WHAT YOU MUST DO TO HAVE ETERNAL LIFE |
Roman Catholics,
the priests teach you these things: ‘God gives the Paradise to the good
people (….) By being good, by only our natural strength, we could not deserve
the Paradise; we deserve it by the grace that God granted to us in the
Baptism, by which grace our good works gain merit for the Paradise (….) Each
one of us tries through many sacrifices and works to make for himself a good
condition on this earth, to gain uncertain goods that we can suddenly lose, which
cannot make anyone happy for they do not satisfy the heart and that anyhow we
must leave soon because of death. Instead, first of all, think of earning
Paradise’ and also: “Thus, because of the hope, we expect to receive from the
Lord eternal life as well as all the necessary graces to deserve eternal life
here on earth, but how can we merit it? By good works’, and again: ‘We hope we
will save ourselves because God wants us to be saved, and we want, for our
part, to do what is necessary to save ourselves, and as we say in the act of
hope, we hope to receive from God eternal life and the necessary graces to
deserve it through the good works that I must do and I want to do’. Are then
the endless merits of Jesus Christ insufficient to save us? Yes, they are insufficient
– your priests tell you – but not because they have not a sufficient value,
but because Jesus Christ Himself wants the cooperation of our good works, for
in order to impute to us the good works’ merit, He wants us to feel and
desire together with Him, for He wants us to practice the Gospel and to live
the Christian life’. |
However,
things are not as your priests teach you, for this doctrine which confers on
good works the power to make men merit eternal life and to save men from hell
and that you have accepted in good faith, thinking it was correct for it is
taught to you by men who are called ‘priests of God’, is a false doctrine, a
diabolic doctrine which has led to hell hundreds of millions of people so
far. Yes, there are hundreds of millions of people suffering in the fire of
hell – among whom also some of your relatives and even members of your family
– because while they were on earth they had relied on the doctrine about
salvation the priests taught them. |
Now, I am
going refute this doctrine and thus you will understand what I have said. |
According
to what the Scripture says, eternal life is not the wages God gives to the
man who tries to earn eternal life, but it is a gift that God gives to the
man who repents of his sins and believes in the name of the Son of God. For
Paul says: “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans
|
I think
that your statement ‘God should give rightly eternal life to those who do
good works’ is arrogant! You may say: ‘Then must I believe only, in order to
receive eternal life? Yes, you must only believe, for Jesus said: “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (John
6:47) and: “And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which
seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will
raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40) and also: “And as Moses lifted up
the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God
so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John |
As for
these last words, I want you to know the reason why Moses lifted up the
serpent in the desert and thus you will understand why Jesus mentioned that
event in order to explain that a man must only believe in Him to have eternal
life. |
While the
Israelites were in the wilderness, on the way to the |
Now, Jesus
compared His being lifted up to the lifting up of the serpent of brass made
in the desert; and the comparison is really appropriate because just as the
Israelites bitten by the serpents had to behold the serpent of brass lifted
up by Moses in order to escape death (you should notice that those who were
bitten had to behold the serpent of brass in order to escape death, they did
not have to perform some specific rites or do some good works written in the
law), so men, who are dead in their sins, must only behold the Son of God and
believe in Him in order to be quickened and to obtain eternal life. They must
believe on the One who was hung on the cross and after His resurrection was
received up to the right hand of God. Yes, the only way that men can receive
eternal life from God is through faith in Jesus Christ; not through good
works as you are told by your priests, who are themselves dead in their sins
and speak in this way because they have not yet beheld the Son and believed on
Him. Also John the Baptist stated that eternal life is received only through
faith, for he said: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and
he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God
abideth on him” (John 3:36); as well as the apostle Paul who said: “Howbeit
for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew
forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe
on him to life everlasting” (1 Timothy 1:16). |
Now,
reflect upon what I am going to say: if faith were not sufficient in order to
receive eternal life, eternal life would not be any longer a gift, for
besides faith good works also would be necessary in order to receive it. In
other words, the Scripture would contradict itself because a gift which needs
to be deserved or earned is no longer a gift. I will give you an example. If you
buy a present for a member of your family, what do you expect from him? You
expect that he will accept it as a gift, don’t you? Therefore, you expect
that when you give it to him, he will say to you: ‘Thank you!’. But let us suppose that you should say to him: ‘I give
it to you but you must pay for it (at least you must give me a part of his
value or price), could we still call that object a gift? Of course not. And
the same is with eternal life, if God declares in
the Bible that eternal life is HIS GIFT you must accept it as a gift through
faith in Jesus Christ, and you must thank Him for this great gift. You must
do no good works to receive eternal life, for God does not request good works
from you, He does not want you to pay either entirely or partially for
eternal life because Jesus Christ paid the full price of it when He died on
the cross for each of us. |
If God required
from you to do good works, and not only to have faith in Jesus, in order to
give you eternal life, He would be a double-tongued God; that would mean that
Jesus Christ on the cross through His suffering and His blood did not do
enough to purchase eternal redemption to us and therefore the sacrifice of
Christ would be a little help, given by God to man, a little help given to
him to allow him to receive eternal life!! In other words, it would mean that
in order to have eternal life a man must have his own merits for the merits
of Christ are not sufficient. But I say it again, at this point eternal life
could not be called ‘the gift of God’ and the sacrifice of Christ would be of
little value, or rather of no value. |
Maybe,
after you have read all these things, you will say: ‘As for me, I believe, I
believe in Jesus!’ Well, then I ask you: ‘If – as you say – you believe in
Jesus, why are you not sure you have eternal life? For – as you have seen –
Jesus stated that whoever believes in Him has eternal life.’ I will tell you
the reason why you are not sure, because you have not yet believed with your
heart that Jesus Christ died for our sins and the third day He rose again for
our justification. Therefore, I exhort you to believe with your heart that
Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose again to justify us through His
blood. Only then will you realize that your present faith is a false faith.
At this point you may say: ‘Too simple to be true!’ But I say to you: ‘Why do
you say that? Do you think that doctrines need to be complex in order to be
true? Don’t you think this is not the way to understand if a doctrine is true
or false? Listen, a doctrine is true if it is supported by the Bible, whether
it is easy to understand it or not, whether it is fully comprehensible or not.
On the other hand, a doctrine may be very simple or very complicated, but if
the Bible does not support it, that doctrine must be rejected. The way to
obtain eternal life may seem to you very simple,
however one thing is certain, IT IS TRUE. We can say this to you because we
have personally experienced the truthfulness of the words of Jesus. |
Do you
think we are presumptuous because we say we have eternal life? Well, then
listen to what the apostle John (I remember you that John was a witness of
the death and of the resurrection of Christ) tells us in his first epistle: “These
things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God;
that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the
name of the Son of God” (1 John 5:13). Be careful, he did not say ‘these
things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God
that you may hope to obtain eternal life’ as if we believers did not have
eternal life within us, but he said that he wrote these things to us that we
may know that we have already eternal life. The same apostle says also: “He
that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that
believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record
that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that
God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath
the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John
|
But I
would like to ask you: ‘How can you say that a believer who has received Christ
in his heart cannot say in full assurance of faith that he has eternal life, when
Jesus Christ is “that eternal life which was with the Father and was
manifested unto us” (1 John 1:2) and “he that hath the Son hath life” (1 John
5:12)? Saying such a thing is tantamount to saying that an Italian citizen
cannot say he has the Italian citizenship, for to say such a thing means to
be arrogant! When you say such a thing is as you said that your son is
arrogant because he says to his friends that you have given him a bicycle. Come
to your senses! How can a person be called presumptuous because he says that
he has received from God the gift of eternal life? If eternal life is a gift,
do you think that if we say that we have received eternal life we are presumptuous?
Do you think that if we say that we have asked for it and we have received it
we are presumptuous? Do you think that if we boast of having received this
wonderful gift from a wonderful God ready to forgive, we are presumptuous? I
know that it was said to you: “If we claim to be able to save ourselves
without any merit we are arrogant, and this arrogance offends the
righteousness of God and almost mocks at it, as if God were to give us
Paradise, or He were to reward us for some good we did not want to do’. But
that’s untrue, for I have abundantly showed that eternal life is the gift of
God. Actually, the persons who are arrogant are not those who, like us, say
that they are sure they have eternal life by the grace of God through their
faith, but all those who say, like you, that we are saved by good works. |
Since we
believers by the grace of God have eternal life dwelling in us, we are sure
that when we die, of course if we will be found faithful, we will go to
heaven to be with Jesus because Jesus said: “I am the resurrection, and the
life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And
whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26) and
also: “If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall
also my servant be” (John 12:26). And since we have “the same spirit of
faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken;
we also believe, and therefore speak” (2 Corinthians 4:13) and we say
together with the apostles: “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to
be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians
5:8). Yes, we have the same feeling that was in Paul who had the desire to
depart and to be with Christ in heaven, which is far better than to stay on
earth. |
The Roman
Catholic priests call this confidence insolent presumptuousness, for according
to them, all those who die in grace must go to a place called purgatory to
expiate all their debts of temporal punishment which remain to be discharged!!
And woe to those who do not accept their doctrine, for the Council of Trent
said: “If anyone says that after the reception of the grace of justification
the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out to
every repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be
discharged either in this world or in purgatory before the gates of heaven
can be opened, let him be anathema’ (Council of Trent, VI, canon 30). But that
is untrue, for the Scripture teaches that when God remits sins to a man, He
remits to him the eternal punishment as well. The thief who repented on the
cross at the point of death is an example which confirms this, for Jesus
remitted to that man all his sins as well as all the debts of temporal
punishment in that Jesus said to him: “Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt
thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Jesus did not say to him that
first of all he had to go to a place called purgatory to stay there for a
period of time in order to purify himself from a part of the eternal
punishment of his sins and then he would be able to enter Paradise, but Jesus
said to him that he would go to paradise on that very day. Reflect upon this:
is it not absurd to think that God remits all debts to the repentant sinner
and then when he dies God will send him to a place of torment like the so
called purgatory, that he may pay some of those debts, before letting him
enter |
I don’t
mean that we believers have reached perfection or that we are without sin,
far be it from us to say such a thing, because we recognize that we are
people with many defects who need to be perfected and to improve ourselves,
and sometimes we do what we hate and thus we need to confess our sins to God
in order to be forgiven. But I mean that by the mercy of God, by which God
begot us again and gave us the power to become the sons of God and gave us
eternal life, we are sure that God has forgiven us all our sins, that we are
fully purified from our sins and thus if we die in Christ we will go
immediately to be with Jesus in heaven. |
Let the
priests call our confidence ‘presumptuousness’, let the councils keep casting
anathemas on those who – according to the councils – have the assurance of
remission of sins and eternal life; as for us, we will continue to glory in
the Lord for we have obtained the purification of our sins through the blood
of Jesus, we will continue to praise His name for this, and we will continue
to preach to men that in Christ Jesus there is assurance of remission of
sins, in Him there is assurance of eternal life, while in the theology taught
by the priests there is ambiguity, falsity and uncertainty; which produce
nothing but doubts and anguishes. |
Men and
women, who are afraid of death and don’t know where you are going (you think
you will go to purgatory but the Scripture denies its existence) for you have
accepted the teachings of the priests, I implore you on Christ’s behalf,
repent of your sins and believe in Jesus Christ to receive forgiveness of
sins and eternal life. Do not reject the gift of God, or else when you die
you will go into the burning fire of hell where you will suffer unspeakable
torments. |
Now is the
day of salvation, now is the accepted time, tomorrow might be too late. Do
not postpone your decision for Christ. Humble yourself before God, confess
your sins to Him, and believe in His Son Jesus Christ, and immediately, instantly,
you will be forgiven, reconciled to God and you will obtain the gift of
eternal life and when you die you will go to heaven to be with Jesus Christ
your Saviour and there you will find the saints (the true saints) who lived
in the past generations, and those saints who are still alive, and all
together we will praise and glorify God and His Son. Once you have
experienced God’s forgiveness in your life and you have received the
assurance of eternal life, since the Holy Spirit will be dwelling in you and
will bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God washed in the
precious blood of Jesus, you must be baptized in water because Jesus, before
He was received up into heaven, commanded to baptize those who believe in
Him, as He said: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew
28:19). You must undergo water baptism in order to have a good conscience
toward God for the apostle Peter says that baptism is “an appeal to God for a
good conscience” (1 Peter |
Therefore
you must immediately leave the Catholic Church you are attending and look for
a community of believers in Jesus Christ, and ask the pastor or the elders of
that community to baptize you (Acts 8:36-38). And then stay with the members
of that community for they are born again too. They are brothers and sisters
in Christ Jesus, whom you must love in deed and in truth (1 John |
Of course,
your new birth will be noticed by your parents, by your wife or husband, by
your sons, and by all those who know you. What should be your attitude toward
them? Tell them what happened to you, that is, how the Lord had mercy on you
forgiving your sins and how He begot you again unto new life (Luke |
That means
you must abstain from every fleshly and worldly lusts of which you were slave
before your new birth, and also from all idolatrous and superstitious
practices, such as the worship of pictures and statues, the rosary, the
processions, the worship of the host. Stop killing, sinning against nature,
fornicating, committing adultery, being effeminate, robbing, blaspheming,
saying lies and bad words, loving money, being arrogant, haughty, impolite,
violent, quick-tempered, stop wearing expensive clothes as well as tight and
provocative clothes - If you are a man stop wearing shorts and putting
yourself bare-chested in the presence of others, stop watching television,
listening to worldly music, going to dance, going to bar to play cards or
wasting time in some other ways, stop going to football, soccer, basketball,
baseball and boxing matches, going to the beach or to the swimming pool to
get tanned and to amuse yourself. - If you are a woman stop wearing trousers,
miniskirts, low-necked dresses, transparent dresses, tight dresses, expensive
clothing, necklaces, earrings, bracelets and rings (1 Timothy 2:9-10), and
stop wearing make-up. In other words, whoever you are, you must abstain from
every form of evil (Titus |
You may
ask why you must abstain even from many things which are not considered any
longer evil things: well, the reason is because through the new birth one becomes
the temple of God ( 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:18-20), that is, his body becomes
the spiritual house where God dwells, and since God is holy he must offer the
parts of his body in slavery to righteousness and holiness, and not in
slavery to impurity and vanity (Romans 6:12-23), and he must control his own
body in a way that is holy and honourable (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5). And those
things the world says you can do, are perverse
things in the sight of God. He doesn’t like them and because of these things
cometh the wrath of God from heaven. |
Be zealous
for good works, help those who are in need especially those who are of the
household of faith (Galatians 6:10), orphans, widows and the poor among the
saints; support materially the pastor and the elders who teach you the Word
of God, they are worthy of your support (Galatians 6:6; 1 Corinthians
9:7-11,14; 1 Timothy 5:17-18); read the Holy Scripture and meditate on it (2
Timothy 3:14-17), pray continually to God in the name of Jesus Christ giving
thanks to Him in everything (Colossians 4:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:18) but pray
in faith and wait patiently for His answer. |
Pray for
your brothers and sisters, that their love may abound more and more in
knowledge and all discernment, that they may walk worthy of the Lord
(Philippians 1:8-11; Colossians 1:9-12); and pray also for sinners, that they
may be saved (Romans 10:1 and 1 Timothy 2:1-7). Pray to God for the governing
authorities, that He may keep, help and bless them (1
Timothy 2:1-2). |
Ask God to
give you wisdom ( James 1:5-8), in order to walk in
wisdom; the baptism with the Holy Spirit, through which the believer is
endued with power from on high (Matthew 7:7; Luke |
Proclaim
the Gospel to all men: Roman Catholics, Jews, Hindu people, Buddhists,
Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons etc.; tell them about the grace of God
which is in Christ Jesus so that they may be born again. |
Finally,
remember that Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, who did not commit any sin and
who sought the good of the people, was hated by the world; so do not marvel
if those belonging to this world will hate you and persecute you once you
have passed from death unto life (John 15:18-25; 1 John 3:13-14). |
Suffer afflictions
as Jesus Christ suffered afflictions; and rejoice that you are counted worthy
to suffer shame for His Holy Name, which is blessed for ever (Matthew
5:11-12; Acts 5:40:41). Stand fast in the faith unto death and you will
receive the crown of life. |