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DIET OF
ASSES' HEADS, DOVES' DUNG
& BABIES
Publication #52.93
"And it came to pass after this, that
Benhadad king of Syria gathered all his host, and went up, and
besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria: and,
behold, they besieged it, until an ASS’S HEAD
was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a
cab of DOVE'S DUNG for five pieces of
silver. And...This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may
eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow. SO WE
BOILED MY SON, AND DID EAT HIM: and I said unto her on
the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him..." (II
Kings 6:24-25, 28-29).
In the nations of plenty it is hard to imagine
such a diet as ascribed above; yet in Samaria, it came to exactly
that — asses' heads, doves' dung, and babies.
Throughout the scriptures, Samaria and Israel
are synonymous names, they both speak of the same people. The
book of Hosea makes this clear. Samaria, however, is the
name most commonly used concerning Israel when she was involved
with idol worship. Idiolatry, as in those days, is prevalent
throughout the church today. Some may wonder how this could be;
but it is easily seen when we understand what "Christian
idol worship" is. Any thing that takes the place of Christ
is idol worship. One of the primary forms of idol worship is the
idol people have in their minds of what God is. How can this be?
You ask.
You see, idols do not have to be tangible
things; such as, statues, figurines, money, homes, cars, jobs,
offices of prestige and authority, etc. Idols can very well be
between our ears. When we worship that which we imagine
God to be, rather than Him as a living reality of whom we know
— that is idol worship. If all we have of God is an image
in our minds, and that is what we are worshiping — it is idol
worship. Although it is less obvious, and tucked away in our
minds, those vivid imaginations can be so real at
times that they can be mistaken for God Himself. But our keen
imaginations do not make it so. All they can do, at best, is to
take over God’s place in the role of creation. That is, we
create God in our image and likeness, rather than Him creating us
in His image and likeness. There is little wonder the church and
the world view Him as a God so vindictive and willing to torment
souls forever; for they have created Him in their own image
and likeness. That is what they would do to their enemies if
the option was given to them. Since they are not given the
authority to do so, they relegate it to the god of their own
making, and he abides in their own minds, no where else.
Nevertheless, can it be true that the people of
this city, the church system of today, is so starved that they
have been reduced to eating asses' heads, doves' dung, and
their own babies? Yes! They have come to precisely that! They
are reaping the rewards of what their imaginary idols have
to offer — which is absolutely nothing of real value.
ASSES' HEADS
Rather than eating the rich Word of God's holy
Kingdom, the Bread, the substance of Jesus Christ, people are
being fed a steady diet of ASSES’ HEADS!
This is clearly seen as THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN, which
has been one of the primary food sources to the church for a long
time. It has become such a common dish that most have come to
like it, especially since it satisfies the carnal man.
Yes, she has amassed great wealth and built a
great empire, something her subjects can be proud of, even though
they are held captive behind the doors of her unhallowed halls.
Her preachers, teachers, and prognosticators may don religious
robes and attire of exalted "righteousness." They may
be of eloquent speech, possessing the rhetoric of statesmen,
making the stoutest of spines to weaken as tingling goose bumps
race over their bodies like the rolling waves of a Kansas wheat
field. Their words may be powerful. But so much of what they say
are nothing more than the knowledge and wisdom of
seminary-cloned, self-willed, self-styled, stubborn men of SELF
— ASSES' HEADS! Their words are carried by the wind
of man's knowledge, sweeping across the emotions and intellect of
carnal minds that carry the people in whatever direction the
influencing spirit blows.
Regardless of what they say, their words are
often born of the spirit that says, "Come hell or high
water, we will do it our way!" Without a doubt, a large
portion of the visible church has become a twin sister to those
Jeremiah soundly rebuked: "A WILD ASS
used to the wilderness, in her heat sniffing the wind! Who can
restrain her lust? None who seek her need weary themselves; in
her month they will find her" (Jer. 2:24, RSV).
Job also had something to say concerning these
infamous creatures: "Men remove landmarks (the
established boundaries of Christ's Kingdom); they seize flocks
(from the sheepfold of the Lord) and pasture them (in their own
fields of knowledge). Behold, like wild asses
in the desert they go forth to their toil, seeking prey in the
wilderness as food for their children" (Job 24:2, 5;
parentheses added for emphasis).
Reading on, we see how these present-day
leaders cause their converts to become: "...naked,
without the righteous garments of Christ, and having no covering
they lay cold in the night. They pluck the fatherless from the
breast, and take pledge after pledge of the poor. Although the
people are starving, their few remaining sheaves (the precious
truths they gathered before their capture) are taken from them.
What little oil of the Spirit they had is pressed out of them and
used within the walls of Samaria to anoint their unholy priests
and to burn candles — giving the appearance of God's
sanctification. The poor tread out winepress, yet they go thirsty
while the wild asses are drunken with the wine. Within the
confines of this captive city the dying groan, and the souls of
the wounded cry for help; yet God seems to pay no attention to
their prayer" (Job 24:7-12, paraphrased) — for yet
a little season they must endure the stroke, even as Isaiah
prophesied to Israel:
"For the palace will be forsaken, the
populous city deserted (of the Spirit and the righteous ones);
the hill and the watchtower will become dens...of wild
asses...until the Spirit is poured upon us from on
high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the
fruitful field is deemed a forest" (Isa. 32:14-15, RSV).
Hosea, the last prophet to the northern
kingdom, spoke accurately of today's religious Samaria: "Israel
is swallowed up; already they are among the nations as a useless
vessel" (Hosea 8:8). And there is a reason the church
has come to this: "For they have gone up to Assyria
(worldliness), a wild ass wandering alone;
Ephraim has hired lovers (idol worship)"
(Hosea 8:9). Religion as a whole has become like the one she
has lain with; namely, Ishmael, the father of the Arabic tribes: "...HE
SHALL BE A WILD ASS OF A MAN" (Gen. 16:12,
Rotherham).
In type of Hosea's wife, we see an epic picture
of what has happened to the wayward church. She has truly become
a harlot, a wild ass in heat. She has not exceeded man's
wisdom, his stubbornness, nor has she resisted his adamant
rebellion. Rather than overcoming and living honorably, she has
given herself to all the wiles of the flesh. In a word, she has
not become one with Jesus, her espoused husband. Neither have we
seen her entering New Jerusalem they way Jesus enter
Jerusalem of old. He came riding upon an ass and her colt that
had never been ridden before — signifying victory
over Hagar (bondage) and her offspring, the wild
ass of a man. Jesus demonstrated absolute victory over
all bondage of that present age (Hagar, the mother ass),
as well as the stubborn ass of the new (Ishmael, the colt).
The church of today is overtaken by the spirit
of the wild ass of Assyria, but to her surprise, her lover
has turned on her. The spirit by which she was lured has now
besieged her round about, and she is in want of food. Before the
siege she had the best of both worlds, the whoredom of her idol
worship and the word of God. But God has gathered her suitor in
hostility to her gates, leaving her void of any real word. There
is a famine of hearing the word of God and are relegated to
eating ASSES' HEADS, DOVES' DUNG, and BABIES!
Concerning the soulish wisdom of wild
asses, let us borrow from J. Preston Eby: "...All
that is not of life, of the Spirit, is merely the good of man
— soulish. How much of our religious exercises have been
soulish! I can tell you of a truth that most of the
‘power’ in the modern ‘revival meeting’ is
nothing at all but soul power. Have you not noticed yourself that
in many church services, revival meetings and crusades a kind of
atmosphere is first created psychologically to make the people
feel warm and excited? A chorus is repeated again and again to
warm up the audience. The people are feverishly urged to `get
into the spirit' of the meeting. Some stirring stories are told.
Special music is sung. The people are instructed to stand up, sit
down, say `Amen!' and ‘Praise the Lord!’ When the
atmosphere is thoroughly heated up, the preacher will then stand
up and preach. If he does his job skillfully he can anticipate a
large ‘altar call.’ These are methods and tactics, but
they are not the power of the Holy Spirit! Many preachers today
think they have power (even many so-called sons of God); but they
are merely employing psychological soul power to influence people
and manipulate congregations. Many have become self-made experts
in manipulating people and crowds. The Bible Schools of Babylon's
religions offer a course for ministerial students called
homiletics. Homiletics is the art of writing and preaching
sermons. The sad truth is that the vast majority of religious
activities is just that — an art. You can go to school and
LEARN HOW TO DO IT! How to prepare sermons. How to speak
persuasively. How to use gestures. How to tell jokes. How to
preach. How to stir people by the skillful use of sentimental
stories about death, repentance, hell, heaven, needs, miracles,
etc. This all seems so desirable, so good! But I say to you that
you can learn these very same psychological techniques, apply
them in the business world, and sell vacuum cleaners! The fact
is, most all salesmen employ these same proven procedures of
presentation, sentimentalism and pressure to sell insurance,
automobiles, real estate, and thousands of other items daily!
They don't need any Holy Spirit to do that! All that is necessary
is some good human personality mixed with some proven techniques
and one can persuade people to buy almost anything! These are
means and methods, but they are not the power nor work of the
Holy Spirit. They are no more spiritual when used religiously
than they are when employed commercially. In the Kingdom of God
they are flesh! To which our Lord says today, as He did to Peter
in that long ago, ‘Get thee behind Me —
SATAN!’" — End quote.
Due to the spirit of idol worship, the gates of
the visible church of today are presently closed to the Spirit of
revelation and present truth. Hence, as starvation sets in —
the city is consigned to eating asses' heads and doves'
dung and babies.
DOVES' DUNG
DOVE'S DUNG — residue of the
departed dove! This is what many are living on today
— DOVE'S DUNG! With the church as a whole, there is
very little reality of the glory of Christ. There is virtually
nothing remaining of that tremendous day in 1906 on Azusa Street.
From a single church in Los Angeles, heaven's Dove spread its
glorious wings across the nation in great proliferation. The
presence of the beauty of the Lord was everywhere. Untold power
of His majesty, tongues of godly men and angels, and glorious
prophecies were in abundance. Miracles of all kinds were common
place, and countless numbers of souls were added to the Church
daily. A similar visitation of the Spirit came in 1948 and
continued into the 1950. This is known as "Latter
Rain." It was during this flight of the Dove that not only
was the baptism of the Spirit rekindled and miracles came again,
but the revelation of Sonship was given. But it did not last, for
the gentle Dove of God is easily wounded. When men put their
soiled hands to building their own kingdoms, or they attempted to
finish in the flesh what began in the Spirit, the Dove flew away
— leaving only its remains, memories of the faded past,
dung.
Memories of the past, tremendous as the events
were, are just that — memories, and they possess no life for
today. They may be pleasant to reflect upon, but to apply
yesteryear’s glories to what God is doing today is nothing
more than eating DOVE’S DUNG, and the church of
modern Samaria is presently living on this lifeless commodity.
With some, it is their main course, and they pay a fair price for
it.
There is a time for warm reflections, and to
recall the days of God's glory — to encourage, to lift, to
edify, or to admonish, to exhort, to lay examples for
corrections, etc. To live in the past, however, is another story.
Generally speaking, there is very little life to be had in the
past, regardless of the richness it contained at the time. Since
most of the nutrients were used up long ago, when the Dove was
present, a steady diet of the past not only lends itself to
sickly weakness in the body, but it becomes very nauseating to
most people. Therefore, when we prepare a dish for others, let it
be a fresh word for this day. Let it be the beauty of present
truth. Let it be God's reality, His pure essence, His sweet
fragrance, His Logos, the Christ of the living God — Jesus
our Lord. Let it be the precious Dove of God; but please, let us
not offer a plate of warmed over dove's dung, for the sons
of God will not eat it! They will not eat it!
BABIES
The church's diet of asses' heads and doves’
dung has been horrendous, but there is more. Some are so
starved for flesh that they resort to anything to get it: "...Give
thy son, that we may eat him to day, and
will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat
him..." (2 Kings 6:28-29). Rather than eating the
flesh of Jesus they eat their newborn converts. In this
starvation, they strangle the innocents before they can grow up
and mature as a son of God. The life of those born in
today’s Samaria is snatched from the breast and snuffed out
before it hardly begins. It doesn’t take long before they
lose their identity in Christ, and all that can be seen of them
is another infused Baptist, Pentecostal, Catholic, Mormon,
Jehovah's Witness, Independent, etc. They eat their own babies,
swallowing them, and nothing remains but the host that has eaten
them.
Can there be anything more desperate or
deplorable than a person cannibalizing their baby to save their
own miserable existence? Yet it is seen in abundance in today's
Samaria. The same women of history rises once again to perform
their terrible deeds. With their appetite and dark, visionless
condition, they perceive no light at all; and without the flesh
and blood of Jesus to sustain them, they fulfill the words of
scripture by progressively eating not only their babies —
but more:
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses....ye
compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made,
ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves" (Mat
23:14-15). "For ye suffer, if a man bring you into
bondage, if a man devour you..." (2 Cor.
11:20). "But if ye bite and devour one another,
take heed that ye be not consumed one of another"
(Gal. 5:15).
Also, "Be sober, be vigilant; because
your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking
whom he may devour" (1 Pt. 5:8). "And
his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast
them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which
was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as
soon as it was born" (Rev. 12:4).
You may have an idea of who the devil
is, and you may be right; but I can tell you there is more to it
than what Samaria has taught. The father of the Pharisees,
as Jesus told them, was the devil, and I don’t think
He was suggesting they were born from some diabolical conception
with their mothers. Other than their spirits, thoughts, and
attitudes being that of the devil — that which is
inspired by the devil, i.e. the carnal man — their
fathers were the Pharisees before them. Sure, there was a
spiritual thing working in them, and it was not good; but the
devil walking about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he
may devour, also came in the form of men. Both, the
devil as a lion and the dragon, seek to devour, for
they are one and the same. We read in Isaiah 9:15 that the
prophet who teach lies is the tail.
Therefore, the lying prophets (preachers, teachers, etc)
are draw unsuspecting Christians from the heavens in Christ,
while the entire system of religion devours them. IF you want to
see the devil, take a good look at the church system and you will
see him swishing his tail of lying prophets throughout the
heavens and entangling men’s minds with carnal precepts.
While rejecting the vibrant, living Word of
Jesus Christ — the devil, the lion, the Pharisees, devour
those held behind their gates of religion. They refuse the flesh
and blood of Jesus. Not only are the leaders devouring the people
and making them twofold more the children of hell than
themselves, the carnal souls in the church are reduced to
spiritual cannibalism. They are boiling their own sons and eating
them — and they thought it such a hard saying when Jesus
said, "Eat My flesh and drink My blood." O
church of God, what have you come to?
Something so repulsive, however, may not look
so bad when thine eye is evil, for thy body also is full of
darkness, as Jesus said to the Pharisees; but "The
light of the body is the eye: therefore WHEN THINE EYE IS SINGLE,
thy whole body also is full of light" (Lk. 11:34).
In Christ there is but ONE MIND, in Christ there is no darkness,
in Christ there is nought but illumination, in Christ there is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning. Simply put — IN THE
SINGLE EYE OF CHRIST there is LIGHT, LIFE and LIBERTY! In Him
there is no darkness, no death, no starvation — and
especially, NO DIET of ASSES’ HEADS, DOVES’ DUNG, or
BABIES! Praise God for the banqueting table of Jesus Christ! With
a single eye we have pure communion! We eat of His rich,
indissoluble life of the ages!
Brethren, the word of deliverance has been
proclaimed to those held captive in Samaria, and the
gate-keepers have denied it and mocked those who prophesied
it. However, we can be assured, when the Lepers of Samaria
(the Sons of God), stand at her gates with the riches of the
Kingdom in their hands — there will be deliverance. Every so
called apostle, prophet, preacher, pastor, and teacher
will be trampled by the great exodus. The watchmen who
walk the imprisoning walls of that city shall see the riches of
the Kingdom — but they will not partake of it! So says the
word of prophecy!
Elwin R.
Roach
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