I'm not sure if you've read the Prophet Hosea recently, but I've enjoyed COVID-19 confinement time to study these "Minor Pros" again. 

Sin in Israel brings God's curse on the land in dryness and failed crops & dying animals: Hos 4.1-3 "The Lord brings a charge against Israel ... There is no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land. ... So, the people cry. And everything that lives is slowly dying. All the animals and birds, and even the fish, are dying." Or in EEV: "Therefore the land will mourn, and all who live there will languish, along with the wild animals of the field and the birds of the air. Even the fish in the sea will disappear." 5.1-7 has a similar sin judgement on land and crops patterns, v7 "They have times when they enjoy themselves at the beginning of every month. But at the beginning of the month [New Moon] I will destroy their fields and they themselves will die." (EEV); see also - Hos 2:8-9, 12, 4:10, 9:2, 10:12-13, 13:15, etc. But also, see blessings on the land in his steadfast love (hesed love) cf 2:15, 21-22, 6:11 & 14:5 🙂 ... .

As an application, should we not ask & see the years of droughts and fires in California, Oregon, and Chile as God's warning and judgment on sinful places? Many say it's either La Nino (little girl) weather patterns or Climate Change only, man's fault, but not the sin as the Bible portrays it, more sin against each other. from greed of stuff and willful ignorance of the effects of polluting. Can we not also see a judgment because of moral sins, injustice, and corruption which all these places practice and progressively promote? What will it take for today's man to see God is acting and beginning to warn the world of coming judgment and end times? Many will disagree with me here, denying the spiritual aspects in these things, I'm simply trying to apply the Bible to real life with the wisdom I've been given from the Lord. 

Of course, Hosea, the prophet whose name means salvation, who acted out great love, predicted that God's great covenantal hesed love would restore his marriage AND sinful Israel, see 2.18 "At that time, I will promise to do things for Israel’s people. I will cause the animals in the fields and the birds in the sky to be their friends. I will cause the animals that move along the ground to be their friends too. I also will break the things that Israel’s people used in war ... They will be safe. 🤗 And in 3.5, "At a future time, Israel’s people will return. Then they will look for the *Lord their God and they will look for David, their king. They will come to the Lord and they will receive his blessing." 😇 And 6.3 " We should try to know the *Lord. We can be sure that he will come. It will be like the sun when it rises at the beginning of the day. He will come to us like the rain. It will be like spring rain. It will bring water to the ground." And, even better: Hos 13.14 "will redeem these people. People will not have to bury them. I will redeem them from death. Death, your illnesses have gone. Death, you cannot kill any longer. I will not be sorry for this people any longer." 

Jesus is that redeemer!" 🤔 

A worldwide virus has shaken us all this year. never before in our memories was the world so quickly shut down, locked down, by fear of devastating sickness and plague. Not even the 1918-21 flu virus hit so quickly and so widespread (tho it caused far more deaths, so far). was God speaking in a new way? at least new to modern ears? A 'second wave' in November & December worse than the first in March & April is now hitting us (1.4 million more people will be sick in America (and complacent Europe) this week, by New Year's in January a doubling of current numbers to 8 to 12 million (depending on accelerating factors) more will be sick!) (and, sadly, if mortality is 2% that means a doubling of over 250,00 more deaths in such a short time!) and should shake us even more! 

Can our leaders, who don't ask us to repent nor even depend on God, in any way solve this crises? Will it just blow itself out? Will vaccinations come in time to save us?  I also predict terrible fires on the US West coast and Chile again next summer, worse than 2020 which was already worse than terrible 2019 which wiped out "Paradise!" Can we not see God's warning and call to repent while there's still time before major judgment? 

 Heaven help us!

Recommended BOOK Review: Bock

Bock, PH.D., Darrell L., The Missing Gospels, Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities, Thomas Nelson Pub, 2006, pb, 229, pp, I# 9778-0-7852-8906-7, 14 chapters, foreword by Dr. Edwin M. Yamauchi. 

                Bock seeks to carefully show the weakness of the popular ideas that other Christian faiths developed parallel to orthodoxy but simply orthodoxy won out!  He counters ideas of the ‘new school’ of Walter Bauer, and modern popular writings of Bart Ehrman and Dan Brown, etc. He proceeds by examining a large sampling of the new materials, especially those like the Gospel of Thomas found at Nag Hammadi and a sampling of the Bible early church fathers like Ireneaus, Justin Martyr and Clement, etc.  I enjoyed finding many of these traditional texts also on the CCEL site in the Anti-Nicene Fathers of Philip Schaff, and reading the contexts.  The so called new materials took further seeking out. Bock seeks to show the origin and nature of the gnostic materials and how the Bible philosophy is not at all like that, but better.   

This work is parallel to that of Dr. R Price’s Searching for the Original Bible, too that I’m also currently reading.  McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict also has much from the early fathers but it was written before current claims about alternative Christianities.

Gift from P Siebert, 2011, read May 2012 in Senegal.J 

Recommended Book Review: McConnell

         McConnell, D R, A Different Gospel, A Historical & Biblical Analysis of the Modern Faith Movement, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Pub, 1998, pb 195 pp, I# 0913573-78-7, 10 chapters in 2 sections of Historical Analysis and then Biblical Analysis and a good bibliog.  

             McConnell, an insider Pentecostal writer (ORU, YWAM, BPC), seeks to show the fallacies of the popular teachings of the charismatic faith healers, revelation knowledge, identification, & the popular prosperity gospel, & he strongly critiques the modern Faith Movement of E W Kenyon (d 1948), and Kenneth Hagin (1917- ), & Kenneth Copeland, John Osteen (father of Joel), Robert Schuller, Jimmy Swaggart, & even Oral Roberts, & Pat Robertson, etc.  Classifying the movements as a new Gnosticism, dualistic, & cultic, he also exposes the corruption, plagiarism, and nepotism that such teaching inevitably leads.  Well documented.

Found at UWM-Phare, once Jose Oliveira’s, May ’12.  It was worth reading to get a better distinction of charismatics and faith healing movements and to see the weaknesses of such prevalent ‘Christianity,’ especially the Prosperity Gospel.