Friday, December 7, 2007

Ezekiel 7 - Is this what America is going to face?

Ezekiel 7
7:1 The Coming of the End Then this message came to me from the LORD: 2 "Son of man, this is what the Sovereign LORD says to Israel: The end is here! Wherever you look — east, west, north, or south — your land is finished. 3 No hope remains, for I will unleash my anger against you. I will call you to account for all your disgusting behavior. 4 I will turn my eyes away and show no pity, repaying you in full for all your evil. Then you will know that I am the LORD! 5 "This is what the Sovereign LORD says: With one blow after another I will bring total disaster! 6 The end has come! It has finally arrived! Your final doom is waiting! 7 O people of Israel, the day of your destruction is dawning. The time has come; the day of trouble is near. It will ring with shouts of anguish, not shouts of joy. 8 Soon I will pour out my fury to complete your punishment for all your disgusting behavior. 9 I will neither spare nor pity you. I will repay you for all your detestable practices. Then you will know that it is I, the LORD, who is striking the blow.7 Then he showed me another vision. I saw the Lord standing beside a wall that had been built using a plumb line. He was checking it with a plumb line to see if it was straight. 8 And the LORD said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" I answered, "A plumb line." And the Lord replied, "I will test my people with this plumb line. I will no longer ignore all their sins. 9 The pagan shrines of your ancestors and the temples of Israel will be destroyed, and I will bring the dynasty of King Jeroboam to a sudden end." Amos and Amaziah 10 But when Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, heard what Amos was saying, he rushed a message to King Jeroboam: "Amos is hatching a plot against you right here on your very doorstep! What he is saying is intolerable. It will lead to rebellion all across the land. 11 He is saying, 'Jeroboam will soon be killed and the people of Israel will be sent away into exile.' " 12 Then Amaziah sent orders to Amos: "Get out of here, you seer! Go on back to the land of Judah and do your preaching there! 13 Don't bother us here in Bethel with your prophecies, especially not here where the royal sanctuary is!" 14 But Amos replied, "I'm not one of your professional prophets. I certainly never trained to be one. I'm just a shepherd, and I take care of fig trees. 15 But the LORD called me away from my flock and told me, 'Go and prophesy to my people in Israel.' 16 "Now then, listen to this message from the LORD! You say, 'Don't prophesy against Israel. Stop preaching against my people.' 17 But this is what the LORD says: Because you have refused to listen, your wife will become a prostitute in this city, and your sons and daughters will be killed. Your land will be divided up, and you yourself will die in a foreign land. And the people of Israel will certainly become captives in exile, far from their homeland."

No comments:

Read More . . .

Background

When I was four years old, my thirteen-year-old brother raped me. My older sister and her friends treated me as their “doll,” dressing me in girl’s clothing. My father, a pastor, sexually molested me.

This upbringing led me to a life of sexual deviancy in which I was sometimes the victim and sometimes the perpetrator, to the point that I described myself as a “sex machine.” Through the intervention of God, I have been delivered from this cycle and cleansed, freed to live the victorious Christian life.

Purpose of This Book

Sexual sin is rampant in the church. Stories of moral failures by men and women in church leadership roles have become commonplace. In the pew, too, sexual immorality and incest are more widespread than anyone knows—except those involved.

So long as these sins are allowed to remain in the shadows, they have power. They must be exposed, and the people affected by them must have help finding the recovery they so desperately need.

Don’t Say a Word about This! is designed to lead the church to find the truth and healing in Christ, which will set them free from the blight of sexual sin committed by Christians.

It is my conviction that every person has a right to live life from babyhood to adult life without any form of abuse. I believe that every person who did not have the opportunity to live from babyhood to adult life without abuse is entitled to healing, deliverance, and a second chance to live life.

Sources

The content of Don’t Say a Word about This! is drawn from my life, the Bible, a wide range of secular books dealing with human behavior, and films that address human pain and suffering.

My Story

My father was a pastor and part-time handyman at women’s’ clothing stores. Most of the time my brother and sister and I were left on our own since my brother was nine years older than I and my sister was eighteen years my senior. A lack of supervision, combined with my father’s sexual perversions and my mother’s continuing love for a man she married who had turned into a secret monster contributed to my exposure to sexual matters at such a young age.

For the first few years of my life my sister, eighteen years my elder, dressed me in little girl’s clothes and made me her personal doll. When I was four, my thirteen-year-old brother raped me. Dad often took me to work with him at the women’s clothing stores and while he worked, I would masturbate with the mannequins.

What does a young boy do when in the first ten years of his life he experiences rape and incest, is treated as a girl, and learns to masturbate in lingerie with an older neighborhood boy? He goes to a dark place in his soul.

At age eleven I became not the victim but the perpetrator. I molested one boy from my neighborhood and two boys who were members of my father’s church—usually in the church building or at church functions.

As I grew into my teens I was involved in many other sexual encounters with church musicians (male and female), and I had other sexual escapades at church meetings.

When I was eighteen I got married, thinking my sexual behavior would change. The marriage lasted twenty-four years but not because of my fidelity. I was faithful to my wife for only five years before the cycle began again.

In college, though I was married, my time was filled with the constant search for excitement and sexual release through:

  • Marijuana, cocaine, crack, crank, speed, and other drugs I cannot remember
  • Homosexual and bisexual acts
  • Threesomes
  • Voyeurism
  • Exhibitionism
  • Phone Sex
  • Transvestism
  • Pornography
  • Lingerie Fetish
  • Oral Sex

By the time I was 30 I had had sex with more than one hundred women. I was a sex machine.

After college, I appeared to have a model life. I worked as an analyst for Fortune five hundred companies, I had a wife and son, and I was developing my own private tax practice. However, my personal life centered around one promiscuous affair after another.

I wasn’t living the Christian life by any stretch of the imagination at this point, but still something (Holy Spirit) prevented me from molesting my son, though my father had molested me and this is how the cycle is continued. God was intervening in my life, and in my son’s life, though I certainly wasn’t walking with Him then.

But His interventions were just beginning. He allowed me to be involved in a major auto accident in which four other cars ran into mine. I survived the accident, but was left with a recurring nightmare that eventually drove me to seek therapy.

I started therapy to stop the nightmares but before long I had spilled my guts about my sexual escapades. With the help of the psychiatrist and the Holy Spirit I was able to begin the healing and deliverance from my childhood sexual abuse.

It turned out I had repressed much of the detail of what happened to me as a child. Over a time, together with prayer and fasting, I began to hear from the Holy Spirit about how to proceed and get my healing.

I have been writing the manuscript for Don’t Say a Word about This! for over ten years. During that time many obstacles attempted to sidetrack me. One of those was how my brother, who physically raped me when I was 4, attempted to financially rape me 50 years later.

My father died a few years ago. After he passed, my brother sued several of the businesses that had cared for my father, alleging neglectful service. In order to retain the bulk of the award money, he and my half-sister told these businesses that I had died. By the grace of God I have been able to forgive my brother for both rapes.