Episode Transcript
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You may be seated. Please turn
your attention to Ezekiel, Chapter Twenty three.
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Ezekiel twenty three, let's give our
attention to God's word, the word
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of the Lord. Came to me, son of man. There were two
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women, the daughters of one mother. They pray, they played the whore
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in Egypt. They played the whore
in their youth. There their breasts were
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pressed and their virgin bosoms handled.
Oholah was the name of the elder,
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and Oholibah was the name of her
sister. They became mine and they bore
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sons and daughters. As for their
names, Aholah is Samaria and Aholiba his
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Jerusalem. Aholah prayed the whore while
she was mine, and she lusted after
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her lovers, the Assyrians, warriors
clothed in Purple, governors and commanders,
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all of them desirable young men,
horsemen riding on horses. She bestowed her
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horring upon them, the choicest men
of Assyria, all of them, and
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she diviled, defiled herself with all
the idols of everyone after whom she lasted.
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She did not give up her horring
that she had begun in Egypt,
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for in her youth, young men
are in her youth, men had laid
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with her and handled her virgin bosom
and poured out their horring lust upon her.
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Therefore, I delivered her into the
hands of her lovers, into the
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hands of the Assyrians after whom she
lusted. These uncovered her nakedness, they
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seized her sons and her daughters,
and, as for her, they killed
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her with a sword and she became
a byword among women. When judgment had
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been executed on her, her sister, a Holba, saw this and she
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became more corrupt than her sister in
her lust and in her horring, which
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was worse than that of her sister. She lusted after the Assyrians, governors
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and commanders, warriors clothed in for
full armor, horsemen riding on horses,
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all of them, all of them
desirable young men, and I saw that
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she was defiled. They both took
the same way, but she carried her
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horring further. She saw men portrayed
on the wall, the images of the
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Chaldeans, portrayed in vermilion, wearing
belts on their waists and flowing turbans on
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their heads, all of them having
the appearance of officers, a likeness of
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Babylonians, whose native land was Chaldea. When she saw them, she lusted
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after them and sent messengers to them
in Chaldea. And the Babylonians claim to
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her into the bed of love,
and they defiled her with the wharring,
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with their horring lust. And after
she was defiled by them, she turned
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from them and disgusted. When she
carried on her hohrring so openly and flaunted
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her nakedness, I turned in disgust
from her, as I had turned in
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disgust from her sister. Yet she
increased in her wharring, remembering the days
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of her youth when she played the
WHO in the land of Egypt and lusted
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after the her lovers there, whose
members were like those of donkeys and whose
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issue is like that of horses.
Thus, you longed for the lewdness of
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your youth, when the Egyptians handled
your bosom and pressed your young breasts.
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Therefore, oh Oholiba, thus says
the Lord God behold, I will stir
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up against you your lovers from whom
you turned in disgusted, and I will
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bring them against you from every side, the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans,
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Pec God and Showa and Coa and
all the Assyrians with them, desirable young
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men, governors and commanders, all
of them officers and men of renowned all
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of them riding on horses, and
they shall come against you from the north
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with chariots and wagons and a host
of people's they shall set themselves against you
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on every side with Buckler, shield
and helmet, and I will commit the
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judgment to them and they shall judge
you according to their judgments, and I
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will direct my jealousy against you that
they may deal with you in fury.
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They shall cut off your nose in
your ears, and your survivors shall fall
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by the sword. They shall seize
your sons and your daughters, and your
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survivors shall be devoured by fire.
They shall also strip you of your clothes
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and take away your beautiful jewels.
Thus, I will put an end to
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your lewdness and your horring begun in
the land of Egypt, so that you
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shall not lift up your eyes to
them or remember Egypt any more. For
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thus says the Lord God behold,
I will deliver you into the hands of
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those whom you hate, into the
hands of those from whom you turned in
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disgust and they shall deal with you
in hatred and take away all the fruit
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of your labor and leave you naked
and bear and the nakedness of your horring
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shall be uncovered. The Lewdness and
your the Your Lewdness and your horring have
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brought upon have brought this upon you
because you played the whore with the nations
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and defiled yourself with their idols.
You have gone the way of your sister.
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Therefore, I will give her cup
into your hand. Thus says the
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Lord God. You shall drink your
sister's cup. That is deep and large.
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You shall be laughed at and held
in Derision, for it contains much.
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You shall be filled with drunkenness and
sorrow, a cup of horror and
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desolation, the Cup of your sister
Su Mary. You shall drink it and
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drain it out and Gnaw it's shards
and tear your breasts, for I have
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spoken, declares the Lord God.
Therefore, thus says the Lord God,
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because you have forgotten me and cast
me behind your back, you yourself must
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bear the consequences of your lewdness and
whorring. The Lord said to me,
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son of man, will you judge
Aholah and and Oholiba. Declare to them
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their abominations, for they have committed
adultery, and blood is on their hands.
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With their idols, they have committed
adultery, and they have even offered
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up to them for food the children
whom they have had borne to me.
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Moreover, this they have done to
me. They have defiled my sanctuary on
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the same day and profaned my sabbaths, for when they had slaughtered their children
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in sacrifice to their idols, on
the same day they came into my sanctuary
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to profane it. And behold,
this is what they did in my house.
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They even sent for men to come
from afar, to whom a messenger
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was sent, and behold, they
came, for they for them. You
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Bathed Yourself, painted your eyes and
adorned yourself with ornaments. You sat on
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a stately couch with a stable spread
before it, on which you had placed
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my incense and my oil. The
sound of a care free multitude was with
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her and with men of the common
sort. Drunkards were brought from the Wilderness
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and they put bracelets on the ends
of the women and beautiful crowns on their
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heads. Then I said of her, who was worn out by adultery,
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now they will continue to use her
for a whore, even her, for
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they have gone into her as men
go into a prostitute. Thus they went
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into a whole lot and to a
Holiba lewd women. But righteous men shall
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pass judgment on them with the sentence
of Adultss, adultresses, and with the
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sentence of women who shed blood because
they are adultresses, and blood is on
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their hands. For thus says the
Lord God, bring up a vast host
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against them and make them an object
of terror and a plunder, and the
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host shall stone them and cut them
down in there with their swords. They
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shall kill their sons and their daughters
and burn up their houses. Thus,
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I will put an end to the
lewdness in the land, that all women
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may take warning and not commit ludness
as you have done. And They Shall
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Return Your Lewdness upon you and you
shall bear the penalty for your sinful idolatry,
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and you shall know that I and
the Lord God amen. So here
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from God's Word, before the Great
Seas of the Jerusalem is Ekiel is given
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a yet another word to speak,
a very hard word, and he's asked,
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will you say it? Will you
speak it? And of course he
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did, for we have it written
here, but it is a hard word.
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It is a chapter full of lowdness
and violence, of murder and blood
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and idolatry, and we have to
ask ourselves why so awfully graphic, why
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so pointed, why so harsh?
The answer is that it's not needless.
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This chapter and other chapters like it
that we've come across, and is equal
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in other parts of scripture, are
not here just to make us feel embarrassed,
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but they are here to impress upon
our minds and our hearts what we
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so often forget. They are to
make it perfectly clear, crystal clear,
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forever rememorable, memorable of what idolatry
is, of what it means when we,
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as a people, or any people, go after other gods, when
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we go after our sins and our
lust, when we go after power and
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protection all apart from the Lord,
when we use humanistic means and human ends
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to achieve penultimate goals or, worse, just downright evil goals, thinking that
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we can find the safety and security
and all the things that we need and
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the arms of anyone other than God. Most of what Jesus said came in
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the form of a story. When
you read the Gospels. You find them
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over and over and over, these
parables. One reason this is like,
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one reason he likely use these,
was to impress these truths on us,
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to make the memorable. And in
the same way the Lord speaks here,
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even Jesus speaks here. Ezekiel,
twenty three in gives us a parable of
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two women, one representing Samaria and
Israel to the north and the other representing
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Jerusalem and Judah to the south,
to people two places that were called to
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dedicate themselves to Yahweh and to him
alone and instead when every other way.
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What are the ways that we see
on them going other ways? What are
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the ways in which is ekiel describes
it? Well, he describes it,
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of course, in terms of idolatry, and especially towards the middle of the
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chapter, he middle of the last
two thirds, he paints this really stark
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picture. These people, his own
people here presented as women. They did
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not fall into this sin by accident. They didn't stumble into this. Notice
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how he says several times. They
they sent messengers, right they they heard
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the about these these young men,
as it's portrayed here. They heard,
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which is to say they heard about
the power and the wealth and all the
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great things of these cities of Babylon
and Assyria, and they sent messengers to
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them. They actively pursued this idolatry
and then they they prepare themselves for them.
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They painted their eyes and all of
these sorts of things and they brought
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them in. And you hear the
Lord expressing the shamefulness of this and his
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his his anger and his wrath over
this when he says, and all this
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was happening in my house, right
his his bride, his church, his
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people were bringing it, the adulterous
idols, into his place, into his
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home. On top of that,
they used his resources, his incense,
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his cups, his all the things
that had been dedicated to the temple for
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holy purposes. That's where the people
put their idols. That's where the people
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went about their sin. It was
in the worst possible ways, in the
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most egregious ways, to the furthest
three. And even after Israel had been
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judged for this, even after Samaria, a whole lot here, as she
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is named, was judge for this, Jerusalem, when even further, rather
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than seeing the sin of her sister
and the wrath poured out upon her,
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she went further and pressed it further. In this again, as we have
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seen so often, the Lord lays
upon his people the the the the case
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against them, the case against their
sin, and says, what do you
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have to say for yourselves? I've
been eminently patient. Over and over and
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over, I have waited on you, I've given you chances for repentance,
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I have sent to you my prophets, and over and over and over again
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you have rejected me. You have
pressed it further, you've gone after these
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idols in the worst possible ways.
We remember these themes that have been coming
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up in his EK. You'll not
only of idolatry and adultery, but also
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murder as well, these things all
tied up with one another. He speaks
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several times about the blood being on
their hands. How is blood on their
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hands? Well, in lots of
different ways, as we've seen. One
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particular way he mentions here is that
they were sacrificing their very own children,
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which is to say God's children,
the children of the Covenant, the Children
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of his promises, the children through
whom we're supposed to come the Messiah,
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right through whom the seed was being
preserved his very people, and these mothers
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and fathers in Israel were taking their
children and sacrificing them to idols, murdering
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them to Bale and to others.
Blood was on their hands, and not
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the blood of some nameless enemy or
bad neighbor, but the blood of their
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own children, sacrificed to other idols
who were in fact the children of the
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Lord. And so what does God
doom, as he often does with sin,
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he gives them exactly what they wanted. You Want Assyria, you want
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Babylon, have them and all of
these young men. Here is their portrayed
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in their chariots and their horses,
and that their finery and their power.
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They come and they are going to
destroy these people, expose them and their
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lewdness, explos them in their idolatry. And this is indeed what will happen.
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And what did happen? They came
in and instead of loving their lovers,
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they destroyed them, killed their children
and burnt up their houses. That
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it might be a warning to all, is ECIEL says. God says to
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Ezekiel at the end of the chapter
that, as he can so frequently ends
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and include throughout the books, that
we may know that I am the Lord,
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that we may know that God.
Yeah, Wagh is the one true
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God. With that parable in front
of our minds and, hopefully, on
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our hearts, what should we remember
from it? What do we take away
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from it? What do we leave
with? Well, one point, I
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think, is the need that we
have for this kind of word to us.
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God didn't include such a difficult and
graphic even chapter for no reason.
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Right. God didn't say, well, I don't really need this, but
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I'll just thrown in there anyway.
Right. God Put is Eciel twenty three
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in the scriptures because we need to
hear it, because our hearts are not
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as sensitive as we need to be, because we're forgetful about idolatry, idolatry,
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about adultery, about murder and about
all the other commandments. We are
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forgetful, we get desensitized, we
get lazy, we stop being watchful.
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And Ezekiel Twenty three is what you
know. We sometimes talk about you know
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too, before hitting up subside the
heads like wake up. That's about Ezekiel
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twenty three is. It's one of
those wake up chapters. Let's actually take
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a look at sin and see it
for what it really is, because so
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often we down play it, we
nurture it, we start let it go
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and be what it is. Is
Ekiel twenty three. We hear this word,
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we hear this parable and hopefully we
say, okay, no more of
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that. It's too awful, it's
too evil, it's too destructive. Another
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thing I think Ezekiel twenty three helps
us to remember is the patterns of Sin.
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There is a kind of predictable nature
to these things which we don't always
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learn from right Jerusalem being an example
of that. But we should learn from
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and we should pray to God that
he would give us the grace to learn
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from there are patterns to sin.
Listen to God's Word in James Chapter One.
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In James Chapter one versus thirteen through
fifteen, James says, let no
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one say when he is tempted,
I'm being tempted by God, for God
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cannot be tempted with evil, and
he himself tempts no one but each person.
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That's you and me. Okay,
each person is tempted when he is
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lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived,
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gives birth to Sin, and sin, when it is fully grown,
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brings forth death. Does what I
mean by the pattern of sin there's this
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predictable way things happen and for some
reason we always look at saying we're like,
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what happened that way? This time
right, nothing, this time I'm
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just going to I'm just going to
notice, but I'm never going to get
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to the actual scheming. Right.
Or this time I'm going to do the
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scheming but I'm never actually going to
get to the satisfying part. Or this
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time I'm going to do the scheming
in the satisfying part, but of course
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I won't really suffer for that.
Come on, that's not how it works.
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There is a predictable pattern here that
we experience, of course, in
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our own lives, that we see
a tested to and parables like this and
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is Ekiel twenty three, and that's
laid out pretty clearly for us in a
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passage like James. We see,
we are lured, we notice, we
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desire, we start planning. We
say, HMM, what can I do?
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Maybe I'll and a messenger, I'll
send a messenger and we'll see if
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they be, you know, we'll
see what happens satisfying. And then,
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ultimately, one of the things that
this passage impresses on us so as much
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as that this the pattern that goes
all the way to the end. There
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is that noticing and wondering and scheming
and desiring and satisfying, and you remember
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what the last one is, death, suffering. These things do not end
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well. Sin Never ends well.
It never does. Now, when we're
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satisfying our sins, we sort of
think in the moment that it's ending well,
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but it doesn't. Sin Lens ends
in heartbreak and sorrow, in suffering
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and all kinds of ways, and
we see that here in Isekiel. These
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are where these things lending. So
this is the second thing I think that
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we ought to notice from Ezekiel twenty
three. Is this pattern of sin a
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warning that we ought to pay attention
to. And as we can pay attention
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to that pattern, it's helpful to
us not only to stay away from sin,
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but when we find ourselves in some
part of that cycle, we have
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to notice that to be watchful.
I'm scheming here. Why am I scheming?
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I need to stop my scheming.
I'm I'm being tempted here, I'm
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being lured here. Let's take a
second notice. That is a lure,
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allure that catches, allure that brings
death. These things are important to us
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and helpful for us to remember.
A third thing to remember is our need
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for grace. When we see the
you know, the the the the trajectory
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that Israel takes and crashes, who
and crashes, we ought to look at
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ourselves and say, apart from the
grace of God, the same thing is
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going to happen to me. And
it does and it has in all of
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our lives. This passage, and
other passage is like us, were like.
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It remind us of all our need
for grace. We are not a
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people that can look at the law
of God and say I've got this,
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because when the law is given to
us, the good law, the holy
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law, the wonderful law, as
it was given to Israel, we end
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in failure and we need so much
with the laws unable to do, but
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the spirit is able to do,
and that is to bring us a word
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of grace. Apart from Christ,
apart from God's work in the Gospel,
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we are all in this death spiral
of idolatry, of adultery, of of
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covetousness, of murder and all kinds
of different ways, in two different degrees,
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across all of our lives and every
faculty in our bodies and in our
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souls. The whole thing is tending
in that direction. That's how we're born
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into. David says, in sinned
and my mother conceived me. Paul tells
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us in Romans that in Adam we
were born into a state of sin and
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misery. Are Born receiving the death
and the penalty and the suffering which he
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has passed on to us. This
death and this death spiral and all that
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is attached to it is infected the
whole human race. And so the passage
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like this teaches us so desperately how
we need the Lord Because Without Him,
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as Paul tells us, Zeekiel tells
us, the wages of sin is death.
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If we want life, if we
want salvation, if we want hope,
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if we want reunion and communion and
fellowship with God, if we want
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freedom from our sins and our slavery, we must turn to him. But
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I'd like to conclude with this,
this question that the Lord asks, Ezekiel,
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will you speak? Will you speak
this word? It is a word
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very much of law. It is
a word that comes and points at our
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hearts and pricks our sin and causes
us, hopefully, to wake up.
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It's a word which brings conviction.
It's a word that hurts in many ways
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and it's a word that must be
spoken. The Lord Calls His Prophet to
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speak and he does, and he
does speak the word of the Lord,
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the word of Yahweh, the word
of Christ. We need to hear that
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that we might wake up from our
slumbers. But God also spoke, through
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Jesus and his ministry and his work
in this world, a word that not
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only promised death for the wages of
sin, but also promised life, not
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for obedience but through faith. And
this is the wonderful story in the amazing
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grace of God. As you read
a chapter like as Echiel twenty three,
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and it would seem like it is
all over the very people of God.
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Everything has gone wrong. Perhaps you
felt like this at moments in your life,
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at very low points, at very
sinful points. I am irredeemable,
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this is all over for me.
What could God possibly do that could save
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me from my sin? The wages
of sin our death, and here I
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am to die. But is ekiel
twenty three isn't the last word. The
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law isn't the last word. God
speaks to us. The Gospel in e
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Ekiel and, of course, even
more clearly in Christ and that word he
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speaks as a word that redeems to
himself even people like this, like you,
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like me, people who are born
into sin, people who do sin,
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who have sin, and he promises
to us to save us, to
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save us from our lewdness, to
save us from my our idolatry, to
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save us from our chasing after sin, to save us from death itself.
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It's a wonderful thing what Christ has
done, and I want to close by
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reading to you about this from God's
own word. First, Ephesians A,
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chapter five. Paul here is giving
instructions to husband's, but in the midst
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of these instructions he gives us doctrines
to consider truths about our Lord and Savior
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and what he has done for Israel
and the whole world, even us here
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tonight. So in Efhesians chapter five, he speaks to husbands and he says
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in Verse Twenty Five, husbands,
love your wives. And here it is
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as Christ loved the Church and gave
himself up for her that he might sanctify
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her, having cleansed her by the
washing of water with the word, so
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that he might present the church to
himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle
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or any such thing, that she
might be holy and without blemish. This
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is what our Lord and our Savior
has done for us. One more passage
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along these lines I'd like to read
to you. This is from Psalm forty
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five, is beautiful marriage psalm and
which testifies towards Christ's love for us and
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his work for us. He speaks
about what he does for us in his
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cleansing of us, in his making
us holy. And if you have any
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doubt about the Lord's work in your
life, if you have any doubt about
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the forgiveness of your sins, I
want you to consider these passages and really
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hear them. As much as you
hear is Ekiel twenty three, with all
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of its condemnation, with all of
its law, which is all good and
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holy and true. I want you
to hear the Gospel as well and hear
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what the Lord offers to us in
Jesus. We've read it in effusions five.
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Here it now in Psalm forty five, verse thirteen. All glorious is
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the princess in her chamber with robes
interwoven with gold, in many colored robes
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she has led to the king with
her virgin companions following behind her with joy
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and gladness they are led along as
they enter the Palace of the king.
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The place of your father's shall be
your son's. You will make them princes
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and all the earth I will cause
your name to be remembered in all generations.
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Therefore, the nations will praise you
forever and never. There for,
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speaking of the Prince insolven forty five
we hear of the Lord and his coming
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to his people, his beautifying them
is glorifying them. We get other pictures.
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I won't read these now, I'll
let you look at them at home.
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But in revelation of the bride of
Christ, this beautiful place, here,
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the metaphors mixing of in a beautiful
way, of both city and people,
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of bride and groom, of Land
and country, where the city of
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God and the bride of Christ is
described as just decked in jewels. Perhaps
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we have in popular culture right the
pearly gates right. That's not a joke
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or a cartoon figure. Imagine Gates
as big as pearls are made of pearls.
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What a splendid thing to see the
walls and the cities, the streets
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paved with gold. This picture of
Jerusalem is a picture of God's salvation of
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us, his beautifying us, his
making us holy, he's sanctifying us.
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Can you imagine a place where blood
wants running in the streets, the place
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filled with idolatry, and now the
light of God just shining out throughout the
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place, filling it up, gleaming
off the jewels and the crystals, off
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the streets themselves, the people shining
with the glory of God, the bride
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made ready for her husband, not
because of our obedience, but because of
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his death, his sacrifice and his
washing of us. That's how much God
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loves you. That's what God is
doing for you and has done for you,
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and that's what he is continuing to
do in your lives. And so
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let's fleece in, let's run away, let's despise it, let's notice it,
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let's watch it, let's stay away
and instead run into the arms of
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our Savior, our God and our
King, who has saved US and is
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saving us and will wonder they glorify
us in all perfection and glory at that
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great wedding feast for the bride and
her groom. Let's pray
