Hosken-News Blog

Saturday, May 29, 2021

Morally Free and Secure

It has become urgent to Have Free and Secure Communications due to the "cancel culture" of intimidating, shaming, demoting, firing, shadow-banning, and outright censoring of mostly Christian and morally or politically conservative people.

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

The above web-page, Here's How to Have Free and Secure Communications, details what we're up against and how to exercise our freedom of religion and freedom of speech in the face of the "panicdemic," pressure to conform to the crowd, or at least to shut up. It is perhaps best summed up by the saying – "You are totally awesome and unique, just like everyone else!" – which is simply another way of telling you to be a nonconformist, to be and do whatever turns you on, just like everyone around you who is conforming to nonconformist culture by rejecting traditional Judeo-Christian ethics.

For such people, freedom of religious expression and speech means that you are free to believe and say anything and everything in general but nothing in particular. If you dare to express the ideas that only one God exists (monotheism), that truth is objectively true, that A is not equal to not-A, and that traditional Judeo-Christian morality is the best way for society to procreate and perpetuate itself (monogamy), you will be labeled as a bigot, racist, and/or Fascist. Those who make such accusations are blissfully unaware that Fascism is merely socialism dressed up in the cloak of "we are the elect, the chosen, the super race."

The conclusion of my thesis, "A FIRST-CENTURY VIEW OF YESHUA, THE MESSIAH – A Historical Account of Yesous Khristos, the Anointed One," attempts to describe how such a theology or ideology of being chosen and elect by God can lead to and in fact has led to being turned against those very people who believed they were the chosen and elect: Jews and Christians.

The problem stems from Augustine's use of Jerome's mistranslation of Romans 5:12, saying that "sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, for in him (Adam) all have sinned" instead of "...in that all have sinned" (neuter in the original Greek, so it can't be "him"). This verse became the Rosetta stone, the key to Augustine's interpreting St. Paul's passage – "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. Whom He predestined, those He also called. Whom He called, those He also justified. Whom He justified, those He also glorified. What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:28-31).

So, what's the big deal? What's the difference, anyway? A great deal of difference: from Romans 5:12 Augustine developed his doctrine of "total depravity" – that because you and I are born guilty of Adam and Eve's sin, we are therefore totally depraved and incapable of doing anything good, we are all damned from birth because of our original parents' sin, which has been passed on through sexual intercourse down through the generations to us. The only way out is through baptism. But even Augustine agonized over the thought that God would damn to hell an unbaptized, innocent baby.

So Augustine had to develop his doctrine of predestination and limited grace in order to escape this dilemma: he taught that God has predestined some to be saved – the elect – which of course included himself! – and the rest of humanity to be damned. Have you ever met any Augustinians or Calvinists who weren't totally convinced that they were "elect"? Of course not! It is psychologically very assuring to rationalize that you and I are better than everyone else (but I'm not so sure about you). The problem with this is it shifts the moral responsibility from me to my forebearers and back to Adam and Eve: "It's not my fault, it's hereditary – it's genetic!" which in turn means that if I believe that I'm "of the elect" then I can get away with doing whatever I want because I'm not morally responsible, I'm elect, elite, above the law. That leads to mass immorality, mass murder, and genocide, as history has proven.

The key to understanding election and predestination is the phrase "For whom He foreknew" (Romans 8:29). Only God has foreknowledge, so only God knows who are predestined. We cannot possibly know for certain if we are of the elect – it's impossible because we humans are finite creatures, bound by time and space, we don't know the future. God's foreknowledge does not cancel my freedom of choice, and it is precisely that freedom that makes me morally responsible to make the right choices, not "whatever turns me on."

When we correctly understand Romans 5:12 as placing the responsibility for sin and death squarely on each and every one of us, not on someone else, we see the need to call out to the merciful God – "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner!" or just – "Lord, have mercy!" The one true God is not a Yin-Yang pagan god that is a mixture of good and evil, he is all-merciful and all-loving, which means he respects our freedom, he doesn't force himself on us. So as for me and my house, we choose to follow the Lord.

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 May 2021.)

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Saturday, May 8, 2021

The Great Commission

Yeshua, the Messiah, known to the Greek-speaking Jews in the Dispersion as "Yesous, the Khristos – the Annointed One," whose followers saw him executed, dying on a Roman cross, suddenly came back to life and appeared several times to his eleven Apostles and many of his other disciples. Click on this photo to read about all of these appearances.

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

Scroll down a little further in the above photo's link, where you'll see "Yeshua Appears to All the Apostles in Galilee" and issues the Great Commission as follows: "16 But the eleven disciples went into Galilee, to the mountain where Yeshua had sent them. 17 When they saw him, they bowed down to him, but some doubted. 18 Yeshua came to them and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to obey everything that I commanded you to do. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.' Amen" (Matthew 28:16-20).

At 10 a.m. this Thursday morning our time, which was 8 p.m. their time, I had the privilege of speaking on this Scripture passage to some evangelists and their house churches in Bangladesh. I'd like to share with you what I said: first of all, in v. 17 it states that still "some doubted." When people are presented with information – an event or an idea – that is entirely beyond anything they have experienced in their lives, they often simply can't comprehend it or believe it. Someone is standing here who was dead, many of these people saw him die, but here he is! Unbelievable! And so it is today, when people hear about the Virgin Birth of Yeshua, his miracles, his death and resurrection, they doubt it because it's entirely outside of their experience. I have had similar reactions from people who have never been outside the state where they were born when I tell them about our living in Russia for 17 years.

Then in v. 18, Yeshua says – "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth." Older translations use the word "power" but the Greek word "exousia" is better translated as "authority" or the right to do something. In the first days of Holy Week, Yeshua was debating with the Pharisees, Saducees, and Scribes about his authority. They asked – "By what authority do you do these things? Or who gave you this authority to do these things?" (Mark 11:28). Then he told them three parables, all dealing with the question of his authority versus theirs. His authority was his own, from God, and legitimate, theirs was an assumed authority and was being used in an illegitimate way, only to continue their hold on power.

When you see the word "Therefore" in v. 19, you should ask yourself what is it there for: it is there to connect the previous verse about Yeshua's authority with v. 19! He is saying in effect: "I have God-given authority and I am giving you, my Apostles, this same authority to go forth and make disciples of all nations." In some older translations, it states – "teach all nations" but it is more than just teaching the doctrines of Yeshua and the historical facts about him. Making disciples of all nations is training believers to do the things that Yeshua did: he and his disciples baptized people in the name of the holy Trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, they healed them, they fed the hungry, cleansed the lepers, they even cast out demons and raised the dead.

Verse 20 is very important to read carefully and understand, because many preachers don't explain it correctly: they say it means to teach people the parables that Yeshua taught, tell about his death on the cross and his resurrection, and tell people to believe these things. But that's just the start, just the basic truths. This verse in older translations states – "teach them to observe all that I commanded you" but the word "observe" can easily be misunderstood to mean "watch" or be a spectator. Too many church-goers view church as a spectator sport: they sit in their pews and watch a performance by the choir and the preacher. Wrong! The word "observe" actually means to "obey" or to "fulfill a command." What did Yeshua command his disciples to do? In Matthew ch. 10 and in Luke ch. 10 and ch. 11, he sent out his Apostles, commanding them to preach the Gospel, heal the sick, care for the needy, and cast out demons. The demons of today are the false ideologies of atheism, materialism, and secular humanism that hold captive literally billions of people, saying that Yeshua was just a prophet or a moral teacher, he didn't really do anything miraculous and he didn't rise from the dead, or that you can believe whatever you want – all religions are OK – but just keep it to yourself.

So in Matthew 28:18-20 we have authority in the Great Commission, and we have a continuation of Yeshua sending out his Apostles, in Acts 1:8 – "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth." Here the Greek word for "power" is "dunamis" and we get "dynamite" from this word. It means the strength or the ability to do something. In Matthew 28, Yeshua gave his Apostles authority or the right, and here in Acts 1, he promises to give them power or strength and ability to preach the Good News, heal the sick, care for the poor, and drive out evil powers.

The Apostle Peter writes about this: "God waited patiently in the days of Noah, while the ark was being built. In it, few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. This is a symbol of baptism, which now saves you - not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 3:20-21). The Ark is a symbol or a type of the Church, the Bride of Christ. The eight souls – Noah and his family – were the only ones saved from the flood. So to believe in Christ and be baptized is to be in the Body of Christ, the Church. There is no salvation outside of the Church, the Body of Christ. The Apostle Peter is teaching us that the flood was a symbol of baptism, which is the reality: baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit saves us, it's not simply like taking a bath to wash away the filth of the flesh, but it cleanses our conscience, our hearts' desires. We are resurrected with Christ in baptism into a new, spiritual life.

The Apostle Paul also writes on this topic: "He [God the Father] put all things in subjection under his [Christ's] feet, and gave him to be head over all things for the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all" (Ephesians 1:22-23). The Church is the Body of Christ, and only in the Church we can experience the fullness of Christ. The Bible is very important – the services of the Orthodox Church are full of Scripture, about 75% of each service is direct quotations, reading the Scriptures, or references to the words of Scripture. But the Bible isn't the source of all authority, Christ received "all authority" – he is the source – and he gave this authority to his Apostles.

The Apostle Paul writes – "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 ground of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:14-15). The Church is " the pillar and ground of the truth." In verses 1-7, Paul writes about the qulaities and duties of "overseers" or priests/pastors. The word "priest" is a shortened form of "presbyter" ("prest"). Timothy was bishop over the churches in Ephesus (ch. 1:3), and in ch. 5:17-22, Paul instructs him again about the virtues that an overseer should have before Timothy would ordain them – see v. 22. And the Apostle Paul appointed Titus as bishop in Crete (Titus 1:5-8) to ordain priests/pastors on that island.

The Church was established on the Day of Pentecost, when the promise of Acts 1:8 was fulfilled. God sent the Holy Spirit to give the Apostles power to go from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and then to the uttermost parts of the earth – to the Gentile nations. In Acts 11:19-26, we read how "ordinary believers" went from Jerusalem to Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, where they began sharing the Good News about Yeshua. When the Apostles in Jerusalem heard about this, they sent Barnabas to help the believers in Antioch organize a local church. He sent for Saul to help him. We know that Barnabas was a Levite (ch. 4:36) and Saul (later Paul) was a Pharisee: both of them were well-trained in the Scriptures. And so, they taught the believers in Antioch, and v. 26 states – "The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch." They weren't called Christians at the time Barnabas and Saul were there, church history tells us that it was Euodias, the second bishop in Antioch, who later called the disciples "Christians" – not all the facts are in the Bible, so it's important to also study church history. But the point is this: to be a Christian is to be a disciple, you can't be "just a Christian" and go to church once a month or a few times a year, and lead a moral life. A disciple isn't a super-Christian, someone who has decided to go all-out for Christ. A disciple is a Christian, and a Christian is a disciple. A disciple is someone who obeys and fulfills Christ's commands.

There were other bishops beside Timothy and Titus: after Euodias, Ignatius was bishop in Antioch, he was the little child that Yeshua took on his lap and said – "Let the little children come to me, for such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Both Ignatius and Polycarp were disciples of the Apostle John. Polycarp was the bishop of Smyrna. So what we see here is that the Apostles appointed well-trained and godly men to be bishops over the churches in various areas. This is how the Church is to be governed. This authority to ordain bishops and they would ordain overseers (priests/pastors) is the model that was established in the first century and continues to this day. These councils of godly men, bishops, are responsible to maintain true doctrine and practice.

Well then, what is the Church and how do we know if we are in it? Several Orthodox theologians have said – "We know where the Church is, but we do not know where the Church is not." There are genuine Christians, disciples of Yeshua, the Messiah – the Christ, who might not even know about Apostolic authority to ordain priests/pastors. But these disciples believe in Christ's birth from the Virgin Mary, his death for our sins and his resurrection. They believe in and were baptized in the name the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They believe that the Lord's Supper in some mysterious way beyond rational understanding is really the Body and Blood of Christ, and that when we partake of it, we become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). An Orthodox priest in Moscow (he's now a bishop) once told me: "If you believe these 3 things, you are Orthodox, whether you know it or not."

So there are members of the Body of Christ who are out there, waiting to be taught these truths, to learn that they are in the Church, Christ's Body. They are sharing the Good News of Yeshua, the Messiah. In extreme situations ("in extremis") when no bishop or priest is available, they are permitted to evangelize, baptize, and even conduct the Lord's Supper without official ordination, but they need to eventually be organized under Apostolic authority, like the disciples in Antioch were. This is how the Great Commission works!

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 8 May 2021.)

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Saturday, April 24, 2021

Holy Week

(← click!) Why do the Eastern Orthodox celebrate Holy Week and Easter so late in the Spring? It goes back to the calendar that Julius Caesar authorized. Later, when the united Church decided to set the date for Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon after Spring equinox, they were using that "Julian calendar."

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

The problem with that calendar was leap year: it inserted Feburary 29 every fourth year, period. Well, this was a bit too much, it should skip the leap year at the turn of each century except each fourth century. So by the 16th century, it was off by 8 days, Pope Gregory's astronomers informed him. The pope in 1582 unilaterally decreed that all Christians should adopt this new calendar, called the "Gregorian calendar." But the Eastern Church rejected it, saying the pope had no right to change the date of Easter ("Pascha" in the Eastern Church): only an all-church ("ecumenical") council could do that. By today, five centuries later, this 8-day difference has grown to 13 days, so now the Spring equinox comes 13 days later for Eastern Orthodox Churches.

Just after WWI, the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch called a conference to decide, among other items, whether to adopt the Gregorian calendar. They voted to do this, but because the bolshevik revolution had just taken place in Russia, the old Turkish Ottoman Empire was falling apart, and Greece was in the throes of fighting for independence, the patriarch was deposed and the decision to adopt the new calendar wasn't implemented. That was 100 years ago. It takes a lo-o-o-ong time for the Orthodox Church to change!

How does this relate to the days of Holy Week? For at least 50 years, Bible scholars have known that "Friday," the commonly-accepted translation for the Greek word paraskeuin is not quite correct. It means "Day of Preparation" for the Sabbath, which is usually on the seventh day of the week, so the Day of Preparation is most often on a Friday. But any Jewish holy day is considered a Sabbath, so the Day of Preparation can actually be any day of the week.

In my first attempt to write a harmony of the Gospels, in about 1970, it became clear to me that the generally-accepted understanding of Holy Week contains several problems with the naming of the days. Previously, however, Bible scholars attempted to solve these problems by proposing that Wednesday was a "quiet day," i.e., that nothing is written about it in the Bible. But if over one-third of all the Gospels is taken up by Holy Week, how can one suppose that the Gospel writers simply lost track of one day?

When I researched this question more deeply, I noticed that Yeshua came to Bethany "six days before the Passover," Jn. 12:1, and "the next day," Palm Sunday, Yeshua entered Jerusalem, Jn. 12:12. Every day of Holy Week is described in detail:
1. Sunday: Jn. 12:12; evening: Mk. 11:11
2. Monday: Mt. 21:18; Mk. 11:12; evening: Mk. 11:17-19
3. Tuesday: Mk. 11:20; and "after two days the Passover is coming" - Mt. 26:2
4. Wednesday: Mk. 14:12; evening: Mk. 14:17
5. His arrest during the night leading into Thursday: Lk. 22:52; Thursday morning: Mt. 27:1; "late afternoon" (in Greek: "opsios") just before sunset: Mt. 27:57
6. Friday: Mt. 27:62-66, the special Sabbath: Passover, a "quiet day"
7. Saturday: Mk. 16:1; Lk. 23:56b, the regular Sabbath, another "quiet day"

In some of the older Bible translations, the Greek word paraskeuin is translated as "Friday" leading people to conclude that Yeshua was crucified on Friday, but the word literally means "Preparation Day" (for the Sabbath). Now in the majority of new translations the word paraskeuin is translated simply as "Preparation Day." Usually the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week, Saturday, but in the Old Testament we learn that every Jewish holy day was considered Shabbat or a Sabbath: Lev. 16:29-31; Lev. 23:2-8 and 24. In Mk. 15:42 and Jn. 19:14 we see that the crucifixion of the rabbi Yeshua, the Messiah, took place on "Preparation Day" before this special Sabbath, the day lambs were sacrificed for Passover, and in Jn. 19:31 we read that this was not the usual Sabbath, but "that Sabbath was a special one" - the greatest holy day of the Jews, Passover. And the previous Sabbath was not seven days before this great Sabbath, but "six days before the Passover" - Jn. 12:1. The Church, however, has traditionally accepted the common usage of the word paraskeuin as "Friday," the day before the usual Sabbath or Saturday.

Jews and Orthodox Christians normally reckon the day as beginning at sunset and ending at the next sunset. But Yeshua changed this sunset-to-sunset order when he prophesied that "the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" - Mt. 12:39-40s, and it was fulfilled:
* Day 1: Thursday, Preparation Day: the Lamb of God was sacrificed, died at 3 p.m., buried in "late afternoon" (Mk. 15:42), and the night leading into Friday;
* Day 2: Friday (the special Sabbath, Passover) and the night leading into Saturday; and
* Day 3: Saturday (regular Sabbath), after sunset the women bought ointment, rested, went to the tomb just before dawn on Sunday, and saw the angel (Mk.16:1-5).

This moves the "quiet day" to Friday, the special Sabbath day of rest, (click the photo→) Passover, which makes much more sense. See also Jn. 2:19-21 that they would destroy the temple of His body, and He would and build it in three days; also Mt. 27:40 and 63 - "After three days I will rise again"; also Mk. 14:58 and 15:29.

Joseph of Arimathaea had three hours in which to bury Yeshua, from 3 p.m., "the ninth hour" or "late afternoon" to 6 p.m. when began this special Sabbath, Passover. In my opinion, the Body of Yeshua, the Messiah, lay in the grave from Thursday before sunset through early Sunday before dawn, the Day of Resurrection – exactly three days and three nights. But if the reader prefers to think that Yeshua was crucified on Friday, that is also one of the various possibilities. Neither one or the other affects our salvation in any way. Such non-dogmatic differences in Bible interpretation are called "theolegoumena" in Orthodoxy. The reason for bringing this detail up is simply to answer the critics who say that the Gospel narrative or Yeshua was wrong when he said he would be dead for three days and three nights. The most important thing is the fact that the Messiah was betrayed and crucified for our sins and rose for our justification.

So, barring another bolshevik revolution or overthrow of empires, it may take at least another 50 years for the Eastern Orthodox Church to recognize that paraskeuin in Greek can mean something other than "Friday" ...but I'm not holding my breath until that happens.

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 Apr. 2021.)

Sunday, January 17, 2021

As It Was in the Day of Noah

"As it was in the days of Noah, even so will it be also in the days of the Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise, even as it happened in the days of Lot: they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from the sky, and destroyed them all. So it will be in the day that the Son of Man is revealed" (Luke 17:26-30).

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

Put yourself in the sandals of a person back then: "There's that crazy Noah again, building that huge ship! Why on earth does he need such a big boat? There's no water anywhere near here deep enough for it to float in! All we need is a rowboat or a little sailboat to get around on the Euphrates and in the marshlands!" So they decided to get on with their lives: business as usual, preoccupied with everyday, mundane things, getting their sons and daughters married off, partying... until it was too late. And in the days of Lot, they ate and drank, engaged in homosexuality and wickedness: even Lot's own sons-in-law ignored his pleas to flee the city.

"The thoughts of their hearts were only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5-8). There was a lot of wickedness in Noah's time, but that is not what Jesus mentioned, as we see in Luke ch. 17. The ordinary tasks of daily life kept them from really thinking about what Noah was preaching and doing. They were so busy with the normal affairs of life that they failed to prepare to meet God. We can be so busy with a thousand and one different things. We have our jobs, families, household activities, education, recreation, entertainment – a whole host of things which occupy our time and interest. It's easy to become busy with so many different things that our spiritual life becomes choked: "That which fell among the thorns, these are those who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity" (Luke 8:14).

We are so busy with the daily stuff of life that we fail to dig deep and try to understand what is really going on around us. We take our cues from what most of the people are saying and we repeat it, until it becomes an axiomatic truth in our thinking. He who controls the narrative ends up having it written in history books. How many people at Christmas time actually think about the Incarnation of God, His partaking of human nature so that we can become partakers of the Divine nature (2 Peter 1:4)? Compare that to the constant barrage of songs and TV shows about a fat, old Santa Claus in a red suit with white fur trim, flying around the world in a sleigh drawn by twelve reindeer, led by Rudolph with a glowing red nose.

Santa knows who's naughty and nice, and will put a lump of coal or a switch in the stocking of naughty little boys and girls, so "be good for goodness' sake" (that's circular logic – 'be good because it's good to be good" – for sure!). And the jingle about Rudolph ends – "You'll go down in history!" Hardly anybody today knows that Saint Nicholas who stood against the heretic Arius at the First Ecumenical Council is the origin of the Santa Claus myth. So we end up thinking that the story about Jesus being born of the Virgin Mary is just as much a myth as Santa Claus and Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. Which has gone down in history these days?

Or we get drawn into vast conspiracy theories if we're politically oriented, or mind-boggling theories about the "End Times" and the "Rapture" if we're religiously oriented. At the end of Luke ch. 17, the disciples asked Jesus – "Where, Lord?" He said to them, "Where the corpse is, there will the vultures also be gathered together" (v. 37). What does this mean, anyway? As I understand it, Jesus is saying – "If I were to answer your question, it would be a dead give-away: all sorts of evil birds would swarm around it!" Perhaps that's too folksy an interpretation, but in Matthew chs. 24-25 when He told His disciples parables and teachings about the "end of the age," He said at least three times that nobody can know the day or hour when all these things will take place. Our task is to be always prepared, to pray without ceasing – be in communion with God at all times, and share the Good News.

And yet, some persist in insisting that they have inside knowledge of the "End Times," causing sectarian and heretical splits such as "pre-millenial," "post-millinial," pre-tribulational," post-tribulational," and "dispensational" divisions and denominations. In the first verse of Luke ch. 17, we read that Jesus said to His disciples, "It is impossible that no occasions of stumbling should come, but woe to him through whom they come!" That double-negative construction might be a little confusing, so let's look at how Matthew phrased it: "Woe to the world because of occasions of stumbling! For it must be that the occasions come, but woe to that person through whom the occasion comes!" (Mat. 18:7).

There will always be people who dream up their own distorted doctrines by misinterpreting Scripture or focusing only on a few phrases, ignoring all other relevant passages and what godly men before them have taught. Freedom of speech doesn't mean that any and every idea is just as valid and true as others: that's relativism. The real reason for allowing freedom of speech is so that the truth will ultimately be made clear: "No doubt there must be divisions among you so that the ones who are in the right may be clearly seen" (1 Corinthians 11:19).

In my last essay, "Cancel Culture," I quoted 1 Peter 3:15 – "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts; and always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, with gentleness and respect." This is how we should respond to hard times, but then the why follows:

"Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which He also went and preached to the spirits in prison, who before were disobedient, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, while the ark was being built. In it, few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. This is a symbol of baptism, which now saves you – not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 3:18-21).

Note carefully what the Apostle Peter wrote: the Ark is a symbol of baptism, which now saves us. He doesn't say that baptism is merely a symbol. The Ark is the symbol or the type, and baptism is the antitype – the reality of what the symbol or allegory represents. The Scriptural teaching here is that baptism saves us, not by washing the dirt off our flesh, our bodies; but by washing away the sin and guilt of our conscience, dying to the old self in baptism and being resurrected with Christ to a new life, the life in the Spirit. In the Apostle Peter's second letter, he wrote:

"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. For if God didn't spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved to judgment; and didn't spare the ancient world, but [God] preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, who was very distressed by the lustful life of the wicked (for that righteous man dwelling among them, was tormented in his righteous soul from day to day with seeing and hearing lawless deeds): the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment" (2 Peter 2:1-9).

Again, Peter alludes to Noah and the Ark, and to Lot and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. About the false teachers he says – "Many will follow their immoral ways." The Church Fathers and Saints (holy, godly men and women) all teach that the primary sin of the flesh is not sexual immorality, but rather gluttony. The former is more blatant – you either do it or you don't – but the latter is less obvious – everybody needs to eat, right? So why not enjoy it, indulge yourself and eat a little more... and a little more? The Fathers and Saints tell us that such yielding to the desires of the flesh little by little, bite by bite, opens us up to the more blatant sins of the flesh such as sexual immorality, drunkenness, and drugs. But the answer is clear: if "God preserved Noah" and He "delivered righteous Lot," He will also "deliver the godly out of temptation" – so entrust your life to Christ and His Body, the Church, the Ark of our salvation, to do it!

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 17 Jan. 2021.)

Sunday, January 3, 2021

Cancel Culture

In this article on "Cancel Culture," we read - "Politics, religion, equality, race, sexual orientation and even sports, all of the topics you might avoid on a first date or at a family reunion" have the potential to damage or destroy relationships, effectively erasing the "offending" party from our lives.

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

As the above article explains, many publicly-owned large corporations have bowed to the leftist "cancel culture" pressure, adopting LGBTQ, gender-neutral, and anti-racist policies for their corporate culture and public policies, caving in to the intimidation, bullying, and outright terrorism of the mobs. If this sounds rather "Orwellian" it's because it is: read Orwell’s 1984 and Today: "The Ministry of Truth" was the state's propaganda arm that continually drummed "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength" into the minds of the proles. But a few brave holdouts in our society have resisted and have made this pressure backfire: one company that produces Latino foods was somehow labeled "racist" - they resisted this pressure and saw their sales shoot up by 1000%! So there are still sizeable numbers of Americans who can see right through this "cancel culture" nonsense.

This "cancel culture" ideology was foretold centuries ago in the Scriptures: "Do you think that I have come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, no, but rather division. For from now on, there will be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. They will be divided, father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against her mother; mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law" (Luke 12:51-53, which Jesus quoted from the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah 13:2-6). It causes parents, children, and other relatives to erase the "offending" party from their lives.

The Good News provokes anger and resentment in those who have been immersed in our post-Christian, neo-pagan culture because it implies that their lifestyle of "Pleasure, Power, and Pride" - the three temptations of Christ, or as the Apostle Paul phrased it - "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" - is ultimately futile and meaningless. Christ came to this earth to die: that was His goal in life. We must realize that our ultimate goal in life is also to die: we brought nothing into this world and we will take nothing out when we leave this world. We must die with Christ in baptism in order to put on Christ, to be transformed into His divine, eternal nature: see Theosis Is The True Purpose Of Human Life.

On the Day of Pentecost, the Apostle Peter concluded his sermon to Jews and proselytes from all over the known world with the words - "'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). Homosexual behavior and other forms of perversion had seeped into the culture of the Jewish dispersion because they were living in pagan cultures.

How should we as Christians respond to "cancel culture"? Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount - "Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when people reproach you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you" (Matthew 5:9-12). "Blessed" means joyful, not fearful or hateful. And several verses later, He said - You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust" (vv. 43-45).

A while later, He said - "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you. Yes, and you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles" (Matthew 10:16-18). And at the end of His earthly ministry, in Matthew ch. 24, His disciples asked Him - "Tell us, when will these things be? What is the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?" (v. 3). He replied - "For nation [ethnos] will rise against nation, and kingdom [ruling party] against kingdom; and there will be famines, plagues, and earthquakes in various places. But all these things are the beginning of birth pains. Then they will deliver you up to oppression, and will kill you. You will be hated by all of the nations for My name's sake. Then many will stumble, and will deliver up one another, and will hate one another" (vv. 7-10). Ethnic and political conflict, hatred and betrayal: sounds familiar, doesn't it?

I'd like to call your attention to v. 12 - "Because iniquity will be multiplied, the love of many will grow cold." The word "iniquity" is is "bezzakonie" in Russian - lawlessness, or "Ungerechtigkeit" in German - unrighteousness. The idea here is engaging in wrong or illicit behavior and rationalizing it as justified under the circumstances (situational ethics), or "payback" - retribution for past wrongs (reparations), or doing wrong things for the right reasons. The result: many people's love of family and neighbor will be canceled, normal societal relations will suffer breakdowns, leading to anarchy and revolution.

The Lord's and His Apostles' minds were immersed in the Scriptures: "You shall rise up before the gray head, and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God. I am the Lord. If a stranger lives as a foreigner with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you lived as foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in measures of length, of weight, or of quantity" (Leviticus 19:32-35). This includes respecting the elderly, treating immigrants fairly (but they were required to forsake paganism and abide by the Law of Moses), and practicing justice - using honest weights and measures which includes not "shaving the shekel" - depreciating the value of money by inflating the amount of currency.

The prophet Zechariah wrote - "Thus has the Lord of Hosts spoken, saying, 'Execute true justice and show kindness and compassion every man to his brother. Do not oppress the widow, nor the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.' But they refused to listen, and turned their backs, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear. Yes, they made their hearts as hard as flint, lest they might hear the law, and the words which the Lord of Hosts had sent by his Spirit by the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the Lord of Hosts. It has come to pass that, as I called, and they refused to listen, so they will call, and I will not listen,' said the Lord of Hosts" (ch. 7:9-13). There comes a time when mankind's iniquity will overflow and the Lord must step in and put an end to it.

Later, while the Apostle Paul was awaiting execution in a Roman prison, he wrote - "Do all things without murmurings and disputes, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world" (Philipians 2:14-15).

The Apostle Peter summed up how to respond to evil "cancel culture" and lawlessness - "Finally, all of you be like-minded, compassionate, loving as brothers, tenderhearted, courteous, not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling; but instead blessing; knowing that to this were you called, that you may inherit a blessing. For, 'He who would love life, And see good days, Let him keep his tongue from evil, And his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil, and do good. Let him seek peace, and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, And His ears open to their prayer; But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil' [quoting Psalm 33:13-14]. Now who is he who will harm you, if you become imitators of that which is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. 'Do not fear what they fear, neither be troubled' [quoting Isaiah 8:12]. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts; and always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:8-15).

We must fight the temptation to pay back evil with evil, to compromise our Christian morality because "everyone's doing it" - both of these attitudes are living according to the flesh. Instead, we should live according to the Spirit of Christ Who lives in us, gently and respectfully giving an answer for our hope. May we choose to do the latter!

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 3 Jan. 2021.)

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.)

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.)