Glen Berry

Making Merchandise of the “Souls of Men”?

THE WORD OF GOD is full of places that would make one TREMBLE! “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils ALSO believe, AND TREMBLE.  (James 2:19)

But many claim to believe but don’t even tremble at God’s Word. Psalm 119:120 says, “My flesh trembleth for fear of Thee; and I am afraid of Thy judgments.”

How many have that kind of “fear of Go” today?  Yet Isaiah the prophet is moved by God  to say, “. . .  To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, AND TREMBLETH at My word.” (Isaiah 66:2)

Then in Psalm 2:11 we are told, “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.”

Just one place that should cause “trembling” is where the Lord Jesus at the LAST DAY say of even some who have cast out devils, preached in His name, and lay credit to many wonderful works, “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: DEPART from Me, ye that work iniquity.” (See Matt.7:21-23.)

We know that some preach for the motive of obtaining wealth (“filthy lucre). Or power and popular influence and  a life of ease. And some knowingly or unknowingly deceive their hearers with false doctrine and a false gospel. Some even would  claim to know the truth but  are afraid to declare it for they might “lost their church,” meaning they don’t want to “rock the boat for fear they might lose their positions and even their livelihood. But if you WITHHOLD THE TRUTH, and proclaim a popular “Jesus” who is NOT the real Jesus of the Bible, you are MISLEADING AND DECEIVING SOULS!  What can be more of a “work of iniquity” than that.  We know this happens, because some few have even repented of doing this very thing and have begun preaching the       truth of the sovereign God as He Himself declares Himself to be, not the powerless, weak God that is dependent on MAN for His success.

And we see many popular preaching becoming millionaires with a popular false gospel that exalts the natural ability of man, even claiming to make the will of man sovereign over God. But, “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! For  so did their fathers to the false prophets.” (Thus says Jesus in Luke 6:25.)

When you  examine the message of the most popular preacher in this day, you will find truth being withheld even if they know it, and God’s truth being perverted even if not known.

THAT BRINGS ME TO ANOTHER POINT OF  TREMBLING:

And that is the matter of making merchandise of the  souls of men! In my younger years I so often wondered how in the world you could make merchandise with the souls of men. I now don’t claim to have all the answers but I  do know more than I did.  I used to think, when I heard of people making money off of the abortion industry, and later even selling baby parts for money, that maybe this was “making merchandise of the souls of men. And perhaps it could be, depending on the de finition you put on “soul.” It is certainly a most hideous crime and abomination before God, one that will reap His wrathful judgment.

But the making merchandise of the souls of men is far more common and extensive than the abortion industry, or even that slave industry, though all  that can be included.

Now we are speaking of SOULS. Ah, that is the field where preachers work! They are dealing with SOULS. What if they become millionaires by withholding TRUTH from those souls,  so those very souls will keep filling their coffers or their pocketbooks? That is  something you should think seriously about.

It is a well-known fact that the natural mind will soon accept  a lie then  the truth, even when he PAYS someone  to lie to him.

Remember, we are speaking of the matter of trembling at His word, and part of that very word says: (Oh, listen!)

“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there SHALL BE false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And MANY shall follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the WAY OF TRUTH  shall be evil spoken of. And THROUGH COVETEOUSNESS shall they with feigned {false} words MAKE MERCHANDISE OF YOU: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.” (2 Peter 2:1-3)

The reader, whether a preacher or not, needs to compare this to Matthew already quoted on page 3. It seems plain that both passages are speaking of the same class of people. And it is a matter of deceiving souls with a false message, or whatever part may have SOME truth in it, it does not present the real Jesus and it does so for reason of  covetousness, to gain much wealth to themselves. In other words, “making merchandise” of the souls of men!

If you preach other than the historic and true Gospel of God’s sovereign grace, but a popularized so-called gospel, are you trembling yet?  Or will you ever?

BUT  THAT IS NOT ALL!

I like to take every opportunity I can to show  forth the Triune God, the full deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one and only Savior. It says in the very first verse of the book of Revelation that it is “the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants.” Some might say this means “given to John, and that is O. K. if it does, for the book was given to John. But it seems that “God          gave unto  him,” refers back  to the immediate antecedent which is “Jesus Christ.” If  so, then you have God the Father giving the message to God  the Son to show His servants, to be penned down by His servant  John. But in any case, the book is the Revelation of Jesus Christ. So He declares Himself to be the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, He was IS and Who WAS, and WHICH IS  TO  COME, even the beginning and the ending. All this is  coinciding and  teaching the  truth of the triunity of God, our only Savior, the Creator.

But to get back to the making of merchandise of the “souls of men,” look at Revelation 17. This is speaking of “the great whore,” the  woman arrayed in purple and scarlet, “decked with gold and precious  stones and pearls, having as golden cup in her hands full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON, THE GREAT,  the mother of harlots AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the BLOOD OF THE SAINTS,  and with the BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered. . . .”

That carries us  through Revelation 17:6. And then in verse 9 we see: “And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, ON WHICH THE WOMAN SITTETH.”

I challenge you to show me any other geographical location on earth that this could apply to but  to the seven hills on which THE VATICAN sits, RULLING OVER approximately 100 million souls over the world. We are talking about the historically FALSE church known as the Roman Catholic Church, ruling from the Vatican. And the Pope known as the Vicar of Christ, translate that title from the Greek and it translates:

“ANTICHRIST.”

The last verse of chapter 17 says, “And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” Make even a surface study of church history and the history of the Roman Catholic Church and it  fits what is sitting on seven hills also.

With the Vatican being over approximately 100 million souls, at one time in history, not to speak of all that have been trapped there for many centuries, the cumulative multitudes, we would expect some of God’s elect to be trapped there in ignorance and bondage Why do they not read their own church history? This year marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, but many modern church that have been historically Protestant, are now bowing and returning to  Rome, including many in the Lutheran Church. Remember that the Lutheran church sprang from Martin Luther protesting and leaving the Roman Catholic Church. What would he think of such a betrayal of what he stood for, and what costs many saints their lives as martyrs? “The blood of the saints at the hands of the false church, the woman on the beast. Note Revelation 18:3-5:

“For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, COME OUT OF HER, my people, that ye be not partaker of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath  remembered her iniquities.”

Skipping on to verses 9 through 13: And the kings of the earth who have committed fornication and live deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament  for her, when they shall see the  smoke of burning, standing afar off  for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious  stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and  silk, and scarlet . . . . And wheat, and beasts, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, AND SOULS OF MEN.”

One book of history of the Roman Catholic Church, “A Woman Rides the Beast,” has over 500 pages. Any 50 pages of even this one book SHOULD make a member of that false church think.  On page 88, we read:

CHECK YOUR MIND AT THE DOOR

The pope, and therefore the Church through him as its head,  both claim to be infallible. Ordinary Catholics must not question anything the pope or Church have to  say concerning faith and morals. The councils and catechisms have for centuries declared the need fopr  such  total submission and still insist upon it today. The Catholic World reminded all Roman Catholics in the  United States at the time of the First Vatican Council: “Each individual must receive the faith and law from the Church . . . with unquestioning submission and obedience of the intellect and the will. . . . We have no right to  ask reasons of the Church, any more than of  Almighty God.

. . . We are to take with unquestioning docility whatever instructions the Church gives us.”

Here we have as clear a denial of individual moral responsibility as can be found in any cult.  The same requirement of unthinking submission is demanded in Vatican II. . . .They can’t even study the Bible for themselves because only the Magisterium can interpret it. Obviously, this prohibition against freedom of conscience is related to the total expression of basic rights for all mankind everywhere, which is the unchanging goal of Roman Catholicism.+

To understand Romlan Catholicism one must ignore the public posturing and public-relations-motivated profile offered by the Catholic Church. The face that Rome shows in the world varies from country  to  country depending upon the control it has and what it can effect. Instead,  we must look at Catholicism’s official doctrines, which never change. . . . The council of Trent denounced the Reformation and damned evangelicals’ beliefs with more than 100 anathemas. All of these condemnations of the gospel of God’s grace are endorsed and reaffirmed by Vatican II. . . .

While many Catholics rebel against certain Church doctrines, they remain nominally attached to the Church, though they may only attend on Christmas or Easter. When it comes, however, to their hope of someday being released from purgatory and getting to heaven, no Catholic can question the Church or he would cease to  be under its protection and thus damned. . . .

Remember that Hitler and Mussolini remained Catholics to the end and were never excommunicated from  the Church. So did thousands of the worst Nazi war criminals, whom the Vatican smuggled out of Europe into safe havens in South America. Such archcriminals are honored with Catholic funerals and, like Mafia members, die with the assurance that their Church will continue to say Masses in order to get them out of purgatory and eventually into heaven. It is an insurance policy that very few allow to lapse completely. (End of quote.)

The subject is far too vast to do more in such a small booklet by drop a hint to the wise who will go on their own search. But notice one more think about “purgatory” and the selling of Indulgences, the paying for prayers to get souls out of purgatory. If this is not making merchandise of the souls of men, I don’t know what would better qualify!

But lest you think to  go free because you may not be a Catholic, note that the system of works taught by the Roman Church is an Arminian, works system.  Oh, it is more highly engineered and consistent than your rank and file Baptist church,  for example, but it still has  adopted the Arminian works’ system that preaches another way of salvation and another Jesus than the one found throughout the Bible. It is  still a gospel that deceives souls!

And remember, that the book of Revelation, quoted here regarding making merchandise of the souls of men, is what the Lord Jesus Himself says about it,  for the  Book is revelation about, of, and by Him.  So if YOU are in a church that preaching the Arminian gospel, just know you are endorsing the same basic system of salvation taught by the Catholics. No wonder Christ says, COME OUT!

---

Some Quotes . . .

Examine your own church’s doctrines and see how close they are to the Catholic in essence and in fundamentals, and in the misleading of souls.

“The Roman Catholic Church is as counterfeit . . . of the worst and most diabolical kind . . . a form of the antichrist . . . to be dejected and denounced.”

—D. Martin Lloyd-Jones

“The burning of the Marian martyrs is an act that the Church of Rome has never repudiated . . . Never has she repented of her treatment of the Vaudois and the Albigenses. . . . of the wholesale murders of the Spanish Inquisition . . . of the burning of the English Reformers.

 

“We should take note of that fact and let it sink down in our minds. Rome never changes.”

—Anglican Bishop J. C. Ryle, 1885

“It is the office of the Papacy to tread under foot kings and emperors.”

—J. H.  Ignaz von Dollinger

By their fruits ye shall know  them:

“It’s  time for Protestants to go to the shepherd [the pope] and say, ‘What  do we have  to do to come home?’—Robert Schuller

The Bloodiest Pontiff   [Compare Rev. 17-18.—g/b]

Of Innocent III (1198-1216), whom he says “encompassed Christendom with terror . . .  For close to twenty years,: de Rosa writes: “He crowned and deposed  sovereigns, put nations under interdict, virtually created the Papal States across central Italy from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. He had not  lost a single  battle. In pursuit of his aims, he shed more blood than any other pontiff.”—p. 234, “The Woman Rides the Beast”