Transforming Our Souls: Jesus as Lord and Cleansed Temple

Our souls are temples into which he comes to dwell, there is our basic and fundamental proposition. That is the ultimate if you like in this matter of Christian Salvation. Christian salvation means not only that we are forgiven, not merely that we are assured that we don't go to hell and that God has forgiven as our sins. [00:07:04]

The ultimate purpose is that God should dwell in men. Well, I've often quoted you before that great definition of it which was put as a title to a book by Henry Skugal in the 17th century: this is Christianity, the life of God In The Souls of men. Now there is God's ultimate purpose with respect to us. [00:10:02]

We must never be content with anything less than that in the Christian Life. We must come to regard and learn to regard our souls as temples in which God comes to dwell—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. You will notice always that this teaching is something that is conveyed as the Believers are being led forward. [00:12:09]

The state in the condition of the soul of so many of us as believers is very similar to that which our Lord found when he visited this temple in Jerusalem. Here it was, you see, God's house with all the ceremonies appointed and ordained and commanded by God himself, but what our Lord found was an abuse of all this. [00:16:00]

The chief trouble with these people was that they were abusing, misusing the very things that God had appointed to them as Ways and Means of worship to serve their own base and unworthy ends and objects. And here is the great thing we ask ourselves: what use are we making of the Gospel of our Lord and savior? [00:18:30]

There is nothing to me which is more tragic than the way which often in evangelism a distinction is drawn very wrongly between the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord. It is a distinction of course, but if you press it to a division you're doing one of the most dangerous things conceivable. [00:23:58]

He came not merely that we might be forgiven. He gave himself for us that he might separate unto himself a peculiar people zealous of Good Works. He came to bring us to God. He came to make us a holy people, and there is no aspect of Salvation that must ever be isolated from that. [00:25:24]

He knows everything, and when he comes to his possession, he will examine it, he will inspect it, and there is nothing that can be hidden from him. Now here again is a great principle that you'll find running through the whole of the Bible in the Old Testament as well as in the New. [00:28:22]

He hates certain things and will not tolerate them in his house, and he will never dwell side by side with them. Here's the great message, isn't it? Isn't it extraordinary how we can ever miss this kind of thing? But these are the first principles of the Christian Life. [00:33:19]

If you are not ready for the scourging, you are certain to be disappointed, and you won't go very far along this road. He always acts in this. The moment you come to him and say, yes, it's your temple, it's your right, act, he will act, and he'll make the scourge of the small cords, and he'll strike. [00:41:07]

He calls upon us to do certain things. He turns to the sellers of doves and he says to them, take these things hence. It's a mystery this, I don't pretend to understand it. Why doesn't he take it all out of us? But he doesn't. You see, the children of Israel, when they were taken from Egypt to Canaan, many of their enemies were destroyed for them. [00:44:28]

He is concerned to possess his home, that's all he wants. He just wants the temple to be as it should be, a temple meat for himself. He wants his father's house not to be a place of merchandise but to be a place in which his father can dwell. Oh, this is the great promise. [00:46:46]