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Hosea 4:14. "I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with harlots, and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin."

 

Men have a special role in this world, it is just true. God made His first covenant with Adam, not with Eve. Adam is the one who is to be God's representative in maintaining the rightful order of Creation here on earth.* When men neglect or turn away from this duty of theirs, or when society undermines them, preventing them from exercising it, things begin to fall apart rather rapidly. The devil knows this, and so he is always working to pull men away from their duty. He uses his usual tricks, leading both men and women into temptation, and using those under his influence to thwart men who are trying to stay true to their duty.

 

It seems the devil was successful In perverting men's role in Hosea's time. Because the men had been led into sin and abdication of their duty, the people had lost their understanding of good and evil, right and wrong. Therefore, their daughters and wives had become fornicators and adulteresses ("For a spirit of harlotry has led [God's people] astray, and they have left their God to play the harlot. .. Therefore your daughters play the harlot, and your brides commit adultery." Hosea 4:12-13). But God says He will not punish the women for this, they did not know any better because the men, who were tasked with leading them, no longer knew any better either. Thus, the entire people were without understanding, and God says they will come to ruin.

 

I would argue that our times are very similar to what Hosea is describing here. However, this is the Old Testament, the people in Hosea's time did not have the New Adam as an example, while we do. We therefore have an even greater responsibility to know and teach the truth, since the Savior has come and taught it to us Himself, showing us how it looks to live it out in this fallen world, including dying for those He is tasked with saving. Hosea's people had a fallen Adam as an example, while we have a perfect Adam. Our Adam has shed His blood to redeem the world. The blood of God is the price of us not falling into ruin. Many men today are "going aside with harlots", both literally and figuratively, and failing in their manly duties. When they do, they are denying the truth in a way that Hosea's people could not, since they did not have Jesus' example.

 

Because of this widespread corruption of the manly role, right now much of the world is a people without understanding. We have created a society that punishes men for properly exercising their God-given role. We need men, especially fathers, leaders, and priests, to be encouraged and allowed to assert themselves as men. I do see wonderful signs that God is in the process of righting this state of affairs, though. He will not leave His people in their lack of understanding, He is raising up wonderful priests and strong, faithful, holy men who will help lead us out of this. And behind the scenes, God is forming great saints whose holiness is even now helping support these men, and shining the light of truth into the darkness of our ignorance and sinfulness.

 

If we stay faithful we will not come to ruin, since Christ paid for us with His blood. The world, though, will suffer as we begin to see what we have done and start geting back on the path of righteousness. The best way to do this, in fact the only way, is to allow good and faithful men be our leaders and show us the way.

 

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*Eve is Adam's help-mate, she has a special role herself. As Jordan Peterson says, the natural sensitivity of woman predisposes Eve to act as Adam's "alarm bell." She is to bring to his attention "the oppressed, ignored, and marginalized" so that he can, in his proper role, adjust the order as needed to protect and nurture all as best as possible. (Peterson, Jordan, We Who Wrestle With God, p. 24) As I think about this, and about Mary being the New Eve, I think of her watching the New Adam suffer and die yet never countering or even questioning God's Will. Mary took in her Son's suffering, saw it as Eve is meant to see it, even while the whole world of Jewish and Roman leaders around her enforced an order that necessitated her Son's torture and death. Yet unlike Eve, she did not assert her will, she humbly accepted God's, repairing for us the damage Eve had done.

 

I am also thinking of a passage I just read in Book of Heaven in which Jesus laments to Luisa that  "In these times everything is effeminate; priests themselves seem to have lost the masculine characteristic and acquired the feminine characteristic. So, only rarely can a masculine priest be found; the rest – all effeminate. Ah, in what a deplorable state poor humanity is!” (Book of Heaven, Volume 7, Oct. 23, 1906). I don't think Jesus is just talking about outward effeminate behavior, although that is certainly prevalent. I think He is talking about something Jordan Peterson warns of too, that "the insistence that the feminine capacity for empathic tolerance and inclusion is or should be the basis of the moral order itself" (something truly widespread in our times) is "a true overreaching, a form of deceitful arrogance and presumption, and a manifestation of the spirit that eternally strives to usurp." (Peterson, p. 25).