A House of Prayer for All Nations

 The words that the Lord spoke so passionately in Isaiah 56:1-8 are not words to be taken lightly or to be passed over.  Verses 6 and 7 state, “And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to serve him, to love the name of the Lord and to worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant - these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer.  Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”  In reading these verses, it is quite clear that the heart of God is for all nations to come before Him, see His revealed glory and then in turn to glorify Him.  It is His desire that the “nations” come to His “house”, the temple, and that they will pray there.  In other words, the nations will come and will worship the God of Israel, who is also the God of the nations.

Verse 3 says that God will not exclude the foreigner from His people.  Instead, He will accept the foreigner who comes to offer sacrifices.  This was one of the main reasons that God had the temple built.  So that the nations would see His glory and in turn worship and glorify Him. 

Israel in their ethnocentricity rarely if ever understood that God also wanted the nations to worship Him.  At the time of Jesus, nearly 1000 years after the building of Solomon’s temple, the Jews were further than ever from understanding the “house of prayer for the nations” principle.  Is it any wonder that Jesus, in the final week of his life, went after the temple commerce?  I think it is extremely important to understand that when Jesus turned over the tables in Mark 11:15-17, He was thinking something bigger than just overcharging for the required sacrifice.  It was here that He quoted Isaiah 56 by saying that “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations”.  The Passion that drove him to do such a “violent” act was directed at the failure of the temple and the nation of Israel to draw in the other nations.  His desire was not just so that the Temple could be used to “pray for” the other nations, but was instead for the Temple to be a place where the Nations would come and pray.

He stays with the money theme by quoting Jeremiah 7:11.  He goes on to say in Mark 11:17, “but you have made it a den of robbers.”  What were they robbing?  Certainly they may have been taking advantage of the Jewish pilgrims coming to offer sacrifice, but that was not the greatest offense.  Could it be that Jesus was condemning Israel for robbing the blessing from the nations of the world?  They were hoarding what was rightfully intended for the gentiles. 

What a challenge this is for the Church today.  Are we sharing the blessing that Jesus has given to us?  Are we desiring that His House would be a house of prayer (worship) for all nations?  Are we intentionally looking for ways to share His plan of redemption?  Are we committed to taking the message of hope to the nations so that the nations may come and worship?  May we never be called a den of robbers.  May we as individuals, as local churches and the Church worldwide never hoard the blessing of knowing our savior Jesus Christ.  May we instead truly be a house of prayer for the nations.