Chapter 42: A Fast For The Nations
The Chronicles of Redemption – Part 6
Ch 42: A Fast for the Nations
Dr. David Platt
11/07/10
If you have a bible, and I hope you do, let me invite you to open with me to Mark Chapter 11. I do want to welcome you to worship this evening with The Church at Brook Hills, and especially if you’re visiting with us, whether you’re here from another church visiting with us, or maybe if you’re here and you don’t know Christ, or are exploring Christianity, the church, exploring who Christ is. We want to welcome you and we hope that tonight it’ll be evident to you in the church while we celebrate Christ like we do. But you have come on a special day of sorts for our faith family because this is a day that we have set aside for fasting and prayer together as a church. Maybe you’re a member of the faith family and you missed that memo, and we are not bitter at all that you have had breakfast, and lunch, and snacks along the way. But we would encourage you to obtain from dinner along side of us tonight.
The picture is, and we see this all throughout Scripture among the people of God, Old Testament and New Testament, fasting is important discipline in our growth in Christ, and not just individually, but as a people. Often times in The Old Testament, we see the people of God setting aside days of fasting for guidance, for direction, for deliverance. In some circumstances, we see the people of God, we see this in Joel, the picture of fasting and confession of sin and repentance. We see the people in Chapter 13, the local churches worshipping and fasting, and that’s where the birth of Paul’s missionary journeys comes out of. And, so, we’ve set aside periodic Sundays during the year for fasting together and praying together, and this is that Sunday.
And often times when you look in Scripture, you see fasting for specific reasons. And what we’re doing, and you see at the top of your notes there, is a fast, today, for the nations. Now when you hear that word “nations”, I want you to think about it like Scripture thinks about it. Because when Scripture talks about nations when Jesus says, “Go make disciples of all nations. Go preach the gospel to all nations,” the picture is not nations like we think of it in our world today, 190 or so nations like the United States. Obviously, United States was not around in the first century, as well as a lot of the nations around us. And so it’s a totally different picture in scripture.
When scripture refers to nations, the picture is these ethnolinguistic groups, tribes, clans, peoples – called “people groups”. And, basically, we’ve got a 190 or so nations in the world today, but biblical and anthropological scholars have identified over 11,000 ethnolinguistic groups or “people groups” in the world today, far more than the number of nations, the number of people’s groups. And you think about it, it makes sense. A people group is a group that shares common language, common cultural characteristics. You take a nation like India, a massive nation with over a billion people, those people are not monolithic, not all Indians are exactly the same. You’ve got tons of different people groups in India, tons of different languages, tons of different cultural characteristics, not just India, here in the United States.
There are tons of different people groups living here in Birmingham, especially if you go to a mega city like New York or something. And you stand on the subway and you hear all these different languages and all these different people groups represented around you, and so over 11,000 people groups in the world. And so those same biblical, anthropological scholars have studied to see how the gospel has penetrated these different people groups. And, basically, they have identified over 6,000 people groups that are still, today, unreached with the gospel. To be unreached means that in that people group, less than two percent of the people are evangelical Christians, gospel-believing Christians, less than two percent of the people have heard and believed the gospel.
Which just to kind of practically help us understand this, if you’re living in one of those people groups, the reality is you would be born and you would live and you would die, and the likelihood is you would never hear the gospel. Never even hear it. These are not people who have heard the gospel, and 98 percent of them have rejected it. The reality is the masses, some estimate over a billion and half people have never even heard it, don’t have access to it. How is that possible? How is it possible for over 6,000 people groups with all the resources we have in the church, that over 6,000 people groups still are not reached with the gospel?
And so we have said as a church, as the faith family here, we are not going to sit back content with that number. That we’re gonna give, we’re gonna prioritize our spending in our lives and in our families, and we’re gonna stop running after all the stuff in this world. We’re gonna start spending on what really matters, spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. We’re gonna give. We’re gonna go. We’re gonna go short-term for short periods of time. We’re going to go long-term. Some of us are gonna pack our bags, sell our homes here and move into these people groups around the world. We’re gonna go long-term. We’re gonna give, we’re gonna go, and we’re gonna pray.
When Jesus in Matthew 9 is talking about the harvest in need of the gospel, he says one thing, he says, “Pray to the Lord of the Harvest.” So that’s why, in particular, we set aside this Sunday as a day of fasting and prayer for the gospel to go to the nations, to all of these people groups. Now the text we come to is Mark Chapter 11. It’s a text that we have read this last week. We’re gonna start in just a second in Verse 15. It’s a story, a short story, a surprising story in the Gospels that gives us a bit of a different picture, portrait of Jesus than that which we often times think. So what I wanna do, you’ve got in your notes three different emphasis I want to show you in this short story. And what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna look at each one of these three, and then we’re gonna pause, and we’re gonna let soak in. We’re gonna spend time in prayer – you see some prayers that we’re going to pray corporately together, we’re gonna pray individually, we’re gonna sing together in musical worship. We’re gonna let these three emphasis soak in and let this kind of encapsulate our day fasting and prayer.
So, Mark Chapter 11:15, listen to this story with me:
And they came to Jerusalem (they being Jesus and the disciples). And he (being Jesus) entered the Temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the Temple. And overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? But you have made it a den of robbers.” And the chief priest and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came, they went out of the city.
Let’s pray. God, we pray that you would help us, tonight, in this room, to understand what provoked Jesus in this way. Help us to see what caused holy anger to arouse in our loving Savior. All throughout this year, Lord God, we have seen in sinfulness of your people, a mirror of our own souls. And so we pray that you would make this text a mirror for us, tonight. Help us to see anything in ourselves that we need to see in them. And we pray that you would in the same way that Jesus did on that day that you would turn upside down some things in our hearts and our lives, and among us as your people for your purpose, for your glory. In Jesus name, amen.
So here’s the context: This is just a couple of days before Jesus is about to go to the cross and die. So he’s walking, mourning, into Jerusalem with his disciples. The picture of the center of Jerusalem was the temple that God had set up in The Old Testament, and the structure of the temple is really important here. Picture the temple building in the middle, surrounded by different courts, courts where people gathered to worship. On the outside outskirts was the court of the Gentiles. This is where non-Jews, Gentiles, foreigners, would come to worship. Then you if you’re working your way from the outside, and you walk through the court of the Gentiles, and you will come to a sign that literally says, “If you’re a foreigner, you go no further than here. Gentiles; stop here.”
Then you keep going in if you are Jewish, and you would come into the court of Jewish women, where the Jewish women would worship. You keep going further, you would come to the court of Jewish men, where the Jewish men would worship. You keep going forward, you come into the court of priests, where the priests who led the people of God, in the worship of God, would do their work. And then you come to temple building itself, and you progress into the center of that, and you come to the Holy of Holies where God symbolically in his glory dwells among his people. And what happens if you work your way from the outside in, less and less and less people are able to progress in. You got everybody able to gather in the court of the Gentiles, you get into the Holy of Holies, and only the priest at periodic times, only at certain times, can go into the Holy of Holies. There’s a curtain that separates, the picture that separates simple man from a holy God. The only way that somebody can go into the presence of a holy God is to offer a sacrifice for a sinful man.
And so that’s the picture that’s set up, and this is the way God has designed for his people’s worship, all the way back in the Old Testament that we saw earlier this year. And so Jesus and his disciples come into the temple courts, and immediately find themselves engulfed in commercialism. There are people charging exorbitant prices to exchange money for a temple tax. There are benches and tables set up with doves and pigeons and other sacrifices, and people bartering and buying and selling, business happening everywhere. You could just imagine the noise and the business of all these people carrying around all their business.
And then in Verse 16, this is one of the most overlooked verses in this story, in Verse 16, it said, “Jesus would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.” Basically what was happening in that day is the temple’s a pretty big place, if you’re on this side of the city, and you want to get over to this side, you don’t want to walk all the way around the temple. It’s a lot easier just use the temple courts as a pass through. And so you had people who would be carrying their merchandise and, hey, if they met somebody along the way that they can sell something to, all the better.
But carrying their merchandise through the temple courts – get the picture here, what provoked the fury of Christ? Like, just picture the scene. Imagine the fire in his eyes and the intensity in his voice as he goes over to this table and he thrusts it on its side. Now this is the same guy who earlier in this chapter, when he came into the city, everybody was bowing down and worshipping and seeing about peace. And now he’s violently turning things over, all over the place in the temple. He’s telling people who are just walking through, using the temple as a thruway, “Stop.” And he’s obviously got the crowd’s attention at this point. Why did he do this?
I want to show you – we’re gonna kind of progress to what I think is the ultimate point here, but we’ll start here. He was provoked to holy anger because he was surrounded by people who had become casual with the presence and glory of God. People who were carrying on all their business and business, and weren't giving second thought to the reality of who they were there to worship. And the one in His presence they were in, His glory and His might, and His power, and these people were just not even giving second thought to that. Now, here’s where we need to be really careful in this passage. And we don’t need to equate in any way temple with church building. Okay, the picture is not, “Okay, well, we need to make sure we don’t have a lot of business going in the church building.” That’s not the picture. We’re gonna see temple and church building very, very different.
But there are some parallels here. Let me ask you a question, do you think it is possible for us, as the people of God, to be so consumed with religious activity that we lose sight of the greatness of our God? Is it possible for us to consume our lives with religious routine, and lose sight of the one around whom, the one to whom we are giving worship to? Even in a room like this, when we do gather together as the church, isn't it possible for us to kind of go through the motions, sing a few songs, listen to a guy talk for a long, long, long time, and then sing some more, and then we go on, and that’s just what we do, and never give recognition to the reality of what we have gathered together to do.
Think about it. We have come together in this room to give glory and honor and praise to the one who is infinitely holy and inconceivably wonderful. And his greatness, no one in this room can fathom. All of us collectively in this room cannot imagine the splendor of the one we are worshipping, the greatness, the gravity of our God. The magnitude of what is involved in worship. God help us not to be casual with you, complacent in your worship. Why are we fasting today? We are fasting from food, coming aside from food saying, “More than we hunger for food, we hunger for the praise of God in the church. We hunger for the praise of God. We want to revere God, to be in awe of God. We want his name and his greatness to be exulted in the church.”
And so what I want us to do is I want us to let this soak in prayer and in worship. You’ve got in your notes; you’ll notice three different prayers. And these prayers are corporate prayers that I want us to pray together. They’re taken from a great Puritan prayer book called The Valley of Vision, and you study Puritan men and women, this was centuries ago, and these were men and women who walked with God, and knew God. And prayers, they’re praying and writing and preserved for centuries. And so I took them and I kind of reworked them a little bit just to take out some of these and thou’s so we would kind of understand that we were praying. But I want us together to pray corporately, and we’re gonna start with this first one. Then after we pray, to praise together, and then praise some more. But across this room, just before we go any further, to be reminded of the gravity of our God and the wonder of what we have actually gathered together to do in this room, tonight.
So I want to invite you to stand with me. And I want to invite you to fix your gaze, to fix your mind’s attention, and your heart’s affection, not in any casual way, in awe on the God that we worship. And so we’re gonna read through this prayer corporately together; we’re gonna pray this prayer corporately together. And the goal is not to get through it fast, like, we’re gonna go just deliberately through it. And I want you to consider the wonder of our God, or the Father, and God the son, and God the Spirit. That He is the God we praise. And so we’re gonna pray this together and then we’re gonna sing. I just want us to let this soak in. We hunger for the praise of God in the church. Let’s pray this together, outlaid, together.
Three in One, One in Three, God of Our Salvation, Heavenly Father, blessed Son, eternal Spirit, we adore You as one Being, one Essence, one God in three distinct Persons. O Father, You have loved us and sent Jesus to redeem us. O Jesus, You have loved us and assumed our nature; You have shed Your blood to wash away our sins. O Holy Spirit, You have loved us and entered our hearts; You have implanted there eternal life, and You have revealed to us the glories of Jesus. Three Persons and one God, we bless and praise You, for love so unmerited, so unspeakable, so wonderful, so mighty to save the lost and raise them to glory. O Father, we thank You that in fullness of grace You have given us to Jesus to be His sheep. O Jesus, we thank You that in fullness of grace You have accepted us and become our advocate. O Holy Spirit, we thank You that in fullness of grace You have implanted faith within us, You have subdued our stubborn hearts, and You have made us to be one with Christ forever. O Father, You are enthroned to hear our prayers. O Jesus, Your hand is outstretched to take our petitions. O Holy Spirit, You are willing to help our weaknesses, to supply us with prayers, and to strengthen us to praise. O Triune God, You command the universe, and we pray today, “Hallowed be Your Name. Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Amen.
More than we hunger for food, we hunger for the praise of God in the church. Now go with me to Mark Chapter 15. And while you’re turning there, I want us to realize in a deeper way what’s going on in Mark Chapter 11. So Jesus comes into the temple and he starts turning over all these tables. The reality is he’s turned a lot of things upside down here, and it’s not just tables. Because what he’s doing is he is redefining the worship of God. And this is key to understanding. You go to John’s account in John Chapter 2 of this temple cleansing, and in Jesus’ conversation with people afterwards, he makes it clear that his body is the temple, which is a pretty bold claim. The temple was a picture of the glory of God, the presence of God, and Jesus says, “That’s me.”
Now, you don’t say that lightly. This is the whole portrait of who Christ is. He is the glory of God in the flesh. He is the temple of God in the flesh. And just as you would go to the temple to meet with God, the way to meet with God is by going to Jesus. He is the way, the truth, the life; no one comes to God except through him. How can he make those kinds of claims? And this is the essence of what we see in the temple, Holy God dwelling in the midst of sinful people, and worship led by a priest, who would periodically, all kinds of other sacrifices, but then on the Day of Atonement would go into the Holy of Holies with the blood of a sacrifice. Why? Why blood? Why sacrifice? Because way back in Genesis 2, we saw God created man and woman, and created them to dwell with him, and told them, “If you sin, you will die.”
And so in Genesis 3, they sinned, but they’re still alive. And the only way they’re still alive is because God takes the sacrifice of an animal and closed them in his justice; the penalty for sin must be paid. And so that’s where we see this whole sacrificial system set up, that when the priest goes in on the Day of Atonement, atonement means to be at one with something, to be reconciled with something. And so the way that the people, sinful people, reconciled with the Holy God is by a priest offering a sacrifice on the altar, sprinkling blood over what was the atonement cover, the blood of a sacrificed animal to show that the payment for sin, death, had been paid so that the holiness of God could dwell among sinful people.
Well, when Jesus comes on the scene and he doesn’t say I’m coming to make a sacrifice of the temple, he comes and he says, “I am the sacrifice.” Now don’t miss it. He is the glory of God in the flesh, the presence of God in the flesh, the holiness of God in the flesh. He has no sin. And so days after this, when he walks to the cross and he pays the penalty of sin, and, yet, he has no sin to pay for, then who’s penalty is he paying? I’m glad you asked. He is paying the penalty of the sin that is due to men and women in every nation among every people group. And Jesus is paying their price on their behalf, our price on our behalf. Now what would happen is the priest, when he offered a sacrifice, would go through this curtain that separated him and sinful man from Holy God, go in there and offer the sacrifice and get out.
Jesus, on the other hand, when he offers sacrifice, Mark Chapter 15:37, Verse 37 is Jesus, this is Jesus on the cross, he pays the price. He dies. Jesus uttered a loud cry and the sinless one breathed his last – Jesus died. Verse 38: “And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” Yes. The picture here, Mark is intentional to tell us this, in light of Mark Chapter 11, to remind us that in Jesus offering the sacrifice, once for all, for the sins of men and women, every nation, now the way has been opened for man to be with God through Christ, to any person, in any nation, at any time, who trusts in Christ and what he has done as a sacrifice for sin on the cross, paying the payment of sin. And then rising from the grave, by the way, in victory over sin to all who trust in Christ, the way is open for you to be with God, to know God, to walk with God, to encounter the glory of God. This is why Jesus says no one comes to the Father except through me because no one else is sinless, able to pay this price, and no one else has died to pay the price, and no one else has conquered sin and the price of death on the cross by rising from the grave. Anybody else brings those three things to the table, then we’ve got an argument here. But there is no one like him.
And, so, now, it gets better. Like, I’m not making this stuff up. This is real. Here in Mark, and then you get to 1 Corinthians Chapter 6, and the New Testament takes on a whole new picture because Paul says, “You are now the temple of the Holy Spirit, the presence of God.” Now, not in the same way that Jesus is glory of God in the flesh, presence of God in the flesh, this doesn’t mean that we’re just like Jesus was in that sense, but the picture is when you are reconciled to God through Christ, through the blood of Christ, then you have free access to God and he puts his spirit in you. And, so, God’s presence dwells within sinful people.
Now why is all that so important? It’s important because when we come to Mark Chapter 11, we realize, “Wow, this is not really about what tables need to be overturned in the lobby of a church building. This is about something much deeper than a church building. This is about our hearts and it’s about the tables that need to be overturned within us. It’s about the facets of our lives as followers of Christ; this very spirit of God dwelling in us. What in us is not pleasing to him? What in us is a hindrance to intimacy to him? What sin are you struggling with? What temptation are you giving into? What are you seeking after, giving affecting to, longing for more than God?” This whole passage is about turning that over. Lord Jesus, turn that over in my heart, anything in my mind, my desire, my heart, my will, actions. What in me is not most pleasing to you?
So this is what we’re fasting for. We hunger for the praise of God in the church, and then second, we hunger for the holiness of God in our lives. We want to walk in his holiness. We’ve trusted in Christ. We’re free from sin. We don’t want to go back to that which we’ve been saved from. We don’t want to fill our lives with that which he died to cleanse us from. We want to be pure. We want to walk in holiness. This is why Jesus in cleansing the temple, he quotes from Jeremiah 7 at one point, he says, “You have made this place a den of robbers.” And what he quotes from there is Jeremiah Chapter 7; Jeremiah Chapter 7 is when Jeremiah gives a temple address. He’s in the temple speaking to people who were, don’t miss it, who were carrying out worship practices, but using their worship practices as a cover up for the sin, even as an excuse for their sin. “We can sin, we can go off the sacrifices; we’ll be okay.”
Now, again, it’s not the same picture. We’re not talking about going to the temple to offer sacrifices, but, oh, this is dangerous here. On one level, is it possible for us to try to use religious activity even under the guides of worship in our lives to cover up for sin in our hearts? We all know it is possible to come into a room like this to sing songs, to go through the motions, and never once be honest with God about sin that we struggling with. And if we are not careful, we can convince ourselves that, yeah, we’re doing it all right, and, yet, ignore persistent prevailing sin right within us. And what’s even deep danger is we can cheapen a picture that Christ has died for, we can say, “Well, I mean how prevalent is it?” Yeah, I believe in Jesus, I’ve trusted Jesus, but I just live however I want now. I do whatever I want and I’m forgiven, right?” Oh no, dude, no, not cheapen the blood bought forgiveness of God in Christ like that. He died so that we might be holy and pure, so we might be free from sin, from the dominion of sin, and walking with God and holiness and purity. And so we would miss this text if we did not take time aside to examine our hearts and to spend time in confession in this room. What needs to be turned over, upside down in us, taken away in us, cleansed in our hearts?
And, so, you’ve got in your notes there, a second prayer, it’s a prayer of confession. What I want us to do, and you can stay seated, but we’re gonna pray this together, corporately. And then after that, these guys are gonna be out here, and we’re gonna have individual confession all across this room. Not out loud, but between you and the Lord, each of us and the Lord spending time, honest with him about our sins, asking him, “Lord, what needs to be overturned in my heart?” Maybe you are here tonight and for the first time, you confess your need for God to cleanse your heart through what Christ has done on the cross for you, and you trust in what he has done. And you say, “I need you to cleanse my heart. I want to be reconciled to you. I want to come to you through Christ. Do that tonight.” And then for Christians all across this room, for us to spend time examining our hearts and spend time in confession. And these guys are going to sing over us in that process. We’re not gonna sing together, we’re gonna pray all across this room in confessing while they sign over us. So I want us to pray this prayer, corporately, together, and then we’ll go into individual time and confession. So let’s pray this together.
Heavenly Father, save us entirely from our sin. We know we are righteous through the righteousness of another, but we long for likeness to You. We are Your children and should bear Your image; help us to recognize our death to sin. When it tempts us, help us to be deaf to its voice. Deliver us from the invasion and dominion of sin. Grant us to walk as Christ walked, to live in the newness of His life, the life of love, the life of faith, and the life of holiness. We abhor our bodies of death, their envy, meanness, and pride. Forgive, and kill these vices in us. Have mercy on our unbelief, on our corrupt and wandering hearts. When Your blessings come we begin to idolize them, and we set our affections upon them instead of You – our children, our friends, our wealth, and our honor. Cleanse this spiritual adultery and give us purity; close our hearts to everything but You. Sin is our greatest curse. Let Your victory be displayed in our lives. Help us to be devoted, confident, obedient, resigned, childlike in our faith, to love You with soul, body, mind, and strength, to love others as we love ourselves, to be saved from raging tempers, hard thoughts, slanderous words, and unkind manners. Fill us with Your grace daily, that our lives may be pleasing to You. Amen.
One more place I want you to turn. It’s Isaiah Chapter 56. And this is where I’m convinced we come to the main point of the cleansing of the temple. What we’ve seen is obviously very important, but I want to show you something even deeper here. When Jesus comes in and he starts turning over tables, stops people from using a cut through, the first words out of his mouth, he quotes from Isaiah Chapter 56, Verse 6 and 7, “My house, we call a house of prayer for all nations.” But I want you to see where he’s quoting from. Starting Verse 6, this is God speaking through the prophet Isaiah. And God said, “The foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath, and is not profaned, and holds fast my covenant.” Verse 7: “These I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar.” And here it is, this is the quotation, “For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
Now the question is, why this verse? Out of all that Jesus had to choose from, why this one verse at this time? This is where we make a mistake and we come to Mark 11, and we say, “Well, the church is then supposed to be a house of prayer. Church building is supposed to be a place of prayer.” No. Yes? When the church gathers together, we need to pray. No question about that. But that’s not the primary point of what’s going on in Mark Chapter 11, when Jesus quotes from here. He could of quoted from a variety of different places to talk about prayer, seeking God, interceding for others. Instead, he quotes from this verse, in particular, that’s talking about how his house is to be a house of prayer for all people. It’s how God will bring these to his holy mountain. Who’s the “these”? Up in Verse 6, “Foreigners who join themselves in the Lord, he will bring to his temple, and his house should be called the house of prayer for all peoples.”
Now when it says he will bring foreigners, when it says, “Foreigners,” there in the Old Testament, do you think that’s referring to Jews or Gentiles? Gentiles, right? The foreigners are not referenced. I mean the Jewish people are not referenced as foreigners in the Old Testament. This is Gentiles, non-Jews. And God is saying that he’s going to bring not just the people of God in the Old Testament, not just the people of Israel, the nation of Israel, he’s gonna bring all nations, all peoples to behold his glory and to see his wonder, and to give him praise and to pray to him. So that’s what Isaiah 56 is talking about, “Why is Jesus quoted?” Well, I’ll come back to a picture we see in Mark 11, and why we looked at the context we did. Remember, we have the temple set up the way it is, court of Gentiles, court of Jewish women, court of Jewish men, court of Jewish priests, and the Holy of Holies. Think about it.
Where do you think that all these tables and these benches and everything, where do you think they set these up? Do you think they set those up in the middle of the Holy of Holies? Obviously not. Court of Priests? No. Court of Jewish Men? No. Court of Jewish Women? No. No, they had set all this up in the Court of Gentiles, the one place where the nations could come and encounter, behold, worship the glory of God. They had turned it into a market for their own self-interests. They had basically filled the Court of the Gentiles with all their stuff and all their activities and all their self-serving interests, and in the process had said, “Let the nations go to hell.” And this is where the mirror is clearest. Because is it not possible, is it not what we have done, have we not filled under the guides of worship and religious activity, filled our lives as the people of God with things for ourselves, and in the process, neglected six thousand plus people groups who still don’t even have the gospel.
It’s not that we don’t have the resources to get the gospel to them. We have more than enough people and more than enough resources represented in the church, today. But the reality is, we have spent our resources and our energy and our money and our lives on more activities for ourselves, and more comforts for ourselves, and more things for ourselves. Even under the guides of religious activity and worship, filled our lives with ourselves, and in the process, we have said to generation after generation, among 6,000 plus people groups that still don’t have the gospel, we have said, “You can go to hell, but we’re gonna have our stuff. “ We need to repent and realize the purpose of worship is not to seek after things, self-interest for ourselves so that we can have religious activities and programs and things. No. The purpose of worship is to raise up a people who are passionate about the praise of God among all peoples.
God says, “My desire is for My glory to be encountered by every single people group on the planet.” He deserves praise. He desires praise and deserves praise from all 11,000 plus people groups. He deserves praise from every single one of those 6,000 people groups that still doesn’t have the gospel. And the people of God, who believe that, will give their lives to making his praise known among them. So this is the primary reason we’re fasting and praying today because we desire, we hunger for the praise of God in the church, yes. We hunger for the holiness of God in our lives. And we hunger for the glory of God in the nations, more than we long for food, more than our stomachs desire food, our souls desire the gospel and the glory of God going to the ends of the earth.
And the beauty is not only does God desire and deserve their praise, he will receive their praise. There is coming a day, and he promised it in Isaiah 56, it’s coming about in Revelations Chapter 7, when every single one of these people groups is going to be represented around the throne of Christ, seeing his praise, giving him glory. It’s gonna happen, which means all the more reason to give all of our resources and taking the gospel to them because it’s guaranteed to work. And you go to 6,000 plus people groups who don’t have the gospel now, and you preach the gospel to them, you may lose your life in the process, you may lose property and stuff and things in this world, but in the end, they’re gonna believe, there’s people that are gonna believe and are gonna be gathered together around the throne of God giving him glory, and that’s worth giving everything for. It’s worth giving everything for. Then they’ll respond.
I want to share with you. Some of you may have been here at secret church on Friday night. Many of you, I know, weren't because the tickets ran out – sold out in five minutes. But we had an opportunity here from a friend that I want to introduce you to, Raiza. And Raiza is from Central Asia, and I want you to hear how a man in a people group, who was unreached with the gospel, the Lord brought him to Christ. And I just want you to hear the sovereign grace of God, how God desires his glory from all people groups. Raiza?
Raiza: Thank you. Yes, my name is Raiza. I was born in Iran, 1975, the time that the revolution came in my country. That was very hard time when I growing up in country, very strong Islam religions. I couldn’t make plan for my future. That was not free then. My country started fighting with the other country, Iraq. Every day, we have rocket and bomb in my city and my country. So the time come and I thinking for my future, and I decide I don’t want to stay anymore inside Iran, and going outside to the other country, the country that I can make a plan, that I can have a freedom there. So one time I say goodbye to my family, to my friends, and I come outside from Iran, and went to Austria and I started living there.
But living in Austria, I need to exit by the government, and I went to the refugee camp, and I stayed there. And then after that, to the police, and gave my case and my problem for my countries. But in that time in Iran – in Austria at refugee camp, some Iranians, they leave there, and they saw that I am alone there, and they came to me. They were family; they was very nice to me. And sometimes bring the lunch for me. And one day, they came to me and say, “Wednesday, we’re going to be having a party. And if you want, you can come to our party.” So I thought the party is good, it will be nice, and I decided to go on Wednesday to this party. So I made myself ready, and I went there, that was a refugee camp in one room. And we sit together, and see the other Iranian is also there. And after a few minutes, they look at each other and they say, “Okay, we can start.” And I say, “Okay. It will be good. The party will start.”
But after that, one of them looked at the other and said, “Okay, you can pray,” and the other said, “No, you pray.” But I think which kind of parties that they want to pray for this party? I didn’t really understand. But they had started to pray and that was the first time in my life that I had somebody pray that God was my language, and say, “Heavenly Father.” That was awesome. That was amazing and I enjoyed it a lot. But after pray, one lady from all cities in this group, and she had started to share the word of God, and the subject was, “God is love.” And she started with speaking, and, “God has a plan for all; God is love. God love every people, every nation.” And I sitting there, and I couldn’t believe what she say and I say, “What say this crazy lady? She says, “God is love”?”
And I come from the country that is the Muslim country, and I love the god from this country. There’s a big law on everything that you see going on in this country that it’s come from Allah. And I couldn’t understand when she said that God is love because I didn’t see anything from God and coming from the love in God. I sitting there and I’m saying nothing. But after the meeting, she came to me and said, “We are so glad that you are here.” But I was not really in that meeting. And after that she said, “You know that God love you and he has a plan for you?” I couldn’t - I was sitting there, and I stand up, and I was very hungry for what she shared with me. And I said, “I’m really sorry for you and what you’re sharing today. I couldn’t believe that God loved me. But if you want really to know God, you can come to my country and living there. And then after that, I will be sitting with you and speaking about a god.” And I am coming out in this room, and she say, “But you have to know that God love you and we love you, and we will pray for you.” I was so hungry, but I said, “I don’t need your pray, and you can pray for yourself,” and I coming out that room.
So that night, I saw something really happen in me, but I didn’t understand. After two weeks, the Austrian government sent a letter to me and say, “You cannot stay anymore in that country, and you have to go back to your country.” So I didn’t like really going back to my country because I knew how is this country, and how darkness is, and I came out of this darkness. And I saw I couldn’t not stay anymore in Austria, so I started to thinking, and I coming out in the night in my room, and walking, and I told myself, “Raiza, what do you want to do with your life? You cannot go back to your country, I didn’t like to go.” And I told myself, “You cannot stay anymore here.” I was in a free country, but I was not free. And I asking and crying, “Where is my country? Where I can be there and living there?” And the only things that come in my mind that I can really to do for myself is that I kill myself.
So I was in this thinking, but the amazing in somewhere, God touched my heart. And I started to speak to God. And I say, “God, where are you?” If I was in Iran and I was asking, “Where is God, my father, my presence,” the teacher say you are not allowed to ask in your god. But, now, I came to Austria, the western country, and somebody come to me and say, “God love you and has interest for you, and has plan for you. But if you can listen to my voice, please come and I need you, and help me.” And the Holy Spirit started to speak to my heart that night, and he used the word that this lady using for his word, and speak to my heart and say, “Yes, I love you and I have a plan for you.” That was amazing. That was awesome. How the hope from God coming into my heart and the light and all the darkness things that was in my life is gone.
So I can remember that I went back to my bed, and I was sleeping very well, and in the morning, I wake up, I’m coming to the refugee camp and I’m looking at every people, and I say to myself and to them, you know, “You don’t need really citizenship for Austria, the only things that is missing in your life is Jesus.” And I went back to these friends that they sharing with me the Word, I go to them and I say, “I’m really sorry for what I told you, but that’s happened.” And then come and hug me and say, “Raiza, we pray for you if you left here.” So that’s happened that I came to the Lord. After a few months, the government of Austria accepted me to be the citizenship from Austria, but it was good to know that God gave me the citizenship from heaven, and I can be in his kingdom forever with him and praise the Lord.
[End of guest speaker]
Amen. Thank you, Raiza. So there’s over a billion Raizas’ living among people who have never heard God is love in Christ. What happens when they hear? Not saying that it will always be easy by any means. Raiza, you heard at the end of his story that he was granted citizenship in Austria after fleeing from Iran, but Raiza is not just now coasting in Austria, Raiza is going back into another country, that we’ll leave unnamed, to proclaim the gospel there at the risk of his life. And he knows that people that never heard need to hear. And he’s willing to give everything to make it known. And I say we join him. I say that we give and we go and we pray. We spend ourselves, our lives and our families, and the church until all of these people groups know. Until that word “unreached” is eliminated from the category, we pray and we give and we go.
And, so, what I want to invite you to do is I want you to take the – there’s brown paper bags at the end of each row. They’re on the inside of each row. And you might need to go down the side to get it. I invite you to take those and begin to pass – there’s cards inside, take a card out, and then pass them down the row so that everybody gets a card that looks like this. And so get that card, and then take your notes. It has this third corporate prayer at the bottom. So what I want us to do is every one of these cards – and most of you have different ones, so they’re not all the same, but it has a people group on it, and unreached – these are the largest unreached people groups in the world. And so I want to invite you to take a card and in just a second, we’re gonna intercede, and we’re gonna call out, we’re gonna plead for the gospel and the glory of Christ may be known among these people groups. What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna pray first, corporately, together, with this prayer that’s in your notes, and then that’s gonna lead us into praying individual for these people groups. And we’re gonna pray together for the glory of God to be made known among the nations among the people groups. So you can read that in a second and pray specifically for that people group, take your notes with me, and let’s corporately pray this prayer together out loud.
Sovereign God, Your cause, not our own, engages our hearts, and we appeal to You to set up Your kingdom in every place where Satan reigns. Glorify Yourself and we will rejoice, for to bring honor to Your name is our sole desire. We adore You, and we long that others might know and delight in You. O that all men might love and praise You, that You might have all glory from all the world! Let sinners be brought to You for Your name’s sake! To the eye of reason everything respecting the conversion of others is as dark as midnight, but You can accomplish great things. This is Your cause, and You alone can save men for Your glory. Oh Lord, use us however You will, and do with us whatever You want. Oh, promote Your cause, let Your kingdom come, and let Your interests be advanced in this world! Oh, bring in great numbers to Jesus! Let us see that glorious day, and let us be willing to die for that glorious end. It is Your cause and Your kingdom that we long for, not our own. Oh, answer our request, and make Your praise known among all the peoples! Amen.
Ch 42: A Fast for the Nations
Dr. David Platt
11/07/10
If you have a bible, and I hope you do, let me invite you to open with me to Mark Chapter 11. I do want to welcome you to worship this evening with The Church at Brook Hills, and especially if you’re visiting with us, whether you’re here from another church visiting with us, or maybe if you’re here and you don’t know Christ, or are exploring Christianity, the church, exploring who Christ is. We want to welcome you and we hope that tonight it’ll be evident to you in the church while we celebrate Christ like we do. But you have come on a special day of sorts for our faith family because this is a day that we have set aside for fasting and prayer together as a church. Maybe you’re a member of the faith family and you missed that memo, and we are not bitter at all that you have had breakfast, and lunch, and snacks along the way. But we would encourage you to obtain from dinner along side of us tonight.
The picture is, and we see this all throughout Scripture among the people of God, Old Testament and New Testament, fasting is important discipline in our growth in Christ, and not just individually, but as a people. Often times in The Old Testament, we see the people of God setting aside days of fasting for guidance, for direction, for deliverance. In some circumstances, we see the people of God, we see this in Joel, the picture of fasting and confession of sin and repentance. We see the people in Chapter 13, the local churches worshipping and fasting, and that’s where the birth of Paul’s missionary journeys comes out of. And, so, we’ve set aside periodic Sundays during the year for fasting together and praying together, and this is that Sunday.
And often times when you look in Scripture, you see fasting for specific reasons. And what we’re doing, and you see at the top of your notes there, is a fast, today, for the nations. Now when you hear that word “nations”, I want you to think about it like Scripture thinks about it. Because when Scripture talks about nations when Jesus says, “Go make disciples of all nations. Go preach the gospel to all nations,” the picture is not nations like we think of it in our world today, 190 or so nations like the United States. Obviously, United States was not around in the first century, as well as a lot of the nations around us. And so it’s a totally different picture in scripture.
When scripture refers to nations, the picture is these ethnolinguistic groups, tribes, clans, peoples – called “people groups”. And, basically, we’ve got a 190 or so nations in the world today, but biblical and anthropological scholars have identified over 11,000 ethnolinguistic groups or “people groups” in the world today, far more than the number of nations, the number of people’s groups. And you think about it, it makes sense. A people group is a group that shares common language, common cultural characteristics. You take a nation like India, a massive nation with over a billion people, those people are not monolithic, not all Indians are exactly the same. You’ve got tons of different people groups in India, tons of different languages, tons of different cultural characteristics, not just India, here in the United States.
There are tons of different people groups living here in Birmingham, especially if you go to a mega city like New York or something. And you stand on the subway and you hear all these different languages and all these different people groups represented around you, and so over 11,000 people groups in the world. And so those same biblical, anthropological scholars have studied to see how the gospel has penetrated these different people groups. And, basically, they have identified over 6,000 people groups that are still, today, unreached with the gospel. To be unreached means that in that people group, less than two percent of the people are evangelical Christians, gospel-believing Christians, less than two percent of the people have heard and believed the gospel.
Which just to kind of practically help us understand this, if you’re living in one of those people groups, the reality is you would be born and you would live and you would die, and the likelihood is you would never hear the gospel. Never even hear it. These are not people who have heard the gospel, and 98 percent of them have rejected it. The reality is the masses, some estimate over a billion and half people have never even heard it, don’t have access to it. How is that possible? How is it possible for over 6,000 people groups with all the resources we have in the church, that over 6,000 people groups still are not reached with the gospel?
And so we have said as a church, as the faith family here, we are not going to sit back content with that number. That we’re gonna give, we’re gonna prioritize our spending in our lives and in our families, and we’re gonna stop running after all the stuff in this world. We’re gonna start spending on what really matters, spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. We’re gonna give. We’re gonna go. We’re gonna go short-term for short periods of time. We’re going to go long-term. Some of us are gonna pack our bags, sell our homes here and move into these people groups around the world. We’re gonna go long-term. We’re gonna give, we’re gonna go, and we’re gonna pray.
When Jesus in Matthew 9 is talking about the harvest in need of the gospel, he says one thing, he says, “Pray to the Lord of the Harvest.” So that’s why, in particular, we set aside this Sunday as a day of fasting and prayer for the gospel to go to the nations, to all of these people groups. Now the text we come to is Mark Chapter 11. It’s a text that we have read this last week. We’re gonna start in just a second in Verse 15. It’s a story, a short story, a surprising story in the Gospels that gives us a bit of a different picture, portrait of Jesus than that which we often times think. So what I wanna do, you’ve got in your notes three different emphasis I want to show you in this short story. And what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna look at each one of these three, and then we’re gonna pause, and we’re gonna let soak in. We’re gonna spend time in prayer – you see some prayers that we’re going to pray corporately together, we’re gonna pray individually, we’re gonna sing together in musical worship. We’re gonna let these three emphasis soak in and let this kind of encapsulate our day fasting and prayer.
So, Mark Chapter 11:15, listen to this story with me:
And they came to Jerusalem (they being Jesus and the disciples). And he (being Jesus) entered the Temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the Temple. And overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? But you have made it a den of robbers.” And the chief priest and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came, they went out of the city.
Let’s pray. God, we pray that you would help us, tonight, in this room, to understand what provoked Jesus in this way. Help us to see what caused holy anger to arouse in our loving Savior. All throughout this year, Lord God, we have seen in sinfulness of your people, a mirror of our own souls. And so we pray that you would make this text a mirror for us, tonight. Help us to see anything in ourselves that we need to see in them. And we pray that you would in the same way that Jesus did on that day that you would turn upside down some things in our hearts and our lives, and among us as your people for your purpose, for your glory. In Jesus name, amen.
So here’s the context: This is just a couple of days before Jesus is about to go to the cross and die. So he’s walking, mourning, into Jerusalem with his disciples. The picture of the center of Jerusalem was the temple that God had set up in The Old Testament, and the structure of the temple is really important here. Picture the temple building in the middle, surrounded by different courts, courts where people gathered to worship. On the outside outskirts was the court of the Gentiles. This is where non-Jews, Gentiles, foreigners, would come to worship. Then you if you’re working your way from the outside, and you walk through the court of the Gentiles, and you will come to a sign that literally says, “If you’re a foreigner, you go no further than here. Gentiles; stop here.”
Then you keep going in if you are Jewish, and you would come into the court of Jewish women, where the Jewish women would worship. You keep going further, you would come to the court of Jewish men, where the Jewish men would worship. You keep going forward, you come into the court of priests, where the priests who led the people of God, in the worship of God, would do their work. And then you come to temple building itself, and you progress into the center of that, and you come to the Holy of Holies where God symbolically in his glory dwells among his people. And what happens if you work your way from the outside in, less and less and less people are able to progress in. You got everybody able to gather in the court of the Gentiles, you get into the Holy of Holies, and only the priest at periodic times, only at certain times, can go into the Holy of Holies. There’s a curtain that separates, the picture that separates simple man from a holy God. The only way that somebody can go into the presence of a holy God is to offer a sacrifice for a sinful man.
And so that’s the picture that’s set up, and this is the way God has designed for his people’s worship, all the way back in the Old Testament that we saw earlier this year. And so Jesus and his disciples come into the temple courts, and immediately find themselves engulfed in commercialism. There are people charging exorbitant prices to exchange money for a temple tax. There are benches and tables set up with doves and pigeons and other sacrifices, and people bartering and buying and selling, business happening everywhere. You could just imagine the noise and the business of all these people carrying around all their business.
And then in Verse 16, this is one of the most overlooked verses in this story, in Verse 16, it said, “Jesus would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.” Basically what was happening in that day is the temple’s a pretty big place, if you’re on this side of the city, and you want to get over to this side, you don’t want to walk all the way around the temple. It’s a lot easier just use the temple courts as a pass through. And so you had people who would be carrying their merchandise and, hey, if they met somebody along the way that they can sell something to, all the better.
But carrying their merchandise through the temple courts – get the picture here, what provoked the fury of Christ? Like, just picture the scene. Imagine the fire in his eyes and the intensity in his voice as he goes over to this table and he thrusts it on its side. Now this is the same guy who earlier in this chapter, when he came into the city, everybody was bowing down and worshipping and seeing about peace. And now he’s violently turning things over, all over the place in the temple. He’s telling people who are just walking through, using the temple as a thruway, “Stop.” And he’s obviously got the crowd’s attention at this point. Why did he do this?
I want to show you – we’re gonna kind of progress to what I think is the ultimate point here, but we’ll start here. He was provoked to holy anger because he was surrounded by people who had become casual with the presence and glory of God. People who were carrying on all their business and business, and weren't giving second thought to the reality of who they were there to worship. And the one in His presence they were in, His glory and His might, and His power, and these people were just not even giving second thought to that. Now, here’s where we need to be really careful in this passage. And we don’t need to equate in any way temple with church building. Okay, the picture is not, “Okay, well, we need to make sure we don’t have a lot of business going in the church building.” That’s not the picture. We’re gonna see temple and church building very, very different.
But there are some parallels here. Let me ask you a question, do you think it is possible for us, as the people of God, to be so consumed with religious activity that we lose sight of the greatness of our God? Is it possible for us to consume our lives with religious routine, and lose sight of the one around whom, the one to whom we are giving worship to? Even in a room like this, when we do gather together as the church, isn't it possible for us to kind of go through the motions, sing a few songs, listen to a guy talk for a long, long, long time, and then sing some more, and then we go on, and that’s just what we do, and never give recognition to the reality of what we have gathered together to do.
Think about it. We have come together in this room to give glory and honor and praise to the one who is infinitely holy and inconceivably wonderful. And his greatness, no one in this room can fathom. All of us collectively in this room cannot imagine the splendor of the one we are worshipping, the greatness, the gravity of our God. The magnitude of what is involved in worship. God help us not to be casual with you, complacent in your worship. Why are we fasting today? We are fasting from food, coming aside from food saying, “More than we hunger for food, we hunger for the praise of God in the church. We hunger for the praise of God. We want to revere God, to be in awe of God. We want his name and his greatness to be exulted in the church.”
And so what I want us to do is I want us to let this soak in prayer and in worship. You’ve got in your notes; you’ll notice three different prayers. And these prayers are corporate prayers that I want us to pray together. They’re taken from a great Puritan prayer book called The Valley of Vision, and you study Puritan men and women, this was centuries ago, and these were men and women who walked with God, and knew God. And prayers, they’re praying and writing and preserved for centuries. And so I took them and I kind of reworked them a little bit just to take out some of these and thou’s so we would kind of understand that we were praying. But I want us together to pray corporately, and we’re gonna start with this first one. Then after we pray, to praise together, and then praise some more. But across this room, just before we go any further, to be reminded of the gravity of our God and the wonder of what we have actually gathered together to do in this room, tonight.
So I want to invite you to stand with me. And I want to invite you to fix your gaze, to fix your mind’s attention, and your heart’s affection, not in any casual way, in awe on the God that we worship. And so we’re gonna read through this prayer corporately together; we’re gonna pray this prayer corporately together. And the goal is not to get through it fast, like, we’re gonna go just deliberately through it. And I want you to consider the wonder of our God, or the Father, and God the son, and God the Spirit. That He is the God we praise. And so we’re gonna pray this together and then we’re gonna sing. I just want us to let this soak in. We hunger for the praise of God in the church. Let’s pray this together, outlaid, together.
Three in One, One in Three, God of Our Salvation, Heavenly Father, blessed Son, eternal Spirit, we adore You as one Being, one Essence, one God in three distinct Persons. O Father, You have loved us and sent Jesus to redeem us. O Jesus, You have loved us and assumed our nature; You have shed Your blood to wash away our sins. O Holy Spirit, You have loved us and entered our hearts; You have implanted there eternal life, and You have revealed to us the glories of Jesus. Three Persons and one God, we bless and praise You, for love so unmerited, so unspeakable, so wonderful, so mighty to save the lost and raise them to glory. O Father, we thank You that in fullness of grace You have given us to Jesus to be His sheep. O Jesus, we thank You that in fullness of grace You have accepted us and become our advocate. O Holy Spirit, we thank You that in fullness of grace You have implanted faith within us, You have subdued our stubborn hearts, and You have made us to be one with Christ forever. O Father, You are enthroned to hear our prayers. O Jesus, Your hand is outstretched to take our petitions. O Holy Spirit, You are willing to help our weaknesses, to supply us with prayers, and to strengthen us to praise. O Triune God, You command the universe, and we pray today, “Hallowed be Your Name. Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Amen.
More than we hunger for food, we hunger for the praise of God in the church. Now go with me to Mark Chapter 15. And while you’re turning there, I want us to realize in a deeper way what’s going on in Mark Chapter 11. So Jesus comes into the temple and he starts turning over all these tables. The reality is he’s turned a lot of things upside down here, and it’s not just tables. Because what he’s doing is he is redefining the worship of God. And this is key to understanding. You go to John’s account in John Chapter 2 of this temple cleansing, and in Jesus’ conversation with people afterwards, he makes it clear that his body is the temple, which is a pretty bold claim. The temple was a picture of the glory of God, the presence of God, and Jesus says, “That’s me.”
Now, you don’t say that lightly. This is the whole portrait of who Christ is. He is the glory of God in the flesh. He is the temple of God in the flesh. And just as you would go to the temple to meet with God, the way to meet with God is by going to Jesus. He is the way, the truth, the life; no one comes to God except through him. How can he make those kinds of claims? And this is the essence of what we see in the temple, Holy God dwelling in the midst of sinful people, and worship led by a priest, who would periodically, all kinds of other sacrifices, but then on the Day of Atonement would go into the Holy of Holies with the blood of a sacrifice. Why? Why blood? Why sacrifice? Because way back in Genesis 2, we saw God created man and woman, and created them to dwell with him, and told them, “If you sin, you will die.”
And so in Genesis 3, they sinned, but they’re still alive. And the only way they’re still alive is because God takes the sacrifice of an animal and closed them in his justice; the penalty for sin must be paid. And so that’s where we see this whole sacrificial system set up, that when the priest goes in on the Day of Atonement, atonement means to be at one with something, to be reconciled with something. And so the way that the people, sinful people, reconciled with the Holy God is by a priest offering a sacrifice on the altar, sprinkling blood over what was the atonement cover, the blood of a sacrificed animal to show that the payment for sin, death, had been paid so that the holiness of God could dwell among sinful people.
Well, when Jesus comes on the scene and he doesn’t say I’m coming to make a sacrifice of the temple, he comes and he says, “I am the sacrifice.” Now don’t miss it. He is the glory of God in the flesh, the presence of God in the flesh, the holiness of God in the flesh. He has no sin. And so days after this, when he walks to the cross and he pays the penalty of sin, and, yet, he has no sin to pay for, then who’s penalty is he paying? I’m glad you asked. He is paying the penalty of the sin that is due to men and women in every nation among every people group. And Jesus is paying their price on their behalf, our price on our behalf. Now what would happen is the priest, when he offered a sacrifice, would go through this curtain that separated him and sinful man from Holy God, go in there and offer the sacrifice and get out.
Jesus, on the other hand, when he offers sacrifice, Mark Chapter 15:37, Verse 37 is Jesus, this is Jesus on the cross, he pays the price. He dies. Jesus uttered a loud cry and the sinless one breathed his last – Jesus died. Verse 38: “And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” Yes. The picture here, Mark is intentional to tell us this, in light of Mark Chapter 11, to remind us that in Jesus offering the sacrifice, once for all, for the sins of men and women, every nation, now the way has been opened for man to be with God through Christ, to any person, in any nation, at any time, who trusts in Christ and what he has done as a sacrifice for sin on the cross, paying the payment of sin. And then rising from the grave, by the way, in victory over sin to all who trust in Christ, the way is open for you to be with God, to know God, to walk with God, to encounter the glory of God. This is why Jesus says no one comes to the Father except through me because no one else is sinless, able to pay this price, and no one else has died to pay the price, and no one else has conquered sin and the price of death on the cross by rising from the grave. Anybody else brings those three things to the table, then we’ve got an argument here. But there is no one like him.
And, so, now, it gets better. Like, I’m not making this stuff up. This is real. Here in Mark, and then you get to 1 Corinthians Chapter 6, and the New Testament takes on a whole new picture because Paul says, “You are now the temple of the Holy Spirit, the presence of God.” Now, not in the same way that Jesus is glory of God in the flesh, presence of God in the flesh, this doesn’t mean that we’re just like Jesus was in that sense, but the picture is when you are reconciled to God through Christ, through the blood of Christ, then you have free access to God and he puts his spirit in you. And, so, God’s presence dwells within sinful people.
Now why is all that so important? It’s important because when we come to Mark Chapter 11, we realize, “Wow, this is not really about what tables need to be overturned in the lobby of a church building. This is about something much deeper than a church building. This is about our hearts and it’s about the tables that need to be overturned within us. It’s about the facets of our lives as followers of Christ; this very spirit of God dwelling in us. What in us is not pleasing to him? What in us is a hindrance to intimacy to him? What sin are you struggling with? What temptation are you giving into? What are you seeking after, giving affecting to, longing for more than God?” This whole passage is about turning that over. Lord Jesus, turn that over in my heart, anything in my mind, my desire, my heart, my will, actions. What in me is not most pleasing to you?
So this is what we’re fasting for. We hunger for the praise of God in the church, and then second, we hunger for the holiness of God in our lives. We want to walk in his holiness. We’ve trusted in Christ. We’re free from sin. We don’t want to go back to that which we’ve been saved from. We don’t want to fill our lives with that which he died to cleanse us from. We want to be pure. We want to walk in holiness. This is why Jesus in cleansing the temple, he quotes from Jeremiah 7 at one point, he says, “You have made this place a den of robbers.” And what he quotes from there is Jeremiah Chapter 7; Jeremiah Chapter 7 is when Jeremiah gives a temple address. He’s in the temple speaking to people who were, don’t miss it, who were carrying out worship practices, but using their worship practices as a cover up for the sin, even as an excuse for their sin. “We can sin, we can go off the sacrifices; we’ll be okay.”
Now, again, it’s not the same picture. We’re not talking about going to the temple to offer sacrifices, but, oh, this is dangerous here. On one level, is it possible for us to try to use religious activity even under the guides of worship in our lives to cover up for sin in our hearts? We all know it is possible to come into a room like this to sing songs, to go through the motions, and never once be honest with God about sin that we struggling with. And if we are not careful, we can convince ourselves that, yeah, we’re doing it all right, and, yet, ignore persistent prevailing sin right within us. And what’s even deep danger is we can cheapen a picture that Christ has died for, we can say, “Well, I mean how prevalent is it?” Yeah, I believe in Jesus, I’ve trusted Jesus, but I just live however I want now. I do whatever I want and I’m forgiven, right?” Oh no, dude, no, not cheapen the blood bought forgiveness of God in Christ like that. He died so that we might be holy and pure, so we might be free from sin, from the dominion of sin, and walking with God and holiness and purity. And so we would miss this text if we did not take time aside to examine our hearts and to spend time in confession in this room. What needs to be turned over, upside down in us, taken away in us, cleansed in our hearts?
And, so, you’ve got in your notes there, a second prayer, it’s a prayer of confession. What I want us to do, and you can stay seated, but we’re gonna pray this together, corporately. And then after that, these guys are gonna be out here, and we’re gonna have individual confession all across this room. Not out loud, but between you and the Lord, each of us and the Lord spending time, honest with him about our sins, asking him, “Lord, what needs to be overturned in my heart?” Maybe you are here tonight and for the first time, you confess your need for God to cleanse your heart through what Christ has done on the cross for you, and you trust in what he has done. And you say, “I need you to cleanse my heart. I want to be reconciled to you. I want to come to you through Christ. Do that tonight.” And then for Christians all across this room, for us to spend time examining our hearts and spend time in confession. And these guys are going to sing over us in that process. We’re not gonna sing together, we’re gonna pray all across this room in confessing while they sign over us. So I want us to pray this prayer, corporately, together, and then we’ll go into individual time and confession. So let’s pray this together.
Heavenly Father, save us entirely from our sin. We know we are righteous through the righteousness of another, but we long for likeness to You. We are Your children and should bear Your image; help us to recognize our death to sin. When it tempts us, help us to be deaf to its voice. Deliver us from the invasion and dominion of sin. Grant us to walk as Christ walked, to live in the newness of His life, the life of love, the life of faith, and the life of holiness. We abhor our bodies of death, their envy, meanness, and pride. Forgive, and kill these vices in us. Have mercy on our unbelief, on our corrupt and wandering hearts. When Your blessings come we begin to idolize them, and we set our affections upon them instead of You – our children, our friends, our wealth, and our honor. Cleanse this spiritual adultery and give us purity; close our hearts to everything but You. Sin is our greatest curse. Let Your victory be displayed in our lives. Help us to be devoted, confident, obedient, resigned, childlike in our faith, to love You with soul, body, mind, and strength, to love others as we love ourselves, to be saved from raging tempers, hard thoughts, slanderous words, and unkind manners. Fill us with Your grace daily, that our lives may be pleasing to You. Amen.
One more place I want you to turn. It’s Isaiah Chapter 56. And this is where I’m convinced we come to the main point of the cleansing of the temple. What we’ve seen is obviously very important, but I want to show you something even deeper here. When Jesus comes in and he starts turning over tables, stops people from using a cut through, the first words out of his mouth, he quotes from Isaiah Chapter 56, Verse 6 and 7, “My house, we call a house of prayer for all nations.” But I want you to see where he’s quoting from. Starting Verse 6, this is God speaking through the prophet Isaiah. And God said, “The foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath, and is not profaned, and holds fast my covenant.” Verse 7: “These I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar.” And here it is, this is the quotation, “For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
Now the question is, why this verse? Out of all that Jesus had to choose from, why this one verse at this time? This is where we make a mistake and we come to Mark 11, and we say, “Well, the church is then supposed to be a house of prayer. Church building is supposed to be a place of prayer.” No. Yes? When the church gathers together, we need to pray. No question about that. But that’s not the primary point of what’s going on in Mark Chapter 11, when Jesus quotes from here. He could of quoted from a variety of different places to talk about prayer, seeking God, interceding for others. Instead, he quotes from this verse, in particular, that’s talking about how his house is to be a house of prayer for all people. It’s how God will bring these to his holy mountain. Who’s the “these”? Up in Verse 6, “Foreigners who join themselves in the Lord, he will bring to his temple, and his house should be called the house of prayer for all peoples.”
Now when it says he will bring foreigners, when it says, “Foreigners,” there in the Old Testament, do you think that’s referring to Jews or Gentiles? Gentiles, right? The foreigners are not referenced. I mean the Jewish people are not referenced as foreigners in the Old Testament. This is Gentiles, non-Jews. And God is saying that he’s going to bring not just the people of God in the Old Testament, not just the people of Israel, the nation of Israel, he’s gonna bring all nations, all peoples to behold his glory and to see his wonder, and to give him praise and to pray to him. So that’s what Isaiah 56 is talking about, “Why is Jesus quoted?” Well, I’ll come back to a picture we see in Mark 11, and why we looked at the context we did. Remember, we have the temple set up the way it is, court of Gentiles, court of Jewish women, court of Jewish men, court of Jewish priests, and the Holy of Holies. Think about it.
Where do you think that all these tables and these benches and everything, where do you think they set these up? Do you think they set those up in the middle of the Holy of Holies? Obviously not. Court of Priests? No. Court of Jewish Men? No. Court of Jewish Women? No. No, they had set all this up in the Court of Gentiles, the one place where the nations could come and encounter, behold, worship the glory of God. They had turned it into a market for their own self-interests. They had basically filled the Court of the Gentiles with all their stuff and all their activities and all their self-serving interests, and in the process had said, “Let the nations go to hell.” And this is where the mirror is clearest. Because is it not possible, is it not what we have done, have we not filled under the guides of worship and religious activity, filled our lives as the people of God with things for ourselves, and in the process, neglected six thousand plus people groups who still don’t even have the gospel.
It’s not that we don’t have the resources to get the gospel to them. We have more than enough people and more than enough resources represented in the church, today. But the reality is, we have spent our resources and our energy and our money and our lives on more activities for ourselves, and more comforts for ourselves, and more things for ourselves. Even under the guides of religious activity and worship, filled our lives with ourselves, and in the process, we have said to generation after generation, among 6,000 plus people groups that still don’t have the gospel, we have said, “You can go to hell, but we’re gonna have our stuff. “ We need to repent and realize the purpose of worship is not to seek after things, self-interest for ourselves so that we can have religious activities and programs and things. No. The purpose of worship is to raise up a people who are passionate about the praise of God among all peoples.
God says, “My desire is for My glory to be encountered by every single people group on the planet.” He deserves praise. He desires praise and deserves praise from all 11,000 plus people groups. He deserves praise from every single one of those 6,000 people groups that still doesn’t have the gospel. And the people of God, who believe that, will give their lives to making his praise known among them. So this is the primary reason we’re fasting and praying today because we desire, we hunger for the praise of God in the church, yes. We hunger for the holiness of God in our lives. And we hunger for the glory of God in the nations, more than we long for food, more than our stomachs desire food, our souls desire the gospel and the glory of God going to the ends of the earth.
And the beauty is not only does God desire and deserve their praise, he will receive their praise. There is coming a day, and he promised it in Isaiah 56, it’s coming about in Revelations Chapter 7, when every single one of these people groups is going to be represented around the throne of Christ, seeing his praise, giving him glory. It’s gonna happen, which means all the more reason to give all of our resources and taking the gospel to them because it’s guaranteed to work. And you go to 6,000 plus people groups who don’t have the gospel now, and you preach the gospel to them, you may lose your life in the process, you may lose property and stuff and things in this world, but in the end, they’re gonna believe, there’s people that are gonna believe and are gonna be gathered together around the throne of God giving him glory, and that’s worth giving everything for. It’s worth giving everything for. Then they’ll respond.
I want to share with you. Some of you may have been here at secret church on Friday night. Many of you, I know, weren't because the tickets ran out – sold out in five minutes. But we had an opportunity here from a friend that I want to introduce you to, Raiza. And Raiza is from Central Asia, and I want you to hear how a man in a people group, who was unreached with the gospel, the Lord brought him to Christ. And I just want you to hear the sovereign grace of God, how God desires his glory from all people groups. Raiza?
Raiza: Thank you. Yes, my name is Raiza. I was born in Iran, 1975, the time that the revolution came in my country. That was very hard time when I growing up in country, very strong Islam religions. I couldn’t make plan for my future. That was not free then. My country started fighting with the other country, Iraq. Every day, we have rocket and bomb in my city and my country. So the time come and I thinking for my future, and I decide I don’t want to stay anymore inside Iran, and going outside to the other country, the country that I can make a plan, that I can have a freedom there. So one time I say goodbye to my family, to my friends, and I come outside from Iran, and went to Austria and I started living there.
But living in Austria, I need to exit by the government, and I went to the refugee camp, and I stayed there. And then after that, to the police, and gave my case and my problem for my countries. But in that time in Iran – in Austria at refugee camp, some Iranians, they leave there, and they saw that I am alone there, and they came to me. They were family; they was very nice to me. And sometimes bring the lunch for me. And one day, they came to me and say, “Wednesday, we’re going to be having a party. And if you want, you can come to our party.” So I thought the party is good, it will be nice, and I decided to go on Wednesday to this party. So I made myself ready, and I went there, that was a refugee camp in one room. And we sit together, and see the other Iranian is also there. And after a few minutes, they look at each other and they say, “Okay, we can start.” And I say, “Okay. It will be good. The party will start.”
But after that, one of them looked at the other and said, “Okay, you can pray,” and the other said, “No, you pray.” But I think which kind of parties that they want to pray for this party? I didn’t really understand. But they had started to pray and that was the first time in my life that I had somebody pray that God was my language, and say, “Heavenly Father.” That was awesome. That was amazing and I enjoyed it a lot. But after pray, one lady from all cities in this group, and she had started to share the word of God, and the subject was, “God is love.” And she started with speaking, and, “God has a plan for all; God is love. God love every people, every nation.” And I sitting there, and I couldn’t believe what she say and I say, “What say this crazy lady? She says, “God is love”?”
And I come from the country that is the Muslim country, and I love the god from this country. There’s a big law on everything that you see going on in this country that it’s come from Allah. And I couldn’t understand when she said that God is love because I didn’t see anything from God and coming from the love in God. I sitting there and I’m saying nothing. But after the meeting, she came to me and said, “We are so glad that you are here.” But I was not really in that meeting. And after that she said, “You know that God love you and he has a plan for you?” I couldn’t - I was sitting there, and I stand up, and I was very hungry for what she shared with me. And I said, “I’m really sorry for you and what you’re sharing today. I couldn’t believe that God loved me. But if you want really to know God, you can come to my country and living there. And then after that, I will be sitting with you and speaking about a god.” And I am coming out in this room, and she say, “But you have to know that God love you and we love you, and we will pray for you.” I was so hungry, but I said, “I don’t need your pray, and you can pray for yourself,” and I coming out that room.
So that night, I saw something really happen in me, but I didn’t understand. After two weeks, the Austrian government sent a letter to me and say, “You cannot stay anymore in that country, and you have to go back to your country.” So I didn’t like really going back to my country because I knew how is this country, and how darkness is, and I came out of this darkness. And I saw I couldn’t not stay anymore in Austria, so I started to thinking, and I coming out in the night in my room, and walking, and I told myself, “Raiza, what do you want to do with your life? You cannot go back to your country, I didn’t like to go.” And I told myself, “You cannot stay anymore here.” I was in a free country, but I was not free. And I asking and crying, “Where is my country? Where I can be there and living there?” And the only things that come in my mind that I can really to do for myself is that I kill myself.
So I was in this thinking, but the amazing in somewhere, God touched my heart. And I started to speak to God. And I say, “God, where are you?” If I was in Iran and I was asking, “Where is God, my father, my presence,” the teacher say you are not allowed to ask in your god. But, now, I came to Austria, the western country, and somebody come to me and say, “God love you and has interest for you, and has plan for you. But if you can listen to my voice, please come and I need you, and help me.” And the Holy Spirit started to speak to my heart that night, and he used the word that this lady using for his word, and speak to my heart and say, “Yes, I love you and I have a plan for you.” That was amazing. That was awesome. How the hope from God coming into my heart and the light and all the darkness things that was in my life is gone.
So I can remember that I went back to my bed, and I was sleeping very well, and in the morning, I wake up, I’m coming to the refugee camp and I’m looking at every people, and I say to myself and to them, you know, “You don’t need really citizenship for Austria, the only things that is missing in your life is Jesus.” And I went back to these friends that they sharing with me the Word, I go to them and I say, “I’m really sorry for what I told you, but that’s happened.” And then come and hug me and say, “Raiza, we pray for you if you left here.” So that’s happened that I came to the Lord. After a few months, the government of Austria accepted me to be the citizenship from Austria, but it was good to know that God gave me the citizenship from heaven, and I can be in his kingdom forever with him and praise the Lord.
[End of guest speaker]
Amen. Thank you, Raiza. So there’s over a billion Raizas’ living among people who have never heard God is love in Christ. What happens when they hear? Not saying that it will always be easy by any means. Raiza, you heard at the end of his story that he was granted citizenship in Austria after fleeing from Iran, but Raiza is not just now coasting in Austria, Raiza is going back into another country, that we’ll leave unnamed, to proclaim the gospel there at the risk of his life. And he knows that people that never heard need to hear. And he’s willing to give everything to make it known. And I say we join him. I say that we give and we go and we pray. We spend ourselves, our lives and our families, and the church until all of these people groups know. Until that word “unreached” is eliminated from the category, we pray and we give and we go.
And, so, what I want to invite you to do is I want you to take the – there’s brown paper bags at the end of each row. They’re on the inside of each row. And you might need to go down the side to get it. I invite you to take those and begin to pass – there’s cards inside, take a card out, and then pass them down the row so that everybody gets a card that looks like this. And so get that card, and then take your notes. It has this third corporate prayer at the bottom. So what I want us to do is every one of these cards – and most of you have different ones, so they’re not all the same, but it has a people group on it, and unreached – these are the largest unreached people groups in the world. And so I want to invite you to take a card and in just a second, we’re gonna intercede, and we’re gonna call out, we’re gonna plead for the gospel and the glory of Christ may be known among these people groups. What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna pray first, corporately, together, with this prayer that’s in your notes, and then that’s gonna lead us into praying individual for these people groups. And we’re gonna pray together for the glory of God to be made known among the nations among the people groups. So you can read that in a second and pray specifically for that people group, take your notes with me, and let’s corporately pray this prayer together out loud.
Sovereign God, Your cause, not our own, engages our hearts, and we appeal to You to set up Your kingdom in every place where Satan reigns. Glorify Yourself and we will rejoice, for to bring honor to Your name is our sole desire. We adore You, and we long that others might know and delight in You. O that all men might love and praise You, that You might have all glory from all the world! Let sinners be brought to You for Your name’s sake! To the eye of reason everything respecting the conversion of others is as dark as midnight, but You can accomplish great things. This is Your cause, and You alone can save men for Your glory. Oh Lord, use us however You will, and do with us whatever You want. Oh, promote Your cause, let Your kingdom come, and let Your interests be advanced in this world! Oh, bring in great numbers to Jesus! Let us see that glorious day, and let us be willing to die for that glorious end. It is Your cause and Your kingdom that we long for, not our own. Oh, answer our request, and make Your praise known among all the peoples! Amen.