SPIRITUAL ADULTERY

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In Christ, Mark

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

“You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband! All prostitutes receive gifts, but you give gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors. So in your prostitution you are the opposite of others; no one runs after you for your favors. You are the very opposite, for you give payment and none is given to you.”

Ezekiel 16:32-34

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

Have you cheated on God in your life?

It’s a very pointed question that most people would want to sidestep. It’s a pointed question that should make us uncomfortable but it’s a question we all need to consider nonetheless.

This is because God just doesn’t expect but demands our fidelity in our relationship with Him. It’s been that way from the very day He established a relationship with His people and nothing has changed now that we’re studying His words more than 2,000 years later.

The bottom line is that God told us He is God and that there is no other god but Him. He told us that we are to worship and bow down to Him and Him alone. And He warned us that He was a jealous God which essentially let us know that He was not going to handle our unfaithfulness well (Exodus 20:2-3).

Indeed, as we turn back to our scriptures from Ezekiel 16, God shows us that there are dire consequences for anyone who chooses spiritual adultery over a loyal relationship with Him and a devoted compliance with His word. Look at these three verses which form the foundation for our message today:

“You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband! All prostitutes receive gifts, but you give gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors. So in your prostitution you are the opposite of others; no one runs after you for your favors. You are the very opposite, for you give payment and none is given to you.”  Ezekiel 16:32-34

Note here the Lord minces no words in calling His people what they were: adulterers. Instead of being fully committed to Him, the Israelites preferred to worship idols and false gods instead, giving them their adoration. Worse yet, the people of God took the items He had blessed them with and used them in the process of idolatry. You’ll recall they adorned the idol’s shrine with colorful garments He provided. They melted down the fine gold and silver jewelry He had given them and fashioned the molten metal into the idols they worshiped. They even took the greatest blessings that God could ever provide, their children, and sacrificed them to the idols! That’s how evil the people of God had become.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, we read that the Israelites enticed others to join in their sinful idolatry. The goal was to adversely influence other to be just as wicked as they were, to join in the prostitution of their faith but unlike a prostitute who would charge someone to engage in their transgressive behavior, the Israelites charged nothing. As we saw in yesterday’s devotion, they freely led people into the same sin they were freely engaging in themselves.

So with all this, we can obviously see that the people of God in Ezekiel’s day were clearly and willingly cheating on God.

But what about you and me? Are we repeating the mistakes of the past and in doing so, placing ourselves in the crosshairs of God’s judgment? For if we haven’t figured it out already, God doesn’t tolerate spiritual adultery and sends His harshest judgment in response to it.

Did I mention He said He was a jealous God?

Friends, we all stand before God guilty of sinning against Him, in being disloyal to Him when He has been nothing but loyal to us. We all have committed spiritual adultery in some way or another, whether we want to face up to that truth or not.

So where do we go from here? How do we start to make things right again with the God who is our Master and Maker?

It starts with repentance and a turning back to God with a renewed sense of dedication and devotion, a fresh righteous spiritual start if you may.

Know two things about this:

1. If we choose to be accountable for our spiritual infidelity, decide to change our life’s course and direct it back to where the Lord leads and guides everything we do, then we can expect to see once again that our God is a God of mercy and grace, a God who is always waiting for His children to return to Him just as the father did in Jesus’ parable of the lost son (Luke 15:11-32). And when that child returns, the Father does not condemn but rather rejoices that one of His own who was lost became found.

But what if we do not opt to return? What if we choose to remain in spiritual adultery?

2. If we opt for that course, then we can expect to receive God’s judgment in whatever way He deems appropriate. For the Old Testament Israelites, they saw everything that they had destroyed before being taken away into a foreign land for seventy years. Who knows if our punishment will be the same but rest assured that punishment will come if you decide to remain unfaithful to God.

Do yourself a favor and turn away from your sin and come back to Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. You’ll never regret that decision.

Amen

In Christ,

Mark
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