© 04 Colin Melbourne
The Roman Catholic Mass is an abomination, blasphemy against the Blood, Body, and finished work of Christ: Idolatry of the worst kind. It is an idol based on Baal worship, detestable to God, and has no Scriptural basis, as was made perfectly clear in John Knox’s historic denunciation, Why the Mass is Idolatry.
People who 
participate in idolatry are idolaters and will not enter Heaven. The LORD Jesus Christ warned emphatically that all idolaters are barred from Heaven, and cast into Hell. (See Rev. 21:6-8, and 22:13-16)
Idol worship is denial of Christ, resulting in spiritual damnation.
Mass Death
Scientists have now discovered idol worshippers are also damaging their physical health.
Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them:
Holy Bible Deut. 5:8-9 KJV
It is now official: Scientists warn that idolatry can seriously damage your health.
Catholic Mass Causes Cancer
European scientists have issued a health warning on the dangers of Roman Catholic worship.
A study by Dutch medical researchers, published in the European Respiratory Journal, warns that samples of air from a simulated Catholic Mass in the city church of Maastricht were highly toxic.
Smoke from candles and incense produced levels of carcinogenic polycyclic hydrocarbons twenty times greater than acceptable European limits.
The concentrations of harmful particulate matter were far higher than those adjacent to a busy highway.
They warned that smoke from candles and incense posed a serious risk of lung cancer and heart disease to both priests and worshippers.
Toxic Buddhist Worship
These findings confirm similar results from a Taiwan University published in New Scientist in 2001, which pointed to an incense-cancer link. Chinese Buddhist temples were sampled, and the air found to be rich with cancer causing chemicals from incense smoke.
Researchers in Taiwan found that the levels of highly carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) inside the temple were 19 times higher than outside, and also higher than at a nearby road intersection.
One PAH named, benzopyrene, is thought to cause lung cancer in smokers, and was found in very high quantities inside the Buddhist temple.
Candles and Incense Racket
The burning of candles and incense are common religious trappings of the Roman Catholic cult, its Orthodox, Lutheran, and Anglican offshoots, and are also ubiquitous in pagan ceremonies around the world.
For example, Buddhists compete to make the biggest most elaborately carved candles in their repetitive grind of merit making. Gigantic towering incense joss sticks are a common sight outside Chinese temples.
Offering human sacrifices is increasing in China.
A Hindu friend of mine has a weekly ritual where he parades a violently burning bowl of incense through his home to ‘cleanse and bless it’.
The smell and acrid smoke are so overpowering everyone has to leave the building, including the cat.
Supermarket shelves in Asia are full of incense sticks, and candles, profiting from the lucrative trade of religious paraphernalia.
No Junk Religion for Christians
Be clear on this: Candles and incense have no place in Christian worship.
Jews, under the Old Covenant, were instructed to construct oil lamps, lamp stands, and incense censers for Temple worship, but never candles.
Incidentally, most modern candles use rendered pig fat in the tallow.
Jews used olive oil lamps with burning wicks, but not candles.
A New and Better Way
Jewish Temple worship was abolished by the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. As Dr. Daisy Osborn used to say, “The Jews ‘put God in a box’ (Ark of the Covenant): Jesus took God public!”
Here’s what she meant, Mtt. 27:50-51 KJV;
Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
Halleluia!
The curtain was ripped apart and the Most Holy Place opened to all.
Previously, only one man, the High Priest could enter, just once a year. And only after the most elaborate cleansing and purification rites. But Jesus threw open the Most Holy Place of Heaven itself to whoever will believe on Him.
The ‘type’ of the earthly temple worship was done away in Christ, because He made a new and a better way.
Once and For All
The book of Hebrews has several majestic chapters devoted to this very point. The Mosaic Temple worship was made obsolete by Christ, The High Priest who sacrificed for the sins of mankind once and for all when He offered Himself. See Hebrews chapters 4-10, for example Heb. 10:1-4 KJV;
For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
God ordained the Levitical sacrifices under the Old Covenant as reminders that we need a Perfect Saviour.
And He came Himself as High Priest, and Lamb of God, to save us by a New Covenant, Heb. 10:11-14 KJV;
And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.
Christ poured out His sinless Blood to pay your full sin debt once and for all, so that you can abide in God’s Presence forever. Heb. 10:19-22 KJV;
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; And having an high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
Now, salvation, eternal life, and real fellowship with God, come through heart faith in Christ alone.
Not by rituals, sacraments or ceremonies of any kind.
Not via water baptism or the Lord’s Supper, they merely symbolize what Christ did for believers in His death and resurrection.
Salvation comes through trusting Christ’s Sacrifice did enough to take away our sin, and makes born again believers acceptable to God.
No candles or incense for Christians!
New Covenant Prayer
What does the incense of Jewish temple worship typify?
It represents the prayers of the saints.
When New Covenant believers pray, their prayers come before the Throne of God like pleasing incense.
Christian! When you pray in faith, your prayer is presented to God in a golden vial or bowl, here it is, Rev. 5:8 KJV;
And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.
Incense was a ‘type’ of New Covenant prayer.
Believers in Christ do not burn incense: They pray.
They don’t burn candles: They have hearts aflame with the Holy Spirit, proclaiming Christ, the Light of the world.
The Third Temple
In the last days, Temple worship will be reinstated in the, soon to be rebuilt, Temple in Jerusalem.
It will be Old Covenant worship with animal sacrifices.
Devout Jews have already made all the articles they will need, exactly according to Moses, including the breeding of sacrificial Red Heifers.
Will this please God?
Of course not, it will be blasphemy against the finished work of Christ.
The Lamb of God was sacrificed once and for all to take away the sin of the world.
To offer any further sacrifice is to deny Christ.
Nevertheless, religious Jews will do this, and then the end will come.
Christ will return in Glory to redeem believers, and judge all who have rejected Him.
Papa?Reject Religion: Choose Life
Are you ready?
The Catholic Mass, pagan rituals, candle and incense burning will never get you ready: They lead you to Hell.
There’s only one way to enter Heaven, you must be born again through simple heart faith in the finished work of Christ.
Have you been born again?
Once you are, you will have the Life and witness of God’s Spirit in your heart, God’s guarantee (earnest) of Glory. Eph. 1:13-14 KJV;
In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
Are you marked in Christ, are you sealed with the Holy Spirit, is your name in the Lamb’s Book of Life?
To be sure and certain now and always, throw away useless candles, and incense, flee from all idolatry, repent and believe in the LORD Jesus Christ.
Testimonies of ex-Catholic priests: Fifty moving accounts compiled by an Irish former Priest, Richard Bennett.
© 04 Colin Melbourne
You may also be interested in reading:
Why Catholics Are Not Christian
One With God or Joined to an Harlot?
