[0:00] Well, if you can turn back to that passage that we read a few moments ago in Zikil, in Zikil and chapter 13.
[0:13] Now, buying a second-hand car, that's one of those occasions that make many of us quite suspicious and make many of us quite skeptical as well.
[0:28] Say for example, you walk into a very corrupt car showroom, a very corrupt one, and you're walking round and you see a particular one that you like the look of, and it looks well presented, and it's nice and clean, and it's nice and polished, and from the outside it looks very, very good indeed.
[0:51] But underneath the bonnet there's all sorts of problems. There's all sorts of mechanical problems and failures just waiting to happen.
[1:03] Parts, say, rusted, and there's, you know, there's belts and chains that are just ready to go any minute now. That's what's going on underneath. But on the outside it looks great, it looks like a wonderful looking car, and on the inside that's not the case at all, but you don't know that.
[1:20] And then perhaps a particularly corrupt salesman comes up to you, and he knows this vehicle. He knows it's not very good underneath, but the corrupt salesman comes up and he tries to sell you the car, and he'll tell you exactly what you want to hear.
[1:39] He'll reassure you that this particular vehicle is reliable, he'll reassure you that this particular vehicle is safe, and he'll keep saying all this, even though he knows it's not actually the truth, because ultimately he just wants to sell, and you buy it.
[1:57] You feel assured by what he's told you, you feel assured by what he's said about its reliability, and you buy it, you purchase the vehicle, and then you go on your way, and you leave thinking that you've bought a fantastic car, you leave thinking that, well, I have confidence in what I have purchased, but a few weeks, a few months down the line, that sense of assurance, and that sense of confidence will soon disappear, and all these different problems actually come to light.
[2:32] And in a way, that's exactly what a false prophet is like. That's what a false prophet is like. It's like a corrupt salesman, someone who is very much out for himself, someone who'll tell you exactly what you need to hear to make you feel at ease, and he'll tell you exactly what you need to hear to make you somehow feel very comfortable, even though he's, and perhaps spouting off all sorts of lies.
[3:05] That's what a false prophet does. A false prophet is someone who paints over the cracks, and paints over the flaws to sell you a false salvation.
[3:17] A false prophet is someone who'll paint over the cracks to sell you a false assurance. That's exactly what they do. And that's what this passage here in Ezekiel is all about.
[3:29] This is, you can see that from the heading, it's all about false prophets and their lying ways. Now, this was a huge issue in Ezekiel's state.
[3:40] It was a huge issue really throughout the biblical time period, and I suppose in many ways it's a huge issue right throughout the generations. This issue of false prophets, people who come and they pretend to speak for the Lord, and they pass on words as though they're from the Lord.
[4:02] You see, the job spec of a prophet is fairly straightforward. It's quite simple. The job spec of a prophet in the Old Testament is very simply, God saying to them, you tell the people, would I tell you?
[4:17] That was their job. Very simple. They had to pass on the word of God. They had to pass that word on to the people. But these false prophets, they weren't doing that.
[4:28] These false prophets, they were speaking what was on their own hearts, and they were speaking very much what was in their own minds. And you see that in verse 2 there.
[4:39] Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who are prophesying, and say to those who prophesy from their own hearts.
[4:51] That's the issue. Say to the ones that are prophesying from their own hearts. In other words, they're saying whatever they want to say. They're saying whatever they find in their own hearts, not what it is that's coming from the Lord.
[5:07] And they're effectively doing this to please the people. We'll see why in a moment. But they're doing this to please people. They want to please the people, and they want to give people a false sense of security, and a false sense of assurance.
[5:21] That's what they're about, and we'll see why in a moment. Now, there's nothing new under the sun, is there? There's nothing new under the sun at all.
[5:32] And the voices of the false prophets, they continue to go out today, don't they? We know that. These voices that tell us what sinful man wants to hear, rather than telling us what sinful man needs to hear.
[5:51] It's a big difference, isn't it? To what our sinful ear wants to hear, and what our sinful hearts actually need to hear. And what I want to do this evening for a few moments that we've got, I don't really want to focus on the false prophets.
[6:07] This is, after all, a preparatory for the Lord's Supper. This is in preparation to sit at the Lord's table. My intention is not to focus and to look at the false prophets.
[6:18] Rather, what I want to do is, I want to contrast the failings of the false prophets with the glory of our true prophet.
[6:31] And by true prophet, I don't mean Ezekiel, I don't mean Jeremiah, or Isaiah, or Moses, or any of those other prophets. I mean the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
[6:45] Because, of course, remember, Christ is our prophet, He is our priest, and He is our king. And with that in mind, I want to look at that contrast.
[6:56] So look at the contrast between the failings of these false prophets and by doing so, see the amazing glory of the great prophet, the amazing glory of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
[7:09] And the way I want to do that is, I want to look at three illustrations. You've actually got quite a number of illustrations here in this passage, but I want to highlight three. Three images, three pictures, three illustrations.
[7:23] And these three illustrations, they're designed to highlight the failings of the false prophets. But when we look at these three illustrations, we can actually use them to point forward to the glory of Christ as well.
[7:36] So that's what I want to do. We're going to go through three, and images, three illustrations. The first image or illustration that you find is in verse four. So in verse four, you've got a picture there of jackals among the ruins.
[7:51] That's going to be our first illustration, this picture of jackals among the ruins. And secondly, after that, we'll look at verse five. And in verse five, we're going to look at this illustration or this picture of a breached wall.
[8:07] So a breached wall. And then the third illustration is in down in verse 10 and covers quite a number of verses from verse 10 onwards. And that picture is the picture of a white washed wall.
[8:22] So three images, three very different illustrations, although they are linked together and some of them are very similar. But those three things, the image of the jackals, the breached wall, and then the white washed wall.
[8:35] So we're going to look at these three things. See the failings of the false prophets. Then see the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we'll begin with that first illustration of the jackals.
[8:47] So if you look again at verse four there. We read there, your prophets have been like jackals among ruins.
[8:59] O Israel. So that's the picture. Now, all three of these illustrations that we're going to look at, all three of them, they're distinct illustrations.
[9:10] They're quite separate in many ways. But they all come under a kind of overarching theme. They all come under an overarching picture. And the overarching picture is really a besieged city, a fortified city.
[9:26] One of these walled cities which comes under attack. And here in this particular image that the city is in ruins. And we see the false prophets, they're like the jackals, or foxes maybe you prefer, but that kind of animal, and the jackals in and about the ruins.
[9:46] So what does that actually mean? What's that teaching? What do jackals do in ruins? What do you get from that particular picture there?
[9:57] Well, I'll tell you what jackals don't do. You won't see jackals with hard hats on, and with high vis jackets on, repairing the ruins. Because that's not the kind of animal.
[10:10] That's not the kind of picture that you get with the jackals here at the top. What the jackals do is they go about, and they go about scavenging. That's what they do. We're perhaps more, think more about foxes.
[10:21] But it's the same idea. They go about scavenging, and they're looking out for themselves. It's all very much about self-interest. They don't care about others.
[10:32] They just care about themselves. And they go around the ruins, and they scavenge, and they take whatever they feel will help them to build up their own little den, whatever their little den happens to be.
[10:44] But it's all about self-interest. That's the point. That's what you see with the jackals going around the ruins. They're all about themselves. All about very much looking after themselves. And that's precisely what false prophets are like.
[10:59] False prophets are well and truly out for themselves. It's all absolutely about self-interest. It's all about me. That's what it's like with the false prophets.
[11:12] And that's exactly what was going on here in this biblical period, in this particular time in history. Because the false prophets, they wanted an easy life.
[11:23] That's what they wanted. They wanted a life of ease, and indeed, they wanted a life of comfort as well. They wanted to be treated well by the people, and to make sure that they got that easy life, to make sure that they were treated well by the people.
[11:41] What they did was they told the people exactly what the people wanted to hear. We'll keep them happy, said the false prophets. We'll keep the people happy, and if we keep the people happy, then that means we'll get a more comfortable lives ourselves.
[11:55] Now, to understand that, you can maybe think of the opposite. Think of Jeremiah as an example. Jeremiah, of course, was a true prophet. And Jeremiah, he prophesied hard things to people.
[12:09] He prophesied difficult things to the people. And remember how the people responded? People didn't like it at all. The people didn't like to hear the things that Jeremiah was actually prophesying to them.
[12:23] And because of that, they turned on Jeremiah. They threatened him in loads of different ways. Remember, they threw him in a pit at one point? They put him in the stalks. Jeremiah ends up suffering.
[12:35] And he's suffering because he's telling the people what they don't want to hear. He's telling the people hard things. They don't like that, don't like that at all. But these false prophets here, they're different.
[12:47] They just want a comfortable life. They want very much for the people to like them. So they start preaching a message that these people will like.
[12:58] And you see the content of the message in verse 11. See in verse 11 there, this is the essence of their message. And it reads there, they have misled my people, saying peace when there is no peace.
[13:17] You see, the people here, they don't want to hear about sin. Most people don't, if they're honest. Most people we interact with, they don't want to hear about sin. And that's what these people here are like.
[13:28] They don't want to hear about sin. They don't want to hear about judgment. And they don't want to hear about eternity or hell or any of these kinds of things. They just want to be reassured that everything's going to be fine.
[13:40] That's what they want. Tell us that everything's going to be fine. Tell us that all is good, that there's no problems at all. So that's what the false prophets do.
[13:51] They give the people what they want. That's what they want to hear. They'll tell them peace, peace, even though we know fine will, that there is no peace. So they're effectively luring the people here into a false sense of security.
[14:06] And they're luring the people into a false sense of assurance here. When they know fine will, and actually judgments around the corner, they know fine will, destruction is around the corner.
[14:19] They don't care about the truth. They preach these things just to please the people. And as I mentioned earlier on, there is nothing new under the sun like that.
[14:31] And these false promises and these false assurances, they continue to be proclaimed today. They continue to be proclaimed today by the false prophets that we have around us.
[14:45] We have these voices all around us in the world and in certain quarters of the church as well. Telling us that sin is not really a problem. They tell us that you don't really need to worry about judgment.
[14:56] Everybody will be fine in the end. We'll probably all go to heaven anyway. Everything will be fine. Don't worry about it. That's the voice of the false prophets of our day.
[15:09] And that voice goes out very loudly. So these false prophets, they don't care about others. They're like the jackals, busy, scavenging, looking out for number one. Not actually caring for the interests of others at all.
[15:23] And they're happy to lie in order to do just that. And what a contrast that is, what a contrast that is to the true prophet, to the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
[15:37] Because the jackals might only care about themselves, but not so Christ. He is very much concerned for the interests of others. He is very much directed towards others.
[15:50] His compassion is directed towards others. His mercy is directed towards others. Very unlike these false prophets, very unlike these jackals. He is our prophet.
[16:01] And as our prophet, he speaks to us. And he speaks to us through the word of God itself. He is, of course, the Logos, isn't he?
[16:12] He is the word incarnate. And that's quite remarkable when you think about that. As we come under the word and as we hear the word of God, our prophet speaks the Lord himself, the Lord Jesus Christ.
[16:26] And those who are the Lord's people here, you know what that's like when the Lord is speaking to you. When he is speaking directly into your heart and into your own situation. And as our prophet speaks to us, he is very unlike the false prophets.
[16:44] He doesn't just tell us what we want to hear, does he? He tells us what we need to hear. And sometimes that truth can be hard.
[16:55] And very often actually that truth can be painful. But it's the truth we need. Not the false lies of the false prophets which makes us feel good in the here and now.
[17:06] That's not what we need. We need the truth. The truth of the word of God. Because as we find in another passage in the word of God, it's the truth that sets us free.
[17:17] It's the truth that we very much need to hear. And that's what our prophet comes to us with, the truth. And he tells us, he says, I know the false prophets tell you everything is fine and you don't need to worry.
[17:29] But that's not true. Our prophet says, you're not fine. The Lord Jesus Christ says, you are not fine. You have a major issue. We all have a major issue.
[17:40] Sin. And we are in grave danger because of this sin. And Christ tells us that. He doesn't hide that from us. He doesn't hide that from us to make us feel a little bit better.
[17:54] He doesn't hide that from us to make sure he doesn't offend us. He tells us the truth. Starkly. We are sinners. You are sinners. That's what he says to every single one of us.
[18:06] But he does that. He does that. He shows us the danger we are in. In order that he then might come in the gospel as the great prophet and tell us what he's done for us.
[18:18] See, he needs to show us our problem. So that then he might tell us about what he's done. And he comes and he tells us, wait until I tell you what I've done for you.
[18:29] The Lord's people. I have gone to the cross and I have died there for you. I have taken your sins. I have paid the price. I have paid the punishment. I have taken that judgment.
[18:40] I've taken that for you. So he tells us. He tells us the bad news about our sin. In order that he might tell us the good news about what he has done for us at Calvary.
[18:51] But the false prophets, they're different. The false prophets are very different indeed. They're all about self-interest. Self-interest and self-gain, but not Christ.
[19:04] Not Christ, not our prophet. He is about self-giving. He is about self-sacrifice. And these false prophets, they give us a false empty assurance.
[19:18] Everything's fine. That's a false empty assurance. But in Christ, we have a full assurance. We have a true assurance because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us people.
[19:32] You see, your hope today is not in the empty false words of these false prophets that tell you you're fine. That's not where your assurance is today.
[19:45] Your assurance as the Lord's people today is in what Christ has done. And you need to remember that. Not anything that you have done, not necessarily anything anybody else says to you.
[19:56] Your assurance is in what the Lord Jesus Christ himself has done for you there in the cross at Calvary. So the false prophets, they're just like jackals. Like jackals looking out for themselves.
[20:09] So very different to the compassion of our great prophet. They come to us with lies, but our great prophet comes to us with the truth. Not that our sinfulness wants to hear, but that our sinful hearts absolutely need to hear.
[20:25] So that's the first image there, the jackals in the ruins. What about the next image? Look at verse 5 there in the passage. You have another illustration there. Well, there's a couple of things there.
[20:37] The one I want to focus on is the image of the breached wall. So in verse 5, this is part of the accusation against the false prophet. And it reads as follows.
[20:49] You have not gone up into the breaches. You have not gone up into the breaches or built a wall for the house of Israel that it might stand in battle in the day of the Lord.
[21:01] And especially that first part. You have not gone up into the breaches. So the illustration here, this is to do with a besieged city.
[21:13] And I think I mentioned earlier on that these cities were fortified cities in this day. They were walled cities. And the way they were designed, the way many of the walls were designed, they were thicker as you'd expect at the bottom for structural integrity, thicker at the bottom.
[21:31] And the higher up the wall went, the thinner the wall actually got. So if you were to attack a city, what you would do is you would build what they would call siege ramps.
[21:42] And you would use these ramps and you would get as high up the wall as possible because the higher up the wall you get, the easier it is to actually penetrate through the wall. And that's what they were doing.
[21:53] They were going up these ramps and making holes, breaching the wall itself. And on the other side, for those who are defending, they would do the same. They would have ramps as well.
[22:06] And they would use these ramps to get up as high as they could in order to stand in the gap, to stand in the breach and in order to repair that breach.
[22:17] So as the breaches were being made by the enemy, those defending would be going up and seeking to, in some way, repair those breaches. And that meant that only the bravest of men would be found in the breaches.
[22:32] That makes sense because that was dangerous. You know, if you stood in the breach, you were standing where there was a hole, where the enemy was attacked. So to stand in the breach was to stand in a very dangerous place, indeed, to stand in these breaches.
[22:48] But the false prophets, they didn't do that. They stay well clear of these danger zones. They're not going anywhere near these breaches.
[22:59] I'm not going to stand in the breach, says the false prophets, I'm not going to stand there and repair the wall for the sake of the people. It's too dangerous. Too dangerous for me. I might die.
[23:11] They are not going to stand in the gaps, but not so with Christ. See, there's a wonderful contrast here because that picture of standing in this breached wall to repair the wall.
[23:27] That is a wonderful spiritual picture of exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ does for his people. Exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ does in order to save his people.
[23:39] Because unlike these false prophets that we read off here, Christ very much does stand in the danger zone. And the false prophets don't go anywhere near the breach.
[23:50] Christ does. He stands spiritually speaking in the breach, in the danger zone of these breached walls. And he does that, of course, in order to save his people.
[24:02] Because to spiritualise this a wee bit, spiritually speaking, the wall of humanity has been breached. The wall of humanity has been breached by sin, by the attacks from the enemy of our souls.
[24:18] You can go back to the Garden of Eden to see that. With the fall of man there in the Garden of Eden, you see this breach open up. It's not just a breach, it's a chasm.
[24:30] A chasm in this relationship between man and God. A chasm that has opened up. A breach that has opened up. We have lost our fellowship with the Lord through the fall there in the Garden of Eden.
[24:43] And that breach that is first evident there in the Garden of Eden, that is a breach that no angel can repair. An angel can't stand in there and repair it. It's a breach that no man, no mere man anyway, can repair.
[24:58] That is a breach which only the Lord Jesus Christ, only the God man can stand and repair. And that's what happens at Calvary.
[25:10] That's precisely what's happening at Calvary. See, when Christ is crucified there on the cross, he's effectively standing in the breach.
[25:22] He is standing in that breach between God and between man. And as he stands in the danger zone of that breach, he's attacked. Remember that standing in the hole, that breach hole is a dangerous place to stand.
[25:38] And you see that danger in Christ there on the cross. He is undergoing there inexpressible suffering. He is attacked in an inexpressible way there on the cross.
[25:50] He's on the cross hanging, facing the very powers of Satan, the bulls of Vaishan encircling the place. And he is there on the cross and he's been humiliated by those who are surrounding, mocking and jeering him.
[26:06] Of course, as well going through the physical suffering and the physical torment of actually being crucified there on the cross. But most importantly of all, as he stands there in the breach of this chasm between God and man, he is inflicted with the sword of the Father's justice, sword of the Father's judgment inflicted in him.
[26:32] And he does all this voluntarily. He stands in the breach and he endures this suffering very much voluntarily. And he goes through all this in order to heal and in order to repair that spiritual breach that exists between God and man.
[26:52] It is repaired by the Lord Jesus Christ. The false prophets, they're so different. False prophets, they're out for themselves. They don't go near the breaches. They're not going to go anywhere near these dangerous areas.
[27:07] Way too dangerous for them, but not so for Christ. He stands there. He stands in the breach and he endures the suffering that's going to come his way in order that that very breach might be healed in an order that he might save and protect his people.
[27:25] So that's the second picture there. So we've seen the jackals and the ruins just looking out for themselves, very unlike Christ. Then we saw the breached wall, which we've just looked at for the last few moments.
[27:40] And now lastly, I want to look at another picture. And this is the picture of the whitewashed wall. Now, this is similar in a way to the previous image, but it is different as well.
[27:54] In the previous image, the breached wall, what you had was a defense wall that was breached by the enemy and the Lord, the true prophet coming and repairing, standing in the breach and repairing what was broken.
[28:09] But this image, this is different. So forget that for a moment and now think about a different illustration. This illustration is about a new wall being created, a new wall being built.
[28:20] And the wall is actually built by the people. It's the people of Israel themselves that build this wall. And the purpose of the wall is to defend against the judgment of God. So it's a wall that they build themselves to protect them from the judgment of God.
[28:36] Now, I'm going to read verse 10 to 14 again, just those verses there, because this is really the crux of what this picture is. So verse 10, 14, precisely because they have misled my people, saying peace when there is no peace.
[28:53] And because when the people build a wall, these prophets smear it with whitewash. Say to those who smear it with whitewash that it shall fall.
[29:06] There will be a deluge of rain and you, O great hail stones, will fall and a stormy wind break out. And when the wall falls, will it not be said to you, where is the coating with which you smeared it?
[29:22] Therefore thus says the Lord God, I will make a stormy wind break out in my wrath, and there shall be a deluge of rain in my anger and great hail stones in wrath to make a fool in.
[29:35] And I will break down the wall that you have smeared with whitewash and bring it down to the ground so that its foundation will be laid there.
[29:46] So that's the picture. They've built a wall, but there's a massive problem with a wall, isn't there? Huge problem. The wall is quite clearly faulty. It's covered in structural weaknesses all over.
[29:59] It's covered in cracks all over and that means it's not going to stand up to the judgment of God. So this wall that they've made for themselves, it's not adequate. It's not adequate at all.
[30:12] But the point is, what do the false prophets say? Do the false prophets say, this wall's not good enough? Do the false prophets say, wait a second, you're going to need to build something else. It's too weak.
[30:23] It's not going to stand up to the judgment of God. Is that what they say? That's not what they say at all. They say it's fine. And they basically, to paraphrase, they basically paint over the cracks, paint over the cracks and they tell them that everything is fine.
[30:42] And you read there in the passage, they put some kind of a coating on the wall. There's some kind of a coating. They whitewash the wall. So from the outside it looks good. On the outside it looks like it would withstand quite a lot. But see behind that coating, it's crumbling, it's cracking.
[31:00] Behind that coating, the wall is weak and it will fall and it will not withstand the judgment of God. That's the picture you have because when this storm of God's judgment comes, the Lord's saying that the wall's going to crumble.
[31:17] The coating is going to come away. And when the coating comes away, it'll expose the weakness. It'll expose the weakness of this wall that they have made for themselves and then it just crumbles.
[31:29] The barrier that they have made for themselves that fails to protect it. And spiritually speaking, that is something that we are susceptible to as well.
[31:42] We're very susceptible to this. Building our own walls of defence against the judgment of God. It happens too easily. Perhaps you might build a wall out of your righteous works.
[31:59] A wall of defence that you think will protect you. Or perhaps you might build a wall out of your baptism or something like that. That that will protect you. Or did I say even perhaps we build a wall out of membership as though the very fact that we're a member alone.
[32:15] That that's somehow going to protect us. Or perhaps we might build a wall out of our heritage. Our Christian heritage. The fact that we come from a Christian family or something of that nature.
[32:26] But the reality is that none of these things on the day of judgment will stand up and protect us. None of these things that we build for ourselves. Because all our works, everything we do is tainted by sin.
[32:41] Everything we do is scarred and tainted by sin. The walls that we erect for ourselves are very much covered in sinful flaws.
[32:55] And what do the false prophets tell us? Well the false prophets they say, doesn't matter. Don't worry about that. You've got nothing to worry about. And they basically just paint over it and make it look okay from the outside and tell us that we are okay.
[33:09] We've got nothing to worry about. That's deception. Say for example the wall of the church here. Imagine if you had a crack running all the way down that wall. A crack running all the way down.
[33:22] And you decided well what we'll do is we'll get some filler and we'll put some filler on it and we'll paint over it. And everybody in the congregation will think they're safe. Everyone in the congregation will think, oh well that's done the job.
[33:36] But of course it hasn't done the job at all. And the people are in danger. And one day that wall will come crumbling down if it's got a massive structural crack all the way through it like that.
[33:47] Just to put a coating on it is deceiving. It's deceiving people with a false sense of security. A false sense of peace and safety. But that's exactly what the false prophets do. That's what they do. They paint over the cracks.
[33:59] But not so with craft. Not so with our Lord and Serious. He doesn't just paint over our sins and failings. That's not what the Gospel is.
[34:10] The Gospel isn't Christ shedding His blood and just painting over our sins and painting over our failures and leaving us exposed to collapse in the day of judgement.
[34:24] That's not the Gospel. That's not what the Gospel is at all. Rather through the death of our Lord and Savior. Through the death of Jesus Christ.
[34:35] What He does is He effectively strips down all the walls of our own righteousness. He strips all these things down and He erects for us a new barrier.
[34:47] A new barrier against the judgement of God. A new wall of defence. And that barrier is none other than the righteousness of Christ Himself. A wall that is flawless. A wall that absolutely has no fault. And a wall that is able to withstand even the judgement of the Lord Himself.
[35:09] And that's where our assurance must be today. That's where it must be. Not in anything you can construct. Not in any kind of defensive barrier that you can put up.
[35:21] Even if you whitewash it and paint over the cracks and make it look perhaps very good from the outside. That's just not going to do. Because our self made spiritual defences.
[35:34] They're nothing but crumbling walls. They will come down. They will not stand in the judgement. Our assurance. Or not to be in what we have done. Our assurance has to be in what Christ has done for us.
[35:48] In what Christ has done in going to the cross. In taking our sins to Himself. And in giving us His righteousness. You see the false prophets there. They were quite happy here just to please the people.
[36:05] They were quite happy just to paint over the cracks of the people's own sinfulness. But Christ doesn't do it. He's not happy with that. Christ does not do that. Through the death of Christ.
[36:17] He removes our sins. He doesn't just cover them up. Pretend they're not there. To cause us problems later on. He removes them. He takes them away. He deals with them. And then He gives us that protective barrier.
[36:33] As it's to use another illustration. Another garment. The garment of the Lord's righteousness to protect us from that judgement to come. So here in this passage here. Yes you see the failures of the false prophets in these three illustrations that we've looked at.
[36:52] The jackals and the breached wall and the whitewashed wall. Yes they do highlight the failings of the false prophets. But at the same time they contrast the glory of our Lord. They contrast the glory of our great prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ.
[37:10] Because He is one who doesn't just look out for Himself like the jackals. Not at all. And He is one who stands in the breach as we saw earlier on. And He is not one who just paints over the cracks of our sins.
[37:26] He removes them. He deals with them. And He gives us this new barrier. This new barrier that will not fail. This barrier that will never come down. The righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[37:41] Which clothes us and which gains us access into the very heavenly realms Himself. And I pray that you would hear the voice of this prophet here tonight. That you would experience the salvation that He offers.
[37:57] The cleansing. That you would stop looking for that assurance in yourself. Stop looking for that means of salvation in yourself. That you would realise that Christ has done it. That your focus. Yes you need to see your own sin.
[38:11] But your eyes must not stop there. They must then be lifted to Christ to see what Christ has done. To see what He has done there on the cross. See the false prophets they promised peace but they couldn't deliver. They couldn't deliver peace. They promised something they could not deliver.
[38:28] Not so with Christ. When He promises peace through coming to Him by faith and trust. Then He absolutely will deliver that peace.
[38:39] Not just in the life to come but here. Abundant life. That peace in the here and now. And of course that peace eternally so in the life to come. Amen.
[38:51] Let's play. We give thanks for your goodness towards us and the abundant nature of your goodness towards us as well.
[39:09] We come acknowledging our sinfulness. We come acknowledging that we are weak and that we are frail in and of ourselves. But we come before one who is able to cleanse. We come before one who is able to take weak faltering people such as ourselves.
[39:30] And to save us and to make us to stand upon the rock of our salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ. And prayer is as congregation here approach the Lord's supper. And as they approach the Lord's day we ask the Lord that you would give them that sense of assurance that comes not from within ourselves.
[39:54] But that assurance that is found in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The one in whom is found that full assurance. So grant that to be our portion here this evening. But before us and cleanse us from our sins. Jesus sick. Amen.