THE DAY OF VISITATION
Ezekiel 16
Did you know that the Lord has a visitation program? He comes visiting and He does not call before He comes. Have you ever had someone to knock on your door and you were not prepared for company?
How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses.
They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbour’s wife.
Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
Jeremiah 5:7-9
The beautiful woman has had her day in the world and now it’s the Lord’s turn! He had visited her and found her in sin.
Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of thy lewd way.
Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied.
Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto
Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith.Ezekiel 16:27-29
He stretched out His hand over her and diminished her ordinary food. The Lord always begins correction by taking away our comfort. He also delivered her into the ‘will’ of those that hate her! Do you want to live in the world? The Lord will turn you over to them and I promise you, they do not like you! You will come to hate them and they will come to hate you. The world will not and cannot satisfy!!! Whatever your reason or need is for turning to sin, your sin will not meet that need. The first thing a sinner comes to realize, is that he is no longer satisfied! What he thought he just had to have, did not do for him what he thought it would do. If that doesn’t cause a sinner to return, then the sinner begins trying to get everyone to agree with their sin. People want to live an abnormal life and still be respected as normal!!! Today, we have a group of people trying to pass laws that would make their way of life normal. They want to live in their lifestyle, but they will not be happy until they can make us accept it as normal. They do have a problem, but the solution is to return to normal. If your life does not satisfy you today, it is because you are living it outside of God’s provisions. Changing God’s laws will not change your dilemma.
A Christian’s response is different from the world’s response when they go into sin. A whore would expect to get paid for her service, where this woman paid her lovers to come to her. Why was this? Because this woman had the Spirit of the Lord living in her and the world does not want to be around the Spirit of the Lord. We are invading their territory when we come into the world’s domain. This woman had to SPEND her life and it cost her greatly. We have to bribe the world in order to join them in sin. We act contrary to nature and look more ridiculous than the heathen. It’s just downright stupid to leave the beauty and the benefits of the Lord for the world. How do we get trapped into this? By deception.
WEAK HEART
How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord GOD, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman;
Ezekiel 16:30
What is the result of this woman’s life? A weak heart! This is the best way to have a spiritual heart attack. In verse 33 the Lord now calls her a HARLOT! Her name had changed! In verse 37 the Lord was going to let her lovers see her nakedness. Nakedness is a shame! If you take a good look at the women in America today, you will know where we are as a nation. The Lord had revealed their nakedness to the whole world. This nakedness does not make the world desire us, it makes the world hate us. They will stone us, they will thrust us through with swords, they will burn our houses with fire and execute judgments upon us in the sight of other nations. What is the Lord’s motivation for allowing the enemy to treat her this way? He is causing her to cease from this way of life. The Lord returns our own way upon our heads in order to chase us back to Him where life is found. He corrects us because He loves us!!!
The next part is what is so awesome about our God! When we cease from our sin, His fury is put to rest. His jealousy departs from us and He becomes quiet and is no longer angry! Now when we stir up the man in our live, it is not that simple for him to put it aside. Sometimes it takes a great work of patience and proving, before a man will lay our short comings aside and stop bringing them up every time we do something. God is not man! God doesn’t have sin in his life to deal with like the man does. The man has to ask himself, “Did I do something to cause this?” The man has to deal with all the sin that was stirred up in his life because of the sin of his wife. It takes a great work to put man and woman together again, but God, being perfect, is already prepared to forget it when we return to Him with all our hearts. We serve an awesome God!!! Satan will tell us it can never be the same once we have sinned, but he is so wrong. With God, all things are possible!
AS IS THE MOTHER, SO IS HER DAUGHTER
The world always has something to say about those who claim the name of Christ and yet live like the world. This proverb was the reproach she would have to bear. Her mother was a Hittite and her father was an Amorite. Her elder sister was Samaria and her younger sister was Sodom! She had quite a family and the world said even though the Lord was her husband she was no different than they were. One of the things this woman did, when she was living in peace, was to judge her sisters and not to pray for them. Her PRIDE caused her not to be compassionate to those outside of her life. What degree of compassion do we have for the lost? Pride and a lack of compassion was a big part of her downfall.
This woman despised her oath and broke her covenant with her Husband, YET He remembered His covenant in the days of her youth and established an everlasting covenant with her. In doing so, she remembered her ways and she was ashamed WHEN she received her sisters. She remembered and was confounded and NEVER opened her mouth again about her shame. The Lord was pacified toward her and they didn’t talk about it anymore!!! She had returned with heart and soul.
And I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am
the LORD:That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am p
acified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord GOD.Ezekiel 16:62-63
This chapter should be every woman’s daily meditation. It tells the whole story of life. We all fit somewhere in this chapter. Where are you today in this chapter? Have you just realized that you are alive because the Lord said LIVE? Have you just entered into covenant and have become the bride of Christ? Is the Lord washing you up? Has He already made you beautiful? Are you being unfaithful to this wonderful Lord? Are you being corrected and suffering pain at this moment? Maybe you have just returned and are enjoying fellowship with the Lord once again. Wherever you are, if you are near the Lord, you are beautiful!!! Make this relationship the most important relationship in your life and every other relationship will take care of itself!
….Gloria Brewster