Ezekiel

So ezekiel chapter 36 starting at verse 1.

Son of man prophesy to the mountains of Israel and say, but says because they ravaged and crushed you from every side so that you became the possession of the rest of the nations, and the object of people's malice, malicious talk, and slander. Therefore, mountains of Israel hear the word of the sovereign lord. This is what the sovereign lord says to the mountains and hills. To the ravines and valleys, to the desolate ruins and the deserted towns that have been plundered and ridiculed by the rest of the nations around you. This is what the sovereign lord says.

In my burning zeal, I have spoken against the rest of the nations and against Eden. For with glee and with malice in their hearts, they made my land their own possession so that they might plunder its pasture land. Therefore, prophesy concerning the land of Israel and say to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys, this is what the sovereign lord says. I speak in my jealous wrath because you have suffered the scorn of the nations. Therefore, this is what the sovereign lord says.

I swear with uplifted hands that the nations around you will also suffer scorn. But you mountains of Israel will produce branches and fruit for my people, Israel, for they will soon come home. I am concerned for you and will look on you with favor. You will be plowed and sown, and I will cause many people to live on you. Yes, all of Israel.

The towns will be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. I will increase the number of people and animals living on you, and they will be fruitful and become numerous. I will settle people on you as in the past and will make you prosper more than before. Then you will know that I am the lord. I will cause people my people Israel to live on you.

They will possess you and you will be their inheritance. You will never again deprive them of their children. This is what the sovereign lord says. Because some say to you, you devour people and deprive your nation of its children. Therefore, I will no longer devour people and make your nation childless declares the sovereign lord.

No longer will I make you hear the taunts of nations and no longer will you suffer the scorn of the peoples or cause your nation to fall declare as the sovereign lord? Again, the word of the lord came to me, son of man, when the people of Israel were living in their own land, they defiled it by their conduct and their actions. Their conduct was like a woman's monthly uncleanliness in my sight. So I pour out my wrath on them because they had shed blood in the land, and because they had defiled it with their idols. I dispersed them among the nations and they were scattered through the countries.

I judged them according to their conduct and their actions. And when and wherever they went among the nations, they profaned my holy name for it was said of them. These are the lord's people, and yet they had to leave his land. I had concern for my holy name, which the people of Israel profaned among the nations where they had gone. Therefore, say to the Israelites, this is what the sovereign lord says.

It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them, then the nations will know that I am the lord declares the sovereign lord when I improved holy through you before their eyes. For I will take you out of the nations, I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. Thank you, Emma. If you wanna keep that passage open, we're gonna have a look at that.

Today. Let me my name is Pete Woodcock. I'm 1 of the ministers of the church, and if you're visiting, it's lovely to have you with us. If you're online for the first time, good to see you. Let's pray.

The good help us now, to, look at this unusual book. And, in some ways, it has different ways of thinking than we do. And yet, it does show us the glory of our god, and so help us to see that we pray in Jesus' name, our man. A few weeks ago, some of us in, in fact, Andy Burouns was there as well, went to a a pastor's conference. And the first talk was by a a retired pastor, and it was on the subject of starting out, starting out as a pastor.

And he had some he had 4 just wonderful points, really. He also did the last talk, which was finishing He had exactly the same 4 points. It was just a really beautiful talk and a wonderful talk. His second point, though, was so liberating. And, and I think a lot of us, and certainly, I, I felt just utterly refreshed and completely liberated as he was telling young men about starting out, and his second point was know yourself, know yourself.

And he said this. You are setting out in a lifetime of ministry, and you're setting out in a lifetime of failure. You will fail. You will fail at everything you ever do. You'll fail as a husband.

You'll fail as a pastor. You'll fail as a preacher, you'll fail as a Christian, you'll fail as a church organizer, you'll fail. But Jesus loves failures, and they're the ones he uses for his glory. And it was so liberating because it's exactly the opposite to what you hear today. You can be a success.

You can be something powerful. You can take this on, believe in yourself. Now we're back in this series. We've had a a few weeks rest, but we're back in the series of ezekiel. Won't be too long, so don't worry.

And we've seen that in ezekiel chapters 1 to 33, God is saying through ezekiel to the people of Israel, you are a terrible failure, and they were, they were morally failing as well. You are a terrible failure, you've got yourself into an utterly hopeless situation. And we've had chapter after chapter of ezekiel preaching sometimes as shafts of light, but a preaching basically hopeless hopeless. You're hopeless. You're in a hopeless situation.

And, you can do nothing about it. There's nothing you can do in and of yourself. You're such a failure. But then from chapters 33 to 48, everything changes. There's hope.

You hopeless people. There's hope in god in god alone. That's the only place you can put your hopes. So chapters 1 to 33 are despair of yourself, despair yourself. You can't do anything.

In chapters 33 to 48, I will do what you can't do. And in our last episode, in chapter 37, when we looked at, ezekiel, we saw that Yahweh, the god of the Bible, the lord can do what no 1 else can do, and that is to take a valley of dry bones, dead bones, and bring them together and bring life. That's what god can do. So that's where we are in ezekiel. Let me just remind you that, we're way back in Israel.

They have sinned. They have disowned god. They have done all kinds of awful things and got other gods in. God has then sacked that nation. The people, there'll be some left.

But the people largely a bit or a lot of people have been taken into exile, and there are some left there. And ezekiel was 1 of those taken into ex exile. Ezekiel becomes a prophet to preach to those people in exile to say that what's going going to happen? That's where we are. Now these last chapters of ezekiel, it's hard to describe what they are, but they're they're very much like I think a prophetic they're like prophetic parables.

And they're telling the story of what god is doing and how he will, you know, what he do, how that will be fulfilled in the future. And he uses images, obviously, from is equals day. They may be unfamiliar to us, but they were very familiar to to his day. So they're prophetic parables. They're they're they're things told for the future.

They they show us that god isn't just gonna leave his people now in judgment. They show us that god is has got a restoration plan. He always has. And they show us that god is the great restorer, the great real life giver. Restoration is a pretty hard job, isn't it?

I mean, it's not quite as difficult as original making creating, but it's nearly there, isn't it? If you take, Notre Dame in 2019, that great medieval cathedral in Paris had a big fire, and the roof fell in, and the the the roof was on fire. Most of the roof went. And then there was fire damage with all of those medieval, you know, artifacts. And they had to get in, recreate us, restore us.

And it's a big job, isn't it? Cause they had to learn how to to carve in a way that they carved in the past, in medieval times. They had to do their masonry in the way that they they did. So you had master craftsman to recreate. Well, god is that master craftsman.

Not only is he a creator, but he's a recreator. Not only does he give life in the first place. He can look at a value of dry bones and dust and bring them and recreate them. Now today, we're gonna focus on how god is going to restore the people back to the land, the people in exile, back to the land. And in so doing, he's gonna store the honor of his name because the honor of his name is coming, is is being profaned.

In chapter 34, we saw that god now is the good shepherd, obviously, looking forward to Jesus, the good shepherd that lays his life down for the sheep. He's a good shepherd, but he now needs a flock to shepherd, and they need a land to be able to eat in, and they need a land that is clean and not not got all kinds of, you know, dodgy weeds in and pollution. And so we come to the land. We come to the land that needs detoxing. The shepherd who's gonna lead his flock, we will see in a minute, into a clean land.

And my first point then is the land here. And did you notice as you as we read through, there are many references to the land and to mountains. Now in many ways, land we need to get this before we get into it. Land has a has a a a massive part of our identity. We know that because so many of us are from different lands.

It, you know, partly who we are is is to do with from what land we came from. It talks about land, it's not just like a, you know, a patch of field or something, a a patch of soil. But it's where our identity is, isn't it? I'm British. I I was I was born in Windsor.

You know, Roy I was born in Royal Windsor. There's obvious that, you know, there's some royalty in my blood. And, you know, but your land, and you know those of you that, you know, refugees, you you you know that The land carries it carries your history. It carries your culture. It carries your your language, your traditions, your tastes, your food tastes.

You know, the way you dress. So land is often identified with with us. These are exiles, and exiles are similar to refugees. And those of you that are refugees here, you know what it is to be powerless and placeless. You know what it feels like.

The land you've escaped from, you can't go back to because it's just too dangerous. So you're you're a refugee. Well, in this case, these exiles that they can't go back to their land if they're going to be clean sheep following the shepherd because the land is dangerous for holy people. It it's full of idols and it's it's defiled, as we'll see in a minute. It's a land unsuitable for holy people that follow a holy god.

Even the temple in the land, as we saw in chapter 8, is full of idols. So a good shepherd can't lead his people to this this land until it's cleaned. Until it's made clean. Now throughout this passage, as I say, the lord god Yahweh himself, he does a lot of talking to mountains. Did you notice that?

Very interesting. He's talking to mountains and he talks to the land. Look at verse 1 of chapter 36. Son of man, that's that's, ezekiel, prophecy to the mountains of Israel, and say mountains of Israel. Hear the word of the road or verse 3, therefore prophesy and say, and he's talking to the mountains.

Verse 4, Therefore mountains of Israel hear the word of the sovereign lord verse 6, therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel and say to the mountains and the hills verse 8, but you mountains of Israel listen to the word of the lord? Now why is god speaking to the mountains? Well, the mountains largely were where the idols were put. So the false gods were sort of they erected the the idols and their little temples on the mountains. Why?

Because if you're on a mountain, you're the ruler of the high place. You're the you're the high god. When you're working the field and you look up at the mountains, you're looking up to the high place, and there's the high god. In this place, in this case, the false gods. And those mountains is where some dreadful things happen.

A lot of people think that verses 12 and 14 and just have a look down at them. Is where even some Israelites were sacrificing their own children to the false gods in the High mountain. There were some horrible things going on up there. Look at verse 12. Second part.

Look, you will never again deprive them of their children. He's talking to the mountains. Or look at verse 13, the second half. You devour people and deprive your nation of its children. Well, look at verse 14.

You will no longer devour people or make your nation child less. God is speaking to the mountains. These mountains have had to witness horror. They've had to witness absolute and not only witness. It seems that they've had to take part in the horror.

These mountains, the very land itself is suffering under the curse of wickedness. This is a polluted land. And they've become the possession of the enemy of the sovereign lord. Look at verse 2. This is what the sovereign lord says.

The enemy said of you, this is the mountains. Uh-huh. The ancient heights have become our possession. The enemy of the lord own the mountains. They don't wanna be owned by the enemy of the lord, but they're owned.

They're under this curse and the nations have ravaged and crushed and left desolate. The mountains and the towns in the mountains are ruined, and and the the enemies of god have come in and and they've worm their way in and grown their weeds in the mountain, and they've shed blood in the mountains. The ground had to receive the blood of child sacrifice. That's how the world, that's how the how the creation is feeling. The identity that Israel got from that land under these false nations and false gods, even made them the people of god, the enemy of god.

And we see that that, that because they followed those false gods. Look at look at them defiling it. Look at verses 16 to 18. Again, the word word of the lord came to me. That's ezekiel, son of man.

When the people of Israel were living in their own land, they defiled it by their conduct. And their action. Their conduct was like a woman's monthly uncleanness in my sight. So I poured out my wrath on them because they had shed blood in the land and because they had defiled it with their idols. They defiled themselves as a people, and they defiled the land.

Yeah? Now land in the old testament is is often a sort of barometer of how people are doing. If the people are following god well, the land is fertile. That's how it works in those days. If the people weren't following and they were unfaithful and they weren't following the law, then disaster and famine came.

So land trying to show you that land is intertwined with the faithfulness of the people. They've shed blood in the land, and they've been unfaithful to god and turned to idol. Look at verse 18 again. So I poured out my wrath on them because they had shed blood in the land and because they had defiled it with idols. Shared blood murder.

They sinned against people. Idolatry is sin against god. These are these are both halves of the 10 commandments, if you know them. Love the lord your god with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself, and they done neither. They'd raised up idols, and they had broken, love for mankind by shedding blood.

This is disgusting. So disgusting that in verse 17, god sees them as a pile of sanitary towels. When I look at you, god says, this is god speaking. Not me, so don't blame me for this language. I think of a pile of sanitary towels.

Was thinking about that this week. Sanetry towels. What do you do with a sanitary towel? You you don't even flush it down the toilet where all a poo goes, do you? If you do that, Dave laws is on to you.

And, and then, what are they called? TEM's Water will charge you even more than they charge. Yeah? Sanitary towels are no good for even flushing down the toilet. You have to have a special bucket for them.

And god is saying, you people were supposed to follow me. For goodness sake, I'm gonna have to carry you away like a bag full of sanitary towels. You can't even recycle them. No 1 could recycle them. They're so failures.

So god takes them away from the land. And he takes them away from the land, and he's gonna take the influence of this away the people away from the land. Why? So that he can now restore the land. He throws them out of the land.

To restore the land so he can bring or restore people back to the land. That's the gospel, by the way. So how is he gonna restore the land? The land needs detoxing. It really does.

And as a good shepherd, he could not possibly be bring sheep to this land. It's full of blood. You get the picture. You're getting the picture here. But then we have this beautiful picture of restoration.

I mean, who could restore that land? Other than the great restorer. There's no hope, isn't it? Other than the great restorer. And so look what he says to the land.

He's talking to the land again now. Look at verses 8 and 9, but you mountains of Israel, will produce branches and fruit for my people Israel. For they will soon look what it says, please, look, they will soon come home. I'm concerned for you. Talk to the land, and you will look, and will look on you with favor.

You will be plowed and sown back to what you should be. Like the image of a vine coming to life after over winter hiber hibernation. Like the land that's gone through the winter is now producing fruit again. And god uses the word home. And home is such a wonderful word home, isn't it?

What it should be? Because it's a place of welcome, a place of relationship, a place where you're secure, a place where there's safety. That's what a home should be, a place where you're fed and warm and accepted, a place where the fridge is full. I'm at home at the moment. I my fridge has nothing in it because I haven't had a wife for 3 weeks.

I thought the fridge just you know, I didn't realize it had connection with Anne. And now you open it up, there's nothing in it. But home is meant to be you open it up, and there's all kinds of goodies in it. But it's where you belong. It's where you identify.

This is the homeland of god. Look at verses 10 and 11, and I will cause many people to live on you. Yes. All Israel. All of the real Israel will come back.

That's that's that's Christians around the world. The towns will be inhabited, and the ruins rebuilt, and I will increase the number of people and animals living in years. You'll be more and they will be fruitful and become numerous, and I will settle people on you as in the past, and will make you prosper more than before. It's gonna be better than before. When I clean up this land, it's gonna be better than before.

Then you will know that I am the lord. Fruitful, multiplying its language of creation. It takes us right back to the land of Eden. He'll he'll use that word in in a minute. But there's flourishing, there's beauty, there's life, there's prospering, more than before, and then you will know that I am the lord.

There's relationship. You'll know the lord, and he'll know you. You'll know each other. Fruitfulness, blessing, provision, home, redemption, restoration, god's people, knowing god and god knowing them. That's the place that he's going to prepare for you.

I've given orders we're being told here to the land to get ready for the sheep. What a picture, ain't it? It's pointing to the new creation brothers and sisters. It's not talking about the small return that actually happened. With ezekiel's exiles and came back to the little land of of Judah.

That's that's it's so much bigger than that ever was. It's a promise. Wonderful and big. It's a prof fettig promise, parable of what's gonna happen. Now as Christians, where do we get our our identity from?

Where's our belonging? Where's our land? Well, it's not in this world. That's why we don't fight for little bits of land. We we don't really care about Judah and Israel now.

Other than, you know, the human things that are going on there, but we that we're not fighting for a piece of land. We're not trying to make England, you know, heaven. It never will be. That's not where we get our our identity. That's not our home.

We get our home in Christ. He's our land. We get our identity in him. We died with Jesus to self and sin in the world, and we rose with him to life. If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.

The old is gone and the new has come. Belonging to Christ and belonging to Christ's people, the church, that's that's where we're in. We're returning from exile, but we're not fully there yet. There is a land to come but we're in the waiting room, and the church together is god's people's sheep being gathered so that 1 day we're going to the new land. He's cleaning for us, preparing for us.

You see? Our identity is in Christ now. So whoever you are and whatever land you're from, our identity is in the lord Jesus Christ, not in a geographical land anymore, but there will be a day. When we'll walk into the new land, at the moment, we're aliens and strangers we're told in this world. This is not our home.

And we'll feel uncomfortable here to some degree. Those of you that are from foreign lands, those of you that are refugees that you're from a displaced, you're you're displaced from your homeland. You know what it is to live in England that's slightly uncomfortable, isn't it? This isn't really your home? You know, people talk slightly differently than you imagined.

And you've you know, the food is different. The smells are different. People smell different. Don't they? They do different things.

You know, sometimes, you know, at the end of a meal, people burp from some lands. Do that in England. It's a bit weird. You know? Sometimes people express themselves in all kinds of bodily noises.

But in England, you're meant to shut up. You know, we don't do that sort of thing. But, you know, so we feel a little uncomfortable. Well, that's how we're always fewer Christians. Because we're looking for a better country.

We're looking for the cleanse country. We're looking for the place where the pastures are green, and the waters are fresh. That's been detoxified, and that's what Jesus is making for us. This is what he said in John 14. Do not let your hearts be troubled.

Do, you believe in god, believe also in me? My father's house has many rooms. If that were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me so that you may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I'm going?

Thomas, 1 of the disciples said to it, lord. We don't know where you're going. So how do we know the way? Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No 1 comes to the father except through me.

There's a city beyond this place. There's a better country that all god's people in faith are looking forward to. There's a country that's been detoxified of sin. A place where the father is, a place where Jesus at this very moment, the great shepherd is preparing for us, preparing for us for the sheep to enter in. A place with no sin, a place with no bad news, a place with no graveyard, no death, no stabbings, a place where god has given all the power to the land to be fruitful, where there's streams of living water, where there's fruit growing either side of the streams.

Where Jesus is detoxified by his life and rest death and resurrection. He's cleansed the land, a new Eden, better, more glorious than the original. That's the land. But Jesus is taking 2, us 2. And that's my first point.

That's the time. Here's my second point. So the first thing is the land. My second point is his name. His name.

Why is god? Why is your way doing all this? Why is he doing this? Why is he doing this? Why does he just give up on us?

What's his motive? His motive is to demonstrate who he is. That's his motive. He does all this to show us who he is. And he does this to restore the honor of his name.

Look at verse 20 and 21. This is what the people had done. And wherever they went among the nations, they famed my holy name. For it was said of them, these are the lord's people, and yet they had to leave his land. I had concern for my holy name, which the people of Israel profane among the nations where they had gone.

Why is god doing all this? Well, god will act. He'll do this for his name's sake. So we understand who the god is. He'll act in judgment chapters 1 to 33 for his namesake.

He can't put up with this sin? He's the god of love. Love the lord your god, love your neighbor, and you've done neither. So for his namesake, he'll judge, but he will act in salvation, chapters 33 to 48. For his namesake, his name's no.

I wonder. Let's work this out because people get worked up about this because it sounds awful, didn't it? He's doing something for his namesake. We feel a little uncomfortable about that sort of stuff. But I think it's put in terms like this because this is how we often work.

As soon as we hear of, like, god is gonna restore us, we think like this. Well, yeah, that's true. I've messed up a bit. But I must be worthy of restoration. That's how we think, isn't it?

I must be worthy of restoration. There must be something about me that's worthy of restoration. And so we turn god's utter grace into I'm worthy. I'm worth it. That's the world's, isn't it?

That's the world's thing. I'm worth it. Look at me, I've gotta find out that I'm worth it. But he doesn't restore and he doesn't rescue us because we're worthy, but because of his name, When it's his name, it means his whole nature. And his nature is love.

He does this because god is love. Verse 20 then, and wherever they went, the nation, among the nations, they profaned my holy name. For it was said, and then the nations was laughing at what the people of god were doing. The word profane means diminish. It actually means just to make common.

You know, when people swear when they say Jesus Christ or something, when they hit their thumb, you know, what what's the problem that? Jesus Christ. Well, they're making the name of Jesus, which is the loveliest name in the universe, like a common word. You know? So they'll say a 4 letter word on 1 occasion.

They'll say Jesus, you know, it's it's just co it's just common. That's the problem with that. And to profane the name of god, it's just to make him common. Yeah? So here's what's going on.

The non the pagans all around all around, Judah are looking on, and imagine you're there as a a pagan. You worship Murdoch. You quite love nebuchadnezzar because he's a powerful king, you know. You know, he's made Babylon great again and all that stuff, and he's a powerful king, and you quite like him. And there he is, and suddenly there's these exiles coming.

And you're talking to each other. Who's who are this lot then? Oh, they're the lot from Judah. They're who's their god then? Oh, I see this Yahweh Yahweh.

He's not a very good god, is he? He can't even keep his people in the land. Well, praise Murdoch because he's powerful, isn't he? Because Murdoch, I should say, not not murder, not the, anyway. Murdoch.

He's our god. He's great. Praise praise be to wonderful nebuchadnezzar has power over this little yahweh god. How pathetic he is. He can't even keep the land for these people.

That's what's going on. So god will restore his name. But how does he do it? Now listen, we're nearly done. How does he do it?

How does god restore his name? This is breathtaking. The Holy God works through us the sinful rebels to restore his name. He restores his name by restoring people, and he does it out of grace, out of love, pure love, not because we're worth it, but why? How does this god love?

Is this god a god of love? Well, he gets nothing out of these people, and yet he restores them and brings them to a land that they defile. He cleans it up What a god of love? This is gracably on grace, isn't it? These people don't deserve a thing other than the judgment of god, but wow, he's now taken these people that have defiled and profaned his name, by the way they've lived and what they've said, he's taken these profane people.

And he's cleaned them up, and he's brought them into a land that they've caused bloodshed in. Their disobedience is even in the very land itself, groaning and crying out. And god says, you wanna know what my name is? It's love, it's grace, it's father, it's restorer, it's forgiver. That's how he does it.

Now are you ready? I'm gonna show you quickly because 16 times he uses the word I will. So I've got 16 points. I'll try and boil it down into 5 ways. Look, first of all, he restores his name by giving those people a bath.

The dirty people. Look at verse 25. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you'll be clean, and I will cleanse you from you all your impurities. And from all your idlers. You see what he's doing?

He's cleaning his people. We need to be cleaned. The old preachers would say you need to be washed in the blood of the lamb. There's 1 clean cleansing agent, and it's the blood of Christ. That's why he died on the cross.

We need to be clean. We're gonna restore the honor of his of his name by his grace in cleaning ugly profane people. Secondly, He gives us a new heart transplant because how are we gonna maintain cleanness? How are we gonna maintain cleanness? Well, we need a new heart.

We'll go run running back to the to, like, a dog running back to its sick. We need a new heart. Look at verse 26. I'll give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you, and I will remove from you the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. He's gonna give us a new heart.

Now Hebrew thinking, the heart is the intellect and the will. It's the place of decision making. I'm gonna give you a new place of decision making, and I'm gonna give you a new heart you're no longer agnostic or rebellious towards me. I'm gonna take away a heart of stone. See, what is a heart of stone?

Well, if you take a stone, you could you can prod it and it won't do anything. It doesn't care. You could chuck the stone at the wall. And it's hard. It doesn't care.

But I'm gonna take a heart of stone toward me, and I'm gonna give you a heart of flesh. What's flesh like? Well, you only gotta have a little prick. I'm new. You know, I've I've only got it I've only got to get a little, needle behind you and just prick you.

What? That's up? What you're doing? Alright? Haven't you?

You've only got a little tiny weenie. It's weenie splinter. Sometimes you have to get a magnifying glass. It worked. Hert.

That's flesh. I'm gonna give you flesh sensitivity to my word. Pleasure and pain. It's in the flesh that we know pleasure, that you'll understand just how gorgeous I am. God is saying.

You'll understand how gorgeous Jesus is. He's the joy of the world you'll take pleasure in the lord Jesus Christ. How wonderful he is, and there's a joy in us, and all the things he gives us and the fruitfulness he wants of us, there's joy, there's pleasure, but then there's pain that I can't sin. Why would I do that? There's the pain of because it's flesh.

Her hearts are flesh now. We're sensitive to sin that upsets our god. Why do I do this? And yet we see how beautiful he is. Have you got that heart?

Thirdly, a new spirit verse 27, then I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to follow my laws. I'm gonna put my laws in you with a new spirit. By the way, there's more about the Holy Spirit in this book of Ezekiel than any other book in the Bible. So if you wanna know about the Holy Spirit, go to Ezekiel. And if you wanna know what a spirit filled person is, a spirit filled person is is it knows when they sin and loves the lord Jesus.

Fortunately, there's a new humility verse 31. Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourself for your sins and detestable practices. The spirit when he's in you is working to show you the horror of your sin before a holy god. That's when the spirit's working. A spirit powered person is someone who sees the horror of their own lives and the beauty of salvation.

And then a new land, verse 30. Extraordinary. Look at verse 35, by the way, just quickly. And they will say this land will be laid waste. This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden.

See that? We're back to Eden, but better. Now quickly, our response to all of this. Our response is shame and wonder. This is how you know whether the spirit is working in you.

So god stops the eye wills. And it becomes you will. When god works, there's a you in you. This is this is breathtaking because he's restoring the glory of his name. By changing you, by loving you, by being gracious to you.

It's extraordinary, isn't it? Restore. I wrote the honor of your name in my life. And look at it just very quickly. First 31 and 32.

Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourself for your sins and detestable practices. I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake declares to sovereign lord. Be ashamed. And disgraced of your conduct people of Israel. Remember your evil ways.

They're loathsome. They're loathsome. To have any other god or anything else before god is loathsome. World around us is loathsome. It's full of bloodshed and violence.

The 10 commandments are broken all the time. Most of us don't even know what the 10 commandments are. Break them. Jesus in the sermon on the mount adds to the kingdom always or rather it doesn't add to them, but he he he bigifies them or whatever the word is. Remember your evil ways.

That's the Christian way. Be ashamed. We're not meant to be ashamed anymore. We're supposed to have pride. The total opposite.

That's why there's all of the problems in the world. We're proud. Be ashamed. Be ashamed. But don't stay there.

We're not meant to stay in being ashamed. We understand that I'm a failure. I fail in every area of my life, but Jesus isn't a failure. And I come to Jesus, and my identity now is in Jesus. And I'm forgiven for all my sin in Jesus.

I look at my sin. I don't wallow in it. I take it to Christ. And see I'm forgiven, and it causes me to praise that he would forgive me that glory to his name. What's his name?

Love her? He love me? I loved more than anything else in the world. I'm loved by the father as the father loves Jesus, and I mean Jesus the father loves me. I'm so loved.

Me. That's what god does. That's how he restores his name. When people like you and me bring praise to his name, restore o lord the honor of your name. Father, we thank you so much for showing us in your words what a a loving god you are.

We are so undeserving of your mercy and your grace. Yet you are a god who restores the honor of his name by lavishing his love on those who are unworthy of it. We praise you that you sent the lord Jesus Christ to die. To shed his blood so that he may clean the land, that he may clean us up so that we are fit for purpose. We thank you that the lord Jesus promises that he has gone away to prepare a place for us who love you.

And so we we long for the day where you return and let you take us to be with with you in a land that is free from death and decay and sin and pain, a a a world where every tear is wiped away by you our loving father. And so far that we do pray that you will give us eyes of faith that want your return to come. Help us to live in the light of these things, help us to feel the shame when we get it wrong, and help us to love the lord Jesus more by your Holy Spirit. And so we pray these things in Jesus' name. Oh, man.