@Lewis1122 - Shalom Lewis,

You raise several important points here that I would like to address.

Jews and Christians often understand the Scriptures differently. Most rabbis interpret this series of prophecies as already having been fulfilled. They were speaking of the fall of the Northern Kingdom circa 722 BCE. Amos wrote before the fall of the two kingdoms.

If we stretch these words to include the End of Days (which I also think is accurate to do), then I agree with your interpretation. Revelation 3:14-19 speaks of the apathy and apostasy that will define the Christian Church of the Last days. They seek the Word of HaShem but try to enter through an unauthorized "door." The true Door is Torah. This is what Rebbe Y'shua meant when he said "I am the door" (John 10:9). His teachings as a Torah observant rebbe and sage are the Way to HaShem. His reforms (under the B'rit Hadashah or New Covenant) opened the door to Judaism to all people as never before (although there were always converts of course):

Jeremiah 31:31  Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

Note that the New Covenant is made "with the house of Judah" not with the Gentiles. In the End of Days (and beginning in the 3rd century CE) as the talmidim of Rebbe Y'shua moved farther and farther away from Torah and Am Israel the apostasy deepened. In the Last Days even those few who will seek HaShem will not find Him because they will be trying to enter through a different "door." That this is the teaching is clear: After foretelling what Rav Paul calls "the Great Falling Away"   Rebbe Y'shua tells Navi John:

Revelation 3:20  Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
3:21  To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
3:22  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

This final apostasy will lead the Church and most others to "believe the lie" (II Thessalonians 2) and embrace the coming Rex Mundi. Of this verse (i.e. Amos 8:11) Rambam comments:

"... 'but to hear': for the holy spirit shall terminate from them."

HaShem's Ruach will never depart from the earth, but in these days it will depart from these people: "Hearing they will not hear, seeing they will not see" (Matthew13:13).

It is vital to understand that the Jews are the eternally elect people of HaShem. That will never change:

"For I am Adonai, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed -- Malachi 3:6

They will

never

be "consumed" nor replaced by another other people.

"

Consumed

" translates the word kâlâh (pronounced kaw-law):
A primitive root; to end, whether intransitively (to cease, be finished, perish) or transitively (to complete, prepare, consume): - accomplish, cease, consume (away), determine, destroy (utterly), be (when . . . were) done, (be an) end (of), expire, (cause to) fail, faint, finish, fulfil, X fully, X have, leave (off), long, bring to pass, wholly reap, make clean riddance, spend, quite take away, waste.

This directly rejects the idea of Torah having been "fulfilled" etc.

John 4:22  Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

Paul's writings are often misunderstood because most Christians do not understand Torah and the centrality of the Jewish people (II Peter 3:16). Paul never meant to suggest that the eternal Covenant would be superseded. As a rabbi and student of Gamaliel he obviously would never have accepted that. He in fact said:

Romans 11:1  I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
11:2  God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew.

Rather, verses like the ones you share here he are referring to other well established teachings of hope such as:

Isaiah 56:7  Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.

And again:

Zechariah 8:23  Thus saith the LORD of hosts; In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you.

The long standing biblical prophecy is that once the New Covenant was instituted the Gentiles would be added to the Covenant through through the House of Judah via  conversion to Judaism. For the first two centuries this happened as Gentiles embraced the Way (Judaism) as presented by the talmidim of Rebbe Y'shua. Then in the Third Century Constantine and his bishops outlawed "Judaizing" and Christianity became a separate religion. This is why there is no distinction made between Jew and Gentile. Jewish halakha forbids making any distinction between born and convert Jews. In the Messianic Age all people will come to the Temple and worship HaShem as Jews (i.e. as members of the Covenant).

That distinctions between true Jews and false Jews continue to exist throughout the Olam Hezeh (the present age) is clear:

Revelation  2:9  I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.

Rev 3:9  Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.

When HaMoshiach comes he will distinguish between these two groups and establish the One Truth of Torah throughout the world.

It is not therefore accurate to say that the Jews "missed the coming of Christ." They failed to see inspiration and truth of his reforms (most of which non-Orthodox Jews now embrace, many of which the Hasidim now embrace). The most important Messianic prophecies still have no been fulfilled. Had they been, the rabbis and sages of Israel would have accepted him.

Here are the key thus unfulfilled Messianic prophecies:

<li>Isaiah 2, 11, 42; 59:20 <li>Jeremiah 23, 30, 33; 48:47; 49:39 <li>Ezekiel 38:16 <li>Hosea 3:4-3:5 <li>Micah 4 <li>Zephaniah 3:9 <li>Zechariah 14:9 <li>Daniel 10:14

We can say that he will fulfill them when he returns, and so I believe, but thus far they remain unfulfilled and so the rabbis do not accept him as Melekh of Israel.

Shalom

Shalom my friend,
~ John of AllFaith

@Growedup - Hi! Long time no read
Biblical religion is certainly more rational, and in my opinion, superior to other beliefs.

Thanks for your thoughts!

@BroDoc - I understand Catholic doctrine well enough Doc.

New Advent, the official Catholic website, says (emphasis mine):

What an indulgence is not

To facilitate explanation, it may be well to state what an indulgence is not. It is not a permission to commit sin, nor a pardon of future sin; neither could be granted by any power. It is not the forgiveness of the guilt of sin; it supposes that the sin has already been forgiven. It is not an exemption from any law or duty, and much less from the obligation consequent on certain kinds of sin, e.g., restitution; on the contrary, it means a more complete payment of the debt which the sinner owes to God. It does not confer immunity from temptation or remove the possibility of subsequent lapses into sin. Least of all is an indulgence the purchase of a pardon which secures the buyer's salvation or releases the soul of another from Purgatory. The absurdity of such notions must be obvious to any one who forms a correct idea of what the Catholic Church really teaches on this subject...

...In 1330 the brothers of the hospital of Haut-Pas falsely asserted that the grants made in their favor were more extensive than what the documents allowed: John XXII had all these brothers in France seized and imprisoned. Boniface IX, writing to the Bishop of Ferrara in 1392, condemns the practice of certain religious who falsely claimed that they were authorized by the pope to forgive all sorts of sins, and exacted money from the simple-minded among the faithful by promising them perpetual happiness in this world and eternal glory in the next. When Henry, Archbishop of Canterbury, attempted in 1420 to give a plenary indulgence in the form of the Roman Jubilee, he was severely reprimanded by Martin V, who characterized his action as "unheard-of presumption and sacrilegious audacity". In 1450 Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, Apostolic Legate to Germany, found some preachers asserting that indulgences released from the guilt of sin as well as from the punishment. This error, due to a misunderstanding of the words "a culpa et a poena", the cardinal condemned at the Council of Magdeburg. Finally, Sixtus IV in 1478, lest the idea of gaining indulgences should prove an incentive to sin, reserved for the judgment of the Holy See a large number of cases in which faculties had formerly been granted to confessors (Extrav. Com., tit. de poen. et remiss.).....

...In spite of all this, disorders continued and furnished the pretext for attacks directed against the doctrine itself, no less than against the practice of indulgences. Here, as in so many other matters, the love of money was the chief root of the evil: indulgences were employed by mercenary ecclesiastics as a means of pecuniary gain. Leaving the details concerning this traffic to a subsequent article (see REFORMATION), it may suffice for the present to note that the doctrine itself has no natural or necessary
connection with pecuniary profit, as is evident from the fact that the
abundant indulgences of the present day are free from this evil association: the only conditions required are the saying of certain prayers or the performance of some good work or some practice of piety.....

...
To give money to God or to the poor is a praiseworthy act,
and, when it is done from right motives, it will surely not go
unrewarded. Looked at in this light, it might well seem a suitable condition
for gaining the spiritual benefit of an indulgence. Yet, however
innocent in itself, this practice was fraught with grave danger, and
soon became a fruitful source of evil.

After deploring the fact that, in spite of the remedies prescribed by earlier councils, the traders (quaestores) in indulgences continued their nefarious practice to the great scandal of the faithful, the council ordained that the name and method of these quaestores should be entirely abolished, and that indulgences and other spiritual favors of which the faithful ought not to be deprived should be published by the bishops and bestowed gratuitously, so that all might at length understand that these heavenly treasures were dispensed for the sake of piety and not of lucre (Sess. XXI, c. ix). In 1567 St. Pius V canceled all grants of indulgences involving any fees or other financial transactions.

============================

So Doc... if some misguided person laid such an uninformed requirement on someone else, they did it without the authority and sanction of the Catholic Church. Catholic doctrine does NOT support the granting of indulgences for money and money can not  forgive sins, elevate someone to heaven from Purgatory, grant escape from Hell, effect anyones salvation in any way, etc. according to Catholic doctrine.  There persists many inaccurate beliefs about Catholic doctrine.

Shalom

@BroDoc - Shalom Doc,

Catholicism is not a religion I practice nor recommend. However correctly understanding what this, the world's second largest religion (after Islam) teaches remains very important. There is plenty to rightly criticize about Catholicism without misrepresenting its teachings. 

Your friend is wrong Doc, priest or not. I invite him to join this conversation. I would like for him to show where Catholic doctrine supports the selling of indulgences, the buying of forgiveness etc. He can't.

"...As mentioned above the sale of indulgences is
expressly forbidden..." [source below]

"... Indulgences cannot now, nor have they ever been available to be
bought or sold.  The Church has never taught the selling of indulgences" [source below].

Regarding New Advent:

Like countless other solid Catholic websites http://fathersofmercy.com/catholic-websites links to New Advent as an authoritative Catholic source.

Catholic.net uses New Advent material a lot on their source. Go here at looks at the many links: http://catholic.net/?cx=012688029306433412059%3A7ofsx2f5t3u&cof=FORID%3A10&option=googleresult&ie=UTF-8&q=New+Advent&x=0&y=0#

New Advent has one of the largest online Catholic encyclopedias: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen . It is quoted by myriad Catholic sources as authoritative.

It has a huge content that is widely used and respected on many different topics.

Wikipedia note: Under United States copyright law all works published in the United States before 1923 are in the public domain. In 1993 Kevin Knight, then a 26-year-old resident of Denver, Colorado, decided during the visit of Pope John Paul II to that city for World Youth Day to launch a project to publish the 1913 edition of the encyclopedia on the Internet. Knight founded the website New Advent to house the undertaking. Volunteers from the United States, Canada, France and Brazil helped in the transcription of the original material. The site went online in 1995 and transcription work ended in 1997.

CatholicCulture.com says this:
(http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/reviews/view.cfm?recnum=31&repos=2&subrepos=0&searchid=677960)

The New Advent Catholic Supersite is published by a Colorado-based
nonprofit organization whose goal is to provide resources for those
desiring to know more about the Catholic Faith. The main feature of this
great site is an online, indexed, fully searchable version of the
Catholic Encyclopedia. However, the resources by no means end there. The
site also contains full text versions of many encyclicals and other
church documents, a large directory of faithful Catholic links,
summaries of each of the ecumenical councils of the Catholic Church,
dozens of questions excerpted from Catholic Answers'

This Rock

magazine, and much more. This site is truly one of the best Catholic
resources on the web, marred only by the Google search engine which
brings up morally offensive ads.

As for paying money for sins:

If you don't accept the VERY Catholic New Advent, how about CatholicEducation.com. It says the same thing: This practice [never officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church] was outlawed by the Catholic Church at the Counsel of Trent (1551–52). This is a bit long but the story leading up to point is funny. I hope you enjoy it: Here's the point though, then the whole section:

"....But the scandal of selling indulgences was only the catalyst,
not the cause, of the Reformation.

The Church soon cleaned up its act and forbade
the sale of indulgences at the Council of Trent, agreeing with Luther on this
point....

Source: http://catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0027.html

..... The origin of the Reformation is often said to
be Luther's act of nailing ninety-five theses against the sale of indulgences
to the door of the church in Wittenberg. This event is celebrated as Reformation
Day (October 31, 1517). Luther's decision to go public was occasioned by the scandal
of Tetzel,

a Dominican monk who shamelessly peddled forgiveness of sins for a
fee

. He even had a singing commercial: "Sobald das Geld im Kasten klingt,/Die
Seele aus dem Fegfeuer springt!" ("As soon as the money clinks in the casket,
the soul springs free from the fires of purgatory!") The story was told of the
thief who asked Tetzel whether he could buy forgiveness for all his future sins
as well as his past sins. Tetzel said yes, but it would cost him a thousand gold
pieces. The thief paid the money, took the indulgence, and then stole back the
money from Tetzel!

But the scandal of selling indulgences was only the catalyst,
not the cause, of the Reformation. The Church soon cleaned up its act and forbade
the sale of indulgences at the Council of Trent [1551–52], agreeing with Luther on this
point. But one does not split the Church over a practice; one splits the Church
over a doctrine, for the Church can change its practice but never its doctrine.
To change a practice, one stays in the Church; to change a doctrine, one must
start a new Church....

And another: CatholicBasicTraining.com says:

What an indulgence is not

Many non-Catholics misunderstand what indulgences are – either deliberately or not. It is necessary to explain what the Catholic Church actually teaches about them to most non-Catholics, as what many people think indulgences are is genuinely contrary to Christianity.

Indulgence are not a “license to sin” - they are not a
method by which someone can commit a sin and be forgiven for it or have
it “not count”. If a person sins they must get his sins forgiven in
the usual way – through the sacrament of reconciliation – and cannot have them forgiven by an indulgence. An indulgence is a remission of punishment for sin which has already been forgiven.

Similarly, an indulgence cannot be obtained for sins which have not
yet been committed and which, therefore, have not been forgiven.
Indulgences can only be obtained for sins already committed.

Indulgences cannot be bought. Although there have been, historically, abuses
of the system where indulgence were sold this was, has always been and
is totally illegal and not approved by the Church. Indulgences are not bought. Although indulgences can be attached to almsgiving, this is not the same thing as actually buying an indulgence. Giving money to charity or the poor is a good thing and a corporal work of mercy – it is only natural that this would have some spiritual benefit attached to it.

...

And another:

[Some charge that] “Indulgences are a money-making scheme”

No, they are not. As mentioned above the sale of indulgences is
expressly forbidden. Although it is true that in the early 1500s and
elsewhere there was great abuse of the system by greedy men this does not mean that the teaching itself is false. This is an example of scandal in the Church.
A good analogy to use to defend the Church in this case is that there
are so-called Christian televangelists who make millions of dollars by
scamming people and tax fraud – does this mean that Christianity
itself is evil and fraudulent because a few men abuse it wrongly? Or
does it just mean that evil men will attempt to use anything to gain
wealth and power?...

And yet another:

http://catholicischristian.wordpress.com has this agreement with New Advent and the rest of the Catholic Church:

A big part of the concept of indulgences is the misunderstanding of what they are.

<li>Indulgences cannot now, nor have they ever been available to be
bought or sold.  The Church has never taught the selling of indulgences.

===========

If you wish to believe inaccurate information Doc that is your prerogative. I am not a Catholic nor do I support their religion, but they DO NOT teach that one can buy forgiveness etc. with money. That simply is not a Catholic doctrine and never has been officially.

Shalom,
~ John