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...
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.
But 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.
But 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 succor 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 pre-say 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 stood 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 the people that
put forward propositions, you are not coming to the argument.
Well, let me come then to what Mr. Bach said.
He said he didn't like what was said that the Pope invented sin.
But it is a fact.
Has Mr. Bach 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 down thyself to them nor serve them.
So when this book says the Pope invented sin, and Wiley 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.
Now there is a big difference between defining something and inventing it.
No, no.
To call something a sin that is not a sin is inventing a sin.
But what about the Pope being the incarnation of sin?
Or 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 100 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 truth, 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.
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 cows 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 explanation.
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 it.
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?
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 if they expound Daniel, and they take this view that
I am 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 is going to happen in the future, that is one of the tests, if
it is the word of God.
God knows what is going to happen in the future.
I don't think that John should just write everybody off.
Neither should he.
I am not prepared to write anybody off.
I am prepared to say I have established an historic view, and I am not seeking to defend it.
Now let me take, if I may, another biblical view, because it is 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 is 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 is 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 Ball 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 did 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 as 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, is he prepared 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 of the
life, outside me there is no salvation for you.
That man is acting in the way that the Bible says he will 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 were 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 are to be upheld, that he is Christ on earth.
I saw them scattering 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 plain teachings.
And I have said nothing that is contrary to what has been said by others.
I want to bring in John Barclay.
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?
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, that
they are drugged by the satanic poison of Rome.
Even Billy Grahams 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...
Listen, it's a strange thing you don't like what the scriptures say.
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 been 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 of the coming man of sin as he was in the days of Paul.
Let no man deceive your 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 is the dynasty.
The Cleome.
I am the Christ.
That is the individual Cleome of each possessor of the people Tyre and the people 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 is why they gave me this pillbox tonight.
My wife said to me, you will never make Strasbourg if you are in the state of health you are in
today.
I said, dear, if I have to swim to Strasbourg, I am 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, was
unable to go with me to Strasbourg.
The Reverend David McElveen, a brother beloved, took his place.
I am 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 papacy, 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 is also a well-known drinker.
They say in the Parliament he smells like a brewery from eight o'clock in the morning.
He is 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 am reading from the official report, the Hansard report of the European Assembly or Parliament.
Mr. President, as you know, tomorrow we have the great honor 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 protest.
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 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 placed 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.
What receipt taken?
I said, don't 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 shouldn't 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 couldn't 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 didn't 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 wasn't going to either sit and be lost in the crowd that
were standing, and I certainly wasn't 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's 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 wouldn't come in, or he wouldn't stand with me.
The Basque terrorist, he wouldn't come in, for he evidently doesn't 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
and 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, don't 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 off 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 couldn't 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 Bath 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 Bath's in the University of Ulster, in
Coleraine.
And this priest was asked, well, did you hear Bath and Paisley on the Talkback?
He said, I did.
He said, what did you think of it?
Oh, well, he said Ian 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 sin 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.
It 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.
So 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.
Am I supposed to open this, Morris?
Yes, you can.
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.