Ezekiel 40:39 - Homiletics

Sacrifices in the new temple.

As we read the dry details of the city that is to be rebuilt and its new temple, we are suddenly pulled up by a startling item. Among the various arrangements of the ancient temple that are to be revived, provision is made for the sacrificial rites. There are to be sacrifices in the new temple. The burnt offering and the sin offering and the trespass offering are all to be there. Then sacrifices will be needed after the restoration. It might have been supposed that these would now be dispensed with, since sin was put away and the people were re-dedicated to God. But as a matter of fact, the temple ritual was never before cultivated with. such assiduity and elaborateness.

I. WE NEED REPEATED REDEDICATION OF OUR LIVES TO GOD . The burnt offering signified the self-dedication of the man who presented it. It was given whole, to show that he had surrendered his all to God; it was consumed by fire, to suggest that he was to make this surrender complete in depth, intensity, and reality, as well as in comprehensiveness. Now, to have made this offering once for all did not suffice. It had to be continually renewed. The dedication of Israel to God in the restoration to their land could not be accepted as sufficient if it were done once for all. It had to be made over and over again. So is it with the Christian's offering of himself. When thinking of his great, decisive step, he may exclaim, in Doddddge's well-known words—

"'Tis done, the great transaction's done:

I am my Lord's, and he is mine."

Yet if he rests satisfied with having once taken that step, he will soon find himself slipping back from his high resolve. We must continually renew our self-dedication to Christ. The sacrament of baptism, which signifies the first dedication, is taken but once; but it is followed by that of the Lord's Supper, which suggests renewal of dedication in deliberate intention, as when the Roman soldier took the oath of allegiance to his general. This sacrament we repeat many times.

II. WE NEED REPEATED CLEANSING FROM SIN . There were to be sin and trespass offerings in the new temple. This fact is startling and most painful. Even while the people are returning, penitent and restored, provision has to be made for future falls and sins.

1. Christian people sin . We know that this is only too true of all Christian people. There is no sinless soul on earth. "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" ( 1 John 1:8 ). The foresight of the fact is no excuse for us; for God does not make his children sin he endeavors to save them from it. Thus Christ predicted Peter's fall although he had prayed that his disciple might be kept faithful ( Luke 22:31 , Luke 22:32 ).

2. God has provided for the recovery of Christians when they sin . There were to be sacrifices in the restored temple. This arrangement shows the wonderful long-suffering mercy of God. The same mercy is displayed towards Christians. It is a shame that they who have once washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb should again stain them with the ruin of sin. Yet as this is done, God provides even again for cleansing—not now by repeated sacrifices, but by the eternal efficacy of the one perfect Sacrifice. "And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous: and he is the Propitiation for our sins" ( 1 John 2:2 , 1 John 2:3 ).