Hooked and a Hooker
Today's Three-minute Bible Study
Print, Study and Apply
Title:
Hooked and a Hooker -------------------------------- Date: 2/22/2000
Keywords:
"idolatry" "lust" "prostitution"
Welcome to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand
strong in the face of sexual temptation.
Note: this is the second in
a three-part series of studies in Ezekiel 23. If you're just now coming in, you might want
to start with the February 21 study to get the background.
Passage: Ezekiel 23:5-10*
5. Oholah engaged in prostitution while she was still mine; and she
lusted after her lovers, the Assyrians -- warriors
6. clothed in blue, governors and commanders, all of them handsome
young men, and mounted horsemen.
7. She gave herself as a prostitute to all the elite of the
Assyrians and defiled herself with all the idols of everyone she lusted after.
8. She did not give up the prostitution she began in Egypt, when
during her youth men slept with her, caressed her virgin bosom and poured out their lust
upon her.
9. Therefore I handed her over to her lovers, the Assyrians, for
whom she lusted.
10. They stripped her naked, took away her sons and daughters and
killed her with the sword. She became a byword among women, and punishment was inflicted
on her.
Questions
1. Does the figurative prostitution spoken of in
verse 5. end the relationship of the prostitute (Israel) to her rightful husband (God)?
2. Are the patterns learned in youth easy or hard
to break (see verse 8.)?
Practical help
You may find it hard to give up porn for many reasons. Maybe you've
been doing it for too long, and you can't imagine life without it. Maybe you think there's
a void in your life that's impossible to fill without it. Maybe you haven't caught on to
the fact that it's a deplorable habit -- as nasty as prostitution. Prostitutes is what God
called his people, when they lost sight of him and started depending on earthly kingdoms
for protection. And prostitution is what we could call pornographic addiction, when we
stop depending on God to meet our needs and start looking for easy sexual titillation.
Yes, if porn is your struggle, it is a serious business. Just as for the prostitute in
verse 10. above, the fate of the porn addict is death. Not to say that physical death
lurks around the corner, but that the spiritual death that is distance from God is a real
consequence of such sin.
This isn't intended to be just a three-minute bummer. There is hope. Even in Israel's
death, which was the real counterpart of the allegory above, there was rebirth and
salvation for the remnant. There is hope for you too, if you're willing to accept it. It
is only found in Christ Jesus, by whose power we can hope to become "like him in his
death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." (Philippians
3:10-11). If this hope is for you click here.
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*Scriptures are from The Holy Bible: New International Version © Copyright 1973,
1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved.