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The Necessity of Prayer – Lesson XXXII, Prayer and the House of God
On Palm Sunday of the week of the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew recorded in Chapter 21 verses 12 and 13
…that Jesus Christ went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.When Jesus Christ said that it was written he was recalling the Word of God recorded by Isaiah in Isaiah 56:1-8, Thus saith the LORD, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the LORD, speak, saying, The LORD hath utterly separated me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. The Lord GOD which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him. God calls his house a House of Prayer. God’s house is dedicated to the function of prayer. It is a special place that is for certain activities but not for other activities. Jesus Christ saw the activity that was taking place in the temple of God in Jerusalem and found it to be incompatible with God’s House of Prayer. In God’s house there are activities that are compatible with prayer and there are activities that are not compatible with prayer. Compatibility is measured by the yardstick of prayer. Jesus Christ came to the temple on that Sunday, so near the day when he would complete the atonement for which he came. He was so near the time when he would say to His father, It is finished. But on this Sunday it was not yet finished. He found that he had work to do. He found a house where the will of His father was not being done. The house that he found in Jerusalem was not a house of prayer. Jesus Christ could not tolerate a house that was supposed to be a house of prayer but instead had become a den of thieves. A house that is not functioning according to the will of God needs a thorough house cleaning and Jesus Christ did not wait for approval of the authorities because this was God’s house and He was God. It is written, My house is a house of prayer. Jesus Christ did not handle this housecleaning with tact. He did not worry about the feelings of those who sold and bought in the temple and those of them who sold doves. He did not sweetly ask them to leave but he took matters into his own hands. He would not suffer His house to continue one extra minute serving as a den of thieves so he violently, all alone: cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves. If you wonder what actions the most meek, the most mild the most lowly one can take, look at this activity of our Lord. Be ye angry and sin not is still the Word of God! Jesus Christ was angry for the will of the Father. We learn here from Jesus Christ that it is right to be angry for the will of the Father. God the father said that His house shall be called a house of prayer for all people. Could the Lord Jesus Christ do anything but cast out all them that defiled His Father’s house? What he saw and what he knew to be the Father’s will were opposed and he was always about his father’s business so he took care of the problem with immediate and forceful action. My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people. The word prayer in Isaiah 56 means: supplication, (humble and earnest prayer in worship) intercession (prayer or solicitation to one party in favor of another) God’s house is to be a house where his people worship him in prayer. It is to be a place of communion with God and by Christ’s example activities that hinder that communion are to be banished with all the energy and righteous indignation that our Lord displayed on that first Palm Sunday. What would the Lord Jesus Christ do today if he entered the modern church and saw the goings-on that hinder prayer.
Seeing what he did in the temple what do you suppose he would do today when he saw all of the activities that never encourage prayer but are totally alien to prayer.
The encouragement, the urging to pray is to be the mark of any church body that calls itself the House of God.
If that mark is absent it is simply a den of thieves.
Now a den is a place of hiding, a place where comfort can be found.
It is a place to do your own thing, a place where your will is done.
That is what a church is, that is not a house of prayer for the main purpose of prayer it is to seek to do God’s will.
Those who do their own will are robbers and thieves for God has given life to do his will and any other use of life is simply robbery and thievery.
God gives life and he expects that life to be used for his glory.
Prayer has to do with God and with everything which is related to God.
There can be no relation to God without prayer.
And if that is so, then prayer has a special relationship to God’s house. I believe that God’s house is a sacred separated place, set apart from the world where believer’s meet to worship God. This place where we gather is not a common place, it is where God dwells, where he meets with His people, and where He delights in worship BY His saints. Prayer is never out of place in the house of God. If prayer ever finds itself a stranger here then this place will cease to be God’s house at all.
It will simply be a den of thieves.
Didn’t the Lord Jesus Christ show us that, when He cast out the buyers and the sellers in the Temple.
Hadn’t they made by their commerce, no room for prayer.
And when there is no room for prayer it ceases to be the House of God for the House of God is a house of prayer.
So God makes prayer preeminent in His house.
Those who choose to minimize prayer and make it something less or other than what God ordained it to be, pervert the Church of God and cause it to be instead a den of thieves.
Prayer is to be as perfectly at home in the house of God as is the preaching of the Word of God.
Prayer is no guest of the house, for prayer is the owner of the house, for prayer fully belongs there.
As the prayer closet is the sacred place for personal worship the house of God is the holy place for united worship.
It is to be the place for collective or shared prayer, unified or agreeing prayer, co-operative or united prayer.
But even in the house of God believers are individuals and will engage in private worship in prayer.
Prayer is an individual thing but at times is shared by all believers.
The Church is for the united prayer of associated, yet individual believers.
The life and the power of the Church is prayer.
The life of the members of the body of Christ depend on prayer and God’s presence is attained and retained by prayer.
Without prayer, the Church is lifeless and powerless and fulfills no God directed purpose.
There is no sacredness to this place without prayer.
Prayer separates this place into a sanctuary or holy place where God dwells.
For His house is a house of prayer.
That is where God dwells, that is where God chooses to spend His time.
Prayer sets this place apart for God, and reserves it for his honor and his glory.
Without prayer, a church is like a body without spirit; it is a dead, inanimate thing.
A church with prayer in it, has God in it.
Set aside prayer and God is outlawed.
When prayer is not normal to a body, when prayer is rigid and formalized, God Himself is a stranger to that body.
Prayer distinguishes Christian from unchristian people, and prayer distinguishes God’s house from all other houses.
It is a place where faithful believers meet with their Lord in prayer. Since God’s house is a house of prayer, prayer should precede everything that is undertaken there. Prayer belongs to every sort of work pertaining to the Christian church.
We know that the body, for every action, goes to the head for instruction.
And so the body of Christ for every action is to go to Christ.
The house of God is the workshop where the work of prayer takes place.
It is the place where the business of making praying people out of people who do not pray, is done.
Think of this place as a place in which the lesson of prayer is taught.
It is where men and women, boys and girls, learn to pray, and where they are graduated, in the school of prayer.
All churches have a church name on the front of the building.
In doing that they proclaim they are a house of prayer but in reality they fail to magnify prayer.
They are simply a den of thieves doing their own thing, glorifying their own programs, uplifting their own aims and purposes.
The first thing I believe that Jesus Christ would do to those churches is tear down the sign that proclaims it to be a house of prayer.
Instead He would post the name ICHABOD, which means the glory is departed.
Today how we need preachers with the heart of Josiah who found the Book of the Law of the Lord given to Moses.
What a pure heart Josiah had for when he read the word and found out how far they had left the word he rent his clothes and was disturbed greatly.
How we need a fresh reading of the Word of God to reveal to us the sin and iniquity which abounds throughout this land.
Josiah commanded in 2 Chr. 34:21: “Go inquire of the Lord for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that is found; for great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do after all that is written in this book.”
And among those things that are neglected in this age is the fact that God’s house is to be a house of prayer.
Not only this house where we meet each week, but the house made without hands, your own body where God dwells in your heart. That is to be His house of prayer. And corporately, where believers meet, is to be a house of prayer. It ought to be of utmost importance to us that God is pleased to find a house of prayer in us individually and when we meet together in his place. for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. |