February 11, 2013 – Ezekiel 23

Very erotic images of the two sisters. This represents Israel and Judah. Israel is taken into exile and instead of turning to God, Judah turns all the more to other nations, is more adulterous than its sister. I guess you could wonder why god used such erotic images to set the stage for His message, but when you think about our world today, the idea that sex sells is very obvious. God using this type of graphic imagery just shows that He wanted the attention of those listening and He wants our attention. He wants to make it clear that seeking something or someone that is not Him is only going to lead you astray. He is telling us that it has been done many times before, it will continue to happen, but we are called to be with Him and Him alone and any “prostituting” of ourselves will lead us to exactly what we want. God gave Israel and Judah what they wanted. They wanted to be like and with the other nations, God made it happen.

I think there is also a lesson about going back to our sins we have left behind. God uses Egypt to show that Judah fell back to old ways. God wants us to change and come to Him and He wants us to know that when we leave that old way of life behind, it will not give up on us so easily. It will try everything it can to pull us back in and make us fall.