<TITLE>23. Par 170-177</TITLE>L-170 And Paul passed through Ephesus and come to the upper coasts there, he finds these disciples, and there he had been up there visiting Aquila and Priscilla. After their going away, then the Roman brethren in this church begin to form their own ideas, and they added idolatry. And then in Constantine, which his mother was a real Christian and hoped her boy would be, but he was a politician. And he saw that most of Rome, or a big part of it, or, the poor class had already accepted salvation through Christ. And then they were begin to come very popular, because they were taking down Venus and putting up Mary, and taking down Jupiter and putting up Peter, and so forth like that, and--and the disciples, and it was a very popular religion. And they were gallant. They--them Christians would die.

L-171 And the Catholic church said, "We were the beginning." That's exactly the truth; the catholic church begin at the day of Pentecost. But here's what got her out; she organized and injected (from the Word) dogmas. And the latest dogma, you people over ten years old can remember the latest dogma, the ascension of Mary, about ten years ago. Another dogma added to the church. Instead of Scripture, it's dogma. And they'll give you to understand right now, they don't care what the Scripture says, it's what the church says.
They, that priest told me, said, "God is in His church."
I said, "God is in His Word."
He said, "Well, that Bible's just a history of the early Catholic church."
I said, "Then I'm an early Catholic." I said, "That makes me more a Catholic than you, being a priest." See? I said, "If that's it, then I am that." I said, "You see, I believe exactly what the apostles taught. You believe what man has injected into it." And that's exactly the way it went. Sure, it was. It went that, exactly that way.

L-174 Now, notice history. Then they begin to add dogmas, dogma. And when Paul came over, we know, according to history, that he did not even visit that first church, because he could not stand idolatry. And he visited the second church which they had established, second church of Rome.
And when that Nicaea Council come, where Constantine seen the idea to unite his kingdom: the very same thing Ahab did with Jezebel, marrying down there... See? And when he seen a chance to unite his people and make a great powerful nation out of it, he thought they'd get their religion, so he made them a church-state religion. And when they had that Nicaea Council, and these questions come up whether there was one God or three; whether they should baptize in the Name of Jesus Christ, or Father, Son and Holy Ghost; all these other questions brought to--to a showdown in there. And when it did, some of them old prophets come up out there with nothing but sheepskin wrapped around them and eating herbs. Right. But them big dignitaries had already worked their way in the church, shut them up with worldly wisdom. But they had THUS SAITH THE LORD. She went into pagan darkness for about a thousand years.
But she broke forth again to bloom. That's right. You can't kill it. "I will restore, saith the Lord, all the years these things eat."

L-177 Them denominations added dogma. And to do this, to add dogma, the only way that any church, the only way that any denomination can ever get away from the Word of God, is to add dogma instead of the sacred Scriptures, is to try to make your tradition or the doctrine of your church, though it be contrary to the Scriptures. Then how can you condemn the Catholic church, when you're doing the same thing they did? Do you understand? All right. When... Now, just think, the Scriptures can't fail. Dogmas is a lie to begin with. And when you accept a denomination, you've already got a dogma, because it's something added. It's not in the Scripture. It's not in the Scripture.


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