Luke 1:26 And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,
27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.
28 And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
29 And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.
30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
Where did the Catholic idea of Mary worship come from? Is it a Biblical teaching?
The Bible teaches us that the worship of women is a pagan practice. Five times God records the pagan practice of worshipping the “queen of heaven”. All five of those references are found in the book of Jeremiah (7:18; 44:17,18,19,25).
In those passages, it was the nation of Israel that had adopted the pagan practice of worshipping the “queen of heaven”. That pagan practice can be traced all the way back to Nimrod, who is first mentioned in Genesis 10. God condemned Israel for choosing idolatry over truth. Jeremiah was sent by God to rebuke the nation and encourage them to turn back to the true God. They were insistent on worshipping the “queen of heaven” because they wrongly assumed life had been better for them as long as they did so.
Lost people have spiritual blinders on. They manufacture success and they have a false definition of success.
The Bible teaches us that God is the Father and He taught that His world is a patriarchal world. He created man, Adam, first and then He took a rib from Adam and with that rib He formed the woman. The woman is to be subject to the man. Woman worship is not taught anywhere in the Bible.
The Catholics, who are a cult, picked that idea up from ancient Babel. It was common to worship women in several false religions. Generally the worship of women was associated with debauchery.
As we see in our opening verses, the Lord sent the angel Gabriel to address a young virgin, named Mary. God chose her to be the woman that would be the vessel to give flesh to the eternal Son of God. This was a fulfilment of God’s prophecy in Genesis 3:15:
Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
On occasion God chose to use a woman as a main character in the Bible. We have the account of Jael, who killed Sisera and ended a major battle in the time of the Judges. We have Rahab, of pagan descent who hid the spies and came to believe in the true God and was mentioned in the lineage of Jesus. We have Ruth who was a Moabitess that joined the nation of Israel and was married to Boaz. She is mentioned in the lineage of Jesus. Esther is also mentioned as a Jewish woman who was instrumental in changing the course of history at a time when the Jews were in danger of being wiped out. None of the Godly women pushed their way into a place of leadership. They were modest women who ended up in prominent places, but always remained submissive to their husbands or to some other male authority.
Mary is the mother of Jesus, but only in the sense of His incarnation. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. He was there in Genesis 1 where we read:
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
John 1:3 makes that clear. God has no mother. God does not need a mother because God is eternal. No one created God. In Genesis 1:1 the word translated as God is “Elohiym”. That name speaks of the plurality of God, the Godhead. The Bible makes it clear that the Godhead consists of three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. All three are equally God, but they also have specific tasks to fulfill in the Godhead.
The Catholics have developed one of many false religions where they borrowed from other pagan religions to develop their false teachings. They have made God less than Who He is. They have exalted the popes to a place of deity and they expect others to worship them. They expect world leaders to kiss the pope’s ring when they meet him. They suggest they are superior to all humanity, even though they must be chosen from among men, and are chosen by sinful men.
In Luke’s Gospel account we read:
Luke 11:27 And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.
28 But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.
There were people then who had a wrong idea of Mary. Jesus did not entertain that false idea. He quickly put that to an end. Mary was chosen by God for a particular task. She never put herself in a place of worship. In John 2 she told the people at the wedding to listen and do what Jesus said. She did not have any special power. She stayed close to her Son Jesus, including being there at the cross as He was dying there. However, she remained a humble woman who needed someone to look after her needs. At the cross, Jesus told the apostle John to look after His mother.
There is no record in the Bible of Mary doing any miracle. There is no record of her fighting off the devil. False doctrine remains just that, false doctrine.
Rather than accepting the false teachings of the Catholic religion, the wise person accepts the Word of God as their authority. Catholics can be saved. If they are going to be saved, they will need to repent toward God and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. That is the same requirement for all people. No one is saved by praying to Mary or to anyone else other than God. No one is helped in life by praying to anyone other than God.
We know that in Acts19, the pagans in Ephesus worshipped a pagan deity called Diana. They were quite upset when the apostle Paul and others taught that Diana was nothing. They were ready to kill. If Diana was truly a goddess, she should have had the power to defend herself.
There are Catholics who get quite upset when someone exposes their lies. True Christians do not like it when people mock God or the Lord Jesus Christ. True Christians do not like it when the Charismatics corrupt the ministry of the Holy Spirit. However, true Christians do not take up arms or try to arrest blasphemers. We speak the truth and we pray for those who want to defy God. We know that God is merciful and gracious and wants all people to be saved. He is gracious to each person that is truly born again today. He will continue to be gracious to others.
The wise person is the one who may take offence at hearing a truth, but he or she stops to consider the facts. The facts do not support any of the Catholic teaching and that includes the exaltation of Mary. Believe the Truth and turn to God and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and you can be saved. God is willing to forgive. Those that are saved, do not continue to follow false religion. They acknowledge that false religion must be forsaken and they align themselves with a true local church where they can be taught the truth and where they can grow in the Lord. Remember Jesus’ Words:
“Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.”
Pastor Bartel