The Missing Second Commandment That's Still Found in Catholic Bibles (Exodus 20:4-5)

Roman Catholics have all their excuses to use graven images for their worship. They cite the cherubim on top of the Ark of the Covenant - even when the said artifact was hidden from the public view. They cite the brazen serpent even when Hezekiah later had it destroyed when it became an object of idolatry. The most common reason used (and other religions too) is that they don't pray to the image but the one portrayed by the image. I was reading through Truth Encounter which features the late former Catholic priest turned Baptist pastor, Anthony Pezzotta. Some Roman Catholics even claim that Pezzotta supposedly recanted but was it really true? I don't think so. I thought I'd like to share this amazing thought from a former Roman Catholic priest's thought on Rome's use of graven images. 

Pages 207-208 reveals this statement by Pezzotta as a former priest:

A Catholic student asked why the Catholic Church erased the second commandment from the decalogue given by Moses: "You shall not make yourself idols... and you shall not bow down to them." (Exodus 20:4) The Catholic priest, who had a doctorate in the Holy Scriptures earned in Rome, responded by saying that this commandment was only reserved for the Israelites who started worshiping idols in the desert. He continued by saying that it was a big mistake to believe that this commandment should apply in to the 20th century. "Holy Scriptures," he said insisted, "should never be taken out of context as Evangelical Christians do when they apply this commandment to Christians all the time."   

It was my time to respond. After silent prayer in my heart I simply asked the priest to explain what was the time and context of this commandment. After he repeated that this was during the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt, I asked: "And what is the time and context of the other nine commandments?" After several embarrassing seconds of silence, he honestly said, "Well the time was the same and the context... the same too." Of course he couldn't answer otherwise because the people in the auditorium well knew that God had given all of the ten commandments at the same time and int he same circumstances. So I insisted, "Does the Roman Catholic Church accept the sixth and seventh commandments (For Catholics, the fifth and the sixth) 'You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery'?" His answer was obviously had to be a yes. "To be consistent," I concluded "the Roman Catholic Church should also reject these two commandments because they were given at the same time and in the same historical context as the second!" There was a standing ovation after this statement. I almost felt bad for the Catholic priest. I wish he could have given a better answer.

This really makes me think about the time when Victor Affonso, a real former Jesuit priest, talked about revealed the crookery and treachery in the video Catholicism: Crisis of Faith: 

VICTOR AFFONSO - FORMER JESUIT PRIEST "You shall not make for yourselves an idol," or a statue, or a picture, "in the form of anything in heaven above, or on the earth beneath, or in the waters below." 

NARRATOR Victor Affonso served as a Jesuit priest for twenty-one years. 

VICTOR AFFONSO - FORMER JESUIT PRIEST "You shall not bow down to them" or worship them. It's the same word. 

NARRATOR Though part of the Ten Commandments in the Catholic Bible, the Catholic Church regularly omits this command from catechisms.Yet it still comes up with ten. 

VICTOR AFFONSO - FORMER JESUIT PRIEST And how come they still got ten? They took the last one which is "Thou shall not covet your neighbor's wife; you shall not set your desire on your neighbor's house, or land, manservant, maidservant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." They divided this into two. They made nine: "Man shall not covet his neighbor's wife," and ten: "Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's goods." So they had the Ten Commandments. 

Now this is crookery. This is trickery. You've changed the commandments. 

But why did you drop the second commandment? Because there is a lot of business in making statues. 

NARRATOR Though the Scriptures were clear, the traditions of the church (Roman Catholic, emphasis mine) were followed.

There's really plenty of profit in the sales of statues. It's no surprise that pagan temples get a lot of money in the sales of images of their gods and goddesses. The same is true for Catholic bookstores. Most of the money isn't from the inspirational books but from the statues. There's more money in indulgences and the statues over the inspirational books. There's really lots of money in the sale of these images meant to represent God (even the Trinity gets portrayed). Mary, angels, and the saints. It's really simony when you consider that people pay money to the priests to have their images "blessed". 

Sadly, it's really a sin to be bowing down before these images in an act of worship. They may go ahead and claim that they pray to the images or that they pray to God by first praying to the saints. It's all unnecessary hurdles that's keeping the Roman Catholic from truly trusting the Lord Jesus Christ alone for salvation.