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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
“‘But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to
become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your
beauty became his. You took some of your garments to make gaudy high places,
where you carried on your prostitution. You went to him, and he possessed your
beauty.”
“You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made
of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in
prostitution with them. And you took your embroidered clothes to put on them,
and you offered my oil and incense before them. Also the food I provided for
you—the flour, olive oil and honey I gave you to eat—you offered as fragrant
incense before them. That is what happened, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
“‘And you took your sons and daughters whom you bore to Me
and sacrificed them as food to the idols. Was your prostitution not enough? You
slaughtered My children and sacrificed them to the idols. In all your
detestable practices and your prostitution you did not remember the days of
your youth, when you were naked and bare, kicking about in your blood.”
“‘Woe! Woe to you, declares the Sovereign Lord. In addition
to all your other wickedness, you built a mound for yourself and made a lofty
shrine in every public square. At every street corner you built your lofty
shrines and degraded your beauty, spreading your legs with increasing promiscuity
to anyone who passed by. You engaged in prostitution with the Egyptians, your
neighbors with large genitals, and aroused my anger with your increasing
promiscuity.”
Ezekiel 16:15-26
This ends today’s
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
In today’s devotion, we take what we learned yesterday in
that God has blessed us all since birth and consider how we have used the
blessings He has provided.
Have we embraced them and used them to fulfill His purposes?
or
Have we abused what He has given and used His gifts for
sinful acts?
As we look at our scripture passage from Ezekiel 16, we find
the Israelites falling into the latter category and God gives us plenty of
details as to how they took what He gave them for the cause of righteousness
and used them to supply their wicked desires. Look again at these words here:
“‘But you trusted in
your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors
on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his. You took some of your
garments to make gaudy high places, where you carried on your prostitution. You
went to him, and he possessed your beauty.”
“You also took the
fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you made
for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them. And you took
your embroidered clothes to put on them, and you offered my oil and incense
before them. Also the food I provided for you—the flour, olive oil and honey I
gave you to eat—you offered as fragrant incense before them. That is what
happened, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
“‘And you took your
sons and daughters whom you bore to Me and sacrificed them as food to the
idols. Was your prostitution not enough? You slaughtered My children and
sacrificed them to the idols. In all your detestable practices and your
prostitution you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked
and bare, kicking about in your blood.”
“‘Woe! Woe to you,
declares the Sovereign Lord. In addition to all your other wickedness, you
built a mound for yourself and made a lofty shrine in every public square. At
every street corner you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty,
spreading your legs with increasing promiscuity to anyone who passed by. You
engaged in prostitution with the Egyptians, your neighbors with large genitals,
and aroused my anger with your increasing promiscuity. So I stretched out my
hand against you and reduced your territory; I gave you over to the greed of
your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were shocked by your lewd
conduct. You engaged in prostitution with the Assyrians too, because you were
insatiable; and even after that, you still were not satisfied. Then you increased
your promiscuity to include Babylonia, a land of merchants, but even with this
you were not satisfied.” Ezekiel 16:15-29
Note how God continuously referred to His people as
prostitutes, utilizing word play around the subject to portray just how
adulterous and unfaithful the Israelites were unto Him as they chose to worship
false gods and idols. The specific charges He levied against them included:
1. Using their garments to adorn the places of idolatry.
“‘But you trusted in
your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors
on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his. You took some of your
garments to make gaudy high places, where you carried on your prostitution. You
went to him, and he possessed your beauty.”
“You took your
embroidered clothes to put on them.”
It was common practice for the places of idol worship to be
decorated with cloths of many colors. The Israelites took garments God had
blessed them with and used them to lavish the high places where they engaged in
their sinful adoration of false gods.
2. Using their jewelry to fashion the idols they worshiped.
“You also took the
fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you made
for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them.”
God made sure He had given His people jewelry made with only
the most precious and valuable metals. But the Israelites took all that
beautiful jewelry, melted it down, and made idols to worship, idols that were insulting
and detestable in God’s eyes.
3. Using their food to worship the idols.
“You offered My oil
and incense before them.”
“Also the food I
provided for you—the flour, olive oil and honey I gave you to eat—you offered
as fragrant incense before them.”
First it was clothing, then fine metals, and now the Lord
shares that the Israelites had even dedicated the food He had given them to the
idols. It seemed like there was nothing that the Lord had given His people that
would not be turned around to honor the idols.
And as we see the next charge, that statement was absolutely
true.
4. Sacrificing their own children during their idol worship.
“‘And you took your
sons and daughters whom you bore to Me and sacrificed them as food to the
idols. Was your prostitution not enough? You slaughtered My children and
sacrificed them to the idols. In all your detestable practices and your
prostitution you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked
and bare, kicking about in your blood.”
This was the most appalling and gruesome act of wickedness
the Israelites committed. For they were willing to take their very sons and
daughters to the altar and slaughter them in worship to gods and idols that did
not exist. They killed the living to pay tribute to what was never alive.
And note that God took the time to remind His people that
the children they slaughtered were not their children anyways but His. Thus,
the Israelites had murdered the children of God while sinfully disobeying His
commands to have no other gods before Him (Exodus 20:2-3).
5. Building shrines to idols in every public square.
“‘Woe! Woe to you,
declares the Sovereign Lord.’ In addition to all your other wickedness, you
built a mound for yourself and made a lofty shrine in every public square. At
every street corner you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty,
spreading your legs with increasing promiscuity to anyone who passed by. You
engaged in prostitution with the Egyptians, your neighbors with large genitals,
and aroused my anger with your increasing promiscuity.”
It wasn’t enough that the Israelites had constructed places
for idol worshiping on the traditional high places. They also constructed “lofty
shrines” and placed them “in every public square”, enticing anyone who was in
the city to stop in and commit spiritual adultery against God. There was no
real attempt to conceal their sinfulness.
Yes, the Israelites had abused the blessings from God in a
big way, using what He had given for their good to disrespect and honor Him in
the worse ways possible. There was little doubt that their blatant
unfaithfulness was on display nearly everywhere you went.
Now ask yourself why God became so angry with His people
that He sent harsh judgment upon them.
But let’s take a moment to consider how well we’re doing
today when it comes to the way we treat and handle God’s blessings. Are we really
any better than the Old Testament Israelites of Ezekiel’s day?
I can’t answer that question for you but if we look at our
communities, our cities and municipalities, our nation, and our world at large,
I don’t think I can say with any real sense of confidence that we are taking
what God has blessed us with and using it as He intended us to.
For if we were, then we would not have people in the world
who are homeless.
If we were, we wouldn’t have people in the world who are
starving to death.
If we were, we wouldn’t have people in the world who are
dying every day because of the lack of proper medical care or simple medication
that could keep them alive.
If we were, then there would be no room for poverty.
In the end translation, God has given us everything we need
to meet the needs of just not ourselves but countless others if we would just
turn to Him, obediently seek His purposes, and then fulfill those purposes
selflessly just as Jesus did.
God has lavished His greatest gifts upon us. It’s time to
put them to use vice abuse them.
Amen
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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