The sermon this evening is a continuation of the sermon that I preached this morning on the Roman Catholic Inquisition and so if you weren't here this morning then I would encourage you to go online and get the recording for that. I'm not going to retread that ground that I already covered this morning. Let me just briefly mention that this morning I preached about just the basics of what the Roman Catholic inquisition was, the fact that they tortured and murdered many multitudes of people for over a thousand years and we went in their rationale for how they rationalize it and how they justify it and think that what they did was right and they try to twist scripture but we saw this morning that nothing could be more unbilblical than what they did and that the right way to deal with people who believe in false doctrine is just to avoid them, just to reject them, mark them and avoid them.
This idea of hunting for heretics and putting them on trial and torturing them and killing them is of course highly unbilblical. Not only that but what they call heretics are actually in many cases bible-believing Christians. Now, certainly in the inquisition there were many people with strange believes that were put to death and people who believed in all kinds of false doctrine but bible-believing Christians were also subject to it and so multitudes of them died in the inquisition as well. Let's start out just by reading the scripture here in Revelation 17 as we get in the new material tonight.
Revelation 17 verse 1 the Bible reads, "And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication." So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns and the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls having a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication and upon her forehead was a name written Mystery Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, and I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of martyrs of Jesus and when I saw her I wondered with great admiration."
The title of my sermon tonight is drunken with the blood of the saints. I believe that in these few verses here, we see a perfect picture of the Roman Catholic church, all decked with gold and precious stones and pearls and of course we know Roman Catholicism is one of the richest religions out there ... it is the richest religion and if you think about the apostles and the lifestyle that they lived, it's bizarre that these popes and priests and archbishops and cardinals would think that it's normal to possess such great riches when they're following supposedly Jesus Christ who said, "Sell that thou hast and give unto the poor." Jesus Christ who said, "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the son of man hath not where to lay his head."
Peter, who they claim was the first pope ... the first bishop of Rome according to them ... Peter when he was asked for money from a beggar said, "Silver and gold have I none. But such as I have, give I unto thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth take up thy bed and walk." This is not what we see today in Catholicism. We see all the gold and the wealth and the precious stones and jewelry and all the lavish luxury that we see described here but what's inside is rotten. Just as a whore who would be decked in maybe beautiful a peril or makeup or jewelry that would make her look good but what's inside is rotten and wicked. That's what the Roman Catholic church is. It's all dressed up and looks beautiful and the smells of incense and all the artwork and the paintings but what's inside is wicked and evil and then notice what it says in verse six, "I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus and when I saw her I wondered with great administration," and truly the Roman Catholic church has historically been drunken with the blood of the saints.
Now, let's get into this tonight because this morning I went into the philosophical and we went through all the scriptures and everything about this but now let's get into what the inquisition actually was. I mentioned this morning that the word inquisition means if you ask questions or to interrogate or investigate and what the inquisition was, was an investigating to figure out who was a heretic and by heretic they mean anyone who believes in things other than what the Roman Catholic church teaches.
The inquisition itself began in AD 1231 but what we have to understand is that this idea of hunting for heretics, burning them at the stake, killing, torture goes all the way back to the very beginnings of the Roman Catholic church in the 4th century AD and it even goes on before that in the Roman Empire which the Roman Catholic church is a continuation in many ways of the Roman Empire and so this goes all the way back to the beginning.
When we talk about what's known as the inquisition, that officially began in 1231 AD and it went on until the early 19th century ... the early 1800s in Spain and also in the New World. Even in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A heretic was put to death even in the early 1800s so that would be what would later become the United States of America ... at the time it was not the United States ... but that was the inquisition on American soil.
Now people will try to often minimize the number of deaths and you'll hear these Catholic apologists give deceptive numbers when stating the number of deaths via the inquisition and here is how they doctored the numbers because there were actually three different ways that you could put on trial for heresy during this time. Number one, there were the local churches that would put you on trial for heresy, torture you and kill you if you wouldn't recant or you were relapse heretic. Number two, the local civil authorities could put you on trial for heresy. Just the civil government. The basic ... what we would know today as like the police would just come and arrest you for heresy because they were Catholic-controlled.
They were all Catholics, they were devout and so they had civil laws against heresy or number three, the actual over-arching inquisition itself could put you on trial, put you to death. What they'll do is divide it into those three and then just give you this really small number of, "The inquisition only executed this many people on this year of that year," but what about what the local Catholic churches are doing, the civil authorities or what the church would often do is the church would just have a trial, declare someone a heretic, ex-communicate them and then that person would just be turned over to the civil authorities and the civil authorities would do the dirty work of actually brutally killing that person and then it's like, "Well, we didn't do it. We just excommunicated them from the church," but they're working together as a team of course.
Now, what people will often say about the inquisition and if you would turn to Revelation chapter 2 ... you're already in chapter 17 ... They'll to try and say, "Well, the inquisition wasn't really that brutal because it only executed like 2% of people that were brought before it. 98% of people are not being executed by the inquisition when they are brought before it so therefore it's actually a very lenient institution." This is what these Catholic apologists will try to say.
I listened to an eight-and-a-half-hour lecture by a guy named Thomas F Madden called "Heaven or Heresy," and it was all about inquisition and I thought that this was just going to be a neutral, scholarly treatment of the inquisition because this guy is just from some secular university somewhere but it became very clear that this guy is just a hardcore Roman Catholic apologist just trying to be disguised as a scholar that's going to explain it and by the end of the thing, the guy is just falling all over himself to just explain why everything about the inquisition is totally justified, people are blowing it out of proportion. I mean literally, in eight and a half hours of listening to this guy. It was as if the Roman Catholic church had done no wrong. He wouldn't admit anything that they did wrong.
It's all justified to him and he tried to down play everything that was done and it truly made me sick to listen to this man justifying torture and murder and here is what he would keep saying over and over again. He would say, "The only people that they're putting to death are only the most stubborn heretics where even after the truth was explained to them, they just persisted in their heresy. Even after somebody explained to them why they were wrong and the church was really patient to sit there and try to explain to these people why they were wrong and only just these really stubborn ... they wouldn't change."
Here is the thing about that. The things that they would often have to do to be delivered from being executed to prove that they are not a heretic, or to prove that they're repenting of being a heretic was that they would have to pray to saints and bible-believing Christians often had the fortitude to refuse to pray to saints because praying to saints is pagan and wicked and necromancy.
Often they would have to declare that the wafer that the priest holds up was actually transformed into Jesus' body and if they would not willing to declare that, then they're a heretic, they're unrepentant, they're going to be burned at the stake. They had to state that the church of Rome was infallible. They had to state that the pope was infallible. Often they'd be required to give money to get souls out of purgatory and state that they believed in purgatory.
None of these are things that we believe in so all of us would be heretics. Let me just show you scripturally that when put in this position, as a Christian the Lord expects us to go to our death. He expects us to stand on the word of God, he expects us not to deny him, he expects us not to give in to these types of demands and so we ... if we're actually following the word of God would have been those stubborn heretics.
Look what the Bible says in Revelation 2:10, "Fear none of those things which thou shall suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison that you may be tried and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death," the Bible says, "and I will give thee a crown of life. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges; I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth"
Clearly the Bible commands us to be faithful onto death in the face of this kind of opposition and torment. Go to Revelation chapter 12. Let me say this. Of course if a person were to blaspheme Christ by praying to saints or saying that the stupid cracker that the priest holds up really is Jesus or worship idols, that person would not lose their salvation because it is impossible to lose your salvation. Once you believe on Jesus Christ you have eternal life and so we're not talking about losing your salvation here if under torture you were to say these blasphemous things that the Roman Catholic church was demanding that you would say.
Even Peter himself denied the Lord. That doesn't make you lose ... you can't lose your salvation. God gives us eternal life. He'll never leave us or forsake us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. We've been passed from death onto life. We shall not come to condemnation but yet God wants us to stand up and be faithful onto death and the right testimony is to be faithful onto death and it would be a grievance sin to be like Peter and deny the Lord or to deny the doctrines of the faith.
Look at Revelation chapter 12 verse 10, "And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven "Now comes salvation and strength in the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ for the accuser of our brethren is cast down which accuse them before our God day and night and they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony and they love not their lives onto the death."
Go back to Daniel chapter three and read the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego which is a very applicable story because here they're being asked to bow down to idols and that's exactly what the Roman Catholic church wants you to do. Bow down to idols. That's what many of these so called heretics often had to do in order to be reinstated with the Roman Catholic church. They had to get onto their knees and bow to some saint which is just an idol which is not someone they were supposed to pray to. Thou shall worship the Lord thy God and him only shall thou serve, the Bible says but it says in Daniel chapter 3 verse 12, "The certain men whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; these men, O king, have not regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Then they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?." Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answered and said to the king, "Oh, Nebuchadnezzar. We're not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of thy hand oh king but if not," look at that statement. "But if not be known unto thee oh king, we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou has set up."
Here they could have just dropped to their knees and said, "Well, in my heart I'm praying to God even though I'm in front of an idol when I dropped to my knees." But they took a stand and they were willing to die for what they believed in and the Bible says, even onto us in the New Testament, "Be thou faithful onto death and I will give thee a crown of life." This is what God expects.
I don't believe that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were the only ones who were saved out of everybody in the whole province of Babylon but they were the ones who had the guts to take the stand and to go to the fiery furnace. They didn't know that they were going to be saved. They even said, if not ... if God doesn't save us we're still not going to bow down to your false god.
Let me just go through the basics of what the inquisition entailed. The inquisition ... and again we already talked about the fact that the local churches and the civil authorities were also enforcing this stuff ... but the inquisition was basically a travelling heresy-hunting organ of the Roman Catholic church so the inquisitor would show up to town and the first thing that he would do is he would get everybody together and preach a sermon and he preached a sermon about heresy and the dangers of heresy and how we need to expose the heresy. Then he would declare a 30-day grace period. Usually it's about 30 days of grace period and during this 30-day grace period, if you turned yourself in as a heretic or that you'd been a heretic or been guilty of some of the things that they're trying to expose then you'd receive leniency and mercy or if you ratted out your friends during the grace period you'll receive leniency.
Later if it's found that you knew about people who were heretics and didn't tell them, you're beyond the grace period now. Then you're going to be dealt with severely and harshly by the inquisition. You can imagine that obviously this just creates a whole bunch of false confessions and false accusations because people want to get in under that grace period so they're thinking, "Man, are all my beliefs legit or are they all orthodox? Have I been going to mass enough or is there someone in town who just doesn't like me that could accuse me of something?"
A lot of people would just confess to stuff that they didn't even do just to get it over with because if they confess, "Yup. I've been into heresy," then they'd get something lenient like sometimes they just had to wear around a big yellow cross to show like, "Hey. I use to be a heretic," and they had to wear that for a while or a red cross and in the Spanish it was known as a San Benito that they'd have to wear the penitential garb around. This is where later in Nazi Germany you had the star that they would wear. That actually goes back to also the inquisition. The yellow crosses and the yellow star of [inaudible 00:18:54] that they would have to wear around in the inquisition.
The bottom line is that it led to all kinds of false accusations, false confessions because they'd be given just mild punishments of just a short imprisonment or, "Make a pilgrimage over here. Go on a crusade over here. Wear around a yellow cross for a while," then at least you're saving your skin from the horrors of what could happen to you after the grace period is over.
After the grace period is over, when people are accused they often didn't know even what they're been accused of. They weren't always told, "Hey, this is what you're been accused of," or "This is who accused you." There is no facing of the accuser and many times these people would be tortured ... and in fact you can read transcript after transcript because the inquisition kept very detailed records in many cases where they have a word by word, even giving you every moan and groan out of the people's mouths as they're been tortured. What they said and as you read this stuff you'll read things like where people are being tortured and they're begging for mercy and they're just literally saying over and over again, "I don't know what to say. I don't know what to ... I don't even know what you're accusing me. What do I confess? What do you want me to confess? What do you ... Stop it. What do you want me to say?" That's how it reads reading these transcripts.
They don't even know what they're been ... because they just tell them, "Hey. Search your heart and tell us what you did? What's the heresy you've been into?" And they're like, "I don't even know." These people might have even been devout Catholics in many cases. They were being falsely accused. Now this lecturer ... Thomas F Madden ... this devil .. and all I can say about this guy after studying the inquisition and then listening to this guy's lecture is that the guy is an evil, sick person because this is what he says, "Torture was something that they would use to get at the truth.
In our modern time we have these views about personal rights and respecting people's rights but back then they were more interested in the truth. They would actually think we were really unjust the way we're constantly just letting guilty people go free. They wanted to get to the truth and so torture was a way to get to the truth," and he tried to downplay the torture and say, "They would only torture people just for a very short time. Usually it was like five minutes," he says. "Like five minutes that they'd be tortured, maybe fifteen but it wasn't some big, long drawn out thing," and he says it just so calmly, "It wasn't a big deal," and he said often they found that it was a lot more effective not necessarily to torture the person who was actually being accused but to actually torture the person's friends and the people that knew them because he said, "Sometimes if you're torturing the person who did it or is accused of doing it, if he confessed to some of this stuff, they would end up being executed if they were a lapsed heretic for example or were involved in serious heresy so there wasn't really a big motivation for them to confess because if they confess they are going to die in many cases.
Now of course many people, if they confess they get off with lighter punishment so in cases like that, they would torture people who weren't even accused of anything just for not testifying against that person so they'll get your friend or your relative and torture them just to get at the truth though. The Catholics, they love to go on and on about how this was only to get information that wasn't otherwise available what they do was kind of torture and they said that it was never used as a punishment. Scared me there for a second. It was only to get information out of people. Thank heavens and he tries to down play it and in eight and a half hours this Catholic devil who justifies torture and murder, he only lists ... in eight and a half hours of talking about the inquisition ... he only lists one torture method and he tries to downplay it and try to down play it and make it sound like it's not a big deal.
Listen, I'm going to keep the sermon mild tonight because I don't want to horrify small children or anything. The stuff that I'm ... I'm censoring huge amounts of stuff from this sermon that's just so horrific I'm not even going to bring it up in the presence of [inaudible 00:23:32]. If you want to get all the gory details, Foxe's book of martyrs is one book that you could read that just goes on and on, just case after case for all the gory details. I'm not going to get really gory but I'm going to mention a little bit about the torture just to give you a feeling of what we're talking about.
The Bible talks about it in Hebrews 11, people being stoned and sawn asunder and it said others were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection but here is what he describes as ... he said that this was the usual torture method and he tries to downplay it and make it sound like it's not that bad. He said, "Basically they just put a rope on the person's wrist and put it behind their back like this and suspend them from the ceiling where they're basically hanging like this and it's pulling their arms behind their back and they do that for five minutes and ..." and he downplays it like it's not a big deal.
Here is what he doesn't tell you and plug your kid's ears if you don't want them to hear this. Here is the part he doesn't tell you. What he doesn't tell you is that when they would do that to the person, it would rip the arms out of the shoulder joints completely out of socket and blood would come out of the person's mouth. That is the part that they don't tell you in their little Catholic lecture. What they don't tell you is that after someone went through that torture, that person would be crippled and diseased for the rest of their life. That's what they conveniently leave out.
In the modern scholar lecture series "Heaven or Heresy" by Thomas F Madden ... this scholar. He's not a scholar. He's a Roman Catholic, devil-worshiping idolater who thinks torture and murder are fine. That's what he is. Do you think that's fine to do that to somebody? Somebody who's not even condemned of anything, someone who hasn't even been found guilty, someone who's just maybe not even wiling to testify against someone else? They would this to them and this is what they'll do. They'll do it one time and this is just one method and that's probably the mildest method I could mention from the pulpit without horrifying children. They'll do it one time and then according to Roman law ... even before Roman Catholic church existed and this continued into the Roman Catholic church ... any confession that's made under torture or any testimony that's made under torture, they have to make again when they're not being tortured. Here is why. Because when people are being tortured they'll pretty much say anything. That's why it doesn't get to the truth.
Torture brings out lies because people will say anything to make it stop. They don't even care what they're saying. After the torture is over, then they would say, "Now we need to say that again now that you're not being tortured," and if the person would say, "Well, you know what, I lied. I just said that because you were torturing me and I wanted you to stop." Well, during these torture sessions they always had a physician there so the physician would put their bones back in joint, get all the bones back in their sockets, get everything put together, make sure the person's not going to die and then they'll do it a second time and get the person to say it again and then if the person after the second time through says, "Hey. I lied again. You guys were torturing me. I didn't really mean that." Usually they'd only do it two or three times because they're so lenient.
Then the person walks away crippled and maimed and diseased for the rest of their life because their bones have been ripped out of their sockets and so forth. This is what they failed to tell you. They make it sound like, "You just go through five minutes of the worst pain and then it's over. Then it's behind you." First of all, going through these types of intense pain, even for 15 minutes does brain damage that is irreparable. You hear about people even getting PTSD just from being in scary situations or going through pain and things but going through that kind of pain for an extended period of time does brain damage. Your body just can't handle it. You go into shock but not only that, these people were often physically maimed and physically had wounds and infections and were just deformed and crippled after this thing for the rest of their life.
That doesn't go into the statistic of how many people they killed. You see these numbers and you say, "Well, it's only like a million people that you murdered. They only murdered one or two million people during the dark ages. That's all," or they'll try to downplay it, "It's only a few hundred thousand people." Yeah, except that 98% of the people aren't in that figure because they didn't kill them. They just tortured, maimed them or even if the people didn't get tortured and maimed you know what they did to them? They forced them to accept the Catholic church and Catholic doctrine. How many souls did they damn by forcing people to be Catholic and telling them, "Hey, you can't even listen to the gospel. You can't even listen to heretics." By the way heretic is somebody who believes salvation is by faith alone.
Now, true a heretic could be other things that are heresy like people who deny the deity of Christ or there was a guy who brought before the inquisition in Santa Fe, New Mexico for performing a wedding ceremony between two dogs. Yes, there are some weirdos for sure but the point is though bible-believing Christians are in that category of being a heretic so-called by the Roman Catholic church.
What about all the people who are forced to deny the gospel, deny the truth of scripture and sign on to a bunch of superstitious hocus pocus and yeah, if they were already saved they didn't lose their salvation but they displeased the Lord by doing so but not only that though, what about all the people who just didn't get to hear the gospel because of just the fear and the terror caused by the inquisition for almost a thousand years where people are just afraid to even switch, to even look at the other side of what the scripture says. "Hey, we better just stay Catholic. We better just listen to what the priest says. We don't want to be the next guy being tortured or being burned at the stake or whatever."
By the way, the lovely torture method that he tries to justify and say isn't that bad, this was done by the United States to a guy in Iraq in the Abu Ghraid prison. They tortured a guy like this to get some information from him and he died as a result of having that torture take place. He actually suffocated because it messes with your breathing and a lot of people would have permanent respiratory trouble after that kind of torture. He actually died as a result so that torture can easily kill you. That's why they had to have a doctor standing by, making sure that you stay alive throughout the torture.
By the way, the United States and many of the people in our government think that using torture is acceptable to get information out of people that are uncondemned prisoners. Now, one of the guys that was really outspoken about this was the supreme court justice Antonin Scalia and Antonin Scalia said that torture does not violate the eight amendment of the bill of rights because the bill of rights says cruel and unusual punishment shall not be inflicted but here is what Scalia said, "Well, torture is not a punishment."
I wonder where he got that argument. Let's see. Antonin Scalia. What religion is he again? A Roman Catholic. Of course Antonin Scalia, the wicked Roman Catholic evil judge that he was, of course he's going to say, "Torture is fine because it's not a punishment. It's just to get information." It's exactly what the Catholic theologians will tell you. Why it was okay for them to torture innocent people.
If somebody does something wrong, you can't punish them as a torture but you can punish people who have done nothing wrong but then it's not a punishment because you're torturing innocent people so that's not a punishment. This guy is on the supreme court? More like supreme idiot. What kind of ridiculous logic is it that when you're torturing somebody it's not a punishment yet you're punishing them for not talking. You're punishing them for not ratting out someone else. "Well I'm a conservative so I [inaudible 00:32:31]." Shut up and quit listening to a bunch of conservative talk radio that teaches you that torture is fine. That's not the Bible talking. That's not Jesus talking. You can read the Old Testament, you can read the New Testament and God never gave us the authority, he never gave the government any authority to torture anyone. That's nowhere in God's law this thing of torturing to get essential information.
It's a fraud. Antonin Scalia is being tortured right now because he's burning in hell. It's so funny to me how people have all these conspiracies about how ... Scalia ... They killed Scalia because he's this righteous guy. They took him out and blah blah. He is 79 years old and he is overweight. That's why he died. Okay. When you're 79, you die. It's called old age. "Oh, but the pillow was over his face," and whatever. He's 79 and when you're overweight, that also reduces your life expectancy. He's lucky to have made it to 79 with his lifestyle. "Oh, it's a conspiracy."
What because Satan cast out Satan? Goodnight. The guy is a devil. "Oh, but he's conservative." Yeah, Pro-war, pro-torture, pro-Catholic. Look don't come at me with your political junk. I don't want to hear it. I'm interested in the Bible and theology. I'm not going to sit there and praise the wicked, praise some ... how can you be an American and be patriotic and be a so-called conservative and not stand on the eight amendment. You're just as much of a liberal as if somebody doesn't stand on the second amendment. If you're going to sit there and say, "Well, I think cruel and unusual punishments can be inflicted," well why don't you just say, "I think the right to bear arms can be infringed. I think that maybe the freedom of religion is overrated."
Look, if you're going to sit there and claim to be this flag-waving, constitutional freedom guy then you have to stand on the eight amendment too. It's says excessive fines shall not be imposed. Cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted. Listen, water boarding is a cruel and unusual punishment which ... guess where it came from. You're not going to believe this. The Spanish inquisition.
In the Spanish inquisition, a towel was used, water was poured on the nose. They went through basically the water boarding procedure in the Spanish inquisition. The United States government water boarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in one month. Did you hear that? They water boarded ... this is on the record. They openly admit to this. He's often known as KSM ... Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was water boarded 183 times in one month alone and they've been people who try to say, "Water board is not torture.. It's like in your head dumped under water."
There was a conservative radio host named Mann Calmoler in Chicago and he said, "Water boarding is not torture." He wanted to prove it to everybody so he went on live TV and submitted to water boarding and he put a little toy cow in his hand as sort of like an eject button where when he can't take it anymore, he throws the cow out of his hand to let them stop ... which by the way people that were being tortured in the inquisition, they were being tortured by the US government, they didn't have that option. They didn't give them that ... "Hey is a toy cow so you can drop it when you can't take it any more." They water boarded Mann Calomoler and literally, the guy ... I don't even know if he lasted 10 seconds. He didn't last at all. It's just a few seconds and the guy's thrown in the cow and he says right there ... because you got to get his reaction right there when it's happening. He says, "I don't want to admit this but it's torture." He says, "It's the worst thing I've ever experienced," and he said, "If I would have known how bad it was, I wouldn't even have done it."
Thank God he at least admitted that he is wrong but what choice does he have when the cow is just getting hurled immediately. He had to tell the truth at the point. Of course it's torture. The reason our government likes this particular brand of torture is that it doesn't permanently disfigure someone where people would look at it and be horrified like, "Wow. What did you do?" Here is the thing. I guarantee you that that guy has completely lost his mind after being water boarded that many hundreds of times. That was one month and you will lose your mind. The human mind can only take so much of that kind of abuse. People will go crazy and lose their mind.
You say, "Yeah, but he is the mastermind of 9/11." Really, how do you know that? What's the evidence for that? Why was he never brought to trial? None of these guys ... all these guys at Guantanamo bay and Abu Ghraid and Obama himself came out and said, "We don't have enough evidence to convict these guys." If you don't have evidence to convict somebody then you have to let him go. What are you doing? This is all part of freedom and liberty where you don't have a government that's allowed to just arrest someone and take them off uncondemned and torture them to the point of insanity or death.
"They only do that for terrorists." Yeah except now Christians are going to be the terrorists. The heretics, that's those people denying Christ. No, it's you. That's the [inaudible 00:38:28]. That the [inaudible 00:38:30] goof ball. No, its you. That's David [inaudible 00:38:34], that's [Wiko 00:38:34]. No, its you. Fundamentalists Christians which means people who take the Bible literally. People who home-school their children, people who are in the second amendment. There have been bulletins put out to law enforcement, these are potential terrorists. They already tried that recently where they put that out and they're seeing how people react to it and seeing how the police react and kind of testing the waters with that.
I digress. The sermon is not about the US using torture but I will say this, if you're a bible-believing Christian and you're going to sit there and come at me with Romans 13 in obeying the law of the land, well let me just give you some news. The constitution is the highest law on our land so obeying the law of the land means no torture. That's the eighth amendment and if you believe in obeying the law of the land, how about keeping vows and covenants. We have treaties that we've made with people where we have promised not to torture anyone so how can you be a bible-believing Christian and believe in this dishonest, lying to other countries, lying to our own people, throwing out the rule of law and be for torture and how can you be for torture when God never prescribed tortured in his law which is perfect.
I'm not for torture for one minute and I don't believe there is a great conspiracy to kill Antonin Scalia by the establishment. He is the establishment. The supreme court is made up of five Catholics and three Jews. That does not represent America. America is mostly evangelical Christians. America is mostly people who would identify as a Baptist or an evangelical Christian. Catholics make up about 25% of the population at the most. It's probably closer to 20% of the population which is a lot. 20% to 25% of the population of the US is Catholic, that's part of why a sermon like this needs to be preached but how can you represent America which is like 50% claiming to be an evangelical Christian or a protestant or whatever when you don't have any of that on the supreme court. It's just all Catholics and Jews. Jews represent less than 2% of the population. Catholics represent 20% but they just dominate the supreme court, dominate a lot of the power structure in our country because the devil is elevating this kind of people to power so they bring in torture, so they can bring in wickedness, so they can bring in all manner of evil upon us.
Somebody told me, "How dare you attack the Catholic church," and then they tried to say the supreme court is wicked for allowing abortions. I'm like, "Wait a minute. There's enough Catholics on the supreme court to overturn abortion." If the Catholics are so pro-life then why don't they tell their five pro-life justices to overturn [inaudible 00:41:27] isn't five a majority in the supreme court? Why don't they overturn that thing? Why don't the Pope issue them a papal bowl because it's always papal bowl whenever that guy talks. That's why. Anyway that's another subject.
Anyway, look at Acts chapter 25. Again, just to understand what we mean by the inquisition, this is an institution set up by the Pope, set up by the Roman Catholic Church. It officially started in 1231 AD. Then the Spanish inquisition is the most famous. That started at the end of the 15th century around the time that Columbus sailed the ocean blue because if remember it was King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain that sent Columbus on his journey. They actually were the ones in power that set up the Spanish inquisition actually. Ferdinand and Isabella, they set the thing up in the late 15th century, late 1400s and the Spanish inquisition went on until the early 1800s in places even like Brazil and Mexico and even Santa Fe, New Mexico and all manner of new world places because the inquisition came over with the Spaniards and with the Portuguese both because the Portuguese inquisition was similar.
Then there was what was known as the Roman inquisition that mainly dealt with Italy and the Roman inquisition was something that came about during the Protestant reformation mainly targeting protestants. Now, when you bring this kind of stuff up ... and I just wanted to show verse 16 there where you're on Acts 25, "To my answered it's not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face and have licence to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him."
This is the Apostle Paul demanding his rights and saying, "Look." No. I'm sorry. This isn't him demanding his rights. That's a different scripture. This is where another Roman leader is going to bat for the Apostle Paul saying, "Hey, wait a minute. We don't do that in the Romans' land. We have to have the accuser face to face and he should be able to answer the accusation." This is a basic tentative justice that the inquisition did away with in many cases where you didn't even know who is accusing you so how can you answer to an accusation when you don't have the accuser face to face and you don't know who is accusing you.
Now, it's amazing. I don't want to get off on too much of a rabbit trail with this but there are so many things that we have today in the United States that come from the inquisition. I mentioned to you just about how some of the same torture methods are even being used today but not only that, the concept of using prison as a long-term punishment that actually also comes out of the inquisition because most of the time in ancient history a prison or jail was a temporary holding cell until a person would be tried and condemned and then they would receive a temporal punishment but this idea of sentencing people to long prison terms ... years and years in prison ... that comes from the inquisition. Also in ancient times, in order for someone to be charged with the crime there had to be an accuser and if you study the Old Testament there is an accuser that comes forth and says, "Hey. I'm accusing this person," and that person has to publicly accuse them and then there are punishments for falsely accusing someone, bearing false witness against your neighbor.
Well, the Roman Catholic Inquisition gave us this innovation of instead of an accuser coming after you with a crime, it's the society in general. The State versus. That's how crimes are now. The State versus Steven Anderson. State of Arizona versus Steven Anderson. Where is there no ... and you're like, Well who is the plaintiff? Who is the accuser and there isn't one because it's all victim-less crimes and just the plaintiff is the state. That actually comes out of the inquisition as well. That concept of not needing an accuser but just having just a general "you're an offence to society. It's society versus you or the town versus you. The nation versus you. The church versus you," or whatever.
Some of these unjust things have crept into our legal system. If we stuck with the Bible Old Testament's justice system we would still have the accusers necessary, we would still have a legal system that didn't imprison people and do all these things that are not biblical. Where did I have you turn? Are you still in Acts 25? Go to Hebrew chapter 11 if you would. Hebrews chapter 11.
Let me say this, a lot of people what they'll say to this when you present them with this information and they want to defend the Roman Catholic Church, one of the biggest things that you'll hear over and over again from Catholics is, "Oh yeah. The Protestants did the same thing. Here is where the Protestants tortured a Catholic" or "Here is where Protestants murdered people over here," but here is the thing about that. The Protestants learned it from the Catholics. If you look at what the Protestants are, they're basically 90% Catholic. I call Protestants Catholism like. I'm not a Protestant, I'm a Baptist. I'm not Catholic like. I'm not a Protestant Catholic. I'm not a Catholic at all. I don't believe in the Universal Church. I believe in local churches and so as independent baptist I don't go on calling myself Protestant. Methodist are Protestants, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Anglicans. They're the Protestants so telling me that, "These Protestants over here, they use torture and they burn people at the stake." Of course they did because they are almost like Catholics in many cases.
There are varying degrees of Protestant. I believe that there are Protestants that are saved because they are varying degrees of how Roman and paganised they are or how much into gospel they really are because Protestantism does give lip service at least to saying that salvation is by faith and that the scripture alone ... sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia ... but the thing about that is though that in practice that's not really what they believe. Most of them are a bunch of baby baptizers and pagans. That doesn't work as an explanation because two wrongs don't make a right.
How can you sit there and say, "Yeah, we tortured people. Yeah, we murdered a million people but so did the Protestants, so did these people," or they'll point to England in 18th century had the death penalty for stealing a shilling but here is the thing about that. This idea of everybody is doing it, or this is what they'll say, "Well, back then that's what the world was like back then. Everybody did it back then." Here is why that doesn't fly because we have the Bible here which is from before back then and it doesn't have any of that. If we read the Old Testament, we read about the nation of Israel, we read the New Testament and we don't see this junk then how can you sit there and say that everybody is doing it.
No, the Bible said that if you steal you pay four-fold. It doesn't say death for stealing. This, "Oh, everybody was doing it," and then you try to tell the Muslims that Mohammed was a pervert for marrying a nine-year old and then they'll say, "Everybody was doing it in that area at that time." No, they weren't. It's a stupid logic of just, "He did it too." It's like if you caught a toddler, "You were eating out of the cookie jar." "So did he."
Now you say, "Wait a minute Pastor Anderson. Why are you making the Catholic church own up to stuff that they didn't do? That was hundreds of years ago. That wasn't the current Catholics. That wasn't Pope Francis. That was a different Pope," but here is the thing that you have to understand. The whole point of being a Catholic is that you believe that the church is the authority and that the church is infallible and that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ on earth. Here is the thing. In order to be Catholic and really believe that the church of Rome is the pillar and ground of the truth, you have to justify all this stuff because if you're going to say, "Well, the church was just completely out of lurch for a thousand years and massacring innocent people, then you'd be admitting that the church is wrong majorly and then you'd actually go to the Bible and read it for yourself and then you'd be baptist.
Catholics will tell you. You can't read the Bible on your own. That's a private interpretation. The church will tell you but is the church the pillar and ground of the truth when they taught lies and tortured innocent people and had no sense of justice throughout this whole process? Look, the reason why the Catholic church should have this pinned on them today is because they still won't admit that they were wrong. They still justify it to this day. Let me give you an example. I was listening to an audio book this week. Part of the preparation I did a lot of reading for this sermon and one of the things I went through was a Catholic apologist. "Seven Lies that Are Told About the Catholic Church" by this woman Dianne ... I don't know how to pronounce her name ... Moschar. This Dianne Moschar, here is what she says at the end of the chapter on the inquisition.
"Were there cruel inquisitors in some places? Of course. Were methods of interrogation distasteful to modern sensibilities? Sure but given it's formidable task of guarding the purity of the faith in Christian souls however the overall record of the inquisition in dealing with heresy is not only defensible but admirable."
That's the last words of the chapter on the inquisition. Its not just defensible ... it's not something that we can just defend when our non-Catholic friends confront us about it. She said, no. It's admirable. We should admire. That kind of reminds me of when I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus I wondered with great admiration. It's admirable. No, what was admirable was the saints giving their lives. What's admirable was those who lost their lives not onto the death and were faithful to Christ onto the death and they laid out their life for the cause of Christ. That will cause us to wonder with great admiration. She has great admiration for torture. She says that, "Okay. The methods of interrogation were distasteful." You call that distasteful when somebody's joints are being ripped out of their sockets and they're literally being torn apart ... and look. We're not even getting into the worst methods here. I'm going with the mildest methods.
Read Foxe's book of martyrs. It's just crazy the stuff that they did. It's unbelievable. You say, "Everything that's in there is not really true." Okay. Is any of it true because if one tenth of it is true then the Roman Catholic Church must be the most satanic wicked institution that's ever existed on this planet. If one tenth of what's in Foxe's book of martyrs and most of what's in there is well ... all the stuff for the modern era ... 1300s, 1400s, 1500s, 1600s ... all that stuff ... modern to them when it was written I mean ... is all really well documented.
When they talk about the ancient world, some of it is legend. I would skip chapter one in Foxe's book of martyrs because it's all just legend from a thousand years ago but all the stuff that they document, they give the dates, they give the people's names, they give the story, they give all the facts, all the gory, gruesome details ... if you have a strong stomach whip it up. It used to be the best selling book in England, second only to the Bible. In fact it was on the pulpit of virtually every church in England at one time. They had a Foxe's book of martyrs and a Bible and they'd read from it in sermons. This is something that kept England from going back into Catholism because there was a constant pressure to bring them back into Catholism but let me say this. The Roman Catholic Church is and always has been a satanic, wicked institution that is rotten to it's core and if it was rotten at the core then, then it's rotten at the core now whether they're still doing it today and if you would turn over to look where we in Hebrews ... Well, flip over to Proverbs. We already did that.
Proverbs chapter five. It's the same church folks. They brag about how, "Your church was just founded 10 years ago. Faithful were a Baptist Church. Our church goes back 2000 years. The apostle ..." No. Your church goes back even further to the tower of Babel. Your church goes back even further to Cain who killed his brother Abel and spilled his blood on the ground because his own works were evil and his brother's were righteous. You can trace your religion all the way back to Cain. You can trace it all the way back to every wicked tyrant that's ever lived on this earth and this wicked evil spirit of the lust for power and the lust for blood and carnage.
If the Catholic church was a great whore and a wicked institution then, it's a wicked institution now because even though they've changed somethings on the surface, they're still saying, "What we did was admirable. What we did was right," and not only that but they're claiming, "we have a succession of true, men of God, Popes ordained by God all the way back to the beginning." That would include all the Popes that presided over and invented and came up with all these stuff.
What's ironic is that the Pope today, Pope Francis would be burned at the stake as a heretic himself because he's sitting there and saying, "Atheists are saved," The Catholic church has changed. They've changed. Now there are some people today that just have this weird idea that we're still living in the protestant reformation and so they think that the Roman Catholic Church is exactly as it was then and that they're still doing all this stuff. Well, they're not.
Here is the thing, the Catholic church has gone into a different phase now of the devil's plan where now instead of saying, "You have to be Catholic or we're going to burn you at the stake." Now they're saying, "All religions are paths to God." That's what they've morphed into now. With their Vatican two council and they say now that the Jews didn't really Jesus. That was just a big mix up and they're saying that, "now we want to reach out to Muslims and Jews." Pope Francis said even Atheist are going to heaven as long as they do good works. Did you hear him say it? I heard him say it and I understand Spanish too so I heard him say stuff even in the original language ... in Espanyol. He was saying it. Papa.
He basically is this ecumenical guy who trying to bring in the new world order of a global religion ... one world religion is what he is pushing for ecumenicalism but they are still claiming that from day one they have been the bastion of truth. The one true church they say. No. They have been a filthy, demonic, cruel, evil, implacable, unmerciful whore. The great whore about drunken with the blood of the saints. The sadistic inquisitors and all the people that participated in it.
Let's just look at some scriptures. I'm just going to close on this. Some scriptures about the whore because if we go back to proverbs I believe that the Bible is painting the Roman Catholic Church there as a great whore. As one who is decked in gold, precious stones, pearls, drunken with the blood of the saints et cetera. Well, look at what the Bible has to say about a whore and tell me if this applies to the Roman Catholic Church ... because listen, it's still the same whore that it's always been. It might have changed it's makeup design, changed it's ensemble.
It used be a more vibrant whore that had more customers, more of the kings of Europe and more clout. Now it's an old dirty toothless whore, it's what it has become but it's still the same whore ... still the same filth and it still has no repentance for the sins of it's past days and it has it's own new sins that's into of ecumenicalism and whatever else.
Look at Proverbs 5:3, "For the lips of a strange woman drop as a honey comb and her mouth is smoother than oil," it's about a whorish woman, "but her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps take hold on hell. Less thy should ponder the path of life or ways are movable that thou can not know them."
You see, the Roman Catholic Church has changed it's doctrine over the years. You think that they have taught and believed the same things since day one? No, they're constantly bringing in new weird doctrines of "We just came out with a doctrine." What. In the 20th century. Is that when they came out with Maria [inaudible 01:00:51]? Yeah, that's German but when they came out with this thing of Maria didn't die. She ascended to heaven.
That was a bunch of papal bull from the 20th century that they came out with. Speaking ex-cathedral or whatever. They're constantly coming out with new doctrines and if you studied the history of the Roman Catholic Church, they've changed doctrines and come out with a .. just like now the Pope today doesn't sound anything like a Medieval Pope. Same whore but their ways are movable. They've changed their doctrine.
Look at chapter seven verse seven. Tell me if this applies to the great whore of the Catholic church. "Her house is the way to hell going down to the chambers of death." How about chapter nine verse eighteen ... these are all about the whorish woman and they have a spiritual application for the Roman Catholic Church, "But he knoweth not that the dead there and that her guests are in the depths of hell."
I'm here to tell you tonight that Roman Catholism is not Christianity. It is not the true church. It never has been the true church. I don't care if you want to go all the way back to some proto Catholic church father from the second century AD. He was still a liar. Still a heretic. Still a fraud. Even John himself who was living in the same generation with people who'd walked and talked with Christ. He walked and talked with Christ. He is preaching to people, many of whom received Christ. He said, "Even now are there many anti-Christs, many false prophets are gone out into the world," he said.
Let me tell you something. That they have always been wicked, always being apostate, always been a whore, always been sorcerers and always been idolitarists, pagans and they've never been the true church and there is no salvation in that church and the guests are in the depths of hell today. Her house is the way to hell. It's a one-way ticket to hell in that Roman Catholic Church. That's what you get from eating that cracker. That's what you get from doing all this kind of stupidity and superstitious pagan nonsense. Why don't you go get a rabbit's foot while you're at it. Get your little rabbit's foot and your beads and, "Hail Mary full of grace," swinging those beads all over the place. Swing them high, swing them low. Swing them Mary. Go, go.
You say, "That's blasphemy." I blaspheme the Catholic church tonight. I despise the Catholic church. I defy the Catholic church. May the Catholic church rot and Hallelujah. Let her smoke go up forever and ever. Wicked but we need to reach Catholics with the gospel. It's not their fault. 90% of Catholics don't even know what they believe. Hello. 90% of Catholics or more, they don't even know what they believe and thank God Catholics are some of the easiest people to win to the Lord. Why? Because they don't know what they believe so you walk up and show them from the Bible and many times they will be saved and reject that superstitious hocus pocus and you know why they even had to have an inquisition in the first place? Because Catholics are so easy to get saved.
It's so easy to disprove their foolish religion, that's why they had to suppress everything, they had to burn all the books. That's why they have to persecute and try to stop people from telling them. Sadly, Hispanics are predominantly Catholic. There is a reason why today Hispanics are Catholics and here is the reason why. The Spanish inquisition. That's why friend. You want to know why Mexico is so given to idolatry and Catholism? It's for one reason, because of the Spanish inquisition because all throughout Europe when people are preaching the gospel all over Europe and people are preaching that salvation is by grace through faith and they were not only Protestants but there were Baptists and other people that are just opening the Bible and reading it and believing in it and preaching it.
You know why that never really took on in Spain like it took on everywhere else? It's because the Spanish inquisition. People were too scared to bring the gospel into Spain. They're too scared to send a missionary into Spain, too scared to get up and start preaching the truth because the Spanish inquisition had them terrified. That came over with the Spaniards into Mexico with the Portuguese into Brazil, all throughout the new world. That same fear and terror of, "Hey. You better not bring that doctrine over here. We're Catholic," and as a result even in 2016, most of the Mexican people are in the darkness of Roman Catholism. Yet all of South America is in darkness today spiritually and they have that great idol ... that great molten image outside of Rio de Janiero of that long-haired hippie that they call Jesus who is not the Jesus of the Bible.
I'm telling you, we need to reach these people with the light of the glory ... Thank God the inquisition is over. Whatever the conspiracies out there tell you and some conspiracies are true and some are false but the inquisition is over. Just so you know. It ended in the early 1800s. That means we can go and freely preach the gospel. We can even go to Spain itself and preach the gospel. We can go to Brazil, we can go to Mexico. We could go down the street and preach the gospel to Catholic Hispanics and win them onto the Lord. With the tear in the eye, with the gospel in hand, with the love of Christ in our hearts.
It's not their fault. A lot of people that hear a sermon like this, they're like, "Hey, you hate Catholics." No I don't. I love Catholics. My wife was raised Catholic but you know what, she'll be the first to tell you that she's glad that she got out of that hocus pocus religion because it's false. We need to preach the glorious gospel to Catholics and don't ever come up to me with this junk of "Well, Catholics are Christians too." If I had a nickel for every time I had somebody tell me this, I would be a wealthy me. "I know this guy who is a Catholic priest and he actually preaches the gospel and he is trying to win people to the Lord from within the Catholic church." Baloney. His guests are in the depths of hell. What a fraud. There is no salvation in that rotten church.
The only way that I would believe that anyone who goes to a Catholic church is saved is if they're being brought there against their will. Anybody who chooses to go to that place and says, "I want to go," and listen to this mumbo jumbo and see the guy throw a bunch of poof dust around and hand out a bunch of saltines and whatever. You know what, anybody who willingly goes to that place and says, "This is a true church. This is my church." That person is going to hell because that's not the gospel. The gospel is salvation by faith alone and that's not what the Catholic teaches. The Catholic church teaches salvation through the sacraments of confessing to the priest and going through all the rituals and whether it is baptism, whether it is cataclysm, confirmation, the last rights. That stuff can't get you to heaven.
The Catholic church is false. If somebody is being dragged there by their wife, then they need to man up and pick her up and put her over their shoulder and take her down to the baptist church. If they're being dragged there by their husband, if they're being dragged there by their parents, okay that person very likely could be saved but anybody who just chooses, "I'm going to the Catholic church," they're not a Christian because Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice. They don't follow strangers. They know not the voice of strangers. They know the voice of the shepherd," and there is nothing stranger than that Catholic mass.
If you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you, the Holy Spirit is going to reveal to you that that is not Christianity. Plain and simple. God didn't say, "Infiltrate the Catholic church and be a missionary from the inside." No. He said, "Come out from among them to be separate sayeth the Lord because the temple of God which is your body has no fellowship with idols." What agreement has the temple of God with idols? None. Come out from them and be separate sayeth the Lord and touch not the unclean thing.
That priest is so filthy and unclean and you want him putting a wafer in your mouth? I wouldn't eat after anything that guy touched. I guess now they've gotten more liberal my wife said because originally you had to get on your knees before the priest and he'll put it directly in your mouth. My wife, she brought me a German Catholic wafer so I could try it yesterday and that thing sticks to the roof of your mouth like nothing else. It's not even bread. What is it? It's almost like foam. Who knows what I'm talking about? It's almost like a super-thin [inaudible 01:10:35] foam and I put it in my mouth and had it stuck to the top of my mouth and then she said in the church when she was a kid to get on your knees and he'll stick that into your mouth and I was like taking bites out of this. She's like, "No. You've got to put the whole thing in your mouth." She's like, "Send this guy to the stake. This guy is a heretic. Look at him nibbling at it. It blasphemy."
She showed me that the doctrine is sideways to put the whole thing in your mouth. I put the whole thing in my mouth and then it clings to the roof of your mouth. She said, "You have to do it carefully. You don't want a scene going trying to get it off."
That's Jesus according to them. That literally Jesus that you got in your mouth. What kind of a weirdo doctrine is that? It's a cult. Here is what I always tell people. If nobody had ever heard of Catholism and you said, "I'm part of a religion where there is guy who wears a funny hat and a dress and whatever he says trumps the Bible and we basically eat human flesh and drink blood. It's not symbolic. It's a cracker and it's wine but then the priest says some words and it becomes flesh and blood and literal." They don't say it's symbolic friends. It's called trans-substantiation. They say it's literal.
That's why they hold it up and ... I experienced the wafer and I don't understand how anybody could think that these are Christians when it has nothing to do with New Testament Christianity. Then to see people get sucked in by the Orthodox church which is the same thing or to see people get sucked in some of these Protestant churches where it's the same thing and they wonder with great admiration ... not the blood of the saints of Jesus ... but they wonder at stained glass and the gold and the riches. You're no different. If you say, "I just want ..." You talk to these Orthodox and these Catholics ... "I just walk into the church, I just knew it's the house of God because it's just so beautiful and the music and the pipe organ and the stained glass. It's such an experience. It's so beautiful. It's not like the [strip 01:12:59] mall where Pastor Anderson preaches."
Here is the thing about that though. I can take you down somewhere and I'm sure we can go to some wicked place tonight, go to some bar room somewhere, for example ... go to a casino ... we go to one of these casinos around here somewhere and I bet you I can find you some beautiful gorgeous woman to show you and say, "Here. How can this be wrong? Look how good she looks. How can this be wrong to take this woman instead of your wife to bed tonight? Why don't you take this whore with you? Look how good she looks. Look at the gold and the silver and the precious stones. Look at her great beauty. Wonder with great admiration," but it'd be a filthy whore.
You know I could show you some outwardly beautiful women tonight. If we went out looking in the dark places of this city, we can find some gorgeous, beautiful women for you tonight but you know what, they would be filthy whores on the inside. Is that make it right? Whoa. Slow down on those "Amen's". That wouldn't make it right, would it? It's no different. It's absolutely not different at all. It's exactly what you're doing. You're walking into a whore house when you walk in ... it's a spiritual whore house and you're like, "but look at the beauty. Look at the beautiful babes." What in the world is wrong with you? You're adulterous in your heart. Go home to your wife.
The voice of a stranger. That's what the Catholic church represents. The strange woman. Not the bride, not the wife but the hooker. That's what it represents tonight and it's always been that and it always will be.
Let's bow our heads in a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for the fact that we have freedom in the United States of America to worship tonight and to practice our religion Lord and in fact we live in a time that is unlike any time that has ever existed in the history of mankind because we literally have basically what the printing press was in the time of the reformation is what the internet is tonight Lord where we can actually spread the word of God to millions of people and get the gospel to ever corner of the globe and we can knock doors, we can get into our cars and drive to distant cities, we can hop on an airplane and do [so many 01:15:54] marathons across the country, Lord. We live in an amazing time to do great works for you and thank you so much Lord for allowing us to live in a place where we don't have to worry about being arrested, tortured and burned at the stake for doing it Lord.
God forbid Lord that we would sit on our rear ends and do nothing when our baptist forefathers and our other Christian forefathers were literally tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection Lord. What are we doing Lord? Please help us to take advantage of the opportunities that are before us and show up for so many and show up for church and do great things for you while we still can Lord. While we have this great door that's opened. Help us to walk through that door and see great works for you and many people saved Lord and God I pray that you will protect us in the coming years Lord that we would not enter times like onto the inquisition Lord.
I pray that we would be delivered and that no one that's in this auditorium would ever be tortured or killed Lord but if that's your will for us Lord to die for you, I pray that you give us the strength and the fortitude to do it and to be faith onto death and to earn that crown of life Lord. And in Jesus name we pray, Amen.
