Most people at the present time have some knowledge of the Holocaust, the six years of unspeakable horror and suffering to which the Jewish people were subjected under Hitler and the Nazis during the Second World War. Few however are aware that the same Papacy that turned a blind eye to the genocide of the Jews under the Holocaust was directly responsible for atrocities of systematized torture and murder of Jews and Bible believing Christians during the 605 years of the Inquisition.
Actual instruments of torture as they can be seen today
From the beginning of the Papacy to the present time, it is estimated by reputable and trustworthy historians, that tens of millions of people, perhaps as many as 50 million have been tortured and slaughtered, by Papal persecutors, for the crime of heresy - believing the Bible rather than the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church.
While the majority of those who suffered were true believers, Rome also persecuted the Jews, Muslims, Knights Templar and those that she called “witches”.
The true believers in olden times were able to stand up to such atrocities because they knew that their Lord had given clear warning, through the Apostles and through the Scriptures of the New Testament that there would be an Apostate church. This was the harlot of Revelation 17 sitting upon the beast, reigning over peoples, multitudes and nations and persecuting the saints of God. They saw that what was being carried out was the fulfillment of what the Lord and the Apostles had foretold.
There were instruments for compressing the fingers till the bones should be squeezed to splinters. There were instruments for probing below the fingernails till an exquisite pain, like a burning fire, would run along the nerves. There were instruments for tearing out the tongue, for scooping out the eyes, for grubbing-up the ears. There were bunches if iron cords, with a spiked circle at the end of every whip, for tearing the flesh from the back till bone and sinew were laid bare. There were iron cases for the legs, which were tightened upon the limb placed in them by means of a screw, till flesh and bone were reduced to a jelly.
The Rack is one of the most well known forms of medieval torture. This pain inducing mechanism worked by having the victim lie on a horizontal rack with his hands and ankles tied to rollers on opposite ends. The Inquisitors would perform the interrogation while turning the rollers, stretching the body of the suspect and causing colossal pain. They would stretch the body out until the joints were actually yanked from their sockets, with the ultimate intent of killing the victim either through shock or injuries. It was instrument of torture for believers.
In 1203 Pope Innocent III published a decree that began the extermination of what was called heresy in Southern France and Italy. This marks the start of the Inquisition as a distinctive papal institution. It was to endure until its final dissolution in Spain and Portugal in 1808.
Those slaughtered were the Albigenses. They had developed a committed Christian life, real estate, progressive cities, and townships right across Southern France were horrifically destroyed and butchered under the armies of papal Rome. As the Inquisition began, it was by turning the Crusade armies against the Albigenses in Southern France from the city of Albi. The Albigenses, it appears, came from a group that was originally known as the Paulicians, who took their teaching from the Apostle Paul. Their name, however, has been deeply tarnished by Roman Catholic sources. Not only were they slaughtered, but also their memory has been virtually obliterated from the pages of history. However, from their fruits as Christians, we truly see the character of these men and women who traced back the writings of Paul the Apostle in the New Testament.
The Inquisition demonstrates the grace and divine power that the Lord gave to His people to survive those horrific years with their faith strengthened. It also shows the inner heart of ritualistic Catholicism and the lengths to which it will go to enforce its will. It is truly a warning for succeeding generations. 
The Chair of Nails that was actually used on believers during the Inquisition
In our own day, modern Evangelicals have for the most part, a complete ignorance of this massive section of Church history. They have failed to take heed of the warning of Christ Jesus and the Apostles and they have failed to recognize the historical reality of the fulfillment of those warnings.
The Inquisition demonstrates the grace and divine power that the Lord gave to His people to survive those horrific years with their faith strengthened. It also shows the inner heart of ritualistic Catholicism and the lengths to which it will go to enforce its will. It is truly a warning for succeeding generations.
These graphics are from the archives of Dr. David L. Brown and have and have been used with permission
This is a book that will never die -- one of the great English classics. . . . Reprinted here in its most complete form, it brings to life the days when "a noble army, men and boys, the matron and the maid," "climbed the steep ascent of heaven, 'mid peril, toil, and pain."
"After the Bible itself, no book so profoundly influenced early Protestant sentiment as the Book of Martyrs. Even in our time it is still a living force. It is more than a record of persecution. It is an arsenal of controversy, a storehouse of romance, as well as a source of edification."
