The other day I heard a presenter on a Christian radio program ask the question, “What can we learn from Lent?” I can answer that question straight up. In fact, this ought to be a slam dunk for any genuine, biblical Christian. What can we learn from Lent? One thing we will not be able to learn from Lent is where to locate it in the Bible. That’s because it’s not there. The term comes from the Roman Catholic Church, not Christian theology, so I’m not sure why this Christian radio presenter was asking this question to Christians in the first place. Perhaps he’s not aware that there was a Protestant Reformation, which for many good reasons, was a full-throated protest against the religion of Rome.
Now, before you think I’m just going off on an anti-Catholic rant, well, I guess I am somewhat, but hear me out. As a former Catholic raised up in a very serious Catholic home—I was an alter boy and spent my first eight years of schooling taught by Franciscan nuns at Our Lady of Victory Catholic School, I feel well qualified to speak on the subject. And now, for almost fifty years I’ve been a born again Christian, so I’ve got the credentials to speak about both religions. Right out of the box, they are not the same thing, not even close. Like other false religions we as Westerners are familiar with such as Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others, they may use some of the same biblical lingo, but they have nothing to do with biblical Christianity. And just to be clear, yes, I believe such people can be saved, but their salvation would be in spite of their false religion, not because of it. I’ve personally known Catholics I believe are sincere Christians, doing the best with what they know, and thank God for all of that; God looks on the heart and judges us according to what we know, not on what we don’t.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me continue. The Roman Catholic season of Lent focuses on a time of prayer, fasting, and reflection beginning six weeks before Easter. Most scholars that I’ve read believe it originated following the Council of Nicea in 325 AD., which was also the beginning of several other unbiblical practices and doctrines such as the pope, the perpetual Virgin Mary (after the virgin birth of Jesus, Mary had at least six more children fathered by Joseph), and confession of sins to a priest. On that subject, after confessing one’s sins to a priest, he then assigns a penance consisting of saying a number of prayers by rote, such as the Our Fathers and Hail Marys depending on the severity of one’s sins. For instance, if one’s sins were particularly serious, you might be required to recite five of each of these prayers in order to be absolved. If your sins were of a lesser degree, a lesser number of those rote prayers would be necessary in order to be forgiven. Sins are categorized as “venial” sins, easily pardonable, and “mortal” sins, such as missing Mass on a Sunday or a holy day of obligation or if you committed a murder. If mortal sins are not confessed before death, they would send you to hell. I know, it’s a lot to keep track of. And the real kicker about this latter doctrine is that the priest then has the power and authority to forgive the penitent’s sins, a power only God Himself has, unless that priest also lived a perfect life on earth, and then died and rose again from the grave. If not, that priest doesn’t even have the power to forgive his own sins.
But back to Lent. Pope Gregory finally regularized the practice of Lent to begin about forty days before Easter on Ash Wednesday, another mysterious, non-biblical practice. Some historians claim the forty days originated from the fact that Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights, though His fast had nothing to do with His eventual Resurrection but was in preparation for His ministry. While some Protestants continue to observe Lent even after the Protestant Reformation, such as the Lutherans, most other groups such as the Calvinists condemned the Lenten practice as being a “tradition of man” and a works-based vanity that “promotes a false zeal, replete with superstition and that it is considered more a practice of mortification for its own sake than an actual contrition for sin.”
Reformation leaders like Luther, Calvin, and many others condemned other practices of Catholicism as well, including the selling of indulgences, purgatory, transubstantiation (believing the communion host and wine is the actual body and blood of Jesus and not mere symbols), and the idea that departed saints, especially Mary, can intercede from heaven for people on the earth. And that by offering up a Mass for a departed loved one, it could pave the way to get them out of purgatory sooner (purgatory being a place between heaven and hell where departed souls go who aren’t good enough to go to heaven but not bad enough to go to hell). So, you see how far these things depart from the Bible. Later, Charles Spurgeon summed up the evangelical view of Lent by saying, “It is as much our duty to reject the traditions of men, as to observe the ordinances of the Lord. We ask concerning every rite and rubric, ‘Is this a law of the God of Jacob?’ and if it be not clearly so, it is of no authority with us, who walk in Christian liberty.”
I know that sounds harsh, but from a biblical perspective, there is nothing of what I said that isn’t sound. Whether it’s the Mormons teaching their followers that they can become a god and inhabit their own planet one day, or the JW’s standing on a busy street corner earning their salvation by pushing their belief that Jesus was a small god not the real God, or the Catholic Church elevating Mary to a position of interceding for us before God, these are all heresies and do not provide a path to salvation, which can only be obtained as a free gift from the shed Blood of Jesus Christ, who has already paid for our sins on the cross. As the saying goes, “You are free to have your own opinions, but you are not free to have your own facts.”
As a young Catholic, the only thing I learned from those days was that Franciscan nuns were very scary for a young, sensitive little boy, but I also remember learning that there was a heaven and a hell. Many years after leaving the Catholic religion, this knowledge of heaven and hell was instrumental in bringing me to Christ, fearing I was on my way to hell, which at the time, I was, so I will give them that. One other thing I learned from those days was that Catholics were discouraged from reading the Bible for themselves, and we were told that we couldn’t understand the Bible without the priest interpreting it for us. This, I believe, is the reason that most Catholics are illiterate when it comes to the Word of God. Although having Bible teachers and authors can be very beneficial in understanding Scripture, ultimately, believers are responsible to dig into the Word, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, discover for themselves what God is saying to them. No one should ever put any man or woman between them and God or His Word.
And not to pile on here, but the Roman Catholic Church did more to stymie the life of the Early Church than anything else in the devil’s arsenal. From its inception, it ushered in a thousand years of spiritual darkness. It’s not called the Dark Ages for nothing. Romanism, or as the early American settlers referred to it as Popery, was practically banished from early America. The early settlers did all they could to discourage them from immigrating here and mixing with biblical Christianity, and for good reason, because when they did they helped to bastardize the Word of God.
Roman Catholicism, like all false religions, is a works-based religion, and like all other works-based religions you never know when you’ve done enough to earn heaven. That’s because heaven can’t be earned, no matter how many good works one does. Works-based religions are slavery, slavery to a man-made system of beliefs. I know. I came out of Catholicism and also a works-based Christian cult. Paul wrote to the Galatians, “For freedom Christ as set us free; stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Paul was speaking to people who were under the law of Moses, to which the Pharisees of that day added thousands of their own rules. And if you’re in a works-based religion, you have to follow it perfectly, which of course, no one can accomplish. Only Jesus lived a perfect life on this earth so we could be saved by his free gift of grace, simply by repenting and turning to him for our salvation.
It’s a big deal to preach the truth according to God’s Word. Paul said, “If anyone comes preaching to you another gospel other than what you received from us, let him be accursed (forever damned). And just in case someone missed it, he said the same thing again. Because if you preach a false gospel, you not only condemn yourself, but also all those who follow your teachings. And those who lead others astray will have an even greater condemnation. Paul also wrote that if someone was leading you back under the Law, or legalism, or back to a works-based religion, let him be emasculated. His words, not mine. Jesus once told His disciples to “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” The leaven He was speaking of was the leaven of religious false doctrine mixing with the Gospel truth and thereby polluting it. Jesus said that those who lead children (innocent, childlike believers) astray, that “it would be better for him that a millstone be hung around their necks and to be drowned in the sea.”
Someone might say that I’m not sounding very loving. Actually, I believe I’m tame compared to the Apostle Paul. I never used the words “emasculated” or “accursed.” Would you prefer a soft lie or a hard truth? Should I be guilty of “tickling one’s ears,” just telling people what they want to hear? When it comes to one’s eternal dwelling place, I hope you would choose the hard truth. Because that is what real love is all about.
Changing from glory to glory 