{"id":208,"date":"2018-04-17T15:55:08","date_gmt":"2018-04-17T20:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/godsvoice\/?page_id=208"},"modified":"2019-04-27T11:50:22","modified_gmt":"2019-04-27T16:50:22","slug":"intimacy-and-prostitution","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/godsvoice\/hear\/competing-voices\/false-prophets\/intimacy-and-prostitution\/","title":{"rendered":"Intimacy and Prostitution"},"content":{"rendered":"

In one way or another, all Christian theology and religious practices are presumed to satisfy God\u2019s covenant expectations of how righteous people should act. The thinking is that because Jesus is the mediator of the New Covenant, and because they believe in Jesus, and because they participate in communion, they have done everything God expects. But they are double-minded in their thinking because they unilaterally change the terms of the everlasting covenant by practicing a religion that changes over time. Jews don\u2019t change quite as much, but Judaism is still a religion in flux.<\/a> This is more evidence of confusion about covenants.<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite disagreement about which covenants apply to whom and when they apply, Christians and Jews are similar in that they both ultimately base their religious beliefs and practices on non-biblical writings. Jews have an Oral Torah<\/a> and Christians have their Systematic Theology<\/a> and writings of hundred of theologians developed during twenty centuries of Christianity<\/a>. And this list of theologians does not account for the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of pastors and authors who preach on Sundays and write books and journals.\u00a0 Christians criticize Jews for their Oral Torah but conveniently ignore the fact that they have always taken their cues about religious belief and practice from oral and written interpretations of the Bible created by men \u2014 not God.<\/p>\n

Writers from both religions created succinct doctrines from choice parts of the written Bible that they thought they understood. They then did their best to condense and interpret the rest of it to make it understandable enough that people could apply it to their lives. To accomplish this task, they had to ignore some scriptures and create new doctrines that explained mysterious scriptures they could not understand.<\/p>\n

The result of all this creative thinking and writing is a giant mishmash of different, and even conflicting, religious beliefs and practices. Another result is a prevailing view that covenants, both the Old\/New Covenant and\u00a0 the New Covenant apply to one group of people (i.e. either Jews or Christians) on a global, dispensational<\/a> basis. Thus we find that all Jews believe that all Jews will enter into the New Covenant at some unknown future time (i.e. when the Messiah comes), while all Christians think that they are already New Covenant disciples because of their membership in a denomination that has all the right doctrines. They all miss the truth that covenant status applies to each and every individual depending on his\/her personal beliefs \u2014 not on membership in a particular ethnic or religious group.<\/p>\n

We conclude from this history that, despite their claims, both Christians and Jews ultimately derive many of their beliefs and practices from wrong, literal interpretations of the written Bible. Both started with the written word, of course, but they could not resist translating it according to their own understanding of what God meant. To restate that fact in Biblical language, false prophets could not resist exercising deceptive,<\/a> but believable, imaginations and visions of their own minds<\/a> to create doctrines and rituals for idolatrous audiences who praised them for their intellectual interpretations of the literal Bible. No wonder God calls all of these writers lying scribes who have translated the law of God into lies while rejecting the spoken word of God.<\/a><\/p>\n

Lies and confusion are the result of the multitude of human mediators who use the imaginations and visions of their own minds<\/a> to interpret God\u2019s literal words. Each one has his or her idea about how to interpret the Bible. Lacking the ability to hear God\u2019s spoken voice that would enable them to understand the mysteries of the Bible, generations of religious leaders have fabricated doctrines that generations of religious people have found to be believable. This is how religions are created. And it happens because everyone tries to interpret the literal words of the Bible but no one listens for the spiritual meaning of scripture that only God can communicate reliably and consistently to people who listen to his voice.<\/p>\n

Because God knows that this confusion leads to religion, he has clearly instructed his people to listen to his spoken voice<\/a>. That is the only way they can receive spiritual truth reliably and consistently. That is the only way they can receive spiritual truth that is unfiltered by human thinking. That is the only way they can receive spiritual truth that is pure and untainted by human motives.<\/p>\n

But we see in Bible stories and in real life that generations of men, and some women, who are wise in their own minds have seized opportunities to make names for themselves and earn an income by feeding ignorant people food that appears spiritual but is not. They make a business of mediating<\/a> God\u2019s word for religious consumers who are hungry to learn about God but lack the wisdom to discern good from evil<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The reason human mediators have had such influence and success marketing their religious ideas is that no one trusts that God could, or would, explain Biblical mysteries to any average human who does not have religious credentials (e.g. training, titles, clothing, etc.). This thinking created a spiritual vacuum for entrepreneurial religious leaders who want to make names for themselves. <\/a>Motivated by aspirations to god-likeness, <\/a>personal glory and income, they claim to have callings that qualify them to insert themselves between men and God as his prophets <\/a>(i.e. those who speak for God<\/a>).<\/p>\n

No doubt most, maybe all, false prophets sincerely believe that they understand what God means in the literal, written Bible and are convinced that, because of their wisdom and calling, they have a legitimate role and responsibility to communicate the truth to people who are not as wise as they are. But, sincere or not, they set themselves up as stumbling blocks for the people who choose to listen to false prophets instead of listening for God\u2019s voice to explain the Bible to them personally. This explains why, ever since Moses delivered the law to Israel, people have stood at a distance from God and let human mediators like Moses report to them what God has said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This practice of human mediators speaking for God seems legitimate, honorable and even spiritual because examples of spokesmen\/prophets often appear in the Bible and because that is the way religion has always worked. Thus, religious leaders have always been accepted as legitimate, important parts of all cultures. Spokesmen\/prophets satisfy the need that all people have for a king to protect them<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>But religious activity is not what God really wants from his people.<\/a> There are many reasons why God dislikes religion, but the main reason is that violates what God has said about listening to his voice. <\/a>Listening to his voice is important to God because it is in listening that God assesses the condition of man\u2019s heart and equips people for Godly living by writing his laws on their hearts<\/a>. People with hard hearts do not listen. They are rebellious. People who do listen have soft, pliable hearts that are open and receptive toward God.<\/p>\n

In Biblical language, God speaking and people listening is the perfect act of intimacy that exists in the husband and wife relationship. Thus, it can be said that listening and hearing is intimacy with God. This principle is symbolically represented in mouth-to-mouth, face-to-face conversations like God had with Moses and in the sensual intimacy a king has with his lover in the Song of Solomon.<\/a> Intimacy with God is also graphically represented in scriptures about husbands, wives, brides and bridegrooms. <\/a>We can also find symbolism in the contemporary practice of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation where an infusion of oxygen is necessary to revive someone who is not breathing. This imagery fits with the truth that man lives by every spoken word that comes from the mouth of God. <\/a>Being intimate with God is life-giving.<\/p>\n

With the symbolism of a mouth-to-mouth encounter with God in mind, we can begin to understand why God is jealous of false prophets (i.e. religious leaders) who compete with him for the affections (i.e. hearts and minds) of his people. <\/span><\/span><\/a>In God\u2019s view, the relationship between a false prophet and someone who listens to a false prophet is the equivalent of intimacy. The false prophet has usurped God\u2019s rightful role as husband to his wife. Furthermore, people who choose to listen to false prophets instead of God in effect reject God in favor of the false prophet.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>P<\/span><\/span>ictures of intimacy also instruct us about the symbolism of adultery, prostitution and the jealous anger that God, the faithful husband, feels when his wife (i.e. Old\/Covenant religionists) demonstrates her unfaithfulness to God when she listens to and follows the teachings of religious leaders<\/a>. Symbolically speaking, the religious leader is a prostitute and the unfaithful wife (i.e. church\/synagogue) is the adulterous wife .
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Teachers and the religious organizations they represent are God\u2019s enemies because they have enticed his wife (i.e. the church or synagogue) to be intimate with them through the power of the tongue<\/a>.\u00a0 In their zealous passion to expand their religious kingdoms, they have broken the Tenth Commandment: They covet and seduce God\u2019s wife and his servants<\/a> and unjustly\u00a0 enslave them to their own kingdoms for selfish<\/a> purposes:<\/p>\n

In Biblical language, God\u2019s bride is held captive by religious leaders who keep his people as slaves to the sin of religion that is based on a literal understanding of the Bible. Being equally guilty of unfaithfulness, both the leaders and followers invite God\u2019s punishment. God takes vengeance on those leaders and their followers because he is a jealous God who is angered when an individual or an organization deceives his people and turns their hearts to idolatry and adultery.<\/a> He is jealous as a husband is jealous when his wife commits adultery.<\/p>\n

Because people have chosen to become intimate with false prophets and practice religion instead of listening to his voice, God employs a strategy that people will find quite unbelievable and unlike God: He punishes them with more religion, sends them into spiritual exile (i.e. separation from him), and <\/a>blinds their eyes and hardens their hearts <\/a>so that they cannot interpret the Biblical symbolism that would lead them to knowledge of the truth. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This kind of discipline is counter-intuitive to man\u2019s ways. But God knows what he is doing and knows that this strategy works because he has been doing it since he exiled Adam and Eve. <\/span><\/span>God\u2019s attitude is that religious leaders have control over the hearts and minds of his people whom he considers to be his bride<\/a> (a term that represents the quality of intimacy he has with them). With this control, religious leaders have captivated his people as slaves and harlots. This situation arouses God\u2019s jealous anger so that, after a period of enforced captivity (i.e. exile to religion), he is compelled to rescue and redeem his flock<\/a> so that they will worship him only<\/a>. At the same time, he is provoked to punish any religion that oppresses his bride and deceives it to follow other gods<\/a> (i.e. religious leaders). The story of Hosea allegorically represents these relational dynamics between God and his people. <\/a><\/p>\n

The story of Hosea is only one of many in the Bible that show how God demonstrates his love for his people by redeeming and rescuing them from bondage to religion. These stories are parables of conversion from Old\/First Covenant religion to New Covenant discipleship. Here is a very brief outline of the rescue and redemption process:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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