Betrayed!
(The Real Global
Disaster Is Spiritual)
XXX 1. An Enemy
Within XXX
Every one of us has been betrayed at one time or another.
We’ve all felt the anger & sadness of someone we trust stabbing us in
the back. “How could they?” our hearts cry out. “They were
supposed to be our friends. They were supposed to love us. I thought they would
care about us, and never do us wrong. I hope they rot in Hell!”
Yet what causes our fury?
More than anything else… a lie. The thing said
or done may have been very painful. But to expect good from someone we love
& respect, and then have them treat us like dirt?
Way out of line!
We believed in them. We thought they were always on our side ---
or, at least, not ever against us. Then, shock of shocks, they show us their true
colors… the red bloodiness & black cruelty of a traitor. It
doesn’t matter if they meant to hurt us or not, or whether they even
realized what they were doing. The bottom line is the bottom line:
Our friend is actually an enemy.
XXX 2. The Best
Friend in the Whole Wide World XXX
Only one will not betray us. That One is God. He made everything
out of nothing, He made us to look like Him, and He wants to be our friend. We
just have to let Him. We do this by being friendly toward Him, by learning to
think like Him, talk like Him and act like Him.
After all, who of us naturally become friends in this world? Those
who think alike, talk alike and act alike!
Not that people have to be carbon copies of each other to be
friendly. Rather, that people must have enough important things in common
that they can enjoy being around each other, and that they can get along
without tearing each other to pieces.
God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to show us how to think, talk &
act. God Himself became a human being just like us to show us how to be friends
with Him forever. He did this by giving us a religion --- a way to think, talk
& act when it comes to the things that really matter. A
religion that happens to be exactly the way that He thinks, talks
& acts. This religion was called Christianity in honor of
Jesus’ special title, Christ, which means ‘anointed’.
That is, He, the God-Man, was set apart & singled out.
And so can we, mere human beings, also become anointed ---
set apart & singled out as God’s special friends, with Him as the
Best Friend in the Whole Wide World that anyone could ever have --- by learning
to think, talk & act like Jesus Christ, by learning to be just like
the God-Man and thus truly Christian.
XXX
Now God will never betray us once He becomes our friend… but we
can betray Him.
It’s not too hard to figure out how, either. I mean, what
makes us His friends to begin with? Right. Thinking,
talking & acting like Him. As a result, what would break that friendship
with Him?
Right --- thinking, talking & acting like the opposite
of Him.
But it gets even deeper than this. Because in learning to think,
talk & act like Him, becoming Christian, we make a solemn promise to Him.
We vow that we will never do anything that He hates. We will always try to make
Him happy, and we will consider Him to be the most important thing in all of
our life.
In short, we will make Him the center of our existence.
And I ask you a question:
If someone became your dear friend, making you a solemn promise,
and then broke that promise, becoming your enemy, how would you feel?
It’s kind of like a marriage, isn’t it? You’re
bound together by love and the goals you share in common, and promise to be
faithful to one another. As a matter of fact, it is precisely like marriage,
the Holy Union of God & Man.
And how do you feel if your spouse betrays you? How do you feel if
that loved one stops loving you, if he or she sleeps with another person and
has a child with a stranger? How do you feel if your spouse no longer cares
about your thoughts & passions, or is bored by your presence? How do you
feel if your spouse sabotages you and tries to destroy everything you want in
life? How do you feel if he or she rips you to shreds, slandering your
reputation and calling you all sorts of filthy names? Or how do you feel if you
suddenly see that your spouse never really knew you? And how do you feel if the
one you cherish, who lives in your home, puts a knife in your back or a bullet
in your gut?
Well, it’s pretty simple. That’s how God feels when
Christians stop being Christian.
XXX 4. More
Wickedness XXX
But it doesn’t end there. When Christians stop being
Christian, they don’t just betray God. They betray other Christians. The
Church of Jesus Christ is one big family, a single household. So when somebody
in this House, when somebody in this Family, stops being a part of the House
& Family, they hurt those around them. They betray them.
It’s like a tight knit family on earth. Suppose your brother
makes a big scene and suddenly leaves the house, saying he wants nothing to do
with the family. What then? And let’s say he spreads lies about you to
everyone outside the home. How would you feel? It’d be like a big void
just opened up in your life, and then, after the shock wore off, you’d
roil with anger at him for walking out on the family. You would all feel betrayed.
Yet it’s even worse than this!
Because the Christian who stops being Christian
doesn’t just betray his fellow Christians --- although that’s bad
enough. He betrays the rest of the world, too.
How so?
Think about it. A real Christian knows what the real Christ said,
that there’s no way to save your soul without believing in Him. That
is, without thinking, talking & acting like Jesus. (For instance, John
3:16-18, Mark 16:14-16, John 10:7-10, Revelation 21:6-8 & John 14:6.) As a
result, what happens when Christians stop being Christian while the rest of the
world goes on thinking that they’re still what they say that they are?
Right. The rest of the world is fooled.
They’re lied to. They may not want to believe that you have
to be Christian to save your immortal soul. Yet in this case they don’t
even have a chance to hear the Only Saving Truth in the first place… let
alone deny it!
XXX 5. The
Biggest Lie of Them All XXX
And that’s the biggest lie of them all. Because
almost no one nowadays is truly Christian anymore. Almost no one truly
believes everything Jesus really taught. Despite going by His Name and using
Christian words, they don’t actually think, talk or act like Him.
To follow Jesus Christ and then reject Him is known as
‘apostasy’. Today this rejection is worldwide, is practically
total, and has been going on for decades. Which is why it is
called the Great Apostasy.
Jesus predicted it, too. He said, talking about the end of our
times:
“Take heed [watch out] that no man
seduce [trick] you: for many will come in my name… and they
will seduce many… And many false prophets shall rise [appear],
and shall seduce many. And because iniquity [sin] hath abounded, the
charity [divine love] of many shall grow cold. But he that shall persevere
[endure] to the end, he shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom, shall be preached in the whole world, for a
testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation [end] come… For
there shall be then great tribulation [trouble & suffering], such as hath
not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be [ever
again]… For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew [display] great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive
(if possible) even the elect [Christians]. Behold [look,] I have told
it to you, beforehand… And as in the days of Noe [like the time of Noah],
so shall also the coming of the Son of man be [the return of Jesus Christ]. For
as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and
giving in marriage, even till that day in which Noe entered into the ark, and
they knew not [were ignorant] till the flood came, and took them all away
[destroyed them completely]; so also shall the coming of the Son of man
be.” (Matthew 24:4b-5a, 5c, 11-14, 21, 24-25, 37-39 DRC, all emphases
& annotations added)
And Jesus mused, commenting on our terrible days:
“But… the Son of man, when he
cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?” (Luke
18:8b-c DRC, emphases added)
What’s more, the Bible says in another place about this
horrible rebellion:
“Let no man deceive you by any means, for unless there come a
revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition
[damnation], who opposeth [fights], and is lifted up
above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, shewing
himself [acting] as if he were God. Remember you not [don’t you
remember], that when I was yet [still] with you, I told you these things? And
now you know what withholdeth [keeps it from
happening], that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity
[that causes the Great Apostasy] already worketh;
only that he who now holdeth [stands in the way], do
hold [continues to stand in the way], until he be taken out of the way. And
then that wicked one shall be revealed whom the Lord Jesus shall kill with the
spirit of his mouth; and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, him,
whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and
lying wonders [miracles that mislead], and in all seduction of iniquity
[attractiveness of sin] to them that perish [die]; because they receive not
[won’t accept] the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore
God shall send them the operation of error [love of fantasies &
deceptions], to believe lying: that all may be judged who have not
believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity [willingly
disobeyed].” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-11 DRC, all emphases &
annotations added)
XXX 6. The
Shocking Truth XXX
People today worry about a lot of big things. We’re afraid of
the economy collapsing, of environmental pollution, of nuclear terrorism, of
global warming, asteroid impacts, war between nations, and so forth and so on.
The threat of disaster seems to have become gigantic. Nowhere on earth can we
be safe from our fears.
Meanwhile, we’re blind to the greatest danger of all, to the
one thing that threatens the entire earth more awfully than anything
we’ve ever seen. That is to say, the economy of our souls has already
collapsed, the evil thoughts that our minds breathe already pollute the air,
our sins so radioactive that we’re practically dead already, the fires of
Hell so hot underneath our feet that it promises to flood the world with
damnation beyond imagining, God’s wrath so great against us that His celestial
blow will shatter us, the war we wage against Heaven destined to plunge us into
an everlasting chaos. The truth is clear --- the global disaster that threatens
us with destruction is a spiritual disaster first & foremost of all and
it already destroys our souls even as I write these very words. And all
because we couldn’t care less to be friends with God by becoming, or
remaining, true Christians. In fact, because we insist on being
the very opposite of what a true Christian is!
Yet what is real Christianity? What did Jesus teach?
How did He think, talk & act?
Roman Catholic, my dear reader, Roman Catholic.
This is a brief article, so I don’t
have time left to tell you how you can know, without any reasonable doubts,
that this is true. You’ll have to go to other pages posted
on The Epistemologic Works website to read & study at much greater length.
In a nutshell, though, the proof for what I say is this:
One, the writings of earliest Christians --- from the 1st,
2nd, 3rd, 4th & 5th centuries,
including men who knew the Apostles personally, or who knew the men who knew
Jesus Christ’s Twelve Apostles face-to-face --- prove
ancient Christianity to have been neither anything more nor anything less than
Roman Catholic for nearly 2000 years in a row. Two, the Bible also, when
rightly understood as a complete & perfectly fitting whole (not ignoring
all of those verses that don’t fit neatly into the ‘sinner’s
prayer’ or ‘born again’ notions of more recent times) proves
Christianity to be Roman Catholicism. And, three, reason itself proves
these other versions of ‘christianity’ to be horribly wrong, their
teachings self-contradictory and often at odds with simple good sense, while
the Catholicism of Rome is utterly consistent, explaining everything to
a tee.
What’s more, dear soul, only Catholic Rome says, straight out
& without beating around the bush, that She is infallible.
That is to say, incapable of being wrong about what She officially
teaches, the Hand of God Almighty upon Her to keep Her
from ever misleading us into the lies of Hell. No other religion or
philosophy even comes close to claiming the same thing. Which
means, when you think about it, that everyone else is almost certainly wrong.
After all, in an imperfect world, it’s practically a sure thing that
you’re going to be wrong about something somewhere eventually! This is
why God calls His Church “the pillar and ground of the truth.” (1 Timothy 3:15d DRC) And why it’s flabbergasting
that, out of all the contenders for the title of the Christian Church, only Roman
Catholicism dares to say that She is that Pillar & Ground
of the Truth, incapable of collapsing by teaching us wrongly how God thinks,
talks & acts, He expecting us to do the same.
There is no other way to save your soul. God Himself is Roman
Catholic and He designed you to be, too. People who call
themselves ‘christian’ go around claiming to follow Jesus, but
imagine out of thin air what they want to believe about Him. The world is
poisoned with lies, ready to rot in Hell. This is the Great Apostasy and you
have been betrayed. You should be furious! And yet thrilled that God gives
you a chance, in the midst of all of this spiritual darkness, to see --- and
live --- the Light of His Saving Truth.
+
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Pilate’s
query met:
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