 
The Cult

Published by Bill Etem at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Bill Etem

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Cover art by Dora Gonzales

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Must We Surrender to Vladimir Putin?

Chapter 2. Angels from Heaven and Angels from Hell

Chapter 3. The Evidence for Christianity.

Chapter 4. Rome.

Chapter 5. Israel and Zionism

Chapter 6. Gay Marriage, Christianity and Rich People etc., etc.

Chapter 7. More on the Cross.

The Cult

Chapter 1. Must We Surrender to Vladimir Putin

If you are an American politician, and if you were to make a speech in which you denounced the Russian Orthodox Church from the beginning to end of your little tirade, if you called the Russian Orthodox Church a malevolent cult, if you said it is satanic, if you said it is a false church which leads souls away from heaven and straight to eternal perdition etc., etc., then the press would denounce you as a fool, a hater, an obnoxious bigot etc., etc. Now if you gave another speech in which you announced that it is all wrong to think that Vladimir Putin is the legitimate ruler of the world, all wrong to think that everyone on earth must obey Vladimir Putin, then the press would not call you an obnoxious bigot, but they would denounce you as an idiot, a huge moron, for thinking it necessary to state something which the press finds perfectly obvious. What is wrong with this crazy press that we have? Why can't journalists understand the simplest things?

Either the Russian Orthodox Church is God's True Church or else it is not God's True Church. The Russian Orthodox Church is either the Church which Christ founded on a rock, or else it is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock. The Russian Orthodox Church either has not fallen away from True Faith, or else the Russian Orthodox Church has fallen away from the True Faith. The Russian Orthodox Church either leads people to heaven or else the Russian Orthodox Church leads people to perdition.

So, we have a Case 1: The Russian Orthodox Church leads people to heaven because the Russian Orthodox Church is the Church which Christ founded on a rock. It is God's True Church, the Bride of Christ etc., etc. And who is the supreme authority on earth of the Russian Orthodox Church? As long as Vladimir Putin is not excommunicated by the clergy and laity of the Russian Orthodox Church, then Vladimir Putin is the supreme authority on earth of the Russian Orthodox Church. We're in Case 1 still, where the Russian Orthodox Church is God's True Church. Recalling the history books: who are the supreme leaders in God's True Church? Well, if the Russian Orthodox Church is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then the supreme leaders in God's True Church are none other than the Russian Orthodox Emperors and Kings - Constantine, Theodosius, Justinian, Irene, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Nicholas II. etc. Recall that before Roman Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodoxy had their divorce in the 11th century there was one Catholic Church, whereas today a Roman Catholic is a person who believes the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, is the true leader on earth of God's True Church, whereas for century after century the Eastern Orthodox Church has given supreme authority to the Emperor - the supreme military leader in the Eastern Orthodox Church - provided of course he retains the blessing of the Eastern Orthodox clergy. Of course if he is excommunicated this changes everything. The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church had a divorce in October of 2018. You might say something like this: `Today, the Eastern Orthodox Church, not the Russian Orthodox Church, is God's True Church.' Or perhaps you'll say something like: `Neither the Russian Orthodox Church nor the Eastern Orthodox is, today, God's True Church.' Yes, well, those are Scenarios 2 and 3. In both of those 2 scenarios the Russian Orthodox Church is not the True Church, not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, and so the Russian Orthodox Church is a false church, in those 2 scenarios – if a church is not God's True Church then it's a false church – any problem with that logic? False churches lead people to eternal perdition. If a Church is God's True Church then it leads people to heaven. The True Church can make some mistakes but it never makes any mistakes which leads people to perdition. The True Church has not fallen into heresy. False churches have fallen into heresy. The fundamental attribute of God's True Church is that it leads people to heaven and it leads no one to perdition.

OK, we are in Scenario 1 now. Scenario 1 says the Russian Orthodox Church is God's True Church. So, if the Russian Orthodox Church is God's True Church, then Vladimir Putin is the supreme spiritual and temporal authority in the world. Who is the supreme military leader within the Russian Orthodox Church today? It is none other than Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin has not been excommunicated by the clergy in God's True Church, provided we assume the Russian Orthodox Church is God's True Church, therefore Vladimir Putin is the true and legitimate ruler of the world. To say that Vladimir Putin is not the true and legitimate ruler of the world is to say that the Russian Orthodox Church is not God's True Church. To say that Vladimir Putin is not the true ruler of the world is to say that the Russian Orthodox Church has fallen away from the True Faith, and therefore it leads people to perdition, and therefore it is a vicious evil satanic cult.

We were on the topic of confused journalists. If a politician in the USA was to give a speech saying the Russian Orthodox Church is an evil satanic church which leads people away from heaven and to perdition, these journalists would denounce that politician as a vile bigot, a hater, a corrupter of Christianity. But if the same politician was to declare to the world that everyone on earth must obey Vladimir Putin – so long as he is not excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church – then the same journalists would be calling that politician a brainless fool, a moron, a colossal idiot. But we only have two options: the Russian Orthodox Church is either God's True Church or else the Russian Orthodox Church is not God's True Church. We have a Case 1 and a Case 2. If Case 1 is true then we should all obey Vladimir Putin. If Case 1 is true then he is the leader on earth of God's True Church, and we should not rebel against the leader on earth of God's True Church. If Case 2 is true then the Russian Orthodox Church is a cult, it is a false church, it is not God's True Church, and since it is a false church it leads people away from heaven and to perdition, and so it is satanic. It is satanic to lead people away from heaven and straight to eternal perdition.

This exercise in logic reminds one of Malachi 4. 1, which has the LORD saying `the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the proud and wicked people will be set on fire.' There's a Case 1 and a Case 2 with Malachi 4. 1. Case 1 says Malachi 4.1 is true. Case 2 says Malachi 4. 1 is not true. So, if Case 1 is true, Malachi 4. 1 is true, then, if you are saying Malachi 4. 1 is a falsehood, then, it stands to reason, you should start worrying about getting set on fire. But there are only 2 possibilities with Malachi 4. 1! Don't get all scatterbrained and start thinking there are 27 different possibilities with Malachi 4. 1! The same is true with the Russian Orthodox Church. Just 2 possibilities here. Either the Russian Orthodox Church is god's True Church or else it is not God's True Church.

For century after century the clergy of the Russian Orthodox / Eastern Church – prior to October of 2018 they were more or less the same Church, as they were in communion with each other - have given their blessing to the lay rulers - the emperors and the kings. The system is called Caesaropapism. If this system has been leading souls to heaven for century after century, then it would be reasonable to assume that either the Russian Orthodox Church, or the Eastern Orthodox Church, or somehow both, are God's True Church. If this system has been leading souls to perdition for century after century, then both the Russian Orthodox and the Eastern Orthodox Churches are malevolent cults. Anyway, if the Russian Orthodox Church, right now, today, is God's True Church, then, Vladimir Putin is God's supreme agent on earth, provided he retains the blessing of the Russian Orthodox clergy, provided he is not excommunicated. If Vladimir Putin was to order the USA, Canada, Latin America, Western Europe etc. to lay down their arms and surrender to Russia, we better obey the leader of God's True Church. In order to attain heaven and to escape a hellish afterlife you want to obey God's True Church. You don't want to rebel against God's True Church.

Of course, on the other hand, if the Russian Orthodox Church is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if it is a malevolent cult which leads souls to perdition, then, obviously, the world should not surrender to Russia and to Vladimir Putin. What could be more obvious than that? And everyone, including everyone in Russia, including Vladimir Putin, would be wise to renounce the Russian Orthodox Church, if the Russian Orthodox Church is a false church which leads people away from heaven and straight to perdition.

What do you think? Do you find this stuff super difficult to understand? My religious books repeat, over and over, scriptures such as John 1. 1-14, Psalm 2, Isaiah 9. 6, Romans 9. 5, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 6, John 14. 23-26, John 15. 6, 2 Thess 1. 8, 2 Thess 2, Matthew 26. 28, Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Revelation 20. 12-15 and Matthew 16. 13-19. Do I need to repeat those scriptures yet again? They say or support the doctrine that Jesus is God, and they say or support the doctrine that Jesus founded a True Church. If you are on a road leading you to a lake of fire then you are not in the True Church. If you are on a road leading you to heaven then you are in the True Church. If you decide you want to be a Christian, if you decide it is wise to trust those above scriptures, if you decide you are not going to get set on fire for trusting and professing those scriptures, recall Malachi 4. 1, then, you believe in a True Church. Even if one doesn't believe in a True Church, one would still have to be terribly confused person to not understand something as simple as: 1) The Russian Orthodox Church is either God's True Church, and so it leads people to heaven, so don't risk hell by rebelling against God's True Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, or else, 2) The Russian Orthodox Church is not God's True Church, and so it is a false church, and so it leads people away from heaven and straight to eternal perdition.

Fans of John Le Carré novels, in which there is talk of `making conspiracies' and `playing by the Moscow rules', might embellish matters by seeing Putin as a Karla-trained, Moscow Centre hood. Anyway, how curious it would be if, in the eyes of God, Vladimir Putin, the former KGB agent, the former Moscow Centre `hood', was indeed the bona fide boss, the true and legitimate generalissimo of the USA and Great Britain and every other nation on earth? Look at St. Paul. He was a persecutor of the True Church before his conversion. But then he was given a mission by God / Jesus to turn people away from the power of satan and to the power of God – Acts 26. 13-18.

Suppose you're a spy and you are sent on a mission where you meet a beautiful female agent who works for some other country. She doesn't salute the same flag that you salute. And let's say you become rather infatuated with her, which is a big mistake for an espionage agent to make, but to err is human. Nevertheless, if this beautiful female spy ends up murdering you, if she stabs you in the back with a dagger, then there's no sense in saying the beautiful foreign spy that you were once infatuated with is a friendly sort of espionage agent. There is no sense in maintaining that you were wise to fall in love with her, not after she stabs you in the back. It's the same sort of situation with churches. A church might be beautiful in your eyes, you might become infatuated with that beautiful church, but if that church leads people away from heaven and straight to eternal perdition, if that `beautiful' church stabs you and your beloved relatives in your backs, by leading you to eternal perdition, then that `beautiful' church is not so beautiful, rather, it is actually quite hideous and evil - it is a satanic church.

Religion is like mathematics in that in both spheres we find different expressions for the same thing. ln 1, the curl of the gradient, the divergence of the curl, cos π/2, tan 0, 17 – 17 are all different symbols which all mean the same thing. It might not appear to be true to those untutored in the elementary points of Christian theology, but it is the same thing to say that: `Vladimir Putin is the true ruler of the world' as it is to say that: `the Russian Orthodox Church leads souls to heaven because the Russian Orthodox Church is God's True Church.' These are equivalent expressions. Similarly, the expression: `Vladimir Putin is not true and legitimate ruler of the world, and you are not in rebellion against God, and you are not in rebellion against God's True Church, if you are in rebellion against Vladimir Putin' is the same thing as the expression which says: `The Russian Orthodox Church is not God's True Church, it is not the Bride of Christ, it is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, it is a false church which leads people away from heaven and to perdition.'

Well, if the Russian Orthodox Church leads souls to perdition, then, if she was ever God's True Church, when did she fall away from the True Faith? Apropos of this `falling away' mentioned in 2 Thess 2, Bury states in 'History of the Later Roman Empire' (vol. i. p. 12) that the Catholic emperors in Constantinople, following the example of the pagan Emperors, took the epithets `sacred' and `divine' and insisted that these be applied to themselves. Bury writes, p. 15:

`The oriental conception of divine royalty is now formally expressed in the diadem; and it affects all that pertains to the Emperor. His person is divine; all that belongs to him is "sacred." Those who come into his presence perform the act of adoration; they kneel down and kiss the purple.'

Bury states, p. 14, that the Patriarch refused to crown the Emperor Anastasius unless he signed a written oath that he would introduce no novelty into the Church.

Might there be an evil absurdity lurking somewhere in the spectacle of Christian Emperors claiming to be sacred and divine, and demanding that their subjects adore them, and demanding these subjects prostrate themselves before them, while also promising to bring no innovations into the Christian religion? The Catholic Church united itself with evil when it failed to excommunicate the evil Catholic emperors, when it told Catholics to go ahead and prostrate themselves before human beings. Satan took Jesus to the top of the Temple and was looking to make a deal - bow down before Satan and....

To this day Rome and the Russian Orthodox Church and support the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which authorizes people to bow before images of alleged saints. When one bows down before someone or something one commits idolatry. Christians are not to bow before anyone but God. Recall Revelation 19. 10. The 1st commandment is very clear that one must worship only God. The Christian martyrs were martyred because they refused to worship the emperor - they refused to bow before images of the emperor - and because they refused to obey the magistrates when the magistrates ordered them to sacrifice to the pagan deities.

Still on this theme of the falling away mentioned in 2 Thess 2, for centuries the civilization under the sign of the cross was divided into peasants and a privileged class of nobles who oppressed the peasants; this civilization subjected the accused to `the question,' that is to preliminary torture in criminal investigations; the civilization under the sign of the cross punished people by breaking them on the wheel - here an iron bar was used to break the bones of the felon - burying alive, burning alive, flaying alive - all of these punishments had the blessing of the church and state. Popes and Protestants blessed the African slave trade. Slave owners would separate children from their parents and of course they would whip the slaves to force them to work for no wages. In the Middle Ages peasants were tortured by the nobles to learn where the peasants had hidden their money. The peasants would starve during the lean years but the nobles knew how to hoard and steal enough food to survive. In the early Church, Christians didn't perpetrate these sorts of evils. There were always heretics and false brethren, but in the first, second and third centuries Christians didn't torture people on the rack or burn anyone at the stake. Everything went to hell under the sign of the cross beginning in the mid to late 4th century. The evidence is irrefutable. Everything under the sign of the cross went to hell. The benevolent sect of the early Christians has been replaced by an evil sect. The Catholic Church gave its blessing to evil kings and evil nobles by celebrating communion with them for century after century. Henry Charles Lea wrote in his 'A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages' (Macmillan, 1922),

`We have only to look upon the atrocities of the criminal law of the Middle Ages to see how pitiless men were in dealing with each other. The wheel, the caldron of boiling oil, burning alive, burying alive, flaying alive, tearing apart with wild horses, were the ordinary expedients by which the criminal jurist sought to deter crime by frightful examples...An Anglo-Saxon law punishes a female slave convicted of theft by making eighty other female slaves each bring three pieces of wood and burn her to death....In the Customs of Arques, granted by the Abbey of St. Bertin in 1231, there is a provision that, if a thief have a concubine who is his accomplice, she is to be buried alive...In France women were customarily burned or buried alive for simple felonies, and Jews were hung by the feet between two savage dogs, while men were boiled to death for coining. In Milan Italian ingenuity exhausted itself in devising deaths of lingering torture for criminals of all descriptions. The Carolina, or criminal code of Charles V., issued in 1530, is a hideous catalogue of blinding, mutilation, tearing with hot pincers, burning alive, and breaking on the wheel...As recently as 1706, in Hanover, a pastor named Zacharie Georg Flagge was burned alive for coining...So careless were the legislators of human suffering in general that, in England, to cut out a man's tongue, or to pluck out his eyes with malice prepence, was not made a felony until the fifteenth century, in a criminal law so severe that, even in the reign of Elizabeth, the robbing of a hawk's nest was similarly a felony; and as recently as 1833 a child of nine was sentenced to be hanged for breaking a patched pane of glass and stealing twopence worth of paint [this sentence was commuted]...It has seemed to me however, that a sensible increase in the severity of punishment is traceable after the thirteenth century, and I am inclined to attribute this to the influence exercised by the Inquisition over the criminal jurisprudence.'

Apropos of evidence saying the Russian / Eastern Orthodox Church fell away from the True Faith, the Eastern Orthodox clergy, for century after century, was notorious for supporting evil monarchs and their evil henchmen. For century after century, Russian / Eastern Orthodox laymen murdered the Jews with terrible ferocity. The Eastern Orthodoxy Church did not excommunicate the murderers of Jews. St. Paul is very clear in 1 Corinthians 11. 27. It is a terrible sin to celebrate communion in an unworthy manner. Well, the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrated communion with evil people for century after century after century. Benson Bobrick writes in `Fearful Majesty: The Life and Reign of Ivan the Terrible' (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1987),

`[In Russia under the Russian Orthodox Church, which is a subcategory of the Eastern Orthodox Church] Counterfeiters had molten lead poured down their throats. Those found guilty of sacrilege were torn to pieces with iron hooks...Ivan stepped out of the shadows of his long minority and had Andrey Shuisky thrown to the dogs...At the age of twelve he began torturing animals for fun, and dropped dogs off the Kremlin battlements "to observe their pain and convulsions." At fourteen, he gathered about him a gang of teenage thugs...and not unlike the Emperor Nero...he roamed the streets and squares of Moscow...He stressed social `justice,' but something of the primitive intelligence he brought to the matter may be glimpsed in a refinement he proposed for judicial duels: "Let the litigants be left, unarmed and naked, in a dungeon where a single razor is hidden. Whoever finds the razor wins the duel, and has the right to butcher his opponent on the spot...To staff his new court and administration and (as was soon apparent) to enforce the expropriation of land, Ivan assembled a sort of Praetorian Guard. Weirdly foreshadowing Hitler's SS, these Oprichniki, as they were called, donned black uniforms, displayed enigmatic or morbid insignia...Whereas the SS sported a death's head badge and runic double-S flash, the Oprichniki rode on black horses and carried at their saddlebrow a dog's head and broom as symbols of their determination to guard, day and night, the safety of their master and to sweep away his enemies...Torture, once an instrument of the code, began to dominate it; hearsay permitted a judge "to begin to pull a person's joints out and break his bones, to lacerate his body with the knout and burn him with fire"...Another prince, impaled on a stake "which came out at his naeck, languished in horrible paine for fifteen hours, and spake unto his mother brought to behold that woefull sight...the Emperor saying, `such as I favour I have honoured, and such as be treytors will I have thus done unto'"...During the meal, Ivan stood and read occasionally from the lives of the saints...Not infrequently...he would descend into the dungeons to observe acts of torture. "Blood often splashes his face,' goes one eyewitness account...he occasionally convened the brethren for an orgy...Ivan embarked on the most infamous atrocity of his reign...On January 2, 1570, Ivan came within sight of Novgorod...Some 400 prominent citizens - boyars, courtiers, abbots, officials, and merchants - were hauled off to Gorodischche for trial. The method of investigation was torture; the inevitable verdict, death. Ivan built a kind of hill-slide down to the Volkhov River, bound his torn and broken victims to sleds, and sped them precipitously into the icy water, where Oprichniki armed with pikes and axes moved about in boats hacking and stabbing at anyone who tried to swim. Others were hanged, beheaded, impaled, or thrown off the Volkhov Bridge. The Gorodischche massacres continued for five weeks, and ended with a general pillage of Novgorod...At length, on February 13, Ivan condescended to pardon all who remained alive. He summoned about sixty elders to Gorodischche, spoke to them `with mildness,' we are told, and gazed upon them `with kind and merciful eyes.' With the cruelest irony, he asked them to pray that heaven might grant him a long and happy reign...The scale of Ivan's atrocity has been the subject of much debate, and estimates vary widely at to the total number slain. The Chronicles say 60,000...on the Orthodox `Feast of St. James the Apostle' (whose theology of good works Ivan had so recently extolled) a squad of Oprichniki cordoned off Red Square and hammered twenty heavy stakes into the ground. Transverse beams were fastened to them, and behind them copper cauldrons of iced and boiling water were hung in pairs...300 torn and crippled prisoners were brought forth from the dungeons to hear their doom...Viskovaty was made to advance. For each charge pronounced against him Schchelkalov struck him with a whip. But the aged diplomat denied them all, asserting that he had faithfully served Russia and his sovereign throughout his long career. To Ivan's chagrin he resolutely refused to beg for mercy, and looking around him at the instruments of torture littering the square, exclaimed for all to hear: `a curse on you, you bloodsuckers! God will judge you too, in the next world, for the evil you have done"...The next to die was Nikita Funikov, state treasurer since 1561...Two Oprichniki took turns savagely dousing him with cold and boiling water `until his skin came off like an eel's'...The Tartars had surrounded the city [Moscow]. No one could escape. The tsar's English physician, Arnold Lindsay, and twenty-five London merchants also perished, along with the English lions Ivan had kept in the Kremlin moat. Those not burned to death were smothered by the `fierie eyre;' fully half the population of Moscow and its environs [perished]...contemporary accounts claimed up to a million. 'Mosco,' wrote one eyewitness, `is burnt every sticke'...Ivan began to compile his Synodical, or list of the victims of his terror, to be remembered by the clergy in their prayers. Over 1500 names were inscribed from the sack of Novgorod alone, many followed by the words `with his wife,' `with his wife and children,' `with his daughters,' `with his sons'; while unremembered others were acknowledged by the relentless, sad refrain: `As to their names, O Lord, you know them.' Copies of the Synodical were circulated to all principal monasteries in Muscovy for services... By January 1584, he had begun to show signs of internal putrefaction, to "griviously swell in his coddes," wrote Horsey, "with which he had most horriblie offended, boasting of a thowsand virgins deflowered'...Sixty Lapland witches, "sent forth owt of the North," were brought in haste to Moscow where they were daily consulted...Ivan saw a comet flash through the sky, its tail forming a nebulous cross which lingered between the domes of two cathedrals. He stared at it gloomily and proclaimed to his attendants: "This portends my death"...He was laid to rest among his ancestors in the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel.'

2. Angels from Hell and Angels from Heaven

All of my religious books push various scriptures over and over. For instance, Christians are awaiting the arrival of the man of sin / son of perdition mentioned in 2 Thess 2, who is usually seen as the Antichrist mentioned in 1 John 2. 18, and who is seen as the beast mentioned in Revelation 19. 19. 2 Thess 2 specifically says the man of sin / son of perdition will be revealed before the Second Coming of Christ. 2 Corinthians 11. 13-15 tells us Satan masquerades as an angel of light, so while we have to watch out for angels from hell masquerading as angels from heaven, we also don't want to be so deluded – and 2 Thess 2 deals with people suffering strong delusion – so delusional as to see, when they show up, these 3 angels from heaven mentioned in Revelation 14. 6-11 as 3 angels from hell. The title The Cult refers to any false religion, any false church. Suppose you think some worthless church which leads people to perdition is god's True Church, well, you're quite delusional. You don't want to be deluded about the Roman Catholic Church. I mean, if you say Rome is a false church which drags people down to perdition when in fact Rome is God's True Church and leads people to heaven, or, if you insist Rome is God's True Church when in fact Rome is a worthless false church that drags people down to perdition....To start with the basics: Matthew 16. 13-19,

`When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the son of Man, am? So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" And Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and earth, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.'

So we have a Case 1 and a Case 2.

Case 1: The Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church. Rome leads souls to heaven. The Popes, the Bishops of Rome, have inherited the authority to bind and loose. Therefore everyone in the world needs to convert to Roman Catholicism. You are going down a road leading straight to hellfire if you rebel against God and God's True Church – the Roman Catholic Church. To attain heaven and escape perdition you must obey the Roman Catholic Church.

Case 2: The Roman Catholic Church is not God's True Church. Rome has fallen into heresy. The Roman Catholic Church is a cult which leads souls away from heaven and to perdition. Get out of the Roman Catholic Church.

So, if Case 1 is true, then the people who say Case 1 is false are suffering a delusion. And if Case 2 is true, then the people who say Case 2 is false are suffering a delusion.

Apropos of delusions St. Paul writes in 2 Thess 2,

`Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him...Let no one deceive you by any means: for that Day [the Second Coming of Christ] will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God...and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.'

I push the idea that the Roman Catholic crucifix is an image of a version of Jesus who says the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, recall Matthew 16. 13-19. I don't see how it makes any sense to say the Roman Catholic crucifix is an image of a version of Jesus who says the ELCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is God's True Church, or that the Roman Catholic crucifix is an image of a version of Jesus who says the Russian Orthodox Church is God's True Church. So, if the True God / True Version of Jesus says that the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church, then there is nothing wrong with the Roman Catholic crucifix. But if the True God / True Jesus says Rome is not the True Church, if the True God / True Jesus says Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, and is lost in heresy, and therefore Rome leads people to perdition not to heaven, then the image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven, when in fact Rome leads people to perdition, is the image of a false version of Jesus, it is the image of a lie, the image of a false god, and false gods are beastly because they lead people away from heaven and to perdition, and therefore the image of the beast from Revelation 13 and 14 comes to mind if in fact the Roman Catholic crucifix is the image of a false version of Jesus, if it is the image of a false god.

With the cross we start with the premise that the cross either symbolizes no evil or else it symbolizes some evil.

Case 1 says the cross symbolizes no evil, because God exists and God says the cross is sacred.

Case 2 says God exists and God says the cross symbolizes some evil.

I argue that Jesus is God – John 1. 1-14, Colossians 2. 8-10, Psalm 2, Isaiah 9. 6 – but the cross symbolizes some evil. I vote for Case 2. The cross of Christ – Galatians 6. 14 and Philippians 3. 18 – is sacred but this cross of Christ is a spiritual thing, not a material thing. Christ's sacrifice on the cross is sacred but the instrument of torture which Christ was crucified on is not sacred. And material representations of the cross which Christ was crucified on are not sacred to God.

So, if Case 1 is true, if the cross is sacred to God, then it is sacrilege to say as I do that the cross symbolizes some evil.

If Case 2 is true, if God says the cross symbolizes some evil, then it is a sacrilege to say the cross is sacred in the eyes of God.

If Case 1 is true, if the cross is sacred to god, then the cross might be this seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9, the seal of God which saves one from torments when it is on ones forehead.

If Case 2 is true, if the cross symbolizes evil in the sight of God, then the evil mark of the beast comes to mind, Recall Revelation 14. 11. You don't want the mark of a cross on your forehead if the cross is the mark of the beast. Revelation 14. 11 says

The Nazis perpetrated evil for a few years and we say the Nazi swastika reflects that evil. The people under the sign of the cross perpetrated evil for century after century.

Anyway, if Case 1 is true, if the cross is sacred to God, then it is a satanic heresy to drop hints saying one will burn in hell forever if one puts the mark of a cross on ones forehead. But if case 2 is true, if God sees the cross as evil, and if in fact one will burn in hell forever if one puts the mark of a cross on ones forehead, then it is a satanic heresy to say the cross is sacred to God. Of course if the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church, then you can trust Rome when she says the cross is sacred. But if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome is lost in heresy, if Rome leads people to perdition, then perhaps you can trust Rome when she says the cross is sacred, or perhaps you can't, but if Rome leads people to perdition then Rome certainly isn't the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Suppose no church under the sign of the cross is God's True Church, suppose every church under the sign of the cross is lost in heresy and leads people to perdition, this wouldn't prove the cross is no good. If just one church under the cross, perhaps more than one but if at least one church under the cross leads people to heaven, because it has not fallen away from the True Faith, and is God's True Church, then you can trust that Church when it says the cross is sacred to God. If in fact the cross is the mark of the beast then certainly every church under the cross leads people to perdition. If a church tells you the cross is sacred and tells you that you have nothing to fear if you put the mark of a cross on your forehead, but then you end up burning in hell forever because of that cross on your forehead, then it was a worthless evil church which leads people to perdition which gave you the bad advice which led you to burn in hell forever. God's True Church would never lead anyone to burn in hell forever. But some worthless false church that leads people to perdition would do that to you.

With the cross we start with the observation that either the cross symbolizes no evil or else it symbolizes some evil. If there is at least one church under the sign of the cross, perhaps more than one, but at least one church among all of the thousands of churches under the sign of the cross that leads people to heaven, because it has not fallen into heresy, and because it is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, recall Matthew 16. 13-19, then we can trust this Church when it says the cross is sacred to God. But if every church under the sign of the cross leads people to perdition, if every church under the sign of the cross has fallen into heresy, if every church under the sign of the cross is a false church, none of them is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then this wouldn't prove the cross is evil, but if every Church under the sign of the cross leads people to perdition, then you're left wondering what are the main problems with all these churches. I tend to think you start with 1 Corinthians 11. 27 which says it is a terrible sin to celebrate communion in an unworthy manner. Churches give the Eucharist to more or less anyone: to Sabbath violators, to people who sin by taking God's name in vain, to pro-choicers, to pro-gay marriage people. You would have to go through the New Testament line by line to see exactly what these churches are doing wrong to see why they lead people to perdition. Revelation 18. 23 likens merchants to sorcerers. St. Paul is very opposed to covetousness and sexual immorality. Matthew 25. 31-46 tells us we'll burn in hell if we are not charitable. Of course if you are always giving your money away you will soon be destitute. So, one turns to Acts 4. 32, Acts 2. 44. Those are 2 scriptures Christians have ignored for centuries! My books push the idea that the Catholic Church went to hell in the 4th century when it gave the Eucharist to people who made no secret that they were evil. Gibbon writes of the 4th century Catholic Emperor Valentinian and his judges,

`They easily discovered, that the degree of their industry and discernment was estimated, by the Imperial court, according to the number of executions that were furnished from their respective tribunals. It was not without extreme reluctance that they pronounced a sentence of acquittal; but they eagerly admitted such evidence as was stained by perjury, or procured by torture, to prove the most improbable charges against the most respectable characters. The progress of the inquiry continually opened new subjects of criminal prosecution; the audacious informer, whose falsehood was detected, retired with impunity, but the wretched victim, who discovered his real or pretended accomplices, was seldom permitted to receive the price of his infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia, the young, and the aged, were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers, expired in ignominious and cruel tortures...The expressions which issued the most readily from the mouth of the emperor of the West were, `Strike off his head;' `Burn him alive;' `Let him be beaten with clubs till he expires;'....He could behold with calm satisfaction the convulsive agonies of torture and death; he reserved his friendship for those faithful servants whose temper was the most congenial to his own. The merit of Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome, was rewarded with the royal approbation, and the praefecture of Gaul. Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations of Innocence and Mica Aurea, could alone deserve to share the favor of Maximin. The cages of those trusty guards were always placed near the bed-chamber of Valentinian, who frequently amused his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear and devour the bleeding limbs of the malefactors who were abandoned to their rage.'

When the Catholic Church celebrated the Eucharist with kings and nobles who committed the evil like those seen above, did the Catholic Church fall away from the True Faith? We have Option 1 saying, No - and we have Option 2 saying, Yes.

Apropos of centuries of evil under the sign of the cross, Popes and Protestants gave their blessing to the African slave trade. Peter and Paul didn't give any blessing to the institution of slavery. But they did tell slaves to obey their masters. At the time that Peter and Paul were walking the earth the pagan Roman Empire ruled over much of this earth, and this Roman Empire was a huge slave empire. Peter and Paul couldn't tell the slaves to rise up and thrown down their slave masters, because the Roman Empire would have rounded up these slaves and tortured them to death. So Peter and Paul had to tell the slaves to obey their masters. You would think that any simpleton could understand the fact that though Peter and Paul told the slaves to obey their masters, this is not the same things as Peter and Paul telling people to go out on raids to capture slaves, to then sell these captives to the highest bidder, to separate children from their mothers if the highest bidders wanted them separated. Peter and Paul couldn't tell Christian masters to release their slaves, because, where were these freed slaves going to find honest work in a slave empire? The Roman army was no place for a Christian. There weren't any temp agencies or fast food joints in the ancient world to employ millions of workers in the Roman Empire. If a female slave was given her freedom and told to earn her living in the free world, how was she going to make money? There was prostitution, that's not a Christian occupation! In a slave empire there's no means for her to earn a living via free labor. Slaves did all the labor! Peter and Paul told the masters to treat their slaves humanely. They wouldn't have done the slaves any favors if they told Christian masters to free their slaves so they could earn their livings via prostitution and by serving in the pagan Roman army! The Christians of Europe and the New World interpreted the scriptures to mean that it was OK for Christians to launch raids on Africans and various European tribes to acquire captives which could then be sold as slaves. The reasoning was that savages sunk in paganism and cannibalism and the most savage customs had to be brought to Christianity so that their souls might be saved. There is some logic to this though of course it was never right under Christianity to enslave Africans. But even if it was OK under the rules of Christianity to enslave pagans, provided these slaves were liberated when they became Christians, the slave masters and slave owners, Christians of the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th and half of the 19th centuries, didn't free their Christian slaves! The whole African slave trade was evil from the beginning. The Christian slavers separated children from their mothers and sold them off like puppies and kittens for centuries.

So, if the Roman Catholic Church is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, and if Rome leads people to heaven, then don't rebel against God's True Church. But if Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, if Rome leads souls to perdition because it has corrupted the Gospel and has fallen away from the True Faith, if Rome is not God's True Church, then decamp from that fallen church which leads souls to perdition, and find the Church which Christ founded on a rock. If you want some evidence which says that the Popes and Protestants who gave their blessing to the African slave trade fell away from the True Faith consider `Notices of Brazil in 1828 and 1829,' Pocket University - Doubleday, written by Robert Walsh, an Irish clergyman active in the English Society for the Abolition of Slavery:

"She was a very broad-decked ship, with a mainmast, schooner-rigged, and behind her foremast was that large formidable gun, which turned on a broad circle of iron, on deck, and which enabled her to act as a pirate, if her slaving speculation had failed. She had taken in, on the coast of Africa, 336 males, and 226 females, making in all 562, and had been out seventeen days, during which she had thrown overboard fifty-five. The slaves were all enclosed under grated hatchways, between decks. The space was so low, that they sat between each other's legs, and stowed so close together, that there was no possibility of lying down, or at all changing their position, by night or day. As they belonged to, and were shipped on account of different individuals, they were all branded, like sheep, with their owners' marks of different forms...These were impressed under their breasts, or on their arms, and, as the mate informed me, with perfect indifference...`burnt with the red-hot iron.' Over the hatchway stood a ferocious looking fellow, with a scourge of many twisted thongs in his hand, who was the slave- driver of the ship, and whenever he heard the slightest noise below, he shook it over them, and seemed eager to exercise it...But the circumstance which struck us most forcibly, was, how it was possible for such a number of human beings to exist, packed up and wedged together as tight as they could cram...The heat of these horrid places was so great, and the odour so offensive, that it was quite impossible to enter them. The officers insisted that the poor suffering creatures should be admitted on deck to get air and water...the poor beings were all turned up together...517 fellow-creatures of all ages and sexes, some children, some adults, some old men and women, all in a state of total nudity, scrambling out together to taste the luxury of a little fresh air and water. They came swarming up, like bees from the aperture of a hive, till the whole deck was crowded to suffocation, from stem to stern...On looking into the places where they had been crammed, there were found some children next the sides of the ship, in the places most remote from light and air; they were lying nearly in a torpid state, after the rest had turned out. The little creatures seemed indifferent as to life or death, and when they were carried on deck, many of them could not stand. After enjoying for a short time the unusual luxury of air, some water was brought; it was then that the extent of their sufferings was exposed in a fearful manner. They all rushed like maniacs toward it. No entreaties, or threats, or blows, could restrain them; they shrieked, and struggled, and fought with one another, for a drop of this precious liquid, as if they grew rabid at the sight of it...On one occasion, a ship from Bahia neglected to change the contents of the casks, and on the mid-passage found, to their horror, that they were filled with nothing but salt water. All the slaves on board perished!...When the poor creatures were ordered down again, several of them came, and pressed their heads against our knees, with looks of the greatest anguish, at the prospect of returning to the horrid place of suffering below. It was not surprising that they should have endured much sickness and loss of life, in their short passage. They had sailed from the coast of Africa on the 7th of May, and had been out but seventeen days, and they had thrown overboard no less than fifty-five, who had died of dysentery and other complaints, in that space of time, though they left the coast in good health...It was dark when we separated, and the last parting sounds we heard from the unhallowed ship, were the cries and the shrieks of the slaves."

We have to determine if such evils are reflected in the cross, or if the cross is pure and sacred and divorced from everything evil. As I mentioned at the beginning of this book we want to make sure we don't get angels from hell mixed up with angels from heaven. The Mormon religion got stated supposedly because an angel appeared to Joseph Smith. Was this angel from heaven or from hell? Suppose some angel appears to you while you are sitting in your living room, and suppose he tells you that you must put the mark of a cross on your forehead, to escape the torments described in Revelation 9. Then if you end up burning in hell forever because the cross is the mark of the beast, then you know that angel was an angel from hell. Or suppose some angel shows up and he tells you to not put the mark of a cross on your forehead, because, he says, the cross is the mark of the beast and you will burn in hell forever if you have the cross / mark of the beast on your forehead. Then if you suffer the torments described in Revelation 9, because the cross is the seal of God which protects one from the torments described in Revelation 9, and you don't have the cross on your forehead because some angel told you to keep it off your forehead, then, that was an angel from hell not an angel from heaven. So much depends on figuring out if the evils perpetrated by people carrying cross over the centuries are reflected in the cross, or if the cross is pure and holy. If you are delusional on this issue with the cross, then you are truly delusional! Lord Acton told us in his essay `Human Sacrifice,'

`And yet, long after the last victim had fallen in honour of the sun-god of the Aztecs, the civilised nations of Christian Europe continued to wage wholesale destruction...Protestants and Catholics, clergy and laity, vied with each other for two hundred years to provide victims, and every refinement of legal ingenuity and torture was used in order to increase their number. In 1591, at Nördligen, a girl was tortured twenty-three times before she confessed...Three years later, in the same town, a woman suffered torture fifty-six times without confessing she was a witch...In the north of Italy, the great jurist Alciatus saw 100 witches burnt on one day...In England alone, under the Tudors and the Stuarts, the victims of this superstition amounted to 30,000. Yet, from the appearance of Spee's Cautio in 1631 to the burning of the last witch in 1783, all sensible men were persuaded that the victims were innocent of the crime for which they suffered intolerable torments and an agonizing death. But those who hunted them out with cunning perseverance, and the inflexible judges who never spared their lives, firmly believed that their execution was pleasing in the sight of God, and that their sin could not be forgiven by men.'

Jules Michelet writes in his `La Sorcière' (tran. by A.R. Allinson, Lyle Stuart Inc.),

`It was the very same year that Urbain Grandier was burned, and all France was talking of nothing else but the devils of Loudun...A certain Anne of the Nativity was introduced into the convent...Anne declared she saw the Devil standing stark naked by Madeleine's side. Madeleine swore she had seen Anne at the Witches' Sabbath, along with the Lady Superior, the Mother Delegate, and the Mother of the Novices...Madeleine, condemned without a hearing, is to be degraded, and examined to discover on her body the satanic sign-manual. Her veil and robe are torn off her wretched body...ready to pry into her very vitals to find excuse to send her to the stake. The Sisters would entrust to no hands but their own this cruel search, in itself a terrible punishment. These virgin nuns, in the guise of matrons, verified her condition, whether pregnant or no, then shaved her in every part of her person, and pricking her with needles, driving them deep in the quivering flesh, sought if there was any spot insensible to pain, as the devil's mark is bound to be. But every stab hurt; failing the crowning triumph of proving her a Witch, at any rate they had the satisfaction of gloating over her tears and cries of agony...Beneath a subterranean gallery was a cellar at a lower level still, beneath the cellar a dungeon where the prisoner lay rotting in damp and darkness...She suffered both from pain and from her filthy condition, lying as she did in her own excrements. The perpetual darkness was disturbed by the dreadful scampering of hungry rats, the object of much terror in prisons, as they will sometimes gnaw off the helpless prisoners' noses and ears...She was seized with a heartfelt, wild desire for death. She swallowed spiders, - she merely vomited, without further bad effects...Putting her hand on an old blunt knife, she tried hard to cut her throat, - but could not succeed. Next, choosing a softer place, her belly, she forced the iron into her... For four whole hours she worked, and writhed and bled...She became a woman once more, and alas! desirable still, a temptation for her gaolers, brutal fellows of the Bishop's household, who, in spite of the horrors of the place, the unhealthy and unclean condition of the wretched creature, would come to take their pleasure of her, deeming any outrage permissible on a Witch. An angel came to her succour, so she declared. She defended herself both from men and rats...Witch-burnings are still common everywhere in the eighteenth century. Spain, in a single reign, that of Philip V., burns 1600 persons, even burning a witch as late as 1782...Rome burns still, on the sly, it is true, in the furnaces and cellars of the Inquisition. "But doubtless France at any rate is more humane?" - France is inconsistent. In 1718 a wizard was burned at Bordeaux. I am not here speaking of executions the people carried out on their own account. A hundred years ago, in a village of Provence, an old woman, to whom a landowner refused an alms, flew into a passion and said, "You will be dead to-morrow!" He had a stroke and died. The whole village, - not the poor peasants only, but the most respectable inhabitants, - gathered in a crowd, seized the old woman and put her on a pile of vine-cuttings, where she was burned alive. The Parlement made a pretence of inquiry, but no one was punished. To the present day the people of the village in question are called woman-burners (brulo-fenno) by their neighbors...Lorraine was swept by a dreadful contagion, as it were, of Sorcerers and Visionaries. The populace, driven to despair by the everlasting depredations of marching armies and marauding bands, had long ceased to pray to any deity but the Devil. Many villages, in their terror, distracted between two horrors, the sorcerers on the one side and the judges on the other, longed, if Remy, Judge of Nancy, speaks truth, to quit their lands and all they possessed and fly to another country....A beggar-girl of seventeen, Little Murgin, as she was called (Margarita), who had found in Sorcery a profitable speculation...had been in the habit of bringing children and offering them to the Devil...She both terrified and diverted the judges, twisting them round her little finger and leading them whither she pleased like a pair of dummies. They actually entrusted this vicious, irresponsible, passionate girl with the grim task of searching the bodies of young women and boys for the signs of the spot where Satan had put his mark. The place was recognized by the fact of its being insensible to pain, so that needles could be driven into it without extracting a cry from the victim. A surgeon tortured the old women, Margarita the younger ones, who were called as witnesses...An odious consummation truly, - that this brazen-bowed creature, thus made absolute mistress of the fate and fortune of these unhappy beings, should go pricking them with needles at her pleasure, and might adjudge, if such were her caprice, any one of their bleeding bodies to a cruel death!...Denunciations came pouring down like hail. All the women of the countryside came filing in unceasingly to lay accusations one against the other. Eventually the very children were brought and made to give incriminating evidence against their own mothers.'

We'll look again at the cross is a later chapter. Right now we need to review same of the basics of Christianity.

Recall Matthew 26. 28 and Jeremiah 31. 31-34: Christians are supposed to have the Divine Law / new covenant written on our hearts. If you have the Divine Law written on your heart then you will know how to tell the difference between a satanic heresy which drags souls to hell from a sound doctrine which is part of the True Faith. I suppose some complications might arise. The 3 angels mentioned in Revelation 14. 6-11 might stumble around in heresy for a few years, but sooner or later they have to settle down and consistently teach the True Faith. And the Antichrist might teach the True Faith for a few years, but, eventually, he has to degenerate into satanic heresy. If the Antichrist always taught the True Faith, if he always led souls to heaven, then he wouldn't be much of an evil satanic beast from the abyss of hell.

So then, what exactly is Christianity? What exactly is the True Faith? You get a smorgasbord of options to choose from. As I have indicated in my books, you immediately get lost in heresy if you fail to judge the Roman Catholic Church accurately. Rome claims to be God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, recall Matthew 16. 13-19. Rome claims the Popes have inherited the keys which Christ gave to St. Peter. Rome claims the Popes have the power to bind and loose. Rome claims she has not fallen into heresy and does not lead people to perdition. But then on the other hand, if Rome is not God's True Church, if the Popes do not have the power to bind and loose, if the Roman Catholic Church has fallen into heresy, if the roman Catholic Church does drag souls down to perdition....So you just can't advance, or rather, you simply can not have a Divine Law written on your heart if you can not accurately determine if Rome has fallen into heresy or if Rome has not fallen into heresy....You might attack and expose the irrationality of the Cafeteria Catholics – these are people who say Rome is God's True Church but then they proceed to tell you that it is sometimes wise to rebel against God's True Church. And so you argue with the Cafeteria Catholics by saying: suppose Rome is God's True Church, and suppose you will always go to heaven and you will never go to hell if you always obey Rome. But you Cafeteria Catholics say it is sometimes wise to risk hellfire by sometimes rebelling against Rome! And you Cafeteria Catholics insist you are not delusional? Didn't St. Paul write about delusional people in 2 Thess 2? If Option A always leads you to heaven, and if Option B might lead you to hellfire, then what are we to conclude about the sanity of those who choose Option B? Even though it is easy to prove the irrationality of the Cafeteria Catholics, still, this doesn't prove Rome is God's True Church, and it doesn't prove Rome has fallen into heresy and leads people to perdition.

The Scripture Alone Theology says: don't trust any sect which contradicts the Christian scriptures. Those of us who hold to this rule don't believe Rome is God's True Church, because, well, Rome tramples upon the scriptures. For instance, Rome says that Mary, the mother of Jesus, appeared at Lourdes in France, and at Fatima and Portugal, and one of the alleged Mary's alleged messages at Fatima was that there would be peace on earth if Russia was consecrated to her `Immaculate Heart.' But the scriptures tell us that there won't be any peace on earth until after the Devil is finally consigned to hell, forever and ever, which happens after the Great Tribulation, and after the Second Coming, and after Armageddon, and after the Millennium. The ending words of the Book of Revelation give curses upon those who add or take away from the Book of Revelation. When a person / ghost says there will be peace on earth if Russia is consecrated to her Immaculate Heart, then this is amending the Book of Revelation. Even if Russia was consecrated as that spirit claiming to be Mary wanted, then you have to make a decision: will there be peace on earth as that spirit claimed? Or can you trust the Book of Revelation when it says there will not be any peace on earth until after the devil is consigned to hell once and for all? And can you trust the Book of Revelation when it announces curses on those who add or take away from that Book? 1 Timothy 4. 1-3 mentions people who have fallen away from the True Faith and who give heed to deceiving spirits, forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from foods / meats – all of this shouts: ROME has fallen away from the True Faith, at least it does to those of us who subscribe to the Scripture Alone Theology. Rome is very clear in stating that a saint goes immediately into the presence of God after the death of that saint here on earth. The Book of Revelation is very clear the dead don't awake until the Last Judgment, which comes after the Second Coming, after the Millennium. Consider the confusion of some simpleton who consults mediums, A) it's a sin which leads to perdition to consult mediums, and B) the spirit the medium conjures knows nothing about heaven or hell, because the Last Judgment is still far in the future. It takes a long time to explain all the ways Rome tramples on the scriptures. There is no Purgatory. Purgatory gives false hopes to people on the road to perdition. It cheats them out of heaven because if gives people on the road to perdition hope of heaven via Purgatory, but there is no Purgatory, so the doctrine of Purgatory is evil. St. Paul said an angel from heaven is accursed if the angel from heaven alters the doctrines he learned from Christ – Galatians 1. 8-12. St. Paul said a bishop must be a man of one wife, Rome says a bishop must have no wife, and the founders of Mormonism said a bishop may have more than one wife. If the guys who invented of Mormonism were heretics, what does this hint about the chances that Mormonism delivers souls to heaven? But the steadfast believer doesn't want to hear any of that sort of negativity. On the one hand, if the Popes have the power to bind and loose, and if the Roman Catholic Church is indeed God's True Church, well, it's just insane to ever rebel against Rome / God's True Church, and therefore, in this scenario, evidently Mary and not some imposter ghost from hell truly did appear in Lourdes and Fatima, but then, on the other hand, if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome has fallen into heresy, if Rome drags souls down to perdition....There are lots of ways to paraphrase the Christian scriptures, you might begin with some of the verses which say the Son is God, or which say Jesus is God: Isaiah 9. 6, Matthew 1. 23, John 1. 1-14, Romans 9. 5, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16. We'll get to more of these scriptures later. For now I just want to emphasize the logic which says that people need an infallible method to recognize cults and heresies which lead people to perdition. You don't want to be deluded. You want to be 100% accurate and completely not deluded when you claim you have God's Law written on your heart, so that that there will be no big foul ups, so that you will know with 100% accuracy if Rome has fallen into heresy or if Rome has not fallen into heresy, so that you will know if any other church has or hasn't fallen into heresy.

I can't see anything wrong with this definition of a cult: a cult is a sect which leads people away from heaven and drags them down to perdition. The cult members don't do this purposely. The cult members want to lead people to heaven. But the cult members have succumbed to error, to heresy and The delusion, and therefore, despite their good intentions, the cult members lead people to perdition. Christianity says Jesus is God: Matthew 1. 23, John 1. 1-14, Romans 9. 5, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16 etc. Recall that Jesus said in Revelation 2. 9 that the Jews are a synagogue of Satan. Well, of course, if Jesus is God, the Creator of the Universe, then any sect which insists Jesus is not God is obviously a sect under the power of Satan. If Jesus is God, then you commit sacrilege and blasphemy, and you lead people away from heaven and straight to perdition with your heresy, when you say Jesus is not God. But then, of course, on the other hand, the people who insist that Jesus is not God can turn this around and say that those of us who insist Jesus is God are brainless slaves of the Devil. They might try to be more diplomatic than that, but there's really not much you can do, as far as attaining heaven and escaping perdition, if you start off on the wrong foot and in a really bad way, I mean, if you worship some imposter and claim he is God, or if you denounce the Creator of the Universe as a fraudulent God, as a bogus Deity, then this is just not the way to attain heaven and escape perdition.

So, a cult pushes one or more heresies which lead people away from heaven and straight to perdition. The Jehovah's Witnesses would say that those of us who say the Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult are cultists ourselves. The Jehovah's Witness have written their own bible to reflect their beliefs, though they claim it is the `True Bible'. The Jehovah's Witnesses say there is no hell – and you really have to twist the Christian Bible to arrive at the doctrine that there is no hell.

As we've been over and over in my other books, 2 Thess 1. 8 mentions hellfire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We're concerned especially about the thinking of those people who call themselves Christians who reject 2 Thess 1. 8. If one rejects 2 Thess 1. 8 does one also reject 2 Thess 2? If one rejects 2 Thess 1. 8 does one also reject Acts 26. 13-18? 2 Thess 1. 8 is very similar to John 15. 6, where Christ says that those who do not abide in Him are like sticks given to the flames. If a person who calls himself a Christian doesn't accept John 15. 6, then why would he accept John 14. 23-26 and John 1. 1-14? And if a Christian doesn't accept John 14. 23-26 and John 1. 1-14, and doesn't accept Acts 26. 13-18 and 2 Thess 2 and 2 Thess 1. 8 and Colossians 2. 8-10 and 1 Timothy 3. 16 and 2 Timothy 3. 16, well, just how confused would a person have to be to call himself a Christian even though he rejects all of these scriptures which are at the heart of Christianity? Very confused indeed! Hugely confused. Enormously confused etc. Revelation 20. 12-15 is perfectly consistent with 2 Thess 1. 8 and John 15. 6. Revelation 20. 12-15,

`And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works the things written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it. And Death and Hades delivered up the dead which were in them...And they were judged, each one according to their works...And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.'

Well, of course, we have scriptures which tell us one is saved by faith not by works. Those seeking to discredit Christianity, or rather, those people exploring all possibilities with the various religions, those conducting non-biased investigations in their search for the True Religion or for the most rational philosophy, might be tempted to argue that Christianity contradicts itself on this matter of faith and works, therefore Christianity is a superstition. It is not all that terribly difficult to defend Christianity. One simply argues that the word faith is a little sophisticated. We have false faith and we have legitimate faith, or true faith. False faith is like lip service: one claims to have faith, but if one lacks the works to prove ones faith is legit faith then one has false faith, or phony faith, or faith which is almost legit faith but not quite legit faith. When St. Paul says one is saved by faith he means one is saved by legitimate faith not by false faith. The Epistle of James covers all this info quite well. It's really not all that complicated! John 3. 16 is true, but so are John 15. 6, and Matthew 25. 31-46, and 2 Thess 1. 8 and 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10 and Revelation 20. 12-15....But notice how Christianity is getting a little complex. Luther was a big enemy of various things, like the Book of Revelation and the Epistle of James. Plus he became very nasty toward the Jews later in his life. So you're left to wonder as follows: even if we concede that Luther was right to break with Rome – though of course Roman Catholics will not concede this point – but if we assume, at least for the moment, that Luther was right to break with Rome, we still have to ask: was Luther a heretic? Did he fall away from the True Faith? Did he teach heresies which led people away from heaven and to perdition? A first step toward answering these questions would be to hit the history books and investigate Luther. Just how nasty did he get toward the Jews? Did he truly reject the Book of Revelation and the Epistle of James, or is that just an unsubstantiated rumor? The historian Paul Johnson said Luther burned witches. The Old Covenant, the Mosaic Law, calls for the execution of witches, but the New Law is not the Old Law, and the New Law does not call for such executions. Moving along to the 21st century, and despite what Lutherans did or didn't do in the past, we certainly know that in the 21st century the ELCA – the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – is either the Church which Christ founded on a rock, or else it is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock; it is either God's True Church or else it is not God's True Church. We certainly know that the ELCA has either fallen into heresy and leads people to perdition, or else it has not fallen into heresy and therefore it leads people to heaven. Imagine the incompetency of those who say the ELCA leads people to perdition if in fact it is God's True Church! Or, imagine the incompetency of those who say the ELCA leads people to heaven if in fact the ELCA has fallen into heresy and leads people to perdition!

Christ said at the Last Supper: 'This cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for the remission of sins of many.' And of course in the Old Testament, Jeremiah 31. 31-34, God says He will write His new covenant, His new law, on the hearts of His people. Let's look at Jeremiah 31. 31-34:

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

Now a Christian, when quizzed by an Atheist, or by anyone else for that matter, when asked if he has God's new law inscribed on his heart is under some pressure to insist that he does indeed have God's new law written on his heart, because, if he says God's new law is not written on his heart then, this Christian is saying he is not a True Christian; he is saying he has no reason to hope of salvation. A True Christian is supposed to have God's new covenant written on his heart. We don't really care too extraordinarily much if one is not quite in absolute 100% super super absolute and perfect agreement with God on everything. The key attribute of those who have the new covenant written on their hearts is that they have not fallen away from the True Faith: they know how to explain the True Faith which leads people to heaven, if not with 100% perfection, then, nevertheless, they do not teach a single heresy which leads people to perdition. You would think that if a person truly had God's new law written on his heart he could accurately determine if Luther was a heretic or not. If one actually had the Divine Law inscribed on his heart, if one wasn't delusional about this, then one ought to know if the various Lutheran sects in the 21st century had fallen into heresy or not. One can be very wrong about many things and not be a heretic. For example, if you claim to be 5 feet tall but if you are actually 5.0000754491722258 feet tall, then no one will accuse you of being a satanic liar or a foul beast from the pit of hell. But there's a big problem if you are wrong in your claims about some other things. For instance, if you claim you are a True Christian, if you claim you have God's new covenant inscribed on your heart, the new covenant mentioned by Christ at the Last Supper, the new covenant mentioned by God in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, and therefore, you claim you understand the True Faith which leads to heaven and you claim that you do not teach a single heresy which leads people to perdition, - if you claim all that - then you have to be right in your claim, because, if you are mistaken, if you have fallen into heresy on one or more issues, if you have fallen away from the True Faith, if you lead people via heresy away from heaven and straight to perdition, then you are more than merely mistaken. I mean there's a satanic aspect to your mistake. Heretics don't mean to lead people to perdition - heretics have good intentions, of course - nevertheless, if the upshot of a person's religious mistake is that he leads people away from heaven and leads them instead straight to perdition, then this is so serious a mistake that it is, essentially, a satanic sort of mistake.

So, those of us who are Christians are under tons of pressure when we are asked if we have God's new covenant written on our hearts, because dire consequences arise if we say Yes, and dire consequences arise if we say No. A Christian has no reason to hope for salvation if he says that God's new covenant is not written on his heart. But, then, to insist to people that one does have God's new law written on ones heart, to insist that one doesn't teach a single heresy, then one simply has to be right, or else, you know, eternal perdition is the penalty for falling into heresy.

You can pick any church you want - the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Church of England, the Southern Baptists etc. - choose any church you care to choose, and suppose God was to announce to the whole world that this church has fallen away from the True Faith, and it therefore leads people to perdition, but, suppose that God also tells us that this church only needs to make a few relatively simple improvements, nothing too drastic, just a few simple changes, in order to uphold the True Faith, and then it will stop leading people to perdition and it will start leading people to heaven. So often a rule is true in general even though there are some exceptions to the rule. Take the rule which says heretics are sent to perdition. But say a kid dies young before he has a chance to shed the heresies he was taught as a kid. Don't you think God might have mercy on the kid. Why can't God have mercy on those he chooses to have mercy? If you say, No, God must keep exactly to the rules – no mercy on any heretics - all heretics who die without repentance are consigned to perdition, then, what do you think? Of course, in general, heretics are consigned to perdition, but I can't see how it is right to say that God is powerless to make some exceptions to various rules, that God is powerless to grant mercy to those whom He wants to give mercy.

Chapter 3. The Evidence for Christianity.

Suffering and violent death has been the fate of millions or billions of human beings. For millennia in the lands which are now India, China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Europe, Africa, North America, South America etc., people suffered under tyrants and the yoke of cruelty and oppression. The ancient Persians would bury children alive. Genghis Khan and his hordes once put 1,600,000 people to cruel deaths in one mere week of genocidal gore - see One Hundred Great Kings, Queens and Rulers of the World, 1967, Hamlyn Publishing Group. Thousands of infants were impaled on stakes, their mothers violated and then set afire. 6 million Jews were murdered in Nazi Germany. Estimates run as high as 100 million people were tortured, executed, starved and worked to death under the tyranny of the 20th century Communist regimes.

As wretchedness and torment have long afflicted human beings on earth, Christians see evidence for a crucified God in the concept that God, seeking to be fair, seeking to live under the same conditions which afflict human beings, subjected Himself to life on earth, and to the suffering and torment which must result when one lives among human beings who employ such means of execution as crucifixion. Jules Michelet gave us the following, via Walter K. Kelley's translation from the French, in History of France,

`Mankind was to recognize Christ in itself; to perceive in itself the perpetuity of the Incarnation and the Passion. It remarked it in Job and Joseph, it traced it again in the martyrs. This mystic intuition of an eternal Christ, ceaselessly renewed in humankind, presents itself everywhere in the middle ages...appears in Louis le Debonnaire, spat on by the bishops; in the good king Robert, excommunicated by the pope; in Godefroy of Bouillon, a warrior and a Ghibeline, but dying chaste in Jerusalem as a plain baron of the Holy Sepulchre. The ideal takes still loftier proportions in St. Thomas of Canterbury, forsaken by the Church and dying for Her...realised in the fifteenth century...by...La Pucelle [Joan of Arc].'

Will Durant told us in Caesar and Christ that the invention of a Christ as noble as Jesus, by some fishermen and a rabbi named Saul, who became Paul, would be a greater miracle than any miracle mentioned in the gospels.

Pascal wrote in pensée 767,

`Jesus Christ is typified by Joseph, the beloved of his father, sent by his father to meet his brethren, etc., innocent, sold by his brethren for twenty pieces of silver, and thence becoming their lord and saviour, the saviour of strangers, and the saviour of the world; which would not have been but for their plot to destroy him, and their sale and rejection of him. In prison Joseph was innocent between two criminals; Jesus on the cross was innocent between two thieves. Joseph foretells freedom to the one and death to the other from the same omens. Jesus Christ saves the elect, and condemns the outcast for the same sins. Joseph only foretells, Jesus Christ acts. Joseph asks him who will be saved to remember him when he comes into his glory; and the thief who is saved by Jesus asks that He remember him when He comes into His Kingdom.'

All authorities agree that the Old Testament was composed centuries before the New. Joh 1. 1-14, 1 Tim 3. 16, Titus 2, 13, Hebrews 1. 8 and Col 2. 8-10 all declare that Jesus is God. The fact that Isaiah 9. 6 is an Old Testament scripture which asserts the Son is God certainly helps to support the New Testament scriptures which say Jesus is God.

Isaiah 9. 6,

`For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.'

Psalm 2 also testifies to the Divinity of the Son: if a Divine Father begets a Son, then the Son must also be Divine. John 1. 1-14, 1 Tim 3. 16, Col 2. 8-10 could stand on their own if they had to, but it helps in refuting those who insist that Christianity invented the doctrine that the Son is God, who say that Christianity contradicts the Jewish scriptures, to have Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9. 6. And how curious it is that we rely some on the authority of a man who walked round naked for three years - Isaiah 20. 3 - to argue for the doctrine that the Son is God.

Christians believe that, centuries before the Kingdom of Judah was founded, Jacob made a true prophesy in Genesis 49. 10,

`The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.'

The sceptre departed from Judah when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD, several decades after Jesus walked on earth.

Christ stated in Matthew 24. 14 that his words would be preached to the entire world. When one with few disciples and to all appearances slender means asserts that his words will be preached in every corner of the world, we usually discover that his words are not preached in every corner of the world. Since Christ's prophecy came to pass, we see corroborating evidence in Christianity's favor.

In Mark 13: 2 Jesus prophesied the destruction of the Second Temple. And the Second Temple was certainly destroyed. We read in the pages of Josephus that the legions of Vespasian and Titus destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD. The Jews were finally expelled completely from the Holy Land in the 2nd century, and for many centuries thereafter Jerusalem was trampled under by the Gentiles. We read the words of Jesus in Luke 21. 20-24,

`But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you know its destruction is near...And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.'

Julian the Apostate attempted to refute the last part of this prophecy by rebuilding the Temple: he attempted to re-establish the Jews before the times of the Gentiles had been fulfilled. Ammianus, Chrysostom, and Gibbon were all very impressed with the evidence of Divine Intervention to thwart Julian. In Christian Evidences: Fulfilled Bible Prophecies (A. Balfour & Co., 1831, reprinted by Klock and Klock), Dr. Keith quotes Ammianus:

`"Fearful balls of fire, bursting from the earth, sometimes burned the workmen, rendered the place inaccessible, and caused them to desist from their undertaking"...The attempt was made avowedly...It was never accomplished - the prophecy stands fulfilled.'

The emotional and ethical evidence which weigh in favor of Christianity hold that after a careful reading of the gospels and the epistles, a congenial soul and a fair-minded skeptic will conclude that Christ is at the minimum an heroic and sympathetic figure. One might not be prepared to profess that He is God, the Second Person in a Trinity, but if one does not find the personality and career of Christ to be heroic and attractive, then one rejects what most Christians consider to be the strongest evidence for Christianity. Those who are persuaded by the emotional and ethical evidence for the Divinity of Christ might disregard the analytical evidence - the fulfilled prophecies - seeing these as superfluous. Indeed most Christians have a very murky understanding of the Old Testament scriptures which Christian theologians insist refer to Jesus, such as Isaiah 9. 6, Daniel 9. 24-27, Isaiah 53, Psalm 2 etc.

`The Nation' reports that 1,000 Chinese boys are abducted every year. John Sullivan in National Review (5.4.2009, p. 45) tells us that, according to the US State Department, between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked as sex slaves or as other sorts of slaves worldwide every year. 80% of these are women or girls. 14,500 to 17,500 are brought into the USA every year. Many people, appalled at the suffering they see in the world, ask God: why do You permit so much suffering on earth? Christianity maintains that God is not a God who reposes in Olympian luxury with a prodigious indifference to the misfortunes which crush mankind. God, in the Second Person of the Trinity, having suffered an excruciating death on earth, well understands agony, heartbreak and despair. God is therefore well qualified to commiserate with the abused and the broken-hearted, the wretched and the oppressed. God the Son endured torment, death, the harrowing of hell, and yet He triumphed over all, and will come again to judge the quick and the dead.

Christianity's explanation for the existence of evil and suffering runs as follows: 1) The final reward for virtue is to be found in the afterlife not in this life. 2) God is pleased with those who resist evil, who hold to their integrity amid trials, see I Chronicles 29: 17. 3) The Book of Job informs us that God, though He permitted Satan to afflict Job, also rewarded Job with eternal life for remaining faithful during his ordeal, "I know that my Redeemer liveth and He shall stand at last on the earth" - Job 19. 25. 4) Christianity teaches that not only will God reward with eternal life those who resist evil and act with integrity in their trials, but, God Himself, i. e., the Second Person in the Trinity, gave us the supreme example of how one retains ones integrity while suffering on earth.

One reads the Bible and decides if Jesus is to be worshiped. If one is unimpressed with the emotional and ethical evidence for Christianity, that is, if one is unimpressed with the career, personality and precepts of Jesus, then one probably won't trouble oneself to examine the analytical evidence for Christianity - the fulfilled prophesies. Every Christian would insist that it is far better to believe in Christ in a passionate yet confused manner than to know everything there is to know about Christianity with a cold and hard-hearted lucidity. But there's no reason for anyone to be confused, or to believe without immense evidence for belief.

Pascal wrote in pensée 245,

`Christianity...does not acknowledge as her true children those who believe without inspiration.'

This inspiration, for example, would be signalized by feelings of pity and compassion, such as evoked upon reading Luke 22. 43-44,

`Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.'

Non-Christians are often perplexed and angered by the doctrine which says that none save true Christians will attain eternal life in paradise. They reason that God would not damn a sweet and gentle soul merely because that soul rejects Christ. The logic which says that heaven is an exclusively Christian haunt runs in two lines of logic. The first line holds that the Christian scriptures are trustworthy. And these scriptures are rather unambiguous on certain points, a) Christ gave His life as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of many, b) No one comes to the Father save through the Son, c) John 3. 18, `he who does not believe is already condemned,' etc., etc.

The second line of logic holds that God the Son was once tortured and executed on a cross, therefore, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit would be displeased with those who insist that the Son never suffered on a cross; moreover, the Father would be inclined to consign to hell those who disparage the Son's suffering, and who revile Christ in their blasphemies. Even if one is neither obnoxious nor profane in ones unbelief, one cannot have any compassion for the crucified God if one doesn't believe God was ever crucified. If one has no compassion for the crucified God, the crucified God will reciprocate, and will have no pity and compassion on the unfeeling unbeliever. Such is the logic which says there is no salvation for those who reject Jesus.

David Klinghoffer, in a review of Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity (National Review, 12.31.2007) writes on why the Jews have rejected Jesus,

`No, it's not sinful pride: It is sacred scripture. The plausibility of [the] Christian religion rests on how well it fits with everything we know about God from the pages of revelation that preceded Christianity. Nothing in the Hebrew Bible remotely suggests that the relationship between God and the Jews described in the Torah, a relationship conducted according to a grammar of laws, was intended to be anything other than eternal, as the Torah itself says explicitly over and over again. The Jews' refusal to submit to a misreading of their Bible is the most basic reason they rejected Jesus...A Christian apologist should recognize this and offer a plausible response not only to Dawkins or Hitchens [Atheists] but to the rabbis and other Jewish teachers and interpreters from Moses and Isaiah through Maimonides and up to the present day.'

Let us consider these words: `Nothing in the Hebrew Bible remotely suggests that the relationship between God and the Jews described in the Torah, a relationship conducted according to a grammar of laws, was intended to be anything other than eternal.'

Psalm 40. 6,

`Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears You have opened, burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.'

It might be argued that the famous text of Isaiah 1. 11-18 applies, quite literally, to only to the rulers of Sodom and to the people of Gomorrah, but that would be a faulty interpretation. Isaiah i. 11-18 is directed at the ancient Jews, at people who had become like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah (these cities had been destroyed centuries before Isaiah's time).

Isaiah 1. 11-18,

`"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?" says the LORD. `I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs or goats...Bring no more futile sacrifices; incense is an abomination to Me...Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean...cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, reprove the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together...though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.'

David Klinghoffer wrote:

`Nothing in the Hebrew Bible remotely suggests that the relationship between God and the Jews described in the Torah, a relationship conducted according to a grammar of laws, was intended to be anything other than eternal, as the Torah itself says explicitly over and over again.'

Aren't Psalm 40. 6 and Isaiah 1. 11-18 part of the Hebrew Bible? Don't these two scriptures suggest that God is sick of animal sacrifices and that animal sacrifices are not eternally required? Ezekiel 20. 25 tells us that God gave the children of Israel bad laws because He was angry with their incessant rebellions. We've seen that Jeremiah 31. 31-34, part of the Hebrew Bible, tells that God will make a new covenant with the houses of Judah and Israel. The Mosaic Law is still on the books - it's an eternal law - even though many of its statutes - slaughtering animals and executing Sabbath violators, for instance, are held in abeyance - they are on the record for eternity but they are no longer enforced - though many parts of the Old Law are incorporated into the New Law, and they are enforced - The Ten Commandments for instance.

It is certainly true that the Mosaic Law given in the Torah, in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, which, again, is the same as the first five books of the Christian Old Testament, gives one the very distinct impression that the Mosaic Law will never be replaced.

Much of the argument between Christians and Jews deals with the question: has the Mosaic Law been amended? The Jews insist the Mosaic Law is an eternal law which is in temporary abeyance. It has been in abeyance for nearly 2,000 years now. There hasn't been any animal sacrifice in the Temple since the time the Temple was destroyed. The Jews don't say the Mosaic Law was destroyed when the Temple was destroyed. They say the Mosaic Law is in abeyance. If it can be abeyance for 2,000 years and still be an eternal law, then it can be in abeyance for an infinite number of years and still be an eternal law.

Deuteronomy 4: 2,

`Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.'

Deuteronomy 27: 26,

`Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them: and all the people shall say, Amen.'

Jeremiah 9: 11-24,

`And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons...And the Lord saith, because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice...I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. I will scatter them among the heathen...the carcasses of men shall fall as dung upon the open field...let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord...'

Leviticus 26. 14-36,

`But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; and if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror...I shall bring a sword upon you...ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat...I will make waste your cities...I will send faintness into their hearts...the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them...'

Deuteronomy 28. 15-67,

`But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field, cursed shall be thy basket and thy store...Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation and rebuke...The Lord shall make pestilence cleave unto thee...The Lord shall smite thee...And thy carcass shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth...The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch...thou shalt grope at noonday...Thou shalt betroth a wife and another man shall lie with her...Thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes...thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee...If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD; then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful...he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt...the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart..thy life shall hang in doubt before thee...In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning!'

Despite all of these threats, the impediments keeping modern Jews from obeying all of the Law of Moses are swiftly apparent. The fact that there is no sanctified altar in a Temple in Jerusalem means that Jews can't offer any animal sacrifices, but they must, provided they wish to live by the Mosaic Law, still execute adulterers (Leviticus 20. 10), execute blasphemers (Leviticus 24. 16), execute false prophets (Deuteronomy 13. 5), execute homosexuals (Leviticus 20. 13), execute witches (Leviticus 20. 27), and keep all the other statutes such as not wearing clothing of mixed cloth, e. g., wool and linen, and purchasing only new houses which have parapets. It's true that we never read in the Old Testament of dire punishments falling on the children of Israel for the transgressions of wearing clothing of heterogeneous fabrics, of wearing garments without tassels, or after they built dwellings without parapets - all of which are transgressions against the Mosaic Law. The terrible chastisements - the captivities - resulted when the children of Israel perpetrated grievous sins: when they bowed down before the Baals and Ashtoreths, playing the harlot by serving pagan deities, and when they oppressed the poor and poured out the blood of the innocent. Thus, an important lesson to be learned from the Old Testament is that while one might find it impossible to obey every little statute in a Divine Legal Code, one must strive to obey the most important laws in that Divine Code.

Hosea 4. 6 informs us that God's people, i.e., the Jews, are destroyed for lack of knowledge. The context of Hosea 4. 6 tells us the Jews have forgotten the Mosaic Law, especially the Ten Commandments. Secularized Jews today have forgotten one or more of the Ten Commandments. If these secularized Jews, who probably comprise more than 50% of all Jews, were to obey all of the Mosaic Law then they would have to obey both the good parts - such as the Ten Commandments - as well as the bad parts: executing Sabbath violators, executing rebellious children, executing homosexuals etc. Before one gives up on Judaism altogether and becomes secularized one might ask if it is possible that the Gentiles corrupted a Jewish new covenant for century after century. Did the falling away mentioned in 2 Thess 2 happen centuries ago? Before giving up on God and becoming a secularized Jew, one has to ask: is it possible that Jesus is the Messiah even though the people under the sign of the cross fell away from the True Faith? Did they fall away by persecuting the Jews for centuries, by enforcing evil laws, by enslaving Africans, by oppressing peasants, by dividing the Church into a partition where one group of Christians waged war (the nobles), one group prayed (the priests, monks and nuns), and a third group toiled (the peasants), a partition which tramples on both the New Testament and justice. Could it be that not every barbarian who had some baptismal water splashed on him was made instantly pure in the eyes of the Creator of the Universe? `Thus thou didst to the vase at Soisson!' screamed Clovis, the Catholic king of the Franks, as he cleaved the skull of someone with his axe. The man who had his skull split open had broken a vase belonging to the Catholic Church. The history of Western Civilization is very concerned with this question: did every barbarian who was washed in the baptismal waters comport himself like one of the apostles? Perhaps the baptized didn't immediately have the Divine Law inscribed on their hearts. Did the people under the sign of the cross fall away from the True Faith? Is it possible to obey the Mosaic Law? If it is impossible to obey the Mosaic Law, was a New Law given to the Jews centuries ago? Could it be that the Gentiles corrupted this new covenant? Have those under the sign of the cross fallen away from the new covenant, aka the True Faith?

Christians assert that, as the Jews don't worship Jesus, and don't understand that Christianity is the new covenant mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, and as the Jews are in rebellion against the doctrine that Jesus is God (Isaiah 9. 6, I Timothy 3. 16, Colossians 2. 8-10, John 1. 1-14, John 5. 23, Hebrews 1. 5-8, Acts 3. 22, Titus 2. 13 etc.), though they might not be in rebellion against Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9. 6, nevertheless, perdition awaits all who refuse to worship Jesus as the Son in the Divine Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Now if a Jewish person rejects the doctrine that Christianity is this new covenant, then, as the Temple has long since been destroyed, as the daily sacrifices have long since been taken away, as prophecy and vision seem to have vanished, what has become of the true religion, the religion of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah? We know that the Jews do not obey the Mosaic Law, because the Mosaic Law demands the execution of blasphemers, enchantresses, homosexuals and rebellious children, and the Jews don't execute anyone for religious violations.

Ezekiel 20: 24, 25 reads:

`Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised My statutes and polluted My sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers' idols. Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good and judgments whereby they should not live.'

The whole Old Covenant system of animal sacrifice is not at all good in the estimation of most people today. Exodus 29. 20 tells us that God wanted the blood of a ram to be placed on the tip of Aaron's right ear, and on the tips of the right ears of his sons, and on the thumbs of their right hands, and on the big toes of their right feet. This curious little ritual certainly appears to be an example of God mocking man, mocking him because of his incessant rebellions and eternal heart of stone. Yet scripture is clear that even an Old Covenant law of the most frivolous or barbarous aspect must not be discarded until a New Covenant - a Covenant which says the Old Covenant is still eternal yet unobserved in many of its statutes - has been given, for dire curses would crush the children of Israel if they rejected the slightest element of the Old Covenant. `Cursed be thy basket and thy store...'

We can certainly see that the Old Covenant needed to be amended with a New Law. The Old Law can be put into abeyance so that it is an eternal law, though unobserved, whereas the New Law is both eternal and observed.

Since the Jews reject Christianity as the new covenant spoken of in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, then, as the Temple has long since been razed, as the daily sacrifices have long since been taken away, as prophecy and vision seem to have long since been sealed, what has become of the true religion? Where is the religion of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah?

The new covenant was not prophesied by a Gentile, but by a Jew. Jeremiah 31. 31-34,

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

Jeremiah is not the only Hebrew prophet who tells of such a covenant which consists of God putting His law inside people.

Isaiah 59. 20-21,

`The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," says the LORD. "As for Me," says the Lord, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the LORD, "from this time and forevermore."'

Ezekiel 36. 24-28,

`For I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the nations and bring you back into your own land...I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My Statutes, and you will keep My statutes and do them...you shall be My people, and I will be your God.'

Christians don't believe that the above scripture refers to the gathering of the Jews in the Holy Land after the Babylonian Captivity, because Christians do not believe the prophecy was fulfilled after the Babylonian Captivity. Jesus was crucified 2,000 years ago, and Christians do not believe that those who approved that He be crucified understood and obeyed the Divine Law! Christians believe that Ezekiel 36. 24-28 will be fulfilled later. But there are two parts to Ezekiel 36. 24-28. There is the first part, God will gather the Jews in the Holy Land, which looks a lot like Zionism, and then the second part, the Jews will receive the Divine Law.

Ezekiel 36. 24-28 supports Zionism. `For I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the nations and bring you back into your own land...' If one rejects Zionism then one rejects Ezekiel 36. 24-28. If one rejects Ezekiel 36. 24-28, then, one will reject another Old Testament scripture which tells of God putting his Divine Law into the Jews - Jeremiah 31. 31-34. If one rejects Jeremiah 31. 31-34, which tells of a new covenant, then one rejects Christ's words at the Last Supper - `For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.' If one rejects Christ's words at the Last Supper, one rejects Christianity. Christianity says one is damned if one rejects Christianity. Therefore, Christianity says one is damned if one is anti-Zionist.

The Jews insist that Jesus can not be the Messiah, because Jesus does not rule the world with a rod of iron - and recall that Psalm 2 is very clear in stating that the Son will rule the world with a rod of iron. But Psalm 2 does not supply us with a timetable. It merely says that, at some time in the future, the Messiah, the Divine Son, will rule the world.

The Jewish insistence that Christianity can not be the true religion, because evil Christians have persecuted the Jews for centuries, is founded upon an inability to understand something which is easy to understand: there is a True Faith and a True Church. Merely because many millions of Christians have fallen away from the True Faith and the True Church doesn't mean that the True Faith and the True Church don't exist, and it doesn't mean that Christ and the apostles taught falsehoods.

All New Testaments in the world today are essentially the same, these being derived from 5,000 early Greek manuscripts which were all essentially the same. The Catholic Old Testament is the same as the Protestant Old Testament, save the Catholic version also includes the Apocrypha. The Protestant Old Testament is the same as the Hebrew Bible. The Torah, also known as the Pentateuch, also known as the first five books of the Old Testament, are all different terms which describe the same things: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Law of Moses, the Old Covenant, is found in these first five books of the Hebrew Bible, in the Torah, the Pentateuch.

Isaiah 9. 6 certainly clashes with Torah, because the Torah clashes with the idea of God being a Child, or God being born. But Isaiah 9. 6 says what it says, and there's no sense in saying it was written by a Gentile, and there's no sense saying it reminds one of the Torah,

`For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.'

Psalm 40: 6-7 seems to clash rather conspicuously with the Torah,

`Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears You have opened, burnt offering and sin offering You did not require. My ears you have opened; Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require. Then I said, "Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart.'

Hosea 4. 6 says God's people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Perhaps the doctrine which says there is nothing in the Hebrew Bible which remotely suggests that an Old Covenant will be placed in eternal abeyance, and that God will make a new covenant with his people would be an example of this lack of knowledge.

Hosea 6. 6 also says that God wants mercy and not sacrifice. This is at least a suggestion that the Torah is not the last word on God's relationship with the Jews.

If one was to actually believe that God still considered the Jews to be subject to the Mosaic Law, then one would have to agitate the State of Israel to destroy and remove the Dome of the Rock, and then one would have agitate the State of Israel to commence rebuilding the Temple, and then agitate for a high priest, and then agitate the State of Israel to gather up bulls and goats so as to begin again the whole business of ritualistic slaughter, and to start executing homosexuals and enchantresses and rebellious children etc. Before one jumps to the conclusion that the Mosaic Law is not in eternal abeyance, and that it must be obeyed, one might read Jeremiah xxxi 31-34, and one might also read the New Testament, to see if, perhaps, the New Testament explains the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34. One mustn't confound the sins of evil Christians who have persecuted Jews over the centuries with the authors of the New Testament. Christ and the apostles were Jews not Gentiles, and of course the New Testament contains prophecies which say that wolves in sheep's clothing will enter the flock.

The 28th chapter of Deuteronomy is one of the most amazing chapters in literature, and it certainly inclines one to think the Mosaic Law will never be replaced. Nevertheless, it makes no sense to ignore Jeremiah 31. 31-34 and Isaiah 9. 6.

David Klinghoffer makes these assertions:

1) `The plausibility of [the] Christian religion rests on how well it fits with everything we know about God from the pages of revelation that preceded Christianity.'

So far so good.

2) Nothing in the Hebrew Bible remotely suggests that the relationship between God and the Jews described in the Torah, a relationship conducted according to a grammar of laws, was intended to be anything other than eternal, as the Torah itself says explicitly over and over again. The Jews' refusal to submit to a misreading of their Bible is the most basic reason they rejected Jesus...'

Again, we know that the Jews are not upholding the Mosaic Law at present. Does this mean the Mosaic Law has been destroyed? No. It means the Mosaic Law is in abeyance. Why can't the Mosaic Law remain in abeyance for eternity?

One has to ignore the words written in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 in order to write: `Nothing in the Hebrew Bible remotely suggests that the relationship between God and the Jews described in the Torah, a relationship conducted according to a grammar of laws, was intended to be anything other than eternal, as the Torah itself says explicitly over and over again. The Jews' refusal to submit to a misreading of their Bible is the most basic reason they rejected Jesus...' To write that sentence one would have to ignore Isaiah 1. 11-18. One would have to ignore Psalm 40. 6. One would have to ignore Ezekiel 20. 25....

As we know the Old Testament is very clear in stating the Mosaic Law is an eternal law. Therefore, Christians don't say that the New Law has replaced the Old Law, the Mosaic Law. We say that the Old Law is an eternal law but it is not enforced, it is in suspension, it is in abeyance, whereas the New Law is enforced. One is not damned under the New Law as an outlaw if one refuses to execute homosexuals and adulterers, as demanded by the Mosaic Law, but one is subject to damnation if one is an outlaw under the New Law. Under the New Law we do not practice the lex talionis - `eye for an eye, tooth for tooth' justice, because the lex talionis is not part of the New Law. The lex talionis is part of the Mosaic Law, and as the Mosaic Law is an eternal law, held in eternal abeyance, the lex talionis is also an eternal law, held in eternal abeyance. If the Jews were to say the lex talionis is not in abeyance, then, they would have to practice `eye for an eye, tooth for tooth' justice, or else they would have to accuse themselves of being outlaws under the Mosaic Law, and, hence, they would have to accuse themselves of being accursed in the eyes of God.

One might look at Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Isaiah 59. 20-21 and Ezekiel 36. 24-28 and see that a New Law is going to be inscribed on the hearts of God's people. Is the slaughtering of bulls something which will be inscribed on people's hearts? Who can remember all of the sin offering and wave offerings and all the details found in the Mosaic Law? People have a horrendous time simply trying to remember to love God, to love our neighbors, and to love even our enemies, as Jesus commanded. In order to love God one must keep the commandments and keep all of Jesus' words - I John 5. 3 and John 14. 23-26.

3) `A Christian apologist should recognize this [Assertions 1 and 2] and offer a plausible response not only to Dawkins or Hitchens [Evolutionists and Atheists] but to the rabbis and other Jewish teachers and interpreters from Moses and Isaiah through Maimonides and up to the present day.'

The Christian response to Jews and everyone else includes a recapitulation of Luke 13. 5 - repent or perish. And then Acts 3. 22-25 repeats Deuteronomy 18. 15-19: `Every soul who will not hear that Prophet will be utterly destroyed.' There's the second half of Matthew 5, which is a sermon on hellfire. There's John 15. 6 and Revelation 20. 15. All of this is more or less the same as 2 Thess 1. 8 - fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Under both covenants, the Old and the New, blood is required to wash away sins. Under the Old Covenant the blood of animals was shed. Under the New Covenant, the blood of God was shed. Under the Old Covenant, under the Law of Moses, the sinner would contemplate the anguish of the bull being slaughtered. The pathos of the suffering bull might have inspired in the sinner's mind some concept of his own punishment should he persist in his wickedness and his contempt of God's commandments. `For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft' \- I Samuel 15. 23. Under the New Covenant, the sinner is supposed to recall the anguish of God on the cross - and supposed to recall the anguish of hell and damnation which befalls sinners who continue to sin and rebel against the Divine Law.

In Hebrews 9. 11-28 we read,

`But Christ came as high Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance...So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.'

The Christian response to Atheists and Jews, and to Christians who aren't living the way good Christians are supposed to be living, and to everyone else for that matter, is quite simple: Repent or Perish. All of Christian scripture supports the Repent or Perish theology. Recall Daniel 9. 24-27 and Luke 13. 1-5, John 15. 6 and 2 Thess 1. 8. The Bible preaches a consistent message of the need to repent from wicked ways. To repeat what Christ said in Matthew 25. 41-46,

`Then He will also say to them on the left hand, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger and you did not take Me in; naked and you did not clothed Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me." Then they also will answer Him, saying "Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?" Then He will answer them, saying, "Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me." And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.'

Recall the last chapter in the last book of the Old Testament. Malachi 4. 4 begins as follows,

`"For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly, will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up," says the LORD of hosts, "that will leave them neither root nor branch...'

Malachi 4. 4 also tells us to remember the Law of Moses. The order to remember the Law of Moses is not the same thing as the order to forget what is written in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Isaiah 59. 20-21 and Ezekiel 36. 24-28.

An eternal law should be remembered even though it is in abeyance. If everyone forgot the Mosaic Law, it would cease to be an eternal law. But as long as it is remembered, though it is in abeyance, it remains eternal. And certainly not everything in the Law of Moses is excluded from the New Covenant; one has to include the good parts of the Law of Moses - the Ten Commandments for instance. The New Law certainly excludes the bloody animal sacrifices and all the patently bad laws: execute rebellious children, burn the harlot daughter of a priest, execute homosexuals etc.

A standard Jewish complaint against Jesus is that He does not rule the world with a rod of iron, as prophesied in Psalm 2. There is a First Coming and a Second Come. Christ will rule the world with a rod of iron at the Second Coming.

Again, Daniel 12. 1,

`And at that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time. And at that time your people shall be delivered, every one who is found written in the book.'

Christians of course see this phrase `found written in the book' refers to the Book of Life, which we find in Revelation 20. 12-15.

Daniel 12. 1 is a very important scripture in Christian apologetics because Daniel was a Hebrew prophet, and he is telling the Jews that they will be delivered when Michael arrives, not when the Messiah arrives, and this supports the Christian doctrines that, 1) Michael will convert the Jews to the New Law and the True Church, and 2) the Messiah must suffer first and conquer later, and Psalm 2 is very clear that the Messiah is a conquering Messiah.

The Book of Revelation is quite clear about some things. Christ will return to earth to slaughter the evil people who brandish the evil mark on their foreheads or right hands. These evil people are so vile God has determined that they deserve to burn in hell forever. Then, there is a millennium, where Christ and the saints who come out of the great tribulation reign on earth for 1,000 years. Then another satanic rebellion must be crushed. Then there's the final judging of souls. The saints who come out of the great tribulation are safe from this judgment. Then the New Jerusalem comes down out of the sky and the Trinity and the saints reign forever.

Apropos of repenting and perishing, many centuries of human experience have taught us that it is impossible for human beings to be freed from all taint of greed, anger, pride, sensuality, sloth, gluttony etc., etc., and therefore we see the importance of those scriptures which tell us that love covers a multitude of sins - Proverbs 10. 12 and I Peter 4. 8. James 5. 20 also pertains to this theme.

We've seen some evidence which says that Christians aligned under the sign of the cross have often been more murderous than loving, but this doesn't prove that Christianity is a false religion, and indeed, as we've seen, it corroborates various New Testament scriptures and prophecies, such as the scriptures which say that Satan exists, and that there will be a falling away. The insistence that Jesus can not be God the Son, because a sinister omnipresence hovered over Christendom for century after century - a malevolence embodied in millions of thugs brandishing crosses and terrorizing Jews and other non-conformists \- no doubt has some emotional logic behind it. Still it doesn't tax ones intelligence too strenuously to observe that Jesus can't be blamed for the atrocities committed by false Christians claiming to be His followers. The basic Christian promise is: live according to the gospel: endure trials and suffering without renouncing the True Faith and you will be rewarded with eternal life in paradise. Jesus could be blamed if this promise was a false promise, but it is rather impetuous to insist it is a false promise when one has no evidence which says it is a false promise. One might at least wait until one is dead, until ones soul has gone to judgment, before one declares it a false promise! We have no end of evidence which says there have been millions of bloodthirsty Christians, but this fact doesn't invalidate the New Testament. It corroborates it. Recall Acts. 20. 28-31,

`The Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure fierce wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember that over the course of three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.'

The existence of millions of evil Christians certainly corroborates St. Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 11. 13-15,

`For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.'

Daniel 9. 24-27 is indeed one of the pre-eminent scriptures from the Repent or Perish School of Theology. It is also one of the supreme prophetical scriptures from the Old Testament in telling us that the Messiah must suffer first and conquer second. That is, the words: `And after three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off' lead one to think the Messiah will be killed. Daniel 9. 24-27 runs as follows:

`Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.'

The doctrine that the Son, the Messiah, will be a conquering Messiah, finds its supreme articulation in Psalm 2. 5-9,

`Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: "Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD has said to Me, 'You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.'"'

Christians have some advantages over Jews in recognizing the authority of scripture. Christians can easily see many fulfilled prophecies in the Old Testament which point to Jesus being the Messiah, and these fulfilled prophecies greatly increase people's confidence in the Divine authority of the Old Testament. Many Jews however are shaken in their belief in these ancient scriptures - for the Messiah should have arrived ages ago, and yet, as the Jews see things, he has certainly failed to arrive, and thus their confidence in the scriptures has been shaken.

Daniel 9. 24-27 is the most explicit Old Testament scripture which we have stating that the Messiah will arrive on earth before the destruction of the Second Temple (70 AD), albeit one must conduct a little research to see that it is explicit. Sir Robert Anderson elucidates the matter for us in his Preface to the Tenth Edition of his The Coming Prince: The Marvelous Prophecy of Daniel's Seventy Weeks Concerning the Antichrist (Kregel, 14th edition, 1957),

`1. The epoch of the Seventy Weeks was the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. (Daniel ix. 25.) [Here one must be careful to distinguish the earlier decree to rebuild the Temple, found in the Book of Ezra, from the latter decree to rebuild Jerusalem, found in the Book of Nehemiah].

2. There was but one decree for the rebuilding of Jerusalem...

3. That decree was issued by Artaxerxes, king of Persia, in the month Nisan in the 20th year of his reign, i.e. B.C. 445...

4. The city was actually built in pursuance of that decree.

5. The Julian date of 1st Nisan 445 was the 14th of March...

6. Sixty-nine weeks of years [the Biblical year consists of 360 days, and 69 weeks of years equals 69 x 7 x 360 days] - i.e. 173,880 days - reckoned from the 14th March B.C. 445, ended on the 6th April A.D. 32...

7. That day, on which the sixty-nine weeks ended, was the fateful day on which the Lord Jesus rode into Jerusalem in fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah ix. 9; when, for the first and only occasion in all His earthly sojourn, He was acclaimed as "Messiah the Prince, the King, the son of David...no date in history, sacred or profane, is fixed with greater definiteness than that of the year in which the Lord began His public ministry. I refer of course to Luke iii. 1, 2...I say this emphatically because Christian expositors have persistently sought to set up a fictitious date for the reign of Tiberius. The first Passover of the Lord's ministry, therefore, was in Nisan A.D. 29; and we can fix the date of the Passion with absolute certainty as Nisan A.D. 32.'

The Torah essentially gives one no hope of eternal life. The relationship between God and the Jews described in the Torah - the first 5 books of the Christian Bible - is one where God is immortal but human beings are mortal dust, and the best that the mortal dust can hope for is a long and happy life on this side of the grave. But the Hebrew Bible, in Daniel 12. 2, tells of eternal life,

`And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.'

Apropos of Messrs. Dawkins and Hitchens - both men are English Atheists - the basic problem most of us have in dealing with Evolution is that we have no great knowledge about what the fossil record actually says. Many Christians simply reply that Evolution is one of God's creations. We all hear various reports from various people. And if these reports support our pre-determined notions, our theological or atheistic prejudices, then we accept these reports. But both Creationists and Evolutionists reject those reports which offend their fundamental beliefs and premises. Is there clear evidence in the fossil record which shows that one species has evolved into a different species? Might it be that Evolution is founded upon Materialistic Faith? In order to form a strong opinion in favor of Evolution one must be able to see strong evidence in its favor. Most of us don't care to study fossils. Many of us don't care to repair to the Sumatran jungle for 50 years to look for `missing links' and `transitional forms.' Therefore our inclination might be to say that Evolution is bunk, or to say that Evolution is one of God's creations, but we can't speak with any authority because we are not experts on any evidence which pertains to Evolution, thus we can either parrot other people who reflect our prejudices, or we can refuse to be parrots altogether, and simply admit we don't know much about the evidence which pertains to Evolution.

Norm Cantor, in his The Civilization of the Middle Ages (HarperCollins, 1993, p. 31) tell us about the Man of Sorrows in Isaiah 53 . Cantor is quite explicit. He says this Man of Sorrows who wears a crown of thorns represents Israel and the Jewish people. He tells us that Isaiah 53 offers an explanation why sinful Gentiles have prospered while pious Jews have languished in their captivities.

Cantor's words hint at the gulf dividing Christianity and Judaism, for Christians of course insist the Man of Sorrows is a prophecy which refers to Jesus not to the Jewish people.

Isaiah 53. 3-9:

`He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not...But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed...he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is mute...He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.'

Consider Zechariah 12. 10:

`And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they have pierced; they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.'

Is it Cantor's contention that the Jewish people pierced the Jewish people?

Isaiah 53. 9 says, `He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.'
The Hebrew prophets filled the Hebrew Bible full of verses saying the Jews were quick to shed innocent blood and were full of deceit.

Cantor might say the Man of Sorrows refers to good Jews alone. He might insist that Psalm 22 refers to the suffering of all righteous Jews, not to Jesus. But we can return to Daniel 9. 24-27, and specifically to some words which demand an explanation, `And after three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off'. We still have Psalm 2, which clearly speaks of the Son, begotten by the Father. And, again, Isaiah 9. 6 is obviously an amazing scripture.

Many centuries before the birth of Jesus it was prophesied in the scriptures of the Jews that the Messiah would not descend from the clouds in glory when he first appeared on earth, but would rise up from the people like another Moses (Deuteronomy 18. 15-18); he would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7. 14), in Bethlehem (Micah 5. 2); he was destined to suffer (Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53). He will enter Jerusalem in triumph (Zechariah 9. 9). He will be rejected by his own people (Psalm 118. 22). He will be betrayed by one of his friends (Psalm 41. 10). He will be smitten and spat upon by his enemies (Isaiah 50: 6). He will suffer with sinners and pray for those who hate him (Isaiah 53. 12). Lots will be cast for his garment (Psalm 22. 19). He will be given vinegar and gall (Psalm 69. 21). His bones will not be broken (Numbers 9. 12). He will rise from the dead (Psalm 16. 10). He will stand at the right hand of God (Psalm 110. 1). He will come before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A. D. (Daniel 9. 24-26). He will be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11. 12).

Zechariah 9. 9,

`Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.'

Apropos of the Divine inspiration of the Old Testament, the following is from Alexander Keith's Christian Evidences: Fulfilled Bible Prophecies. Dr. Keith, a Scottish divine of the 19th century, wrote many years before the modern State of Israel came into existence, an event which further testifies to the validity of such ancient prophecies as Ezekiel 36. 24, Deuteronomy 30 and Leviticus 26. 14-44.

"Could Moses, as an uninspired mortal, have described the history, the fate, the dispersion, the treatment, the dispositions of the Israelites to the present day, or for three thousand two hundred years, seeing that he was astonished and amazed, on his descent from Sinai, at the change in their sentiments, and in their conduct, in the space of forty days? Could various persons have testified, in different ages, of the self-same and of similar facts, as wonderful as they have proved to be true? Could they have divulged so many secrets of futurity, when, of necessity, they were utterly ignorant of them all? The probabilities were infinite against them. For the mind of man often fluctuates in uncertainty over the nearest events, and the most probable results; but, in regard to remote ages, when thousands of years shall have elapsed -and to facts respecting them, contrary to all previous knowledge, experience, analogy, or conception, -it feels they are dark as death to mortal ken. And, viewing only the dispersion of the Jews, and some of its attendant circumstances -how their city was laid desolate, -their temple, which formed the constant place of their resort before, leveled with the ground, and ploughed over like a field -their country ravaged, and themselves murdered in mass falling before the sword, the famine, and the pestilence -how a remnant was left, but despoiled, persecuted, enslaved, and led into captivity -driven from their own land, not to a mountainous retreat, where they might subsist with safety, but dispersed among the nations, and left to the mercy of a world that everywhere hated and oppressed them -shattered in pieces like the wreck of a vessel in a mighty storm -scattered over the earth, like fragments on the waters -and, instead of disappearing, or mingling with the nations, remaining a perfectly distinct people, in every kingdom the same, retaining similar habits and customs, and creed, and manners, in every part of the globe, though without ephod, teraphim, or sacrifice -meeting everywhere the same insult, and mockery, and oppression -finding no resting place without an enemy soon to dispossess them -multiplying amidst all their miseries -surviving their enemies -beholding, unchanged, the extinction of many nations, and the convulsions of all -robbed of their silver and their gold, though cleaving to the love of them still, as the stumbling block of their iniquity -often bereaved of their very children -disjoined and disorganized, but uniform and unaltered -ever bruised, but never broken -weak, fearful, sorrowful, and afflicted -often driven to madness at the spectacle of their own misery -taken up in the lips of talkers -the taunt and hissing and infamy of all people, and continuing ever, what they are to this day, the sole proverb common to the whole world; -and how did every fact, from its very nature defy all conjecture, and how could mortal man, overlooking a hundred successive generations, have foretold any one of these wonders that are now conspicuous in these latter times? Who but the Father of Spirits, possessed of perfect prescience, even of the knowledge of the will and the actions of free, intelligent, and moral agents, could have revealed their unbounded and yet unceasing wanderings -unveiled all their destiny -and unmasked the minds of the Jews, and of their enemies, in every age and in every clime? The creation of the world might as well be the work of chance as the revelation of these things. It is a visible display of the power and of the prescience of God, -an accumulation of many miracles.'

Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9. 6 tell us God has a Son. What is the evidence saying Jesus is this Son? We know that the Son is supposed to rule the world with an iron rod - Psalm 2 - and we know Jesus didn't rule the world with an iron rod at His First Coming, but we have scriptures telling of a Second Coming. The parallel with Moses is then: Moses appeared to the people without power, then he was taken away into the desert for many years, and he returned to the Jews having power, power to lead them out of Egypt. Similarly, Jesus appeared once with little power, was taken away for many, many years, and will return again with great power. Moses brought a Law inscribed on stone tablets. Jesus brought a Law inscribed on human hearts. Moses led the people in the desert of Sinai where they rebelled against the Mosaic Law and against the LORD for 40 years. Have the people under the sign of the cross upheld the New Law or have they rebelled against the New Law. One would need to have a sound understanding of the history of Western Civilization to correctly answer that question.

Hebrews 10. 1: FOR THE law (the Mosaic Law, the Old Covenant) having a shadow of the good things that are coming....

The parallel between the Passover lamb and Jesus are more or less obvious. The blood of the slain Passover lamb was placed on the top of doorways in ancient Egypt where the children of Israel were held in servitude. The destroying angel passed over those houses marked with lamb's blood. But every first-born child, whether Egyptian or Israelite, was killed in those houses where no lamb's blood was found over the doorway. The blood of Jesus was shed for the remission of sins. With their sins covered by the blood of Jesus, True Believers are passed over at the Last Judgment and escape being hurled into the Lake of Fire - Revelation 20. 11-15.

Bible students have elaborated on no end of comparisons between Jesus and Joseph, how both suffered, how Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and how Jesus was rejected by His people - the Children of Israel - how both were sold for silver, how both became the saviors of their people; Joseph took a Gentile bride when he was in Egypt; Jesus will take a Gentile bride, in that the True Church, the Bride of Christ, will be comprised mostly of Gentiles; the bones of Joseph travelled with the Children of Israel through the wilderness of Sinai side by side with the ark of the covenant; Jesus was with this ark while it travelled side by side with the bones of Joseph etc., etc.

It is a paradox that Christendom was often a dark and savage civilization, and yet this attests to the truth of Christianity. One need only inspect the New Testament to see that these scriptures offer prophesies of wolves infiltrating the Christian flock. If we found prophecies in the New Testament asserting that Christians would fashion a civilization to rival paradise, that there would be no Christian wolves in sheep's clothing, that the love of many would not grow cold, that malevolent men would not masquerade as apostles, then we would have evidence that Christianity is a superstition. Such however is not the case, as the corruption of Christendom is clearly foretold in the New Testament.

In 2 Peter 2. 1-3, St. Peter prophesies that many in Christendom will follow after damnable heresies. The Epistle of Jude speaks of ungodly men preordained to enter the Church. As we've seen, St. Paul states in 2 Corinthians 11. 13-15,

`For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.'

St. Matthew 7. 21-23 states many who profess to follow Jesus will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but will be given over to the flames because they are practitioners of lawlessness.

I Timothy 4. 1-3 reads:

`Now the Spirit speaketh 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 conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.'

That there were evil Christians in Christendom strengthens the contention that St. Paul was a true prophet. As we have seen, St. Paul stated in Acts 20. 28-31,

`The Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure fierce wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember that over the course of three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.'

St. Paul is shown here to be a type of Elisha, for both were men who gazed into the future and wept. We read in 2 Kings 8. 12,

`And Hazael said, "Why is my lord weeping?" And he [Elisha] answered, "Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel: their strongholds you will set on fire, and their young men you will kill with the sword; and you will dash their children, and rip open their women with child."'

So much of the history of Western Civilization is merely the history of the corruption of the creed which Christ gave to the apostles. Salo W. Baron stated that no Jew was known to have starved to death in a Jewish community during the middle ages, whereas Christians, wedded to feudal pride and caste snobbery, to a failure to share, were forever dying from famines during the Middle Ages. The ancient Christians, as opposed to the medieval, were admired even by their enemies for their generosity, but little respect was given to Acts 2. 44-47 and Matthew 25. 41-46 by the kings and nobles of medieval Christendom.

When Christians are poorly educated, when they don't understand the Christian Bible, then these poorly educated Christians will be susceptible to evil impulses and evil leaders such as Hitler, whereas a True Christian, one who has the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 and Ezekiel 36. 24-28 written on his heart, will certainly not be led astray by evil. A Christian who gives the New Testament a cursory reading might certainly have hostility toward the Jews on account of the New Testament. When one begins to study the Christian Bible - the Old and New Testaments - when one is working towards a sound understanding of this large document - it is understandable why one might feel hostility toward the Jews: the Gospels contain accounts of the Jews crucifying Christ. The gospel has Jesus insisting that one love and pray for ones enemies, but the gospel also tells of Jews clamoring for the release of Barabbas, and clamoring for the crucifixion of Christ. The gospels tell us that the Jews and the Romans crucified God. God says of the people who approved His crucifixion - in Revelation 2. 9 - `I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews but are a synagogue of Satan'

Therefore it is very important that a Christian continue his education, and that he not be stuck with a remedial understanding of the Christian scriptures. He must understand the connection between Christ's words at the Last Supper \- this cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for many - with Jeremiah 31. 31-34. And one must understand the connection between Jeremiah 31. 31-34, Isaiah 59. 20-21 and Ezekiel 36. 24-28 \- all of which tell us that God has not disowned the Jews. Whenever zealous Christians fail to see the connections between these scriptures they are often driven to hate and persecute the Jews, something which is obviously rebellion against the gospel. One might think that Christ's clear commandment to love and pray for ones enemies would be enough to keep Christians from hating and persecuting the Jews over the centuries, but this hasn't been the case.

Deuteronomy 7. 6-9,

`For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.'

To review some more important scriptures:

1) Matthew 24. 23-27

`Then if anyone says to you, "Look, here is the Christ!" or "There!" do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect...For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.'

2) John 14. 23-26 and Galatians 1. 8-12 tell us, in so many words, that one falls away from the True Faith whenever one rejects any of Christ's sayings, and whenever one alters St. Paul's gospel.

3) James 4. 4 says worldliness, such as exampled by the sin of adultery, is enmity toward God. James 1. 27 tells us pure religion is visiting widows and orphans, and keeping oneself untainted from the world. St. Paul said a Christian who refused to support his family had denied the faith and was worse than an unbeliever. The scriptures support the doctrine of the equal sharing of wealth in the True Church - but all must work if they are able to.

St. Paul:

`Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things became our examples...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. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. 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. For I am the least of the apostles, who am unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God...the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away...if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious...the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away...their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ...when one turns to the Lord the veil is taken away...But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded...We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed...Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day...Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? - I speak as a fool - I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep. In journeys often, in perils of water, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils of the city, in perils of the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness...And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood...O FOOLISH Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar -for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children- but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.'

Those people who are in the True Church – recall Matthew 16. 13-19 and Ephesians 4. 4 - those people who have the Divine Law written on their hearts will know God and they will obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jeremiah 31. 31-34,

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

A Christian is supposed to be capable of teaching religious truth; he is supposed to know how to lead, a 10-year-old kid, for instance, to heaven and not to perdition. If you can teach religious truth, if you can lead people to heaven and not to perdition, if you have the Divine Law written on your heart, then you are in something called the True Church, which is none other than the Church which Christ founded on a rock, recall Matthew 16. 13-19. There are no end of Protestant sects with conflicting doctrines. It stands to reason that the Divine Law, the new covenant which God writes on the hearts of His People, will not be a mass of conflicting creeds; it will be sane and coherent. It must be something reasonably simple to understand, because even the least of God's people will be able to understand it.

The contention that various altruistic and loving people found in the Roman Catholic Church, and in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and in the Church of England, and in The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, and in the Baptist Church, and in the United Methodist Church etc., etc., are all in the True Church is problematical. Jeremiah 31. 31-34 tells us God's people will have God's new covenant inscribed on their hearts, therefore, these people, the saints, will not have conflicting creeds inscribed on their hearts. The Divine Law, also known as the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is not an insane, incoherent, mass of conflicting creeds.

Chapter 4. Rome.

If God is a Roman Catholic God, then please have enough sense to obey the Church of Rome. The Dogma of Papal Infallibility anathematizes – curses – damns to hell - those people who reject that Dogma. So, if Rome leads souls to heaven, if Rome is God's True Church, then everyone would be wise to profess the truth of the Dogma of Papal Infallibility, including the part which damns those who reject that Dogma. Now if Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome has fallen away, if Rome leads souls to perdition...

The way in which the child abuse scandal which recently hit the Roman Catholic Church is evidence which says the Church of Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, and is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, is not perfectly obvious. Rome certainly does not teach the doctrine that child abuse is good thing. Various Bishops connived at evil. They didn't call the police on perpetrators because the publicity would be embarrassing to the Church of Rome, so they failed to protect children from perpetrators. But this doesn't prove the Roman Catholic Church has fallen away from the True Faith. Even among the apostles there was a Judas. If one out of every 12 Roman Catholic bishops is a Judas, and if 11 out of every 12 is a True Christian who teaches the True Faith, then it would not be sane to renounce Rome.

The Roman Catholic Church asserts the confessions made in the confessional during the sacrament of penance must remain secret. The priest who hears the confession is said to commit sacrilege if he divulges these secrets to a third party, such as the police. A confessional system whereby the priest is allowed to notify certain people, but not the police, that a person who has made a confession is dangerous and needs to be watched might be a valuable system. I mean, under the current system, a priest might hear a man confess that he can't stop himself from raping little boys, or little girls, or women, or hear some sort of other confession to evil, and, under the current system, the priest is not allowed to tell anyone what he heard. If a violent criminal knows the priest will go straight to the police after he makes his confession, then the violent criminal won't make his confession. But if the violent criminal knows the priest will only tell a few people that the criminal needs to be watched, then, in moments of remorse, or in moments of fear of hellfire, the criminal will be motivated to make his confession. He won't make his confession if he knows the priest will go straight to the police, or if the people who are watching him go to the police. Most people quite naturally want vicious criminals captured and punished. But it's more important to first stop the criminal from hurting more people and creating more victims. There is some logic which says it would be a sacrilege to violate a new confessional system which did a great deal of good. If the new system helped to keep violent criminals in check, then one might say it would be a sacrilege to ruin this system. The system would be ruined if the people sworn to only observe the criminal became aggressive and reported the criminal to the police. The system relies on the logic that even the worst criminals might fear hell once in awhile, or they might suffer from a guilty conscience and moments of remorse, and therefore, in these moments, though the criminal won't be motivated enough to make a full confession to the police, he might be motivated enough to make a confession to a priest, and then his confession will result in his being put under surveillance. In fleeting moments of remorse or fear of hell, he will accept the surveillance as long as he knows he won't go to prison. The upshot is that the criminal won't make any more victims in the future, because people are now watching him, people who will not report him to the police. Since he's being watched closely he won't be hurting any more little boys or little girls by the evil urges which he can't control but which sometimes take control of him. If such a system was effective in protecting people from evil, then one might say it would be a sacrilege to do something which destroyed the system.

In any event, that's not the system Rome uses. Rome says it is a sacrilege for a priest to ever tell a third person what he heard a person confess in the confessional. This means that if a priest hears a man confess that he rapes little boys or little girls, then the priest must keep the man's confession absolutely secret. He can't tell anyone. Can't tell the parents, can't tell the police, can't tell anyone. Rome says he commits a sacrilege, a mortal sin which leads the offender to hell, if he tells anyone.

On the one hand Rome's confessional system is an attempt to uphold 1 Corinthians 11. 27, where St. Paul tells us it is a terrible sin to celebrate communion in an unworthy manner. I make a big case against churches under the sign of the cross on this matter, because for century after century priests and ministers gave the bread and the wine to evil kings, evil nobles, evil peasants. My whole contention that that the churches under the sign of the cross fell away from the True Faith centuries ago pertains to this issue with 1 Corinthians 11. 27. So, again, we have two options: 1) The doctrine that the secrets of murders and rapists heard in the confessional is a heresy which leads to perdition, 2) the Doctrine that the secrets of murderers and rapists heard in the confessional is part of the True Faith. Well, again, you just can't get anywhere unless you correctly determine if Rome has fallen away from the True Faith or if Rome is God's True Church.

Paul Johnson writes in `A History of Christianity', p. 273,

`In the West, the clergy had begun to assert an exclusive interpretive, indeed custodial, right to the Bible as early as the ninth century; and from about 1080 there had been frequent instances of the Pope, councils and bishops forbidding not only vernacular translations but any reading at all, by laymen, of the Bible taken as a whole...attempts to scrutinize the Bible became proof presumptive of heresy - a man or woman might burn [at the stake] for it alone.'

These Popes and laymen who burned people to death for defying Rome's order - the order to not read the Bible - when they fell to their knees to worship God, were worshipping a god who, they believed, supported them in their actions in burning people at the stake for reading the Bible. Now if the True God didn't want those people who defied Rome by reading the Bible to burned at the stake, then the Popes and laymen did not worship the True God, because they were worshipping a god who supported them in their actions in burning some people. The Roman Catholics worship a trinity, but the trinity they worship is a trinity which says: it is always evil to renounce the Church of Rome, it is always evil to reject those whom Rome has canonized, a trinity which says the Inquisition – the `Holy Office' – was indeed holy etc., etc., whereas Protestants worship a Trinity which says: it is very wise to renounce the Church of Rome, because the Church of Rome has fallen away, because the Church of Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock. So, while Catholics and Protestants both say the Creator of the Universe is a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, they don't worship the same Trinity - they don't worship the same God. We have to determine what the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 says. Does it give the Popes the authority to burn people at the stake for defying orders, such as when ordered to not read the Bible? Or does the Divine Law say the Popes are perpetrating a usurpation? Does the Divine Law say that it is always evil to renounce the Roman Catholic Church? Does it say that Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock? Does it say that Rome is God's True Church? Is the True God a Roman Catholic God? Is the True God something other than a Roman Catholic God. What do you think?

There's also the problem with the Cafeteria Catholics, people who remain in the Roman Catholic Church but they don't obey Rome. Look at JFK. When he became president of the USA he refused to take orders from the Pope and yet he refused to renounce the Roman Catholic Church. If the Popes have inherited St. Peter's authority to bind and loose, if Rome is God's True Church, if Rome leads souls to heaven, then someone like JFK is a rebel against God's True Church: his example in rebelling against Rome is an example which leads souls to perdition. And if Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome has fallen away, if Rome leads souls to perdition, then JFK's example of remaining in a church which leads souls to perdition sets a poor example for others, as his example leads souls to perdition.

Charles Dickens once tarried in Avignon and wrote of what he saw in his 'Sketches of Italy.' He described to us one of the torture chambers in the Palace of the Popes. There was a painting of the Good Samaritan on the wall hard by the iron spikes, once heated red-hot, and upon which the victims of the Inquisition were formerly impaled.

Major Griffiths wrote the following in his `In Old French Prisons' (Dorset Press, 1992):

`We are familiar enough with the "rack," the "wheel," the thumb screw" and the "boot." Other less known forms of torture were the "veglia" introduced into France by the popes when the Holy See came to Avignon. The "veglia" consisted of a small wooden stool so constructed that when the accused sat upon it his whole weight rested on the extremity of his spine. His sufferings soon became acute. He groaned, he shrieked and then fainted, whereupon the punishment ceased until he came to and was again placed on the stool. It was usual to hold a looking glass before his eyes that his distorted features might frighten him into confession.'

The Roman Catholics worship a god who says: even though the popes tortured people via the Inquisition for centuries, it is always wrong to renounce the Roman Catholic Church. Is that what the True God says, or is that what some false god says? The Roman Catholics worship a god who says that the popes tortured people via the rack and the stake and the veglia for centuries, nevertheless, this god insists it is always evil to renounce the Roman Catholic Church. Well, you have two choices. This god that the Roman Catholics worship is either the True God, or else it is a false god.

Don't you think the situation with the Church of Rome is similar to the situation in Burnt Offerings starring Karen Black, the `crossed-eyed scream queen' and Oliver Reed? I mean we have two options with the Church of Rome, she either leads souls to heaven or she leads souls to perdition. Oliver Reed also had two options: 1) he could get in his car and drive away from the evil house and his wife, or 2) he could go back into the evil house and try to get his wife, so the both of them could escape. Well, he chose the wrong option. He lost. He had his chance to escape and he blew it. He lost because he made the wrong decision. He went back into the house. He went up the stairs and he went into the room. And there he found his wife - but she was possessed by the Devil - and then he was murdered. So, the situation is similar in the sense that we have two options with Rome, and we want to chose the right option, you know either embrace Rome because she leads souls to heaven, or renounce Rome because she leads souls to perdition. If the Roman Catholic Church is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then you would be foolish to ever disobey the Roman Catholic Church, you would be foolish to rebel in any way against God's True Church, such as by rejecting one or more of her official doctrines. But if the Church of Rome has fallen away, if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome leads souls to perdition, then you would be foolish if you refused to renounce the Roman Catholic Church. If you refused to renounce the Roman Catholic Church, should the Roman Catholic Church be a false and fallen church which leads souls to perdition, then, you would be acting like Oliver Reed acted in Burnt Offerings \- when he went back into that evil house, where he would soon be murdered by his devil-wife, when he should have gotten into his car and driven away from the evil house and the evil devil-wife.

The medieval popes, when they fell to their knees to worship the Creator of the Universe, envisioned God to be the sort of god who approved their actions in using the rack and the stake and the veglia and other instruments of torture on people. In the first one thousand years after Christ there was probably very little tortured inflicted by Catholic priests - though one reads of tumultuous monks in the East and in Alexandria \- the people doing most of the torturing were kings and nobles who needed to strike fear into their enemies to either attain power or to retain power once they had it. But the popes had some logic which said they were above kings and nobles, because, they led souls to heaven and were therefore superior to laymen who merely administered earthly justice - and in time, mainly from the 13th century until the early 19th, the popes imitated the kings and nobles in subjecting those who rebelled against them to ghastly torments and hideous prison conditions - dark dungeons where men and women would spend decades fending off hungry rats, blood-sucking lice and other vermin. When the Catholic popes, kings and nobles fell to their knees to worship the Creator of the Universe they did not worship a God who hated their cruelty. They worshipped a god who supported them in their use of cruel measures. If the True God has no issues with the Popes using the rack and the stake and the veglia and hideous dungeons on people, then the Popes probably do worship the True God. If the True God says it doesn't matter how many people the Popes torture and murder with the Inquisition, if the True God it is always evil to renounce the Roman Catholic Church, then I think we can say with a high degree of certainty that the True God is a Roman Catholic God. But if the True God has hostility toward the Popes and the Inquisition, if the True God says Rome leads souls to perdition, if the True God says the Church of Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if the True God says it is wise to renounce Roman Catholicism, if the True God is an anti-Roman Catholic sort of God, then, obviously the Roman Catholics do not worship the True God, rather, they worship a false god. Whenever people worship false gods one is reminded of Revelation 13. 1-8, where the whole world worships a multi-headed beast. Revelation 13. 1-8,

`THEN I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns...Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion...And all the world marveled and followed the beast. So they worshipped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, "Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war against him?..It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. All who dwell on earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life...'

It is rather unlikely that a literal interpretation would make any sense - literal people worshipping a literal seven-headed beast? - so we are looking for a figurative interpretation. People might claim they are worshipping the Creator of the Universe, but if they ascribe false and evil attributes to the Creator of the Universe, then they are worshipping an evil god and they are not worshipping the True God. Recall 2 Thess 1. 8 - fire for those who do not know god and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Recall Jesus saying He knew the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews but are a synagogue of Satan. The Jews were quite sincere when they claimed to worship the Creator of the Universe, but, since they participated in crucifying Christ, since they denied that Jesus is God, that is God the Son, then they obviously did not worship the True God, and hence you can see why Jesus said they are a synagogue of Satan.

An immediate question which springs to mind is: What is wrong with the Cafeteria Catholics? Why are they so confused? Why can't they understand the simplest things? We have two clear options to choose from. One is right and one is wrong. 1) The Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church. This Divine Law we read about in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 is a pro-Roman Catholic law. The Church of Rome is God's True Church. Rome has not fallen away. It is satanic to rebel against God's True Church. It is satanic to rebel against Rome since Rome is God's True Church. The Cafeteria Catholics rebel against the Rome. Therefore, Cafeteria Catholics are, at least in some sense, satanic. 2) The Roman Catholic Church is not God's True Church. Rome has fallen away. Rome leads souls to perdition. Rome is a satanic cult because Rome leads souls to perdition. If Rome led souls to heaven then Rome would be God's Church, but, since Rome leads souls to perdition, Rome is therefore a satanic cult. Cafeteria Catholics refuse to renounce their satanic cult, albeit they also refuse to strictly obey it. Therefore Cafeteria Catholics are, at least in some sense, satanic.

In every scenario the Cafeteria Catholics are somewhat satanic! If we wanted to be more charitable we might say the Cafeteria Catholics are terribly confused, because they can not commit themselves to one of the two options above. They can't obey Rome and yet they can't renounce her.

I saw a French-Italian film directed by Claude Chabrol which gives one some hints if not perfect insights into the conundrum facing the Cafeteria Catholic. `Les Biches' - which is translated `The Does' - you know, doe a deer a female deer, ray a drop of golden light, me a name I call myself... - it stars Jean Loius Trintaignant, Stéphane Audran, Jacqueline Sassard etc. - well one winter day the character named Why played by Jacqueline Sassard is using colored chalk to paint some deer on a bridge over the Seine in Paris. Why is not-too down-and-out; her hair and clothes look more or less clean though she might be homeless, and then Stéphane Audran comes strolling along wearing a mink coat; she's on the prowl for some lesbian action, and she's persistent! and eventually she gets Jacqueline Sassard into her apartment, and into her bath tub, etc. They become lovers / good friends and decide to decamp from Paris and go to Stéphane Audran's home in St. Tropez. There are two gay guys living there - Stéphane Audran sort of collects strays like she collects African art - she has these knives hanging on her wall with signs saying `Danger Poisoned Knives' or some such warnings in French. Anyway, Stéphane throws a party, attended by Jean Louis Trintignant, and he's paying lots of attention to Jacqueline Sassard, to Why, and one thing leads to another, and Jacqueline Sassard falls in love with him, but then Stéphane Audran steals him away from Jacqueline Sassard – or if you insist on strict accuracy – the character played by Stéphane Audran steals the character played by Jean Louis Trintignant away from the character played by Jacqueline Sassard. After this happens the characters in this love triangle try to all be friends, but, eventually, Why, the character played by Jacqueline Sassard, becomes enraged at these people who are kicking her around, and she acts on her rage. She takes one of the poisoned knives off the wall and sticks it into the back of the character played by Stéphane Audran. So, are the Cafeteria Catholics like Jacqueline Sassard? Have they been seduced and betrayed by the Roman Catholic Church? The Cafeteria Catholics are not yet ready to say they have been betrayed by Rome, but they must have some suspicions that they have been betrayed by Rome. If they didn't have any suspicions then they would obey Rome completely, and they would not be Cafeteria Catholics, rather they would be Practicing Catholics. When a Cafeteria Catholic attends a funeral for a beloved Roman Catholic relative, the Cafeteria Catholic wants to believe the soul of the beloved Roman Catholic relative will go to heaven, hence the Cafeteria Catholic wants desperately to believe that Rome leads souls to heaven, but the Cafeteria Catholic also has reasons to think Rome does not lead souls to heaven, reasons to think Rome has fallen away from the True Faith preached by Christ and the apostles. Did Christ and the Apostles torture people who disagreed with them? Was it St. Peter who first invented the veglia? Is the `Holy Inquisition' really holy? The Cafeteria Catholics don't have what they consider to be incontrovertible proof saying Rome leads souls to perdition, but they also don't have what they consider to be incontrovertible proof saying Rome leads souls to heaven; and so they are torn; their psyches are pulled in opposite directions, hence they are confused. They stumble in darkness, if not like ignorant savages, then like people with terribly torn psyches! How many times have I repeated Jeremiah 31. 31-34 in this book? Rome either teaches the Divine Law correctly, or else she doesn't. We all know what Matthew 16. 13-19 says. The Church of Rome is either the Church which Christ founded on a rock or else it isn't. If Rome is the True Church then you are wrong if you refuse to obey Rome completely. If Rome has fallen away, if Rome leads souls to perdition, if Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then there's your answer: Rome leads souls to perdition and not to heaven. If the Cafeteria Catholics knew for a fact that, after having been first seduced by the Roman Catholic Church, they have also betrayed by Rome, that is, their beloved relatives who have passed away have been led to perdition by the Church of Rome, then the Cafeteria Catholics would feel the same way the character played by Jacqueline Sassard felt in Les Biches \- they would want to stab some poisoned knives into some people! They would no longer be fence-sitting Cafeteria Catholics!

It very natural to want to believe your beloved relatives have gone to heaven. The Hindus want to believe this. The Buddhists and the Muslims want to believe this. Billions of people want to believe in a beautiful afterlife. But merely because you want something to be true doesn't make it true! Look at the ELCA – the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – a church which supports Gay Marriage and Abortion, or at least it certainly doesn't excommunicate anyone who is pro-choice. What are the chances that a church which supports Gay Marriage and Abortion is the Church which Christ founded on a rock? What are the chances that a Protestant church like the ELCA, which doesn't excommunicate anyone – it doesn't excommunicate adulterers, fornicators, the covetous etc., etc., it's a church which doesn't have any standards! – though perhaps it will have some standards in the future - perhaps in the future it will excommunicate people who are anti-Gay Marriage and who are Pro-life – in any event, what are the chances that the ELCA is the Church which Christ founded on a rock? Try to make an educated guess.

To review matters, so that everyone understands, we have some logic which says a church or a sect - any church or any sect - either leads souls to heaven or it leads souls to `not heaven'. Perdition is another term for `not heaven'. `Perdition' has a broader meaning than the word `hell' because `hell' denotes a place in the afterlife which is hellish, whereas perdition has meanings which range from total annihilation of the soul, to a place in the afterlife which is not too unpleasant, to a place in the afterlife which is like a furnace 24/7, and very hellish indeed. But those of us who are Christians are particularly interested in this Church which Christ founded on a rock, recall Matthew 16. 13-19. We are particularly interested in these people who have the divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on their heart. If you can locate these people then you have found God's True Church. Then you merely have to follow these people and they will lead you to heaven and not to perdition. We have a Scenario 1 and we have a Scenario 2 for Rome, and for Eastern Orthodoxy, and for the ELCA, and for the Church of England etc. But let's deal with Rome primarily in this chapter. In Scenario 1 the Roman Catholic Church leads souls to heaven. In Scenario 2 Rome lead souls to perdition. Let's expand on these scenarios to give the reader a full picture of his or her choices.

.In Scenario 1 - Rome leads souls to heaven – and if Rome leads souls to heaven then perhaps it is safe to assume this is because she is the Church which Christ founded on a rock - recall Matthew 16. 13-19; furthermore, the Church of Rome leads souls to heaven because Rome knows God and Rome obeys and correctly teaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ - recall that 2 Thess 1. 8 tells of fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Recall also Christ's words at the Last Supper - `This cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for many'. Again, the first mention in the Bible of a New Law to amend the Old Mosaic Law is found in Jeremiah 31. 31-34,

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

We're in Scenario 1, which says the Church of Rome leads souls to heaven, because the Church of Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, and because Rome obeys the Gospel of Jesus Christ - which Christians believe is the same as this Divine Law / new covenant prophesied by Jeremiah many centuries ago. The reader might ask: what about Galileo? He was either tortured or threatened with torture by either way he was forced by Rome to confess that the earth does not revolve round the sun. William Manchester, who wrote a famous biography of Churchill, told us in his book on the Middle Ages that 29 successive popes damned as a heresy the theory that the earth revolves round the sun. Try to think of the Popes and the Bishops and the Priests and the Roman Catholic Laity as engaged in a titanic battle with Satan and the demons. A general or an admiral might make some or many mistakes while he is waging war against the enemy - but he doesn't need one of his sergeants going to the press explaining why the general or admiral is making blunders, even if he is making blunders. In the whole scheme of things all that matters is that you win the war, and to win the war, you can have generals making blunders from time to time, but you can not have their actions questioned by their subordinates in press. It sets a bad example. It leads people to doubt the competency of the leaders, which leads to low morale, and treasonous thoughts in the rank and file, all of which aid the enemy. Generals will make stupid mistakes. But all that matters in a war between God and the Devil is that you be on God's side. We're still in Scenario 1, in the scenario where God is on Rome's side. The defenders of the Inquisition argue that strong medicine is sometimes needed. To set a broken arm, you have to inflict some pain on the patient. The treatments for cancer often involve some unpleasantness. If there are rebels in the Church of Rome who are leading souls away from Rome, and hence leading souls to perdition, then these rebels might need some time on the rack in order to learn to stop rebelling against God's True Church. A little pain in this life is rather insignificant compared to the benefits it will bring in the afterlife - assuming it brings the rebel to his senses. And if a little time on the rack helps to save the flock from the contagion of rebellion, who in his right mind would object to the strong medicine? And it doesn't really matter if Rome is less than perfect in her understanding of the Divine Law. All that matters is that her understanding is `good enough'. Rome leads souls to heaven. What more do you want? You might be a genius private, and you might have excellent reasons for saying a general is making blunders, but, during a war, a private, or some soldier of humble rank, must not pour out his reasons, even if they are brilliant reasons, for doubting the competency of the general in public. Similarly, the Popes are engaged in a war with the Devil, and even if they don't wage war in the most brilliant of all possible ways all of the time, nevertheless, you must not call their competency into question in public. If the Church of Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome knows God and if Rome obeys the Gospel of Jesus Christ, if Rome leads souls to heaven, then everyone in the world should obey the Roman Catholic Church. Luther didn't like the fact that the Pope was selling indulgences - asking poor people to hand over some cash - and as soon as they handed over the money the Pope would release from Purgatory their beloved relatives who were suffering in Purgatory. Again, all that matters is that the Popes are on God's side in the war against the Devil. All that matters is that Rome leads souls to heaven and not to perdition. A general can make mistakes and yet he can still be on the right side in a war. If you rebel against God's generals, these being the Popes if rome is God's True Church, if you call their competency into question, even for reasons which look like sound reasons to you, then you are a traitor to God and you are a traitor to God's side in the war against the Devil, provided the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church.

And then we have Scenario 2, which says the Popes and the Church of Rome lead souls to perdition. The Church of Rome has fallen away, recall the falling away mentioned in 2 Thess 2. Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock; the Church of Rome leads souls to perdition; the Popes do not know God and they do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ; the Popes do not understand the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34, and this law is an anti-Roman Catholic law. The Church of Rome lead souls to perdition. Everyone in the world should renounce the Church of Rome.

If the True God says that the Church of Rome leads souls to heaven, then the True God is a Roman Catholic God. If the True God says Rome is a false church which leads souls to perdition, then the True God is an anti-Roman Catholic God. People might claim to worship the Creator of the Universe, but if they ascribe false and evil attributes to the Creator of the Universe, then they are worshipping false and evil gods. Whenever people worship evil god it seems logical to think they are worshipping this seven-headed beast mentioned in Revelation 13. 1-8. Again, Revelation 13. 1-8,

`THEN I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns...Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion...And all the world marveled and followed the beast. So they worshipped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, "Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war against him?..It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. All who dwell on earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life...'

It is rather unlikely that literal people will worship a literal beast with seven heads. So we are looking for a figurative interpretation. Though Muslims are quite sincere when they say they worship the Creator of the Universe, nevertheless, If Allah is a false god, then the Muslims do not worship the Creator of the universe, they worship a false god who they mistakenly think is the Creator of the Universe. If the True God, if the True Creator of the Universe says the Church of Rome leads souls to perdition, then the True God is an anti-Roman Catholic God, and therefore, the Roman Catholics worship a false god, because they worship a pro-Roman Catholic god - whereas the True God is an anti-Roman Catholic God. Well we have two scenarios: the True God is either pro-Roman Catholic or He is not pro-Roman Catholic. In any case, people who worship false gods can be quite sincere when they claim to worship the Creator of the Universe, but, nevertheless, since they worship false gods, since they worship gods with false or evil attributes, attributes which the True God does not have, they worship false gods, and people who worship false gods might be said to worship this seven-headed beast described in Revelation 13. 1-8.

Constitutional History of the Western World pushes the idea that the falling away mentioned in 2 Thess 2 happened many centuries ago. Everything went to hell, so to speak, when Catholic priests gave their blessing, by refusing to excommunicate, evil kings and evil nobles, and evil priests for that matter. Henry Charles Lea, the pre-eminent authority on the Inquisitions, wrote in his 'A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages' (Macmillan, 1922),

`We have only to look upon the atrocities of the criminal law of the Middle Ages to see how pitiless men were in dealing with each other. The wheel, the caldron of boiling oil, burning alive, burying alive, flaying alive, tearing apart with wild horses, were the ordinary expedients by which the criminal jurist sought to deter crime by frightful examples...An Anglo-Saxon law punishes a female slave convicted of theft by making eighty other female slaves each bring three pieces of wood and burn her to death....In the Customs of Arques, granted by the Abbey of St. Bertin in 1231, there is a provision that, if a thief have a concubine who is his accomplice, she is to be buried alive...In France women were customarily burned or buried alive for simple felonies, and Jews were hung by the feet between two savage dogs, while men were boiled to death for coining. In Milan Italian ingenuity exhausted itself in devising deaths of lingering torture for criminals of all descriptions. The Carolina, or criminal code of Charles V., issued in 1530, is a hideous catalogue of blinding, mutilation, tearing with hot pincers, burning alive, and breaking on the wheel...As recently as 1706, in Hanover, a pastor named Zacharie Georg Flagge was burned alive for coining...So careless were the legislators of human suffering in general that, in England, to cut out a man's tongue, or to pluck out his eyes with malice prepence, was not made a felony until the fifteenth century, in a criminal law so severe that, even in the reign of Elizabeth, the robbing of a hawk's nest was similarly a felony; and as recently as 1833 a child of nine was sentenced to be hanged for breaking a patched pane of glass and stealing twopence worth of paint [this sentence was commuted]...It has seemed to me however, that a sensible increase in the severity of punishment is traceable after the thirteenth century, and I am inclined to attribute this to the influence exercised by the Inquisition over the criminal jurisprudence.'

Gibbon writes of Constantine, the first `Christian' Roman Emperor:

`The laws of Constantine against rapes were dictated with very little indulgence for the most amiable weaknesses of human nature; since the description of that crime was applied not only to brutal violence which compelled, but even to gentle seduction which might persuade, an unmarried woman, under the age of twenty-five, to leave the house of her parents. The successful ravisher was punished with death; and as if simple death was inadequate to the enormity of his guilt, he was either burnt alive, or torn in pieces by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The virgin's declaration that she had been carried away with her own consent, instead of saving her lover, exposed her to share his fate. The duty of a public prosecution was intrusted to the parents of the guilty or unfortunate maid; and if the sentiments of nature prevailed on them to dissemble the injury, and to repair by a subsequent marriage the honor of their family, they were themselves punished by exile and confiscation. The slaves, whether male or female, who were convicted of having been accessory to rape or seduction, were burnt alive, or put to death by the ingenious torture of pouring down their throats a quantity of melted lead.'

H. R. Trevor-Roper writes in `The European Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries' (Harper & Row):

`In the eleventh century Roman law had been rediscovered in the west, and torture had soon followed it back into use. In 1252 Innocent IV, by the bull Ad Extirpanda, had authorized its use against the Albigensians. By the fourteenth century it was in general use in the tribunals of the Inquisition...In 1468 the Pope [Innocent VIII.] declared witchcraft to be a crimen exceptum and thereby removed, in effect, all legal limits on the application of torture in such cases...The evidence supplied by Lea clearly shows that the witch-craze grew by its own momentum...Accused witches often admitted to their confessors that they had wrongly accused both themselves and others, and these admissions are the more credible since they brought no advantage to the accused - unless they were willing, as they seldom were, to make a formal retraction, which meant submitting to torture again...When we consider the fully developed procedure at continental or Scottish witch-trials we can hardly be surprised that confessions were almost always secured. For such a crime, the ordinary rules of evidence, as the ordinary limits of torture, were suspended...As Jean Bodin would write, not one in a million would be punished if the procedure were governed by ordinary laws. So, in the absence of a `grave indicium', such as a pot full of human limbs, sacred objects, toads, etc. or a written pact with the Devil...circumstantial evidence was sufficient to mobilize the process. And the circumstantial evidence need not be very cogent: it was sufficient to discover a wart, by which the familiar spirit was suckled; an insensitive spot which did not bleed when pricked; a capacity to float when thrown into water; or an incapacity to shed tears. Recourse could even be had to `lighter indicia', such as a tendency to look down when accused, signs of fear...Any of these indicia might establish a prima facie case and justify the use of torture to produce the confession, which was proof, or the refusal to confess, which was even more cogent proof and justified even more ferocious tortures and a nastier death. Of the tortures used...Crushed the fingers and toes in a vice...the Spanish boot, much used in Germany and Scotland, which squeezed the calf and broke the shin-bone in pieces - `the most severe and cruel pain in the world', as a Scotsman called it...and there was the `ram' or `witch-chair' a seat of spikes, heated from below. There was also the `Bed of Nails'...In Scotland one might also be grilled on the caschielawis, and have ones finger-nails pulled off...Once a witch had confessed, the next stage was to secure from her, again under torture, a list of all those of her neighbours whom she had recognized at the witches' sabbat. Thus a new set of indicia was supplied, clerical science was confirmed, and a fresh set of trials and tortures would begin. It is easy to see that torture lay, directly or indirectly, behind most of the witch-trials of Europe, creating witches where none were and multiplying both victims and evidence. Without torture, the great witch-panics of the 1590s and the late 1620s are inconceivable...'

To review matters some more, Rome either leads souls to heaven or else Rome leads souls to `not heaven' aka perdition. If Rome leads souls to heaven, then, would it be reasonable to assume that Rome leads souls to heaven for some New Age reason? If Rome leads souls to heaven, wouldn't it be logical to assume this is for Christian reasons? Recall 2 Thess 1. 8 - fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If Rome leads souls to heaven, then isn't it logical to assume that Rome knows God and Rome obeys the Gospel of Jesus Christ? If the Roman Catholic Church has not fallen away, if Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then, wouldn't it be logical to conclude that Eastern Orthodoxy and the Church of England and every Protestant sect, and of course every non-Christian sect as well, are sects which lead souls to perdition, because they all rebel against God's True Church - the Roman Catholic Church? The Dogma of Papal Infallibility anathematizes all those who reject that Dogma. You would have to assume that Dogma is accurate if in fact Rome is God's True Church. It's all very simple: if you wish to attain heaven and escape perdition you must convert to Roman Catholicism, provided the Church of Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, provided Rome has not fallen away, provided Rome leads souls to heaven.

The god of the Roman Catholics is a god who says it is always evil to renounce the Roman Catholic Church. This god says that even if the popes sell indulgences, even if the popes use cruel methods for centuries, it is always evil to renounce the Roman Catholic Church. The god that the Roman Catholics worship is a god who says the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 is a Roman Catholic law, and this god and this law both insist, above all else: you must never renounce the Roman Catholic Church - it doesn't matter what tortures the popes have inflicted on people over the centuries - it doesn't matter that the popes refused to excommunicate evil kings and evil nobles - it doesn't matter if the popes enrich themselves by selling indulgence to poor peasants - it doesn't matter what the popes do or don't do \- they have inherited St. Peter's authority to bind and loose after all - the popes, the Bishops of Rome, are always the true leaders on earth of the Church which Christ founded on a rock: if you have any sense you will always obey the Church of Rome. When Roman Catholics fall to their knees to worship the Creator of the Universe they worship a god who says: you must never renounce the Roman Catholic Church because it is always a terrible evil to renounce Rome. So, if this god is the True God then the Roman Catholics worship the True God. But if this god is a false god, then, perhaps, this false god worshipped by Roman Catholics is represented by one of the heads on this seven-headed beast mentioned in Revelation 13. 1-8. Again, Revelation 13. 1-8,

`THEN I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns...Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion...And all the world marveled and followed the beast. So they worshipped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, "Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war against him?..It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. All who dwell on earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life...'

Rev. John Hagee, who has a big Protestant Fundamentalist church in San Antonio, once said that the Roman Catholic Church is a cult. He was mocked and ridiculed for this by people such as Stephanie Miller of Air America radio. And of course during the 2000 campaign for the Republican nomination Senator John McCain took Governor George Bush to task for visiting Bob Jones University, because Bob Jones is on the record saying the Roman Catholic Church is a cult. This is somewhat interesting because Stephanie Miller and John McCain seem to be two Politically Correct cops who are looking to bust anyone who offends Politically Correct people. John and Stephanie want to put the choke hold on anyone who would say Rome is a malevolent cult which leads souls to perdition. Assume there is a heaven, though the Atheists insist there is no heaven, then any church or a religion or ideology which leads one to perdition rather than to heaven would qualify as a malevolent religion, or a malevolent cult, or a malevolent ideology. A church, any church, either leads souls to heaven or else it leads souls to `not heaven' - `not heaven' being another term for perdition. If the Church of Rome leads souls to heaven, why do we have people like Senator John McCain? Why do we have a Senate? Why do we have Senators? Senators belong in ancient Rome not in the modern USA! Why do we have a Constitution? What need is there for a Supreme Court and all of these expensive State governments? If the Church of Rome knows how to lead souls to heaven, then Church of Rome must be the best of all possible governments. If the Church of Rome leads souls to heaven, then it would be idiotic to rebel against Rome. Let the Church of Rome run the USA. Plus the Pope and the Catholic bishops and priests work for cheap. They don't need much in the way of salaries. Look how much we've had to pay to John McCain. And what has he ever done for the USA? I mean really, what has he ever done for the USA aside from choosing Sarah Palin and giving us some fun moments contemplating Bristol and Willow and Todd and Trigg and that Levi character - Bristol's ex - who posed for Playgirl and who did some other crazy things. It's terrible that the North Vietnamese were cruel to John McCain for all those years, but what do we get for the salary that we pay him? So, provided the Church of Rome leads souls to heaven, provided Rome is God's True Church, then, is it sensible to continue with status quo in the USA, paying all the money we have to pay in taxes to these Senators and Congressmen and Presidents and Supreme Court Justices, paying out all the money to all these undersecretaries and all these Defense Department underlings and all these CIA bureaucrats etc., etc., paying all the money we have to pay to support a government which more often than not rebels against the Church of Rome, which rebels against a Church which leads souls to heaven. So, just let the Church of Rome run everything, provided of course Rome leads souls to heaven. The pope and the bishops and the priests work for cheap, as I believe I have mentioned. Obey Rome and don't question Rome's authority, provided the Church of Rome leads souls to heaven.

But then, of course, on the other hand, if the Church of Rome has fallen away, if Rome leads souls to perdition, then, obviously, it is a malevolent cult - but don't let John McCain or Stephanie Miller hear you say it is a malevolent cult! They're very touchy on this subject.

Well, suppose Rome is not a malevolent cult, suppose Rome leads souls to heaven, then we would all be very wise if we obeyed Rome. On the other hand, suppose Rome is a malevolent cult, suppose Rome leads souls away from heaven and straight to perdition, then we need to understand that the Church of Rome is a malevolent cult. I hope all this clears up any confusion you might have about the Church of Rome. If you still find it confusing let me try another tactic on you.

If you wanted to throw a birthday party for your kid, and if you invited all the neighbor kids to come over to celebrate, then you'll need a cake, right? You know what? Building a church has some similarities to making a cake. What ingredients do you want in your church / cake? Well, suppose you begin by pouring two cups of bleach into a mixing bowl, and then suppose you add a quart of used motor oil into the mixing bowl. Well, honestly! \- it doesn't matter if you have the finest quality flour, and the freshest eggs, and the best shortening in the world, nothing is going to rescue that cake if it has lots of bleach and lots of used motor oil in it. Right? Similarly, suppose the True God says the Popes have inherited St. Peter's authority to bind and loose, suppose the True God agrees with Stephanie Miller and John McCain and really hates it when people call the Church of Rome a cult. So, if you begin to make your church / cake by saying the Popes are usurpers, if you begin to make your cake / church by announcing the doctrine that Rome leads souls to perdition, then, it as if you are pouring bleach and motor oil into the mixing bowl, so to speak. Or, on the other hand, suppose the True God says the Popes are usurpers who lead souls to perdition, suppose the True God says the Church of Rome fell away long ago and has been leading souls to perdition for century after century, then, you are pouring bleach and battery acid into the mixing bowl, you're making your church / cake out of bleach and battery acid! - when you insist the Church of Rome lead souls to heaven, when you insist that Stephanie Miller and John McCain are right for saying Rome is not a cult. If Rome leads souls to heaven, then, it is only sensible to assume Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock – and it is obviously evil and idiotic to rebel against God's True Church. If you rebel against God's True Church you might go to hell, so don't rebel against God's True Church!

Anyway, as we make our cake / church, if Rome has fallen away, if the True God says Rome leads souls to perdition, then Rome is a malevolent cult. And if you begin by announcing that the Rome is not a malevolent cult, if you say Rome leads souls to heaven – when in fact Rome leads souls to perdition \- then it is like you are putting razor blades into the cake you are making and planning to serve to the neighbor kids at the birthday party. But then, on the other hand, if Rome leads souls to heaven, and if you announced that Rome leads souls to perdition, then it would also be as if you were making a cake out of razor blades.

So, if Rome leads souls to heaven, it is always idiotic and evil to rebel against Rome. If Rome leads souls to heaven, then you got to have enough sense to understand that you can't lose, you can't be led to hell, if you just obey the Church of Rome. Just have enough sense to agree with Rome even when she authorizes controversial things like the African slave trade and the Inquisition. But, then on the other hand, if Rome leads souls to perdition, then have enough sense to renounce the malevolent cult called the Church of Rome.

One can apply the same logic to any sect. Look at the Church of England. Either the Church of England leads souls to heaven or else she leads souls to `not heaven' – to perdition. Suppose the Church of England is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Therefore, as you make your cake / church, if you were to announce that Queen Elizabeth II. is the true ruler of the world, then it would be as if you were adding fresh flour and goodly sugar to your mixing bowl. But if the True God says that the Church of England leads souls to perdition, if the True God says Liz Windsor is a confused woman who in her confusion leads souls to perdition, then, when you announce that Liz Windsor is the true ruler of the world, because she is the leader of God's True Church, and she leads souls to heaven – when in fact she leads souls to perdition - it is like you are pouring a quart of used motor oil into the mixing bowl you are using to make your cake. Let's not get distracted by a tangent on the Church of England. Let's get back to the Church of Rome. As we know, a sect either leads souls to heaven or to `not heaven' – perdition. So, the Church of Rome either leads souls to heaven or to perdition. Christians would like to know if Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, and therefore leads souls to heaven, of if Rome has fallen away, and therefore leads souls to perdition.

The Roman Catholic Church has claimed for centuries that she is guided by the Holy Spirit. It is of course blasphemy to say or imply the Holy Spirit guides people to commit evil. The Roman Catholic Church doesn't want to say it has blasphemed the Holy Spirit for century after century! Therefore, the Roman Catholics have an inducement to never admit Rome has perpetrated evil for century after century. Well, what do the facts of history say? And do these facts tell us it is wise to always obey Rome?

Charles Mackay wrote in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (London, 1841),

`John Baptist Cibo, elected to the papacy in 1485, under the designation Innocent VIII., was sincerely alarmed at the number of witches, and launched forth his terrible manifesto against them. In his celebrated bull of 1488, he called the nations of Europe to the rescue of the Church of Christ upon earth, imperilled by the arts of Satan, and set forth the horrors that had reached his ears; how that numbers of both sexes had intercourse with the infernal fiends; how by their sorceries they afflicted both man and beast; how they blighted the marriage-bed, destroyed the births of women and the increase of cattle: and how they blasted the corn on the ground, the grapes of the vineyard, the fruits of the trees, and the herbs of the field. In order that criminals so atrocious might no longer pollute the earth, he appointed inquisitors in every country, armed with apostolic power to convict and punish. It was now that the Witch Mania properly so called, may be said to have commenced. Immediately a class of men sprang up in Europe, who made it the sole business of their lives to discover and burn witches. Sprenger, in Germany, was the most celebrated of these national scourges. In his notorious work, the Malleus Maleficarum, he laid down a regular form of trial, and appointed a course of examination by which the inquisitors in other countries might best discover the guilty. The questions, which were always enforced by torture, were of the most absurd and disgusting nature...Cumanus, in Italy, burned forty-one poor women in one province alone; and Sprenger, in Germany, burned a number which can never be ascertained correctly, but which, it is agreed on all hands, amounted to more than five hundred in a year...For fear the zeal of the enemies of Satan should cool, successive popes appointed new commissions. One was appointed by Alexander VI. in 1494, another by Leo X. in 1521, and a third by Adrian VI. in 1522. They were all armed with the same powers to hunt out and destroy, and executed their fearful functions but too rigidly. In Geneva alone five hundred persons were burned in the years 1515 and 1516, under the title of Protestant witches...in the year 1524 no less than a thousand persons suffered death for witchcraft in the district of Como...Henri Boguet, a witch-finder, who styled himself "The Grand Judge of Witches for the Territory of St. Claude," drew up a code for the guidance of all persons engaged in the witch-trials, consisting of seventy articles, quite as cruel as the code of Bodinus. In this document he affirms, that a mere suspicion of witchcraft justifies the immediate arrest and torture of the suspected person...Who, when he hears that this diabolical doctrine was the universally received opinion of the ecclesiastical and civil authorities can wonder that thousands upon thousands of unhappy persons should be brought to the stake? that Cologne should for many years burn its three hundred witches annually? district of Bamberg its four hundred? Nuremberg, Geneva, Paris, Toulouse, Lyons, and other cities, their two hundred?...In 1595, an old woman residing in a village near Constance, angry at not being invited to share the sports of the country people on a day of public rejoicing, was heard to mutter something to herself, and was afterwards seen to proceed through the fields toward a hill, where she was lost sight of. A violent thunder-storm arose about two hours afterwards, which wet the dancers to the skin, and did considerable damage to the plantations. This woman, suspected before of witchcraft, was seized and imprisoned, and accused of having raised the storm, by filling a hole with wine, and stirring it about with a stick. She was tortured till she confessed, and was burned alive the next evening...They never burned anybody till he confessed; and if one course of torture would not suffice, their patience was not exhausted, and they tried him again and again, even to the twentieth time.'

We read on pp. 118-123 of H. R. Trevor-Roper's The European Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries and Other Essays (Harper, 1956) that with the crime of witchcraft being declared a crimen exceptum by Pope Innocent VIII. in 1468, the use of torture had papal sanction to be employed against those accused of witchcraft. Torture was deemed necessary to obtain convictions, and very feeble suspicion was enough to initiate the use of torture. As it was highly unlikely that an investigator would find a written pact with the devil, or a pot of human limbs, or a supply of toads, etc., less incriminating evidence, such as an inability to shed tears, or the inability to sink in water, or the presence of a wart, or a calloused part of skin which wouldn't bleed when pricked, became evidence sufficient to initiate torture, so as to secure confessions and testimony against `accomplices.' Trevor-Roper lists the various instruments of suffering: various devices which crushed the fingers and toes; the Spanish Boot which broke shin-bones; the self-explanatory `Bed of Nails.' There was also much driving of needles under finger-nails.

The Protestant participation in these sorts of evils must be of concern to modern Protestants, because it is perfectly logical to make the assumption that any person - regardless if he calls himself Catholic or Protestant or Eastern Orthodox - who advocates torturing women to make them confess their involvement in witchcraft, especially on such worthless evidence as having a wart on their finger or nose, must be considered an enemy of the benevolent religion which Christ founded on earth. And don't you think one blasphemes the Holy Spirit when one says the Holy Spirit guides churches which perpetrate such evils.

Lord Acton told us in his essay `Human Sacrifice',

`And yet, long after the last victim had fallen in honour of the sun-god of the Aztecs, the civilised nations of Christian Europe continued to wage wholesale destruction...Protestants and Catholics, clergy and laity, vied with each other for two hundred years to provide victims, and every refinement of legal ingenuity and torture was used in order to increase their number. In 1591, at Nördligen, a girl was tortured twenty-three times before she confessed...Three years later, in the same town, a woman suffered torture fifty-six times without confessing she was a witch...In the north of Italy, the great jurist Alciatus saw 100 witches burnt on one day...In England alone, under the Tudors and the Stuarts, the victims of this superstition amounted to 30,000. Yet, from the appearance of Spee's Cautio in 1631 to the burning of the last witch in 1783, all sensible men were persuaded that the victims were innocent of the crime for which they suffered intolerable torments and an agonizing death. But those who hunted them out with cunning perseverance, and the inflexible judges who never spared their lives, firmly believed that their execution was pleasing in the sight of God, and that their sin could not be forgiven by men.'

Again, St. Paul writes in 2 Thess 2,

`Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him...Let no one deceive you by any means: for that Day [the Second Coming of Christ] will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God...and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.'

So, if the Roman Catholic Church has not fallen away, if the Church of Rome is God's True Church, then, to attain heaven and to avoid perdition everyone should convert to Roman Catholicism and everyone should obey God's True Church, the Roman Catholic Church. But if Rome has fallen away, if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome a false church which leads souls to perdition, then, everyone should renounce the Church of Rome.

Does the Church of Rome lead souls to heaven, or does she lead souls to perdition, because Rome has fallen away, because Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock? Some evidence which says the Church of Rome fell away looks like the following: Dr. Milman wrote in `History of Latin Christianity',

`James, Cardinal of Porto, was proclaimed Pope, and assumed the name of John XXII....He was born in Cahors, of the humblest parentage, his father a cobbler. This, if true, was anything but dishonorable to the Pope, still less to the Church. During an age when all without was stern and inflexible aristocracy, all functions and dignities held by feudal inheritance, in the Church alone a man of extraordinary talents could rise to eminence...But the profound learning of John XXII., though reputed to embrace not only theology, but both branches of the law, the canon and the civil, was but the melancholy ignorance of his age...A dark conspiracy was formed, or supposed to be formed, in which many of the Cardinals were involved, against the life of the Pope...The full vengeance of the Pope fell on...Gerold, Bishop of the Pope's native city, Cahors...he was now degraded, stripped of his episcopal attire, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment. But the wrath of the Pope was not satiated. He was actually flayed alive and torn asunder by four horses...A fierce and merciless Inquisition was set up; tortures, executions multiplied...those that perished at the stake were but few out of the appalling numbers. The prisons of Narbonne and of Carcassonne were crowded with those who were spared the last penalty. Among these was the Friar Deliciosus of Montpellier, a Franciscan, who had boldly withstood the Inquisition, and was immured for life in a dungeon. He it was who declared that if St. Peter and St. Paul should return to earth, the Inquisition would lay hands on them as damnable heretics...Men who could not be argued into belief must be burned. The corollary of a Christian sermon was a holocaust at the stake...All those who declared that Christ and His apostles had no property, only the use of things necessary, were pronounced guilty of damnable heresy.'

As we've seen, Rev. John Hagee, who has a big church in San Antonio, once called the Church of Rome a cult. And he was mocked and ridiculed by various people. I suppose some of these people are devout Catholics who hate it when Protestant Fundamentalists call Rome a cult. In current usage the word `cult' seems to have more sting than the term `false religion'. The word cult conjures up images of Jim Jones and `drinking the Kool-Aid', whereas the term `false religion' seems less insulting. Others couldn't care less about Rome's theology, but they see there are nice altruistic people in all of the world's major religions, and they don't like to see the feelings of nice people being hurt, and you hurt their feelings when you call their church a cult. Christianity doesn't teach the doctrine that `doctrine is unimportant'. Christianity does not teach the doctrine that you're saved, you're going to heaven, if you spit on scriptures such as John 14. 23-26 and Galatians 1. 8. Christianity does not teach the doctrine which says one is a saint, a person assured of salvation, if one announces that Jesus is a fraudulent god, a bogus deity, which is what people announce when they reject: John 1. 1-14, Colossians 2. 8-10, 1 Timothy 3. 16, Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9. 6. The Popes have always insisted that there is only one True Church on earth: the Church of Rome. This of courses raises the ire of Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, Atheists, Muslims etc. But what would you expect a pope to say? Do you expect him to reject the doctrine there is a True Church? That's like expecting him to renounce Christianity. That's like expecting him to become like Judas. If one spits on Matthew 16. 13-19, John 14. 23-26, John 15. 6, Ephesians 4. 4 one spits on Christianity. I suppose there are still some Christians around who can understand the reasoning which runs as follows: if you want to go to heaven, if you want to escape perdition, then you have to stop spitting on the Christian scriptures, such as the ones which tell us there is a True Church: Matthew 16. 13-19, John 14. 23-26, John 15. 6, Ephesians 4. 4. Now if a pope accepts the ramifications of Matthew 16. 13-19, John 14. 23-26, John 15. 6, Ephesians 4.4, if he accepts the doctrine that Christ founded His Church on a rock, then, the pope will have a tendency to believe that the Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church. He will have to be persuaded that the Roman Catholic Church is a cult which leads souls to perdition before you can expect the pope to announce that the Church of Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock.

So, to review, so that no one is confused, non-Christians ask: Why would a benevolent Deity damn a sweet and loving person merely because that person rejects Christ? And the Christian response to this is: Jesus is God, the Second Person in a Divine Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit - recall I Tim. 3. 16, Col 2. 8-10, Matthew 1. 23 (Immanuel = God with us), Psalm 2 (a begotten son is of the same species as his father, therefore the Son is Divine since the Father is Divine), Isaiah 9. 6, John 8. 58 (before Abraham was, I AM) etc. These scriptures are either trustworthy or they aren't trustworthy. Jesus is either God or else Jesus is not God. Non-Christians assert, either explicitly or implicitly, that Jesus is a bogus deity. If Jesus is the true Deity, if Jesus is God, that is, God the Son, then, naturally, perdition would await those impious souls, even if they are nice guys, who insist that Jesus is a bogus deity. Various professors told us in college that there is no True Church, and, like obedient lap dogs, many have swallowed their teaching. If a baptized Christian rejects John 14. 23-26, Matthew 16. 13-19, Ephesians 4. 4, then he is right to do so if Christianity is a lie, but, if Christianity is true, then a baptized Christian has become like Judas if he rejects those scriptures. If one is a betrayer of Christ and the True Religion, then, I venture to speculate, one will not escape perdition if one fails to repent! It becomes interesting to note the irrationality of so many Christians. For instance, the Church of England is either the Church which Christ founded on a rock or else it isn't. The Church of England either leads souls to heaven or else it leads souls to perdition. If the Church of England is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then we should all obey Liz Windsor when she gives orders, even those of us who live in the USA and are the heirs of a Revolutionary War fought against the British Crown and the Church of England. But if the Church of England is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if the Church of England leads souls to perdition, then Liz Windsor is leading souls to perdition - she doesn't mean to lead souls to perdition, I assume she's a decent enough person, but she's not thinking straight - she's suffering from a delusion - she's a girl interrupted - like Wynona Ryder in Girl Interrupted \- she seems normal but there's something wrong with her head - she thinks the Church of England leads souls to heaven but she's wrong about that. So, just as Oliver Reed had to choose between two choices in Burnt Offerings – he could go back into the evil house and try to rescue his wife, or he could run away from the evil house – we have two options with Liz Windsor – either she leads souls to heaven, or else she leads souls to perdition.

For more evidence which says Rome fell away from the True Faith, Paul Johnson informed us in `A History of Christianity',

`Tertullian broke with the Church [Rome] when Calixtus of Rome determined that the church had the power to grant remission of sins after baptism, even serious sins like adultery or apostasy...Julian claims Catholics slaughtered "heretics" with state military support. Whole communities were butchered...in the 5th century there were over 100 statutes against heresy. The state now attacked heresy as it had once attacked Christianity...Jerome describes horrible tortures inflicted on a woman accused of adultery [inflicted by the Catholic-State]. In the late 4th century there was despotism in Christendom. The rack and red-hot plates were used. Ammianus gives many instances of torture...the Inquisition was born...Spain was staging pogroms of Jews by the time Augustine became a bishop...Inquisition: anonymous informers, accusations of personal enemies allowed, no right of defending council...Possession of scriptures in any language forbidden...from 1080 onward there were many instances of the Pope, councils and Bishops forbidding the Bible to laymen...people burned for reading the Bible...Erasmus saw 200 prisoners of war broken on the wheel at Utrech, on orders of the Bishop...Justinian Code: provided basis for persecution of dissenters...Protestants adopted the Justinian Code as well...Lutherans and Calvinists just as intolerant as Catholics...Counter-Reformation embodied no reform. It's sole effect was to stamp out Protestant "error"...It is a tragic but recurrent feature of Christianity that the eager pursuit of reform tends to produce a ruthlessness in dealing with obstacles to it which brings the whole moral superstructure crashing down in ruins...The Gregorian papacy, so zealous for virtue, fathered some of the worst crimes of the Middle Ages...mass burnings of Protestants in Spain 1559-1562...Spanish Inquisition was self-sustaining. It confiscated the property of the condemned...women 70-90 years old were tortured...young girls tortured...witch-hunting couldn't survive without torture...witch-hunting had papal sanction to use torture...Luther burned "witches"...Calvinists very fierce...Loyola popularized witch-hunting...Loyola not an anti-Semite...Vicious cycle: torture produced accusations -more torture, more accusations...The Philosophes ransacked the past to expose...evil.'

The Jewish Encyclopedia,

`CAPISTRANO, JOHN OF: Franciscan monk; born at Capistrano, Italy, 1386; died 1456. Owing to his remarkable power as a popular preacher, he was sent by Pope Nicholas V. (1447-55) as legate to Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, with the special mission to preach against the Hussites...Knowing how easy it is to excite the masses by appealing to their prejudices, Capistrano, in his discourses, accused the Jews of killing Christian children and of desecrating the host...His admirers called him the "scourge of the Judeans"...In Silesia the Franciscan was most zealous in his work. When Capistrano arrived at Breslau, a report was circulated that one Meyer, a wealthy Jew, had bought a host from a peasant and desecrated it. Thereupon the local authorities arrested the representatives of the Breslau Jewish community and confiscated their houses and property for the benefit of the city. The investigation of the so-called blasphemy was conducted by Capistrano himself. By means of tortures he managed to wring from a few of the victims false confessions of the crimes ascribed to them. As a result, more than forty Jews were burned at the stake in Breslau June 2, 1453. Others, fearing torture, committed suicide, a rabbi, Pinheas, hanged himself. The remainder of the Jews were driven out of the city, while their children of tender age were taken from them and baptized by force. In Poland Capistrano found an ally in the archbishop Zbigniev Olesniczki, who urged Casimir IV. Jagellon to abolish the privileges which had been granted to the Jews in 1447...This led to persecutions of the Jews in many Polish towns. Capistrano was canonized in 1690.'

So, to review the logic from earlier, if the Roman Catholic Church is the True Church, if the Church of Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome leads souls to heaven and leads no one to perdition, then, obviously, it would be idiotic to ever rebel against Rome - God's True Church - such as by refusing to venerate the canonized saint, Capistrano. You can never be led to hell if you simply obey God's True Church. You can't lose. So, it is always idiotic to rebel against Rome if Rome is God's True Church, if Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome leads souls to heaven.

Now if Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome has fallen away, if Rome leads souls to hell not to heaven, then this changes things! If Rome leads souls to perdition then you will want to renounce Rome, and you will not want to venerate Capistrano.

The Cafeteria Catholics, or at least some varieties of Cafeteria Catholics, will refuse to venerate

Capistrano, but they will not renounce the Church of Rome. Their delusion is somewhat remarkable, don't you think? Either Rome leads souls to heaven or else Rome leads souls to perdition. If Rome leads souls to heaven, then you can not lose, you can not be led to hell if you can simply have enough sense to obey all that Rome teaches. Rome wants you to venerate Capistrano. So, if Rome leads souls to heaven, then venerate Capistrano. But if Rome leads souls to perdition, then renounce the Church of Rome. The Cafeteria Catholics do neither. They rebel against Rome and yet they refuse to renounce Rome.

Consider St. Charles Borromeo. Rome insists that all True Christians must venerate Borromeo as a saint. Apropos of the former Archbishop of Milan, Mrs. H. M. Vernon informed us in her book `Italy From 1494 to 1790' (Cambridge at the University Press, 1909):

`Carlo Borromeo conducted a campaign against witchcraft no less terrible than his campaign against heresy, and hundreds of wretched women were burned...The horrors of the Plague were doubled by the persecution of the `Untori'...who were supposed to spread it.'

In `Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction,' J. A. Symonds reported:

`The pestilences of the Middle Ages, notably the Black Death of 1348...exceeded in virulence those which depopulated Italian cities during the period of my history...At Venice in 1575-77, a total of about 50,000 persons perished...in 1630-31, 46,490 were carried off...Milan was devastated at the same periods by plagues...At Naples, in the year 1656, more than 50,000 perished...Savoy was scourged by a fearful pestilence...In Val Moriana, forty thousand expired...In May 1599, the inhabitants of Turin were reduced by flight and death to four thousand...The streets were encumbered with unburied corpses, the houses infested by robbers and marauders...The infected were treated with inhuman barbarity, and retorted with savage fury...To miseries of pestilence and its attendant famine were added lawlessness and license, raging fires, and, what was worst of all, the dark suspicion that the sickness had been introduced by malefactors...The name given to the unfortunate creatures accused of this diabolical conspiracy was Untori, or the Smearers...They were popularly supposed to go about the city daubing walls, doors, furniture, choir-stalls, flowers, and articles of food with plague stuff...Hundreds of such Untori were condemned to the most cruel deaths by justice firmly persuaded of their criminality. Exposed to prolonged tortures, the majority confessed palpable absurdities. One woman at Milan said she had killed four thousand people. But, says Pier Antonio Marioni, the Venetian envoy, although tormented to the utmost, none of them were capable of revealing the prime instigators of the plot...The rack-stretched wretches could not reveal their instigators, because there were none...As in cases of witchcraft, the first accusation was founded upon gossip and delation. The judicial proceedings were ruled by prejudice and cruelty. Fear and physical pain extorted confessions and complicated accusations of their neighbors from multitudes of innocent people."

David Christie-Murray told us in `A History of Heresy' (Oxford, 1976) that Charles Borromeo burned at least eleven elderly women at the stake.

Evidently the god that the Cafeteria Catholics worship is the sort of god who says you needn't venerate Borromeo. But the god of the Cafeteria Catholics is not the god of the Roman Catholics! The god of the Roman Catholics says: Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock; Rome leads souls to heaven; it is always evil to renounce God's True Church, the Church of Rome etc., etc. If this god is the True God, if the Church of Rome leads souls to heaven, then one ought to be able understand the logic which says: you can't lose, you can not go to hell, but you will go to heaven, if you could just have enough sense to obey God's True Church - the Church of Rome - so please have enough sense to venerate those whom she tells you to venerate, have enough sense to obey her official doctrines. There might be some mistakes in some of these doctrines, but they are the doctrines of God's True Church, the Church which always leads souls to heaven despite any mistakes she might make. If you rebel against Rome you might go to hell. If you always obey Rome you will never go to hell. A person would really have to be playing with less than a full deck if he can not understand that it is idiocy to rebel against Rome, assuming of course Rome leads souls to heaven, assuming of course Rome is God's True Church.

And of course if Rome leads souls to perdition, if the True God has rejected Rome, then one needs to renounce Rome and find a church which does not lead souls to perdition.

Pope St. Pius V., a great champion of the Inquisition, is another man that the Church of Rome orders people to venerate as a saint. Dr. Lea wrote in his `A History of the Inquisition in Spain' (Macmillan, 1906):

`The Inquisition, however, regarded the conviction of a heretic as only the preliminary to forcing him to denounce his associates; the earliest papal utterance, in 1252, authorizing its use of torture, prescribed the employment of this means to discover accomplices and finally Paul IV and Pius V decreed that all who were convicted and confessed should, at the discretion of the inquisitors, be tortured for this purpose...It was, in reality, the torture of witnesses, for the criminal's fate had been decided, and he was thus used only to give testimony against others. The Spanish Inquisition was, therefore, only following a general practice when it tortured in capu alienum, those who had confessed their guilt. No confession was accepted as complete unless it revealed the names of those whom the penitent knew to be guilty of heretical acts, if there was reason to suspect that he was not fully discharging his conscience in this respect, torture was the natural resort. Even the impenitent or the relapsed, who was doomed to relaxation, was thus to be tortured and was to be given clearly to understand that it was as a witness and not as a party, and that his endurance of torture would not save him from the stake. The Instructions of 1561, however warn inquisitors that in these cases much consideration should be exercised and torture in caput alienum was rather the exception in Spain, than the rule as in Rome. In the case of the negativo, against whom conclusive evidence was had, and who thus was to be condemned without torture, the device of torturing him against his presumable accomplices afforded an opportunity of endeavoring to secure his own confession and conversion. We have seen this fail, in 1596, in the Mexican case of Manuel Diaz, nor was it more successful in Lima, in 1639, with Enrique de Paz y Mello, although the final outcome was different...He was sentenced to relaxation and torture in caput alienum; it was administered with great severity without overcoming his fortitude, and he persisted through five other publications as fresh evidence was gathered. Yet at midnight before the auto da fe, in which he was to be burnt, he weakened. He confessed as to himself and others and his sentence was modified to reconciliation and the galleys, while good use was made of his revelations against thirty of his accomplices...At a Toledo auto de fe we find Isabel Canese, aged seventy-eight, who promptly confessed before the torture had proceeded very far, and Isabel de Jaen, aged eighty who, at the fifth turn of the cords fainted and was revived with difficulty. In 1607 at Valencia, Jaime Chuleyla, aged seventy-six, after confessing certain matters, was accused by a new witness of being an alfaqui; this he denied and was duly tortured...Isabel Madalena, a girl of thirteen, who was vaguely accused of Moorish practices, was tortured, overcame the torture and was penanced with a hundred lashes.'

Rome says the Inquisition is holy, because, for centuries now, Rome has called the Inquisition the `Holy Office'. If Rome leads souls to heaven, if Rome is God's True Church, then it would be idiocy to disagree with Rome. You can not lose, you can not go to hell, but you will go to heaven, if you could just have enough sense to not rebel against Rome's official doctrines, such as the doctrine which says the Inquisition is holy, assuming of course Rome leads souls to heaven. Now if Rome has fallen away, if Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome is a malevolent cult which leads souls to perdition not to heaven, then this changes matters - and if this is the case then you should not agree with everything that Rome teaches! - and indeed you should renounce the evil Church of Rome is she leads souls to perdition.

There's very little talk of hell and perdition in the Old Testament but on nearly every page of the New Testament there is something which pertains to perdition and how to avoid perdition. We're told `wide is the path to destruction, and narrow is the road to salvation, and there are few who find it.' The New Testament is very stern! Repent or Perish is the theme of Luke 13. 3-5. Fire is in store for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ - that's what you read in 2 Thess 1. 8. Jesus says in John 15. 6,

`If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.'

In Matthew 25. 41-46 Christ says,

`Then He will also say to them on the left hand, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger and you did not take Me in; naked and you did not clothed Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me." Then they also will answer Him, saying "Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?" Then He will answer them, saying, "Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me." And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.'

Christianity says one must embrace certain doctrines to escape perdition and to attain heaven. Western Civilization, has been stuck in the mud, so to speak, for many centuries. It can't move forward until the Apocalypse transpires, I mean the world has to move from the pre-apocalyptic state into the post-apocalyptic state, otherwise it will remain languishing in the mire of its pre-apocalyptic state.

There are an infinite number of ways to paraphrase Christianity. You might start with some logic which says that a sect, any sect, either leads souls to heaven or it leads souls to perdition. So there are two main options with any sect. One option is good and one is bad. You have to decide if you want to run to that sect or if you want to run away from that sect. You recall how Oliver Reed had two options: he could run away from the evil house in Burnt Offerings. Or he could go back into the evil house to try to rescue his wife. You know what's waiting for him - assuming you've seen the movie before! He goes up the stairs and enters a room. Oh no! Don't go in there! He finds his wife alright, only his dear darling wife has changed - she has been transformed into the Devil! Sorry if I ruined the ending of the movie for you.

Ezekiel 20. 25 tells us that God gave the children of Israel bad laws because He was angry with them for their constant disobedience. And Christians can examine of the Old Law, the Mosaic Law, and see that it was filled with bad laws. So, since the Old Law was flawed, there is a need for a New Law. It was a Jewish fellow not a Gentile who prophesied that God would give the Jews a new law, see Jeremiah 31. 31-34. This does not mean that the Old Law is not an eternal law. It is eternal in the sense that it will be remembered for eternity. But the New Law, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, has thrown many elements of the Old Law into abeyance. Bulls and goats and birds are no longer sacrificed under the New Law. Those people who are hostile to Christianity might be enticed to learn the basics of Christianity via various arguments. For instance, if you don't know the basics of Christianity then you can not understand the history of Western Civilization. If a person is clueless about the history of Western Civilization then he is an ignoramus, an uneducated person. Of course Christians insist that the best argument to learn about Christianity is the argument which says you must understand Christianity in order to attain heaven and escape perdition. But this argument is usually unpersuasive with non-Christians. The argument which says you must understand Christianity in order to understand Western Civilization - and you don't want to be ignoramus! You don't want to be a dim bulb! You don't want to be dull uncultured person who is ignorant of Western Civilization! - is an argument that has a chance at persuading non-Christians who respect culture and education to learn about Christianity. And if it doesn't work you can always try: your soul will go to perdition if you continue to reject Christianity.

The first thing you have to know to understand Western Civilization are the arguments which say there are a True Church and a True Faith. So much of the history of Italy, Spain, the Spanish and Portuguese dominions in the New World, England, France, Germany, Russia, the USA, Canada etc. deal with matters pertaining to Church and State. Where do the priests derive their power and authority? If millions or billions of Christians over the last 2,000 years weren't impressed with Matthew 16. 13-19 and John 14. 23-26, the clergy wouldn't be so powerful over the centuries. Matthew 16. 13-19 says that Christ founded His Church on a rock. And John 14. 23-26 tells us that those who love Christ keep his words, such as the words He spoke in Matthew 16. 13-19, and those who do not love Christ do not keep his words. Even in the benighted Middle Ages people were sharp enough to understand some important things. The Church which Christ founded on a rock leads souls to heaven. A church which has fallen away from the True Faith is not the church which Christ founded on a rock. A church which has fallen away leads souls to perdition, not to heaven. To say there is no True Church is anti-Christian, because it is anti-Christian to reject the scriptures which tell us there is a True Church: Matthew 16. 13-19, John 14. 23-26, Ephesians 4.4, John 15. 6 etc.

The second thing you have to understand about Western Civilization is the logic which says the True Church can make mistakes but it does not make a single mistake which leads souls to perdition. The True Church always leads souls to heaven, though she can make mistakes. From this we are led to the logic which says to is wise to always obey the True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, aka the Bride of Christ, and it is crazy to ever rebel against the True Church, even if she commits errors, because these are not errors which lead souls to hell, because the True church never leads anyone to hell. You can't lose if you simply obey the True Church! But you can lose and go to hell if you rebel in some way against the True Church. So it is always idiotic to rebel against the True Church. And again, to say there is no True Church is to spit on John 14. 23-26, Matthew 16. 13-19, John 15. 6, Ephesians 4.4 etc. It is anti-Christian to spit on those scriptures. The True Church is comprised of people who have the Divine Law, also know as the New Law, aka the New Covenant, aka the Gospel of Jesus Christ, written on their heart. Recall Christ's words at the Last Supper - `This cup is My blood of the new covenant...' We first read in the Bible about this new covenant in Jeremiah 31. 31-34:

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

Is this Divine Law a Roman Catholic Law? Does the Divine Law say: It is always evil to renounce the Roman Catholic Church? Does the Divine Law say the Church of Rome is God's True Church? There's some logic which says if you had the Divine Law written on your heart, if you were a True Christian, you would know the correct answers to those questions, and to a few more. Has the Church of Rome perpetrated evil for century after century? Is it blasphemy of the Holy Spirit to say or imply the Holy Spirit guides the Church of Rome? Does the Holy Spirit guide a church which perpetrates evil for century after century?

Christ said that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is an unforgiveable sin, and naturally I don't want to crush anyone's hopes for heaven by convincing them they have committed an unforgiveable sin, so we might just leave it at this: perhaps there's still hope for you!

5. Israel and Zionism

Let's look at the argument which says it is anti-Christian to reject Zionism. Zionism is the philosophy which says the Jews have a right to live in peace in the Holy Land. The argument runs as follows: If one rejects Christ's words at the Last Supper - `For this is My blood of the new covenant, shed for the remission of sins of many' - then Christianity says one is damned, that is, one is damned if one never repents, if one persists in rejecting Christ's words at the Last Supper. If one accepts those words which Christ announced at the Last Supper, `For this is My blood of the new covenant, shed for the remission of sins of many', then, one will also accept Jeremiah 31. 31-34. Again, the new covenant is first mentioned in the Bible in Jeremiah 31. 31-34. Again Jeremiah 31. 31-34 states,

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

If one accepts Jeremiah 31. 31-34, then one will also accept Ezekiel 36. 24-28. This is because one will accept one Old Testament scripture which says God will write His law on the hearts of the Jews if one has already accepted a different Old Testament scripture which says God will write His law on the hearts of the Jews. Ezekiel 36. 24-28 has God saying,

`For I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the nations and bring you back into your own land...I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My Statutes, and you will keep My statutes and do them...you shall be My people, and I will be your God.'

This scripture has two parts. Christians don't believe that it makes any sense to say that the first part of Ezekiel 36. 24-28 was fulfilled when the Jews returned to the Holy Land after the Babylonian Captivity, because, Christians don't believe the Spirit of God was put into the Jews after the Babylonian Captivity, because, a few more centuries after the return from the Babylonian Captivity, Jesus railed against Jews and their evil ways, and of course Jesus was crucified with the approval of a great many Jews, and therefore Christians don't believe that God put His Spirit inside the Jews after God gathered the Jews into the Holy Land after the Babylonian Captivity. But, if we turn to the Zionist movement in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, we might get better answers when we look for answers to the meaning of Ezekiel 36. 24-28.

It's true that, as of August 2014, Christians don't believe that God has put His Spirit inside the Jews. But what do we read in Ezekiel 36. 24-28? First, God will bring the Jews back into the Holy Land, and, then, a little later, He will put His Spirit inside the Jews, and will cause the Jews to walk in God's Statutes and to keep them.

Christians have no way to interpret Ezekiel 36. 24-28 other than by the doctrine which says that God will bring the Jews back to the Holy Land, and then, a little later, after the return of the Jews to the Holy Land, God will put His Spirit into the Jews, and this Spirit will be a Christian Spirit. If this Spirit was not a Christian Spirit, then Christianity would be a false religion, and, as you might recall, Christians don't proclaim Christianity to be a false religion.

Ezekiel 36. 24-28 obviously supports Zionism. If one rejects Zionism then one rejects Ezekiel 36. 24-28. If one rejects Ezekiel 36. 24-28 then one rejects Jeremiah 31. 31-34. That is, if one rejects one Old Testament scripture which says God will put His Spirit in the Jews, and write His laws on their hearts, then one will reject another Old Testament scripture which says God will write His law on the hearts of the Jews. If one rejects Jeremiah 31. 31-34 then one rejects Christ's words are the Last Supper. If one rejects Christ's words at the Last Supper - `this cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for the remission of sins,' - then, Christianity says, one is damned.

Therefore, Christian logic says: unless you repent, you are damned if you oppose Zionism.

6. Gay Marriage, Christianity and Rich People etc., etc.

What does the Gospel say about Gay Marriage? Is it impossibly complicated theology? Or is it simple to understand?

We know what St. Paul said in I Cor 6. 9-10,

`Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionists will inherit the kingdom of God.'

But this does not tell us whether or not it is a sin to support the State when the State supports gay marriage.

Christianity of course teaches that sodomy is sinful, but the religious controversy surrounding gay marriage is a controversy over the question: is it sinful to support the State when the State supports gay marriage? To get our terms straight, when a State supports Gay Marriage it gives its blessing to it - for example - by letting gays get married in court houses, with State employees presiding at the ceremonies. When a State tolerates Gay Marriage it does not support it but it does not outlaw it either. Some people today say it is sinful for the State to tolerate fornication and adultery, that is, some people today say it is sinful for the State to not use laws and cops and prisons to punish fornicators and adulterers. Islamic Law prescribes 100 lashes to punish fornicators, but modern Western Countries reject Islamic Law, or at least the West hasn't capitulated to Islam just yet. Will one go to perdition if one teaches the doctrine that the State should support gay marriage? Do churches such as the ELCA - the Evangelican Lutheran Church in America - and the Episcopalian church - which both support Gay Marriage - lead souls to perdition?

To examine the question we should first observe that there is a distinction to be made between gay men who partake in the most uninhibited varieties of sodomy, and gay men whose most passionate embraces involve only some hugging and hand holding. And Christianity is of course hostile to bullies who persecute gays and lesbians. But the key question which Christians want answered is: is it a violation of the New Law to petition a church, or to petition the State to support marriage between homosexuals? Is it a sin which leads to perdition if one supports a Church or a State in its action of supporting Gay Marriage?

The State is wise to tolerate certain sins (cursing, lust, pride, gluttony etc) and wise to not tolerate others sins (rape, murder, extortion, theft etc). Very few modern Christians want the State to imprison fornicators, drunkards, sodomites, adulterers and non-believers. Coitus damnatus - fornicating with a nun - was once a capital crime in Christendom, but, today, most Christians do not want either the Church or the State to execute those guilty of coitus damnatus.

As the State tolerates fornication and adultery, that is, as the State does not support or give its blessing to these sins, but at the same time the State does not fine or imprison those who commit these sins, one might argue there is no sin for the State to tolerate gay marriage - there is no sin for the State to neither support nor outlaw gay marriage. But is it sinful when the State supports Gay Marriage, by permitting gays and lesbians to be married by State officials on State property?

The marriage rite has some curious supernatural idiosyncrasies which have to be understood. For instance, though Protestants do not always call marriage a sacrament, as do Roman Catholics, still, marriage is a de facto sacrament in Protestantism, as well as in most other religions. It is the rite which transforms that which is sinful - fornication - into that which is undefiled in the eyes of God: lawful marital relations. Recall Hebrews 13. 4.

`Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.'

The Roman Catholic does not tell the Jewish person: `Because you were married in a false and heretical synagogue, your marriage vows are invalid, therefore, you and your wife are fornicators, and your little ones are illegitimate.'

The Protestant does not say to the Buddhist, the Muslim, or the Hindu: `Because you were married in a creed which rejects the True God - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - and because your creed is simply a superstition, therefore, your marriage vows are worthless in the eyes of the True God.'

Roman Catholics and Protestants don't say those sorts of things because Roman Catholics and Protestants truly believe that God respects the marriage vows of people in all the major world religions: Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism etc., etc. The marriage rite transcends the Faiths.

The rite of baptism cuts no ice with the Muslims. The rite of Jihad is anathema in the eyes of the Hindus. The Marxist-Leninist does not care to see male children bleed in the Jewish rite of circumcision. But all of the world's major religions respect the marriage rite between one man and one woman. And the USA might want to hesitate before trampling on something which is revered in all of the major world religions.

Marriage is a rite which takes a sinful act - sex outside of marriage - and transforms it into an action which is not sinful, which does not lead souls to perdition. But Gay Marriage does not transform sinful sodomy between two unmarried guys into sinless sex between two married gentlemen. Again, St. Paul said in I Corinthians 6. 9-10,

`Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionists will inherit the kingdom of God.'

Gay Marriage is not True Marriage because Gay Marriage can not transform sinful sodomy into something sinless, whereas, True Marriage accomplishes this astonishing supernatural transformation, by turning sinful, unholy, unlawful, licentious, pre-marital sex into honorable, respectable, upstanding, clean and legal post-marital sex.

Gay Marriage leads souls to perdition, because, gay sex - sodomy - even under the cover of Gay Marriage - is just as sinful as gay sex outside of Gay Marriage. A sodomite with a marriage license from the State of New York is sunk in mortal sin. A sodomite who got his marriage license out of a cereal box is sunk in mortal sin. A sodomite with no marriage license is sunk in mortal sin. A sodomite with a marriage license from Church 666 is sunk in mortal sin. A sodomite with a marriage license from the Episcopalian Church or the ELCA is sunk in mortal sin. It is certainly wrong for the State to persecute Gays and Lesbians, but, at the same time, if we assume that Christianity is true - and I make that assumption - then it is sinful for a church or a State to sanction or support anything which is anti-Christian. A church or a State is not anti-Christian if it tolerates various sins, but if a church or a State actively supports something which is sinful and anti-Christian, then that church or State is anti-Christian.

Christians should of course not support a church or a State which leads souls to perdition. When Christians give their blessing to a rite, Gay Marriage, a rite which leads souls to perdition, then Christians are indeed giving their blessing to something which leads people to perdition. And - as you might imagine - this is not something Christians should be doing.

Marriage is a de jure sacrament in Roman Catholicism. It is stated in official Roman Catholic doctrine to be a rite which confers grace. But it is a de facto sacrament in the Protestant sects. It is seen as a rite which confers grace, because, it takes the sinful act of sexual relations outside of marriage - fornication - an act which leads souls to perdition - I Cor 6. 9 - and it transforms it into something which does not lead souls to hell - therefore marriage confers grace.

Therefore, as marriage confers grace, it is a de facto sacrament in Protestantism. When a sacrament is defiled - such as marriage is defiled when a church or the State or a person gives its / his blessing to sodomy and gay marriage - then a sacrilege is committed. It seems rather insane to think that a church - like the ELCA or the Episcopalian Church - which commits sacrilege, is the True Church which leads souls to heaven - the Church which Christ founded on a rock. It seems rather insane to think that a person who endorses sacrilege has the Divine Law written on his heart. It seems rather insane to think that a Christian who supports something which leads souls to perdition - Gay Marriage - is a True Christian.

Let's suppose Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy have big problems. Let's suppose neither one of these oldest of Christian Churches is the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Both have fallen away. Both lead souls to perdition rather than to heaven because neither one is God's True Church. So you might turn to Protestantism in an endeavor to save your soul. A big problem with most of the Protestant sects is that they don't excommunicate anyone. If the apostles didn't like the way some convert was living the apostles warned him nicely once, and then if he refused to repent after the gentle rebuke, then they cut ties with him: they excommunicated him, they gave him the silent treatment, they wouldn't talk to him or associate with him. The apostolic Church had some standards and it disciplined members who fell below the standard. The people in the Church watched over each others' morals. If a church refuses to discipline blatant sinners then that church cannot be the church which Christ founded on a rock. Another big problem with Protestant sect which claim they takes their doctrine straight from the New Testament is that if you take all of the New Testaments teachings pertaining to wealth and riches, you discover that in the True Church there is equal sharing of the wealth among those who work. I've explained the scriptures which tell us there is equal sharing of the wealth in the True Church in Constitutional History of the Western World, and in some of my other paraphrases of that book. A reading of Revelation 18 implies that famine will become a big problem during the apocalyptic hour. Famines have always been a huge problem in the world, and rich Christians have always been confronted with a few basics suspicions: 1) there is the suspicion which says that if a rich Christian gave all of his money to help starving people around the world, the rich Christian would only reduce himself to poverty, and he would not eradicate either greed or ignorance or or corruption or famines from the earth, hence this is a strong inducement for a rich Christian to not give all of his money away, 2) there is the suspicion that should you join a church which practices the equal sharing of the wealth among those who work, you will not actually be joining God's True Church, but, rather, there is the suspicion that you will be joining some Evangelical or Pentecostal or Mennonite or some such Protestant outfit which will reward the cheaters - it will reward the people who work very little but who nevertheless clamor for a full share - and it will impoverish those who work hard and who play by the rules. If you join some socialistic Protestant church which practices the equal sharing of the wealth among those who work, and which of course gives charity to those who can't work, then you will probably suspect that, sooner or later, you'll be eating cold beans out of a can, while living with other homeless people under a bridge, while the pastor of that socialistic sect that you joined will own a Lear jet and will be throwing extravagant parties in places like Hollywood, Manhattan, Paris, Nice, Capri etc., etc. It is not as if these suspicions have no basis whatsoever in either experience with the ways of the world or in elementary deductive reasoning! But, nevertheless, a person would have to be an idiot if simply can't understand the New Testament's teachings on money matter. I mean there might be a little confusion on a few points, but the overall picture that the New Testament paints is very easy to grasp. Ephesians 5. 5 tells us:

`For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.'

We know what a fornicator is. But who are the covetous? Is every rich person a covetous person? The New Testament has many hellfire scriptures directed at rich people. Note for instance Luke 16. 19-31 - the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Then there's Matthew 25. 35-46, James 1. 9, Luke 3. 7-14, I John 3. 17, I Tim 6. 9-10, Luke 6. 24, Luke 18. 25, Matthew 19. 23-4

Acts 2. 44-45 and Acts 4. 32-35 tell us there is equal sharing of the wealth in God's Church. Paul tells us in 2 Thess 3. 10, in so many words, that if an able-bodied person refuses to work then should not be given alms to buy food. But, all the same, Acts 2. 44-45 and Acts 4. 32-35 say what they say.

Matthew 25. 41-46 has Jesus saying,

`Then He will also say to them on the left hand, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger and you did not take Me in; naked and you did not clothed Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me." Then they also will answer Him, saying "Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?" Then He will answer them, saying, "Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me." And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.'

I John 3. 17,

`But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?

James 1. 9,

Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away.'

Christ says in Luke 6. 24-5: `But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full, for you shall hunger...'

Chapter 7. More on the Cross.

Our basic options with the sign of the cross are: 1) it is a symbol which leads souls to heaven, and 2) it is a symbol which leads souls to `not heaven', that is to perdition. As explained in Chapter 1 of Constitutional History of the Western World, there is a pro-Christian line of reasoning for option 2, and it runs as follows, the cross of Christ mentioned in Galatians 6. 14 and Philippians 3. 18 is sacred, but this cross of Christ is something which is spiritual not material. The 2nd commandment tells us in so many words that God is holy but graven images of God are unholy. The material cross, and the sign of the cross, are not sacred – they symbolize centuries of evil – they symbolize centuries of persecution of the Jews by people brandishing crosses, the persecution of religious dissenters, the persecution of the nobles against the peasantry, centuries of slave trading, crusades, inquisitional torments, woman burning etc., etc. For century after century, the clergy gave the bread and the wine – the sign of their approval - to evil kings and evil priests and evil nobles and evil peasants etc., etc. The Nazis committed evil under the swastika for a few years, whereas the people under the sign of the cross perpetrated evil for century after century after century, and the material cross and the sign of the cross reflect this evil. Scripture never says the sign of the cross or material crosses are holy. The argument saying the material cross and the sign of the cross are holy rests wholly upon two things, you have to find God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, and God's True Church must affirm that the material cross and the sign of the cross are holy. Suppose Rome has fallen away and leads souls to perdition, and suppose Eastern Orthodoxy has fallen away and leads souls to perdition, and suppose the Church of England has fallen away and leads souls to perdition, but suppose there is some sect under the sign of the cross which is God's True Church, which does lead souls to heaven, then if this sect - if this sect which is also God's True Church! - tells you the sign of the cross and material crosses are sacred, then they are indeed sacred. But if every sect under the sign of the cross leads souls to perdition, and since there is no New or Old Testament scripture which says material crosses and the sign of the cross are sacred, and since there has been century after century filled with evil perpetrated by people carrying crosses, then you would have to suspect the sign of the cross and the material cross are evil.

There are two particularly dramatic scenarios to consider with the cross. Scenario 1 refers to the 9th chapter of the Book of Revelation, and it says the mark of a cross is the seal of God, the seal which protects one from horrible tortures. Long story short, people living during apocalyptic times will be tortured for months if they don't have this seal of god on their forehead. If the mark of a cross is holy then it becomes the prime candidate for this seal of God. But if the material cross and the sign of the cross are evil – that is the spiritual cross of Christ mentioned in Galatians 6. 14 and Philippians 3. 18 is holy but material crosses and the sign of the cross reflect many centuries of evil, then the mark of a cross becomes the prime suspect for the mark of the beast – and Revelation 14. 11 says that those who have the mark of the beast on their foreheads or right hands burn in hell forever and ever. Well of course many people will insist that these are not the only two possibilities for the mark of the cross. We know that. But these are the two most dramatic scenarios involving the cross. Try to find more dramatic scenarios than these two! In one scenario you are tortured for months if you don't have the mark of a cross on your forehead, and in the other scenario you are tortured for all eternity if you are found with the mark of a cross on your forehead. As I say, the scriptures really have nothing to say about the sign of the cross and material crosses. Somehow you have to locate a group of people who are called the True Church, aka the Church which Christ founded on a rock. And not only would you be wise to trust their judgment on the cross, but you would be foolish, moronic, brainless etc., etc., if you refused to accept their judgment on every other matter which pertains to religion and ethical and moral philosophy. As politics is a subdivision of ethical and moral philosophy, you will want to obey God's True Church when she tells you which politicians you should vote for, when she tells you what policies are the best policies for a nation to pursue etc. By definition of what it means to be God's True Church, the True Church will always lead you to heaven and will never lead you to perdition, therefore, you would be wise to always accept the judgment of the True Church, and not only on the issue of the sign of the cross, but on every other issue which pertains to justice and morals and faith and religion. The True Church is a great expert on justice and morals, and hence the True Church is a great expert on politics, but the real reason you never want to rebel against God's True Church is that you will never go to hell, but you will always go to heaven, if you could just have enough sense to always obey God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock.

If one is in the True Church, if one has the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on one's heart, then one will have an infallible guide, and one will not make a mistake with the sign of the cross. If one has God's law written on one's heart, then, common sense says one will know how to avoid the sin of sacrilege, one will neither declare unholy things to be holy nor announce that holy things are unholy.

Lecky told us that the first Christians, Jews abiding in the Holy Land, employed the outline of a fish as their symbol, certainly not the cross, not a representation of a pagan instrument of torture and death. As Christendom contains good and evil, saints along with tyrants, slave-traders and inquisitors, one might see the cross as a symbol which reflects this admixture of good and evil, an admixture which might be denominated `corruption.' There are Catholic geniuses, Jewish geniuses, Muslim geniuses, Agnostic geniuses etc. etc. Why can't these geniuses agree on the meaning of an ancient symbol? It is this immense complexity hidden beneath superficial exteriors which testifies so persuasively to the existence of the Creator of the Universe. Forest leaves and springtime flowers appear simple enough until one learns a little biochemistry, and then they no longer appear simple. How is it that ancient, primitive people could have invented a symbol which baffles minds even in the modern epoch? How can a symbol born in rude, unsophisticated times still mystify thousands of sophisticated modern people?

Those who reverence the authority of scripture see the `cross of Christ,' mentioned in Galatians 6. 14 and Philippians 3. 18 as sacred. One might interpret this `cross of Christ' to be spiritual rather than material. Perhaps it represents Christ's atoning sacrifice on a pagan instrument of torture. One might see this spiritual cross of Christ as sacred but also hold that material crosses, crosses made with human hands, are not sacred. This is the same logic which says that God is sacred but graven images of God are sacrilegious.

We judge the swastika by the conduct of the people who claimed allegiance to the swastika. If conduct of the people who have united under the sign of the cross, over the centuries, has bearing on how the sign of the cross is judged, then, the sign of the cross symbolizes corruption, or at least some degree of corruption.

In Mark 8: 34, 35 Christ said,

`Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For who ever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it.'

One may interpret the above as either, 1) the sign of the cross is sacred to God, or 2) one must be prepared to suffer martyrdom, such as via crucifixion, if one wishes to attain eternal life.

In the Old Testament we are informed what is sacred and what isn't. Nadab and Abihu offered profane fire before the Lord, and, as a result, they were both devoured by fire from the Lord. One might say there is no New Testament scripture in which we read that a material cross, or a sign of the cross made from human hands, is sacred. Or one might argue that the `cross of Christ' mentioned in Galatians 6. 14 and Philippians 3. 18 refers to something which is both material and spiritual. One might argue that even crosses made with human hands, are sacred, and they all symbolize Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross.

If no amount of evil perpetrated by cross-bearers over the centuries will ever corrupt the sign of the cross, then, this can only be because a Deity exists, and this Deity says the sign of the cross is sacred. But if the evils perpetrated by cross-bearers over the centuries are relevant in judging the cross, then, the sign of the cross reflects these evils, at least to some degree. As soon as one concedes that the cross reflects both the good and the evil perpetrated by the people united under the cross, one concedes that the cross is a tainted symbol, an emblem of corruption.

We read Jesus' words in the Matthew 24. 30,

`Therefore when you see the "abomination of desolation," spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place' (whoever reads, let him understand), `then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains...Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.'

The Catholic Church has for many centuries asserted that this sign of the Son of Man which will appear in heaven is none other than the sign of the cross. In George Brantl's `Catholicism' we read, p. 238, that St. Cyril of Jerusalem has declared, lest hostile powers dare counterfeit it, the sign of the cross is this very sign of the Son of Man. The Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church take very clear and strong stands in favor of the sign of the cross. Catechism of the Catholic Church, in Paragraph 2148, indicates that it is blasphemy to state that the cross is a symbol of corruption. Paragraph 1182 states that the Lord's Cross is the altar of the New Covenant. Paragraph 1235 tells of the sign of the cross marking the baptized Catholic as one belonging to Christ. Paragraph 2157 informs one that the Christian is to begin his day, prayers and activities with the Sign of the Cross. The sign of the cross is also said to strengthen one in his trials and temptations. Catholic tradition has the Bishop making the sign of the cross over the forehead of the one being confirmed in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Encyclopedia (edited by Robert Broderick, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, 1987, p. 553) states that as many times that the devout make the sign of the cross they are granted an indulgence of three years; making the sign of the cross with blessed water may secure oneself an indulgence of seven years.

There are two especially interesting scenarios for the sign of the cross. You could call them the Best Case Scenario for the Sign of the Cross and the Worst Case Scenario for the sign of the Cross.

Scenario 1. The Sign of the Cross is sacred to God, moreover, the sign of the cross is this seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9. When the mark of a cross is placed on one's forehead one is saved from agonizing torments.

Scenario 2. The Sign of the Cross is evil in the sight of God. Placing the mark of a cross on one's forehead or right hand leads one to burn in hell forever. Recall Revelation 14. 11 `And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest, day or night...whoever receives the mark of his name.'

If one has a Divine Law written on one's heart, recalling Jeremiah 31. 31-34, then one will have an infallible guide. If one has God's law written on one's heart, then, common sense says one will know how to avoid the sin of sacrilege, one will neither declare evil things to be holy nor announce that holy things are evil.

We're trying to discover if the evils perpetrated by people brandishing crosses over the centuries are reflected, or not reflected, in the sign of the cross. To answer this question correctly it would greatly help if one had the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on one's heart, and it would not be very helpful if one was suffering from a delusion - such as if one believed with great zeal that one had this Divine Law written on one's heart when in fact one didn't.

Everything would work out best if you could just find a way, somehow, to be in perfect agreement with the Creator of the Universe on the issue of the sign of the cross, and on every other issue which pertains to heaven and hell, redemption and damnation. No doubt these three angels mentioned in Revelation 14 will be of great help to people in locating the True Church. And of course Daniel 12. 1 says the Jews will be delivered when the archangel Michael shows up to deliver them, evidently by converting them to the true version of Christianity. you don't want to get so confused that you think Michael is the Antichrist, and you get so mixed up that you think the Antichrist is the archangel Michael. Talk about massive confusion! So much depends on a making an accurate assessment of the cross. You see, if the cross is evil, then you're on the Devil's side if you say the cross is holy. But if the cross is holy, then you're on the Devil's side if you say the cross is evil. I suppose you don't have to be the archangel Michael to understand something that simple!

Because there are lots of issues besides the sign of the cross which pertain to escaping perdition and attaining heaven, getting the Divine Law inscribed on your heart - having the fulfillment of Jeremiah 31. 31-34 come to pass in your specific case - is really what would work best for you. Again, Jeremiah 31. 31-34,

`But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

We have some logic - Some Easy-To-Understand Logic - which runs as follows: - If the sign of the cross is holy, if the sign of the cross and material crosses are sacred to the Creator of the Universe, then you can not lose, you can not get hurt, if you put the mark of a cross on your forehead. You can not lose if the sign of the cross is sacred and holy. And furthermore, you might be spared horrible torments, as described in Revelation 9 \- so it is very smart to put the mark of a cross on your forehead, provided of course material crosses and the sign of the cross are sacred to God. But, on the other hand, if material crosses and the sign of the cross are evil in the sight of God, then, obviously, you don't want to put the mark of a cross on your forehead or right hand, especially if you can remember what is written in Revelation 14. 11 - `And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night... whoever receives the mark of his name.'

Are the evils perpetrated by people carrying crosses reflected in the cross? Or is the sign of the cross and material crosses holy in the sight of God? And what about this `falling away' mentioned in 2 Thess 2? Could it have happened centuries ago? Jules Michelet writes in his Histoire de France, translated by Walter K. Kelley,

`Every one set the red cross upon his shoulder; every red garment, every piece of red cloth, was torn up for that purpose. Who could enumerate the children and the old women who prepared for war? Who could reckon up the virgins, and the old men trembling under the load of years? You would have laughed to see poor men shoeing their oxen like horses, and drawing their slender stock of provisions and their little children in cars, and these little ones, at every town or castle they perceived, asking in their simplicity, `Is not that Jerusalem?'...Amongst so many thousands of men, there were not eight horses...the whole combined body descended the valley of the Danube, Attila's route, the great thoroughfare of the human race. They lived by pillage upon the way, paying themselves beforehand for their holy war. All the Jews they could lay hold on they tortured to death, deeming it their duty to punish the murderers of Christ before they rescued his tomb. Thus, they arrived ferocious, drenched with gore, in Hungary and the Greek Empire...At last, after the crusaders had for eight days marched barefooted round the walls of Jerusalem [recall Jericho] the whole army began the assault...on Friday the 15th of July, 1099, at 3 o'clock on the day, and at the very hour of the Passion, Godefroy de Bouillon descended from his tower upon the walls of Jerusalem. The city being taken, the massacre was frightful...The native Christians had suffered the most cruel treatment at the hands of the infidels during the siege...The crusaders...in the blind fervor of their zeal, thought that in every infidel they met in Jerusalem, they smote one of the murderers of Jesus Christ...Six hundred thousand men had taken the cross; they were but 25,000 when they left Antioch; and when they had taken the holy city, Godefroy remained to defend it with 300 knights. There were a few more at Tripoli with Raymond, at Edessa with Beaudoin, and at Antioch with Bohemond. Ten thousand men beheld Europe again; what became of the rest? It was easy to find their traces; they were visible through Hungary, the Greek Empire, and Asia, along a road white with bones.'

One of Voltaire's complaints against the Christian pastors was that they gave their blessings to the State. And the State was often cruel and evil, and therefore, the State warred against Christ's teachings of love and mercy. The Encyclopedia Britannica (1963 edition) states,

`Capital punishment was once a common penalty throughout the world. It was inflicted for a large number of crimes, especially during the middle ages and the early modern period, and was often aggravated by torture. Burning at the stake, breaking on the wheel and slow strangulation were methods commonly used. The attitude of legislative authorities toward human life is reflected in the frequent application of the penalty to even petty property offenses. In England during the 18th century death was decreed for several hundred specific offenses, mostly against property. The turning point came in that century, when the rise of democratic political philosophy led to political struggles against the old regimes. The writings of Montesquieu and Voltaire and, especially, C. B. Beccaria's Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1764) proved to be a powerful stimulus to reform.'

Christian society, in the beginning, in the first century AD, was a benevolent society. There were always false brethren, Judas, for instance, and St. Paul gives of the names of others, but Christian society was, generally speaking, very benevolent. But as the grains of sand fell through the hour glass, as the centuries passed, the civilization under the sign of the cross became, generally speaking, malevolent. There was a falling away from the True Faith. The reader will recall that the Roman Empire passed from the condition of a pagan empire into the condition of a Christian empire in the fourth century. But we must be careful how we envision that Christian Roman Empire under Constantine and his successors. An empire might be Christian in some sense, and yet it might also be evil, and very far from apostolic purity.

Four centuries after Christ, St. Augustine acknowledged that Christendom had become a den of wolves masquerading as Christians: `so many wolves within, so many sheep outside.'

Will Durant told us that the pagan laws of Rome condemned to slavery a free woman who married a slave. Under the first Christian Emperor, Constantine ordered the same woman executed, and the slave burned alive.

The Catholic Emperor Gratian decreed that a slave who accused his master of any offense save high treason was to be immediately burned alive, without any inquiry to determine the truth of his accusation.

The Catholic Justinian Code punished homosexual vice with prolonged torture and slow death. That Code authorized the legal precept that guilt could be determined on the testimony of a single child, but the testimony of an entire synagogue of Jews could not be used against a single Catholic.

At the beginning of the 4th century the Christians were a persecuted sect. But later in the 4th century, the Roman Empire ceased to be pagan and become, in some sense, `Christian.' But it embraced a new and tyrannical form of Christianity. Catholic Emperors, with the support or acquiescence of the bishops, had become tyrannical. As we saw earlier, Gibbon described for us the nature of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Catholics,

`They protected all persons of illustrious or honorable rank, bishops and their presbyters, professors of the liberal arts, soldiers and their families, municipal officers, and their posterity to the third generation, and all children under the age of puberty. But a fatal maxim was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the empire, that in the case of treason, which included every offence that the subtlety of lawyers could derive from a hostile intention towards the prince or republic, all privileges were suspended, and all conditions were reduced to the same ignominious level. As the safety of the emperor was avowedly preferred to every consideration of justice or humanity, the dignity of age and the tenderness of youth were alike exposed to the most cruel tortures; and the terrors of malicious information, which might select them as accomplices, or even as witnesses, perhaps, of an imaginary crime, perpetually hung over the heads of the principal citizens of the Roman world.'

Frederic Harrison informed us in 'The Meaning of History' (Macmillian, 1896):

`Take a rapid survey of France in the closing year of the Monarchy. She had not recovered from the desolation of the long wars of Louis XIV., the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the banishment of the Protestants, the monstrous extravagance of Versailles and the corrupt system which was there concentrated. The entire authority was practically absorbed by the Crown, whilst the most incredible confusion and disorganization reigned throughout the administration. A network of incoherent authorities crossed, recrossed, and embarrassed each other throughout the forty provinces. The law, the customs, the organization of the provinces, differed from each other. Throughout them existed thousands of hereditary offices without responsibility, and sinecures cynically created for the sole purpose of being sold. The administration of justice was as completely incoherent as the public service. Each province, and often each district, city, or town, had special tribunals with peculiar powers of its own and anomalous methods of jurisdiction. There were nearly four hundred different codes of customary law. There were civil tribunals, military tribunals, commercial tribunals, exchequer tribunals, ecclesiastical tribunals, and manorial tribunals. A vast number of special causes could only be heard in special courts: a vast body of privileged persons could only be sued before special judges. If civil justice was in a state of barbarous complication and confusion, criminal justice was even more barbarous. Preliminary torture before trial, mutilation, ferocious punishments, a lingering death by torment, a penal code which had death or bodily mutilation in every page, were dealt out freely to the accused without the protection of counsel, the right of appeal, or even a public statement of the sentence. For ecclesiastical offenses, and these were a wide and vague field, the punishment was burning alive. Loss of the tongue, of eyes, of limbs, and breaking on the wheel, were common punishments for very moderate crimes. Madame Roland tells us how the summer night was made hideous by the yells of wretches dying by inches after the torture of the wheel. With this state of justice there went systematic corruption in the judges, bribery of officials from the highest to the lowest, and an infinite series of exactions and delays in trial. To all but the rich and the privileged, a civil cause portended ruin, a criminal accusation was a risk of torture and death...Just before the Revolution the total taxation of all kinds amounted to some sixty millions sterling. Of this not more than half was spent in the public service. The rest was the plunder of the privileged, in various degrees, from king to the mistress's lackey. This enormous taxation was paid mainly by the non-privileged, who were less than twenty-six millions. The nobles, the clergy, were exempt from property-tax, though they held between them more than one half of the entire land of France...Twelve thousand prelates and dignified clergy had a revenue of more than two millions sterling. Four millions more was divided amongst some 60,000 minor priests. Altogether the privileged orders, having hereditary rank or ecclesiastical office, numbered more than 200,000 persons. Besides these, some 50,000 families were entitled to hereditary office of a judicial sort, who formed the `nobility of the robe.'...About a fifth of the soil of France was in mortmain, the inalienable property of the Church. Nearly half of the soil was held in big estates, and was tilled on the métayer system. About one-third of it was the property of the peasant. But though the property of the peasant, it was bound, as he was bound, by an endless list of restrictions. In the Middle Ages each fief had been a kingdom in itself; each lord a petty king; the government, the taxation, the regulation of each fief, was practically the national government, the public taxation, and the social institutions. But in France, whilst the national authority had passed from the lord of the fief to the national Crown, the legal privileges, the personal and local exemptions, were preserved intact. The peasant remained for many practical purposes a serf, even whilst he owned his own farm. A series of dues were payable to the lord; personal services were still exacted; special rights were in full vigour. The peasant, proprietor as he was, still delved the lord's land, carted his produce, paid his local dues, made his roads. All this had to be done without payment, as corvee or forced labour tax. The peasants were in the position of a people during a most oppressive state of siege, when a foreign army is in occupation of a country. The foreign army was the privileged order. Everything and everyone outside of this order was the subject of oppressive requisition. The lord paid no taxes on his lands, was not answerable to the ordinary tribunals, was practically exempt from the criminal law, had the sole right of sporting, could alone serve as an officer in the army, could alone aspire to any office under the Crown...There were tolls on bridges, on ferries, on paths, on fairs, on markets. There were rights of warren, rights of pigeon-houses, of chase, and fishing. There were dues payable on the birth of an heir, on marriage, on the acquisition of new property by the lord, dues payable for fire, for the passage of a flock, for pasture, for wood. The peasant was compelled to bring his corn to be ground in the lord's mill, to crush his grapes at the lord's wine-press, to suffer his crops to be devoured by the lord's game and pigeons. A heavy fine was payable on sale or transfer of the property; on every side were due quit-rents, rent-charges, fines, dues in money and in kind, which could not be commuted and could not be redeemed. After the lord's dues came those of the Church, the tithes payable in kind, and other dues and exactions of the spiritual army. And even this was but the domestic side of the picture. After the lord and the Church came the king's officers, the king's taxes, the king's requisitions, with all the multiform oppression, corruption, and peculation of the farmers of the revenue and the intendants of the province. Under this manifold congeries of more than Turkish misrule, it was not surprising that agriculture was ruined and the country became desolate. A fearful picture of that desolation has been drawn for us by our economist, Arthur Young, in 1787, 1788, 1789. Every one is familiar with the dreadful passages wherein he speaks of haggard men and women wearily tilling the soil, sustained on black bread, roots, and water, and living in smoky hovels without windows; of the wilderness presented by the estates of absentee grandees; of the infinite tolls, dues, taxes, and impositions, of the cruel punishments on smugglers, on the dealers in contraband salt, on poachers, and deserters. It was not surprising that famines were incessant, that the revenue decreased, and that France was sinking into the decrepitude of an Eastern absolutism. `For years,' said d'Argenson, `I have watched the ruin increasing. Men around me are now starving like flies, or eating grass'...This state of things was only peculiar to France by reason of the vast area over which it extended, of the systematic scale on which it was worked, and the intense concentration of the evil. In substance it was common to Europe. It was the universal legacy of the feudal system, and the general corruption of hereditary government. In England, four great crises, that of 1540, 1648, 1688, and 1714, had largely got rid of these evils. But they existed in even greater intensity in Ireland and partly in Scotland; they flourished in the East of Europe in full force; the corruption of government was as great in the South of Europe. The profligacy of Louis XV. was hardly worse in spirit, though it was more disgusting than that of Charles II. The feudalism of Germany and Austria was quite as barbarous as that of France. And in Italy and Spain the Church was more intolerant, more depraved, and more powerful...Schoolboys in France can repeat the historic passage about the woman near Mars-la-Tour, aged twenty-eight, but so bent and furrowed and hardened by labour that she looked sixty or seventy, as she groaned out: `Sir, the taxes and the dues are crushing us to death!'

The End
