..  Paisley's bold, uncompromising stand for the truth has brought him into a lot of trouble through the years. In 1966 he was imprisoned for three months with two of his colleagues on a trumped up charge of supposedly participating in an illegal assembly. Irish Prime Minister Terence O'Neill, who hated Paisley's political and religious stand, instituted the court proceedings. In 1969 Paisley spent several more months in prison, "sentenced to hard labor like a common criminal." Paisley has also been arrested in Vatican Square for giving out copies of the King James Bible. In October 1988, Paisley was beaten and carried unceremoniously out of a European Parliament meeting in Strasbourg, France. The occasion was a speech made by Pope John Paul II before the Parliament. As the pope began his message, Paisley stood and held up a red sign painted in black letters with the words "John Paul II ANTICHRIST." Paisley shouted, "I refuse you as Christ's enemy and Antichrist with all your false doctrine." These were the words spoken by Archbishop Cranmer before he was burned at the stake for his testimony. Paisley tells what happened at that point:

"I have read in the Book of Revelation the power of the word of testimony, but I never realised what power was in a martyr's testimony. If I had brought a ton of explosives and let them off in that Assembly it could not have had a greater effect. That vast Assembly erupted, and the books started to fly and the punches started to be thrown, and the kicking started, but I held my ground and maintained my testimony. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EUROPE TODAY AND EUROPE IN REFORMATION TIMES. This afternoon I read again the story of Luther, at the Diet of Worms. Who presided over the Diet of Worms? The Emperor Charles, Head of the Holy Roman Empire. Who was he? He was a Hapsburg. It is interesting to note that one of the men who attacked me is the last of the Hapsburgs-Otto Hapsburg, the Pretender to the Crown of Austria and Hungary. I said to myself, 'The Hapsburgs are still lusting for Protestant blood. They are still the same as they were in the days of Luther.' The members of the Roman Catholic Party of Mr. Le Pen of which John Taylor is a member were round me battering away at me as hard as they could..

"If there be some Roman Catholic with us tonight we are glad you have come to hear the truth of the Gospel, and I implore you to turn away from your Church. I do not ask you to turn to Protestantism. I ask you to turn to Jesus. He alone can save your soul. I am not going to Heaven because I am a Protestant; I am going to Heaven because I am saved by the grace of God that I defend the great truths of the Bible and protest against all errors which are contrary to these Truths of God's Word. 'Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved'" (Ian Paisley, "None Dare Call Him Antichrist," sermon preached in Martyrs' Memorial Free Presbyterian Church, October 16, 1988).

In 1989 Paisley publicly opposed Billy Graham's ecumenical crusade in London because of the open participation of the Roman Catholic Church. He turned down an invitation to lunch with Graham, saying that he would have no fellowship with those who deny the faith.

[This is excerpted from For Love of the Bible: The Battle for the King James Bible and the Received Text from 1800 to Present, by David W. Cloud, copyright 1995, Way of Life Literature, 1219 N. Harns Rd., Oak Harbor, WA 98277. This 460-page hard cover book is $29.95 + $4 S/H.]