Ezekiel 23
COMMENTARY:
: 11 And when her sister Aholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms. (5691 “inordinate love” [agabah] means lustfulness, immodest love, sensual desire or sexual desire for another.)
DEVOTION: The LORD gave Ezekiel another description of the two tribes. HE compared them to two sisters who were both active in seeking other lovers.
Jehovah was to be their husband. They were to worship HIM alone. They were to be faithful to HIM. HE gave them everything. They in turn gave all their gifts that they received from the LORD to other gods. They made a choice to desire another lover.
Samaria was first in her desire to serve other gods. When the ten tribes divided after Solomon’s reign they started with worshiping two golden calves that were set up, so that, the people would not go back to Jerusalem to worship. The LORD said that their false worship started in Egypt and continued to Assyria.
Aholibah is another name for Jerusalem. The name means “my tent is in her.” There was a special relationship between Jerusalem and Judah. The Temple was located in Jerusalem. The problem was that they worshiped other gods. God, WHO is Holy, cannot let another god dwell in HIS tent.
Throughout the history of Israel they struggled with keeping themselves faithful to the LORD. HE continually sent prophets to seek their faithfulness. They would not listen. Now their time was up and Babylon came to judge them.
Even today we can love our church buildings more than the LORD. We can become prideful of a building. I just pasted a new church that was built to honor a false religion. They spent millions of dollars to build a place to worship a god that is not found in the Bible. They might have a Bible but they think that humans are on the same level as God.
The God of the Bible doesn’t share HIS authority with anyone or anything. HE wants our total loyalty to HIS commands. HE wants our daily worship. HE wants us to bring glory to HIM alone. If we love anything or anyone more than HIM, HE is not pleased.
CHALLENGE: Look within your heart to see if there is anything else or anyone else on the throne of your life other than God. HE will not share.)
: 19 Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. (2142 “remembrance” [zakar] means to recall knowledge from memory or have a recollection, to mention, recall, or to bring to mind.)
DEVOTION: The LORD wants us to learn from our past. Each of us knows the sins we have commited in our past. If we are a believer we have confessed them to the LORD and asked for HIS forgiveness. It is what should be normal for those who follow the LORD. Each day we have to give an account to the LORD regarding our service to HIM. We are supposed to be faithful each day with the help of our study of the Word of God, prayer and the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Here we find that the children of Israel were given to us to learn what not to do when we are tempted to move away from the LORD and try to live by the standard of the world. They thought they could count on other nations to help them defeat any nation that came to conquer them. They were wrong. They were looking to the wrong source for help. They didn’t learn their lessons well and the LORD helped them recall these facts through the ministry of Ezekiel.
He gave them the Word of the Lord GOD to follow but they were unwilling to turn from their trust in human resources to trust in the LORD again. That was their problem which led to their captivity.
Trusting in human resources rather than the LORD was the downfall of Israel and will be the downfall of the church today. We have to turn to the LORD and repent and ask for HIS help during this time of decline in our nation and world. However, it seems that this is not happening.
We seem to be singing as if nothing in wrong with our church or our world. Instead of increasing our times of prayer it seems like the church has forgotten to pray. Are we still seeking the LORD with all our heart, soul and mind today? Is it too late?
CHALLENGE: We see the LORD challenging the people of Judah to trust HIM and yet they chose not to. Are we trusting the LORD instead of others?
: 30 I will do these things to you, because you have gone a whoring after the heathen, and because you are polluted with their idols. (2930 “polluted” [tame] means to make morally or ritually impure, to become ceremonially unclean, to defile, desecrate, become unclean, or to defile oneself.)
DEVOTION: This is not God’s actions but the actions of the children of Israel themselves. They were making themselves unclean in the eyes of the LORD.
They knew what the LORD expected of them and didn’t seem to care They wanted to live the way they wanted to live and they didn’t care about the consequences or what the LORD thought of them.
They thought they were having fun and living the life that was full of pleasure but when the nations around them came to take them into captivity they didn’t like that idea. They seemed to think that the LORD would protect them even while they were living in sin.
This can happen even today in our world. There are people who can go to church on Sunday and then on Monday thru Saturday go out and live as they please without any consequences if they just go to church on Sunday.
The children of Israel thought that as long as they brought their sacrifices on Saturday to the Temple they could live as they pleased the rest of the week but that was not how the LORD looked at this lifestyle.
The LORD wants us to be genuine followers seven days a week. HE wants us to confess our sins daily with the idea that we would, with HIS help, live a life that is pleasing in HIS sight.
HE is watching us every moment of every day to give us guidance through the Holy Spirit to live a life that is pleasing in HIS sight. HE was willing to help the children of Israel in the Old Testament with guidance to live this type of life too but they didn’t seem to want to live the life HE wanted them to live.
Sad to say this is true today even in the lives of those who claim to want to live a life that is pleasing to him. Yes, we sin daily but the LORD looks at our motives and gives us guidance and correction when we need it. HE wants us to confess each day our sins and ask for forgiveness and for us to show an effort to try to live a life that is pleasing to HIM. HE Knows if we are giving an effort or just not caring.
CHALLENGE: What does the LORD see in our hearts each day? Are we genuinely trying to please HIM or just expecting HIM to overlook our actions?
: 39 For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house. (1121 “children” [ben] means son, grandson, member of a group, male child or youth.)
DEVOTION: The typical worship day for the children of Israel during the time of Ezekiel was for them to go out and cause their male child to go through the fire of a false god and with the blood of their children on their hands to then turn around and go into the temple and offer a animal sacrifice to the LORD.
They were trying to please culture and the LORD. The culture of the land was to worship the gods of the land. They wanted to be just like the people around them. They wanted to have a king rule over them instead of God. They wanted to be able to practice all the habits of their neighbors. They wanted to be accepted by those around them as just like them. They didn’t want to be set apart unto God.
The LORD wanted them to bring animal sacrifices to the temple to show that the blood of the animals was going to cover the sins of the people. These sacrifices looked forward to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross for the sins of the world. God was providing all their needs. The first need was forgiveness of sin. They were more concerned with worshiping with their neighbors than to offer true worship to the Creator of the World.
Today, we can sometimes fall into the same form of worship. We can serve the god of money, power or sports and then on the same day go into a Bible believing church and worship the God of the Bible.
Does this work? Is God pleased with this? Are we going to be blessed? The answer to all three questions is NO! It’s not just the liberals who struggle with worshiping the LORD properly.
Many parents are sacrificing their children to the god of this world. Success is what we want for our children but is it going to be at the expense of their relationship to the LORD? We need to keep our priorities straight and raise our children to love the LORD by watching our example.
Do our children see us as mean and unloving? Are we willing to not care for our children so we can get ahead in this world? Our prayer should be that we are not. Are children are a blessing from the LORD for us to train in HIS ways.
CHALLENGE: Our children need to understand a proper relationship between culture and Christ. We are the ones who have to train them. Have we been successful?
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