Ezekiel & The Finished Work of Christ

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Pastor David Mitchell

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Good morning. Good to be back in Texas. We had a good business trip, and then
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Charlotte and I took a little personal trip, and it was great. I can have a little more juice up here.
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Mr. Ben, you were already working on that, weren't you? Thanks. Anyway, we had a great time together and good results on our business trip as well.
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Got to meet about 35 new people, and then for the first time ever,
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Colin's mom, Debbie, was able to... She coordinated the trip. She was able to get
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Prince's Cruise Line to let me speak to just people on the ship, which we've never been able to get that done before.
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So we had 42 people show up, total strangers from all walks of life.
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And Matt had to handle one complainer who said, well, you promised you were going to teach on stock market, and you're talking about religion and whatever religion is.
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But Matt handled it very graciously, and the gentleman ended up staying for the whole time. So it was pretty cool.
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But it went well, and we kind of worked the gospel in there a little bit too. So it was fun.
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It was really good. It was a good trip. But before we got back, we were already missing everybody and kind of getting excited about getting back.
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So glad you're all A -OK and here and doing well.
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And it's good to see Michael and Caleb. We had heard news of them coming for a long time, and that time finally arrived.
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And I didn't realize this, but they're staying in a condo owned by Pepper Posey, my lifelong friend and compadre.
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So that's pretty cool. Somewhere near downtown Fort Worth. So it's quite a drive, but we appreciate you making that drive.
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Good to see all the rest of you guys. And I've been able to hear most of the
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Sunday school lessons and the sermons that we missed. Some of them we were able to listen to live while we were there, and others we had to pick up on the website later.
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But thank you, Dave and Ben, for holding down the fort and preaching such great and teaching such great messages all around the
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Resurrection Sunday and so forth. It's great. In fact, I was inspired by it.
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I got thinking about one of the main themes that they both talked about and spent a lot of hours on it the week after I got back.
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I was trying to catch up with work too, but probably most afternoons for five days in a row,
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I couldn't do anything but study it. And so I'm not going to preach on Colossians today. I want to preach on the same theme that these young men were preaching on while I was gone and just add one more thought to it.
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And you covered it so well and got it right. I'm not that aware of new theological concepts.
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I don't care about them. I read old books and the Bible and don't care about that as much.
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But Ben and Dave kind of keep up with it, especially Ben. I mean, he's got terms I don't even know what they mean until he tells me what they mean.
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You know, like new things. Well, I didn't realize there are new theories about, you know, when
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Jesus said, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? There are new theological theories about what that means.
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And some of them are quite repugnant, but others have been around for a long time.
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So anyway, it caught my interest. Not that I looked into that stuff.
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I let Ben and Dave do that. That's great. But I want to teach you what this old book right here says about that.
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And believe it or not, we're going to be in the book of Ezekiel today. So it'll be a minute before we get there, but let's pray and we'll get started.
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Lord, thank you so much for safe travels for us and keeping everyone safe here and bring us all back together.
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Thank you for these young men that you've touched their lives and given them great gifts of teaching and preaching.
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And they are gifts to the church. And thank you for Matt and how he's leading our singing and all of those who participate in that.
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And thank you for each person here who has their gifts and their service to you.
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And may we be here to equip them to be excellent at that. And we ask it in Jesus' name.
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Amen. I was reading something somewhere in the scriptures that I was studying for this
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Sunday about how Paul was instructing
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Timothy. And he said, what I want you to do is just pray for people in power, like kings, presidents.
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I hate to even say that word right now. Presidents, people in power, that you may lead a peaceable and godly life.
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And I got to think about that while I was sitting up here. And it has nothing to do with the sermon today. But I was thinking about it while I was sitting up here.
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And because I struggle with, I'll talk to the
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Lord, or I'll talk to Charlotte, or sometimes my kids. I'll say, you know, I just want to do something great for the
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Lord. And then I stop and think, well, what can I do great for the Lord? He doesn't need anything.
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Now, what can I do to benefit him? And yet, you think about that scripture where Paul told the young preacher
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Timothy, just pray that the leaders will keep peace so you can lead a peaceable, godly life.
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That's what it's about. And I got to thinking about that. That is great. Do you know, have you ever stopped to think that God only has one way that he has chosen?
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He's chosen to have only one way to populate his kingdom. And the
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Bible says there's going to be age and age. And don't let me forget where I am here because I'm going to think of another thing I thought
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I had over here was that I'm sitting here and I'm looking back at you guys, looked up here at these guys, and I'm sitting here and I'm thinking about moments passing by while I'm sitting in the midst of this.
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And I'm in the midst of this moment by moment. And I was thinking, in this life, we live moment by moment with the
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Lord, with each other. But in the next life, we will live age unto age. Think about that.
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Each age being at least 1 ,000 years. And the Bible says there's age unto age unto age.
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It doesn't tell how many. And quite interesting, nothing to do with the sermon.
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So let's go to Matthew chapter 27. But there was one rabbit trail I was on prior to that, but you guys didn't remind me what it was, so.
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Peaceful, godly life. Yeah, peaceful, godly life. Oh, yeah, yeah. So God has chosen to have only one way to populate those ages unto age with his people, and that is for us to have babies.
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Think about that. So, like, if you meet the love of your life, like I did in high school when
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I met Charlotte, and it's a wonderful thing. But, you know, if you think about it, when you meet the love of your life and you start thinking about you're going to do something big for God, and in the midst of all that, you're having kids, and they're running around while you're doing that big thing, and you're kind of telling them to go off over here and play, and they are the big thing.
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That family and having those kids is why we're here. The other stuff is peripheral, and you can't help
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God anyway. So I'm not trying to demotivate you. I mean, we should try to do big things for God, I guess.
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But the big thing is your family, and then their family. And it's really, really good for kids to be around grandparents and older people.
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Keep that in mind, parents. Make them be around us a lot, which you do. It doesn't matter.
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I'm just talking in general. It's just good. It's good for God made it where it's good for both, isn't that funny?
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Well, I'm just glad he made little kids where they like old people. They like to play with your eyebrows because they're bushier than they used to be.
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They can pull on your ears. And one time, Parker was on the ground playing, and he looked and said,
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I see skin through your hair. And then he thought for a minute, and he said, I see your whole head through your hair.
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So thank you, Lord, for that. Matthew 27.
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I'm going to end up in Ezekiel, but you don't have to look these up if you don't want to. These first three passages are very familiar.
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Matthew 27, 45. Now, from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land into the ninth hour.
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And I want you to remember the time frame there. That's three hours of Earth time. During that three hours, the skies grew dark.
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How many of you went outside during the eclipse and looked at that? Was that cool when it got dark like that? Wow, I had forgotten that.
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I saw that, I guess, around 1970 when I was in high school, I saw one. But it wasn't as cool as this one.
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But it got darker than that, I would imagine, when Jesus was suspended on the cross, dying for the sins of his people.
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And then the Earth quaked, did it not? And I have always believed in reading that, that this was the wrath of Almighty God showing forth a little bit.
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Restrained, of course, but showing forth a little bit as he watched his son die for the sins of us.
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So think about the three hours. And then about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice. Now, a lot of things happened during the time he was on the cross.
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Dave's been talking about that. The death was more than just the dying on the cross. It started when they began to beat him beyond recognition before they ever made him carry his cross to Golgotha.
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He got some help partially along the way. But it started there.
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But in the ninth hour, after all these things that Dave's been talking about in Sunday school, that Ben talked about for three sermons, after all this had happened, about the ninth hour, he cries.
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If you wanna say it in English, it's Eli, Eli, Lama, Sabachthani. If you wanna say it in Greek, it's
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Eli, Eli, Lama, Sabachthani. It's almost the same. But what does it mean?
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My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And this is the thought that, after listening to all their stuff that they taught, it got me thinking about that.
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And it might be the most important verse in the Bible.
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I don't know. It just might be. And straightway, one of them ran and took a sponge.
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Now, I want you to follow the timeline just for a second with me. Right after that happened, where he said, my
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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? They ran and they got a sponge. They filled it with vinegar and put it on a reed and gave him to drink.
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And right there, he cried again with a loud voice and yielded up the ghost.
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Notice he didn't die. No one killed him. He gave up the ghost. He had to make himself die, which is interesting.
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That's never been that way for any other human being. And so he yielded up the ghost.
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Now, so you got the timeframe. He's on the cross. Three hours go by during this dark period with the earthquake and the darkness.
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Immediately after that, this happened. And then there's a little more information given to us in John.
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So I'm gonna look at John 19, verse 28. And after this, so after all the things
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Dave and Ben talked about, after this three hours of darkness, after he was forsaken by God, whom he was one with for all, if you wanna call it eternity past, which is kind of a funny word, but because there's no time there before he created anything.
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No time, no space, nothing, just God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. He's always existed as God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
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And for the first time, Jesus is separated from the Father and the Holy Spirit.
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And then John says after this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished. Now, what things do you think the
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Bible's talking about there? All the prophecies, they parted his garments, they bet on his garments, all the things you've kind of gone in detail,
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Dave, through Psalm 22. And all of those things and what else? Our redemption and what else?
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Our ransom, which is similar, but different, similar, but distinct. All of these things, our salvation, everything it took to save God's people had been accomplished at this point.
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And that the scriptures might be fulfilled, that's the part you're talking about, Dave, where all the prophecies had also been fulfilled, very important aspect of this.
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And at that point, Jesus says, I thirst, and that's where we just read in the
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Matthew account. And so now there was set a vessel of vinegar and they filled a sponge of vinegar, put it upon Hyssop and put it to his mouth.
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Now, the timeframe comes through all these things we looked at, and here's where we are. And when
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Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, it is finished.
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And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. Now that it is finished was not in the Matthew account because they're looking at it from different viewpoints.
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They're not, I'm not sure if Matthew was even there, he's recording it maybe from stories of the people that were there, but John was there.
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John was one of the, he was the only male disciple who didn't flee. And then the women, the
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Marys were there. But anyway, so it is finished. John, who was an eyewitness testifies that Jesus says that.
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Now, if you look at the Roman world at that time, when people would buy something on credit, when they finally paid the last bill off, they would stamp it.
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And it said those words, it is finished because it means paid in full. And that debt was retired.
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And that's what Jesus did. He paid our sin debt. He paid not only ours individually, but the sin debt of all of God's people from Adam and Eve on all the way to the last one who hasn't been here yet maybe, the last human who's gonna be saved.
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He paid the sin debt for everybody. The word teleo means to complete or to conclude or to discharge a debt in full.
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So to pay in full. In order for the sin debt, I want you to think about this logically for a minute.
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The Bible says, come, let us reason together. So we don't just only have this book. We have to reason about it.
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Probably half, more than half of what we believe is not specifically stated in the book. You learn it by implication, by what other scriptures imply, right?
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So think about this just for a minute. In order for the sin debt to have been paid in full,
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Jesus Christ must have died in full. You agree with that? He had to fully die, right?
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Now he is the second Adam. So when he was created, he was body, soul, and spirit, right?
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He had to fully die. He must have paid the debt that we owed, which was to experience eternal death and separation from God in order to pay our debt.
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He must have paid that debt. Would you agree? Okay. The math looks like this, if you want to put it in mathematical form.
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Three hours, I believe, is when he was separated. I believe he was separated while he was still on the cross.
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Now, this is David Mitchell theory, this little part right here, okay? Not scripture. Some of it comes from scripture.
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Some comes from Ron. Minute coffee. But I believe he suffered separation from God while he was still on the cross.
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I believe that's what he feared in the garden, not the physical debt. So we're assuming
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I'm right on it. Three hours of separation from God times, listen to this, because I've added something to the formula,
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Dave. You've heard me say this a bunch of times, and Ben. Times, and Dave senior, you've heard me say this, but I'm going to add this to the formula.
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Times the collective sin of all the elect throughout all time. Put that in the formula.
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Times the infinite nature of Jesus Christ. And as anyone who's a mathematician in the room knows, any number, small or large, multiplied by infinity, the answer is infinity when you're multiplying.
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So the answer is eternal damnation. Eternal separation from God is the answer to that formula.
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Now, I noticed in something that Ben wrote about it later, and we talked about it some this week.
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I want to get Dave in on that too, eventually at coffee, but you know,
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Ben was mentioning it, probably mentioned it in one of his sermons too. I can't remember where I heard this, but he was talking about what would it be like for us?
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Might even been Dave. I don't know. I listened to all of it. What would it be like for us if we had not been saved?
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Which of course we know is impossible because there's only one plan. God knew us from the foundation. But if you just look at it humanly speaking and we had not been saved and we were born into this world sinners in a sinful race with a sin nature and we died and went to hell forever and we were separated from God, what would that be like?
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It would be terrible, wouldn't it? But what if you took a person who was holy his entire life, who was tempted in all points as we, and yet without sin and had been with holy
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God for all what we call eternity past, forever, for eternity, he's been with God in perfect unity, holy as God.
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And then he had to experience the filth and degradation and sins of all of our thoughts and deeds of all of the elect for all of time and have that placed on him and experience separation from God.
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What would that be like? It would be infinitely worse. And that's what Jesus experienced at least during this three hours.
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So there's the math. And it's horrible to think about, but he did that for his people.
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I wanna read to you something Charles Spurgeon said about Matthew 27, 46, which is the verse that says, my
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God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I'm gonna quote him here. During the time that Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father -in -law, he came to the mountain of God, even
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Horeb, and there he saw a strange sight, a bush that burned with fire and yet was not consumed.
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Then Moses apparently constrained by curiosity or moved by curiosity was drawn near in order to examine this phenomenon.
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And when he heard God's voice say this, draw not near, don't draw nigh hither, put off your shoes from off your feet for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
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Now, Spurgeon goes on and says, we also may well feel as we think of our
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Lord Jesus in his agony, that the voice of God speaks to us as we become curious about this matter.
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And says, draw not hither, put off thy shoes from off thy feet for the place whereon thou standest is very holy of holies unto which no man may come except as the spirit of God should conduct him thither.
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Charles Spurgeon said that. He went on to say this, I think I can understand the words, my God, my
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God, why hast thou forsaken me from the Psalm 22? I can understand that. But he said, when
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I hear it in Matthew, he said, but the same words, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me when uttered by Jesus on the cross?
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I cannot comprehend that. So I shall not pretend to be able to explain them.
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But then he goes on to do it in a sermon. Isn't that good? There is no plummet that can fathom this deep.
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And Spurgeon says this, I have read that once upon a time, Martin Luther, we all know who he is, right?
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He's the great reformer who brought us out of the Catholic darkness of the dark ages and instituted the
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Renaissance really with religion. And we call it the Reformation, but this great man, it is said, and this is
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Spurgeon telling the story that he's read in history about Martin Luther, that he sat him down in his study to consider this very text, these very words, my
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God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And hour after hour, that mighty man sat, that mighty man of God sat still and those who waited on him, he had many servants because he was an important personage in that day and time.
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So his servants who waited on him came into the room again and again, hour after hour, while he sat there not moving, thinking about that phrase, my
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God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? They came in again and again. And he was so absorbed in his meditation that they almost thought he was a corpse.
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He moved neither his hand nor foot, neither ate nor drank, but sat with his eyes wide open like one in a trance, thinking over these wondrous words, my
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God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I think they were worried about him.
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And when after many long hours in which he seemed to be utterly lost to everything that went on around him, he rose from his chair and someone heard him say,
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God forsaking God, no man can understand that. And he walked away.
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He didn't figure it out, at least not that day he didn't. And he just walked away.
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He said, no man can understand that. Spurgeon continued, yet the fact remains that God had forsaken him for Christ was under no mistake about that matter.
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He rightly felt that his father had withdrawn the comfortable light of his countenance that he had for the long time being lost, had lost the sense of his father's favor, not the favor itself, but the consciousness of that sense of that divine aid and secure, which he had formerly enjoyed.
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So he felt himself like a man left alone. And he was not only left alone by his friends, but also by his
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God. I find it interesting that he said he felt this because part of the debate nowadays is, did he really feel it or was it real?
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And, but that's not all Spurgeon said, but it is interesting that he put it that way. So he thought about that, even before this modern debate ever started.
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Did he just feel like God departed from him or did God really depart from him? Well, the logic that we examined at the front end of this shows that God had to actually depart from him in order to pay our sin debt.
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But he was still thinking this through as was not
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Calvin, but Luther. He says, I will try to help you understand it.
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Can you imagine the misery of a lost soul in hell? And then he goes on to explain this very idea of how bad it would have been for someone who was completely holy.
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Now, go with me, if you would, you don't have to turn here because here I've got a couple of other verses.
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In John five, where he had the two men on the road to Emmaus after Jesus had resurrected, he was walking with them, but they did not recognize that it was
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Jesus yet. And while this was happening, Jesus went on and said, search the scriptures for in them you think,
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I'm sorry, I'm not at that point yet. Let me, I'm gonna talk about that in a minute, sorry. Let me talk to you first about this, just this one verse where Jesus was speaking to the
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Pharisees and the Pharisees are talking like, well, we know the
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Bible, we know Moses and all this stuff they were bragging about, their religious knowledge.
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And the father himself, Jesus said, the father himself, which has sent me as born witness of me, you have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his shape, but Jesus implying, but I have, and you have not his word abiding in you.
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So they're Bible scholars, but they don't have God's word abiding in them. We got a lot of seminary professors like that.
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Many, many, many today, many on YouTube teaching the Bible. They read the
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Bible academically, but they don't have the word of God living in their heart. For whom he has sent him, you believe not.
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So he said, if you don't believe in the one that God sent, you don't believe in God. Now he said this, search the scriptures for in them, you think you have eternal life and they are they which testify of me.
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Now, hold on to that thought for a minute. The old Testament scriptures, Jesus told these Bible students, the
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Pharisees, Bible teachers, he said, the old Testament are they that speak of me, but you didn't see me in there.
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So you didn't really have the word of God abiding in you. In Luke 24, 27, this is where the two men on the road to Emmaus story is.
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And just out of that little story, there was a point where Jesus opened their eyes and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, in other words, the old
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Testament, he expounded unto them and all the scriptures, the things concerning Jesus.
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All right, hold on to that for a minute. And then in Acts chapter 18, verse 24, and then again in verse 28, is the story of Apollos, this young man who got saved and became a powerful preacher, like you would think of an evangelist or revivalist who could get whole churches stirred up with his preaching.
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And yet they had to take him aside and get his doctrines fixed a little bit. He wasn't doctrinally completely sound, but he was saved and he was powerful.
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So we have to be a little patient with preachers when they get a little bit off on something. I mean, it doesn't mean God's not using him to get souls saved.
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He was using Apollos before and after he was corrected. But then in verse 28, it says, for he mightily convinced the
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Jews and he did that publicly, which is not easy to do, like in debates and so forth, showing by the scriptures, their scriptures, the old
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Testament scriptures, that Jesus was Christ. So here we have all of these several scriptures that talk about how when you get in the old
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Testament and you look at it, you will see Jesus on every page. If you look for him. And our great
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Puritan fathers from scriptures like this used to teach that you will find
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Jesus on every page of the scriptures. And they're speaking predominantly of the old Testament, obviously in the new
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Testament. So I wanna illustrate this a little bit from the book of Ezekiel, which is obviously old
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Testament, right? So turn there with me if you would, and we'll look at some of these passages in Ezekiel.
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Now, Ezekiel was written around somewhere between 593 and 571 before Christ was born.
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So almost 600 years before Jesus Christ was born into the world, Ezekiel was the penman of this book.
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The passage describes the awesome scene of the glory of God leaving
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Solomon's temple. Now, if you remember in the old Testament, not that God wasn't omnipresent because he is, and especially the
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Holy Spirit is omnipresent, but God dwelt in the
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Holy of Holies inside that temple. You remember that? Only one man could go in there one time a year and not without blood, right?
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And so, and yet in Ezekiel, starting with chapter eight through 11, God gave
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Ezekiel a vision of God and the vision was reality. It wasn't like just some dream.
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It was showing him what was happening, things he couldn't see physically without the vision because he would have to see through the walls of the temple to see some of this.
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You'll see this in a second. And it depicts God leaving the Holy of Holies, coming out from there, going out through the east gate of Jerusalem, out into the
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Mount of Olives, and then leaving the earth. Wow, think about that.
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God leaving Israel. And we know that immediately thereafter in history that Babylon destroyed
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Jerusalem and the temple. Solomon's temple was leveled and they took all the gold from it back to Babylon, didn't they?
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And they killed most of the Jewish people, but they took a few of them captive. Took some of the prophets captive, right?
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Well, this is talking about that stage in the history of Israel.
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We know that there was the wilderness tabernacle. And then after that, there were two temples that were built and there will be another one built soon,
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I believe. But during the reign of Solomon, a magnificent temple was built.
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In fact, we call it Solomon's temple, but we know from 1 Chronicles 29, verses one and two and other places that actually
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King David is the one who accumulated all the gold and the timber and all the blocks and everything it took to build it.
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But God said, but I want a man whose hands are not bloody to build it. So I want a man of peace to build it.
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So his son Solomon got to finish it. But David actually accumulated everything to build it and Solomon finished it.
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So we call it Solomon's temple and rightly so. And Solomon's temple stood for about 410 years until the
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Babylonians came in and conquered Israel and destroyed it. Now you think, put that, you know,
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America's what? 250 years, some odd at this point. So twice that long, as long as our countries existed, twice that long, this temple stood and they worshiped
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God in this temple. And the presence of God dwelt between the cherubim over the mercy seat in the
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Holy of Holies for 410 years. The Babylonians destroyed
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Jerusalem and the temple around 587 BC, 70 years went by.
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And at that point, a second temple was built around 516 BC under the leadership of Ezra and Zerubbabel.
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And you read that in the scriptures, how they went back and rebuilt the wall and the temple. Now they didn't have the resources
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Solomon did because the Babylonians had stolen it all. So it was a much humbler building.
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And yet, do you remember when the apostles sat with Jesus and said, tell us when the end of the age is coming, but first tell us when this, you know, they said, look how beautiful this building is.
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And Jesus said, I'm not impressed with it. Remember that? He said, I'm not impressed with it. Not one stone will be left on the other.
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And they said, tell us when that's gonna happen. And then tell us when the end of the age, two questions. That's the temple they were looking at was the second temple.
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It's more modest. However, it is true that about a hundred years before Christ came into the world,
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Herod the Great, who was very wealthy, improved the temple and added some gold to it and made it nicer.
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So that when Jesus and the apostles were there, it was magnificent to look at. This temple was the one standing when
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Jesus and the apostles were looking at it in the gospels. After standing about 585 years, the second temple was destroyed by the
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Romans under Titus in AD 70. But it's the first temple that we're talking about here in Ezekiel, right before it was destroyed.
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And let's look at what happened. And I'm keeping you a little bit longer today. It's not that late yet, really. I didn't start till 1130.
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And I've got three Sundays to preach right here because I missed three. So you want to stand up, shake legs, sit back down.
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Because I don't know how this long this will take, but I am aware of your burden. I watch you.
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When I see you're not getting anything, we'll stop. Okay, we're done. Let's have lunch. All right.
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So I want you to turn to Ezekiel 10 in verse four. I really think what you're going to see today will blow your mind.
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You've never seen this. I'm going to bet you, because I've never seen it. And that doesn't mean you haven't, but I've studied it for 45 years and have not seen this until this week.
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And wouldn't have seen it if it hadn't been for Ben and Dave and the Holy Spirit. Not necessarily in that order.
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Could have been Dave, Ben, and the Holy Spirit. Oh, all right.
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Let's pray again. Get back in the spirit. All right. Ezekiel 10 four. Then the glory of the
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Lord went up from the cherub and stood over the threshold of the house.
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Talking about the temple. He rises up from between the cherubim over the mercy seat and moves over the threshold of the building, which means he's about to leave the building.
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And the court was full of the brightness of God's glory. Now, why does it say that? Because he's not in the court.
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He's in the innermost room, the one called the Holy of Holies, separated by this huge curtain.
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And then another room called the Holy Place, another curtain. And then the court where the
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Gentiles could come in, he's never in there. In fact, if people had been in there, it would have destroyed him on this particular day,
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I would imagine. But now all of a sudden that court where anybody could walk in this particular part of the temple was full of the brightness of the glory of God because he was leaving.
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He was going out from the innermost to the next to the Holy Place, to the outer court, past the altar, to the outer court, to the door.
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And the sound of the cherubim's wings was heard. So these cherubims that are pictured as gold in the
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Holy of Holies, they built it that way. But there were real cherubim in there because their job was to protect the holiness of God.
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And they were really in there. And here they're coming out with God, still protecting his holiness as they come out of that place into the court and about to go out the door.
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And the sound of the cherubim's wings was heard even to the outer court as the voice, it sounded like the voice of Almighty God when
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God speaks. So it was just a loud, like this awesome noise. And then the glory of the
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Lord departed from off the threshold of the house and stood up above the cherubims.
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So now the cherubims are beneath and God is up here. The glory of God's here and they're down here protecting him from sin that's on the earth below.
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Can you visualize that? And the cherubims lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth.
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And Ezekiel says in my sight. So he is seeing, he's observing this. And when they went out, the wheels also were beside them.
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If you look at this thing in the first chapters of Ezekiel, it looks like a UFO, okay, whatever they call it. Now this generation changes, it's no longer a
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UFO. I shall always call them UFOs. But anyway, that's what it looks like, a vehicle.
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And everyone stood at the door of the east gate. This is talking about the creatures, the cherubim protecting
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God's glory and perfection and holiness. They all moved out and stood at the door of the east gate of the
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Lord's house. And the glory of God of Israel was over them and above that. And then if you go all the way to chapter 11 in verse 23, it says, finally in the glory of the
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Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood upon the mount, which is on the east side of the city.
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And that mount, by the way, is called the Mount of Olives. It's a very famous mountain. We'll see it again in a minute.
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It's on the east side of Jerusalem. But what happened before this event? Okay, so see, we see the glory of God leave the holy of holies, come out to the holy place, come out to the outer court, go out the door, go to the east gate, go to the
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Mount of Olives and ascend up into heaven and he's gone. Now, many of us have studied the temple, the wilderness tabernacle and then the temple.
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It has many things that it pictures. For one, it could picture you and me because the outer court could picture our flesh.
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The holy place could be our soul, which is the connector between our flesh and our spirit. And the holy of holies part could be the part of your mind or brain or wherever it is the
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Holy Spirit dwells in us, where he dwells with us, right? But it also can picture
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Jesus Christ and many things in it picture Jesus Christ, the sacrifices, the altar, all these things, the seven candlesticks, everything we've talked about it many times, haven't we?
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If you want to really hear it right, get on our website and listen to Dr. Rocky Freeman teach about the tabernacle, if you want to hear it right, okay?
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And, but it also is a picture of Jesus Christ body because I want you to think about this.
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The outer court is his flesh, the physical part of him that we would see, the holy part is his soul.
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There are many places in the Bible where it talks about God's soul and the holy of holies is his spirit.
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Jesus is known as the second Adam. The first Adam, when God created him, he was tripartite.
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That means he had a body, a soul, and a spirit. When the second Adam was formed in the womb of Mary, who was his surrogate mother, in my opinion, he was tripartite.
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Jesus had a body, soul, and a spirit. And in the very Psalm they was teaching this morning,
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Psalm 22 was a verse where it says that the hope that God came upon him, and I wish
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I knew the exact word, it's so amazing. You can look it up for me if you want today, but it's where it says, you know, that God was almost like thrust upon him while he was in the womb.
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If you see the exact word, just call it out because it's quite amazing to contemplate. Cast upon, read it.
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Cast upon. Okay, so it says
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Christ was cast upon God from the womb. So now
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I want you to think about this. So now you have a man, Jesus Christ, fully man, fully God, right?
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But he is a man with his own body, soul, and spirit, and when he was cast upon God, the
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Holy Spirit came in him while he was still in the womb and dwelt with his spirit. Now, the
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Bible says even of us, and this is very peculiar, even of us, in one of the
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Corinthians, I forgot exactly where, it says that when we, we say that the
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Holy Spirit indwells our bodies, right? But we're not always spirit -filled because spirit -filled means it's when we're one with him, when we're walking with him, holding his hand, okay?
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But it says in that mode that the Holy Spirit and David Mitchell's spirit become one spirit.
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It's like this, if we're both living in my house, which is my brain, my body, wherever, I guess in my brain,
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Holy Spirit's there, my spirit's there, I'm over here doing stock market work, I'm not away from Christ, but he's over here, you know, working on me, and I'm over here doing my work, and then
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I think about him, and we come together, and all of a sudden, when we do, we're one spirit. When I'm in that mode, David Mitchell cannot sin and will not sin.
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Do you know that one of a million differences between David Mitchell and Jesus is that Jesus was like this his whole life, just like this.
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So he was, his spirit and the Holy Spirit merged from the womb and became one spirit.
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True of us, but we come in and out of that all the time, and our biggest job is to think about what we're thinking about and to re -merge that as many moments in the day as we can because we won't sin while we're in that state.
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And I don't wanna talk about what happens when we're not, but you get the picture. So here we see that this is
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Jesus born into the world, God with us, fully God, fully man.
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Now, this temple is a picture of him also, and of us, but of him in particular in today's message,
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I want you to think about that. So now I want to look at what happened before God left that temple and moved out and disappeared into the heavenlies.
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What happened before that? Go back to chapter eight of Ezekiel. It's just eight, 16, we're on eight, we got eight, nine, 10, 11.
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We'll get done here before supper time. Ezekiel eight, verse nine, look at this.
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And he said unto me, go in, now this is God, this is this messenger, an angelic being, could have been
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Jehovah, could have been an angel from heaven, I'm not sure which, but this messenger that is kind of guiding
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Ezekiel through this vision and pointing out these things to him. He said to Ezekiel, go in and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.
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And he's talking about in the temple. So I went in and I saw and behold every form of creeping things, all these things that God called unclean that they weren't supposed to eat because it kept them different than the
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Gentiles, made them holy if they didn't eat it. All this stuff he saw in the temple and abominable beasts, things they weren't supposed to eat.
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Pigs, hogs, catfish, sorry Texans, but we're not under the law anymore, just remember that.
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But they were and these abominable beasts and then all the idols of the house of Israel.
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Why did the house of Israel have idols? Well, because they're young men married Gentile women who brought their idols, fell in love with the men, the men loved them and they kind of fiddled with the idols.
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Think about that, all of the idols of the house of Israel, but look at how he saw them.
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They were portrayed upon the walls of the temple roundabout. They had painted them on the walls.
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They had painted pigs and snails and gods.
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We're just gonna name one in a minute that they painted on the inside walls in the inner part where the average
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Jew could not even go in there, only the priest could go in there and they didn't think anybody would see it.
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And the things that they did in that room, they put out all the light and did it in darkness and God was saying,
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God won't see us if we do this in darkness, this is what they were doing. Do you know, it reminds me of some of the mega churches in America today.
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The stuff they're doing in the walls of what they call a church are abominable in some cases, not all cases.
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There's a few good mega churches, I'm sure. I'm not talking about all of them, but some of them, I'm sure there's a few small churches where abominable things are going on.
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I can think of one in my head right now, it makes me laugh. Can you tell that story? But about a friend of mine named
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Ronnie Chambers, but I'm not gonna tell the story, but all of these things were going on. Now, verse 11, it says, and there stood before them 70 men of the ancients of the house of Israel.
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So now you've got the elders, like in a church, that would be the church leaders and the preachers.
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That's who these guys are. And in the midst of them stood Jeazaniah, the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand and a thick cloud of incense went up and they were burning strange fire to the
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Lord like they did when the golden calf was happening years prior to this. Burning strange incense to the
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Lord. Now, what this pictures is trying to worship a God that you've invented, it's not the
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God of the Bible, but you think it is, but you've invented this to be the God you want in the way you want to worship him, not worshiping the true
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God of the Bible, the way God says to worship him. And when you look at the mega churches, this is what you see.
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You see Bible methods. I mean, you see them doing methods in church that are not Bible methods for how we do church.
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You say, well, show me that. Okay, first, second, Timothy and Titus. Those are the pastoral epistles where Paul taught
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Timothy how to do a church. And the book of Acts shows the early church. But no, they're doing it their own way.
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Well, that's what these guys were doing. As Ezekiel peeked into the temple through a hole he had made in the wall in this vision, he saw massive abominations, every form of unclean, creeping thing, abominable beasts and all idols that Israel ever worshiped painted on the walls inside the temple where the common man could not go there and see it.
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Now, chapter eight, verse 12 says, then said he unto me, son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark?
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Every man in the chambers of his imagery, idols, right? For they say the
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Lord does not see us in the dark. The Lord has forsaken the earth. He's not doing anything here anyway.
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We never see any miracles. We don't see, it's not like when Moses was here or Joshua. God's dead.
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He can't see, and even if he's not, he can't see us in the dark. So we're doing these things in the dark. And he said also unto me, turn thee yet again and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.
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This is getting kind of freaky. So they were drawing these pagan images on the walls and worshiping them with strange fire in the dark saying in the darkness,
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God cannot see us. This symbolizes every secret wicked sin that God's people have ever done throughout all time.
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And they were inside the temple, which pictures the body of Jesus. Are you starting to figure out where I'm going with this?
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Where I think God went with this? I did ask the Lord permission to preach this by the way. And I feel that he said, okay.
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Verse 14, then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house, which was toward the north.
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And behold, there sat a woman weeping for Tammuz. Now in the
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Bible, when you see a woman out of place in religion, it's an abomination. Just keep that in mind.
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Bible history shows that when you see women in the wrong place in religion, in worship or whatever, and they're not in the right place where God said they're supposed to be, it's an abomination.
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And here this woman is at the temple, maybe inside the temple, weeping for Tammuz.
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Well, who is this? Tammuz is a Mesopotamian part of their religion. And he was a
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God of fertility, embodying the powers for new life in nature, especially in the spring, about the time we have
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Easter. And the cult of Tammuz centered around two yearly festivals. One celebrating this false
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God's marriage to the goddess Inanna. And the second one was a festival where they lamented this
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God's death at the hands of demons that came up from the netherworld and killed him. This is why this woman was weeping.
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She believed in this false God so much that she was weeping in the springtime because he had died.
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And he is offset by the Greek God Adonis, by the way, it's the same God. He's supposed to be the most handsome
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God of the false gods that they invented, a God of fertility and so forth. So this is why she was sitting there weeping.
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In verse 15 says, "'And then said he unto me, "'Hast thou seen this, O son of man? "'Turn thee yet again, "'and thou shalt see even greater abominations.'"
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You probably thought there weren't any left, but watch this, verse 16.
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"'And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house "'and behold at the door of the temple of the Lord "'between the porch and the altar were about 25 men "'and they had their backs turned to the temple of God, "'their back was on God, "'they turned their back to God "'and their faces toward the east "'and they were worshiping the sun, the sun
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God.' "'And he goes on and he says, "'Then he says to me, "'Hast thou seen this,
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O son of man? "'Is it a light thing to the house of Judah "'that they commit these abominations "'which they commit here in the temple?
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"'For they have filled the land with violence, "'they were also killing people, "'these priests were for whatever reason, "'and have returned to provoke me to anger "'and lo they put the branch to the nose.'"
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What does that mean? Well, there's this thing called an
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Asherah pole in history. It's a rod that it usually has this
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God engraven upon it Asherah was engraven upon it and it's a fertility
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God and they would carry it around in certain seasons and just almost like a magical wand, right?
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And so here they were putting this branch up to their face like this, doing their false worship to these fertility gods.
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In verse 18, "'Therefore will I also deal in fury,' God says, "'my eye shall not spare, "'neither will
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I have pity "'and though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, "'yet will I not hear them.'"
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Now tell me that doesn't sound like Psalm 22. Jesus is crying out, but God is not hearing him.
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Now, the Lord says because the temple was filled with all these abominations, that even if they prayed,
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God would not hear them. Does this remind us any of Dave's Sunday school lesson last week and today?
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Psalm 22 one verses one and two, "'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? "'Why art thou so far from helping me "'and from the words of my roaring?
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"'Oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not "'and in the night season I am not silent.'"
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Because at that moment on the cross, Jesus Christ had all of the sins of God's people, perhaps even some of those 25 men we just read about and the woman crying for this false
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God if they were saved, those very sins were in the body of Christ while he was on that cross.
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Ezekiel chapter nine verse one says, "'He cried also in my ears with a loud voice saying, "'Cause them that have charged over the city to draw near.'"
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These are the soldiers. "'And every man with his destroying weapon in his hand,'' swords and axes and battle axes and these things, "'make them come here.'
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"'And the glory of God of Israel was gone up from the cherub "'whereupon he was on the threshold.'"
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Well, at this point, God has now left the temple and he says, gather the soldiers with their destroying weapons now.
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God has left the temple. "'And he called to the man clothed with linen,'' which is kind of the messenger showing this whole thing to Ezekiel and he has a writer's ink horn in his hand.
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It typifies that this is part of the written word of God, which we have. It was recorded for us to see this, ladies and gentlemen.
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"'Now as the Lord was beginning to move out of the temple, "'we see the command to send the soldiers forth "'with their destroying weapons.'"
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Verse four, "'And the Lord said unto him, "'Go through the midst of the city, "'through the midst of Jerusalem, "'and put a mark on the foreheads "'of every man, woman, boy, and child "'that hate these people that are doing the abominations.'"
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Now, when you hear of abominable things like certain religions that hate Israel, for example, and then they hate
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Christians, they want to chop your head off, do you hate them? I do. And so there were people that hated what these priests were doing.
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They knew about it by word of mouth was spreading and they hated it. And so God put a mark on their forehead to protect them from these soldiers.
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And the soldiers did not touch one of these people, the godly people. I think that's gonna happen in the end times.
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I don't think we get raptured until after the first resurrection, which is not its own thing.
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It's just part of the second coming, right? Part of the second coming. So we've got to make it through seven years, but it's as if God will put a mark on our heads if we love him and walk with him and we're in the word and he'll protect us through it, not from it, through it.
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It's what the Bible teaches. Now, I know that's different than what we all grew up being taught, but it's what seminaries taught doesn't make it right.
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I got all their books, I've read them, not all of them, but many of them. I know what they say. I don't find it in scripture, but anyway, it's another topic.
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So the people who hated the abominations of God's enemies were marked to be protected. Verse five, and to the others, he said, in my hearing, go ye after him through the city and smite, let not your eyes spare, neither have you pity, he told the soldiers.
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Slay utterly old and young and maids and little children and women, but come not near any man who has the mark on him and begin at the sanctuary, begin at God's house and move out from there and kill them all.
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And then they began at the ancient men in the temple, killing them, which were before the house.
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And he said to them, defile the house. Now watch this, you just thought, you just thought the stuff going on there was bad.
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The worst hasn't happened yet. And he said to them, defile the house of God, which represents the body of Jesus Christ, the man,
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Jesus Christ, body, soul, and spirit. Defile the house and fill the courts with the slain.
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Go ye forth. And they went forth and they slew the city and they brought all these bloody guts filled dead bodies full of their wicked sins and abomination still in them and drug them into the midst of the temple.
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All of the sin of humanity of God's people anyway is pictured right there in Christ, in his body.
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The temple itself was defiled. And then look what happened. Verse eight, and it came to pass while they were slaying them.
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And I was left that I fell upon my face and I cried and said, oh, Lord God, will you destroy all the residue of Israel and die pouring out of the fury on Jerusalem?
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Well, he almost did, didn't he? And he almost has many times in history, but there's still a remnant of saved
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Jews. And one of them was my mentor, Dr. Rocky Freeman. And then said he unto me, the iniquity of the house of Israel in Judah is exceeding great.
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And the land is full of blood and the city full of perverseness. For they say the
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Lord has forsaken the earth and God will not see this. And as for me also, mine eyes shall not spare.
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Neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head. Now you think about this. It is very clear in this passage that God would have no pity on sin.
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He would not hold back. He would totally annihilate the sin.
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And behold, the man clothed with linen, which is the messenger and had the ink horn, he's gonna record it in scripture, by his side reported the matter saying,
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I have done as thou has completed, it is finished. Wow, 1
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Peter 2, verse 21 says for even here in two, were you called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we would follow in his steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, who when he was reviled, reviled not again, that's while he's on the cross.
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When he suffered, he threatened not, he could have destroyed the worlds and the universe, couldn't he? But he threatened not, but he committed himself to him that judged righteously, which is his father, who his own self bear our sins in his body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live under righteousness by whose stripes we are healed.
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Isaiah 53, three, he was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
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And we hid as it were our faces from him and he was despised and we esteemed him not.
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And surely he has borne our griefs. This horrible abomination that was inside that temple pictures all of our sins and thoughts and the evil deeds of our whole lives and of God's children throughout all the ages of the dispensations on this earth.
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Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgressions.
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That little word for means two things, because of and in place of. He was killed because we sin, so our sin contributed to his death.
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Good thing to remember when you're tempted and when I'm tempted. And, but also he was killed in place of us so that we never have to experience separation from God ever.
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So he was wounded for and because of our transgressions, he was bruised for and because of our iniquities and the chastisement that would have destroyed us was upon him and with his stripes, we are healed spiritually, not physically.
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It is a spiritual healing. You're saved from death. Your soul is healed.
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Your body is healed as well because at the rapture, it'll never be sick again. It'll be totally healed from everything. And all we like sheep have gone astray.
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We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us. All pictured in this passage in Ezekiel.
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Chapter 11 of Ezekiel verse 16 says, "'Therefore say this, thus saith the
01:01:00
Lord God, "'although I have cast them far off among the heathen "'and although I have scattered them among the countries, "'yet will
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I be to them as a little sanctuary "'in the countries where they shall come.'" Talking about the Jews. So at that point, he destroyed the temple, destroyed the country and scattered them around the world.
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70 years later, they come back, build another one. And then it happens all again because they forsake Jesus Christ. They, for the most part, totally say, no, he's not ours, crucify him.
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May his blood be on our heads and the heads of our children. And World War II took care of that when 8 million of them were killed.
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They say six, I think it's more like eight. But God said, okay, they're not gonna have this beautiful gold -filled temple anymore, but I will be like little temples for all of them.
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Do you know what that is? That's the mystery kingdom in our hearts. That's our own little temple right here.
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All of it's pictured here. It's amazing in detail. So we see here an allusion to the mystery kingdom in our hearts as we await the second coming and the setting up of Christ's reign when there will be another temple.
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But until then, the temple is in our hearts. Our body is the temple of the living
01:02:16
God. Verse 19, and I will give them one heart. Now, I was amazed this was in this passage.
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I mean, I know it's an Old Testament. I've quoted it a million times out of context. Look at the context.
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In this context, God has left the temple and ascended up into heaven and left his people here with a little sanctuary in their heart, but nothing that the world can see or believe in.
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And yet he says, at that time, I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within you.
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And I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and I will give them a new heart. They shall be born again.
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That they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and do them.
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Not just read about them and study them, but try your best to live them, right? Why? Because he's in us.
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And like the song I've been listening to this week, like you cannot put a light out that comes from within. That'd be a good one for Maddie to find that when singing up here.
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And they shall be my people and I will be their God. Then did the cherubims lift up their wings and the wheels beside them.
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And the glory of the God of Israel was over them all. And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood upon the
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Mount, which is on the east side of the city, which by the way, the only mountain on the east side of Jerusalem is the
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Mount of Olives. So first we see the sins of the people placed into the temple of God.
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Next, we see the glory of God leave the temple and head to the east gate and ultimately out of the city to the
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Mount of Olives, about a day's walk, and then out of the world, maybe out of the universe into where God dwells, the
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Father. This corresponds to the Holy Spirit of God departing from the body of Jesus Christ as he hung on the cross with all of our sins in his body.
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And the Lord said in Ezekiel 9, 10, and as for me also, my eye shall not spare, neither will
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I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head. God did not hold back.
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He separated himself from the Son of God, who then paid the full sin debt for all of us enduring the forsaking of the
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Father. But then I believe even before he left the cross, when
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Jesus said it is finished, at that point, the ransom had been paid in full, and I believe full fellowship was restored between Jesus and the
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Father and the Holy Spirit at that point, even before he left the cross. And the reason I believe that is because he said it is finished before he left the cross.
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And immediately he gave up the ghost and died physically, but he was not dead because at that point he went and preached to the captives.
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And that's another sermon. But he really did do that in Shoal. But he says it is finished.
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The ransom had been paid in full and the full fellowship was restored, I believe. And he ascended later, after he was resurrected, he ascended into heaven.
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He went out from the temple through the East Gate, walked out about a day's journey to the
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Mount of Olives with his disciples and stood before them and gave them the great commission. As he had sent me, so send
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I you into this world. And then the clouds received him out of their sight and the angel said, as he left, so shall he come back in like manner.
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All of that's recorded in the book of Acts chapter one, verses nine through 13. It even says in verse 12, then returned they into Jerusalem from the
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Mount called Olivet, the Mount of Olives, which is where that took place. After Solomon's temple was destroyed, listen to this, a new one was built.
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Jesus, 70, God's perfect number, 70 years later, a new temple was built.
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And John 2, 18, then answered the Jews and said to him, what sign will you show to us seeing that you do us these things?
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And Jesus answered, said to them, destroy this temple. And in three days, I will raise it up.
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And that new temple pictures the resurrected Christ and the church age began.
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So that's it, that's three Sundays worth of preaching. Let's stand and have prayer and go eat a cold, old lunch.
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Lord, thank you so much for your word and the fact that we can find you in every page of the
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Old Testament and certainly of the new. Thank you for the beautiful pictures and allegories and types that you put throughout the
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Old Testament so that we in the end of the age may see these end samples and learn more and more of the colors of meaning of the different doctrines that we understand and believe and to learn more about them.
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So Lord, thank you for teaching us even more about my God, my God, why has there forsaken me today more than we knew last week?
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We thank you for that. May we continue to learn about these mysterious things in the
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Bible and never stop studying them until the day we meet you. And after that, we can study them together age into age because we will never know everything about you because you're infinite.
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And Lord, we thank you that we'll always be learning and that you love us and go with us into our time of fellowship now.