"Separation Unto
Abomination
- The Thing They Loved"
Dr. Allen M. Barber
October 1, 2010
Hosea 9:10 NKJV
10 "I found Israel Like grapes in the wilderness;
I saw your fathers As the firstfruits on the fig tree
in its first season. But they went to Baal Peor,
And separated themselves to that shame;
They became an abomination like the thing they loved."
There is a lot of eschatological theology in this one verse concerning the identity of the fig tree, but for this article, we will deal only with its secondary application.
God says when he first called Israel beginning with Abraham, they were like grapes in the wilderness, - a reference to their spiritual condition not the physical status. For grapes to mature on the vine, they have to be watered and pruned. Grapes in the wilderness implies dryness and barrenness. The metaphor is clear - when God chose Abraham the Gentile, he was living in the house of an idolater (his father Terah worshiped Babylonian idols) and in the land of Babylon that worshiped many idols. Therefore, he was the same as being dead spiritually and had no real life which is having a relationship with God. Paul says in Ephesians that we are born dead in trespasses and sins, which is why we need the new birth (John 3:3).
Although God called Abraham and through his offspring - Isaac and Jacob, formed the Israelite people and nation as a separate people unto Him, they rebelled continually against His laws and mercy and by the time of Hosea's prophecy to the Northern kingdom of Israel/Ephraim, they had become completely apostate and given to gross idolatry. Baal Peor was the god of the Moabites whose worship included both heterosexual and homosexual sex orgies - male and female prostitutes committing all kinds of indecent sexual acts all in the name of this god. Yet in spite of this shame that God called an abomination, they attempted to worship the God of Abraham with their temple in Samaria. Mixing pagan worship with the true worship of God is an abomination to God. The very first commandment of the Law says, "You shall have no other gods before me" (the actual Hebrew is stronger and says - "no other god period?").
Instead of being separated unto the true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they separated (the Hebrew word for separated means the same as the Greek word for sanctification) or sanctified themselves unto a false god. God's strong indictment was, "they become what they worshiped - an abomination for they loved doing so." Loving an abomination is about as far down in sin as you can go. Because of this openly defiant rebellion against God, He sent the terrible and ruthless Assyrian army to capture and destroy the Northern kingdom (the so-called lost ten tribes). The House of Israel/Ephraim was destroyed in 721 B.C. never to rise again.
Fast forward to 2010 and compare this prophecy to the present situation in the United States. Although we cling to the belief that we are a Christian nation, like Ephraim, we have become idol worshipers par excellence and lovers of abominations. We love our sins and wicked preferences. Homosexuality is being crammed down our throats by the blind guides in Washington at every government level - the executive, legislative and judicial branches. This wicked unclean lifestyle is now the law of the land and making great strides to conquer and destroy traditional marriage and culture.
Last week, a Dallas restaurant was forced to face an unwanted situation. A big burly man of over 200 pounds came in the restaurant wearing female clothes and claimed to be transgender even though he presented an ID showing that he was in fact a male. When he decided to use the ladies restroom, the management stopped him. A policeman in the restaurant supported the restaurant's position of denying him access to the ladies restroom because he presented a male ID. The actual federal law concerning transgenders requires business establishments to allow transgenders to use the restroom of their preference. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out where this kind of perverted behavior will end up. According to Romans 13, God's will regarding social law and order, whether local, state or national government is supposed to punish evil in any form not promote and condone it. The problem is that beginning in 1960, the Judiciary decided to live by the law of the beast and not by the biblical worldview and what it has produced is a nation of abominations and we love it so.
In the eyes or God it is not that we practice abomination, but we are an abomination because we love what God calls indecent and perverted. Like Ephraim, We have separated ourselves to that shame. God brought our forefathers to this continent to establish a Christian nation and over the course of time, we have replaced Christianity with many pagan religions and the abomination of homosexuality. The current president has a love affair with homosexuals and abortionists vowing to protect them and support laws to advance their cause. He claims to be a Christian yet his recent commends further prove what discerning Christians know - he is not one of us. His said the reason he became a Christian is that he admired the precepts of Christ and wanted to live by them. Is that what the Bible teaches as the basis for salvation? No, a true believer comes to faith in Jesus Christ by repenting of personal sin and receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit (no reference to Charismatic baptism); then living according to the rule of the life-giving Spirit that is seen in righteous and holy living and in obedience to the Word of God. Obama has attacked the Word of God on several occasions, but have you ever heard him do the same to the Quran? No, he quotes from the Quran and calls it the "holy book of Islam."
The apostle Paul sums up what Hosea 9:10 teaches:
2 Thessalonians 2: 8-12 NKJV
8 "And then the lawless one (KJV - wicked one) will be
revealed whom
the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy
with the
brightness of His coming,
9 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of
Satan
with all power, signs and lying wonders, (Note:
the
actual Greek wording for this verse says, "Whose coming is
'after' the
working of Satan...implying the coming in Verse 9 is the same
as that
in Verse 8, that is, the Lord Jesus not Satan or the
Antichrist; Jesus
comes after Satan works or has his day - the Great
Tribulation; this is
what is holding back the posttrib Second Coming of Christ -
Satan must
first be given his time to work - 42 months; I deal with this
in my new
book on the Day of the
Lord).
10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish
because
they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be
saved.
11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion that
they
should believe the lie,
12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the
truth but had
pleasure in unrighteousness.
The House of Israel in Hosea's day loved their abominations so God gave them up to destruction by the Assyrians. Will he also give up the United States to an enemy nation or power such as the New World Order. Whether we are conquered by an outside force such as China or Russia or an internal enemy such as Marxist Communist ideology the result is the same - we lose our heritage and freedoms.
We are at a major crossroads and which path we choose is up to us, but we had better learn from both secular and biblical history that if we defy the laws of God and wallow in our abominations we shall go the way of all nations that forget God - judgment and destruction.
Dr. Barber