Warning! Graphic Material - Part II

We ended on Ezekiel 16:14 in our last post. We saw the state of Israel before God came into the picture (squirming in her own blood) and we saw that God redeemed her and made her beautiful. It is not time to examine the tragic response that Israel has. Read this excerpt and see yourself for where Israel has fallen, you have fallen all the more.

Ezekiel 16:

15"But you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot because of your fame, and you poured out your harlotries on every passer-by who might be willing.

16"You took some of your clothes, made for yourself high places of various colors and played the harlot on them, which should never come about nor happen.

17"You also took your beautiful jewels made of My gold and of My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images that you might play the harlot with them.

18"Then you took your embroidered cloth and covered them, and offered My oil and My incense before them.

19"Also My bread which I gave you, fine flour, oil and honey with which I fed you, you would offer before them for a soothing aroma; so it happened," declares the Lord GOD.

20"Moreover, you took your sons and daughters whom you had borne to Me and sacrificed them to idols to be devoured. Were your harlotries so small a matter?

21"You slaughtered My children and offered them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire.

22"Besides all your abominations and harlotries you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare and squirming in your blood.

23"Then it came about after all your wickedness ('Woe, woe to you!' declares the Lord GOD),

24that you built yourself a shrine and made yourself a high place in every square.

25"You built yourself a high place at the top of every street and made your beauty abominable, and you spread your legs to every passer-by to multiply your harlotry.

26"You also played the harlot with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, and multiplied your harlotry to make Me angry.

27"Behold now, I have stretched out My hand against you and diminished your rations. And I delivered you up to the desire of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of your lewd conduct.

28"Moreover, you played the harlot with the Assyrians because you were not satisfied; you played the harlot with them and still were not satisfied.

29"You also multiplied your harlotry with the land of merchants, Chaldea, yet even with this you were not satisfied."'"

30"How languishing is your heart," declares the Lord GOD, "while you do all these things, the actions of a bold-faced harlot.

31"When you built your shrine at the beginning of every street and made your high place in every square, in disdaining money, you were not like a harlot.

32"You adulteress wife, who takes strangers instead of her husband!

33"Men give gifts to all harlots, but you give your gifts to all your lovers to bribe them to come to you from every direction for your harlotries.

34"Thus you are different from those women in your harlotries, in that no one plays the harlot as you do, because you give money and no money is given you; thus you are different."

Wow! God restores Israel from her pitiful condition and she becomes a harlot. However, she is not a typical harlot who gets paid for her degrading passions, rather she bribes men to come into her! Furthermore, she doesn't just bribe the men, she uses the very things that God has bestowed upon her to bribe these men.

Reader, do you see yourself here? Can you confess that you are just as horrible as Israel? If not, I wonder if we really can see the value of the cross. He who views their sin as small will see the results of the cross as small; he who see his sin as great will see the cross as great and in turn greatly glorify God.

We have looked at the original state of Israel, the beauty that God gave to her, and the horrific response of disgusting infidelity. Next we will turn to God's response.

In Christ alone,
mike