2-21-21 The Mystery of Iniquity Part 3

A Poem: The Mystery of Iniquity Part 3 of 7 :: By Ron Ferguson Published on: August 25, 2020 by RRadmin7 Category:General Articles Part 3: Hunting (with footnotes) Now constantly, your efforts all your days Are spent to bring God’s perfect will to nought. Insatiably, on God’s flock you graze. The righteous blood of Abel’s1 seed you sought To cut off quickly, from the face of earth; Through stirred-up jealously, Cain’s life you bought. In rage, against his own brother by birth, Then he struck him down in jealous reply, But Abel’s righteous blood cried from the earth. In Seth’s new line, God’s promises would lie. Through Him, redemption’s cord be intertwined,2 For God would not allow that line to die. As people multiplied, they were aligned To ev’ry evil men’s minds desired, For with defilement, Satan undermined. A filthy allegiance soon transpired Between sons of God, and daughters of men.3 This evil, O Lucifer, you inspired As men’s corruption to you would listen, To follow you in your perverted ways; The holy seed, its destruction hasten, But God overruled, and from that dark haze, Brought Noah, a preacher of righteousness, Who worshipped the Lord as His God always. In Seth and Noah, men of faithfulness, Through them, God’s chosen seed would be preserved; In others, too, who loved God’s graciousness. For God has kept His faithful ones reserved For Himself, in ev’ry generation; Ones, who from His precious truth, have not swerved. And Noah, removed from condemnation – An ancestor found in Messiah’s line, About whom God spoke with commendation.4 Yet even then, the devil with the wine, Attempted to destroy Noah’s standing; Succumbed to the temptation of the vine.5 Because men’s hearts to evil are leaning, Satanic devices all devious, Are used in Satan’s ongoing weaning. To reach to heaven’s height was ambitious, But that instilled self-will, was Satan’s own – His pride that proved so pernicious. Hence Babel6 commenced, while eyeing God’s throne; Religion, where man would “himself” assert! Such planned rebellion, God would not condone. O Lucifer, you caused confusion’s hurt, As lost mankind dispersed across the world, And knowledge of God, did therefore invert. Man’s godlessness was even more unfurled, As Satan implemented his attack. Against God’s principles, his hate he hurled. He turned filthy men, whose hearts were jet black, Into perversion’s unnatural ways, And gathered the Sodomites’ frenzied pack, 7 Whose hearts, were with desire set ablaze, To burn with consuming lust and passion, Until the angels struck them in a daze. Satan’s hate against the Jewish nation, Has been sustained these past four thousand years, 8 While he’s been working for their destruction, Be it by infiltration, guns or spears; For through the Jews, would come the promised seed, That meant his end, and hence, his fears. In Egypt’s land, therefore, the dreadful deed To drown the newborn sons in River Nile – A cowardly act, devised to succeed:- A depraved plan, drawn up through hate and guile, To eliminate future Jewish sons Through Pharaoh9, forcing his New Empire’s bile. Such dictators and their dealings, God shuns, When He preserved His own deliverers As Moses10 – placed in Pharaoh’s court – His ones! Of all who arose as persecutors, Up until that time in history’s record – Now marked in blackest dye as oppressors, Was one who ruled as prime, maltreating lord. Not one, exceeded Thutmose the Third11 Who tightened slavery’s ever brutal cord. Thutmose’s son against the Jews was stirred, And like his father, maintained suppression, And counted liberation as absurd. Amenhotep the Second’s12 rejection, Of God’s request, His own to liberate, Would indicate his own soul’s subjection To Satan’s designs, and to initiate The hurt and hate and heinous attitude, That only from Satan, could emanate. To him, God gave a full, free latitude, To exercise his own freedom of choice. He should have shown to God some gratitude, And set the captives free; to use his voice In the promotion of all human rights – Allow the oppressed, the chance to rejoice. O, Lucifer, what envy set your sights Upon the godly offspring in that land, To add to them such hardship in their plights! Amenhotep the First and Third, who stand With Thutmose Three, to ravage also; To execute the evils you had planned. So many others in the Word, we know, Experienced the unjust wrath of hate. A few of these in passing, now below. Goliath13 walked into view, to berate The Person of the living God one day. The God of Israel, he tried to negate. That Philistine who advanced to the fray With cursing and insults and bad intent – Satanic mouth that held Israel at bay. This ruthless bully by Satan was sent Against the members of Israel’s army, Who quaked and shivered, whose courage was spent. Now Satan will hold his territory, And against God’s folk, attempt to advance, Opposing what’s good as arch enemy! This Satan opposes with sword and lance, By fear and exhaustion, shouting and threats, But Davids are roused to take their stance; To hold their ground for God, for He selects In ev’ry case, the very best for them – The path of courage, that holds no regrets. From God, all courage and righteousness stem, Which David utilized against the foe. All the haughty and vain, God will condemn. Perversion and depravity we know, The devil uses to reap destruction. Among faith’s people, those vices he’ll sow. One, Balaam14, was bent on fornication, To pervert God’s holy people’s witness; A stumbling block, a grievous seduction, Intended for spiritual sickness Throughout the nation, by idol worship; To corrupt their standing, and their wholeness. But Balaam was Satan’s choice tool to whip The wilderness people, from God, afar, And ones like greedy Balaam, he’ll equip. Insidious in their efforts to mar, Are the many Balaams in Satan’s lists – His infiltrators, – and everywhere, are. The hateful enemy; he who resists: The cruel murderer fighting the Lord. God’s truth and love, he mutilates and twists. Assyrians,15 foul wielders of the sword, Who ravaged hurtfully among the lands: These torturers ‘gainst Israel’s kinsmen roared. They pillaged, hacked and flayed, and used hot brands, And mercilessly subjugated all, And led away survivors in long bands. O, Satan, in your hate, a dreadful pall Of death descended on God’s heritage. With bitterness and mourning, shrieked the call. One more arose, God’s chosen to ravage – A hateful, despicable, scheming man, Who flaunted from a place of privilege; His satanic venom, as the taipan,16 And fully aimed at Jewish extinction, This heinous one was the Persian, Haman!17 And he conceived a plan of distinction, This slithering, presumptuous heathen, Who caused all honest men such confliction. He clawed like a wild, vindictive raven – To hang His prey, the godly Mordecai; Haman, more cunning than any sly maven. His wickedness, he could not gratify, For God exposed his anti-Jewish hate. Through his death, him, God did disqualify. But Lucifer’s dark light will not abate, While agents here are happy to receive That “light,” as human wisdom, reprobate. And these are they who set out to deceive, As if the end does justify the means. Mistreat in all their ways, those who believe. Deception stalks the stage with chosen scenes, Distorting truth and hard reality, Whereon, ev’ry human perception leans To Haman’s way of partiality; Against God’s righteous and committed sons – The devil’s own spirituality. Your hatred, Lucifer, opposes ones Who simply live in God’s eternal way – That fact throughout the course of history runs. Old Nimrod,18 then, who hunted men to slay, And Antiochus Epiphanes,19 too, And Babylon, which caused such an affray, Along with others, who entered to hew Away at truth, and what God specified, Were implements consigned in Satan’s queue. One further man arose, who damnified The innocent, condemning them to death, Who brutalized, his blood lust, gratified. By searching, hunting down, to choke the breath From children, in his raging jealousy; To sacrifice them as to Astoreth.20 Oh! Herod the Great21, what profligacy In your great hatred of the King of Kings! And what base historical legacy! In Bethlehem and surrounds, male nurslings Were slaughtered in your implacable rage, To satisfy your envious itchings. That Edomite21, foul, a Godless rampage Against the sons of Israel’s earthly line; That reprobate, who spewed on Satan’s stage His sickly stench as filthy, unwashed swine: That man endures horrors eternal – A punishment considered well condign. In Satan’s work was Herod infernal, Prepared to murder the chosen Christ Child – His condemnation, it’s sempiternal. Yes, Lucifer displayed a hate so wild, That innocent children, would not be spared Vile Herod’s legacy, grossly defiled. The Father’s purposes were first declared To Joseph in a dream, before the sword Of Herod fell. God’s care can’t be compared! Then later in the wilderness, the Lord Was tempted sorely, by the devil’s tricks – Christ’s deity, his focus to defraud. And to the scripted text, the devil sticks, In orchestrating his well-planned approach – The strategy used against Eve, he picks:- The lust of flesh, of eye; things that reproach; The pride of life, and matters that entice, The devil brought, and with God’s word, did coach. But Christ, the Son of God, shunned that advice With “It is written.” Thrice was Christ’s return For each set case – the Scriptures would suffice. Christ’s message, once, the crowd did wholly spurn, Attempting to drive Him over the crest Of some rocky hill, and also we learn Of stonings, attempted in their protest, To silence the message that Jesus spoke; To murder the Christ at the devil’s behest. So Christ escaped their midst, for God avowed That man would never thwart His purposes, Or Satan’s plotting, to be allowed. The devil seeks the greatest damages He can inflict upon the will of God. But God’s in charge; planted His fortresses. The wicked one will never ride roughshod Across the perfect, everlasting plan, That emanated lovingly from God. Recorded history’s progressive span Highlights intrusions, as constant attacks On what is innocent and good, where man Is steadily assailed by Satan’s acts, In his endeavour, God’s work to destroy – All fully confirmed by Biblical facts. Thus, Lucifer, the men in your employ, Equipped and charged by you, were to prevent The lineage Son, whose love we enjoy, From coming to this earth, to represent The Father’s will – the purpose of His mind. But God’s true plan in grace, would circumvent Your evil designs, so all humankind Might know the love and wonders of God’s grace, And eternally, to God be affined. Notes on Part 3 Abel. Genesis 4:1. Abel is the second recorded son of Adam and Eve and younger brother to Cain, although he may not have been Adam’s second born. Only three offspring of Adam’s are named in Scripture but there were others, for Genesis 5:4 says of Adam, “… and he had other sons and daughters.” The righteous line would have come through Abel, so Satan had him slain to prevent the Saviour from coming, but he was never able to circumvent God’s plan. In Hebrew, Abel (הבל; Hevel) means “vapour” or “breath” – something that is here today and gone tomorrow. All through the Old Testament, there is traced what is sometimes called the “Royal line” or the “Scarlet line” speaking of rule and redemption. The ancestry of the Lord Jesus and the offspring of Seth are often intertwined, and that also with redemption and sacrifice and righteousness. Some have traced that line carefully through the Scriptural record. The book of Luke traces Mary’s line to Adam, while Matthew traces Joseph’s line back from Abraham. (Joseph is the supposed father of Jesus; assumed among the people.) Both lines include Abraham and David. Personally, I do not know what to think of the notion that not every ancestor is included in the stated ancestral line supplied by Luke. I suppose, unless I am shown otherwise, I’d accept that Luke does give the full list of ancestors without gaps. In any case, from Adam to Jesus was roughly 4,000 years, and the chronology helps in that. Genesis 6:1-2. The sons of God and the daughters of men. There are two dominant opinions concerning what these terms may mean. The first of these claims that the sons of God are fallen angels or demons that took the form of human men, and lusted after the human females. That explanation is used to explain what appears to be mutants on earth at that time (the time of Noah), called Nephilim (giants in the KJV). The problem with this view is that the Lord Jesus, speaking of resurrection, makes this comment to indicate that angels are sexless: “For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Mark 12 v 25). The other view is that the sons of God are from the righteous line of Seth (or the males in that ancestry) and the daughters of men are the descendants of Cain or the immoral human females. The major problem with that (and Cain and Seth were not the only ancestors) is that one cannot conclude a righteous generation from Seth because it is said of the ante-diluvians at that time, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Only 8 were declared righteous (1 Peter 3:20). The only true conclusion we can make is that we do not know. No one today really knows what Nephilim means. It is related to the verb series “to fall” (naphal) in Hebrew. Hebrews 11:7. In the heroes of faith chapter. Genesis 9:18-27. This is a very sordid incident, all brought about because of the carelessness of Noah. Failed responsibilities have consequences, in this case for Noah and Ham. There has been a suggestion of very wicked behaviour on the part of Ham. It is the grace of God that forgives a repentant man. I am sure Noah sought repentance as did David after failure. The Bible is not a book of gloss! It does not retreat from the sin of Noah, Abraham and David, and so many more, such as Peter’s failure. Genesis 11:1-9. The construction was a ziggurat founded on a Mesopotamian plain (Shinar). This was man’s effort to establish for himself a religion that reached into the heavens, but it was all established on man’s futility. These ziggurats were considered as staircases from earth to heaven. After the flood God commanded through Noah that man had to spread out and repopulate the earth, but they stayed put in defiance. Babel means “confusion,” and God’s intervention in separation and distribution of languages is what drove people outwards. It was a judgment on post-flood disobedience. Genesis 18:20 and 19:1-11. The term “Sodomite” comes from the inhabitants of Sodom who were unrepentant homosexuals and totally debauched in all their ways. Their perversion even extended to desiring sex with the angels who came to protect and deliver Lot. So bad was this town and others in the region, that God destroyed them utterly. In our “enlightened modern world” there is a move afoot (sponsored by the so-called “gays”) to have the terms “sodomites” and “homosexuals” banned as offensive words. Technically, the descendants of Abraham were not called Jews in the Scripture record until 2 Kings. The first use of the word “Hebrew” is in Genesis 14:13. I have used “Jewish” loosely as “descendant/s of Abraham.” It was around 2,000 B.C. that Abraham lived, so we trace “Jews” from there. Pharaoh Thutmose I. He was probably the one who drowned the male children in the Nile. A succession of Pharaohs was enslaving the Hebrews more and more as time progressed. These were the rulers of the Eighteenth Dynasty who preceded Thutmose III – Amenhotep I (1546 – 1535 B.C.), Thutmose I (1525 – 1508), Thutmose II (1508 – 1504) and especially Queen Hatshepsut 1504 – 1482). When delving into anything to do with Egyptology, it is necessary to remember that, at times, the dates can be elastic. Moses. The name is nothing more than the Egyptian “Mase,” pronounced “Mose” after the 12th century B.C. “the child.” This word is preserved in components such as Ah-mose” (son of Ah) and Thutmose (son of Thot). The interpretation given by the sacred writer (Moses, writer of the Pentateuch), on the other hand, by a peculiar coincidence of sound and circumstance in the story, is connected with the Hebrew word “Masha,” “to draw out” because Pharaoh’s daughter drew Moses out of the water. Moses was born about 1520 B.C., probably during the reign of Thutmose I whose daughter, the famous Queen Hatshepsut, may well have been the royal person who took baby Moses from the water. Thutmose III. He was the Pharaoh of the oppression and the worst of the oppressors. Son of Thutmose II and a minor wife, he ascended the throne as a young prince after the death of Hatshepsut, and obliterated all her monuments. He became one of the greatest foreign conquerors in Egyptian history but was a severe slave driver. Moses fled from Egypt and remained away until this Pharaoh died (Ex 2:23). Amenhotep the Second. This was the Pharaoh of the Exodus who hardened his heart, not allowing the release of the Hebrew captives. The date and nature of the Exodus have been subjects of scholarly debate since the beginnings of Egyptology in the mid-19th century, and the dispute continues unabated today. I hold to biblical chronology. 1445 B.C., the date of the Exodus, would have been the 3rd year of Amenhotep II (sometimes called Amenophis II and meaning “Amun is Satisfied”). Amenhotep II was born to Thutmose III and a minor wife of the king: Merytre-Hatshepsut. He was not, however, the firstborn son of this pharaoh; his elder brother Amenemhat, the son of the great king’s chief wife Satiah, was originally the intended heir to the throne since Amenemhat was designated the “king’s eldest son” and overseer of the cattle of Amun in the 24th year of Thutmose’s reign, but Amenemhat died. When Amenhotep II assumed power, he was 18 years old according to an inscription from his great Sphinx stela. Many dating systems place Amenhotep II’s reign at a later date. There are still some continuing opinions that place the Exodus in the 1200s B.C. under Rameses II. This just can’t be sustained with the chronology of the Bible. There seems to be some mystique about Rameses II, and people strain to make him the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Goliath. (From a well-researched article on Wikipedia): Tell es-Safi, today the name of the biblical Gath and traditional home of Goliath, has been the subject of extensive excavations by Israel’s Bar-Ilan University. The archaeologists have established that this was one of the largest of the Philistine cities until destroyed in the ninth century BC, an event from which it never recovered. A potsherd discovered at the site, and reliably dated to the tenth to mid-ninth centuries BC, is inscribed with the two names “alwt” and “wlt.” While the names are not directly connected with the biblical Goliath (“glyt”), they are etymologically related, and demonstrate that the name fits with the context of late-tenth/early-ninth-century BC Philistine culture. The name “Goliath” itself is non-Semitic and has been linked with the Lydian king Alyattes, which also fits the Philistine context of the biblical Goliath story. A similar name, Uliat, is also attested in Carian inscriptions. Aren Maeir, director of the excavation, comments: “Here we have very nice evidence [that] the name Goliath appearing in the Bible in the context of the story of David and Goliath … is not some later literary creation.” – Source Balaam. This man appears in the wilderness journey from Egypt to Caanan. His story is recorded in Numbers chapters 22-24. When you read those three chapters, it is not easy to see Balaam in a bad light, but the New Testament sheds understanding on what sort of man he really was. The whole purpose of the Balaam encounter was to adulterate and ruin the Israelites. Peter says, “Balaam, the son of Beor who loved the wages of unrighteousness,” while Jude speaks of “rushing headlong into the error of Balaam.” John in Revelation talks of “the teaching of Balaam who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit acts of immorality.” He was a very unsavory character Satan used to corrupt righteousness. He is one who worked for gain, like the greedy ones who make gain out of the gospel today. King Sargon II (722-705 BCE) invaded and destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel (Samaria). The ancient kingdom of Assyria was located in present-day northern Iraq. It bordered eastern Syria and south-eastern Asia Minor. It covered the most northerly portion of the Mesopotamian plain, with the river Tigris flowing through it. Its later capital of Nineveh, that features in the account of Jonah the prophet, was overtaken by the Babylonians who got into the city through the Tigris River in 609 B.C. Nineveh is a timely example of generational change. When Jonah preached, the whole city repented and turned from sin. 100 years later (just 3 to 4 generations), the city was so corrupt that God allowed its destruction. So thorough was that destruction, that it remained unknown to the world until the middle of the 1800s when it was rediscovered. The town of Mosul, the one that featured with ISIS in the late 2010s, stands on old Nineveh. Taipan. An extremely venomous Australian snake that can reach 3 metres. The coastal taipan injects through fangs that can be over 25mm long. The inland taipan is shy but has the world’s most potent venom, and one teaspoon can kill 250,000 mice. The story of Haman is told in the book of Esther. Haman was scheming and perverse and had the ear of King Ahasuerus, traditionally identified as Xerxes I. He hated Mordecai, a Jew, and his scheme was to exterminate all Jews, hence Mordecai. Mordecai refused to bow down and acknowledge this infamous Amalekite Haman, so a set of gallows was prepared for Mordecai. God works behind the scenes and placed Mordecai’s niece, Esther, as the Queen (wife of Xerxes I) who then saves the Jews. Haman was hanged on his own gallows. The Feast of Purim preserves this deliverance for the Jews. Nimrod. Genesis 10:8-10. Cush became the father of Nimrod. He became a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore, it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD.” The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh in the land of Shinar. Nimrod was a hunter, but for men’s souls. He was a wicked man and began the Babylonian system (Babel) that is an abomination before God. (There is more on this in Section 6 of this poem.) His name means “he rebelled.” It is a spurious religious system that God hates. Nimrod married his own mother (Her name was Semiramis). After declaring himself to be a god, then his mother declared herself to be “the Mother of god.” After Nimrod’s death, she attempted to cover over her incestuous relationship with her son – by declaring that he was both the Father and the Son. The information on Nimrod and Semiramis is varied, and some speculative, but the best reliable source is “THE TWO BABYLONS” by Alexander Hislop. SBN-13: 978-1549771194 ISBN-10: 1549771191 Antiochus Epiphanes was one of the most wicked men in Israel’s history. He was the forerunner of the beast (the man of sin, the world leader, Antichrist who is to come). He features in the first book of The Wars of the Maccabees. Antiochus IV Epiphanes, son of Antiochus III, ruled from the death of his brother Seleucus IV in 175 B.C. until his death in 164. Antiochus paid particular attention to the Jews of Palestine. While Antiochus was on a second campaign in Egypt, he heard of the siege of Jerusalem. He returned immediately, slew many thousands of the inhabitants and robbed the temple of its treasures (1 Maccabees 1:20-24; 2 Maccabees 5:11-21). He prohibited Jewish worship and introduced or substituted the worship of the Olympian Zeus. He sacrificed a sow on the altar, which is known as “the abomination of desolation.” Jesus referred to that Matt 24:15. Ashtoreth – The Ammonite Molech-worship in connection with the worship of Ashtoreth was stained with impurity, so the Molech-worship was marked by the other foul pollution of the sacrifice of human blood, usually children. From Easton’s Bible Dictionary – The moon goddess of the Phoenicians, representing the passive principle in nature, their principal female deity and frequently associated with the name of Baal, the sun-god, their chief male deity (Judges 10:6; 1 Samuel 7:4; 12:10). These names often occur in the plural (Ashtaroth, Baalim), probably as indicating either different statues or different modifications of the deities. This deity is spoken of as Ashtoreth of the Zidonians. She was the Ishtar of the Accadians and the Astarte of the Greeks (Jeremiah 44:17; 1 Kings 11:5; 11:33; 2 Kings 23:13). – Source There was a temple of this goddess among the Philistines in the time of Saul (1 Samuel 31:10). Under the name of Ishtar, she was one of the great deities of the Assyrians. The Phoenicians called her Astarte. Solomon introduced the worship of this idol (1 Kings 11:33). Jezebel’s 400 priests were probably employed in its service (1 Kings 18:19). She was called the “queen of heaven” (Jeremiah 44:25). From Smith’s Bible Dictionary – (a star) the principal female divinity of the Phoenicians, called Ishtar by the Assyrians and Astarte by the Greeks and Romans. She was, by some ancient writers, identified with the moon. But on the other hand, the Assyrian Ishtar was not the moon-goddess, but the planet Venus, and Astarte was by many identified with the goddess Venus (or Aphrodite), as well as with the plant of that name. It is certain that the worship of Astarte became identified with that of Venus, and that this worship was connected with the most impure rites is apparent from the close connection of this goddess with ASHERAH (1 Kings 11:5; 1 Kings 11:33; 2 Kings 23:13). – Source Herod the Great. From Bible Gateway: Herod was distrustful, jealous, and brutal, ruthlessly crushing any potential opposition. The Jews never accepted him as their legitimate king, and this infuriated him. He constantly feared conspiracy. He executed his wife when he suspected she was plotting against him. Three of his sons, another wife, and his mother-in-law met the same fate when they too were suspected of conspiracy. This was the monster who murdered all the children under the age of 18 months in an effort to kill the promised king (Matt 2:16). Herod died in 4 BC probably from intestinal cancer. As a final act of vengeance against his contemptuous subjects, he rounded up leading Jews and commanded that at his death they should be executed. His reasoning was that if there was no mourning for his death, at least there would be mourning at his death! At Herod’s death, the order was overruled and the prisoners were released. He was also a great builder, a role which earned him the title “the Great.” His greatest project was the rebuilding and beautification of the temple in Jerusalem, restoring it to even greater splendor than in the time of Solomon. Judea prospered economically during Herod’s reign. He extended Israel’s territory through conquest and built fortifications to defend the Roman frontiers. – Source Herod was an Edomite, as were all 4 Herods of the New Testament. The Edomites were forever the enemies of God. Herod the Great (B.C 73-4 B.C.) hated the Saviour who came as a baby and tried to kill Him. Herod Antipas hated the servant of God and murdered John the Baptist. This evil man hated the Son of God and had Jesus crucified. Next was Herod Agrippa 1st. He hated the saints of God and killed the Apostle James and imprisoned Peter. Then came Herod Agrippa 2nd. He was the one who presided over the trial of Paul. ronaldf@aapt.net.au