If you have found that place,
Ezekiel 16, 1 through 14, then let us read from the Word of
God. Again, the Word of the Lord came
unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abomination,
and say, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem, Thy birth
and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan, thy father an Amorite,
thy mother an Hittite. As for thy nativity, in the day
that thou was born, thy navel cord was not cut, neither was
thy washed in water to supple, thou was not salted at all, nor
swaddled at all. None, I pitied thee, to do any
of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee. For thou wast cast
out in the open field to the loathing of thy person in the
day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee, saw
thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, when thou wast
in thy blood, live. Yea, I said unto thee, in thy
blood live. I have caused thee to multiply
as the bud of the field. Thou hast increased and waxen
great. Thou art come to excellent ornaments. Thy breasts are fashioned, thine
hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Now when I passed
by thee, 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 covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou became
mine. Then washed I thee with water.
Yea, I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed
thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broadered
work, shod thee with badger skin, girded thee about with fine linen,
and I covered thee with silk. I decked thee also with ornaments,
I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck, and
I put a jewel on thy forehead, earrings in thine ears, and a
beautiful crown upon thy head. Thus was thou decked with gold
and silver, and thy raiment was fine linen and silk, and broadered
were. Thou didst eat fine flour, and
honey, and oil. And thou wast exceedingly 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 put upon thee, saith the Lord." Let's begin with this
manner of introduction. If you were to back up in the
book of Ezekiel and read what goes before, you would discover
that the prophet had been speaking unto the people of their deserved
and of their coming judgment that was to come. Even that they
were under, at that particular time, judgment from God. Many of them yonder in Babylon
in captivity. And the prophet spends a lot
of time riding upon the sureness and the nearness of the execution
and of the punishment, and showing them that it was fully justified,
that God had every reason in the world to bring judgment upon
them, and that they had no reason in the world to complain about
it. And in Ezekiel chapter 12 and
verse 23, the days are at hand. and the effect of every vision,
that is, their fulfillment. And in Ezekiel chapter 12, verse
26 through verse 28, God there, as Matthew Henry wrote, is justifying
himself for what he is about to bring upon them as a nation. such as in chapter 14. They had
set up idols in their heart. They had made idol gods within
their own heart. Why should God then hear them
when they called upon Him? Their prayer would not be answered. And to make matters worse, their
teachers and their instructors were liars and deceivers. Then we come to chapter 15 of
Ezekiel, where he pictures Israel there under the simile of a useless
vine. Lifeless and useless. It's wood not fit to make anything
useful, not even so much as a peg to hang on the wall to hang up
a vessel. What then is to be done with
it? Was it useful? What use had it? What would be done? Well, it
would be used for fuel and though burned and though charred on
the ends and in the middle, yet even if some of it were to survive
the heat of the fire, what good was it? What value had it unto
anyone? It was useless when it was yet
whole. How much less when it has been
charred and burned in the fire. Now this simile is applied to
the disobedient and the gainsaying people of Israel. Though they
survive one judgment or one fire, yet another one shall come and
shall the more consume them. Judgment was coming. The prophet
is warning them. And like a vine tree, which God
planted, is a figure of Israel. Isaiah chapter 5, he uses that
figure. And yet, if it bear no fruit. And in Hosea chapter 10, And
verse 1 we read, Israel is an empty vine, therefore what value
has it above the other trees that are in the forest? So here we have the Jewish nation
all but apostate. How then does it differ, or is
it better, from the other nations of the world? And here we might
make the point that Israel, by birth and by nature, was no whit
better than any of the other nations of the world. Just as,
by the way, the very elect of God were by birth and by nature
nothing better than the world of sinners that will perish. it all rests in the sovereignty
and the goodness of our great and wonderful God. Moses reminded
Israel upon a certain occasion Deuteronomy 7, verse 7, God did
not choose you because you were more in number than other people,
for you were the fewest of all people. He chose you only because
He would and because of the covenant made with the fathers. But now,
coming to chapter 16 and our text this morning, the prophet
is bidden here to change his message and use another metaphor. It had been a vine back in chapter
15, a thing belonging to the plant or, shall we say, to the
vegetation variety or kingdom. not something with intelligence
or emotion or feeling, but a vine. But he will now portray Israel,
likening them in their beginning to a little infant even newborn
female, cast away at the very time as soon as they were born,
and either dead or sure to die. But then that little infant girl
rescued and given all of the necessary care, all of the necessary
supplements, that might sustain her in life and in hell. And consequently, we read that
she grew into a young woman. She reached her womanhood and
then was taken in marriage. And we read that she was given
many amenities. Many blessings were bestowed
upon her and heaped upon her head. She was well supplied by
this great benefactor that came by and did her much good. So that what began in despair,
a little infant cast out, in the open field and left to die,
despair and hopelessness, what seemed to be a very bleak future,
if a future at all, brought instead unto her manifold blessing. Or in the metaphor, she grew
to be a beautiful young maiden, a young woman, and she was loved
and she was married. She was given a most bountiful
dowry in that occasion. She was known for the husband
that had taken her, but then she became, in the last of the
chapter, an unfaithful harlot unto her husband and unto her
God. Now, these things are spiritualized
by the prophet in the Scripture, where he speaks here not of an
individual, but of a nation, and not of a physical husband
and wife, but of a covenant God and of his people, and not of
worldly endowments, are we looking, but of spiritual blessings that
were bestowed and heaped without number upon her. Still, the figure
from which it is drawn here is very clear. And looking at it,
we can see that in two aspects, it has been played out in time
over and over again in human history. Both of them strong
evidences of human depravity, of the sinfulness of man. First of all, let's look at the
situation. In verse 4 again, there you have
a newborn baby girl cast out in an open field, even in the
day of her birth. Nothing done at all to help her. Not even the blood of her birth
was washed away. She was cast out exactly when
and as she was born. Exposed to the insects and the
elements and the varmints. She was not fed. She was not
clothed. We can imagine her crying until
she could cry no more. And yet, none I pitied her, we
read in the scripture. You get the picture. In fact,
such a thing is regularly repeated in our city or in some other
city. A newsflash comes on. Newborn found in dumpster. Police and protective services
want to speak with the mother. I remember, maybe you do, the
two most recent in our city. One of them was found thrown
away in a dumpster. The other day, one found in the
bathroom of a place of business. Possibly illegitimate, but certainly
unwanted. Thrown away like a common piece
of garbage. You probably know that Texas
has what is called the Baby Moses Law, and that means that a newborn
young infant can be dropped off in a certain place, a hospital,
a fire station or such like, and no questions will be asked
and no charges will be brought at all. But I'm digressing. Now, the second analogy is more
drawn out. But also, this has been multiplied
times played out in our history and in our lifetime. Picture
in your mind, if you will, a child, a girl, born into a disadvantaged
home and a situation. dubious parenthood she possessed
at best, not proper breeding and not proper bringing up, but
growing up nevertheless to be a young, fair, and a beautiful
woman. She is then taken to wife by
someone who has come to dearly love her, who gives her a new
life, a good life if you will, only to have her be unfaithful
unto that union. But again, I digress. Coming
to the particular symbol and why it is you. Now the purpose
of speaking to Israel and likening them to this female in each of
her stages, a baby, a young maiden, a wife and such like. The purpose
is in verse 2, to cause Jerusalem to know, that is to see, to be
aware of her abomination. Now this word abomination is
a word frequently found in the Old Testament. I counted it ten
times in this one chapter that we're reading from this morning.
It means something that is disgusting, something that is detestable,
something that is abhorrent in thought and in eye. A thing such as adultery or a
thing such as idolatry. And as it is brought before us
in this chapter, spiritual whoredoms and spiritual infidelity. Now, the prophet of God was to
lay bare their great sin. He was to spare not. He was to
drive it home into their heart. He was to set their transgressions
out in a row, bring them to light, make them manifest, cause Israel
to see her abomination. Ezekiel the prophet was ordered
to lay bare to the Jew their abomination toward their faithful
and their covenant God. And what were her abominations
then is well documented in this chapter of the Scripture. In
keeping with the image of the young newborn female, then of
a wife, the prophet charges them with infidelity. In this chapter
We have depravity, we have love, we have infidelity. Calvin said
the prophets showed that their chief wickedness consisted in
deserting God's law and prostituting themselves unto idols and setting
up adulterous houses like houses of ill fame, unquote. That is, in this scripture, this
chapter brought out. If we were to look ahead, let's
do very quickly, in the 15th verse, they trusted in their
beauty, and they played the harlot, and they poured out fornications
on everyone that passed by. Verse 16, they played the harlot. Verse 17, committed whoredoms
with the images of men. Verse 22 speaks of thy whoredoms. Verse 25, how graphic perhaps
of all. Thou hast opened thy feet to
every one that pass by and has multiplied thy whoredoms. Now, look at verse 28, which
I shall read. Thou hast played the whore also
with the Assyrian, because thou wast insatiable, yea, thou hast
played the harlot with them, thou couldst not be satisfied. Verse 29, Thou hast moreover
multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea,
Yet was thou not satisfied therewith. Jumping to verse 35. Wherefore,
O harlot, hear the word of God. Verse 38. And I will judge thee
as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged, and I
will give thee blood in fury and in jealousy. We should remember
that at times in the Holy Scripture, God likens Himself to a spiritual
husband unto the covenant people. He calls Himself that, a spiritual
husband unto them. One place, Jeremiah 3, verse
14. The prophet says to them, Turn,
O backsliding children, for I am married unto you. Again in Jeremiah
31 and 32, My covenant they broke, although I was a husband unto
them. Note that he calls himself a
husband is equal spiritually to saying he is their God and
is their covenant God. But let's go back. to the little
deserted infant and her pitiful condition and what follows in
the record. For this is told in order to
accentuate, that is, in order to emphasize, to intensify, to
increase the severity of their sin and that it might be put
in a proper light. to stress the heinousness of
their spiritual adultery. Because when they were blessed
by God, they had not remembered or they had forgotten the pit
from which they were digged and delivered. They had forgotten
what they were when God saw them polluted in their own blood and
said unto them when they were in the danger of death, live. And he said, spread his skirt
over them. You remember that, of course,
from the book of Ruth when Boaz spread his skirt over Ruth and
took her to wife, chapter 3 and verse 9. But here in our chapter,
in verse 3 through verse 5, consider their beginnings as well laid
out. They were not from nobility. They were not a great nation,
not from a mighty nation. They were from an Amorite and
a Hittite mother a father and mother. Hosea chapter 2 speaks
very strongly along this line, the same line of the people in
his day. And in chapter 2 there, verse
4 and verse 5, And I will not have mercy upon her children,
for they be the children of whoredoms, for their mother has played the
harlot. She that conceived them has done
shamefully For she said, I will go after my lovers that give
me bread and water and wood and flax and such like. And in verse
3 of Hosea chapter 2, lest I strip thee naked and set her as in
the day that she was born. How well that fits with our text.
And should someone then hear these things and raise the question
in their mind, where is what has become of the covenant and
the promise made unto Abraham? Calvin addressed that question
here in Ezekiel chapter 16. that God was never driven off
of His purpose and His election was never in vain. And yet the
people were rebellious and disobedient. They corrupted themselves time
after time, way after way. They learned the way of the heathen,
and they even worshipped at times the pagan deities of those heathen. But let's go back to their lowly
origin. Ezekiel 16, verse 4 and verse
5. He uses, as we've said, the metaphor
of a newborn not attended, not wanted, not loved, not helped. even thrown out in the field,
and he makes note, the navel cord not cut, not tied, not cleansed,
and not loved. Still God, likening himself to
one that passed by, saw them there in their blood, trodden
underfoot, still in their blood, and He preserved their life. He saved them alive, saying to
them, Live in the sixth birth. For what it is worth, I agree
with Kyle and Dalich, in their commentary, John Gill, that this
birth that he speaks of here, or this metaphor that he uses,
corresponds to their early sojourn down into the land of Egypt. They were then a weak band of
but seventy souls. cast underfoot, especially after
Joseph died, and were made slaves, hated and mistreated by the Egyptians,
treated very cruelly in their slavery, and yet they survived
because God preserved them and said unto them, Live. Not only preserve them, but then
look at verse 7. caused them to multiply as the
bud of the field. He made them grow into a great
multitude, and numerically Or shall we say, historically speaking,
when Joseph brought the family of Jacob down into the land of
Egypt, they numbered three score and ten according to Genesis
chapter 46 and verse 27. When God delivered them out of
the land of Egypt, their number was somewhere between six and
eight hundred thousand people. Numbers 1 and verse 46. But a prophet is carrying the
image of a young female. And he likens them, not only
saved and spared in their infancy, but to their increase and coming
unto puberty and beyond. He describes the arrival of young
and tender womanhood. In the last half of verse 7,
if you look, For thou art come to excellent ornaments, thy breast
are fashioned, they're developed full, thy hair grown, a sort
of rite of passage here when a young girl begins or takes
the transition into a young woman. And then comes to the age and
maturity to be married. Now, this metaphor here of their
puberty corresponds to chapter 16, verse 7a, I have caused thee
to multiply as the bud of the field. And we see in Exodus 1
and verse 7, They increased abundantly, they multiplied, they waxed exceedingly
mighty and filled the land. There it is. But then the prophet
reverts right back to them under the metaphor of a young woman
ready to become a wife as in verse 8. God again passed by. God looked upon her and look,
her time was the time of love. and holding to the metaphor,
I spread my skirt over you, I swear unto thee, I made covenant with
you, and you became mine. The marriage nuptials consisted
in the covenant made with them at Sinai. But a covenant corresponds,
in the metaphor, to the marriage vow, called a sort of a marriage
contract. When we think about it, marriage
is a covenant. Marriage between a man and a
woman is a covenant. It is a covenant as husband and
wife promise to love. and to honor and to cherish. A most unique union it certainly
is, whereby each do forsake all others and come together in a
one flesh union, so that adultery in the flesh is a breaking of
the covenant of marriage, just as the worship of false gods
is spiritual adultery. Now, let's look at how richly
God endowed his wife, and you have that in verse 9 through
verse 14 of our chapter, which section tells about how greatly
God provided for them. Notice what God did. God provided
the cleansing. He said, I wash thee. He provided
her clothing. He said, I clothe thee with broadered
work and badger skin. God said, I adorn thee, ornaments,
bracelets, a chain, jewels, earrings, a crown for her head even gold
and silver. Then again in verse 13, her clothing,
notice it, fine linen, silk, broadered work, the best, the
finest, to mark her as the wife of distinction. and greatly loved
and provided for by her husband out of his love. Her food is
mentioned in verse 13. You did eat fine flour, honey,
and oil. The best dainties of the day. And in verse 13, look again,
you were exceedingly beautiful and did prosper into a kingdom. And I believe verse 13 sums up
verse 9 through verse 12 very well. And this is sort of all
summed up when we look at verse 14. Thy renown went forth among
the heathen for thy beauty. For it was perfect through my
calmliness which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God." And
some suggest that this reached its apex. It reached its height
and its glory. in the days of the reign of David
and of Solomon. But the gist of all of this is
the preeminent glory in the theocracy in that time. In short, the people
of the nation at that time had been greatly exalted and glorified
by God above all other nations upon the face of the globe. They had been exalted. They had
been chosen as the people of Jehovah out of all of the nation
upon the face of the earth. It reminds me of one time when
Moses, speaking unto the people, said unto them, you'll find it
in Deuteronomy 4, 7-8, as he asked the people, what nation
is there so great? who has God so nigh unto them,
as the Lord our God in all that we call upon Him for? What nation
so great that has statutes and judgments so righteous as all
this law I set before you this day?" Now the answer, not any
other. No other nation was so dignified
or so blessed or so exalted. They were a special and a peculiar
people unto the Lord. Exodus 9 and verse 15, a peculiar
treasure unto me. And Paul lists their privilege
and blessing in the Roman epistle. For example, in chapter 3 of
Romans, Verse 1 and 2, they were the circumcision of Abraham,
and they had the oracles of God committed unto them. But in Romans
9, 4 and 5, he expands even further upon that. To them pertained
the adoption, the glory, the covenant, the giving of the law,
the services of God, and the promises. All of these were heaped
upon and were given unto that people. Indeed, no other nation
had been so blessed as that one who began like a little infant
cast out in the open field and would have died except for special
mercy and help. Now, in verse 14, God makes it
clear. They had not made themselves
to differ. Their exaltation, their exalted
state was owing to nothing in them or about them. For though their renown went
forth among the heathen because of their beauty and because of
their renown, and if they be betrayed as another female, they
had been envious of the Lord's covenant people. The other nations
of the world had been envious of her as she had been so blessed
and God had been so good and so liberal unto His people. But still the Lord is very clear. The people had not arrived at
their fame and their beauty by any virtue of their own. They were not noble. through
their own native intelligence, is how one expositor has put
it. For look at verse 14 again and
very carefully. God calls it, My calmliness. And then He said, Which I put
upon you. My calmliness which I put upon
you. They had not raised or elevated
themselves, from a deserted, dirty infant to being the elegant,
beautiful wife of a king. None can make themselves the
people of God. None can initiate covenant with
God. So here we have a grand example
of election carried forth in that God chose them in their
father Abraham. Stephen spoke about that as he
spoke before the council. You'll find it in Acts 7, verse
2 and verse 3. The God of glory appeared unto
our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia and called him
out of that country and away from his kin and into a new land
that he knew not of. But coming now to verse 15 of
the 16th chapter of Ezekiel and following. And here the story
takes a turn. It is not beautiful ever after. We have a description now given
in great detail of Israel's spiritual infidelity. Her spiritual harlotry,
if you will. Verse 15, But you did trust in
your beauty and played the harlot. It shows a common pattern among
the human family to profane the gifts and blessings of God. Let God bless greatly and we
are sure to pervert them. We are sure to profane them.
And turn it, Israel did, into multiple whoredoms on their part. And like it or not, the prophet
likens them to a famous and alluring prostitute who practices her
trade with many illegitimate lovers that pass by. A case here
where we might say that the blessing of beauty can become a curse,
or at least be used on the devious ends to entice and to seduce. Again, remember the warning of
Solomon to the young man, to the simple young man, as he calls
him in Proverbs 7 and verse 10. He warns him of the strange woman
with the attire of an harlot and subtle of heart who seduces
him. And in Proverbs 6 verse 25, lust
not after her beauty in your heart, neither let her take you
with her eyelids. May I quote a passage in Proverbs
11 and verse 22. As a jewel of gold, get this
picture, as a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair
woman without discretion. Well, let's go back to Israel
as an unfaithful spouse who, because of her beauty and because
of her fame, made her beauty to become a snare and her fame
a fountain of pride for her. As Gil put it, she became proud
and haughty. She played the harlot. She embraced
strange and heathen gods. She built houses under them in
which she dwelt. And she worshipped in the grove. She worshipped a golden calf
in the wilderness in Exodus 32, dancing about it naked and saying,
O these be thy gods, O Israel, that brought thee up out of the
land of Canaan. We remember again that she burned
incense unto the serpent of brass." Remember Moses made a serpent
of brass and put it on a pole, and any that looked might be
healed of the deadly serpent's bite. And Israel kept that and
in time began to burn incense unto it until finally one king
came and destroyed it. Not only that, but she held dalliances
with the Egyptian, with the Assyrian, with the Chaldean, and every
other lover that she met. She fell into an amorous and
illegitimate relation with those gods of the heathen. And this
stretched out, as it were, over the centuries. every lover that
she met. She forgot the days of her youth. She forgot again when she was
naked and when she was bare and had nothing. She forgot the days
when she was unloved and unwanted. She forgot the day when she lay
out there polluted in her very own blood. This shows that not
every god is good and acceptable as an object of worship. It is
idolatry to worship any but the God of heaven. He declared that
loudly to Israel. I am the Lord thy God who brought
thee up out of the land of Egypt. Thou shalt have no other gods
before me. And then, when we read these
things as individuals, we think about individuals, even about
our individual self, how God graciously saved us, how He freely
and fully pardoned our sin, And yet, how sinful we have been
when He called us, and how sinful we have been even yet after His
blessings have come. Paul in Corinthians, naming some
who would not inherit the kingdom of God, says to the Corinthians,
such were some of you. Such were some of you. Here's
this great list of sinners and ways that shall not inherit the
kingdom of God. And Paul says, such were some
of you at one time, but now you're washed. You're sanctified. You're cleansed. and such like,
you are washed away from your sin. We can say as we close,
thank God we are not what we used to be. Though we're not
what we shall be, yet we're not what we used to be. Sometimes
I think we all must feel like the expositor who wrote these
words, quote, my soul has been that faithless spouse of Jehovah,
unquote. We feel as if we have been that
unfaithful one. We don't have time to look at
it, but in spite of all of her spiritual fornications that are
laid out in this chapter, in Ezekiel 16 and verse 60 through
verse 63, God declares that He would yet be true unto His covenant,
especially that one made with Abraham. But He foretells a coming
better and new covenant to be made with Israel, that in days
to come a new and a better covenant would be made, not in and with
Abraham, but in and with Christ, the Son of God, the very Messiah. The first covenant they broke
They shattered it. They broke it all to pieces when
they transgressed the law and served other gods and, as he
said, went a-whoring after the gods of the heathen. made a new
covenant, introduced it when Jesus Christ came and brought
a new and a better covenant, a better mediator, a better surety,
a better testator, and a better sacrifice and better blood. Thank
God for that. Israel was a disobedient and
a gang-saying people all throughout their history. The Bible is very
clear. God, a merciful God, God, a merciful
God who time after time recovered them, restored them, helped them,
blessed them because of the faithfulness unto his covenant. Thank God
great is his faithfulness.