Getting to Know God – Jehovah Shammah – God is There,
Ezek 40:1-5, 48:30-35
Pray
Well, over the last couple of months, we have been working our way through a series on the names of God. You may be pleased to know that we’ve reached the last name.
In biblical times, names tell us important things about people. – People were named after - events in their lives,
- circumstances they found themselves in,
- personal characteristics or even
- their ministry function.
And God’s names are no different. They are an important source of knowledge of who God. Over the last months, we’ve looked at many names …
- Elohim – God the creator
- El Elyon – God Most High above all other kings
- El Roi – The God who sees our pain and present circumstances as he saw Hagar’s pain
- El Shaddai – God the All Sufficient One – able to give us what we need just as he gave Abraham a son in his old age.
- Adonai – The Lord
- Jehovah Jireh – The Lord will Provide as he provided a ram for Abraham
- Jehovah Nissi – The Lord is our Banner who goes into battle before his people
- Immanuel – God With Us in and though the person of Christ
- Jehovah Mekoddishkem – The Lord who Sanctifies you
- Jehovah Sabaoth – The Lord of Hosts who has all the resources needed to provide for us
- Jehovah Shalom – The Lord is Peace who seeks peace with us in our relationship with him.
- Jehovah Tisidkenu – The Lord our Righteousness who gives us righteousness through his son.
And today we come to the last name we are going to look at in this series. It is the name Jehovah Shammah – The Lord is There. The only time this name is used is in the passage we read earlier in Ezekiel. However, the concept that the Lord is Present with us or is located in a specific place is right throughout scripture.
Well as usual, I looked up a bit of the background to this name to understand what it was meaning. Jehovah is not new – it is the name of God which we’ve come across again and again in this set of studies. The word “There”, however, is interesting. I looked up the Hebrew term for this word and guess what it meant … “There.” That’s right – there means there. Profound isn’t it. The Ball is over there. Not here, there. So the name the “Lord is There”, means, the “Lord is There”, speaking about some location.
And where is God in Ezekiel’s prophesy which we just read? He is in the city. What city? Jerusalem. In chapter 40, we read that Ezekiel had a vision. It was in 574BC, in the 25th year of his exile, 14 years after the destruction of Jerusalem. Remember the diagram I showed you last week. I know it is a bit confusing, but it is a great diagram for you to have implanted in your mind. It helps you unpack much of the meaning in the books of history and prophets. Let me try to explain it to you again. After Solomon’s reign, the nation of Israel had a family feud and split in two. They formed 2 kingdoms. The Northern kingdom was called Israel and the Southern Kingdom was called Judah. They lived separate lives and so I’ve shown this by 2 lines on my time lines one for Israel and one for Judah. I’ve also shown a third line representing the northern empires at this time. If you know your history, you’d know that the northern kingdom of Israel was overrun by the Assyrians in 723BC and that is the last we hear about the northern kingdom. I explained last week, how the Southern kingdom, Judah was also invaded and carted off by Babylon, who had by this time overthrown the Assyrians Empire in the North. They invaded Judah in 607BC and carted off all the best young men into slavery. Daniel was one of the men taken prisoner. They allowed the kings of Judah to continue to rule in the South, but only if they paid great taxes. This happened for about 10 years until king Jehoiachin decided he didn’t like paying taxes and so stopped. So King Nebuchadnezzar from Babylon said, if that is how you want to play the game, take that – and he came down and invaded Jerusalem and carted the king and a heap of other people off into slavery. The prophet Ezekiel whose prophecy we are reading this morning was taken captive in this invasion. 10 years later in 587BC, Nebuchadnezzar was again upset at Judah and came down again and this time destroyed Jerusalem completely – the temple as well.
The people of Judah remained in slavery in Babylon for 40 years until a group under the charge of Zerubbabel were allowed to return to Judah to build the temple again. Another group returned under Ezra in 458BC and a third group returned under Nehemiah in 445BC. These last 2 groups helped to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Ezekiel’s vision occurred during the captivity in about 574BC and what he was shown was a temple rebuilt and a city rebuilt. Remember, this is written at a time when the city of Jerusalem and the temple within it were destroyed. The last 8 chapters of Ezekiel describe in intimate detail the dimensions and characteristics of the temple and the city that would replace Jerusalem. And the climax of his vision, the conclusion to his account was the statement that the city would be called the Lord is There. No longer would the city be called Jerusalem – the city of peace, it would be called Jehovah Shammah – the Lord is There.
To understand the significance of this name to Ezekiel and infact to all Israelites, you have you pause and think about what this meant for the people. Think about what it would be like if God was Lord over everyone and everything in this world. If God was physically there with us. It would be paradise wouldn’t it. It would be just what it was like in the Garden of Eden. Now there’s a fantastic picture of God relating to man. You can read it in Gen 3. He walked through the garden in the cool of the day. There walking with him was Adam and Eve. They had everything – security, love, acceptance, innocence, perfection and an intimate relationship with God – Face to face contact. What an amazing experience that must have been to be there with God.
Unfortunately that close communion was destroyed by sin entering the world and the result of this act of rebellion was that God threw Adam and Eve out of his garden – out of his presence. God was still there in the world, but not like he had been in the Garden. In the Garden, God was There – right there – able to be seen and touched even. But after the fall – everything changed.
The proximity of our contact changed. After the fall, the closest the Israelites came to God dwelling with them was his presence in the tabernacle and the temple. Remember the stories of the people of Israel being led through the desert with the cloud and the pillar of fire. God dwelt among them symbolised by the piller. His presence was located in the ark of the covenant and the holy of holies in his tabernacle. When Solomon’s temple was being dedicated, the Lord took up residence there 1 Ki 8:10 describes that event…
“When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place (They’d just placed the Ark in the holy of holies), the cloud (Of God’s presence) filled the temple of the LORD. 11 And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled his temple.
12 Then Solomon said, “The LORD has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; 13 I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever.”
God was there – in his temple. But it was not the same as before the fall. There was no intimate fellowship as in the garden. There was no relaxed walks in the cool of the garden. Instead of God being just there (pretend to reach out and touch him), he was just over there (point and strain to see him). The other side of that wall, inside that curtain – he was set apart. But that was better than nothing I guess – He is still within cooee.
In addition to the proximity changing, the nature of our contact also changed. Instead of walking intimately, hand in hand with our Lord who was just there, now he could only be approached through the priests. Only the High priest could enter the holy of holies and that was only on one special day. No one could touch the ark of the covenant or dare to approach the place where God dwelt. There was no longer friendship, love and intimacy in the contact – there was fear, awe and respect.
Being in the presence of God meant coming into the tabernacle or temple to offer sacrifices. God presence, though was still limited to holy of holies. And so the ordinary person could only approach God through the work of the High Priests.
When we come to Ezekiel, there is a problem though because the temple had been destroyed in 586BC – that was 14 years before Ezekiel had this vision. The people reasoned that without a temple, there was nowhere for God to dwell. Not only had they been dragged off into slavery, but their God has also been forced to leave because his dwelling place had been destroyed. Ezekiel had seen God’s glory leaving the temple in a vision recorded in Chp. 10. What hope was there.
Now I know that you all know that God is not limited to time or space and so the destruction of the temple didn’t really matter – God was with them whether they had the temple or not. Right? But hold on, a minute, this is condemning the Israelites too quickly. Without the temple, they couldn’t offer the sacrifices demanded of them by God. Without the sacrifices, they couldn’t be forgiven. If they weren’t forgiven they were DOOMED to hell. How would you feel if all of a sudden, God said – “Sorry, I’ve decided to revoke the offer of forgiveness achieved through Christ’s death. Sorry you’ll have to find some other way of getting right with me”. You would probably be concerned about your eternal wellbeing wouldn’t you. This was why the Israelites were concerned – the temple was essential to the health of their relationship with God.
And here is where God steps in graciously to encourage Ezekiel and those faithful ones in exile. He showed Ezekiel a vision of a new Jerusalem, a city with a glorious temple in it where sacrificial system is reinstated. Ezekiel sees God’s glory return to take up residence in this temple and the climax to his vision is that the “Lord is There”.
God’s presence would be absent for a time only.
History shows that the second temple was rebuilt by Zerrubabel 56 years later and temple worship was restored. Though the ark of the covenant was never returned to the temple, God’s people saw the temple as the place where God was. That is until one day when God “escaped” …
On that day, the heavy curtain that separated the holy of holies from the other part of the temple was torn from top to bottom. There was no longer any barrier to keep men out of the holy of holies or to keep God in. This event occurred at the exact moment that Christ died on the cross outside of Jerusalem.
From that point on, New Testament Christians began to see the temple differently. Yes it was still a house of Worship and a place of praise and God could be found there, but there was another temple in which God took up residence.
1 Cor 3:16-17 - Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple
We are now God’s temple and he dwells in you and me …
Eph 2:19-21 19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
The congregation of believers is God’s temple. He dwells in us …
Isn’t that amazing. We don’t come to Gladstone Baptist Church Building to visit or meet with God … We bring God along with us when we come. I’ll say that again. We don’t come to Gladstone Baptist Church Building to meet with God … We bring God along with us when we come.
So I can call each of you who know God as their Lord and Saviour, Jehovah Shammah – The “Lord is There” and there and there and there. Do you know God as your Saviour, could I give you the name Jehovah Shammah? If not, I encourage you to talk to someone after the service to find out how you can know for sure that God is here (Pointing to self).
A couple of other points quickly as we close …
1)What difference does it make in our lives having God there? We can of course have him in our lives and restrict him to a little corner over there. We can say - “Sit down in the corner and behave yourself – I don’t want you being seen by my friends and embarrassing me” … Is God given free reign in your life and does it show to those around about you that you are different as a result?
Sometimes we will say of our church – “Gee, I didn’t feel God’s presence here at all today – there were so many distractions, the worship was just awful and that pointed comment David made I’m sure that was aimed at me … I wish I went to a church where God’s spirit was really moving …” Can I suggest that God’s presence wasn’t felt, because we the people didn’t allow him to come with us. We left him at home or resigned him to the corner of our lives. We didn’t meet with God, not because he wasn’t there, but because we didn’t want to meet with him. What a difference it would make if we came to church with God instead of coming expecting to visit with God. We’d see vitality, purity, power, unity, joy … sound’s good doesn’t it. Well let’s allow God to take control of us individually and see what happens.
God’s glory was physically evident in the tabernacle and the temple so that everyone around could see it, why should it be any different in our lives? Are you allowing God’s glory to shine through your life to impact those around about?
2)Do you know that God is with you even through your life’s valleys?
When the bolt slid into the iron casing on Geoffrey Bull’s cell door, he didn’t know he would be shut up as a prisoner for the next three years. Taken prisoner by Chinese Communists, he was in the grip of determined atheists, men who hated all that Geoffrey lived for. Their goal was either to correct his thinking and reform him or to torture him until they chose to kill him. How would he survive an undetermined prison sentence? How would he take solitary confinement? How would he keep his sanity when his body would be mercilessly tortured over and over again until he could see all his bones? How could he continue to believe in a God who would permit such suffering at the hands of His enemies? By knowing God’s name, Jehovah-shammah! The Lord is there!
In his book, God Holds The Key, Geoffrey Bull writes: "I had no Bible in my hand, no watch on my wrist, no pencil or paper in my pocket. There was no real hope of release. There was no real hope of life. There was no real possibility of reunion with those I loved. The only reality was my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Divested of all, he was to become everything to me. He was to break my bars and enlarge my coasts in the narrow room. He was to be my fullest nourishment amidst the meagre food. ’My meat,’ which my captors ’knew not of.’ He would make me glad … He would let me hear His voice.”
When we feel all alone and at the end of our resources, we need to remember that we are the temple of the Holy God and can call ourselves Jehovah Shammah – the Lord is There. What an encouragement that can be, to know that we are not alone.
Do you know God as the Lord who is There? Does it encourage you to keep living? It should. Let’s pray.
