WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.359 I wonder how you would describe this epic image in Ezekiel chapter 16. 00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:17.080 I can think of many different adjectives that you might use to describe it. 00:00:17.080 --> 00:00:25.359 The one that I would use to describe it is shocking, because that's what it's intended 00:00:25.359 --> 00:00:26.519 to do. 00:00:26.519 --> 00:00:32.200 It's a passage that's intended to be shocking, and it's meant to blow you away. 00:00:32.200 --> 00:00:36.000 It's meant to blow us away as we read it. 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:42.600 It's very easy just to make the gospel in our Christian lives very easy, isn't it? 00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:49.120 And a passage like this, if it doesn't, I think it should feel like a punch in the guts 00:00:49.120 --> 00:00:53.079 for us metaphorically. 00:00:53.079 --> 00:00:58.199 It should feel like being driven up to the highlands in a cold winter's day, being stripped 00:00:58.199 --> 00:01:02.519 down to your pants and then being thrown into a freezing highland loch. 00:01:02.519 --> 00:01:05.079 That's what it should feel like. 00:01:05.079 --> 00:01:13.319 Or being woken up in the morning by a klaxon horn, just shaking you, shaking us out of 00:01:13.319 --> 00:01:19.159 sometimes a spiritual turpor that we find ourselves in, and the lack of understanding 00:01:19.159 --> 00:01:31.239 of who God is and what God thinks and how He wants us to consider Him in our lives. 00:01:31.239 --> 00:01:36.920 I think sometimes for us it's easy to forget that the only peace we have as believers is 00:01:36.920 --> 00:01:39.719 peace on the front line. 00:01:39.719 --> 00:01:42.719 That's what our peace is for Him. 00:01:42.719 --> 00:01:47.719 Our life is full in Christ, that we believe that we are living life to the full as believers. 00:01:47.719 --> 00:01:55.280 But that life to the full does involve dying to our sinful selves. 00:01:55.280 --> 00:02:00.760 And the beauty of forgiveness, which we love thinking about and enjoying and embracing, 00:02:00.760 --> 00:02:07.960 and so we should, the beauty of forgiveness embraces tears of repentance, doesn't it? 00:02:07.960 --> 00:02:09.240 It has to. 00:02:09.240 --> 00:02:17.280 If we understand grace fully, then we understand a little bit more about our need for grace. 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:22.199 And so shocking may be one word, scary might be another word. 00:02:22.199 --> 00:02:26.120 It's not easy to understand all of God's pictures and all of God's images, especially 00:02:26.120 --> 00:02:27.920 in Ezekiel. 00:02:27.920 --> 00:02:32.120 Go back to thinking of something C.S. Lewis said in one of his Narnia books about God 00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:35.080 being good but not being safe. 00:02:35.080 --> 00:02:40.080 And we have that kind of picture of a God who is good but not safe. 00:02:40.080 --> 00:02:42.360 We are so used to being sovereign. 00:02:42.360 --> 00:02:45.120 We are so used to being in control. 00:02:45.120 --> 00:02:48.319 We want to have all the answers, we want to know things as they are. 00:02:48.319 --> 00:02:54.360 And so to be confronted with a different kind of picture is difficult for us. 00:02:54.360 --> 00:02:58.840 And the other word that I would use in looking at a passage like this is the need for, or 00:02:58.840 --> 00:03:03.800 the word that is honest, honesty. 00:03:03.800 --> 00:03:07.520 When we come to God's word, the thing He requires of us most is honesty, I think, in 00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:08.759 our Christian thinking. 00:03:08.759 --> 00:03:17.439 Because on the one hand, I think it's easy for us all to think grace isn't quite so special. 00:03:17.439 --> 00:03:19.280 Grace isn't that important. 00:03:19.280 --> 00:03:22.199 God's love isn't that significant in my life. 00:03:22.199 --> 00:03:28.039 Or on the other hand, to think sin isn't quite so bad. 00:03:28.039 --> 00:03:29.039 Sin is okay. 00:03:29.039 --> 00:03:33.120 Well, everyone's sinning and who really cares too much about it? 00:03:33.120 --> 00:03:44.759 Well, I think this chapter really causes, ought to cause us to take up and sit note. 00:03:44.759 --> 00:03:50.719 Take, it should get us to sit up and take note. 00:03:50.719 --> 00:03:53.000 What did I say, sit note and take up? 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:56.120 Okay, well, you can sit note and take up as well if you want. 00:03:56.120 --> 00:03:59.960 It's what happens when you're not used to preaching twice in a Sunday anymore. 00:03:59.960 --> 00:04:05.080 You can become lazy and slovenly, but take note of His reality, okay? 00:04:05.080 --> 00:04:08.280 It's what's so important for us all. 00:04:08.280 --> 00:04:09.280 And I hope you'll stick with me. 00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:13.719 I know it's an evening and it's tiring. 00:04:13.719 --> 00:04:20.840 The context of this chapter, as the context of all of Ezekiel is God's message to His 00:04:20.840 --> 00:04:27.639 own people, the people of Judah particularly, and Jerusalem, and of the two tribes that 00:04:27.639 --> 00:04:37.240 were remaining in Jerusalem, who were the people of God who were taken into exile because 00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:41.319 of their rebellion because they had turned away from the living God, and they were taken 00:04:41.319 --> 00:04:43.599 into exile to Babylon. 00:04:43.599 --> 00:04:48.959 And the people of God, the people particularly of Jerusalem were complaining and saying, 00:04:48.959 --> 00:04:51.079 look, we don't deserve this. 00:04:51.079 --> 00:04:52.240 We're God's people. 00:04:52.240 --> 00:04:54.120 God's been unfaithful to His promises. 00:04:54.120 --> 00:04:58.480 He said He would take us into this land that was flowing with milk and honey out of the 00:04:58.480 --> 00:05:03.480 slavery from Egypt and would have our own homeland and it would be ours forever. 00:05:03.480 --> 00:05:05.920 And it's unfair, our sin isn't so bad. 00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:07.920 We are His special people. 00:05:07.920 --> 00:05:10.079 Why is He dealing with us like this? 00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:12.360 He should be protecting us. 00:05:12.360 --> 00:05:16.360 He's insignificant and small and unable to do what we wanted Him to do. 00:05:16.360 --> 00:05:25.439 So last week we saw that amazing picture of the wheels and all the images that came from 00:05:25.439 --> 00:05:31.720 Ezekiel chapter 1, which Thomas preached on brilliantly last week. 00:05:31.720 --> 00:05:37.759 And so we see throughout Ezekiel a series of prophecies and pictures where God is teaching 00:05:37.759 --> 00:05:42.960 them about His nature, His character, why He's done what He's done, and what His purposes 00:05:42.960 --> 00:05:43.960 are within it. 00:05:43.959 --> 00:05:53.399 And I think what we need to remember, and this was a fairly brutal passage, a beautiful 00:05:53.399 --> 00:06:01.319 passage but also brutal, beautiful and brutal, particularly in the ESVF. 00:06:01.319 --> 00:06:04.039 It's quite a brutal translation. 00:06:04.039 --> 00:06:10.439 But remember, we need to remember that the Hebrew writing of the Old Testament, particularly 00:06:10.439 --> 00:06:17.120 at this time in the prophecies, was very visual, very pictorial, very graphic. 00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:19.240 It certainly is, isn't it? 00:06:19.240 --> 00:06:26.519 And also that God is writing into the prophecy that Ezekiel is giving into an ancient Near 00:06:26.519 --> 00:06:28.519 East culture. 00:06:28.519 --> 00:06:29.519 Okay? 00:06:29.519 --> 00:06:35.360 So remember, it wasn't written into a 21st century Western culture, or Edinburgh culture, 00:06:35.360 --> 00:06:37.199 or sophisticated secular culture. 00:06:37.199 --> 00:06:43.920 It was written into this ancient Near East culture where baby human life was often cheap. 00:06:43.920 --> 00:06:45.959 Maybe that's not so different. 00:06:45.959 --> 00:06:51.959 Where kings were all powerful and all had all authority, and where women generally were 00:06:51.959 --> 00:06:54.000 not afforded equality. 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:58.319 So you're working, and the image that God gives us into a different context, a different 00:06:58.319 --> 00:07:04.719 situation than we're in, and there's always a danger for us of reading back our 21st century 00:07:04.720 --> 00:07:10.200 Western cultural thinking into a picture like this. 00:07:10.200 --> 00:07:14.280 There's a huge difference in the mindset, in the culture, in the language, but God was 00:07:14.280 --> 00:07:18.800 speaking into that, and He was speaking into that for a reason. 00:07:18.800 --> 00:07:23.880 And He was speaking to His own redeemed people in that context. 00:07:23.880 --> 00:07:28.640 And the interesting thing, although the context and the culture and the situation changes, 00:07:28.640 --> 00:07:33.120 God doesn't change, and actually people don't change. 00:07:33.120 --> 00:07:36.680 And people in a relationship with God don't really change that much. 00:07:36.680 --> 00:07:40.160 The outworking of that relationship might look different sometimes. 00:07:40.160 --> 00:07:45.800 But this is very much part of God's revealed truth, and we find His principles and His 00:07:45.800 --> 00:07:50.759 teaching come across very clearly in this passage. 00:07:50.759 --> 00:07:58.199 And the first thing I want to say is to speak about this picture of amazing grace, right, 00:07:58.199 --> 00:08:03.319 in the middle of the Old Testament, and in this book of prophetic judgment really, which 00:08:03.319 --> 00:08:05.159 it is. 00:08:05.159 --> 00:08:16.159 Jerusalem is very much the focus up till now of God's blessing of His people, of His presence. 00:08:16.159 --> 00:08:19.599 He's present among the people in Jerusalem, and His promises. 00:08:19.599 --> 00:08:23.919 It's the capital city of the promised land. 00:08:23.920 --> 00:08:31.160 The seat of, being the seat of King David, and it had known amazing power and reputation 00:08:31.160 --> 00:08:34.399 and blessing. 00:08:34.399 --> 00:08:36.360 It'd been known as the city of the living God. 00:08:36.360 --> 00:08:38.720 This is where God's people were. 00:08:38.720 --> 00:08:44.560 You remember the story of Solomon, don't you, after David, Solomon, David's son. 00:08:44.560 --> 00:08:51.279 It was the richest, most opulent kingdom, and He had all these riches, and the renown 00:08:51.279 --> 00:08:56.319 was known far and wide so that the Queen of Sheba came to visit Him from a long distance, 00:08:56.319 --> 00:09:03.079 from a long, far away to see and to learn more about this amazing reputation and His 00:09:03.079 --> 00:09:04.079 wisdom. 00:09:04.079 --> 00:09:12.639 And it was a place really of an astonishing blessing. 00:09:12.639 --> 00:09:18.079 And what God wants to say here to the people who had become really proud and arrogant because 00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:24.480 of that, He was saying, look, you rose to where you rose. 00:09:24.480 --> 00:09:32.240 You were blessed to the blessing you received because of my grace, my grace to you. 00:09:32.240 --> 00:09:39.600 He wants them to remember that, and He gives them this picture of their inauspicious origins, 00:09:39.600 --> 00:09:47.360 that they were this baby girl whose mother and father couldn't care less for her, didn't 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:53.600 even bother cutting her umbilical cord, throw it out into the desert to die. 00:09:53.600 --> 00:09:59.320 And she's left there unwashed, unclean, covered in blood, and the King passes by, and He 00:09:59.320 --> 00:10:01.840 says, live. 00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:06.080 No one to show mercy, no one to care, but then this picture of God who comes as the 00:10:06.080 --> 00:10:16.360 King of Kings, and He grants this newborn baby life, and she grows, and she grows under 00:10:16.360 --> 00:10:23.519 His care and protection, and she grows up and becomes beautiful. 00:10:23.519 --> 00:10:34.200 And then she is clothed by Him and given ornaments and jewelry, and she becomes His queen. 00:10:34.200 --> 00:10:37.759 And she's taken into this amazing covenant relationship. 00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:41.320 She becomes perfectly beautiful and famous. 00:10:41.320 --> 00:10:52.040 And really, God is saying through this picture of His great grace to her, that the best of 00:10:52.040 --> 00:10:58.040 everything she had was because of His grace, and because He had chosen the people of God 00:10:58.040 --> 00:11:02.280 in the Old Testament, and He had led them out of slavery in Egypt, and He had taken 00:11:02.280 --> 00:11:07.280 them to the promised land, and He had given them this great land, and He had blessed them 00:11:07.279 --> 00:11:12.000 because He loved them, and because He redeemed them, and because He chose them. 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:17.039 And He was saying, lest you remember your beginnings, He said. 00:11:17.039 --> 00:11:21.240 Remember that you rose to this great position, but it wasn't because of your own abilities 00:11:21.240 --> 00:11:29.319 and gifts, and it was because of what I had done in bringing my salvation and my rescue 00:11:29.319 --> 00:11:36.000 and my favor to you from that place of slavery and anonymity. 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:43.000 And it's a very old, it's an Old Testament picture, but lest we forget, that's our picture 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:45.399 as well as believers. 00:11:45.399 --> 00:11:51.159 If we understand anything of grace and of the gospel and of what Jesus Christ has done 00:11:51.159 --> 00:11:54.080 for us, it is our picture also. 00:11:54.080 --> 00:12:03.000 We have been lifted from obscurity and from certain death spiritually and physically dead 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:09.759 in our sins, and it's God who has said sovereignly to us, live, and He's picked us up, and He's 00:12:09.759 --> 00:12:15.360 washed us and made us clean, and He's given us all good things that we need for our salvation 00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:20.840 and for our life, and He has blessed us in ways that we can never fully understand. 00:12:20.840 --> 00:12:25.919 He has clothed us in the righteousness of Jesus to mix the metaphors and to bring the 00:12:25.919 --> 00:12:28.559 pictures into the New Testament. 00:12:28.559 --> 00:12:34.119 He has made vows on our behalf, and as we belong to the church, we are part of what 00:12:34.119 --> 00:12:38.599 the New Testament calls the bride of Christ. 00:12:38.599 --> 00:12:45.839 And He has done that extravagantly and at great cost to Himself, who even in the Old 00:12:45.839 --> 00:12:51.239 Testament here could have imagined a cost that had to be paid in order for us to be 00:12:51.239 --> 00:12:57.639 set free and to live and to belong to God, the death of the Son Jesus Christ. 00:12:57.639 --> 00:13:05.759 And I think this picture of grace is a reminder to us that we haven't earned our right with 00:13:05.759 --> 00:13:12.080 God, and we aren't in and of ourselves worthy of His grace and His goodness and His love. 00:13:12.080 --> 00:13:19.639 That He has chosen, He has sovereignly said, live, and He has given us this great future 00:13:19.639 --> 00:13:25.480 and great reality now in Him. 00:13:25.480 --> 00:13:35.279 In many ways I'd like just to finish there, but the picture doesn't finish there, unfortunately, 00:13:35.279 --> 00:13:42.120 because I read verse 15, which said, you trusted in your beauty and you became a prostitute, 00:13:42.120 --> 00:13:48.600 I think, which is a bit more a politer way of saying what is said there, still not that 00:13:48.600 --> 00:13:54.680 polite, and you lavished your prostitution on anyone who would have it. 00:13:54.679 --> 00:14:04.279 So and from verses 15 to 34, you've got that picture unfolding of her shameless cheating 00:14:04.279 --> 00:14:08.399 on the King who loved her and who saved her and who brought her life. 00:14:08.399 --> 00:14:13.559 It's truly a, it's a brutal picture in these verses. 00:14:13.559 --> 00:14:21.359 It's deliberately and provocatively offensive, the words that we have there. 00:14:21.360 --> 00:14:25.840 I wrestled with her to read it because I wondered whether it was too graphic to read in a public 00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:27.840 service. 00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:36.519 But there's this whole picture of her giving herself essentially to anyone who would have 00:14:36.519 --> 00:14:40.039 her in prostitution and beyond. 00:14:40.039 --> 00:14:47.480 She takes the jewelry that she'd been gifted and she melts it down and makes idols to worship. 00:14:47.480 --> 00:14:53.840 She takes the food and the oil and the perfume and she sells that or she makes it as gifts 00:14:53.840 --> 00:14:58.139 to those with whom she is engaged in prostitution. 00:14:58.139 --> 00:15:04.639 She sacrifices her children to the idols that she worships. 00:15:04.639 --> 00:15:05.800 She forgets her past. 00:15:05.800 --> 00:15:09.320 She has insatiable appetites to make alliances. 00:15:09.320 --> 00:15:16.800 And here it mixes this picture with the reality that Jerusalem made alliances with other nations 00:15:16.799 --> 00:15:24.839 with Babylon and with Egypt in order to gain power and prestige and authority and renewed 00:15:24.839 --> 00:15:27.159 safety as it were. 00:15:27.159 --> 00:15:28.479 And they forgot who they were. 00:15:28.479 --> 00:15:34.199 They forgot they were a theocracy under God and that God was their king and their leader. 00:15:34.199 --> 00:15:38.599 And so they made all these kind of alliances with all these foreign nations and engaged 00:15:38.599 --> 00:15:41.759 in idolatry and trusted in their power. 00:15:41.759 --> 00:15:46.439 And they preferred these strangers to the relationship she had with the living God. 00:15:46.440 --> 00:15:48.840 She chased after them and she paid them. 00:15:48.840 --> 00:15:54.520 It's a truly repulsive picture. 00:15:54.520 --> 00:16:00.560 She becomes proud and lazy and unconcerned for the poor around her and rejecting of her 00:16:00.560 --> 00:16:03.560 children. 00:16:03.560 --> 00:16:07.640 This is God's, it's a brutal picture of the nature of sins. 00:16:07.640 --> 00:16:08.640 An un... 00:16:08.640 --> 00:16:12.240 If we can call it an un-reconstructed picture of sin. 00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:22.759 It's taking sin and giving the image of sin as the most fearsome breaking of trust. 00:16:22.759 --> 00:16:28.720 It's the abandoning of God's love and provision and protection. 00:16:28.720 --> 00:16:34.039 At the height of their blessing, remember, this was Jerusalem and the... 00:16:34.039 --> 00:16:39.799 At the height of its blessing, turned its back on God, became proud in its own strength 00:16:39.799 --> 00:16:42.559 and misplaced its trust. 00:16:42.559 --> 00:16:48.679 The people of God became thankless and selfish and blind and pursued the gratification away 00:16:48.679 --> 00:16:53.639 from the living God that could never satisfy. 00:16:53.639 --> 00:17:00.879 And whatever else we would take from a picture like this, this epic image, we need to take 00:17:00.879 --> 00:17:10.440 the teaching of God both to the original hearers but also to us that sin isn't okay, grace 00:17:10.440 --> 00:17:13.759 isn't insignificant and cheap. 00:17:13.759 --> 00:17:17.079 And it's so easy for us to become blunted to that fact. 00:17:17.079 --> 00:17:24.200 It's so easy to be thankless, to take God's gifts without recognizing Him as the giver, 00:17:24.200 --> 00:17:29.759 to trust in other things other than the living God, to seek gratification and significance 00:17:29.759 --> 00:17:34.519 in our lives away from our relationship with Christ and His gifts. 00:17:34.519 --> 00:17:41.480 Just pouring all our energies into entertainment and into our hearts' desires which ignore 00:17:41.480 --> 00:17:44.559 God and keep God out of the picture. 00:17:44.559 --> 00:17:47.960 And we can argue, sin isn't so bad. 00:17:47.960 --> 00:17:52.319 Isn't God just being a bit harsh in what He says about sin? 00:17:52.319 --> 00:17:57.480 And I think it's tremendously important for us to wrestle with the Holy Spirit and with 00:17:57.480 --> 00:18:05.799 God to show us that the choices we make and the desires we have in our heart of hearts 00:18:05.799 --> 00:18:15.079 if they are sinful are rebelling against just and a pure and a holy God who extended His 00:18:15.079 --> 00:18:21.559 love all the way to the cross in order to free us from its enslavement. 00:18:21.559 --> 00:18:25.960 So there's this picture of shameless cheating. 00:18:25.960 --> 00:18:27.559 And really that's what sin is. 00:18:27.559 --> 00:18:34.279 It's just shameless cheating as Christians against God. 00:18:34.279 --> 00:18:39.680 Then there's also a picture of inevitable judgment really from verses 35. 00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:43.840 And if you have time at home to read it again, do so 35 to 52. 00:18:43.840 --> 00:18:49.920 He talks about the judgment that He's going to bring in to this people because it's a 00:18:49.920 --> 00:18:54.720 message of judgment and also we'll see a message of hope. 00:18:54.720 --> 00:19:01.799 And as a just God, there's an inevitability about judgment for breaking the covenant, 00:19:01.799 --> 00:19:04.559 for breaking the relationship of love. 00:19:04.559 --> 00:19:10.960 And I just want to highlight and recognize the principles of God's judgment are discipline, 00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:15.200 shall we say, for the people of God because His judgment has already been poured out on 00:19:15.200 --> 00:19:17.559 Jesus on our behalf. 00:19:17.559 --> 00:19:20.480 But He still disciplines His children because He loves them. 00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:25.920 And I think there's two aspects to mucking about with sin and treating it lightly as 00:19:25.920 --> 00:19:34.240 God's covenant people as believers, that He will not simply ignore in our lives. 00:19:34.240 --> 00:19:36.480 We may think He will, but He doesn't do that. 00:19:36.480 --> 00:19:40.839 The first is the divine jealousy. 00:19:40.839 --> 00:19:46.400 And verse 38, He says, He speaks of that. 00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:50.880 And He says, And I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood and are 00:19:50.880 --> 00:19:54.600 judged and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy. 00:19:54.600 --> 00:19:59.120 Now, we generally think of jealousy as a negative thing. 00:19:59.120 --> 00:20:07.640 We see it as possessive and we see it as an unhealthy emotion, an insecure emotion, and 00:20:07.640 --> 00:20:09.560 that often can be that. 00:20:09.560 --> 00:20:16.000 But we also know there's a right jealousy, don't we, where either just anger is aroused 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:20.000 or where protection for someone you love is invoked. 00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:25.000 So if you love someone greatly, you have a jealous protection for us. 00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:30.000 It's hard for us to accept that with all the mixed motives and sinful hearts that we have. 00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:35.640 But it's also a response of true love. 00:20:35.640 --> 00:20:39.799 True love demands, doesn't it, exclusivity. 00:20:39.799 --> 00:20:49.759 It demands that we don't share our love with others in that marital, covenantal context. 00:20:49.759 --> 00:20:54.919 It demands a loyalty and it demands an openness and an honesty. 00:20:54.919 --> 00:21:00.680 And there's always going to be a response to brutal unfaithfulness and cheating in such 00:21:00.680 --> 00:21:02.319 a context. 00:21:02.319 --> 00:21:09.159 And in God's perfect love, it brooks, His love brooks no rivals. 00:21:09.160 --> 00:21:19.240 Not because He's possessive or insecure, but because He recognizes and sees that a divided 00:21:19.240 --> 00:21:26.920 heart is a broken heart and is destructively pouring out our commitment and our love and 00:21:26.920 --> 00:21:31.759 our loyalty in areas it shouldn't be directed in. 00:21:31.759 --> 00:21:38.160 And there's a price to pay for that destruction because He wants to bring us back into that 00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:40.960 faithful loving relationship with Him. 00:21:40.960 --> 00:21:47.160 So He is jealous in direct proportion to His love. 00:21:47.160 --> 00:21:52.320 And when He loves us, the way He loves us, then His jealousy is real in our lives and 00:21:52.320 --> 00:21:58.320 He will invoke discipline to bring us back because He loves us. 00:21:58.320 --> 00:22:03.960 And that can be revealed, I'm sure, in different ways, but it's revealed in this chapter, I 00:22:03.960 --> 00:22:09.519 think in one way, in verse 39, where He says, And I will give you into their hands and they 00:22:09.519 --> 00:22:14.799 will throw down your vaulted chamber and break down your lofty places. 00:22:14.799 --> 00:22:19.079 They will strip you of your clothes and take your beautiful jewels and leave you naked 00:22:19.079 --> 00:22:21.579 and bare. 00:22:21.579 --> 00:22:28.079 And what He's saying there is He's just, He's saying, I'm removing that protection and you 00:22:28.079 --> 00:22:33.400 will be in a place where you will find that there is no love and the love that you thought 00:22:33.400 --> 00:22:39.480 you were finding there is abuse and is taking advantage of you. 00:22:39.480 --> 00:22:41.920 In a sense, He says, this is what you want. 00:22:41.920 --> 00:22:43.840 This is what you've chosen. 00:22:43.840 --> 00:22:50.080 Please see the reality of turning your back on me and where it leaves you. 00:22:50.080 --> 00:22:56.360 There's a dreadful picture here of enslavement and of brutality and recognizing, but the 00:22:56.360 --> 00:23:02.440 point is to recognize that outside of His grace, outside of His protective love, there 00:23:02.440 --> 00:23:04.200 is only darkness. 00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:08.039 There's never genuine hope and life. 00:23:08.039 --> 00:23:11.960 There's using others and being used by others. 00:23:11.960 --> 00:23:16.519 There's taking advantage of others and being taken advantage of. 00:23:16.519 --> 00:23:23.039 And there's a brutalization outside of the covenant of grace. 00:23:23.039 --> 00:23:30.279 And this picture exposes that at either end, right at the very beginning, where the child 00:23:30.279 --> 00:23:33.839 was left to die in a desert context. 00:23:33.839 --> 00:23:42.879 And then in judgment, as God's protective love was taken away, there was only being 00:23:42.879 --> 00:23:50.319 taken advantage of and a stripping back of all that had been gifted. 00:23:50.319 --> 00:23:56.799 It's a kind of Old Testament parallel to the prodigal Son, isn't it? 00:23:56.799 --> 00:24:02.000 You know, the prodigal Son had everything, but took it away from the context of love 00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:03.680 and from the Father. 00:24:03.680 --> 00:24:09.000 And it was used up and He was left with nothing. 00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:18.079 And the reality is outside of Christ, nobody really cares for you, ultimately, to a greater 00:24:18.079 --> 00:24:19.279 or lesser degree. 00:24:19.279 --> 00:24:22.119 The devil certainly isn't concerned for your welfare. 00:24:22.119 --> 00:24:26.039 He will chew you up and spit you out. 00:24:26.039 --> 00:24:29.920 Your sin can offer life to you and to me. 00:24:29.920 --> 00:24:34.839 If we choose to love sin and choose to be deceived, we're being blinded. 00:24:34.839 --> 00:24:38.559 We're blind to its destructiveness because it's death, not life. 00:24:38.559 --> 00:24:39.940 You know what it's like. 00:24:39.940 --> 00:24:41.680 We all know what it's like. 00:24:41.680 --> 00:24:46.399 We know what it's like when someone that you love heads down the path of, say, drug addiction. 00:24:46.399 --> 00:24:48.319 You know what that's like. 00:24:48.319 --> 00:24:51.039 You know that that is a dangerous path for them to go through. 00:24:51.039 --> 00:24:55.960 And in loving jealousy, you want to bring them away from that. 00:24:55.960 --> 00:25:02.399 Or someone who you know chooses to walk away from a loving marriage, wife or husband and 00:25:02.399 --> 00:25:05.119 children, just for some fun. 00:25:05.119 --> 00:25:09.159 You know that's destructive, don't you? 00:25:09.159 --> 00:25:15.839 Or someone who gives up all of their wealth gambling just to pursue wealth that they can 00:25:15.839 --> 00:25:17.119 never hold on to. 00:25:17.119 --> 00:25:22.359 You know that there's a destructiveness there. 00:25:22.359 --> 00:25:27.739 But there's also things that are much more subtle, where there's a gradual searing of 00:25:27.739 --> 00:25:33.359 our conscience because we don't regard sin with any degree of seriousness. 00:25:33.359 --> 00:25:35.319 And we take grace for granted. 00:25:35.319 --> 00:25:44.079 And we gently go into a comatose position away from God. 00:25:44.079 --> 00:25:50.240 And we were talking about a film that was on the television last week, a kind of docus 00:25:50.240 --> 00:25:51.720 film called The Last Breath. 00:25:51.720 --> 00:25:53.599 I don't know if anybody saw it. 00:25:53.599 --> 00:25:54.599 It's a true story. 00:25:54.599 --> 00:26:01.039 It's a true story of a diver in the North Sea whose umbilical cord breaks away from the 00:26:01.039 --> 00:26:04.079 mother ship in a storm. 00:26:04.079 --> 00:26:09.199 And you only naturally have five minutes of emergency oxygen left. 00:26:09.200 --> 00:26:15.559 It was in complete darkness and they ended up lying on top of the unit that he had been 00:26:15.559 --> 00:26:18.160 working on at the seabed. 00:26:18.160 --> 00:26:19.840 And he survived for 37 minutes. 00:26:19.840 --> 00:26:24.200 It's a miraculous, it's a great watch if you have time to watch it, watch it. 00:26:24.200 --> 00:26:25.200 Brilliant watch. 00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:29.200 He should have only had five minutes but he survived for 37. 00:26:29.200 --> 00:26:34.000 But the interesting thing was, they don't know exactly how he survived. 00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:36.759 Could have been because it was so cold down there. 00:26:36.759 --> 00:26:41.200 And also because he had a higher level of oxygen in his blood because it was coming 00:26:41.200 --> 00:26:44.839 through a pipe originally. 00:26:44.839 --> 00:26:51.559 But it's interesting, he speaks of not really feeling that he was dying, that he was just 00:26:51.559 --> 00:26:58.599 gently going, becoming unconscious and it wasn't terribly unpleasant. 00:26:58.599 --> 00:27:04.640 And there's that in our spiritual lives when we surround ourselves with coldness, we can 00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:11.720 become so cold and our spiritual bodies can be so desensitized that we hardly even notice 00:27:11.720 --> 00:27:13.720 that we're dying. 00:27:13.720 --> 00:27:22.000 That sin just isn't on our radar as it were and we just gradually are engulfed in the 00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:29.040 coldness and darkness of a sinful lifestyle that we hardly recognize, that we've moved 00:27:29.040 --> 00:27:30.040 out of protection. 00:27:30.040 --> 00:27:34.400 And that's I think what is extremely dangerous. 00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:38.840 We're encouraged to hate sin and to run from it. 00:27:38.840 --> 00:27:43.759 We don't want our grace to be cheap and we don't want our salvation to be a sideline. 00:27:43.759 --> 00:27:46.000 We want to know our hearts. 00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:54.200 And so we come to the last little bit here in verse 60 of this passage. 00:27:54.200 --> 00:27:57.400 We didn't read from, we just read really the first section. 00:27:57.400 --> 00:28:02.400 From verse 59 to the end he said, for the last few years that I will do, we have done 00:28:02.400 --> 00:28:06.560 who have despised the oath and break in the covenant, yet I will remember my covenant 00:28:06.560 --> 00:28:12.160 with you in the days of your youth and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant. 00:28:12.160 --> 00:28:14.759 Then you will remember your ways and so on. 00:28:14.759 --> 00:28:18.080 And then it goes on to say, I will establish my covenant with you and you shall know that 00:28:18.080 --> 00:28:19.480 I am the Lord. 00:28:19.480 --> 00:28:28.080 So it ends in a much more positive note that God's purpose is in exposing their sin and 00:28:28.080 --> 00:28:30.400 their rebellion and drifting away from them. 00:28:30.400 --> 00:28:35.160 And the discipline and the judgment that comes from that has an end to bring them back to 00:28:35.160 --> 00:28:36.160 Himself. 00:28:36.160 --> 00:28:42.040 It's all about God's commitment and vows both to redeem and to restore a people. 00:28:42.040 --> 00:28:44.240 And a people did return. 00:28:44.240 --> 00:28:45.340 There was renewal. 00:28:45.340 --> 00:28:48.120 It was a small renewal. 00:28:48.120 --> 00:28:50.759 But they did rebuild and restore Jerusalem. 00:28:50.759 --> 00:28:55.920 And it was all of it was only a shadow of what was to come in Jesus Christ. 00:28:55.920 --> 00:29:02.480 And He speaks in verse 63 about the importance of atonement. 00:29:02.480 --> 00:29:06.840 That you may remember and be confounded and never open your mouth again because of your 00:29:06.840 --> 00:29:07.840 shame. 00:29:07.840 --> 00:29:10.480 When I atone for you for all you have done declares the Lord. 00:29:10.480 --> 00:29:13.160 When I atone for you. 00:29:13.160 --> 00:29:18.320 So there's a gentle picture looking forward to the work of Jesus Christ. 00:29:18.320 --> 00:29:24.320 So you've got this picture of perfect jealousy and of discipline and judgment, the grotesque 00:29:24.319 --> 00:29:30.240 nature of sin, God's fixed hatred and opposition to all its evil and destructive and proud 00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:32.319 and violent and brutal and selfish. 00:29:32.319 --> 00:29:34.439 And then you have Christ. 00:29:34.439 --> 00:29:37.279 I will atone. 00:29:37.279 --> 00:29:41.259 Christ becomes, the judge becomes the judged on the cross. 00:29:41.259 --> 00:29:45.799 And He willingly takes all of that, all of that picture. 00:29:45.799 --> 00:29:53.559 He takes all of that picture. 00:29:53.559 --> 00:29:58.159 And you see Christ is prostituted on the cross. 00:29:58.159 --> 00:29:59.799 He takes that. 00:29:59.799 --> 00:30:04.679 He becomes, He had no sin, becomes sin for us. 00:30:04.679 --> 00:30:09.679 And we treat that so lightly. 00:30:09.679 --> 00:30:12.720 Comes off our lips, yeah. 00:30:12.720 --> 00:30:19.000 And we ask for forgiveness because it's there and because it's free. 00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:26.720 And yet we often forget the great cost and the cost that He has paid to set us free from 00:30:26.720 --> 00:30:31.920 that so our hearts are renewed and refreshed and revived. 00:30:31.920 --> 00:30:42.720 And I think the great picture for us in binding this all together and recognizing the purpose 00:30:42.720 --> 00:30:52.279 of God is in Revelation chapter 21 when we have a future picture of what God is doing. 00:30:52.279 --> 00:30:56.039 And He says, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first 00:30:56.039 --> 00:30:58.799 earth had passed away and the sea was no more. 00:30:58.799 --> 00:31:07.120 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared 00:31:07.120 --> 00:31:10.680 as a bride adorned for her husband. 00:31:10.680 --> 00:31:14.320 So you can write back to that picture. 00:31:14.320 --> 00:31:21.200 Write back to that picture that God has this great future for us as His people. 00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:29.000 We are part of a promised unimaginable life and He asks us to stay under His protection, 00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:35.080 to be part of that new Jerusalem, to recognize there's nothing worthwhile outside of His 00:31:35.080 --> 00:31:40.400 grace that all the good things He gives us, many good things, are to be enjoyed. 00:31:40.400 --> 00:31:46.480 And through Him, recognizing Him as the giver and that we have a great future in Him and 00:31:46.480 --> 00:31:50.000 with Him, God will be there in all His fullness. 00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:57.019 It will be that new Jerusalem that is pictured here to a degree where all the tears will 00:31:57.019 --> 00:32:02.440 be wiped away, where there isn't any more death, no more crying, no more pain, the sweetest 00:32:02.440 --> 00:32:05.440 and most beautiful existence. 00:32:05.440 --> 00:32:13.600 And in the light of this incredible promise, we need to wrestle with the temptation to 00:32:13.600 --> 00:32:19.440 say grace is nothing special or that sin isn't quite so bad. 00:32:19.440 --> 00:32:26.320 And just ask, I know I can do it, but ask the Holy Spirit to make the reality of rebellion 00:32:26.320 --> 00:32:32.080 and sin much more heinous to each of us and the beauty of God's grace much more powerful 00:32:32.080 --> 00:32:33.320 in our lives. 00:32:33.319 --> 00:32:35.480 Let's pray. 00:32:35.480 --> 00:32:42.759 Father God, help us to understand and know a little bit more clearly by the power of 00:32:42.759 --> 00:32:47.079 Your Holy Spirit, Your perspective. 00:32:47.079 --> 00:32:55.439 We've said that a lot recently that the Bible is that living word which is trying to make 00:32:55.439 --> 00:33:00.480 clear Your perspective, sovereign as King as God. 00:33:00.480 --> 00:33:06.400 We often wrestle because our perspective is so different because we are enthroned often 00:33:06.400 --> 00:33:12.799 in the as the center of our own lives and Christ and God is somewhere far off. 00:33:12.799 --> 00:33:17.839 So help us and we know it's a battle, we know it's a struggle, we know we have remaining 00:33:17.839 --> 00:33:30.440 sin in us which wants to abandon you, wants to commit spiritual adultery as it were. 00:33:30.440 --> 00:33:38.120 And abuse you and take your gifts but ignore you as the giver. 00:33:38.120 --> 00:33:42.360 Help us to see that in our own lives and hearts and we pray that you would make us amazed 00:33:42.360 --> 00:33:50.480 by grace more and more and find safety and security and protection and happiness in your 00:33:50.480 --> 00:33:55.000 company and acknowledging you for who you are. 00:33:55.000 --> 00:34:00.400 We do pray that and we do pray for forgiveness when we get that wrong when we are doing it. 00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:07.640 Our drawn and our hearts are attracted by other loves that take preeminence in first 00:34:07.640 --> 00:34:10.200 place in our lives. 00:34:10.200 --> 00:34:17.280 Help us to give you that place of lordship and preeminence at all times and grant us 00:34:17.280 --> 00:34:20.440 the ability to do so by your Spirit. 00:34:20.440 --> 00:34:26.840 Forgive us when we fail and we thank you that you are so willing to forgive but also so 00:34:26.840 --> 00:34:30.240 loving that you will discipline. 00:34:30.239 --> 00:34:35.559 We thank you for the picture of God as Mother that cares for His children but also this 00:34:35.559 --> 00:34:46.679 great protective fatherly figure who is jealous for our unadulterated love and we pray that 00:34:46.679 --> 00:34:51.279 you would help us to grasp both of these pictures and live in the shadow of Calvary. 00:34:51.279 --> 00:34:53.079 We ask it in Jesus' name. 00:34:53.079 --> 00:35:01.079 Amen.