Immanuel

God’s name Immanuel means “God With Us.”

A Personal Relationship

Since the beginning of creation, God has desired a personal relationship with mankind.

Alas, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, the door to a personal relationship was closed because God is holy and cannot look upon iniquity. Habakkuk 1: 13 reveals the essence of God, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity.”

Isaiah 59: 2 proclaims, “Your sins have hid His face from you.” Our sins thus cut us off from God.

It was at Mount Sinai, where God revealed how He could live with His people by instructing them to build Him a tabernacle. When the tabernacle was completed in Exodus 40: 34, the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the Glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. The Lord in His glory had actually come to dwell amongst His people. By means of the shed blood of sacrifice, the people were permitted to be in the presence of God.

Israel was also given God’s law of obedience, which God requires from His blood-bought people. The same was true later at Solomon’s temple. However, as time progressed, man’s disobedience and rebellion against God lured them to worship idols. Israel was thus divided, leaving two tribes of the southern kingdom (Judah) to worship the LORD. As time passed, Judah would eventually give the LORD lip service only, while their hearts were far from Him. (Isaiah 29: 13) This provoked God to do the unthinkable.

The GLORY of GOD departs from the temple.

The prophet Ezekiel writes about this grievous event. In Chapter 8: 3, Ezekiel was at the door of the temple’s inner gate that looked toward the north. Judah had placed an idol there, provoking God to jealousy. And behold the Glory of the God of Israel was there.

God says to Ezekiel, “Son of man, do you see what they do? See the great abominations that the house of Israel commits here, that I should go far from My sanctuary? But turn yet again and you shall see greater abominations. “

Ezekiel is shown repeatedly more atrocious abominations against God being done in His sanctuary. God reveals to him the departing Glory of LORD from the temple.

In Ezekiel 9:3, Ezekiel witnesses the Glory of LORD moving from the Holy of Holies to the threshold of the temple. Threshold means wood or stone under the door.

In Ezekiel 10: 4, he witnesses the Glory of the LORD over the threshold. “Then the Glory of the LORD went up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the temple, and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the LORD’s Glory.”

Ezekiel 10: 18-19 states the movement of God’s Glory from the threshold to the temple’s east gate.

Ezekiel 11: 22-23 reveals the Glory of the LORD departing from the temple to the Mount of Olives. “And the glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the EAST side of the city.”

Although God’s prophets had warned that the people would not escape the consequences of disloyalty to God, they did not obey. “Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart.” (Jeremiah 11: 8) Their abominations committed against the LORD provoked Him to depart from the temple.
“O God, Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity.”

“For the LORD searches all hearts,
and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts:

If you seek Him, He will be found of thee;

but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.”

I Chronicles 28: 9

Immanuel

Enter in Immanuel; His coming was prophesied throughout the Scriptures from the very beginning. Immanuel is the Messiah.

In Hebrews 10: 7-10, it is written of the Messiah:

“Then said I, ’Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God.” Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin, which are offered by the law, Thou would not, neither had pleasure in them.

“Then said he, ‘Lo, I come to do thy will, O God, He takes away the first, that He may establish the second. “ By God’s will, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
John 3: 16

Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the sins of mankind brings the completion and climax of God’s redemption of His people. For sin inevitably means death, being cut off from God. Accepting Christ’s sacrifice as our own, the death penalty decreed for sin has been paid, thus opening the way for us to live and to walk with God. This is because Christ lives in His believers. IMMANUEL, which being interpreted is, “God with us.”

“Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” I Corinthians 6: 19

“For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, ‘ I will dwell in them; and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.’ “

II Corinthians 6: 16

Ezekiel’s message for America

Like Israel in the book of Ezekiel, America as a nation has turned to lip service in worshipping the LORD. Man’s disobedience and defiance against God’s ways have increased growth in tolerance for immorality and growth in intolerance for those who remain faithful to God and His Holy Word. Profanity and immorality is now prolific in the American public domain. It gets worse every day. God could say to America the same words He spoke to Ezekiel, “Son of man, do you see what they do? See the great abominations that America commits here, that I should go far from them.“

Hebrews 10: 26 states, that if we sin willfully, after we have received the knowledge of the truth (accepting Christ into our hearts) there remains no more sacrifice for sins. This is important to grasp: “If we sin willfully,” which means that this act of sinning is deliberate. It echoes the sin in Numbers 15: 30-31. God continues to clarify in Hebrews 10: 27, that when one willingly or defiantly disobeys God, there is no sacrifice for such apostasy. Judgment and fiery indignation shall devour these adversaries.

This is explained further in Hebrews 10: 29. Much worse punishment shall be given to them who have trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of His covenant, in which he was sanctified, as a common thing and has insulted the Spirit of grace.
“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Verse 31.

Expect Christ.

When you shall see all these things happening, know that Christ’s coming is near, even at the door. Jesus Christ says, “Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away. “ Matthew 24: 33-35

God’s Word is truth. Be on the lookout.

Christ is coming soon.

Posted on October 2, 2013.