prostitution

2 Samuel 16, Ezekiel 23

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Rumble | YouTube | SermonAudio | Calvary Bible Church

Read 2 Samuel 16 and Ezekiel 23.

This devotional is about Ezekiel 23.

Societies do not look kindly on prostitutes. Some women are forced into prostitution against their will due to economic hardship or threats of violence or through slavery. If we knew their stories, we might look on them more kindly on these women and put more shame on the men who hire them. The reasons, however, do not justify prostitution and it is wicked in God’s sight.

In this chapter God compared Israel, represented by Samaria (v. 4d), and Judah, represented by Jerusalem (v. 4d) as prostitutes. Their idolatry is compared to prostitution in the sense that they desired and gave themselves to other gods instead of to the God of their covenant (v. 49). God explained and defended the judgment that Israel received from the Assyrians and the judgment that would come to the Judeans as the consequences of their unfaithfulness to him. The logic of this passage goes like this: “You want to give yourself to the gods of the Assyrians? I’ll marry you to the Assyrians in every way.”

The purpose of this passage is to teach us to empathize with God. God loves his people and married himself to them by a covenant. Instead of wanting God as much as God wanted them, Israel and Judah pined for others. If your spouse did that to you, you would be hurt; it would also arouse in you deep feelings of anger and betrayal. You’d feel this way both toward your spouse who wanted someone else and the person that he or she wanted instead of you.

This is how God feels when we love material things more than we love him. It’s how he feels when entertainment is more appealing to us than worship. It describes the pain he experiences when being accepted in society matters more to us than ordering our lives by his commands. James 4:4 uses this very language to warn us: “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”

In Christ, there is hope for our adulterous hearts. James 4:6-10 says, “But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: ‘God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.’ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

This is what we need when our hearts are captivated by other things more than God. We need to humble ourselves and ask for his forgiveness and deliverance. If you find yourself valuing other things above your walk with God, let this passage help you understand why God responds the way he does. He is jealous for you (v. 25) and wants you back.

Joshua 2, Isaiah 62

by

Rumble | YouTube | SermonAudio | Calvary Bible Church

Read Joshua 2 and Isaiah 62.

This devotional is about Joshua 2

Prostitution is always a sin. Always.

In biblical times, however, some women had few other choices. If a girl’s father died before she was given in marriage or a woman’s husband died or divorced her and she was not able to remarry, she may very well have felt it was her only other choice besides starvation.* Without knowing God and his commands, a Gentile like Rahab may have felt that prostitution was her only option.

Yet Rahab, the prostitute, had extraordinary faith. She had more faith than the generation of Israelites who died in the desert and more than her fellow citizens in Jericho. She heard about what God had done for Israel and she believed (vv. 9-13). Her faith was so strong that she was willing to put her neck on the line for Israel’s spies (vv. 4-7, 15). God rewarded her faith not only by saving her life (next chapter) but also by including her in the ancestral line of Jesus Messiah (Matt 1:5a).

One lesson here is that God saves sinners. You knew that, and so did I, but we are more comfortable seeing that truth applied to “respectable sins” not stigmatic sins like prostitution. While some sins are more acceptable to us than other sins are, they are all wicked in God’s sight and deserving of divine punishment. It is no more difficult for God to save a prostitute than it is for him to save an idolator, a drunk, or someone eaten alive by envy. In fact, because we tend to look down on sins like prostitution, God’s great mercy causes him to save more of “those type of people” than others who are more accepted and acceptable to us.

Keep this in mind when you meet someone who seems like a hardened sinner. It may seem to you like a waste of time to share the gospel with someone like that but people “like that” are eternal souls who will spend eternity somewhere. Given that God can save anyone and likes to choose those who are disfavored in human society, you may find more success reaching out to drug dealers, pimps, and prostitutes. Don’t censor (or silence) yourself just because you have already decided whether or not God would “bother” saving that person. Instead, look for people who are caught in sin and seek to introduce them to Jesus.

*This, by the way, is why polygamy was allowed in the Old Testament. Men died in war or farming accidents or just because women live longer so there were always more eligible women around than bachelors who could marry them. Commanding a man’s brother to marry his widowed sister-in-law or having her marry another man is a better option than starvation or prostitution. Still, the faith of Ruth and the command to allow gleaners which God used to sustain her and Naomi demonstates that there were more options for women than prostitution.