Ezekiel 43:10 “Son of man, describe the temple to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the pattern 

    I enjoy Youtube. I like to watch cooking videos, but I see a lot of music videos as well. Occasionally, I will find a video of someone playing the guitar that is inspiring. But sometimes I see videos that make me feel bad. On those, the person is so fantastically good that I sort of feel like I should probably just quit! (This is sometimes exacerbated when the player is some 9-year-old kid!)

    Ezekiel was having a vision. In his vision, God had shown him Jerusalem. He was showing him the temple. Not the actual temple. The temple that Ezekiel had always known, the one that Solomon built, had been destroyed. Jerusalem itself had also been destroyed. Ezekiel and his countrymen were exiles in Babylon. They knew that all this had happened because of their own disobedience of God’s law.

    This new temple in the vision was perfection itself. In fact, in some ways, it was beyond perfect. It defied the laws of physics! (But that’s the way with dreams and visions sometimes.) After Ezekiel sees it, God instructs him to tell the people about what he’s seen. God tells him that describing this temple will make them ashamed of their iniquities (sins). That seems a little odd. Why would they react this way to his vision?

    Well, years later, Jesus was speaking to Jewish leaders and He told them, 

John 2:19 Jesus answered and said to them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

    Not long after that encounter, Jesus did exactly that. He died on the cross and was raised to new life. When we consider Jesus, when we get a good look at Him, we should be ashamed of our own condition. He is perfection itself! In fact, He is beyond perfect! He defies the laws of physics! When we see Jesus, we realize that He is the Savior we need. He paid the price for our sins while we were still sinning against Him, and He did it willingly! He did because of His great love for us. 

    God told Ezekiel to describe the new temple and “let them measure the pattern.” Jesus is our pattern. We read the Bible to get the measure of Him. We are on a life-long journey of being conformed to His image, His pattern. We can’t do it on our own. We can’t try harder and work our way into conformity with Jesus. But we don’t have to! The God of all the universe, Maker of heaven and earth has a plan to make you like His Son! He is able to do it!

        

Blessings,   

Pastor Russ