Lessons From Ezekiel – Lesson 12
If you wanted to give Ezekiel chapter 16 a title. If you wanted to give a summary of what it is about and do it in only about 4 words, I would call it Remember and be Thankful.
The people Ezekiel is working with were taken out in captivity years ahead of the fall of Jerusalem. They most likely were upset with that and did not understand, but we have hindsight that they did not have. We know it was an act of mercy that they were taken out early.
The only ones that are going to be protected during the fall are the ones who were faithful to God, only his remnant. If these people would have been left in Jerusalem they would have most likely perished because only those who were crying about what was going on would be protected.
The group Ezekiel is working with God calls rebellious but since they may consider they were taken out early. Only the really wicked were left in Jerusalem with the faithful few.
And we learned last week that those taken out early are going to be comforted when they see God protect the faithful thru the destruction of Jerusalem and that those people will come to them.
Ezk 14:22 Yet, behold, therein shall be left a remnant that shall be brought forth, both sons and daughters: behold, they shall come forth unto you, and ye shall see their way and their doings: and ye shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, even concerning all that I have brought upon it.
Ezk 14:23 And they shall comfort you, when ye see their ways and their doings: and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord GOD.
They are going to see that God had a cause and that He knows what He is doing. And how He uses His power to protect His own.
They are told that is coming soon but it has not happened yet in Chapter 16.
God is going to have Ezekiel give these people a history lesson. This is a big picture look. It goes from before Abraham to their current day. That is a lot of territory to cover and it only takes 63 verses. That is covering a lot of ground. We are not going to read all 63 verses.
Ezk 16:1 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Ezk 16:2 Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,
Ezk 16:3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.
Ezk 16:4 And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all.
Ezk 16:5 None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born.
Over the centuries they had become proud of being God’s chosen people and had a since of entitlement. They thought they were something special don’t you know.
God starts out with Remember where you came from. There was no Israel before God called Abraham. Your father was an Amorite and mother a Hittite. Two groups that the Jews despised.
God reminds them they were nothing before God called Abraham. They were nothing. None pitied them, none had compassion on them. They were cast out in the open field. The point being made here is that there was nothing special about them.
God did not choose them because of who they were.
Ezk 16:6 And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.
Ezk 16:7 I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare.
Ezk 16:8 Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine.
Verse 8 states the reason. Love. That is it. The love of God. Grace and Mercy. Underserved and unmerited love. God called Abraham out of the wonderful love of God. God says in Hosea, When Israel was a child, then I loved him.
And you know what happened God blessed Abraham and then Isaac and Jacob.
Verses 9 thru 13 talks about how God gave them fine linen and silk and gold and fine flour and so on and how because of God thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom.
Ezk 16:14 And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord GOD.
The main point that we should be seeing is that it was all because of God. All they had as a people was because God had put it upon them. And the reason why was given. Love. Underserved, unearned love.
How should they have reacted to this love? What would have been the correct response?
Love God back. God has been good to them and faithful to them. The correct response would be to reciprocate. They should have remembered and been thankful.
But that is not what they did as a people group. There were always a faithful few who did but the overall majority did not.
Ezk 16:15 But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.
Ezk 16:17 Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them,
Ezk 16:18 And tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them.
Ezk 16:19 My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was, saith the Lord GOD.
They took the gold and jewels and garments and fine flour that God gave them and took it and gave it to idols. They took what God graciously gave them in love and sacrificed it to false gods.
It is even worse than all of that.
Ezk 16:20 Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter,
Ezk 16:21 That thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?
I have heard some preachers say when preaching in other books that passing kids thru the fire did not hurt the kids. It was like two campfires and they walked the kids in between. Ezekiel sets the record straight. God clearly says they hast slain my children.
How did it end up getting so very bad. How did they go from being blessed by God and acknowledging that and being thankful to actually doing human sacrifice to false gods.
One of the most important reasons is listed in verse 22.
Ezk 16:22 And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood.
They would not remember where they came from. They did not remember as a people where they started out. What they came from before Abraham.
They did not remember all the good that God had done for them. Out of love, and over and over and over again. Blessings and blessings upon blessings.
Verses 23 thru 26 are about how they increased their whoredoms and wickedness to provoke God to anger.
Verse 27 tells us what God did to try to get their attention. To try to get them to understand their error and turn back.
Ezk 16:27 Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of thy lewd way.
God took away some blessings and some of His protection so that they would see the difference and turn back. Verses 28 thru 34 is about how they would not listen but just push ahead on the wrong course.
Ezk 16:35 Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the LORD:
Ezk 16:38 And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy.
Ezk 16:39 And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare.
They are going to lose all the things God gave them. Food and fine raiment and it goes on until verse 43.
And notice again in the beginning of verse 43 one of the root causes of all of it.
Ezk 16:43 Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth,
The end of verse 45: your mother was an Hittite, and your father an Amorite.
That is back to where we started. They did not remember what they came from before Abraham and they did not remember and consider all the great blessings that God gave them. All given out of love.
I think everyone here understands this principal. There is remembering and then there is remembering. There is remembering as in knowing facts. Most of them knew their history, they could score well on a pop quiz.
That is a different kind of remembering than we are talking about here. This is remembering as in considering. So know the fact of where you came from but think about that and actually consider it. They did not remember as in remembering that they were nothing and remembering as in acknowledging that what they had grown into was all because of God.
This is remembering as in giving God credit for it all and being thankful. This is remembering as in acting and living accordingly. Living in light of what God had done for them.
Verses 46 thru 59 God gives a comparison of them to Samaria and to Sodom and it is not good. They come out on that comparison as worse.
Ezk 16:48 As I live, saith the Lord GOD, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters.
Ezk 16:49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
Ezk 16:50 And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
The abomination is of course sodomy. But notice that was only one of the sins of Sodom. They had the sins of pride, abundance of idleness, would not help the poor and needy and were haughty.
Ezk 16:51 Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins;
Jews would walk extra miles just to walk around Samaria and here God is saying flat out that their sins were worse than Samaria. This is the land that the northern kingdoms ruled like Ahab.
Ezk 16:58 Thou hast borne thy lewdness and thine abominations, saith the LORD.
Ezk 16:59 For thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised the oath in breaking the covenant.
They have sowed and sowed and sowed and now there must be a reckoning. We know God tried and tried for centuries but they would not listen. Finally it is at a point where it requires God to act.
And He did, but God does not quit. He will still remember His covenant with them as a people after He cleans house a bit.
Ezk 16:60 Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant.
Ezk 16:62 And I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD:
And God does work over and over again. Esther and then Nehemiah and Ezra and then a great revival and then Jesus comes thru Israel just as God told Abraham.
And they fall away again but not thru the worshipping of statues and one day God will work and all Israel will be saved and they will have 144,000 witnesses for God in the tribulation.
But back to chapter 16. How did they get so far away from God? What was one of the root causes given for it here.
They refused to remember where they came from and would not remember all that God has done for them.
That right there is the lesson for us today.
The Israelites did not get from Abraham being thankful, and they did not get from Caleb and Joshua being thankful to their level of wickedness overnight. It did not happen in a month.
It took time. It works like this. One day you quit remembering what God has done for you and quit being thankful for it. And then you quit remembering the next day as well and then it keeps going and as you do that you keep slipping and slipping some more.
After a while you are doing less for the Lord and more and more wickedness creeps in. That is the danger of not remembering and being continually thankful for what God has done for you.
We should understand the danger of not remembering and being thankful for what God has done for us. This is a New Testament principal as well.
1Co_15:57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Eph_5:20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
Col_3:17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
Remembering to give thanks to God is an important issue. You will find it over and over again in the New Testament.
Jesus expects us to take the time to tell Him thank you. A great passage for this is in Luke 17:11
Luk 17:11 And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.
Luk 17:12 And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off:
Luk 17:13 And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.
Luk 17:14 And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.
Luk 17:15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,
Luk 17:16 And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.
Luk 17:17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?
Luk 17:18 There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.
Luk 17:19 And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.
Taking time to remember what Jesus has done for us and taking time to tell Him thank you is the right thing to do.
But it is also important for how it affects us. Taking time to remember what He has done for you will affect your heart. It will increase your faith. It will help keep things in perspective.
It improves and strengthens many things in your life.
We are all different but we all got saved the same way. Realized that we were a sinner and that Jesus was the way the truth and the life and no man comes to the Father but by Him. We realized that Jesus died for us and we put our faith in Him and called upon Him to save us.
That is the same for everyone. However, how we got to that point is different for everyone.
Not everyone hits a terrible bottom before they get saved. There was a huge difference in my life when I got saved and I can think back and when I do I am very thankful. I don’t think I would be alive today if I did not get saved.
Remembering where we came from and remembering all the blessings God has given us since we got saved is something we each should do on a regular basis.