Our first scripture this morning comes from the book of First Kings, chapter nine, beginning with the sixth verse. Please turn with me in your bibles. This is the Lord speaking to Solomon following the dedication of the temple:
‘But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them; and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all the peoples. And this house will become a heap of ruins. Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ‘Why has the Lord done this to this land and to this house?’ Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore the Lord has brought all this disaster on them.”
From the book of Kings, we turn to the prophet Ezekiel for the 10th chapter. This is in the midst of Ezekiel’s second prophetic vision:
‘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, ‘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.
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. And the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard as far as the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty when he speaks.
And when he commanded the man clothed in linen, ‘Take fire between the whirling wheels from between the cherubim,’ he went in and stood beside a wheel. And a cherub stretched out his hand from between the cherubim to the fire that was between the cherubim and took some of it and put it into the hands of the man clothed in linen, who took it and went out. The cherubim appeared to have the form of a human hand under their wings.
And I looked and behold, there were four wheels beside the cherubim, one beside each cherub. And the appearance of the wheels was like sparkling barrel; and as for their appearance, the four had the same likeness, as if a wheel were within a wheel. When they went, they went in any of their four directions without turning as they went, but in whatever direction the front wheel faced, the others followed without turning as they went.
And their whole body, their rims and their spokes, their wings and the wheels were full of eyes all around the wheels that the four of them had. As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing the whirling wheels. And everyone had four faces: the first was the face of the cherub, the second the face was a human face, the third a face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.
And the cherubim mounted up. These were the living creatures that I saw by the Kbar canal. And when the cherubim went, the wheels went beside them. And when the cherubim lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the wheels did not turn from beside them. When they stood still, these stood still, and when they mounted up, these mounted up with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in them.
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. The Lord and the glory of the God of Israel was over them.
These were the living creatures that I saw underneath the God of Israel by the Kabar canal, and I knew that they were cherubim. Each had four faces and each four wings, and underneath their wings 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 Kabar canal. Each one of them went straight forward.’
From a very dark and unwieldy prophecy, we turned to a prophecy of hope in the prophet Malachi, chapter 3, verses 1 through 6:
‘Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me; and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight. Behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings and righteousness to the Lord.
And the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old, as in former years. Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.’
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray.
Lord, your word is timely; it is always appropriate, it is always relevant, and has something to say to us. Oftentimes, passages that we do not choose to read or look at very often we ignore because they are hard sayings, because they are uncomfortable. But even still, in the midst of our discomfort, you can show us through your word your grace, your mercy, and your love.
We ask that you open our hearts, open our ears, open our minds to hear, receive, and understand your word today, and that it may be blessed for us and may lift us up and keep us mindful of you. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
Emmanuel, the idea that God is with us, is something that we often take for granted. The people of ancient Israel certainly did, and it eventually cost them everything. These past few weeks, we have been focused on various signs—signs of increasing greatness, signs of the Lord’s presence in the midst of his people—and the people’s actions furthering the distance between themselves and God.
The final sign, with the grandest expression of temporal glory for the Sovereign Lord, the Jerusalem temple, led to the people eventually becoming detached and spiritually removed from their relationship with him. Detached and removed from their faith, King Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem according to his father King David’s desire and designs, as allowed by the Lord’s will.
The construction of the temple clearly met with God’s approval, as the sign of his presence—a theophonic cloud filled the sanctuary so that the priests themselves could not minister or do their duties. The Lord God Almighty took up residency in Jerusalem and sat enthroned above the cherubim in the temple. The infinite, inexpressible, uncontainable divinity, the creator of all that was or ever will be, who is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, had chosen to show his favor and grace among his elect people by declaring that there in Jerusalem, in that temple, his people could come to worship and meet with him.
The Lord God could be found in Jerusalem; God was with them. However, the Lord, choosing to show favor to his people by dwelling among them, also came with a warning, telling King Solomon that if you or your children forsake me, if you fail to keep my laws and worship idols or other things of the creation, then I will remove Israel from this land, and I will abandon my temple.
God was with his people, but his presence would only remain so long as they were faithful. Otherwise, his presence would be felt by its absence. And we know the history of Israel and Judah. Solomon began faithfully, but then he fell away into idolatry with his many wives. The nation then divided underneath his son Rehoboam, with ten tribes abandoning the true king and God for Jeroboam with his two golden idols, and then later the prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth.
Yet in Judah, where they had many wicked kings, they also had some good and faithful kings who continued the worship of the Lord. But unfortunately, those wicked kings added to the worship of God. Now they never saw themselves as abandoning or forgetting God, for the Lord was part of their national identity as Judah, as much as baseball and apple pie is a part of our identity as Americans.
Instead, they just added other gods into their worship routine and religious practice. First, they built altars to idols on the mountaintops. Then they brought the idols right into the temple of the Lord itself, although in a subordinate position. They thought that this would be okay. They were confident that God would continue to remain with them and protect them so long as they still followed the forms of his worship, because their object of trust was actually the temple, not in the one who dwelt there.
They proclaimed the object of their faith in the superlative: ‘the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ But they forgot that the Lord is a jealous God. They forgot the first commandment: ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ So they added and added, compounding idolatry into their religious life. They became a people devoutly religious and spiritual, attending to all manners of false worship, idol worship, forsaking faith and obedience to the Lord alone for the fantasies and crafts of men.
All of these religious additions resulted in their subtraction from God’s glory. So the Lord kept his promises because he is alone faithful and true. Moses warned them; Solomon was warned. The many prophets whom God sent to Israel—like Isaiah and Jeremiah, prophets whom the people ignored and persecuted for speaking God’s truth—warned them about what was coming.
Then, through his servant Nebuchadnezzar, God sent the Babylonian armies against Judah and deposed the rebellious king Jehoiakim. Three months later, after the next king Jehoiachin did evil in God’s sight, Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem to besiege and conquer it. He carried off all the treasure from the Lord’s temple, the king’s treasures, the king and his family, all of the government and religious officials, the soldiers, craftsmen, and smiths, taking over 10,000 captives before establishing Jehoiachin’s uncle Zedekiah as the new king.
Within this crop of captives were notable individuals like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, and the priest Ezekiel. Now the book of Ezekiel is a very difficult and challenging prophecy to read, much less to begin to understand. It is a book filled with verbal and physical imagery; it is filled with symbology and allegory. But fortunately, the interaction of the symbols is sometimes rather plain and straightforward. Many of Ezekiel’s prophecies and visions are accurate to recorded history, as he specifically dates their occurrence.
So while Jeremiah was prophesying the fall of Judah and Jerusalem to those who remained in the land, Ezekiel was prophesying the fall of Jerusalem and the temple to the exiles in Babylon. Now please understand that all biblical prophecy and revelation is grounded in its context and is rarely exactly understood. It is always subject to interpretation. We should have an understanding of the immediate textual context along with the historical and cultural context before we can begin to have any understanding of the prophetic voice.
The prophecy we read today began back in the eighth chapter and runs through chapter 11. Ezekiel received this vision in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, during the exile of King Jehoiachin—some six years after they were taken to Babylon in exile and about five years before the final destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by Nebuchadnezzar.
This particular prophecy displays Judah’s idolatry in chapter 8 and all the detestable unholy things being done by the leaders and people in Jerusalem and in the Lord’s temple. First, the Lord asks Ezekiel, ‘Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here to drive me far from my sanctuary?’
The sins of Judah—their idolatry and the abandonment of the one true faith in the Lord—are explained to Ezekiel as being the specific cause for our passage and the judgments contained within. Next, chapter 9 prophesies the death of these wicked, faithless idolaters by violence, while only a faithful few, those who mourn the atrocities committed in the temple, are preserved and spared.
It is very easy to get caught up in all of the imagery, but we’re not going to delve into symbology now. Today, our scripture contains two very important and very clear acts of judgment being enacted by the Lord: a judgment of fire in the burning destruction of Jerusalem and a judgment upon the people and the defiled temple by the Lord removing his presence from them.
The Lord told the man clothed in linen, ‘Go in among the whirling wheels and underneath the cherubim; fill your hands with burning coals from beneath the cherubim and scatter them over the city,’ proclaiming the destruction of the holy city by fire. Five years later, the book of Second Kings records, in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month—that was the 19th year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuchadnezzar, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem, and he burned the house of the Lord and the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down.
And all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem. And the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, together with the rest of the multitude, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, carried into exile. But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest of the land to be vine dressers and plowmen, just as Ezekiel had prophesied.
Back in Babylon, our focus now, though, is not on this specific historical fulfillment of prophecy of the temple’s destruction. Although recognizing the fulfillment of prophecy helps us to increase our confidence and faith in what else Ezekiel describes, the cherubim of which Ezekiel speaks in his vision were those in the temple. Inside the Holy of Holies, the mercy seat and atonement cover had two cherubim upon the Ark of the Covenant. This was considered to be the earthly chariot throne of God, located there in the temple where God’s presence would dwell.
And with Ezekiel, we see the glory of the Lord. Then we see his presence move from the throne to the threshold of the temple and pause there. Why does the Lord pause? Everything spoken or written in prophecy is deliberate and intentional, so we cannot know for sure. Interpretations here do vary, but it could be for the observation of his will being done or, as some commentators would suggest, a pause to wait and see if any people remain who would turn to him to plead for the Lord to remain among his people.
John Calvin, in particular, suggests that God pauses at the threshold to display his glory, for his voice to be resoundingly heard—to be obviously and evidently present—to see who would respond and answer his call to faith. But seeing none, the Lord summons his chariot throne from the Holy of Holies to leave the temple.
As the cherubim mounted up, 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. The Lord, the Holy One of Israel, abandoned Judah to their sin and judgment. The presence of the Lord forsook the temple; his presence was no longer seen or felt in the midst of his people. God’s people were no longer with him. Emmanuel’s presence was gone from Israel.
The people had utterly turned their back upon God, so he left them to it. As Paul puts it, ‘Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.’
According to Jeremiah, after the first two invasions, all of Judah—all the people—were still doing what was wicked in the Lord’s eyes. They were in dire need of repentance to return to the Lord, or else the absolute worst would happen. But the people chose to indulge their sinful desires and passions instead of pursuing godliness. They worshipped false gods—idols of wood and stone—they propagated fanciful ideas and trusted in pagan myths instead of the Lord. They placed their faith, hope, and trust in the thickness of the city walls, their strength of arms, and the presence of God’s temple, instead of in God himself.
So God allowed them to debase themselves, and then he called upon Nebuchadnezzar to enact divine judgment upon Judah, proving that all their hope in themselves and the power of creation was a lie. The Jews became a conquered people; they were removed from the promised land, removed far from the sight and presence of the Lord because in their sin and wickedness they had become a proud people and had forgotten the Lord who saves, Yahushua.
Do these circumstances sound familiar? Have you watched the news lately? Ancient Israel turned their back on God and suffered for it. Does America’s situation sound any different or better? Look around you; who is not in church worshiping on Sunday mornings? What are they doing instead? What idols have become more important to the folks around us in our community than loving God?
Consider the current American culture, especially as evangelized through TV and other media. Our nation elevates, praises, and pays critical heed to sports figures, Hollywood elites, and politicians concerning what is right and wrong. We place our trust in and depend upon the government to protect us from each other—with the police to protect us from ourselves—with different consumer safety regulations—and to also protect us from other people by regulating who may come and go across our country’s borders.
Science was once respectable, reliable, and trustworthy, but now we don’t seem to know who to trust. Facts are presented as opinions while opinions are broadcast as being fact. But who really knows anymore? For all of us who might have ever placed our hopes and goals alongside the classical American dream ideal, we now find ourselves awake inside of a nightmare.
It is fair to say that our nation, our civic leadership as a whole, has abandoned the Lord. They have abandoned all pretense of righteousness or faith and have instead espoused everything that the god of this world enjoys and affirms—marriage without commitment or commitment without marriage, rampant divorce without cause, abortion on demand, violent or forced segregation from those who are considered to be other people, claim status as being persecuted individuals in the land known as free simply because their feelings get hurt, or because they’re taught and constantly told that they are persecuted for any excuse whatever under the sun.
But few Americans know what true persecution is like anymore while folks flee from every other nation on earth to come here to America to get away from persecution. Now people regularly demonize, delegitimize, and dehumanize those who are different from themselves, whether it be in skin color, sex, faith, politics, values, or opinions. None of us want to admit it, but we’re all guilty of doing this to some varying degree. Everything around has become an idol, a potential distraction away from the one true God.
We forget that we are called to unity in Christ. Calvin wrote that the human mind is a perpetual forge of idols, meaning that we create things to try to supplant the Lord—to replace him with a different voice that tells us exactly what we want to hear—a voice not to speak into our hearts, minds, and lives to convict us of our sin, not to call us to live lives of holiness, not for us to give God the glory alone, but to instead consort with and choose the demonic and anti-Christian world instead of holiness.
Society today, despite our many modern conveniences and sophistication and social advancements, looks very much like the societies of Israel, Judah, and Rome. We, as a collective, have turned our backs upon God, forgotten him, buried his memory so far underneath the noise of the world that it is no wonder we do not find his presence among us as we once did.
We ask, ‘Why does God feel so distant and remote?’ forgetting that we’re the ones who walked away from him first. However, the good news is God is still with his people. The Lord is still Emmanuel. He’s still right here with us, waiting for us to turn around, to change direction, to repent. No matter how far we think we have traveled from God, he is still near at hand. We may always return to him and be welcomed back with open arms.
The Lord removing his favor and presence from Judah was still a sign of his presence with the people, a sign of absence so that they would know that he was missing. It was a call for his people to seek him, to return to him in faith, to leave behind all the world’s garbage, to put away the lie and believe in the truth. Withdrawing his presence from the temple was not a sign of God abandoning his people; he was not abdicating his sovereignty or authority; he was exercising it in judgment.
If God has done similar with our nation, removed his favor and blessing from us, then we are in dire need of repentance as Israel was. If we continue to consort with the demonic, to flirt with wickedness, the Lord may very well give us what we’re asking for, and we will be given up to our lusts and we will be destroyed by them in his judgment.
If America continues on this path, moving away from the Lord’s presence and his mercy and grace, he will grant us that desire, eternally separating the wicked from his love and grace while also keeping them eternally under his judgment and wrath. God is infinite; the whole of creation cannot contain him, so we can never truly escape his presence, for he is always with us.
But the choice is, will we be in his presence, covered by the grace of Jesus Christ or covered by the condemnation due us for our sins? Removing the visible sign of his presence does not mean that the Lord has abandoned the world, but it symbolizes a change in our relationship. God’s people had abandoned him; they had done their best to sunder that relationship, but God always had a plan in place for their restoration.
Sadly, we needed to first suffer his judgment in part to have an inkling of what life without the Lord is like, to comprehend just what a negative choice we could make by following our forebear Adam. How often has a human parent allowed their child to sit in their own self-wrought pain and misery to contemplate things? How often has that child then sought forgiveness and reformed their ways?
But reformation needs help. We cannot do it alone; that’s why we need each other, why we need other churches to partner with to transform our community for Christ. This is why we all need Jesus Christ, who unites us in himself and to each other, to justify us when we cannot. This is why we need the power and the work of the Holy Spirit to regenerate our hearts, to give us the strength to turn to the Lord and for him to apply his mercy and grace.
But God, although he removed his presence from the midst of his people, never abandoned them, and he will not abandon us either. God’s servant Nebuchadnezzar removed the people from their land in judgment, while later his servant Cyrus returned the exiles to the land and allowed them to rebuild the temple. God did not forget or abandon his chosen people. When they returned to him in faith, he was near at hand, and he restored them to his favor and blessed them.
Yes, although many of those who were born ethnically of Israel were lost in the judgment, and just as God preserved his faithful remnant then, we can be confident that now he will continue to preserve his faithful ones. The prophet Malachi, the final prophet of the Lord before 400 years of silence, prophesied, ‘Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me; and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight. Behold, he is coming,’ says the Lord of hosts.
That messenger who prepared the way of the Lord was John the Baptizer, of whom it was said to have the spirit of Elijah. The Lord whom they sought, who is also the desire of nations, and the messenger of the covenant in whom we delight is Jesus Christ. He came to the temple unlooked for and unexpected. He refined the Lord’s called and chosen people; he purifies us and causes us to bring offerings in his righteousness and to be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old.
Divine judgment and wrath came to Israel under the kings of Israel whenever his people abandoned the Lord. Divine judgment and wrath came to Jerusalem and Judea during the days of Rome when the people denied and crucified his Christ. What we’re experiencing now may very well be our deserved divine judgment and wrath for our nation’s abandonment and denials of God.
But God, in every case before, has never abandoned his people. He is still Emmanuel. He always has and always will preserve for himself a faithful remnant. God is good all the time, and he does not change. God, through the prophet Malachi, gives us such good news, saying, ‘For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.’
So whenever we suffer his judgment, we’re still under grace, for the Lord is faithful to us and he keeps his promises. Thus he will never destroy his people, but instead he has redeemed us as his children. Regardless of how bad things may look out there, how sad and disappointing things around us become, we know that those who hold on to Christ and his cross in faith will be preserved for his glory, for this life and into the next.
So come, Emmanuel, come. Amen.