Well, it is a joy and pleasure
to be here this morning and to be back with you and worshiping
with you again. And the people in Lakeland and
Mulberry area, they send their love, too, to you. And we hope
the Lord blesses all of His ministers this morning as He gathers His
people to hear His word. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ,
while He walked on this earth, and he encountered man. He loved
to use questions, questions that would seek, questions that would
search. So this morning, I'm gonna start
you with a question. And that question is, where do
you come from? I'm not asking you where you
got in your car this morning and what you got in your car,
where you started and where you came. I'm asking you today to
take inventory in your life. Where has the Lord brought you? I'd like you to turn with me
to our text this morning and I'm going to read it first and
then, and it's in Ezekiel chapter 16. You'll turn with me to Ezekiel
16 and we're going to read the first 14 verses together and
then Keep in mind that question, where
do you come from? Ezekiel 16 begins this way, and
again, the word of the Lord came unto me saying, son of man, cause
Jerusalem to know her abominations and say, thus saith the Lord
God unto Jerusalem, thy birth and thy nativity is of the land
of Canaan. Thy father was an Amorite, and
thy mother a Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the
day thou was born, thy navel was not cut, neither was thou
washed in water to supple thee. Thou was not salted at all, nor
swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee to do any
of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee, but thou was cast
out in the open field. to the loathing of thy person
in the day that thou was born. And when I passed by thee and
saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, when
thou wast in thy blood, live. Yea, I said unto thee, when thou
wast in thy blood, live. I have caused thee to multiply
as the bud of the field. and thou hast increased in wax
and gray, and thou art come to excellent ornaments. Thy breasts
are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked
and bare. Now when I passed by thee and
looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love. And
I spread my skirt over thee and covered thy nakedness. Yea, I
swear unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith
the Lord God, and thou becamest mine. Then washed I thee with
water. Yea, I throughly washed away
thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil. I clothed thee
also with broidered work, and shod thee with badger skin, and
girded thee about with fine linen. I covered thee with silk. I decked
thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands,
and a chain on thy neck. And I put a jewel on thy forehead,
and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine
head. Thus thou wast decked with gold and silver, and thy raiment
was of fine linen and silk embroidered work. Thou didst eat fine flour
and honey and oil, and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou
didst prosper into a kingdom. and thy renown went forth among
the heathen for thy beauty. For it was perfect through my
comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God." You
know, the nation of Israel had risen to a great power, beauty,
splendor. In the days of David and Solomon,
they were the greatest country in the whole world. They were
the greatest nation on the earth. And it all started with one man. And in this passage today, the
Lord has raised up his prophet to remind Israel for whence they
have come. I want you to hold your finger
here and go back to Deuteronomy 7 with me. I want to read you
something that's written about the nation of Israel. In Deuteronomy
7, in verse 6, it says, For thou art a holy people, unto the Lord
thy God. The Lord thy God has chosen thee
to be a special people unto himself above all people that are upon
the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love
upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than
any people. No, there was one. It started
with Abram. For you were the fewest of all
people. But because the Lord loved you
and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto
your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and
redeemed you out of the house of the bondman from the hand
of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. So you see the scriptures speak
of how the Lord brought this nation from one pagan idol worshiper. His name was Abraham. And the
Lord called him out and through him built a mighty nation, a
great nation. But today I don't want to talk
about the nation of Israel. Because all that's in the Old
Testament about the nation of Israel is a picture of spiritual
Israel. And that's what we're concerned
with today. We're not concerned with the nation of Israel, we're
concerned with spiritual Israel if we be in Him. We're concerned because we're
in that number. We want to know because we know
that these scriptures speak of Him. And if we know that, we
know that this passage, although it has national meaning, it has
great depth to the people of God. Because as that nation pictured
physical Israel, it was physical Israel, it pictures spiritual
Israel. So I want to look at the passage
again and read through it with you and make some comments about
where have you been brought from? Where have you come from? Do
you know where you've come from? Those are the questions before
us this morning. We begin back in Ezekiel 16 and
again the word of the Lord came unto me And he told him, son
of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations. Cause, he tells
the preacher, he says just preach the truth. Tell them their condition. It is so important for the minister
of God to reveal and to preach the truth as it is in the scriptures
of our condition. What we are in ourselves. What
we are in him. We must have a beginning. what
we were. That's why I asked you this morning,
where have you come from? And he tells the preacher, he
says, you caused Jerusalem to know her abominations, know from
whence she came. And I know one of the popular
ideas in religion is that once the Lord saves you, all your
worries are over. Everything is great. Everything
is heaven on earth, if you will. But if you be in Christ, you
know that's not true. You know that in that nature
that the Lord has birthed you into the kingdom, that nature,
Him, Christ in you, is perfect. It is holy. It is peace. It is the love of Christ. It
is the faith of the Son of God. But there's another nature warring
in you. There's a nature that's contrary to that nature. You
wanna know where we came from? And we can't get away from where
we came from because we still have that fallen nature. But
I ask you this morning, have you been born into this kingdom? Because if you have, you're gonna
find great kinship in these words. What the prophet preached, what
the Lord's laid on my heart, because there's a unity of the
spirit. the spirit that reveals to the child of God that he is
his and that he is mine. Say this to them, he says in
verse three, thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem, thy birth
and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan. Thy father was an
Amorite and thy mother a Hittite. The first thing we see there
is you come from pagan idolatry. Remember what God said to Noah.
He said, cursed be Canaan. And we see that our birth and
we were under the curse. We needed to be saved. We needed
to be redeemed. But what are we? Did we seek
him? Did we even know that we needed
to be saved from ourselves? Do we know today that we still
need to be saved from ourselves? that our salvation, although
past in eternity, is also a present salvation and is also a future
salvation? Do we have that need and that
desire burning in our soul every day to commune with this Lord? Where do we come from? Your birth
and your nativity is in the land of Canaan. Thy father was an
Amorite and thy mother a Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the
day you were born, thy navel was not cut, neither was thou
washed in water to supple thee. Thou was not salted at all, nor
swaddled at all. No eye pitied you to do any of
these to you, to have compassion upon thee, but thou was cast
out into the open field. And that's a reference made that
back in this time in the pagan nations, there were those, let's
say, They looked less favorably upon women and girl children
as they were born. And they would, as a female child
was born, they would cast them out into the field and leave
them there to die. Do you see your condition? Do
you see that this is where we were saved and are being saved
from? That this is our condition. There's
nothing we could do. We're a helpless baby. As I've
said to some of you this morning, I've been a grandpa now for four
months. And I've got two grandchildren
in the last four months. Precious little things. I love
to hold them. I love to bring them near me.
I've got a little boy and a little girl. And I love to look down
in their face. But I tell you one thing, both
of them are as helpless as they can be. They can't clean themselves
up. They can't eat on their own.
They can't get from one place to the other. They're totally
dependent. And when the Lord set that child
in the midst of Him and He said, unless you become as these children,
we are equally as dependent as those little babies that we hold
in our arms. And if you don't see yourself
that way spiritually, you've got issues. And it's a heart
issue. Because the child of God constantly
needs Him. constantly needs the Lord. And
we can look to a time even here where we are delivered from.
We do look at that time and we say there was a time I never
even thought about the Lord. I never even sought Him. I never
even thought about salvation because these hands was all I
needed. I made my way. I was the master
of my destiny so I thought. That's what the world will teach
you. That's what religion will teach you. That's the religion
I was brought up in. So I didn't need him. And I sure
didn't see myself this way. I didn't see myself as cast out. I didn't see myself in a field.
I didn't see myself as no one caring for me. Because when you're
in the world, the world loves its own. And you receive benefit
from that world. And you desire the world to love
you, and to supple you, and to care for you, and to swaddle
you. But then something happened.
Just as it happened for this child here, nobody pity, you
were cast in an open field to the loathing of thy person in
the day that thou was born. Isaiah said, from the sole of
our foot, even to the head of, had there's no soundness in it,
but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed,
neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment." This is what
we were. This is still that nature that's
outside of Christ, that one day we'll be ridded of. But this
is what we were delivered from. Turn with me over to Romans 3. You know, sometimes we try to
paint the picture. We try to do it in our own selves.
And I think the picture that Ezekiel painted for us today,
the Holy Spirit showed us in Ezekiel, is a dire place. It's dire. I mean, there is nothing
there that would say, sign me up for that. But Paul here in
Romans 3 says about the same thing. Now listen to this starting
in verse 10. He says, as it's written, There
is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. Now maybe you're sitting
out there this morning saying, well, hold on. That's maybe where
I was, but I still seek him today. Well, dear ones, you only seek
him because of him. You only what you are by the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the grace of God. By the grace
of God, there I am. There go I. There is none that
understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. And he is so faithful to prove that to me every day. I
need his wisdom. I need his understanding. They are all gone out of the
way. They are all together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good. No, not one. Their throat is
an open sepulcher, with their tongues they have used deceit.
The poison of asp is under their lips, whose mouth is full of
cursing and bitterness. This is a dire picture. Their
feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in
their ways, and the way of peace they have not known. There is
no fear of God before their eyes. This is the picture that the
word of God paints for all sinners, all who are dead in Adam, all
who are dead in sin, all who are formed in iniquity, all who
have come forth speaking lies. This is our heritage, so to speak. This is where we come from. You know, we're not born innocent
and then reach the age of accountability. The scriptures don't speak of
being born innocent. I reminded my wife of that a
couple days ago as she was sending me countless pictures of the
grandchildren. I said, yes, they're cute little
sinners. That's what they are. We've got
to be reminded of that as we start to talk about how sweet
and cute they are. Then we get reminded as soon
as they open their mouth and they cry. But there is something to learn
there, their neediness. We need that neediness. Paul
said this in Ephesians 2.12, he said, that at that time you were without
Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers
from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God
in this world. That is our condition. That is
where we were. That's what I believe Ezekiel
paid for us here. This is what the Lord has said.
And remember, this is what the Lord said to Ezekiel. I want
you to go and preach this message. We're not telling people how
great they are. We're telling them how great
a salvation they have because of the one who looked upon them.
And that's where we go from here to verse six. Everything changes. Why does it change? Did that
baby that was in the field, did he get up and he crawled to this
one that was walking by? No. Did he cry out to him and
say, I need you? No. He's left for dead. He's left in his own blood and
he's drowning. And there's no prospect of life.
None. And the weird thing about that
baby is as that baby's sitting in that field, and as he's in
his blood, as he's sitting there dying, he doesn't even know it. He doesn't know it. Just believes that's the thing
to do. And then we have these miraculous
words of grace. And when I, and I want you to
note how many times he says I. when I pass by thee. When I, this is what sovereign
grace does. This is what he did. We saw where
we were, then we see what he did. When I pass by, you didn't
call me, you didn't love me, you didn't seek me, you didn't
pass by me. I pass by you. I saw you helpless. I saw you
polluted. I saw you lost in your inability. And this is what I said. I passed
by you and I saw you there and you polluted in thine own blood.
And I said unto thee when thou was in thy blood, live. Now how cruel that would be if
he didn't have the power to make him live. How cruel that would
be if he left him to himself to a decision. You make a decision
for me. You decide to love me, and then
I'll love you. You accept me as your personal
savior, and then and only then will I save you. When I passed by thee, and I
saw you polluted in your own blood, choking on it, I said
unto thee, when you were in your blood, live. Live. and the power of His grace causes
us to live and causes us to live upon Him. And as I see those
two newborn babies, when they get hungry and they cleave to
their mama, because mama's going to give them the food, and I
see them look up there in the limited love or what a limited
understanding that they have, I say, oh, to be that dependent
upon the sincere milk of the Word. to be dependent upon my
Lord to feed me that way. That's what I need. He says live. Just as it was in the wilderness,
you know, when all those fiery serpents were biting the Israelites. God provided that rod and he
put that brass serpent on top of it. And when it was lifted
up, as a picture of Christ lifted up, They were said, whoever looked
upon him lived. That's what, we look upon him,
we live. But we don't look until he says
live. You see our condition. You see
our unworthiness. You see our neediness. Where
did you come from? Did you come from there? You
come from that city? We all have our origins of where
we were born. I hope you trace yours back to
being born in iniquity. I told the people I preach to
a couple weeks ago, I was thinking out loud or whatever it was,
I'm not too sure why we celebrate our physical births every year
when that ain't the one that matters. It's the time the Lord
spread a skirt upon us. It's the time the Lord gave us
a new heart, a new birth. That's what we should be celebrating
every day, life. And when he says live, we live
unto him as he is, so are we in this world. You know, I run
into a lot of religious people. I actually work for a quote-unquote
religious company. So it's filled with religious
people who are constantly telling me what they do for their God. But don't you just want to hear
what He's done for His people? You know why you want to hear
that? Because this is your origin. You were dead. You were polluted
in your own blood, and you can't get out of it. There's nothing
you could do to save yourself. But our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ said something to us. And He didn't just say it and
say perform it in yourself. He brought the power. We're willing
in the day of His power. And He said live. And as I said,
you read this, He repeats it again. Just like verily, verily,
of a truth, of a truth. That's the soundness in this
truth. This is something to build upon. The Lord said, live. And he said, live. Yeah, I said
unto thee when thou was in thy blood live. And then then you see the rest
of this chapter start to to take a different now that we're in
Christ and now that we have life in Christ, what does that mean?
But look what he says in 7, he says, I've caused thee to multiply
as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased in wax and
grain. This is that baby left for dead.
You have grown in the grace and knowledge of me. I have grown
you up into Christ. That's where our growth is. All
of these metaphoric things of physical beauty and Listen to
them, you've waxen great, thou art come to excellent ornaments,
thy breast are fashioned, and thy hair is grown, whereas thou
was naked and bare. This is where he's brought us
from, a full person in the person of Christ, depending upon the
person of Christ, needy still of the person of Christ. Because whatever he's brought
you to right now, this moment, this moment right now in your
life, wherever he's brought you from, there's more. There's more in him. That's what
he teaches us. He grows us in his grace and
knowledge. And how good and great he is. And I find the more I learn,
the more I don't know. His love is unfathomable. And
just when I think I know it, he provides more depth to it. Now when I passed by thee, verse
eight, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was a time of
love. And I spread my skirt over thee,
and I covered thee, covered thy nakedness. Yea, I
swore unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith
the Lord God, and thou becamest mine." A baby is incapable of
love or helping itself. And as I said, he'd lie there
and die. The Lord said, I passed by thee, I looked upon thee,
and I said, it's a time of love. And yet we're incapable of love.
But the Lord says, You love me because I loved you first. I'll
even supply the love. But Lord, how do I believe? Help
my unbelief. I'll supply the faith. But Lord,
this world is a tough world. I'm constantly being tugged in
it. I'll supply the peace. Live. Live unto me. Live in me. I swear unto thee, and I entered
into a covenant. David knew that covenant, didn't
he? Didn't he talk about it as he was dying? And in 2 Samuel
23, 5, he said, although my house be not so with God, yet he maketh,
he hath made with me an everlasting covenant. It's an eternal covenant. He made it with us before there
was ever even a world. or ever even time. And that covenant,
as David, it was revealed to him, it's ordered in all things,
not just some things. Everything I need to be nourished
and grow up is in him. It's in my Joseph, who has all
that I need in those storehouses. As I'm living in a land of dearth,
I need those storehouses open. and he's faithful to do it. It's
an everlasting covenant, it's ordered in all things and it's
sure. It's sure, it's steadfast, it's
built upon the rock which is Christ. We have all these things
going through the scriptures, all these pictures of Christ
and all the, of strength, great strength. And all of his great
wisdom and all that he is to the church, the head. And how can we not? as the people
of God, as the Holy Spirit humbles us to look up to Him. How can
we not need Him? How can we not desire Him? I
answered that first when I told you we have dueling armies. We need Him. I need Him. It's ordered in all things and
it's sure for this, David, this is all my salvation. And all
my desire. You know, that's quite a mouthful
as you're laying there and you're dying and your house is not in
order. You have your own son trying,
was trying to kill you. You've got unbelievers in your
home. You've got, you've got a mess.
David, you've got an absolute mess. And that's what he said.
That's how he ends it. All my desire, although he maketh
it not to grow. That was the things of this life.
That was his family. I mourn today. I have some in my own family
that don't believe in the Lord. Is that what I see though? Is
that how I live? No. Because there's this covenant
he's made and he's all my salvation and he's all my desire. And just
as he is faithful to David throughout his life, he's faithful to each
and every one of us that are in Christ. Always providing himself
to banquet upon. Always providing himself as our
daily bread. Always providing himself as our
manna. I am my beloved's and he is mine. That's what's being said. And
then as I said, that's what we were and then we see what he
did And then nine through 14 now touches on what we are now,
what we are now. And nine, he says, then I washed
thee with water. Yea, I throughly washed away
thy blood from thee. And we know when we come to the
scriptures, we say, well, wait a minute, preacher. I need to
be washed in the blood. Well, the scriptures speak of
two washings. And you're right, we need both of them. One, first
and foremost, is the blood that John talks about in 1 John 1,
7, where he says, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from
all sin. And we are washed in his blood.
And Zechariah tells us that that fountain of that blood is continuously
open. And I'm so thankful it is. Because
even before I leave this pulpit, I'm going to sin. And I need
the blood applied. And I need the Lord to say to
me, you are forgiven. And so that blood cleanses me
from all my sins and all my unrighteousness. And then the other water that
we're washed with, Paul makes reference to it in Ephesians
5, he says we're clean and washed, he washes his church by the word. Clean through the word. We need
the word. We need the word that is Christ
and we need these scriptures that speak of Christ. Don't ever
neglect this word. I was just speaking to someone
yesterday and about her trials and how hard it is for her, even
when she comes to the word. Don't stop coming. This is where
he meets us. This is where he washes us. I washed thee with water, yea,
I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee
with oil. Because see, that's the beauty.
is we need the Holy Spirit. We need Him. Well, if we're born
again, we have Him. We need the power of the Lord
to open our eyes and to come with that power to open our eyes
and put down self that we may see Him. That we hear the witness
of the Holy Spirit. He will take the things of Christ
and He will teach them to us. We need the blood applied. How?
The Holy Spirit reveals to us that we're forgiven. We need
the word as we read it, but how? Let me tell you something, without
the Holy Spirit, this is a history book. It's just a book of stories. That's why we have so many people
read it. That's why there's so many quote
unquote denominations today, because there's all private interpretations
of what's in this book. I once had a preacher one time
tell me that he did not need the Holy Spirit to understand
the Word of God because of hermeneutics, because we can trace the etymology
of words. We can learn the Greek, we can
learn the Hebrew, and we can trace back those words to find
out exactly what was meant. You know what I said, what good
is that? I mean, you're still going to
trace it back to somewhere that it's a dead letter without the
Holy Spirit. But that's how big we become in our own eyes if
we're not dependent, if we're not made to be dependent. That's what we have here. I've
washed thee with water. I've thoroughly washed thee.
I've anointed thee with oil. I've given thee of the Holy Spirit.
I've clothed thee also with broidered work and shod thee with badger
skin. I know we go right back to the
temple there where they had the hangings and that's how they
were handmade and what is he saying? Well, I know that I need
a garment put on and that garment is the righteousness of Christ.
I need the father to see that robe. I don't want him to see
anything of me and praise God he won't. If I'm in Christ, I
will be clothed with his righteousness. I've clothed thee also. I've
shod thee with badger skin. I've girded thee about with fine
linen. When we think of fine linen in the scriptures, we think
of the priests. He has made us kings and priests because that's
what he says. I've covered thee with silk.
We think silk is with kings. I've made thee as priests and
kings upon this earth. And if that puffs you up, if
that makes you think that you're something better than the guy
across the street, You don't understand. You don't understand. We're priests and kings because
we're in the priest and in the king. And we owe everything to
him. He says in 11, I deck thee with
ornaments. I put bracelets upon thy hands
and a chain upon thy neck. I think of all these ways to
array yourself or to bring forth beauty. And I love the last one
where he says, I put a chain on thy neck. I think about the
bowing position. When you need to put, when they
receive those medals on the podium and they have to bow down to
have that chain or that medal put around their neck. We bow
unto him and he clothes us. But he clothes us with himself. And all of these things are metaphors
describing what we have in him. What we have in him, the graces
of his spirit, the long-suffering, the patience, the faith, the
peace, the love, the gentleness. It's all of him. 12 says, I put
a jewel on thy forehead. Yeah, there's a mark on the people
of God. It's Christ in you, the hope of glory. I put a jewel
on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful
crown upon thine head. I think of that crown that I,
that he has said, you, I'm putting a crown upon your head. And then
one day we're told in revelation, we're going to take that crown
and we're going to cast it as his feet. Because as we, we wear
that crown now and we have the mind of Christ when we see him
and we are, as we know, as we're known, we won't have any, reason
for faith anymore and we won't have any reason for crowns because
we'll be with our king and it'll be all about the king and I won't have anything to hinder
me today or ever again. I'll just have the king and that's
where I long to be. Thus, and then he sums it up
in 13, Thus was thou decked with gold and silver, and thy raiment
was of fine linen and silk and embroidered work. Thou did eat
fine flour and honey and oil. Thou was exceeding beautiful,
and thou did prosper into a kingdom. He has brought us into his kingdom.
And you say, well, he hasn't yet. Oh, yes, he has. Oh, yes,
he has. There won't be anybody in heaven
that has not experienced and lived Christ here. and come to
know Christ here because of him. He prepares us,
he conforms us to his image. And look at 14, he says, thy
renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty. And I love this
part, for it was perfect. Everything he just described
to us, it's perfect. Perfectly adorned, perfect needs
met, perfect everything we need, the right measure, the more than
abundant grace given to us every day. His mercies are new every
day. And then he says this, it's perfect
through my comeliness. As that pride gets up in us at
times, the Lord puts us right back down. And he says, you're
perfect in my perfection. You're only perfect in me. Praise
be to God that that is the truth. You are perfect through my comeliness,
which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God. Now some of you
may read in your Bible, and you may read on in this chapter,
and it's not flattering what is said to national Israel, and
they would be destroyed. They rejected the Lord Jesus
Christ, And the Lord sent an emperor there in 70 A.D. and
he destroyed them. You say, well, your metaphor
is not that good. Well, it's just the type. Because
see, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
And there's no death for those who are in Christ Jesus. And
that's why I stopped at 14. Because the picture that is shown
here for the child of God is what we were, what he's done,
and what we are now in him. Can you identify with this? Can
you, by his grace, understand this is where you came from and
this is where you've been brought? May the Lord be pleased to add
his blessing to his word. Dear Heavenly Father, have thy
clarity, my love, thy truth, and bless the words, Lord, that
thou hast provided. For this I ask in Jesus' name.