A Little Yeast Leavens the Whole Lump
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Here's what happens when you have too much of a good thing! It takes just a spoonful or so of yeast to make a whole batch of bread rise up: put in too much, and you'll have a real mess on your hands. The same is true with our emotions: they serve a good purpose when kept in moderation, but when we let them rise up and spill over, watch out! Lust, anger, greed, jealousy... any or all of these can make a big mess of our lives. St. Paul describes what happens when sexual attraction is allowed to turn into lust:
"It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father's wife. You are puffed up, and didn't rather mourn, that he who had done this deed might be removed from among you. For I most assuredly, as being absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has done this thing. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump? Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened." (1 Corinthians 5:1-7a)
As I was putting together this issue of Hosken-News, my wife Cheryl was watching a home improvement TV program. They showed a beautiful brick fireplace with nice tiles laid in the floor in front of it. That's a great image of useful fire: it's a good thing when it is kept in its place, but if it jumps beyond the bricks and tiles onto the furniture or wooden floor, you've got a real problem! It's the same way with the emotion of sexual attraction: God gave us this gift for the procreation of the human race. When humans discovered how to make fire and control it, civilization took a huge leap forward. And when God revealed to Moses the principle of monogamous marriage between a man and a woman who are not blood relatives, the stability and growth of civilized human society experienced a great advance. One only has to study cultures where pornography, incest, polygamy, adultery, homosexual acts, and rape were or are allowed to see that those cultures don't advance, they soon degenerate and collapse.
"But... but... but..." - some people (most often those with "liberal" college educations) will object: the same bad stuff goes on even in so-called Christian societies. Yes, there is still a tendency to sin even among Christians. But as the above Scripture quote indicates, it is highly frowned upon even to the point of excommunication from the Church: see verse 11 of the above chapter - "But as it is, I wrote to you not to have fellowship with anyone who is called a brother who is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. Don't even eat with such a person." When society or churches relax those standards, things begin to fall apart. It's a gradual process that takes two or three generations (60 to 90 years), but it's happening.
When I was a child, homosexuality was a crime and child molestation was a capital offense. The "progressives," however, argued that you mustn't condemn all gays because not all of them are child molesters. There may be a grain of truth in that sand they're throwing in your eyes, but see this government statistic: Comparative Data of Childhood and Adolescence Molestation in Heterosexual and Homosexual Persons - there's a ten- to twenty-times greater probability of homosexuals molesting children compared to heteros. Not every drunk driver kills a pedestrian, but the probability is so much greater that we have laws against drunk driving - and rightly so.
That is like saying not everyone who looks at pornography is a child molester. But statistics of those in prison for child molestation show that virtually 100% of them were addicted to pornography. Here's another article on this subject: Child Molestation and Homosexuality. People will compare the numbers of molestations by gay vs. staight men and say - "Look at the statistics: gays molest fewer kids than straights!" But they ignore the fact that gays make up only 1% to 2% of the population, and yet commit 35% of child molestations. All of this indicates that when emotions and passions become misdirected and out of control, when the fire jumps out of the fireplace, we have serious social problems to deal with.
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Why do I write about these things? It's because these are the things that secularists, leftists, and "progressives" are trying to convince us are perfectly normal and acceptable today. Seventy years ago, I and other neighborhood children were molested by a homosexual neighbor and he was sent to prison. But today, with the normalizing and mainstreaming of pornography, fornication, adultery, and homosexuality, they're getting away scot-free, and their goal is to weaken the social fabric to the point of collapse. This is called "Cultural Marxism" or "the long march through the institutions" - law, education, arts, entertainment, communication, and social services. When society is stressed to the point of collapse, they can pull off their revolution and install a so-called proletarian paradise. But the twentieth century is replete with examples of how utopian socialist experiments have failed miserably, with the senseless murder of over a hundred million of their own people.
In the article 'We will have papa and mamma': Putin says no to gay 'marriage' in Russia, the Russian president displays that country's distaste for homosexuals and gay "marriage," but that man is hardly leading by example, having dumped his wife in favor of his female judo "partner." It's very easy for any of us, though, to say - "I'm not so bad, look at that person over there!" Guilt projection and blame redirection is a disinformation trick that's as old as the hills.
In 1 Cor. 6:9-11, St. Paul writes - "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. Such were some of you, but you were washed. But you were sanctified. But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Spirit of our God." Opponents will say - "That Paul guy, he's just a homophobe and misogynist!"
No, Paul is not a homophobe, he is a "kharisophile." "Kharis" is the Greek word for "grace" which is God's free gift of the Holy Spirit's power to transform our lives: "Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 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 3:17-18). And in Philippians 3:20-21, Paul wrote - "For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; Who will change the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the working by which he is able even to subject all things to Himself." This is what awaits those who respond to God's grace: not corruption and death, but liberation from lust and transformation into beings who share God's glory!
And it's not just St. Paul who spoke out on this topic: on the Day of Pentecost, St. Peter preached to a huge crowd - "'Repent, and be baptized, everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all who are far off, even as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.' With many other words he testified, and exhorted them, saying, 'Save yourselves from this perverted generation!'" (Acts 2:38-40). Yes, the Greek text actually uses the word "perverted." Sexual immorality and perversion were rampant in the first-century Greco-Roman Empire, including Israel. But the Holy Spirit transforms us and enables us to overcome perversion.
"Therefore I urge you, brothers [and sisters], by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:1-2). That's radical transformation!
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!
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St. Paul wrote - "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds, throwing down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). St. Paul also wrote: "For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world's rulers of the darkness of this age, and against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12).