Topic: Israel’s Infidelity [Thursday September 21, 2017]
Text: Ezekiel 23:1-21
Key Verse: “And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbours” (Ezekiel 23:5).
Latimer was raised to the bishopric of Worcester in the reign of Henry VIII. It was the custom of those days for each of the bishops to make presents to the king on New Year’s Day. Latimer went with the rest of his brethren to make the usual offering; instead of a purse of gold, he presented the King with a New Testament, in which was a leaf doubled down to this passage, “Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.”
In our text, God presented the unfaithfulness of Israel and Judah with the metaphor of two unfaithful wives. Their unfaithfulness to God in departing from His statutes and the worship of the strange deities of the Assyrians is characterized as playing the harlot. And like a husband who is jealous over his wife, the Lord denounced the idolatry of Israel His espoused wife, who was imitated by her sister, Judah in departing from His ways. God promised to disgrace them and allow the nations to whom they had played the harlot to take them away in captivity.
Adultery is such a sin against society that G. Campbell Morgan said, “The adulterer is the enemy of the state. My personal persuasion is that it is an act of treason to the state to allow adulterers and adulteresses to go free and unpunished. The greatness of a people depends upon the purity and strength of the people, and in every nation where the marriage relation is violated with impunity, the virus of death is surely and certainly at work.”
Immorality in the life of a member of the Church can tarnish the entire work of God. The alarm must be sounded against corruption in the body of Christ. God has promised that judgment must first begin at His house and everyone that names the name of Christ must depart from iniquity.
Thought for the day: Do not be deceived, God still judges sin.
Bible Reading in one Year: Numbers 33-34
DCLM Daily Manna was written by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi; is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church situated at KM 42 on the busy Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Nigeria.
