Lessons in the Ladder Days

Candace Long: I'm Candace Long with Lessons in the Latter Days, offering biblical commentary to make sense of the times we're living in. Today's episode has been a difficult one to develop. It's called "The Slippery Slope of Betrayal," and I subtitled it "The Snare That Threatens Your Place in the Kingdom."

After years of living a consecrated Levitical lifestyle, I have learned that God often asks me to experience the spiritual climate firsthand so that I can feel what's going on, process it, find the lessons that he's pointing out, and then write about it as a word of warning or instruction. This is a large part of my assignment.

Levites are sensitive spiritual barometers that God sends out into an evil, chaotic, backbiting, perverse culture. We feel everything deeply, and it is exhausting. I need first to put you in the proper frame of reference. We are living in what I refer to as the final week of the church age. That means the last seven years before the rapture.

And we are living now toward the end of year six. Over the last several months, I have uncovered an alarming pattern of snares and traps that the enemy is strategically putting all around us. I want to warn you about them and illustrate biblically and through personal example how they are showing up and the danger they are to believers.

Let's go back first to the last seven days that the Lord Jesus was on this earth. Remember, this is the template I laid out for you in Part 3 of "The Final Week of the Church Age" called "Follow the Body." What was he doing on Day 6? Because that represents our year 2025.

We find him preparing for the Last Supper, celebrating the Passover with his disciples. And what was going on? The political and religious leaders were talking assassination. Judas was in secret discussions to sell out the Master. Protests and factions flooded the streets, and the disciples were in a stupor over what Jesus had been telling them: that he was about to be turned over to the enemy and leave the earth.

The atmosphere of the culture was filled with betrayal. I want us to look in this episode at the concept of betrayal because nobody wakes up one morning and says, "I think I'll betray so-and-so." No. My premise in this episode is to demonstrate that the ultimate act of betrayal is the end result of an emotional slippery slope made up of a series of snares intended to trap you.

If you go through every one of these snares without turning back to God, then you will likely betray someone, perhaps you used to care about. I want to help you recognize what I believe to be the five snares that describe or characterize 2025. I'll list them one at a time and illustrate using biblical characters that you know, interspersed with my own personal encounters with these snares and the devastating consequences that followed.

We are so close to finishing this race, and I believe we need a healthy dose of the fear of God to keep our hearts in check. We especially need to be cautious with our tongues, our self-serving emotional needs, and how we choose to act on our feelings. This is a time to be on high alert because this slippery slope is the enemy's final attempt to hook and derail those whom God loves and keep them, if he can, out of the kingdom.

That's what we're dealing with. Now, this topic began to unfold during Passover, which, as I mentioned, was the season of betrayal in Jesus' life. I felt it. And over the next three months, I noticed that almost every one of our Torah portions addressed the same issue in one way or another, usually ending with devastating consequences such as the wrath of God pouring out and people dying prematurely.

Over time, the pattern that I'm presenting to you today began to emerge. What we need to see is that biblically what was happening was the Exodus had just taken place, and Moses was leading God's people to the edge of the kingdom. Now, this is where we find ourselves today. We are at the edge of the kingdom.

So if something happened back then in our biblical history that became a matter of life and death, we had better learn all we can from what our Jewish forefathers suffered so we can see it and be forewarned and steer clear of it. Snare number one is complaint. After the Exodus, the first major hurdle that Moses had to deal with was the negative, complaining atmosphere of the erev rav.

Now, this was the mixed race that came out of Egypt with the Jewish people. Here's the way Numbers 11 opens: "And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, and when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp."

The people could not control their cravings. They wanted fish and vegetables and were sick and tired of the manna. They wanted to turn around and go back to Egypt. God was livid, and a lot of them died then and there in God's consuming fire. Now, the commentaries that I read had to do with our battle against what's called the yetzer hara, which Jews call our evil inclination.

Christians call it our sin nature. Same thing. Our challenge is not to allow an entry point for the enemy to come in, and that entry point is always the tongue. Guard your tongue. Don't shoot off an email when you're upset about something. Avoid contentious political or religious debates. Turn off the radio if they're playing sound clips spewing one side against the other.

This is what's happening and it's all stirring up this confusion and this complaint. And if we don't conquer here, it will likely lead to snare number two, which is offense. In Matthew 24:10, Jesus described this snare as a key sign before he comes to set up his kingdom: "Then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. Then they shall deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you."

The Greek word used for the word offended is skandalizo, which means to entrap or entice somebody to sin. The enemy loves to create a scenario where you get offended. Somebody has done something to you that stings. You are infuriated. This happens to all of us, especially in this contentious culture.

If you give in and blurt out your offense without praying it through to see what God may be pointing out to you, then this snare could grab you and pull you under. Numbers 12 opens with this: "Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married. And they said, 'Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?' And the Lord heard it."

Now you can read the complete story for yourself, but God was furious, especially at Miriam because she was the instigator talking behind Moses' back, ragging on him. Several things the sages point out in this passage that are worth noting. Number one, Zipporah, Moses' wife, was not a Cushite; she was a Midianite. But Cushite women in that day were notably beautiful, so Miriam's words calling Zipporah a Cushite contained a twinge of jealousy because of her beauty.

Number two, Miriam was a prophet. Her tongue was anointed by God. But here in this instance, she was guilty of abusing the high calling of her tongue and using it instead to dishonor the exalted place of leadership that God had given her brother, Moses. A third thing of interest is what Miriam was so upset about.

The sages explain from the oral law that Miriam had overheard something Zipporah had said which indicated that she and Moses no longer had marital relations. In other words, they didn't have sex anymore. And the reality, though, was that she overheard a private matter between Moses and Zipporah and disagreed with their decision and thought she'd put in her two cents about the matter.

Apparently, because of his high calling, Moses and Zipporah had covenanted between themselves to live in a state of holiness and forgo their marital relationship because of the honor that they gave to the elevated place God safeguarded for Moses. Moses wanted to be responsive to meet with the Lord anytime the Almighty wanted to speak with him.

Now this is a beautiful example of the integrity and sacrifice with which Moses embraced his Levitical calling. God's needs mattered more than his fleshly wants. And as it happened in Numbers 12, when God demanded the three of them to come meet with him right away, the sages say that both Miriam and Aaron had to hurry to come to the meeting because they first had to immerse themselves in a ritual bath.

You see, they knew they could not enter God's presence if they had had sex with their spouses because that would put them in an unclean state. Verse nine tells us, "The anger of the Lord was kindled against them and he departed. And when the cloud removed from over the tent, Miriam was leprous." Meaning she was visibly unclean. God manifested physically what he saw in her heart.

Miriam was guilty of misusing her tongue for complaint, for sarcasm, for gossip, and then she slipped into snare number three, which is presumption. Miriam presumed her position higher than she should have thought and began to minimize the regard that others had toward Moses. She presumed she had a right to be noticed, to be honored more than she was, and she was seeking something she felt lacking in herself.

Her divine punishment consisted of being banished from the camp seven days and seven nights. Now this could well be a timely word that speaks to the many prophetic voices out there who believe their words are the anointed ones for today, rather than pointing people back to Moses and holding his position in high regard as God's teacher of the Torah.

She didn't want to listen to Moses. She wanted her voice to matter. There is an inherent danger we need to see here. God may be warning that if we are not careful what we allow to come out of our mouths, we too might be banished from being taken in the first resurrection and have to wait for seven years to be re-established and cleansed from the sins of complaint, offense, and presumption.

Snare number four gets worse. It's called alienation of affection. And I consider this snare to be the point of no return in one person's betrayal of another. Alienation of affection is actually a legal term. It's a claim where one spouse can sue a third party for interfering with their marriage and causing the loss of the other spouse's love and affection.

This is a grievous sin and happens all the time. It will not go unnoticed by the Lord. Once a person has reached this stage of betrayal, there is little chance that they will turn back because they got what they wanted. They were able to woo someone else's affection they should not have been pursuing because to do so would destroy a previous bond that God had established between two people.

But they wanted something so badly they acted out of order and outside the boundary of their own calling. Now if I sound particularly passionate about this issue, I have experienced the emotional pain of this sin many times, and that hurt goes deep. The classic case, of course, is a woman who lures a man into an emotional bond with her, which causes him to lessen the regard he had for his wife.

I have noticed over the years that there are some people who have a very strong what I call a "woo" factor. I have a very sensitive antenna whenever I run across men and women with this quality of what I call woo. These people are unusually gifted at creating emotional intimacy with someone else they had no right to pursue.

When you are spiritually bonded to another person—and I don't mean necessarily marriage—but an outsider can come in and destroy a close friendship or a ministry bond between teacher and student, or come in to help a mentor and then begin to woo all of the people the mentor has poured his or her life into and take those people for themselves.

This is a treacherous sin and one that God especially hates. One particular challenge a Levite has is that we are so spiritually sensitive, we can literally feel the regard that someone used to have toward us draining out and going toward someone else. A wife knows, for example, when her husband is having an affair or a dangerous flirtation.

She can feel the affection he used to have for her draining away. The root of this sin goes back to three things. Number one: a wrong use of the tongue, usually by flattery or intimate conversations purposely designed to bond with somebody emotionally. Number two: an inner craving for affection and regard. These people get great satisfaction out of turning someone else's head and heart toward them.

And number three: coveting a relationship someone else has. This sin was front and center with Absalom, who was driven to do whatever he needed to do to become the King of Israel and replace his father, David. His strategy was to woo the people of Judah who had needs that were not being met. All this behind David's back while the king was busy doing what God had assigned him.

Absalom took advantage of his father's distraction, and he was faced with a choice. He could encourage the people's respect for his father, the king, and help answer their needs in the king's name as a sacrificial act of service. But instead, Absalom chose to remove the people's regard for King David altogether, telling them that if he were king, he would be attentive to all of their needs.

So his desire was to replace the regard and affection the people had for David with himself. And what did God do about this? He arranged a premature death for young Absalom. One of the major mentors in my life is the founder of an international movement of women in the arts. She had branches all over the world and assigned leaders to head up those branches and be responsible for the women in them.

I recall one woman in particular who was in charge of several branches in a particular section of the country. Everything was going along fine for a while. This supervisor was particularly gifted prophetically, and over time the members began regarding her as their head instead of the founder of the organization.

Now the leader, my mentor, had no choice but to let her go and remove her from the organization. But the damage had been done. The branches in that state were terribly hurt. The women were confused. My mentor was devastated for a time. And the woman, the betrayer, got what she wanted. She succeeded in alienating the affection and regard that all the women used to have for the leader.

A couple of years later, I heard this woman developed a fatal illness and she died prematurely. We see this same five-snare pattern in the life of Korah. He was a high-level Levite with the same illustrious ancestry as Moses and Aaron, but he was not content with his lot. He complained. He wanted to be High Priest.

And he gathered 250 leaders from the tribe of Reuben who were also disgruntled. After all, they were related to Reuben, the firstborn. They should be privileged leaders, too. So Korah and these leaders protested against Moses' leadership, and what did God instruct Moses and Aaron to do about it? He said in Numbers 16:21, "Separate yourselves from among this congregation that I may consume them in a moment."

Shortly after, the ground opened and almost every person belonging to the families of the ringleaders—Korah, Dathan, and Abiram—were swallowed alive. Fire then came forth from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were trying to replace Aaron. God won't tolerate this sin.

Many years ago, a close ministry colleague began to come after people that God had sent me to minister to. This happened very subtly, and I didn't see it at first. My friend was extremely gifted, and my students were taken by her woo factor. She wooed them subtly to herself and replaced the regard that they once had for me as their teacher with herself.

It was a very difficult time in my life. I confronted her about it and was met with denial and ultimately ended up doing what God told Moses to do. I separated myself from her totally, which was hurtful since she had been such a dear friend. A few years later, she had a stroke, never regained her speech, and died prematurely.

It was sobering for all of us to witness. We are exhorted to pray for those who betray us, and we must leave the consequences up to God. We cannot make someone stay with us. We can't grab hold of others as if they are ours forever. The Lord gives, and he takes away. But how we choose to respond when we are wronged, in that we have a choice.

Let me close with three words of wisdom that I've had to learn the hard way. Number one: when you are offended by what others have done to you, bring your thoughts and your complaints and your infuriating screaming fit before God alone. He can handle it. And then separate yourself from them.

Leave the matter to the Lord; he will deal with it. But do not lash out and trash the other person's reputation. Number two: if you are in a ministry and under a leader that you are not resonating with anymore, do not badmouth that leader to others. Simply leave the ministry. God uses these times to individuate his people and lead them to where they can flourish.

But do not, under any circumstances, try to take any of those people with you. That would open a door that could be devastating. And finally, we each have to know the sphere of our own authority and stay within that. If God wants to move you to a higher place, let him do it.

Do nothing to manipulate circumstances to get ahead and meet your own needs at someone else's expense. Stay with what you have been called to do and be busy doing that when the Lord comes. I hope this episode has been helpful to you. To share it with others, go to candacelong.com/podcast and look for this episode, which is called "The Slippery Slope of Betrayal."

I want to thank you so much for being with me today. I'm Candace Long. Join me again next time for Lessons in the Latter Days. God bless.