Amen. Let us turn then to our reading for this evening. Our text is Ezekiel chapter twenty and we will read from verse thirty-three. We will look especially at verses thirty-nine to forty-four. We'll read to verse forty-four. In Ezekiel 20, It is one of those chapters in the Bible which has uh if we were to read from the start of it, we're we're we will start at verse thirty-three but if we were to read at the start, just glancing over it, we see it as one of the chapters in the Bible that does an overview of the history of god's people. So, it goes from uh Egypt in the early verses to uh the wilderness and around verse 14 and following and then it says a few words about the people in the land as they come in and conquer it and then it has words about what is happening in the current days of Ezekiel going into exile. And then all of that is leading up to the prophecy of what God will do, the restoration God will bring. And just as we say that to come into our text, to jump into our reading at verse 33, that's one of the reminders as to why it's good for us to have the history of scripture upon our hearts and minds. It's one of the early things that we are to teach even our younger children in the home. It's the history of the Bible of God's people. uh and we see the prophets and the psalmists and then in the new testament the new testament uh apostles and disciples as well the history of god's people is part of how god teaches us part of how god shows us his dealings his character and that's what it all comes back to is god himself So, with that brief overview of the chapter, we jump in at verse thirty-three. We'll be focusing on thirty-nine, verse forty-four. Ezekiel chapter twenty, beginning at verse thirty-three. As I live, declares the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out, I will be king over you. I will bring you out from the peoples, and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out, and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples. And there I will enter into judgment with you face to face, as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness and the land of Egypt. So I will enter into judgment with you, declares the Lord God. I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. I will purge out the rebels from among you, and those who transgress against Me, I will bring them out of the land where they sojourned, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the LORD." As for you, O house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, Go serve every one of you his idols now and hereafter, if you will not listen to me. But my holy name you shall know more profane than your gifts and your idols. For on my holy mountain, the mountain height of Israel, declares the Lord God. There on the house of Israel, all of them shall serve me in the land. There I will accept them, and there I will require your contributions and the choices of your gifts with all your sacred offerings. As a pleasing aroma I will accept you when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will manifest my holiness among you in the sight of all the nations. And you shall know that I am the LORD when I bring you into the land of Israel, the country that I swore to give to your fathers. And there you shall remember your ways and all your deeds with which you have defiled yourselves, and you shall loathe yourselves for all the evils that you have committed. And you shall know that I am the LORD, and I deal with you for My name's sake, not according to your evil ways, nor according to your corrupt deeds. the house of Israel declares the lord god. The grass withers, the flower fades, the word of our lord endures forever. Your congregation, the gospel is not about man. The good news is about Christ, what Christ has done. It is Christ's action. It is God's plan. It is for God's glory. And this is a truth, brothers and sisters, that we need to be reminded of often. It is a truth which the prophets had to often remind The Old Testament people, though, they lived in a time when there was this sense of the divine and of the weakness of mankind. But even then, they needed to be reminded again and again of the Lord God of Israel, of His glory, of His purposes. and that the Good News is centered upon him and his work and for his own honor. Certainly, living in this man-centered time, and surrounded by the ideas of denying the divine, sometimes too often entirely, certainly we need this reminder again and again. God is the one who works, and he is the one who works for his own purpose, for his own glory, and according to his own plan. And so it is that we are to have a very high view of God and a very low view of ourselves. Indeed, verse 43 even says this, that as God is bringing true worshipers to himself, true worshipers, in other words, this is a right thing to say, will look at themselves, look at the middle of verse 43, you shall loathe yourselves. It is critical, brothers and sisters, that we have a high view of God and a low view of man. Now, it is true that there is such a thing as improper self-hatred. It is true that the Christians should not bury themselves in or wallow in guilt. But the reason and the way that we move from you shall loathe yourselves to you should not wallow in guilt, must have God at the center. The good news must be focused on the divine and not on man. And that is the healthy way to move from, yes, you shall loathe yourselves, but do not wallow in guilt because we have our eyes on God's goodness. That is the proper way to say to you, to have a low view of man, to have a high view of God. And so we would not deny the fact that there should be self-loathing, but we do not stay there either. We look to God and there we have our hope. Apart from God. you should loathe your own evil condition. It is with God that we see the good news and that we see peace. And so, Daniel Block once edited a commentary on this chapter, quote, God does not express His love in Jesus Christ in response to our worthiness, but to redeem us from our unworthiness. Fundamental problem with most of us is not deficient self-esteem, but an inadequate divine esteem." And brothers and sisters, I think that captures well what this chapter teaches us. That such critical truth that we must have a low view of ourselves, a high view of God. So our theme tonight is this. God himself. The gospel is centered upon God himself. God removes false worshipers. God gathers true worshipers. God does all of this for his own glory. Those are three points. So, we begin with this that God removes false worshipers. It is absolutely necessary that we come to God, that we praise Him alone, and that we praise Him alone exclusively, without any hypocrisy, without any mixing in of idolatrous thinking or ideas. And so God even says this in verse 39. It is a qualifying statement, and there is an important if that comes after it, but God says this, go serve every one of you His idols. Go serve your rivals. This is the word of God. The word to whom? Well, there's two important things. First, that qualifier. If, this is the language of the text, if, now we're in the middle end of verse 39, you will not listen to me. Okay, so there's the condition. If you will not listen to me, if you will not repent, go serve your rivals. Then there's another critical piece to this, namely, that God is speaking to those who are pretending to worship Him, who are in name Israelites, who are externally the people of God, but they're only bringing profane worship. As they come to Him, as they speak of His holy name, they profane Him. They bring false gifts. They are mixing in their idolatry. The word used twice in verse thirty-nine for idols is the word for idols in The Old Testament is rare in the Old Testament as a whole, but it appears quite a few times, some dozens of times, in the book of Ezekiel as a word that associates idolatry with foul-smelling feces. It is the word that one commentator translates as fecal deities. It is this foul thing. When someone would say that they are God's person, that they would say they are God's son, that they would say they are God's daughter, that they would embrace their external title as part of God's covenant people, but then when they come to God to worship him, they mix in their foul idolatry. It is to those people So mix in idolatry and you will not repent. So now we're basically working backwards from the end of verse 39 back to the middle that God says, go serve your idols. I do not want your hypocritical worship. If you will not repent, if you will not truly worship me, Then why are you part of mine? You have no place on my holy belt. God removes false worshipers. You might think of how God says it to the New Testament church of Laodicea. Revelation three verse fifteen and sixteen. I know your words. You are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. God will remove false worshipers. God says, I do not want hypocritical It is a foul form of worship. It is no pleasing aroma. It is now if you use a different illustration, the language of Revelation three, it leaves a bad taste in god's mouth and we'll spit it out. So, the challenge of verse thirty-nine which is spoken to those who are physically returning. The what's the context? Verse thirty-three to thirty-eight and these into verse thirty-nine. Uh we see this especially in in verse thirty-four and speaking about those who are returning. Verses thirty-three and thirty-four. These are the exiles who god is restoring. But god says, if if you're not gonna come back with true worship, then you may as well not come back at all. It's a qualified statement. That gift is there. We need to see that gift. But brothers and sisters, God does say that if we will not worship him truly, we should not worship him at all. There is elements of looking forward to the final mountain scribe in Revelation 21 of the new Jerusalem. There is elements of this text which look forward to a time when there is no hypocrisy but this is also a text which speaks to the literal restoration from exile which some will live to see. The church and the tears but that is not how god desires it and that is not how it will be in the new Jerusalem. There will finally be a place where there is no hypocrisy. To this day, God calls each one of us to true worship. It is not enough to be a part of God's covenant people to be one who attends church. God demands true and exclusive worship. So, before we move on to our second point, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna ask the question this way. Do you understand that the gate to eternal life is narrow and that the gate that So this is how God speaks about hypocrites in the covenant community. But brothers and sisters, moving on from verse 39, we have God's promise of true restoration. Now that includes the biblical word of verse 43 that we've already looked at a little in which we're going to come back to. But from verse 40 to 44, it is the promise of restoration. starting with this, our second point, God does gather true worshippers. The good news is this, God's own act will bring true worshippers to his one holy mountain. The false gifts and the foul idols of verse 39 are replaced with true and choice gifts, true worship, sacred offerings, leading to verse 41, a pleasing aroma that I will accept. Where, brothers and sisters, does this pleasing aroma ultimately come from? The gospel is described in many ways. The work of Jesus Christ is described in many ways. One which may be more familiar to us is the fact that Jesus Christ is like the perfectly loving husband who lays down his life for his That's in the middle of Ephesians chapter 5. At the beginning of that chapter, we read this description of what Jesus Christ has done. Ephesians 5 verse 2. And what you love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Ultimately, where does the foul worship become the fragrant, pleasing worship that God calls for? Those worshippers are gathered in, and those worshippers bring the fragrant offering in Christ, through His Word, through His perfect sacrifice, which is the pleasing aroma. to god. The gospel is god centered. Uh there is as one commentator said it, there is a divine initiative in this text. God is constantly speaking about what he will do. I will, I will, I will. And as we read from Genesis to Revelation, we see the fullness of the beauty of that pleasing aroma. It is in Christ. It is his worship, pleasing to god as we come in the name of christ, repenting of our sins, trusting in jesus christ. So, as a pleasing aroma, I will accept you when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered and then we see this phrase where it's all this going and we see in verse forty-two and then the phrase is repeated in verse forty-four. It's all related to this purpose. You will know that I am the Lord. You will know that I am the Lord. One of our members, I didn't ask her permission to name her so I won't, but she told me about how she was reading through Ezekiel and this was her observation. I see, you will know that I am the Lord all the time. And indeed, that is the phrase which we see again and again in the book of Ezekiel, where here it is twice in our text, verse 42, and then again in verse 44. And it's related to this gathering of God's true worshipers. God gathers his true worshipers. We might at this point, Notice that this phrase is used in more than one way, though. So let's just look, again, this phrase is used again and again in the book of Ezekiel. But please turn back with me to Ezekiel chapter 7, verse 27. Ezekiel chapter 7, verse 27. We were in Ezekiel 7. Quite a few weeks ago now, it's a chapter that, one of the chapters that details the sins of the people and describes the fact that God really will destroy Jerusalem. And how does this chapter end after saying, forge a chain, verse 23, disaster comes upon disaster, verse 26. and then the king barns is how the verse begins and then we read this. The prince is wrapped in despair in the hands of the people of the land are paralyzed by terror according to their way. I will do to them and according to their judgments, I will judge them and they shall know that I am the lord. So, we have The chapter focused on the judgment that God is bringing, that the people will be driven out of the land, and how it's done. They shall know that I am the Lord. We have verses focused on the promise of restoration in chapter 20, and that God will bring them back, those who are scattered, verse 41 and 42, and he's bringing them back, and what is this doing? They shall know that I am the Lord. God's judgment, you shall know that I am the Lord. God's mercy, you shall know that I am the Lord. How is this put together? How do we see this same phrase in different places in the book of Ezekiel? Well, brothers and sisters, this has been called the gospel paradox. This is what Christopher Wright once called it. The gospel paradox. And where is the answer to this? The answer to the fact that God's wrath and God's bringing the people out is done for the fact that they shall know him and God's glory is done for the fact that they shall know him. How do we put this together? Where does it all come together in one place? It all comes together in one place in the cross. That's where we pull everything together. And so Christopher Wright once said it this way, quote, The suicides of this paradox will ultimately result only in the cross of Jesus Christ, which stands as a simultaneous vindication of the justice and mercy of God. For on the cross, God did deal with sin as it deserved. But he did so by laying on his own son and servant the iniquity of us all, so that we, being barren, steal his impenitency no longer." Why does God drive the people from the land? Because of the sinfulness of the people. For his own name's sake, so that they shall know, I am noteworthy. God's wrath displays his glory. and his God for his own name's sake, and so that we shall know who he is. Why does God bring the people in? For God's own name, for his own glory, so that they shall know that I am the Lord. Where do we bring all these things together? It's when we look at Jesus Christ. We look at Jesus Christ, we bring everything together. And we see the mercy of God. that he is completely just even to us. Except we don't bear the penalty of our own sins. Christ bore it for us. God is both perfectly just and wonderfully gracious. All of it displays his own glory. And so that's the next statement in verse 44, after it says, and you shall know that I am the Lord, the next word is, when I deal with you for my own namesake. So point two, point three are closely related, but now we're in our third point. God does all for his own Lord. True worshipers of God understand that God is doing this all for his own glory, for his own namesake. It is not according to what we have done. And that's the next line in verse 44. Not according to your evil ways, nor according to your corrupt deeds. And with that, it brings us back to verse 43. And the words we mentioned in the introduction of our sermon. You shall loathe yourselves for all the evils that you have committed. We need to have a high view of God and God's working out for his own glory, displaying his own justice for his own glory, displaying his own mercy for his own glory. We need to have a low view of man. This is the true worshippers. These are not the hypocrites in verse 39 who are told this or who say this. These are the true worshippers who say, and they will loathe themselves. Now, the word for yourselves in Hebrew is actually an idiom. And it's one of those things that we can't really carry across in English. But if we try to do it very literally, it would be something like this. And you will loathe at your own faces. If we try to capture it literally, it would be something like that. In other words, when you look at your own face, you shall loathe it. What is this capturing? Morris Hummel once helpfully pointed out that this relates to what we sometimes call the mirror use of God's law. You ever hear the distinction of the three main uses of the law? We talk about the law as a curve. It is a curb against evil. The law stands up as a curb, as a wall to stop evil practices. And that's a civil use. That's something which is useful for all people, whether they're believers or unbelievers. But then there's two further uses. And the believer will have all three of these. The other uses are that the law is a mirror. We look at the law of God and it is a mirror by which we see our own faces. and we see our own sin. We see our own infirmity. We have a correctly low view of man. We have a correctly low view of ourselves. We have a correct understanding of the depravity from which god saves us. So, this the use of the law uh depending on some call it the to the mirror. And then the third use is what we might we might call it. I like to call it Psalm 119 use. It's thy word is a lamp unto my feet. It's the word as our life, as our guide, as our word of gratitude to lead us forward in service to our savior. The unbeliever only has the wall. For the unbeliever, the only use that the law will have upon their life is that it will stop some of their evil deeds. But for the believer, we have it as our proof. The law is a wall, it's a curve to keep us from evil, but it's also this mirror to show us how evil we are, even as it's also our light to guide us on our way as God's servants. Well, when verse 43 says, you shall loathe your own faces, it's relating to that Mueller use of the law, brothers and sisters. It is speaking to the fact that as God gathers us as his true worshipers, We will have a high view of God and we will rejoice in God's own mercy and in God's salvation and we will have a low view of ourselves. Because we'll be able to see the depths of our own morality and our sinful nature and our sinful thoughts patterns. And we will say, I loathe myself. But I do not wallow in my guilt. Because I know two things. I know that I am bad. But that's not the only thing I know. I know that God is good. So I do not stay wallowing in my guilt. But I rejoice to know, yes, I am low. Man is low. I am full of sin but god is good and god is gracious and god saves by his own power and for his own namesake. So, though I could not save myself and that is part of my depravity and that is part of the right seeing of our own rebellion and our own sinfulness God chooses me. God will gather his true worshipers. God will bring in his people. And again, it's called his action. It is a divinely focused good news. And the better we understand how low we are, the better we understand that When Ezekiel 20 verse 43 says, you shall loathe yourselves, that's describing what true worshipers should do. Better yet, it helps us to see the beauty of the Gospel, who God is and what He has done. Follow this, again, for God's own glory is divinely focused and has a divine purpose in the end. And so throughout this chapter, which is overviewing, again, the history of God's people, there's a repeated and explicit focus upon God working for his own glory. Verse nine, verse 14, verse 22, now here in verse 44. For your own namesake. I will deal with you for my namesake, is how God says it. for God's own name, for God's own glory. And so the Old Testament men of faith understood the central place of God's own glory. And when they prayed for repentance among God's people, they prayed accordingly. And so Asaph, like other psalmists, said it this way in his prayer, Psalm 79, verse 9. Help us, O God, of our salvation, for the glory of your name. deliver us, and atone for our sins. For your namesake. And Daniel prayed this way in Daniel chapter 9 verse 17. Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant, and to his pleas for mercy. And for your namesake, O Lord, make your face shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. A theology which informs the prayers of God's saints. Does it inform your prayers? Is this how you think? Is this how you pray? God save me. God save your people. God gather many to yourself for your own namesake. and for your own glory, God. Soli Deo Gloria. To God alone be the glory. Let us cast away all the man-centered thinking of this world. Let us loathe our own man-centered thinking. Let us see the good news, which is focused upon God's work. on Christ's salvation one and all done for God's own glory. In Jesus name, we say these words. Amen. Let us pray. Lord, our Lord, you are God. You are good. So, may we May we see our depravity before you. May we see your goodness as you act. May we say, oh lord. It is for your name's sake. and in who you are. In Jesus' name, we pray.