Yahweh Shammah — The God Who Is With Us

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I kind of want to continue where we left off a little bit with the kids and,

ask the question, well, we've been doing this, I counted just now, for 17 weeks.

So what names of God do you remember that we have talked about together?

As I find my place of where I'm supposed to be.

Jealous, definitely jealous. We talked about that in Exodus 34, 14.

What are some other ones? Do you remember any other ones? You have a pretty

high percentage chance of if you just name a name of God, you're going to get it right.

Jehovah Jireh, the Lord is my provider. On the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided.

We did, we talked about Yahweh, Yehovah, the name of God. I am the all existent one.

That was three. Love, we talked about love. Wisdom, we talked about wisdom. That was last week.

Nice. Do you remember what last week was about? That was good,

because on Wednesday, I was like, I don't remember what Sunday we talked about.

God Almighty, yeah. Shalom, peace. Who said that? Where did that come from? Oh, the floor. Okay.

Shepherd, we talked about shepherd.

What are some, anybody remember any other ones? That's, you know, what, seven, 10 more?

The rock. We talked about the rock maker. We heard maker. We talked about maker.

Yeah. We talked about Abba, father.

He's placed his spirit within us by which we call out Abba, father.

God who sees, that's right. El Roy, which my joke always, my go-to joke always,

although Roy's not with us anymore because they moved, not because he died.

But pour one out for Roy this morning.

It's Spanish for the Roy, but it's not. Shepard, yep, yep, yep.

Yeah, that one's sort of today, sort of. More so on the Yahweh Shammah side,

but definitely going to hit Emmanuel.

We talked about Cornerstone, talked about Holy. I guess Cornerstone was also the rock.

So that was the theme for the rock. So we did cover that one.

Holy, we talked about Jesus, the name of Jesus, lion and lamb, couple of weeks ago.

We talked about Lord and master.

We did a trick one. We did talk about our names, the names that God speaks over

us. So that's sort of a trick one.

I think that's pretty much it. That covers the full spectrum.

So we've been doing this a while. And while.

Most of these aren't names, although they describe character traits of God or

positions of God, I'm going to have to move around. It's like Jake's hiding right behind the pole.

All of them build on top of each other. None of them are really independent

because God's character is such that...

He's going to mess with me now. God's character is such that

it is interwoven and dependent upon itself, that you can't just separate a aspect

of God's character from the others and say that God is this with the exception of this.

You can't say that God is love and not jealous or not judge.

They are all together. And that's what makes his love so much better is that

he's also judge and he's also holy.

So they all depend on one another so importantly and paint such a full picture.

It's the three in one aspect of God, right? Father, Son, and Spirit.

You can't just take one of them and say, to me, God is this.

You have to look at the full spectrum of God because that's what makes him so

great and so different than anything else that we can depend on and lurk to or worship.

And so we have to look at all these characters together.

And so today, we're not going to necessarily look at something unfamiliar to us.

In some ways, we're going to cover a little bit new territory,

but we're not going to necessarily expose something brand new either as we talk

about the God who will be there or the God who is there and the God who is with us here.

As we talk about Yahweh Shammah, as we talk about Emmanuel, Well, this.

Is the last name of God in the Old Testament.

Now, that's sort of true or not true.

I went to, so there's a county near where we grew up, Bertie County,

on the east side of North Carolina.

And they have the claim to the longest river that's contained within one county.

So it's like, it sounds really impressive when you say the longest river,

but then you qualify it and you're like, that's not a very big river at all.

So this is a qualified statement. It is the last name of God in the Old Testament.

It's found in Ezekiel. And you're like, Ezekiel is not the last book in the

Old Testament. That doesn't make any sense.

Of the named aspects of God, Yahweh, Yahweh, Yira, Yahweh, Nisi,

like these names, Jehovah, there's like five or seven or however many of them.

This is the last one of those that shows up.

So in some ways, it's the last sort of unique name of God in the Old Testament.

It is certainly not the last time God is referred to in the Old Testament.

And it's certainly not the last important time that we see God named in the

old Testament, but we have that qualifier that it is Yahweh Shammah.

The Lord is there and we find it in Ezekiel chapter 48.

Ezekiel 48 · chapter mention

And let me, let me start there, but then we're going to back up because I want

to give you the full context.

So if you have your Bibles and you'll be following along, you just keep your,

hand on Ezekiel because we're going to back up and kind of cover the entire

book of Ezekiel in some ways.

But it's the last words that show up in the book of Ezekiel.

Ezekiel chapter 48, verse 35.

Ezekiel 48:35

And there's a lot more that comes before it that we'll talk about.

But the second half of that verse says, And the name of the city from that time

on will be, the Lord is there. Yahweh Shammah.

The Lord is there.

Yahweh, of course, being God's covenant name, I am. and shama meaning there

or in that place, or even maybe more specifically from that time forward.

So let's hold on to those definitions as we get the full context of this,

because it comes from perhaps the saddest times in the Bible.

And we might think, oh, well, that was the fall in Genesis chapter two and three, four.

But here is some of the saddest verses in the entirety of the Bible found in

the beginning of Ezekiel.

If you go to Ezekiel chapter 8, I'm going to back up a little bit.

Ezekiel 8 · chapter mention

We're going to look at chapter 10 and 11 and some other ones.

But in Ezekiel chapter 8 begins a vision that will stretch for many chapters.

Ezekiel 8 · chapter mention

And I don't know some context. This is going to help.

So Ezekiel was among some of the first Israelites taken into captivity into

Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar.

So there was several deportations, they're called, two big ones.

Ezekiel was one of, with Daniel and his friends, one of the,

some of the first that were deported to Babylon, to Assyria.

And so Ezekiel is in Babylon for most of, if not all of his time of prophecy.

So in Ezekiel chapter eight, he's having a vision whereby an angel of the Lord

picks him up, maybe even God himself, depending on how it's described, we'll get to that, but,

picks him up and transports him back to Jerusalem because he's not there.

In the second deportation of Israel, Jerusalem was destroyed,

the temple was destroyed.

So the first time Ezekiel was taken, the second time Nebuchadnezzar destroyed

basically all of Jerusalem.

That's why the walls had to be rebuilt, that's why the temple had to be rebuilt.

So Ezekiel wasn't there.

But it could very well be the case that either God is showing him what will

happen when Israel and Jerusalem is destroyed, or God does this as well, where at that time,

he is kind of brought in the spirit to the events actually taking place.

I just want to throw that out there as a possibility because there have been

many stories where God has revealed to people things that are happening as they're happening.

There's stories of people who come to the United States from Africa,

and there's things going on in their country, and God is revealing,

almost like watching a news update, the accuracy of what's happening to their

family as it's happening. So God does that.

But it also could very well just be the case that God is revealing what will happen.

So that's not necessarily, I guess it says in the sixth year,

in the sixth month. So we could understand exactly when this is happening. I didn't look that up.

But I just want to be aware of the spirit is revealing something real here.

It's not just something that will happen in the distant future.

He's revealing to Ezekiel right now, a tangible moment in Israel's history when

Israel and Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed.

So it says in the sixth year, in the sixth month of the fifth day,

while I was sitting in my house and the elders of Judah were sitting before

me, the hand of the sovereign Lord came on me there.

I looked and I saw a figure that of a man from what appeared to be his waist

down. He was like fire. And from there up, he appearance as bright as glowing metal.

He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of the head

and the spirit lifted me up.

So the spirit of the Lord or an angel picked Ezekiel up by his hair,

which seems awesome, and transports him to Jerusalem.

Let's skip over to chapter 10.

So now we see a familiar picture for Ezekiel. If you're familiar with Ezekiel,

he has these cherubim. He has all these crazy pictures of angels.

And so he's describing the throne of God. He's describing the cherubim.

He's describing all this stuff. We get sort of towards the end of chapter 10.

As we see this picture, as Jerusalem is being destroyed, as the temple is being

destroyed, It says in verse 18, that 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. Picture of angels.

We don't need to get into it right now.

They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the Lord's house and the glory

of God of Israel was above them.

So this is one of the saddest moments in Israel's history, because what's being

shown here is that the glory of the Lord, the presence of God was departing from his temple.

It was leaving Jerusalem and it was leaving through this east gate as the angels went before him.

We skip over to chapter 11.

And it continues this image towards the end of chapter 11. The cherubim with

the wheels beside them spread their wings and the glory of God of Israel was above them.

The glory of the Lord went up from within the city and stopped above the mountain east of it.

The spirit lifted me up and brought me to the exiles in Babylonia and the vision

given by the spirit of God.

Then the vision I had seen went up from me and I told the exiles everything the Lord had shown me.

So the glory of the Lord left the temple. It left Jerusalem to the east gate.

It settled above and paused above the mountain to the east, which is the Mount of Olives.

And then it departed. So the glory of God left Jerusalem in this vision,

picture of the destruction that actually happened.

So this is, like I said, this slow movement. And we see here in chapter 11,

I want to just kind of give you this image of it's almost as like when the glory

of the Lord stopped on the Mount of Olives.

It's almost like a moment, a pause where he turns back and looks and then he moves on.

And so the Lord is moving away from his people.

And all throughout these chapters in this vision, it talks about how his glory

has departed because of their rebellion, because of their unfaithfulness,

even just in the next chapter, they're rebellious people.

They have eyes to see, but do not see, ears to hear, but do not hear.

We see Jesus repeat that as an accusation against the Pharisees and the religious at the time.

It mentions it time and time again that the glory is not departing because Babylon

has conquered and defeated the God of Israel.

The glory departed because of their sinfulness and God allowed the Nebuchadnezzar

to come and first deport them and then to destroy the city.

So it is a picture of God's judgment upon them as his glory departs so that

that judgment could come upon his people.

And this is one of the most tragic moments in scripture. This is Israel's greatest loss in some ways.

It's a loss of their freedom politically, but in many ways, it goes beyond that

to the extent of the destruction of the temple, the departure of God's presence.

It is the loss of everything that has made them who they are.

If we look back at Moses, as we look back at Joshua and David and Solomon,

the constant theme of the Old Testament is not that Israel was chosen because

they were good or because they were great, but God chose a people for himself

because he chose them and he set them apart to be his.

And then he demonstrated throughout history why they were his.

And we see these great leaders come along and they cry out, Lord,

if you are not with us, what makes us different from everyone else?

So we see the loss of the identity of the people of Israel in this moment.

The deepest consequence of sin, the deepest consequence of them turning their

backs is that God departed from them.

So we fast forward from the most tragic moment in Israel's history.

In Ezekiel chapter 20, we see that explanation that I was just mentioning.

Ezekiel 20 · chapter mention

Actually, I meant to go to Ezekiel chapter 40.

Ezekiel 40 · chapter mention

I thought that seemed a bit odd. Chapter 40. So we started 40, yeah, I'm sorry.

So we started in chapter eight. Chapter eight was a vision that Ezekiel had

that lasted several chapters.

Ezekiel chapter 40 is the beginning of another vision that will last to the

Ezekiel 40 · chapter mention

end of the book. So the next eight or nine chapters is one long vision by Ezekiel.

So this is, we're just gonna pause here to read verse one and say in the 25th year of our exile.

So this is 25 years after Israel has been in Babylon.

I believe we lit read in chapter eight that it was six years in.

So this is now almost 20 years after that first vision that Ezekiel has this vision.

Where the hand of the Lord was on him, the spirit lifts him up.

He tells him to listen carefully, to listen closely, to pay attention,

and then to tell the people everything that they see.

So this is a generation of people living in the consequence of their sin, right?

And God responds to Ezekiel with another vision. Flip a few pages over to chapter 43.

This is just as we saw God's glory departing from Jerusalem.

This is the reverse. This is the restoration. This is the future moment when

God's glory will return to his temple.

So this is the restoration of the most tragic moment in Israel's history.

We read in chapter 43, that this man brought me to the gate facing east,

the same gate which which the glory of God departed.

And I saw the glory of God of Israel coming from the east.

And his voice was like the roar of rushing waters, and the land was radiant with his glory.

The vision I saw was like the vision I had seen when he came to destroy the

city. And like the visions I had seen by the Kaabar River, and I fell face down.

And the glory of the Lord entered the temple through the gate facing east.

Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner courts.

And the glory of the Lord filled the temple.

And all the people shout and sing and cry and fall down and sing,

holy, holy, holy, right? This is the greatest moment.

Everything restored. Everything made right. a people in exile longing for their

land, longing for their home, longing for their God.

Everything is restored in this moment. The glory returns from the East.

God's judgment was real, but his final word has always been,

I am with my people. I will be your God and you will be my people.

God returns in the same way that he left, not just directionally,

but he left because of the covenant, which was broken, but he returns because,

he is the one who fulfills the covenant, right?

Then we see in chapter 47, I'm not going to read all these verses,

but verses one through 12, you get this picture almost of a return to the garden of Eden.

You see this water that's trickling at first from the temple through the threshold,

and then it builds and grows.

And then And then Ezekiel is led by this man to a certain distance and it's

ankle deep and another distance and it's knee deep and another distance and

becomes this great river where you have to swim. You can't even touch the bottom.

And it says these wonderful words that this water flows toward the eastern region

and goes down into the Ereba.

So it's spreading from that eastern gate and it empties into the sea.

And where it empties there into the salty water, it becomes fresh.

And swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows.

And there will be large number of fish because the water flows there and makes

the salt water fresh. So where the river flows, everything will live.

And it talks about these fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of

the river and their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail.

Every month they will bear fruit because the water from the sanctuary flows

to them and their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.

And yes, this is a picture of the garden. It's also a picture of restoration.

But if we look at Psalm chapter one, it's a picture of those who are fed by the spirit of God.

That everywhere the water, the spirit of God goes, life flows with him.

So this is more than just restoration.

This is beginning to build to something more.

That God's presence doesn't just bring relief from the anxiety,

from the suffering, from the exile.

That it brings life itself. Wherever God dwells, death retreats and life comes.

And so it's from here that we move into chapter 48, where we just were.

And it's from here that they're talking about the restored city of God,

which is no longer called Jerusalem, which is no longer called the city of David.

It's no longer referred to by a people or by a king,

or by a location, but is referred to with a new name, Yahweh Shammah,

the Lord is there because that's the most important detail that God is there with his people.

This is the promise that we have seen all throughout scripture fulfilled. I will be with you.

God tells Isaac, God tells Jacob, God tells Moses, God tells Joshua,

God tells David, God tells everyone, I will be with you.

I will be your God and you will be my people.

This is the future look at the incredible fulfillment of that promise.

I will be with you. God is there.

And while this looks intentionally to a future moment that has not come,

we see the fulfillment so much more poignant that God had, while his spirit

had departed from Jerusalem and from the temple, God had not left them alone.

God will be there and God is here.

But still it's looking to that future moment, this future fulfillment.

God is there that all creation is longing for.

And as I mentioned, Shama doesn't just mean there physically.

It also has this idea of time then and from then on, God is there.

And so when we get to Matthew chapter one, while many may be surprised,

we are not in shock at all.

When we read in Matthew 1, these wonderful words, after God had appeared to

Joseph, he gives him this vision of the birth of his son.

And he says that you will name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.

And all of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet,

this Isaiah, not Ezekiel, that the a virgin will conceive and give birth to

a son and they will call him Immanuel, which means God is with us.

The most tragic moment in Israel's history, longing for fulfillment when God would return.

And we meet Jesus and he is proclaimed to be the God who will dwell with us, who is with us.

John 1, we talked about last week, but the incredible truth in there, the word became flesh.

And it says in verse 14, that the word dwelt among us, that literally in all

of the history of the Bible, we see God in Genesis in the garden,

longing to be with his people.

We see God choosing the people Israel and he set up this tabernacle so that

his presence could dwell with his people.

Not just in the sense that God is everywhere, but physically in a moment in

time, God decides, the God who is outside of time decides to be in time in some

weird way with his people.

That same word tabernacle is the same word in John 1 14, that the Lord dwelt

among us, that God became man,

and tabernacled with his people in a fuller sense than when it was this tent,

that he came to be with his people.

Jesus calls himself, he identifies himself as the true temple.

And he says that destroy this temple in three days, I will restore it.

Jesus is saying something more powerful just than the fact that again,

the temple would be destroyed in 70 years, but that he himself was the temple.

And at the end of his ministry, he commissions his followers in Matthew 28 to

go into the world and make disciples.

And he says, I am with you always, even to the ends of the earth.

Isn't it interesting that this is the same Jesus who would come from the Mount

of Olives on a donkey who would enter into the east gate of Jerusalem, the golden gate,

and head up to the temple,

the same gates that the glory of the Lord departed from in Ezekiel chapter 10 and 11.

Ezekiel 10 · chapter mention

The same gate that Ezekiel was given a vision that God's glory and spirit would return through.

The same gate, I was reminded of this as I was reading through these chapters again this morning.

The same gate that in 1541, the Ottoman emperor, Suleiman the Magnificent,

sealed up, he bricked up this gate to prevent this prophecy from coming true.

And they built a Muslim cemetery at the foot of the gate to prevent the God

of heaven from coming back through because the ground would be desecrated or whatever.

That Jesus already entered into and returned the glory of the Lord,

not to a physical location, but him himself as the temple.

And then we read in Acts chapter two, we read in first Corinthians and we read

in Ephesians, we read all throughout the new Testament, the beautiful picture

of the God's glory and his spirit now dwells in his people.

More of a fulfillment of God being with us than just a physical person that

we would have to travel to, but that he would inhabit the space that we live

in, in a tangible way through his spirit.

The God is here in his people. Dwelling with us and dwelling among us.

And that God will be in a greater fulfillment with his people.

But I do want to pause on that.

God with us, Emmanuel.

Because even as Ezekiel was given that vision, that would be fulfilled in Jesus.

And that would be ultimately fulfilled again as Jesus returns and enters into,

you better believe it, the East Gate of Jerusalem and his second coming.

We could be tempted to believe that God departed for good and that everyone

was looking to something in the future.

But just as the reality that God will be there and the reality for us is that

we get to look forward to a time when the fullness of that,

is realized, we get to live in the time where that is also the truth that God

is not just there, but God is here.

We get to live in the fulfillment of what Jesus says in the book of John,

that eternity is this, that you would know the one and only God and Jesus Christ, whom He sent.

That we get to experience God here, even while we look to the fulfillment of that as God is there.

And the same is true for the exiles.

While the glory of the Lord departed from Jerusalem and from the temple,

we see stories all throughout this time where God had never abandoned his people.

We see Daniel in the lion's den and God showing up and we see the king running

down so concerned for Daniel that he asks in the earliest hours that he could,

Daniel, was your God able to save you?

We see, of course, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego before that,

where the angel of the Lord, which as many people assume, whenever the angel

of the Lord and not just an angel of the Lord shows up, that it is a picture

of the pre-incarnate Jesus,

is in the fire with them, beside them as they suffer.

We see God speaking to Ezekiel. We see God speaking to Jeremiah.

The word was not absent from the people of God as it was in times before.

In the book of Judges, we encounter that phrase that the word of the Lord was not common.

After the Old Testament, before Jesus came, we understand these 400 years of

silence that has existed.

But God was with his people, even in that time, and even in this time.

And he's still with us now. God is not a God that is restricted by geographical features.

He's not restricted by locations or cities.

Even before when the kings of Israel were reigning, we see them fighting against,

the nations around them.

And when they win in 1 Kings chapter 20, the king that was fighting against

1 Kings 20 · chapter mention

them was advised that this is a God of the hills.

That's why they won. So we must fight them in the plains.

But then we see this wonderful truth come that a man of God came up to speak

to the king of Israel. He said, this is what the Lord says. because the Arameans

think the Lord is a God of the hills and not a God of the valleys,

I will deliver this vast army into your hands and you will know that I am the Lord.

He's not restricted by hills or valleys. He is the God of the universe who created

the universe and who upholds it with his hand.

He is the God who demonstrated his power over the gods of Egypt by plague after

plague, demonstrating his far superiority.

He's the God who demonstrated his superiority over Babylon, as he continued

to guide and comfort his people in their exile.

He's the God who, there's that funny story with the Philistines where they have

the ark and it's placed in the temple of Dagon, their God.

And Dagon literally falls down before the ark of the covenant,

before the God of Israel, because he is God and there is no other.

And he is the God that is with us here and now.

And the beauty is that we too get to look forward to even more of that in the future.

Because the book of Revelations or the book of the Revelation,

however you want to say it, ends in the same way that the book of Ezekiel ends.

You want to understand Revelation? You got to read the Old Testament.

John is given a vision almost exactly as Ezekiel is given a vision of the new

city of this man coming and measuring.

All of these things of the glory of the Lord dwelling with his people.

And we see this in chapter 21 of Revelation verse 22.

I did not see a temple in the city because the Lord God Almighty and the lamb are its temple.

The city doesn't need the sun or the moon to shine on it for the glory of God

gives it light and the lamb is its lamp.

The nations will walk by its light and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.

On no day will its gates ever be shut for there will be no night there.

The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.

Nothing impure will enter in it or will anyone who does what is shameful or

deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.

In chapter 22, it talks about how the Lord God will give them light and will

with them reign forever and ever.

And John is given a vision of the glory of the Lord dwelling with his people,

in being their reward himself.

And it ends not with the name of a city because the name had already been given

in Ezekiel, but it ends with the promise all of that stuff that you're waiting

for, God says, I'm coming soon.

If you asked Christians today, if you ask yourself.

What is the most exciting thing about eternity?

What is it that we look forward to most?

Streets of gold, no more pain, no more tears, perfect bodies,

no more sin, no more suffering.

Every one of these things is true, but none of them is the greatest thing that

we have to look forward to.

It's not the new city. It's not the incredible architecture.

It's not the ultimate question we all ask. What will we do in heaven?

Will we get to learn languages? Will we snowboard? Will we golf?

I mean, golfing in heaven. Sorry, Josh. I'm just kidding.

It's none of those things that we get to look forward to. Heaven is heaven because God is there.

And hell is hell because God is not there.

So any life, no matter what we're doing with God, not dwelling there will not be heaven.

And so the greatest gift that we get to look forward to is the presence of God

forever with his people and whatever we'll be doing, we won't care about nearly as much.

And if we care about what we'll be doing more than who will be there,

mainly God, then we are stopping at the gift and not going past it to the giver.

Heaven is heaven because God is there.

That is what the theme of the Bible is all about.

The promise that started in Genesis that continues today. I will be there and I am here.

I will be with you. I am with you. The promise that has already been fulfilled

and will be fulfilled to greater and greater depths and richer inheritance.

What we still get to experience now and we get to long for then.

I recently heard, as we sort of wrap up, and Jake, if you want to come up,

I recently heard in a video that I occasionally come across these apologetic-type videos.

And the woman who's asking the questions, probably a college student,

young lady, is an atheist.

And she comes to the point in her questioning, in her debating,

whatever it is at that moment,

where she reflects on that she is glad that she believes afterlife is nothing

and she takes comfort in that fact.

And they never really address, they don't have the time to do it,

but these apologetic videos, they never really have the time to address the

real issue in the question.

But how sad it is to look forward to the next thing and find comfort that it's nothing.

And how sad it is for us in our lives now to not live in, be called to,

and look forward to something greater.

The promise that we look forward to is the presence of God.

And eternity will be so great because God is so great.

And the reality that we get to experience now, as Jesus tells us,

is eternity is knowing God.

I pray that as we've been looking at these names of God, and as we've come to,

sort of the last name in the Old Testament,

I pray that we would know God more and more.

And I pray that you would come to delight in his presence.

Such a way that you long for the fullness of it.

While all of the things that we tend to desire are good things.

And as we look to eternity and our true promises, no more tears, no more pain.

I pray that we don't stop there. I pray that you would have such a desire for

God's presence now that will build to eternity.

That we get to walk in and enter his courts with thanksgiving and enter his

courts with praise and join in the chorus that's already singing

as we are overcome, as we fall to our knees, as we worship and say,

holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty,

who was, who is,

Yahweh Shammah Now and forevermore.