On May 21, 1536, the council of all the heads of city households voted the following motion, drafted by Farel: “With God’s help, we want to live according to the evangelical law and the Word for God as it is preached to us, forsaking all masses, other ceremonies and papal deceits, images, idols and live united and obedient to God’s justice.” Geneva was now officially and democratically a Reformed city. In God’s providence, only two months later, a promising twenty-seven-year-old Frenchman, John Calvin, passed through the city. The rest is history. 

Guillaume (William) Farel is mainly remembered today for that famous encounter with John Calvin in 1536, when he convinced his compatriot to stay in Geneva and work alongside him. Like many other French-speaking Reformers, Farel has been overshadowed by Calvin. He is often described as a mere “fiery preacher,” more gifted at tearing down than building up. The reality, however, is far more complex, and he deserves to be better known. 
Farel was born in 1489 in the French Alps, only six years after Luther and twenty years before Calvin. He died in 1565 at age seventy-five, outliving Calvin by about a year. He received a classic education in humanities in Paris and was converted to the new “Lutheran faith,” as it was then known, sometime in 1521. He was soon compelled to leave France for Switzerland, where he would live as an exile for the rest of his life. Beginning in 1527, he exercised an itinerant preaching ministry under the protection of the city of Bern and then ministered in Geneva from 1533–1538. During that period, Farel’s ministry was akin to what we would call “church planting,” which is unique among the first-generation Reformers.
Farel started evangelizing the city of Geneva in December 1533 and was instrumental in convincing the whole city to embrace the Reformed faith. He preached the Word tirelessly in the streets, and later, when the priests and monks left the city, in church buildings. He convinced several other men to join him, notably Pierre Viret. He also engaged in several successful public disputations against Roman Catholic opponents.
He wrote a few books that are forgotten today but were the first resources in French about the new Reformed faith: a short summary of the Reformed faith first published in 1529, a brief Reformed liturgy in 1533, and a short commentary on the Lord’s Prayer (largely inspired by Luther).
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You’ll certainly see more rainbows during June. When you do, remember what the rainbow really means. Long before the LGBT+ community used the rainbow to communicate their message, it belonged to God, and he was sending a different message.

June is Pride Month. For some, that means nothing. For others, it means everything. And for many Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction, the hurricane of emotions is precarious to navigate. Rainbow propaganda floods our streets and screens, tempting some to wonder if “love is love” after all.
Because of the spiritually treacherous terrain many face, I’d like to offer six encouragements to help Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction to persevere in putting to death sinful desires and holding to a biblical sexual ethic.
1. Soak in Scripture
Nothing is more important for children of God than to hear from their heavenly Father, especially during an extreme spiritual attack. This month, millions of voices will attempt to tell you how to think. That’s why it’s dangerous to neglect your Bible. Heed the command of Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God.”
The world wants to make you callous toward your Creator. God’s will is to conform you to his glorious image (Col. 3:10). Jesus says feasting on God’s Word is as essential to your spiritual survival as eating food is to your physical survival (Matt. 4:4). Child of God, turn up the volume on your Bible reading this month so you can hear your heavenly Father’s voice.
Spend extra time at his feet (Luke 10:38–42). Guard your time with him as you’d guard your most precious possessions. Don’t just survey Scripture; soak in it. Hear his promises. Heed his warnings. Trust his assurances. Memorize sections that stir your soul. Discuss what you’re reading with Christian friends. If there’s ever a time you need to feast on God’s Word, it’s now.
2. Shut Off the World
As you turn up your heavenly Father’s voice, mute the father of lies. Satan is a deceiver, and the world is his megaphone. Everywhere you look, colorful symbols call you to reconsider your commitment to Jesus. Celebrations of sin assure you that anything other than affirmation is oppression. Social media parades before your eyes the lie that true freedom is found outside the bounds of your heavenly Father’s loving law.
Fasting from worldly influences should be a normal part of the Christian life. Embrace it this month. Be vigilant to shut off the world’s influence. Ask a friend to change your social media passwords to reduce the influx of deceptive messages. Abstain from shows that provoke unhealthy romantic feelings or sexual indulgence. If your company hosts Pride celebrations and you find them tempting, consider taking vacation days off. If old friends invite you to compromising parties, don’t go. Your sinful flesh only gets stronger when you feed it. So starve it by keeping your heavenly calling in view.
3. Surround Yourself with Godly Christian Friends
One of the most appealing qualities of the LGBT+ movement is the community. The LGBT+ family welcomes those who feel misunderstood and marginalized. Tales of painful pasts are met with open arms. Fierce loyalty defends each person’s right to self-expression without judgment or correction. It’s a “found family” with the “love is love” banner as their rallying point.
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As Jesus declared, false messiahs would arise in Judah. Wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, and persecutions would likewise break out within the empire. According to His Olivet prophecy, many confessing Christians would be tortured into apostasy, the nation of Judah would be plunged into murderous insanity, and the Gospel would be declared boldly throughout the Roman world by evangelists like Paul and his companions. All of these things happened before the legions of Rome surrounded the city of Jerusalem, which means we are not waiting on a future fulfillment, but we may rightly extol the glory of Christ for this magnificent prophecy that was perfectly fulfilled in a single generation just like He said. 

Today we continue our look at the signs of the times by looking at several additional pieces of evidence that Jesus gave that would mark this tumultuous period immediately before Jerusalem’s fall. He tells us in Matthew 24:10

10 At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. 11 Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. 12 Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. 14 This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. – Matthew 24:10-14

Many Will Fall Away
Before Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman armies, a period of increased apostasy would plague the first-century church. Jesus predicted that the combination of persecutions, false messiahs, false doctrine, and other calamities brought about in this unique period would be so severe that many would fall away from their faith and would stop walking with Him. This would be especially tempting for those who converted from Judaism since they could likely end their suffering by denying Christ. Scripture attests to the veracity of all of this.
For instance, Paul expresses shock in one of his earliest letters that so many Christians were abandoning Christ (Galatians 1:6) and going after a false Gospel (Galatians 5:4). He warned the Thessalonian church not to be deceived by any of the liars or false teachers that were busily fomenting perverted teachings in their midst because a great apostasy had to occur before the Lord would return in judgment (2 Thessalonians 2:3). He told Timothy that the Spirit expressly revealed this period of apostasy was coming (1 Timothy 4:1), where men would become spiritually shipwrecked and stray away from their Christian faith (1 Timothy 1:19-20; 6:20-21). He warned that abandoning Christ and apostolic teaching, to return back unto Judaism, would cause them to become re-enslaved to the powerless law (2 Timothy 4:10; Galatians 4:8-10) which tickled many apostates itching ears (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
Paul is not the only one who acknowledges this reality and affirms Jesus’ prophecy. Peter warns the saints not to follow the false prophets (2 Peter 2:1-3), who behave like unreasoning animals (2 Peter 2:10-15), who return to their own vomit (2 Peter 2:20-22). If they follow such men, Peter warns them that they will be carried away (2 Peter 3:17) and driven into the same eternal darkness those who are polluting them are destined for (2 Peter 2:17).
Jude, likewise, calls the apostates within the community hidden reefs that will bring tremendous ruin upon the church (Jude 12) who are called to contend for the Gospel and build themselves up on the most holy Gospel (Jude 4, 20). The author of Hebrews says that some, who had tasted the goodness of that Gospel, unforgivably decided to return back to the damnable troughs of the Jewish religion (Hebrews 6:4-8; 10:26-31). They did this instead of waiting on the judgment coming of the Lord (Hebrews 10:35-39).
The apostle John, in much the same manner, reminds his audience that everyone departing from the community of faith was not truly in the faith, to begin with (1 John 2:19), but even so, the faithful should attempt to call those who left to repentance before destruction overtakes them (1 John 5:16-17; See also James 5:19-20; Jude 22-23).
The plain and simple truth is that we are not waiting on a future apostasy to fulfill the words of Jesus in Matthew 24. That period has already occurred within the early church where countless believers made shipwreck of their faith and ran back to the manure of religion. Sadly, they would find the sacrifices and trappings of Mosaic Judaism ill-equipped to stop the judgment Christ was bringing.
Many Will Betray and Hate One Another
Another sign Jesus gave was that Jewish people would hate and betray one another, which went beyond the persecutions they would inflict upon the Christians. Jesus told them elsewhere that a “brother would betray his own brother” and that family members would turn in violence upon one another in those darkest of days (Matthew 10:21-22). This fact is illustrated powerfully in the writings of many ancient historians, which we will not have time to cover extensively but will sample for just a moment.
After Jesus ascended into heaven, the nation of Judah underwent rapid political instability that drove them towards madness. From emperors like Caligula demanding that his statue be erected in the temple to Roman procurators like Gessius Florus who killed thousands of Jews in the city, simply for mocking his greed, it seemed like the Jews were being provoked toward all-out war and they were taking the bait “hook, line, and sinker”. Yet, instead of unifying together against their common enemy, factions splintered and they began attacking each other.
Josephus tells us that the land became filled with despicable tyrants, murderers, and robbers who murdered their own countrymen for more than two decades (Wars 2.12.5). After that original band of murderers was put down by Governor Felix, a new group of Jewish assassins, called the Sicarii, began slaying their own people in broad daylight for obeying the Romans (Wars 2.13.3). Another group soon began polluting the city with talks of insurrection and like the former was put down by Governor Felix (Wars 12.13.4). Still another faction began murdering anyone in the city who refused to revolt from Rome, even setting houses on fire with women and children in them (Wars 2.13.6) and plundering the corpses for sport.
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