The Lord’s Faithless Bride
Download MP3If you would, open in your bibles to Ezekiel 16 Ezekiel 16. And before we we read this text, I I just want to kinda introduce it a little bit. One of my friends has been trying to get me for years to to see a movie called To End All Wars. I don't really know much about it, But just keep saying, you gotta see it, you gotta see this. And I don't know if you have friends who do that to you, like you've just got to see this movie.
Jeffrey Heine:For me, that makes me think I'm just never going to watch the movie. It's just kind of the way I am. Even though they, they say, you know, you see this movie, it's incredible. It's going to change you. I'm thinking, I don't want to go to a movie that's going to change me.
Jeffrey Heine:That's just, that's not me. I don't want to go for some big emotional experience. Lauren and I, when we go to see a movie, which might be once every other year if we could get out, it's gonna have to be a comedy, some kind of distraction. Something like Dumb and Dumber, Zoolander, something like that. They were going to have to see.
Jeffrey Heine:I don't want a life changing movie. Rwanda, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan. I know that they're those are amazing movies, But I can remember being so anxious about going to see them. Because I knew when I I did go to see them, I would leave with a different perspective. I'd be so emotionally engaged.
Jeffrey Heine:I've actually never even made it through Rwanda. The text that we're looking at tonight is like one of those movies. The text would be rated R because it has to be in order to convey the emotions that need to be conveyed. You simply could not do it in a G rated text. So this text is graphic.
Jeffrey Heine:It is semi pornographic. It's raw with emotion. It is not easy to read. Jewish children were not allowed to read this. You had to be a grown Jewish adult before you were allowed to even look at this text.
Jeffrey Heine:And so you're not gonna find this in any kind of illustrated children's Bible even today. Ezekiel 16, will begin in chapter or verse 1. Again, the word of the lord came to me. Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations and say, thus says the lord god to Jerusalem, your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.
Jeffrey Heine:And as for your birth, on the day that you were born, your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling clothes. No eye pitied you to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you. But you were cast out on out on the open field for you were abandoned or for you were abhorred on the day that you were born. And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, live. I said to you in your blood, live.
Jeffrey Heine:I made you flourish like a plant of the field, and you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed and your hair had grown, yet you were naked and bare. When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love. And I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the lord god and you became mine.
Jeffrey Heine:Then, I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you, and anointed you with oil. I clothed you also with embroidered cloth, and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. And I put a ring on your nose, and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head.
Jeffrey Heine:Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty. For it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the lord god.
Jeffrey Heine:Because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby. Your beauty became his. You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore. The like has never been nor ever shall be. You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men.
Jeffrey Heine:And with them played the whore. And he took her embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and incense before them. Also my bread that I gave you, I fed you with the fine flour and of oil and honey. You set before them for a pleasing aroma. And so it was, declares the lord god.
Jeffrey Heine:And he took your sons and your daughters whom you had born to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whoring so small a matter that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them? And in all your abominations and your whorings, you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bare and wallowing in your blood. Go to verse 30. How sick is your heart, declares the lord god, because you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen prostitute.
Jeffrey Heine:Building your vaulted chamber at the head of every street and making your lofty place in every square. Yet you were not like a prostitute, because you scorned payment. Adulterous wife who receives strangers instead of her husband. Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side with your whorings. So you were different from other women in your whorings.
Jeffrey Heine:No one solicited you to play the whore, and you gave payment while no payment was given to you. Therefore, you were different. Go to verse 62. I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the lord, that you may remember and be confounded. And never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Pray with me. Lord, these are weighty words from you. Hard words to hear. But we need to hear them. So don't let me get in the way.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't don't As tempted as I might be, don't let me soften your words. That's not my job. My job is to make clear your words. And so that's what I ask now through your Holy Spirit that you bring clarity and power to your words. Don't let me get in the way.
Jeffrey Heine:I pray that my words would fall to the ground, and blow away and not be remembered anymore. The Lord, may your words remain and may they hit their mark and change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. At 63 verses, Ezekiel 16 is the longest prophecy in the Bible.
Jeffrey Heine:It is longer than the entire books of Jonah, Nahum, Haggai, Obadiah. And so just I mean, just this alone should get our attention as to the magnitude of this text. But what really sets this apart is the emotion that is there. It's just a lot different than other texts in the bible. There's so much emotion.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, last night at Urban Standard at our theological coffee house, we went through the book of Romans. And in Romans, Paul, he really takes his time to methodically and and systematically explain his gospel. The gospel of God. And he uses words like, you know, sanctification, justification, propitiation. He uses all of these these words to help us understand the gospel, and it's a very intellectual letter.
Jeffrey Heine:You you have to use all of your mental energy to to kinda work through his arguments and understand his gospel. Ezekiel 16 is the complete opposite of this. They're both gospel, but it's a complete opposite of Romans. We get the same theology, but now we get it in the form of a story, and in the form of raw emotion. And so for a brief moment, we actually get this little peek into God's heart to see how he views our sin.
Jeffrey Heine:You can find the events that are being described here in, in 2nd Chronicles. But in 2nd Chronicles, you're gonna go and you're just gonna see it like a, you know, a historian just describing the events. This is more like a journal. God journaling about what has happened. And you're gonna get a whole range of emotions.
Jeffrey Heine:Ezekiel here is speaking in particular to Israel. More specifically, he is speaking to Jerusalem. These words are just as easily directed at us because the sins that are talked about, we we we sin in the same way. So I want us to look at this range of emotions that the Lord goes through. The story starts with a birth.
Jeffrey Heine:Usually a birth story is a happy story. It's a joyful story. I can tell you in detail about the birth of all 3 of my little girls. It was a joyous time. Not here.
Jeffrey Heine:Look at verse 4. And as for your birth, on the day you were born, your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling clothes. No eye pitied you to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field for you were abhorred on the day that you were born. And so a baby girl is born here, yet this this baby's never washed, never clothed. This baby's just discarded like trash, which was fairly common in this day.
Jeffrey Heine:People saw this child wallowing in its own uterine blood. They heard this child and they didn't have compassion. They they didn't even turn towards this child. This child was abhorred. And and when we see that graphic picture, I hope you see yourself and your condition.
Jeffrey Heine:That's everyone in this room because you were dead or as good as dead in your sins. We we saw that last night in Romans 633. It says that the wages of sin is death. We've all sinned and so we reap death. You have no hope unless somebody comes and saves you.
Jeffrey Heine:Before Christ, you you couldn't crawl, you you couldn't feed yourself, you couldn't wash or clothe yourself. There was no one to come to your aid, and so what Ezekiel is doing here is describing the most helpless of all situations. But then Yahweh, the Lord, saw you. He came and he rescued you. He looked at you wallowing in your own blood and said, live.
Jeffrey Heine:And I love this. To to communicate the power of this, this entire sentence is repeated in Hebrew. It says, and lord saw you in your own blood and said, live. I said to you in your blood, live. And god's word never returns void.
Jeffrey Heine:It accomplishes its purpose. And when he looked at you and he said, live, you came alive. The the same god who said, let there be light, and boom there's light. Let there be stars. There's stars.
Jeffrey Heine:Let there be the earth, and there's earth. The same god who spoke creation into existence, looked at you at one point, dead in your sins, and said, live. And no power of sin could keep you dead. You came alive. He gave you life.
Jeffrey Heine:And you did nothing to deserve those words. You did not earn those words. God was not looking at you and somehow impressed. He spoke those words because he is merciful and gracious. We come to verse 78, and we see that this child grows up like a weed.
Jeffrey Heine:She becomes mature. She becomes beautiful. And then we get this switch of metaphor here. The metaphor switches from a father loving his daughter, his adopted daughter, to now it's a man loving his bride. If if you remember, I mean as you know, we call God, our father.
Jeffrey Heine:And then we call Jesus, who is equally God, we call him he's our bridegroom. And we see both of those images here. And the reason that God goes by the, you know, by title of father or by bridegroom is because he's trying to show you all different facets of his love. I I love my children different than I love my wife. Yet God gave them both as an image so that I can understand his love for us.
Jeffrey Heine:It helps me complete that picture, and it's why in our our songs, sometimes our songs that resemble love songs of adoration. Sometimes we we sing, you know, about our father who's adopted us. We we use a range of songs to try to get the completeness of this love. So the metaphor here, it shifts. In verse 8, when it says that, he spread his garment over her nakedness.
Jeffrey Heine:We're we're reminded of Ruth and Boaz. That story, if you remember, that's how they got engaged. As Boaz, he spread his garment over Ruth. Said, I'm gonna make you mine. After the lord makes his marriage covenant with this woman, look at all the details that happened here.
Jeffrey Heine:He he washed her. He clothed her. He gave her expensive clothes and jewelry. She ate only the best foods. Her beauty was stunning.
Jeffrey Heine:She becomes royalty. She becomes a princess. And all the nations are in awe of her splendor, and and that's us. When God when God saves you, and he he he makes you beautiful. And you get that language in Ephesians when he says, that we were created for good works in Christ, and that we are his workmanship.
Jeffrey Heine:And that word workmanship is masterpiece. God creates us, and we're his beautiful masterpiece. So up to this point, I mean, this is a fantastic story. You kind of wish it ended there. I I read to my girls often, unfortunately, what I call twaddle, which is just worthless stories.
Jeffrey Heine:Princess stories, you know, Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, twaddle. I mean, it's a great word. That's, that's what it is. Every story is the same. Copyright infringement across the board, but it's always some beautiful princess, maybe doesn't she doesn't know she's a princess, some handsome prince comes rescues her, they go, they live happily ever after.
Jeffrey Heine:It's the same story. And that's, that's what we have described up to here at this point. But then the story continues here. Verse 15, there's a major shift in the text. Begins with the word, but.
Jeffrey Heine:You don't want, after all these good things, to all sudden hear the word, but. There's a major shift. Before verse 15, all we have read is of the action of the lord. We haven't read about the actions of this woman at all. The action of the lord.
Jeffrey Heine:He he said, I saw you. I said, live. I said, live. I spread the corner of my garment over you. I made my vow to you.
Jeffrey Heine:I clothed you. I adorned you. I put a ring on your nose, earrings in your ears. I bestowed upon splendor upon you. And so I, I, I, I.
Jeffrey Heine:Now we finally get to see our response. What's our response to all of this kindness? But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passer by. And so God here does not use flowery language to kind of describe our sin. He wants us to see that sin is ugly.
Jeffrey Heine:Sin is hideous. And so he's not going to be polite. He's not going to say, you know what? I saw some of the things that you, you know, you did that you probably shouldn't have done. You know, I saw some of your youthful indiscretions.
Jeffrey Heine:He doesn't say that. He is explicitly graphic graphic here because he wants to expose sin. He wants to shine light on sin and all of its ugliness. And if you think this is graphic in English and Hebrew, it is painful to read, and just I need to say this to be truthful to scripture, but I mean at times it's it's outright vulgar. There's phrases in Hebrews like this.
Jeffrey Heine:It says, you woman, spread your legs to every person who passes you by. It's vulgar. But God wants you to know how he feels when we sin against him. He want he wants you to understand there's there's a depth to that hurt. Sometimes we just kind of think, God, I kind of sin.
Jeffrey Heine:Sorry about that God. No, there's a, it's a hurt. It feels like a husband who's just come home to find his wife in bed with another man. And if if that were to happen, I I don't know what I'd do. I'd I'd I'd wanna fight.
Jeffrey Heine:I'd also wanna just get in a ball and cry. I'd want to run away. I'd have all these emotions because that would just cut me. There's anger and there's hurt. This is this is and sort of similar.
Jeffrey Heine:Many years ago, about 6 years ago, this happened to Lauren and I. You know, we're here, we're living in the city limits and trying to do a good thing. And we saw a guy on the side of the street and his wife, they needed obviously needed money. So we picked him up and we're like, Hey, we're not going to just give you money. We really want to help you out.
Jeffrey Heine:So come on. And we brought him to our house, got to hear their stories. Lauren took the wife, she obviously needed glasses. She couldn't really see, so she took her to get an eye exam, get some glasses. This man, he needed work.
Jeffrey Heine:I hired him to paint our house, to paint the inside of our house, which really didn't need painting, and I had to go back later and repaint it. But I just thought, you know, we're going to hire them to do this, and so, give them a job. And so we really kind of bent over backwards to help this couple for a week. We put them up in a hotel for a week. We try to get job interviews, different things like that.
Jeffrey Heine:And, about a week after this, after I'd finally, the last day that I had hired him, I went to use my phone, and the phone to our house is dead. This is back when you actually had home phones instead of only cell. And, it was dead. And I was like, why in the world is my, the phone dead? So I'm looking around now, went down into the basement where our security system is.
Jeffrey Heine:And I found that somebody had gone in there and cut all the wires. He had cause he was working in the basement. And so his last day in the job, he went and he cut all of our security systems wires so he could come in later and rob us. And I had such anger. Just, you know, like, I'm trying to do a good thing.
Jeffrey Heine:I bend over backwards to help you. I just do all this, and this is what you do to me. I'm just ticked off, and and that that is the smallest, smallest way what God is feeling. He does all this, all of this. Where's the thanks?
Jeffrey Heine:God gave us life, gave us every good gift we have. He has showered his affection on us. And in return, we haven't desired him. We've actually desired the gifts that he's given us way more than him. We we take the earrings that he gives us, and we melt them down, and we bow down to whatever idol we make, and we play the whore.
Jeffrey Heine:So, so look at all the ways that God has blessed you. He's, you know, likely for everyone in here, you know, you've, you've got friends, you've got somewhat of an education, you've got a family, respect, food, shelter. You have all these things. Some of you God's given, I know a good spouse, children, different things like that. They all those gifts were never meant to be an end in themselves.
Jeffrey Heine:They were actually just supposed to fuel your love for the one who gave them to you. John Piper likes to say, I love this quote. Says, God's greatest adversary is his gifts. God's greatest adversary is his gifts. And we see that here.
Jeffrey Heine:We saw it when we went through the book of Exodus, when, when, when God delivered the Israelites out of Egypt and in Exodus 12 as they are leaving Egypt, it says, God put it in the hearts of all the Egyptians to shower them with gold and silver jewelry. As they were leaving, all the Egyptians are giving them gold and silver jewelry That the Israelites can in turn, 7 chapters later, melt it down and turn it into an idol. The very gifts god had given them turned into an idol. The exact same thing you see here in Ezekiel 16. The same thing that we're guilty of all the time.
Jeffrey Heine:When we take look at the gifts that God gives us, and we try to find our satisfaction in them instead of God. As a parent, if you adore your children more than the lord, your children are an idol. As a pastor, if I think about this church more than I think about the Lord, I have turned this church into an idol. We do it all the time. It's bad here, but this isn't the end to the unfaithfulness.
Jeffrey Heine:Look at verse 30. How sick is your heart declares the Lord because you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen prostitute, building your vaulted chamber at the head of every street and making your lofty place in every square. Yet you were not like a prostitute because you scorned payment. Adulterous wife who receives strangers instead of her husband. Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers.
Jeffrey Heine:Bribing them to come to you from every side with their whoring. So God, he he says that not only does Israel offer herself to everyone who passes by, Israel doesn't even get payment for it. Israel pays others to do this to them. And He says, how lovesick is your heart? Why do you go after lover after lover after lover?
Jeffrey Heine:1st verse 28, we didn't read it when we're going through everything. Verse 28 says, you play the whore also with the Assyrians because you were not satisfied. Yes. You played the whore with them and still were not satisfied. You multiplied your whoring also with the trading land of Chaldea.
Jeffrey Heine:And even with this, you were not satisfied. How lovesick is your heart? And so we try one thing and we're not satisfied. So we try another and we're not satisfied. Suffers from from anxiety or something, anxiety, do not go to them and say, Everything's gonna be okay.
Jeffrey Heine:Just trust me. Don't ever say that. Because all you said is, you know, maybe they're anxious over over their a job or over finances. That's their idol. And you're saying, no.
Jeffrey Heine:No. No. Don't make finances your idol. Put it on me. I'll be your idol.
Jeffrey Heine:No. You don't say just trust me. You say trust God. A spouse always point your other spouse to God. Don't make yourself into an idol.
Jeffrey Heine:And we do it all the time. I do that all the time. I so often, I want to fix things. If If Lauren's having a hard day, I just want to say, hey, just trust me. Put it all on me.
Jeffrey Heine:I can be your joy. I can be, you know, your salvation. I'm nothing more than a golden calf. Verse 38 says that god will judge Israel for her adultery. Verse 40 says he's going to bring people to stone her.
Jeffrey Heine:And the situation looks terrible. And we come to verse 62. I said this a lot last night, so I'm gonna kinda check myself. It's one of the greatest verses in the Bible. I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:And that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame. When I atone for you, for all that you have done, declares the Lord God. Now hear me. In the rest of the old testament, it is always the people who make sacrifices for atonement. You always find that.
Jeffrey Heine:It's the people who who bring their sacrifices to atone for their sin. But here, god says, I will atone for your sin. I will atone for it. God will somehow make atonement. There's a similar story to this in John chapter 8.
Jeffrey Heine:A very familiar story about the woman who's caught in adultery. And And if you remember the story, this woman is brought out publicly before Jesus. Somehow she was caught in adultery. They throw her at Jesus's feet, and they say, we're supposed to stone her. And so they all gather stones, and they say, what do you think, Jesus?
Jeffrey Heine:The law says we're supposed to stone her. She's guilty. Everybody knows it. And Jesus looks at them all and he says, okay, he who is without sin, cast the first stone. And we love that story.
Jeffrey Heine:We love applying that to our lives. I love applying that to my lives, But the reality is, if we're gonna apply that to us, we need to realize that the story is unfinished. When when you read that, it's it's it's unfinished. Because, you know, we read everybody drops their stones and walks away. But if you wanna apply it to you, you've really got to realize that there is still somebody there who can throw a stone.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus said, he who is without sin cast the first stone, so they all drop it and leave. But Jesus is described as he who knew no sin. Jesus is there. And he he could have that stone, and he's looking at you, who has committed adultery, who has gone after all these other lovers, who has hoard yourself to people all over, to things all over, you've taken the gifts He has given you. You've melted them down.
Jeffrey Heine:You've worshiped them. And He's looking at you and He's saying, you have hurt me. When you sin, it has cut me. I made a covenant with you and this is what you have done. Breaks my heart.
Jeffrey Heine:There will be justice. Absolutely, there will be justice. It's it's not gonna be a a a quick death. This is gonna be slow. This is going to be painful because somebody's got to suffer for this.
Jeffrey Heine:And he looks at you and there's you are guilty. And then Jesus's eyes would change and says, but all this is not going to come on you. And he hands that rock to his father. He says, don't We're not gonna stone them father. You're gonna stone me.
Jeffrey Heine:I will atone for them. That they are guilty, that they have hurt me. I will atone for them. Judge me, and the wrath of God falls on Jesus. Let me tell you what.
Jeffrey Heine:God has never stopped saying, live to us. He has never stopped saying, live. He says, I have come that you might have life, that you might have it to the full. In my presence there is fullness of joy. Don't go to other lovers.
Jeffrey Heine:Live. I'm asking you to live. And so if you lack faith, hear God speaking to you, live. If you go to other things for your satisfaction, hear God saying, live. If you have a spouse, or a child, or a home, and you think that those things are gonna satisfy you, hear God saying, live.
Jeffrey Heine:I will atone for you and you will live. And may that truth, may that gospel truth so change us that our that the only thing that can happen of us is we fall on our knees in love and adoration. Adoring the God who has shown a depth of love that is almost impossible to comprehend. To him. We give thanks and we give glory.
Jeffrey Heine:Pray with me. Jesus, you took the hit we all deserve. Like Ezekiel says, and like Paul said in Romans, we just cover our mouth. We're guilty. Wait.
Jeffrey Heine:Wait. Wait. There's no excuse. We we don't know what to say. We just cover our mouth.
Jeffrey Heine:You've seen us though in our state. And while we were still enemies, enemies of you. You loved us and you died for us. Thank you. I pray that that gospel truth would penetrate in our hearts and change us.
Jeffrey Heine:Maybe some people here for the first time, may they understand the gospel, may they cry out to you for salvation. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
