Are You Looking For Signs?

<John 2:13-22>

13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” (Now, we stop here last week, and the passage that we will be dwelling on today is the portion after this). 18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” 20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

<John 2:13-17>.

13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

* Jesus came as the owner of the temple.

* The Jews’ retaliation.

* “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

* Jesus answered: “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

* The way the Lord answers – Indirectly and with a prophecy.

* <Mt 16:4>: “A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign

Significance of the passage

* Some people are never truly blessed.

* They’ve gone after SIGNS.

* The Devil confuses and muddles people.

* Some people can do all the right things, but end up wrong.

* <John 6:30> “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do?”

* <Lk 16:27-31>: 27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ 29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ 30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

* The signs given at wedding in Cana to disciples Vs the denial of signs at the temple.

* <Mt 10:34-35>: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

* Mary request Vs Jews’ request.

* <Mt 11:3> John asked: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

“A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign…” .

1) Wicked

* Whole state of the soul is in an entirely wrong relationship with God.

* Failed to understand the signs that are already given.

2) Adulterous

* Lusty – love of sensation, excitement, something new

* “What I desire, I must have, and have it fast”.

* Our Lord always refused to grant such “signs”.

* Temptation of Jesus – The Devil says: “If you are the Son of God…

The lessons learned?

1) Are we guilty of spiritual adultery?

2) Rid ourselves of all adulterous spirit within us

3) Be careful of the spirit of restlessness

* <Gal 5:22> fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace.

* <Ro 14:17> The kingdom of God is righteousness and peace.

* Way to Deal with dryness

<Ps 63:1>: “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water”.

4) Do not let yourself be brought to the Lord through any motivation.