Okay, Matthew 16 again. This is the foundation of all of this. If you want to discover Baptist history, you've got to get in your mind, number one, you better find out what the real church is. It's identifiable, not always by name, but by principles that different churches or the church observes. That's how you know which one it is. and it will line up to the church in the book of Acts and simple church government, congregational ruling as far as congregation is the one that finds their pastor. It's not appointed in some headquarters. And the great things our forefathers fought for we so take for granted. So take for granted. We'll talk tonight about the persecution of the Baptist. This ain't America yet. I ain't even got to America. A little bit in here about America. When Brother Joby asked me to come and preach this thing on church history, I'm aware that in the last five years in this county, there's been a lot of preaching on the American history. A whole lot. I've preached it at the church. I've preached it other places. But nobody's dealing with this. I don't know anybody who's hardly dealing with this. It takes so much study to do this. And you've got to study it to the point that you've overstudied, so in the overflow of all that, God can put it together in your mind. That's what you have to have. You've got to connect the dots in this thing. And you've got to know why. I mean, it would be advantageous to me, and I think to you too, to know how we got the republic that we have in America. This is a Baptist republic. Without the Baptist church, you would not have liberty in America. So most Baptists don't even know that. The main instruments that God used to bring about freedom of religion were Baptist men. I'll mention a few. Roger Williams, John Clark, Obadiah Holmes, James Leland, Isaac Bacchus, James Ireland, I'm talking about these are the men. You didn't get religious liberty from Puritans or Pilgrims either one. They wanted to be free from the tyranny of Rome and from other Protestant churches, but they didn't want to give any liberty to anybody else but themselves. They got over here and got to acting just like that bunch in Europe was, and they shut us out. And until that Roger Williams and John Clark secured the charter from Charles, King Charles II for the colony of Rhode Island. There was no place in America a Baptist could preach in total liberty. Did you know that? That's why there were so few Baptist churches. They couldn't build them anywhere. They wouldn't let them. And in eight of the colonies, it was absolute state church rule, absolute. And that's what our forefathers come over here to get away from. And then they got over here and this stuff's thrown right back in their face. So as God... Now again, what did God use? You've got to keep this in mind. You can trace God and it's easy to trace Him. You can trace Him by Him making a move and Satan making a counter move. And Satan's counter move is always persecution. And when it's not persecution, he infiltrates the church through compromise. But you can track him. So when the church at Jerusalem needed to go and spread the gospel to the world, the Lord allowed the persecution of Nero to thrust them out. God used the persecution in Europe to send the pilgrims and even the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony and our forefathers to this land. God used the persecution of the Puritans in order to pressure the Baptists to do all that they did to bring about the First Amendment to the Constitution. And so every time the devil moved, God makes the counter move or vice versa. Matthew 16 verse number 18. Let me just say that during the ministry of Christ, He established the church and promised the perpetuity of it. Now he said upon this rock, Matthew 16, 18, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against you. Now when I say church, I'm not talking about everybody saved. I'm talking about a particular called out assembly of baptized believers who have been organized to preach the gospel to the lost, to teach the Word of God to the saved. It's got two officers, the first officer being He's called the elder in Ephesians 4 and 1 Timothy 5. He's called the bishop, 1 Timothy 3. He's called the pastor. And the pastor or elder refers to his wisdom. Bishop refers to his ruling. Overseer refers to his oversight. And pastor refers to him being the shepherd of the flock. The second office being that of deacon. The word deacon means servant. And they are to serve the needs of the pastor and of the congregation that is delegated by the congregation. After Christ ascended up to heaven. on the day of Pentecost. We see then, and after that, that the first pastor in the church of Jerusalem was James. All churches have sprung for 2,000 years out of that fountainhead of the first church at Jerusalem that James pastored during the days of Christ. He laid the foundation of the church Christ instituted, the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, the Ordinance, our Baptism, the Ordinance, or not the Ordinance, but church discipline in Matthew chapter number 18. All of this before His death, burial, and resurrection. So He founded the church and on the day of Pentecost 3,000 souls were saved and were added to the 120 in the upper room and Christ built His church upon the apostles and the prophets. Now, we all know why the apostles were necessary because the first church was a Jewish church. And the Jew requires a sign. And the apostles had apostolic power. Nobody since that day has had apostolic power. But those men, that apostolic power was never to the Gentile. It was always to the Jew. that requires a sign. Now the prophets were sent along to foretell the Word of God. They didn't have the completed Word of God and these prophets had the authority and the wisdom and the insight to tell churches the will of God and to the pastoral epistles were completed and were handed through the churches. Jesus appointed apostles, he appointed prophets, and he appointed scribes. and he did that to scribes or to preserve the Bible through the local New Testament church. Now, we see a great persecution. The first persecution were by Jews and then the second persecution came from the Roman Empire. All twelve disciples were martyred except John the blood. He was born in a cauldron of oil and he so miraculously survived. and that he was banished to the Isle of Patmos where he received the book of the Revelation and then he comes back to the church of Ephesus later and he dies at close to a hundred years of age. The first martyr of the church age For the foundation of the church was John the Baptist, beheaded by Herod. Stephen was the second Christian that was stoned outside of Jerusalem in 34 AD. James the son of Zebedee, the first pastor. of the church at Jerusalem called James the Great was beheaded by order of King Agrippa, A.D. 44. So you've got ten years there that nobody died for the faith. Stephen died, 34 A.D. And then we see James died in 44 A.D. Now the reason King Agrippa had him put to death was he had just descended to power and to please the Orthodox Jew, to please the Jewish leaders, he killed James, the pastor at Jerusalem, because by then you've got tens of thousands of church members at the church in Jerusalem, and they seem to be a great threat to the Jewish leaders, and they were. Because folks is getting saved, a great number of the priests have been converted, and they wanted Rome to flex its muscle and to terrify the church. Philip, who labored diligently in Upper Asia, he suffered Mardin, had Hallupis, in Phrygia, in 54 AD. Matthew, who wrote the book of Matthew, was nailed to the ground and beheaded at Negevadar. In A.D. 60, James Elias, at age 94 years of age, the human author of the book of James, was beaten and then stoned by the Jews. And then his brains dashed out with a fuller's club. Matthias, who took the place of Judas Iscariot, was stoned at Jerusalem. and then beheaded. Andrew, the brother of Peter who preached the gospel in many Asiatic nations, on his arrival at Edessa was taken and crucified on a cross the two ends of which were fixed transversely to the ground. Thus, the deviation of the St. Andrew's cross, St. Mark, was dragged to pieces by the people of Alexandria at the great solemnity of their idol god, Serapis. And he died at their unmerciful hands 64 AD, Simon Peter was crucified. Upside down, they come to him. His friends did, before he was arrested and told Simon Peter, they are going to take your life. Simon Peter had a vision where Christ told him, as I was crucified, so will you be. And Simon Peter did not try to escape the martyr's blade, but he went willingly. And they crucified him upside down. He was going to be crucified like Christ. That is what they were going to do. But he requested. He said, I am not worthy to die in the manner and the method of my Lord. And they crucified him. upside down. Paul had his head cut off. In A.D. 69, under the order of Nero, Nero sent two men, one by the name of Thargo, the other was Parthamas. These were the men that came to tell Paul the news that the execution was about to take place. Upon their giving Paul the news, they requested that he would pray for them that they also might become Believers, and they were saved by the grace of God. Jude, also named Thaddeus, was crucified at Edessa, A.D. 72. Bartholomew preached in several countries, including India. He translated the Gospel of Matthew into the language of India. He was at length cruelly beaten and then flayed alive by angry idolaters in Armenia, which is modern day Turkey. Thomas called Didymus, priest in Parthia in India. He is preaching so excited. These pagan priests, they were so tormented by what he said that they tortured him with red hot plates, stabbed Him with spears at Calmaria, a Simon called Zealots, a priest in Mauritania, Africa, and in Great Britain. He was crucified in Great Britain, A.D. 74. And then I told you about John the Beloved, the founder of the church at Smyrna, Pergamos, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, and Thyatira. From Ephesus he was ordered to be sent to Rome, and that's when he was born in a cauldron of oil. Barnabas, who was a companion of Paul, burned to death. Cyprus, A.D. 74. Silas, a companion of Paul, beaten to death. In Macedonia, that's Europe, A.D. 70, died a martyr's death. How? These that I'm going to mention to you all died in the year A.D. 17. Aristarchus, companion of Paul, Epaphras, Aquila, and Priscilla, Andronachus, Junius, Onesipharous, and Porphus were torn and dragged to death by horses in Helopontus. Luke was hanged in Greece. Antibus, the fateful murder of Christ mentioned in Revelation 2.13, for his faithful witness, was roasted alive in Pergamos in A.D. 95. Vilatus, A.D. 99, was burned or buried alive. The cruelty of the Roman Empire under Nero is notrocious. Many of the things they did are about beyond description and about beyond speaking in a mixed company. Some of the things he did, I mentioned the other night, would sew up Christians in the wild animal hides. and then throw them to wild dogs, to wild animals, and to lions. And they would bring them inside the great arenas. And then the Roman spectators would find their thrill in the Christians being torn apart limb from limb. They were fastened alive to crosses. They were burned in smoke. with torches and lamps under their shoulders, their armpits, and other tender parts of the naked body. They were lacerated, beaten with rods. They were rolled in tar and made human living tangos in the gardens of Nero when he had his orgy parties. federalized in the great Roman Colosseum. I'm talking about richness. And for 300 years, the Roman Empire slaughtered Christian people. And they estimate 3 million lost their life. Now keep this in mind. Everybody, those names I mentioned to you, they are first century martyrs. That means most of these people had seen Jesus resurrected. Now if you've got it, some of you are going to die for a cause like these Moslems do and like others have. They die believing a lie, but they don't know it's a lie. A man is not going to die for a lie if he knows it's a lie. Why would these early Christians go through all this torture and all this suffering, and a lot of them never even got married, 1 Corinthians 7, for the present distress. Paul told them not to be married for right now, especially those preachers of that time, because if they'd gone, they'd be killed. He knew that. Getting saved was a death sentence in that day. Preaching the gospel was a death sentence. But, think about this, those men did not die for a lie. They knew what they were dying for. Hey, I'll tell you when I look at them, it charges my soul to know that at the right time, under the right circumstances, when others want to out-treat you, has some mal-factor that the grace of God will be there for you and I to stand for our testimony and our witness. I am not talking about educating people. I am not talking about provoking people. I am talking about having the right spirit, love and attitude, but at the same time have a backbone like a saw log and refuse to back down and refuse to compromise the Word of God. Historian David Benedict, he is a great Baptist historian, He quotes from the most renowned Lutheran historian they say that they've ever had, Moshe. He lived from 1693 to 1755. Here's what he said. You say, what are you trying to say? I'm trying to identify all these people that died. They're all members of a church. I'm trying to find out which church it is. I'm not necessarily saying by name. I'm talking about by principle, which one it is. It's important for me to know what church Paul's a member of. I don't know what kind of church John the Beloved is a member of. I don't know what kind of church he established all over Asia Minor. I don't know what kind of church Paul established in those three missionary journeys. I want to know what kind of church have those men labored for. Here's what Moshe, how the Lutheran historian said, Baptism was administered in the first century without public assemblies and places appointed for that purpose and was performed by immersion of the whole body in water. Now that's what a Lutheran just said. Now the reason that they baptized where there were not public assemblies and places upon it, they didn't have church buildings then. How'd they have to do this to keep from being killed? Went out where there's plenty of water. Now listen, if you're going to sprinkle somebody, you can do that out of a sink. You can do that out of a bucket. You can do that out of a cup. and nobody would know it, but they were baptized publicly. Here is what Mosheem said, they baptized where there was water. By this we know, listen now, unquote, by this we know that those of the first century Christians were not baby sprinkling Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterian, Anglican, disciples of Christ, and the rest of that Protestant crowd. They are immersed by baptism. That quickly identifies who they are. The churches in those early times. Here is the second thing. That will identify who these martyrs were. What kind of church they had. Not necessarily, again, Baptist, but Baptist distinctives. Baptism by immersion, the authority of Scripture. He said these churches in the first century, in the early times, were entirely independent of their subject to any foreign jurisdiction. You've just cut out every Protestant and Catholic right there. Not run by any jurisdiction outside that church. but each one governed by its own rules and laws. For though the churches founded by the apostles have their particular difference shown them, that they, the apostles, were consulted when difficult and doubtful cases arose, yet when the churches were established, the apostles even had no judicial authority nor supremacy over others, or at the least enact laws upon them, nothing on the contrary is more evident than the perfect equality that reigned in the primitive churches. Everybody got the same vote. There was no clergy and laity in the book of Revelation. Christ said, I hate the Nicolaitans. You know what that is? That's clergy ruling over laity. You know what that is? That's a hierarchy. No, there's to be no hierarchy in God's church. It's to be wrote by the Scriptures, by the Holy Spirit, through the pastor. with the consenting believers that identify that church. Now, this identifies the church by immersion, by independency and autonomy of the church. Now, stay with me now. I am going somewhere with this. The church was greatly persecuted under ten main persecutions of the Roman Empire for 300 years. Nero, 64-68 A.D. Domitian, 81-96. Trajan, 98-117. Marcus Aurelius, 161-180. Stephanus Severus, 193-211. Maximinus, 235-238. Dacius, 249-251. Valerian, 253-260. Diocletian, 284-305. Galerius 3.05 to 3.11, these are called the three or the ten primary persecutions. Now watch this, stay with me now. These ten persecutions for the first 300 years of Baptists, of Christians, was Satan acting like a roaring lion. Psalm 22, 13, Jesus said, they ganked about me with their mouths as a raven and a roaring lion. I Peter 5, 8, Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. Here is Satan's dilemma. Here it is. The more he persecutes them, the more they grow. So he's got to change his tactic. Satan's got two main tactics in the Bible. Number one is a roaring lion. Number two is an angel of light. His real nature is the roaring lion. In 313 A.D., Satan laid his subtle plan to act as an angel of light to build his own church as an instrument to persecute the true church or the body of Christ. This would all be done in the name of Christ. You talk about a slick operator. He is going to raise up his church to persecute the real church and do it all in the holy name of Jesus. St. Corinthians 11.14, no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Verse 13, For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed into ministers of righteousness, whose end is according to their own works. Now what the Lord is saying, don't let it be a wonder, don't let it be an amazement. If Satan's ministers Transform. That means to disguise. That means to masquerade. Not as ministers of vice. Not as ministers of depravity. But ministers of righteousness. In our day they carry a King James Bible and are Baptist preachers. transformed into an angel of light, preachers of righteousness. This word righteous means approved or accepted by God. They who pride themselves as being righteous. They who pride themselves as keeping the commands of God. Well, the question is, if that is so, now I am making an application way back there now too. If that is so, how can you spot One of these pastors that's been transformed by Satan, an angel of light, never been saved, never been called, because of the spirit they operate in. It is the spirit of self-righteousness. It is the spirit of self-exaltation. It is the spirit of bitterness. Or on the opposite side, it is a charming, charismatic spirit that can say hell and smile when he does it. You will know them by their fruit. They leave a trail of destruction. That is, in other words, shallow converts. They bring a tension of self and not to Christ. They don't build up the name of Christ, they build up their own name and the controversy it brings. In 3.13, Constantine is turned into an angel of light, falsely converted on his deathbed. You don't get saved looking in the heavens at a cloud and saying, that's the cross, that ain't salvation. You are saved by the Word of God and dressed in the blood of Christ, not seeing some image in the sky. And he said, a voice came to him, Conqueror, in my name. The first thing he did was to force conversions. He took his military down to the river, baptized them. The second thing he did that laid the stage for the harlot church, 347 A.D., he killed an entire congregation of Donatist, real believers, just because they would not comply to his orders. The ground works being laid that you force conversion and you kill the dissidents. That is going to be held true for the next 1,500 years. The question is, and often asked, and it ought to be asked, why did the Roman Church kill so many Christians? Do you know why? You better find this out. It is the same reason the Protestants wanted to cut us out. It's the same damnable doctrine. You say, what is it? They sought to enforce the first table of the law, just like the Puritans did in good old Boston, Massachusetts. The first five commandments of the Ten Commandments, or the first four rather, have to do with a man's relationship with God. Five through ten have to do with man's relationship with man. America was not founded on those first four, but on the last six. The United States government has no right to tell you what to believe. If you enforce the first four commandments and the ten commandments, you've got to force compliance that a man has no idols before God. You can't do that. That's given to the nation of Israel. You cannot. When you try how to enforce that, then you get into the mess that our Puritan people got into several hundred years ago. Sixteen hundred as a matter of fact. Second table of the law is what the republic of America, not democracy, republic was built on. It amazes me that those historians called the early Baptist church a republic, not a democracy. A republic. A democracy is ruled by majority vote. A republic is ruled by law. Big difference. The church isn't ruled by democracy, it's ruled by law. The command of Christ. That's why you don't have one right to do one thing that's not endorsed by that book right there. In a church. Now, what the government is set here to do, was to promote and produce, just to produce an environment of life. That's for the unborn to do. Life. Liberty. That's what the Declaration of Independence, that's what the Constitution all purports. That we've got life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It doesn't say God made you to be happy. It says the environment ought to be there that you can pursue happiness if God so blesses you to have it. Now how did the Roman Church and the Protestants, listen to me now, justify their bloody persecution. The two main Protestants that did this was Zwingli and Martin Luther. How did they justify the killing of those who didn't agree with them? Don't miss it. If you haven't heard a word I said this week, this will explain the whole thing. The Roman Catholic theologian that's got more power More influence that the whole Catholic doctrine is built on is Augustine or Augustine. Augustine is where Martin Luther got his dogmas. It's where John Calvin got his. It's where they got their doctrines and their beliefs. All of that predestination that God chose that to go to heaven, that goes to hell, that goes to heaven, that goes to hell. That all comes from Catholic doctrine. Augustine believed, listen, now here it is. This is the most dangerous belief almost there is. Augustine believed and promoted and the Catholic Church believed and Luther believed and Ehrlich Zwingli believed and John Calvin believed that the church replaced Israel. Don't miss this now. They believe that God's New Testament nation and their covenant relationship was the Roman Catholic Church. They believe that all promises given to Abraham's seed, the nation of Israel, that God rejected them. Now, I've got a list of them, and they're so long I'm not going to read them all, because I don't have them with me to start with, but I don't have time for this. what Augustine said, what Martin Luther said, what Calvin said, what these men said about the Jews that turn your stomach. The reason Martin Luther was honored every year his birthday by Adolf Hitler was all his anti-Semite comments he made when he was alive. Now for all, here's this covenant theology, or replacement theory. All Protestants, and I know I believe this, they're all Millennialists, or at best, Post-Millennialists. That means they don't believe in the Millennial Kingdom where Christ literally rules and reigns. Because they think they're the Kingdom, folks! They think the Pope is the vicar of Christ. He's ruling on this earth in the place of Christ that gives him right to go conquer all nations. Are you getting it? When the prophets came to America, they came to establish a New Testament Israel. Read the light and the glory. There's some good stuff in that book, but it's so perverted, it's pathetic. It's a covenant theology but the light and the glory. Peter Marshall wrote it along with somebody else. He gives all of that documentation though of how that's why that they burned those witches. That's why they had to enforce all the law of Moses. That's why they operated like they did. They thought they were the New Testament Israel because they believed that God had so rejected the Jew, hated the Jew. They were beyond grace and they ought to have the poorest living conditions. If you let them live, they ought to have starved to death and be treated like animals. That's what the Catholic Church and the Protestants believed. Now I don't know about John Wesley. He came out of the Church of England. Now let me prove this. What do Puritans do to non-conformists? If you're a Baptist, and there's a couple of Baptists on the Moonflower, it wasn't but a few, but if you're a Baptist and you don't believe in infant baptism, then you've got to go to church because that's the only church you've got. Everything else is outlawed. What our Baptist forefathers done is when they got up to baptize the babies, they stood up and turned their back to it. That's right. But the Puritans, if you did not bring your baby in within eight days to be baptized, they come knocking at your door. I told this other night. First thing they did was to disarm you. You might as well shoot a man if you disarmed him back then because they lived off the game of the land. Secondly, they disposed or dispossessed you. Boy, this sounds familiar, the book of Revelation 13, you could not buy nor sell. The third thing, you're disarmed, you're dispossessed. Number three, you're dislocated. They confiscate your house. Everything you've got but what you can carry and you are sent out into the wilderness to die or get along the best you can. Now Baptists do not believe in covenant theology. We believe in dispensationalism. That's rightly dividing the Word of God. That's keeping Israel in a rightful position. The church in its rival position and the Gentile in its rival position. Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church sought to conquer the world by the sword and not the preaching of the gospel. Why? Listen now. They think they are Israel. What did God tell Israel to do in the land of Canaan? You go and subdue them and kill them and annihilate them. Now I'm not going to get into all the reasons God said that. Number one, they were trespassing on God's land and wouldn't get out. That's the first thing. Then there's a bunch of perverts, child molesters and full of demonism and bestiality and all that other mess. But the Catholics thought They don't go into an area preaching the gospel, converting people by persuasion. You go in with a sword and by coercion you force compliance or you kill them. And then, under the stolen covenant relationship with God, their sign was not circumcision. You see, God said, when a boy is circumcised, he becomes a member of the nation of Israel. Not spiritually, but physically. The Catholic Church stole that idea. So did the Presbyterians. So did the Lutherans. So did the Church of England. That's where infant baptism comes from. That baby is to be baptized within eight days of its birth. It does two things. Number one, they become a member of the state. Number two, they become a member of the church. That's why they so persecuted the Baptists and the Nonconformists. If you preach against them for baptism, then they are going to lose their control over the people. It's a power struggle. It's about power. It's about money. It's about subduing a people. That's why they were so gung-ho about that. Matter of fact, in the Puritan state of Massachusetts, you could be banished from the colony if you did not baptize your baby. They must convert or die. Where is Israel? the Pope's Jesus Christ on earth, He will subdue the nations. Are you getting it now? All those scriptures of the Millennial Kingdom where Christ rules and reigns for a thousand years and everybody is brought under His authority, they think that's them. Then the secured compliance of infant baptism. Augustine, never how you want to say it. They got his belief and enforced it of original sin, which is false doctrine. Now we believe that every baby is born with a sin nature, but we don't believe they are guilty of sin as a baby. They believe Calvinism teaches, John Calvin taught, that if a non-elect baby died, they went to hell like a murderer. The Catholic Church taught that if a baby dies, had been baptized, that that infant baptism will remit them of their original and actual sin. And since they are not old enough to actually commit sin, though they are held guilty by God of original sin, that if they are not baptized as babies, have their sin remitted, that if they die unbaptized, they will go to hell. Now if you want to jump on me, about jumping on this crowd. You've just gone out spitting the wind. Anybody defend that bunch of killers? Brother Joby, if they never killed anybody, how many people have they damned with their heresy? Now they come up, Augustine come up with this doctrine to control people. Think about this. Baptists don't teach this. They don't teach you to baptize a baby. Hey, we teach that until a child reaches the time of accountability that they're under innocency. Here's how it's all enforced. Here's what brings every parent to the baptismal fount. Forty percent of all children in the dark ages died. Most of them didn't even get out of infancy. Most of them in childhood. That means if a mother's got five children, at least two of them's going to die. No other religion. The Baptists have no consolation for them. If they believe that junk about original sin, they've got to get that baby baptized, because it's probably going to die. There's a good chance it's going to die. And the Catholic Church gave them comfort that that baby's sins were admitted, and that if it died, it went to heaven. Are you seeing what blasphemy that is? What mind control that is! I mean, manipulating people in such a way. And only the established church can give them such a promise. Now folks, what I'm doing is explaining to you all this persecution of the Baptists. If you ain't connecting the dots, you ain't listening. I'm not trying to be mean. I'm trying to tell you it's important that this is preached to understand church history. How do you say that in case you think I'm wasting your time? The Presbyterians believe infant baptism replaces circumcision. and connects a child in the favor of the covenant of God. The Lutherans believe that infant baptism makes a child a member of the church. This replacement theory, this covenant theology was preached by the Catholics and the Protestants. Now listen now. Have you ever thought about this? Where did the Roman church come up with them clown costumes they wear? Where'd all that rituals come from? Where'd all that incense come from? Where'd they bring that wafer down? The middle of the aisle, people bowing before it, because they think that's Jesus Christ in a cookie. Where'd all that come from? Where did the mass come from? Listen now, because their pattern is Old Testament Israel. The priesthood is based on the Levitical priesthood. Their robes they wear is based on Judaism. Do you think for a minute the early apostles dressed like that? They wore robes with inlined gold. Can you imagine what that cost? Now what's this? They're Old Testament Israel. They got all that incense going up. What did Old Testament Israel do? Old Testament is right of morning and evening sacrifice. What have they got? The Mass where they sacrifice Jesus every day. It's the same old thing. They spend millions and billions building all their extravagant cathedrals That old Pope Leo about bankrupting the Catholic Church, building St. Peter's Basilica, I mean, that's when he started charging for all them indulgence taxes. That's what brought about Martin Luther. But anyhow, I get on that, that's another rabbit of 30 minutes. They think they're Israel. The church, watch this, is not the people, it's the building. Solomon's Temple. William, that's why they're so extravagant. That's why they go to a little place like Mexico, and I've been there, and the whole town in poverty, the whole little village in poverty have a Catholic church that nobody ever attends except Christmas and Easter. Don't even know what they believe. Build that big monstrosity up there while all them people grow up and go to hell, dying Catholics. the rites and the rituals. How that wafer coming down now replaces the wave offering. Everything they do is a take on Old Testament Israel, because that's what they think they are. Here's what the Catholic Church is. I'm talking about Baptist persecution now. One third Christianity, one third Judaism, and one third paganism. I told you holy water, the selling of relics, Your old Martin Luther went over there to Rome. These Catholics lie like dogs, you know. They got all these relics from... They got wood off Jesus' cross. They got all these holy relics. So they got steps that they say are the steps that went up to Pilate's judgment hall. That's what they say. So, oh, man, this is 1500 and a little over 1500 A.D. Still got the steps, man. And on every step, old Martin Luther got to stop and do all these Hail Marys and all these penance and all this stuff. And he seen all that rigmarole going on. Now let me just jump in here and say this. What run Martin Luther out of the Catholic Church was a sale of indulgences, listen to me, to raise money for the building program of the Pope. He sold indulgences. If you wanted to go murder somebody, if you paid the Pope enough money, you could get forgiveness from eternal damnation by buying forgiveness before you murdered somebody. If you want to go get drunk, buy an indulgence. If you want to go commit adultery, buy an indulgence. If you want to go steal or rob somebody, barren indulgence. And the Pope writes out, letter form, having all the consequence, all the guilt of sin, is henceforth removed now and forevermore. Heaven, you, thou, the gates of hell shall be shut to you, and the entrance into heaven shall be opened unto you. They think they're Israel. Now it's starting to make sense, ain't it? That's why the church believers, real believers, that's why they think they've got a right to exterminate them. What did God say to do with heretics in the Old Testament? Man gets up and preaches something that ain't God's Word, you kill him. That's what they done in the nation of Israel. Because everybody didn't have a copy of the Word of God. What a prophet said was detrimental. That's how false doctrine got started. And they couldn't have everybody and their brother jumping up and saying, I ought to preach and that I'm a prophet. That's why God's standards was so strict back then. They didn't have the Word of God. They didn't have the understanding we've got now. God had to protect them and He done that by very strict measures to keep them from being destroyed. What did they do with witches in the Old Testament? I shall not suffer a witch to live. What did they do at Salem, Massachusetts? And that's a bunch of lies told on that man. And on a lot of them it died. In the Old Testament, where did Zwingli, Luther, and the Puritans get their idea of persecution? Did you know John Calvin had six children put to death for disobeying their parents? Where did he get that? They think they're Israel. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Listen to me. The Baptist Church is the greatest friend of Israel that they've ever had. And these Reformed Sovereign Grace Baptists that have thrown out the pre-millennial canon of the Lord and gone into this covenant theology, I believe the curse of God is going to rest on them because they have denied the nation of Israel and their rightful place. That is what I believe. If I am wrong, God will straighten me out in heaven because I am going there. The Pope believes that the church is his kingdom. The whole world is his to conquer. Kingdoms have to be expanded. They have to be maintained. How do you expand a kingdom? How do you maintain a kingdom? By rule of law, by force. It is illegal for anyone to believe that which challenges the churches, their authority, and their doctrine. You can't have dissenting opinion. You've got to have everybody locked into the same thing, scared to open their mouth. That's how you control them. When folks get saved by the grace of God, the Holy Ghost will live. Listen now, have you ever heard of the Crusades? Again, Catholic Church thinks they are Israel. The Crusades was the Catholics marching to Israel to fight the Arabs, the Turks, and the Muslims to liberate Jerusalem. It was the plan of the Pope to move the Vatican from Rome to Jerusalem. to rule and reign for a thousand years. That's their justification for the mass murder of dissidents. The replacement theory, just stay with me a little bit longer. Number one, involves religion. Number two, it involves persecution of the dissenters. Number three, it involves conquering the world for Christ. Now, they believe That the Pope is infallible. If he's speaking from the Vatican Ex-Cathedral, he is Christ on earth. Infallible. It was the infallible Pope that ordered the three main inquisitions. That was God's order through the Pope to co-kill everybody that won't voluntarily be a Catholic. State churches include Zwingli, Calvin, have their state churches. By memory, I can think of Scotland and Switzerland being state churches of the Presbyterian, Lutheran state churches. most of Germany in the Luther's day, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Prussia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Catholic Church at one time has almost ruled the world. That's how the Catholic Church can slaughter 50 million in the dark ages and never blink an eye. They're Israel. They're conquering the land and the kingdom for Christ under the Christian flag and in the name of Jesus. The papal inquisition of 1233 was an assault on southern France of all Abigenese, Waldensians, all dissenters, all heretics were to be hunted down and slaughtered. They were to be hunted on the mountaintop in the valley. They sent out hit squads to trace down these people who were conquering the land and ridding it of the heretics. Spanish inquisition. 1478 to 1834, they didn't just kill Christian heretics, but all Jews and Muslims. Third Inquisition, 1542 to 1700, exterminate all Protestants. I'm going to give you something. I've been debating whether or not to read this. But in this day of pacifism, where everybody says, you ought not to get on other people's religions. You talk to the wrong man, you come up with that bunch of junk. It's my business to preach on the error of the Baptist and everybody else. That's exactly right. How did the Catholics torture people in the Dark Ages? Number one goal was to get them to recant by force and to get them to confess and then they burn them anyway. Most of them was burned at the stake anyway. The first torture device was the rack. This is the Church of Jesus, the Catholic Church. Except that Jesus is Satan. That's the one that come in his name. Presbyterian, John Calvin. Methodist, John Wesley. John Knox of Scotland, Martin Luther, the Lutherans, Zwingli of the Presbyterians, all said that the Pope was the Antichrist. That's what they all said. Now they don't say that now. They ain't got the backbone or the conviction to say that. Most of them don't. The first way they tortured you was the rack. How was it stretched about until the limbs come out of socket? Then they'd burn you to the stake. The second torture device was the stocks. That's your feet putting in stocks, then beaten and blistered and fried with fire. The third one was water torture, where eight quarts of water was poured down your throat through a funnel, through the throat, and then trying to force down cloth down the throat while pouring water. Also pouring boiling water down the heretic's throat. The heretic fork was two forks tied back to back. And they were used to stab the flesh under the chin, the upper chest. Hands would be secure behind the body. And these forks were stabbed in the tender parts of the flesh, not to incite death, but to prolong death deliberately. Sometimes it's gone for days. The pen, or power rather, was a torture device used on women. They would insert into their private orifices of the body and expand them by force until all of their lower body was lacerated. Just let your mind do the thinking there. That was the number one method used in the Spanish Inquisition for those accused of witchcraft and then burned at the stake. The wheel was a giant spiked wheel and they would take wood and fasten a person's body to it and then with all these spikes or body would be rolled forward while the spikes just devoured them. And then the breast ripper This is for women accused of heresy, blasphemy, adultery, witchcraft, their breasts torn from their torsos. Hanging cages. This is where they would hang the heretics up in the air suspended outside of town halls and palaces and leave them there for weeks and weeks to be exposed to the heat and the cold and where they would die of hunger and die of thirst. And then, so their bodies would be mutilated, they left them hanging in the air. Can you imagine the stench? Left them hanging in the air for their body to fall apart in the cage. The garret, another word for hanging. Those that were broke by the wheel would then be hung. The head crusher. They would place the head in this apparatus that would come down over the head and a large screw would be driven into the cranium. The teeth would be crushed. The supporting bones would be smashed. The eyes would pop out of their head and they would keep screwing down until the person died. The Catholics' favorite brand of killing the heretics was burning them at the stake. The preferred method, and it's still on the books to be enforced, these things have never been taken off of their door. Preferred method for the heretics was to be burned alive so they'll get a taste of hellfire where they say they're going. Then the Iron Maiden, a tomb-sized container with folding doors. Inside the doors was vicious spikes. When the doors were shut, the spikes were not intended to go through the whole body, but to pierce along the length of the body. Some were engineered that when the doors shut, that two spikes gouged out the eyes, leaving the person blind. That is the church, they say, of Jesus. The strapado, a rafter and a rope, put up a rafter and a rope on top, Say, spin somebody in the air, drop them so that their arms and shoulders are pulled out of joint. Just torture. All this is done stripped naked. These are a bunch of pornographic perverts, sadists. Then the torture device called the boots. Feet placed between two planks of wood. They would run up the sides of the legs. which they would be binded with cords and wedges as planks would be. The torture would use a heavy hammer to pound the wedges and drive them closer until the bones crushed and the legs were crushed. And a man could no longer walk. The Judas cradle, victim stripped, hoisted and hung over a pointed pyramid with iron belts. Appointed metal object Then the man or the woman's legs will be stretched out frontwards ankles pulled down with weights The victim then dropped on the pyramid to penetrate all the orifices until they die The guillotine the favorite execution method of the French until they outlawed in 1981 Of course, you know what that is the big blade above and the rope dropped and a man's head cut off. Our forefathers, listen to me now, would rather die, they'd rather be tortured than bow to that religious whore. They'd die before they'd baptize their babies. They'd die before they'd deny the Word of God. They took Zwingli one of the main Anabaptists in Zurich, Switzerland. They got to torturing him. He recanted. His whole congregation was so dispirited because he didn't do like Felix Manns, that old blue rock. He recanted. While he's waiting in prison, Swingly talked to him and said, I'm going to preach a sermon and bring you up to the pulpit. And you're going to renounce the Anabaptist. Some of his church members are sitting there. When he got up there, he's an old man. When he got up there, old Swingly preached his sermon. And that old boy stood up and said, and from baptism is not of God. and they took him out and they burned him. You know what one of the martyrs did? I forget his name, I don't have the notes in front of me. One of the old martyrs is fixing to burn him at the stake, the Catholics were. He told them. He said when he went out to be executed or to be burned alive, he picked up a flower, picked off a flower. He said, if me or this flower is consumed, then what you're doing is of God. I don't know what position. I guess the Lord put that on his heart. And they burn him, or they set the fire around him, and he got smoke inhalation and he died. And when the fire stopped, his body wasn't burning. They opened his hand, and there was a flower. They got so mad, they took his body and cut it up in pieces to burn it and it wouldn't burn. And Martin Luther went to the spot as a witness of that supernatural happening. They got so mad, they bury him, dig him up, try to burn him again. Are you listening? You say, I don't believe that. You believe all that stuff them politicians say, don't you? NBC and ABC. Our forefathers, they were banished and they went through the Hebrews 11, through the caves and the mountains and the valleys, deprivation, starvation, half naked. You know why? So you'd have a place to worship in liberty tonight. That's why. Our forefathers, for all these years, dreamed of a country that we could just raise our children and preach the gospel without the government telling us what to do. And they found it in America. But the Baptists had to fight for it or it wouldn't be here. I'll tell you something. Next time you get mad at your pastor, I just can't believe he expects us to be at church every time the doors open. Can you believe that? He expects us to tithe and be faithful to church. Boy, ain't we suffering. Ain't we suffering. These nursery games going on, Brother Jovey. I look at our forefathers. We got people sitting in churches, chip on their shoulder. Little old feelings get hurt. Ain't got a thing to do with a man preaching the gospel. Ain't got a thing to do with living right. I didn't get my way. They didn't do what I wanted. I didn't get recognized. Have preachers using the pulpit for a whip and boast. Boy, ain't we suffering? God, help us! I'll tell you one thing. We better grow up while we can or we'll visit each other in the concentration camps. Mark that down because judgment must begin first at the house of God.