Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. But as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion on those who fear him. For he knows our crying, he hears our prayers. As for man, his days are like grass. He flourishes like a flower of the field, for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. For the steadfast love of the Lord is everlasting and everlasting on those who fear him, in his righteousness to children's children, to those who keep his commandments, and to the members who do his commandments. The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom Bless the Lord, O you His angels, you mighty ones who do His Word, obeying the voice of His Word. Bless the Lord, all His hosts, His ministers who do His will. Bless the Lord, all His works and all places of His dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Good morning, everyone. Glad you're all here and we're all here together as God's people to worship Him and to join together Singing His praises as we continue to do that, join me in Psalm 95 today. Again, as we contemplate our own sinfulness and think upon God's great grace and the fact that by His love poured out for us in such full and rich measure through Jesus Christ, we have been brought near to His throne of grace and we have entered into His rest and we have been made able to be in His presence worshiping Him. Let's think about all of that as we read through Psalm 95 together. It reads, O come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise. For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods. In His hand are the depths of the earth. The heights of the mountain are His also. The sea is His, for He made it. and His hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah on the day at Massah in the wilderness when your fathers put Me to the test and put Me to the proof, though they had seen My work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, they are a people who go astray in their heart and they have not known my ways. Therefore, I swore on my wrath, they shall not enter my rest." The book of Hebrews, of course, gives that same warning, that same admonition. to make sure that we are careful not to go astray in our hearts, not to follow the example of those ungrateful Israelites in the wilderness, cursing God for bringing them out of Egypt because it was too hot and too treacherous in the wilderness and the food wasn't good enough for them, wishing they could go back to Egypt. And so this morning, as we think upon all of the great grace and the deliverance and the salvation that is ours in Jesus Christ. Let's pray that we aren't tempted by the things of this world, by the Egypt from whence we've come, to go back and to entice ourselves with all of the things that this world has to offer. Pray this morning that your heart will be satisfied with the richness that is yours in Jesus Christ. And that that will cause you to lift your voice and to make joyful noises unto the Lord who is the rock of your salvation. And that you will exalt Him and exalt in the goodness of His grace. Let's pray this morning. Father, we do give You praise this morning as our great God and as the rock of our salvation. We do acknowledge as Your people who have come into Your presence that we are only able to stand in the presence of Your perfect holiness because Your Son has shed His blood and died for us. Father, we confess to You that we are sinful people who have fallen short of Your glory, but that by Your great love and by Your great mercy and grace, You have saved us. And so, Lord, we pray this morning that we would be diligent to rest in the salvation that is ours in Jesus Christ. To not try to work in order to make our lives meaningful, but, Father, to find peace and satisfaction in everything that You have done. May we forsake ourselves. May we forsake this world by Your Spirit, Father. May we come to despise and to hate and to loathe everything that is contrary to Your goodness and Your purity and the beauty of Your holiness and righteousness. Father, teach us, even this morning, to think upon Jesus Christ with new hearts and renewed minds. And to relish Him and to cherish Him and to exalt Him and hold Him high and esteem Him in our lives. Lord, that we might be worshipers of Him every minute of every day. And that our lives might be living sacrifices that are made to Him every minute of every day. Father, we want to honor You And we want to glorify You. And we want our lives to give You praise because You are worthy of our praise. Because You are our God. You have made us. You have made all things. And by Your power, You sustain all things. And Father, You are omniscient and omnipotent. You are sovereign. And You are righteous and pure and holy and just and good. And so, Father, this morning we are eternally grateful that in all of Your attributes, You have poured out Your justice upon Your Son in order that You might pour out Your mercy upon us, so that we might stand in Your presence reconciled to You, blameless and filled with great joy because we have been called Your children, adopted by You, and, Father, made to be of the great inheritance that Jesus has secured for us eternally in Heaven. And so, Lord, may we not take any of this for granted. May we give You praise today. And may You today fill our hearts and strengthen us that as we go from this place, our lives will give You praise. And we'll call into focus in the world around us the great worship of Your name. Father, we come before You in faith this morning. knowing that You are this great, sovereign, omnipotent God, the omniscient One who knows all of our needs, and Father, who takes pleasure in supplying them and in satisfying us as with the richest food and the sweetest wine. And so, Father, we do praise You this morning for being such a loving and caring Heavenly Father. We praise You for answering our prayers and for caring for those that we have lifted up before You in prayer. And Father, we just ask that You would fill all of our minds with Your truth this morning, and that You would use that truth to focus us upon the risen and exalted Lord Jesus Christ as the object of our worship as we gather around His Word this morning, as we proclaim His name and sing praises to Him, as we come around His table and celebrate the crucifixion of His body and the shedding of His blood, Father, may You remind us this morning and continue to transform us by the renewing of our minds today around the fact that this is our Gospel, that this is our Good News, that this is the truth by which we live and have life. And so, Father, continue this work in our hearts that we might give You praise, not just with our lips, but with our lives. And may You receive the glory for that. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Good morning. This morning's scripture reading will be Ephesians chapter 2, the entire chapter. If you could stand for the reading of God's word. And you were dead in trespasses and sins and when she once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Therefore remember at one time, you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision which is made in the flesh by hands, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace. who has made us both one and his broken body down in his flesh, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. So then you were no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God the Spirit. May all God's people say, Amen. Well, this morning, we are returning to our study in the book of Ezekiel. And today, we've come to the home stretch in Ezekiel. And all God's people said, The final eight chapters out of 48 long chapters in Ezekiel, and in my mind, this isn't just the end of Ezekiel's prophecy. It's the culmination. It's the climax. It's the pinnacle. It's the most exciting part of God's message of hope to His people. It seems to me as I was reading through a bunch of commentaries on these chapters, there's a temptation oftentimes for preachers and Bible commentators to almost apologize for Ezekiel 40-48, because to many people's minds it seems rather anticlimactic considering where we've already been in the book of Ezekiel. All that we've already seen chapter after chapter after chapter of God's unmitigated wrath at the beginning, culminating with the destruction of Jerusalem in chapter 24. And then everything took a radical shift after that, and God started proclaiming His great mercy and these incredible plans to redeem Israel. And that's when it seemed like we'd reached the peak, the most exciting part of the whole book. We got all of that incredible prophecy about the new covenant and the new life that God was going to give His people as He pours out His Spirit, as He fills us with rivers of living water that are poured into our souls. And then, topping it all off, there was the promise in chapters 38 and 39, the last bit that we looked at of bringing a full and final end to all rebellion and wickedness and unrighteousness and evil in the world. with that intense and graphic prophecy of God's judgment that was coming against Gog and Magog. And that passage, remember, was quoted in Revelation 19 and 20 where we see that its fulfillment involves nothing short of Satan himself being cast into the lake of fire to be tormented for all of eternity. That's very exciting, isn't it? That seems like you couldn't get better than that. One commentator, Ian Duggage, says that all of that reads like the script of a very typical Hollywood action thriller movie coming to the grand finale at the end. And so now, after all of that, after coming to what seems like that great climax of Ezekiel, now we get eight chapters full of measurements of a temple. Now we get all of this data and all of these chapters and verses full of instructions for what kinds of sacrifices the prince is allowed to make in that temple. And that seems to a lot of people to be very dry stuff by comparison. And so again, a lot of times, preachers and commentators end up almost apologizing for these chapters and treating them as an afterthought to the reality that was so much more significant in their minds than the other portions of Ezekiel. But I hope that what we'll see this morning is that this final vision of the New Covenant Temple is not an afterthought. It is in fact the capstone. It is in fact the climax of this entire book. Ezekiel has saved the best for last. Because what he's envisioning here is not just a blueprint for a new temple building that is going to be constructed sometime after the exile. What he's envisioning is nothing short of an entirely new society. An entirely new world. He's seeing nothing less than heaven on earth. He's showing these exiles who are living in God's absence in Babylon, what it will look like one day to dwell in His eternal presence. That's what this vision is all about. Now think about our own society for a minute this morning. Our culture has been built around the experience of the absence of God, hasn't it? Because of sin and because of idolatry and rebellion in the hearts of the people that make up this society, there is no experience of the living presence of God in their lives. And to that extent, in their world, and that leaves a massive void that people try to fill with all kinds of things. But nothing, no matter what they do to fill that void, nothing is ever sufficient, is it? to fill a void that is God-shaped and God-sized. And so in our culture, there is this perpetual sense of discontentment. Beauty can never be beautiful enough. Relationships can never be strong enough. Money can never make you rich enough. Power is never absolute enough. People in our culture, in our society, live according to this deep-seated sense of loss and emptiness and absence that is caused by the absence of God in their lives. And I say that this morning as we come to look at Ezekiel 40 and his vision of a new temple, because this final culminating vision of Ezekiel's is aimed at the believer who lives in a world in which God seems to be absent. It's a vision in which society and the world itself has been radically reordered and radically transformed and forged new around the reality of the presence of God. and the reality of His holiness that is so absolute and so pure that it cannot be defiled ever again, around the reality that God has made way for a sacrifice that is so perfect that unrighteousness can never again separate His people from Him, but that He and His people will always be separated from the unholiness and the evil and the wickedness of the world around them. It's a vision of what the world will look like when God is finally in His rightful place. For the exiles there in Babylon in Ezekiel's day, their world had quite literally fallen apart, hadn't it? God had left the temple. God had abandoned them to their idolatry and their rebellion, and He had left them weak and helpless and vulnerable, hopeless to ever be able to defend themselves against the Babylonians. Their lives had become full of absolute despair and loss because of the experience of God's absence. Remember the cry? that they let out in chapter 37 and verse 11, our bones have dried up and our hope is lost because we have been completely cut off. God's gone. He's not here to help us. We're doomed. But how did God respond to that cry? He responded with a vision of miraculous, divine life that would be given to those dried up, hopeless bones of their hearts. He responded with a prophecy of His return to His people so that they would never again be cut off. He will stand to defend them always against the greatest of enemies, Satan himself, death itself. That was the great hope of chapters 38 and 39 with the prophecy against Gog and Magog. And now, the end of the story. Now the culmination of it all, this vision of a new temple where God will no longer allow anything to ever come between Him and His people. I admit to you, this is a very disputed section of Scripture. And it's interpreted very differently by a lot of different people. We make no apology for that this morning. You're going to hear me say something that may be new to your ears. You're going to hear an interpretation and an understanding that I have of this passage that may be different from the one that you have. And that's okay. I'm probably not going to convince you, and that's okay. But I want us to look this morning mostly not at the details of this passage, but at its essence, if we can. It's a long text, three whole chapters, and we're really going to have to fly over the top of it at a good clip because I don't want to lose the forest for the trees, which is very easy to do in a passage like this that's full of so much detail. I want the message of the vision to be what sinks into our minds and our hearts this morning. And the first thing that's important about this vision is the date on which Ezekiel saw it. Verse 1 of chapter 40, in the twenty-fifth year of our exile, pay careful attention, this is specific, in the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was struck down, on that very day, the hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me to the city. In visions of God, He brought me to the land of Israel and set me down on a very high mountain on which was a structure like a city to the south." Twenty-five years have gone by since Ezekiel was taken from Jerusalem in the second wave of deportations to Babylon. And fourteen years have gone by since the destruction of Jerusalem that was recorded in chapter 24. And now, this vision is given on the tenth day of the first month. And all of that, see, is very, very significant. In the Old Testament, on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, every fiftieth year marked the beginning of what was called the year of Jubilee. On that day, the 10th day of the 7th month every 50th year, the trumpets were blown in Jerusalem to announce that the year of Jubilee had begun, that there was this special holy year that was different than all of the other 49 years before. It was an entire year that the people of God lived according to a new standard of liberty and freedom throughout the entire land. For a whole year, all of the land that had been bought and sold before was returned to its original owner. Can you imagine that? You don't get to live in your house anymore. You have to give it back to the guy you bought it from. Why? Why would they do that? Well, the reason was that someone who had lost everything and became destitute to the point of indentured servitude could return to the heritage of their ancestors. All debts were forgiven. All slaves were set free on the year of Jubilee. And all social class inequalities where the rich dominated and oppressed the poor, all of that was done away with because everything was leveled out and all people were equal before God for a whole year. And the whole system restarted. Isn't that incredible? This is how they lived their lives in Israel. All of those disorders that crept into their society over time were rectified. Equality was restored. This sort of divine recreation came to mark the whole society. All of that on the tenth day of the seventh month of the fiftieth year. That was regular life in Old Testament Israel. Part of their economy and as a part of their political structure as a theocracy under God. Every 50th year was the year of Jubilee, and if you were one of those poor people, or those impoverished people, or those enslaved citizens of Israel, then that day on which Jubilee began would be a day that you looked forward to like no other, right? Because it means your freedom. It means a new life for you. People who lived between Jubilees waited anxiously for the start of the next one. Now, what God is saying to these exiles in Babylon, these poor, these impoverished, these enslaved Israelites, is that their Jubilee is coming. That's so important to understand here. The vision is given on the tenth day of the first month of the twenty-fifth year, and that is precisely halfway to the next Jubilee. And it was on that exact day that Ezekiel was taken up to a very high mountain and shown this vision of a temple that looks like a city, and the meaning of that vision is the recreation and the reordering, not only of their society, but of all societies. established around the holiness of God, where all men, slaves and free men and women from all nationalities, are one in Him. And as you picture that scene, this temple city that Ezekiel sees on a great high mountain, out of which we'll see in chapter 47 this ever-deepening river of living water flows to the ends of the earth, giving life to everyone who comes underneath it. As you picture all of that, remember back to chapter 37 and the great contrast of the vision of the valley of dry bones. In chapter 37, Ezekiel is taken out to a great valley filled with dead, dry bones, and here he is taken into a great high place that is the land full of life. The two visions are held in deliberate contrast. The valley of the dead, dry bones, versus the high mountain of God's presence and everlasting life. And just like that vision in chapter 37, I don't believe that geography here is really the issue at all. I believe theology is the issue here. It wasn't really important where the valley was in chapter 37, was it? Wasn't important that we be able to go there and dig up some archaeological evidence of that great army that had been resurrected and transformed from death to life, right? That wasn't the point. It was a vision. Not about an actual place, but about the reality of what God was doing in the souls of His people. Wasn't about geography. What was important was the theology. of spiritual death and spiritual life that God's Spirit breathes into His people. And I believe the same is true here. This is a vision exactly like that was, and I don't believe it describes an actual place, but instead reveals something that is far, far more important than mere geography. What is important is that this new temple is located in the opposite theological terrain to the valley of the dry bones. See? Just as the dead were raised to new life in that valley, so here in chapter 40, the valley of death is exalted and lifted up and transformed into a city on a hill. So here, I don't believe Ezekiel's in a literal, physical place any more than he was in the valley in chapter 37, or that he's looking at literal, physical things any more than he was when he saw those bones rattling around and coming together. I don't believe that's what God intends to teach us here. He's seeing another vision where these things represent and signify the truth about eternal life and the presence of God that God is revealing and teaching. And there on that mountaintop, Ezekiel is met by an angel who acts as his kind of tour guide around this visionary temple that he's shown. And the angel has two things with him. He's got a linen cord and a measuring reed. Those were two common tools for measuring dimensions in Old Testament ancient times, like a yardstick and a measuring tape in our day. And the angel begins to measure this temple, And Ezekiel is told to pay very careful attention to everything that he sees so that he can go back and repeat this all to the other exiles in Babylon. Look at verse 4. "'Son of man, look with your eyes, and hear with your ears, and set your heart upon all that I show you. For you were brought here in order that I might show it to you. Declare all that you see to the house of Israel.'" And Ezekiel does just that. He declares what he saw. Now, I've given you a handout this morning. I hope you all have one. You're going to need it. If you don't, try to scoot over next to somebody who has one. It's a visual diagram of this visionary temple that Ezekiel saw and recorded the dimensions of. And I gave that to you this morning mostly because as we walk through the measurements that he gives, it's helpful to be able to see it in order to understand it. And I have Ian Duggett, again, one of my Old Testament professors in seminary, to thank for this particular diagram. He's the one who drew it and I just photocopied it and handed it out to you with his permission. Now, the first thing that Ezekiel sees is probably the most important thing of the whole vision. He sees a wall surrounding the entire temple area on the outside there, and describes it in verse 5, "...Behold, there was a wall around the outside of the temple area, and the length of the measuring reed in the man's hand was six long cubits, each being a cubit and a handbreadth in length. So he measured the thickness of the wall, one reed, and the height, one reed." Now the purpose of walls is to regulate space. That's why we have walls. That's why you have a wall between your living room and your bedroom. Because you want to regulate space. You want to mark territory as inside versus outside and regulate access to the inside space. You don't want everyone who comes to your living room to necessarily go into your bedroom and have access to that inner space, do you? That's why we have walls. And that's what the wall functioned as here in this vision. It's what it represents. And it's not necessarily a small wall. Its measurements translate to about ten and a half feet in height and ten and a half feet thick. It's a thick wall. That's a solid dividing line between the holy area inside the temple and the common area outside. On your diagram, The outer wall is that black line around the whole square area of the temple complex itself. And it has three gates built into it. And they're not gates like a gate you would put on your fence that just swings open. The gate is itself a defensive structure and there's three of them on the north and the east and the south sides. And each gate is dominated by these fortress-like gatehouses. They're massive things, almost 45 feet wide and 90 feet deep. You see them there marked A on your diagram. They're described in verses 13-15. Then He measured the gate from the ceiling of the one side room to the ceiling of the other, a breadth of 25 cubits. The openings faced each other. And He measured also the vestibule, 20 cubits, and around the vestibule of the gateway was the court. And from the front of the gate at the entrance to the front of the inner vestibule of the gates was 50 cubits." Big gates. And you can see in each of them there's little alcoves recessed inside, and that was the place in the ancient world where you would station guards with swords or spears, so that if anyone tried to come through your gate, they'd have to run that defensive gauntlet in order to penetrate the wall and get inside. It's a very effective means of defense in the ancient world. Not many people got through gates like these. And the initial impression that this vision is intended to give is that this temple, this place where the presence of God is located, is a powerful and mighty fortress that very clearly and very effectively separates the sacred from the profane, the holy from the common. It's a temple that cannot be defiled. That's the point of the vision. And next, as Ezekiel has shown, the outer courts, they're marked with an O on your diagram. Not much said about that area, only that it's about 175 feet across and that there's a paved area surrounding it marked M there and a series of rooms all around marked K. All of that's described in verses 17 through 19. And then the inner courts marked N. On your diagram, the light gray area, that's an area that is set apart from the outer courts by being elevated up a flight of steps, probably about eight feet off the ground, the second level of the temple complex. And again, it's an area protected by three strong gates marked B on your diagram. Massive things, very secure. A strong defense against intrusion so that no pollution might come into the presence of God. And as Ezekiel looks at this second level, he sees two rooms marked I on the diagram. Verse 38 says that they are for the washing of the sacrifices. They are the places where the priests will prepare the sacrifices, and there are places inside each of those rooms that are set aside for the slaughtering of the animals. Verses 39-43 of chapter 40 record that. And in addition, there are rooms marked H for the priests, specifically the sons of Zadok. Verses 44-46 tell us that they have responsibility over the entire temple and over the altar and the sacrifices. Verse 46 in fact says, they alone among the sons of Levi may come near to the Lord to minister to Him. Again, the major emphasis here being the separation of the holy from the common. spoken in terms that these Israelite people would be very, very familiar with. And then having described the outer and the inner courts, the angel leads Ezekiel up another flight of steps to the temple structure itself. The third level, the dark gray area on your diagram, elevated another ten feet above the area of the inner courts. The temple building itself marked there with the letter D. It's a three-part structure, a portico around the perimeter. and then the outer sanctuary where the altar is marked with the letter E, and then the inner sanctuary, the most holy place. Verse 4 of chapter 41 tells us that its length was 20 cubits and its breadth was 20 cubits across the nave. And He said to me, this is the most holy place and its holiness reflected by the symmetry of its dimensions. The only square in the temple building itself. And notice that this is the only place where the angel goes in alone to measure. Ezekiel isn't allowed in. He has to wait outside. And then there's a series of rooms that's described around the temple building. And some building materials are described briefly. It's paneled with wood and decorated with images of palm trees and cherubim similar to Solomon's temple. And after describing it, Ezekiel is taken back down and shown various other rooms and buildings around the second level, and the most important of them, in chapter 42 and verse 13, the north chambers and the south chambers opposite the great yard are the holy chambers where the priests who approach the Lord shall eat the most holy offerings. There they shall put the most holy offerings, the grain offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering. for the place is holy." Those are marked with G on your diagrams. Those are the places where the priests ate their meals. Meals that consisted of the leftover portions of the various offerings during the ceremonial sacrifices. A place where the priests would also leave their priestly garments, their sacred clothes that they'd ministered in because they weren't allowed to wear them outside of the temple lest they become defiled when they came back in. Again, emphasizing the need to keep the holy separate from the common. And finally, having been given this tour, Ezekiel is brought out and given an overview of the outside of the temple. And it all itself is a square at the end of chapter 42. 500 cubits by 500 cubits, about 900 feet in each direction. That's very different from Solomon's temple. In Solomon's temple, the only square space was the Holy of Holies itself. Again, the symmetrical square dimension signified the holiness and the purity of God. But here in Ezekiel's vision, the entire structure is a square. And that signifies an increased level of sanctity that is reflected and expressed in the overall squared shape. And the final note on the layout of the temple brings Ezekiel right back to where he started, back to the wall. Verse 20 of chapter 42, which emphasizes the purpose of that wall again. The most important underlying theme of this vision, the separation of the holy from the common. He measured the wall on four sides. It had a wall around it 500 cubits long and 500 cubits broad to make a separation of the holy and the common. That's the key. Radical holiness is what marks this temple. Nothing common. No defilements can get in. No way for sin to get over that wall or through those gates to corrupt the perfect sacrifices. The goal of this new temple, in contrast to the old temple that they once worshipped in, the goal of this one is to be a place of perfect, undefiled sacrifice made in absolute, perfect, unblemished holiness in a way that maintained that absolute separation of all things holy from all things profane, which would guarantee And it was the only thing that would guarantee everlasting life for God's people. Now, I told you we'd fly over that in Mach 3 speed. The real question is, what exactly is this that Ezekiel is seeing, isn't it? There's a few different ways that commentators typically deal with this vision. The first way you're not going to like, it's very liberal. The first way is to suggest that Ezekiel has lapsed into a bit of eccentric self-expression here. Commentators say, well, Ezekiel used to be a priest. He's really, really fascinated by temples. Sort of in the same way that some people are fascinated with fly fishing or motorcycles. That's their thing. Ever notice that? That whatever a person is most interested in is what they tend to use to illustrate just about everything in their life. You'll be talking about marriage. You'll be talking about the roles and the differences between men and women and they'll say something like, well, it's like my car. You've got the gas pedal and you've got the brake pedal and they're very different, but they're both very important and you have to use them together and whatever, right? That's sort of how some commentators take this vision. Ezekiel is trailing off into some obscure allegory that means something, but for all of us who aren't really into temples, we're not exactly sure what he's talking about. And that's the standard liberal approach to interpreting this passage. And we can all dismiss that pretty easily, I hope, this morning, because it isn't just Ezekiel expressing himself here. This is God's Word, and he's breathed it out through Ezekiel for a reason. Don't relegate it to obscurity. And then there's the opposite end of the spectrum where many, many people, all of them, by the way, on this side, very godly scholars who do believe that this is God's Word, and they argue that the significance of this very detailed description of the temple is self-evidently clear. Because they say all of these details form a blueprint, an actual ground plan for the building of an actual temple in Jerusalem sometime in the future. It's a plan that any competent architect could take and actually build this thing according to God's specifications. Now, you'd have to fill in some blanks, like the height of the building is not specified, what materials to use not specified, not mentioned in the text, as opposed to the original tabernacle and the original temple where God was very careful to specify every detail. And I'll tell you this, I've been to Jerusalem and I've stood up on the Temple Mount and you'd have to do a fairly massive amount of grading and revising of not only the Temple Mount, but the whole topography of Mount Zion itself in order to get this thing to fit there. But nonetheless, there are a lot of people who believe that that's what this is, that the day will come when this temple that Ezekiel has seen will be built precisely according to these plans. And I'll tell you what, and here's where you're not going to like me. I say this with all respect to those scholars and those godly people who interpret this vision in that way. And I know a lot of them personally, and I know that they understand this passage the way that they do because they really want to take God's Word as God's Word at face value. They want to understand it to mean what it says, and so they interpret it as it sounds. But nonetheless, I really, really in my conscience find myself disagreeing with that interpretation because if it's right, if this is a divinely inspired blueprint for a millennial temple that is going to be built, then what we're saying is that God has ordained for a day in our future when we will go back to the sacrificing of animals for the temporary atonement of sins. And I find that not just hard, but impossible to say. A time when we will go back to the Old Testament priesthood. Back to the ceremonies. Back to the laws of temple worship which are all laid out specifically in these chapters, especially chapter 44, regulating sin offerings, burnt offerings, guilt offerings that have to be made continually to cover the sins of the people. And if we have to go back to all of that, then how on earth are we to understand the book of Hebrews, which teaches so clearly that the entire system of Old Testament ceremonial, sacrificial, temple rites has become obsolete because of the better sacrifice of Jesus Christ. the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The better priesthood, the better covenant, the better blood, the better atonement and redemption of Jesus Christ. If we build another temple, and if we start slaughtering animals again for sin offerings, then aren't we saying of Jesus that His sacrifice wasn't enough? That there have to be more priests besides Him That there needs to be more blood spilt? That there needs to be more death suffered and more sacrificial substitutions made for the sins of God's people than His perfect substitutionary sacrifice? I can't say that, and I really hope that none of you can either. Jesus Christ was the mediator of a new and better covenant that was ratified by His precious blood shed once for the eternal forgiveness of all of the sins of all of God's people for all of time. And when He died and breathed His last, the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom. Because in His blood now, we have access to the presence of God. By His ministry, we can all draw near to the throne of grace with boldness and with great joy. And to say that there's coming a day when the veil has to be rehung is not a hopeful thing for me to look forward to. To say that there's coming a day when there will once again be something that separates me from the presence of my God, is to undo my hope and undo everything that Jesus did to establish my hope 2,000 years ago. And I can't do that. I can't say that because I believe Scripture so clearly says the opposite. I believe that what we have here in Ezekiel is nothing short of a visionary reordering of the whole society, an entirely new world. To quote one commentator, this is a view of heaven itself from halfway there, as the semi-jubilee date indicates, showing a people who are living with the absence of God a vision of what His presence will be like. It's a vision that goes all the way back to the creation and the ordering of the original world in Genesis 1-11. It's a picture of Eden only without a fall. It's paradise only without walls. Withfalls, excuse me. Walls that signify the divine prevention of God's people from ever being driven out of His presence again, and the prevention of their ever driving Him from their midst again. Just like they did in Ezekiel 8 by installing all those idols in the temple. Nothing will ever come between God and His people again. This is the reordering of everything that God's people had undone by their own sin. In the Garden of Eden, God was present with His people. That was the paradise without the walls. No fence around the forbidden tree. They didn't have to scale a ten-foot wall to get to it. There was only the command of God not to eat. No sacrifices yet, because there was no sin to atone for until they did eat. And when they did, sin entered into the world and they were driven out of His presence. All of humanity was placed on the outside and barred from returning. And that's when sacrifices began, after the fall. called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees and led him to the Promised Land, brought the people out of Egypt in Exodus, and at Mount Sinai gave them the instructions to build the tabernacle, this tent with flimsy walls and all kinds of rules and regulations that limited their access to Him. And in Solomon's day, it was a more solid temple with more concrete rules and regulations governing that access. But by Ezekiel's day, it had all fallen apart. It wasn't working. And why wasn't it working? Because the blood of bulls and goats could never take away their sins. It couldn't make their dead souls alive. It couldn't cure their idolatry. Simply going back to the old way wouldn't ever work. That's the point of the whole Old Testament. And so Ezekiel has this vision of a totally new kind of temple. One with radically raised walls and heightened standards of holiness and a radical new focus on sacrifice. And you know what? When the exiles returned from Babylon and rebuilt the temple, actually in Jerusalem, it didn't look anything like this. They didn't build it according to this plan. And they didn't adopt the new standards of holiness that are laid out here. And they didn't even try to achieve the goals of this temple of being a place of absolute sacrifice and absolute holiness that maintained an absolute separation of holy from profane. They knew they couldn't do that. So they didn't even try. But I'll tell you who did do it. Jesus Christ fulfilled the goal, didn't He? Jesus Christ made a perfect, absolute sacrifice in perfect, undefiled holiness in a way that maintains an absolute separation of all things holy from all things profane. And by doing that, He guaranteed everlasting life for all of His people. And I believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the goal of Ezekiel's temple because Jesus Christ is Ezekiel's temple. I think that Ezekiel was seeing Him in visionary form. He's the dwelling of God among mankind. The glory of God made manifest. John says in John 1.14, the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we have seen His glory. Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. In Christ Jesus, the solid walls of that Old Testament temple had to become flimsy again so that once again that temple could be torn down in one final cataclysmic act of cleansing through the breaking of His body on the cross. That's what Jesus Himself says in John 2.19, if you destroy this temple referring to His body, I will raise it up again in three days. You see, there is Ezekiel's radical focus on temple sacrifice found in its fullest possible expression. The new temple itself is completely and wholly devoted to being made a sacrifice for sin. And therefore, cleansing God's people once for all. And in Him, in Jesus Christ, the radical separation of the holy from the profane is also expressed. Ezekiel saw this temple in the midst of God's people, but it wasn't a temple that was able to be defiled by the people. So Christ, dwelling in the midst of a sinful world, and yet unblemished, pure, the spotless Lamb of God, tempted in every way as we are, and yet without sin. He was the light in the darkness that the darkness could never overwhelm or compromise. Jesus Christ, I believe, is by His own words, and by His perfect and undefiled life, and by His absolute and perfect sacrifice, He is the new covenant temple that Ezekiel saw in visionary form. He is our jubilee, our freedom, our redemption. And as we are His body, the New Testament teaches that we also are that new temple in Him. Paul said that very thing in the passage from Ephesians 2 that Chris read this morning. We are members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets like Ezekiel, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, and in Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit into that temple. We're living stones. We're temples of the Holy Spirit, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3 and 6. We have direct access to the throne of grace where Jesus Christ Himself intercedes for us at God's right hand. There are no walls to keep us out of His presence because we have been washed clean with His blood, covered with His righteousness, brought near. And now our lives must consist of worship. That's the whole point. We are to be living sacrifices in the new covenant temple of our God. We are to realize the difference and recognize and discern the difference in our world between holy things and profane things and never let the common profane things of this world enter into the temple of God's Holy Spirit. That's why Paul says, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, therefore abstain from sexual immorality. Don't let pollution into God's temple. Hebrews 12 says that we are to remain untangled from the sin that ensnares us. Is that your life? Do you live inside the walls? Or do you wander out into the profane and common world? Is your life a sacrificial service of worship to the living God every minute of every day? Mine either. But I'm not okay with that. Are you? I'm not okay with those times when I live as though God is absent. Are you? When I'm off doing my own thing. I want to live every minute of every day in His presence. Don't you? But we can't without His strength. Not without that power that gives life to the dead. And praise God that He has lavished it on us in abundance and invited us to be filled with it all the time. Through prayer. Through the Word. Through fellowship with other Christians and accountability. Through worship and the singing of His praise. Through the feast that we celebrate together at the table. To be filled with the grace of God. to live our lives as Paul describes in Romans 12, on the altar as living sacrifices every day, not conformed to the trends and the images of the world around us, but transformed by the renewing of our minds, by understanding who and what we are as His people living in His presence, so that they come to the table and be filled with His grace and His strength and His life, and be strengthened with all of that to live your life today and tomorrow and Tuesday and Wednesday and every day as living sacrifices for His glory, as services of worship for His honor. Father, these things may be hard for us to understand, but Your Word is very, very clear. that we are to live our lives for Your glory and for the honor and the exaltation of Your name. And so, Lord, this morning we would pray that You would use Your Word to teach us who and what we are in Jesus Christ, the access that we have to You, the presence of You in which we dwell and live every minute of every day. And as we contemplate that, Father, as we realize that every time we are tempted with sin, every time we have a hateful attitude, every time we yield to the lusts of our flesh, every time we are apathetic to the leading of Your Spirit, Father, that we are doing and acting those things and those ways in Your presence. We are saying those things. We are thinking those thoughts. Entertaining those lusts in Your presence. And so, Father, we pray that Your presence would be sanctifying for us, cleansing for us, that You would continue to remove our sin and subdue our flesh and cause Christ to be formed in us. And Father, purify this temple that You have made of Your people. Father, help our lives to be worship. Help this to be all of our heart's desire By Your Spirit, make it so, we pray. By Your power and in Your strength and in Jesus' name, Amen. Now let's stand together as we come before the table and sing hymn number 347 together. The church is One Foundation. It's on page 10 of your bulletins. Please stand.