Ezekiel & The Finished Work of Christ

The Meaning of Christ’s Cry of Dereliction

Good morning! Good to be back in Texas. We had a good business trip and then Charlotte and I took a little personal trip and it was great. I can have a little more juice up here. Mr. Ben, you were already working on that, weren't you?

Thanks. Anyway, we had a great time together and good results on our business trip as well. Got to meet about 35 new people and then for the first time ever, Colin's mom, Debbie, was able to, she coordinated the trip, she was able to get Prince's Cruise Line to let me speak to just people on the ship, which we've never been able to get that done before.

So we had 42 people show up, total strangers, you know, from all walks of life and Matt had to handle one complainer who said, well, you promised you were going to teach on stock market and you're talking about religion and whatever religion is, but Matt handled it very graciously and the gentleman ended up staying for the whole time.

So it was pretty cool, but it went well and kind of worked the gospel in there a little bit too. So it was fun. It's really good. Good trip, but before we got back, we were already missing everybody and kind of getting excited about getting back.

So glad you're all A-OK and here and doing well and it's good to see Michael and Caleb. We had heard news of them coming for a long time and that time finally arrived and I didn't realize this, but they're staying in a condo owned by Pepper Posey, my lifelong friend and compadre.

So that's pretty cool. Somewhere near downtown Fort Worth. So it's quite a drive, but we appreciate you making that drive. Good to see all the rest of you guys and I've been able to hear most of the Sunday school lessons and the sermons, you know, that we missed.

Some of them we were able to listen to live while we were there and others we had to pick up on the website later. But thank you, Dave and Ben, for holding down the fort and preaching such great and teaching such great messages on, you know, all around the Resurrection Sunday and so forth.

It's great. In fact, I was inspired by it. I got thinking about one of the main themes that they both talked about and spent a lot of hours on it the week after I got back. I was trying to catch up with work too, but probably most afternoons for five days in a row, I couldn't do anything but study it.

And so I'm not going to preach on Colossians today. I'm going to, I want to preach on the same thing, theme that these young men were preaching on while I was gone and just add one more thought to it.

And you covered it so well and got it right. I didn't, I'm not that aware of new theological concepts. I don't care about them. I read old books and the Bible and don't care about that as much, but Ben and Dave kind of keep up with it, especially Ben.

I mean, he's got terms. I don't even know what they mean until he tells me what they mean. You know, like new things. Well, I didn't realize there are new theories about, you know, when Jesus said, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

There are new theological theories about what that means. And some of them are quite repugnant, but others are been around for a long time. So anyway, I caught my interest. Not that I looked into that stuff.

I let Ben and Dave do that. That's great. But I want to teach you what this old book right here says about that. And believe it or not, we're going to be in the book of Ezekiel today. So it'll be a minute before we get there, but let's pray and we'll get started.

Lord, thank you so much for safe travels for us and keeping everyone safe here and bring us all back together. Thank you for these young men that you've touched their lives and given them great gifts of teaching and preaching.

And they are gifts to the church. And thank you for Matt and how he's leading our singing and all those who participate in that. And thank you for each person here who has their gifts and their service to you.

And may we be here to equip them to be excellent at that. And we ask it in Jesus name. Amen. I was reading something somewhere in the scriptures that I was studying for this Sunday. About how they were, you know, Paul was instructing Timothy and he said, you know, what I want you to do is just pray for people in power like kings, presidents.

I hate to even say that word right now. Presidents, people in power that you may lead a peaceable and godly life. And I got to thinking about that while I was sitting up here and it has nothing to do with the sermon today, but I was thinking about it while I was sitting up here.

And because I, I struggle with, I'll talk to the Lord or I'll talk to Charlotte or sometimes my kids. I'll say, you know, I just want to do something great for the Lord. And then I stopped and think, well, what can I do great for the Lord?

He doesn't need anything. Now, what can I do to benefit him? And, and yet you think about that scripture where Paul told the young preacher, Timothy, just pray that the leaders will keep peace so you can lead a peaceable, godly life.

That's what it's about. And I got thinking about that. That is great. Do you know, have you ever stopped to think that the, that God only has one way that he's chosen? He's chosen to have only one way to populate his kingdom.

And the Bible says there's going to be age and age. And don't let me forget where I am here because I'm going to think of another thought I had over here was, um, was that I'm sitting here and I'm looking, looking back at you guys, looked up here at these guys, and I'm sitting here and I'm thinking about moments passing by while I'm sitting in the midst of this.

And I I'm in the midst of this moment by moment. And I was thinking we live in this life. We live moment by moment with the Lord, with each other. But in the next life, we will live age unto age. Think about that.

Each age being at least a thousand years. And the Bible says there's age and do age into age. It doesn't tell how many. And, um, quite interesting, nothing to do with the sermon. So let's go to Matthew chapter 27.

But, uh, there was one rabbit trail I was on prior to that, but you did, you guys didn't remind me what it was. So yeah, peaceful, godly life. Oh yeah. Yeah. Uh, so, so God has chosen to have only one way to populate those ages and the age with his people.

And that is for us to have babies. Think about that. So like, if you, like, if you meet the love of your life, like I did in high school, when I met Charlotte and it's a wonderful thing, but you know, if you think about it, when you meet the love of your life and you start thinking about, you're going to do something big for God.

And in the midst of all that you're having kids and they're running around while you're doing that big thing. And you're kind of telling them to go off over here and play. And they are the big thing that family and having those kids is why we're here.

The other stuff is peripheral and you can't help God anyway. So I'm not, I'm not trying to demotivate you. I mean, we should try to do big things for God, I guess, but the big thing is your family and then their family.

And it's really, really good for kids to around grandparents and older people. Keep that in mind, parents, make them be around us a lot, which you do. It doesn't matter. I'm just talking in general. It's just good.

It's good for God made it where it's good for both, didn't he? Isn't that funny? Well, I'm just glad he made little kids where they like old people. They like to play with your eyebrows because they're bushier than they used to be.

They can pull on your ears. And one time Parker, I was on the ground playing and he looked and said, I see skin through your hair. And then he thought for a minute and he said, I see your whole head through your hair.

So thank you, Lord, for that. Matthew 27, I'm going to end up in Ezekiel, but you don't have to look these up. You don't want to these first three verses, very passages, very familiar. Matthew 27, 45.

Now from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And I want you to remember the timeframe there. That's three hours of time, earth time, three hours of earth time. During that three hours, the skies grew dark.

How many of you went outside during the eclipse and looked at that? Was that cool when it got dark like that? Wow. I had forgotten that. I saw that and guess around 1970, when I was in high school, I saw one, but it wasn't as cool as this one.

And, but it got darker than that. I would imagine when Jesus was suspended on the cross, dying for the sins of his people. And then the earth quaked, did it not? And I have always believed in reading that, that this was the wrath of almighty God showing forth a little bit.

Withstrained of course, but showing forth a little bit as he watched his son die for the sins of us. So think about the three hours. And then about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice. Now, a lot of things happened during the time he was on the cross.

Dave's been talking about that. The death was more than just the dying on the cross. It started when they began to beat him beyond recognition before they ever made him carry his cross to Golgotha. He got some help partially along the way, but it started there.

But in the ninth hour, after all these things that Dave's been talking about in Sunday school that Ben talked about for three sermons, after all this had happened, about the ninth hour, he cries. If you want to say it in English, it's Eli, Eli Lama Sabachthani.

If you want to say it in Greek, it's Eli, Eli Lama Sabachthani. It's almost the same. But what does it mean? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And this is the thought that after listening to all their stuff that they taught, got me thinking about that.

And it might be the most important verse in the Bible. I don't know, just might be. And straightway, one of them ran and took a sponge. Now, I want you to follow the timeline just for a second with me.

Right after that happened, where he said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? They ran and they got a sponge. They filled it with vinegar and put it on a reed and gave him to drink. And right there, he cried again with a loud voice and yielded up the ghost.

Notice he didn't die. No one killed him. He gave up the ghost. He had to make himself die, which is interesting. That's never been that way for any other human being. And so he yielded up the ghost. Now, so you got the timeframe.

He's on the cross. Three hours go by during this dark period with the earthquake and the darkness. Immediately after that, this happened. And then there's a little more information given to us in John.

So I'm going to look at John 19, verse 28. And then after this, so after all the things Dave and Ben talked about, after this three hours of darkness, after he was forsaken by God, whom he was one with for all, if you want to call it eternity, past, which is kind of a funny word, because there's no time there before he created anything.

No time, no space, nothing, just God, father, son, Holy spirit. He's always existed as God, father, son, Holy spirit. And for the first time, Jesus is separated from the father and the Holy spirit. And then John says after this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished.

Now, what things do you think he's the Bible's talking about there? All the prophecies, they parted his garments, you know, they bet on his garments, all the things you kind of gone in detail, Dave through Psalm 22 and all of those things.

And what else? Our redemption and what else? Our ransom, which is similar, but different, similar, but distinct. All of these things, our salvation, everything it took to save God's people had been accomplished at this point.

And that the scriptures might be fulfilled. That's the part you're talking about, Dave, where all the prophecies had also been fulfilled. Very important aspect of this. And at that point, Jesus says, I thirst.

And that's where we just read in the, in the Matthew account. And so now there was set a vessel of vinegar and they filled a sponge of vinegar, put it upon hyssop and put it to his mouth. Now, now the timeframe comes through all these things we looked at, and here's where, here's where we are.

And when Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. Now that it is finished was not in the Matthew account because they're looking at it from different viewpoints or they're not, I'm not sure if Matthew was even there.

He's recording it maybe from stories of the people that were there, but John was there. John was one of the, he was the only male disciple who didn't flee. And then the women, the Marys were there, but anyway, so it is finished.

John, who was an eyewitness testifies that Jesus says that. Now, if you look at the the Roman world at that time, when people would buy something on credit, when they finally paid the last bill off, they would stamp it.

And it said those words, it is finished because it means paid in full. And that debt was retired. And that's what Jesus did. He paid our sin debt. He paid not only ours individually, but the sin debt of all of God's people from Adam and Eve on all the way to the last one who hasn't been here yet, maybe the last human who's going to be saved.

He paid the sin debt for everybody. The word toleo means to complete or to conclude or to discharge a debt in full. So to pay in full. In order for the sin debt, I want you to think about this logically for a minute.

The Bible says, come let us reason together. So, you know, we don't just only have this book. We have to reason about it. Probably half, more than half of what we believe is not specifically stated in the book.

You learn about implication by what other scriptures imply. Right. So think about this just for a minute. In order for the sin debt to have been paid in full, Jesus Christ must have died in full. You agree with that?

He had to fully die. All right. Now he is a he is the second Adam. So when he was created, he was body, soul and spirit. Right. He had to fully die. He must have paid the debt that we owed, which was to experience eternal death and separation from God in order to pay our debt.

He must have paid that debt. Would you agree? Okay. The math looks like this. If you want to put it in mathematical form, three hours, I believe, is when he was separated. I believe he was separated while he was still on the cross.

Now, this is this is David Mitchell theory, this little part right here. Okay. Not scripture. Some of it comes from scripture. Some comes from Ron. No. Minute coffee. But I believe he separated suffered separation from God while he was still on the cross.

I believe that's what he feared in the garden, not the physical death. So three, we're assume I'm right on it. Three hours of separation from God times. Listen to this, because I've added something to the formula, Dave.

You've heard me say this a bunch of times and been times. And Dave Senior, you've heard me say this, but I'm going to add this to the formula times the collective sin of all the elect throughout all time.

Put that in the formula times the infinite nature of Jesus Christ. And as anyone who's a mathematician in the room knows any number, small or large multiplied by infinity, the answer is infinity when you're multiplying.

So the answer is eternal damnation. Eternal separation from God is the answer to that formula. Now, I noticed in something that Ben wrote about it later, and we talked about it some this week. I want to get Dave in on that too, eventually at coffee.

But you know, Ben was mentioning it probably mentioned it in one of his sermons too. I can't remember where I heard this, but he was talking about what would it be like for us might even been Dave. I don't know.

I listened to all of it. What would it be like for us if we had not been saved, which of course we know is impossible because there's only one plan. God knew us from the foundation. But if you just look at it humanly speaking, and we had not been saved and we were born into this world sinners in a sinful race with a sin nature, and we died and went to hell forever, and we were separated from God, what would that be like?

It would be terrible, wouldn't it? But what if you took a person who was holy his entire life, who was tempted in all points as we, and yet without sin, and had been with holy God for all what we call eternity past, forever, for eternity, he's been with God in perfect unity, holy as God.

And then he had to experience the filth and degradation and sins of all of our thoughts and deeds of all of the elect for all of time, and have that placed on him and experience separation from God. What would that be like?

It would be infinitely worse. And that's what Jesus experienced at least during this three hours. So there's the math. And it's horrible to think about, but he did that for his people. I want to read to you something Charles Spurgeon said about Matthew 27, 46, which is the verse that says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

I'm going to quote him here. During the time that Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, he came to the mountain of God, even Horeb, and there he saw a strange sight, a bush that burned with fire and yet was not consumed.

Then Moses, apparently constrained by curiosity or moved by curiosity, was drawn near in order to examine this phenomenon. And when he heard God's voice say this, draw not near, don't draw nigh hither, put off your shoes from off your feet for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.

Now, Spurgeon goes on and says, we also may well feel as we think of our Lord Jesus in his agony that the voice of God speaks to us as we become curious about this matter and says, draw not hither, put off thy shoes from off thy feet for the place whereon thou standest is very holy of holies unto which no man may come except as the spirit of God should conduct him thither.

Charles Spurgeon said that. He went on to say this, I think I can understand the words, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? From the Psalm 22, I can understand that. But he said, when I hear it in Matthew, he said, but the same words, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

When uttered by Jesus on the cross, I cannot comprehend that. So I shall not pretend to be able to explain them. But then he goes on to do it in a sermon. Isn't that good? There is no plummet that can fathom this deep.

And Spurgeon says this, I have read that once upon a time, Martin Luther, we all know who he is, right? He's the great reformer who brought us out of the Catholic darkness of the dark ages and instituted the renaissance really with religion.

And we call it the reformation, but this great man, it is said, and this is Spurgeon telling the story that he's read in history about Martin Luther, that he sat him down in his study to consider this very text, these very words, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

An hour after hour, that mighty man sat, that mighty man of God sat still and those who waited on him, he had many servants because he was an important personage in that day and time. So his servants who waited on him came into the room again and again, hour after hour, while he sat there not moving, thinking about that phrase, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

They came in again and again, and he was so absorbed in his meditation that they almost thought he was a corpse. He moved neither his hand nor foot, neither ate nor drank, but sat with his eyes wide open, like one in a trance, thinking over these wondrous words, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

I think they were worried about him. And when after many long hours in which he seemed to be utterly lost to everything that went on around him, he rose from his chair and someone heard him say, God forsaking God, no man can understand that.

And he walked away. He didn't figure it out, at least not that day he didn't. And he just walked away. He said, no man can understand that. Spurgeon continued, yet the fact remains that God had forsaken him for Christ was under no mistake about that matter.

He rightly felt that his father had withdrawn the comfortable light of his countenance that he had for the long time being lost, had lost the sense of his father's favor, not the favor itself, but the consciousness of that sense of that divine aid and secure, which he had formerly enjoyed.

So he felt himself like a man left alone. And he was not only left alone by his friends, but also by his God. I find it interesting that he said he felt this because part of the debate nowadays is, did he really feel it or was it real?

And, but that's not all Spurgeon said, but it is interesting that he put it that way. So he thought about that even before this modern debate ever started. Did he just feel like God departed from him or did God really depart from him?

Well, the logic that we examined at the front end of this shows that God had to actually depart from him in order to pay our sin debt. But he was still thinking this through as, as was not Calvin, but Luther.

He says, I will try to help you understand it. Can you imagine the misery of a lost soul in hell? And then he goes on to explain this very idea of how bad it would have been for someone who was completely holy.

Now go with me. If you would, you don't have to turn here because here I've got a couple of other verses in John five, where he had the two men on the road to Emmaus after Jesus has had resurrected. He, he was walking with them, but they did not recognize that it was Jesus yet.

And while this was happening, Jesus went on and said, search the scriptures or end them. I'm sorry. I'm not at that point yet. Let me, I'm going to talk about that in a minute. Sorry. Let me talk to you first about this, just this one verse where Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees and the Pharisees are talking like, well, we know the Bible, we know Moses and all this stuff.

They were bragging about their religious knowledge. And the father himself, Jesus said the father himself, which has sent me as born witness of me, you have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape, but Jesus implying, but I have, and you have not his word abiding in you.

So they're Bible scholars, but they don't have God's word abiding in. And we got a lot of seminary professors like that. Many, many, many today, many on YouTube teaching the Bible. They, they read, they read the Bible academically, but, but they don't have the word of God living in their heart for whom he had sent him.

You believe not. So he said, if you don't believe in the one that God sent, you don't believe in God. Now he said this search, the scriptures for in them, you think you have eternal life and they are they, which testify me.

Now hold on to that thought for a minute. The old Testament scriptures, Jesus told these ferret Bible stud students, the Pharisees, Bible teachers, he said, the old Testament, are they that speak of me, but you didn't see me in there.

So you didn't really have the word of God abiding in you in Luke 24, 27. This is where the two men on the road to Emmaus story is. And just out of that little story, there was a point where Jesus opened their eyes and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, the, in other words, the, the old Testament, he expounded unto them and all the scriptures, the things concerning Jesus.

All right, hold on to that for a minute. And then in Acts chapter 18, verse 24. And then again, in verse 28, it's the story of Apollos, this young man who got saved and became a powerful preacher, like a, like a, you would think of an evangelist or revivalist who could get a whole churches stirred up with his preaching.

And yet they had to take him aside and get his doctrines fixed a little bit. He wasn't doctrinally completely sound, but he was saved and he was powerful. So we have to be a little patient with preachers when they get a little bit off on something.

I mean, it doesn't mean God's not using him to get souls saved. He was using Apollos before and after he was corrected, but then in verse 28, it says for, he mightily convinced the Jews. And he did that publicly, which is not easy to do like in debates and so forth, showing by the scriptures, their scriptures, the old Testament scriptures, that Jesus was Christ.

So here we have all of these several scriptures that talk about how, when you get in the old Testament and you look at it, you will see Jesus on every page. If you look for him and our great Puritan fathers from scriptures like this used to teach that you will find Jesus on every page of the scriptures.

And they're speaking predominantly of the old Testament, obviously in the new Testament. So I want to illustrate this a little bit from the book of Ezekiel, which is obviously old Testament, right? So turn there with me, if you would.

And we'll look at some of these passages in Ezekiel. Now Ezekiel was written around somewhere between 593 and 571 before Christ was born. So almost 600 years before Jesus Christ was born into the world, Ezekiel was the penman of this book.

The passage describes the awesome scene of the glory of God leaving Solomon's temple. Now, if you remember in the old Testament, not that God wasn't omnipresent because he is, and especially the Holy Spirit is omnipresent.

But God dwelt in the Holy of Holies inside that temple. You remember that only one man could go in there one time a year and not without blood, right? And so, and yet in Ezekiel, starting with chapter eight through 11, God gave Ezekiel a vision of God.

And the vision of was reality. It wasn't like just some dream. It was showing him what was happening, things he couldn't see physically without the vision, because he would have to see through the walls of the temple to see some of this.

You'll see this in a second. And it's, it depicts God leaving the Holy of Holies coming out from there, going out through the East gate of Jerusalem, out into the Mount of Olives, and then leaving the earth.

Wow. Think about that. God leaving Israel. And we know that immediately thereafter in history, that Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. Solomon's temple was leveled and they took all the gold from it back to Babylon, didn't they?

And they killed most of the Jewish people, but they took a few of them captive, took some of the prophets captive, right? Well, this is talking about that stage in the history of Israel. We know that there was the wilderness tabernacle.

And then after that, there were two temples that were built, and there will be another, another one built soon, I believe. But during the reign of Solomon, a magnificent temple was built. In fact, we call it Solomon's temple, but we know from first Chronicles 29 verses one and two and other places that actually King David is the one who accumulated all the gold and the timber and you know, all the blocks and everything it took to build it.

But God said, but I want a man whose hands are not bloody to build it. So I want a man of peace to build it. So his son, Solomon got to finish it. David actually accumulated everything to build it and Solomon finished it.

So we call it Solomon's temple and rightly so. And Solomon's temple stood for about 410 years until the Babylonians came in and conquered Israel and destroyed it. Now you think, put that, you know, America's what, 250 years, some odd at this point.

So twice that long, as long as our countries existed, twice that long, this temple stood and they worshiped God in this temple. And the presence of God dwelt between the cherubim over the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies for 410 years.

The Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the temple around 587 BC, 70 years went by. And at that point, a second temple was built around 516 BC under the leadership of Ezra and Zerubbabel. And you read that in the scriptures, how they went back and rebuilt the wall and the temple.

Now they didn't have the resources Solomon did because the Babylonians had stolen it all. So it was a much humbler building. And yet, do you remember when the apostles sat with Jesus and said, tell us when the end of the age is coming, but first tell us when this, you know, they said, look how beautiful this building is.

And Jesus said, I'm not impressed with it. Remember that? He said, I'm not impressed with it. Not one stone will be left on the other. And they said, tell us when that's going to happen. And then tell us when the end of the age, two questions.

That's the temple they were looking at was the second temple. It's more modest. However, it is true that about a hundred years before Christ came into the world, Herod the great, who was very wealthy, improved the temple and added some gold to it and made it nicer.

So that when Jesus and the apostles were there, it was magnificent to look at. This temple was the one standing when Jesus and the apostles were looking at it in the gospels. After standing about 585 years, the second temple was destroyed by the Romans under Titus in 70, in AD 70.

But it's the first temple that we're talking about here in Ezekiel, right before it was destroyed. And let's look at what happened. And I'm keeping you a little bit longer today. It's not that late yet, really.

I didn't start till 1130 and I've got three Sundays to preach right here. Cause I missed three. So you want to stand up, shake legs, sit back down because I don't know how this long this will take, but I am aware of your burden.

I watch you and I see you're not getting anything. We'll stop. Okay, we're done. Let's have lunch. All right. So I'm going to, I want you to turn to Ezekiel chapter 10 and verse four. I really think what you're going to see today will blow your mind.

You've never seen this. I'm going to bet you, cause I never seen it. And that doesn't mean you haven't, but I've studied it for 45 years and have not seen this. Until this week. It wouldn't have seen it if it hadn't been for Ben and Dave and the Holy Spirit.

Not necessarily in that order. Could have been Dave, Ben and the Holy Spirit. All right. Let's pray again. Get back in the spirit. All right. Ezekiel 10 four, then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub and stood over the threshold of the house.

Talking about the temple. He rises up from between the cherubim over the whole, over the mercy seat and moves over the threshold of the building, which means he's about to leave the building. And the court was full of the brightness of God's glory.

Now, why does it say that? Because he's not in the court. He's in the innermost room. The one called the Holy of Holies separated us by this huge curtain. And then another room called the Holy place, another curtain.

And then the court where the Gentiles could come in. He's never in there. In fact, if people had been in there, it would have destroyed them on this particular day, I would imagine. But now all of a sudden that court where anybody could walk in this particular part of the temple was full of the brightness of the glory of God because he was leaving.

He was going out from the innermost to the next, to the Holy place, to the outer court, past the altar, to the outer court, to the door. And the sound of the cherubim's wings was heard. So these cherubims that are pictured as gold in the inner, in the Holy of Holies, they built it that way, but there were real cherubim in there because their job was to protect the holiness of God.

And they were really in there and here they're coming out with God still protecting his holiness as they come out of that place into the court and about to go out the door. And the sound of the cherubim's wings was heard even to the outer court as the voice, it sounded like the voice of almighty God when God speaks.

So it was just a loud, like this awesome noise. And then the glory of the Lord departed from off the threshold of the house and stood up above the cherubims. So now the cherubims are beneath and God is up here.

The glory of God's here and they're down here protecting him from sin that's on the earth below. Can you visualize that? And the cherubims lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth. And Ezekiel says in my sight, so he is seeing, he's observing this.

And when they went out, the wheels also were beside them. If you look at this thing in the first chapters of Ezekiel, it looks like a UFO, okay? Whatever they call it. Now this generation changes. It's no longer a UFO.

I shall always call them UFOs. But anyway, that's what it looks like, a vehicle. And everyone stood at the door of the east gate. This is talking about the the cherubim protecting God's glory and perfection and holiness.