When the Lord of the Temple Arrives

Summary

Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the YouTube recording's caption track, read through the transcript panel — published in summary form; watch the full sermon at the source.

Because of the Times 1990 · The Pentecostals of Alexandria, Alexandria, LA · conference session (night session)

Topics: Giving · Ministry and Calling · Missions and Evangelism

Summary in original words, built from the stored caption capture read transiently (summary-form packet; packet.md carries the settlements). Scripture references are indexed only where he cites them; passages he tells without citing are flagged as told in place and are not indexed.

Preaching under orders

He takes the pulpit carrying family trouble: his father, a pastor in Ohio for more than forty years, is in hospital facing major surgery the next morning, and his mother has been in hospital too. Both parents pressed him to stay and preach — his father would not have him leave the conference for his sake — so he came under orders, and he asks the house to hold his family up in prayer. He thanks the hosts for the invitation and the introduction, then warns plainly that he speaks with blind spots and limitations, and that wherever he misses truth the hearer should follow truth, not the man.

Scriptures: (none cited in this section)

The Lord comes to His temple

He turns the house to the twenty-first chapter of Matthew and reads the account entire: the whole city stirred at the Lord's entry, asking who this is; the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of the dove-sellers overturned; the temple named a house of prayer and charged with having become a den of thieves; the blind and the lame healed in the temple itself. From that reading he announces his subject — when the Lord of the temple arrives — and takes the cleansing as the pattern of what God does in His house: the Lord detects what is out of place, and He acts on what He finds.

Scriptures: Matthew 21:10-14

Selfishness — the first thief driven out

The first thief he names is selfishness: the spirit that takes strategic places in God's house and feeds itself there. He tells the story of the rich man who lived sumptuously while a beggar lay at his gate, and of the rich man's cry from the far side of the gulf — a request for relief for himself, and only then a thought for his brothers (told, not indexed; see packet.md). He tells of the rich farmer whose barns overflowed, who planned bigger barns and comfort for his soul, and who heard his sentence that very night (told, not indexed). And he sets Nathan's rebuke of David beside them — the ewe lamb, the rich man's flocks, and a king made to pronounce his own judgment (told, not indexed). His charge: selfishness has no right to a place of influence in the ministry, and the man who carries it there will meet the Lord of the temple over it.

Scriptures: (none cited in this section)

Uselessness — the servant who serves nothing

The second ruin he preaches is uselessness. He retells the parable of the man beaten on the Jericho road — passed by the priest and the Levite, helped by the Samaritan who bound his wounds and paid for his care (told, not indexed). Then he turns to the Lord's own judgment words: the hungry fed, the thirsty given drink, the stranger taken in — and the doom pronounced on those who saw the need and did nothing (voiced as the Lord's words, priced in packet.md, not indexed). He tells of the ground the seed fell on and the wayside seed the birds took (told, not indexed), and takes up the saying about salt that has lost its savor and is fit for nothing (priced in packet.md, not indexed). His reasoning: no man is saved to sit; a ministry that does not perform the purpose of its calling invites the same hand that overturned the tables.

Scriptures: (none cited in this section)

A temple destroyed — and a church sent to the world

He voices the judgment spoken over the temple itself — that its stones would not be left standing one on another (voiced, priced in packet.md, not indexed) — and reads the weeping over the city into it: the stones were scattered not because the building was old but because it had become useless, its priesthood at ease and its altars cold. From the temple he moves to the church of his own day: the whole gospel must go to the whole world, and he rebukes a movement that begs from its missionaries in the field instead of giving to them — a church that receives and does not release carries the same selfishness the Lord drove out.

Scriptures: (none cited in this section)

Where is the sacrifice?

He asks where the spirit of sacrifice has gone. He tells of Abraham leading Isaac up the mountain, the wood laid on the boy, the knife raised, and the ram caught in the thicket — the Lord providing the sacrifice at the place of offering (told, not indexed). Against that he sets his own memory of the nineteen-seventies: young people selling televisions, cars, and household goods to raise money for the cause, one brother rescued from addiction who sold his car and walked to work rather than let his pledge fail. The contrast is his point: an earlier generation built on sacrifice; the present one has drifted into comfort, and the ministry culture has drifted with it.

Scriptures: (none cited in this section)

Rebuilding the evening altar

He closes on Carmel: Elijah and the prophets of Baal on the mountain, the altar rebuilt, the wood and the sacrifice laid in order, the water poured on until it filled the trench — and the fire of the Lord falling, not on the woodpile or the stones, but on the sacrifice (told at length, not indexed; see packet.md). Churches, he argues, keep trying to call down fire on activities, on buildings, on programs — on everything but a sacrifice. His final charge borrows the apostle's appeal: present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable service (voiced, priced in packet.md, not indexed). If the Lord of the temple came tonight, He would drive out what serves itself — and He would look for an altar with something living on it.

Scriptures: (none cited in this section)