Praying to Mary

 Here is what Adonai says: "The earnings of Egypt, the commerce of Ethiopia, and men of stature from S'va will come over to you and become yours; they will come in chains and follow you. They will prostrate themselves before you; they will pray to you: 'Surely God is with you; there is no other, other gods are nothing.'" Isaiah 45:14 (Complete Jewish Bible)

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Protestant (shaking his head): I simply do not understand how you can worship Mary and idols. It is disgraceful and against God.

Catholic: We neither worship Mary, nor idols.

Protestant: Come on! I see you guys bowing down and praying to Mary. That is against the Bible!

Catholic: If I can show you in the bible where God Himself has people bowing down to others and praying to them, would you then re-assess your idea about Catholics?

Protestant (skeptically): It's in the Bible not to worship anything other than God. So no, its not in the Bible.

Catholic: In Isaiah 45, God specifically tells Israel that the people of surrounding nations will come before them, bow to them and pray to them. (See above text.)

Protestant: Your misinterpreting the text.

Catholic: No, look it up when you get home.
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Protestants are shocked when they discover that the words “bow” and “pray” in the Bible don’t exclusively mean worship. People bow to elders, parents, people of other nations, monarchs and angels in scripture. They even bow to inanimate things such as the Jerusalem temple and the Holy of Holies. Bowing can be used as a part of worship, but it can simply be a sign of respect for people and things.

It is the same with prayer. Note that in the Hebrew phrase above, "they will pray[palal] to you" the exact translation of the word palal (Strong’s # 06419) is an interceding prayer. 

Protestant Bibles often translate the Hebrew palal as “supplication” or “plead.”

KJV--they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication unto thee... 

NAS--And will bow down to you; They will make supplication to you... 

ASV--and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication unto thee... 

NIV--will bow down before you and plead with you... 

NLT--They will fall to their knees in front of you... 

CEB--they will bow down. They will plead with you... 

ESV--bow down to you. They will plead with you,

But many translations use the word “pray.”

BBE--and they will go down on their faces before you, and will make prayer to you,  

GW--They will bow to you and pray to you, 

LEB--and they shall bow down to you; they will pray to you,    

NCV--They will bow down before you and pray to you,  

MSG--Hands folded in reverence, praying before you, 

Many of you might ask if this is the same word used for praying to God? Yes, the vast majority of the time palal is used to indicate a prayer to God. Here are some examples: 

Abraham prayed unto God [for Abimelech], Gen. 20:17.
Moses prayed unto the Lord, the fire was quenched. Nu. 11:2
 And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed, Sam.1:10 
...they pray unto thee toward this city, 2 Chr. 6:34   
...when he prayed for his friends, Job 42:10 
...for unto thee will I pray, Ps. 5:2  
And I prayed unto the Lord, Dan. 9:4 

Before we go any further we need to stop and make this point. Even if end up disagreeing on the interpretation of this text, we can agree that this text is indeed in scripture that the Catholics didn’t make it up. Right there it says there will be bowing and praying to someone who isn’t God.

Catholic church interprets this text literally. You may choose to interpret the text another way, but you can never say that Catholics do not have a “proof-text” for their doctrine that says we can pray to others besides God.

For to Catholics this word palal is exactly what we mean when we pray to Mary and the saints. We are pleading with them, entreating them, supplicating them to intercede for us with Christ, exactly as Abraham prayed in behalf of Abimelech, Moses prayed for Israel an Job prayed for his friend in the above references.

We can ask our friends to pray for us. Indeed we can pray to God’s leaders (especially those reigning with Christ in heaven), even bowing to them, kneeling to them and supplicating them for intercessory prayer in our behalf.

This is Biblical. Catholics are praying/pleading with Mary and the saints who are right now in heaven to intercede before God for us. As we see in the text, God is quite happy with that.

They will prostrate themselves before you; they will pray to you: 'Surely God is with you; there is no other, other gods are nothing.'" Isaiah 45:14 (Complete Jewish Bible)

BREAKING THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

I don't mean to be harsh in this post. I just want to show Adventists that they--AS AN ORGANIZATION--their doctrines actually break the Ten Commandments. All of us fall short and we all must rely on God's grace. But within the actual system of Adventism, their doctrines and lifestyle actually TEACH the breaking of the commandments. For example:

1. The Seventh-day Adventist Church breaks the first commandment when they teach that the TEN Commandments were above God. This is part of the vision their prophetess Ellen White claimed an angel told her-- that the Father and the Son were not in the Holiest place until 1844. That put the Ten Commandments in the Holy of Holies, higher than God Himself. The SDA claim is that God was not in the universe's most holy place--in a LESS holy place, for almost 2,000 years. They place the Ten Commandments above God Himself and claim that God is subject to His own laws.

Before the throne I saw the Advent people, the church and the world. I saw a company bowed down before the throne, deeply interested, while the most them stood disinterested and careless. ....And I saw the Father rise from the throne, and in a flaming chariot go into the, within the vail, and did sit. [Into the Holy of Holies] Then Jesus rose up from the throne, and the most those who were bowed down arose with him: and I did not see one ray of light pass from Jesus to the careless multitude after he arose, and they were left in perfect darkness. ....And I saw a cloudy chariot, with wheels like flaming fire, and angels were all around it as it came where Jesus was. He stepped into the chariot and was borne to the Holiest where the Father sat. From the chapter: "A View of Events Occurring at the End of the 2300 Days" {ExV 43.1}

2. The Seventh-day Adventist Church breaks the second commandment by serving the false gospel of sabbatarianism and the Three Angels' Message. The writings of Ellen White claim the new SDA "everlasting gospel" is the highest and most important message of all time. That supersedes the coming of Christ and the cross. This is idolatry.

In a special sense Seventh-day Adventists have been set in the world as watchmen and lightbearers. To them has been entrusted the last warning for a perishing world. On them is shining wonderful light from the word of God. They have been given a work of the most solemn import—the proclamation of the first, second, and third angels’ messages. There is no other work of so great importance. They are to allow nothing else to absorb their attention. The most solemn truths ever entrusted to mortals have been given us to proclaim to the world. The proclamation of these truths is to be our work. {3TT 288} 

3. The Seventh-day Adventist Church breaks the third commandment when they call themselves the sole remnant denying all other Christians called by His name. That is taking His name in vain.

Fundamental # 13. Remnant and Its Mission: The universal church is composed of all who truly believe in Christ, but in the last days, a time of widespread apostasy, a remnant has been called out to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. This remnant announces the arrival of the judgment hour, proclaims salvation through Christ, and heralds the approach of His second advent. This proclamation is symbolized by the three angels of Revelation 14; it coincides with the work of judgment in heaven and results in a work of repentance and reform on earth. Every believer is called to have a personal part in this worldwide witness.  

4. The Seventh-day Adventist Church breaks the fourth commandment by working on lunar sabbaths (as this is how they knew the sabbath day in ancient Israel.) They also fail to keep the sabbath by lighting fire and they do not kill people work on Sabbath. Do any gather food, bake or boil it? (Ex. 16: 23)

Moses assembled the whole Israelite community and said to them, "These are the things the LORD has commanded you to do: For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death. Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day." Ex. 5: 1-3

Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people.  Ex. 31: 14, 15; 35: 2, 3; Lev. 16: 31; Num. 15:32; 

5. The Seventh-day Adventist Church breaks the fifth commandment by encouraging children to become SDA against their parents wishes. (Remember all those mission stories in Sabbath school?) 

6. Adventism breaks the sixth commandment when it allows the murder of innocent unborn children in its hospitals. 

      http://arthurandteresabeem.blogspot.com/2011/01/from-washington-post-jan-24-2011.html

7. The Seventh-day Adventist Church breaks the seventh commandment when it allows SDA leaders who have been divorced for other reasons than unfaithfulness to remain as leaders. Their fundamental beliefs state that when a person divorces for anything other than fornication, they commit adultery. So, according to their own understanding of the commandment, they knowingly allow adulterers as leaders in their church.

SDA Fundamental # 23. Marriage and the Family: ".... Regarding divorce, Jesus taught that the person who divorces a spouse, except for fornication, and marries another, commits adultery. 

8. The Seventh-day Adventist Church has broken the eighth commandment  for they have stolen for decades through its ingathering practices of begging for money for the "poor and needy" and the money ending up paying for SDA schooling and other denominational projects. 

9. The Seventh-day Adventist Church has broken the ninth commandment when it bears false witness against its Christian neighbors by distorting the facts of history by claiming Constantine changed the sabbath, that worshipping on Sunday is wrong, by claiming that the early church didn't worship on Sunday, and teaching the papacy is the antichrist. It's entire message is based upon falsification of its Christian brothers and sisters beliefs and history. 

(see Great Controversy.)

10. The Seventh-day Adventist Church covets its neighbor's media attention, its mainstream status, its Christians (as Adventism's proselityzing leeches off of other Christian denominations), and its Bible--for it stole the words and distorted them in the Clear Word. 

Please feel free to add your own observations!