Is. 20-22
God continues, through the prophet Isaiah, to warn of His pending wrath and destruction of the nations. And in doing so, He points out the futility of their trying to save themselves by placing their hope in people and things that cannot save. Isaiah 20:6b says, “’Behold, this is what has happened to those in whom we hoped and to whom we fled for help…how shall we escape?’”. And Isaiah 22:8-11 describes all the efforts made to shore up the City of David then says, “But you did not look to Him who did it, or see Him who planned it long ago.” God wants us to understand that He alone can save. We need to keep our hope in Him, because He is the only real hope. That is just as true today as it was in Isaiah’s day. The LORD is God and there is no other.
Eph. 5:1-16
“For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” (Eph 5:5). That no doubt covers all of us,. But it goes to Paul’s point about putting on a new self in Christ. We cannot have God’s Holy Spirit dwelling in us and not be changed. What I really find interesting, though, is the comment relating covetousness to idolatry. To covet is to desire after something in such a way that it consumes your focus and your effort. And so it becomes your god. While I know that things, and the desire for them, can easily become gods in our lives, I had not really paid attention to this direct relation. Coveting is idolatry.
Eugene Peterson takes it one step farther in The Message. He translates this verse as, “You can be sure that using people or religion or things just for what you can get out of them – the usual variations on idolatry – will get you nowhere…”. So he is saying that the sexual immorality and the impurity are also forms of idolatry. It makes sense. If you think about it, any form of deviant behavior – that which goes against the way God intended it to be – is a way of putting something higher than God in your life. And isn’t that what idolatry really is?