Broadcast Transcript Annotated with Links to Key Words and Terms

Radio New Jerusalem Presents: The Story

Program 1: The Story Behind ‘The Story’

Segment 1: The Story is About Jesus

What you are about to hear is the story that both underlies and summarizes what you will hear on this program, which I’ve decided to simply call “The Story.” 

I’m going to throw a lot of information at you tonight.  We’ll go into these topics and more in greater detail on future broadcasts.  My purpose tonight is to set the tone for what will follow.  At radionewjerusalem.com I’ve provided program notes that include a transcript of tonight’s broadcast with lots of links to keywords, as well as references to some of the more arcane and controversial topics I’ll touch on.  You’ll find I don’t steer away from controversy, and I also back up what I tell you.  That being said, what you ultimately believe is up to you, and it’s your responsibility to believe responsibly.  Check things out for yourself; do your own research; make up your own mind.  The Story is true as I know it, but I’m only human, and you have the right to know it and learn it for yourself.  I encourage this and highly recommend it.  While The Story is filtered through my life experience, The Story isn’t about me.  However, I do feel that for me to tell it correctly, and for you to receive it as I would like you to, you need to know a little about who I am.  We’ll start there in a little while. 

I’m telling you The Story now because as the Christian worldview stands condemned in the global marketplace of ideas, so The Story stands condemned with it. If the time has come for us to be put on trial for our faith, then let The Story stand as my testimony.  This is the way I see it:

 As America is slowly but surely absorbed into the Great Red Dragon of the rising Marxist-socialist beast state, describing reality in the classic terms of the Book of Revelation like this meets resistance at many different levels.  The Story speaks to all times and spans the ages.  When it speaks to our time, it speaks like this.  There are a lot of people who aren’t comfortable with that, and many Christians who don’t want to believe it.  And in these last days in which the prophecies of the Bible are fulfilled right before us in astonishing detail, we hear no prophecy concerning right things coming from the churches, but only the smooth things and deceits spoken of by the Prophet Isaiah.  And there’s another prophecy fulfilled.  By observing and understanding how accurately The Story was told in the past, we will understand what it has to say to us in this present day, and what it points to in the future: the return of Jesus Christ to Earth. 

Our earthly chickens are coming home to roost.  The repercussions of a human poisoned planet, with a manipulated and rapidly failing biosphere, rushing to form a perfect storm with an impending global economic collapse, an approaching world war, and widespread social destruction are both daunting and fast upon us.  The technology that we were assured would be here to save us is, instead, developing into an artificial intelligence that will soon rule over us.  And, as if that isn’t enough, mad scientists tinker with the dissolution of reality as we know it, and toy with opening the very gates of hell upon the earth.  All of this brings the rapidly rising and deadly storm of the Revelation Apocalypse into focus upon the near horizon. 

While this is happening, the major churches have joined together with the globalists in denying this in favor of the false vision of a brave new world in which the technology that is destroying us will save the day and solve all our problems.  This adds a sense of urgency to the telling of The Story.  The Story is prophetic, and the prophecy is apocalyptic.    

The Story, then, is about Jesus.  And in this world in which we are bombarded by a constant stream of disinformation, misinformation,misrepresentations, misconceptions, misperceptions, propaganda and just plain outright lies, the True Story of Who Jesus is, and what He has done for us, has nearly become lost.  What we will find is that the message He brought to us comes from a reality beyond our own, and more than any one single person before or since, He spoke the truth.  He did so openly and in public, and Who He was and what He did was witnessed and reliably recorded by men who were willing to do die for this Truth rather than say it wasn’t so.  This played out in a real, historical setting, and it’s been accurately preserved for us in Scripture and Christian Tradition.  It represents a deeper Truth that transcends history and science. 

Countless individuals have been put to death for proclaiming the Truth of Jesus, and the churches, and many of those few who still do speak of Christ publicly, present another Jesus and a different gospel, as warned of by St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:4. This is reason enough for individual Christians to speak up and speak out rather than bear with this any longer.  It is to the martyrs of Jesus past, present and future that this work is dedicated.  Should this road also be ours, we should know and tell The Story with the truth and conviction necessary to seal our own fate and so inspire those who may come after us.  This is how The Story has made its way to us.  It is written in the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.    

It was this same Jesus, at the Cross, who died to atone for our sins and the sin of our original human ancestors, which were also committed in a real, historical setting.   He proclaimed that His kingdom is not of this world, and it was the world and its political processes and systems, at the urging of a corrupt religious establishment, that condemned Him to death and executed Him.  Such godless beast governments and anti-Christ harlot religious institutions as those we encounter in the New Testament, and in our own day, stand forever condemned by the Cross.  And the fulfillment of the words of the Holy Prophets, handed down to us from millennia past, and culminated in the Book of Revelation, is that these corrupt governments and religious institutions will have it done unto them as they have so done unto others, Our Lord in particular.  This will take place in a real, historical setting, and it will take place sooner rather than later.  Indeed, as The Story unfolds, we’ll see that this day of reckoning now draws near, and beyond it the valiant and victorious return of our Crucified and Risen Lord in all His Glory. 

For now, The Story is still unfolding, and the Gospel still needs to be proclaimed.  The Gospel message that His kingdom is not of this world, and that to be saved from the corruption of this world we must let go of everything and follow Him, is as radical and transforming today as it was 2000 years ago.  Those Who hear His voice are those who belong to Him.  It’s for you He has come.  It’s to you and for you The Story is told.  And my prayer for you is that in hearing His voice speak to you, you may know that your individual story is a part of this, His larger story.  And, further, that in realizing this, you will pose the question that has echoed down through the ages, since the anguish of that first moment outside the gates of Eden, “What must I do to be saved?”

Musical Interlude  

Segment 2: God Saves Whom He Will

As a young man, I went through college on a pre-ministry program with the Presbyterian Church.  During this time, I studied theology and New Testament, and I concentrated particularly hard on my favorite area of study, ancient Near Eastern history and the Old Testament.  I was a very good student.  Maybe too good.  I immersed myself and believed so deeply in the validity of these academic subjects, that when my studies threatened my Christian faith, my faith folded.  And in the days immediately after I graduated in the spring of 1977, it unraveled like the proverbial cheap sweater.  I became spiritually lost and found myself in a profound existential crisis.  And, because I studied theology, I even knew what to call it. 

So I sought spiritual reality in all the wrong places, most notably at an old, abandoned farmhouse, and ended up tormented by a demonic entity bent on displacing my soul and owning it – owning me. Like a lot of others, I learned the hard way and too late – these things are real.  By the grace of God, one of my friends had seen exorcisms done among the Jesus People in California back in the late ‘60’s.  He intervened at this point, and at the moment he asked Jesus to deliver me, and at the moment I gave my life over to Him, I was so delivered and in no uncertain terms.  I discovered first hand that there is nothing more blood curdling than the tormented scream of a demon as it is cast back into hell, and, 42 years later, I remain profoundly changed from this experience.  This is where my story intersects The Story, and it’s the impetus for what you are hearing here.  You can read about all of this in an article on Radio New Jerusalem called “Is Anybody There?”  It’s linked in the Program Notes for this broadcast – which is “Program 1: The Story Behind the Story.”

Like St. Paul, I was knocked down from my intellectual high horse, but when I got up from the ground, my eyes had been opened, not closed.  I arose knowing much of what I’m relating here, and I realized now how much I had allowed myself to be led astray.  From this time forward, I was determined to proclaim the truth of Jesus, and eventually confront my religion professors with this truth within their own academic setting.  When I attended McCormick Seminary that fall, the opportunity to witness for Jesus in this way presented itself unexpectedly, and the result was a collection of essays I call “The Seminary Papers.”  This collection is also on line and linked in the Program Notes for Program 1. 

“The Seminary Papers” promptly ended my church and academic career.  I meant to burn my bridges and so I did.  But in the process of all of this, I realized that you can’t really explain and relate the deeper and more profound truths of Jesus in the monotones and (usually) restrained emotions of an empirical academic presentation.  The saving of the soul is a highly emotional experience, and I don’t know of anyone, myself included, who can speak of it, and witness to Who Jesus is and what He has accomplished, without investing the emotion of the incident in the telling.  Like St. Thomas, at the moment a soul is confronted by the reality of Jesus, and all doubt has been eliminated, all we are capable of is proclaiming in awe: “My Lord and my God!”  And, like Thomas, we are eternally humbled because we, too, have had to see to believe. 

Yet what comes with this new vision, this new way of seeing, is not merely a shaken faith, reclaimed and made strong, but a new and living reality that transcends belief in God to arrive at the direct knowledge of God.  You can’t really add a footnote or explain it in the margins.  It defies human logic and the limitations of scientific method.  It can’t be isolated and studied in a lab.  And, since the experience is initiated from on high, it can’t be duplicated or induced at will in another.  However, the power of the experience can be related in a factual telling of the story of the encounter, and the more the original emotions induced by the events are conveyed within the context of this story, the more power it retains. 

It was through such factual telling and retellings of the occurrences surrounding Jesus that the world first heard the Gospel from the Apostles.  And because the power of the Holy Spirit was strong among them in those days, it quickly spread, enflaming the hearts of men as the fields of the Philistines were set afire by the 300 foxes of Samson. 

The disciples of Jesus, who began as average working men of very ordinary means, gave up all they had to follow the Man they called, “The Master.”  They found themselves profoundly transformed by the experience of the Cross and the Resurrection, and supernaturally strengthened, emboldened, and enlightened by this new manifestation of the Power of God known as the Holy Spirit.  The power of this Spirit, carrying their witness to Christ, flowed out from them to the ends of the known world, and it flowed back to them to form the foundational doctrine upon which the Church was built.  Their miraculous deeds, done in the name of Jesus, by this same Power, and witnessed in public by many, remained legendary down through the ages, and the strength gained in this way through the Power of this Spirit propelled all but St. John the Evangelist to death by martyrdom.  And John, as an old man in exile, would, in an ecstasy powered by this same Spirit, walk with Our Lord once more and be shown the wonders of the end of the age – the age of Revelation that is now reaching its climax.

What has brought us to this, the eve of Earth’s final reckoning?  In the great awakening from the humble but romantic ages of the medieval Christians; in that time when dragons ceased to roam the earth, and heroes like Beowulf no longer slew monsters like Grendel; when chivalry died and knights brave and bold, once invincible with the Cross of Christ upon their shields, slipped defeated and forgotten beneath the sands of history; and when from the wealthy and worldly classes there arose princes of the Church who seized political power from the faithful and the few in Christ – somewhere in all of this the True Faith was lost among the scholars of the Church, and the Power of the Holy Spirit ceased among them.  They turned their backs to God and embraced the ways men. 

Why this is called an Age of Enlightenment or Reason is a good question, when ceasing to command the power of the Holy Spirit hardly seems enlightened, and the denying of Christ in secret hardly reasonable.  The “quest for the historical Jesus,” that soon emerged actually served to remove Our Lord from accepted history, concluding with a condescending academic arrogance that if there ever was such a man as Jesus of Nazareth, he was in no way the mythical person of the Christ. 

In more recent times, the scholars of the so called “Jesus Seminar” took this a step further by analyzing the words of Jesus and voting as to which sayings were authentic and which were forgeries of the Apostles and Early Church Fathers.  Most of Jesus’ words in the Gospels were thus discounted.  What goes unaccounted for is what the motivation might have been for the Apostles and Church Fathers to do this, as they were widely hunted, tortured and violently put to death by both Jew and Pagan for refusing to deny that Jesus was the living Son of God and risen from the dead.  And these scholars, who claim that history is on their side, cannot provide one shred of evidence to the contrary.  There is none.  And, implied in their historical assumptions concerning where these words did come from, is the notion that the ancient Apostles and Church Fathers were as corrupt and void of faith and truth as their modern counterparts.   

It’s much easier to gauge the motivations of such so called scholars, who, in the sensation they create by denying Christ and the Cross, win the accolades of the lost and worldly souls who hate Him.  They encourage the weak and foolish among the Christian faithful to accept such perverted practices as abortion and homosexuality as in line with this new “scientific” Christianity they have invented, and they gain the affirmation and support of unbelieving and evil Church leaders, who openly collude with the modern incarnation of the same world system that crucified Christ.  They’re only too happy to toss their 30 pieces of silver at the feet of these modern betrayers of the faith, who deny the form of Jesus so as to deny the substance of the Cross.  They deny the resurrection by theorizing that wild dogs roaming beneath the Cross ate the body of Jesus – that’s what they think of the Glorified Body of Christ – that all that might remain of Jesus is petrified dog droppings somewhere beneath Calvary’s Hill.  To them, it’s all “symbolic,” and our literal belief “superstition.”

On the surface anyway it seems ironic that it was the rise of science, and particularly the scientific study of history, fostered and nurtured in Church funded universities, that ultimately proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus and the Acts of the Apostles “nonsense” and impossible to accept at face value.  The true religion of the risen Christ eventually came to be regarded as just another primitive superstition, and the more mature “Christian” professors in colleges and seminaries quietly, and with great compassion, confided to their students the terrible truth that Jesus is dead. I heard this myself.  It’s what prompted me to write “The Seminary Papers.”  Earlier, believing this had nearly cost me my soul.

What does this all mean?  It means that there is an undeclared spiritual warfare within the Christian community, with one side holding fast to the ancient faith, founded at the Cross, and the other insisting that the Church must accept the modern, “scientific” worldview, embrace the wonders and marvels of this age, and approve of the sexual sins and abominations that have blinded them to the beauty of the True Faith.  It means that the time of the lukewarm Christian is passing into a time when the hot and the cold are increasingly at each other’s throats.  And as this dissention rages in our midst, a new age of martyrdom is upon us.  In the radical Muslim world, no Christians are “marginalized,” as all are beheaded on an equal basis.  While in the west, our “liberated” Christian brethren join in the outcry and political persecution against believing Christians that is escalating towards violence at an alarming pace. 

To enter into Christ’s kingdom, we must embrace the role of first century Christians again, separated in time by two millennia from the originals, and as fervently not of this world as they.  We must no longer allow world and religious leaders like those who crucified Christ to define us, and we must realize that if His kingdom is not of this world then neither is ours.  Discipleship is not defined by denomination, and the brotherhood of the Cross encompasses all who embrace it.  God saves whom He will.

Musical Interlude

Segment 3: Testimony to the Catholic Faith

Some of you may have figured out by now that I am Catholic.  And, now that I’ve made this confession, it’s my hope that the overall picture I have painted here of the universal faith (that’s what catholic with a small “c” means) convinces those Evangelicals and Christian fundamentalists, as well as any Catholics who may be listening, to refrain from turning off the radio or changing the station, at least until you hear me out. 

As Christians, we no longer have the luxury of despising one another according to differences either real or imagined; we never really did.  If we are truly to embrace the Cross of Christ, then we must accept the deeper truth that, like it or not, those who stream to Calvary’s Hill come from many different directions. 

Protestants who define “Christian” and “Catholic” as mutually exclusive need to come to grips with the reality that when Luther left the Catholic Church, he left behind a vast storehouse of knowledge and spiritual resources.  This is the ancient faith, and it is necessary and vital to our survival as Christian people in a postmodern world.  Faithful Catholics need to educate themselves in the true Catholic Faith so they will know when they are being led astray by those who promote the anti-Christ, New World Order agenda within the Church.  Too many Protestants believe we are somehow saved by the Bible, and too many Catholic believe we are somehow saved by the Church.  Once we come to understand and believe the plainly stated truth, that we are saved by Christ at the Cross, then we can find common ground and establish meaningful communication.  This needs to happen now.           

Prior to the Eastern Schism in 1054 that spawned what would become the Orthodox Churches, and the Protestant Reformation in the 16^th century that separated us even further, the Catholic Church was our common home.  And the deeper Catholic, Universal Faith remains always unassailable and true because it is here that Jesus Christ dwells with us upon the Earth, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.  Do not be deceived when you hear that evil men have enthroned Lucifer within the upper echelons of the Vatican. They have not defeated Jesus but have only set the stage for the Final Battle.  They have placed the Evil One in our midst to draw the War in Heaven to Earth, and when God the Father unleashes the Will of the Son against Lucifer and his world system, he shall be deposed, his power destroyed, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail.  Spoiler alert concerning The Story: we win!

Most people, and most Catholics, are unaware that the Catholic Church is structured like an onion.  It has many layers, beginning with the sin and silliness of the outer layer, which is the mostly political part that the world observes, comments on and criticizes.  It was at this most superficial level that Lucifer was enthroned in 1963.  And anybody who thinks I’m making this up can check the links in the Program Notes.  Or Search “Lucifer Enthroned in the Vatican.”  There are lots of on line sources.  Understandably enough, this level is where the false and phony debate rages about changing the basic teachings of the Church to accommodate the sins and evils of the world.  This is where the clergy sexual abuse scandal both originates and is “covered up” in such a way that the whole world knows about it.  This is the level that has been long infiltrated by freemasons, communists and other enemies of the Church.  It is where the princes of the Church count in their number cardinals, bishops and other high Churchmen who receive sexual and monetary gratification by committing, permitting and promoting the vilest of sins.       

As one moves inward, the more profound aspects of the faith begin to emerge in the art and architecture and in the various material trappings of the Church.  In an illiterate world this is largely how the Word of God was communicated; how The Story was told.  Much of this has been lost due to the mismanagement and malfeasance of a hierarchy bent on destroying the evidence of this rich and glorious past, in favor of a Church that is more reflective of the world we are told to not be part of by Our Lord Himself.  And though possessing some of the most glorious music ever written, we are forced to sing the insipid camp songs of the modernist heresy.  And all of this is but the least of what should concern us.       

Moving deeper beyond this layer is the living Word of God, as preserved for us in the ancient faith, and sealed in the Sacred Scriptures and in the retained knowledge of Sacred Tradition.  It is also professed in the doctrines and dogmas of the Church, which, as we shall see, are not as dry and pointless as the world (and even some within the Church) would have us believe. They serve to protect the Deposit of Faith against onslaughts such as those being waged at the upper levels of the Catholic hierarchy in this present time of heresy and apostasy.  This is where the true “crisis in the Church” exists.  Doctrines and dogmas are the knights and champions who protect the damsel of the faith from the dragons that wile their way into the castle of the Church and create such times of crisis.  The Deposit of Faith always remains unchangeable and unchanging, inviolate and inviolable, and those who attack it are only able to create the illusion of being able to change it.

And that brings us to the innermost center of the Church, where we enter into the Mystery of the Mass, through which we enter the wondrous deeper spiritual realms, in which Christ Himself, in person, alive and present Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity resides with us, enters into and becomes part of us in the Holy Eucharist, and guides us into the other worldly realities of His kingdom and the wonders of heaven.  At the center of this reality is the Holy Cross, which remains mystically present and which perpetuates the once and for always death of our Lord that saves us.  This is what you are looking at when you walk into a Catholic Church and behold the Crucifix, the Altar, and the Tabernacle:  through the power of the liturgy, it becomes the gateway to heaven.  This is the ancient faith, and it exists in an atmosphere of uneasiness that is created by the modernists in our midst who seek to deny it and destroy it.  This uneasiness whispers that all is not well, and it isn’t. 

This uneasiness is caused by those across the Catholic spectrum – from the hierarchy in Rome, to the local bishop, to the various orders, to the clergy and religious, to those among the laity – who support and promote the false, modernist, anti-Catholic, anti-Christian and anti-Christ agenda of the world: United Nations  global governance that promotes such sins against nature and nature’s God as homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia, social engineering, climate control, population control, mind control, artificial intelligence, science altered reality, and one world religion.  This is the work of the devil and the anti-Christ spirit, and that Pope Francis is both onboard with all of this, and openly protects, supports and promotes those within the Church who are promoting this agenda, is certainly a major concern.  All the more reason to pray for him, and I do.  You can learn more about all of this in an essay I wrote titled, “What Is Truth?”  It, too, is linked in the Program Notes to Program 1. 

In the Church, the Catholic remnant gathers with Jesus in His Real Presence and they console and are consoled by Him.  They are communicated in the Holy Eucharist, and stand at the foot of the True Cross, knowing that though Lucifer has been enthroned in our midst, and that Satan and his minions run roughshod over the political process in the Church, they dare not approach them here.  They know from when apostate bishops have tried such things, removing the crucifixes and fouling the liturgy and the Eucharist is the point at which the Holy Spirit intervenes and Christ fights for them.  And these bishops have learned not to go there – at least not as much.  Even Francis refrains from this for the most part.

Those gathered at the Alamo of the Cross know that like it was with Santa Ana and the Mexican Army, the cost to the many to offer the sacrifice of the few is very high.  The pope, and the corrupt leaders in the hierarchy he fronts for, know this as well.  And, in this way, the uneasiness in the Church gives way to an uneasy truce.  This is, at least, a better option than schism, and the path to the Cross still beckons to those who choose to follow it.  The easiest command of Christ to understand is to love one another, but it remains the most difficult to do.  However, sometimes it’s accomplished, and that gives direct evidence to that power of the Holy Spirit still in our midst.  It gives us hope. 

This is the level at which the Holy Spirit really works in the Church.  It certainly isn’t at conclaves making sure that God selects the correct son of Satan to be pope from among the freemasons, communists, perverts and thieves that have infiltrated the hierarchy and, in turn, the College of Cardinals.  The wolves in shepherd’s clothing that have taken control of the highest echelons of the Church – the so called “St. Gallen Mafia” – pulled the wool over our eyes with that one at the last conclave.  And, given the breathtaking transformation of the Church in the time of Pope Francis, if there even is another conclave, will they accomplish this again?  Or will the prophecy of St. Malachy come to pass?  If you don’t know what this is all about already, follow the links in the programs notes and make up your own mind.  Do your own research as I’ve done.  My advice is just don’t assume out of hand that this is all too fantastic to be true because those involved in perverting the Truth of Christ say so.  They also think it too fantastic to believe that Jesus is risen from the dead, and that’s why they behave as they do, and believe that there is no repercussion for their sins.           

“What became of the true believers?” You ask.  They function across the entire spectrum of the Church as well, and also include those faithful to Christ within the hierarchy, clergy and religious, and laity.  They do indeed still exist.  Throughout the ages, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, faithful popes ably assisted by saintly servants of the Church, who excelled both in faith and in intellectual pursuits, such “Doctors of the Church” as St. Thomas Aquinas, came up with a body of doctrines and dogmas, bulls and exhortations, encyclicals and Apostolic letters that wrapped up the Church’s deposit of the ancient faith as snug and neat as a fish wrapped in yesterday‘s news.  This parcel – the direct witness to Jesus in the Scriptures and the record of the Holy Spirit at work in the deepest reality of man from beginning to end, and this as revealed in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ with us in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – this they so bound, and protected at the very center of the mystery that lies behind the visible Catholic Church: at its very heart where God the Father Himself cast the shaft of the Cross, piercing our earthly reality and opening for us the portal leading to His eternal Kingdom. 

The Holy Faith thus remains always and forever bound to the Holy Cross, and to the teachings and person of Jesus Christ, and is always available to all who would approach our Crucified Lord.  Salvation at the Cross is always Universal (capital “U”), and the Church always catholic (small c).  The divisions between the Christian peoples are ours, not God’s.  Submitting to the will of a corrupt hierarchy is not a prerequisite to salvation but submitting to Christ as He revealed Himself at the Cross is. 

There is a lot of confusion in the world concerning this, and discerning where these boundaries lie is where prayer and meditation are vital in allowing the Holy Spirit to direct the way – to help you tell your story.  I will never tell you, or even suggest what you should do in this regard.  I tell my version of The Story based upon my own experience.  I am neither an evangelist, nor an apologist, nor a theologian nor a churchman.  I am merely a storyteller, and my goal is not to tell you what you must do to be saved, but merely to point you in the direction of He Who can.  Beware of those who tell you differently.  The Story tells you Who He is and where He may be found.  Take your story to Him, and you will become a part of His.  I’m serious when I tell you, He saves us through a story; each of us through our own.              

While this is so, those who belong to Him do engage the greater battle together; we share our stories with His in this regard, and we are spiritually well-armed.  We must also be aware that the prize the Evil One is after is control of the Holy Cross, the portal to heaven.  He believes that should he wrest this portal from the care of we, its guardians, he will reenter heaven through this breech and cast God from His throne once and for all.  He believes he will rule in God’s place, and delight as he watches us all burn in hell.  But hanging between heaven and hell is the eternal Body of Christ and with Him those few disciples whom He loves who stand at the foot of the Cross.  Since this is where he was defeated by Jesus, the devil cannot approach here himself, but through guile and cunning, death and horror, and even bringing about the end of the world, he believes we will renounce Christ and remove Him from our lives.  He believes that in so doing, we will tear Jesus down from the Cross, trample him underfoot, and gleefully follow the devil.  Most of the world has already done this, and the evidence of it is everywhere.  Satan knows that the Iscariot spirit lives in all of us.  He throws the dirty bag containing the 30 pieces of silver at the feet of the Christian faithful, and many are they who scamper to retrieve it. The Christian remnant grows smaller in number as we pray and cling to the words of Jesus in Matthew 24:13, “He who endures to the end, the same shall be saved.” 

For eons and throughout times lost and beyond, the evil and fallen Lucifer fostered the pagan cults that sought, through human sacrifice, to create a new portal to heaven to circumvent the Cross and He Who hangs upon it.  This evil, particularly in the form of abortion, is still practiced in our world.  It’s why, once enthroned in Christ’s very Church, he brought the war with heaven into our midst, as he seeks to place the anti-Christ upon the Throne of Peter to serve as a stepping stone to his own ambition to sit upon the Throne of God.        

From that moment when Christ died, eternal salvation became a mystical reality removed from the bonds of history (though accessed through it), and the soul departed from this world could now soar freely to be with our beloved Jesus in the next.  This is why the dead were witnessed risen and wandering the streets of Jerusalem as the work of Christ in the grave, the “Harrowing of Hell,” now sent the righteous dead heavenward.  Hell, now became the burning lower realms of the devils, demons and condemned souls, and hades the realm of the transitory dead.  In Catholic tradition, this became known as Purgatory: that place where tears, repentance and penance remove the sins of the flesh still clinging to the soul and prepare it to continue its journey to its eternal destination in Glory.

This is the Story of Jesus.  And my goal is to hold the precious Truth of Jesus in my hands like a golden orb of glowing treasure, and to open my hands to you, that whosoever beholds the wonder contained in the Light of Christ, God may change forever.  You don’t have to believe it, but my witness to you is that this once happened to me.  And this motivates me highly to tell these deeper, more profound truths to you.  Today, most Americans don’t believe in Jesus; two generations ago most did.  That’s a sobering fact and an indication of how fast the climax of the age is now upon us.  Many may say that this is, after all, just a story, but it’s a story like no other, and I think everyone should have the chance to give it a fair hearing.  Hear it now and make up your own mind, for the day will be soon upon us when the telling of The Story will be silenced.  I speak now before I must ever keep my peace.

The lesson to be learned, as our foundational history crumbles beneath us through revisionism, and perhaps even through science run amok, is that God does not save us through history but in it through a story like no other: This Story.  The Story of Jesus.  The Old Testament is the story of how salvation within history through the Law failed.  The New Testament tells the story that God lived in the person of His Own Son and walked among us to save those who belong to Him, that in believing in this story, and, in turn, in Him, they might not perish but discover eternal life. 

This Story is unchangeable, and its historical veracity is secure.  It is the Story of the True Cross, and its physical relics remain in the wood, the iron and the blood that gives witness to the crucifixion, and the cloth – the Holy Shroud – that gives witness to the resurrection.  Heaven and earth will pass away, but the Holy Cross of Christ remains forever, and the Light of Christ is the beacon that guides us home to it and eternity.  It still shines as brightly as ever, and it is preserved forever in the Scared Heart of the beleaguered Catholic Church.  It is preserved at that level touched directly by Jesus in our true history, and where He remains forever in His Real Presence.  Once He returns to cleanse it of its earthly filth, it transcends this world to take us home safely to the next.  It becomes the Celestial City of God; the New Jerusalem.  And it is there we dwell with Him for all eternity.

So – what do you think?  Eternal Truth or is it just a story?  You decide.  And, again, to help you decide, I’ve provided detailed program notes for this broadcast, with lots of links to references, key terms, and definitions.  You can check this out at radionewjerusalem.com.  And no matter what you decide, join me next time when I’ll tell you “The Story of the Cross.”