Zeal for Your House Has Eaten Me Up

"Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.” (John 2:13-17)

Jesus physically drove the wickedness from the house of the Lord with a whip that He personally made (which indicates that this was not an immediate reaction, but a calm and deliberate reaction to wickedness).

How many of us would be willing to drive the wickedness from the house of the Lord? Or are we so caught up in the "niceness" of this politically correct era that we would simply ask it politely to leave? Or worse yet, tolerate it as though we are something special as the Corinthians thought in 1 Corinthians 5.

Often, there are Christians who condemn other Christians for taking a stand against evil and claim that they are too harsh, thereby judging that brother or sister as being "unloving" or "judgmental" (which is the epitome of irony). Are they the "troubler of Israel?" (1 Kings 18:17-18)

Perhaps more should be concerned about offering the full council of God and worry less about whether or not something is phrased "nicely" enough (note: you will NEVER be "nice" enough to someone living in sin who doesn't want to give it up). Perhaps we should be more like Jeremiah:

"For when I spoke, I cried out;
I shouted, “Violence and plunder!”
Because the word of the Lord was made to me
A reproach and a derision daily.
Then I said, “I will not make mention of Him,
Nor speak anymore in His name.”
But His word was in my heart like a burning fire
Shut up in my bones;
I was weary of holding it back,
And I could not." (Jeremiah 20:8-9)

"It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise
Than for a man to hear the song of fools." (Ecclesiastes 7:5)

"As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ." (Galatians 1:9-10)