As 2009 comes to a close, it is very tempting to press toward the end of the year as if finishing this decade is an admirable goal. It is funny how easily we can aim at finishing one year and forget that there is another following right behind it.
One category that can really sneak up on us toward the beginning of a new year is planning for your Bible reading. In my life, the simple truth is that I will fail to read well and study well if I do not discipline myself to read in a scheduled and systematic way. So, I have been pondering what I will do to make sure that I read through the Bible in an orderly fashion in 2010.
For the last two years, I have used a plan that takes me through the entire text of Scripture in the year. There are several things that I particularly like about the way this plan works:
· It covers all of the Bible in the year.
· It includes 25 readings per month, thus allowing for days to catch up.
· It is used by several people I know, so I am often reading something that others are reading as well.
· It has me reading from different sections of the Bible at once, thus helping me not to get bogged down.
· It is a plan, thus being better than trying to haphazardly keep myself going.
I hope that, in 2010, you will make it a point to read through the Bible. Perhaps, if you are not much of a reader, you will at least be able to plan to make it through the New Testament. I don’t think that there is any spiritual discipline more important for the Christian than to intentionally spend time in the word of God.
I’d be thrilled if you would join me in reading through the Bible in 2010. Often, my blog posts will come from what I have just run across in the daily readings. It is always wonderful to hear from others who are reading and thinking about the same passages.
If you would like to use the plan I am using, you can find it here.
If you would like to use a different plan that I have used in the past, you might check out Crosswalk.com’s Bible-in-a-Year page which will allow you to do your reading on-line and chart your progress on the site.
The ESV website has a list of several reading plans that also might interest you.
Regardless of what plan you use to read through the Bible in 2010, I urge you to pick a plan, stick with it, and enjoy time well spent in the word of God in the year to come.
Why Should God Bless Me? (Psalm 67:1-2)
Psalm 67:1-2
1 May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us, Selah
2 that your way may be known on earth,
your saving power among all nations.
Often times, when people pray, we make our requests of God without considering why those requests should be granted. What good will it do for God to do that which we ask him to do? Why would it be in the interest of God’s glory or God’s kingdom to grant the request that we are seeking? What is our motivation for wanting what we claim to want?
In Psalm 67, the music opens with a cry from the people asking God’s blessing on the people. The words echo the blessing that Aaron was to pronounce on the people from the end of Numbers 6. However, the request for blessing is not sitting in this psalm without an answer to the question of why God might want to respond to their request.
Look at verse 2. There the people give a very God-centered reason for making the request that they have made of God to bless them. The people ask for God’s blessing, “that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.” The reason that they are asking for God to bless them is in order that his ways might be known by the people of the world. They want to be blessed in order that they might in turn share the knowledge of God with others.
Think this question through: When you pray for God to bless you, what reason are you giving for that blessing? If God were to bless you, would it in turn display his glory for others to see? Were God to bless you as you desire, would that have an impact on the nations? Were God to bless you, would it in turn aid in the spreading of the good news of Jesus to your family, your coworkers, your church, your neighborhood, your school, your town, your state, your nation, or the world?
By no means am I arguing that we have to earn the blessing of God. God’s blessing is sheer grace, plain and simple. However, if we understand that God’s top priority is the glory of God, it will help us to pray in such a way that we will better be pleasing to him. Is it not better for us to change our lives so that when we pray, our request are founded in what will bring honor to the name of our Lord? Is it not better to pray that God heal us of a disease in order that we might serve him more instead of simply praying that God might heal us so that we can feel better? Is it not better to pray that God bless us so that we can take the gospel to the nations than to pray that God bless us so that we can live in luxury?
Christians, there are two things we should learn here. First, let us learn to pray with a “so that” in mind. Let us pray that God do something so that his name will be honored, that the gospel will spread, that his people will better serve him. Let us not simply pray for our own worldly comfort. We read in James 4:3, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” Let us learn to ask rightly, for the glory of God, and not wrongly, to be wasted on our passions.
Second, this thought should challenge us to adjust our lives. If we are going to honor god, we need to be the kind of people who, if we are blessed by God, that blessing will impact the world. We need to become more giving, more open with our faith, more centered on the glory of God. We want to be able to pray, Lord, bless me so that the nations will know you more.“
Predestination, Prescience, and Romans 8:29-30
Romans 8:29-30
29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Amos 3:1-2
1 Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt:
2 “You only have I known
of all the families of the earth;
therefore I will punish you
for all your iniquities.
In any discussion of the biblical topic of predestination, two views are often quickly espoused regarding what predestination means. One view is what we might call the prescience view. Simply put, this view argues that God predestined people for either heaven or hell by looking down through the corridor of time, seeing their future actions with his perfect knowledge, and determining their destination based upon their future choices. Thus, the prescience view would maintain that God foresees that a person will freely choose Christ, and thus God predestines that person for heaven knowing how that person will choose.
There is another view of predestination that is not based on prescience. This view maintains that God, by his sovereign will, destines people for salvation, not based on their future choices, but based on God’s own will and purpose. This view is what might be known as the reformed view.
Occasionally, proponents of a prescience view of predestination will look to Romans 8:29-30 as evidence for their argument. They will point out that God said that those he “foreknew” he then predestined. “Obviously,” they will argue, “this indicates that God’s predestination is based on his foreknowledge of the future decisions of those he is predestining.”
However, this argument from the prescience camp is not sufficient. Looking at Amos 3:2, we can see that God can use the word “known” in a way that is different than simple intellectual knowledge. God said to Israel in Amos 3:2 that they are the only nation that he has known. In that section, God is not claiming to be unaware of other nations or of the decisions of the leadership of those nations. No, God is saying to Israel that Israel is the only one of the nations that he has chosen for himself with which to have an intimate acquaintance.
Thus, the argument that “foreknew” in Romans 8:29 must mean prescience of future decisions is not as strong as originally posited by those holding that view. There is a way in which God uses terms like “known” to indicate more than simply understanding of something. “Foreknown” simply means to know beforehand, which is perfectly in line with the reformed view that, before the foundation of the world, God chose an elect people to be his own, his intimate acquaintance.
Besides, if we look at more than the word “foreknew” in Romans 8:29, but instead include the rest of the chain of events in verse 30, we see that this pair of verses, far from arguing for a prescience view, seems to argue for a reformed view of predestination. Run the chain backward, and it becomes clear. God will glorify all whom he justifies (there is no room in the language for God losing a justified person before glorifying them). God will justify those he calls (there appears to be no option in these verses for the called not to be justified). God will call all whom he predestines (this offers no thought of god predestining all to glory). God will predestine all he foreknew (again, no indication on here of God foreknowing all but predestining only some). The only way that this verse makes sense is with the reformed view of knowing and predestining, not with a prescience view.
Without question, the biblical doctrine of predestination is a difficult one for many people, and I do not pretend to have all of the answers to all of the questions. It is clear, in my view, that Romans 8:29-30 is not a text that should be held to as a prooftext for anything other than a reformed view. There are other verses in the Bible that are difficult for reformed guys to deal with, but Romans 8:29-30 is not such a text.
What Kind of Pastor Do You Want? (Micah 2:6, 11)
Micah 2:6, 11
6 “Do not preach”—thus they preach—
“one should not preach of such things;
disgrace will not overtake us.”
11 If a man should go about and utter wind and lies,
saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”
he would be the preacher for this people!
What do you want in a church? What do you want in a pastor? What is it that a preacher should be or should do? Thousands of books have been written on this topic, many of which have vastly different conclusions. And far too many church goers and pulpit committees gauge the particular fit of a pastor for themselves or their churches based on the answers to those questions.
However, this text of Scripture ought to give us a bit of a warning regarding how we select a pastor. You see, it is human nature to want not to hear the truth if that truth is unpleasant. It is part of our humanity, of our corruption in sin, to shut down the kind of teaching that convicts us, that challenges us, or that simply bores us. We have a nature that wants to be entertained, stimulated, and soothed with words that make us feel like we are good, that we have good things coming our way, and that we are not responsible for any negatives in our character.
So, as we look at the text above, let’s think for a moment. Is it a good idea for the people of God to instruct his chosen prophet not to tell them the hard truth? No way. Is it a good idea for them to demand a person who says what they want to hear in place of what God has to say? Of course not. Is it helpful for the pastor to fail to preach the full counsel of God in order to give the crowds what they want? Not really, even though such preaching might grow the congregation numerically.
So, Christians, how ought we respond? To the church member, I would say this: Put yourself in a position to sit under the faithful teaching of the word of God. Listen to the word of God when it is hard and when it is easy. Listen to the word of God when the pastor is interesting and when he is dull. Listen to the word of God when it pierces your heart and when it seems to be aimed at someone totally different than you. Listen to the word of God, and ask God to help you to be ready to hear, to understand, to change, to worship, to glorify him in your life. Make it a point to be in a place, under a pastor, who brings the word of God to the people of God.
To pastors I would say this: Preach the word (2 Timothy 4:2a). Preach the word when it is an easy passage that lends itself to easy points. Preach the word when it is a hard passage that requires study that eats into your schedule. Preach the word when it is a passage that will fascinate the people. Preach the word when it is a passage that will be hard to listen to. Preach the word when it will make people invite their friends next week. Preach the word when the word will make people turn away from you just like they turned away from Jesus at the end of John 6. Preach the word, and trust that God will use his word and his Holy Spirit to change the lives of the people.
Praise Jesus As God (John 17:5)
And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
Here again Jesus prays for the Father to glorify him. But notice that in these words of Jesus, we can learn something about Jesus, something John has been saying all throughout this book. Jesus is God.
How do we see that Jesus is God in this verse? Jesus speaks to the Father about the glory that he shared with the Father before the world began. Before the creation and before there was time, God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit exist together. One God in three persons, perfectly joyous, perfectly beautiful, perfectly holy, and perfectly relating to one another in glory. There is a constant flow of glory back and forth from one person in the trinity to the others as each finds joy in exalting the perfection of the others. This is a picture that our minds are too small to comprehend, but it is marvelous.
So, let’s just say this: if Jesus can claim to have shared glory with the Father from eternity past, he is claiming to be equal with God. Jesus is God. As we realize this, we can worship Jesus. He is not a mere man who did some really good things. He is not a good teacher whose ideas got him into trouble. Jesus is the God of the universe come to earth to save us from our sins against him. He is perfect and worthy of worship. Praise Jesus for his deity. Praise Jesus as God, the eternal one.
What Is Eternal Life? (John 17:3)
And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
Have you ever noticed that not everybody understands the same thing when they use the same words? Think of the word work. You ask one man what that word means to him, and work is something that is a curse, a bitterness, and something to be avoided. Ask another man, and work is the measure of a man’s character, something that no good man shrinks back from doing.
Similarly, the phrase eternal life or the word heaven each has different things they stir up in different people. To the Hindu, living forever is the last thing they want to do, as they think of this life as suffering and long for escape. Kenny Chesney sings that everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go now. Clearly, neither the Hindu nor the country singer has a proper grasp of eternal life.
But, how well do we do in thinking about eternal life? When Christians sing about eternal life, they often magnify such things as mansions, streets of gold, crowns, and gates of pearl. We often focus on spending time with our loved ones who have preceded us and meeting the saints of generations gone by. Some Christians adopt the worlds model of talking about those who have gone before us, and use the unbiblical language of some deceased relative we love looking down upon us and watching over us.
Jesus, however, in this prayer shows us exactly what is at the very center of eternal life, of heaven. Jesus shows us what is the gift that God has given Jesus the authority to give to those who belong to him. What is eternal life? If you sum it all up, heaven, eternal life, comes down to this: knowing God.
Remember that Moses, when God showed him favor, asked God for one ultimate gift, “Please, show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18). You can read David’s words in Psalm 16 and 63, declaring the glory of God and the beauty of God to be ultimately pleasurable and better than life. In Revelation 4, the 24 elders around the throne of God are constantly captivated by the infinite wonder and beauty in the presence of God.
The fact is, God created us with a great desire to see and experience that which is bigger than us and greater than us. This is why you gaze at sunsets, the night sky, the Grand Canyon, and the ocean. This is why you marvel at great feats of strength, incredible wisdom, fascinating technology, or awe-inspiring power. God created us to long for and to be satisfied by seeing and knowing something greater than we are. We have a hunger that simply is never satisfied to experience wonder. And God, the infinite and perfect and awesome and glorious one is the only one who can satisfy such a longing.
What is heaven? What is eternal life? Eternal life is to be in the presence of God, to be fully joyous over knowing him, over seeing him, over being in his presence. Heaven is perfect, a joy beyond anything that this earth can even begin to offer us, because heaven is the ultimate joy of being with and knowing God.
So, why all the talk about streets of gold and relatives? They are there to point us to the glory of God. Streets of gold remind us of the riches of God and will reflect his beauty. Saints of old and our saved relatives stand in heaven as reminders of God’s grace and Christ’s faithfulness. All these things will be part of heaven, but you won’t really be focused on such things. You will, if you have eternal life, be centered on and overwhelmed with the heart-filling, soul-satisfying, glorious presence of God.
And let me offer this warning. If the glory of God does not stir your heart so that you want to experience his presence, be concerned. Now, I understand that my description is a feeble attempt to describe something marvelous and beyond comprehension; so if I don’t inspire you, don’t worry. But if you, when you think about being in God’s presence and seeing his glory are not moved to long for him and to be in his presence forever, you should be concerned about the condition of your heart. David Platt said in a chapel message at Southern Seminary on 9/2/2008, “You don’t go to heaven if you don’t want God.” If being in God’s presence is not enough for you, it sounds to me like you may not know him and that you certainly don’t treasure him. So, be careful with your heart, and be sure that you are longing for the heaven that God has created you for.
And right now, you can begin living out your eternal life by coming to know and love and be amazed by God. He has revealed himself to you in his word. Treasure his word. Love his word. Spend time with him in prayer. Take worship seriously. Find joy in his presence now. Begin to live out the purpose of eternal life, knowing God.
God’s Priority and Our Joy (John 17:1b)
[The following is a sermon point that I made over a year ago. Of course, I am greatly indebted to the writing and preaching of John Piper for much of this material.]
John 17:1b
Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,
Now we begin Jesus’ prayer. “Father, the hour has come.” Jesus has made mention of his hour on multiple occasions in this gospel. Jesus says the hour has not yet come in chapter 2, chapter 7, and again in chapter 8. But in chapter 12, when some Greeks asked to see Jesus, he said his hour was at hand. IN chapter 13, Jesus again told his disciples that his hour was here, the hour for him to accomplish the mission for which God had sent him to earth. And now, in his prayer, he says that the hour is here.
Now, when you put the fact that Jesus had been predicting his death for the last several chapters together with the fact that Jesus says that he is entering the hour, the big moment, the one crucial period in eternal history when the Son of God would do the thing for which he came to earth, you must conclude that Jesus is standing in front of a moment of colossal importance. He is standing and looking forward to a moment that is the most important moment in all of history, in all of eternity. There is no way that we could go too far in saying how big and important and serious a moment is to come.
So, it would make sense, wouldn’t it, that Jesus would pray for something of utmost importance. Whatever Jesus prays when turning his eyes to the most important time in all of eternity is clearly the thing that is of highest importance to him and to God the Father. Whatever comes out of Jesus’ mouth first will be what is of first importance.
Jesus prays, “Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.” The prayer is “Dad, glorify me.” Would you think this is the prayer that should come to the lips of the Savior when standing before the moment when he is about to suffer the greatest agony, feel the greatest pain, bear the weight of sin, and save our souls? Would you think that the first and highest thing, the most important thing, is that Jesus would ask God, “Glorify me so I can glorify you?”
Well, you would think this is the right prayer if you knew God the way Jesus knows the Father. You would think this prayer perfectly consistent with God’s nature and character. Why? Because, and I say this with all seriousness and all importance, the most important thing to God is the glory of God. Is there evidence of this?
Why did God create people?
6 I will say to the north, Give up,
and to the south, Do not withhold;
bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the end of the earth,
7 everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.
Why did God do the miracle at the Red Sea?
And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.”
Listen to God say why he spared Israel instead of destroying them in their rebellion:
But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out.
Why did God bring his people back from captivity?
9 “For my name’s sake I defer my anger,
for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you,
that I may not cut you off.
10 Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.
11 For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it,
for how should my name be profaned?
My glory I will not give to another.”
Why does God forgive sins?
“I, I am he
who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
and I will not remember your sins.
What is the end of all things?
10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Do you see the point? Everything, absolutely everything that God does, is primarily for the sake of displaying the glory of God. And so it is no surprise that, when Jesus comes to this hour and prays, he asks for God to glorify him so that he can glorify the Father. This is what Jesus is about. He is dying to pay for our sins in order to protect God’s name as being merciful, loving, and just. Everything is about God’s glory.
Would you like to be like Jesus? If so, you must find the center of your life in the glory of God. God’s glory is his weightiness, his worthiness of praise, his awesomeness, his magnificence. If you live for God’s glory, you do what you do so that, when people see it, it shows them that God is good, big, and of utmost importance. So, live for God’s ultimate purpose, his glory. Before taking action, ask, “How will this action make God look to others?” Before saying something, ask, “Will my words show the world that God is real and important?” Before spending time in worry, ask, “How am I showing God that I think he’s powerful right now?” Find ways to check your life and to live for God’s glory, his ultimate priority.
And, know this, when you live for God’s glory, you will find joy in him. When you see God’s glory, you find that being part of giving God glory is what you were made for.
2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
3 Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Seeing God’s glory is what gives us the pleasure and the joy that David wrote of in those two Psalms. It is to be in God’s presence, to experience his glory and his love that David says is better than life. If you want that kind of joy, live for God’s ultimate priority, his glory.
Pray Because Jesus Prayed (John 17:1a)
When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father,”
John makes it clear in the opening line of this verse that the prayer that Jesus is about to pray is totally connected to the things that Jesus has been saying to his disciples over the past few hours, John 13 to 16. Jesus has told his disciples that he is about to die, but that he will see them again. Jesus has told them that the Holy Spirit is coming to be their helper. Jesus has told them that he is accomplishing the work that God has sent him to do. Jesus has told them that he is betrayed by one of his friends.
What would you expect Jesus to do in a time like this. Where there is nothing more that he can teach his disciples given the present circumstances, Jesus pauses, lifts his eyes to heaven, and prays. He’s not too stressed to pray. He’s not too busy to pray. He’s not too distracted to pray. His mind is not racing too fast to pray. No, Jesus knows that he needs to spend some quality time with his Father, so he prays, right then and there.
Notice, by the way, that the first word of Jesus’ prayer is, “Father.” This is just how he taught his disciples to pray too. He is talking to God, and calling God his very own dad. He shows that he has a loving and close relationship with God. He is showing that he can trust God like a person should be able to trust the best dad imaginable. He is showing us that he can love God, be close to God, and still show right honor and reverence for God. Later in the prayer, he will call God holy Father in verse 11 and righteous Father in verse 25.
Christians, we find ourselves in difficult days sometimes, don’t we? Of course nothing we face is quite like what Jesus is staring at; but still, we know what it feels like to have pain and trouble. Well, if we are going to be Christians, little pictures of Jesus in the world, when we face life, we need to do what Jesus did. Jesus prayed. He talked to his dad. He made sure that he did not get so wrapped up in what was going on that he failed to demonstrate to himself and to those around him that God was right there with him, caring for him. We need to do the same. Pray, because Jesus prayed.
Yet You Did Not Return to Me (Amos 4:11-13)
11 “I overthrew some of you,
as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning;
yet you did not return to me,”
declares the Lord.
12 “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel;
because I will do this to you,
prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”
13 For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind,
and declares to man what is his thought,
who makes the morning darkness,
and treads on the heights of the earth—
the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!
In Amos 4:6-11, five times God says, “yet you did not return to me.” In each instance, God was describing ways in which he had shown the people that he was chastising them for their sin. God chastised the people with shortness of food (4:6), with drought (4:7-8), with crop disease and locusts (4:9), with disease (4:10), and with death (4:11). All of these are terrible things for the people to have gone through, and each is followed with that statement, “Yet you did not return to me.”
God had a purpose for the hardships alluded to by Amos that the people of Israel went through. He had a reason that he put them through so much. It was not simply to punish them for sin. Were God to actually punish them for their sin, there is only one punishment that would suffice. The sin of humanity is an infinite offense to an infinitely holy God. If God actually punishes you for your sin, he sends you to hell forever—an infinite punishment for an infinite offense. No, the hardships suffered by the people of Israel had a different purpose.
The reason for the hardships of Israel comes in the refrain, “Yet you did not return to me.” The hardships that Israel went through should have brought the nation to its knees. The hardships that the nation when through should have reminded them that they were sinning against the one, true God. The hardships that the nation suffered should have driven the people to cry out to God for mercy, to repent, to seek the favor of the Lord. Sadly, the people did not learn from their hardships.
Because the people did not learn from their sufferings, they were in great danger. God told them that, because they refused to repent and return to him, he would do to them what he had done to Sodom. Because they would not repent, God warned, “prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” This was a terrifying threat from God, and the people who heard Amos’ words should have taken it very seriously.
Now, here we sit, thousands of years later. We are far removed from the hardships of Israel. Does God have a lesson for us? You bet. We too are to learn that life, be it beautiful or painful, is intended to drive us to God. When we have joy, it should draw us to give thanks. When we see beauty, it should lead us to praise. When we see the unbelievable happen, it should lead us to trust the God who created us and who does the impossible. When we hurt, we should remember that it is only the grace of God that keeps us from a punishment far worse. When we suffer, it should draw us to cry out to God for mercy, for grace, for his provision. Our pain should make us return to the Lord just as Israel’s pain, were Israel obedient, would have made that nation return to the Lord.
We also can learn from the frightening words of the Lord that there will be a time when all mankind will have to meet their God. How will we meet him? Will we be under the cleansing blood of his Son, or will we meet him on our own merit? If you meet your God on your own merit, you will fall short of his perfection and will suffer his fury. If you meet him under the blood of his Son, the perfection of Christ will be applied to your account, and you will find
eternal life, eternal joy, eternal satisfaction in your Lord.
Fascinating History
In his commentary on Matthew 1, John MacArthur gives us some interesting facts regarding the history of certain pagan traditions that have crept into the life of the church. I pass these along for your pondering.
**
Nimrod, a grandson of Ham, one of Noah’s three sons, founded the great cities of Babel (Babylon), Erech, Accad, Calneh, and Nineveh (Gen. 10:10–11). It was at Babel that the first organized system of idolatry began with the tower built there. Nimrod’s wife, Semiramis, became the first high priestess of idolatry, and Babylon became the fountainhead of all evil systems of religion. In the last days, “the great harlot” will have written on her forehead, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH ” (Rev. 17:5). When Babylon was destroyed, the pagan high priest at that time fled to Pergamum (or Pergamos; called “where Satan’s throne is” in Rev. 2:13) and then to Rome. By the fourth century a.d. much of the polytheistic paganism of Rome had found its way into the church. It was from that source that the ideas of Lent, of Mary’s immaculate conception, and of her being the “queen of heaven” originated. In the pagan legends, Semiramis was miraculously conceived by a sunbeam, and her son, Tammuz, was killed and was raised from the dead after forty days of fasting by his mother (the origin of Lent). The same basic legends were found in counterpart religions throughout the ancient world. Semiramis was known variously as Ashtoreth, Isis, Aphrodite, Venus, and Ishtar. Tammuz was known as Baal, Osiris, Eros, and Cupid.
Those pagan systems had infected Israel centuries before the coming of Christ. It was to Ishtar, “the queen of heaven,” that the wicked and rebellious Israelite exiles in Egypt insisted on turning (Jer. 44:17–19; cf. 7:18). While exiled in Babylon with his fellow Jews, Ezekiel had a vision from the Lord about the “abominations” some Israelites were committing even in the Temple at Jerusalem-practices that included “weeping for Tammuz” (Ezek. 8:13–14). Here we see some of the origins of the mother-child cult, which has drawn Mary into its grasp.
John MacArthur, Matthew (Chicago: Moody Press, 1989), 5.
Pastor Travis Peterson 