| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| PetriFB |
Posted - 01 Oct 2014 : 00:56:03
Roman Catholic Church (RCC) very often tries to eliminate and defame every person who expose RCC's pagan roots and that its origin is in pagan religions, not in#12288;the teaching#12288;of the Bible. In the matter of fact, RCC has mixed up Biblical and pagan doctrines. This combination makes from#12288;its#12288;anti-Christian sect and cult, which doesn't represent Biblical Christianity. RCC has systematically tried to distort evidence that shows clearly wrong doctrines of#12288;the RCC#12288;and its undisputed connections to paganism. See yourself clear connection of paganism to Catholicism.#12288;The site#12288;contains also#12288;pictorial#12288;material:
http://www.kotipetripaavola.com/catholicchurchbabylonianpaganroots.html |
| 11 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Manuel |
Posted - 04 Nov 2014 : 15:27:48
Well said, and to the point Kevin.
The Golden Rule.
Blessings to all,
Manuel |
| kevin |
Posted - 04 Nov 2014 : 11:14:11
The earth is quite full of people who have had their hearts sliced and diced over " church and religions of many varieties".
We forget we are People who hurt and bleed.
The world needs to see Light ,
How will they notice?
By the way we Love one and Other.
It is time to bind up the broken hearted,
gather together and not divide,
It can be "scary" when things that have been held onto for many years are suddenly brought into question.
I don't mean to over simplify, (but... (me is fairly simple)), if we can just be Excellent to one and each other?
Peace, with Malice toward none.
Kevin
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| Manuel |
Posted - 04 Nov 2014 : 10:43:57
Greetings Caleb, and all,
I, during many years, had a very close counsel during head banging
events. He happened to be a Jesuit friend, and old brother which held my hand
during many tribulations full of temptations via parties not interested in the
weightier matters, and total devastating manifests. Of course, it was me, and
me alone which partook of those elements to begin with which led me to
the point of opening my eyes and ears to put on that mysterius armor of God,
unseen, but believe me, very revealing, thanks to holding dear to his counsel
and bitting my tongue and too putting my sword away during most temptous
times, which to this day, hold true and its boomberang affect still reflects
in many spiritual ways.
Yet, I am still in a kinda "limbo" on where and how I can Gather with like minded
and gifted souls to that affect, even though I have and still striving in seeking
His Kingdom to the best of my abilities during these times and signs.
Thank you for freely sharing your trust and understanding of The Tree of Life.
God bless you,
I am, your friend,
Manuel |
| kevin |
Posted - 04 Nov 2014 : 06:40:54
Caleb,
Thank You,
In these days of "Modern time".
I see that many will dismiss the whole because of some imperfection in a part.
It is good what you have done.
Thank you for sharing .
Kevin |
| Caleb |
Posted - 04 Nov 2014 : 01:22:15
Greetings Brother Manuel,
You are exactly right. It is the use of force that distinguishes "the Kingdom of our God and of his Christ" from "the Kingdoms of this world".
It was this exact question that stood as my last objection to joining the catholic Church. I was not happy placing myself under any form of earthly authority.
God answered this question in the most definitive manner possible. I sat listening as the Archbishop of Manila, the most "powerful" leader of the catholic Church in the Philippines, addressed a group of young men entering the priesthood. And for his address to them, he chose to teach on exactly how leadership in the Church differs from leadership in the world.
I cannot give you sufficient detail here. It was a deeply moving experience to be taught by this man. He spoke directly to me. I knew that God was speaking through him, and addressing my chief concern directly. This from the mouth of a man who did not know I was in the room, nor what my concern was.
He taught what Jesus meant when he said, "He who would be chief among you must be the servant of all." He spoke on leading by serving, and how drastically this differs from leading by force, as the world does. This man spoke from the heart. He had no prepared notes. It was obvious that he lived and embodied the very words he was speaking.
I knew then that this was the type of leader I could live under. I knew that here was a man who understood the words of Christ, and did his best to live them in practice every day. I knew that, no matter what his personal failings may be, he had the principle exactly right, and this was a principle he had learned from the church and that had therefore been faithfully passed down by that same church for the past 2000 years.
Most will react by wanting to argue about history from 500 years ago. I will not go there. None of us are first-hand witnesses to those events. My decision was based on what I witnessed, first-hand, in the catholic Church of today, in 3 different countries.
Brother Kevin, I learned a number of other things besides the above. Here are some topics for you to look into, and if they grab your attention I am happy to discuss them in more detail. The best way would be for you to post a new thread naming the topic, and I will reply to it.
The Evangelical Covenants:
Catholic Priests, Monks and Nuns are required to make three vows:
1) Vow of Obedience (serve the Church instead of the world)
2) Vow of Chastity (serve God instead of your spouse) I Corinthians 7:32-33
3) Vow of Poverty (serve God instead of Mammon) Matthew 6:24
Protestants have no such equivalents. These are very serious and definite choices that the Church still requires to this day, and they are consistent with the Scriptures. You won't find the "Prosperity Gospel" in the catholic Church, for example. Irrespective of personal failings, it is undeniable that anyone who has taken these vows has made a very clear choice to devote his entire life to serving God.
Jurisdiction: Read in Wikipedia about the difference between Vatican City State and the "Holy See". Only the catholic Church has a global jurisdiction. It is ecclesiastical in nature. Read chapter 11 of "The Prince" by Machiavelli. The Pope has ambassadors all over the world, and they are considered "the head of the diplomatic corps" in many countries. No other church holds such a position.
Law: The Canon Law of the catholic Church is a complete body of law. It is issued under the authority of the Church, and not subject to any worldly State. It is probably the only place you will find the definition of what a "statute" actually is, other than a law dictionary. The top law schools all over the world are run by the Jesuits, a religious order of the catholic Church. You will find that the legal system is fairly uniform across the globe as a result.
Just look up "Protest" in Bouvier's 1856 if you want to know what the term "Protestant" actually means! When you see it, you will see that Protestants are in the position of babies trying to fight their way out of the playpen. The very terms used were dictated by the catholic Church!
Unity: Protestantism is divisive by its very nature. If you disagree, you just run off and start your own new denomination. The catholic Church allows for differences of opinion on any matter that does not compromise the core beliefs. Thus you can find "charismatic" catholic churches, for example. And the Church works actively to bring all true believers into its fold, for the sake of unity, while acknowledging that they can differ in their understanding of the one, true faith. If there is only one God, how many true faiths can their actually be?
Tradition: Few Protestants actually know what catholics mean when they say that their beliefs come from both Scripture and Tradition. Tradition is nothing more than the historical record of how previous believers understood the Scriptures. It gives due respect to those who have gone before us. So catholic beliefs are formed from what you understand the Scriptures to be teaching, AND by also consulting how previous believers understood those same scriptural teachings. This acknowledges that there are some things that we simply don't know, and that others had good reasons for their conclusions and so those conclusions cannot be lightly dismissed. My experience is that the more I understood Scripture, the more closely my own beliefs lined up with what the catholic Church had been teaching all along.
Transubstantiation: Just read the actual words of Christ and see if they are not faithfully conveyed by the catholic "mystical" approach to communion. Where does Jesus ever say that the bread or wine "represents" his body? Yet that is what Protestants teach. And then they back this up with a scientific argument, not a spiritual or scriptural one!
On a personal note, I sat in Protestant churches taking communion for years and knew each time that the experience fell short of what Jesus and Paul taught. Yet I did not know why. Having participated now in catholic communion, I know what was missing. There is real spiritual power behind the mystical approach to the faith taken by the catholic Church. If the faith must be explained in completely rational or scientific terms, how is it faith at all? There are concepts taught in the Bible that the catholic Church simply accepts as true, even though it cannot fully explain them. And my experience is that the power of God attends that pure faith. The priest cannot explain it to you, he can merely convey it in a manner that is very real indeed.
The Keys of the Kingdom: There is no other church that claims an unbroken line of authority that traces itself all the way back to Jesus handing the Keys of the Kingdom to Peter. Some will deny this claim, but no other church can or has made a more credible claim that could replace it.
Scripturally, Isaiah prophesied that, "Of the increase of his government, and of peace, there shall be no end." John the Baptist and Jesus announced that "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Leave the catholic Church out of the picture, and tell me any other group of Christians who fulfill Isaiah's prophecy of an ever increasing spiritual Kingdom. I never found one until I looked into the catholic Church.
When I finally took an objective look, what I found is that there is one church that continues to faithfully maintain the teachings of Christ, and in a manner that meshes with biblical history and prophecy, some 2000 years after he announced his Kingdom. It has real authority that is even acknowledged by the world. And it remains unapologetic about the core principles of scripture even in the face of the great challenges of the modern age. In a day when you see most Protestant denominations compromising their beliefs less than 500 years after they were founded, you still see the catholic Church standing rock solid even on very controversial issues such as not allowing its priests to marry.
My final point is this: Go see for yourself. Sit in on a catholic mass or three, and let God speak to you. Instead of judging, just observe. Ask the question, why are they doing these things? Listen to the choice of Bible readings that week. There is a profound depth to all that they do. So profound that I do not believe that even the priests understand it all!
And I am not saying that there is not good in the Protestant churches. I learned many important things in those churches. It was the Protestant conviction that all truth was to be found in "Scripture Alone" that eventually led me to conclude that the catholic Church had things right all along. I arrived at this point with no help from the catholic Church whatsoever. I followed the Protestant path for finding God's truth, and arrived where I am today because of it.
What I did find is this: When the Protestant churches ran out of new insights to deepen my understanding of scripture, and soon after I concluded that I was all on my own in this regard, I found to my astonishment that the catholic Church had a whole lot still to teach me! And joining that church has indeed deepened my faith even more.
Honi soit qui mal y pense |
| kevin |
Posted - 02 Nov 2014 : 15:02:39
Thats great what you have done Caleb I have no doubt you were led to do what you do,
What did you learn that that would influence me to join you?
Kevin |
| Manuel |
Posted - 02 Nov 2014 : 09:09:46
Greetings Caleb, bondservant, and all.
It is important to know that I too during the many
years of trials and tribulations, many questions and
beliefs where temporarily adopted by me trying to
figure events out. At this point, I can say that due to
the world we live in, and the manifests on which I strived
to thrive seeking His Kingdom, not of that world, or better
understood, thanks to the few which have had and I think,
ears and eyes to see, that His Kingdom, His Nation, His
Governtment, was and is in Faith, Hope and Charity, without
force.
Now force, is a key word here. Force is that which makes everything
turn upside down, and I believe is the cause and effects of why
"The whole world is under a strong dillusion." For the whole world,
and their forms of governments are not of His World/Nation and
as Thayers dictionary simply point out, "world" is defined as a
constitutional and form of government. Remember what Jesus said
whe He said- "My world is not of your world?" Well, I hear and see that
as - Listen here... my form of government, my kingdom, my nation,
is based on faith, hope and charity, without force, which is not part
of other systems and forms of governments, whereby are contrary
to Gods perfect laws of liberty, and makes the laws of God of non
effect. The laws of God existed from generations to generations, being
set aside, I believe, and not to be like them, of other "worlds." As said,
ambassadors In Christ, to the best of our abilities, In His Spirit, to comform
and be in His Form.
Please pardon my abilities in writting. I am not a writter, nor gifted as such.
But from what I have gathered, not from what I see now as True Gathering
In His Ways, what I have expressed, is simply saying that His Kingdom,
is not of those other kingdoms and their many "varieties" of governments,
being democratic, socialist, communist or whatever they "go by" as far as
they do not prosper in faith, hope and charity, without force.
Blessings to you all,
Manuel |
| Caleb |
Posted - 02 Nov 2014 : 00:19:25
It is too early to set a cat amongst the pigeons?
I "accepted Jesus" at age 16 and became a devout Bible-thumper from that day forward. I attended only the most faithful "Bible-believing" Evangelical Protestant (some might say Fundamentalist) churches. I didn't care what denomination they were, so long as they thumped the Bible hard enough.
It was my dislike of the Income Tax that led me to study Law, but it was my love of the Bible that led me to this site (and the Christ's Lawful Assembly) to understand how all Law was in fact rooted in the Scriptures. It was this connection to God's Word that drove my further study of Law.
Fast forward to 2011, when I was 46, and now had 30 years of "Bible believing" under my belt. By this time I also had some 10 years of studying Law behind me as well.
Whilst digging for yet another answer to the many questions about how the legal system really works, I came across a little tidbit of information that startled me. Without going into detail, suffice it to say that I concluded that I needed to have a closer look at the Roman Catholic Church.
Yes, I had read all the books and web sites, and listened to sermons about how the Catholic Church was run by the Devil himself and was the fulfillment of Babylon the Great, found in Revelation, etc. etc. etc. Petri, I have looked at your web site, and it rehashes all the types of information I had already seen dozens of times before, and believed.
What caught my attention was this tidbit of information that I found in Wikipedia, of all places, that told me something about the Catholic Church that I had not previously known. And that in turn shed light on a number of other things that I did know about the Church.
What was clear to me was that I needed to approach the Catholic Church with an open mind. I needed to darken its doors and see for myself. My views on the Church needed to be based on first-hand knowledge and no longer solely on hearsay. I had learned this much at least from my study of Law: A proper judgement is based only on first-hand testimony!
In this day where "seeing is believing", it is mighty tempting to look at some pictures of Catholic symbols and conclude that they are pagan. This is NOT first-hand knowledge. Or perhaps you are unaware that photographs do not constitute admissible evidence in court? It is what the witness says about the photographs that constitutes the evidence that the court may consider!
For now, I will only tell you the results of my investigation. One year later, on Easter of 2012, I was baptized into and became a full communing member of the Catholic Church! And I can tell you that I did so without the slightest qualm that I was compromising my biblical convictions in the least. Far from it, I now see far more problems with Protestant theology than with Catholic theology, when it comes to how closely they teach the actual meaning and intent of Scripture.
For those of you who will dismiss everything else I have to say on this basis, so be it. For the rest of you, I will say that Jesus had very good reason for telling us to "Judge not!" We are far too prone to rush to judgement without first gathering all the relevant information. If you simply knew what I now understand about the Catholic Church, you would not be nearly so certain in your judgements, and a number of you would join me as members of the one true Church!
Honi soit qui mal y pense |
| ghostwalter |
Posted - 01 Oct 2014 : 23:21:57
Gentlemen,
Thank you very much for the updates. It's been a long time since I've been shaken into position again. Yes, I realize the truth about the RCC. It is also the reason I left the organization. My roots started there, but now I hardly give it a second thought. I'm not much of a bible thumper either, as there are way too many versions of the bible defining and redefining whatever they want to write. I believe religion for me is from my heart not from my mind....too much coercion there.
May your spirits soar. |
| Manuel |
Posted - 01 Oct 2014 : 10:53:10
Hi everyone,
It is what we do, from the kindness and love of our
hearts from His doctrines, not by way taking
from others forcefully, which fulfills His Laws.
Remember that accusation "Guilty of dirty hands?"
"The Kingdom of God is at hand" Clean hands.
Blessings,
Manuel
|
| Jay Scott |
Posted - 01 Oct 2014 : 08:59:13
A thought immediately comes to mind: what man-made institutions are not rooted in paganism?
Frankly, I think the problem is not in the origins of our institutions and social practices, but our willful state of mind.
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611_Matthew-Chapter-6/
quote:
Lay not vp for your selues treasures vpon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where theeues breake thorow, and steale. But lay vp for your selues treasures in heauen, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, & where theeues doe not breake thorow, nor steale. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye: If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shalbe full of light. But if thine eye be euill, thy whole body shall be full of darknesse. If therfore the light that is in thee be darkenesse, how great is that darkenesse?
No man can serue two masters: for either he will hate the one and loue the other, or else hee will holde to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serue God and Mammon. Therfore I say vnto you, Take no thought for your life, what yee shall eate, or what ye shall drinke, nor yet for your body, what yee shall put on: Is not the life more then meate? and the body then raiment? Behold the foules of the aire: for they sow not, neither do they reape, nor gather into barnes, yet your heauenly father feedeth them. Are yee not much better then they? Which of you by taking thought, can adde one cubite vnto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lillies of the field, how they grow: they toile not, neither doe they spinne. And yet I say vnto you, that euen Solomon in all his glory, was not arayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grasse of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the ouen: shall he not much more clothe you, O yee of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eate? or, what shall we drinke? or wherewithall shall wee be clothed? (For after all these things doe the Gentiles seeke:) for your heauenly father knoweth that ye haue neede of all these things. But seeke ye first the kingdome of God, and his righteousnesse, and all these things shalbe added vnto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of it selfe: sufficient vnto the day is the euill thereof.
Jay Scott. |
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