Know & Remember the LORD – Eze 16
Ezekiel 16 is a very graphic and dramatic description of:
- God’s incredible grace to Jerusalem.
- God’s great blessing on Jerusalem.
- Jerusalem’s insane obsession with spiritual unfaithfulness.
- Jerusalem’s downward spiral of sin that led them to depths other heathen nations never imagined.
- The “righteousness” of Sodom and Samaria compared to Jerusalem’s sin.
- God’s plan to restore and establish a new covenant with Jerusalem after she has been humbled.
Some lessons I think we can take away from this chapter are:
- Loving anything or anything other than God is a heinous sin described as spiritual prostitution (v.15).
- The more gracious and good God is to us the worse our sin of turning away from Him is (v.52).
- Sin always begins in the heart before it is expressed in actions (v.30).
- Sin attracts us when we forget who the Lord is and how gracious He is (v.43, 62-63).
- Sin has a terrible price tag (v.38-42).
The biggest lesson though that is subtle at first but more apparent as we meditate on this chapter is that: The Lord is gracious! We see how much God loved the city and had pity on her at the start. We see how God was good to them and exalted the city above all the others. We see how God would then restore her after she was humbled at the end. All of this was done so that they would “know that [He] is the LORD.”
As terrible as Jerusalem was in her idolatry and depravity, we too have all be horrible wicked compared to the grace of God in our lives. Yet, if we humbly repent, He will forgive us and restore us to a place of fellowship and blessing with the Lord. What a great and gracious God! May we love and serve Him today!