Post by Cindy on Jun 10, 2015 11:42:07 GMT -5
The Lord showed me much more about idolatry, which I wrote about first in part one of this thread and then in The Downfall of Babylon & The World Today bu now He's shown me yet more about it which I want to share with you. Much of this is from Ezekiel 23. I've already told you how God often refers to idolatry as adultery. He also calls it prostitution. Now most of us would be horrified if our child became a prostitute or was committing adultery for that matter. Yet we do it to our God all the time, just like Israel did. The way we see things like prostitution is the way God feels towards us when we commit the sins of pride, lust, anger, slander, gossip, etc. Let's think for a moment about what prostitution and adultery actually are. In prostitution the person values money so much that they're willing to sell their own bodies to get it. They value money above everything else. Spiritually,it shows that they have a very shallow relationship, if any at all, with God. It's the same as worldliness and carnality - which is basically giving in to the lust of the flesh.
An adulterer is someone who is in a committed relationship, but turns from that person and begins another relationship with them. They begin a relationship with a person who has no right to them, because they're already in a committed relationship. It generally involves lying and covering things up to keep the relationship from their spouse. It's denying all past promises, and rejecting a true love. Physically an adulterer is being unfaithful to their spouse. Spiritually, they're being unfaithful to God by doing things that He has forbidden. Just as a physical adulterer rejects their spouse in favor of someone else, the spiritual adulterer is rejecting God and looking elsewhere for things that only He can supply. Because God sees us as being married or engaged to Him, any sin which causes us to lose our love for God is seen as breaking our marriage vows, or spiritual adultery. Keep in mind however, that when we talk about losing our love for God, we're not talking about the shallow kind the world calls love but the real kind of love that God describes throughout His Word and especially in 1 Corinthians 13. So even a lessening of that kind of love is breaking our marriage vows.
Ezekiel 23 gives us examples of these sins. First it shows us that Israel committed prostitution by looking to other nations for security and fulfillment instead of looking to God. That sin jumped off the page at me right away because it's something we see all the time in a different way. How many women do we know that look to a man for security and fulfillment? How many people do we know who look to their job for security, or their bank account, savings, or retirement account? How many do we know who look to possessions, or some hobby, or alcohol or drugs, for fulfillment? Those are no different then what Israel did! It's either spiritual adultery or prostitution depending on whether their relationship with God was deep or shallow. God has called us to be separate from other people who aren't saved, just as He called Israel. When we do the things that they do, especially for the same reasons, we're committing prostitution or spiritual adultery.
A worldly Christian, is committing adultery for they are looking elsewhere for their security or love, or whatever. Do you remember what His Word says about the world? “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?” (James 4:4–5) Let's look at what some other verses call adultery:
“When you see a thief, you join with him; you throw in your lot with adulterers.” (Psalm 50:18) So committing the sin of stealing is adultery. ““But you—come here, you sons of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes!” (Isaiah 57:3) The sin of dabbling in or practicing the occult is adultery. Speaking of false teachers, Peter said: “With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood!” (2 Peter 2:14) So a false teacher can be an adulterer. There's another verse that may make this a bit more clear: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.” (1 John 2:15–16) Some translations refer to it as "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." That literally covers every kind of sin there is. So all sin is spiritual adultery and idolatry!
Once we have truly been saved, God gives us a new nature and separates us from the world. We are not to be part of it any longer and not to do as the world does, or live like we used to live. Now we are supposed to be living for Christ and only for Him. He is our Master, and we have been bought as His slave. He loves us and makes us His children yes, but we are to be obedient children. Over and over all through the bible we're told to be obedient and shown the price of disobedience. If we are truly saved, we cannot lose our salvation when we sin, but we should know without any doubts, that when we sin, we have hurt our Lord terribly. He loves us more then we can begin to imagine, so He tells us that His love toward us is like that of a husband for a wife. When the wife commits adultery it causes the husband tremendous grief. He knows we understand that, and so will get an inkling of what He feels when we sin against Him. When we grieve the Lord, we are also grieving the Holy Spirit because they are One, and that too is something we're told not to ever do. Besides grieving our God, we also lose the joy of our salvation and our peace with God when we sin. We break the intimacy of our relationship with Him which must be repaired before we can have intimate fellowship with Him again. The only way it can be repaired is through confessing our sin and repenting of it, seeking His forgiveness. When we do that, in His mercy, He forgives us and restores us to good standing with Him again.
It's really no different then when a child misbehaves. Some of the intimacy between the parent and child is broken until the child has repented of their misbehavior. When they do that, then the intimacy and communion between the parent and child is restored. The parent can easily cuddle the child and feel good about giving them a special treat or gift again. The child never stops being a member of the family though and the parent will always be their parent and will always love them, just as we will always be God's child since we've been saved and He will always be our Father. But our communion, peace, and intimacy is broken when we sin and can only be restored by repentance and His forgiveness.
Finally, if we continue and don't repent, although we don't lose our salvation, we will have to face our Lord when we see Him, and know that we have hurt and disappointed Him. I wouldn't want to even contemplate what that might be like! Many people think that when we die or are raptured that there won't be any tears in Heaven from that moment on, but that's not what God's Word says. When He says there will be no more tears or sorrow, He's talking about after the Bema Judgment. Obviously, if someone has disappointed the Lord, they're not going to be all smiles and neither is He. I can't even imagine meeting Him and having Him angry at me! Let's look at a few scriptures that show this truth: “And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.” (1 John 2:28) Obviously this is telling us to be unashamed, therefore it's possible for us to be ashamed.
“In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.” (1 John 4:17) Again we're told that if we are like Him and not like the world, we can be confident that we won't be ashamed before Him, which is what this next one says also. “Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 3:13) This next one takes it further: “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, “He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.”” (Hebrews 10:35–38) This one tells us outright that there are some that our Lord will not be pleased with. “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.” (Philippians 1:20) Here we have even Paul himself saying that he does his best to be sure that Jesus will never have cause to be ashamed of him, so we should do likewise.
So how do we overcome spiritual adultery and idolatry? The whole book of Hosea is about this subject and he tells us in verse 12 what to do about it: “Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you.” (Hosea 10:12) God's Word produces righteousness within us by changing us, changing our lives and giving us a deeper commitment to Him. We are to make a determined effort to draw near to God as He tells us to in James 4:8: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” (James 4:8–10) We're not to sit idly by waiting for God to do something. We're to get into His Word which He says renews our minds so that we are transformed. (Romans 12:2) We're told to work out our salvation in Phil 2:12-13 for that same reason. We can't be saved by our works, and that's not what it's saying. It's saying we're already saved, but that we have to put effort into our salvation and be in His Word and apply it to our life so that we're not hearers of the world only, but doers also. (James 1:22) When Hosea says to break up the unploughed ground, he's talking about our minds and hearts and confessing sin we haven't confessed, and allowing God's Word to renew that area in us. I think one of my commentaries can say it better then I can though so let me end this with it.
In this metaphor, the unploughed ground is afraid of the work God needs to do in it. It is comfortable and does not want to be disturbed. It just lies there, always the same. It enjoys the sunshine of God, but it is hard, barren and fruitless because it is years since the plough has bitten into it. The plough hurts, disturbs, turns over, and digs up things hidden beneath the surface, so it is avoided, as it were, by the ground. This is a picture of the fallow Christian, and God says, ‘… it is time to seek the Lord’ (v. 12). It is time to break up the fallow ground. There is a need to ‘sow for yourself righteousness’. This is not an evangelistic sowing of the Word, but a work needed in the heart of the believer. When God’s Word is sown in our hearts, it produces righteousness—changed lives and deeper commitment. This is how we as Christians are to seek the Lord. It is not an idle waiting for God to do something, but rather a determined effort on our part to draw near to him and to go on doing this ‘until he comes and showers righteousness on you’. Opening up Ezekiel's Visions
An adulterer is someone who is in a committed relationship, but turns from that person and begins another relationship with them. They begin a relationship with a person who has no right to them, because they're already in a committed relationship. It generally involves lying and covering things up to keep the relationship from their spouse. It's denying all past promises, and rejecting a true love. Physically an adulterer is being unfaithful to their spouse. Spiritually, they're being unfaithful to God by doing things that He has forbidden. Just as a physical adulterer rejects their spouse in favor of someone else, the spiritual adulterer is rejecting God and looking elsewhere for things that only He can supply. Because God sees us as being married or engaged to Him, any sin which causes us to lose our love for God is seen as breaking our marriage vows, or spiritual adultery. Keep in mind however, that when we talk about losing our love for God, we're not talking about the shallow kind the world calls love but the real kind of love that God describes throughout His Word and especially in 1 Corinthians 13. So even a lessening of that kind of love is breaking our marriage vows.
Ezekiel 23 gives us examples of these sins. First it shows us that Israel committed prostitution by looking to other nations for security and fulfillment instead of looking to God. That sin jumped off the page at me right away because it's something we see all the time in a different way. How many women do we know that look to a man for security and fulfillment? How many people do we know who look to their job for security, or their bank account, savings, or retirement account? How many do we know who look to possessions, or some hobby, or alcohol or drugs, for fulfillment? Those are no different then what Israel did! It's either spiritual adultery or prostitution depending on whether their relationship with God was deep or shallow. God has called us to be separate from other people who aren't saved, just as He called Israel. When we do the things that they do, especially for the same reasons, we're committing prostitution or spiritual adultery.
A worldly Christian, is committing adultery for they are looking elsewhere for their security or love, or whatever. Do you remember what His Word says about the world? “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?” (James 4:4–5) Let's look at what some other verses call adultery:
“When you see a thief, you join with him; you throw in your lot with adulterers.” (Psalm 50:18) So committing the sin of stealing is adultery. ““But you—come here, you sons of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes!” (Isaiah 57:3) The sin of dabbling in or practicing the occult is adultery. Speaking of false teachers, Peter said: “With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood!” (2 Peter 2:14) So a false teacher can be an adulterer. There's another verse that may make this a bit more clear: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.” (1 John 2:15–16) Some translations refer to it as "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." That literally covers every kind of sin there is. So all sin is spiritual adultery and idolatry!
Once we have truly been saved, God gives us a new nature and separates us from the world. We are not to be part of it any longer and not to do as the world does, or live like we used to live. Now we are supposed to be living for Christ and only for Him. He is our Master, and we have been bought as His slave. He loves us and makes us His children yes, but we are to be obedient children. Over and over all through the bible we're told to be obedient and shown the price of disobedience. If we are truly saved, we cannot lose our salvation when we sin, but we should know without any doubts, that when we sin, we have hurt our Lord terribly. He loves us more then we can begin to imagine, so He tells us that His love toward us is like that of a husband for a wife. When the wife commits adultery it causes the husband tremendous grief. He knows we understand that, and so will get an inkling of what He feels when we sin against Him. When we grieve the Lord, we are also grieving the Holy Spirit because they are One, and that too is something we're told not to ever do. Besides grieving our God, we also lose the joy of our salvation and our peace with God when we sin. We break the intimacy of our relationship with Him which must be repaired before we can have intimate fellowship with Him again. The only way it can be repaired is through confessing our sin and repenting of it, seeking His forgiveness. When we do that, in His mercy, He forgives us and restores us to good standing with Him again.
It's really no different then when a child misbehaves. Some of the intimacy between the parent and child is broken until the child has repented of their misbehavior. When they do that, then the intimacy and communion between the parent and child is restored. The parent can easily cuddle the child and feel good about giving them a special treat or gift again. The child never stops being a member of the family though and the parent will always be their parent and will always love them, just as we will always be God's child since we've been saved and He will always be our Father. But our communion, peace, and intimacy is broken when we sin and can only be restored by repentance and His forgiveness.
Finally, if we continue and don't repent, although we don't lose our salvation, we will have to face our Lord when we see Him, and know that we have hurt and disappointed Him. I wouldn't want to even contemplate what that might be like! Many people think that when we die or are raptured that there won't be any tears in Heaven from that moment on, but that's not what God's Word says. When He says there will be no more tears or sorrow, He's talking about after the Bema Judgment. Obviously, if someone has disappointed the Lord, they're not going to be all smiles and neither is He. I can't even imagine meeting Him and having Him angry at me! Let's look at a few scriptures that show this truth: “And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.” (1 John 2:28) Obviously this is telling us to be unashamed, therefore it's possible for us to be ashamed.
“In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.” (1 John 4:17) Again we're told that if we are like Him and not like the world, we can be confident that we won't be ashamed before Him, which is what this next one says also. “Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 3:13) This next one takes it further: “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, “He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.”” (Hebrews 10:35–38) This one tells us outright that there are some that our Lord will not be pleased with. “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.” (Philippians 1:20) Here we have even Paul himself saying that he does his best to be sure that Jesus will never have cause to be ashamed of him, so we should do likewise.
So how do we overcome spiritual adultery and idolatry? The whole book of Hosea is about this subject and he tells us in verse 12 what to do about it: “Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you.” (Hosea 10:12) God's Word produces righteousness within us by changing us, changing our lives and giving us a deeper commitment to Him. We are to make a determined effort to draw near to God as He tells us to in James 4:8: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” (James 4:8–10) We're not to sit idly by waiting for God to do something. We're to get into His Word which He says renews our minds so that we are transformed. (Romans 12:2) We're told to work out our salvation in Phil 2:12-13 for that same reason. We can't be saved by our works, and that's not what it's saying. It's saying we're already saved, but that we have to put effort into our salvation and be in His Word and apply it to our life so that we're not hearers of the world only, but doers also. (James 1:22) When Hosea says to break up the unploughed ground, he's talking about our minds and hearts and confessing sin we haven't confessed, and allowing God's Word to renew that area in us. I think one of my commentaries can say it better then I can though so let me end this with it.
In this metaphor, the unploughed ground is afraid of the work God needs to do in it. It is comfortable and does not want to be disturbed. It just lies there, always the same. It enjoys the sunshine of God, but it is hard, barren and fruitless because it is years since the plough has bitten into it. The plough hurts, disturbs, turns over, and digs up things hidden beneath the surface, so it is avoided, as it were, by the ground. This is a picture of the fallow Christian, and God says, ‘… it is time to seek the Lord’ (v. 12). It is time to break up the fallow ground. There is a need to ‘sow for yourself righteousness’. This is not an evangelistic sowing of the Word, but a work needed in the heart of the believer. When God’s Word is sown in our hearts, it produces righteousness—changed lives and deeper commitment. This is how we as Christians are to seek the Lord. It is not an idle waiting for God to do something, but rather a determined effort on our part to draw near to him and to go on doing this ‘until he comes and showers righteousness on you’. Opening up Ezekiel's Visions
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