S28 || God Will Not Be Mocked: The Fall of Jerusalem Explained || Ezekiel 23:28 - 24:2 || Session 28
September 15, 2025 • 29 mins
Ezekiel's shocking metaphor of Israel and Judah as prostitutes continues in chapter 23 and unveils God's raw emotions about His people's unfaithfulness. Through vivid, unfiltered language, this episode explores what happens when those who claim to love God pursue relationships with other "lovers" - foreign nations and their idols.
We examine God's graphic description of Jerusalem and Samaria as two sisters who began beautiful but degraded themselves through spiritual adultery. After a thousand years of patience, God's judgment finally arrives, not as a capricious reaction but as the natural consequence of persistent rebellion. The imagery is deliberately unsettling: these once-dedicated cities had committed themselves to foreign powers, adopting pagan worship practices that culminated in the horror of child sacrifice to the god Molech.
Most offensive to God was their hypocrisy - sacrificing children to idols, then entering His sanctuary on the same day to worship Him. This attempt to maintain divided loyalties provokes one of the episode's most powerful insights: "You cannot have one foot in idols and one foot in God's kingdom. He will not stand for it." The discussion reveals how sin progressively entraps its victims like addiction, leaving them "worn out by adultery" yet unable to break free.
The prophetic element intensifies when Ezekiel announces the exact day Babylon began the siege of Jerusalem (January 15, 588 BC) - a prediction verified when refugees later brought news of its fulfillment. This historical precision reminds us that faith isn't a blind leap but rests on evidence of God's fulfilled word.
What idols compete for your devotion today? How might you be attempting to serve two masters? Join us as we reason through these challenging passages and discover why exclusive devotion to God isn't just a command - it's the pathway to freedom from spiritual prostitution that only wears us out and leaves us empty.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
If you were with us last time on Reasoning Through
the Bible, we were in Ezekiel,chapter 23,.
And God had taken his northernkingdom of Israel the capital
there was Samaria and thesouthern kingdom of Judah the
capital there was Jerusalem.
And he took these two cities,samaria and Jerusalem, and
(00:40):
described them as two women.
They were beautiful young womenwhen they started, but over
time they had prostitutedthemselves out to foreign lovers
.
And he describes how the Jewishpeople of Israel and Judah had
started out in Egypt and hadbrought their foreign gods with
(01:02):
them and had then sought outafter these foreign nations and
in the end they were verydisgusted with each other.
So it's a very ugly, graphicpicture of Israel seeking after
these other nations instead ofseeking after God.
God was very long-suffering andpatient, simply because he had
(01:22):
let this go on for at least athousand years, and he is
finally now dealing with it Inthis section.
Today we're going to see Godpouring out his wrath and
dealing with these two uglyprostitutes of these two cities.
So I'm going to start readingin Ezekiel, chapter 23, starting
in verse 28, says this For thussays the Lord, 28, says this
(02:00):
the nakedness of your harlotrieswill be uncovered, both your
lewdness and your harlotries.
These things will be done toyou because you have played the
harlot with the nations, becauseyou have defiled yourself with
their idols.
You have walked in the way ofyour sister.
Therefore, I will give her cupinto your hand.
Steve, that's very graphic.
(02:21):
What do you think of when youhear those words?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
What I think of is that I never want to be in a
situation like that myself, so Iwant to guard against that.
But yeah, it's something—ittells me that God is giving this
descriptive language to getacross to the people that are
there in Jerusalem, that arestill there, that are there in
Jerusalem, that are still there.
(02:44):
This is right at the time,right before they're finally
taken over by Nebuchadnezzar andthe city is sacked and the
temple is destroyed.
He's telling them asgraphically and as direct as he
can, the reason why that they'regoing to be taken over and the
city's going to be sacked.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
If we look at verse 30, what we just read.
There, he tells them exactlywhy the destruction was brought
upon them.
Steve, what is it that God saysis the reason why Jerusalem
will be destroyed?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
It says there, because they played the harlot
with other nations and that theythen defiled themselves with
the idols from those nations.
It's a direct thing that we'vebeen talking about through all
of these sessions dealing withEzekiel the idol worship let's
go ahead and read the nextsection.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Starting in verse 32, god gets once again very
graphic.
These are very emotionaldescriptive language here of
what he's going to do to thesecities that were originally his
chosen people.
He doesn't beat around the bush, he doesn't mince words.
This is some of the most directand emotional language in the
(03:52):
entire Bible.
Steve, can you read Ezekiel 23,starting at verse 32 and going
to the end of the chapter?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Thus says the Lord God, you will drink your
sister's cup, which is deep andwide.
You will be laughed at and heldin derision.
It contains much.
You will be filled withdrunkenness and sorrow the cup
of horror and desolation, thecup of your sister Samaria.
You will drink it and drain it.
(04:21):
Then you will gnaw itsfragments and tear your breast.
For I have spoken, declares theLord God.
Therefore, thus says the LordGod, because you have forgotten
me and cast me behind your back,bear now the punishment of your
lewdness and of yourhollertrees.
Moreover, the Lord said to meSon of man, will you judge Ohola
(04:43):
and Oholaba, then declare tothem their abominations, for
they have committed adultery andblood is on their hands.
Thus, they have committedadultery with their idols and
even caused their sons, whomthey bore to me, to pass through
the fire to them as food.
Again, they have done this tome.
(05:05):
They have defiled my sanctuaryon the same day and have
profaned my Sabbath, for whenthey had slaughtered their
children for their idols, theyentered my sanctuary on the same
day to profane it, and lo.
Thus they did within my house.
Furthermore, they have evensent for men who came from afar,
(05:27):
to whom a messenger was sent.
And lo, they came, for whom youbathed, painted your eyes and
decorated yourself withornaments, and you sat on a
splendid couch with a tablearranged before it on which you
had set my incense and my oil.
The sound of a carefreemultitude was with her, and
(05:49):
drunkards were brought from thewilderness and men of the common
sort, and they put bracelets onthe hands of the women and
beautiful crowns on their heads.
When I said, concerning her, whowas worn out by adulteries,
will they now commit adulterywith her when she is thus?
But they went into her as theywould go into a harlot.
(06:11):
Thus they went into Aholah andAholabah, the lewd women.
But they, righteous men, willjudge them with the judgment of
adulteresses and with thejudgment of women who shed blood
because they are adulteressesand blood is on their hands.
For thus says the Lord God,bring up a company against them
(06:33):
and give them over to terror andplunder.
The company will stone themwith stones and cut them down
with the swords.
They will slay their sons andtheir daughters and burn their
houses with fire.
Thus I will make lewdness ceasefrom the land, that all women
may be admonished and not commitlewdness as you have done.
(06:55):
Your lewdness will be requitedupon you and you will bear the
penalty of worshiping your idols.
Thus, you will know that I amLord God.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
This, again, is a very descriptive, very emotional
passage.
God is being quite graphic withwhy he's doing what he's doing
and what he's going to do.
If you were with us before, ithad been maybe a thousand years
that God had put up with this.
So if I ask myself, what can Ilearn from passages such as this
(07:28):
, I learned that when God givescommands, we have to take that
very seriously.
The people of Israel had saidwell, you know, yahweh's been
around all this time.
We've been able to kind ofworship other things too.
We've had these worshippractices now for a while and
God hadn't done anything, so hemust approve of it.
(07:50):
Well, no, he had sent manyprophets saying that he didn't
approve of it.
So one of the great lessons is,when God says something, he
doesn't have to repeat himself.
He should only have to say itonce, and we should take that
very, very seriously, because hewill act and we will not get
away with sin even though Godmay not have acted for a while.
(08:13):
Steve, what do you get out ofpassages like this?
It's so emotional and so to thepoint.
It's just very different fromwhat we hear from the
sugar-coated God that we oftensee in our churches today.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
They were saying that God hadn't done anything,
meaning that he hadn'tdisciplined us so far, and God
had actually done the opposite.
He had protected them manytimes.
The book of Judges is all aboutthat.
Where they were oppressed, theycalled out to God and he sent a
judge for them.
And, as we've mentioned before,whenever the Assyrians came and
(08:45):
took off Israel in the north—that Sennacherib, the Assyrian
king, laid siege to Jerusalemand God protected Jerusalem and
sent a death angel out andkilled 185,000 of the Assyrian
soldiers and Sennacheribwithdrew from Jerusalem.
Those are just some examples.
(09:06):
And so, yes, they were sayingGod hasn't done anything for us.
In fact, he's actuallyprotected us and they had gotten
used to that.
They had gotten to the pointthat they just said we can
actually do anything we want toand God is not going to really
discipline us.
This is the point that they hadarrived at.
(09:32):
It is a lesson for us to knowthat God is serious and that we
need to pay attention to whatHis Word says and that we don't
need to be deceived and we needto stay close to His Word and
understand that we can make thechoices as to what we do, but we
can't control the consequences,and if the choices that we make
are always going to be in linewith the Word of God, and if the
(09:53):
choices that we make are alwaysgoing to be in line with the
Word of God, then we're going tobe on the protected side.
But if the choices that we makego directly against the Word of
God, then there's going to beconsequences to those choices
and, according to what we'rejust reading here, it's not
going to be pretty.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
It's not pretty at all.
It's quite ugly.
Look again at verse 33 and 34,the horrendous nature of the
emotion that God is describinghere.
He's going to give this cup ofwrath to these two cities that
he's describing as women, thecup of horror and desolation.
You will drink it and drain it.
(10:29):
Then you will gnaw itsfragments and tear your breasts.
I'm reminded there of one time Iheard a description of an
addict that was wholly takenover by their drug.
It was to the point ofself-destruction.
The language this addict usedwas that this drug was heaven
(10:49):
and the devil at the same time.
They were drawn to it, but itwas the worst thing they could
imagine.
But they couldn't get away.
They just kept going backbecause they had this addiction
and the national leaders ofIsrael were drawn and seeking
the favor of these other nations.
That's what he's talking abouthere.
(11:10):
They were drawn to the powerand the glory of Egypt and they
were drawn to the power andglory of Assyria.
Once they were given over tothem, they became to hate it,
but they kept going back.
Instead of trying to get awayfrom it and going to God, they
just kept lusting after theseforeign nations, to the point
(11:33):
that it was just destroying them.
They couldn't stop, just like aharlot can't not stop.
They're drawn to something thatthey just absolutely hate.
In verse 35, god is punishingJerusalem for lewdness and he
will punish our generation forlewdness as well.
These people had sought afterthese foreign nations because of
(11:55):
the wealth and the power, butthey had also sought after their
gods, and in some cases therewas sexual worship going on.
It was lewd to the extreme.
Our nations today and ourcultures are lewd to the extreme
and we will not get away withit, just like ancient Israel
will not get away with it.
(12:16):
Look at verse 37.
Steve.
What sins does God list inverse 37?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
It says that they have blood on their hands
because they committed adulterywith their idols and they even
caused their sons that werededicated to God.
Remember one of the statutes andordinances where the firstborn
were to be dedicated to God topass through the fire to them as
food?
This is a description of theworship of the god Molech, and
(12:47):
what that was done to worshiphim was to give them child
sacrifice.
The huge idol and statue thatwas made contained a place for a
fire, and they would heat thisfire up, and it had arms that
were outstretched.
It would get so hot that thenthey would place their children,
(13:10):
their babies, on the arms ofthis God, and there are places
in Scripture that talk aboutwhen they did this that they
would beat their drums so loudto drown out the screams of the
children that were being friedon the arms of this God Molech.
(13:32):
You can see now, glenn, why Godhad become so disgusted with
them.
They had gotten to the pointthat they were sacrificing their
own children to a foreign god.
You just kind of wonder how inthe world did it get to the
place that they had let thatnation influence them to the
point that they would do that?
Speaker 1 (13:53):
In verse 37, he mentions child sacrifice.
They had been sacrificing theirchildren to these terrible
idols.
Two verses later, verse 39, hementions the same sin of causing
the death of their own children.
What's amazing is he alsomentions twice here in verse 38
and 39, that on the same daysthey would go into God's temple.
(14:19):
They would go and do thesehorrible pagan worship services,
sometimes even sacrificingtheir own children, and then go
and attempt to worship God onthe same day.
Steve, I hope people out therearen't actually sacrificing
their children although we couldhave a nice conversation about
(14:41):
abortion on that but the realquestion for us is can God allow
us to have idols in our livesand then go into church and
worship Him at the same time?
Can we have one foot insomething that's very ungodly
and then one foot in God and getaway with it?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Let me put it a little bit more bluntly, glenn.
Will God allow us to have someabominable sin that's in our
life, something that really goesagainst Him?
And I'm not talking abouttelling little white lies or
something like that.
I'm talking about somethingthat is very, very sinful,
(15:22):
something that is really on theconscious of a person, a lost
person, and is bearing down onthem, or on a saved person.
The Holy Spirit is reallyconvicting them to a point that
they know that this is a sinthat God does not like.
Yet they then turn around andgo in and worship God.
(15:46):
On the next day, I can tell youthat God doesn't like that,
that God doesn't like that, andthat what we should do is that
we should confess our sins tohim.
So that's something that Ithink we can get out of this,
and that we can see that God isnot going to let something like
that escape and continue to bedone.
(16:06):
That sin is going to be foundout and he's going to deal with
it and there's going to beconsequences to it.
I know that we keep repeatingourselves with this, but the
nation of Israel kept goingfurther and further and further.
They weren't listening.
I think it applies sometimes toour lives, and especially to
people's lives who have notcommitted or given their life to
(16:29):
Jesus Christ.
The question is are you running?
Are you running from God?
Are you running away?
Are you at a place where youknow that what you're doing is
ungodly and that God doesn'tapprove of it?
If you are, then all you haveto do is reach out to Jesus
Christ, believe on Him, ask Himinto your life, ask Him to
(16:50):
forgive your sins, acknowledgethose sins that you have done,
acknowledge that those sins areseparating you from God, and ask
him to come into your life andto forgive those sins and to
become a believer on JesusChrist, on the debt that he has
paid, on the death, burial andresurrection.
Your life will be changed andyou'll no longer burial and
resurrection.
Your life will be changed andyou'll no longer be running from
(17:12):
God, but you will be runningtowards God, and you'll never
know a time of more happinessthan that whenever you give your
life completely over to JesusChrist and trust on him.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
If we ask the question will God allow us to
have one foot in the world andone foot in him?
Then the answer is no.
He will not allow us to haveanything that's in front of him,
anything that is in between usand God.
Anything that we would hold ismore important than him.
He wants that out of the way.
We cannot have one foot in anidol or the world and then the
(17:48):
other foot in God's kingdom.
He will not stand for it.
Then back to our analogy here,our picture of what started out
as these beautiful young women.
Look at the last half of verse40.
The women there bathedthemselves, put on fine clothes
and fine jewelry, preparedthemselves for their lovers.
(18:08):
It talks about a fine table, afine feast, expecting this
handsome people to come in.
But if we look at verse 42, whoactually came?
What actually came were nothandsome princes.
Who came was drunks, uselesspeople, uncivilized people.
It was a very ugly scene.
(18:29):
By now we have what started outas these beautiful young girls,
these beautiful young women hadprostituted themselves to these
idols, and now they are seekinga lover and all they get are
drunks and common people,because they are worn-out
prostitutes.
It's a very sad picture of whathappens when we turn away from
(18:54):
God and his true path.
In verse 43, he uses the phraseworn out by adulteries.
Sin will wear us out, use us upand then continue to keep us
like an old, worn-out prostitute.
It's a very ugly description.
And if we look at verse between45 and 47, what will God do
(19:16):
with such people?
What does he say there, steve?
What's God going to do withthese people?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
He says that they're going to be judged, they're
going to be a judgment upon them, and the reason for the
judgment is because they shedblood in verse 45, and the blood
is on their hands Again goesback to the sacrificing of their
children.
It says that God's going tobring a company against them, a
(19:40):
company of men, a company ofsoldiers and of a nation, and
that they're going to be stonedwith stones and they're going to
cut down with the swords, andthat their sons and daughters
are going to be stoned withstones and they're going to cut
down with the swords, and thattheir sons and daughters are
going to be slayed and they'regoing to be burned in their
houses with fire.
This is a depiction of thesacking of Jerusalem and what
happened whenever Nebuchadnezzarand the Babylonian army came in
(20:03):
that they completely destroyedJerusalem, burned it to the
ground and also destroyed thetemple.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
If we go back into the Mosaic law, god had given
them rules for what to do for anadulterer.
The punishment for adultery wasdeath, usually by stoning.
We find that in Leviticus 20,verse 10.
Chapter 20, verse 10.
(20:32):
And here in Ezekiel, verse 47,the enemy will exact God's
justice by killing them withstones and swords.
What you do will come back toyou.
God will not be mocked.
His punishment will be sure.
What you sow, you will reap.
That's what God says.
So he is bringing it about.
He had sent them prophets.
They had ignored it, and nowhis wrath is sure.
(20:54):
And he tells us the reason whyhe's going to destroy them Verse
48, to make the lewdness cease.
The lewdness had gone on longenough.
God says I'm going to stop it.
And the middle of verse 49, soIsrael will quote bear the
penalty of worshiping your idols.
(21:14):
They will be punished for this.
And then quote thus you willknow that I am the Lord, god.
A repeated theme in Ezekiel isthat God will bring the
punishment of his people so thatthey will know who is the real
God.
Remember one of the mainreasons why God had the 10
(21:35):
plagues in Egypt was todemonstrate which gods were the
real one.
They had been worshipingmultiple gods, and he's going to
show you.
Now you will know who is thereal one.
He's going to show you now youwill know who is the real one.
Whenever we go off into somedistraction, god always says I'm
(21:56):
going to do something, so youwill know that I am the real God
.
Steve, that is just such apowerful message for us today.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
As you mentioned there, glenn.
In verse 48, it says I willmake lewdness cease from the
land.
This is verbiage, that God issaying look at what he's had to
go to in order to get this outof them.
He has had to take the northernkingdom off and to destroy
those cities, that capital,samaria.
He's now had to do the samewith Judah.
(22:24):
He's had to take the city ofJerusalem.
It's going to be, I mentioned,sacked in a horrible, terrible
way, and the temple is going tobe torn down, his dwelling place
, a place that was built wherethey worshipped him and for the
purpose of worshipping him.
This is what it has taken toget this lewdness out of the
(22:48):
nation of Israel, the peoplethemselves.
And he says then it's going tocease, this is the final act
that has to do it.
All of this descriptive languagehere in chapter 23, it's really
showing an embarrassment forthe nation, acting as a
prostitute, adulteratingthemselves to the other nations
(23:11):
that are around them andworshiping their gods, their
idols, then to the point againthat we've mentioned that
they're sacrificing theirchildren to the other nations,
going off and worshiping theother idols and turning around
and coming back into the templeof God and going through motions
of acting like they'reworshiping God.
(23:32):
This is not a very good picture, and it's also depicting the
lengths that God is going to todiscipline them.
That's another thing that weget through here that even
though God does disciplineIsrael, he does mention times of
whenever he's going to bringthem back, and we're going to
get to a chapter a little bitlater on in the book where he is
(23:55):
going to mention about bringingthem back, but still it's
something that the lengths thatGod will go to in order to get
them to come back to him.
It's not a pretty picture, butin a way, it's showing the love
that he has for Israel.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
That brings us to the beginning of chapter 24.
And chapter 24 is the last ofthe chapters in Ezekiel that
talks about the destruction ofJerusalem.
He's been giving this messageto the Jewish people in Babylon
for many chapters now and he'sgoing to wrap up the message
about Jerusalem in chapter 24.
(24:34):
We're given another verygraphic illustration in this
chapter of how severe the battlewas.
The first two verses of Ezekiel24 say this and the word of the
Lord came to me in the ninthyear, in the tenth month on.
The word of the Lord came to mein the ninth year, in the tenth
month, on the tenth of themonth, saying Son of man, write
(24:54):
the name of this day.
This very day, the king ofBabylon has laid siege to
Jerusalem.
This very day.
Now, here God tells the Jewishpeople that were a long ways
away as captives in Babylon.
They tells them the exact daythat Nebuchadnezzar started the
(25:15):
siege of Jerusalem.
He says here ninth year, tenthmonth, tenth of the month.
We know what day this was.
It was January 15th, 588 BC andthe captives were a long way
away from Jerusalem.
At least in those days, thejourney in the news would take a
while to get there.
(25:35):
This information would notnormally come to them until many
days later by telling theJewish people this day is the
day he starts the siege.
This day is the day he startsthe siege.
Then, within a few weeks ormonths, when the news finally
(25:55):
got back to the people, ezekielwas right.
Ezekiel knew the very day thatthe siege began and that way the
Jewish people would know thiswas a true prophet.
All of God's prophets were ableto predict something in the
immediate context.
People would know that theywere a true prophet.
(26:16):
Only a true prophet would havebeen able to predict ah, today,
this very day, is the day thatthe siege begins.
Therefore, god is givingevidence of Ezekiel being a true
prophet.
God always gives evidence sothat we can know logically who
(26:37):
is a true prophet and who is afalse prophet.
He always gives enough evidenceto people to believe his word.
Christianity is never a blindleap in the dark.
Faith is built on evidence.
It's built on God's Word thathas proven itself, and because
Ezekiel proved himself, thenthey knew that.
(26:58):
We can write down all the restof his words, even though some
of them were future Steve.
What else can we tell aboutthis chapter?
Speaker 2 (27:06):
There are a couple of things in the previous chapters
whenever Ezekiel gave dates.
The one was the year 591.
The next time it was the year588.
And all of those depictionsthat were given by God through
Ezekiel were talking about thesacking of Jerusalem and et
cetera.
We've gone through all of thosedepictions.
(27:27):
So the previous visions thatwere given to Ezekiel were all
before the actual happeningsthat took place.
Where Zedekiah is taken out,he's blinded and taken off into
Babylon and etc.
Now, as you've pointed out,glenn, now it's a depiction of
actually what's happening inreal time with the siege of
(27:49):
Babylon.
One other thing too is over inZechariah.
Remember, there were some fastdays that the people had come up
with in order to mourn thesacking of Jerusalem.
This is one of those fast daysthat came out of it because of
the sacking of Jerusalem and thedestruction of Jerusalem.
So we have a crossing betweenthe prophets of the various
(28:14):
activities and the things thatwe have a cohesive story between
all of them related to thestory of Jerusalem, the story of
the nation of Israel and Godworking with his nation and his
chosen people.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
He again gives this day here in verse 1, the ninth
year tenth of the month.
That same day is mentioned in 2Kings 25.1, jeremiah 39.1, and
Jeremiah 52.4.
So it's significant because itmarks the beginning of the end
for the city of Jerusalem.
Ezekiel is giving this prophecyeven though there's no way
(28:49):
other than divine revelation hecould have known this was the
beginning of the siege.
Later in this same book, inEzekiel 33, 21, a person arrives
who had escaped from Jerusalemand brings news that Ezekiel's
prophecy was literally fulfilled.
So we have literal fulfillmentof a divine revelation so that
(29:11):
the people can know that Ezekielis a great prophet.
We probably should pull it tothe curb for today because of
time, but next time we'll get tothis last section about
Jerusalem here and it's going tobe equally graphic and equally
emotional and I'm sure ourlisteners will want to come back
as we reason through thedestruction of Jerusalem.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Thank you so much for watching and listening.
May God bless you.
If you were with us last time on Reasoning Through
the Bible, we were in Ezekiel,chapter 23,.
And God had taken his northernkingdom of Israel the capital
there was Samaria and thesouthern kingdom of Judah the
capital there was Jerusalem.
And he took these two cities,samaria and Jerusalem, and
(00:40):
described them as two women.
They were beautiful young womenwhen they started, but over
time they had prostitutedthemselves out to foreign lovers
.
And he describes how the Jewishpeople of Israel and Judah had
started out in Egypt and hadbrought their foreign gods with
(01:02):
them and had then sought outafter these foreign nations and
in the end they were verydisgusted with each other.
So it's a very ugly, graphicpicture of Israel seeking after
these other nations instead ofseeking after God.
God was very long-suffering andpatient, simply because he had
(01:22):
let this go on for at least athousand years, and he is
finally now dealing with it Inthis section.
Today we're going to see Godpouring out his wrath and
dealing with these two uglyprostitutes of these two cities.
So I'm going to start readingin Ezekiel, chapter 23, starting
in verse 28, says this For thussays the Lord, 28, says this
(02:00):
the nakedness of your harlotrieswill be uncovered, both your
lewdness and your harlotries.
These things will be done toyou because you have played the
harlot with the nations, becauseyou have defiled yourself with
their idols.
You have walked in the way ofyour sister.
Therefore, I will give her cupinto your hand.
Steve, that's very graphic.
(02:21):
What do you think of when youhear those words?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
What I think of is that I never want to be in a
situation like that myself, so Iwant to guard against that.
But yeah, it's something—ittells me that God is giving this
descriptive language to getacross to the people that are
there in Jerusalem, that arestill there, that are there in
Jerusalem, that are still there.
(02:44):
This is right at the time,right before they're finally
taken over by Nebuchadnezzar andthe city is sacked and the
temple is destroyed.
He's telling them asgraphically and as direct as he
can, the reason why that they'regoing to be taken over and the
city's going to be sacked.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
If we look at verse 30, what we just read.
There, he tells them exactlywhy the destruction was brought
upon them.
Steve, what is it that God saysis the reason why Jerusalem
will be destroyed?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
It says there, because they played the harlot
with other nations and that theythen defiled themselves with
the idols from those nations.
It's a direct thing that we'vebeen talking about through all
of these sessions dealing withEzekiel the idol worship let's
go ahead and read the nextsection.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Starting in verse 32, god gets once again very
graphic.
These are very emotionaldescriptive language here of
what he's going to do to thesecities that were originally his
chosen people.
He doesn't beat around the bush, he doesn't mince words.
This is some of the most directand emotional language in the
(03:52):
entire Bible.
Steve, can you read Ezekiel 23,starting at verse 32 and going
to the end of the chapter?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Thus says the Lord God, you will drink your
sister's cup, which is deep andwide.
You will be laughed at and heldin derision.
It contains much.
You will be filled withdrunkenness and sorrow the cup
of horror and desolation, thecup of your sister Samaria.
You will drink it and drain it.
(04:21):
Then you will gnaw itsfragments and tear your breast.
For I have spoken, declares theLord God.
Therefore, thus says the LordGod, because you have forgotten
me and cast me behind your back,bear now the punishment of your
lewdness and of yourhollertrees.
Moreover, the Lord said to meSon of man, will you judge Ohola
(04:43):
and Oholaba, then declare tothem their abominations, for
they have committed adultery andblood is on their hands.
Thus, they have committedadultery with their idols and
even caused their sons, whomthey bore to me, to pass through
the fire to them as food.
Again, they have done this tome.
(05:05):
They have defiled my sanctuaryon the same day and have
profaned my Sabbath, for whenthey had slaughtered their
children for their idols, theyentered my sanctuary on the same
day to profane it, and lo.
Thus they did within my house.
Furthermore, they have evensent for men who came from afar,
(05:27):
to whom a messenger was sent.
And lo, they came, for whom youbathed, painted your eyes and
decorated yourself withornaments, and you sat on a
splendid couch with a tablearranged before it on which you
had set my incense and my oil.
The sound of a carefreemultitude was with her, and
(05:49):
drunkards were brought from thewilderness and men of the common
sort, and they put bracelets onthe hands of the women and
beautiful crowns on their heads.
When I said, concerning her, whowas worn out by adulteries,
will they now commit adulterywith her when she is thus?
But they went into her as theywould go into a harlot.
(06:11):
Thus they went into Aholah andAholabah, the lewd women.
But they, righteous men, willjudge them with the judgment of
adulteresses and with thejudgment of women who shed blood
because they are adulteressesand blood is on their hands.
For thus says the Lord God,bring up a company against them
(06:33):
and give them over to terror andplunder.
The company will stone themwith stones and cut them down
with the swords.
They will slay their sons andtheir daughters and burn their
houses with fire.
Thus I will make lewdness ceasefrom the land, that all women
may be admonished and not commitlewdness as you have done.
(06:55):
Your lewdness will be requitedupon you and you will bear the
penalty of worshiping your idols.
Thus, you will know that I amLord God.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
This, again, is a very descriptive, very emotional
passage.
God is being quite graphic withwhy he's doing what he's doing
and what he's going to do.
If you were with us before, ithad been maybe a thousand years
that God had put up with this.
So if I ask myself, what can Ilearn from passages such as this
(07:28):
, I learned that when God givescommands, we have to take that
very seriously.
The people of Israel had saidwell, you know, yahweh's been
around all this time.
We've been able to kind ofworship other things too.
We've had these worshippractices now for a while and
God hadn't done anything, so hemust approve of it.
(07:50):
Well, no, he had sent manyprophets saying that he didn't
approve of it.
So one of the great lessons is,when God says something, he
doesn't have to repeat himself.
He should only have to say itonce, and we should take that
very, very seriously, because hewill act and we will not get
away with sin even though Godmay not have acted for a while.
(08:13):
Steve, what do you get out ofpassages like this?
It's so emotional and so to thepoint.
It's just very different fromwhat we hear from the
sugar-coated God that we oftensee in our churches today.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
They were saying that God hadn't done anything,
meaning that he hadn'tdisciplined us so far, and God
had actually done the opposite.
He had protected them manytimes.
The book of Judges is all aboutthat.
Where they were oppressed, theycalled out to God and he sent a
judge for them.
And, as we've mentioned before,whenever the Assyrians came and
(08:45):
took off Israel in the north—that Sennacherib, the Assyrian
king, laid siege to Jerusalemand God protected Jerusalem and
sent a death angel out andkilled 185,000 of the Assyrian
soldiers and Sennacheribwithdrew from Jerusalem.
Those are just some examples.
(09:06):
And so, yes, they were sayingGod hasn't done anything for us.
In fact, he's actuallyprotected us and they had gotten
used to that.
They had gotten to the pointthat they just said we can
actually do anything we want toand God is not going to really
discipline us.
This is the point that they hadarrived at.
(09:32):
It is a lesson for us to knowthat God is serious and that we
need to pay attention to whatHis Word says and that we don't
need to be deceived and we needto stay close to His Word and
understand that we can make thechoices as to what we do, but we
can't control the consequences,and if the choices that we make
are always going to be in linewith the Word of God, and if the
(09:53):
choices that we make are alwaysgoing to be in line with the
Word of God, then we're going tobe on the protected side.
But if the choices that we makego directly against the Word of
God, then there's going to beconsequences to those choices
and, according to what we'rejust reading here, it's not
going to be pretty.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
It's not pretty at all.
It's quite ugly.
Look again at verse 33 and 34,the horrendous nature of the
emotion that God is describinghere.
He's going to give this cup ofwrath to these two cities that
he's describing as women, thecup of horror and desolation.
You will drink it and drain it.
(10:29):
Then you will gnaw itsfragments and tear your breasts.
I'm reminded there of one time Iheard a description of an
addict that was wholly takenover by their drug.
It was to the point ofself-destruction.
The language this addict usedwas that this drug was heaven
(10:49):
and the devil at the same time.
They were drawn to it, but itwas the worst thing they could
imagine.
But they couldn't get away.
They just kept going backbecause they had this addiction
and the national leaders ofIsrael were drawn and seeking
the favor of these other nations.
That's what he's talking abouthere.
(11:10):
They were drawn to the powerand the glory of Egypt and they
were drawn to the power andglory of Assyria.
Once they were given over tothem, they became to hate it,
but they kept going back.
Instead of trying to get awayfrom it and going to God, they
just kept lusting after theseforeign nations, to the point
(11:33):
that it was just destroying them.
They couldn't stop, just like aharlot can't not stop.
They're drawn to something thatthey just absolutely hate.
In verse 35, god is punishingJerusalem for lewdness and he
will punish our generation forlewdness as well.
These people had sought afterthese foreign nations because of
(11:55):
the wealth and the power, butthey had also sought after their
gods, and in some cases therewas sexual worship going on.
It was lewd to the extreme.
Our nations today and ourcultures are lewd to the extreme
and we will not get away withit, just like ancient Israel
will not get away with it.
(12:16):
Look at verse 37.
Steve.
What sins does God list inverse 37?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
It says that they have blood on their hands
because they committed adulterywith their idols and they even
caused their sons that werededicated to God.
Remember one of the statutes andordinances where the firstborn
were to be dedicated to God topass through the fire to them as
food?
This is a description of theworship of the god Molech, and
(12:47):
what that was done to worshiphim was to give them child
sacrifice.
The huge idol and statue thatwas made contained a place for a
fire, and they would heat thisfire up, and it had arms that
were outstretched.
It would get so hot that thenthey would place their children,
(13:10):
their babies, on the arms ofthis God, and there are places
in Scripture that talk aboutwhen they did this that they
would beat their drums so loudto drown out the screams of the
children that were being friedon the arms of this God Molech.
(13:32):
You can see now, glenn, why Godhad become so disgusted with
them.
They had gotten to the pointthat they were sacrificing their
own children to a foreign god.
You just kind of wonder how inthe world did it get to the
place that they had let thatnation influence them to the
point that they would do that?
Speaker 1 (13:53):
In verse 37, he mentions child sacrifice.
They had been sacrificing theirchildren to these terrible
idols.
Two verses later, verse 39, hementions the same sin of causing
the death of their own children.
What's amazing is he alsomentions twice here in verse 38
and 39, that on the same daysthey would go into God's temple.
(14:19):
They would go and do thesehorrible pagan worship services,
sometimes even sacrificingtheir own children, and then go
and attempt to worship God onthe same day.
Steve, I hope people out therearen't actually sacrificing
their children although we couldhave a nice conversation about
(14:41):
abortion on that but the realquestion for us is can God allow
us to have idols in our livesand then go into church and
worship Him at the same time?
Can we have one foot insomething that's very ungodly
and then one foot in God and getaway with it?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Let me put it a little bit more bluntly, glenn.
Will God allow us to have someabominable sin that's in our
life, something that really goesagainst Him?
And I'm not talking abouttelling little white lies or
something like that.
I'm talking about somethingthat is very, very sinful,
(15:22):
something that is really on theconscious of a person, a lost
person, and is bearing down onthem, or on a saved person.
The Holy Spirit is reallyconvicting them to a point that
they know that this is a sinthat God does not like.
Yet they then turn around andgo in and worship God.
(15:46):
On the next day, I can tell youthat God doesn't like that,
that God doesn't like that, andthat what we should do is that
we should confess our sins tohim.
So that's something that Ithink we can get out of this,
and that we can see that God isnot going to let something like
that escape and continue to bedone.
(16:06):
That sin is going to be foundout and he's going to deal with
it and there's going to beconsequences to it.
I know that we keep repeatingourselves with this, but the
nation of Israel kept goingfurther and further and further.
They weren't listening.
I think it applies sometimes toour lives, and especially to
people's lives who have notcommitted or given their life to
(16:29):
Jesus Christ.
The question is are you running?
Are you running from God?
Are you running away?
Are you at a place where youknow that what you're doing is
ungodly and that God doesn'tapprove of it?
If you are, then all you haveto do is reach out to Jesus
Christ, believe on Him, ask Himinto your life, ask Him to
(16:50):
forgive your sins, acknowledgethose sins that you have done,
acknowledge that those sins areseparating you from God, and ask
him to come into your life andto forgive those sins and to
become a believer on JesusChrist, on the debt that he has
paid, on the death, burial andresurrection.
Your life will be changed andyou'll no longer burial and
resurrection.
Your life will be changed andyou'll no longer be running from
(17:12):
God, but you will be runningtowards God, and you'll never
know a time of more happinessthan that whenever you give your
life completely over to JesusChrist and trust on him.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
If we ask the question will God allow us to
have one foot in the world andone foot in him?
Then the answer is no.
He will not allow us to haveanything that's in front of him,
anything that is in between usand God.
Anything that we would hold ismore important than him.
He wants that out of the way.
We cannot have one foot in anidol or the world and then the
(17:48):
other foot in God's kingdom.
He will not stand for it.
Then back to our analogy here,our picture of what started out
as these beautiful young women.
Look at the last half of verse40.
The women there bathedthemselves, put on fine clothes
and fine jewelry, preparedthemselves for their lovers.
(18:08):
It talks about a fine table, afine feast, expecting this
handsome people to come in.
But if we look at verse 42, whoactually came?
What actually came were nothandsome princes.
Who came was drunks, uselesspeople, uncivilized people.
It was a very ugly scene.
(18:29):
By now we have what started outas these beautiful young girls,
these beautiful young women hadprostituted themselves to these
idols, and now they are seekinga lover and all they get are
drunks and common people,because they are worn-out
prostitutes.
It's a very sad picture of whathappens when we turn away from
(18:54):
God and his true path.
In verse 43, he uses the phraseworn out by adulteries.
Sin will wear us out, use us upand then continue to keep us
like an old, worn-out prostitute.
It's a very ugly description.
And if we look at verse between45 and 47, what will God do
(19:16):
with such people?
What does he say there, steve?
What's God going to do withthese people?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
He says that they're going to be judged, they're
going to be a judgment upon them, and the reason for the
judgment is because they shedblood in verse 45, and the blood
is on their hands Again goesback to the sacrificing of their
children.
It says that God's going tobring a company against them, a
(19:40):
company of men, a company ofsoldiers and of a nation, and
that they're going to be stonedwith stones and they're going to
cut down with the swords, andthat their sons and daughters
are going to be stoned withstones and they're going to cut
down with the swords, and thattheir sons and daughters are
going to be slayed and they'regoing to be burned in their
houses with fire.
This is a depiction of thesacking of Jerusalem and what
happened whenever Nebuchadnezzarand the Babylonian army came in
(20:03):
that they completely destroyedJerusalem, burned it to the
ground and also destroyed thetemple.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
If we go back into the Mosaic law, god had given
them rules for what to do for anadulterer.
The punishment for adultery wasdeath, usually by stoning.
We find that in Leviticus 20,verse 10.
Chapter 20, verse 10.
(20:32):
And here in Ezekiel, verse 47,the enemy will exact God's
justice by killing them withstones and swords.
What you do will come back toyou.
God will not be mocked.
His punishment will be sure.
What you sow, you will reap.
That's what God says.
So he is bringing it about.
He had sent them prophets.
They had ignored it, and nowhis wrath is sure.
(20:54):
And he tells us the reason whyhe's going to destroy them Verse
48, to make the lewdness cease.
The lewdness had gone on longenough.
God says I'm going to stop it.
And the middle of verse 49, soIsrael will quote bear the
penalty of worshiping your idols.
(21:14):
They will be punished for this.
And then quote thus you willknow that I am the Lord, god.
A repeated theme in Ezekiel isthat God will bring the
punishment of his people so thatthey will know who is the real
God.
Remember one of the mainreasons why God had the 10
(21:35):
plagues in Egypt was todemonstrate which gods were the
real one.
They had been worshipingmultiple gods, and he's going to
show you.
Now you will know who is thereal one.
He's going to show you now youwill know who is the real one.
Whenever we go off into somedistraction, god always says I'm
(21:56):
going to do something, so youwill know that I am the real God
.
Steve, that is just such apowerful message for us today.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
As you mentioned there, glenn.
In verse 48, it says I willmake lewdness cease from the
land.
This is verbiage, that God issaying look at what he's had to
go to in order to get this outof them.
He has had to take the northernkingdom off and to destroy
those cities, that capital,samaria.
He's now had to do the samewith Judah.
(22:24):
He's had to take the city ofJerusalem.
It's going to be, I mentioned,sacked in a horrible, terrible
way, and the temple is going tobe torn down, his dwelling place
, a place that was built wherethey worshipped him and for the
purpose of worshipping him.
This is what it has taken toget this lewdness out of the
(22:48):
nation of Israel, the peoplethemselves.
And he says then it's going tocease, this is the final act
that has to do it.
All of this descriptive languagehere in chapter 23, it's really
showing an embarrassment forthe nation, acting as a
prostitute, adulteratingthemselves to the other nations
(23:11):
that are around them andworshiping their gods, their
idols, then to the point againthat we've mentioned that
they're sacrificing theirchildren to the other nations,
going off and worshiping theother idols and turning around
and coming back into the templeof God and going through motions
of acting like they'reworshiping God.
(23:32):
This is not a very good picture, and it's also depicting the
lengths that God is going to todiscipline them.
That's another thing that weget through here that even
though God does disciplineIsrael, he does mention times of
whenever he's going to bringthem back, and we're going to
get to a chapter a little bitlater on in the book where he is
(23:55):
going to mention about bringingthem back, but still it's
something that the lengths thatGod will go to in order to get
them to come back to him.
It's not a pretty picture, butin a way, it's showing the love
that he has for Israel.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
That brings us to the beginning of chapter 24.
And chapter 24 is the last ofthe chapters in Ezekiel that
talks about the destruction ofJerusalem.
He's been giving this messageto the Jewish people in Babylon
for many chapters now and he'sgoing to wrap up the message
about Jerusalem in chapter 24.
(24:34):
We're given another verygraphic illustration in this
chapter of how severe the battlewas.
The first two verses of Ezekiel24 say this and the word of the
Lord came to me in the ninthyear, in the tenth month on.
The word of the Lord came to mein the ninth year, in the tenth
month, on the tenth of themonth, saying Son of man, write
(24:54):
the name of this day.
This very day, the king ofBabylon has laid siege to
Jerusalem.
This very day.
Now, here God tells the Jewishpeople that were a long ways
away as captives in Babylon.
They tells them the exact daythat Nebuchadnezzar started the
(25:15):
siege of Jerusalem.
He says here ninth year, tenthmonth, tenth of the month.
We know what day this was.
It was January 15th, 588 BC andthe captives were a long way
away from Jerusalem.
At least in those days, thejourney in the news would take a
while to get there.
(25:35):
This information would notnormally come to them until many
days later by telling theJewish people this day is the
day he starts the siege.
This day is the day he startsthe siege.
Then, within a few weeks ormonths, when the news finally
(25:55):
got back to the people, ezekielwas right.
Ezekiel knew the very day thatthe siege began and that way the
Jewish people would know thiswas a true prophet.
All of God's prophets were ableto predict something in the
immediate context.
People would know that theywere a true prophet.
(26:16):
Only a true prophet would havebeen able to predict ah, today,
this very day, is the day thatthe siege begins.
Therefore, god is givingevidence of Ezekiel being a true
prophet.
God always gives evidence sothat we can know logically who
(26:37):
is a true prophet and who is afalse prophet.
He always gives enough evidenceto people to believe his word.
Christianity is never a blindleap in the dark.
Faith is built on evidence.
It's built on God's Word thathas proven itself, and because
Ezekiel proved himself, thenthey knew that.
(26:58):
We can write down all the restof his words, even though some
of them were future Steve.
What else can we tell aboutthis chapter?
Speaker 2 (27:06):
There are a couple of things in the previous chapters
whenever Ezekiel gave dates.
The one was the year 591.
The next time it was the year588.
And all of those depictionsthat were given by God through
Ezekiel were talking about thesacking of Jerusalem and et
cetera.
We've gone through all of thosedepictions.
(27:27):
So the previous visions thatwere given to Ezekiel were all
before the actual happeningsthat took place.
Where Zedekiah is taken out,he's blinded and taken off into
Babylon and etc.
Now, as you've pointed out,glenn, now it's a depiction of
actually what's happening inreal time with the siege of
(27:49):
Babylon.
One other thing too is over inZechariah.
Remember, there were some fastdays that the people had come up
with in order to mourn thesacking of Jerusalem.
This is one of those fast daysthat came out of it because of
the sacking of Jerusalem and thedestruction of Jerusalem.
So we have a crossing betweenthe prophets of the various
(28:14):
activities and the things thatwe have a cohesive story between
all of them related to thestory of Jerusalem, the story of
the nation of Israel and Godworking with his nation and his
chosen people.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
He again gives this day here in verse 1, the ninth
year tenth of the month.
That same day is mentioned in 2Kings 25.1, jeremiah 39.1, and
Jeremiah 52.4.
So it's significant because itmarks the beginning of the end
for the city of Jerusalem.
Ezekiel is giving this prophecyeven though there's no way
(28:49):
other than divine revelation hecould have known this was the
beginning of the siege.
Later in this same book, inEzekiel 33, 21, a person arrives
who had escaped from Jerusalemand brings news that Ezekiel's
prophecy was literally fulfilled.
So we have literal fulfillmentof a divine revelation so that
(29:11):
the people can know that Ezekielis a great prophet.
We probably should pull it tothe curb for today because of
time, but next time we'll get tothis last section about
Jerusalem here and it's going tobe equally graphic and equally
emotional and I'm sure ourlisteners will want to come back
as we reason through thedestruction of Jerusalem.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Thank you so much for watching and listening.
May God bless you.
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