Many Christians think that they are serving God, yet they are under God's cursings because they are biblically illiterate. They have no idea in the world how these events of the Old Testament apply to themselves, nor do they care. They simply do not know the times that we are living in today, and that there are two messiahs coming, that the first is Satan coming in his role of the Antichrist, and the second will be Jesus Christ, arriving at the seventh trump. This chapter then is a type of what to expect at the coming of the first messiah that shall arrive, that first messiah is Satan, and he is called the Assyrian.

This is why Jesus warned us in Matthew 24:19; "And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!" Meaning many Christians that will have accepted the marriage to the false christ, will proudly bring others to Satan the Antichrist. They are those that will be impregnated in their minds by the flood of lies and deceit by Lucifer at his arrival. Satan will come as Lucifer, the bright and morning star, and he will look and talk just as many Christians now expect Jesus Christ to come. Satan will be the counterfeit of the real True Christ. Satan will appear to be the Messiah to all those that are not sealed with the truth of God's Word in their minds.

So how could so many people be fooled at the same time as to believe Satan to be Jesus Christ? By their traditions, by their mixing of those ancient heathen religious ways with the ways and Word of God, to where they don't know truth from a lie. That is why these chapters in the Old Testament are so important for they are types to show us what God expects of us, and when we turn our backs to Him, the trouble that we can get ourselves into.

Ahaz was a type of what we are facing today, the mixing of all sorts of men's ideas and thought into traditional form, and then using those heathen things in place of God's Word. Sure Ahaz of Judah was bad in those things that he was doing, however Israel had slipped far off the edge in mixing the things of God to where they did not know what was of God or man. This chapter is going back just a bit from the prior chapter, for chapter sixteen ended with Ahaz's death, and this chapter starts in the twelfth year of Ahaz' reign [Ahaz reigned 29 years]. The house of Israel will be scattered before the end of Ahaz reign, during this chapter.

II Kings 17:1 "In the twelveth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years."

Much of the house of Israel remained in tact at this time, for remember in a prior battle when Pekah was king of Israel, II Kings 15:29 recorded that Taglath-pileser of Assyria came into the land of took the people out of many of the cities, as well as the entire tribe of Naphtali, and carried them into captivity. The time was about 745 B.C at the time of that first removal from the house of Israel. [However remember that there is a 110 year correction because of the method of tracing the lineage in the Old Testament.]

II Kings 17:2 "And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him."

When Hoshea became king of Israel, he not only did those evil things of the kings that were before him, but he was far worse. He came up with a new way to offend God by forming his new religion. Remember that these are types for us living today.

II Kings 17:3 "Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents."

When Pekah went to battle against Taglath-pileser, he lost much of His kingdom, and many the people were removed from off their land, and taken out of the area. Shalmaneser, the son of Taglath-pileser of Assyria again is planning a war with the House of Israel, only king Hoshea is going to try to buy freedom for Israel. You just cannot buy friends, for when the money runs out, so do the friends.

II Kings 17:4 "And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison."

While Hoshea was trying to sweet talk and buy freedom with Assyria, all the while he was also trying to work a deal out with the Pharaoh in Egypt, and king Shalmanesser of Assyria got wind of what was going on. Who should have Hoshea turned to in this time of trouble with the Assyrian? Remember "the Assyrian" is the type of Antichrist of the end times, and just as the Assyrian came on Israel of that day, you can count of the Assyrian of the end times coming also. Hoshea should have turned to God for help. However, no, Hoshea had to turn to the Pharaoh. He ran to some man for protection.

II Kings 17:5 "Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years."

The king of Assyria, which is a type of Antichrist, came and grabbed on to the whole land of Israel for a period of three years. About half of a seven year week. Remember Daniel's prophecy of the seventy weeks of years from Daniel 9:27, where one week of years is left to the time of the end.

Daniel 9:27 " `And he [Satan] shall confirm the covenant with many for one week [seven years]: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even unto the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate' "

We know from Revelation 9:5, 10 that this period has been shortened to five months, however this is the time when "the Assyrian", Satan in the role of Antichrist will be here on earth trying to be God. He will have convinced the whole world that he is, and most Christians will even believe his lies. The "abomination of Desolation" that takes place is when Satan sits in Jerusalem declaring himself to be God, and the world believing him. The "Sacrifice and the oblation to cease" is when Christians stop taking communion because they think that Christ is here on earth, when in fact it will be the devil, Satan. Sure there will be many lies and deceiving wonders that will be done by the Assyrian at that time.

II Kings 17:6 "In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes."

This has nothing to do with the so called British Israelites, for it is the true events direct from the Word of God. Remember that the tribes of the House of Israel are removed off the land, and taken to a place in northern Iraq, in the land of the Medes, as on the map on the page at the end of this chapter. From that day they were removed they were named "Khumri" after king Omri, the former king of Israel. There is a map of the removal of the Israelites off their land at the close of this chapter showing these locations. Notice also the proximity of Halah, Habor and the river Gozan, to the Caucasus mountains to the north. This is God's Word, and the king of Assyria took them from off their land and removed them to a land far away. The House of Israel will never come back together as one nation until we are joined after the coming of Jesus Christ.

We are living today in a time just as Israel was in just prior to the coming of the Assyrian captivity. If you are following the traditions of men that are being taught, you also will end up in Satan, the Assyrian's camp. Most churches today are just like the places of worship under king Hoshea, for the churchmen are trying to come up with new ideas for worshipping God, and bringing the people into their church houses. There is only one way to worship God, and that is studying his Word, all of it, chapter by chapter and verse by verse. Then follow God's way.

II Kings 17:7 "For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, Which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods,"

This is the reason that the children of Israel were hauled away into captivity, because they sinned against God, and revered the heathen gods of the people around them. They took the things of Baal, of Molach, or grove worship, and all the other heathen forms, and worked them into their church services.

II Kings 17:8 "And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made."

This is the reason for their captivity, listen to it. So who gave the Assyrians the victory over Israel? "The Lord cast out from before the children of Israel", and the reason was that they walked in the statutes of the heathen, of the Kenites and all the other heathen religions of the people around them.

II Kings 17:9 "And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city."

The temple of God became their play house that they could call a places of worship, but never to God, only to satisfy their own flesh pleasures.

II Kings 17:10 "And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree:"

A little dance here, a little shouting and praising there, and a whole bunch of playing at church everywhere. Yet everything that they had done was to their pleasure, and against the statutes and laws of God. They walked in the statutes of the heathen. A "Statute" is a law created by a legislative body, by man or the church body. If men say you can kill your unborn children then that is what they did, if the Statutes protected the Sodomite and allows that filth right in the church in marriage, then that is what they did. When it was enacted in law by a legal body, no matter how repugnant to God, they did it in the name of God. Israel looked to the heathen for establishing what their statutes would be, and the Kenites, the Syrians and all the rest of them were more than happy to instruct them in their forms of worship. They set up images to other gods and bowed down to them, and did their sex orgies in the groves and even called it of God.

Are you starting to get the picture of the wickedness of the House of Israel in that day. Now stop and look around you, at the things going on today and what is being accepted as being of God. Many church houses today condone same sex marriage that God hates, and all the other things just add to God's anger against them.

II Kings 17:11 "And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the Lord carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger:"

It got to a point to where they were no better than the heathen in their ways, for they completely lost their directions as to the things that are of God, and those things that were of the devil. Our Father has emotions and a temper, and if you think that God is going to stand by and allow Israel to lead the way by their wickedness, you had better think again.

II Kings 17:12 "For they served idols, whereof the Lord had said unto them, "Ye shall not do this thing." 

God warned them over and over that this would happen to them if they would not change and come back to God's Ways.

II Kings 17:13 "Yet the Lord testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, "Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep My commandments and My statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by My servants the prophets." 

God sent His men and women prophets down through the centuries to witness to them and warn them of the sins that they were committing, yet the children of Israel and Judah would not listen to God's prophets. There are many prophets from Moses to Isaiah, and Jeremiah and all the rest of them, demanding that they give up those heathen ways.

II Kings 17:14 "Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the Lord their God."

Unfortunately even to our generation, there are just very few that will follow only the ways of God, and leave their traditions of men that they have taken into their little church houses. They have become so comfortable in their ways, that they think that those traditions from the heathen can be modified to where they please both God and Satan. You see those traditions even on the most holy day of the Christian year, the Passover, for Christ became our Passover when He became our blood sacrifice on the cross. Think of how repugnant that is to our Father when He see all the wickedness that is going on in His houses of worship, those things of the feast of Ishtar, or Easter.

II Kings 17:15 "And they rejected His statutes, and His covenant that He made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them, that they should not do like them."

God testified over and over through His prophets, and they would not listen. He warned them over and over of the curses that their actions would bring, yet they would not hear a word of it. They became empty in their worship, for their worship services became nothing but vanity [emptiness]. It seems that this is describing the people of today, for they seem to hasten to do that which goes against God's Word, and find enjoyment in the same things that their forefather back in the old House of Israel.

II Kings 17:16 "And they left all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal."

The commandments of God at that time required that the worship of God and sacrifices be made before the altar of God, by the priest of God at Jerusalem. However, king Jeroboam had the two molten images of the two calves made, and those calves became the substitute for God's ways. "The hosts of heaven" are "the angels", and "angel worship" the worshipping of God's created beings. Instead of worshipping the creator, they worshipped the creation. Friend, it is a sin to worship angels in any form. There is only One that we are to worship, and that is the Almighty God.

II Kings 17:17 "And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and use divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger."

"Offering their children in burnt sacrifices" is "Moloch" worship, while "divination and enchantments" are the use of "witchcraft and contact with evil spirits" [reincarnation]. These Israelites had sunk as low as you can go in their ways to provoke God to anger. God doesn't like diviners and enchanters, and all those that would play on the mind of His people, for today it has become so common that even in the highest levels of government it is done today. People are seeking to be thrilled by having somebody tell them something good about themselves, and thus there is a lot of money passing hands to boast people's vanity. What kind of idoit would pay five dollars a minute to hear an enchanter? There are a lot of them for that is a major money maker today. Flattery will get you everywhere in this world today, and that is all it is, building up on another's vanity, or emptiness.

We have the almighty God to speak to, and He will tell you exactly what you should hear in His letter that we have through the prophets, apostles and His Son Jesus Christ. There is no better way to find out how to shape your life to where you will receive the blessings of God. Any form of enchantment and divination is a sin against God, and when it is done, you are doing the exact same thing that those children of Israel were doing that provoked God to anger. I can't think of anything worse than having God angry at me. Blessings don't come by provoking God, but by pleasing Him and doing things God's way.

No one can tell anyone anything that shall happen in the future except it be revealed to them by God. Those men and women are the prophets of God, and when men and women tell you something that does not come true, their vision is from the devil. Is Satan the one you go to for direction, if so you are doomed for destruction just like he has been. God has warned each of us through His Word what the penalty is for following Satan. Remember all of the house of Israel had Urijah to listen to, he was suppose to be the high priest, however everything that he did was to try to please men, and the king, and from this priest's actions Israel fell deep in sin. Urijah built that altar that was like the one in Damascus, and he modeled the services to look like the Syrians form of worship. He did everything to bring the people in, but teach the ways of God. Yes, today each of us had better watch out who we are listening to for our direction, for if it does not conform exactly to God's Word, it is wrong and God is not pleased.

All of those time that you were in trouble, if you would just turn to God, God is there to take that load off of your shoulders and lighten you load to where you can handle it. God has emotions and He loves and cares for you. Learn to get into His Word and think for yourself.

II Kings 17:18 "Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only"

Most people today are well familiar with the tribe of Judah, and that is why Judah was separated from the house of Israel. When Israel was hauled away into captivity, Judah remained as a nation for many years afterwards.

II Kings 17:19 "Also Judah kept not the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made."

The tribe of Judah tried to do the same things that their brothers of Israel had done. They tried to copy the calf worship, they built the high places out there on the mount of Olives, and they got into the same divination and enchantments that Israel had gone into.

II Kings 17:20 "And the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until He had cast them out of His sight."

Everything that happened to the house of Israel was caused by God. The spoilers are the Assyrians, and God caused them to be cast out of the land, and forced into the migrations that they would follow until they arrived in the place where He would have them. This is speaking only of the house of Israel, and not of the house of Judah.

Judah will go into captivity in Babylon, but it will be for only seventy years. That captivity will come about one hundred years after Israel is hauled away into captivity. A chart of the kings of Judah following the captivity of the house of Israel is at the close of this chapter.

II Kings 17:21 "For He rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drave Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin."

This then is a recap of what has happened to this date. God separated the house of Israel, all the tribes of Israel from "the house of David". "The house of David" is also called "the house of Judah". The capital of Judah was Jerusalem, while the capital of Israel was Samaria. To keep the ten tribes of the house of Israel from become part of Judah, Jeroboam made the two calves, and formed his new religion. This was the cause of Israel provoking God to the point of scattering them out of His sight. Both of these nations had their own kings, and king Jeroboam did not want his people forced to go to Jerusalem annually for sacrifices. He was afraid of loosing control and have many of his people staying there in the land of Judah.

II Kings 17:22 "For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them;"

They never gave up those sins of Jeroboam.

II Kings 17:23 "Until the Lord removed Israel out of His sight, as He had said by all His servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day."

God gave the house of Israel many prophets, and we can read of it in Isaiah 7 and 8, in the book of Hosea, and many other of the prophets, yet the people would not listen to them. That is how God speaks to us, through His prophets.

From that day when the house of Israel was carried away out of their lands, they have never returned, even to our present day. Sure the tiny nation of Israel was established in May of 1948, and returned to Jerusalem after the war of 1967, but that was only the tribe of Judah, mixed with many Kenites, or sons of Cain calling themselves Jews. But Israel started its migrations then and have become the great Christian nations of today.

Hosea 1:10 "Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, `Ye are not My People,' There it shall be said unto them, "Ye are the sons of the living God.' "

The prophet Hosea's prophecy tells us that the number of the children of the tribes of the house of Israel shall be so many that you simply cannot number all of them. Is this the Jews? Of course not, for their numbers of the Jews are well known, and also their location. The Jews know who they are and where they came from, and they want to go back to Jerusalem. They know Palestine was their homeland, and that is why they named themselves lands Israel. However the children of the house of Israel think they are Gentile, because that is what they were told they were, and they believed those things that the Kenites have told them. Yet all the time, God told us through His prophet Hosea that the house of Israel will be known in the lands that they are in, as "sons of the living God." The "Living God" is Jesus Christ who came out of the tomb after the third day, and ascended forty days later to the right hand of the Father in heaven. Those who identify themselves with Christ are called "Christians".

Though God divorced Israel when He scattered them through out the world in many directions, at the death of Christ, the first ones that Jesus sent his disciples to were "the lost sheep of the house of Israel".

Matthew 10:5 "These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not:"

The Gentiles are all peoples of all races that are not of the twelve tribes of Israel, while the Samaritans were the people that replaced the house of Israel in the land of the house of Israel, after Assyria had scattered the people. These Samaritans were still living in the land during the time of Christ.

Matthew 10:6 "But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

The migrations brought them to Rome, to England and France, and throughout western Europe, and all those places where churches were established in the name of Jesus Christ. Israel was even scattered to South Africa, Australia and the Americas or where ever they may be. Peter, James and John wrote them letters, as well as Paul and we call those writings the "New Testament".

Matthew 10:7 "And as ye go, preach, saying, `The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' "

The kingdom of God is at hand, for Jesus Christ would be crucified as the pure sacrifice for the sins of all those that would believe on His name. Though it says in II Kings 17:23 that they ended and disappeared, you cannot cause millions of people to just disappear out of sight. It would be God that would scatter them throughout the world, under many different names. God used the king of Assyria to accomplish the what had to be done.

So what about United States of America? Of course our nation is part of that scattering. We are blessed just as God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for England and the United States are the most blessed nations on the face of the earth. England represents the offspring of the tribe of Ephraim, while the United States represents that of Manasseh. Go back and read Genesis 48 and 49, and you will see that the two sons of Joseph received the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant, and have those blessings of that promise of God.

Though the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant is to God's people, they are extended to all those that would believe on His name. Then when you try to please God, the blessings come to you. However, until you try to please God, your prays will go on unanswered.

II Kings 17:24 "And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sapharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof."

There is plenty of writings of the fact of this verse. The Assyrian tablets speak of this very thing, for they even give the numbers of those Israelites removed, as well as the peoples being brought in to replace them in the cities of Israel. Imagine if you can, the population of entire cities, thousands of them being removed to another land, and people captured by the Assyrians in other lands being brought to Palestine. That land of Palestine was called "Samaria", and the people became know as the "Samariatans" of Jesus day.

II Kings 17:25 "And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the Lord: therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which slew some of them."

The people that the Assyrians brought into the land of Samaria started to live in the land, and in time God sent lions in amongst those heathen people. The lion started to kill many of the people, and they went to the king of Assyria for protection from the lions. While living in the promise land, God expected even the Gentile to follow His rules, and when they were not, He sent the lions in for punishment. There are many laws concerning the strangers in our midst and how they must act and be treated. These things are even a type of what we are facing today. For there are many strangers in our midst and this is a type of what shall befall us in this end generation. Paul spoke of this in his letter to the Corinthians.

I Corinthians 10:11; "Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." So this is an example of how God expects his Gentile children to obey Him also.

II Kings 17:26 "Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria, saying, "The nations which thou hast removed, and placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the God of the land: there He hath sent lions among them, and behold, they slay them, because they know not the manner of the God of the land."

These people of Cuthah, and Ava, and all the other lands that were brought into Samaria did not know the God of the land of the Israelites, only they knew that all the trouble that they had was because they were not pleasing God. They were sharp enough to know that when God sent the lions that something was seriously wrong.

II Kings 17:27 "Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, "Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land."

The King of Assyria told these people to go get a priest from those people that we took out of Israel, and bring him back to the land to teach you the ways of their God. The point is that the priest should have known the God of the land and what it took to please Him. The Assyrian king told them to use that priest to teach you the ways of the land, and he will make things right.

II Kings 17:28 "Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Beth-el, and taught them how they should fear the Lord."

"Beth-el" in Hebrew means "house of God". This priest looked like the real thing, however what was it that he was teaching the people of Israel before the scattering that provoked God to anger? The kings and the priests fell away from the things of God, and went chasing after many different religions.

II Kings 17:29 "Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt."

So they took this polluted priest and put him in God's house in Samaria, and all he knew was how to displease God to the point that he angered God. Now how are you going to have this priest be the pattern for the worship to be set up? How is that corrupt priest going to teach the people the Word of God? He isn't. It doesn't matter where he dwells, if his teaching is polluted, everything about him will be polluted. He taught the people exactly what He knew and those were not the ways of God. What he taught was to build the places in the trees to have the sex orgies and all the other heathen practices. This is why I am so down of easter eggs and other heathen ritual, for it is a practice that came straight out of grove worship. It is just one of many traditions that have polluted the Passover of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus became our Passover.

Jesus Christ shed His blood on the cross, and all that people can think of is their bonnets to wear the orgies, or the eggs and bunnies of fertility from those heathen customs? That is drifting away from the plan of God. Then some polluted preacher tries to tell you that the egg stands for new life. Friend, Jesus Christ's soul never died but was transformed, and it is an insult to our Heavenly Father to try to make that heathen egg and all the other heathen customs to represent anything of God and His ways. Sure his flesh body was laid to rest in the tomb, but that same Body of Jesus came out of the tomb on the third day, resurrected to His transformed body. God is showing us here that we have to watch out for what the preachers and priests are teaching, for many of them are no better than this priest that was brought back to teach these Gentiles the same old ways that got him in trouble in the first place.

II Kings 17:30 "And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima,"

This is what these priests of Israel taught these Gentiles. So what did these priests teach these Gentiles? "Succoth-benoths" are tents made into brothels; # 5524 in the Hebrew dictionary, "Booths of the daughters; to make brothels; idolatrous tents for religious purposes." In other words, sex orgies in the groves for religious purposes, and that is what caused the fall of the house of Israel in the first place. They took the daughters of the people and made prostitutes of them for religious practice.

To "the Cuths" these priests taught them to worship the heavenly bodies, "ner" the "light" [the sun], they taught them the ways of diviners and enchanters. You are getting into the eastern religious thought patterns. They made heros and then worshipped those men, and used the daughters in the tent to service them. Remember what God said about these ways in a verse about, it provoked God to anger. Stop for a moment and take a look at how we are treating the super heros of today.

As for those Kenites from Hamath, and their "Ashima", go to # 842 in your Hebrew dictionary, and we see that it is "asherath, a phoenician goddess; also an image of the same, of grove worshipping." This all started with Solomon's wives, and developed later under Ahab and his wife Jezebel. It was sex orgies in the groves, in honor of the ancient goddess Ishtar [Easter as we know it today]. They made a phallic formed stump in the woods and went to worship in their fantasies there. So what did the priests teach the Gentiles of the one True God? Nothing, but only the same filth that the house of Israel was deep into. It was an Israelite priest that taught these people to do these wicked things.

II Kings 17:31 "And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim."

"Nibhaz" comes from the prime root in the Hebrew "to bark", Nibhaz was the dog god. It was represented as a man's body with a dog's head on it. "Tartak" means the "prince of darkness". It is interesting that Peter talks about this place as the place where the fallen angels are held. It is the holding place of the prince of the darkness, and we know that Satan is the prince of darkness.

And to the "Sepharvites", these priests taught Molach worship, the burning of their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech. Friend, God never instructed for anyone to be burnt on a altar with fire, but man devised it for his own children. This is the sacrificing of your own first born. What kind of depravity is that? "Adrammelech" means a "splended king" and is the male part of sun god worship, to please the sun god. "Anammelech" is the feminine form for the sun god worship, and this form goes all the way back to the worship of Nimrud and his wife Semiremis, the goddess of heaven. Semiremis took on many different names through the years, such as "Shamash"; and in the time of Paul, "Diana" of Corinth.

There can be no doubt as the the origin of these forms of "Phallic" worship for they are all Canaanite forms. They are all of the ancient nations in their practices, and can be found in relics from around the world. What was started in the one world system of Nimrud, was spread when God scattered the people at the tower of Babel. Did the practice start with the house of Israel following the death of Solomon? No, for even under the time of the Judges of Gideon's day, it was practiced amongst the Israelites. Over and over the Israelites would fall into these sins, and in time God would raise a prophet and judge and bring them back to Him.

This priest of Israel taught these heathens to do all these wick things that they had not even thought of before, and yet he called himself a priest of God. Now you wonder why God was angered at the house of Israel. So stop and look around at what is going on and accepted as being of God today, and we see it is almost as bad. That priest did not know about God and His ways, for he taught them the ways of his people, the Israelites. The point here is that you learn what went wrong there, so that you can know what is going wrong today. These are types for us to learn by.

II Kings 17:32 "So they feared the Lord, and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places."

These priests formed new religions, not of God's house and ways, but priests to their altars in the groves; to the sacrifice their children and to the gods of the heathen. They sought to have their sex orgies and all the other filth that could be imagined by these priests. Stop and think for a moment what is going on today, for there seems to be a bounty on the unborn child. We don't wait for them to be born, in this generation, but seek to destroy them right from the womb.

Which is the most important, the flesh body or the spiritual body? There is a false messiah coming to this earth, for it is written in His Word. Have you taught your children to be aware of this false christ so that they will not be deceived, or are you going to allow them to be taken in the harlotry of Satan's religious system. Paul told us in II Thessalonians 2 that there is no way that Jesus Christ is going to come to this earth until after the prince of this earth, Satan, is sitting in the side of the north in Jerusalem claiming to be God, and the whole world would believe him. If your children are looking for a Christ, which Christ are they looking for, the first or the second?

Satan will come at the sixth trump claiming to be Jesus, while Jesus Christ will not return until the seventh and last trump, and all the events of this earth age will be over and finished. Paul warned us about this, and yet most churches today are still off in fairy-tale land, looking for a fly-away rapture to take place. You have the Word of God, and there is no excuse for being so stupid as to fall for such fairy-tales.

II Kings 17:33 "They feared the Lord, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence."

Though they thought that they were worshipping the Lord, they were not, but were following their same old traditions of men. The traditions of men always make void the Word of God.

II Kings 17:34 "Unto this day they do after the former manners: they fear not the Lord, neither do they after their statutes, or after their ordinances, or after the law and commandment which the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom He named Israel;"

That name of Israel is no longer with the house of Israel, named after Jacob. Yes, Judah is still holding the name of Judah, with it's slang term "Jews".

II Kings 17:35 "With whom the Lord had made a covenant, and charged them, saying, "Ye shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them:"

Here the last king actually removed God's altar and build one that he saw down in Damascus. He put that fake altar in the temple down in Jerusalem. In a spiritual sense, what kind of altar do you worship at? If you are taught chapter by chapter and verse by verse than you are at God's altar, however if it is the traditions of men, that it is not God's altar.

II Kings 17:36 "But the Lord, Who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm, Him shall ye fear, and Him shall ye worship, and to Him shall ye do sacrifice."

We are to revere only the one true God, the same God that brought out people out of Egypt, and led them through the wilderness to the promise land. He is the only one deserving of our praise and sacrifice. We make our sacrifice when we tell Him how much we love him, and seek his ways. Our Heavenly Father is jealous, and he wants your love.

II Kings 17:37 "And the statutes, and the ordinances, and the law, and the commandment, which He wrote for you, ye shall observe to do for evermore; and ye shall not fear other gods."

God has given us His statutes, and ordinances and laws and commandments, and each of these are written in His Word. These are still in effect today, just as they were the day that they were given, and written down. Though some of the sacrificial blood ordinances were fulfilled in Christ's blood shed on the cross, they are all just as true today as they were then. Yes, even the health laws concerning the foods we ear. God gave us our flesh bodies, and the set of rules to allow us to life a good healthy and spiritual life in our flesh body.

"Other gods" are nothing, they are imaginations in men's minds. No matter what shapes and forms are created by men to worship, we are to remember that all they are is the substance that they are made of. There is no need to fear any other gods, when you know and understand the protection that God gives those that trust him.

II Kings 17:38 "And the covenant that I have made with you ye shall not forget; neither shall ye fear other gods."

Of course the part of the covenant that has been fulfilled are those blood ordinances that were fulfilled in the blood of Christ. When you believe in Jesus Christ, then the blood of Christ through repentance covers all of your sins. So if you were to start blood sacrifices to the Father it would be a great insult to Him, for you would be telling Him that the blood of His Son was not sufficient to cover your sin. You would be calling Him a liar.

I Corinthians 5:7 "Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:"

The Passover was the time of the offering of the blood sacrifice for the sin of the people for that year, however when Jesus' blood was shed on the cross the need for that annual blood sacrifice was fulfilled for one and all times. So we keep our Passover through our loving of Him, and remembrance of Him through our Communion services.

II Kings 17:39 "But the Lord your God ye shall fear; and He shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies."

We are to love and revere the Lord our God, and He shall deliver you out of the hands of all of our enemies. This is a promise that you can count on, when you love God and seek to follow His Ways. Do you believe that? This is a true statement, and if you keep your part of the deal, you can count of God to keep his part of the promise. God will be fair with your enemies, and take care of them in a manner that they deserve.

II Kings 17:40 "Howbeit they did not hearken, but they did after their former manner."

II Kings 17:41 "So these nations feared the Lord, and served their graven images, both their children, and their children's children: as did their fathers, so do they unto this day."

This very sad today, but there are very few people that can tell you the difference between statutes and ordinances, between the law and the commandments. Many say that the law was done away with, wherein they are talking not of the law, but of the blood ordinances. They tell you that the health laws are no longer in affect, yet if you eat the filth of scavengers you will still expect to get sick. The commandments are ten rules that God gave us individually to govern our lives to get along in this world. The first five deal with our relationship with God, while living here on earth in the flesh, and the second five commandments deal with how we get along with those living around us. If you steal from someone and get caught, you will pay a price. If you murder another person, there will be a price to pay no matter what nation you are living in. All of the commandments are in effect, as well as the health laws.

However as a Christian it is important that we know which blood ordinances have been done away with, because of Jesus Christ, the lamb of God shed for one and all times. That is why it is important to be familiar with all of God's Word.