Mayhem around the corner

In Luke 16, the rich man’s in torment calling on Abraham to send someone back to his brothers to warn them about not going to hell. Abraham then says to the rich man, "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them." The rich man replies, "Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent." Abraham responds, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

Michigan preacher Tom Bruscha explains, "They had God’s Old Testament Scriptures, Moses and the prophets, and if they don’t believe what Moses and the prophets have said, they won’t believe if someone’s raised from the dead. Jesus Christ rose from the dead and they’re still rejecting His message.

"For 1,100 years God was putting together that Old Testament and they had Moses and the prophets. In Amos 8, God began to predict something. Israel’s in rebellion and He warns about judgment against the nation of Israel.

"In that judgment, He says, [11] Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: [12] And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.

"God through the prophets said, ‘I’m going to quit prophesying.' The prophets are not going to receive any more message and there’s going to be a time when men are going to want to hear God’s Word and God’s going to be silent.

"These are the 400 years that followed the Book of Malachi before John the Baptist showed up. God was not speaking and there was a famine of the Word of God.

"During that silence before John the Baptist showed up, that’s when the Catholic Church had their apocryphal books, most of them written during that time.

"If it’s during a time when God’s silent then those books are not inspired by God and, in fact, when you read those books, they don’t claim to be inspired by God. They’re not part of the Scriptures.

"In fact, in those apocryphal books written during that 400-year span of God’s silence, is where things like 'purgatory' shows up. Things like 'indulgences,' where people could pay money and have their sins forgiven.

"They come out of those books of scripture that are not inspired of God. During that time God had His scribes taking and collecting the Old Testament together and they did not include the Apocrypha.

"The Jews, even though it’s their history, did not recognize the books as being the Word of God. They understood the silent years of God until John the Baptist. Even to this day, Jews do not believe the New Testament but their Old Testament is identical to our Old Testament. They number the books different but all the books are the same."