By “we,” I speak of Paul Cohen and myself, Victor Hafichuk, as we write The Issues of Life and post on our site, www.thepathoftruth.com.
We cannot deny the One Who laid down His life to give us life, which we share.
We are unworthy servants of God, but with His Worth and direction to speak. We have been vile sinners, whose lives have been no different, generally, from many and most. There is nothing special about us. Read Victor Hafichuk’s Testimony. I have nothing to be proud of, nothing at all. How then do we have the right to say the things we do, the way we say them? The Lord Jesus Christ has required us to speak. We cannot hold back that which He has both given us and made available for others by us. We cannot, and will not, by His grace only, deny the One Who laid down His life to give us life, which we now have and share. It was no different for any preacher, apostle, prophet, or saint who has ever preached. We have all sinned and needed the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, without which there is no hope for anyone, not one.
When you receive The Issues of Life, or any letters from us, you are receiving counsel and knowledge from God, even if in sharp rebuke. We are not religious. We dare not conduct ourselves in the self-glorifying, affectatious love one finds with imitators of Christ, which happens in most churches and religious circles. That is antiChrist. We are here to expose and confront the antiChrist with reality and truth, calling all to repentance and true worship.
We are accused of hatred. We hate nobody personally, not in the least. But by the grace of God, and in identification with Him, we do hate the falsehood everywhere, especially when it is spoken in His Name, and taught as though He approved or even inspired it. God also hates:
“Nor shall you set up an image, which Jehovah your God hates” (Deuteronomy 16:22).
Most professing Christians set up images in church, home, mind and heart, in vain worshipping Him with their lips.
“Jehovah tries the righteous; but His soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence” (Psalms 11:5).
Today, no different than yesterday, the wicked “love” with feigned lips. They try to be “Christlike,” the notion itself an abomination to God. That is violence, from the Hebrew word meaning “unjust gain.” They are as thieves and robbers, coming up another way:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, He who does not enter into the sheepfold by the door, but going up by another way, that one is a thief and a robber” (John 10:1).
We can assure you that God is angry.
This we hate with a godly hatred, and when we speak to expose it, we are accused of ungodly hatred. The wicked are all about self-promoting form and appearance. As far as the self-righteous are concerned, Abraham offered up his son Isaac to Molech.
We are accused of being angry. If we are angry, and I must admit that often we are angry, it is because many people are destroying themselves and others by the stupid and ignorant things they believe, think, say, do, and teach others by word and example, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, or in the name of religion. We cannot apologize for being angry if angry for these reasons. In your evils done in His Name, you bring Him grief and great pain because He sees you hurting.
We can assure you that God is angry. The King James Version of the Bible, for example, records God describing Himself as having anger, wrath, fury, indignation, and jealousy…but for the right reasons, of course.
We are condemned as a “cult.” While rare few have an unbiased, accurate and truthful definition of the word and its application, most use it to defend themselves and their comfortable religious positions. For a true, Biblically Christian definition of a cult, for all good intents and purposes, read The True Marks of a Cult. By God’s grace and discipline, we are guilty of none of those marks. You may also read Are We a Cult?.
We are accused of arrogance. It seems that many call the combination of knowing the truth with certainty and speaking it with certainty, arrogance. This is an ignorant and erroneous notion. If such were the case, all the prophets and apostles and Jesus Christ Himself would be condemned as arrogant. They knew what they were talking about and spoke like they knew. Those who did not know and refused to know accused them of arrogance.
We choose not to be of the mealy-mouthed, “gentle, sweet, kind, considerate, tolerant, diplomatic, tactful, wise,” sycophantic, affectatious, religious, Pharisaic (a nice, polite, pious, friendly folk until provoked) hypocrites. These worship and represent another Jesus, a wimp with hands drooping effeminately from his wrists, trying to protect flies, hugging everything in sight, soppily, whiningly protesting every social injustice. Truly, these people, when addressed, turn out to display the fury of Hitler, Stalin, Khomeini, bin Laden, the popes of old and every evildoer combined. We have seen it many times.
We are often accused of spamming. If spamming is sounding the trumpet to sinners who need to hear the truth, lest they perish, so be it, we are spamming. However, we are not here to sell, as many “Christian” hawkers are. We are not here to ask for support in our ministry or gather persons to ourselves in a physical organization of any kind. We are not here to gain anything in this world but souls for the Lord. We are here to declare the true goodness of God and His will. We are here to teach the difference between truth and error that poses as truth. We are here to speak that which we have proven to ourselves, and which God has proven to us, to be true. People, in all their religious or spiritual knowledge and intelligence, do not know the difference between good and evil. Thus, they suffer the terrible consequences, perishing. We know the difference and are here to proclaim the difference.
Jesus Christ views all these matters as life and death issues.
When people ask to be removed from our regular mailing, we sometimes reply and always comply. We are not here to impose, but because we confront people on their sins, pride, unreality, ignorance and falsehood, we are accused of imposition and lacking love. They stoned the Biblical prophets, who were not welcomed by them, and they stone us. We know the price for speaking the truth and are thankful to the Lord for the high privilege of paying it.
We are not here to respect others’ opinions, religions or “faiths.” We are not here to give our opinions or to entertain forums or fellowships of opinions. We are here to speak God’s truth. There is no room here for opinions, which only breed and feed iniquity. People need the facts, not opinion.
You are not dealing with religious buffoons. We are not fools or charlatans, though many think of us as so. We are not playing religious games as many do. We are for real; we have the real goods, and far fewer people want the real than the imitation. We are not reticent to meet with any, and to speak anywhere at any time the Lord wills, personally, directly. We are not hiding behind computers with a cowardly boldness that some suspect. Those who surmise so soon find out otherwise. We hide nothing.
Jesus Christ is no fool; He is no coward; He is not a religious founder or leader; He is not playing games; He is God. He views all these matters, which we address and discuss, as life and death issues. We are with, in, and from Him in all these things.
In other words, this letter is to say that we speak as, “Thus says the Lord,” calling on all to repent of their presumptuous, independent-of-God ways, lest they perish, in case it is not clear to any. We hereby publicly declare that we are here in Him, by His will, not at all speaking in vain. That is what The Issues of Life and our website are all about. That is what we are all about.
Jesus Christ is Lord and His Kingdom reigns supreme.
Zealous for the glory of the Lord, proclaiming the honor of Jesus Christ, Yahweh, Yahshuah HaMashiach, in opposition to those who blasphemously usurp His Person and jurisdiction, may He be blessed and praised by all,
Victor and Paul