Practical Wisdom from the Word of God

Mark 11:17(NKJV) ¹⁷Then He taught, saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’”

This week we are making the transition from possessing our land of promises and driving out our enemies to occupying that land. Possessing and driving out are more focused on experience and emotion than on understanding. However, to occupy we must learn how to do certain things in order to do the business of the Kingdom of God. As we look at Mark chapter 11 we can see this played out in what Jesus does.

First, he declares the temple his house. Second, he begins to drive out the moneychangers physically. One involves an attitude the other aggressive action. Then he taught them something. In a moment, we will look at what he taught, but I want us to see that he taught. He brought understanding as opposed to simply appealing to emotion. To occupy we must learn the principles and practices necessary to occupy.

What did Jesus teach the people? There are many specific lessons we can learn from his words concerning prayer, the Father’s house and what is appropriate in the presence of God. I want to look at the two categories represented by his words here. He describes the proper use of the Temple of God and the ungodly use of the Temple. I believe those two ideas are what we need to understand in order to occupy.

When Jesus arrived at the temple, he found a situation dominated by worldly order. What the moneychangers were doing was not necessarily a sin. The people needed to buy sacrificial animals. They also had to pay a temple tax. In that time, Israel was a trading crossroad. There were many types of money in use in the city. Certainly, Roman money was widely used, but so were local monies from other cities and regions. None of this money could be used to pay the temple tax or buy the animals needed. The moneychangers changed all this other currency to Hebrew shekels.

Of course, the moneychangers wanted to make a profit. They charged for their services. Often their fees were too high. They took advantage of the religious need of the people to make exorbitant profits. This made them, in the words of Jesus, a den of thieves. The business itself and the way it was being conducted were both part of worldly order and the temple was a place of divine order.

What Jesus is doing by his teaching is reestablishing godly order and godly principles in the life of the temple. He is doing that by teaching the people what that order is and the principles by which it must function. How does that relate to you and I? What does that have to do with occupying our land of promises?

We cannot occupy a land for the Lord and live by the order of the world. We cannot do business for the kingdom of God and walk in the principles that govern the world. To possess the land, we must believe that the land is ours. That is a relational and emotional state of mind. To drive out our enemies we must act aggressively to remove them from our “temple.” However, occupying involves knowing and applying godly rules and principles over the land we occupy.

We may drive out enemies by being emotional, but we cannot keep them out on emotion. We may take possession of a promise simply by knowing and believing the fact that relationship with the Father means that what he has given us is ours to possess. I would even say we couldn’t drive out or possess without knowing we are in relationship and having some emotion behind us. The question is how we keep what we have won. That requires understanding and commitment.

Jesus taught them what the Temple was for and what it was not for. He did this so that when he was gone, if they chose, they could maintain what he had accomplished by taking possession of the house and driving out the worldliness. When we learn how to walk in godly principles, we can, if we choose, maintain our possession and occupy it until the Lord returns.

I want to take ground from the enemy and possess it for the Lord. However, I do not want to continually win the same ground only to lose it and have to take it again. This was one of the great failures of the Vietnam War. American forces took ground but they never really held that ground. The focus was body count. How many of the enemy did we kill? The logic was if we killed enough, they would eventually give up. You cannot win that way.

I used the pacific theater of WWII as an example yesterday. In that campaign, we did not try to kill so many Japanese they would finally give up. We took ground. We robbed the enemy of resources with which to wage war. We understood that the Japanese would never give up until we stood in Tokyo and controlled the city. It took atomic bombs for that to happen, but when it did happen, the war was over for good.

The devil will never give up. He is going to resist you until the day you leave this earth. He contests every bit of ground we take from him. The only way for us to have peace in an area is to occupy that area with the presence and the principles of God. We must exert those principles over the areas of life that try to resist the order of the Kingdom of God. If we do not we will lose ground that once was ours in the Lord. The result will be what we see in most Christians. Instead of extending the Kingdom of God to more and more territory, they take possession of a promise or overcome a weakness only to lose that ground back to the devil and have to take it again.

I believe we must do better today. We must possess and we must drive out, but this time we must also occupy. We cannot just depend on the emotions of the moment or even the feelings of relationship that are so important to us. We must learn how to walk in the principles that will enable us to continue to extend God’s influence in our lives. We must learn how to occupy the land when we feel no emotions. We must learn how to be disciplined enough to stand against the wiles of the devil. Rest assured, he will use them against us no matter how well we may be doing at any given time.

If you want to occupy, you must examine your life and find areas where ungodly order is dominating when godly order should reign. Who is in control of the “temple grounds” of your life? Is your temple a house of prayer or a den of thieves? Are you trying to resist the devil but allowing “devilish” things to stay in your temple? Are you making the effort to learn and walk in the principles of the kingdom of God that are necessary to maintain control over you land?

Control is the key issue of occupying. Whatever controls the land is occupying the land. Are you in control through the power of God or is your flesh in control. Is the world in control of your temple? Is the devil? You can possess by emotion and relationship. You can drive out by action and aggression, but it takes a commitment to the principles and order of God to occupy.