In around 1400 BC, Moses led the Israelites into the wilderness. They had been released from slavery by powerful acts of God, including ten plagues and parting the Red Sea to aid their escape. (Exodus 1-15)
However, it wasn’t long before the Israelites grumbled. They were sick of manna, they wanted an easier life, they wanted to get there. (Numbers 20:4). So they grumbled some more, against Moses and against God.
Virgin of Quito from the sculpture of the same name, is a monument in Quito, Ecuador. It is located on the top of the hill of El Panecillo, a loaf-shaped hill in the heart of the city and serves as a backdrop to the historic center of Quito. Wikipedia. EPrata photo.
Yesterday I wrote about idolatry: what is it, how we manufacture idols, and worshipping an idol isn’t always (or even very frequently) bowing down to a wooden idol.
It made me think of the idolatry Catholics people have for Mary.
Due to Mary’s role in being selected to gestate and birth the incarnated Jesus and to raise Him alongside Joseph, the Roman Catholic religion has exalted the woman to a position she does not biblically hold. The Roman Catholic believers call Mary a co-redemptrix along with Jesus, the Queen of Heaven, and more. They pray to her, ask for her blessings, and more.
The Catholics will complain that ‘we just don’t understand’ about Mary, but if you look at their Papal Bulls, Catechisms, and other material, it’s all there. They worship Mary, which is bad and wrong and heresy.
It is always good to push back on the blasphemies and promote the truth about Mary.
Ex-Catholic VM Swiderskipublished some refutationson Twitter, which as expected, Catholic believers complained about. Catholicism is a false religion, but I do admire their adherents’ vigorous protection of their reputation. Satan does a good job of pushing back. What follows is her material, which is also linked above-
VM Swiderski @VMSwiderski wrote:
I was raised Roman Catholic. When God caused me to be born again by His Spirit, I began reading, understanding, and devouring His Word. I began rejecting false doctrines I had been taught. In the process, I overlooked something very important. Mary.
Mary was chosen by God. Mary worshiped God. Mary was humble. Mary was submissive to the will of God. Mary was favored by God. Mary was blessed by God. Mary was a virgin before Jesus was born. Mary had many children after Jesus was born. Mary was among the disciples. Mary prayed to God.
Bible verses about Mary:
“Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” Luke 1:28
“And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.’” Luke 1:32
“And Mary said to the angel, ‘How will this be, since I am a virgin?’” Luke 1:34
“And Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.’” Luke 1:38
“‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!’” Luke 1:42
“‘And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.’” Luke 1:45
“‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.’” Luke 1:46
“‘And holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.’” Luke 1:49-50
“‘For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me.’”
“But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” Luke 2:19
“And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.” Luke 2:51
“‘Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also).” Luke 2:34-35
“‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him.” Mark 6:3
“But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister…” John 19:25
“All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.” Acts 1:14
end of VM Swiderski’s material
Like all men and women who are mentioned in the Bible positively, Mary was not only favored, but selected to become virginally pregnant with Jesus, to raise Him, and sadly, also to witness His horrible death – as Simeon prophesied. (Luke 2:35; John 19:25).
However, we must remember Mary was a sinner. She herself recognized that fact when she acknowledged “my Savior”. (Luke 1:47).
Mary was not a perpetual virgin. She bore other children after Jesus. (Mark 6:3).
Mary was not conceived immaculately. Many people errantly believe the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary’s conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit. No. It is the Roman Catholic idea that MARY was conceived immaculately, that is, she was free from sin. Yet Romans 3:10 says we are all sinners, there is none righteous, no not one.
Only Jesus is preeminent. He is not Co-preeminent with Mary. She is not “Queen of Heaven.” There is only one Sovereign in heaven, and that is Jesus, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. There are no queens. Daughters, yes. But Mary was a human, lived and died, and is in heaven awaiting her resurrected body and is in the throng praising and worshiping her King, just like the rest of the redeemed. Jesus alone is supreme. (Colossians 1:18).
Pope Benedict XVI had just placed a crown on the statue of the Virgin Mary at the Vatican Basilica on the occasion of the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. source
The following was a sermon by Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones titled “The Roman Catholic Church,” preached at Westminster Chapel in London, and originally published in The Westminster Record, May 1963.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones [MLJ] said, ‘You and I, as Christians, go to Him to confess; they [Catholics] go to the priest.“
MLJ: The cult of the Virgin Mary in Roman Catholicism is increasing rapidly in an alarming manner. They say that she is the “Queen of Heaven,” and that she is the one to whom we should go primarily. In many of their churches you will find that she is placed in front of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is almost hidden by her somewhere in the background. Why? This is what they say, that she being human is much more loving and tender than He is; that He is so great and powerful and authoritative, that He is so stern—this is what they teach, this is the whole explanation of the cult of the Virgin Mary—that He is such that we cannot go to Him directly.
The cult of the Virgin Mary in Roman Catholicism is increasing rapidly in an alarming manner. They say that she is the “Queen of Heaven,” and that she is the one to whom we should go primarily. Ah, but fortunately she is there, and she is loving; and after all she was His mother and she can influence Him.
So we should pray to the Virgin Mary and ask her to intercede on our behalf. She is right there between us and the Son of God, the Saviour of our souls. And increasingly they have been adding to her power.
They began in 1854 to teach the “Immaculate Conception” which means not only that the Lord Jesus Christ was born free from sin, but that Mary was also.
The recently they have announced this doctrine of the “Assumption of Mary,” that she never died like everybody else and was buried, but that she literally ascended up to heaven even as her Son did.
And this, you see, so builds up the Virgin Mary, and makes her so prominent that Christ Himself is hidden out of sight. –end MLJ
The Kaaba is built around a sacred black stone, a meteorite that Muslims believe was placed by Abraham and Ishmael in a corner of the Kaaba, a symbol of God’s covenant with Abraham and Ishmael and, by extension, with the Muslim community itself. Source
We make idols out of anything. Real things like a big black cube the Muslims worship, or idols out of people like the Catholics did for Mary, or idols out of concepts & philosophies like appearance, communion, comfort, motherhood, and so on.
The depths of our sin know no bounds, thus, it’s easy for satan to tempt us to make idols out of good things.
Little children, guard yourselves from idols. (1 John 5:21 LSB)
I recently wrote about the “Trad wife/Trad life” issue. I said that idolizing a lifestyle can replace genuine worship of biblical life standards. Anything can be an idol, including a lifestyle.
I decided to look into the topic of idolatry to understand it better. Also to make sure I was not misrepresenting it to you or to myself. When sin is on the table, our sinful nature wants to marginalize it, water it down, or ignore it. We always should strive for understanding, even when we think we already understand. The depths of God’s word never end.
I happened to have on hand a Free Grace Broadcaster from Mt. Zion Chapel Library. Chapel Library is a marvelous ministry, offered free to one and all. You can read online, or order a hard copy to be mailed to you for free. Yes, free. Their monthly magazine is based on one topic each month and contains essays from old-timey theologians and pastors of the past on that topic. In this Idolatry edition I found so much to bookmark and ponder and I’d only read 3 of the essays yet!
I constantly think on these things. I ask myself- is my blog my idol? Is my comfort an idol? Is my apartment and idol? I must always be vigilant. I’d read a startling thought in Spurstowe’s book “The Wiles of Satan.” One of satan’s strategies is to tempt us. We know that. But an even wilier strategy is to “cease to tempt, or to feign flight.” Have you ever thought of that? It’s to provoke our pride. We SEEM to have won the battle. We think, ‘Oh great, I’ve got this temptation licked! I got the victory of that sin!’ But no. Just as we release our guard, satan comes back! (Luke 4:13).
Martyn Lloyd Jones preached “Keep Yourself from Idols,” verse from 1 John 5:21. His was one of the articles in the pamphlet.
“Let me, therefore, put this in the form of three propositions. The first is that the greatest enemy that confronts us in the spiritual life is the worshipping of idols. The greatest danger confronting us all is not a matter of deeds or of actions, but of idolatry… What is idolatry? Well, an idol can be defined most simply in this way: an idol is anything in our lives that occupies the place that should be occupied by God alone…Anything that holds a controlling position in my life is an idol.”
“Of course, an idol may indeed be an actual idol. … idolatry may consist of having false notions of God. If I am worshipping my own idea of God and not the true and living God, that is idolatry… But let me go on to point out that idolatry can take many other forms. It is possible for us to worship our religion instead of worshipping God.”
“It is possible for us to worship not only our own religion but our own church, our own communion, our own religious body, our own particular community, our own particular sect, our own particular point of view—these are the things we may be worshipping.”
In this next excerpt on Idolatry, from “Soul Idolatry Excludes Men out of Heaven,” in The Works of David Clarkson, Vol. II. Clarkson (c. 1621-1686) we read that was a Puritan preacher, colleague of John Owen, and successor to Owen’s pulpit. Misunderstanding who God is can be idolatry:
“If either you do not think of God or think otherwise of Him than He is—think Him all mercy, not minding His justice; think Him all pity and compassion, not minding His purity and holiness; think of His faithfulness in performing promises, not at all minding His truth in execution of threatenings; think Him all love, not regarding His sovereignty—this is to set up an idol instead of God. Thinking otherwise of God than He has revealed Himself or minding other things as much or more than God is idolatry.” –end Clarkson
Charles Spurgeon notes that idols are not merely graven images but can be philosophies and concepts. Even though he wrote this in 1874, his warning is fresh today.
“I would say to you, beloved, in closing my observations upon this point: in the matter of your faith, be sure to keep yourselves from the idol of the hour. Some of us have lived long enough to see the world’s idols altered any number of times. Just now, in some professedly Christian churches, the idol is “intellectualism,” “culture,” “modern thought.” Whatever name it bears, it has no right to be in a Christian church, for it believes very little that appertains to Christ.”
…[T]he minister who goes into a pulpit and addresses people when he knows that he does not believe any of the doctrines that are dearer to them than their own lives. Yet, the moment the congregant is called to account for his unbelief, he cries out, “Persecution! Persecution! Bigotry! Bigotry!” A burglar, if I found him outside my bedroom door and held him till the policeman came, might consider me to be very bigoted because I did not care to have my property stolen by him and because I interfered with his liberty. So, in like manner, I am called bigoted because I will not allow a man to come and assail from my own pulpit the truths which are dearer to me than my life.”
“Believe me, my brethren, that the Church of Christ, if not the world, shall yet learn that the highest culture is a heart that is cultivated by divine grace; that the truest science is…Jesus Christ and Him crucified; and that the greatest thought and the deepest of all metaphysics are found at the foot of the cross; and that the men who will keep on simply and earnestly preaching the old-fashioned gospel, and the people who will stand fast in the old paths are they who will most certainly win the victory.” –end Spurgeon
John Calvin, in his The Institutes of the Christian Religion, famously said that the heart and mind of man is “a perpetual forge of idols.” (1:11.45) This has often been translated as an “factory of idols.”
We create idols for ourselves when we’re not paying attention. We create idols for ourselves when we are paying attention. We create idols for ourselves when we are asleep. We create idols for ourselves when we are awake. MLJ wrote of the 1 John 5:21 verse (Keep yourselves from idols), that those were very likely the last words John wrote. He said the point cannot be proved, but if those were the last or nearly last words John wrote, we must pay even closer attention, saying,
“The last words of all people are important, but the last words of great people are of exceptional importance, and the last words of an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ are of supreme importance…”
I love Amazing Grace. Here is a Youtube playlist I made that plays the song in different genres. The first one is Jimmy Swaggart (I know, I know) but he was a good musician. His rendition is kind of southern slow rolling thunder with harmonica There’s also Celtic, Walela singing the song in Cherokee (very moving), Il Divo singing it in orchestral style, an African Gospel Choir, Judy Collins a Cappella…
Enjoy. Ponder the amazing grace Jesus dispenses to His beloved. Happy Lord’s Day.
A few days ago Allie Beth Stuckey spoke in a panel discussion at the Founders Conference. She was asked to explain and give insights on the social media trend presenting the “trad wife/life”, glorifying God in motherhood, and cosplay.
For those who do not know, trad wives on social media are ‘traditional wives’, stay at home moms, farmers, homesteaders making their own bread, jam, canning, non-GMO and the like. Not that there is anything wrong with that in itself, but the PRESENTATION of such a life on social media has overtaken actual fruit of the Spirit in living a genuine Christian life. As Allie said, “It’s about aesthetics.”
Well, Allie Beth explained it in her inimitable way what “trad wives” are and gently pushed back on it. Here’s the link to the Trad Wife talk at Founders by Allie Beth:
“To the guys dragging Tom Ascol and Allie Beth Stuckey, I think you may not understand what we’re talking about here. I’d like you to watch a video.”
“Now this woman has one of the most popular trad wife accounts on Instagram. Almost 9 million followers. She is willowy and lovely. Every image she posts looks like a spread from Joanna Gaines’s magazine, Magnolia Journal.”
“She (famously) makes her own sourdough. She makes her own popsicles. She makes her own butter. Millions of women absorb this and they want this life. They think they’re failing if they’re grabbing the otter pops out of the freezer case to keep their sticky kids in their mismatched hand-me-downs busy for half an hour.”
“But here’s some other fun facts about the ballerina farm wife. Her father-in-law is the founder of five airlines, including JetBlue. She and her husband are heirs to $1 billion fortune. Their stove costs $20k.”
“And they sell soap for $22 and the starter kits for her famous sourdough for $89”
“These “trad wife” influencers can set young women up for disappointment and disillusionment because they portray homemaking as a consumer good.”
“Comment links to buy my $750 William Sonoma bread maker!”
“I am very pro homemaking. I am very anti selling women of false bill of goods that tells them that their homes will look like magazine spreads; their children will always be fresh faced, tidy, and camera-ready; and their days will be a maternal bliss of non-GMO, organic artisanal Farmers market fare.”
“These accounts often (not always!) also market envy. NOT saying that’s all the trad life accounts. But there’s many of them that do.”
“So I’d like to gently suggest you may not fully understand what Allie Beth is talking about here.”
“And I think you guys would agree with me that this kind of thing *can* sometimes be an idol because it is not fixed on pursuing godliness as a wife and mother but on self glorification and greed.” –end Meg Basham’s comment
By the way, the Instagram pics Megan posted and discussed which I recombined above are from trad wife Ballerina Farm. You should know that Daniel & Hannah Neeleman (Ballerina Farm) are Mormon. Thus, their show of traditional values is not based on Christianity. Mormonism is a works-based religion and so, Hannah’s trad life is a works-based aesthetic that tries to approximate a Christian’s- but fails because it’s not. MANY of the famous influencers presenting a ‘trad life’ are LDS, not Christian.
I replied to Megan:
“AWESOME and concise summary of the issue, @megbasham. I liked Allie Beth’s discussion of it, and I agree with her assessment as well. Marketing envy, a false front, and ideal that does not exist, is just LIES packaged in a dreamy Insta filter.”
It’s like when I looked into the She Reads Truth ladies some years ago. One of them had a bio that said she starts her day with her Bible flung open…SAHM…takes care of the kids…Yes, BUT she wrote her stuff and reads her Bible AFTER she drops the kids at daycare! Bio didn’t mention THAT part.
Or Lori Alexander The Transformed Wife, touts her child raising abilities but had outside help, had live-in help and had/has more money than she lets on.
I have no doubt that Ballerina Farm woman has help, and not just farm hands, but an intern, nanny, in-home worker, secretary, media team…people.
Ballerina farm lady has 9 million followers. Some follow I suppose for the nice photos. Or to dream. Others follow because internally they want that lifestyle. But it’s not the lifestyle. I personally know of a true Christian wife and mom who is living the “traditional life” (whatever that means to you), on a very rural farm, with animals, raising beef cows and selling meat, just like the ballerina lady. AND WITH a storefront in town to manage, too.
She doesn’t post photos of languidly picking flowers on a sunny day. She doesn’t have 9 million followers. Her photos are of the cows. She has mud on her boots, busy days and nights, and honesty. Her ABOUT states: [Our company] is fortunate enough to have a supportive group of individuals that partner in all aspects of the meat company from accounting in the office to roping of cattle. Trad wives don’t do it alone.
For many “trad wives” living a “trad life”, they seek a return to the 1950s traditional values, not an adoption of biblical standards for genders, roles, and marriage. It’s the wrong basis to start with.
It isn’t a bad desire. Why? The 1950s was the LAST time in the US housewifery was seen as noble. Stay At Home Mothering is hard. Running any sort of home with animals is harder. Establishing a farm and working toward self-sufficiency is hardest of all. Add to all that, battling a culture that tells you every day your job and role is worthless. HARD.
In the 1990s my husband and I wanted to live ‘off grid’. We experimented with 3 different lifestyles to try and get there. It’s harder than you think. And we didn’t have kids.
Lived 3 months in a VW Camper van RV-ing across the US, seeking off-grid places
Social media has been both a blessing and a curse. It presents ways to exchange ideas in a free society and to research on one’s own. It connect people who knew each other in real life and who didn’t but become friends. But the curse is its tendency toward careful curation that shows only highlights, skewed reality, or a plain old lie.
Ladies, I liked the part in Megan’s comment that says “These accounts often (not always!) also market envy.” Marketing envy is an approach to sales that gets you to buy their merchandise, buy their dream, attach to their ideals. Anything to promote self and make merchandise of you. They aren’t promoting Jesus, which is our chief end, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. They are promoting themselves, and their abilities and achievements.
I admire women who obediently adopt biblical standards for their role, demographic, and marriage. I heartily admire anyone who works toward a biblically traditional life, especially one that includes animals to care for. But most admirable is the woman who, no matter how she organizes her life according to the Bible (and that appears in different ways), her priority is obedience to the One who saved her soul.
Make sourdough or buy it. Have 3 children or 9 children. Live on a farm or in the city. Work a job if you and husband feel you need to or stay at home. The common thread here is not a cultural value system that existed 75 years ago, but a biblical value system that was founded 7000 years ago (Genesis 2:18) and exists today as vibrant and fresh and powerful as it did back then.
And if social media bothers you or tempts you to discontent or envy, stay off it. Because biblical wives have the Holy Spirit in us to aid us in resisting temptation, sin, and discontent. 🙂
But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. (Romans 6:21)
Paul is asking this rhetorical question in the majestic section of “The Wages of Sin.” What has sin profited you? What fruit, then, has sin produced?
I’m a lover of art. I saw Caravaggio’s Bacchus in the Uffizi some years ago. Caravaggio’s Bacchus is a decadent painting, becoming more so as one gazes at it. Bacchus was the Roman god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual ecstasy, fertility and so on. Dionysus was the parallel Greek god. Here he is:
How is it decadent, one asks? We see the heavy-lidded youth, the Bacchus, reposing against his dirty sheets, with his own covering having slipped off, exposing his fleshy upper torso. He fingers the opening suggestively. His face appears ruddy, from outdoor farm work in the vineyards, or perhaps more to the point, the florid blush of too much wine. On close inspection, the bowl of fruit shows its over-ripeness. The pears are bruised and browning. The figs are burst and oozing. The peaches are in obvious decay.
Decay, rot, decomposition is the theme of the entire portrait. And anyway, it’s a false god.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Does sin bring the fruit of love? Does sin bring the fruit of peace? Does sin bring the fruit of patience? Does sin bring the fruit of kindness? Does sin bring the fruit of goodness? Does sin bring the fruit of faithfulness? Does sin bring the fruit of gentleness? Does sin bring the fruit of self-control?
Can you think of any sin which brings any of the good fruit of the Spirit? Does jealousy bring love? Does bitterness bring self-control? Does gossip bring kindness? Does adultery bring peace?
Or does sin’s fruit bring decay, rot, and decomposition? The fruit of love only grows brighter as it ripens. The fruit of sin brings festering putrefaction, flies, and disease. Eventually, death.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23).
Flee from that sin, sister. Resist it, slay it. God has given us His Spirit to aid us in this, and the free gift of eternal life is ours so we can enjoy His Holy self forever.
In the verse above, Paul is admonishing the Corinthians for over-valuing tongues (glossolalia). The church was entranced by the ‘show’ of tongues and interpretation of tongues. They had become unduly entranced by this next ‘shiny new thing’ (kind of like a mega-pastor with a fog machine or a boy with a new slingshot).
Pulpit Commentary says-
The Christian should always be childlike (Matthew 11:25; Matthew 19:4), but never childish (1 Corinthians 13:11; Ephesians 4:14).
Good advice. To often in this day and age, pastors leave one fad to leap on the next so as to appear relevant. Surfing from Jabez Rugs to Daniel Fasts, Courageous Resolutions to Love Dares, Promise Keepers to Beth Moore bracelets, Be Still meditations to Labyrinths, Seeker Sensitive to Emergent, tongues to healings, it often leaves out the most important: JESUS.
Pastor Phil Johnson speaks harshly about the Flaws of a Fad Driven Church. A Charismatic fascination with tongues had swerved the Corinthian Church from its underpinnings and caused all sorts of divisive issues.
Going further, Gill’s Exposition says,
The apostle here has chiefly reference to the gift of speaking with tongues, these Corinthians were so desirous of; which when they had it, was only to talk like children; and for them to prefer it to other gifts, which were more useful and beneficial, discovered their judgment to be but the judgment of children; and if they desired this, and made use of it for ostentation, it showed a childish vanity, from which the apostle here dissuades.
Matthew Henry says –
Children are apt to be struck with novelty and strange appearances. They are taken with an outward show, without enquiring into the true nature and worth of things. Do not you act like them, and prefer noise and show to worth and substance; show a greater ripeness of judgment, and act a more manly part; be like children in nothing but an innocent and inoffensive disposition. A double rebuke is couched in this passage, both of their pride upon account of their gifts, and their arrogance and haughtiness towards each other, and the contests and quarrels proceeding from them.
Note, Christians should be harmless and inoffensive as children, void of all guile and malice; but should have wisdom and knowledge that are ripe and mature. They should not be unskilful in the word of righteousness (Heb. 5:13), though they should be unskilful in all the arts of mischief.
In today’s cluttered world, there are many things that compete for attention. In the Church it is the same. Fads, things that seem good or even biblical, are simply stumbling blocks. It’s hard to understand how a Spiritual Gift could be one of those stumbling blocks, but this simply proves that satan can make hay out of anything. He made a piece of fruit Eve saw every day look so good that Eve was drooling over it and with her husband caused the downfall of man! Disobedience can come anywhere at anytime.
The childish mischief is complicated but the solution is simple. Jesus. Stay in your word, stay praying, stay streamlined in your quiet time. Strip away the clutter, lay aside every weight, focus on the Holy One.
Yesterday I wrote about how the ancients winnowed and threshed. Now here is the Parable of the Weeds (Tares)
“He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” (Matthew 13:24-30).
Here is Jesus’ explanation of the parable.
Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. (Matthew 13:36-40).
You see, the church is filled with tares as well as wheat. Satan came in and secretly brought in destructive heresies and false workers to spew them in order to bring reproach onto the name of Jesus and hinder His kingdom on earth. To illustrate this, Jesus told the parable of the weeds, posted above.
The weed is likely darnel, which enemies used to sow into an enemy’s field. This was agricultural sabotage. It was a disaster in the ancient days, so much so that Rome passed a law prohibiting it and levied severe penalties to anyone caught doing it. It is a catastrophic way to destroy the economy of your enemy, because the darnel looks exactly like wheat, until the very last moment when the full ear blooms. Darnel is called “false wheat” in many parts of the world. In the Bible it is also known as tares.
In Montana they are combating Persian darnel infestation. Montana State University Extension reports, “At high densities, Persian darnel could cause crop yield loss of up to 83 percent, 70 percent and 57 percent for spring wheat, canola and sunflower, respectively.” An 83% loss of your grain certainly is catastrophic.
Persian Darnel – A hidden problem pamphlet says: “Persian darnel is hard to spot in the emerging crop as it looks similar to wheat and/or wild oats,” says Steve King, technical service representative for Bayer CropScience. “So growers don’t know they have it and don’t use a herbicide that controls it. They find out about the infestation at harvest, which is not a good surprise.” … Discovering an infestation in the combine not only hurts yields, but can significantly impede harvest.
We know that false Christians populate the church. The Parable of the Tares tells us this. Also, the following verses are a few that tell us that there will be false ones among us. (2 Corinthians 11:13-15; 2 Timothy 3:5; Titus 1:16).
Satan’s sowing of false Christians into the church is certainly devastating.
In fact, the Bible’s note that the false ones’ future pleas to Jesus tell us there will be “many” who were false. They will say, “Lord, Lord, did we not…” and He will say “Depart from me you workers of iniquity, I never knew you.” (Matthew 7:21-23). These are people who looked the Christian part, acted the part, even attended church and prophesied in His name.
We can often get a sense of whether a person is genuinely saved or not. We can compare their life that is allegedly sanctified to the Word and if they bear no fruit we suspect the worst. We can pray for them in that case. But we can’t uproot the wheat because we don’t truly know for sure if they are wheat or darnel. That is not our job.
Forerunner Commentary explains, “The bad seeds grow to become poisonous weeds that allow only the healthiest of the wheat to survive. … Only when the wheat has matured can the tares be detected. Then the tares are gathered together in bundles in the field and destroyed by fire. … Many who are not in the process of conversion resemble those who are. Just like true Christians, they go to church, pray, and read the Bible, but they are only religious hobbyists. Jesus calls them “sons of the wicked one” (Matthew 13:38), and being tares, they will be destroyed. [Mathew G. Collins, Forerunner Commentary.]
If you are indeed a repented, forgiven, Bible-believing, submitted-to-Jesus true Christian, great! If you are not sure, wondering if you could be a tare not a wheat, then here are a few resources for you along the lines of assurance:
“His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:12 LSB)
The way the ancients used to process their wheat is to gather it from the field, place it on the hardened threshing floor, and thresh and winnow it. The threshing-floor is a hollowed out spot with a packed earthen floor on the top of a hill where the late afternoon wind kicks up. The first part of the process is threshing. They thresh the wheat stalks by passing a sledge over them on the threshing-floor. Dragging the sledge over the stalk rolls the chaff kernel off the wheat stalk. The chaff is waste, like a husk.
You can see one woman standing on a sledge in the photo. The sledge is the tied-together planks with turned up front. Sledging separates the wheat from the chaff. You want the wheat. The chaff is the hard kernel husk, and you don’t want that. It is inedible. As the threshing process goes on they mound the stalks in the middle of the floor.
A threshing floor in the hills of Galilee – the women threshing
Library of Congress
Next they take a winnowing fork, poke it into the mound, and toss all the material – wheat, chaff, straw, weevils, etc, – into the air. The wind carries the chaff away. The heavier wheat falls to the ground.
Primitive winnowing [picture] : [Palestine, World War II]
When they finish the threshing and winnowing, they gather the broken straws and bundle them for fuel to be burned. The wheat is gathered and tied together in bundles also and put into the barn.
The Matthew verse speaks to the judgment of Jesus. The chaff are unbelievers who will be burned with an unquenchable fire. That speaks to the fire of hell which will torment the unbeliever forever.
The wheat that has been gathered into the barn represents the raptured and resurrected saints gathered to Jesus to the place He has prepared for us.
I love Chris Rosebrough of Fighting for the Faith. He has been “Fighting for the Faith” for a long time. Fighting for the Faith is a discernment ministry that compares what popular pastors, preachers, teachers, conference speakers, self-proclaimed prophets and prophetesses and self-appointed apostles and apostlets say to the word of God. He is known by the moniker “Pirate Christian.”
He is also a Lutheran pastor with a congregation in Minnesota.
If you need a discernment person, Chris Rosebrough would be a safe discerner. (Along with Justin Peters and Steve Kozar). Rosebrough has been discerning for a long time. I remember looking (and looking and looking) for material discerning Beth Moore back in 2011 and there was very little that wasn’t 100% approving of her. One of the three pieces that I found back then was a review Rosebrough did on her Hebrews speech published in 2006. So, a long time.
As he says in his tagline above, he compares what self-professed Christians say to what the Bible says. Last week he reviewed a speech Beth Moore made on her Youtube channel, where she allegedly explained the David & Goliath event in 1 Samuel 17.
What Rosebrough does in this video is…well…a lot! He announced at the outset of the video that Beth Moore is not a sound teacher. But he does more than just announce. He then turns to the Bible and reads the entire passage from the Bible that the teacher is presenting. He reads before and after, for context. Rosebrough explains the passage as he reads; the context, the history, the background, the meaning of certain words. Full explanation. By the time he is finished the listener has a solid grasp on the passage.
Then, and only then, near the end of this video, Rosebrough turns to the Beth Moore speech. The reader has by now been given such a solid grounding, he or she can immediately see why Moore’s explanation of the verse is not only ridiculous, but nearly blasphemy.
His discernment technique is more than pointing a finger and saying “don’t listen to her!” He teaches (pastorally), he models discernment (spiritual gift usage), and he is clear (“able to teach”).
A few points from the video:
narcigesis: this is a combination of two terms, narcissism and eisegesis. Narcissism because Moore inserts herself and the reader into the text and makes US the point, and eisegesis because that is an interpretive method where the interpreter inserts a preconceived meaning INTO the text instead of exegeting it (drawing meaning FROM the text.
If you are listening to a teacher explain a passage and you realize they have made it all about you, or made it where we are the hero of the story and not Jesus, it’s narcigesis. You might think, “Well DUH!” but satan is subtle and often times you do not realize the passage has been twisted. But listening to Chris Rosebrough, you will learn how to spot it.
Screen shot from Moore’s speech. The tall figure is supposed to represent Goliath, which Moore says represents our problems.
Rosebrough ends the video this way:
Beth Moore is not a sound biblical teacher … She took a text that’s so obviously about Christ and makes it about you and about me shows that she’s not skilled at all in rightly handling God’s word and and pointing you to yourself as your own savior.
Please listen to the video to see not only why Moore is not a solid teacher, but how to approach a biblical text and how to approach discernment.
the-end-time.org 