The One Who is There

It’s good to be with you again as we draw near the close of another week. Today I’m going to continue and conclude the theme that I’ve been dealing with both last week and this: God Revealed in His Names, what we can know about God from the various names given Him in Scripture.

From the end of last week and on to this week I’ve been dealing with the seven covenant names of Jehovah; names that portray various aspects of God’s covenant keeping faithfulness in his dealings with man. And you remember, I suggested that you’d find it a blessing to memorize those names.

So far we’ve looked together at six of these covenant names. First, the one who provides. Second, the one who heals. Third, the one who is our banner. Fourth, the one who is our peace. Fifth, the one who is our shepherd. Sixth, the one who is our righteousness. Today I’m going to speak about the seventh and last of these covenant names, the one who is there [ever present].

This name is found in the last verse of the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel 48:35. It says this:

“The city shall be 18,000 cubits round about; and the name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there.”

That’s the name, the Lord is there. The last eight or nine chapters of Ezekiel, again, are connected with the restoration of Israel and they describe both the rebuilding of a city and the building of a temple. And, tremendous details are given us about the construction of the temple, the materials that are mentioned, and so on. And then when the temple and the city are complete his name is given to it: the Lord is there. This brings out, of course, the real purpose for building both the city and the temple, the purpose being that it should be a dwelling place for the Lord. It’s as though the Lord waits until everything is complete and exactly the way he wants it and then he says, “All right. Now this is going to be my dwelling place, I’m going to be there.”

We should look for a moment at the background to this whole situation. One major theme of Ezekiel is the glory of the Lord and God’s glory is His manifest presence among His people, the presence of the Lord in a way that can be detected by human sense, by the eyes and by the other sense. The Hebrew word for that is shekinah or shakinah, and that comes from a word which means “to dwell.” So, this is God dwelling among His people, His presence manifested to them.

Now, at the opening of the prophecy of Ezekiel, God’s glory was still in the temple if Jerusalem. But because of Israel’s continuing sin and rebelliousness God had to withdraw his personal presence. His glory departed from the temple and from the city. This is described as Ezekiel saw it himself in Ezekiel 11:22-23.

“Then the cherubim lifted up their wings with the wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel hovered over them. And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city, and stood over the mountain which is east of the city [that’s the Mount of Olives].”

So you see, at this point God was so grieved by the sin of his people that he withdrew his presence from the city and from the temple. The glory of the Lord went out of the midst of the city and went away eastward and hovered for a while over the Mount of Olives to the east of the city. After the withdrawing of the Lord’s glory then terrible judgments are predicted in the prophecies that follow. But always, interspersed with these judgments are the promises of restoration.

And then we come to the closing chapters of Ezekiel which are the description of restoration. And the focus, the center, the most important part of all restoration is the restoration of the glory of the Lord, the shekinah to the temple. The essence of it is described in Ezekiel 43:1-7:

“Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing toward the east...”

That was the way in which the glory of the Lord had departed, toward the east.

“...and behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the way of the east.”

From the same direction in which he departed he was returning.

“And his voice was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shone with his glory. And it was like the appearance of the vision which I saw, like the vision which I saw when he came to destroy the city. And the visions were like the vision which I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell on my face. And the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate facing toward the east. Ad the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court; and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house.”

The Lord had come right back into the inner court of the house.

“Then I heard one speaking to me from the house, while a man was standing beside me. And he said to me, Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell among the sons of Israel forever...”

Do you see the essence? It’s the return of the visible manifest presence of the Lord to dwell again with his people forever. And this brings out the ultimate purpose of God in his dealings with man.

So often we’ve got the wrong impression. We think that God’s ultimate purpose is somehow to get man to heaven and that really isn’t it. God’s purpose is to bring heaven down to man and above all to bring his own personal presence down to man. This is true of every structure that the Lord had built for him. It was the purpose of the tabernacle of Moses. It was the purpose of the temple of Solomon. Always, it was to be a dwelling place where God could dwell int he midst of his people and never have to leave them. But, alas, in the course of the history of God’s people, up till this time, they had behaved in such a way that the Lord had to withdraw his glory. However, the Lord persists in his purpose. Let’s look on, for a moment, to the end of the Bible where we see that the purpose remains unchanged. Revelation 21:1-3:

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and his shall dwell among them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be among them.”

That’s the climax, that’s the outworking of the divine purpose in human history. Not that God would get man up to heaven but that God would so deal with man as to make him fit to receive God’s presence as a dwelling place on earth. Let me read those last words again.

“Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and he shall dwell among them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be among them.”

Now let’s return to the climax of God’s purpose as revealed at the close of Ezekiel. I’ll read that verse again, Ezekiel 48:35, the last verse of Ezekiel.

“The city shall be 18,000 cubits round about; and the name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there.”

That’s the consummation of divine purpose. It’s also the seventh and the last of the covenant names of Jehovah, of Yahweh, the Lord.

Let’s go back and look at those seven names in their completeness and meditate for a moment on what it means. The first, the one who provides. Second, the one who heals. The third, the one who is our banner. The fourth, the one who is our peace. The fifth, the one who is our shepherd. The sixth, the one who is our righteousness. And then, the seventh, the one who is there, always there, just where you need him, by your side, right with you every moment. The one who provides, who heals, who is our banner, who is our peace, who is our shepherd, who is our righteousness, he’s right there. That’s his purpose, to dwell forever with his people. and this is his purpose for each one of us individually. That each one of us should know him as a permanent, indwelling Lord, the Lord who is always there, right in the midst of our hearts and lives.

I wonder if you know the Lord in that way. Have you ever invited the Lord to make his dwelling in your heart and your life? God wants you to do that. Listen to what Jesus says in Revelation 3:20:

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me.”

You see, that’s the Lord’s desire. That’s his purpose. To come into you, to make your heart and your life his home, his permanent dwelling place. In all his covenant fullness, in every one of those aspects of his covenant nature, he wants to come in and dwell in your heart and life. But, He’s a gentleman, he won’t push his way in. You have to open the door. You have to invite him in. Would you like to do that? May I ask you to do that right now? Will you say just a very brief prayer after me?

“Lord Jesus Christ, I thank you that you died for my sins and that you rose from the dead and I invite you now to come in and dwell in my heart and be my Savior and my Lord.”

Now, thank him. Just begin to thank him. He was just waiting for the opportunity to come in. The moment you opened the door he came in and life is going to be different. This great, wonderful, covenant keeping God is not someone you just hear about, he’s someone who’s there, forever there.

Well, our time is up for today. I’ll be back with you again next week at this same time, Monday through Friday. Next week we’ll move on to another rich and exciting theme.

If you would like to study this theme of God Revealed in His Names more fully in a time and place of your own choosing, with opportunity to play back passages of special interest to you, all my five talks this week on this theme are available in a single, carefully edited, sixty minute cassette. The same applies also to the five talks on this same theme last week. Also, I’m making a special offer this week of another unique help to personal Bible study, my self study Bible; course, a complete course of basic Bible study in fourteen lessons with explanatory notes, correct answers, coordinated memory work. The announcement that follows will tell you how to obtain both the cassettes and also the Bible course.