12. Stolen gods

Jews Don't Need Idols

If you want to read about the spacecraft Jacob encountered on his way to Haran, or the outcome of a wrestling match he had with Jehovah, on his way back home, see:

http://spaceshiptheology.blogspot.com/2013/09/e-f-cast-jacob-dreamer.html

When Jehovah called Abram to leave Haran it was not only a geographical change which Jehovah was calling for.  Abram was to be the Father of a new kind of religion; a religion which worshipped only one God, not many gods, as his forefathers had done.  

It was a religion which demanded a righteous lifestyle and honest dealings with one's neighbours.  It was to be part and parcel of one's innermost mindset.  It was the religion on which Christianity, Islam and Judaism are based.  

After Abram left Haran, he was no longer encumbered with idols to worship or even to aid worship.  He did not carry around a rosary or pictures to remind him of the presence of Jehovah.  His God was much closer to him than any of that paraphernalia could ever be. We find a marked contrast between the religion of Abraham's grandson, Jacob and Abraham's grand nephew, Laban. 

Rebekah, Laban's sister, became the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob.  Later Jacob married Rachel, Laban's daughter, who was Rebekah's niece.  This is significant because it shows how two generations of godly living can have an amazing impact on the lives of the progeny.  Jehovah called Abraham to follow Him but Nahor, the father of Laban and Rebekah, did not receive such a call, consequently, Nahor's offspring still worshipped various gods with the attending idols.

To Abraham religion was a matter of the heart, to Laban it was a matter of pagan symbols. Jacob felt the same way his father and grandfather did, but Laban and Laban's daughter, Rachel, were still of the "old school" of polytheism and idols.  In fact, those idols were so important to Rachel, that just before she left Haran with Jacob, she stole them and hid them among her possessions.  

Rachel's Hangups

This would have been a good situation in which to confide in her husband.  She nearly paid with her life for this lack of discretion on her part.  Three days after Jacob snuck away from Haran, with his family and possessions, Laban heard that Jacob was gone and he pursued Jacob.  

When he had caught up with Jacob's caravan he said, "And now you have surely gone because you greatly long for your father’s house, but why did you steal my gods?” Then Jacob answered and said to Laban, ... “With whomever you find your gods, do not let him live.”  For Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them. Genesis 31:30-32.

Many Bible students believe that the family member who had possession of the family gods was also entitled to become the inheritor of the father's estate.  After Laban's and Jacob's continual swindling of each other, there was no way that Laban was about to let Jacob, or his offspring, become the owner of his estate.  If Laban had no other reason to pursue his gods, that reason alone would have been sufficient.

The only thing that saved Rachel's life at that time was what might have been a lie which she told her father.  She was sitting on the saddle bag that contained the idols, and when Laban asked her to move so that he could do a search, she said, “Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise before you, for the manner of women is with me.”  Dad, it is my time of month, so please don't ask me to move.

It seems as if Jacob felt that he could not worship Jehovah properly as long as his wives and concubines had idols with them.  So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments. Then let us arise and go up to Bethel".

The word, Bethel, means, the House of God, and it was there that Jacob had his close encounter with a spaceship on his way to Haran.  He said, "I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me in the way which I have gone.”  So they (the whole entourage) gave Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hands. Genesis 35:2-4.  

How many of us are willing to give up those things that we cherish the most?   Would we do it for the God we claim to worship?  

11. The Life of Isaac

Jehovah Walked and Ate

Then the Lord appeared to him, Abram, ... and he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing by him; ... and he, Abram, stood by them under the tree as they ate. Genesis 18:1-8.  The Bible distinctly says that it was the Lord that appeared to Abram and also that the Lord ate meat.  This brings to mind a former quote, Historical records and modern testimony describe them (saucerians) as physically humanlike, racially diverse, and, most importantly, very similar to human beings behaviorally.

The Lord was sitting with his back to the tent and he asked, “Where is Sarah your wife?” So he, Abram, said, “Here, in the tent.” And He, the Lord, said, “... Sarah your wife shall have a son.” Genesis 18:9-15.  

The Legitimate Imposter

After Abram had fathered a child with Hagar, Sarai's servant, Sarai learned to resent her. Undoubtedly, the resentment grew, that is what resentment does!  So Abram said to Sarai, “Indeed your maid is in your hand; do to her as you please.” And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she (Hagar) fled from her presence.

Now the Angel of the Lord found her ... And He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.” The Angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand.” Genesis 16:6-9.  She stayed on, as a servant to Sarai another sixteen years, until after Isaac, Abraham's and Sarai's son, was weaned.  Interestingly, normally it does not take 16 years to wean a child!

Abram and Sarah had made a mistake; that mistake was truly emotionally expensive for them. Sixteen years of friction between husband and wife.  For fourteen years Sarai wondered, Does Abram love her more than me?  After all, she is the mother of his only child.  How could Abram get any peace even though the whole idea had been Sarai's?  

Now that Sarai was a mother, she could vaunt about her position.  She need not put up with Hagar's insults any more.  Then, one day when she heard, Ishmael, Hagar's sixteen-year-old son, scoffing her, (he, no doubt, had learned this from his mother) Sarai said to Abram, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, namely with Isaac." Genesis 21:10.

Early, the next morning, Abram provided provisions for Ishmael and Hagar and sent them out into the wilderness.  The Jerusalem Bible writes it like this, He (Abram) put the child on her shoulder and sent her away.  This sounds somewhat unbelievable, after all, Ishmael was sixteen years old by then and Hagar would most likely not be carrying him.  

Soon the water which Abram had provided was used up, and Hagar put her son into the shade of a shrub, where he would die of thirst, and she said, Let me not see the death of the boy.  Genesis 21:16.  

Again, I wonder, would a sixteen-year-old quietly lie down in the shade to die, while the mother goes away to weep?  It sounds to me as if the person who wrote this story failed to calculate the time frame, it is totally unbelievable!

Through a miracle, both, mother and son, survived and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer. ... and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. Genesis 21:20-21.  The fact that she wanted an Egyptian woman for her son is not surprising, because she was of Egyptian descent.

The Bible's Unsung Hero

The Bible does not say very much about Isaac.  However, a few details are given.  He was forty years old when he married Rebekah, and when he was sixty they became the parents of twins, Esau and Jacob.

We also learn that he was travelling in Gerar, where his father Abram had also meandered. Isaac pulled the same stunt there that his father had done years ago; he told the king that his wife was his sister, and for the same reason, too.  Did Abram brag to Isaac about that unwarranted trick so often that Isaac thought it was worth repeating?

Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent; and he took Rebekah and she became his wife. Gen. 24:67.  We learn here that a man and a woman do not become a couple at a marriage ceremony, but rather at the first time they engage in "that very intimate act".  

A wedding is merely a superfluous, man-made ordinance as far as a couple's relationship to each other is concerned.  It is when a man and a woman first engage in sex that they become "married".  All wedding trappings are beside the point; maybe that is why so many non-christian wedding ceremonies have become nothing more than a circus act, each trying to outdo the other in absolute stupidity and ungodliness.

When Esau was forty years old, he took as wives Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. And they were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah. Genesis 26:34-35.  Cross-cultural marriages create their own sets of problems. Even if the spouses can learn to accommodate each other's cultural differences, the parents in law - not so easily. 

When the time came for Jacob to find a wife, Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, like these who are the daughters of the land, (that is, Esau's wives, Rebekah's daughters-in-law) what good will my life be to me? Genesis 27:46.

Also, Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan (his wives) did not please his father Isaac. So Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife in addition to the wives he had. Genesis 28:8-9.  Esau tried so very hard to please his father, Isaac.  He went so far as to marry his father's half brother's daughter, just so that Isaac would be proud of him. 

We also notice here that Esau did not care what his mother thought about the whole issue.  After all, Esau was Isaac's favourite and Jacob was Rebekah's favourite.  Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Genesis 25:28.

Isaac died at the age of one hundred and eighty.

10. The Sin of Sodomy

Jehovah Needs to Investigate

In speaking of the omniscience of Jehovah, the following, Genesis 18:22-33 speak volumes.

Here is a quote from a former post, Jehovah is tolerant, just and loving and it is only when humans prove themselves to be incorrigible that He finally takes action to reprimand, correct or even destroy those whom He has chosen for destruction. 

Sodom and the neighbouring cities had come to that point where destruction was called for.  Abraham pled with Jehovah not to destroy Sodom.   Abraham probably did this because his nephew, Lot and his family, lived in Sodom.

Abraham started off by saying, Suppose there are fifty righteous people in Sodom, would you still destroy it. Jehovah did not say, I know exactly how many there are and there are not fifty. He said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.  The Lord did not know!   Abraham's pleading continued all the way down to ten. Gen. 18:33.  At no point did Jehovah indicate that He knew how many, but He did say, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.

It just does not fulfil the demands of critical Bible study to simply say, well, it does not mean what it says; the Bible says that God did not know.

Mankind's Total Depravity

But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord. Genesis 13:13. The Lord said, Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave. Genesis 18:20.

The sin of sodomy, (abnormal sexual behaviour), obviously, gets its name from the name of the city of Sodom.  The Bible says that the men who practice such perversions are exceedingly wicked and sinful.  In our society even "the church": 

• which is to be the light of the world; 
• which is to provide moral guidance; 
• which is to speak out against sinful practices, 

for the most part, condones, or even practices that sin. 

Those few who speak out against it are labelled homophobic; which, by the way, is among the worst misnomers ever to be coined.  We are said to be narrow-minded and anti-social; actually, we are also called a lot worse. 

We take the stand we do, because, our guidebook, The Bible, tells us that practice is wrong and a sin.  So we, who uphold what the Bible teaches to be right are made to look like "the bad guys" because we do not condone the immoral actions of those who do.

Paul wrote about this in these words, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. Rom. 1:21-22. 

The whole mess would not seem so disgusting if those who practice it at least were not so blatantly proud of their degraded lifestyle.  Why do they need their degenerated, nude, pride parades just to show that they do not conform to the normal standard?

Billy Graham once said words to this effect: If God doesn't punish America for its sexual perversions, He will need to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah for treating them unfairly.

We, who condemn the practice, are painted with a black brush because they should be ashamed of their disgusting lifestyle.  Isaiah 5:20-21+24 fits in here:

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
And prudent in their own sight!

Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble,
And the flame consumes the chaff,
So their root will be as rottenness,
And their blossom will ascend like dust;
Because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts,

And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Very plainly the Bible says,

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. Lev. 18:22.

Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. Romans 1:27.

Anybody who tells me that he can be a child of God and live in perversion, live in the thick mire of our contemporary permissiveness, is not kidding anyone but himself.

These are passions of dishonor and disgrace and depravity—regardless of what public opinion is today. Perversion entered into Greek life, and it brought Greece down to the dust. Go over there and look at Greece today. The glory has passed away. Why? These were their sins.

That is what Rev. J.V. McGee wrote a few decades ago.   One can not help but wonder what his words would be now that that sin has so completely permeated our society.

The Believers Bible Study says Homosexuality is pictured by Paul not as the ultimate sin but as the ultimate distortion of God’s creative genius. When the human family indulges in sexual behavior antithetical to that for which they were biologically, psychologically, and emotionally designed, the “futile” imagination has so “darkened” the foolish heart (v. 21) that it is virtually impossible to view anything as God intended. To these awesome sins of homosexuality and sodomy, Paul applies six terms of evaluation: (1) “uncleanness” (v. 24), (2) “lusts” (v. 24), (3) “dishonor” (v. 24), (4) “vile passions” (v. 26), (5) “against nature” (v. 26), and (6) “shameful”.

Don't blame us, we didn't make the rules!

Neither did we decide on the punishment.

For a different view of Lot and Sodom go to:

http://spaceshiptheology.blogspot.com/2013/09/ee-cast-abraham-host.html

9. Abraham's troubled years

Abraham Leaves Home

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. Hebrews 11:8. Many years before this, Abram's father Terah had moved his family from Ur northward to Haran.  The plan had been to move to the land of Canaan, towards the Mediterranean Sea, but for some reason; sickness or the comforts of Haran, or whatever, Haran is where Terah and his family settled down.  

The name Haran (the town) is not to be confused with Haran (Abram's brother), in the Hebrew language they are not spelt the same.

Was it that being nomadic was part of Abram's nature, or did the Lord literally tell him to move Westward to Canaan?  In any case, that is where Abraham settled down.  

Very often when Christians really want to do something, they pray about it, and they pray long enough to convince themselves that the Lord has told them to do that which they wanted to do all along.  Many times this has nothing to do with finding and doing the Lord's will, the praying has to do with feeling good about being selfish.

By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Hebrews 11:9-10.  Abram was willing to endure living in tents, while other people lived in comfortable houses because he looked towards the future, he was looking to live in the eternal city, so, for him, for the time being, tents were good enough.

Abraham's First Son

Abraham was about 85 years old and he still had no son; his faith was wearing thin, so he and Sarah concocted a plan and consequently, Ishmael was born.

About Isaac's older brother an angel made the following prophecy:

You shall call his name Ishmael, 

... He shall be a wild man; 

His hand shall be against every man, 

And every man’s hand against him. Genesis 16:11-12.

Most of the wars fought in the Near East have been fought because of ideological or theological differences between Christians, Jews and Muslims. The Crusades were military campaigns sanctioned by the Latin Catholic Church during the High Middle Ages through to the end of the Late Middle Ages.   Hordes of people flying the Christian flag attacked and killed Muslims.  The estimated number of deaths, because of the Crusades, ranges from less than ten thousand to one and a half million.  

Muslims invaded and slaughtered where they had no business going.  Thus, the wheels of theology and philosophy keep on turning so that people think they have a right to kill those who do not agree with them. Wikipedia

Abraham's Second Son

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called." Hebrews 11:17-18.  All of Abraham's hopes for future offspring were placed in Isaac.  The other son he had, was not included in the promise Jehovah had made to Abraham, and he was not to be reckoned as an heir; the word of the Lord came to him, saying, "This one shall not be your heir". Genesis 15:3.  

The descendants of Ishmael, the Arabic people, are the offspring of Abraham but they are not part of the promise that Jehovah made to Abraham and his son, Isaac.

In the Bible, it is recorded that the Moabites indulged in the practice of child sacrifice.  We recall that Moab was the son of Lot who was born to Lot's daughter. Genesis 19:36.  Is it possible that, because of their upbringing in Sodom, the daughters of Lot thought that what they were doing with their father in the cave, was acceptable?  

We see a lot of similar thinking in the younger people of Christian parents in today's society.  Other teens are doing drugs, having pre-marital sex, lying, shop-lifting, etc, so they think, its probably not as bad as "my parents say it is", and so they get involved in that kind of lifestyle. 

Was it peer pressure that got Abraham thinking along the line of sacrificing his son? Others are doing it, should I?  He proceeded with the plan.  Everything is in place for the blood sacrifice.  However, Jehovah will never be in alliance with such a wicked course of action.  In Leviticus 18:21, 20:3 and Deuteronomy 12:30-31, 18:10, the Torah contains a number of imprecations against and laws forbidding child sacrifice. 
wikipedia-child sacrifice.  

Earlier I wrote of the gods as being the Anunnaki and that some of the Anunnaki were vicious, temperamental or even mean-spirited, but the Bible repeatedly, and without ceasing, emphasizes that Jehovah is not like the other Gods.  

Jehovah is tolerant, just and loving and it is only when humans prove themselves to be incorrigible that He finally takes action to reprimand, correct or even destroy those whom He has chosen for destruction.

James Kugel argues that the Torah's specifically forbidding child sacrifice indicates that it happened in Israel as well. It was not just among Israel's neighbors that child sacrifice was countenanced, but apparently within Israeli itself. Why else would biblical law specifically forbid such things – and with such vehemence?" 
How to Read the Bible James Kugel, 

concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense. Hebrews 11:19.  As in all Bible stories, there are divisions as to the real meaning or as to what really happened.  Again, let's not get so caught up in the details that we lose sight of the greater truth.  

Isaac was a type of Christ.  As far as Abraham was concerned, Isaac was already dead, but Abraham believed that Jehovah could raise him from the dead if that is what was needed.  Christ, the spotless Lamb of God, also was sacrificed, and Jehovah raised Him from the dead to reign as the King above all kings.

Then He said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.” And he said, “Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it?” Genesis 15:7-8. "Abraham, I had hoped that you would believe me simply because I said so, but since you don't, look, I will work a miracle for you so that it will be easier for you to believe."  

This story is in Genesis 15:9-16.