My name is WF White, and I was born in 1952 in Astoria, Queens, New York. My family moved to Long Island and lived there for five years before returning to Queens. While on Long Island, I attended a public school. We were allowed to participate in "religious instruction" classes once a week at the local Catholic school, where I learned from the Catholic Catechism. I remember learning that there are two kinds of sin: "mortal sin" (more serious) and "venial sin" (less serious). I wondered how anyone could keep track of all that. I found out that missing Mass on Sunday was a mortal sin, which I had already done, and deep inside, I knew I had committed more than my fair share of venial sins. I started feeling concerned about my soul. I was taught about heaven, hell, and a place called purgatory. Purgatory was described as a temporary punishment where Catholics would stay until their love for God was perfect, then they would go to heaven. Even as a young child, I felt enough conviction to doubt I would go to heaven, and purgatory seemed like a long shot to me. I eventually became an altar boy and attended many Catholic masses, including weddings and funerals. I often wondered where I would go after I died. During the seventies, I felt an intense desire inside to find the truth. I felt spiritually dead and knew there had to be more to life than what I had experienced. I started visiting a mall on Long Island because it had two large bookstores. I would go straight to the religion, spirituality, philosophy, meditation, self-improvement, and other sections. I browsed through books, moving from shelf to shelf and from one bookstore to another, filling a large box with books on various topics. I read many of those books, including bestsellers. In the late 1970s, I saw a storefront with a large sign that read "Christian Science Reading Room." I looked at some books in the window, including "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures' by Mary Baker Eddy. A little old lady smiled at me, so I went inside and bought the book. I wanted the truth so badly during those days, but I still felt an empty hole in my heart no matter what I read.

During my early twenties, I did more than my share of drinking, mostly on the weekends. One night in late 1980, I was hanging out at a club on the North Shore of Long Island, and around midnight, I decided to leave. I headed out to the South Shore of Long Island to check out another club. I had been drinking for a couple of hours, and I was tired, but I remember thinking that I wanted to get my "moneys worth" out of the weekend because it was back to work on Monday. I met my wife, Cathy, that night, and I remember when I left the club, there was a ticket waiting on my windshield for parking on the street after 4 AM. That was a typical weekend for me and many others in my age group during that time.

Cathy and I got married in July 1981, and I still had the same desire and interest in seeking the truth. I read about a free seminar on mind control that discussed improving mental power and memory. The seminar was held a few miles from our home, and I convinced Cathy to attend with me. At the start of the seminar, the instructor talked about relaxation, emptying the mind, and visualization techniques. During this part, the instructor forgot what day it was, which struck my funny bone. I couldn't stop laughing, and Cathy laughed along with me. The instructor noticed us but simply smiled. The rest of the class had their eyes closed, practicing visualization. Looking back, I truly believe that it was the Lord who protected us from getting involved in that kind of thing. I believe that when someone begins to empty their mind, they can open themselves to the occult, which is the realm of the demonic. In the mid-1980s, Cathy and I became aware of the Catholic Charismatic movement and participated in two local charismatic prayer groups. We attended Catholic Charismatic healing masses, which focused on healing and praying the rosary. The rosary contains mostly Hail Mary prayers. The charismatic mass was also more lively than a typical Catholic mass, with many songs similar to those sung in Christian churches. During that time, we learned about the Marian apparitions at Medjugorje, where the Virgin Mary was allegedly appearing to some young men and women, delivering a monthly message. We met people from those prayer groups who were dedicated to Mary and the Medjugorje apparitions. We listened closely as they shared stories about their visits to Medjugorje and their experiences there. They recounted how the metal beads on their rosaries changed from silver to gold. One woman who visited Medjugorje described seeing beautiful streams of liquid gold and other colors emanating from the Sun. We were captivated by all this, finding it very exciting. We thought, "Wow, this is unbelievable," and the more we heard, the more eager we became to learn more.

During this same period, we began attending a church in New York City, where we heard testimonies about how people’s lives were being transformed by the power of Jesus Christ. This fascinated us because we were so used to the rituals and rote prayers we recited every Sunday at the Catholic Mass. Over time, we would attend Mass in the morning and visit the other church in the evening, and the power of God’s Word was opening our eyes to the truth. Later, a Christian woman witnessed to Cathy about those apparitions and told her that the Devil comes disguised as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), and Cathy never forgot that. That prompted Cathy to study the scriptures even more, and she began to compare the messages from the Marian apparition with the Bible itself, discovering they clearly conflicted. Cathy started talking with me about her research, and she became convinced that the apparitions could not be from God. At that time, I refused to accept this, and I wasn’t convinced she was right. She kept trying to persuade me for several weeks until one day, with tears in her eyes, she said, "Listen to me," as she held four pages of scripture. Something inside my heart made me listen, and I told her I would pray about it.

I realized I had to choose between the messages from the alleged apparition of Mary at Medjugorje and the Bible. I knew they couldn't both be true because they contradicted each other. At that moment, I decided to rely solely on the Bible as my source of truth. Soon after, we left the Roman Catholic Church and never looked back. We took our Catholic trinkets, including rosary beads, religious medals, and crucifixes, and put them in large trash bags to be taken out to the curb. In the book of Acts, you can read about people who burned their religious books related to sorcery, magic, and divination, which were worth a lot of money. This occurred after they witnessed God's power working through the apostle Paul in performing special miracles. (Acts 19:11-20)

I was born again of the Spirit during this time, and the scriptures became alive to me like never before. There is a big difference between having head knowledge and heart knowledge about the person of Jesus Christ. I used to attend Mass every Sunday, reciting the Apostles' Creed by heart. I was as bored as could be because there was no life in what I was doing. When I looked around at everyone else, they seemed just as bored as I was. The big difference was that now I knew the scriptures were true, and I knew that by the power of the Holy Spirit. I knew that Jesus Christ was certainly God in the flesh and that he created all things, just as the Bible tells us in the Gospel of John. (John 1:1-3, 10-14) I never received that revelation by reciting the Apostles' Creed week after week in the Catholic church. I attended Mass each week because it was an obligation. Cathy actually got saved a little while before me, and we both left the Catholic Church. I remember reading the following passage from the Gospel of John one day, and it came alive to me, so I quoted it to my wife as she was reading in bed:

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13)

I told her that this is what happened to both of us and that we were born of God. We BELIEVED and we were SAVED! I must tell you that the following passage from the book of Romans was like a thunderbolt from HEAVEN and it absolutely shuts down the counterfeit gospel of Roman Catholicism.

“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:6-10)

The bottom line is that every man and woman in the world is an unworthy wretch in the sight of Almighty God. The beauty of the Gospel is that God's love for mankind was (and is) so intense that He sent His Son into the world to die for unworthy wretches like me and you. There is only one thing that can justify the sinner man or woman, and that is the perfect, sinless blood that Jesus shed on the cross for us. This scripture passage tells the believer that they have been justified by the blood and saved from wrath at the same time. The scripture passage also tells us that the believer has been reconciled back to God, and what can be more beautiful than that? There is no need for a Roman Catholic priest to offer up the "sacrifice of the Mass" for me or anybody else either. I do not need to run into a confessional booth either because I can go straight to God through Jesus Christ, our only mediator. (1 Timothy 2:5) I have been redeemed, and I can shout Hallelujah! (Galatians 3:13-14)

Another great game-changer for me was when the Lord opened my spiritual eyes to the DEITY of Jesus Christ. As a Roman Catholic, I had some knowledge of who Jesus Christ was, but it was solely historical; now I know who Jesus Christ is deep in my heart. This understanding didn't come from my own effort but from above. Not long after Cathy and I were saved, we met a Christian woman in the church lobby in Manhattan, New York City. We shared our testimonies with her, explaining how the Lord delivered us from the Roman Catholic system, including the charismatic movement. She listened attentively, and it was a pleasant conversation. We didn’t see her again until nearly a year later, when we met her again in almost the same spot in the lobby. We started another chat, and she told us she was regularly praying with a group of charismatic Catholics. I warned her, "Be careful, sister, because soon they will have you praying the rosary with them." She looked at me and said, "I feel sick, they already have me praying the rosary with them." I recognized this as a divine appointment and knew it was a setup arranged in heaven. God is a loving and merciful God, but He is also a God of truth, warning His children when He sees the enemy gaining ground with deception. I can't recall the rest of the conversation, but I believe she took to heart what I told her.

Until I truly came to know the Lord Jesus Christ, I was one of those people who knew a lot of facts about Him, but did not really know Him. I was as lost and hell-bound as any other sinner on earth. I can also say that after I was genuinely born again of the Spirit, there was no doubt that if I had died before that moment, I would have ended up in eternal Hell. I also testify today that I knew then, and now, that most people in the world are in a lost spiritual condition and as hell-bound as I was before I was saved. That truth was deeply rooted in my heart from that day forward and has never left me. When I emerged from the darkness and deception that had kept me chained, I felt as if the devil himself was watching over me, knowing I no longer belonged to him. The revelation of who the real Jesus Christ is must come from above, as Jesus taught His disciples in the Gospel of Matthew.

“When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 16:13-17)

You see that there were all kinds of ideas about who people thought Jesus might be, but Peter testified that he knew Jesus was truly the Christ (Messiah) and the Son of the loving God. How did Peter know that? The Lord told Peter that flesh and blood did not reveal this to him, meaning that no other man or woman (flesh and blood) told him, but His own Father in Heaven opened his eyes to see the truth about Christ. That’s how it must be with everyone who comes to know the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a personal experience, and it is something you know to be true by the Spirit of God inside you. When someone comes to know the Lord, that same person can confidently testify that the Lord has saved their soul, and that is something they know deep inside, as the Jewish apostle Paul describes.

“For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” (Romans 8:15-17)

The true born-again believer has been set free from bondage; in my case, it was from the bondage of Romanism and their man-made traditions. I also knew that all the teachings and deceptions of the other books I read over the years were misleading in their own way. The Holy Spirit will bear witness with the believer's spirit that they are a child of God and, obviously, saved. The scriptures tell us that the believer is a joint heir with Jesus Christ himself. I did not hear scriptures like this being read during my Catholic Mass each week, but I can only blame myself for not seeking the truth sooner. There is a big difference between the gospel of the Church of Rome and the gospel of Jesus Christ. I emphasize that I am speaking from the perspective of a former Roman Catholic who came from inside the Roman Catholic system. If you are currently a Roman Catholic, my hope is that the Lord will work through the truth of His Word, and that you will leave the church as I did many years ago. If you are a Bible-believing born-again Christian, I hope you will gain a better understanding of Rome's doctrines and see for yourself that they are completely opposed to the truth of Scripture.