Nursing Dictionary

the part of hebrews 11 that i want to startin is beginning in verse number 35. the bible reads in hebrews 11:35, "women received theirdead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; thatthey might obtain a better resurrection: and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings,yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, weretempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute,afflicted, tormented; (of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, andin mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. and these all, having obtained a goodreport through faith, received not the promise: god having provided some better thing forus, that they without us should not be made

perfect." this morning, the title of my sermon is theroman catholic inquisition. now, this is something that you don't hear a lot about, unfortunately,because it's not politically correct to talk about. in fact, i remember when i was a highschool student at public school in roseville, california, i remember drawing attention tothis in a history class, talking about the fact that the roman catholic church had executedheretics and tortured and burned people at the stake for not being willing to acceptthe catholic religion. i was told by the teacher that i shouldn't say things like that andthat i was offending catholics and i had some catholic girls shrieking at me in anger inthe class because i had the gall to stand

up and speak about these historical factsthat so many don't want to talk about. usually, in school, this chapter was skipped. mostpeople know very little about it. i'm going to talk about it this morning and i'm goingto give a biblical view on these events. now, first of all, what is the inquisition?well, the word literally means questioning or investigation or interrogation. for example,if we talked about someone who was inquisitive, that would be a person who asks a lot of questions.the inquisition had to do with finding heretics and forcing them to conform their beliefsto the idolatrous, pagan, superstitious roman catholic church. what the roman catholic churchcalls a heretic could easily be a bible-believing christian because of the fact that the romancatholic church is not christian whatsoever.

now, i go soul-winning every week and i havegone soul-winning every week for about seventeen or eighteen years now. usually, i start outwith this question: are you a christian? that's usually the first question that i ask people.about three-quarters of the time, when the person is catholic, they will literally say,"no, i'm catholic." who's ever heard that answer before? "are you a christian?" "no,i'm catholic." truer words have never been spoken. the roman catholic church is pagan,roman religion, superstition, idolatry, and evil and i'm going to go into that a littlebit later. let me just explain to you what they woulddo to these so-called heretics which is basically anybody who doesn't believe like them, anybodywho won't accept the church. torture was basically

used to get people to confess their heresiesand that they were wrong and that the church was right. those who refused to recant wouldbe burned at the stake. those who recanted but then they relapsed and had the wrong beliefa second time, they would also be burned at the stake. now, make no mistake, many of theseheretics did believe false doctrine. the roman catholics love to emphasize heretics likethose who denied the deity of christ or emphasized heresies like the so-called cathar heresyor manichean where they believed that the god of the old testament is different thanthe god of the new testament, that there's more than one god and all this stupid stuff.the roman catholics would love to point out that these heretics that were torturing andkilling, they had these really weird beliefs

and we had to get rid of these people. in reality though, every single person that'sin this church this morning would be considered a heretic according to the roman catholicchurch. we're all heretics. why? because a heretic is anyone who denies the authorityof the pope. i say that the pope is an anti-christ. anybody who denies the authority of the churchat rome is a heretic. we're all heretics. denying the mediation of saints. well, thebible says there's one mediator between god and man, the man christ jesus, not the saintsor mary or anyone else. denying that the wafer in the catholic mass literally turns intojesus was a major heresy for which people were burned at the stake. refusing to makeyour confession to a faggoty priest and receive

absolution from him. that would make you aheretic. not going to mass and denying the authority of the church fathers and of alltheir little councils that they had to determine doctrine makes you a heretic. well, accordingto that, every single one of us here is a heretic and if not, you're in the wrong place.every baptist would be considered a heretic for many different reasons. now, if you would, turn to acts chapter 22.now, the practice of using torture to interrogate people actually goes back to the roman empirebefore the roman catholic church even existed and that is where the catholic church receivedthis practice, from roman law, from the pagan roman empire. even the very terms themselves,inquisition and inquisitor, were used before

there ever was a roman catholic because theywere used by the romans in their legal system for determining guilt and innocence. in actschapter 22, we have the apostle paul preaching to the jews and they get angry when he talksabout the gospel going to the gentiles because they had this weird idea that they were somuch better than the gentiles and that the gentiles were not worthy of hearing the gospel. now, it says in verse 21, "and he said untome, depart: for i will send thee far hence unto the gentiles. and they gave him audienceunto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, away with such a fellow from theearth: for it is not fit that he should live. and as they cried out, and cast off theirclothes, and threw dust into the air. the

chief captain commanded him to be broughtinto the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging; that he might knowwherefore they cried so against him." notice he is going to be beaten in order to figureout what he did wrong. they don't even know what he did wrong. they're not even accusinghim of anything specific but they're thinking, "well, people are mad at you so there mustbe a reason. tell us what you did." they're going to scourge him as a way to examine himand determine guilt or innocence. look what it says in verse 25, "and as theybound him with thongs, paul said unto the centurion that stood by, is it lawful foryou to scourge a man that is a roman, and uncondemned? when the centurion heard that,he went and told the chief captain, saying,

take heed what thou doest: for this man isa roman. then the chief captain came, and said unto him, tell me, art thou a roman?he said, yea. and the chief captain answered, with a great sum obtained i this freedom."basically saying, "how is it that you're a roman? i mean, it cost me a lot of money toget that roman citizenship." and paul answers that he was free born. look if you would at verse 29, "then straightwaythey departed from him which should have examined him: and the chief captain also was afraid,after he knew that he was a roman, and because he had bound him." the bottom line is thatthe vast majority of people in the roman empire were not citizens of the city of rome. citizensof the city of rome had a special status,

special rights and privileges. the vast majorityof people in their empire did not fall under that category which is why they don't justassume that your everyday joe or somebody like the apostle paul is going to be a romancitizen. they're very surprised to find out that he was. notice this practice of torturing someonejust in order to question them and get them to confess to something when you don't evenknow what it is that you're supposed to confess to. that's going to come up later as we talkabout the inquisition. here's where this comes from. if we go backto the roman empire, we see the inquisition, the inquisitor, the practice of torturingpeople. i showed you a biblical example where

they almost did this to paul. history booksare replete with evidence of the fact that this was a roman practice in the ancient world. now, this is the philosophy that the romanempire had. they worshiped a lot of pagan gods and goddesses and they strongly believedthat the success of their empire depended on keeping these gods happy. the emperor wouldenforce worshiping pagan gods because they said we have to keep the gods happy in orderto keep succeeding and taking over more territory. we see that concept in the old testament toowhere these pagan nations are trying to please their god in order to gain a military victory. now, they were okay with you worshiping othergods too. you could pretty much worship whatever

gods you wanted in the roman empire just solong as you also worshiped their gods. if you didn't worship their gods, it was consideredtreason because the state and its success depends on keeping the gods happy. if you'rerefusing to keep the gods happy or if you're screwing up our religion, well, then you'rebringing down the wrath of the gods on our whole nation and you're a traitor. therefore,the punishment is death. what happened was roman emperors in the early centuries afterchrist started forcing christians to make sacrifices unto their false gods. when thechristians would refuse to make sacrifice unto their false gods, they would be put todeath as a traitor. that goes back to the roman empire before the roman catholic church.

then in 313 ad, constantine, the roman emperor,converts to christianity and makes christianity the official religion of the roman empire.when he does, he does it for political reasons. his goal is to unite the whole empire underhimself because it had been divided under a few different caesars that ruled in differentareas. he wanted the whole thing. he used christianity and he used that cause as a wayto rally people and unite the empire and to mandate christianity upon his subjects. iuse the term christianity very loosely because of the fact that even in the time of the apostles,there were all kinds of false doctrines and heresies and weird beliefs. just like today,not everyone who says they're christian is really christian. it has been like that sincethe very beginning.

people get this weird idea that the earlychurch, for the first few hundred years, they just had this real pure religion and nowadays,we have all these crazy beliefs. no, the crazy beliefs started from day one. i proved thatin my recent sermon that was called vain tradition. i don't remember what the sermon was called.something about god's word versus vain traditions. i went through and showed all the evidencethat even at the very beginning, even in the days while the apostles were still alive,they were constantly being thrown out of churches and the truth was being rejected and all kindsof false christianity had already sprung up. well, constantine, when he turns the empirechristian, his agenda was let's get everybody to agree. i don't want any fighting. i wantto use christianity as a united front to fulfill

my political ambition. i want to have a peacefulrealm that's all under my control. i don't want different kinds of christians bickeringover doctrine and fighting with each other. he held these councils where he forced everyoneto agree. now, he didn't tell them what to believe. he didn't really care. he would sortof preside over these councils, call these councils, invite all these church leadersand church whoever and they would get together and they would argue the doctrine and theywould come up with some kind of a consensus and say, "well, here's what we all believe."from then on, everybody has to believe that. once they agreed on that at this council orthat council, anything else becomes heresy and it becomes illegal.

now, real christians don't compromise doctrine.real bible-believing christians don't get together with the mormons and the jehovah'switnesses and the catholics and the presbyterians and the methodists and the united church ofchrist and get together and say, "hey, let's all kind of come to a compromise. let's allcome to agreement." what agreement hath the temple of god with idols? none. what concordhath christ with belial? what part hath he that believe with an infidel? "come out fromamong them. be separate," saith the lord. this idea of let's unite everyone. let's forcepeople to be a christian and then let's force everybody to agree on one doctrine. look whenyou get a bunch of heretics together and a bunch of false teachers together to agree,here's what you end up with: the least common

denominator. broad is the way that leads todestruction and many there be which go in thereat, because straight is the gate andnarrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it. these people that are getting together andagreeing, many of them are false teachers who believe in all kinds of false doctrine.one of the biggest false doctrines that you'll find is this idea that the church at romewas somehow special. you got the church at alexandria, the church at antioch, the churchhere, the church there, but the church of rome somehow was special the bishop of thechurch of rome, he's special. eventually, he becomes the pope. then, that pope takeson the title pontifex maximus which is exactly

what caesar was called, pontifex maximus.that heresy goes back all the way to the very beginning of these councils where they'redeclaring the bishop of rome is special. where's that in the bible? nowhere, of course. now, here's the problem with this. not onlydid you already have all this garbage and false doctrine even from the very beginningsof christianity, not only does marrying the church and the state bring in the worst kindof people, because we all know that politicians are the worst people, pretty much the scumof the earth, morally, because wicked people gravitate to these positions of power andthen power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. these church leaders that aregetting together and want to rub elbows with

caesar are obviously not the right kind ofmen of god and wicked people. they're all getting together and deciding what the doctrineis. not only that though, but by making the whole empire christian and saying, "hey, we'reall going to be christian now," here's what you're doing. you're bringing in a bunch ofpagans into the church. now, let me just illustrate it to you thisway. i got to hurry because i have so much to cover here. let's say that tempe passeda law that said you have to be a baptist. you have to go to a baptist church. let'ssay everybody in my subdivision over here, which a couple thousand people probably livein my subdivision right down the street where i live. let's say everybody in my subdivisionwas just assigned, well you guys are going

to go to faithful word baptist church. that'syour church now. by law, the official religion is baptist and you got to go to the baptistchurch. you know what that would do? that would just bring in a bunch of unbelievers,a bunch of weird doctrine, a bunch of wickedness into our church. obviously, those people arejust going to corrupt the church and make it worse and worse over time even if it startsout where it's the same and pastor anderson's preaching to us and it's the same doctrineand these people just kind of you know. over time, they're going to take over. it's justgoing to get more pagan. it's just going to get more wicked. you're bringing in all theseweirdos. now, let's go to the bible. go to romans chapternumber 16. obviously, we know that the roman

catholic church is a false religion, pagan,idolatrous, murderous, the filthy whore of babylon. we get that. let's just look at itfrom their perspective for a minute. they're saying, "well, we have to get rid of heretics.we can't just let these heretics just teach and preach false doctrine or we can't justallow people to believe false doctrine." let me show you how the bible says we should handleheretics. people that actually do believe false doctrines like let's say they deny thedeity of christ or they teach whatever the false doctrine. look what the bible says todo with heretics. romans 16 verse 17, "now i beseech you, brethren, mark them which causedivisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. forthey that are such serve not our lord jesus

christ, but their own belly; and by good wordsand fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple." now, here we have exactly what the roman catholicchurch is so afraid of. these false teachers and heretics are going to deceive the simple,looking at it from their perspective even though we know the biggest deception is beingin the church. what does the bible say to do about people like that? to just mark themand avoid them. does it say arrest them, torture them, persecute them, murder them? no, itjust says to avoid them. what are we supposed to do with heretics? mark them, point themout, and avoid them. go to 2 thessalonians chapter 3. we're lookingat what the bible actually says about how

to deal with real heretics. 2 thessalonianschapter number 3 says this in verse 6, "now we command you, brethren, in the name of ourlord jesus christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly,and not after the tradition which he received of us." jump down to verse 14, "and if anyman obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, thathe may be ashamed. yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." thebible's very consistent, isn't it? flip over to titus chapter 3. what do you do with theguy who's causing divisions and offenses and leading simple people down a path of falsedoctrine? what do you do to heretics and false prophets? what do you do to people who don'tobey the epistles that paul wrote? what do

you do with heretics? you avoid them. youhave no company with them. you stay away from them. you preach against them. do you forcethem to get on your page? do you arrest them? do you murder them? no. titus chapter 3 verse 10, "a man that is anheretic after the first and second admonition reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted,and sinneth, being condemned of himself." flip back a couple pages to 2 timothy chapter2. the bible says in verse 24, "and the servant of the lord must not strive; but be gentleunto all men, apt to teach, patient. in meekness instructing those that oppose." it doesn'tsay destructing. it says, "instructing those that oppose themselves; if god peradventurewill give them repentance to the acknowledging

of the truth." hey, maybe these people willget it right. maybe these people, if we instruct them and preach to them and teach them willget their doctrine right. in no case does the bible ever teach that heretics are supposedto be punished, tortured, flogged, burned, murdered. nowhere does the bible teach that.you say, "where are they getting this from?" well, as i showed you, they are getting itfrom the roman empire who murdered christians before there ever was a catholic. they arefollowing in those same footsteps because they're the roman catholic church and there'sa big emphasis on the roman. now, if you would go to luke chapter 14. roman,pretty obvious what that signifies. catholic means universal, global. see, they want everybodyto be apart of their church. everybody has

to be ruled over by the church at rome. that'swhat they're teaching with that universal whereas the bible teaches local churches,church at ephesus, church at smyrna. all these separate churches, when somebody is teachingheresy, all they do is they just kick the person out of that church and just stay awayfrom that person. that guy's a bad guy. they don't feel the need to force them. here'sthe problem. when you make everybody be "christian", well then how do you throw someone out ofthe church when they're being forced to be apart of the church? then it's like we can'tdo that. okay. let's just torture this person and get them to admit that what they beliefis false. if that doesn't work, we're just going to have to kill them.

where do catholics go to justify this fromthe bible? let me say this. even to this day, the roman catholics still justify both theinquisition and all of the murder of heretics that they've done throughout their historywhich goes all the way back to the very beginnings in the 4th century ad, all the way up untilthe early 1800s when the inquisition was done away with in the early 1800s. they justifyit to this day. there are all kinds of books out there, the lies of the inquisition andit turns out it was actually good. catholics today will say the inquisition was a goodthing. don't tell me that they've totally repented. no, they haven't. they still believethat what they did was right, to burn heretics. in fact, i picked up several books this weekand read all their justifications of why it

was good and they said, "well, the thing thatstood out about the inquisition was just how lenient it was." yeah. i'm going to go intothat in tonight's sermon. by the way, it's a two-parter. this morning is just the introduction.tonight is where we're going to get into the real meat of it. this is their bizarre scriptural justificationfor torturing and murdering heretics. it comes from a guy named augustine who they call saintaugustine. who's ever heard of this guy? he's one of their main catholic philosopher, theirmain theologians, the guy that they look to as a great hero. augustine gave them thiswonderful reason for torturing and killing people who would not be catholic. it goesback to augustine. they used this parable

from luke 14. this parable was used for over1000 years to justify it and even today they're still using this parable to justify it. let's read the parable together. verse 15,"and when one of them that sat at meat with him," jesus, that is, "heard those things,he said unto him, blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of god." now, theproblem is most people interpret this parable and completely ignore verse 15 which is thecontext of the parable. a guy is eating with jesus and he says to jesus, "hey, jesus, blessedis he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of god. then, said ye unto him." then, jesusresponds to that guy singularly, particularly with a parable. it has to be understood inthe context of verse 15.

verse 16 says this, "then said he unto him,a certain man made a great supper, and bade many: and sent his servant at supper timeto say to them that were bidden, come; for all things are now ready. and they all withone consent began to make excuse. the first said unto him, i have bought a piece of ground,and i must needs go and see it: i pray thee have me excused. and another said, i havebought five yoke of oxen, and i go to prove them: i pray thee have me excused. and anothersaid, i have married a wife, and therefore i cannot come. so that servant came, and shewedhis lord these things. then the master of the house being angry said to his servant,go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor,and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.

and the servant said, lord, it is done asthou hast commanded, and yet there is room. and the lord said unto the servant, go outinto the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. fori say unto you, that none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper." now, let me give you the interpretation ofthis parable. by the way, there's another parable like it. if you want to keep yourfinger in luke 14 and you want to flip over to matthew, you'll see the same parable onceagain. this isn't in my notes to do this but i do want to mention it. over in matthew 22,there's a very similar parable. it's not exactly the the same but it's very similar where itsays in verse 2, "the kingdom of heaven is

like unto a certain king, which made a marriagefor his son. and sent forth his servants to call them." it's just like the parable inluke 14 where they make excuses and they don't come. what does the lord do as a result of themnot coming? it says in verse 7, "but when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: andhe sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city." thereason it says murderers is because in this parable, it says that the servants who weresent to gather them to the wedding, to gather them to the feast, some of them were slainand killed. he destroys the murderers, burns their city, and invites others to the feastin the highways and hedges.

now, the answer to this parable is prettyobvious what it represents. what is he saying? he's basically talking about the fact thatjesus christ first came to the jews. they were the ones that were invited to the kingdomof heaven. they were the ones who were invited to the great marriage supper of the lamb andthey rejected him. the bible says he came unto his own and his own received him not.jesus talked about how the jews had killed the prophets and that last of all, they killedthe lord's own son. because of that, he would burn down their city and slay them. well,what happened in 70 ad? the romans came in and burned down their city. they rejectedchrist and the punishment was their city was burned, destroyed, the vineyard was let outto other husband. lots of parables about this.

here's the thing. everybody pretty much agreesthat that what this parable is about. augustine would say amen to that. everybody would agreewith that. that's just common sense of just reading the bible. it's first offered untocertain people who rejected it. that's the jews. then, after that, look down where youare in luke 14. after the first people are invited and rejected, the servant came andshowed his lord these things. "then the master of the house being angry said to his servant,go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor,and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind." then, augustine says to that, that's the gentilesnow. okay. the jews rejected it, well we're going to go out and invite somebody else now.that's the gentiles.

in augustine's warped mind, there's a thirdgroup of people here besides the jews and the gentiles. see, the jews are the ones whoare initially invited and they reject it. everybody agrees. the poor, the maimed, theblind, the halt. yeah, okay. now it's going out to different people. that's the gentiles.everybody agrees. he says there's a third different group here, the people on the highwaysand hedges. these are the heretics. the heretics are the third group, the people that are inthe highways and hedges. they must be compelled to come in. according to augustine, anybody who is a heretic,meaning that you're a "christian", but you don't believe exactly like the roman catholicchurch, translation: everybody in the room,

you must be forced to be brought into thechurch. you must be compelled to come in. this is their one scriptural justificationfor that. can you believe that? i mean, talk about a stretch. talk about a bizarre interpretationto say the poor, the maimed, and the blind is the gentiles and everybody else in thestory is just a heretic and they all need to be compelled to come in. first of all, they don't even understand theword compelled. that's not even what compelled means. get the story here. it's about beinginvited to dinner. just think about this. it's a dinner. it's a feast. it's a greatreception where fine dining is going to take place. it's kind of surprising that the peopledon't want to come. that's why the master's

so mad. he went through all this trouble,nobody wants to come, he's angry, his servants are mistreated, et cetera. what does he do?he has all this food. he has all this preparation and he wants someone to enjoy it so what hedoes is he says, "let's go invite the poor, the maimed, the blind." why? because they'rethe most likely to want to come. i mean, if you're giving out a free fancy meal and you'reinviting homeless people, derelicts, the handicapped, they're going to be thrilled because theydidn't normally get to enjoy feasts of that nature. they go out and they invite the poor,the maimed, the blind, and the halt. through inviting all those people, there's still roomfor more. the house is not filled. they have more room. then, it's expanded to saying we'lljust invite everybody now. now just go into

the highways and hedges, meaning just walkup and down the street and just find anyone you can. when it says compel them to come in, it'snot saying like put a gun to their head, "you're going to dinner, buddy." no, compulsion orbeing compelled, if you just break down the word. first of all, you could look up everytime compel is used in the bible and you'll see that people were compelled to do variousthings and it's obvious what it means. think about just the root word of compel. that rootpel is used in a lot of english words. it comes from the latin pellere which means todrive or to push. think about this word propel. pro means forward. propel means to push forward.propulsion is pushing something forward. this

would be like a propulsion engine or so forth.everybody understand the word propel? a propeller pushes things forward. movement. how aboutthis word? repel. re means back. repel, to drive back, to push back, to drive away, topush away. that's repulsion. compel comes from the same type of word, pushing, driving.when it says compel them to come in, what's he saying? be pushy. push people. go to thosepeople and say to them, "look, you need to come to this." not saying use force, put agun to their head, beat them up if they won't come. i mean, there's no indication of that.that's ridiculous and stupid of an interpretation. it doesn't fit the parable. it doesn't fitreality. it's ridiculous. by the way, this is a great thing to showpeople and i've used this verse often when

people try to say, "hey, you shouldn't bepushy when you're soul-winning or you should be really just let them come to you. don'tdo confrontational soul-winning." now, of course i believe that we should not be rude.we should be gentle and kind, but we shouldn't just be laid back like, "well, you know it'sthere if you want it." we should be preaching to people, "now is the accepted time. nowis the day of salvation." remember, the house is not church. did you forget about verse15? "and when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said untohim, blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of god." that is the feast thatthese people are being invited to. it's a great feast in heaven. he's not saying compelthem to come into church. he's saying compel

them to get saved. being saved is what we'retalking about. when it says here, "compel them to come in,"basically tell them, "hey, you need to be there. it's not optional. god commandeth allmen everywhere to repent." this is his commandment that we believe on the son jesus christ andlove one another as he gave his commandment. we can't force people to believe that. youcan't force people to be saved. if they say, "look, i don't want to be there," then fine,you're not going to be there. if you actually get into the parable a littlebit, think about this. let's say you went out and invited someone, some random personon the street and said, "hey, see that hotel over there? there's a great wedding receptiongoing on. you're invited to dine with us tonight

on filet mignon and all the fixings and it'sright over there. it's the wedding of john and crystal buck, let's say. it's right downhere." here's the thing about that. people probably would feel like they're not reallysure if they're really invited or they're not really sure if they're imposing. theymight feel a little awkward just showing up at a wedding that they weren't initially invitedto. the compel them to come in is basically saying, "look, we want you there," as opposedto just, "you're invited." i mean, the blind, the maimed, and the halt, when they're toldthey're invited, they're just like, "cool. let's go." it's a great opportunity for them.your average person might feel a little bit unsure. look, a lot of people feel that wayabout salvation. "well, i don't know. i've

done a lot of bad things." they need to betold, "no, you really are invited. god wants you there." compel them to be saved. thishas been perverted. now, there aren't three groups of people here.good night. what kind of ridiculous, jews, gentiles, and heretics. why would your averagejoe in this parable, just because he's able-bodied represent a heretic? doesn't even make anysense. what's really going on here is that god's telling us that when we go out and winpeople to christ, we should first go to the literal poor, blind, maimed, and halt. weshould give them the gospel first and then give the gospel to everyone else. by the way,that is what we practice at this church. we practice a soul-winning that goes first tothe poor, second to everyone else. look, god

wants us to preach the gospel to every creature.we all agree on that. i believe that we should first go to the people that are the most receptive,just like this story shows. first go to the people that are most likely to show up tothe dinner. then, once you've exhausted that, then go to everyone else. that's what i believe. you see, in our soul-winning, we have knockedall of the poor areas of around our church literally five or six times each. we're tothe point now where it's getting to the point where we'll go soul-winning near the churchin a good soul-winning area, more of a working class or poor area, and i'm knocking doorsand i'm recognizing people. i've knocked this person's door three times personally, letalone what the rest of the church has done.

i remember the town of guadalupe right nearhere. it was a really fertile soul-winning ground. it's not exactly a ritzy area. wewould go down to that guadalupe and we would knock every door once a year and we're seeinga whole bunch of people saved. here's the thing. after we knocked every door for thefifth or sixth time and started seeing all the same people, recognizing people, you'dget a lot of people who are already saved because we already won them to the lord. you'dget people who weren't interested then and they're still not interested. it got to thepoint where in the fifth, sixth time through, less and less people were getting saved. thefirst time was the most fertile. there was a law of diminishing returns that kicked in.

sometimes people will complain, like for example,on wednesdays. we can't really go that far soul-winning on wednesdays. we have to stayfairly close to the church. they'll complain like, "oh, man. we're going to this middleclass neighborhood. this is going to be rough." every single time we go to the middle classneighborhood, we get at least one person saved, praise god. "oh, man. pastor anderson's takingus to the ..." yeah, that's because you weren't here when i went to that poor area six times.you get to a point where people, sometimes they take this a little too far where allthey want to do is only witness to poor people. he didn't say go back and witness to the poorpeople the seventh time. he does want the gospel to go to everybody.

here's what i believe in as a soul-winningmethod for our church. we go to the poor first. we go to the poor repeatedly but that we goeverywhere. even the richest neighborhood, the door should be knocked one time. at leastgive them that one. i'm not saying we're going to go back and back and back but you got togo one time, go through the middle class, go through the rich, go through the uppermiddle class, lower middle class. my goal, as pastor of this church, is to see everydoor in phoenix knocked, not just the ghetto for the eighth time. this is coming from somebodywho has heavily emphasized the poor areas over the last ten years. why? because thefact that that's what the bible, i believe, teaches, not just here, but in other places.

that's what this is talking about. when thebible says, "hey, go get the poor, the maimed, the blind then just go out and get everybody,"that's just a model for how to win people to christ. none of this has to do with torturinganyone, burning anyone a slow, painful death. none of that is in this passage. augustineis a liar and a false teacher justifying the deeds of his wicked, pagan, idolatrous romancatholic church. that's where he came up with this. the bible says, "as a thorn that goeth upinto the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable in the mouth of fools." see, parables areeasily twisted because they're stories that can be interpreted in more than one way. thebible contains many clear statements and then

it contains parables. well, guess what weshould base our doctrine on, clear statements, then we should use the statements to determinethe parable. what were the clear statements on how to deal with a heretic? avoid them.reject them. have no company with them. instruct them. try to teach them the truth. hopefully,they'll repent. then, they just ignore all those clear statements, go to a parable andsay, "well, i think those people out in the highways and hedges are the heretics," whichmeans anybody who's not a catholic. if you're christian but not catholic, you're that hereticthat needs to be compelled, not to come into heaven, compelled to come into the churchand put your money in our offering plate and obey us. that's what it's all about.

let me show you one more scripture that theyuse to specifically justify why they burned people at the stake. go to john chapter 15.again, a vague parable that they can twist according to their wicked mind. you know,approaching the bible with a wicked mind, "how can i justify torturing people to deathbecause they won't join my church?" they take that wicked mind and search the bible, pageafter page, ignoring everything about being peaceful and merciful and loving and everythingthe bible teaches about the local church. it's all, to them, just about power, money,and control. then, they search with that wicked heart, "aha! i found it. compel them to comein. get out the rack. get out the torture implements. kindle the faggots on the fireand let's burn someone at the stake." i'm

using the real meaning of faggot there, justso you know. look it up in the dictionary. sometimes i use it the other way too. anyway, john chapter 15 verse 5 says this,this is jesus speaking, "i am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, andi in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." you know,that's a beautiful passage, isn't it? "if a man abide not in me, he is cast forth asa branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and theyare burned." well, there it is right there. if you don't abide in mother church, thenyou're not abiding in christ. if you're not abiding in christ, we're going to gather youand burn you. again, not a clear statement,

just a twisting of a parable. what does thebible teach? go to revelation 22. revelation chapter 22 and look what the bibleteaches about this as if we hadn't seen already enough scripture about how to deal with heretics.revelation chapter 22 says this in verse 11, "he that is unjust, let him be unjust still:and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him berighteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still." does that sound like godneeds us to go force people to believe in christ, force people to obey us, doctrinally?not at all. now, look at verse 17. verse 16 says, "i jesushave sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. i am the root andthe offspring of david, and the bright and

morning star. and the spirit and the bridesay, come. and let him that heareth say, come. and let him that is athirst come. and whosoeverwill," whosoever wants to, he's saying, "let him take the water of life freely." you see,we are to make our own decisions and everyone should be allowed to make their own decision,whether or not to believe on the lord jesus christ and beyond that, whether or not theywant to attend church. you see, i don't want people to attend churchwho don't want to be here. if you don't want to be here, then by all means, don't come.if you don't want to believe in the lord jesus christ, you know, i will do everything topersuade you to become a christian. i'll get on my knees and beg you to be saved, but i'mnot going to force you to be saved because

i can't force you to be saved. i'm not evengoing to get on my knees and beg you to come to church. i'll get on my knees and beg youto be saved. men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the faith, they approach the bibleand pull out these weird, sick, twisted interpretation of parables in order to promote the agendaof their godless, wicked church. now, in tonight's sermon, this morning's sermon,i'm basically focused upon the rational behind it. how did they get to this point? how couldthe roman catholic church get from a new testament that sits there and gives you exact detailsof how to deal with problems in the church, even how to deal with people trespassing againstyou and throwing them out of the church, throwing out this person, how to deal with heretics?how do you get from that to the inquisition?

we saw their twisting of scripture and theirwicked justification for it. in tonight's sermon, i'm going to get intobasically the detail and the nitty-gritty of actually what they did during the inquisition.now, let me say this. i'm not going to get overly graphic with it. in fact, i'm not goingto be graphic at all just for the sake of children. i don't want to sit there and gointo all the gruesome, gory details. let me tell you something. it's disgusting. i'm goingto keep it g-rated for the children tonight but i'm going to go into the detail of allthe processes and everything that they did tonight in the inquisition. i'm telling you,it is the most hair-raising, evil, satanic, just disgusting actions that people have committedin the history of mankind, the barbarity,

the cruelty, the sadistic wickedness of theroman catholic church is just beyond comprehension. yet, people today think this is a godly religion. even baptists will sometimes say, "oh, well,you know. there are a lot of catholics that are christian. you know, they're still christian.they're just off on a few things," or blah, blah, blah. i've been in a baptist churchwhere the sunday school teacher literally said that the church was really corrupt aroundthe time of the reformation to the point where many of the popes weren't even saved. my mom,she didn't want to like speak up or anything. she's not the type that is constantly pipingup or something. she's keeping silent in the church and everything. she felt compelledto stand up and say, "are you saying that

there ever was a pope that was saved?" theteacher said, "well, yeah. of course." he said, "i think the pope we have right now."we have. he said, "i think the pope we have right now is saved," referring to john paulii who's roasting in hell right now. john paul is in hell. oh, how dare you say that?he's right there with mother theresa. you say, "well, i'm offended. i'm leaving."well, then go back to the mother whore catholic church that's drunken with the blood of thesaints and drunken with the martyrs of jesus that has murdered and killed and torturedtrue believers and heretics and jews and everybody else. yeah, all the blood that's shed on theearth of all kinds of people, but including biblical christians. you have the gal to getoffended when i tell you that the leader of

this cult is in hell today. he's burning.all those who were burned at the stake, they may have only suffered for a few minutes ora few hours but john paul will roast in hell for all eternity with every last catholicpope before him, all of them, every bishop of that damnable, wicked church of rome isin hell, in the lowest hell, and will be for all eternity. we need some preaching against the roman catholicchurch today. you know, it's wicked. they're murderous, hands dripping with blood, darkplaces filled with pedophilia and sick filth of homosexuality. these monasteries are likea queer bathhouse. somebody needs to point out this horrible dragging of the name ofour savior in the mud for the last 2000 years.

making excuses for it, acting like it's notthat bad. it's wicked. it's nothing to do with christianity. it's a pagan, hocus pocus,chanting, work your way to heaven, build us a tower that we may reach unto heaven religion.i have nothing to do with anything of that harlot, the roman catholic church. filthierthan any literal whore who has ever walked down the streets of a downtown area. deckedin more jewelry and ornaments than the most gaudy woman of the night is that wicked romancatholic church. look, you say, "well, you hate catholics."no, i don't but i hate the pope and i hate the catholic church. may they all rot in hellwho have created this wicked religion. the catholics, i don't hate. i love the catholicswhich is why i'm telling them the truth about

this satanic minister who's trying to leadthem to hell with this pagan hocus pocus and superstition. you see, if you love catholics,you'll tell them the truth that there's no salvation inside the catholic church. catholicslove to tell you there's no salvation outside of the catholic church. no, there is no salvationinside the catholic church. none. if you want to go to heaven, you must reject the romancatholic church. if you believe in the roman catholic church, you will split hell wideopen. that rosary, chanting, and hail mary is going to send you to hell. there is nomediator between god and man but the man christ jesus. that little wafer that he holds up, you knowwhat people used to do in england during the

reformation? there were people who would getso angry at the catholic church and get so mad, there were numerous stories of wheresomebody, when the pope was holding up that piece of bread, would just grab it out ofhis hand and throw it on the ground and stomp on it and say, "you're an idolater! that'snot jesus! it's a piece of bread!" of course, he would be promptly have his tongue removed,hand cut off, burned at the stake, and numerous other horrors happen to them because he hadthe guts to state the obvious, that your stupid cracker isn't jesus and that jesus christdoes not need you to go through a bunch of idols and goddesses and gods and pagan so-calledsaints to get you to heaven or to talk to jesus. the bible says that we may boldly comeunto the throne of grace and obtain mercy

to find help in time of need. why does this need to be preached today? iremember when i first started preaching, when i was about nineteen to twenty years old andi was newly married and i had a nursing home ministry and i got up and preached this sermonagainst catholicism and my ministry leader at my church took me aside and said, "listen,you can't preach that here." i wasn't even preaching like i'm preaching this morning.this is my turf. you know what i mean? i'm the bishop here, buddy, and i'm going to preachwhat god lays on my heart. here's the thing. i'm on his turf. he's ministry leader andhe said, "hey, you can't preach against the roman catholic church by name because there'scatholics here." i wasn't even saying anything

radical. i just said, "hey, they're teachingfalse doctrine. they're teaching you to work your way to heaven. you got to believe onjesus to be saved. it's all by faith. it's not through works. it's not through sacramentsand pagan rituals." he took me aside and said, "you can't do that." he said, "just preachthe truth but don't preach against that which is false." this is in a king james soul-winningindependent fundamental baptist church. don't preach against what's false, just preach what'strue. just preach that we're saved by faith alone but don't say that the catholics teachthat it's not. i just said, "oh, okay. all right." i come back the next week with my sermon.i had made a little visit to the catholic

bookstore in between. i get up and i writea sermon. we only preach for fifteen minutes in the nursing home so the ministry leader'sthere. i get up and preach for fifteen minutes and i did exactly what he said. i preached,"hey, it's by faith. we don't need any mediator." i went through every catholic doctrine withoutmentioning the catholic church. i just said, "hey, we don't need a mediator. we don't needto pray to anyone but jesus." he's just sitting there smiling and, "oh, it's so good. you'redoing it right." then, i get to the very last minute and isaid, "let me tell you something about the roman catholic church." i looked right atthis old man that told me no, the ministry leader. he wasn't the pastor of the churchor anything though. he's just the guy who

ran this nursing home ministry. "let me tellyou something about the roman catholic church," and then i went on a rant about it. i pulleda picture out. i said, "this sissy, this isn't jesus. this long-haired sissy is a productof somebody's imagination." i tore it up and threw it on the ground. i went and sat down.my wife was there. this was a long time ago. then, afterward, he came up to me and said,"good sermon." "thank you." that's what happened. i'm just telling the story as it happened.that's how it happened. my wife was there. my sister might have been there. i don't remember.that's how it happened. why? sometimes you just have to have the guts to just stand upand tell people no because i'm going to preach the truth. this thing of we don't want tooffend catholics, i do. maybe i'll offend

them to the point where they realize thatthat cracker's going to damn them to hell. they're eating and drinking damnation untothemselves. look, you say, "you catch more flies withhoney." okay, how many people in this room are an ex-catholic? put up your hand if you'veever been a catholic. look around. well, it looks like the baptists are reaching a lotof catholics. you know what. it's not trough tip-toeing through the tulips and tellingthem, "oh, yeah. well, know you, you guys believe in jesus. we believe in jesus. youbelieve in the trinity. we believe in the trinity." yeah, except that you guys are abunch of idolatrous pagans and we're christians and we need to understand ...

look, when we go soul-winning, obviously youdon't preach the way that i'm preaching behind a pulpit to god's people at a door soul-winning.when i knock on the door and i talk to a catholic, obviously i'm very kind and gentile. in meekness,instructing those that oppose themselves. if god peradventure will give them repentance.you say, "well, why do you preach so hard about it in here?" because this is a baptistchurch. everybody in here is supposedly saved. everybody in here supposedly understands thatthe catholic church is an abomination. the reason that somebody needs to get up and preachhard is because if i don't get up and preach hard and lay it out there, then what you haveis baptist churches filled with people who think catholics are saved. i've been in independentfundamental baptist churches. i've been in

other denominations of baptist churches wherethey think john paul is saved. i mean, one time, i remember one time i wasat a swimming pool party with a youth group of a baptist church. this was when i was aboutsixteen. somebody had a towel over their head like this because they had just gotten outof the pool. somebody said to this girl, "hey, you look like mother theresa with that towelon your head." i said, "i have an impression of mother theresa." i said, "here's my impressionof mother theresa," because she's dead. i said, "oh, you don't like that one? here'sanother impression of mother theresa. ahhhhhh!" i said, "because she's burning in hell rightnow." every single person at that pool party condemnedme and said, "how dare you judge her. how

dare you say that she's in hell. she was awonderful, godly christian," they say. "wonderful, godly christian. she was greater than anyof us." i said to them, "how do you know that?" i said, "have you ever heard mother theresasay a single word?" they said no. i said, "do you know what language mother theresaspeaks? is it english?" "i don't know." i said, "well, that proves that you've neverheard anything that she's ever said." i said, "what do you know about mother theresa?" "well,she's catholic." "okay. what else do you know about her?" "oh, she did good things." i saidto these teenagers, i said, "is that how you get to heaven? by being catholic and doinggood things?" that's what i said to them. this was like a wake up call for me becausei thought that most of my friends were saved.

at the end of that conversation, i realizedthey all virtually had no clue that salvation was by faith alone. they were like, "well,you do have to do good works." i'm like, "whoa, this is a baptist church." i'm telling you,this is where we're at today, friend. look, if you go soul-winning, you'll talk to peoplefrom baptist churches, they don't even know what the gospel is. listen, in the end timeswhat we're seeing is an ecumenical movement where basically the catholic church is unitingwith all these other churches and all these other religions. i mean, when i was in sacramento, california,even sixteen years ago, they had an event called jesus christ jubilee 2000 that wasput on by the roman catholic church and i

went out and stood outside of it. you know,i don't do this kind of stuff anymore because it's a waste of time. i go door-to-door soul-winning.i stood out there with a sign, with my brother and a friend of ours, i had a sign that said,it was like the drinking and driving don't mix but i just changed it to catholic andchristians don't mix. you know, my brother had a sign that said, "we're saved by faith,not the sacraments," or whatever. you know, i don't believe in holding signs and stuffbecause it's a waste of time. we stood out there and i saw literally scoresof people that i went to christian school with over the years, you know, because it'sa small world of evangelical christians in sacramento. i was seeing person after person."steve, how you doing? whoa, what are you

doing?" i was able to turn away about a thirdof them where they turned around and got in their car and left. "hey did you know thatthis event is put on by a catholic bishop? did you know that this is a roman catholicthing and that's it's supposed to be bringing all religions together?" then, another thirdof the people walked out halfway through and said, "man, you were right. they're sayingthat we should all agree on doctrine and put aside differences with the catholics and everybody."then, you know one-third followed lucifer and his angels to damnation. that's a truestory. i'm talking of people that i knew. i grew up in pretty fundamentalist, prettyconservative circles. that's why a lot of the people that i was seeing would be thetype of people that would be turned away.

i'm telling you, that's where we're at today.this ecumenical, don't offend anyone. look, the baptist preachers of the past said thepope is an anti-christ. you couldn't even be baptist if you didn't believe that. i'mnot kidding. i mean, every single baptist. that's part of being a baptist is that thepope is an anti-christ in the place of christ and that the church is the whore of babylonand that the church is satanic, the roman church, that is. that's part of being a baptist.today, people say, "tone that down." no, i'm not going to tone it down. you know what'sfunny? they'll get mad at me for making a joke at a pool party that's in bad taste,at a swimming pool, but they don't mind the catholic church torturing and murdering millionsof people. that's what i'm going to get into

tonight, the millions of people tortured andkilled by the catholic church. you say, "well, i don't like this kind of preaching." well,then, stay home tonight. let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. father, we thank you so much, lord, that wedon't need to bow a knee to a guy in a dress who calls himself papa, dresses like mama,and looks like a homo. lord, thank you so much that we have the mediator of christ.thank you so much that we can boldly come unto the throne of grace, lord, and that wehave salvation through faith in christ, not through baptism, not through a church, notthrough rituals and voodoo and sacraments and all kinds of kneeling and genuflecting,lord. thank you that we have the gospel of

christ to save us. lord, as we go out soul-winning amongst thecatholics, lord, help us not to hate them or take it out on them, lord. they're justdeceived. they've never even heard this stuff, lord. help us to be kind to catholics andnice to them, but, lord, help us not to give them a false sense of security by tellingthem that they're saved, lord. help us to gently show them, "no, you're not saved. salvationis through faith, not through the church." lord, i pray that you'd put your blessingson us this afternoon and also that you would bless the evening sermon, lord, that thisgreat hidden evil, this great cover up of this bloodbath that the catholic church isresponsible for would come to light, lord,

and that people would realize that this institutionknown as the roman catholic church is rotten to its very core. in jesus' name we pray,amen.