The Lord of the Temple; Luke 19:45-48

Delivered during the Sunday Morning Worship Service, 2/9/2025. In our study of Luke, we have spent quite some time talking about the Kingdom of God, the Divine Cosmic Initiative, and the arrival of the King who will bring peace to heaven and earth. We have used that language to describe His Advent, His ministry, and His Triumphal Entry. And now, the King arrives and goes directly to the enemy He knows must be destroyed. He is about to wage war-- but it is not on the enemy everyone expected! But rather it is on the powers of evil, the serpent, sin, and death. And so, He goes directly to the "den" of one of the most dangerous enemies the new Kingdom and its church will face. And it isn't pagan Rome! It is His own people in the very place constructed for the worship of His Father-- the Temple! In this message we will see that Jesus, in His actions, in His fulfillment of prophecy, and in His bold and compassionate teaching, confronts the evils of false and hypocritical worship and thereby establishes Himself as the Lord of the Temple.