What Are The 'Sure Mercies of David?'

Tom:

This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment, we are in the Book of Acts Chapter 13.Dave, just to recaptures some of this for, maybe some new listeners or maybe sometimes just for us.We can’t remember what we did last week.But anyway, the apostle Paul is on his first missionary journey, and at this point he is preaching to the Jews in the synagogue of Antioch, which is in Pisidia, as opposed to the Antioch, I guess it would be Syria.Although Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles the scriptures tell us that the gospel is to the Jew first, and then also to the Greeks.Paul was declaring that Jesus is God’s anointed one or Messiah that the scriptures promised, and Paul is right here.Picking up with Verse 34, Paul is relating what Jesus experienced with what was prophesied in the scriptures.So I will pick up with Verse 34:“And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David.Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”There’s a prophecy, Dave, an important one.

Dave:

Tom, I will never forget reading that statement by a young mother---I think she had two children that she left behind---she was being burned at the stake under Bloody Mary in England by the Catholic church because she would not accept transubstantiation.That is, she said this little wafer, though the priest says his hocus pocus over it---what’s the Latin for that, Tom?

Tom:

Hacas Corpos.Now Dave, that’s almost fifty years removed from my Latin, so forgive me, but it really it is the incantation basically, that the priest says when he is attempting to transubstantiate, change a piece of bread into the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ under the appearance of a piece of bread or bread and wine.

Dave:

And she would not accept that.She said, That’s still bread.Given an analysis, I mean, it tastes like it, it looks like it, everything about it, it is bread, it’s the substance of bread and you have not changed it into the body of Christ.I believe in Christ and receive him into my heart---I don’t ingest him into my stomach.And then to substantiate what she said, she quoted this scripture from the Psalms, and from here.The body of Jesus did not suffer corruption in the grave.

Tom:

On the other hand, as an altar boy I have witnessed them cleaning out the tabernacle in which the pieces of bread are held for, sometimes weeks, in which they have become moldy and corrupted.So how do you square that?

Dave:

This is exactly what she said.She said that could not be the body of Jesus, because you set it around for a little while, it will breed worms or mold and the body of Jesus did not corrupt.Okay, so here we have Jesus in the grave three days and three nights, his body did not corrupt, and this was called the sure mercies of David.Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption.You will not leave my soul in Hades, neither will you suffer your Holy One to see corruption.This is quoted from the Psalms.So Tom, I can never forget that testimony, they burned her at the stake in spite of that.Logic meant nothing, scripture meant nothing, it was the tradition of the church.Furthermore Tom, as you know, and I don’t want to get off on, they would say I am a Catholic basher.No, I am not, but if you want to talk about bashing, the Council of Trent bashes us, damns us to hell more than a hundred times for believing what we believe, right?

Tom:

Us being evangelicals for what we believe, but it’s really related to those who were Catholics and now have rejected that to turn to what the Bible says.That’s through the anathema there again.

Dave:

Well, but Tom, it does say, Whosoever, let him be anathema.So, you believe that this is not the literal body and blood of Jesus, anathema to you!

Tom:

Well Dave, let me answer that.You know, many Catholics that I know say, oh, we don’t buy that, we don’t believe it.Well, there’s a problem there because when they go up to the communion rail and the priest is holding out the wafer, the host, the piece of bread, the priest says:The body and blood of Jesus.You have to say, Amen, or agree with that, and if you don’t agree with it and you’re still taking it anyway, what kind of hypocrisy is that?

Dave:

There is an anathema if you don’t believe these things, okay, so there’s an anathema upon us.But anyway, Tom, this is what the Bible says, and it’s very, very important.Can I just elaborate just a little bit more, we have a few minutes?

Tom:

Sure.

Dave:

If we went to Hebrews Chapter 9, it tells us that Christ once in the end of the age he has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.You go down to Verses 27 and 28, it says, For as it is appointed unto man once to die, and after this, the judgment.So, Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.But the mass is called, the sacrifice of the mass.And in one of the anathema’s in Council of Trent, more than a hundred anathema’s it says, and whoever says that this sacrifice of the mass, the taking of this bread and this wine is merely a commemoration of an event that was completed, that happened.

Tom:

Which is what the Bible teaches.

Dave:

Exactly, nineteen hundred years ago, and dares to deny that this is an ongoing propitiatory sacrifice of Christ to be offered for the sins of the living and the dead, let him be a-n-a-t-h-e-m-a!Well, I say that this is what the Bible says, you just said it, it’s a remembrance, it is not a sacrifice, it says that Christ is not being offered again.As it is appointed unto man once to die, Christ was once offered.Now, if the Catholic church, you know, ever backed away from that, if a billion Catholics ever say the truth of the Bible, the Catholic church would be out of business.What are you going to do with this priesthood, and so forth?So, the next chapter, chapter 10, says---Well, you know, the Old Testament sacrifices, they had to be offered over and over and over, and the writer, I think it was Paul, but the writer says logically and biblically that proves that they could never take away sin.Those sacrifices would never do the job, otherwise why would you have to do it again and again and again?But this man, Christ, in contrast, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High.Okay, and He has forever perfected those by one sacrifice, those who believe in him.And then, Verse 18 says, Therefore, there is no more sacrifice for sin.The Catholic church has a sacrifice for sin.Sorry, Tom, but it’s really important.So Tom, what is the point of all of this?If you don’t believe that Christ finished the work, that one sacrifice was sufficient, you are denying what the Bible says, and you are not saved.And this mass, this sacrifice of the mass, as you just said, is a denial of what the Bible teaches, and you’re not saved, you’re lost!

Tom:

But Dave, here is more confusion for Catholics along that line.On the one hand, we were taught that this was not a sacrifice, it was a representation of what He did.On the other hand, Catholic documents, I’m not sure if it’s the Vatican 2, or the Catholic catechism, but it uses the term, immolated.

Dave:

Right.

Tom:

Immolated, look it up in any dictionary, it means to kill on an altar as a sacrifice.

Dave:

That’s in Vatican 2, but I believe it is also in the catechism.