The Lord Is There

...the name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there.

Ezekiel 48:35

(The following sermon was preached by Dr Campbell at the Monday morning thanksgiving service in Scalpay Free Church on 10 March 2003.)

The Book of Ezekiel is probably one of the most neglected books in the Old Testament. Yet it is also one of the longest, and ought therefore to be read and studied. It is a complex book with complex imagery; but we ought to note that it is also a book with clear links to the New Testament.

I think, for example, that few Old Testament prophets mirror the life and work of Christ quite like Ezekiel. If you were to be asked: 'Can you think of anyone in the Bible who was called by God to the public proclamation of his word at the age of the thirty by a riverside?' you might well answer 'Jesus himself'. Yet that is what happened to Ezekiel: having trained for the priesthood, God called him at the age of thirty to be a prophet. So he reflects events in the life of Jesus; but more than that, he is one of few Old Testament people to have more than one office within God's church. He is both priest and prophet. Christ, as our Redeemer, fulfills several roles: he is prophet, priest and king. The combination of offices and functions is quite unique.

But on a literary level, it is clear that Ezekiel has links with the writings of John, and particularly with the Book of Revelation. Ezekiel's statement that he was among the captives in the land of the Chaldeans (1:3) mirrors John's statement that he had been banished to Patmos for the sake of the Gospel (Rev 1:5). Similarly, Ezekiel's vision of God's glory mirrors John's vision of the glory of Christ and of the throne-room of Heaven.

Indeed, the theme of God's glory is evident throughout the book of Ezekiel as well as throughout Revelation. In John's vision, God's glory is referred to from chapter 1 through to 21 -- God's people give glory to the Lamb, and the Lamb gives God's glory to his people. Similarly Ezekiel is concerned throughout his prophecy with the glory of God: which he sees in his initial call (1:28), then sees the glory departing from the Temple (10:18), and finally returning to the Temple (43:2-4).

Indeed, one of the most striking parallelisms between Ezekiel and Revelation is the Temple vision at the close of each book. The prophet sees a renewed Temple, with a portion allotted to each of the tribes in a renewed Jerusalem. Similarly, the apostle John sees the church, the bride of Christ as the new Jerusalem, with a portion allotted to each of the tribes of God's people, and the Lamb as the Temple of the city.

These literary links are a reminder to us of the unity of God's purposes of salvation, and, consequently, the unity of the Bible itself. There are compositional seams along which the canon of Scripture holds together, and the integrity of the Scriptures are manifested in this unity. God has one purpose of grace and salvation, revealed amid the shadows of Old Testament prophecy, and consummated in the advent and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the most beautiful features of the book of Ezekiel is the way in which it ends, with the description of God's people in their allotted land, each tribe enjoying its portion of the inheritance, and the city of God given a name: "The Lord is there". His presence is central to the whole movement of the story, just as his presence is central to Revelation too. It is because he is there that there is a glory and a beauty attached to the city.

I want today, as we come to the close of our communion season, to reflect on the beauty of God's presence with us. It is Christ's promise, is it not, that he will be with us always, even to the end of the world? It is his presence, is it not, that guarantees the safety of his people, and ensures that there is nothing that will harm or endanger them? And it is the fact that he is with them now that ensures that one day, they will be with him.

Let's take this fact of God's presence, the fact that "the Lord is there" and apply it to one or two areas of our Christian lives.

It is true, for example, of the Scriptures that we can look at them and read them and say "the Lord is there".

The Bible is written in sixty-six different movements -- a collection of books that vary in their artistry, their composition, their themes and their lengths. They were written by different authors across the centuries, some in very diverse circumstances from others. There is history, poetry, prophecy, biography, epistle -- the Bible is a wonderful repository of genres and of themes and of interests.

But the most exquisite truth about the Bible is simply that the Lord is in it. That was the great comfort Jesus gave to the disciples on the way to Emmaus -- he began at Moses, with the earliest of the scriptural writings, and went through the Old Testament demonstrating that he was the theme, the grand story, the omega point of all that God had ever revealed of himself and committed to the writing of Scripture.

And as we read the Bible, we read it not only to be informed and entertained, although we cannot be anything other than informed and entertained as we do so. But we read it because of our dynamic relationship with the Lord Jesus Chris, who is the sum and substance of the Scriptures. They testify of him, and they strengthen us in our relationship with him. We read of Jonah, and find a greater than Jonah there. We read of Solomon, and find a greater than Solomon there. We read of Abraham, who rejoiced to see Christ's day. We read of David, who spoke about the coming messianic king. We discover that the spirit of Christ was in the prophets, and that their one great impulse was to point forward to Jesus Christ.

Yes, the Lord is there -- in the Old Testament as in the New, in the Psalms as in the epistles, in the Gospels and in the writings of Paul. If he is the alpha and omega anywhere, he is the beginning and end of the Scriptures.

It is also true of what we call the 'means of grace' that "the Lord is there".

We have been enjoying time together over this communion season -- times under the preaching of the Word, in the fellowship and company of other believers, around the table of the Lord. We have been coming and going from God's house, and we have sung his praises. We have sung psalms and prayed prayers and heard preaching and read the Bible; we have focussed on sin, grace, atonement, the evangel. We have busied ourselves around the services of this communion sesason, just as generations of believers have done before us. We may have had many worries and concerns, but God proved to us the faithfulness of his promise.

But we do not do these things for their own sake, but because "the Lord is there". It is precisely in and through these means of his own choosing that he communicates himself to his people. We find Christ in the preaching of the Word, in the fellowship of the saints, in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. They are means to an end.

There is always the danger, of course, that we will turn means INTO ends, and that we will be content simply to come and go from services and fellowships because of habit, or tradition, or enjoyment, or impulse. But we must always pray for grace to keep means AS means to a greater end. Why do we maintain these traditions? Simply because through the means of grace, grace is communicated to the church.

Indeed, there is something radically wrong with us and with our Christianity if we find it easy to bypass the local church, with its services and preaching and sacraments. If that church exalts Christ, lives to serve him, proclaims his word, follows his teaching, provides opportunities for fellowship and prayer, then nothing can be surer -- "the Lord is there". What a tragedy if he is there and we are not! Why should we absent ourselves from the very places and avenues through which he communicates his love and grace to his needy people?

Thirdly, can we not say of the work of grace in the hearts of God's people that "the Lord is there"?

What are the marks of grace in the souls and hearts and lives of believers? What does the Spirit of God do when he takes possession of a man's life? He works faith in us by his grace, enabling us to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives us repentance, a believing repentance and a penitent faith. He moves us to weep over our sins and to rejoice in the Lord Jesus, the great Saviour of sinners. And he lifts us towards the cross, so that we can look at the Christ of Calvary and say "he is altogether lovely."

And what I am saying is that where there is real faith, and genuine repentance, and spiritual joy, and thirst for holiness and longing for Christ, and prayer to God, then 'the Lord is there'. These are not impulses that belong to man in the grip of sin's bondage. Natural man sees no beauty in Christ to desire him. Such feelings are not found among the spiritually dead. But, thank God!, they are found among the spiritually alive!

If, after all we have experienced of God's goodness over these days, we have a deeper thirst for him, and long to know him more, if the Gospel is most assuredly our all, if we can say with Job "I know that my redeemer liveth" and with Paul "I know whom I have believed", then the Lord is truly in our hearts, working by his Holy Spirit the very seeds of new life. And where he has begun that work he will complete it at last.

Fourthly, shall we not say of the providences of the children of God that "the Lord is there"?

How varied these providences often are! Sometimes the shepherd takes us by green pastures and still waters. Sometimes the sun shines, and like Peter on the mount of transfiguration we can say "it is good for us to be here". But it is not always so. Sometimes the green pastures give way to the dark valley, and the transfiguration moutnain to the valley of the demon-possessed. Sometimes we find ourselves lifted up to Paradise, as Paul was in 2 Corinthians 12, only to face our thorn in the flesh immediately.

The image Psalm 107 uses of the believer is that he staggers like a drunken man. It is hardly a flattering image. Yet does it not convey the truth of the matter? Are not our providences at times so mysterious and so varied that we cannot walk a straight line? We mount to Heaven, then to the depths we go down again (Psalm 107:27), just like a small vessel tossed on the mighty billows of the ocean.

Yet the promise to the child of God is that in the midst of these trials and afflictions and sorrows, 'the Lord is there'. Whatever ingredients he puts into our cup, he also adds his presence. "When you pass through the waters," he says, "I will be with you" (Isaiah 43:2). The fact of his own nearness is what keeps, protects and guards. God's people would rather be in the valley with him than on the mountain-top alone. But if God is with us, who can be against us?

Finally, is it not the glory of the heavenly city to which God's people are journeying that "the Lord is there"?

It is his presence that makes Heaven the blessed destination it is. When you travel to some foreign city to which you have never been, things can be very disorientating. You don't know the landmarks, the customs, the directions. Every city is so different. What a difference if there is someone you know, or recognise, when you find yourself in strange surroundings.

We are professing today that we are pilgrims and strangers here, travelling to Heaven with the hope of seeing that city ourselves, that our feet will one day stand inside the gates of Jerusalem. But how shall we fare once we have passed through heaven's gates, and come into this new city, with its streets of gold and its gates of pearls, with its vast multitude of inhabitants and its glorious vistas?

One thing will not be strange or unfamiliar. We shall be like him and we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2). We know the king! The king is there! The same Lord whom we met in the Bible, whom we knew in the Gospel and the sacrament, whose work in our lives was unmistakable, and whose hand in our experiences was incontrovertible -- he will be there. And that is what will make Heaven such a place of blessing for us.

Whom have I in the heavens high
But thee, O Lord, alone?
And in the earth, whom I desire
Besides thee, there is none!.(Psalm 73:25).

Let us pray.

ŠIain D. Campbell 2003