The Minor Prophets Speak to Today
It is the Fate of all Great Powers to Worship Wickedness
5 Then the angel who was talking with me came forward and said, “Look up and see what’s coming.”
6 “What is it?” I asked.
He replied, “It is a basket for measuring grain, and it’s filled with the sins of everyone throughout the land.”
7 Then the heavy lead cover was lifted off the basket, and there was a woman sitting inside it.
8 The angel said, “The woman’s name is Wickedness,” and he pushed her back into the basket and closed the heavy lid again.
9 Then I looked up and saw two women flying toward us, gliding on the wind. They had wings like a stork, and they picked up the basket and flew into the sky.
10 “Where are they taking the basket?” I asked the angel.
11 He replied, “To the land of Babylonia, where they will build a temple for the basket. And when the temple is ready, they will set the basket there on its pedestal.”
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This is What is to Come
"Look up and see what’s coming."
By the end of this passage it is clear that "what is coming" refers to the basket and to what is to come. What happens in God's order and timing.
A woman in a basket!
My first thought is, "How cruel." My second, "Why is she captive? What abuse do they plan for her?
But as a modern person, I error.
The basket is for measuring grain.
God is measuring something and the woman stand for what it is. And God does not want us to miss what is being measured. It is wickedness.
The wickedness is not small and easily carried or destroyed. It is full grown. It is mature. It is the harvest of wickedness reaped from the sins of the church and the world. For surely the church has become impregnated by the false beliefs, waywardness, and, yes, sins of the culture around it.
And wickedness is a woman. Able to reproduce itself. Able to become loose and fleshy, but enticing and fabulous.
The sins of every one in the land = the woman.
Her name is wickedness. And look how the people treat the woman. They push her back inside and try to hide her. God is also responsible for this need to hide her. He does not call us out for hiding our sins from one another. God knows the time is not right for wickedness to be let loose. Not time to let the people reap the full consequences of their dalliance with her.
The Time Has and Is Now Come
Two women with wings like storks that make a sound like the rushing wind come, lift up the basket and carry it away. Note that storks are called unclean birds in the scriptures. The basket is pick up by unclean people and powers and carried off.
While they keep the woman in the basket they make all kinds of noise about the wonderful basket. They criticize the confinement of wickedness by God's people. And, as we see today, when they manage to silence God's children, they criticize the God who holds the pleasures of wickedness in check.
They particularly object to the idea that wickedness might be measured and held accountable. You know, it's not the fault of humans, this wickedness, it is just the natural consequence of man's freedom being chained, kept within bounds. It is natural selection and we should let it take its course.
Those who thus flap their wings and make the sound of rushing wind sway people, governments, cultures, societies, and even God's children to try and loose the limits the Creator has put in place.
From Defense of Wickedness to Worship
These noisy stork winged caretakers not only lift up wickedness, defend wickedness, they ignore or actively fight against God's words related to wickedness wickedness and its fruit. They swoop in, take possession of wickedness itself, build a temple in which to honor their goddess, and make her the object of worship in the land. Thus, they replace God with the idolization and worship of wickedness.
Now note, they do not remove the lid and give wickedness unbounded freedom. She is still being measured and controlled by God. The unclean people, unclean Christians, unclean religious groups, unclean cultures, and unclean governments take God's place. They pass their own laws regarding the place of the wickedness they espouse, and they try to usurp God's role as judge.
No where has this been more clear in America than in the Supreme Court ruling making LGBT marriage the law of the land and the celebrative wording within that ruling. But do not be fooled! The evil one is pulling a Putin on America and the world. He is merely distracting them from issues and events that are not flattering or just.
All this rushing wind sound and the resulting actions, rules, celebrations and laws are a smoke screen hiding from the blind the evils yet to come.
Look Into History!
It is the Fate of all Great Powers to Worship Wickedness
Photo Credits:
Intrecci by Maurizio Poli, some rights reserved @flickr.com
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