Leaving Empty Religion

As Jesus was in the Temple, in what turned out to be just a few days before his death, he said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing." (Matthew 23:37)

But look at what he said next...

^"Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

Then Jesus left the temple… (Matthew 23:38-24:1)

He had just finished saying that the religious order at that time was not a safe place for prophets because the people didn’t want to hear God’s voice, especially if it was a rebuking voice. God longed to engage them with a mother-like love, but they rejected Him.

He was finished working through the religious system and basically said they could have their temple or “house”. They’d rejected God’s spokesmen. For three years—at least once a year—he’d tried to speak like a prophet into the mess and they’d rejected God and His Son, it was full of corruption and HE WAS OUT OF THERE.

"I’m leaving it to you desolate"—("I'm no longer having anything to do with it and in a few years it will be destroyed."). Why would he do that? Dead religion, using religion to rip people off financially ("a den of thieves" to be exact), no longer a house of prayer, and no longer for all the nations (races). Instead of helping people connect with God the religious institution was actually getting in the way of people knowing God.

"So Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. Do you see all these things?" he asked. "I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down." (Matt 24:1)

Notice the progression: from "temple", to "buildings", to "things", to "stones".

From the house of God to a pile of rocks.

This was "the temple of the living God" and Jesus walked out. All their lives the temple has been the center of the disciples' faith and religious expression, now it was being rejected by the One who said, "If you've seen me, you have seen the Father."

Now let’s bring the story into present tense: we’re in the group of disciples and Jesus tells us our ‘church’ is corrupt, out of date, not doing the job it was created to do. “I’m out of here! I’m no longer going to connect with this place!” The Hebrew Scriptures have a word for it: "Ichabod": “The glory has departed”.

"Church" is not a building, a business, a religious system, an institution or an organization—a church is people who have heard the call of Jesus and are following Him at all costs.

"Church" is a living thing, and it's only alive and life-giving as long as it is doing the right things. When it stops doing the right things…Jesus is OUT OF THERE!!! Churches can be busy and active, but worthless, just a pile of stones. A church can die…or lose its way.

Misuse of money, failure of leaders, conflict over petty issues. When "the faithful" are more concerned with winning political power over "outsiders"--the people whom they were simply called to love-- than they are with serving people in Jesus' name, then the church has gotten off course.

Does God still depart from outdated religious systems? Was God ever part of the religious system to begin with? It's not about religion, it's about relationship. Religion always gets in the way of relationship.

"And this is the real and eternal life: That they know you, The one and only true God, And Jesus Christ, whom you sent". (John 17:3)

"But the time is coming and is already here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for anyone who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:23-24)

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'"(Acts 17:24-28)