If you will, let us open our
Bibles today to the book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel chapter 22. There are four prophets or prophecies
in the Old Testament called the four major prophets, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. And I believe the prophecy of
Ezekiel may be one of the most neglected of the four. And the
reason they are called major prophecies is not because they
are more inspired, more important than the minor prophets. but
only because they're larger, the volume is larger. The minor prophets, there are
12 of them, are much shorter writings. So today, if you will,
Ezekiel 22, beginning with verse 23. And the word of the Lord came
unto me, saying, Son of man, say unto her, Thou art the land
that is not cleansed nor rained upon in the day of indignation. There is a conspiracy of her
prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening
the prey. They have devoured souls. They
have taken the treasure and precious things. They have made her many
widows in the midst thereof. Her priests have violated my
law. and have profaned mine holy things. They have put no difference between
the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between
the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths,
and I am profaned among them. Her princes in the midst thereof
are like wolves, ravening the prey, to shed blood and to destroy
souls, to get dishonest gain. And her prophets have daubed
with untempered murder, saying vanity and divining lies unto
them, saying, thus saith the Lord God, when the Lord hath
not spoken. The people of the land have used
oppression and exercised robbery, and it vex the poor and needy. Yea, they have oppressed the
stranger wrongfully. And I sought for a man among
them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before
me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none. Therefore, have I poured out
my indignation upon them. I have consumed them with the
fire of my wrath. Their own way have I recompensed
upon their heads, saith the Lord God. My intention this morning,
as always, is to preach Christ, to preach the gospel of the grace
of God. You remember the Lord Jesus Christ
when he was here in the flesh. He spoke to some Jewish leaders
one day and he told them, search the scriptures. Now the Scriptures,
which they had, were the Old Testament. Search the Scriptures,
for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they
which testify of me. The point I want to make is the
Lord Jesus Christ is found throughout all the Word of God. It's all
about Him. You know, the apostle in Hebrews
chapter 10, speaking of the law, he said, the law hath pictures
of good things or shadows of good things to come. And all
of the Old Testament, the law and all the scriptures in the
Old Testament, in some way or other, pictured or shadowed forth
the Lord Jesus Christ who was to come, the gospel. There's
only been one gospel. There never has been but one
gospel. From the first man that God saved,
if it was able, until today, everyone has been saved in the
same way, by grace through faith. through faith in Christ, the
Lord Jesus Christ. There's only one savior. There's
only one atonement that puts away sin. And we know that he
is the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord. This is part
of the all scriptures. Our Lord said, search the scriptures.
And Ezekiel, this chapter that we've read, this is part of the
scriptures. All scripture, the Apostle Paul
tells us, was given by inspiration of God. We have a inspired book here
before us. There's no other book in all
the, how many books have been written, have been published,
have been printed? Billions of books, right? Over the years, throughout the
world, throughout the history, but there's only one book That
is the inspired word of God. Holy men, Peter tells us, holy
men of God. That means men who were set apart
for the task of writing the scriptures, the word of God. You know, the
ministry of the Holy Spirit. God is a trinity of person. There's one God. And yet he exists
as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And each person
is equal, each person in the Godhead, as the word is used
in the New Testament, the Godhead, the deity, the divine essence. But each person is equal in every
way. The Father is not older than
the Son, and the Son is not older than the Holy Spirit. But each
person in the Godhead, the Son, by Him all things that are made
were made. And the ministry of the Holy
Spirit from the very first page, when we have the account of creation,
we see God the Holy Spirit moved upon the face of the water. But
the main ministry of God the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament,
the Old Dispensation, was in inspiring or giving prophecy. If you look at our text here
this morning, we began in verse 23, and the word of the Lord
came unto me. Now, that means that God the
Holy Spirit came upon him and gives him these words that he
is to speak. Son of man, notice what the spirit
of God said unto him. The word of the Lord came unto
me saying, son of man, say, say, speak, speak. And that's what we have here.
Ezekiel was speaking the word which God the Holy Spirit gave
him. When we come to worship the Lord,
when we come here on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, or Wednesday
evening, we come here to hear the word of God. We're not coming
here to rehash the week's news and all of the problems that
are going on in the world today, you get plenty of that, don't
you? That's not our purpose for being here today. Our purpose
is to worship God. Our purpose is to hear from God. Our purpose is to study the word
of God. Son of man, And that's a term
that is used quite often in the book of Ezekiel, which simply
declares him to be a man. He was a man. Our Lord used that
same term concerning himself. In fact, he used that about himself
more often than any other term. The son of man, he spoke of himself. But here, the Son of Man, Ezekiel,
is commanded to speak, to say these words. Now, who was Ezekiel? I feel like I need to mention
that. Who was Ezekiel? Well, he was
one of those who's mentioned in Hebrews chapter one and verse
one. You say, what does that say?
Hebrews one and verse one. Well, let me read it to you.
The Apostle Paul, if he's the one who wrote Hebrew, said, God,
who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past unto
the fathers by the prophets. Well, Ezekiel was one of those
men, one of those prophets by which God spoke to men. He was one of the many prophets
that God raised up. He was one that when Nebuchadnezzar,
I think this was in 597 BC more or less, these dates are debated,
but when Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judah, and carried some of the
Israelites into captivity. He was one of them. He was a
young man at that time. He was a priest. He was of the
priestly family. Now, Daniel, Shadrach, Mesach,
and Abednego, they were in that group also who were carried away
into Babylon, but Ezekiel was not taken to Babylon, the city
itself. Because we read that he prophesied
and lived in a place, I believe, by the name of Chebor, which
was on a river between the Tigris River and the Euphrates River. And he prophesied for a long
time. Jerusalem was not yet destroyed
when he was taken into captivity, 597 BC. But of course, their
king, rebelled, the puppet king that Nebuchadnezzar set up in
Judah, he rebelled so Nebuchadnezzar brings his army back and he destroys
Jerusalem that time, 587 BC. And Ezekiel is used to prophesy
during that 10-year period and he prophesies of the destruction
of Jerusalem. And We've all heard of word pictures. God would have him do things
and then explain what they meant. One time, he would lay on his
side for so long, and he would weigh his food out before the
Israelites, and they would see what he was doing, and they would
ask, what are you doing? And then he would explain to
them what what was pictured, what he was picturing by his
actions. And those actions were given
to him by the Lord. How that the destruction of Jerusalem
would be so awful. And we know it was. Nebuchadnezzar
burned the city, destroyed the city, destroyed the beautiful
temple. Oh, that beautiful temple that
was loaded with gold when Solomon built it. I mean, inside and
outside, gold and brass and silver and all those things that men
seek after and look for, those things were all carried away. You know, it just reminds us
that that a man's life consisted not in the things, the abundance
of the things that he has. It's so easy for all of us to
be caught up into the world that we live in, to be a part of the
world that we live in. Listen, as a child of God, we're
just passing through. We're pilgrims. We're just passing
through. And the very thought of believers
trying to accumulate and accumulate and gain and get so much, and
many times people do it at the expense of their soul, at the
expense of their relationship with God. Let us always remember,
seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, And
all these things shall be added unto thee. That is food and clothes
and shelter, these things that men seek after. You cannot put
a price on your soul. You just can't do that. What should it profit a man or
a woman if you could gain the whole world and lose your own
soul? Oh, I try my best to make you
face this fact, my friends, to bring you, to confront you with
this truth. You have an eternal soul that's
going to exist somewhere, not for a few days, but forever and
ever. And there's only two places that
men go to when they leave this world. They either go to be with
the Lord in glory or they go to be with Satan in hell and
destruction and damnation and suffering. That's just the long
and short of it, my friends. That's the word of God. What
I want to do today is to show us in this passage of scripture
how it may speak to us of Christ. Notice the third thing. First
of all, we see the Spirit of God came and gave Ezekiel the
words, and then he was commanded to say, thou art the land. And the land, of course, that
he's referring to is the land of Judah. And there's a word
of God in this passage to the priest. to the princes, to the
prophets, and to the people. First of all, to the priest in
verse 26. Her priests have violated my
law and have profaned mine holy things. They've put no difference
between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference
between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from
my Sabbaths, and I am profaned. Among them one of the functions
of the priest Of course they were to offer sacrifice and offerings
That was a very important part of their work, but they were
also to teach the Israelites That was their job to teach the
Word of God Look back keep your places here, but turn back to
Leviticus if you want to with me Leviticus chapter 10 where
God commanded the priest to do this. In Leviticus chapter 10, and
beginning with verse 8, And the sons of Aaron, those
are the priests, remember, and the sons of Aaron, the priests,
shall blow with the trumpets and they shall be to you for
an ordinance forever throughout your generations. And if you
go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you,
when you shall blow an alarm with the trumpets and you shall
be remembered before the Lord your God, and he and ye shall
be saved from your enemies. They were to teach the word of
God and they were to blow the trumpets and the trumpets, depending
on which blow was blown, they would be alerted either to go
to war, to move, whatever. But their work was to teach the
people. And they were to teach them the
difference between the unclean and the clean. You know, we live
in a day when most people do not realize that there are things
which are sinful. There are things which are evil. There's iniquity. There's both
good and evil. And who decides And most people
think, well, I'll just be my own decider. I'll decide if something's
good or evil. No, the moral governor of this
world is God. And he is the one who has decided
what is right and what is wrong, what is evil and what is good,
what is clean and what is unclean. And the priests of Israel, they
were to teach the people the difference. So many times, it
seems like in our society, people do not understand that, yes,
there are things which are wrong, they're evil, they're sinful. We see so much of it and we hear
so much of it, don't we? We see so much of it, and it
seems like the world is just trying to make everything acceptable
today. Things that in my lifetime were
not acceptable when I was a young person, but now, I heard Brother
Reese mention something the other day to me. You know, he does
work as a, I guess, a genealogist. I guess that's the right term.
But he mentioned the fact that he had done research for a person
and found out that he was born out of wedlock. And I thought,
I haven't heard that term in years. Haven't heard that term
in years. Out of wedlock? It's just accepted
today, right? That people live, cohabit, live
together, have children, and not be married. A single parent. Well, is that right? Does that
make any difference? Well, you know it does. You know
that in God's word, His truth declares that there's the sin
of adultery, the sin of fornication, uncleanness. We see this. This isn't in my notes. Maybe
I ought to not go here. But this matter of homosexuality. We see it everywhere today, don't
we? I mean, it's being forced upon us to be accepted. No, that's
not acceptable conduct. No. People say, well, we have
a preacher who's a gay. Yeah, you have a preacher that's
going to hell too. Not because he or she is gay,
but because they have not repented and turned from their sins. Homosexuality
is just like any other sin, as far as a person repenting of
it and turning to Christ. But the priest here, I've got
way off here. But the priest, their responsibility
was to teach the people the difference between the clean and the unclean,
between the good and the evil. Notice the second thing, the
princes, verse 27. Her princes in the midst thereof. These are the leaders. We might
refer to them as the rulers back here in Exodus 22. Her princes
in the midst thereof. They're like wolves. You ever
watched a documentary or a movie where you have wolves involved
when they're hungry? Well, This is the way God, through
the prophet, describes the leaders of the nation. Greed! Oh, don't
we see that in our country? Greed. Greed. People always wanting more, never
being satisfied. They make a million dollars,
they want two million dollars. Make two million, they want four
million. Greed. And that's what God accused and
charged the princes of Israel with, this greed like ravening
wolves on their prey to shed blood. And then he speaks to
the prophets, verse 28, and our prophets have daubed with untempered
martyr. What does that mean? Well, it
means building, dubbed, when you see a bricklayer, and he's
laying brick, you know, he puts that mortar between the bricks,
he puts his brick down. Well, in preaching the gospel,
that's what we're doing, we're building. There's one foundation. Paul put it like this. Other
foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is
Jesus Christ. He's the foundation stone and
every believer, every child of God must be built upon that stone
because that stone has life. And if a person's not built on
that stone, that person doesn't have life. We are living stones
because we are joined to the foundation stone, Jesus Christ
and him who is life. But they were building with untempered
mortar. In other words, it was a bad
mixture. If you see a bricklayer and he
has too much water with his cement that he can build, he can put
those bricks on up there, but they're not going to stand. And
Paul warned, the preachers at Corinth about building with wood,
hay, and stubble. Now, I think that's something
we see all around us today. These so-called mega-churches,
feel-good churches, teaching you how you can be rich, how
you will never be sick, or anything like that. They're building with
untempered martyr. But Paul said, God's men are
to build with gold, silver, and precious stones. You say, what
is that? That's the Word of God. The Word
of God's been tried in the furnace seven times. It's pure, the pure
Word of God. That's what we are to build with.
And then the common people here, in verse 29, he says they're
just given to robbery. The people of the land, they
use oppression, exercise robbery. But now here we come to the word
of the Lord when he said, verse 30, and I sought for a man among
them that should make up the hedge
and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not
destroy it. But I found none." Now, the one
he's looking for, God pictures himself as looking for one to
stand in the gap, to make up the hedge. It wasn't for their
soul's salvation, but it was for the salvation, the deliverance
of the nation of Israel. But he found none. There was
no one that would stand in the gap. Therefore, notice in verse 31,
therefore have I poured out my indignation upon them. I have
consumed them with the fire of my wrath. Their own way have
I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord God. There was no man, no man. I remember in the book of Genesis,
you remember when God would go to destroy, rain down fire upon
Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham, he stood in the
gap, didn't he? He interceded. And you know,
he said, I'm but dust and ashes. That's all I am. He's speaking
to God. And I take it upon myself to
speak. What if there's 40 righteous
men in Sodom? Will you destroy it? God said
no. What about 30? You see what he's
doing? He's standing in the gap. He's
interceding for Sodom. Abraham was. Why? Because his
nephew Lot was there. And he finally brings it down
to five. Well, there's Lot. There's Lot's
wife. There's their two daughters.
and their two husbands. Surely, surely there's five righteous
people in Sodom." God said, if there is, I won't destroy it. But you know, there wasn't. That
wasn't a village. Sodom wasn't a village. I started
to say a pueblo. It wasn't a pueblo. It wasn't
some small village, folks. It's a city. And God rained fire
down upon that city. Why? Because of iniquity. And God did the same thing here
to the nation of Israel. But he seems to stand and wonder
that there was none who, not even one man to stand in the
gap. Now, I want to turn this to Christ. Turn back a few pages to Isaiah
chapter 59. Of these four major prophets,
Isaiah is the most evangelical of all of them. And some preachers
I've heard turned to the gospel of Isaiah. when they were going
to preach from the book of Isaiah because it is so full of Christ.
But notice here in verses 1 and 2. Behold, the Lord's hand is
not shortened that it cannot save, neither is his ear heavy
that it cannot hear, but your iniquities, your iniquities. What have your iniquities done? Your iniquities. What have my
iniquities done? What have they done? We can't
deny we have them. If we do, we're calling God a
liar. What has your iniquity done to
you? It separated you from God. Read
on, but your iniquities, verse two, have separated between you
and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He
will not hear. That's what your iniquities have
done. That's what your sins have accomplished. They have separated you from
God. Now, Where can we find a man
that will stand in the gap? Here we have holy God, absolute
holy God almighty, so pure that even he charges his angels with
folly. And here we are. There's a great
chasm. There's a great gulf between
the holy Lord God And you and I, as sinful beings, where will
we find a man to stand in the gap? Shall we look to our father,
our common father? We all have one common father
here today. If you could trace your DNA far
enough back, we'd all come to the same place, Adam. Can Adam stand in the gap? Well, not hardly. He's the one
who brought this upon all of us, isn't he? For by one man,
sin entered into the world, and death by sin. Maybe there's been some great
man, and there have been great men and women in the history
of this world, They've done many great things, many discoveries,
scientific discoveries, and many things. But is there one man
that we could name that could stand in the gap between God
and us? And of course, the answer is
no. We know better. There's none
that doeth good. The scripture says, no, not one. Well, what about you? What about
you? You're pretty good, aren't you?
You think you are? I think you are. You're pretty
good. Maybe you could stand in the
gap. Think so? No, not hardly. And here's where the gospel comes
in. Look down here in Isaiah 59 to verse 16. And he saw that there was no
man, no good or righteous man. You know, before we read on,
I would like to mention that in Psalm 14, God, he condescends
to use an analogy that would be true of you and I, if we wanted
to search something out, we wanted to find out something. And so
we search into it. We get on the internet today,
some of you at least, and you just do the research, you search
it out. Well, in Psalm 14, God, as it
were, searched out to see if there was any, if there was one
man, if there was any that was righteous, that could stand in
the gap, that could make up the hedge. And what did he find? Well, let me just read that. I'll turn over here to Psalm
14. This psalm, 14, there's a second
psalm that is, I think, identical to this psalm. But here, the
fool has said in his heart, no, God. The translators, they added
those two words, there is, there is. The fool has said in his
heart, there is. But you see, those words were
added, the fool. hath said, no, no, God. What does that mean? That man
in his rebellion, in his sinfulness, that's what he says to God. No,
no, I will not have this man to reign over me. No, I'll be
my own boss. I'm in charge. I'm the master
of my soul. The fool has said, no, God. They're corrupt. They have done
abominable works. There's none that doeth good.
The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of man to see
if there were any that did understand and seek God. What did he find? They're all gone aside. They're
all together become filthy. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. He saw back in Isaiah 59, 16,
God saw that there was no man, no good or righteous man. He wondered and wondered that
there was no intercessor. Using the word wandered again
is a reference to God using something that would be true of a man to
picture how marvelous this is. It's almost an incredible thing
that there was no intercessor, surely. Surely in all the billions
of men and women who lived on the face of God's earth, there's
one, no, no, God says. He wondered that there's no intercessor. What an incredible thing. Now
notice this, therefore, because there was no intercessor, because
there was no man, because there was no one who could stand in
the gap, Therefore, God says, his arm brought salvation unto
him. I like these texts that speak
about the arm of God, don't you? What is he saying? God doesn't
have arms. He doesn't have eyes. When we
read about the eyes of the Lord running to and fro, it's just
telling us that God's everywhere, that God knows all things. And
when we read about God's arm, we're talking about God's power. That's power. These men, they
lift these weights and have muscles in their arms. Yeah, the power. You have power in your fingers,
don't you? You have power in your fingers.
You don't have near as much power in your finger as you have in
your arm. And you know, I say that because
The scripture says the heavens, all the heavens, the moon, and
the stars were made with the fingers, the fingers of God. Ah, but when it came to salvation,
His arm, the power of God. See what I'm saying? The power
of God, the arm of the Lord. You know, when the angel spoke
to Mary about the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, what did he
say? The power of the highest shall
come upon thee. Yes, the power to Great is the
mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. For the person of Christ to exist,
the power of God is manifested. And then as he lived in this
world, he went about doing good. The
scripture says he never met a disease. Blind men, deaf men, peoples
whose tongue was tied, peoples whose legs were crippled. No
matter what the infirmity was, no matter the devil, the demon
that he confronted, they all had to relent at his word. Why? Because of his power, the
power of God. And then on the cross when he
took the sins of his people, Did you know the sins of, the
sin really, one sin, the sin of one person would be enough
to damn a holy angel to hell. And the Lord Jesus Christ took
all the sins, all the sins of his chosen people, your sins
if you're one of his, my sins, he took them. as if we sang in
that hymn. He took my sins and my sorrows
and made them His very own. Yes. But the power, the power
to sustain the Lord Jesus Christ there on the cross, He never,
He never stopped believing. Even when The anger, the wrath
of God was poured out upon him because he was bearing the sins
of his people, yet he still trusted in God. My God, my God, he cries. And then they lay his body in
the tomb. He's there for three days, saw
no corruption. Peter said it wasn't possible
that death could hold him. He comes out of that grave on
that third day, and then 40 days later, he ascends unto the Father. Where is he today? He's not in
that tomb. He's not in that manger. Oh,
no. He's at the Father's right hand. All power, all authority is given
unto him. That's the reason he's able to
save, because of who he is and what he's done. His righteousness, it sustained
him, this text tells us. His righteousness, that is the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, the Lord Jesus
Christ and his gospel was preached, was pictured, and shadows and
types in the Old Testament, but it's the same gospel. There's
only one man who's able to stand in the gap, who's able to make
up the hedge, the daisman. That's what Job called him, the
daisman. Oh, that there was a daisman,
a mediator who could put his hand on God and put his hand
on me. That's Christ, isn't it? That's
Him. Yes. So that Peter was able to
say, neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none
other name, none other person given among men, whereby we must
be saved. I want you to turn to one verse,
and we'll close. Jude. A little letter of Jude
right before the last book in the Bible. Look what it says here about
the one who makes up the hedge, who stands in the gap. unto him,
verse 24, Jude verse 24, unto him that is able to keep you
from falling. Sometimes when people come under
the sound of the gospel, they're afraid to commit to Christ. They
say, oh, I just, what if I can't hold out? You can't. It's not
your hold upon Christ. It's his hold upon you. Now unto
him, you're not able to keep yourself from falling, no way. But there's one who is, unto
him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless. I like that word, don't you?
Oh, one day to come into the very presence of the thrice holy
God. The God to whom the Seraphims
cried, holy, holy, holy. And to be there, faultless. How is that possible? Only through
Christ. In him, faultless before the
presence of his glory with exceeding joy. To the only wise God, Our
Savior. You see, He is God. Our Savior
is God. Be glory and majesty, dominion
and power both now and forever. Amen. There's one and only one who
makes up the gap between you and your God. And in Him, in
Him, you too are accepted. We're going to sing a hymn, hymn
number 200.