Revelation of End Times Prophesy and The Church of the Holy Beard

OK, not really end times prophesy, but I had to share. Now that I have your attention; Hosea 7.16 says,

“They do not turn to the Most High; they are like a faulty bow.
Their leaders will fall by the sword because of their insolent words.
For this they will be ridiculed in the land of Egypt.”

This passage is about people who refuse to bow their knee to Jesus, in spite of what they know is true. The prophesy of Isaiah that says, “”Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth…Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear” (Is. 45.22,23).

(I know this seems like a rant and doesn’t make much sense, but hear me out. I can do this. You are reading a blog remember.)

Here is a website called, “The Church of the Holy Beard.” From the looks of the website, the author has a pretty clear grasp on Christianity in order to maintain his sarcasm and irony which is used strictly out of prideful purpose; no, it is a declaration of one man in refuse to bow to the Lord Jesus. He will not “turn to the Most High” (Hosea 7.16) even though it was prophesied that in the end times all men bow. I think it will not be a willing submittal when it happens unless he changes his ways; repentance, forgiveness and obedience to Christ.

It is clear by the passage in Hosea that those who follow Christ will be ridiculed by those who will not follow if we will not take a stand for what we believe in. Are we so arrogant that think we do not need to defend out faith? To refrain would be to allow souls to Satan that might have submitted to Christ (I never really thought about it this way until just now when I write it, but it is theologically accurate nonetheless).

Let me give some more background on Hosea. Ephraim, whom Hosea is prophesying about has forsaken God and sought refuge in the world by going to Egypt and Assyria for help. Assyria helped them and then conquered them. Egypt simply denied their request and laughed at them because Egypt was able to see that the Israelites had forsaken all that they had bragged about to Egypt in prior generations when they were blessed by God. You can read all over the Bible where it says, “The pride of Israel,” that is to say that Israel was proud because they were blessed and held it over the heads of opposing nations.

Can you see where I am going with this? Is your life in Christ so bad that you hide it? No! Wear Christ on your sleeve (so to speak). It is only through our disobedience to God that we should open up the opportunity for the ridicule brought by “The Church of the Holy Beard.” I am talking here about Christianity as a whole. We are more concerned with being Christians who look like the world than we are with being residents of heaven who happen to reside temporarily in the world. Follow me?

I guess my real problem is that the author of this website has a clear understanding of the Gospel. If he didn’t, it would not be funny, right? As Christians, we have failed. We succeeded in educating someone in the ways of Christ without establishing the need to submit and therefore we ridicule ourselves in the process.

One can argue that the Bible told us we would be persecuted so we should not be surprised. I can only argue on grounds of ridiculousness. God foreknew that we would be persecuted, but He did not decide it. We, Israel/Christians, brought that upon ourselves.

My only hope is that someone (maybe the author of the website) would read this and decide that they want to know where they were misled. If that is the case, here is my e-mail:

Anthony@einquisitive.com

I am happy to discuss this with anyone who wants to know more about the grace and glory of God. This is an open invitation to all.

I suppose my biggest fear is for whoever leads another astray or does not fully provide the Gospel to another; that one might understand, but not submit because of the lack of information due to our own shame. If one does this, are they any different from the leadership of this time? Is this what Christ meant when he said, “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matthew 18.6)? I will admit that this is a liberal suggestion (which should shock any of my regular readers), but it scares me to think that someone could be in for an eternity in Hell because we were too prideful to give someone the unadulterated Gospel of Jesus Christ.

May it never be.

Revelation of End Times Prophesy and The Church of the Holy Beard