Casting God Away – Eze 23
Jerusalem and Samaria are graphically and grotesquely described in Ezekiel 23 as lewd prostitutes who shamelessly offer themselves to heathen lovers. The idea here is to shock them into realizing how God views their alliances and trusts in other nations. The “lovers” the chapter talks about are Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon.
As a result of their filthy unfaithfulness, God pronounces grave consequences on them. Those they “loved” will come back and crush them, taking everything they have and destroying them.
It would be easy to think that this has nothing to do with us, that we are nothing like these unfaithful cities. Yet, there is a real connection with the way we might live our lives. If we rely on anything or anyone other than God for help, strength, guidance, and provision, we are in essence committing spiritual adultery. When we repeatedly rely upon these other sources, we committed spiritual lewdness and repeated spiritual immorality.
May we be able to grasp how God views our trust in other things. May we see how gross it is and how wrong it is. Just like Israel, He is our God who loved us, died for us, and saved us. He and He alone is worthy of our loyalty, love, and faithfulness. Let us repent of our idolatry and our unfaithfulness. And let us trust and love Him with our whole heart!