“I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot endure evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles…and you have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you….” (Revelation 2:2-4).
The Lord has “something” against certain ones calling themselves true believers while perverting the gospel and slandering His disciples.
When I heard of Florence Foster Jenkins, I thought of these who are both deceived and deceivers….
This woman who lived from 1868 to 1944 was a patron of the arts in New York City. She was rich and generous and in a hundred ways kind and gracious. Her one over-riding fault was that she thought of herself as a gifted singer. She was not. In fact, she was comically bad. And yet, her husband and those around her conspired to keep the truth from her. When she learned the truth, she was devastated and died soon afterward.
In The New Yorker’s review of the new movie–the title is her name–the opening paragraph is wonderful and poignant and lends itself to our application.