Turn with me in your Bibles to
Ezekiel chapter 23. Ezekiel chapter 23. Now the title of the message
is Beware of Spiritual Harlotry. Beware of Spiritual Harlotry.
This chapter is 49 verses long, It really doesn't lend itself
to being divided up into different messages because mainly this
chapter brings us to the brink of the destruction of Jerusalem.
In fact, the next chapter, in the next chapter, chapter 24,
Ezekiel is given a vision on the very day that Jerusalem is
besieged. Now, you remember Ezekiel is
in Babylon now. He is prophesying in Babylon.
But he's given a vision in chapter 24 on the very day that Nebuchadnezzar
besieged Jerusalem and destroyed the city. And then on the same
day or the day or on that time period anyway destroyed the temple. The temple that was in Jerusalem.
So this chapter brings us to the brink of that. You might
even say I don't know if it's the exact day before but it brings
us to the brink. This is the last testimony of
God. to the people in Babylon before
Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed. And the reason that's
so significant is because this is one of the most graphic descriptions
of the sin of Israel and of Judah that's to be found in the Bible.
In fact, it's very graphic. It's very shameful. It's almost
embarrassing. You read through it. Because
what he's talking about is how Israel, the northern kingdom,
and Judah, the southern kingdom, how they prostituted themselves
out to the heathen in opposition to God. In fact, the first 21
verses of this chapter is a parable of two sisters who became prostitutes. These two sisters are the daughters
of one mother. Verses 1 and 2, the word of the
Lord came again unto me, saying, Son of man, there were two women,
the daughters of one mother. And it goes on to say they committed
whoredoms in Egypt, harlotry. And then in the last part of
this chapter, verses 22 through 49, we see God's just judgment
on these two sisters who are, you'll find out early on, are
Israel and Judah. And what it indicates is that
now the cup of God's wrath was full. And the people had no excuse,
they had no defense for their sins. They sinned against all
the light that God had given them. They sinned against all
the blessings that God gave them. You remember back in chapter
16, we had a picture painted of Jerusalem as a cast out infant,
the abandoned child who God rescued and cared for. And then that
infant grew into a young woman. And she became poor and naked.
But once again, God loved and provided for her. And because
of the great gifts God had given her, instead of becoming humble
and seeking the Lord and following the Lord and worshiping the Lord
and serving the Lord, she became proud. She became self-righteous. And she played the harlot with
other nations. And God finally judged her. In
chapter 23, we see God once again exposing Israel and Judah's adultery,
their prostitution, their harlotry. And that's why I entitled the
message, Beware of Spiritual Harlotry. These two sisters are
given a name. Look down at verse 4 of chapter
23. It says, And the names of them, these two sisters, were
Ahola, the elder, and Aholaba, her sister, the younger. And
they were mine, and they bear sons and daughters. Then he tells
us exactly who they are. Thus were their names, Samaria
is Ahola. Now you might have this in your
concordance. The name Ahola means her tent
is in her, or her own tent. In other words, the tent belongs
to her. Now the tent is a name for like a tabernacle or a temple-like
structure. That's what it's talking about.
Not just a tent that you camp in. But it's like a tabernacle
or a temple structure for worship. And this name Ahola, that's what
it means. Her own tent. Alright? And then you see Jerusalem is
Aholabah. And a holabah, as you might see,
it means this. My tent is in her. Or my tabernacle is in her. And what you have there is a
statement of historical fact. You know, God had established
His tent, His tabernacle, His temple in Jerusalem. That's where
God established it. My tent is in her. That's why
a holabah is Jerusalem. That's God's tent was in her. But you remember after Solomon,
the kingdom divided. And the one who rebelled against
God's appointed or anointed king was a man named Jeroboam. Rehoboam
was the true king. But Jeroboam rebelled and the
nation was split. They actually had kind of like
a civil war. And what happened is Jeroboam
established his kingdom in the northern part. That was the northern
kingdom. And knowing that the Jews in
the northern kingdom over which he ruled would eventually return
to Jerusalem because they had to go back to Jerusalem three
times a year according to the law. And he knew that if they
kept going back to Jerusalem three times a year that they'd
eventually stay there. So what he did is he established
another temple. another tent in Samaria as a
new place of worship. And that was against the law
of God. That was a slap in the face of Almighty God who had
established His tent in Jerusalem. And Jeroboam, you can read about
all this in the book of 1 Kings chapter 12. That's where it's
all lined out in the historical record. But Jeroboam, he even
made golden calves And he told the people, he basically said
something like this, it's too much for you to go up to Jerusalem,
behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land
of Egypt. And it says here in verse 5 of Ezekiel 23, and Ahola
played the harlot when she was mined, and she adopted of her
lovers. And talking about false nations,
or idolatrous nations, and here it mentions Assyria. Assyria,
the Assyrian empire was her neighbor. And she played the harlot with
Assyria. So here they are. You have Ahola and Aholaba. In one place there is the true
tabernacle, the true temple of Almighty God. Do you remember
when the Lord went through Samaria and found the Samaritan woman,
the woman at the well? He began to tell her the truth
concerning salvation. And she said, let me just read
this to you in John chapter 4 verse 19, The woman saith unto him,
Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. And then she said
in verse 20, Our fathers worshipped in this mountain. Now she's talking
about this tent that Jeroboam had built, this tabernacle, this
temple that Jeroboam had built. Our fathers worshipped in this
mountain in Samaria. And she said, and you say that
in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Well, that
was the commandment of God. That's where His temple was.
And it says in verse 21, Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe
me, the hour cometh when you shall neither worship in this
mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. All that's
going to be removed. Even the true temple in Jerusalem
was going to be destroyed. The old covenant was going to
be gone. He said this to her, he said in verse 22, you worship
you know not what. Now you know what it is to worship
what you don't know? It's idolatry. That's just another
form of idolatry. That's why you cannot worship
a God you do not know. I've heard preachers say, well,
you can't know God. Well, you can know what God reveals
of himself to you through Jesus Christ. If you can't know God,
then you can't worship God. If you can't worship God, you're
worshiping an idol. And so he says, you know not
what you worship. We know what we worship. For
salvation is of the Jews. So he's talking about the difference
there. There's that false temple in Samaria. There's the true
temple in Jerusalem. Now, we know that the people
of Jerusalem and Judah, the southern kingdom, they corrupted it. We're
going to see that back here in Ezekiel 23. But that was the
case. Here's Samaria, here's the northern
kingdom, Ahola. Her own tent, she had her own
place of worship. And then here's Jerusalem, Aholababa.
God's tent. And then it starts off with Ahola's
harlotry. That's the northern kingdom.
And he records the sins of the northern kingdom. And her prostitution,
her harlotry, her adultery with the Assyrian empire. As the Assyrian
empire during this historical time gained strength, Israel,
the northern kingdom, made an alliance with her and supported
her. And eventually she was slain by Assyria. In other words, slain
by her own lovers. Look at verse nine of Ezekiel
23. It's talking about Assyria. She made alliances with Assyria.
She made alliances with Egypt too. And it says in verse nine,
wherefore I have delivered her into the hands of her lovers.
in the hands of the Assyrians unto whom she doted. These discovered
her nakedness, her shame, and remember nakedness is an emblem
of unrighteousness. That's what we are by nature,
we're naked. Just like that cast out infant
was naked. There's none righteous, no not
one. They took her sons and her daughters
and slew her with the sword. She became famous among women. Now where she had a name, but
it was the name of a harlot. for they had executed judgment
upon her. So there's what happened to Ahola,
the northern kingdom. Well, then beginning at verse
11, he turns to Aholabah, that's Jerusalem. That's the southern
kingdom of Judah. And look what he says about Aholabah. It says in verse 11, and when
her sister Aholabah saw this, now Judah and Jerusalem, they
saw what happened. up north, they saw what was going
on there, they saw the end of that nation. It says, she, now
listen to it, verse of that, she was more corrupt in her inordinate
love than her sister. That's the she there. And in
her whoredoms, more than her sister in her whoredoms. She
doted upon the Assyrians, her neighbors. Captains and rulers,
clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them
Desirable young men. There's the lust of the eyes,
isn't there? So Judah saw this, but she didn't
repent. In fact, she even became worse
at what they're saying. That's something. And you can
read about that again. You know, King Ahaz of Judah,
he openly sought alliances with Assyria. And you know what he
did? He even took the silver and gold
out of the temple in Jerusalem and in the treasuries of the
king's house, and he sent it as a present to the king of Assyria.
That's how bad it got. And he's the one who introduced
Assyrian idolatry into Jerusalem. And as you read down through
this, like I said, I'm not going to read it all, but you read
it. That's what it's talking about. It's idolatry that was
introduced into the kingdom of God, into the nation. Well, beginning
there in verse 14, he starts recording Aholabah's harlotry
with the Babylonians. Judah's harlotry with the Babylonians. And he describes that. That's
the Chaldeans, verse 14. She increased her whoredoms.
For when she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of
the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion. In other words, these
are base, idolatrous, heathen people. that she committed whoredoms
with, harlotry, prostitution. And again, you see, there's no
repentance here. All it did is increase her whoredoms. This is man by nature right here. Man let alone, allowed to go
his own natural way. That's what he's talking about.
Beginning all the way down into verse 22, and that's and and
what he does he talks about her idolatry her whoredoms with the
Babylonians Trying to make alliances, but down in verse 22 All the
way to verse 35 the message is this judgment will come now as
I told you this is Bringing Jerusalem up to the brink right here And
he says in verse 22, Therefore, O Aholabah, thus saith the Lord
God, Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee, from
whom thy mind is alienated. That is, their minds are alienated
from God. Remember in Colossians 1, it
talks about how we were alienated from God in our minds by wicked
works. That's the case here. And he
says, I will bring them against thee on every side, the Babylonians
and all the Chaldeans, Peacock and Shoah and Koah. These were
names of kings and leaders and all the Assyrians with them.
See, all of them together. And you know, when I looked at
all this, talking about their lovers turning against them,
you know who I thought about? I thought about the most prominent,
famous episode of harlotry and whoredoms against a husband in
the Bible and that's Hosea and Gomer. Because you remember that's
what happened. Hosea married Gomer and then
Gomer left Hosea and became a prostitute. Sold herself out to her lovers
and you remember when she grew old and her lovers no longer
wanted her. She was living by herself. Hosea
was taking care of her and providing food, bringing baskets of food
to her doorstep and leaving them. And she had opened the door,
remember? And who would she thank for that basket of food? Not
Hosea, but her lovers. She was living a lie. Living
a lie. You know, that's the nature of
spiritual harlotry. Spiritual harlotry, you know,
what's you know, what spiritual harlotry is you can you can you
can compare it to physical whoredom But listen to this spiritual
harlotry is an evil imitation of love That's what it is. It's it's an imitation It's false
love. That's what it is There's no
heart in it. There's no there's no fruit in
it and It's an evil imitation of love. Spiritual holitery is
a false sense of security. Very temporary, just like Gomer. When she'd open that, she'd have
the basket, she'd thank her lovers. But my friend, it wasn't her
lovers who were bringing it there. She had a false sense of security
because her heart was drawn out, not to Hosea, her husband, but
to her lovers. And then spiritual harlotry is
based on feeling and not truth. But it's feeling for the moment.
It's not everlasting eternal truth. And then spiritual harlotry
is fruit unto death. It's fruitless love. It's like
homosexuality. You know that's what homosexuality
is. It's fruitless love. No fruit. And then spiritual
harlotry is a compromise. It's a compromise of everything
about you. Your principles, your honor,
your dignity. We don't have any by nature,
do we? But you think about that. And so judgment will come. That's
what he's talking about here in these last verses. Look at
verse 35 of Ezekiel 23. It says, Therefore thus saith
the Lord God, because thou hast forgotten me and cast me behind
thy back. Therefore bear thou also thy
lewdness and thy whoredoms. Now the key there is what he's
saying. You're going to bear your lewdness and your whoredom.
You're going to bear your sin. There's no greater curse to put
upon a sinner than injustice that sinner made to bear his
sins. And that's why we take so much
comfort and assurance and peace in knowing that we have a substitute. the God-man, the mediator, the
surety who bore our sins in His own body on the tree, the Lord
Jesus Christ. You see? Well, judgment will
come. Well, in the last part of this,
he goes through a list of the abominations. Just look at them. He says in verse 36, the Lord
said moreover unto me, Son of man, wilt thou judge Ahola and
Aholaba? Yea, declaring to them their
abominations. So here's the record. And you
know, anytime I see the record of the sins, the abominations,
I just think so much of how God has placed His people under the
wing, under the shelter in the refuge, Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. Because in Him, who shall lay
anything to our charge? Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputed not iniquity. Verse 37, they that have committed
adultery and blood is in their hands, with their idols have
they committed adultery, cause their sons whom they bear unto
me to pass for them through the fire to devour them. Moreover,
this they have done unto me. They have defiled my sanctuary,
that's the temple, in the same day and have profaned my Sabbaths. How many times? As it had been
said, they profaned his Sabbath. The reason that they were going
to be in captivity for 70 years is because they profaned and
neglected the Sabbaths of the Lord. And of course, again, the
Sabbaths are types of Christ and are rest in Him. This is
a picture of man without Christ, man in his sin without Christ. There's the abominations. And
all of this, all of this is such a tragic, tragic thing, isn't
it? Look at verse 43 of Ezekiel 23. He said, Then said I unto her
that was old in adulteries, Will they now commit whoredoms with
her, and she with them? So it continues, you see. And
so yet they went unto her, and as they go in unto a woman that
playeth the harlot, so they went into Ahola, and unto Aholabah
the lewd women. So now, this is the record. Now look at verse 45. He says,
and the righteous men, they shall judge them after the manner of
adulteresses and after the manner of women that shed blood because
they're adulteresses and blood is in their hands. Now, who are
these righteous men? Well, most gospel commentators
say, and I agree with them that this righteous, uh, described
here is the saved remnant of the Lord. the elect remnant who
are made righteous, justified in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. Anytime the scripture describes
the righteous before God, that's who he's talking about, sinners
saved by grace. We talk about Noah is described
as a righteous person. Well, what do we know about Noah?
The first thing it said about him, he found grace in the sight
of the Lord. So this is talking about sinners
saved by grace. And it says, the righteous men,
they shall judge them after the manner of adulterous. Now Christ
is the judge, but it is our testimony of Christ of our, of our judgment
in and by him and our righteousness in him that will confirm his
judgment towards the wicked. And I thought about this, you
know, in John chapter eight, when they brought the adulterous
woman to the, to the people, the Pharisees, and they were
going to stone her. Well, you remember Christ said,
let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Well, now he's
certainly not given us any indication here that we can throw stones
because we're all sinners saved by grace. But we who are righteous
in Christ can say, honestly, we are without sin in him. That's right. He was made sin. We're made the righteousness
of God in him. And that's his righteousness
imputed to us, which we receive by God given faith. So in the
last part of this chapter, he simply says they're gonna bear
the penalty of their sins. Look at verse 46. For thus saith
the Lord God, I will bring up a company upon them, and I'll
give them to be removed and spoiled, and the company shall stone them
with stones, that's the judgment of the law, the old covenant
for adulteresses and harlots, and dispatch them with their
swords, They shall slay their sons and their daughters, and
burn up their houses with fire. Thus will I cause lewdness to
cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do
after your lewdness. And they shall recompense your
lewdness upon you, and you shall bear the sins of your idols.
And you shall know that I am the Lord." So they brought it
on themselves. God is just in exacting his wrath
upon them. In Israel and her prostitution
and adultery is a perfect picture of God's elect fallen in Adam. Our natural state of sin and
depravity that although we were betrothed to Christ in the everlasting
covenant of grace, we fell in Adam, didn't we? We were born
in spiritual death and depravity and begin our lives in spiritual
adultery and prostitution. That's what we did. Just like
Hosea's wife, Gomer, we prostituted ourselves out to other gods,
a god of our imagination. That was the case until God brought
us to what the scriptures call faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
and repentance of dead works and idolatry. And in all that
time, our Lord and betrothed husband loved us. Even when we
were dead in trespasses and sins, the book of Ephesians chapter
2 says, He protected us. He knew me long before I ever
knew Him. And He protected me long before
I ever acknowledged Him and served Him and believed Him. He suffered
long with us, didn't He? The long suffering of God. And
not only that, think about this, then He came and He died for
us. paying the ransom price of our
slavery. Just like Gomer, remember she
was sold into slavery and Hosea come along and he bought her
off the auction block. Well, that's what Christ did
for us in his work on the cross in saving us from our sins, washing
us clean in his blood, our dirt and our filth of our sins. He washed us clean by his blood. And he gave us the wedding garment
of his righteousness, which he worked out and established. And
that's why we're called the bride of Christ. And he breathed life
into us by the Holy spirit who brought us to him with cords
of love and grace and mercy. There's two things this sad judgment
should do for us. I believe when we read passages
like Ezekiel 23, number one, It should make every one of us
who know the Lord truly know him savingly by the power of
his grace in Christ. It should make every one of us
who are saved more and more thankful unto God for that great salvation
he's freely given us in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. You know,
when I think about spiritual harlotry, I think about the book
of revelation too. In Revelation 17, you don't have
to turn there, it talks about Babylon the great whore. And
how all the kings of the earth followed the great whore, crawled
into bed spiritually with the great whore. And then in Revelation
21 it talks about the new Jerusalem and it talks about coming down
as a bride, a bride adorned by her husband, the church, And
I think about this, what is the difference, the real difference
between those who crawl into bed with the great whore, the
great harlot, spiritual harlotry, and we who are the washed, clothed,
spiritually alive bride of Christ? And you know what it is? One
thing, grace. Grace, that's it. If it weren't
for the sovereign grace and mercy of God, where would we be? We'd still be in bed with the
great harlot. We'd be spiritual harlots. And
so, therefore, we should all be so thankful. Thank you, Lord,
for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me
whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to
me thy great salvation so rich and so free. You think about
it. If God ever gave us what we deserve
or what we earn, where would we be? But we have a righteousness
that answers the demands of God's law and justice. We have a righteousness
that cannot be blemished, that cannot be removed, that will
last forever and ever. And it is Christ and him crucified
and risen from the dead. The second thing that it should
do is it should make us ever on our guard against spiritual
adultery and harlotry within ourselves and within the church.
You know how spiritual harlotry always begins? It always begins
with compromise of the truth. And let's close. Let's look back
over at Revelation 2 one more time. You know, as you read about the
seven churches in Revelation, There are several different ways
that people look at this, and you might be able to make applications
in each case. Some say, well, this is a digression
of the church in the last age, going from Ephesus where they
lost their first love, their fervor, their fire and zeal for
the gospel and the doctrines of Christ and the truth. And
certainly, we don't want to be like that. Lord, keep us ever,
ever on fire for the gospel, to get the gospel out, to keep
the gospel here. That's what we want. We don't
want to ever get lax or lazy in that area, in any place. Because that's what he was talking
about in Ephesus. And then he goes on through and
he comes to the church. It all gets down to Laodicea
to where it was good for nothing but to be spewed forth, vomited
out. Others, and I sort of take this view that it's just talking
about conditions that will exist in the church in the last days
that come like in Sardis. He says you have a name that
you live but you're dead. In other words, they call themselves
Christian but they're really not. But either way, you look
at this church at Thyatira. And it speaks of this woman Jezebel.
Some people say that's an actual woman named Jezebel. I don't
believe it is. I believe it's just speaking
of a spirit, a spirit, an evil spirit of spiritual harlotry
that comes under the name, the moniker of Jezebel. Because you know about Jezebel.
She introduced idolatry into Israel. She was a wicked woman. She stood against the prophets
of God and the truth of God. And this is a, this is a spirit
here and it's called a prophetess. So maybe I don't, you know, some
say, well, that means it was a woman or women or whatever.
And that could very well be because I, you, you know, as well as
the women, I'm not just putting down women to say this, but you
know, it's true that most false religion is run by women. And
so this prophecy in verse 20 says, to teach and to seduce
my servants to commit fornication. Same thing as spiritual adultery,
spiritual harlotry. And it always begins with compromise. Compromise of the gospel based
on emotion or human reasoning or human logic. And he says,
verse 21, I gave her space to repent of her fornication and
she repented not. And so he goes on to tell them,
In verse 24, he says, unto you I say and unto the rest of Thyatira,
as many as have not this doctrine, this doctrine of Jezebel, this
doctrine of compromise, compromising the gospel, introducing, you
read it in Hebrews 13, strange doctrines, that's foreign, foreign
to the gospel, diverse doctrines, that's various doctrines that
oppose the gospel or deny it or water it down. And he says,
who have not this doctrine and which have not known the depths
of Satan as they speak. In other words, they've gone
the full depths of compromise. He said, I will put upon you
none other burden, but that which you have already hold fast till
I come. You see that? Hold fast the gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace in Christ. Don't budge on it.
Don't give in on it. Don't compromise it. Don't allow
it in the pulpit. That if it doesn't, that which
compromises it or waters it down. When it comes to the person of
Christ, who he is and what he accomplished on Calvary. When
it comes to the necessity of the new birth, all of these things,
we could go on and on with these things, but it's all the sovereign
grace of God, the doctrines of grace, total depravity, unconditional
election. limited atonement, irresistible
grace, perseverance, preservation of the saints. Those are all
gospel doctrines that cannot be compromised. They cannot be. And he concludes it with the
way he concludes every one of his messages to the seven churches.
He that hath an ear to hear what the spirit sayeth unto the churches. Hear, let him hear what the spirit
say. So he has, he who has ears, let
him hear. All right.