God Thinking - The beginning of Revelation 2

"This wasn’t the first time that Jesus cleansed the temple of its folly.  Go with me to John 2:13-16.  I want you to get imbedded in your heart what the intent was, of having a temple in the first place. 

 

When we catch the vision that God had/has as, (the place) where His people would gather to pray, praise and worship Him, we can then get a better understanding of the revelation that is set before us this day.

 

John 2:13-16

“And the Jews’ Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem,

V14 And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:

V15 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;

V16 And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not My Father’s house an house of merchandise.”

 

What Jesus did here, in the temple, in Jerusalem, in AD 33, He is going to do again.  How do I know that?  I’m glad you asked.

 

120 years before God destroyed the earth with water, God gave this prophesy, “And the LORD said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.”  Genesis 6:3 

Remember this timeline.  Remember only eight persons were saved.

 

“And God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

V6 and it repented the LORD that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.

V7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them.”  Genesis 6:5-7

 

The word used here as repented as used here is different from the word repent as used in the new testament.  The word used in the new testament is metanoeo, (met-an-o-eh-o) and metamorphoo, (met-am-or-pho-o) where we get the word metamorphosis, i.e., to change from one thing to another.  The word used in the Old Testament is, nacham, (naw-kham) which means to sigh unfavorably or to rue, i.e., to feel deep sorrow on account of. 

 

And if we look at verse six with this understanding here’s what God is saying,” and it repented the LORD, (And the LORD sighed with deep sorrow, deep enough to get to the very heart of God), that He had made man on the earth.”

 

God did what He said He would do.  He destroyed the people He had made, all but eight.  Here we see how God saved a remnant for Himself, and His wrath was poured out upon a wicked self-serving people. This was just a little over two-thousand years after God made mankind."

 

Excerpt from God thinking XXV - The Beginning Of Revelation by Keith C. Powell Copyright 2013