We Are Sisters, We Are Harlots, and We Are Not Ashamed! - Chapter 37

 

We Are Sisters, We Are Harlots, and We Are Not Ashamed!

The book of Revelation is not the first time we see God using the symbolism of a harlot to try to make a point. Through Jeremiah He calls Israel, the northern kingdom, and Judah, the southern kingdom, harlots. He also calls each of them “an adulterous wife.” God tells the prophet Hosea to marry a harlot to try to get the point across that God is married to us and will forgive us if we change and come back to Him with all our heart, mind and strength. Here we read from Jeremiah:

The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Have you seen that which backsliding Israel (the northern kingdom) has done? She is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there has played the harlot. And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto Me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah (the southern kingdom) saw it. And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks. And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned unto Me with her whole heart, but feignedly, says the LORD. And the LORD said unto me, The backsliding Israel has justified herself more than treacherous Judah.[1]

God was warning the southern Kingdom of Judah to not follow the way of the northern Kingdom of Israel. But even though Judah had seen what had happened to the Kingdom of Israel, she continued in her spiritual adultery. In Hosea we read:

Hear the Word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood touches blood.[2]

God Himself compares the divided kingdom of Israel and Judah unto two harlot sisters. Even though Judah gets to observe the fate of the northern tribes of Israel and their destruction under the Assyrian Empire, she refuses to change her ways but rather follows Israel’s bad example. The Bible shows us the parallel history of these two kingdoms, the northern ten tribes called Israel and the southern two tribes called Judah.

The northern ten tribes quickly forsake the true God of Abraham. They adopt Jeroboam’s new religious system and soon lose the blessing of God. Without God’s protection, they are defeated and conquered by the Assyrian Empire and taken away captive. In 722 BC, their capital city Samaria is destroyed. The Northern Kingdom has around a 300-year existence from the time of Saul. Other peoples are brought in to occupy the land. You can read it below:

Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made. And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.

And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree: And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the LORD carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger: For they served idols, whereof the LORD had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing.

Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep My commandments and My statutes, according to all the Law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by My servants the prophets.[3]

Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the Lord their God. And they rejected His statues, and His covenant that He made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them, that they should not do like them.

And they left all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of His sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.[4]

The southern kingdom of Judah fairs somewhat better, depending on its kings and their obedience unto the Lord. They have several revivals and great repentances. Under the good King Jehoshaphat, the Bible notes,

And the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days of his father Asa, he (Jehoshaphat) took out of the land.[5]

Even though sodomy is today politically correct and the US Supreme Court has made gay marriage legal in all states, is it is Biblically correct? As much as I try to respect people and their beliefs, I cannot condone homosexual behavior, no matter how many laws are made in its defense. Why? Because there is a higher law speaking to me from God’s Word and from the voice of conscience that tells me that such behavior is morally incorrect. Biologically it just doesn’t fit either. A nut and a bolt fit together, but two bolts don’t. In Isaiah we read,

Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees.[6] For the leaders of this people cause them to err.[7]

The Bible does not condone sodomy. Just as the many other moral restraints are placed in the Bible because of mankind’s tendency to sin, so is God’s Word equivocal on this matter. I will treat homosexuals respectfully, but I cannot condone their behavior and neither does God’s Word.

Sodomy had been politically correct under Jehoshaphat’s father Asa. However, because King Jehoshaphat wants to serve God rather than man, he has the sodomites removed from the land. However, his son, Manasseh, who reigned after him in Jerusalem,

did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel.[7]

Manasseh builds up again the high places which his good father had destroyed and the altars to Baal,

and worshipped all the host of heaven and served them.[8] And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he made his sons pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.[9]

I need to make a short aside and comment on the above verse. Many people do not seem to understand that much of the New Age Movement fits squarely into the section of “used enchantments and dealt with familiar spirits.” Ravi Zacharias, Caryl Matrisciana and Johanna Michaelsen are a few of the authors who have written and spoken extensively on Eastern philosophies and the occult and their influence on the West. Both Zacharias and Matrisciana have backgrounds from India.

Michaelsen was involved in the occult medical practices in Mexico. In her book The Beautiful Side of Evil [10] she gives clear warning of the dangers of the occult and how easy it is to be deceived, but how difficult it is to realize that one has been deceived.

Michaelson, quoting Dr. Hobart Freeman says,

One of the greatest distinctions between the religion of Israel and heathen religions [was that the heathen] sought to discover truth by means of divination and sorcery.[11]

Having lived most of her childhood in India and later being captivated by the Indian mystical influence when she returned to the West in the sixties, Caryl Matrisciana knows all too well the drawing power of Indian mysticism found in Buddhism, yoga, and the different Hindu gurus. In her book, Out of India: A true story about the New Age Movement[12], Matrisciana exposes from her personal experience the truth about the Hindu influence in Western spirituality. She writes,

Just as bank tellers steadily become more familiar with money, so we need to steadily become more familiar with the Bible. And, because of the increasingly cunning deceptions of Satan, we need to become more familiar with the whole counsel of God…His Word is our best defense against the tsunamis of deception beating upon the world and the church.[13]

Intellectual and apologetic speaker and writer Dr. Ravi Zacharias is a powerful voice in helping us to discern the truth in the modern age. Having been born and having lived the first eighteen years of his life in India, Dr. Zacharias has a keen understanding of the Eastern mind. In his books Jesus among other Gods[14] and Why Jesus?[15] he reveals how and why the Western mind is attracted to Eastern mysticism. The New Age ideas are usually presented in pseudo-scientific terminology, which gives them an aura of authority to the Western mind. Dr. Zacharias accurately analyzes the influence of eastern mysticism and its deceptive “truths.” We read from his book,

Being born into a Christian home does not make one a Christian; it is the specific decision on the part of every person to follow Christ that makes a person a Christian…I became a Christian on the bed of attempted suicide at the age of seventeen when I cried out to God in prayer, “Lord Jesus, if you are who you claim to be, reveal yourself to me and take me out of my desperate situation and I will leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth.” Five days later I walked out of that hospital room a brand-new man, and I have never looked back.[16]

Both Reiki and Spirit Science fall into the New Age philosophies and in old Biblical terminology would be considered channeling or dealing with familiar spirits. My own article on the subject I will include in the next chapter of this book. Now we will return to the history of the kings of Judah.

And Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel.[17] Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; besides his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.[18]

Is the innocent blood which the Lord is talking about the children that were offered in child sacrifice? The Lord through Jeremiah the prophet condemns Judah saying,

Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the poor innocents: I have not found it by secret search, but upon all these.[19]

In other words, the killing of the poor innocents was something that was done openly; the Lord did not need to make a secret search. The Lord said,

They have built the high places…, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into My heart.[20]

Isaiah prophesied years before,

Their feet run to do evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood.[21]

In the Psalms we find,

Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with you, which frame mischief by a law? They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.[22]

Is there any blood more innocent than that of an unborn child? Manasseh and other kings made it legal to shed the innocent blood in child sacrifice. 

Hitler in Nazi Germany made it legal to kill Jews because they were, according to his bias, non-persons. Hitler believed the Jews to be a race in the evolutionary scale between monkey and man. Today our government makes laws to permit abortion. We build abortion clinics and promote day-after pills. Are we condemning the innocent blood? What blood could be more innocent than that of an unborn child? Is God happy with our behavior and the laws we have made? Will we suffer the consequences? Even if the law says it’s all right, does that make it right in God’s eyes, the higher law? Are our political, medical, educational, judicial, industrial leaders leading us astray?

At the end of the WWII, at the Nuremberg trials, some of the former Nazi leaders tried to use the fact that they were only following orders to [23] escape prosecution and execution.

They claimed that since the Jews were legally non-persons in Germany they had done nothing legally wrong. Utilitarianism, or the idea that whatever the society decides at the moment is right is therefore right, had given the German people their new moral code. Therefore, since the German law said that the Jew was not a legal person, how could the German soldiers be condemned? They were only following orders. The judges contested that a “Higher Law” existed, and their actions had infringed upon that “Higher Law.”

Are we today as nations infringing upon those “Higher Laws?” Will we meet the same fate as Hitler’s leaders when we face the Higher Law-Giver?

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Notes:

[1] Jeremiah 3:6-11
[2] Hosea 4:1-2
[3] 2Kings 17:5-13
[4] 2Kings 17:15-18
[5] 1Kings 22:46
[6] Isaiah 10:1
[7] 2Kings 21:2
[8] 2Kings 21:3
[9] 2Kings 21:5-6
[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Qy1j2LBmU
[11] Johanna Michaelson, The Beautiful Side of Evil, Harvest House Publishers, Oregon, 1982, pg. 200; cited from Hobart Freeman, An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophets, Moody Press, Chicago, 1968, pg.110.
[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ-cADNmtiY
[13] Caryl Matrisciana, Out of India: a true story about the New Age movement, Lighthouse Trails Publishing, Montana, 2008, pg. 220. 
[14] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaIBoARTGPk
[15] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh_tLWsL3gA
[16] Ravi Xacharias, Why Jesus, FaithWords, New York, 2012, pg. xvi & xvii. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4QuTwFYUIk
[17] 2Kings 21:9 
[18] 2Kings 21:16
[19] Jeremiah 2:34 
[20] Jeremiah 7:31
[21] Isaiah 59:7
[22] Psalm 94:20-21
[23] http://www.wnd.com/2007/04/41028/

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To go to the next chapter click HERE

To go to the index of the chapters for the book click HERE