Roll away the reproach of Egypt

April 18, 2008 - email from The Open Scroll email list

Greetings!

A couple days ago I wrote about my having too many friends. In that email I wrote, Lord willing, I'd be following up with a couple emails that would probably offend some folks. Yesterday, I sent one about being found worthy of Him, a message about propriety in the church with regard to gender. Today, this is a message about idols. I'm not trying to offend people or push anyone away. I'm a messenger sent with a call to holiness and repentance. Again, as I asked before, those of you who aren't offended, please pray for those who will be and also for the others who aren't. This is still our appointed time to wash each other's feet. Someone loves you more than you know. He has not given up on us.

Before I get into the deeper stuff, you should have already dealt with the stewardship of your time and resources and what competes with your passion that is due the Lord Y'shua. Such matters as tv, movies and video games, golf, motorsports and other sports, games, recreational activities and hobbies, work, school and family activities, (yes, frivolous family activity) bingo, romance novels, idle chatty time with acquaintances, etc.; these can occupy our minds and lives, and none of it may compete with the Lord on any level in the hearts of the Bride.

Let's move on now to a passage referenced in a previous email.

But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.

Revelation 2:20

The spirit of Jezebel that dominates most cultures in this hour leads the bond-servants of the son of God not only to commit acts of immorality but also to eat things sacrificed to idols. If you're like most people you pretty much get the immorality part, but, the food sacrificed to idols, not so much. What does that mean?

First of all, let's acknowledge there are other gods and that when they compete with the true God in your life there will be consequences.

Then God spoke all these words, saying,
2) "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3) "You shall have no other gods before Me.
4) "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
5) "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6) but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

Exodus 20:1-6

"The LORD drove out from before us all the peoples, even the Amorites who lived in the land. We also will serve the LORD, for He is our God."
19) Then Joshua said to the people, "You will not be able to serve the LORD, for He is a holy God He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgression or your sins.
20) "If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done good to you."

Joshua 24:18-20

Now, let me recommend if you have statues, shrines, tools or implements of worship, things worshiped or revered, pictures of the same, or anything you or anybody else considers even remotely weird or creepy hanging around in your home, vehicle or property, get rid of it now! But that's not enough, repent of your attraction to it or tolerance of it. After that, there's more to consider.

Here's what the apostle Paul wrote, addressing the very subject of this timely message today.

For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.
3) But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
4) For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.

2 Corinthians 11:2-4

Bride candidates, Paul, apostle to the Gentiles by the message and authority with which he was sent, betrothed you to one husband. If there be any other husbands, identify and abandon them, so he might present you as a pure virgin. Do you still entertain a relationship with Allah, Buddha, or some other deity, or harbor a special appreciation for their doctrines, arts, or the peculiar manner of their worshippers? Is there another Jesus in your life, one who is of a different nature than the one Paul preached and served? How about the one Mystery Babylon is so proud of who suffered so you don't have to, who was poor in the world so you don't have to be? If so, this affair is most certainly going to be exposed and dealt with, and soon. Paul said we bear the coming of another Jesus or a different spirit or gospel beautifully, and so we have. Let your feet be washed and become cleansed and pure - repent of bearing it beautifully. Allow this dirt and debris that has clung so tightly to your soul to be washed away. Call on your one Husband and seek mercy, forgiveness and restoration in His presence.

Notice how we may become led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. The words of the Bridegroom given through Paul reveal how, "your minds will be led astray, in the same way the serpent deceived Eve. The serpent deceived by his craftiness, speaking lies. He took what the Creator said and added a word, omitted a word, and changed a word as he spoke forth in his craftiness. It was subtle. Another Jesus comes through preaching, and in this way a different spirit is received. This is how a different gospel is accepted, after it is first conveyed. The vehicle is words, ideas and images. Jezebel teaches, as we see in Revelation 2:20. She "calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches," and this is how she leads the bond-servants.

Revelation 2:20

So, then, what are things sacrificed to idols, things you may eat?

Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.

Jeremiah 15:16 (KJV)

Words, doctrines. They can be life, and they can be death. Eating things sacrificed to idols is what Paul wrote causes your minds to be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. It causes idolatry which is spiritual adultery, a relationship with other husbands.

Brother Glenn Hall wrote about this subject at length in a book called WHEN WE AWAKE. In chapter one, "INTRODUCTION TO THE DOCTRINE OF FOOD" he wrote:

This book reveals how we Christians take the food of God and sacrifice it to our own idols. Herein we will discover that God’s food to us is His Word and that heretofore we have adulterated ("idolatorated") His food. We have sacrificed His food to our idols. Our idols then turned this food (true doctrine) into the traditions of man. Herein we will find that our personal and church doctrines often differ from the Truth. We selfishly take His food and sacrifice it to our own idols of mammon, i.e., the worldly icons of beauty, money, power, sex, and so on. One goal of this book is to awaken us to this truth so that we will cease sacrificing God’s food (truth) to our idols and begin sacrificing food to God alone.

Glenn ministered to me at a time when I was in the midst of getting an education about Jezebel. He has some understanding of the subject. If you cling to impure doctrines and false teaching, rejecting what the holy spirit shows you as it leads you to all truth, there are serious consequences.

Lest we think it is merely a matter of words, as though they are somehow divorced from deeds, consider the prophetic scenario from John 4 that shows the Bride in contrast to the non-Bride church. (See The Bridegroom and the Bride) The Bride was engaged with Jesus, but the non-Bride had to go away, to buy food.

There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink."
8) For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

John 4:7-8

Later, after the disciples returned the Bridegroom Teacher explained about food.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, "Rabbi, eat."
32) But He said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about."
33) So the disciples were saying to one another, "No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?"
34) Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.

John 4:31-34

If you're not convinced this is a crucial matter as we approach the close of this season for the preparation and selection of the Bride, you should consider how the Israelites in the wilderness represent the church. They had clung to the idols of Egypt. Read 1 Corinthians 9:24-10:14, 1 Corinthians 10 and Ezekiel 20:15-19. Really read them.

Will this necessary work be accomplished in time? Yes. The Lord will come and receive a Bride, pure and holy. And I believe she will have had this work of preparation completed in this very season. I believe we are figuratively at Gilgal, where the Lord "rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you." This is where the flesh is painfully cut away in circumcision. This is where the children eat the old corn of the land, of Caanan, the promised land, and manna will cease. Hallelujah!

And it came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel.
2) At that time the LORD said unto Joshua, Make thee sharp knives, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time.
3) And Joshua made him sharp knives, and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of the foreskins.
4) And this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise: All the people that came out of Egypt, that were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness by the way, after they came out of Egypt.
5) Now all the people that came out were circumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them they had not circumcised.
6) For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the people that were men of war, which came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD: unto whom the LORD sware that he would not shew them the land, which the LORD sware unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that floweth with milk and honey.
7) And their children, whom he raised up in their stead, them Joshua circumcised: for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them by the way.
8) And it came to pass, when they had done circumcising all the people, that they abode in their places in the camp, till they were whole.
9) And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day.
10) And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even in the plains of Jericho.
11) And they did eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after the passover, unleavened cakes, and parched corn in the selfsame day.
12) And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.

Joshua 5:1-12

Amen. Lord, thank you for rolling away the reproach of Egypt from off your people at this time. We are wholly reliant upon your provision for us. Cutting the flesh is painful and bloody, but it is a necessary work. Your sharp knife and skillful hand is required, and welcome. Lord, with mercy I ask you to finish this work in me now and in those who come to you knowing they are not yet ready and cry out for you. Lead us with courage and strength in wholeness as our only Husband.

Bob Schlenker
TheOpenScroll.com