The Catholic Church is a Christian Church

[rockytopva]

I believe the seven churches in Revelation form the whole....

Ephesus - Messianic - Beginning with the Apostle to the Circumcision, Peter
Smyrna - Martyr - Beginning with the Apostle to the Un-Circumcision, Paul
Pergamos - Orthodoxy formed in this time... Pergos is a tower... Needed in the dark ages
Thyatira - Catholicism formed in this time - The spirit of Jezebel is to control and to dominate.
Sardis - Protestantism formed in this time- A sardius is a gem - elegant yet hard and rigid
Philadelphia - Wesleyism formed in this time - To be sanctioned is to acquire it with love.
Laodicea - Charismatic movement formed in this time - Beginning with DL Moody, the first to make money off of ministry

My perspective is that the Catholic church is a Christian church, with a different set of issues from the rest of us. The reason I don't knock the Catholic church too much is because my church has issues too...

I was listening to J Vernon McGee preach and he was saying that the big fault against the Pentecostal revival is that it does not last. He then proceeded to point out that he lived in the vicinity of the Azusa Street mission and the mission has been long ago abandoned.

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: - Revelation 3:12

This is the big drawback to the Philadelphian age revival, and that is they are in and out of revival. Which is a big drawback!

 

[Willie T]

And the Bible says they were seven churches formed in seven cities in old Turkey, within a couple of hundred miles of one another. We can "apply" any meaning we may choose to, but they were still just some cities John wrote a letter to. I think this letting our imaginations run wild is why Revelation has become a Gypsy's Crystal Ball for so many.

 

[Helen]

My perspective is that the Catholic church is a Christian church, with a different set of issues from the rest of us. The reason I don't knock the Catholic church too much is because my church has issues too...

I will second that. Not that you will get much support on it, and it will probably end up to be yet another place for the anti-catholics to spam their repetitive addiction to put them down.

It has always been said that what we do and say in accusing others , we are guilty of the very same...but we always seem to overlook that.

 

[rockytopva]

When I moved here to Virginia to live with my grandmother as a teenager I would...

1. Work at a restaurant during the morning
2. Put up hay and farm during the afternoon
3. Go to revival during the night
4. After Walton's good nights from my kinfolk I would read until sleepy, with the door open letting the fresh smelling country air in along with the song of the kady-dids outside my door.

Our Pentecostal Holiness pastor was wonderful at getting a variety of evangelist for revival and we had them all the time. The people were also encouraged to get the Holy Spirit in their own way. The old guys would weep as they would behold the revival around them. If they would look back and catch the amazed look in my eye they would weep, "The Holy Ghost! The Holy Ghost!" As souls were slain in the Spirit around the altar before them. The Holy Spirit also begin to speak to me and it was like the Lord Jesus Christ was with me where ever I went.

Pictured is the farmer I used to put up hay with. "Shouting" Dallas Linkous would shout in the field, at home, and in church. And he was the happiest man I knew alive...

Now the old timers are gone the church has totally changed. The old evangelist died away and no one filled their shoes.

 

[rockytopva]

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: - Revelation 3:12

As far as I am concerned the Methodist and Pentecostals have abandoned the revival they were born into. I have no issues with the Catholic church seeing we have so many issues of our own.

 

[rockytopva]

I started out with religion, along with George Clark Rankin, of the Sardisean variety. And to let him describe it.....

"Grandfather was kind to me and considerate of me, yet he was strict with me. I worked along with him in the field when the weather was agreeable and when it was inclement I helped him in his hatter's shop, for the Civil War was in progress and he had returned at odd times to hatmaking. It was my business in the shop to stretch foxskins and coonskins across a wood-horse and with a knife, made for that purpose, pluck the hair from the fur. I despise the odor of foxskins and coonskins to this good day. He had me to walk two miles every Sunday to Dandridge to Church service and Sunday-school, rain or shine, wet or dry, cold or hot; yet he had fat horses standing in his stable. But he was such a blue-stocking Presbyterian that he never allowed a bridle to go on a horse's head on Sunday. The beasts had to have a day of rest. Old Doctor Minnis was the pastor, and he was the dryest and most interminable preacher I ever heard in my life. He would stand motionless and read his sermons from manuscript for one hour and a half at a time and sometimes longer. Grandfather would sit and never take his eyes off of him, except to glance at me to keep me quiet. It was torture to me." - George Clark Rankin

 

[rockytopva]

And then got religion, along with George Clark Rankin, of the Philadelphian variety. And to let him describe it....

After the team had been fed and we had been to supper we put the mules to the wagon, filled it with chairs and we were off to the meeting. When we reached the locality it was about dark and the people were assembling. Their horses and wagons filled up the cleared spaces and the singing was already in progress. My uncle and his family went well up toward the front, but I dropped into a seat well to the rear. It was an old-fashioned Church, ancient in appearance, oblong in shape and unpretentious. It was situated in a grove about one hundred yards from the road. It was lighted with old tallow-dip candles furnished by the neighbors. It was not a prepossessing-looking place, but it was soon crowded and evidently there was a great deal of interest. A cadaverous-looking man stood up in front with a tuning fork and raised and led the songs. There were a few prayers and the minister came in with his saddlebags and entered the pulpit. He was the Rev. W. H. Heath, the circuit rider. His prayer impressed me with his earnestness and there were many amens to it in the audience. I do not remember his text, but it was a typical revival sermon, full of unction and power.

At its close he invited penitents to the altar and a great many young people flocked to it and bowed for prayer. Many of them became very much affected and they cried out distressingly for mercy. It had a strange effect on me. It made me nervous and I wanted to retire. Directly my uncle came back to me, put his arm around my shoulder and asked me if I did not want to be religious. I told him that I had always had that desire, that mother had brought me up that way, and really I did not know anything else. Then he wanted to know if I had ever professed religion. I hardly understood what he meant and did not answer him. He changed his question and asked me if I had ever been to the altar for prayer, and I answered him in the negative. Then he earnestly besought me to let him take me up to the altar and join the others in being prayed for. It really embarrassed me and I hardly knew what to say to him. He spoke to me of my mother and said that when she was a little girl she went to the altar and that Christ accepted her and she had been a good Christian all these years. That touched me in a tender spot, for mother always did do what was right; and then I was far away from her and wanted to see her. Oh, if she were there to tell me what to do!

By and by I yielded to his entreaty and he led forward to the altar. The minister took me by the hand and spoke tenderly to me as I knelt at the altar. I had gone more out of sympathy than conviction, and I did not know what to do after I bowed there. The others were praying aloud and now and then one would rise shoutingly happy and make the old building ring with his glad praise. It was a novel experience to me. I did not know what to pray for, neither did I know what to expect if I did pray. I spent the most of the hour wondering why I was there and what it all meant. No one explained anything to me. Once in awhile some good old brother or sister would pass my way, strike me on the back and tell me to look up and believe and the blessing would come. But that was not encouraging to me. In fact, it sounded like nonsense and the noise was distracting me. Even in my crude way of thinking I had an idea that religion was a sensible thing and that people ought to become religious intelligently and without all that hurrah. I presume that my ideas were the result of the Presbyterian training given to me by old grandfather. By and by my knees grew tired and the skin was nearly rubbed off my elbows. I thought the service never would close, and when it did conclude with the benediction I heaved a sigh of relief. That was my first experience at the mourner's bench.

As we drove home I did not have much to say, but I listened attentively to the conversation between my uncle and his wife. They were greatly impressed with the meeting, and they spoke first of this one and that one who had "come through" and what a change it would make in the community, as many of them were bad boys. As we were putting up the team my uncle spoke very encouragingly to me; he was delighted with the step I had taken and he pleaded with me not to turn back, but to press on until I found the pearl of great price. He knew my mother would be very happy over the start I had made. Before going to sleep I fell into a train of thought, though I was tired and exhausted. I wondered why I had gone to that altar and what I had gained by it. I felt no special conviction and had received no special impression, but then if my mother had started that way there must be something in it, for she always did what was right. I silently lifted my heart to God in prayer for conviction and guidance. I knew how to pray, for I had come up through prayer, but not the mourner's bench sort. So I determined to continue to attend the meeting and keep on going to the altar until I got religion.

Early the next morning I was up and in a serious frame of mind. I went with the other hands to the cottonfield and at noon I slipped off in the barn and prayed. But the more I thought of the way those young people were moved in the meeting and with what glad hearts they had shouted their praises to God the more it puzzled and confused me. I could not feel the conviction that they had and my heart did not feel melted and tender. I was callous and unmoved in feeling and my distress on account of sin was nothing like theirs. I did not understand my own state of mind and heart. It troubled me, for by this time I really wanted to have an experience like theirs.

When evening came I was ready for Church service and was glad to go. It required no urging. Another large crowd was present and the preacher was as earnest as ever. I did not give much heed to the sermon. In fact, I do not recall a word of it. I was anxious for him to conclude and give me a chance to go to the altar. I had gotten it into my head that there was some real virtue in the mourner's bench; and when the time came I was one of the first to prostrate myself before the altar in prayer. Many others did likewise. Two or three good people at intervals knelt by me and spoke encouragingly to me, but they did not help me. Their talks were mere exhortations to earnestness and faith, but there was no explanation of faith, neither was there any light thrown upon my mind and heart. I wrought myself up into tears and cries for help, but the whole situation was dark and I hardly knew why I cried, or what was the trouble with me. Now and then others would arise from the altar in an ecstasy of joy, but there was no joy for me. When the service closed I was discouraged and felt that maybe I was too hardhearted and the good Spirit could do nothing for me.

After we went home I tossed on the bed before going to sleep and wondered why God did not do for me what he had done for mother and what he was doing in that meeting for those young people at the altar. I could not understand it. But I resolved to keep on trying, and so dropped off to sleep. The next day I had about the same experience and at night saw no change in my condition. And so for several nights I repeated the same distressing experience. The meeting took on such interest that a day service was adopted along with the night exercises, and we attended that also. And one morning while I bowed at the altar in a very disturbed state of mind Brother Tyson, a good local preacher and the father of Rev. J. F. Tyson, now of the Central Conference, sat down by me and, putting his hand on my shoulder, said to me: "Now I want you to sit up awhile and let's talk this matter over quietly. I am sure that you are in earnest, for you have been coming to this altar night after night for several days. I want to ask you a few simple questions." And the following questions were asked and answered:

 

[rockytopva]

"My son, do you not love God?"

"I cannot remember when I did not love him."

"Do you believe on his Son, Jesus Christ?"

"I have always believed on Christ. My mother taught me that from my earliest recollection."

"Do you accept him as your Savior?"

"I certainly do, and have always done so."

"Can you think of any sin that is between you and the Savior?"

"No, sir; for I have never committed any bad sins."

"Do you love everybody?"

"Well, I love nearly everybody, but I have no ill-will toward any one. An old man did me a wrong not long ago and I acted ugly toward him, but I do not care to injure him."

"Can you forgive him?"

"Yes, if he wanted me to."

"But, down in your heart, can you wish him well?"

"Yes, sir; I can do that."

"Well, now let me say to you that if you love God, if you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin and if you love your fellowmen and intend by God's help to lead a religious life, that's all there is to religion. In fact, that is all I know about it."

Then he repeated several passages of Scriptures to me proving his assertions. I thought a moment and said to him: "But I do not feel like these young people who have been getting religion night after night. I cannot get happy like them. I do not feel like shouting."

The good man looked at me and smiled and said: "Ah, that's your trouble. You have been trying to feel like them. Now you are not them; you are yourself. You have your own quiet disposition and you are not turned like them. They are excitable and blustery like they are. They give way to their feelings. That's all right, but feeling is not religion. Religion is faith and life. If you have violent feeling with it, all good and well, but if you have faith and not much feeling, why the feeling will take care of itself. To love God and accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, turning away from all sin, and living a godly life, is the substance of true religion."

That was new to me, yet it had been my state of mind from childhood. For I remembered that away back in my early life, when the old preacher held services in my grandmother's house one day and opened the door of the Church, I went forward and gave him my hand. He was to receive me into full membership at the end of six months' probation, but he let it pass out of his mind and failed to attend to it.

As I sat there that morning listening to the earnest exhortation of the good man my tears ceased, my distress left me, light broke in upon my mind, my heart grew joyous, and before I knew just what I was doing I was going all around shaking hands with everybody, and my confusion and darkness disappeared and a great burden rolled off my spirit. I felt exactly like I did when I was a little boy around my mother's knee when she told of Jesus and God and Heaven. It made my heart thrill then, and the same old experience returned to me in that old country Church that beautiful September morning down in old North Georgia.

I at once gave my name to the preacher for membership in the Church, and the following Sunday morning, along with many others, he received me into full membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. It was one of the most delightful days in my recollection. It was the third Sunday in September, 1866, and those Church vows became a living principle in my heart and life. During these forty-five long years, with their alternations of sunshine and shadow, daylight and darkness, success and failure, rejoicing and weeping, fears within and fightings without, I have never ceased to thank God for that autumnal day in the long ago when my name was registered in the Lamb's Book of Life.

 

[rockytopva]

.... Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. - 1 Corinthians 8:1
Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? - 1 Corinthians 5:6

I would also remind so many of this time that the unction of the Holy Spirit is not doctrine, which leads to human ego. And just a little ego makes the whole lump bad! The Holy Spirit is not arrogance!

 

[rockytopva]

When we had a plating department in our facility I worked under a chemist. This chemist was very smart and very good at math. When he laid out equations he did so in very neat handwriting and there would be much activity as he turned the results of an analysis into an addition. I would take his calculations and put them in the form of visual basic functions and sub procedures.

Of all the years I worked with this man I had one opportunity to witness to him. I made my presentation while he was analyzing adhesion under a microscope in which you could hear the sounds... Scratch, scratch, scratch! Scratch scratch, scratch! After my presentation he just continued to look under the microscope as if ignored everything I said so I just continued in my work. Then... The scratch scratch, scratching stopped! And he speaks!

"You know what I think it is?" He says while continuing to look under the microscope... "I think it is arrogance!"

And then, without taking his eyes off the microscope, he continues his work... Scratch, scratch, scratch! Scratch scratch, scratch! I did not reply but went about my work. Inside I feared he was right. In many cases religion can inhabit too much personal ego.

I am currently studying the old South Eastern Methodist revivals...

The Life of David Sullins
The Life of George Clark Rankin

In my denomination, Pentecostal Holiness (PH), the revivals were like the Methodist before us, just subtract 100 years. The pH revivals in the 1950's were exactly like the Methodist in the 1850's.In studying the old Methodist Cripple Creek revival I find our Pentecostal Holiness church was structured exactly like their meetings. As the Methodist revivals dissipated around 1900 so ours did around 2000. I have traveled Wythe County up and down and the only soul that remembers the Cripple Creek revival was a gentleman in his 90's, and he gave me recollections of what his mother told him.

The apostle Paul says that just a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Just a little ego, and the whole lump is bad! When our evangelists were uneducated they were good as you would never know what they would pull out of the Word of God. Send them to Seminary, and they come out with an ego, and tend to be dry in their delivery.

If denominations could hold the spirit of revival I would be more of a fan. But in my experience, it all to easily becomes ego. And, I tell people all the time that the unction of God is not Ego, as a matter, as scripture says...

21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
29 That no flesh should glory in his presence. - 1 Corinthians 1

Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? - 1 Corinthians 5:6

I would say that it is impossible to experience the fullness of God with an ego. The ego has got to be dispelled for the camel to go through the eye of the needle and get the beneficial things from the Spirit of God!

 

[amadeus]

Our Pentecostal Holiness pastor was wonderful at getting a variety of evangelist for revival and we had them all the time. The people were also encouraged to get the Holy Spirit in their own way.

My father and all of his family were always Pentecostal Holiness in the Oklahoma City area. My father never changed when his church changed. His mother, my grandmother, were among those old timers. I was only an occasional as my mother divorce my father and moved to California when my older brother and I were toddlers. She married a Catholic Portugee and that is the way we went.

Back in Oklahoma my grandmother never wore pants, wearing long skirts and dresses continuously until her death. She never cut her hair I used to love to watch her comb it out after she had washed it with it reaching to below her knees.

Now the old timers are gone the church has totally changed. The old evangelist died away and no one filled their shoes.

Yes, it was similar with my family's church. My father was faithful all of his life and always donated his time and work to clean the church and tend to the lawns until he was no longer able. When he was unable to attend services toward the end of his life because of his declining health no one ever came to his home to visit him... not even the new young pastor.

 

[rockytopva]

My father and all of his family were always Pentecostal Holiness in the Oklahoma City area. My father never changed when his church changed. His mother, my grandmother, were among those old timers. I was only an occasional as my mother divorce my father and moved to California when my older brother and I were toddlers. She married a Catholic Portugee and that is the way we went.

Back in Oklahoma my grandmother never wore pants, wearing long skirts and dresses continuously until her death. She never cut her hair I used to love to watch her comb it out after she had washed it with it reaching to below her knees.


Yes, it was similar with my family's church. My father was faithful all of his life and always donated his time and work to clean the church and tend to the lawns until he was no longer able. When he was unable to attend services toward the end of his life because of his declining health no one ever came to his home to visit him... not even the new young pastor.

In all my years with the Pentecostal Holiness I never heard the first sermon against the Catholics. As you have written, we have our own issues! I watched in my lifetime as the church went too liberal. There were also those who went overboard on the clothesline.

 

[Willie T]

In all my years with the Pentecostal Holiness I never heard the first sermon against the Catholics. As you have written, we have our own issues! I watched in my lifetime as the church went too liberal. There were also those who went overboard on the clothesline.

I like that....... a reference a lot of people won't catch.

 

[Philip James]

I like that....... a reference a lot of people won't catch.

I have no idea what that reference is to, is there a good story in it? :)

 

[Willie T]

I have no idea what that reference is to, is there a good story in it? :)

Yes. It boils down to "Christians dry their clothes with what God supplies." But, as you can imagine, the self-righteous meaning goes much deeper.

 

[rockytopva]

When I moved here to Virginia to live with my grandmother as a teenager I would...

1. Work at a restaurant during the morning
2. Put up hay and farm during the afternoon
3. Go to revival during the night
4. After Walton's good nights from my kinfolk I would read until sleepy, with the door open letting the fresh smelling country air in along with the song of the kady-dids outside my door.

Our Pentecostal Holiness pastor was wonderful at getting a variety of evangelist for revival and we had them all the time. The people were also encouraged to get the Holy Spirit in their own way. The old guys would weep as they would behold the revival around them. If they would look back and catch the amazed look in my eye they would weep, "The Holy Ghost! The Holy Ghost!" As souls were slain in the Spirit around the altar before them. The Holy Spirit also begin to speak to me and it was like the Lord Jesus Christ was with me where ever I went.

Pictured is the farmer I used to put up hay with. "Shouting" Dallas Linkous would shout in the field, at home, and in church. And he was the happiest man I knew alive...

Now the old timers are gone the church has totally changed. The old evangelist died away and no one filled their shoes.

The man pictured in the photo above came from a good generation. His kids generation did not. The daughter pictured used to enjoy wearing hats to church. Some well meaning sister scolded her for it and she lost interest in church from that time forward. There were a lot of people those days who would try to in force a clothesline, or standard of dress. I am afraid they have run more souls away from God than won and will have much to answer for on that last day.

 

[Enoch111]

My perspective is that the Catholic church is a Christian church...

You could complete that by adding "according to its own estimate of itself".

When you carefully examine the teachings of the Catholic Church they do not reflect Bible Christianity.

So we should be encouraging Catholics to carefully examine their church's teaching in the light of Scripture. One would say the same thing to any group which has a bunch of man-made doctrines.

 

[Helen]

Here we go again!!

 

[Philip James]

So we should be encouraging Catholics to carefully examine their church's teaching in the light of Scripture

We have been examing Scripture through the light of the Holy Spirit, and the deposit of Faith, that was entrusted to us, for 2000 years.

But if you really want to discuss this, start a new thread, i was rather enjoying this one.

For whoever is not against us is for us.

 

[Helen]

Well said @Philip James