Prepare yourself for a journey into the raw reality of how God feels when we place our trust in powers, wealth, and resources that we can see, touch, and quantify, rather than boldly trusting Him when our circumstances are dire.
This blog is rated PG13.
In Ezekiel 23, God is letting the Israelites have it with some scathing rebukes and nasty metaphors about their lack of confidence in God and their adulterous affairs with Egypt and Assyria as they seek rescue assistance from these two godless nations.
God speaks through the Prophet Ezekiel and tells an allegory about two sisters, representing Samaria and Jerusalem. These sisters become prostitutes who have “their breasts fondled and their virgin bosoms caressed” by Egypt and Assyria. “While she was still mine, she lusted after her lovers,” God says.
Even though her lovers abused her and exposed her naked body, she kept coming for more. In fact, she became more and more promiscuous and, get this, “lusted after her lovers whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.” It goes on and on in descriptive terms about their lust, prostitution and abuse, rather than trusting in their true Husband, God Himself.
Here’s the deal: God is using such vulgar language, metaphor, and exaggeration because they are, in fact, appropriate for the offense and adultery being committed. It is equivalent to grotesque sexual perversion to look to godless men for rescue rather than boldly trusting in their proven Father.
We must admit that we know exactly what this is like!
During COVID, elections, economic trials, relational collisions, unemployment, family crises, profound fears, etc, it is vastly easier to look for rescuers we can see and touch! We all do it!
And it is nasty, perverted, lustful distrust in God’s eyes.
And here is the kicker: That powerful nation of Egypt that these fools are looking to for rescue and resource? God defeated them when they were the most powerful nation, economy and military on earth - and He did it with a stuttering 80-year old man with nothing more than a stick in his hands!
No matter how dire your circumstances - and no matter how powerful your allies - God can defeat anyone and anything with nothing but Himself. Any time He wants to.
Trust that. Fall in love with that. Lean hard into that!
This is what purity looks like.