I invite you to turn in the scriptures to Ezekiel chapter 10. We'll finish out chapter 10 today. Start at verse 9 and read to the end of the chapter. This is the holy, inspired, and inerrant word of God. Ezekiel chapter 10, starting at verse 9. I looked, and I saw beside the cherubim four wheels, one beside each of the cherubim. The wheels sparkled like chrysalite. As for their appearance, the four of them looked alike. Each was like a wheel intersecting a wheel. As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the cherubim faced. The wheels did not turn about as the cherubim went. The cherubim went in whatever direction the head faced without turning as they went. Their entire bodies, including their backs, their hands, and their wings, were completely full of eyes, as were their four wheels. I heard the wheels being called the whirling wheels. Each of the cherubim had four faces. One face was that of a cherub, the second the face of a man, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle. Then the cherubim rose upward. These were the living creatures I had seen by the Khabar River. When the cherubim moved, the wheels beside them moved. And when the cherubim spread their wings to rise from the ground, the wheels did not leave their side. When the cherubim stood still, they also stood still. And when the cherubim rose, they rose with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in them. Then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim. While I watched, the cherubim spread their wings and rose from the ground, and as they went, the wheels went with them. They stopped at the entrance to the east gate of the Lord's house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. These were the living creatures I had seen beneath the God of Israel by the Kibar River, and I realized that they were cherubim. Each had four faces and four wings, and under their wings was what looked like the hands of a man. Their faces had the same appearance as those I had seen by the Kibar River. Each one went straight ahead. My church history professor loved to say that the Christian life was like a combination of amnesia and deja vu. I know I've forgotten this same thing before. Human beings are good at forgetting things. What's the name of that disease where you forget things all the time? Oh, yeah, Alzheimer's. Yeah. Well, there are many biblical passages that exhort us to remember things. Paul says, it is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again. And it is a safeguard for you. That is an excellent statement in helping us to understand what's happening in our passage. Because if anyone who might remember what chapter one was like, will recognize that Ezekiel saw here a vision that is almost identical to chapter 1. The language is almost identical. There is a great deal of repetition. We hear and see through Ezekiel's eyes much of what Ezekiel saw before when he was with the exilic community by the Kibar Canal. In fact, several times in our passage here, Ezekiel makes the connection between this vision and chapter 1 very explicit. These were the same angels. These cherubim were the same living creatures. Their faces were the same. There's a lot of sameness to this vision. Yet we'll also see some very subtle differences that can help us understand why there's a repetition and also why there are some differences. And we will also see movement. So that's how we're going to organize this. There's things that are the same. There's things that are different. And then there's the movement, the physical movement. But before we get there, we have to remember a few things about Ezekiel's audience. Ezekiel's audience, remember, was the exilic community in Babylon, not those left behind in Jerusalem. That makes an incredibly huge difference in the message that Ezekiel has for us. In fact, I would venture to say that the audience here determines whether this message is a message of judgment or a message of hope. And we're going to see here that in some ways, actually, it is both. It's a message of judgment for the people left behind in Jerusalem, but a message of hope for the exiles. Because you see, if Ezekiel was speaking to the people left behind in Jerusalem, the sole message would be that the glorious God is leaving the temple and he's abandoning the people in Jerusalem. That would be a complete judgment message. But if the audience is the exilic community who are all in Babylon, the message is actually of hope as well. God's glorious presence is leaving Jerusalem in order to be present with those who are in exile. So we've got to remember here, the audience is the exilic community, not those left behind in Jerusalem. So now let's look at the ways in which this vision is the same as chapter one. We've already looked a little bit at Ezekiel's comments in verse 20 and 22. The creatures he was looking at are the same creatures he saw at the Kibar canal in chapter one. Then there's the wheels in verse 9. The appearance of the wheels is very similar. They both look like chrysalite, which is a light green gemstone. Their mobility is described the same way. Wheels within wheels, allowing them to move in any direction without turning. We said before that BB-8 of the Star Wars movies has a mechanism of movement that might have been rather similar to how these wheels move. The significance of that description is that God's glory is portable and is not confined to the Jerusalem temple. And even Ezekiel, who had seen the magnificent vision of chapter one, might have forgotten such an important lesson. He was, after all, a priest, and priests were used to thinking that God's glory was confined to one place, the temple, being right above the ark, in between the cherubim. That's the only place God's glory could reside. Maybe Ezekiel needed a reminder that God's glory is portable. The four faces are very similar, although we will see that there is one important difference. When we looked at the faces in chapter one, we saw the faces represented God's rule, his sovereignty in the various realms of creation. So God ruled over man, God ruled over the air, that's the eagle's face. He ruled over the tame animals, the ox, and over the wild animals, the lion. Those were the rulers of the various realms. Eagle is the king of the skies. Man is the king of all creation. The ox is the king of the tame animals. Lion is the king of wild animals. But we'll see a small difference here. We'll look at the difference in just a minute. Also similar to chapter 1 is the presence of the eyes. And we saw eyes represent God's ability to see all things. The fancy word for this is God's omniscience. He sees everything because he can go everywhere. And he is everywhere. Although here, again, there's a slight difference, which we'll get at in a minute as well. The question we want to ask and answer, though, is why the repetition? Why do we have this account of the vision that is so similar, has so much repetition in chapter 10, as what Ezekiel saw in chapter 1? Derek Thomas has a very helpful comment along this line. He says, the repetition is in order to emphasize the magnitude of God's departure. It is to emphasize the magnitude of God's departure that a description of his glory is repeated. Yeah, it's that glorious God that's leaving. What a big deal that is. It's not just that God was getting up and going somewhere else. This was a judicial abandonment of his son Israel. It was the glorious presence of God, so magnificently on display here, that was leaving Jerusalem and going to the exiles. This is a big deal. As we've seen in the past also, we see Christ portrayed here too. As the glory of God left the temple, so the glory of Christ leaves heaven for earth. And just as God judicially abandoned his son, Israel, so also he judicially abandoned his greater son, Jesus. The difference though is just as instructive, isn't it? Because Jesus did nothing wrong and Israel did everything wrong. That leads us to consider some of the differences now. The differences between this and chapter one. Now, some liberal scholars think that it really amounts to a contradiction. Or that it's seen as evidence that somebody tampered with the text. But the differences can be explained much more easily than that. The first point, and this goes for all the differences, it applies to all the differences that is, is that what Ezekiel saw, he saw in a vision. Visions in the Bible are in the same category as dreams. I'm sure most of us have had dreams that are almost identical, but differ in some small details. It happens a little differently the second time. The details are not evidence of a contradiction, then. Rather, they're evidence that God has something to teach us through these differences. The second point, of course, which applies to all the differences as well, is that angels do not have physical bodies in the same way that we do. That means that even the same angels could appear in different forms in the Bible. Take the cherubim, for instance. In Genesis 2, they appear with flaming swords. In Isaiah 6, these cherubim have six wings. In Ezekiel, they have four wings. In Ezekiel, there are wheels right next to the cherubim. In Isaiah, there are no wheels. Angels can also appear like regular human beings. They can take on a different appearance and look completely different in accordance with the needs of the situation. So these differences shouldn't bother us. Angels appearing in a different form. They don't have physical bodies. They can appear differently. Instead, these differences should actually excite us because there's a reason for each difference. The first difference we notice is in verse 12. Verse 12 of our chapter describes the bodies of the angels as having eyes everywhere. on their whole body, on the wheels, and on their wings. But in chapter one, the eyes are only on the wheels. Why are there more eyes here than there are in chapter one? Well, the answer is that in the context, chapter eight, the rulers of the people denied that God could see them. They denied God's omniscience. So even though Ezekiel would have got the message, even from chapter 1, the people needed to see the message, but this time with emphasis. God really does see everything. And the second time around, the eyes are everywhere. It's like every square inch is covered with eyes. The second difference is in verse 13. Ezekiel hears that the wheels are given a new name, whirling wheels. That's new to chapter 10. The message of this new name given to the wheels does something similar that the additional eyes does. It emphasizes the message that God's glory is portable. The wheels are not just motionless wheels. They're not just spinning in place. they are whirling, they are moving, they have action. has the most difficult difference, and it's difficult because of verse 22. In verse 22, Ezekiel said that the four faces have the same appearance as the four faces in the Kibar Canal, his vision in chapter 1. However, it's clear that the four faces are not the same. In chapter 1, the four faces are human, lion, ox, and eagle. But in chapter 10, the faces are cherub, human, lion, and eagle. Three of them are the same. Human, lion, eagle. But the ox of chapter 1 seems to have been changed into a cherub in chapter 10. Why this change? And why would Ezekiel say that they were the same faces if they were, in fact, slightly different? Well, Ezekiel means in verse 22 that these were the same creatures. As we have seen, they can take on a slightly different appearance depending on the needs of the situation. The fact that a cherub face replaces the face of an ox has this significance because cherubs are the highest order of angels, if you will, in the heavenly realm. God is reminding us then that he is sovereign over the heavenly realm and not just over the earthly realm. Of course, just because the ox is now absent doesn't mean that God somehow loses sovereignty over the tame animals, which is what we said the significance of the ox face was. But God is reminding us here of his sovereignty over all heavenly creatures as well as all earthly creatures. Now why is that significant for the exiles? for the people in exile, because they need to be reminded time and again that they were not conquered by Nebuchadnezzar because the Babylonian gods were somehow more powerful than Israel's gods. Rather, Israel's God was disciplining his people because of their sin, and he was using Nebuchadnezzar to accomplish that. And that's what this is about. God really is in charge. So these differences help us to understand a little bit more about the incarnation of Christ. For instance, we can ask questions about it. How could Christ come to earth being God? How could he add a human nature to his divine nature and still remain one person? If we remember here, what our passage tells us We remember that God does not change, but that he is consistent in his response to our changing circumstances. That can help us understand how the unchanging God consistently responds to our sin situation. See, it's not God who's changing, it's us who change. And he worked in accordance with that plan even before the world was created. So you see, what God is telling Ezekiel here is that God is concerned with the changes in our situation. And he's telling Ezekiel, I always have the resources. Nothing can catch God napping, as it were. Nothing can overturn his plan. His plan is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now that's hard for us to understand, but it can be a little bit easier if we can simplify it and put it this way. God doesn't change, we do. So even in those statements in the Bible where it seems to suggest that God changed his mind, he didn't change his mind. We are the people who changed. And God consistently responded to our changes. Thirdly, in our passage, we can see movement. We can see potential movement or agility, and then we can also see actual movement of God's glory. Now, if you remember, we were talking about God's glorious presence, not the way in which God is present everywhere. We saw in the last few passages how God was leaving Jerusalem. This is his glorious presence now. He's leaving Jerusalem, but he's leaving slowly, reluctantly. First he moved from the cherubim above the ark. He moved from there to the doorway of that room. Then he moves to a place over the cherubim. located the entrance to the east gate. As one scholar puts it, this is the last taxi before takeoff. And then in chapter 11, he finally leaves Jerusalem to go to a place east of the city entirely. How are we to see this movement? It depends on where we're standing. Are we with the people left behind in Jerusalem? Or are we with the people in exile? It has important application, either way we think about it. If we identify with the people left behind, we can see that God's judgment, though slow and reluctant, does not wait forever. Although God gives repeated warnings and plenty of chances for repentance, the judgment will come sometime. And if we are in the position of those people in exile, though, we see that God's glorious presence comes to those who acknowledge their true guilt, who ask for forgiveness, who ask for the blood of Jesus Christ to cover them over. So repetition of key ideas here. It's not harmful for us, but beneficial. When the Israelites had to have manna over and over and over again, day in, day out, it was for their good. The problem was, they liked to complain about it, didn't they? Why do we have to have this manna all the time? Why can't we have some meat? But if we remembered that, you know what, we have spiritual amnesia. Or maybe we could say we all struggle with spiritual Alzheimer's disease. We constantly forget things, and we have to be reminded of them. There is a lot of repetition in the Bible, and repetition is said to be one of the very best tools for learning something. Well, we have to be told. over, over, over again. That's why, by the way, we never outgrow our need for the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's not something we outgrow. We don't start at the gospel, for instance, of Jesus Christ and then move beyond it in the Christian life. That's not how it works. What we do is that we understand that same gospel deeper and deeper and better and better. That's what the Christian life is like. Lastly, we should also not forget that God is in fact completely sovereign over all things in heaven and on earth. And he sees all things. He sees when we get up. He sees when we go to sleep. He sees when we sin, and He sees when we repent. And even when we change, His days are forever the same. So the vision has a lot of same things. It has a lot of differences. And we see movement, and it shows us the character of our God, the character of His reluctance to judgment. We also see how we are to think about repetition in the Christian life, how we are to think about the repeated things in the Bible, how they instruct us. Now that can perhaps be taken a little bit too far. I do remember the story of one pastor who preached the exact same sermon ten weeks in a row. And it didn't take too many weeks before the people started complaining. And he said, well, I'll change to another sermon when you start putting that one into practice. That's probably a little bit overboard. Nevertheless, instruction and repetition is good for us. And we should not be complaining about it, but we should remember we are prone to forget. And God is gracious in repeating himself. and many, many occasions. And that's why the whole Bible is a repeating of the story of Jesus Christ. We hear the story of Jesus Christ told many different times, many different ways, sometimes in promise, sometimes as a harbinger in the Old Testament, and we see the significance of Jesus coming repeated for us over and over in the New Testament. It's all about Jesus. all about Jesus, the glory of the God-man, whose glory came down from heaven to earth to bring salvation to his people.