Jeffrey Heine: If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Ezekiel chapter 16. We are on week two of our study through the major prophets. That text is also there in your worship guide. I can't remember the last time Lauren and I actually went to a movie theater in order to see a movie. Normally we just stay home and I let Lauren pick the movie she wants to fall asleep to.
A movie for us is essentially a three night commitment. We never watch it in one night, and because we want to get the movie right, we often ask some of our friends for suggestions. And if anyone tells us to watch a certain movie that's some life changing drama, just know the answer is no. Lauren and I, we have enough drama in our lives. We don't need a life changing moment to happen through a movie.
We don't want to put our emotions through a blender. We want to watch something that will be a happy fun little distraction from our lives. And so our favorite movie of all time is Dumb and Dumber. Maybe followed by close second being Talladega Nights. I was actually asked to say the opening and vacation for the Talladega five hundred.
I said no because all I could think of is sweet little baby Jesus. I could just ask all I could think of was that and I I just couldn't do it. Now of course, we've forced ourselves to watch certain movies. Movies you knew that you had to watch. You needed to see movies like Schindler's List or movies like Saving Private Ryan.
Everybody kept telling me I had to go and see those, and they would tell me how realistic they were, how graphic they were, how emotional. Because they kept recommending it like that, I avoided those movies for months because I didn't wanna put all my emotions through a blender. But then finally I saw them, but I I remember when I sat down in the movie theater, my stomach kind of getting in knots as I was waiting for the film to start. I want you to know that this text that we're about to read, I get the same kind of little feeling in my stomach. Like Schindler's List, we're Saving Private Ryan.
This text would be rated R if not NC 17. Because well, no PG or G rating could ever get across the emotion that you need to feel in a text like this. A G rating isn't going to change you. This text here, it's graphic. It's semi pornographic.
It is raw with emotion. It's not easy to read, but it will change you. Jewish children were not allowed to read this chapter. You're not going to find us in a children's illustrated book. I promise you that.
So Ezekiel 16, we're going to just read the first twenty two verses now, and we'll read some more later. Again, the word of the Lord came to me. Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations and say, thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem, your origin and your birth of the land of the Canaanites. Your father was Amorite, your mother a Hittite. And as for your birth, on the day that you were born, your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths.
No eye pitied you to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you. Abhorred on the day that you were born. And when I passed by and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, live. I said to you in your blood, live. I made you flourish like a plant of the field and you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment.
Your breasts were formed and your hair had grown, yet you were naked and bare. When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love. And I spread the corner of my garment over you and I covered your nakedness. I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine. Then I bathed you with water and I washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil.
I clothed you with embroidered cloth, and I stood and I shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrist and a chain on your neck. And I put a ring on your nose and earrings and your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus, you were adorned with gold and silver and your clothing was a fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth.
You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty. For it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord God. But you trusted in your beauty, and you played the whore because of your renown, and you lavish your whorings on any passerby.
Your beauty became his. You took some of your garments, and you made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore. The like has never been nor ever shall be. You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and with them played the whore. And you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and incense before them.
Also, my bread that I gave you, I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey. You set before them you set before them for a pleasing aroma. And so it was declares the Lord God. And you took your sons and your daughters whom you had born to me and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whoring so small a matter that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them?
And in all your abominations and your whorings, blood. This is the word of the Lord. You know, pray with me. Father, that's a hard passage to to read. I pray that you would give us receptive hearts to taste the scroll and find it sweet.
So, Lord, through your spirit, would you write these things on my heart, on our hearts? I I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
At 63 verses, this is the longest prophecy we have in the entire Bible. It's actually longer than the entire books of Jonah or Haggai or Nahum or Obadiah. Just that alone should get your attention as to the magnitude of this text, but what really sets this text apart and you notice this as you heard it being read. It's the emotion. I mean, if you were to read Paul's letter to the Romans, you're going to see how Paul carefully takes his time to explain the gospel in a very systematic way.
He's going to use words like justified or sanctified or propitiation or righteousness. And he's going to go through those words, in order to give you the understanding of the gospel. And it's going to take enormous mental energy to follow him. Ezekiel 16 is the complete opposite of this. Here we get the exact same theology that we get in Romans, but we get it from a prophet.
And this prophet is gonna be in your face, and he's gonna be raw with emotion. For a brief moment, what you're gonna get is a little sneak peek of actually the heart of God. You're gonna you're gonna see how He feels when He looks at our sinfulness. Here we get the, the same historical events being described as those that are found in second Chronicles, but described in a completely different way. Second Chronicles describes these events as they happened.
Here, this text describes how they felt to God. Another way of thinking of this is you're not reading a history book here. God's allowing you to read his journal. He's saying, here's my diary. If you wanna read how I felt as you were doing these things.
And what we get is this whole range of emotions. Ezekiel is speaking here in particular to Judah or in more to be more specific, Jerusalem. But these words are just as easily directed to us here in this room because we have the exact same sentence. I mentioned this last week that we might be twenty six hundred years removed from Ezekiel, but people are still people. Our sins are still the same.
And so what I want us to do is to walk through the whole range of emotions that the Lord feels when we sin. The story here it starts with the birth. People love telling birth stories. I can tell you the birth story of all three of my daughters probably in a different way than my wife would. Our first, our last child she was a ten pound emergency c section, and I almost missed the birth because I was I was getting something at McDonald's and I'd already paid for it when I got the call, and I waited just a little bit because I mean I paid for it.
I might as well get the burger. We're actually at Saint Vincent's and my wife could look out the window where you could see the McDonald's and she was wondering why I wasn't coming. For our second child, she was also upset at me because I was eating Chick fil A while she was having contractions. I don't know what it was with Lauren always getting upset at me just for eating, having those but anyway, our birthdays, of all my girls, they were joyful occasions. Days I will never forget.
The birth here is not a happy occasion. Verse four again. And as for your birth, on the day that you were born, your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. No, I pitied you to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you. But you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred on the day that you were born.
And would have been a all too common event in this day. Girl, there was a likeliness of you being discarded. People saw this discarded child yet no one had compassion on her. They would hear her crying and they would do nothing. They saw her wallowing in her own uterine blood and did nothing.
This is a picture of us. It's everyone here in this room. You were dead or as good as dead in your sins. Romans six thirty three says that the wages of sin is death. All of us have sinned, therefore all of us reap death.
So this is you, you had no hope apart from someone coming to save you. You couldn't crawl, you couldn't feed yourself, you couldn't wash or clothe yourself, you could do absolutely nothing and yet no one came to your aid. What's being described here is a completely helpless situation. But then Yahweh, the Lord your God, he saw you and he came and he rescued you. He looked at you wallowing in your own uterine blood and he said, live.
To communicate the helplessness of your situation and the power of God, that one word that the Lord commands, it repeats twice. I said to you in your blood, live. I said to you in your blood, live. And the same word that said, let there be light and there was light or who spoke the very universe into existence, spoke life into you, said live and life entered into your body. God didn't look at everything you were doing and was impressed with you, and therefore he spoke those words over you.
He said live because he's merciful and he's gracious, he is compassionate. After he spoke these words, we next read that this child grew up like a weed and quickly became mature and beautiful. And now here we have a metaphor that switches. It switches from a father loving his daughter to now a man loving his bride. God uses different imagery, in order to communicate his love because his love is completely vast.
There's a whole range of emotions and His love for us. I love my wife in a certain way, and I love all three of my daughters in a certain way. And God says, if you put those two types of love together, that better conveys my love, gives you just a glimpse of the love that I have for you. This is why we could sing worship songs that at times feel like love songs, love that God has for us and that we have for him. So the metaphor shifts.
The little girl is now grown up. God relates to this beautiful mature woman as a husband relates to a wife. In verse eight, when it says that he spread his garments over her her nakedness, we're reminded of the story of Ruth and Boaz. Remember, that's how Boaz proposed to Ruth. He spread his garment over her She eats only the best foods, who She eats only the best foods.
Her beauty is stunning. She actually becomes a princess. She's royalty. All of the nations are in awe of her splendor. That's a picture of us.
God spoke life into us. He's grown us up. He showered us with every good gift. He's clothed us with his righteousness. Happy story, isn't it?
Don't you wish it ended right there? I mean, that'd be a perfect Disney film like ends just right there. When my girls were little and I would read to them at night, that's how all of their books ended. Whether it was Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, it was always, you know, the prince would come, rescue her and they would go off and they would live happily ever after. That's a fairy tale.
We all know that our hearts, are too dark to actually allow that to happen though. So beginning in verse 15, there's a major shift in the text. Before this, we only read of the action of God. We read, I saw you. I said live.
I said live. I spread the corner of my garment over you. I made my vow to you. I clothed you. I adorned you.
I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears. I bestowed splendor to you. It's I, I, I. It's just the action of God. Now for the first time, we see our response beauty, and you played the whore because of your renown and you lavished your horings on any passerby.
God will not use flowery language when describing the ugliness of sin. He's not going to be polite. He doesn't say, hey, you know what, we need to talk about how you did some of the things you probably shouldn't have done. Let's talk about some of your indiscretions. He doesn't say that.
No. He is explicitly graphic. Outright Phrases like this. You spread your legs to every person who passes you by. Even when you read this in Hebrew, it's designed to sound gross.
God wants you to know how he feels. How he feels when he is not the love of your life. He wants to you to understand just the deep hurt he is going through. He feels like a husband who has come home to find his wife in the bed with another man. I can't tell you how I would feel if I if I went home and I found that.
I know I would I'd be overcome with emotion. There would be part of me that just wants to to fight the guy that's there. Then there would be part of me that just wants to drop to my knees and cry. There would be another part of me that just wants to run away. I would be feeling all of those things at once.
That's exactly how God feels. There's an almost indescribable anger and hurt. Number of years ago, Lauren and I, we befriended a a homeless man, and we we tried as much as we could to go above and beyond what, normally caring for somebody would in that situation would look like. We took him to the dentist. We took him to a, optometrist, got him glasses.
We found him a job. We would even drive him to work, got him in a hotel that he could be staying at. We even hired him to come in and to paint the inside of our house. He was not a good painter, but, but we thought this could be some additional work that he could have. After the the first day of him painting our house, I went down in the basement to get something.
And I noticed that all of the wires to our security system had been cut. I had so many different emotions at that point. I mean most of the emotions was like, I I mean, after all that we went through, we didn't have to do any of that. After all that we did, I mean, I literally found you in the gutter. Did all of this for you and this is how you repay me.
You're gonna you're planning to come back tonight and to rob me. I was full of all different types of emotion, but just almost this indescribable anger in this hurt at him. And in a small way, very small way, that's how God feels. He brought us life, brought us to life. He's given us every good gift.
He showered his affection on us, and we have returned. In return, we have not desired him, but instead, we have desired all the things that he has given us. We have taken the earrings that he gave us. We've melted them down and we've bowed down to them. And when we do this, God says we have played the horror.
The ways that God has blessed you. Besides giving you life itself, he's given you food, he's given you clothing, education, shelter. It's gonna be things like, you know, laughter around a table with friends enjoying a good meal. It's giving you all types of good things to enjoy, but they were never meant to be an end in themselves. They're just gifts.
And hear me, God's greatest adversary is always his gifts. His greatest adversary is not the devil. It's it's not pain. It's not suffering. It's not the evil that's going on in this world.
It's his greatest adversary is always his gifts. You know, in Exodus 12, after God freed the Israelites from Egyptian slavery, we read that he actually showered them with many gifts. God put it in the hearts of the Egyptians to give the Israelites gifts of silver, and gold, and all types of jewelry as they left. So the Israelites didn't just leave Egypt, they left loaded with wealth. And we read that just a few weeks later, they actually took that wealth.
They took that jewelry. They melted it down. They made a calf, and they bow down to it. They took the gifts of God and they turned them into an idol. We see that in Exodus, and we see that here in Ezekiel.
I bet we see that in our own lives. Replace him. They were never meant to be our desire, only meant to increase our desire for the giver. When we turn to anything other than God for our joy and our satisfaction, what we're essentially doing is committing adultery. We're playing the prostitute.
We're like the prodigal son who who came home and we found our father arms wide open, he he embraces us, he hugs us, he slaughters a fatted calf, he gives us a ring and he puts it on our finger. And in response we leave we take all of that wealth that was just lavished on us, and we go out and we spend it all again. It just breaks the father's heart. It's actually as bad as this is. Don't worry, it gets worse.
This is not the end to the unfaithfulness that's described here. Look at verse 30. We'll read 30 through 34. How sick is your heart? Declares the Lord God.
Because you did all these things. The deeds of a brazen prostitute, building your vaulted chamber at the head of every street, and making your lofty place in every square. Yet you were not like a prostitute because you scorned payment. Adulterous wife who receives strangers instead of her husband. Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side with your whorings.
So you were different from other women in your horings. No one solicited you to play the whore and you gave payment while no payment was given to you. Therefore, you were different. God here says that not only does Israel offer herself to everyone who passes by, but the Israelites don't even get paid for it. Prostitutes get paid for your work, their work, but you actually pay for others to come and to do this to you.
How lovesick is your heart? Israel here is being described not as only after going after lover after lover after lover, but actually resorting to paying these lovers. Now now why would anyone do this? Why would Israel do this? Why would we for that matter do this?
Well, God answers this in verse 28. He says, you play the whore also with the Assyrians because you were not satisfied. Yet, you play the whore with them and still you were not satisfied. You multiplied your whorings also with the trading land of Chaldea and even then you were not satisfied. How lovesick is your heart?
The reason that we go after lovers, after lovers, after lovers, is because we're never satisfied. No lover satisfies, and yet we deceive ourselves thinking maybe the next one will. Do this. Maybe the next lover will satisfy. The truth is we have a God shaped holiness.
And no love outside of God will ever satisfy. And no love outside of God will ever satisfy and no love outside of God will ever satisfy. Now, keep in mind, God is saying this to his people. The people he's given life to, the people he has made a covenant with. He's not saying this to some pagan people.
He's saying this to us here in the room. He's addressing people who would still claim that they had faith and that God was still their God. Verse 38 says that God will judge Israel for her adultery. Verse 40, he says, bring people in that we might stone her, which is the judgment for adultery. This situation, it looks terrible at this point.
And then God does the unthinkable at the end of this chapter. In the midst or in the face of such a soul wrenching hurt, instead of going through with the the judgment of stoning them, we actually read that God renews his covenant with the people. And he atones for their sins. Look at verses sixty two and sixty three. This is one of those passages, and I say this occasionally, you should underline, highlight, star, do whatever it is you do to let you know that this is an important, important passage.
Confounded and never open your mouth again because of your shame when I atone for you for all that you have done declares the Lord. Let me tell you why this is astounding. In the rest of the Old Testament, it is always the people who make sacrifices to atone for their own sins. Always. Except here.
God himself makes atonement for us. What an incredible picture of God's love and kindness and grace. It's extravagant. Despite all that we have done, he says, I will atone for you. The story is actually similar to the story of the adulterous woman that we have in John chapter eight.
Do you remember that story? You have a woman who's caught in the very act of adultery, so there's no doubt she has committed adultery. She is guilty. So she's brought out in public. She's thrown down right in front of Jesus, and the people surround her with stones getting ready to stone her.
This woman has no hope. You remember what he says? It's one of the most famous verses in all the Bible. Beautiful story. We love this story, don't we?
We love applying it to our lives. But if we're going to do that, we actually have to realize that this story was left unfinished for us. If you really want to understand the story, you need to see, yes, that one by one, as everybody is dropping those stones and they leave, never send and he has every right to judge her. In second Corinthians five, Jesus is actually described as he who knew no sin. And so there's Jesus with a stone.
And he is the only person there who actually has the right to throw it. And not only this, but although this woman, she committed a physical act of adultery, before that, way before that, she had already committed spiritual adultery in her heart. She would have never gone to the arms of another man if she had not first left the arms of God. God who created her, God who had loved her, God who had entered into a covenant with her. She sought out the love of strangers because the love of God did not satisfy.
Ultimately committed adultery against. And he has every right to throw the stone. Her true and righteous husband, whom she is shamed, now stands before her. And certainly in righteous anger, he can judge her. So if you really want to play out that story, you need to see Jesus standing before her, holding a standing before her holding a rock.
Saying, you have hurt me. You've deeply hurt me. You've gone to great lengths, actually, to shame me publicly. I gave you life. Covenant with you.
And this is what you've done. The law demands justice. I demand justice. There needs to be a punishment. This punishment must be violent.
It must be painful. It must be humiliating. It must be crushing. And her Let her judgment fall on me. And he would look at that woman and he didn't say I saw you wallowing in your own blood, and I said, live.
Live. I will die. You live. Salvation, and he has never stopped speaking it. Live.
If you're turning to other things for your strength and for your hope, he is saying live. If you lack faith in him, hear God saying live. Even gonna bring you the remotest joy in your life, hear him say, I saw you wallowing in your own blood and I said, live. And come to me and find everlasting joy. Jesus has made atonement for you.
And now he is drawing you to himself like no other lover can. Do not turn him away. Let's pray. Jesus, your love is more faithful and more passionate than anything we could ever find in this world. I see you.
I see you there wallowing in your own blood. And I say, live. For those in here who have melted down, the earrings, the gifts that you've given them, turn them into idols, hear your words saying, live. Lord, your words says that those who hope in you will not be disappointed. And so may we turn all of our affection, all of our hopes, and place them squarely on you, Jesus.
Thank you for atoning for our sins, and we pray this in your name. Amen.