THIS TITLE IS BANNED IN "THE LAND OF THE FREE"!
Tap on this photo to see the front and back cover of my book's BANNED TITLE in "the land of the free," A First-Century View of Yeshua, the Messiah. (See how to get a free copy, and print this cover with the "fit to page" setting.) Yes, right here in the U.S., "the land of the free," some people oppose the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment rights: freedom of speech, the press, and religious expression; and promote “soft totalitarianism”: soft porn, gluttony, public intoxication, and pantheism – “you can believe anything in general, but nothing in particular.”
If you download the PDF of the book cover, you'll notice the blacked-out words in the above photo: in the "bad old days" of the USSR, certain sections in the Pravda newspaper would be blacked-out, so you knew that some info was being kept from you. But with today's new censorship, the info is simply gone as if it were never there, you don't know what you don't know. This is called "shadow banning" on social media or "editorial policy" on news media: their algorithms and policies sift out Christian and conservative viewpoints, so very few people ever see that type of news or info that you post.
The Apostle Paul faced similar but harsher persecution for publicly expressing his faith: he was driven out of town in Ephesus, so from Miletus he called the bishops ("episkopoi" in Greek) of his newly-founded church in Ephesus to defend the rightness of his actions, as we read in Acts 20:17-34 –
"From Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called to himself the elders of the church. When they had come to him, he said to them, 'You yourselves know, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how I was with you all the time, serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears, and with trials which happened to me by the plots of the Jews; how I didn't shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, teaching you publicly and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Yesous."
Yes, confessing publicly that Jeshua is Yahweh – Yesous is the Lord God – can land you in a peck of trouble! As Roman culture dictated, “you can believe anything in general, but nothing in particular.” You could confess as many of their pantheon of gods as you wish (pantheism), but you were not allowed to confess that there is only One God (monotheism). Rome later demanded that Christians just offer a pinch of incense to the gods and the Christians could go free, but were forbidden under the penalty of death to worship only the One True God.
The godess Artemis – called Diana by the Ephesians – was a fertility idol, and of course what one really believes results in how one behaves: there were gluttonous feasts to this idol, complete with sex orgies and drunkenness. Also, as Demetrius the silversmith shouted, there was much money to be made off manufacturing idols to Diana.
And so it is today: Hollywood makes billions of dollars manufacturing "soft porn" – virtually every movie made these days must include the obligatory sex scene (or scenes) – subliminally teaching that having sex ouside of marriage is normal and exciting. The St. Valentine's Day holiday just observed, which was originally a holy day in honor of the two Roman martyrs named Valentine, has become an excuse for partying, gluttony, drinking to excess, and carousing. The Apostle Paul continues –
"Now, behold, I go bound by the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there; except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions wait for me. But these things don't count; nor do I hold my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Yesous, to fully testify to the gospel of the grace of God."
St. Paul was willing to "take the heat" for continuing to preach the Good News of Yeshua, knowing that if he went to Jerusalem he would be walking into a nest of vipers who were more than eager to arrest and try him in a kangaroo court, then have him executed. And this is exactly what happened: he was arrested in Jerusalem and sent to Rome where he was executed for his faith by being beheaded. He said –
"Now, behold, I know that you all, among whom I went about preaching the Kingdom of God, will see my face no more. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am clean from the blood of all men, for I didn't shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God."
The Apostle Paul would not allow himself not to preach: "woe is to me, if I do not preach the gospel" (1 Corinthians 9:16). He was referring to the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel, who wrote that if a watchman does not warn the people of impending doom and destruction, that watchman would be guilty of the people's blood (Ezekiel 33:6). Are we willing to "take the heat" like Paul, or will we shrink from sharing the Good News because of the social pressure and stigma it can bring?
Go to our ARC-News website to read our free e-newsletters and Subscribe!
