This week I saw a stunning photo from the Ark Encounter twitter stream. Then yesterday I found two books about Genesis, one was a scientific and devotional commentary on Genesis by Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research, and other other was by the same author of the science behind the creation flood. I love Genesis, especially the first 11 chapters, so it was on my mind.
Then I remembered I wrote this blog 6 years ago. It’s true today as it was then. Even more so, because an increasing number of theologians reject Young Earth and preach Old Earth or Gap Theory. I saw a Twitter poll the other day too, asking ‘if your pastor started preaching old earth, would you leave?’ I thought about it a long time. So these issues have been on my mind.
Years and years of Sunday School, VBS, and Children’s lessons about Noah’s ark like this…
…have led thousands and thousands of people to believe Noah’s ark was a cute little tub happily bounding along the sunny seas, and not the serious event that it was. I personally rate it as the third most serious event in the humankind’s history, after the Fall and the Crucifixion.
Ken Ham and the Creation Museum folks have built an Ark to biblical size. Guess what? In the face of this world’s current love affair with massive buildings, its penchant for tremendous construction projects, and its historical stunning size (it was twice as long as Caligula’s ships at Nemi) the fact is, at 510 feet long and 7 storeys high the Ark is the biggest timber frame structure in the world today. Imagine how stupendously awesome the structure would have been to the ancients. The pyramids were not built yet.
The above picture (the cover of a children’s biblical storybook) displays the unfortunate reduction in majesty and scope of the entire Noah/Flood/Judgment event. Below is the reality.
Credit: Ark Encounter photo
The post from Ark Encounter explains the photo above:
“@ArkEncounter: Our strategically placed viewing area in front of the lake allows guests to take in a spectacular view of the Ark and its reflection. This site is one of the most popular locations for family and large group photographs.”
Picture storybook illustrations are just as much a part of the recounting as the words. Be mindful of the diminishing of the seriousness of the event with the illustrations you share.
I published this in 2018 and I updated and added to it today because of a confirmation of a tweet I saw Sharon Hodde Miller express on Twitter recently. Moore took hold of the goat and brought it into into church where it lurked in corners and tried to be inconspicuous. Now these women settle the goat onto a pew and treat the goat as a sheep. Jesus said in Revelation 2:20-23 that he is against false female preachers/teachers/prophets, especially ones who preach falsely!
But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. 21I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her sexual immorality. 22Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. 23And I will kill her children with plague, and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.
This passage SHOULD strike deadly fear into these women who boast of their sin.
It was a given that for more than 2000 years women are not to be teachers or preachers of men. We women can and do teach, we minister, and we evangelize. We discuss, we help, we clarify in a private setting, but we are not to have biblical authority over men in church expository situations.
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” (1 Timothy 2:12)
How is a women preaching to men a sinister situation? It’s sin. As RC Sproul said, sin is cosmic treason!
Ask the metaphorical Jezebel of Revelation 2:20 who was teaching things God did not say. Jesus promised to kill her and her followers. Inserting words into God’s mouth is sin.
What God says to do or not do matters. We don’t need 50,000 verses. One is enough. Women are not allowed to teach the Bible to men.
But Beth Moore does.
She has been doing it for 35 years.
Woe to Beth Moore.
A generation is about 25 years. Therefore, it’s woe to the generation of women coming up in Christian circles who have for the entire time been seeing Moore’s preaching to men as normal, even with her former pastor’s overt blessing, or the tacit blessing of her former denomination the Southern Baptist Convention and its arm, Lifeway.
For years Moore taught Bible to a co-ed Sunday School class of 600-700 people as you read in that link above and later up to 900 people as stated in this link from her own former SBC church:
At that time, God began to do a new thing, stirring the heart of Beth to move to a new meeting place, meeting time, change the name of the class, and allow men to attend.
Is it God ‘stirring the heart’ of a woman to disobey scripture and to teach men? I think not. In Revelation 2:23 it’s noted that Jesus will strike Jezebel’s children dead. These are not Jezebel’s biological children, but the spiritual daughters she is raising up in her polluted, sinful likeness who preach and prophesy.
Being a woman called to leadership within and simultaneously beyond those walls [of an SBC church] was complicated to say the least but I worked within the system. After all, I had no personal aspirations to preach nor was it my aim to teach men. If men showed up in my class, I did not throw them out. I taught. ~Beth Moore
Abuse of the word “called” here is especially egregious, because it intimates that God assigned her to preach, which is in effect, co-opting God into her own sin, and using Him as the excuse. God will address this abuse on the Day.
Secondly, it does not matter if you “had personal aspirations to preach” to men or not. Your opinion does not matter, only the Bible’s statutes. If you do preach, you’re sinning. If you fail to stop it, you’re sinning.
Other women elsewhere began copying Moore’s excuses and language. “I’m called to do this”. “I have no desire to preach but it happened anyway”, “I want to step into the gifts God has given me to teach [men]” and the like.
Moore eventually founded Living Proof Ministry in 1994. By 2003 her Living Proof Live conferences had gone beyond the confines of her church and beyond the Texas border. A national magazine took notice. Their opening sentence called her a minister.
“Once a victim of abuse, Beth Moore is one of America’s most popular ministers today.”
The article went on to note that men attended her Sunday School class. It was popular, so crowded with both sexes that attendees were asked to car pool because the parking lot was so jammed.
An obedient teacher says “My love is for Christ and His word, and I asked the pastor to restrict the class to women only.” But as Beth Moore said above, “I didn’t throw them out. I taught.” She purposely sought bigger rooms to accommodate them all.
The leaders of her church allowed it, encouraged it. About this time, her pastor also asked Beth to preach the Sunday Night service, too. Woe!
She has been a usurper from the beginning. And she keeps on teaching. And the women were watching. Like hawks.
In 2010 when her fame was rising, Christianity Today did a 6-page cover story on her. The article cites the following:
Before she begins, she addresses the few men in the crowd. A Southern Baptist, Moore emphasizes that her ministry is intended for women. “The gentlemen who had such courage to come into this place tonight, into this estrogen fest if you will ever find one in your entire life: we are so blessed to have you,” Moore says. “I do not desire to have any kind of authority over you.”
It’s laughable to pronounce a blessing on the men in attendance, welcome them, preach the Bible to them, and then meekly deny any authority over them. Is her teaching from the Word authoritative over the women but not the men sitting next to them? Or do the women reject her authority to teach and they’re just coming, say, for the music? You see the illogic. If she teaches the Bible, she is teaching authoritatively, and it’s authoritative to all in the hearing of it.
As far as Moore’s coyness that she does not desire to be authoritative over them, this is false. Genesis 3:16 tells us it is IN us to want to usurp male authority. It doesn’t matter if you desire to break God’s command or not, if you DO, you’re sinning. Try telling the traffic policeman that “I did not desire to speed on the highway” and see if he lets you go.
The Christianity Today story is behind a paywall now. However, the link is here if you want to see the source.
Moore’s occasional weak protest, that men attend her classes and conferences on their own volition so it isn’t really her fault, doesn’t hold water. She taught men in her SS class for 20 years. By 2012, she was personally asked to substitute for pastor Louie Giglio preaching the Sunday Service at Louie Giglio’s Passion City Church, and she accepted. It was Holy Week, and she preached John 19 to a very, VERY large crowd of congregants. Now the “secret” was out and widely public. ‘Women, even SBC women, can preach! No one will stop us!’
Screen grabs from videos like this in 2012 harm women when they see a female on stage preaching from the Bible shoulder to shoulder with men. It’s visual egalitarianism. Photos like this are damaging. L-R, Lecrae, Moore, Chan, Giglio, Piper preaching at Passion Conference in 2012:
Now the POINT: (I know, I know, this blog is like a pastor giving a 30-minute sermon intro in a 40-minute sermon session,)
Moore is personally the transition linchpin for this new future of women preachers:
Moore is one of the evangelical leaders today who represent the future of the global church, in which people outside Europe and the United States will be dominant. … Moore represents this transition, which is shaping even the most conservative corners of evangelicalism.
There is the danger. After so many decades of preaching and teaching, with little to no pushback from her leadership in the denomination, Moore has mirrored the metaphorical Jezebel Jesus threatened death with in Revelation 2:20-23. He threatened death to her and also the women the Jezebel had raised up by her sinful example.
Imagine, within one generation a woman whose former claim to fame was the latest aerobics moves climbed steadily up to being seriously considered for president of the world’s largest denomination, a conservative one, at that. One generation, after 2000 years of holding fast to scripture on this issue. Sin is amazing in its power.
Yet the LORD our God is still on His throne and He still maintains a hard line on the roles women and men are to operate within in His church. That is a given.
For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1Corinthians 14: 33-35).
Music can lift the spirits, draw up emotion, or bring you down. It’s a solace after a breakup, or a lift me up during exercise. Music is great and it’s powerful on the emotions.
EPrata photo
It is also powerful on the brain too. It can quietly instill good doctrine in us, affirm truths, or slyly draw us away with bad doctrine. Music matters.
There is a whole book of the Bible that is music: the Psalms. It’s great to sing the Psalms because they are 100% true and God-breathed. But there are many man-made songs that are also spiritual or reference doctrines from the Bible that are good to sing, as well.
speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; (Ephesians 5:19)
I enjoy singing hymns, praise songs, and spiritual songs because I like the pictures they put into my head. I like pondering the words and reviewing the metal pictures that arise. Whose heart doesn’t lift when we get to the verse in Amazing Grace,
“When we’ve been there 10,000 years…”
Just thinking about being with Jesus and singing in heaven is a mood-booster.
EPrata photo
Eschatology is the study of Last Things. The Time of the End. The Last Days. Sadly, in these present days there is much conflict around differing interpretations of the sequence of Last Things, and often these discussions online or in real life devolve quickly into arguments.
As a result of not wanting to get into arguments, or perhaps not to be tempted to besmirch one’s witness, many people choose not to discuss it at all (or worse, not to study it). But with a wholesale eschewing of discussing the subject also comes a wholesale aversion to singing about it too.
Last things provide an assurance to the believer that this home is temporary, its woes will pass, the future with our Lord is coming, and soon. It does all that for our heart, and more.
EPrata photo
Yet Paul expressly explained about the end time and the dead in Christ’s rising and ended with “therefore comfort one another with these words.”
The end time doctrines are supposed to comfort us. In earlier days when the subject wasn’t so contentious, many people wrote songs about the coming end.
Let’s go back to 1964 with this hit. “Sorry, I never Knew You” by Naomi Sego and the Sego Brothers was the first million-selling gospel single. Can you believe that it is based on Matthew 7:21-22, when Jesus says to the false converts and fake professors, “Depart from me you evildoer, I never knew you!”
Amazing.
Today we get happy clappy songs with endless refrains about Jesus embracing us like a boyfriend, but a song to sing the important verse about the reality of false conversion is startling. But it exists and was a hit no less. In 1964, The Sego Brothers were the first Southern Gospel Group to sell over a million records, and it was “Sorry” that vaulted them up the charts.
In this next one, Charles Johnson & The Revivers sing “I’ve Been Sealed” and the first stanza looks forward to the day Jesus raises us to be with Him.
Paul Williams and the Victory Trio sing “I’ve never been this homesick before” and really, as each day passes, I get more and more homesick for the Lord!
Alan Jackson sings “I’ll Fly Away” and truly, some glad morning I will fly upward, raised from this ole body to a glorified one to be with my Lord forever!
Someday Jesus will shout for us to rise, and here we have John Jones “At the Midnight Cry“
Are you in the faith? Many of these songs urge the listener to be sure. They are sobering things to think of. No matter your eschatological stance, ultimately the most important thing is to be sure you are cleansed by the blood of Christ, repented of sin, and in the faith. Life on earth will end one day. Standing on the edge of eternity, which direction will you go- up or down?
In collaboration with Mark Rice and Phil Webb, Hymns of Grace and Generations of Grace present hymns featuring a brief introduction on their backgrounds and full performances. The series is called Hymnology. Here is the link to Season 1. There are 3 seasons so far.
It’s spiritually grieving to see so much false teaching and wrong doctrine on Twitter (AKA “X”). Satan certainly does use social media to his advantage, doesn’t he.
One flavor of wrong doctrine these days has to do with women’s roles in the church. Feminism since the 1960s has crept into the church and led the way for people to disregard Godly roles and to pursue roles not ordained for us. And I’m not talking solely about women usurping men, but there are other roles that have been ignored by men, also. For example, the recently converted are not to take on leadership roles, lest they become conceited. Too many recent converts untested by time have vaulted into leadership roles, grown large platforms, and shipwrecked spectacularly.
Older women are to teach the younger and not be busybodies in everyone’s business. But many older women do not teach the younger and instead, especially after retirement, and speak of things not edifying of which to speak.
But back to women and godly roles. It is obvious from plain reading of the Bible that women are not to preach in church. We see in 1 Timothy 2:12,
But I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.
And then to remove any discussion of present time or culture or temporariness, some common excuses, Paul cites the creation order, For it was Adam who was first formed, and then Eve.
He did so again in 1 Corinthians 11:8-9,
For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man. For indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake.
No woman was a pastor of any church in the Bible. No woman had ongoing authority over any man (except Deborah, as Israel’s only female JUDGE, not preacher, was an exception to a normative rule, and was given the role likely to shame men- Isaiah 3:12.) No woman wrote any part of the Bible. No woman was a priest.
But it is interesting to see how today’s ladies who want to rebelliously twist the Bible into saying things it doesn’t. It would be funny to see all these pretzel verses, if it wasn’t so tragic.
I saw on Twitter last week some women who Beth Moore whipped up and then flicked into off into fantasyland with outspoken but wrong ideas of women’s leadership in the early church. Beth does this so well, wind women up. Here is Beth’s tweet,
Notice the analytics. 63,000 people engaged with her tweet in one way or another. This is also tragic and it is why I write about her like this. She INFLUENCES negatively. A Mr. Robert Fletcher commented,
At best, @BethMooreLPM doesn’t seem to understand the difference between evangelism and teaching/having authority over men in the church. At worst, she does understand it, and she is purposefully drawing a straw man to further deceive her followers. Either way, she is eisegeting.”
The only options are Beth’s ignorance, or her deception. But women get whipped up when Moore disingenuously comments about women along these lines. One replied to Beth Moore,
Sarah went on to present verses about Chloe, Priscilla, Phoebe and ‘the elect lady’ who were allegedly “leading” the early church.
First of all, the Bible says women are not to lead. And don’t @me about Deborah. She was the clear exception to the rule, she wasn’t a king, Priest, or scribe, and she was installed to shame the men. It was about men’s weakness, not women’s strength or ability
The word “lead” is incorrectly used. We’ll start with Chloe. Chloe didn’t lead. We know next to nothing about this women. She actually was not even specifically named! The verse in 1 Corinthians 1:11 names only that some from her household let Paul know of strife at Corinth. That’s it. That is the sum total of Chloe. Oh and her name means green herb. How someone gets from that to Chloe being “an early church leader” is insane.
Priscilla was mentioned, too. We know she was married to Aquila, and we know she took Apollos aside along with her husband in order to teach Apollos more accurately.
Priscilla was mentioned 6 times, (Acts 18:2, 18, 26; Romans 16:3; 1 Corinthians 16:19; 2 Timothy 4:19). She is always mentioned along with her husband. They are a pair, and separating Priscilla in order to place her on an imaginary leadership pedestal would be to use a scalpel to excise Aquila from scripture. We cannot vault Priscilla to a leadership position any more than we could for Aquila.
Phoebe was also put on the list in this discussion of ‘early women leaders’ as a leader in the church. We do know from scripture she was a benefactor of the early church. Susannah was a benefactor too, but not claimed as a leader. Hmm. Phoebe was mentioned as having brought a letter to Rome, probably in a group of others since traveling alone as a female was dangerous. Phoebe was called a deaconess, meaning servant, and as such, could have been a teacher of all female inquirers of the faith, (because we know from 1 Timothy 2:12 she would not have been teaching the men). Or she could have been active in the helping the poor among the flock, since Paul called her a benefactor.
That’s it. Nothing in there to lead one to believe she was a leader of any type more than Mary and Martha, who opened their home and served those who came, and who were active in Jesus’ ministry as believers and followers.
The simple fact that some women are mentioned is far from proof they led. Dorcas/Tabitha was more than mentioned, an entire story revolves around Dorcas. She was even resurrected from the dead. Yet feminists do not call her a leader. I wonder why. Could it be because the Bible clearly limits her sphere of influence to sewing and widows, traditional female domains?
The stretch and twisting that feminist women give to these few Bible women and try to vault them into positions they clearly did not attain is startling. But when one has an agenda, one will go to lengths to prop it up.
Women’s position in society pre-Incarnation was as chattel, and invisible. They were equated with slaves as far as admissibility in testifying in court, which was a big NOPE. Public worship can take place in a synagogue only if at least ten adult Jewish males were there for a quorum. Women do not qualify as part of this quorum, which is likely why there was a group of women by the river (which included Lydia) that Paul found.
Jesus elevated the status of women by including them in his ministry. Susannah and Lydia and Phoebe were benefactors. Mary and Martha (and Lazarus) opened their home to Jesus. Philip’s daughters evangelized. Priscilla (and Aquila) taught. But their elevation into the mix of daily service does not mean they led in church. Many scriptures are clear that women are not to lead in services but to be silent participants. And to serve enthusiastically in all other places God has ordained and in the many roles we see women serving in the New Testament: financial support, evangelizing, hospitality, serving other women, teaching women, children, and grandchildren, and other background but critical service.
My greatest wish is for usurping women to finally become content with the roles Jesus has outlined for us in all spheres; church, home, and world. If they do not, Jesus will address this on the Day, which will be more uncomfortable and more embarrassing than accepting it here on earth.
(Cropped)Art is The neo-gothic fresco of big prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel by Leopold Bruckner from end of 19. cent. in Saint Nicholas church.
When I read the Bible and someone is named that I am not too familiar with, it makes me curious. I’ll never get tired of studying Paul or Peter or John or Stephen or Lydia…but then someone is mentioned and I go “Another person to get to know! Who was h/she?” Like, Tychicus, Eutychus (the guy who fell out the window during Paul’s long sermon), Chloe, Rufus, and so many others.
These were real people. They were fellow believers and part of the body. We will meet them in heaven. So let’s take a look in this new series, at some names of folks we don’t know much about.
While there may not be a huge amount the Bible says about these folks, studying what we do know we will learn there is more than we think.
PROPHETS
The Old Testament is divided into Law, Wisdom, History, and Prophets. Of the Prophets, there are whole books dedicated to these men and the words God used their mouths to utter. The Major Prophets, so called because their books were longer, not because they were more important than any other book, were Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel. There were the Minor Prophets, so called because their books were shorter, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.
But those were not ALL the prophets operating in the Old Testament (or the New). There were others named and many others in the School of Prophets who were not named.
Of the named Prophets who do not have a book about them or written by them, there is one called Iddo.
He is listed in a verse along with Nathan the Prophet, and Iddo is named as a seer. There are many definitions and suppositions about the seers and their differences in operation to the Prophets, which I won’t get into. Except to paste what The Lexham Bible Dictionary has to say,
Generally synonymous with the role of the prophet (e.g., 2 Sam 24:11; 1 Chr 21:9; Amos 7:12). However, at times, it is used as a distinct term from that of prophet (2 Kgs 17:13). Seer, by connotation of the Hebrew word affiliated with it being connected to the idea of receiving a vision (חֹזֶה, chozeh), may be more connected to the idea of visions than the prophetic word, although this is not necessarily the case in all usages.
An additional term used for “seer” does not necessarily evoke the connotation of one who receives a vision but does evoke the idea of seeing (רֹאֶה, ro’eh; e.g., Isa 30:10). Nonetheless, even this term is used synonymously with “prophet”; this point is explicitly made in an aside in 1 Sam 9:9: “Formerly in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he would say: ‘Come, let us go up to the seer.’ For the prophet of today was formerly called a seer” (compare 1 Sam 9:19). A “Chronicle of the Seers” is also mentioned in 2 Chr 33:19.
Source Barry, J. D. (2016). Seer. In The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Lexham Press.
Cleared that right up, didn’t it? Not so much.
Iddo the name means lovely, his beloved, or His love. Iddo was was contemporary to Solomon and Rehoboam. We read this specific Iddo (for there are others named Iddo in the Old Testament), three times in the OT:
Now the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways and his words are written in the treatise of the prophet Iddo. (2 Chronicles 13:22)
The Death of Solomon Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, from first to last, are they not written in the chronicles of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat? (2 Chronicles 9:29)
Now the acts of Rehoboam, from first to last, are they not written in the records of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer, according to genealogical record? Now there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. (2 Chronicles 12:15).
Iddo prophesied against Jeroboam. He also seems to have written stories about the lives of the Kings and events in Israel and Judah, but those stories have not been included in the canon.
Some claim these writings of Iddo were “lost,” but Yahweh never loses anything and has perfectly preserved His word through centuries. His Spirit has inspired men to include exactly what God wanted included in the canon. If it’s not in the canon, it isn’t meant for us, as God considered it unnecessary for our edification. The Bible is all-sufficient.
Iddo may also be the grandfather of the minor prophet Zechariah (see Zechariah 1:1,7) but there is much discussion as to whether this is the same Iddo.
Hard tellin’ not knowin’, as the saying goes.
And that is all I could find out about Iddo! Blessings, and thank you for reading.
I often post mission-minded posts, to remind us of the importance of evangelizing the lost not just near, but far. Here, I re-post a thread from Twitter written by Josh Buice. The letter from Judson to Ann’s father was extremely touching and reminded me once again of the danger that missionaries then and now face every day.
illustration of Judson and wife Ann
Here is Dr. Buice:
𝙅𝙤𝙨𝙝 𝘽𝙪𝙞𝙘𝙚, @JoshBuice Do you know what it looks like to deny yourself and follow Christ?
In 1813, Adoniram Judson sailed to Burma from the shores of America with his wife Ann.
He was 24.
His wife Ann was 23.
They spent their lives for the glory of Christ among unreached peoples.
Before they married, Judson wrote a letter to Ann’s father asking for his blessing in marriage. This is what he wrote in the letter:
“I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world?
Whether you can consent to see her departure to a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life?
Whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death?
Can you consent to all this, for the sake of perishing immortal souls; for the sake of Zion and the glory of God?
Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with a crown of righteousness brightened by the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?”
Soon after accepting Judson’s proposal of marriage and the life of a missionary, Ann wrote to a friend where she said the following:
“I feel willing, and expect, if nothing in providence prevents, to spend my days in this world in heathen lands. Yes, Lydia, I have about come to the determination to give up all my comforts and enjoyments here, sacrifice my affection to relatives and friends, and go where God, in his providence, shall see fit to place me.”
Ann became sick and died only a few years into their ministry.
Judson spent 38 years there until his death at 61.
Judson organized and published the Burmese dictionary.
Judson translated the Bible into the Burmese language.
Judson wrote gospel tracts and distributed tens of thousands in the first 6-years before seeing his first convert.
Judson preached the gospel faithfully.
Judson, along with his wife Ann, demonstrated what it was like to deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow Christ (Luke 9:23).
*Quotes taken from Courtney Anderson’s book: “To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson”
Our boat, upon which we searched for, and found, the mythical Margaritaville.
He holds a special place in my life. I loved his music. One of the earliest lyrics I wrote in little girl script on the blank side of an index card and tacked on my cork board above my desk was from 1977’s album Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, “If we couldn’t laugh we’d all go insane”.
As a thirtysomething I’d sought a different way of living after I became burned out as a teacher and melancholy over an unwanted divorce. Buffett’s ‘drop out and enjoy the beach’ brand of hedonism now spoke to me, as Maine winters with frigid temps, gray skies, and asphalt encrusted frozen snowbanks dimmed the spirit. Here, I’d clung to the lyric “I gotta go where it’s warm!”
I found it when my new husband and I boarded his yacht and sailed into the sunset. We anchored in Georgetown, The Bahamas and the lyric “One Particular Harbor” now resonated with us. We met lots of fellow ‘Parrotheads’ who had the same dream to drop out, live a life of pleasure, and enjoy the simple things like “Boat Drinks” while searching for the “Green Flash at Sunset” (which we finally saw!) I was living the dream.
But was I?
I was still melancholy, still felt I was searching for something that would salve the sadness and constant friction in my soul. I was not saved. I could listen to Buffett all day long, and agree with him on so many counts as I parroted the lyrics, but I still cried real tears in the wee night. I didn’t know why.
A few years later we “swallowed our anchor” and became employed landlubbers again. The Lord’s timing was such that He saw fit to NOW show me the truth. We don’t live for ourselves but we live to give God the glory He deserves and enjoy Him forever. As my sanctification increased I found myself leaving the Buffett songs, as I found them tinged with an underlying anger and rebellion.
Buffett’s Catholic upbringing left a deep mark on his soul. You can hear it in many of his songs, where he acknowledges sin but never seeks the remedy. Because of the lies of the Catholic Church in his 14 formative years, he ran as fast as he could from God and never looked back, except to entwine the God of truth with the false god of Catholicism and disparage Him in song.
This 2018 article from a Catholic perspective recounts Buffett’s angst and anger over it all. I think it is well-written.
“I broke out of the grip of Catholicism…” Buffett wrote in his autobiography “A Pirate Looks at Fifty”.
The harm that false religion does to a soul is incalculable. He wrote “Vampires, Mummies, and the Holy Ghost” in 1994, and here are two stanzas,
So many dragons lurking out in the fog So many crazy people mumblin’ monologues It’s not the tales of Stephen King that I’ve read I need protection from the things in my head
Vampires, mummies and the holy ghost These are the things that terrify me the most No aliens, psychopaths or MTV hosts Scares me like vampires, mummies and the holy ghost
We can see that the true Holy Ghost never made an appearance to Buffett’s troubled soul and distressed mind through God’s word rightly interpreted. Only the Catholic version.
As for me, I enjoyed his music, I liked his lyrics, I tried living the Buffett philosophy of life for a while. Then the Lord above dropped the scales from my eyes and graciously gave me the faith to repent and clearly see Jesus in His glory through His word. I’m grateful for that.
Today I’ll still probably play a few Buffett songs in acknowledgement of his talent and enjoy listening to “One Particular Harbor”- but this time my harbor is Christ, not Georgetown.
Jimmy Buffett died from as yet undeclared causes, but his soul lives on. Buffett wrote in “He Went to Paris, “some of it’s magic, some of it’s tragic, but I had a good life all the way.” He did. He was admired for his music, he was an author of children’s books and adult books, he had 3 kids whom he loved, he was a millionaire, he sailed boats and flew planes to his heart’s content. He accepted the applause of millions right up until recently in his sell-out live concerts.
“Along with hit songs, Buffett wrote best-selling novels. In 2008 he was ranked by Vanity Fair as No. 97 on a list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and his fan base was broad and loyal. Even when he was in his 60s, his concert tickets fetched more than $100.” Source
His earthly life has finished. He inspired many, he charmed many, and he had a good life all the way.
It seems that every day we awaken to a new tragedy. Maui fires, extreme heat, store shooting, hurricane…
How can this happen, people wonder. Why does this keep happening, people wonder. It happens because of sin. Man is born a sinner, and it is only God’s common grace that retrains every man from murdering every day. However, God’s restraining grace is lifted as He abandons a nation.
So, man turns to false religion to help him restrain the evil in him. But this does not work, either. The harder man tries, the more he fails.
“False religion cannot restrain sin in the heart, although it can mask it with self-righteousness.” Principles of God’s Judgment
When an individual or a nation resists the Law, the conscience, and common grace in creation long enough, God gives them over to the lusts of their heart.
“God will abandon sinners to their own choices and the consequences of those choices. And just what is this abandoning act on God’s part, it is the removal of restraining grace. It is when God lets go and turns a society over to its own sinful freedoms and the results of those freedoms. No Scripture more directly confronts this abandonment and its consequences than Romans 1 does.” When God Abandons a Nation
Three times you have the statement, “God gave them over.” This term paradidomiin the Greek can have a judicial sense. It can be used of a judgment made on a criminal who was then handed over for punishment. Each of these phrases expresses the fact that the wrath of God has acted judicially to sentence sinners. It is God officially giving them over. It is God letting them go to the uninterrupted cause and effect their sinful choices produce. When this judgment falls, there is a depriving of restraining grace and sin runs rampant through a society. When God Abandons a Nation
And false religion includes the atheist and agnostic, the ‘no-choice’ person, because those are just religion of self. This is why we need Jesus, all people do. The sin of man is inherent in his heart and only Him from above who is without stain can resolve our sin problem. All men need the Gospel.
The Gospel is not “having purpose in your life”. It is not “accepting Jesus” or praying a prayer. The Gospel which everyone needs is good news, as Ligonier explains:
“The gospel is called the ‘good news’ because it addresses the most serious problem that you and I have as human beings, and that problem is simply this: God is holy and He is just, and I’m not. And at the end of my life, I’m going to stand before a just and holy God, and I’ll be judged. And I’ll be judged either on the basis of my own righteousness–or lack of it–or the righteousness of another. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus lived a life of perfect righteousness, of perfect obedience to God, not for His own well being but for His people. He has done for me what I couldn’t possibly do for myself. But not only has He lived that life of perfect obedience, He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to satisfy the justice and the righteousness of God.”
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)
The sad truth is that man is not good. This is not an anomaly. The man who shot the elementary students at Sandy Hook, the man who shot the movie-goers in the theater in Colorado, the who shot the homosexual club-goers in Orlando … at Dollar General… this IS man.
“America seems ripe for judgment”… The discerners of the church body have been saying ‘judgment in America’ for a while. I know I have. In 2010 I’d written that America seemed to have passed the “point of no return. Before the Economic Crash of 2008, all had been going along like it had been in this country. America was strong and mighty and seemingly invincible. Warning that judgment was coming soon was met with strange looks and shaking of heads. No brimstone was falling, after all. Just because we don’t see brimstone falling from the sky does not mean we as a nation are not experiencing judgment.
Many people think of judgment as the kind that occurred at Sodom and Gomorrah: brimstone from the sky and obliteration of the entire city. (Genesis 19:24). And that IS one kind of judgment.
Bible Fact: There are 13 mentions of brimstone (sulfur) in the Bible. Six mentions are in the Old Testament. Seven mentions are in the New Testament. Of the 7 mentions of brimstone in the NT, six are in Revelation.
The wrath of God is not one-dimensional. There are in fact many different kinds of wrath that God displays. Hosea 5:12 says “He is as a moth to Ephraim or or dry rot to Judah”, working silently and invisibly. In his 2012 sermon “When God Abandons a Nation“, John MacArthur outlined five distinct kinds of wrath the Lord has displayed throughout the Bible.
1. Eternal wrath: that is the punishing eternal, judgment God brings upon sinners in their death. 2. Eschatalogical wrath: God’s stored-up anger unleashed at the end of this present age upon the world, promised by Old Testament saints, outlined at length in Jesus’ Olivet Discourse, and seen unfolding through Revelation. 3. Cataclysmic wrath: These are tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc., the result of sin and the curse upon the world. 4. Consequential wrath: this is a person receiving the just due for their actions while on earth, the sowing and reaping. 5. Abandonment: This is the wrath seen in Romans 1:18-32. MacArthur preached, “God will abandon sinners to their own choices and the consequences of those choices. And just what is this abandoning act on God’s part, it is the removal of restraining grace. It is when God lets go and turns a society over to its own sinful freedoms and the results of those freedoms. No Scripture more directly confronts this abandonment and its consequences than Romans 1 does.”
A Hillary Clinton presidency would be a Jezebel judgment in my opinion. A Kamala Harris Vice-Presidency is also indicative of judgment, as Isaiah 3:12 seems to indicate.
MacArthur said in that 2012 sermon that “It’s pretty convincing that God has abandoned our nation.” God has done so in the past to other nations, many times. In Hosea 4:17 it is recorded that God said, “Ephraim is joined unto idols, let him alone.” America isn’t special that we should not expect the same treatment as other rebellious nations when we abandon Him.
In Acts 14:16, the Apostle Paul said, “In the generations gone by, He…God…permitted all the nations to go their own way.” This is the story of history. All the nations of history go their own way. So like the nations of old, like the nations past, we follow the same cycle of having the truth, rejecting the truth and being abandoned by God. ~MacArthur
Can you think of a worse wrath than for God to leave you alone? Whether He is abandoning you as an individual or as a nation, it is a deeply disturbing thought. In Romans 1:18-32,
Three times you have the statement, “God gave them over.” This term paradidomiinthe Greek can have a judicial sense. It can be used of a judgment made on a criminal who was then handed over for punishment. Each of these phrases expresses the fact that the wrath of God has acted judicially to sentence sinners. It is God officially giving them over. It is God letting them go to the uninterrupted cause and effect their sinful choices produce. When this judgment falls, there is a depriving of restraining grace and sin runs rampant through a society. (Source)
Do the people of a nation under the wrath of abandonment know it is happening when it is happening? Non-believers don’t of course, and even most believers don’t. But the Prophets certainly did, and it was a deep lament to them.
Cut off your hair and throw it away; take up a lament on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and abandoned this generation that is under his wrath. (Jeremiah 7:29)
And so, we are under His wrath. That brings the question…is there any hope? … [T]here is a word of hope in Psalm 81…This is a plaintive cry from God who says, “Oh that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways.” The key, listen to Me. Walk in My ways. The only hope for this or any other society is to hear the Word of the Lord and obey it, to hear the Word of the Lord and obey it. And I would suggest that this is not a good time for weak men preaching weak messages in weak churches. This is a time for bold and powerful strong biblical ministry that calls people to hear the Word of the Lord and respond. This is the only hope for any people for any individual.
The day is sobering and the times are troubling. We all strive to display the joy of Christ in our daily life, to persevere in and aura of hope and peace. We know to be gentle and humble, and to love our friend, neighbor and enemy. But there is no doubt that the times demand of us a careful attention to the Bible and its paths, more than ever in fact.
We don’t like to be downers but we also don’t ignore the fact that we are living in difficult times that are on the precipice of being massively more difficult soon. We know that God created each person on earth specifically and for a specific purpose in their era. If I am here now, for just such a time as this, what can I do to both advance the kingdom like I’m supposed to, and also prepare for the times ahead? We must do our diligence to lift Jesus’ name to the highest with all our strength, soul, mind, and heart.
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