Vain Worship
In vain do they worship Me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Matt.15:9.
THE MASS:
The June 16, 1999 issue of the Roman Catholic weekly ‘Our Sunday Visitor’ declared “Eucharistic Adoration” ....prayer and meditation before the “Blessed Sacrament” ....is sweeping the country.” The ‘Eucharist’ or ‘Blessed Sacrament’ is the teaching that the communion wafer, when blessed by an ordained priest, becomes the actual “body, blood, soul and divinity” of Jesus.
Despite looking, tasting, and feeling just like a bread wafer Catholics are taught to believe that it is the real, literal Jesus Christ, blood and all, which they swallow and eat at every communion. Jesus is commanded to come down from His ministering work as our High Priest in the Sanctuary in heaven hundreds of times each day by thousands of Roman Catholic priests all over the earth; many of those priests, as reported consistently in the news media and in the courts of the land, are of questionable character, yet they profess to make our Lord and Saviour subservient to their commands.
This doctrine of the Roman church is a perversion and superficial interpretation of Jesus’ teaching: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you. John 6:53. Many, taking His Words literally, were perplexed at the time Jesus made this statement. They were offended and deserted Him, even though He had expounded further on His meaning: The flesh profits nothing: the Words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, they are Life. John 6:63. Understanding that: The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us [John 1:14], it is clear that to have life in us we must eat, not the manufactured and fabricated flesh of a wafer god, but we must eat and digest the Words of the Living God, Jesus Christ, taking those Words into our hearts and not into our stomachs, only to be cast into a septic tank.
It was a symbolic service that Jesus established on Passover the night before His crucifixion when He gave the broken bread and the fruit of the vine to His disciples saying: Take, eat: this is My body and Drink all of it for this is my blood....Matt. 26:26-28.This do in remembrance of Me. Luke 22:19. How could He give them His literal body to eat if He was still with them?
We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ ONCE for all. For every priest stands daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man [Christ], after He had offered ONE sacrifice for sins FOR EVER, sat down on the right hand of God...for by ONE offering He has perfected FOR EVER them that are sanctified. Heb. 10:10-14. Those who read and understand these Scriptures and insist on believing that the sacrifice of Christ should be daily and continually renewed in the Mass should give serious consideration as to whether they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to open shame. Heb. 6:6.
MARIOLATRY:
The Scriptures declare that Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of salvation for all: Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Acts 4:12.
Pope John Paul II, the supposedly infallible head of the Roman Catholic church has declared in his recent book, ‘Crossing the Threshold of Hope’: “After my election as Pope, as I became more involved in the problems of the universal Church, I came to have a similar conviction on this universal level, if victory comes it will be brought by Mary. Christ will conquer through her, because He wants the Church’s victories now and in the future to be linked to her.” His statement is totally without Scriptural support. God says: There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. 1Tim.2:5.
Roman Catholics are taught this tradition from their infancy that Mary is the mother of God, and many times, every day, when praying to her, say, “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for me.” But is it not strange and full of irony that St. Augustine, one of the ‘Holy Fathers’ of the Roman church says in his “Treatise on Faith and Creed,” these very words: “When the Lord said, ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.’ John 2:4. He rather admonishes us to understand that, in respect to His being God, there was no mother for Him.”
There is no Scripture that tells the follower of Christ that He should pray to Mary, nor can anyone find in the Scriptures where God tells us that Mary ascended to heaven. The Scriptures tell us to pray to “Our Father Who is in heaven” and that all return to the dust of the earth and the grave to await Christ’s coming again and His resurrection of the dead. Unless God tells us differently in His Word, we must believe that Mary is sleeping in the grave awaiting the return of Jesus Christ, the Resurrection and the Life.
The Roman doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception that Mary “was preserved without sin from the moment of her
conception.” directly refutes the Scriptures: All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God [Rom.3:23],
the only exception, proved elsewhere in Scripture, being Jesus Christ,
Himself. Like everyone else, Mary needed a Saviour and plainly admitted
this when she said: And my spirit has rejoiced in God my
Saviour. Luke
1:47. If Mary needed a Saviour, she could
not be a Saviour or Mediator herself.
Considering all the reported sightings and apparitions of Mary, one would do well to consider these Words: And [he] deceives them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast...For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and unto the whole world to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Rev.13:14,16:14.
Hundreds of Eucharistic Adoration Chapels have been established across the country since Pope John Paul II established the first one in St. Peter’s Basilica in 1992 in the Vatican. In Lombard, Illinois the man in charge of just one of these chapels stated, “There are three pillars that hold up the roof of our faith: Belief in the real presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, devotion to our Blessed Mother, and obedience to the Holy Father [the Pope]. Without all three, the roof comes crashing down.”
There are, at least, three other main pillars that hold up that roof that this man didn’t mention, but just as God’s Word does not support the first two pillars this man mentions, neither does His Word support the third:
OBEDIENCE TO THE ‘HOLY’ FATHER, THE POPE:
Obedience to the ‘Holy Father’ is
specifically forbidden by Jesus when He says to call no religious leader
“Father” upon the earth and in the same passage pronounces woe after woe
upon religious leaders who turn their followers away from Him and Spiritual
things to themselves and earthly things. Read Matthew
chapter 23. There is only one instance in all
of Scripture where the words ‘Holy Father’ are used and that is in John
17:11 where Jesus is praying to our Father in heaven for His disciples
and addresses Him as ‘Holy Father’. To give to any
man the title of ‘Holy Father’
which is the title of God alone is blasphemy and blasphemy is “a contemptuous
or profane act or utterance against God or claiming for oneself the attributes
and the rights of God.”
There are, at least, three more main pillars, bearing, perhaps, an even greater load, that hold up the roof of the Roman Catholic church:
AUTHORITY TO CHANGE THE LAW OF GOD:
This is, in actuality, the most important and most central pillar of Roman Catholic doctine. It is through her claim of changing the Law of God that the Roman church uses this supposed change as a mark of her authority in all ecclesiastical matters:
“Sunday is our mark of authority. The church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact.” ~~‘The Catholic Record’. “The observance of Sunday by Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] Church.” ~~Monsignor Segur in ‘Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today’.
The Fourth Commandment is the Sabbath Commandment, the Seventh-day Commandment. Nowhere in Scripture is the authority given to the Roman church to change the Law of God, but she claims this authority in her catechisms: “We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.” Look up the Ten Commandments in any Catholic catechism and compare it with the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:2 to 17 of any Bible: you’ll see that the Second Commandment, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,... which is one of the two longest Commandments, has been omitted. If a church teaches it’s okay to kneel or bow down before men, statues, and images then it wouldn’t want the second Commandment to be part of its presentation of the Law of God, would it?
PAPAL SUCCESSION:
The pope, who according to Catholic
doctrine, is the earthly head of the church and successor of the Apostle
Peter, claims the succession of popes has continued from Peter to this
very day. The Scriptures do not teach that Christ ordained one man
to be above all others in His Church. Jesus taught: You know
that they which are
accounted to rule over the Gentiles
exercise lordship over them, and their great ones exercise authority upon
them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will
be great among you, shall be your minister, and
whosoever of you will be the chiefest,
shall be servant of all. Mark 10:42-44.
Jesus plainly taught equality
among believers and none of them was to be a ruler or lord it over
the others. Jesus further taught this equality by warning the disciples
against using flattering titles for religious leaders such
as “Father” [the word ‘pope’ comes
from the Italian word for ‘father’], Rabbi, or Master. For One is
your Master, even Christ, He said, and all you are brethren. Matt.23:4-10.
Christ is the head of the Church [Eph.5:23], not
the pope!
INFALLIBILITY AND SOVEREIGNTY OF THE POPE:
[actual questions of a Catholic priest put to an official of that church]:
“When you ordain a priest,
do you not make him swear that he will never interpret the Holy Scriptures
except according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers? How
can we know their unanimous consent
without studying them? Is
it not more than strange that, not only the priests do not study the Holy
Fathers, but the only one in Canada who is trying to study them, is turned
into ridicule and suspected of heresy? Is it my fault if that precious
stone, called ‘unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers’, which is the very
foundation of our religious belief and teaching, is to be found nowhere
in them? Is it my fault if Origen never believed in the eternal
punishment of the damned; if St.
Cyprian denied the supreme authority of the Bishop of Rome; if St. Augustine
positively said that nobody was obliged to believe in purgatory; if St.
John Chrysostom publicly denied the obligation of auricular confession,
and the real presence of the body of Christ in the Eucharist? Is
it my fault if one of the most learned and holy popes, Gregory the Great,
has called by the name of Antichrist, all his successors, for taking the
name of supreme Pontiff, and trying to persuade the world that they had,
by divine authority, a supreme
jurisdiction and power over the rest of the church?”
And when this priest received
no satisfactory answers for his questions,
he supplied the answers himself:
“It is Jesus, and not the
Holy Fathers, who will now guide me; for the latter were sinners, like
myself, and the first is forever my Saviour and my God. I know enough
of the Holy Fathers to assure your lordship that the oath
we take of accepting the Word of
God according to their unanimous consent is a miserable blunder, if not
a blasphemous perjury. It is evident that Pope Pius IV, who imposed
the obligation of that oath upon us all, never read a single volume of
the Holy Fathers. He would not have been guilty of such an incredible
blunder if he had known that the Holy Fathers are unanimous in only one
thing, which is to differ from each other on almost everything.”
~~‘50 Years in the Church of Rome’ by Charles Chiniquy.
What about Paul’s testimony in considering this claim of the infallibility of popes by this church: But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed [for refusing to eat with the Gentiles in the presence of the Jews for fear of them]. Gal. 2:11.
CEBLIBACY OF CLERGY:
considering the church’s command
for celibacy for priests, how does the Roman church reconcile their false
claim
that Peter was the first pope and,
yet, he was married: And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house,
He saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever. And He touched
her hand, and the fever left her. Matt.8:14,15. The Spirit
speaks expressly, that in the latter
times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits,
and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their consciences
seared with a hot iron; FORBIDDING
TO MARRY....1Tim.4:1-3.
There is not room here to
elaborate on the depravity and debauchery to which this doctrine
has sunk the church of Rome; suffice it to say that “when Pope Paul V sought
the suppression of the licensed brothels in the ‘Holy
City’ [Rome], the Roman Senate
petitioned against his carrying his design into effect, upon the ground
that the existence of such places was the only means of hindering
the priests from seducing their wives and daughters.”
~~Hislop, The Two Babylons, p.
220.
INDULGENCES:
“The signing of this Joint Declaration
comes at an ironic time, given Pope John Paul II's recent revival of indulgences
[acts one does or items one can buy as good works to please God], which
is what drove
Martin Luther to nail his theses
and start debate in the first place.” 10-29-99 Chicago
Tribune.
EVOLUTION:
“Did God create mankind in his image, as the Bible says, or did humans evolve from animals, as Darwin theorized nearly 150 years ago? According to Pope John Paul II, evolution may be a better explanation.” U.S. News & World Report, 11-4-96. In 1996 the Roman Catholic church came out officially and publicly endorsing and embracing evolution.
In the 16th century, when
Galileo proposed through true scientific observation that the earth revolved
around the sun, the Roman Catholic
hierarchy had him imprisoned because they taught the masses that the
earth was the center of the physical
universe. In this 20th century the pendulum has swung to the other
extreme; science and reason are so elevated by the ‘enlightened’ masses
that they are forcing many of the denominations
through their fear of abandonment
to promote a blind, mystical worship of a so-called science that comes
as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and true science is forced to take a back
seat to subjective opinion alongside God’s Word.
In 1996 the Roman Catholic hierarchy came out officially and publicly embracing evolution, but evolution still remains an unproved theory because there is much evidence in support of a young earth and universe. Is this why Harvard Professor Stephen J. Gould, probably America’s foremost evolutionist, refuses to publicly debate any creation scientists?
Somehow, the idea seems to
have permeated the thinking of the masses that if observation or evidence
seems to support a Biblical tenet, that alone is sufficient reason to exclude
it from being offered as an alternative theory of
origins in our universities and
public schools or even in public debate. Is it any wonder,
following this logic, that our public schools, and, indeed, our country
is in such a state of crises seeing that teachers can’t teach
that murder and stealing are wrong
because God says so in His Ten Commandments? How can it be that in this
age as men and women seem to be growing more fearful with each passing
day, we extol knowledge while
denying the Source of wisdom and
the only Power available to make us truly righteous?
And once again, the true science
of evidence, observation, and experimental investigation is imprisoned
by the pendulum of public opinion and blind religious fiat without a fair
trial because of secular scientific
speculation.
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This is not, of course, an
exhaustive study of the doctrines of the Roman church, but these should
be sufficient, if you are seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness...with
all your heart, for you to see that the
major pillars of the Roman church
are not resting on the Rock of God’s Word, but on the sands of tradition,
nor are they blessed by the light of Truth and Spirit, but by the darkness
of error and force.
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