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Amen. This 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 1,000 years. And we went into their rationale for how they rationalize it and how they justify it and think that what they did was right. And they tried to twist scripture. But we saw this morning that nothing could be more unbiblical 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 unbiblical. 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 beliefs 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 into the new material tonight. Revelation 17, verse 1, the Bible reads, 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 10 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 the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. And 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 that 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 apparel 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 admiration 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 all 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 to ask questions or to interrogate or investigate. And what the Inquisition was, was an investigating to figure out who is a heretic. And by heretic, they mean anyone who believes in things other than what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. Now, 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 fourth 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. But 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's how they doctor the numbers. Because there were actually three different ways that you could be 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 if you were a relapsed 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 is like the police, would just come and arrest you for heresy because they were Catholic controlled. They're all Catholics, they're all devout. And so they had civil laws against heresy. Or number three, the actual overarching Inquisition itself could put you on trial, put you to death. So what they'll do is divide it into those three and then just give you this really small number of, oh, well, the Inquisition only executed this many people in this year or 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, excommunicate 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. You know, 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 over to Revelation chapter two, you're already in chapter 17, they'll try to say, well, you know, the Inquisition wasn't really that brutal because it only executed like 2% of people that were brought before it. So, you know, 98% of people are not being executed by the Inquisition when they're brought before it. So therefore it's actually a very lenient institution. This is what these Catholic apologists will try to say. And 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 the Inquisition. And I thought that this was just gonna 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 gonna explain it. And by the end of the thing, the guy's just falling all over himself to just explain why everything about the Inquisition is totally justified and 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 him. And he tried to downplay everything that was done. And it truly made me sick to listen to this man justifying torture and murder. And here's what he would keep saying over and over again. He would say, well, you know, 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. I mean, 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, you know, they just wouldn't change. But here's the thing about that. The things that they would often have to do to be delivered from being executed to prove that they're 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 were not willing to declare that, then they're a heretic, they're unrepentant, they're gonna 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 have been heretics. Now 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 into these type 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, verse 10. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison that you may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation 10 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 heard of the second death. And 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 it's not denied my faith even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr who was slain among you where Satan dwelleth. And so clearly the Bible commands us to be faithful unto death in the face of this kind of opposition and torment. Go to Revelation chapter 12. Now 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's 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. Okay, 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. We, you know, nothing can separate us from the love of God. We've been passed from death unto life. We shall not come into condemnation. But yet God wants us to stand up and be faithful unto death. And the right testimony is to be faithful unto death. And it would be a grievous 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 has come 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 accused 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 unto the death. Go back to Daniel chapter three. Daniel chapter number 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 on their knees and bow to some saint, which is just an idol, which is not someone that we're supposed to pray to. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve, the Bible says. But it says in Daniel chapter three, verse 12, there are certain men whom thou said 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 and 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 you not serve my gods nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now, if you be ready that at what time you hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sack, butt, psaltery, and dulcimer and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the image which I have made? Well, but if you worship not, you 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, O 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 not deliver us out, and he will deliver us out of thy hand, O king. But if not, look at that statement. But if not, be a known unto thee, O king, we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou has set up. So 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 unto us in the New Testament, be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of light. This is what God expects. Now, 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 gonna be saved. They even said, if not, if God doesn't save us, we're still not gonna bow down to your false god. But let me just kinda 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 traveling, 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'd preach 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 was 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 are heretics and didn't tell them, oh, you're beyond the grace period now, then you're gonna be dealt with severely and harshly by the Inquisition. So you can imagine that obviously this just creates a whole bunch of false confessions and false accusations because people wanna get in under that grace period. So they're thinking, oh man, are all my beliefs legit? 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? So a lot of people would just confess the stuff that they didn't even do just to kind of 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 used to be a heretic. And they had to wear that for a while or a red cross. In the Spanish Inquisition, it was known as a San Benito. They would have to wear the penitential garb around. And, but 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 rim fans that they would have to wear around in the Inquisition. But 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, hey, make a pilgrimage over here, go on a crusade over here, wear around a yellow cross for a while. And then at least you're saving your skin from the horrors of what could happen to you after the grace period is over. So after the grace period's over, when people are accused, they often didn't even know what they're being accused of. They weren't always told, hey, this is what you're being accused of, or this is who accused you. There's no facing of the accuser. And many times these people would be tortured. In fact, you can read just 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 being 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 accused of. What do I confess? What do you want me to confess? What do you want, ah, stop it! What do you want me to say? I mean, that's how it reads, reading these transcripts. They don't even know what they're being, 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. I mean, these people might've even been devout Catholics in many cases that 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. Oh, you know, torture was something that they would use to get at the truth. And you know, in our modern time, we have these views about personal rights and respecting people's rights and everything. But back then, I mean, 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. You know, they wanted to get at the truth, and so torture was a way to get at the truth. And he tries to downplay the torture and say, oh, they would only torture people just for a very short time. Usually it was like five minutes, he says. So like five minutes that they'd be tortured. You know, maybe 15, but it wasn't some big, long, drawn out thing. And he says it just so calmly, and yeah, it wasn't a big deal. And he said, you know, 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 they confess to some of this stuff, they would end up being executed if they were a relapsed heretic, for example, or involved in serious heresy. So there wasn't really a big motivation for them to confess because if they confess, they're gonna die in many cases. Now, of course, many people, if they confess, they get off with a 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 and torture them, you know, just to get at the truth though. And the Catholics, they love to go on and on about how this was only to get information that wasn't otherwise available. Would they do this kind of torture? And it was just, you know, and they said it was never used as a punishment. Oh, scared me there for a second. It was only to get information out of people. Oh, thank heavens. And he tries to downplay 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 make it sound like it's not a big deal. And listen, I'm gonna keep the sermon mild tonight because I don't wanna horrify small children or anything. I mean, the stuff that I'm censoring, huge amounts of stuff from this sermon that's just so horrific, I'm not even gonna bring it up in the presence of, if you wanna get all the gory details, Fox's Book of Martyrs is one book that you could read that just goes on and on and on. Just case after case after case after case for all the gory details. I'm not gonna get real gory, but I'm gonna mention a little bit about the torture just to give you a feeling of what we're talking about. You know, in the Bible talks about 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's what he describes as, he said 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, you know, they just put a rope on the person's wrist and put it behind their back like this and suspend them from the ceiling, you know, where they're basically hanging like this and it's pulling their arms behind their back. And you know, they do that for five minutes and you know. And he downplays it like it's not a big deal. But here's what he doesn't tell you. And you know, plug your kids' ears if you don't want them to hear this. Here's 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's the part that they don't tell you in their little Catholic lecture. And 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, the 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. 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 just willing to testify against someone else? They would do 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 can mention from the pulpit without horrifying children. They'll do it one time and then according to Roman law, even before the 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. And here's 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. So after the torture's over, then they would say, okay, now we need you 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 gonna 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 would only do it two or three times because they're so lenient. And 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. I mean, this is what they failed to tell you. They make it sound like, oh, you just go through five minutes of the worst pain and then it's over. Then it's behind you. Well, first of all, going through these types of intense pain, even for 15 minutes does brain damage that is irreparable. You know, 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. But see, that doesn't go in the statistic of how many people they killed. See, you see these numbers and you say, well, it was only like a million people that you murdered. They only murdered like 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. So 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. And 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 was brought before the Inquisition in Santa Fe, New Mexico for performing a wedding ceremony between two dogs. Okay, so yeah, there's 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. And so 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 even 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 is. Hey, we better just stay Catholic. We better just listen to what the priest says. We don't wanna be the next guy being tortured or being burned at the stake or whatever. And by the way, this 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 Ghraib prison. They tortured a guy like this, to try 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 I mean, 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 you stay alive throughout the torture. And 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 eighth amendment of the Bill of Rights because the Bill of Rights says cruel and unusual punishment shall not be inflicted. But here's what Scalia said. Well, torture is not a punishment. Now, I wonder where he got that argument. Well, let's see Antonin Scalia, what religion is he again? A Roman Catholic. And so of course, Antonin Scalia, the wicked Roman Catholic, evil judge that he was, of course, he's gonna say, oh, well, 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. So if somebody does something wrong, you can't punish them as a torture, but you can punish people who've done nothing wrong. But then it's not a punishment because you're torturing innocent people. So that's not a punishment. And 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? Yeah, you're punishing them for not talking. You're punishing them for not ratting out someone else. Well, but I'm a conservative, so I love. 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. And Anton Scalia is being tortured right now because he's burning in hell. Amen. It's so funny to me how people have all these conspiracies about how, you know, because Scalia, they killed Scalia, you know, because he's this righteous guy and they took him out and blah, blah, blah. He's 79 years old and he's 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. He's lucky to have made it to 79 with his lifestyle. Oh, it's a conspiracy. Why, what, can Satan cast out Satan? I mean, good night. 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 wanna hear it. I'm interested in the Bible and theology. I'm not gonna sit there and praise the wicked, praise some, look, how can you be an American and be patriotic and be a so-called conservative and not stand on the Eighth Amendment? You're just as much of a liberal as if somebody doesn't stand on the Second Amendment. I mean, if you're gonna sit there and say, well, I think cruel and unusual punishments can be inflicted, well, then why don't you just say, well, I think the right to bear arms can be infringed. Well, I think that maybe the freedom of religion's overrated. Look, if you're gonna sit there and claim to be this flag-waving constitutional freedom guy, then you have to stand on the Eighth Amendment too. It says excessive fines shall not be imposed. Cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted. Listen, waterboarding is a cruel and unusual punishment, which, guess where it came from? You're not gonna believe this, the Spanish Inquisition. In the Spanish Inquisition, a towel was used, water was poured up, they went through basically the waterboarding procedure in the Spanish Inquisition. The United States government waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in one month. Did you hear that? They waterboarded, this is on the record, they openly admit to this. He's often known as KSM, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in one month alone. And there have been people who tried to say, oh, waterboarding's not torture, it's like getting your head dunked under water. There was a conservative radio host named Man Cal Moeller in Chicago, and he said, waterboarding is not torture. And so he wanted to prove it to everybody, so he went on live TV and submitted to waterboarding. 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 were being tortured in the Inquisition, people were being tortured by the US government, they didn't have that option. They didn't give him a, here's a little toy cow, okay? So you can drop it where you can't take it anymore, okay? They waterboarded Man Cal Moeller, and literally, the guy, I don't even know if he lasted 10 seconds, I mean, he didn't last at all. It's just a few seconds and the guy's throwing the cow, and he says right there, because you gotta get his reaction right there when it's happening. He says, I don't wanna admit this, but it's torture. He said, it's the worst thing I've ever experienced, and he said, if I would've known how bad it was, I wouldn't have even done it. I mean, thank God he at least admitted that he's wrong, but I guess what choice does he have when the cow is just getting hurled immediately? You know, I guess he had to tell the truth at that 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, whoa, what'd you do? But here's the thing, I guarantee you that that guy is completely lost his mind after being waterboarded that many hundreds of times. That was one month, and you will lose your mind. I mean, 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's 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 that Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, and Obama himself came out and said, well, we don't have enough evidence to convict these guys. What, if you don't have evidence to convict somebody, then you have to let them go. What are you doing? This is, you know, 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. But, you know, they only do that to the terrorists. Yeah, except now Christians are gonna be the terrorists. Oh, the heretics, that's those people denying Christ. No, it's you. Oh, that's the Cathars, that's the Manichaeans, that, you know, goofball. No, no, no, it's you. Oh, that's David Koresh, that's Waco. No, no, no, it's you. Fundamentalist Christians, which means people who take the Bible literally, people who, you know, homeschool their children, people who are into the Second Amendment. I mean, 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. But I digress, the sermon's not about the US using torture. But I will say this, if you're a Bible-believing Christian, then, and you're gonna sit there and come at me with Romans 13 and obeying the law of the land? Well, let me just give you some news. The Constitution's the highest law in 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 promise 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 torture in his law, which is perfect? So I'm not for torture for one minute and I don't believe there's a great conspiracy to kill Antonin Scalia, you know, by the establishment. He is the establishment. The Supreme Court is made up of five Catholics and three Jews. That doesn't 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 the law. 20 to 25% of the population in 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 like 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 these kind of people to power so they can bring in torture, so they can bring in wickedness so they can bring in all manner of evil upon us. Somebody told me, you know, oh, how dare you attack the Catholic church? And you know, and then they tried to say the Supreme Court's wicked for allowing abortion. It's 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 Roe versus Wade? Isn't five a majority in the Supreme Court? Why don't they overturn that thing? Why doesn't the Pope issue them a papal bull? Because it's always papal bull whenever that guy talks, that's why, but hey, that's another subject. But anyway, look at Acts chapter 25, Acts chapter 25. So again, just, you know, 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 you remember, it was King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain that sent Columbus on his journey. Well, 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, you know, 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 are in Acts 25. "'To whom I answered, it is 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 license "'to answer for himself concerning the crime "'laid against him.'" So this is the apostle Paul demanding his rights and saying, look, you know, or 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 accusers 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's 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's accusing you? Now, it's amazing and I don't wanna 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. You know, 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 a 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 a crime, there had to be an accuser. And if you study the Old Testament, there's 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 just society in general, you know, the state versus. You know, that's how crimes are now, right? The state versus Steven Anderson, state of Arizona versus Steven Anderson, and you're like, well, who's the plaintiff? Who's the accuser? And there isn't one, because there's all these victimless 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 offense to society, it's society versus you, or the town versus you, the nation versus you, the church versus you, or whatever. So some of these unjust things have crept into our legal system. If we stuck with the Bible's Old Testament justice system, we would still have the accusers necessary, we would still have, you know, a legal system that didn't, you know, imprison people and do all these things that are not biblical. But where did I have you turn? Are you still in Acts 25? Go to Hebrews chapter 11, if you would, Hebrews chapter number 11. Okay. But 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, well, oh yeah, the Protestants did the same thing. Here's where the Protestants tortured a Catholic, or here's where the Protestants murdered people over here. But here's 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 Protestantism Catholicism light. I'm not a Protestant, I'm a Baptist. I'm not Catholic light, 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 an independent Baptist, I don't go around calling myself Protestant. Methodists are Protestants, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Anglicans, they're the Protestants. So telling me that, oh, well these Protestants over here, they use torture and they burn people at the stake. Well, of course they did because they're almost like Catholics in many cases. Now there are varying degrees of Protestant. I believe that there are Protestants that are saved because there are varying degrees of how Roman and paganized they are, or how much of the gospel they really have 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 gracia. 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. So that doesn't work as an explanation because two wrongs don't make a right. How can you sit there and say, well, you know, yeah, we tortured, yeah, we murdered a million people, but so did the Protestants, so did these people. Or they'll point to England in the 18th century had the death penalty for stealing a shilling. But here's the thing about that. This idea of, well, everybody's doing it, or this is what they'll say, well, back then, that's just what the world was like back then. Everybody did it back then. Here's 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. So 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's doing it? No, the Bible said, no, the Bible said that if you steal, you pay fourfold. It doesn't say death for stealing. So this, oh, everybody was doing it, and then you try to tell the Muslims that Muhammad was a pervert for marrying a nine-year-old, and then they'll tell you, well, everybody was doing it in that area at that time. No, they weren't. It's a stupid logic of just, well, he did it too. I mean, it's like if you caught a toddler, you were eating out of the cookie jar. So did he. Now you say, well, 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. You know, that wasn't Pope Francis. That was a different pope. But here's the thing 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. So here's 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 gonna say, well, the church was just completely out to lunch 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. I mean, 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? Listen to the, 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, Diane, I don't know how to pronounce her name, Mokzar or Mochar or Mozar or whatever. So this Diane Mozar, here's 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 its 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. It's 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. Well, 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. Oh, it's admirable. No, what was admirable was the saints giving their lives. What's admirable was those who loved their lives not unto the death and were faithful unto Christ unto death and that laid down their lives for the cause of Christ. That would cause us to wonder with great admiration. But she has great admiration for torture. She says that, well, 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. There's way, read Fox's Book of Mars. It's, yeah, it's just crazy, the stuff that they did. It's unbelievable. And you say, well, everything in there is not really true. Okay, is any of it true? Because if one 10th of it's true, then the Roman Catholic Church must be the most satanic, wicked institution that's ever existed on this planet. If one 10th of what's in Fox's Book of Mars 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. Yeah, when they talk about the ancient world, some of it's legend. I would skip chapter one of Fox's Book of Mars because it's all just legend from 1,000 years ago. But all of 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 out. You know, 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 Fox's Book of Martyrs and a Bible. And they'd read from it in sermons. I mean, this is something that kept England from going back into Catholicism because there was a constant pressure to bring them back into Catholicism. But let me say this, the Roman Catholic Church is and always has been a satanic wicked institution that is rotten to its 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, well, look where we are in Hebrews, well, flip over to Proverbs, we already did that. Proverbs chapter five. It's the same church, folks. They brag about how, oh man, we've, you know, your church was just founded 10 years ago. Faithful Word Baptist Church. Our church goes back 2,000 years. 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 brothers 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. You see, 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 some things 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. Well, that would include all the popes that presided over and invented and came up with all this 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, well, atheists are saved. You know, because 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. Okay, and here's the thing. The Catholic Church has gone into a different phase now of the devil's plan, where now, instead of saying, hey, you know, you have to be Catholic or we're gonna burn you at the stake, now they're saying, well, all religions are paths to God. That's what they've morphed into now with their Vatican II council and they say now that the Jews didn't really kill Jesus. That was all just a big mix up. You know, and then they say now that, you know, wanna reach out to Muslims and Jews. I mean, Pope Francis said even atheists are going to heaven as long as they do good works, right? I mean, did you hear him say it? I heard him say it. And I understand Spanish too. So I heard all his, I heard him saying stuff even in the original language, Espanol, he was saying it. El papa. And he basically is this ecumenical guy who's kind of trying to bring in the new world order of a global religion now, one world religion is what he's 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 who participated in it. But let's look at some scripts. I'm just gonna close on this, some scriptures about the whore. Because if we go back to Proverbs, because I believe that the Bible is painting the Roman Catholic church there as a great whore. As one who's decked in gold, precious stones, pearls, drunken with the blood of the saints, et cetera. Well, look what the Bible has to say about a whore and tell me if this applies to the Catholic church, the Roman Catholic church. Because listen, it's still the same whore that it's always been. It might have changed its makeup design, changed its ensemble. You know, it used to be maybe a more young, vibrant whore that had more customers, more of the kings of Europe and more clout. Now it's an old, dirty, toothless whore is what it's become. But it's still the same whore, still the same filth. And it still has no repentance for the sins of its past days. And it has its own new sins that it's into of ecumenicalism and whatever else. But look at Proverbs five verse three, for the lips of a strange woman, drop as in honeycomb and her mouth is smoother than oil. This is 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. Lest thou shouldst ponder the path of life, her ways are movable that thou canst not know them. You see, the Roman Catholic church has changed its doctrine over the years. You think that they've taught and believed the same thing since day one? No, they're constantly bringing in new, weird doctrines of hey, we just came out with a doctrine, what, in the 20th century, Zuzia? Is that when they came out with Maria Himmelfart? 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 he came out with, speaking ex-cathedra or whatever. You know, they're constantly coming up with new doctrines and if you study the history of the Roman Catholic church, they change doctrine and come out with, just like now, the pope today doesn't sound anything like a medieval pope. Same whore, but their ways are movable. They change their doctrine. Look at chapter seven, verse 27. 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 18? 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 are there and that her guests are in the depths of hell. And I'm here to tell you tonight that Roman Catholicism is not Christianity. It is not the true church. It never has been the true church. I don't care if you wanna 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's preaching to people, many of whom had seen Christ. He said, even now are there many anti-Christs. Many false prophets are gone out into the world, he said. And let me tell you something, that they have always been wicked, always been apostate, always been a whore, always been sorceress and always been idolatrous 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, swing those beads all over the place, swing them high, swing them low, swing them Mary, go, go, go. Hey, you say, oh, that's blasphemy. I blasphemed the Catholic church tonight. Amen. I despise the Catholic church. I defy the Catholic church. Amen. May the Catholic church rot and hallelujah, let her smoke go up forever and ever. Amen. Wicked, but we need to reach Catholics with the gospel. It's not their fault. 90 some percent of Catholics don't even know what they believe. Hello. 90% of Catholics or more, they don't even know what they believe and you know, thank God Catholics are some of the easiest people to win to the Lord. Why? Because they don't even know what they believe. So you walk up and show them from the Bible and many times they'll 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 ban all the books. That's why they have to, you know, persecute and try to stop people from telling them. Now, sadly, Hispanics are predominantly Catholic. Now there's a reason why today Hispanics are Catholic and here's the reason why, the Spanish Inquisition. That's why, friend. You wanna know why Mexico is so given to idolatry and Catholicism? 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's by grace through faith and there were not only Protestants but there are Baptists and other people that are just opening the Bible and reading it and believing it and preaching it, you know why that never really took on in Spain like it took on everywhere else? Is 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 Catholicism. Yea, all of South America is in darkness today, spiritually, and they have that great idol, that great molten image outside of Rio de Janeiro of that long-haired hippie that they call Jesus, who's not the Jesus of the Bible. And I'm telling you, we need to reach these people with the light of the glory. Thank God the Inquisition's over. You know, whatever the conspiracies out there tell you, and some conspiracies are true and some are false, but the Inquisition's over, just so you know, it ended in the early 1800s, okay? So that means we can go and freely preach the gospel. We could even go to Spain itself and preach the gospel. We could go to Brazil, we could go to Mexico, we could go down the street and preach the gospel to Catholic Hispanics and win them under the Lord with a tear in the eye, with the gospel in hand, with the love of Christ in our hearts. It's not their fault. I'm not, look, a lot of people, they hear a sermon like this, and they're like, hey, you hate Catholic. No, I don't, I love Catholics. Look, my wife was raised Catholic, but you know what? She'll be the first to tell you that she's God, 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. Well, I know that, I know, if I had a nickel for every time I had somebody tell me this, I'd be a wealthy man. Well, I know this guy who's a Catholic priest, and he actually preaches the gospel, and he's 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's no salvation in that rotten church. The only way I would believe that anybody 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, yeah, I wanna go and listen to this mumbo jumbo and see the guy throw a bunch of poo-poo dust around and hand out a bunch of saltines and whatever, you know what? Anybody who willingly goes to that place and says, yeah, this is a true church, this is my church, that person's going to hell because that's not the gospel. The gospel is salvation by faith alone, and that is not what the Catholic church teaches. The Catholic church teaches salvation through the sacraments of confessing to the priest and going through all the rituals and whether it's baptism, whether it's catechism, confirmation, the last rites. Look, that stuff can't get you to heaven. The Catholic church is false. And look, yeah, if somebody's 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, well, yeah, 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's nothing stranger than that Catholic mass. And 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. And God didn't say, oh, you know, infiltrate the Catholic church and be a missionary from the inside. No, he said, come out from among them and be separate, sayeth the Lord, because the temple of God, which is your body, has no fellowship with idols. What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? None. Come out from among them, be separate, sayeth the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. I mean, 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. Now, 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 on your mouth. So 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 like, it's almost like foam. Who knows what I'm talking about? It's like a, it's almost like a super thin styrofoam. And I put it on my mouth and it were like, kind of stuck to the top of my mouth. And then she said, she said in the church when she was a kid, you know, they get on their knees and he'll stick that in your mouth. And I was like, kind of taking bites out of it. She's like, no, no, no. You got to put the whole thing in your mouth, you know. She's like, send this guy to the stake. I mean, this guy's a heretic. Look at him nippling at it, it's blasphemy. So she showed me that the doctrinally sound way is 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. And she said, but you got to be careful. You know, you don't want to be seen going on. You know, trying to get it off. Cause that's Jesus according to them. They say that's literally Jesus that you got in your mouth there. I mean, what kind of a weirdo doctrine is that? Look, it's a cult. Here's what I always tell people. If nobody'd ever heard of Catholicism and you said, hey, I'm part of a religion where there's this guy who wears a funny hat and a dress and whatever he says, you know, trumps the Bible. And we have to, we basically eat human flesh and drink blood, you know, and it's not symbolic. It's just, it's a cracker and it's wine. But then the priest says some words and it becomes flesh and blood. And we, literal, literal. They don't say it's symbolic friend. It's called transubstantiation. They say it's literal. That's why they hold it up and oh, you know. So I experienced the wafer, you know, and you know, it's, I don't understand how anybody could think that these people are Christians when it has nothing to do with New Testament Christianity. And then to see people get sucked in by the Orthodox Church, which is the same thing, or to see people get sucked into 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 the stained glass and the gold and the riches. You know, you're no different. If you're, if you say, oh, I just walked, you talk to these Orthodox and Catholics. Oh, I just walk into the church. I just knew it's the house of God because it's just, I mean, it's so beautiful. And the music and the pipe organ and the stained glass. Oh, it was just such an experience, so beautiful. You know, it's not like the strip mall where Pastor Harrison preaches, you know, but here's the thing. Here's the thing about that though. I could take you down somewhere and I'm sure we could go to some wicked place tonight, go to some bar room somewhere, for example, go to a casino, go to one of these casinos around here somewhere, right? And I bet you, I could find you some beautiful, gorgeous woman to show you and say, here, this, look, this, how can this be wrong? Look how good she looks. How can this be wrong for you 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. And you know I could show you some outwardly beautiful women tonight. If we went out looking in the dark places of this city, we could find some gorgeous, beautiful women for you tonight, but you know what? They would be filthy whores on the inside. Does that make it right? No. Whoa. Slow down on those amens. That wouldn't make it right, would it? Look, it's no different. It's absolutely not different at all. It's exactly what you're doing. You're walking into a whorehouse when you walk in. It's a spiritual whorehouse. And you're like, yeah, 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 strange woman. 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 and have 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 every corner of the globe. And we can knock doors, we can get in our cars and drive to distant cities. We can hop on an airplane and do soul-winning 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. And 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 soul-winning 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 would protect us in the coming years, Lord, that we would not enter times like unto 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 faithful unto death and to earn that crown of life, Lord. And in Jesus' name, we pray, amen.