God Disciplines Spiritual Adultery - Ezekiel 13-18

Ezekiel 16:26-34 (ESV Strong's)
26 You also played the whore with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, multiplying your whoring, to provoke me to anger. 27 Behold, therefore, I stretched out my hand against you and diminished your allotted portion and delivered you to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior. 28 You played the whore also with the Assyrians, because you were not satisfied; yes, you played the whore with them, and still you were not satisfied. 29 You multiplied your whoring also with the trading land of Chaldea, and even with this you were not satisfied.
30 “How sick is your heart, declares the Lord GOD, because you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen prostitute, 31 building your vaulted chamber at the head of every street, and making your lofty place in every square. Yet you were not like a prostitute, because you scorned payment. 32 Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! 33 Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side with your whorings. 34 So you were different from other women in your whorings. No one solicited you to play the whore, and you gave payment, while no payment was given to you; therefore you were different.

God Disciplines Spiritual Adultery

In the above passage, Ezekiel is completing the thoughts established in the preceding verses.  He has outlined the fact that Israel, as a nation, has establish idols and worshipped those idols, contrary to God their Father, who birthed them and made them His bride.   The Prophet goes on to tell the nation how God feels about them seeking glory and relationships with the countries around them (those countries were also idol worshipers).   In verse 30, above, we read God’s condemning words:

30 “How sick is your heart, declares the Lord GOD, because you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen prostitute,

Idolatry is a sickness of the heart. It is sin, but it is a sin that God abhors because it places the idol before God, Himself.  When we sin, by worshipping idols, (money, self, spouses, children, careers, power, etc), we are like the nation of Israel and we commit spiritual adulatory.    Israel didn’t act like a prostitute, who sells herself for money.  Israel was an adulterous woman who sought out lovers, other than God, Himself.   When we go and pursue sin and worship the creation rather than the Creator we do the same things.  God hates idolatry.   We often worship our own needs before we obey God and that is the essence of idolatry.    We should note, that as God displaces Israel for their spiritual adulatory, so, too, will He discipline today’s believer.