Remembering the Covenant

INTRO: Open your Bible to Ezekiel 16, follow along!

Who has a hard time remembering?

This is why we have name tag Sunday, password savers, etc.

We are going to look at a hard passage today, I will be honest with you. But we have to put ourselves in God’s shoes, how can you wake up a people that are sleeping in rebellion?

Before we look at the text, we have to zoom out to see the brilliance of Ezekiel as a writer/organizer of his book. It will also help us understand why he is using the analogy here that will most likely make us uncomfortable.

OUTLINE OF CHAPTERS 15-17

Chapter 15: Israel is a useless vine/tree. They should be thrown into the fire.

Chapter 16: (Which we will look at here in a moment) There is a naked person needing to be clothed.

Chapter 17: Another parable about two eagles and another vine/tree.

So, putting your Bible knowledge hat on, where have there been two trees and naked people before in the garden? Eden, with Adam and Eve naked and unashamed and two trees that were thriving. But here we have two trees about to be burned and uprooted with a naked person in deep rebellion.

Ezekiel is trying to show us this picture of an inverted Eden that Israel has found themselves in. And the way that he is hoping to shake them out of their apathy, rebellion, and disobedience is through this shocking text.

Before we read, I will give you a warning, this is not your hobby lobby coffee cut text. It is graphic, and so if you need to step away for whatever reason, I totally understand. But remember, it is still God’d word and we should not pick and choose just the things that we are comfortable with, we should have the full council of God.

Let’s read

1 Again the word of the LORD came to me: 2 “Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations, 3 and say, Thus says the Lord GOD to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.

I know we did not get far, but I need to make sure you are not reading this part as a history lesson. Abraham was not from cannan, he was from Mesopotamia. The canaanites and Amorites were the enemies of Israel.

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberry.

GOD IS SMACK TALKING ISRAEL TO SHOW THEM THEIR TERRIBLE BEHAVIOR

4 And as for your birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. 5 No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born.

6 “And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ 7 I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.

An image of God rescuing Israel not because of anything they have done, but just because of Him. Kind of like our salvation. Ephesians 2 tells us we were dead in our sins. We had nothing to offer God. And then God saved us.

Now the analogy changes from a father to a child, to a marriage covenant. But remember, it is an analogy.

8 “When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness;

Think of the prodigal son here, where we also were covered with a robe of righteousness.

I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord GOD, and you became mine. 9 Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. 10 I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. 11 And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. 12 And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. 13 Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. 14 And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord GOD.

1.This is a retelling from Abraham, to Issac, Jacob, Moses, and entering into the promised land. Things were going great! This is where the language gets a little strong, but remember, how do you shock people out of disobedience. Tell them how it is.

15 “But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his. 16 You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore. The like has never been, nor ever shall be. 17 You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and with them played the whore. 18 And you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense before them. 19 Also my bread that I gave you—I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey—you set before them for a pleasing aroma; and so it was, declares the Lord GOD. 20 And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter 21 that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them? 22 And in all your abominations and your whorings you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your blood.

We need to see the four things that Israel did to create their downfall

1.Became a prostitute and gave herself to anyone even though she was married to the Lord. (vs.15)

2.Gave away God’s gifts to make more idols. (vs. 16-19)

3. Sacrificed their children to other gods (vs. 20-21)

4. Did not remember God’s kindness. (vs. 22)

A. We could stop there, but God doesn’t. He needs Israel to understand how they have polluted this covenant. Let’s keep reading.

23 “And after all your wickedness (woe, woe to you! declares the Lord GOD), 24 you built yourself a vaulted chamber and made yourself a lofty place in every square. 25 At the head of every street you built your lofty place and made your beauty an abomination, offering yourself to any passerby and multiplying your whoring. 26 You also played the whore with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, multiplying your whoring, to provoke me to anger. 27 Behold, therefore, I stretched out my hand against you and diminished your allotted portion and delivered you to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior. 28 You played the whore also with the Assyrians, because you were not satisfied; yes, you played the whore with them, and still you were not satisfied. 29 You multiplied your whoring also with the trading land of Chaldea, and even with this you were not satisfied.

30 “How sick is your heart, declares the Lord GOD, because you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen prostitute, 31 building your vaulted chamber at the head of every street, and making your lofty place in every square. Yet you were not like a prostitute, because you scorned payment. 32 Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! 33 Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side with your whorings. 34 So you were different from other women in your whorings. No one solicited you to play the whore, and you gave payment, while no payment was given to you; therefore you were different.

A. God is using harsh language again to point out something else that Israel was doing.

1.Israel was being a prostitute with the nations showing a Political Promiscuity.

A. In our modern day minds, this doesn’t sound bad because they were just making treaty’s with other countries. But this was showing a lack of trust in the Lord. And not only that, they were doing it in a way where they were not being paid, but they were paying them to be brought into a treaty/relationship.

35 “Therefore, O prostitute, hear the word of the LORD: 36 Thus says the Lord GOD, Because your lust was poured out and your nakedness uncovered in your whorings with your lovers, and with all your abominable idols, and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them, 37 therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from every side and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness. 38 And I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged, and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy. 39 And I will give you into their hands, and they shall throw down your vaulted chamber and break down your lofty places. They shall strip you of your clothes and take your beautiful jewels and leave you naked and bare. 40 They shall bring up a crowd against you, and they shall stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords. 41 And they shall burn your houses and execute judgments upon you in the sight of many women. I will make you stop playing the whore, and you shall also give payment no more. 42 So will I satisfy my wrath on you, and my jealousy shall depart from you. I will be calm and will no more be angry. 43 Because you have not remembered the days of your youth, but have enraged me with all these things, therefore, behold, I have returned your deeds upon your head, declares the Lord GOD. Have you not committed lewdness in addition to all your abominations?

So this judgment is nothing new, it should remind you of chapter 9 where God announces the judgment for how they had defiled the temple. But here God shows them that their faithless behavior as a wife is deserving of death. It was all laid out in the covenant agreement when they made it, there would be blessings and curses.

Verses 44-58 read on your own. The summary of that section is that Israel is worse than Sodom and Samaria, two places the Israelites despised but God tells them, to provoke them to some kind of obedience, that they are no better than them.

Survey how we are doing. This is intense, yet, God ends all of this dark, graphic prophecy with hope.

59 “For thus says the Lord GOD: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, 60 yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant. 61 Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you take your sisters, both your elder and your younger, and I give them to you as daughters, but not on account of the covenant with you. 62 I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD, 63 that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord GOD.”

I say this a lot, there is a lot to cover here but we can only do so much. But the main thing I want to look at is the last 2 verses. God will establish his covenant with Israel so that they shall know that he is Lord. and the goal is that “they may remember” and be confounded and never open their mouth again because of their shame. What?

The shame and them being confounded is set against the backdrop that people were complaining God had failed them. That’s why they were in exile, because God failed on his promises. Yet, as we are seeing, no, they were the ones who failed. When God makes this eternal covenant that will help them remember, they will be humbled, shut their mouths of their complaints and see all the sin God forgave and his faithfulness.

APPLICATION

I don’t think there is really a lot to unpack here in how this connects to us because it is pretty straight forward, but in case you missed it, here is what we need to take away from this text today, because like Israel, we can be forgetful.

We need to remember how God saved us. (vs. 1-14)

Ephesians 2 tells us that we were dead in our sins and trespasses.

Colossians 1 tells us that we were in the kingdom of darkness

Romans 3 tells us that we have all sinned and all sin leads to death.

But God! He saved us. Does that create gratitude in your heart? Does is create any kind of emotion of thankfulness? Does it create any kind of awe and worship of him? If not, you are probably not saved. At least not biblically saved. Because you think you either did enough good so God accepted you, which is wrong, or you think your religious works will help you into heave, which is also wrong. Until you see the depths from which you came you will not see the glory of what God brought you into. Otherwise…

We need to remember to be grateful and not prideful in what God has given us. (vs. 15-22)

This goes for salvation, to gifting, to blessings, to anything even up to the very breath that God gives us. Are we using it to prostitute ourselves? Or are we giving it back to him as an offering?

We need to trust God and not other powers to deliver us. (vs.30-43)

This was in light of Israel putting their hope in other political leaders like Egypt and Assyria to save them and nothing new is under the sun. I don’t need to know whether you are happy or not about how the election went, but I do think the amount of emotion, good or bad, that you felt shows a dependency on a worldly thing that should be on God.

I’m not saying we don’t need government that is good and just.

Are we praying more or less now that the election is over? Are we as passionate about sharing the Gospel as we are telling people to go vote? Come on, we need to push on these things otherwise we can be on a slippery slope like Israel.

We need to remember the forgiveness found in the everlasting covenant.

Commentators and theologians wrestle about what covenant is this, I truly believe it is the new covenant that is in Jesus. The one that brings forgiveness of sins so we can have relationship with the father and be filled with the Holy Spirit so we can walk in obedience to what God called us to.

Before we have a delicious meal in a moment and this week with thanksgiving, our greatest thanksgiving as a family and community of God needs to be found in His new eternal covenant found in Jesus.

Take communion together.

End with communion-No need to be members and you do need to have a relationship with Jesus. That would be a great time to do that if you are not one.

Take the bread out. Hold it.

English Standard Version Chapter 11

that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

2. Take the cup

English Standard Version Chapter 11

25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

Pray