Committing Adultery with Stones and Trees (8/7)

Thought from today’s Bible reading from Jeremiah 1-3.

Judgment was coming against the people of Judah for their infidelity. Though they should have learned from the mistakes of their brethren in Israel, they ignored their sins and God’s punishment for them and continued along the same path.

And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also. Because of the lightness of her harlotries, she polluted the land and committed adultery with stones and trees” (Jeremiah 3:8-9).

Idolatry to God is spiritual adultery. While the people Jeremiah addressed generally served graven images, there are many different things that can be made into idols that we must guard ourselves against today (1 John 5:21). Any idol, when reduced to its most basic form, is something common and ordinary (“stones and trees“). It is something that has been created by God.

This is why spiritual adultery is so bad. When a married person commits adultery against his spouse, he is committing adultery with one who is comparable to the one he is committing adultery against. That does not mean that his mistress will be comparable in virtue or godliness to his wife, just that both are women. But when one commits spiritual adultery against God, he is not going after one who is in any way comparable with God. Instead, he is devoting himself to something that is common, ordinary, and that only exists because it was created by God.

If we are unfaithful to God and choose to serve another “god,” we have sinned in the same manner as those mentioned by Paul – they “worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25).

Let us not allow the things which God has made to compete with Him for our allegiance and devotion. Instead, let us serve the Lord wholly and exclusively.

Tomorrow’s reading: Jeremiah 4-6

[I’m using the Chronological reading plan on the Bible Gateway website if you’d like to follow along, too.]


Daily Notes & Observations contains all 365 articles from this series and is available in paperback from Gospel Armory.


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