Ezekiel, a priest by lineage
and anointing, sits in his house with the elders of Israel seated before him. These men, the rulers and judges
of Israel, compare to those known in the time of Jesus as
the Sanhedrin. With the temple destroyed and the population in captivity, neither Ezekiel nor the elders have the position
or authority they once enjoyed. However, knowing that God commissioned Ezekiel to prophesy to the captives in Babylon,
the elders come to him inquiring of the Lord. They will do so many more times until they tire of the divine judgments he delivers
against them. On this particular occasion God will expose their involvement with the harlot. Ezekiel saw a heavenly being
before him appearing like a column of fire and amber. Ezekiel describes the vision as he saw it unfold,
He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me
by a lock of my hair; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem,
to the door of the north gate of the inner court, where the seat of the image of jealousy
was, which provokes to jealousy. (Ezekiel 8:3)
The
Spirit translated Ezekiel not only from Babylon to Jerusalem,
but also back to some point in time before the captivity. Ezekiel describes the Temple
precinct, beginning with the North Gate where he saw the seat of the image of jealousy. Some scholars believe the image of
jealousy was a goddess named Asherah whom Jeremiah, a contemporary of Ezekiel, described as the queen of heaven. Scripture says this about Mannaseh, Hezekiah’s evil son: "He even set a carved image of Asherah that he had made, in the
house of … the Lord." (2 Kings 21:7a) This Asherah corresponded to Semiramis,
the legendary wife of Nimrod. Baal, corresponding to Nimrod, was Asherah’s consort.
In later visions, Ezekiel witnesses the movement of the Holy Spirit away
from the temple. In this passage the Spirit told Ezekiel to observe the abominations that cause Him to leave His sanctuary.
This image of jealousy represents the first recorded Abomination of Desolation. Let's see if we can identify this
Abomination of Desolation more clearly.
God
warned through Moses what would happen to the nation if they should ignore His law. Chapter 26 of Leviticus begins with a
warning against idolatry.
"Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither
rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am Yahweh your God." (Leviticus 26:1
KJV)
The oracle continues with the
blessings that result from obedience, blessings of prosperity and peace. Then come five levels of warning if the nation does
not obey His commands. God will plead with the nation through judgments, each one more severe than the previous. First will
come terror, wasting disease, and defeat by the enemy. Next comes drought and failed crops. The third level brings predators
attacking livestock and commerce. The fourth level brings war, disease, and famine. The final level leads to desolation.
"I will destroy your high places, cut down your
incense altars, and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you. I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your
sweet aromas. I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell
in it shall be astonished at it." (Leviticus 26:30-32)
Just as the nation of Israel
prepared to enter the Promised Land, God said He would deliver the nations of that land over to them, but He warned them further
about this particular abomination.
"The graven images of their gods shall ye burn
with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein: for
it is an abomination to Yahweh thy
God. Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing. (Deuteronomy 7:25 26 KJV)
In verse 26 we see the nature
and effect of an abomination. An abomination is an accursed thing that must be hated and destroyed. If you bring it into your
home, you will be doomed to destruction just like the abomination itself. We can also say that bringing an abomination into
our life such as ouija boards, astrology, pornography, or drugs causes destruction in our life.
More
Rebellion in Israel
Returning to Ezekiel’s
narrative, the queen of heaven is only part of the abominations causing the glory
of the Yahweh to depart from His sanctuary. Other rebellious acts also help cause
the desolation of not only the temple but also, the entire land of Judah.
Furthermore He said to me, "Son of man, do you
see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel
commits here, to make Me go far away from
My sanctuary? Now turn again, you will see greater abominations." (Ezekiel 8:6)
The Spirit takes Ezekiel into a hidden inner-chamber where he sees the seventy
elders.
So I went in and saw; and behold every form of
creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel,
portrayed upon the wall round about. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel,
and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense
went up. Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the
house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, Yahweh seeth us not; Yahweh
hath forsaken the earth. (Ezekiel 8:10-12 KJVm)
Here we see the civil leadership
of Judah participating in the worship of the host of heaven.
They do so in the dark; their actions take place in secrecy. Wherever Mystery Babylon operates we will find secret activities
at work within the culture. Secrecy is the hallmark of Mystery Babylon. The darkness provided by secrecy allows men to do
things unacceptable in open society. It also allows them to deny they engage in any such practices.
The civil leaders are not the
only ones engaging in this idolatrous worship. The Spirit takes Ezekiel back to the North gate, where he witnesses the women
"weeping for Tammuz." You will remember Semiramis declared her son Tammuz
to be the reincarnation of Nimrod. He gained the title of Husband of the Mother
for in most ancient legends he became his mother’s lover and husband. As the reincarnation of Nimrod, the history of
Tammuz mingled with Nimrod’s history.
According to fable, a wild
boar killed Tammuz but his overlords permitted him to spend half the year on earth and forced him to spend the other half
in the lower world. At the time of summer solstice the Sun reaches the height of its heavenly circuit from an earthly
view. This marks the longest day of the year and now the succeeding days become shorter and shorter. Annually, on this day,
the women of pagan cultures weep for Tammuz, bemoaning the death of the sun god
as he begins his descent into the lower world. These mourners do not weep quietly as we might first imagine. They wail wildly
and franticly twist and contort their bodies. The Holy Spirit allows Ezekiel to observe the women of Israel
as they participate in this pagan rite. Then Yahweh shows the prophet an even greater
abomination:
And he brought me into the inner court of Yahweh’s house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of Yahweh,
between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs
toward the temple of Yahweh, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east. (Ezekiel
8:16 KJV)
Now we have the highest order
of spiritual leadership in Judah – the High Priest and the heads of the twenty-four courses or groups of priests
functioning directly under the high priest. In rebellion, these men turn their backs to the temple, forsaking the one true
God to worship another. Nimrod, or in his supposed reincarnated form as Tammuz, was the original sun god. All the ancient
mystery religions worshiped him as such. The Egyptians knew him as Ra and then Osiris. The Babylonians knew him as Marduk.
The Greeks recognized him as Helios and then Apollo. In Canaan and Israel
he was known as Baal.
The entrance to the Temple
of Yahweh looked toward the east and
the Holy of Holies stood on the west side of the Temple grounds. According to
proper procedure, the priests must enter the sanctuary facing west where the Ark of the Covenant rested and the presence of
Yahweh dwelt. When leaving the sanctuary, the priests must walk backwards so they
would never turn their backs towards God. Reverence for God required observing such rules. But the god of this age, the Prince
of Darkness, so corrupted the spiritual leadership of Judah that they now turn to the East with their backs towards Yahweh in order to worship the sun god.
Post-Exile
Apostasy
While these abominations lead
to the desolation of the Sanctuary and the land of Judah,
they do not end the rebellion of God’s people. Although some escape to Egypt,
Nebudchadnezzar takes most of them into captivity in Babylon. Two streams or patterns
emerge during their captivity. In one, they become more conservative and more cautious in keeping the Law. In the other, they
absorb more of Mystery Babylon into their religious system.
Believing their failure to
keep the Law of Moses brought about Judah’s captivity,
the Rabbis built a fence around the Law that would guard against breaking the Law. Thus the oral tradition replaced the Law of Moses. By creating the oral law as the official interpretation of the Law,
the Jews decreed that breaking the oral law is the same as breaking the Law of Moses.
An example of this would be
the law that states, "You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk."
(Exodus 23:19b;
34:26b; Deuteronomy 14:21c) One Christian bible scholar suggests this commandment meant that a kid should not be taken
for meat before weaning it from its mother’s milk. However, the oral law interprets this to mean that no meat product
should be eaten along with any form of a milk product. Thus, cheeseburgers and pepperoni pizzas do not qualify as kosher!
Rabbi
Judah ben Simeon, who presided over the Sanhedrin around 200
A.D., compiled the oral tradition into the Mishnah. (This compilation remained
in oral form until later centuries, however.) The Mishnah supplied the foundation of the Talmud,
which came later through added rabbinic commentaries. The Mishnah quotes Jewish scholars from pre-Christian times known as
Tanaim. Apparently, these same men who developed the Mishnah also formulated the
foundations of Jewish mysticism, which came to be called the Kabala and was committed
to writing in the middle ages as the Zohar. According to occultist Mme. H.P. Blavatsky,
“The Tanaim were the first kabalists among the Jews; they appeared at Jerusalem
about the beginning of the third century before the Christian Era… This secret doctrine is identical with that of the
Chaldeans, and includes at the same time much of the Persian wisdom, or ‘magic’.”
The
Hebrew Goddess
In the Kabala, we find Mystery
Babylon restored to her throne as Shekhina, Queen of the Sabbath. Satan’s harlot seeks to gain entrance in every culture
and society, in order to receive worship as a goddess. Of course in Israel,
the longest existing culture in the world, the harlot has come and gone over the millennia, suppressed under the administration
of godly kings and then raised to high standing under the sponsorship of wicked kings.
Originally, it was Asherah who dwelled in the
Temple as the Bride of God, His representative there. But after the “reforms”
of King Josiah, Asherah worship was forbidden in the Temple. Still, the Jews knew
that their Lady was still living there as their Queen and the representative of El, their God. So Asherah evolved. She began to be seen as the presence of God, and less as a separate entity. She
became Shekinah … However, Asherah did not really change. She was always the representative of Her Husband, just as
He was always HER representative. She, an Earth Goddess, was also Queen of Heaven. He, as Sky God, was also Ruler of Earth.
We know Jews to be fiercely
monotheistic. However, while the Kabalah clings to monotheism, it manages to integrate different forms of that one deity.
The effect is similar to the Christian understanding of the Trinity. The kabalist expands the concept of a masculine and feminine
duality to a family of deity represented by the four letters referred to as the Tetragrammatan – YHVH. Y (Yod)
represents the Father; H (Heh) represents the Mother; V (Vau) represents the Son; and the second H (Heh)
represents the Daughter.
According to the Zohar: “The Father and
the Mother, since they are found in union all the time and are never hidden or separated from each other are called ‘Companions.”
… And they find satisfaction in permanent union.” Son Vau and Daughter Heh are considered both siblings and consorts.
They have both a passionate and contentious relationship with each other. … [They] are thought to have wedded and embraced
nightly in Solomon’s Temple. Cherubim (Angel’s of Love) were born
from Their embrace.
The unholy storyline continues.
The sin of Israel caused Shekhina to leave the Temple,
separating Son Vau and Daughter Heh and weakening their divine powers. Therefore, concluded the rabbis, good deeds will cause
the two divine lovers to reunite, bringing greater blessing for the nation. Unloving or adulterous relationships likewise
cause the divine couple to quarrel, but sacred union between spouses will reconcile the divine couple. This gives the appearance
of a civilized view of the generative principle. However, within the structure of Mystery Babylon, in practice the
principle always degrades first into sexual immorality and then into the depths of sexual perversion.
The
Star of David
The kabalists see the Star
of David as a symbol of the generative principle. In open society, the hexagram known as the Magen David (Shield
of David) represents the nation of Israel, as seen by the
six-pointed star on their national flag. Some say that David carried a shield strengthened with a hexagram configuration to
fight Goliath; others say Solomon’s Seal was a hexagram. However, no evidence exists for either claim.
The Magen David appeared as an official Jewish symbol for the first time in 1354 when the Jewish community
in Prague chose it as the symbol on their flag. Sometime in the mid-eighteenth
century, a Jew named Moses Amschel Bauer hung a flag displaying a red hexagram over the doorway of his business, a counting
house. Years later, after taking over his father’s business Mayer Amschel Bauer, inspired by the flag, changed his last
name to Rothschild (German for Red Shield). Then, in 1896 Theodore Herzl recommended using the Magen David for the national flag of Israel.
One researcher identifies the
hexagram as the star pagans used to consecrate burnt offering for Moloch. He points out that Hitler used yellow hexagram stars
to mark Jews, who in reality became a burnt offering to his god. This author also noted that holocaust means burnt offering.
Cult-watchers condemn the hexagram
symbol as occultic. Indeed, our common understanding of the word hex comes from
the fact that occultists use this symbol in magic to invoke curses. While we need not condemn those who innocently view the
Star of David as the symbol of national Israel, we can recognize
its occultic origins. Kabala mystics adopted the hexagram in the Middle Ages and referred to it as Zivug ha Kadosh, the sacred coupling between the male and female attributes of God.
As I stated above, in the world
of the occult the hexagram symbolizes the generative principle. Composed by overlaying two equilateral triangles, the hexagram’s
upright triangle represents the active male principle and the inverted triangle represents the passive female principle. When
the two triangles are interlaced, they represent the union of the active and passive forces or the male and female elements
in nature. The kabalists entertain a lofty goal – the marriage of heavenly and earthly in the individual and in all
of creation. God takes issue with that effort in that they have ignored His plan
and implemented their own flesh-pleasing attempt to attain god-status.
Jesus’
Controversy with the Pharisees
When Elijah thought he alone
was left, God informed him that a remnant remained whose knees had not bowed to Baal. So also, when Jesus stepped from eternity
into the midst of God’s chosen people, no doubt some among the Jewish leadership loved Yahweh and served Him
faithfully. For example, some commentators propose the man who blessed baby Jesus when Joseph and Mary brought Him into the
Temple was Rabbon Simeon the Righteous, the son of Hillel and the father of Gamiliel.
Luke says about the Simeon who blessed Jesus, “this man was just and devout”
(Luke 2:25) – the Greek
word translated just being the same as the word more often translated righteous. The man called Rabbon Simeon
the Righteous served as president of the Sanhedrin as did his father Hillel before him and his son Gamilel after him. While
we have no way to know for certain, the evidence indicates his recognition of Jesus as Messiah caused him to fall into disfavor
among the rest of the Jewish leadership. Some historical records list Hillel and Gamiliel as presidents of the Sanhedrin while
failing to mention him, a sure sign of official disapproval.
We can be sure that Satan’s
harlot left no generation of God’s people unblemished by her whoredom. Jesus condemned the religious leaders of His
day, "For they bind heavy
burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers." (Matthew 23:4) While the Pharisees and the Scribes laid the heavy
burden of oral tradition on the backs of the ordinary Jew, in the darkness of secrecy they slept with the harlot, Mystery
Babylon, just as the elders did in Ezekiel’s day.
Imagine the dilemma of the
Jewish leadership when Jesus began His ministry. No doubt many among them secretly practiced pre-kabalistic magic and occultism.
The sons of Sceva mentioned in Acts probably participated in the same activities. These men witnessed Jesus operating in the
power of the Holy Spirit. They observed Him doing greater miracles than they could achieve on their best nights dabbling in
the occult. When Jesus healed a demon-possessed, blind, and mute man, the Pharisees accused Him of casting out demons by Beelzebub,
the prince of demons.
Jesus responded, "And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out?" (Matthew 12:27) The Pharisees accused Jesus of practicing the same magic arts they engaged in. Their own historical
record confirms this. Dating from very early times, Jewish tradition relates a number of blasphemous tales concerning Jesus
of Nazareth. For instance, we have the following two samples:
Jeschu
was taken during his boyhood to Egypt, where he was initiated into the
secret doctrines of the priests, and on his return to Palestine gave himself up to the practice of magic.
Jeschu
,,, came from Galilee and, penetrating into the Holy of Holies, read the Ineffable Name, which he transcribed on to a piece
of parchment and concealed in an incision under his skin. By this means he was able to work miracles and to persuade the people
that he was the son of God foretold by Isaiah.
The Pharisees considered Jesus
a practitioner of occultic magic, as some of them were. In effect, the Pharisees credited the work of the Holy Spirit through
Jesus to the prince of demons. Jesus did not take their attack personally. He viewed it as an attack against the work of the
Holy Spirit. As the Messiah, the Anointed One, the power of the Holy Spirit performed every one of His miracles. Jesus warned
that those who credited the Holy Spirit’s work through His ministry to the occult power of Mystery Babylon were guilty
of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
"But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. … He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters
abroad. Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not
be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the
Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come." (Matthew 12:28, 30-32)
Even today some assign Jesus’
power to the same evil sources. They say He went to Egypt,
learned the secret doctrines, and performed miracles with His knowledge of the magic arts, rather than by the power of the
Holy Spirit. Those who believe and spread such lies stand guilty of the sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, the unpardonable
sin.
After Jesus’ crucifixion,
resurrection, and ascension, the disciples waited in Jerusalem for the gift of
the Holy Spirit. The fulfillment of Pentecost birthed the Church, which then “turned the world upside down.” (Acts 17:6) But the Harlot did not quit. We
will witness her continued efforts to destroy God’s work as we move on to study The Harlot and the Church.
