Return to Zender – The Fruit of His Doings
The Scriptures say to mark the perfect man and note the upright, for his end is peace (Psalm 37:37). It is safe to follow such a one. But it isn’t safe to follow a mocker and scorner like Martin Zender, who reaps bitter fruits with the promise of more to come, because he hardens himself in evil. Woe to those who follow him.
“But the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned, from which some, having swerved, have turned aside to vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the Law, neither understanding what they say nor that which they affirm. But we know that the Law is good if a man uses it lawfully” (1 Timothy 1:5-8 MKJV).
Most people don’t have a clue that real Christians are rare and that false Christians are in the vast majority. A true Christian is one who knows and hears from the Lord Jesus Christ personally. His sheep hear His voice.
A false Christian is one who claims, usually sincerely, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but is not in the least acquainted with, or interested in, Him as He is. False Christians worship a false Jesus – this goes for those inside or outside the institutional church system. Many nominal Christians suspect there are false Christians, but can’t identify them because they are deceived, not being real Christians themselves.
So we are here to shine the light in darkness and make a difference between the true and the false, in order that many may learn to worship God in spirit and in truth.
Martin Zender preaches and writes on the things of God and Jesus Christ, but he has never had anything to do with Him. The man is a fraud, at least an unwitting one, if not a deliberate one, judging by his spirit, words, and deeds. We have proven this and will again prove so, but only to those who are given to understand. Those who prefer to indulge in their lusts will gladly follow Zender.
We corresponded with Martin Zender about six years ago. He was a liar and hypocrite in his response, as is evident in our posting – Martin Zender – The Gospel as Ridicule and Entertainment. He obstinately, arrogantly refused to listen to our sober warnings and rebukes, accusing us of error and foolishness, which he could have known better than to do if he had only red at our site. It was fully evident that he wasn’t the least interested in the truth and the facts, only eager to exalt and defend himself in his great error.
One of the issues discussed was the subject of his noxious influence on marriages. In our posting exposing this false teacher, Paul Cohen wrote to him:
“You are not called of God and do not have personal revelation from Him, so you do not offend by selling the Truth, rather, you offend by selling your opinions as if they are the Truth. You are another of the multitude of contemporary religious authors, which sell men’s teachings; because you think yourself so much better than they are in your religious ‘pureness,’ however, you end up being a more vile and loathsome stench in God’s nose because of your hypocrisy and the lawlessness you encourage.
For example, I red one of the letters on your site where a man told you of the effect of one of your books on his wife. He writes:
‘My wife had found your theology liberating enough for her to sleep with another man, and then later ask for a divorce and justify the whole thing based on the worldview presented in your book.‘
While the wife is not blameless, I have no doubt that your book did have that effect, according to your rejection of the Law of God and His present power to deliver from sin. Yet you defend yourself and mock the fellow in your answer, even titling the letter, “Dear Oh Me, Oh My.” What a scoundrel you are, and you have the gall to complain about being offended? Bastard! Can the contradiction be any greater, coming from one who so greatly offends?” (end quote)
Now in June 2011, we discover that in 2009, about three years after we rebuked him, to his shock and grief, Martin’s wife left him after 26 years of marriage. He writes (to the “Body of Christ,” he presumes):
“…2009 was the worst year of my life. God dropped me, His earthen vessel, onto a spinning wheel that, in my worst nightmares, I could never have anticipated… my wife of 26 years left me.”
“His” vessel? Not a vessel for honor, I assure you – only one who presumes to be.
He goes on, continuing to justify himself, declaring his righteousness: “There was no infidelity in my marriage—none. I was faithful to her; you need to know that. I never abused her, ever. I only loved her. But when another person turns a corner and no longer loves you… it is an indelible agony that some day I may share with you.”
So here are some questions we can ask Zender: “Have you not reaped as you have sown? How faithful have you been to the promotion and support of other marriages? What kind of influence have you been, as with that fellow you mocked, who wrote in the agony you contributed to, and which, in turn, you have harvested?”
Zender continues: “Divorce is spiritually repulsive to me, especially between members of Christ’s body. I tried everything, for a year, to conciliate her to me, but she was not interested…. She divorced me; I did not divorce her. I would never have done that, ever. I resisted it until I no longer could. So it ended.”
Could it be, Martin, that someone divorcing you is repulsive to you, but when it comes to obedience to God’s Law (which is repulsive to you) and contributing positively to God’s institution of marriage, you really couldn’t care less?
You say you would never have divorced your wife. Is that so? How do you know? Are you the virtuous master of your own nature? Obviously, you think so. There is a great deal of difference between God’s righteousness and yours. His is true and infallible, while yours at best is as a menstrual rag, so who are you to assure everyone that you would never do such a thing?
Our highly appropriate introductory Scripture to this exposé speaks of those desiring to be teachers of the Law of God. But Zender has no use for God’s Law; he thinks it was done away 2,000 years ago, so could it be he has no desire to be such a teacher? Yes, it could, but he operates with a chosen and different set of laws. He boasts about how he hates divorce and would never commit such an act himself, but he had no compassion for the husband whose wife committed adultery and divorced him, justifying it by what she found in Zender’s writings. He contradicts himself in everything he says and does.
Zender writes, “I had never understood it when people used to say to me, ‘Divorce is worse than death.’ Now I know.”
He has sown and he has reaped. But it isn’t finished for him, because he has yet to see his rebellion and grievous sin against God. He is unrepentant.
He signs off with, “From the trenches, in grace and peace,” but his is not a battle trench for righteousness’ sake. He speaks from a ditch of darkness and iniquity:
“They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” (Matthew 15:14 MKJV).
We see that he is still entrenched in all evil. Now he swoons in idolatrous worship of a new woman in his life, so much so that he elevates her above God. His conduct and attitude with her are utterly contemptible before the One he professes to serve.
When he saw her for the first time, he was taken by Rebecca Tonn as she entered the conference room. He relates, “When my time came to speak, I did what I do. I don’t remember my topic; I’m pretty sure it had something to do with God.”
A bit of humor there, at God’s expense? Though it might grieve Him, God can afford it, but can Zender?
He writes of Rebecca: “She is also the sweetest, smartest, sexiest, most thoughtful, most energetic, and most loving member of Christ’s body inhabiting this cold, hard eon.”
Loose and flattering words, which set her above all other women, specifically and categorically. Are you trying to surreptitiously rub it in to your ex-wife, Martin? These are words for which you will be called into account.
We’re here to tell you that neither you nor Rebecca is a member of Christ’s Body. We know because we are members and we therefore know Him. You don’t know Him. If you did, you would be utterly ashamed of your thoughts, words, and ways.
You refer to Rebecca, saying, “Having no idea I would meet a goddess, I had already planned that Saturday night to speak on the topic of human sexuality.”
Idolatry and licentiousness are words to describe your focus and thoughts. Not that there is anything wrong with women, sex, or sexuality – don’t defend yourself by assuming we have problems with those – but we see your foolishness and ungodliness in that you regard these above God and pervert yourself.
You write, “In the arena of sex, women hold sway; men, for all intents and purposes, worship them.”
Yes, it is true what you say, that men worship women, and sex is a power women exercise naturally with men. Indeed, we have written The Vashti-Esther Transmutation, which speaks of the essence of “original sin,” that being man deciding to follow the woman instead of obeying God. But should this be so?
This is the way the world operates and how unregenerate humankind lives as a result of Adam’s decision to partake of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. It is even the way married believers conduct themselves until the time God delivers them from their unconscious sin. I was that way until the Lord stepped in and redeemed us by chastening and revelation from an unrecognized universal marital bondage originating with Adam and Eve.
But Zender speaks as though this kind of relationship is the ultimate will of God for His sons and daughters. Not so. Man must forsake the woman, who was deceived by the serpent; man must turn back to God. Woman must turn away from the serpent and follow the man back to God, Who made them.
If Martin Zender were not professing faith and presuming to speak on God’s behalf, his error would not be of such concern to us. We mustn’t let this go, however, because this isn’t just a matter of the world conducting itself in the name of the world. Martin Zender comes in the Name of the Lord, as a teacher, teaching falsehood and misrepresenting Him. We can’t overlook that.
Will his present marriage work? We now declare that unless things change, it won’t work at all, not if God has anything to say about it. We see the posted picture of Zender kissing Rebecca while she looks slyly at the camera as if to say, “I’ve got him eating out of my hand – right where I want him.” And Zender, as the faithful, zealous, submissive, shameless fornicator, loves to have it so.
Now notice the error and evil Martin Zender has to communicate in his yet-to-be published book, Shagah:
“I trace to the inaugural humans of Eden. Using additional evidence from the book of Genesis, and from science, I made the case that night—as I do in the book— that the female is the superior gender, and that this is part of the reason God tells him to cling, not her (Gen. 2:24).”
According to Martin’s logic, then, man is superior to Christ, as the apostle Paul wrote regarding God’s words in Genesis:
“For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two of them shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church” (Ephesians 5:31-32 MKJV).
Zender says, “Man moving toward woman is in fact a parable of humanity moving toward God. Therefore, in the sexual power alignment, women represent God.”
Really! Scriptural evidence, please? So their sexual power makes women ideal representatives of God? I wonder why God didn’t send an alluring Daughter to be crucified for us. Let’s put the Scriptures in Zender’s words, according to his presumed revelation and logic:
“Wives Husbands, submit yourselves to your own husbands wives, as to the Lord. For the husband wife is the head of the wife husband, even as Christ is the head of Church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore as the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives husbands be to their own husbands wives in everything” (Ephesians 5:22-24 MKJV).
Zender knows how to rewrite the Bible, doesn’t he! He concludes the matter in the letter to the Ephesians:
“But also let every one of you in particular so love his wife her husband even as himself herself, and the wife husband that she he defers to her husband his wife” (Ephesians 5:33 MKJV).
It is certain that Martin Zender defers to his wife-to-be and obeys her. We need no proof of this, for his own mouth confesses her as superior to him and as his goddess.
He goes on to say, “Rebecca has a body that could wreck Tokyo!” Either this man doesn’t presume to be representing the Truth of God, Jesus Christ, or he is a lawless scalawag who has no regard for Him, except to use His Name for his own sexual lusts, glory and gain. Either way, he deludes many.
But which is he? He is the lawless scalawag, presuming to represent Christ, for he says, “It is apparent to [Rebecca] and to me that God will use us to take these spiritual/sexual truths to the world and heal marriages. This, in turn, will bring people to Christ.”
Is not the focus on the body and sexual pleasure? He writes (my emphasis added), “Rebecca and I love each other by first loving ourselves. Marriage is about sex. God created this dynamic. And sex centers around the body. These bodies are temporary, yes, but unless we care for them, the dwelling place of God’s spirit might face early foreclosure.”
As you’ve seen by his reaction to the fellow who complained of Zender’s influence on his wife and marriage, can we now expect healed marriages from this new union? There’s no indication whatsoever that Zender has changed; quite the contrary. Does he now pretend that sex with a goddess will win the day and even bring people to Christ? This man’s influence is abominable.
Consider, searchers of truth and Jesus Christ, the epiphany this man proclaims at the feet of a mere human being. While Jesus says, “No man is good,” Zender, in his thoughts and ways, says, “Ah, but this is a woman, and she is something else – something You don’t understand, God – and I couldn’t care less if You did.”
Now he relates his proposal:
“Room 301 at the City Hostel is the subject of celestial gaze. I am on my knees, shaking. Now the tears course down my cheeks. She looks at me with those deep, unfathomable eyes. In my back pocket is a ring; she does not know that, yet.
‘Rebecca, will you grant me the privilege of being the one who serves you for the rest of your life?’”
Zender reenacts the deliberate sin of Adam denying God and His Law, following Eve to perdition. It is sheer idolatry at its worst. What is worse yet, however, is that he proclaims his shameful conduct as a celestial (heavenly) event.
As men place Ashtoreth, the pagan goddess of carnal love, sex, and fertility, on the throne of their hearts, so Zender does with Rebecca Tonn. Can the similarity be any starker?
Revelation 2:20-23 MKJV
(20) But I have a few things against you because you allow that woman Jezebel to teach, she saying herself to be a prophetess, and to cause My servants to go astray, and to commit fornication, and to eat idol-sacrifices.
(21) And I gave her time that she might repent of her fornication, and she did not repent.
(22) Behold, I am throwing her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great affliction, unless they repent of their deeds.
(23) And I will kill her children with death. And all the churches will know that I am He Who searches the reins and hearts, and I will give to every one of you according to your works.
Now Rebecca writes, “My first notes [of Martin’s talk] were, ‘We are rewarded for our efforts—not our successes.’ Talk about ditching works and bathing in grace. That was just what I needed to hear, after decades of legalism and institutionalized religion.”
The Lord spoke to me many years ago, forewarning me that people would contemn His Law because they contemned Him. They would be in all iniquity, calling it “grace.” He told me plainly that when I came magnifying and establishing the Law of God, I would be condemned for it as a legalist. Rebecca expresses the essence of what God warned me would happen. Martin Zender and Rebecca Tonn exemplify these people of iniquity.
Certainly the bondage of legalism is plentiful in orthodox Christianity. Certainly, institutionalized religion is Satan’s kingdom and power over men. We understand, because we were there and have been delivered of these pernicious influences of men.
I am sorry Rebecca suffered the things she did at the hands of a brutish husband, as many women have. I am sorry she suffered the childhood she did, as many children have, and I would earnestly want much good for her. Indeed, we want good for all who are lost and searching. We want it because God wants it, and eventually, He will bring salvation to all, having established the surety of the reconciliation of all things unto Himself before the foundation of the world.
In times past, when I have seen people deceived by others, I have tried to separate victim from perpetrator and the guilty from the innocent. To my dismay, I have learned that both victim and perpetrator are guilty; those believing lies are liars themselves, or they wouldn’t believe them, and the curse does not come to innocent people. The fearful are often as guilty as those who torment them.
We know Zender is a false teacher of Jesus Christ; he is an arrogant, cynical, and merciless man, contrary to Rebecca’s posted perceptions of him. We say he cries crocodile tears. He claims to have been faithful and innocent in his marriage. As he glorifies himself, demonstrating how much he loves himself first, we wonder how his wife tolerated life with him for however many painful and vexing years.
Is Tonn a helpless victim? It is invariably otherwise. Let this posting be a warning to whomsoever and as many as God wills.
I have no doubt that Rebecca Tonn and Martin Zender will have their answers, arguments, reasonings, and justifications against our “narrow-mindedness,” “legalism,” and “condemnation.” “To the pure all things are pure,” they will argue on their behalves. So be it. We can only speak what we are given and leave it with the Judge of all the earth to perform His sentences against evil, having warned in advance.
We again call on Zender to repent of his wickedness. Not heeding previous rebukes and admonitions, he lost his first wife and who knows what else, reaping as he unrepentantly sowed. Where does it go from here?
We call on Rebecca to repent. Where did her beliefs get her in the past, learning false doctrine about God and His will? Why did she suffer the things she suffered as a presumed believer?
“For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalms 84:11 MKJV).
We call on all those associated with Zender and his pernicious ways to repent, lest they be snared and consumed by his folly. As for those who follow him devotedly, they fall into his “trench” with him and perish. We are here to lead spiritual sojourners away from those misleading them.
We desire for all the truth that promises to make free. We know Whom we serve and are highly thankful for it. In knowing Whom we serve, we are able to discern those who don’t serve Him, but who are either deceived into thinking they serve Him or are deliberate deceivers, using His Name for their gain.
It doesn’t matter whether Zender and Tonn are deliberate deceivers or are deceived themselves. What matters is that they represent darkness. To the darkness, the truth must be spoken; we shine the light, exposing and reproving its works, be they blatant or subtle. To this end, the Lord Jesus Christ has appointed us, and by His grace, we will serve, as His unprofitable servants, until our job is done.
Victor Hafichuk
June 2011
Martin Zender – The Gospel as Ridicule and Entertainment
The self-proclaimed “World’s Most Outspoken Bible Scholar” professes to have all the answers for “freedom-seekers,” but the only freedom he imparts is from God’s ways and His righteousness. He has mistaken carnal knowledge of the Scriptures for Life, feeding others the bitterness and cynicism he labels “theotainment.” While rejecting the illegitimate church systems of men, he has more importantly rejected the Lord Jesus Christ, wrongly equating being anti-church with being Christian. He ridicules the ridiculous and the holy alike, making no distinction because he cannot see any, but we have come to make them known in the Light of all men.
Martin Zender – The Destruction of an Idolater
Martin’s paradise is revealed to be hell when his idol turns on him. This is the fate of all wicked idolaters who love themselves while insisting they love and serve God, caught in their own trap of pride and seeking the praise of men.
The Wicked Despise Haters of Evil
My, how the wicked come to the defense of evildoers, not because they care about anyone or anything besides themselves – they are compelled to speak up for their own justification. The advent of light threatens their darkened hiding places. Here is what God says of them: “But these, as unreasoning natural brute animals having been born for capture and corruption, speak evil of the things that they do not understand. And they will utterly perish in their own corruption” (2 Peter 2:12 MKJV).