The High Kirk Presbyterian Church in Ballymena has held an ecumenical prayer meeting to which practising Roman Catholics, who offer prayer to Mary and to dead so-called ‘Saints’, were warmly invited.
Entitled ‘Prayers of Blessing for Ballymena’, the event hosted by the allegedly Protestant church was advertised in the Roman Catholic parish bulletin in the County Antrim town.
Demonstrating the continued unchanged nature of the Church of Rome, the Roman Catholic faithful in the town are also advised in the same bulletin, just a couple of lines down, that they can gain a “plenary indulgence” between the 1st and 8th of November by “visiting a cemetery or church and praying for the dead”.
The issue of indulgences was the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” for Martin Luther 501 years ago and prompted the then Roman Catholic monk to nail his 95 Theses to the door of the Church in Wittenberg.
And over half a millennium later, Rome is still offering its false gospel of works-based salvation to its poor, deluded adherents.
Not only that, they are still teaching the blasphemy of offering prayers for the dead, something which is utterly contrary to the Bible’s teaching.
As we have said in previous articles, there is a fine Scriptural example in the story of David and his adulterous child with Bathsheba.
Remember, that David, despite his sin (and we are all sinners), was called a man after God’s own heart.
His view, when his child died, as articulated in 2 Samuel 12:22-23, was: “And he said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”
David ceased to petition God for his child when he died, as he knew there was no point, yet Rome is to this day blasphemously claiming, and this particular indulgence is coming from the Pope himself, that prayers for the dead are profitable both for the deceased and for the person offering the prayer.
And this is what High Kirk Presbyterian Church in Ballymena is seeking to associate themselves with. Shame on them.
The ecumenical prayer meeting they hosted was held on Thursday, 1 November, the day after Reformation Day, and the 1st of November just so happens to have been the first day of the week of indulgence granted by “that Antichrist”, the Pope.
So there could well have been those practising Romanists who had offered prayers for the dead in a Papist graveyard before heading across town to High Kirk Presbyterian Church to offer prayers there.
What a dreadfully confused situation this is.
Adding to the confusion is the question of to whom were the prayers offered in High Kirk Presbyterian Church? Rome encourages the praying to Mary and to dead ‘Saints’.
The Bible teaches in 1 Timothy 2:5 that “there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”.
“No man cometh unto the Father, but by me”, says Jesus in John 14:6.
But here we have Romanists, who are told by their religious leaders to offer up all manner of polluted worship, coming into a so-called Protestant church and being encouraged to take part in what is clearly an ecumenical prayer meeting.
There will be no true blessing in Ballymena while church leaders reject the Biblical principle of separation from the workers of evil.
This is clearly commanded in Ephesians 5:11: “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”
This church, whose minister is Rev Norman Cameron (pictured, top), has a track record for ecumenical compromise, with last year’s Christmas service featuring a performance by the choir of a local Roman Catholic primary school, St Brigid’s, while in 2013 they hosted an event called ‘City Changing Unity’, with that event description saying its target was “transforming communities through inter-church partnerships”.
This is brazenly ecumenical activity.
As the week of plenary indulgences proves, Rome has moved not one iota from its anti-Scriptural stance of more than 500 years ago.
Sadly, so many formerly Protestant churches have departed from the true faith and have rejected God and His Word.
We don’t see practitioners of other faiths, and they false faiths, conceding ground the way these lily-livered alleged Protestants are.
Let us fearlessly take our stand, hold fast our glorious Protestant heritage and never give in to the enemies of the gospel.
Jeremiah 2:11: “Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.”
Jeremiah 2:32: “Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number.”
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