I got this article from an archive of Darryl Ebehart’s website. www.toughissues.org which is no longer online. I learned that Mr. Eberhart is now 77 years old and his health is failing. His right side is paralyzed from a stroke. I considered myself blessed to share and promote his good research which will edify the Body of Christ.

Some people say that “the Jews” control the USA; however, my 11 years of research have shown me that agents of Papal Rome (Jesuits, Knights of Malta, Knights of Columbus, Jesuit-controlled high-level Freemasons, and various Jesuit temporal coadjutors) have been controlling the USA for over a century! Please carefully read and consider the following three quotations:

“We find that the Roman Catholics, who comprise less than one-sixth of the population, have been the dominating power in our political affairs and of late years [Ed.: i.e., the early 1920s] have headed almost every national, state and municipal office from the President down to the dogcatcher.

During the [Ed.: President Woodrow] Wilson administrations [Ed.: 1913-21] the Army, the Navy, the Treasury, the Secret Service, the Post Office, the Emergency Fleet, Transports, Printing, Aircraft and dozens of others were presided over by Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus!” – Ms. Burke McCarty (“The Suppressed Truth about the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln”; 1924; Page 248 of the 1999 Larry Harrison edition)

“What [Ed.: Professor Carol A.] Brown [Ed.: of the University of Massachusetts] had learned from Carl Bernstein, I [Ed.: i.e., author F. Tupper Saussy] had discovered for myself over several years of private investigation: the papacy really does run United States foreign policy… Yes, [Carl] Bernstein noted that the leading American players behind the Reagan-Vatican conspiracy, to a man, were ‘devout Roman Catholics’ – namely, William Casey – Director, CIA [Ed.: and a papal Knight of Malta according to author Eric Jon Phelps]; Richard Allen – National Security Advisor; Judge William Clark – National Security Advisor; Alexander Haig – Secretary of State [Ed.: and a papal Knight of Malta according to author Eric Jon Phelps]; Vernon Walters – Ambassador-at-Large; and, William Wilson – Ambassador to the Vatican State.

But the reporter neglected to mention that the entire Senate Foreign Relations committee was governed by Roman Catholics as well. Specifically, Senators: Joseph Biden – Subcommittee on European Affairs [Ed.: and who is now Vice President of the United States]; Paul Sarbanes – International Economic Policy, Trade, Oceans, and Environment; Daniel P. Moynihan – Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs; John Kerry – Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Communications; and, Christopher Dodd – Western Hemisphere and Peace Corps Affairs.” – F. Tupper Saussy (“Rulers of Evil”; 1999; Pages 1 and 2)

“In fact, when the ‘Holy Alliance’ story hit the stands [Ed.: in 1992], there was virtually no arena of federal legislative activity, according to ‘The 1992 World Almanac of US Politics’, that was not directly controlled by a Roman Catholic senator or representative.

…Vatican Council II’s ‘Constitution on the Church’ (1964) instructs [Ed.: Roman Catholic] politicians to use their secular offices to advance the cause of Roman Catholicism.” – F. Tupper Saussy (“Rulers of Evil”; 1999; Pages 2 and 3)

It is not Zionist or Khazarian Jews – or Israel – or Jewish neo-conservatives who have been – or are – running the USA, as some folks allege. RATHER, agents of Papal Rome have been running the USA for over a century! Yes, they do occasionally place a Papal “court Jew” in a prominent position (e.g., the head of the Federal Reserve) to give the New World Order conspiracy a Jewish “flavor”; however, Papal Rome is the real controller of the USA! (And she rules the USA from “behind the scenes”!) For more information on this topic, please visit Internet website www.toughissues.org, and please read the following articles: “The Real Controllers”, “Simply Amazing”, “New Year’s Thoughts”, and “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion”. (Here are some other websites with articles about Papal Rome: www.arcticbeacon.com, www.bereanbeacon.org, www.chick.com, www.ctwilcox.com, and www.SpirituallySmart.com.)

(The websites not hyperlinked are the ones no longer online.)

This is the continuation of the previous chapter of Roman Catholicism by Lorraine Boettner.

1 The Office of the Priest

The office or work of the priest is perhaps the most difficult to present and the least understood of any part of the Christian system. In the Old Testament the work of Christ was prefigured under the three offices of prophet, priest, and king. Each of these was given special prominence in the nation of Israel. Each was designed to set forth a particular phase of the work of the coming Redeemer, and each was filled, not by men who voluntarily took the work upon themselves, but only by those who were divinely called to the work.

The prophet was appointed to be God’s spokesman to the people, revealing to them his will and purpose for their salvation. The priest was appointed to represent the people before God, to offer sacrifices for them and to intercede with God on their behalf. And the king was appointed to rule over the people, to defend them and to restrain and conquer all His and their enemies. In the present study we are concerned only with the priesthood.

The essential idea of a priest is that of a mediator between God and man. In his fallen estate man is a sinner, guilty before God, and alienated from Him. He has no right of approach to God, nor does he have the ability, or even the desire, to approach Him. Instead, he wants to flee from God, and to have nothing to do with Him. He is, therefore, helpless until someone undertakes to act as his representative before God.

In ancient Israel the priests performed three primary duties: they ministered at the sanctuary before God, offering sacrifices to Him in behalf of the people; they taught the people the law of God; and they inquired for the people concerning the divine will. Under the old covenant the men who held the offices of prophet, priest, or king were only shadows or types of the great Prophet, the great Priest, and the great King who was to come. With the coming of Christ each of these offices found its fulfillment in Him. And with the accomplishment of His work of redemption, each of these offices, as it functioned on the human level, reached its fulfillment and was abolished. As regards the priesthood Christ alone is now our Priest, our one and only High Priest. He fulfills that office in that He once offered up Himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, thereby making unnecessary and putting an end to all other sacrifices. He paid the debt for the sin of His people, and so opened the way for renewed fellowship between them and God. And as the risen and exalted Savior of His people, He intercedes effectually for them with God the Father.

All of this is clearly set forth by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews who in the ninth chapter says that “Christ having come a high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption” (vv. 11- 12); that we are redeemed through “the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God” (v. 14); that “Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, like in pattern to the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us” (v. 24); that “now once at the end of the ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (v. 26); and in 8:1-2, that “We have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.”

Thus under the figure of Israel’s sacrificing priesthood, particularly through the figure of the high priest who entered into the holy of holies on the day of atonement with blood that had been offered, we are shown that Christ, who is our High Priest, has entered into the heavenly sanctuary with the merits of His atoning sacrifice, that its atoning and cleansing power may be constantly applied to all who put their trust in Him.

In accordance with this New Testament change in the priesthood, through which the old order of ritual and sacrifice which prefigured the atoning work of Christ has been fulfilled and Christ alone has become our true High Priest, the human priesthood as a distinct and separate order of men has fulfilled its function and has been abolished. Furthermore, all born-again believers, having now been given the right of access to God through Christ their Savior, and being able to go directly to God in prayer and so to intercede for themselves and others, themselves become priests of God. For these are the functions of a priest. This we term the universal priesthood of believers. And this is the distinctive feature of Protestantism as regards the doctrine of the priesthood.

“Ye also,” says Peter, “as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. … Ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession” (1 Peter 2:5,9). In making that statement Peter was not addressing a priestly caste, but all true believers, as is shown by the fact that his epistle was addressed to Jewish Christians who were scattered throughout the various nations, “sojourners of the Dispersion” (1:1), even to those who are as “newborn babes” in the faith (2:2). And in Revelation 1:5-6, John, writing to the seven churches in Asia Minor, says: “Unto him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by his blood: and he made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father.”

The sacrifices offered by the Christian in the exercise of this priesthood are, of course, not for sin, as professedly are those of the Roman Catholic mass. Christ offered the true and only sacrifice for sin, once for all. His sacrifice was perfect. When He had completed His work of redemption upon the cross and was ready to give up His spirit He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). With His sacrifice God was fully satisfied. It therefore does not need to be repeated, nor supplemented, nor modified in any way.

The sacrifices offered by the Christian are termed “spiritual,” and they relate to worship and service. First, there is the sacrifice of praise: “Through him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which make confession in his name” (Hebrews 13:15). This offering of thanks and praise to God in worship, which expresses the gratitude of the heart, is an acceptable offering. Second, there is the sacrifice offered through our gifts, as our substance is given for the support of God’s work. He has declared that it is His pleasure to receive such gifts when they are given willingly and with pure motives: “But to do good and to communicate forget not [i.e., sharing with others, helping those who are in need]; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased” (Hebrews 13:16). And third, there is the offering of ourselves, our bodies, our lives, in Christian service: “I beseech YOU therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service” (Romans 12:1). Furthermore, we are sons of God through faith in Christ (1 John 3:1-2). As no longer servants but sons in His family, we have direct access to Him as our Father and no longer need the mediation of any order of human priests. To depend upon priestly mediation is by that much to return to Judaism and to introduce an dement (a person who is demented) of apostasy into Christianity.

Thus the New Testament sets forth a new and different kind of priesthood: first, Christ, the true High Priest, who is in heaven; and second, the universal priesthood of believers, through which they offer the “spiritual” sacrifices of praise, of gifts, and of themselves in Christian service. It thereby repudiates the pretentious claims of the Roman priesthood, which would perpetuate the Jewish priesthood and limit it to a few chosen men who are set apart from the laity, who profess to offer literal sacrifices in the mass, and who supposedly are nearer to God than are other men.

Every believer now has the inexpressibly high privilege of going directly to God in prayer, without the mediation of any earthly priest, and of interceding for himself and for others. We are told: “Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matthew 7:7); “If ye shall ask anything of the Father, he will give it you in my name” (John 16:23); “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21).

The believer, of course, approaches God not in his own merits but only through the merits of Christ who has made a perfect sacrifice for him. It is precisely at this point that the Roman Catholic fails to see God’s true way of salvation, for he thinks that man still must approach God as in Old Testament times through a priest, or now perhaps through Mary or some saint whose merits can work for him. But Paul says, “By grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). Christians have, by virtue of their union with Christ, free access to God at all times. This right is one of the finest things in the Christian faith, and it is a present possession. Yet Rome would rob us of this privilege and would interpose her priests and dead saints between the soul and God. Rome’s teaching and practice is heresy, for in many places the Bible invites us to come to God through Christ, without any reference to priests or other intercessors.

The Bible teaches that “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ” (1 Timothy 2:5). The Church of Rome teaches that there are many mediators—the priests, Mary, a host of saints, and the angels—and that it is right and proper to pray to them. But to any honest priest in the Church of Rome it must become more and more apparent that Christ is the only true Priest, the only true Mediator, and that in serving as a priest, in pretending to offer the sacrifice of the mass and to forgive sins, he is merely acting the part of an impostor.

2 No New Testament Authority for a Human Priesthood

The really decisive answer to all theories concerning a human priesthood is found in the New Testament itself. There we are taught that the priesthood, along with the other elements of the old dispensation, including the sacrificial system, the ritual, the Levitical law, the temple, etc., has served its purpose and has passed away. With the coming of Christ and the accomplishment of redemption through His work, the entire Old Testament legalistic and ritualistic system which had prefigured it became obsolete and passed away as a unit. It is very inconsistent for the Roman Church to retain the priesthood while discarding the other elements of that system.

An enlightening article that appeared in the Chicago Lutheran Theological Seminary Record, July, 1952, somewhat abbreviated has this to say about the priesthood:

Paul enumerates the different kinds of ministers and agents in the Christian church, and the office of priest is not among them: “And he gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers” (Ephesians 4:11). And again, “And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers. …” (1 Corinthians 12:28). There is never any mention of priests. The only mediatorial priesthood recognized in the New Testament is that of Christ, the great Hig hPriest, and to Him alone is the title “priest” (hiereus) given: “Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 7:17); “But he, because he abideth for ever, hath his priesthood unchangeable. Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such a high priest became us, holy, guiltless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people: for this he did once for all, when he offered up himself” (Hebrews 7:24-27), “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).

Since the priesthood occupied such an important place in the Old Testament dispensation and in the thinking of the Jewish people, it is inconceivable that, had it been continued in the New Testament dispensation, God would have made no mention of it at all—how priests were to be chosen, and ordained, and how they were to carry out their functions in this radically different dispensation. The fact of the matter is that the Old Testament priesthood was the human, Aaronistic priesthood, and that by its very nature it was, like the sacrificial system and the elaborate temple worship of which it was a part, a temporary affair, a mere shadow and prefigurement of the reality that was to come. And so, with the coming of Christ and the establishment of His priesthood, it fell away, as the stars fade before the rising sun, and as the petals fall away before the developing fruit. The priesthood as an order of clergy has been abolished.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews several chapters are devoted to showing that the Old Testament priesthood has been abolished and that there is no place in Christianity for a sacrificing priesthood, because Christ, “through his own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption,” and that He has offered “one sacrifice for sins for ever” (9:12, 10:12). The many human priests with their innumerable animal sacrifices were effective in their work of reconciling the people to God only because they represented the true High Priest and the one true sacrifice that was to come. But after the reality appeared, there would be no more need for the shadows and types that had preceded it. Hence we read concerning the sacrifice of Christ: “But now once at the end of the ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26); and again: “We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).

The sacrifice of Christ was therefore a “once-for-all” sacrifice which only He could make, and which cannot be repeated. By its very nature it was final and complete. It was a work of Deity, and so cannot be repeated by man any more than can the work of creation. By that one sacrifice the utmost demands of God’s justice were fully and forever satisfied. Final atonement has been accomplished! No further order of priests is needed to offer additional sacrifices or to perpetuate that one. His was the one sacrifice to end all sacrifices. Let all men now look to that one sacrifice on Calvary! Any continuing priesthood and any “unbloody repetition of the mass,” which professes to offer the same sacrifice that Christ offered on Calvary, is in reality merely a sham and a recrudescence of Judaism within the Christian Church.

The abolition of the priestly caste which through the old dispensation stood between God and man was dramatically illustrated at the very moment that Christ died on the cross. When He cried, “It is finished,” a strange sound filled the temple as the veil that separated the sanctuary from the holy of holies was torn from top to bottom. The ministering priests found themselves gazing at the torn veil with wondering eyes, for God’s own hand had removed the curtain and had opened the way into the holy of holies, symbolizing by that act that no longer did man have to approach Him through the mediation of a priest, but that the way of access to Him is now open to all.

But the veil which had been torn by the hand of God was patched up again by priestly hands, and for forty years, until the fall of Jerusalem, sacrifices continued to be offered in a restored temple service, and in Judaism the veil continued to stand between God and men. In our day the Roman priesthood has again patched up the veil. Through the use of spurious sacraments, the sacrifice of the mass, the confessional, indulgences, and other such priestly instruments it insists on keeping in place the curtain that God Himself has removed. It continues to place fallible human priests, the Virgin Mary and dead saints as mediators between the sinner and God, although the Bible declares most clearly that “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).

Hence the continuing priesthood in the Church of Rome is absolutely unscriptural and unchristian. It owes its existence solely to a man-made development that can be traced in detail in the history of the church, for it was not until the third or fourth century that priests began to appear in the church. That system has been a source of untold evil. But papal dominance has been built upon that practice and is dependent on its continuance. Without a hierarchical priesthood the papal system would immediately disintegrate.

The Apostle Peter, far from making himself a priest or a pope, was content to call himself one of the many elders, a presbuteros. And he specifically warned the elders against that most glaring error of the Roman Catholic priests, lording it over the charge allotted to them. He urged rather that they serve as examples to the flock: “The elders therefore among you I exhort, who am a fellow-elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, who am also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly, according to the will of God; nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:1-3).

As regards priestly innovations that have been made by the Roman Church, Dr. R. Laird Harris, Professor of Old Testament in Covenant Theological Seminary, in St. Louis, writes:

But the doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers is not merely a negative teaching abolishing an order of clergy. For along with that freedom which makes the believer responsible only to God for his faith and life, there is an added responsibility. We are members of a Christian community, “an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). As Christians, then, we are not “laymen,” not mere spectators of the Christian enterprise who may or may not engage in it as we choose, but “priests,” and therefore responsible to God for the faith and lives of others. We are under obligation to make known this message of salvation. The word “layman” is not found in the New Testament, nor is there any “layman’s movement” in the Bible. A priest is inevitably involved in the lives of others, and is responsible to God for others. He has the high privilege and duty of making God known to others. This priesthood, therefore, applies to all believers, and consists of two things: (1) Immediate access to God in prayer for one’s self, and (2) the right and duty of intercession for others. Only as we grasp these ideas can we appreciate the full, rich meaning of the doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers.

Furthermore, we are a royal priesthood. That means that we have been called, chosen, by the King of Kings to be His priests before our fellow men. We are not first of all clergy and laymen. We are first of all a royal priesthood, under obligation individually to make known the message of salvation. And the strength of Protestantism lies precisely here, in the willingness of its people to accept this strange office and all that it means, and to serve in the household of God as the royal priests that we really are.

3 Claims of the Roman Priesthood

The Council of Trent, whose decrees must be accepted by all Roman Catholics under pain of mortal sin or excommunication, says:

In a similar vein a Roman Catholic book, carrying the imprimatur of the Archbishop of Ottawa, Canada, says:

To millions of Christians who are outside the Roman Church such words border on blasphemy, if indeed they are not blasphemy. Surely such declarations are a usurpation of the power that belongs only to God.

It is surprising how little Scripture authority even the Roman Church cites as a basis for her doctrine of the priesthood. Her main and almost only support is found in two verses, Matthew 16:18-19—which she has misinterpreted, and then, by adding one human tradition to another, has built up an elaborate system which not only has no real support in Scripture but which actually is contrary to Scripture. And by teaching her people this one interpretation and denying them the right to read or hear any other, she has misled millions so that they have come to believe that this is true Christianity. These verses read:

There are various interpretations of these verses. Suffice it to say here that this passage contains symbolical language and that the interpretation of the “rock,” the “keys,” the “gates of hell,” and the “binding” and “loosing” adopted by Rome is by no means the only one, nor even the most plausible one. We shall treat these verses more fully in connection with the discussion of Peter as the alleged head of the church on earth.

There is probably no other doctrine revealed in Scripture that the Roman Church has so obviously turned upside down as that of the priesthood. The function of no New Testament minister or official resembled that of a priest of the Roman Church. The titles of “archbishop,” “cardinal” (“prince of the church,” as they like to be called), and “pope” are not even in the Bible. The term “bishop” (overseer, or shepherd of the flock) designated an entirely different office than does that term in the present day Roman Church. In fact the terms “bishop” (episcopos) and “elder” (presbyteros) were used interchangeably. Elders could be of two kinds—what we term the teaching elder, or pastor, and the ruling elder, who represented the congregation in the general affairs of the church.

Paul ordained elders in the newly established churches and gave his assistants, Timothy and Titus, instructions for choosing and ordaining elders in every city (1 Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:5). During the Middle Ages the teaching elder became a priest at the altar, and the function of the ruling elder was usurped by bishops, cardinals, and the pope, until practically no authority was left in the hands of the congregation, which of course is the condition that continues in the Roman Catholic churches of today. Rome has robbed the laity of nearly all of its privileges.

Christ intended that His church, which consists of all true believers, should enjoy all of the rights and privileges that were conferred by Him. But Rome withdraws those rights and privileges from the people, and invests them in an order of priesthood. Christ bade His followers practice humility, acknowledge one another as equals, and serve one another (Matthew 20:25-28, 23:8; 1 Peter 5:3, 2 Corinthians 4:5). But Rome denies this equality and sets up the priest as a dictator belonging to a sacred order, altogether apart from and superior to the people of the parish. The loyal Roman Catholic must heed what the priest says, for priestly dignity is above all. The priest dictates to his people concerning their church, school, marriage, children, family affairs, political activities, what literature they should read, and so on, all of which he may inquire into intimately in the confessional. From before birth until after death that influence continues. As father confessor and “director of conscience,” and as God’s spokesman to the people, his word is not to be questioned.

The feeling of fear and dread of the priest, so characteristic of the people in Romanist lands, is comparable only to the fear and dread that pagan people have for the witch doctor. Says one from Southern Ireland who has had ample opportunity to observe from within the workings of that system: “You who have never been under this influence, who have from childhood been allowed freedom of speech, liberty of conscience, and who see no distinction between your clergy and laity, you cannot, you never will understand the influence that Roman Catholic priests have over the laity of their own nationality” (Margaret Shepherd, My Life in the Convent, p. 46).

Romanism puts the priest between the Christian believer and the knowledge of God as revealed in the Scriptures, and makes him the sole interpreter of truth. It puts the priest between the confession of sins and the forgiveness of sins. It carries this interposition through to the last hour, in which the priest, in the sacrament of extreme unction, stands between the soul and eternity, and even after death the release of the soul from purgatory and its entrance into heavenly joy is still dependent on the priest’s prayers which must be paid for by relatives or friends. The Roman priests, in designating themselves, the Virgin Mary, and the saints as mediators, and in making membership in their church the indispensable requirement for salvation, place a screen between God and the people. And where does Christ come in, in this system? If you search you will find Him in the background, behind the priest, behind the Virgin, behind the church. The inevitable result is that the spiritual life of the Roman Catholic is weak and anemic, and that Roman Catholic countries, such as Spain, Italy, Southern Ireland, Quebec, and Latin America, are immersed in spiritual darkness.

No matter what the moral character of a priest, his prayers and his ministrations are declared to be valid and efficacious because he is in holy orders. The Council of Trent has declared that “Even those priests who are living in mortal sin exercise the same function of forgiving sins as ministers of Christ”—such a declaration was necessary at that time, in the middle of the 16^th century, if the Roman Church was to continue to function at all, because of the general and well-known immorality of the priests. Just as the medicine given by the doctor is supposed to cure the patient regardless of the moral character of the doctor, so the priest’s official acts are supposed to be valid and efficacious regardless of his personal character. He is accounted a “good priest” so long as he remains loyal to the church and the rituals and ceremonies performed by him are correct. Says one writer, “When you see the way the system of the priesthood works out in daily life, be glad you are a Protestant.”

Few Protestants realize the nature and significance of the vast chasm which separates the Roman Catholic priesthood from the people. No such gulf exists between the Protestant clergyman and his congregation. A fiction of sacerdotal wisdom and holiness, particularly as displayed in the sacrifice of the mass, sets the priest apart from the awed and reverent Catholic laity. Yet the Roman Church seeks to have the world believe that a close unity exists between the clergy and the laity. And an almost total ignorance on the part of the Catholic people concerning the political machinations of the hierarchy leaves them usually not only willing but even proud to be identified with whatever program is put forth in the name of the Roman Church.

In our method of choosing a minister, which we believe is in harmony with the teaching of Scripture and the practice of the early church, we choose a man not because he is of a superior order, but because of our belief that he is capable of ministering the things of the Spirit to his fellow men and because we believe he will live an honest, humble, sincere, and upright life. Ordinarily the minister marries and dwells in a family because this is the natural state of man, and hence he is closer to his people than is the celibate priest. He is chosen by the people, not, however, to govern according to the will of the people, but according to the will of Christ as revealed in the Scriptures. He is among the flock as a spiritual leader, friend, and counsellor, not to be ministered unto, but to minister.

4 The Christian Ministry Not a Sacrificing Ministry

We have said that it is the work of a priest to represent man before God, to offer sacrifices, to intercede for men, and so to make God propitious, that is, favorably inclined toward them. In all pre-Christian religions, Judaism included, there were two common elements: (1) a human priesthood and (2) the teaching that the salvation provided was incomplete. In the very nature of the case their sacrifices were of limited value and therefore deficient. In the pagan religions this usually led to belief in a future round of existence after death wherein the still unsaved sinner would have to make further expiation for his sins. In Judaism it was shown in the never-ending cycle of those sacrifices as day after day the same ritual was repeated.

Now, Roman Catholicism, although it professes to be Christian, possesses those same two elements. It claims a human priesthood, and it teaches that salvation in this life is not complete, but that after death the soul must suffer a longer or shorter time in purgatory and that repeated masses must be said to pay the debt for sin. But Protestantism teaches that with the coming of Christ and the completion of His work on Calvary a new element was added, one which completely eliminates the other two, namely, the evangel, or the “good news” that because Christ was both God and man His sacrifice was of infinite value, and that it was therefore complete, efficacious, and final.

This is the clear teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews, for there we read:

And again:

Here we are taught, first of all, that the pre-Christian element of an incomplete salvation was superseded by the complete salvation obtained through the one efficacious sacrifice offered by Christ, and, secondly, that the human priesthood offering daily sacrifices for the sins of men was eliminated, having been done away through the once for all sacrifice for sins when Christ offered up Himself. This means further that sin cannot persist as something to be expiated for after death; that we are saved completely, not half-saved; and that therefore there can be no such place as purgatory.

In the Jewish priesthood, (1) there were many priests, (2) they were men of infirmity, and (3) it was necessary that they repeat their sacrifices many times, for their own sins and for those of the people. These same reasons apply with equal force against the Roman priesthood: (1) they too are many, (2) they too are men of infirmity, and (3) they too repeat their sacrifices many times for themselves and for the people. In the nature of the case there could be nothing permanent about the work of the Jewish priesthood, for it was merely a foreshadowing or a prefiguring of the work that was to be accomplished by Christ. But the “one sacrifice,” offered “once for all,” by Christ paid the penalty for the sin of His people and so fulfilled the ritual and made all further sacrifices unnecessary. There is, therefore, no place for a sacrificing priesthood in the Christian dispensation.

This same truth is taught when we are told that after Christ had completed His work, He “sat down” on the right hand of God, thus symbolizing that His work was finished, that nothing more needed to be added. In Hebrews 1:3 we read: “Who being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification for sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high”; and in Hebrews 10:12-13: “But he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God, thenceforth expecting till his enemies be made the footstool of his feet.”

The greatness and completeness and finality of Christ’s sacrificial work is seen in His royal rest. The fact that He has sat down is of special interest since in the tabernacle and the temple there were no seats or benches on which the priests could ever sit down or rest. Their work was never done. Their sacrifices had to be repeated daily because there was no saving power in them. Therefore their task was endless. But the work of Christ was entirely different. His sacrifice of Himself was “once for all.” By that one sacrifice He made perfect provision both for the sinner and for the sin. Therefore, as our High Priest, He sat down in the place of authority, and is now waiting until His enemies are brought into subjection and His kingdom is brought to fruition.

It is interesting to notice that when Christ sent out His apostles He commanded them to preach and teach, but that He said not one word about sacrifice. In the Great Commission He said: “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them… teaching them…” (Matthew 28:19-20). Yet the most prominent feature of the Roman priesthood is its sacerdotal or sacrificial character. The mass is the very heart of the service. In the first part of the ordination service for a priest he is addressed as follows: “Receive thou the power to offer sacrifices to God, and to celebrate masses, both for the living and for the dead. In the name of the Lord. Amen.”

In the Book of Acts there are many references to the founding of churches, preaching the Word, the assembling of Christians, the governing of the churches, and the matter of controversies with those who advocate error. But there are no references whatever to a sacrificing priesthood. Paul likewise through his epistles gave many directions concerning the duties of the ministry. But nowhere is there even a hint that the ministers were to offer sacrifices, nowhere even an allusion to the mass! The Greek word for priest, hiereus, as we have noted, is never applied to New Testament ministers. Strange indeed, if this was the work of the early ministers, that in Scripture we find no references whatever to it!

But in contrast with this, in later ages, after the Roman Catholic Church had developed, we find the writings of the spokesmen for the church filled with references to the mass— how, when, how often, and under what circumstances it is to be administered. It became, during the Middle Ages, as it is today, the most distinctive feature of the Roman worship, the primary thing that they profess to do. Surely it is clear that the sacrifice of the mass is a later development, a radical perversion, and that the Roman Catholic priesthood is following a system quite foreign to that of the early church.

Some Roman Catholics who have turned to Protestantism have said that before they left the Roman Church the charges which hurt them most were those which declared that the Bible does not reveal a teaching authority with the pope and the priesthood as its divinely authorized agents, and that the blessed sacrament of the altar does not exist in the New Testament. But with further investigation they were forced to conclude that such was the case and that in truth the sole support of the priesthood was nothing other than the traditions of men.

Our conclusion concerning the priesthood must be that Christ alone is our true High Priest, the only Mediator between God and men, the reality toward which the entire Old Testament ritual and sacrifice and priesthood looked forward, and that when He completed His work that entire system fell away. Consequently, we reject all merely human and earthly priests, whether in the Roman Catholic Church or in heathen religions, and look upon their continued practice as simply an attempt to usurp divine authority.

5 Training for the Priesthood

There are approximately 56,540 Roman Catholic priests in the United States. And there are 237 bishops, archbishops, and cardinals who make up the American hierarchy, according to The Official Catholic Directory (May, 1963). The large proportion of the priests, some 34,465, are what are termed diocesan priests, whose work is in the local churches, while the remainder, some 22,075, are in the various religious orders, such as the Franciscan, Dominican, Benedictine, and Jesuit. Those in the various orders tend to specialize in some specific work, e.g., the Franciscans dedicating themselves to the relief of suffering and want, the Dominicans to theological and ministerial studies, the Benedictines to service in the schools and churches, and the Jesuits to the field of education, although the various fields overlap considerably. There are about 35,000 Jesuits in the world, some 8,000 of whom are in the United States. There are also about 177,000 nuns in the United States who work primarily in the schools and hospitals, although some are cloistered.

Many people find it difficult to understand why so many young people choose to dedicate themselves for life to the rigorous system of the Roman Catholic Church as priests and nuns. The answer is that most of them do not enter as a result of free personal choice, but are recruited while quite young, usually between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, with greater or lesser degrees of leading or persuasion by the priests who are instructed to keep their eyes open for promising boys and girls. The confessional, which affords the priests an opportunity to know intimately the personalities, ambitions, and problems of the young people, affords an excellent opportunity for such leading. The church seeks candidates for its personnel and tries to gain their commitment at that period in the lives of boys and girls when spiritual ideals are strongest but illusive and superficial. That is the age when the ambitions of youth soar highest and when they feel the urge for self- sacrifice in building a better world. The ones the church wants are, for the most part, selected by the priests, cultivated over a period of time, sometimes even for years, and so led into the various fields of service, although the priests are by no means successful in getting all they want. The result is that many a boy and girl who had never felt any natural inclination toward the priesthood or convent life has found himself or herself following that road and more or less committed to it before realizing the consequences.

Most of those who eventually enter the priesthood are recruited from the middle or lower class families, boys who for the most part would not have much chance for higher education or for advancement in life, and to whom ordination means promotion to a position of prestige which their family status would not likely attain for them. Training is for the most part provided without cost. In their new positions, with their handsome rectories, luxurious vestments and beautiful automobiles they can feel superior to their parishioners. Those become most beholden to the hierarchy for the advantages that they have received, and are the most easily controlled. Having been drilled and disciplined into the system, they feel powerless to change. This is especially true of those who come from orphanages, whether priests or nuns. They are the real victims of the system. That is an unhealthy situation and deeply unjust, but one that is difficult to control or remedy.

A former English priest, Joseph McCabe, in his book, The Popes and Their Church, says that the Jesuits and Benedictines, who control large schools, appeal more to the middle class, but that as a rule they fail to secure the more intelligent of their pupils, that the intellectual and moral level of priests is not nearly as high as, for instance, that of teachers and doctors, and that only a minority have any exceptional ability or deep religious feeling. Other writers have said substantially the same thing. Furthermore, the idea has been promoted among Roman Catholics that it is a special honor to have in one’s family a priest or nun, and unusual privileges and favors, sometimes quite substantial, are directed by the church toward the families of those so chosen. Getting into the service of the Roman Church is not so difficult; getting out after one has committed himself or herself is the real problem.

In order to understand why Roman Catholic priests act as they do, and why the priesthood is able to hold them so firmly, it is necessary to know something about the training they receive. That has been set forth clearly by Mr. McLoughlin, and we present in considerable detail the account of his training in St. Anthony’s Seminary, at Santa Barbara, California, which he informs us was during the years 1922-27. He says:

At the conclusion of the book Mr. McLoughlin says:

We urge everyone who possibly can to read this very informative and interesting book by Mr. McLoughlin. It is written in a truly Christian spirit by one who knows intimately the Roman Catholic Church, written not in spite, or hatred, or vindictiveness, but to acquaint Roman Catholics themselves with the truth concerning the secret inner workings of their hierarchy, and to inform those outside the Roman Church concerning the nature of this growth that has spread so luxuriously in our free and hospitable land while at the same time choking freedom of thought and action in those lands which it controls.

We should add that the priestly course of preparation reaches its climax in a colorful and solemn ordination ceremony, in which the bishop pronounces the awesome words: “Thou art a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” To himself and to the Roman Catholic world the young priest becomes an alter Christus, “another Christ,” offering in the mass the same sacrifice that Christ offered on the cross. People bow before him and kiss his hands as a token of respect and submission. Ordinarily a priest is not ordained before the age of 24, although ordination can be performed earlier by special permission. According to Canon Law, a priest once ordained can never lose his ordination. Even if he leaves the Roman Catholic Church, renounces it, and becomes a Protestant minister, he still remains a priest, although unable to function as a priest until be returns and repents.

6 Groups within the Priesthood and within the Laity

After the new recruits have finished their long course of preparation and are ordained as priests, what is their reaction to the environment in which they find themselves? Dee Smith, a former Roman Catholic layman who writes with an intimate knowledge of conditions within the Roman Church, finds that when they emerge from the seminary they gradually evolve into three fairly distinct groups which may be classified as: (1) the naive, (2) the disillusioned, and (3) the aggressive. He says:

1. “The naive are worthy souls so honest themselves that they never question the honesty of others. Even repeated experiences of hypocrisy and corruption among their priestly brothers are insufficient to shake their faith or extinguish their inexhaustible charity. Such priests never advance to high rank among the clergy. They are found in poor city parishes, lonely country stations, or out in the mission field, sharing the meager life of their parishioners.

2. “What of the disillusioned? Emmett McLoughlin estimates that about 17 percent of the priests would like to leave not only the priesthood but also the church. … Not all who leave have the stamina to stay with it. The memory of indolent, well-padded living is too beguiling. Expecting the same thing, plus adulation, in the Protestant camp and not finding it, these feeble characters inevitably return to Rome.

“In their eagerness not to jeopardize their cushy sinecure a second time they cravenly accept the hypocritical ‘penances’ handed out to them and become the most ardent of Rome’s propagandists. Nevertheless it would be unfair to judge harshly all disillusioned priests who fail to break with Rome. When one considers the scurrilous attacks which will be made upon them in the Roman Catholic press, the boycott pressures which will starve them out of a means of livelihood, the malignant persecution which will seek them out and hound them wherever they go, one can readily understand that the decision to leave is a more heroic one than most of us are ever called upon to make. It cannot be denied that some of these priests are good men who, to atone for their lack of courage, do what they can to comfort, encourage, and assuage the lot of the duped and betrayed Catholic people.

3. “Nothing, however, can be said in extenuation of the aggressive cohort of the priesthood, the class which comprises the hierarchy and upper clergy as well as many of the lower. No man can rise very high in the ranks of the Roman Catholic priesthood unless he is of this class. In fact, the savagery of their intolerance against all who stand in the way of ruthless ambition extends far beyond their hatred of their tacit opponent, the non-Catholic world, and intimately permeates their own relationships. The viciousness of their tactics against one another in the competition for promotion is precisely the same quality as that of medieval cardinals who hired prisoners and assassins to dispose of their rivals in the Consistory.

“Their objective is not merely a life of privilege, luxury, and carnal self-indulgence. In fact, there are among them men of rigid ascetic character. But each and every man of them is driven by an insatiable lust for power. Each sees himself as a factor to be reckoned with in a globe-dominating force. Having lost the capacity for love, they seek the fear of their fellow men—the more abject the headier. Is it any wonder that the hierarchy’s own security demands an impassable gulf between the decent, well-meaning Catholic people and these men with the hearts and spiritual nature of wolves, these men with no God but Greed, no religion but Power?” (Christian Heritage, May, 1959).

The chief victims of the Roman Catholic system are the people themselves, who are schooled to accept the teachings of their church implicitly and who are almost totally ignorant of the political machinations of their clergy. Again we are indebted to Dee Smith for an analysis which, with some degree of overlapping, groups the Roman Catholic laity as follows:

1. First there is that comparatively small group of people whom we may designate as “converts” to Romanism, or “joiners,” those who when they see the Roman Church growing in influence “jump on the band wagon.” Such as these would join most any movement, even the Communist if it appeared to offer them advancement. They have only a nominal Christianity, and usually have suffered frustration in some form. In Romanism they become the center of attention and gain a position of influence that would not otherwise be attainable to them.

2. A second group, much the largest group in the Roman Church, consists of those whom we may designate as spiritual suicides. They shrink from any serious thought concerning religious truths which they do not want to face, truths which if followed through might involve them in arduous spiritual effort. In the Roman Catholic Church they gain a promise of heaven through the payment of money and the recitation of sterile formulas. They are content simply to float along and to leave the spiritual and intellectual problems to others.

3. A third group consists of those who are genuinely naive. For them, as Dee Smith says, “the beautiful music, gorgeous trappings, fragrant incense, majestic temples, and eye-filling spectacles perform the office for which Rome designed them, namely, to lull the senses into a state of euphoria which the victim mistakes for heavenly transport. Like wide-eyed children at a circus, the victims of this form of mass hypnosis see nothing of the shoddy meanness behind the glitter.”

4. There are those whom we may term the “practical Catholics,” those who for personal reasons make a career of their church connections. They are the typical members who are always ready to do the bidding of the clergy, serving as a front against the non-Catholic world, bullying bookstores into refusing to handle anti-Catholic literature, organizing boycotts, coercing businessmen to support Catholic charities, posing the threat of the “Catholic vote,” etc.

5. Another group is that of the “nominal Catholics,” those who are members of the church simply because they were born such. They follow the rules of the church only so far as it suits their convenience. They are not critical of the church, but neither do they have any particular devotion for it. They generally attend mass, and they vote for Roman Catholic candidates. They are, however, unsteady and a source of concern to the clergy.

6. There is a comparatively small group of real liberals, men of integrity who try to reconcile the teachings of their church with their consciences as long as possible, but who in a showdown between church and conscience follow their conscience and walk out of the church.

7. Lastly, there is the group, consisting of perhaps one third of the membership, who by any standard are good, honest, self-respecting people. They are, to be sure, somewhat naive, but they are good neighbors to their Protestant fellow citizens and are the kind of people for whose sake Protestants sometimes resent any insinuations against the Roman Catholic Church. They are people who, if they knew the true purpose, motives, and character of their church’s leadership, would leave in disgust at the betrayal of their faith. They are good not because they are Roman Catholics but in spite of that fact. They are the kind of people who, not going to the trouble to investigate the doctrinal tenets of the faith they profess, would be good in any faith in which they might have membership. Innocently and unknowingly they serve as a perfect smokescreen for the hierarchy. By using the good character and sincere faith of these followers, and by surrounding themselves with a stage-setting of exalted faith, the priests are able to create the illusion of true religion for their entire system. But that system in its basic reality remains like the magnificent Hollywood temples, so impressive and awesome to the untrained eye, but in reality nothing more than plywood and canvas (cf., Christian Heritage, May, 1959).

Protestants who have made any effort to talk with Roman Catholics about spiritual things know that they have received but very little Bible instruction from their priests. But that lack of Bible knowledge is but a natural consequence of the fact that the priests themselves have only a minimum of Bible study in their seminary training. L. H. Lehmann, a former priest who founded The Converted Catholic Magazine (now Christian Heritage), says that only in the last years of their training in seminary did they have any Bible study, and that even then it was in Latin. “The Scripture course itself,” he says, “was merely an apologetic for papal interpretation of certain texts of Scripture to suit the past historical development and aims of the papal power. Nothing was taught or indicated to us about the spiritual, individual message of Christ in the Gospel itself. Hence, what was sought in teaching the Bible was a glib use of tag-ends of texts in defense of papal power. The letter of texts, apart from their content, supplied the pretext for Roman Catholic use of Scripture. The spirit of the word was overlooked” (The Soul of a Priest, p. 54).

A further word about the different orders of priests: As we have indicated earlier, there are two classes: (1) Secular or Diocesan priests, who are responsible only to the local bishop, and who usually are assigned to churches; and (2) Religious priests, who belong to an order, and who in most cases are responsible to an abbot who rules the monastery. Secular priests take the vows of chastity and obedience, but not of poverty, and so may own property. Members of religious orders take the three vows, poverty, chastity, and obedience, and are of two classes—monks, who withdraw from the world for religious motives, usually live in a monastery, and engage in meditation, study, writing, etc.; and the plain religious priests, who engage in various public activities for the order to which they belong. Those belonging to an order, taking the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but not being ordained as priests, are called Brothers. These may teach in church schools, or engage in other kinds of church work. The Jesuits belong to an order but are not monastic, and usually are engaged in educational work in the colleges and seminaries.

As a rule the monks have a reputation for being lazy, the Jesuits for being industrious. The Jesuits are tightly organized under a military type of discipline, and their number is relatively fewer than those of the other orders. Their influence, however, has been out of proportion to their numbers. For centuries they have been the real power behind the papacy, often determining the election of popes, but apparently not trusted by their fellow priests and not being able to elect any of their own number. They have been the object of much criticism because of their advocacy of questionable moral principles, the word “Jesuitical” having entered the dictionary as a synonym for that which is crafty, deceptive, cunning. On various occasions the Jesuits have been banned from practically all of the European and South American countries, from Catholic as well as from Protestant countries. On one occasion the order was condemned and dissolved by a pope, but was restored by a later pope. Often there is bitter rivalry between them and the other orders, which they tend to look upon as inferior, or at least as less efficient.

A custom of the Roman priesthood offensive to Protestants is that of having people address them as “father,” and particularly that of calling the pope the “Holy Father” (capitalized)—which we term simply blasphemy. In this connection Christ Himself commanded in the clearest language that the term “father” in a spiritual sense should not be used when addressing our fellow men. “Call no man your father on the earth,” said He, “for one is your Father, even he who is in heaven” (Matthew 23:9). Yet the priests continually and openly violate that command.

7 Leaving the Priesthood

The priesthood is the real crux of the Roman system. Most of those men, even during their seminary course, as we have indicated, have but very little Bible study; and much of what they do have relates to disconnected portions of Scripture and is given primarily with the purpose of preparing them to answer the arguments that Protestants make against the Roman system. Such has been the testimony of various ones who have left the priesthood. There is in this regard a great contrast between the Protestant and Roman Catholic training for the ministry or the priesthood. Rome simply does not like Bible study either for her priests or for her people, for they find too many things there that are not in accord with their church. We believe that if these men could be persuaded to make an unprejudiced study of the Bible, many would be convinced of the error of their system and would turn from it. An encouraging feature in this regard is that a considerable number, after years of useless priestly ministry, have on their own accord made a serious study of the Bible and have found that it not only does not teach the distinctive doctrines of their church but that it contradicts those doctrines. When an honest priest studies Protestantism without prejudice, in the light of the Word of God and not of Roman tradition, he cannot but recognize that it is Christianity in its purity and in its originality. Much to his surprise and contrary to all that he has been taught, he finds that Protestantism is very simple, very clear, and profoundly attractive. He finds that its doctrines are based solidly on the Bible, which is the true manual and code of Christianity. Says Lucien Vinet, a former Canadian priest:

Many a priest, struggling against moral degradation and frustration of mind (and one who spends much time in the confessional has an abundance of both), has had an intense battle within himself as to whether or not he should remain in the Church of Rome. He possesses a Bible, but in accordance with the rules of his church he usually does not dare to read it apart from the assigned notes and commentaries, and so remains ignorant of its saving message. How difficult it is for him to realize that all that anyone has to do to receive forgiveness from sins and to experience the joy of salvation is to confess his sins to Christ and to put his trust in Him alone! When he does read the Bible he finds that most of the doctrines that he has held and taught either were perversions of the Scripture or that they were the inventions of men. Would that thousands of those men could be persuaded to turn from that false and subversive system to the clear teachings of Scripture! The key to the whole problem is the priest. And the task before us is to persuade him to read the Bible with an open mind.

It may seem surprising that it takes so long for a priest to discover the truth. But the fact is that a candidate for the priesthood enters the twelve-year course of training from parochial school as just a boy—the preferable age is 16—that during his training he is quite effectively cut off from the surrounding world, and that he is an adult before he completes his training. He has not known any other kind of life. During that long and intensive course practically all of those who show signs of independent thinking, those whose dispositions indicate that they might not be obedient to their superior, and those in whose make-up there are any traits which might indicate lack of perseverance or failure for any reason, are weeded out. Not all who finish the course are chosen by the bishop for ordination. But those who are chosen are pretty much of a type that can be reasonably depended upon to continue loyal and submissive to the church. Those who become priests are not so much those who have volunteered for that service but rather those who have been chosen by the hierarchy and carefully screened and trained for that occupation. They are what we may term “hard core Romanists.”

Becoming a Roman Catholic priest is a far different thing from becoming a Protestant minister. Everything possible has been done to impress upon the Roman priest the idea that if he breaks with the Roman Catholic Church he will not be trusted by anyone, either within or outside of the Roman Church, and that he cannot make his way in the commercial world for which he now is so entirely unfitted. His intensive training in Latin, doctrine, liturgies, and church history, is of comparatively little value in the outside world, and in fact has been in part designed to unfit him for anything except the priesthood. He has been disciplined for that particular work, and his soul is in a real sense held captive within the walls of Roman Catholic dogma and within the bonds of the priesthood. It is an exceedingly difficult thing for one who has been so trained, and who has committed himself to that system, to break those bonds and to come out into a new kind of life—even into the freedom of the Gospel, for he does not know what that means. This is particularly true if he does not reach that decision until middle age or later. Furthermore, the Roman Catholic people are forbidden to have anything to do with one who has left the priesthood. Getting into, or getting out of, the priesthood is no easy task.

Certainly there are many priests who do not believe what they are teaching, at least not all that they are teaching. Many are ill at ease, and a considerable number are struggling against a real sense of frustration. But they usually remain in the priesthood because they fed more or less helpless and do not have the courage to break away.

Emmett McLoughlin, in an address in Constitution Hall, in Washington, D.C., in 1954, said:

In his People’s Padre he says:

And again:

Lucien Vinet gives the following analysis as to why priests remain in the priesthood:

Priests who remain in the priesthood can be classed in four categories:

1. “There are some priests who really are convinced that Christ founded the Roman Church and that ‘Out of the Church of Rome there is no salvation.’ They explain the contradiction between the doctrines of Christ and those of Rome as apparent only and believe that the traditions of the Roman Church have equal doctrinal value as the words of the Holy Spirit in the Bible. They excuse the many scandals of Romanism as a necessary human factor in the organization of the Church of God on earth. They believe in the infallible teaching authority of the pope and therefore placate their conscience in relying on the Pontiff of Rome for their spiritual and doctrinal convictions. We met very few priests during the nine years of our life in the priesthood, who could be sincerely classed in this category. Most priests know just as well as we do that Christ is the only Teacher of Christianity and that Romanism is anti-Christian in its doctrines and practices.

2. “There are priests who are fully convinced of the falsehood and hypocrisy of the Roman priesthood, but find it impossible to leave the priesthood. … Many of them hope that some day an opportunity will be given them to quit Romanism. They realize that their training in the Seminaries provides no preparation whatever for a proper position in life that will enable them to earn a decent living. Their knowledge of Latin, Greek, History of the Church, and Roman Theology is to them of very little use to obtain a decent position in our modern world. By the time they fully realize that their priesthood is a usurpation of the only priesthood of Christ and that of the priesthood of believers, they are usually too old to start a new training for a proper career in life. Their health not be as good as it used to be and they fear that if they leave the comfortable existence they now enjoy, they might land in the poor house.

“The greatest incentive that keeps priests in the priesthood is fear. They fear the curse and persecution of Rome, the rebukes of some of their Roman Catholic friends, and the loss of esteem and association of their families. Some of them, of course, fear hard work.

3. “There are now the priests who stay in the priesthood because they like the comfort and pleasure that the Roman ministry affords them. It is the very life of a priest that they like. They command the respect and obedience of many credulous Roman Catholics and they enjoy to the utmost dictating to them. … Their life is assured and they have no troubles. Even if they cannot accept all the doctrines of the Church, they do not have to admit it publicly. They can travel extensively in distant lands where their identity is not known and where they can enjoy life as any other human being would do. …

4. “Finally there is a group of priests who remain in the priesthood, not on account of their Roman religious convictions and not because they find material comfort in the Roman ministry, but because they experience indescribable mental and sexual pleasure in the very exercise of their Roman ministry. These priests appear to the world as deeply religious and ascetic. They seldom indulge in material comforts and no one can accuse them of any actual sins of any visible form whatsoever, but they are spiritual perverts. The greatest satisfaction or pleasure of their lives is not ‘wine, women, and song,’ but the torturing of human souls in confession and in spiritual direction. They love to explore secrets of souls and hearts. They experience sordid pleasure in embarrassing female penitents by impertinent questions and prescriptions. Only the Roman system of confession can provide them with the means of indulging in these criminal and sordid pleasures” (I Was a Priest, pp. 75-80).

Mr. Vinet also recalls the suggestion of an old priest that if the priests in Canada were given ten thousand dollars each there would not be enough priests left to man the churches. We don’t suppose anyone is going to offer that kind of an inducement for them to leave the priesthood, either in Canada or in the United States. But undoubtedly the fear of not being able to make a livelihood has kept many in their positions.

8 Renouncing Priestly Vows

We do not hesitate to say that a priest who becomes disillusioned and finds that the Church of Rome has deceived him with false pretensions should repudiate his vows, declare his independence, and make a new start. In such a case the church has misrepresented herself to him, the ideal that she held before him has proved deceptive and fruitless, and he therefore is not bound to continue in such a relationship. He has not failed the priesthood; the priesthood has failed him, and has been revealed as something other than that which it was represented as being at the time of his ordination. He was led to believe that the Roman Church was the only true church, God’s chosen and exclusive instrument for the salvation of souls. She has failed to substantiate her claim to be the only true church, and has been found rather to be a mixture of truth and error, with error in many cases overshadowing the truth.

Insofar as the Roman Church has extracted vows that are unscriptural and unreasonable, it is right that those vows should be repudiated. This principle applies not only to priests and nuns, but also to parents who, in signing a marriage contract that was forced upon them, have pledged away the religious freedom of their children even before they were born. No man has the right to swear away his own religious or civil liberty or that of others and so to place himself or those who are given into his care in a state of subjection to a fellow mortal. Human slavery, whether physical or spiritual, is wrong and cannot be tolerated. Enforced spiritual servitude of one’s self or of one’s children to another person or institution can be as degrading and galling as physical servitude. “Ye were bought with a price; become not bondservants of men,” says the Scripture (1 Corinthians 7:23). “Ye were redeemed… with precious blood… even the blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19). “No man can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24). Christ is our true Master; He has set us free, and no other person or organization has the right to usurp that freedom.

It is universally acknowledged that when one party to a contract breaks that contract and makes impossible its normal functioning, the other party is not under obligation to continue fulfilling its terms. Yet that is the condition in which many a priest and nun has found himself or herself. Even in human contracts only those obligations continue to be binding which the person to whom the promise was made wishes us to observe them; and certainly in this field of promises to God it is only reasonable to suppose that we are not bound to do what God does not want us to do, merely because we were led through false pretenses or false motives to promise that we would do it. In this instance the priest has made an unscriptural vow of complete obedience to another man, the bishop, and has pledged himself to a service that in reality does not exist. We have already seen that with the coming of Christ and the completion of His work on Calvary the human priesthood was abolished forever. Hence the Roman priesthood is in reality nothing but a sham and a delusion.

On these grounds all priestly vows are to be considered null and void. This was the position taken by the Reformers, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and others, as they renounced the authority of Rome, and the Gospel became the proclamation of liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who were bound.

Those who leave Romanism for this reason are not traitors to the church of Christ, as the Roman Church attempts to make them believe. On the contrary they are enlightened and intelligent men, courageously following the path of duty. “The real traitor,” says Lucien Vinet, “is the Roman priest who knows the wickedness of Romanism and yet clings to it for material gain” (I Was a Priest, p. 10).

“It must come as a shock to non-Catholics,” says McLoughlin, “to realize the possessiveness of even the lay Catholics toward their clergy. It is accepted practice among Protestant, Mormon, and Jewish groups to recognize a clergyman’s right to change his vocation. Rabbis become merchants, Mormon bishops enter politics, and ministers in unknown numbers exchange the pulpit for farming, law, mining, teaching, trade, or just plain loafing. But not so a former Roman Catholic priest” (People’s Padre, p. 176).

McLoughlin expresses as follows his justification for leaving the priesthood:

And again:

“I was an unsuspecting pawn or tool in the greatest swindle of all history. … I have not defied God—I have rejected an organization that has usurped the prerogative of God and claims an exclusive right of speaking in His name. My only regret is that it took me so many years to come to my senses” (pp. 203, 204).

(Continued in Chapter IV Tradition.)

All chapters of Roman Catholicism By Lorraine Boettner

This is the continuation of Roman Catholicism By Lorraine Boettner Chapter I

1 Definition

The Bible teaches that Christ founded His church, the Christian church, and that He is both the foundation on which it rests, and the head of the church which is His body: “For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11); “…being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (Ephesians 2:20); “And he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body” (Ephesians 1:22-23); “…Christ also is the head of the church” (Ephesians 5:23).

The church is composed of all who are true Christians, those who have been “born again,” or “born anew” (John 3:3), from all nations and denominations. Local “churches of Christ” (Romans 16:16) are congregations of Christians who gather together for worship and for missionary activity. And, while they are many, they are all members of the one church of Christ: “For even as we have many members in one body… so we, being many, are one body in Christ” (Romans 12:4-5). This is the true church.

A truly broad and charitable definition of the church is given for example, in the Westminster Confession of Faith, which says: “The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world, that profess the true religion, together with their children; and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation” (XXV:2).

And the Larger Catechism, in answer to the question, “What is the visible church?” (Q. 62), says: “The visible church is a society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the world do profess the true religion, and of their children.”

The marks of a true church are:

• The true preaching of the Word of God.
• The right administration of the sacraments. And,
• The faithful exercise of discipline.

John Calvin insisted repeatedly on “the ministry of the Word and sacraments” as the distinguishing marks of a true church. To these are generally added the exercise of proper discipline, although minor errors and irregularities of conduct do not in themselves give sufficient cause to withhold acknowledgment of a true church. Dr. Louis Berkhof says concerning the faithful exercise of discipline: “This is quite essential for maintaining the purity of doctrine and for guarding the holiness of the sacraments. Churches that are lax in discipline are bound to discover sooner or later within their circle an eclipse of the light of the truth and an abuse of that which is holy” (Systematic Theology, p. 578).

In the Bible the word “church” never means a denomination. The Bible has nothing to say about denominations. Whether a local church chooses to remain strictly independent, or to enter into a working agreement with one or more other local churches, and if so on what terms, is not discussed in Scripture, but is left entirely to the choice of the church itself. And we find that in actual practice churches range all the way from those that remain entirely unrelated to any other, to the other extreme of those that subject themselves to some hierarchy of denominational overlords who own the property and send the minister. Surely the local church should own the building and grounds that it has developed and paid for. Such ownership serves as a shield against undue denominational pressure being brought to bear upon it. And, as it has the right to decide whether or not it will join a denomination, so it should have the right to withdraw from the denomination if it so chooses.

Usually the word “church,” as used in the New Testament, means a local congregation of Christians, such as “the church of God at Corinth,” “the church in Jerusalem,” “the churches of Galatia,” “the church in thy house.” At other times it may refer to the church at large, as when we are told that “Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for it” (Ephesians 5:25). Or again it may refer to the whole body of Christ in all ages, as when we read of “the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven” (Hebrews 12:23). When our Lord prayed for unity, “that they may all be one” (John 17:21), it was primarily a spiritual unity, a oneness of heart and faith, of love and obedience, of true believers, and only secondarily a unity of ecclesiastical organization, that He had in mind, as is made clear by the fact that He illustrated that unity by the relationship which exists between Himself and the Father—“even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee.” Unity of faith must be achieved before there can be unity of organization. The ideal, of course, would be for the church to be one in both faith and organization. But it clearly is not yet ready for that. Much work remains to be done in teaching God’s Word before that can be accomplished. As Christians become more closely united in doctrine they work together more harmoniously and want to be united more closely in organization. But unity of doctrine must always remain primary, for that relates to the very purpose for which the church was founded. The alleged tragedy of disunity of organization is more than offset by the real tragedy of disunity of doctrine that results when conservative and modernistic churches are combined in one organization.

It is just here that the Romanists, who claim to be the only true church, err in attempting to bring all churches, even to force all churches, into one external and mechanical organization. The oneness for which Christ prayed was not external and visible, but spiritual and invisible. There can be and actually is real spiritual unity among Christians apart from organizational unity. The church is not a mechanism, but a living organism, whose head is Christ; and any unity that is mechanical and forced is bound to hinder the very thing that it is designed to promote. When we hear the pope and occasionally other church leaders talk about uniting all churches into one super organization, the words they employ and their method of approach make it clear that what they have in mind is not a spiritual unity of believers but an ecclesiastical and mechanical unity of believers and unbelievers, designed primarily for what they think would be greater efficiency of operation.

And, after all, perhaps the diversity of churches, with a healthy spirit of rivalry within proper limits, is one of God’s ways of keeping the stream of Christianity from becoming stagnant. History is quite clear in showing that where there has been enforced uniformity the church has stagnated, whether in Italy, Spain, France, or Latin America. The confinement of religious life to a dead level of uniformity does not solve our problems.

2 “Catholic”

Something should be said concerning the meaning of the term “catholic,” which the Roman Church tries to appropriate exclusively to itself. Dr. J. G. Vos, editor of Blue Banner Faith and Life, gives this definition: “THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: The universal church of God, as distinguished from a particular branch, congregation or denomination of that church.” “The Church of Rome,” he continues, “has wrongly appropriated to itself the term ‘Catholic’; it is self-contradictory to call a body ‘Roman’ (which is particular) and at the same time ‘Catholic’ (which means universal).”

A Catholic Dictionary gives this definition: “Catholic. The word is derived from the Greek, and simply means universal.”

Dr. John H. Gerstner, Professor of Church History in Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, in a booklet, The Gospel According to Rome, says:

All those who believe in Christ as Savior, regardless of what denomination they belong to, are in fact members of the Christian catholic church. Evangelical Protestants are the truest “catholics,” for they base their faith on the New Testament as did the early Christians. The Roman Church has added many doctrines and practices that are not found in the New Testament, and anyone who accepts those becomes, to that extent, a Roman catholic, and by the same token ceases to be a Christian catholic. Since the word “catholic” means “universal,” the true Christian catholic church must include all true believers, all who belong to the mystical or spiritual body of Christ (“the church, which is his body”—Ephesians 1:22-23). But there have been, and are, millions of Christians who have never had any connection with the Roman church. The Roman Church, is, after all, a local church, with headquarters in Rome, Italy and is limited to those who acknowledge the authority of the pope. Even in her most extravagant claims the Roman Church claims only about one in eight of the population of the world, and in the professedly Christian world she has cut herself off from and broken communion with perhaps more than half of Christendom, so that there are probably more professed Christians who reject her authority than acknowledge it. And geographically she fails utterly to prove her claim to universality. Even in the nominally Roman Catholic countries such as Italy, France, Spain, and Latin America, Rome today probably does not have effective control of more than fifteen percent of the people. In any event the Roman Church clearly is not universal, but is only one among numerous others and is outnumbered by the effective membership of the various Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches.

Bishop J. C. Ryle, of Liverpool (England), has well said:

And Rev. Stephen L. Testa, a former Roman Catholic, and founder of The Scripture Truth Society, has said:

And Walter M. Montano, a former editor of Christian Heritage, and also a former Roman Catholic, says:

Unfortunately among Protestants there are some who are so absorbed with the idea of church union that they even hope for an eventual union with the Roman Catholic Church. Concerning these Dr. Montano says:

It is not surprising that there are many branches of the Christian church. The process of division started even in apostolic times, for we are told that Paul and Barnabas, though loyal friends and faithful coworkers in the church, disagreed because Barnabas insisted on taking Mark with them. In Acts 15:39 we read: “And there arose a sharp contention, so that they parted asunder one from the other.”

In his first Epistle to the Corinthians Paul complained about divisions in the church because some said, “I am of Paul… I am of Apollos… I am of Peter… Is Christ divided?” (1:12-13). That process has been going on through the centuries. The church has never been one solid organization. From the first centuries there have been schisms, and what are called heresies. Furthermore, those often arose not outside of but within the Christian church and were defended by members within the church. The church still has a long way to go before spiritual unity becomes a reality. In the present state of the church it is inevitable that there should be divisions. In answer to the Roman Catholic claim to be the one true church, we reply, Nonsense! The Roman Church is only one branch of a much larger body. The Eastern Orthodox Church is older and has a more direct connection with apostolic Christianity than does the Roman. Each Protestant denomination is as much a unit within itself as is the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Church. And most Protestant churches have a record of much truer devotion and loyalty to the Scriptures, and of having produced a higher morality and spirituality among their people than does either the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Church.

There is but one way to prevent divisions in the present day church, and that is by making unity a higher virtue than truth. The Roman Church achieves unity by eliminating religious liberty. A member of that church who will not subordinate his judgment to that of the pope is excommunicated. But that kind of unity has no attraction for men of strong religious convictions. When that alternative was presented to Martin Luther he promptly showed his contempt for a church that would make such a demand by burning the papal bull and denouncing the pope who had issued it as Antichrist.

It is to be acknowledged that many of the divisions that have occurred in the Christian church have been unnecessary and that some have been detrimental. Some have arisen because of evil motives on the part of certain groups, or because of the personal ambitions of strong-willed leaders. But many others have arisen because of natural circumstances, such as those of race, language, nationality, geography, or honest difference of opinion. If we have true spiritual unity, the lack of outward unity will not seriously hamper Christian life and practice. The spiritual unity that characterizes evangelical Protestants is more important than the organizational diversity that places them in different denominations. Religious liberty by its very nature is sure to bring some degree of disunity, precisely as political liberty does, for we do not all think alike or act alike. But to suppress that liberty is to destroy the very basis for evangelical theology.

It is also true that this freedom on the part of Protestants has often placed them at a disadvantage as they are confronted by an aggressive Roman Catholic Church under unified leadership. But that is precisely the same problem that we face in the political realm. It often happens that in local, state, or federal government a well organized minority pressure group pushes through its program and imposes its will on an unorganized majority. We have seen that particularly in the big city political machines where time and again and sometimes for long periods of time corrupt and unscrupulous minority groups have been in control. But nowhere is such action more reprehensible than in the church as minority pressure groups intimidate elected assemblies, the press, radio, television, the movies, and other media that can be used to their advantage. The remedy for such abuse, however, is not to abolish liberty, but, in the state, to inform and arouse the electorate so that it will choose clean, honest officials; and in the church, to so evangelize the membership and develop a wholesome Christian conscience that such abuses will be impossible.

The primary point of cleavage between the Roman Catholic and the other churches seems to be the fact that the Roman Church is hierarchical and authoritarian in its form of government, while the others are essentially democratic and place the control of church affairs in the hands of the people. It was the Vatican Council of 1870, with its pronouncement of papal infallibility, that sounded the death-knoll of any democratic processes in the Roman Church and placed it irrevocably on the road to totalitarianism.

(Continued in Chapter III The Priesthood)

All chapters of Roman Catholicism By Lorraine Boettner

This is a highly recommended book to share with your Catholic relatives and friends. Because the PDF file is easy to read from a PDF reader, I thought to embed the PDF file in this article to save time and make it a single article. But when I looked at it from my phone the next day, I found it hard to read. I am therefore converting it into text and dividing it into one chapter per article like I did with the series, Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms.

If you want to print this book out, you should do it directly from the PDF file I got the text from. It’s 402 pages in all.

According to researcher and ex-military intelligence officer, Darryl Eberhart, whose interview is in my previous post, Loraine Boettner‘s book, Roman Catholicism, is,

“…the best book to give to a Roman Catholic to witness to them as to the unbiblical, unscriptural doctrines and practices in the church. Loraine Boettner, just runs comparisons. This is what the Bible says. This is what the Catholic church does or practices or says. “

About the author

Lorraine Boettner

ROMAN CATHOLICISM By Lorraine Boettner

SECTION ONE CHAPTER I Introduction

1 Historical Background

In our twentieth century America few among us seem to realize what a priceless heritage we possess in the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly that is an integral part of our everyday life. Nor are many aware of the bitter and prolonged struggles our forefathers went through at the time of the Reformation and later to secure these freedoms. Instead it is quite the common thing to take these for granted and to assume that they are the natural rights of all men. But truly those of us who call ourselves Protestants are the inheritors of a great tradition. And in a country such as the United States our Roman Catholic friends also share these freedoms, little realizing what it means to live under a clerical dictatorship such as their church imposes wherever it has the power.

Roman Catholics often attempt to represent Protestantism as something comparatively new, as having originated with Martin Luther and John Calvin in the 16^th century. We do indeed owe a great debt to those leaders and to the Reformation movement that swept over Europe at that time. But the basic principles and the common system of doctrine taught by those Reformers and by the evangelical churches ever since go back to the New Testament and to the first century Christian church. Protestantism as it emerged in the 16^th century was not the beginning of something new, but a return to Bible Christianity and to the simplicity of the Apostolic church from which the Roman Church had long since departed.

The positive and formal principle of this system is that the Bible is the Word of God and therefore the authoritative rule of faith and practice. Its negative principle is that any element of doctrine or practice in the church which cannot be traced back to the New Testament is no essential part of Christianity.

The basic features of Protestant belief therefore are:

1. The supremacy of the Bible in all matters of faith and practice.
2. Justification by faith, not by works, although works have their necessary and logical place as the fruits and proof of true faith.
3. The right of the individual to go directly to God in prayer apart from the mediation of any priest or other human intermediary.
4. Individual freedom of conscience and worship, within the authority of the Bible.

For more than a thousand years before the Reformation the popes had controlled Europe and had said that there was only one way to worship God. That period is appropriately known as the “Dark Ages.” In the church and, to a considerable extent, in the state, too, the priests held the power. They suppressed the laity until practically all their rights were taken away. They constantly pried into private affairs, interfering even between husband and wife and between parents and children by means of the confessional. All marriage was in their hands. They interfered in the administration of public affairs, in the proceedings of the courts, and in the disposition of estates. The revenues of the state built new churches and paid the salaries of the priests in much the same manner as in present day Spain. Anyone who dared resist ran the risk of losing his job, his property, and even his life. Life under such tyranny was intolerable. From that condition the Reformation brought deliverance.

One of the first and most important results of the Reformation was that the Bible was given to the people in their own languages. Previously the Bible had been kept from them, on the pretext that only the church speaking through the priest could interpret it correctly. Luther translated the Bible into his native German, and edition followed edition in rapid succession. Similar translations were made in England, France, Holland, and other countries.

Protestants of our day who have not been called upon to suffer or to make any sacrifices to secure this rich heritage are inclined to hold these blessings lightly. But the advances that Romanism is making today in this nation and in other parts of the world should cause even the most careless to stop and think. It seems that as Protestants we have forgotten how to protest against those same religious and political abuses that were common before the Reformation. We need to acquaint ourselves with and to teach the principles of our faith if we are not to be overwhelmed by a religious despotism that, if it gains the upper hand, will be as cruel and oppressive as ever it was in Germany, Italy, France, or Spain.

Our American freedoms are being threatened today by two totalitarian systems, Communism and Roman Catholicism. And of the two in our country Romanism is growing faster than is Communism and is the more dangerous since it covers its real nature with a cloak of religion. This nation has been well alerted to the dangers of Communism, and it is generally opposed by the radio, the press, and the churches. But Romanism has the support of these to a considerable extent, and even the Protestant churches in many places take a conciliatory and cooperative attitude toward it. Most people have only a very hazy notion as to what is involved in the Roman system. And yet the one consuming purpose of the Vatican is to convert the entire world, not to Christianity, but to Roman Catholicism. Its influence is being applied vigorously at every level of our local, state, and federal government. It is particularly significant that in this country the hierarchy has taken as its slogan, not, “Make America Christian,” but, “Make America Catholic.” And in that slogan are the strong overtones of a full scale attack upon our Protestant heritage and those precious rights of freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, and freedom of speech.

We cannot adequately understand this problem unless we realize that the kind of Roman Catholicism that we see in the United States is, for the most part, not real Roman Catholicism at all, that is, not Roman Catholicism as it exists where it is the dominant force in the life of a nation, but a modified and compromised form that has adjusted itself to life with a Protestant majority. Here it is comparatively reticent about asserting its claims to be the only true church, the only church that has a right to conduct public religious services, its right to suppress all other forms of religion, its superiority to all national and state governments, its control over all marriage, its right to direct all education, and the obligation of the state to support its churches and schools with tax money. That this is no visionary list of charges, but a cold and realistic appraisal, is shown by the fact that in Spain, which is governed under the terms of a concordat with the Vatican, and which is often praised by Roman Catholic spokesmen as the ideal Catholic state, the Roman Church is now exercising most of these so-called “rights” or privileges.

In order to see clearly what Roman Catholicism really is, we must see it as it was during the Middle Ages, or as it has continued to be in certain countries such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Southern Ireland, and Latin America, where it has had political as well as ecclesiastical control. In those countries where it has been dominant for centuries with little or no opposition from Protestantism, we see the true fruits of the system in the lives of the people, with all of their poverty, ignorance, superstition, and low moral standards. In each of those countries a dominant pattern is discernible. Spain is a particularly good example, for it is the most Roman Catholic country in Europe, yet it has the lowest standard of living of any nation in Europe. The Latin American nations have been predominantly Roman Catholic for four centuries, and today the illiteracy rate ranges from 30 to 70 percent. The veteran radio political analyst, Howard K. Smith, recently reported that “The average per capita income in the United States is eight times that of any country in South America” (March 3, 1960). The average per capita income in South America is $280, one ninth that in the United States.

But even in those countries we do not see the ultimate fruits of the system. For over a period of years they have been influenced to some extent by Protestantism and they have been receiving assistance from the Protestant nations, particularly from the United States and England, so that their present condition, economic, social, political, and religious, is not nearly as bad as it would have been had they been left to themselves. Substantial aid has been given since the close of the First World War. American foreign aid, economic and military, granted to other nations since the Second World War through 1977, amounted to $200 billion (Statistical Abstract of the U.S., 1978). And probably $50 billion more has been granted since that time, making a total of approximately $250 billion. The Roman Catholic nations of Europe and Latin America have profited greatly through this assistance.

American Catholicism, so different on the surface from that found in Spain, Italy, and Latin America, is, nevertheless, all a part of the same church, all run from Rome and by the same man who is the absolute ruler over all of the branches and who has the authority to change policy in any of those branches as he deems it safe or expedient. If he chose to give his subjects in Spain or Colombia relatively more freedom and better schools, such as are enjoyed by those in the United States, he could readily do so by directing his priests and financial resources to that end. Undoubtedly Romanism in the United States would be much the same as that found in other countries were it not for the influence of evangelical Christianity as set forth by the Protestant churches.

2 Roman Catholicism a Poor Defense against Communism

We have no hesitation in saying that most of the Roman Catholic nations, had they been left to themselves, long ago would have fallen victims of Communism. In all probability both Italy and France would have turned Communist at the close of the Second World War had it not been for American aid and all of the political influence that our government could lawfully exert toward those nations, and even then the result was in doubt for some considerable time. The Vatican had supported Mussolini’s Fascist and military policies, including the conquest of Ethiopia (which conquest had been condemned by the League of Nations and by practically all of the civilized world), his open and extensive support of Franco in Spain with troops and arms, and his invasion of Albania and Greece. After Italy entered the war on the side of Nazi Germany the Roman Church supported the Italian war effort, which meant, of course, that our work of carrying the war to a successful conclusion was made just that much harder. During the war Pope Pius XII gave his blessing to large numbers of Italian and German troops who appeared before him in uniform. With the defeat of Germany and Italy those policies caused strong popular resentment. It is probable that, in the turmoil that followed the ignominious fall of Mussolini, the Roman Catholic Church would have been overthrown in much the same way that the Orthodox Catholic Church in Russia was overthrown when the Czarist regime fell at the end of the First World War, had not American military forces then in Italy preserved order. In Russia a dead, formalistic church had lost the respect of the people and had become identified with the despotic rule of the Czar since he was the head of both the state and the church. When the people rose up in anger and threw out the political government, they threw out the church with it and turned to the other extreme, atheism. That has often been the case where the people have known only one church. When that became corrupt they had no alternative but to turn against religion altogether.

In the critical Italian election held after the war, in April, 1948, the Communists made a strong effort to gain control of the government, but a coalition of other parties managed to gain the majority. Today the biggest Communist party outside of Russia and Red China is found in Roman Catholic Italy, seat of the papacy, precisely where, if Roman Catholicism is the effective defense against Communism that it claims to be, we should find the least Communism. Approximately one third of the voters in Italy today are Communist, as are approximately one fourth of those in France.

Roman Catholicism opposes Communism, of course, as one totalitarian system opposes another. And for propaganda purposes she even attempts to present herself as the chief opponent of, and the chief bulwark against, Communism. But the fact is that during the past fifteen years Communism has made its greatest gains in Roman Catholic nations, both in Europe and in Latin America, while the Protestant nations, the United States, Britain, Canada, Holland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, have been its most effective opponents. It is in reality only a short step from a totalitarian church to a totalitarian state, since the people have been trained to accept authority as it is imposed upon them rather than to think for themselves and to manage their own affairs.

In his very informative book, American Freedom and Catholic Power, Paul Blanshard, American sociologist and journalist who has written extensively on church-state relations, says:

And Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, a former Roman Catholic, says:

If the United States should become Roman Catholic, the result undoubtedly would be the rapid conquest of this country and the rest of the world by Russian Communism. In view of the weak defense that the Roman Catholic countries are able to put up intellectually, morally, or militarily, we are safe in saying that one of the surest ways to turn this nation Communist would be to turn it first to Roman Catholicism. We have acted as a strong restraint in keeping Roman Catholic nations from going Communist. But who would restrain this nation? There would be no other to serve that purpose, and our descent would be sure and swift.

The fact is that much of the popular support that the puppet governments behind the Iron Curtain have received has been given because they have forbidden the Roman Catholic Church to take any part in political affairs or to control the schools. In several countries, both in Europe and in Latin America, the only choice the people have is either Romanism or Communism. Protestantism, as an alternative choice, is practically non-existent. Those people have been taught hatred for Protestantism from childhood, and few of them would try it. Many vote Communist, not because they believe in the program, but because it is the only effective instrument they have to oppose Roman Catholicism.

On the other hand, to see what the effect of Protestantism is upon a people we turn to the United States, where with complete separation of church and state the Reformation has made its greatest advance, and to Britain and the other nations where Protestantism has long been the dominant religion. These we find are unquestionably the most enlightened and advanced nations of the world; and in the main it is from these nations, where the people are accustomed to think and act for themselves and to govern themselves in both church and state, that the opposition to Communism has come.

3 Romanism an Age-Long Development

One of the first things that we want to point out in this study is that the Roman Catholic Church has not always been what it is today. Rather, it has reached its present state as the result of along, slow process of development as through the centuries one new doctrine, or ritual, or custom after another has been added. Even a superficial reading of the following list will make clear that most of the distinctive features of the system were unknown to Apostolic Christianity, and that one can hardly recognize in present day Romanism the original Christian doctrines. Not all dates can be given with exactness since some doctrines and rituals were debated or practiced over a period of time before their formal acceptance.

SOME ROMAN CATHOLIC HERESIES AND INVENTIONS and the dates of their adoption over a period of 1,650 years

1. Prayers for the dead: began about A.D. 300.

2. Making the sign of the cross: A.D. 300.

3. Wax candles: about A.D. 320.

4. Veneration of angels and dead saints, and use of images: A.D. 375.

5. The Mass, as a daily celebration: A.D. 394.

6. Beginning of the exaltation of Mary, the term “Mother of God” first applied to her by the Council of Ephesus: A.D. 431.

7. Priests began to dress differently from laymen: A.D. 500.

8. Extreme Unction: A.D. 526.

9. The doctrine of Purgatory, established by Gregory I: A.D. 593.

10. Latin language, used in prayer and worship, imposed by Gregory I: A.D. 600.

11. Prayers directed to Mary, dead saints, and angels: about A.D. 600.

12. Title of pope, or universal bishop, given to Boniface III by emperor Phocas: A.D. 607.

13. Kissing the pope’s foot, began with Pope Constantine: A.D. 709.

14. Temporal power of the popes, conferred by Pepin, king of the Franks: A.D. 750.

15. Worship of the cross, images, and relics: authorized in A.D. 786.

16. Holy water, mixed with a pinch of salt and blessed by a priest: A.D. 850.

17. Worship of St. Joseph: A.D. 890.

18. College of Cardinals established: A.D. 927.

19. Baptism of bells, instituted by pope John XIII: A.D. 965.

20. Canonization of dead saints, first by Pope John XV: A.D. 995.

21. Fasting on Fridays and during Lent: A.D. 998.

22. The Mass, developed gradually as a sacrifice, attendance made obligatory in the 11th century.

23. Celibacy of the priesthood, decreed by pope Gregory VII (Hildebrand): A.D. 1079.

24. The Rosary, mechanical praying with beads, invented by Peter the Hermit: A.D. 1090.

25. The Inquisition, instituted by the Council of Verona: A.D. 1184.

26. Sale of Indulgences: A.D. 1190.

27. Transubstantiation, proclaimed by Pope Innocent III: A.D. 1215.

28. Auricular Confession of sins to a priest instead of to God, instituted by Pope Innocent III, in Lateran Council: A.D. 1215.

29. Adoration of the wafer (Host), decreed by Pope Honorius III: A.D. 1220.

30. Bible forbidden to laymen, placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Council of Toulouse: A.D. 1229.

31. The Scapular, invented by Simon Stock, an English monk: A.D. 1251.

32. Cup forbidden to the people at communion by Council of Constance: A.D. 1414.

33. Purgatory proclaimed as a dogma by the Council of Florence: A.D. 1439.

34. The doctrine of Seven Sacraments affirmed: A.D. 1439.

35. The Ave Maria (part of the last half was completed 50 years later and approved by Pope Sixtus V at the end of the 16th century): A.D. 1508.

36. Jesuit order founded by Loyola: A.D. 1534.

37. Tradition declared of equal authority with the Bible by the Council of Trent: A.D. 1545.

38. Apocryphal books added to the Bible by the Council of Trent: A.D. 1546.

39. Creed of pope Pius IV imposed as the official creed: A.D. 1560.

40. Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, proclaimed by Pope Pius IX: A.D. 1854.

41. Syllabus of Errors, proclaimed by Pope Pius IX and ratified by the Vatican Council; condemned freedom of religion, conscience, speech, press, and scientific discoveries which are disapproved by the Roman Church; asserted the pope’s temporal authority over all civil rulers: A.D. 1864.

42. Infallibility of the pope in matters of faith and morals, proclaimed by the Vatican Council: A.D. 1870.

43. Public Schools condemned by Pope Pius XI: A.D. 1930.

44. Assumption of the Virgin Mary (bodily ascension into heaven shortly after her death), proclaimed by Pope Pius XII: A.D. 1950.

45. Mary proclaimed Mother of the Church by Pope Paul VI: A.D. 1965.

Add to these many others: monks, nuns, monasteries, convents, forty days Lent, holy week, Palm Sunday, Ash Wednesday, All Saints day, Candlemas day, fish day, meat days, incense, holy oil, holy palms, Christopher medals, charms, novenas, and still others.

There you have it—the melancholy evidence of Rome’s steadily increasing departure from the simplicity of the Gospel, a departure so radical and far-reaching at the present time that it has produced a drastically anti-evangelical church. It is clear beyond possibility of doubt that the Roman Catholic religion as now practiced is the outgrowth of centuries of error. Human inventions have been substituted for Bible truth and practice. Intolerance and arrogance have replaced the love and kindness and tolerance that were the distinguishing qualities of the first century Christians, so that now in Roman Catholic countries Protestants and others who are sincere believers in Christ but who do not acknowledge the authority of the pope are subject to all kinds of restrictions and in some cases even forbidden to practice their religion. The distinctive attitude of the present day Roman Church was fixed largely by the Council of Trent (1545-1563), with its more than 100 anathemas or curses pronounced against all who then or in the future would dare to differ with its decisions.

Think what all of this means! Each of the above doctrines or practices can be pin-pointed to the exact or approximate date at which it became a part of the system. And no single one of them became a part of the system until centuries after the time of Christ! Most of these doctrines and practices are binding on all Roman Catholics, for they have been proclaimed by a supposedly infallible pope or church council. To deny any doctrine or practice so proclaimed involves one in mortal sin.

What will be next? Indications are that it will be another proclamation concerning Mary. Two new doctrines are under discussion: Mary as Mediatrix, and Mary as Co-redemptrix. Important Roman Catholic authorities have already indicated that these will be the next doctrines officially proclaimed. Mary is being presented in current Roman teaching as a Mediator along with Christ. She is said to be the “Mediatrix of all graces,” and the people are being told that the way to approach Christ is through His mother. “To Christ through Mary,” is the slogan. Her images outnumber those of Christ, and more prayer is offered to her than to Christ.

It is also being said that Mary’s sufferings, particularly those at the cross, were redemptive in the same sense that Christ’s sufferings were redemptive. It would seem that these two doctrines, if adopted, would in effect place Mary as a fourth member of the Godhead, along with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And presumably these doctrines, if adopted, will be officially announced by the pope, for he was proclaimed infallible in this regard in 1870 and therefore no longer needs the authority of an ecumenical council.

And still the Roman Church boasts that she never changes or teaches new doctrines! Semper idem—“Always the same”—is her motto! The fact that not one of the doctrines in the above list has any support in the Bible disproves conclusively the claim of the priests that their religion is the same as that taught by Christ and that the popes have been the faithful custodians of that truth.

The fact is that many of the above listed rites and ceremonies were taken directly from paganism or from Old Testament Judaism. Some scholars say that as much as 75 percent of the Roman ritual is of pagan origin. John Henry Newman, later cardinal, in his book, The Development of the Christian Religion, admits that “Temples, incense, oil lamps, votive offerings, holy water, holy days and seasons of devotion, processions, blessings of fields, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure (of priests, monks, and nuns), images, etc., are all of pagan origin” (p. 359).

While the Roman Church has been so free to hurl the name “heretic” at all who differ with her, the above list shows that the real heretics are the Roman Catholics themselves, and that the true orthodox are the evangelical Christians. Says the Scripture:

“But in vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men. … Making void the word of God by your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things ye do” (Mark 7:7,13).

“To the law and to the testimony! if they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them” (Isaiah 8:20).

Surely the Apostle Paul knew the human tendency to add to the Word of God when he gave this warning to the early church:

“I know that after my departing grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:29-30). And even more strongly: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema” (Galatians 1:8).

4 Protestantism and First Century Christianity

Ever since New Testament times there have been people who accepted the basic principles now set forth in Protestantism. That is, they took the Bible as their authoritative standard of belief and practice. They were not called Protestants. Neither were they called Roman Catholics. They were simply called Christians. During the first three centuries they continued to base their faith solely on the Bible. They often faced persecution, sometimes from the Jews, sometimes from the pagans of the Roman empire. But early in the fourth century the emperor Constantine, who was the ruler in the West, began to favor Christianity, and then in the year 324, after he had become ruler of all of the empire, made Christianity the official religion. The result was that thousands of people who still were pagans pressed into the church in order to gain the special advantages and favors that went with such membership. They came in far greater numbers than could be instructed or assimilated. Having been used to the more elaborate pagan rituals, they were not satisfied with the simple Christian worship but began to introduce their heathen beliefs and practices. Gradually, through the neglect of the Bible and the ignorance of the people, more and more heathen ideas were introduced until the church became more heathen than Christian. Many of the heathen temples were taken over by the church and re-dedicated as Christian churches.

Thus in time there was found in the church a sacrificing and gorgeously appareled priesthood, an elaborate ritual, images, holy water, incense, monks and nuns, the doctrine of purgatory, and in general a belief that salvation was to be achieved by works rather than by grace. The church in Rome, and in general the churches throughout the empire, ceased to be the apostolic Christian church, and became for the most part a religious monstrosity.

There remained, however, some groups, small in numbers, usually in isolated places, and later primarily in the mountains of northern Italy, who maintained the Christian faith in reasonable purity. There were also individuals throughout the church in all ages, usually more or less independent of the church at large, who continued to hold quite correct ideas concerning the Christian faith. But the half paganized condition continued through the Middle Ages and on into the 16th century when the religious revival in the West, known as the Reformation, shook the church to its foundations. At that time some scholars bean to study Bible manuscripts that had been brought to light by the forced flight of eastern monks from their monasteries as the Mohammedan invasions extended into Europe, and these scholars saw how far the church had departed from its original Scriptures.

First there came the Renaissance, which was primarily a revival of learning, followed shortly by the Reformation. Some of the scholars in the church were called “Reformers.” They called the people back to the Bible, and there they saw how wrong and contrary to Scripture was the use of images, holy water, priests saying mass, and church services in Latin which the people could not understand. The Reformers strongly attacked the ignorance and superstition that had become such a large part of the church program, and gave the people a service in their own language with preaching based on the Word of God. Protestantism, therefore, was not a new religion, but a return to the faith of the early church. It was Christianity cleaned up, with all the rubbish that had collected during the Middle Ages thrown out.

The Reformation, under Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and Knox, was literally a “back-to-the-Bible” movement, a return to apostolic Christianity. Evangelical Christianity has established itself as the historic faith of the first century, which came down through the ante-Nicene Fathers and Augustine, which was largely obscured during the Middle Ages, but which burst forth again in all its glory in the Reformation, and which has continued to grow and increase down to our own time.

The very name “Protestant,” first applied to those Reformers who protested against the decrees issued by the Diet of Spires, implies in its broader sense that the churches led by the Reformers “protested” against the false doctrines and practices that were contrary to the teachings of the New Testament. They demanded a return to the purity and simplicity of New Testament Christianity. Protestantism did not begin with Luther and Calvin. It began with the Gospel, with the life and death and resurrection of Christ. It teaches what the New Testament teaches, nothing more and nothing less. It was not founded on the writings of Luther, or Calvin, or any of the later writers, although those writings proved helpful in the work of the church. Evangelical Protestantism cannot change greatly, for it is founded on an unchanging Book, completed in the first century and declared in the creeds of all evangelical churches to be the Word of God. The names of Protestant churches are not very old, and the denominations differ in regard to some doctrines; but the churches are in quite close agreement concerning the essentials of the faith, each attempting to hold in its purity the teachings of Christ and the apostles. The disagreement and conflict which Rome attempts to picture as existing between Protestant denominations is for the most part exaggeration, and is due largely to Rome’s failure to understand what Protestantism really is.

How, then, do we know whether or not any particular system sets forth true Christianity? By comparing it with a recognized standard, especially with the Bible which is the ultimate authority. Judged by that standard, evangelical Protestantism is the same system of truth that was set forth in the New Testament and practiced by the first century Christians. All accretions, such as purgatory, the authority of tradition, the priesthood, the papacy, the worship of the Virgin Mary and the saints, the veneration of relics, auricular confession (“auricular”—pertaining to the ear—auricular confession, therefore, means confession in the ear of a priest), penance, etc., are totally without Scriptural basis and should be branded as false.

5 Contrast Between Protestant and Roman Catholic Countries

It is a fact beyond challenge that the Protestant countries of Europe and the Americas have been comparatively strong, progressive, enlightened, and free, while the Roman Catholic countries have remained relatively stationary or have stagnated and have had to be aided economically and politically by the Protestant nations. The Middle Ages were dark because Romanism was dominant and unchallenged. The light that we enjoy, which was first manifested in Europe and then in America, we owe to the Protestant Reformation. How appropriate the inscription on the Reformation monument in Geneva—Post tenebris lux, “After the darkness, light”!

The lesson of history is that Romanism means the loss of religious liberty and the arrest of national progress. If after living in the United States one who was not aware of the contrast between Protestant and Roman Catholic cultures were to visit some Roman Catholic countries in Europe or Latin America, not merely to see places that have been fixed up to attract tourists but to live for some time among the common people, it would make him sick at heart to see the ignorance, poverty, superstition, illiteracy, suppression of religious freedom, and legalized prostitution which particularly in Latin America is found in practically every town of any size, a fairly consistent pattern in all of those areas—characteristics of heathenism, characteristics of Romanism.

In Latin America, where the Roman Church has been dominant for four centuries with practically no competition from Protestantism, it has had ample opportunity to bring forth the true fruits of the system. And there, as a church, it has failed miserably. About 90 percent of the people have been baptized in the Roman Catholic Church, but probably not more than 10, or at most 15, percent are practicing Roman Catholics. The present writer is in receipt of a letter from a missionary in Bolivia who writes: “The Roman Catholic Church in Bolivia is not a Christian church at all but an unholy device for keeping the people in ignorance and poverty.” He added that Romanism the world over is one unified system, all under the control of the pope in Rome, and that it probably would be as bad in the United States if it were not for the restraining influence of the evangelical churches. Strong words those, but he was writing of a situation concerning which we know but little in this country.

Governments in Roman Catholic countries have been extremely unsteady. Repeatedly the people shoot up their governments or overthrow them. Practically all of those countries have been ruled by dictators at various times, and sometimes for long periods of time. Since the Second World War France has had repeated governmental crises, until a more stable situation was reached making General de Gaulle president and giving him dictatorial powers. Italy has had 32 governmental crises in 25 years, usually, as in France, characterized by resignation of the government, followed by a period of uncertainty and paralysis until a new election was held or a new alignment of parties was worked out. Spain, which is often pointed to as the model Catholic state, is governed under a concordat with the Vatican, has only one political party, the clerical-fascist party of General Franco, and has been under the dictatorship of Franco since 1938. Portugal, too, is a clerical-fascist state, under dictator Antonio Salazar. In that country the fall of the monarchy in 1910 was followed by a period of economic and political chaos, with 40 governmental changes in 18 years, until Salazar became minister of finance in 1928 and prime minister with dictatorial powers in 1932, which position he has held ever since.¹ In the Latin American nations the overthrow of national governments, followed by periods of dictatorship, has occurred repeatedly during the past 15 years—those in Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela, Peru, Cuba, Chile, and Nicaragua having been the most recent.

¹ Salazar’s dictatorship ended in 1968, and Franco’s ended in 1975.

It cannot be passed off as mere chance that governments in Protestant countries, such as the United States, Britain, Canada, Holland, and the Scandinavian countries, have been so stable over long periods of time while those in the Roman Catholic countries have been so unstable. The result follows in part at least because of the contrasting doctrines of the relation that should exist between church and state. Protestantism holds that the church and the state are each of divine origin, that each is supreme in its own sphere and independent of the other. Romanism holds that power comes to the state through the church, that the church and state should be united with the church holding the superior position, that the pope as God’s representative on earth is above all temporal rulers, above all kings, presidents, and governors, that it is the duty of the state to maintain a political atmosphere favorable to the Roman Catholic Church, supporting it with public money while placing restrictions on all other churches, and that the state should do the bidding of the church in punishing heretics. Such doctrines undermine governments by weakening the confidence of the people in them, while the Protestant doctrines strengthen and support them.

Throughout history the Roman Church has sought to gain power from the state, but has never willingly relinquished power to the state. It has always resented paying taxes to the state, even on purely commercial properties that are owned and operated by it, and it has resented any laws requiring its priests to pay income taxes. The continual meddling of the Roman Church in politics, even to the extent of sponsoring Roman Catholic political parties where it is strong enough to do so (usually known as the “Christian Democratic” party, or a similar name, as in Italy, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, etc.), has caused much resentment. That, no doubt, is also its plan for the United States if and when it becomes strong enough. Usually a political party is not instituted unless it can control at least one fourth of the total vote. How can any unprejudiced person face these facts and still not see the contrast between the two systems?

We behold a strange phenomenon in the world today. While people in the predominantly Roman Catholic countries are struggling to throw off the yoke of the Roman Church, Protestant countries are welcoming it with open arms and allowing it to dictate policies of state, education, medicine, social life, entertainment, press, and radio. And in no Protestant country is this tendency more clearly seen than in the United States. For 32 years, 1928-1960, one of our great political parties had an unbroken line of national party chairmen who were members of that church, and in 1960 it succeeded in electing a Roman Catholic president of the United States. Although the Constitution makes it illegal to favor one church above another, repeatedly in recent years bills have been passed by Congress and signed by nominally Protestant presidents granting very substantial favors to the Roman Catholic Church. More than $24,000,000 in public money has been given to the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines since the close of the Second World War, allegedly for war damages, while hardly one tenth that amount has been given to Protestant, Jewish, and other church groups in that country. In June, 1956, Congress passed, and President Eisenhower signed, a bill giving the Vatican nearly one million dollars ($964,199) for the refurnishing of the pope’s summer home at Castel Gandolfo, just outside the city of Rome, Italy—allegedly as war damages inflicted by American air raids, although the State Department has held that this country has no legal obligation for such damages. In election years, when no one wants to vote against the Roman Catholic Church, Congress is particularly vulnerable to such pressures. But nothing was appropriated to restore Protestant churches in Italy or in the other war-ravaged countries! Those had no lobby in Washington to represent their cause.

About 80 percent of the money provided by the government under the Hill-Burton bill for the building and operation of sectarian hospitals in the United States ($112,000,000 during the first ten years of its operation) went to Roman Catholic institutions as that church eagerly took such money, while most Protestant churches, desirous of maintaining the principle of separation of church and state, were reluctant to accept it. In various places, particularly in the bigger cities governed by Roman Catholic officials, public properties, such as schools, hospitals, building sites, etc., have been turned over to the Roman Catholic Church at give-away prices. Similar things happen in England, where, for instance, parochial schools receive 95 percent of their total costs from the public treasury—but even so, the hierarchy is not satisfied and is demanding complete financial equality with the public schools, which, of course, is fair warning of what the Roman Church would like to achieve in this country.

The hold that Roman Catholicism is able to maintain over large numbers of people, not only in Europe and Latin America but also in the United States, is due in part to its appeal to unregenerate human nature. The Roman concept of sin is quite different from that of Protestantism. Rome does not demand reform in her people. As long as they acknowledge the church and meet the external requirements they are allowed to do about as they please. In our country witness the many corrupt politicians and gangsters in our cities in recent years who have been members of that church and who have remained in good standing while continuing their evil course over long periods of time. A case in point is that of Tom Pendergast, in Kansas City, who with a large number of his accomplices finally was sent to the penitentiary. When he died the Roman Catholic priest who conducted his funeral praised him as a friend and commended his loyalty to his church, because, it was said, he had not missed mass in 30 years. It can be assumed that Roman Catholicism will remain popular as long as the majority of men remain unregenerate.

But the real cause of Roman Catholic growth and success is not to be found so much in its aggressive policy in infiltrating governments, schools, press, radio, etc., nor in its lax moral code. It is to be found rather in the indifference of Protestants and their lack of devotion to their own evangelical message. Modernistic and liberal theology has so enervated many of the churches that they have little zeal left to propagate their faith. Let Protestantism return to its evangelical message and to the type of missionary zeal that governed the early Christians, and let Protestants challenge Rome to full and open debate regarding the distinctive doctrines that separate the two systems, and it will be seen that the one thing Rome does not want is public discussion. Rome prefers to assert her alleged “rights” and to have them accepted without too much question. But Protestantism has the truth, and can win this battle any time that it is willing to force the issue.

In this regard J. Marcellus Kik, former associate editor of Christianity Today, has written:

Protestants do not desire controversy merely for the sake of controversy, and often shrink from engaging in it. But in this time of rising tensions certain issues must be faced. Rome continues to press her propaganda drive. Where she is in the majority she takes special privileges for herself and places restrictions on, or prohibits, other churches. Where she is in the minority she asks for special favors, favors which by no stretch of the imagination are ever given to Protestants in Roman Catholic countries, and seeks quietly to infiltrate the government, schools, press, radio, hospitals, etc. When Protestants are in the majority they tend to ignore those things. But when some major issue arises, such as the nomination of an American ambassador to the Vatican, or the nomination of a Roman Catholic for President of the United States, Protestant opposition does become vocal. A few years ago when President Truman sent the name of General Mark Clark to the Senate for confirmation as American ambassador to the Vatican, there was vigorous protest and a full scale debate was fast arising when General Clark requested that his name be withdrawn. All that the hierarchy could do was to run for cover and cry “bigot” and “persecutor” at anyone who opposed such a tie-up with the Vatican. They definitely did not want a public debate. But the result of such events is to bring out into the open the issues which normally are more or less kept under cover, and to afford opportunity for discussion of the issues on their merits.

The kind of society that Roman Catholicism has produced in other countries where it has been dominant should serve as a fair warning as to what we can expect if it becomes dominant here. What clearer warning do we need? Let us take a good look at conditions in those countries and then ask ourselves if a Roman Catholic America is the kind of heritage we desire for ourselves and the kind we want to pass on to later generations. Through the indifference of Protestants and the aggressiveness of Romanists we are in danger of losing the very things that have made this nation great.

Scripture quotations throughout this book for the most part are from the American Standard Version of 1901 rather than the King James Version since the former is generally conceded to be more accurate. Quotations from the Roman Catholic Confraternity Version are designated as such.

(Continued in Chapter II The Church.)

All chapters of Roman Catholicism By Lorraine Boettner

The title of this article is from an audio I found on https://archive.org/details/JesuitsNewWorldOrder I listened to part of it and knew I had to transcribe it for this website.

I never heard of Darryl Eberhart before. I was shocked to see that his website, Toughlssues.Org is offline in spite of the super interesting topics on it! Someone made a PDF file of the home page of Toughlssues.Org. You can see it below the transcription and read all the titles of the links that are no longer accessible.

What happened to Darryl Eberhart? Did he pass away into God’s Heavenly Kingdom? Or was he taken out before his time by the people he exposed? If anyone knows the answer to this, I would appreciate hearing about it.

The information Darryl Eberhart shares confirms everything I have already posted about the Jesuits and their control of the world, and he also adds new information.

Transcription of audio interview.

This is the Ministry of Truth. I’m Gordon Comstock and we have a returning guest today. He’s been on the show three or four times. This might even be his fifth time. Boy, he reads a lot and they are of course the kind of books that are hard to obtain nowadays. We’re not supposed to read these kinds of books I suppose. He’s got a very interesting background in military intelligence. I think he really knows his stuff.

Before I was ever introduced to him, I was reading his writings online quite a bit. I was quite happy to finally talk to him. He’s become a regular on the show. Well, it’s frankly, and this doesn’t happen very often in life. I have trouble finding areas where I would disagree with my guest today. Our guest is Darryl Eberhart. Welcome aboard, Darryl.

Darryl Eberhart: Thanks for the nice introduction. I’m 61 years old. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned that on any of the podcasts. Sometimes I get a little tuckered out and tired of fighting these guys.

But let me give your listeners an introduction to both me, the intel, and the religious side because I’ve got this great concern that they’ll accuse me since I’ve been writing so much about Roman Catholicism, especially the Jesuit order. I’m not comparing myself to Abraham Lincoln, but whenever they were plotting to assassinate Lincoln, they passed the word around that in a lot of the Northern newspapers, and as a matter of fact, democratic party biased newspapers. And actually, Lincoln claimed up to half of the newspapers and his time were controlled by the Roman Catholic Church. But they accused him of being a baptized Catholic who had gone astray. They figured that would steady the arms of the Roman Catholic assassins and a lot of the low-level conspirators were Roman Catholic. And I just wanted to let people know that I have never been a Roman Catholic. I was never secretly baptized as a Roman Catholic. I’m not an apostate Catholic, although I do know quite a bit about the Catholic Church.

But anyway, let me tell them about my intel. I spent 26 years in the intelligence community. In 20 years of that was the US military. I’m a retired military, 11 and a half years in the US Air Force Intelligence and 8 and a half years in Army Intelligence. And then after I retired from the military, I worked six years as a Department of Defense, civilian at the National Security Agency, largely because I got trained in Russian and Arabic languages and worked as an analyst, a linguist, a reporter, and then later I got a direct commission to captain. So I was then in military intelligence. I was a chief warrant officer before then after I switched over from the Air Force.

And I’ve been writing two newsletters for the past decade, plus the tackling the tough topics and examining the tough issues. And when I first started writing, I just pretty much, just spoke in general terms of the globalist, which actually talked a little bit about what are actually just front groups, the Counsel on Foreign Relations and the Bilderbergers, et cetera.

Gordon Comstock: They’re front groups, you’re right.

Darryl Eberhart: Yeah. They’re just 100% front groups. As a matter of fact, a lot of smaller groups within the secret societies are front groups for the Jesuits, as I have maintained. And others like Greg Szymanski, and Eric John Phelps, all of our research ties together and confirms what each of us has worked on separately. And it goes back to a lot of guys who have written good books like Edmond Paris, The Secret History of the Jesuits.

It just all dovetails and points to the same point. And that is that the Jesuits sit at the very top of the secret societies’ pyramid, controlling Freemasonry, controlling their own Jesuit order, and through that, controlling the entire hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, because the Black Pope actually rules over the white Pope. He’s the Black Pope, the Jesuit Superior General, is the power behind the throne of the white Pope, the one that we see patting children on heads. But the real leader of the Roman Catholic hierarchy is the Jesuit Superior General, who’s also in charge of the very wealthy knights of Malta, who are co-located and co-headquartered at the Jesuit Superior General’s palace there in the Vatican. So this man is by far, I think, the most powerful man in the world, and through the wealth he controls, through the Vatican Bank, and again through these wealthy knights of Malta, who hold a lot of key banking positions.

The Rothschilds, people like to point to them and say, “Hey look, these are Jews and they’re running everything.” The Rothschilds are Jesuits who just happened to have a Jewish background. One of their titles is Guardians of the Vatican Treasury. And that ought to tell us something.

Gordon Comstock: They’re employees.

Darryl Eberhart: Yeah, exactly. And so anyway, I just wanted to let them know that I’ve got a good background in intelligence, but interestingly, despite having for 26 years a top-secret special intelligence clearance with all kinds of extra caveats, I knew almost nothing about the Jesuits. I know a little bit about the Catholic Church, and I’ll explain why.

My religious background: I was raised Methodist. My mom was Methodist. My dad was Roman Catholic, but my dad got in trouble because he didn’t raise us Catholic, and the priest was angry with him for years. So again, I was never baptized a Roman Catholic, and I never actually, I didn’t go to a Roman Catholic Church until I actually got in my 20s. I went a couple of times with my dad to Mass. But again, I was raised Methodist.

Now, I have to say this, 90% of my relatives are Roman Catholic, including my dad, and 90% of my friends are Roman Catholic because I’m in a very heavily Roman Catholic area where anywhere you go in any direction, about five to six miles till you get down off the mountain, it’s either 70 to 90% Roman Catholic or higher.

Decades ago, by the way, I married a beautiful and wonderful Roman Catholic lady, and that’s when I was taught Roman Catholic Catechism classes. I was still in the Air Force at Syracuse University studying the Russian language, and I went to those classes. I never converted to Catholicism. As a matter of fact, the priest kind of threw me out after about six sessions because I kept asking questions. I wasn’t a Bible scholar at the time, but I had read enough of the Bible to just raise questions like, “Hey, Jesus Christ healed Peter’s mother-in-law. And Paul said that Peter Simon took his wife with him when he went around. It sounds like Peter was married. Why do you guys have to be celibate when it looked like Peter had a wife? And the priest said, “Oh, is that in the Bible?” And then I nailed him on about four or five other things.

And it finally just came up after about the sixth session for him to put his arm around me because I was embarrassing him by asking him questions he couldn’t answer. And I started making them look stupid because he kept saying, “Is that really in the Bible?” And I said, “Yeah, it is.

Let me give you just one more example. Christ said, don’t call anyone on earth, Father.” Now, obviously, He’s not talking about your earthly dad, but He was talking in a religious way. “So why do we have to call you guys “father”?

And he goes, “Is that in the Bible?”

I said, “Yeah, it is.”

And I go, “Jesus Christ said, we shouldn’t do repetitious prayers like the heathen do. Why do you guys pray the rosary and just keep going over the same thing over and over and over again?” And he goes, “Is that in the Bible?” And I’m not picking just on Catholic priests because I knew six Methodist ministers and, I’d say probably about four or five of them didn’t know that much about the Bible. As a matter of fact, their main training was in administration and raising money and public speaking and running socials and things like that. And I think as a matter of fact, the last couple of Methodist ministers that I knew, said they only had one Bible course. when they were in. And of course, if you talk to an ex-priest and not, they get very little Bible training. They are almost all the traditions of the church, the church, old church fathers, especially the ones that the Catholics consider the most important. That’s their main study. They also don’t get into the Bible.

So anyway, because of that, this guy, just came up, put his arm around me, and said, “You don’t have to come back anymore, my son.” And I didn’t want to go back anymore anyway, Gordon, because the snow was getting about three to four feet deep up in Syracuse, and a hellacious winter that year. And so it worked out well, but he definitely didn’t want me to come back.

So I am not Roman Catholic, although I love a lot of individual Roman Catholics. And I want to just make that point. Again, I just went to Mass a couple of times with my dad. I was kind of rebellious there because I was kind of disgusted by the Methodist church. And for six or seven years, I went to independent fundamental churches here when I came back after leaving the National Security Agency. And I got so disgusted with them because everything was pre-trip rapture. Once saved always saved, we’re not to be involved in fighting evil. We’re only here to win souls. And we’re to obey government no matter how evil it is, don’t you know? And that just drove me crazy.

So basically I just read the Bible and I get together with a couple of friends. And by the way, before we finish, I’d like to give a book. It’s the best book for giving to a Roman Catholic that really in a nice and kind way, it’s Loraine Boettner‘s book called Roman Catholicism.

They’ve attacked this man horribly. It was written, I think, in 1962. But Roman Catholics tell me it’s the best book to give to a Roman Catholic to witness to them as to the unbiblical, unscriptural doctrines and practices in the church because Boettner, he’s a man, Loraine Boettner, just runs comparisons. This is what the Bible says. This is what the Catholic church does or practices or says. And anyone who looks at that with an honest and open heart is going to see that basically, and I don’t know how to say it in a kinder way, Roman Catholicism is basically paganism with a very thin Christian veneer.

The sad part is that there are Roman Catholics, and I know Roman Catholics that are real Christians that are in that church, and maybe before we get done we’ll read that verse, Revelation 18:4 that says, “Come out of her, my people.”

Gordon Comstock: Darryl, I took your advice. Last year I heard you talk about that Loraine Boettner book, and one of my best friends is an ex-priest, and he still attends mass, but he’s no longer a priest. Great guy. I bought a copy of that book and gave it to him last year. We talked, and you could tell it was really making him think. But I haven’t heard back from him in a few months, so it’ll be interesting when I hook up with him again.

Darryl Eberhart: Well, the good news I have is that my best friend and his wife, and he was a Eucharistic minister. She taught catechism-type classes in the church school, and both very, very devout Roman Catholics, both from devout Roman Catholic, large Roman Catholic families, and after over 50 years, by reading the Bible and Boettner’s book, they came out of the church. So it’s not an impossibility. It does happen.

And Roman Catholics, many of them have no idea. They know there’s some evil at the top because of the pedophile priest thing, but many of them have no idea because most of them do not read the Bible. They have no idea of how many Catholic practices, like celibacy and papal infallibility, purgatory, indulgences, a Mass cards for the dead, people try to pay and pray for their relatives to get out of purgatory, that none of that’s in the Bible.

As a matter of fact, I challenge Catholics when I meet them. “Hey, sit down and read your Catholic Bible and see if you can find one pope. See if you can find one cardinal. See if you can find one archbishop.” That whole entire hierarchical system is not there in the Bible. As a matter of fact, Paul and Peter, examples in the New Testament when anyone ran up and fell at their feet and tried to kiss their toes or praise them as gods, they said, “Get up, get up get up! We’re just men like you.” And compare that to the pope, many of the popes who have lived in such wealth and with many palaces and cardinals the same way. And again, through selling indulgences, that’s what got Luther so fired up.

A lot of people forget that some of the reformers were Roman Catholics. Luther was an Augustinian monk who tried so hard to reform the system from within. The Dominican Girolamo Savonarola who was in Florence led a great revival. He made one little mistake. He criticized, I think it was Pope Alexander VI, and his corrupt papal court. Of course, he was immediately excommunicated and murdered and exterminated, executed. And that happened so frequently throughout history. We need to remember that many courageous Roman Catholics have tried to challenge the system from within. And Rome, papal Rome, does not like to be challenged about anything.

I’d like to read just a couple of little things that I threw in some of my writings when I started writing more and more about Roman Catholicism. I’m going to repeat a little bit of what I said, but I think people need to know this. Here’s a little statement I put in some of my newsletters when I started to really go after the Jesuit order.

I am not a Roman Catholic. I also am most definitely not anti-Roman Catholic as far as individual Roman Catholics go. My dad, 90% of my relatives are Roman Catholic, and the majority of my friends are Roman Catholics still to this day. I am, however, against the top levels of secret societies from the hierarchy of the Jesuit order to the hierarchy of Freemasonry. And by the way, if I can find that quote, I’ll read it later, but there was a historian that said,

“If you trace up to the very top of Freemasonry, you will find out that the leader of the head Freemason in the world and the Jesuit Superior General are one in the same person.”

We need to remember that the Jesuit order took over French, British, and German Freemasonry over a century ago. So the Jesuit order controls the higher levels of Freemasonry, which gives them so much power because when you start looking at the intelligence community, Gordon, you find out that just about every head of the Central Intelligence Agency was either a 33-degree Freemason like Allen Dulles who (then President) John Fitzgerald Kennedy fired, or they were Knights of Malta, which is a religious military order within the Roman Catholic Church under the direct command of the Jesuit Superior General.

I think that’s kind of interesting. Five Knights of Malta, the first one that was in charge was William Wild Bill Donovan. You had John McCone, William Casey, William Colby, and George Tenet. There are at least five plus the head of the decades-long of counterintelligence in the Central Intelligence Agency who also sat at the Vatican desk and the Israel desk was James Jesus Angleton, who just happened to be the CIA liaison to the Warren Commission. Another Knight of Malta, one of the Assistant FBI Directors, part of the Freemason lodge just happened to be the FBI, the liaison to the Warren Commission, the White Wash Commission, I call it. We can tell the flow of information that went to the Warren Commission was completely sanitized and edited by these two Knights of Malta.

When you start looking at that and World War II, where the head of Soviet intelligence is a Knight of Malta. He was the Jesuit priest for his couriers, Prince Anton Turkul. You look at the German intelligence on the Eastern Front, it’s run by a Roman Catholic knight of Malta named Reinhardt Gehlen, who ends up afterward coming over to help Donovan, who is head of the old Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor, the CIA. They set up the CIA together, two Roman Catholic knights of Malta.

By the way, William Joseph Wild Bill Donovan, I have a picture of him getting the Order of St. Sylvester there at the Vatican. The man was heavily decorated by the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican, for his lifetime of service to the Catholic Church, even while he was the head of the OSS and then afterwards as the CIA Director. Isn’t that interesting, Gordon? These guys are getting awards. Our top intelligence guys are getting awards from the Roman Catholic Church.

Gordon Comstock: Well, the Bible talks a lot about nations being empowered by demonic entities, and when you read through that litany of the crossovers between the Nazi echelon that were hooked up with the Knights of Malta, they just very easily made that transition from crumbling Nazi Germany to rising United States 20th century power. And I can just envision those demons crossing over from the Nazis to us, and we’re seeing the fruits of that now all around us with entities like Blackwater, and of course all of the draconian legislation like the Patriot Act.

Darryl Eberhart: That includes stuff that says that the President’s allowed to torture people. Where does torture come from? It doesn’t come from any Protestant church. It doesn’t come from any evangelical church. There’s only one church that is really into torture, like big time, and that is the Roman Catholic Church and the Inquisition alone from, according to several reputable historians that officially ran 1203 to 1808, butchered up to 50 million Bible-believing Christians.

And while I mentioned that, I think it’s important that everybody get a DVD. I don’t know if you’ve ever had Richard Bennett on. He’s an ex-priest of 22 years, but he did this DVD on the Inquisition. It’s subtitled, 605 years of papal torture and death. It’s 58 minutes long, it’s in color. The first two-thirds of the DVD deals with that official Inquisition that took the lives of up to 50 million Bible believers. Many women were burned. And to be slowly roasted and toasted at the stake, how cruel, 80 popes in a row, approved the Inquisition.

But again, the DVD is very professionally done. And the first two-thirds deals with that 1203-1808 timeframe.

The last third deals with that forgotten holocaust, some people call it the Vatican Holocaust, and they’re talking about the massacre in Croatia in the 1940s. Croatia was a part of Yugoslavia and then broke away and became a puppet state to the Nazis. And this fascist state, butchered and tortured up to 1 million innocent Serb Orthodox Christians, men, women, and children, to the point where they impaled children alive on stakes, they crucified Orthodox priests on wooden doors, they skinned people alive, they buried people alive. They burned people alive. They sawed them. They cut their eyes out, and made necklaces from them, and I know you’re very familiar with this.

Gordon Comstock: Yeah, I read that book, The Vatican Holocaust by Avro Manhattan.

Darryl Eberhart: And he has pictures in there of both the perpetrators…

Gordon Comstock: Smiling as they’re sawing through some guys’ neck.

b>Darryl Eberhart: We need to think about this because there are 10 FEMA regions in the US. There are 10 Jesuit provincialists assigned to the US. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

And when we think that two Jesuit prelates, they were Jesuit monsignors who were in archbishop positions in Zagreb and Sarajevo, respectively, Aloysius Stepinac, who also was the military vicar to the Ustaše military killing squads that ran around, and Archbishop Ivan Šarić. And so these two Jesuit archbishops ran this choreographed, this horrible holocaust – a religious side basically – the slaughter of Orthodox Serbians.

Gordon Comstock: And the people who led the bloodthirsty mobs were Franciscan priests, correct?

Darryl Eberhart: Yes, mostly, and some of the worst commandants were, like you said, Franciscan priests, monks, and friars. They sometimes led the Ustaše units, and if they weren’t the actual officer in charge, then they were an adviser who participated in and urged the torture. And as one writer wrote, he said, they weren’t content just to kill people, they had to horribly torture them first. So, it boggles the minds of people who have not been brought up Roman Catholic and who do not know the history of the Roman Catholic Church to think of a Church that calls itself Christian doing this type of thing.

Gordon Comstock: And so, that was a carryover. That was still the Inquisition, right? The Inquisition never really officially went away.

Darryl Eberhart: No. No. And that was a modern-day Inquisition that we need to look at because, as one writer, I think it was Manhattan himself said, it serves as a model of what the Roman Catholic Church would like to do if they could ever, wherever they have the power to establish themselves as the State Church and to totally, as Edmond Paris wrote, convert or die with everyone else. Of course, some of the Orthodox people did convert, but again, this DVD of the Inquisition by Richard Bennett is critical for people to see, whether they’re Roman Catholic or non-Roman Catholic, to see the barbarity of all this. When FEMA takes over and because the governors, those ten Jesuit providentials, are the real power behind them, we know what these people can do (based on the history of the Inquisition).

Here’s a little thing I’d like to read, but I had stuck into several of the newsletters when I started writing more about Roman Catholicism. I put,

“Why am I writing more and more about Roman Catholicism? I’ve been writing more on the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchy, and especially its Jesuit order in recent newsletters, because I keep uncovering more and more about the deep hatred that the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has for independent Bible-believing Christians, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, and Jews. And by the way, during World War II, it was just a bloodbath that mainly went after Protestants in northern Germany, Orthodox Christians, not just in Serbia, but in Russia and in Ukraine, and of course Jews, up to 6 million Jews, despite all of these people that try to say that there were only a couple hundred thousand. I’ve seen the actual pictures of the bulldozing of the bodies and that when the American soldiers went into camp. (Note from me: The actual number of Jews who died in the holocaust is something I don’t care to debate about anymore. The fact is, not only Jews died, but millions of other ethnic peoples such as Romanies AKA Gypsies, Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, Serbians, and other Slavic peoples, even non-Slavic peoples such as Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians. It’s interesting to me that when the Holocaust is mentioned, people only think about the Jews and none of the other ethnic groups the Nazis murdered. Why is that? I believe it’s due to Jesuit control of the press and education to put emphasis on the Jews in order to justify the Zionists of their dirty deeds. )

Gordon Comstock: So let me derail you quickly here because you just prompted something. Darryl, do you think, as I strongly suspect, that not only during World War II, not only what happened in Croatia with the mass murder and torture of the Serbs, not only was that a carryover of the same Inquisition, but do you think, given that Hitler is still to this day a Catholic in title, he never was excommunicated, and given that it was guys like Franz von Papan, who was he a cardinal or archbishop who…

Darryl Eberhart: No, no, he was a knight of Malta. He put Hitler into power.

Gordon Comstock: He put Hitler into power. And as we know, the Knights of Malta are under the auspices of the Vatican. Do you consider that the far more infamous Holocaust that we see so many movies and books about, like Schindler’s List and whatnot, do you think that that also was a carryover of the Inquisition?

Darryl Eberhart: Without doubt, there’s no doubt in my mind that that was another part of the modern-day Inquisition. Serbia wasn’t the only one. World War II was an entire Inquisition. The Catholic Church has long hated Orthodox Christians, and that’s why the Nazi SS units, a lot of them in the central security service were priests that put on the black uniform. The head of the Nazi SS was not little pug-nose, the nephew Heinrich Himmler, Kurt Heinrich Himmler. The real head of it was his uncle who was a Roman Catholic priest, a Jesuit subordinate to the Jesuit Superior General, Ledóchowski. But those priests followed in with the killer units, just like the Ustaše had the Franciscan priests, monks, and friars, these Jesuit priests and other Roman Catholic priests were even wearing the black uniform of the Nazi SS. And they were with the killer squads that came in behind the regular German military, whenever they invaded into the Ukraine and further into the Soviet Union.

So it was when I first looked at Eric John Phelps’ book, I thought, “Wow! Could it be that this thing was just totally orchestrated to slaughter as many Protestants and Jews and Orthodox Christians as possible?” I don’t know how anyone can really take an honest look at World War II and not come to that conclusion. Where did almost all the firebombing take place? In northern Germany, not in Catholic Bavaria. What happened to the poor German Protestants up in the northern, northeastern parts like in Prussia? They were forced to march during winter, and women and children died along the way. Some people think up to a million people that died in the camps in the northern part. The American and British camps were horrible. They allowed malnutrition, they allowed weather exposure to these people. They were horribly treated. The amount of food they were given like I said, forced march in the middle of winter. And then of course the Jews, they went after them big time, and also after the Orthodox Christians. So, I don’t see how anyone can really be honest, whether he’s Roman Catholic or non-Roman Catholic, look at World War II and not just see a massive religious side that was orchestrated by having Knights of Malta running the intelligence services on both sides.

I worked 26 years in the intelligence community. When you have top positions like the CIA counter-intelligence desk when you hold the head of the CIA, the head of the FBI, then you can murder anybody, and that’s what happened with John Kennedy, and then cover it up because you have all your people at the key choke points, and no mid-level analyst or something’s going to be able to get anything. He’ll get murdered if he tries to go outside of the channels. And that’s what they did with the two liaison positions with Kennedy. And everyone around Kennedy, and that’s something that you and I have talked about before, is the alternative medium, much of it, blames everything on the Jews, mentioning the Rothschilds and that or the head of the Federal Reserve, and not ever getting to the secret societies and the control of the secret societies by the Jesuits Superior General, where they have control of these, not only the intelligence agencies, but they are able then to use through the CIA cooperation with Special Forces, Navy Seals, they are able to use our most elite military to murder people and cover it up, and having key people in Congress. Almost every key committee is held by a Roman Catholic generally.

It’s interesting, I started when I was updating some of my news articles, I will tell the story, and you know it, at one time I had 106 articles up on the web, 106, and a lot of them dealt with assassination, like the assassination of Kennedy, the assassination of John Paul I, the assassination of Oscar Romero, the Archbishop down in El Salvador, and the assassination of Lincoln. When you look around and start digging a little bit outside of mainstream publishing and the current American textbooks, you find out in all of these that the culprits are the Jesuits! And the rest of the Vatican, the papacy, clearly their fingerprints are all over the assassination of Lincoln.

My goodness, they even helped John Harrison escape up to Canada, where two Roman Catholic priests hid them out, one of the Archkins’ Bearers, and then they ferried them over to England and down to the papacy, where they became part of the Pope’s own personal bodyguard in a Zouave company.

But Burke McCarty and her book pointed out… she wrote an interesting book, The Suppressed Truth About the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. That book was published in 1924. And when she did, she’s got a great quote in there, and I’ll just paraphrase it because I don’t have it right in front of me, but she said that during the Wilson administration, that would have been, he served two terms, I think that would be 1913 to 1921. He’s the president who said, “I’ll never send your boys overseas” just like FDR later. But anyway, she said during his administration, the head of the Army, the head of the Navy, the head of the Merchant’s fleet, the head of the post office, and she named a couple of others, and she said just about every single department in the U.S. government – now remember, this is in the 1920s, the early 20s – she said was held by a fourth degree Knight of Columbus! Now, the Roman Catholic population at that time was one-sixth the entire U.S. population, but they are holding every single key government position.

Lincoln said that in his time, half of the newspapers, I mentioned it earlier, half the newspapers were run by the Roman Catholic Church. And then F. Tupper Saussy, when he came out with his book, Rulers of Evil, showed how in the Reagan administration, almost all his top advisers were Roman Catholic, and almost every key position, intelligence, finance, in both the Senate and the House, were all held by Roman Catholics.

And it’s interesting, when you think back, Gordon, if you go to an independent fundamental church, you’re to find out these guys have all been taught in their seminaries, “We don’t get involved in politics,” but when you go to Roman Catholic churches, when they have their Knights of Columbus, and they try to recruit young Roman Catholics into that, they tell their people, get into law enforcement, get into government, become mayor, become governor, become president. They’re talking two sides there. They infiltrate, and Protestants have trouble understanding that because we wouldn’t think of infiltrating a Catholic church, but the Jesuits are masters of infiltration, and they have their people infiltrate, even seminaries of these independent fundamental associations and everything. And they tell these people, “Now you need to obey government no matter how evil it is, no matter how fascist it is, because don’t you know government is from God, and you guys need to stay out of politics. You’re only here to win souls, you don’t get involved in anything. And then they’re telling their people, “Get involved in law enforcement, get involved in politics.” You go to these, a lot of these northern, northeastern cities, Midwest, Chicago, New York, Boston, you’ll find out that a very large number of the police officers, especially in the middle and higher levels, are Knights of Columbus.

And you can see that on a website, spirituallysmart.com. It has all kinds of pictures. Jeb Bush is a fourth-degree Knight of Columbus. It has a picture of him getting his ceremony there. It has a picture of President George W. Bush shaking hands with a bunch of Knights of Columbus. It has a picture of some of these top people in the New York police force. I think one of them was a former Homeland Security agent, a very high-ranking one. They’re all Knights of Columbus!

So what does that bode for us? We need to remember something, Gordon, and that is that the Ustaše was a Roman Catholic militia called Catholic Action in Yugoslavia. Whenever the German troops poured across the border, these people turned on their own government, turned on their own constitution, their own people, and betrayed them, and showed the Nazis, well, I should say the German troops, where the arms were stored, and where aircraft were hidden away. They basically were a fifth column. I hope most of the listeners understand that in the fifth column from the Spanish Civil War, there was General Mola. Franco said he had a fifth column. In other words, he had people friendly to him behind the enemy’s line pretending to be good guys when they were actually betraying them. He claimed to have in Madrid, a fifth column.

Well, throughout all of Europe in World War II, there were fifth columns in France and Yugoslavia that betrayed their own people, their own country, their own government, and their own military.

Gordon Comstock: They assassinated King Alexander of Yugoslavia.

Darryl Eberhart:Right. And the Ustaše we need to remember was a Roman Catholic militia, basically a terrorist group before World War II. And then once Pavlach was put into power, Ante Pavlach, an interesting character, who said, “A good Ustaše is someone who can cut a child out of its mother’s womb.”

And having the two archbishops there, once they took power, well, guess what happened to the Roman Catholic militia, Catholic action, Ustaše? They became the regular military forces, and they went around being the killer squad.

And people need to think. I’ve heard there are a million and a half to two million strong in the Knights of Columbus. There are signs about them all over where I live. You see all their signs. They have chapters and stuff. They sell insurance, they sell little gambling tickets basically that are based on the lottery here in Pennsylvania. These guys are wealthy, they’re powerful, and we need to think, what are they gonna do when we go under total martial law in a fascist state here? Are these guys gonna be just like the Ustaše in Croatia?

That’s something to think about because the fourth-degree oath of the Knights of Columbus, now they’ve probably mellowed it some, but it was a horrible plot oath that was read into the Congressional record in the early 1900s. We don’t need militias such as the Knights of Columbus that have an oath to a foreign potentate, and that’s what the pope is. And if people think that’s hard, it’s just the truth.

Gordon Comstock: When you say foreign potentate, now that brings up a good point because we talk a lot about the dangers of Roman Catholicism and the Jesuits and the upper echelon of that hierarchy, but that upper echelon, foreign potentate, isn’t the real threat, the real source of all this threat is because it is that the Vatican is a nation-state, is it not? People still think the Vatican is just part of a religious system,

Darryl Eberhart: It is a nation state. The Vatican State has diplomatic relations with something like over 80 or 100 countries, I forget. But they’re a member of the United Nations, the pope goes and speaks there, and I know they’ve got diplomatic relations with all of the major countries in the world. As a matter of fact, they were restored with Mussolini in the Concordant that he signed with the papacy. Of course, some people tend to forget Hitler also signed a Concordant on the papacy, and you mentioned earlier, that Hitler was never excommunicated, and neither was Mussolini. As a matter of fact, when Hitler died, or some people say he didn’t really die, he went to Argentina, but anyway, when he supposedly committed suicide, they had a high requiem mass for him in Spain, officiated, I think by three Roman Catholic priests. Generally, that’s only for like a cardinal or something, and they had that for him. But Mussolini, Hitler, and none of the worst of these mass murders was ever excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church, how could they? These guys were working for them. You know, that’s not good PR within your own camp if you excommunicate your top murderers that carry out your orders for you.

Let’s say one other thing, you mentioned a good point. A lot of people tend to think of Roman Catholicism as just a religion. No, the Roman Catholic Church is probably the most powerful geopolitical faction in the world because of controlling secret societies, plus having a billion people adherence, plus having a Vatican bank, and they have another bank too, but all their stock holdings in that, the Knights of Malta are big bankers, so they’re filthy rich, and so we need to think of them as the most powerful geopolitical and financial power on the entire planet. They’re not just a religion.

We Americans have for the most part been largely ignorant of the well-documented history of the Roman Catholic Church in conducting brutal religious genocide, the Inquisition, holy wars, and holy crusades against all the aforementioned groups, Bible-believing Christians, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, and Jews.

Sadly, many Americans believe the ecumenical rhetoric of the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchy, that she has changed her ways and now loves all the “Separated Brethren.” (Formally called heretics.) Well, we now know that Pope Benedict XVI has come out and said, “Well, that liberal stuff you kind of heard out of Vatican II is, they’re just spinning that the wrong way. There’s no salvation outside of the Roman Catholic Church.”

I’ve got some of his recent documents where he said any church that came out of the Protestant Reformation is not a church. So guess what, Protestants? You’re back to being heretics and not Separated Brethren.

And by the way, the ecumenical movement is totally run by Roman Catholics. There’s a Roman Catholic priest named Forrest and that, but you’ll find it almost all of these, the Billy Graham crusades, and that there are always priests there, Paul and Jan Crouch. You can almost always see a priest in the background there. Jack Van Empey praises Mary and the Marian apparitions and the Pope. So a lot of these so-called Protestant evangelists are just, well, Billy Graham himself has an honorary degree from a Roman Catholic Institute of Higher Learning.

Gordon Comstock: They’re all subverted.

Darryl Eberhart:Yeah. They’re working for the other side. And we need to realize that these people are pied pipers. As a matter of fact, Billy Graham, when a Roman Catholic comes forward in his crusade wanting to truly learn more about Christ, what does Billy Graham and those counselors do? They turn them over to the local Roman Catholic Church! They say, “Go back to your Roman Catholic Church and learn there.”

Again, I’m not trying to be mean to anyone because I love a lot of individual Roman Catholics, but Roman Catholicism is basically pagan. It’s the old Babylonian religion. It’s paganism with a thin veneer of Christianity. It moved into the power vacuum whenever the imperial pagan Roman Empire fell and the Pope basically took over as the ghost rose from the ashes of the pagan imperial Roman Empire.

Gordon Comstock: Darrell, this gets into eschatology. You have these pre-tribbers, these huge futurist Christians nowadays who are expecting some kind of revived Roman Empire in the future. And what they are obtusely not seeing is that when the secular government of Rome fell, it morphed into… basically, what I’m trying to say is their revived Roman Empire is Roman Catholicism because it carried on Rome and engulfed all the other states around it. So it’s right in front of them. It’s always been in front of them. It’s always been the number one persecutor of …

Darryl Eberhart: True Bible-believing Christians, including the Waldenses. You know how they treated the Waldenses, I know you read about them, and the Albigenses. They called the Albigenses and Waldenes, heretics, Manichaeans, Dualists, and all kinds of dirty names. But they were just simple Bible-believing Christians who were always … let me repeat that, they didn’t leave the Catholic Church, they were always outside the Catholic Church. And because Catholics in France compared the wonderful lives of these people, they were hard-working, industrious, moral people to other Catholics, the Catholic Church was starting to lose their adherence. They were leaving in droves to join these people. And that’s when the Catholic Church crushed the entire southern population of southern France. They exterminated the Albigenses in a series of crusades. I think they started somewhere around 1208. And they basically used some of the same crusaders who had been down in the Middle East and turned them loose, including rapists and murderers out of the prisons to slaughter these people.

And that’s why I started writing more and more about Roman Catholicism just because… I don’t know how to say this in any other way than the Roman Catholic Church is basically, especially the Jesuit order in the last four centuries, international murder incorporated. They’re just mass murderers, masters of assassination of individuals, but also masters of religious genocide. And we need to speak out about it. Roman Catholics need to learn.

I think if Roman Catholics in America could learn one-tenth of the history of their Church, purposely a Church, but again, remember, it’s an official nation-state, the Vatican state, that was restored by Mussolini with his Concordate. But anyway, by the way, Roman Catholicism also became the state religion again there. So the deadly wound kind of got healed there whenever they got back as a Vatican state.

It’s not the Jews, the Zionist Jews who are running around fomenting all the wars, it’s the Roman Catholic Church.

There was a man named Edmond Paris who was born Roman Catholic, a French author who wrote several books like “Convert or Die”. But he wrote The Secret History of the Jesuits that people can still get that from Jack Chick, Chick publication (and this website).

Gordon Comstock: We spoke of that book, Roman Catholicism by Loraine Boettner as maybe the best book to give your Roman Catholic friends to get them out of that system, to wake them up.

Darryl Eberhart: The book is simply called Roman Catholicism and it’s by Loraine Boettner. It was published in 1962. It’s a 466-page paperback book.

My best friend and his wife, have four children, and they gave them Dave Hunt’s book and it really turned them off. Dave Hunt’s book is a great book, A Woman Rides the Beast, I like it, but I’ve heard from several Catholics that it really turns Catholics off.

Gordon Comstock: It’s all factual, but it’s too much at once.

Darryl Eberhart: Yeah, for new comers. It’s a good book. If you’re a non-Catholic, I would highly recommend you get that from Chick Publications. A Woman Rides the Beast is a great book for a non-Catholic because it gets into their doctrines in the back. He gets into papal infallibility quite a bit, and celibacy and purgatory and he’ll give you definitions of all of them. But he gets a lot into the genocide too.

Gordon Comstock: The sordid history of the popes, Hunt gets into in spades.

Darryl Eberhart: Yes, he does a very good job. But if you want to hand something to a Roman Catholic to read because you want them to see that their churches’ practices and doctrines are unbiblical, unscriptural. Roman Catholicism is the best book. And I tell you why. That man has been horribly attacked by the Roman Catholic Church because he’s right on the money. And again, he doesn’t do it in a caustic and vitriolic, nasty manner. He just lays it out nice and just pleasant. And just saying here it is, this is what the Bible says, this is what the Catholic Church says. So I highly recommend it. You get that book and get it into the hands of Catholic friends. It’s much better received than most other books.

Let me give a Bible verse here. It’s critical. We’re very ignorant of history. We’re also biblically ignorant in America. And I’m sure know very well this verse,

Hosea 4:6  My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

That’s pretty serious. We need to be Bible readers. You mentioned about the papacy and how easy it is to see. Some people try to predict who the Antichrist is going to be. Some people said it was Gorbachev with the little red mark on his head. Some people even said it was Reagan. There’s Prince Charles. There have been many candidates, Mussolini was a candidate, Hitler was a candidate. Of course these guys are dead now.

Rather than trying to predict who the final CEO of the Satanic Kingdom is gonna be, that priest of 22 years, Richard Bennett, points out on his DVD, The Inquisition, the Bible very clearly lays out that the papacy is the Antichrist.

Revelation 17:9  And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.

Now someone like Texe Marrs says that’s Jerusalem. But Jerusalem never ruled over all the kings of the earth. Some people say Rio de Janeiro has seven hills. Now the only place with seven hills that ruled over the kings of the earth for probably over 1200 years was the Roman Catholic church or papacy. They crowned kings and emperors and deposed them. Few emperors and kings had ever won against the pope. Most of them lost on the battle field because the pope would rally several countries against the nation that opposed him.

Some people used to joke, “Well, how many divisions does the pope have? The answer is he has as many divisions as the US or the Soviets or whoever he’s controlling. They’ve infiltrated and decapitated those governments.

Verse Revelation 17:18 says, And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

Again, the Israel kings, kings of Judah, David, and Solomon at their peak didn’t rule over the kings of the earth. They ruled over maybe the kings of Edom and Moab and the Syrians. But they didn’t rule over the Assyrians. They didn’t rule over the Babylonians. They didn’t rule over the Chinese. However, the papacy ruled over continental Europe for over a thousand years.

But here’s the verse that’s kind of interesting. I used to say I’m not telling Catholics to come out of the church. I am now.

Revelation 18:4  And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

The Bible says that papal Rome is going to get burned in the end. And I would say to … and I love again many individual Roman Catholics … get out of there. Not only is your church, which is a state, a geopolitical and financial entity, guilty of pedophilia to the maximum extreme, not only is it guilty of up to 40% of American nuns reporting being sexually abused, you can find that in a Boston Globe article. I’m looking for the book, but it’s in a great book called Lucifer’s Lodge – Satanic Ritual Abuse in the Catholic Church was written by a Roman Catholic named Kennedy. Not only is it guilty of all that, but if you read my Bloody Hearts article, you’ll find out that the Roman Catholic church as Baron De Pane, the French statesman said, “Its history is written in blood.” Blood is what it’s all about. The slaughtering of Jews left and right, as you well know Gordon, whenever the Roman Catholic crusaders, not the Christian crusaders, went into Antioch in 1096. The Roman Catholic crusaders slaughtered every man, woman, and child, Christian, Jew, and Muslim in Antioch. Then they went down, and in Jerusalem, in 1099 they slaughtered just about everyone. There were a few Muslims that bought their way out, the rich ones, but other than that they slaughtered every man, woman, and child, other than the few that bought their way out, Jew, Muslim, and non-Catholic Christian. And that has been the history of that church.

Before the Crusaders even went down to the Middle East, they went into the Western provinces of Andrew and Puto and practiced up for the crusades by slaughtering every Jew they could find, going through the villages of those Western, I probably murdered the pronunciation, those Western provinces in France, they practiced up. Their entire history is nothing but religious genocide. Every 50 to 100 years, the Roman Catholic church goes on a mass murder spree, and they did it as recently as the 1940s. (The 1994 Rwanda genocide was even more recent.)

And Gordon, that’s why I think you’re staying in and working hard at what you do, why I am too because we smell what happened in Croatia, what happened all over the European continent, in the 1940s, may be coming to a neighborhood near all of us soon here in America, like they used to talk about movies going around the drive-in theaters. It’s coming to a neighborhood soon near us. And again, ten FEMA regions, ten Jesuits, provincial’s assigned here, and we’ve got the fascist police state almost totally set up here in America.

If Roman Catholics do not leave in droves as they did during the Reformation, the only thing that stopped this, that flow, was the sword and the stake that the Catholic church wielded against its own people, otherwise, Europe would be totally Protestant right now. And that’s why the Inquisition was instituted and carried on, and again, 80 popes in a row.

And if you’re a Roman Catholic, get a book called Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy, by Peter De Rosa. There’s a Roman Catholic that just gave you the real nitty gritty of what the papacy was about. It was nothing but rich aristocratic families battling with each other. Most popes were murdered, by the way, very few died natural deaths, some mysterious, but many of them were murdered because they were fighting with each other for the coveted position because of all the wealth and power that it carried with it.

So again, we’re not being mean, we don’t hate Roman Catholics, we’re just trying to warn you, your system, it’s not biblical, it’s a murdering system, and it’s a system full of pedophile priests, and it’s just a real sad story that it calls itself Christian.

I tell my Catholic friends this, you’re not going to like a Catholic police state here in fascist America. It’s not going to be good for Catholics because the Inquisition didn’t just kill Bible believers. Many Roman Catholics, if they were wealthy, maybe you had a good-looking wife or daughter, they turned you in, and you went before the Inquisition, and very few people ever got acquitted from the Inquisition. By the way, most lawyers were not allowed to represent you, you couldn’t see you’re accuser, so they had an almost 100% conviction, right? And that’s why we’re warning people, to find out about this Church geopolitical financial entity, do a little bit of research.

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Children collect frozen potatoes in a collective farm's field during the Ukrainian famine.

This is an article from my good Ukrainian friend from Kyiv, Lydia. She sent it to me 21 years ago in 2003. I posted it on my very first website, www.kt70.com/~jamesjpn which is no longer online. I may put it back online as a subdomain of this website.

Since the Russian invasion, Lydia fled to France and is living there as a refugee. I think many Americans are unaware of this history. I sure didn’t know anything about it, and neither did most people of the Soviet Union except the Ukrainians who were the victims. I think if more Americans knew this history, they may be a little bit more sympathetic toward the Ukrainians in their resistance against the Russian invasion. Did Vladimir Putin share this in his history lessons with Tucker Carlson? I think not. If you saw the entire Putin – Carlson interview and heard Putin talk about this subject, please enlighten me. Could it be one reason why Ukrainians don’t want to be under Russian rule is because they remember what the Russians did to them in 1933?

In December, Ukraine lamented over the ten million lives lost in the great artificial famine of 1933. It’s been 70 years since that terrible time, but many Ukrainian people still remember the horrors that they went through during those months of great suffering that they’ve been put through due to the cruel and unwise decisions that were made by the Communists. It is now the well-known fact that the famine in 1933 was created artificially, when millions of tons of flour and other products were taken away from the Ukrainian farmers and shipped over to Russia. This is what we heard from one of the older people here in Kiev, who survived that famine:

Lydia’s grandmother Olga was also one of those who survived that terrible famine. She came to visit us not so long ago and shared her sad testimony with us. She survived the famine, but lost her parents and four of her brothers and sisters back then. Only two of her brothers stayed alive, and only because they fled the Ukraine and went to St. Petersburg. Granny Olga comes from a Christian family. Christian meetings were held at their house regularly, as their church was closed by the Soviets. She told us how the Soviets were persecuting anyone in the village who didn’t seem to starve and how they confiscated possessions of those who worked hard and thus had some food to eat.

She also told us how they were making bread out of the chaff, and how they ate the weeds just to stay alive. “First they took the beehives, then the cows and the grain,” she told us. “When there was no more food left and we began to starve, one of our communist school teachers began coming and asking us if our father, who was a Christian, spoke anything against the Communist party.”

We saw tears in her eyes, as she told us about the death of her little brothers, who died from starvation just after the food had arrived. They had no more strength to eat it! But no matter what terrible things she had to go through, Olga kept believing and trusting the Lord, who protected and blessed her!

Today, like many years ago we also meet those hungry children on the streets of Kiev, begging for bread and a little bit of compassion. I was met by the little girl, while we did shopping, who was dressed in rags – she asked me for some food. Her eyes brightened, as I handed her some money, and she gave me such a happy look! I will never forget those eyes. There was pain in them, but also so much thankfulness, that it almost made me cry. I thanked the Lord for all the wonderful blessings that we do have and for such a loving Family, where nobody has to starve – thank God for His provision! It makes us so thankful for everything that Jesus gives us and also motivates us to go out and to reach these people with His love, so that everyone would know Him. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!

For further reading, see How Joseph Stalin Starved Millions in the Ukrainian Famine

By H. C. Martin

Today many Protestants have departed from the Christian interpretation of the prophecies in the Book of Revelation, and many other passages in the Word of God. Church history has not left us in ignorance concerning the dispensational interpretation of the Book of Revelation. Every Protestant should know and spread the following startling facts.

Scholarly Dean Henry Alford (1870) informs us the Futurist school of prophecy can be traced to Jesuit Ribera (1590). It was invented for evil purposes e.g. “to protect the Papacy and to confuse the Protestants as to the true meaning of the Revelation. This scheme is not to be commended for obvious reasons.

The great Reformers opened up Revelation chapters 17 and 18 to all Europe and showed the people the great whore and the scarlet woman with disastrous results to the Papacy. In the Book of Revelation God foretold, exposed and denounced the works and doctrine of the great Apostate ecclesiastical system which would rise out of and succeed the wreckage of the Pagan Roman Empire. This apostate system was Papal Rome.

The Roman world had been ruled by Paganism until the 4th and 5th century AD, but now a change was destined to come to pass; this new found power being clearly symbolized in the Book of Revelation as a religious power by saying that it would be seen sitting in the Temple of God. That is to say in the Church itself swaying the lives of men and nations and ruling with great power from a self appointed pinnacle which it had set up (2 Thessalonians, chapter 2). This Papal power was to emerge after the Roman Empire was removed and would continue until it would be “consumed by the Spirit of His mouth and destroyed by the brightness of His Coming.” (2 Thess 2:8).

As the darkness of the middle ages thereafter began to be lightened by the hard won labors of the Reformation all of the Reformers without exception, believed and taught that Papal Rome filled exactly every detail foretold concerning this new Religious entity and was therefore this apostate and Anti-Christ power which while purporting to be the only true Church of Christ was actually fighting against Him. When this devastating exposure became revealed from the Scriptures themselves the first reaction of Papal Rome was to try to destroy the Bible. They thus gathered all the early English Bibles they could lay their hands on and had public burnings of them. One of these ceremonies was conducted by Bishop Tunshill in AD 1530, at Paul’s Cross, London, when William Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament was burnt publicly. However, when this endeavor eventually proved fruitless they began to massacre and burn at the stake the living witness of the Truth, two of the most notable of whom were Bishops Ridley and Latimer who were burnt alive at Oxford in 1555 AD. during Catholic Mary’s reign.

When it was seen that both these drastic measures failed to stem the incoming tide of Truth and of the Kingdom of God on earth the only procedure remaining to the Papal system was to endeavor to misinterpret all such verses of scripture which foretold and condemned it’s system making the condemnation contained in these verses appear to fall if possible on some other party instead of themselves. This endeavor however produced two opposing schools of thought even within their own ranks. One of these schools is known as:

The Pretorists (Praeterists, Preterism)

Pretorists declared that the anti-Christ power of Scriptures had already come and gone being fulfilled in the Roman Emperors Vesparian and Titus, who had attacked the Jews, ransacked Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple and slaughtered over one million people in the year 70 AD.

The Futurists (Futurism)

The other school known as the Futurists said that this great power must be future, teaching that it would not appear until the Second Advent of Jesus Christ. The originator of this second erroneous thesis was a Spanish Jesuit priest, Francisco Ribera (1590). As he attempted to advance the Roman Catholic Counter Reformation, Ribera was embarrassed by the persistent Protestant identification of the Papacy with the Antichrist. To counter this he revived a futuristic interpretation for the Book of Revelations (he placed all but the first three chapters in the future). Antichrist was restored to a person and an individual ruler (not the Pope) who would arise in the future. Antichrist would reign for three and one half years and his teaching was embellished with a rebuilding of a temple at Jerusalem, revival of the Levitical Laws and Sacrifices, plus various Jewish aspects in addition to the wholly unfulfilled persecution of the Church. This futuristic interpretation was popularized by Cardinal Bellarmine and became widely accepted within Romanism.

The Reformers (Historicists, Historicism)

Quite distinct from the two foregoing schools, were the Reformers, who were without exception known as Historicists, that is to say those who believed that the Book of Revelation foretold a perfect sequence of the history of Christendom throughout this present evil age from beginning to end. Also the Book of Revelation is a revelation of Jesus Christ from his Ascension in power to His Consummation when He returns in Glory. The Book of Revelation as taught by the Reformers exposed with paramount certainty the complete failure of both pagan and papal Rome and especially the utter and complete destruction of the latter (Revelations chapters 17 and 18)

How Dispensational Futurism Entered Into Protestant Christianity

The Reformers to a man, fiercely contested the futuristic thesis propounded by Jesuit Ribera, whose commentary on the Book of Revelation is in the Cambridge Library and all Futurist Commentaries since then are based on it. However it was left to another Jesuit, Emmanuel Lacunza (1731-1801) to complete the deception and through him Dispensational Futurism entered Protestant Christianity. At the time of the overthrow of Jerusalem in AD. 70, Rabbi Jochanon Ben Zakkai was carried from Jerusalem in a casket to Vespasian, who granted him permission to make his abode at Jamnai near the sea. Under his brilliant leadership, Judaism was revived and restored. Jamnai became the headquarters of the world Jewry, and remained such for four centuries when it was transferred to Babylonia where a heavy Jewish population had remained since the captivity. Rabbi Jochanon Ben Zakkai revived the Talmud and his was known as the Palestine Talmud and it’s compositors were Rabbi Jochanon Ben Zakkai, Akiba, Meir, Judah the Great, being Rabbi Judah, whose title was “Ha nasi-the Prince”. Babylonia remained the center of world Judaism for the next several centuries, but as they became a “state within a state” the Persian kings finally rose against her, some leaders were hanged, Talmudic schools were closed and the striving Talmudists fled, finding refuge in the city of Cordova in Spain. Cordova became the world capital of Babylonized Judaism for several centuries and here Jewry enjoyed her golden age. Jewish influence was felt in both “church and state” and in Spain thousands of Jews called “Marannas” joined the Roman Catholic institution while secretly adhering to Judaism. It was against this background that Rabbi Ben Ezra later wrote his book which altered the whole course of Christian History. Posing as a converted Jew under the name of Rabbi Ben Ezra he was the author of a book called “The Coming Messiah in Glory and Majesty”. This book had a profound effect upon prophetic teaching during the early years of the 19th century. Strange of course to relate, he was neither a Rabbi nor a converted Jew for the startling truth is that Juan—Josefat Ben Ezra was the pseudonym behind which hid the Spanish Jesuit Emmanual Lacunza. In his book Lacunza advanced the holy future “Day of the Lord” interpretation of the Apocalypse. (This was similar to the Ribera Futurist scheme in which he had tried spike the mighty guns of the Reformation and was virtually based upon his writings). It was also to Lacunza alias Ben Ezra that the two stages theory of the Second Advent of Jesus Christ owes it’s origin and some competent Historians are of the opinion that its twin theory “The Secret Rapture” may yet be traced to him. The London publication in 1816 of a complete Spanish edition was the prelude to the advent of Dispensational Futurism. Not long after Dr. S.R. Maitland, Librarian to the Archbishop of Canterbury, issued a series of pamphlets assailing the HISTORIC PROTESTANT Interpretation of Prophecy and quite evidently based upon Ben Ezra’s book, “The Coming Messiah in Glory and Majesty”.

Other members of the Anglo Catholic party such as De Burgh, Newman, and others were naturally attracted to it. In 1827 Edward Irving, a Scottish Presbyterian Minister who was based in London, translated the whole work into English. It is a striking thing that a short time after this the eloquent Irving was stirring the metropolis as with flaming oratory he preached the “Secret Rapture”. Later in London, in the congregation of Edward Irving there broke out a serious of emotional exhibitions, which included the communication of ecstatic utterances. One of these was to have widespread results, for soon after 1830, a woman, while speaking in tongues announced “The Revelation” that the true Church would be caught up (Raptured) to Heaven before the tribulation and before Christ’s Return to Earth. Edward Irving was deposed from the Ministry and died in 1834, but not before his “Pre—Tribulationalism” had been introduced at the Power Court Meetings. Dr. Tegalies tells us, “I am not aware that there was a definite teaching that there would be a secret Rapture of the Church at a secret coming until this was given forth as an utterance in Mr. Irving’s church, from what was there received as being the voice of the Spirit. But what the brilliant though tragically misguided Irving regarded as the voice of the Spirit was nothing more than the spirits of the Jesuit which he himself so lately aroused”. Indeed this entire congregation was later to defect to Roman Catholicism.

Meanwhile the young John Nelson Darby, a former Church of Ireland Clergyman and an extreme Anglo-Catholic, had not remained unaffected by what was happening. At the famous prophetic Conferences first at Albury Park, Dublin, in 1825, then Powercourt House in 1829. Darby met up with the leaders of the Brethren movement, the Irvingites, De Burge and others who had been influenced by Ben Ezra’s book. J. N. Darby emerged as a powerful expositor and authority on prophetic matters. The Conferences were unanimous in the expectation of a future Antichrist. Darby, whose course had taken an evangelical turn, was later to succeed in fusing the diverse elements of this new “Futurism” into a scheme of his own, which he liked to call “DISPENSATIONAL TRUTH.” But though it is often claimed that he recovered “the truth” of the two stages and the Secret Rapture concept of the Second Advent, the hard fact is that he borrowed these from the Roman Catholic Jesuit Priest, namely Manuel Lacunza, and his eccentric disciple Edward Irving. John Nelson Darby was followed by Dr. C. I. Scofield, who compiled what is known as the Scofield Reference Bible. Dr. Scofield was born in 1843 and entered the legal profession and was a practicing lawyer at the time of his conversion in the 36th year of his age. Three years later he abandoned his work and was ordained by a Congressional Council. Some years later with the assistance of an editorial board consisting of devoted Christian leaders, was produced the Scofield Reference Bible. It was first published in 1909 and revised in 1917, and again in more recent years. It is the Bible of the Dispensationalists and has been criticized by those who labor in the Churches as well as those on the Mission Fields of the world as “theories that are making the oral teaching of our Lord of NO EFFECT and that are BLIGHTING BIBLE STUDY all over the world. Many are forced to leave Prophecy alone for fear of confusing the Dispensational applications. Perhaps the worst feature of Dispensationalism is that it looks on all who do not hold it’s viewpoint as heretics or religious liberals and modernists who deny the Bible altogether. Godly Ministers have been excommunicated from their denominations, devoted Missionaries have been dropped by Mission Boards and Sunday School Teachers of unquestionable orthodoxy have been dismissed simply because they have come to have reservations about the scriptural soundness of the Darby-Scofield innovations. Little wonder that Alexander Reece speaks of them as”theories that are blighting Christian Fellowship all over the world”.

Thus Ribera and Ben Ezra have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams for the attention of thousands of Protestants became deflected from the Papacy and a future infidel Antichrist is looked for and the historic Protestant view handed down by the Reformers is despised by many. These are the hard facts of history and a Protestantism saturated with Ribera’s Futurism and Scofield’s Dispensationalism, is not the Protestantism of the Reformers, and has thus opened the door to Protestant-Roman dialogue and the return of the Protestants to the Roman fold via the Ecumenical movement and the World Council of Churches. The Protestant Churches of this day are not Dispensational-Futurists in their theological makeup, but few will use the Book of Revelation as did the famous Reformers. What a great loss to our cause! The Christian scholar H. Gratten Guinness (1880) said, “The Futurist interpretation is Roman Catholic and unscriptural”. Another Protestant Futurist preacher and a DD. at that, admitted that the Futurist Dispensational school of prophecy was indeed founded by Roman Catholic Jesuits but, says he, “What next? Then so are the mass and purgatory scriptural. How unthinkable!”

A Welsh Baptist Evangelist, Rev. J. G. Morgans said “Futurism is of the darkness of hell itself.” Dr. Howard Taylor, son of J. Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission said, “How any Protestant preachers can believe the Roman Catholic inspired scheme of Revelation, passes all comprehension. Dispensational Futurism is a colossal fraud and is still confusing Protestants and sheltering Papacy. Our Lord Jesus said not one word of rapturing the Church away in secret, seven years before his appearing or of His returning the second time to give the world when all will be converted. He did say,”Behold I come quickly and my reward is with Me to give to every man according to his work.“( Rev. 22:12). His word tells us that His Second Advent is in Judgment, for He comes in flaming fire taking vengeance on them who know not God and who obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thess 1:7-9), and His word also tells us” But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? (2 Pet. 3:10-12). Our Lord never promised any future glory for this world, but only a fiery bath of destruction when all will be destroyed in readiness for the New Heavens and the New Earth (2 Pet. 3:13).

All Christless doctrines are false, no matter how many good men and “eminent” Bible teachers endorse them. The Canadian I.C.C.C. defender of the faith Dr. T.T. Shields said, “The Futurist- Dispensational doctrines are figments of the imagination. I class them as heresy”. Christ is not coming the second time to give the unsaved a second chance, in a second area of mercy for mankind. When Christ comes, The Day of Judgment comes and time ends.” (Matt. 13:41-43, Rom. 8:20-26, 9:28, 1Pet 4:5, 2Pet 322-16, 1 Thess. 1:7-9) Most of the Reformers with [Luther], Calvin, the Puritans, Whitfield, Spurgeon, Warfield, Matthew Henry, are all in the company of renowned Christian men who utterly refuted the false theory of an earthly Jewish Kingdom. It was considered that Augustine was the most gifted theologian since apostolic days. In his book “The City of God” he so laid the Jewish Kingdom Ghost that it did not raise it’s head for hundreds of years and was not revived until Ribera.

The Reformation And Confessions Of Faith

As the Reformation spread into the various countries of Europe these nations drew up their various confessions of faith:

The Augsberg Confession

This German confession was drawn up by Melanchthon and approved by Luther and was submitted to the rulers and emperors of Germany, and the Lutheran Church. it among other things condemned Millenniumism as a Jewish opinion rejecting it along with other Anabaptist notions.

The English Confession Of Edward VI

From this came the 39 articles of the English Church, and also condemned Millenniumism in these terms, “Those who attempt to revive the fable of the Millenarians oppose the sacred Scriptures and throw themselves headlong into Jewish absurdities.”

Calvin’s Institutes

In the chapter on the final resurrection he wrote; “That Satan has endeavored to corrupt the doctrine of the Resurrection of the dead by various fictions.” and adds, “not to mention that he began to oppose it in the days of Apostle Paul and not long after arose the Millenarians who limited Christ’s Reign to one thousand years. Their fiction is too puerile to require or deserve refutation.”

The Belgic Confession

This confession was adopted by Belgium and Holland, and regarding the Second Advent of Christ said, “That it will not take place until the full number of the Elect is complete.” Thus guard against the pre-millennium scheme, namely that there will be people saved after Christ comes for His own.

The Second Helvic Confession

Quote: “We are to believe that at the last day there shall be a general Resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust, when they that are found alive in a moment shall be changed, and the selfsame bodies of the dead which are laid in the grave being then again united to their souls forever, shall be raised by the power of Christ. Immediately after the Resurrection shall follow the general and final Judgment of Angels and men, the day and the hour whereof no man knoweth, that all may watch and pray and be ever ready for the Coming of the Lord.” (Acts 24:15, 1 Cor.15:51-53, 1 Thess. 4:15—17, John 5:28-29)

In the light of the foregoing array of evidences from the Reformation Confessions of Faith it is evident that there is not one line of support for the Dispensational Jewish Kingdom heresy and it is not surprising when its advocates attack the Ministry, the Church or the Denomination to which one may belong. Says one Dispensationalist: “Christendom is dark and a dreadful anomaly; it is the corruption of the very best thing and therefore is the very worst corruption. It is the masterpiece of Satan, the corrupter of the truth of God, and a destroyer of the souls of men. It is a trap, a snare, a stumbling block, the darkest moral blot in the universe of God. It is worse by far than Judaism, worse by far than all the darkest forms of paganism.”

Then again referring to the Ministry this same writer says, “We most certainly should keep clear of the evil of Clericalism, against this dreadful thing we solemnly warn our readers. No human language could possibly depict the evil of it.” Referring to the Church the same writer says, “The Church has failed utterly. It has fallen from it’s high and holy position. It is under Judgment; it cannot be cheered by the church’s proper hope, but is threatened by the world’s terrible doom.” Again “but alas the professing church is sunk lower and become darker than even the world itself.” (Quoted from papers of the Lord’s Coming by C. H. M. and published by Moody Press, pages 42, 82 and 87). So we see that Dispensationalism is directly opposed to the Ministry of the denominational Church. It is rightly defined by Dr. J. G. Voss, “As that false system of Bible interpretation, by the writings of J.N. Darby and Scofield Reference Bible which divides the history of man into 7 distinct periods of Dispensations, and affirms that in each period God deals with the human race on the basis of one specific principle. Apart from the above, Dispensationalists proclaim the restoration of the State of Israel along with all the trappings of Judiasm. Dr. Patrick Fairbanks states that,”This doctrine was foreign to Christian theology during the first seventeen hundred years of the Churches existence.” The fundamental teaching of the New Testament was what lead the Fathers with one voice and all Christian writers down to the 17th century to reject the Jewish expectation, both of a territorial Restoration and a Revived Judaism.”

The idea of Israel’s Restoration has been injected into Christian doctrine by an extreme literalistic school of Bible interpreters, who, in the words of Gregory of Nyssa have, “enveloped their heart with the Jewish veil.” The hope of Talmudic Israel has become the keystone in the prophetic scheme of modern Dispensationalism, as represented by such men as J. N. Darby and C. I. Scofield. The Dispensationalist is blinded to a truth basic in Christian theology, namely, that the Church is the proper sphere of prophecy. The racists among the Bible exegetes make the Church a parenthesis between two Jewish dispensations, namely that of the Law and the Kingdom. A well known American Dispensationalist, Dr. L. Sperry Chafer wrote, “that after the Christian Dispensation has run it course there will be a regathering of Israel and the Restoration of Judaism.” (From book quoted: Dispensationalism by Loraine Boettner, page 413).

The heresy of Dispensationalism results from the lack of proper understanding of the nature of the Old Covenant and it’s relation to the New. The Dispensationalists have never properly evaluated the change of Governments at Calvary. Rev. Clarence Larkin, one of the best known of all Dispensationalists wrote: “The New Covenant has not been made. It is to be made with Israel after they get back to their own land. It is promised in Jeremiah 31:31-37. It is unconditional and will cover the Millennium and the New Heaven and New Earth.” (see Dispensational Truth, page 151), and again, “God has been trying to set up a visible Kingdom on this earth ever since the creation of man, but when 600 years of the times of the Gentiles had run their course God again made an attempt to set up His Kingdom on earth and the angel Gabriel announced to many the birth of a King. Thirty years later John the Baptist preached the Kingdom is at Hand! The king manifested did likewise, later by the twelve, then the seventy proclaimed the same thing. But the King was rejected and crucified and the setting up of the Kingdom was postponed.” (Dispensational Truth, page 85, part 1)

What Is The Traditional And Orthodox Position Regarding Biblical Interpretation?

This is well stated in the writings of the following:

De Witt

De Witt wrote: “The Old Testament is a great prophecy. A great type of Him who was to come and has come.”

Dr. L. Berkhof

Dr. L. Berkhof wrote: “The theocratic nation itself was merely a type of the spiritual realities of a better day, and therefore destined to vanish as soon as the anti-type made its appearance. The Restoration of the ancient theocracy in the future would simply mean the recurrence of the type” (The Kingdom of God, page 170)

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Charles Haddon Spurgeon says: “In any part of the Christian Church all National distinctions are swept away and we are no more foreigners and strangers, but Fellow Citizens of the saints and the household of God. (Eph. 2:12-22). God has leveled as the Gentiles. He has given us all blessing which belong to Abraham’s seed. Oh! What a blessing it is that all national and ceremonial distinctions have gone down the Jews and made them stand in the same class forever, and Christ is all in all who believe in Him.” (Gal. 3:26-29)

Dr. G. Campbell Morgan

Dr. G. Campbell Morgan wrote: “I am convinced that all the promises made to Israel have found, are finding, and will find their fulfillment in the Church. It is true that in the past in my expositions, I gave a definite place to Israel in the purpose of God. I have now come to the conviction as I have just said, that, it is the new and spiritual Israel that is intended, i.e. ”The Church of Jesus the Messiah.” “The glorious promises as found in Psalm. 72, Isaiah 60:63, Ezekiel chapters 37 and 38, Zechariah chapters 10 to 14, prefigure the Lord Jesus and His people in the New Israel, the Church, in this Christian Era (Acts 4:24-25, and 2 Cor. 6:12). God has excommunicated the Jewish Nation, and Christ will never again be found within a Jewish Temple.”

Professor J. I. Packer

Professor J. I. Packer M.A.D.P.H. of Bristol College says: “Dispensationalism is a monstrosity.”

Dr H. C. Slade

Dr H. C. Slade ex-president of the I.C.C.C. said: “The Dispensational doctrines do indeed present a serious problem to the Christian Churches. Some of these doctrines are nothing short of heresy.”

Dr. W. Perkiser

Dr. W. Perkiser (The Pasadena Bible Institute) said, “Dispensationalism is one of the most ingenious systems of interpretation ever devised to evade the plain statements of God’s Holy Word.”

Prof. F. Bruce

Prof. F. Bruce M.A.D.D. The Open Brethren Evangelical scholar wrote: “The Darby, Scofield influence has not been for the good of the Brethren movement. There are many Brethren today who are neither Futurist nor Dispensationalist. The Scofield Bible is shot through with Dispensationalism.”

Mr. Philip Mauro

Mr. Philip Mauro, an American Lawyer said, “Dispensationalism may be fascinating as a work of art, but as a Revelation it rests upon a foundation of sand. The entire system of Dispensational teaching is modernistic in the strictest sense. It is modernism, moreover of a pernicious sort, such that it must have a Bible of it’s own (”The Scofield Reference Bible“) for the propagation of it’s peculiar doctrines, since they are not found in the Word of God.”

It should be quite clear from the above that there is not sufficient Scriptural ground for the expectation of a Millennium, and the Bible favors the idea that the present Spiritual Kingdom of God will be followed immediately by the Kingdom of God in it’s consummate and eternal form. The Kingdom of Jesus Christ is represented as an eternal and not a temporal Kingdom. (Isa. 9:7, Dan. 7:14, Lk. 1:33, Heb. 1:8, 2 Pet. 1:11, Rev. 11:15). To enter into the Kingdom of the future, is to enter upon one’s Eternal State (Matt. 7:21-22), to enter life (Matt. 18:8-9), and to be saved (Mk. 10:25-26, Jn. 3:3) This is the most universal and widely accepted view and is the only one that is either expressed or implied in the great historical confessions of the Church, and has always been the prevalent view in Reformed circles. Therefore, let us earnestly contend for the Faith once delivered to the saints, and we be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. Let us not give heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth, but speak the things which become sound doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, and sound speech which cannot be condemned. Thus we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who gave himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself, a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Seeing therefore that we are compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which doth so easily beset us and run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our Faith (Hebrews 12:1- 2)

Copyright Notice

Written and Compiled by: H. C. Martin 33 Elizabeth Street, Parkes, N.S.W., 2870 3rd EDITION, 1973.

This edition was published 2020 by The Lutheran Library Publishing Ministry LutheranLibrary.org. Some (hopefully unobtrusive) updates to spelling, punctuation, and paragraph divisions have been made. Unabridged.

Originally published 1973 by the author, H. C. Martin.

This is the continuation of the series, Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms – By Albert Close and the previous post in the series, The Revelation an Acted Prophecy – Western Europe and Asia the Stage.

Revelation 17:4  And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

Purple and scarlet are the official colours of the bishops and cardinals of the Church of Rome. The author visited St. Peter’s Church, Rome, in order to see for himself. True to this prediction, the officiating prelates were robed in purple, scarlet, and cloth of gold. This can also be seen at any important Roman Catholic service.

The Church of Rome decks her bishops and cardinals and principal images with gold and jewels. The Bambino or image of the infant Christ in Rome, for example, is loaded with jewels.

ROME’S TWO REMARKABLE MEDALS.

Pope Innocent XI. in 1680 struck a medal representing the Church of Rome as a woman, standing at Rome, extending to the nations of the earth in her right hand a cup containing her sacrament, the Host.

In 1825 Pope Leo XII. struck another representing the Church of Rome as a woman seated on the water covered globe extending the same cup of abominations to the nations. These medals may both be seen in the British Museum and in the Vatican, Rome.

The Spirit of God foresaw that this Church would employ these symbols, and revealed it to St. John over 1800 years ago. “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee.”

The irradiating rays of light shooting from the cup symbolize the central doctrine of the Church of Rome—the pretended “real presence of Christ” in the sacrament of that church. The Spirit of God in this verse emphatically pronounces the contents of the cup Rome offers, “an abomination,” and not a sacrament. Here, therefore, we have what God thinks of the doctrine of transubstantiation – it is an abomination!

THE ST. BARTHOLOMEW MASSACRE, 1572.

The Church of Rome undoubtedly is the Mother or chief idolatrous system of this dispensation. This prophecy implies that she has daughter churches also, made drunk, or in other words, robbed of their sober senses, and made incapable of distinguishing between truth and error. This explains why otherwise well balanced and scholarly men are ensnared at times by this “Church;” as the Scriptures affirm, she makes them drunk. This is no mere empty figure of speech. What other condition of heart or mind could lead intelligent and even scholarly men to believe and propagate so vehemently the doctrine of the pretended Real Presence of Christ in the bread and wine after so called consecration? The secret of it all is, that there is a mighty deceiving satanic spirit behind this doctrine which drowns the reason. This explains why men are so mightily gripped by this strange idolatrous doctrine.

Obverse and Reverse of the St. Bartholomew Medal. PAPAL ROME Offering French Protestants the alternative of the CRUCIFIX or the SWORD.

The St. Bartholomew Medal, struck by Pope Gregory XIII. in 1572 to commemorate the massacre of the French Huguenots. Note, the blood-drunken slayer holds the crucifix in one hand and the drawn sword in the other.

(The End)

All sections of Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms by Albert Close

This is the continuation of the series, Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms – By Albert Close and the previous post in the series, Who are the Kings of the East Mentioned in Revelation 16:12?

Furthermore, the Revelation is not merely a written symbolic prophecy, but also an acted prophecy, acted like a drama on the stage, with supernatural beings, as actors and the area of the old Roman Empire as the stage.

In Chapters 1 and 4, St. John is distinctly informed that the scenes about to pass before him in vision prefigure events to be fulfilled in real history during the coming centuries, viz.:—the command to St. John.

Revelation 1:19: Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter (i.e. after St. John’s day, A.D. 96).

St. John then records the great prophetic drama as he saw it enacted before him, just as we today witness historical scenes which have transpired, passing before us like a panorama on the cinema screen. He constantly uses the words “I heard” and “I saw,” just as we do, when we see a procession at Military or Naval Manoeuvres and describe them to our friends. The first Animated Pictures were seen in Patmos by St. John in A.D. 96!—in a Divine Vision.

All the figures were in action at different stages as hearers or speakers, and John described the scene.

In this Divine book and in Daniel, the sun, moon, stars, earth, fire, falling stars, winds, storms, lightning, hail, rain, waters, sea, rivers, seas and rivers of blood, floods, dry land, overflowing of waters, fountains, islands, trees, mountains, wilderness, beasts, as the lion, bear, leopard, goat, with their heads, horns, feet, wings, teeth, etc., are all symbolic; they are symbols of things of a different nature, though things analogous to these, or in some sense resembling them. These all refer to the history in the area of the Four Beasts of Daniel 7, not to the whole world, according to the Reformers’ school of interpretation. The area of the Four Beasts of Daniel 7 and Revelation 13-18 determines the area in the world when drawn on a map. These reach to the Second Advent. (The Second coming of Christ!)

On this landscape as a stage, a miniature of the great world stage on which this great prophetic drama was afterwards fulfilled by centuries of real history, St. John saw symbolic beings performing symbolic actions. The performers included Heavenly, Earthly, and Satanic Beings, all of whom are symbolic and representative.

Christ is represented as a Lamb, and Satan sometimes as a Serpent, sometimes as a Dragon inspiring the Beast. The true Church of Christ, comprised of all who had been born of the Spirit, in all churches and all religions, including those in the Roman Church as a Bride arrayed in spotless white. (Rev. 18:4) Her great arch-enemy the apostate Church of Rome as a foul, bloodstained Harlot, having her seat of power at the Seven-Hilled city of Rome, clad in purple and scarlet and decked with jewels. The kings of the Eastern and Western Roman Empire or Roman “earth” and their armies, are also seen playing their parts at different stages. In short, in so far as it was to affect the Church of Christ, St. John saw in symbolic vision the rehearsal of the great world drama to be afterwards played in real history, by nations, churches* and religious systems, from St. John’s day to the consummation of all things. This of course does not imply Divine fore-ordination, but it does emphatically imply Divine foreknowledge, as in the case of the Crucifixion of Christ, which was clearly foretold hundreds of years in advance.

* The same principle of Divine revelation appears to have been employed by the Almighty when revealing the story of the Creation to the original Seer, as recorded in the first chapters of Genesis. In Genesis, the past history of the earth and the human race was revealed in symbolic language, whilst in Daniel and The Revelation, the future was unfolded to Daniel and St. John in like symbolic actions and language.

Who are the Kings of the Whole World?

In Aug., 1943, Bartholomew’s Atlas gave a total of 183 countries; 134 nations, large and small, as now officially in the Second World War. Divided in Aug. 1943 by the complexities of the situation into four categories. The principal countries are:—

1. The United States of America ranged against Germany, Italy, Japan, Manchukuo (the Japanese puppet state in Manchuria from 1932 to 1945).
2. Britain, Canada, Union of South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, Free French and China against Germany, Italy, Japan, Manchukuo, Finland, Romania, Croatia, Hungary, Bulgaria.
3. Russia, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, Ethiopia, Persia, against Germany, Italy, Finland, Romania, Croatia, and Hungary.
4. Mexico, Costa Rica, Cuba, Haita, El Salvador, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Brazil, Uruguay, Panama, Bolivia, Chile, against Japan, Germany, and Manchukuo.

The most important neutrals include: Argentina, Columbia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and Venezuela. They also may be soon drawn in. If this comes to pass that will be another important sign indicated by Jesus Christ of the Approaching End of the Age.

There were 134 countries, large and small, at War in 1942, and 42 neutral according to the Times. They also may be drawn in before the end. In the 1914-18 Great War there were only 17 countries represented at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.

The Divine Interpretation of Prophecy.

Here is the interpretation given to St. John in Patmos.

Revelation 16:14: For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walked naked, and they see his shame.

16 And they gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. (This valley in Palestine is only 25-miles in length. It is symbolic).

17 And the Seventh Angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne saying, It is done.

Christ and Present Day Signs in the World.

18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.

19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell; and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.

20 And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.

21 And great hail, every stone about the weight of a talent, cometh down out of heaven upon men: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof is exceeding great.

(Continued in The Purple and Scarlet Robes of the Bishops of the Church of Rome. )

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This is the continuation of the series, Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms – By Albert Close and the previous post in the series, The Final Revelation to Men by Jesus Christ: The Apocalypse.

And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.

Little doubt the Kings of the East are the independent Kingdoms or Republics which have arisen out of the ruins of the Eastern Roman Empire, and of the Turkish Empire, during the last 140 years (up to 1944), due to the steady drying up of that great Empire symbolized in the Apocalypse (Book of Revelation) as the Great River Euphrates. The following are their names, with the dates when each broke from Turkey: GREECE 1820; EGYPT 1840; BULGARIA 1877; ROMANIA 1878; LEVANT 1867; CYRENACIA 1912; PALESTINE 1917; ALBANIA 1919; YUGOSLAVIA 1919; IRAQ 1923; HEJAZ (a region in the west of Saudi Arabia, containing Mecca and Medina) 1926; YEMEN 1927; PERSIA 1923. All of these Kings of the East have ceased during the last century and a quarter to own submission to the Sultan of Turkey at Constantinople. All of these 12 kingdoms belonged to the Mohammedan Eastern Roman Empire, which has now dried up.

The Turkish Empire dried up at the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, when she was completely stripped of all these countries at the close of the 1914-18 War.

The Pope’s Temporal Power over the Ten Kingdoms of the Western Empire dried up also in 1870, when the Temporal Power fell. Today (1944) the Pope rules over the Vatican City only, of 800 people and 108 acres of territory; but he rules spiritually as the False Prophet over 300,000,000 (now 1.2 billion) worshippers. Herein lies his world-wide power through his 500,000 (now decreased to 407,872 according to https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2023-10/fides-catholic-church-statistics-world-mission-sunday.html) Latin Priests.

A false prophet is one who proclaims as Divine Truth a false Gospel in Christ’s Name. See Revelation 17 and 18.

GROWTH IN INTERPRETATION OF SYMBOLS.

As already stated, if we translate the symbolic scenes in the book of Revelation into plain non-figurative ones, by comparing them with the symbols and emblems of other Scriptures, and also with the symbols and emblems employed by the nations and great religions which have arisen and played their part in the history of the last 1900 years within the bounds of the Roman Empire, they become the religious and political history of that great period, so far as it affects the Church of Christ.

Papal Rome corrupted for centuries the Western Roman Empire, whilst the Mohammedan religion corrupted the Eastern Empire. Both as political and religious powers are now nearing their end.

The Napoleonic Wars of 1789—1815, and the Great War of 1914—19, are both regarded by expositors as having been fulfilled as Divine retribution on Papal and Mohammedan Europe and Asia, within the area of the Roman Empire. Revelation 16:1-11.

Both have been equally important as it is shown on the Map of the World, when read in conjunction with the history of the past 140 years. Both religions have been cruel persecutors of God’s people.

The world-wide preaching of the Gospel by the Missionary Societies was in 1,053 languages as contrasted with only 71 languages in 1800 A.D.

(Matthew 24:14) “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”

The drying up of the Euphrates in Revelation 16:12 symbolized the drying up of the Turkish Empire, by the loss of 14 Provinces, thus leaving Turkey with a population of 16,000,000 and a loss of 95,000,000 since 1820.

Revelation 16:12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.

In Revelation 16:13,14, the three unclean Spirits of Devils, the Dragon, the Beast and the False Prophet acting through their human agents, gather the nations of the whole world to battle as never before in all history. These three may prefigure the Nazi, Fascist and Papal Powers at War today. They are all against Christ.

(Note: I believe today an alternate interpretation could be Papal, Fascism (extreme right) and Communism / Socialism (extreme left). The common denominator of all three is totalitarianism. The Devil is a control freak and denies us any independent thought or action outside of his governance. But an even simpler interpretation would be, the Dragon is Satan, the Beast is Satan’s kingdom on earth, and the False Prophet is Satan’s spokesperson, aka the Pope and his priests.)

In 1922 Mussolini founded the Fascist Movement and became Dictator of Italy. In 1929 by the Lateran Treaty, he made the Pope a Temporal Sovereign over the Vatican City and grounds, with a population of about 450 and a territory of 108 acres! Mussolini then voted the sum of £19,000,000 in settlement of the Roman dispute since 1870, when the Pope was dethroned as a Temporal Sovereign. Mussolini then made the Pope a puppet Sovereign.

In 1934 Hitler met Mussolini in Venice, and on Aug. 2nd, 1934, Hitler succeeded Hindenburg as President. These three Evil Spirits then entered on a European career of conquest and invasion, with the Jesuits in the background.

In 1935 Hitler and Mussolini united with General Franco, with the connivance of the Pope and the Jesuits in overthrowing the Democratic Government in Spain.

THAT GREAT DAY OF GOD ALMIGHTY.

In Sept. 1943 Mussolini was deposed and his dream of a Revived Roman Empire came to an end.

Mussolini also attacked and overran Abyssinia with the most revolting cruelty. Here again the Pope and the Jesuits supported Mussolini in all these abominations. They also expelled all Protestant Missionaries.

Here we have the 3 Evil Spirits mentioned in Revelation which in 1939 drove Europe and the whole 5 other continents into this World War.

These three great World-disturbers have all originated within the realms of the old Roman Empire.

There can be no question that these three are world figures today and all are Roman Catholic. The False Prophet undoubtedly prefigures the Pope as a pseudo-Christian prophet or leader as distinct from the other two, who are purely wicked political imposters. Mussolini was a pseudo-Caesar, and Hitler worships the Nordic Pagan intuition cult. These three are all enemies of Christ.

Revelation 16:12-14, seem to be fulfilling before our very eyes. Are not the Kings of the whole world gathering to battle today as predicted in Revelation 16:12-14, led by three wicked Powers, which have already drawn in a total of 134 countries, large and small, embracing almost the entire globe. Verse 14 reads “For they are the spirits of devils working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole world to gather them to the Battle of that great day of God Almighty.”

Notice the sharp distinction between “the kings of the earth” and in the next sentence, “and of the whole world.” These clearly refer to two different groups of nations and spheres of action. The one refers to the kings within the bounds of the Roman Earth, or old Roman Empire, and the other to the whole of the nations of the entire globe which includes the Far East, India, Burma, China and Japan, etc.

This great World War is the first great war in which all six Continents have been involved at the same time. That seems to explain verse 14 exactly. Are not the kings or rulers of the whole world gathering to battle today, as predicted here, impelled by three wicked Powers, viz : the Nazi, Fascist and Papal. The Fascist was a Political party, the Papacy a combined Religious and Political
Power masquerading as Christian. These three Powers have undoubtedly caused this World War. Russia, it must not be forgotten, is a Power outside the Roman Empire. Russia is a Power belonging to the “WHOLE WORLD” Area as distinct from THE KINGS OF THE EARTH, ie., the Roman “Earth” of the Apocalypse.

When the Western Roman Empire fell in 476 A.D. it was succeeded by the Western Papal Ten Kingdoms with the Pope at the head.

The Eastern Roman Empire fell at the storming of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 A.D. This was the complete end of the Roman Empire, both East and West, From 1453 to 1923 A.D. the Turkish or Mohammedan Power ruled most of the nations of the former Eastern Roman Empire—now the Kings of the East.

Today Turkey rules none but her own homeland. The Pope rules over 108 acres and about 450 subjects.

In the first verse of the Revelation St. John tells us the book is written in symbols, i.e.: in a language of signs.

Revelation 1:1: The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him, to show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass; and He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John.

Revelation 4:1: After this I looked and, behold, a door was opened in heaven; and the first voice when I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.

To signify is to show by signs, to intimate your meaning, not in plain literal words, but by signs and symbols.

Now in the language of signs and symbols, such for example as that employed by the Navy, Army or R.A.F., or by Merchant ships, when signaling at sea, each sign and symbol has a definite meaning, which can only be discerned and understood by translating it into ordinary language, by means of an explanatory key. In reading Daniel or the Revelation we are bound to do the same.

EACH NATION HAS ITS OWN SYMBOLS.

For example, the Sharp Sword proceeding out of the mouth of the King of Kings in Revelation 19:15, is not a sword of steel, but a symbol only. There is no such creature in nature as a Beast with Seven Heads and Ten Horns, as in Daniel and Revelation. Again they are symbols only.

As stated on page 4 of this book, we must translate the symbolic language into ordinary language, by comparing these symbols and emblems with the other Scriptures where the same are employed and explained. We must also be familiar with the symbols and emblems employed by the nations and religious systems which have arisen on the theater of the Roman world since the book of Revelation was written. The Roman Catholic and Mohammedan religions have unconsciously employed in their national and religious life and history, the very symbols and emblems used in Revelation to prefigure the events. Especially is this true of the Church of Rome and of the Papal nations of Western Europe, and also of the Mohammedans of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The Great Revealer foresaw the use of these national and religious symbols by these powers and revealed them to St. John, for the guidance and comfort of His people down the ages. See Papal and Mohammedan emblems, medals, coins, etc., in this book as evidence.

(Continued in The Revelation an Acted Prophecy – Western Europe and Asia the Stage. )

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“Apocalypse” has come to be used popularly as a synonym for catastrophe, but the Greek word apokálypsis, from which it is derived, means a revelation.” – Definition from Wikipedia. In older Bibles, the last Book of the Bible is called The Apocalypse rather than Revelation. It means the same thing.

This is the continuation of the series, Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms – By Albert Close and the previous post in the series, Rome’s Attack on the British Empire and the United States.

This short article is one of the best explanations for why the Book of Revelation is so hard to understand! It was purposely written in code. It’s a prophecy that spans from the time of the Apostle John all the way to the description of the “holy city, new Jerusalem” that has come out of Heaven to the New Earth! That school of interpretation of Revelation is called the Historicist view. That was the standard view of the Protestants from the 16th to the 19th century. It was only in the 20th century that the Futurist view became popular. The Futurist view says most of prophecies of the Book of Revelation have yet to be fulfilled. Why do people who hold to the Futurist view think that? It’s because they have been led astray by John Nelson Darby and the Scofield Reference Bible which espouses the Futurist view – a doctrine cooked up by a Jesuit priest, Francesco Ribera in the 16th century to stop the Protestants from calling the Popes of Rome the Antichrist and the Man of Sin of Second Thessalonians chapter 2. Talk about a great deception! I won’t get into this subject further in this article because I already wrote about it extensively on this website over the years.

From the Gospels we now turn to the final detailed revelation of God’s purposes and plans in working out the redemption of man and bringing about the establishment of His Kingdom in this world, as revealed in the Book of Revelation. Christ said to His disciples: “I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. -John 16:12″ He revealed these things, 63 years later in vision, in cipher to St. John in the Isle of Patmos in A.D. 96.

According to the Reformers and their successors as interpreters today, the Books of Daniel and Revelation have now been almost completely fulfilled in past centuries and in the present, as far as Revelation chapters 16, 17 and 18-22, they refer to the future of our World.

The Book of Revelation in this Age takes the place of Prophets in Old Prophets in the Old Testament times. As the centuries roll on, it is a Prophet speaking in all Ages as the events foretold arrive. It has kept abreast of every century since the visions were revealed to St. John in A.D. 96. The words THE TIME IS AT HAND is mentioned in the first chapter verse 3, and again in chapter 22 verse 10. Here we have the beginning and end of THE DIVINE PROGRAM OF WORLD HISTORY.

The Revelation is a book written in signs so that God could reveal the future to His own children and yet not disclose to His enemies His over-ruling providence in the world. In the Army and Navy, and R.A.F. a secret symbol is worn by soldiers or sailors on the shoulders of their various uniforms, instead of the names of their regiments, or ships; the purpose is to conceal their identity from enemies. Their own Officers recognize them at once. So with the Book of Revelation, it reveals God’s fore-knowledge to His people, but conceals it from His enemies.

The Books of Daniel and Revelation have been unfolding the Divine Plan as the Ages have rolled on.

We must keep clearly in view the symbolic language in which Daniel and Revelation are written, or we shall utterly fail to understand their meaning, or where we are today in their wonderful program.

(Continued in Who are the Kings of the East Mentioned in Revelation 16:12?)

All sections of Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms by Albert Close

Happy Resurrection Sunday! Christ is risen! This is the continuation of Evidence for the Resurrection Part I

The 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 creed we just looked at, developing within a few years of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, is extremely important evidence to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But we also have the Gospel accounts and the Acts accounts.

In the Gospels and Acts, we have accounts of Jesus appearing over several weeks in different locations.

Sometimes indoors sometimes outdoors; to the apostle John who would have found it easy to believe and to Thomas who was skeptical and found it difficult to believe.

But what we have are appearances that are solid. Not mystical or shadowy glimpses of someone that may have been Jesus at a distance if the light was right and you squinted…

Jesus talked to these people, He interacted and even ate with His disciples (Luke 24:42, 43). This was Jesus up-close and personal. Consider that Jesus appeared to:

• Mary Magdalene (John 20:14)
• Another Mary (Matthew 28:1, 9-10)
• Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-27)
• His disciples (Luke 24:36-53)
• His apostles without Thomas (John 20:19-24)
• His apostles with Thomas (John 20:26-29)
• Seven of His apostles (John 21:1-14)
• Eleven of the apostles (Matthew 28:16-20)
• His disciples at His ascension on the Mount of Olives (Luke 24:50-52 and Acts 1:4-9)

So, not only is Jesus’ resurrection appearances recorded for us in the Gospels, but also taught in the Book of Acts. Consider the following verses:

• In Acts 2:32, during Peter’s sermon, he says, “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.” (emphasis added)
• In Acts 3:14-15, Peter again preaching to the “Men of Israel”, says, “But you denied the Holy One…and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.” (emphasis added)
• In Acts 10:40-41, Peter confirms to Cornelius, “Him God raised up on the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all people, but to witnesses chosen before God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead.” (emphasis added)
• Even Paul preaches in Acts 13:31, “He was seen for many days by those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are His witnesses to the people.”

The bottom line is this, the number of witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not only astounding and credible, but would stand up as evidence in a court of Law. Consider the following:

• “If you were to call each one of the witnesses to a court of law to be cross-examined for just fifteen minutes each, and you went around the clock without a break, it would take you from breakfast Monday until dinner on Friday to hear from them all. After listening to 129 straight hours of eyewitness testimony, who could possibly walk away unconvinced?”²⁵

There are more credible witnesses, more incidents, more detail and more corroborating statements over and over again in the Bible to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The next letter in the acronym F. E. A. T. S is the Transformation of the Apostles.

4. Transformation of the Apostles

So, what was the effect on the disciples after seeing their risen Lord and Savior resurrected? What transformation came over them?

During His trial, crucifixion and even after Jesus’ death, we see that the disciples were discouraged, depressed and even scared. These guys are even recorded as cowering in a room after Jesus’ death.

• We read that at the time of Jesus’ arrest, “all the disciples forsook Him and fled.” (Matthew 26:56; Mark 14:50)
• Simon Peter cringes with cowardness when confronted by a servant girl. (Matthew 26:69-75)
• The remaining disciples are hiding behind shut doors “for fear of the Jews.” (John 20:19)

It’s obvious that these men, who had walked with Jesus for three years, did not expect that their Messiah would die, let alone be crucified on a tree.

They were taught that anyone crucified was accursed of God (Deut. 21:23, Gal. 3:13), and that their Messiah would not suffer death.²⁶

And yet, we see in a very short time after the disciples had seen the physical resurrected Jesus, that they were no longer the scared men hiding behind closed doors that they were just weeks earlier.

These men believed they had seen Jesus Christ raised from the dead and it had such an impact on them, that it transformed them into men who boldly preached the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

These men gave up their sociological and their theological identities because they sincerely believed that they had seen Jesus raised from the dead.

These men died and were martyred for their belief that Jesus Christ had been raised from the dead.

Liars Make Poor Martyrs

Lee Strobel puts it this way, “People will die for their religious beliefs if they sincerely believe they’re true, but people won’t die for their religious beliefs if they know their beliefs are false.”²⁷

Let’s take a look at some of the deaths of the apostles and remember all they had to do was recant and admit that they had stolen the body or had made it all up.

All they had to do was say “Wait, Wait, I’m just kidding, I made it all up.”

• Peter was crucified after being forced to watch the crucifixion of his wife. His last words to his wife are recorded as, “O thou, remember the Lord.”
• Andrew was crucified on an X shaped cross. He was tied instead of nailed to extend the suffering.
• James was killed with a sword and is the only apostle whose martyrdom is actually recorded for us in Scripture (Acts 12:1-3).
• Phillip was stoned to death by most accounts in Asia Minor.
• Thomas is said to be buried in India after being killed by a spear for spreading the gospel.
• Matthew was reportedly beheaded.
• Bartholomew (Nathaniel) was crucified around 68 AD.
• Jude (Thaddaeus) was killed by an onslaught of arrows.
• James the Less was stoned to death.
• Simon the Zealot was sawn in two for preaching Jesus.
• John apparently was the only disciple to die a natural death.

Several facts stand out in the end:

1. All the disciples were afraid, confused, scared and fled after Jesus was crucified.
2. All the disciples saw the physically resurrected Jesus.
3. All the disciples were radically changed and empowered to spread the gospel of the Good News of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
4. All the disciples were tortured and lived their lives for the furtherance of the Good News and with the exception of John, died horrific deaths for the sake of Jesus Christ.

They believed they actually saw Jesus resurrected and it transformed their lives forever.

Jesus told His disciples in Acts 1:8:

• “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (emphasis added)

  The word power [Greek: dunamis] means “miraculous power, ability, abundance, might and strength.”

  This is where the English word dynamite comes from.

• As believers, we have spiritual dynamite in the form of the gifts of the Spirit, service, fellowship and our witness to the world.

The bottom line is that these men walked, talked, touched and ate with the living physically resurrected Christ as evidenced by their complete 180 degree turn from fleeing disciples, to believing apostles who died spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ.

And finally, the last letter in the acronym F. E. A. T. S. – Skeptics Conversions.

5. Skeptics Conversions

If we’re honest with each other, we were once skeptics ourselves, or maybe we still are. Being skeptical is a good thing. If we were not skeptical, we could be taken in be every type of scam or con.

God Himself tells us in Isaiah 1:18, “Come let us reason together.”

The word reason [Hebrew: yakah] means “to argue, convince, correct, plead, reason (together).”

The word “reason” (yakah) is a law term used for arguing, convincing, or deciding a case in court. The people were to be convinced by their argumentation with God that He was right and they were wrong about their condition.”²⁸

Let’s look at two of the main skeptics of Jesus’ claims, and how they were “convinced” and then ended up being two of His strongest supporters:

James, the Brother of Jesus

Jesus had at least seven brothers and sisters according to Matthew 13:55-56:

• “Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us?”

Even Josephus, the Jewish historian from the first century mentions, “the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, whose name was James.”²⁹

James, like Jesus’ other family members were not believers in Jesus during His earthly ministry:

• Mark 3:21 says, “But when His own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, ‘He is out of His mind.’”
• Mark 6:3-4 says, “Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and brother of James…So they were offended by Him. But Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.’”
• John 7:5 says, “For even His brothers did not believe in Him.”

Next we hear of James in the 1 Corinthians 15:7 creed and we read:

• “After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles.”

Then, we read that James is identified as the leader in the Jerusalem church:

• In Acts 15, we read of certain men in the church who were requiring circumcision (Acts 15:5), in addition to putting their faith in Jesus Christ.

  Paul, Barnabas and Peter resolved the issue by speaking before the council in Jerusalem with James, apparently the leader, making the following recommendation in Acts 15:19:

  “Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood.”

We also have the testimony of Hegesippus (110–180 AD), a second century Christian writer of the early church:

• “James, the brother of the Lord, succeeded to the government of the Church in conjunction with the apostles. He has been called the Just by all from the time of our savior to the present day…”³⁰

Although we do not have an abundance of information on James, we can conclude that while Jesus was in His earthly ministry, James was one of the brothers who thought Jesus “was out of His mind” and “did not believe Him.”

After seeing the risen Lord as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:7, James then becomes the leader in the Jerusalem church.

Upon seeing Jesus after His resurrection, one can have no doubt that James was a skeptic who after seeing the risen Lord became a believer in Jesus Christ as his Messiah and Savior.

The Historian Josephus tells us that James was stoned to death for believing in Jesus.

Saul of Tarsus (Paul)

Saul of Tarsus, later known as Paul the apostle, was a devout Jew and Pharisee by training and education.

Saul hated anything to do with Christianity since he believed that it was disloyal and disruptive to the traditions of the Jewish people.

Acts 9:1 tells us that “Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him so that…he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.”

What better way to tell Saul of Tarsus’ own testimony than to let him speak for himself about his Jewish heritage and persecution of the church:

• Philippians 3:6,7 Paul says he was, “circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is the law, blameless.”
• In Acts 22:3 Paul says, “I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers’ law, and was zealous toward God”

Saul further admits his extremism against the Lord’s church:

• 1 Corinthians 15:9 says, “For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” (emphasis added)
• Galatians 1:13 says, “For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.” (emphasis added)
• Galatians 1:23 says, “But they were hearing only, ‘He [Paul] who formally persecuted us…’”

So, how could a man, a Pharisee trained and educated, who was set and taught in the Jewish law, do a complete 180 degree turn and instead of hunting down the Lord’s church, become one of the Lord’s church?

Acts 9:1-19 tells of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus and you’ll notice two things that stick out:

First, Jesus spoke to Paul according to Acts 9:4:

• “Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’”

Second, Jesus appeared to Paul according to Acts 9:17:

• “And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’” (emphasis added)
• Acts 22:14, 15 confirm saying, “Then he said, ‘The God of our father has chosen you that you should know His will, and see the Just One, and hear the voice of His mouth. For you will be His witness to all men of what you have seen and heard.’” (emphasis added)
• Acts 26:16, confirms what Paul said earlier, Jesus says, “But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose” (emphasis added)
• 1 Corinthians 9:1 says, “Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?”
• And remember the 1 Corinthians 15:8 creed where Paul says, “Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.”

Again, we have to conclude that the sight of the risen Lord had to convince Saul of Tarsus that Jesus did indeed rise from the grave on the third day as He predicted.

This is important since Jesus appeared directly to Paul and it was not just second hand testimony by somebody else. This of course means that we have primary sources (i.e. Paul’s writings in the New Testament) instead of second hand sources (i.e. someone told someone who in turn told Paul they had seen the risen Lord).

In summary, because of the Fatal Torment, Empty Tomb, Appearances of Christ, Transformation of the Disciples, and the Skeptics Conversions evidence, we can be assured and rest in the FACT that Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead on the third day as He promised…and God does not lie (Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29; John 17:17).

Alternative Theories Rebuffed

When we hear an alternative theory as to the resurrection of Jesus, we have to ask ourselves three questions:

1. Does the alternative theory explain the Empty Tomb?
2. Does the alternative theory explain the Appearances of Jesus?
3. Does the alternative theory explain the Transformation of the Disciples?

Swoon theory (apparent death theory)

This is the theory that Jesus did not die but simply passed out on the cross and was revived in the dampness of the tomb.

1. 1. Can the Swoon Theory explain the empty tomb? – Yes
2. 2. Can the Swoon Theory explain the appearances of Jesus? – Yes
3. 3. Can the Swoon Theory explain the transformation of the disciples? – NO

The disciples would not have been impressed with a man who would have been so pale, weak, bleeding and sickly that they had to take care of Him and nurse Him back to health.

How could they have hailed Him as their Messiah, conqueror of the grave?

The disciples would not have let themselves be martyred for a man who was not the Messiah, let alone preach the resurrection of Jesus and the dead when they would have known that Jesus didn’t die.

Twin theory

This is the theory that Jesus had a twin even though the Bible and the birth accounts mention absolutely nothing of Jesus being a twin.

1. Can the Twin Theory explain the empty tomb? – NO
2. Can the Twin Theory explain the appearances of Jesus? – Yes
3. Can the Twin Theory explain the transformation of the disciples? – NO

If Jesus had a twin, Jesus’ body would have still been in the grave and all the scribes and Pharisees would have had to do was exhume and display Jesus’ body to stop any resurrection talk.

As for the transformation of the disciples, if it was a twin that took Jesus’ place, why would he have scars in his hands, feet and side?

• Jesus asked Thomas in John 20:27, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”

Hallucination theory

This is the theory that the people only thought that they saw Jesus but it was actually a mass hallucination.

1. Can the Hallucination Theory explain the empty tomb? – NO
2. Can the Hallucination Theory explain the appearances of Jesus? – NO
3. Can the Hallucination Theory explain the transformation of the disciples? – NO

First, as with the twin theory, if the disciples and the 500 people only hallucinated that they saw Jesus, Jesus’ tomb would still have been occupied and all the Jewish leaders would have had to do was to produce the body to end the spread of Christianity right then and there.

Second, hallucinations are individual in nature caused by something wrong in the brain. It is subjective and personal in nature, one person yes — over 500 at one time, impossible.

Finally, hallucinations arise from false expectations. The disciples certainly didn’t expect to see Jesus rise from the dead and they didn’t really believe that He did. They had to be persuaded that Jesus had actually risen from the dead.

• Luke 24:26-38 says, “Now as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, ‘Peace to you.’ But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.”

Theft theory

In this theory, the body of Jesus was stolen by the disciples, the Jewish leaders or by somebody else. Of course they would have had to get past the Roman Soldiers to do this – highly unlikely.

1. Can the Theft Theory explain the empty tomb? – Yes
2. Can the Theft Theory explain the appearances of Jesus? – NO
3. Can the Theft Theory explain the transformation of the disciples? – NO

Wrong tomb theory

This theory states that the women and the disciples went to the wrong tomb early in the morning and after having discovered it empty, assumed that Jesus had risen from the dead.

1. Can the Wrong Tomb Theory explain the empty tomb? – Yes
2. Can the Wrong Tomb Theory explain the appearances of Jesus? – NO
3. Can the Wrong Tomb Theory explain the transformation of the disciples? – NO

First, we can see, the wrong tomb theory is discredited by #2 and #3.

Second, skeptics Paul and James were not convinced by the empty tomb but by the appearances of the risen Jesus.

And finally, once the disciples started preaching the resurrection of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, whose tomb Jesus was buried in, and the Jewish leadership could have easily pointed out Jesus’ tomb and exhumed the body to discredit the resurrection teaching.

Paul Little says:

Resurrection Fact

This theory states that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day as He predicted.

What happens when we look at the simple 3 fold criteria to see if it holds up or not?

1. Can the Resurrection Theory explain the empty tomb? – Yes
2. Can the Resurrection Theory explain the appearances of Jesus? – Yes
3. Can the Resurrection Theory explain the transformation of the disciples? – Yes

Therefore, we can see that the resurrection of Jesus Christ best explains the empty tomb, the appearances of Jesus Christ, and the transformation of the disciples.

Conclusion

As Christians, we believe in the physical bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ as taught by the Bible, our Final Court of Appeal.

As Dr. Norman Geisler, dean and professor of theology and apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary states:

This belief is paramount in the Christian faith because if Jesus did not physically rise from the dead, His crucifixion would have been the end of it, the disciples would have gone their way and Jesus’ name would have been lost to antiquity as just another man who claimed to be God, but is still in the grave.

Christianity hinges on the Evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Resources used and recommended reading material:

1. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, Kregel Publications, ISBN: 0825427886

2. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Norman L. Geisler, Baker Books, ISBN: 0801021510

3. The Case For Christ, Lee Strobel, Zondervan Publishing House, ISBN: 0310226465

4. The Resurrection of Jesus, Robert B. Stewart, Fortress Press, ISBN: 0800637852

5. Resurrection, Hank Hanegraaff, Word Publishing, ISBN: 0849916437

6. Jesus Under Fire, Michael J. Wilkins and J.P. Moreland, Zondervan Publishing House, ISBN: 0310211395

7. Fast Facts on Defending Your Faith, John Ankerberg and John Weldon, Harvest House Publishers, ISBN: 0736910565

8. Know What You Believe, Paul E. Little, Cook Communications Ministries, ISBN: 0781439647

9. The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell, Thomas Nelson Publishers, ISBN: 0785242198

10.Evidence of the Resurrection, Rose Publishing, ISBN: 1890947970

11.Evidence for the Resurrection, Sean and Josh McDowell, Regal Publishing, ISBN-13: 9780830747856

If you have questions or comments, please feel free to email info@calvaryCO.church

Notes

1. Josh McDowell quoting Dr. William Lane Craig, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999), p. 204.

2. J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible Vol. IV (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1983), p. 718.

3. Dr. John MacArthur, Jr., New Testament Commentary Romans 9-16 (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1994), p.75.

4. Robert Morey, The Trinity, Evidence and Issues (Grand Rapids, MI: World Publishing, Inc. 1996), p. 288.

5. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/ – News and Current Affairs Section – Scorn poured on director’s ‘coffin of Christ’ theory dated February 25, 2007

6. I did not create this acronym, other than to add the ‘S’, for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ but after looking at different methods of teaching the Resurrection, I’ve chosen Hank Hanagraaff’s method which I believe accurately portrays an excellent apologetics approach. Specifically, his book Resurrection is the book I’m referring to.

7. Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2004), p. 100

8. John MacAuthur, New Testament Commentary on Matthew(24:26) (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1989), p. 244

9. Lee Strobel, The Case For Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), p. 198

10. Ibid.

11. Josh McDowell quoting Michael Green, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999), p. 225

12. Evidence for the Resurrection (Torrence, CA: Rose Publishing, 2004) quoting Lee Strobel, The Case for Easter (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998)

13. John Ankerberg and John Weldon, Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1996), p. 12 as cited by Josh and Sean McDowell, Evidence for the Resurrection (Ventura, CA: Regal Publishing, 2009), p. 168

14. Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999), p. 238

15. Ralph O. Muncaster, Examine the Evidence (Eugene OR: Harvest House, 2004), p. 389

16. Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999), p. 232 citing H.W. Holloman, An Exposition of the Post Resurrection Appearances of Our Lord, Unpublished Th.M. thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, May 1967.

17. Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999), p. 232 citing T.J. Thornburn, The Resurrection Narratives and Modern Criticism (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., LTD., 1910).

18. Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999), p. 234 citing Henry Alford, The Greek Testament: With a Critically Revised Text: A Digest of Various Readings…,Vol. I. Sixth edition. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, and Co., 1868

19. Ralph O. Muncaster, Examine the Evidence (Eugene OR: Harvest House, 2004), p. 391

20. Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999), p. 233 citing A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament. 5 vols. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1930. Reprint, New York: R.R. Smith, Inc., 1931

21. Ron Rhodes, Reasoning from the Scriptures with Muslims (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2001), p.179

22. Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2004), p.72

23. Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2004), pg. 52-53

24. Lee Strobel, The Case For Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), pg. 231-232

25. Ibid, p. 237

26. Ibid, p. 246

27. Ibid, p. 247

28. The Bible Knowledge Commentary (Colorado Springs, CO: Cook Communications, 2004), p. 1036

29. Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2004), p. 67

30. Ibid, p. 67

31. Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999), p. 280 quoting Paul Little.

32. Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999), p. 204 quoting Norman L. Geisler.

©2009 RB. The Author grants full permission to reproduce this document without alteration.

I found got this text from a PDF file. I don’t know who the author is but I think it’s excellent information we can share to anyone who doubts the historical reality of Christ’s resurrection.

If the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a fabricated hoax, it was the greatest deception, and a vicious and cruel lie created by despicable, heartless men. If so, Christians are to be pitied above all people, for our hope would then be based on that lie.

But, if the resurrection of Jesus Christ is real, it was the greatest miracle, the greatest feat in all of human history, and its implications impact every individual from past to present.

As Dr. William Lane Craig, Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology says:

Of all the important doctrines of the Bible, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is an essential Christian doctrine that must be believed as a condition of salvation.

The apostle Paul said as much in Romans 10:8, 9:

In other words, in order to have eternal life, we must acknowledge and be devoted to Jesus Christ as Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead. !

J. Vernon McGee puts it this way:

Dr. John MacArthur says:

For the writers of the New Testament, the resurrection of Jesus Christ was an extremely important issue, the cornerstone of the Christian faith.

• 1 Peter 1:3-4 says that we have “a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
• Paul believed so firmly in the resurrection that he wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:13, 14 that “if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and [our] faith is also empty.”
• And to make sure we didn’t miss it the first time, Paul repeats it in verses 16 and 17, “For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, our faith is futile; you are still in your sins!”

Even two of Christianity’s most celebrated practices are seen and reflected in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

• Water Baptism celebrates the resurrection:

  Romans 6:4 says, “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life.”

  Colossians 2:11-12 says, “In Him you were…buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”

• Christians eat the Lord’s Supper in memory of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. This should be a time of joy for the Christian since we recognize that with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we also have eternal life:

  In Luke 22:14-23 Jesus institutes communion, “Then He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This is the cup of the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.’”

  And after the resurrection in Luke 24:30-31, it’s recorded, “Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed it and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew; and He vanished from their sight.”

Even though the resurrection of Jesus Christ is an issue that has been thoroughly documented, researched and discussed, there are still those who would reject the evidence before them. For example:

John Dominic Crossan, co-founder and co-director of the Jesus Seminar, believes that Jesus was executed for revolutionary activities and, instead of being resurrected; his body was devoured by wild dogs.⁴

Islam believes that Jesus was never crucified and therefore could not have been resurrected.

• In fact, when confronted with Luke 24:39 where Jesus, after His resurrection, told His disciples, “Behold My hands and feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”
• The Muslim will say something to the effect of “See, Jesus asked the disciples to touch him so he could not have died and been resurrected in a spiritualized body.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus Christ was not raised from the dead physically, but that it was a spirit body. They teach that He used “different” spirit bodies than the one that was laid in the tomb, to appear to His followers.

On Sunday, March 4, 2007, a documentary on the Discovery Channel, by “Oscar-winning” director of the Titanic, James Cameron, claimed that the tomb of Jesus and his family had been found.

• Bar-Ilan University Professor Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the Jerusalem site, commented that the idea fails to hold up by archaeological standards, since Jesus’ family was Galilean with no Jerusalem ties, but says that it makes for profitable television.

  “They just want to get money for it,” Kloner said. “It was an ordinary middle-class Jerusalem burial cave,” he added. “The names on the caskets are the most common names found among Jews at the time.”⁵

And of course there is the swoon theory or the apparent death theory – the theory that Jesus really didn’t die but was close to death on the cross and then, when in the tomb, was brought back from the brink of death by the coolness of the cave.

How about the twin theory – the theory that Jesus had a twin, that they were separated from birth and that when Jesus died, the twin carries out the plot to steal Jesus’ body and masquerade around as the risen Christ.

Even the hallucination theory – the theory that the people who had seen the risen Christ hallucinated the whole thing.

Then we have the theft theory – the theory that Jesus’ body was stolen by the disciples so as to appear that He had been resurrected from the dead.

And finally, the wrong tomb theory – in this theory, everyone went to the wrong tomb; they went to an empty tomb and assumed that He had been resurrected.

Tonight, we’re here to lay out the case for the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ as taught by the Bible, our Final Court of Appeal.

Jesus Often Spoke of His Resurrection

Jesus said in John 2:19-21, “‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’…but He was speaking of the temple of His body.” (emphasis added)

Jesus spoke often of His physical resurrection from the dead and emphasized that it would be a “sign” that He was the promised Messiah spoken of in the Old Testament:

• Matthew 12:38-40 says, “Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, ‘Teacher, we want a sign from You.’ But He answered and said to them. ‘An evil and adulteress generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’”
• Matthew 16:21 says, “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem…and be killed, and be raised on the third day.”
• Matthew 17:9 says, “Now as they came down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, ‘Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead.’”
• Matthew 17:22-23 says, “Now while they were staying in Galilee, Jesus said to them, ‘The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and the third day He will be raised up.’”
• See also Matthew 20:18, 19; 26:32; 27:63; Mark 8:31-9:1, 10, 31; 10:32-34; 14:28, 58; Luke 9:22-27; John 2:18-22; 12:34 and John Chapters 14-16.

Clearly, Jesus spoke often of His death and every time mentioned His resurrection, not once or twice but many times.

So, how can we as Christians, counter claims that Jesus’ “coming back from the dead” was a legend or a myth or His body was stolen or that He really didn’t die?

What Evidence do we have that shows beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus was raised from the dead after three days as He predicted?

In order to help us better remember the Evidence for the Resurrection, I’ve chosen the acronym F. E. A. T. S. since this is the greatest feat in recorded human history.⁶

1. Fatal Torment
2. Empty Tomb
3. Appearances of Jesus
4. Transformation of the Apostles
5. Skeptics Conversions

Let’s start with the first letter in the acronym F. E. A. T. S – Fatal Torment.

1. Fatal Torment

In order to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus rose from the dead, we obviously have to demonstrate that He died.

And thus, we will look at His scourging, crucifixion, and the Roman spear that was thrust into His side.

The Scourging of Jesus

Jesus faced false testimonies (Mark 14:56) in front of the Sanhedrin and was then sent to Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea (Luke 23:1), and sentenced to die at the hands of Roman soldiers on the cross. But first, the beatings and the scourging took place.

Mark 15:15 says, “So Pilate…delivered Jesus, after he had scourged Him, to be crucified.”

Dr. Gary Habermas and Dr. Michael Licona explain the scourging process:

Dr. John MacArthur further explains:

Often times, many died before being crucified just from the scourging.

To further humiliate and weaken the victim about to be crucified, the Roman soldiers would make them carry their own cross (the cross bar) to the execution site.

There can be no doubt that the scourging of Jesus left Him so weak and worn down, that He was not able to carry His own cross.

Mark 15:21 says that the Roman soldiers “compelled a certain man, Simon a Cyrenian…as he was coming out of the country and passing by, to bear His cross.”

The Crucifixion of Jesus

Luke 23:33 says, “And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.”

As noted above, the scourging of Jesus would have been enough to kill a man let alone the horrific torment of the Roman cross.

Roman crucifixion was one of the worst deaths ever imagined. The Romans had decades to perfect their techniques of punishment. The cross allowed the Romans to get the most effective way of torture and death that they could possibly extract from an individual. Its purpose was to extend the suffering of the victim as long and excruciatingly as possible; to enhance an already horrific death.

We often underestimate the Roman cross. We see representations of our Lord on the cross and we’ve become so desensitized to it that it’s no wonder false theories like the “swoon theory” arise and we wonder how a person could possibly come up with this – do they not know what kind of torture and death that the Roman cross inflicted?

Crucifixion would have involved laying Jesus on His open lacerated bleeding back on a huge rough splintery cross. The Roman soldiers would take spikes, five to seven inches long and hammer them between the two arm bones at the wrist crushing the median nerve.

Often, death was caused by asphyxiation. Because of the position and tension on the diaphragm, the victim would have to push up on the spike in their feet, ripping flesh until it lodged against a bone, to take a breath of air. Pushing up would have meant that Jesus’ raw lacerated back would have been scraping the course wood of the cross.

After a few hours of this, with exhaustion and intense, excruciating pain from pushing up, unable to do it anymore, respiratory acidosis would set in – “the carbon dioxide in the blood is dissolved as carbonic acid, causing the acidity of the blood to increase. This eventually leads to an irregular heartbeat…[and] cardiac arrest.”¹⁰

Whether dying from cardiac arrest or from asphyxiation, crucifixion was 100 percent fatal.

The Spear Thrust into the Heart

John 19:33, 34 says, “But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead…one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.”

Let there be no doubt, Jesus was dead. John 19:30 says, “[Jesus] said, ‘It is finished!’ And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.” (emphasis added)

John’s detail of the account in verse 34 only confirms Jesus was already dead when the soldiers came to break His legs (John 19:31-33):

Clearly, the type of abuse that Jesus took was enough to kill any man and we can concur with the apostle John in 19:35 when he says, “And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe.”

Dr. Alexander Metherell, a medical doctor and research scientist, comments…“After suffering that horrible abuse, with all the catastrophic blood loss and trauma, he would have looked so pitiful that the disciples would never have hailed him as a victorious conqueror of death; they would have felt sorry for him and tried to nurse him back to health.”¹²

John Ankerberg and John Weldon conclude:

The bottom line is this; the Roman soldiers were meticulous executioners. They had experience with possibly hundreds of executions under their belts and they would have been particularly knowledgeable when it came to death.

The fact that Jesus was no longer pushing up to exhale also would have been a tell-tale sign that He was no longer breathing and thus, dead. Between the scourging, the crucifixion and the spear thrust into His side it’s very obvious that the Jewish leaders had fulfilled their desire “to kill Him” (John 5:16, 17; 7:25; 8:37; 8:40).

Let’s move on to the second letter in the acronym F. E. A. T. S – Empty Tomb.

2. Empty Tomb

Jesus had just been crucified and His words of ‘rising again after three days’ were still ringing in the chief priests and the Pharisees ears.

This worried them so they decided to talk to Pilate.

• Matthew 27:62-64 says, “On the next day, which followed the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together to Pilate, saying, ‘Sir, we remember while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead.’ So that the last deception will be worse than the first.’”

Pilate’s response in Matthew 27:65 is very revealing.

• “‘You have a guard; go your way, make it as secure as you know how.’ So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard.”

There are three things to take notice of in the above verse.

2. The Stone. The Bible tells us that the stone that covered the entrance to the tomb where Jesus was laid, was of formidable size as indicated by the following verse:

• Mark 16:1-3 says, “Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him. Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. And they said among themselves. ‘Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?’” (emphasis added)

Scholars tell us that the stone could have weighed possibly as much as two tons, thus the comment by the three women wondering who would move the stone for them.

Josh McDowell explains further:

• “The opening to the central chamber was guarded by a large and heavy disc of rock which could roll along a groove slightly depressed at the centre, in front of the tomb entrance.”¹⁶

Indeed, concerning the massive weight of the rock, “a phrase written in parenthesis, within the text of Mark 16:4 as found in a (fourth) century manuscript…adds, ‘And when he was laid there, he (Joseph) put against the tomb a stone which twenty men could not roll away.’”¹⁷

It’s worth noting that once the stone was rolled into place, it could not have been moved from the inside since it would have been impossible, not only because of the weight, but there would be no leverage and no handholds since the stone would have thoroughly covered the entrance.

Scholars and evidence point to the fact that the stone at the entrance of the rock-hewn tomb was so massive that the three women knew they would not be able to move the stone, let alone a man who had gone through what Jesus went through just three days earlier.

3. The Seal. The seal would have been more symbolic as a deterrent than the actual 16 Roman guards or two-ton stone.

• Matthew 27:66 says, “So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard.”

As to the method of setting the seal:

• “The sealing was by means of a cord or string passing across the stone at the mouth of the sepulcher, and fastened at either end to the rock by sealing clay.”¹⁸

Although the seal could be easily broken, the psychological factor that was associated with breaking an official seal of the Roman government would have been formidable in and of itself.

• “The ‘seal’ of the administrative authority in charge pressed into the wax, signifying its importance. Only the captain of the guard was permitted to give permission for the breaking of the seal. Anyone breaking it without permission would be executed.”¹⁹

The overall impact of these three security measures only increases the case for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It would have been impossible to tamper with or steal the body of Jesus, not to mention explain away the resurrection by the “swoon theory.”

A. T. Robertson, Professor of New Testament Interpretation Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (1895-1934) said:

• “The sealing was done in the presence of the Roman guards who were left in charge to protect this stamp of Roman authority and power. They did their best to prevent theft and the resurrection, but they overreached themselves and provided additional witness to the fact of the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus.”²⁰ (emphasis added)

The Testimony of Women

Matthew 28:1-8 says, “Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it…[and] the angel answered and said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, He has risen.’” (emphasis added)

After three days in the tomb, Jesus Christ was resurrected according Scripture (Matthew 28:6; Acts 17:18; Romans 6:5) as well as His own predictions in John 11:25 “I am the resurrection and the life”

John 20:1 also tells us that it was Mary Magdalene who Jesus first appeared to, which is highly significant as Ron Rhodes explains:

• “If the resurrection story were a fabrication by the disciples, no one in the first-century Jewish culture would have invented it this way. The fact is that in Jewish law a woman’s testimony was unacceptable in any court of law except in a very few circumstances. A fabricator would have been much more likely to place Peter or one of the other male disciples at the resurrection tomb.”²¹

We can see several evidences of the low view of women in the first century in the following quotes: ²²

• “Sooner let the words of the Law be burnt than delivered to women.” (Talmud, Sotah 19a)

• “Any evidence that a women [gives] is not valid (to offer), also they are not valid to offer. This is equivalent to saying that one who is Rabbinically accounted a robber is qualified to give the same evidence as a woman.” (Talmud, Rosh Hashannah 1:8)

If the resurrection of Jesus was a fabricated story, the writers would not have used women as the first people at the tomb given the low place that women held in the first-century; they would have used men of high reputation to be the first at the tomb to further bolster the resurrection story.

When you take into account the soldiers, the stone, and the seal, you find it impossible for the body of Jesus to have been stolen by a band of scared, frightened and confused disciples (Matthew 26:56; Mark 14:50), or that He was revived and rolled the stone away Himself.

And the testimony of the women at the tomb only bolsters or reinforces that the story was not fabricated but was indeed a true event.

Let’s move on to the third letter in the acronym F. E. A. T. S – Appearances of Christ.

3. Appearances of Christ

As stated earlier, Jesus said in John 2:19-21, “‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’…but He was speaking of the temple of His body.”

It must be pointed out that there is a one-to-one correlation between the body that dies and the body that is resurrected.

When we die and are eventually resurrected, it is still us, we are still recognizable as Jesus was, but it is a new glorified body.

We know it’s the same body based on John 20:27 when Jesus appeared to His disciples and told Thomas specifically to “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving but believing.”

It was His same body yet, it was a glorified body.

One of the strongest evidences for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the physical appearances in the days that followed His crucifixion and resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15:1-8 contains one of the earliest creeds in the New Testament.

• 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 says, “Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you – unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.” (emphasis added)

It is believed, and with good reason, that this creed developed within five years of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

• “In fact, many critical scholars hold that Paul received it from the disciples Peter and James while visiting them in Jerusalem three years after his conversion. If so, Paul learned it within five years of Jesus’ crucifixion and from the disciples themselves.”²³ (emphasis added)

This is extremely important due to the fact that not only were the disciples around to dispute this statement if it was incorrect, but also the people mentioned in the next verses were still around to also dispute the statement if it was not correct:

• 1 Corinthians 15:6 says, “After He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.”

Lee Strobel and Dr. Gary Habermas discuss the importance of this verse in The Case for Christ: ²⁴

1. Even though it’s only reported in one source, it just so happens to be the earliest and best-authenticated passage of all.
2. Paul apparently was in close contact or knew people still in close contact with these five hundred people since he knew some “of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.”

   Dr. Habermas says, “Now, stop and think about it: you would never include this phrase unless you were absolutely confident that these folks would confirm that they really did see Jesus alive. I mean, Paul was virtually inviting people to check it out for themselves! He wouldn’t have said this if he didn’t know they’d back him up.”

And finally, Paul says that Jesus was seen by James and by himself.

• 1 Corinthians 15:7-8 says, “After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.”

(Continued in part II.)

This is the continuation of the series, Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms – By Albert Close and the previous post in the series, British Government Hides Vatican War Treachery From Empire.

Why did the British government and Allies so early in the War as 1915 in the 1914-19 War (World War I) so definitely exclude the Pope from all future Councils of Peace? Read the Irish Sinn Fein (a Roman Catholic Irish republican and democratic socialist political party in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland) cables seized in New York and Washington by the U.S. Secret Service Officers and the answer stares you in the face.

The British Secret Service knew in 1914-15 that the Pope and Jesuits were plotting for the downfall of the British Empire. Some very high Roman Catholic permanent officials, such as Sir W. G. Tyrrell, who played a very important part in sending the illegal Envoy to the Pope in December, 1914, were quietly removed from the Foreign Office in 1915.

The Pope Excluded from Peace Councils.

Cardinal Hinsley, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, in a sermon on Sunday, Oct. 13th, 1935, said:

The World Powers assembled recognized Rome as the real Power behind the Great War (WW I). Not one Roman Priest was allowed at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.

The German Embassy in Washington, in Feb. 1916, stated in a Dispatch that John Devoy was their confidential agent in America for communicating between Germany and Sinn Fein.

Here is the Dispatch from John Devoy through the German Embassy, naming Michael Collins, the notorious Irish gunman, as a Roman Catholic Priest.

German Embassy Washington to Foreign Office, Berlin. W. No. 172. 1/10/14.

Sir Roger Casement’s Letter from Berlin, 28th Nov., 1914, to Prof. Eoin McNeill, Dublin.

Fr. Michael Collins was an Irish Roman Catholic Priest. The fact was first disclosed by De Valera in 1926. This explains his wonderful Intelligence Service. See the Irish Press, May 26th, 1933.

Few of the plotters were captured during the first three years, until the United States came into the War in 1917. As soon as they did, their Secret Service co-operated with those of the British and Allies, and the great Spy System was unearthed, and the spies arrested, convicted and sent to penal servitude. Capt. Von Rintelen, the German spy, received 5 years in Atlanta Penitentiary.

THE U.S.A. & BRITISH SECRET SERVICE.

The United States Secret Service raided the Sinn Fein H.Q.’s in New York and Washington and seized Dispatches between the Sinn Fein leader in the United States, John Devoy, and the German Foreign Office. These Dispatches proved that a vast German-Irish Spy Organization was in full operation, using the Vatican, Spain and the United States of America as bases for world operations. In Rome the Irish Training College for Priests was used as a distributing center for literature damaging to the cause of the Allies.

THE RISE AND FALL OF MUSSOLINI, 1923-1943.

The Pope’s sham Temporal Power was re-established by Mussolini in 1929, fifty-nine years after its fall in 1870, when King Victor Emmanuel on Sept. 20th entered Rome at the head of the Italian Army, deposed the Pope, and took a Plebiscite of the Italian people who gave an overwhelming vote for a United Italy. Italy rose to be one of the great Powers of Europe by 1900. After this period, corruption in the Government Depts. led to the Revolution of 1923, when Mussolini became Dictator of Italy. In 1929 Mussolini re-established the Temporal Power of the Pope over the Vatican City of 108 acres with a population of 450. In 1929, in exchange for the support of the Papacy, Mussolini awarded the Pope the vast sum of £19,200,000 in settlement of the Roman Question. The consequence has been that the Papacy became a most powerful mischief making force in the world. This vast wealth seems to have been used for purchasing great blocks of shares in International Newspapers, and thereby controlling their policy, Editors and Staffs.

Since 1929 Great Britain and the U.S.A. have been mysteriously flooded with Roman Catholic falsified news and Papal propaganda.

In Sept. 1943, Mussolini was deposed as Dictator, as a result of the Allied victories in Italy. This shook the Papal Temporal Power to its sandy foundations. The Pope at once saw the danger and sent his Envoys to England and the U.S.A. to take steps to safeguard the vast invested funds in both countries. These Papal investments have always been concealed, with very few exceptions, by the British and U.S.A. Press.

The London Daily Mirror, however, on Sept. 8th, 1943, fearlessly exposed the truth and gave the names of the Papal Envoys, and questioned the Foreign Office and the Home Office for their reasons why these Papal Officials should be allowed in the country at this time. The Daily Mirror published the photograph of the Envoy sent to England.

(Continued in The Final Revelation to Men by Jesus Christ: The Apocalypse )

All sections of Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms by Albert Close

Opening Session Of The League Of Nations In Geneva

This is the continuation of the series, Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms – By Albert Close and the previous post in the series, False Interpretations of Divine Prophecy.

This is history you won’t get from Wikipedia or any Establishment recognized academic source on the Internet! It was written when the Britain still had an empire. I think it’s possible the Jesuits / RCC were the ones behind the decline of the British empire because Britain is officially supposed to be Protestant. British Protestant missionaries preached the Gospel in all its colonies around the world! In 1979 when I went to England, a lady who saw me distributing Gospel literature on the street asked me who I am. I told her I am a missionary. She replied, “Britain used to be the greatest exporter of missionaries in the world. Now we have to import them!”

The League of Nations was the Devil’s snare for Protestant nations. There were 52 represented at Geneva in the League of Nations, from 1919 to 1939, when it collapsed, and nearly all were Roman Catholic with Roman Catholic Secretaries. Sir Eric Drummond, the British Secretary General for 10 years, was a Roman Catholic. He became a convert in 1903 whilst at the Foreign Office. The Assistant Secretary for Britain was John C. Epstein. He was a convert to Rome in 1919.

When the Pope’s duplicity was severely criticized at the League Meeting in Sept., 1929, Sir Eric Drummond the Catholic Secretary cut the criticism out of the League’s Official Report. This nearly caused a strike amongst the official reporters at Geneva. Manchester Guardian, Sept. 21st, 1929.

The Duke of Wellington in his day warned the nation of the danger and utter failure of the First League of Nations in 1816—the Holy Alliance. Wellington had proved by years of war and diplomacy that Roman Catholic European statesmen could not be trusted in times of International crisis. Had the League of Nations brought about universal Peace it would have made the Lord Jesus Christ a false Prophet.

Rome at the British Foreign Office.

The British Government has for many years past been dominated by a Roman and Anglo-Roman Foreign Office Staff which, for the first year and a half of the Spanish War, misled the nation with false news, by denying all knowledge of German and Italian armies in Spain.

At the League of Nations the name of God must never be mentioned officially, and no prayers to the Almighty offered up for guidance at any session! How can it be Divine?

The Romanized Foreign Office Officials.

Sir Samuel Hoare, and Lord Halifax, Ambassadors to Spain and the U.S.A., are extreme Anglo-Romanists, who believe in the Mass. Sir Robert Vansittart, the Permanent Under Secretary from 1930 to 1937, is either Romanist or Anglo-Romanist, as he has a 16th century Roman altar in his private study, and a painting of the Virgin Mary in the main hall of his residence—so the London Evening News stated. On Jan. 1, 1938, he was appointed Diplomatic Adviser to the Government. He resigned in 1941. Here are some of his appointments:

In 1934, Mr. Cecil Dormer, a Roman Catholic, was sent to Norway—a Protestant country —as British Minister.

In 1935, Mr. C. M. Palairet, a convert to Rome whilst at the Foreign Office, was sent to Sweden—a Protestant Country—as British Minister.

In 1935, Mr. Francis D’Arcy Osborne was appointed British Ambassador to the Vatican, in violation of the English Act of Settlement.

In 1936, Sir Eric Drummond, another convert whilst at the Foreign Office, was sent to Rome as British Ambassador after leaving the League of Nations.

In 1937, Mr. Ogilvie Forbes, another Roman Catholic, was sent to Spain as Acting British Minister; reported very little about Italian and German troops in Spain.

In 1938, The United States of America, for the first time in history, sent an Irish Roman Catholic Ambassador to Britain, after being assured by our Foreign Office that he was persona grata (fully acceptable or welcome, especially to a foreign government)— Mr. Joseph Kennedy.

Sir Henry Chilston gave his daughter away in marriage at the Roman Catholic Brompton Oratory on Monday, July 11, 1938, so we may presume he also is a Roman Catholic, or at least his family.

Many Ambassadors and Ministers have Roman Catholic wives.

A Jesuit Spy in Lord Burleigh’s Cabinet, 1596.

All these things happened whilst Sir Robert Vansittart was in control of the Foreign Office. He was certainly following in the steps of his predecessors, Sir Eyre Crowe and Sir W. G. Tyrrell, who filled the chief offices with Roman Catholics at home and abroad. Sir Robert Vansittart resigned as Diplomatic Adviser in 1941. (See Daily Mail, Jan. 1, 1938).

The Rt. Hon. Anthony Eden strongly resented the questions in the House of Commons by the Rt. Hon. Sir Josiah Wedgwood, when he asked for the names of Roman Catholic Ambassadors, Ministers and Counselors sent to European and other foreign countries. Mr. Eden knew he dare not tell, as the Foreign Office is full of them. They receive the best appointments. These men have control of the nation’s profoundest secrets which if disclosed to Priests in the Confessional might easily lead to the downfall of the Empire in a great war, Mr. Eden always resents questions.

Roman Catholics have a perfect right to a fair share of the Public Offices in other departments of State, but they have no right to be in the Cabinet or Foreign Office, Admiralty, War Office or Air Board, where the secrets of the nation’s strategy and relations with Foreign Powers are deposited.

Father Henry Garnet the Jesuit, who was hanged for the Gunpowder Plot in 1606, had his spies in Lord Burleigh’s Cabinet reporting State secrets to the King of Spain. The fact was discovered a few years ago at Simancas, Spain, by Major Martin Hume when editing the Calendar of Spanish State Papers, Vol. IV., p. 633.

In 1917, when Admiral Sims, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Naval Forces, arrived at the Admiralty, he states that he found a cloud of deep depression overshadowing the whole department, because it was realized that secrets were leaking out. It is a remarkable fact that the Foreign Office on Dec. 12, 1914, secretly sent Sir Henry Howard as Envoy to the Vatican in violation of the British Act of Settlement. On Jan. 28, 1915, the German Foreign Office sent the following message from Berlin to the German Embassy, Washington: Foreign Office, Berlin, 28 Fan. 1915,

“No. 106. To John Devoy: Send all possible literature to Collegio Irlandese, Rome. (Irish College).

All British Government Depts. Shield the Pope

“Send by Ambassador’s Messenger at once a copy of The Crime against Europe.’ Sinn Fein Documents, 1921, No. 1108.

Note that the British Envoy was at the Vatican, and at the same time the Irish Papal College was betraying Britain to her enemies! Such is the Papacy! Rome will always be our enemy. What about our Foreign Office!

We had a Coalition Government in Britain during the 1914-18 Great War. That Government lasted until 1922; a Conservative Government from 1922-29; a Labour Government from 1929-1931; and a National Government from 1931-1943. Not one of these Governments frankly disclosed to the nation and Empire the diabolical Papal plots during that Great War, against the British Throne and Empire. Not only so, but all of these Governments refused to allow Questions to be put in Parliament concerning the treacherous actions of the Popes during the Great War, 1914-1919.

In this World War the British Government down to July 1943, has steadfastly refused in Parliament to sanction the bombing of Rome, in spite of repeated representations from Members. The British Foreign Office for the last 150 years has been under the secret direction of Roman Catholic Permanent Officials.

Very strange that these British Papal wire-pullers did not use their underground powers to save London and other British cities from German and Italian bombs! They must be a powerful group to save Rome for 4 years, in spite of protests, whilst London has been bombed again and again! The United States Air Force, however, ignored the Papal wire-pullers in Britain and U.S.A., and in August, 1943, they heavily bombed Rome, doing great damage.

This drove our British Government and her Foreign Office Roman officials down off the fence.

At Edinburgh on Aug. 30, 1943, Lord Simon, the Lord Chancellor, after the U.S.A. had bombed Rome three times, was driven in sheer self-defense to declare:

“Rome cannot be made immune from attack, merely by declaring it an open city. It would be rather like raising the white flag while continuing the fight.” Daily Telegraph, 30/8/43.

ROME NEVER CHANGES HER ENMITY

The Empire had to wait 8 years, until 1921, to learn of the Vatican treachery in 1914 by allowing the Irish College in Rome to be used as a distributing center for enemy propaganda literature. It had to wait 17 years, until 1933, to learn of the treachery of Pope Benedict XV in bestowing his Apostolic Benediction on the Irish rebels in 1916, three weeks before the Easter Week Rebellion. pp.

How many years will the Empire have to wait before it learns the secret lying behind the action of Rt. Hon. Anthony Eden, M.P., Foreign Secy., violating diplomatic practice in Feb. 1934, by first visiting the Pope in the Vatican before calling upon the Duce, the real ruler of Italy? The Act of Settlement is still a Statute Law of England. Mr. Eden knows this quite well!

The Roman Catholic Permanent Officials at the Foreign Office no doubt arranged for this violation of the Act of Settlement. See The Times, February 27th, 1934.

At the Coronation of King George VI in 1937, Mr. Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary, received the three members of the Pope’s Mission to the Coronation at the Foreign Office. A special tribune was erected for them outside Westminster Abbey! They would not go inside the Abbey to witness the coronation of a heretic King, so the Foreign Office Permanent Officials accommodated them outside! It was an insult to the nation, which the Foreign Office winked at. See Daily Telegraph 11.5.37.

What right had the Roman Catholic Foreign Office officials to send Cardinal Bourne in a British warship on a Political Mission to Cairo, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Laibach, the Balkans and to Haifa and Mt. Carmel, in April, 1919? See Evening Standard, March 31st, April 1st and 7th, 1939.

The great Revolution of 1685-1689 was caused by the Government of James II hiding from the nation the Jesuit Plots for the restoration of Popery in the land, and the downfall of England. There is a loud call in Britain today for a reform in the Foreign Office!

Lord Halifax and Sir Samuel Hoare are both Anglo-Romanists who see no danger from Rome, in spite of her blood-guilty acts in Abyssinia and Spain. Halifax eulogized the traitor Bishop Fisher as a holy man in Rochester Cathedral, June 21st, 1935— A Church of England Cathedral!

(Continued in Rome’s Attack on the British Empire and the United States. )

All sections of Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms by Albert Close

This is the continuation of the series, Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms – By Albert Close and the previous post in the series, The Meaning of 666 in Revelation Chapter 13.

Jesuit Origin of the Futurist and Preterist Interpretations of Daniel and Revelation

Both John Foxe (1516-1587 and Thomas Brightman (1562–1607), the able post-Reformation Commentators (1601 A.D.) state, that for some time following the Reformation the Romish priests fought shy of the subject of Babylon and Antichrist as revealed in the books of Daniel and Revelation. At length, as the century was advancing to a close, two stout Spanish Jesuits, and one Italian Jesuit took up the gauntlet, and published their respective but quite counter interpretations, the one, Ribera, a Jesuit priest of Salamanca, who in 1591 published his commentary, which was on the grand points of Babylon and Antichrist, the Futurist scheme; the other, Alcasar, also a Spanish Jesuit, of Seville, the Preterist; i.e. that the Revelation prophecies have all been fulfilled in the fall of Pagan Rome and in the calamities to the Jews. Either suited the great object of the Jesuit writers equally well; viz., that of setting aside all application of the prophecies of Antichrist from the existing Church of Rome, and of mixing up the whole Protestant ministry: Ribera by making it over-leap almost altogether the immense interval of time which has elapsed since the prophecy was given, and plunge in its pictures of Antichrist into a yet distant future just before the end of the Age; the other, Alcasar, by making it stop entirely short of the Papacy at the Fifth Century.

Ribera unfolds the Book of Revelation as if it were nothing else but certain commentaries upon our Lord’s prophecy in Matthew 24, he makes it begin with the early period of the Church. So his first Seal’s White Horse and rider signify the gospel-triumphs of the apostolic era; his 3rd Seal’s black horse and rider, heresies; his 4th Seal, the violence of Trajan’s persecutions of the Church and multitude of deaths of Christians under it by sword, famine, wild beasts, etc. At length in the 6th Seal Ribera explains it as meant of the signs before Christ’s Second Coming spoken of in Matthew 24 and Luke 21; and construes the sealing vision too, with all that follows in the Revelationlypse, to have reference to the times of a future Antichrist. The 144,000 of Revelation 12 he makes to be the Jews converted to Christ at the consummation, though inconsistently afterwards explaining the 144,000 in Revelation 14 of both Jews and Gentiles under Antichrist and taking the number 144,000 literally. In Revelation 10 the descending Angel is the same that proclaimed about the book in Revelation 5, and who swears that, because of men’s not having been led to repent by the six previous Trumpet-plagues, the end of the world and last judgment are now at hand. In Revelation 11 alike the Temple and Holy City figured the Church: and the city’s being given to be trod by Gentiles meant that it would be captured and occupied by Antichrist with armies of heathenish men. Ribera’s Slaughter-place for the Two Witnesses, when slain by Antichrist, or the Beast from the abyss, is the city of Jerusalem, their 3 1/2 days of death denoting Antichrist’s 3 1/2 years.

In Revelation 12, Ribera teaches that the Woman is the Church travailing in the last times, just before the 3 1/2 years of Antichrist; seeing that her 3 1/2 years in the wilderness coincides with those of Antichrist’s reign: for he identifies the Dragon with the Beast Antichrist. Then, as to the Beast and his great city Babylon, in Revelation 13 and 18 here is the main point in Ribera’s system. He admits that the Woman in Revelation chapter 17 is Rome, Papal Rome; and argues from verse 16, that shortly before the consummation the Ten Kings, figured in the Beast’s ten horns, shall overthrow Rome, this being probably before the coming of Antichrist.

In Revelation 16 the seven plagues are expounded literally, as those on Egypt. In Revelation 18 Rome’s burning is explained to be in judgment on the sins both of old Pagan Rome, and of Rome apostatized at the end of the Age.

Bellarmine, the great Jesuit controversionalist, followed Ribera in most points.

Alcasar’s Preterist Interpretation A.D. 1614.

Alcasar’s Commentary was the original of the Preterist system of Grotius, and the Modernist German expositors. Alcasar’s general argument is that the Revelation describes a twofold war of the Church; one with the Synagogue or old Jewish religion, the other with Paganism, and a two-fold victory and triumph over both adversaries. More particularly the development of the subject was thus:—

1. From Revelation 1 to 11 the rejection of the Jews, and desolation of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70.

2. From Revelation 12 to 20, both inclusive, the overthrow of Paganism, and establishment of the empire of the Roman Church over Rome and the whole world the judgment of the Great Whore, and destruction of Babylon, being effected by Constantine and his successors. Great numbers of Protestant Theological Colleges are teaching this today.

3. In Revelation 21, 22, under the type of the Lamb’s Bride, the New Jerusalem, a description of the glorious and triumphant state of the Roman Church in Heaven.
These two interpreters, Ribera and Alcasar, have led uncounted multitudes astray in interpreting Divine Prophecy.

(Continued in British Government Hides Vatican War Treachery From Empire. )

All sections of Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms by Albert Close

I was blessed to have found Christ in January 1971 through the ministry of the Navigators, a Christian outreach ministry that started in 1930 when young Dawson Trotman took up the challenge to memorize Bible Scriptures on salvation from a Sunday school memorization contest. Though he wasn’t saved yet, he won the contest! Within the following week, the Holy Spirit used the scripture verses he memorized to lead him to Christ! He continued to memorize Scripture and then won a disciple who won another disciple for Christ. I’m writing this from memory what I heard 50 years ago. The things I heard when young in Christ have stuck with me.

After I received Christ as my Lord and Savior when attending an evening church service the Navigators brought me to, I began to attend the Navigators’ weekly Bible studies. After three months I came to the conclusion based on the Bible studies that I no longer needed to go to Catholic Mass. I realized from Navigator Bible study that what the Catholic priest was teaching and the very practice of the Mass was not in accordance with the Bible.

The Navigators were not preachers, they were teachers. Their Bible studies consisted of Bible verses and questions about the verse with multiple-choice answers. Reading and understanding the Bible verse led me to choose the right answer! I attended the Navigator fellowships and Bible studies in California and Japan from 1971 to 1973.

The Navigators put a great emphasis on knowing the Scriptures, memorizing Bible verses, and basing doctrine solely on what the Bible says, not on what some preacher says it says. I sometimes met some high-ranking leadership in the Navigators and never felt uncomfortable in their presence. They did not come across as know-it-all preachers but as simple followers of Jesus Christ. The good things I learned from the Navigators and the practice of memorizing and reviewing Scriptures continue with me to this very day. And my wife Tess is like-minded with me about the Scriptures being the basis of all sound doctrine.

We are thankful to have had a good pastor when we lived in Guam. He said some things we didn’t agree with, but they were very minor things. And he didn’t preach any Endtime doctrines from the pulpit, things we would not have not agreed with, things such as a 7-year Endtime scenario of the rise of the Antichrist who makes a peace-pact with Israel and allows them to rebuild their Temple. He may have believed that based on the doctrines of the church in the US mainland that sponsors him, but he didn’t teach it. And he did not demand that we hold to the eschatological doctrines of his home church for us to be a member of his church.

Is it within the authority of the average believers in Christ to question things that Bible teachers, pastors, and evangelists are teaching? The Bereans in the book of Acts sets the precedent to do so.

The Bereans didn’t just take the word of Paul or Silas, they checked it out with the Scriptures! If they took the time to check out if the great Apostle Paul’s teaching was correct or not by going to the Scriptures, I think it certainly behooves us to do the same. Do most Christians do that today? If they did, I don’t see how so many false doctrines can abound in present-day churches!

Let’s give some examples of incorrect doctrines of preachers I like before I get into ones I don’t like.

• John MacArthur in a sermon only 11 days ago at the time of this article gave a talk about “The Coming of a False Peace.” There is no phrase, “false peace” anywhere in the Bible! I know where he got that doctrine. It’s Dispensational Futurism from John Nelson Darby and C.I. Scofield. It’s what I was taught when still young in Christ. Former hippies called the first 3.5 years of the reign of a future Antichrist a “plastic peace.” It’s based on a false interpretation of Daniel 9:27. My hat is off to John MacArthur for many of his other sermons exposing sin in America, and for his defiance of unconstitutional COVID medical mandates and keeping his church open. But he’s off on his eschatology.
• Charles A. Jennings of Truth in History. We like his stance on Israel, eschatology, and the fact he believes all the gifts of the Spirit are relevant today. But last night we heard him teach the “Anglo-Israel” doctrine which says that the English are descendants of the tribes of Israel. How can they be when the Bible clearly says Israel is descended from Shem? The white European peoples are all descended from Japheth! English people are white! It was the descendants of Japheth, not Shem, who populated white Europe. It surprises me how pastor Jennings could teach such an error when he knows the Bible so well.
• Steve Gregg of the YouTube channel The Narrow Path. My wife and I think he’s a great Bible teacher, and he came out of Dispensationalism, but nevertheless, he doesn’t teach the Historicist interpretation of the Book of Revelation! I heard he even mocked it. That tells me he has not read the commentators of the Protestant Bible teachers of the past.
• Chuck Baldwin of Liberty Fellowship. My wife and I used to listen to him every week but we stopped when he began to teach the Preterist view of the Book of Revelation, namely that the Book of Revelation is all about the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD! This is much worse than Steve Gregg’s view because it ignores the Great Whore, the Scarlet woman who rides the Beast of Revelation chapter 17, the Vatican’s worldwide covert government, the “Holy See”, the murder of Bible-believing followers of Jesus Christ through the centuries, the Woman who claims to be the true Bride of Christ but is actually a whore working for Satan! How Chuck Baldwin could be so misled as to not see that despite all his knowledge and education is shocking! He’s so right on other things including his views on the modern nation of Israel, and the correct interpretation of the Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.
• Christian J. Pinto of Noise of Thunder Radio. Tess and I love to listen to his podcasts, but sad to say he’s wrong about Israel. I heard him once say the 1948 restoration of Israel was a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. I hope he changed his position on that. We are excited to see his new documentary when it comes out, Jesuits in America.

And then there’s a bunch of popular preachers I don’t like and never listen to. Everything they teach is questionable. I’m talking about all the prosperity Gospel preachers such as Kenneth Copeland. You know who they are.

You might question me too and that’s fine with me. Today a man said a reference I quoted on an article did not have the information I said it has. I proved it does by taking a screenshot of the article and posting it as my reply.

I stand with the majority of the Protestant Reformers on all my views of the Bible on this website. There are some things from Calvin I don’t agree with, but I think his view of the Catholic Church was the same as mine.

Nobody’s perfect, right? I don’t claim to know it all. I like to listen to what others have to say, and then I test it with the Scriptures. I still like to listen to the above mentioned Bible teachers, but only on subjects I believe they are teaching correctly.

1 John 4:1  Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

For more on this subject, please see an article on an external website, Is it Wrong to Question My Pastor?. It contains many insights not covered here. Here are a couple of quotes from that article I like:

It is important for every individual in the church to have growing familiarity with the biblical word. We are to trust that the Holy Spirit will “guide us into all truth” (John 16:13). Posing questions about a pastor’s teaching is to take ownership of our spiritual growth. As Christians, we are to ensure that we can differentiate between “the spirit of God and the spirit of falsehood” (1 John 4:6). Authentic pastors, committed to their congregation’s spiritual growth, welcome such questions. Questions are seen as invitations to look at the biblical word in a deeper way. Authentic pastors see questions as an opportunity to journey together in faith and learning.

Toxic or abusive pastors, however, refuse to answer questions pertaining to their teaching. It is suggested that questioning a sermon is tantamount to questioning his or her spiritual authority. After all, they are the ones who have the biblical education (and understand the bible rightly); they are the ones charged with declaring God’s voice; they are the ones who God has called to the ministry. Instead of an invitation for growth, questions are considered obstructive. Abusive pastors equate God’s voice with their own.

This is no different than the attitude the priests and bishops of the Catholic Church have. I believe they are the Nicolaitans of Revelation 2:6.

But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

One interpretation of the Nicolaitans I heard is the clergy who oppresses the laity. Not even the Apostles Peter or Paul had that authority. They wrote letters to the churches in various cities to advise them, but if those churches didn’t heed the apostle’s advice, they suffered the consequences of their choice. They weren’t bullied and forced to obey by an ecclesiastical hierarchy.

To sum up, the answer to the question in the title of this article is, absolutely yes!

This is the continuation of the series, Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms – By Albert Close and the previous post, The Mass an Abomination to God.

In my opinion, this explanation of the meaning of 666 in Revelation chapter 13 is the best, clearest, most understandable, and most reasonable one I have ever heard. It points to the final Beast, the Roman Empire, and the continuation of the Roman Empire, the so called, “Holy See”, the Papacy, the Vatican, the power in Rome which is controlling most of Europe (except Russia), both North and South America, and most nations on every continent on earth. According to Daniel chapter 7, a “beast” is a metaphor for an empire or kingdom, not a person. I believe the Beast is already in control of most of the nations of the world. I think the Covid pandemic medical mandates followed by nearly all countries is a major sign we are under the rule of the final Beast, also known as the New World Order. But thank God, I still have the liberty to voice my views on the Internet, and share what famous men of the past had to say. How long will it last? I’ll keep going as long as I can.

Revelation 13:18  Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Rev. Adam Clarke, LL.D., the distinguished commentator of the last century wrote:—

Rev. E. P, CACHEMAILLE wrote:

Dean ALforb writes:

Rev. JOSEPH TANNER, M.A., adds in addition to much of the above:—

Rev. E. H. Horne, M.A., says:—

(Note: In 1964 the Catholic Church stopped using Latin in the Mass.)

Rev. E, P. Cachemaille, M.A., also says:—

(End of article.)

Are you convinced that LATEINOS written in Greek letters adds up to 666 and is the name of the Beast of Revelation chapter 13:18 which is the Beast or empire of today controlled by the Roman Catholic Church? If not, please consider the message of the meme below.

The famous number 666 (Revelation 13:18), may be recognized as representing Rome and its Caesar. The number 666, when written the Roman way, DCLXVI, forms a pattern. It is the set of numerals under 1000 in descending order: D=500, C=100, L=50, X=10, V=5, I=1 (they add up to 666). Because 666 converts to a significant Roman numeral, it cleverly identifies the Beast as Roman. (Quoted from: THE BIBLE & ROME: THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST

(Continued in False Interpretations of Divine Prophecy. )

All sections of Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms by Albert Close

This is the continuation of the series, Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms – By Albert Close and the previous post, The Scholars Behind the Promotion of the False Interpretations of the Books of Daniel and Revelation.

The Sacrifice of the Mass is an insult to the Atonement and finished work of Christ.

Christ finished the Atonement on Calvary, yet these Roman and High Church priests go through the blasphemous daily sacrifice again. They pretend that they are finishing the SACRIFICE —a sinful being finishing Christ’s work!

This is why a stone altar is illegal in the Church of England. It implies that the Atonement of Christ is unfinished, that the Altar for Sacrifice still exists. It implies infinitely more than the difference between a Communion Table of wood and an Altar of stone.

Lady Meux once wished to vex Whistler, the great painter. She pointed to a beautiful portrait the great artist had just completed, and said: “Look here, Jimmy Whistler, I am going to get someone else to finish that portrait,” laying emphasis on the word finish. Whistler went white with rage. Someone else to “finish” his work. So by pretending to offer up a daily sacrifice in the Mass, the Roman and High Church priests insult the Atonement of Christ. Herein lies the awful wickedness and abominations of the Mass. It is a counterfeit sacrifice. It insults our Lord, who finished the Atonement.

WHAT IS THE MASS?

“The Holy Mass is one and the same Sacrifice with that of the Cross, inasmuch as Christ who offered Himself, a bleeding Victim on the Cross to His Heavenly Father, continues to offer Himself in an unbloody manner on the altar, through the ministry of His priests. See Roman Catholic Catechism,”

Counterfeiting the Atonement of Christ.

Celebrating a Romish High Mass. The Priest pretending by Divine power to turn the Wine and Bread into the real Flesh and Blood of Christ.

High Masses, Low Masses, Requiem Masses, etc., are celebrated in numerous London High Churches, and some are celebrated in Y.M.C.A. Huts. The Secretaries see no harm in a counterfeit Atonement!

This unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass came from ancient Babylon. See High Masses, Low Masses, Requiem Masses, etc., are celebrated in numerous London High Churches, and some are celebrated in Y.M.C.A. Huts. The Secretaries see no harm in a counterfeit Atonement!

This unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass came from ancient Babylon. See Hyslop’s Two Babylons, pages 224-240.

(Continued in The Meaning of 666 in Revelation Chapter 13)

All sections of Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms by Albert Close

This article was inspired by an exchange I had on Facebook with a man who posted this meme.

My comment:

His reply:

My reply:

It’s interesting to note that the Japanese who were not under the influence of the West until the 19th century have always been known for their personal hygiene and daily bathing. There’s a theory that some of the scattered tribes of Israel pioneered the islands of Japan 2000 years ago and took them over from the indigenous Ainu people. Though the people of Israel were backslidden in their worship of God, they apparently hung on to the Hebrew traditions of sanitation and cleanliness they got from the Laws of Moses. There’s lots of evidence that Japanese Shintoism evolved from Hebrew traditions!

At the time of posting this article, I have not yet received a reply from the man on Facebook who posted the anti-religion meme. I try to come across as non-confrontational. If he responds in a friendly manner, I may continue the discussion with him. If not, I’ll end it there. But thanks to what he wrote, I was inspired to re-post from a previous article what the Bible says about cleanliness and sanitation.

The Bible confirms the existence of harmful bacteria

The laws of sanitation in the Bible were written some 3000 years before Louis Pasteur in the 19th century linked germs with infectious disease!

There are numerous rules for sanitation and quarantine found in the Old Testament, and especially in the Book of Leviticus that God gave for the benefit of His children to keep them free from contagious diseases. The scientific community only much later in time discovered the importance of these health rules which includes washing one’s body in running water!

Leviticus 15:13  And when he that hath an issue is cleansed of his issue; then he shall number to himself seven days for his cleansing, and wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in running water, and shall be clean.

“Soap and water don’t kill germs; they work by mechanically removing them from your hands. Running water by itself does a pretty good job of germ removal…” (Quoted from https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/The_handiwork_of_good_health)

You have probably heard the proverb, “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” The phrase “running water” is found exactly seven times in the King James translation of the Bible! The number seven is God’s special number, for it signifies spiritual perfection and completion. The Bible mentions it more than any other number.

Leviticus 14:5  And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water:
Leviticus 14:6  As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water:
Leviticus 14:50  And he shall kill the one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water:
Leviticus 14:51  And he shall take the cedar wood, and the hyssop, and the scarlet, and the living bird, and dip them in the blood of the slain bird, and in the running water, and sprinkle the house seven times:
Leviticus 14:52  And he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird, and with the running water, and with the living bird, and with the cedar wood, and with the hyssop, and with the scarlet:
Leviticus 15:13  And when he that hath an issue is cleansed of his issue; then he shall number to himself seven days for his cleansing, and wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in running water, and shall be clean.
Numbers 19:17  And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel:

More Scriptures about sanitation

Leviticus 11:31  These are unclean to you among all that creep: whosoever doth touch them, when they be dead, shall be unclean until the even.
32  And upon whatsoever any of them, when they are dead, doth fall, it shall be unclean; whether it be any vessel of wood, or raiment, or skin, or sack, whatsoever vessel it be, wherein any work is done, it must be put into water, and it shall be unclean until the even; so it shall be cleansed.
33  And every earthen vessel, whereinto any of them falleth, whatsoever is in it shall be unclean; and ye shall break it.
34  Of all meat which may be eaten, that on which such water cometh shall be unclean: and all drink that may be drunk in every such vessel shall be unclean.
35  And every thing whereupon any part of their carcase falleth shall be unclean; whether it be oven, or ranges for pots, they shall be broken down: for they are unclean, and shall be unclean unto you.
36  Nevertheless a fountain or pit, wherein there is plenty of water, shall be clean: but that which toucheth their carcase shall be unclean.

The words “unclean” and “clean” indicate to me either the presence of germs and harmful bacteria or the absence of them. The microscope had not yet been invented in the time Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt. The people of course could not see microbes. They didn’t have the “germ theory” in their education. They just obeyed God’s commands to Moses not knowing the scientific reasons why they should.

Medieval Europe was plagued with diphtheria, measles, tuberculosis, leprosy, typhus, anthrax, smallpox, salmonella and other maladies. The worst of such diseases was of course the Black Death.

Leviticus 15:1  And the LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying,
2  Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When any man hath a running issue (a discharge such as puss) out of his flesh, because of his issue he is unclean.
3  And this shall be his uncleanness in his issue: whether his flesh run with his issue, or his flesh be stopped from his issue, it is his uncleanness.
4  Every bed, whereon he lieth that hath the issue, is unclean: and every thing, whereon he sitteth, shall be unclean.
5  And whosoever toucheth his bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
6  And he that sitteth on any thing whereon he sat that hath the issue shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
7  And he that toucheth the flesh of him that hath the issue shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
8  And if he that hath the issue spit upon him that is clean; then he shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
9  And what saddle soever he rideth upon that hath the issue shall be unclean.
10  And whosoever toucheth any thing that was under him shall be unclean until the even: and he that beareth any of those things shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
11  And whomsoever he toucheth that hath the issue, and hath not rinsed his hands in water, he shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
12  And the vessel of earth, that he toucheth which hath the issue, shall be broken: and every vessel of wood shall be rinsed in water.
13  And when he that hath an issue is cleansed of his issue; then he shall number to himself seven days for his cleansing, and wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in running water, and shall be clean.

Does modern science tell us it’s important for good health to keep our bodies and hands clean? You know it does. And why? To remove the presence of harmful bacteria, that’s why.

Did you know that in the early part of the 19th century, ‘Wash your hands’ was once controversial medical advice?

Regarding the hygiene principle and germs, Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818 –1865), who was a Hungarian physician, discovered that 10%–35% Of the mothers that came to the medical institutions suffered fatalities. Puerperal fever was common in mid-19th-century hospitals and was fatal. Doctors in those clinics had three times the mortality of midwives’ wards. Sadly, nobody knew why. But after close observation, Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever or “childbed fever” could be greatly reduced by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics.

Semmelweis proposed the practice of washing hands with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 while working in Vienna General Hospital’s First Obstetrical Clinic. He ordered physicians to wash their hands thoroughly after every examination. In three months, the death rate fell from 18% to 1%. These were astounding results. And he was called the “savior of mothers.” He published a book of his findings in Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever. Despite various publications of his successful results, Semmelweis’s suggestions were not accepted by the medical community of his time.

Why was Semmelweis research rejected? Because germs were virtually a foreign concept for the Europeans in the middle-19th-century. Later, Semmelweis’s publications earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the “germ theory” and Joseph Lister, acting on the French microbiologist’s research, practiced and operated on patients while using hygienic methods with great results.

Had the medical community paid attention to God’s instructions that were given 3000 years before, many lives would have been saved. The Lord gave the Israelites hygienic principles against the contamination of germs and taught the necessity to quarantine the sick (Numbers 19:11-12). And the book of Leviticus lists a host of diseases and ways where a person would come in contact with germs (Leviticus 13:46).

Germs were no new discovery in 1847. And for this fact, Roderick McGrew testified in the Encyclopedia of Medical History: “The idea of contagion was foreign to the classic medical tradition and found no place in the voluminous Hippocratic writings. The Old Testament, however, is a rich source for contagionist sentiment, especially in regard to leprosy and venereal disease” (1985, pp. 77-78). — (from https://bibleask.org/did-the-bible-teach-the-germs-theory/

The practice of the quarantine of people with infectious diseases is in the Bible

Numbers 12:10  ¶And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow: and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous.
11  And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned.
12  Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother’s womb.
13  And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee.
14  And the LORD said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again.
15  And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days: and the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again.

Other than the “germ theory” we also have the “terrain theory”

Diseases are results of our internal environment and its ability to maintain homeostasis against outside threats. Terrain theory believes if an individual maintains a healthy terrain, it can handle outside invaders or threats which cause diseases. When terrain is weak, it favors the microorganisms. Hence, health depends on the quality of an individuals’ terrain. (Quoted from https://drkarenwolfe.org/germ-theory-or-terrain-theory-of-disease/)

Are these two theories of the cause of disease at odds with each other? I personally do not think so. In my opinion, both are true. We are supposed to wash our hands before we eat so we do not transfer harmful bacteria into our mouths, and we try as much as possible to live in an environment free of toxic chemicals. We also are supposed to maintain a strong immune system by eating a nutritious diet, daily exercise, taking a good night’s sleep and rest when our bodies tell us it’s tired, and having a good mental attitude toward life in general.

People who have a relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ are the most likely people to have such a good positive attitude. They are less likely to worry about the future or experience stress which is harmful to health. If you are searching for such a relationship with your Creator God, please see The Lover of all Lovers.