Degenerate Spiritual Harlotry

Ezekiel 16:15-34 

15 "But you trusted in your own beauty, played the harlot because of your fame, and poured out your harlotry on everyone passing by who would have it. 16 You took some of your garments and adorned multicolored high places for yourself, and played the harlot on them. Such things should not happen, nor be. 17 You have also taken your beautiful jewelry from My gold and My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images and played the harlot with them. 18 You took your embroidered garments and covered them, and you set My oil and My incense before them. 19 Also My food which I gave you—the pastry of fine flour, oil, and honey which I fed you—you set it before them as sweet incense; and so it was," says the Lord GOD.

20 "Moreover you took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore to Me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your acts of harlotry a small matter, 21 that you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire? 22 And in all your abominations and acts of harlotry you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, struggling in your blood.

23 "Then it was so, after all your wickedness—'Woe, woe to you!' says the Lord GOD— 24 that you also built for yourself a shrine, and made a high place for yourself in every street. 25 You built your high places at the head of every road, and made your beauty to be abhorred. You offered yourself to everyone who passed by, and multiplied your acts of harlotry. 26 You also committed harlotry with the Egyptians, your very fleshly neighbors, and increased your acts of harlotry to provoke Me to anger.

27 "Behold, therefore, I stretched out My hand against you, diminished your allotment, and gave you up to the will of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior. 28 You also played the harlot with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; indeed you played the harlot with them and still were not satisfied. 29 Moreover you multiplied your acts of harlotry as far as the land of the trader, Chaldea; and even then you were not satisfied.

30 "How degenerate is your heart!" says the Lord GOD, "seeing you do all these things, the deeds of a brazen harlot.

31 "You erected your shrine at the head of every road, and built your high place in every street. Yet you were not like a harlot, because you scorned payment. 32 You are an adulterous wife, who takes strangers instead of her husband. 33 Men make payment to all harlots, but you made your payments to all your lovers, and hired them to come to you from all around for your harlotry. 34 You are the opposite of other women in your harlotry, because no one solicited you to be a harlot. In that you gave payment but no payment was given you, therefore you are the opposite."

Jerusalem’s spiritual harlotry was adulterous against the LORD whom she was joined to in a holy covenant just like marriage, which she violated not for asking money but giving it for her own fleeting pleasure (Hebrews 11:25-26) instead of living according to God’s word in holiness.  They trusted in themselves and what God had given as if it was their own which they developed and deserved in living their own way and for the pride of life (1 John 2:15-16) instead of God’s way.  This made them spiritual (and physical) adulterers who were intimate with every ungodly pursuit of idolatry and immortality that they discovered in those around them who were not His.  They worshiped false gods in the high places where they burned incense and literally fornicated with each other in their adoration of non-existent deities.  They did the opposite of everything the LORD had commanded to please and honor Him.  All the holy provisions and precious things they stripped from God’s house to repurpose for adulterous use as spiritual and physical harlots.  They even offered up their children as sacrifices to these false gods, taking the holy inheritance of God and destroying them with no spiritual return instead, forgetting their birth as a nation of His people who were washed from their blood as babes and weaned in His tender lovingkindness, spilling their blood instead.  This wickedness of immortality and murder of babies was worsened by their idolatry in worshiping others instead of God as the first commandment had made clear in their covenant with the LORD their husband (Isaiah 54:5, Hosea 2:16-17).  These acts of harlotry incensed God’s wrath as they substituted other inferior lovers for the greatest Lover of their souls.  They exchanged the truth and love of God for a lie (Romans 1:25) to earn His wrath of judgment as they broke the covenant and lived in defiance of their God, earning their wages due to them in return (Romans 6:23).  Their hearts became degenerate as brazen harlots without shame or remorse as a result of their defiance.  They even took others instead of the LORD their husband and paid those to violate them instead of enjoying the true pleasure found in their real husband who loved and cared for them as a nation and individually.  Such a waste to throw away true love for fleeting pleasure and empty lives without purpose!  This is what people continue to pursue and do who reject Him still.  May they turn from worshiping false gods and immortality to discover the lover of their souls in Jesus Christ as Lord by faith in following His word for deliverance from the wrath to come!