by Allen Brooks
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While this may seem like an odd comparison, there are some similarities between bindweed and Christianity. Bindweed is classed as a noxious weed, because it is a very hardy perennial that spreads by root regeneration as well as seeds. The roots spread out into the adjoining soil and the seeds are carried by the wind and birds to distant locations. Bindweed is very hard to kill. When I was a young naïve farmer starting out, I discovered a patch of bindweed in the middle of my field and foolishly plowed it under. It got rid of the bindweed—temporarily! Within about two weeks the old roots sent up new shoots with a vengeance and the plow had scattered the surface roots all over the field; it was infested with it.
I no longer have the farm but I have a large lot, and I learned how to control bindweed. “Roundup” is a root killing herbicide, and I found that spraying bindweed with it four or five times in one day kills it permanently. Roundup is mostly water and the bindweed accepts it as such, absorbing it and using it to transport nutrients from the leaves to the roots to replenish them. The bindweed does not recognize the chemical, which kills the roots.
So, what does this have to do with Christianity? A lot! Christianity is hardy, enduring opposition, ridicule and persecution. Christianity spreads by roots, children and acquaintances won to Christ in the locale where the original Christians started. It also spreads by seed as Christians move to other locations and it is carried on the wings of missionaries to distant lands.
Like the plowing, persecution does not kill it out. It only spreads it, as the original group goes underground, only to surface again later, and many flee to somewhere else for their own safety, taking the word with them (Acts 8: 1-4).
But Satan has his own equivalent of “Roundup” and it too poisons the roots. Like the water in Roundup, the New Age has a vocabulary that sounds very orthodox: God, Christ, Jesus, Faith, Hope, Love, and so on. But they carry a very different meaning. “God” is an impersonal, amoral force that permeates everything. “Christ” is the “spirit” that indwells all men, just waiting to be tapped for our own earthly benefits. Or, “Christ” is some feckless “good example” that is irrelevant today. “Hope” is not that blessed hope awaiting Christians, but rather it is only glorified “positive thinking” by which you may try to manipulate your own future.
Everything is twisted into an anti-Christian, anti-God meaning and the Scriptures are ignored, refuted, or re-interpreted. Tenets of true Christianity are denied: man’s sinful fallen nature, his need of salvation, and salvation by grace through Christ.
The roots of the Gospel are killed by denying the very existence of sin and coming judgment.
The “roots” of the Scriptures are killed by sowing “scholastic” doubts about the authorship and age of the Scriptures and by the recent proliferation of “Burger King” (“Have it your way”) translations. Even some “fundamental scholars” sow doubts about the preservation of the scriptures.
The “roots” of accountability, choice, and consequences are killed by psychology and blame shifting.
Churches and prominent Christian leaders swallow this (like the bindweed drinks in the Roundup) because it sounds so good, so familiar, and is so popular with the world: “It doesn’t offend anyone!” “We can reach more people this way!” But they never check it out: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).
These leaders are deceived. There is a very sober warning about this: “Not everyone that sayeth unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:21-23, emphasis added).
There are other leaders who do not hold any tenets of the Christian faith, yet masquerade under “Christian” sounding names; these are deceivers, New Age promoters. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20, emphasis added). Once the churches buy into the lies, they begin to die. Satan is presently clearing his fields of a lot of what he deems bindweed. “… when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8).
Therefore, till He returns: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thes. 5:21).
(PsychoHeresy Awareness Letter, July-August 2010, Vol. 18, No. 4)