Ezekiel chapter 8. You and I looked at chapter 7
last week, and we looked at chapter 9 concerning God's judgment upon
Jerusalem. This was a very famous prophet.
He had been led away captive with most of Jerusalem before
an enemy, Babylon, had come in and carried them all away. left
several there at Jerusalem to work and take care of the temple.
And the Lord, in the seventh chapter of Ezekiel, moved upon
Ezekiel there while he was by the river in Babylon, and spoke
to him about the judgment of God that was to come upon Jerusalem. The word of the Lord came to
me, he said in chapter 7 and verse 1. And then in chapter
9, he sees in a vision this judgment coming. It comes. We looked last week at the several
things about it in chapter 7 especially, that we saw some things there
that it was the revelation of those bad things in God. There
are some things in God that are bad. Bad for us. It's His anger. My anger. My wrath. is hot displeasure
against sin and sinners because of it. We saw that in chapter
7. We also saw in chapter 7 that
he said there that this would bring the end. The end. He said that different times. This would bring the end. The
end. Now, as far as their circumstances
was concerned, it wasn't the total end for them. It was the
total end for many. But it speaks to us when the
judgment finally comes upon this earth, it will bring a total
end. The end of all things is at hand. As you and I know it,
it will be the end. The earth will be burned up and
there will be a new heaven and a new earth. And then he tells
them also there in verse 3 of chapter 7 that it's going to
be a just judgment. Nobody can complain when it comes.
Nobody will need to appeal to a higher court. There is none.
And he said, this judgment shall be according to your own ways. To your ways. So that was the
judgment that was predicted from the Word of God. And then in
chapter 9, he sees this vision of the judgment that's coming.
You look at verse 1 and following. These men came with the weapon
of destruction in their hands. And before they destroyed, something
amazing took place. This one man that was clothed
in linen, he went through and put a mark on the heads of all
of those who wept over the sin, their own sin and the sin of
others. And then when they began to destroy,
he said, don't you pity anybody. You slay men, you slay women,
you slay children, but don't come near those men and those
women and those children upon whom I put this mark. Now, that's a wonderful concept
of salvation, isn't it? If you're here this morning and
you're in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you've been sealed by His
Holy Spirit until the day of redemption, Then the judgment
is passed for you. The wrath is passed for you.
The sword will never cut you asunder. The old prophet said
there will be a thousand fall at your side. Ten thousand will
fall at your right hand. But it won't come near you. It won't come near you. Sometimes
we have an awful apprehension. We feel our utter weakness. We
feel our unworthiness. We see something of God's glory
and His justice and His holiness. And we may have this apprehension
because of the weakness of our faith or some other reason that,
boy, I feel like I'm exposed to God's judgment. I feel like
if anybody ought to be cut asunder, it will be me. I imagine this
man may have thought that way. Because you and I looked in chapter
9 last week in verse 8. This is what we looked at last
week. And look at it again. This is why this man stood amazed.
And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was
left. I fell upon my face. I was left. And he was amazed at that. I
was left. And if you're here this morning
and you've got a saving interest in Jesus Christ, you'll be left. When the judgment comes, you'll
be spared. You'll be spared. He was amazed
at that. I was left. So the judgment came
upon them in this vision. I want to go back this morning,
though, to chapter 8. I want us to look at chapter
8. And the reason I want to look
at this is because in chapter 8, the Lord deals with the actual
sins that were taking place in Jerusalem. Ezekiel may have thought,
boy, I wish I could be back there. I wish I could be back there
at the temple where they are worshiping the Lord, those who
are left. Back there where there is peace,
where God is visiting. But you know that was the very
place that had been given itself over to ungodly sins. In chapter 8, it's not speaking
of the sins of the world. It's not speaking of the sins
of the children of Israel that were scattered abroad. It's speaking
of religious sins. You know, we're asked sometimes
as a church to look out on the world and see all the ungodliness
that's going on, all the open and profane sins, and thank to
ourselves, my, how bad things are. But you know, and that's
so. That's so. The world seems like
our country seems like it's given itself open to this over to this
open and profane sins, ungodliness. They can't blush about it. And
we could spend Sunday after Sunday talking about that. And it's
true the wrath of God will come upon the ungodly and the open
and profane. But you know religious sins are
bad too, aren't they? And that's what this chapter
is about. It's about the sin that was taking place in the
temple. in this temple. And that's what
I want to look at exclusively this morning. I want us to begin,
first of all, in chapter 8, and I want us to read the first six
verses. Now, look at this. And it came
to pass in the sixth year, the sixth year of his captivity,
in the sixth month and the first day of the month, as I sat in
my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand
of the Lord God fell thereupon me. Then I beheld, and lo, a
likeness as the appearance of fire, from the appearance of
his loins even downward fire, and from his loins even upward
as the appearance of brightness, as the color of amber." This
was probably the appearance of the Son of God. And he put forth
the form of my hand, and took me by the lock of my head, and
the Spirit lifted me up between the earth and heaven. And he
brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door
of the inner gate, that looked towards the north, where was
the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoked to jealousy, and
behold the glory of The God of Israel was there according to
the vision that I saw in the plain. Then said he unto me,
Son of man, lift up your eyes now the way towards the north. So I lifted up my eyes the way
towards the north, and behold, northward at the gate of the
altar this image of jealousy in the entry." My margin says,
in the entrance, in the very door. He said, furthermore unto
me, Son of man, seeth 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." Now this, he says here, the door, the gate
of the altar. This was the door that led into
the inner court. where the sacrifices were burned
thereupon the altar. It was through this door they
brought the sacrifices, Gil tells us, to be offered unto God. And in this very midst now, verse
5 tells us here, in the very entryway where the priest and
the Levites brought these sacrifices in to the inner sanctuary and
to the altar of burnt offerings, In the very entrance of this
door, we were told here that somebody or a group of people
had placed an image. And this image is said to be
an image that provoked God to jealousy. Provoked Him to jealousy. Now, I would imagine when Ezekiel
saw this, he was horrified. Don't you? I imagine he was horrified. He never dreamed that such a
thing was going on. This was Jerusalem. This wasn't
in Babylon. This wasn't the temple of the
heathen. This was God's temple. This was
the temple that Solomon had dedicated to the Lord. He had built it. And it was a beautiful place.
And when they brought the sacrifices into the temple to dedicate it,
you remember the fire of God fell when they dedicated the
temple and Solomon was praying and the sacrifice was laying
there upon this altar, and the fire of God fell and consumed
the sacrifice. And the Bible says the whole
temple was filled with the glory, the succulent glory of God. Filled
to the point they couldn't even do the service. The priest couldn't
even go in and minister. I would imagine that Ezekiel
hoped when he came here to this temple, he would see the glory
of God. Oh, the peace! I'd love to be
in the temple. I'd love to be there when they
offered their sacrifices and when they worshipped God. But
lo and behold, in the very entry where the sacrifice was to be
brought in and offered upon the altar. There was this image of
jealousy. You know what had happened, and
Ezekiel probably had no idea of the attitude of these who
were left at Jerusalem. Those priests and these ancient
men that were left here in Jerusalem to maintain the temple and the
worship They despised the worship of God. They hated those that
were taken away captive. They had no sympathy for them
at all. They probably thought, well,
they are getting just what they deserve. They are too strict
anyway. They are too narrow-minded anyway.
They are getting just what they deserve. Now, brothers and sisters,
Jesus Christ is this door. Jesus Christ is this entryway. That's why it provoked God to
jealousy. All of these things represented
to us something concerning redemption. Most of these things pointed
to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The altar where the sacrifice
was offered upon. That altar itself is the Lord
Jesus Christ. Hebrews 13 tells us that we have
an altar. What is that altar? It's Christ. It's Him and His humanity. The
sacrifice that was offered upon this altar was Jesus Christ. He's offered himself to God,
then offering a sacrifice for a sweet-smelling Savior. The priest that offered the sacrifice
is Jesus Christ. We have a high priest that's
entered into God's presence with his own blood. And here he is
the door. He's the entrance. He's the sacrifice. He's the priest. He's the altar.
And He's the door. He's the entryway into this inner
sanctuary, even the very presence of God Himself. When you and
I come to God, if we're coming to Him to be accepted of Him,
to be saved by Him, there is but one door that we must come
to God in and by. And who is that? That's Jesus
Christ, isn't it? Listen to what he says in John
10, verse 9. I am the door. I am not one of
the doors, but I am the door, singular, one door. By me, if
any man enter in, he shall be saved. Any man, without distinction,
go and find the worst man in this world, a man that thinks
he's the meanest man in the world, that he loathes himself and realizes
that his conscience is full of sin, that he's worthy of God's
judgment. Find any man or woman, no matter
what nationality he is, and tell him this, that he may enter God's
presence, be forgiven of all his sins, be washed clean as
the snow that just fell this morning upon this ground. If
he'll come to God by this door, by Jesus Christ, entering in
by him, there's a fountain that's open for sin and uncleanness. And anybody without distinction,
any man, any man can enter in through this door. But if men
don't come through this one door, There is no entrance into God's
presence, and there is no exception. There is no distinction when
we come through the door, but there is no exception when we
don't. Anybody may come to this fountain and be washed and have
their sins forgiven, but no man will have their sins forgiven.
No man will have life except they come through this door. I am the See why it provoked
God to jealousy? This very entryway that went
into the sanctuary where the altar was, where the sacrifice
was to be put on, in the very entryway where God revealed His
glorious account of glory coming down and consuming the sacrifice
upon the altar, in the very entryway, somebody had placed this idol. And God said, I'm jealous. You
have provoked me to jealousy. Because this is the only access
that any man has to God the Father. I was telling my grandbabies,
I often try to give them, talk to them about these things, and
I was telling Layla and CeCe about our house and how many
doors we have in our house. And we were counting the doors
we'd have to get in the house. And I said, you know, you come
into Papi's house, you've got different doors you can come
in. But if you go to the Father's house, there's just one door. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if you were the devil, if
you were Satan, and you wanted to stop people from coming into
God's presence and being accepted, you want to stop people from
going to heaven, Where would you concentrate your
efforts? At the door, wouldn't you? At the door. Well, the Master said, straight
is the gate, narrow is the way that leads to life. In other
words, there's just one. Just one. And if you enter that
door, you'll have life eternal. But broad is the way, wide is
the gate that leads to destruction, and many there be that go in
thereat." And what's the very next word he tells us? Beware
of false prophets. You know why he put that verse
there? Because they hang around the gate. False prophets hang
around the gate. And when people hang something
on the one door to make it pretty, but it distracts from the door?
Or they put something in the door that hinders people from
entering? Or they put another door in?
That's an abomination to God. We don't try to decorate the
door, do we? It's a door. Make it plain. Strip everything off of it. Don't
decorate it with fancy stuff, with human inventions. Jesus
and His blood, Jesus and His death, Jesus and His suffering,
Jesus and His grace is this door. And anything that distracts from
Him or anything that put there as a rival to Him is an abomination
to God. I am the door. Oh, how horrified I imagine this
prophet was. Look now in verses 7-12. Here's
something else. Here's another abomination. He said there in verse 6, I'll
show you some more abominations that's going on here in this
temple. Look what they did. And he brought me to the door
of the court, and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall. He said to me, Son of man, dig
now in the wall. And when I had digged in the
wall, behold a door. And he said unto me, Go in, and
behold the wicked abominations that they do here. And I went
in, and saw, and behold, every form of creeping things, and
abominable beasts," those beasts that roam in the field, and those
fowls that flew into heaven, and all the idols of the house
of Israel portrayed upon the wall round about. And there stood
before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel,
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. Then said he unto me, Son of
man, have you seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in
the dark, every man in the chamber of his imagery? For they say,
The Lord seeth us not, the Lord hath forsaken the earth." Now
what in the world is going on here? Look what they did. They got every idol that they
could think of, every image that the heathen worshipped They got all the cows, all the
snakes, all the rats, all the dogs, all the cats, all the cows,
every image that they could think about that the heathen worshipped. And they brought them here to
the temple and began to scribe them up on the wall. And they
put them right next to their idols, the idols that the children
of Israel worshipped. They integrated all of these
idols together, and what they did, they said, let's have an
interfaith alliance. Let's bring the gods of the heathen
together with our gods, with Jehovah God, and let's integrate
them all together, and let's get together and have one big
worship service. That's what they were doing.
interfaith alliance. We have these interfaith alliances
all over our country. We had one in Muncie. His name
escapes me, but I was reading an article he wrote in the Muncie
paper, and he was talking about there was no difference, basically,
in Christianity and Islam. He said the difference that was
in those two religions was the difference that Christianity
had made and Islam had made. And he made this quote, Allah,
the God of Islam, is the same as Jehovah God of Christianity. They call that the interfaith
alliance. How far are they going to take
this? How far will they take it? I told you about being over
prison a while back. And a whole group of people,
I mean, they filled the room. And I began to inquire as to
who they were. And they said, we're the Interfaith
Alliance. We've got together and we come
over here. And they said, you want to come in with us? He didn't
know me from squat. I said, does anybody welcome
any religion? He said, there's no exception.
We're totally ecumenical. We take in everybody. I was listening
to a man, one of the talk show fellas, famous fella the other
day, and he said him and his friend were wanting to go to
the Universal Unitarian Church. There's a large church there
where they were, and they wanted to go just see what they were
saying, what they were preaching. And so they sat down, he said,
and the pastor got up, and the first words out of his mouth,
he said, was this, Now most of you know that I'm an atheist. Isn't that amazing? You know
the church in Muncie? The president of the Interfaith
Alliance embraces the Universal Unitarians as his brothers? Interfaith alliance. That's what
was going on here. And it's the whole idea of get
all our gods together, let's remove every distinction, and
let's all sit down and fellowship together. That's what this was
going on right here. All of these gods, these idols,
these drawings, script on the wall. And notice here who was doing
it. He said here in verse 11 and verse 12, they were these
70 elders. They were called here the ancient
men, the men of renown, famous. They were famous men. You remember
the first time we read about these 70 elders? Remember when
Moses went up into the mount and God told him to bring the
elders with him? And he went up there and these
elders sat and they worshiped God. They saw the appearance
of God, and God accepted them into His presence. They sat there
and worshiped. They were good men. They were
men who loved the Lord. They were leaders. Boy, look
how they have degenerated here. They were the very men that were
involved in this interfaith alliance. The famous men. The men of renown. Thank you for this morning that
I printed off. I was looking at it again yesterday. Most of
you have read this, but it was an interview that Robert Shuler
was doing with Billy Graham in January of 1997. Most of you
have seen it. If you haven't seen it, you can
get on the Internet and you can look at it. Now, Billy Graham
is a man of renown, isn't he? I mean, all over the world. You
ask anybody, who has been the man in Christianity for the last
50 or 60 years? Billy Graham. Look at his crusades. Everybody knows him. Billy Graham. He's a famous ancient man. Listen
to this interview. You talk about a mass of confusion. Listen to this. Robert Schuller
asked him, Tell me, what do you think is the future of Christianity?
Graham. Well, Christianity is being a
true believer, you know. I think there's the body of Christ.
This comes from all the Christian groups around the world and outside
the Christian groups. I think everybody that loves
Christ and knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not,
they're members of the body of Christ. And I don't think that
we're going to see a great sweeping revival that will turn the whole
world to Christ at any time. I think James answers that, the
Apostle James in the first council at Jerusalem when he said that
God's purpose for His age is to call out a people for His
name. And that's what God is doing today. He's calling people
out of the world for His name. Well, it sounds so good, doesn't
it? But read on. Whether they come from the Muslim
world, the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, are the
unbelieving world. They are members of the body
of Christ because they have been called by God. They may not even
know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts that they
need something that they don't have, and they turn to the only
light they have, and I think they will be saved and will be
in heaven with us. Mr. Shuler, what What I hear
you saying is that it's possible for Jesus Christ to come into
the human heart and soul and life, even if they've been born
in darkness and have never been exposed to the Bible. Is this
the correct interpretation of what you're saying? Yes, it is,
because I believe that. I meet people in various parts
of the world and in tribal situations that they have never seen a Bible
or heard of a Bible, they've never heard of Jesus Christ,
but they believe in their hearts that there is a God, and they've
tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding
communities in which they live. Now, what's he saying? Well,
he'll admit it until you get him in a church setting like
this. Get him on Larry King Live or one of the other programs,
and he will admit there are saved people. There are people in the
body of Christ who belong to the Islam religion. There are cults. There are people
in tribal situations in Africa that have never heard the gospel.
They've never heard of Christ. They've got the light of nature.
And that's enough, because they believe in a higher power and
they do the best they can, they'll be in heaven with us. And he wants all of these religions
to be brought together. That's why he sends people to
the Catholic Church. Did you know that about his crusades?
He has you to put down what denomination you are. Are you Catholic or
are you a Protestant? If you say you're Catholic, they'll
give you the closest Catholic Church. and send you right back
into that mess. This is a man of renown. He's a famous man. And people
look up to him. He's a false prophet. He needs to be exposed, doesn't
he? You tell a man he's in the body of Christ when he's never
heard of Christ? God doesn't call men apart from
Christ and the gospel. Not savingly. But these are men
of renown, you see. And the world looks up to them.
I think it's very telling when the world thinks better of you
than the church does. When the world almost worships
you, but the church looks down and says, No, he's false. And notice why they were so bold
and ignorant. They said here in the last part
of verse 12, Look at it. Well, they say, the
Lord seeth us not. Oh, yes, He does. That's why
they're so bold. The Lord don't even see. Oh,
yes, He does. His eyes are over the righteous. His ears are open unto their
cry. And I tell you, He sees every
ungodly act and deed that goes on too, doesn't He? All things
are naked and open in the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. He does see. A man may tell himself
that God's not looking, that God doesn't know, but He knows. He knows. And you here this morning,
bless your hearts, you poor saints, He looks upon you. His eyes are
over every move you make. He sees you. He sees you. And they said, look here, they
said, He has forsaken the earth. No, He hasn't. He hasn't forsaken
the earth. Forsaken the earth. Did the sun
come up this morning? Yes, it did. Then He hasn't forsaken
the earth. You said the little birds flying
through the air? Yes, you do. Then He hasn't forsaken
the earth. Somewhere there's lilies blooming
in the fields. It may be somewhere in the southwest,
but there's lilies somewhere. God hasn't forsaken the earth.
As long as His church is here, as long as there's an elect soul
here, God hasn't forsaken this earth. I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. I'll
go with you always. For how long? To the very end
of the world. Oh, things may get bad, and things
may appear, humanly speaking, that He's not watching. He's
not seeing. That he's not here, but brothers
and sisters, he is. And he's working today. He's
working in his church, he's working in the government, he's working
in the heavens just as much as he ever has. We don't have to
look at him and be discouraged and think otherwise. Oh, what's taking place today
in these famous people, a lot of famous people, a lot of them
What's taking place in the Vatican this morning? What's taking place
in our seminars, in our mega-churches? Only God knows. But I tell you
what, He knows. He knows. Third thing, look in verse 14
and verse 15. Here's something else. Verse 13, And he said unto me,
Turn thee again, yet again, and thou shalt see great abominations
that they have done. And he brought me in to the door
of the gate of the Lord's house, that was towards the north. And,
behold, there were women weeping for Tammuz." Women weeping for
Tammuz. Then said he unto me, Hast thou
seen this, O son of man? Turn thee again, and thou shalt
see great abominations than these." This place here that they were,
the gate here of the Lord's house towards the north, John Gill
tells us that this was the portion, where these women were at this
time, that this was the portion of the temple where sacrifices
were killed. And he said that being the case,
the only people that were allowed in here were the Levites. These
men that brought in the sacrifices and killed them and got them
ready for the priest. Only the Levites. And lo and
behold, who was here? Who was here in this place that
was reserved for the men? The women. The women. They were there weeping. What's so bad about that? What
is wrong, and why does God call it abomination for a woman to
put themselves in a position that He has reserved for men
alone? Is there something wrong with that? Well, hold that right
there quickly and turn over to the New Testament, all the way
over to 1 Corinthians, chapter 14, and look in verse 33. The apostle is speaking here of this
very thing. about the public worship. The
14th chapter of 1 Corinthians is teaching us of public worship. Who should speak and who should
not speak. And he was dealing with prophesying,
with preaching. And he was dealing with the subject
of tongues, different languages. When they should speak, if one
A person is up speaking, something is revealed to somebody that's
sitting by, then let the first hold his peace and let the next
one get up and preach. They had a lot of preaching going
on in the early church. Different pastors, I imagine.
And while one was preaching, something would be revealed.
This guy would sit down and let the other stand up and preach.
It changed a little bit, hasn't it? But the Spirit of God was
really working in the early church. And then the other issue he was
talking about was, if you speak in an unknown tongue, if you
speak in another language, make sure there isn't an interpreter.
If there's no interpreter, then don't you dare get up and speak
in an unknown tongue. Now, what would happen if you
followed that rule alone? All of this tongue-talking business
would die out. Nobody would be allowed to get
up and jibber-jabber a bunch of stuff off and sit down, and
nobody even knows what he said, even him. If it was done right,
somebody would stand up and say, you've got to have an interpreter.
And somebody would get up and say, I have no idea what that
man said. It was just a bunch of jibber-jabber. All I know,
he cussed the Lord. But during this worship service and the
preaching that was going on, look here what he says. In 1
Corinthians 14, look in verse 33. God is not the author of
confusion and disorder, but of peace, as in all churches of
the saints. Let your women keep silence in
the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak But they are
commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. If they
will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home, for
it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church." We don't
have any problem with that here, do we? No problem at all. It
doesn't mean a woman doesn't sing. It means she's got her place
in the worship service. And that is not to stand up and
usher authority over the man. I suffer not a woman to preach,
Paul said, nor usher authority over the man. They are commanded
to be in silence. And it's a shame. It's pride.
It's arrogant. for a woman to get up. If you
go into a worship place, a place of worship, and you see a woman
up there, and she's getting ready to take her text and start preaching,
just get out of there. Get out of there. That's not
of the Lord. That's not abomination to the
Lord. They are commanded to be in silence. That doesn't mean a woman's inferior
to the man. She's got her place, and thank
God she's got a good place. And what would we do without
our sisters? But we don't want them preaching to us, do we? We need them to preach to us
at home, but not here. Not here. We don't want to bring
the judgment of God down upon us. And I tell you, if this was adhered
to, if those people in the Pentecostal movement looked at this and took
it at its face value, that whole tongue-talking business, that
whole wildfire business would fall because most of it is maintained
by women. It is. I've got to hurry. I've
got one more point, one or two more points. Look back quickly
in Ezekiel chapter 8. Look at this. Ezekiel chapter
8 and look in verse 16. Now, this is something else.
There's something else he's going to teach us here. This is why
the judgment came upon Jerusalem. Because of this idolatry, corrupting
God's worship. Verse 16, And he brought me into
the inner court of the Lord's house, the Lord's house, the
temple. 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 back towards the temple of the Lord, and their faces
towards the east, and they worshipped the sun towards the east." Now,
ain't this amazing? They had their backs towards
the temple. Of all places, they were looking
away from the temple. Now, I've done told you what
these things are. They're looking to Christ. This
temple is the Lord Jesus Christ. We see many aspects of Jesus
Christ when we look at this temple, when it was first set up in the
wilderness. Remember that? When they had all this furniture
of pure gold? And boy, it was beautiful. The
Levites kept it shiny. You walked in that holy place,
in the most holy place, and the light of that Candles shining
upon those golden chairs and tables and the mercy seat. Can
you imagine how beautiful it was inside that holy place and
the holy store? How it glittered? Do you know
what that teaches us? That teaches us the deity of
Jesus Christ. Who was it? It was hid. It was
veiled. Brother Larry told us this morning.
Boy, I tell you, within him, he had a nature. He was God. Beautiful, bright, glorious. But what was on the outside of
that old tabernacle? It was goat skin, badger skin,
an old rough-looking building sitting out there in the desert.
That's the humanity of Jesus Christ. He was indeed truly a
servant, Brother Larry. There was no halos over his head.
He didn't glow as he went from town to town. He just looked
like a man that had aged prematurely, beating the sun, catching the
sun that had come down upon his head, just like that old tabernacle
sitting out in the wilderness. That tabernacle in the wilderness
was Jesus Christ and His dwelling among us upon this earth. But
you know, the temple The temple represents something about Jesus
Christ too. It was glorious within. Solomon
filled it full of all of this glorious furniture. Even much
more beautiful than that old tabernacle was. But without was
these strong stones. When visitors come there to look
at this temple, they were amazed. How did you build this thing?
It was built, it was immovable. What does that represent to us?
That temple represents to us Christ glorified. He is not in this old flesh anymore
that is subject to these infirmities. Now He is in heaven in a glorified
body, all glorious within and all glorious without. But the
temple itself, the tabernacle and the temple, represents this
to us, brothers and sisters, Christ and Him crucified. Christ
and redemption by Him. That's what this temple represents
to them. That's why they brought the sacrifices there and caught
the blood and tucked the blood within and sprinkled it on the
mercy seat and God met with them there on the holy place and He
forgave their sins. That's Christ and Him crucified.
Well, why in the world would these men turn their backs upon
that? Did they not know what the temple
represented? I don't know if they did or not. But God looked at them and He
said, they're abomination. They're abomination. Brothers
and sisters, we know this. I'm preaching to the choir this
morning. But if we turn our backs on Christ and Him crucified,
we're nothing but idolaters. We're nothing but creature worshipers.
Christ and Him crucified is our theme. It's our glory. It's God
with us. That's how we know this morning
that God is with us. His gospel is preached. His gospel
is believed. His gospel is loved. We don't
turn our backs upon it, do we? And those churches that have,
they don't want the old blood anymore. They don't want the
grace. They don't want the love of Christ
being crucified. No, let that go. We want to get
beyond that. You turn your backs upon Him,
Christ and Him crucified. You're just vain idolaters, worshiping
the creatures. Someone would listen to this
message, I'm sure, and say, Bruce, you're just too strict. You're
too serious. You're too dogmatic. You ought
to lighten up. You're just too judgmental. You're
never going to have a congregation any bigger than you've got now.
People ain't going to sit under that kind of stuff. They want
you to open up the gate and make it wider. Be more inclusive.
Quit being so serious. That's what these people said.
That's exactly what they said. What's the big deal? What's the
big deal? You guys got awful strict and
look what it got you. Where are you at? Over in captivity. But we're going to try a different
approach. We're going to open it up. We're going to have this
interfaith alliance. We're going to worship all God.
We're going to bring us all together and fellowship. We're going to
grow and get along and have peace. That's what they said. Look in
verse 17. Then said He unto me, Hast thou
seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing? to the house
of Judah, that they have committed the abomination which they have
committed here? Yes, it was a light thing. If
it hadn't have been, they wouldn't have done it, wouldn't they?
It's a light thing, a small trifling thing. It's just not important.
It's just a passing by. Don't worry about it. And that's why he tells us here
in verse 18, "...therefore will I also deal in fury. Mine eyes
shall not spare, neither will I pity." God takes His worship
serious, doesn't He? He takes it serious. Let me close
with this. He says something here I think
we think a little about sometimes. But where God is not worshiped,
where He's mocked, where His worship is corrupted, you know
what it eventually leads to? Oh, they may say peace and safety,
but I tell you what it will lead to. It will lead to chaos. It
will lead to violence in our society. Now, look what he says.
In verse 17. Hast thou seen, O son
of man, what they are saying, what they are thinking? It is
a light thing, O house of Israel. They committed these abominations
which they commit here, for they have filled the land with violence. and have returned to provoke
me to anger." Oh, they may say, let's get along.
Let's forget about reading the Bible and find out what we're
supposed to believe and how we're supposed to worship in order.
Let's just forget about all that. But I'll tell you what it will
lead to. It won't lead to peace. It will lead to violence. Look what happened to Jim Jones
and his group. They tried this junk. Almost
every one of them killed themselves. Look at all these religions.
Look at the Mormons. The Mormons have got a violent
history behind them. They've tried to put it behind
them, but they have slaughtered people by the droves. Look at Islam, cutting people's
heads off. Look at the Inquisition, the
Catholic Church, killing the Christians. When we begin to
err from the true worship of God, as a community or as a nation,
and think we can join everybody together and have peace among
ourselves. I tell you, it will soon lead
to violence and chaos, and it will bring a country down, and
you won't have a safe place to live that you can live an honest
and peaceable life. But that's why the judgment came.
And I imagine that's what's coming on our generation, don't you?
so careless in the worship of God. I tell you, let us be careless
in other things. But, boy, when we worship God,
oh, let us come and worship as He dictates to us and not otherwise. Let us pray.