Men, John chapter 2, beginning in verse number 1, the Bible reads,
And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there,
and both Jesus was called and his disciples to the marriage.
And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no mind.
This is one of those rare stories in the Bible that includes the mother of Jesus,
because let's face it, Mary, the mother of Jesus, is not a major character in the New Testament.
She's mentioned a few times in the four gospels, and in the epistles of Paul, hmm, now, Romans,
1st, 2nd Corinthians, uh, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians.
See, there's just chapter after chapter after chapter in the New Testament that does not mention Mary.
In fact, the Quran mentions Mary more than the New Testament does. Okay.
Why? Because Mary is not the emphasis of our religion. Mary is not the emphasis of the Bible.
She's not the emphasis of the New Testament. She's a wonderful person.
She's a godly woman, but she is not God, and she is not our savior, and she is not who we pray to.
There is one mediator between God and men, and that is the man Christ Jesus, not the woman Mary.
And so Mary is not a significant character throughout the New Testament.
She plays a certain role, but she's never emphasized.
And in fact, there are times when people try to emphasize Jesus' mother in the four gospels, and he stops them.
You know, for example, there's a time when Jesus Christ is teaching,
and they say, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to speak with thee.
And he says, Oh, well, let her in right away. I mean, she's just the most important person ever.
No. He said, Who is my mother? Who are my brethren?
He stretched forth his hand toward his disciples and said, Behold, my mother and my brethren,
for whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my mother and sister and brother.
And so Jesus leaves them outside and keeps teaching, keeps on preaching.
He doesn't interrupt his sermon for them. He has them standing outside.
At another point in Jesus' ministry as he's preaching, a woman yells out from the crowd and said,
Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.
What the? And here's what Jesus said. He said, Yea, rather blessed is he that heareth the word of God and does it.
You know, it's not about being the paps that I sucked. It's about being a person who hears the word of God and does it.
And so we don't want to make an idolatry of the mother of Jesus. Godly woman? Yes.
There are other godly men and women throughout the Bible, and we're not going to worship them either.
We're not going to worship Moses. We're not going to worship Abraham. We're not going to worship Hannah.
We're not going to worship Ruth or Esther or anybody else. We're going to worship God, and him only will we serve.
You say, Are we going to worship Jesus? Well, since Jesus is God, we're okay.
Jesus Christ is able to receive our worship because he is God in the flesh.
Jesus Christ, the son of God, is the object of worship all throughout the Bible, whereas Mary, no.
Somebody who even tries to magnify Mary, Jesus says, Well, no, no, no, rather blesses he that hears the word of God and does it.
Oh, actually, these my disciples here. They're my mother and my brother. That's what Jesus said.
Now, in this story, Mary is at this wedding. Jesus gets invited and his disciples.
They all show up at the wedding. And the mother of Jesus says to him, They have no wine.
Jesus says unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.
I mean, who's calling the shots here? You know, Jesus is an adult. Jesus, 30 years old. He's not living at home.
I promise you that when Jesus was living at home with his parents as a child, he was obedient to Mary and Joseph,
even though Joseph is not, of course, his biological father. Joseph is his stepfather.
But yet he obeyed them because the Bible says in Luke Chapter two that when Jesus was 12 years old,
after he was found in the temple talking with the doctors and the lawyers and the scribes,
he ends up going home and submitting to Mary and Joseph, the Bible says.
I'm sure that he was an ideal child because he was totally without sin.
So, of course, that included being obedient to his mother. But here he's an adult.
He's a grown man. And so Mary is being a little forward here by coming to Jesus and ordering him, in a sense.
So when he says this to her, Woman, what have I to do with thee?
Mine hour is not yet come. Then she backs off and she basically just says, look.
Whatsoever he sayeth unto you, do it. So she gets out of the way and says, whatever Jesus says to you, do it.
And you know what? That's what every Roman Catholic needs to hear tonight.
If Mary could tell you one thing, she would say, whatever Jesus says for you to do, do it.
Whatever the Bible says for you to do, do it. That's what Mary would tell you if she were here tonight.
So the Bible says there were set there six water pots of stone, verse six,
after the manner of the purifying of the Jews containing two or three firkins apiece.
Jesus saith unto them, fill the water pots with water, and they filled them up to the brim.
Now, the reason this is significant, giving us the measurement of how much water is in these jugs,
is the fact that if they're very big and they're totally filled to the brim,
the idea here is that Jesus didn't just pull out some kind of a Kool-Aid packet or something
and add something to this in order to turn it into wine, because it's already full.
And it's already full of pure water. And it's a very large container of water.
So even if you poured something in, you're not going to be able to, you know,
re-concentrate something or anything like that. So it's these huge jugs of water.
Jesus says unto them, draw out now and bear unto the governor of the feast.
So basically what they are pretty much seemingly doing is just serving water.
I mean, they fill the jugs with water, and then they're supposed to just bring this to the governor of the feast
and just serve it to him. And of course, in the process of this, the water becomes wine.
The water changes into wine. This is a miracle. This is a suspension of the laws of nature.
Jesus Christ performs this miracle and turns the water into wine. It's one of his most famous miracles.
And it says in verse 9, when the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine
and knew not whence it was, he didn't know where it came from. He didn't know about the stone pots.
He didn't see any of it. But it says, the servants which drew the water knew.
I mean, they knew we put water in these things. We filled them to the brim with water, and all of a sudden it's wine.
They saw the miracle happen, whereas the ruler of the feast did not see the miracle happen.
So the governor of the feast, he called the bridegroom and saith unto him,
every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine, and when men have well drunk,
then that which is worse, but thou hast kept the good wine until now.
So obviously, whatever Christ created, if he's going to miraculously turn water into wine,
it's obviously going to be the best tasting wine that anybody's ever tasted,
because anything that Jesus Christ does is going to be perfect. He's going to do it well.
Whatever God creates is very good. And so that's what's going on in this story.
Now, of course, a lot of people will try to twist this story into saying that Jesus created an alcoholic beverage,
and that that's what the turning the water into wine is all about.
And here's what's so foolish about this, is that people who try to justify the drinking of intoxicating beverages,
this is what they'll typically say. They'll say, well, the Bible says not to get drunk,
but it doesn't say I can't get a little buzzed. It doesn't say that I can't drink some wine or some beer.
And, you know, they always love to bring up, you know, the glass of wine with dinner or whatever.
You know, it doesn't mean I can't have a glass of wine with dinner.
And they say that we're just not supposed to get drunk. Okay.
But then they'll turn around and say, these same people will turn around and say,
that this mention of wine in John chapter 2 is referring to an alcoholic beverage,
well, here's the problem with that, is that the Bible says that at this point, men had well drunk.
Men had well drunk. So if we're talking about an alcoholic beverage, people have already had a lot.
In fact, they drank so much that they ran out. So Jesus gives them more?
So basically, Jesus is giving more alcohol to people who have already, according to the King James Bible, well drunk.
Now listen to what the stupid NIV, and look, make no mistake, the NIV is a stupid translation.
It's garbage. Okay. And I make no apology, I make no excuse for being a King James Bible only preacher.
I'm not ashamed of that term. It's on the window. It's literally in decals on the window.
King James only. It's in all of our advertisements.
Every Yellow Pages ad, even though the Yellow Pages isn't really a thing anymore, it's on the website.
I mean, look, we wear this as a badge. Of course we're King James only when you realize what trash the modern versions are.
And by the way, Brother Jesse pointed out to me after the sermon this morning, I was preaching about the telling of time in John.
And I proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that the clock in John is like our clock.
And that it's not the same as the clock in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
We went through all four examples. They all bore that out, but especially John 19 was a smoking gun.
It's impossible to reconcile Mark 15 and John chapter 19 unless you understand that the two different clocks are there.
Very clear, very easy to understand. I feel like everybody this morning grasped the teaching.
I don't think it was that hard, and I think it was a pretty clear-cut case.
Brother Jesse comes to me after the service and shows me that in the NIV, it changes all those instances of the sixth hour in John.
It just changed them to noon. And so basically it says that Jesus is before Pontius Pilate at noon.
And they're still talking about whether or not they're going to crucify him or not, right?
And the people are yelling, crucify him. You know, shall I crucify your king?
They're still going back and forth at noon. Then you flip over to Mark 15 in the NIV, and you know what it says?
Oh, 9 a.m., they crucified him.
So if you're reading the NIV, he's being crucified at 9 a.m. in the book of Mark.
But then at noon, they're still talking about whether or not they're going to do it.
Because that's not what the text says. You want to know what the text actually says.
If you read it in the original Greek, it's going to read like the KJV.
You know what it's going to say? Sixth hour. You know what it's going to say?
And then third hour in Mark. And you're supposed to study to show yourself approved to understand these things.
The NIV is going to do your thinking for you. Here's the bad news. They're dumb.
And they did your thinking for you. And so you don't even have a chance to get it right.
You don't even have a chance. You're going to go and you're never going to figure it out because they're not even giving you the information.
It's just noon. No it isn't noon. Woman at the well. Noon. No. Wrong.
Anyway, listen to what the NIV says in John chapter 2. You're looking down at your Bible there in verse 10.
Notice what the King James says, which is actually a positive word, well drunk.
Somebody help me out. Is the word well good or bad?
You know what well is? Well is an adverb for the adjective good. I'm doing well.
Everybody got that? Listen to John chapter 2 in the NIV.
It says everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink.
Too much to drink they say. But you've saved the best till now.
I mean now that everybody's had too much, you're getting out the good stuff.
How can we take this book seriously my friend?
So Jesus basically has less character in the NIV than a stewardess on an airplane who says,
Hey, you know, I'm cutting you off buddy. That's your last drink.
Because did you know that it's illegal for the stewardess to give alcohol to someone who is visibly drunk?
Or visibly intoxicated or visibly under the influence?
As soon as they start showing signs of being drunk, they're not allowed to serve them anymore.
Jesus is like, Oh, don't worry. Let me make the beer run for you. Let's get you more to drink.
Let's go. You've had too much. Well, how about even more?
And then people will make fun of us as Baptists for being teetotalers. Well, the joke is on you.
You're the one who believes something that is absurd.
But they laugh and make fun of you just to try to hide the fact that they're the ones who are twisting the text into something literally absurd.
Like, Oh, you've had too much to drink. Let me give you more. Wrong.
You see, what's going on in the story here is that they are just drinking soft drinks.
That's it, my friend. And you say, Oh, Pastor Harrison.
Soft drinks? Fruit juice?
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah.
Even they're getting all excited about juice.
You know, first of all, you should see how excited my toddler gets about juice.
It was like it's like his fourth word that he learned.
It's pretty much mama, dada, you know, and juice is like third, fourth, fifth word.
And what you have to understand is that in the ancient world, fruit juice is super expensive because they didn't have Mr. Juice-o-matic on the counter.
They didn't have machines and factories.
It had to be made by human beings. And it was very expensive as a luxury item.
And so people aren't just every day stopping at the gas station and just getting all their sugary snacks and sugary drinks.
Folks, they're not cultivating sugar cane at this time.
And so sweet things in general, sweet, sweet drinks.
They're not just mainlining Coca-Cola like you are.
OK, some of you. So therefore, this is kind of a big deal to get a good, fruity tasting, sugary drink.
And here's the thing. Look, we could even look at cultures all over the world that are still like this.
Here's one culture, independent fundamental Baptist.
Like we still have punch, a punch bowl at a wedding, and we drink the punch and we like the punch and so forth.
But, you know, how about Islamic culture all over the world?
Literally 1.6 billion Muslims.
And obviously some are more observant than others.
But if you look throughout history, 500 years ago, 1,000 years ago, 1,100 years ago, 1,200 years ago, guess what?
They would drink all kinds of specialty fancy fruit drinks that were non-alcoholic because Islam prohibits alcohol.
OK. And so, you know, there's nothing new under the sun.
This isn't some crazy idea about people drinking a fancy fruit drink, drinking Martinelli's and getting excited about it.
Well, yes, they did. That's what this is.
Which is why the King James Bible correctly translates this as men have well drunk.
They have well drunk. Now people say, well, but if you go back to the Greek, it's the same word for drunk.
But here's the thing. The word drunk is barely used in the New Testament. It's not enough data.
If you would actually read the rest of classical Greek literature, you know what you're going to find?
Tons of places in classical Greek and other Greek literature from the time of Christ where this doesn't mean drunk.
Where it just means full. It could mean full in all manner of different ways.
OK. So you can't just say, well, you know, the five times this is used in the New Testament, uh, not enough data, my friend.
Maybe you should actually learn the language or shut up about it instead of pretending to know Greek because you know how to use a concordance.
Knowing how to use a concordance and looking up six references and then making a conclusion about a word in a language you don't speak is folly, my friend.
This is correctly translated in the King James as well drunk as opposed to the word for being drunk in the King James.
It's not drunk. The Bible doesn't call being drunk drunk in the King James. You know what it calls it?
What's it called? Drunken. Different word, right? Drunken. Now today we call it being drunk, but in the Bible talks about being drunken.
You know, how long would that be drunken? Put away thy wine from thee, right? This is well drunk. This is drink, drank, drunk.
OK? Think, thank, thunk. No, that's not real. I'm just kidding. But anyway, uh, sink, sank, sunk.
But drink, this is drink, drank, drunk. They have well drunk. Means they've drunk to the fill.
Now look, is Jesus Christ sinning by giving him more of that tasty beverage? No.
But if he were giving booze to drunk people, that would be immoral. That would be unethical.
That would be a violation of what the Bible teaches about getting drunk and that is not what's going on.
Jesus' miracle here is that he turned H2O into fruit juice.
And look, I'm not going to spend the whole sermon on this, but I could prove to you from the Bible that wine often is just referring to fruit juice.
It talks about wine being in grapes that are in the cluster on the vine. OK? That's not an alcoholic beverage, my friend.
Uh, it's just that the word juice was a rare word in 1611 and so the Bible just uses the word wine.
And by the way, the word wine is not always even grape juice in the Bible.
If you read the King James Bible, many times the word wine is referring to other fruit juices that don't even come from grapes.
So anyway, this is not a case of Jesus Christ giving drunk people more liquor. OK?
Now, of course, this is every drunk in town's favorite Bible story and so I'm sorry to burst the bubble for them.
But, you know, people just love to find a scripture that they can twist to support their sin. OK?
And look, let's face it, there must be two kinds of wine in the Bible because the Bible says, look not on the wine when it's red.
When it giveth its color in the cup, when it moveth itself right. You know what that means?
That there's another wine that's not red, that doesn't give its color in the cup, that doesn't move itself right and that wine's OK.
So this wine's OK to look at, but don't look at it when it's red, when it gives its color in the cup, when it moves itself right.
That's referring to fermentation. I'm not going to explain that again, but I've explained it many times.
Anyway, let's move on through the chapter here. It says in verse number 12,
after this, he went down to Capernaum, he and his mother and his brethren and his disciples.
And they continued there not many days. And the Jews Passover was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now, here's another thing that I want to emphasize.
And I touched on this a little bit this morning about the fact that the four gospels seem to have a different intended audience from one another.
Right. So the Gospel of Matthew seems to be geared more toward the Jews.
Now, why would I say that about Matthew?
Well, first of all, the Book of Matthew characterizes Jesus as the king of the Jews.
That's something that's brought up over and over again. That's a major theme about Christ being king of the Jews.
Not only that, the Book of Matthew, more than any other of the four gospels, is constantly quoting the Old Testament,
constantly saying this scripture is fulfilled, this scripture is fulfilled.
So it seems to be written to an audience that would know the Old Testament,
that would appreciate Old Testament quotations to support the fact that Jesus Christ is the son of God, that he's the king of Jews.
So therefore, Matthew is heavy on those type of quotes because it seems to be written toward a Jewish audience. Right.
And then people will say, and maybe this is a little bit more difficult to prove,
they would say something like, well, you know, Mark is seemingly geared more toward a Roman audience.
Or Luke is geared more toward a Greek-speaking audience.
Yeah, you may not necessarily be on as firm of a ground with that, but, you know, you can see a lot of truth in that.
And there are a lot of good arguments to be made for that.
But when we come to the Gospel of John, most people would agree that John appears to just be written just to the whole world.
It has sort of a universal feel to it where it's just geared toward everyone.
You know, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
And one of the big pieces of evidence for this that the Book of John seems to be not really geared toward a Jewish audience,
more geared toward just a Gentile audience, really just geared toward a universal audience as we talked about this morning,
is that there's a constant reference to the Jews or things pertaining to the Jews as if there's something that we don't really know about
and that he needs to, as the author, educate us about.
Like, for example, you know, it says in verse number 6,
And there were there six waterpots of stone after the manner of the purifying of the Jews.
Like, hey, this is something that the Jews do with waterpots.
And then when you get down a little bit further to chapter 13, it says,
And the Jews' Passover was at hand.
Now, this is written to a Jewish audience.
You don't have to say, hey, the Jews' Passover.
They're like, well, we know what the Passover is.
We're Jews.
But if you're not writing to Jews, then you need to explain, you know, well, the Jews' Passover.
As opposed to what we do as Christians, we don't do that.
You know, we don't keep the Old Testament holidays.
We don't keep Jewish feasts as Christians.
And so this is their Passover.
The Jews' Passover. Christ is our Passover.
But, you know, they have this holiday, and that's the Jews' Passover.
It's not something we do as Christians.
And so you can tell here, and this is not just two times.
I mean, we're in the second chapter of the book, and he's already done it two times.
He's going to do it again and again and again.
And there's a lot of negativity toward the Jews in the book of John.
And of course, you know, John chapter 844 is kind of a high point with that regard.
I didn't say low point. I said it's a high point.
So it says in verse number 13, the Jews' Passover was at hand,
and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and found in the temple
those that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of money sitting.
And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple
and the sheep and the oxen and poured out the changers' money and overthrew the tables.
Now, Jesus Christ here is not losing his temper or flying off the handle because it's premeditated.
He sits down and makes a whip of cords.
And obviously that took some amount of time. I don't know how long that took.
But, you know, unless he was just super good at it, it must have taken hours, I would think.
You know, at least the greater part of an hour, maybe several hours.
But he makes a whip of cords however long that took.
This is showing premeditation on the part of Christ.
And he's going to go in there and clean house. He's fulfilling prophecy.
He's fulfilling prophecy from the book of Malachi about how the Lord, Jehovah God,
is going to suddenly come into his temple. He's going to suddenly appear.
He's going to burst into the temple and he's going to purify the temple.
And so there's some prophecy fulfillment going on here.
Also the prophecy that says, the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up,
showing that Jesus Christ is emotional while he's doing this.
Because otherwise it wouldn't fulfill a scripture that said,
the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. Jesus is eaten up with zeal here.
So he's upset. He's angry and he's legitimately angry. It's a righteous anger.
It's premeditated. It's not just flying off the handle over something stupid.
No, he's actually righteously angry. He's premeditated.
He makes the whip of cords. And what's he so mad about?
He's mad because they have made God's house into a house of merchandise.
It says in verse 16, and said unto them that sold doves,
take these things hence, make not my father's house and house of merchandise.
And his disciples remembered that it was written, the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.
Now here's the thing. This is a passive scripture that is almost always preached wrong
because almost every church sells stuff.
Almost every single church has some kind of a little coffee shop,
a little bookstore, a little tape store. I guess tapes aren't a thing anymore,
but whatever. The CDs aren't even a thing anymore,
so I don't even know what they're selling back there.
They're probably selling you like some little online access code or something
to download their sermons.
But churches are frequently selling t-shirts, whatever they're selling,
and so they don't interpret this correctly because they're in sin,
because they're disobeying this exact scripture,
and so that's why they don't interpret it correctly.
So I've heard all kinds of ways of trying to turn this into something else,
like saying, well, the problem is they're ripping people off.
You know, it's that the money changers, they're not giving them a fair rate.
You know, they don't really have the right rate from a peso to a dollar,
and so that's the problem is that they're ripping people off.
There is no indication of that in this scripture.
We could look this up in Matthew, Mark, Luke.
There's no indication that that's the problem.
Other people will say, well, the problem is that they're selling sacrifices,
and the sacrifices aren't supposed to be bought.
You know, you're supposed to take the sacrifice from your own flock.
Wrong again, because in the book of Deuteronomy,
the Bible specifically makes allowance for this and says,
look, if you live far away from the temple,
and you don't want to bring a bunch of animals and stuff on this super long trip,
if it's not convenient, if the way is too far for you,
then what you can do is take what you were going to sacrifice to the Lord,
turn it into money, Deuteronomy 14, turn it into, I believe,
turn it into money, and then bring the money to Jerusalem,
and when you get to Jerusalem,
then you buy the stuff that you're going to offer to the Lord in Jerusalem.
So there's absolutely nothing wrong with bringing money,
buying stuff to sacrifice to the Lord.
Absolutely no issue.
That's why Jesus says, you know, not stop ripping people off,
not how dare you sell doves.
No, he says to them that sold doves, take these things hence.
Hence means from here.
Thence means from there.
Hither means to here.
Thither means to there.
These are just old words.
You can look them up in any dictionary and they'll be there.
Even the most abridged desktop little dictionary or whatever your app that you use,
you know, five seconds will allow you to figure out what these words mean,
lest you say that King James is too hard to understand.
Take these things hence.
He didn't say stop selling doves.
How dare you sell doves.
Shame on you for, you know, making the peso small and the dollar great.
Shame on you for ripping people up.
No, he says take it somewhere else.
The problem is the location.
That's the only problem.
That's the only issue here.
The issue is that you're doing it in God's house.
We should not carry merchandise through God's house.
We should not buy and sell.
And look, my wife will sometimes have little side hustles going on where she's selling this and selling that,
you know, produce, milk, swimsuits, whatever.
And you know what?
Those transactions don't ever take place at church.
Sometimes people are like, oh, I'm going to pay for this online and pick it up at church.
No, you're not.
You know, that's not the way we do it.
You don't pay for, you don't buy something from someone and then pick it up at church or,
oh, I'll give you the money at church.
No, we don't.
The only money that changes hands at church is when we're putting money in the offering plate or if we're giving a gift to someone.
You know, you can give you can give someone a gift.
You can give someone charity.
You can give someone alms.
You can.
But don't you dare come to church and transact business at church.
And look, I'm not against business.
I'm not some kind of a long haired hippie communist up here acting like business is bad.
Business is not a bad word.
I'm all for business.
I'm all for merchandise.
I'm all for transactions somewhere else.
Don't do it here.
Right.
This is the house of God.
This is a sacred place.
This is a holy place.
You say, well, what's something special about the building?
It's not the building, my friend.
It's the assembly of God's people.
We are gathered here together and congregated.
We, the people are the church, not the building.
And when we are assembled here in God's house as God's people, this is a sacred place.
And we do not use it for the transaction of business.
That means you don't use church as the place to recruit people for your Tupperware party,
Mary Kay, Vitamins, Amway, whatever else.
You do that somewhere else.
You don't come to church and start handing out business cards of your business and saying,
hey, man, you need an electrician?
You need a plumber?
You need a roofer?
No.
Do that somewhere else.
I'm 100% for you doing business, working hard, getting customers somewhere else.
This is God's house.
You know, I guarantee you that if I just set up a stand in front of Walmart, if I just
went to Walmart and just started buying and selling in front of Walmart, eventually I
would get in trouble.
Don't you think?
If I'm just out there and I just got all kinds of watches and all kinds of jewelry
and I just have my coat full of all the merchandise, I'm just like, hey kid, come here.
You know, you want to buy a watch or something?
You know, I'm just over here selling stuff.
You know, it's only a matter of time before I get kicked out.
Why?
Because that's their place of business.
Right.
And this is where we're to be about the father's business, God's business.
This is about religion.
This is about Christ.
It's about the word of God.
It's about reaching people with the gospel.
It's about growing in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
It's not a place for financial gain.
I'm for financial gain somewhere else.
Not here.
Now look, some people will try to take this as, oh, we can't sell anything religious.
Again, nothing wrong with selling the doves to be sacrificed.
Just do it somewhere else.
You know, I don't think there's anything wrong with people selling a religious t-shirt,
selling a Bible.
Look, I buy Bibles all the time on Amazon or something, right?
Like, oh, I need a Bible for somebody.
Hop on Amazon, buy a Bible.
No issue.
And people are like, well, you should buy that from a local church.
That's literally the only place I would never buy a Bible from.
That's literally the only person I will never buy a Bible from is from a church.
I want to buy a Bible from a business that prints Bibles.
I don't want to buy it from a church.
Because if I go to church for a Bible, that church better be giving me that Bible for free.
You want a Bible?
It's back there for free.
You know, you say, well, I want something nicer.
Well, you know, then buy it.
That's a great Bible.
It's good enough for me.
Look, I'm a pastor.
I eat, breathe, and sleep that book, and I would be perfectly happy with that Bible back there.
It's a beautiful Bible.
It's a great Bible.
Those that we give away, I love those things.
It's not like those ones at the Dollar Tree where you need a microscope to read the thing.
That's a pretty good size print.
It's pretty good.
It's not a bad Bible at all.
And, you know, I'd be proud to hand that to anybody.
I understand people want to have a nice Bible.
I have this really nice Bible that I received as a gift.
But, you know, typically I, you know, when I'm visiting other churches, I preach out of something like that back there, you know.
As long as my eyesight allows me to, I'm going to keep doing it.
My eyesight is fading fast.
You know, as long as I can, I'm going to keep using those kind of Bibles.
The point is that selling a Bible, selling a Christian DVD, selling a Christian T-shirt, selling whatever, a keychain with a Bible verse on it, there's nothing wrong with doing that at all.
You're selling merchandise.
Merchandise isn't the problem.
The problem is when you make God's house a house of merchandise.
That's the problem.
And just for the record, I don't sell a bunch of Christian merchandise.
The only thing that I personally have ever sold, unless I'm not thinking of something, is my piano books.
I do have a series of piano books that I sell online.
But I give them to everyone in the church for free.
And anyone who writes an email to our church and asks for it, I'll give them the PDF for free.
So the PDF's free.
We give out physical books free.
I don't think we have them anymore.
I think we're out of them.
But the point is, you know, there's nothing wrong with selling something somewhere else.
I'm not saying that because I'm running some Christian merchandise empire, because I'm not.
I'm just saying that because it's true.
Okay?
And I'm not selling Hindu toothpaste either.
And for the record, there's nothing wrong with brushing your teeth with Hindu toothpaste.
Okay?
I brushed my teeth with that Hindu toothpaste, and I didn't like it, and I never bought another tube again.
But it wasn't because Hindus made it.
It was just because I didn't like the taste.
All right.
As long as it doesn't have fluoride in it, amen?
All right.
John chapter 2.
So he says, take these things hence.
The location is the problem, not the fact that these things are being bought and sold.
You can twist it all you want, but it's pretty hard to read this passage with an open mind
and come to any other conclusion that God doesn't want us selling things in his house.
He wants us to do it somewhere else.
Verse 17, his disciples remembered that it was written, the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.
Because, wow, they're seeing Jesus get pretty worked up here.
They might be a little surprised that he's driving them out with a whip.
I mean, imagine the picture flipping over tables.
That's pretty intense.
I mean, have you ever just flipped over?
I mean, have you ever just lost it and just started flipping over tables, let alone not losing it and flipping over?
Because Jesus didn't lose it.
This is premeditated.
He's flipping the tables.
And my personal favorite part is how he dumps out the money just to create chaos or what?
I mean, what is going on with that?
I mean, he takes the money and just starts pouring out money on the ground.
I love it.
That's the best part to me.
And then he has a whip.
He's literally cracking a whip, driving them out of the temple like cattle, like, yeah.
You know, they're running away in fear.
They're scattering as he is swinging a literal whip.
You know, it's hard to imagine that he never made any impact.
But here's the thing.
You know, let's say let's just say for the sake of argument that everybody got out of the way and that nobody got lashed.
You know, it doesn't change the fact that the Bible says that whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourges every son whom he receiveth.
And so therefore, if you're a Christian and you're making God's house a house of merchandise, don't be surprised if God scourges you, proverbially speaking, if he literally had a scourge in his hand physically on this earth.
And he promised that he will discipline even his saved children.
He will scourge every son whom he receiveth.
And so obviously, you know, God is very serious about this.
We should be serious about it, too.
And so I don't take this lightly.
A lot of people think, oh, you're making a big deal out of something small.
Who's making a big deal?
Because I don't I mean, I don't there's no whip up here.
I don't have a whip.
Who's making a big deal about this?
How many how many tables have I flipped over tonight?
How much money have I dumped out on the ground?
None.
So who's making a big deal about this?
Jesus is making a big deal out of it.
All I'm doing is talking.
I'm getting up and talking about it.
Oh, you're making a big deal about that.
You better know I am because Christ made a big deal about it.
The Bible says in verse 18, then answered the Jews and said to them,
what sign show us that one does seeing that I do is these things.
What like why?
Why does he have to show them a miracle to tell them not to make God's house house and merchandise?
They're basically saying, who do you think you are?
Who gave you this authority?
Why do you think you have the right to come in here and clean up this place?
What miracle will you show?
What sign will you show?
And of course, the Jews are constantly tempting Christ to show them a miracle.
And the idea is, well, if you show us a miracle, we'll believe in you.
You know, it's sort of like the atheist, you know, give me evidence for God and I'll believe in God.
You know, we want to see a miracle.
We want to see the proof.
Well, they're asking for a sign.
And of course, Jesus Christ in the book of Matthew said, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign,
and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah.
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly,
so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
And of course, that's referring to Christ being dead for three days and three nights
and then rising again from the dead because his soul went down to hell.
He descended first into the uttermost parts of the earth.
And so here we see something similar because the sign of the prophet Jonah is about Jesus Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, right?
Well, look what he says.
They said, well, what sign do you show?
Then said, Jesus answered and said to them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
So the sign I'm going to show you is that if you destroy this temple, in three days I'll raise it up.
Now, the Jews misunderstand this, and this is a major theme in the book of John, and I'll get to that in a moment.
Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
But he spake of the temple of his body. He's saying destroy this temple, and in three days I'll raise it up.
Now, of course, at Jesus Christ's trial, this is the thing that they keep bringing up
because they're looking for witnesses against Jesus to condemn him, and they keep saying,
this guy said he's going to destroy the temple and build a new one,
and he's going to change all the ordinances and customs that we got from Moses,
and he's going to destroy this place and whatever.
So they twist Christ's words here because he's not talking about the physical building.
He spake of the temple of his body.
Now, this is a major, major theme in the book of John, especially in the early part of the book,
is people who are not saved taking everything that Christ says way too literally and therefore being confused, right?
So John chapter 2, he says destroy this temple, and in three days I'll raise it up.
What are they thinking? They take him literally.
But he's speaking spiritually about the temple of his body.
John chapter 3, you got to be born again.
Nicodemus takes him super literally and says, oh, I got to enter into my mother's womb again and be born.
What? Misses the point.
Chapter 4, the woman at the well.
Jesus says, if you drink of the water that I give you, you will never thirst again,
and she says, oh, great, give me that water to drink because I'm sick of coming to this well.
I don't want to have to come back and draw at 6 p.m., amen?
You know, I don't want to have to come back here and draw water.
And so, you know, again, she's not getting the picture.
The living water, and eventually she does get it, of course, and she gets saved,
but the living water is spiritual.
It's the Holy Spirit. It's not about a literal drink of water.
Then you move forward and you get to Christ in John chapter 6,
and he says, you've got to eat my flesh and drink my blood in order to have any life in you.
And again, they think it's literal.
They're like, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?
How are we going to literally eat this guy?
And of course, that makes no sense.
But then he explains it to them at the end.
He says, it is the spirit that quickeneth.
The flesh profiteth nothing.
The words that I say unto you, they are spirit and they are life.
That's what's going to give you life, not literal flesh and blood.
It's not cannibalism of literally eating Jesus, but rather it's the word of God.
He fed them with manna from heaven so that man would not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
And Jesus says, I'm the bread that came down from heaven.
He that eateth me shall live by me.
Just as they ate manna in the wilderness, so he that eateth me shall live by me.
Then you have the Roman Catholics come along and they say, oh, we got, let's go eat up.
And they hold up that wafer and they say, hocus pocus, literally.
That's what they say, my friend.
Well, what they actually say is hoke est corpus meus.
But you know, if you say it fast enough, hoke est, hocus, hocus pocus.
So they literally say hocus pocus.
And then now, you know, all of a sudden you're eating Christ by.
Here's what I want to know.
When Jesus at the Last Supper and he breaks the bread and said, take, eat, this is my body.
Isn't his literal body sitting there like breaking it?
Which, you know what I mean, like what's going on here?
Do you think maybe, do you think maybe when he said, take, eat, this is my body?
It was sort of like when he said, if you drink of the water that I give you, you'll have everlasting.
I mean, what about when Jesus said, I'm the door?
You know, I guess Jesus is a literal door.
I'm the true vine.
He's a literal vine.
Right?
I'm the good shepherd.
He's a literal.
I mean, he's literally got sheep following him around.
Folks, this is the way the Book of John is written.
This is a theme in the Book of John.
And for Catholics to just home in on these verses in John Chapter six, you know what they're showing?
They're just showing that they're just like the Jews in John Chapter two.
They're just like Nicodemus in John Chapter three.
They're just like the woman at the well before she got saved.
They're just like the unsaved people in John Chapter six who walk away from Jesus because they think that everything is super physical, carnal, literal, when in reality, these are spiritual truths that are being taught.
Now, this is the go to verse also for debunking the Jehovah's false witnesses, because the Jehovah's false witnesses,
they do not believe that Jesus Christ bodily rose from the dead.
Let me tell you something.
The Jehovah's Witnesses are so far from being Bible believing Christians.
They're so far from being saved.
It's not even funny because they literally don't believe in heaven and hell and they literally don't believe Jesus died on the cross.
And they literally don't believe that Jesus Christ bodily rose from the dead.
I mean, can you think of anything more foundational to our faith than Jesus Christ bodily resurrection?
You know, isn't that the core of the gospel is that Jesus Christ died and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day.
And here's they say, well, you know, the resurrection, that's just his spirit leaving his body.
That's called dying. Gave up the ghost. Right.
And here's the funny thing about that is you don't bury a spirit.
You don't bury a soul.
What do you bury? You bury a body.
And did you ever wonder why we always talk about the death and burial and resurrection?
It's to make sure we're talking about the right thing resurrecting.
You know, what do you have to believe resurrected in order to be saved?
Because you've got to confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and you've got to believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.
What do you have to believe rose from the dead?
Christ's body had to raise from the dead because that's what died and that's what was buried.
Nothing else was buried.
You don't bury a soul. You don't bury a spirit. You bury a body.
Christ's body was buried in the tomb and Christ bodily rose from the dead.
His flesh did not see corruption.
I mean, how much clearer can you get than that?
His flesh did not see corruption, meaning that it's the same flesh, the same body that's put into the tomb is the same body that walks out of the tomb.
Then after Christ rise from the dead, he literally shows the disciples the holes in his hands and the hole in his side.
Different body.
Really? But the Jehovah's Witnesses believe that.
They say he's in some kind of a loner body.
He was provided with a body by Jehovah and I guess he just said, okay, I'm going to need to check out a loner body and I'm going to need a hole in each hand and a hole in the side so that I can deceive people into thinking that it's the same body.
That was hung on the cross.
That's what they literally believe.
I can't even count how many Jehovah's Witnesses I've confronted about this and asked, hey, did Jesus bodily raise from the dead?
Did his body rise?
No.
And then, you know, sometimes they'll just say, well, why is this so important to you?
Why do you care so much about this?
I don't know, because it's literally the core of the gospel.
It's literally the number one most important component of the gospel, according to First Corinthians 15.
You know, and so why does it matter, though?
I mean, it clearly doesn't matter to you.
That's why you're in this cult, because you don't care what the Bible says.
You don't care about the resurrection of Christ.
That's why you're not saved.
No Jehovah's Witnesses saved because they all believe this garbage that Jesus Christ did not bodily raise from the dead.
And that is a deal breaker when it comes to salvation.
Not only did Jesus show his disciples the literal holes in his hands and the hole in his side, but he literally invited them to handle him and touch him.
And guess what?
They did.
John talked about handling him.
OK.
And, you know, they all went and saw him.
They touched him.
They ate and drank with him.
So just to prove how real he was and that he wasn't a spirit, he literally said to them, a spirit hath not flesh and bone as you see me to have.
He's like, I am flesh and bone right here.
Come handle me.
Put your hand in my side.
Put your fingers in the holes in my hand, he said, and be not faithless, but believe it.
And then he asked them, hey, do you have any food?
Now, I don't think Jesus just happened to show up super hungry.
I think Jesus literally ate and drank with them just to prove that he was physically flesh and bone.
The real person that had just been crucified back from the dead.
OK.
And that's why he ate broiled fish and a piece of a honeycomb.
Sorry, it wasn't vegan enough for you what he ate, but he ate and drank with them to prove that he's physically there.
Now, what the Jehovah's false witnesses will pull out is they'll pull out flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God.
It says in First Corinthians 15, flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God.
That's true, but you know what?
Flesh and bone will.
Flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God, but flesh and bone will.
Yeah, because Jesus Christ said, I'm not a spirit.
I'm flesh and bone.
He didn't say flesh and blood.
It's what you might expect.
He said, I am flesh and bone here.
You see, right now in our carnal body, what the Bible calls our vile body, our natural body, you know, we are right now in a body that is powered by blood.
Right.
Blood is the power that keeps us going.
Right.
The Bible says the life of the flesh is in the blood.
So it's our blood that's that's our life force that's keeping us alive is the blood coursing through our veins.
That is the physical means which whereby we live.
OK, well, here's the thing.
It appears that the spiritual body, the resurrected body is powered by the spirit as opposed to being powered by blood.
It's powered by spirit.
It's not a flesh and blood body, but it is a flesh and bone body, meaning that it is materially there.
And here's the thing.
All of us will one day at the second coming of Christ, our bodies will be transformed.
The Bible says we should not all sleep, sleep meaning physical death.
We should not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet.
In case you didn't get to go to Handel's Messiah this year.
We should not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet.
The dead in Christ will be raised incorruptible.
OK, we will all be changed.
The Bible says in Philippians chapter three, he will change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.
So we will be like him.
Our body will be like his body.
And here's the thing about that.
After we are caught up together with Christ in the air to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
You know, ultimately we're going to come back down on this earth and rule and reign with Christ for a thousand years.
And we're not going to be a bunch of spirits floating around down here.
We are going to be flesh and blood people living on this earth, ruling and reigning with Christ for one thousand years on this earth.
And you're going to have a skeleton, my friend, inside of your flesh, inside of your body.
You're not going to be a jellyfish with a spirit animating you.
You will have bones.
This is what the Bible teaches.
Jehovah's Witnesses don't care.
You know, I'm constantly seeing the Jehovah's Witnesses with their little stand of literature.
All the time.
And I have mixed feelings every time I see it.
Let me just tell you the thoughts that go through my head.
One thought is just walking up and just kicking it over.
Just knock it over.
I've never done it.
But that's just a thought that I have.
Okay, I'm just being honest. I'm not saying it's right.
But I just want to walk up and just kick it over.
I also want to walk up to them and just hand them my Greek New Testament and be like,
Hey, can you show me the word Jehovah in this book?
This is a Greek New Testament.
This is the original Greek New Testament.
Can you show me the word Jehovah anywhere in this book?
But they wouldn't, you know, what's the point?
They don't care.
They don't care what the truth is.
So I go, I'm just going through, this all happens in a few seconds.
But I'm just going through my process.
First I fantasize about kicking it over.
That's kind of like maybe the, you know, the baser part of my brain kind of,
the ooga booga part of my brain kind of kicks in first.
You know, like, ah!
And then the next thought is like,
Oh man, you know, I wish I could just show them, you know, and I'm just thinking about just,
I'm just like debunking them all these different ways in my mind.
Then I kind of get over that like, eh, it's a waste of time.
Then my third thought is like, man, I'm glad to see them out here
because it means they're not knocking on someone's door
because literally no one is ever talking to them.
I have, for the last few years, I've been seeing them over and over and over and over and over
as I go about my routine, as I go about my life.
I've literally seen them hundreds of times with that little stand
and I have never seen anyone talking to them ever.
No matter how crowded the venue is, no one is ever talking to them.
They're just standing there like.
And this is their signature move, the calf raise.
You know, they just kind of look around every once in a while.
They're like a little NPC that the animator just makes it kind of bob every once in a while
just so you know it's alive.
And they're just kind of like.
You know, and then, or they'll be talking to each other, but they're never talking to anybody.
And I'm just thinking, thank God they're so stupid that they think that this is going to work.
But you know what it is? They're just putting in time.
They're just putting in time because they've got to get their witnessing in.
You know, and I hope that's not how you feel about witnessing
where you've just got to put in a little time or something, you know.
Man, when we go out soloing, we're actually trying to win somebody to Christ.
We actually want to talk to people.
We actually want to get people saved.
And we're going to go walk up to them and talk to them.
We're not just going to stand there and just bob around just waiting for something to happen.
And it never does.
Now look, maybe you've seen people talking to them, but I never have.
And I've seen them hundreds of times over the last few years.
So here's the thing.
I kind of end up, after I go through my process, I'm only angry for like a few seconds.
And then I'm kind of like, haha suckas.
And then I can kind of enjoy the rest of my day.
Because I like to be a positive person.
I like to see the bright side of everything.
And so the bright side is they're not out knocking doors.
And you know why that's so good?
It's because knocking doors is so effective.
That's why we do it.
Because knocking doors is effective.
Standing out there.
And here's what's funny.
A lot of independent fundamental Baptists, you know what they want to do?
They want to go stand somewhere with a little stand.
Hey, let's get a booth.
Hey, let's get a little stand.
No, no, no.
How about we walk up to people and just give them the gospel?
How about we be a little more aggressive?
How about we be a little more proactive and not just expect the fish to jump in the boat?
How about we throw the net in and bring them in?
He spake of the temple of his body.
Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.
Here's why this is such a profound statement.
I'll hurry up and be done here.
It's a profound statement because he's saying, I will raise this temple up.
This body is coming back from the dead.
That's a bodily resurrection.
Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise this temple up.
He's making the temple of his body.
This is one of the strongest verses on the bodily resurrection.
After I took him here, I would take him to Luke and I would show them the BK broiler that Christ is eating in Luke 23.
And by the way, or 24, 23, wherever, 24.
Here's the thing. Jehovah's Witnesses can be saved.
I've won Jehovah's Witnesses to Christ.
I've had Jehovah's Witnesses saved and baptized.
It's not always easy to win them to Christ, but it can happen.
You can get the Jehovah's Witnesses saved.
But when they come to my door, I don't receive them into my house and I don't bid them Godspeed.
I send them on their not so merry way.
And I'm not polite to them.
I'm not friendly to them.
I do not bless them.
I send them away.
But, you know, when they're on my turf, when I go to them, I will preach to them and try to win them to Christ.
And I have had some of them saved.
Okay. By the way, I got to, well, man, I got too many.
All right.
A couple of minutes. Let me squeeze it all in here.
The other thing I want to say that's profound about this that Jesus said, I will raise it up.
And if you study the New Testament through and through, you will find that all three members of the Godhead, right?
The Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, all three persons of the Trinity are involved in the resurrection of Christ.
Because we have God raising up Jesus.
We have the Father raising up Jesus.
We have Jesus saying, I will raise up.
And we have the Holy Spirit raising up Jesus.
And this is why baptism is in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
And just as Christ was resurrected by Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, even so, the baptism that pictures the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ is in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
I just wanted to tell you one more thing, you know, now that we've kind of covered that, is that I literally had a Hindu come to my door to evangelize me with Hinduism.
Who was, which one of my kids was there when this happened?
Who was it? Was it you, Miriam?
Yeah, you were sitting right there.
You're like, what just happened, Dad?
I had a Hindu come to my door with a stack of Bhagavad Gita's and he was literally trying to sell me the Bhagavad Gita.
And I told this guy, I said, man, you are satanic.
I said, that book is straight satanic.
I said, you're going to go.
I said, it's not worth it.
Whatever money you're making selling this book.
I said, you are selling your soul.
You're going to burn in hell because you're spreading this damnable trash.
It's literally satanic.
And he's like, well, at least take a look at it.
I said, take a look at it.
I said, I've read the Bhagavad Gita cover to cover two times.
And it's satanic.
You're going to split hell wide open.
And then I quoted him some scriptures on being saved and he's like, okay, you know.
I quoted him John three 16 and a few more.
So instead of the Jehovah's Witnesses coming to the door, now you got the Hindus going door to door.
Well, you know what?
We need to go door to door and we're going to put them all to shame.
And we're not selling the Bhagavad Gita.
We're not selling the New Testament.
We're not selling the Bible.
We're giving away a free gift called salvation in Christ.
Whosoever will let him take the water of life freely.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord.
And we thank you so much for this powerful passage of scripture.
And thank you for giving us all of these wonderful stories about the life of Christ.
So that we could learn more about our savior and learn more about the truths of the gospel.
Lord, bless us now as we go our separate ways.
And Lord, help us this week to live for you and to be a witness for you, Lord.
And to preach the gospel and to be a light that shines in the darkness of this world.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.