SPIRITUAL INFIDELITY

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again? Would not the land be completely defiled?”

“But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers—would you now return to Me?” declares the Lord.

“Look up to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been ravished? By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers, sat like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness. Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen.
Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to blush with shame.”

Have you not just called to Me: ‘My Father, my friend from my youth, will you always be angry? Will Your wrath continue forever?’ This is how you talk, but you do all the evil you can.”

During the reign of King Josiah, the Lord said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there. I thought that after she had done all this she would return to Me but she did not, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it. I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear; she also went out and committed adultery. Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood. In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the Lord.

The Lord said to me, “Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah.

Jeremiah 3:1-11

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Did you catch the headlines recently regarding the work of a computer hacker organization?

Their target was a website that encouraged people to register and find people to commit adultery with. Needless to say, there were plenty of clients who used it, thinking that their unfaithfulness would go undetected.

That is until the hackers struck and then released the identities of those who had cheated on their mates.

What does the Bible say?

For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. Luke 8:17

In other words, what is done in the dark will be brought to light and that was certainly what happened in this matter.

So how do you feel about these exposed cheaters who abandoned the vows they took to love and cherish the person they married to chase after another? Do you harbor resentment against them?

Most people do and as we will see in today’s scripture passage from the opening verses of Jeremiah, Chapter 3, the Lord despises infidelity as well, albeit a different form of it. Before we look at the word of God, one simple question to ponder:

Have you ever cheated on the Lord?

Be careful in answering that question too quickly because no one has been absolutely faithful to the Lord in the way they have lived except Jesus. No one. We all have allowed ourselves to be tempted Satan to turn from our devotion toward God and instead give our attention to the ways and trappings of the world, abandoning and forsaking Him similar to the way the Old Testament Israelites did.

Here’s what the Lord had to say about them:

“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again? Would not the land be completely defiled?”

“But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers—would you now return to Me?” declares the Lord.

“Look up to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been ravished? By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers, sat like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness. Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen.
Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to blush with shame.”

Have you not just called to Me: ‘My Father, my friend from my youth, will you always be angry? Will Your wrath continue forever?’ This is how you talk, but you do all the evil you can.”

During the reign of King Josiah, the Lord said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there. I thought that after she had done all this she would return to Me but she did not, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it. I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear; she also went out and committed adultery. Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood. In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the Lord.

The Lord said to me, “Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah.  Jeremiah 3:1-11

Note here that there wasn’t one part of the nation who had not been faithless and faithful unto the God who had blessed them with the land they inhabited, the land He had promised to and then provided to their ancestors.

First, Israel turned their backs on God to worship false gods and idols. They gave their love and devotion to lifeless icons and incited God’s wrath, bringing His judgment upon them. We know the Assyrians mounted an assault on the Northern Kingdom and sent them away for their spiritual infidelity. The Northern Kingdom would never recover.

So with all this in plain view of the Israelites of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, you would think they would learn from the errors of their brothers and sisters to the north, seeking to change their ways while repenting of their sins to God. But that’s not what happened.

For we read where Judah committed spiritual infidelity themselves, worshiping false gods and idols fashioned out of wood and stone. How bad were their transgressions? So bad, that God said that a faithless Israel was more righteous than an unfaithful Judah.

Ouch.

Judah would experience their own consequences for their sins as God sentenced them to a seventy year exile to Babylon, but not after the Babylonians penetrated the walls of their beloved Jerusalem and destroyed everything, leaving the city in ruins. It would remain that way until the imposed exile penalty had been paid and the people would be permitted to return and rebuild.

Can you see where God will not tolerate spiritual infidelity?

Friends, we had better be paying attention to these words from Jeremiah. For we are playing with fire if we choose to turn away from God to give our devotion to anything else. God has given us everything we know and He expects that we give Him everything in return, to include our absolute loyalty and affection.

In the end translation, God is absolutely faithful to us without fault. The least we can do to show Him our gratitude is to be equally faithful to Him.

He deserves nothing less and He will not tolerate anything less.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

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