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The Bible Breakdown
Ezekiel 23: Donkeys and Horses
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The More We Dig. The More We Find.
Well, everybody, welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon. Today is Ezekiel, chapter 23,. And I just well look. The title is Donkeys and Horses. Okay, donkeys and horses. And I just got to tell you this is one of those chapters. I know I told you this not long ago.
Speaker 1:It's going to take some explaining and there's no way this is going to. I'm scarred for life. It just is what it is. Let me just go ahead and get the other part out of the way. We're going to have to have a serious conversation today. Okay, you ready? Here we go.
Speaker 1:If you're new around here, first of all, please come back. Don't let this be the only day you listen to this. But make sure that you sign up, for I can't even get it out. Make sure that you leave us a five-star review on the podcast. Make sure you like, share, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Also, make sure you go into the Bible Breakdown discussion. The more we dig, the more we find it's so good to be in the house of the Lord today, even though we're not. It is not a day of church. That's how messed up I am. Okay, so let's just jump into this.
Speaker 1:This is Ezekiel, chapter 23. I said this to you a few weeks ago, that ago, that when we were first looking at walking through the Bible one chapter at a time, there were a few chapters that I looked at that I was like no, no, no, no, I do not want to read that out loud. One was the entire book of Song of Solomon and we made it, you and I, we made it through it if you've been listening to this all the way through. And then there was a chapter earlier in Ezekiel that I was like, eh, don't really want to say that out loud, but we made it. We made it. This is one of those that when I was looking at this, I was like that's embarrassing, I don't want to say that out loud, but here's the thing. This is what God is saying Now, what we had learned. First of all, ezekiel's crazy. Jeremiah cried, ezekiel threw stuff. Okay, that's kind of, if you ever want to notice the difference between the different major prophets. Okay, isaiah, I have a picture of him in my head just looking up, because he's got the vision of heaven, all the things. Jeremiah cries a lot. Ezekiel, he's probably throwing stuff all the time. He's mean, okay, and God used a lot of very flowery language, very expressive language, to talk about the different ways that he felt his relationship with Israel was going Not a good way, and so the one that I'm talking about is a few days ago, when we talked about.
Speaker 1:This is what a broken heart sounds like. This one is what it sounds like when somebody's been cheated on a lot and they're just over it, like like they're beyond having a broken heart at this point. Now they're just mad. Okay, I'm calling the divorce attorney. This is over with. Okay, that that is what this sounds like. So the first one is a broken heart. This one is somebody who's just out for blood. I mean, they're just angry.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, real quick, to kind of catch you up with this before we do this, god is going to use a metaphor of the adultery of two sisters. Okay, that's where we're going, and what you understand is he's going to use a hola and a holaba, okay, so if you're looking at the video, you see Ahola and Aholabah. Ahola is Samaria. Okay, that was the capital city of Israel, because, if you remember, 10 tribes split off from the other two, which equal 12, right, the 10 tribes. Their capital city of Israel was Samaria and the capital city of Judah was Jerusalem. Okay, so it's the two capital cities. Capital of Israel, samaria was Ahola, jerusalem is Aholaba. These two ladies, well, praise the Lord. Okay, so we're just going to read this and I'm scarred for life and really that's going to be my takeaway Don't do this. Okay. So here we go. I have belabored it enough.
Speaker 1:Ezekiel, chapter 23, verse 1, says this this message came to me from the Lord, son of man. So, buddy, once there were two sisters who were daughters of the same mother. They became prostitutes in Egypt. Can you tell where this is going? Even as young children, they allowed men to fondle their breasts. The older girl's name was Ahola and her sister was Aholaba. I married them and they bore me sons and daughters. I am speaking of Samaria and Jerusalem. Ahola is Samaria, aholaba is Jerusalem. So there's the metaphor, right Number five.
Speaker 1:Then Ahola lusted after other lovers instead of me. She gave her love to the Assyrian officers. They were all attractive young men, captains and commanders dressed in handsome blue charioteers driving their horses. So she prostituted herself with the most desirable men of Assyria, worshiping their idols and defiling herself. For when she left Egypt, she did not leave her spirit of prostitution behind Verse 9. Her over to the Assyrian lovers whom she desired so much. They stripped her, took away her children as slaves and then killed her After she received her punishment. Her reputation was known to every woman in the land.
Speaker 1:Yet even though Aholaba that's Jerusalem saw what happened to Ahola Samaria, her sister, she followed right in her footsteps, and she was even more depraved, abandoning herself to her lust and prostitution. She fawned over the Assyrian officers, whose captains and commanders in handsome uniforms, those charioteers driving their horses, all of them attractive young men. I saw the way she was going, defiling herself, just as her older sister. Then she carried her prostitution even further. She fell in love with pictures that were painted on a wall, pictures of Babylonian military officers outfitted in striking red uniforms, handsome belts encircled their waists and flowing turbans crowned their heads. They were dressed like charioteers or chariot officers from the land of Babylonia. When she saw these paintings, she longed to give herself to them. So she sent messengers to Babylonia to invite them to come on to her. So they came and committed adultery with her, defiling her in the bed of love After being defiled. However, she rejected them in disgust. In the same way, I became disgusted with Aholaba and rejected her, just as I rejected her sister, because she flaunted herself before them and gave herself to satisfy her lust.
Speaker 1:Yet she turned to even greater prostitution, remembering her youth when she was a prostitute in Egypt. She lusted after lovers with genitals as large as a donkey's and emissions like those of a horse. And so, aholaba, you relived your former days as a young girl in Egypt, when you first allowed your breasts to be fondled. Therefore, okay, we made it through it. Now we get the. Therefore. Therefore, okay, we made it through it. Now we get the. Therefore.
Speaker 1:So, because of all that, aholaba, this is what the sovereign Lord says I will send your lovers against you from every direction. Those whose very nations from which you turned away in disgust For the Babylonians, will come with all the Chaldeans from Pekod, shoah and Koah, and all the Assyrians will come with them. Handsome young captains, commanders, chariot officers and other high-ranking officers, all riding their horses. They will all come against you from the north, with chariots, wagons and a great army prepared for attack. They will take up positions on every side surrounding you with men armed with shields and helmets. I will hand you over to them for punishment, so they can do to you whatever they please.
Speaker 1:I will turn my jealous anger against you and they will deal harshly with you. They will cut off your nose and ears, and any survivors will be slaughtered by the sword. Your children will be taken away as captives, and everything that is survivors will be slaughtered by the sword. Your children will be taken away as captives, and everything that is left will be burned. They will strip you of your beautiful clothes and jewels, and in this way, I will put a stop to the lewdness and prostitution you brought from Egypt. You will never again cast longing eyes on those things or fondly remember your time in Egypt.
Speaker 1:For this is what the Sovereign Lord says I will surely hand you over to your enemies, to those who loathe those you rejected. They will treat you with hatred and rob you of all you own, leaving you stark naked. The shame of your prostitution will be exposed to all the world. You brought all this on yourself by prostituting yourselves to other nations, defiling yourself with all their idols. Because you have followed in your sister's footsteps, I will force you to drink the same cup of terror she drank. Yes, this is what the sovereign Lord says. You will drink from your sister's terror, a cup that is large and deep and is filled to the brim with a scorn and derision. Drunkenness and anguish will fill you, for your cup is filled to the brim with distress and desolation, the same cup your sister, samaria, drank. You will drain that cup of terror to the very bottom and then you will smash it to pieces and beat your breast in anguish.
Speaker 1:I, the Sovere, sovereign Lord, have spoken. And because you have forgotten me and turned your back on me, this is what the sovereign Lord says you must bear the consequences of all your lewdness and prostitution. The Lord said to me Son of man, you must accuse Ahola and Aholaba of all the detestable sins they have committed, both adultery and murder Adultery by worshiping idols, and murder by burning as sacrifices the children they bore to me. Furthermore, they have defiled my temple and violated my Sabbath day. On the very day that they sacrificed their children to their idols, they boldly came to my temple to worship. They came in and defiled my house. You, sisters, sent messengers to distant lands to get men. Then, when they arrived, you bathed yourself, painted your eyelids and put on your finest jewels for them. You sat with them on a beautifully embroidered couch and put my incense and special oil on the table that was spread before you. From your room came the sound of many men carousing.
Speaker 1:Verse 43. I missed this verse when I was looking over this. All right, here we go again, verse 43. Then I said if you really want to have sex with these old, worn-out prostitutes, let them. And this is what. I'm sorry I should start this over, but I'm not going to. We're going to get through this together. Okay, here we go, verse 43. Then I said if they really want to have sex with old, worn out prostitutes like these, let them. 44. And that is what they did they had sex with Aholaba, these shameless prostitutes.
Speaker 1:But righteous people will judge these sister cities for what they really are adulterers and murderers. Now, this is what the sovereign Lord says. You got any more for us, god. Here we go, bring an army against them and hand them over to be terrorized and plundered, for their enemies will stone them and kill them with the sword. They will butcher their sons and daughters and burn their homes, and in this way I will put an end to the lewdness and idolatry in the land, and my judgment will be a warning to all women not to follow your wicked example. You will be fully repaid for all your prostitution, your worship of idols. Yes, you will suffer a full penalty, and then you will know that I am the sovereign Lord. Yeah, god's had enough, I mean.
Speaker 1:And so here's the bottom line. Here's the bottom line. God did not. First of all, ezekiel, that dude's a beast. Can you imagine Ezekiel looking in the eye of these leaders and saying let me tell you who you are? You is a prostitute and you ain't even a good one. I mean, that's messed up. I mean you got to have respect for Ezekiel, right. But here's the thing God paints what they did in the most disgusting, most depraved, most terrible way possible, right? I think that's by design.
Speaker 1:You wonder why God tells us in the Bible to stay away from sin, and he describes what sin is. He describes the different things that are considered sin, that separate us from a loving fellowship with God. God is because when he sees sin, he sees this, he sees destruction, he sees something that is ugly, something that is terrible, and if we could pull back the veil to see what sin does to us, we would agree with him on that. And so I think sometimes we forget that when God says these things, he says these things because he sees what they do to us and he doesn't want us to end up like this. And so, thank goodness, god points out our sin. Thank goodness that he tells us in his word stay away from this, stay away from that, because he doesn't want it to do these things in our life. So, while they're not good, while they're not fun, while it's not easy, it's powerful that God would say this is what your sin looks like. That's why I so desperately want you to stay away from it.
Speaker 1:Let's pray together right now. God, thank you so much for your word. Thank you, lord, that you helped us make it through this one. Thank you most of all, lord, that this is why you want us to stay away from these sins, because it's ugly and it's nasty and you want something better for us. I pray, holy Spirit, that you'll give us the same eye towards sin that you do, that it is something that grieves your heart, so we'll be grieved by it as well. Help us to find joy in the fact that we've been forgiven of all this and we no longer stand condemned. In Jesus' name, amen. God's word says in Ezekiel, chapter 34, verse 14, I will put my spirit in you and you will live again. I feel like you and I have grown closer together today and from now on we just know each other a little bit better. We've been through this battle. We made it on the other side. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Ezekiel, chapter 24.
