Revelation chapter 17 and so we're starting a new series here the dark history of the Roman Catholic Church
And and you know, honestly when I preach, you know, I try to preach a balance of things
There's times I preach sermons that are helpful about how to be a good husband how to be a good father
But there are also sermons you need to preach it against false religion
Hey, man, I'll tell you when it comes to the Catholic Church even preparing the sermon series
I didn't realize how bad and how dark the history of the Roman Catholic churches now many of you in this room
I'm sure grew up Catholic, but I promise you they did not teach you what I'm going to teach you during this four part series
You're not going to tell you about the bloodshed and the other stuff. We're going to talk about in this series now
The bloodshed is so bad though that revelation 17 highly focuses on the Roman Catholic Church
Even before it was even founded
okay, and notice what it says in Revelation 17 verse 1 and
There came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials and talked with me saying on me come hither
I will show on thee the judgment of the great war that sitteth upon many waters now
The first thing I want to mention is the Bible says the great war
Okay, I don't shy away from any word in the Bible every word of God is pure
I see the Bible describes this false religion that it calls
God calls the great war now that shows he doesn't think very highly of this false religious system
Yeah, he says the great judgment of the great war that sitteth upon many waters
When it says sitteth upon many waters, what is basically saying is sitting above?
Reigning over many empires many nations. We know that if you go down to verse number 15
Revelation 17 15 the Bible reads and he sayeth on to me the waters which thou sawest
Where the horse sitteth are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues
So when it says sitteth upon many waters the waters is referring to
nations and tongues and people
Basically, this is a false system. That's reigning over all of these different empires
Reigning over many countries many lands many groups of people see the Bible said
I mean the Bible is meant to be understood and people think the book of Revelation is so confusing and yet in verse number 15
It says hey, these are the waters which thou sawest the Bible explains itself
The Bible is not too confusing for us to understand now notice what it says in verse number three
And we're going to see very clearly here in Revelation 17, this is referencing the Roman Catholic Church
Okay. Now, let me say this in Revelation 17
It's not only referencing the Roman Catholic Church
But that's the main thing it's referencing because false religion goes all the way back to the Tower of Babylon
Shortly after the flood, you know, you think of Babylon words that the word Babylon come from it comes from the Tower of Babylon
Okay, and this false religious system building your way up to heaven to get close to God that false religious system has existed throughout the
World in many different ways. Okay, but the Roman Catholic Church is what we're focusing on in this series
And that is the number one length that you see when you read this
You say how do you know that notice what it says in Revelation 17 verse 3?
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
Blasphemy having seven heads and ten horns the Bible talks about names of blasphemy
Okay, think about the Roman Catholic Church. What about calling your priest father?
That's the name of blasphemy
Right because God is our father. What about calling the Pope the vicar Christ on earth?
Holy Father the names of blasphemy that fits pretty well with Roman Catholic Church, doesn't it?
Yeah, when you think of the Roman Catholic Church one thing you think of are the names of blasphemy
They blaspheme for how about saying the mother of God?
The names of blasphemy are all throughout the Roman Catholic Church. Yeah, and notice what it says
Having seven heads. What does it mean by seven heads?
Well notice what it says in verse number nine
Revelation 17 9 once again the Bible is going to define itself and here's the mind which hath wisdom
The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sit
Bouses these seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sin
This is the location of this woman of this false religious system
Okay
Now what is the the city known as the city set on seven?
You can type in on Google the city set on seven hills and there's gonna be one primary city
That's gonna pop up and it's wrong
Go ahead and type it in on Google today. That is what you're gonna find type in the city set on seven hills
What are you gonna see? You're gonna see Rome pop up. Say what is it talking about in this chapter?
It's talking about the Roman Catholic Church
The city set on seven hills the names of blasphemy you say well, I think that's just a coincidence
Well, there's more than just that. Notice what it says in verse number 18
Revelation 17 verse number 18 and the woman which thou sawest is that great city
Which reigneth over the kings of the earth see the Bible is describing this false religious system
That's going to reign over the kings of the earth
Okay, that's a pretty powerful religion to reign over the kings of the earth
Look if you go throughout history the Roman Catholic Church
Reigned over all the kings in Europe all of the kings the king of Spain the king of France the king of
England it didn't matter who the king was they reigned over that King
In fact when you became the king
What would happen you come before the Pope and basically bow before the Pope and the Pope would crown you king?
You know, it's a big thing in history when Napoleon basically just took the crown from the Pope and crowned himself
That's when people realize well the Catholic Church has lost a lot of its power
What we're talking about is the dark history of the Catholic Church and you can look at this religion today
And they're not as powerful as they used to be now
They're still very powerful religion
But they are not as powerful as they used to be there was a day when they reigned
Over the kings of the earth you usually think of the king as having supreme rule
No, there is a day with a Roman Catholic Church reign above all of the kings
They basically own the world and say how could they possibly own the world?
Well think about when the Bible was written in Revelation 17. What was the Empire that ruled the world?
The Roman Empire, what's the religion that came out in the early 4th century AD from the Roman Empire?
The Roman Catholic Church you say well they converted to Christianity. They did not convert to Christianity
They kept their Roman false gods and mixed it in with Christianity
You say well you know where are all the false gods well look at all the saints that they worship yeah
You say when you decide that your entire country is going to convert to a religion
Which the gospel is something you have to by free will believe on Jesus Christ, okay?
But when you decide our entire Empire
Everybody's going to become Christian. What do you have to do to get people to go along with it?
Well, you can't just discard the old religion
You basically got to take the the old religion and kind of morph it into the new one
You got to kind of keep the old religion and the Roman Catholic Church
They never rejected their old religion. Yeah, now look if you grew up Catholic it might seem normal to you
But look the Catholic Church is strange the traditions that they have I've been to Catholic Church one time in my life
Okay, I went in college
And you know one of my friends invited me
And I didn't know much about the Catholic Church
And I get there and then all of a sudden there's like water there, and they said oh, that's the holy water I was like
holding water
What is holy water and they see you know I was like it has some sort of magical powers
Look the Feast of the Black Nazarene is weird
It's strange. It's confessing your sins to a priest. That's strange
That's not normal their religion is weird dress
dressing up with a dress on stage
That's not normal. That's not a dress you say. It's not a dress because you've seen it so many times
Yeah, that same thing was on a woman you call it a dress you say why because by definition they wear a dress
Yeah, that's what they're wearing. It's not normal. It's weird
It's strange, but you know when you're around it
It seems what you have to understand is the Roman Catholic Church today is not like it used to be it used to rain
Over the kings of the earth and I'm gonna prove it to you in this circuit now notice
What it says in verse number two?
It says with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication
And the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk may have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication
But I was pleased about the kings of the earth committing fornication with this false religion
You say what exactly does it mean it basically means that the Kings because their power came from the Roman Catholic Church
They basically did the bidding of the Roman Catholic Church
You didn't want to anger the Roman Catholic Church
You made the Roman Catholic Church mad. Guess what there goes your head?
Okay, the Roman Catholic Church would literally start wars and they would start war with your country if Spain rebelled against the Roman Catholic Church
You just started a war with the Roman Catholic Church and most of the nations of Europe will get behind you and be on your side
And so what do the Kings do they commit fornication with this false religion because that's how they have their power
You don't go against the Catholic Church. You say well prove that to me. Well, let's go back to King Henry the 8th
Who knows who King Henry the 8th is? Pretty famous king in history, right?
He's known for basically killing all his wives. He couldn't have a son and everything like that
But you know when you really look at the history of religion King Henry the 8th is one of the most significant characters
Okay now but in 1521
King Henry the 8th wrote a long book which if it was shorter
I probably would have read it but it was just way too long and it was called a certio septum
sacramentorum and that translates to the defense of the seven sacraments
Okay, so he was defending the seven sacraments
You know from the Roman Catholic Church and as a result of writing this he earned the title of the
Fidei defensur
Defender of the faith from Pope Leo the 10th
So basically King Henry the 8th wrote this long book and then the Catholic Church
Called him a defender of the faith say what was the book about it defended the seven sacraments and blasted Martin Luther
Okay, because Martin Luther had turned against the Catholic Church somewhat
Okay, it left the Catholic Church and so King Henry the 8th writes this publication basically showing
Here's the stance of all of England, you know, Martin Luther is a heretic
We support the Catholic Church and the Catholic Church declared him a defender of the faith
You say why did King Henry the 8th do that because he's committing fornication with the Catholic Church
You say why because you don't want to speak against the Catholic Church
Catholic Church is very powerful
Okay now King Henry the 8th and we'll talk about it later on
King Henry the 8th was originally not supposed to become the king of England
Because usually the king of England would come from the oldest brother in that family
but his oldest brother died when he was a teenager and so his oldest brother died and when his oldest brother died they had
King Henry the 8th married his oldest brother's wife, you know once his oldest brother was dead
He said why did they have him do that because in history what you see and even in the Bible
He would often marry someone who was powerful in another country and she was very powerful in Spain Catholic
So basically as as basically the new king of England when you have power in Spain
You're basically combining empires so to speak
She would often marry someone who was like a leading, you know, princess or something in the world
You see that even from Solomon in the Bible. You see people that will marry princesses, they'll marry queens
they'll marry these people because it gives them power and that's what King Henry the 8th did and
So basically he marries to bring in the lines between England and Spain
Now one other thing we need to understand is this term called the divine right of kings the divine right of kings
What the Catholic Church taught was that the Pope basically was the vigor of Christ on earth
He was basically perfect when it came to expressing doctrine or the choices he made. They didn't say he was sinless
But basically everything he did was right like he declared war and he was right on that
If he declared that you have to be baptized and saved and he's right about that
Basically, he's speaking as a mouthpiece of God
That's what the Catholic Church taught and he was basically chosen directly by God the Pope
But they also taught the divine right of kings
The divine right of kings was the teaching that if somebody is declared the king in a country that was given directly by God
And so you cannot question anything that king does
Okay, it'd be like for example if you have a president of a country and no matter what that president does you say well
You know, they're chosen by God. So obviously it's okay if we abort babies
Okay
So basically the divine right of kings the Catholic Church taught that if you were the king you were chosen by God and you could
Not question that king. So what you're going to see throughout history is
Technically the Roman Catholic Church didn't kill 50 million plus people. What did they do?
Well, they basically declared you the king of the country they gave you the power and it's like, okay
Do what we want you to do and then when that King declares war, it's not technically the Roman Catholic Church
It's just a Catholic King that has a divine right of kings and you can't question what he does
They go back to Romans 13 to try to prove the case that every soul we subject under the higher powers and they say well
You know what if kings been chosen by God, we must just go along with whatever that King said
It's kind of like in today's world
Where you have a politician these politicians raise lots of money for their campaigns
Say why is it that people are just giving them all kinds of money?
What they're basically doing is betting on that person to become a senator or president or leader and basically once you become the leader
And we donate in 50 million pesos
So now we want you to do this
And when it comes to politicians, they do the bidding of the people giving the money
This time basically the Kings would do the bidding of the Roman Catholic Church you say why because the Pope was more powerful than anything
Yeah in today's world, that's not really the case
But in the past the Pope was more powerful than any man
In fact, obviously the hippo which is known as one of the great early church fathers, you know
This Catholic person he wrote in the city of God one of his writings
While the city of man in the city of God may stand at cross purposes
Both of them have been instituted by God and served his ultimate will so the city of man would be like King Henry
VIII the city of God would be the Pope is what they're saying
So basically if God has chosen you you get to decide how you run that and it's directly coming from God
You can't question what they did
And so monarchs are placed on thrones for God's purpose and you cannot question their authority if you question it
You're basically questioning God. So technically the Catholic Church didn't necessarily start all these wars
But basically when they tell the king of Spain, hey, we want you to go to war with that country
The king of Spain better listen. You say otherwise, he's probably going to end up dead
Otherwise the Catholic Church will make it a point to get rid of them and somebody else will become the king
Now look at Revelation 17 verse 4
The
Bible says in verse number four and the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color in depth with gold and precious stones and pearls
having the golden cup in her hand full of
Abominations and filthiness of the fornication. I want you to pull out your bullets in real quickly and look at this picture on the front
And tell me if this seems to fit with the Roman Catholic Church pretty well notice what it says
It says arrayed in purple in scarlet color you see that don't you?
purples the bishops
scarlets the Cardinals
Decked with gold and precious stones and pearls. Look this lines up with the Roman Catholic Church
Very well, it's really sorry. You see like the Pope
I've seen pictures where he's wearing these white red shoes and it's just like, you know, what in the world is he doing?
But it lights up just before the Bible says and yet people see this and they say well
That's not talking about the Catholic Church. Well, what is it talking about?
It certainly seems to line up pretty well name. Notice what it says in verse number five and
Upon her forehead was name written
Mystery Babylon the great the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth
Now the Bible describes mystery Babylon the great and it says the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth
If you go back to the Tower of Babel
False religion comes out of that. Okay, it springs back from there
But if you go in forward in history to the Roman Catholic Church
The Roman Catholic Church truly is the mother of harlots
You say what do you mean by it's the mother of harlots? Well, look at the religions of this world
Look at the Lutheran religion
Martin Luther was a
Catholic priest
And he left the Catholic Church, but he didn't really leave it that far behind
He basically kept everything and made just a few changes
Okay, so Martin Luther he's basically a harlot coming from the great course with the Bible saying now. Those are God's works
Yeah, I'm not saying something vulgar. Those are God's words the mother of harlots the great for that's how the Bible describes it
So basically the Catholic Church is this great for and yet it has a lot of children
One of those children is the Lutheran Church
Martin Luther was a Catholic priest and then he leaves the Catholic Church and he starts the Lutheran religion
You can look at the Presbyterians. Where did they come from? John Calvin? Guess what was a Catholic priest?
Yeah, so didn't he leave Catholic the Catholic Church. All he did was add Calvinism
It's Catholicism plus Calvinism. It's worse than the Catholic Church. Yeah, so basically he left and guess what the Presbyterians come
From John Calvin and the Catholic Church now if I grew up Protestant
I know what it's like to be Protestant and when you grow up Protestant you're taught
This is so much different than Catholic Church and you believe that
You honestly believe growing up that it's so much different than Catholic Church, but then the question comes up
Why are our ministers wearing these long dresses as well?
Yeah, why is it that every single week we say we believe in the holy Catholic Church?
Every single week in United Methodist Church growing up. That's what we did
Now why do we do that if we're not Catholic? Well the word Catholic means universal. Well for one
I don't believe in the universal church, but for two, why don't you just say universal?
But they say we believe in the holy Catholic Church. Why? Because the Protestants believe that the Catholic Church was right at one time
They think the Catholic Church went astray. That's what Martin Luther thinks. That's what John Calvin thinks
They don't think the Catholic Church was wrong
They think the Catholic Church went astray and if you went back hundreds of years in history the Catholic Church was right
That's what they believe. You say well, where did the Episcopalian start? Another one of the big Protestant denominations. King Henry the 8th
Didn't we see how he was a big strong Catholic? He wrote a long book lasting Martin Luther, but then something happens
He wasn't able to have a male child
To pass on his legacy to be the next king. And so basically he asked the Pope for a divorce from his wife
He wanted the right to divorce his wife
So he could marry another woman because he was blaming his wife for not having a male child. Now fast forward in history
And we know that the determination of the gender comes from the guy, not the woman
So it's your fault, King Henry the 8th
But he was not able to have a male child and he wanted a divorce. Now there's a bit of a problem in this situation
Because like I talked about earlier the Pope's were often involved in wars and he was basically having a problem with the King of Spain
Okay, the Emperor of Europe at the time, the Emperor Charles. Well, here's the problem
Emperor Charles' aunt was King Henry the 8th's wife and
At that time the Emperor Charles was mad at the Pope and he basically had the Pope hostage
Now the Catholic Church is much different today
It's a much different world, but basically he had the Pope hostage. So if the Pope grants this divorce
Guess what? The Pope would probably be killed by the Emperor of Europe. Okay, there's a lot of turmoil in the world
So basically he wants to give him the divorce. He said why is it, was the Pope just so moral that he said, you know what?
I just can't let you get divorced, you know, I just think it's wrong and sinful
So I just can't let you get a divorce. No, he was worried he would die if he granted the divorce to King Henry the 8th
That's the reason why he didn't do it. Now King Henry the 8th's justification was, well according to the Bible you shouldn't marry your brother's wife
So I just determined after being married for a long time. I need a divorce. It's like
Look, I'm not saying King Henry the 8th was a good person, you know, he wasn't, but the Pope's not able to grant him a divorce
So what does King Henry the 8th do? He starts his own religion, the Church of England
And we're going to talk about this later on in the series because this ties into our King James Bible quite a bit, right?
But King Henry the 8th, basically
He needs to start the Church of England, the Anglican Church. When that comes over to the United States, it's called the
Episcopalian Church, you know, I don't think there's many Episcopilians here in the Philippines
But they're probably called the Episcopilians here, not the Anglicans, if they're here in the Philippines
So basically he starts another way of the Protestant religion. Why?
Well, because he was Catholic and he was a hardcore Catholic, but the Pope wouldn't give him a divorce
So he starts a new religion. You say, where did the United Methodists come from? The United Methodists come from the Anglican Church
John Wesley was an Anglican priest. Now keep in mind the Church of England is very similar to the Catholic Church
You say, why? Because they were Catholic and then King Henry the 8th just said, hey, I need a divorce
They didn't change much in their religion
They just said everybody in England must be Anglican now instead of Catholic
Okay, the United Methodist, John Wesley, he was an Anglican priest and so he left that to start the United Methodist
So guess what? It's very similar to Catholicism
That's why you go to a Catholic Church and all these Protestant denominations are very similar to their mom, the Catholic Church
You say, why is it the Baptists are so much different? We didn't come out of the Roman Catholic Church
The Roman Catholic Church was never right
They were always a vicious, bloodthirsty religion, which we're going to see in this sermon. They were never right
But you can truly see how the Catholic Church is the mother of harlots
Because it started a lot of false religions in this world
Now look at verse number six
I didn't even mention the Orthodox
Now the Orthodox are probably the most similar to the Catholic Church and in the 11th century there was the Great Schism
Where at the time basically the Orthodox believed in not one man ruling
They had basically five guys who ruled certain regions and the Catholic Church in them split off because they wanted full authority
And so the Orthodox comes from the Catholic Church
It's just like the Roman Catholic Church and throughout the world
There's a lot of countries that are basically 100% Orthodox, 99% Orthodox
There's countries, I mean we're Pastor Anderson's preaching the gospel now, it's like 80% Orthodox
There's countries, Russia is like 90 whatever percent Orthodox
Okay, and so it's a big religion in the world
I think there's like 250 million Orthodox throughout the world or some large number of them, that's quite a bit
And so there's there's all this false religion that came from the Catholic Church
Notice verse six
And 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 admiration
So the Bible speaks about this woman the Roman Catholic Church and it says it's drunken with the blood of the saints
Basically this Catholic Church just murdered people that believed on Jesus Christ
And if you know anything about history, you're gonna know that's the case
The Catholic Church is responsible for untold amount of bloodshed on this world
They just murdered people because they were refused to baptize their babies
Look everybody in this room if there's living a day where you would be dead
For even coming to this church every single one I'd be dead
Just for not baptizing your baby you would be killed by the Roman Catholic Church
That's the reality or they would torture you until you're willing to become a Catholic
Okay
That's what happened in history and it says with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus so people though that were just like us
Were killed for the things that they believe verse number seven
And the angel said unto me wherefore didst thou marvel?
I will tell thee of the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carryeth her which hath the seven heads and ten horns
And so John is seeing this and it's hard for him to comprehend because this is something that's happening in the future
He's trying to understand it and says he wonders in great admiration
And then the Bible says it's going to be described what is actually being talked about. Now turn to Acts 22
Now during his day it would be hard to understand because
Yeah, the Catholic Church wasn't around although it was just like the Roman false religion. So it's not too crazy to him
But we're able to understand the book of Revelation a lot better now when they were in the past
You say why because these events have already happened
We can look back at history and we can see okay. This was talking about the Roman Catholic Church
Okay
The book of Revelation is not that confusing and we're going to talk about the rapture in the second sermon book
The book of Revelation is just not that confusing
Yeah, but a lot of people have been saying false things about it and people refuse but Revelation 17
I don't know about you but that all makes perfect sense and everything I preached I've heard that preached before
And when I heard preached I looked up the facts I said man that makes perfect sense
It lines up with exactly what the Bible is talking about
So let's talk about the bloodshed as a result of the Roman Catholic Church
And you say why isn't the Roman Catholic Church killed so many people one reason why is simply there is a tradition of
persecuting before the Catholic Church started in the Roman Empire
Now Constantine starts the Roman Catholic Church
He sees this giant cross in the sky and they have these big councils and everybody becomes Catholic in the in the world
You know, they basically force everyone to be Catholic
But you know the tradition of persecuting those that believed on Jesus Christ that goes way before that
It goes back to the Old Testament
But during the days of the Roman Empire the Roman Empire persecuted and killed those that believed on Jesus Christ
Notice what it says in Acts 22 verse 24
The chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle
Castle and they that he should be examined by scourging that he might know wherefore they cried so against him
So what do they do they examine by scourging?
Basically, we're going to beat you we're going to torture you to find out what the truth is now
This is what the Catholic Church is known for during the Spanish Inquisition. They would basically just torture you to get information
You say why would they possibly do that? Well?
Goes back to Acts 22. That's what they're doing. They're basically scourging him to find out what happened
Yeah, instead of giving a fair trial. Let's just beat him
Let's just torture him and find out what the reality is this goes back to the Roman Empire
Notice what it says verse over 25 as they bound him with thongs Paul said under the centurion that stood by
Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondemned?
When the centurion heard that he went and told the chief captain saying take he what thou doest for this man is a Roman
Then the chief captain came and said I'm going to tell him dark out Roman he said yay
So once they find out he's a Roman they stop me as they're worried because he has freedom
Okay
But you have to understand this the same thing happens in today's world if you're a preacher of the word God
The empires the countries they're not gonna like what you say. Yeah, that's the reality
You see it in today's world you go back to 6,000 years ago
You go back to before Jesus Christ you go to the Roman Empire or forward in history
Look if you stand up for the Word of God the nations the empires the false religions
They hate you and they persecute you we will never have the power that they have
That's why it's so foolish to try to take over the government. Yeah, we'll take over the government
It's like the government will always be persecuting people like it's the only thing we can do is
zealously preach the gospel and just seek our best to have peace with those people right now also preach the sermons
But we try not to just wage war with them because honestly they're gonna wage war with us
Even though we're not really doing anything
And so turn to Luke 14
But honestly shows you that the persecution that we have in today's world it's a very light
Look I'm not worried about dying after preaching this sermon I
The Catholic Church is not going to come down here and torture me to death
Now maybe there will come a day when that happens
But I'll tell you what if you go back to history that for sure would happen
It's not even it's not just well it might happen. No no it for sure will happen for sure
You'll be beheaded you'll be tortured you'll be killed for preaching a sermon against the Catholic Church
Okay, we have great freedom in today's world
Now here's the thing you have to understand when it comes to a country a country doesn't really need a reason to kill people
They can just say well we're the country we're going to protect the country
But if you're a religion you need to have some sort of Bible justification for torturing
Okay, so obviously the Catholic Church. They had to come up with something in the Bible that would justify just torturing people
Okay, you say what did they use Luke 14 is their justification?
I'll explain to you what I think is talking about and then you can decide if it's just fine
We just torture innocent people or what is what I'm gonna say is talking about
But this is their justification move 14 verse 16
Then said he unto him a certain man
Made a great suffer and made many and sent a servant at suppertime to say to them that it will be
Come for all things are now ready and they all with one consent began to make excuse the first set on them
I've I've bought a piece of ground and I must need to go and see it
I pray we have me excuse and another said I
Have bought five with the box and I go to prove them
I pray they have me excuse and another said I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come so that servant came and showed
his Lord these things the master of the house being angry said to a servant go out quickly into the streets and lanes in the
City and bring in hither the poor in the main and the halt in the blind the servant said Lord
It is not as thou has commanded and yet there is room
And the Lord said the servant go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in that my house may be filled
Now here's my interpretation
My interpretation is we should preach the gospel as many people as we can get as many people saved as we can so they can
Go to heaven one day that God's house might be full
I think that makes sense no matter who it is compel them whether they're poor whether they're mean whether they're rich no matter who they
Are whether they're Muslims no matter what religion priests the gospel try to get them safe
Yeah, this is the Catholic Church's interpretation and for how they justify torture. They basically say there's three groups of people
There's the group of people that refuse to come there's a great group of people that do come and then they say in verse number
23 there's a third
Okay, because they say at the end of verse 22 it says Lord is done as thou has commanded and yet there is room
So they say well see there's the two groups of people
That's done now we're moving on to a third group of people in verse 23 and they say in verse number 23
When it says in the highways and hedges, these are the heretics
Okay, those in the highways and hedges and we must compel them to come in
So basically if we can't how do you compel them you torture them you will become Catholic no matter what?
That's what they teach
That is their justification. I could come up with better justification to torture people you guys
That was the Roman Catholic Church justification. There's people in the highways and hedges. These are the heretics
We must come down to come in and if they don't come in we're going to kill them
We're going to torture them. That was their justification
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't really see that in the Bible. Now turn to Titus 3
Titus 3
That's what Augustine of Hippototus said. He said this justifies why we torture people
And we're supposed to compel or force them to come if they refuse we torture and kill them
What's kind of interesting because let's say that they were right that this is talking about heretics
That still doesn't give you justification to torture them
Yeah, okay. See the Bible says in Titus 3 10 a man that is in heretic after the first and second admonition reject
But we've reached the gospel and people rejected and they refused to convert we don't kill them
We don't torture them. We don't say hey, we're going to torture you unless you believe on Jesus Christ
Okay. Now just logically let's say you did that if they believed on Jesus Christ would it be sincere?
Would they actually be believing or would they be afraid that they're getting tortured?
They don't want to get harmed and killed and lose an arm. Why did people convert to Catholicism during this time period?
Well, I mean when they're torturing you and you don't want to lose your leg
You don't want to lose your arm. You say you're exaggerating. No, I'm not
They would literally take people's body parts off them if they did not convert mainly them for the rest of their lives
Hello, this isn't the most pleasant thing to talk about but you know what it's important in the Catholic country
When many of you grew up Catholic, here's the truth about the mother poor the Bible speaks about the great poor the mother of harlots
This is why God uses such strong language about this false religion and I promise you didn't learn this in Roman Catholic Church
Yeah, I never learned this growing up
We learned this by actually studying it but they would basically say that those are heretics that we must torture now
Look at Titus 1, Titus 1
Now for the sake of all of us in this room, I'm not going to be graphic about what the Catholic Church did
I personally it wasn't even fun to study. I mean, it's not it's not fun to think of torturing
That's not something a normal person likes and like for the sake of everyone in this room
I'm not going to talk about all these disgusting things
But I promise you it's far worse than I'm gonna mention in this sermon. There's young kids in this room
You know, they don't need to hear about these disgusting building things that I don't even want to hear about
Okay, but let me just give you a few things of information now the Inquisition
Was from 1231 AD to 1826 in Spain
Or the early 20th century in terms of the Roman Inquisition. So this Inquisition, although it died off, that was less than 200 years ago
They were still torturing people. They were still killing people. It became less and less. You say, I've never heard that
Hey, you never heard that because the news just tries to highlight certain things about how bad the Muslims are
Why don't you tell us how bad the Catholic Church was?
How come that's never on the news
How come there's there's a thousand years of history of you not just being pedophiles but just killing innocent people and nobody ever talks about
And you learn this in school about the process of Reformation. They'll never tell you about this stuff
Right, they just avoid that you say why there's so many people that are Catholic
Wow, we could offend a Catholic. You killed the Baptist. You killed the people like us. And you're worried we might offend somebody?
When it comes to the top 10 list of cruelest torture techniques
I looked up the list of the top 10 most vicious and cruelest torture techniques
Now I'm only going to mention the two that I already was aware about because I think those are two that you're already aware about
What happens is when you learn of torturing it seems normal when you hear about it all the time. You become desensitized
One of the biggest techniques, one of the top 10 of the most vicious ways they torture people
Was they basically burn people
Okay, now we hear about that a lot so it doesn't seem that bad
But it's like can you imagine burning to death? You say well, how did they burn people to death?
What they would do is they would use wet grass. So you would burn over a period of like 24 hours
It would basically take a whole day before you burn to death and you die. Now look, I've been burned before
Like on my hand, on my fingers, but that's like the most pain there is. There's a reason why hell is so scary
Like burning is like the worst pain. Can you imagine 24 hours of burning to death?
Where basically, you know, they use wet grass, so it's really hot and it's torture, but you're feeling the pain
It takes 24 hours to burn. They didn't just burn you in like two minutes. No, they tortured you to death
Now here's what's funny about this. Not really funny, but when it comes to the Bible
Let's say somebody gets the death penalty. When somebody gets the death penalty in the Bible, do you torture them to death or is it a quick death?
It's a quick death.
But God never advocates torturing people. And honestly, it takes the mind of a weird person to enjoy that.
What in the world? Why would you want to torture a human being?
So one of the techniques was burning. Another technique was waterboarding.
And now waterboarding is not going to sound that bad, but it is a big technique of torturing.
The United States is famous for waterboarding. That's the famous technique that we use.
Now what is waterboarding? Well, there's this guy who's a famous atheist. His name is Christopher Hitchens, and he basically mocked waterboarding.
He said it's not really torture. When the U.S. does this to other people, it's not a big deal. It's not really torture.
Well, if it's not really torture, then why does the U.S. use this as a technique to get information?
By examining, by scourging. Obviously, the U.S. does it because it's a fact.
But basically, they'll have you lie down and put something that's really heavy on you like a towel or something
and then they slowly drop water on your nose. You say, why is that torture?
Because you get the sensation of drowning. And basically, when he got done, because he basically said,
I'll do it. I can do it. I can last five minutes. It's no big deal. He lasted like...
And they had him holding on to something. He was supposed to let go if it was too painful.
He let go after like 15 seconds. He was probably trying to let go earlier.
Basically, he gets up and he's just like, you know, because he felt like he was drowning.
He said it was the sensation of suffocating and drowning at the same time.
You feel like somebody is basically suffocating and you're drowning.
So basically, you get paralyzed with fear.
But it's been proven that when you have this sort of torture for several minutes, like five minutes,
it can make you go crazy. It can permanently destroy your brain.
But we're not meant to be tortured. It's not normal.
And it's not something that is good on our body. It can completely destroy us mentally.
Okay? Those were two common techniques.
The other eight techniques... Now turn to Jeremiah 7.
Actually, look at Titus 1. Titus 1, verse 15.
The Bible reads, unto the pure, all things are pure.
But unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled.
The Bible speaks about wicked people and their mind and conscience is defiled.
Look, those are the only two of the techniques that I knew about.
And the other eight, I wouldn't have even been able to dream them up.
They're so disgusting, I'm like, what in the world? How could even someone come up with something like that?
You say, how did they do that? Because their mind and conscience is defiled.
The person that invented those torture techniques, they're a twisted, weird record maker.
Now turn to Jeremiah 7. Jeremiah 7.
And so the average person, thinking about torturing someone, you're not even going to come up with the stuff that they did.
But with the other torture techniques, people would lose body parts.
And here's the thing about this. I'll give you the statistics at the end of the countless tens of millions of Catholic Church killed.
That doesn't even include the amount of people that lost in harm.
That doesn't even include the amount of people that lost a leg.
And that was in their torture techniques. They had permanent damage to their bodies.
Jeremiah 7 verse 31.
And they had built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the Son of Enoch,
to burn their sons and their daughters from fire, which I commanded them not, and neither came it into my heart.
The Bible speaks about something that doesn't even come into the hearts of God.
To burn your children in the fire.
When it comes to these torture techniques, this isn't even something that you would even dream up.
It's not something that would ever come into your heart or your mind. You'd never even dream up this stuff.
Someone who would do this is someone who is a sick, vulnerable student.
Okay? It's not normal.
Now let me just read you a little bit of information of basically how the Inquisition worked.
So basically these were like circuit riding Catholic preachers.
So they basically come to town and they preach a sermon at the beginning of town, like 30 minutes,
and basically put you in fear, and there's like a 30-day grace period.
Okay? This is usually how it worked.
So during those 30 days, you could turn yourself in, and they wouldn't torture you as much.
Okay? Or, if you're really lucky, they might not even take any Bible parts.
They might not torture you at all. Okay?
If you turn yourself in. But here's the thing about this.
It wasn't just that you turn yourself in. It's like, I admit I'm a heretic.
You're right. The Roman Catholic Church is correct.
It wasn't just that. You were expected to turn in your friends and family.
And if you refused to do that, they would torture you.
That's the reality. You say, how is it in the Bible?
The Bible talks about sons delivering off their fathers to death, brothers, sisters, and all that.
Because of the fact, when they're going to torture you, a lot of people are willing to say things that are wrong.
To save their own skin.
If you know you're about to be tortured, and you can lose a body part,
you might just say, yeah, you know what? My brother's a heretic.
To save your own skin.
Now, it kind of brings to light the section in the Bible that during the end times,
it's going to be so bad that people are going to deliver their family up to death.
Because guess what? That's what happened during the end position.
Because the person would come to town. They'd preach.
And basically, you have a 30-day grace period.
And during these 30 days, if you admit you're a heretic or turn others in,
then we'll be merciful to you.
And so oftentimes, that's what happened.
Or if they were torturing you, you could admit that you were a heretic,
and you could name other people's names, and they would spare you.
So what ends up happening? Well, it's a free-for-all.
It's a free-for-all.
Look, you're going to just randomly name people just to save your own skin.
And look, I mean, obviously, I would hope nobody would be willing to do this,
but let's say the Inquisition was out.
The Catholic Church came in here, and the priest or whatever preached a 30-minute sermon.
And basically, you had 30 days.
And if you didn't just admit everybody in this room who's a heretic,
then basically, they'll torture you.
You know, it's very likely that in this room, even people would say, you know, so-and-so,
you know, I didn't do anything, I don't really believe this, blah, blah, blah.
You want to save your own skin.
And people would do these things out of fear during the time of the Roman Catholic Church.
It was conversion by fear.
And basically, we will torture you unless you're willing to convert to Catholicism
and make sure you're a heretic, reject all this Protestant foolishness,
reject the Baptist Church or whatever, and just admit the Catholic Church is right.
Now, when it comes to what they're making you reject,
it wasn't a matter of belief so much.
It was a matter of authority.
Because the Catholic Church has changed what they believe.
I mean, what they believe now would be considered heresy hundreds of years ago.
But it doesn't really matter what they believe.
You just have to go along with the program.
Go along with the higher powers.
And if you choose not to, then you know what?
We could torture you.
Now, let me give you some statistics on...
Actually, let me give you a few examples of things that they would torture you for.
A few things that we know is the Catholic Church tortured people
and killed witches and people like that.
But they were accused, like everybody, of being a witch.
And so, basically, lots of people were being tortured innocently.
And we know about that.
We also know that they murdered people for rejecting...
See, they'll tell you about that, that they would persecute witches and kill them,
you know, these bad people practicing sorcery.
What they don't tell you is they also killed people who didn't baptize their babies.
If you don't baptize your baby, we will torture you.
They also won't tell you that they would murder you for rejecting, worshipping Mary.
If you refuse to call Mary the Mother of God, you will be tortured.
You had to admit that Mary was the Mother of God.
Now, under these circumstances, there would be people that would deny Christ
and say, you know what, I don't really believe this, and say, well, how do you know that?
Well, what happened after Jesus was crucified?
Well, he was about to be crucified.
A lot of people denied Jesus, didn't they?
Peter denied Jesus. All of them denied Jesus. Why?
Out of fear.
And that's what the Catholic Church was doing.
They would murder you for questioning the Roman Catholic Church or the Pope.
And basically, anything is heresy to them.
I mean, literally during that time period, I think it was Galileo, basically,
you know, his debate on the geocentricity or heliocentricity of this world,
and basically he was questioning the Catholic Church.
He was like, oh, we're going to torture you for that. We're going to kill you for that.
It's like, anything is heresy.
Like, we're not even talking about salvation by grace and faith.
Like, anything. Anything you question, what they did, they would kill you for it, okay?
Now, let me give you some, let me say one other thing, too,
because I'm going to give you some statistics of people that they killed,
and throughout history, they did persecute and kill a lot of Protestants, okay?
And so I kind of wondered before, because honestly, when it comes to Protestants,
those are false religions. They preach a false gospel, okay?
Now, in America, I didn't really have a full understanding of this,
and the reason why is because there's a decent church in every work throughout America.
You can find a decent church to go to where they're at least preaching the right gospel,
but before you guys came to this church, many of you went to a church
where you didn't even know if your pastor was saved.
Well, your pastor was a Calvinist, and you're going to a Calvinist church.
So, throughout history, we're going to see how they killed all of these Protestants,
but some of these people, that's probably just the best church they could find.
And they're just like, obviously, I'm not going with the Roman Catholic Church,
but it's like, I guess this is the best thing, because they're sort of rejected in the Catholic Church.
And so these statistics, I'm not saying all these people are saved,
but I'm sure a lot of them were saved, and this is the best church they could find.
From 1540 to 1570, 900,000 Waldensian Christians were killed.
Now, from what I understand, the Waldensians were supposed to have very similar beliefs to what we have today.
And so many of these people, I'm sure, were saved.
900,000 killed during a 30-year time period.
And the Catholic Church claims the numbers a lot lower,
but they at least agree that they killed a lot of them.
And it's like, well, who cares if it's 500,000 or 900,000?
I'm not saying this is perfectly accurate.
Here's the problem. It's hard to get statistics,
because if you were the one taking the statistics to keep track of how many people the Catholic Church is killing,
guess what happens to you? You get killed.
And so, yeah, it's hard for these statistics, because to a large degree,
we're relying on what the Catholic Church is admitting to.
But around 900,000 Waldensian Christians killed.
From 1553 to 1558, there's a woman by the name of Bloody Mary.
Now, this was the daughter of King Henry VIII.
And she basically inherits the throne, and she got the name Bloody Mary,
because she killed and tortured innocent people.
Now, it's kind of funny that she gets this name,
because there's only a count of 283 people that she burned.
But, you know, that she brutally killed, it's just the way she did it.
She was a hardcore Catholic. She was a very vicious boy.
It's not really the number she killed, but how she did it.
She was very vicious, and she was tortured.
And she was the leader of England at the time, after King Henry VIII.
1572, the St. Bartholomew's massacre.
18,000 total Protestants killed Huguenots in France.
And if you look up statistics, they'll say anywhere from 5,000 to 30,000.
Regardless of whether it's 5,000, those are 5,000 people that were killed innocently.
1618 to 1648, the Thirty Years' War.
This is when the Roman Catholic Church was forcing people to be Catholic.
And so Protestants, some were rebelling against them, and war breaks out.
And in a lot of countries, half their population was killed.
In a lot of countries.
When it comes to the Bohemia population, I'm not really sure who that is,
population went from 4 million to 780,000.
80% of the population was killed.
This was like the Black Plague times 20.
When it comes to Germany, their population went less than half,
over half the Germans killed them.
Or what they did is they fled the country for safety purposes.
I'm not saying every single one was killed.
It's kind of hard to know how many.
But basically, you either killed or you left for fear of your life.
When it comes to 1641 to 1649, hundreds of thousands of Irish Protestants were killed.
1685, a half million, 500,000 French Protestant Huguenots killed.
100,000 Paulicians were put to death as well, which are said to have very similar beliefs to us.
Look, I don't know the exact amount.
The number is supposed to be between 50 million to 68 million.
You say, well, I think that's too high. Maybe it is too high. I don't know.
It doesn't change the fact that it's obviously very high because the Bible speaks about it.
Revelation 17, that's speaking about the rolling package.
It's speaking about bloodshed. Whatever the number is, it's a really high number.
And it's not just how many people they killed.
There's also all the people that were tortured and lost a body part.
Now put yourself in those shoes for a second.
Let's say you're a father.
You have a wife, you have a couple kids, and they're going to torture you.
Look, under that situation, you might turn in somebody else who even might be an innocent victim.
You say, why? Because you don't want to leave your home without a father.
And the reality is that they would torture you, and if you weren't willing to just give in or whatever,
then, look, I'm not going through the way they torture people, but it's ridiculous.
The things they did, who could even come up with something?
That's the truth about the Catholic Church.
And the Catholic Church doesn't want you to know the truth. Well, this is the truth.
Now, if the Catholic Church tries to doctor these numbers, they try to make it a lot lower.
How do they do that? A couple ways they do that.
One way is they could say, well, we didn't do it. It was the Spanish kingdom that did it.
It was the French kingdom that did it.
It's like, well, yeah, because the divine right of kings were basically, you have that authority over that king.
Or basically, you know, the civil governments would do, it wasn't always the Inquisition.
They'll say, well, only like two million people were killed in the Inquisition.
Yeah, because a lot of the people were killed and tortured by the civil governments doing it.
It wasn't necessarily during the Inquisition.
But it was linked to it, because all these Catholic kings were under the bidding of the Roman Catholic Church.
Now, look, this is not the most pleasant sermon to think about.
But this is the reality. This is the true history of the Roman Catholic Church.
It's only going to get worse during the series.
I mean, it's pretty bad the things they did. This is just the bloodshed.
This is the Roman Catholic Church. Now, how does it apply to us today?
It doesn't apply to the normal Catholic out there, because no Catholic knows about their history.
I actually talked to my parents about this growing up.
I asked them if they thought the Catholic Church was really weird growing up.
They said, not really, because they didn't really know the information.
Because it was before the days of the internet, it was before all these days for everything to public information.
Well, I understand this was hundreds of years ago, but the public information is out now.
This is the truth about what happened with the Roman Catholic Church.
And anybody who knows the history of this religion, and they would stick with it?
Now, look, these tortures happened before the Protestant Reformation.
So explain to me how, in the 12th century before the Protestant Reformation, that was the true church,
when they were killing people like us.
That doesn't make any sense to me.
This torture has gone on from when the Roman Catholic Church started.
And people were being killed during that time period.
How were they the true religion when they would kill people like us for not baptizing our babies in the 5th century or the 6th century?
This has always been an evil religion, and that's why the Bible devotes Revelation 17
to talk about the bloodshed of the Roman Catholic Church.
Let's close with a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today and just getting to see your word.
And you give us insight on the Roman Catholic Church, this false, wicked cult, this false, wicked religion.
And many of us have a background in this, whether we were a Protestant or a Catholic God.
And we have some familiarity.
But they don't tell us the truth about this religion.
And the truth is that they are a very bloody religion.
And we spoke about Revelation 17, responsible for tens of millions of people,
just like us, that were murdered for the things that they believed God.
Help us to get a better understanding of our history and know what the truth is, God,
so we're aware, we're knowledgeable, we can pass this information on to other people.