The Sunday School Lesson Temple Sins and Departing Glory by Ronda McGee
Mar 25, 2018
Temple Sins and Departing Glory (45:35)
Referenced Scriptures: Ezekiel 8; Ezekiel 9; Ezekiel 10:1-22
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How would you respond if someone asked you, Does God really judge in? Doesn't His love overrule His judgment?
Sin isn't a popular topic. It's more pleasant to talk about God's love. Sadly, however, many people equate that love with indifference toward sin. They believe that love means God will tolerate rebellion indefinitely. This is a tragic mistake.
Ezekiel prophesied when Judah was entering into exile after God had withheld judgment for many years despite their sin. Now a time of reckoning had come. His presence and glory would depart from them. It is a sad story, yet a good reminder that sin has consequences.
The scriptures below are from the WEB Bible.
Ezekiel 8
1) It happened in the sixth year, in the sixth [month], in the fifth [day] of the month, as I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord Yahweh fell there on me.
2) Then I saw, and, behold, a likeness as the appearance of fire; from the appearance of his loins and downward, fire; and from his loins and upward, as the appearance of brightness, as it were glowing metal.
3) He put forth the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and the sky, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner [court] that looks toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.
4) Behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the appearance that I saw in the plain.
5) Then said he to me, Son of man, lift up your eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up my eyes the way toward the north, and see, northward of the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.
6) He said to me, Son of man, see you what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel do commit here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but you shall again see yet other great abominations.
7) He brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall.
8) Then said he to me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had dug in the wall, behold, a door.
9) He said to me, Go in, and see the wicked abominations that they do here.
10) So I went in and saw; and see, every form of creeping things, and abominable animals, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed on the wall round about.
11) There stood before them seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel; and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, every man with his censer in his hand; and the odor of the cloud of incense went up.
12) Then said he to me, Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in his chambers of imagery? for they say, Yahweh doesn‘t see us; Yahweh has forsaken the land.
13) He said also to me, You shall again see yet other great abominations which they do.
14) Then he brought me to the door of the gate of Yahweh‘s house which was toward the north; and see, there sat the women weeping for Tammuz.
15) Then said he to me, Have you seen [this], son of man? you shall again see yet greater abominations than these.
16) He brought me into the inner court of Yahweh‘s house; and see, at the door of the temple of Yahweh, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men, with their backs toward the temple of Yahweh, and their faces toward the east; and they were worshipping the sun toward the east.
17) Then he said to me, Have you seen [this], son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have turned again to provoke me to anger: and, behold, they put the branch to their nose.
18) Therefore will I also deal in wrath; my eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.
Ezekiel 9
1) Then he cried in my ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause you them that have charge over the city to draw near, every man with his destroying weapon in his hand.
2) Behold, six men came from the way of the upper gate, which lies toward the north, every man with his slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man in the midst of them clothed in linen, with a writer‘s inkhorn by his side. They went in, and stood beside the brazen altar.
3) The glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon it was, to the threshold of the house: and he called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writer‘s inkhorn by his side.
4) Yahweh said to him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry over all the abominations that are done in the midst of it.
5) To the others he said in my hearing, Go you through the city after him, and strike: don‘t let your eye spare, neither have you pity;
6) kill utterly the old man, the young man and the virgin, and little children and women; but don‘t come near any man on whom is the mark: and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the old men that were before the house.
7) He said to them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go you forth. They went forth, and struck in the city.
8) It happened, while they were smiting, and I was left, that I fell on my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord Yahweh! will you destroy all the residue of Israel in your pouring out of your wrath on Jerusalem?
9) Then said he to me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of wrestling [of judgment]: for they say, Yahweh has forsaken the land, and Yahweh doesn‘t see.
10) As for me also, my eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will bring their way on their head.
11) Behold, the man clothed in linen, who had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as you have commanded me.
Ezekiel 10:1-22
1) Then I looked, and see, in the expanse that was over the head of the cherubim there appeared above them as it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne.
2) He spoke to the man clothed in linen, and said, Go in between the whirling [wheels], even under the cherub, and fill both your hands with coals of fire from between the cherubim, and scatter them over the city. He went in as I watched.
3) Now the cherubim stood on the right side of the house, when the man went in; and the cloud filled the inner court.
4) The glory of Yahweh mounted up from the cherub, [and stood] over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of Yahweh‘s glory.
5) The sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of God Almighty when he speaks.
6) It came to pass, when he commanded the man clothed in linen, saying, Take fire from between the whirling wheels, from between the cherubim, that he went in, and stood beside a wheel.
7) The cherub stretched forth his hand from between the cherubim to the fire that was between the cherubim, and took [of it], and put it into the hands of him who was clothed in linen, who took it and went out.
8) There appeared in the cherubim the form of a man‘s hand under their wings.
9) I looked, and behold, four wheels beside the cherubim, one wheel beside one cherub, and another wheel beside another cherub; and the appearance of the wheels was like a beryl stone.
10) As for their appearance, they four had one likeness, as if a wheel have been within a wheel.
11) When they went, they went in their four directions: they didn‘t turn as they went, but to the place where the head looked they followed it; they didn‘t turn as they went.
12) Their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes round about, [even] the wheels that they four had.
13) As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing, the whirling [wheels].
14) Every one had four faces: the first face was the face of the cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the third face the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.
15) The cherubim mounted up: this is the living creature that I saw by the river Chebar.
16) 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 also didn‘t turn from beside them.
17) When they stood, these stood; and when they mounted up, these mounted up with them: for the spirit of the living creature was in them.
18) The glory of Yahweh went forth from over the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim.
19) The cherubim lifted up their wings, and mounted up from the earth in my sight when they went forth, and the wheels beside them: and they stood at the door of the east gate of Yahweh‘s house; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above.
20) This is the living creature that I saw under the God of Israel by the river Chebar; and I knew that they were cherubim.
21) Every one had four faces, and every one four wings; and the likeness of the hands of a man was under their wings.
22) As for the likeness of their faces, they were the faces which I saw by the river Chebar, their appearances and themselves; they went every one straight forward.
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