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YEHOVAH said to me further: Get yourself the gear of a foolish shepherd. For I am go-
ing to raise up in the land a shepherd who will neither miss the lost [sheep], nor seek the
strayed, nor heal the injured, nor sustain the frail, but will feast on the flesh of the fat ones
and tear off their hoofs. Oh, the worthless shepherd who abandons the flock! Let a sword
descend upon his arm and upon his right eye! His arm shall shrivel up; his right eye shall
go blind.

The Word of YEHOVAH -- which came by such prophets as Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel
-- frequently warns us against such false shepherds who are nothing but wolves in sheep's clothing,
hirelings who seek to deceive and destroy the very elect of YEHOVAH. In these few verses
Zechariah warns us against one false, cruel and deceptive shepherd in particular -- one who by his
total inability to perform the duty of a spiritual shepherd, shows that he is in fact a stranger to, and
an enemy of, the good news of the Kingdom of YEHOVAH. This false shepherd is indicted first of
all for the tasks he has failed to do: He has failed to heal the injured, sustain the flock or minister
to the very needs of those who are "lost sheep" -- obviously a reference to the House of Israel, the
cast off, divorced, dispersed people of YEHOVAH, put away for their sins and described by the
prophet Hosea as Lo Ammi -- "not My people." Instead, this false shepherd has taken care of his
own needs and desires, feeding himself and those loyal to him, while at the same time discarding
YEHOVAH's true flock and actually turning upon the flock and devouring them.

This personality is, then, more clearly described by the use of the all-important expression:
the IDOL shepherd. He is not merely the chief shepherd of an idolatrous and apostate church sys-
tem, but he himself is actually set up as an IDOL -- or object of worship within that system. In all
the centuries since the time of Zechariah until now, only one person -- or to be more accurate, one
dynasty of men -- fits the description given: THE POPES OF ROME. In order to demonstrate this
more clearly, we must now look at the IDOL SHEPHERD --

1. Feeding himself at the expense of the flock.
2. Devouring the flock.
3. His system of idolatry.
4. He himself as an idol.

Following this, we will go on to examine YEHOVAH's judgment pronounced upon the idol
shepherd.

Feeding Himself at the Expense of the Flock

Roman Catholicism is not merely a monolithic religious system, or a world-wide political
conspiracy, it is also a system based upon greed and the love of money -- the very thing Yeshua
said was the root of every evil. Truly it can be said that the popes of Rome have "feasted on the
flesh of the fat"! One of the chief means by which the Papacy has enriched itself at the expense of
the people is by means of the pagan doctrine of Purgatory. By this heinous teaching -- first pro-
claimed an Article of Faith in 1439 by the Council of Florence and subsequently confirmed in
1548 by the Council of Trent -- the Church of Rome teaches that all who die at peace with the
church, but who are not perfect (pretty much most of us!) must suffer purification in a mythical in-
termediate state, or place for departed spirits.

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