Chapter 4
by John Greene
Ezekiel 23:11-12
And when her sister Aholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms. She doted upon the Assyrians, her neighbors, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men.
Aholah is described as the elder and Aholibah is the younger sister in verse 4. Why do little brothers want to be like big brothers? Why do little girls want to be just like their big sisters? Why are the younger kids blind to the problems and negative traits of the elder siblings? Part of the answer must be something inherent in the human heart that is placed there by God for good, and as always the enemy fornicates and prostitutes what is pure and holy!
In Titus we are given this truth or at least it is implied because of the way that Paul lays out the training and teaching ordinances of God's Word in the New Testament church. The elder teaches the younger what the Pastor has taught him, and this is in both sexes using the grace of God and administering to the kids. Moses recorded the training of children to be when you wake, when you rise up, when you sit, when you walk, when you talk, when you eat, and when you go to bed!! This covers it all. Aholibah learns, but look at what she learns! "She was more corrupt" is declared by Ezekiel! This is what she learned!!!
In the days of Noah, it is said that God repented that He has made man, and that man's thoughts are continually evil. If these two women are daughters of one women, one mother, I wonder if it is implied that this mother might have been a women possessed by the same demon spirit that possessed Jezebel?? Ah, but that would be another book? Aholibah is more corrupt! Aholibah is more idolatrous in her whoredoms! What was passed down to Aholah was taught to Aholibah. Aholibah learned well from her "big" sister and "Jezebel" mother.
Aholibah saw, craved, and doted! The sin was there, she lusted after that sin, and she fell infatuated in a lustful and sinful way! Truly, "she was more corrupt" than her sister! Aholibah displayed her corrupt heart by "her inordinate love" and "her whoredoms"! These two things go together in almost every case. Inordinate love when not repented will give birth to whoredoms. This is the power of an attitude.
Jesus made clear that our heart produces attitudes and as they go so do our lives and deeds. We must stop our kids from the ungodly attitudes they have. Proverbs tells us to drive that foolishness out of them with proper discipline in the form of a rod of correction. The generation that we are raising is similar to Noah's generation, and it is similar to Aholah and Aholibah's generation. Aholibah's mother should have sent her to the woodshed and not for wood!! When we don't deal with the attitude when the Holy Spirit brings it to the surface, then we create a monster waiting to growl and prowl, but the results will certainly be evil! We must deal with these attitudes, now.
Do you ever wonder while you are in church what the other people in all the other churches are hearing? Where is the teaching of the "fear of The Lord"? Since the Holy Spirit brings conviction of sin, in deed and in heart, we can know that Aholibah will be convicted of her sin. Why is their an absence of sin consciousness? Why isn't there evidence of a conscience? Is it seared with a hot iron as Paul told Timothy? Aholibah not only took to heart what she saw and learned from Aholah, but as in Noah's days went to the extreme as we will see. Aholibah was not satisfied and satiated in her lovenest with the Assyrians, but had to go further and lusted after the Chaldeans! If not for the covenant promise of the rainbow to Noah, God may have brought a flood to this time frame in history! We might have had two floods.
Aholibah sleeps with Aholah's used lover. Not only is this fornication, it is called an abomination in the Scriptures!! One lover sleeps with sisters. This could be the title of one of those "romance" novels or seen on one of those upright and pure TV shows, you know the soaps are evil but accept their primetime counterparts. Yes, this is all sarcasm! Picture trading bed partners today, not only is it perverted, but the diseases that are here today (that we have already discussed) like AIDS, gonorrhea, herpes, and the like are mostly incurable. Oh, the ways of lust! Her conscience is surely seared with a hot iron.
Can we get a picture of why God says that we are not our own, and He desires for a pure relationship. The one sin that He relates as horrifying and self destructive because it unites two people to be as one is the act of sex!! When you sleep with a prostitute, you sleep with every bed partner she has ever had! When Aholibah slept with these desirable young men that were authoritative and strong from Assyria, she slept with every bed partner that they had ever had including her sister, Aholah! This is aberration and perversion to the highest degree that sin will bring. Aholibah is more corrupt. In vs. 4, Aholah is said to be "Mine" in reference to God's ownership and personal delight!
Jesus is returning soon, and only for a bride that is without spots and wrinkles!! Does Aholah or Aholibah make heaven their home? Would Jesus return for a fornicating, prostituting, lusting after the bodies of anything that will have me bride or is He meaning exactly what He says, a bride without spot or wrinkle??! You could argue over this issue of salvation or the issue of whether these two women were saved at all, but that would muddy the waters of our understanding. The Bible as a whole proclaims the truth that He is only taking out of this world to be with Him a pure and holy bride, and not some tramp that professes that at one time in the past she said some words about loving Jesus!
Let me share with you something that the Lord has been showing me in Genesis 3:12, "And the man said, 'The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.'" Here are the details of Adam caught red-handed in sin. Questioned by God, Adam says some interesting things. Please follow along. "The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me" (my emphasis) is declared by Adam to God. Listen, to what is recorded. Adam is telling God that HE IS SOVEREIGN!!
Now, since God is sovereign, and since He is perfect, never making a mistake, then it is HIS fault!! It is God's fault because He created Eve and gave her to Adam to be his wife. The sin that Adam committed was God's fault! Wow??! In God's sovereignty, He should have known better than to give Adam an imperfect wife like Eve. Therefore, Adam's conclusion is simple: "God, I'm not accountable to you for sin because You are sovereign and could stop me from all sin, but if You don't stop me, then I am still not accountable because YOU created everything perfect, so it is still Your fault." I understood the blame game here to a degree, but this time God showed me the intensity of the game.
God will not force Aholah nor Aholibah into doing His will, even when they were cleaned and washed in His blood belonging to Him. A clean and perfect person can decide to turn their back on a holy Lord whenever they want to do so. God won't force people to love Him even when He loves them and wants their best! Yes, God is sovereign, but we must understand that within His sovereignty is our free choice. This evidenced by the truth that Adam was made "good" and absent of all sin, but when he chose to sin, God let him have his choice. God's sovereignty was called into question as a result of Adam's sin, but God still judged Adam for his sin. For those of you that may be incessant at this point and are trying to justify Adam by saying that he was God's possession and would go to heaven, you should go back read the third Chapter of Genesis again, but do so without your doctrinal positions as filters or eyeglasses. Let The Word say what God says that it says!
Sin has eternal consequences and there must be an understanding of them before you put your hopes in an eternal security doctrine that has so much contradiction in the Scriptures. Aholibah was more corrupt and this is after she had a relationship with Almighty God! Hebrews 6 talks of the difficulty of someone repenting after they have tasted of God's goodness and turned their backs on Him!
Aholibah committed more whoredoms, more idolatry! Look at what is found in Ezekiel 8. This is in Jerusalem, in the temple!! Idols placed at the gate, then moved inside. Women (the church) found weeping for Tammuz, the incestuous son of Semiramus or Ashtaroth as the Jews called her and Nimrod the mighty hunter before all the earth. Tammuz was believed to be a god, Nimrod reincarnated, a sun god as well as god of the vernal equinox which is spring. He is celebrated in the feast of saturnalia which was celebrated on December 25th and his symbol was a T, actually the Greek Tau. Jeremiah records the name of Semiramus as queen of heaven instead of Ashtaroth or something else like Easter, her name as called by the tribes that settled in northern Europe. Ezekiel also records all the bug gods of Egypt hidden behind walls and worshipped by the elders of the church! Aholibah didn't just have God as a god, but had everyone's that came from each individual she jumped in bed with!!
To believe that you have a relationship with God when you have other gods, reveals your self-deception! You do not understand the cautions nor commandments of God and His truth as related in His Word. When He said to not have any other Gods before Him, it wasn't so much a threat to him because He knows that HE IS, WAS, and ALWAYS WILL BE JEHOVAH GOD!! What He is saying is a warning that Aholibah never took seriously and was not taught by her mother or sister. God knew that idols will destroy relationships every time! God doesn't need me, but I need Him and the life that I have in Him! In Him, I live and have my being!!
In Aholibah's own heart, she lowered God down to the same standards as an idol, as other gods, she took away His holiness, His truth, His fear and made Him a mere "god" with the rest! God is forever YHWH and He does not change! Perhaps Aholibah needed to go to a church that preached against sin? Where was Aholibah's "brethren" in Galatians 6? Because of the namby-pamby gospel, a watered down and compromising gospel, she believed that she had a relationship with God. All the time that she was committing adultery, fornication and prostitution with her sister's lover, no one said otherwise!
Where are the loving friends of Aholibah? Why doesn't someone that is spiritual go to her? Why is she left to her sins to rot forever in a devil's hell? Why doesn't someone get enough godly courage and boldness and take a stand for Jesus telling her that He loves her but if she doesn't repent and turn from her wicked ways that she will surely face the fires of a lake that burns forever, where there is truly weeping and gnashing of teeth?
How is it that she could go to church and be sleeping with her sister's boyfriend? Isn't this the same thing that Paul dealt with in principle in Corinth? Doesn't Paul ask why this church allowed a man to sleep with his step-mother and still claim to be saved? What about me? Do I commit these evils? Do I allow and condone these evils in my church? Do I stand for Jesus by declaring that sin is sin and that God will not allow anyone that is in sin into heaven? What have we done to "repentance" and "forsake your sins" and "go and sin no more"????
Only those people that have repented of their sins bringing forth fruit worthy of repentance, those that are born from above and washed in the blood of Jesus will see heaven!! God is not mocked. Whatever a person sows, that will certainly grow and become fruit that he/she will reap! Only the blood of Jesus can blot out our sins and write our names in The Lamb's Book of Life. "Repent" was Jesus' first message! It hasn't changed.
"She doted upon the Assyrians, her neighbors, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men." This is the result of her attitude towards sin, her sister's attitude towards sin, and her mother's attitude towards sin. She belonged to God, but tossed aside His love, His mercy, His grace, His concern for a fleshly left-over of her sister! Maybe, we should take another look at the way we see things?
John Greene