In the Word

Pastor Mike Warren: Forty-three. I'd like to finish the whole chapter, but as you're turning to Ezekiel chapter 16, you know we came as far as verse 15 and we got to the "but." It's interesting that there's always that in our lives. God does wonderful things, but we can become sometimes stupid. Anyone ever become stupid as a believer?

And we can faceplant. But what I want you to know—and I don't think we're going to get to the end of this chapter, it's the longest chapter in Ezekiel, and I don't think we're going to get to the end of it this evening—but what I want you to know is that it does finish well. Because as we start our study out this evening, we're going to see the "but" concerning us. After all God has done, and we're going to take a look at that in a few moments, we as His people strayed.

But there's another one that follows that: but God, who is rich in His love wherein He loved us and His great mercy. He's a covenant-keeping God, and we're going to see at the end of this He gives a promise that when He is done disciplining—not punishing, disciplining—His children, driving the idolatry from their hearts, then He will restore them. Because He's a God of restoration.

You see, the story is never completed concerning God. We may think it's complete, but it is never complete as far as God is concerned until the last sentence has one of restoration in it. Because God is a God of restoration, and then He puts the period on it. Amen. So if you're away from the Lord tonight and you're being corrected or disciplined this evening, I can tell you how the story is going to end. You're going to come back and serve the Lord, and whatever it is He needed to correct you of and from will be driven out of you, and the period will be: God has restored you back into the fellowship. Amen. That's just how He is. That's who He is.

So let's pray and we'll dive into our study this evening. Father, we thank You for Your word this evening and, again, the 16th chapter is a very difficult one for a multitude of reasons. I think it probably, in my humble opinion, is the chapter where You become the most transparent, and You use, as far as allegory goes, some of the most pointed, almost causing us to blush, analogies of what You experience—what You experience—when Your people commit idolatry.

And how it breaks Your heart, and how it affects You, how it stirs in You because You are a jealous God. You're jealous for our affections because You love us with an everlasting love. Lord, as we look at this this evening, we find through this chapter that God the Father refers to Israel as His wife, a wife that has committed whoredom. But Lord, in the New Testament, we are referred to as the bride of Jesus.

And so a lot of the principles can be applied. Lord, may we never be found as an unfaithful bride. Help us, Lord, to live our lives in such a way that it blesses Your heart. We pray it in Jesus' name, and all God's kids would say, amen.

Well, as we come through the first part of chapter 16, we see how, as it were, the Lord found us, found His people. We told you last week that when God found Abram, he is the father of the nation of Israel. He is the beginning of God calling a people to Himself. We find that he was an idol-worshiping pagan in the Ur of the Chaldees, and God called him.

Here, the imagery God uses when He finds us, when He finds His people before we know Him, when we're in the world, when we're serving the world, when we're living as a worldling separated from the promises and from the presence of God, He finds us, as it were, someone who's been rejected, abandoned, somebody that literally is drowning and flopping around in our own blood and we are dying.

This is what He said in the first 15 verses: that as He passed by, He saw us. He saw that we had been rejected. We had been cast away as outcasts. We had been rejected. We had come to a point where we were dying in our own blood. And He said, "I took note of you and I took pity on you, and I said, 'Live.'" And He gave us life.

And then we went through all of the blessings, the things that He's done for us. In fact, let's just kind of read starting there in verse 10. "I clothed thee with broidered work, and I shod thy feet with badger's skin. I gird thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. I bedecked you also with ornaments, and put bracelets upon thine hands and chains around thy neck. I put jewels, as it were, in your forehead, and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head.

Thus wast thou bedecked with gold and silver, and thy raiment was of fine linen and silk and broidered work. Thou didst eat fine flour and honey and oil. Thou wast exceedingly beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom. This is what I did." And He says, "And thy renown, thy fame, as it were, went out through all of the world to the heathen nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through My beauty, which I put upon thee."

God said you were what you were because I put it upon you. You were what you were because I blessed you. You were what you were and the renown and the fear of all the other nations came upon you because of the beauty I put upon you. You know, we can never forget that whatever we are, whatever we hope to be, the cause of that is Christ in us. Amen. It is the hope of glory.

You know, I posted something today on Facebook and in a lot of things that come to my mind when I'm just praying, but I was just thinking about this morning the cross and what it really means to me and my first moment of arriving there and what God spoke to me and how He just reminded me. And I think the cross is an ever-present reminder that man cannot save himself.

That something from outside of him had to sacrifice itself for him and pay for his debt that he could never pay, and that salvation can only be found when we turn to Jesus, that we look to Him for that perfect sacrifice for our sins. And once we are washed and clothed as He's talking about here and bedecked and we're brought close like a bride to a bridegroom, like the wife to her husband, as we enter into that covenant relationship where the husband is pouring out upon us, as the bridegroom is pouring out upon us the blessings.

And because of those blessings, we grow in grace. We grow in knowledge. We grow in renown. People take note of us because of the Lord that we serve. He said, "All of that I did for you, but..." And this is where we have to be careful. This is where we have to take note and take warning tonight.

Because there's a tendency in every human being—in fact, you see it as a pattern, if you will, as you study through the Old Testament. You see God blessing His people and then them falling into sin and into idolatry. God correcting His people, they repent, and then God blesses. And then the next generation falls into sin, and God corrects and they repent, and then He blesses. And then the next generation—it's a pattern.

It comes quickly to the fore as you study through time and as you study through the nation of Israel and the history thereof. It comes very clear to the fore. It comes to focus that there is almost an inability, as it were, for God's people just to stay where they need to stay. It's almost like we have a wandering heart.

It's almost like the time that we should fear the most—listen carefully to me tonight, because I think He's going to take that time away as a nation and He's going to take us into a time of brokenness as a nation. He's going to take us into a time where this nation is going to repent or be judged. I think in the times of blessing that we have experienced so much for so many years in this country, that the greatest danger is in a time of blessing.

Because it's in those times of blessing that we forget the Lord. There was a warning, in fact, let me see if I have it here. There was a warning that God gave to the nation of Israel before He took them into the Promised Land. He said, "Now listen, you're going to go into a Promised Land and it is a land of milk and honey. It will be a land of blessing for you.

And I'm going to give you this land. In fact, I'm going to drive out all the inhabitants of this land. Every '-ite': Canaanite, Hittite, Jebusite, Shulamite, all of the '-ites' and '-mites' I'm going to drive from the land. And I'm going to give you a land. In fact, I'm going to give you houses you didn't build. I'm going to give you vineyards you never planted. You're going to drink from wells you did not dig.

And I, the Lord God, am going to give this to you. But here's the warning: when you have eaten and drunk and are full, beware lest you forget the Lord your God who gave you the land." Why do you think God allows just enough trouble in our lives? We're going to see that Sunday morning when we get to the second part of chapter one of Philippians. Why do you think He leaves just enough trouble in our life that we always have to turn to Him for our peace, for our joy?

Why do you think He just puts enough difficulty in our life we have to turn to Him for help and mercy and grace? Why do you think that He brings enough financial stress in our life where we have to trust Him? Because He knows that the tendency of the human heart, as it were, is to stray in times of blessing.

But in difficult times, it seems that it's those times that bring us close to Him. That's why Solomon said it's better to go to a funeral than to a wedding, because times of sorrow have a more refining effect upon our lives. So as we come to this point here in this chapter, I want to take note before we move into verse 15 that the greatest danger is in a time of blessing. God may be blessing you right now. Beware.

You know, I've seen people get better jobs. I've seen people get their finances in order, and I've seen them then start being able to purchase things like ski boats and whatever. And the next thing you know, they're out on the lake. They're not here on Sunday. They'll say stupid things like, "Well, you know, creation is my church." No, it's not. God said don't neglect the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some. The lake is not your church.

And pretty soon, you hear stories about alcohol being involved, and drugs, and divorce, and then they crawl back in the door broken. How did it happen? You forgot the Lord your God when He blessed you. Instead of being thankful and grateful for His blessing, watch what happens here. "But thou didst trust in thine own beauty."

I gave you My beauty. I found you when you were nothing. I found you when you were rejected and alone. I found you when you were dying, flopping around, as it were, in your own blood. And I said to you, "Live," and I did all of these things for you, and I put My beauty on you. The reflection of My glory was on you, but you didst trust in your own beauty, and you played the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out fornications on everyone that passed by.

His it was. Instead of giving Me your love and Me your affection, everything that passed by, you poured your love and affection out on that, and you left Me after I've done all of these things for you. See, that breaks the heart of God. When you read through chapters like this and you're in sections like this, man, it gives you an understanding that what God wants from us is a broken and contrite spirit, what He wants from us is thankfulness and gratitude, what He wants for us is to love Him with all of our heart because He first loved us.

That's why in the New Testament it says much forgiven, much loved. So many people forget the pit that He dug them out of. I don't ever want to forget the pit because I know that when I forget the pit He dug me out of the first time, there's another pit waiting for me. And then I have to look up to see down and He has to drag me out to remind me that, listen, I have to keep my eyes on Him.

So listen to what He says. "And so you gave your love that should have been to Me to everyone that passed by, and of thy garments thou didst take and deckest thy high places with diverse colors." The things I gave you, those garments, you took them and you offered them to idols. You gave them as, as it were, as a sense of worship to idols instead of to Me. You took what I gave you and you offered it to strange gods.

You offered it to idols, as it were. And He says, "And thou didst play the harlot thereupon. The like thing shall not come, neither shall it be so." This should not have happened. "Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels..." Now watch as he goes through this section. You took My gold that I gave you because I love you, and you took My silver which I have given thee, and thou madest to thyself images of men. You made idols out of it.

My gold, My silver, given to you because I love you, given to you because you're My wife, you're My bride, given to you out of the heart of one who loves you with everything that is in Him and He wants to put these blessings on you, you took those blessings that the Lord God gave you, He's saying, and you sacrificed and used those toward idols.

And then He says, "And didst commit whoredom with them." You see, you've got to understand God's going to use some words and terminology here that will make you blush. And like Spurgeon said, this is a section that most ministers have a hard time studying, much less speaking in public about. I get it because the imagery is pretty shocking. But He's trying to communicate His heart to us, that when something else becomes more important to us than Him, that when we give our hearts to other things other than to Him, to Him, it feels like a whorish wife, a whorish bride that has broken His heart.

It's not a light thing. Listen, church, it's not a light thing to allow your heart to be led away to other things. It's not a light thing. It's not a light thing in the heart and mind of our Savior. It's not a light thing in the heart and the mind of our Father. I don't know if you've ever been cheated on in maybe when you were courting or dating or in high school. You had a girlfriend and maybe she liked somebody else and didn't like you. I don't know if you've ever had your heart broken, but can you imagine being God Almighty who knows all things, who made you, who rescued you, who redeemed you, not with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of His own Son?

And put life in you when you were dying. And then to have those blessings be turned to something else. This is what He's saying is going on. Verse 18 says, "You took the embroidered garments and you covered them, and thou did set Mine oil and Mine incense before them." You took the embroidered garment and you covered your idol. You took the oil that I gave you and the incense and you offered it to them. "Mine meat also which I gave to thee, fine flour and oil and honey wherewith I fed thee, thou hast set it before them for a sweet savor."

And thus it was, saith the Lord God. "Moreover..." If that's not enough, verse 20, and get this, "Moreover, thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters whom thou hast borne unto Me." This is interesting, because I think that everything He's talking about here nationally, America has done. You have to understand this nation was birthed on four pillars, four principles. In fact, this is the only nation in world history that ever in its inception was founded upon these four pillars. Other nations have come to them and they've been knocked out from underneath them and they've gone into poverty.

But the four pillars that this nation was founded upon were godly principles. Don't let anybody tell you that the founding fathers were deists. That's simply not true. We would consider that to be revisionary history. Twenty-nine of the signers of the Declaration of Independence out of the 54 of those who signed the Declaration of Independence—I'm looking to a school teacher here to correct me.

Guest (Male): Fifty-four.

Pastor Mike Warren: Fifty-four. I was there, yeah. But I was in the audience. Listen, they were seminary-trained ministers. They started every session of Congress there in Independence Hall with two hours of prayer, seeking God's wisdom, seeking His direction, seeking that He would put together a document that would bless Him, that would govern His people in a way that it would make sure and it would ensue for generations that we'd follow the Lord. One nation under God.

And they ended every one of those sessions with one of those ministers, one of those 29, bringing the word of God. This nation was founded on four pillars. Number one, God is Creator. He is our Creator. And yet this nation has removed that pillar and they're teaching evolution, that you evolved from pond scum, that you were a fortuitous occurrence of an accidental circumstance. You have no purpose for existence. You're just an accident that took place some billions and billions of years ago when lightning struck pond scum and bink, there you were. And bink, bink, there were some other ones of you, and you grew fins and then legs and you walked out and you're just nothing.

How ridiculous. No wonder the teenagers—we're not going to get through this chapter—no wonder the teenagers are committing suicide at an exponential rate because there's no reason for living. We know the reason for living is that we have a destiny beyond this life. God is Creator. Number two, God is Sustainer. We're moving into Marxism, we're moving into socialism, we're moving into a time when the government wants to replace God. It wants to be your sustainer.

Listen, our founding fathers understood: get as least amount of government as you need, trust the Lord for what you have need of. And so the government wants us all to be in a social system where they take and distribute the funds. You look to government for your sustenance instead of to God Almighty. God is our sustainer.

The third thing is that we are all fallen and we need to be redeemed. And what has been replaced with that theology is humanism. Every way and every day things are getting better and better. Man can solve his own problems. We don't need God. Humanism. And the last of those pillars is the word of God. You know, it's been said that Washington said that no nation can rightly govern itself without the word of God. And some people have said, well, that quote never happened by him. And they are correct to a certain degree. He never said that. What he said was the universe cannot be governed without the word of God.

It controls everything. And the reason he said that was from Colossians where it says that all things have their cohesion, they exist because God speaks it to be so. And those things are gone now. And when those things are gone, it demands the judgment of God. And what replaces that is things like homosexuality, what replaces it is things like abortion. He's saying that those children that you gave birth to were Mine. Malachi says that. This is why He says Malachi hates divorce, because He's looking for godly offspring. You can read it there in Malachi chapter 2, verses 14 and 15.

Listen to what He says. Moreover, because they were offering these unwanted children and they had a particular deity called Moloch that a bronze statue they would hollow, they would burn wood inside until it was glowing red, and then these babies that came into existence by illegitimate sexual relationships that were unwanted—the mistress of the man who was married that should not have been in that relationship—would take the baby down and offer it upon this deity Moloch, and it would literally burn to death.

And God says those were My children. Jeremiah 1:5 says that, listen, I knew you before you were in the womb. When does life begin? Life begins in eternity. Life begins with God. It doesn't even begin with conception. It doesn't begin with the beating of the heart. It begins way before that. God says, "Before you were even in your mother's womb, I knew you and I had a purpose and a destiny for you." And He's saying, "Listen, not only have you taken what I've given you and you've offered it to idols, but you've taken one of the most precious things that one of the reasons why I made marriage the first institution that I created there in the garden with Adam and Eve. This union of marriage was to produce godly offspring."

And you've taken that and you've offered it, as it were, as a sacrifice. You offered it to be devoured. Is this thy whoredom a small matter, saith the Lord? Do you think this is a light thing? Do you think I'm going to let any nation do these things and get away with it? Do you think it will not demand My judgment? I'm long-suffering. I'm going to give you every opportunity. I've sent prophets. We know that for 100 years before Ezekiel comes on the scene, Isaiah was there warning them. Then you had Jeremiah, you had Daniel up in the palace, you have Ezekiel among the common people, and they're warning.

How many prophets have warned? Jeremiah, there back in Jerusalem, warning these people. I think we're living in a time of great warning, and I think the warning today should be first to the church. 2 Chronicles 7:14: "If My people called by My name would humble themselves and pray..." You see, the thing is, we're not humble and we don't pray. "And seek My face." Not His hand. So many people, their prayer is seeking the hand of God: "Give me, give me, give me. Bless me, bless me, bless me."

You know, I'm getting to a place in my life where it almost sickens me because all I want to seek is His face. I want to know Him. I want to know Him in deeper ways than I've ever known Him before. I want to know the peace that comes as His presence surrounds me, the joy that floods my heart. I could live in a tent in the wilderness, and if God's presence was there, I would be satisfied. I don't need stuff to be satisfied. In fact, stuff, you find, is a distraction. In fact, stuff owns you. You don't own it because now you've got to take care of it.

But the Bible says if you will seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all the other stuff gets added. "But if My people called by My name..." This is the whole heart of Ezekiel. This is his message: turn ye, turn ye, why will you perish, saith the Lord of hosts? "If My people called by My name would simply stop, just stop and focus on Me. If they would humble themselves and pray, if they'd seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then from heaven," He said, "I would hear, I would forgive, and I would heal."

The problem with this nation is not Washington. Washington is a manifestation of the problem. The problem is the church stopped praying. The church stopped being, listen, the influence in the culture and the culture started influencing the church. And we started acting like the world instead of acting like the bride of Christ, acting like the wife of God, acting like the people of Almighty. And when we get back to that, then we'll see revival. I can't speak for other places. I can only speak for Grass Valley, Nevada City. But I'm praying that God's Spirit would sweep across this community and that He would deal with the hearts of men and women, that He'd bring us to repentance. I don't care how far you've drifted from the Lord. Listen, all you've got to do is turn and repent and you can be back. Amen.

You're never so far that His arm can't reach, but you have at some point to stop and humble yourself and pray and seek His face and His forgiveness and His heart. And then from heaven He'll hear. Heaven's not out there. Heaven's a dimension. He's watching you. It's right there. He's hearing. And then He said, "I will forgive and heal." But you offer, as it were, your children. Is this the whoredoms that you commit? Is it a small thing?

"Thou hast slain My children and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them. And in all thy abominations and in all of thy whoredoms, thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth when thou wast naked and bare and wast polluted in thine own blood." You forgot where I rescued you from. You forgot where I found you. You have forgotten what I have done for you when you were in that condition, when you were dying, when you were as good as dead. I gave you life, and I brought you into My home and I made you My bride. And I washed you and I rubbed you with salt and I cleansed you and I purified you, and I gave you all of these gifts, and you forgot.

Man, I don't ever want to forget. God is my witness so often I remember, and it's burned into my mind when I'm up in the mountains praying—I'm going to go up again this weekend. You know, first I just pray for His presence. I pray for the things in my life that shouldn't be there. You know, the closer you get to the light, the more you see the cracks. Amen. You know, things don't look too bad in the dark. You start turning a light on and pretty soon you start seeing how dirty your carpet is and, hey, how did that rug get that way and what is going on with this and what is going on with that?

And when I seek the presence, I just start with my heart. "Lord, I'm broken. I'm broken that after 46 years, I'm still capable of being carnal when I want to walk in the Spirit. I'm still capable, Father, of violating Your word. I'm still capable of not considering what Jesus did for me to pay for my sins and I'm still capable of considering sin to be a light thing and actually overstepping grace and grieving the Holy Spirit, quenching Him."

And so I just start praying, "Lord, You need to change this heart. There is a traitor that lives in me and he's called the flesh and the spirit man wants nothing to do with him. Help me, Jesus. Help me. Help me to put him to death." And I think God sees our heart at those moments. "After all of this you have forgotten. I've never forgotten. I'm never going to forget. I'm the leper that He cleansed. And He cleansed a whole bunch of them that same night I got saved.

But I wanted to be the one who came back and said thank you. And I've said thank you for 46 years. There's not a time when I go to pray that it doesn't end with, 'Lord, thank You that You would save a sinner like me.' I don't get it. I don't understand it. Your grace, it is amazing. It's beyond comprehension that a holy God would love a vile person like me, that He would wash me and give me life and make me His own. Lord, please don't ever let me forget that."

There have been two times in my life that I forgot that and they didn't go well. And God had to remind me of the pit that He dug me from. Man, just stay there so He doesn't have to dig another pit for you to fall in. Listen, "You've slain My children," and listen, "you caused them to go through the fire and in all of your abominations and all of your whoredom, you forgot the days of your youth. You forgot that you were unclothed and bare and polluted in your own blood.

And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, woe, woe unto thee, saith the Lord God." Listen, anytime God says "woe," you better pay attention. Man, woe. You know, it's like if you don't "whoa," there's going to be a woe. So, whoa! Don't giddy up into sin. Whoa! Because if you don't whoa—some of you guys ride horses—if you don't whoa, you're in trouble. There will be a woe. In fact, two of them in fact here.

Now listen carefully to this because He goes into this section that's so important. "Thou hast also built unto thee eminent places"—He's talking about the idols and the groves where they worship foreign gods—"and you have made them in high places in every street. Thou hast built thy high places at every head of the way and at the beginning of all the streets. Thou hast made thy beauty to be abhorred and hast opened thy feet to everyone that passeth by."

It's kind of gross what He's saying, but He's saying that you as My wife have spread your legs to every person that passes by. This is what it seems like to the heart of the Father. "And you have multiplied your whoredoms. Thou hast committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbors, great of flesh, and hast increased thy whoredoms. You are worse than the Egyptians, My people. You are worse than the people I delivered you from."

Then He says this and, has increased thy whoredoms to provoke Me to anger. And now again, you need to remember, remember when we started this section back in chapter 12 and it goes all the way through chapter 24, what God is doing is He's presenting His case, as it were, in Scripture before Ezekiel as to why His people deserve His discipline, why they deserve to be led away into bondage, why they deserve to be there in bondage for 70 years, why they deserve to lose the temple and the worship in His presence because of this.

And so now, listen, this is the first time in this chapter that He gives a reason. He'll do it again in verse 13 and verse 43, and that's where I want to get to tonight and we'll close out there. But listen, He says, "Behold, therefore, I have stretched out My hand over thee. This is the reason why I'm disciplining you." And I'm going to tell you God will continue to move toward discipline until we repent.

Because He's not punishing, He is correcting. And when correction finally, finally finds that place in your heart and you turn from your wicked ways and you repent, then there's no more need for correction. Then there's need for restoration and instruction. You can turn correction immediately tonight into restoration and instruction, but you have to humble yourself. You have to acknowledge it. You have to turn from it. You have to ask God for help. You need to pray.

And the moment you do that, the very moment, the nanosecond you do that, that you turn your heart back toward Him, the correction is over because it's done its job. Then comes restoration and instruction, healing and hope, forgiveness, grace, mercy. They flow from Him like a river, as it were. "Behold, therefore, I have stretched out My hand over thee and have diminished thy 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." You're worse than the Philistines, but I'm going to deliver you into the hands of your enemies and I'm going to bring famine on the land. What do you think's going on in this nation today? Stop and think.

Now, again, I want to stop in a moment and remind you because you're going to go, "Ruh-roh, we're all in trouble." No, we're not. When God sought to judge Egypt, when He sent Moses and Aaron there to bring the plagues upon Egypt to judge Egypt, did those judgments fall on God's people in the land of Goshen? No, they did not.

There was a line of demarcation. The flies, the frogs, the water being turned to blood in the pots, the springs and the river, the darkness, the cows diseased and dying in Egypt. But in Goshen, just next door, they bordered each other, they were multiplying. I'm telling you, God is judging this nation for its sin and it is ripe for the judgment of God. But in the midst of doing that, He knows how to take care of His people called by His name. Amen.

That He's going to tell us that when we get to the end, but so, listen. Ezekiel still was in the presence of God, although he is in Babylon. God still—Daniel is still being blessed and protected. Jeremiah. All of these prophets of God and all the people that follow the prophets of God were still being blessed in a time of God's judgment upon this nation. I personally believe, and I pray I'm wrong but I don't think I am, I believe God is judging this nation and it ain't coming back. Just turn off Fox News and open your Bible. You'll get more correct information about what's going on.

Because there's a tipover point. We've gone as a nation, not we as God's people, we've gone to a tipover point and God's hand, because we're more lewd than the world around us—I won't go there. Verse 28. I almost did and I'm glad I stopped myself. There's self-control right there, you just saw it. Verse 28. "Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians because thou wast insatiable."

There's something about the human heart when it's not controlled of the Spirit that lusts for the desires of the flesh. You have to bring your heart under the control of the Holy Spirit. Your heart has to be circumcised. Your heart has to be clean. Your heart has to be filled with the word of God. Your heart has to be—in order for it to be altered, it has to be altar-ed.

In other words, before you can change it, you have to put it on the altar of God. The heart of man is desperately wicked. It wants what it wants. But listen, we're no longer under the control of the influence of the wicked one. We are born of the Spirit. We are walking in the Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit which has brought that conviction and control and power and strength into our life. In fact, Paul praying for the church at Ephesus that was experiencing extreme spiritual warfare said, "Listen, the same power that raised Christ from the dead, it dwells in you as the believer. You have the resources. You have to appropriate it. If you say no to the wicked one, he has to flee. Greater is He that is in you than he that is in this world. No temptation taken you is such as common to everyone, but with every temptation God hath already provided for you a way to escape that you may be able to stand in the evil day."

And so He's telling us, listen, you allowed the flesh to control you. You had these insatiable, listen, appetites. "Thou hast played the harlot with them, yet thou couldest not be satisfied." Let me tell you something about sin. Can I tell you about sin tonight? How many know something about sin? Can I tell you something about sin tonight? Do you want to know the three things about sin? Sin will take you further than you want to go.

Because you'll play with it, you'll dabble with it, and you'll say in your head, "Well, I'm only going to go that far, but I won't go that far." You've just deceived yourself and lied to yourself. Sin will take you further when you begin to bite at it, when it becomes acceptable to you, when you allow it into your life and you don't allow the Holy Spirit and the word of God to purge it from your life. It will take you further than you want to go. Secondly, it will cost you more than you want to pay.

The devil will always promise you something and he never delivers. Because it's going to cost you. There's a cost to it. God is not mocked, the Bible says. Whatsoever a man sows, he reaps. And if you sow to the flesh, you will reap of the flesh destruction. Sin will always—sin will always, it will always cost you more than you want to pay. And thirdly, sin will always keep you longer than you want to stay.

God can deliver, but it's a long road out. That's the nature of sin. When you allow yourself to be given over to these insatiable appetites of the flesh, know this: they never satisfy. Take my word for it. Before I was saved, I tried everything. Well, almost everything.

And I'm going to tell you nothing satisfied. But when I met Jesus, or He met me, and as it were, for the first time I stepped out of darkness into light, from hopelessness to hope, from despair to love, I found something so satisfying. It was what fit my heart, what my heart was always looking for that I could never find in drugs or immorality.

Be careful what you seek. Be careful what owns you. Be careful what you allow into your heart, into your mind. Be careful that you put to death immediately these impulses of the flesh because if you give yourself to them—number one, He'll tell us twice—they could not satisfy. "Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornications in the land of Canaan and into Chaldea, and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith." Even when you multiply them. You started out and they didn't satisfy, and so you thought I just got to go deeper, I got to have more.

You know, for me it started with beer and then it went to hard liquor. It started with marijuana and then it went to pills and to harder drugs, and it just it went and it went and it went and it went, and the further I went, the less satisfied I was. I thank God for it. Some say the best testimony is that I was born in a Christian home, got saved at three years old, and never sinned in my entire life. I thank you—I thank God for you if that's your condition and your case.

There have been times where I wish that was my testimony, but as of late, I've been thinking, no, no, no, much forgiven, much loved. You see, the world doesn't entice me anymore. I want nothing to do with it because I know what's there.

And I've not forgotten. I've not forgotten what God rescued me from. I go often back to that moment of dark despair and I remember when the light turned on and I was drowning in my own blood and He made me to live. Because I know that there's nothing of this world that can ever compare to that moment of being transformed from darkness into light, of being born again by the Spirit of God, of being brought back into relationship with your Creator and knowing Him in your heart and in your mind and not having to have words explain what just happened to you. To sit alone and say, "Man, what is this?"

And so this is what He's saying. Listen carefully. What verse were we in? Verse 30? I got all the way to 30? Okay. Oh, 30 is a good one. We may have to end with 30. I'm not going to get to 43. We'll end with 30. 30 is a good one. Listen carefully. Listen carefully. "How weak is thy heart." If you don't mind circling your Bible or put a note beside it or in your notepad, how fickle. How fickle is your heart.

Men, how would you feel if your wife says, "Well, I don't know if I love you anymore. That neighbor guy over there looks pretty nice and that guy over the next door's got a good job and..." What do you mean? I thought when you walked down the aisle and we made our vows that you were committed to me. Well, yeah, you know, but things change. You know, I'm not in love with you anymore. As though the thing that keeps a covenant together is feelings. It's not. It's commitment. Amen.

Amen? Okay, let me talk about fickle hearts for a moment. In 1 Kings chapter 18, verse 21, Elijah—I love Elijah. Man, there was a prophet, if there ever was a prophet. We need more Elijahs today. Can I get an amen? Elijah came upon all of the people and he said, "How long halt ye between two opinions?"

How long are you going to be double-minded? How long are you going to be fickle in your hearts? How long are you going to have one foot in the world and one foot in the things of God? How long are you going to walk in the flesh part of the time and walk in the spirit part of the time? How long are you going to halt or be between two opinions? If the Lord be God, if He is, then follow Him completely, wholly, uncompromisingly. But if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.

You see, that's still the question today, is it not? The problem with God's people here in Ezekiel is they were fickle. James says a double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. In fact, I like what Joshua said in chapter 24. This, everybody knows this verse, in verse 14 and 15. Joshua's standing before the people just before they go into the Promised Land. He says, "Now therefore fear the Lord. Fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity."

That word again has the sense of nothing corrupting it, nothing phony or fake about it. He says, "Now therefore fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth." Don't make up your own truth. I'm going to tell you I'm going to lose my mind the next time I hear somebody tell me that I made a mistake and I married the wrong person and God has given me permission to divorce this person and marry this other person. I'm going to lose my mind.

That might not have been God's will when you got married, but it's God's will now. Amen. Amen. The next time I hear people say, "Well, God gave me permission, special permission to fornicate with my boyfriend or my girlfriend because He knows my heart," I've had to answer that a few times. Yeah, He knows your heart. It's desperately wicked.

And you need the Holy Spirit to circumcise it, to fill it with holiness. Amen. To walk in His word. God didn't give you permission to do that. And that's what he says, "And in truth, sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood and in Egypt and serve the Lord." And then I love the challenge that Joshua presents here. He says this: "And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord..." If it doesn't seem right, if it just seems evil, if you don't want to do it.

See, I don't think we ought to serve the Lord out of a sense of duty. I think we ought to serve the Lord out of a sense of gratitude, appreciation, love. Paul said it was the love of God, God's love to him, that constrained him. You know, I haven't served the Lord for 46 years because I'm religious. Religion, listen, religion can't bind you. The law doesn't work. If it did, Jesus didn't need to come and die.

The law doesn't work. You can't legislate people's behavior. But you fall in love with somebody, you'll climb heaven and earth. No mountain high enough. Someone ought to write a song like that. No river wide enough to keep me from being with you. Because He owns your heart.

"If it seems evil to serve the Lord, then choose you this day. Make a choice. Stop being between two opinions. Whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served, which were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we've already decided: we will serve the Lord."

And I think that's where you have to get. And I think one of the things that helps us get there is when we understand when we don't serve Him, as His people, how we affect Him, how we break His heart. I don't think we should go any further.

Nope, we better stop right there. Once I get rolling, we're rolling all the way to chapter, all the way to verse 43. So tie a knot in this. Now God is reminding His people, "This is what I did for you, and this is how you repaid me. Is it not right? Is it not right that I should correct you? Is it not right that I should discipline you seeing that this has been your behavior? You repaid My kindness with treachery and My love with infidelity. And I am going to correct you and I'm going to bring you back."

And the beauty of it is, when we finally get to the end of this chapter, that after this, you can't find anywhere else in the history of Israel that they ever committed idolatry. Oh, they fell into other things, but idolatry was completely driven from them. They get it. They got it. They understood. They might have fallen in like King David did into sin, but David never fell into idolatry. You know, we as Christians, listen, there are going to be times the Bible presupposes that you're going to fail. There are going to be times where you're going to fall into some sin—lust the flesh, lust the eye, pride of life.

The Bible presupposes that in the Old Testament in the opening chapters of Leviticus. It also presupposes it when John writes his first epistle. He said, "Listen, if you say that you don't have a bent to sin, you deceive yourselves. But if you will confess your sin, God is just and faithful"—he's writing to believers—"He's just and faithful to cleanse you of all unrighteousness. Not only to forgive, but to cleanse. But if you say what you're doing is not sin, then you're a liar and His truth is not in you. Don't justify it."

And then he goes right into the next chapter, there's no chapter breaks, he says, "My little born-again ones, I write unto you that you sin not. But if you sin, you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus the righteous, who has propitiated your sin." Now from time to time, we struggle, the spirit against the flesh, but we never change gods. We're broken. We're contrite. We're repentant.

We don't make a god of our own making. Some churches that are called Christian churches have made a god of their own making, which is an idol. It's not the God of the Bible. Amen. We don't change gods. When we fail the God that we serve, we repent and He restores. Amen? Amen. Let's stand. Let's get the worship team up. We can do a last song if you guys scurry, if you hurry. Run.

Oh my gosh. I'm bad. I'm mean. I repent. Listen, I don't know about you, but the longer I walk with the Lord, the more I want to know about Him. The more I want to know Him. You know, I was sharing with somebody today that I've come to—I've finally arrived in this level of maturity in my life and I'm just going to tell you this while they're getting ready. That I don't care what other people think or what other people say.

I really don't care, other than my wife—let me preface that—who comes in and goes out, as long as my relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is right. Amen. Because He's everything I have need of. And of course He gave me the wife He gave me, so that's all part of the package. We're one. And my wife loves the Lord as much as I love Him. In fact, you know, I got God the Father, God the Son, and I got Kyle the Holy Spirit. I can't go wrong. I'm a blessed man and I've come to realize that alone is enough.

He is enough. I don't need anything else. I long to see His face. I long to look into the one who bled and died for me and say thank You. You are my everything and You are my all, and You have been enough. No rival throne. Nothing compares. Amen. Let's worship.