BEARING THE CONSEQUENCES

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In Christ, Mark

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

“You have gone the way of your sister; so I will put her cup into your hand.”

“This is what the Sovereign Lord says:”

“You will drink your sister’s cup, a cup large and deep; it will bring scorn and derision, for it holds so much. You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, the cup of ruin and desolation, the cup of your sister Samaria. You will drink it and drain it dry and chew on its pieces—and you will tear your breasts.

I have spoken, declares the Sovereign Lord.”

“Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: Since you have forgotten Me and turned your back on Me, you must bear the consequences of your lewdness and prostitution.”

Ezekiel 23:31-35

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

Five years ago, the Lord took my father to be with Him forever. He and my mother taught me so many valuable things when I was growing up with many principles transferring to the way I raised my own children. One of those principles was not only at the heart of my parenting but also my life experiences. It goes like this:

There are negative consequences that come from our negative actions.

It’s true, right?

How many times have we done wrong, only to have to experience the subsequent difficulties associated with those wrongs?

In speaking for myself, there have been more times like this than I care to remember. My earliest remembrance goes back to my childhood and my aforementioned parents. They set the rules by which I was expected to comply. When I did what they wanted me to do, things were good and I was in their favor. But when I decided to be disobedient and was caught, then discipline would follow, measures intended to discourage me from repeating the mistakes again in the past.

This was an important fundamental upbringing for me because it paralleled the expectations of my eternal parent, my heavenly Father. For once I reached adulthood and was out living life on my own, it was the Lord who kept a watchful eye on my life and the decisions I was making. As long as my choices were in step with His word, will, and way, then I was living in a way that was pleasing in His sight and His blessings would follow. But if I opted to sin against the Lord by willfully and willingly disobeying His expectations for me, then I could expect to experience His discipline and that discipline always involved negative consequences for my negative actions.

In other words, if I chose to sin against God then I would have to bear the consequences of my actions.

As we begin to close out Ezekiel 23, we find this same principle playing out within the allegory which dominates this chapter, the tale of two unfaithful Israelite kingdoms as told through a parable of two sisters, Oholah who represented Samaria and Oholibah representing Jerusalem.

Over the three part series, A Tale of Unfaithful Kingdoms, we saw where the sins of Oholah (Samaria) and Oholibah (Jerusalem) resulted in the Lord’s judgment coming upon them from the Assyrians and Babylonians. The two Israelite entities, one to the north and the other to the south, ended up bearing the consequences for their spiritual infidelity as they forgot God and gave their devotion and dedication to other nations and their associated gods and idols. Those consequences included destruction of their property, looting of their riches, and displacement from their homeland.

If they wanted to live apart from God then they would get what they wanted and experience first-hand what abandonment felt like.  

First Oholah (Samaria) sinned and experienced God’s punishment at the hands of the Assyrians. Then her sister Oholibah (Jerusalem), fully knowing the fate that had fallen on her sister, didn’t repent but rather chose to live in more depravity than Oholah. And so God made Oholibah (Jerusalem) drink from her sister’s cup of judgment and experienced attacks from the Assyrians and the Babylonians, the latter leaving Jerusalem in ruins before hauling the Israelites into seventy-years of captivity. It was a bitter cup to drink from but Oholibah (Jerusalem) passed up on the option to reverse direction, repent, and return to God, committing to live in His righteousness. And so she bore the consequences, the negative consequences connected to her negative actions.

Friends, the Lord is speaking loudly to us today and posing the following questions:

How many of us are repeating the sins of others we know, even when we know the negative consequences those people experienced as a result of their actions?

How many times will the Lord have to make us drink from our “sister’s cup” before we will wake up and realize the only way to avoid His judgment and live in His favor is to uncompromisingly follow His Lord’s word, will, and way?

How many times will we have to bear the negative consequences for our negative actions before we wake up and realize that sin just isn’t worth it?

Amen

In Christ,

Mark
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