The Abominations of Jerusalem by Ezekiel
Lam 5:22 Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi
In light of the fact that Israel seems to be wanting to take over the world with the help of the U.S. (by whatever means necessary), I thought these words, from this Hebrew Prophet, would be appropriate at this time.
Ezek 16
Again the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
2 Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations;
3 and say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh to Jerusalem: Your birth and your birth is of the land of the Canaanite; the Amorite was your father, and your mother was a Hittite.
4 As for your birth, in the day you were born your navel was not cut, neither were you washed in water to cleanse you; you weren’t salted at all, nor swaddled at all.
5 No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you, to have compassion on you; but you were cast out in the open field, for that your person was abhorred, in the day that you were born.
6 When I passed by you, and saw you weltering in your blood, I said to you, Though you are in your blood, live; yes, I said to you, Though you are in your blood, live.
7 I caused you to multiply as that which grows in the field, and you increased and grew great, and you attained to excellent ornament; your breasts were fashioned, and your hair was grown; yet you were naked and bare.
8 Now when I passed by you, and looked at you, behold, your time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness: yes, I swore to you, and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord Yahweh, and you became mine.
9 Then washed I you with water; yes, I thoroughly washed away your blood from you, and I anointed you with oil.
10 I clothed you also with embroidered work, and shod you with sealskin, and I girded you about with fine linen, and covered you with silk.
11 I decked you with ornaments, and I put bracelets on your hands, and a chain on your neck.
12 I put a ring on your nose, and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head.
13 Thus was you decked with gold and silver; and your clothing was of fine linen, and silk, and embroidered work; you ate fine flour, and honey, and oil; and you were exceeding beautiful, and you did prosper to royal estate.
14 Your renown went forth among the nations for your beauty; for it was perfect, through my majesty which I had put on you, says the Lord Yahweh.
15 But you did trust in your beauty, and played the prostitute because of your renown, and poured out your prostitution on everyone who passed by; his it was.
16 You took of your garments, and made for yourselves high places decked with various colors, and played the prostitute on them: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so.
17 You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and played the prostitute with them;
18 and you took your embroidered garments, and covered them, and did set my oil and my incense before them.
19 My bread also which I gave you, fine flour, and oil, and honey, with which I fed you, you did even set it before them for a sweet savor; and thus it was, says the Lord Yahweh.
20 Moreover you have taken your sons and your daughters, whom you have borne to me, and these have you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your prostitution a small matter,
21 that you have slain my children, and delivered them up, in causing them to pass through the fire to them?
22 In all your abominations and your prostitution you have not remembered the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, and was weltering in your blood.
23 It is happen after all your wickedness, (woe, woe to you! says the Lord Yahweh),
24 that you have built to you a vaulted place, and have made you a lofty place in every street.
25 You have built your lofty place at the head of every way, and have made your beauty an abomination, and have opened your feet to everyone who passed by, and multiplied your prostitution.
26 You have also committed sexual immorality with the Egyptians, your neighbors, great of flesh; and have multiplied your prostitution, to provoke me to anger.
27 See therefore, I have stretched out my hand over you, and have diminished your ordinary food, and delivered you to the will of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines (Palestine), who are ashamed of your lewd way.
28 You have played the prostitute also with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; yes, you have played the prostitute with them, and yet you weren’t satisfied.
29 You have moreover multiplied your prostitution to the land of merchants, to Chaldea; and yet you weren’t satisfied with this.
30 How weak is your heart, says the Lord Yahweh, seeing you do all these things, the work of an impudent prostitute;
31 in that you build your vaulted place at the head of every way, and make your lofty place in every street, and have not been as a prostitute, in that you scorn pay.
32 A wife who commits adultery! who takes strangers instead of her husband!
33 They give gifts to all prostitutes; but you give your gifts to all your lovers, and bribe them, that they may come to you on every side for your prostitution.
34 You are different from other women in your prostitution, in that none follows you to play the prostitute; and whereas you give hire, and no hire is given to you, therefore you are different.
35 Therefore, prostitute, hear the word of Yahweh:
36 Thus says the Lord Yahweh, Because your filthiness was poured out, and your nakedness uncovered through your prostitution with your lovers; and because of all the idols of your abominations, and for the blood of your children, that you gave to them;
37 therefore see, I will gather all your lovers, with whom you have taken pleasure, and all those who you have loved, with all those who you have hated; I will even gather them against you on every side, and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness.
38 I will judge you, as women who break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy.
39 I will also give you into their hand, and they shall throw down your vaulted place, and break down your lofty places; and they shall strip you of your clothes, and take your beautiful jewels; and they shall leave you naked and bare.
40 They shall also bring up a company against you, and they shall stone you with stones, and thrust you through with their swords.
41 They shall burn your houses with fire, and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women; and I will cause you to cease from playing the prostitute, and you shall also give no hire any more.
42 So will I cause my wrath toward you to rest, and my jealousy shall depart from you, and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry.
43 Because you have not remembered the days of your youth, but have raged against me in all these things; therefore, behold, I also will bring your way on your head, says the Lord Yahweh: and you shall not commit this lewdness with all your abominations.
44 Behold, everyone who uses proverbs shall use this proverb against you, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter.
45 You are the daughter of your mother, who loathes her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and their children: your mother was a Hittite, and your father an Amorite.
46 Your elder sister is Samaria, who dwells at your left hand, she and her daughters; and your younger sister, who dwells at your right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.
47 Yet have you not walked in their ways, nor done after their abominations; but, as if that were a very little thing, you were more corrupt than they in all your ways.
48 As I live, says the Lord Yahweh, Sodom your sister has not done, she nor her daughters, as you have done, you and your daughters.
49 Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and prosperous ease was in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
50 They were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
51 Neither has Samaria committed half of your sins; but you have multiplied your abominations more than they, and have justified your sisters by all your abominations which you have done.
52 You also, bear you your own shame, in that you have given judgment for your sisters; through your sins that you have committed more abominable than they, they are more righteous that you: yes, be also confounded, and bear your shame, in that you have justified your sisters.
53 I will turn again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, and the captivity of your captives in the midst of them;
54 that you may bear your own shame, and may be ashamed because of all that you have done, in that you are a comfort to them.
55 Your sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate; and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate; and you and your daughters shall return to your former estate.
56 For your sister Sodom was not mentioned by your mouth in the day of your pride,
57 before your wickedness was uncovered, as at the time of the reproach of the daughters of Syria, and of all who are round about her, the daughters of the Philistines, who do despite to you round about.
58 You have borne your lewdness and your abominations, says Yahweh.
59 For thus says the Lord Yahweh: I will also deal with you as you have done, who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant.
60 Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish to you an everlasting covenant.
61 Then shall you remember your ways, and be ashamed, when you shall receive your sisters, your elder sisters and your younger; and I will give them to you for daughters, but not by your covenant.
62 I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall know that I am Yahweh; (When? After the Rapture and the Battle of Har-Mo’ed).
63 that you may remember, and be confounded, and never open your mouth any more, because of your shame, when I have forgiven you all that you have done, says the Lord Yahweh.
WEB
Reasons the Christian Church is NOT in the New Covenant
(from “Defending Dispensationalism”) by Mark Graeser, John Schoenheit and John Lynn
- A “covenant” is a solemn promise binding two parties in an agreement. In certain biblical covenants like the “New” Covenant, God binds Himself unconditionally by His love and grace to perform specific promises to specific people (Israel). These promises cannot be disannulled, and neither can they be “fulfilled” only in part; they must at some point be fulfilled completely or God’s righteousness would be compromised, and He found to be a liar. If the Church cannot “fulfill” the New Covenant, then it must be in a different relationship with God, (we are “in Christ/ in the Lord” and Israel cannot claim this relationship).
2. The covenant was made with Israel, the physical descendants of Abraham according to the flesh, and with them as a specific nation. Since the Church is neither Jews nor Gentiles (a “nation”), how can the Church fulfill this covenant?
- Since the Abrahamic covenant promises Israel a permanent existence as a nation (with a physical country), then the Church is not fulfilling Israel’s promises, nor is it “the New Israel” (or literally “the Israel of God”). The New Covenant properly belongs to the restoration of Israel as a glorious nation that is filled with a knowledge of God as “the waters fill the seas.”
- Because the Abrahamic covenant promises her permanent possession of the Promised Land, Israel must still come into possession of the land, which she has never fully possessed in her history, according to the precise specifications of that covenant. Old Testament prophecies confirm that Israel will have full possession of the land of Israel in the future, and Ezekiel 48 even describes which tribe will get which part of the land. In contrast, the Christian Church will never possess the land of Israel, and it has no “tribes,” so it cannot fulfill the prophecies of Ezekiel.
- The “New” Covenant is made with the same people as the “Old” Covenant, namely Israel.
- There is a distinction among personal promises to Abraham, national promises to Abraham’s seed and universal promises to “all the families of the earth.” The national promises can be fulfilled only by the nation itself. The language of the New Covenant is quite specifically directed to national Israel (Jer. 31:31-33).
- The Gospel of Christ is not a covenant, but the revelation of the salvation of God to all men.
- All the blessings that come to the Church today are based upon the blood of Christ, which was necessarily shed to make possible the New Covenant, according to Jeremiah 31. But just because the Church partakes of the blessings of the shedding of Christ’s blood (shed for the propitiation of the sins of the whole world –1 John 2:2) it does not mean that the Church therefore fulfills the New Covenant. The shed blood of Christ was a necessary condition for the formation of the Church, but was not sufficient for the fulfillment of the covenant. There is still the matter of land, material blessings, rest, Christ’s reign, a new heart for Israel, and so on, that were promised as a part of the New Covenant and have not yet been fulfilled. That’s why Hebrews 7: 22 says, “Jesus has become the guarantee (“surety”) of a better covenant”.
- Although we do not have the covenant made with us, we can have some of its blessings ministered to us, as well as be ministers of some of its blessings. This is the same principle as Peter’s Acts 2 citation of Joel 2:28-32 in reference to the giving of holy spirit on the day of Pentecost, a prophecy that actually refers to the still future “day of the Lord .” Peter had not been introduced to the truths of the “dispensation of the Secret” (Ephesians 3: 8) Although Peter did not then know the “secret,” his reference to Joel was relevant because each Christian now partakes of the holy spirit aspect of the future New Covenant with Israel. To me this is prevarication with the plain reading of the text. Peter absolutely DID NOT KNOW what he was talking about. Paul, in Romans 8:23 clears it up by saying we have the “firstfruits of the spirit”. It is easy to understand how people can have the blessings of a covenant ministered to them without being part of the covenant if one thinks of the Gentiles in the Old Testament. They were not part of the Old Covenant, but they could have covenant blessings ministered to them. Many non-Jews lived in Israel, apparently for that reason.
- As the Church receives blessings of the Abrahamic covenant by faith without fulfilling that covenant, so the Church may receive blessings from the New Covenant without fulfilling it.
- Israel must go through the Tribulation and be delivered by the Messiah before the New Covenant can be fulfilled (Rom. 11:26 and 27).
- Since the Tribulation, the second coming of Christ and the Millennial Reign of Christ are yet future, the fulfillment of this promise must also be future, and cannot be fulfilled now by the Church.
- The Messiah, who ratified this New Covenant with Israel, must return to the earth to complete the salvation, restoration and blessing of Israel that is promised them as a result of the New Covenant God promised them.
The Company (School) of the Prophets
2. Prophet Samuel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Have you ever heard of “The Company (School) of the Prophets?”
After Saul was anointed King of Israel, the prophet Samuel prophesied several things to him which are recorded in 1Sam 10.
1 Sa 10:5
After that thou shalt come to the hill of God, where is the garrison of the Philistines: and it shall come to pass, when thou art come thither to the city, that thou shalt meet a company* of prophets
KJV
Samuel told Saul to join himself to them and he would become a new man:
1 Sa 10:6
And the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man.
KJV
People say that things of this nature cannot be learned, yet here is a clear example that they can be.
1 Sa 10:9-10
And it was so, that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart: and all those signs came to pass that day.
10 And when they came thither to the hill, behold, a company of prophets met him; and the spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them.
KJV
People were astonished by this! That this guy whom they knew all their lives and who knew his father could be prophesying among the band of prophets:
1 Sa 10:11
11 It came about, when all who knew him previously saw that he prophesied now with the prophets, that the people said to one another, “What has happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?”
NASU
Could this happen to you? I have personally felt this calling upon my life since I was born again in 1974. In the spring/summer of ’75 I served under the tutelage of a man with this function for 3 months, day in and day out. In August of that year I was sent to serve under another prophet for a year. After that year I moved in with him and his family and lived on the property with them for the next 3 years. At the end of that time, he united my wife and I in Holy Matrimony.
If you have read anything about the prophets you know that they were not particularly popular among the group they were called to prophesy to. Many were killed by them including our Lord. I know that there are some people reading this who feel this calling upon their lives and it is my intention to make this obvious to you and in turn, those to whom you personally minister, your sphere of influence.
The vast majority of the time a prophet prophesies, it is not foretelling the future, but forth-telling, calling God’s people back to His Word; showing them where they are OFF the Word (which few enjoy) and showing them how to get back ON the Word. This will prove to be an exciting venture. I look forward to hearing from you.
God bless.
*OT:2256 chebel or chebel —
1) a cord, a rope, territory, a band, a company
a) a rope, a cord
b) a measuring-cord or line
c) a measured portion, lot, part, region
d) a band or company
(from The Online Bible Thayer’s Greek Lexicon and Brown Driver & Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, Copyright © 1993, Woodside Bible Fellowship, Ontario, Canada. Licensed from the Institute for Creation Research.)
SALVATION: get it now, while supplies last!
The Biblical Tetragrammaton, the Hebrew Name for God the Father. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Jesus once said, “Salvation is of the Jews.” Prior to Christianity, only Jews had the promise of Salvation. Their Salvation (as well as ours) was not only something in the future, beyond the grave, but something here and now as well. The word alone is used three times as much in the Old Testament as it is in the New. To the Jews it meant Deliverance, Victory, Rescue or Safety.
For anyone who has read even a little of the OT one can see how often Israel prayed for deliverance from their enemies and how many times YHWH delivered them. (Might not be a bad idea today as well.) I have read that Salvation in this day and age has relatively no value for one’s current circumstances, but, nothing could be further from the truth. Whatever it meant for Israel it certainly means for us who are born again, as well.
In Moses day, salvation could be seen: “But Moses said to the people, Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord (YHWH) which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The Lord (YHWH) will fight for you while you keep silent.” NASU
The same was true of David: “And David spoke the words of this song to the Lord (YHWH) in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. 2 He said, “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; 3 My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge; My savior, You save me from violence. 4 “I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, And I am saved from my enemies. 2 Sa 22:1-4 NASU
WOW! Just look at these verses and realize the relevance of salvation for us today! In those days these words were used to describe everything attributed to God, Yahweh (YHWH). For us, they are also now attributable to Jesus, whom YHWH made both Lord and Christ. (I cannot help but explain something here for those who may not know: LORD in all capital letters in the OT is the proper name of God, YHWH. Some translation say Jehovah, but the most accurate is YHWH. There is a difference between Lord and LORD. Jesus is our Lord. His and our Father is our LORD.)
Jesus Christ was YHWH’s plan for Salvation to Gentiles who would be grafted in to fully share in the promises of God to Israel and their inheritance! This is exactly what it says in the gospel of Luke. This is what Simeon declared when Jesus was brought to the Temple some forty days after his birth: Lk 2:30-32, for my eyes have seen your salvation 31 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” ESV
All these aspects of salvation are available are available, now, today, to all who positively affirm what Romans 10:9 and 10 says, which is part of Paul the apostles prayer to God for Israel! Salvation is not something currently out of reach; it is readily obtainable. Get it now, while supplies last!
(See Chapter IV, page 19 of my new book at http://www.fredswolfe.com)
True Fellowship
A few lines of text from the Kaufmann Manuscript, written in the Hebrew alphabet with Tiberian vowel diacritics (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Last Sunday morning my wife and I went for coffee on the Venice Boardwalk to meet a friend. I took a copy of my new book in hopes of selling it. We ended sitting between 3 Israeli‘s. The girl on my right was reading a book in Hebrew; very easy to strike up a conversation. The man and his wife on the left of my wife recognized the picture of the front cover and he said, “that is the gate that Messiah will come through when he comes to redeem Israel.” He immediately asked to look at the book. In the meantime the girl reading the Hebrew book wanted to know what it was all about. Within minutes the six of us were all talking to one another at the same time some in Hebrew and others in English. The book cover alone brought us altogether in unison there on a Sunday morning for some true fellowship discussing the Messiah!
Related articles
- Repost: Shadows of Messiah – Etymology (littleguyintheeye.wordpress.com)
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