Revive us again. That's also
taken from Psalm 85, verse 6, which says, Wilt thou not revive
us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee? And that's really what we want
and pray for when we come here in this midweek service. It's
been a few days since the Lord's Day and we've gone out in the
world and we get our feet dirty and hot and thirsty and dry and
come in here and want to be revived, don't we? Ezekiel 16. Ezekiel 16. As I said, someone asked me when
I was going to finish this study in this book, and tonight's the
night, Lord willing. I had a man write me from Japan
who listened to the first part of this message. Japan. And he
asked me, when are you going to finish this? I take that as a sign. Let's
look back at this story and rehearse it. It's a good one. This is the story of a child,
a helpless, hopeless, wretched, poor, dying, loathsome, ugly
child that's been cast out into a field. Why I pitied it? None had compassion. And it wasn't
washed. It was naked, ready to die. And this is a picture, a beautiful
picture, of all of God's people whom He saved. All of His elect. And a picture of how they were
when He found them. Dead in trespasses and sin. Scripture
uses words like this. Abominable. Filthy. He told Ezekiel
and he tells every preacher, true preacher, cause my people
to know their abominations. We saw that, didn't we, how that
the first thing that God, through His Word and through the preaching,
lets us know in mercy is our abominations. Just how exceedingly,
Paul said, exceedingly sinful we are. He said, when the law
came, when the commandment came, I died. It just killed me. He
said, before the Word of God came, I thought I was alright.
I thought I was a pretty good fella. And then the Word of God came
and He said, just slew me. Just killed me. He said, I was
guilty. I was charged. And the Lord says about us, looking
down, there's no soundness in them. And Isaiah 1 says, from
the sole of our feet to the tops of our heads, no soundness. Nothing
good. The Lord says things like this.
They were in a pit. We were in a pit. Brought us
up out of a horrible pit. a pit of corruption. It says
things like this, we were on a dung heap. You know what a
dung heap is, don't you? It's a foul place. He's brought
some people out of the dung heap, set them among princes. That's a long way, isn't it?
All the way. But God in mercy and love and
great grace did pity us. None eye pitied us, but like
as a father pities his children, so the Lord. It is them that
fear Him. And God chose some and foreknew
them, or that is, set His love upon them. And verse 8 says,
Now when I passed by them and I looked upon them, we saw how
the salvations of the Lord, when He comes to us in love and mercy
and favor and looks upon us, we weren't looking for Him. But
thank God, He was looking for us. Isaiah 65 said, I am sought
of them that ask not for me. I am found of them that sought
me not. And he said, Thy time. I got
a blessing out of that. Did you? Thy time. This was your
time. There was a time in the fullness
of time in God's time that you heard the gospel for the first
time. And it was thy time. Oh, that
struck me when I first heard it. It's your time. All of God's people have a time
that God wrote down before time began. A time when they would
come, when he would bring a prodigal back and set them down. And unbeknownst to them, he's
going to save them. Thy time was a time of love.
when God's great love is going to be shown through the preaching
of the gospel. By time. Time of love. And he says, you
became mine. Mine. There's some young parents
in here, and old, that know, well, everybody has somebody
that they call mine. And all that that means, something
that's yours, something you really love, something you have your
affection on, someone, if they're yours, you'll do anything and
everything for them. You'll never leave them or forsake
them. And that's what God says about His. And that's what Christ
prayed in that great priestly prayer, didn't He? All mine are
thine, and thine are mine. And I will that those whom thou
hast given me be with thee. me, that they may behold my glory."
Now became mine. And God engaged Himself, Christ
the Holy Spirit, trying God's purpose to save us and do all
for us until He finally presents us faultless before His presence. And He said, when the gospel
came, when God's good time, verse 6, He said, live. You see, this salvation is for
dead sinners. Dead. No less dead than Lazarus
was when Christ called him for. And he said, live. He quickened
us. Yes, by grace you say. Now verse 8, he said, I spread
my skirt over you. We're going to look at the second
part of this, but I'm kind of hung up here. Is that alright?
This is worth telling again. See, you've got to remember just
how good God is to us and where He found us in order to appreciate
or rather be ashamed of how we repay such love. It says, He spread His skirt
over us. What's that? Well, we saw that's
Christ. Christ who is our righteousness.
We're covered with His spotless robe, skirt. And He covered our
nakedness. See, all things are naked and
open before God's eyes. God sees all. But we're covered. We're covered. And He swore unto
us, verse 8, He said, I swear unto thee. He tells us not to
swear. Because we can't fulfill it. You know, we can swear on whatever.
by whomever and whatever, but we have no power to fulfill it. God swore. In the Hebrews, it says when
he could swear by no greater, that he swore by himself. His
name. It says his oath. His covenant. He says, I will be by God. Swore by himself. People blasphemously
and take God's name in vain by saying, I swear to God. Well,
God swore by himself, on his name, based on his word, he swore. I swear unto them. And he says,
and I entered into a covenant with them. Not that he asked
us to cooperate. No, he drew up this covenant
concerning us before we were ever born. Covenant. So these
two immutable things, That's what the Hebrews said. By two
immutable things, it's impossible for God to lie. His oath, His
word, when He says something, it's good. And His covenant. And He said they're immutable.
It can't change. It can't change. The will of
the Testament cannot be changed. He lives to be the enforcer or
testator of His own covenant. Making sure all whom He has in
it receive what He swore they would receive. Eternal life. Verse 9, He said, Then I washed
thee with water. That's not only the blood of
Christ, that fountain for cleansing, but it's the water of His Word.
He washes His church. And anointed them, verse 9, anointed
thee with oil, that's the Holy Spirit, and adorned us, clothed
us with broidered work, and shot us with badger skin. We saw how
all of this represents the things that our God has done. By grace,
you say. It's all of grace. I kept emphasizing
the personal pronoun, I. Do you see that with me? All
through here, I did this. I did this. I did this. I did
this. Salvations of the Lord. By grace,
a gift bestowed, we are saved. God Almighty. Saved him by himself,
by Christ. Verse 13, it says, you were decked
with gold and silver and raiment of fine linen, silk, broidered
work, beautiful. And it says, you did eat fine
flour and honey, ate well, and oil exceeding beautiful. All
God's creation is. Verse 13 says, you were prosperous,
prospered into a kingdom, We have all spiritual blessings
and heavenly things in Christ Jesus. That's prospering. And thy renown, verse 14, well
known, known and loved by others. All over. Among the heathen,
among a bunch of Gentiles. They know you. And it says, thy
beauty, it was perfect. Perfect. through my comeliness,
which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God." See, he did it
all, didn't he? So he gets all the glory. This is a new creature. What
he's talking about here is a new creature. Dead, once ugly, now
beautiful. Once dirty, now clean. Once dying,
now alive. Once loathsome, now loved and
loveless. Once helpless, now imbued with
grace. A new creature, a living child.
God's people are living children. They sure are. Responsible unto
Him. And it's His creation now. They've created in Christ Jesus
unto good works. Which God hath before ordained
that they should walk therein. So this was God's doing. Salvations
of the Lord. Verse 15. Now the story gets
sad. But, thou didst trust in thine
own beauty. In spite of all that he did for
her, it says she trusted in her beauty. In other words, she began
to think that she was. The little child in this story
grew up from a little baby. And a little infant, there's
nothing cuter. I tell you, I look at those little
infants, and I have to remind myself they're depraved. Because
it just doesn't look like it at first. And there is a great
sense in which they are innocent. They haven't willfully rebelled
yet. It's in them, and it's going to come out. It's there. But you look at them in all that
seeming innocence, and they're beautiful, aren't they? A little
child. Adorable. From a babe, they grow
into a little girl, a little toddler. That's a cute time too,
isn't it? Like Abigail, even younger. Just waddling along, and all
their little attempts at walking and talking and all that, it's
just all cute. Oh, every now and then there's
a real show of... Right, Wes? Every now and then you're reminded.
She is a little sinner after all. But these young things,
you know, they look mighty cute. And then they grow into what's
called adolescence. Adolescence is a big word for
meaning you're not a child and you're not an adult. You're no
longer a baby. You're no longer a toddler. You're
no longer a little child. You're not an adult yet. And so this little child grew
up into adolescence, and she was pretty, began to be formed,
and she had some talents. She began to know some things,
had some knowledge. Now who gave her all of this?
Why is she like she is? Because the Lord did it all. We are what we are by the grace
of God. Well, she reached these adolescent years and she became
pretty and who made her to differ? She became pretty and talented
and with some knowledge and so she began to think so. And she heads out into the world and begins to give herself and
sell herself. for bad purposes. Bad story. See, the Lord doesn't
mince words when He talks about sin and what it all is like to
Him, does He? We are uncomfortable when we
read things about prostitution and harlotry, aren't we? Selling
the body and all that. What is that but it's all for
pleasure and money Sell yourself. Sell yourself. Our Lord said
this, what would a man give in exchange for his soul? People
would give about anything. They'd give about anything. It
really is happening. And it happens to us. The actual
story here, now, the first ten minutes of this message and the
last ten minutes are the most important part. In the middle
here, Let me give you some things here. The actual story here is
how Israel, God's chosen people, Israel, how the Lord found them. He found them and you had your
students come over to your house and watch that movie, The Ten
Commandments. I don't know who was there. You
remember watching that? It was a pretty good depiction. of what it was like back then. And if any of you saw that old
movie, all those Israelites were down in those slime pits. You
remember seeing that? They were down in those mud pits.
That's actually what they did. They made mortar with straw and
mud for bricks to build Egypt. And they were down in those pits,
you know, they're caked down in a pit. Where the Lord found
them was in slime pits. He found them in slime pits and took them to Beulah land. And all the way that He led them.
Found them in slime pits, ransomed them, saved them, renewed them.
He said, I gave Egypt for thee, Ethiopia for thy ransom, since
thou was precious in my sight. Looked like pigs in a slop. Precious because they were his,
right? And he ransomed them, saved them,
made them into a glorious kingdom, Israel. Found them a bunch of
slaves in pits and took them all the way to fair Canaan, Beulah
land, and made them one of the greatest kingdoms ever known
to man. Put over them David. And then Solomon. And then from
the slime pit to every man dwelling on his own vine and victory and
peace all around them. And they themselves had servants.
That's a long way. But the Lord brought them. A
people to whom God made himself known. Now God did all this.
God did all this. He did all this for them. He
didn't have to, but he did. He said, I didn't choose you because
you were better than anybody. I didn't choose you because you
were more than anybody else. That he just pleased the Lord
to make you his people. That he might show in you the
exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward you. And yet, Israel went after idols. They went after idols. They began
to mingle with and be joined with the heathen, the world that
is, and began to practice their heathen, idolatrous way. This
is the actual story. All the way through you read
the Old Testament. Every single prophet, this is
why they pronounced woe on them, why they were carried to captivity,
why they had so many problems. They were out in the world and
they got a taste of it and they loved it and they began to be
idolatrous, mingled with the world and forgot God. Just forgot
God, forgot where they came from. Began to be lifted up with pride
and practiced all sorts of abomination. And what a picture this is of
what's called the visible church. By that, whenever we say that,
what we mean is those who look like or sound like or say they're
Christians, professing Christians. Over the years, it has become
a despicable place. An adulterous, idolatrous, mingled
with the heathen, abominable practice. You can't tell the
difference now between modern religion and a rock concert. All the way through here, the
Lord gives how that It's known all over your whoredoms
and so forth, how they're in it for money and so forth. It's
known by the whole world. It's their laughing stock. Israel
was just a mockery of God and everything, and so is this so-called
church today, isn't it? It's a mockery. People are laughing
at God, laughing at the Bible, laughing at people who call themselves
believers and followers of the Lord, laughing. And they're no
different, no different whatsoever. Verses, look at verse 16 and
17. It says they made high places of different colors, played the
harlot. In other words, and in this story,
she paid people to come to her. She paid people to come to her,
bribed the people to come into her. And doesn't that sound like
modern religion? High places. The Lord talks about
high places. Any of you have read the Old
Testament? High places. Various kings the Lord raised
up and the good ones tore down the high places. Meaning these
elaborate houses of worship. High places. He said there is
a high place, where is it? A high place on every, where
does it say that? Yeah, verse 24. He built unto
thee an imminent place that may be in high place in every street,
as one on every corner. Are you seeing? Nothing's changing. There's one on every corner,
a high place. It's full of, the Lord in Deuteronomy especially
calls something an abominable thing, that abominable thing,
that accursed thing. Anybody know what that is? He
said, do not do that cursed thing, abominable thing. You know what
it is? Images. Any kind of image. The Lord over and over and over
and over and over and over and over again said, do not make
any kind of image whatsoever of anything, anybody. What does
it say in verse 17? They made jewels of gold. He
took my jewels and so forth and made images of men, statues of
men. He started worshiping in elaborate
high places. Verse 20 and 21, it said, You
have taken your sons and daughters that are born unto me, that is
supposed to be raised in the fear and admonition of the Lord,
and you sacrificed them to be devoured, eaten up. And I thought
about all these so-called Bible schools that are going on throughout
the land about right now. Are you with me? Are you reading
this with me? It's abominable, isn't it, people? If you read
these signs, you see these things that they're doing to try to
attract kids and so forth? I hope somebody listens to this
somewhere. It's all this avalanche, ranch,
and extreme kingdom and all this. It's utterly abominable what
they're doing to try to attract kids, isn't it? They make God a laughing stock.
And they're sacrificing their kids to this abominable thing.
They're not being taught the living and true God. Sons and daughters of mine, and
it would go through. And here's the thing. Nearly everyone in here was involved
in that. Came out of that. I think there's a couple of former
Catholics in here, but were you christened as a child? That's
abominable. Nowhere in the scriptures does
it tell us to christen or baptize our babies. Baptism is for believing
adults. He that believeth and is baptized.
And they call that, you know, a covenant, christening them,
putting them into the church. We can't do that. Christ can
only put, it says the Lord added daily such as should be to the
church, such as should be said. The Lord did. Acts chapter 2.
It's his church, he's the only one that can add them. And all
these things, christenings and catechisms and consecrations
and vacation Bible schools are all abominations to God. Yes,
they are. I sure hope Southern Baptists,
somebody hears this. Abomination. In verses 24 and
25, we said, or he said, made a high place on every street.
Verse 25, you've made your beauty to be abhorred. Open your feet
to everybody that passed by. Come in unto me. We'll take it.
It doesn't matter. We'll cheapen ourselves. We'll
sell ourselves out. We'll sell out God and sell out
the truth to get a big hearing. And it says in verse 28, He played
the whore and you were insatiable. He played the harlot. You could
not be satisfied. Could not. Insatiable. So that's
the story. That's Israel actually, unbelievable
as it was, they actually fell a whore in after other gods and
the so-called church throughout the ages has done the same thing. But how does this apply to us? How does this apply to us? Alright,
here's the last ten minutes of the message, okay? All right,
we talked about this physical adolescence, the time between
childhood and adulthood. He's not a baby, not an adult,
not an adult, not helpless, and not independent, and not ignorant,
but sure doesn't have much experience. That's a most dangerous time.
It's a dangerous time. Adolescence is a very dangerous
time. If that child, that little child grows up, that child that
owes everything, yes, everything to its parent. The parent is
the one from whom they get everything, the genes and everything. The
parent is the one who trains them up. The parent is the one
who feeds them, clothes them, houses them, sponsors them, pays
for them, puts them through school and all that. If they amount
to anything, they owe it all to their parents. All of it. Right? I admit it. I admit it. I'm not a self-made
man. And if that adolescent begins
to think too highly of herself and becomes proud, though they
are outwardly beautiful, they're actually very ugly. They
become very ugly. There's nothing more ugly than
pride. Now here's the picture. Spiritual adolescence is a dangerous
time. And most of us in here are in
those years. Spiritual adolescence. It's the
middle years. Habakkuk said the midst of the years. That's what
we're talking about. The middle years. Middle age. Some of us are more middle than
others, right Stan? You do know Stan hit 50 the other
day, don't you? But the middle years are dangerous
times. Not a babe, not a newborn, not
a babe in Christ. But not a father either. Not
an old patriarch. Hadn't been through too many
wars. Hadn't been through much experience and trials and so
forth. A dangerous time. They now had
some faith. Some faith. The disciples. When the Lord first found them,
they just hung on His every word to them. Three years later. I mean, just three years later.
Buddy, they could just whip the world, couldn't they? And the Lord had to admonish
them time and again, didn't He? And so, we have some faith. We have some faith. Yes, we do.
Just some faith. Very little faith. Some faith. We do have it. We have some knowledge.
We know some things. I know more than I did when I
was a baby and cried. But I still know very little. I look back on old messages I
preach, I dig them up every now and then, look at them, and I
just cast them back aside. Sometimes I think, oh, just throw
them all away, what good are they? And I'll probably do the
same thing ten years from now if the Lord doesn't come, look
back on these messages and say, boy, I had a lot to learn. We
have some knowledge, we have some ability. Very little. Go with me to Deuteronomy
chapter 8. Deuteronomy 8. Our brother read
this in a study a while ago. Were you men blessed by that?
I was greatly blessed. If you want some good reading,
just start in Deuteronomy. The book of Deuteronomy, the name, the word means second
law. Meaning, not another law, but
a repetition of, a copy of the law. What God does through Moses
here is just remind them of everything He's already said. That's what
Deuteronomy is. It's a rehearsal. It's a repetition. God goes back over where He found
them and all He did for them and all that He taught them.
He reminds them again. And we need it, don't we, in
the midst of the year? We need reminded. Look at Deuteronomy
8 with me. Just look at some of these verses.
Verse 2, Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy
God led thee. We need to always remember where
the Lord found us, don't we? Never forget the slime pit, the
ditch, the pit, the hole of the pit from which we were dug. The dung heap. The dung heap
where the Lord found us. And how far He brought it. All the way. The Savior leads
us. The Lord thy God led thee these
40 years. Some of you, it has been 40 years.
John, Earlene, some of you. It has been 40 years. Spiritually
speaking. The Lord has led you. Barbara,
Charles, you've been hearing the gospel about that long, haven't
you? Close to it. And 40 years in the wilderness. You say, wait, this world's a
wilderness. Why did he do that? What's it
all about? What's this life all about? What's this gospel walk,
walk of faith all about? This whole life for the believer
is for this purpose. Verse 2, to humble thee. To humble
you. See, man's life, what a man does,
the human being, carnal, See, he grows up into a man, he begins
to assert himself and do this and do that and accumulate things
and make a name for himself and accumulate things for himself
and possessions and all that. Why? For his glory, for his glory,
for his pride. He gets lifted up until he's
old and owns a lot of stuff, you know, a lot of stuff. And look at what all I've done. Fills him with pride, you know.
That's all it does. But the Lord says he's going
to bring down everything that exalteth himself. He's going
to bring it down. But he that humbleth himself
shall be exalted. So the Lord, this whole life
of faith for the believer is to humble us. Sometimes we wonder
why the Lord doesn't remove sin from us completely. Lord, if
you'd just get rid of this sin in me completely, I'd be good.
No, you'd be lifted up with pride. All these things. All these things are for our
humbling. And to prove us. Prove us for
what? Prove the sincerity of thy love.
See, the humble love the gospel. The humble love the gospel of
God's mercy and grace. The humble. They never get...
No, they will never. Here's the key now. You've got
to listen to this. They will never grow tired. The humble
will never grow tired of hearing of the gospel of God's sovereign
grace. Never. If a person ever does, they've become lifted up
with pride. Read on. To know what was in
your heart. And this humility, this out of
the heart of the issues of life. Verse 3, And he humbled thee.
He keeps saying this, doesn't he? Humbled you. Suffered you
to hunger, fed you with manna. So many of us, well, you know, when he brought you to
here, he made you, you were in religion and he made you hungry.
He didn't know what for, but he just knew, you just knew that
you were hungry. You were not getting like my
father-in-law. I don't know what I'm not hearing,
but I'm not hearing something. I need something. I don't know what
it is. And he brought you, Jeanette, made you hungry, fed up with,
discontented, distressed, in debt, in that religion of old,
hungry, eaten husk, made you hungry, and brought you and fed
you. Oh, man. Delivered you from captivity,
from being bruised by a rough husband. And he said, you knew something
your fathers didn't know. Verse 4, And your raiment waxed
not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell these forty years.
The gospel never grows old. Verse 5, You need to consider
in your heart, Thou shalt also consider that as a man chasteneth
his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. Why is the Lord
doing this to me? Because He loves you. If you were without trials, if
you were without trouble, you'd be a bastard. Right? That's what
Hebrews 12 said. Whom the Lord loves, He chastens.
What's He doing? Weaning us from His world. He's
preparing us. You see? Children of Israel,
you have here no continuing city. You're strangers and pilgrims
and sojourners. We're not going to stay here.
So the Lord's not going to allow us to be just too comfortable
and too happy. here. Thorns and thistles. Right? He prepared a better place
for it. And read on. It says, verse 7,
The Lord thy God bring thee into a good land. He's bringing you
into a good land. You know, the Lord said in Isaiah
65, He said, You need to rejoice in what I will create, a new
heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. New heaven
and new earth. And they're going to be so wonderful
that the former things shall not be remembered nor even come
to mind. As beautiful and as glorious
as this first earth was, and still is to some degree, it pales
in comparison. It's nothing compared to the
glory that shall be revealed. Just like the gospel compared
to the law. And I thought about in all these
verses, I someday, Gabe, I want to go through these verses and
look at this as the church. where the Lord has brought us,
where all the stones are like iron. And you ate wheat and barley
and fig trees and pomegranate, land of oil, olive oil, honey,
and so forth. That's what you get. Every service,
people, that's what you get. You come in here, you're not
eating husk. You're eating at Solomon's table. Every time.
Every time. Yes, you are. I know it's not because I'm prepared,
it's because I know where I'm getting it. Solomon's table. I'm bringing it to you right
from the table. Hot. Fresh food. Just eat the best
food. We're eating the best food, aren't
we? Well, I'm bringing you into a
land of Versailles. But now he said, verse 11, beware. Beware that thou forget not the
Lord thy God. Verse 12, lest when you be eaten,
they are full, and have built goodly houses, and dwell therein.
Well, we have, haven't we? We have. We're there. Are you
still with me? The babies will keep, okay? Let me tell you mothers something
right now, and don't you forget this. In the history of the church,
as far as I can remember back, there's never been one child
lost in the nursery during a service. Okay? So forgive them. They'll
be just fine. And we're making that place just
as good a place as it can be. All right. And he said, remember,
don't forget, the Lord thy God. Beware, lest when you build these
houses and goodly houses and dwell therein, verse 13, your
herds and your flocks multiply. You look out in this parking
lot, there's some of the finest chariots money can buy. with
200 horses now. One of them cost what a house
used to cost. My, my. Thy gold is multiplied, savings
and bonds, stocks and bonds and so forth, and thou hast multiplied
families and fruit of the womb. Beware, verse 14, then thy heart
be lifted up, and you forget the Lord thy God which brought
thee forth out of the slime pit. Remember where you came from.
The house of bondage. See, all those things are bondage.
That's what the world is bound to. The world is bound to these
things. It has a hold of them. It has
a strong grip on them. This world. The things of the
world. That's the reason he says, Love not the world, nor the things
of the world. Because these things get a grip on people and take
them down to the grave. They'll go down to the grave
holding, trusting them. That's all they live for. Not you. This is a bunch of stuff. Enjoy the stuff. But remember,
it's stuff. Health, good health. Enjoy it.
Thank God for it. But it won't last. Will it? It
won't last. And Barbara, very soon the dew
of youth is going to be on thy brow. Women are doing everything,
spending every dime they can to make themselves beautiful
again, and it's not working. But I'll tell you somebody who's
going to, and it's going to last forever. A new person. The dew of youth
on thy brow. I'm not. Don't polish brash on
a sinking ship. That story of the Titanic, you
know, that most people didn't believe it was going down even
when they were worn. They didn't believe it. Even when the sirens
were going off, most of them didn't believe it. They sat there
at the table. But that fine china and all that,
admiring their surroundings, and they perished. Let's not
be like that. Back in our text, verse 18, he
says, remember, look at verse 18 in the Deuteronomy, Do you
remember the Lord thy God? It's He that giveth thee power
to get well. It's He. Don't forget Him. Worship
other gods. What other god? I'm not going
to worship an idol. What does he call idolatry? Come and dismiss it. And we're
all very, very, very susceptible to that. And we've all done it.
And do it. So back in our text, Ezekiel
16, the Lord told Israel. He told Israel that they'd sinned
against great mercy and grace. And every one of us has done
the same thing. And we'll do it in the midst of the year. You know, David, when he was
in his forties and fifties, is when he, when he went through
those terrible falls, terrible times, the midst of the years. And every one of us will fall
into sin and the world in a sense, sell ourselves at times, leave
our first love like the church at Ephesus, folks. Things haven't changed. The children
of Israel, they began to loathe that light bread, which is the
gospel. And so the Lord took it away. He took it away. It says he caused
them to hunger back there in Deuteronomy. It caused them to
hunger, and they would have loved to have a little light bread.
Church at Ephesus, boy, Ephesus, boy, didn't they hear a good
gospel, a great gospel. Ephesians? That letter was written
to them. Well, they left their first mind.
They began to grow, you know, they'd heard all that before,
and they never were moved by it anymore. Church at Laodicea,
you know, they were rich and increased with goods and had
need of nothing, and they became lukewarm. The gospel never touched
them anymore. Never meant anything, so God
removed it. God had a remnant, He always
has, a remnant, who after He removed it, they were dying of
hunger and thirst. And He's done it again today. And He can do it in this little
place. So don't forget. And verse 60,
now look in our text, Ezekiel 16. Ezekiel 16. Now she, this little
girl, this child, grew up into an adolescent, a fine young lady,
and began to be lifted up with pride and sold herself and went
out into the world and so forth, but God. And here it is again. This is salvation. This is her
salvation and this is ours. Nevertheless, verse 60, I will remember. You've forgotten. But I can't. I will remember. You've forgotten me, but I'll
never forget you. I will remember my covenant with
you. And he says that the one I made
in the days of our youth, you know, that's when you were in
the field where I found you. That's when he said you became
mine. And even when she was out there
doing all this stuff, she was still his. Grieving him, but
she was his. And he said, I will establish
unto thee an everlasting kingdom. And you'll remember. You'll remember.
Here's the goodness of God is for him to convict us always. To keep convicting us. See, repentance,
conviction is not a one-time thing. Repentance is not a one-time
thing. It's a continual thing. But we'll
be sinners until the day we die. We'll go a whoring to the day
we die. Just like the children of Israel.
from our God. And God in His mercy and grace
remembers His covenant in Christ. And He said, and you'll remember.
He'll cause us to remember our ways and be ashamed. Oh, we feel
at times so ashamed of ourselves, don't we? Good. That's good. It means the Lord hasn't left
you alone. We need to worry when the gospel
quit convicting us. That's where we need to worry. And he said in verse 63, and
you'll remember, and you'll be confounded, means you'll be bewildered
about yourself. Confounded. You'll be confounded
as to how could I have done that? Why could I? If I'm a child of
God, how could I have done that? Like old John Newton's wonderful
poem. Here's a point I long to know.
It caused me anxious thought. Do I love the Lord or no? Am
I His or am I not? If I love, why am I thus? Why
this cold and lifeless frame? Hardly sure can they be less
than never knew his name. And we wonder, we're confounded
by ourselves, perplexed by ourselves. And we're confounded by God's
goodness. Surely he's cut me off. No, he
says, no I haven't. Oh, that's just amazing. That's just amazing. I remember
one time my brother ran away from home when he was about 15
years old. Can you imagine that, Stephen? Your son running away
from home. He was gone for well over a month, maybe two months.
Gone. And they never heard from him. They had no idea where their
15-year-old son was. Can you imagine that? Can you
imagine that, Mary? How much sleep would you get
for a month? Well, one day he came home. I remember when he did. And they received him with great
grace and love. Opened arms, fell on his neck,
and kissed him. That's our God. That's our God. And he says, the result of all
this is you're never going to open your mouth again. Hopefully. Be lifted up in pride. Never say anything. Pride again.
Shouldn't. Because of your shame when I'm
pecified toward thee and all that I've done. My, my. Oh, so
may the Lord convert us. You see, she got lifted up and
formed and pretty and began to think she was something when
she was nothing. She's still nothing. I think
she knew something. She knew nothing yet, as she
ought to know. May the Lord convert us back into little children
and make us ashamed of our ways and never open our mouths in
pride at any point. Remember the pit from which we
were digged, the field where He found us, and be eternally
grateful to Him. All right, stand with me. Our Lord, thank you for words
of comfort and words of rebuke, words of consolation, promise,
and words of warning. We need them all. Lord, thank
you for rebuke, reproof, correction, chastisement, all things, we
thank you. For as a father loveth his son,
his children, and chasteneth them, so the Lord chastens them
whom he loves. And Lord, keep us from this evil
world. Save us from this untoward generation, we pray, us and our
children. That it might be well with us
and our children. Let us remember thy word. and not forget our
God or the pit from which we were digged. In Christ's name
we are met here tonight. Amen.