God makes His bride beautiful. In fact, her beauty went out to all the world. Everyone heard of it because it was perfect through the splendor God had bestowed on her.

God had made Israel splendiferous.

BUT they trusted in their beauty.

It became an idol. They put it in the place of God by trusting in it. Their trust was supposed to be in God.

The church is now part of Israel. I can’t speak for the church everywhere, but the church in America certainly can suffer from pride in its own beauty. Actually, in saying that, I thought of all the huge beautiful cathedrals in Europe that basically sit empty. They are more tourist sites than gathering spaces for believers. There was a pride in beauty.

In America we have our big buildings. We have our lighting design. We entice people with our engaging preaching, entertainments, and coffee bars.

I have often used the following Scripture in talking about America. Sodom’s sin was its pride and selfishness. Read this description again.

“Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it.”

Israel is chided by saying, “Was not your sister Sodom a byword in your mouth in the day of your pride, before your wickedness was uncovered?”

Israel was making fun of Sodom, using it as an example, tossing out its name in expressions of something bad, being prideful of their superiority to them. Until they were just like them.

And yet for all this, the chapter, the oration from the Lord, ends with a promise of unbroken covenant promise and an atoning for their sins. They will be ashamed of how they have acted, and it will humble them. Exactly what they needed.