Post by Cindy on Apr 24, 2015 10:32:40 GMT -5
Did or Do the Jews pray to David, or Moses or Abraham? or angels for that matter?
I ask this question to open the eyes of catholics to what they are doing. If you'll recall, ALL the disciples and Jesus and His whole family were Jewish. So were a huge number of converts to them.
This question I asked is VERY relevant to us today . The Jewish people AND Jesus Himself NEVER, NEVER, NEVER prayed to David, or Moses, or Samuel, or to angels or to any other person. They ONLY prayed to God Himself.
The fact that Jesus did NOT do this, should be more than enough to show catholics that this practice is VERY WRONG and is a sin! The fact that none of the Jews ever did this (of which Jesus was one) should also throw up a HUGE red flag for catholics! Jesus and the Jews knew the Old Testament Intimately and would have never gone against God's will like this. At least not those who cared about God.
Jesus Himself also said that He didn't come to do away with the law, but rather to fulfill it. You should also know from reading the Bible that God does not change. Therefore if it was wrong and a sin to pray to others and or angels then, it is still a sin now!
The catholics usually refer to the time that Jesus was caught up in the air with Moses. But Jesus did NOT pray to them and neither did the disciples.
The BIBLE records exactly what they did afterward and Jesus would have had a cow if they had prayed to them. By reading the Bible you can determine that they did NOT pray to them. It's not in there...nowhere...nothing you can say will make it suddenly appear either. Neither Jesus nor his disciples prayed to anyone other than God and that's exactly what they taught others to do. If they had taught differently there would be plenty to read about it in the history books and the Bible too because they would have been run out of town as blasphemers by the Jews specifically for that.
The unavoidable fact is that if they (the disciples,) had taught for people to pray to anyone other than God, there would have been a HUGE hullabaloo over it and the disciples would have been run out of town and most likely killed for that particular heresy, long before they could be killed for preaching the Gospel. Therefore the so called teachings of the individuals that taught this 100 or 200 years later MUST be heresy as anything else does not make sense.
Everything we need for our spiritual growth is in the Bible. If you can't show me where Jesus or his disciples or some other NT or OT writer said that it's ok to pray to dead people, then it conclusively means that it's not ok. As far as what Jesus did, He prayed to the Father and only to the Father. Why should we be any different??? Not one single disciple prayed to anyone but God either.
Consider also that there are quite a few prayers written about in both the OT and the NT. Not one single one is addressed to anyone other than God!
On top of all this there is another obvious example. When Jesus was asked by the disciples to teach them to pray, He taught them to pray to God! Many people seem to think that He was teaching them a single prayer to pray. He wasn't. He was teaching them exactly what they asked: HOW to pray. Prayer should be directed ONLY to God as Jesus Himself taught them.
The evidence is indisputable. It is a sin to pray to anyone or anything but God.
The soul of the departed is alive and conscious in heaven or hell, but there is no communication between the departed and us. That's why the Bible forbids us from trying to communicate with the dead. Dead saints remain part of the body of Christ, but there is an effective separation from the living saints. One day the Lord will give His people a glorified and immortal body and gather us all together. Until then we must face the sad consequence of death: separation!
Secondly, we note that praying to the saints is not equivalent to asking fellow Christians for prayer. This excuse may be convincing to some Christians who never had any personal experience of the Catholic religion. Otherwise, every Catholic (and former Catholic) knows that praying to Mary or the saints is completely different than asking a fellow believer for prayer.
Suppose a Christian brother comes and kneels before you, imploring you with great devotion to pray for him. Would you allow him? How would you react if he calls you his advocate, his hope and refuge? What if he thanks you for the many graces you conferred on him and for delivering him from hell? Suppose he tells you that he confines his salvation to your care and pleads with you to stay with him until you see him safe in heaven? Would you call that "asking a fellow Christian for prayer"? Of course not! That kind of prayer and confidence is nothing less than divine worship and it should be directed only to the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet that is exactly the kind of prayer that Catholics offer to Mary and the saints.
Re 19:9–10 — 9 Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he added, “These are the true words of God.” 10 At this I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
Ac 10:25–26 — 25 As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. 26 But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
Col 2:18 — 18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions.
Only God knows our thoughts. No human (dead or alive) or angel or anything else can know our thoughts or hear our prayers. (1 Cor 2:11)
Notice that God doesn't tell us to seek Mary or anyone other then Him:
Deuteronomy 4:29 But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice 31. (for the Lord your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.
Psalms 86:5 For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.
notice it's GOD and NOT Mary?
Psalms 130:7 O Israel, hope in the Lord; For with the Lord there is mercy, And with Him is abundant redemption.
notice that our hope is to be in HIM not Mary!
Joel 2:13 So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.
Return to the Lord and stop praying to everyone else.
Daniel 9:9 "To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him.
these belong ONLY to God, not Mary!
Psalms 145:18 The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth.
Jeremiah 33:3 `Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.'
again, pray to God, not Mary!
John 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, `Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water
Romans 10:13 For "whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
and again, it says to call on HIM!!!! NOT MARY!!!!
Acts 8:24 Then Simon answered and said, "Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me
Genesis 20:17 So Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children;
He prayed to GOD!!!
Acts 10:2 a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always.
James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
notice we're not to ask Mary or anyone but God!
I could go on quoting scripture forever and not one single one says to pray to anyone or anything other than GOD! And many show that we are NOT to pray to anyone or anything other than God.
Anyone that uses common sense and the Bible knows that worship consists of prayer to the "being", songs to and about the "being" candles and incense lit to and for the "being", reverence for the "being", and usually stories that are called "holy" or "sacred" about the "being" and the idea that the "being" can help them in some way, often special feast days or days of fasting to/for the "being" and often some sort of "miracles" are associated with the "being", often parades and banners are done to honor the "being", the "being" is somehow set above normal humans, gifts and sacrifices are often offered in honor of the "being", religious jewelery is often worn to honor the "being", often "special people" will have visions and or dreams about this "being", places of worship are often named after this "being", bowing or kneeling to the "being", etc. This is exactly what catholics do to Mary so they absolutely DO worship her.
The evidence is indisputable. It is a sin to pray to anyone or anything but God.
I ask this question to open the eyes of catholics to what they are doing. If you'll recall, ALL the disciples and Jesus and His whole family were Jewish. So were a huge number of converts to them.
This question I asked is VERY relevant to us today . The Jewish people AND Jesus Himself NEVER, NEVER, NEVER prayed to David, or Moses, or Samuel, or to angels or to any other person. They ONLY prayed to God Himself.
The fact that Jesus did NOT do this, should be more than enough to show catholics that this practice is VERY WRONG and is a sin! The fact that none of the Jews ever did this (of which Jesus was one) should also throw up a HUGE red flag for catholics! Jesus and the Jews knew the Old Testament Intimately and would have never gone against God's will like this. At least not those who cared about God.
Jesus Himself also said that He didn't come to do away with the law, but rather to fulfill it. You should also know from reading the Bible that God does not change. Therefore if it was wrong and a sin to pray to others and or angels then, it is still a sin now!
The catholics usually refer to the time that Jesus was caught up in the air with Moses. But Jesus did NOT pray to them and neither did the disciples.
The BIBLE records exactly what they did afterward and Jesus would have had a cow if they had prayed to them. By reading the Bible you can determine that they did NOT pray to them. It's not in there...nowhere...nothing you can say will make it suddenly appear either. Neither Jesus nor his disciples prayed to anyone other than God and that's exactly what they taught others to do. If they had taught differently there would be plenty to read about it in the history books and the Bible too because they would have been run out of town as blasphemers by the Jews specifically for that.
The unavoidable fact is that if they (the disciples,) had taught for people to pray to anyone other than God, there would have been a HUGE hullabaloo over it and the disciples would have been run out of town and most likely killed for that particular heresy, long before they could be killed for preaching the Gospel. Therefore the so called teachings of the individuals that taught this 100 or 200 years later MUST be heresy as anything else does not make sense.
Everything we need for our spiritual growth is in the Bible. If you can't show me where Jesus or his disciples or some other NT or OT writer said that it's ok to pray to dead people, then it conclusively means that it's not ok. As far as what Jesus did, He prayed to the Father and only to the Father. Why should we be any different??? Not one single disciple prayed to anyone but God either.
Consider also that there are quite a few prayers written about in both the OT and the NT. Not one single one is addressed to anyone other than God!
On top of all this there is another obvious example. When Jesus was asked by the disciples to teach them to pray, He taught them to pray to God! Many people seem to think that He was teaching them a single prayer to pray. He wasn't. He was teaching them exactly what they asked: HOW to pray. Prayer should be directed ONLY to God as Jesus Himself taught them.
The evidence is indisputable. It is a sin to pray to anyone or anything but God.
The soul of the departed is alive and conscious in heaven or hell, but there is no communication between the departed and us. That's why the Bible forbids us from trying to communicate with the dead. Dead saints remain part of the body of Christ, but there is an effective separation from the living saints. One day the Lord will give His people a glorified and immortal body and gather us all together. Until then we must face the sad consequence of death: separation!
Secondly, we note that praying to the saints is not equivalent to asking fellow Christians for prayer. This excuse may be convincing to some Christians who never had any personal experience of the Catholic religion. Otherwise, every Catholic (and former Catholic) knows that praying to Mary or the saints is completely different than asking a fellow believer for prayer.
Suppose a Christian brother comes and kneels before you, imploring you with great devotion to pray for him. Would you allow him? How would you react if he calls you his advocate, his hope and refuge? What if he thanks you for the many graces you conferred on him and for delivering him from hell? Suppose he tells you that he confines his salvation to your care and pleads with you to stay with him until you see him safe in heaven? Would you call that "asking a fellow Christian for prayer"? Of course not! That kind of prayer and confidence is nothing less than divine worship and it should be directed only to the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet that is exactly the kind of prayer that Catholics offer to Mary and the saints.
Re 19:9–10 — 9 Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he added, “These are the true words of God.” 10 At this I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
Ac 10:25–26 — 25 As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. 26 But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
Col 2:18 — 18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions.
Only God knows our thoughts. No human (dead or alive) or angel or anything else can know our thoughts or hear our prayers. (1 Cor 2:11)
Notice that God doesn't tell us to seek Mary or anyone other then Him:
Deuteronomy 4:29 But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice 31. (for the Lord your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.
Psalms 86:5 For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.
notice it's GOD and NOT Mary?
Psalms 130:7 O Israel, hope in the Lord; For with the Lord there is mercy, And with Him is abundant redemption.
notice that our hope is to be in HIM not Mary!
Joel 2:13 So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.
Return to the Lord and stop praying to everyone else.
Daniel 9:9 "To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him.
these belong ONLY to God, not Mary!
Psalms 145:18 The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth.
Jeremiah 33:3 `Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.'
again, pray to God, not Mary!
John 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, `Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water
Romans 10:13 For "whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
and again, it says to call on HIM!!!! NOT MARY!!!!
Acts 8:24 Then Simon answered and said, "Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me
Genesis 20:17 So Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children;
He prayed to GOD!!!
Acts 10:2 a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always.
James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
notice we're not to ask Mary or anyone but God!
I could go on quoting scripture forever and not one single one says to pray to anyone or anything other than GOD! And many show that we are NOT to pray to anyone or anything other than God.
Anyone that uses common sense and the Bible knows that worship consists of prayer to the "being", songs to and about the "being" candles and incense lit to and for the "being", reverence for the "being", and usually stories that are called "holy" or "sacred" about the "being" and the idea that the "being" can help them in some way, often special feast days or days of fasting to/for the "being" and often some sort of "miracles" are associated with the "being", often parades and banners are done to honor the "being", the "being" is somehow set above normal humans, gifts and sacrifices are often offered in honor of the "being", religious jewelery is often worn to honor the "being", often "special people" will have visions and or dreams about this "being", places of worship are often named after this "being", bowing or kneeling to the "being", etc. This is exactly what catholics do to Mary so they absolutely DO worship her.
The evidence is indisputable. It is a sin to pray to anyone or anything but God.
!!
