Was this devoted Catholic man swept to heaven upon his death as his obituary states?

Here is the opening of an obituary that was publicly posted online.
On Monday night, May 18, 2015, the Lord swept Marcell "John" Moore, the dearly loved patriarch of our family, to Heaven, after he'd overcome enormous health challenges for years, valiantly cheating death again and again.
That is a sweet and loving opening sentence honoring a man who was obviously dearly loved by his family.

Who are swept to heaven upon death? We know from the Bible that those who go to heaven are people who do the will of the Father, repenting of sins and believing in the Son, in faith alone by grace alone. The obituary continues:
Alongside his wife, John was a devoted Catholic and his faith in Jesus Christ grew dearer and dearer to him. They were members of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Houston for many years then, after moving to the country beside their son and daughter-in-law, they became members of Saint Anne Catholic Church in Tomball, Texas.
Uh-oh. If a person believes in the dogmas of Rome, they are believing in a very different Jesus. The Roman Catholic beliefs are heretical, and aberrant.

This obituary is now so sad! It states that his wife is also Catholic, and I know that the man's adult son is Catholic and so is/was an elderly aunt. Being a devoted Catholic for all one's life does not bode well for the man's eternity!

I hope and pray that someone is sharing the true Gospel of Jesus with this family, so they can repent and believe. Catholic men and women are a mission field, and should be treated with respect but told the truth. Their dangerous state should not be whitewashed over, nor hidden from them.  Confident declarations about their entrance to heaven must definitely not be part of their spiritual landscape nor codified forever in a widely read blog obit.

Witnessing to family is the hardest mission, I personally believe. I've had most of my own trials with family, who range from Jewish to Episcopalian/Catholic to atheist to Unitarian etc. I know it must be hard to face a family member and share the Gospel with them as their growing realization dawns that the sharer is telling them the Gospel because they think he isn't part of the family of faith. Truthful discussions with Catholic family members about Mary as co-redemptrix, purgatory, baptismal regeneration and the like will likely spark tension, if not fury. Anger ensues, heartache, perhaps even a family rift. No one likes that. But the alternative, an eternity possibly in hell if the Catholic does not repent and believe, is worse.

No I take that back. Just as bad is the family member who claims to be a Southern Baptist Bible teacher, writing an obituary that confidently asserts that the staunch Catholic loved one who passed is now being swept into heaven. That's bad.

The Moore family being spoken of here is Beth Moore's. Her beloved father-in-law John Moore, husband Keith's father, passed away two years ago and the above obit was posted on Moore's Living Proof blog.

Beth Moore's assertions gloss over the hard truth that people who hold to heretical beliefs about Jesus and His Church are under His wrath, not His love. Their destination, if they do not repent, is eternal darkness. Do we ignore an entire mission field? Are the other Moore family members now assured of their own eternal destination because of the confident but sadly erroneous assertions of the wayward daughter-in-law, who, after all, holds an honorary Doctorate and has spent the last thirty years teaching the Bible?

The truth of the matter is that Beth Moore married into a situation where she is spiritually mismatched. She is unequally yoked. (2 Corinthians 6:14). Inevitably when one is spiritually mismatched one begins to compromise. This is one reason it says in the Bible not to do it. Believers and unbelievers (and Catholics are unbelievers if they hold to the doctrines of Rome) are opposites, just as light and darkness are opposites. They have nothing in common and indeed cannot become "one flesh" as Jesus said that married partners do become. Unless both partners are unbelievers. Then of course they are one flesh. Sadly, many think they are saved but they are not, as Jesus said will be revealed on His day (Matthew 7:21).

Regarding the unequally yoked,
Paul is drawing his analogy from the Old Testament prohibition against yoking an ox with a donkey (Deuteronomy 22:10). Related to this verse is Leviticus 19:19 which warns of breeding differing kinds of livestock. Animals that were yoked had a piece of wood used to connect them, each with their own collar, so that their combined abilities could more easily perform a particular task. Oxen, horses, donkeys, and mules paired in this fashion were good for pulling a load, plowing a field and so on. Farmers knew that it was not wise to unequally yoke animals together.
When people like Moore compromise, glossing over the drastic differences of the belief systems of believers and Catholics, it destroys hope. Here is John MacArthur at Ligonier:
Compromised truth has no hope of rescuing the eternal souls of men and women who have been unwittingly ensnared by the trap of devilish deception. ... Furthermore, embracing those heretical systems falsely reassures their followers that all is well between them and God, when actually they are headed for eternal damnation. Partnering in a spiritual enterprise with unbelievers helps Satan muddy the doctrinal waters, and it cripples our ability to preach the need for repentance.
Now you know why Moore pushes for "unity" and includes that unity with the Catholic Church. And now you know why she has 'visions' from some person claiming to be Jesus of the global church which contains the Catholic "denomination". Now you know why she teaches with a host of women from many denominations on her stage, including Catholics, and calls them all sisters. Now you know why Moore teaches Catholic practices like Lectio Divina and contemplative meditation and labyrinths.

LifeWay estimates that in 2017 alone Beth Moore's Living Proof Live conferences plus her simulcasts reached 268,000 women. This figure does not include the impact her books & studies have, and her television broadcast.  Now you know where the real money is. Compare that below with LifeWay's ministry to men. What a sad state of aberrant theological influence.



It is a serious thing for a woman with this much influence to claim with certainty that her Catholic father-in-law is swept into heaven.

I pray someone shares the true Gospel with the Moores. All of them.

Comments

  1. I wonder how Beth Moore confidently assert to the whole world that this man was swept into heaven at death when his own church teaches that only church saints can go to heaven and skip purgatory? See catechism of the Catholic Church 1030 and 1031

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