Truth is most important to me, even truth than often is PI 540 - 3 - 1

Truth matters most to me. Often what currently passes for truth is really redacted history. With thanks to Wikiquote, “Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it. Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.” An adherence to truth is often is often considered politically incorrect, however, it is a priority in my life.

Pres. Obama met with a firestorm of criticism due to his comments made at Thursday morning’s National Prayer Breakfast. Partly in response to ISIS brutally burning alive a Jordanian pilot, Obama condemned those who seek to use religion as a rationale for carrying out violence around the world. He was quoted as saying "Unless we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ," Obama said. "In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ."

Pres. Obama overlooked the fact that most Christians opposed slavery.

While the goals of the Crusades included stopping the onslaught of the Moslems and regaining Jerusalem, many of the crusaders were far from knights in shining armor. Dave Hunt had this to say in his book, A Woman Rides the Beast: The Roman Catholic Church and the Last Days, “It was the popes, aided by the bishops, cardinals, and priests, who inspired and directed the Crusades (both to the Holy Land and against evangelical Christians in Europe) which brought about the slaughter of millions of innocent Christians, Jews, and Muslims-even offering special indulgences to those who would execute this mayhem.” Dave Hunt has written several books that would be considered very politically incorrect, however, they are very well documented.

There was great evil committed during the grand Inquisition. Millions were hunted down like animals, and tortured and brutally murdered in these dark days of the Papacy. The grand Inquisition was pretty much an evil alliance between the Spanish government and the Papacy to rob victims of their land and wealth and ultimately their lives.

While the evils presently being committed by ISIS are beyond my comprehension how far removed is this present day evil from that done centuries ago by the Roman Catholic Church. Both pretty much practice(d) convert or die. Long before the Reformation the Albigenses were virtually eliminated as were the Waldenses. So much for holding to “Sola Scriptura.”

So what does this centuries old history have to do with today? Recently Pope Francis described as "Dangerous the temptation to believe that one can have a personal, direct, immediate relationship with Jesus Christ without communion with and the mediation of the church." Catholic doctrines including the selling of masses and purgatory hold a person’s soul in ransom. Add to that, the heresy of transubstantiation. These doctrines are diametrically opposed to the declaration of Jesus on the cross that “It is finished.” Ephesians 2:8-9, "8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast."

When I witness to unbelievers much of the resistance I meet is due to the evils done by that the church through the ages in the name of Jesus. So Evangelical Christianity is painted with the same brush as the Roman Catholic Church.

Lost in the mist of history are those believers who held to the apostolic truths of first century. In my opinion, we believers will eventually be forced to go underground, however, that the subject for another day.