Here's what He said: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared." (Matthew 13:24-26)
What did Christ mean? He meant that throughout history, Satan has opposed God by counterfeiting the Lord's works in order to deceive God's people. In the ancient times, the devil encouraged the Jews to create their own religious system and reject God's covenant He established with Israel through Moses. That system perverted many of the laws and commandments mandated by the Mosaic Covenant, and it added many additional laws written by the rabbis that violated the covenant (Deuteronomy 4:2).
That's the religion that many Jews continue to follow today. It's a sham system that orders its adherents to bow down to the rabbis and obey their teachings. And it's a system that's designed to steer its followers away from Calvary into a works-system that can't save anyone.
Satan also has his own church. Soon after Christ established His church 2,000 years ago via His crucifixion on the cross for all sin and His resurrection from the dead, the devil established a counterfeit that offered a perverted gospel that added and subtracted to its tenets. In the early days, some churches taught such heresies as arianism and docetism. Later, the Roman Catholic Church appeared and denied the biblical gospel of salvation by faith alone in Christ (John 3:16, Romans 10:9-12, Ephesians 2:8-9) and replaced it with an unbiblical gospel of works.
Today, many churches promote an unbiblical, ecumenical gospel that legitimizes all religious paths while denying what Christ stated: "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the (Heavenly) Father except through me." (John 14:6) Though Christ clearly taught that He alone is the only way to eternal life, many churches now deny that. And by doing so, they've called the One who they claim to represent a liar.
One example of that is the United Church of Christ that claims to be a Christian denomination and yet promotes a very anti-Christian gospel and agenda. If you read the UCC's statement of faith, you'll not find a single reference to the biblical gospel that mandates faith alone in the crucified and resurrected Christ as the only path to eternal life.
Rather, you'll find this: The UCC has no rigid formulation of doctrine or attachment to creeds or structures. Its overarching creed is love. UCC pastors and teachers are known for their commitment to excellence in theological preparation, interpretation of the scripture and justice advocacy. Even so, love and unity in the midst of our diversity are our greatest assets. www.ucc.org
And, you'll find this: We believe that God calls us to be servants in the service of others and to be good stewards of the earth's resources. 'To believe is to care; to care is to do.' And this: We believe in the power of peace, and work for nonviolent solutions to local, national, and international problems.
While those statements may sound commendable to many people, they promote a false, universal gospel rather than the genuine biblical gospel. A church's most vital mission is to call sinners out of the world into salvation and eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. All other objectives are secondary to that mission. If a church either denies that mission or makes it secondary to some social cause--no matter how noble that cause may seem--then it's defied the Great Commission of Christ (Matthew 28:16-20) and failed its responsibility to preach the gospel.
And the UCC not only doesn't preach a biblical gospel, it's also become an organization that increasingly opposes Israel and sides with the enemies of the Jewish state. Recently, the UCC's General Synod voted overwhelming (508-124) to divest economically from companies that do business with Israel because the UCC claims that Israel unlawfully occupies land that rightfully belongs to the Palestinians.
The Rev. Mitri Raheb, a "Christian Palestinian" who lives in Jordan, applauded the UCC's decision and said this: "For Palestinians living under occupation or facing systematic discrimination as citizens of Israel, enduring the destruction of their homes and businesses, the theft of their land for settlements, and living under blockade and siege in Gaza, this action sends a strong signal that they are not alone, and that there are churches who still dare to speak truth to power and stand with the oppressed."
For the record, there was no Palestine when Christ walked the dusty roads of ancient Israel. Palestine was created by Roman Emperor Hadrian in 130 A.D. when he voided Israel after he quashed the Bar Kochba rebellion that sought to win Israel's independence from Rome.
Prior to Hadrian's edict, Palestine (Philistine) had existed as an ancient maritime kingdom located along the southwest coast of the Great Sea until about the 2nd century B.C. Those who claim to be Palestinians today are not the descendants of the ancient Philistines.
Rather, they are a mixture of Turks, Bedouins, Persians, Arabs, Egyptians and Assyrians who migrated to that land over the 1,800 years between Hadrian's edict and 1948 when the United Nations voted to declare Israel a sovereign nation once again. Thus, the modern "Palestinians" have absolutely no right to claim that land for themselves. It doesn't belong to them. And it never did.
As a Christian denomination, the UCC ought to know that. The UCC ought to know that the modern Palestinians were given their own homeland by the UN. And that homeland is Jordan. But instead, the UCC has chosen to oppose Israel and side with the enemies of God. By doing so, and by rejecting the biblical gospel to preach a worthless ecumenical one, the United Church of Christ has joined with Satan. No sincere Christian should ever belong to such a wretched organization as this one.
Sadly, the existence of such corrupt churches as the UCC fulfills biblical prophecy concerning the great apostasy (falling away) of many denominations in the last days. Christ said this: "At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people." (Matthew 24:10-11) And the apostle Paul wrote this: "For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." (2 Timothy 4:3-4)
Shame on the United Church of Christ. And shame on any church that misuses the Lord's name (Exodus 20:7) to promote a false gospel that denigrates Israel and sends people into eternal damnation.
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