..To Ancient SDA's ............ To "What's New?"
by
Ron Parsons
The aim of this series:
“Then He said to them, ‘O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?’ And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself.” Luke 24:25-27.
A PDF version of this reading is available by clicking here
Internet: http://NonConformist.MyChurch.com
Genesis 12b:
Hi everybody,
Let’s continue with God’s version of the rise and fall of the church from 1000BC to Christ, the time of the temple. We finished last week just as it became a kingdom around 1000BC with king Saul. It was now a church/state combination, against the Son of God’s desire. (See 1 Samuel 8:6-20.)
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Ezekiel chapter 16
14 “And your renown went forth among the heathen for your beauty [Solomon built the first temple]: for it was perfect through My comeliness [My righteousness], which I had put upon you,” says the Lord GOD.
15 “But you trusted in your own beauty, and played the harlot because of your renown, and poured out your fornications on every one that passed by; his it was. 16 And of your garments you took, and decked your high places with different colours, and played the harlot thereupon: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so [ever again].
17 “You have also taken your fair jewels of My gold and of My silver [My truths], which I had given you, and made to yourself images of men, and did commit whoredom with them, 18 and took your embroidered garments, and covered them [made unions with idol-worshipping and man-worshipping nations]: and you have set My oil and My incense [prayers] before them [and their gods].
19 “My meat [food] also which I gave you, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed you, you have even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was,” says the Lord GOD. [Consider 2 Kings 20:14-18].
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. Is this of your whoredoms a small matter, 21 that you have slain My children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them? [The kingdom began to go into Babylonian captivity in 606BC].
22 “And in all your abominations and your whoredoms you have not remembered the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, and were polluted in your blood.
23 “And it came to pass after all your wickedness [when you returned from the captivity in Babylon], (woe, woe to you!” says the Lord GOD;) 24 “that you have also built to you [not to Me] an eminent place [the second temple], and have made you a high place in every street [about 500BC].
[Note that Jesus was forecasting that there would be two occasions (two “woes”) of extreme times for the church. The descent into anarchy under the Maccabees, and the dispersion after 70AD.]
25 “You have built your high place at every head of the way, and have made your beauty to be abhorred, and have opened your feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied your whoredoms.
26 “You have also committed fornication [spiritual adultery by uniting] with the Egyptians your neighbours, great of flesh [rich in this world’s power]; and have increased your whoredoms, to provoke Me to anger. 27 Behold, therefore I have stretched out My hand over you, and have diminished your ordinary food, and delivered you to the will of them that hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of your lewd way. [Even the other religions are ashamed of your behaviour!].
28 “You have played the whore also with the Assyrians [a “religious” nation], because you were unsatiable; yes, you have played the harlot with them, and yet could not be satisfied. 29 You have moreover multiplied your fornication in the land of Canaan to Chaldea [to the ends of the earth]; and yet you were not satisfied herewith.
30 “How weak is your heart [your love towards Me],” says the Lord GOD, “seeing you do all these things, the work of an imperious [self-willed] whorish woman.
31 In that you build your eminent place in the head of every way, and make your high place [of pride] in every street; and have not been as an [ordinary] harlot, in that you scorn hire [payment]; 32 but [are] as a wife that commits adultery, which takes strangers instead of her husband!
33 “They [the customers, normally] give gifts to all whores: but you give your gifts to all your lovers, and hire them, that they may come to you on every side for your whoredom. 34 And the contrary is in you from other women in your whoredoms, whereas none follows [chases] you to commit whoredoms: and in that you give a reward, and no reward is given to you, therefore you are contrary [different].
35 “Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the LORD.” 36 Thus says the Lord GOD; “Because your filthiness was poured out, and your nakedness [lack of defence against temptation] discovered through your whoredoms with your lovers, and with all the idols of your abominations, and by the blood of your children, which you gave to them; 37 Behold, therefore I will gather all your lovers, with whom you have taken pleasure, and all them that you have loved, with all them that you have hated; I will even gather them round about against you, and will discover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness [your lack of My protection].
38 “And I will judge you, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged [by their husbands]; and I will give you blood in fury and jealousy [particularly from about 425BC to 70AD].
39 “And I will also give you into their hand, and they shall throw down your eminent place [the second temple], and shall break down your high places: they shall strip you also of your clothes, and shall take your fair jewels, and 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 And they shall burn your houses with fire, and execute judgments upon you in the sight of many women [religions]: and I will cause you to cease from playing the harlot, and you also shall give no hire any more.
42 “So [but then] will I make My fury toward you to rest, and My jealousy shall depart from you, and I will be quiet [for a while], and will be no more angry.
43 “Because you have not remembered the days of your youth, but have fretted Me [turned away] in all these things; behold, therefore I also will recompense your way upon your head,” says the Lord GOD: “and you shall not commit this lewdness above all your abominations. [They ceased playing the harlot but continued in other sins during the dispersion].”
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What can be added to these words? Only another aspect of the plea from the Son of God which He made through His servant Hosea and his marriage.
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Hosea 1:
1 The word of the LORD that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam [II] the son of Joash, king of Israel. [790-686BC = a period of 24 years.]
2 The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea.
And the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to you a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land has committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.”
[The LORD did not ask him to marry a prostitute, He was simply warning Hosea that the love of his life would turn out to be one later. What He did was USE Hosea’s experience to illustrate what His people were doing.]
3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son. 4 And the LORD said to him, “Call his name ‘Jezreel [God sows – there’s a harvest coming]’; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. 5 And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.”
6 And she conceived again, and bare a daughter [whom Hosea suspected was not his]. And God said to him, “Call her name ‘Loruhamah [not pitied]’: for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel [the northern half of the land]; but I will utterly take them away. [The northern kingdom ceased to exist about 722BC.]
7 “But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah [the southern half], and will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.”
8 Now when she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son [whom Hosea knew was not his]. 9 Then said God, “Call his name ‘Loammi [not My people]’: for you are not My people, and I will not be your God.
10 “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people’, there it shall be said to them, ‘You are the sons of the living God.’ 11 Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one Head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel [the harvest time].”
Chapter 2:
1 “Say you to your brethren, ‘Ammi [My people’]; and to your sisters, ‘Ruhamah [she has obtained pity]’, 2 ‘Plead with your mother [the church], plead’: for she is not My wife, neither am I her Husband [in practice anymore]: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts; 3 lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.
4 “And I will not [be able] have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms. 5 For their mother has played the harlot: she that conceived them has done shamefully: for she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
6 “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. 7 And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, ‘I will go and return to my first Husband; for then was it better with me than now.’ 8 For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. 9 Therefore will I return, and take away My corn in the time thereof, and My wine in the season thereof, and will recover My wool and My flax given to cover her nakedness.
10 “And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of My hand. 11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her [yearly] sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.
12 And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she has said, ‘These are my rewards that my lovers have given me’: and I will make them a forest [untended], and the beasts of the field shall eat them. 13 And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense [said prayers] to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgot Me,” says the LORD. [She shall reap what she has sown.]
[Gomer left Hosea and the children and went off into town, where she lived a life of luxury for a time. But her value as a classy whore declined and she ended up on the streets a broken woman. So with God’s people!]
14 “Therefore [when she is at the end of her tether], behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness [away from the nations], and speak comfortably to her.
15 And I will give her her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor [trouble] for a door of hope [it’s on the northern boundary of Judah]: and she shall sing [the song of deliverance] there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt [in the exodus].”
16 “And it shall be at that day,” says the LORD, “that you shall call Me ‘Ishi [Husband’]; and shall call Me no more ‘Baali [Boss]’. 17 For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth [the use of force in religion], and they shall no more be remembered by their name. 18 And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.
19 “And I will betroth [join] you to Me for ever; yea, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. 20 I will even betroth you to Me in faithfulness: and you shall know the LORD.
21 “And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear,” says the LORD, “I will hear the heavens [the people of the universe], and they shall hear the earth [the people of the world]; 22 and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil [the people of God]; and they shall hear Jezreel [the harvest/judgment day]. 23 And I will sow her to Me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, ‘You are My people’; and they shall say, ‘You are my God’.”
[Like God, Hosea never stopped loving his wife and when he heard how she was and what she had become, he sought her out and bought her freedom.]
Chapter 3:
1 Then said the LORD to me, “Go yet, [find and] love a woman beloved of her friend [husband], yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.”
2 So I bought her [Gomer] to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley [a value of 30 pieces, about the price of an old slave]. 3 And I said to her, “You shall abide for me many days [before we resume our former marital state]; you shall not play the harlot, and you shall not be for another man: so will I also be for you.”
4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim. 5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and [the Son of] David their king; and shall fear the LORD and His goodness in the latter days.
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How sad! Maybe the next part of the church will fare better
Ron
Some of the comments in these readings are adapted from books in my library. No recognition is given because they are not intended as authorities, but are used because they express my understanding clearly. All the ideas expressed in these readings, right or wrong, are my own.
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(Begin quote)‘And of your sons that shall issue from you, which you shall beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon’.” Back14 Then came Isaiah the prophet to king Hezekiah, and said to him, “What said these men? and from where came they to you?” And Hezekiah said, “They are come from a far country, even from Babylon.”
15 And he said, “What have they seen in your house?” And Hezekiah answered, “All the things that are in my house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not showed them.”
16 And Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD. 17 ‘Behold, the days come, that all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have laid up in store to this day, shall be carried into Babylon: nothing shall be left’, says the LORD. 18
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(Begin quote)nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.” Back6 But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, “Give us a king to judge [lead] us.” And Samuel prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD said to Samuel, “Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to you: for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.
8 According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, wherewith they have forsaken Me, and served other gods, so do they also to you. 9 Now therefore hearken to their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly to them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them . . .
18 [So Samuel did that and said] “And you shall cry out in that day because of your king which you shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.” 19 Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, “Nay; but we will have a king over us; 20 that we also may be like all the [other]
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