Chapter 3
by John Greene
Ezekiel 23:9-10
Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted. These discovered her nakedness: they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword: and she became famous among women; for they had executed judgment upon her.
In Romans 1, Paul talks about truth, knowledge, and salvation. He goes on to explain how some people have rejected God and made knowledge their god even to the point of turning completely away from Him. Therefore God, according to Paul, gives these kinds of people over to a reprobate mind! The character then becomes degenerate and void of any tinge of right or wrong. Aholah not only reached this level of apostasy, but the results are that God allowed that which she treasured so much to destroy her! Her own lovers, the Assyrians took her sons and daughters and destroyed her!
Even though sin has a moment or time frame of pleasure, and despite the grace of God which sends His Spirit to bring conviction of sin, when we fall prey to the devil, he will use us until he has totally used every ounce of energy in us. Then the devil just picks up our lives as though they were mere pieces of paper and wads them up and throws them into the dumpster, the trash heap of life. God does allow this to happen in hopes that we will ask Jesus into our hearts and lives! This is the judgment of God, "Repent, repent! Now is the time to repent, for tomorrow is not promised! Today is the day of salvation! Repent because your sins will be cast into the lake of fire and if you are attached to them, then so be it! Repent and receive Jesus today. I love you and died for you, so repent!" Aholah faced judgment and had no lawyer, no Advocate! Man, I get so excited, because God is saying, "Set the trumpet to your lips!" Man, let's preach the gospel, the truth!
No one wants to believe that a holy and loving Jesus will ever let anyone go to hell. The way we preach the gospel, the way we tell others to say a simple prayer that keeps you saved forever, the way we disgrace the truth daily, are all evidence that we lack the truth! I'm sorry but Jesus said "few" enter into the pearly gates! He also said that "broad" was the way to destruction. You can't justify away these Words from Jesus, Himself! No prayer no matter how insincere and hypocritical it is will be the "works" that one may use to say they are saved forever! Yes, this is tingue and cheek! Jesus said that "many" go the way of destruction. Let's stick to His Word!
The men of God that are sent to tell others of sin and its impending judgment are stones, ridiculed, slandered, gossiped about, even murdered in many countries, but the love of God still calls men to go and these caring men are compelled to go with His message of sin and the judgment to come! These men should simply say, "Thus says The Lord God, 'Repent, and be converted or reject His love and sacrifice and face hell for eternity!'" The message isn't pretty but it sure does save!!
Sin will be judged upon this earth and as we see with Aholah, she reaps the consequences of sowing wild oats! "These discovered her nakedness: they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword: and she became famous among women;" Her sin was revealed and the very source of her "pleasure" became the hand by which she received judgment! Yet, this very reaction should be allowed to bring godly sorrow that will produce repentance as God intends, but it doesn't!
Look at the judgment!! "These discovered her nakedness:" Don't we teach our little girls and boys modesty? We tell them and help them to keep their dresses down, to not let people see their skin and especially their private areas because their is shame! Adam and Eve were ashamed of their sinful condition and sought to cover it up. The truth is that repentance will allow the blood of Jesus to wash their shame away! The sin of Aholah became her shame as her genitals were revealed! How crude, but truthful!!
But this wasn't the only part of her earthly judgment. The world has helped us to desensitize ourselves. We see nakedness in our books, on TV, the movies, museums, just about everywhere. So God allowed more severe judgment in hopes that Aholah would repent! "They took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword:" Look! Her children were taken captive! But this wasn't bad enough, her own life was trashed, useless so she was killed!
Her children were possessed by the world's thinking. Her children were raised to believe that sin was okay, that a loving God would never send anyone to hell. Her children were captive to their idols and their beliefs that anyway you decide is right for you to come to God, you may use. If you use drugs to get a spiritual high then that's okay! Should you seek enlightenment from a dali lama, then that too is okay. As long as you make some kind of peace with God, you'll be alright. It should not be hard to see why the church is dead! All the thinking of the world has infiltrated and bored through the truth of God's Word, and we have just taken this ridiculous thought and accepted it. Wow!!!
Why would the people in the church want to be famous because they were judged by God? Aholah was judged by God and found to be a whore who deserved death, but not just her, but her children received judgment as well from God! Is this being famous?
What book would such a person want to written in and glory in this notoriety? Perhaps The Guinness Book of Records or The Smithsonian Historical Recordings of Evil Nations or The Bible where we could learn from the sins and failures of a person and not fall trapped in the devil's schemes this time around would be the proper book? Aholah's sin caused her to be famous.
If we are overcomers because of Jesus' blood and our testimony, then where is the most important ingredient of Aholah's notoriety, her testimony? The whole world may hear of my past sins, if it would help them to know Jesus, but the crucial issue of my old sins is my repentance of those sins and my choice to follow Jesus forsaking those sins at His feet on Calvary!! This is a testimony. Jesus washed me clean with His blood, and if He did it for me, then He will do it for you! If I am to be written down in some book and be famous as a result, let it be one that will glorify Jesus because of His death for me that I can now say, "I am alive in Christ!!"
Shame is revealed by the very thing that Aholah treasured. Aholah loved her sins, she truly treasured her sins. The results or wages of sin is death where Aholah's resting point was hell. The depiction of hell that so many have grown to believe is not so real because of the glory of being there. There is no party in hell!! Hell is described by too many verses in the Bible to be fiery, hot, tormenting, without the end of torment, a place to shun! Yet, there is one thing that we leave out of our description of hell, and that is the haunting reminder of our stupidity to listen to the devil and his demons to do the evil that we did upon earth against the heart's desire of The holy Child, Jesus!!
The devil will bring to our remembrance each and every time that we listened to him and laughing in our faces because we rejected the servants of God who were sent to tell us the truth. We think that it is bad when the devil shows us our sins today telling us that we should give up, that God can't help us and laughing all the time. Well, get real because it will be hotter and more tormenting should we listen to his advice and refuse to repent! Satan mocks God's truth anywhere and whenever he is allowed. This is exactly what the devil does today and what he will do in eternal damnation. Imagine for a moment the sins, the mistakes, the errors of judgment in your life, never leaving the peak of emotional shame, failure, and disgrace, continually paraded in mock and derision before your eyes. Hell will be cast into the lake of fire with the devil. the beast, the false prophet, and sin.
When we add the eternal flames of torment to the harshness of this literal pictorial of the lake of fire and you have only a small glimpse of the judgmental realities and condemnation that will last forever. If you add the truth that God is absent, then an understanding of why accepting Jesus is so urgent! Today is the day to accept Jesus!!
Aholah knew God, had a personal relationship, and traded all of that for this spectacle of horrors. To add to all this insult, Aholah would forever remember that her children were murdered before her very eyes and this sin would be laid to her charge. The devil remind her forever of her eternal damnation of her children! It was the influence of Aholah, the negative influence, that caused her children not a literal murder, BUT a spiritual murder! Because of her hypocrisy, the bondage, and enslavement to sin, the children were not taught God's Word by example, only by mouth. What do our children learn from us?
How many parents have had their kids go out into the world prey to every vice, disease, and addiction because they went to a church that preached half-truths and heresies or preached a good gospel message but lived contrary to the Word or merely mixed the profane with the holy and told their kids that God is a God of love and will never let one of His children to see a devil's hell? Aholah lost her family because of church attendance and going home afterwards and eating dinner talking about everything that was wrong in their opinion about their Sunday school class and the Pastor's message. I do not want to be famous or should I say infamous because I led astray my family, my friends, and my neighbors to a devil's hell. Aholah was infamous for this very reason! This is God's judgment!
No wonder Paul is quoted to say that the Old Testament was written for our examples! Let us learn from Aholah! However, not the upcoming verses show that Aholibah DID NOT LEARN FROM HER SISTER!!
John Greene