Our scripture reading this evening is taken from the book of the prophet Ezekiel chapter 43. Ezekiel chapter 43. Ezekiel's final vision is as it were a tour first of the temple and then of Jerusalem. It is a vision that speaks of God's restoration, God's holiness and most of all of God's church and what it is the church is called to be and is made by God's grace. Ezekiel is not giving a blueprint for a temple, these aren't architects drawings, they are a vision that has a deep and spiritual meaning. So Ezekiel chapter 43 Afterward he brought me to the gate, the gate that faces toward the east. And behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east. His voice was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory. It was like the appearance of the vision which I saw, like the vision which I saw when I came to destroy the city. The visions were like the vision which I saw by the river Kibar, and I fell on my face. And the glory of the Lord came into the temple by way of the gate which faces toward the east. The Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court. And behold, the glory of the Lord filled the temple. Then I heard Him speaking to me from the temple, while a man stood beside me. And he said to me, Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever. No more shall the house of Israel defile my holy name, they nor their kings by their harlotry or with the carcasses of their kings on their high places. When they set the threshold by my doorpost, by my threshold, and their doorpost by my doorpost, and a war between them and me, they defiled my holy name by the abominations which they committed. Therefore I have consumed them in my anger. Now let them put the harlotry and the carcasses of their kings far away from me, and I will dwell in their midst forever. Son of man, describe the temple to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities, and let them measure the pattern. And if they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the temple and its arrangement, its exits and its entrances, its entire design and all its ordinances, all its forms and all its laws. Write it down in their sight so that they may keep its whole design and all its ordinances and perform them. This is the law of the temple. The whole area surrounding the mountaintop is most holy. Behold, this is the law of the temple. These are the measurements of the altar in cubits. The cubit is one cubit in the hand breadth. The base one cubit high and one cubit wide, with a rim all around its edge of one span. This is the height of the altar. From the base on the ground with the lower edge, the lower ledge two cubits, The width of the ledge, one cubit. From the smaller ledge to the larger ledge, four cubits. And the width of the ledge, one cubit. The altar hearth is four cubits high, with four horns extending upward from the hearth. The altar hearth is twelve cubits long, twelve wide, square at its four corners. The ledge, fourteen cubits long and fourteen wide, on its four sides, with a rim of half a cubit around it. its base one cubit all around, and its steps face toward the east. And he said to me, Son of man, thus says the Lord God, these are the ordinances for the altar on the day when he is made, for sacrificing burnt offerings on it, and for sprinkling blood on it. You shall give a young ball for a sin offering to the priests. The Levites, who are of the seed of Zadok, who approach me to minister to me, says the Lord God. You shall take some of its blood and put it on the four horns of the altar, on the four corners of the ledge and on the rim around it. Thus you shall cleanse it and make atonement for it. Then you shall also take the bowl of the sin offering and burn it in the appointed place of the temple outside the sanctuary. On the second day you shall offer a kid of the goats without blemish for a sin offering. and they shall cleanse the altar as they cleansed it with the bull. When you finish cleansing it you shall offer a young bull without blemish and a ram from the flock without blemish. When you offer them before the Lord, the priests shall throw salt on them, and they will offer them as a burnt offering to the Lord. Every day for seven days you shall prepare a goat for a sin offering. They shall also prepare a young bull and a ram from the flock, both without blemish. Seven days they shall make atonement for the altar, and purify it, and so consecrate it. When these days are over, it shall be on the eighth day and thereafter, that your priest shall offer your burnt offerings and your peace offerings on the altar, and I will accept you, says the Lord God. May God bless the reading of his holy word. Our text this evening is found in the chapter that we read, Ezekiel chapter 43 and verse 7. And he said to me, Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever. No more shall the house of Israel defile my holy name. They nor their kings by their harlotry or with the carcasses of their kings on their high places. Ezekiel writes to people who had lost everything. People who had lost their nation, their city, and most of all, their temple. He writes to people who, in the past, had been arrogant. They had imagined that because they were God's chosen people, they could do as they pleased. That they did not have to think about God's Word and so they had defiled his temple and so he had taken it away from them. And yet his vision now turns to reassuring them, to telling them that God has not finished, God has not finished with his church. And here we have in this chapter, chapter 43, the climax of the vision of the temple. Not the vision of the temple in the city that is yet to continue but here is the climax of the vision of the temple because what makes the temple is not the building what makes a temple is not the architecture It's not the structure being in the right place. It's not the beautiful decorations on the inside. What makes the temple is the presence of God in the temple. And it's here in this chapter that Ezekiel sees the glory of God taking its residence in the temple. That the temple becomes truly the temple. Now this is not, as I said, this is not a vision primarily about buildings, at least not physical buildings like this chapel built of brick and concrete and wood. This is rather about a spiritual building, the church, and God dwelling among his people. The covenant has been summed up by one writer as this, it is God's people, in God's presence, in God's place. That is what we have at the beginning in the Garden of Eden and what we have at the end in Revelation 21. And in between it's all about God gathering his people to be in his presence, in his place. And that is the Church. the Temple of God, as it's called in the New Testament. We see here in this chapter, first of all, the return of the glory of God. We see, secondly, the remembrance of God's mercy and his judgment. And thirdly, we see the reconciliation of God and his people. return, remembrance and reconciliation. And first we see the return. Ezekiel has been given the tour of the temple. He has seen the plan of this holy place. But it is a holy place set apart for God's people, for God's glory. And now he is brought to the gate that faces toward the east. And he may, from what he does in the vision, have some idea of why he's been brought here. Because he had been envisioned to the east gate of the old temple. The temple that no longer existed. Solomon's temple that had been destroyed by the Babylonians. And there he had stood and in vision watched as the glory of God departed. Back in Ezekiel chapter 8 he had seen this. The glory of God had left the temple. Everything that they had trusted in had departed because they had trusted in things and not in God himself. And so it was that he saw the departure of the glory. The glory of God left the temple. The glory of God. So it's chapter 10 that the glory of God left the temple. Then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub and paused over the threshold of the temple. And the house was filled with a cloud and the cloud was full of the brightness of the Lord's glory. The sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard, even the outer court like the voice of Almighty God when he speaks. But then he saw the glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim. And the glory of the Lord went out to the east. glory of the Lord had departed. But now he sees this new temple has been built and now the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the East. And he's brought back to his vision he had at first by the River Kibar, where he saw what nobody else did, where his eyes were opened to behold that vision of the glory of God. That vision of the majesty, the holiness of God. Because what his contemporaries have forgotten is that God's holiness is a moral holiness. It's not simply that God is different from us, it is that God is good, God is light and in him is no darkness at all. One of the great problems of paganism is that paganism is religion without morality. Paganism is that the gods are there, they have power, and you can gain their favour by doing stuff. And the stuff is things like sacrifices. It's things like giving them things. But it's not about morality, it's not about being a better person. It's about trying to curry favour. The picture, the idea that paganism had about gods is very much like that. It's why it's possible for paganism to talk about gods and yet slaughter man. that God is holy, He is good. And that's what they'd forgotten. But now the glory of God returns and it's that which makes a temple. That which makes a temple. The temple is a dwelling place for God. And so it's vital to emphasize this when it comes to the Church. The Church of God, the actual, the true Church of God is a spiritual building that is being built out of living stones, human beings, people who are saved and brought in and they become the Temple of God in the New Testament. Except in those places where we have a historical reference to the building. The temple is the church. The Apostle Paul says to the church in Corinth, you are God's temple. And that's true of every local church. Every local church is God's local temple. God's people. God's house. But what makes the church is the presence of God by the Holy Spirit. And it's very important that we don't forget that. One of the great dangers that we're seeing again and again in church history is people forgetting that the presence of God, the presence of God is what makes the church. That it's God's people. And so you have, for example, the idea that if we have the right ritual, perhaps, or you have just the name of the church remaining. I've mentioned before as an illustration that in London there's a place called Conway Hall, which is the headquarter of the South Place Ethical Society. But if you go back to when that organisation began, it was called South Place Baptist Church. And they had been a split from another Baptist church. And they had been people who said, well, we're not sure that we want to take the Bible the way the Bible takes itself. And these people then moved away from the Bible. But they said, we're still a church. And they moved further away and further away until under the quote-unquote ministry of a man called Conway, they decided that they were going to become atheists. And they didn't care about God, they just cared about being decent people. And so they're not a church anymore, they're an ethical society. Well, I reckon that there are a good number of places that still have church on the notice boards today that are, in fact, just ethical societies. When I was a student at Chester University, now Chester College as it was then, the president of the Christian Union, his grandfather was a Methodist minister, a good old Methodist minister who preached the gospel. And he'd retired many years ago, but he was still on the circuit. And someone asked him, why are you still on the circuit plan locally? And he said, well if I didn't come to preach the gospel, all you'd have here would be a bunch of social groups meeting together, not churches. No gospel. But it's the presence of God by the Holy Spirit that makes the church. And the great danger again and again is that the church forgets that. Local churches drift away and they look at something else. They say, well we are very good at helping people in the community, nothing wrong with that. But that's all they do. And they lose that vital point, you must be born again, born by the Spirit. And that's what makes the church people born again by the Holy Spirit. And when the church falls away from that legality, then the church becomes all manner of other things. It may become deeply political. Whether the politics are the politics of the right or the left, it doesn't really matter. And it could be either. But if all the church does is politics, then where is the church? If all the church does is social work, where is the church? The church is where Christ is. And where the church vanishes, it's because the church has forgotten. the Lord Jesus Christ. The church has become like the church of Laodicea in the Revelation where Jesus is not inside the church but outside knocking at the door calling on those within to individually open to him the return of the glory that's what makes the church the presence of God by the Spirit in Jesus Christ. And then we see, secondly, the remembrance, the remembrance. Son of man, this is the place of my throne, the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever. No more shall the house of Israel defile my holy name. they nor their kings by the harlotry or with the carcass of their kings on their high places. And the remembrance is what happened in the past. The remembrance of sin, not in the sense of beating people down, but in the sense of remembering to bring humility, that recognition that we are saved by grace alone. What had they done to deserve the return of the glory of God? They had done nothing. They had done a great deal to deserve the departure of the glory of God. They had defiled His holy name. That is to say that by their behaviour they had suggested that God is not holy. They have suggested that God is like the gods of the nations that don't actually have any morality. That's what they've done. They defiled his name because they represented him as not being who he is. The church, part of the church's great responsibility is to reflect who God is. That's his name, his character. and they defiled it by suggesting he's other than he is. That's why it's so important for the church to dwell upon who God is. And how do we know who God is? We know from his word. And we know most of all because we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And that's why it was such a heinous sin of those who preached another Jesus. That is a fake Jesus. One who is not the Lord of Glory revealed in Scripture. That's why they sin so terribly, it's because they defiled His Holy Name. They were guilty of their holatry. And that's, of course, using the image of Israel as God's wife. And then the wife commits adultery, not just with one pagan god, but with all the pagan gods. Because part of what they said was, well, we're not going to abandon God. Of course not, that would be wrong. But we are going instead to hedge our bets. We've come into, we're in Canaan. And we've got these local people round about. And they've got their war gods and their storm gods and their sea gods. And it won't do any harm, will it, for us to burn some incense to Baal? Of course, it would do a great deal of harm. Baal doesn't exist. And it suggests that instead of Israel being God's pure bride, she's just going to go with whoever seems to pay her something, whoever seems to give her something. The Church is Christ's Holy Bride. The Church therefore cannot, cannot commit to any but the Lord Jesus. We have one great calling. This is why the great declaration of the Church is, the Christian ministry is with Paul, we preach Christ crucified. Other people preach other things. There are social groups. There are political parties that have their plans and their projects. And some of them are better than others. And some of them we can, when the election time comes, the individual can get behind. But woe betide the church if that political project gets in the pulpit. Because we preach Christ and Him crucified. because our allegiance is to the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything else is secondary to Him. And if we as Christians, and when we as Christians go to the ballot box, we go as Christians first of all. We don't sell ourselves to any one political party. We look and we say, who can I vote for who appears to come closest to what is right and just? And, of course, it can be very difficult sometimes. You look at the choices before you. We certainly can't go and say, well, we'll vote for whichever party is a Christian leader. I mean, look at what happened last time in the general election. What were the two main parties? Starmer, the atheist, and Sunak, the Hindu. Well, you vote according to your conscience and according to prayerful consideration, but we cannot join the church or political party, whatever that party may be. We can't do what a former vicar of Holy Trinity in Burslem did and have a picture of Karl Marx up in the vestry. Did he really? Oh yes. Karl Marx in the vestry. It's very questionable. I can't put up any other political leader in the vestry either, because it's God's temple. And part of the problem here, you see, their kings defiled them. It's that danger of the alliance with politics, where the church says, well, we will join ourselves with the political party, and the political party will give us what we want, give us power and authority. The Church can't do that. The Church cannot be a mere adjunct of the State. The Church cannot be either the Labour Party at prayer, or the Conservative Party at prayer, or the Liberals at prayer, or any other political party at prayer. But the Church is the Church of the Living God. And there is that remembrance then of the sins of the past that brings humility. We have sinned. We therefore have no claim on God by virtue of our actions at all. Our sins, in fact, are what separate us from God. But what has God done? He has saved his people from their sins. That's what the cross is all about. Salvation for sinners. It means that we approach God all on the same level as sinners saved by grace. Because we come then to our third point, to that of reconciliation. Reconciliation. What are the What does God tell Ezekiel? He says, verse 10, Son of man, describe the temple to the house of Israel that they may be ashamed of their iniquities and let them measure the pattern. Because the temple is not simply a place of worship, it is a place of sacrifice. It's a place of atonement. It's a place with an altar. And so we come to the altar. And the altar is described, it's a sort of stepped structure. And at the top there is the altar proper, with a square altar, the four horns either side sticking up. And the altar is a place of sacrifice. It is the place where animals are slain, where they're slain. sin offerings, peace offerings. And here, here God is approached through blood. We have an altar. The Christian has an altar. Now we do not have altars in our church buildings. What we have at the front is a table. We have a table in the church building but we have an altar. What kind of altar do we have? We have, Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 10, we have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered outside the gate. We have an altar in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. we read in Hebrews again Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 22 according to the law almost all things are purified with blood without the shedding of blood there is no remission there is no remission no forgiveness without the shedding of blood. Why is that? It is a principle that God has laid out. It is a principle that emphasizes that forgiveness is costly. Forgiveness is costly because sin is serious. One of the great problems of our present age is that we don't really take sin seriously enough. There has been too much in the churches, particularly through the liberals, talk about mere forgiveness as though that's a possibility. There's been too much forgetting of the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses us from all sin. I've told the story before when I was younger, went to visit a church in Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire there, that seaside resort, and went to a little chapel there, the Evangelical Chapel. And the minister there was an old Methodist minister. He had left the Methodists because of their fall away from the Gospel. But he told the story, when he'd been a Methodist minister, he'd gone to one of the Methodist chapels and You may know Methodist ministers, they haven't got the one chapel, they have a circuit, a number of churches they go to. And each church has its steward, the man in charge of the building. And before the service, the steward went into the vestry to pray with the minister. He said to the minister, Frank, let's not have a bloodbath in the pulpit this morning. And telling the story, Frank said, well, I wasn't going to preach about the blood of Jesus Christ that morning, but after he said that, I had to. because without the shedding of blood there's no remission. A bloodless theology is a dead theology. A bloodless theology is a theology that can save nobody. The gospel is a gospel of blood, the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses us from all sin. And the blood tells us this, it tells us that even for God, forgiving our sins is not just a snap of the fingers. It's not a mere magic act. It's not like Q in Star Trek who would just snap his fingers at whatever he wants happens. God's forgiveness is costly to God. It costs his son to forgive us our sins. because God is holy, because God's character is what it is, because he is light, he had to send his son. It wasn't some external force imposing on him, it's who he is that means that he must act as he does. We have an altar, we have salvation, we have offerings, And we see in Ezekiel the picture here of these offerings of animals. And yet, fundamentally, as we sang in that hymn, not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain. What is it that We read in Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 10, for the law having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of those things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually, year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then were they not a cease to be offered. For the worshippers, once purified, would have no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. That reference, of course, is to the annual Day of Atonement, Yom Kippurim. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin. Therefore, when he, the Lord Jesus, came into the world, he said, sacrifice an offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me. And he understands this, that what God's ultimate desire is, is not the sacrificial system. That was temporary. But God's ultimate goal, to which all the sacrifice is appointing, is the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, bearing our sins, suffering in our place. And so the altar is consecrated, we see here in this chapter, consecrated by sacrifice. An altar is consecrated with blood, so it is with our Lord Jesus Christ. He is consecrated by his own precious blood. Again, Hebrews chapter 9, but Christ came as high priest of the good things to come with a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands that is, not of this creation, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood he entered the most holy place, once for all having obtained eternal redemption. Through the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sacrifices, or sanctifies rather, for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Here is the sacrifice that consecrates the temple. The sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that we might be accepted. And you see, verse 27, when these days are over, the days of the consecrating sacrifice, it shall be on the eighth day and thereafter the priest shall offer your burnt offerings and your peace offerings on the altar and I will accept you. It is possible for us to be accepted by God. But it is not possible for us to be accepted through what we do. We can be accepted only in one way, accepted in the Beloved, accepted in Jesus Christ, through His blood that is shed for us, that washes us. And that phrase of the Apostle John, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin. And when he says cleanses there he means goes on cleansing us. It is a once for all sacrifice but it's a daily applied sacrifice. Do you know his blood applied? Do you know your soul washed by his most precious blood because Christ has come that your soul may be washed by his precious blood. He has come to sanctify the church for himself. What a marvel it is that when we come to God in prayer, it is as the hymn writer puts it, that since my Saviour stands between in garments dyed with blood, it is He instead of I is seen when I approach to God. We are accepted in the Beloved. He has died for us And God in Christ cleanses the church and makes the church most holy. And the church is not just a body, the church is individuals, individual Christians saved individually by his precious blood and built together into a dwelling place of God by the Spirit. And so in Ezekiel's vision we see that because the Saviour has died for us, We who trust in him are holy and we are accepted because the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins. Oh let us embrace him, let us praise his name for the forgiveness that is in Christ Jesus. Amen.