How They Changed the Truth of God Into a Lie

Nice to see everybody again. And just recently, there was a section of Scripture that caught my attention. And I'd like to focus on that Scripture and see if it impresses you as much as it did me. Let's turn to Romans chapter 1 verse 18 and then 25. Romans chapter 1.

Verse 18. It says here, For I am not ashamed, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. So up in heaven, God is very indignant. He sees the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and how it's just increasing by leaps and bounds. And then it says, verse 25, what they do, it says, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served a creature rather than the creator who was blessed forever. Amen. And so Paul is talking about false teachers, different religions at that time, and how they took the truths of God and turned them into lies.

And that should get our attention because that's what this world is also involved in, turning the truths of God into lies. And Paul later warned Timothy as well that this would happen. Let's go to 2 Timothy chapter 2. 2 Timothy chapter 4 verses 2 through 4. 2 Timothy chapter 4 verses 2 through 4. He tells Timothy, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. And so as we prepare for the Passover, one of the ways we should do so is to just be aware of how much falsehood there is in this world, and also how we can detect it and also not only find the source of it, but who are involved. And so I have a handout that I'd like to now pass to all of you. It's a handout that I did about 10 years ago, and this is an updating of this handout. It's called the Introduction of False Doctrines in Traditional Christianity. And so what I did was, from the time of Christ up to the present time, to trace how lies were introduced into Christianity by different groups.

And God hates lies, and we should also hate lies. As it says in Proverbs chapter 6, verse 16, it says, there are these six things the Lord hates. Yes, seven are an abomination to him. A proud look. A lying tongue. A lying tongue is what I want to focus on. It's one of the things that God hates. In Proverbs 12, verse 22, Proverbs 12, verse 22, it says, lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal truthfully are his delight.

And of course, God is very concerned about having his truths preserved and not twisted, not falsified, not turned into lies. And notice one last scripture in this regard in Revelation chapter 21. Revelation chapter 21 in verse 8, talking about those who are not going to enter into that new Jerusalem, but the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, saucers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. So a person who just becomes a serial liar and he's just used to saying lies and falsifying God's truths, they're going to come into judgment before God. And so it's important to know how traditional Christianity changed God's truth into a lie. So I'd like to give you an example this week. I'm not going to go into the details, but I think you're all aware that Catholic priests in Los Angeles was murdered by the husband of his housekeeper, and this was a big fur about it, and it's certainly very tragic. But they had a funeral for him, and what got my attention, it was in the Orange County Thursday edition, the Archbishop of Los Angeles said the following thing, as we begin this holy season, we ask Bishop Dave's intercession now from heaven.

I know that he is as eager to help us from heaven as he was eager to help us here on earth.

My question is, hasn't this gentleman read John 3 13? Let's go to John 3 13.

He says that this person is up in heaven, and now he can intercede. He can be a mediator between us and God in John 13 and John 3 verse 13.

It says, no one has ascended to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven. And so only Christ who descended and lived amongst us, he's the only one that has gone up to heaven, because that first resurrection has not taken place yet.

And there's no one else there that has been resurrected and or taken up to heaven. And so there are several things. One is that God doesn't need any other mediator except for Jesus Christ. So this idea that you have to go now and somehow these people are up in heaven and that they will intercede on your behalf, that's not true. Christ doesn't need another. There in Timothy it tells us that there's only one mediator between God and Jesus and man, and that's Jesus Christ. And so these ideas, unfortunately, are falsehoods that are being perpetrated, and people here have family members that still believe these things. And they have no idea how these things were introduced into that traditional Christianity.

And so with this chart, we can go ahead and see how it can be helpful, because it has the historical source. And by the way, here we have what are eighty...

let's see here... yeah, eighty-five biblical truths that were changed into lies or talking about who were involved in these lies. And so it goes from Acts, which was mentioned in the first message, and in AD 33 was when Simon Magus, after baptism, was rejected by Peter, and probably the Simon Magus became the first heretic. And Justin Martyr, in his writing, around 160, wrote that in 45 AD, Simon Magus arrives in Rome, sets up a rival Christian church with a Babylonian Gnostic mixture of lies.

So we have a false Christianity already in Rome by 45 AD. And then Irenaeus, another of these early Christian writers, said that in the year 60, Simon Magus teaches a lying message of grace versus the law at Rome. So he says, well, Christ has died for your sins, you don't have to worry about obeying God's commandments so much, you're under this once saved, always saved type of mentality.

And so how about a message, like if you read in the paper, well, here's this person that now has gone up to heaven, and now he can intercede for us. When did that idea come from? Well, notice point 18, point 18, Clement of Alexandria in his book Stromatase in the year 200 was the one that taught the lie of the immortality of the soul about purgatory, going to heaven or hell. So this is over 170 years after Christ had died.

This is after the book of Acts closed around 65, 67. So you're talking here of over 100 years later, nobody had taught this. So Clement of Alexandria was the one that started teaching this mixture of Greek mythology mixed with Christianity. So you can start pinning down where this gentleman said about intercession about these people that are in heaven and that they can be a mediator between you and God. Then shortly afterwards, Tertullian and Origen in 210 AD teach the lies of Trinity and purgatory that people need to be purged.

And so they're going to this place of fire and temporarily they have to be purged. And of course you've got these mediators up there that try to talk with God so that it can be minimized. Notice also in verse in point 23, Cyprian in his epistle 74 to 50 AD, the Roman bishop Stephen claims Matthew 1618 as successor to Peter. And so now we have somebody that is a mediator here on earth. And in point 24, Arnobius in verses Hintas in 300 AD, prayers for the dead are mentioned. So you see all of this creeping up of falsehood because we know that nobody is going to make it to be resurrected until the time of Christ's return.

Notice in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. This is why it's so important to have your Bible which tells you the truth. It's not telling any falsehoods. And this is where your faith should be based on. In 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 13, Paul talks about what happens to the dead after they die.

It says, but I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep. So the Bible says that a person falls to sleep. They fall into unconsciousness at that time.

And they're not awakened until the resurrection, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope, who don't believe in a future life. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus.

So when Christ comes, those who sleep in Jesus will be awakened. It says, for this we say to you by the word of the Lord, in other words, this is part of Bible teaching, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means proceed or go before those who are asleep.

They're not going to be resurrected ahead of those who are asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. That is when these who are asleep will be awakened. Not any time before. And then he says, then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. That's talking about Christ's second coming. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. He's coming down to rule this earth.

Therefore comfort one another with these words. We do have that comfort. And so God has a way of resurrecting people, but at the right time. This idea that they're up in heaven and now they're doing the mediating and intercessing for others. That's not true. That's not taught in the Bible. Let's go to another example. In number 61, number 61, it says in the Council of Valencia. This was in Spain. 1229 A.D.

There they had a decree. It says, delay persons are officially forgiven, forbidden to have or read the Bible. So they actually said that only the priest should interpret it. And so if you're a Catholic, you're not taught to read your Bible.

I never read my Bible until I came to the knowledge of the truth. Now we had a big old Bible, which was kind of like a superstitious thing just to have in the house, but nobody ever read it. And my wife, Cottie, there, when she was in the Catholic Church, she was expressly told you are not to read the Bible. You are to go to the priest. He will interpret it for you.

And so again, you see in this Council was when that rule was set up, and it's come all the way to today. Let's use another example. Example in number 32. Let's go to number, let's see. No, it's, let me look here.

Didn't get that right. Oh yeah, yeah. Number 32 is the synod, which means a small local council of Laodicea. In 364 AD, Canon 29, these are Catholic priests and bishops. This is what they now make a rule for the church. Canon 29, and I've got it here. You can look it up when you want to. It says, Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honoring the Lord's day, and if they can, resting then as Christians. In other words, you can still work on Sunday if you want to. But if any shall be found to be Judaizers if you're keeping the Sabbath holy, let them be anathema from Christ. It means cut off so the church can legally persecute you, confiscate your goods, put you in jail, and you can die because you keep the Sabbath. So here we see how it just got worse and worse for true Christians. Let me give you another example.

This is the one, number 44. The Council of Toledo in Spain as well. Canon 41. These are rules decided that will be imposed on the Catholic Church.

Canon 41. Priests are to have a tonsure for a round shaving of hair on the crown of their head. And so you see they always have a clipping that they always cut a little piece off of the top of the crown there. Now before, like the monks in the Middle Ages, they had this big circular cut of their hair. And yet Leviticus 21.5 prohibits having such a tonsure, cutting your hair that way. This is what it says in Leviticus 21 verse 5.

The RSV, or the Revised Standard Bible, it says, They shall not make tonsures upon their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuttings in their flesh. And so God did not want people to use their hair for religious purposes. That you somehow, oh yes, the priests, they have to have that round cutting kind of oval shape there on their crown.

God says no! What do people do? They go ahead and do it. And so you see the introduction of these false teachings throughout the Bible. Another big one was in number 65, the Council of Trent in 1545.

This is after the war that took place almost for over a hundred years of fighting between the Lutherans, Calvinists, Protestants, Catholics, and in the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church established rules, and they established the lie of tradition, church tradition, being equal in authority with the scriptures. So when they say, well, we're doing tonsures, and somebody says, well, look what it says here. You're not supposed to do it. He says, it doesn't matter. This is our tradition, and our tradition is as important as what the Bible says. And if our tradition says to keep Sunday, that is as important as the Bible says. So you see, they added all of these things to justify the false beliefs. Also important is number 67, the decree of Pope Pius the 9th in 1854, the lie of the immaculate conception of Mary, that becomes official, that Mary was different from human beings, that she had no sins, that she was conceived without any sins. And so this is to extend her purity, and that's why they can say that she rose up to heaven, and that she is a mediator also. And then the infallibility of the Pope in 1870. That was declared that the Pope, when he gives out these judgments, when he is sitting on his throne there in the Vatican, and he issues this rule that he is infallible. It's like God the Father doing it.

And so they have that backing that the Pope can decide. And that's going to be very handy in the future, because that's established. And if the Pope receives this special power in the future, he's going to be able to determine, well, people are not going to keep the Sabbath. We've already had this set up. We're going after all Sabbath keepers and force them into keeping Sunday. And if they don't, they lose their jobs. They lose their pensions.

This is going to be hard-nosed type of imposition upon human beings. So if you think things are tough now, they're going to get tougher. That's why it's so important to know where these different falsehoods came from. And Jesus Christ told us that when we came to the knowledge of the truth, that we would know the truth, and that it would set us free. Notice in John chapter 8, John chapter 8, he says in verse 32, So in God's Church, we don't accept human tradition. We don't keep Sunday because it's not in the Bible. There's no place where it tells us to keep the first day of the week holy. Look it up in a dictionary. Look up what the term Sabbath means. It means it says Saturday. That's the day, the seventh day of the week. If you look up the dictionary on Sunday, it says that is the first day of the week. And so dictionaries are very objective. They don't care about religion. They're just telling you what it is. And so you have to discern for yourself.

And God's Church has kept these truths through the centuries from the very first. That's why we trace our roots, our past, to the Church in Jerusalem. That was the one where all the apostles were, where Jesus Christ gave them the authority. And they were to keep those truths. They kept the Sabbath day. They kept the holy days. They kept God's Word. They didn't have problems with the grace, which has to do with the forgiveness of God and his favor. But that's not to be turned into licentiousness. Let's go to Jude, the epistle of Jude here before Revelation.

It says in verse 3, Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Once and for all. It wasn't, oh yeah, you take this, and then with church tradition, if you want, you can change the Sabbath to Sunday, or you can still, you can begin eating lobsters and snakes and whatever you want. Unclean food. There's no place in the Bible where you see the change to unclean foods. None of the men, Paul and others, they continued keeping the eating of clean foods in the Bible. And that's one of the biblical truths. It's just notice in Isaiah 66, I really didn't have enough time or space to put. I could write easily the two pages on this about false teachings, but this should suffice for the time being. In Isaiah 66, this is a good text. People say, well, Christ did away with the law, and we can eat whatever we want now. Isaiah 66.

Notice what it says here. Toward the end.

In verse 13, it says, as one whom his father comfort, so I will comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. This is talking about the return of Christ. When you see this, your heart shall rejoice and your bones shall flourish like grass. The hand of the Lord shall be known to his servants and his indignation to his enemies. For behold, the Lord will come with fire and with chariots like a whirlwind to render his anger with fury and his rebuke with flames of fire. God is mad at the lies that people have perpetuated and have gone along with.

For by fire and by his sword the Lord shall judge all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many. And who are these? Verse 17. Those who sanctify themselves and purify themselves to go to the gardens. These are kind of the religious high places. After an idol in the midst eating swine's flesh and the abomination, which has to do with shellfish, and the mouse, which has to do with everything that has to do with the mouse and all the family involved there. They shall be consumed together, says the Lord. So God is not happy with the way they have distorted and changed the truths for lies, and neither should we. We should not tolerate these things. Now that doesn't mean we're going to go and go into a family and push everything. It's our example. It's our path. Should be a light to shine upon them, and eventually God can call them, because we all need to be awakened to God's truth. Notice in Hebrews chapter 6. Hebrews chapter 6.

These are good things to remember as we approach the Passover in just a little over a month.

Hebrews chapter 6 verse 1 gives us some of the fundamental teachings of the Church.

It says, therefore, verse 1, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works. So if we want to go through baptism, we have to repent from dead works. That means our past lives and past sins that were a death sentence for us. Repentance from that way of life, of following the world's lies, and of faith toward God. So once you have your life cleaned by Christ's sacrifice, then you walk in faith. The faith that God gives you, and Christ working in you, of the doctrine of baptisms. So here we have one of the teachings of baptism. Before we can become members of the Church, of laying on of hands. So it's not just baptism, it's also the laying on of hands that comes afterwards. You're baptized to be cleansed, but then once you're cleansed, the laying on of hands is for you to receive God's Spirit, for your mind to be connected with God, and the Spirit that is going to make a connection with the Spirit in man that is in us.

Of the resurrection of the dead. That's one of the teachings. It's not about the ascension of the immortality of the soul. No, it's a resurrection of the dead. That's going to happen in the future. And of eternal judgment. So yes, we are going to be judged by what we do, by how we follow God or not. And all the money in the world, all the fame, all the importance, does not mean anything when we go before the throne of Christ. He just wants to know one thing, do you obey me? Do you love me? Do you follow me? Are you following in my footsteps or not?

And then it says, and this we will do if God permits, talking about covering some of these subjects. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit. So you see, first we have to be enlightened. That's when God opens our minds to the truth. And that's why it's a small church, because we cannot try to enlighten others by persuasion or by force or something else. Now, it's something that a person comes to the knowledge of the truth, accepts the truth, and is willing to follow the truth. So we're all together in agreement. That's a personal relationship, and it's a personal decision that we all make. It goes on to say, those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, of knowing God's Spirit is in you, it is guiding you, it is shaping you into more and more of an image of Jesus Christ, and have tasted the good Word of God. You can understand it. What are we doing now? This is a spiritual meal that God provides from His Word.

I remember one of the writers in the Middle Ages. If you notice here, there is a mention of the Waldenses. This is the part where it says in number 58, the fourth lateral lateral counsel.

In 1215, it says that the host, when the priest consecrates and everything, it actually turns into the body of Christ. It's not a symbol, but it actually becomes the body of Christ. That's called transubstantiation.

And in that lateral, lateral counsel, they went after the Waldenses because the Waldenses did not believe in transubstantiation.

Many of them were Sabbath keepers. They believed in Bible truths, and so the church went after them with a fury and destroyed a great many of them. And so here, it says that we have tasted the good word of God. For us, God's word is open.

We see what the truths are. They're all over from Genesis to Revelation. All these truths are like a thread that go all the way from the beginning to the end based on God's laws. And so for us, we can have Sabbath services where we're looking at this spiritual mirror of God's word. Now, we might not look good. And you know what? That's good. Because God's word is above us. We are not above God's word. And it shows us, hey, we're still at work in practice, right? And there's a lot to do, but this is the way God wants to step one step at a time. And so it was in this council that I mentioned here, this fourth Lateran council, when they really went after anybody keeping the Sabbath day, anybody resisting them. And so, of course, we've got descendants, or ancestors here, spiritual ancestors, who went through a lot worse than we ever did. But they knew, they tasted the good word of God, as we do, too. It's not difficult for us. And then it goes on to say, And the powers of the age to come. That's the power of Christ in us.

But what happens, verse six, if they fall away from the truth?

It says here, it's impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves, the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.

And so it says here, Christ is not going to be crucified twice for us. It's once. It's a way of life. And it's so important to continue in the faith. It's a struggle. It's an uphill battle against ourselves, against the world, and Satan. But that's what God says. I can do it. We can do it as God working in us. And we have to have that faith, that He will.

You're having faith by just being here today. That took faith. There are many other options. But do you rather drink of God's word? Do you want to hear the truth, or do you want to hear the comfortable lies of the world? Just go along with the current of society. God said, no, you have to oppose it. You have to deny yourself, and there will be a great reward in God's kingdom in the future. Number 68 is from Pope John Paul II. In 1985, he gave the lie that only the clergy can forgive sin. And that's why the priests actually say, they absolve you, they remove from you the guilt of your sins. And only God can do that.

And you can trace each one of these teachings throughout history. So, I know years ago, I went ahead and just stuck these teachings in the back of my Bible, just to have them there handily. When you need them, you can also reduce them. But to me, I found this chart to be very helpful. So, let's go to the last scripture, 1 John 2, verse 21. 1 John 2, verse 21. Just a short little phrase, but it says here, no lie is of the truth.

That's a very profound statement, where God's people are, where God's Spirit is working.

No lies are there. The truth is going to be taught for those who want it, those who have that thirst and hunger for righteousness' sake. So, as we prepare brethren for this coming Passover, let's always maintain the truth and reject the lies.