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A FAMINE OF HEARING THE WORD OF YAHWEH
Bertrand L. Comparet
Thoughtless people today are very proud of what they
consider our very modern conditions and claim that we are very different from
our ancestors. Yet, in truth there has been no change in the real fundamentals
of life since most ancient times. As one philosopher said, "The more it
changes, the more it is the same". Are you really any better off because
today, the bandit that robs you uses a gun instead of a sword, as he would have
done 500 years ago? Is it better to have to leap for your life out of the path
of an automobile, instead of a carriage? Have we really progressed because you
are now made to pay excessive taxes with dollars instead of shekels? Are
Russia's slaves any better off than the captives of Babylon? Nothing but surface
appearances have changed, the essential realities must remain the same as long
as there are men living on earth.
One of the ancient institutions, which has come down to
us unchanged, is the stream of vilification and abuse directed at everyone who
protests against current evils and seeks to warn the public of the consequences
of continued wrongdoing. Our evils are always organized, because there are
always those who have found out how to get money, power, or both out of them.
They foresee the end of their wealth and power if the public ever learns the
truth. Therefore, they viciously attack everyone who tries to warn the public of
what is going on. Of course, this is not surprising, what is amazing is the
degree to which the public generally loves only its real enemies and hates its
true friends.
About 790 B.C., the prophet Amos was warning the people
of the kingdom of Israel of the disasters, which must overtake them, if they
allowed their nation to pursue its corrupt course. General corruption cannot
exist without the encouragement and connivance of the authorities, whose duty it
is to suppress it. Just as corruption in high places cannot exist unless
approved, or at least tolerated by the general public.
When Amos warned that the evils of the day both weakened
the nation and would bring the wrath of Yahweh down upon it, he was accused of
sedition, like Yahshua who gave the same warning eight centuries later. We read
in Amos 7:10, "Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to Jeroboam,
king of Israel saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the
house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words." They also
tried to drive him out. Recorded in Amos 7:12-13 it states, "Also
Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go flee thou away into the land of Judah
and there eat bread, and prophesy there: but prophesy not again any more at
Beth-el: for it is the king's chapel and the king's court."
Today, we find the same situation. We find a certain
minority group (who were known as Canaanites and are now called Jews)
becoming extremely wealthy by promoting organized evils and by their wealth has
gained great power in government. This is power, which no admitted minority
should have. We find them in control of communism elsewhere and by their control
of government steering the course of this nation towards communism here. We also
find a few courageous men seeking to awaken the nation to its peril. Of course
we find the most bitter hatred directed against these men, whose only faults are
honesty, patriotism and truthfulness.
Today we still find the same forces are always attacking
everyone who opposes communism and they always make the same false accusations.
Against Amos they said, "Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of
the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear his words." Against
Yahshua they said in Luke 23:5, "He stirreth up the people".
Against all patriots who would warn our nation before it is too late they cry,
"Rabble rouser, Fascist!" Every man who says that our American
Constitution has proven to be good and should not be changed is said to be extreme
right wing. They warned Amos in Amos 7:12-13, "Flee thou away
into the land of Judah". Although Yahshua had done miracles of good, yet we
read in Mark 5:17, "They began to pray Him to depart out of their
borders." Today they try, in every way, to bring ruin upon all those who
dare speak the truth. The sad thing is they are always able to get many
thoughtless people to follow them and stupidly parrot their attacks against all
true patriots and against those who would tell them the truth of religion.
This also is not new, the prophet Amos found the same
conditions 2,700 years ago. He records in Amos 5:10, "They hate them
that rebuketh in the gate and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly." So
also have vicious attacks been made in our day, upon Senators Taft, McCarthy,
Jenner, Eastland and upon Congressman Martin Dies, to mention but a few. To try
to save the people from their own folly is surely not how to make friends and
influence people.
Patriots warn of the political, economic and social evils
inherent in the course set by the popular left wing politicians. For this they
are smeared in the daily press and over the radio and television by editors and
commentators who have prostituted their talents to the service of a cause, which
can pay them well for it. But it is equally true that those few clergymen, who
dare tell the religious truth about the moral evil inherent in current policies,
are also smeared as bigots and hate mongers.
Why is it that every vicious attack against Christianity,
is made by those who fled here as refugees, seeking shelter in the kind of
civilization that only Christianity could build?
Why is it we must take this in silence as being just the exercise of
those supreme rights that minorities are supposed to have? Yet,
when we defend our civilization and our moral standards against these attacks,
we are told that this constitutes intolerance and bigotry on our part! This is
also nothing new. Through the prophet Amos, Yahweh told the people of that day,
recorded in Amos 2:12, "But ye commanded the prophets saying,
Prophecy not."
It is strange how rare the quality of moral
courage is. Lots of men who have physical courage, who would not run away from a
fight, whether with fists or with weapons, still dare not face the hostility of
a wealthy and politically powerful minority group. This too is an ancient thing,
unchanged from that day to this and expressly prophesied by Amos. In Amos
5:13 Yahweh says, "For I know your manifold transgressions and your
mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe and they turn aside the
poor in the gate from their right. Therefore the prudent will keep silence in
that time: for it is an evil time." Isaiah 59:14-15 speaks of
the same thing. "Judgment is turned away backward and justice standeth afar
off: for truth is fallen in the street and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth
faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and Yahweh saw
it and it displeased Him that there was no judgment."
What consequences must such prudence bring, when the
wicked march from power to greater power in the land and few dare raise a voice
in protest? Amos 8:11-12 gives the warning, "Behold the days come,
saith Yahweh, that I will send a famine in the land: not a famine of bread, nor
a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Yahweh: and they shall wander
from sea to sea and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro
to seek the word of Yahweh and shall not find it."
You see this condition largely prevailing right now. In
how many churches can you hear anything but soothing syrupy sermons, to get your
mind off the evil conditions? Just a few years ago, the then head of the
National Council of Churches spoke of what he called, "The danger that the
great religious awakening, which is taking place in our country, might become
fanatical and be carried into our political and business life!" If that be
danger, I say let's have more of it! Nothing else can bring us out of this
quicksand in which our nation is sinking. Perhaps they may sermonize in huge
indignation against the man who takes a glass of beer but how many sermons have
you heard denouncing those who have barred Christ from our schools? How many
sermons have you heard demanding we cease making treaties and executive
agreements with Russia on terms satisfactory to the Reds? The Bible clearly
warns us to make no leagues with the enemies of Yahweh, regardless of the
ostensible purposes thereof. Yet, how many churches remind their people of this?
Truly, the famine of hearing the word of Yahweh has come upon us.
No matter what, we will always say, thus saith Yahweh.
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