Everything Satan Does is a Mockery of God - Part 3 - The Deception of Roman Catholicism

 

This article may ruffle a lot of feathers, so I want to be very clear about something before I delve into it. While I have serious concerns and accusations to make against the Roman Catholic Church (RCC), I recognize that there are members of the RCC that are true believers in Jesus Christ, who will be with Him in eternity, and who accomplish good and even miraculous things for the kingdom of God. My concerns that I will be listing in this article are not accusations against Catholics, but against the church system under which Catholics worship. The system has become corrupted through and through, in large part due to corrupt Popes who have been given the reins of the church over the centuries. There have been sacraments and rituals initiated in the church that are against Biblical teachings and the church has not encouraged it's parishioners to read their Bibles for themselves, which has left the members of the RCC in the dark about how much of what they are doing under the instruction of the RCC is in violation of Scripture. 

In my own church, there are numerous people who have come out of the RCC, having realized the fallacies that the RCC has taught them. They love the freedom that they have found in true Biblical Christianity. Do you want to know how most of them came to this realization? They read their own Bible on their own time, and they studied what they found there. They realized for themselves that the RCC does not adhere to Biblical principles. They weren't afraid to challenge the teachings of the RCC where it does not align with, and more importantly, where it is in direct conflict with what the Bible teaches. If the RCC claims that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, which it does claim, then how is it that there are teachings, sacraments and rituals that the church requires which the Bible condemns? THIS is my issue with the RCC, and this article is written in the hopes that Catholic Christians will read it and will decide to challenge my assertions in this article and dig into the Word, finding out through that process that Roman Catholicism is anti-Biblical, and turning instead to true Biblical Christianity. If I can convince even one Catholic to pursue true Biblical Christianity and abandon the Roman Catholic Church, then I will count this article as being worth the time and the effort that it takes to write it.

This is the third part of a series that I have been working on which aims to show you how Satan takes things that God has instituted and twists them to his own desires and goals. He does this, firstly, because Satan is completely incapable of creating anything himself. Second, he steals the legitimacy of that which God has instituted and overlays that legitimacy onto the illegitimate thing that he wants to use to divert mankind from eternity with God. Satan views humanity as mere monkeys, but he recognizes that God sees value in us, so keeping us from God's plans for us is Satan's goal, and if he can accomplish this in such a way that we think that we are actually pursuing and pleasing God, then he needs only to get the process started and we will walk ourselves to our own destruction. This is the case with Islam and the Roman Catholic Church, as well as all other false religions.

I expect this article to get pretty long, so let's dive into this.

The RCC traces it's own beginnings right to the Day of Pentecost, when the Christian faith was born and the Christian Church had it's beginnings. Pentecost is when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples in the upper room and when Peter gave the first sermon delivered from the church of Jesus. This is the only time that the RCC can claim for it's beginnings in order to reinforce it's claims of legitimacy. But  it's claims begin to fall apart even before this time.

We need to start this study when Jesus and Peter first meet, which we can read about in John 1. Peter's given name was actually Simon, son of John. At their first meeting, Jesus tells Simon, "you shall be called Cephas (Peter)" (John 1:42). This phrasing can mean that the name change is immediate or that it will come later; the correct meaning is unclear, but I think it is the latter, and I'll explain why.

The RCC likes to claim an unbroken line of Popes bearing the authority of whom they claim was the first Pope; the Apostle Peter. There is absolutely no Biblical proof of this claim. Peter was one of 12 disciples. The duties of church building and leadership were spread among all of the disciples. The RCC makes their claims of Peter being the first Pope based on the words of Jesus that are found in Matthew 16:18, which read, "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it." The RCC claims that Peter is the rock, the foundation of the church, based upon their interpretation of this Scripture.

In this passage, Jesus first refers to Peter by his given name, Simon Barjona, but then affirms his name change by calling him Peter. Peter is the Greek word petros, which is G4074 in Strong's Concordance, and which means "a piece of a rock"; this is important later. So the RCC claims that, by this statement, Jesus Himself is setting Peter as the head of His church, the office later held by their Pope, claiming that Jesus will build His church on Peter; I believe that this is an intentional fallacy that is used to infer legitimacy to the RCC's claims of being the "One True Church". I can see how many people understand this from the plain reading, but I want to offer an alternative understanding.

We see in this passage that Jesus is talking to all of His disciples and asking them who the people around them think that Jesus is. Jesus then asks all of them who they believe that He is, and Peter, always the impetuous one, speaks out boldly, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." (v.16). Jesus then talks directly to Peter and congratulates him on making this pronouncement, which Jesus reveals is from the Spirit of God, and not from Peter's own understanding. This is worthy of praise as Peter reveals that he is open to God's leading, as all the apostles will yet be. Jesus then affirms the new name that Jesus had already told him that he would receive when they first met. After this, Jesus states "and upon this rock I will build My church". 

I have stated in an earlier article that punctuation is important in determining what someone is saying, but that it can also be difficult to determine punctuation from the spoken word. In my Bible, the affirmation of Peter's name is followed by a comma; I believe that a semicolon would have been a better choice. Like what I just did, the semicolon is used to create a break in the flow of a sentence, which is followed by another connected though not continuous thought. The comma supports the interpretation of the RCC in that the sentence structure seems to indicate that Peter is the rock upon which the church will be built. If there had been a semicolon there, that would indicate two different thoughts in the sentence; one affirming Peter's name change, and one referring to Peter's proclamation, like this: "And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18 I also say to you that you are Peter;[end of statement] and upon this rock [Peter's previous proclamation] I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it." I am not a grammar teacher, but I hope that you can see how the semicolon changes the flow and meaning of the sentence. We also have to interpret all of Scripture in the light of the rest of Scripture, and since there is no indication that Peter had a higher office in the church than any other disciple, but rather he is indicated as having been equal with the other disciples (Galatians 2:9, "James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship) and even erroneous in some of his actions (Galatians 2:11-14), then he cannot be considered to have been the first Pope of Christendom.

Further, we need to examine these two different uses of the English word "rock" in order to understand what is being said here, because there are actually two different Greek words that were used. The rock upon which the church will be built, is the word "petra", G4073 in Strong's Concordance. This is different from G4074, petros, which is Peter's name. Petra means "a mass of rock", while petros means "a piece of rock". Jesus is here stating that Peter's confession of Jesus' Deity is the foundational rock (petra) upon which Jesus will build His church. Without the foundational Truth that Jesus is the Son of God, the church cannot stand. Peter is neither the foundation nor the builder of Jesus' church; no human could ever bear the weight of that responsibility. While petra is the mass of rock upon which the church will be built, Peter, Petros, is a piece of that rock; he is not the rock itself as the RCC claims. So we see that right from the start, the basis of the claims of the RCC are not built upon a rock, but upon the sand.

Jesus is the head of the Church and God placed Him in that position (Ephesians 1:22). The true church then developed a leadership hierarchy as we can read about in Paul's first letter to Timothy wherein he discusses the qualifications for elders and deacons. In no place in the Bible is a single man placed in a position of leadership over the entire collective Church. Local church leaders were chosen from the local church membership according to their qualifications and their giftings, with the entire selection process lead by the Holy Spirit. 

The following is speculation based on known facts and an understanding of human and demonic natures; but it is, none the less, speculation. 

The Roman Catholic Church came into existence after the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity around 310 AD. Prior to this, there was not a collective Church organization in Rome. The Christian church was deemed to be illegal and was persecuted until shortly before Constantine's conversion. The Christians were meeting in secret in their homes and in underground gathering places, so there was no possibility of there being a collective "Roman Church". There is much speculation about Constantine's motives for converting, but it appears to have been at least partially genuine with potentially some political motives involved as well. Rome was a city wherein most religions were embraced; all of them pagan with multiple gods, however the exclusivity of Christianity made it an exception to this rule; but this also created unrest in the Empire. 

It is believed that Constantine made Christianity legal in Rome in order to settle unrest, but his later conversion to Christianity caused it to become the religion of the state, with Constantine himself involved in the administration of the church, therefore making it the Roman, Catholic (Unified/Universal) Church. In fact, the first recognized Council of the RCC occurred in 325 and was called by Constantine himself. There is even speculation that the image that the RCC uses to depict Jesus is based upon Constantine; that it is Constantine's face that was used as Jesus' face. Note that the RCC has many depictions of Jesus in prominently displayed artwork while this is not typically found in Protestant churches. Protestants do not focus on the image of Christ, but rather the person of Christ.

It is my belief that the status of being a state religion in Rome logically required that a hierarchy needed to be initiated, which would have a man as the head in the same way that the Roman government was arranged. As such, Rome initiated the office of the Pope, which would have occurred around 250 years after the apostle Peter died. This means that Peter could not have been the first Pope. If this is true, Catholic tradition and history could not admit any of this because it would undermine their claims of an unbroken line of Popes beginning with Peter and destroying their narrative of being the One True Church. The Bible has never instituted a Pope; mankind did that.

That used more words than I would have liked, but it needed to be explained. I will try to exercise brevity in the rest of this article.

Let's now take a look at the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20. It appears that the RCC does not take the second commandment at face value, or it has decided that to obey the Word of God goes against it's own traditions, so it has chosen tradition over the Word. The second commandment says, "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments." (Exodus 20:4-6). 

The RCC violates this commandment with every relic, with every picture of a saint, with every image of Mary and with every pendant that represents some 'saint of whatever' that the church reveres and, yes, that they pray to. Prayer is an act of worship and service to that which is prayed to. When a Catholic prays to a saint for protection or guidance, or when they pray to Mary as is done with every Hail Mary that they speak, they are in violation of this commandment. As such, every image of a man or woman that a Catholic prays or kneels to, and even the rosary beads that a Catholic uses while reciting their Hail Mary's, is a violation of the Biblical second commandment and is an abomination to God. God is a jealous God and all praise and worship belong to Him alone!

Protestants do not pray to saints; we do not have "holy relics" that we believe contain power of some kind; Protestants do not pray to Mary. Exodus 20:5a tells us what we need to know about who to pray to, but the Catholic Bible has cut this out! "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God". Jesus, the second person of the Godhead, is the one who died on the cross, not Mary, not any of the saints; these others are merely people who were devoted to God's calling. Do not pray to mankind! Do not kneel to mankind! Pray and kneel only to God!

Speaking of the cross, have you ever noticed the difference between a Protestant cross and a Catholic cross? The Protestant cross is empty, indicating that Jesus died once and that He rose again. Jesus is not still on the cross, He is not dead; the cross has no power over Him. The Catholic cross still has Jesus hanging there. He has not defeated death; He is still under it's power. Satan does not like to acknowledge that Jesus defeated death, because it was at that moment that Satan himself was defeated. Satan wants his followers to worship the dead Jesus, not the living Jesus!

This is also seen in the eucharist in which Catholics take part in contrast to the Protestant communion service. Catholics believe that the bread that they eat and the wine that they drink actually become the body and the blood of Jesus upon their consumption of it. This is an actual RCC doctrine called transubstantiation. Some critics of the Catholic Church see these as intentional acts of cannibalism condoned and required by the RCC. I'm not sure that I would go that far, but I understand their position, and in the spirit realm, they may have a point. Cannibalism is forbidden for Christians and is an act of demon worship, just the type of thing that Satan would love to trick Christians into taking part in, thinking that they are honouring Jesus. Even though the bread and wine do not become the body and blood of Jesus, the belief that they do, and the repeated consumption of the elements with that belief, are potentially enough to confer the evils of cannibalism onto every Catholic who participates.

The Protestant practice of communion as a symbolic remembering of the sacrifice of Jesus, acting in obedience to what Jesus instructed at the Last Supper (Luke 22:14-23; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26). We are not consuming the body and the blood of Jesus; we are consuming bread and wine in the same way that Jesus and the disciples did, purely as an act of remembrance.

There is also an RCC position that the traditions of the church are of the same import as the edicts of Scripture. The RCC will argue that all of their traditions stem from the apostles themselves, but many traditions have come about since well after the apostles died, and if I am correct that the RCC only came into existence 200+ years after the last apostle died and did so under the guidance of the Roman Empire, then how could the apostles have affected these traditions? Paul warns in his letter to the church in Colossae to, "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ." (Colossians. 2:8). Christian traditions can convey important truths of Scripture, but when the tradition is contrary to Scripture, then it is a tradition of man, as we have seen in the eucharist and as also exists in the veneration of Mary, among many other things. If the tradition contravenes the word or the spirit of Biblical teachings, then it is not handed down from the apostles.

One of these horrible and heretical traditions is how Mary is upheld by the RCC. Mary is viewed by the RCC as the "Queen of Heaven" and of at least the same status as Jesus Christ Himself. Mary accomplished nothing for mankind; she was merely a willing vessel for God to accomplish His will, in the same way that Abraham, Noah, Moses and all of the apostles were willing vessels. Mary provided the human aspect of Jesus while the Holy Spirit provided the deified aspect, making Jesus wholly God and wholly man. The RCC has a tradition that Mary herself was sinless, going so far as to claim that her own conception was immaculate, meaning that she was born without the sin nature, though the Bible states that only Jesus was sinless. The RCC claims that Mary never had sexual relations with her husband, even going so far as to re-translate Mark 3:31-32 to claim that the Bible should have said that Jesus' brothers were, in fact, his cousins. The RCC completely misses the fact that Scripture tells us that James became the head of the church in Jerusalem, equal with Peter and John, and that Galatians 1:19 identifies James as the brother of Jesus.

As a result of these false teachings, Mary is prayed to as an intercessor through praying the rosary as an act of penance. Mary is not the one who intercedes with God on our behalf; only Jesus can do that; "For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,"; 1 Timothy 2:5. Jesus paid the debt; Mary did not. Jesus ascended to Heaven; Mary did not. Jesus is our advocate with God; Mary is not.

The RCC also positions the priest as a mediator between God and man, with the responsibility to hear confessions and to absolve from sins. Peter tells Believers that, "you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." (1 Peter 2:9-10). We don't need a designated earthly priest to intervene for us, we are all earthly priests and we can even intervene for each other directly to our Saviour and our God.

The priesthood of the RCC is a control mechanism. The RCC teaches that in order to enter Heaven, one has to observe the sacraments of the church, and that without the church one does not enter Heaven. The sacraments include regular attendance at Mass and regular confession of sins to the church. The priest is the representative of the RCC, therefore one has to go to and appeal to the priest in order to get to Heaven. The priesthood is a manacle chaining Roman Catholics to the church; the priest doesn't set you free, the priest enslaves you! And the priest himself has to appeal to the bishops, who appeal to the cardinals, who appeal to the Pope himself. In this way, all Roman Catholics are subject to the whims of the created man who happens to hold the office of Pope. This office of the Pope is itself held up by the RCC teaching that the Pope is inerrant when he is speaking of teachings of the church. If this is the case, how could so many Popes have issued so many erroneous decrees from the church over the centuries. Catholics should dig into the history of the RCC and they will see the level of corruption and intrigue to which previous Popes have stooped. They are not an example to be followed!

In addition to this, due to the importance that the RCC gives to the priesthood and the Pope, they had to adopt a salvation of works in order to enter Heaven rather than the salvation of grace that the Bible teaches; "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9). Good works are an outpouring of our salvation according to Protestant teachings, but they are a requirement for salvation according to Catholic teaching. Even the RCC's nature of salvation, being contrary to the Bible, is a means by which to imprison you in the Catholic Church.

There is a lot more than I can say against the RCC, but I need to end this article somewhere. I may consider adding another part to this series in order to continue to disclose the heresies of the RCC, but I think that I have covered quite a few of the major issues from which anything else that I can expose stems. Start following these trails through the doctrines of the RCC and compare what the church says to what the Bible says. I am not fully aware of the ways that the RCC has corrupted their Bible in order to keep their parishioners trapped, so you may need to get a non-Catholic Bible in order to see the Truth. Once you start seeing the corruption and following it, the rest becomes more obvious.

There was a time when the Protestant church recognized the fallacies that the RCC holds to and refused to recognize the RCC as a Christian denomination. Unfortunately, our current Protestant "leaders" have failed to uphold that tradition and have again aligned the Protestant church with the RCC, undermining their own testimonies and elevating the RCC to a place of relevancy that it does not deserve.

The connections that the Roman Catholic Church claims to have with Biblical Christianity are tenuous at best; I argue that they are non-existent. The RCC claims the supremacy of Christ while at the same time undermining, ignoring and outright contradicting the teachings from the New Testament. I want to restate that I am not trying to come down hard on Catholics. You have been taught what you know by a church system that seeks to keep you captive to them. The system, as designed by the devil, is intended to keep you trapped in servitude to men and to demons. It is designed to send you to Hell while the whole time you think that you are earning your way to Heaven. 

I am afraid that it is largely the members of the Roman Catholic Church that Jesus is referring to when He states that "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’" (Matthew 7:21-23). This verse applies to too many Protestants as well, but I wonder if almost the entire RCC falls under this warning. I hate to see so many deceived and I want to do my part to rectify it.

I encourage you to check everything that I have stated above and compare the teachings, rituals and sacraments of the RCC to the Word of God. I believe that you will find that the RCC is not aligned with God and I hope that you will be able to find the courage to break free and find your own freedom in Christ apart from the church. The church is supposed to be a place for support, growth and learning, not a gatekeeper to Heaven.