Judgment Comes-Prt C- Sins of Gov't N Church-Setting Captives Free

 

In case you missed parts:

[Prt A] Judgment Comes from the North – Call 2Repent- Worthy of Hard Tests

[Prt B] Judgment Comes – Good N Bad in World N Church-Prodigals Are Returning

[Prt C] Judgment Comes – Sins of Gov’t N Church – Setting Captives Free

[Prt D] Judgment Comes – Alert the Nations-Flee Idolatry-Repent-Pray

[Prt E] Judgment Comes –  Let Your Idols and Soothsayers Deliver You

Prt F] Judgment Comes – Ezekiel Still Speaks Today

[Prt G] Judgment Comes – The Counterfeit is Here, But Nothing Replaces Jesus-Yeshua

Bad Love is Not Love

There were a few times that I had begun to give testimony to a horrific thing I did when I was young. Age does not matter because it is a ‘matter’ of the heart, not age. In my mind, I was not a sinful woman, staying loyal to one boyfriend, faithful, but for what?

I did not see fornication as a sin if I stayed with one man, even if I was not married. I was wrong.

Flee fornication. Every sin that a man does is without the body; but he that commits fornications sins against his own body. [1Cor 6:18]

Meanwhile, I also drank when I felt like it, dabbled in drugs, mostly marijuana, but occasionally, LSD, or MDA, or mesc [mescaline], but not very often with hardcore drugs, once I was out of my teens and early 20s.

If one grouped the weeks and months into a timeframe, out of five years that I knew my second boyfriend, we were only together perhaps 12 or 13 months, if even that could be scraped together. The other four years, give or take, were us separated.

We were broken up more than we were together. My first boyfriend was only a few months after I was released from being kidnapped. He got me high for the first time in my life. I was looking to bury the pain of the kidnapping. No one knew, but I did... We split up in the second month, when he was with another girl.

The second boyfriend and I did live in the same place when we were together, but three months at a time was really the ‘maximum’. The breakup was typically due to another female - sometimes violence.

Once we broke up, it was generally for several months at a time, six to eight months. His unfaithfulness, drinking, drug use, often presented the problems. He was not keen on working, which put more pressure upon me to provide.

It caused undue stress, was a financial strain, bills went unpaid (irresponsibility), and his unfaithfulness always had me trying to ‘improve’ myself in order to win his heart. It was in that relationship that I coined a phrase that I was famous for with those who knew me.

I would say, “Bad love is better than no love,” but that was a lie straight from the pit of hell. Bad love is not love at all, but I was blind to that fact. One time we had moved in with his sister and her husband, sharing a house. His sister and I worked in the same small office. We both worked reception and gave the male employees the routes and territories they were to cover in their sales.

Things Not of God, But Of the World

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. [1Jn 2:16]

There were about eight men in the company, six salesmen and two owners. All of them were attracted to my boyfriend’s sister. She was a slim, attractive blonde, and she enjoyed the attention. I had only been with the company about 10 weeks when Christmas came.

The office closed at 2:00 pm on Christmas Eve to hold a small staff party before the company shut down for eight days. Drinks and food were plentiful. No word of a lie, I was the wallflower watching my boyfriend’s beautiful sister surrounded by the male staff. It was awkward, and very uncomfortable.

A couple of men were off by themselves having a drink and talking, whilst the rest gathered around my coworker like bees making honey in a hive. We were supposed to go out for dinner and drinks after work, starting at six o’clock.

She was my ride home from work. By five-thirty, I was getting nervous, and tried my best to get her to pull herself away (I even reminded her that she was married, to which she stated that talking to men was not wrong.) She had a point, but there surely was plenty of flirting going on. The drinks helped.

By six-thirty, the bosses wanted to close up shop, and people started to drift out. Finally, she pulled herself away. I knew we would be in trouble because we were already a half hour late. It would be nearly an hour by the time we reached home.

I had about three drinks, so I was feeling no pain, but that would not last. All hell broke loose when we arrived home. The husband was asking questions, but he seemed rather calm. His wife (my boyfriend’s sister) was saying how the office party went on longer than expected, but ‘we’ were just talking with the staff (I never said that I sat for hours alone, with the odd man coming up and wishing me a ‘Merry Christmas’. I had only been there 10 weeks; his sister had been there for well over a year.)

Since my boyfriend could not get mad at his sister, he took it out on me. We were not even home five minutes when he suddenly grabbed me. My face got punched, I felt my lip split, smashed my face against the sink faucet, and broke my nose. My face was then smashed into the counter, where I ended up spitting out pieces of broken teeth.

I was pushed up against the fridge and punched in the stomach, where I fell to my knees. I took more hits to the back, chest, and face. Finally, after being pushed face-first into a cupboard, I staggered toward the kitchen table, trying to escape and to sit down. He picked up a coffee jar and threw it at me.

Seeing it coming, I ducked but not enough, and it hit the back of my head, splitting it open. It was ONLY then, when blood came pouring out, did the husband of my boyfriend’s sister grab my boyfriend, and tell him, “Enough!” He opened the kitchen door, pushed him outside and told him to cool down.

After 10 minutes of being beaten up, it took a coffee jar splitting my head open to make it all stop. I felt so betrayed. Why did no one intervene before? Realizing it was over, I lowered my head on the table and began to sob uncontrollably. My boyfriend’s sister and her husband left me there in the kitchen, retreating to their room.

I do not know how long I sat there, nor do I even remember getting up, going upstairs to our bedroom, grabbing a pillow and a blanket and finding a corner to pass out in. I awoke in the morning to blood-matted hair, and a blood-soaked pillow. My boyfriend was nowhere to be seen.

In my late 20s, but it felt like I was ancient, and on death row – the pain everywhere was surreal. I staggered to the bathroom, still feeling disoriented. Did I have a concussion? No medical help was sought, nor did anyone offer to drive me to get checked out.

It was her brother, after all. She could not betray him. I must have slept for over 14 hours; it was morning. When I looked in the mirror, I was horrified; not even recognizing myself. Everything hurt. How was I to go to work in a week? How was I to be seen in public? (I do not know what his sister said to the bosses, but I lost my job before I had to return…) Everything was falling apart. Why?

My entire face was black, blue and purple, with seven splits; two splits on my nose, three on my lips and two on my forehead. There was random bruising on my arms, chest and back. If I had gone to the police, they would have put out a warrant for his arrest. The damage was that bad.

I was grateful that he did not grab a knife – there were no guns in the house. I found out from my boyfriend’s sister that he had gotten up early, saw me, and took a bus to two provinces away, Saskatchewan, where his younger brother lived with a girlfriend. He did not want to be arrested.

After giving me that information, his sister and her husband went out for breakfast, leaving me alone again. All that was said was “omg” when they saw my face – nothing else. There was no comfort to be found. I was hopelessly lost and majorly messed up, mentally, emotionally. There was nowhere and no one to turn to.

All this happened because men were attracted to my boyfriend’s sister, and she was giddy and flattered by all the attention. I reckon most people would be, so I could not bring myself to take a bus because I did not know how I would explain her absence to her husband.

I knew my boyfriend would be upset with us being late, but I did not know he would go ballistic, especially knowing his sister was my ride. There was no opportunity even given to explain. It immediately became a physical affront, or outrage.

Denying Jesus to Chase After an Idol

 

Withhold your foot from being unshod [stop chasing after idols]; and your throat from thirst [your thirst is not quenched]. But you said, There is no hope [it is hopeless]: no; for I have loved strangers [idols], and after them will I go. [Jer2:25]

It is understood why the Lord held me back from sharing this testimony sooner in its fullness. I had shared fragments, but not enough to give a complete picture. Now, it makes sense – why now, and why here. Idolatry…

A few weeks had passed. My ex called his sister at Christmas to say that he got married to a woman he knew for two days. I was shocked. He never spoke to me. Apparently, they were drinking, and with some manipulating of paperwork, a crooked judge, and extra money, he managed to get married legally.

I was already a mess spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally, but now, I was completely undone. And what had I done to deserve all this? Waiting for his sister at work. I should have just left the party, but what was done was done. It should have revealed the character of the man, but I was still recovering from several splits in the facial skin, and some of the heavier bruising. My nose never did get fixed.

His sister and her husband were gone for the day. So, up in the bedroom, alone in the house, I fell to my knees as any broken, desperate, and lost person might do. I cried out to the walls. “O God, who IS my husband?” I do not know if I said ‘God’ or ‘Lord’, but I was really (in my mind) talking out loud to no one; I was not addressing God. It was just an expression to me in that moment.

Suddenly, Jesus was there in the room, in a long, white robe. I could not make out His face (light), but somehow, I knew He had a tender look, and compassion. It was an open vision. Peace filled the room.

There was a tree, a river, and to the bottom right, there was a small square box, with the silhouette of a man. I did not recognize the shadow; it was not the bodily outline of someone I knew – certainly not the outline of my ‘ex’.

It was revealed to me that the man who had beaten me up, who had been my ‘on again-off again’ boyfriend for five years (more ‘off’ than ‘on’) was NOT my husband. That would explain why I did not recognize the shadow, the silhouette outline. “O Lord …no!” I gasped softly.

Unbelief spoke, and fear of remaining unloved shook me. ‘Look at me,’ I thought, ‘I am a mess. Who would love me now? At least bad love is better than no love.’ When I spoke those words, ‘O Lord, no,’ the Lord began to fade in and out, almost like Alka-Seltzer does as it fizzes and pops in and out as it dissolves in water. But what I did next was unbelievable.

Firstly, there was no fear of the Lord. It did not even cross my mind. Secondly, it was only in retrospect that I realized that Jesus was ‘fading in and out’ because in His mercy, He was giving me opportunity to change my mind.

Thirdly, I was no better than Satan who tempted Jesus in the desert wilderness, when I quoted scripture. At that time in my life, I only had a couple of verses memorized. The first verse I ever learned was Rom 8:28. But unbelievably, I said:

[…] … whoever says to this mountain, Be removed and be cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he says shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he says. [Mk 11:23]

After I spoke the scripture, the Lord Jesus was gone. His Word does not return void, but I had also committed a great abomination. I had fallen into rebellion and disobedience, but also idolatry. I chose a mere man over the King of kings and Lord of lords.

I had no idea of the fullness of what I had done, for I was [spiritually] blind. I did not know it then, but I also needed deliverance of ‘legion’, but it would be 11 years before that happened.

Rebellion, fear, unbelief, idolatry… The Lord came to help me, and this is what He got faced with.

The Burden of Idolatry

Long story short – I did not heed the words of the Lord (that the man was ‘not’ my husband). That was disobedience. It took three and a half years and a child later, but we were married. That was rebellion and idolatry. We continued to break up and get back together, a repetitious pattern. We were toxic together.

What happened to the woman he married? He got ‘tired of her’ after two months and called me, telling me that he had made a mistake. He wanted to see me. I ended up hitchhiking two days to get two provinces over.

I know it sounds absurd, but again, in retrospect, I truly believe the Lord protected me. I did not know that there had been many disappearances and murders along the TransCanada Hwy. in recent years back then. An older trucker picked me up, saying that he would want someone watching out for his daughter if she ever pulled a stunt like hitchhiking.

When he came to the place where he had to drop me off, he radioed other truckers on his CB and waited on the side of the road until the truck came along that agreed to take me. The truckers linked one to one right across two provinces. I get choked up even now at the memory. They truly protected me (it was as if God sent His holy angels, or else ordered the steps of these men).

If you do not think God would do such a thing, especially knowing I was tormented by ‘legion’, in rebellion, disobedience and idolatry, then read how good He was to His own rebellious, idolatrous people. He is not a God who is trigger-happy, or ready to slam the gavel down on tender fingers.

He is amazing. O good grief, I just managed to get myself all teary-eyed writing this. But who would not be moved by such tender mercy toward a wayward, prodigal who had rejected their father?

Thanks to the truckers, I arrived safely in Saskatchewan. I made a phone call and spoke with my ‘ex’s’ younger brother. They were supposed to be half an hour; I waited in a donut shop. I sat there all night and no one showed up. Feeling like a fool, I was just about to leave and start hitchhiking back to BC when my ex showed up with his brother, full of apologies and excuses.

He took me to his place, along with his brother. I used his phone and got a motel room for a night. He wanted to ‘talk’ with me. The next day he came over, but before he came over, I performed a ‘ritual’, a small piece of witchcraft [any amount is evil]. It was supposed to ‘get one pregnant’.

After all that time, I had never gotten pregnant. It was doubtful I would now, but I just had to try out the ‘fertility ritual’ I had read about in a New Age magazine. Unbelievably, after five years of no success, this time it worked.

I conceived. However, right after he had had his way with me, he told me that he was going to try and make the marriage work. Knowing that he was going to reject me, he still had the audacity to take me to bed. He had just used me yet again…what a fool I was!

Returning to BC, I was drinking whiskey in a vehicle with a kind, elderly man, old enough to be my grandfather, that I had met at the motel. However, he was in his early 70s, and could not speak because of a stroke he had years earlier.

His wife had passed away a couple of years after his stroke. He missed her terribly because she knew him so well that she knew what he wanted even though he could not express it.  He could only say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ very drawn out and slowly. As we entered Calgary, a traffic accident had police diverting traffic.

The officer smelled booze. I explained the driver’s stroke, and that he was not drinking, but that I was. I did not know that it was illegal for a passenger to drink. My goal was to get the kind driver off the hook. It did. The remaining booze in the 40 oz’er was thrown out, but I was arrested on an outstanding warrant.

Apparently, when my ex and I were apartment managers, he stole money when we left (he took $600, left a cheque for $500, but the owners claimed a few grand). The charge was ‘theft under $5,000’. I could barely believe all that was happening to me.

Everything was a mess. I spent the night in jail, but I had a dear friend in Alberta, a woman I considered to be a second mom. She had known me for about 13 years by then, so she let me come stay with her until I could get on my feet. It was during my stay with her that I found out that I was pregnant. She comforted me just by being there for me. Even my own parents had washed their hands of me after the kidnapping.

My ex had a warrant out for his arrest for 'Theft Under $5000". He never did face the charges, and I reckon the statute of limitations ran out. I appeared in court for sentencing two days after I gave birth to my daughter. The judge was female, and gracious. My charge had been dropped to "Accessory After the Fact" - and I received probation.

He seemed to get away with all he did. Never once did I clue in that it was possible that the day I denied or rejected Jesus that I played right into the devil’s hand, and had opened a huge door to him to enter.

My ‘ex’ stayed with his wife for another year, but then ended it. The marriage was annulled. Fast-forward, when our daughter was almost three, we were married. We continued the ‘breakup’ pattern; however, I did manage to have two more of his children in-between the breakups, another daughter and a son.

We left BC because he would have gone to prison for all his drinking and driving offenses, and he had been charged again. He was always running from trouble. We moved to Ontario, but after less than a year we broke up. It would be the end of our marriage, but there was still more trouble to come.

After three months, he called me on a cold winter’s day, stating that his uncle had thrown him out of the house, and he had no where to stay. He said that if I just let him sleep on the couch that night, he would find a place the next day. It was freezing out – I relented.

The problem was that I had no papers indicating we were separated, nor that I had custody of the children. He refused to leave. He was the husband, no papers, the police said he had every right to stay, even though the rental was in my name and only rented to myself, it did not matter legally.

It was a few weeks later that I ended up in the hospital from abuse, for one month. And the fight for custody was about to begin, and be stretched out over a seven-year period. Sin, in any form, separates us from God. I was not a Christian, even though I had always believed in God, and in Jesus, and everything I had heard about Him.

Idolatry is an abomination, and I still had years of consequences to go through. You see, I had denied the Lord for a man – idolatry. Therefore, I would spend ‘years’, literally, looking for the ‘man’ to fill that silhouette – the empty shadow in the box that I had seen ‘oh, so many years ago’…

That day would never come. The reason it was a shadow, a silhouette, was indicative of what could have been, but my choice made it a ‘shadow’ of what could have been. It was my own fault that my destiny was to be to spend my life alone. Not only did I have no ‘fear of the Lord’ (reverence), but I did not trust.

Self-Deception

The pride of your heart has deceived you, you that dwell in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that says in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? [Obad 1:3]

When a person falls into idolatry, they fall into self-deception. Pride was likely first to lead one away with temptation. They become blind to the fact that they are deceived. That person will not see that they are deceived until they come OUT of deception, and that being by the grace and mercy of God Almighty.

Four more men over the course of the next decades, trying to find love, and never finding it within reach. Why? Because I had denied love – God is Love; when I denied Jesus, I denied love. The shortest relationship I had with a man was one week. The second man, with my ex having been the first.

The third man was a wonderful fellow. We remained friends for 12 years, until he met the woman that he married. To keep her at peace, he severed all past relationships with female friends. She would be his number one friend. I was torn.

The Lord had already given me a dream, and revealed to me that he had met the woman that sent electricity throughout his body, but I also lost my best friend after 12 years. He married her three months after I told him about the dream.

The fourth man was not a nice man. He was in the picture a little over six years; we had entered the seventh year of knowing each other when I returned to Canada. The fifth and last man was a friend (platonic), where we were friends for seven years. He was a charmer, insisted on honesty, yet he was not an honest man.

It turned out he was a wiccan, and not a Christian. He kept ghosting [disappearing] on me for weeks at a time, and always had some valid excuse. One thing is that he never spoke down to me, always was respectful, but he was a narcissist. In his mind, he could do no wrong. He had relationships during his ‘ghosting’ times. The Lord revealed it, but he denied all of it. 

The last time he ‘ghosted’, he was gone for six weeks. Rumours started flying around. Finally a woman turned up in a group and started talking about him, saying things that added up with his timeline. I wrote him an email stating all that I had heard and asked about it.

He texted me that he was going back to camp and that he would call (phone) me in a few days, or maybe a week. That was the last time I ever heard from him. It was at the very beginning of March 2022.

It was the mercy of God. Thirty-nine years was the season of consequence for saying, “O no, Lord” that fateful day. How the Lord tried to spare me, as He faded in and out, trying to give me time. He never forces us to make the right choice, but He reveals what the right choice would be. How good He was to me; how good He is. A year’s grace may not sound like much, but in truth, I deserved no grace, no mercy.

Setting the Captives Free

The Lord delivered me from self-deception. He set this unworthy captive free…free from the prison I had built myself, with the adversary as a guard. When I “saw” what I had done, godly sorrow consumed me, and the Lord forgave me. Then, He cleansed me, put on a fresh robe, and healed me. Glory! Yes, we can deceive ourselves and not even know it. Guaranteed, our ‘idols’ will answer us but it is further deception. We fool ourselves, blinded to the truth, unable to hear. Praise God for His mercy!

The only area that I was deceived in was the area of ‘man’ [men]. Even when I knew the relationship was not going anywhere, I stayed deceived. What does the Lord tell us?

Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them? Therefore speak unto them, and say to them, 

Thus says the Lord god; Every man of the house of Israel that sets up idols in his heart, and puts the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and comes to the prophet; I the Lord will answer him that comes according to the multitude of his idols; [Ezek14:3-4]

Anything and any one that you put before the Lord becomes an idol. The Lord angers at idolatry, and rightly so, there IS no other God beside Him. Because of my ‘choice’, despite being told the man was NOT to be my husband, my season of consequence would last 39 years from start to finish…39 years (a year of grace and undeserved mercy!)

1983-2022 – I was set free from the season of consequence; it was fulfilled in 2022. Hallelujah! And only then did I even SEE the are that I was deceived in, or even understand the self-deception.

So, when I see that our nations are steeped in idolatry, and they are; I know what I am speaking of.  In 2012, on Passover, the Lord had me cut my hair. I asked how short, and the answer was ‘to the shoulders’ – because God has always had a ‘remnant’.

The action of cutting my hair (as crazy as it sounds) was taken from the first book of Samuel. There were sins being carried out in Israel. Eli served Israel 40 years; he was priest and judge.

However, he did not judge or discipline his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who did much wrong before the Lord, including fornicating with the women that gathered at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. [1Sam2:22]

The consequence was that both sons were killed by the Philistines, who took the Ark of the covenant and brought it into their own camp. When Eli heard the news, he fell over backwards and broke his neck (as he was a heavy, 98-year-old man).

Eli’s son Phineas was married, and his wife was with child. She went into labour when she heard the news of her husband’s death, and that of her father-in-law, Eli. She named the child ‘Ichabod’, for when hearing of the Ark of the covenant she said, ‘The glory is departed from Israel’ (because the ark of God was taken [vs 21], and her husband and his father were dead.

When the Lord instructed me to cut my hair off on Passover, it had to do with the United States and the rebellion of the people throughout the land, not to mention witchcraft, adultery, fornication, and idolatry. Cut to the shoulders meant the Lord had a remnant – later, the hair was burned. How I wept!

Although I was unaware, I was living in the United States at that time and was guilty of all the sins as well. It was then that the Lord instructed me not to pray for the country, but to pray for the people.  

a nation repents

I do believe that Ichabod can be changed – but like Nineveh, it takes the entire NATION repenting.  People are prophesying that America will return to the glorious land it was in the beginning, but it will not. God’s Word will carry out; His will will be done.

I also believe that revival begins within an individual heart, a heart ready to be changed. As a result of that, many who have been deceived, even if self-deceived, will be captives that are set free. They have been crying out to God, surrendering their lives and all they have to Christ, realizing the times we are in, and having made a wise choice – choose Jesus/Yeshua.

The beginning of sorrows is upon us. The whole earth is travailing for the return of Holy King and Messiah/Saviour. The Great Tribulation looks out over the earth from the foreboding horizon.

From that point, I still had 10 years to go before the consequences to my choice would be fulfilled, and God would heal and restore me. If only the people of America and Canada, would repent, but there are too many steeped in idolatry, and other abominations, loving the sin more than the Creator.

 We need the return of the Christ Jesus! Maranatha…

The Goodness, Patience, and Majesty of Jesus

To reveal how this entire globe is saturated in sins and abominations, I shared the testimony of how I myself was self-deceived in one area for choosing idolatry over the precious Saviour. It is not easy to share some things we have done wrong, but a person needs to stand back in awe at the magnificence of our Creator.

He comes to us when least expected, most often when we are a complete mess, or when we are so hurt and broken, we do not know which way to turn, or to who. He does not come condemning – He comes offering a way unto salvation.

Jesus gives us the freedom of choice. Some choose wisely; others choose as I did. Did you notice that firstly, He spoke truth when He proclaimed that the man who beat me up was not my husband? He saw far ahead, and saw the damage it would do, not only to three innocent children, but to this sinner as well. His concern was genuine.

Did you notice how even when I made the wrong decision, Jesus waited patiently, giving me time to change my mind, to rethink my decision? Who in their right mind goes chasing after a man who basically pulverized them? I was completely and utterly messed up!

And finally, did you notice that it was only when I spoke God’s Word [scripture] that finally He departed? Such goodness! How He must have grieved at my misuse of His Word, for His Word is power and authority, but because of my choice (idolatry), He allowed it to accomplish what was spoken.

It was all part of the consequences. I would reap what I had sown – literally.

So shall My word be that goes forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. [Is 55:11]

only ONE leper out of TEN (10)
returned to thank Jesus/Yeshua

What I can assure the reader is that although the Lord left my ‘vision’, He stayed with me all those years. Why? I do not know, but I am forever grateful. There is something I must make perfectly clear. I do believe in standing on God’s Word, and I do believe we have authority and power to speak it.

However, and that is a huge ‘however’; we cannot – CAN NOT – manipulate God’s will or override it. If the Lord had not wanted Mark 11:23 to be fulfilled in that situation, it would not have been. It would not be a matter of His Word returning void because it had not gone forth out of HIS mouth.

Despite the power and authority, we have been given as born-again, Holy Spirit-filled children of God, we still do not have the same strength of power, nor do we have the Sovereign authority that only the living God has.

When you listen to false teachers and false prophets today telling you to declare this and decree that, I urge you to keep the above in mind. The final say will ALWAYS belong to the Lord God Himself. Satan knew what he was suggesting when he hissed, “[…] …you will be as gods.” 

He is the manipulator of truth, the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning. He does not abide in the truth, and the truth is not in him. [Jn 8:44]  Idolatry is a grievous thing, and will take a person down a slippery slope into a sticky pool of sins. To go after some other ‘god’, when we have the ultimate, holy, majestic, good God, who is full of mercy, grace, compassion, understanding, and love – we are indeed fools. I was the most foolish of all, and it took a long time to get that donkey tail off my derriere.

But Jesus…

The searchlight is always going over the land of my heart, and into the deeper places because I shun idolatry. I know the deception, the allure, the catering to lusts, the pride, the ugliness of it. I hate sin; I cannot even find the words to describe how loathsome; how sickening, how putrid sins are. This flesh just never seems to have any end. I can barely wait for the day this flesh will be gone and is replaced with a glorified body.

So, dear reader, are you beginning to see why I so often say how much I love Jesus? The one who loves much is the one who has been forgiven much! I love Yeshua wholly… and perhaps now, one can begin to understand how great the intimacy is with every child of God. It is personal and very individual.

I do not know how the Lord God does it, but He truly does make us feel so special, like we are an only child (although we are not; we belong to an incredibly beautiful family of brothers and sisters). Yet it is something built through trials and various tribulations, through victories and overcoming, through tears and through joyous twirling around – and one wonders why, when someone has shared their very life, even the very ugly and shameful parts, with the strongest desire that another soul can avoid making the same mistake, why plagiarism hurts so deeply.

The fruit the Lord produces is not replaceable; it is meant to be ‘given’, not to be ‘taken’. There is a difference. Selah –

Lord, grant me the strength to be patient, and in judgment, remember mercy. What Satan meant for evil please turn it to good, and save those souls – be glorified. Do for them what You so graciously did for me, which is this, Father (Abba):

Remember, O Lord, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old.

Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions [rebellious ways]: according to Your mercy [agape love], remember me [them] for Your goodness’ sake, O Lord. Good and upright is the Lord: therefore, will He teach sinners in the way. [Ps 25:6-8]                                

Woman at the Well

Does the story of the woman at the well resonate here? As the saying goes: If the shoe fits…

The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, You have well said, I have no husband: For you have had five husbands; and he whom you are now with is not your husband: in that you said truly. [Jn 4:17,18]

You see the silhouette meant there was no [physical] man, except Jesus [spiritually]. What a difference my life would have been had I only said, ‘Yes, Lord!’, but such is the power of pride, rebellion, fear, unbelief. Such is the seduction of idolatry and lust. Never underestimate it.

The idols today are not necessarily statues. It could be anyone, even children. It may not be a person; it may be a thing… a social media platform, a tablet or cell phone, a career, your reputation, material possessions, ‘self’, or – simply fill in the blank.

In retrospect, I can clearly see now that the Lord did answer my prayer, when I prayed not to be deceived. That prayer was first prayed 22 years after I had deceived myself with idolatry. The Lord did not allow it in any other area except the one where I had deceived myself, the area of choosing a ‘mere man’ over Jesus the Messiah.

He could have, but do you begin to see the depth, breadth and height of His goodness, His mercy, His love? And until I cried out to God to see what was wrong, decades later, humbly asking for truth and for help, only then did I come to discover exactly what I had done that fateful day in my youth.

Thank goodness it was only 39 years; it could have been 40 that I wandered. Yes, it was the absolute mercy of the Lord to keep me from deception in other areas, undeserved mercy. I owe Him everything; everything was always His anyway – I just … could not see it at the time.

Opposition

Sometimes there are those who oppose us. No matter what we say or do, they have condemned us. If you know who they are, you may know why they oppose you, but if not, do not let it get to you. Forgive and hand it over to God. Life is too short to let it consume you. Not everyone in this life will like you – it is just the way it is.

We may not even know a person is against us until it surfaces or someone else lets us know. Do not be surprised if that ‘someone else’ is the Holy Spirit, who is making you aware that someone is cursing you in their spirit.

He may be urging you to pray for them, and not to allow the ugliness of their sin to pool in your own soul and poison the waters. The sin of one does not have to become our sin; Eve was deceived, but Adam joined in. God was head over Adam, and Adam was head over Eve.

For that reason, God gave the commandment to Adam, not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There seems to be split views on whether the Bible tells us Adam was with Eve when the serpent beguiled her.

It is because Genesis 3:6 states the Eve desired the fruit to be wise, so took and ate it: “…and gave also to her husband with her; and he did eat.”

Some say Adam was there and she turned and offered him the fruit, and other state that he came later, but he ate ‘with her’, and immediately their eyes were open to their nakedness, and they felt shame. Their innocence was shattered, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made aprons. [vs 7] Therefore, Adam was held responsible for disobeying. Together, they fell.

The Holy Spirit may also be revealing a clever wolf in sheep’s clothing to you, and to shake the dust from our feet now that we see through their act. O but the lessons learned in the fiery trials!

Rebellion, disobedience, sin…

Deliverance and Healing – Set Free

delivered, glory to Jesus
three years on May 25, 2023

In 2020, my jubilee year [I got excited and called it that] where I was set free from the bondage of addiction to cigarettes after 50 years of being held captive [see why I got excited?], and after three long years of desperately trying to quit.

I had tried everything to quit. Cigarettes had gone from $3.50 a pack in the States in 2014, to $9.50 a pack when I returned to Canada September 2014. That is the difference our CDN. government charges smokers in taxes.

Ever feel like a foreigner in your own country? I was away six and a half years (in my seventh year). In that time away, Canadians no longer had paper money but plastic [synthetic polymer, which apparently is purchased from a company in Australia]. Also, there were no longer any copper pennies. Cigarettes jumped $4 per pack from the time I left.

So, to destroy a pack with only one or two cigarettes out of it was a huge and serious decision. By the beginning of 2020 (January), cigarettes were over $12 for a 20-pack. The cost was just too extreme to be wasting packages. So, when I decided to destroy a pack with only a couple out of it, I was sincere about quitting, and determined that ‘this time I will succeed.’

I tried to quit by cutting them up and taking them a block away to a dumpster. If I cut them and placed them in the garbage at home, my concern was that I would be tempted to go buy cigarette papers, take the tobacco out of the cut-up pieces and re-roll them. (Yes, I had done that before.)

Other times, the cigarettes would be cut up and flushed down the toilet, or I would pour lighter fluid on them in a stainless-steel sink and set fire to them. And last, but not least, there were several times I would drive to the homeless shelter and give the cigarettes away.

Many in the shelter would pick cigarettes up off the street and re-roll them into a single cigarette. I had done that myself before. Not good because one never knows if the person who threw the ‘butt’ away had an infectious disease or not. It was a filthy thing to do, but addicts do anything for a ‘fix’.

At over $12 a package, it was getting expensive to just keep destroying them, but I kept thinking that each time was the last time. I was determined, and sure that I had psyched myself up enough to do it. Many Christians gladly reported how they quit, but God did not get the glory, they did.

There were some others who told me that the reason I could not quit is because I did not really want to, or I did not have enough faith because it could be done. I did not really think smoking was a sin. It was the fear that it was an ‘idol’, as many had told me that really upset me. The fear of idolizing something that was killing me brought me great shame.

Fasting, prayers, weeping, travailing…went on for three years. I did want to quit, but overcoming the pleasure (my flesh liked smoking), and the strength of the addiction kept overpowering me. It seemed like it calmed my nerves, but that was psychological phooey-hooey.

Sometimes it would be six months or so before I tried again, but I had to keep trying. I kept reminding Jesus that I was going to be as the woman who kept going to the wicked judge for justice, for help.

If a wicked judge would grant a request just to be rid of the ‘pest’, how much more would a loving God desire to help someone sincere enough to keep asking? I needed God’s help, and the time came to admit it.

I believed that He would help me, if I could just convince Him that I was sincere. (I still had moments where my mentality needed assistance because I thought God would be overly strict with me, since I had been an overly-bad person.) Satan is a liar. A sinner is a sinner.

Finally, somewhere along the line, I told the Lord that my flesh enjoyed the cigarettes too much, even though they were killing me. I confessed that unless He delivered me, I would never quit – I was desperate, helpless, and felt very ashamed.

Setting Captives Free

Jesus still sets captives free - hallelujah!

The long-awaited day came, salvation, deliverance, and healing. Jesus touched me, and the scales fell from blinded eyes. All because of Jesus (Yeshua) healing took place, allowing me to see. Broken, contrite – how it hurt, but Jesus anointed my eyes with the healing balm of Gilead. Before I knew it, three weeks had passed without a cigarette.

I still do not know how it came about. That is why I say, “Only Jesus…” I had promised the Lord that if He helped me, I would never touch His glory, and with the help of the sweet and Holy Spirit, I never have.

JESUS delivered me; He opened the prison doors. I remained temporarily in the prison, having been conditioned like the elephant that was chained from its newborn days to keep it from escaping. By adulthood, the elephant was so conditioned to know its limitations, and that it could not escape, that it did not realize that there had been no chain around its leg for months.

But the Lord urged, “The door is open, but you must walk through.” It reminded me of the Israelites at the Red Sea. “The way has been made, but you must cross over.” Faith has action.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. I sought Him; I had to believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. [Heb 11:6]

Anyone who knew me, also knew how often I said, “I quit” (right after cutting up smokes, or flushing them, or giving them away), only to watch me ‘start again’. Finally, VICTORY, all because of the Lord of the battle! In less than three weeks, May 25, I will celebrate three years of victory. Whoop! Glory to God alone!

Jesus does see the heart. We can fool others; we can even deceive ourselves, but if we sin ignorantly, Yeshua knows the best way for us to learn, so that we do not repeat the sin. And IF we do, it would no longer be due to ignorance, but due to willful sin, which would be rebellion and idolatry.

Because once we have been given eyes to see, and once our eyes of understanding are no longer blinded, then we are without excuse – unless – it is a matter of the heart. Then, we deserve any judgment that falls upon us.

Idolatry Began with the Hebrews

Solomon built temples for heathen/pagan gods
for his foreign wives

There are some historical articles that suggest idolatry began shortly after Adam.

Saul the king knew better when he disobeyed, and when he kept spoil from a war when he was told not to, and went he went to a witch to raise Samuel up from the dead, so Saul could consult him. Sin piled upon sin…

Solomon the king knew better. To be blessed in every way, including with godly wisdom, and yet choose to disobey God? Like Adam being told not to eat the fruit from ONE tree, Solomon was told not to marry foreign wives for they would turn his heart against One true, living God, and cause him to build altars and temples to their false gods.

That is exactly what happened. So filled with lust for women that Solomon had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. It is difficult to know the exact number; however, it is mind-boggling to imagine the desire or need for that many intimate partners.

[…] …and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. [1Kings 11:3,4]

The man known as the wisest man who ever lived turned on the giver of his gifts (wisdom and wealth), and worshipped false gods such as Milcom [abomination of the Ammonites]; Chemosh [idol/abomination of Moab], Molech [abomination, the Ammonites sacrificed their own children to this god], and many other strange gods of his wives. [vs 6-8]

There was also the worship of Ashtoreth [goddess of Zidonians; Ishtar, goddess of Assyrians, Astarte, goddess of Philistines – same false goddess, each culture with a different name. [vs 5] This will be brought up later in this series.]

For the life of me I cannot fathom how Solomon turned on God and worshipped other gods, when he spoke with the true God. However, the allure of the occult, the temptation for the dark side, combined with lust and pride and wealth, was too much for him to resist.

Kings Saul and Solomon chose to please people rather than to please God. Forty years ago, I did not know what idolatry was, and I thought lust was love. I was truly a mess.

Please do not make the same mistake. This life is temporal; but eternity is just that – forever. Christ Jesus – God is LOVE; He is the ONLY one who can fill the void all of us have inside. If you are happily married, you are blessed indeed. Never take it for granted.

It does require dedication, faithfulness, courage, and resilience. One good thing that resulted from this has been my dedication over the last 25 years, at least, in praying for marriages. I know the pain of infidelity, of betrayal, of wolves and wolverines, as well as abuse in every form.

I understand how Satan seeks to steal, kill and destroy marriages, especially Christian marriages. He has gone even further in perverting God’s original plan of uniting one man and one woman, and binding them together as one flesh, to become one.

With Satan, anything and anyone goes. He has not just blurred the lines. He has attempted to annihilate them, even trying to make it possible for a male to have a child. He seeks to make a mockery of creation and our Creator.

He has been given a season, which is how he is able to deceive many to follow him, but in the end, he loses.

Marriage is Sacred

marriage is sacred and holy unto God

Marriage between a man and woman is meant to be a precious gift of our Creator/Maker. Satan and the world have smeared the beauty, counterfeiting, and perverting the purity of holy matrimony. God put it in my heart to pray for marriages, even before I committed to Him.

He made me an intercessor. Imagine, the one who failed in marriage; the one who has never known the love of a man (except Jesus), praying for marriages. All marriages need prayer; all people need prayer. It is our reasonable service. We are exhorted to pray for one another.

The one key is this. Even if you are unaware of a certain spiritual condition within, if you desire truth and to be holy, deep within, if you hate your sin with a vengeance, and long to stop sinning, God sees that and He will honour it…His way, His timing, His wisdom.

We have to wait out Abba’s ways. Even if we never understand His reasoning, give thanks for all He is and does. Glory to God through Jesus/Yeshua!

Yet, in due season and in the timing of His wisdom, Jesus/Yeshua bound up the broken heart, saturated my soul in forgiveness, and this captive was set free.

† May 25, 2020 – set free from cigarettes

† December 2021 – set free from a spirit of rejection and abandonment

† November 28, 2023 [my birthday] – 39 years of consequences fulfilled (not 40 years; therefore, a year’s grace lol) In truth, that year’s grace is also undeserved mercy!

There is nothing worth taking the place of God. Idols truly are an abomination, and no substitute. They cannot hear, see, speak – and if we have made an idol of a person who can hear, see, speak, guaranteed, their wisdom is foolishness to God.

Someone once said: When you put a person on a pedestal, they are at the right level to kick you in the teeth; so, idolizing any person positions you to be seriously hurt.

Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and He that formed you from the womb, I AM the Lord that makes all things; that stretches forth the heavens alone; that spreads abroad the earth by Myself;

That frustrates the tokens of the liars, and makes diviners mad; that turns wise men backward, and makes their knowledge foolish; [Is 44:25,26]

Beware the False Ones

Below is from biblehub.com:

The Sovereign God will laugh as He frustrates the tokens of the liars…

Idol statues will be smashed. Struck dumb the oracles of the heathens, disappointed their lying priests, and made void all the signs and tokens [wonders] they gave the people, that such and such things would come to pass, which did not, and which proved them to be liars:

And makes diviners mad; soothsayers, astrologers, and such sort of persons (false prophets/teachers), who pretended to foretell future events; but these not answering to their predictions, they became mad, because their credit was ruined, and they lost their reward: 

SOURCE: biblehub.com (from Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible – 1700s – 18^th century)

God Answers You According to Your Idols

I wrote about incredible deliverances and healing because I knew that Isaiah 61 still happens because Jesus is the same as He always has been, and that in 2023, there are going to be people set free who have been held captive in many different areas around the world.

It happens more than we know, but it is not big news to the world, so the reports do not come in the same way they would have in the places where Jesus walked and performed miracles.

I could finally see clearly. That is how I know firsthand that those who are deceived do not know they are UNTIL they are delivered, until they are released from the snare of the devil, but they must grow to hate sin; they have to desire truth and to be purged in all areas.

It cannot be pretended, or spoken to make ourselves sound good. God does see the heart, and the sooner people believe as more than just some candy-coated expression, the better off folks will be. Abba whitewashes and sugarcoats NOTHING.

However, there are those who know they are cheating, or that they are deceiving people about the source of things they spoke and speak about. God warned that He would answer people ‘according to their idols’.  Selah

Therefore, speak to them, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God; every man of the house of Israel that sets up his idols in his heart, and puts the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and comes to the prophet; I the Lord will answer him that comes according to the multitude of his idols; [Ezek 14:4]

(Interesting – 144 – the number for God’s witnesses in the future. Coincidence? Remember, coincidence on the side of good is said to be God working anonymously.)

One cannot skip from person to person, site to site, gleaning from fields that are not theirs to glean from, or gleaning without permission, and expect that to be ‘hearing from God’. A person can think so highly of themselves, or the compliments (flatteries) people give them that they excuse or blind themselves to what they are doing.

Their ‘good reputation’ is more important to them (what people think) than the ‘heart condition’ that God knows. The invitations, the popularity, and the monetary gain is far too tempting to have to surrender it for truth.

They have made their way onto the Christian pages in history, and refuse to surrender that for anything. After all, “God understands; He sees the heart.”

And if the prophet be deceived when he has spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out My hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of My people Israel.

And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity: the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeks unto him, that the house of Israel may go no more astray from Me, neither be polluted anymore with all their transgressions; but that they may be My people, and I may be their God, says the Lord God. [Ezek 14:9-11]

Best to read the entire chapter. [911 – a very serious matter, where it is beyond the physical realm, and into the realm where evil lurks behind the scenes]

“O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” Sir Walter Scott [1808] (still applicable today)

My heart is to pray that those who do love the Lord, but are misguided, or fell into a snare with temptation at a time of weakness, would be moved by a spirit of repentance, that they would find the courage to at least confess to God, who will then forgive.

We are never to pray the worst for someone. That would be witchcraft. We leave the ways, the methods, and the outcome to God alone, for our wisdom is foolishness to God. Only He knows the way to a heart.

Only the living God knows if repentance is sincere, and only He can make a way where there is no way. Our flesh can get in the way, but when we submit our lives and all situations to God, He is fully able to handle things.

But woe to those who have been warned, and although they profess to ‘love’ people, they love themselves and what they have gained more. Therefore, they refuse to stop what they are doing, and truly go to God for all that they ‘prophesy’.

God will not be mocked. He is longsuffering (patient), but He is no fool, especially with those who preach, teach, and/or prophesy. They are held more accountable. [Jam 3:1] And especially when taken from someone who truly travailed before the Lord.

They make a mockery of God when they take fragments, and do not know what it means. They lack interpretation, and either give the wrong meaning, or give no meaning at all. It is a mockery and very dangerous ground to stand upon.

Obedience has been learned from suffering, and I am grateful for it. [Heb 5:7,8] I finally learned to trust – that was a very difficult one for me, but God’s patience and understanding won me over. It is so frustrating that as a writer, words fail me, for all He has done, not just for me, but for so many…countless!

He taught me to obey, by allowing certain things that caused suffering. He saw my ignorance when I fell into idolatry and lust, but even still, I believed in Jesus. There are consequences to our choices. How long the season is, and how severe is God’s to decide.

What He has done for me, He will do for others. Jesus is good, and His mercy endures forever. [Psalm 136]

Deception, mockery, theft, rebellion, divination, false teachers, false prophets, idolatry…

in the presence of His glory

Bonita                        dovesofthevalleys4@gmail.com

[Prt A] Judgment Comes from the North – Call 2Repent- Worthy of Hard Tests

[Prt B] Judgment Comes – Good N Bad in World N Church-Prodigals Are Returning

[Prt C] Judgment Comes – Sins of Gov’t N Church – Setting Captives Free

[Prt D] Judgment Comes – Alert the Nations-Flee Idolatry-Repent-Pray

[Prt E] Judgment Comes –  Let Your Idols and Soothsayers Deliver You

Prt F] Judgment Comes – Ezekiel Still Speaks Today

[Part G] Judgment Comes – The Counterfeit is Here, But Nothing Replaces Jesus-Yeshua  [post later Sunday]  Lord willing...