God's Glory Departs

Ezekiel’s Vision of the Cherubim and the Glory of the Lord

We'll turn in your Bibles to Ezekiel chapter 10. We will this morning look to the entire chapter, all 22 verses. So let's read this chapter to prepare ourselves for the preaching of this word. Ezekiel chapter 10.

Then I looked, and behold, on the expanse that was over the heads of the cherubim, there appeared above them something like a sapphire, in appearance like a throne. And he said to the man clothed in linen, go in among the whirling wheels underneath the cherubim.

Fill your hands with burning coals from between the cherubim and scatter them over the city. And he went in before my eyes. Now the cherubim were standing on the south side of the house when the man, excuse me.

Now the cherubim were standing on the south side of the house when the man went in, and a cloud filled the inner court. And the glory of the Lord went up from the church, excuse me, went up from the cherub to the threshold of the house.

And the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the Lord. And the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard as far as the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty when he speaks.

And when he commanded the man clothed in linen, take fire from between the whirling wheels from between the cherubim, he went in and stood beside a wheel. And a cherub stretched out his hand from between the cherubim to the fire that was between the cherubim, and took some of it and put it in the hands of the man clothed in linen who took it and went out.

The cherubim appeared to have the form of a human hand under their wings. And I looked and behold, there were four wheels beside the cherubim, one beside each cherub. And they appeared to the wheels was like sparkling barrel.

And as for their appearance, the four had the same likeness as if a wheel were within a wheel. When they went out, they went in any of the four directions without turning as they went, but in whatever direction the front wheel faced, the others followed without turning as they went.

And their whole body, their rims and their spokes, their wings and the wheels were full of eyes all around. The wheels that the four of them had. As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing, the whirling wheels.

And everyone had four faces. The first face was the face of the cherub. And the second face was a human face. And the third face of a lion. And the third, the face of a lion. And the fourth, the face of an eagle.

And the cherubim mounted up. These were the living creatures that I saw by the Kabar Canal. And when the cherubim went in, 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. These were the living creatures that I saw underneath the God of Israel by the Kabar Canal. And I knew that they were cherubim. Each had four faces and each had four wings.

And underneath their wings was the likeness of human hands. And as for the likeness of their faces, they were the same faces whose appearance I'd seen by the Kabar Canal. Each one of them went straight forward.

Appreciating God’s Presence Before It Is Taken Away

You know, there's the old Amy Grant song had a refrain. Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You know, the idea is that we get so used to things. We get so accustomed to our routines that we don't even notice them anymore.

And then suddenly they're gone. And we look back and say, well, what was that thing that I was so used to? It was such a comfort to me. And now it's gone. And I realized that it'd been there and it'd been there so often I'd become so accustomed.

I don't even think about it anymore. Or I hadn't thought about it while I had it. Like being able to sit down at a restaurant for a night out with your wife or your husband, or to go for a walk in the park and meet a new friend and just sit together and talk and be introduced to each other.

Or, and I think you see where I'm going, to meet together and to worship our God and Savior, to call out the praises of Jesus Christ, to join your voice with others and to feel more acutely the power and the reality of God's presence.

And sometimes we get into such a Sunday by Sunday by Sunday routine that I fear we look back now that it's gone and realize that while we had it, we never really appreciated it. Or we'd forgotten to appreciate it because of just the routine of it all.

Well, here we are, unable to meet, at least not in the way that we grew accustomed to meeting. The shelter in place has taken away some things that are precious to us. And God willing, as we look back on them, as we now miss them, we realize how precious they were and how little we appreciated them while God was giving them to us.

Precious things, wonderful things, like the unity that we have together, the 133rd Psalm, behold how good and pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity. Perhaps that unity, not quite as appreciated then as it is now in looking back.

God willing, as you look back and say, these things that we had that I don't have now, were so precious that you're willing to fall down before God and plead with him to beseech him, to bring them back to us soon, to repent of having not appreciated them and beseeched him then to keep them going.

That precious feeling of Jesus's special presence, as he himself said, wherever two or three gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them. Did you appreciate what we had? Do you miss it now that it's gone?

I might ask whether you even noticed that God does in fact dwell with his people and felt that indwelling presence amongst us all when we gathered on those Sundays, most especially coming together to worship him.

Zoom, live stream, drive in church. Thank God for these. Thank God that we're able to even consider doing them. These substitutes, these compromises that are great school watercolors compared to a Rembrandt masterpiece.

When we compare what we're doing now, praise God for it and God bless you all for joining in as you are. But comparing this to the beauty and the vibrancy of being together is, as I said, children with crayon compared to a Michelangelo with his sculpted tools.

Ezekiel speaks to us today. He speaks to us today about these things that have been taken away that we didn't appreciate enough while we had them. Now I'm not saying that God took them away because of our lack of appreciation.

I am saying that as we are in shelter, as we are restricted in our movements, most especially gathering together, it is a time to look back on these things that were taken away from us and repent of not having appreciated them as we ought.

As Israel ought to have appreciated God's presence, his glory dwelling in the temple, which in Ezekiel 10 is about to be taken away. I'm not saying that COVID -19, the shelter in place was sent because of a particular sin in the church, a judgment against the church.

But I am saying, if we think of it that way, if we think of it in terms of Ezekiel 10, that perhaps we can repent and return from this consideration of this passage with a greater appreciation for what God has given us week in and week out.

You see, we are suffering from our loss of meeting together. God has removed the intimacy and the fullness of our worship, at least for a time. And God willing for a short time, I ask you, do you miss it?

We know God's glory is not confined to a place. The heavens, the highest heaven, Solomon said, cannot contain him. But there is something special about basking in that glory with others, with brothers and sisters in the Lord.

As Jesus said, I quoted a moment ago, when we're gathered together in his name, there he is amongst us. While I pray for your health and your wellbeing, while I thank God that none of us has so far been afflicted with COVID -19, while I thank God for job security and all these things that God has continued to bless us with, I praise him for those things.

And I pray for your health and your wellbeing. I also hope that you're miserable. I hope you're miserable in a way that I am miserable. And Pastor Collin and I were talking earlier this week about how miserable we are, how much we're suffering from the loss of the fellowship that we had enjoyed for so long.

Miserable that God has removed from you something precious, free access to each other as we come together for worship. I hope in the Lord that you will look carefully at what has been removed and ask yourself whether you gave true thanks to God, whether you really appreciated it and saw it as the blessing that it was, and God willing again will be, and then be ready to return here with a renewed vigor and spiritual energy.

The Agent of Salvation Becomes the Agent of Judgment

As we go through these 22 verses in Ezekiel 10, ask yourself whether you have disregarded God's presence, gotten used to it to the point of nonchalance, failed to prepare your heart to gather with his saints and worship him, failed to appreciate the flood of blessings that he gives us week to week in having a fellowship, in having a beautiful facility to carry on that fellowship.

My passage this morning breaks into four sections. The first is verses one through eight, where the agent of salvation, the one we met in chapter eight, the agent of salvation, excuse me, chapter nine, the one who marked those consigned to salvation becomes the agent of God's judgment.

So verses one through eight, the agent of salvation becomes God's agent of judgment. And second, in verses nine through 14, the Lord prepares his departure. His glory is going to depart the temple, and we'll go quickly through those verses, nine through 14, and the preparation for his departure.

And third, verses 10 through 19, God's glory does in fact depart the temple. Verses 20 to 22 is the epilogue. There's a vision of judgment in verses one through eight, where the agent of salvation becomes God's agent of judgment.

Look again at verse two, please. And he said to the man clothed in linen, go in among the whirling wheels underneath the cherubim. Fill your hands with burning coals from between the cherubim and scatter them over the city.

And he went in before my eyes. Now, have you ever heard someone say, many of us have heard this, where they say they prefer the God of the New Testament to the God of the Old Testament? They seem to think that there is this mean God in the Old Testament who's always angry and is terribly intolerant.

He's always scolding people. And then along comes Jesus in the New Testament, Jesus with little children on his lap, Jesus meeting with tax collectors and taxpayers and prostitutes and sinners of all kinds, Jesus who said he came to save and not to judge, and so forth.

He's nice, he's sweet, he's so tolerant, he's so accepting. And so many of us have heard this from people that they like this God, this New Testament God, who's so much more friendly than the Old Testament God who's so judgmental and so intolerant.

And the problem here is pretty obvious. I think most of us have heard this, but the problem is pretty obvious. There's only one God, Father, Son, and Spirit who never changes, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Well, it is Jesus who takes the coals to be rained down on Jerusalem. I made this point last week in chapter nine, that it is Jesus who marks the people for salvation, those who sighed and groaned over the abominations that were committed in the temple.

And it is Christ here who, after marking them out for salvation, takes the implement to be used, the coals that will be rained down will be rained down for God's judgment. There's only one God, there's only one Jesus.

It is Jesus who takes the coals from between the cherubim. It is Jesus in the book of Revelation who rides the white horse and releases the destruction of the three riders behind him. Now, to some readers, to some hearers, the coals that are scattered sounds indiscriminate.

You know, in World War II, there was practiced something that was called carpet bombing and that's where line after line of Allied bombers simply blanketed an entire area with bombs. And some observers would look back and say that it was just one great flame that would come up from it.

But they weren't looking for a specific target, they were looking for an area and they saturated it. It's called carpet bombing. And some people think of God as that way. These coals are going to be rained down as if he's just going to wipe out everything and he doesn't care who gets consumed in the conflagration.

But brethren, God's judgment is not indiscriminate. He doesn't go just wiping people out. In chapter nine, people were marked out for salvation. His elect, his remnant were set aside in the Old Testament.

Noah preached for some 120 years as he built the ark, as he built the ark, but no one believed and repented. Abraham successfully gained Sodom in chapter 18 of Genesis and the entire city was saved if but 10 righteous men were found, but none believed and repented.

You see the exclusion of some, those who are marked for salvation, the exclusion of some from the judgment to come is every bit as specific as the inclusion of others. As specific as was the mark of salvation which Christ gave in chapter nine, so also is the lack of the same now in chapter 10.

That the coals will rain down on all who are left does not mean that the Lord's aim is inaccurate or his wrath is indiscriminate. God is no carpet bomber. As Psalm 105 .15, the 105th Psalm in the 15th verse says, "'Touch not my anointed ones, do my prophets no harm.'".

And the mark of this salvation is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The mark of the salvation is not a dot on the forehead as was symbolized in chapter nine. It is not your baptism, it is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ it is repentance for your sins and coming to him in faith, repentance for your sins and knowing that he on the cross paid the price for them and that by faith in him, you have free and unfettered access to God, to God's glory, the same glory that in Ezekiel 10 is leaving the temple.

Marked out for salvation and not for destruction. And so here we are, church. A maelstrom has been released that is bringing suffering to us all. We suffer in some ways with everyone else, we are shut in, our jobs might be suffering, the economy and so forth.

With all men, we are miserable with them. But we're also miserable in a special way because we're unable to meet. Not everyone wants to meet, we are social beings. God has made everyone that way. Everyone is suffering from not being able to be together.

But our suffering isn't a class above even that because we suffer the unity that we have in Christ Jesus. We suffer that feeling of the spirit as he binds us together, as our voices magnify more and more his glory together.

And my singing increases your singing and that enthusiastic singing increases the next one. And our prayers feel the much more power as we feel them and see them lifted up to God. And it's suffering to not have these things.

COVID -19 might not have been aimed at the church specifically. We have no word from God, either in his word or specifically to any person that that is the case. It might not have been aimed at the church for specific sins of the church.

But I would ask you, will we not emerge from all this, a more purified people, a stronger body of believers, if we took it as if it were meant for us? If all this suffering on the planet was to get your attention for some sin, to get all of us together to appreciate the more of what we had had from Christ Jesus in our worship together, in our Sunday to Sunday gathering, if we looked at it that way, as if it were because of us that this happened, would that not bring good from the hardship?

Would that not put some order to the uncertainties? Would that not sanctify us the more? Would that not help you appreciate what we have had and trust to have it once again? Well, God has not abandoned us.

He's not abandoned you. It is Jesus who said, I will never leave you or forsake you. It is a hard time we're in. Our suffering is like no other that we've known. We are forsaken for a time of each other.

But I want to encourage you that we are not bereft of Christ. You personally, if your faith is in him, he is with you. He is in you as much as when we were coming together. He has not abandoned us, but for a time, we cannot be together.

And this is in God's sovereign decrees. And we trust him with this. And we trust him to bring good from it. The glory of God represents his presence. We know Jesus will never forsake or leave us. We have his glory in Christ Jesus.

If you read his high priestly prayer, especially in chapter 15 and 16 of John's gospel, you'll read how important that glory is and how promised it is to the church. Yet we do have this warning in Ezekiel 10 of the glory leaving the temple because they're ignoring the glory, because they didn't believe in God, because they replaced him with idols, because they just got used to the fact that they, the chosen people, had God's presence and it became sort of a whole home for them.

And so God prepares himself to leave, to remove himself, much as he's removed us from each other's company, but here in a much more severe way to remove his glory from the temple, from the place where he chose for his name to reside.

The Divine Chariot and the Glory’s Departure

I wanna speak for just a few moments about the divine conveyance, the way he's going to leave and where he's going to go. We look at this chariot as a word that he will be on and see that he's ready to follow the exiles, that the glory of God wasn't contained in the temple and it didn't depend upon the temple.

And as he leaves the temple, I want us to see where it's going to go because he's ready to follow the exiles. Look at chapter nine in Ezekiel 10. And I looked and behold, there were four wheels beside the chair of him, one beside each chair.

And the appearance of the wheels was like sparkling barrel. And as for their appearance, the four had the same likeness as if a wheel were within a wheel. And when they went, they went in any of the four directions without turning as they went, but in whatever direction the front wheel faced, the others followed without turning as they went.

And their whole body, their rims and their spokes, their wings and the wheels were full of eyes all around. The wheels that, excuse me, the wheels that the four of them had. As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing, the whirling wheels.

And everyone had four faces. The first face was the face of a cherub and the second face was a human face. And the third, the face of a lion and the fourth, the face of an eagle. You know, I don't know if they still do it, but the Indianapolis 500 used to start with the announcement, gentlemen, start your engines.

See, the race is about to begin. All the work building the cars, all the work testing them out, qualifying trials, all of this has come down to this one moment. They're gonna take a parade lap and the green flag is going to unfurl and off they're going to go.

The whirling wheels speak of this sort of a readiness. The cherubim are God's special servants. It is cherubim who stand at the entrance to the garden of Eden. It was a cherub who blocked Mad Balaam's path.

It is a cherub who slew 180 ,000 Assyrians. And here they are ready to take the Lord wherever he will. You remember that this is a vision. God doesn't need a chariot to get around any more than he needs a cherub to carry him.

In the 18th Psalm, God rides on the wings of the cherubim. God doesn't need this. Remember, it is a vision. And neither is it that he needs assistance. What Ezekiel has here for us is a picture of God's royalty, his majesty.

He is so majestic that the mightiest of beings, remember a single angel took out all those Assyrians, that even they do his bidding. They look straight ahead towards whatever place he would go. They look straight ahead.

They don't move their eyes at all because nothing matters but to go where he would happen to go. And in verse 19, what direction do they head? They go east. And why do they go east? Because that's where his people went.

That's where his people are going in exile to Babylon, to the east. God goes with his people wherever they are. And as we are shut in, as we are cloistered in our homes and unable to meet, know that God is still with us.

We may not feel his presence the same way because we're not together and encouraged by each other's praises and songs and prayers. And yet it is the same God who is with you now as we are apart, as is with us when we're together.

Just we need to appreciate more what we had when we were together so that when we return, God, when we return, we'll appreciate it the more. God goes with his people. Verse 17 says that the spirit of living beings was in the wheels.

Now the wheels are not living things that have a spirit in them. I think it's like the way our cars have our spirit in them when they obey the wheel or our foot on the brake or the throttle. As the cherub do exactly God's will and go where he would have them to take him, so also the wheels obey the cherub.

It's like an army where the lowest private obeys the order of the highest. Their appearance bears some explanation. The eyes all around is God's full knowledge, what we call his omniscience. We call him omniscient, that's what we mean, that he is all-knowing, his all-knowingness, if you will.

The idolaters that we met a couple of chapters ago, chapter eight, they held onto the fantasy that God didn't know or see what they were doing. Well, these wheels full of eyes all around say something very different.

God does know. God doesn't need a wheel with eyes to go out and report back to him. Remember, it's a vision, but it's a vision of his full knowledge of all that is going on, where his people are going, what his people have done, where you are, what you are suffering, what he will do with us later.

Each of these cherub had four faces. First, the face of the cherub, which of course is what they are or were. Second, a human face. The humans, Hebrews chapter one, verse four, said that the angels are ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation.

Though God sends cherubim to serve us, when they serve God in ways that make his glory more clear to us, they are serving us. It is good for us to see God's glory. Third, the face of a lion, strength, power, they're fearsome, the king of the jungle, as we call them.

Fourth, the face of an eagle, majestic, soaring high above, seeing everything. I mean, eagle's vision is why we speak of somebody having an eagle eye, and God's chariot. This thing made out of sapphire and brimming with light and having the glory of God all around it, it speaks of his person.

Kings and parades ride at the front with the best horses or in the most opulent carriage pulled by teams of beautiful horses. Like them, God's conveyance speaks of his person, of his majesty, but God's conveyance is by cherubim.

His throne is magnificent sapphire. It is completely without precedent in this world. And the greatest king and all the greatest kings put together and all their carriages and all the great horses that would pull them along cannot match this opulence, this sheer majesty.

You see, the mode of transport means something. Jesus went into Jerusalem lowly, riding on a foal, a donkey, not a charger meant for war, a small, gentle animal that spoke of gentle intentions. That time, then, he will return, and when he returns, he'll be on that white charger I spoke of earlier, the one that the revelation speaks of, that war horse that leads the other, the red horse that brings death, the black horse with the economic collapse in its rider, and the pale horse bringing disease and famine.

The Lord mounts up on this holy conveyance in Ezekiel 10 and brings his glory to where he sent his people. They will no longer have the temple, but they will have his presence, just as we don't have our gathering, but his presence by his spirit is still with us.

God's glory leaving the temple, but going to be with his people. He who said, I will never leave you or abandon you, certainly keeps his promise. He kept it then, he will keep it now. And finally, God's glory does leave the temple, and that's verses 15 through 19.

Look at verse 15 with me once again. And the cherubim mounted up. These were the living creatures that I saw by the Chabar Canal. That, by the way, let me stop for a second. That leads us back to Ezekiel chapter one, when Ezekiel was commissioned by this very vision.

Verse 16, 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.

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 up 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. And I mentioned from last week, from the book of Lamentations, the prophet Jeremiah wrote that the Lord does not willingly afflict his people.

He gives him no pleasure to bring suffering and death. And we see this in verse 19, where he hesitates. He seems to hover over that final exit sign as though with regret, as though with regret. The Lord takes no pleasure in seeing us or anyone else suffer.

It is to his glory to dwell with his people, but he cannot remain where sin remains. He cannot tolerate constant insolence. Jesus warned the church in Ephesus, in Revelation chapter two, verse five, that if they did not repent, he would remove their lampstand.

Now, what exactly that means is open to some debate. We're not going to delve into that now. But what is clear is that he is warning of some dearth of his presence, some dissatisfaction with that church that is so deep and so entrenched that he is going to remove some measure of his blessing and most likely his presence.

And so this brings us back to our current circumstance, our inability to meet God because of COVID -19 and the restrictions that have been placed on us. Well, I do not believe that while he's removed us from each other's presence, he's removed his presence from us, but he has removed something precious, being able to be with each other, our ability to be nourished by the Lord's table, to see each other and look each other in the eye when we're weeping and rejoicing together, to delve into those issues that cause the weeping and rejoicing through prayer and with the Holy Spirit's help.

These are precious things. These are wonderful things that we had for so long and that God willing, we miss. If it is to be believed that God has gone with you to your shelter and place, then we can ask, what has he taught you?

What aspect of corporate worship now gone, now gone for just a little while or so we would hope and pray was ignored, taken for granted, that we failed to thank him for? In Ezekiel 10, this process of God removing his glory from that place begins.

God willing, next week we will complete this in chapter 11 of Ezekiel. God's glory is not bound to a place. God's glory is in the salvation of his people. God's glory is vested in his son, Jesus Christ, in whom, if you have faith, you have salvation because of forgiveness of sins, marked out as we saw in chapter nine of Ezekiel, marked for salvation because of a sign growing over the abominations committed within Jerusalem and you sighing and groaning because of the abominations committed by yourself.

That is the mark of salvation. And with that, what have we lost? We have lost a chance to be with each other week in and week out. We have gained, though, the opportunity to look at how much we took it for granted and thank God for what we had and repent of having not appreciated it, to have not truly thanked him for it and come back to this place spiritually revitalized and ready to, again, put the shoulder to the plow, to call out his praises with voices that will encourage each other.

God has taken away something precious and God willing, we will have it back soon. I hope and pray that when he does, all of us will be all the more grateful and we'll better appreciate his glorious presence in our midst.

We do get used to things. Sometimes we don't know what we've got till it's gone. I trust you will take this time to look back, to see the things that you got so accustomed to. You stop noticing them. In Psalm 137, these exiles that Ezekiel is ministering to say that by the rivers of Babylon, we wept.

They wept for what they didn't have any longer. They looked back on what they had and saw how little they'd appreciate it while they had it. They wept at the waters of Babylon. In that sense, we are at the waters of Babylon as we are sheltered in place.

So weep now, repent, beseech God that this will end soon for your sake, for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of your brothers and sisters and the Lord who are anxious to be in your company and to hear your voice in person once again.

And then let us God willing return here with renewed appreciation for each other and re-energize to spread the gospel. Amen. Let's pray. Our heavenly father, we give you thanks again that we can worship together, that we can meet together in this way.

We thank you for your word, which is not diminished at all by the distance that we have from one another. And I pray that this word would have effect upon us, that our spirits would be stirred to look back upon the blessings that you shower upon us day in and day out.

And now that we have some measure of less recognition of them because of the shelter in place that we're under your sovereignty because you have decreed it father. I pray that we would use this time well, that you would sanctify us by it, that you would grant us repentance.

And father in all things, receive all the glory and praise in this place for we ask it in Jesus name, amen.