In the Word

Pastor Mike Warren: Ezekiel tonight. One other thing: be praying because next Wednesday, be careful when you pull into the parking lot. They've promised us that the guys that are moving the portable classroom from Nevada Union High School have it disconnected. They're going to be disassembling it on Monday and Tuesday, and they should be moving it here on Wednesday. It'll be placed over on this side of the campus. Just make note of that in case they've got some equipment parked out there. Keep your kids off of it. We don't want Nathan starting up the rig and driving out the parking lot, or Ethan, or any of these kids. Make sure somebody puts a leash on Josh Wagner when he's out there so they don't start messing with that equipment.

Let's pray. Ezekiel chapter 16. Father, we thank you tonight for your word. Ezekiel 16 is a very special chapter to me and, as we know, it's the longest chapter in the book of Ezekiel. I personally think it's the most intimate. It is where in no uncertain terms you tell us how when we fall away from you into sinful behavior and into idolatry, it breaks your heart. We have the ability as your creation, as your bride, as your people, to wound you and to hurt you.

Father, may we take that to heart tonight as we look at these next verses. They're difficult to read through as you just pour out your heart. We don't ever want to break your heart. We do want you to know as we open this chapter that if we do, it's not something we want to do. We struggle with these things, so we need more of your Holy Spirit to help us. We pray that you just give us great wisdom and understanding tonight. We ask it in Jesus' name, and all God's children would say, amen.

Again, by way of reminder, if you've got your pad and pen out, from chapter 12 to chapter 24 is an interesting section. It's amazing as you study through the book of Ezekiel how it's broken out into different sections as God is dealing with his people. I find it interesting that from chapter 12 all the way through chapter 24, what God is doing is laying out his case. He's giving his reasons to us in the word as to why he must discipline his people.

He doesn't want to discipline his people. In fact, we're going to get to a verse where it says, "Turn ye, turn ye, why will you perish? I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." Because he's a holy God and his eyes are too pure to look upon sin even amongst his people, he has to deal with it. It's just his nature not to allow those things, although he is long-suffering, gracious, and merciful. What he really wants them to do is to turn.

As we walk through the rest of this chapter, picking up again in verse 30 where we left off last week, at the end of it there's a promise given. As we started out last week, he talks about all of the things that he has done for us, how he found us dying in our own blood and he gave life to us. Then he blessed us and he did all of these things for us. Then we come to the first "but" in the 16th chapter: but you have strayed from me. You took the things I gave you and you offered them to idols.

He uses this terminology: as my people, Israel was the wife of God the Father. We're the bride of Jesus Christ. Both are relational, but he would say to his wife, "You've acted like a harlot. You've broken my heart." He's going to continue that, but as we get to the end, the second "but" is: but I am going to be faithful to my covenant with you. I am going to complete my covenant and one day you are going to serve me. One day you're going to put away these idols and you're going to come back to me with your whole heart.

Opening up in verse 30, a very important principle is laid out to us. I think it's one of the most important principles that a Christian can understand: what we need to know about our service, our walk, and our Christianity is that what God requires of us is that we would love him with our whole heart. No rival throne. No idols. He knows as we are his people we're going to struggle with sin.

Even in the Old Testament we know that because when you come to the book of Leviticus and the first few chapters, he makes provision to deal with sin. He makes provision to deal with trespasses and sins by the offerings of the lamb and the blood that we bring to him, which is a type of Christ. He knows even as his people that love him with all of their heart, they're going to fail from time to time. He gets that. It's all through the New Testament.

That's why when John writes his first epistle in chapter 1, he comes to verse 8 and he says, "If you say that you don't have a tendency or a bent to sin, you deceive yourself." Although your spirit is born again, you're still dealing with the flesh. Paul writes to the church at Galatians and says the flesh wars against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. They are contrary and in battle with one another constantly.

Paul says in Romans chapter 7, "When I want to do good, evil is present. The things I don't want to do, I find myself doing." This is the apostle Paul who had served the Lord up to 30 years at this point. He says the things he should be doing, he doesn't. "Oh, wretched man that I am! I find then there's a law when I want to do good, evil is there." Then he thanks Jesus Christ that with his spirit he served the Lord, but with his flesh, sin. There's this constant struggle.

That's not what he's talking about here. Even when David fell into adultery and sent Uriah to be murdered, even before that happened, God said of David, "There's a man after my own heart." Some have asked me over the years how could God say that of David knowing that David would commit adultery, David would commit murder, he would live in deception, and he would try to hide his sin for two years. Why would God say that? Because of all the kings of Israel, David never committed idolatry.

He never changed gods. He broke the heart of his Father and he repented with sackcloth and ashes because he did that because of the weakness of his flesh, but he never built an idol in his life. He never attributed his blessings to something else. He never sought something else for peace. When David was confronted by the prophet, he was broken and he repented. That's what God looks for in us.

Watch what it says here as we open up in verse 30. God's asking a question because, again, he's putting out his case as to why he's going to discipline his people. He says, "How weak is thy heart." That word for "weak" in Hebrew has the sense of how fickle or how double-minded are you? You serve me half-heartedly because your heart's divided. In James chapter 1 verse 8 it says a double-minded person is unstable in all of their ways.

You see, you can't love the world and love the Lord at the same time. Jesus said that. You cannot serve two masters. You'll love one and hate the other. That's just the way it works. What the Lord wants from us is that we would give our whole heart to him. He's asking this question as he's revealing how his heart is broken because of the idolatry and the sin of his people. He asks, "How long will you be fickle in your heart?"

Then he says this, saith the Lord God, seeing that you do all of these things, the work of an arrogant harlot. Why do you give yourself away to the things of the world and still think that it would be acceptable to me to call you my wife? How long are you going to have a fickle heart? Again, we said this last week, but in 1 Kings chapter 18 Elijah addresses the people. He says to the people, "How long halt thee between two opinions? How long are you going to serve God at the same time you're serving idols?"

How long are you going to have one foot in the things of the Lord and one foot in the things of the world? If the Lord be God, then serve him. Serve him with your whole heart. If he truly is God, if he is your Lord, if he is your master, if he is the king of your life, then serve him and follow him. But if the gods of this world are your god, then follow them. The people answered not a word.

Even before this, Joshua, as they're about to move into the promised land in Joshua chapter 24, says, "Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity." The idea is without compromise. I think there's too much compromise in the church today because I think that we've got a false diet for a long period of time of hyper-grace. That's one of the things that James dealt with in the New Testament in his day. He had to deal with this thing of hyper-grace where people were taking advantage of the grace of God.

They were saying we're not under the law, so we can live in any way we want to live. I think that false doctrine has caught wind in the church again today. Listen, you are bought with a price. Jesus is not just our savior, although he's all that. He paid the price for our sins. He redeemed us and rescued us, but he's also our Lord. As Paul would say, we have become abject slaves to the master.

We serve a good master now. We serve a master that is benevolent. We serve a master that has our best interest at heart. We serve a master that wants to bless us and give good things to his children. But he's still our master. That's why Jesus would say in Luke's Gospel, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not the things that I say?" You can't have it both ways because the grace that Paul writes to Titus about, that young pastor, he says the grace that brings salvation has appeared to all men.

It's offered to all men. But when you're a recipient of that grace and you're born again by the Spirit of God, that same grace teaches you to live godly and righteous and holy in this present life. It doesn't give you a license to sin. We are told to put off the old man, put on the new man, and put away sinful behavior. We have the capacity to do that because of the Spirit of God that lives in us.

What God is saying is I don't want you to be double-minded. I don't want you to be divided in your heart. I want you with singleness of heart and with focus to serve me with your whole heart. Joshua says, "Now therefore fear the Lord, serve him sincerely and in truth, and put away the gods that your fathers served on the other side of the flood in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, then choose you this day whom you will serve."

Whether the gods which our fathers served that were on the other side of the flood or the gods of the Amorites and the gods that dwelt in the land. Abraham was called out of the land of the Chaldeans out of the city of Ur and he was an idol-worshipping pagan when God found him. But he said, "As for me, I make that commitment every day. I can't believe that God loves me the way he loves me. I can't believe the intimacy that I can have with my creator. I can just sit alone and I can feel his presence. As for me and my household, we're going to serve the Lord."

As he starts this section out again, he says how long are you going to be between two positions? How fickle is your heart, saith the Lord, seeing that you do these things, the work of an arrogant harlot. Listen to what he says. It gets pretty pointed. He says, in that you build your places where you do idol worship at the head of every way, at the head of your streets, and you make the high places in every street. You have not been as a harlot in that you scorn hire. He said at least a harlot does it for pay.

Not only do you not do it for pay, you pay your lovers with what I've given you to cause yourself to be in whoredom to them. You're not even doing it for pay. Then he goes on to say but as a wife that committeth adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband. They give gifts unto all whores, but you give gifts unto your lovers and hire them. You go out and you hire your idols. You go out and you pay for your adultery. You go out and you purchase it. At least the world gets paid for their sin. You actually pay other people so that you can sin with them.

One of the greatest complaints of God is that you're worse than the nations around you that are pagan because you're sinning in light. You should know better. You're my people. You're the ones I delivered out of Egypt. You're the ones I brought through the Red Sea by miracles. You're the ones that I destroyed your enemies. You're the ones that I fed and watered through the wilderness, that I put a cloud above you during the day to keep you from the summer heat of the sun in the desert and a fire by night to light your camp.

It was my presence that led and guided you. I destroyed all of your enemies before you. I gave you renown. I caused the nations around you to fear you. I parted the Jordan River at flood tide and brought you into this land flowing with milk and honey. I gave this to you. Now you're willing to give away what I gave to you to purchase these lovers to enter into idolatry. The contrary is in you from other women in your whoredoms whereas none follow you to commit whoredom and you give a reward and no reward is given to you. You are worse because when you play the harlot, you don't get paid for it. You pay others.

This is how corrupted you have become. He's explaining and laying his case out before us so that when God is done judging, the only thing that can be said is righteous and true all together are your judgments, oh God. We see the angels saying that after God judges this world. They're going to say at the end of all of God's judgments, through all of those plagues that God brought them, they shook their fist in the face of God. All of the angels of heaven are going to say at the very end of it, you were right in doing what you did.

They sowed the wind and they were deserving of the whirlwind. They sowed to the flesh and they were deserving. They did not repent at your call. They did not turn at your warning. They did not come as your Spirit wooed them. They trampled underfoot the Spirit of his grace and they considered the blood of the cross as an unworthy thing. You see, it's hard to go to hell. You can get there, but you've got to work pretty hard because you've got to resist that work of the Spirit that God sent into this world that convicts us of sin and of righteousness and of the judgment that is to come.

You've got to harden your heart and set your face like a flint to destruction. You can get there, but it's a lot of work. I remember witnessing to my oldest sister right after I got saved and she never made it out of the hippie movement. She's in heaven now. She came to faith late in life. But then she would tell me things like, "If there is a God, when I stand there I'm going to give him a piece of my mind."

I said, "Debbie, if you ever stand before the living God without the blood of Jesus Christ applied to your life, you're going to be speechless. You're going to be consumed in his presence. You're going to fall on your face and you're going to cry for mercy because you have no idea of what you're talking about. He is God Almighty. We cannot even approach him in this physical form lest we be consumed because he's an all-consuming fire. He is perfect and he is holy in all of his ways. He's the King of Glory, he's the creator of heaven and earth. Have you no understanding of what you are saying? Is there no fear of God in you?"

Even saved, I'm going to tell you there's parts where I'm excited about standing before him, but there's other parts where it's a good thing I'm getting a new body. But he says this, wherefore, oh harlot, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God, because your filthiness was poured out, because you did that, and your nakedness was discovered through your whoredoms with your lovers and with all of the idols and your abominations and by the blood of your children.

You sacrificed, you aborted your children. They would offer them to the god Molech. If you've seen any imagery or you've Googled it, you'll see that it's this image of this beast with outstretched arms that's made of bronze that is hollow. They put a fire in it and they heat it up to its glowing red and any illegitimate child, any child that was born out of wedlock, any unwanted child, they would put it upon the arms and it would literally cook that child to death.

Again, God would say in Malachi, as we read last week, those offspring belong to me. That's why I hate divorce because I look for a godly offspring. Those children that you bear are on loan to you. They belong to Almighty God. They're his creation. Didn't you marvel? I did. I remember when we got pregnant with our first and finally we were in the delivery room and that baby popped out. I had read a lot of books on fatherhood and one of the things I read by James Dobson is that the baby bonds to the voice of the mom in the womb, but the first 30 minutes out of the womb it bonds to the voice of the father.

I had to wrestle this slimy, bloody thing away from the nurse. We'd just cut the umbilical cord and she said, "We've got to clean it." I said, "No, you don't." And I just walked around the room and then out of the room up and down the hallway just telling her how important she was and how we love her and we want her to know the true and living God. That's why we're naming you Destiny because we want you to know that you have a destiny beyond this life. And just to talk and the thought hit me: that this is an eternal soul. This person that we have created will never have an end. They will spend eternity somewhere and we are responsible for this child to bring this child up in the way that they should go so that when they grow old, they won't depart.

God said what you did is I gave you that gift, that child was a gift, that child belonged to me and I entrusted you with that child and you offered it to Molech. You burned it alive before your idols which you didst give to them. Behold therefore I will gather all of your lovers with whom you have taken pleasure and all them that you have loved and all of them that you have hated and I will gather them round about you and I will discover your nakedness unto them and they shall see your nakedness and I will judge you as a woman that breaketh wedlock and shed blood and judge and I will give your blood in fury for my jealousy.

I'm going to put an end to this. You have killed my offspring. You have broken the covenant like a wife who breaks the covenant of wedlock. You have sinned against me, you have broken my heart. You've spent your life on whorish things. You've given those things I gave you as we saw earlier in this chapter to your idols and thus I'm going to deal with it. I will also give you into their hand and they shall throw you down the imminent places and they shall break down the high places.

That's exactly what Babylon did when it came in. King Nebuchadnezzar laid waste the city. They shall strip you of all your clothes and they shall take away your fair jewels and leave you naked and bare. They shall also bring up a company against you. Three separate times Nebuchadnezzar put siege on the city of Jerusalem. The first time at 605, that's when Daniel and his companions were taken captive. He set up a vassal king, Jehoiakim. He left to go back to Babylon because he heard that Nabopolassar his father was ill and as he's there they begin to overthrow the rule of the Babylonians.

He has to come back again in 597. That's when Ezekiel is taken captive, all the priests, they sack all the instruments of the temple. Jehoiakim is killed, Jehoiachin his son is taken captive and he sets up Zedekiah as a vassal king again. He gets back and then he hears again that they're rioting in 586 BC. He goes back to Jerusalem and this time he destroys it. He burns it to the ground.

If you go to Israel today, it's interesting, if you go over to the City of David over in that area, they're excavating. They dug down through the earth and they found two black lines where there's a couple inches of charcoal. The first black line is when Nebuchadnezzar burns the city to the ground because just under it they found all these little idols, thousands of idols. The second line represents when Titus Vespasian rode in to put down that rebellion after they crucified Jesus in 70 AD and they destroyed the temple and they burned it to the ground.

Those stand forever as a testimony to God's judgment. God will not always strive with man. Though he's long-suffering, he gives every man, every woman an opportunity to turn from their wicked ways, to repent, that he might cleanse and restore. But if they don't, then they will reap the benefits of their behavior. God is not mocked. We need to take that to heart. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. He's going to reap in kind.

If you sow to the flesh, you're going to reap of the flesh destruction. If you sow to the spirit, you'll reap of the spirit blessing. God says it's before you to choose. I place life and death before you, choose. You get to choose. And if you choose correctly, he will give you the strength through the power of the Spirit. He'll pour his grace out upon you. His mercies will be new every day. And when you fail and you repent, he will give you forgiveness to the nth degree because you become his.

If you choose not to serve him and follow the idols, then you have set your own destiny. You've determined your own course and the end of it will be destruction. God marvels that a man would choose death over life. That's why he says, how fickle is your heart? Are you kidding me? Have you seen what I've done for you and you don't choose me, you choose that?

I thank God that I lived the first 20 years of my life in debauchery. I do. I thank God for every failure in my life because it taught me that that's not where happiness and hope and life is. It's found in the presence of Jesus Christ. It's found in a right relationship with him. I learned more in my failures than I ever learned in my successes.

I was just praying about that this afternoon up at my office. I was just saying, Lord, I understand what James was saying when James says, count it all joy when you fall into diverse trials and troubles and the testing of your faith. When I'm in the midst of that where I'm being stripped of everything where I have to rely on God for everything and it's just in those times of brokenness and contriteness, there's a peace and there's a presence that comes.

I thank you for those times you've had me in the fire. I thank you for those times you've had me on the anvil. I thank you for those times you've taken your hammer as the master craftsman and has beat me out of me and you into me and you forged me into something that you wanted me to be. I can't tell you I like the fire, I certainly don't like the hammer. And then after you've heated me up and you've banged away on me, then you dunk me in oil and every molecule of your body, it just cringes.

Then he takes you out and he takes a file and he will drive the file across you and if it bites, if the things of this world still can dig into you, guess what he does? Put you back in the fire. So I pray now, Lord, get the temper in me the first time. Shape me, mold me the first time. I don't want repeat and rinse. Just get it done the first time. Let me learn what I need to learn and let's move on.

But I thank him that he is willing to bring some pain into my life and some hurt. I thank him that he allows sometimes the messenger of Satan to buffet me like he did Paul so that in my weakness I can be strong. Then in those moments when I'm driven to my knees and I'm losing it and I'm trying to hang on, I keep hearing these words: let go and trust me.

It's in those times you let go of your idols. It's in those times you let go of the flesh. It's in those times you let go of sinful behavior because the only thing you can hang onto is your God and he's the only thing that's real. He will strip those things from you if you allow him to do it. Here's what he's saying: I'm going to do that.

Verse 40: they shall also bring up a company against you and they shall stone you with stones. If someone committed idolatry, it was a capital offense in those days. There was no sacrifice that you could bring and offer to the Lord that would take away that particular sin. Murder and adultery were crimes that demanded capital punishment. Now what you did if you caught somebody in the act of adultery, remember when the lady was brought to Jesus, caught in the act of adultery? They drag her through the streets and they say to Jesus, "What's the law say?" Well, the law says she has to be stoned to death. She doesn't get to live.

She's broken, she's weeping. Jesus said not a word but bent down and I think he began to write their sin. Pharisee number one, what are the magazines between the mattress? Pharisee number two, why did you park your camel outside of the liquor store? Pharisee number three. They all peeled off. Then he looks at the woman and he says, "Where are your accusers?" Who can accuse you? She says, "I don't know." Then he looks at her and he says, "Neither do I condemn thee. Now go and sin no more."

David, when he had sinned, says in Psalm 51, "For thou desirest not sacrifice else I would give it." David said I've committed adultery with Bathsheba but there's no sacrifice for my sin. The penalty for my sin is death. If there was a sacrifice that would appease this, then I would give it. But you delight not in burnt offerings. Verse 17: the sacrifice of God is a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, oh God, thou wilt not despise that. You won't reject that.

The beauty of it is all God wants from us, even when we are in the depths of sin, even when we deserve death, he said I found you when you were dying. When you were cast out, when you were the off-scouring of the world, when you were rejected and betrayed and abandoned. When I came by and I found you, I said unto you live, live. I took you, I washed you, I cleansed you, I clothed you, I put all of these blessings upon you.

All God wants from us is a broken and contrite spirit that we would cry out to him and say, "Lord, what we want is you, not sin. Sin breaks our heart." Isaiah is warning the people. He says to them, "Listen, what can you build that would impress me? What can you do that would impress me?" The answer is nothing. But to this man, to this woman will I look: to the one who is of a broken and contrite spirit and who trembles at my words.

What is God looking for? He's looking for a heart that's wholly devoted to him. He's looking for a heart, even though sometimes the flesh gets ahead of us and we sin, he's looking for brokenness concerning that sin. David said I messed up. I broke your law, I broke your heart. What could I bring? There's no sacrifice for it. I'm deserving to be stoned to death. But Lord, a broken and contrite spirit, you won't reject.

The prophet said to David, you shall not surely die. In fact, your throne is intact. I'm not even going to strip your throne from you. From your lineage the Messiah will come. But what I am going to do is I'm going to take that baby home. You would think, "Oh God, what a punishment!" No, God took the baby because he didn't want David to live the rest of his life with a reminder of his sin.

In Hebrews it says your sins and iniquities I remember no more and I'm not going to let those things haunt you because by one sacrifice in the New Testament he has perfected, made holy forever, them that he cleansed. We get that. I'm talking about judgment here and I want to talk about grace. But he says they're going to stone you, that's what you do to harlots, that's what you do to those who commit adultery and they will thrust you through with swords.

That's what you did to idol-worshippers. You remember when Balaam had offered Balak to come and prophesy against this people and he said there's nothing I can say against them but send your young maidens down with their little idols and cause them to worship in a sexual way to these little idols and then God will judge them. And God did and 26,000 died. And what was the penalty? He said you thrust them through with the sword.

Idolatry was to be put to death with the sword, adultery was to be stoned to death. And here he says, "When I send this judgment upon you, you're going to be stoned with stones and you're going to be thrust through with the sword and they shall burn thy houses with fire." There's going to be a purging of this and execute judgment upon thee in the sight of many women. And I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot.

The beautiful thing about grace is once you're born again you can't be unborn again. That what God begins he finishes. But you can be disciplined. He disciplines them those that he loves and he corrects those that are his. How many have felt recently that you're being corrected? Part of that is he pulls the blessing back, he pulls his presence back, he pulls his fellowship back. He doesn't pull the covenant back because the covenant remains.

It's just like when a husband and wife get into an argument. When you get in an argument with your wife or with your husband and you're alienated, you wake up in the morning with a neck ache because you've slept so close to the edge of the bed that you almost fell off and she's done the same thing on the other side and you get these grunts at each other in the morning and you try to be kind, "You want coffee? I'll pour it all over you, hot and scalding." None the less, you're still married. That didn't break the covenant.

Finally, I go to my wife and say, "I repent. I'm sorry." It gets fixed. It's the same with the Lord. We're his bride. When we mess up, there's still that covenant. It's binding. But the fellowship, the sweetness, the camaraderie, the intimacy for a time it's severed. That should scare us like nothing else. Jesus was not afraid of the beating and he wasn't afraid of the cross, he wasn't afraid of the scourging, the mocking, the shame. What terrified Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane is he knew that while he hung on that cross for six hours he would be separated from the presence of his Father.

It terrified him. He sweat drops of blood knowing that that's what he would have to do. It wasn't the physical, it was the spiritual. He never cried out in agony for the beatings, the scourging, the mocking, the crown of thorns, the nails driven through his wrist and through his feet. But when he did cry out, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He cried out in agony when the presence of God, the eyes of his Father because he's too pure to look upon sin, he had to turn away and between heaven and earth the sins of the world came upon Jesus and he was separated from his Father.

The thing that scares me is not the consequence of sin. I deserve every strike I get. I can bear the things that come. What I can't bear is that feeling that I have disappointed my Father and now for a time when I'm walking through this repentance is that I don't have that fellowship, that intimacy. It scares me. I can't make it through a day without it. And here he's saying that he's going to judge them.

Watch as we move into this next section: "I will make my fury toward thee to rest and my jealousy shall depart from thee." God is jealous for your affections. Can you imagine that the creator of heaven and earth is jealous for your affection? That blows my mind. He said, "And my jealousy shall depart from thee and I will be quiet and I will no more be angry." There's a time coming when it's going to be satisfied and it'll be satisfied on the cross.

Listen to what he says in verse 43. "Because thou hast not remembered." Again, he's giving another reason for his correction. "Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but thou hast fretted me in all these things. Behold therefore I also will recompense thy way upon thy head, saith the Lord God, and thou shalt not commit this lewdness above all thy abominations." The idea is when I'm done correcting you, you'll be done with it.

Notice carefully that he says here, "because you have not remembered." You have forgotten. In Deuteronomy chapter 8 God warns them. He says, "Now listen, when you go over into the promised land, you're going to possess houses you did not build. You're going to drink from wells you did not dig. You're going to eat from vineyards you did not plant. And God's going to go before you and destroy your enemies in your presence. Only beware lest after you have possessed those houses and drank from those wells and eaten from those vineyards that you forget the Lord your God who gave those things to you."

This nation has forgotten that it was founded on Christian principles. This nation, one nation under God, indivisible, has forgotten. This nation now is playing the harlot. This nation now is offering the offspring upon altars. We no longer believe in creation in this nation, we believe in evolution. We no longer believe that God is the sustainer, we've replaced that with the government is the one who supplies your needs. We no longer believe that the word of God is the standard of truth for every life. Humanism has taken the place.

The fourth pillar that this nation was built upon is that man is fallen and needs to be redeemed. And now man thinks he can fix all of his own problems. Communism, socialism. This nation is headed for judgment and it's going there in a hurry. Aren't you glad that you're under a different covenant? And as this nation goes down, we go up. In Israel they're changing governments in Israel by October, Netanyahu, just at the time for the feast of trumpets.

Feast of trumpets, the church goes home. Day of atonement, God begins to deal with Israel again, atone for their sins. Netanyahu will be in. They're planning on attacking Iran right now. Within two weeks to a month, the International Atomic Energy Agency says within two weeks to a month Iran will have a nuclear weapon. You think Israel's going to let that happen? We are living so close.

So listen what he says, because thou hast forgotten. In Revelation it says as he deals with the church at Ephesus, "I have this and I have that, and you've got this going on, but nevertheless you have left your first love. Repent. Go back. Do those first works over again. The courting, the dating, the intimacy. Because if you don't, I'm removing my presence from your midst."

Verse 44: "Behold, everyone that uses a proverb shall use this proverb against thee saying, as the mother is, so is the daughter." You're a chip off the old block. You're just like your dad. That's the proverb they're going to use: "thou art thy mother's daughter, that loatheth her husband and her children." You're like a pagan. The elders' sister is Samaria. They were part Gentile, part Jew and they had pagan practices mingled with the worship of the true and living God. He said you're like that.

"And on the right hand is Sodom and her daughters." You need to get your bearings. You need to recalibrate your compass. You need to turn back toward me. Toward the east was always Jerusalem. He said if you'll turn east, bow your head and pray toward the temple, then I'll hear. Get your bearings. Get your act together.

Verse 47: "Yet hast thou not walked after the ways nor done after the abominations, but as it were a very little thing thou wast corrupt more than in all thy ways." You are worse than the people around you. "As I live, saith the Lord God, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, thou hast not done as thy daughters." You're sinning in light. We should know better. We as Christians should know better than to get involved in sinful practices.

The Spirit of the living God is in us, yet I've found myself in my Christian walk a number of times just getting stupid and having to go to the Lord and say, "I was stupid. I can't believe how stupid I was. I'm broken over this thing." Because a broken and contrite spirit he won't despise. But they're not doing that. They're continuing to follow after these other gods.

Verse 49: "Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom." Listen carefully: three things he's going to mention. Pride. That's what got us in this mess. Pride. An unteachable spirit. Pride thinking you know it all. Pride, not humble, not contrite. Pride. Fullness of bread. When God blesses a nation so that you don't have to go hunt and gather. You have to spend all day from the rising of the sun to the going down building shelter, gathering water, getting food. It is a constant thing.

Not an easy life. But he said because you've had fullness of bread, then they had idle time on their hands. Idle hands are the devil's workshop. If we are blessed with idle time, it should be spent in prayer and seeking God and in study. But he said, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor or the needy. And they were haughty and committed abominations before me. Therefore I took them away as I saw good.

I have stripped them of the blessing. We'll leave off there, but listen, God is doing this for a distinct purpose. He's doing this to get their attention. Listen, if God is stripping things from your life as his people, one of two things is going on. Either he's teaching you to trust him and it may not be a disciplinary thing, it may be a character-building thing. That's why when James says count it all joy when you fall into diverse troubles knowing that the testing of your faith is producing something.

Only let it have its perfect work. And if you lack wisdom, ask. Because two things happen when God begins to take things away from us: either it's character-building so we learn to trust him as we walk as it were the valley of the shadow of death because we already know that the Lord is our shepherd, we shall not want. We know that he has restored our souls, we know that he's going to lead us by still waters and make us sit down in green pastures.

And yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, sometimes we go through those valleys because he's building character in us, he's building faith. He's doing something that cannot be done any other way, but always at the end of it there's a banqueting table and there you will feast in the presence of your enemies. And yea, you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

So you need discernment. "Lord, are you taking these things from me and bringing hardship into my life because you're character-building? Or is it because you are correcting?" And you have to ask and he's very quick to show you. When I go up to pray a couple times a month and I spend a day and a night in prayer, it's I start praying for you guys. And it's not long then I start praying for my heart. And then I have to ask, "The difficulty I'm going through, is it because you're putting something of you in me, your character, or is it because you're trying to drive something out of me? Is it corrective or is it character-building? Or is it both?"

And then I'll hear those words, "Do you trust me?" Usually before I answer that I say, "I don't like it." He didn't ask you if you liked it. "I didn't ask you if you liked it. I asked you do you trust me?" Do you trust that all things are working together for good to those who love me? You have to let go. "But Lord, I'm afraid to let go. I need your help. Give me more faith." And then the branch you're hanging on to, he just helps you out and then when it finally breaks, you think you're falling and you realize you're six inches off the ground. He had you all the time.

Oh, what needless pain we bear all because we do not carry everything to the Lord in prayer. Listen, he is correcting his people here. He's giving to us reasons as to why he needs to correct. And the moment that we respond to that correction, it's over because it's not punishment, it's correction. And he's going to tell us at the end of this chapter he's going to give us a promise that after correction there's always restoration.

It always follows. God will never put a period on your life until the last sentence is one of restoration. And that's what we need to trust. He who began a good work in you, he will complete it until the day of the Lord. You just have to trust him. But part of the process is character-building and some of the process is correcting. Some of the process is a desert and some of the process is green grass and streams. Listen, he's going to get you from this side to the other, but it may hurt. It'll never harm.

Get rid of your idols. Lay aside every distraction and every sin and run the race that's been set before you with endurance and just keep your eyes on Jesus. Amen. Let's stand and get the worship team up. Still light when you guys leave here, isn't that weird? In fact, today is the longest day, the summer solstice. This is a 15-hour day. 15 hours of light.

Let's close in prayer. Listen, again, ask the Lord when you're going through those times where it seems like you're in the fire, you're on the anvil. Ask him, "Lord, are you correcting because if you are I want to turn? I want to turn quickly. I want to offer to you a broken and contrite spirit because you won't despise that. I want to turn and repent." Or if it's character-building then tell him, "Lord, don't stop until you're done. I don't want to lap this mountain again. Get her all done the first time so that when we're done and you run that file across me, it doesn't bite. I don't want rinse and repeat."

Father, thank you tonight for your word and just how it speaks to our hearts. May it find its place and may it find a place of permanency as we hear these things. Father, help us to understand the thing I get out of the 16th chapter more than any chapter of Ezekiel is how that we can fret you, how we can break your heart, how it disturbs you to the core when we don't serve you with our whole heart.

We know how sin affects us. We're well acquainted with that. But help us to understand how our sin affects you. Ezekiel, especially, you just share with us your heart. Father, we love you. We don't want to break your heart. Help us through the power of your Spirit to walk in a way that's always pleasing to you. And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's worship.