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Jesus Christ Examines our Souls
RV27-01© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1993)
Please open your Bibles to Revelation 2:18-29 again as we continue studying the letter to Thyatira. Hebrews 4:12 tells us that the Bible,
the Word of God, is alive and powerful. Indeed, it is, and we are in such a portion of Scripture now, and have been for several weeks. It
is a portion which is powerful and illuminative in a very fantastic way, because it records for us the condition in a church in the city
of Thyatira in Asia Minor which laid the groundwork for what has happened in the religious world in which you and are today.
Paganism
The letter of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is recorded here in Revelation 2:18-29 to the church which is in the city of Thyatira of Asia Minor,
reflects the condition in this church on the one hand of very genuine devotion and very substantial, realistic service to God. However, this
condition is being tempted by an appeal to the people of that congregation to accommodate to the beliefs and practices of paganism which
surrounds them.
The paganism which surrounds them originated, we find again from the Bible, at a place called the Tower of Babel. The prime instigator of this
new religious system, which was a substitute for the true worship of God, was a man named Nimrod. So Nimrod's religious system, which began at
Babel was found throughout the ancient world as it is found today in a variety of expressions. It was here in the Thyatira church that
Christians were faced in a very realistic way with incorporating the concepts and practices of that religious system into biblical Christianity.
This ancient Babylonian religion was called a mystery religion, which meant secret. It was only revealed to the initiates (to insiders), so it
was called the mystery religions. The movement was toward compromise with the ancient Babylonian religion of Nimrod, which centered in the worship
of the sun. That's what it was all about. It was the worship of the sun, and Nimrod himself presented as the sun god. This movement in Thyatira
was being promoted by a Jezebel-like woman who was influencing the Christians of this church to view Babylonian mystery concepts and the system
as merely another road to God and salvation.
This is an old notion that the devil likes to play – that there are many roads leading to heaven, and they are all equally acceptable to the
supreme being. This pagan worship involved sexual fornication and eating foods which had been sacrificed to idols. Both of these were practices
at the heart of the Babylonian system for the purpose of uniting the worshiper with a god. You did this through illicit sex, and you did this
through eating food which had been sacrificed to the god, and which you now shared. The priests of Baal were called "Cahna Baal;" that is, they
were called "the priests of Baal." They were called this in terms of their participating in eating part of the sacrifice. They would make the
sacrifice, and they would eat that sacrifice. Of course, you can see that the Canaanite term "Cahna Baal" is where we get our English word
"cannibal," which means flesh-eater.
So the matter of eating what had been sacrificed and offered to an idol god, to most people, very clearly meant identifying yourself with
that pagan god. The apostle Paul, later on, said, "That's a bunch of baloney. That's pure bunko. I am a grace believer, and I know that I
don't care if that meat has sat on that altar offered to this idol god. That dumb idol has not affected that meat. It's the best steaks in
town. I buy it, and I eat it. However, you who know the significance of this sacrifice, and this bothers you, as a fellow Christian." Paul
said, "You have not developed in grace and in knowledge of the Lord where you have this freedom, so I'm not going to force you to eat that
meat. I'm going to invite you over to my house and say, 'What do you know? I got this down at the temple. It was sacrificed this afternoon.
They're beautiful steaks, aren't they?' I'm not even going to offer it to you. Furthermore, I'm not going to eat it in your presence. I will
not try to wound your conscience until you have developed to where you recognize this for what it is – nothing."
But for those who believed in this, this was a way of relating oneself to the heathen gods. This whole concept here of this Jezebel in Thyatira
goes back to the Old Testament Jezebel, that we have looked at in detail, who promoted this very system of an ecumenical spirit toward the sun
god worship of her day, which was in the form of the Baal worship – the phallic cult of Baal. Phallic means worship associated with sex.
The word "phallic" refers to the male sex organ which was at the heart again of the expression of the sun god worship through Baal. It was
practiced in what the Bible describes as the groves in the high places in which illicit sex and eating of food offered to idols, all was
practiced.
The Roman Catholic Church
Now this movement of the Thyatira Jezebel, which the Lord Jesus Christ so condemns in this letter, in time produced the Roman Catholic Church,
as we have it today, as well as assorted other religious systems. This system of Roman Catholicism gradually developed by the absorption of
the Babylonian mystery religion of Nimrod with its ritual; its festivals; its doctrines; and, its organizational structure in worship of the
sun. Religious leaders corrupted New Testament Christianity by giving Christian meanings to these pagan ideas, and these pagan practices, and
these pagan beliefs. That is exactly what Roman Catholicism has done.
St. Peter's Basilica
There was one thing that struck me forcibly. We've been talking about this for weeks, but it was not until I got to Rome on this tour with
Mrs. Danish, and stood right there in St. Peter's Basilica, which was built with money raised originally through the indulgence system that
so infuriated Martin Luther, and which, in 1516, then triggered the Protestant Reformation. Luther rebelled against this concept –
that a church authority; a priest; or, a hierarchy could, for a sum of money, sell you freedom and forgiveness for sins. This was for the
good cause of building this structure: the Basilica of St. Peter. It is magnificent. It, of course, has the artistry of Michelangelo. It's
beyond belief what was produced inside this magnificent structure. And I'll tell you, there's one thing that just overwhelms you as you
stand there. You have no problem in the world in realizing that the world is going to be so impressed with this place, that it can without
any difficulty at all become the headquarters of the false prophet's world religious system in the tribulation period after the true
believers are removed from the earth. It is impressive, and it will carry an impact upon the peoples of the world when it becomes the center
of the world's religious exercises.
Human Works
This system, which was incorporated into the Roman Catholic system, and produced a hybrid type of Christianity, ultimately worships Satan then,
and not the true God. It worships Satan as the sun god. It is a system entirely which is devised by the devil. Satan has provided a religious
system which purportedly honors Jesus Christ, but which ensures an eternity in hell for its followers. Remember that at the heart of the Roman
Catholic system stands one critical phrase. It's a system of human doing from start to finish. That's all it is. It is what a man can do in order
to make it with God. That is the very thing the Bible condemns as the one absolute way by which you will never find eternal life. Anytime that
you interject human effort of any kind: any ritual; or, any procedure, you may just be well-assured that your destiny will be hell. God says,
"You come to me, and I give you a gift, and don't interject any human works."
Well, all around you in the Roman system, as was evident in the Babylonian system, the heart of the religious system was what man could do.
It was works from start to finish. So the Roman Catholic system has provided a system of salvation which is based on meritorious human
achievements and a trust in a church organization with its priesthood which may dispense salvation. The spiritual adultery exemplified in
the Thyatira church was condemned by Jesus Christ to the eternal death of the lake of fire. The historical execution of this judgment is
recorded in Matthew 7:21-23, that you're all well-acquainted with, and we won't read now. That is a historical record of the execution of
this which was pronounced upon the church of Thyatira: eternal death in the lake of fire.
So the ecumenical church, which is forming today around the Roman Catholic Church, will be cast by Jesus Christ into the horrors of the
tribulation period after the rapture of the true believers, and then ultimately into the lake of fire. The spirit of ecumenism today is
based on the rejection of the fundamental doctrines of Scripture, and it is promoted by Satan in the tradition of the Thyatira and the
Old Testament Jezebels. The followers of the principles and the practices of Nimrod's Babylonian sun worship are everywhere with us today.
Death
We now begin at Revelation 2:23 once more. We've already looked at the first part of verse 23, which says, "And I will kill her children
with death." Here is how Jesus Christ says He will deal with this amalgamation of paganism with genuine Christianity: "I will separate. I
will destroy her children, not just her followers, but those who are born out of this system (which historically expressed itself as the
Roman Catholic Church). I will destroy her children with that." That is the death of the separation into the lake of fire.
To the Church
I want you to look at the next phrase which says, "And (He adds another thing) all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the
minds and hearts. The word "and" is the Greek word "kai." It's that conjunction indicating another element of the divine judgment upon the
apostates. He stresses the fact that all the churches are going to know something because he uses this word "pas" in the Greek Bible,
indicating the extent of the enlightenment of Jesus Christ. And to whom is it going to come? It's going to come to local organizations called
churches. The Greek word is actually "ekklesia." "Ekklesia" ... comes from two words. It comes from this word "ek" which is a preposition
meaning "out of," and "klesia" comes from the verb which means "to call." So the word means "the called out ones." The church consists of
people who've been called out of the world from human viewpoint doom to the miracle of salvation of divine viewpoint enlightenment. It is a
unique, distinct group which began on the day of Pentecost, and it will terminate on the day of the rapture.
Knowledge
He's talking to the church here not as the universal body of Christ. That's how the word is used sometimes. He's using it here in terms of
the local assemblies of believers, of which there were probably several in the city of Thyatira. These local organizations, "Shall know."
Here we have this word in the Greek. We need to look at it. It's the word "ginosko." That's the word in the Greek Bible. This is the word
for "knowledge," but you'll remember that this is knowledge that you get not from sitting down and reading a book, but from experience. This
is knowledge that you get not from fixing an automobile engine by reading a book, but by fixing an automobile engine by doing it. You gain
that kind of knowledge. This work "ginosko" tells us that Jesus Christ is going to inform people of something as the result of their personal
experience.
It has the future tense. Future means that sometime in the future, Jesus Christ is going to go here to this Thyatira church. It is middle voice
which means that Jesus Christ Himself is going to be doing this. It's in the indicative mood which means we have here a statement of a fact.
This is the word for knowledge by personal experience. It is a divine viewpoint fact which will be experienced by these apostates. This word,
of course, indicates the omniscience of Jesus Christ. He knows it all. And that is a good thing for us to remember about the person of Jesus
Christ – that He has omniscience, and He knows us from start to finish. The evil of the Thyatira Jezebel which was exposed by Jesus Christ
is going to be clearly judged, so that all will fear to follow her in this spiritual adultery.
The Bible is very clear about the consequences of human viewpoint and about evil acts on the part of individuals
and societies. The Bible is a whole lot more clear about the consequences of our human viewpoint, which is contrary to the Word of God, and
about our evil acts than we are in taking seriously the fact that God observes; God acts; and, God is aware of these things. There is a very
serious mistake for us to confuse God's gracious patience, when we are involved in evil, with indifference on the part of God. That's what
people do, because the boom does not always get lowered immediately. You're doing something that you know is wrong. You're doing something
that you're really uncomfortable about. You're doing something about which you have some doubt. The Bible says, "You have some question
about it. For you, it is sin." It may not be sin for the guy sitting next to you, but if you've got a question about it; you're not free in
conscience to do it; and, you're pursuing it, it's sin, and you've got a problem in pursuing it
Now, because nothing happens, people often think that it's alright. How many times have you received instruction from the Word of God, in
Sunday school class; from the pulpit; or, someplace on some human relationship? It may be on dating; marriage; using your money; or, one
thing and another. You sat there and you've taken it with some reservations, even though you've had the instruction given from the Greek
language. So therefore, if you don't like it, you can't say, "Well, that's the preacher's opinion." No, you can't, because all you've had
is the opinion of God the Holy Spirit's words. Now you have to deal with that. But nevertheless, you say, "Well, that's just the way he's
looking at it." So you do the thing that you've been warned against, and nothing happens. And you think that what you have been taught is
wrong. Nothing happens: "I've gotten away with it. I can do it." He's wrong.
Well, what you are making a very grave mistake about, as some of these people in Thyatira were doing, obviously, is that because God is
patient, and, in grace, He is giving you a chance to turn around and act according to the information that you have – that He is indifferent,
and that you are getting away with something. Don't make that serious mistake. Save yourselves from scars on your life and from grief in your
experience by taking it to heart that God knows, and He acts upon the omniscient knowledge that He has. He is not indifferent to our evil.
We're not just dealing with mere human opinion.
What Jesus Christ was saying here is that hidden evil is brought to the light of public scandal if repentance and change are not exercised.
Our hidden evil is going to be brought to public scandal, if necessary, to change our course, if we refuse to repent and make corrections.
The apostle Paul was very clear in the book of 1 Corinthians when he said, "If we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged." That means that
if you don't judge yourself, through confession of sin and change of course, then God will come in and He will act upon it.
Your Sin will Find you Out
This principle was laid out very clearly to the Jewish people in Numbers 32:23 in terms of the two tribes of Reuben and Gad. They had decided
to stay on the west side of the Jordan River rather than to cross over. But Moses made it clear to them that the conquest of the land included
all of the land. So what Moses made clear to them, and which they recognized, was that, "We will leave our children and our families in
security on the west side, but we're going to cross the Jordan with the rest of you and we're going to help conquer the land. When we have
conquered the land, then we can rightfully come back to the security and safety in our possession of the land on the other side of Jordan."
And Moses said, "You're right. You have taken your possessions on the east side. The east side is your part. Now you should come and join us in
combat on the west side of the Jordan River so that we take that. You must come across to the west side and do battle with us to secure that."
In Numbers 32:23, he said, "If you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out."
That is a great life motto: "Be sure your sin will find you out." This is exactly what the Lord is trying to tell the people in
the church at Thyatira: "Folks, your sins are going to find you out. I know what's going on, and don't make the mistake that because I
haven't brought the roof down on your heads that I'm ignoring it, and that you're dealing with some human viewpoint. You have been involved
in a very grievous evil. I am a God of grace. I'm tapping my foot here, waiting for you to straighten out and turn around before I have to
move in on you. But I will move. The hidden evil is going to be brought to the light of public scandal."
We have religious movements today which teach false doctrines, and they incorporate principles of paganism. And because they are popular
and prosperous, people think that God favors them, when in point of fact, they are doomed. Where do you think Roman Catholicism, as a
church organization, is going except to doom? Where do you think Mormonism is going, with its works system of salvation, except to doom?
Where do you think Islam today, with its fanatical devotion but its rejection of the person of Jesus Christ, is going except to doom? Those
people who have rejected the grace of God and God's plan of salvation are all doomed. I don't care how popular and how prosperous their
religious system is.
Just a few weeks ago, Mrs. Danish and I stood in that fabulous Dome of the Rock (that mosque) which was built over the rock upon which
Abraham purportedly proceeded to sacrifice Isaac. And you walked into this beautiful mosque, and there is this rock. It is kind of awesome
to stand there and look, because this is one of the places that has more possibility of being authentic – that this is really where
this took place. These people come to this place in order to make a step toward their salvation. All around are these fantastic Oriental
rugs on the floor. 5,000 people can get in there at one time. They're on their knees, and they're bowing down, and they're praying, and
they're doing it five times a day. To do it there in a holy place makes it all the more pleasing to God. Well, God is not pleased, and
God rejects it.
All the churches shall know because God knows, and He's going to make it very clear. What are they going to know? "That I am He." The word
"that" is the Greek word "hoti." That indicates to us that something is coming that's going to be explained: "I am." Usually in the Greek
Bible, you can say, "I am" with just using the verb, but this time they actually use the word for "I:" "ego," because this time the Holy
Spirit wants to emphasize that Jesus Christ is saying that He personally is going to do this. There is no question about this. You're dealing
with the Living Son of God. "I am:" The word "am" is "eimi." That's a verb expressing status quo (a condition). It's in the present tense
which means that Jesus is saying, "I constantly am doing this." It's active. Jesus Christ Himself makes the evaluation. It's indicative mood
– a statement of fact.
Christ is Examining our Souls
What's he doing? He's saying that He personally, and no one else, is making an evaluation. The Greek word is "ereunao." "Ereunao" is a word
which means "to examine." Here it is based upon the omniscience of Jesus Christ who knows it all. It's a verb which is the present tense, which
in the Greek language means that Jesus is doing this all the time. It's active. He is the one who makes examination. It is participle –
a spiritual principle. The Lord Jesus Christ is examining something. What? Well, he's examining something on you and me in the same way
as he is examining these Thyatira people: their souls. He's looking down into the soul, and He's examining something about that soul. He is
finding out the status of our souls. The status of our souls has far-reaching effects in both temporal and eternal matters.
Cleansing
First of all, in examining the souls, He says that, "He is examining the mind." The word in the Greek is not quite that. The word is
"nephros." This is a noun, and "nephros" means "kidney." In examining the soul, Jesus Christ says, "I am constantly, concerning my
believers, and I want to make this clear to all local churches, that I am searching out their kidneys." The word "kidney" here is used in a
symbolical sense in order to indicate what the ancients viewed as the place of the emotions and of the will. For them, the emotions were
down in the visceral area, or in the body area. It was not associated, as we do, with the heart. They associated emotions with the torso,
and with the stomach area particularly, and they associated the will with that area. We say that today. People say, "I have a gut feeling
that this is the thing to do." What they're doing is referring back to the ancient world's way of thinking of where feelings were, and
where decisions were made.
So, first of all, the Lord Jesus Christ says, "I know that your soul consists of three things. It consists of emotions, and it consists of
your will (as well as the intellect). I take a look at those to see what the condition is of each." The proper functioning of your soul will,
like the kidneys, flush out the waste materials of your soul. As the kidneys flush out the waste material of the body, so the soul is viewed,
in terms of emotion and will, as being cleansed through the flushing effect of the kidneys. The waste products that emotions pour into us,
and the waste products of wrong decisions of our will that come upon us are cleansed by something. That something is Bible doctrine. Only
doctrine acts as the kidney of the soul in order to flush out fouled up emotions so that you're not acting like a fool, and flush out foolish
choices. So you do not make choices that are injurious to yourself.
This is not easy to come by. It is really tough to be a Christian who's got flushed out emotions. It's really tough to be a Christian who
has a flushed-out will so that you can really move through life with the confidence that what you feel about things; what you feel about
people; what you feel about circumstances; and, what you feel about yourself is exactly what God feels about it. Emotions which are cleansed
through the Word of God are exactly that: They're God's feelings.
The same thing is true of your will. Your choices very confidently can be made as the choices that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself would make.
You are going to make a very great mistake if you think that this is some kind of an imaginary invention. Bible doctrine in the soul acts
like kidneys to flush out what is corrupt in our emotions and in our will. If you don't have it there, then your emotions are bad, and your
will is bad. That's a very serious condition physically, because when the kidney doesn't work in the body, it causes problems. If it doesn't
work artificially (it is made to work some other way), it means death. The same thing is true of a soul. If you do not keep that soul (the
emotions) flushed out with God's viewpoint, and if you do not keep your will flushed out with God's viewpoint (and the only way you're going
to do that is by what you're doing right now – sitting under the authority and the gift of the pastor-teacher and learning what the Word
of God has to say to you), you're going to have fouled-up emotions; you're going to have a fouled-up will; and, you've going to have a fouled-up
life. And in time, it will mean death to you. It might mean that you die physically. It will not mean spiritual death to you. Once you're born
again, you can't ever die again. But it will mean death to you in terms of the loss of eternal reward.
If you want to drop your eyes down to the last phrase or verse 23 (that we are yet to come to), you will notice that this is where all this
is leading, because what the Lord says is, "I will give unto every one of you according to your works." And there is the bottom line of the
Christian life staring at us out of the Word of God again. It's the rewards that are being stored in heaven – treasures in heaven, and
not treasures on earth. Nobody is storing treasures in heaven in any degree who has emotions and who has a will which the kidneys of his soul
have not flushed out with Bible doctrine, so that he is acting and functioning in the cleanness of God's divine viewpoint.
But there is something else. Not only does the divine scrutiny look upon the emotions and the will, but our souls also contain an intellect.
And this is number one at the top of the pile. It is the intellect of the soul. So we have the Greek that says "kai" again,
indicating that there is something else. That something else is "hearts." That is "kardia." "Kardia is a symbol for the mentality of the soul.
You know what Romans 10:10 says, don't you? "For with the heart man believes unto righteousness." The heart here (the "kardia) refers to the
mentality of the soul. And the last thing that Jesus Christ puts, because he wants to emphasize it, is that he is examining the mentality of
the soul (the heart). Again, this is in orientation to God's divine viewpoint. If you are functioning on divine viewpoint, then the soul is
stable.
That is because what your emotions do, and what the will does, is ultimately determined by the intellect. It is what's in your mind. It is the
frame of reference in your mind that determines how you feel about things. It is the frame of reference of your mind that determines what you
do, and the choices (the decisions) you make. So number one is taking doctrine into the mentality of the soul so that it dominates. That's the
point. It must dominate. It must be in charge. Where are most people today? Here is where they are. They have the emotions up at the top, and
the emotions are telling their intellect what to do, and their emotions are telling their will what to do. This is human viewpoint. Having the
intellect at the top is divine viewpoint. And you are one or the other. Only through the intake of doctrine of the soul will you not have
emotional domination of the soul.
It is emotional domination of the soul which is destroying our nation today. On every account, it is
emotional domination of the soul. It is not functioning according to the principles of the Word of God. It is not functioning on economic
principles that the Bible lays out. It is not functioning on military principles. It is not functioning on moral principles. It is not
functioning on educational principles. It is not functioning on social principles. It is not functioning on marital principles. It is not
functioning on family principles. All the way down the line, it is functioning not according to the Word of God, but to some feeling –
to some emotional orientation, and we are a declining nation because of it. Unless something very radically happens in this nation very soon,
we are doomed. The few common ordinary folks that I spoke to in Europe all had, interestingly enough, one consistent feeling. They are afraid
that the United States is destroying itself, and will no longer be able to stand as the last citadel of freedom in the world to stop the
aggression of the communist world. They know that if we go, they go. It is very serious with them. They are very much concerned, and they cannot
believe the things that we do. It is because we haven't flushed out the emotions of our souls, and we don't have leaders who have souls which
are flushed with divine viewpoint so they can function according to a way that God can bless.
This "kardia" (this mentality) refers, of course, to the mind in two respects: the perceptive mind; and, the directive mind. The perceptive
mind is the function of our mentality where we learn things. But the directive mind is where we make decisions on the basis of the information
that we have taken in and that we have learned. Now we're making decisions. It is this area that "kardia" particularly refers to. It is the
directive mind. It is the decision-making function of the mentality.
The Lord Jesus Christ says that He monitors constantly and very closely what you and I think, and the divine viewpoint status of our minds in
reference to the decisions we make. Out of the frame of reference of divine viewpoint that controls our minds comes our feelings and our
wills, which are compatible to His feelings and to His will. A mind which is on human viewpoint signals will respond to the ecumenical
concepts of the Jezebel type of females.
Jesus says, "I'm looking into your minds. I'm looking into your souls. I'm looking at all three facets of the soul: the mind; the emotions;
and, the will. What I find is very critical to you, and the way I treat you, and the way I deal with you." Well, what does the Lord Jesus
see when he looks into the souls of people today?
Roman Catholicism
Our tour has brought some of that into focus for me. Particularly enlightening to me was the relationship of Roman Catholicism as a
religious system, and its influence upon the thinking of people today. The visit to Rome was short, and I wish it were longer. It was
an eye-opener to me of all the things that we have been teaching relative to the Babylonian system, and to the incorporation of that
into New Testament Christianity, and the perverted harlot church (as Revelation describes it) came out of that. As I sat in the beauty of
St. Peter's Basilica and wandered through those grounds, everywhere I looked, I was shocked to see the evidences, and the marks, and the
symbolism of Nimrod. I knew it, but not until I saw did I get the full impact of how real this was.
For example, the Roman Catholic system of works, as you know, is based upon human merit – something a person does. When you are born,
you receive that sprinkling of water baptism as your first sacrament (your means of grace), carrying you on to salvation, on up through
taking the Lord's Supper. And at Oberammergau we saw the famed passion play. When they dealt with the scene on the Lord's Supper, just the
way it was worded, it was very clear that they were conveying to us that here was the origin of the Mass, which we happen to know came from
Nimrod in the Babylonian system. And then they even had the critical phrase: "And this will be a means of grace forever." "A means of grace"
is a system of gaining merit with God for eternal life. That is at the heart of the Roman Catholic system. That message, for anybody who
understood and was listening, was very clear.
Martin Luther
The idea of gaining merit for salvation by those who are permeated with the sin nature is contrary to everything that the Word of God offers.
The consequence of that concept is that man has no hope – very little hope to make it on your own. The idea that you can please God down
deep inside, where we have that gut feeling – this is not working. This is not right. That's what bothered Luther. He was no dummy. He
was a trained theologian. However, it was not until he was directed by his superiors to teach the book of Romans in the university, and he began
researching for those lectures, that it hit him, what was wrong, and what bothered him in his visit in Rome. This is what hit him – that
the principal was that, "The just shall live by faith." It was not until he was crawling up those steps in Rome on his knees did the verse come
to his mind – Romans 1:17, then it exploded in his mind: "My God, what am I doing here? I'm crawling up these steps on my knees to try to
gain merit with a God who says that I cannot work my way there. I must have it given to me."
Then all the gloom and all the distress dissipated; all the punishment that he did to himself; and, all the beating of his body like on
television that the Muslims (the legations – beating themselves to gain merit with God) – all of that was gone, and the happiness
and the joy of eternal life broke through. Anywhere the Roman Catholic Church has had its hand upon one of these historical biblical sites,
I can tell you they have surrounded it with a spirit of gloom and depression and the sense of a God of wrath – not a God of grace, and
not a God who has been appeased and satisfied, who has been propitiated as the Word of God tells us.
The Holy Land Today
What they are in a habit of doing with these historical biblical sites, like Gethsemane, is to build the church over it. So they do. When
you walk into the Garden of Gethsemane, it is one of the more authentic sites. You can indeed look and see that it is a garden, very much in
the description in the biblical sense. And over the rock that they believe Christ prayed on, they built a church. When you walk in there,
it's gloomy and it's dark. I've tried to make the provision by buying pictures of these places which were made professionally on the inside
so that I can take my movie camera and shoot the postcard. It was so dark in the places, and so gloomy, that there was not any way to take
pictures. The whole atmosphere is offensive.
You come to the place where Christ was to be born, the nativity site, that one in Bethlehem, and that repulsed me almost more than any other one.
The room was covered with cloth drapings that looked like they haven't been to the laundry since Richard the Lionhearted came over from France.
The handling of the lanterns and the gloominess of the candles was an oppressiveness.
You come to the resurrection site, in the traditional Calvary site, this elevation in which they have the three holes in the ground where the
crosses were to stand, and they've built an altar on it, and built a church on it. They have the place of the supposed tomb. You can only go
in it a few at a time. Then I walked around behind it, and there was a priest standing there. I think he was Greek Orthodox. He saw me. I
walked one way and I saw him eying me. Then I came back the other way. I guess he saw that camera, and he said, "Here's an American." So he
waved me over and he lifted the veil underneath so I could look into the tomb from the side through the glass. He was talking to me and
explaining this to me. We're down there together on our knees looking in this place. And then he pulls out a little picture card that had
Mary and Jesus on it. Then he had a little bottle here, an atomizer, and he sprayed it, and you smelled perfume. He perfumed the card, and
he handed it to me and asked for a donation – right here where Jesus was buried. They know how to treat Americans, especially guys with
cameras. So I handed him back his card and smiled. So he tried some other language on me, and I just wandered off. The prostituting, the
gloominess, and the offensiveness is everywhere.
But then we were led around outside the wall of Jerusalem, and outside of the Damascus gate. Over 100 years ago, General Charles George
"Chinese" Gordon was there. You've heard of Lawrence of Arabia. Britain has produced some really fantastic, great men. One of these was
Chinese Gordon. General Gordon was standing on the wall at the Damascus gate, looking out across, and he said to an aide, "That looks like
a skull – that hill." And sure enough, you look on there, and you can see the eyes, and you can see somewhat of a nose, and the erosion
of a mouth. Perhaps it was more distinct in years past. He pursued to explore the biblical requirements: five or six very specific statements
in the Bible concerning outside the wall, and the tomb was close by. So he put into motion a research society, an organized society, in
Britain, and they bought the site. They bought the hill, and bought the site down adjacent to it; excavated it; and, lo and behold, indeed,
they found a tomb in what had been a garden.
Because they possessed it, and the Roman Catholics cannot get their dead hand of Babylonian
mystery religion upon it, it is a garden tomb. I guarantee you that when you walk in there, that is an impressive experience. It strikes you
in every degree as being authentic. It meets all the requirements of Scripture. There you stand in front of that opening. There you walk in,
and there was the weeping area, and the place here where the tomb was laid out in which they would place the person in the wrappings –
seven feet long, as a matter of fact – very ample. It had been used by others since, of course. In fact, the whole thing was covered over
by many feet of dirt that they had excavated. But it has all the atmosphere and all the factors of the real place of the burial and the
resurrection.
Nearby is a vast cistern – a water retaining area. When they went down into it, they found marks (Christian symbols), indicating that
Christians had been there, and that this site was significant to them. Again, this confirmed that this was the real place. If any place was
the place where the Lord Jesus was resurrected, that certainly fit the bill. But the atmosphere was the atmosphere of joy; of exhilaration;
and, of resurrection. It was so different, for everybody in our party. I spoke to the group, and I made reference to this contrast of the
reality of the garden tomb, and boy, the whole place exploded with people saying, "Yes, indeed. Amen. That sure was." They all were aware of
the same thing. This was such a forceful evidence to me of the contrast of what Thyatira and the Jezebel woman had produced historically in
the Roman Church, and what biblical Christianity produces.
In the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, it was just a contrast. It was absolutely a contrast. Here is where that priest was giving me a perfumed
card for an offering. I was crouched down there with him, and I suddenly found myself projected mentally back over the ... decades, back to
World War II, when I stood in the Buddhist temple in China. A priest handed me a flaming taper to light a candle before a huge Buddha –
the Buddha of long life. The whole climate and the whole atmosphere: everything was the same. It was no different in the paganism of China,
than it was in the paganism of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
In Rome, everywhere we looked, there was the round orb of the sun. Over the cathedra, at the very back of St. Peter's Basilica, is a huge
round sun disk with the sprays of the light angling out, and the dove in the middle. The dove is huge. It's five feet across. It doesn't
look like anything. There it is. They don't know what they're doing, but there is the symbol of the sun god as it has come down through
historical record in preservation again and again. Over the Bernini Canopy, over the Pope's throne, over the altar section, right up at
the top I looked, and there again was the disk of the sun and the symbol of Nimrod's sun god. Everywhere were the letters PM, by the Pope's
name: Pontifex Maximus. You know what that is. It is the title of the chief priest of the pagan system which was then taken over by the Pope.
Everywhere there was the crossed keys. They were everywhere you looked. Were these the keys of Peter? No. They were the keys of Sybil and of
Janus. That's where they came from. They came from the keys of the Peter of Rome, who was the interpreter in the ancient pagan world as the
entrance into heaven, through the pagan system of Nimrod. The Keys are there. Everywhere you see the keys of the Pope, not knowing what they
are indeed.
You walk out in the center of the piazza, the St. Peter's Square. There is the basilica. Then you come in, and there is this colonnade this
way, and this colonnade this way, and you've seen it in pictures right out here in the middle. What do you see? You see the obelisk brought
from Alexandria, which represented the phallic symbol of the Nimrod cult. Right there in the middle stands the phallus.
Satan knows what's going on. Satan knows what these things mean. Satan knows where they were created, and why they were created. The
symbolism is everywhere. On the crosier (the so-called shepherd's crook) that was carried by the Pope was the divining rod of the Babylonian
priests. The images of the Madonna and child were everywhere.
In Notre Dame, there are three rose windows, and in two of them are Mary and the child. One of them had Jesus in it. In the British Museum, in
going through a section that had a lot of little figures, some terracotta and different materials which had been uncovered by archaeology, I
came across a figure of a woman seated on a throne, and having a baby in her hand, and on her head were two horns, and in the middle was this
disk. And here she was with the child in her hands, seated on this throne. You'd say, "There's an image that somebody made of Mary and Jesus."
No. It came from Nimrod's Babylonian religious system. There is the sun god, and the horns, you remember, were the symbol of authority and the
symbol of power. These have, incidentally, eventuated in the horns that you see on crowns that kings have. All of this was the recognition of
his majesty the devil as represented and worshiped in the sun.
What does Jesus see when he looks into the souls of people today? What does he see when he looks into the souls of the Roman Catholic system
and these other perverted systems – these children who have come from that in one way or another? The Lord Jesus Christ sees right back
there to the Tower of Babel and to Nimrod the sun god and the false system he has made. What changes this? Bible doctrine in your soul makes
the difference between you being an animal and being a sucker for every preacher who comes along with his religious notions and his perverted
Scriptures, even in sincerity, and for being a child of God who bears the image and likeness of a living God, and who has divine viewpoint
flushing out that evil from your mentality; from your emotions; and, from your will. It's great to the enlightened by the Word of God. It's
great to be able to look at a little bit of the world around us and see the stamps of the devil and see the stamps of Satan system everywhere,
even in those systems that are purportedly worshiping the true God. Consider yourself graced out for having been preserved from such a destiny.
Dr. John E. Danish, 1977
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