Kristen: I'm Kristen.
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Roger Marsh: Hello and welcome back to Family Talk on this Tuesday before Christmas. I'm Roger Marsh and today we are bringing you the second half of Dr. Dobson's conversation with one of his most popular guests, Rabbi Jonathan Cahn. Today's conversation was originally recorded in September and Parts 1 and 2 are included in our 2022 Best of Broadcast collection. Rabbi Cahn is a Messianic Jew and a New York Times best-selling author. He serves as president of Hope of the World Ministries and is also the senior pastor and Messianic Rabbi of the Beth Israel Jerusalem Center in Wayne, New Jersey. Rabbi Cahn is an internationally sought after speaker and most notably has appeared before Congress and the United Nations. He is married to his lovely wife, Renata, and together they have three boys. Today, Dr. Dobson and Rabbi Cahn will continue their conversation about the Rabbi's book called The Return of the Gods.
In it, he explains that America's turn from the one true God has opened the door for the return of the ancient little-g gods or spirits that Rabbi Cahn refers to as the dark trinity that's made up of Baal, Ishtar and Molech. Today, Dr. Dobson and Rabbi Cahn will give an overview of Ishtar and Molech and how they are waging war on righteousness in this country. Now, before we start, I want to share with you that this month because of some special friends of this ministry, we have a matching grant to double your impact. This means that for any dollar you graciously give to the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, that amount will be doubled.
If you'd like to donate, go to drjamesdobson.org, that's drjamesdobson.org or give us a call. We'd love to talk to you or to answer any questions you might have and you can make a donation over the phone. Call 877-732-6825. That's 877-732-6825. Only a few days left to take part in this special offer. Our match month is one of our most important times of year. Let's ensure Family Talk goes into 2023 with the resources we need to lift up families everywhere as the American family remains under siege in this culture war.
Now let's join our own Dr. James Dobson and today's guest, Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, right here on Family Talk.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, in our program yesterday we talked about the dark trinity. There's these false gods that are now operative even in the western world and maybe particularly here in America. And the first one we talked about was Baal and how he functioned in ancient Israel. Let's take the second one now and take it one step further.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yeah. If you've noticed something about when the Bible speaks about Baal, often right after Baal comes the next god or goddess, which is the goddess the Bible calls Ashtorah or Ashtoreth. And this is so crucial to what is happening right now and that is in some of the Canaanite mythology she's spoken about as the wife of Baal. But this principality was everywhere and as we said, behind the gods are these spirits. In ancient Babylonia, Ashtorah was called Ishtar. When she went to Greece, she became Aphrodite. That's where it comes from. Then in Rome became Venus, but it's a very dark thing behind this principality and God speaks about this principality. And so it's one of the most universal of gods or goddesses and it's all over. It came to Israel, but this one was all over.
In The Return of the Gods, I call her the enchantress because she's known as that. The focal point of this one was sexuality, the sexual realm, and she was actually known as the prostitute goddess or the harlot goddess. And so what this would mean is we said Baal was the first or the spirit of Baal coming into America. Then the next one is Ashtorah or Ishtar the goddess and this spirit is going to come into America. And so it's amazing. What would we expect to happen? We would expect something to happen in the realm of sexuality and we would expect to be an overturning of biblical morals concerning sexuality. And that is exactly what happens like clockwork.
First you have the spirit of Baal, you have the turning away, the driving out of God's presence. Then you have the sexual revolution. That's exactly what you'd expect and you have the overturning of biblical values. Fornication replacing marriage. You have adultery replace ... and it keeps getting worse and worse. This is the next spirit. And it's no accident that whenever a culture turns away from God, this spirit always comes in and you always have a repercussion in the realm of sexuality. And this has been affecting us to this day.
Dr. James Dobson: That's breathtaking in its implications.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yeah. And this one, Ishtar was a prostitute goddess. So what does that mean? A prostitute takes sexuality out of marriage, out of the family and puts it into the culture, puts it into the marketplace. And so what has happened to sexuality in America? Exactly that. It's been progressively divorced from marriage, from the bonds of marriage and the protection of the family, and it's been taken into the culture. The entire culture has become sexualized. Why? Because it's been taken out of marriage. At the same time it's been weakening marriage. So this goddess was not only a prostitute, she was against marriage. She worked against family, worked against husbands, wives, the covenant of marriage and that's what's happening. So if the spirit of Baal coming in was working to paganizing a Christian nation, this one, Ishtar, is specifically working to overturning Christian values concerning sexuality, marriage, husband, wife, the covenant, and turning it into a pagan sexual morality. And that's exactly what we have watched.
What we're seeing is the reawakening of pagan morality concerning sexuality. And this is one of the most powerful, I would say the most seductive forces because we transform sexuality, you transform marriage, you transform family and then you transform the whole civilization. That is what's happening. It started in the 1960s. It has continued to this day.
Dr. James Dobson: That is profound. I lived through the sixties. I'm old enough to have experienced the whole miserable decade and I often write about it because it had such an impact on me and such influence for the universities at that time. But it was characterized by a sexual revolution.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: And that's really what was going on then.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: It's interesting. It leads to perversions of all types too, doesn't it?
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yes, yes. Something else that has affected everything, and this is kind of very close because this is what we've been trying to stand against, you've been standing for all these years. Many names for the most famous in her Mesopotamian incarnate was Ishtar, Ishtar. In the Bible, similar word Ashtorah, Ashtorah. But again, when she went to Greece, she became Aphrodite and that's not just that Aphrodite was like her, this was an incarnation. So was Venus, same thing. But it's very dark. She's actually a goddess of ... She destroys. She has a sword. You see all the broken homes in the ..., That's the sword of this spirit. When you take sexuality out of God's sacred vessel, you get destruction. The other thing is that the word for prostitute in the Greek, actually in the Bible, is the word porne. We get the word porn from her.
The first pornography in the world was her writings, was the writings about her. Pornography means the writings about the goddess. So even pornography, the explosion of pornography that has been so destructive to marriage, to Christians, to lives, this is linked to this goddess. In her day or ancient times, rather, there are images of naked women in clay and in stone all over the culture and pornographic literature. It came from her. We talk about erotic, the whole culture's becoming eroticized. Well, the word comes from Eros. Eros is a Greek word. In the Greek mythology, Eros was born a child of Aphrodite. So the goddess gave birth to Eros and so we are now dealing with all that. And even the destruction or weakening of marriage comes from this.
And there's another thing about her. In The Return of the Gods, she's called the enchantress. She would seduce her worshipers and she was also the goddess of intoxication or taverns. She would cause people to become intoxicated. Well, what else do we see in the sixties? We see an explosion of drug culture. America has become more addicted in this period when it turned away from God, became more addicted than any other time. So even drug use. And she is also the goddess of spells, of the occult. So we've also in the 1960s, what else do we see? A revival of the occult and New Age and Eastern mysticism. All this is part of the same thing. It's part of her casting her spell over a nation.
Dr. James Dobson: I frequently hear people remark about how the culture is drifting into crazy things that we would've never have thought of before, including the transgender movement and other things. But Romans 1 talks about that perversion, doesn't it? In all of its form to the point that he finally says I'll give them up to a reprobate mind.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: That's what you're describing.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yeah. We're seeing this and it's not only Christians that see this. People who don't even know God are saying this is craziness. This is about a culture being possessed. When you try to understand why is it not even rational? Well that's what it does. And when you look at also another sign of possession is self-destructiveness. That is what we are dealing with. But you know what? That's what the apostles dealt with. They dealt with a culture that was basically possessed. So this is what we are dealing with. And also believers have to know you are not dealing with natural things. We are not dealing with a natural culture, not even a secular culture. We're dealing with a possessed culture. Our war is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities.
Dr. James Dobson: I served on the Pornography Commission many years ago and it was very clear that even then America was the porn capital of the world. We were promoting it and selling it and distributing it. And it's become even worse. We are still the porn capital of the world.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yeah. And here is the nation that was called to be a city on a hill and to spread the gospel to the world. Now we are spreading all these things. We talk about the dark trinity. Every one of these things we have been spreading it to the world. And if the nation ever turns away from God, this is what it becomes. And this is exactly what happens. And so this was the second of the dark trinity. If it's okay, I'll give an idea of the third, if that's okay.
Dr. James Dobson: That's Molech, isn't it?
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yes. I think you must have read that one. But this is called the destroyer. And this is what happens. It goes like right in order. First, the turning away from God, then the sexual revolution, sexual immorality, that's always going to lead to the next one which is the destroyer or Molech. And again, we can take for granted because we've lived in an exorcized culture, but all around the pagan world, they had human sacrifice. This was a common thing. And you had the sacrifice of children. This was all over. And when Israel turned away from God, what did they turn to? They actually offered up their own children to Baal and Molech the Bible says. And in fact as you said, that that's why they were destroyed. And you said there's one thing God hates are the false gods because this is what it leads to.
And this is why they were judged. The prophet said, you're actually offering up your children. I can't even imagine it, but they were doing it. What stopped the offering of children, the offering of human beings? Only the gospel did. It was the gospel. Everywhere the gospel went, human sacrifice ceased. The sacrifice of children ceased. In the pagan world, children were treated horribly because the pagan world looks down on the weak and looks down on the elderly, looks down on women. It was dangerous to be a child in the pagan world. Well, we've gone away from that for almost 2000 years but now if we turn away from God, Molech is going to return and the sacrifice of children is going to return and this is a pagan, totally pagan sacrifice. So look like clockwork what happens. First the turning away from God, Baal. Then the sexual revolution, Ishtar. Then what does it lead to? Abortion. The offering up of our children. The return of Molech.
Dr. James Dobson: Shirley and I had an opportunity to visit Israel in 1993 and I never got away from it. It had a profound effect on me. And when I read the scriptures now I am recalling places and things that occurred at that time. And one of them was we visited, I think it was the town of Megiddo, the ancient ruins of Megiddo. Wasn't that where Armageddon will be fought?
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yes.
Dr. James Dobson: Right near there. And I'll never forget we walked in there, the area where you first entered the city had a huge circular altar. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yes.
Dr. James Dobson: This is where they burned children alive. It was awful. I stood there just aching inside thinking of what happened to those children. But then something else happened. The border of that town was made up of rocks. And I walked over there to it and I looked down and there were little tiny bones, ancient bones there. I brought a sack full of them home and I took them to a pathologist. I asked him if these were human bones and he said they very well were. And they somehow had survived all this time, these dried out bones. And you could just imagine the scene of what took place at that horrible moment.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yeah. And if anything shows the evil of this, it's that. How could a nation that knew God, the Israel that had the prophets, had the law, how could they end up offering their own children? But that's what the prophets said and revealed is because you have done this that you're going to be destroyed because this is a sin that God actually answers with destruction. But the thing is we think, well how could they do that? But we have done that. And America, if you turn from God, the same practice returns. They won't call it child sacrifice, but that's what it is. It is the return of this pagan rite or ritual of offering up your children. And so they say, well how can you compare it? Well they killed thousands of children. We have killed millions of children.
In the book I open up how they actually offered up the children and it's the same way. It's in modern terms. And that first of all, it was the parents that offered up their children to Molech. And so it's the parents that do it now. You had music playing to drown it out so the whole culture couldn't really hear how horrible it was. We do that too. They actually offered up their children to gain prosperity. They thought they would gain money, their fields with prosper. Well, the thing is that that's the reason given for women to have abortion because it'll help your career. You won't be hindered. So all these things that were back then are happening now. And that shows you how real this is and also how evil it is. So that is where we've been led to.
Dr. James Dobson: Abortion is a major part of it with 63 million babies being destroyed.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: Torn limb from limb. About what's happening in the classrooms today is also extremely disturbing.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yes.
Dr. James Dobson: Because the parents are holding still. They're allowing this distorted mind to be taught to these kids, transgenderism and all the other perversions are being taught right there from kindergarten on or even before. It's the same thing, the same spirit.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yeah, the same spirit and that shows you how demonic it is because it causes parents to destroy their own children. I mean, how self-destructive is that? How can a mother to go against her maternal instinct to destroy her child or fathers to destroy in one way or another. But remember the gods were always after the children, always after the children one way or another. It was never safe to be a child. They're either to change the children or to destroy them.
And what you just brought up, this opens up the whole realm of what I was led to open up in the book and that is that there's another whole section called the transformer. And that is going back to this goddess Ishtar, that same principality. There was something strange about her and that is that she says in one of her ancient stones that have engravings says, "I am a woman." And then she says, "I am a man." And it says she has the power to turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man. So this is the deeper work of Ishtar. First the sexual revolution. But then it starts changing, transforming gender itself and everything we've been seeing all goes back to this.
Dr. James Dobson: That's breathtaking. This is profoundly wicked what we're doing to children, the most innocent among us. They'll believe anything you tell them.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: That child who's five years old will believe Santa Claus can go down the chimney of every house in the world in one night with toys in a bag, one bag. They'll believe it and they're being manipulated and twisted and lied to and nothing disturbs me more than that.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yeah. And it's affecting everything if she turns woman into man. So notice what's happened since the sixties. There's been a movement to defeminize women, to make women more like men. Women, you have to be fierce. You have to be strong. You don't need a man. You're your own provider, your own protector. And so that's the one part of what this spirit does. The other side of it, it says she feminizes men. She seeks to emasculate men. And actually there's in some ancient writings I found, where it says she grinds away the masculinity of men. So that's why this culture, there's a spirit that wars against men, wars against male leadership and ultimately you war against the family. Because when you make women like men and men like women, you have no more marriage. You have no more family. So this all goes together.
And another thing, she was called the androgynous goddess. She was a woman, but she had male attributes. She had priests in her temple that were men that dressed up as women. They were her priests. And so now everything you had in the pagan world, you have now returning with a goddess. You have now men again dressing up as women taking center stage in the culture. You have androgyny to try to merge male and female. That's all part of this goddess. That's what she does. And so when you see the return of that, you have the return of her.
Dr. James Dobson: We've been talking to Rabbi Jonathan Cahn about his new book, The Return of the Gods and I have a copy of it in front of me. Summarize it for us. We really need to go back to the beginning and talk about the dark trinity. Name them, say what they're there to do and give us a summary as we close.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yeah. This is a warning of the Bible, of God, that if a nation or a civilization turns away from God, that has known God, the gods or the spirits of the ancient world are going to return. And the same spirits that came to Israel have come to America. The first one, the possessor Baal, the second Ishtar or the goddess who changes sexuality, alters gender. And the third, the destroyer is Molech that causes child sacrifice. It's all happening, everything we're watching, this is what is behind what we are dealing with right now.
Dr. James Dobson: To our listeners, let me say this is a fascinating book. It may be the most controversial thing you've written. Is that correct?
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Yeah, I believe so. I knew I had to do it.
Dr. James Dobson: And what was that compulsion? What led you to feel like this was necessary?
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: What is happening to our culture, what is happening. And it's like believers seem to be at a loss in so many ways of what's taking place around them. And so number one, to reveal this, to open it up. To strengthen believers, to arm them, to save people who are involved in this. But to open this up, that ultimately, because when God judges the gods, that's when revival comes. And in ancient times is when those altars were broken. So we have to deal with it. And so it's to strengthen and arm and many people who are seeing this are saying, "Wow, this explains it all." Well, it's true. We are dealing with exactly what the Bible said we would deal with and we need to be armed and we need to be aware of it and to be strong.
Dr. James Dobson: And to America you would say there is no other hope.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: There is no other hope.
Dr. James Dobson: A revival is the only answer.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: The Bible is true. Everything we are dealing with is what the Bible said. There is no other way but God. If you turn away from God, this is what you open the door to. And everything that's happening now is what the Bible warned against. The only hope we have, the only hope the church has, the only hope anyone has, is God in the name of Jesus who is our only hope in all things and we must pray for revival. We must pray that God would deal with this and pray that God would cleanse America by his presence. That's the only way and the only hope. And for God's people, it is not time to be timid. It's not time to be afraid. It's not time to cower and do not bow your knee to any other God. It is time to be strong against the gods like Daniel, like Elijah, like Moses, like the Apostle Paul. Stand up for the one true living God. That is the only answer this world has.
Dr. James Dobson: And time is running out. Thank you, Rabbi Cahn. We appreciate all of your books. This one has a certain prophetic element to it that grabs me by the heart. And I do hope that our listeners will get copies and pay attention to what you have to say.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Thank you, Dr. Dobson.
Dr. James Dobson: Thanks for being our guest again. Next time you come here to this studio.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: Okay.
Roger Marsh: You've been listening to Family Talk and that was the conclusion of Dr. Dobson's two-day interview with his friend and esteemed guest Rabbi Jonathan Cahn. Parts 1 and 2 of Dr. Dobson's conversation with Rabbi Cahn are available on the 2022 Best of Broadcast Collection. This is available to you for a suggested donation of $50 as a thank you from us for your support for the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. If you'd like your own commemorative six CD sets or a digital download of our best shows from 2022, visit drjamesdobson.org/best of 2022. That's drjamesdobson.org/bestof2022.
To order the CD set or if you prefer, right on that page, you will see the digital download version link in holiday green. Simply click there to receive your digital copy. The collection contains 18 of our most popular programs from this past year covering everything from marriage to kids and even the culture around you. And remember this month because of some special friends of the ministry, we have a matching grant in place to double your impact. This means that for any dollar you graciously give to the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, that amount will be doubled. If you'd like to donate, go to drjamesdobson.org. That's drjamesdobson.org or give us a call. Call 877-732-6825. Thank you for joining us today. We hope you'll join us again tomorrow. God's richest blessings to you and your family as we all prepare to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior.
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