We're going to share a little about his excellent greatness, and we have a big book to go through called the Bible. And in my lifetime, I'll never get it all. So bits and pieces, little by little, here a little, there a little, we're going to get through it. And so it's a pleasure to be here with you again, and we would like to say a few things today from a passage of scripture in the Old Testament. The book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel chapter 36. And in the book of Ezekiel chapter 36, there is a number of times that God uses the term, I will.

And then he goes on to tell us what he will do. Now it's interesting to find out about God, that God never said, I wish. He never said, I wish I could do something, because he has the capability and power of always saying, I will do something. He has never wished a thing, but he has willed many things. And as we look into the scriptures, there's a passage of scripture that I'd like to start with, found over in the book of Isaiah chapter 46. And I want to read a couple of verses there before we get to our text in the book of Ezekiel.

In Isaiah chapter 46, we have another Old Testament prophet led by the Holy Spirit. Now remember, holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. They're not writing their own things. They're writing the things that God intends for them to write. So that's how we got the Old as well as the New Testament. And one of the Old Testament secretaries that was used by God was used to write this. In the book of Isaiah, chapter 46, verse 9, remember the former things of old.

For I am God and there is none else. I am God and there is none like me. Declaring the end from the beginning. Now God alone is able to declare the end, what's going to happen in the end, from the very beginning. Now we start our life and we have hopes, we have thoughts, we have, and often things don't turn out like we planned. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. But with God, nothing ever turned out like he didn't plan. He planned it all and it is turning out exactly as he determined it to take place.

Declaring the end from the beginning, from ancient times, the things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. So God said, my counsel will stand, I will do everything I want to do. Now that's God speaking. God speaks in such clarity, and it takes the grace of God for us to just simply trust God with his word, that he intends to say what he meant, and when he wrote it, had it written down, we can trust it.

Now, the Apostle Paul, who was earlier known as Saul of Tarsus, a very wicked, wicked man, He persecuted and killed God's people. And he did it on purpose. And God saved him by his grace, by his grace alone. There's no reason that Saul of Tarsus should have ever had God's attention except God's grace that he had for him before the foundation of the world. But Saul of Tarsus, saved by God's grace, was permitted to write much of the New Testament as a secretary. Now that was not his words, it was God's words for us. And in the book of Ephesians, he wrote with regard to the saints at Ephesus, he had this to say in the book of Ephesians chapter one and verse 11. I'm going to go over there and read that before I make a mistake and misquote it.

In the book of Ephesians, chapter 1, verse 11, the Word of God says, In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. So what God purposed, predestinated, is what he had in mind to carry out from before the world began to the final of this world.

It is all in his hands and purposed in his hands. I will do all my pleasure. Well, now going over to the book of Ezekiel, God was used the secretary Ezekiel, a prophet of God, a man that God appointed to declare his word to a people that had very little interest in it at all. but he still continued to declare it.

And here in the book of Ezekiel chapter 36, we started this some time ago, and we've got partway through this passage of scripture, but there is so much here. that the gold and the diamonds in this passage of scripture will not soon run out. We just continuously dig and find more here than we ever thought possible when it talks about what God said he will do. And what he said he will do, he will accomplish. So in Ezekiel chapter 36, and beginning with verse 23, we read these words.

God said, I will sanctify my great name. What a wonderful statement that God said, even though it has been maligned and run down the road by so many, God said, I will sanctify my name. I will not wait for men to do that. I will sanctify my name. I will make it an important name.

You know, when we read about the Lord Jesus Christ, who's the Son of God, God the Son, he said he had a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue should confess to the Father, the glory of God. So here we have, I'll sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them. The heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the heathen and gather you out of all countries and will bring you into your own land.

So number one, he says, I'll take you out of the heathen. I will take you. Now, we're not necessarily interested in moving, but when he comes and takes care of business, we are more than glad to move because he gives us a heart that is willing to move out of where we're settled in. He gives us a heart to understand and believe him. You know, we need that heart so much. In fact, he goes on to tell us here, I'll take you from among the heathen. And then he said in verse 25, then will I sprinkle clean water on you. You know, there is a number of ways that God used in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament to share with us that we need a cleansing.

When Adam sinned against God in the garden, he got really, really dirty. It was so dark and there was no water. There was no soap. There was nothing in this world that would clean him up. He made an effort to clean himself up by covering himself with fig leaves.

He wanted to clean up some of the dirt, but it was still there. His heart was still wicked before God. He made an effort to clean up his way by hiding in the garden, hiding from God. But God came seeking after him and said, where art thou? The only way that God ever cleaned him up and Adam didn't do it on his own, he couldn't.

The only way that he did that was saving by his grace and he shared with us a picture of that by covering him with skins of animals. Adam was so dirty. Now he passed that dirt on to the rest of us. It's just a common thing that we are without help and without hope and without God in this world on our own. So we need help getting cleaned up.

And God said, I will cleanse you. I will sprinkle clean water upon you. I will bring you the truth of the gospel. I will work a work that nobody can work on their own. I will do the work. It will be God's work, and I will be doing that work in my people. I will bring clean water.

You know, I don't know, I grew up in a place, I never had to drink out of a horse's hoof print. And I'm very thankful that I didn't. I've read about that. I wanted clean water. Don't you want clean water? Yeah, boy, when you hold it up and you see stuff in it, you just say, I don't want that water. Well, God said the only way that I can clean up my people is with my own clean water.

Now, it's a symbol, it's a type, it's a shadow. Because when we go to the New Testament, we find that the Lord said, and it's typified in the Old Testament, but it speaks about the Lord. He says, unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Well, he doesn't actually put us in his blood, it's typical. He says, I'm gonna pay for your sin debt by the death of my son, and his blood will be shed on your behalf. He also says he purchased the church with his own blood. We are cleansed by the pure righteous blood of Jesus Christ shed on our behalf. And it says to the Corinthians, he says, don't you know that nobody that's a sinner will ever enter into the kingdom of heaven. And then he lists a bunch of them. He says all kinds, I mean rascals, really horrible people, people that are children of Adam.

And after the Lord saves us, we say, there I am, there I am. You know what it goes on to say? The ones that he saved are in that list and they say, and such was I, such were some of you. So God gives us the grace to say, once he says this, that he actually saves sinners of whom I am chief. Actually says that. We realized that we were in a horrible shape. Now we won't admit that until the Lord does something for us. And he brings that out here in the book of Ezekiel chapter 36 too. He says, I'll clean you.

And then he says, a new heart will I give you. Now that's an act of God to give us a new heart. And it's not a old wore out heart. You know, I've had people, I used to hear preachers say, give Jesus your heart. You know what the answer to that is? He doesn't want it. He doesn't want your heart. It is bad.

He wants to give and he will give a new heart. And that new heart will be able to see him as God almighty. See him as the one who said, I will do all my pleasure. He will allow us to see him for who he is, not what we can make him. We bow before him. We just bow before the sovereign king of the universe.

I'll give you a new heart. And then he says, I'll give you a new spirit. Well, he takes that old mean ornery spirit and he subdues it and he gives us the Holy Spirit. He gives us the Holy Spirit of God. And with that Holy Spirit of God, we don't go off onto some tangent.

It is our business now is to worship the King. the almighty one, the king of glory. We worship him. He is our life. He's our sustenance. He is our bread. He's our water. He's our door. He's our shepherd. He is the shepherd of the sheepfold. He is everything to the believer. and he takes care of it all. He doesn't leave anything up to us because we came into this world dirty, filthy dirty.

He cleans us up and he says here in the book of Ezekiel chapter 36 again, I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you shall keep my judgments and do them. He also says here, he will take from us all our filthiness. Well, how could I say that about myself? I don't have to. God's already said it. We are filthy, but I'll take all your filthiness. I'll put it away. I'll take it to the cross. I'll impose it upon my son. I will impute it to my son. My son is going to the cross with a job to do, and that is die for the sins of my people. And that's exactly what he did over 2,000 years ago.

Nobody took his life from him. Jesus said, I laid down my life. No man takes it from me. We have all kinds of people have been given pardons because they participated in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Well, God is the one that crucified Christ on the cross to take away our sin. Now he used man. He used Roman soldiers, he used Jews, he used priests, he used all kinds of people, but God Almighty is the one that put his son on that cross so that he could punish him and pay our sin debt.

And then he says, I can cleanse you up. I'll take away all your filthiness. You're no longer sinners in my eyes. And that's what God said he would do. I'll give you a new heart, a new spirit. I'll take away your stony heart. I'll give you a heart of flesh. I will, I will, I will, I will. I haven't gone through here to find out how many I wills God said, but there's a plenty. And you know what? Not one time did the person that God is speaking to in this matter respond to him and says, I don't want you. You know what?

He gives us a new heart to want him. I want him more than anything. I want him as my savior. I want him as my leader. I want him as my king. I want him as my door. So as we find, and we're gonna, we're about out of time. We'll have to close this up and do it again. We find out, I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.

You know, in the eyes of the Lord, in the eyes of God, In the eyes of him who does all things after the counsel of his own will, once his children's sin is paid for, he never sees them commit another one. They will never be called into judgment for any sin. Now, we may say, oh, Lord, forgive me, forgive me of it, but we'll never stand in judgment. We'll never be told, well, you're going to have to answer for that sin.

We, and we find out, and people make a mockery out of this, but people say, well, if I believe that, I just go out and commit all kinds of sins. Then you just showed that you don't know the first thing about the gospel, because God's people are not interested in committing more sin. We do enough on our own. All right, I will put my spear within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.

And then he says in verse 28, I will be your God. I love it. I just love it. I'll be your God. I can't tell you how many gods I had before I had the God. Number one God before I had the God was me. This was the important God. My will, me, me. And then God said, I will be your God. And that just gives us the opportunity to worship the king. I'm thankful he takes away our gods and gives us him as our God.

We're going to stop there for today. We'll pick this up the next time we have a service with you, and I thank you for your time and your attention. Brother Mike is gonna come and bring one final hymn. We'll close with a word of prayer. We thank you, thank you that you're here. We're glad to be here. Brother Mike.