the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub on which it rested to the threshold of the house and he called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing case at his waist then I looked and behold on the expanse that was over the heads of the cherubim there appeared above them something like a sapphire in appearance like a throne and he said to the man clothed in linen going among the whirling wheels underneath the cherubim fill your hands with burning coals from between the cherubim and scatter them over the city. And he went in before my eyes. Now the cherubim were standing on the south side of the house when the man went in, and a cloud filled the inner court. And the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub to the threshold of the house, and the house was filled with the cloud. And the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the Lord. Then the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the house and stood over the cherubim. And the cherubim lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth before my eyes as they went out with the wheels beside them. And they stood at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the Lord. And the glory of the God of Israel was over them. Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the east gate of the house of the Lord, which faces east. And behold, at the entrance of the gateway there were twenty-five men, and I saw among them Jazaniah, the son of Azur, and Pelletiah, the son of Benaiah, princes of the people. And he said to me, These are the men who devise iniquity. and who give wicked counsel in the city, they say, the time is not near to build houses. The city is a cauldron and we are the meat. Therefore, prophesy against them, prophesy, O son of man. And the spirit of the Lord fell upon me and he said to me, say, thus says the Lord. So you think, O house of Israel, for I know the things that have come into your mind. You have multiplied your slain in the city and have filled its streets with the slain. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, your slain whom you have laid in the midst of it They are the meat, and this city is the cauldron, but you shall be brought out of the midst of it. You have feared the sword, and I will bring the sword upon you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you out of the midst of it and give you into the hands of foreigners and execute judgments upon you. You shall fall by the sword. I will judge you at the border of Israel, and you shall know that I am the Lord. This city shall not be your cauldron, nor shall you be the meat in the midst of it. I will judge you at the border of Israel, and you shall know that I am the Lord. For you have not walked in my statutes, nor obeyed my rules, but have acted according to the rules of the nations around you. And it came to pass while I was prophesying that Pelletiah the son of Benaiah died. Then I fell down on my face and cried out with a loud voice and said, Oh, Lord God, will you make a full into the remnant of Israel? Then the cherubim lifted up their wings with the wheels beside them and the glory of the God of Israel was over them. And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain that is on the east side of the city. We're called to examine ourselves when we hear all of them are those of whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, Go far from the Lord. To us, this land is given for a possession. Therefore say, thus says the Lord God, though I removed them far off among the nations, and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a while in the countries where they have gone. Therefore say, thus says the Lord God, I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. And when they come here, they will remove from all its detestable things and all the abominations. And I will give them one heart and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people and I will be their God. Let's pray together. Lord, you gave I just want to get right into it. I have a lot to do today, because last week I did, what, nine verses? And today, it's like 50. So, lots to talk about, and it's an absolutely fascinating, important passage. This is one of those that if somebody's going to preach from Ezekiel 1 sermon, it might very well be on these two chapters. So, it's the first day of the first month. It's roughly March, April. For us, it corresponds to January 1st. And God commanded Moses to dedicate the tabernacle that the people had just finished designing. This is in Exodus 40. With all of its amazing architectural features and the anointing of the priest, Moses does exactly what the Lord commands. And then we read this. The cloud covered the tent of meeting. And the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the clouds settled on it. And the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys." And that's how Exodus ends. Earlier in that book, God had told Moses, you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark of the covenant. and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you, that's the Ten Commandments, and there I will meet with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, and I will speak with you about all of what I have commanded for the people of Israel. And so from this, we learn that the glory that filled the tabernacle was particularly localized inside the most holy place, just above the Ark of the Covenant, which was designed to be a king's throne. In other words, God has now come to sit on his throne. That's the imagery of the glory coming down in the cloud, filling the tabernacle. Now I want you to fast forward many years. to the days of Samuel after all the other judges of Israel had come and gone. And we're in the days of Eli who served as the priest of God. It was this Eli who Samuel went to again and again when he heard that voice calling his name when he was near the ark when he was a lad. Eli was old and blind and fat in those days. And there was a war between Israel and the Philistines. And the Philistines defeated Israel, prompting them to ask, why has the Lord defeated us today? And so they said, let's bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord here from Shiloh, that it may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies. They were not using God as a deity that they believed in by faith. They were using the Ark, and they were using it as a talisman. So the people went and they fetched it, as it says, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim that is over the actual Ark because it's his seat. Now when the Ark was seen in the camp, the Israelites let up a great shout so that all the earth shook and the Philistines then learned of what happened and they were afraid. And they said a God has come into the camp. And they knew it was the gods who struck down the Egyptians and they were very afraid. But they roused their courage and they fought and Israel was defeated. 30,000 foot soldiers were killed. And it says the Philistines took the Ark of God and they captured the two sons of Eli, killing them. Now a man of Benjamin ran from the battle, and he came to Shiloh, where he met Eli, sitting on his seat by the side of the road, watching and trembling for the return of the ark. But the man came and delivered devastating news. He said, Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there also has been a great defeat among the people. Your two sons are dead. and the Ark of God has been captured. And as soon as Eli heard the news, he fell over backward on his chair and he died. Now his daughter-in-law, the wife of his now dead son Phineas, she was pregnant and she was about to give birth. And when she heard the news that the Ark of God was captured and that her husband and father-in-law were dead, she bowed and gave birth immediately and she said, As she was about to die, Ichabod, and she pointed at the boy, saying, the glory has departed from Israel because the ark of God had been captured and her family was dead. Now, providentially through a series of unfortunate events for the Philistines, but rather funny things for the Jews, the ark was returned just a couple of chapters later and the glory was back. Now the returning of the glory of Israel is later cemented in the event that mirrors the glory coming in the tabernacle. So now we move to the days of Solomon. And so we read right after Solomon, like Moses, finished all the preparations for his temple, which was now the permanent depiction of the tabernacle that Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and, quote, brought up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Zion. Everyone assembled in the seventh month and brought up the Ark. They took all the instruments and they assembled them. And then with a great sacrifice, they brought the Ark to its place in the inner sanctuary of the house in the most holy place underneath the wings of the cherubim. And it says, when the celebration was over, When the priest came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord so that the priest could not stand to minister because of the cloud. For the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. Now today, Ezekiel 10 through 11, we are going to see a most unsettling thing. The glory which descended upon the tabernacle and then the temple will in a very calculated and visual movement leave. This would have been devastating and terrifying for the Jews to come to grips with. But before we get into that story and its implications, I want to talk to you about the glory of the Lord. What is the glory of God? Well, to put it most directly as I can, the glory of God is God. Maybe a little more precisely, though, the glory of God is God's covenantal presence, visibly manifesting his holy majesty and merciful commitment to dwell with and judge his people. It is a triune glory. Paul calls the Father in Ephesians 1, the Father of glory. Stephen calls Jesus in Acts 7, the glory of God, that is Jesus. And Peter calls the Spirit, the Spirit of glory and of God. And hence we sing in the Gloria Patri, every week, glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, because the glory is triune. Glory in the Hebrew is the word kavod, It derives from a root word that means weighty or heavy. The Greek equivalent is doxa. It's where we get our word doxology from. So when you sing about the doxology at the end of the service, you're singing about God's glory as well as when you do it in the Gloria Patri. Now in classical Greek, doxa means reputation. God's glory, that is his reputation or his weightiness, is perceived in his works. And that's exactly what we sang in hymn number two in Psalm 145 this morning. The creation of the world is God's works, the creation of human beings or of historical events, which include the restoration and judgment of things. This is God's glory. Who else can do these things? It's also perceived in His persons, especially in the Son and the Spirit, who manifest and they mediate the glory of the Father to the creation. See, the Father is the source of all glory, enthroned in transcendence with His majesty revealed through the Spirit's presence. And the Spirit is often visible through phenomenon like a radiant cloud or a fire or a storm or even a bird hovering. And it's mediated or embodied by the form of one like a man, whether he's an angel man in the Old Testament or a human Jesus in the New Testament. It's almost always in a covenantal context where God is coming to his people to engage in a relationship with them through a covenant. Now the idea of the glory first appears even in the second verse of the Bible, when it says the earth was without form and void and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Like some kind of a radiant glory cloud or a glory bird, the Targum is translated as a wind or a spirit of mercy. Now this directly parallels a passage in Moses where he uses two of these words found here, the word tohu, you've heard of tohu and bohu without form and void, and the word rahab for hovering. He only uses these words in two places in all of his writing in the first five books, and the other time is found in Deuteronomy 32. It says he found Israel in a desert land in a howling waste in the Tohu of the wilderness. He encircled him. He cared for him like an eagle that stirs up its nest and flutters over its young. The Lord alone guided him. And this in turn directly evokes the pillar of cloud and fire in Exodus. For example, Exodus 13, 21 and 22, it says, the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night did not depart from them. That's how the Lord led them. Now like the bird image, the pillars hover over the people with God's covenant glory presence, just like we see in Genesis 1-2. So where's the glory there? Well, you see, Exodus 16-10 says, behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. The meaning is that the Father's glory appeared both as the Spirit's presence as a cloud and fire and as the angel who is in the cloud. As it says, then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them. And the pillar of the cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, coming between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel. Or it says in another place, the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way. And so Isaiah looks at all this and he says, in all their affliction he was afflicted and the angel of his presence saved them. and the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest. You see, the Spirit and the Son are always working together to manifest the glory of the Father to God's people. Now, I brought up the Targums a moment ago because they add a word found in the Aramaic that you've probably heard of. The word is not found in our Bible, it's found in the Targums, and the word is shekinah. Have you all heard of that? comes from a verb shekan, which is a Hebrew word, and that word means to settle, okay? So shekanah is the settling. For example, in Exodus 40, Moses was not able to enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled on it. And the Targum says, Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because he had made the glory of the shekanah of the Lord rest on it. And the glory of the Shekinah of the Lord filled the tabernacle. So the Shekinah is literally the settling or the dwelling of God in glory in a very particular place. The Isaiah Targum says in a famous text, I saw the glory of the Lord resting upon the throne. And the temple was filled by the brilliance of his glory. And in his mouth there was a speech which he took before him whose Shekinah is upon the throne of glory. This Shekinah is really important to understand. It's a two powers word that was used to describe the presence of God's word, his Memra. For example, in Chronicles, at the dedication of the temple, it has Solomon say, the Lord has chosen to cause his Shekinah to dwell in the city of Jerusalem in the sanctuary house which I built for the name of his memra, his word, his logos. And of course, John picks this up in the gospel on many occasions. For example, he says that Isaiah saw Christ's glory and spoke of him. And of course, at the very beginning of the Gospel of John, it says, we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth, because the word became flesh and dwelt among us. What is Shekinah? It's the dwelling, the settling. And so that's the exact idea that we find going on throughout the Old Testament, except now Jesus is with us in the flesh. And I know that's a lot of background, But I think it's vital if you wanna really try and understand the force of this incredible sight in Ezekiel that I wanna bring out in these two chapters. Because something happens in these chapters that began way back in Ezekiel 9, 3. Let me recall the verse for you. Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub on which it rested to the threshold of the house. So let's take a very brief tour of where we have seen the glory in Ezekiel so far. In chapter one, the glory is found by the Kibar Canal in Babylon. Here the prophet sees that amazing vision of the wheels. Remember the four living creatures, one like a son of man whose appearance is so dazzling and brilliant and terrifying. He calls that appearance the likeness of the glory of the Lord. So here is the glory of God in Babylon. Again, in chapter three, the spirit lifts the prophet up and says, blessed be the glory of the Lord from this place. Again, the setting is the Kibar Canal by Babylon. And this becomes explicit in the third mention in verse 23 of chapter three. Now in Ezekiel eight, the setting changes. Suddenly the prophet's thrown into this vision where he sees the glory of the God of Israel in Jerusalem now, in the temple, in the inner court, near the altar of the burnt offering. This is the same place that we see the blurring of the sun and the spirit, which makes sense because both are the glory of God. And the glory in Jerusalem is where the glory of God should be, kind of. See, the glory isn't supposed to be in Babylon, but that will actually become good news at the end of the sermon. And yet it's vital to see that the glory in Exodus and Kings rested above the Ark of the Covenant on the seat inside the most holy place in the temple. But here, the glory now in chapter nine is not in the temple. The glory is outside in the courtyard, directly in front of the entrance to the holy place, near the altar of burnt offering. God has moved outside of his house because he sees what's been going on in the gross defilement of his temple. And now he's outside and he is watching. This is explained in chapter nine where it says, now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub on which it rested to the threshold of the house. It's a perfect tense verb. It means that it conveys a completed action. The action was discussed in the chapter eight. But it's mentioned here because we have chapters 8 through 11 that are all one cycle or series of moves where he's remember Ezekiel goes into the temple closer and closer to the center. And now the glory is going to leave the center and he's going to leave the entire place. And in my opinion, that is what drives Ezekiel 8 through 11 more than anything else. Now, Having seen that the glory of God has moved out of the most holy place into the courtyard, right at the threshold of the entrance of the holy place, and that he has now seen the abominations Israel has committed, and he's called for those executioners to begin their judgments on the temple in the city. We also remember that they were not allowed to touch those who were given the mark by this man clothed in linen. And so now we're set for where we start this morning in chapter 10 verse 1. Then I looked and behold on the expanse that was over the heads of the cherubim, there appeared above them something like a sapphire in appearance like a throne. Now we're going to see almost everything in chapter 10 we've seen before back in chapter 1. It describes God's heavenly chariot throne, that so-called Merkabah, which means a chariot. But now instead of that chariot being in Babylon, it is also here in the temple in Jerusalem. So we continue in verse two, he said to the man clothed in linen, go in among the whirling wheels underneath the cherubim, fill your hands with burning coals from between the cherubim and scatter them over the city. And he went in before my eyes. So that's the same man who had just marked all those whose spirits groaned over the evils that were being committed in the temple. So what's he doing here? You need to realize it comes in the middle of a judgment scene. So this is not for purification like we see in Isaiah 6 when he takes the coals and touches his mouth. These are the coals of fiery justice pouring down from heaven like the fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah. It says the cherubim were standing on the south side of the house when the man went in and a cloud filled the inner court. So the picture is that of a divine chariot with its heavenly cherubim guarding the throne, and it now appears on the south part of the temple courtyard. So it's gone from the very center to the front of the door, and now it's moved to the south of the courtyard. It's exactly opposite that idol of jealousy that was on the north side, remember that? The cloud filled the inner court is very important to notice, and it's why we need to understand the relationship of the glory and the cloud earlier. Because what is happening is that the glory of God has left the building. It continues, and it gets more specific in verse four. The glory of the Lord went up from the cherub to the threshold of the house, and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the Lord. Now God's presence is very much here in the temple, but here's the thing, it's no longer hidden behind the walls or the curtains of the holy place. Rather, it's right out there in the open. It fills the doorway and the house with the cloud and the whole court is being brightened like the sun coming out from behind an eclipse. This happens to be the very center of a structure in the first seven verses with the glory moving. And so it's obviously important And suddenly in verse five, the cloud, the sound of the wings of the cherubim is heard as far as the outer court, like the voice of God almighty when he speaks. I think about this as wings, wings, terrifying, awe-inspiring, the just movement of wings of these guardian throne cherubim sound like the voice of the almighty and they're fluttering together all at once. And just then, when he commanded the man clothed in linen, take the fire from between the whirling wheels, from between the cherubim, and he went and stood beside the wheel. So, who's commanding this man in linen? Well, it goes all the way back to chapter eight, where we saw that it is the Lord. But now, rather than coals, he's to take fire. And the cherub stretched out his hand from between the cherubim to the fire that was between the cherubim. And he took some of it, put it into his hand of the man clothed in linen, who took it and went out. And then the man and the cherub are working together to get the fire out and into the city. Now just here it explains the cherubim appeared to have the form of human hand under their wings. And that takes us back to verse 8 of chapter 1, and those four living creatures. There's a slight difference though here, which is that cherubim did not appear in chapter 1, and now they are mentioned here by name. And a cherubim is a throne guardian. It's another way of viewing the living creatures other than the cardinal directions that we saw before that we see in the zodiac. It's a complementary idea. It's likely that it changes to a cherubim here because it's associated with the Ark of the Covenant, which the glory has now left. Though the Ark is still inside, in the most holy place, the spiritual throne upon which God sits is now moving. We get more descriptions from chapter one that start to just fill over and over these verses. I looked and behold, there were four wheels beside the cherubim, one beside each cherub, and the appearance of the wheels was like sparkling beryl. Saw all that back in chapter one. Verse 10, as for their appearance, the four had the same likeness. as if a wheel were within a wheel. Again, it matches chapter one. When they went, they went in any of the four directions without turning as they went, but in whatever direction the front wheel faced, the others followed without turning as they went. Again, chapter one, the parallels continue. Their whole body, their rims, their spokes, their wings, the wheels were full of eyes all around, the wheels that had four of them. This again matches chapter one. And then you come to verse 13. It adds one feature that we don't see in chapter one. It says, as for the wheels, they were called in my hearing the whirring wheels. In other words, these wheels are moving because God is mobile. He's not static. He's not confined to a place like the gods of the nations are with their idols. The repetition continues in verse 14. Everyone had four faces. The first face was like the face of a cherub, the second like a human, the third like a lion, the fourth like an eagle. Now, this one repeats chapter one, verse 10, except that the cherub has replaced the ox. That's the only difference. And somebody might say, well, why? And again, I think it's likely because in chapter 10, we're in a temple context. with these cherubim guardians of the Ark of the Covenant, and ox don't guard the Ark of the Covenant. Back in Babylon, the ox was more a symbol of power and so it was a more appropriate idea, but we're still seeing the four living creatures. Now, Ezekiel 10, 15 through 17 also parallel things in chapter one, except that again, we're in the temple. We're not in Babylon, we're in Jerusalem. I can't stress how important that is enough. Ezekiel says as much. The cherubim mounted up And these were the four living creatures that I saw by the Kibar Canal. And when the cherubim went up, the wheels went beside them. And when the cherubim lifted their wings to mount up from the earth, the wheels did not turn from beside them. And they stood still. And when they stood still, these stood still. When they mounted up, these mounted up with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in them. So with all this repetition from chapter one, it might be important to ask, well, why? I think there's several reasons. The first is that it brings consistency to the visions. These visions are over a year apart, and yet it's the exact same thing that Ezekiel sees. In other words, he really saw it. Second, it reinforces the triune God in his amazing glory, including the glory, the spirit, the man, the whole thing. Third, it emphasizes the literary cohesion of chapters 1 through 11. And fourth, and finally, it shows that God is mobile and active and on the move, and he's able to go anywhere that he pleases. Now, this is what now appears in verse 18. You have to imagine with your mind this incredible multi-wheeled, four-living creature, cherubim platform throne thing. that Ezekiel is seeing and it's now moving. It says, the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the house and stood over the cherubim. If you just try and imagine, this is just completely wild language. The glory is standing. It's personified, almost like it's a divine man figure. In fact, that's what chapter one told us that it is. This is Christ enshrouded by the glory cloud mounting his chariot throne. He now has moved from the threshold away from the entrance of the holy place. Now to the south where his fantastical chariot awaits him. Says the cherubim lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth before my eyes as they went out with the wheels beside them and they stood at the entrance of the east gate at a house of the Lord and the glory of God was over them. So now the whole throne moves at the instigation of the cherubim to the entrance of the east gate. So now it's even farther away from the central. This is the place that you walk into the temple. The glory isn't going in, though. The glory is going out. To tie the whole chapter back then to chapter one, creating an inclusio, we have the last three verses of the chapter. These were the living creatures that I saw underneath the God of Israel by the Kibar Canal. And I knew that they were cherubim. Each had four faces, each four wings underneath their wings like the likeness of human hands. And as for the likeness of their faces, they were the same faces whose appearance I had seen by the Kibar Canal. Each of them went straight forward. This thing is now called the God of Israel, the glory man. Now, we've moved very quickly through chapter 10 because we've seen much of it before. But I wanted to preach it with chapter 11. So we're only halfway done with our text today. So moving faster was necessary. We'll slow down a little bit here. Chapter 11 is gonna take us to the main reason why God is leaving the temple. He's coming to send judgment upon it. Daniel Block argues that the first half of this chapter is written in a genre called prophetic disputation speech. It's a component, in some ways, of a covenant lawsuit. This is a genre where the prophet quotes a particular opinion or a saying, and then he exposes its falsehood, and then he refutes it with divine truth. The aim is to correct false beliefs and behaviors with God's truth. So it begins with the summons and a setting in a kind of a preamble in verse 1. The Spirit lifted me up, brought me to the east gate, to the house of the Lord, which faces east. And behold, at the entrance of the gate there were twenty-five men, and I saw among them Jazaniah, son of Azur, and Pelletiah, the son of Benaiah, princes of the people. Okay, so Ezekiel's just inside the temple complex. He's facing the east gate. He's very clearly right beside the glory chariot throne. He looks at the gate and he sees 25 men at the entrance, among whom are Jazaniah, son of Azura, and Pelletiah, son of Benaiah. They're called the princes of Israel. Their presence is similar to summoning the accused in a lawsuit, except that they aren't being summoned, but they still represent the covenant community's rebellion. Now, we saw the name Jazaniah back in chapter 8, but he was the son of Shaphan. He seems to have been a ringleader of the 70 elders that were desecrating the temple in this mad return to worship the gods of the nations as he emulated Baal. But this guy's called a prince, he's not called an elder, and his father's Azur, not Shaphan. So it's likely two different men. But nevertheless, let's remember that his name means the Lord will be heard, or whom Jehovah hears, or Jehovah does hearken. And again, it becomes very ironic in a way that mirrors the rebellion of the 70 elders back in the previous chapter. His father's name is Azur. His name means help or helper. and it likely contrasts with his son's harmful counsel in the next verse. Further, if the former Jazaniah emulates Baal, Azur could remind us of the Assyrian god, Ashur, a fitting idea given that Ezekiel is in Babylon while this godly guy is in the temple worshiping the gods. Now, Pelitiah comes from pelot, means to escape or deliver. His is the best name of all because While his name means the Lord delivers, he's going to die in verse 13. And finally, benaiah comes from a word that means to build, so Yahweh builds. So it has some interesting play with what's gonna come up with these houses in a minute. Verse two, he said to me, son of man, these are the men of the city who devise iniquity and give wicked counsel in the city. So given that they devise iniquity and there's 25 of them by the East Gate, the same as the 25 in Chapter 8 who are worshiping the sun at the East Gate, that's not a coincidence. It's very likely the same people. And we recall that when we saw that, that this was the worst of the four abominations in the chapters. These men are very sinful and so God is going back to them to highlight what's happening in the temple. And next comes their false opinion. They say something very strange. They say, the time is not near to build houses. Remember Benaiah, his name means to build. The city is the cauldron and we are the meat. I don't know about you, but I go, what in the world does that even mean? Heizer helpfully explains that if you boil meat in a cauldron, you boil the good meat, not the bad meat, not the grizzle, not the bones. So it's a metaphor. You put the good meat in the cauldron. Jerusalem is the cauldron and they are the meat. In other words, we're the good part of the city. We're the ones in the city that are worth saving. The grizzle and the bones have already been thrown out in the earlier deportations. So you get the impression that they think that God is going to spare them because of who they are. So who are they exactly, besides guys worshiping the sun in God's temple? Well, they're either homegrown nobility or they could be Jews in governing positions left behind by the Babylonians to rule the city in their place after they took Israel's nobility into exile. In other words, this is the puppet government of the city. In making deals with Babylon, they felt utterly secure and untouchable, not unlike so many in our own political elites who do unspeakable things, believing that they will never be caught or punished. The building houses part is also difficult to understand, especially because how to translate it isn't quite clear. It could mean what the King James says. It's not near let us build houses. In other words, they don't think anything's gonna happen to the city, so let's just build away. Now that probably isn't a great translation. So some think that it might refer to a prophecy in Jeremiah 29 5, where God commands the exiles in Babylon to build houses. And if so, then these men would be saying, eh, that day's a long way from now. Don't worry about Babylon. After all, we're in tight with them. They won't come and harm us anymore. And then there's another interpretation, which is that the houses are actually advocating for preparing for war. with confidence that Jerusalem's defenses and wall will protect them like a cauldron protects meat from a fire. Whatever the case is, in every one of them, it's clearly a false opinion of reality. And that's where the prophet turns. It says, prophesy against them, O son of man. It's never a good sign when God commands a prophet to prophesy against you. It says, the Spirit of the Lord fell upon me and he said to me, say, thus says the Lord. So you think, O house of Israel, for I know the things that come into your mind. You have multiplied your slain in the city and filled the streets with the slain. So this becomes God's refutation of their foolishness. They're trusting in a place and in human structures rather than in a person. It's as if God is saying, you think that after all the evil you've committed in your very own streets against my people, all the death, the slain, that you're not going to be punished? You got another thing coming. And verses 7 through 12 then become the judgment. And it's given in a covenantal context. It's given in the context of the divine glory presence making his judicial pronouncement right there at the east gate. where the 25 stand. It says, therefore, thus says the Lord God, you're slaying whom you have laid in the midst of it. They are the meat, and this city is the cauldron, but you shall be brought out of the midst of it. You have feared the sword. I will bring the sword upon you, declares the Lord. I will bring you out of the midst of it and give you into the hands of foreigners and execute judgments upon you. In other words, you think you're the good meat? No, I tell you, those you have slain are the meat and Jerusalem is not a place of safety, it's a place of death. And you're gonna be dragged out of the city and you're going to be judged. Verses 10 through 12, you shall fall by the sword, I will judge you at the border of Israel, you shall know that I am the Lord. This city will not be your cauldron, nor shall you be the meat in the middle of it. I will judge you at the border of Israel and you will know that I am the Lord. For you have not walked in my statutes nor obeyed my rules, you have acted according to the rules of the nations that are around you. Essentially, those who do not die by the sword are gonna be taken into captivity like the earlier waves. You wanted to act so much like the nations around you, according to their rules and laws, their worship and abominations, then that's precisely where you're going to live from now on. Now, I think that this is a sharp warning to the church today in these last words. And the reason is because this behavior was the behavior of the people of God in the Old Testament. While the people of God in the New Testament is not America, it's his church. Whenever the church decides that it will look around at the world and emulate its immoral behavior or philosophies, corrupting God's law through sexual perversion or clear disobedience to the commandments, or tolerating public sin in its midst, even calling it good, then they are acting like the nations around them. And we see here that this is precisely why God is judging them. Verse 13 completes the prophetic disputation by bringing it full circle. In it we see that what will eventually happen a handful of years from now is going to have like this foreshadowing that takes place the moment Ezekiel predicts it. It says, and it came to pass while I was prophesying that Petaliah the son of Benaiah died. He's right there in the middle of the 25 and he falls over dead. He didn't escape, as his name means he died. The son of Benaiah didn't build, he was buried. It happened at the moment as he prophesied. That very moment proving that he was God's mouthpiece and that what God said is going to happen is going to happen. And so all this causes the prophet to lament in horror in verse 13. When I fell down on my face, I cried with a loud voice and said, oh Lord God, will you make a full end of the remnant of Israel? Now I want you to remember, we saw this last week. He said almost the exact same thing and I told you to look forward to it this week. It said that back in 9-8, I fell on my face and cried, oh Lord God, will you destroy all the remnant of Israel and the outpouring of your wrath on Jerusalem? And last week I noted how God really didn't answer the prophet's question. In fact, God simply doubled down on the judgment and he said that these people are wicked and they deserve it. The best we got was a hint that God would remember because the man in linen had gone out and marked those who were faithful to the Lord because God knows his people. But the end of verse 13 in our chapter now recalls the same thing and now it begs for an answer. And in fact, in the middle of all this judgment, this is exactly what the prophet will finally get. And what is remarkable here is that it's a series of verses that are going to change the subject finally after 11 chapters of judgment. Come to verses 14 through 25. It's a series of two chiastic structures that mirror each other. The word of the Lord came to me. Now, I'll stop here because I always want you to remember that when it says the word of the Lord came to me, this refers to Christ coming to Ezekiel. But now I want you to understand that what we've just seen is this covenant of curses coming down on the heads of Israel in all this weighty, glorious power because the covenant has been broken. And this will become very important as we go along. They broke the covenant. Something else is needed, something new. Son of man, your brothers, even your brothers, your kinsmen, your whole house of Israel, all of them are those whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, go far from the Lord. To us, this land has been given as a possession. So what does that mean? Well, the idea is that the residents who remained in Jerusalem, whom the Babylonians didn't take, have been claiming that those exiles, that is, guys like Ezekiel and the king, they were cast out from God's presence, implying that those who remain in the city are the favored, and they're the ones who possess the land. This reflects their false confidence in their status, which God has refuted. It's a remarkably blind and pathetic display of how we humans rarely seem to be able to interpret the world around us. In fact, we never can when we forget what the Word of God teaches about it. Come to verse 16. It says, Therefore say thus as the Lord, though I removed you far off from among the nations, and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a while in the countries where they have gone. Now this verse is actually given as a great comfort not to the guys in Jerusalem, but to Ezekiel and to the elders who are sitting by him in Babylon as he tells him about the vision. And notice the language. God has been a sanctuary to them. In other words, God has been their temple in the middle of a foreign evil land. They're 1,000 miles away from the temple where those rebels are, where God's presence has always resided, and yet God has been their temple under the old covenant. Do you understand? Suddenly, the whole point of Ezekiel 1 and this profound vision of the chariot throne of God himself in Babylon, of all places, comes sharply into focus. You thought that I was only in Israel? You think that I'm like the gods of the nations who either can't go into other territories or need permission first? No, I'm right here with you, my people. I'm in your midst. I am the living God, the creator of heaven and earth. And my spirit hovers wherever I want. My glory presence is right here. My word, the one with the likeness of a human being who's seated above the cherubim, I am right here. But that's not right, that's not possible. The Jews had come to think as they created God in their own image and likeness. Sproul writes this, right before the exiles into Babylon, the Old Covenant community lost sight of the fact that the Lord does not limit himself to one place. True, he chose to make his presence felt in a special way in Jerusalem in the temple during the Old Covenant period. Yet he was by no means imprisoned here. A belief that God could never leave his temple, however, was commonly held during the ministries of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. And thus the people paid little heed to the warnings of the prophets to repent, lest Jerusalem be destroyed. If the Lord could not leave Jerusalem, how could it be destroyed? This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. They would cry in order to shout down the threats of divine judgment. So here we have God telling all the Jews, He's been with them as a temple in his glory in Babylon. Meanwhile, something else is happening with his glory in Jerusalem. But before we get to the final destination of the glory at the end of chapter 11, we need to keep reading. Therefore say, thus says the Lord God, I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you've been scattered. I will give you the land of Israel. And remember, he's talking to the remnant, and then the theology of the remnant in the New Testament becomes the church. We're going to see more of this here. It's like somehow, for some reason, some reason the blessings are coming. Where did this come from? God is going to gather the people whom he's just promised to scatter among the countries. He will give them the land of Israel. Somebody says, I thought they already have the land of Israel. Wasn't it theirs? What does this mean? We have to keep reading, when they come there they will remove it from all the detestable things and abominations. So it's tempting to think that this fulfillment is found in the return of the exiles in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. Ezra and Nehemiah return, they partially fulfill this verse by removing idolatry and restoring worship. It's failed to fully realize the promises because of persistent sin and incomplete covenant renewal as we see in many of the later prophets that come after Ezekiel who continue to lambaste the people of Israel. This cannot be the final fulfillment. But it's not just this line of evidence we must keep reading. It says, I will give them one heart and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them and they shall be my people and I will be their God. Now friends, does that sound familiar? Do you recognize that language? Well, one of the most famous new covenant prophecies appears later in Ezekiel 36. It says almost the exact same thing. Moreover, I will give you a new heart, put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit in you and cause you to walk in my statutes. You will be careful to observe my ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave you, your forefathers. So you will be my people and I will be your God. Now this passage is also closely related to maybe the most famous of all new covenant passages, founding Jeremiah, who prophesied just prior to Ezekiel. Jeremiah said, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord. I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah. I will put my law within them and put on their heart, I will write it and I will be their God and they will be my people because I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more. Notice how this is explicitly called the New Covenant. And in fact, it's quoted in Hebrews 8, precisely so that we will know that its fulfillment comes only with Jesus and his church. Ezekiel 11, which hardly anyone even knows is here, is also talking about the New Covenant. But there's one more thing here, which is this comment that you will be my people and I will be your God. Interesting, that actually originates in Exodus 6. Obviously, the Israelites in Egypt, but Paul takes that exact language picked up by both Ezekiel and Jeremiah in their new covenant, and he directly equates the fulfillment to the church, even talking about how there is no agreement between the temple of God and idols. He calls Gentiles, my people, and I will be your God. Therefore, the land that is called that says Israel will take. to be theirs is the church, as Paul calls us, the Israel of God. You say, how could people be called the land? Does that even make sense? Well, yeah. When you understand where the glory of God goes is into his people all over the world when they're brought into the new covenant, then it makes perfect sense. This is why Jerome long ago said, I linger long in the land of the midday sun in Israel, for it was there then that the spouse found her bridegroom at rest, and Joseph drank wine with his brothers once more. I will return to Jerusalem, where here, according to Ezekiel, the cherubim, after leaving the temple, founded the church of the Lord. That foundation is rooted here in the promises of this part of Ezekiel 11. Friend, We still need to keep reading, because though this is good news, it doesn't belong to those who reject God and follow the desires of their own evil hearts. Read verse 21. But as for those whose heart has gone after detestable things and their abominations, I will bring their deeds upon their own heads, declares the Lord God. Contrary to popular opinion of some, the new covenant isn't for those who walk in evil ways. It is, as Jeremiah said, not like the old covenant. It isn't about automatic inclusion in covenant promises, except maybe on a basic level of coming near the blessings of God that he gives to his people, which spill over into the world. But then again, as Paul and John and others argue in many places, it was never really even about that in the Old Covenant either, because Abraham was justified by faith in Christ, not by some autonomous, automatic inclusion because he was born. Not all Israel are Israel. They never were. This is why it is foolish to trust in temples or churches or who your parents are. And when going to church or pretending to worship, the only thing that matters to God is your faith in his promises that come through his glory and that you believe that they are given for you. The thing about our story today is how it all comes to an end immediately after this promise of the new covenant. In Ezekiel, it says in verse 22, the cherubim lifted up their wings with the wheels beside them and the glory of the God of Israel was over them. And thus begins the final movement of the glory of God. And where does it go? Verse 23, the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain that is on the east side of the city. As the daughter-in-law of Eli said, Ichabod, the glory has departed. God has left his house entirely. He now stands over to the east on the Mount of Olives, watching the destruction that he's now bringing upon the wicked. He's no longer in Jerusalem. The Spirit lifted me up and brought me in the vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea to the exiles and then the visions that I had seen went up from me and I told the exiles all the things that the Lord had shown me. In another piece on the same subject, Sproul reminds us again, one of the errors that God's people committed during the Old Covenant period was to believe that the presence of the tabernacle or temple and associated furnishings guaranteed that the nation could not be conquered that Israel would always be victorious. But he continues, as we consider the idea that God departed from Israel, we must keep a few things in mind. First, when the Bible speaks of the Lord departing, it does not mean he's no longer present. in any sense, in any place where he's left. After all, the Lord is not a physical being. He's omnipresent everywhere. There's no place in creation where God is absent. Second, even though the Lord could be said to have left Israel, this does not mean he's left everyone in the covenant community of Israel. God always remains with his remnant. And that answers Ezekiel's question directly. No, Ezekiel, I will always have my remnant. In fact, I will not only have a remnant, but out of that remnant, I will create a seed so vast that it will cover the face of the whole earth. They will be my temple and I will be in their midst. Beloved, the good news is that even though the glory departed, God does not depart from his people. In fact, because of the New Covenant, the glory of God literally goes with you, the people, by being in the people. And so what Paul means when he says, the glory of God is in you, Christ in you, the hope of glory. You see that the cloud has come down upon you. You are his people and that's the glory. This is the great mystery of the Old Testament now unveiled before you in the pages of the New. So fret not over your sins and your failings, for when you confess them, God has already heard and forgiven them for the sake of his Son, the glory of God. He has sent his Spirit, the glory of God himself, to dwell inside of you as people. as his new covenant temple wherever you happen to be in this world. God has forgiven you and made you holy and clean in his sight for Christ's sake. Christ's promises remain sure. He will not leave you. He will not forsake you. But he is with you always, even to the very end of the age. Lord, I pray that you would help your people to see what is before them in Ezekiel. We've covered a lot of ground, but at the heart of it is simply the movement of your Holy Spirit and your glory and your son away from this physical location with a promise that he would come to dwell in a new way that would transform the entire world. The bad news, the devastation, the covenant breaking of the people representing by these 25, those judgments came down upon them. But your new covenant, after they broke the old one, was cut with the blood of Christ that we will celebrate in a moment in Jesus' supper that he gives to his people. And it is something that is unfathomable when we begin to grasp what we have just read. Yes, people trust in external things, and they trust even in religious things. But if they don't trust in you, then that hope is a fool's errand. Give us each hope. to know, faith to believe that when we trust in Christ and you give us this new heart to believe those things, that you really do dwell in your glory inside of us and cause that to be a thing that would cause us to flee sin and to run far from it because we know that the spirit is in us and we don't want to grieve him. We ask these things in Jesus name, amen.