Catholics are blessed to see the eternal consequences of dying among the unrepentant “Popularity Worshipers” who lead so many groups on earth to disobey “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
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Question 1: “Should we want love from God more than approval from our neighbors?”
Answer: “God’s First Commandment is clear: ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.’ The ‘other gods’ are followed by ‘Popularity Worshipers’.”
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Question 2: “What do ‘Popularity Worshipers’ do to those who most meaningfully ‘Put God First’?”
Answer: “‘Acts 16:22-34 gives one example! ‘The crowd in Philippi joined in the attack on Paul and Silas. The magistrates had them stripped and ordered them to be beaten with rods.
After inflicting many blows on them, they threw them into prison and instructed the jailer to guard them securely.
When he received these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and secured their feet to a stake.’”
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Question 3: “Why did ‘Popularity Worshipers’ do that to Paul, Silas, and so many early Catholics?”
Answer: “‘Popularity Worshipers’ hated early Catholics for telling people that God fulfilled The Prophecies by taking Human Form in Jesus. ‘Popularity Worshipers’ despise everyone who puts God ‘before’ them!”
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Question 4: “Why is being popular so important to those who attacked Jesus and His most obedient followers?”
Answer: “‘Popularity’ is the foundation of every human structure. ‘Popularity Worshipers’ make pride, envy, greed, gluttony, anger, lust, and sloth into popular ways to live. Among the Aztecs, for instance, cannibalism, sexual sins, and human sacrifice were part of ‘popularity’. In The Roman Empire, it was ‘popular’ to own slaves and destroy neighboring nations.”
Catholics see that ‘Popularity Worshipers’ are living in willful disobedience to: ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.’ All ‘Popularity Worshipers’ put their immortal souls at great risk.”
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Question 3: “What did God do when ‘Popularity Worshipers’ jailed Paul and Silas?”
Answer: “God showed them His Power! ‘About midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God as the prisoners listened. There was suddenly such a severe earthquake that the foundations of the jail shook. All the doors flew open, and the chains of all were pulled loose.’”
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Question 4: “Jailers work for ‘Popularity Worshipers’. What happened when God showed His Power?”
Answer: “The ‘jailer’ knew what the ruling ‘Popularity Worshipers’ would do to him for allowing prisoners to escape! ‘When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, thinking that the prisoners had escaped.’”
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Question 5: “What kept the ‘jailer’ from killing himself?”
Answer: “One of the Catholics he had put in jail saved him! ‘But Paul shouted out in a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself; we are all here.’”
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Question 6: “Do Catholics understand that God forgives people for serving ‘Popularity Worshipers’?”
Answer: “Catholics understand that God wants to forgive ‘Popularity Worshipers’! That’s why He sent His Son to die an agonizing death. That is summed up in One Passage from Today’s Reading from John 16:7 and 13:
‘I will send to you the Spirit of Truth, says The Lord; He will guide (every one of) you to all Truth (If you let Him!).‘”
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Question 7: “Jesus died and ‘ascended into Heaven’. How does He help Catholics on earth?”
Answer: “John 16:5-11 explains what Jesus told us about The Holy Spirit! ‘But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, The Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you.
And when He comes He will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation: sin, because they do not believe in Me; righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see Me; condemnation, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.’”
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Catholics understand this simple fact: “Those who unrepentantly ‘rule’ every group of ‘Popularity Worshipers’ have already ‘been condemned’.”
