“What sorrow awaits you, says the Sovereign Lord. In addition to all your other wickedness, you built a pagan shrine and put altars to idols in every town square. On every street corner you defiled your beauty, offering your body to every passerby in an endless stream of prostitution. Then you added lustful Egypt to your lovers, provoking my anger with your increasing promiscuity. That is why I struck you with my fist and reduced your boundaries. I handed you over to your enemies, the Philistines, and even they were shocked by your lewd conduct. You have prostituted yourself with the Assyrians, too. It seems you can never find enough new lovers! And after your prostitution there, you still were not satisfied. You added to your lovers by embracing Babylonia, the land of merchants, but you still weren’t satisfied. [Ezekiel 16.23-29]
I want to be very clear here to point out that all the participants in Israel's wickedness were also Israel's captors. More specifically, the Egyptians, Philistines, Assyrians, and Babylonians all had something to offer Israel initially - whether it was basic food for survival or finery for show or protection from other enemies - and all eventually became slave masters to Israel.
So, what does this mean? It clearly means that anyone who is a follower of God MUST look to Him and Him alone for their most basic needs as well as their abundant blessings. It is unacceptable to God for us to place anyone or anything in the place of Provider over Him. As the Old Testament goes, anyone or anything that we do "idolize" by depending on will become our captor.
Furthermore, to drive His point home, God uses grossly explicit sexual references to describe how He views our dependence upon anyone or anything else besides Him. He describes it as prostitution for financial gain and goes on further to describe it as gross immorality with no monetary exchange. If that weren't enough, God even further describes Israel's promiscuity as lustful indulgence for which they were willing to pay!
Who or what we depend on is our god. The LORD God Almighty takes our misplaced trust very seriously and so should we!
Father, I know I have depended on my job, other people, my own resourcefulness, the economy, and many other things instead of You. Please forgive me for this misplaced trust! Father, I want to look to You alone as my everything!
