Jesus' first official visit to Jerusalem during Passover reveals his zeal for God's house and his divine authority. Upon finding the temple defiled by merchants, Jesus cleansed it, asserting his identity as the Son of God and foreshadowing his death and resurrection by speaking of the "temple of his body." Though many believed after witnessing his miracles, Jesus did not entrust himself to them because he knew their hearts were not truly committed. The sermon emphasizes that true faith is not based on visible signs but on an internal conviction, and that Jesus, who knows all men, only commits himself to those who are genuine in their belief.
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Now shall we turn to John's Gospel, chapter two, John's Gospel, chapter two, and verse thirteen. John two, thirteen. And the Jews' Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of money sitting. And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables, and said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence, make not my father's house and house of merchandise.
And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house, hath eaten me up. Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign surest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, forty and six years was this temple in building, and will thou rear it up in three days? but he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.
Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover in the feast day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew omen. and needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. So we see God's face. Blessed God, our Father, we bow before thee, and thank thee for this privilege of being here this morning, meeting in peace and quiet and liberty, with thy word in our hands, this precious book which thou hast given us, preserved down through the ages, intact, complete, the whole word of God for us, in this dark day.
And we thank thee, Lord, that thy word, the living word, liveth and abideth forever. It's like thyself. We thank thee that it's unchangeable. We thank thee it cannot be added to or taken from. And we thank thee the entrance of thy word, giveth light. So we ask thee then that this morning the entrance of thy word might give light in our hearts. We seek thy blessing. In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Can you hear a humming noise? It may be somebody's earphone. What does it sound like? Does it sound like the... God.
I can turn it down a bit, but I keep it up high because you say you can't hear me if I don't keep it high, so I keep it high. But if it's too high, it sings a little bit. Now, for those who are visiting, we have been studying for a few weeks now in John's Gospel. This wonderful book, I suppose the best read book in the Bible, the book that we know best, John's Gospel. And I dare say if we took a census here this morning, the majority of us, or rather there would be more, well, majority. were saved through John's Gospel. John three-sixteen, John three-thirty-six, John five-twenty-four, these wonderful Gospel verses which God has used so much to bring salvation.
The whole purpose of John's Gospel was that we should believe. These things are written that he might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing he might have life through his name. Now we have noticed that John's Gospel for the purposes of our study, anyhow, is divided into what I have been calling periods, a period of consideration, a period of controversy, a period of conflict, a period of crisis, a period of conference, and then the final period of consummation. We'll see these, if the Lord will.
If he may not come, and we go on with these studies. But we are in a period, what we're calling the period of consideration. You see, John presents the Son of God, different to the other gospel writers. He doesn't talk about his birth, it's better him. He starts away, way back in eternity and says, in the beginning was the Word. And then verse fourteen, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So God's Son came down and dwelt among us. God presents his Son, and men are considering him in the first four chapters, starting at the nineteen verse of the first chapter through to the fifty-fourth verse, which is the last verse of the fourth chapter, men are considering him.
After that a new period, and you can see a break there, a new period comes when there's controversy. They start arguing with him. and disputing with him. But in this first period, there's not so much argument, true. In this chapter we've read, they asked for a sign. But they were quiet about it, and they were considering. Here's a new prophet arrived, as far as they knew. They didn't know he was the Son of God. A new prophet has arrived on the scene, and they're watching him. They're considering. They want to know, is this the Messiah? Now in our previous study last week, we had the first of the seven miracles which John calls signs.
He says, many other signs truly did Jesus, which are not written in this book, but these are written that he might believe. These seven signs, seven miracles, the first of which was the turning of the water into wine in Canaan of Galilee, where Jesus, it says, manifested forth his glory. There we get him as the Creator. He has the power as Creator to turn water into wine. Nobody else could do that but the Creator. And so he presents, God presents him, the four men in Cana and Galilee, as the Creator, who has the power to change the elements, to turn water into wines.
And men look on. The governor of the feast says, this is tremendous. Why men have four wine in the beginning, They usually give the good wine in the beginning and then the poor wine, but here you've got the best wine at the end. In our studies today, we see the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, as the Son of God, coming to his own house. As the Son in his house, he comes to the temple. He's not coming here. in that aspect of create or to make something or change something. He's coming to the things which were his.
It says in the first chapter, he came unto his own. Now in the Greek, this is plural. Ta-idia. Ta-idia is the article, the plural article, neuter. Ta-idia. He came to his own. Ta-idia. His own things, new to things. He came to the temple. He came to the Jewish race and economy and the whole thing. The Jewish lands. He came to his own things. Then it goes on to say his own. And there the Greek word is changed to E. Iliy, which is a masculine feminine.
That masculine plural E. Iliy, his own people. His own people received him not. He came unto his own things. Here we find him right among his own things. He comes into the temple. The men are still looking at him and considering. Who is this person? Note now at the end of our studies last week it says, This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee and manifested forth his glory and his disciples believed on him. And then the next verse it says, After this, he went down to Capernaum, truly down.
Cana is up in the mountains, not far from Nazareth. And there comes a spot, I don't know how much it's changed since I was there thirty years or so ago, but I remember when we left Cana and we came to a spot in the road when you looked down and saw the winding road and right down at the bottom in the valley was that beautiful site, the Sea of Galilee. at lovely blue sea with the mountains in the distance and Mount Hermon covered with snow away in the north and he came down to Cape Capernaum. Somebody asked me not last week but the time before when I spoke here and I said the Lord had not where to lay his head and somebody said now don't you think the Lord had a home?
Where did he live? Because I said that probably he was in some cave up there when they said, Master, where dwellest thou? He said, Come and see. I don't know. He said, He himself said, Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, the son of man hath not where to lay his head. Now we know he was born in Bethlehem. We knew he grew up, spent probably the first thirty years of his life, except that small very short period when he was a baby in Egypt. He spent thirty years of his life in Nazareth.
But it seems as if Mary, his mother, moved to Capernaum. You see, he went out on his ministry at thirty years of age. That agreed with the Jewish regulation. The priests came into their office at thirty years of age. Till then they were training. And at thirty they started their life's work. And the Lord, at thirty years of age, he went out to do his public ministry. It lasted only three and a half years. And he went down to Capernaum, and it seems as if his mother had moved, and the home was now at Capernaum. Did the Lord have a home? Well, his mother had a home, and I suppose that's where he made home when he was there.
But, of course, he was always moving. I was really intending to bring a map out this morning so we could follow his movements. Probably do that next time. See the movements, the very movements the Lord made. The geographical changes from Jordan right up to Canaan, and then from Canaan down to Capernaum, and from Capernaum down to Jerusalem, where we find him today. He went down to Capernaum, favored city Capernaum. He said to them, If Sodom and Gomorrah, if the mighty works that were done in the Capernaum, if these mighty works were done in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.
And he says, Woe unto you, you've been exalted to the heavens, you should be brought down to hell. Because the Son of God lived in Capernaum and they rejected him. And how typical of the words then, he went down to Capernaum. Capernaum was destroyed and obliterated. And in recent years, there's been some excavations, and we believe that the site of this synagogue in Capernaum has been discovered. I've been there and walked around that ruin in the old stones, and surely that was the old synagogue where the Lord Jesus...
in the fourth chapter of Luke's Gospel, stood up for to read, you remember, on the Sabbath day in Capernaum. Now, verse thirteen, the Jews' Passover was nigh at hand. There are three Passover's mentioned in John's Gospel. Let's look at them. This is one. Chapter two, verse thirteen, the Jews' Passover was nigh at hand. Chapter six. Verse four, and the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh. This is just before he fed the five thousand. And then look at chapter twelve, verse one.
That would be the second Passover in six four. In chapter twelve, verse one, then six days before the Passover, Jesus cometh to Bethany. That's the third Passover. And then look at chapter thirteen, verse one. Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world, unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. That's the third Passover. So we have three Passover's mentioned, and since the Passover was a yearly feast, that would fit in with the three years' ministry of the Lord Jesus. And now in this second chapter, he goes for the first time, officially, shall I say.
In his in the capacity of his public ministry, he goes up to the temple. Now, personally, I think he went up every year. As a boy of twelve, they went up to the temple, and that's where they found him talking to the priests and to the elders and leaders there and asking them questions at twelve years of age, and they wondered at the knowledge he had at twelve years of age. I suppose he went up every year. That's what the Jews did. Males had to appear three times a year at Jerusalem. But now he's going up in the official capacity. He's not going up now with his parents. He's out now the Son of God for the three years' ministry which God had given him.
And so for the first time then, in that capacity, he goes to Jerusalem. And what does he find? Verse thirteen, the Jew, or one moment as we pass, note that term, the Jews pass over. When the Passover came into being, it was called the Lord's Passover. The Lord, what in the world had happened? What changed this wonderful term, the Lord's Passover, to the Jews' Passover? And all through here, in the New Testament, you find it's called the Jews' Passover. You see, it had lost its character. God wasn't in it anymore. It was just a religious formal thing.
Once a year they went up to perform these religious rites and rituals, but it wasn't a real deep thing anymore. It would belong to the Jews. It was the Jews, Pastor. That's why I read just now he came unto his own, the things of the Jews. And so he came up to Jerusalem and he found in the temple. Now what did he find in the temple? Let's go back a minute. Let's go back to Isaiah chapter six and see what he should have found in the temple. Isaiah chapter six. Isaiah is a very young man, went into the temple. Isaiah chapter six, verse one.
In the year the King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Here's this young priest performing some duty in the temple, and the Lord appeared to him. And the temple was filled with the glory of God. His train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With train he covered his face, with train he covered his feet, with train he did fly. And one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is full of his glory. and the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was full of smoke. What a scene. The Lord was in his temple, and the temple was filled with his glory. And when he spake, the very posts of the doors trembled. As the God of heaven, the great Jehovah, in the midst of his temple, speaks to this young priest. No wonder he fell at his feet and said, Woe is me, for I'm undone. But when Z-Lord, the Son of God, when he went to his temple, what did he find?
The whole house filled with his glory? Listen. He found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves and changes of money. What a concert. A scene of merchandise. Now, of course, they weren't in the Holy of Holies. They weren't in the Holy Place. They'd be outside in the court somewhere. But that's what he found there. Merchandise market, a cattle market. The lowering of the oxen and the bleeding of the sheep. And the cooing of the doves down there in the temple. Where people should have been praising God. Now, this thing was done for a convenient. You see, they all had to bring an offering.
And they had to bring their redemption money. They had to bring their money to God. They had to have a special shekel, too, a special kind of coin. And people came from afar to the Passover. Some came from far lands and came in. Where were they going to get all this money? And where were they going to get the sacrifices? So for a convenience, there were those who had these tables of money, and they changed the money for it. And for a convenience, they could buy an oxen or a sheep or a dove to offer us a sacrifice. and they made a market, a cattle market, and a money exchange of God's house.
And when the Lord saw this, he knew all about it long before he went there, but when he walked in and saw this, the Lord was angry. There's no question he was angry. He made a small He made a scourge of small cords, probably made of the reeds, and so on. They were lying on the ground where the cattle were resting, you know. And he bound them together and made a scourge of small cords. And he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen, sitting in the Lord, the Son of God, driving out the oxen and sheep. And nobody said a word. They all went. In the previous chapter, he manifested his glory, but here he manifested himself as the eternal Son.
The sheep and the oxen all went out, and he poured over the changers' money, threw their tables over, poured out the changers' money, and over threw the tables, and said to them, note the significance. Now, the Lord, you know, was so gracious, even when he was angry here, righteous indignation. He was so gracious. He drove the oxen out. He drove the sheep out. He didn't drive the doves out. They would all have flown away and the owners would have lost them all. He didn't treat them that way. He said to the owners, you take the doves, you take them out. How gracious he was, how kind.
They weren't losing anything. I'm sure when he upset the money changers' money, they could all pick it up again and go. But he cleared them out of the temple and he said to them that sold doves, take these things hence, make not my father's house and house of merchandise. Now here he makes his claim for the first time in John's Gospel that he is the Son of God. John the Baptist said, I saw and bear record that this is the Son of God. Nathaniel said, Master, thou art the King of Israel, thou art the Son of God. But now he says so, My Father's house. They all knew this house belonged to God.
And he said, I am the Son of the Father. And so God presents his son. In his own house, in the temple, he presents his son for consideration. And they're looking at him. And they say to him, What sign showest thou unto us that thou doest these things? What they're saying is, what authority have you got? Why should you come into this temple and throw us out? Little did they know that it was his temple. Little did they know that it was his father's house and he was the eternal son of the father. And they said, what authority? Show us a sign.
You want a sign. He said, yes, I'll give you a sign. Destroy this temple and in three days I'll raise it up with you. Now the Lord was ambiguous here. And the Lord said on one occasion, I speak in parables that seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand. And here was one of them. They couldn't understand what in the world he was talking about, and the disciples didn't know what he was talking about. It says that after he was raised from the dead, it says that when therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them, and they believed the scripture and the word which he had said, but they didn't know at the time.
Destroy this temple. And of course they thought of the material temple, and immediately they said, The Jews said forty and six years was this temple in building. And will thou rear it up in three days? Now this was really the second temple. Solomon's temple was destroyed when Nebuchadnezzar took the Jews into captivity and destroyed the city of Jerusalem and burned the temple down. Now this was the This was a temple that was built afterwards when they came back and then improved by Herod. It took forty-six years to improve and build on it.
Forty-and-six years was this temple in building. And will thou rear it up in three days? But, I love this verse, verse twenty-one, it's worth underlining. But he spake of the temple of his body. And here, right in the middle of this chapter, you get the cross of Christ. I've got a red cross written right here by the side of these words. Destroy this temple. That was the cross. I've got a red cross against the whole of the Lamb of God. That was the cross. And here you get the cross in the second chapter.
I've got a red cross against, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up in the third chapter. The cross of Christ is in all these chapters in John's Gospel. And here's the amazing thing, that that body which God had given to him, he spoke about the temple of his body, that in a short while men were going to nail him to a cross, and he was going to die just for the unjust. I wonder if there's someone unsaved here this morning. Oh, my friend, let me point you to the Lamb of God which bore away the sin of the world. Let me point you to that scene outside the city gate in Toulouse. Not in the temple.
No, no, no. They drove him out from that. And they drove him all up that via Dalla Rosa, up the steps there, higher, higher, until they went through Herod's Gate and out across the way to the hill called Golgotha, the place of a skull. And thereupon that lonely hill they crucified the Son of God. And that's how they destroyed this temple. Destroy this temple. He spoke about his body. That's just what they did. Three years later, they nailed him to a cross, they crucified the Son of God, and they put him to death, destroying this temple, and in three days, I will rear it up. Now he's speaking about resurrection.
And here you get the wonderful story of the resurrection. In the second chapter, John, not away in the twentieth chapter, it comes there naturally, but here in the second chapter, you get the death. and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. How wonderfully Scripture links up. And so he preached the gospel in the temple to these unbelieving Jews. And to these money changers and these cattle dealers and all that crowd that had come up there for the feast. He preached the gospel to them, but their eyes were blinded. He says, I'm going to die upon a cross. You're going to destroy this temple. I'm going to raise it up. I'm going to be raised from the dead.
How true that is today. In many cathedrals and churches and great religious buildings today, they'll be reading stories like this. Thank God. I thank God often for this, that this Bible is read today. There are many, many big places, so-called places of worship where they do not preach the gospel anymore. But I tell you what they do. They read this book. and the entrance of thy word giveth light. And I think we should pray that God will bless the reading of the Scripture and the work of the American Bible Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the Pocket Testament League, and the Gideons, and all these who put the Bibles out for men and women to read.
It's this book that brings salvation. It's this book that gives light. The entrance of thy word giveth light. And there, if they had only known, was the gospel story amidst that mess there, what a mess it must have been when he'd driven the animals out, to clear up all the mess and straw and filth and wretchedness that you'd find in a cattle market with all the stench and smell. My father's house, he called it, and they made it a filthy cattle market. Amazing to me, the Son of God was born in a stable. He was born amidst the smell and stench of a stable.
And when he got to his father's house, he found it was like a stable with all the smell of the animals and the filth of merchantmen selling oxen and sheep and dove. That's how he found his father's house. What had happened, he went down to Capernaum. and truly the house of Israel had gone down. From all that glory we saw in Isaiah six, to this filth and mess being God's church. And here we get a kind of prophetic picture again, as we saw in the last week, you know, let's turn back a minute to chapter one, verse twenty-six.
Chapter one, verse twenty-six, John the Baptist says, There standeth one among you whom ye know not. There standeth one among you whom ye know not. And there, down there by the side of the Jordan, when those priests came down from Jerusalem and Levites and came to ask who John was, was he the Messiah? He said, no, I'm not, but there standeth one among you whom ye know not. There he was, for consideration, but they didn't know him.
Then he goes up to Canaan. And what does he find? He came to his own. His own knew him not. His own received him not. He was in the world. The world knew him not. He goes up to Canaan of Galilee and went to a wedding. And a wedding is a sign of joy and happiness. What did he find? Wine is for joy. He found no wine. He found empty vessels. His people, they should have been for God's glory. The glory was gone. Iqbal, glory was departed. And he came to just a formal religious affair.
No wonder he says in Revelation three of this present age in which we live this Laodicean period of the church's history, thou art neither hot nor cold, therefore I'll spew thee out of my mouth. That's what he finds today. Religion, but formal religion and no reality. And that's what he found. He found empty vessels and he filled them, turned the water into wine. Then he came to Jerusalem and found a defiled temple, the Son of God. He's coming back again one day.
He's going to bring joy. All men will know him. When he came first time, they knew him not. But next time it says, you won't have to go and preach, know the Lord in the millennium, because all men shall know the Lord. His laws will be written in their heart. And Satan, who blind men's eyes, will be bound in the lake of fire and the bottom is fit there for a thousand years. And men will know the Lord in that day. And when he comes to his temple next time and his blessed feet come down and touch that spot there and touches the Mount of Olives and he goes into his house once more. It'll not be to find it like this. He'll come and cleanse it. He cleansed it in this time.
He'll come back and cleanse it and set up his kingdom and reign there at Jerusalem. And I think someday in that day of glory the gospel story is going to be told again. Not as he told it there. in anticipation that he was going to the cross. But it seems to me that in a coming day, they look back and they tell the wondrous story of how the Son of God suffered and bled and died at a place called Calvary when he comes back to reign. And in that day, all men will bow at his feet in worship, and all the nations of the world work will bring their glory and their honor and their money and their wealth and their lead at his feet.
at Jerusalem and the Son of God at last will be glorified and be given the place which was his and should have been his when he came back here the first time, when they rejected and despised him. But we're living in this age. We're not in the millennium yet. The millennium is not far away, I believe. But we're still living in the age of the rejection of the Son of God. Let's go down a little further. When he was in Jerusalem at the Passover in the feast day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles that he did. Now John says many other miracles, many other signs, because in John's Gospel, in the Greek, it doesn't say miracle, it says signs, when they saw the signs which he did.
And they asked for a sign, because he told them to destroy this temple and I raised it up again. But when they saw the signs, the miracle which he did, many believed in his name. But I submit to you that this was not real faith. You see, faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. You don't see. Faith is something you don't see. It's the evidence of things not seen. If you go to a court of law to give evidence, you must have seen something. You're no good at all. The judge says, what did you see? I didn't see anything. He said, get out. You're no good.
I want somebody that saw what happened. But faith is the evidence of things not seen. And you may hope, you may hope that you're going to have a brand new house or something, but hoping for the house, that didn't give it a house. Yeah, but by faith it does. That's the wonder of faith. is a substance, something tangible, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And these men believed when they saw. I don't think they believed, do you? I don't have to have faith to believe that's a table.
I know it's a table. I can see it's a table. I tell you, when we did have faith, five years ago when I remember down there one Sunday morning I said, God has given me a picture. I remember the Sunday morning down there I said, God has given me a vision of a chapel to be built right up at the corner there where we're coming to Park of the Pound. And I can see it standing on the hill there. Now I said, let's have faith and let's ask God for that chapel. Some of you remember when we made that remark one Sunday morning down in the Downs and we said, let's ask God for that chapel. That was faith It didn't say it anymore. It's something we can see. You don't have to have faith to believe something you see.
That's right. But we had faith in those days to see by... We saw the chapter. I saw it in my mind, just like it is, by faith five years ago. And I remember saying, perhaps in six years we'll get it. And God gave it to us in six months. That's faith. And that's how God has blessed us here at Parker-upon. And he will bless us here at Parker-upon. That's faith. But some believe when they saw. I say you don't need faith to believe something you can see. You need faith to believe something you can't see. That's salvationism. I know I've got an inheritance incorruptible and undepiled reserved for me in heaven.
I can't see it. But I believe it because God has told me. Faith is believing God. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And you'll begin to feel. They don't say that at all. You're going to feel anything. It says if you believe you are saved, then that's how you're saved. Just by faith. You take God of his word, trust him, and you get eternal life. Then you see some results now. Because if any man be in Christ Jesus, he's a new creation and all things are passed away and all things have become new. But that didn't happen here. They believed when he was at Jerusalem at the Passover and the feast day.
Many believed in his name when they saw the miracle, which he did. They believed because they saw a miracle. But look at the next verse. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them. And if you could read this in the Greek language, it's exactly the same word. That word commit is the same word as many believed. So let's read it this way then. Many believed in him, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did, but Jesus did not believe them. He didn't commit himself to them. He didn't believe them. Why didn't he believe them?
Because he knew what they were. He knows. How many times you get people saying, oh well, you talk to them about the way of salvation and they say, yes, I've got it, I'm saved, you see. But if you don't see any fruit, And you don't see old things passing away and all things becoming new. You've got a reason to doubt whether people are saved or no. But I tell you what, we don't know. But the Lord knows. He didn't commit himself to them because he knew all men. And he needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. And this is where we're going to finish today with these verses. He knew what was in man.
You know, I believe the coming of the Lord Jesus is so near that day by day I'm expecting that we'll be caught up. That's where we are in the world's history. And everything tells us. And there's a great renewed hope of the coming of the Lord. All God's people are expecting the Lord to come back. And I've been thinking much about it this week. And I've been asking myself the question, when the Lord Jesus comes back, Who's going to be here at Park of the Pound? Who's going to be left here at Park of the Pound? Because in this day of vandalism and rioting and so on, I suppose in a very short while somebody knows there's nobody left here, they're all being here and tear down everything and take all they can get and grab it and go.
But let me ask you something. The Lord knows all men, and he knows what's in the heart of man. He knows what's in your heart and mind. It's a very easy thing for me to stand up and say, I believe I'm saved. And I am saved. There's no question in my mind. And the Lord has revealed himself to me. But how easy any of us could say I'm saved and not be saved. Believe because you see some miracle. But the Lord Jesus searches your heart. And it says he didn't commit himself to them because he knew all men.
Every one of us, he knows us all. And he knows what is in man. And he knows what's in the heart of everybody here in Keystone Colony. And everybody here in Park of the Pound. And he knows whether we're saved or not. You know, I believe you could sit at the Lord's table and still deceive yourself and deceive others. I knew a wonderful young lady who had a tremendous, wonderful father, a man of God. And her own mother-in-law told me this story. She said, we had a great surprise. This young lady had married into this family. I knew them so well. And the mother-in-law told me we had a great surprise.
so-and-so mentioned her name. She came home from the meeting a few weeks ago on Sunday night and broke down and saw and said, tonight I was saved. And mother, she said, I've deceived you for years. To her husband, I've deceived you for years. My dear father, I've deceived for years. And I said I was saved and I was at the Lord's table and I wasn't saved at all. But tonight God saved me. It's possible to deceive one another, but I tell you, you cannot deceive him. He knows what's in that. He knows what's in you. So we bow our heads before him right now. Blessed God our Father, we thank you for this manifestation of thy Son, the eternal Son of God, coming into thy house at Jerusalem to find a shambles.
And in his zeal, the zeal of thine house has eaten me up. He took this scourge and drove them out. We thank the Lord. There came a time when that temple of his, that body, was destroyed. When he went to the place called Calvary and died for our sins according to the scripture, we thank the in three days that it's raised him up again, triumphant over death. And as the eternal Son of God, up there amid the glory of heaven, he looks down today and he searches our hearts. And he knows all men. and he only commits himself to those who are real and true.
O God, search us now. And if there should be one of us here making a sham, O God, help us to, afresh, receive the Lord as our own personal Savior. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. O God, work some work for eternity in our hearts this morning. We seek thy blessing on this hour together. In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ.