The Scandal of God's Grace | Ezekiel 16 | Pastor Dave Hentschel

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Ezekiel chapter 16.

Ezekiel 16 · chapter mention

And as you do, let me start today with a quote by a guy named John LeCary in his book, The Looking Glass War.

He said this, Do you know what love is?

I'll tell you, it is whatever you can still betray.

Do you know what love is?

I'll tell you it is whatever you can still betray.

Have you ever felt betrayed?

Not just disappointed by a stranger on 78, not just hurt by somebody you barely know at the grocery store.

I'm talking about somebody you trusted, some someone you open your heart to, maybe someone you stood by when things were difficult, maybe somebody you sacrificed for, you invested in, and believed would remain faithful to you, and then one day you discover that's not true.

The person that you loved has now turned against you.

Maybe they lied to you, maybe they broke their promise with you.

Maybe they took everything you gave them and then gave their heart to someone else.

What is it that makes that kind of betrayal so difficult?

Well, it's not simply that someone has done something wrong.

It's that someone has done something wrong in a relationship where there was deep love.

And when that happens, you know the questions that come to mind.

After everything I've done for you, what how could you do this to me?

After all the ways I loved you, how could you turn your back on me?

And and what happens next?

Do you walk away?

Do you demand justice?

Is there any possibility of restoring a relationship after that kind of betrayal?

And here's the question Ezekiel wants us to consider this morning.

How does God respond when the people he has loved betray him?

How does God respond when the people he has loved betray him?

Not strangers who don't know anything about him or his goodness, but the very people he created, the people he provided for, the people he protected, the people he entered a covenant with and lavished his love upon.

What happens when those people turn their back on him?

That's what's going on in Ezekiel 16.

Ezekiel 16 is a love story.

We all know how love stories are supposed to go.

Boy meets girl, they fall in love.

The wedding day is filled with joy, and then comes the happily ever after.

But sometimes love takes a tragic turn.

A spouse turns unfaithful.

Trust is shattered.

What began in beauty ends in heartbreak.

Ezekiel 16 is a story more like that.

Only it isn't just any love story, it's the story of God's love for his people, and it's not just Israel's story.

It's my story.

It's our story.

This is what makes this chapter so unsettling.

As you listen to this, you discover about halfway through, this isn't just about me knowing what betrayal feels like.

This is about how I'm the one who has actually betrayed God in this story.

And if this were simply a story about my unfaithfulness, our unfaithfulness, it would be a story without any hope at all.

But yet, God has something to say here to his unfaithful people that no one expects, something so astonishing that it brings us to the very heart of God.

Today in this passage, we're gonna see two things.

Number one, how serious our sin actually is, but number two, how scandalous God's grace really is as well.

And for those of us like me who already know about God's grace, I wonder if we really understand and appreciate it after we heard it so long ago.

Sometimes that news gets tired.

That song, that old hymn, you know those words grace, grace, God's grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within.

Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all our sin.

Does that grace still amaze me, or have I gotten used to that?

Is that now the bottom line?

Is that like where I start now?

Is that what I expect from God?

Do I take God's grace for granted?

Do I really get it?

My hope and my prayer is that after this message, we might better understand that maybe just a little bit more than we do right now.

So the title of my message is The Scandal of God's Grace.

You're gonna see three distinct movements in this passage.

This is not Dave superimposing the three points of a sermon because you have to have three points in every sermon.

There is three very distinct movements in the passage.

They are movements of the people of God.

Movement one is the movement from the despised to the beloved.

And then you're gonna see movement.

This is when God rescues and beautifies the abandoned.

Movement two is the movement from the beloved to the betrayer.

Israel turns to idols.

And then you're gonna see movement three is the movement from the betrayer to the restored.

It's God's covenant love and his atonement prevail.

Ezekiel 16 is one of the longest chapters in the whole Bible.

It's longer than many books of the Bible.

Ezekiel 16 is also, by way of warning, a chapter that has shocking imagery, imagery that may unsettle you.

In fact, I don't know who assigns these passages and who got chapter 16 in the short straw.

I think Bob kind of like made me have this one.

I thought we were friends.

We're not friends anymore after this.

In fact, if you're a parent of small children, you should know there's some images in this text today that might not be suitable for every age.

I would encourage you just to be aware of that as you make your own parenting decisions.

Charles Spurgeon, when he was coming to this text, he said, quote, a minister can scarcely read this thing in public.

You're not going to find this chapter in any children's storybook Bible.

This thing is rated R.

Its language is lewd, it's violent, it's sexually explicit, there's depravity, to the point where your English translation and most English translations tone down the original expressions that are actually here.

They're much more coarse than what you have in front of you.

It's almost unbearable to listen to.

If you ask Alexa to read you Ezekiel 16, she'll say no.

I want you to try it.

That's inappropriate.

I'm not kidding.

That's actually the point.

What happened in Ezekiel 16 is God's people got real comfortable with sin and they forgot how ugly it was.

And Ezekiel 16 is this graphic, imaginative passage, and it's it just hits you with like violent forcefulness.

And the reason is because Ezekiel and his contemporaries, they were sent into exile, and they started to think that we're being treated unjustly over here.

And so what was needed was for them to recognize the truth about what they actually had done so that they might be driven to repentance.

That's what's going on here.

We should pray.

Father in heaven, we come before you this morning acknowledging that you are holy, you're faithful, you're rich in mercy.

You have loved us with a love we could never earn.

You showed us kindness we we could never deserve.

You've given us blessings we so often just take for granted.

Like your people in Ezekiel's day, we have been unfaithful, we have forgotten your goodness, we trust in things that cannot save, we give our hearts to things that don't deserve our worship, and we ask that you'd forgive us, Lord.

Would you by a miracle, Spirit of God, open our eyes to the seriousness of our sin and open our hearts to the greatness of your grace?

As we hear your word in a fresh way today, give us humility to receive these warnings, the courage to face the truth, the truth about ourselves, and faith to rest in your mercy that you've provided for us.

May we leave today with a deeper hatred for our sin and a greater love for our Savior and a renewed confidence in your unfailing covenant faithfulness.

We pray that you'd be glorified in our worship and that the scandal of your grace would fill us with wonder and gratitude.

For we ask it in the name of our faithful Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And everyone said, Amen.

Quick little note about context.

Here's where we are chronologically.

Ezekiel's story is taking place right here.

We're in the year 593 BC.

The reason I'm telling you that is because the temple's not destroyed yet.

The temple will be destroyed in a few years, but it has not been destroyed yet.

It doesn't get destroyed till like Ezekiel 33.

So we're a few years away from the destruction of Jerusalem.

That's where we are contextually.

If you look at the book as a whole, I've shown you this graphic where Ezekiel has three parts to it.

We're in part two of the book of Ezekiel.

We're in this middle orange section, Yahweh is rebuking Israel and the nations for their sin.

Just to break it down to a micro structure, this little middle section divides up into three parts as well.

The first part is oracles against Israel's leaders.

We saw a little bit of that last week with the false prophets.

Bob talked about that in chapter 13.

In this section, these are oracles against Judah and Jerusalem.

And then later in chapters 24 to 33, those are oracles against the nations.

So in the middle section, in the burger part of the sandwich right here, which is where we are today, what Ezekiel's doing is he's put together a collection of poems and essays that have parables and allegories to describe God's people.

And he does this through multiple angles, like different windows to look into a house.

So like in chapter 15, he says Jerusalem's like a burnt, unusable stick.

And like later in chapter 2019, he's gonna say it's she's more like a raging lion.

And then in chapter 23, he's gonna say, Israel and Judah, they're like two promiscuous sisters.

But here in chapter 16, Jerusalem is likened to an unfaithful, rebellious wife.

That's what Ezekiel 16 is doing.

So that's the context.

Now we should dig into it.

If you're ready, say amen.

Here we go, 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 was a Hittite.

Pause right there.

First, I want you to notice that word abominations.

That is the Hebrew term Toeva.

It's used a lot in the Old Testament, 11 times right here in this chapter.

It refers to things that are totally abhorrent to God, things that were disgusting to God, things that were especially wicked.

It's oftentimes used to describe idolatry.

It is an abomination.

Secondly, I want you to notice the phrase make known.

Underline that in your Bible.

If you have NIV, it says confront.

That was a legal term.

This is legal terminology from the courtroom that would be used to describe the words of a prosecutor.

So this is Ezekiel, the prophet, serving as the prosecutor.

He's going to make a legal case for what's going on here, like a lawyer.

And the accused party is the city of Jerusalem.

And the case is that his people deserved the exile that they are experiencing.

Now, when I was a teenager, I always used to enjoy a good Yo mama joke.

If you ever need a good joke, there's one right here in the text.

You just walk up to somebody and you go, Yo mama was a Hittite.

You drop the mic and you walk off.

You say, I don't know what that means.

I don't know what it means either.

It's just a good one, though, I think.

Actually, what it means is this the phrase, your father was an Amorite and your mother was a Hittite is not referring to the bloodline of Abraham or the physical lineage of Abraham.

It's referring rather to the ancestry of the city of Jerusalem, the people who used to occupy that physical space.

Those people were Hittites.

Jerusalem had a city which had origins which were pagan and idolatrous.

In other words, instead of the glorious portrayal of Jerusalem in the Bible, that usually happens, it is the city of David, it is Zion, it's the city set upon a hill.

Here, Ezekiel is using shocking imagery, saying, Your your city has totally pagan roots.

Your mama was a Hittite.

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 cloths.

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.

Now the image here of being cast out, of a newborn being left unwashed, uncut, and exposed reflects an ancient Near Eastern practice of an abandon abandoning an unwanted child.

That sounds totally foreign to us in our culture, but it was sadly and tragically quite common to leave a child out to die.

Especially little girls were left out to die because they were considered less valuable than little boys in that culture.

A little bit like abortion today, it was not good, but it was a reality everyone knew about.

Child abandonment actually does occur sometimes.

I read a horrible news story the other day about a baby that was found abandoned in a dumpster.

I don't know how a mother could do that to her child, but yet that's what occurs sometimes in this world.

That's what Ezekiel is saying happened here long ago.

This is this is Israel.

You were like that.

You you didn't, what he's saying is you didn't come from royalty, you didn't come from the upper crust.

No.

Don't you remember?

You came from the slum.

And none of the normal medical practices were followed, like cutting the navel cord, the umbilical cord, washing the child and covering the baby with salt and wrapping the baby with cloth.

Instead, you were like one of those little child child children that are left alone out there, and nobody wanted you, but I wanted you.

And I rescued you.

That's God's grace.

And had it not been for the amazing generosity of Yahweh, they would not have even survived the day of their birth.

Verse 6.

And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you and your blood, live.

I said to you and your blood, live.

I made you flourish like a plant of the field.

Right here, one commentator said that this text signifies that by divine fiat, a formal adoption has taken place by the power of God's own word.

I love that.

All it takes here is for God to speak.

It parallels the powerful word of God's creation in Genesis chapter 1 and his powerful word of redemption later on.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

With one word, our God commands the dead to come to life.

We'll see that later in Ezekiel chapter 37 when the dry bones come to life.

Ezekiel 37 · chapter mention

This is what our God does.

He takes things that are dead and makes them come alive.

And that's true for them, and that's true for us.

Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1 says, As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.

Ephesians 2:1

But God, because of his great love for us, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.

Friends, the only reason why Israel's alive, the only reason why any one of us here is alive is because God in his grace has commanded us to live.

We are debtors to the word of God which has made us alive.

Praise be to the Lord.

Do you realize what it costs you, what it costs God to do that for you?

Do you realize what it would cost God to cause you to live?

The only reason why God can say live to you is because one day God will say die to his one and only son.

We'll get to that later in movement three.

So God rescues this baby and adopts this baby, and then she grows up.

Look at verse eight.

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.

What's going on here is an ancient practice.

You probably read about it in Ruth chapter three, if you know your Bible, where a man would cover a woman with the edge of his garment in a symbolic way as a gesture saying, I'm going to care for you.

This was a symbol of a covenant covering and protection that a husband would be offering to a woman who would become his wife.

And so the idea here is God is saying, I entered into a marriage covenant with you, my people.

I'm the bridegroom, you're the bride, and we entered into an agreement, a covenant agreement, because that's what God is.

He's a covenant God.

It's not a contract.

A contract is about protecting yourself.

A covenant is about giving yourself.

We have a God who's a God not of contract, but a God of covenant.

I could say more about that, but that's probably a sermon for a whole nother day.

So he takes this betrothed young lady and he prepares her to be a queen.

Look at verse 9.

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.

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 the it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord.

What I want you to notice in this paragraph on the screen, brothers and sisters, is the generosity of your God's love.

I want you to see that your God is not loving on a strict budget here.

God is lavishing his people with his love, with jewelry and bracelets and so forth.

There's not one part of her anatomy that could have jewelry on it that doesn't have jewelry on it.

You became royalty.

What this is referring to is that as Israel was born and grew up, then we had the days of the monarchy where King David ruled and Solomon ruled and the United Kingdom became great and mighty and respected.

That's the age that's going on here, the age of David and Solomon.

This phrase, the adornment with fine linen and silk and cloth, would remind them of the same materials that were found in the Jerusalem temple that was built by Solomon.

This is priestly language hinting that Israel was set apart as God's holy people.

But I want you to see here, friends, that we have a generous God.

Maybe you say, I wish God would love me with this kind of love, but don't you see, brothers and sisters, he has.

Ephesians chapter 1 says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Last thing I want you to notice here is this phrase: Your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty.

That anticipates that Israel was meant to display God's beauty and glory to the rest of the world, which makes it so sad because what they do is they turn that beauty and they turn that glory inward, which leads us to movement two.

So we've seen the from the despised to the beloved, but now we're going to see from the beloved to the betrayer.

In that first section, what God just did is he took his people back to the beginning, back, back, back to the beginning.

And he reminds Jerusalem where she came from, how helpless she was, how completely dependent she was on him for everything, for his mercy, and how lavishly he had loved her.

He's reminding her of all of this because he wants her to see what she did with that love.

Verse 15.

But you trusted in your beauty.

And played the whore because of your renown and lavish your whorings on any passerby.

Your beauty became his.

Whoa.

Did God just call his people a whore?

Did I read that right in the Bible?

Yeah.

The Hebrew term here is the term Zana.

It means to engage in prostitution.

And it's the most repeated word in this entire chapter.

Ezekiel will use the same word 21 times here in chapter 16.

And so what's going on is Israel's idolatry is being described not as a casual sin, but as covenant betrayal.

Like committing adultery on your spouse.

In spite of all that God had done for Jerusalem and the residents of Jerusalem, it was not long until they turned from the Lord to the other nations and their gods, instead of remembering that it was the Lord who had endowed her with these blessings.

She trusted in her own beauty rather than trusting in the one who made her beautiful.

Look at verse 16.

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, my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men.

Those are idols.

And with them played the whore.

And you took your embroidered garments to cover them and set my oil, my incense before them.

And my bread that I gave you, I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey.

You set before them for a pleasing aroma.

And so it was, declares the Lord.

And so what we have here is a detailed description of worshiping an idol.

They took the good gifts that God had given them, and then they offered those good gifts to other gods, other idols besides Yahweh, the garments and the oil and the incense and the food.

They used them for worship, but not worship of Yahweh.

They use them to worship other pagan idols, the audacity.

But it gets worse.

Look at verse 2020.

He says, And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me.

These are our kids.

And these you sacrificed to them to be devoured.

Were your whorings so small a matter that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them?

The food that they were sacrificing to idols included the sacrifice of the Israelite children.

This is documented in Israel's history.

The practice of child sacrifice is attested to in the days of Ahaz, 2 Kings 16, Manasseh, 2 Kings 21, and Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter 7.

Jeremiah 7 · chapter mention

This is what they had done.

They participated in child sacrifice, which is horrifying.

The text continues, verse 22.

And in all your abominations and your whorings, you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your blood.

Do you see what God is saying here?

They forgot that a long time ago they were like helpless children themselves.

And now here they are.

They're the ones leaving their own children out to be helpless as they sacrifice their children to these idols.

God says, Have you forgotten you were abandoned?

Don't you remember?

You were abandoned by your own mother as an infant, and I got you.

And now you're abandoning your own children after everything that happened to you?

You're gonna abandon your old ch your own kids?

This is what the pagans do.

God says, You are just like your mother, the Hittite.

How could they do that after the kindness that God had shown to them?

The text continues in verse 23.

And after all your wickedness, whoa, woe to you, declares the Lord God.

You built yourself a vaulted chamber and made yourself a lofty place in every square.

At the head of every street, you built your lofty place and made your beauty an abomination, offering yourself to any passerby and multiplying your whoring.

Now, a vaulted chamber in those days was a well-documented description of a place of prostitution.

And so the vaulted chamber would be a well-known image that they would understand.

Like today, we might say, go to the red light district or something like that.

For them, vaulted chamber, prostitution.

That's what he's talking about.

What's going on here is God is referring to those pagan altars and high places as a place of prostitution.

That's the vaulted chamber.

And they would place those different high places all over the land.

God says, You put these things everywhere.

Woe to you! Continuing in verse 26.

You also played the whore with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, multiplying your whoring to provoke me to anger.

Behold, therefore, I stretched out my hand against you and diminished your allotted portion, and delivered you to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior.

You played the whore also with the Assyrians, because you were not satisfied.

Yes, you played the whore with them, and still you were not satisfied.

Twenty-nine, you multiplied your whoring also with the trading land of Chaldea, and even with this you were not satisfied.

So here what we have is a list of Israel's different lovers, the pagan foreign nations that they made political alliances with, which were forbidden by God, because those political alliances also brought with them religious compromise.

So look at what's going on.

God says, first you go after the Egyptians, you went after the Assyrians, you went after the Babylonians, even the Philistines were ashamed of your behavior, your behavior.

The Philistines.

The Philistines saw what you were like, and they're like, oh snap, look at these people.

Things are getting out of hand.

And here he says, you are not satisfied, you're not satisfied.

This adulterous bride is insatiable.

One commentator says this, that phrase, you were never satisfied, means, quote, that Israel does not stand accused of a single act of adultery, but of prolonged, addictively repeated, insatiable promiscuity with multiple partners.

It is a terrible indictment of unrestrained, nymphomaniacal adventures.

So we see sin that's getting portrayed with this rather offensive terminology.

We hear this.

If you were in Ezekiel's audience, you would hear this, you would be offended.

You would get defensive.

Even maybe right now you're getting offended.

If you were listening to Ezekiel say this, this would be offensive to you.

You're like, excuse me, Ezekiel, are you calling me a whore?

But yet, here's what's in the text.

And yet, brothers and sisters, perhaps we might want to consider that our God has a reason for using the kind of language that makes us so uncomfortable.

I mean, nobody wants to be called a whore.

But yet, Ezekiel and God does not shy away from using this language because it's true.

I know when we sin today, we tend not to use this kind of language.

We tend to whitewash it.

If I do something wrong, well, you know, I made a mistake.

Or, you know, boys will be boys, or, you know, I'm only human.

But biblically speaking, to sin against a holy God is ugly.

What Ezekiel is trying to tell us is it's offensive, it's depraved.

Friends, we fool ourselves into thinking we're not that bad.

But if we're honest, I'm a lot closer to the picture of Jerusalem here than I want to imagine.

See, the problem is our concept of God's holiness and my own concept of my unrighteousness are like way out of whack.

And so Ezekiel's shocking us with this language, going, actually, it's like this.

And so the question you and I have to ask ourselves as we read an offensive text like this is not how could they?

It's how am I like Jerusalem?

How do I sometimes turn to other gods too?

Now you might say, Pastor David, I don't turn to idols, that's not my problem.

But remember, an idol is anything in my life that's more important to me than God.

In other words, an idol is that thing that gives me my sense of satisfaction and security and worth and value.

It's that thing that I rest my identity on.

It's that thing that makes me feel me.

It's that thing that's the most important thing in my life that I'm trusting in.

And it's whatever I turn to when the difficulties come.

That's my idol, that's my God.

It could be alcohol, it could be some substance, it could be some pleasure or some lust, it could be some other appetite that you satisfy.

And idols, remember, they're not always bad things.

Sometimes idols are good things that we turn into ultimate things.

Ministry could be an idol.

Accomplishing things for the Lord could be an idol.

An idol could be success at school, an idol could be success at work, an idol could be your name, an idol could be your physical appearance, an idol could be approval of other people.

Everyone has to think well of you.

Or an idol can be comfort or pleasure or money or control.

We can take anything and turn it into an idol.

An idol is anything that has a more fundamental place in my heart than God.

John Calvin used to say, our hearts are idol factories.

And that's why Ezekiel says, How sick is your heart?

declares the Lord God.

Now that's a really good question.

How sick is my heart?

This is the same language of Jeremiah chapter 17.

Jeremiah 17 · chapter mention

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.

Who can know it?

There's something wrong with me.

There's something wrong with them.

Friends, there's something wrong with us.

And it's something in the heart.

There's a sickness in the heart that's constantly drawn towards evil and drawn towards sinfulness instead of being drawn to God.

And so Ezekiel says, How sick is your heart?

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.

And here, Ezekiel just intensified the language.

Israel, you're worse than a prostitute because at least they get paid.

You didn't even get paid.

In fact, you started paying other people to sin with them.

What they did in history was they used their wealth that God had given them to pay off these other nations for protection instead of trusting in Yahweh.

And they worship their gods in the process.

So to summarize, what Ezekiel's saying here is he's bringing an indictment, like an attorney.

And there's a charge.

And the charge stated by Ezekiel as the prosecuting attorney is that God's people have been idolatrous.

Their heart is sick, and he presents evidence.

Here's Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C, Exhibit D.

And after he brings his indictment, the next thing we have in the text is the sentencing.

As they're going to face the consequences of their rebellion and the punishment for their rebellion.

And just like in adultery back in those days, the punishment for this was the death penalty.

So look at verse 35.

Therefore, O prostitute, hear the word of the Lord.

Thus says the Lord God, because your lust was poured out and your nakedness uncovered in your whorings with your lovers, and with all your abominable idols, and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them, therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated, and I will gather them against you from every side, and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness.

The sentencing continues with verse thirty-eight.

And I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged, and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy, and I will give you into their hands, and they shall throw down your vaulted chamber and break down your lofty places, they shall strip you of your clothes, and take your beautiful jewels, and leave you naked and bare.

They shall bring up a crowd against you, and they shall stone you, and cut you to pieces with their swords, and they shall burn your houses and execute judgments upon you in the sight of many women.

I will make you stop playing the whore, and you shall also give payment no more.

So I will satisfy my wrath on you, and my jealousy shall depart from you, and then I will be calm and will no longer be angry.

So here, God, through the prophet Ezekiel, is announcing the sentencing that Jerusalem is going to receive is the sentencing of the death penalty.

She's going to be stripped and exposed before her lovers, mirroring the punishment for adultery in the ancient world.

One commentator said here, quote, here's an ironic twist.

She who bared herself before them will finally have her fill of exposure.

He continues, quote, as the spreading of a garment over a woman by a man represented a nonverbal gesture of marital commitment, so the public stripping of one's wife symbolized the punishment for divorce.

The public degradation of a prostitute by stripping her naked is mentioned in Hosea 2, Nahum 3, and Jeremiah 12.

That humiliation was often followed by stoning, Deuteronomy 22.

In other words, God says, Fine.

You want to expose yourself to them?

I'll expose you.

I'll discipline you and I'll send trouble on you.

Why?

Because you won't listen any other way.

He told them, back when he first made the covenant, I'm setting before you blessings and cursings, life and death.

Now choose life that you may live.

And they chose death.

Why do God's people do that?

The answer is in verse 43.

Because you have not remembered the days of your youth.

Why did they do this?

One commentator said, quote, the nations, the nation of Israel has forgotten what God has done for them.

This was the root problem of the nation's rebellion.

They had forgotten God.

Why did Israel do all this?

They had spiritual amnesia.

They forgot.

They quickly forgot.

One of the mantras that we hear when we celebrate 9-11 and remember what happened there every single September is never forget.

That's the mantra.

Never forget.

Never forget that our nation is vulnerable.

Never forget that lives were lost in tragedy on this day.

Never forget the heroes who died trying to save others.

Never forget.

Why do they say never forget?

Because we forget.

People forget.

And people forget spiritually too.

In the spiritual sense of that term, God's people forget all the time.

In the book of Exodus, God parts the Red Sea, and then like two seconds later, they won't trust Him to provide food in the desert.

In the book of Joshua, God like knocks down every wall in the city of Jericho.

The next chapter is they're forgetting, and they they won't trust him in the next, they're in the very next battle.

God's people forget.

They forgot.

And if we're honest, we forget to.

We have this sense of forgetfulness too.

I have this sense of forgetfulness too.

I have this sense of, God, I know you did that for me in the past, but what have you done for me lately?

I have that forgetfulness.

And our our forgetfulness grieves God's heart.

Look at verse 44.

Behold, everyone who uses Proverbs will use this proverb about you.

Like mother, like daughter.

You are the daughter of your mother, who loathed her husband and her children, and you're the sister of your sisters who loathed their husbands and their children.

Your mother was a Hittite, and your father was an Amorite, and your elder sister is Samaria, that's the north, right?

Who lived with her daughters to the north of you, and your younger sister who lived to the south of you is Sodom with her daughters.

Not only did you walk in their ways and do according to their abominations, within a very little time you were more corrupt than they in all your ways.

Here, Ezekiel switches the imagery from husband-wife imagery, and he moves to parent-child imagery in this section.

Jerusalem is just like her mother, the Hittite.

Jerusalem's older sister is Samaria to the north, her younger sister, Sodom, to the south.

You're just, this is like a family thing.

You guys all act the same.

The irony here is that Jerusalem prided herself on not being like the nations around her.

But Ezekiel says, actually, you're just like them.

You ever heard that phrase, imitation is the highest form of flattery?

They're imitating all of these people that they look up to.

Or maybe here it should be imitation is the highest form of blasphemy.

They're acting just like all these other nations.

And the point being made here, God is saying, You're supposed to be different.

I set you apart to be different, but you've become just like the nations all around you, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Samaritans, even the people of Sodom, you're just like Sodom.

In some cases, you're worse than Sodom.

They're more righteous than you are.

Wow.

Look at verse 48.

As I live, declares the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done.

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom.

She and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

They were haughty and did an abomination before me, so I removed them when I saw it.

Ezekiel says, You remember Sodom?

Remember what they did?

You guys make Sodom, you make that city look good.

These words are like a bare knuckle punch from Ezekiel.

You're worse than Sodom.

The text continues.

Verse 51.

Samaria has not committed half your sins.

Remember the northern tribes, the northern tribes, the Samaria, you have committed more abominations than they, and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed.

Bear your disgrace, you also, for you have intervened on behalf of your sisters, because of your sins in which you acted more abominably than they.

They are more in the right than you.

So be ashamed, you also, and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.

So don't you see here, Ezekiel's just piling insult after insult after insult after insult.

Remember Saria, Samaria, the north?

That's like your sister.

That's your idolatrous sister.

They were conquered by Assyria.

The South did not think they were like the North.

The South prided themselves on the fact that we're not like our northern neighbors, but God says, actually, you're just like them.

You're worse than them, actually.

So, in movement two, if I could summarize, what's going on here?

I know this is a lot.

But God's people had betrayed him.

Can you see how God is feeling betrayed by his people?

Israel was the covenant bride of Yahweh, the bridegroom, and she's been unfaithful.

Now, at this point in our culture, this is when the divorce happens, right?

This is when somebody calls the attorney, like, do you want to do this by mediation, or how do you want to do this?

You like get somebody on retainer, we start talking through attorneys, the lawyer gets hired, the court date gets set, then you go before the judge and they start splitting up the assets, and we start talking about alimony and child support, and we're gonna go our separate ways.

That's what happens in our culture.

And if the story ended here, that's where it would leave us.

It would leave us in despair.

Because we're really reading this, going, is there any hope for this?

Is there any hope for them?

Is there any hope for me?

Movement three.

From the betrayer to the restored.

The question I began the message with is what do you do when someone you love betrays you?

When someone takes your love for granted, breaks your trust, turns their heart to someone else.

Our instinct in those moments is to pull away, to protect ourselves, to set boundaries.

After everything I did for you, how could you?

And then we come to Ezekiel 16 and we discover, we discover that we're not merely the people who know what betrayal feels like.

We're the people who betrayed God here.

This chapter is supposed to be a mirror.

We are the betrayer.

They have idols, friends, we have idols.

The question for them is the same question for us.

How does God respond to his people who have idols?

Is the covenant over?

And brothers and sisters, as I was studying this week, if it were not for the Lord's own words here at the end, it would almost be too much to hope for.

In spite of all this, God just broke me down as I was reading this text this week because He says something very, very tender right here.

For thus says the Lord God, I will deal with you as you have done.

You have desp you who have despised the oath and breaking the covenant, yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant.

Now, when someone rejects you, and you bless that person anyway, anyway, what do you call that?

In biblical parlance, we call that grace, God's unmerited favor, blessing.

I want you to notice the grace that's going on here.

And I also want you to notice that this restoration is God's initiative, not Israel's achievement.

Do you see that?

The mention of God remembering his covenant is intentional.

It is supposed to be contrasted with Jerusalem's forgetting the terms of her relationship in the covenant with God.

The point is, even though God's people have forgotten him, he has not forgotten them.

Israel is the unfaithful bride here, but Yahweh is the ever-faithful bridegroom.

That is grace.

Now God's grace does not mean that our sin doesn't matter.

It means that our sin does not have the final word.

And it means the grace that forgives us is also the grace that will bring about repentance and humble us and teach us again to walk in faithfulness.

Look at the response in verse 61.

Then you'll remember your ways and be ashamed when you take your sisters, both your older, elder, and your younger, and I'll give them to you as daughters, but not on account of the covenant with you.

After this punishment, when this covenant, this new covenant relationship gets established, the people will remember their ways and be ashamed.

That's their response.

When God gives grace, they now are covered with embarrassment and shame and humiliation for their behavior.

That's a common response when someone realizes that they've been forgiven.

All of a sudden, they feel humiliation about what they've done.

Brothers and sisters, the exegesis here reveals two very important things.

It reveals number one, the depth of our sin, but number two, it also reveals the depth of God's amazing grace.

The late Tim Keller used to say it so well.

The gospel teaches us both of these two realities in a simultaneous fashion.

Number one, I am more sinful than I ever even could realize.

And number two, that I'm also more loved than I could ever imagine or hope.

And it is both of those things together in the gospel.

Verse 62 continues.

God says, And 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've done, declares the Lord God.

Now we know here that Ezekiel is speaking directly about God's covenant dealings with Jerusalem and the Jewish people.

But as Christians reading this passage in our day, in light of the New Testament, we also see the pattern of God's redeeming love reaching its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, who gave himself for his church.

The scandal of Ezekiel 16 prepares us for the scandal of the gospel as God is giving hope for those who have betrayed him right here.

When we look at Ezekiel 16, we are not just reading Israel's story.

We are looking into a mirror.

This is our story too.

They were helpless, we were helpless.

They were unfaithful, we were unfaithful.

They got rescued, we get rescued.

They were redeemed, we are redeemed.

In this amazing message, what God is telling them is we have a God who says, I love you when you're on it, and I love you when you're way off.

I love you when you get it right, and I love you when you get it wrong.

That is who the Lord is.

He's faithful even when we're unfaithful.

He doesn't change.

I am who I am is his name.

God says, I know you break your word all the time, like I never do.

I keep my covenant with you.

And then notice he says, after this, then you will know that my name is the Lord.

This is the most repeated phrase in the whole book of Ezekiel.

That's why God is doing all of this, for his name, so that his name would be lifted up, so that his name would be glorified as what?

As the gracious God, as the forgiving God, as the merciful God, as the only God of covenant love, because that's who he is.

And all of this is for his glory, to the praise of the glory of his grace.

How?

How does he get to do this?

How does God bring this unfaithful people back?

What is this new covenant he's speaking of?

Don't we know God is altogether holy?

Don't we know God cannot tolerate sin?

This is the greatest problem of Ezekiel, it's the greatest problem of the whole Old Testament, it's the greatest problem of the whole Bible.

How can God forgive sin and still be just?

Proverbs 17, 15 says, He who justifies the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.

Even a human judge who justifies the wicked is an abomination.

Someone who lets a guilty person go free is an abomination to God.

How much more then, if God is just, is he bound by his own perfect standard?

Do you see the problem?

Nobody sees this problem in our day.

Nobody even understands this is a problem.

The biggest problem that people have in our day is how could God punish anybody?

That's not the biblical problem.

The biblical problem is how can God forgive anybody?

Because he's holy and perfect and just.

The reason is we have a low view of sin, we have a low view of God's holiness, we see everything in an anthropocentric, man-centered way, and we totally misunderstand the story of reality.

So, how will God do this?

How will God forgive sin but still be just?

The answer's right there on the screen.

It's that word atone.

He's gonna atone, he's gonna make an atonement.

An atonement in the Bible was a payment that gets made for sin.

But usually it's the sinner who makes the atonement.

Usually it's the sinner who has making the atonement right here.

It is God himself who is going to make this atonement for his people's sins.

Do you see that?

So fast forward with me.

Oh, just about 500 years or so.

And onto the pages of history comes the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only one to ever live who was not a covenant breaker.

And yet he gets treated as the unfaithful one, though he never was.

Or to use the terms of Ezekiel, he gets treated like the whore, and he gets stripped down and exposed, and is naked, and he gets sentenced to death, and he bears the judgment that I deserve.

And 2 Corinthians 5 says, He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

This is the scandal of the gospel.

At the cross, Jesus bears the shame of my betrayal, our betrayal, so that I could be clothed, we could be clothed in his beauty.

And in him, that's how this tragic story, riddled with betrayal, becomes the story of redemption, the story of redemption through the atonement of the Savior, the perfect atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Back to that question that I started with today.

How does God respond when the people he has loved betray him?

Like this.

He makes an atonement.

Every time I leave communion here, every month I read the same verse.

And the verse starts with these words.

On the night that he was betrayed.

He took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and said, This is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

Have you ever noticed the word betrayed there when I read it before?

How does God respond when his people betray him?

Then he takes the cup, the symbol of that atoning blood, and says, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

How does our God respond when the people he loved betray him?

He sends his one and only son to die as a perfect atonement for them, for you, for me.

For me.

Can you say that with me?

For me.

One more time.

For me.

Yeah.

Was it for crimes that I had done?

He groaned upon the tree.

Amazing pity, grace unknown, and love beyond a degree.

Thus I might hide my blushing face while his dear cross appears and dissolve my heart in thankfulness and melt my eyes to tears.

So the big idea of Ezekiel 16 is that your sin is more serious than you want to admit.

But God's grace in Jesus Christ is greater than you dare to hope.

I want to invite the worship team to come.

And I want to close with the same words that I shared at the beginning of that old hymn written by Julia Johnston, who wrote this marvelous grace of our loving Lord.

Grace that exceeds our sin and guilt.

Yonder on Calvary's mount outpoured.

There where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.

Dark is the stain that we cannot hide.

What can avail to wash it away?

Look, there is flowing a crimson tide, whiter than snow, you may be today.

Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace, freely bestowed on all who believe.

All who are longing to see his face, will you at this moment this grace receive?

Grace.

Grace.

Grace that will pardon and cleanse within.

Grace.

Grace.

God's grace.

Grace that is greater than all our sin.

What will you do with the God that you have betrayed who has offered his grace to you?

Would you pray with me?

Father in heaven, we bow before you today, amazed at the depth of your grace and love.

If we're honest, we confess that like Jerusalem, we have been unfaithful in so many ways.

We trust in ourselves, we chase after idols, we forget your calling.

But today we remember the atonement.

We remember that Jesus was treated as the betrayer, so that we, the betrayers, could be treated as the beloved.

God, I thank you that where our sin runs deep, your grace runs deeper still.

Lord, would you wash us in the blood of Jesus and turn our guilt into a memorial of your forgiveness, turn our shame into a testimony of your mercy, turn our brokenness into a story of redemption.

And may we leave this place knowing that your covenant love is stronger than our rebellion, that your forgiveness is greater than our shame, and that your grace is sufficient for every tomorrow.

For we pray it all in the matchless name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, and our faithful bridegroom.

And everyone said, Amen.