Putting our trust in God, not man

Adultery, idolatry and spiritual brinkmanship.

“‘You have lived as a prostitute with many lovers – would you now return to me?’ declares the Lord. ‘Look up to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been ravished? By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers, sat like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness. Therefore, the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to blush with shame.’” (Jeremiah 3:1-3)

All the prophets used the term ‘prostitution’ to mean ‘idolatry’. They saw running after other gods as a form of spiritual adultery. The reasoning behind this was that Israel had entered into a covenant with God at the time of Moses which demanded absolute loyalty to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

It was equivalent to a marriage relationship in which a man and a woman made promises of exclusive faithfulness to each other. To forsake God and engage in intercourse with pagan gods was spiritual adultery. It was breaking the covenant vows taken by the nation.

Worldly Temptations

Jeremiah 3:1-3 is a key passage providing understanding of the situation in Judah in the late 7^th Century BC. It was by no means a new situation. Ever since the settlement of Canaan under Joshua, when the Israelite tribes set up their villages and rural settlements among the Canaanites, they had been tempted to worship the local Baals.

The Canaanites were an agricultural people, whereas the Israelites had no such skills in the use of the land beyond herding sheep and goats. They had much to learn from the Canaanites who, of course, told them that for best results they had to pay tribute to the local Baal who owned the land. Ploughing and tilling the soil were totally new to the Israelites and they were dependent upon the Philistines, who were evidently more industrialised than the Canaanites.

All the prophets used the term ‘prostitution’ to mean ‘idolatry’.

There is a revealing little piece of social history in 1 Samuel 13:19: “Not a blacksmith could be found in the whole land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, ‘Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords and spears!’ So all Israel went down to the Philistines to have their ploughshares, mattocks, axes and sickles sharpened. The price was two thirds of a shekel for sharpening ploughshares and mattocks, and one third of a shekel for sharpening forks and axes and for repointing goads.”

Idolatry a Way of Life

From the earliest days the people had been warned against the temptations to idolatry; but remaining faithful to the God of Israel could never have been easy as there was no tangible evidence of his presence.

They had no bits of wood and stone to worship and no altar upon which to present their gifts. For the first few centuries in the land there was no one common meeting-place. This would be the case until the time of King David who, first at Hebron and then in Jerusalem, set up a tent of meeting for large assemblies for offering worship to God and seeking his blessing upon the nation.

Out in the rural areas the people got used to using local shrines, which was the despair of all the prophets. In Jeremiah’s day the Temple services offered daily prayers on behalf of the nation and was open for worshippers to come from all parts of Judah. But for most people, a visit to Jerusalem was probably no more than an annual festival event and for some it would only have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The local shrines were handy and satisfied most people’s need for giving an expression to their spiritual concerns.

So idolatry became a way of life for most people in Judah in times of stress. Even in the city altars to other gods appeared at street corners.

Idolatry became a way of life for most people in times of stress.

Cries for Help, Not Forgiveness

Jeremiah was noting two major factors in the pronouncement we are considering today.

One was the increasing number of people coming into Jerusalem to pray at the Temple from the towns and villages across Judah, where there was increasing anxiety as rumours of the oncoming Babylonian army spread across the nation. So Jeremiah hears God saying, “Would you now return to me?” After being unfaithful for so many years, indulging in spiritual adultery with the Canaanite gods, now because you are afraid, are you coming running back to the God of Israel?

The second major factor was that the spring rains had failed. There was drought right across the land that was affecting the harvest and threatening everyone’s livelihood. Jeremiah saw this as a direct action from God in response to the nation’s spiritual prostitution.

The people were crying out for rain; but nowhere did he hear prayers of confession, people crying out for God’s forgiveness. Surely that was what should be heard right the way through all the towns and villages of Judah.

Danger of Spiritual Brinkmanship

If the people were to come humbly before the Lord in confession of their sinfulness, that would resolve both the major issues: the restoration of the spring rains and ensuring the protection of the nation against Babylonian invasion.

Jeremiah, as always, went to the heart of the spiritual problems of the nation. God had already sent them warning signs which had been ignored: “In vain I punished your people; they did not respond to correction” (Jer 2:30). How much longer, he wondered, would God continue sending warning signs and holding out his hands of forgiveness to a nation that did not respond?

Even if we are right in assuming that God is infinitely forgiving, the threat to the nation from the Babylonians was in real time and the nation was in grave danger of not responding to appeals, even at the 11^th hour.

This is the great danger of spiritual brinkmanship. The prophetic task is always to assess the danger and the time-scale. When the nation treats all warning signs with apathy, the danger of out-running the clock becomes real and the results can only be national disaster. This was what Jeremiah feared most, which made his appeals increasingly sharp.

This article is part of a series. Click here to read other instalments.

Clifford Hill discusses the recent hacking of Ashley Madison, the renowned adultery website.

Older readers will remember the saying "cheats never prosper". Perhaps the 39 million people who signed up to the Canada-based Ashley Madison website should have thought about this before putting their emails and their personal details onto the site that guaranteed them privacy. That privacy has now been brutally torn asunder and a generation of adulterers is facing the reality of their secret sexual encounters being exposed, not only to their partners but also to the world.

Untold Consequences

The Ashley Madison website, with its strapline "Life is short. Have an affair", guaranteed complete secrecy to its clients until hackers succeeded in breaking through the site's security. After failing to persuade the owners of Ashley Madison to close down their operation, they first made the hacked information available on the dark internet, but it very quickly went viral. The consequences of this may be serious not only in endangering many marriages, but even putting lives at risk in countries where adultery and homosexuality are capital offences, such as Saudi Arabia.

The Ashley Madison scandal will not only endanger marriages, but could cause further oppression via blackmail and even put lives at risk.

The exposure of the infidelity site is not only threatening to break up marriages and other relationships of trust; the information could be used by blackmailers and others who wish to cause harm to rivals and competitors. A number of the emails that have been published are said to have Government addresses, which could mean that civil servants or MPs are at risk of public exposure of their infidelities.

Unprecedented Scale

Of course, adulterous affairs are not new to this generation and history is full of them, but what makes this latest exposure unique is the sheer scale of those who responded to the opportunity for a clandestine sexual relationship, in the belief that there was complete confidentiality. As a result they not only gave personal details including names, credit card numbers, sexual fantasies and preferences, but some even included nude photographs.

The development of internet dating sites has created the opportunity for unlimited infidelity, plus the offer of casual sex with the promise of availability, anonymity and affordability. This has clearly proved a temptation that millions of people have been unable to resist. In the 14 years that Ashley Madison has been in existence, it has garnered a staggering 39 million clients willing to risk the trust of those who are closest to them (1 million of these clients are said to be based in Britain).

The internet has created the opportunity for unlimited infidelity - clearly a temptation that millions have been unable to resist.

The first step was internet sites that simply offered introductions and dating opportunities, but this soon progressed to more carnal activities with sites such as Grindr offering gay and bisexual relationships. But this has been dwarfed by the massive response of heterosexuals seeking adulterous affairs.

Cross-sector Exposure

The exposure of cheating is not confined to adultery; sport is another recent activity to come under the spotlight, with first cycling and now athletics facing widespread charges of medals having been won by the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Lord Coe, the newly-elected head of world athletics (International Association of Athletics Federations) has vowed to clean up the sport, but it may take a long time to root out all the cheats.

Similar soul-searching is running through the banking sector, revealing cheating on a massive scale in the rigging of the Libor rate. Banks are facing heavy fines for the actions of their dishonest employees who made millions of dollars and pounds for themselves and their shareholders.

As the searchlight of truth is turned onto one institution after another, the sheer scale of cheating being exposed is breathtaking. It is only a generation ago that cheating was considered to be one of the most heinous of sins in sport, in exams, in business and especially in marriage and family life. Cheating sportsmen were drummed out of their sport: cheating students were expelled from school or university: cheating businessmen were thrown out of their employment and cheating in marriage was universally condemned.

The sheer scale of cheating being exposed is breathtaking. Only a generation ago, cheating was considered to be one of the most heinous of sins – whether in sport, education, business or family life.

Crumbled Foundations

So what's gone wrong with Western society today? Surely there can only be one reason why this should happen in nations with a long-standing Judaeo-Christian heritage, where biblical standards of honesty have been the cornerstone of business life and personal behaviour for centuries. The answer has to be that we have abandoned the Bible as the foundation stone of Western civilisation. The result, ultimately, is moral anarchy – everyone making up their own personal ethics, with little care for the lives of those closest to them and no care at all for the good of wider society.

The sad truth is that most children and young people under the age of 30 have little or no knowledge of biblical principles of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, so they have no plumb-line of truth for judging personal or social behaviour. Unless there is a moral and spiritual revival and a re-discovery of the Christian faith and its values, things can only get worse. At the present rate of secularisation we face a virtual collapse of family life, which will be followed by the inevitable breakdown of social order.

Grace and Truth

In light of this drastic outlook, how can we respond to the Ashley Madison scandal? It's easy to point the finger at others while ignoring our own faults. The teaching of the New Testament is that "no immoral, impure or greedy person has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God" (Eph 5:5). So our first reaction ought to be to examine ourselves to ensure that we live as children of the light, which means not only exposing deeds of darkness but also being those who uphold righteousness and truth in every situation. If we truly live as followers of Jesus we should be radiating love and goodness to those around us.

Our first reaction ought to be to examine ourselves to ensure that we live as children of the light, which means not only exposing deeds of darkness but also being those who uphold righteousness and truth in every situation.

We ought also to be praying for those whose lives are being shattered by the exposure of their names on the Ashley Madison website. Pray for forgiveness in their marriages and the healing of relationships so that good comes out of evil. Especially pray for the children caught up in broken family relationships. Only God can bring healing, love, forgiveness and true repentance out of our human tragedies. Let's ask the Father to reach out to those in need and transform their lives.