“God and the Adulterer”
Ezekiel 16:1

Introduction

• I believe that many people do not know the difference between these words and assume that they all mean the same thing.

1. Prostitute – to sell your body to another for sexual pleasure
2. Harlot – continual sex with anyone outside of marriage (not necessarily for money)
3. Whore – same as harlot
4. Fornicator – voluntary sex between unmarried people
5. Adultery – sex between a married man and another woman (or man) who is not his wife or vise versa.
6. Husband/Wife – Two people who have agreed to be united together in all things becoming “one.” God says they are to be “one flesh” which means that they are to give their bodies to one another for sexual pleasure without reservation.
7. Father/Mother – The same as husband and wife except they have had success in producing offspring (children).

• There is one thing that all these have in common. They give each other sexual pleasure. There is nothing at all wrong with that if you are married.
• Sex is not a sin against God. How you perform the sex act is not a sin against God. How often you perform sex is not mandated by God. Where you have sex is not limited by God.
• The sin of sex enters when a person has sex with someone of whom they are not married to.
• Marriage is where flesh meets flesh. They (Adam and Eve) were married. They were brought together by God himself. And God told them in Genesis 2:24 “…and they shall be one flesh.”
• They had no wedding rings to exchange, and they had no certificate of marriage given them or to their children when they become married for over 700 years.
• Rings and certificates were issued by the Church of Rome (Catholic) many centuries later. God never required rings or certificates.
• God does require a certificate of divorce (bill of divorcement) between those who wish not to be married anymore.
• Cooking meals, doing laundry, cleaning house, earning a living to support yourself and another, is not marriage. A son or mother can share that experience in the sight of God and He is happy with that. But sex is out of the equation.

I. Sin Must Be Confronted

  A) The Word of the LORD

• When a person is unfaithful to their spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend, they need to be confronted. They need to know that you are not blind. They need to know that God is not blind.
• Ezekiel 16:1… Again the word of the LORD came unto me (Ezekiel), saying, 2) Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,
• This is the reason for the message this morning is to wake people up who think that their sin is tolerable and will go unpunished.
• Note these verses about the sins of Jerusalem…

1. Ezekiel 16:15…But thou didst trust in thine own beauty (Pride, thinking you are God’s gift to others), and playedst the harlot because of thy renown (you played the harlot because of your ego), and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by(You wouldn’t stop being a whore to any one that would have you); his it was.
2. Ezekiel 16:20…Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter, (Your actions are leading your sons down the same road to destruction and you act like it is no big deal.)
3. Ezekiel 16:48…As I live, saith the Lord GOD, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters. Jerusalem’s sin was considered to be worse than Sodom’s sin
   49) Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride (Thinking themselves to be better than others), fulness of bread (content in their sin), and abundance of idleness (complacency) was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy (didn’t give attention to those who needed it).

• God confronts Jerusalem’s sin as I am doing this morning.
• I am tired of Satan using people to ruin the house of God for worship, and I am tired of people allowing Satan to use them.
• Next Sunday will be the first Sunday in October known to man as the month of evil that ends with Satan’s worship day called Halloween.
• I believe God would have us bring sermons each week that pin point Satan’s plan of attack and God’s plan to thwart it.
• In order for any sinner to recover from their loss of spirituality, they must recognize sin first.
• When people fail to recognize their own sin…it must be presented to them.
• The pastor’s duty is to show his members their sin, causing repentance.
• A spouse’s duty is to show one another their sin, causing repentance.
• Parent’s duty is to show their children their sin and bring repentance.

  B) God deals with unfaithfulness quickly

• Ezekiel 14:12…The word of the LORD came again to me, saying, 13) Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously (Persistent unfaithfulness), then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it:
• The Old Testament metaphors are a little more difficult to explain especially out of the KJV.
• Let us explain this verse in layman terms…

1. When people sin against God by persistent unfaithfulness…Here is what will happen
2. I will stretch out my hand of judgment upon you,
3. I will cause you to be hungry physically and spiritually
4. I will make your friends and enemies be at war with you.
5. C) God’s Word on adultery

• It is one of the 10 Commandments…Exodus 20:14…Thou shalt not commit adultery.
• Proverbs 6:32…But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.
• Matthew 5:27…Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: 28) But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. (Looking at pornography, or the opposite sex with lust is adultery)
• Galatians 5:19…Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these (These are the things considered by God to be works of the flesh which God will not tolerate); Adultery (Sex with another person that is not your spouse), fornication (Sex without being married), uncleanness (affection towards animals and same sex), lasciviousness (not pure, obscene), 20) Idolatry (allowing other things to be more important than God), witchcraft (anything demonic, the occult), hatred (Hatred towards others), variance (continual disagreement with others), emulations (strive to be equal or better than others), wrath (actions of anger), strife (quarrel or fighting with others), seditions (causing others to separate or divorce, or to be at war with one another), heresies (speaking against the church’s doctrines and teaching), 21) Envyings (dislike towards others goodness or good fortune), murders (killers of body and souls), drunkenness Continual excessive drinking of alcohol), revellings (to be excited in excess), and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

• In other words… If you do any of the above sinful acts without repentance, without feeling guilty, without stopping your doing it… you are not Christ like (a Christian) and will go to hell because you are not saved.
• People misunderstand the term “saved” or “salvation.”
• Being saved or receiving salvation do not happen when you kneel down and read a few verses of the Bible and say a little prayer of repentance and acceptance of Jesus Christ.
• Being saved is not an act of being baptized when you were a baby into the Catholic Church.
• Being saved is not baptism as an adult that washes your sins away. (It is not water that washes away your sins but rather the blood of Jesus Christ that washes away sin.)
• It is not knowing that there is a God and recognizing Jesus as the Son of God.
• It is not Muhammadism, Judaism, Hinduism, or any other religious belief that will allow you any access whatsoever into the Kingdom of God.
• The only thing that allows you into heaven are the things that are evidenced in your life, your behavior that prove to God and His Son Jesus Christ that you have truly been converted, truly are His Sons and daughters.

  I. Adultery in Many Forms

  A) The church commits adultery

• How can a church commit adultery?
• A church commits adultery spiritually with …
  1. Idolatry (putting any activity or thought above God’s worship), covetousness (to desire something that does not belong to you, like another woman, man, car, house, church body, etc), and apostasy (abandonment of beliefs) are spoken of as spiritual adultery (Jeremiah 3:6, 8-9;  16:32; Hos. 1:2-3; Rev. 2:22).
  2. An apostate church (A church that abandons their belief or doctrines)—one which refuses to continue to follow, obey, or recognize God’s Word as their final authority—is an adulteress (Isaiah 1:21;  23:4, 7, 37).
  3. The Jewswere described by Christ as “an adulterous generation” (Matthew 12:39) (compare  12).
• A person who is a member of the church commits adultery just by looking at the opposite sex with intimate desires. Looking at naked women or men in magazines, or porno flicks.
• James 1:15 …Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. 
• Do you wish to continue in your sin? Then start preparing for your funeral!