Bible Studies
Grace In Spite of Unfaithfulness (Ezek. 16:1-63)
Series: God Speaks to Our People In ExileIntroduction:
1. In Ezekiel 16 God uses a VERY graphic word picture to describe His relationship with Jerusalem and her relationship with Him. 2. The first part of the word picture describes her as an abhorrent baby with no one to care for her, but God cared, and He made her live. 3. When she grew up He married her and lavished her with all good things. 4. But her response was shameful. She gave herself to strangers and to every passer-by she advertised herself, worse than a prostitute she paid her lovers and took no money from them. In this way she trampled upon the grace of God and despised all the good things He had given her. 5. It is truly a sad story of overwhelming grief.Discussion:
I. God’s abundant graciousness to Jerusalem (16:1-14).A. This paragraph makes it clear that Jerusalem was in desperate need of grace.
B. Instead of tracing her origin to the favored, she is traced to the Canaanites.
1. Instead of Abraham and Sarah she is traced to the Amorites and Hittites.
2. These stand in direct contrast to all that is associated with Israel.
3. They represent the worst of human depravity. Indeed the reason they were driven out of the land was because of the level of their immorality (Gen. 15:16; Lev. 18:24ff).
C. But it is worse. No one cared for her.
1. When she was born she was abhorred.
2. Cast out to die.
3. No pity.
4. No compassion.
5. Her parents had rejected her. They had rejected any parental obligation. Any natural parental affection was abandoned. They had cast her out like garbage.
6. Similarly, the Greek writers Plato and Plutarch describe exposure as a means of disposing of sickly and ill-formed infants (Plato, REBUBLIC 5.459-61; Plutarch, LYCURGUS 16.) Much like an aborted baby cast out with the trash.
D. God found her abandoned squirming in her blood.
1. And provided life.
2. Through His blessing she grew up.
3. He had owned her as a parent.
E. When she reached the time for marriage God entered into a covenant with her.
1. He covered her nakedness.
2. He washed her and anointed her with oil (cf. Eph. 5:26).
3. He clothed her with embroidered cloth and put sandals on her feet and wrapped her with fine linen and covered her with silk. Interesting to observe that these materials were used in the construction of the tabernacle and were the finest of the fine.
4. She was adorned with the finest jewelry.
5. She ate fine flour, honey and oil.
6. Her beauty was magnificent. Her position unsurpassed. Everyone recognized that God had lifted her up in splendor.
F. The familial language is striking here.
1. God has demonstrated parental love and compassion.
2. God has demonstrated the care of a loving husband.
3. How children today need the grace of such parents and how women today need the care of such loving husbands.
4. There is much to be learned here about parenting and “husbanding.” But this text is not about that. It is about God’s graciousness to Jerusalem.
II. But here is the sad thing. Jerusalem responded shamelessly to God’s grace. Instead of showing any level of appreciation for what God had done she trampled it under foot, and to use the language of Heb. 10:29, she “regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which she was sanctified, and insulted the spirit of grace” (16:15-59).A. She trusted in her beauty (15).
1. She realized the power associated with her beauty and becoming self-absorbed she played the harlot.
2. She used her power for her own manipulative purposes.
3. Some young women do this very thing today. They use their beauty and sexual prowess to get what they want.
4. But this is not about that. This is about Jerusalem.
B. She took what God had given her and used it to honor the idols.
1. She made places of worship from the clothes God had given her.
2. She took the jewelry and gold and silver that God had given her and made images with it.
3. She even took the sons and daughters that she had borne to God and sacrificed them to idols.
4. Are we not supposed to take the things that God has blessed us with and use them in a way that honors Him? How many lessons could be preached about the use of the gifts God has given us? How many lessons about serving Him with the blessings that He has granted us? How many lessons about training our children to serve Him? But they offered their children to idols!
C. She did not remember from where she had come—vulnerable, naked, bare and squirming in her blood.
D. But now she spread her legs to every passer-by.
1. And yes the language is crass.
2. And the English remodels it in a euphemistic way so that you miss just how rude the language really is. Cf. 23:20.
3. Egyptians, Philistines, Assyrians, Chaldeans--she had had them all and was still not satisified.
4. A bold-faced harlot! Yes, but worse! Harlots get paid, but not Jerusalem. She paid her lovers. She gave the gifts that God had given her to bribe her lovers to come to her. Lewd! Yes! How could it get any worse?
E. God’s response (16:35ff).
1. God is angry. He is furious. He is enraged (42-43).
2. He wanted an intimacy with her unmarred by betrayal (43).
3. He had been gracious and kind to her and she had insulted, despised and betrayed Him (43). Such hurt; such grief is too great to bear!
4. Judgment, wrath, repayment (35-41).
5. Condemnation (44-52, 53-59).
6. If you have experienced such hurt and betrayal—God understands. He has been there!
III. Grace overwhelms shamelessness (16:60-63).A. But God’s response is to remember His covenant. He will maintain His commitment.
B. This will bring remembrance, shame and humiliation to Jerusalem because she is not worthy of such graciousness.
C. God forgives her!
D. Whatever lessons you are seeing relative to marriage relationships, as important as they are, all that is secondary to this passage. The primary message here is that God forgives Jerusalem. Grace overwhelms the shamefulness of sin.
E. God forgives YOU and ME!
1. You may not see yourself in Jerusalem.
2. You may not see yourself as a sinner needing God’s forgiveness.
3. But forgiveness is for those who cry out, “God be merciful to me the sinner” (Lk. 18:13).
4. Such is the greatness of God.
Conclusion:
1. Do you feel ashamed? 2. Would you be forgiven? 3. Then come to the Lord!
