Ezekiel 15-16

Introduction

Go chapters 15 and 16 in our lesson tonight. And I don’t even know what number of lessons that is in the book. Lesson. Lesson number 10. Don’t keep up with the numbers that way. But uh I was thinking today as we were prepared, as I was preparing for the class, I thought, I’m gonna ask. If somebody were to ask you what’s the value of studying the book of Ezekiel in the old testament, how would you answer them? I wonder at this point in your study if you feel like it’s been worthwhile or not worthwhile, or just what would you say is the purpose for the value of it? Anybody have an answer? I don’t know if you hadn’t thought about that until I just now asked you.

You certainly learned about God’s patience. Yeah. He’s constantly coming back. Okay. Uh John? I say that good. The way and the will of God and the fact that he keeps his promises. All right. When you said patience, I got to think of, well, yes, it’s patience, but i i in this particular study, what do we have thus far? God is warning through Ezekiel He’s going to do what? Justice, you might say, too. And fact is he has been long suffering up to this point, hasn’t he? But indeed, long suffering, but he does keep his word that you shall know that I am the Lord. And uh He is in control, isn’t he? He is the ruler. And and so uh you know Ezekiel, of course, there’s always the historical background that we learn back uh from what God’s people were like.

Do we repeat history sometimes? For the most part. Human beings today are like human beings who lived earlier. Yes, Janice? I was gonna say this is a very good example to individuals who say that God is loving and kind, and he wouldn’t do that to us. It’s a good warning for people who think God is so loving that he would never punish. I do think there is that concept. We say uh he’s a tolerant grandfather. And you know, grandfathers can be tolerant today, but that still, while God loves, maybe like our grandfather, those are his children, yet he finally says, Look, I’ve had enough. This is it. I’m not overlooking. Justice will not overlook violating God’s law and humiliating him, you might say some of the lessons we have in the ninth, chapter 16 is to the shame and humiliation of God, what you’ve lived like, Stu.

1. Prophesy Against the Prophets

I was gonna say it also um shows the integrity of the scriptures to include something so despicable in the history of a country that’s still around along back. You know, it shows that they’re that it’s obviously true to his word, that it’s gonna show the good and the bad. Right, okay. All right. Let’s start with uh looking at questions on page 38 and 9. It’ll kind of help us review a little bit of what we had Sunday in the Sunday lesson from chapters 13 and 14. Question number one on page 38 what did these prophets quote follow and quote see? Uh what was the alright? I’ll just leave that as a question and we’ll talk about it.

All right. What’s he saying to Ezekiel? God is saying to Ezekiel to do what to the prophets? I mean, I should have probably started with that, though that wasn’t the first question. What was he to do at this point? To go prophesy against the prophets. And then, well, why? And that’s the of course the question. Because they followed their own spirit, and they saw really nothing. Yet they said it was from God. They were false prophets. Could there be false prophets today? Are there men who maybe make up their own preaching that it because it sounds good, it tickles the ears, and boy, it can win the cows. If you’re a good actor today, you can really, you know, a good speaker. Making money, and no doubt, even back then they were too.

There was covetous, and Jeremiah especially spoke about them in that way. Number two, to what animal did God compare these false prophets? All right, the foxes. And how would that be? Why were they like a fox? What what would what was a fox do that they would be like? Scavengers. Alright, well, scavenger. One of the things they did was said they dug holes. But I thought the answer to Sunday was that a fox is sly, shrewd, cunning, and so were they.

Number three, what kind of wall had they built? They built a wall, and in the sense of a wall is what’s the building of a wall for, would you say? Protection. All right, protection. Because they’re saying, don’t worry about the Babylonians. Peace peace when there is no peace. But when you really took a close look at the wall they built, it was built with what? Untempered mortar. Untempered mortar, meaning just it was whitewashed. It was not the cement and would not stand. So number four, what would God do to the wall that they built? He was going to tear it down, which uh he he said, you know, there might be a stormy wind or uh flooding rain or great hailstones, three different things he described by which that wall would fall.

In other words, it’s simply out of the mind of man that he thought this wall would protect them because it certainly was not God. God’s anger was filled because of their ungodliness. Number five, what had the prophetess done to the heart of the righteous and the hand of the wicked?

They were women, weren’t they? You mean even the women were also involved in false teaching? Absolutely, they were. And they made the heart of the righteous sad. How did they do that?

I expect that could be said of the male as well, prophets as well as the prophetesses, but especially he spoke of in verse 22 how that it made the righteous sad because they strengthen the hands of the wicked so that the wicked do not repent. In other words, you give them false hope and they keep right on doing their ungodliness and they think they’re protected, but they’re really gonna be lost. Does it grieve your heart today when you see false teachers tell the world it doesn’t really matter? Just go on and do your own thing that you’re gonna be saved somehow. And you know, you know God isn’t pleased when people are teaching that which is not found in the Word of God. Does it not make you sad?

2. Idols in Their Heart

I would hope it would, so you could understand what he’s talking about, even these prophetesses when they teach that, that strengthen the hands of those who are doing wrong and makes them feel that they’re all right and they don’t need to change. Number six, why did God resist being inquired of by these elders? The idols of their heart. All right. It’s not just that they had the gold and silver or stone idol that they bowed down literally to. Even when these elders came to Ezekiel, he’s the charge was you have another kind of idol. An idol in their heart. How can you have an idol in your heart? Can we do that today? You know, I’d say America does not have the kind of idols like really the heathen had back in the days of uh of God’s people in the old testament.

We we don’t have Molech, and we we don’t have other gods that they literally would worship. We don’t have that in America, do we? We’re cured of idolatry, aren’t we? Idol is anything between you and God, or they’re putting in place of God. All right, something that indeed is more important to you than God. Therefore it comes between you and God. And so uh even religiously, could we say, well, I’ll uh you know, I want to serve God and still have an idol in our heart? Yeah, sure. By the way, even prophets today, even prophets today are idols to some. Explain that. Okay. Uh our neighbors next door, there are prophets there. Living prophets today, there, and people look to them for healing and other things, and therefore I see them as an idol of today.

So it is not a truth. People look to them for things that the Bible does not promise, and yet they claim to be able to do what God has not foretold in his word, and and they take the heart of people. What about doctrine? Can that be an idol in our heart? Have you ever seen somebody say, Well, I know the Bible says that, but I just don’t believe that’s necessary. I I’ve had that told me. I had a man once say, Well, this literally happened. I was in a home Bible class with him, and my mother was sprinkled, and that means she’s going to hell. I’m just going to go to hell with her. It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t, well, I can’t believe somebody says something like that.

If I see what it says, but I think that’s an idol in the heart. I’m, you know, I’ve made up my mind. We we may use the word prejudice. It means prejudged. That’s what the word is. So I made up my mind what I want to believe. And, you know, I can be sincere about it. And I can go my way and feel good about it, but I could really, it may be because of an idol in my heart. So they had become estranged from God by that. Number eight, what did Ezekiel tell them to do to return? Repent. Turn away from you. Turn from your idols. Turn your faces from all your abominations. Number nine, who would Noah Daniel and Job be able to deliver?

No, no. Only their own souls. Four different times he describes different scenes that uh even if these great men, you know, even if a Noah were there or a Job were there, or even a Daniel, who could they save? Only themselves. Is that a lesson for us today, too? Yes. You may be married to the most godly husband or most godly wife, but he or she cannot stand in your place. We each answer for ourselves. And so in any area, whether it’s in a relationship and family or even in a congregation or a church, we answer for ourselves. We cannot have a Job or a Noah or a Daniel to say, okay, well, his righteousness sort of keeps the whole bunch of us. We’re all gonna go to heaven because we’re part of this group.

Well, no, it doesn’t, it doesn’t work that way. And then number 10, what would they know when they saw the ways of the remnant?

That God had not done, or God had done nothing without cause. Without cause. That he had done. It was right. But then in another word, what would you say that’s what he said? He had right for you. Alright, it was right to do what he did. All right. It was right because of their God is just, isn’t he? And uh the language of the American Standard Bible is God did nothing in vain. God did nothing in vain. All right. Or without cause, without purpose. True or false, the prophets had spoken vanity, seen lies. True, they had. They did this for handfuls of barley and pieces of bread. True. But it wasn’t worth what they were giving people in exchange for it. The prophets might become deceived himself.

3. Jerusalem Had Become a Fruitless Vine

True. True. Yeah, it’s a sad scripture how we can be that way. Number four, only three sword judgments would be brought upon Jerusalem. False. Because there were four, weren’t there? Number five, someday Israel would be comforted. True. And I think we dealt with the research and thought question as we went through. So as we proceed now and looking at Ezekiel chapter 15, it’s one of the shortest, maybe the shortest, I’m not sure, in the book of Ezekiel, but certainly an important lesson and application, even for us today. When the prophet said, Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, has the wood of the vine, better than any other wood. The vine branch, which is among the trees of the forest.

Is wood taken from it to make any object? Or can men make a peg from it to hang any vessel on? Instead, it’s thrown into the fire for fuel. The fire devours both ends of it, and its middle is burned. Is it useful for any work? Indeed, when it was whole, no object could be made from it. How much less will it be useful for any work when the fire has devoured it and it is burned? He’s actually using illustration here, isn’t it? Teach a lesson. And the, you know, what makes the vine, from which, of course, uh the grape and the juice uh good for food and good for drink uh is found. Well, what makes it distinctive? Is it like the cedar or the oak tree or the other trees?

What’s the difference between the two?

All right. The vine, if it does not bear fruit, is of no value. In fact, you can’t even make a peg with it and hang a hat on, can you? So that each have their place, or you might say they value it. But what was Israel to God? Is is Israel the cedar, uh the oak or the vine? The vine. What are we today? Vine. We’re the vine. Didn’t Jesus say, We are. I am the vine, and you know the branches. And what does he say about bearing fruit in that passage? You remember? Yeah. If we do not bear fruit to God, then what will he do? Fruit off. John chapter 15. There’s a cutting off process. You know, each of us should take that and look at ourselves uh individually.

Uh if God would say that about his people of Israel of old, and in a clearer lesson here, look, you’re good for nothing if you’re not bearing fruit. What are you to God? And here was Israel that was not bearing fruit for him. And therefore, when Jesus uses that same kind of illustration or application in John chapter 15, it is indeed a lesson for us today. We’re good for nothing but to be cut off and to be burned. Jerusalem had become a fruitless vine. In fact, continuing in verses 6 through 8, the rest of that chapter, he said, Therefore, thus says the Lord God, like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so I will give up the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

I’ll set my face against them. They go out, they will go out from one fire, but another fire shall devour them. Then you shall know that I am the Lord when I set my face against them. Thus I will make the land desolate because they have persisted in unfaithfulness, says the Lord God. When it says in the latter part of verse 7, they will go out from one fire, but another will devour them. Well, you think he might be alluding to there? The ones that are in Babylon. Well, all right. Well, even with them, at the time Ezekiel is writing this, had they not already suffered fire in some sense from God. I mean, there’s already been two captivities with Daniel in 605, and then with Ezekiel and the 10,000 in 597.

Will there be another fire yet? They may think, oh well, we’ve already survived this far. We’re all right. No doubt false prophets were reasoning something like that. No doubt the false prophets were also describing how that, you know, David’s throne is in Jerusalem. And God made a promise to David that that throne would last and be an everlasting throne. And besides the temple is here. And so they built a wall of protection. You know, they had a reasonable message to the people of that day. And they had survived already the the uh the captivities. I mean, they even looked at those people over with Ezekiel, uh, with Ezekiel. Uh maybe it’s back to chapter 11 it was. They deserve to be there. You see, they weren’t the good people.

Those of us who are left in Jerusalem, we’re the ones who are going to be, you know, God’s gonna spare us. Of course, they had it just turned around because it’s that same chapter. God had said, those are the people like uh Jeremiah’s two baskets of figs, the good figs and the bad figs. They are the ones out of which the remnant will be found to come back. But these people who stayed in Jerusalem, and they are the ones who really have uh resisted the will of God, who make themselves righteous, they’re self-righteous, but they’re still, their hearts are about other gods, idols in their heart, and and real idols for that matter as well. Indeed, they’re the ones that would be taken. So they’re like the vine that’s worthy to be burned, and they shall be, and they shall be destroyed.

4. An Allegory: Cause Jerusalem to Know Her Abominations

Chapter 16. Now maybe you’ve had time to read this before class. I don’t know if sometimes I get that. I’ve been read reading quite a bit to the class, but I feel like it’s kind of the best ways we go through it. What did you decide about chapter 16? What would you call it? Do you think he’s literally talking about Jerusalem? Jerusalem is uh the uh sister of who? Sodom. Sodom and sister of Samaria, her mother and father or the Hittite and the Amorite? Is that true literally? No. No, no, that’s not true literally. But there’s some truth there. Oh, yeah, he’s teaching a principle of truth, isn’t he? So it’s the form of uh teaching uh of an illustration. Anybody know what we call it?

It’s not a parable. Jesus used parables in the New Testament. A parable is something where you take something that’s real that happened and you throw alongside of it a principle of truth, and this is like a parable, but it’s not, it’s called an allegory. Now what’s the difference? What is an allegory? Well, you have one in the book of Galatians that’s used that way.

It is like this. It’s a likeness of a parable, but it uses actual historical characters or figures. When he uses, was there literally a city called Sodom? It was destroyed, and it’s in Samaria. Yeah. Were there really Hittites and Amorites? Yeah. So it uses characters that actually did. And when you think about the Hittites of the Amorites, where do you remember about them in the history of God’s people? Who were they? They were against God’s people. Well, yeah, that’s good. That’s a general good question.

Where were they? The Canaanite was the.

And when Israel came into the land of Canaan, did they have to fight against and clear out the Amorites and the Hittites? Yeah. So were they really considered to be God’s noble citizens upright? No. No. They weren’t that at all. Well, they had to wait until the Amorites sin had been filled. Alright, that’s what he told Abraham even earlier in Genesis, right? So why would he say you’re the daughter of? Your father is.

They learned about all their gods. They worship those other gods, and kind of they were kind of parallel to them. They were doing exactly the same things, even though God prized them above all others. Alright, you hit the nail on the head. They they were not really good examples of righteous people. And so therefore God placed Jerusalem, you’re like them. And because you’re like them, what’s God going to do? In fact, you’re worse than them. Isn’t that what he says? Actually, this chapter, it’s a long chapter, I think it’s sixty-three verses. But in it, it he really describes, you might say, the the life of Israel. He sees them first as a baby that he came along and he nurtured and cared for. And the baby matured, became a beautiful woman, and then married.

And and as as this traveler, you might say, of course, I think a picture of God, but the traveler gives her everything, you know, as he helped mature to a beautiful woman and gives us clothing and gives her jewels and gives her so many things that are precious. Well, what does she do with them? She turns right around and uses those to allure others. She becomes like a prostitute. She becomes worse than the prostitutes. She even gets the point of prostitute, but uh receives for her favor, she receives. But Jerusalem is worse than the prostitute because she gave to her lovers. And he says, You’re worse than her. And so this is a story of would not God be humiliated. This is his pride that he’s nurture.

And now here you are. You’re not only like them, you’re worse than they are. I tell you, when God finishes with this story through Ezekiel, you think God’s people, every one of them ought to be shaking their head in shame and song. Really? And yet the chapter closes with a promise of God that he’s still going to remember. Remember his covenant. His covenant that he remembers is with whom? Who did God really make a covenant with? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And then later David. But God made an everlasting covenant through whom and what was the real covenant for? Christ. But the coming of the Son of God. You know, you and I are the recipients of a, you might say, a history of how many times could God have just said, I’ve had enough with you.

I’ll just completely wipe you off. But he remembered, though, the remnant, and he remembered the covenant. And you and I are here as a possibility of God’s grace. That through all those years, yet he made possible the salvation you and I should have. We should not take it lightly, but remember what has gone through the history of raising up God’s people, of putting up with God’s people, of remembering a remnant through all those ages and still to the virgin birth of Jesus Christ and his life on earth and finally his death, burial, and resurrection. We have the promise of eternal life. God kept his promise. When indeed, you could say, a chapter like this could say, Boy, how could God stand it? How did he stand it?

Would you, as a husband, would you stand it if your wife were like this? Starting in chapter 16, beginning in verse 1, again, the word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations. And we’ll stop right there. What’s the whole point of this chapter? At Jerusalem, we’ll know her abominations. I’m about to tell you, here’s the story. So in verses 3 to 7, say, thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem, your birth and your nativity are from the land of Canaan. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. As for your nativity, on the day you were born, your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you. You were not rubbed with salt nor wrapped in swaddling clothes.

No, I pitied you to do any of these things for you. You have compassion or to have compassion on you. But you were thrown out into the open field. When you yourself were loathed on the day you were born. When I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood, live, yes, I said to you in your blood, live. I made you thrive like a plant in the field. And you grew, matured, became very beautiful. Your breasts were formed, your hair grew, but you were naked and bare. At this point, you’d have to say, Well, what we know about Israel.

She’s living now, at the time this is written, or through the years, Canaan. God had promised Abraham that he would make of him a great nation, and they would give him land to live in, didn’t he? Did Abraham ever own even a foot, a thing?

Jacob? No. Well, Abraham owned a little bit. No, well, he’s a cave and a burial place, okay. But not to live on. Okay. Good point. But not to live on. And in fact, even in Egypt. After the Pharaoh who knew Joseph died, what happened to them in Egypt? I mean, they were a struggling people. There was nothing to brag about when you look at their birth. When you look at their beginning. Had it not been for God, you might say they would have vanished among the peoples of the world. And yet, after you might say 400 years of torment, here they come.

They had not been salted. What does that mean compared with modern times? They were not rubbed with salt and are wrapped in swelling clothes. He had not been cleansed, you know, from the birth. There’s no one there. Had it not been for God, you were hopelessly. Even from birth, you would have probably vanished. But beginning in verse 8, he said, When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love. So I spread my wing over you, covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, and you became mine, says the Lord God. Then I washed you in water, yes, I thoroughly washed off your blood, and I anointed you with oil.

I clothed you in embroidered cloth and gave you sandals of badger skin. I clothed you with the fine linen, covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. And I put a jewel in your nose, 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, silk and embroidered cloth. You ate pastry of fine flour, honey, and oil. You were exceedingly beautiful and succeeded to royalty. Your fame went out among the nations because of your beauty. Or it was perfect through my splendor, which I have bestowed on you, says the Lord God. But you trusted in your own beauty. You played the harlot because of your fame, and poured out your harlotry on everyone passing by who would have it.

You took some of your garments and adorned multicolored high places for yourself. Played the harlot on them. Such things should not happen, nor be. You have also taken your beautiful jewelry from my gold and my silver, which I have, which I have given you, and made for yourself, male images, and played the harlot with them. You took your embroidered garments and covered them, and you set my oil and my incense before them. Also my food which I gave you, the pastry of fine flour, oil, and honey which I fed you, you set it before them as a sweet incense. And so it was, says the Lord God. Well, I read it quite a lengthy bit, but what’s really happened? He’s taken her, he’s made her beautiful, and when he said he um put his skirt over her, uh, uh in effect he’s saying, I married you.

You know, uh the story of Ruth, and Boaz covered her uh with his coat. It was as though I take you in to be mine. And so uh what he’s saying in this uh I said to you when you lived to live, and so you lived and you became mature, and so I spread my wing over you, verse 8 as I was trying to find the verse, and covered your nakedness. And so I swore with an oath, entered into a covenant with you. And then he describes all the things he gave her. You know, now in an allegory, we can see, well, that’s what he’s done, like you would do to the bride that you loved, and he’s blessed her and everything. But her pride led her astray.

5. Her Pride Led Her Astray

After God had given her all these things, the very idolatry she practiced, such things should not happen. I think that’s a that’s an outstanding statement in the last part of verse 16. The very things that God gave her, she took and used them to lure others. Uh her her beauty, her jewelry, her garments, even God’s oil and incense he gave her, that the food. It’s a fearful thing to fall in love with the gifts God has blessed us with. I’m something thinking about it. There’s a sense of pride. What is pride? God gave us what we have. Maybe you’re the most handsome fat fellow there ever was, the most beautiful girl you ever had, but what made you that way? Maybe you’re the smartest person on earth who gave it to you.

The gifts God gave us simply gave us responsibilities. First Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 7. What hast thou that thou dost not receive? If you didn’t receive it, why do you glory as if you did not receive it? You know, we’re different people, but we all have talents. We’re different in our abilities, and we’re different in our talents. And therefore, don’t use what God gave you against God. I think that’s a lesson right here. What Israel had done, the very talents and beauty that God gave her and the ornaments that he gave, she used against God, in effect. Because that pride went to the way. What is pride anyway? How many times I mean you know the word pride is never found in a good sense in the Bible?

Uh we use it today. I’m I’m proud of my children. I mean by that I rejoice in them. But but if if pride, how would you define pride instead of me saying everything? How would you find what is pride? But there’s a saying that says pride goeth before the fall. Yeah. All right, in Proverbs, it’s a saying in Proverbs. I didn’t know where I got it from the world. Pride goes before the fall, Holy Spirit before destruction. In chapter, I think it’s Proverbs 16, 18. But here we are, that that you know, we get to we get too high of ourselves. There’s not humility in the heart. And because, yeah, yeah, I know I’m better than you. That’s a sense of pride, isn’t it? That’s a sense of arrogance.

I may have more talent than you, so what? I may be stronger, you know. We get into a physical battle, and I’m making an outdoor you. We have an arm wrestling or whatever. So what? Uh so we take a test, and I can make a hundred, and you can only make ninety-eight. So what? I mean, it doesn’t matter. I may be wealthier than you. So what? You won’t you leave it all behind. So there ought to be that attitude. What happened with Israel is that she became filled up with herself. And that then led her to forget God. What a what a lesson even for us. Verse 20, the word moreover. I think it struck me. Not only have you done these things moreover, what did you do?

You took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore to me. And these you sacrifice to them to be devoured. Where your acts of harlotry is a small matter, that you’ve slain my children, and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire. And in all your abominations and acts of harlotry, you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bearish struck in your blood. You’ve already forgotten what I did for you in the very beginning.

You know, I I I have because I guess the culture I’m raised in, it’s hard for me to imagine how that they, you know, I’ve seen it illustrated that Molech, the big idol god with arms out like this, and and the fire, or maybe it’s up like this, and the fire as they put their child in the hand and it rolls down into the mouth of the idol, may burn. How could that be? Is that not a pretty severe sacrifice? Ultimate of all sacrifices, would you give your child?

I was thinking about verse 22, you know, not remembering the days of your eve, and how it’s almost kind of contradictory with Israel because they were taking such pride in, you know, all we’re the people of God, and you know, we’re chosen people, Abraham, and and yet they were forgetting that that they came out of Egypt and and only had a list because God helped them in letting them through. The only reason they’re there where they are is because God made it possible. Is that already? And not early. But then uh but here they are. I I would I was going to make a point. Do mothers sometimes a day offer their children to idols in their heart? Ow. Yes. Well, just recently, Molly Cyrus, if you say even the mother and the father made Molly Molly, too.

That’s right. We shouldn’t forget that. You know, sometimes we we get to think, well, I want my child to be the best athlete. And they may forsake the ascending of the saints, they may, you know, they never already studied their Bible, and they they push them into. I want my child to be popular. Maybe it’s the girl. And it doesn’t matter what the other girls addressing him modestly, I want them to be popular. And so we push our children or encourage our children in ways of the world, and when it comes time to really love the Lord, they don’t know the Lord. Because Mother didn’t teach them when they were young. And so I I think today we’d say, Well, I never put my child in the hands to burn.

6. Woe: She Became an Unashamed Prostitute

Well, are we? Maybe by our action that we’re bringing them up. So a point to be thought about. In fact, in verse 23, though, he says, Woe, woe. It’s a lament, you might say the first one, I’m sad, ashamed of you. And the second, woe is a threat. Because you keep doing this, and that’s going to be the end. She became an unashamed prostitute, verses 23 through 29. Verse 24, you made that you built for yourself a shrine, made a high place for yourself. Verse 25, you built high places at the head of every road, made your beauty to be a poor. You offered yourself to everyone who passed by, multiplied your acts of harlotry. You committed harlotry with the Egyptians. Who else?

With the Assyrians. Verse 28. In fact, it’s kind of interesting in verse 27. You even made the daughters of the Philistines ashamed of your little behavior. You did so bad that even these Philistines were ashamed of you. And moreover, verse 29, you multiplied as far as the land of the traitor, Chaldea of the Babylonians. So what did you do? You reached out to all these around you. In verses 30 through 34, your constant ungodliness. Really, you just became weaker and weaker. In fact, interestingly, they became a slave. She became a slave to her herself, uh, to her uh urging. Um you were not like a harlot because you scorned payment, even. You are an adulterous wife, verse 32, who takes strangers instead of your husband. Men make payment to all harlots, but you made your payments to all your lovers.

Hired them to come to you from all around for your harlot. You are opposite of other women in your harlotry. Because no one solicited you to be a harlot, and that you gave payment, but no payment was given you, therefore you are the opposite. Boy, that’s really strong statement in it. But now, O heart of verse 35, hear the word of the Lord. And so what does he say? Dropping down to verse 38, because of time. I will judge you as women who break wedlock or shed blood a judge. I’ll bring blood upon you in fury and jealousy. Is God unfair to say that? You know, people say, Boy, the Bible, the God of the Old Testament, He’s mean in. Well, did He have any right to when he described here my people?

What have they done? In verse 41, they shall burn your houses with fire and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women, and I will make you cease playing the harlot, and you shall no longer hire lovers. I will lay to rest my fury towards you, and my jealousy shall be depart from you. I will be quiet and be angry no more. Hey, that’s a positive, isn’t it? Out of all this, really, just a little, you call it, have to catch it right quick in Ezekiel. I’m going to do this, I’m going to punish you, but what’s going to happen? It will work to your good. When the people came back from captivity, later, under the leadership of Zerubon, then they were cured of idolatry.

Really, they never again were guilty of idolatry after they came back from Babylonian captivity. So I think this is a little bit said here that you’re going to be cured of this. But indeed, everyone, verse 44, who uses who quotes Proverbs will use this proverb, like mother, like daughter. That ever happened today? Yeah, somehow we influence those who are at us. I’m sorry I didn’t get through. I didn’t watch that clock like I should have.