Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 11, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - Orphan Girl

Transcript

February 11, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - Orphan Girl · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: How are you?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the lights came on.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Good to see you today.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Get ready for this morning, folks.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: We're going through Ezekiel.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: If you're visiting this morning, we're going through one of the major prophets.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Ezekiel.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's 48 chapters long.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I invite you to read through it with me.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: If you're reading it with me, then you've arrived, you've finished chapter 20 this last week.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: How many of you are reading it with me?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone else are doing the devotions?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: They take me a lot of time.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, so I hope you'll uh do the Take the Ezekiel challenge and go through it with me.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: You'll find that it's almost a seminary-level class.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you'll enjoy it.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: My title this morning is Orphan Girl.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: A page out of Topeka Bible Church History.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: It was the summer of 1977.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: The lead pastor back then called the senior pastor of this church, Topeka Bible Church, and my boss and my friend was named Tom Burbridge.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Tom had, to everyone's surprise, including mine, suddenly resigned.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: He decided, he'd been a speech teacher at a college in Kansas City.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: He suddenly resigned, decided to go back to go down to seminary, to Dallas Seminary, in fact.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that meant, I mean, he just, he was here and then he was gone, which meant that I, the youth and singles pastor, was the only option to preach the next Sunday.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: But the problem was that I could not prepare a sermon.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: I had no time because I had scheduled, as the senior pastor, or as the singles pastor, I had scheduled a singles canoe trip all week in southern Missouri on the Niangua River.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so we left, we went on that canoe trip, 25 of us singles, uh, to the Niangua River, sort of a slow-moving river much of the time, sometimes a little quicker.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it was, it was a fun trip, but it wasn't a smooth trip by any means.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: At the very beginning of it, I lost one of my contact lenses, making me half blind.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then we set out, and after an hour or so, you know, we divided up mainly guys and girls, so that, you know, uh some strength and some wisdom in the same canoe.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um but one of the canoes they had, they weren't experienced canoeers, most of them weren't, and it was only after about an hour downstream that they said, we have a hole in our canoe, and it's filling up.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: So then we had that problem.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: The most significant problem was that at the end of uh second or third day, uh in the afternoon of that day, this a couple of uh people, strong girl, tough guy, decided to prove that they could go faster than anybody, and so they whipped right by our lead canoe and just zoomed on down and were lost to sight.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then when we, I was the tail end, and when we got and counted all the canoes, they were they weren't there, they had just gone right past our stopping place.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: So my co-leader, Steve Williams, and I jumped in a canoe and we went lickety split, found them, uh caught up with them about an hour later.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then we had the adventure of now we had two heavy canoes, really unable to go back upstream.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we had to carry those canoes, so we lugged two heavy canoes out and hiked across country through pastures, over a barbed wire fence, once through a herd of cows, up hills, down valleys a mile or so to get back.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: But in the end, it was a perfect trip.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was a good trip in many ways because, you know, the lost canoe was found, the lost canoeers was found.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, on the last day, even the lost, by a total miracle, the lost contact lens was found.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: But the problem was driving back on Saturday, uh, I my heart was full of dread because I knew that at 11 o'clock the next morning I was gonna have to stand right here and preach one of my first sermons.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: All week long, uh uh canoeing, uh, my heart had been doing backflips.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, going, what in the world am I gonna preach next Sunday?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: What passage am I going to use?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: I felt uh later in the week, uh, and or maybe it was just panic, that the Spirit said to me that I should preach the chapter that had become several years before had become my favorite chapter in the Bible.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: It had changed my life.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: I had been uh I'd come across this chapter almost by accident, and it had it had well let me let me tell you what I said that morning.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: On that Sunday morning when I stood here, and I know this because this last week I actually found the 40-year-old notes to one of my first sermons ever scrawled.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I want to share with you my favorite chapter in the Bible, because this chapter changed my spiritual life.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was reading the 17 Old Testament prophetic books uh several years ago, and it suddenly hit me for the first time that I am meant to see myself as Israel, as the nation in the Old Testament, that her spiritual adventures, her highs and lows parallel mine and are recorded for my edification.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And when I read the 16th chapter of Ezekiel, I said, my life changed color spiritually.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: For I had come across at once the most poignant, explicit, colorful, shocking chapter in the entire Bible.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: I know those are the words that I said because I found them as I said this last week.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I have preached this chapter here before.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And back then I remember holding my breath, wondering if it would be the last message that I was ever allowed to preach.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't much care because I wasn't planning to be a pastor or senior pastor back then, you know, but I thought that's a teach them.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm sure folks were shocked back then, but they were forgiving, and more important, they were moved by this love story of Ezekiel chapter 16, which I hope you'll turn to in your Bible.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: For it is a moving story.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: It is a rags to riches romance that is a combination of Oliver Twist and Cinderella, The Ugly Duckling and The Princess Bride, a love story with its heart-thrilling highs and its heartbreaking lows.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, who doesn't love the story of a little orphan baby, unwanted and discarded?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: But then a handsome prince rides by and notices her and makes her a princess, and then some years later they fall in love right there in the palace, and she becomes his queen.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's the story we've always dreamed could happen to us.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: But here's the twist.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: It is your story.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's the story of your Christian life.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Are you ready for it?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Verses 1 through 3, chapter 16, Ezekiel.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is the Christian standard translation.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: The word of the Lord came to me again, son of man or human, confront Jerusalem with her detestable practices.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: You are to say, this is what the Lord God says to Jerusalem.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever heard anybody say, your mother wears army boots?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: This is far worse.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now the Jews back then, in fact, even the Jews even today, this is standard practice.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: The rabbis will say, God chose us because we're special.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: And back then they said, God chose us because of pious Abraham and godly Sarah.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful people.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And God says, You've got it all wrong.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, your diary is not my diary at all.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Your actual starting point, he says, was Canaanite and Hittite and Amorite.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: These three names, which were horrible, representing human depravity at its absolute worst in the ancient Near East.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: Even total pagans looked down on Canaanites for their immorality.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: God is saying that Jerusalem's spiritual roots and yours come not from piety or goodness at all, but from the most pagan depravity and from the most hopeless of circumstances.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Not long ago, a picture was taken in China of a little girl baby who'd simply been thrown out into a field to die.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: And God says that's what you were, Jerusalem.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: As for your birth, your umbilical cord wasn't cut on the day you were born.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you weren't washed clean with water, you were not rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: No one cared enough about you to do even one of these things out of compassion for you.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: But you were thrown out into the open field because you were despised on the day that you were born.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: In the ancient Near East, when you had a baby, you did four things for that baby.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, of course, you cut the umbilical cord and then you washed the baby.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: We still do those things all over the world today.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: But then there are two other things they did and that are still done today in some Arab countries, just not in America.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: They're rubbed with salt.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's an argument over whether that's uh to make the baby skin stronger or for hygienic reasons.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they're also wrapped, probably both, but they're also wrapped tightly in claws, perhaps to help the limbs grow straight.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, this baby was flung out in the field unwanted by not doing those things.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: The true parents said, we don't care, this is not our baby anymore.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then what happened is everything turned.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: I passed by you, says Yahweh God, and I saw you thrashing about in your blood, and I said to you, as you lay in your blood, live.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I said to you, he repeats, as you lay in your blood, live.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: One Easter morning in the 80s, I was the last one to get out of church.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is the only building we had back then, walked across the street where we were parked.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: I said to Melody, where are the kids?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: She says, she pointed into a ditch.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: The the the school across the street, Loman Hill, was under under construction, major construction, it was a construction site.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: And they had seen the movement, the same movement, you know, that that the king had seen as he rode by a thrashing little baby.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they had seen a thrashing little puppy.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know this story, don't you, Heidi?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And they had seen this puppy that had just been thrown into a pit, thrown into the ditch.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And they were down there because they had asked Melody's permission if they could save the puppy.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And she, of course, had said yes.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, who wouldn't?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's how we got Sparky.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Doggy we loved for 16 years.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And what happened here is that is the king rides by and he sees this little baby.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: God looks down and he sees the nation Israel squirming in its blood in Egypt, lost and forgotten and unwanted and despised and enslaved.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: No one cares about those people down in Egypt, but God looks down and then he comes in a burning bush to Moses and he cries out and he says, Live, I want you to go save them.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And Moses goes to Egypt and crying out as God told him to cry out, let my people go, because God said, Live.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: God chose in grace and mercy to say, live.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what happened to you and what happened to me, because once upon a time, guilty, vile, and helpless we, spotless lamb of God was He riding by.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so we sing weak and wounded sinner, lost and left to die.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Raise your head for love is passing by.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Come to Jesus, come to Jesus, come to Jesus and live.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what God did.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: His heart reached out to us and he said, Live.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Come to me and gain eternal life.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then emotionally he said the same thing again, live.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then he says, I made you thrive like plants of the field.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: You grew up and matured and became very beautiful.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Down in Egypt, what happened is that God looked down upon the 70 people, the measly little group of Hebrews that went down there and he made them thrive.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: He multiplied them and they became this nation of two million strong, but so vulnerable, still getting killed and enslaved and tortured and everything down there.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody still cared, but God had set his love on them.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And he set them free from Egypt.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, but you were stark naked.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: What he's saying is, once upon a time, you were naked and helpless, a little baby.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: You were subject to the danger of cold and wild animals.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: But then I looked at you and I brought you home.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I adopted you.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: I said, live.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: You were born again and you grew and I blessed you and you were thriving, but you know, still now you were naked, but you were your dangers came from a different direction because you were now a mature girl.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: You were grown up in your teens, and now you were under greater threats because your breasts had formed and your hair had grown, but you're stark naked.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so as a result, God, out of grace, decides to protect that girl's purity.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Then I passed by you and I saw you, and you were indeed at the age for love.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I spread the edge of my garment over you and covered your nakedness, stop right there.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: In the ancient times, you didn't get engaged by giving an engagement ring.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: What you did as a man is you you took your garment, your heavy outer robe, your coat, and you spread it over her as if you were saying, I'm going to take care of you for the rest of your life.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be with you.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to be my own.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: You see this in the little book of Ruth, chapter 3, verse 9.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Ruth's been working in the fields and she notices that the owner, Boaz, this wonderful man, is paying attention to her.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: And she knows that the only way she can help her mother-in-law, Naomi, is to go to this rather shy man and to encourage him.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so she goes to the threshing floor when they're all sleeping there, and she lies down beside him, and she pulls off part of his robe and puts it over her.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it wakes him up.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Who are you?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: And she says, I am your servant.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Spread, spread the corner of your garment over me, since you're a kinsman redeemer, since you're related, since you actually are related to me, therefore have first rights to marry me.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: What she's saying is, go ahead, old man.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not worried by the fact that I'm only half your age.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Don't you be worried?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: I can see that you like me.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: So God says, I passed by you and I spread the edge of my garment on you, and then I pledged myself to you, entered into covenant with you.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: These are wedding vows.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is the declaration of the Lord God, and you became mine.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: When did this happen to Israel?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it happened, it happened to this naked girl, this daughter Israel, who had no constitution, who had no homeland, who's really lost in the world and wandering through the wilderness naked, and then God comes down to Mount Sinai and says, I vow to take you to be my own, enter into covenant with me.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what he did in Exodus 19 and 20 and 21 and so forth.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then as part of the marriage ceremony, part of the wedding, we know, he says, I washed you with water, rinsed off your blood, and anointed you with oil.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: And without going into detail, as you may notice, even still in Arab countries today, a wedding is not just a wedding ceremony.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: It includes going into the tent or the other room.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: It includes consummating the marriage, and the guests all stay till the next day, and then out they come, and she's been washed, and she's been anointed, and she's been beautified, and a huge cheer goes up because now they are fully married.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, I clothed you in embroidered cloth and provided you with fine leather sandals, wrapped you in fine linen, and covered you with silk.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: And the Hebrews would recognize those words for linen and leather and embroidered as being the same words that God said when God gave them command about the curtains of the tabernacle and the clothing to be worn in the sanctuary.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: This would remind them of this relationship they had with God.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: I adorned you with jewelry, he says, putting bracelets on your wrist.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's cool.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Necklace around your neck.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: I put a ring in your nose.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Not so cool.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: But that was, you know, what they did.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: If you're wearing a ring today, put your hand up.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're cool.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: No, uh, in their nose, in your nose.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, earrings on your ears, and a beautiful tiara on your head.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that neat?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: So he says, you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was made of fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth, and you ate fine flour, honey, and oil.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, the words for the sacrifice is used in the tabernacle.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: You became extremely beautiful and attained royalty.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Your fame spread among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through my splendor.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: God just drops those three words in there.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: Remember that the reason you were beautiful was because of me, a reflection of my splendor.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Something she's going to forget.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: My splendor, which I had bestowed on you, this is the declaration of the Lord God.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: From rags to riches, from orphan girl to prince's bride, what can go wrong?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: But you and I know what can go wrong, for this has happened to us, for we've lived Ephesians chapter 2, 1 through 10.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: We were alienated, we were lost away from God, but then he welcomed us in, and by grace we were saved through faith, not of our works, lest any man should boast.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: But he made us into his precious workmanship to give glory and splendor back to him.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: What could go wrong?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you know what could go wrong.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: But at the moment, as we think of Israel, we have now arrived at the beauty of the days of Solomon and David when the Queen of Sheba and all the nations of the world came and admired the wisdom and the beauty of the kings of Israel.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, the story turns.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: And pride in my beauty leads to promiscuity.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: But you trusted in your beauty and acted like a prostitute because of your fame.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: You lavished your sexual favors on anyone who everyone who passed by.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Your beauty became his.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: You took some of your clothing and made colorful high places for yourself, and you engaged in promiscuity on them.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: These places should not have been built, and this should never have happened, God cries out.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: You also took your beautiful jewelry made from the gold and silver I had given you, and you made male images so that you could engage in prostitution with them.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Then you took your embroidered clothing to cover them and set my oil, my oil and incense before them, the food that I gave you, the fine flour, oil, and honey that I fed you.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: You set it before them as a pleasing aroma.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: God cries out, this is how it was.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: This is the declaration of the Lord God.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Can you hear his heart here?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: And of course he's speaking about idolatry.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: God's first two commands where she shall have no other gods before me, no graven images, but instead they pulled in the idols.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: They even put idols in the temple itself and shoved Yahweh God, their husband, their savior, their king, shoved him out of the temple.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he says in verses 20 through 22, you even took your sons and daughters that you bore to me and sacrificed them to these images as food.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Wasn't your prostitution enough?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: You slaughtered my children and gave them up when you passed them through the fire to the image.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they had taken the gods of Moab and Edom and set them up in Jerusalem and on top of the Mount of Olives, these huge gods, the huge God of Molech, with these arms that were slanted like this, with a hollow soul and a hollow shell, and they would build a fire in the middle, and then when the fire got so hot that the whole image turned red hot, they would bring their own children, they would bring their own babies, and they would lay them in those arms, which were tilted, and the screaming infant would roll down into that hole and be burned.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: And God says, wasn't it enough that you engaged in prostitution?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: But you killed my own children.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: When you passed them through the fire to the images and all your detestable practices and acts of prostitution, you did not remember the days of your youth when you were stark-necked, naked, and thrashing around in your blood.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really it, isn't it?
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: When you and I wander away from God, we've forgotten his grace.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: When Israel wandered away from God, it's because she she thought of herself as beautiful and strong and God, of course, God loves me, and I don't deserve anything bad to happen to me.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not that bad.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a good person.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it's forgotten.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Those days when they were poor and lost and naked.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: One of our favorite stories, yours and mine, is the My Fair Lady story, am I right?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: With Professor Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins and his professor buddies are going around and they're taping the weird accents of some of the homeless and and people around London and making fun of them.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens is that Rex Harrison is actually who this is, of course, and Audrey Hepburn.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: But so he adopts her, he brings her home because he's going to prove to the other professors that he can change her accent and he can make her into a queen.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: And sure enough, he does in the process.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: She falls in love with him, and in the process, he falls in love with her.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have you have this whole story ending that he's he that he takes her now with beautiful garments on.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And he he he he decides he's gonna win his bet that he can bring her to a citywide party and no one will recognize her as that waif that he redeemed beside the London Street.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it works.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: It works it's such a beautiful story.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now imagine you add one more chapter to the story.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine that night.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine that night Eliza Doolittle leaves with another man and goes home with him.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And your heart cries out against that.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: You say, That's crazy.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Why would she do that?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's horrible.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, she would do it maybe if she had maybe someone handsome came along and said, You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and she forgot the reason why she was beautiful, the fact that she was reflecting someone else's splendor.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: But that's what you and I have done.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: God says that's what Israel has done a dozen years or so.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: A Christian contemporary song came out that used to make me cry because it's so reflected Ezekiel 16.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was a shocking song.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's why I'm gonna have Jeremiah sing it right now.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: I can't wait even till the end of the service when you might be offended or horrified.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: But the words to this song go like this.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Wedding Dress by Derek Webb.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's a prayer to God.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you could love me, God, as a wife, as he's done.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: And for my wedding gift, your life, he's given us his life, should be all I'll ever need.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or is there more I'm looking for?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the chorus goes, I am a whore, I do confess.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: But you are my wedding dress, and I run down the aisle, run down the aisle.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: I am a prodigal with no way home, but you are my ring of gold, and I run down the aisle, run down the aisle.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the other stands and goes, could you love this orphan child?
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: No, I don't trust you to provide with one hand in a pot of gold and the other in your side, because I am so easily satisfied with a call of a lover's soul as wild, I would take a little cash over your very flesh and blood.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: Listen to the song.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: As you listen to Ezekiel sixteen, if you could love me as wise, and for my wedding gift you like, should that be all I have a need?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Who is that more I'm looking for?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: And should I read between lines and look for blessings in disguise to make me reach wise?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Is that really what you want?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: I forgot to confess you are my wedding dress now, run down the house, run down the house, I'm a proud no way home, but you are a ring of golden eye, run down the house, run down the house.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: So could you love this orange?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Though I don't trust to provide with one hand in a particle, and with the other in your size, I am so easily satisfied by the call of love's best one that I would take a little cash over your very flesh and blood.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm all right to confess you are my wedding dress and high run down the high high, run down the high, I'm a pride going.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: You are my ring of gold and high, run down the high high, run down the high because my cannabis when you have no deceive his wife.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: I am to confess you are wedding dress now.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Run down the high run down the high corno You are ring of golden high, run down the high, run down the eye, I'm to confess, but you are wedding dress and run down the hut run down the eye I'm a prodigal no way home but you are Marine of Golden High.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Run down the house.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Run down the house.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Jeremiah.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: You say, when am I promiscuous toward God?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: I explained it last week, even the week before.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: You remember what happens is you have a simple desire, oftentimes a good desire, car, house, family, anything else.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: But you hold that desire loosely, you hold it in your hand, God could take that away, and that would be okay.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's negotiable, but then sometimes what happens is you begin to close your hand over that, it becomes a non-negotiable, and at that moment, that moment that something's a non-negotiable and you decide you're not willing to let God have that anymore, you begin worshiping that more than God.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: What happens is a closed hand is an idol in the heart.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when God comes along in James 4.4 in the New Testament, you adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Don't you realize, he says in the next verse, that I'm absolutely jealous of your love because you're mine.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you get the point, and so I'm not gonna go through the rest of this chapter, but I will say that the redemption, which we've looked at, 1 through 14, and the rebellion, which we just looked at, are followed by ruin.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: That for 18 verses we find out that God says, you know what, because you've done this, because you didn't remember the days of your youth, but enraged me with all of these things, I'm gonna bring your conduct down on your own head.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna judge you, I'm gonna stop you, I'm gonna satisfy my wrath against you.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why he sends them into captivity.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's why Jerusalem burned to the ground.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: My jealousy will turn away from you only after I ruin you.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: But the chapter ends wonderfully in the last 14 verses by saying, Well, there's gonna be a restoration time because I simply can't, you're mine.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: I can't throw you away.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: The covenant is everlasting, and even though I ruin you, I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish a permanent covenant with you, and you will know that I am the Lord.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: You say, Is that my life?
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: I say, that's my life.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: People came up after last server said, That's my life.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was redeemed, but then I just sort of drifted and wandered away.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: I looked at other things and I love them more.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then I experienced this dark time, this time of distance, this time of unhappiness.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: But what's happened is I'm back this morning.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm here again because God loved me, He forgave me, He has restored me.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's an old story.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's a it's a story we know so well from it's a medieval romance hundreds and hundreds of years before.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: The the story of beautiful Queen Guinevere and the noble King Arthur.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: And their marriage was one of legend because here was the noblest king in the world, and here was the most beautiful queen in the world.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: And they married, and their love was absolutely legendary, and as a wedding gift they'd gotten the round table, and and Arthur put that up, and that drew knights from all over the place, and and their fame grew, and their fame grew even more, and that brought a certain specific knight there to join the round table and to become Arthur's best friend.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: And his name was Lancelot, Sir Lancelot, and he could defeat anyone in battle, and he and Arthur were so close they were, as Arthur says, like brothers.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: He loved no one else as much as he loved Lancelot.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: But Lancelot and Guinevere had caught each other's eye and they would look at each other.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then after a time they began stealing away into the woods, and then they began stealing away into rooms in the palace.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: And when Lancelot and Guinevere were accused publicly of adultery, they would deny it, and Lancelot would, by right, be able to challenge that man, and he killed a number of knights who knew the truth about them.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: But eventually King Arthur was convinced.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Enough people told him, and he came in and surprised them.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: And in the movie Camelot, he has this incredible speech Arthur does where he says, if I could choose from every woman who breathes on this earth a face I would most love, the smile, the touch, the heart, the voice, the laugh, the very soul itself, every detail and feature to the last strand of hairs, they would all be Jennies.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's his nickname for Guinevere.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he went on to say, and if I could choose one man to be my best friend for life, it would be Lancelot.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: It would be you.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: But my jealousy is aroused.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: I am broken.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: Lancelot fled, and he lived in isolation and solitude the rest of his life.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: The round table broke apart.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: Guinevere was called up on trial as the queen and was universally condemned and sentenced to be burned at the stake for adultery.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that day approached, and there's King Arthur.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: We see him at the window of the castle, looking down as she is carried in a wagon to the place where she is going to be burned.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: And he's watching this and he is agonizing.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the men around him are watching him, and all of a sudden, as she's being taken out of the car, he says, I can't do it.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: I can't allow it.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes down and he frees her.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: A love.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: So perfect at one time.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: Betrayed.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: Betrayed by promiscuity.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: And God says, that's your story.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't want it to be your story.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: This morning, would you look back at God and say, I don't want it to be my story either?
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've been there, I've done that, I've been ruined, I've been restored.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: I tell you, I loved you this morning.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'll never wander again.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: Will you do that?
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: Our Heavenly Father, we're so touched.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: By your heart for us, by how much you care, by how you are broken when we turn away from you, when we love other things more than you, and forget what you did for us.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: When you brought us out of that bed, out of that miry place, adopted us, and then made us your bride.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: May we remember that all we glory.