Turning Over Tables | Mark 11:15-18  | Good, Good News
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Turning Over Tables | Mark 11:15-18 

Turning Over Tables | Mark 11:15-18 
By Zack Massa

"And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 16And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” 18And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching." -Mark 11:15-18 

When we read this it seems counter to what we normally think about how Jesus lived. For most of us we view Jesus as calm and peaceful, we think of "Turning the other cheek". While true, there is also the aspect of God that hates sin, and hates corruption in His church. I believe that because of the vastness of His love and forgiveness, we can lose sight of His hatred of evil. This passage of Scripture is a picture of how the Lord wants us to deal with sin in our lives. The people in the temple had become comfortable with not honoring the Lord. While they were in the temple, they were not operating under the standards of the temple. Jesus went through and upended tables, and drove the people out of the temple who did not belong there. It was a vigorous, violent action. When we have sin in our lives we are not supposed to accept it. We are not supposed to tolerate it and keep on with our walk with the Lord as if it is okay. 

When Jesus did these things, He did them as a Son in His own house, as one having authority to remove what did not belong. When we accept the Lord as Saviour, He forgives us of our sin and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. He also gives us the authority to violently refuse and remove any sin that would try and make it's way into our lives. We don't have to accept the little compromises that want to comfortably fit in our lives. We have the authority, through Jesus, to flip over those tables of compromise and uphold the standard we are meant to follow. 

He also gives us the authority to violently refuse and remove any sin that would try and make it's way into our lives.


I want to encourage you today, what are the areas of compromise you have allowed to enter your life? What are the things that need to be removed with righteous vigor? Spend some time with the Lord today and upend those tables and don't accept the compromise in your life.