his plan to bring the gospel of life to people.

Zeal is the basic quality of every Christian: Love God with your ALL

Now we begin to see what zeal really means. I hope that you have clearly grasped what it is and that in each of these things, you will pray that God will make you such a Christian because this is what a Christian ought to be. This is not the model of some super Christian. The words, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength” (Mk. 12:30) were not just said to Paul, or Barnabas, or Peter, or to John. It is said to all of God’s people, from the Israelites in the Old Testament to the church in the New Testament. This kind of zeal is simply the basic quality of Christian life. But how many Christians of this kind do you know? This is how Jesus was.

II. Zeal—share God’s concern for his people— is vital for your relationship with God

But how are we going to get onto the same wavelength with God as Jesus does? Let me approach the subject now in the second part from a slightly different angle. Let me ask you a question: how has your fellowship with God been lately? How is your time of prayer, your quiet time every day? Do you enjoy it much? When you pray, what is it that you can manage to think of to pray about? Is prayer for two minutes just about as tiring as most people can manage? To be able to get through twenty minutes, will you need a special devotional book to read, and end with a prayer that may also be printed in the book which might also take you twenty seconds to read through. Am I exaggerating in saying all this? Am I ridiculing anyone? I don’t think so. Why? Frankly, we don’t have much to say in our prayers, do we? “Lord, bless Daddy, Mommy, Grandpa, Grandma, little brother.” Or “Please help baby not to get sick too often. It’s got too much wind; the milk doesn’t seem to suit it too well. Help my other son get into university.” Or “Help me improve my grades, God.” You have nothing else to pray about after that. Do you know why the spiritual life is so difficult, why we cannot enjoy it?

Way back in the Old Testament, Amos, an 8^th Century B.C. prophet, living eight centuries before Christ sums it up in one sentence: “How can two people walk together unless they be agreed?” (Am. 3:3). In modern terminology, “agree” means to function on the same wave­length. Do you function on the same wavelength with God as Jesus does? Of course not, if you don’t share God’s concern. You are walk­ing a different road; you are operating on a different wavelength, so how can you communicate with him? You are not even talking the same language. In other words, if we want to enjoy communion with God, we have to share the same concern with him.

You are only concerned with yourself, but what was Jesus concerned about? This camp theme makes it very clear to us. What was the one supreme, overriding concern that Jesus had? Zeal for his Father’s house consumed him. Now if zeal for God’s people doesn’t consume you, then obviously you don’t share the same concern with God. God is concerned about one thing, but you are concerned about some­thing else. How can two people walk together when they have totally different concerns? No wonder when you come to him in prayer, you don’t know what to say. You run out of things to say in two minutes flat. When you pray for this or that person, you cannot even pray with any deep, genuine concern because you don’t understand what it has to do with God’s plan. What does it have to do with the future of God’s people? Where is all this going?

In this second part, what you have to understand is that zeal is not just something that consumes you, but it is also vital for your relationship with God! Only when you let God change your heart to save you from your self, so that you become intensely occupied with his concerns, only then you will suddenly find that you are on the same wavelength with God, as Jesus was. When you share his heart and his mind, you are beginning to function on the same wavelength, talking the same language. You are discussing the things that are his concern because they are also your concern now. In short, you become in fact, a co-worker with God, imitating the Lord Jesus. Therefore, you are a true disciple of Jesus because a disciple imitates his teacher and master! How can two people walk together when they are not even walking in the same direction because they have different interests? Do you see the root of the spiritual problem of so many Christians?

Without zeal, or communion with God, you will become his enemy

Another thing we must think about is if you don’t share God’s concerns, not only will you not be able to communicate with him, but you will also find the Christian life burdensome and simply meaning­less because you are not even imitating the Lord Jesus, to go in the same direction as his God and Father is going. We are called the “Disciples Church.” You wouldn’t even be a disciple unless you walk in the same direction as Jesus went with God. Even worse, if your concern is different from God’s concern, do you know what is going to happen? There’s going to be conflict between you and God! There are many Christians today who are in conflict with God. In fact, one could say virtually the whole church is in conflict with God! (Jam. 4:4; Gal. 4:16)

In my student days, there was a group of theologians which included a number of bishops of the church—a very well-known Anglican bishop and quite a number of American bishops of the Episcopal and other churches—who came out with a declaration that God is dead. The world was shocked! Here are theologians and bishops of the church, leaders of the church who declared that God is dead. When I listened to this, I realized the truth of the situation. It’s not that God is dead, but it’s the church is dead. What you really are will be reflected in the way you think. If you are spiritually dead, then for you God will be dead. But for the person who is spiritually alive, he is able to say with the apostle Paul, “I know whom I have believed. I know him!” But these people don’t know him. As far as they are concerned, God is dead because these bishops and theologians are dead. I knew them personally. They are spiritually dead. They don’t know God at all.

I vividly remember my Old Testament professor once discussed the question about God with me as friend to friend. And I thought, “This man is supposed to be a professor of the Old Testament, but he doesn’t know whether or not God lives. It’s pitiful!” It’s not know­ledge that helps you to know God, it is spiritual commitment. There is no commitment in these theologians, and sadly enough, in these bishops. The church is dead. And a dead church comes into conflict with God.

I have warned you before from Scripture, the worst enemies of God are not the non-Christians. Never make that mistake! In the New Testament, or in the Old Testament, or in the history of the church, if you have ever studied church history, you will find that the most determined and the most dangerous enemies of the church are not non-Christians. These are Christians! And especially leaders of the church! Who accused Jesus and got him crucified? The leaders of the Jewish nation. All of them were high priests, Pharisees, Sadducees, religious people. Therefore, I say again, if you are not walking with God, sharing his heart, not only will you not be able to commune with him, the danger is that the time will come that you will be his enemy. You will fight against God!

The greatest atrocities against faithful Christians in the history of the church were carried out by other Christians. You have heard of the Spanish Inquisition where the Roman Catholic Church not just executed believers who did not agree with the Catholic teaching, but slowly and skillfully and painfully tortured them to death. You can­not imagine Christians doing this kind of thing! Oh yes, that is in the history books. It’s not invented by me. In case we, Protestants begin to get self-righteous, we should know that the Protestants did pretty much the same thing. In the barbaric actions of the Protestant lead­ers, especially in Germany and in Netherlands, the Anabaptists—the forerunners of today’s Baptists—were slaughtered, executed and tortured to death also in the tens of thousands. We are not talking about one or two but tens of thousands! In these days, you could become an enemy of God. You might even become a Judas. We are dealing with something very serious. We are dealing with eternal life or eternal death.

I hope I have said enough to impress deeply upon your hearts why you must urgently—not tomorrow or the day after—urgently ask God to transform your heart; so that you enjoy communion with God, enjoy Christian life in its depth and in its richness; so that God can make you a fountain of living water coming right out of the depth of your being—if it doesn’t come out of the depth of your being, it won’t come out at all—so that God may make you the kind of Christian that he wants you to be, having zeal for his house, his church.

God wants beautiful, holy people, not a beautiful temple

The Lord Jesus said, “Destroy this house and in three days I will raise it up.” That was a staggering statement. Put yourself in the temple with huge crowds of people listening to the Lord Jesus, and he makes a statement like that. As always, he was saying what his Father directs (cf. Jo. 5:19), “Do you see this beautiful temple glittering with golden ornaments and beautiful marble stones, one of the wonders of the world? Destroy it!” Blasphemy! It’s the house of God! How can you speak in this way? Righteous indignation is coming up. But destroying God’s house was nothing new. They expended so much expense and energy to build this beautiful house. Forty-six years had already been spent building it physically, but it was already spiritually destroyed. The strange thing was that they were building the house at the very same time that they were destroying it.

Six hundred years before that, the magnificent temple which Solomon had built for God had been burned to the ground and des­troyed. So the idea of destroying the temple was nothing new. Why? Because of sin! Do you think God is interested in beautiful buildings? He is interested in beautiful people, not in beautiful buildings! But that could never get into his people’s minds. What kind of people are beautiful in God’s sight? Does God look at you and see his beauty in your life? Are you made in his image? God is supremely beautiful! I think the day when we see God, we will be overwhelmed with his incredible “beauty of holiness,” as the psalmist calls it. The sinner is afraid of holiness, but the righteous man delights in the “beauty of holiness.” God wants beautiful people, not a beautiful building! Therefore, if the people who worship in a beautiful building are ugly because of sin, he will destroy the building even if it is beautiful. That is what Jesus meant. “Yes, you have a beautiful building, but destroy it because you are not a beautiful people! You are a stiff-necked, disobedient, rebellious people as you have always been! Destroy this building! God doesn’t want this building.” They think that talking about destroying a building is blasphemy.

God does not live in his house when his people sin

They have been building this temple for 46 years, and from this statement, we know the year in which the Lord Jesus spoke. We know from the Jewish historian, Josephus, that Herod the Great began to build this temple in 19 B.C., 19 years before Christ. So 46 years later, when the Lord Jesus said, “Destroy this temple” was the year 27 A.D. We also know from history that the temple continued to be built and beautified even after Jesus was crucified, until the year 63 A.D., another 36 years on. It was destroyed in A.D. 70, only seven years after the whole building was completed and at its most magnificent! As our Lord Jesus said, “Not one stone will be left upon another.” It was leveled to the ground only seven years after they had expended some 80 years to beautify. It was wiped out in the year 70 A.D. when the whole Jewish nation perished as a nation. The Lord Jesus said, “Destroy this temple” because God is not in that building.

Let those words of Matthew 23:38 be deeply imprinted in your mind: What did the Lord Jesus say? “Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate.” Who has forsaken it? God has forsaken the building. You can keep on building and beautifying it with more gold, crystals and jewels, but God has forsaken it. Therefore, this house is meaningless. What is the temple for? The temple has meaning only for one reason: It’s God’s presence that makes it meaningful. If God is not in the temple, even if it is the most beautiful building in the world, it is meaningless.

God lives in the true Christian who God raised through Jesus’ resurrection

Where is God to be found? God lives in the new temple, the one that God raised through Jesus’ resurrection on the third day – the new creation, the true Christian. Christians still have not learned the lesson and they are still building temples or “tabernacles” today. The “tabernacle” was simply the early form of the temple. We are still building to God temples and tabernacles and churches or what­ever you like to call it. God doesn’t dwell in such places. Our Roman Catholic friends still can’t quite get it into their heads that God doesn’t live in the church, not even if the host is there. No, God dwells in you. He doesn’t dwell anywhere at all if he doesn’t dwell in you and me.

God’s special presence, his saving presence is to be found in one place on earth at that time – in the temple. That is the significance of the temple. The Old Testament has two complementary things to tell us. One is that God, in one sense, can be found everywhere. But can you meet him everywhere? Not unless you are a spiritual giant. Most people are not spiritual giants, so how can the common person find God? He is to be found only where his special presence is. And where is that? His special presence is to be found in the temple appointed by him. It is there where the atonement was made through the sacri­fices. It is there where the priests ministered and prayed and taught the people of God. God’s sheer presence is what made the temple special.

But once God’s presence is not there anymore, you might as well destroy the temple. The temple has no meaning whatsoever. That is why the prophet Ezekiel said, “I saw the glory of Yahweh rise up above the temple and then it departed. God has left the temple.” (Eze. 9:3) Do you know what that means? It means that the temple will be destroyed. So, what the Lord Jesus said here meant exactly the same. That temple was going to be destroyed.

God raised the church into being on the day of Jesus’ resurrection: Easter

How will a new temple be raised up in three days? Through Jesus’ resurrection! What happened when Jesus was raised from the dead? The Father raised Jesus from the dead, and by his resurrection raised the church into being at precisely the same time.

John 20:8 tells us that the apostle John saw and believed. John was one of the apostles, so why does he say he believed? The reason is he is the first believer who believed in the New Testament sense of the word “believe.” And what is the New Testament sense of the word “believe”? For all of you who are being baptized today, I would like you to read it again before you go to your baptism. Romans 10:9-10 says:

The resurrection is the vital element both in bringing the church into being as well as in the confession of salvation. Up to that point, Jesus had not been raised yet. It was not yet possible to believe in God and in the resurrection of Christ in the New Testament sense. You can say the apostle John was the first believer in the full New Testament sense.

As you read on in John 20:11-16, you will see that Mary Magdalene was the first person granted the privilege to see with her own eyes the risen Lord Jesus, and to believe in his resurrection.

The church came into being on the day of Jesus’ resurrection. God raised his Christ, and his resurrection raised the church, the belie­vers who witnessed it. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “I will raise up my church on the third day.”

Many Christians are still mistakenly supposing that the church came into being on the Day of Pentecost. No, it came into being on Easter, the Day of Christ’s resurrection. Today, those who are going to be baptized will become Christians in the New Testament sense. They will be buried with Christ and raised with Christ into the resurrection life. The resurrection life is the mark of the church.

The church—you and I as true Christians—is God’s sign to the world

I would like to finish and leave one verse, John 2:18 in your mind as we close, because it is exceedingly, exceedingly important:

The Jews asked Jesus, “What sign will you show us to prove that you have the authority to cleanse the temple by driving out the money changers and merchants?” In answer to the question about a sign Jesus said in verse 19:

The Jewish people asked for a sign: “What sign will you show us that you have God’s power and God’s authority, that you are truly speaking for God? Show us your spiritual credentials.” And Jesus said, “Yes, I will give you a sign. This is the sign: on the third day, I will raise up the body.” What a mind-boggling sign this is!

What is the purpose of a sign? There needs to be a sign to help the Jewish nation and the whole world to believe. Jesus said he would give them a sign, and you know Jesus is no liar. If he said he is going to give us a sign after God’s power resurrects him, he will give a sign.

Do you know what is the sign? If it was his own personal resurrec­tion alone, did the Jews ever see it? Of course not! You know very well from the New Testament that only the disciples saw the risen Lord Jesus, but the Jews did not see this sign. Therefore, it’s not fair to say to the Jews, “I’ll give you a sign,” because they did not see any sign.

We realize that the Lord Jesus is referring to his body spiritually when he speaks of the temple, and “the body of Christ” is the church (Col. 1:18, 24). But his physical body is included in this sign because without his personal, physical resurrection, there would not be a church at all. The church is built on the physical resurrection of Christ. If God did not raise Jesus from the dead, there would not be a church. It is the body of Christ as the church which is the sign for the whole world to see.

What is the church? You are the body of Christ; I am the body of Christ. In short, you and I are God’s sign to the world. If we, the church fail, we are going to have to answer to God and to the world. In other words, if the world is to believe in God, it will be because of you, and because of me, or not at all. The church is God’s sign to the world.

In 1 Corinthians 3:16 and in 1 Corinthians 6:19 Paul says,

He says, “Your physical body is the temple of God.” Do you know where God dwells now? God dwells in you and in me, not in a church building. God’s special presence is found in one place today in the world: you are that place, as the apostle Paul says. You are God’s sign to the world. God has chosen you to be that sign through his redeeming, transforming resurrection power.

When you go to work, when you go to school, you are God’s sign. Has anyone believed in Yahweh God and in Jesus, his Christ because of you? Have you been the sign of God that you were meant to be? Has God transformed your heart and put his intensity into you?

Let us be quiet before God in prayer.