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Overturned
Presenter: Larry Kirkpatrick
Location: Clark Fork Seventh-day Adventist Church, ID, USA
Delivery: 2010-08-21
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2010-10-17 03:57Z
Type: Sermon
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/ser/kirl-overturned.php
And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down’ (Mark 13:1, 2).
Jesus is leaving the temple. His disciples look round at the impressive buildings. Already, they have accepted that He is Messiah. But Jesus is indifferent to the glory of the massive stones, the opulence and rich display. And so, they mention them.
It is as if they are saying, “Look, God, at what man has built.” But Jesus, God, responds, saying “Look, creature, at what God will destroy.”
When Heaven removes its protection of the Jewish people, and they have by then fully rejected Jesus as Messiah, these walls and buildings will come down. In the heat of the fire that would be kindled in the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70, the gold lining the magnificent temple would melt and run down into the cracks between the stones. Very soon, men would come and remove those massive stones to get at the gold. They would be thorough; every stone in the temple structure was destined to be pulled apart.
There is an illustration for us here on this communion day.
There are things, giant things, built up by man. They seem unbreakable, enduring, fortifications unassailable. We build up walls and temples around what we value and even worship that is not God. We protect these things. Meanwhile, they harm us.
A similar illustration is found in the very large cement walls that today surround the radioactively-hot remains of Chernobyl nuclear reactor number four in Russia. Inside, the roentgen count is a dance of flesh-destroying gamma particles, poisonous, deadly. The melted reactor-core is at least somewhat encased in this emergency structure. You know what they call it, don’t you? The “sarcophagus.”
Many of us have broken places in our lives, harmful, poisonous, toxic. We guard them. We won’t let others help us tear down the walls because we are afraid, because we think that the pain will be more than we can endure.
But there is one we can trust. There is a Great Physician. There is a Healer. Jesus is ready to overturn hurtful things in our lives and to bring healing. In fact, that is what the gospel is all about: Overturning.
The temple was overturned after the people chose unfaithfulness. But before that, Jesus died at Calvary in our behalf. He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). Our Bible tells us what? That Jesus “Took our illnesses and bore our diseases” (Matthew 8:17).
When we hold a communion service, we are especially reminded how Jesus came to be with us, Immanuel, the Word turned flesh and dwelt among us. We experience something of that day by day and also we think especially of it when we come together for the Lord’s Supper. This is He whom we worship. He came and entered into the situation of humankind.
Soon, crowds were following Him wherever He went. They touched Him and He touched them. He was in continuous communion with His Father in heaven and the power of God was present to heal.
We are not in this alone; Jesus has come. Jesus endured and went up Calvary. At the cross He experienced the wrath of divinity against sin. Wounds that would have been ours were received by Him so that we might live. At the cross Satan’s kingdom was overturned, tumbled to the ground. Every stone of it was pulled apart. The chains binding humanity were severed; Jesus was triumphant. The hinge of eternity was turning and Jesus would rise from the dead.
We may rejoice that He lives. Because He lives, we have a future. Eternity is ours through Him. He overturns in order to deliver. But we are the slow ones. We tend to continue to live according to the pattern we lived by before embracing Jesus. There is a mismatch. We think in terms of living according to a mildly modified past; He thinks in terms of our living according to the possibilities that He has restored. We worry when confronted with a Jesus who overturns. But much better to hear Hosea and words of true hope.
Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth (Hosea 6:1-3).
He allows us to harm ourselves, that is, in a sense, He tears us. But it is all so that He may heal us. When we participate in the Lord’s Supper we remember His sacrifice for us and rejoice in what He accomplished for us at the cross. We see the brightness of our future because He gave Himself for us. And so we give thanks to our Father for Him. Jesus is Lord. GCO
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