August 17

Ezekiel 16
The ladies of the night were across the street. They were frequently there when we picked up our newspapers. Usually they left us alone, but one night the truck was just a little bit late. Everyone was sitting around waiting and talking, and it attracted the night girl’s attention. One of them wandered over and then the truck came. She watched as all the paper bundles were being tossed out the back of the truck. “Whatcha doing?” she called out.
One of us replied, “We’re working.”
“Working?” she queried, “Oh well I work too. I am just a working girl also.” Each time she put her emphasis on “work.”
“Yeah, well we do a different type of work,” another replied.
“Oh I just wanted you to know that I’m a working girl also.”
By that time I had found my bundles of newspapers and had thrown them in my T-1000, and I drove off.
I never have quite understood the emotional desperation that would drive a woman to sell herself on the street, but obviously it is a very real desperation. It has been called, “the world’s oldest profession.” Then there are those women who sell themselves for the hope of being loved, usually only finding that instead of being loved, they are just used. I understand that everyone has a deep God-given drive to feel loved. It is just that sex alone does not provide love, so to give oneself sexually in exchange for love usually leads to bitter disappointment.
But every time that I read this parable, I am once again struck by the depravity that the Lord attributes to Judah. She does not sell herself to her partners; she pays them to have sex with her. She does this after having been provided with everything she could want for life and love. What kind of desperation is going on here? Yet it is a desperation that describes the spiritual desperation of every human who has ever lived except for the Lord Jesus.
Then I find an even more amazing thing in this parable
60“Nevertheless I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. . . . 63bwhen I provide you an atonement for all you have done,” says the Lord GOD.’ ”
As desperate as we are to find love in a person other than the Lord, He still desires that we should return to Him and to find our love only in Him. What a wondrous love is this! Why are we so desperate to turn our backs on Him? What an encouragement it is to us to receive this love and live in it! Indeed, we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john