Ezekiel 16 rated R for shock value

(new article tomorrow) 

"If you had an R-rated chapter in the Bible, Ezekiel 16 is it. The translators try to soften the language and be delicate in their translation of the things going on so they wouldn't be offensive and obscene, but if you are a Hebrew reading the Hebrew, there are things in this chapter we would call pornography.

"There's very offensive terminology describing what Israel's doing, not for the offensive value but for the shock value of it," explains Richard Jordan.

"I've heard all my life there are passages in the Bible that weren't meant for public consumption or public preaching. If there's a chapter like that, this is the chapter.

"I'm grateful that some of the translators translated this stuff delicately and sensitively, but without a doubt this is the most sexually explicit chapter in all the Bible.

"There's a tone to it where He's describing the things taking place in Israel in her apostasy and using it to cast Israel as a harlot. Not just a harlot, but an insatiable nympho--someone who is just insatiably driven.

"It's why the judgment's going to come upon them, but when you get to the latter part of the chapter you see in spite of it all God's amazing ability to forgive them and still, even with all of their failures, claim them as His own. In the backdrop of that is all the abominations that are there.

"He starts out, as the Bible often does, with a reminder of who they are. The chapter begins: [1] Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

[2] Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,
[3] And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.

Verse 15: [15] But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.

"That's the summary of the indictment that He's going to fill in through the rest of the chapter. From here on, if you read the Hebrew text, He's going to use some rather indelicate terminology to describe the wickedness, the crudeness, the vileness of what they're doing. Understand, when the Hebrew reads it, he understands.

"Literally, what He's going to talk about following turns into a live porn show and they're out there literally selling themselves and eventually not even selling themselves but paying others to come. Sin can get that bad with life.

"They trusted in their own beauty; that's where the rebellion came from. Their own self; arrogant trust in themselves.

"Verse 49, when it talks about Sodom: [49] Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. 

"They thought, 'We've got it made in the shade. We've got all these blessings. Look how blessed we are,' and they took credit for it all and became arrogant, haughty. The abominations that that passage talks about, if you go back to Exodus 19 and read about it, it was homosexual aggressiveness. It started in that captivation with their own beauty.

"The rebellion found its place in worshipping the creature, not the Creator, as per Romans 1:25. When He says, 'Thou pourest out thy fornications upon everyone that passeth by,' if you go to verse 26: [26] Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke me to anger.

Verse 36: [36] Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them;

"All those things they did, each one worse than the one before, it just literally pours out of them. It's a completely insatiable experience.

[25] Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms. 

[27] Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of thy lewd way.
[28] Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied.
[29] Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith.
[30] How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord GOD, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman;
[31] In that thou buildest thine eminent place in the head of every way, and makest thine high place in every street; and hast not been as an harlot, in that thou scornest hire;

"The high place is where they worship Baal, but now they're building these high places out on every street corner. One of the things they did in Baal worship was the fornication; the sex worship. 

[23] And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, (woe, woe unto thee! saith the Lord GOD;)
[24] That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street.

"That phrase in verse 25 about 'to every one that passed by,' is the thing there. They've literally set up public porn shows, live events, for everyone who goes by to come participate in, to lure people in.

"They're so desperate to be satisfied with the worship of other gods that never satisfy. Sin never satiates. You do a little bit to get the stimulation and next time it takes a little bit more, etc. It gets worse and worse and worse and worse.

"He's using the sexual part of it to describe the spiritual corruption. How vile this looks physically, this is how God looks at their following other gods, and they're worshipping the other gods in doing this.

[16] And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy high places with divers colours, and playedst the harlot thereupon: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so.

[17] Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them,
[18] And tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them.
[19] My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was, saith the Lord GOD.
[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,
[21] That thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?

"They're just making a big show of all of this. Literally, when it says they have made images of men, it's talking about a phallic symbol and the way people talk today, they're talking about a sex toy and they're using it to gratify themselves and they're committing whoredoms with these idols.

"It's gotten that vile and they're doing it in public live on the street. They didn't have film; they didn't have TV or internet. They're not doing it just to be down in the brothel; they're doing it to worship in Baal worship, worshipping their gods."