Ezekiel chapter 20. The scripture
says in Ezekiel chapter 20 in verse 1, And it came to pass
in the seventh year, in the fifth month of the tenth day of the
month, that certain of the elders of Israel came to inquire of
the Lord and sat before me. Then came the word of the Lord
unto me, saying, Son of man, speak unto the elders of Israel,
and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God. Are you come to
inquire of me? As I live, saith the Lord God,
I will not be inquired of by you. Here we have some men of
Israel coming to the prophet Ezekiel. They were in their bondage,
in their captivity, and they come inquiring of the prophet
of God. They were asking God for some
various thing, most likely deliverance. Or they were asking, as they
were in chapter 18, why this suffering had come upon them.
Remember that proverb that they were saying. that the fathers
have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge.
In other words, they were blaming the fathers for their troubles,
for their difficulties. They said, our fathers have sinned
and now we're in trouble. And so they come to the Lord
asking Him, inquiring of Him. And notice what the Lord says
by His prophet. He says in verse 3, I will not
be inquired of you. In other words, I will not answer
your prayers. Why is that? Well, these men
came because they thought they were entitled to come. They thought because they were
Jews, because they were God's chosen people at that time, they
felt entitled to come to God. Isn't this the idea of most religious
men who feel they are entitled of God? They have some claim
on God. That just because they are His
creatures, that they have a right to demand of God. God says to
all who come to Him outside of the Lord Jesus Christ, I will
not be inquired of you. If you think you've got a right
to God's throne because of who you are, then you are sadly mistaken. You are sadly mistaken. God says,
I will not hear you. God is not obligated to hear
you, and man has no claim on God. Did you hear that? Man has no claim or right to
be heard of God. To be heard of God is a grace,
friends, and the only way God will ever hear man is through
his Son, Jesus Christ. God will not be inquired of men. Surely God does have compassion,
I know He does, on wicked men. But I'll tell you they have no
right to it. God does it because He would. And we have no right
to God because we are by nature sinners. Sinners. Some people think they will be
heard because of who they are. Some people think they'll be
heard because of their long and repetitious prayers. Others think
because of their sacrifice or service to God. But the truth
is that all men are born sinners and God owes us nothing but hell.
You get that? God owes you and I nothing but
hell. He don't owe you anything. And so if you ever come to God,
you must come by Jesus Christ. There is no other way. There
is no other way to be heard of God. Now then, the prophet, he
is instructed by the Lord in verse 4. He said, Will thou judge
them, O son of man? Talking to the prophet now. Will
thou judge them? cause them to know the abominations
of their fathers. The Lord here is going to tell
these men through His prophet why He will not be inquired of
them and truly He wants to expose them of the sins of their fathers
for this particular purpose. God is showing them the sins
of their fathers because He wants them to know that the sin of
the fathers is their sin as well. the sin that they were blaming
their captivity on, the sin of their fathers. God says, yes,
I'm going to tell you about the sin of your fathers, and I also
want you to see this, that the sin of your fathers is your sin
too. Go over and look at this in verse 30. He says, wherefore, say unto
the house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God, Are ye polluted
after the manner of your fathers, and commit ye whoredom after
their abomination? For when ye offer your gifts,
when you make your sons to pass through the fire, ye pollute
yourselves with all your idols. even unto this day, and shall
I be inquired of you, O house of Israel, as I live, saith the
Lord, I will not be inquired of you." In other words, he's
telling them that these sins of the fathers are your sins.
And listen to me, the sins of those men are the same sins of
us. Their sins were not greater than
our sins. Truly, all of Adam's race are
sinners. All men have sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God. And so he tells the prophet,
I want you to, first of all, expose their sin, their sin. And then he tells them in verses
5 through 7, he says, Say unto them, thus saith the Lord, In
the day I chose Israel, I lifted up my hand unto the seed of the
house of Jacob, and made myself known unto them in the land of
Egypt, when I lifted up mine hand unto them, saying, I am
the Lord your God. In that day I lifted up mine
hand unto them, to bring them forth out of the land of Egypt
into the land that I spied for them, flowing with milk and honey,
which is the glory of all the lands. God is now telling them
of His great grace, of His great mercy He had to them. He said,
when you were captive in Israel, I lifted up my hand and I swore
to be your God. I revealed myself to you. I chose
you to be my people. I promised to take you out of
the land of Egypt and to give you the land of Canaan that flowed
with milk and honey. And yet what did the people do
to this promise of God, this sweet and precious promise? They
didn't deserve this. He said, I chose you not because
you were the best, I chose you and you were the worst. And yet what did they do? Verse
8, they rebelled against me. They rebelled against God and
they did not forsake the idols of Egypt. Therefore, God says,
I will pour out, in the end of verse 8, He said, I will pour
out my fury upon them to accomplish mine anger against them in the
midst of the land of Egypt. Is this not true? That's what's
true of these men. Is it not true of us? that we all have rebelled against
God. We all have rebelled against
God's Word. We've all despised the Law of
God. This is our carnal mind. The
carnal mind is at enmity against God, for it is not subject to
the Law of God, neither indeed can be. This is who we are by
nature. These sins of these men are the
same as ours. And yet in these verses here
that I just read to you, these here are also a message of the
gospel. A message of God's grace, of
God's mercy through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a message
of the gospel. Look at this. Go back to verse
5. We're going to go through these
verses here, and I want us to see the gospel. I want us to
see the message of God's good news. He says, say unto them,
thus saith the Lord, say unto them who are sinners, them who
are rebellious. He said, say unto them, thus
saith the Lord, in the day when I chose Israel. What do we have here? We have
the election of the Father. We have the sovereign election
of God. Thus saith the Lord in the day
when I chose Israel. Here is the beginning and fountainhead
of all salvation. Election. Election is the beginning
of salvation. Salvation does not begin just
when you believe. That's when you experience salvation. But salvation has a fountainhead
from eternity. God in sovereign mercy chose
a people for Himself. This nation. The seed of Abraham
was only a picture, a type of the church. We know this, that
all Israel wasn't saved. We know that there were many
of the nation of Israel who fell off into the pit after they had
defied God and Moses. The Lord opened up the earth
and swallowed them up. We know that those bodies fell
out in the wilderness because of unbelief. So we know that
the nation of Israel was only a picture. It wasn't the true.
It was a picture of God's church. Peter says this of God's church. He said, you are a chosen generation. A royal priesthood. A holy nation. A holy nation. A peculiar people. That you should go forth, that
you should show forth the praise of Him who hath called you out
of darkness into His marvelous light. Consider the sovereign
Lord God. who before time began chose a
people for himself. You see this as salvation is
all for God. It's all for himself. It's all
for his own glory. He does this. God chose a people
for himself. Not to be slaves, but to be sons. This is glorious. Go over to
2 Thessalonians. See this with me. 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2, and this election was unto salvation. 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 13, but
we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved
of the Lord. Why are we giving thanks for
the brethren beloved of the Lord? Because God hath from the beginning
chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit
and belief of the truth. He chose us to be sons. He chose
us before the foundation of the world to salvation. Flip over
a few pages to 2 Timothy chapter 1. It says who? God. has saved us
and called us with an holy calling not according to our works, but
according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began. Do you see where salvation
begins? It begins with God from eternity,
before time, before there was a world, before there was sin.
God chose a people for Himself that He purposed to save. This is where salvation begins. And not only did he elect those
people unto salvation, back in our text, God says, not only
did I choose you, but I lifted up my hand. What does that mean? Well, you know, when you go to
court, if you were to put your hand on the Bible, they say,
raise your right hand. Well, they're telling you to
swear. You are swearing. And this is what God says. God
says, I chose Israel, and not only did I choose them, I swore. I swore. I lifted up my hand
unto the seed of the house of Jacob and made myself known."
He swore to save them. He swore. In Hebrews 6, 17, where
God, it says, wherein God willing more abundantly. more abundantly,
to show unto the heirs of promise. Isn't this wonderful? He's not
showing it to everyone. He's showing it to the heirs
of promise. God is willing to show His salvation to the heirs
of promise. He's willing to show to the heirs
of promise what? The immutability of His counsel. In other words, when God shows,
that's it. When God said, it was. When God chose a people, they
were chosen. They were elected. And God swore
to show the promise. He was willing to show the promise
to the heirs of promise, the immutability of His counsel.
He confirmed it. How? By an oath. He swore. He said unto Abraham, in blessing
I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thee. When God
could swear by none higher, you and I swear. When we were kids
we'd say, man, I swear on my mom's life. We wouldn't swear
on our own. But that meant something to us. If we said, no, I'm telling
the truth, man, I swear on my mom's life. That meant something
to us. We had to swear by something
greater than ourselves. And when God could find none
greater, He swore by Himself. He said, I swear on myself that
I'll save those that I chose. I swear. God swore that He would save
His people, Israel, from their sins. God sware by
himself to the seed of the house of Jacob, which is his elect,
that he should deliver them from Egypt. Look at this back in your
text. Look at verse 6. In the day that
I lifted up mine hand unto them, to bring them forth out of the
land of Egypt into the land that I spied for them, flowing with
milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands. Notice that
God sware to bring them out of Egypt into the land of Canaan. I like this word of spied. He
said, I aspired them a land. This word has the meaning of
a merchant. If you were to have a merchant
travel all over the world, what is he looking for? The most precious
of things. He's looking for the most precious
stone. What is it that God aspired for
us who are his elect? He aspired the best, which is
his son. How is it that God was going
to save His people, His elect? How is it that He would deliver
them out of the land of Egypt to glory? How is it? He has spied out the only Savior
for our souls. And this is the second part of
the gospel, the redemption that is in Christ. God not only chose
to redeem chosen people, but He also purposed to save them
by His most precious Son. There's nothing more precious
to God than His Son. And this is what He has spied
out, the pearl of great price, Jesus Christ. And in Him alone,
God trusted the souls of all His elect. I think it's over in Ephesians
chapter 1. I don't want to misquote it,
so I'm just going to read it. Ephesians chapter 1. It says in verse 12 that we should
be to the praise of His glory. The praise of God's glory. Who
first trusted in Christ? Who first trusted in Christ?
The Father. The Father first trusted in Christ. He trusted the elect to His Son,
in whom you also trusted. I trust in Christ, but I tell
you, I wasn't the first, and you weren't, and I tell you,
Adam, if he did, he wasn't the first. God trusted in His Son
first. He has spied out the very best,
His Son, Jesus Christ. It pleased the Father, Paul said
in Colossians 1.19. It pleased the Father that in
Him should all the fullness dwell. All the fullness of salvation,
all of its works, all of its perfections, all of its glory
should dwell in the person of Jesus Christ. And herein is the only hope for
man is that God chose a people That God swore to save them and
that God sent His Son to be their Redeemer. This is the only hope
for men. This is the only hope for men.
And God trusted. God put all of His people in
Christ. And God has not left their salvation
up to them. God has not left their salvation
to their works or to their will or to their power. For then none
of us would have been saved. Can you see that? That if God
had left any part of this up to us, that there would have
been no hope for man. We would have been like the angels
who fell in their first estate. There would have been no hope.
The prophet Isaiah makes this very clear in Isaiah 1-9. He
said, if God had not left a very small remnant, we would have
all been as Sodom and as Gomorrah. There would have been no hope
for us had God not had a remnant. You remember Elijah, when he
was moaning and complaining, he thought he was the only one.
He said, God, they digged up your... they killed your prophets. They threw down your altars.
And he said, I'm the only one left. And God says, no, you're
not. I've reserved for myself 7,000 men. Consider that small
number. Out of millions of people, God
only reserved 7,000 that had not bowed the knee to Baal. God
has always left Himself a remnant in this world. Always, always,
there's never been an age or a time that God has not saved
His people, had a people for Himself that He would save. God has purposed that His elect
be saved by the work, by the will, and by the power of a substitutionary
man, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is the hope of men. God says in Isaiah 42, 1, Behold
my servant whom I uphold, mine elect. Now who's the elect? Well, Jesus Christ is the elect
and in Him is all the elect. He is mine elect in whom my soul
delighteth. Put My Spirit in Him, upon Him,
and He shall bring forth judgment unto the Gentiles. And what does
He say of His success? What of His success, Father?
You've chosen a people, You've promised to redeem them, You
swore by Yourself to send Your Son into the world. Now, what
is the success rate? It's 100%. God says, He shall
not fail. Do you hear me? Jesus Christ shall not fail,
nor be discouraged. Thou shalt call His name Jesus. Jehovah saves. Why are you going
to call His name Jesus? For He shall save his people
from their sins. 100% guarantee. God says, I lift
up my hand, I chose a people and I lift up my hand, I swear
to save them, and I've espied out for them the very best Savior,
my Son, and He shall not fail in His quest. He shall not fail. Behold Jesus Christ, the Lamb
of God, by which Israel is delivered from all the bondage of her sin. As Israel was in bondage to Egypt,
even so were we in spiritual bondage to sin. And under the
rule of the cruel taskmaster Satan, we were moved about by
Him at His will. But God says, I swear I will
bring them forth of the land of Egypt. We have all sinned
and missed the glory of God. We have all been disobedient
to the law of God, born dead in trespasses and sins, enslaved
by nature to sin and self-righteousness. But God But God has purpose to save his
people. He sent the captain of his salvation,
Jesus Christ, to free his people from bondage. This is the message of the gospel. This is the good news that He
has come to deliver us from sin to righteousness, from slavery
to liberty, from death to life, from unbelief to faith. This is what He has promised
to do. How then will He deliver His people? How did He deliver
them from Egypt? The most unlikely way. Wasn't
it the most unlikely way? The Lord sent all those plagues,
He sent those ten plagues, but that last one, the last one was
the one by which He delivered them. Blood. Now most of us, when we think
of freeing slaves or freeing captives, we think of armies,
don't we? We think that there should be
some kind of big army come in and free Israel. Well, that's
how they thought Messiah should come. They, Jews, when Christ
came, they were all confused because they really wanted somebody
to come in with this big army and deliver them from Rome. That's
what they wanted. See, we didn't need to be delivered from Rome.
We needed to be delivered from sin. And how else can you be
delivered from sin but by blood? Do you see? For without the shedding
of blood, there's no remission. And so God delivered that people
from Egypt by the death of a lamb. How is it that He will deliver
His elect? By the death of the lamb. Jesus Christ. That's how He'll
deliver us. And now then that Christ has
been offered for our sins, the sins of His people, God has sent
forth His messengers. God sends forth His preachers
to declare unto us the message of repentance and faith toward
Jesus Christ. Look back at your text. In verse 7, Then said I unto
them," after he had promised to choose, after he had promised
to deliver them from Egypt and to bring them out, he says this,
"'Cast ye away, every man, the abomination of his eyes, and
defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt. I am the Lord
your God.'" What is that but the message of repentance? Isn't
that the message of repentance? Turn. Turn you from your idols. Turn you from your false gods
and return to me. I am the Lord God. Cast away
all your sins. Oh sinner, this is the message.
Believe. Repent and believe. Repent and
believe on Jesus Christ. Well preacher, you know I really
don't worship idols of Egypt. How is this relevant to me? I
don't even know all the gods of Egypt. I know quite a few,
I just don't know them all. And I haven't seen any, except
in museums probably, and I don't see people much worshipping them.
So how is this relevant to us? Friends, the idols of Egypt,
the idols of Babylon, the idols of Greece, the idols of Rome,
they're all the same. They're all the same. They may
have different names and different images. But a false god is a
false god is a false god. Turn you from your false gods. This is the message of the gospel.
Turn you from your false gods. The idol of this generation is
not fashioned after myths and legends. The idols of this generation
is fashioned after this book. The very same book that God reveals
Himself, the false gods of this generation have fashioned themselves
an idol out of some of the very characteristics of the true God. They use His name. We say we worship Jehovah, they
say they worship Jehovah. We say we believe in Jesus, they
say they believe in Jesus. The idolaters of our day, they
take the Word of God and they rest it to their own destruction. They twist it and they form a
God that is fashioned like themselves. I tell you, if your God is like
you, you don't worship God. If your God is like you, you
don't worship God. You worship a false God. This
is not anything new. I'm not telling you something
new. This happened in Jeremiah's time. God tells them in Jeremiah
23, He said, I've not sent them. They steal my word. They steal
my word. And I did not send them. And
I will not bless them. You read in Jeremiah 23, 30 to
32. The God of this generation bears
the name of Jesus, but is nothing more than a weak and effeminate,
helpless, false deity. The God of this generation desires
to save all men, but He has no power. The God of this generation
is a God that sent His Son to die for all men, but His blood
falls to the ground. and is not effectual to man unless
they allow it. Friends, that is no God that
I worship. That is not the God of this Bible. The God of this generation is
a God that must submit to the exercise of man's sovereign will. That's the God of this generation.
The Holy Spirit of this generation is nothing more than one who
suggests that you believe. Isn't that what he does? The
God of the spirit of this generation, he just suggests that you believe
on Jesus, but he doesn't have any power. I tell you, cast that
God from you. He is a false God. Cast these idols from you, for
they are an abomination, and this is not the God of Holy Scripture. Our God is in the heavens, and
he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased." Our God has purposed
the salvation of His people, has given them to His Son, Jesus
Christ, and He has accomplished their salvation. Our message
is a message of sure salvation, a message that God purposed,
decreed, planned, and executed salvation in the death of His
Son. And what do men do at this message?
Verse 8, they rebelled against me and would not hearken unto
me. Friends, this is the will of
all men by nature to rebel. They say, well, preacher, if
you worship a God that chose some and hated others, God is sovereign and destroys
man's free will. He's not my God. And I'll tell
you, He won't be your God unless He reveals Himself to you. And I'll tell you, even so were
we. We are not different from them. We were the same. All of the elect are of the same
wicked, rebellious, and hateful heart. But even in spite of our hatred
for God, He has, for His elect, promised this. Listen. He's promised to finish His anger. Look what He says. He says, even
though you rebelled, He says, Then I said, I will pour out
my fury upon them to accomplish, that word means to finish, to
finish my anger against them, where? In the midst of the land
of Egypt. In the midst of the land of Egypt. Where did God finish his anger
that was against his elect? I tell you, He finished it while
we were in Egypt. He finished it while we were
in bondage. In Romans 5, in verse 6, it says,
For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ
died for who? The ungodly. Isn't this wonderful? He didn't wait to die after we
freed ourselves. He didn't wait for us to free
ourselves and then die for us. He didn't wait till we were godly
and then die for us. He didn't wait till we had strength
to believe on Him and then die for us. He died for us before
we had strength He died for us while we were yet ungodly. This is the hope. This is the
hope that He died for us while we were yet sinners. And you being dead in your sins,
and the uncircumcision of your flesh hath He quickened together
with Him, having forgiven you all your transgressions, blotting
out the handwriting of ordinances," listen, that was against us,
which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing
it to His cross. Do you see what He did with your
sins? He nailed them to His cross. God's anger that was against
us was poured out on His Son so that you, His elect, might
go free. Behold the cross where Jesus
died as a substitute for sinners It was upon Him that God hath
laid the iniquity of us all, all of His elect. And it was
by His one offering that He accomplished, that He finished the anger of
God that's against our sins. You know, God is not, believer
in Christ, God is not angry with you. Do you know that? God is not angry with you. His
anger is finished. Yes, He chastens you. Yes, He
disciplines you. Yes, He causes troubles to come
to you, but for your good, not for your ill. God is not angry
with His people. His anger was finished. On the
cross, it was finished. He poured it all out. There's
not one drop of anger left. That's not true of us, is it?
I'll tell you, we can be angry at somebody and we'll say, oh,
I forgive you. And then, boy, in the back of our minds, we've
got some kind of thing that we're holding. God is nothing like
that, nothing like you and me. His anger is finished. He did
it in the midst of Egypt. Just as the Passover lamb was
killed in Egypt, so was Christ when He came into this world.
He was killed to set us free. And now that God's justice is
satisfied and all the sins of God's people are put away, every
one of them shall be called by the Holy Spirit. Every one of
them. Look at this. Verse 9. But, why did God do this? They rebelled. They deserved every bit of wrath,
but yet God finished His anger on the Lamb, and not them, and
set them free. Why? I wrought for my name's
sake. Do you get that? Why did God
do it? For His own name's sake. He did it because He would. He would glorify His own name.
Matter of fact, this statement is mentioned four times in this
text alone. Now, if it's mentioned once,
we better pay attention. It's four times. Look at it.
Verse 9, we just read it. Look at verse 14. But I wrought
for my name's sake. Verse 22. Nevertheless, I withdrew
my hand and wrought for my name's sake. And in verse 44, he says, And ye shall know that I am the
Lord when I have wrought with you for my name's sake. Salvation is the work of God
alone. He elected, He redeemed, He calls,
He gives faith, He gives life, and He keeps us until the very
end. You're not... Where are you in
those things? Nowhere. We are recipients. We're not the cause. We don't
have the power. And we definitely haven't earned
it. It's all of grace. And God says, I've lifted up
my hand. When I could swear by none higher,
I swore by myself. Who then that God has chosen,
redeemed, and called will be lost. If God says, I've done it for
my own namesake, who's going to be lost? Which one of the
elect shall not be saved? Which one of the redeemed shall
not be forgiven of their sins? And which one of those of the
Holy Spirit will be miscarried? None. None of them. Otherwise, the name of God would
suffer reproach and that, friends, just ain't gonna happen. And lastly, the experience of
the gospel. Our experience of the gospel.
Look at verse 33. As I live, saith the Lord, surely
with a mighty hand and with an outstretched, a stretched out
arm, and with fury poured out will I rule over you and I will
bring you out from the people and gather you out of the countries
wherein you are scattered with a mighty hand and with a stretched
out arm and with fury poured out and I will bring you into
the wilderness of the people and there will I plead with you
face to face." Is that not our experience? Is that not what
He done? Did He not lead us out into the
wilderness and expose our sin? And then did He not plead with
us of His mercies, His grace, and His love? This is how God
does it. Salvations of the Lord. And then
He comes to us. Imagine. He comes to us and He
draws us to Himself. This is the experience of the
sinner. He comes to us and says, why
will you die? Why will you die? Believe on
my Son and live. It is then when a person comes
to Christ by faith. Only then do you know your election. Stop trying to figure out if
you're the elect of God. The only way no person knows
that is if they have faith to believe. You believe on the Son
of God, then you may know your election, your redemption, and
the surety of your salvation. Is that not a great message to
you? Is that not comforting to you? Because it is to me. I need
that every day. I'm bombarded daily with all
kinds of troubles, with all kinds of difficulties. But it's only
when I stare in the face of the gospel do I find rest, that my
salvation is finished. And now then, All I'm to do is
wait by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself
for me. God says I wrote it for my own
namesake. I chose you. I swore to you I'd
save you. I redeemed you. gave you my gospel
and called you, gave you life and faith, shall I not keep you? Is this not a miracle, salvation? Salvation is not a decision,
it's a miracle, isn't it? It's a miracle. Resurrection. Praise God for His mercy and
His grace. I pray God will bless this to
your heart. Let's stand and be dismissed in prayer.