This episode is going to pick up on some threads we left hanging last week in regard to portals into the spiritual realm.
To briefly recap, I submitted the idea last week that spiritual beings, such as angels and demons, cannot enter our world or our physical realm wherever and whenever they want to. I believe there are particular locations on planet earth- which we might call “portals” in modern times, but the biblical term for these are “gates”- which spiritual beings use to access our reality.
Now, that’s a lot to swallow for some people. That’s why I left it there for last week, but let’s build upon that idea this week. I want to study out one of these gates here in Scripture, the gate that was established in the city of Bethel.
Bethel is “the house of God.” This is the location where Jacob spent the night and had a spiritual experience where he saw a portal here: a stairway to heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it.
When he woke up, he said: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
As we talked about last week, this city was the gate of heaven: an entryway that angels used to enter our realm from the heavenly realm. We’re going to trace this out today and study Bethel’s story, because we’ll see that this was a physical location that was greatly blessed by God.
And yet in the prophets later on in the Bible we start to see them speaking against Bethel.
In fact, in Amos 5:5, he says
Do not seek Bethel… [and] Bethel will be reduced to nothing.
Why would the prophet say something like this? In fact, Hosea also even changes the name of Beth-el, which means ‘the House of God,’ to Beth-aven, which means ‘the House of Wickedness.’ Why would the prophets say this about such a sacred city?
What happened to the Gate of Heaven?
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.
Turn to Genesis 28, and let’s get weird.
12:00 - Judges 20 and I Samuel 7
19:40 - II Kings, Amos and Hosea
24:00 - Closing Thoughts and What’s Coming Next
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Hosted by Luke Taylor
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Bethel: The Corrupted Portal to Heaven
Genesis 28, 35, and more
Introduction
This episode is going to pick up on some threads we left hanging last week in regard to portals into the spiritual realm.
To briefly recap, I submitted the idea last week that spiritual beings, such as angels and demons, cannot enter our world or our physical realm wherever and whenever they want to. I believe there are particular locations on planet earth- which we might call “portals” in modern times, but the biblical term for these are “gates”- which spiritual beings use to access our reality.
Now, that’s a lot to swallow for some people. That’s why I left it there for last week, but let’s build upon that idea this week. I want to study out one of these gates here in Scripture, the gate that was established in the city of Bethel.
Bethel is “the house of God.” This is the location where Jacob spent the night and had a spiritual experience where he saw a portal here: a stairway to heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it.
When he woke up, he said: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
As we talked about last week, this city was the gate of heaven: an entryway that angels used to enter our realm from the heavenly realm. We’re going to trace this out today and study Bethel’s story, because we’ll see that this was a physical location that was greatly blessed by God.
And yet in the prophets later on in the Bible we start to see them speaking against Bethel.
In fact, in Amos 5:5, he says
Do not seek Bethel… [and] Bethel will be reduced to nothing.
Why would the prophet say something like this? In fact, Hosea also even changes the name of Beth-el, which means ‘the House of God,’ to Beth-aven, which means ‘the House of Wickedness.’ Why would the prophets say this about such a sacred city?
What happened to the Gate of Heaven?
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.
Turn to Genesis 28, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]
Genesis 28
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about the story of Bethel throughout the Old Testament, and what this means for understanding the nature of portals into the spirit realm.
This is part of a spiritual exploration that I’m undertaking into God’s Word to understand how spiritual beings operate in our dimension, which will also lead us to a greater understanding in spiritual warfare across the next few episodes.
I know when I start using terms like “portals” and “dimensions” I start to sound like Dr. Strange or an episode of Star Trek. But I am not trying to bring science fiction into the Bible. What I’m actually finding is a lot of these fantastical concepts may have actually be right there in our Scriptures all this time, and we didn’t recognize it because the Bible just has different terminology for them.
So I don’t mean to freak you out. By the end of this series of episodes, we will not be casting spells or speaking Klingon. But I do believe we’ll be praying more powerful prayers and understanding what Jesus meant about the gates of hell in the New Testament, and I’m really excited that you’re here taking this journey with me.
Today we’re going to pick up a thread in Scripture and follow it throughout the Old Testament. And when I say I’m taking you on this journey with me, I’m not even sure where this is gonna end up as I start today’s episode. I’m going off into uncharted territory here.
So let’s pick it up at this story where we spent some time last week.
Genesis 28:10-12
10 Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. 12 And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!
Jacob stops on a journey he’s taking to spend the night at a “certain place.” This is a city known as Luz, but will have it’s name changed. While he is dreaming, Jacob is taken out of his physical body and shown what is happening at this place in the spiritual realm. If you’ve seen the Dr. Strange movie, think of it perhaps like when he’s taken to what is called his astral form, where it appears that his soul has left his body.
In the Bible, we see this happening often times where someone’s soul or spirit is taken out of their physical form and shown something or taken somewhere. It happens repeatedly with Ezekiel, it happened in II Corinthians 12, and we could go into a whole list of times this happens. Sometimes it happens while the person is awake, other times while they’re sleeping.
Jacob bears witness to a gate to heaven in the spirit realm at the physical location where he is sleeping, and when he wakes up, he immediately feels that he has to create some kind of physical marker to convey the significance of this location. So it says in
Verses 16-19
16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” 17 And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
18 So early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19 He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first.
And as I told you last week, Bethel is “Beth-el.” Beth means “House of, and El means “God.” From here, Jacob goes to Haran, gets a wife, then gets another wife, has a bunch of kids, and later on in life after many years pass, he decides to return home to his family.
Genesis 35
Jacob is later going to return to this place in
Genesis 35 (starting at verse 1)
God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.”
So guys, I have a lot of thoughts on Genesis 35. As Jacob prepares to go to Bethel again, he takes the household idols of his wives and buries them under a terebinth tree. A few verses later, someone very close to him dies and he buries her under a tree, too.
As I was studying through this, I found some interesting information on terebinth trees and I was trying to research what this all meant, and I wanted to share it here today, but I felt like it was just too much information to cram into today’s episode.
So I decided, if you would like to dig a little deeper into everything going on in Genesis 35 with me, I’m thinking about starting an email newsletter for this podcast where I can drop in some of that extra info each week. If you’d like to be a part of that newsletter, just send me an email and I will add you to that list. Even if you find this episode weeks or months later, just send me an email and let me know you want the extra info for episode 61 about Bethel, and I will get it to you.
My email is weirdstuffinthebible@gmail.com
I’m thinking of calling the email newsletter “Rabbit Trails” or “Chasing Rabbits” because to explore this info would basically take us down a rabbit trail. And honestly, every time I put together one of these episodes, I’m always cutting information from it to keep it under 30 minutes. I hate to cut the info because sometimes I come back to it in a later episode, and sometimes I don’t. But if I could just send that info out in a newsletter, then I could keep these episodes shorter, and those of you who want to go a little deeper with me can have that information to read on their own time.
So again, if you’re interested in the Rabbit Trails newsletter, send me an email to weirdstuffinthebible@gmail.com. For now, I’m going to bypass a lot of the story about Jacob’s return to Bethel and skip right to:
verse 9
9 God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. 10 And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” So he called his name Israel. 11 And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. 12 The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.” 13 Then God went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him. 14 And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had spoken with him, a pillar of stone. He poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. 15 So Jacob called the name of the place where God had spoken with him Bethel.
So God comes and speaks with Jacob and gives his the name “Israel.” (Everyone and everything is getting its name changed throughout this chapter, which I’ll go into a bit more in the rabbit trails email newsletter.) Israel means “he who wrestles with God,” and Jacob’s descendants will of course become known as the Israelites.
So it’s hard to understate the significance of what happened here at Bethel in Genesis 35. Some very important things for the future of Biblical stories take place in this chapter.
Is God everywhere; can God see everything? Of course, yes. But there seems to be something special about this place with the Gate of Heaven. A more tangible experience of God. An expedited answer to prayer. A higher likelihood that you’ll receive a blessing or spiritual direction.
Remember what I stated before about territorial spirits. Israel is God’s territory. Other areas of the earth belong to other spirits, but Israel belongs to God.
If you were to look at Bethel on a map, it’s pretty well in the center of Israel. It’s straight north of Jerusalem, 10 to 12 miles, would be about half a day to a full day’s journey.
It’s interesting how hard the devil seemed to work to keep Israel out of Israel. It made me wonder: why was he so intent on that? Perhaps it was because there was a portal to heaven in that land. That Portal was how Israel became Israel, so later he wants to keep Israel out of Israel, if you follow me.
Judges 20 and I Samuel 7
Let’s continue Bethel’s story with a few more references. When Israel had a conflict break out between the tribes at the end of the book of Judges, they needed some spiritual direction. The Tribe of Benjamin was behaving badly and needed punished, yet the Benjamites were a little too powerful to overcome. So it says this in
Judges 20:18
The people of Israel arose and went up to Bethel and inquired of God
And God ends up speaking to them from this spot. Now again, God can speak from anywhere. So, why did they choose Bethel specifically? Because as I said, Bethel has a more tangible experience of God, an expedited answer to prayer, a higher likelihood that you’ll receive a blessing or spiritual direction.
Bethel continues as a holy site in I and II Samuel. It said that Samuel, in the days that he judged or led Israel, would visit Bethel at least once a year, this place where you can receive revelation from God.
I Samuel 7:15-16
15 Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. 16 And he went on a circuit year by year to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah. And he judged Israel in all these places.
So, were there also portals or gates in Gilgal and Mizpah? Is there just one gate to heaven still? I’m not sure right now; I hope to look into these things down the road.
Of course the devil isn’t crazy about this place of Bethel and Heaven’s gate. By this point, Israel is pretty firmly fixed in their land, so the devil can’t keep them away from this portal to heaven. So what does the devil do? What he always does. Corrupt. He seeks to corrupt this holy site.
The Gate is Corrupted
If David and Solomon’s reigns were the golden age of Israel’s history, things take a downward turn right after Solomon passes. I don’t even have time to go into how the kingdom split, but we’re going to look at the first King of Israel after Solomon, which was Jeroboam. This guy gets into power and immediately sets up some golden calves for Israel to worship.
Isn’t that weird that Israel keeps going to back to golden calves as a false god? Well, if you remember from my first episode of this year, I talked about how Baal had a bull or cow-like face, and how Baal worship was actually worship of the devil. I encourage you to go back and check out that episode; it will help you to understand that his act of worshipping the golden calves was literally worshipping the devil.
And of all places Jeroboam could have set up these calves, where do you think it was? Let’s read the story in
I Kings 12:28
So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” 29 And he set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.
You have probably read this before, but I hope this word “Bethel” is jumping off the page at you like never before.
30 Then this thing became a sin, for the people went as far as Dan to be before one. 31 He also made temples on high places and appointed priests from among all the people, who were not of the Levites. 32 And Jeroboam appointed a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month like the feast that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar. So he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made. 33 He went up to the altar that he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, in the month that he had devised from his own heart. And he instituted a feast for the people of Israel and went up to the altar to make offerings.
I don’t know about you, and I know that happened thousands of years ago, but that is making me sick just to read about it. I mean, there is something aching in my gut as I read these words.
You had this place of the divine presence of God, a place you could go to meet with the Lord, and now an altar to Satan has been set up there.
So in the very next chapter, a prophet comes and curses Jeroboam over this thing. Jeroboam points at the prophet and says “Seize him!” and his hand dries up; all the moisture just evaporates out of his hand when he points at him. Pretty awesome story. And chapter 13 ends with the words, “And this thing became sin to the house of Jeroboam, so as to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth.” This act of creating the devil worship at the exact site of the House of God and Gate of Heaven unleashed a curse.
You see this in scripture when people misuse holy things; it brings a curse on them. Like when the Philistines stole that Ark of the Covenant in I Samuel and put it in the Temple to Dagon, and they were cursed with “amrods in their secret parts,” as the KJV says it. But then later the Ark was brought to the house of Obed-Edom, a godly man who respected it, and his household was blessed.
We may dig into what exactly was happening in that story later on, but I’m running out the clock for today and I need to wind this down. But in a nutshell, what I believe is that Holy and Sanctified places- such as Bethel, such as the Ark of the Covenant- create blessings; that might seem obvious, but I always want to know the spiritual mechanics behind it. WHY do these holy places create blessings? I submit to you the idea that these blessings come from a gate of heaven being opened. A portal to heaven for angels to pass through.
Likewise, a Satanic or idolatrous place can create gates of hell, or portals for demons to pass through, and this leads to curses. Bad things happening to you. Because you’ve created a portal for demons to walk right into your life and are exposing yourself to it.
I believe that Jeroboam’s actions were influenced by the devil- and Jeroboam didn’t even know it- and the devil was seeking to open a gate to hell in Bethel. And this corrupted the holy site with the gate to heaven, and eventually closed it.
In the story in II Kings 2 when the prophet Elijah is taken to heaven, you’d think that Bethel would be the place to do it. I mean, if the gate to heaven were there, isn’t that the most logical spot? And yet II Kings 2 specifically says that Elijah came to Bethel and that God said, “keep walking.” Why include that detail? To me, that’s a hint that Bethel was not the gate to heaven anymore.
Here is what was said about Bethel in the prophets. We’re going to start with Amos, and remember what Bethel means: House of God. Notice the repetition of the word “house” in God’s judgment.
Amos 3:14-15
13 “Hear, and testify against the house of Jacob,”
declares the Lord God, the God of hosts,
14 “that on the day I punish Israel for his transgressions,
I will punish the altars of Bethel,
and the horns of the altar shall be cut off
and fall to the ground.
15 I will strike the winter house along with the summer house,
and the houses of ivory shall perish,
and the great houses shall come to an end,”
declares the Lord.
God is declaring an end to the “houses” at the house of God. What does that mean? I think it means the House of God is no longer the House of God. Jacob had said back in Genesis 25, “This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” But here it sounds like there’s no more house of God; perhaps that means no more gate of heaven. Just a thought. Then we also see:
Amos 5:4-5
4 For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel:
“Seek me and live;
5 but do not seek Bethel,
and do not enter into Gilgal
or cross over to Beersheba;
for Gilgal shall surely go into exile,
and Bethel shall come to nothing.”
Sounds to me like there’s nothing so special about Bethel anymore. In Hosea 4:15, the prophet Hosea changes the name of Beth-el to Beth-aven, from House of God to House of Wickedness.
Here are verses 15 and 16
15 Though you play the whore, O Israel,
let not Judah become guilty.
Enter not into Gilgal,
nor go up to Beth-aven,
and swear not, “As the Lord lives.”
16 Like a stubborn heifer,
Israel is stubborn;
Notice the reference to a cow there, right alongside the reference to Bethel.
Hosea 10:14-15
…the tumult of war shall arise among your people,
and all your fortresses shall be destroyed,
as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle;
mothers were dashed in pieces with their children.
Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel,
because of your great evil.
At dawn the king of Israel
shall be utterly cut off.
So I feel like there is ample evidence here that the portal to heaven, the Gate of Heaven, was closed by the actions of King Jeroboam by turning Bethel from a Holy Site, a house of God, into a pagan site, a House of Evil. In fact, after what we study for next week, we might conclude that he didn’t just close the gate of heaven there, but changed it or opened a gate of hell.
It’s a little ironic because Jeroboam only set up this idolatry at Bethel because he felt inferior for not owning the city of Jerusalem. But he had the literal gate of heaven in his territory! He had such a wonderful and unique place on earth right there within his grasp.
And yet because he felt like it wasn’t as good as Jerusalem, he polluted the best thing he had. But as I said, he was influenced by the devil, and this is how the devil operates. The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. He doesn’t create beautiful things; he corrupts good things and creates evil versions of them.
Closing Thoughts
So in closing: a lot of stuff today that I’ll readily admit is theoretical. It makes sense to me. I hope it made sense to you.
If it sounds a little loose or questionable, take it with however many grains of salt you wish.
If you have any thoughts on this and want to give me some feedback as I work my way through these things, send me an email to weirdstuffinthebible@gmail.com
And again, that’s also how to get signed up for the Rabbit Trails/Chasing Rabbits email newsletter.
But this study is not over yet. We’re gonna be talking about spiritual gateways for the next couple of episodes, because I found another intriguing piece of the puzzle as I was going through all this Scripture.
We saw how Bethel’s gate was closed today. But how was Bethel’s gate opened in the first place? It might surprise you to know that Genesis 25 was not the first appearance of Bethel in the Bible. Bethel goes all the way back to Abraham being given the land of Israel in
Genesis 12:8
From there he [Abraham] moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.
Abraham built an altar to the Lord at Bethel. Then Jacob just stumbles across it 16 chapters later and finds out there’s a spiritual gateway there.
What was the turning point for Bethel? An altar. was built. to false gods. by Jeroboam.
As I was going through this study today, I kept noticing a particular word that came up again and again and again: altar.
I posit that altars carry a spiritual significance of being able to open, taint or close these portals, and we’ll talk about that next time because I’m way out of time for today.
I know talking about portals and spiritual gateways sounds a little weird, but guys, this stuff has been in your Bible all along. The Bible’s not weird for telling us about it; we’re weird because we didn’t see it before. But now we do. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.