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EZEKIEL 16: 8b-14

"PERFECTION OF BEAUTY"

Intro: In this chapter, God speaks of how He took an outcast Bedouin
       family and made them a strong, beautiful nation. It was just a
       foreshadow of what He was to do for His church.

I. REMEMBER HOW WE WERE WHEN GOD FIRST CAME TO US.
        "And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted..."
        A. "Dead in trespasses and sins."
                1. Spiritually dead.
                2. "The wages of sin is death."
        B. Our lives were without any eternal purpose.
                1. Lost - wandering aimlessly.
                2. Our lives were being wasted.
        C. We were living as animals.
                1. Following our instincts.
                2. Ruled by our body appetites.
        D. Without Christ.
                1. Strangers to God.
                2. Without hope.

II. WHAT GOD HAS DONE AND IS DOING FOR US.
        A. Vs. 8b - "I entered into a covenant with thee..."
                1. "This cup is a new covenant in My blood which is shed
                   for you."
                2. He redeemed us from our slavery to sin and our flesh.
                3. Now we are His!
                        a. "Know ye not that your our body is the
                           temple..."
        B. "I washed thee with water."
                1. He washed us from our past pollution.
                2. He continues to wash us from the pollution of our daily
                   brush with the world.
                        a. "The blood of Jesus Christ..." 
        C. "I anointed thee with oil."
                1. He placed the anointing of His Spirit upon our lives.
                        a. "After you believed, you were sealed with the
                           Holy Spirit of promise."
        D. "I clothed thee," in His robes of righteousness.
                1. With embroidered work.
                        a. Speaks of care and skill.
                        b. Handiwork - "You are His handiwork..."
                2. Shod thee with badgers' skin.
                        a. A soft leather they dyed purple as a sign of
                           luxury.
                        b. How rich I am in Christ!
                3. "I girded thee with fine linen."
                        a. A most expensive cloth to be worn by the priest
                           in their service to God.
                        b. "And to her was granted that she should be
                           arrayed in fine linen clean and white, for
                           the..."
                        c. "And to be found in Him, not clothed in..."
                4. "I decked thee with jewelry."
                        a. Jesus said, "I have come that ye might have
                           life, and that more abundantly."
                        b. How the Lord loves to adorn His bride.
                        c. These ornaments can be likened unto the fruit
                           of the Spirit.
                5. "And you were exceedingly beautiful."
                        a. "...Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me..."
                        b. The Spirit seeks to conform us into the image
                           of Christ.
                                1. "And we with open face beholding the
                                   glory of the Lord..."
                                2. "Until we all come into the measure of
                                   the stature of the fullness of Christ."
                6. "For your beauty was perfect through my comeliness,
                   which I had put upon thee."
                        a. "And when before the throne, I stand in Him
                           complete."