Hosken-News Blog: 2020

Saturday, December 19, 2020

The Word Became Flesh

"The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw His glory, such glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). This is the real meaning of Christmas. Not office parties, not presents, not Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, not Santa Claus: the real meaning of Christmas is that God the Word was clothed in human nature so that we may be clothed in the divine nature.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him. Without Him was not anything made that has been made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men" (John 1:1-4). The pre-eternal Word of God through Whom God created the cosmos has become a human baby boy. "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14).

From the very start, this caused confusion and doubt: was Mary really a virgin? The Jewish leaders threw that accusation at Him: "They said to Him, 'We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father, God.' Therefore Jesus said to them, 'If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I came out and have come from God. For I haven't come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why don't you understand My speech? Because you can't hear My word. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn't stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it" (8:41b-44). The devil is a liar, a deceiver – that's how he operates. People who have been deceived and taken in by a lie simply cannot understand the truth: their minds are set against it.

But Jesus, the Word of God, is truth: "Jesus said to him [Thomas], 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through Me" (John 14:6); also – "Sanctify them in Your truth. Your Word is truth" (John 17:17) – Jesus is both the Word and the Truth. And yet, people get tricked and deceived by those who want to "control the narrative" (deceive us) – "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit who doesn't confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God, and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, of whom you have heard that it comes. Now it is in the world already. ...Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God" (1 John 4:2-3 & 15).

Here we see three things: 1) Jesus is the Messiah (the Christ) come in human flesh; 2) Whoever doesn't confess that Jesus is the Messiah is not of God, instead he is of the Antichrist; 3) We must confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the flesh in order to be in God. The Apostle John reiterates this in his next letter – "For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who don't confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the Antichrist" (2 John 1:7).

God has not only sent the Living Word into the world, He has also given us His written word, as the Apostle Paul writes – "All Scripture inspired by God is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction which is in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16). But right after that, Paul writes - "For the time will come when they will not listen to the sound doctrine, but, having itching ears, will heap up for themselves teachers after their own lusts; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside to fables" (ch. 4:3-4). Deceivers are always "out there," teaching their distorted, lust-driven doctrines.

But how then can we tell the truth from error? The Apostle Peter writes – "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation, as no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:20-21). The connecting word "as" is sometimes translated "for" or "because" – it tells us the explanation of the previous phrase "no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation" – Why? Because just as holy men of God (Moses and the prophets) spoke being move by the Holy Spirit, in the same way it takes holy men of God to interpret the Scriptures. Not any and every Christian is qualified to explain and teach the Scriptures!

In the very next verses, Peter warns us – "But there also arose false prophets among the people, as among you also there will be false teachers, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction. Many will follow their immoral ways, and as a result, the way of the truth will be maligned. In covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old doesn't linger, and their destruction will not slumber" (ch. 2:1-3). Notice again how destructive, deceptive heresies are often linked to immoral ways.

A little further, St. Peter warns us that understanding and interpreting Scripture is no easy task – "Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you; as also in all of his letters, speaking in them of these things. In those are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unsettled twist, as they also do to the other Scriptures, to their own destruction" (ch. 3:15-16). BTW, here the Apostle Peter considers the Apostle Paul's letters as Scripture.

The Apostles John, Peter, and Paul all considered that their preaching and writing about the Good News of Yeshua the Messiah – Jesus the Christ – was the continuation and fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies. In Micah 4:1-3 we read – "But in the latter days, the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established on the top of the mountains, and it will be exalted above the hills; and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will go and say, 'Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.' For out of Zion will go forth the law, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and He will judge between many peoples, and will decide concerning strong nations afar off. They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, Neither will they learn war any more." Just like the prophets of old, the Apostles were eagerly expecting the Messiah to come and rule the nations in righteousness and peace.

But when will this happen? Micah continues – "Arise and thresh, daughter of Zion; for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs brass; and you will beat in pieces many peoples: and I will devote their gain to the Lord, and their substance to the Lord of the whole earth. Now you shall gather yourself in troops, daughter of troops. He has laid siege against us; they will strike the judge of Israel with a rod on the cheek. But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Judah, out of you One will come forth to Me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting. Therefore He will abandon them until the time that she who is in labor gives birth. Then the rest of his brothers will return to the people of Israel." (ch. 4:13 - 5:1-3). Military invasion, siege of Jerusalem, then "she who is in labor gives birth" in Bethlehem.

Many, many other Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled with the coming of Yeshua, the Messiah – Jesus the Christ, the Annointed One – more prophecies than I have time to recount. Finally, "The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw His glory, such glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 19 Dec. 2020.)

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Saturday, December 5, 2020

Let the Babies Choose!

Let the babies choose! 100 years of abortion in Russia... coronary heart disease and cancer deaths being categorized as COVID-19 deaths... Russia's surrogacy baby business... illegal euthanasia in Belgium... Polish Church abortion ban generates mass protests... these articles and headlines in our latest newsletter all point to one thing: a culture of death.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

Fifty or even twenty-five years ago, we would have been appalled at such news: Abortion was first illegal, then frowned upon. Married people were happy to have three or four children, or even more! Hospitals existed to cure diseases and save people's lives. Having a baby from a man who is not her husband meant a woman was an adulteress, a fornicator, or a prostitute. "Hospice care" meant keeping people alive and as comfortable as possible until natural death occurred, but now it means lethal doses of morphine to speed things up. Killing unborn babies who just might have Down Syndrome was unthinkable. Gradually, step by step, law by law, court case by case, film by film, we have cheapened human life to a commodity to be created when it's pleasant and terminated when unpleasant.

The Old Testament prophet Hosea found himself in such a dilemma: in ch. 1:2-3 we read – "When the Lord spoke at the first by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, 'Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery against the Lord.' So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; and she conceived, and bore him a son." Isn't that strange? How could God command His prophet to marry a prostitute? The fact of the matter is that, although God had given Israel the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Law through Moses, after just a few generations Israel began to disregard the Lord, worshipping foreign "gods" (idols) that included temple prostitution and child sacrifice. So Hosea's sad marriage was to be an example to Israel of what happens when people behave that way.

In chapter 1, Hosea's wife Gomer bears him three children, whom he names "Jezreel" - the place where King Jehu killed Queen Jezebel, ""Lo-Ruhamah" meaning "unpitied," and "Lo-Ammi" meaning "not My people." These are terrible names to give one's children, but then in ch. 2, Gomer goes off whoring with other men in exchange for "my garments and my linen clothes, my oil and my necessities" (v. 5) and "These are my wages that my lovers have given me" (v. 12). Did all this really happen, or is this simply an allegory? Is it a word-picture for Israel forsaking the Lord to do business deals with foreign countries and adopt their idol-worship? In v. 15 we see a clue: "I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will respond there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt." Gomer didn't come up out of Egypt, that refers to Moses leading Israel out of Egypt.

Then in ch. 3, Hosea has to pay "fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley" (v. 2) to buy Gomer back again from her adultery. But then, in v. 5 – "Afterward the people of Israel shall return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and shall come with trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days." This is a Messianic prophecy, because King David had died long before Hosea's time, so it refers to the Seed of David, the Messiah, Who will bring Israel back to true worship of the Lord.

Meanwhile, in ch. 4:1-3 we see how a nation's wickedness brings natural disasters – "Hear the word of the Lord, you people of Israel; for the Lord has a charge against the inhabitants of the land: Indeed there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land. There is cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break boundaries, and bloodshed causes bloodshed. Therefore the land will mourn, and everyone who dwells in it will waste away. All living things in her, even the animals of the field and the birds of the sky; yes, the fish of the sea also die." Can we simply pass a few laws to save the environment? Will windmills and electric cars save the world? It may help, but the real problem isn't burning coal or gasoline, it's that "there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land." That leads to lying, cheating, murder, and sexual sins.

Well, let's give it a "quick fix": in ch. 6:1-3 we read – "Come, and let us return to the Lord; for He has torn us to pieces, and He will heal us; He has injured us, and He will bind up our wounds. After two days will He revive us. On the third day He will raise us up, and we will live before Him. Let us acknowledge the Lord. Let us press on to know the Lord. As surely as the sun rises, the Lord will appear. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain that waters the earth." I've heard sermons on this, portraying Israel as repenting and returning to the Lord.

But this is merely fake repentance: first, it's blaming God and not taking real responsibility for one's own sin – "He has torn us to pieces... He has injured us," in other words, it's all God's fault, the Lord is an arbitrary god like the pagan gods, hurling down bolts of lightning to injure us. "Ephraim, what shall I do to you? Judah, what shall I do to you? For your love is like a morning cloud, and like the dew that disappears early. ...For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings" (ch. 6:4 & 6). Fake repentance is like the morning fog and dew that quickly disappears and doesn't really water the soil. Israel thinks – "Maybe if we just offer a burnt sacrifice of a calf or a lamb, we can satisfy God's wrath." No! The Lord desires for us to truly know Him! True repentance is a 180-degree about-face turning away from one's sins and going the opposite direction.

Then we read in ch. 9:9-16 - "They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity. He will punish them for their sins. I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at its first season; but they came to Baal Peor, and consecrated themselves to the shameful thing, and became abominable like that which they loved. As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird. There will be no birth, none with child, and no conception. Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them, so that not a man shall be left. Indeed, woe also to them when I depart from them! Ephraim, like I have seen Tyre, is planted in a pleasant place; But Ephraim will bring out his children to the killer. Give them – O Lord, what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. All their wickedness is in Gilgal; for there I hated them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house! I will love them no more. All their princes are rebels. Ephraim is struck. Their root has dried up. They will bear no fruit. Even though they bring forth, yet I will kill the beloved ones of their womb."

God's people had fallen deeply into sexual perversion (the word "corrupted" above is translated "perverted" in Russian), like the men of Gibeon, who demanded to rape that Levite, and when they couldn't, they gang-raped and killed his concubine. Homosexual perversion directly leads to "no birth, none with child, and no conception" – it is merely fruitless, pointless autoerotic self-gratification. God created us as male and female to procreate and continue the human race. Tyre was the Phoenician city on a rocky peninsula sticking out into the Mediterrainian Sea where child sacrifice was practiced. Gilgal was "beside the oaks of Mamre" where Abraham erected his first altar (Genesis 12:6-7) but then he lied about his wife Sarai, causing Pharaoh to commit adultery with her. When Hosea mentioned these locations, the Israelites immediately recalled what went on in those stories.

But wait! Wasn't that just the Old Testament's wrathful, judgmental God? Isn't the New Testament's God always kind, merciful, loving, and forgiving? Those ideas about different Gods in Old and New Testaments is a heresy, a denial of the one true God in all of sacred and human history. God is indeed kind, loving, and merciful, as I wrote earlier in "Is God's Unconditional Love Conditional?" His loving-kindness and mercy endure forever. He is always loving and faithful, but we are sometimes unfaithful: it is our love that is sometimes conditional and wavering.

As we read in Hosea's last chapter, 14:4-8, the Lord will in the end restore Israel – "I will heal their waywardness. I will love them freely; for my anger is turned away from him. I will be like the dew to Israel. He will blossom like the lily, and send down his roots like Lebanon. His branches will spread, and his beauty will be like the olive tree, and his fragrance like Lebanon. Men will dwell in his shade. They will revive like the grain, and blossom like the vine. Their fragrance will be like the wine of Lebanon. Ephraim, what have I to do any more with idols? I answer, and will take care of him. I am like a green fir tree; From me your fruit is found."

In Hebrews 6:4-8, the Apostle Paul wrote to the Jews in the Diaspora who were struggling with persecution, forcing some to deny their faith in the Messiah – "For concerning those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance; seeing they crucify the Son of God for themselves again, and put him to open shame. For the land which has drunk the rain that comes often on it, and brings forth a crop suitable for them for whose sake it is also tilled, receives blessing from God; but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is rejected and near being cursed, whose end is to be burned."

This is a rather grim picture. But there is hope! "But, beloved, we are persuaded of better things for you, and things that accompany salvation, even though we speak like this. For God is not unrighteous, so as to forget your work and the labor of love which you showed toward his name, in that you served the saints, and still do serve them" (verses 9-10).

And in Hebrews 10:26 we read – "For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more a sacrifice for sins." If we, after having received an experiential knowledge of the truth, willfully continue to sin, there is no longer a sacrifice for sin. Also, verses 38-39 give us hope – "'But the righteous will live by faith. If he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.' But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the saving of the soul." That first phrase, "the righteous shall live by faith," is a quote from the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk, ch. 2:4, a passage made famous by Martin Luther in the Protestant Reformation.

So let us respond in the right way to the Lord's loving-kindness and mercy, truly repenting and turning 180 degrees from our sins! Let us respect human life from the cradle to the grave: Let the Babies Choose! Hear the cries of the voiceless and the powerless, forsake abortion and euthanasia, return to the Lord and to His ways!

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 5 Dec. 2020.)

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Saturday, November 21, 2020

What Is Truth?

When He was on trial before Pontius Pilate, Jesus said – "'For this reason I have come into the world, that I should testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice.' Pilate said to Him, 'What is truth?'" (John 18:37b-38a). This question has haunted us ever since the beginning: What is truth?

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

Is truth relative, or is it absolute? Do you have your own private truth, and I have mine? More and more, the world is falling under the deceptive ideology that truth is relative. But as Jesus told Pilate – "I have come into the world, that I should testify to the truth." Just the evening before, at the Last Supper, He said – "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through Me" (John 14:6). How can we know the absolute truth? Jesus is the absolute God in the flesh, He is absolute Truth! And a little while later, in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed to His Father about His Apostles – "Sanctify them in Your truth. Your word is truth" (John 17:17).

Later, the Apostle Paul wrote – "For though we walk in the flesh, we don't wage war according to the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds, tearing down false ideologies and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ; and being in readiness to discipline all disobedience, when your obedience will be made full" (2 Corinthians 10:3-6). We need to take a stand for the truth, but not "wage war according to the flesh"; rather, speak the truth but season it with honey, not vinegar: you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar!

In the Old Testament we read – "Mercy and truth meet together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other" (Psalm 85:10). This is the ideal we should aim for. Truth is truth whether we believe it or not, but when truth is combined with mercy, righteousness,and peace, more and more people will come to believe in the truth ...in Jesus.

How can we know the truth? Jesus said – :If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31b-32). Jesus Christ is the Living Word of God – "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ...The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw His glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:1 & 14). His "word" is not just what's typeset in red in the four Gospels in a red-letter edition of the Bible, it is all of His teachings passed on to His Apostles – "There are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they would all be written, I suppose that even the world itself wouldn't have room for the books that would be written" (John 21:25).

Also – "So then, brothers, stand firm, and hold the traditions [the teachings passed down] which you were taught by us, whether by word [orally], or by letter" (2 Thessalonians 2:15). There are "many other things" that Jesus passed on orally to His Apostles, then they passed on to their disciples, and so on, before the canon of the New Testament was decided upon 350 years later, at the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381. For those many years, Christians were being persecuted and it was dangerous to write down too much. They developed tremendous memories: many of the Early Church Fathers had memorized much of the Old Testament and the Apostles' writings that were in circulation.

Well then, if we didn't have the full Bible until 350 years after Christ was on earth teaching His Apostles before He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, what is our firm foundation for the divinely-inspired absolute truth? If not the Bible, then what? The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy – "These things I write to you, hoping to come to you shortly; but if I wait long, that you may know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:14-15). The Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth, not only the Scriptures, like many Protestants believe.

So, to avoid being deceived by false ideologies teaching that truth is relative or there is no truth, we must abide in Him, the Living Word, and in His written word passed down through the Apostles "so that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error; but speaking the truth in love, we may grow up in all things into Him, Who is the head, Christ" (Ephesians 4:14-15).

Jesus told the woman at the well in Samaria – "But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be His worshipers" (John 4:23). True worship is "ortho-doxy" in Greek. Then, in John 14:16-17, He said – "I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that He may be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, Whom the world can't receive; for it doesn't see Him, neither knows Him. You know Him, for He lives with you, and will be in you."

And again – "When the Counselor has come, Whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, Who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me" (John 15:26). So our Counselor or Advocate, the Spirit of truth, our "defense lawyer" Who pleads our case before the Father, lives in us and helps us to worship in truth and discern truth from error. The Holy Spirit has given holy men of God the gift of correctly interpreting or telling forth the Scriptures ("prophecy" is "telling forth" as well as "foretelling"): "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation, [just] as no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit" (1 Peter 1:20-21).

In conclusion, "Give diligence to present yourself approved by God, a workman who doesn’t need to be ashamed, properly handling the Word of Truth" (2 Timothy 2:15). Let us be diligent in seeking, getting to know, and properly interpreting the Word of Truth. This comes by getting to know Christ, the Living Word, intimately: spend time with Him!

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 21 Nov. 2020.)

Saturday, November 7, 2020

Is God's Unconditional Love Conditional?

is-Gods-unconditional-love-conditional Read these comforting words: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? ...For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:35a & 38-39). These and many other Scripture texts assure us that God's love will always be there for us. In that sense, God's love is unconditional.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

But let's not ignore the other parts of this Romans passage: "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose" (verse 28). There's the condition: "those who love God"! Also, after the above quote - "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" - he writes: "Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Even as it is written, 'For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter'" (verses 35-36). It's clear that the Apostle Paul was writing this to disciples who were being persecuted for their faith, telling them to be faithful, hang in there, because God is always faithful toward us.

In 2 Timothy 2:12-13, St. Paul writes - "If we endure, we will also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful. God cannot deny Himself." God's love and faithfulness are unconditional, unchanging, infinite and eternal. But our love and faithfulness... well, it can be fickle, we can faint under fear, but if we deny God, He will deny us - not that He stops loving us, but that we have turned ourselves away from receiving His love.

Jesus said that our heavenly Father "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matthew 5:45). That's unconditional love. Like a human father who loves his newborn baby girl before she is at all able to do anything for him, he gives her a home, works to buy her food and new diapers after she messes her diapers, takes her to the doctor, teaches her how to walk and talk, takes her to that first day of school, etc. This is unconditional love. It's like God's love – "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). We mess up, He forgives and cleans us up; we trip and fall, He disinfects our scrapes and bandages us up.

Hopefully, we finally begin to learn how to return His love – "We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19). But eventually, He says to some – "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father Who is in heaven. On that day many will say to Me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and do many mighty works in Your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness'" (Matthew 7:21–23).

One of the most-beloved passages of Scripture is – "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God" (John 3:16–18).

God loves the world unconditionally so much that He sent His Son, Jesus, but our part for having eternal life is conditional upon believing in Him. If we reject Jesus, the unconditional love of God is still there but it does us no good – we haven't met the condition that is our part.

Another Scripture passage is – "Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed" (Romans 2:4–5). God is holding His unconditional love out to us – it's always there, it's eternal; but we must respond to His love by repenting.

What is real repentance, or being truly penitent? The Apostle Paul wrote his first letter to the church in Corinth, repremanding them for immorality; then they repented, so he wrote another letter to them – "For though I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it. For I see that my letter made you sorry, though just for a while. I now rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you were made sorry to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly way, that you might suffer loss by us in nothing. For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation, which brings no regret. But the sorrow of the world works death" (2 Corinthians 7:8-10).

The "sorrow of the world" is "Oh-oh! Mama caught me with my hand in the cookie jar, now I'm going to get it!" – that's false repentance. Godly sorrow that leads to true repentance is feeling deep shame and sadness for breaking God's commandments... and even more, it's the firm decision to turn around and change one's direction. We no longer want to "Do It My Way!" As Paul wrote – "He [Christ] died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:15).

And here's the conditional aspect again – "If you keep My [Christ's] commandments, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commands and remain in His love" (John 15:10). If we really love Christ, we will gladly keep His commandments, not do our own thing.

So God's love is unconditional on His part, but it's conditional on our part.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 7 Nov. 2020.)

Saturday, October 24, 2020

Does God's Mercy Endure Forever?

His mercy endures forever In light of the current medical, moral, environmental, and political state of the world, we must ask - "Does God's Mercy Endure Forever?" Is His patience with us perhaps running out?

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

The prophet Jeremiah wrote - "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope for your future. You shall call on Me, and you shall go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You shall seek Me, and find Me, when you shall search for Me with all your heart" (Jer. 29:11-13). This is certainly a very comforting thought: the Lord will always be there if we search for Him with all our heart. But what if we don't?

The context of this chapter tells us about the Israelites being in captivity in Babylon, the false prophets saying that it will all be over soon and they will return to the land of Israel. But Jeremiah told them just the opposite:

"Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, to all the captivity, whom I have caused to be carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat their fruit. Take wives, and father sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply there, and don't be diminished. Seek the welfare of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you shall have peace. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Don't let your prophets who are in your midst, and your diviners, deceive you; neither listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed" (verses 4-8)..

In other words, be good citizens right where you are: get married, have children, raise them in the fear of the Lord so that they will get married and have children; otherwise, your population will dwindle away to nothing. Don't be like the pagan Babylonians in their temple prostitution and sex orgies of their pagan religion. This is what "Seek the welfare of the city" means: God's people are responsible for the well-being of the society we live in, not just for our own personal pleasure and self-seeking pursuits.

But the remnant of Jewish people remaining in Israel had a problem: the rich and powerful among them had lent money to the poor, but when the poor couldn't pay off their debts, the lenders enslaved them. This was contrary to the Law of Moses because the Lord had freed them from slavery in Egypt. Here's what Jeremiah wrote about this:

"The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty to them; that every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant, who is a Hebrew or a Hebrewess, go free; that no one should make bondservants of them, to wit, of a Jew his brother. All the princes and all the people obeyed, who had entered into the covenant, that everyone should let his manservant, and everyone his maidservant, go free, that none should make bondservants of them any more; they obeyed, and let them go: but afterwards they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids" (ch. 34:8-11).

This sounds remarkably similar to what happened after the U.S. Civil War and the Emanicpation Proclamation, doesn't it? Although the former slaves were technically freed, they became sharecroppers entangled in bondage to the debts owed to their landlords. And today we've dressed it up just a bit by entangling the average working Joe and Jane in educational, credit card, and mortgage debts for all their working lives and sometimes well into retirement.

But even worse, we've allowed our society to slip back into paganism like in ancient Babylonia and the Greco-Roman Empire, whose gods were notorious for their immorality, so the pagan peoples followed the examples of their gods. The main difference in today's neo-paganism is that people nowadays deny the existence of God or gods or demons, which gives free rein to the demons because people have deceived themselves to believe the supernatural doesn't exist (except at Halloween). The sexual perversions of today are very similar to those in New Testament age and in the ancient world:

"With many other words he [Peter] testified, and exhorted them, saying, 'Save yourselves from this perverted generation!'" (Acts 2:40). And St. Paul wrote: "...that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a twisted and perverted generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world" (Philippians 2:15). Many English translations tone it down a bit, using the word "perverse," but in Greek and other languages the word is clearly "perverted." Homosexuality was common in those days and has returned today. Also, St. Paul wrote:

"For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For their women changed the natural function into that which is against nature [lesbianism]. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural function of the woman, burned in their lust toward one another [homosexuality], men doing what is inappropriate with men, and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error. Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil habits, secret slanderers" (Romans 1:26-29).

St. John wrote: "The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of the sexual immorality of the earth. And on her forehead a name was written, 'Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of the prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth'" (Revelation 17:4-5) Also, "There will in no way enter into it anything profane, or one who causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life" (ch. 21:27).

Again, quoting St. Paul: "Or don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don't be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortioners, will inherit the Kingdom of God" (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

Also: "Now the works of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, gluttony, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God" (Galatians 5:19-21).

Also: "But sexual immorality and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not even be mentioned among you, as becomes saints; nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not appropriate; but rather giving of thanks. Know this for sure, that no sexually immoral or unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God" (Ephesians 5:3-5). These sexual perversions were often called "abominations" in the Old Testament:

"You shall not offer any of your children in sacrifice [abortion and euthanasia] to Molech; neither shall you profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. You shall not lie with a man, as with a woman [homosexual acts]. That is detestible. You shall not lie with any animal [bestiality] to defile yourself with it; neither shall any woman give herself to an animal, to lie down with it: it is a perversion. Do not defile yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations which I am casting out before you were defiled. The land was defiled: therefore I punished its iniquity, and the land vomitted out her inhabitants. You therefore shall keep My statutes and My ordinances, and shall not do any of these abominations; neither the native-born, nor the stranger who lives as a foreigner among you" (Leviticus 18:22-26).

Notice that "the land vomitted out her inhabitants": does this remind you of all the people fleeing massive fires, hurricanes, and floods these days? It should! Some say that God is always merciful and would never do such a thing. Really? Have they never read the above Scripture, or about Sodom and Gommorah? I refer you also to Deuteronomy 18:9-14; Ezekiel 22:11; and Ezekiel 33:26 for similar references to "abominations." The point is this: the Lord is merciful and long-suffering, but we must never allow ourselves to think this means we can do whatever we please and God will be obligated to just keep on forgiving and forgetting. His mercy is tempered by His justice. Sin bears its bitter fruits and harvest time is coming. What is the answer? How should we respond to the current situation? Here's what the prophet Joel says -

"'Yet even now,' says the Lord, 'turn to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.' Rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord, your God; for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness [mercy], and relents from sending calamity. ...The threshing floors will be full of wheat, and the vats will overflow with new wine and oil. I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the great locust, the grasshopper, and the caterpillar, my great army, which I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, and be satisfied, and will praise the name of the Lord, your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; and my people will never again be disappointed" (Joel 12-13 & 24-26).

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 24 Oct. 2020.)

Saturday, October 10, 2020

Snowflake Totalitarianism

Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 Rod Dreher states in this interview "Could It Happen Here? The Parallels Between Soviet Bloc and Modern US" - "In America, our idea of totalitarianism is conditioned by our memory of the Cold War and Soviet persecution, as well as George Orwell’s '1984.'" But the younger generation has no memory at all of the Cold War – they were born after 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

You can get Dreher's new book Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents at Amazon. Dreher's interview continues: "In the Orwellian, Soviet, Stalinist society, the state controlled people by inflicting pain and terror on them. But in the soft totalitarianism that I see coming here, the state will control people - and not only the state, but even more importantly, corporations and institutions like universities will control people by manipulating their access to the economy and to status and to all the markers of middle-class life.

"They won't need the gulags to force conformity on us. We'll do it because we can't stand the idea of losing our jobs. And look, I don't mean to make light of that. It's huge to lose your job, it's massive, but this is how it's going to happen. We see it happening right now.

"Yesterday, I was doing a webinar with J.D. Vance. [He] told me that friends of his who are liberals are already scared to death of what they can and can't say in their workplace. [He said:] 'This is not the state. This is not [President] Donald Trump coming and telling them they can't do that. These are their companies doing it. And this is their fear of victims who have the power to accuse others.' If we ignore the prophetic voices of those who survived communism, we deserve what we get."

Rod Dreher calls this "Soft Totalitarianism" but I prefer to call it "Snowflake Totalitarianism" because western civilization since WW2 has produced three generations of mostly wimpy-whineys who don't know how to handle hardship. When their smartphones lose a cell-tower connection, they panic: they don't know how to cope with it. If someone innocently utters a "trigger phrase" like "But I have several friends who are Afro-American" – they suffer a huge meltdown and scream, "You're a racist!" They're so conditioned by social media and our educational system to think and speak only "politically correct" thoughts lest their Facebook, Twitter, and/or Gmail accounts be shut down or they be blackballed at school. But not only that, they also demand that you and I - normal people - conform to their fantasy world. This is how today's "Cancel Culture" works. Snowflakes melt at normal room temperature, it doesn't take any special heat or pressure for them to melt down.

A few years ago, I referred to Rod Dreher's earlier book The Benedict Option. If I were to write a book like his, I'd probably title it The Discipleship Imperative because it's not just for monastics like St. Benedict and his followers and it's not at all an option. It's imperative: all Christians are called to discipleship! In Acts 11:19-27 we read how the Gospel was spread to Antioch by ordinary believers. This passage closes with the words - "The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch." So the question we should ask is - "What were they before they were called Christians?" The answer is obvious, it's right there in the text: they were disciples. All real, true, genuine believers in and followers of Christ are disciples. And so, if you're not a disciple, you're not a real, true, genuine believer in and follower of Christ.

I lived less than a kilometer from the East German border in 1962-64 while in the military, listening to Soviet artilliery practicing just across the border. Then after university, I spent 3.5 years in mission work taking millions of Bibles, New Testaments, and other Christian literature behind the Iron Curtain. We visited Czechoslovakia just a couple of years after the 1968 Soviet invasion. I met Christians whose children were driven insane by the incessant anti-Christian, Marxist indoctrination in the schools there. One of my coworkers spent six months in Moscow's infamous Lubianka Prison being interrogated every day by the KGB until he broke. Several other coworkers spent weeks or months in communist prisons, five were killed behind the Iron Curtain. And I met other fake Christians who had actually "gone over to the other side" and would report me to the secret police, as I learned later. Then my wife and I spent 17 years in the USSR as it fell apart and in Russia. I know our phone lines and email accounts were monitored. So I've personally experienced what Rod Dreher is writing about.

Torture is still going on today in some communist countries: the article "Former Uighur Detention Camp Teacher Describes Interrogations, Screaming, Imprisonments" tells of torture and forced sterilization of Uighurs in today's communist China. But in some countries, the Marxists have used and are using more subtle techniques: Rod Dreher describes how believers suffered in Czechoslovakia during the Soviet era. But that country was not made communist by force; rather, because they had been betrayed by Western diplomats who sold out Czechoslovakia to appease Hitler (British PM Neville Chamberlain in 1938 after concluding the Munich Agreement, proclaimed he had secured "peace in our time."), the Czechs welcomed the "liberating" Red Army at the end of WW2. But then the Soviets began quietly installing "their own people" in the news media, government, police, and military leadership. Before most Czechs realized how they had been deceived and infiltrated, they were living under a Soviet-controlled dictatorship.

And so it happens when "peace in our time," free love, free abortions, free housing, free education, free healthcare, free... free... free... is what the lying politicians, educators, and news media keep pumping into our minds -

"Everyone deceives his neighbor, and does not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves to commit iniquity. Your habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord of Hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how else should I do, because of the daughter of my people? Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceit: one speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he lays wait for him. Shall I not visit them for these things? says the Lord; shall my soul not be avenged on such a nation as this? For the mountains I will take up a weeping and wailing, and for the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled, they are gone." (Ezekiel 9:5-10)

Of course, there's a price to pay when everything's free: after all of the "filthy rich capitalist exploiters" have fled abroad or been executed, after all their industries have been run into the ground, and after all the natural resources have been polluted or plundered, then the government simply resorts to wildly printing so much worthless money that the economy goes belly up and the people begin lying, cheating, and stealing just to survive. We witnessed this first-hand in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and the USSR. Construction of apartment blocks for "the proletariat" was so sloppy that the buildings were falling apart before they were finished and just after the first people moved in they looked like 100-year-old slums.

If we replaced a burned-out light bulb in the hallway of our apartment building in Russia, it would be stolen and replaced with another burned-out light bulb by the next morning. (There was a joke: why does a burned-out light bulb cost 10 rubles but a new light bulb only cost 5 rubles? Because you can't buy any new light bulbs.) Telephone lines disappeared from the poles so the thieves could sell the copper as scrap metal. Russians would take the windshield wipers, tires and wheels off and the batteries out of their cars each night, or else they would come out the next morning to find their car propped up on bricks, wipers, batteries, tires and wheels missing. An American friend in Moscow bought a new Russian car late one afternoon, planning to install an anti-theft alarm the next day, but the car was stolen the first night! Orphanages were full of disabled children that their parents simply refused to take home from the hospital, or the parents were alcoholics, so these children were malnourished, socially undeveloped, and barely cared for in the orphanages.

But today we in the West think we have everything: an overabundance of food, big homes, air conditioning, nice cars, high-definition color TVs, high-speed internet, a dizzying array of streaming movie services, modern medicine, antibiotics, the Pill, etc., so that when anything goes haywire, we don't know how to cope. This is what you get when you worship the false gods of Socialism and/or materialism -

"I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. She teaches and seduces my servants to commit sexual immorality, and to eat things sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great oppression, unless they repent of her works. I will kill her children with Death, and all the churches will know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts" (Revelation 2:20-23).

There are always those nay-sayer pseudo-Christians, even some pastors, who say - "You can believe whatever you want, love whomever you like, and behave however you choose: if you really feel you're a girl although you were born a boy, go ahead and take estrogen injections, have that surgery, and be whatever you want to be, or if you beget a baby with your girlfriend - just get rid of it, go ahead and kill your baby in the womb!" This is the softness of good times and over-ripe liberty that has rotted into license, exactly the sort of thing St. Peter wrote about -

"For, uttering great swelling words of emptiness, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by licentiousness, those who are indeed escaping from those who live in error; promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for by whom a man is overcome, by the same is he also brought into bondage" (2 Peter 2:18-19).

Those false promises of liberty lead to servitude and corruption, as I have just described. But there is a way out of this bondage: it's what the glorified Christ proclaimed to the Apostle John about the lukewarm Christians of Laodicia -

"Because you say, 'I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing;' and don't know that you are the wretched one, miserable, poor, blind, and naked; I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see. As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with Me" (Revelation 2:17-20).

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 10 Oct. 2020.)

Saturday, September 26, 2020

Freedom, Vices and Virtues

virtues and vices Most people have the idea that "freedom" or "liberty" means you can do whatever you want, or more limited - whatever is legal. But is that correct?

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

In Galatians 5:1, the Apostle Paul writes - "Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don't be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." There are two extremes of freedom or liberty. The first extreme is its limitation: in verses 2-6, St Paul the extreme limitation of legalism -

"Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing. Yes, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. You are alienated from Christ, you who desire to be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace. For we, through the Spirit, by faith wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision amounts to anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love."

By mentioning "circumcision" St. Paul is referring to being initiated into Judaism and swearing to keep all the detailed ordinances of the Law of Moses as spelled out in the Talmud, hundreds and hundreds of items you can and cannot do. St. Paul, on the other hand, was preaching the Gospel of God's grace to all mankind, the Good News that the promise of blessings given to Abraham before the Law was given to Moses are now available to everyone through Christ. But Judaizers came around after Paul preached this Good News: they insisted that in order to be a Christian, you first must become a Jew and follow the Law of Moses.

The other extreme of freedom or liberty St. Paul mentions is in verses 13 and 14 - "For you, brothers, were called to freedom. Only don't use your freedom as an excuse to gratify the flesh, but serve one another through love. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" This tells us that freedom doesn't mean we can do whatever we want, whatever our passions and desires urge us to do. Rather, it means we are enabled by the Holy Spirit to be considerate of others, to love for them just as much as we love for ourselves. Paul write in verses 16-18 -

"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law."

So we can summarize the meaning of freedom this way: Freedom is the Holy Spirit-given ability and responsibility to follow just the two great commands: love God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

The Apostle Paul continues in Galatians 5:19-21 to explain the consequences of thinking that freedom means we can do whatever our desires urge us to do -

"Now the works of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, gluttony, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God."

When most people hear the word "sin," they think it only refers to adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, and lustfulness. Or they laugh it off as old-fashioned thinking, saying "Love is love, it doesn't matter who you love!" But St. Paul includes "uncleanness" - homosexuality and lesbianism - as sins, adding lustful thoughts to the list too, just as Christ taught.

Next comes idolatry and sorcery, to which most people say - "Well, that was then, this is now: we know those things don't really exist anymore!" But what do those words really mean? The Greek word "eidolatria" means the worship of false gods, not only gold, silver, bronze, or stone statues, but also anything other than the true God that becomes the center focus of our lives. And the word "sorcery" or "witchcraft" in some translations is the Greek word "farmakoia" taking chemical subsances that induce altered states of consciousness, which can open the door to evil spirits. This illustrates the interconnection of body, soul and spirit.

Then comes a whole laundry list of vices: "hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, gluttony, and things like these." Some of these - jealousy, anger, rivalry, envy - might seem not so bad, but they can lead to hatred, gluttony, and murder. If we open the door of our hearts to the former little demons, it's like letting the camel's nose into the tent: the bigger, fiercer demons can follow in after.

So here we have a whole laundry list of vices, 18 of them, that make our lives harder, baser, and uglier. But the antidote comes next, in verses 22-24 - "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts." Just nine virtues, making our lives beautiful and glorious. These nine angelic spiritual forces can overcome the 18 demonic forces... if only Christ has taken control and we have"crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts."

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 26 Sep. 2020.)

Sunday, September 13, 2020

"Rule by Experts" is Pseudo-Science

The article "Rule by Experts" Is Tyranny Shrouded in Science begins with - "Does the COVID-19 crisis support Neil deGrasse Tyson's call for 'Rationalia,' a world in which 'science' reigns supreme? Here's how C.S. Lewis would have answered." Read the whole article!

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

So, what did C.S. Lewis actually write about this? The article continues - "C.S. Lewis wrote of this 'man-molding' in The Abolition of Man. He observed that the innovators and conditioners attempting to reshape society were doing so by attacking traditional values and mores." -

"A great many of those who 'debunk' traditional or (as they would say) 'sentimental' values have in the background values of their own which they believe to be immune from the debunking process. They claim to be cutting away the parasitic growth of emotion, religious sanction, and inherited taboos, in order that 'real' or 'basic' values may emerge."

When "science" goes beyond the boundaries of its definition - "the investigation by experimental trial and error of what can be known emperically by our five senses and instruments" - then it becomes "Scientism" or a "pseudo-science," an ideology based on the mistaken notion that the only things which really exist are those things that we can know emperically by our five senses and instruments. Thus it exceeds its own boundaries, transforming itself into a semi-religious worldview which denies the existence of the religious, the supernatural: only "natural" things are real, it says. We can't know God or the supernatural through our five senses, so that realm is simply a fairy-tale dreamed up by primitive man's overactive imagination trying to make sense of the world and life.

When faced with the problems of the limits of human knowledge and the seemingly endless number of events interacting with each other in this vast universe, Scientism says - "Everything is relative to everything else, there are absolutely no absolutes, and that's the absolute truth!" Do you see the paradox, the logical contradiction, there? It's like the high school sophmore who barely passed Beginning Algebra where he struggled with equations that had one variable, so when he got into Advanced Algebra with multiple-variable equations, he simply threw up his hands and said - "This is impossible to solve! There's no way anyone can find an answer!"

Yes, life can be frustrating, and not only for high school sophmores. But then the teacher patiently calms down the student and says - "What we need to do is to find just one fixed value and from there, we can start to solve the equation for all of those variables. Let's search for the constants." Searching for the constants, the real, unchanging, true truths, isn't easy - it takes time and effort... plus the conviction that there has to be an answer, or else our human rationality is itself irrational, so there would be no reason to search for an answer!

In our everyday experiences, we filter out roughly 95% of all the sensory input coming into our eyes, ears, touch, taste, and smell. If we didn't learn to do this as a child, we'd be overwhelmed by all of the "firehose of data" coming at us, which is what happens with autistic children. Then our brains try to process that 5% of raw data into useful information. But "we don't know what we don't know" - physicists are now saying that their delicate instruments indicate there must be something "out there" that those instruments can't detect, but by their calculations, this "dark matter" accounts for 95% of what exists in the whole universe.

So it comes down to this: our five senses and instruments can only perceive 5% of what exists, and of that 5%, our brains filter out roughly another 95%, meaning we can only ever possibly know 5% of 5%, or 0.0025 (that's 1/4 of 1%) of what exists. And most people know much less than that! This ought to make us very, very humble about how much we can ever know by scientific method or any intellectual endeavour. How could any "rule by experts" possibly know all of the unintended outcomes of their decisions?

So we need to go back to that "Advanced Algebra teacher," the ancient wisdom (Sophia) of God revealed to Moses and the prophets in the written word of God, the Old Testament, then to all nations through the living Word of God (Logos), Yeshua Meshiah in Hebrew, or Jesus Christ from the Greek language. He said - "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30) and "I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father but by Me!" (John 14:6). He is the only Way to ultimate Truth. The Apostle Paul wrote -

"For though we walk in the flesh, we don't wage war according to the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds, tearing down false ideologies and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ; and being in readiness to discipline all disobedience, when your obedience will be made full" (2 Corinthians 10:3-6).

Scientism leads to a dead-end: we must tear down this false ideology. We can, however, know the One Absolute, that One Fixed Constant to which everything else is relative. But it isn't easy, it comes only by "pursuing holiness, without which no one will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). "But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Mankind was created in the image and likeness of God, but fell into sin and rebellion against the knowledge of God. Then Jesus Christ, Who is the image (icon) of the Father, came to "make purification for our sins" (Hebrews 1:3) and restore us back into His image and likeness. That is holiness, that is the true knowledge of God!

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 13 Sep. 2020.)

Saturday, August 29, 2020

Where are the 90 percent?

Jesus asked the one leper out of the ten He cleansed - "Where are the other nine?" Only one of them was truly thankful... and he was a heretic.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

(BTW, this photo has a link to a really cool video for kids!) You know the story of the Ten Lepers in Luke 17:11-19 - Jesus and His disciples were "up north" in Israel, in Galilee which is right next to Samaria, the region that used to be the center of the ten tribes of Israel that the Lord allowed to be carried off into exile because of their idolatry. The lower-class, poor Jews who were left there had mixed with pagan peoples the Babylonians had resettled there. The result was a semi-Jewish, semi-pagan religious culture. The "true Jews" further south really despised those heretic Samaritans who had polluted the true Jewish faith with their pagan beliefs and practices.

But the fact that one of those ten was a Samaritan didn't bother Jesus: He healed all ten lepers of their awful disease and told them to present themselves to the priest for the ritual of cleansing. That ritual was like a certificate of approval that validated their cleansing and allowed them to get back into society again. So nine of them got on with their normal lives, but only one came back to Jesus to thank Him, and he was one of those despised, heretic Samaritans.

In doing this, Jesus no doubt rankled the Scribes and Pharisees, those sticklers for every detail of the rituals in the Law of Moses and the Mishnah - the legal appendices in their tradition. But what did the prophet Isaiah write about this? In Isaiah 1:13-23 the Lord says -

"Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to Me; new moons, sabbaths, and convocations: I can't bear with evil assemblies. My soul hates your new moons and your appointed feasts; they are a burden to Me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread forth your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourself clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes; cease to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. 'Come now, and let us reason together,' says the Lord: 'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.' How the faithful city has become a prostitute! She was full of justice; righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers. Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water. Your princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes, and follows after rewards. They don't judge the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come to them."

The Jewish people had been observing their rituals, but without sincere and heartfelt repentance and turning from sin, those rituals became just an empty show, a stinking farce in the Lord's nostrils. Like the nine of the ten lepers, they performed the prescribed rituals but went back to their former "normal" lives of sinful, self-centered practices just like Isaiah described: sexual immorality, murder, greed for wealth, rebellion, thievery, bribery, and corruption of their justice system.

What's the solution to these evils? Repentance! - "Wash yourselves, make yourself clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes; cease to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." Then, if they do this, the Lord says - "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it."

Theres a saying about church members: "It's ten percent of the congregation that does ninety percent of the work." Like the one leper who came back to thank Jesus for being healed, it's often the few quiet, simple, and rather ordinary people who really "walk the walk" and not just "talk the talk" - merely observing the religious rituals and then leaving to get back to their "normal" lives. It's like the prophet Isaiah described as follows -

"The Lord said, 'Because this people draw near to Me, and with their mouth and with their lips to honor Me, but have removed their heart far from Me, and their fear of Me is a commandment of men which has been taught them; therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid'" (Isaiah 29:13-14).

What percentage of the Israelites in the days of Isaiah and Moses actually "drew near to the Lord" and not just paid him lip service, we don't know. But I can imagine that it was likely about 10 percent. Where are the 90 percent? They were messing around with idolatry, sexual immorality, greed, thievery, bribery, and corruption. They showed up at the temple to perform their rituals but then went back to their "normal" lives. The Apostle Paul wrote about this -

"Now I would not have you ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. However with most of them, God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, 'The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.' Neither let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them committed, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell" (2 Corinthians 10:1-8).

The ancient Israelites weren't "good for nothings," St. Paul says they were good for one thing: a bad example, one not to follow! He is clearly drawing a parallel between the Israelites passing through the Red Sea and Christian baptism, between drinking the water from the rock and Christian communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. But Paul warns the Christians in Corinth not to be like the Israelites who had taken part in those saving acts but then turned back to satisfy their lusts. It is so easy and "natural" to just go through the religious rituals and then fall back into our old, "normal" way of life. It takes real repentance and spiritual discipline to strive for holiness. May we be counted among the ten percent!

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 29 Aug. 2020.)

Sunday, August 16, 2020

God Does Not Lead Us Into Temptation

"But... but... but... doesn't the Lord's Prayer state - 'And do not lead us into temptation'?" - many people might ask.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

A few years ago, Pope Francis remarked that the Italian and English versions of the Lord's Prayer weren't quite accurate: the article God does not lead us into temptation, Satan does explains: "This is not a good translation," per the pope.

The article continues: "The standard versions of the prayer are translated from the Latin, which was translated from the New Testament in Greek. While he said nothing about ordering a new translation, Francis noted how the French bishops had decided that beginning Dec. 3, the first Sunday of Advent, French Catholics would change the line to the equivalent of 'do not let us enter into temptation.'"

This has been on my mind ever since I heard what the pope said. It is actually rather important: he admits that the original Greek text is more correct than the Latin and many other modern translations. Is this an admission that earlier papal imprimaturs on Roman Catholic Bibles were not infallible? Does it mean that our Bibles are not inerrant? What does the Greek text say?

"And do not lead us into temptation..." in most English translations uses the imperative mood of the verb. But the verb is actually in the subjunctive mood: "May we not be led into temptation" or we could put in in the more everyday, normal declarative mood: "You do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil" that makes more sense and is consistent with the meaning of many other passages of Scripture:

For example, in James 1:13-14 we read - "Let no man say when he is tempted, 'I am tempted by God,' for God can't be tempted by evil, and He Himself tempts no one. But each one is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed." God tempts no one. The true God is not the "Yin-Yang" of eastern religions, a combination of good and evil - that's pagan fatalism; rather, He is all-good, all-holy, and all-merciful.

And 1 Corinthians 10:13 states - "No temptation has taken you but such as man can bear. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." Instead of God initiating temptation, He provides a way for us to escape temptation. Sin is not inevitable for the Christian.

This brings up an important point: we must never say - "The devil made me do it!" - or - "I can't help it, that's just the way I was made!" This is shifting the blame to the devil, or worse yet, shifting the blame to God who created us. God created mankind and said - "This is very good!" - Genesis 1:31. He didn't create us badly or to do bad, He created us as very good beings.

God also created us with rationality to understand the likely consequences of our actions, and with moral freedom to choose between good and bad actions. We can choose to love and obey Him so that we will live forever, or we can choose to follow our own passions and suffer the consequences of bad actions: spiritual and finally physical death. St. John wrote -

"Don't love the world, neither the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father's love isn't in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, isn't the Father's, but is the world's. The world is passing away with its lusts, but he who does God's will remains forever" (1 John 2:15-17). Our own Passions, Possessions, and Pride are what lead us into temptation and sin: these were the three temptations of Christ and the three areas in which the devil tempts us also. We must take responsibility and resist the devil as Christ did.

All of this relates to another incorrect translation: in the Latin Vulgate Bible, Romans 5:12 stated - "Therefore, as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, for in him [masculine, referring to Adam] all sinned." The correct translation is - "...death passed to all men, in that [neuter] all sinned." But by accepting Jerome's Latin Vulgate translation of this verse unquestioningly, Augustine developed his doctrines of mankind's total depravity and God's absolute sovereignty in electing just a small number of people for salvation, damning the rest to the eternal fires of hell: we hapless humans have no choice, no moral freedom to love and obey God, we're all totally depraved, it all depends on God's predestining who is among the elect. Wrong! The correct meaning of Romans 5:12 is that death passed to all men in that all of us have sinned: see Romans 3:23 - "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." We are responsible for our own decisions and actions.

To believe in God's absolute sovereignty and our total depravity would make God responsible for evil, for our own bad decisions and actions. But it strips us of our freedom to make moral choices. We can't change the cards we're dealt in life, but we can change how we play those cards. God is not a monster who arbitrarily, willy-nilly, decides to save just a few and damn all the rest. The idea of such a terrible god drives people to unbelief and atheism. We can really and truly say - "You do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Our freedom rests upon our moral responsibility for our actions. Thank the Lord for creating us this way!

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 16 Aug. 2020.)

Sunday, August 2, 2020

CITA, But What Was My Question?

Christ is the answer How many times, when watching a football game or baseball game on TV, have you seen a spectator holding up a big sign with "John 3:16" written on it? He knows what this verse says, but most of the TV audience likely don't know - they just think he's some kind of religious nut-case.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

A similar saying that you might have seen on a car's front license plate holder or back window is "Christ Is The Answer" (CITA). "Yes, indeed," people might say, "But What Was My Question?" Do we take the time to really listen to people's pain, their questions, their "felt needs" - and try to help them solve their problems... or do we simply trot out a trite phrase like "Jesus Loves You" or "Christ Is The Answer" ...and walk away?

Yes indeed, Jesus Christ loves every one of us and He is the ultimate answer to all our sorrows and needs. But Jesus Himself didn't just say to people - "I love you and I'm the answer." Rather, He fed the people who were hungry, He healed those who were sick or disabled, and He drove out the demons that were messing with their minds and souls. In other words, He helped them with their pain, their "felt needs," He fed the five thousand before saying - "I am the Bread of Life: he who comes to Me will not be hungry, and he who believes in Me will never be thirsty" (John 6:35).

It's easy to come up with some stock answer that we've seen on social media or TV when we hear about demonstrations and riots in the cities. But have we taken the time to find out about what the poor, mainly Afro-Americans and Latinos but also a fair number of White folks, have experienced? Do we see them as a case within a class or category, or do we get to know them as real persons who have a hurting history and shaky present? Let's take the time to really listen and learn!

Is there some way for White, middle-class Americans (and others) to understand what Black Americans have experienced due to remnants of slavery? Yes! We've found free versions of Booker T. Washington's autobiography Up From Slavery: download the PDF version or the EPUB version from our website. Booker T. Washington was born into slavery but taught himself to read and worked his way through a higher education, going on to establish the Tuskeegee Institute in Alabama. I'm over halfway through the book: it's inspiring reading!

Dennis Prager's website has a new 5-minute video: "Who Is Booker T. Washington?" It briefly tells about him and his philosophy of teaching former slaves a marketable trade as well as "book learnin'" so they could use these skills to contribute to society. The video also mentions W.E.B. DuBois, born in 1868 in a relatively tolerant and integrated community in Massachusetts, the first Afro-American to earn a doctorate. He gradually became more radical, joined the U.S. Communist Party, and eventually renounced his citizenship and moved to Ghana, where he died. So we see here two different approaches: working with the system to improve it, or working against the system to overthrow it.

Another famous Afro-American, Frederick Douglass, was an abolitionist, social reformer, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement. Here are free copies of his book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave: download the PDF version or the EPUB version from our website. Take the time to learn and understand where our Black neighbors are coming from. [A free EPUB e-book reader app is Calibre for Windows, Macs, and Linux.]

King David wrote about the Lord's great glory - "He raises up the poor out of the dust, lifts up the needy from the ash heap; that He may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people" (Psalm 113:7-8). I've mentioned before that my first ancestor in the New World was a "white slave," and indentured servant who belonged to one of the Mayflower Pilgrims but was emancipated en route to America because the Pilgrims decided not to have slavery in their colony.

He was a poor, roughneck Brit: he and another former indentured servant fought the first duel in the New World (thankfully neither of them were killed) and he was put in stocks for brawling. His descendants, however, went on to become U.S. Presidents, Civil War generals, governors, and preachers. I write this not to boast: about 10% of Americans, although they may not know it, have an ancestor who came over on the Mayflower and likely about ten U.S. Presidents in their ancestry. We may have had humble beginnings, but God can raise up the poor out of the dust!

It's an anachronism, however, to read my current situation into the past history of my Black neighbors: over half of the people in our 12-unit condo building are Afro-American: I need to get to know them better in order to understand where they're coming from. Each and every person has a different, unique life story.

In Romans 10:4, the Apostle Paul wrote - "For Christ is the fulfillment of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes." Who doesn't want to have their dreams and goals fulfilled? But some have given up their hopes. Some have become bitter and rebellious because they think "the system" is stacked against them. Relying on the law isn't the answer. Law relies on the threat or use of force, so they answer force with force.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said - "Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill it" (Matthew 5:17). Jesus Christ is ~~the fulfillment~~ our fulfillment. We don't need to rely on force or violence. Jesus is the goal, so let's run the race to that goal for the prize: to be renewed, transformed into His image and likeness: "We all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18).

But before we shoot out a quick, glib saying like "Jesus Loves You" or "Christ Is The Answer," let's take the time to really listen and find out what their question is.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 02 Aug. 2020.)