Mariology, part 2

This is part 2 of Mariology of the Catholic church which deals with Mary as perfectly holy.

Mary the all holy one

According to the Roman Catholic Church, Mary is all holy, just like the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. From a book called True devotion to Mary, chapter 6 says:


There is no darkness in Mary, not even the slightest shadow since there was never any sin in her. She is a holy place, a holy of holies, in which saints are formed and molded.

This seems quite bizarre since Mary, in her song, calls God her Savior. If you are perfectly holy then what do you need to be saved from?

The necessity of Mary in sanctification is also required by the Catholic church. Without Mary you can work really hard but Jesus will only be slightly seen in you.

If Mary, the Tree of Life, is well cultivated in our soul by fidelity to this devotion, she will in due time bring forth her fruit which is none other than Jesus. I have seen many devout souls searching for Jesus in one way or another, and so often when they have worked hard throughout the night, all they can say is, "Despite our having worked all night, we have caught nothing." To them we can say, "You have worked hard and gained little; Jesus can only be recognized faintly in you." But if we follow the immaculate path of Mary, living the devotion that I teach, we will always work in daylight, we will work in a holy place, and we will work but little.

Not only is Mary claimed to be perfectly holy but completely sinless as well, which is what being holy is. Again, they state this in their Catechism, number 508.

508 From among the descendants of Eve, God chose the Virgin Mary to be the mother of his Son. "Full of grace", Mary is "the most excellent fruit of redemption" (SC 103): from the first instant of her conception, she was totally preserved from the stain of original sin and she remained pure from all personal sin throughout her life.

No where in the Bible does it even hint of this. Romans 3:10-11 says:

None is righteous, not one; no one understands; no one seeks after God.

All through the Bible we read of Man’s depravity. In fact in Romans 6:23 the Bible says that the wages of sin is death. This means your death is proof that you have sinned. The Bible says that everyone has sinned (Romans 3:23), there for all must die and then the judgment. This is why the Catholic church had to invent the doctrine of the assumption of Mary, which means that Mary did not die but directly ascended to heaven in the same way that Jesus did.

More verses on the sinfulness of all men include:

Mk 7:21-23, Jer 17:9, Rom 6:20, Rom 3:10-12, Mk. 10:18, 1 Cor 2:14, Eph 2:15, Eph 2:3, Ps 58:3, Jn 3:19, Gen 6:5, Isa 64:6, Ps 14:3, Ps 143:2, Gen 8:21, Jn 8:44, Eph 2:12, Jn 3:36, Ps 5:5, 11:5, Job 15:16, Ps 53:1-3, 1 Kg. 8:46, Ecc. 7:20, Gal. 3:22, 1 Jn. 1:8, Ps. 51:4

The simple fact that Mary, in her song, calls God her Savior should be enough proof that Mary was not holy and sinless or she would have no need to be reconciled.

In the Catholic prayer called the Regina Caeli, Mary in her perfect holiness, earned the right to give birth to Jesus.

The Regina Caeli

Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia.
The Son whom you merited to bear, alleluia,
has risen as he said, alleluia.
Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia!
For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia.

In Catholic writings they say that Mary can be called the savior of the world.

Mariology

I grew up Catholic until God saved me and ever since I have studied more about the doctrine of the Catholic Church.  Many of the Catholic doctrines are closer to paganism than Christianity and I will expose a few of them in the next several posts.  It is important to understand what is being taught and performed in the Catholic church to avoid the error of thinking that the Roman church is just like any other church.  Most Catholics don't have a clue of what goes on during a mass or what Catholic doctrine even says, they just show up on Sunday, repeat their memorized prayers, kneel down, stand, sit, take the bread and wine and go to Denny's.  It is tradition and they don't know why they do the things they do.  On the other hand, the priests, bishops, cardinals, pope, they all actually do know what their doctrine is and what they are teaching and they are either blind or purposefully deceiving.  They will be held accountable for exalting tradition, Mary, the Pope, saints and everything else above the Scriptures and what they say.  So I will start this off with a series on mariology.  I used many resources in this research but you can find all the facts yourself on the Vatican's website here and the Catechism of the Catholic church.

The Worship of Mary

Mary is worshiped by Catholics as God. Some cathedrals have a statue of Mary at the top with God the Father and Jesus below her and offering their crowns to Mary. People kiss her image, her statue, her picture. People pray to her continually using the rosary. Mary is believed to hold the Sovereign authority of God.

Catholics believe that as the Queen of Heaven she posses the right to the whole kingdom of her Son. She can dispense anything in the kingdom to whom she wants. There are just as many creatures serving Mary as there are serving God. Mary has dominion and power over all creation. Jesus is King of justice but Mary is queen of mercy. Basically they are saying that it is hard to get mercy out of Jesus so you must go to Mary, who will get the mercy from Jesus because apparently Jesus can't resist his mother. Mary determines who gets mercy, who God saves, and who is helped.

This is blasphemy against the nature of God and the character of Christ our compassionate savior.

Mary the intercessor

She also shares holiness with God. Nothing can resist her power. Jesus takes delight in glorifying her and grants her every perfection as if He were paying a debt. Catholics believe that Jesus listens to all Mary says and grants her wish. If a Catholic loves Mary, they believe that they will receive what ever they want. Mary lifts people out of sin when they repent to her. She reconciles sinners to God. Mary basically has all the attributes of the Trinity and performs all the same duties. The salvation of all depends on Mary and her intercession.

Catholics refer to her as “God bearer” and say she gave birth to God and because of this she should be worshiped and adored.

This is a huge misconception. She gave birth to Jesus in his humanity. She did not give birth to God, God was never born.
In the Catholic Catechism of 1994, paragraph 2677, it says:
“By asking Mary to pray for us, we acknowledge ourselves to be poor sinners and we address ourselves to the mother of mercy, the all holy one.”

The Self-Esteem Nightmare

What is self-esteem?  The word explains the definition, we are to esteem ourselves.  Does this sound biblical?  Far from it.  The opposite is actually true.  We should see our utter helplessness and depravity which drives us to utterly depend on God alone and esteem Him for His goodness and not ourselves.  The self-esteem movement has become rampant in this age.  Here is an example from Joel Osteen's book, "Your Best Life Now":

He writes, “Every moment that we go around with that weak worm-of-the-dust mentality, we’re eating more cheese and crackers….It’s time to step up to God’s dining table. God has prepared a fabulous banquet for you, complete with every good thing imaginable. And it has already been paid for. God has everything you need there—joy, forgiveness, restoration, peace, healing” (84-85).

Just doing an Internet search on "Christian self-esteem" I found countless resources on how to improve your self-esteem.  Here is just one:

There is nothing negative about God. So doing what you can to eliminate the negative stuff in your life will go a long ways toward improving your Christian self esteem.  God has a specific plan for your life, but in order to start moving in the right direction, it's necessary to start focusing on positive things that will make you feel better about yourself.  Building Christian self esteem isn't as simple as just going to a website, reading the material, and presto....you instantly feel better about yourself and everything in your life. Unfortunately, it's a lot more complicated than that.

The reason it is complicated is because "Christian" self-esteem is unbiblical and demonic.  See the problem here?  Now compare this non-sense with a prayer of a Puritan:

Lord Jesus,
I sin --
Grant that I may never cease grieving because of it, never think I can reach a point of perfection.  Kill my envy, command my tongue, trample down self.  Give me grace to be holy, kind, gentle, pure, peaceable, to live for thee and not for self, to copy thy words, acts, spirit, to be transformed into thy likness, to be consecrated wholly to thee, to live entirely to thy glory.

See the difference?  Which is more biblical?  I think it is obvious.  Kill your self-esteem and esteem God alone, for He will share His glory with no one.  Here is a video of Paul Washer on self-esteem.

What is your motivation for the things you do?

Cult of the month - Rastafarianism

Halie Selassie

Founded by Halie Selassie

• Former emperor of Ethiopia, crowned in 1930 and died in 1975. Reined for 45 years.

• This is not his real name but he took this name which means the power of the trinity. He also took names like: king of kings, lord of lords, the conquering lion of Judah. His actual name is Ras Tafari Maconan.

• Always decked out with many medals.

• He claimed to be 225th in a line of Ethiopian Kings descending from a union between Solomon and the queen of Sheba. He actual said that Psalm 87:4-6 predicted his coronation. It says:

Among those who know me I mention Rahab and Babylon; behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Cush-- "This one was born there," they say. And of Zion it shall be said, "This one and that one were born in her"; for the Most High himself will establish her. The LORD records as he registers the peoples, "This one was born there." Selah
(Psa 87:4-6)
• Now there are over 1 million people that worship him as god.

• He is believed to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

• His worshipers are called Rastafarian’s.

• Rastafarians only believe in the King James version of the bible.

• If you are in the religion then you must have a personal relationship with Ras Tafari.

• They say he never died and he is coming back on the day of judgment to Africa.

• They only believe ½ the Bible has been written the other half was stolen from Africans by white people and is now hidden in the Ark of the Covenant.

• They believe that devout believers will not physically die.

• They believe that Ras Tafari is god the father and god the son and his followers are the holy spirit.

• During a Rastafarian service the worshipers smoke maharaja, singing, dancing, reading the bible and listening to their greatest prophet, Bob Marley.

• Bob Marley took the Rastafarian system and developed it into a form of music called Reggae.
• Dreadlocks are also associated with Reggae and Rastafarianism and they are the idea of going back to nature by never taking care of your hair, which is a play on the Nazarite vow.

This is a satanic religion that worships a dead Ethiopian that is now in Hell.

Paul Washer - Warning for Bloggers

Child-Sacrificing Incas vs Baby killing Americans

I thought this was interesting because it is about the Inca people of old in Cusco, which is where we are moving. I found this on Desiring God’s blog

The remains of seven children apparently killed in a ritual, and buried beneath a 500- to 600-year-old building in Peru’s Cuzco Valley have given scientists new glimpses of the sketchily understood Inca practice of sacrificing select children in elaborate ceremonies.

The children were buried at the same time, apparently after having been killed in a sacrificial rite that honored Inca deities and promoted political unity across the far-flung empire, say anthropologist Valerie Andrushko of Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven and her colleagues.

Chemical analyses of the bones indicate that at least two of the children came from distant parts of the Inca realm.

The findings lend credence to the accounts of Spanish conquistadors that described how children were selected for sacrifice from all across the empire, based on their physical perfection. We shudder at such brutal backwardness.

Today, using prenatal screening, we scour the empire for children with physical defects and sacrifice them to ourselves. 

Peru Video

Here is a short, 5 minute, video of our scouting trip to Peru. For the more of this trip go to our Mission blog and you can see our journal and longer video.

Do you love the world or Christ?

The Atheist and the Ethiopians

I hit the streets on a cold day last week. It was -22F at my house in the morning but warmed to a toasty -6F out witnessing. I ran into an atheist in the walking mall and we debated for a long time. I forgot my coat in the truck but a fire was kindled inside. Whenever I run into one of these Atheists who know "everything," I like to convert them to an agnostic. This guy was too illogical to be converted. He had many complaints against God (that he doesn't believe in) and the Bible and proceeded to tell me all of them. They were nothing that I have never heard before and are easily answered. He knew the truth but suppressed it. He had an answer for everything and it didn't matter to him if his answers were logical or not. He proceeded to tell me that God was evil because he got cancer and almost died when he was 17 and that he knew a 3 year old girl with cancer. It is funny how an Atheist, who doesn't believe that God exists, blames God for evil. An atheist should be happy when people die because it is survival of the fittest and natural selection is working. The weak are dying off and the strong live. An atheist should enjoy when people die because that means more resources for themselves. Do you see how illogical and wicked Atheism is. This atheist and the 100's of atheists I have talked to all deny the existence of God but admit that if God does exist then He is responsible for all evil in the world and that man is by nature good. We ended the conversation when he said we have irreconcilable differences and walked off.

I met Matt at his house and we walked downtown. We ran into on crazy man I tried to witness to but he got in my face when I asked him what he thought it took to get to heaven. He pressed his finger on my head and chest and mumbled something bizarre and then walked away.

We next hit Starbucks because it is always a good place to find lost people on a cold day. There were a couple foreigners there so I asked where they were from. They were from Ethiopia and were here on business. One was a Greek Orthodox and the other a recent convert to Christianity but very new. I shared the whole biblical gospel with them. The Christian knew all the answers and said he was a hell deserving sinner and Christ is the only way to be saved. The Greek Orthodox was lost and didn't seem to be too convicted. It seemed to be God's providence though because I encouraged the Christian to read his bible, which he was neglecting, and find a church in town. I told him about Calvary Baptist in Helena, which is a great church. The Christian Ethiopian said that we met for a reason today and thanked us for the conversation. God is good. Even on a freezing day, He brought us someone to share the gospel with. There are never any excuses not to get out and share the gospel.