Rev. David Holwick ZG
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
September 30, 2012
Ezekiel 43:1-12
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I. Looking into the future.
A. One vision of virtual worship.
Lots of changes are happening in churches these days.
Last year, Ed Young at Fellowship Church in Dallas began
preaching at the Sunday morning worship service.
What the audience didn't know was that Young wasn't there.
The church was projecting a hologram-like image using six
different projectors.
It was a few minutes into the message before the
congregation figured out what was going on.
Church consultant Bill Easum came up with his vision for
what worship will be like in 2020, just 8 years from now.
You will enter the conversation area (formerly called a
sanctuary).
You will sit around a table with four or five other people,
munching on some pizza you got at the church food court,
and join in the conversation.
They will be discussing the topic that is being projected
on holographic screens around the room.
Through interactive holographic equipment, everyone at the
table can determine the worship experience.
They will choose the music, the holographic people they
want to converse with (like Moses or Paul), and the
conversation piece that strikes their interest.
(Conversation pieces are what we used to call a sermon.)
All of the input is sent to the conversationist (formerly
called a preacher) who will tailor the message on the fly.
As the people leave, each is given a virtual reality video
copy of the day's worship for them to relive throughout
the week.
Then they will get in their hover cars and fly home.
#63882
1) To some of you this sounds pretty neat, but to most of you
I bet it sounds like a nightmare.
2) But who knows what the future of worship holds?
B. Ezekiel envisions worship in the Millennium.
1) He was a priest so it was very important to him.
2) This passage is what an ancient prophet tells us about true
faith for his day, and ours.
II. Ezekiel sweated the details.
A. His vision of future worship takes up nine chapters, 40-48.
1) It can be tough going for modern readers.
Go to 40:2. Ezekiel, in a vision, meets an angel
with a long measuring rod.
In 40:5, he measures a wall in the temple of his vision.
In verse 6, he measures a gate.
It goes on like this for chapter after chapter.
2) Why are measurements of dimensions so important to him?
a) Other prophets did the same thing - Amos, John in
Revelation.
b) Measuring things probably implied ownership.
1> Turn to Revelation 11:1.
A> John is told to measure the temple and count the
worshippers.
B> He is not to count the outer area - that belongs
to the hostile Gentiles.
2> So what God measures, he claims as his own.
B. God's plans for worship have always been important.
1) Moses received plans for the tabernacle, the tent they
worshipped in when they were in the wilderness.
2) David received plans for the temple in Jerusalem.
a) In both cases, the plans were so the earthly structures
would approximate the heavenly ideal.
b) As it says in Hebrews 8:5 --
"They [Jewish priests] serve at a sanctuary that is a
copy and shadow of what is in heaven.
That is why Moses was warned when he was about to
build the tabernacle: 'See to it that you make
everything according to the pattern shown you...'"
3) Sharon's office has all the old architect plans for our
buildings, including some we never put up.
a) We are not sure why we do this, but it seems to be
important.
b) Ezekiel had a reason of his own.
C. God must be set apart.
1) The details of the temple area show that God is protected
and isolated by a multitude of walls and rooms.
2) Ezekiel says that to honor God, they have to make a
distinction between what is common, and what is holy.
a) 42:20 - "It had a wall around it, five hundred cubits
long and five hundred cubits wide, to separate the
holy from the common.
b) 44:23 - "They are to teach my people the difference
between the holy and the common and show them how
to distinguish between the clean and the unclean."
3) God is different than us.
a) We want to be close to him, to feel his presence.
b) But we are separated by our sinfulness.
1> It clouds over everything - our spirituality, our
intellect, our human love.
c) We have to acknowledge this if we want to approach God.
1> We can never figure him out completely.
2> We cannot put him in a comfortable box.
3> We can only approach God if he lets us, if he cleans
us.
A> Ezekiel's view of this is controversial.
III. How literally should we take this vision?
A. The time frame of the temple is important.
1) It was not a temple for his own day - the burned temple
was rebuilt with a different plan.
2) It was not the temple in Jesus' day, which had been
renovated by Herod.
3) It seems to be a temple for the Millennium period, or even
the ultimate temple in what the Bible calls "the age to
come."
B. A sticking point is that Ezekiel's temple has animal sacrifices.
1) For a vision of future worship, these seem very "retro."
a) They have not been done for over 2,000 years.
b) Yet much of Ezekiel's vision involves them. 40:41; 44:11
2) Some Christians insist this must be interpreted literally.
a) So even though Jesus died "once for all" for our sins,
we will watch priests dressed in Old Testament robes
killing animals at altars.
b) These interpreters support this by mentioning all the
details and dimensions in these chapters - why all
the detail if it is only figurative?
C. It is better to understand it as apocalyptic, like Revelation.
1) It has a real meaning, but the fantastic details do not
have to be pressed literally.
2) Animal sacrifices were Ezekiel's way of emphasizing our need
for forgiveness and atonement.
3) Only the blood of Jesus can provide this completely, as the
book of Hebrews states clearly.
4) (Many details in this passage would be difficult to fulfill
in a literal way.)
IV. God is there.
A. The most important part of Ezekiel's vision is the return of God.
1) The return is just as dramatic as his exit had been.
a) God's presence is more than a cloud - he has a voice.
b) His majesty fills the temple.
1> Ezekiel doesn't enter the temple, even in his vision.
2> He stays outside and takes it in.
2) God will live with them from this point on. 43:7
a) The people will clean up their lives and give him
pure worship.
b) Ezekiel calls this the "law of the temple." 43:12
B. God is bigger than a golf course.
1) Many people associate God with nature.
This week I took a wonderful bike hike down the Columbia
Trail. (David Van Horn told me about it)
It starts in Flanders and goes all the way to High Bridge.
The autumn colors were starting, and the trail goes
through wetlands and horse farms and forests.
The colors and aromas gave my heart a boost.
I felt inspired to think about God, but God is bigger
than autumn colors.
You may be rejuvenated when playing on a golf course, or
taking a bike ride, but true inspiration is different.
God has to reveal himself to you.
V. The ultimate temple is you.
A. The New Testament says believers are God's temple now. 1 Cor 3:16
1) God doesn't want bricks and mortar, but flesh and blood.
2) He wants hearts that seek him and obey him.
3) Are YOU part of this temple?
4) If you are a temple of God, how is that worship going?
B. If God's spirit is present in you, you can overcome anything.
In August 1932, Gospel singer Thomas A. Dorsey was scheduled to
be the feature soloist at religious services in St. Louis.
Because his wife Nettie was pregnant, Dorsey had reservations
about leaving her behind.
"Something was strongly telling me to stay," he recalls.
Yet, commitments had been made and he knew people in St. Louis
would be disappointed if he canceled.
So Tom Dorsey left for the revival service.
During the performance the next night in the steaming
St. Louis heat, a messenger from Western Union approached
Dorsey on the stage with a telegram.
Puzzled, Dorsey opened the envelope and read the four
devastating words: "Your wife just died."
He rushed to a phone and called home, only to hear it confirmed:
"Nettie is dead."
Dorsey quickly returned to Chicago.
There he learned that just before his wife died she had
given birth to a boy.
Later that night, the baby died.
Dorsey now had to deal with two losses, two funerals.
"I buried Nettie and our boy in the same casket," he says.
"Then I fell apart."
During this painful time, one of Dorsey's friends made
arrangements for him to use a local music school's piano.
One week after his wife and son's deaths, alone with his
thoughts and a piano, Dorsey describes what happened:
"I sat down at the piano and my hands began to browse over
the keys.
Then something happened.
I felt as though I could reach out and touch God.
I found myself playing a melody, one I'd never heard or played
before, and words came into my head -- they just seemed to
fall into place:
`Precious Lord, take my hand,
Lead me on, let me stand,
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn,
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light,
Take my hand, precious Lord,
Lead me home.'"
Dorsey would recover from his losses.
He would go on to write and compose more than 400 songs,
but it was "Precious Lord" that became the best-loved gospel
song of all time.
Because it is about finding God's presence even in the worst
of times.
#2393
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
# 2393 “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” Catholic Digest, quoted in Dynamic
Preaching (www.sermons.com), Winter 1992, in sermon “Way Down
in Egypt's Land.”
#63882 “Worship in the 21st Century,” Bill Easum, May 2012,
<http://www.religiousproductnews.com/articles/2012-May/In~
-Every-Issue/Worship-in-the-21st-Century.htm>
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
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