You trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passer-by; your beauty became his. You took some of your garments and made for yourself colourful shrines, and on them played the whore. The like has never been, nor ever shall be. You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and with them played the whore. And you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense before them. Also my bread that I gave you—I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey—you set before them for a pleasing aroma; and so it was, declares the Lord GOD. And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them? And in all your abominations and your whorings you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your blood.
Eugene Peterson captures the raw power of Ezekiel’s words. Your beauty went to your head and you became a common whore, grabbing anyone coming down the street and taking him into your bed. You took your fine dresses and made “tents” of them, using them as brothels in which you practiced your trade. This kind of thing should never happen, never.
And then you took all that fine jewellery I gave you, my gold and my silver, and made pornographic images of them for your brothels. You decorated your beds with fashionable silks and cottons, and perfumed them with my aromatic oils and incense. And then you set out the wonderful foods I provided—the fresh breads and fruits, with fine herbs and spices, which were my gifts to you—and you served them as delicacies in your whorehouses. That’s what happened, says GOD, the Master.
And then you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had given birth to as my children, and you killed them, sacrificing them to idols. Wasn’t it bad enough that you had become a whore? And now you’re a murderer, killing my children and sacrificing them to idols.
Such unadorned language is no doubt shocking to some. However, Ezekiel writes in an earthy, pointed, plain fashion. In light of contemporary “entertainment” that floods our living rooms and fills our ears, I doubt that his words are terribly distressing in themselves. Nevertheless, there are undoubtedly individuals that wonder at the language, especially when it is read in a service of worship.
Perhaps it is because we have a paucity of prophetic preaching that unvarnished language shocks sensibilities and grates on our ears. Perhaps it is because the pulpit ministry has become a caricature of biblical teaching that strong words appal. Whatever the reason for being startled by the clear words of Scripture, God delivers a pointed warning to the people bearing His Name through Ezekiel’s cutting words. We will do well to hear what Ezekiel is saying and to take heed to his words.
Whereas the writers of the Old Testament speak of “playing the whore” or speak of “whoring” over one hundred times, Ezekiel is especially unrelenting and incessant in applying this opprobrium to Israel. Thirty-one times in the Book that bears his name, thirteen times in this immediate chapter before us today, the prophet accuses God’s holy people of “playing the whore.” He was unhesitating in describing their unfaithfulness to God as “whoring.” Perhaps if our nation had had such a plainspoken prophet in years gone by, we would not witness the descent into the unrighteousness that marks us as a nation today. Perhaps it is not too late to be confronted by the divine call to righteousness. Perhaps some will hear what God says through His prophet.
Ezekiel is addressing Israel. He addresses the nation as though she were a beautiful woman. The prophet tells how God passed by and saw her when she was but an infant—a newborn exposed to die; but God intervened and commanded life for her. The nation grew and prospered, and God saw that she had become a beautiful young woman. He bathed her, clothed her, and adorned her with gold and with jewels. God fed her and fêted her, and she became a beautiful young woman—a princess.
However, Israel, depending upon her beauty alone, forgot God’s mercies and also forgot her own dysfunctional roots. The words of the wise man could have readily been applied to the nation at the time Ezekiel confronted the wayward people.
Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout
is a beautiful woman without discretion.
[PROVERBS 11:22]
Indeed, Israel was without discretion; she was not chaste. She began to lavish her love on strangers. Her beauty became an instrument of wickedness used to allure others into deep immorality. Her jewels and precious metals were spent for idolatrous purposes, and even her food was used to entice others to join her in her immorality.
Were all this immorality somehow insufficient to merit God’s wrath, she did one thing further that God found abhorrent. She sacrificed her children for her own pleasure. She slaughtered her own babies, even burning them as offerings to her own perverted wickedness. In all this, Israel did not remember when she was nothing, threatened with death in her weakness and in her powerless state.
Perhaps Canadians will do well to consider that God’s condemnation of ancient Israel could apply equally to us. We have enjoyed God’s richest blessings, and we have utterly prostituted His grace and goodness. Consider, then, the Word of God.
It is “Right to Life” Sunday throughout North America. The churches of the United States and Canada, especially the evangelical churches, hold this Sunday as a day to contemplate the precious nature of human life and to remember the teaching of the Word of God concerning the way in which we are to view human life. In light of our propensity to rid ourselves of inconvenience through killing the elderly, the sick, the unborn, we will do well to think of God’s wrath displayed against spiritual whores.
THE NATION WAS RUSHING INTO IDOLATRY — Ezekiel condemns Israel for acting like a whore. The charge arises from idolatry that had so thoroughly infiltrated the nation that even the religious leaders were unaware of what was happening. They were worshipping success and the “good life” instead of looking to the Living God.
Throughout the wilderness wanderings, Moses warned Israel against deserting the Faith of the Living God. When Israel was being readied to enter into the Promised Land, Moses warned them not to forget God. The passage recording Moses’ words is somewhat extended, but it is worth reading in its entirety.
Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.” You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God [DEUTERONOMY 8:11-20].
Superficially, it seems almost impossible that people who had witnessed God’s mighty deliverance would ever forget Him. Israel had witnessed unimaginable power exercised on their behalf. They had seen the world’s sole superpower divinely defeated. They had been supernaturally fed in the wilderness and experienced such divine provision that even their shoes and clothing did not wear out. However, surfeited by God’s goodness, people tend to become complacent and presume against grace.
As Moses delivered one of his final prophecies to the people he had led through the wilderness, he included the warning that follows.
Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked;
you grew fat, stout, and sleek;
then he forsook God who made him
and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods;
with abominations they provoked him to anger.
They sacrificed to demons that were no gods,
to gods they had never known,
to new gods that had come recently,
whom your fathers had never dreaded.
You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you,
and you forgot the God who gave you birth.
[DEUTERONOMY 32:15-18]
The people of God had witnessed God’s goodness; they had seen His power revealed for their benefit. They had been divinely protected against assault by enemies. Despite this divine favour, they began to trust in their beauty and renown instead of looking to the God who had protected them throughout the years of their existence.
Israel forsook God; they forgot the Lord. What does it mean to “forget God?” When we are no longer thankful, we have forgotten God [e.g. ROMANS 1:21]. When our gifts fail to honour Him as the Giver of every good and every perfect gift [e.g. JAMES 1:17], we have forgotten God. When we no longer pause to remember that even the appetite to enjoy the bounty produced by the land is by His mercy, we have forgotten God. When we live day-after-day without prayer, without hearing the voice of the Risen Son of God through reading the Word, we have forgotten God.
To forget God is to attempt to live as though we are at the centre of our universe. To forget God is to devalue the church that He purchased with His own blood—to take it or leave it, as though membership in this divine Body was optional. To forget God is to cease living radically—to cease living with radical hope, to cease living with radical love, to cease living with a radical zest for life. To forget God is to cower before evil, living as though we were no longer invincible before evil, as we actually are in Christ the Lord. To forget God is to permit our love of ease to supplant our love of righteousness.
If, on the Lord’s Day, I discover that I prefer sleeping in to worshipping the Son of God, I have forgotten God. If I no longer thrill at the thought that I am permitted to serve Christ, instead complaining that worship is a chore, I have forgotten God. If my personal comfort is of greater importance than is the service Christ has appointed to me, I have forgotten God. All these are general statements, but because it is “Right to Life” Sunday, I want to be even more precise in my warning to the people of God.
When I depreciate human life, I have forgotten God. When I argue that it is a woman’s right to abort the child God has given her to protect, I have forgotten God. At that moment, I have shoved my own convenience to the forefront of life, displacing the Son of God. When I insist that the elderly have a duty to die, when I insist that there exists an inherent right to end my own life, I have forgotten God. When I think of children as an inconvenience, treating them disrespectfully, I have forgotten God. When I fail to treat the elderly with respect, I have forgotten God.
IDOLATRY DECEIVED ISRAEL INTO THINKING THAT THE GOOD TIMES WOULD NEVER END — You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and with them played the whore. And you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense before them. Also my bread that I gave you—I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey—you set before them for a pleasing aroma; and so it was, declares the Lord GOD.
Our world is indisputably anthropocentric. Modern man no longer views himself as a seneschal caring for the Creation of the Lord our God, if ever he did so, but rather the modern iteration transmogrifies man—tacitly or otherwise—into the lord of his own manor, answering to no one save for himself. It should not be surprising that the individual, reflecting the society in which he lives, with the full expectation and encouragement of that same society, is firmly ensconced on the throne of his own life.
Terrible as it is that an individual should live as though the will of God is unimportant, greater still is the tragedy when he deceives himself to accept error that is even more dangerous. We begin to think that the blessings of God are our due; and soon, we pervert His goodness. What is good is degraded into what we want. “I want” becomes the defining philosophy of life, and the fulfillment of immediate desire becomes the “summum bonum” of life. Isaiah confronted Israel with just such wickedness.
I will make boys their princes,
and infants shall rule over them.
And the people will oppress one another,
every one his fellow
and every one his neighbour;
the youth will be insolent to the elder,
and the despised to the honourable.
My people—infants are their oppressors,
and women rule over them.
[ISAIAH 3:4, 5, 12]
Ruled by infantile leaders—politicians instead of statesmen—society was increasingly transformed. Masculinity was depreciated and society was feminised. Individual rights were exalted over community rights and individual responsibility. Biting sarcasm and disrespect for the elderly increasingly marked society at the time Isaiah wrote. What was most tragic about this situation was that the people were too spiritually obtuse to realise that their social condition was actually evidence of Divine judgement.
The conditions prevailing when Isaiah wrote mirror conditions in our own society. The present generation of decision makers may well represent one of the most self-centred generations to ever walk the face of the earth. We think it shows our moral superiority and tolerance to advocate the moral equivalence of every religion, and so we witness a growing number of politicians who argue that Muslim terrorists are morally equivalent to Christians witnessing to divine mercy and grace. Our leaders murmur meaningless expressions of personal distress when Hindu extremists murder Christians and burn church buildings, or when masked Islamofascists behead Christian schoolgirls, or when Communists dictators imprison Christians because they dare worship the Son of God. It is as if the primary concern of national leaders is to avoid personal discomfort arising through confronting evil.
Our society suppresses masculine traits that should be honoured in men—courtesy, courage, veracity and gentleness, even as we indoctrinate men in feminine attitudes, and we wonder why young men try to prove their masculinity through gangs. We stifle masculine inquisitiveness so that women won’t feel threatened by the robust play of boys, and we wonder why young men are loathe to commit to family when they grow to manhood. We deride feminine modesty and tell our young women that they can act “just like men,” and we wonder at the phenomenon of babies having babies. We turn sexual degradation into entertainment and marvel at the plague of assault against women, to say nothing of the virtual epidemic of female teachers sexually assaulting boys. We laugh at cutting and biting sarcasm and then deplore the rudeness even of social doyens.
Our worlds revolve around our desires—we live for what we want, when we want it, without consideration of others. We trained our youth to believe they descended from beasts; so, increasingly society is brutish and boorish. We taught our young women that they control their own bodies and that personal convenience is the most important issue of all life; and thus, abortions outnumber births as those young women increasingly choose to participate in the wholesale slaughter of their own offspring.
The Law of Unintended Consequences reminds us that there are often unforeseen and unanticipated consequences that result from the most well-meaning actions. Despite cautionary statements from thoughtful individuals, social engineers redefine social institutions and seek to change accepted behaviour. The surprises that attend social tampering are not always pleasant.
Perhaps it seems compassionate to help the chrysalis from the cocoon, but the emergent butterfly will never fly. The struggle to emerge is necessary to develop the wings. That creature will crawl around in the dust and ultimately die without fulfilling the role for which it was created. Similarly, when we deliberately violate the instructions of Holy God, good cannot come to us. Instead, we pay an awful price in loss of freedom.
Well-meaning social engineers assured us that no-fault divorce would make stronger families since those who did not wish to be married could be freed without rancour or bitterness. Today, we have more single-parent families than ever before and we witness what must be the most neurotic generation ever.
We were assured that if only our children were instructed in the mysteries of sex, without imposing moral judgement, they would be protected from sexual exploration. Today, we have more unwed mothers than ever before. The incidence of sexually transmitted diseases is at epidemic proportions. And studies suggest that over one-half of secondary students are sexually active, many practising unprotected sex.
I watch with amazement as those same social engineers and their disciples change the definitions of marriage so that men can “marry” men and women can “marry” women. These efforts justify the alarm that attended publication of George Orwell’s seminal work, “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” All the while we are being assured by those who have broken the boundaries of decency that this is all the further down the slope into cultural irrelevance we will travel; but already we hear voices clamouring for the legalisation of paedophilia, bestiality, polygamy and polyandry. The inevitable result of this well-intentioned foray into redefinition of goodness and decency can only result in transformation of all society. The consequences, if the observations of history mean anything, cannot bode well for continuation of the Western world.
We were promised that if only we approved of abortion on demand that there would be no unwanted children. There are more latchkey children today—children abused through neglect and left to their own devices—than anyone could have imagined in 1973. The response of governments to the increase in youth crime was to make laws requiring the courts to go “light” on juvenile offenders. The consequence of this action is more youth imprisoned than ever before and a growing incidence of violent crime.
There is genuine and growing fear that ageing adults will no longer be supported by a dying population. The possibility of continued expansion of the social programs put in place over the past five decades is utterly dependent upon immigration because we now have negative growth in native-born western populations. None of the social sages of the sixties seem to have foreseen the possibility that without birthrates that would at the least maintain the population, the requirements for medical care and senior care would outstrip the ability to provide what has become expected as our due.
One of my favourite commentators is Mark Steyn. In a recent editorial, he writes, “The latter half of the decline and fall of great civilizations follows a familiar pattern: affluence, softness, decadence, extinction. You don’t notice yourself slipping through those stages because usually there’s a seductive pol on hand to provide the age with a sly, self-deluding slogan—like Bill Clinton’s ‘It’s about the future of all our children.’ We on the right spent the 1990s gleefully mocking Mr. Clinton’s tedious invocation, drizzled like syrup over everything from the Kosovo war to highway appropriations. But most of the rest of the West can’t even steal his lame bromides: A society that has no children has no future.”
The largest cities in Canada are experiencing waves of violent crime, including murder, and the response of governments is to fumble through increasing restrictions on personal freedoms. Politicians and learned jurists got us into this mess. Why should we imagine that they will get us out of the mess? Our children grow to adult years knowing that they are survivors. Why should they feel responsibility either for the lives of others, for the lives of the elderly, or even for the lives of their own babies? We trained them to be self-centred—consumed with their own interest. They are our own creations. If they are inconsiderate and even cruel, we created them to act thusly. We taught them that the good times would never end and that they are at the centre of the universe.
FOCUSED ON THE GOOD TIMES, THE VULNERABLE BECAME EXPENDABLE — Truth matters. As Christians, we do not treat the vulnerable of this broken world with compassion and consideration because we anticipate a good return on our investment of time and moneys; we are compassion because it is right. My stepbrother is wounded in his mind; he is a Downs Syndrome child. He will never be “valuable” according to a cost-benefit analysis. His care costs the State of Kansas a great deal of money annually.
I spoke with Jim by phone this past month; he and my mother had phoned to wish me a happy birthday. I had just read a commentary by Charles Colson that morning, and as we spoke, I thought of Colson’s reflections on Professor Peter Singer, the renowned post-modern ethicist from Princeton University. Singer’s argument is that societies ought to spend their resources creating the maximum happiness for the greatest number. His argument would lead his disciples to think about how many starving children we could feed for the cost of Jimmy’s care.
The argument sounds logical, even reasonable; and it is dangerous in the extreme. In fact, Peter Singer and a growing number of people argue against letting people like Jimmy come into the world. The argument has infiltrated our culture until without thinking we imagine that murder of the unborn is merciful. The overwhelming majority of parents learning that their unborn children have a disability end up aborting them. Peter Singer takes that argument a step further, arguing that it is ethical to kill such children after they’re born. Thus, the modern argument is, “why should efforts such as the Shepherd’s Home, where Jimmy lives, or taking care of the elderly, or showing mercy to the infirm, continue if it’s in our power to make it unnecessary?”
Those who say “yes” to Jimmy now and in the future can reason only on the basis of something completely other than a cost-benefit analysis. In a strictly utilitarian accounting, Jimmy’s life is meaningless. Jimmy brings joy to those who know him. His brokenness is not good—its part of this fallen world’s broken condition—nevertheless, Jimmy’s brokenness serves to bring joy to those willing to care for him.
The good life is not about the sum total of what we contribute to the world, nor is it about what we receive from others—it is about loving. Utilitarianism knows nothing about love, as Peter Singer discovered when he found himself lavishing money and care on his mother who was stricken with Alzheimer’s.
We are made in the image of God. Though it is difficult to comprehend, when we reject those who are hurt and when we focus solely or even primarily on how we feel, we become idolaters. To slaughter the unborn, to discard the elderly, to cease being concerned for the vulnerable, is to deny that we are created in the image of God—it is to reject God’s good gift of life even as we attempt to elevate ourselves to the level of gods. Thus, we become spiritual whores. The nation that worships its own convenience, exalting convenience above responsibility and compassion, is guilty of spiritual whoredom, and that whoredom will inevitably lead to disregard for human life.
The stern confrontation with divine wrath of which Ezekiel warned Israel is a warning that could readily apply to modern Canada. Listen to Ezekiel’s frightful words. You took your sons and your daughters, whom you had given birth to as my children, and you killed them, sacrificing them to idols. Wasn’t it bad enough that you had become a whore? And now you’re a murderer, killing my children and sacrificing them to idols [EZEKIEL 16:20, 21].
If I am silent in the face of depreciation of life—whether depreciation through approval of murder of the unborn, through approval of euthanasia, or even through showing disrespect for the elderly and the handicapped—I am guilty of worshipping my own convenience. It is not necessary to work in an abortuary to share in the guilt of abortion. All I need do is be apathetic, giving tacit approval through murmuring that it is not my business whether babies are murdered or not. I need not inject potassium chloride into the veins of an elderly person to share in the guilt of euthanasia. All I need do is be disrespectful or register irritation at the inconvenience they impose on me, in order to contribute to the culture of death.
I am aware that pastoral perception and congregational views can differ significantly. Pastors typically have a much higher opinion of the spiritual condition of their congregations than do the congregants. I take note of this because I am concerned that the state of our nation betrays a woeful dearth of Christians that serve as salt and as light. The problem is not that we live in a godless nation; the problem is that we who name the Name of Jesus Christ are participants in the idolatry of the nation.
We are quick to condemn activist courts and sycophant politicians who have morphed into social gophers, sticking their heads out of subterranean caverns to see which way the wind is blowing before speaking. However, we Christians fail to live vigorously holy lives that would transform our own world. Our workplaces continue operating without the salt of righteousness because of our silence. We are the problem.
Instead of inconveniencing ourselves for the vulnerable, we continue to live as though the good times will never end. When judgement comes, and judgement always comes to the wicked, we will find a way to explain what is happening. Jeremiah addressed the cavalier attitude of Israel when they were judged so many years ago.
The showers have been withheld,
and the spring rain has not come;
yet you have the forehead of a whore;
you refuse to be ashamed.
[JEREMIAH 3:3]
That condemnation could well apply to us who call ourselves Christians, if we don’t take responsibility for our own conduct now.
Obviously, we cannot do anything about the state of righteousness until we ourselves are righteous. You cannot make yourself righteous. You must be made righteous through the work of God. That work begins when the Son of God sets you free from condemnation. This is the Word of God.
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved… For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” [ROMANS 10:9, 10, 13].
If you are unsaved, believe this Word of grace and be saved today. If you are saved, turn away from pursuing your own interests and seek the righteousness that reflects the divine parentage you profess. Let the Son of God work in our midst. Amen.
