“My house is a house of prayer,” but you have made it a “den of thieves.” Luke 19:46.
Why was it that Christ's indignation was stirred as He came into the temple courts? His eye swept over the scene, and He saw in it the dishonor of God and the oppression of the people. He heard the lowing of the oxen, the bleating of the sheep, and the altercation between those who were buying and selling. In the courts of God even the priests and rulers were engaged in traffic.... When once their attention was called to Him, they could not withdraw their eyes from His face, for there was something in His countenance that awed and terrified them. Who was He? A humble Galilean, the son of a carpenter who had worked at His trade with His father, but as they gazed upon Him, they felt as though they were arraigned before the judgment bar....
Christ saw the poor and the distressed and the afflicted in trouble and dismay because they had not sufficient to purchase even a dove for an offering. The blind, the lame, the deaf, the afflicted, were in suffering and distress because they longed to present an offering for their sins, but the prices were so exorbitant they could not compass it. It seemed that there was no chance for them to have their sins pardoned....
When Christ had expelled those who had sold doves, He had said, “Take these things hence.” He had not driven the doves out as He had the oxen and the sheep, and why? Because they were the only offering of the poor. He knew their necessities, and as the sellers were driven from the temple, the suffering and the afflicted were left in the courts....
But the priests and the rulers, recovering from their dismay, said, “We will return and challenge Him, and ask Him by what authority He had presumed to expel us from the temple.”
But what a scene met their eyes as they entered again the courts of the temple. Christ was ministering to the poor, the suffering, and the afflicted.... He gave the suffering tender comfort. He took the little ones in His arms and commanded freedom from disease and suffering. He gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, health to the diseased, and comfort to the afflicted....
He was doing the very work which had been prophesied that the Messiah would do.—The Review and Herald, August 27, 1895.
From From the Heart - Page 172
From the Heart