God has given us prayer as a way for people to be brought close to Him.
In Isaiah 56:7 God says, “My house will be a house of prayer for all peoples.” (ESV). Martin Luther, in his commentary on Isaiah, said that this promise was God’s plan for fulfilling His promise to Abraham- that Abraham would be the father of many nations. It is clear that God hoped the nations of the world would come to His temple, “And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer.” (Isaiah 56:6-7 ESV)
We pray for our earthly needs, we pray for the earthly needs of those we love, but God wants more than being kind to those who are kind to us. God wants us to pray for the needs of all people; regardless of their relationship with us or even with Him. Why? Because God wants to reconcile the world to Himself.
The ultimate prayer is for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done- on earth as it is in Heaven. Sin separated us from God’s will but it is God’s desire to overcome the effects of sin, both on His children and on His creation. One of the signs of the Messiah is God’s restoration of His creation from the effects of man’s sin:
“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:6-9 ESV)
One of the times that we see Jesus get very mad in His ministry is when He cleansed the temple. This is recorded for us in all four Gospels and a plain reading of Scripture tells us that Jesus cleansed the temple at least two times- once at the beginning of His earthly ministry and once near the very end.
What was Jesus’ justification from Scripture for cleansing the temple? (Isaiah 56:7) His Father’s house was supposed to be a house of prayer for all of the nations. To understand why Jesus is so mad you must understand where Jesus is standing when He confronts the religious leaders- Jesus is standing in the outer courtyard of the temple. Why does this matter? Because the outer courtyard of the temple is the only place that the nations could worship and what had the Jewish religious leaders done with it? Turned it into a barnyard and a butcher house. How long would you stay in your sanctuary for worship if it was filled with cows doing what cows do and butchers doing what butchers do? You wouldn’t stay, you would leave. You can sin by commission and you can sin by omission. Jesus is not accusing the religious leaders of stealing by commission; He is not accusing them of having false scales etc. Jesus is accusing them of stealing by omission- they have kept God’s house from being a “joyful place” for the nations. (Isaiah 56:7) It is hard to be joyful in worship surrounded by manure.
We are to be proactive with our prayers. We are to reach out to our neighbor, learn their needs and plead for them before the throne of God. We pray for all people according to their needs, in Christ Jesus. If Jesus “book-ended” His earthly ministry with cleansing the temple, so that it would be a house of prayer for all the nations; what do we need to cleanse today? If we say we have no sin we deceive only ourselves.
God has given us prayer as a way for people to be brought close to Him. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life.
Our bodies are God’s temple today. May this His house be a house of prayer for all of the nations.
Amen?
