Separation: Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Lamentations

Intro

Opening Illustration: One last song…

You must not only tell me the series, but which movie in the series this is from.

Stories have different parts to them. They have parts that are sweet and intimate, that are big and epic, and are dark and sad. The diversity of these moments are what make it interesting

Revenge of the Sith is trying to prove something: The Jedi order had to end, it was not the way.

There were cracks in the system all along. Darth Sideous made his way in from Episode I.

Why do people like Revenge of the Sith so much? Because it makes the whole Star Wars saga better. Luke’s heroic acts are magnified by the great darkness he is undoing.

The section we are in today, is the revenge of the sith of the Bible.

The prophets constitute 1/3rd of the whole bible. That means this is something pretty big that God wants you to read. How much time do we spend in the New Testament? How much do we glance over this section? We glance over it because it is dark, and it’s hard to read. We are more removed from it.

It is the fall of Jerusalem. Now, you might wonder why this is such a big deal. Well, if you were a Jew in this day, God promised that Jerusalem was the city his presence would be in, where the temple was build from, and where the king would reign. The temple is where heaven meets earth. It’s our connection to God.

So when you start Kings, you have a king, you have Jersualem, and you have a temple. But the people sin, and they sin and sin and sin so much so that God must pull himself out of the temple.

Why is this a big deal? Because this section makes it seem like God gave up on us.

It is a whole section trying to prove one thing to you: if left to yourself, you do not want God, you would not choose God, and you could do no good.

Illust: While we were in Alaska, had two doors into our house: a front door and a back door. The front door started to have an issue with it the las year. It would get so cold that the foam lining between the door started to freeze and, which removed the buffer between the door and the doorway. So because that was broken, a problem started to happen with the front door. It would freeze shut. The first time it happened, I shoved my shoulder into it and managed to break in. After that, we were like “Okay we probably should use the back door.” We forgot to use the back door. So what happened? We kept getting shut out. We kept getting stuck. Finally, there was one week when it was frozen so tight because it was 20 degrees below, that we could not get in. I tried kicking the door, slamming it, anything! We were locked out. The back door wasn’t just locked, it was bolted! The whole time I kept thinking to myself: “Why didn’t we use the back door?” We eventually got it, we found a ladder and used it to climb to the second story through an unlocked window. But the process was not fun. How could we have avoided it? By reminding ourselves to not use what is broken. To remind ourselves that this door has been proven false, it does not work, it is not the way. There is another door, and I need to be reminded how bad one door is to push me to the other.

These two books are so long, so exhaustive, and so painful because they are trying to prove to you something: There are two routs you can try to take to get to God, to get to heaven. Works, and grace. One of them is broken. Not because the way is broken, but because you are. If you try to get closer to God by being a good person, it will not work. That is a broken door.

Two Covenants. Two Doors to God

Covenants are like contracts, they are agreements between us and God.

In the Old Testament, God made a way to get to him. A way we like. Being a good person. So he made a two way covenant with mankind: obey me, and I bless you. Disobey me, and I will curse you.

Leviticus 18:5 ESV

You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.

We like that, God leaves it up to us. I can kinda earn his love. Give him a reason to love me. He wants me to choose him, I will.

Some context…

These two books are long, and both are structured in a similar manner. They both have a ton of judgement and the beginning, a big reveal in the middle, and a ton of judgement at the end.

The Old Covenant: Works

1. Your heart can only do evil (Jeremiah 17).

Jeremiah 17:1–4 ESV

“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of their altars, while their children remember their altars and their Asherim, beside every green tree and on the high hills, on the mountains in the open country. Your wealth and all your treasures I will give for spoil as the price of your high places for sin throughout all your territory. You shall loosen your hand from your heritage that I gave to you, and I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you do not know, for in my anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever.”

Illust: My one year as a teacher I learned computer science. The programs I made could only do according to the code that was written on them. Jeremiah was saying your code is bad.

Jeremiah 17:9–10 ESV

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”

The point: it’s them that’s broken. They are stuck in sin, they can’t obey.

2. God must punish your evil (Lamentations 1).

Lamentations 1:4–5 ESV

The roads to Zion mourn, for none come to the festival; all her gates are desolate; her priests groan; her virgins have been afflicted, and she herself suffers bitterly. Her foes have become the head; her enemies prosper, because the Lord has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe.

Lamentations 1:18 ESV

“The Lord is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word; but hear, all you peoples, and see my suffering; my young women and my young men have gone into captivity.

We tend to shake our fist at God and say “how could you allow evil? Who don’t you punish wicked people?”

Have you ever considered that we are the wicked people?

God is just, it’s good that he punishes evil. But when I try to prove myself to God, prove my love for him, the only thing I prove is how little love I actually have. I prove I love idols more.

3. God must separate you from His temple because of your evil (Ezekiel 10).

Ezekiel 9:9–10 ESV

Then he said to me, “The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great. The land is full of blood, and the city full of injustice. For they say, ‘The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see.’ As for me, my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity; I will bring their deeds upon their heads.”

Ezekiel 10:15–19 ESV

And the cherubim mounted up. These were the living creatures that I saw by the Chebar canal. And when the cherubim went, the wheels went beside them. And when the cherubim lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the wheels did not turn from beside them. When they stood still, these stood still, and when they mounted up, these mounted up with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in them. Then the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim. And the cherubim lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth before my eyes as they went out, with the wheels beside them. And they stood at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the Lord, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them.

God is perfect, he can’t live with imperfection.

Jesus agrees with this - Matthew 5:48

Matthew 5:48 ESV

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

This is why hell exists! God must cast us out of his presence and into a place where we must rightfully be punished.

If God judges me by my works, and gives me the chance to earn him by loving him, I only earn one thing: hell.

Illust: You deserve better…

The New Covenant: Grace

God could have left us in that covenant. But he hasn’t. He saw the issue wasn’t the covenant he made, it was us. So God did something incredible. He made a new covenant, a second one, and promised it in these books. What is different about this one? He changes the problem. He changes you.

1. God gives you a new heart (Jeremiah 31)

Jeremiah 31:31–34 ESV

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

The heart that was stone with sin written on it is now made flesh, and it has a new code with it: obeying God’s law. He changes what you want, what you do, and how you do it and with that, comes forgiveness.

2. God punishes His son (Lamentations 3)

Lamentations 3:19–26 ESV

Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

Illust: Us waiting for Taydan after he locked himself in the bathroom.

I wasn’t strong enough, Taydan wasn’t strong enough, I needed my Father to come.

3. God makes you His temple (Ezekiel 37)

Ezekiel 37:1–6 ESV

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

Ezekiel 37:11–14 ESV

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”

How does God solve the seperation issue? He enters inside you, and makes you his new dwelling place.

So what once was cut off, under wrath, dead, evil, is now living, breathing, and rejoicing as a living temple of God.

Wherever you go, God’s presence is with you. You don’t get more presence at church, you don’t get less when in sin, you have unlimited access to Him inside you. As you walk around, remember that God lives in you.

Conclusion

Summary: Repent of areas you trust in yourself. Come to God as you are, broken. Trust that He will fix you, and continue to fix you.