Sermon Tone Analysis

Ezekiel 40-48

*Introduction*

When I grew up I remember a term that was used about our family.

We were called “DP’s.”

I remembered the term and what it meant.

It meant “displaced persons” and referred to the fact that we were refugees from another country.

I hadn’t remembered where and how it was used and when I asked my mother about it, she recalled that it was not a positive term.

She experienced it at her job and the comments were made because some of the other workers were upset that the “DP’s” were taking all the jobs.

In fact, DP is a good description of what they were.

They had been displaced from their home.

Because of their displacement, they had experienced loss of place, loss of relationships, loss of income and property.

They had come to a new home and because they had no hope of ever going back to their former home they began to establish themselves in their new home.

How difficult it must have been to go through all that hardship and then be looked down upon on top of it.

A lot of people have experienced similar displacement and hardship.

For example, aboriginal people in Canada, Sudanese refugees in the Darfur region and Palestinians in the Middle East.

It was also the situation of the Jewish people in exile in Babylon.

They were “DP’s” and had experienced loss of place, loss of relationships and loss of prosperity.

All of these devastating things had happened to them because of their sin and in Ezekiel 40:1, he indicates that it is 25 years since they have been in exile and 14 years since Jerusalem fell.

Their devastation has lasted almost a generation.

That is a long time and by now many would have been wondering if there was any hope for them as a nation.

In this place of being DP’s, of loss and hopelessness, God once again came to the people and had a word for them.

Ezekiel 40:1 says, “the hand of the Lord was upon me…” Then God spoke to Ezekiel and told him, in verse 4, to look, to hear, to pay attention and to tell the people.

God had a message for His people.

What kind of a message was it?

How would it help them as DP’s?

It was intended as a word of hope for exiles who had lost place, relationships and prosperity.

Many of the images in this passage appear again in Revelation and so we recognize that there is a connection between the displacement of the people of Israel from Jerusalem and our displacement as God’s people from our heavenly home.

Therefore, I believe that these chapters of Ezekiel are a word of hope for Israel but also a word of hope for us.

*I.* *The Glory Entered The Temple 43:4*

It has been kind of interesting since we have completed our addition, how many people have come to take a walking tour of the church.

We have had numerous people from other churches coming to check out, especially our kitchen.

One fellow even came with a measuring tape and I took him to the kitchen and he made a whole bunch of measurements.

From Ezekiel 40:5 to 42:20, there is a description in which a heavenly messenger takes Ezekiel on a walking tour of the temple.

At this time there was no temple, it had been destroyed by the Babylonians and so the tour was in a vision.

The messenger has a measuring tape along and goes throughout the temple describing the measurements of the gates and the courts and the rooms and the holy place and the dimensions of the entire temple as Ezekiel watches.

Upon the completion of the walking tour, we read in 43:1 that the man brought Ezekiel back to the gate facing east.

There he saw something happen that was wonderful.

It was better than the Jets coming back to Winnipeg.

It was better than the Bombers winning the Grey Cup.

It was better than seeing your boyfriend down on his knee with a ring in his hand.

It was better than seeing a long lost friend returning.

It was a picture of the glory of God coming from the east and filling the temple once again.

This was not the first time that the glory of God had entered the temple.

After Moses set up the tent of meeting, we read in Exodus 40:34 that the glory of God filled the temple.

Because God was there, it was to be the place where God would meet with His people.

It was a symbol of God present with His people.

After Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem, we also read in I Kings 8:11 that “the glory of the Lord filled the temple.”

The promise at that time was that no matter what would happen to the people of Israel, they could always turn their face towards Jerusalem and towards the temple where God was and they could seek God.

In Ezekiel 10, the writer had watched in profound sadness, as the glory of the Lord left the temple through the east gate.

That day the hope of the presence of God and the hope of relationship with God died.

The exiles were cast out to be on their own without a place where they could come and meet with God.

Now, that vision was reversed.

The glory of God once again came to live in this new temple.

What a tremendous message of hope for these people displaced from their homes and separated from their God.

They were “DP’s” displaced from their most significant relationship and now God was promising that it would be restored, that God had not given up on His people and had not abandoned them.

As we read on in Ezekiel 43, we find that they were to be encouraged to give up their sins and be faithful to God because of the message of hope that the promise of God’s return would mean.

How was this promise of God fulfilled?

Although a temple was built again after 70 years of exile, there is no record that the glory of God filled that temple as He had the tent of meeting and Solomon’s temple.

The next occurrence of God’s glory filling a temple took place on the day of Pentecost.

On that day, God came and filled the temple which is the church.

What the presence of God in the temple of the Old Testament was to the people in Ezekiel’s day, the Holy Spirit is to God’s people the church today.

God did indeed come in the fullness which is described in Ezekiel 40-43.

As people who have understood that God is present with His people, we have actually gotten used to the idea and do not understand the power of it.

God has come and is present with His people, the church.

That is why there is power for witnessing, power to live in unity, power to love one another and power to build the kingdom of God in a hostile world.

However, His coming is not yet complete.

There is another picture of God’s presence filling the temple in Revelation 21:22 where it says that “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.”

That is the complete fulfillment of the promise in Ezekiel.

The word of hope given to the people of Ezekiel’s day is a word of hope that also is meant for us.

God has come as He promised and He is coming again.

*II.* *I Will Accept You 43:27*

Remember when you were little and you did something wrong.

If your parents found out about what you had done, there was a time until you were punished when you may have felt a broken relationship between you and your parents.

Guilt for wrongdoing builds walls between people.

The people of God in exile were guilty of terrible sins.

We have read the long list of all that they had done.

Most of Ezekiel and much of the writing of the other prophets is a loud testimony to the sin and the guilt of the people.

Because they were in exile, they felt the rejection of God for all that they had done wrong.

They had failed to live holy lives, they had failed to seek God’s forgiveness and they had failed to repent and follow God.

Their exile was punishment for their wrongdoing.

The destruction of the temple removed any possibility of being made right with God.

Have you ever felt guilty before God? Have you ever felt that God could not possibly accept you because of what you had done?

Perhaps the message that God is coming back again is not good news because you know that God is a holy God and you do not feel comfortable in His holy presence.

The second part of the prophecy is a description of the laws of the temple and the work done by the priests.

It indicates the way in which the temple was to be sanctified and all the sacrifices which were to be offered.

The description is reminiscent of the sacrifices of the Old Testament.

Many of the descriptions sound like what the people would have been familiar with because it was what had been practiced, or at least was supposed to have been practiced previously.

The description of the temple regulations and the description which talks about how sacrifices will once again happen in the temple are a word of encouragement that there will once again be a way for the people to atone for their sins and to be made right with God.

Please look at Ezekiel 43:27.

In this verse which follows a description of how to make the sin offerings and how to make atonement for sin, God says to the people, “Then I will accept you, declares the Sovereign Lord.”

God’s presence is a holy presence.

Even the construction of the temple indicates that.

Each gate from the outer gate to the holy of holies is narrower indicating limited access to the holy presence of God.

The law in these sections, for example that no uncircumcised foreigner may come into the temple, reinforces that holiness.

Access is limited by the holiness of God.

In order to enter that presence, people need to have their sins forgiven.

This passage promises that God will provide a way for them to do that.

What a wonderful word of hope for people who didn’t know how or if it would be possible for them to be right with God again.

God promised that He would make a way for them to find acceptance with Him.

The message which Ezekiel had for the exiled, guilt ridden, sinful people in exile was, God will provide a way that will allow your sins to be forgiven and that will result in being accepted by God.