How Sick is My Heart

"How sick is your heart..." declares God (Ez. 16:30).

The barrage of Ezekiel 16 in extensive violent and sexual imagery depicting the idolatry of God's people never ceases to surprise me.  I am confident liberal theologians scoff at the intensity of language God uses of His own people, yet the lesson is not so much to be shocked at the language of God but shocked at the idolatry of the heart.  Many come to this passage thinking that the language is sickening, yet the point is that the readers and hearers of the oracles hearts are sick. Idolatry is as disgusting as rape and as heartbreaking as adultery.

My heart, as Calvin said, is a factory of idols.  All too often I am manufacturing idols not seeking to systematically destroy them.  

How sick is my heart.

Thank God Jesus has "atone[d] for all that [I] have done" (Ez. 16:63).  The power of the Gospel is that which expels my affection for objects of idols and replaces it with affections for the person of Jesus.  Jesus changes the affections of a sick heart and causes them to be affections of a new heart.  Meditating on God's promised atonement for idolaters, even more then the punishment against idolaters, is the best power against idolatry.