Hearts Of Stone, Hearts Of Flesh

The Covenant of Works in the Garden of Eden 2:12

Aren't we glad? Aren't we happy to know this? That our relationship with God doesn't work that way. See, in the Garden of Eden, it did.

In the Garden of Eden, man had a contract, so to speak, with God, or a covenant. To use biblical language, a covenant has been made. Now, this was a covenant of what? It starts with a W? Works.

It was a covenant of works. It was a simple covenant. God says, hey guys, here's the garden, and there's the fish, and the flora, and the fauna. You get to name them.

You get to do whatever you like. You take dominion over us. It's all yours, but I got just this one thing. See that tree over there in the middle?

Don't eat from that tree. Everything else, just knock yourself out. You can eat and be merry and run around, be happy like, but that tree, that tree is not for you. Now, pretty straightforward.

The first covenant was simple. The mankind could stay in the garden as long as they didn't eat from this tree. That was the one contingency that was in this relationship. And if they did eat from the tree, God told them at the outset, He says, here's what to expect.

Death. Expulsion from the garden would follow. This is what we call a covenant that's based on works. A covenant that is transactional in the sense that man needed to complete or follow or obey the work he'd been given to do in order for God to uphold the end that God had promised.

Now, of course, man failed and man's original sin or Adam's original sin, it stains us to this day. With that said, once man was expelled from the garden, did God have any other covenants that might have followed in the years to come?

The Covenant of Grace: Abraham, Moses, and Christ 3:41

Yes, absolutely. He had a number of them. The most notable one that came along just a few chapters later in Genesis was a covenant He made with a guy named Abram or Abraham. And this covenant was somewhat different than the covenant He'd made with Adam.

In this covenant, it was a covenant by which God promised certain things to Abram and to his descendants. Most notably this, that God says, I'm going to call out a people unto Myself. Abraham, you're going to be the father of this whole generation that's going to be more numerous than all the stars in the sky and all the sand on the beach.

I'm going to give you a special land, a special place. I'm going to call the people out from this globe unto myself. Now, later on, God's covenants were expanded upon. God makes a covenant with Moses, a covenant that involves the law.

And in this covenant is embedded this construct that if man should keep the laws of God, then things would go just swimmingly between them. But if man was to violate the covenant God had made, if man was to violate God's laws, then there would be consequences therein. However, as we see back in the covenant He made with Abraham, God had promised, God had pledged, that the consequences of mankind breaking the covenant would not befall mankind, but would rather befall God Himself, as we found out later on in the personal work of Jesus Christ.

These are covenants. This is a very brief discussion of the principal covenants, covenant of works, covenant of grace, that we find in scripture.

Israel Profanes God's Holy Name (Ezekiel 36:16-21) 5:04

“Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own ways and deeds; to Me their way was like the uncleanness of a woman in her customary impurity. Therefore I poured out My fury on them for the blood they had shed on the land, and for their idols with which they had defiled it. So I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed throughout the countries; I judged them according to their ways and their deeds.”

— Ezekiel 36:17-19 (NKJV)

Now in Ezekiel's day, in Ezekiel's day, the people are familiar with God's expectations upon them, and they were familiar at the very least with this: thou shalt have no other gods before me. God had given them laws. God had given the decrees, just as He'd given Adam in the garden. And yet, just as Adam had done, they had turned their backs.

And the laws God had made, and so this was to put the stress test to the covenant that He had made with forefathers. And that's what we're going to see in today's reading. All right, if you would, let's go back to today's reading. Let's look at verses 16 through 21 from chapter 36.

Let's see a little bit of the history here in these verses, and then we'll move forward to the promise and the covenant that is to follow. So verses 16 through 21. Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own ways and deeds.

To Me, their way was like the uncleanliness of a woman in her customary impurity. Therefore, I poured out My fury upon them for the blood they'd shed on the land and for the idols which they had defiled. So I scattered them among the nations and they were dispersed throughout the countries. I judged them according to their ways and according to their deeds.

When they came to the nations, wherever they went, they profaned My holy name. When they said to them, these are the people of the Lord, and yet they have gone out of His land. But I had concern for My holy name, which the house of Israel profaned among the nations wherever they went.

Defiling a Precious Gift: God's Love Despised 6:26

You know, if you give someone a precious gift, it could be an anniversary gift, it could be a housewarming gift, any number of things. If you give someone a precious, maybe expensive gift, your hope or your desire is that they'll value it in the way that you do. That you'll give something that's precious to you or important or expensive or valuable or what have you, and you'll give it to them and they'll take it and they'll say thank you very much and then they'll esteem and they'll value it in the same way that you have.

You have a young couple and they go out near the beach or out near the coast or what have you. They go out on one of those piers and the young man says, I would like to marry you, and he takes the ring out of his pocket and he gives it to her.

Let's say she takes that ring and she looks at it and she goes, hmm. And she throws it as far as she can into the water. What's going to be the reaction of the young man? He's going to be crestfallen.

This is the worst. You know, three months, eight months salary went into this ring. She didn't appreciate what he had given her. She didn't value it in the way that he had.

Let's use another example. Let's say that you write someone. You write someone, I don't know, a note or a love note or a poem or something, and you use an ink bottle that's filled with your own tears to write it. Something so precious.

And you write this thing, you use cursive and all this sort of stuff, calligraphy, and you give it to someone, and they look at it, and they go, and they rip it up right in front of you and throw it in the fire. What's your reaction going to be? It's going to be the same thing as the guy with the ring.

You're going to be brokenhearted. Your eyes are going to go wide, your mouth's going to drop, you can't believe how they have defiled what you have invested yourself in to give to them that was so precious. In a very limited sense, this is what we're seeing in verses 16 through 21. In a very limited sense, God is saying, hey, guys, I love you, and My evidence, My proof of that love is what I've given you.

I made a promise to you I didn't make to the Philistines or the Moabites or the Ammonites or the Hittites or the Jebusites or any of these guys. I made a special promise to you to call you out of this fallen, darkened world, to make you My own. And then not only that, but I gave you the land that I promised Abraham all those years past.

I gave you the land. I gave you the place. I gave you more descendants than the sand on the beach. All the things I told Abraham, I did.

And not only that, but once I'd given you the land, I came to dwell in it, in the temple, on the mercy seat, in the Holy of Holies. I was there in a way that My manifest glory, My Shekinah glory was present in a way that it's not been present anywhere else. I love you.

You're precious to me. And yet, and yet, much like the woman who takes the ring and chucks it into the murky waters of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, much like the individual who rips up the tear-blotted, tear-stained love note, that's what the people had done. They hadn't just rejected and said, well, no, thank you.

They hadn't done that. They had taken what God had given them, and they had defiled it in the most hideous ways imaginable. They had defiled these wonderful promises, these wonderful things, all that God had presented before them. And not only had they done that, but then even after God had brought judgment upon them, and since, you know, some died, many died, others got sent into exile in Babylon and elsewhere, and even when they got there, they didn't learn the lesson, and they continued to poorly represent their namesake, their faith, their God amongst those peoples.

It wasn't just what they had failed to do in Jerusalem, but they didn't learn the lesson even after the hammer had come down. They continued to do that which is wrong.

Profaning the Name of God Before the Nations 9:48

Verse 20 says that even in these lands, they continue to profane the name of the Lord their God. When you're a son, when you're a son, your actions and choices reflect on your father. It's just the way that that works, especially when you're young, but your choices reflect poorly on your father if they're poor choices.

With that said, if a son is disobedient, if a son strays, if a son has great malfeasance, that reflects poorly on his father and on the family's name. If you think about some of the people of history, you can see this. You know, if you were a Benedict Arnold's dad, how would you like to be known as Benedict Arnold's dad?

Ivan the Terrible's mother, how would that be? Not so great. You know, Vlad the Impaler's cousin. You know, fun fact, he was originally named Gus, but Gus the Impaler wasn't that impressive.

With that said, if you are related to any of these individuals, if you're related to someone like this, that relationship that you have with Gus or Vlad or Ivan or Benedict or whoever, the relationship you have with these individuals will reflect poorly on you based on what they go and do. And this is what God is saying.

Look at what you've done. You've acted in the most abominable ways, and yet you say that I'm your God, and then the people in the nations around look at you, and then looking at you, they see Me. You have profaned My name. Well, I've had it.

I've had My fill of that is what we see in verses 16 through 21. I have concern for My holy name that you don't. I have concern for My holy name which you have profaned among the nations wherever you have gone. You know, the name of God matters.

The name of God matters. I think there's one of the commandments that speaks to this, this idea that we're not supposed to even take the name Lord our God in vain, right? Just not even in vain. To say nothing for profaning it repeatedly, continuously, habitually before the people around us.

For My Holy Name's Sake: A New Heart Promised (Ezekiel 36:22-27) 11:39

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”

— Ezekiel 36:26-27 (NKJV)

So what is God going to do about that? Well, He's going to do something. Let's look at verses 22 through 27. Verse 22, therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord your God, I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel.

What I'm about to do isn't really about you. It's about My name. For My holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went, I will sanctify My great name. I will clean it up.

I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst, and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when I'm hallowed in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the nations, I will gather you out of all the countries, and I will bring you into your own land.

You see references to promises made in the past. Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you. You ever wonder why we sprinkle babies? This is one of the reasons why.

I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all of your filthiness, from all of your idols. I will give you a new heart. I'll put a new spirit within you.

I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh. I'll put My spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and you will keep My judgments and do them all right.

The Heart of Flesh: God Works on the Heart, Not the Intellect 13:02

Let me ask you another question. Which do you think is more impressive, building a brand new house from scratch, just building a brand new house from scratch, or reassembling one that's been burned to the ground? What do you think is easier? Now, I'm no builder and I'm no contractor, but I got to guess, and I would think it would be easier to use a new construction to build a new house rather than to take the ashes and rubble of an old burnt out house and try to reassemble that house using those ashes.

I would think it would be easier to build something that's new. Well, this sort of action, taking that which is broken and burnt and destroyed and decimated and defiled, and yet restoring it unto new, unblemished life. That's what we are seeing in verses 22 through 27. In these verses, God says, look, y'all are broken.

You only have done things so bad. And I have been patient for so long that I didn't just have to discipline or refine you. I had to burn the whole thing to the ground. But here's the thing.

I had made a promise that I would be your God and you would be My people. And that promise is greater than you. That promise to which My holy namesake is invested is a promise that transcends your sins. And because that's true, in time I'm going to restore and rebuild.

I'll take that which is broken and dirty and burned out and defiled and sinful and stained and sodded, and I will give it, breathe into it, new life. You see, what He's not saying here. He's not saying, look guys, you're really messed up. Let's back to the basics.

I'm going to teach you. I'll teach you how to act. I'll teach your minds or intellects. You did this wrong and you need to do this right.

He's not saying I'm going to teach you and instruct your intellect. He's not saying anything about the mind. He's talking about the heart. He says, for the love of all that is right in the universe, your hearts are stony and cold.

And because this is true, I'm going to do something that only I can do. I'm going to give you a heart of flesh. I'm going to reach into your spiritual chest, so to speak. I'm going to extract that stony, cold heart, and I'm going to grant you a new heart, a spiritually soft heart that will listen and that will obey and will stop rebelling, a heart that will respond to My word and ultimately to My son.

The Doctrine of Regeneration and the New Birth 15:30

Now this, in the big grand scheme of things, this speaks to a doctrine that we call regeneration. Regeneration. See, generation or genesis, that's obvious. That's the easy part.

Genesis is what? Creation, right? God created in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth.

It's the first verse. So we think of creation, genesis. However, regeneration is taking that which is broken and burned and sodded and diseased and profaned and taking that, taking that was just stony and cold and dead, spiritually flatlining and breathing into a new life. That's what God is promising here.

And it's not just a promise that was to some people a long time ago in a place far, far away. Regeneration is the very reason you have hope today, because at some point God did that in you. You know, at one point in our lives, at one point in our lives, if there had been a device, you know, a spiritual EKG machine or something, and it had been applied to our chest, at one point in our lives, what results would it have attained?

None. That's exactly right. You know, the flat line, that's it. That's all would have been.

At one point we were dead in our sins and trespasses, not sick, not sleepy, but dead. You were born dead in your sins and your trespasses. There is none who are righteous, no not one. That was a condition of all of us.

So what had to happen if an EKG would have tested us and found us to be spiritually dead? Well, what had to happen is that God, out of His own volition, had to reach down to our chest and give us something that we otherwise didn't have, which is new life, a new heart, a new nature.

This is what it means to be born again. Being born again is not a function of you making some intellectual decision to walk the sawdust path and say magic words. Being born again is God of His own volition determined to save you by changing your very nature and enabling and persuading you to do that which you otherwise wouldn't have done.

Come to Him. The people of Ezekiel's day desperately needed this in great measure. Fortunately, God says, that's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you brand new hearts.

You don't just need teaching. You don't just need prophets. You don't need a pep talk at halftime. You need a new heart.

And I'm committed to that end. And this is what we see in these verses.

The Cost of Regeneration: The Blood of Christ 17:44

You know, regeneration. Regeneration. It should be one of the most impressive words in all of Scripture. And the reason why is because of what it costs.

As you look out at the cosmos and the world around you, as you look at the plants and the birds and the flowers and the trees and all this sort of stuff, some amazing stuff. If we look through a telescope and we see the galaxy, the cosmos, the universe, all this, very impressive.

But here's the thing. Which do you think was easier? God creating all that or God giving you new life? This is a leading question.

You know the answer. It's far easier for Him to have created the whole universe than it ever was for Him to breathe new life into you. Why? Because the cost.

Because the cost. See, in Genesis 1, it didn't cost God anything to create the whole cosmos, whole universe. Planets beyond planets and suns beyond suns and light. It didn't cost Him a thing.

You know what He did? He spoke and happened. It's one of the prerogatives of being God. You speak and things happen.

Ex nihilo, out of nothing. God created everything around us. He even created man this way. But here's the problem.

Man became stained, sinned, fallen, broken through sin. Spiritually flatlining. And in order to redeem a spiritually flatlining corpse, in order to redeem you and I at such point as we did not know him, what did God need to do? What was the cost associated with that?

Well, the cost. The cost, while at one point all he had to do was speak and make it happen, the cost in order to regenerate your heart, in order to sanctify you, in order to save you, in order to purchase you back and redeem you from sin and death. The cost was of His own son's blood poured out on Calvary, regeneration, sanctification, salvation, glorification.

Everything in that soteriological bowl is far more precious, far more amazing than even the creation of the cosmos itself.

A Bright Future for Undeserving Sinners (Ezekiel 36:28-32) 19:27

This is not a trivial doctrine that he's speaking of here in Ezekiel 36. All right, let's look at the next verses, verses 28 through 32. These are the last verses that we'll look at here this morning. Verse 28.

Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers. He's reminding them of the covenant. You shall be My people and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleanliness.

I will call for the grain and I will multiply it. I will bring no famine upon you, and I'll multiply the fruit of your trees and increase your fields, so you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for iniquities and your abominations.

Not for your sake do I do this, says the Lord God. Let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel. You know, if there's one thing that keeps us pushing forward on hard or difficult days, it's this idea.

The idea is that the future is going to be better than the past. If there's one thing that keeps us kind of pushing forward, it's because we look back at the past, maybe long past, maybe yesterday, and we say that was bad, but tomorrow will be better. The sun will come out tomorrow.

We think that the future is going to be better than the present. Now, for most of us who are in this room, for all who have been regenerated, this is true. If you've been bought by the blood of Christ, if you've redeemed, if your heart has changed, if you've been saved, then the future absolutely, undeniably, is going to be better than the past.

But how can we be sure of this? Well, look at verse 28. Verse 28 was written to the most undeserving bunch of sinners on the planet. If you ever feel that you're unworthy of that great future, of a future beyond the veil that's better than today, remember this.

The sinners in this text were about as bad a lot as they could get, and yet as undeserving as they were, the future of Israel was still bright. Why? Well, it wasn't going to be because they got their act cleaned up on their own. Rather, it was because God says, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to clean you up. I will deliver you from all your uncleanliness. Israel's future was bright because one thing hadn't changed and that they were God's people and that He was their God. He says, look, I made you a promise and I will keep it.

God's Faithfulness: He Walked Between the Pieces 21:46

We had a relationship. We had a relationship by which I would do certain things and you would do certain things. However, unlike Adam, when you broke the law, when you broke the covenant, when you did that which was wrong and failed to do that which is right, I'm the one who walked between the pieces and the consequences came down upon Me, or more specifically on My son and the person and work of My own son.

And so He looks at the people with His son's crucifixion, resurrection in view, and He looks down upon them and He knows this. I'm going to call you out of the darkness in which you have deliberately buried your head like a pig in the trough. You've done all manner of things wrong. I will lift you up.

I will change your height. I will make you and I'll cleanse you in front of all the nations. And when I do so, My name will be glorified. When I do that, when I take the burnt husk of a house and rebuild it before the nations, that will bring glory to My namesake.

And God says, that's the principal reason I'm doing this. Don't get in your heads because you've been so sweet or you're so inherently lovable I just can't help Myself, so I'm gonna do this principally for My own namesake. When you've strayed, when you've been faithless, I have been faithful. When you rebelled, I've remembered My promise.

All right, earlier I mentioned that was our last section of verses.

Restoration Like the Garden of Eden (Ezekiel 36:33-38) 23:03

I was wrong, actually. Let's look at verses 33 through 38 before we wrap up. Verses 33 through 38. Thus saith the Lord your God, on the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will also enable you to dwell in the cities and the ruins shall be rebuilt.

The desolate land shall be tilled instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass by. And so they will say, this land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden, and the wasted, desolate, ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited. Let me read that verse again because it appeals to something we're going to talk about in a moment.

So then they will say, meaning the people and nations around it, that this land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden. And the wasted, desolate, ruined cities are now fortified, they're inhabited. And then the nations which are left all around you shall know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted that which was desolate.

I, the Lord, have spoken it, I will do it. Thus says the Lord God, I will also let the house of Israel inquire of Me to do this for them. I will increase their men like a flock, like a flock offered as holy sacrifices, like the flock of Jerusalem on its feast days.

So shall the ruined cities be filled with the flocks of men. Then they shall know that I am the Lord. This is a fascinating prophecy given at a time in which Jerusalem is a steaming pile of rubble, blood smeared on the rocks, the glory of God departed into the sky, the temple was gone, the people were exiled in the pagan nations.

And God says, look, it is true that your condition at the moment is not great, but the future is better. And the future is better because I am going to do a number of things to make it better in time. Not only am I going to sanctify you and cleanse you up, but I'm going to bring you back to the land that was always yours, to land that you only had to leave through sin.

Much like Eden, I'm going to bring you back into Eden. I'm going to bring you back into the garden. I'm going to bring you back to the promised land all cleaned up. And when you're there, you'll be more numerous than the flocks and the hills around you.

Now, to a ragtag remnant, most of which their contemporaries had been, you know, have been killed in Jerusalem, to a ragtag remnant who only saw smoke arising from the west when they look towards Jerusalem, this had to be both a fantastic, a surprising and amazing prophecy. And yet God says, I'll do it.

And when I do it, remember this, that I am the Lord. I am the Lord. Then they shall know that I am the Lord. All right, these verses, verses 33 through 38, they describe this restoration that would happen.

God's reminding them that a day will come when that which is presently desolate will become like the Garden of Eden. Now, if you notice, remember last week we talked about the city of Tyre, the people of Tyre who were just up the coast. What did God tell them when He said, I'm going to judge you?

Well, He didn't tell them it was ever going to be filled with flocks again. He said this, I'm going to waste you to the ground. And for centuries, there's going to be nothing but fishermen, you know, with their nets. I'm going to take this city and throw it into the ocean.

It's the only time this has ever happened to a city. It happened to Tyre. The city literally, with the blocks, the buildings, everything got thrown into the sea. And it was desolate.

But God made a different promise to Jerusalem. He says, you're now, but you won't be later. It's not going to take very long until you see this, until you see this around, until you see the fulfillment of the promise that I'm making you.

Waiting for the Heavenly Eden: Revelation's Promise 26:32

It's a promise of better days to the Israelites. On the other hand, it's also a promise for us. We want better days. Our condition is probably different, probably better than the Israelites of Ezekiel's day, his contemporaries.

On the other hand, we're looking for something better. We're waiting for Eden's return. We're waiting for a heavenly Eden. Heavenly Eden that's yet to come.

We're waiting to live in a land where there is no hardship, no heartache, no cancer, no death, none of these things. We look forward with expectation, and we know it's there. We know it's there, and it speeds even readily toward us. This is not Eden.

South Mississippi on the Gulf Coast is pretty nice, especially on a day like this, but this is not Eden. You and I were appointed to someplace better, someplace far more wondrous, someplace far more marvelous, and our habitation of that place is not that far off for any of us. The apostle John, he was given a picture of this in the book of Revelation.

The apostle John got a picture, got a vision of that, of the Eden that we want to re-enter, a far greater Eden than what we see is spoken of in this text, an Eden whose city is Zion, whose founder is God. And we see that in the book of Revelation 22. It says this.

He showed me, God showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and from the Lamb. In the middle of the street, on either side of the river, was the tree of life, that's interesting, which bore 12 fruits, each tree yielding fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

And there shall be no more curse and all that comes with the curse. But the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it. When Ezekiel and his vision had watched the glory of God depart from the temple on up into the sky, as difficult and as trying days as those might be, we all look forward, from Ezekiel on up to us, we all look forward to this day when we dwell in such a place as heavenly Eden where the throne of God remains.

And more importantly, where the Lamb upon the throne is seated.

Better Days Guaranteed: I the Lord Have Spoken 28:35

Ezekiel 36 was a promise of better days, not just to the exiles but to us. In the face of whatever we're facing, it's a promise to all of God's people wherever they may be, that although we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that God is not done with us and our story is not over.

And in His time, God will finish the work that He started. In His time, whether it was Ezekiel's contemporaries or us, those here who have been sanctified or who are being sanctified, even the present will one day be what? Glorified. Will one day be glorified.

In time, this heavenly Eden awaits God's children. Guess what verse 36 says? You can take that promise to the bank. You can bet your life on it.

In verse 36 we see this: I the Lord have spoken and I will do it. Let's pray.