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God Sees Our Sin

July 4, 2007

Bob Bradley

_________________________ 

Did you ever think about what we really are as people?  I mean not necessarily our names, occupation, schooling, finances; but who you really are?  When God looks at you, what does God really see?  I know that God puts us in different vocations.  I know that God puts people in medical fields, teaching fields, mechanics, and airplane pilots.  What does God really see when He sees us?  What does He see in our services when we come to church, when we come to worship Him?  Does He see things that bring glory to Him, or does He see things that are not pleasing to Him? 

 

Ezekiel 8:1

 

1 And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month , in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there upon me.

 

Ezekiel is in Babylon.  As you read the scriptures and find out what is happening, Ezekiel has probably been in Babylon a few years, not sure, of how long he has been there.  We know that Nebuchadnezzar came in 606 BC.  We know that from history.  We know that he took Daniel and some of the others in 606 BC.  When we look at church history and Jewish history, we think that Ezekiel probably went five or six years after that, maybe in 597, 598 BC, but it did not really matter when he went.  Here he is. 

 

He is a young fellow, maybe thirty years old, not very old; as we understand some things, and go back a few chapters and read, it tells me that he is about thirty years old.  Here he is.  The Bible tells us that he lived by a river.  The Bible tells us that he is married.  The Bible tells us some things about him.  As he is in the land of Babylon at the same time, Jeremiah is in and around Jerusalem.  Jeremiah is telling the people that it is going to be at least 70 years before the captives come back into the land.  The false prophets and false teachers that are in the land of Babylon, were telling people that, “...this thing is about wrapped up.  We are going to get ready to go home and everything is going to be fine.  There is nothing to be worried about.”  Jeremiah was telling them one thing and the prophets that were in Babylon were saying something else. 

 

God was going to let the folks that were in Babylon know what was going to take place.  People never want to hear that God is going to judge.  Even Jeremiah was telling people that.  While he is in Babylon, God is going to reveal to Ezekiel:

 

In chapter 1, God calls him.  God calls him to be a prophet while he was there. 

 

That tells us something about the character of Ezekiel.  God does not call people that are sinners to be prophets and priests.  It tells us something about the character of Ezekiel that he would be priest and now God is going to call him to be a prophet.  He is going to reveal unto him some of things that are going to take place back in Jerusalem. 

 

When you look at what happens here, God appears unto him and shows him the visions of what is going to take place.  There is a big discussion of whether he went in person, or whether God just revealed these unto him.  It does not really matter whether he went in person or not.  God revealed unto him things that were going to happen and the reason these things are going to happen back in Jerusalem. 

 

1 And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month , in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there upon me.

 

About a year after God first called him to be a prophet in the land of Babylon, Ezekiel receives another vision from God.  God is going to show him Jerusalem.  He was going to show why He was going to do what He was going to do.  He was going to show him how wicked things really were and how bad things really were and that was the reason that God was going to bring judgment upon the land. 

 

What does that matter to me?

 

It matters because God loved - and still does - the children of Israel.  Along with that, God wanted them to be holy people.  God expected them to be holy people.  God expected them to live as they should live.  God expected them to follow him.  When they would do that, then God's glory would be there. 

 

When His presence is there whether with the children of Israel, or with us, then we know that brings blessing, and that brings protection.  Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  Where the glory of God is at then there is peace, security, and happiness.  The reason that many people do not know what peace, security, and happiness is today is that they have never experienced the glory, or the presence of Almighty God. 

 

That is not being critical.  That is just letting us understand that God expects something out of us.  When you and I get saved, the spirit of God moves in.  He moves in us in the presence of the Holy Spirit and He takes up a constant dwelling within us.  As long as we live as we should live, and keep this fellow clean, then He continues to live there.  However, when I defile myself, when I sin and do those things that are contrary to what God has said, then the presence of God departs. 

 

Are we living in a way where the Spirit of God and His glory are in our lives? 

 

The glory of God is visible.  We can see those things and we are going to prove that in a minute.  Just as the people in Jerusalem, where Ezekiel is seeing these visions, they can see the presence of God, and the glory of God.  They also saw Him departing because of their iniquities. 

 

God is going to reveal to Ezekiel why things were about to happen and why things were happening.  As you read down through here, you will find out that these folks were doing some horrible things.  God was going to show Ezekiel these things, and the reason that these things were going to happen. 

 

In addition, Ezekiel was going to be able to tell the folks back in Babylon that this is what is going on in Jerusalem, and this is the reason that God is bringing judgment.  This is the reason that these things are going to take place that Jeremiah is prophesying about.  This is the reason that they are going to take place is because of the wickedness that was going on right in the temple.  Remember that. 

 

What Ezekiel is going to see here and the visions that he is going to see, is the corruption that was right in the temple area that people were worshiping all kinds of things and this is why that they are going to get in trouble. 

 

Look in verse 5:

 

5 Then said he unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.

 

If you read that in the Hebrew, evidently they had made them a god here.  That god was called ashtar.  Ashtar was a Babylonian goddess that people worshiped in Babylon.  It looked like a big winged bird.  This fowl or image was right here were they were worshiping it.  God had delivered these same people from Egypt.  God had done great things for these same people.  God had fed these people year after year.  God had given these same people houses and land.  However, now they are worshiping birds.  This was done right in the temple area.  In the area where people should be worshiping God, here they are worshiping birds.  They are worshiping the gods of the heathens. 

 

Many times in our churches or in our services, we do the same thing.  It may not be a bird like they are worshiping here, but we sure miss and get off on some things where we are not worshiping God at all. 

 

 

6 He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.

 

He is showing Ezekiel what the people are doing in their worship.

 

 

6 He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.

7 And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall.

8 Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door.

9 And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.

10 So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about.

11 And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.

12 Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.

 

Ezekiel sees the vision.  He sees the vision in the temple and as he sees the vision, he sees a hole.  He is told to dig here and he finds an area where he gets into the basement and he finds the old people, “the ancient” and they are down here worshiping every kind of creepy thing, every kind of abominable beasts, and everything that God has said was dirty and unclean.  Here they are - not young people, but old people - down here worshiping all these things that are so vile, and so dirty that God hates.  They are down here worshiping them. 

 

God asks Ezekiel a question.  "Ezekiel, do you see what these old folks do here in the dark?"  There is no doubt that they thought God did not see.  They thought that they were down there where nobody else could see what they were doing.  They thought everything was fine, except they forgot that God in heaven was watching them. 

 

We can do all kinds of things.  We might think that we can hide our sin, but our sin is going to find us out.  Somewhere along the line, our sin is going to find us out.  Ezekiel is seeing what these ancient men were doing here who should have been worshiping God, what they were doing in the dark. 

 

12  ...The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.

 

They were saying that the Lord was not watching them.  They said, “The Lord does not care about us sinning” and “The Lord has forgotten about the earth.”  God has not forgotten about the earth.  God has not forgotten about you and He has not forgotten about me.  When God looked at this, it was an abomination to Him, because of what they were doing.

 

13 He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.

14 Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD'S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.

15 Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this , O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.

 

Here is a bunch of women sitting around weeping and crying in the house of God.  This 'tammuz' was a god over vegetation, as they said.  He appeared in the springtime and blessed the vegetation then in the fall of the year he would die.  Then when spring came again he would revive himself.  That is what these women were worshiping and crying over.   When you look at the time here, this was the time that he would have died.  They are sitting here crying because this god, as they say, that dies, comes back in the spring and blesses vegetation, has died.  It is going to be wintertime.  They are sitting here worshiping something right here in the temple of Almighty God. 

 

The house of God, or the temple of God is a place where we worship God.  We are not to worship something that we dreamed up in our imagination, nor something that the world is trying to get us to worship.  The house of God is where we worship God.  Here they were crying, weeping, and worshiping this god that man had made.  They dreamed up, in their own minds that was not alive, that could not bless anything, that had no life in it at all.  They sat here crying and weeping. 

 

There is a lot that we could say about that, but many folks today are putting their faith in things that will never help them.  Many people that are putting trust in things that are going to let them down, because the things that they are trusting in, are things that do not exist.  They are things that have no power.  It may exist in your mind.  It may exist on a piece of paper.  It may exist in some book somewhere, but there is only One God in heaven.  All the things that we imagine in our minds, many of those things are never going to come to pass because they are just fairy tales.

 

15 Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this , O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.

16 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 five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.

 

Here were the twenty-four orders of priests, of men representing them, here was the high priest with them.  They are between the porch and the altar, right in the temple.  They had their backs to the temple, looking towards the east, and they were worshiping the sun.  They were worshiping nature. 

 

We have lot of that today.  They are doing many things like that and this was being done in the temple area.  It was done in the area where things had been consecrated and dedicated, to worship Almighty God.  This was where people were to come together to worship, praise, and thank God.

 

As you read here, with all this wickedness going on in the temple area; we would have to know that God could not be there.  We would have to know that God would depart from that.  If people were worshiping the sun and all kinds of images, if they had their prostitutes and everything that was going on with some of this worship right in the temple, then we would know that God would not be there.  We would know that God would depart from that. 

 

chapter 8:4

 

4 And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain.

 

There was a time when the glory of God was there in the temple.  The glory of God meant the presence of God.  The people would come and bring their offerings, then they would give it unto the priest and the priests would take their offerings then offer them to God.  They came here to worship, and not do all kinds of things.  There was time that the Glory of God was there. 

 

In chapter 9:3

 

3 And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side;

 

The mercy seat was in the temple.  On each side of it were angels that overshadowed the mercy seat.  Right here between the two cherubim’s is where God would appear. 

 

3 And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side;

 

The glory of the Lord in chapter 8:4 was there.  In chapter 9:3, He leaves this area.  The area where He comes and meets between the cherubim’s where the mercy seat was at, where He was at.  He goes to the threshold.  He goes right from the center of the holiest of holies to the threshold of the door.  That is where He goes.

 

God is a very longsuffering God.  God wants us to repent.  As I read and studied this, I could see how much God must have loved this people.  How much God wanted them to repent.  God could have just left and said that was it, but instead He went from in between the cherubim’s to the threshold of the door.  He is visible and people can see Him.

 

In chapter 10:4

 

4 Then the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the LORD'S glory.

 

He went from the cherubim’s to the threshold, and from the threshold, now He is above the threshold.  Each move that He makes, He is getting farther and farther away because people are not repenting, even though His presence was visible.  Even though His glory was visible and they could see Him leaving and departing, they did not repent.  I can see the longsuffering of God, the mercy of God, the grace of Almighty God, but they still yet would not repent. 

 

4 Then the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the LORD'S glory.

 

It tells me that people could see His glory.  The whole place was full of it.  However, it was not here where the cherubim’s was at anymore.  It was at a place where He is moving farther and farther away. 

 

Look at chapter 10:18 & 19

 

18 Then the glory of the LORD departed from off the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubims.

19 And the cherubims lifted up their wings, and mounted up from the earth in my sight: when they went out, the wheels also were beside them, and every one stood at the door of the east gate of the LORD'S house; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above.

 

What is happening is that the glory of the Lord is departing because of sin.  He is leaving His place where that He would come and meet with His people because of their sin.  They were not worshiping Him any longer.  He was departing.

 

In chapter 11:22 & 23

 

22 Then did the cherubims lift up their wings, and the wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above.

23 And the glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city.

 

In chapter 8, He was there.  In chapter 9, He moves to the door, and also in chapter 9, He raises above the door.  You can see the progression to where He is at now.  He is not even in the city now.  He is on the Mount of Olives.  The Glory of God has now left the city.  He has left the temple area.  He is no longer there, but now He is on the top of the mountain over here. 

 

Sin will separate us from the glory of Almighty God.  Sin will separate us from God's presence.  God moved gradually away from them because of their sin. 

 

Do you know what has happened to some of us?

 

We used to be filled with God's glory.  We used to be able to see it on your face.  You use to shine, your face did.  You used to be happy.  You used to experience His presence.  Somewhere along the line, you have sinned and you have not asked God to forgive you.  The glory departs.  It gets farther and farther away then after awhile, He is not even in our lives anymore.  He is not even close to us anymore.  It is because of our sin.  God hates sin.  God loves you, but God hates sin. 

 

In just a matter of a few short years from the time, that God appeared to Ezekiel and told him what He was going to do, and as you go on down through here and read; His presence is gone now.  When God's presence is gone, then the whole place is opened for the enemy to do whatever he wants to do.   

 

That is what happens in my life and in your life.  When I sin, when I openly sin with my eyes wide open and do what I know is wrong, when I continually sin, habitually sin, then God departs.  We open up our lives for satan.  He is going to come and we are not going to like what he is going to bring.

 

Just in a few short years, four to six years, after God showed Ezekiel what was going to happen here in Jerusalem; they came in there and slaughtered them.  The majority of the folks died.  The temple that the presence of God used to be in, where He would come down and fill the whole place; it was burnt with fire.  They tore it down one rock at a time.  The great cedar beams would have been beautiful to look at when you look at how it was built and how it was constructed.  All the gold that was in this place and the silver that was in this place, there was no doubt that there was tens of billions of dollars worth of gold and silver in this place.  A place where God would come, but now it is gone. 

 

The people were sinning and would not repent.  The presence of God left.  When the presence of God leaves there is no protection. 

 

If you think that you can sin and continually live in sin, yet not suffer the wrath of God, then you are wrong.  God is going to judge us.  God is going to chastise us, but there comes a time that if we continue in our sin, that judgment is going to be a whole lot greater than we ever thought that it was going to be. 

 

The temple was gone.  People died.  Innocent people died.  Why?  Because people that knew God, who had been taught about God, who continued living in their sin, had come to the place where God said, "That's enough."  That is going to happen in your life and that is going to happen in my life if we are habitual sinners.

 

Just as there was a physical temple in the land of Israel, that he was talking about here where these folks were sinning; when we read the book II Corinthians 6:16, Paul said, "We are the temple of God." talking about you and me.  We are the temple of Almighty God.  We are the temple of the living God.  He also tells us in I Corinthians 3 that we are the temple of God, but if we defile this temple, then God will destroy us. 

 

It is time that we understand that God loves us, God cares about us, but God hates sin. 

 

Do you not miss the presence of God?  I do not know how you could not miss it, if you ever had it.  If you ever had it, and it is gone, you miss it.  There is nothing like having security, protection and blessing.  There is nothing like that. 

 

Sometimes we need reminding that God hates sin.  Do not think that you are excluded?

 

Sin is sin and God is going to judge that.

 

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