View source for What Do we Do When No One is Looking?

{{Message Ideas Box
|chapter=Ezekiel 20
|verse=37
|occasion=General
|audience=Adults
|theological tradition=General
|topic=Covenant
|author=Edwin Weaver
|direction=God follows His covenant, and will never abandon loving us back into it ourselves.
|how to get there=*This message relies heavily on [[Ezekiel 8]] and the rest of [[Ezekiel 20]], as well as some other OT passages about covenant.
*Israel was in captivity because of its' sins. They were following other gods and idols and were no longer following God.
*They felt abandoned by God.
*And God says that he will punish them for their sins, and that it will be very painful.
*But God never says He will abandon Israel, just punish them. 
*The goal is always to bring them back to God. 
*God created a covenant with Abraham, a solumn promise to look out for his people forever. 
*They split a bull, Abraham changed his name, circumcision was brought in, all symbols of the covenant.
*And as the final act of the covenant, Abraham gave his son to God and God gave his son to Abraham's people.
*As Christians, we too take on Jesus' name, and are circumcised in the heart. 
*And we too deserve punishment. With the world so crazy we can hurt so bad it feels like God has abandoned us.
*But God has promised never to do that. The covenant is holy, eternal. It might hurt sometimes, but the promise is still there.
*God will strive to bring us to follow his covenant no matter what it takes, but he won't stop holding up his end, he loves us and sent his son to seal the deal.
|things to watch for=To pull off this message you need to know a lot about covenants, primarily the covenant with Abraham. There is a lot of information around, so this shouldn't be too difficult but this message cannot be done without that knowledge.

}}
{{MI Series
|series=Ezekiel, A Hard Headed Prophet
|number=4
}}