DUP leader Ian Paisley was jostled, punched and then dragged out of the
European Parliament today after interrupting a speech by the Pope.
The disturbance came within seconds of the Pope starting to speak.
Other Euro MPs responded angrily when Dr. Paisley heckled the Pope, saying he was
the Antichrist.
Permit me to say how much I...
Stop
this disturbance!
Paisley
claims he was punched and that he later received a personal apology from the head
of security for failing to protect him.
The poster stated simply, John Paul II Antichrist.
A reference to the view supported by Archbishop Cranmer in Reformation times
that by claiming to be God's earthly representative, Popes have usurped the
position of Christ.
He remained unrepentant despite being accused of being a bigot.
Let me say this, if the honour of Christ is at stake, I would put my whole
political career on the line for the honour of Jesus Christ and his truth.
I happen to be a Protestant by conviction and I'm not going to sell my Protestant
heritage.
World attention was focused on the European Parliament earlier this week when
the Northern Ireland MEP and leader of the DUP, Ian Paisley, denounced Pope John Paul
II as the Antichrist, just as the Pope began to make his address to the
Parliament, an address which looked forward to increased European unity in
1992.
The moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Dr. Godfrey Brown,
stated earlier this year that there is no scriptural evidence for the Westminster
Confession of Faith statement that the Pope is the Antichrist.
The members of the Free Presbyterian Church, however, are still bound to regard
the Pope as Antichrist.
Reverend Ian Paisley, who is also, of course, the moderator of the Free
Presbyterian Church, has addressed himself to the issue and has published an
exposition called, simply, Antichrist, which he claims demonstrates from
scripture, history and the Pope's own lips why the Pope is the Antichrist.
Well, he is with me in the studio to discuss the issue and also with me is John
Bach, who is also a theologian.
John Bach, irrespective of the manner in which the evidence is presented by Ian
Paisley in this book, can we address the central argument?
Is his argument simply a wrong one?
I think it's a dated one.
Of course, the book claims to be by Ian R .K.
Paisley on the cover.
In fact, it's a rehash of a work produced in the last century by a man who had the
amazing title of lecturer in Popery at some Protestant institute.
But in the book, I find, for example, that the Pope invented sin, taught sin,
enacted sin, trades in sin and is the incarnation of sin.
And I have to say that I do find that really rather offensive, as I believe many
Roman Catholics will.
And I note that the present Anglo-Irish agreement, which is designed, as far as I
can make out, to give comfort and succour to Roman Catholics who may feel they're
being treated badly in the North, well, it isn't doing much to counter that.
I believe that many Roman Catholic people will be hurt.
And I must say, with the greatest of respect, that my study of this book,
which incidentally is made up of short chapters of no more than three pages each,
is an amalgam of ignorance and offensiveness.
Well, Ian Paisley, you've written the book, you obviously are firmly convinced
of the arguments, and that was demonstrated at the European Parliament
earlier this week.
What do you say to that?
Well, first of all, the book makes it perfectly clear that this is a presa of
Dr. G.
A.
Wiley's classic, which people say is the Antichrist.
It makes that absolutely clear.
Well, it is an exposition by me, because if Mr. Bach had read the
introduction, he would have seen that there is also other material which was not
from Dr. Wiley's book.
Dr. Wiley is a well-known historian.
His history of Protestantism is a basic work and is honoured by all historians,
even those who disagree with his proposition.
So, to say that because he lectured in Popery, in a very important institute in
Edinburgh, which was connected with the three main Presbyterian bodies in
Edinburgh, is that this man was someone to be reviled or rejected.
That doesn't really stand up.
But that, of course, is not the argument, because I am reminded of Lloyd George
being in a tough political fight in Wales, and he was addressing a packed schoolroom
of supporters, and suddenly through the window there came a stone.
And the politician stopped and lifted up the stone, and he said, I don't need to
argue any more.
I won the argument.
Because if you are not going to deal with basics, and you are only going to attack
with people that put forward propositions, you are not coming to the argument.
Let me come then to what Mr. Bath said.
He said he didn't like what was said that the Pope invented sin.
But it is a fact.
Has Mr. Bath studied the volumes that the Church of Rome has issued concerning what
is venial sin and what is moral sin?
They have defined sin.
They not only have defined sin, but they have actually said that certain
things are sin, which according to the scriptures are not sin.
For example, take the worship of images.
The Church of Rome holds that a special worship should be given to images.
The Bible holds the very opposite, and says, Thou shalt not bow thine eyes to
them, nor serve them.
So when this book says the Pope invented sin, and O'Reilly says that, he is
speaking the truth.
But you know what you are saying, it is important to take it point by point.
What you said is that the Catholic Church has defined sin.
There is a big difference between defining something and inventing it.
To call something a sin that is not a sin, is inventing a sin.
What about the Pope being the incarnation of sin?
Being devious and diabolical?
What about the suggestion that the Pope is a greater sinner than Judas Iscariot?
That is deeply offensive to Roman Catholic people.
Let me say this, that in the historical, and let's get back, I notice Mr. Bath said
it was a dated position, but this is exactly what I am seeking to establish.
Because when one says today that the Pope is the Antichrist, hands are raised in
this ecumenical age of fudge, and people say, oh that should not be said.
Mr. Bath belongs to the Church of Ireland.
The Irish Articles of 1615 put it clearly that the Bishop of Rome is so far from
being the supreme head of the universal Church of Christ, that his works and
doctrine do plainly discover him to be that man of sin foretold in the Holy
Scriptures, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and abolish
with the brightness of his coming.
Now no doubt that may be offensive to Roman Catholics.
There are things in the Bible that are offensive to all sinners.
But we have to accept them.
That is the plain teaching, historically, of the Anglican Church in Ireland.
As Mr. Bath very well knows, the Presbyterian Confession of Faith,
and Mr. Brown, Dr. Brown may say, we don't accept it.
But when he was ordained to the ministry, he was asked, did he accept it?
And would he sign it as a confession of his own faith?
And he did sign it as a confession of his own faith.
The Savoy Confession of the Congregational Church makes the same statement.
The Old Baptist Confession of 1688, and John Wesley and his notes in the New
Testament.
So I am contending for nothing more or nothing less than what was stated by the
Reformed creeds of Protestant Christians.
But John Barker, is that the official position of the Anglican Church in
Ireland?
Because if it is, Ian Paisley's argument would seem to hold a good deal of water.
Ian Paisley is quite correct to say these are important historical formularies.
They were written at the time of the Protestant Reformation, when there was a
lot of persecution and martyrdom.
And the real issue is whether these dated statements apply to the 20th century.
And the assumption behind Ian Paisley's argument is that the Roman Catholic Church
has not changed at all.
And I think that's where the real intellectual debate must begin.
There was a time when Roman Catholics would have absolutely nothing to do with
Protestants at all.
Mercifully that's changed.
And as Mr Paisley surely will know, there has recently been a defection from
the papacy of a right-wing theologian called Archbishop Lefebvre, who wants to
go back to those days.
The assumption being that the Vatican has changed.
And I really don't see any purpose in resurrecting bitter and horrible days,
which we should really put behind us and instead try and rediscover what love and
forgiveness are, because these are pretty fundamental Christian ideals.
Let me say that we are dealing here with a biblical doctrine.
This doctrine set forth in the historic creeds of Christendom and in the formulas
of the Reformation churches was based upon the scriptures.
Now the scriptures make it clear that such an Antichrist would arise.
We have the prophecies of Daniel, we have the prophecies of the Lord Jesus
Christ, we have the prophecies of the Apostle Paul, and the prophecies of the
Apostle John.
And that the Apostle Paul has said there are certain marks that are going to
distinguish the Antichrist.
And it's these marks that this book is considering.
This book says from the very beginning, it demonstrates from scripture,
from history, and from his own lips.
Now the papacy has not changed.
The papacy said in Vatican II that there would be no departure from the doctrine of
the Council of Trent.
That's written into their documents.
I debated that with a Jesuit priest at Queen's University, Father Corbusier,
as you know, that was the basis of our debate.
But the Pope of Rome claims to be another Christ on earth.
And when he was crowned as the Pontiff, he was set up above the throne.
And the Cardinals came and kissed his feet.
And we have explained in this book the whole ceremony of his coronation and what
it means.
And what is more, I have the hundred texts of T.C.
Hammond, of the Irish Church Missions, which is a Church of Ireland organization,
as Mr. Bath knows.
And they repeat what Pope Pius IX said, I alone, despite my unworthiness,
am the successor of the Apostles, the Vicar of Christ.
I alone have the mission to guide and direct the bark of Peter.
I am the way, the proof, and the life.
They who are with me are with the Church.
And they who are not with me are out of the Church.
They are out of the way, the truth, and the life.
Now there is no difference between that and the present claims of the papacy.
And this is the issue that we should be addressing ourselves to.
If Mr. Bath can show me something in any document from Rome, I have studied every
document that has been issued by the Vatican very carefully, even the one on
ecumenism.
And he knows perfectly well that the old human sanctum creed is still underlined in
that document, that they alone are the true Church.
And while others may be in some way seeking the truth, the truth is in us and
in us alone.
John?
Well that kind of monopoly position of Rome is one which clearly as a Protestant
I don't accept.
But I think the important thing is neither do liberally minded Roman Catholics.
And we've got to recognize that things have changed.
Now I'm interested in what Ian Paisley says about Antichrist in Scripture.
Now I can debate this until the cars come home.
And if you look for example at the book of Daniel, to which this book alludes a great
deal, the fact is that book was written at a time when a man called Antiochus
Epiphanes was busy attacking Jerusalem, forbidding Jewish customs upon the plane
of death.
And this apocalyptic, that's the technical name, this apocalyptic literature was a
way of saying don't believe any of all this, our cause is victorious.
Exactly the same applies in the book of Revelation, which was written at a time of
massive persecution by the Roman Empire.
Now to take those statements, which quite plainly were addressed to historic
figures, Antiochus Epiphanes and the Emperor Domitian, and to say somehow they
apply to the papacy in the 1980s, I have to say is a far fetched and not a
sound exegesis of Scripture.
Well I think it is amazing to hear Mr. Bath make that statement about the book of
Daniel.
For the book of Daniel prophesies about four kingdoms, or four world empires that
were going to come.
Daniel was not dealing with the present situation at all, he was dealing with a
situation that was yet to come.
And anyone that reads the book will remember the great dream of the massive
image with the head of gold, the breast of silver, the loins of brass, and the legs
of iron, and the toes part of iron and part of clay.
And Daniel prophesied clearly that there was four great world empires going to
arise.
There was the one at present, a thou, O king, art that head of gold.
And he was referring there to the dynasty of the Babylonian Empire.
Secondly, after Babylon came the Persian Empire.
After the Medo-Persian Empire came the Greek Empire.
After the Greek Empire came the Roman Empire, which divided to east and west.
And after that came the Holy Roman Empire, the ten toes of the great figure.
So, Daniel was dealing with future.
And don't worry about... He wasn't a fortune teller, he was telling the future.
Christ told the future.
We are not dealing with fortune telling, we are dealing with heavenly prophecies,
which all came true.
Who was to know there was going to be four world empires?
Who was to know that these things were going to happen, that Rome was going to
divide in two?
Who was to know that?
Well, of course, I'm not going to be leaving with every scholarly book that has
ever been written about Daniel and Revelation.
Let me take you to another...
Let me just tell you another thing.
There are some of the greatest scholars even living, expound Daniel.
And they take this view that I'm putting forward.
What about Professor Dick Wilson of Princeton, who was one of the greatest
scholars of his day?
I mean, to write these people off and say, because you believe in the Bible and you
believe that the Bible can tell you something that's going to happen in the
future, that's one of the tests, if it is, the word of God.
God knows what's going to happen in the future.
I don't think that John should just write everybody off.
Neither should he.
I'm not prepared to write anybody off.
I'm prepared to say I have established an historic view, and I'm not seeking to
defend it.
Now, let me take, if I may, another biblical view, because it's important we
go back to basic principles.
In the New Testament, you have the idea of the Antichrist being the person who denies
that Jesus has come in the flesh.
That is to say, the Antichrist being the denier of the Incarnation.
Now, in this book by Mr. Wiley, rehashed by you, there is the suggestion
that the Roman Catholic Church doesn't believe in the Incarnation.
And that's surely rather far-fetched, isn't it?
I think that if Mr. Bach read the book properly, he would understand that the
book is dealing with the doctrines of the New Testament and putting over against
those doctrines of the New Testament the doctrines of the Church of Rome.
Every doctrine of Christianity has been taken by the Church of Rome and has been
twisted and distorted by the Church of Rome.
For instance, the Church of Rome's religion is not today the religion of the
Father, it's the religion of the Mother.
And the Pope himself claims to be the Holy Father.
But the Bible says that we are not to call in a spiritual sense any man Father,
because one is your Father.
And the title Holy Father is given alone in the New Testament to God the Father.
So you take the Incarnation, let's come to the Incarnation.
I believe in the Incarnation and I believe in the virgin birth.
I don't know whether Mr. Bach does or not, but I happen to do.
And I would like to say to him, he knows perfectly well that the Church of
Rome takes a different view of Mary than the Reformed and Reformation faith would
take of Mary.
Mary was not immaculately conceived.
She was not without sin.
In fact, she said, I rejoice in God my Saviour.
That is what we are trying to say, that their view of the Incarnation and
their view of the virgin birth is entirely different from the view that we would
take.
And we are entitled to do that.
That is from her own books.
But let's look at the claims of the Pope of Rome.
Let's look at his claims.
Let's take the ceremony off us, obviously.
And here is, perhaps John Bach would like to dissociate himself from this too.
This is one of the famous bishops of his own church, Bishop Christopher Wordsworth.
The cover is perfect.
That is the only argument you can put, John.
You are very short.
And he also gives the full ceremony of the crowning of the Pope.
Take thou the tiara, adorned with the triple crown, and know that thou art the
father of princes and of kings, and the governor of the world.
Now, that is what the Bible was talking about.
I am not a theologian, and I am no bibliophile.
But I want to ask you, as someone who is neither of those two, why does it matter?
Why should it matter to me whether or not the Pope is the Antichrist?
That is what I do not understand.
Well, I can answer that very well.
The Bible has warned us about what the Antichrist is going to do.
That he is going to deceive people.
And that is exactly what the Pope is doing.
One of the deceptions of Rome has been exposed today.
The fake of the Turin Shroud.
And he has deceived the people.
And we have seen that on every hand, the deceptions.
The Pope is not the Holy Father.
There is only one Holy Father.
He is not the representative of God on earth.
He is not as the bishops of Ireland, 749, another Christ.
He is not that.
No, he is not that.
And a man who claims to be that.
These are the claims of the Pope.
I did not say that the Pope, that I said the Pope said these are the official
claims of the Pope.
Well, if a man comes and claims these things, and he is not these things,
and I read the Scripture that a man will come, and he will say these things,
and he will emphasize that, and the Bible warns us against that.
Well, of course, this idea of some evil figure who is going to come in the future.
Some people have tried to take that out of Daniel and Revelation, and not to take
these books in their proper context.
And, of course, it is not just the Pope who has been accused.
Over the crazy centuries, people thought it all referred to Napoleon, or Hitler,
or Stalin.
And I believe that is every bit as ridiculous as saying it refers to the
papacy.
Now, of course, there is such a thing as evil.
Of course, there is such a thing as a force which opposes Christ.
And I think the only sensitive Christian thing to do is to ask whether you and I,
both of us, represent part of that ourselves.
And the trouble with externalizing it, and saying there is the Pope, or there is
Napoleon, who is the personification of evil, is it means we do not face up to the
reality of evil in our own lives.
But there is stuff in this, you know, which really is deeply offensive.
I mean, to talk about the papacy is devious and diabolical.
To say that the Pope stained the world with blood and peopled hell.
I feel deeply sorry for Roman Catholic people who listen to this.
And I believe, politically, it is absolutely disastrous, because it makes
the intervention of the Irish Republic to help Roman Catholics seem justifiable.
I do not think it is justifiable.
But this book, frankly, does not make the cause of the Union much easier.
Well, I would like to say to Mr. Baum, as you prepare to turn a blind eye to
history, let him just go down to any library and pull out the Encyclopedia
Britannica, and look up one reference, the Inquisition, and see just exactly what
the Church of Rome did do.
And see what she is continuing to do in places throughout the world.
This idea that it is untrue to say that the Pope did not shed innocent blood.
Your own Bishop says in this book, your own Bishop, Christopher Wordsworth,
whom you could not question his scholarship.
Another dated document, I see.
It is not a dated document at all.
Well, it is a pretty old thing, isn't it?
Well, I mean, if you are saying, then, the Bible is dated.
No, I am saying the papacy has changed.
That is the difference.
Well, the papacy has not changed.
The papacy itself says it has not changed, but let's not get away from it.
The Inquisition, let them read it in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
And then tell me, is it not so that the Roman Catholic Church is responsible and
as drunk as the Bible says in Revelation 17, and as this Bishop says in his book,
with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
Now, I want to tell you this, Mr. Bath, today, that I am not here to be offensive
to anybody.
I am here to speak what I believe to be the truth.
Yes, but what I don't understand...
Many things have been said about me and people that are offensive.
They have to take them.
It is my business to proclaim there is only one Christ, and that is the Lord
Jesus Christ.
He is the sole King and Head of the Church.
But if anybody else comes and says, I am another Christ on earth, I am the
way, the truth and the life, outside me there is no salvation for you.
That man is acting in the way that the Bible says he would act.
Yes, but there is one thing that I don't understand.
There are many, many faiths throughout the world.
There is Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, there is Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.,
etc.
There are many, many faiths that you would question.
What I don't quite understand is why you cannot simply cleave to your own
particular faith, which you believe in strongly, and stay with that and not use
words and deeds, like Strasbourg, which many people find offensive.
Well, let me say what I said in Strasbourg.
I quoted the simple words of Archbishop Cranmer, that I reject the Pope as
Christ's enemy and as Antichrist with all his doctrines.
Now, for doing that, Archbishop Cranmer, the first Archbishop of Canterbury,
was put to the fire and was burned.
That's all I said.
Now, that is a statement of my faith as well.
I was not permitted, and I better put this on the line, I was not permitted to have a
discussion in Strasbourg, neither was the Parliament, whether we should invite the
Pope.
I would have thought a democratic assembly, if they were going to invite
somebody, would have the opportunity to debate it.
I would have said that in the debate.
I would have moved that we would not have accepted it.
I would have cast my vote.
I was never given that opportunity.
And I want to say that that is an opportunity in a Parliament like that,
which is now divided the nations.
Protestants are a very tiny minority in Europe, as everybody knows.
That's what should have been done.
We weren't given that opportunity.
But what was done to me was to try and silence me.
Now, the table office themselves at Strasbourg said that the President was
wrong.
And he has now admitted that he was wrong in saying that he could silence me and
keep me from speaking.
I have a right under the rules.
I have seen far worse protests than that.
But my offense was that I said about the Pope, because the Pope has to be treated
as a special person.
His claims have to be upheld that he is Christ on earth.
I saw them scuttling away to take down certain decorations that the Pope didn't
believe in and cover them up.
And I had a terrible job.
I had to fight to even get into my seat.
To get into my seat they blocked the passageways to keep me out of my seat.
I just want to say this.
It is my duty to state my views above board and clearly.
I have stated my views in this book.
I hope people will read this book.
And will see what I have said and the plebeian teachings.
And I have said nothing that is contrary to what has been said by others.
I want to bring in John Barker.
What do you think the impact of not just the book, but the protest at the European
Parliament, what will the impact be on Roman Catholic people and people let's say
in the Presbyterian and Church of Ireland faith?
I think many of them will be deeply offended.
Everybody knows about the Protestant Reformation and the bloodshed and the
bitterness.
People also know that Roman Catholics were martyred too.
And I think every intelligent person wants to put those sad days behind them.
And what worries me most is the vast crowd, the growing crowd of people who
find all religion objectionable because they perceive that Christianity can only
exist by bringing up these old vitriolic debates.
I want to put them behind us.
And Rome made mistakes, Protestantism made mistakes.
And I find in this book not only an attack on the papacy, I find an attack on
ecumenists who are told that they reject the Bible, that they are deluded,
they are drugged by the satanic poison of Rome.
Even Billy Graham is attacked in this book.
As to atheists, they are apparently haters of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now I'm very sympathetic to the person who is atheistic because they cannot believe
in a God who stirs up and is responsible for hatred.
And such people maybe have rather more moral gut than those who are stirring up
this hatred.
Now, Mr. Paisley has been quoting to me from a number of dated books.
Let me offer him a simple quotation.
It's rather more up to date.
It is from the contemporary edition of the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church
where it says that the identification of the Pope with the Antichrist has
frequently been made especially in the less educated circles of Protestantism.
Is the Oxford Dictionary right?
Well, I want to say that the Oxford Dictionary that says that indicts the
whole Protestant communion because you have already stated that this was the
basic principles of Protestants.
It's in their formulas.
So if you want to say that the formula of your church and the 39 articles which goes
on which would be offensive to Roman Catholics in regard to the Mass,
that the Mass was a blasphemous feeble and a dangerous deceit.
If you are prepared to say that these were drawn up by ignorant men.
You have an ignorant confession of faith on your head.
Be it if that's the sort of church you belong to.
Let me say this to you today.
What I have said in this book is entirely scriptural.
You have said nothing to me today.
All you can say it is all dated.
The Bible is dated.
We go back to the foundation.
The Bible is dated.
Is the Bible true or is the Bible not true?
And you have brought not one shred of evidence today to say to me these
prophecies, in fact you have laughed at the fact that the Bible might be able to
tell the future.
I don't believe the Bible is about fortune telling.
You don't believe the Bible can tell the future.
You don't believe that Jesus Christ and his predictions were right.
You don't believe that atheists are wrong.
I want to say there is one way to heaven and it's not by a Protestant church or a
Roman Catholic church.
It is through Christ and through Christ alone.
Neither is there salvation in any other.
There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
You know perfectly well that is not the doctrine of the church of Rome.
You need a priest to perform baptism to take away your original sin.
You need the confession.
You need all the sacraments of the church.
That's the machinery of the church of Rome.
Let me ask you a direct question.
Do you ever discuss these views with Roman Catholics?
Yes.
I'm beginning to think the difference between us is that I enjoy talking to my
Roman Catholic friends and finding out how they do interpret these things which we
did find offensive in the past.
Today I find massive changes and I believe some kind of dialogue is the way ahead.
I talk to more Roman Catholics than Mr. Bach ever talks to.
I talk to them in my advice centers.
I talk to them in the streets.
I entertain them in my home.
I know what Roman Catholics say.
Let me tell you I'm not talking about individual Roman Catholic beliefs.
I'm talking about what the church teaches.
What does the church say?
Not what some individual says.
That's not the teaching of the church Mr. Bach.
We have to leave it at that point.
We've been flooded with telephone calls.
I promise I'll bring them to you tomorrow.
But as usual the clock has beaten us.
John Bach, it's a pleasure.
Thank you for joining us.
Join us again on Talkback tomorrow, usual time, after the news at noon.
Goodbye.
2 Thessalonians chapter 2, where we have in a few verses the description given by
the Holy Spirit through the lips of the Apostle.
Oh for the coming man of sin as he was in the days of Paul.
Let no man deceive you, verse 3, by any means.
For that day shall not come.
That is the day of the coming of the Lord Jesus.
Mentioned in verse 1, and the gathering together of God's people unto Him.
Except there come a falling away first.
Apostasy, a departure from the truth, will precede the second coming of Christ.
And with that apostasy the man of sin will be revealed, the son of perdition,
who opposeth and exalted himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped.
He can't, of course, exalt himself above God, but he exalts himself in the
falsehood of his religion above all that is called God, or that is worshipped.
So that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
The Antichrist's marks are the marks of a usurper.
He usurps the place of God, he usurps the persons of the Godhead, and he usurps the
power of God.
And you go from one end of the earth to the other, and look for anyone who usurps
the place of God, and the persons of the Godhead, and the power of God.
And you will only find those marks clearly, distinctly, vividly portrayed and
delineated in the Pope of Rome.
If you go back to Daniel, you will find that Daniel deals with a dynasty when he
talks about the little horn.
And the dynasty of the popes have all been the same Cleomes.
Of them Christ spoke in the gospel of Matthew.
And he said, many would come, but they would all say, I am the Christ.
Many!
That's the dynasty.
The Cleome, I am the Christ.
That's the individual Cleome of each possessor of the people Tyara and the
people of Rome.
We live in a day when the Reformation is almost forgotten.
We live in a day when the battle for the Bible is almost forgotten.
We live in a day when the church would like to forget about its history.
And when evil men would like to keep people from knowing the truth.
The great scheme of Rome is deception.
And this portion of Scripture says, they will all believe the lie.
They will all believe the lie.
As Christ is the truth.
The empty Christ is the lie.
And this week, we saw something of the world wanting to believe the lie.
Last Lord's Day, as those that attend this house regularly know, I was far from well.
Maybe that's why they gave me this pillbox tonight.
My wife said to me, you'll never make Strasbourg if you're in the state of
health you're in today.
I said, dear, if I have to swim to Strasbourg, I'm going to be there.
But last Sunday night, this congregation specially prayed for me.
And I want to give honor to the Lord that those prayers were answered.
And when I got up at five o'clock on Monday morning, I was fresh and well and
ready for the journey.
My assistant, the Lord Mayor of this city, Councillor Dodge, because of civic duties,
wasn't able to go with me to Strasbourg.
The Reverend David McElveen, a brother beloved, took his place.
I'm glad the Lord always said, go two by two.
For the company of a man of God, and the fellowship of a man of God,
and the times of prayer with a man of God, are very precious, very comforting,
and very encouraging in a time of battle and in a time of conflict.
And I knew perfectly well that I was going into the lion's den.
And I knew perfectly well that when you touch the people, see, you touch the very
holiest of all of the system of Rome.
I got to the first sitting of the house at five o'clock on Monday.
I had hardly taken my seat to Mr. Andrews, who is a MEP from the Irish Republic.
He is a member of Charlie Hockey's Finnafield party.
He's also a well-known drinker.
They say in the Parliament he smells like a brewery from eight o'clock in the
morning.
He's also the man that has advocated the licensing of brothels in the city of
Dublin.
So you know the type of man Mr. Andrews is.
He rose to his feet and he said, Mr. President, as you know...
I'm reading from the official report, the Hansard report of the European
Assembly or Parliament.
Mr. President, as you know, tomorrow we have the great honour and distinction of
receiving His Holiness Pope John Paul II.
What measures have you taken to ensure that His hearing is not disrupted by
bigots who are inclined to disrupt such meetings?
I refer, of course, to the previous interruptions by Mr. Paisley of Mrs.
Thatcher and Dr. Hillary, President of Ireland.
Is there any way we can ensure that Mr. Paisley, who is considered by many to be
an institutional terrorist, does not get the floor tomorrow for international
publicity which would bring this house into disrepute?
And there's a little note, applause from the right.
I rose and was eventually caught.
I'm glad this is on the record because the press in this country concealed the full
remarks that I made for their own reason.
But I'll come back to that in a minute or two.
But here on the record is my statement of faith.
Mr. President, under the rules of this house, I think I am entitled to make a
personal statement after the vicious attack that has been made upon
Protestantism and upon those who adhere to the principles of Protestantism both in
this assembly and in the whole of Europe.
I came to this house, Mr. President, with the votes of three times more people
than the Honorable Member who made this vicious attack upon me.
I resent very deeply what he said about my position.
And I must say to him that perhaps he would like to open an Inquisition torture
chamber in this Parliament so that he could put on the rack those who do not
agree with him or with the claims of the Roman Pontiff that will be received here
tomorrow.
As a Protestant, Mr. President, I have no apology to make for the attitude
of Reformation Protestantism to the claims of the Pope of Rome.
Another little note, loud protests.
I totally and absolutely repudiate those claims.
I do not believe that the Pope is infallible.
I do not believe he is the sole representative of Christ on earth.
I do not believe he has the power to forgive sins.
I do not believe that he has the power to change the wafer into the body and blood
of Christ.
I totally and absolutely reject, in the name of the Savior that I worship,
the abominable claims, the idolatrous claims of the Roman Pontiff.
If this house is prepared to say to a Protestant with convictions, you shall be
silent tomorrow, then, Mr. President, upon your head be it.
You never gave this house, or me, an opportunity to discuss whether the
Roman Pontiff should be invited to this house.
By not doing that, and giving this house a free, open and democratic discussion,
you would try to silence those that object to your invitation.
Mr. President, I will be here tomorrow.
I will make whatever protest I feel I should make.
And if this house wants to condemn me and throw me out, I shall be quite happy.
I have no apology to make for my Protestantism.
And I will never apologize to the Republicans from the south of Ireland,
who have destroyed the Protestant community in the south of Ireland.
By this time, Mr. Andrews was in a speech shouting, your hands drip with blood.
I said when our island home was divided, there were over ten percent Protestants in
the Republic.
Now there is only two percent.
They are the eliminators of Protestants, and not the Ulster Protestants,
who have given every facility of liberty to the Roman Catholics in the north of
Ireland.
Mr. President, Mr. Andrews is talking about blood.
It is his church that has been responsible for the torture and murder of millions in
the Spanish Inquisition days.
And well, he knows it.
He need not read lessons to me as a Protestant.
They then cut off the microphone.
Well, I do not need a microphone, thank God.
So I proceeded with my speech.
But of course, that which is not on the microphone is not recorded.
The President then said, Mr. Pearsley, you have said what you had to say about
ten times.
A very cheap remark, because I did not repeat myself.
The trouble with the President was, what I said was too strong, and was going
right to the heart of the matter.
Billy Sunday, the American evangelist, used to say, when you hit the bull's eye,
the bell rings.
And all the bells were ringing in that assembly on that occasion.
Some of us show our Christianity in different ways.
You have been allowed to make a statement today.
I want you to notice that statement.
You are allowed.
As if there is some grace and fever and condescension to allow an elected member
to speak, let me say, friend, that is what Europe is about.
If you do not speak what they want you to say, they will silence you.
But I want to say, as long as the people of this province send me to Europe,
I will not be silent.
I will speak what I believe with all my heart.
I warn you, said the President, that tomorrow morning we shall not be
holding the usual parliamentary sitting.
How could you have a usual parliamentary sitting with the Pope and Ian Paisley in
the same room at the same time?
Anybody with a pinhead of brain between their ears would know that.
We did not need the President to tell us that.
We shall be holding a formal sitting.
You say that you will be quite happy if you are removed from this house.
And I assure you that in the formal sitting, this will be the case.
So before I was going to be permitted to speak, I was to be turfed out.
And then there is a little note, applause.
And the house applauded.
I went to the table at the front of the Parliament.
I spoke to one of the chief men of the Secretariat.
And I looked him straight in the eye.
I said to him, there is the book of rules.
Would you please show me under what rule and by what authority the President can
keep me from speaking tomorrow?
And he smiled.
And he said, you know as well as I know that he has no authority and he has no
rule.
I said, of course I do.
But I said, why do you not tell him that when he is so ignorant or else
deliberately ignorant?
Maybe you would tell him.
Well he said, we will have a discussion and perhaps we can talk in the morning.
In the morning when I took my seat at nine o'clock, the General Secretary of the
Parliament and the top security officer of the house came down to my desk.
And they said, we would like to speak to you.
And I stood up from the desk and went into one of the corners of the building.
And they said, you know we have a difficulty.
I said, well I do not have any difficulty.
You have a difficulty, that is your cup of tea, not mine.
I do not have any difficulty.
I have come to speak and speak I must and speak I will.
Now if any other member had have called any other member a terrorist, what would
the President have done?
He would have called him to order.
I did not call him to order.
You know why?
Because it was a Protestant that was being attacked and that suited the President
that I should be attacked.
I said, you do not have any rules.
These are the rules of this assembly.
Are you going to keep them?
Now I said, if I was an Ulster where there is still a little bit of freedom.
You know where I would be this morning?
I would be in the high courts looking for an injunction to restrain the President
breaking the laws of the Parliament.
But I said, we do not have any democracy over here.
Well they said, could we not have a sort of low key protest?
Did you ever know of a low key protest when Ian Paisley and the Pope were
together?
What would you think of such a suggestion?
How stupid these people are.
They do not understand that this is the battle of the ages that we are engaged in.
This is no Sunday school picnic or soiree.
This is a battle for truth against the lie.
The battle of heaven against hell.
The battle of Christ against the Antichrist.
Well I said, we will carry you out.
Well I said, you will just have to do that.
But before I am carried out, this assembly will hear me.
I went down to my room and Brother McElveen and myself had a time of prayer.
And I read those three Psalms that I expounded this morning in the morning
service.
Psalm 46, Psalm 47 and Psalm 48.
They would have to go to get us place in the public gallery.
You know, God works out all things in His eternal will.
I went down in the morning to the desk.
He went down first.
He asked for a ticket to the gallery and they said, they are all gone.
A little French man said, you cannot get into the gallery?
They are all gone.
I have a friend of mine who is pretty well placed in the European Parliament.
I went to him.
I said, I need to have a ticket for David McElveen.
He said, there is plenty of seats.
He said, you go down and put the pressure on them and they will soon bend.
So I went down to the desk.
I produced my pass as a member.
I threw it down.
I said, this man must have a ticket.
Oh no, no.
He has no tickets.
I have receipt taken.
I said, do not give me that.
I have proof from a security man in this house.
There is plenty of seats.
And he immediately took a card and wrote me out a ticket and handed it to me.
No seats.
Of course there were.
But Mr. McElveen was put beside the President's wife, Libby Plum.
And Libby Plum was speaking.
She was sitting with a wife of another English Tory MEP.
And she said, you know, Henry is in a bad way.
He should not have done what he did with Ian Paisley yesterday.
He broke the rules.
And he ought not to have made that statement.
So there was from his own wife a confession that I was in the right and he
was in the wrong.
But I was left in my room.
And there seemed to be some commotion in the courtyard outside my office.
My office is on the first floor.
And it is directly over the back door of the MEP's suite of offices.
And to my surprise, I saw a great cavalier of cars coming.
And it was the Pope coming in by the back door.
Well, that was too good to be missed.
So I opened my office window and I shouted as loud as I could as he stepped from his
car and was being received by the officials.
Antichrist!
It was like a bombshell.
I immediately withdrew and closed the window and sat at my desk.
And I could see the people but they could not see me.
And they were silent and they were looking up.
And they looked at every window in that office.
But could they discern where that voice came from?
The Pope scurried in like a little rat in through the back door of the building.
As I sat down at my desk, I was encouraged that the weakest instrument can be strong
if God stands with him.
At half past eleven I left my office.
And when I got to the stairway that leads up to the section of the building that
crosses over to the Parliament property, I discovered that the Roman Catholic civil
servants had all blocked the stairway.
So that I in no way could get to the Parliament and take my seat.
This of course was part of the policy.
And I knew that if I did not get through that way I would have to go to another
lift, go on to another floor and possibly would not get in in time.
So as I stood at the foot of the stairs and saw this mass of people, there must
have been at least a hundred people in a small stairway cramming it, maybe more
than a hundred.
I said, Ian, you have got to be a bulldozer.
And I put my head down and I went through that crowd, I tell you, as they were never
pushed in their life.
And they did their best to stop me.
But I was determined to go through and I got through.
When I got to the top of the stairs the security stopped me and said, you cannot
get in this way.
I said, I am a member of the house, stand back, I am going into this session.
And so eventually I got round to the chamber.
The Pope of course came in.
I stayed outside while he came in because I was not going to either sit and be lost
in the crowd that were standing and I certainly was not going to stand like Mr.
Taylor and clap my hands like Mr. Taylor and receive him as a Christian because the
Pope to me is the Antichrist, the man of sin and the son of perdition.
Lord Plum, I stood outside the chamber.
Lord Plum then gave his eulogy about the Pope and a great welcome.
And then the Pope stood to speak and I said, it is now my opportunity.
Now on my left hand side in the European Parliament there sits the representative
of the Basque terrorist movement.
And on the other side of me there sits a Calvinist from Holland.
So the Calvinist from Holland, he would not come in or he would not stand
with me.
The Basque terrorist, he would not come in for he evidently does not like the Pope
either.
So I realized that I was given an opportunity to block the way to anybody
that was attacking me.
So I took their chairs and I pulled them out from under their desks and I built
with their chairs on my own a nice semicircle where I could stand.
One of the officials caught on what I was doing and he tried to shift them.
I said, do not you put your hands on those chairs, just you leave them.
So that gave me a little bit of leeway.
I wondered what I should say and I was led of the Lord just to repeat the testimony
of Archbishop Cranmer.
Before Cranmer was pulled from the platform in Oxford and dragged down to the
spot where Latimer and Ridley also were burned, he said, I refuse the Pope as
Christ's enemy and antichrist with all his doctrine.
So I stood there and quoted those great words of Cranmer.
I refuse you as Christ's enemy and antichrist with all your false doctrine.
I have read in the book of the Revelation the power of the word of testimony.
But I never realized what power was in a martyr's testimony.
For if I had brought a ton of explosives and let them off in that assembly,
it could not have had a greater effect.
My, that assembly erupted and the books started to fly and the punches started to
be thrown and the kicking started.
But I held my place and maintained my testimony.
There is no difference between Europe today and Europe in Reformation times.
I read again the story of Luther this afternoon at the Diet of Worms.
Who presided over the Diet of Worms?
The Emperor Charles, head of the Holy Roman Empire.
Who was he?
He was a Habsburg.
It is interesting to note that one of the men that was attacking me is the last of
the Habsburgs.
Otto Habsburg, the pretender to the crown of Austria and Hungary.
And there he was.
I said, the Habsburgs are still lusting for Protestant blood.
They are still the same as they were in the days of Luther.
The members of the Roman Catholic party of Mr. Le Pen, of which John Taylor is a
member.
They were around me, battering away at me as hard as they could.
I have some little experience of protests.
And I know if you go to protest and you are one poster, it is not any good.
Because of the tear it down, your protest is over.
So I filled my pockets with posters.
The little girl in the RTE said I was like a conjurer.
From every pocket I was bringing posters.
And when one disappeared, a second one took its place.
When the second one disappeared, a third one took its place.
And with some exaggeration, she said I had posters in every pocket.
Well, I did not have them in every pocket.
I had them in one pocket.
For I knew if I had them in their side pockets, they would tear them.
So I had them buttoned here inside.
And I had them folded in such a way that they opened up almost simultaneously when
I got them out of the pocket.
And got them up.
Eventually, I was hauled out.
The security men had allowed a vicious attack on a member of the House.
A violation of all the laws of the Parliament.
And yet, the President never once rebuked anybody who did the throwing of books,
or the beating of this preacher, this member, or the attack upon me
physically.
All he did was attack me for what I said.
The security men, when they got out, then attacked the press.
And the BBC man got his equipment interfered with.
One photographer almost got his camera smashed.
They pulled it from him.
There seemed to be a concerted effort that my story would not be told.
But I must say to you tonight that in spite of the local press and the English
press taking such a vicious stand against me in many of their articles, that did not
happen on the continent.
My full appearance on Monday and everything I said that I have just read to
you was carried in full on French television and translated faithfully.
So much so that a leading Protestant in Strasbourg rang me on Tuesday morning.
He said, I am a Protestant.
I have been contending for Protestantism in this city for a long time.
And he said last night I was thrilled Mr. Paisley on my television to hear your
faithful testimony against the Pope.
It has put heart and courage into the Protestants of Strasbourg.
We thank God for that testimony.
And across the world the banner, the poster was on the front page of every
important national daily throughout the world.
Our brother Dr. Leuthold was traveling up from Jamaica.
He had been down in the Caribbean in meetings and he was telling me on the
phone the other day, he said that morning when I opened the paper there you were
right on the front page with your banner.
And he said the message was straight and clear and plain.
The amazing thing is that the local press, for some reason or other, they did not
want the message to get out.
I issued a full statement at the end of the protest.
I pointed out that the IRA hunger strikers had been tried and found guilty of
multiple terrorist murders, had a special emissary from the Pope arrived with golden
crucifixes in order to comfort them.
And that Mrs. Jures, the mother of Francis Jures, one of the murderers, stated that
her son was dying in confidence and peace because the Holy Father had sent this
tangible token of His support for the stand her son and his colleagues had
taken.
British press ignored that, but the world press did not.
And the International Herald, which is an American-based international paper
produced across the world, my statement of that matter was corried in full.
The people realized that the Pope was saying one thing in Europe, but over here
he was saying a different thing.
Saying in Europe he is against terrorists and then he is sending golden crucifixes
to them when they are convicted of murder.
In this statement I pointed out that the claims of the Pope are totally contrary to
Holy Scripture.
And he himself is prophesied of in the Bible as the Antichrist.
All the historic Reformation creeds spell this out in the plainest possible
language.
He takes the title Holy Father, thus intruding himself into the office of
God the Father.
The only person in Scripture entitled to be called Holy Father is God the Father.
He intrudes himself into the office of Christ claiming he is the sole
representative of Christ on earth and that there is no salvation for any individual
on earth except in submission to him.
He intrudes himself into the office of the Holy Spirit who alone is the Vicar of
Christ on earth.
The Pope is a usurper, an imposter, and a liar.
And in the name of the only true and living God I raise my voice against him,
branding him as the Antichrist.
These are the matters that are totally concealed by our own press at home and by
the British press.
I am not concerned about attacks made upon my person.
I am not concerned about what they say about me.
But I must say I am concerned about what the Pope says about the Son of God and
what he says he is when he is not.
These things happen unto us for the furtherance of the Gospel.
The little book that I wrote on my holiday, this phrasing, was a timely
publication.
I think one of the best fruits of this protest has been the discussion I had with
John Bach on Thursday in Talkback program.
By the way, the recording studio has copies of that on tape.
And if you want to get a copy of that discussion, you can get it on tape tonight
before you leave the service.
If the Lord ever helped a preacher, the Lord helped me on Thursday morning.
And I want to say that that message has been the means of opening many,
many people's eyes to what this controversy is about.
In fact, I had a member of this church who is in the teaching profession,
and he told us the interesting story about a teaching colleague of John Bach's in the
University of Ulster, in Coleraine.
And this priest was asked, well, did you hear Bach and Paisley on the
Talkback?
He said, I did.
He said, what did you think of it?
Oh, well, he said he and Paisley thrashed him.
And he said it was so interesting, I recorded it.
And he says, I'm going into my class now, and we're going to play it and listen to
it again.
I trust some seed of gospel truth will get into that priest's heart.
And I trust he will be led out of darkness into light, and from the power of sin and
Satan unto God.
Our friend Franco from Italy, who we haven't heard from for some time because
of the religious persecution he has been suffering, rang my wife and said 50
ex-priests and himself were together having some study and prayer.
And my message came through on Italian television.
And he said we all fell to our knees and gave the Lord thanks.
And he said every week now our houses are attacked, the windows are smashed,
and we're under supreme and terrible persecution.
And he said how happy we were to see a brother standing up and preaching against
potpourri the way it ought to be preached against.
I believe that this matter will happen for the furtherance of the gospel.
Let us pray that it will.
And I trust that those who have been deceived by ecumenism and Romanism,
and those that still flirt in membership with churches within the World Council of
Churches, and the British Council of Churches and the ecumenical movement,
will now at long last take a stand for truth and for righteousness and for
biblical freedom.
This is the hour for the people of God to take a stand in His name.
I'd like to finish this message with the words of C.
H.
Spurgeon.
He said it is the bounden duty of every Christian to pray against Antichrist.
And as to what Antichrist is, no sane man ought to raise a question.
If it be not the potpourri in the Church of Rome, there is nothing in the world
that can be called by that name.
If there were to be issued a hue and a cry for Antichrist, we would certainly take up
this church on suspicion.
And it would certainly not be let loose again, for it so exactly answers the
description.
Potpourri is country to Christ's gospel, and is the Antichrist, and we ought to
pray against it.
It should be the daily prayer of every believer that Antichrist might be hurled
like a millstone into the flood.
And Antichrist wounds Christ because it robs Christ of His glory.
It puts sacramental efficacy in the place of His atonement, and lifts a piece of
bread into the place of the Savior, and a few drops of water into the place of
the Holy Ghost, and puts a mere fallible man like ourselves up as a vicar of Christ
on earth.
If we pray against it, because it is against Christ, we shall love the persons,
though we hate their errors.
We shall love their souls, though we loathe and detest their dogmas.
And so the breath of our prayers will be sweetened, because we turn our faces
toward Christ when we pray.
I trust that every one of us will so order our prayers.
And if there be a Protestant in this house, unconverted, let me say to you in
love, but with the strength of God behind me, it will be more tolerable in the day
of judgment for a benighted, superstitious, priest-ridden Romanist than
for you.
You have the Bible in your hand.
Christ is at your side tonight.
You have refused Him and turned your back on Him.
Oh, my dear Protestant hearer tonight, turn to Christ.
Receive Him this night as your Savior.
Be born again of the Holy Spirit.
And if there be some Roman Catholic with us tonight, we are glad you have come.
To hear the truth of the gospel.
And I implore you to turn away from your church.
I don't ask you to turn to Protestantism.
I ask you to turn to Jesus.
He alone can save your soul.
I am not going to heaven because I am a Protestant.
I am going to heaven because I am saved by the grace of God.
And it is because I am saved by the grace of God that I protest the great truths of
the Bible.
And protest against all errors that are contrary to those truths.
Neither is there salvation in any other.
There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
Be saved this night in Jesus' name.
May it be so.
Let's bow our heads.
I felt very nervous to come here tonight just to do this.
And then I took courage just in thinking this.
How did our minister feel when he was amongst the enemies of the gospel?
The enemies of Christ at Strasbourg this week.
And you know just from the session and the congregation of this church, we would like
to present this little memento to Dr. Paisley for his stand this past week
against the Roman Antichrist and earnestly contending for the faith.
We do pray that the Lord will continue to bless him and strengthen him and give him
grace in these days when so much of so-called Christendom is for the Church of
Rome.
We thank God for our own minister who stands for the gospel and the things of
God.
And we do pray that the Lord will continue to strengthen him and bless him and do him
good in these days.
Dr. Paisley.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Am I supposed to open this, Morris?
Thank you very much, Morris.
I hope you don't think I need pills.
Thank you very much, Morris.
I really appreciate that.
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And remember that John Calvin, in defending the Reformation's regulative
principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship,
commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came
into my heart, from his commentary on Jeremiah 731, writes, God here cuts off
from men every occasion for making evasions, since he condemns by this one
phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised.
There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions, than that they are
not commanded by God.
For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies,
and attend not to his commands, they pervert true religion.
And if this principle was adopted by the Papists, all those fictitious modes of
worship, in which they absurdly exercise themselves, would fall to the ground.
It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties
towards God, by performing their own superstitions.
There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly
appears.
Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God,
except by obeying his word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error.
The prophet's words then are very important, when he says, that God had
commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind.
As though he had said, that men assume too much wisdom, when they devise what he
never required, nay, what he never knew.