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"That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind will be questioned by no Protestant who has a complete knowledge of history. It is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite certain that no powers of imagination can adequately realize their sufferings."
--W. E. H. Leeky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, Vol. 2:32, 1910 edition
“There is no graver offense than heresy... and therefore it must be rooted out with fire and sword.”
—Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 14 (1911): 767-768
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"Compared with the persecution of heresy in Europe from 1227 to 1492, the persecution of Christians by Romans in the first three centuries after Christ was a mild and humane procedure. Making every allowance required by an historian and permitted to a Christian, we must rank the Inquisition, along with the wars and persecutions of our time, as among the darkest blots on the record of mankind, revealing a ferocity unknown in any beast. "
-- Will Durant --
"Thus Roman Catholicism became ‘the most persecuting faith the world has ever seen… [commanding] the throne to impose the Catholic religion on all its subjects. Innocent III murdered far more Christians in one afternoon… than any Roman emperor did in his entire reign."
-- Dave Hunt --
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“During this period of history (also known as the Middle Ages), the Roman Catholic Church held a strong sway over Europe, and every citizen was required to be a Roman Catholic. Anything short of total submission to the pope was punishable by torture or death. This led the Roman Catholic system to become one of the most persecuting religions the world has ever known…”
-- Vicars of Christ: the Dark Side of the papacy, by Peter de Rosa, p. 180
"For professing faith contrary to the Church of Rome, history records the martyrdom of more than one hundred million people."
--Brief Bible Readings, p. 16
“Christ does not do so, neither his Prophets or Apostles teach so, neither have the kings that are Christians received any such instructions to kill men, or to make them think that the worship of Christ is to be stained with blood; for the true God doth not desire any forced, but voluntary service. Wherefore by his mark especially will he make it evident to all that have any understanding, that indeed he is the Antichrist; that indeed he is not Christ, but, according to his name, opposite and contrary to Christ.
He is Christ that sheds his own blood, he is Antichrist that sheds the blood of others.”
-- Rupertus, Abbot of Tuits, in his 12th century commentary on Revelation, Apoc. lib. 3. cap. 13. Source: Pierre Allix, Ecclesiastical History of Ancient Churches of the Piedmont, published in Oxford at the Clarendon Press in 1821, reprinted in USA in 1989 by Church History Research & Archives, P.O. Box 38, Dayton Ohio, 45449, p. 230
“Through relentless torture, starvation, genocide, massacres, burning at the stake, against every conceivable fury of Rome, they [i.e., the ‘seeds of protest’] could not be extinguished. History estimates that over one hundred million people lost their lives during that time of Roman tyranny.
Is it any wonder that God graphically describes this onslaught of Rome as her being ‘drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus’, and calls her the ‘Beast’?
…For the unbiased researcher, history reeks of the butchery of Romanism, where whole cities and populations were unmercifully wiped out, just because they worshipped God in a manner that was different from Roman Catholicism. ”
-- John Daniel, The Grand Design Exposed (CHJ Publishing, 1999): 27,78
“During this period of history (also known as the Middle Ages), the Roman Catholic Church held a strong sway over Europe, and every citizen was required to be a Roman Catholic. Anything short of total submission to the pope was punishable by torture or death. This led the Roman Catholic system to become one of the most persecuting religions the world has ever known…”
-- Vicars of Christ: the Dark Side of the Papacy, by Peter de Rosa, p. 180
“What has turned my soul against Roman abuse of power is the way in which it has tortured and burned such saints of God as Joan of Arc, hundreds of the Albigensian martyrs in France in the 12th century, the Knights Templar, John Huss [Czech Jan Hus], the Dominican Savonarola, the Dominican Giordano Bruno, [and] the Anglican bishops Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer.
The Inquisition has promoted at least two wholesale massacres: [hundreds of] thousands of Protestant Waldensians in northern Italy, and thousands of Protestant Huguenots by the massacre of St. Bartholomew in France. More than 30,000 of the most cultured Protestants of France were put to the sword on the night of St. Bartholomew, August 24, 1572. At the news [of this brutal, bloody massacre], the Pope had cannons fired, proclaimed a jubilee, ordered a Te Deum of thanksgiving to be sung, and struck a special medal to commemorate the glorious ‘victory’. ”
-- Charles A. Bolton (Ex-Roman Catholic priest)
“For professing faith contrary to the teachings of the church of Rome, history records the martyrdom of more that one hundred million people. A million Waldenses and Albigenses [Swiss and French Protestants] perished during a crusade proclaimed by Pope Innocent III in 1208. Beginning from the establishment of the JESUITS in 1540 to 1580, nine hundred thousand were destroyed. One hundred and fifty thousand perished by the Inquisition in thirty years. Within the space of thirty-eight years after the edict of Charles V against the Protestants, fifty thousand persons were hanged, beheaded, or burned alive for heresy. Eighteen thousand more perished during the administration of the Duke of Alva in five and a half years.”
—“Brief Bible Readings”, p. 16
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“The papacy acknowledges that they have done just this when they said, ‘The church has persecuted. Only a tyro [novice] in history will deny that… Protestants were persecuted in France and Spain with the full approval of the church authorities. We have always defended the persecution of the Huguenots and the Spanish Inquisition.’”
—“Western Watchman”, a Roman Catholic periodical, December 24, 1908
“To wring out confessions from these poor creatures, the Roman Catholic Church devised ingenious tortures so excruciating and barbarous that one is sickened by their recital.
The Medieval Inquisition had flourished for centuries when Pope Paul III, in 1542, gave it permanent status as the first of Rome’s Sacred Congregations, the ‘Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Inquisition’. Known more recently as the ‘Holy Office’, its name was changed in 1967 to the ‘Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’…
Therefore it is not surprising that the ‘Office of the Inquisition’ still occupies the Palace of the Inquisition adjacent to the Vatican, though under its new name, the ‘Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’. Its current Grand Inquisitor, who reports directly to the pope, is the former Archbishop of Munich, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, whom Time [Magazine] has called ‘the world’s most powerful cardinal [and] the Catholic Church’s chief enforcer of dogma…’ ”
-- Dave Hunt, A Woman Rides the Beast (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 1994): 80, 261
“Of eighty popes in a line from the thirteenth century on, not one of them disapproved of the theology and apparatus of Inquisition. On the contrary, one after another added his own cruel touches to the workings of this deadly machine.”
-- Peter de Rosa, Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy (New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 1988): 175
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"THE PORTUGUESE built forts and planted colonies in Africa: established a commercial intercourse with the powerful kingdoms, and compelled the petty princes, by force of arms, to acknowledge themselves vassals.
At this period, and by these means, the power and commerce of the Portuguese in Africa were well established. The wholesome decrees of five successive Roman pontiffs granted, conveyed and confirmed to the most faithful king a right to appropriate the kingdoms, goods and possessions of all infidels, wherever to be found, "to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery or destroy them from the earth", for the declared purpose of bringing the Lord's sheep into one dominical fold, under one universal pastor.
Succeeding kings of Portugal have not forfeited the large grant by any undutiful ness to their holy father. Portugal long enjoyed the trade to Africa and the East Indies without interference of any European power. For more than half a century, before exporting any negroes from Africa, she made and held them slaves in their native country.
The Portuguese first imported slaves into Hispaniola 1508, and into their Brazilian colonies 1517. Their sugar works were first set up in these colonies 1580. Their union with Spain, at that time, was most unfortunate for them. The Dutch became their enemy, who took their East-India and Brazilian conquests and parts of their African colonies. They recovered Brazil and their African establishments 1640, but not that of India.
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After the Dutch gave up Brazil and the gold mines were discovered, the trade of Portugal improved and a great importation of slaves took place: carrying yearly from Loangro to Brazil: 25,000, also many thousands from Goango and Cape Lopos. They themselves say they carry to Brazil 50,000 and more every year from Melinda, on the Mozambique coast. Such had been the increase of their Brazilian and African colonies for a century that their increase in English goods, annually, was greater than that of Portugal and Spain combined prior to 1700.
Spanish America received slaves from the Genoese, Portuguese, French and English. Every state purchased from Spain seceded from the union (1861). The Vatican was the only country to acknowledge sovereignty to the Confederacy. Before, during and long after the African slave trade ended: the heads of state of Spain and Portugal were addressed (and may still be), in formal title, by foreign dignitaries/heads of state, as: "His/Her Catholic Majesty" (U.S. State Dept. records): thereby acknowledging them, only, as emissaries of the pope...
For those who think the Vatican's attitude, toward black people, may have changed through the ages bear this in mind: (1)the biggest race riot in American history (1864, Brooklyn, New York City) was instigated by Archbishop Hughes (in response to Lincoln creating a draft for more union soldiers), including the burning, and trampling to death of the occupants, of a black orphanage. (2)when the U.S. Army occupied Rome during WWII, Pope Pius XII made it clear to American generals there were to be no black soldiers garrisoned in Rome. (3)over 80% of St. Louis, New York City, Chicago etc. police are Knights of Columbus: bear this in mind when you learn that over 75% of these cops sell drugs...
Blacks are being systematically squeezed out of welfare, while legal and illegal catholic immigrants receive unending welfare. Blacks fear the police more than street gangs. Every American city has a predominate catholic influence, and the proportion of mafia/catholic power and influence and crime rate is consistent from city to city.
Entire tribes of western American Indians were annihilated under the direct orders of the brown robed butchers, i.e. Coronado and his Spanish Conquistadors 1519-1540's. Not to mention the Aztecs and Incas of Mexico, Central and South America, Cuba, Haiti, Grenada, Guam, Philippines etc. With the likes of Almagro, Cortez, Pizarro, Valverde, de Meza, Gregory, Sepulveda, Valega and, yes, Christopher Columbus (imprisoned by Queen Isabella of Spain for his atrocities against the natives of Grenada), robbing them of all their national wealth and enslaving the people (try finding that in your public school history books. In the late middle age discoveries, the Vatican viewed all natives of the Americas as "indigenous natural slaves".
Until 1960 you could read, in any public library, books detailing Vatican/Jesuit atrocities throughout the European middle age/dark age inquisitions, since 1960 there has been a systematic removal of all publications (after web pages, like this one, became known, several hundred books suddenly disappeared from the Library of Congress; example: "Confessions of The Conspirators" {to Lincoln's assassination}): evidencing a systematic takeover of all educational material: remember the "book burnings" in Berlin 1933?). This is further evidenced by the remote location of Machu Picchu. And all in the name of their "holy mother", the Church of Rome..." - JESUIT VATICAN TYRANNY [http://members.foothills.net/ricefile/JesVat.htm]
Sao Tomé/St. Thomas Island
Sao Tomé/St. Thomas Island
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ABOVE: 1743: Homann Heirs’ German Map of Judah On The West Coast of Africa
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BELOW: 1747 KINGDOM of JUDA Map • EMANUEL BOWEN was a Welsh map engraver, Who achieved the unique distinction of becoming Royal Mapmaker to both to King George II of England and Louis XV of France. Bowen was highly regarded by his contemporaries for producing some of the largest, most detailed and most accurate maps of his era...
RELATED:
“...those are the worst of the Catholics, the Inquisitors, the Jesuits!... They are simply the Romish army for the Earthly sovereignty of the world in the future, which the Pontiff of Rome for Emperor... that’s their ideal, but there’s no sort of mystery of lofty melancholy about it... its simple lust of power, of filthy earthly gain, of domination - something like a universal serfdom with them as master - that’s all they stand for. They don’t even believe in God perhaps.”
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov”, (New York:Random House, 1950; originally published in 1880) p. 309.
"The Society of Jesus was thenceforth recognized as the chief opposing force of Protestantism. The Order became dominant in determining the plans and policy of the Romish Church. The brotherhood grew and flourished. It planted its chapters first in France, Italy and Spain, and then in all civilized lands. The success of the Order was phenomenal. It became a power in the world. It sent out its representatives to every quarter of the globe. Its solitary apostles were seen shadowing the thrones of Europe.
They sought, by every means known to human ingenuity, to establish and confirm the tottering fabric of Rome, and to undermine the rising fabric of Protestantism.
They penetrated to the Indus and the Ganges. They traversed the deserts of Tibet, and said, “Here am I,” in the streets of Peking. They looked down into the silver mines of Peru, and knelt in prayer on the shores of Lake Superior. To know all secrets, fathom all design, penetrate all intrigues, prevail in all counsels, rise above all diplomacy, and master the human race, — such was their purpose and ambition. They wound about human society in every part of the habitable earth, the noiseless creepers of their ever-growing plot to retake the world for the Church, and to subdue and conquer and extinguish the last remnant of opposition to her dominion from shore to shore, from the rivers to the ends of the earth."
--Ridpath’s Universal History, John Clarke Ridpath, 1899
"My history of the Jesuits is not eloquently written, but it is supported by unquestionable authorities, is very particular and very horrible. Their restoration [by Pope Pius VII in 1814] is indeed a step toward darkness, cruelty, perfidy, despotism, death…
I am not happy about the rebirth of the Jesuits. Swarms of them will present themselves under more disguises ever taken by even a chief of the Bohemians, as printers, writers, publishers, school teachers, etc...
If ever an association of people deserved eternal damnation, on this earth and in hell, it is this society of Loyola."
-John Adams, 1735-1826; 2nd President of the United States; 1816 letter to President Jefferson
“The Protestants of both the North and South would surely unite to exterminate the priests and the Jesuits, if they could learn how the priests, the nuns, and the monks, which daily land on our shores, under the pretext of preaching their religion... are nothing else but the emissaries of the Pope, of Napoleon III, and the other despots of Europe, to undermine our institutions, alienate the hearts of our people from our Constitution, and our laws, destroy our schools, and prepare a reign of anarchy here as they have done in Ireland, in Mexico, in Spain, and wherever there are any people who want to be free…
I will repeat to you what I said at Urbana, when for the first time you told me your fears lest I would be assassinated by the Jesuits: Man must not care where and when he will die, provided he dies at the post of honor and duty. But I may add, today, that I have a presentiment that God will call me to Him through the hand of an assassin. Let His will, and not mine, be done! The Pope and the Jesuits, with their infernal Inquisition, are the only organized powers in the world which have recourse to the dagger of the assassin to murder those whom they cannot convince with their arguments or conquer with the sword.... It seems to me that the Lord wants today, as He wanted in the days of Moses, another victim.... I cannot conceal from you that my impression is that I am that victim.
So many plots have already been made against my life, that it is a real miracle that they have failed, when we consider that the great majority of them were in the hands of skillful Roman Catholic murderers, evidently trained by Jesuits. But can we expect that God will make a perpetual miracle to save my life? I believe not. The Jesuits are so expert in those deeds of blood, that Henry IV said that it was impossible to escape them, and he became their victim, though he did all that could be done to protect himself. My escape from their hands, since the letter of the Pope to Jeff Davis has sharpened a million daggers to pierce my breast, would be more than a miracle."
--PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN [Fifty Years In The Church Of Rome, Charles Chiniquy, 1958, originally published in 1886]
"The favorite policy of the Jesuits [is] that of assassination… It would seem that the Jesuits had had it in mind, from the beginning of the war [the American Civil War of 1861-1865], to find an occasion for the taking off [the assassination] of Mr. Lincoln…These facts, as developed on the trial of the conspirators before a military commission, and on the trial of John H. Surratt two years later, before a civil court…show conclusively the hand of Rome in this stab [the assassination of President Lincoln] at our nation’s life."-- U.S. Army Brigadier General Thomas M. Harris
Jefferson Davis and Pope Pius IX
“Now let me refresh your memory a little regarding American history. Jefferson Davis' sister was the superioress of a convent in Bardstown, Ky.
The first gun at Fort Sumpter was fired by a Roman Catholic.
And Pope Pius IX. wrote President Davis a letter containing consolation and courage. He was the only European potentate who recognized the Confederacy. Was it because he loved Davis and the Southern people? Nonsense. So far as Davis and the Southern people were concerned, they were no more to him than was African slavery, which was "the goat" of that terrible war. I say "the goat" because had the situation not been manipulated by schemers — both North and South and abroad — the slavery question would have settled itself. [Applause.]
The men who got up the war never smelt smoke — except the smoke of their cigars. [Laughter.]
The fact that the pope blessed the Confederacy instead of the Union proves that he believed and hoped that the South would be victorious. And it is quite evident, to my mind, that he was planning a long scheme — that getting the Papal hooks in at the very beginning of the new government, filling the South with his emissaries, and making the Confederate States of America a Catholic nation. Had this been the result, with the aid of Mexico and the Catholic constituency of Canada, together with Catholic prestige in the United States, the project of making all America Catholic would have looked sanguine. The fact that Catholics fought on both sides does not pierce my argument. For we have already seen, in the destruction of Beziers, that Romanism does not hesitate to sacrifice its own blood when the interests of the church are at stake. [Applause.]
Perhaps some of you think I've drawn on extreme fancy. I'll prove that my argument is not so far removed, as you might think, from that of a man whose conclusions upon subjects pertaining to the Civil War are highly respected in this country. Abraham Lincoln said: "This war would never have been possible without the sinister influence of the Jesuits. We owe it to popery that we now see our land reddened with the blood of her noblest sons. If the people knew the whole truth, this war would turn into a religious war. New projects of assassination are detected almost every day. The New York riots were evidently a Romish plot. We have proof in our hands that they were the work of Bishop Hughes." [Applause.]
And there's a sequel to this line of argument. So hostile was Lincoln toward the Catholic Church that many papers said he was an ex-Catholic. Father Chiniquy, a close personal friend of the President, said to him, "That report is your sentence of death." Lincoln himself prophesied that he would die at the hands of an assassin and that his death would be inspired by Jesuits.
Now, I wish you to look at a chain I shall jingle before your eyes.
John Wilkes Booth was a Catholic.
Mrs. Surratt, in whose house the murder was planned, was a Catholic.
Dr. Mudd, who set Booth's leg, was a Catholic.
Garret, in whose barn Booth took refuge, was a Catholic.
Lloyd, who kept the carbine Booth wanted for protection, was a Catholic.
General Baker, the detective, said, "All the conspirators were Roman Catholics."
The death of Lincoln was announced by Catholics at St. Joseph, Minn., forty miles from the nearest railroad station, several hours before it occurred.
Father Chiniquy, Col. Edwin A. Sherman, and General Harris, after investigating the murder, affirmed that Rome was the instigator of Lincoln's assassination.
For a verification of this astounding evidence, I refer you to Brandt's "America or Rome," Chiniquy's works, and other books that enjoy an extensive circulation, not one of which Rome dares assail historically.
Is the old-time spirit of Romanism dead or asleep? Or is it still alive and awake, but held in subjection by governments and the humane spirit of our age?
On page 169 of "Romanism a Menace to the Nation," the Western Watchman, of St. Louis, edited by D.S. Phelan, is quoted as follows from the issue of Dec. 24, 1908: "Protestants were persecuted in France and Spain with the full approval of the church authorities. The church has persecuted. Only a tyro in church history will deny that. We have always defended the persecution of the Huguenots and the Spanish Inquisition. When she thinks it good to use physical force, she will use it. But will the Catholic Church give bond that she will not persecute at all? Will she guarantee absolute freedom and equality of all churches and faiths? The Catholic Church gives no bonds for her good behavior."
Inasmuch as the editor of one of your greatest papers declares that the Catholic Church stands ready to persecute Protestants to-day, as she did in centuries gone by, you Catholics should not feel bitter toward me for suggesting that your system of religion — if it may be termed a religious system — has not changed, but is simply held in check by the forces of our advanced age. [Applause.]
After the meeting last Sunday night, a Roman Catholic stood in front of this pulpit, and, after referring to an experience of thirty years in the holy confessional-box, expressed a very ardent desire to tear all the flesh from my bones. [Laughter.] About a dozen of you people had come forward and were eye-witnesses of the circus. [Laughter.] Fortunately, there was no china broken. [Laughter.]
I close by asking whence this murderous desire in our own land, expressed in the presence of witnesses right here in this building, and sanctioned by a leading Catholic editor, if it not be generated by the present-day teaching of the system, whose hands are red with the blood of more than fifty million saints, and which, according to its own proud boast, is infallible and unchangeable? [Applause.]
- GEORGE P. RUTLEDGE • “CENTER-SHOTS AT ROME” • 1914
“The Jesuit Order, therefore, stands before us as the embodiment of a system which aims at temporal political domination through temporal political means, embellished by religion, which assigns to the head of the Catholic religion – the Roman Pope – the role of a temporal overlord, and under shelter of the Pope-King, and using him as an instrument, desires itself to attain the dominion over the whole world.”
--Count von Hoensbroech, 1911 German Noble and Ex-Jesuit Fourteen Years a Jesuit
"The Jesuits, who are they? They are men of every sort, full of subtle deceit and abominable deception. And they behave as though they were above all laws, like a Self-anointed aristocracy - they are the worst kind of monks. Be it also known that the modus operandi of the members of this great secret society is to carry on their work in silence, darkness, and concealment. And so, they will surely deny all that is said about their Society in this volume: they will deny their own books; they will even deny their real doctrines and their bloody oaths; for that is their strategy."
—P. D. Stuart, Codeword Barbêlôn: Danger in the Vatican (London: Lux Verbi, 2008)
“Between 1555 and 1931 the Society of Jesus was expelled from at least 83 countries, city states and cities, for engaging in political intrigue and subversion plots against the welfare of the State, according to the records of a Jesuit priest of repute…Practically every instance of expulsion was for political intrigue, political infiltration, political subversion, and inciting to political insurrection.”
—J. E. C. Shepherd (Canadian historian), “The Babington Plot: Jesuit Intrigue in Elizabethan England” (Toronto, Canada: Wittenburg Publications): 12:
“The Jesuit Order is an association of highly organized warrior priests. They are politicians first and foremost and have been expelled from virtually every country they have had the opportunity to corrupt and destroy. Their modus operandi is political and educational infiltration and subversion and the fomenting of wars and revolutions in order to weaken and mold the target country into submissive pliability, to then be used to carry out their purpose of global ecclesiastically backed dictatorship. The United States is no exception to this.”
-C. T. Wilcox (The Transformation of the Republic; Page 8)
"I can see Himmler as our Ignatius of Loyola."
—Adolf Hitler, “Libres Propos” (Paris: Flammarion, 1952): 164.
“The Third Reich is the first world power which not only acknowledges but also puts into practice the high principles of the papacy.”
Knight of Malta Franz von Papen - personal advisor to Pope Pius XII
"The S.S. organization has been constituted by Himmler according to the principles of the Jesuit Order. Their regulations and the spiritual exercises prescribed by Ignatius of Loyola were the model Himmler tried to copy exactly. Himmler’s title as supreme chief of the S.S. was to be the equivalent to the Jesuit General and the whole structure and direction was a close imitation of the Catholic Church’s hierarchical order."
-Walter Schellenberg, former of chief of German counter-espionage
“Why were Hitler’s closest advisers Jesuits? Why did Mr. Hitler admire and copy the Jesuits? Are these just mere coincidences? Or are we once again seeing the Jesuits playing the chameleon, and eclipsing the wiles of Ovid?...let us not mince words here, Hitler, the faithful ‘son of the Catholic Church,’ was the Pope’s Malleus Papa—his hammer.”
—P. D. Stuart, Codeword Barbêlôn: Danger in the Vatican (London: Lux Verbi, 2008): 202
“Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler and most of the members of the party’s old guard were Catholics. It was not by accident that because of its chief’s religion, the Nationalist-Socialist government was the most Catholic Germany ever had This kinship between socialism and Catholicism is most striking if we study closely the propaganda methods and the interior organization of the party."
--French writer Frederic Hoffet in 1948
"Catholic religious instruction in elementary, senior, secondary and vocational schools constitutes a regular portion of the curriculum, and is to be taught in accordance with the principles of the Catholic Church...."
--1933 Nazi Concordat with the Catholic Church, Article 21
"Hitler was also ready to discuss with the Bishop his views on the Jewish question: ‘As for the Jews, I am just carrying on with the same policy which the Catholic church has adopted for fifteen hundred years, when it has regarded the Jews as dangerous and pushed them into ghettos etc., because it knew what the Jews were like. I don't put race above religion, but I do see the danger in the representatives of this race for Church and State, and perhaps I am doing Christianity a great service.’"
—“The Nazi Persecution of the Churches" - J.S. Conway, p. 25-26, 162.
"It was a priest, Father Staempfle, not Hitler, who really wrote Mein Kampf."
—Former Catholic Priest, L. H. Lehmann, “Behind the Dictators: A Factual Analysis of the Relationship of Nazi-Fascism and Roman Catholicism” (1942): 26.
"The Fuhrer had come to power, thanks to the votes of the Catholic Zentrum, only five years before, but most of the objectives cynically revealed in 'Mein Kampf' were already realized; this book, an insolent challenge to the western democracies, was written by the Jesuit Father Staempfle and signed by Hitler. For—as so many ignore the fact—it was the Society of Jesus which perfected the famous Pan-German programme as laid out in this book, and the Fuhrer endorsed it."
—Edmond Paris, The Secret History of the Jesuits (Chino, CA: Chick Publications, 1975).
“And so I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord. … Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord’s work. … I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.”
–Adolf Hitler, Chapter 2, “Mein Kampf”
"Adolf Hitler, son of the Catholic Church, died while defending Christianity. It is therefore understandable that words cannot be found to lament over his death, when so many were found to exalt his life. Over his mortal remains stands his victorious moral figure. With the palm of the martyr, God gives Hitler the laurels of Victory".
—Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, Knight of the Order of Christ - published on the 3rd of May 1945, the day of Hitler's death. ("Reforme", 21st of July 1945.)
"Its [the Jesuit Order's] objective was, and is still, to destroy the effects of the Reformation and to re-establish the Holy Roman Empire of the GERMAN NATION... A GREATER GERMANY, in other words, must be made again the center of a REVIVED HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE."
—Leo H. Lehmann (American Historian), "Behind the Dictators", (New York: Agora Publishing Co., 1942) p. 26.
"Persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany has been directed only against those elements which did not entirely submit to the ever-increasing centralization of authority in Church and State...With the extinction of liberal Catholicism and the imprisonment of liberal Protestant leaders, Vatican absolutism was triumphant. Of supreme satisfaction to the Jesuit Catholic faction was the dissolution of Protestantism in Germany."
—Leo Herbert Lehmann, Behind the Dictators. (New York Agora Publishing Co. 1942) p44.49.55
“It can easily be seen that the identity of Jesuit political thought with the objectives of Nazi-Fascism makes it imperative to conceal it from the American public. Were it otherwise, the Catholic Church would suffer complete loss of its prestige in the United States — in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics alike.”
–Leo H. Lehmann, 1942 - Irish Ex-Priest Behind the Dictators
"We, the Hierarchy of the Holy Catholic Church,... if necessary, shall change, amend, or blot out the present Constitution so that the President may enforce his, or rather our, humanitarian programme and all phases of human rights as laid down by our saintly Popes and the Holy Mother Church. ... We are going to have our laws made and enforced according to the Holy See and the Popes and the canon law of the Papal throne. Our entire social structure must be rebuilt on that basis. Our educational laws must be constructed to end the atheism, the Red peril of totalitarianism, Protestantism, Communism, Socialism and all other of like ilk and stamp, be driven from this fair land. ... We control America and we do not propose to stop until America or Americans are genuinely Roman Catholic and remain so." -'Father' Patrick O'Brien: L'Aurora December, 1950
"We must convert... Politics, Economics, Sociology, Business, Entertainment, Labour and Management, the Department of State and the Executive Branch of our Government to Christian - and hence Catholic principles." - The Union and Echo, the official diocesan organ of the Roman Catholic Church in Buffalo NY, December 1950
“I sometimes look at the Jesuit war the war of priests in the Catholic church and the same thing goes on there. There are over 20,000 of them in the world but maybe only a small percentage--one to two percent--know really what's going on. The rest of them--most of them provide a good cover.” --Greg Szymanski
“The Blue Degrees are but the outer court or portico of the Temple. Part of the symbols are displayed there to the Initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false interpretations. It is not intended that he shall understand them; but it is intended that he shall imagine he understands them. Their true explication is reserved for the Adepts, the Princes of Masonry.
The whole body of the Royal and Sacerdotal Art was hidden so carefully, centuries since, in the High Degrees, as that it is even yet impossible to solve many of the enigmas which they contain. It is well enough for the mass of those called Masons, to imagine that all is contained in the Blue Degrees; and whoso attempts to undeceive them will labor in vain, and without any true reward violate his obligations as an Adept. Masonry is the veritable Sphinx, buried to the head in the sands heaped round it by the ages.”
-Albert Pike, Morals & Dogma, p.819
"This society of men [the Jesuits], after exerting their tyranny for upwards of two hundred years, at length became so formidable to the world, threatening the entire subversion of all social order, that even the Pope [Clement XIV]…was compelled to dissolve them.
They had not been suppressed, however, for fifty years, before the waning influence of Popery and Despotism required their useful labors to resist the light of Democratic liberty, and the Pope [Pius VII], simultaneously with the formation of the Holy Alliance, revived the order of the Jesuits in all their power.
The Jesuits…are a secret society, a sort of Masonic order, with superadded features of revolting odiousness, and a thousand times more dangerous. They are not merely priests, or of one religious creed; they are merchants, and lawyers, and editors, and men of any profession, having no outward badge (in this country) by which to be recognized; they are about in all your society." – Samuel Morse (1791-1872; American inventor of the telegraph)
"There is considerable analogy between Masonic and Jesuitic degrees: and the Jesuits also tread down the shoe and bare the knee, because Ignatius Loyola thus presented himself at Rome and asked for the confirmation of the Order."
—Charles Heckthorn, (1900), as quoted in Lady Queensborough, Occult Theocrasy (South Pasadena, California: Emissarv Publications. 1980): p. 313.
"Both Freemasonry and the Society of Jesus [the Jesuits] are (a) humanist religious orders, (b) secretive, (c) fraternal, (d) socially conscientious and politically active… Both orders (e) hold Tradition, Reason, and Experience in equal if not greater esteem than the Bible, (f) employ carefully structured programs of GNOSTIC visualization to achieve an ever-increasing KNOWLEDGE of the ‘divine’, (g) condone ‘the end justifies the means’, and (h) require absolute obedience, secured by blood oath, to a hierarchy of superiors culminating in the Jesuit General…" --F. Tupper Saussy
Some say they "G" stands for "God"... some say it stands for "Geometry"... but the 'Illumined' know that it stands for GNOSIS which is the Greek word for KNOWLEDGE [See Genesis 2:15-17]
Isn't the pursuit of forbidden knowledge what started all of our problems in the first place?
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“The TEMPLARS, like all other Secret Orders and Associations, had TWO DOCTRINES, one CONCEALED and reserved for the Masters, which was [1] Johannism; the other public, which was the [2] Roman Catholic.”
—Albert Pike (33rd Degree), “Morals and Dogma”, p.817
"Moreover, the Pope has thousands of secret agents worldwide. They include Jesuits, the Knights of Columbus, Knights of Malta, Opus Dei, and others. The Vatican's Intelligence Service and its field resources are second to none."
—Guiseppe Mazzini, Letter to Grand Commander Albert Pike (33rd Degree), January 22, 1870.
“It is curious to note too that most of the bodies which work these, such as the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the Rite of Avignon, the Order of the Temple, Fessler's Rite, the "Grand Council of the Emperors of the East and West—"Sovereign Prince Masons," etc., etc., are nearly all the offspring of the sons of Ignatius Loyola. The Baron Hundt, Chevalier Ramsay, Tschoudy, Zinnendorf, and numerous others who founded the grades in these rites, worked under instructions from the General of the Jesuits. The nest where these high degrees were hatched, and no Masonic rite is free from their baleful influence more or less, was the Jesuit College of Clermont at Paris.”
—Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, “Isis Unveiled” (Los Angeles, CA: The Theosophy Company, 1968): 390.
“The Jesuits - again - formed and created Freemasonry; and Freemasonry was created as the Protestant arm of the Roman Catholic Church.
Unbeknown to them – beguiled…fooled, if you like - into doing the work that Rome wanted them to do, so that Rome could sit in the background while Freemasonry did it for them. And then it wasn’t them—it was 'them' -- and it was mainly Protestants that were doing it—and 'not Rome'—very clever…very, very clever indeed.
Now surely the members of Freemasonry themselves must be deceived because if they saw it they wouldn’t do it…right? So actually, the order is being used—and they themselves are deceived. And only within the order—higher up—are those chosen ones who know—and they are controlled by the Jesuits…for Rome. Very clever. Very clever--to make Protestantism do --what you cannot do openly-- because you have been fingered by Protestantism as the AntiChrist…
So, the Jesuits are the heirs of the ‘Occult Religion’ and they control the world through their agencies. They stand in the background, create ‘sub-organizations’, and everybody thinks they are ‘not active’…this is ‘Hegelian’ science –two opposing viewpoints; dialectic thinking—you ‘war’ the one with the other, and you rub them up until nothing is left; it’s called ‘thesis-antithesis’, and the resulting clash brings ‘subthesis’ (that which you want)…”
-- Dr. Walter Veith - Secret Societies
“So Masonry APPEARS to oppose each other at the bottom with the Catholic versus the Protestant -- but it's the same capstone above them that knows what's going on and that's the key to it. THEY MUST CREATE CHAOS IN ORDER TO BRING OUT RESOLUTION and that's a simple technique really is to create the chaos and then offer the solutions over and over…” - Alan Watt
Indeed -- after all, the Masonic motto IS IN LATIN, isn’t it?
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(“ORDER OUT OF CHAOS”)
"The Truth is, the Jesuits of Rome have perfected Freemasonry to be their most magnificent and effective tool accomplishing their purposes among Protestants.
Historically, but strictly for window dressing, it has been pounded into our consciousness that Rome and the Jesuits are the sworn enemies of Freemasonry. And from what is seen on the surface, it certainly would lead anyone to strongly believe this.
This inner and invisible Freemasonry is international in extent, and it is within the Inner Circle that the Jesuits conceal themselves, work, and mastermind the projects that suit their goals.
As with any ‘pyramidal’ scheme, whether it is in marketing, Freemasonry, the Jesuits, or the Roman Catholic Church; it is a hierarchy. Those at the top level of the pyramid leech off the efforts and revenues of the hundreds of thousands of those under them at the lower levels. Nor is it intended for those while at the bottom to ever know the purposes and affairs of those at the top. The lower levels are intentionally lied to and deceived, so as to make them to ‘think’ that they know.
Freemasonry is a cover [for the Jesuits], and must work undercover…so to portray Freemasonry as ‘English and Protestant’ became an important part of the [Jesuit] theatrics. Under this pretense, rival or irregular lodges sprung up with higher degrees for the purpose to merge and alter English Masonry.
When backtracking to the origin of this whole complexity of deception, it brings us straight to the real heart of the matter – the intense hatred of the Roman Catholic Church for anyone or anything that opposes her goals – namely Protestantism.
It positively is not a Jewish conspiracy, but strictly Roman Catholic, who have strategically used certain Jews for their cause’s advantage.
(Some say 'the Jews' control the money -- but do they fail to notice that there are no Hebrew words or symbols printed on the back of a dollar? Only LATIN words and ROMAN numerals.)
"We can trace this hatred starting with the utter destruction of the Spanish Armada [1588], to all the plots and intrigues in between, that cost the Kings of England Charles I his head and James II his throne. Watch it follow James II into France to incite the Jacobite rebellions in England. See the Jacobite cause, through Andrew Michael Ramsay, develop Freemasonry into the Templar Scottish rites. See it move into Germany to be built upon and become the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rites. Then--being carried into the New World; to Boston, Massachusetts, where in 1756, the St. Andrew’s Lodge was founded that incited the American Revolution against England; to Charleston, South Carolina, where the notorious Luciferian, Albert Pike, on 6 January 1859, became the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of Charleston…who during those years created the Satanic Supreme Rite named the New and Reformed Palladian Rite.
When English ‘Protestant’ Freemasonry merged with ‘Catholic’ Freemasonry with its ‘higher degrees’, it came under the complete control of the Roman Catholic Church and the Jesuits.
With great finesse and subtlety, the Jesuits’ most treasured expertise, the two opposing factions of Freemasonry were united… Freemasonry emerged with the stamp and mold of the Jesuits written all over it… This French and German Freemasonry concoction had its origins among the aristocrats, the noble class, the kings’ courts, and the Jesuits. The common class of people never knew what was going on – the same as today – until after the fact.
…later evolved…the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry…not having its origin in Scotland, but [in France]…whose Jesuits’ guiding hands added thirty new degrees to the English’s already existing first three; being based on ‘Templarism’.
Eventually, in 1773, out of the great proliferation and affiliated French [Masonic] Lodges competing for supremacy, emerged the ‘Grand Orient’ [Lodge] – that infamous lodge that was so active in the French Revolution [of 1789-1799] – and also directly associated with the zealous members of the German Lodge Theodore, of whom the most conspicuous member was the modern Illuminist, Jesuit Adam Weishaupt, Professor of Canon Law at the Jesuit University of Ingolstadt, [Germany]. “The most wonderful thing of all is that the distinguished Lutheran and Calvinist theologians who belong to our [Illuminati] Order really believe that they see in it the true and genuine sense of the Christian religion. Oh, mortal man, is there any thing you cannot be made to believe?” –Adam Weishaupt (Jesuit & founder of the “Order of the Illuminati” in 1776)
However, ‘maverick’ Grand Lodges also began to crop up, spawning their own lodges and claiming their own authenticity. It was these maverick lodges that were Jesuit Catholic influenced and offered the ‘higher degrees’ that contended with the Grand Lodge of England, and required its members to be obedient to ‘Unknown Superiors’. It established itself in the colonies of Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, Georgia, and South Carolina and profoundly affected and influenced all the American founding fathers. The secret agenda of Rome’s Jesuits was to converge their ‘modified’ Freemasonry with England’s Protestant Freemasonry. Then masquerading it as ‘Protestant’, it became a vehicle to deceive Protestants… As hidden ‘Unknown Superiors’, they [the Jesuits] would guide Freemasonry to bring to fruition their ultimate goal and ‘Grand Design’ – rulers of a cosmopolitan citizenship – the ‘new order of the ages’.
Without exception, every chief actor in the French Revolution [1789-1799] was either Jesuit-educated, a Catholic prelate, or a member of the Illuminati Order where within the Jacobin Club they would come together to conspire and carry out the ‘Great Work’ – which in the open system of the Jacobins was the reflection of the complete hidden system of the Illuminati – and in back of the Illuminati were the hidden Jesuit ‘masters’.
There are other secret and semi-secret organizations such as the International Bankers, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberger Group, [the] Club of Rome, the Trilateral Commission, the New Age Movement, the Illuminati, and Freemasonry, who are all deeply involved in global politics, and who actively promote the uniting of the people of our planet under a New World Order.
However…these all are but mere ‘front’ organizations, behind which the true source of power [i.e., the Jesuit Order] hides and uses to distribute and channel its designs. And, as in any conspiracy, secrecy and shifting attention and blame away from itself is paramount to its success.”
– John Daniel The Grand Design Exposed
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“The papacy is but the ghost of the Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.”
—J. Gaskin (ed.), Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Oxford University Press, 1998):463.
"The Holy Roman Empire
Faced with a crumbling empire, political corruption and a series of ruinous wars with barbarians, the old Roman Empire hovered on the brink of disaster.
The religious contortions undertaken by the ruling body in Rome to maintain its earthly power led the political leaders to crack down on healthy diversity in the field of individual cults and religions.
To save itself politically, the formerly pantheistic (meaning tolerant of different worships) government of the empire changed its policy.
Starting in 249 A.D., various emperors launched a string of bloody persecutions, which included the troublesome Christians.
By 306 A.D., it was clear that this was not working.
Emperor Constantine called off the executions and began to patronize the Christian clergy, which promptly adopted a dogma lifted from Mithraism, among other religions: Royal Blood by Birth, or the Divine Right to Rule Other Humans.
The ambitious Constantine saw that while underground, the church had developed into an intolerant, tightly-knit hierarchy; a well organized network second in influence only to his own.
By combining church and state, each was able to double its power and seek out the crimes/sins of all its political rivals and enemies with the full support/blessing of the other.
Constantine soon converted to Christianity and declared one mandatory, monistic, state-empowered religion: the Roman Catholic Church; literally, the Roman Universal Church (catholic is Latin for universal).
This was now the absolute and official religion of the empire.
In one sweep, all secret societies were outlawed which might have threatened his (and Rome’s) mandate to rule the known world, as they had for the previous 400 consecutive years.
Church/State Aristocracy
After running from the Roman Empire’s police for almost 300 years, Christian Orthodox priests had become their bosses. Starting in the 4th, 5th, and 6th Centuries A.D., pagan religions and all the different Christian sects, belief systems, knowledge, gospels, etc., such as the Essenes, Gnostics, and Merovingians (Franks), were either incorporated into or edited out of official doctrine and hierarchy.
Finally, in a series of councils, all contrary dogmas (e.g., that the Earth was round, and the sun and stars were more than five to 17 miles away) were summarily outlawed and driven underground during the Dark Ages, 400-1000+ A.D.
By the early Middle Ages, at the beginning of the 11th Century A.D., virtually all powers were placed in the hands of the Church and Pope; first by Germanic conquerors, and later by Spanish and French kings and powerful Italian merchants and nobles (the Borgias, Medicis and other megalomaniacs), probably to protect their trade secrets, alliances and sources of wealth.
All European people were forced to adhere to the Holy Roman Empire policy: zero tolerance by a fundamentalist church/police-state with blind faith in one, unquestioned version of how to worship God…and the Pope’s infallibility.
Political rulers aided and abetted the Church in this fraud, as their power now rested only on their new Christian dogma, the patriarchal Divine Right to rule.
They enacted laws with fantastically vicious punishments for even the slightest infraction or heresy. Heretics were mercilessly sought out by fanatical, sadistic inquisitors using perverted forms of torture to extract confessions and as punishment.
This system kept most of the Western world’s inhabitants in a state of constant terror, not only for their own physical safety and freedom but also for their eternal spirit, with Hell lurking mere inches below the surface for those excommunicated by the church.
The Politics Of Paper
The masses of people, the commons, were kept in check through a dual system of fear and enforced ignorance. All learning, except the most rudimentary, was controlled and strictly regulated by the priests.
The commons (about 95% of the people) were forbidden to learn to read or write – not even an alphabet – and often were punished or put to death for doing so.
The people were also forbidden to learn Latin, the language of the Bible. This effectively enabled the few priests who could read to interpret the scriptures any way they pleased for about 1,200 years, until the Reformation in Europe, circa 1600.
To prohibit knowledge, people were literally kept in the dark, without a piece of paper to write on. The monasteries preserved and guarded hemp’s secrets. They saw that Cannabis held two threats to this policy of absolute control: papermaking and lamp oil.
Something had to be done." [Read MORE...]
--JACK HERER The Emperor Wears No Clothes
“The sixteenth century presents the spectacle of a stormy sunrise after a dismal night. Europe awoke from long sleep of superstition. The dead arose. The witnesses to truth who had been silenced and slain stood up once more and renewed their testimony. The martyred confessors reappeared in the Reformers.
There was a cleansing of the spiritual sanctuary. Civil and religious liberty were inaugurated. The discovery of printing and revival of learning accelerated the movement. There was progress everywhere. Columbus struck across the ocean and opened a new hemisphere to view. Rome was shaken on her seven hills, and lost one-half of her dominions. Protestant nations were created. The modern world was called into existence.”
- H. Grattan Guinness, Romanism and the Reformation, p. 122
“It is idle in Rome to say, "I gave you the Bible, and therefore you must believe in me before you can believe in it." The facts...conclusively dispose of this claim. Rome did not give us the Bible—she did all in her power to keep it form us; she retained it under the seal of a dead language; and when others broke that seal, and threw open its pages to all, she stood over the book, and unsheathing her fiery sword, would permit none to read the message of life, save at the peril of eternal anathema" (emphasis in original).
-Historian J. A. Wylie
"Initially, the Roman Catholic Church tried the direct approach – i.e., a FRONTAL ASSAULT using armies sponsored by the Papacy that targeted entire populations and regions for annihilation. The Papacy sent professional army after army against innocent, simple Christian farmers and peasants – slaughtering men, women and children who would not submit to Papal authority, nor surrender the precious Word of God.
The Roman Catholic Church for many centuries forbade the Bible to be read by the common man (or woman or child), especially Bible translations not approved by the Papacy. Thus, the Bible-believing Albigenses in southern France were exterminated on the orders of the Papacy. Later, the Papacy sent army after army to try to exterminate the Waldenses (i.e., the Vaudois) – again for the “heinous sin” of trying to get God’s Holy Word into the hands of common folk. Fortunately, the Waldenses, though many were slaughtered by Catholic armies, survive as a people to this day in Northern Italy.
When the Papacy failed to exterminate by force all Bible-believing Christians who clung to the true Word of God and who refused to recognize corrupt Papal authority – or to destroy all of their Bibles, it decided on a different tactic – substituting “doctored, cut & pasted” corrupt, aberrant manuscripts and translations in place of the true manuscripts. They also decided to carry out a massive infiltration of Protestant and Baptist denominations, churches, seminaries, Bible societies, etc., with their Jesuits, “temporal coadjutors”, “liberal” theologians, etc. These plans were no doubt mainly the work of the wily Jesuit Order, and they have been extremely successful.
Oh, you may be asking: “Why would the Papacy make war on the Bible and all those Bible-believing Christians for so many centuries – after all, doesn’t the Papacy love the Bible?” The short answer is that the Papacy has HATED God’s True Word for centuries, and tried for centuries to keep it out of the common folks’ hands BECAUSE the Holy Bible condemns many of the “traditions”, practices, and doctrines of the Catholic Church, and BECAUSE the Holy Bible clearly identifies the Papacy as the Antichrist (i.e., sitting in the place of Christ) system spoken of in Daniel Chapter 7 and Revelation Chapters 14, 17, and 18.
If you don’t believe this to be so, read those chapters in the Holy Bible. The Papacy sits on “seven mountains” (hills), uses “purple and scarlet” colors for her higher-level clergy, has slaughtered millions of Christians and is thus “drunk with the blood of the saints”, is a “great city” that has “ruled over the kings of the earth”, is a “Mother” church with “harlot daughters” (i.e., Protestant denominations), etc., as meticulously described in God’s Holy Word.
What other institution in the history of the world comes even slightly close to fitting ALL those descriptions given to us by a Holy God in His Holy Word?
- Darryl Eberhart “The Real Bible”
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“The papacy is but the ghost of the Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.”
—J. Gaskin (ed.), Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Oxford University Press, 1998):463.
As the Apostle writes: "even NOW are there MANY antichrists..." -- which in his time was identified as whoever was occupying the throne of Caesar of the Roman Empire -- yet, with a prescient insinuation that before too long, the Rome and its Caesar would simply co-opt the gospel for its own agenda and be rebranded a (supposedly) "Holy" Roman Empire -- with a succession of Popes that will continue to constitute the presence of the antichrist on earth for 2000 years until the final one appears at the end of time when Messiah returns to judge.
The official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church:
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Answer...
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the pope is infallible when he speaks from his position of authority on a particular issue or doctrine (speaking ex cathedra). Many misunderstand “papal infallibility” as indicating that everything the pope says is infallible. This is not what the Roman Catholic Church means by “papal infallibility.” According to the Roman Catholic Church, this infallibility of the pope, only when speaking ex cathedra, is part of the Roman Catholic Church’s Magisterium, or the “teaching authority of the Church” which God gave to the “mother Church” to guide her infallibly. This “teaching authority of the Church” is made up of the pope’s infallible teaching ability, the infallible teaching ability of church councils assembled under the authority of the pope, and the “ordinary” Magisterium of the bishops. This “ordinary” Magisterium involves, among other things, bishops in various places beginning to teach the same particular doctrine (for instance, the teaching that Mary was conceived without sin), and that if this teaching gains acceptance throughout the church as a whole, it is an indication that the Holy Spirit is working through the bishops and that this teaching is from God. The pope may later recognize this and proclaim infallibly that it comes from God and is to be accepted by all Roman Catholics.
The question is whether this teaching is in agreement with Scripture. The Roman Catholic Church sees the papacy and the infallible teaching authority of “mother Church” as being necessary to guide the Church, and uses that as logical reasoning for God’s provision of it. But in examining Scripture, we find the following:
1) While Peter was central in the early spread of the gospel (part of the meaning behind Matthew 16:18-19), the teaching of Scripture, taken in context, nowhere declares that he was in authority over the other apostles or over the entire church (see Acts 15:1-23; Galatians 2:1-14; 1 Peter 5:1-5). Nor is it ever taught that the bishop of Rome was to have primacy over the church. Rather, there is only one reference in Scripture of Peter writing from “Babylon,” a name sometimes applied to Rome, found in 1 Peter 5:13; primarily upon this and the historical rise of the influence of the bishop of Rome come the Roman Catholic Church teaching of the primacy of the bishop of Rome. However, Scripture shows that Peter’s authority was shared by the other apostles (Ephesians 2:19-20) and the “loosing and binding” authority attributed to him was likewise shared by the local churches, not just their church leaders (see Matthew 18:15-19; 1 Corinthians 5:1-13; 2 Corinthians 13:10; Titus 2:15; 3:10-11).
Thus, the foundation of papal infallibility—the existence of the papacy itself—is not scriptural.
2) Nowhere does Scripture state that, in order to keep the church from error, the authority of the apostles was passed on to those they ordained (the Roman Catholic Church teaching of "apostolic succession"). Apostolic succession is “read into” those verses that the Roman Catholic Church uses to support this doctrine (2 Timothy 2:2; 4:2-5; Titus 1:5; 2:1; 2:15; 1 Timothy 5:19-22). Paul does NOT call on believers in various churches to receive Titus, Timothy, and other church leaders based on their authority as bishops, but rather based upon their being fellow laborers with him (1 Corinthians 16:10; 16:16; 2 Corinthians 8:23). What Scripture DOES teach is that false teachings would arise even from among accepted church leaders and that Christians were to compare the teachings of these later church leaders with Scripture, which alone is cited in the Bible as infallible. The Bible does not teach that the apostles were infallible, apart from what was written by them and incorporated into Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:18-21). Paul, in talking to the church leaders in the city of Ephesus, makes note of coming false teachers, and to fight against such error he does NOT commend them to “the apostles and those who would carry on their authority”; rather, he commends them to “God and to the word of His grace” (Acts 20:28-32).
3) Nowhere in Scripture is the “teaching Magisterium,” or mastery of bishops, taught and treated as of equal weight with Scripture. What history has shown is that, when any other source of authority is treated as being of equal weight with Scripture, that second authority always ends up superseding Scripture (such is the case with the Mormons' other accepted writings and the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Watchtower). So it is with the Roman Catholic Church. Repeatedly, Catholic Catechisms state that many of their doctrines are not found in or based on Scripture (e.g., Mary being Co-redemptress and Co-mediator, sinless, and conceived without sin; Mary’s ascension; praying to saints and venerating them and images of them; etc.). For Roman Catholics, it is the “mother Church” that is the final authority, not Scripture, no matter that they say that the Magisterium is the “servant of Scripture.” Again, the Bible teaches that it is Scripture that is to be used as the measuring stick to determine truth from error. In Galatians 1:8-9, Paul states that it is not WHO teaches but WHAT is being taught that is to be used to determine truth from error. And while the Roman Catholic Church continues to pronounce a curse to hell upon those who would reject the authority of the pope, Scripture reserves that curse for those who would teach a different gospel from what had already been given and recorded in the New Testament (Galatians 1:8-9).
4) While the Roman Catholic Church sees apostolic succession and the infallible Magisterium of the church as logically necessary in order for God to unerringly guide the Church, Scripture states that God has provided for His church through:
(a) infallible Scripture (Acts 20:32; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; Matthew 5:18; John 10:35; Acts 17:10-12; Isaiah 8:20; 40:8; etc.),
(b) Christ’s unending high-priesthood in heaven (Hebrews 7:22-28),
(c) the provision of the Holy Spirit Who guided the apostles into truth after Christ’s death (John 16:12-14), Who gifts believers for the work of the ministry, including teaching (Romans 12:3-8; Ephesians 4:11-16), and Who uses the written Word as His chief tool (Hebrews 4:12; Ephesians 6:17).
In summary, the Bible speaks of only one abiding, "tangible," infallible guide left by God for His church. It is the written word of God, not an infallible leader (2 Timothy 3:15-17). And, as He gave the Holy Spirit to bear holy men along in the writing of those Scriptures (2 Peter 1:19-21), so He has given His Holy Spirit to indwell, fill, guide, and gift members of His church today for the purpose of directing His church through the proper interpretation of that written word (1 Corinthians 12 and 14; Ephesians 4:11-16). That there are schisms and false teachings today should be no surprise, for the Bible also warns us that there would be false teachers who would twist the written word (2 Peter 3:16) and that these false teachers would arise from within the churches (Acts 20:30). Therefore, the believers were to turn to God and the "word of His grace" for their guidance (Acts 20:32), determining the truth not by who said it, but by comparing it with the gospel already received by the early church, the gospel recorded for us in Scripture (Galatians 1:8-9; see also Acts 17:11). [Source]
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“The papacy is but the ghost of the Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.”
—J. Gaskin (ed.), Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Oxford University Press, 1998):463.
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"It is, therefore, by a particular decree of Divine Providence that, at the fall of the Roman Empire and its partition into separate kingdoms, the Roman Pontiff, whom Christ made the head and center of his entire Church, acquired civil power."
− Pope Pius IX, Apostolic Letter Cum Catholica Ecclesia, March 26, 1860.
"Contrary to flawed popular belief, the popes are not the successors to the Apostle Peter. They are, however, the successors to the Roman Emperor. History shows that the title of “Supreme High Priest” was officially bestowed on the bishop of the church at Rome by the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century.
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Therefore, the office of “supreme high priest” of the Roman Catholic Church, perpetuated now for nearly 1,500 years, came from an apostate secular source, whereas the Bible proclaims one Supreme High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ appointed by God. The pagan Emperor Justinian also bestowed on the bishop of the church at Rome the universal oversight of the entire Christian world. That was when the bishop of the church at Rome became known as the Pope, arising as Spiritual Head of the pagan Roman Empire.
The authority of this historical fact alone ought to be seen as clearly designating the Antichrist."
--Richard Bennett, The Antichrist Unveiled
“The Catholic Church makes tradition above or equal to Scripture, but in actuality many of its traditions actually stem from pagan sun worship. Its teachings, beliefs and practices come from Mithraism—a form of paganism that existed in Babylonian times.
… the four beasts of Daniel 7, representing the four successive world powers, took the religious rites and ceremonies from each preceding kingdom as it fell, so that Babylonian traditions continued through the ages. Rome, the final kingdom, still clings to these pagan traditions today.
The Papacy claims that its system of worship has been handed down through tradition. They are absolutely correct. But these are not the teachings of Jesus, but rather the traditions of Babylon.
Roman Catholic doctrines such as infant baptism, sprinkling during baptism, teachings on death and immortality, tonsured and celibate priests with power over the dead, prayers to the dead and to relics, repetitive prayers with the use of beads, doctrines on forgiveness of sins, teachings on hell, the mass, and Sunday worship are doctrines actually derived directly from ancient Babylon, not the Bible.
When Constantine married paganism and Christianity, the door was opened for false doctrines to creep into the early Christian Church, and they were gradually introduced into the system. The Church became divided into the Catholic Church who accepted the pagan doctrines, and the true Christian Church who resisted Constantine’s indoctrination.
Like the successive strata of the earth covering one another, so layer after layer of forgeries and fabrications was piled up in the Church.
The church historian Philip Schaff says, "No church or sect in Christendom ever sank so low as the Latin church in the tenth century."
Many of Rome's documents used to validate its authority and origin have been established as fakes. These unusable sources include The Donation of Constantine, which claim to establish the papal domain and jurisdiction, and The Decretals of Isidore, which were touted as establishing pontifical supremacy. According to J. A. Wylie's book The History of Protestantism, the Greeks reproachfully named the fledgling Roman Church as "the native home of inventions and falsifications of documents." These forgeries, nevertheless, succeeded in establishing Catholic doctrines.
… we have seen how God foretold the future first to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon through the symbolism of a magnificent statue and then in greater detail directly to Daniel through four beasts arising out of the sea. Daniel's dream describes a little horn that arises from among the ten horns of the fourth terrible beast. The little horn power represents the Antichrist and is described in Daniel's dream with great detail so that we can clearly identify who this end-time enemy will be. Since we don't want to make any mistake, it is essential that we correctly identify this power.
Daniel 7 gives us very precise identifying features of the horn, and every single one must apply in order to make an accurate identification possible. The 13 features are as follows:
1. It arose out of the fourth beast.
2. It came up among the ten horns.
3. It came up after the ten horns had been established.
4. It was to uproot three horns.
5. It was to be greater than the others.
6. It was to be different than the others.
7. It was to have eyes like the eyes of a man and speak great words against God.
8. It was to make war on God's saints.
9. It would think to change times and laws.
10.The saints were to be handed over to it for a time and times and half a time.
11. It shall devour the whole earth.
12. It shall reign until the Ancient of Days comes.
13. Its dominion will be taken away.
The Antichrist power has to fulfill all of the characteristics given in the Bible. It cannot meet only some of them. Thirteen times in the above articles, we see how the papal system qualifies for all the identifying points of the little horn power of Daniel 7, as sad and shocking as it may seem.
It is essential that we realize that the Bible is not dealing with individuals, but with a religious and political system that for more than 1500 years has claimed the power to control the planet’s conscience. Moreover, for a set time, it had power to enforce its decrees and to persecute all who chose to obey God and His Word.
The Bible is dealing with a power that is misusing its position, and presuming to take the very place of God. Individuals are responsible to God for the light they live up to. In condemning the system, God is not condemning the individuals within the system who are living up to light they have and long to have a relationship with Him.
There is only one system that meets all the identifying features listed in Daniel chapter 7, and this is the Papacy.”
-- Professor Walter J. Veith, PhD
"It is a matter for deep regret that those who hold and advocate the Futurist system at the present day, Protestants as they are for the most part, are thus really playing into the hands of Rome, and helping to screen the Papacy from detection as the Antichrist. It has been well said that "Futurism tends to obliterate the brand put by the Holy Spirit upon Popery." More especially is this to be deplored at a time when the Papal Antichrist seems to be making an expiring effort to regain his former hold on men's minds. Now once again, as at the Reformation, it is especially necessary that his true character should be recognized, by all who would be faithful to 'the testimony of Jesus.' "
From Daniel and the Revelation: The Chart of Prophecy and Our Place In It, A Study of the Historical and Futurist Interpretation, by Joseph Tanner, published in London by Hodder and Stoughton, 1898, pages 16,17.
☝📺 WATCH ABOVE: In addition to obscuring the TRUE IDENTITY of the ANTICHRIST, Rome's "Rapture" (along with a healthy dose of REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY) also takes the FOCUS AWAY FROM the Most High coming to GATHER TRUE ISRAEL FIRST and set up the kingdom for ALL nations to come bow before His throne in ZION!🌍
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THE TRUTH ABOUT THE RAPTURE
By BIBLE LIGHT MINISTRY
Luke 17:33 Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
Luke 17:34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.
Luke 17:35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
Luke 17:36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
Luke 17:37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.
The above passage is frequently quoted to support a "secret" rapture, that neither the saved or the lost will be aware of what is happening at the time. Supposedly, millions of Christians will be "taken" and simply disappear mysteriously, leaving the world wondering where they went. Just what does this passage really intend to teach?
Well, first let's look at a parallel passage in Matthew:
Mat 24:27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Mat 24:28 For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
...
Mat 24:37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Mat 24:38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
Mat 24:39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Mat 24:40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
Mat 24:41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
Mat 24:42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
Note that in verse 39, the wicked who perished in the flood are described as being taken away. The wicked are taken first, not the righteous. Next, it tells us that it shall be exactly the same at the second coming of the Lord. Clearly in in days of Noah, those taken first perished, and so it will be again at the second coming. The Greek word translated as "took" in verse 39 is:
142. airo, ah'ee-ro; a prim. verb; to lift; by impl. to take up or away; fig. to raise (the voice), keep in suspense (the mind); spec. to sail away (i.e. weigh anchor); by Heb. [comp. H5375] to expiate sin:--away with, bear (up), carry, lift up, loose, make to doubt, put away, remove, take (away, up).
Note that the word means to remove or to take away, as in to dispose of. Now notice that in Luke 17:37, a question is asked: "Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together". This answer given by Jesus refers to the vultures gathering over the bodies of the wicked, those taken first and disposed of in Mat 24:39, which are all slain at the second coming (See also Rev 19:20-21).
This is in harmony with the sense that being "taken" means in the following verses:
Josh 8:8 And it shall be, when ye have taken the city, that ye shall set the city on fire: according to the commandment of the LORD shall ye do. See, I have commanded you.
Josh 8:21 And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again, and slew the men of Ai.
Judg 1:8 Now the children of Judah had fought against Jerusalem, and had taken it, and smitten it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire.
1 Ki 9:16 For Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, and taken Gezer, and burnt it with fire, and slain the Canaanites that dwelt in the city, and given it for a present unto his daughter, Solomon's wife.
1 Ki 16:18 And it came to pass, when Zimri saw that the city was taken, that he went into the palace of the king's house, and burnt the king's house over him with fire, and died,
Jer 38:23 So they shall bring out all thy wives and thy children to the Chaldeans: and thou shalt not escape out of their hand, but shalt be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon: and thou shalt cause this city to be burned with fire.
In the above verses, to be taken is to be captured, defeated and destroyed. That is what Mat 24:39 is saying:
Mat 24:39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Now, however, there is a different word translated "taken" in the following verses, giving a change in meaning not apparent in the English translation:
Mat 24:40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
Mat 24:41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
Here is the definition of the word:
3880. paralambano, par-al-am-ban'-o; from G3844 and G2983; to receive near, i.e. associate with oneself (in any familiar or intimate act or relation); by anal. to assume an office; fig. to learn:--receive, take (unto, with).
This word has the positive connotation of being taken with, as in to be received or accepted. So this is the resulting meaning of the passage:
Mat 24:39 And knew not until the flood came, and took [disposed of] them [the wicked] all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Mat 24:40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken [with, received or accepted], and the other left [slain on earth].
Mat 24:41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken [with, received or accepted], and the other left [slain on earth].
The same Greek word, paralambano, is used in the following passage, describing the exact same event, the second coming:
John 14:2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
John 14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive [paralambano] you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
The Lesson of Noah and the flood, and Lot and Sodom
The 17th chapter of Luke, which we began this study with, again makes it plain that the wicked will all perish at the return of Christ:
Luke 17:26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
Luke 17:27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
Luke 17:28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
Luke 17:29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
Luke 17:30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
The lesson is clear. Sudden destruction comes upon the wicked at the second coming. They will all perish.
So in Luke 17 and Matt 24, Jesus was not teaching a mysterious, silent, or secret rapture of the righteous away from the world. He was making it clear, that at His second coming, all the wicked will be taken and slain first, leaving only the righteous alive, who will then accompany Jesus to heaven. This utter destruction of the wicked at Jesus' return is completely ignored by those teaching the secret rapture.
The Second Coming Described
The following verses all show that with respect to the second coming, Jesus will indeed come quickly-
Rev 3:11 Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.
Rev 22:7 Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.
Rev 22:12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
Rev 22:20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
Mat 24:27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
And the following verses refer to the second coming of Jesus as being like a thief for the wicked-
Rev 3:3 Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.
Rev 16:15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
1 Th 5:4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
It should be quite clear that all the above verses are indeed referring to the second coming of Jesus. He will come quickly, like lightning, as a thief upon the unsuspecting wicked of the world. But is it a secret, silent event?
2 Pet 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
2 Pet 3:11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
2 Pet 3:12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
1 Th 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
It will be the noisiest, most climactic event in history, not a silent, mysterious secret.
The Parable of the Tares of the Field.
Now, in the book of Matthew, Jesus tells a parable about the end of the world, which is intended to explain some end time events of the second coming:
Mat 13:24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:
Mat 13:25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
Mat 13:26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
Mat 13:27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?
Mat 13:28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
Mat 13:29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
Mat 13:30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
Jesus then explains the parable in detail to His disciples:
Mat 13:36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.
Mat 13:37 He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;
Mat 13:38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
Mat 13:39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
Mat 13:40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
Mat 13:41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
Mat 13:42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Mat 13:43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Note the timing of events Jesus describes, and how it compares with those taken first in Matthew 24:39-42. At the end of the world, when the time for the harvest of humanity has come, it is not the righteous who are gathered first, it is the wicked! The wicked are taken and dealt with first, while the people of God are still among them.
Advocates of the popular pre-tribulation rapture propose that all righteous Christians will first be taken up by Jesus secretly, in an instant, leaving behind a totally non-Christian world in startled ignorance of why a significant portion of the population has simply disappeared off the face of the earth. The secret rapture theory is the reverse sequence of the parable as told by Jesus, and so can be dismissed on this point alone!
Jesus in the book of Matthew again confirms that the wicked will be taken out from among the righteous:
Mat 13:49 So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,
Mat 13:50 And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
The Seven Last Plagues
Now let me point out an interesting fact. Revelation 16 relates the last seven plagues being poured out on the unrepentant wicked of the earth. Through verse 12 the first six of the plagues are poured out, and THEN in verse 15-
Rev 16:15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
Clearly Jesus HAS NOT COME YET AT THE TIME OF THE SIXTH PLAGUE! Now, note the counsel given to the church of Laodicea:
Rev 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
The counsel addressed the church of Laodicea, the final church, is given to that church in Rev 16:15 - after the sixth plague has fallen, so obviously the church has gone through the preceding plagues! Note that the seventh plague then falls in verse 17-
Rev 16:16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
Rev 16:17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
Jesus at the time of the seventh plague is announcing that time for earth has come to an end, and the second coming follows immediately. So Jesus does not come back to earth until after all seven plagues have been poured out on the wicked. The faithful church was NOT removed at any point prior to these plagues, they have endured them without fear of being affected by them:
Psa 91:5 Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
Psa 91:6 Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
Psa 91:7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
Psa 91:8 Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.
Psa 91:9 Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;
Psa 91:10 There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
Psa 91:11 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
So the wicked will suffer the 7 last plagues, while the people of God are still present with them on this earth.
Does the Second Coming Happen Secretly?
There are two verses where Jesus himself described exactly how he would come back to this earth. These words were spoken to the high priest of the Jews - Caiaphas:
Mat 26:64 Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.
Mark 14:62 And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.
Jesus says that Caiaphas will be alive (resurrected) to see him return in his full glory, in the clouds of heaven. This is a significant key to his return. It is a direct link to -
Rev 1:7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.
So as the above study shows:
(1). AFTER THE 7 PLAGUES OF REV 16 FALL ON THE WICKED, AND NOT BEFORE, JESUS COMES IN THE CLOUDS.
(2). EVERY EYE WILL SEE HIS COMING.
The return of Jesus (in the clouds) will be witnessed by every living person on this earth at the time. In addition, those who had a part in the crucifixion of Jesus (pierced him) will be resurrected to witness this glorious event as well, to include Caiaphas.
Jesus coming in the clouds is mentioned in the following texts as well. It is an important discriminator between the genuine coming of Jesus and the impersonation of Jesus by Satan-
Psa 97:2 Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.
Psa 104:3 Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind:
Jer 4:13 Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled.
Dan 7:13 I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.
Mat 16:27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.
Mat 24:30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Mat 24:31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Mark 13:26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
Mark 13:27 And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.
A review of points established about the second coming "rapture":
(1). AFTER THE 7 PLAGUES OF REV 16 FALL ON THE WICKED, AND NOT BEFORE, JESUS COMES IN THE CLOUDS.
(2). EVERY EYE WILL SEE HIS COMING.
(3). HE COMES IN HIS FULL POWER AND GLORY, TO THEN REWARD EVERY MAN.
(4). THE WICKED WILL ALL BE SLAIN AT HIS SECOND COMING BY THE FIRE OF HIS RIGHTEOUS GLORY, TO BE RESURRECTED AFTER THE 1000 YEARS.
(5). HE COMES WITH ALL THE ANGELS OF HEAVEN.
(6). ALL THE RIGHTEOUS ARE GATHERED TOGETHER AFTER THE COMING IN THE CLOUDS OF JESUS (THE SECOND COMING), THAT EVERY EYE WILL SEE - NOT BEFORE.
(7). HE WAS TAKEN TO HEAVEN IN THE FLESH, HE WILL RETURN IN THE FLESH.
(8). THE RIGHTEOUS DEAD ARE RAISED FIRST, THEN THE RIGHTEOUS LIVING ARE TRANSFORMED, THEIR REWARD IS ETERNAL LIFE, RECEIVED AT THE SECOND COMING.
(9). JUDGMENT IS EXECUTED AT THE SECOND COMING. THERE WILL BE NO SECOND CHANCES TO BE SAVED IN THE MILLENNIUM.
(10). YOU CAN ONLY BE SAVED BY YOUR FAITH IN THE BLOOD OF JESUS TO COVER YOUR SINS, AND BY THIS FAITH YOU WILL ENDURE HIS PLAGUES UNTOUCHED.
(11). IF TODAY YOU ARE IN SPIRITUAL BABYLON YOU MUST LEAVE IT OR YOU WILL RECEIVE THE PLAGUES OF GOD IN THE END TIMES.
I think the above 11 points are clearly derived by allowing the Bible to explain itself. Note that the pre-tribulation rapture advocates generally all say:
1. None of the seals have been opened.
2. None of the trumpets have sounded.
3. The Antichrist has not yet been revealed.
4. The form of the mark of the beast is not yet completely known.
5. The Seal of God is not yet clear.
6. The False Prophet is still unidentified.
7. The church will leave in the rapture prior to the antichrist, plagues and mark of the beast.
8. If you miss the rapture, you will get a second chance during the millennium, when God will rule on this earth for the 1000 years.
9. God is dealing differently with the Jews today, when compared to the Gentiles.
In each case, scriptural evidence can be presented which proves each of their points to be incorrect. Here I have dealt mostly with point #7, but do you notice there is a trend of ignorance and lack of concern advocated by pre-tribbers? They say that since the righteous will leave this earth before most of the events of the end times, you need not be concerned with any of it. Interesting stuff they say, but not really relevant to today's believer. Besides, according to them, what you do now does not matter anyway, you will get a second chance in the millennium. Nothing could be farther from the truth - it is a satanic lie. If your church advocates the pre-tribulation rapture, I submit that you are being misled and need to study the matter closely for yourself, and perhaps find a new church that teaches the truth.
Please note it is not my intention to offend anyone. I do not question the integrity or sincerity of those who believe in a secret rapture, but they ARE deceived - in no uncertain terms. I have tried to offer the foundation built on the true rock of the testimony of Jesus as found in the Bible. A knowledge of the truth is my only goal.
RED FLAG #1
Where does the word "RAPTURE" come from in the first place?
In English, instead of simply calling it "The Catching Up" or even "The Harpazo" -- the LATIN word "Rapturo" was the word from the CATHOLIC Vulgate Bible selected to describe this primarily mainline PROTESTANT end-time doctrine... WHO chose THIS word and WHY?
The Latin TRANSLATION of harpazo? - "Seize"? ... "Kidnap"?? ..."Rob"???
That sounds a bit different than just being "caught up", doesn't it?
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“The Jesuits are the pioneers of Antichrist . . . If the members of the Society continue as they have begun, God grant that the time may not come when kings will wish to resist them, but will not have the means of doing so.”
Melchior Cano, 1560: Provincial Dominican Priest - Personal letter written two days before his death
The Catholic Origins of Futurism and Preterism
From The PROPHETIC FAITH OF OUR FATHERS, The Historical Development of Prophetic Interpretation, by Le Roy Edwin Froom, Volume II, Pre-Reformation and Reformation Restoration, and Second Departure, published by the Review and Herald Publishing Association, Washington D.C., Copyright 1948, Chapters 21-23 in particular.
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With the advent of the printing press in the 15th century, and the resulting explosion of Bibles accessible in the common language from Protestant sources, it became readily apparent to those who could now study the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation in particular, that Bible prophecy identified by symbols a persecuting apostate entity generally known as antichrist. The following table shows the common elements from several places in scripture that aid in identifying this antichrist power:
"Now if we list and develop the …characteristics of ANTICHRIST, the following becomes readily apparent:
1. It will rise to be a great power after the fall of the pagan Roman empire (after 476 A.D.).
2. It will be a geographically small nation (a little horn).
3. It will rule over many people, nations, and tongues (it will be universal).
4. It will be headquartered in the city of seven hills, Rome.
5. It will be a religio-political entity — a political city-state ruled by a priest-king.
6. Its priest-king will make great and blasphemous claims.
7. It will claim authority over all kings.
8. It will claim its power to change the holy times and laws of God as its mark of authority.
9. It will be an apostate church, that makes the nations drink her cup of apostate doctrine.
10. It will be a "mother" church, with apostate daughters coming from her.
11. It will be a persecuting power, killing the faithful saints of Jesus Christ as heretics.
12. It will hold power and authority for 1260 years following the fall of pagan Rome.
13. It will suffer a deadly wound that will end 1260 years of dominance and persecution.
14. It will be revived after the deadly wound, and all the world will wonder at it's revival.
In this the "Historical" interpretation, the antichrist was clearly not merely a single individual, it was a system of apostasy and persecution that would hold sway for over twelve centuries. The inevitable conclusion of those who studied these prophesies in scripture, before and during the Protestant Reformation, was that there was only one entity that fit all the above characteristics: the papal dynasty of the Roman Catholic Church.
Is it any wonder that the Catholic Church was so violently opposed to the scriptures being available for everyone to read for themselves? There was such a stir created during the reformation that the Fifth Lateran Council (1512-17 A.D.) resorted to strictly forbidding anyone to publish a book without prior censorship, and also prohibited anyone from preaching on the subject of antichrist:
SESSION 10, 4 May 1515, On censorship of books:
... "some printers have the boldness to print and sell to the public, in different parts of the world, books — some translated into Latin from Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and Chaldean as well as some issued directly in Latin or a vernacular language — containing errors opposed to the faith as well as pernicious views contrary to the Christian religion and to the reputation of prominent persons of rank. The readers are not edified. Indeed, they lapse into very great errors not only in the realm of faith but also in that of life and morals. This has often given rise to various scandals, as experience has taught, and there is daily the fear that even greater scandals are developing." ...
... "We therefore establish and ordain that henceforth, for all future time, no one may dare to print or have printed any book or other writing of whatever kind in Rome or in any other cities and dioceses, without the book or writings having first been closely examined, at Rome by our vicar and the master of the sacred palace, in other cities and dioceses by the bishop or some other person who knows about the printing of books and writings of this kind and who has been delegated to this office by the bishop in question, and also by the inquisitor of heresy for the city or diocese where the said printing is to take place, and unless the books or writings have been approved by a warrant signed in their own hand, which must be given, under pain of excommunication, freely and without delay."
"In addition to the printed books being seized and publicly burnt, payment of a hundred ducats to the fabric of the basilica of the prince of the apostles in Rome, without hope of relief, and suspension for a whole year from the possibility of engaging in printing, there is to be imposed upon anyone presuming to act otherwise the sentence of excommunication."
SESSION 11, 19 December 1516, On how to preach:
... "We command all who undertake this task of preaching, or will later undertake it, to preach and expound the gospel truth and holy scripture in accordance with the exposition, interpretation and commentaries that the church or long use has approved and has accepted for teaching until now, and will accept in the future, without any addition contrary to its true meaning or in conflict with it. They are always to insist on the meanings which are in harmony with the words of sacred scripture and with the interpretations, properly and wisely understood, of the doctors mentioned above. They are in no way to presume to preach or declare a fixed time for future evils, the coming of antichrist or the precise day of judgment; for Truth says, it is not for us to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. Let it be known that those who have hitherto dared to declare such things are liars, and that because of them not a little authority has been taken away from those who preach the truth." ...
But the Catholic Church eventually came to the conclusion that it would not be able to ban or burn all the Bibles, heretical books, and heretics that possessed or preached from them. This oppressive and crude tactic merely confirmed their identification as the harlot persecuting church of prophecy. A new and more subtle approach was needed in order to effectively counter the application of apocalyptic prophecy to the Catholic Church.
One major identifying characteristic the Catholic Church needed to deal with was the time period of 1260 years that the antichrist power was to rule, according to Protestantism's Historicist interpretation. There simply is only one entity on earth that has ruled for this length of time after the fall of pagan Rome, and that is the Roman Catholic Church.
A new "interpretation" would have to be found that deflected attention away from the twelve century papal rule of the middle ages.
FUTURISM
Francisco Ribera (1537-1591) was a Jesuit doctor of theology, born in Spain, who began writing a lengthy (500 page) commentary in 1585 on the book of Revelation (Apocalypse) titled In Sacrum Beati Ioannis Apostoli, & Evangelistiae Apocalypsin Commentarij, and published it about the year 1590.
He died in 1591 at the age of fifty-four, so he was not able to expand on his work or write any other commentaries on Revelation. In order to remove the Catholic Church from consideration as the antichrist power, Ribera proposed that the first few chapters of the Apocalypse applied to ancient pagan Rome, and the rest he limited to a yet future period of 3 1/2 literal years, immediately prior to the second coming.
During that time, the Roman Catholic Church would have fallen away from the pope into apostasy. Then, he proposed, the antichrist, a single individual, would:
• Persecute and blaspheme the saints of God.
• Rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.
• Abolish the Christian religion.
• Deny Jesus Christ.
• Be received by the Jews.
• Pretend to be God.
• Kill the two witnesses of God.
• Conquer the world.
So, according to Ribera, the 1260 days and 42 months and 3 1/2 times of prophecy were not 1260 years, but a literal 3 1/2 years, and therefore none of the book of Revelation had any application to the middle ages or the papacy, but to the future, to a period immediately prior to the second coming, hence the name Futurism. Ribera's work is available for study at the James White Library in Michigan.
Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, one of the best known Jesuit apologists, published a work between 1581 and 1593 entitled Polemic Lectures Concerning the Disputed Points of the Christian Belief Against the Heretics of This Time, in which he also denied the day = year principle in prophecy and pushed the reign of antichrist into a future period of 3 1/2 literal years.
Manuel De Lacunza (1731–1801), a Jesuit from Chile, wrote a manuscript in Spanish titled La Venida del Mesías en Gloria y Magestad ("The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty"), under the pen name of Juan Josafa [Rabbi] Ben-Ezra about 1791.
Lacunza wrote under an assumed Jewish name to obscure the fact that he was a Catholic, in order to give his book better acceptance in Protestantism, his intended audience. Also an advocate of Futurism, Lacunza was deliberately attempting to take the pressure off the papacy by proposing that the Antichrist was still off in the future. His manuscript was published in London, Spain, Mexico and Paris between 1811 and 1826.
La Venida del Mesías en Gloria y Magestad online at the National Library of Chile (in Spanish).
Edward Irving (1792-1834), a Scottish Presbyterian and forerunner of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, translated Lacunza's work from Spanish into English in a book titled The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty with a Preliminary Discourse, published in London in 1827 by L.B. Seeley & Sons, which included Irving's own lengthy preface. Here are excerpts from Irving's translation:
Lacunza asserts that Antichrist would appear near the end of time:
That there shall be an Antichrist; that he shall be revealed, and publicly declared, towards the last times; and that he shall commit in the world the greatest evils, making formal war against Christ, and all that pertains to him; —these are three certain things, of which no Christian can doubt. -- Vol. I, Part II, Phenomenon III, pg. 259.
Antichrist, Lacunza concludes, would not be just one man:
ACCORDING to all the signs given in the Holy Scriptures, and others, not equivocal, offered to us by time, which is wont to be the best interpreter of the prophecies, the antichrist, or the contrachrist, with whom we stand threatened in the times immediate upon the coming of the Lord, is nothing but a moral body, composed of innumerable individuals, diverse in themselves, but all morally united and animated with one common spirit, against the Lord and against his Christ; -- Vol. I, Part II, Phenomenon III, pg. 260.
As to the harlot woman riding the beast in Revelation 17, Lacunza acknowledges it is indeed referring to Rome:
... the doctors do all agree, that the woman here spoken of is the city of Rome, in other times the capital of the greatest empire in the world, and now the capital and centre of unity of the true Christian church. On this first point, which is not called in question, there is no occasion to tarry. -- Vol. I, Part II, Phenomenon III, pg. 288.
... it is not present Rome which is at all spoken of here, but future Rome alone to which the prophecy hath its determinate application. -- Vol. I, Part II, Phenomenon III, pg. 295.
Rome yes, Lacunza agrees, but not the Roman Catholic Church of his day, which he calls the true church, rather he pushes this prophecy in Revelation 17 off into the future:
Rome, not idolatrous but Christian, not the head of the Roman empire but the head of Christendom, and centre of unity of the true church of the living God, may very well, without ceasing from this dignity, at some time or other incur the guilt, and before God be held guilty of fornication with the kings of the earth, and amenable to all its consequences. And in this there is not any inconsistency, however much her defenders may shake the head. And this same Rome, in that same state, may receive upon herself the horrible chastisement spoken of in the prophecy; -- Vol. I, Part II, Phenomenon III, pg. 296.
This apostate Christian group termed Antichrist would be:
... slain and destroyed by Christ himself in the great day of his coming in glory and majesty. -- Vol. I, Part II, Phenomenon IV, pg. 321.
John Nelson Darby (1800–1882), a Church of Ireland clergyman, later with the Plymouth Brethren, also promoted Futurism and a secret rapture. Darby attended the series of meetings on Bible Prophecy that began in 1830 at Powerscourt, Ireland, and at these conferences Darby apparently learned about the secret rapture as revealed by vision to Margaret McDonald, and promoted by Edward Irving, and he soon visited Margaret MacDonald at her home in Port Glasgow, Scotland. Darby later visited America several times between 1859 and 1874, where his Futurist theology was readily accepted.
Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (1843-1921), greatly influenced by the writings of J. N. Darby, incorporated Futurism in the notes of his Scofield Reference Bible. First published by Oxford University Press in 1909, one million copies were printed by 1930. The Scofield Bible was instrumental in firmly establishing the Jesuit inspired Futurist interpretation in the Protestant Bible schools of the United States in the 20th century.
The Jesuit Inspired Futurist Lie Spreads To America's Protestant Seminaries
These seminaries and ministries have wholly abandoned the historical Protestant and biblical teaching that the Roman Catholic Church is the apostate church, the harlot of Revelation, with the Antichrist papacy at its head, and instead serve to screen the papal Antichrist power from being perceived by their students or viewers. They are accurately described as false prophets:
• Dallas Theological Seminary (a nondenominational Protestant school): Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871-1952), a student of Cyrus Scofield, founded Evangelical Theological College (now DTS) in 1924, which is likely the most influential seminary in the United States today. Futurism, and the secret rapture (which they call the blessed hope), are covered in articles 18-20 of the DTS Full Doctrinal Statement.
Some of the more well known alumni and faculty of DTS:
• John Walvoord (Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology, President of Dallas Theological Seminary from 1952 to 1986, Chancellor of DTS since 1986), author of The Rapture Question (1957), and member of the revision committee for The New Scofield Reference Bible.
• Chuck Swindoll (Insight for Living), President of Dallas Theological Seminary since July of 1994.
• Charles C. Ryrie (Professor Emeritus Dallas Theological Seminary), author of The Ryrie Study Bible, which has been characterized as the updated Scofield Reference Bible for the end of the twentieth century.
• Hal Lindsey, author of The Rapture: Truth or Consequences (1983), perhaps the best known prophecy author of the last 30 years. Sole credited Bible authority for Trinity Broadcasting's recent Futurist antichrist movie Omega Code.
• J. Vernon McGee (1904-1988), Through the Bible Radio series.
• Kenneth N. Taylor (former director of Moody Press, founder of Tyndale House Publishing), author of The Living Bible. Tyndale House publishes the hugely popular Left Behind Futurist series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.
• Thomas Ice (Executive Director of the Pre-trib Research Center), Th.M. from DTS, co-founder of Pre-trib Research Center with Tim LaHaye.
• Moody Bible Institute of Chicago: In 1890, C. I. Scofield began a Comprehensive Bible Correspondence Course, later taken over about 1914 by the Moody Bible Institute (Dwight. L. Moody, founder of the Moody Church, had converted Scofield, and Scofield preached and presided at Moody's funeral in 1899).
• Moody Press supplied Sunday School lessons to the Assembly of God churches about 1914, introducing Pentecostals to Futurism and the secret rapture theory.
• The Ryrie Study Bible, by Charles C. Ryrie, a graduate Dallas Theological Seminary, boasts 10,000+ study notes and is listed among the best selling books published by Moody Press.
• Western Theological Seminary (Reformed Church in America).
--Alma Mater of Tim LaHaye, founder of the Pre-trib Research Center, co-author of the Left Behind series of books, by far the most popular series promoting Futurism and the secret rapture, which has sold 20+ million copies.
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• Jerry B. Jenkins, co-author of the Left Behind series, is the former vice president for publishing of Moody Bible Institute, and former editor of Moody Magazine. Currently he is Moody Bible Institute's writer-at-large.
Published by Tyndale House, at least 12 titles are planned for the series. The film version of the first book in the series has been produced by prophecy authors Peter and Paul Lalonde of Cloud Ten Pictures:
Left Behind - The Film Project
Left Behind - The Movie
Released first on video cassette, and then in theaters in early 2001, people who have seen Left Behind say it is confusing, and lacks a Gospel presentation of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, making it of little (if any) evangelistic value, much like TBN's Omega Code and Megiddo (Omega Code II).
• Tim LaHaye School of Prophecy - opens in January 2002 on the campus of Liberty University, Lynchburg, V.A., Dr. Jerry Falwell - Chancellor. Tim LaHaye says he was impressed by the prophecy conferences of Albury Park and Powerscourt held in Britain in the 1820's and 1830's and this led directly to his co-founding the Pre-trib Research Center. Edward Irving and J. N. Darby attended, and apparently greatly influenced, these 19th century British prophecy conferences where the secret rapture and futurism gained in acceptance among Protestant prophecy scholars.
• Jerry Falwell Ministries - heavily promotes the Tim LaHaye School of Bible Prophecy, which opened in January 2002 on the campus of Falwell's Liberty University.
Well known ministries teaching Futurism and the Secret Rapture:
• Trinity Broadcasting - perhaps the largest Christian TV Broadcasting Network...
• Jack Van Impe Ministries - Author of The Jack Van Impe Prophecy Bible and a verse-by-verse commentary on the book of Revelation entitled Revelation Revealed. On his TV program, Jack claims that God Himself has shown him the error of previous Bible interpreters and given him the absolutely correct interpretation of the book of Revelation.
• John Hagee Ministries - Offers the John Hagee Prophecy Study Bible, billed as "the only Prophecy Study Bible of its kind", with over 300 pages of Bible Prophecy study notes and having unique Bible Prophecy charts. John Hagee has strongly promoted the Left Behind books and movie with hour long infomercial TV programs.
PRETERISM
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Another counter-interpretation to the Historicism held by Protestantism was proposed by the Spanish Jesuit Luis De Alcazar (1554-1613), who also wrote a commentary called Investigation of the Hidden Sense of the Apocalypse, which ran to some 900 pages. In it he proposed that it all of Revelation applied to the era of pagan Rome and the first six centuries of Christianity. According to Alcazar (or Alcasar):
• Revelation chapters 1-11 describes the rejection of the Jews and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.
• Revelation chapters 12 - 19 were the overthrow of Roman paganism (the great harlot) and the conversion of the empire to the church.
• Revelation 20 describe the final persecutions by Antichrist, who is identified as Cæsar Nero (54-68 A.D.), and judgment.
• Revelation 21 -22 describe the triumph of the New Jerusalem, the Roman Catholic Church.
Again, Alcazar found no application of prophecy to the middle ages or to the papacy. That his interpretation differed so greatly from that put forth by Francisco Ribera or Cardinal Bellarmine, mattered little.
Catholicism, the supposedly divine and infallible interpreter of scripture, was presenting two vastly different and quite incompatible interpretations of prophecy in a desperate effort to counter the claims of the reformers.
THE GREAT CATHOLIC DIVERSION REVEALED
The intent of both Futurism and Preterism was to be diversionary, to counter or offset the Protestant Historical interpretation, and present alternatives, no matter how implausible they might be…
ANTICHRIST IS MOVED EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD IN TIME
• Ribera's Futurism Puts the Antichrist Into A Future Three and One-half Literal Years.
• Alcazar's Preterism Identifies the Antichrist as Nero.
Both of Them Put Antichrist Outside the Middle Ages and the Reformation Period, Identified by Protestant Historicists as Antichrist's Reign of 1260 Prophetic Years.
Now the truly amazing part of all this is that the Futurist theory dominates Protestant teaching today. About all you hear or read about today is the yet-to-appear antichrist, who will be unveiled in the last 3 1/2 years of Daniel's 70th week, when he declares himself to be God in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. That scenario, as you can now see, is directly traceable back to the pen of the Jesuit Francisco Ribera. Note what one Protestant writer had to say over one hundred years ago:
"Next we come to consider the time of the rise of the Futurist system as we now have it, and the occasion which led to it.
So great a hold did the conviction that the Papacy was the Antichrist gain upon the minds of men, that Rome at last saw she must bestir herself, and try, by putting forth other systems of interpretation, to counteract the identification of the Papacy with the Antichrist.
Accordingly, towards the close of the century of the Reformation, two of her most learned doctors set themselves to the task, each endeavouring by different means to accomplish the same end, namely, that of diverting men's minds from perceiving the fulfilment of the prophecies of the Antichrist in the Papal system. The Jesuit Alcasar devoted himself to bring into prominence the Preterist method of interpretation, which we have already briefly noticed, and thus endeavoured to show that the prophecies of Antichrist were fulfilled before the Popes ever ruled in Rome, and therefore could not apply to the Papacy. On the other hand the Jesuit Ribera tried to set aside the application of these prophecies to the Papal Power by bringing out the Futurist system, which asserts that these prophecies refer properly not to the career of the Papacy, but to that of some future supernatural individual, who is yet to appear, and to continue in power for three and a half years. Thus, as Alford says, the Jesuit Ribera, about A.D. 1580, may be regarded as the Founder of the Futurist system in modern times.
It is a matter for deep regret that those who hold and advocate the Futurist system at the present day, Protestants as they are for the most part, are thus really playing into the hands of Rome, and helping to screen the Papacy from detection as the Antichrist. It has been well said that "Futurism tends to obliterate the brand put by the Holy Spirit upon Popery." More especially is this to be deplored at a time when the Papal Antichrist seems to be making an expiring effort to regain his former hold on men's minds. Now once again, as at the Reformation, it is especially necessary that his true character should be recognized, by all who would be faithful to "the testimony of Jesus."
From Daniel and the Revelation: The Chart of Prophecy and Our Place In It, A Study of the Historical and Futurist Interpretation, by Joseph Tanner, published in London by Hodder and Stoughton, 1898, pages 16,17.
In what could only be described as a stunning reversal, Protestants have over time actually become the papacy's greatest ally by spreading its Jesuit spawned propaganda. What irony that Protestants, who originally broke away from what they clearly recognized to be the harlot antichrist led church of prophecy, now champion the Futurist interpretation from high profile global ministries. Futurism has without doubt, been successful beyond the wildest dreams of its Jesuit authors. The same can be said for the Preterist interpretation of Luis De Alcazar, although to a lesser degree.”
- The Catholic Origins of Futurism and Preterism
The above article is based primarily on information obtained from The PROPHETIC FAITH OF OUR FATHERS, The Historical Development of Prophetic Interpretation, by Le Roy Edwin Froom, Volume II, Pre-Reformation and Reformation Restoration, and Second Departure, published by the Review and Herald Publishing Association, Washington D.C., Copyright 1948, Chapters 21-23 in particular.
by Richard Bennett
On October 8th, 2000, Pope John Paul II, under the assumed title of Vicar of Christ, consecrated the world and the new millennium to “Mary Most Holy.”¹ This blasphemous “Act of Entrustment to Mary Most Holy” of that which belongs to God alone is a mockery of the First Commandment. The Pope’s official and offensive act ought to warn Christians that while the Pope formally claims to be “the true vicar of Christ,”² he in fact opposes Christ by false worship. What is equally serious is the title under which he performs. The True Vicar of Christ is the Holy Spirit. He alone is sent to take the Lord’s place, testifying not to Himself but to Christ. (John 15:26) The gravity of teaching and purporting to act in this divine role is that it denigrates the divine Person of the Holy Spirit. The Antichrist is also anti Holy Spirit.
With self-assurance, on September 5th 2000, the Church of Rome claimed, “the very fullness of grace and truth [of the Lord Jesus Christ is alone] entrusted to the Catholic Church.”³ While aping His divine prerogatives, this was explicitly speaking against Christ, the only One who is full of grace and truth. The Scripture declares it necessary to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ alone, from Whom one receives “abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”⁴ Over and against Him is the present day decree of Rome, “The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation. ‘Sacramental grace’ is the grace of the Holy Spirit, given by Christ and proper to each sacrament.”⁵ What is not said here is that Rome’s physical sacraments, tightly gripped in the Pontiff’s hand and declared indispensable, are thereby substituted for the Lord of Glory and His Gospel. Unwaveringly, in the present day, too, Church of Rome has upheld Unum Sanctum, “We declare, say, define, and proclaim to every human creature that they by necessity for salvation are entirely subject to the Roman Pontiff.”⁶ Depending on these physical signs instead of direct faith on the Lord Christ Jesus is the deception of the papacy which subtly deflects faith from the person of Christ to signs that are claimed to be powers.⁷ Moreover, there are many other events wherein the Pope has officially contradicted the Gospel, as on May 13th of this “Jubilee Year 2000.” There are also historical events wherein is revealed horrendous sin, as the now documented involvement of Pope Pius XII in Hitler’s reign of death.⁸ These things ought to make Christians consider carefully if their eyes have seen in the Office of the Papacy the line of men that the Scripture calls the Man of Sin?for the Papacy gives the title of Vicar of Christ to its Pope.
One Lord, One Holy Father
The Church of Rome authoritatively teaches that her Sovereign Pontiff is rightly called “Most Holy,”⁹ and “the most holy Roman Pontiff.” This, together with usual titles of “Holy Father”¹⁰ and “Vicar of Christ” is the full sense of the definition of the Antichrist given by the Apostle John. “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.”¹¹ The Pope, in assuming these titles to himself, is against the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Father in heaven by purporting to possess these very offices. Such haughtiness also blatantly breaks the New Covenant Law of the Christ, “call no man your father upon the earth: for One is your Father, which is in heaven.”¹² Christ Jesus declared, “One is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren”¹³ The Pope declares himself “Most Holy,” “Holy Father,” and “the true vicar of Christ.” The Pope’s claim is similar to that recorded in Isaiah 14:14, “I will be like the Most High.” The Scripture speaks of such a one denying the Father and the Son by assuming the titles of both. In the words of Scripture we proclaim, “Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? For Thou only art Holy: for all nations shall come and worship before Thee...” ¹⁴
The historical origins of the Antichrist
Throughout history, circumstances concerning the coming and character of Christ have corresponded so brilliantly to prophecy that in the past the Lord’s people praised His name for it. Likewise, the Lord’s flock thanked Him for clearly depicting the Antichrist.
The Lord Himself confirmed the understanding that there would be a specific fulfillment in the Antichrist’s role when He stated, “for the ruler of this world is coming.”¹⁵ Similarly Christ Jesus said, “I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.”¹⁶ John the Beloved, following in the Master’s footsteps, states emphatically, “ye have heard that antichrist shall come...”¹⁷ John confirms that while there were contemporary opponents of Christ (many antichrists), these forces of opposition would eventually center in one entity.
Contrary to flawed popular belief, the popes are not the successors to the Apostle Peter. They are, however, the successors to the Roman Emperor. History shows that the title of “Supreme High Priest” was officially bestowed on the bishop of the church at Rome by the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century.¹⁸ Therefore, the office of “supreme high priest” of the Roman Catholic Church, perpetuated now for nearly 1,500 years, came from an apostate secular source, whereas the Bible proclaims one Supreme High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ appointed by God. The pagan Emperor Justinian also bestowed on the bishop of the church at Rome the universal oversight of the entire Christian world. That was when the bishop of the church at Rome became known as the Pope, arising as Spiritual Head of the pagan Roman Empire. The authority of this historical fact alone ought to be seen as clearly designating the Antichrist.
The cloud of witnesses from Christian History
From the time of persecution of the Vaudois and the Waldenses, and throughout the long era of the Inquisition, the Lollards, the Bohemians, and the believers of the Reformation understood both the Office of Christ and also its counterfeit, the Antichrist. The zeal and courage of many of these martyrs were based on their conviction that they were withstanding the Antichrist. Today, however, it is “religiously correct” to declare one’s ignorance of the identity of the Antichrist. As the ecumenical movement gains momentum, it is imperative to regain a Biblical understanding of Scriptural prophecy, which has been and still is being played out in time, rather than simply relegating it to some future cataclysmic period.
Bible believers of old recognized the Roman Catholic institution as the Antichrist. This identification was known and spoken of even through the Middle Ages by, among others, Dante Alghieri, John Wycliff, John Huss, and Savonarola; during the Reformation, by Martin Luther, William Tyndale, John Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, John Bradford, and John Foxe; in the 17th and 18th centuries, by John Bunyan, the translators of the King James Bible, and by the men who published the Westminster and Baptist Confessions of Faith; Sir Isaac Newton, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, John Wesley; and in more recent times, by Charles Spurgeon, Bishop J. C. Ryle and Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones. All these men and many more knew the precision of Scripture regarding both Christ and the Antichrist. The Written Word has been fulfilled in history, in both Light and darkness. As a silk glove over the hand, so the events of history clothe the prophecy of the Scripture. Today, it is “religiously correct” to refrain from speaking about the Antichrist, except in some futuristic scenario that cannot be analyzed since has not yet occurred. This is an application of “the tolerance principal” of today that has all but blunted the edge of the accuracy and distinctness of the Biblical sword. Such tolerance holds that the warnings of Christ and the Apostles John and Paul are not to be seen historically, but rather applied to some future political leader at the end of the last times. While much modern Biblical teaching assumes a future political leader to be the coming Antichrist, the Biblical Antichrist is first apostate, and then political only from his apostate seat of power. This perfectly describes every Roman Catholic Pope in his Pontifical office.
This paper deals particularly with II Thessalonians 2:3-12, one of the many texts that unveils the Antichrist and serves as an introduction to the other texts.
The Man of Sin Appears
The Apostle clearly states, “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” (v. 3) The Man of Sin would appear as the outworking of the “falling away,” or “apostasia” (“apostasy” in English). Clearly, there was to be a large-scale apostasy that would lead to the emergence of the Man of Sin. Apostasy can only take place in the professing church of God, since there must be something from which to fall away. The embryo of the iniquity that would lead to this apostasy and the revealing of the Man of Sin was already at work in the Apostle’s day—thus he says, “For the mystery of iniquity doth already work.” (v. 7) The Scriptures elsewhere speak of the “mystery of godliness”, “great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh....” (1 Timothy 3:16) By contrast, in verse 7 the exact opposite is spoken of, “the mystery of iniquity,” that is, the disclosure of the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition.
The “mystery of iniquity” was soon to show itself visibly in the form of the Man of Sin. The outcome of this apostasy would be “all deceivableness of unrighteousness.” Such apostasy was to be marked, not by open hostility, but by hypocrisy and deceit, which to the world appears righteous and holy. Apostasy by definition is duplicity and falseness, a withdrawal and defection from the Gospel and true godliness.
The “who” and the “what” that held back the Man of Sin (vv. 3, 6, & 7)
There was something withholding or hindering the appearance of Man of Sin, a constraint, keeping back his emergence. Notice this constraint is a thing, “what,” in verse 6 and a person, “he,” in verse 7. The Apostle’s unusual reserve to spell out the identity of this constraint is to be noticed, although he clearly realized that the Thessalonians would understand when he said, “now ye know what withholdeth.” Of great importance is the historical background to the second letter to the Thessalonians which is outlined in Acts 17:1-10. There the events that took place when Paul was at Thessalonica previous to this letter are explained. At that time, the Jews brought a political charge against Paul and Silas, “these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.” This was not a religious charge, but one against “Caesar,” that is, the Roman Empire. All of that had been clear to the Apostle and to the Thessalonians. Had the Apostle written that the constraint was the Roman Empire, it would have appeared that he was supporting political revolt. The “what” of verse 6 and the “he” of verse 7 made it abundantly clear to the Thessalonians that he was speaking of the Roman Empire and its Emperor, respectively. The Roman Empire and Emperor providentially impeded the appearance of the Man of Sin for a time.
To know the time, therefore, at which the Man of Sin will appear, the whole passage (from verse 1 through 12) must be taken in context. The Man of Sin is set forth, appears at the removal of him “who is now holding back” (v.7). In the previous verse, Paul reminds the believers “now you know what holds him back.” What was it that the believers then knew? They knew that the Roman Empire kept all and everyone in check. In the Thessalonian mind, Rome, and only Rome, restrained. (That early believers like Tertullian and Jerome had such convictions is documented.)¹⁹ The course of history precisely fulfilled what was stated in Scripture. First, the Emperor Constantine removed the seat of the empire to Constantinople. This removal gave all the opportunity that could be desired for the growth of the power-seeking Roman bishops. Internal corruption and external pressures destroyed the Empire. It was only after the break-up of the Roman Empire that the Papacy gained ascendancy over the civil powers, and the Man of Sin became more apparent. When the Roman Papacy acquired the dominion that the Empire had had for centuries, which was rule in both the civil and religious spheres, then the Antichrist was seen and recognised by the Vaudois and others. In all history it is hard to find a series of events corresponding more accurately with a prophetic statement than this.
The place where the Man of Sin appears
The Apostle states unmistakably the place where the Man of Sin would become visible “Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (v. 4) He would appear in the “temple of God.” The word “temple” is constantly used by the Apostle to describe the people of God themselves. For example, “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”²⁰ This testifies that the Man of Sin would emanate from among the people of God as a result of the falling away, i.e. the apostasy, outlined in the preceding verse.
Presenting himself as God
The authority and truth of the Lord’s Written Word is of such importance that Scripture declares, “thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.” (Ps 138:2) The Lord Jesus Christ said, “the Scripture cannot be broken,” speaking of the absolute character of God’s Written Word that He has magnified above His name. While many are unaware of it, the substance of II Thess. 2:4 is both the official claim and practice of the Papacy. This is documented in primary Roman Catholic sources. Verse 4 in the Scripture teaches, “...he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.” Consistently in Roman Catholic teaching and practice, the Pope is called “His Holiness.” Such a title applies solely to God. God is the only Being whose very nature is holy.²¹ Concerning the Pope’s assumed title, “His Holiness,” the Roman Catholic Church claims the following divine attributes:
“The Supreme Pontiff, in virtue of his office, possesses infallible teaching authority when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful...he proclaims with a definitive act that a doctrine of faith or morals is to be held as such.”²²In the papal claim to “infallible teaching authority,” it is this very quality of God’s infallibility that is at stake. Thus Rome’s official claim exalts the Pope “above all that is called God.”²³Likewise, the earned righteousness of Christ Jesus after the Resurrection gave Him “All power... in heaven and in earth.” (Matt 28:18) The papal claim is officially expressed thus, “The Pope enjoys, by divine institution, ‘supreme, full, immediate, and universal power in the care of souls.’”²⁴ In this assertion to a power given to the Lord Christ Jesus alone, the Pope again exalts himself “above all that is called God”. How many extra marital affairs make it common sense to cry adultery? How much official blasphemy is needed for the one who calls himself “His Holiness” to be identified correctly as the “Man of Sin?”
Extravagantly, apparently without trembling, the Roman Catholic Office of the Papacy in itself fulfills the Thessalonians text and the definition of “Antichrist.” It is important to note that the Greek word for antichrist in the Bible means not simply against Christ, but more significantly, substituting for Him. That the Papacy in a real sense has been living out this two-fold meaning of the Greek word, one who is against the Lord Jesus Christ by presuming to take His place, is seen in its attempt to usurp His power and position as Prophet, Priest, and King. Full and supreme power belongs solely to the God-man Christ Jesus, Who acts freely on each one in His church. This is evidenced in Ephesians 1:22-23, “And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.”
The Roman Catholic Church purports to take for itself His Divine position, according to her official teaching, “For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, namely, and as pastor of the entire Church, has full, supreme and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.”²⁵ He is the worst and greatest enemy of Christ, who under the pretense of service to Christ presumes to undermine His unique offices by covertly usurping His position and power.
The wickedness within the Roman Catholic system has reached such horrendous proportions that it is difficult to keep up with the documented evidence.²⁶ While conviction regarding the nature of this apostate church comes from God’s Word, present day evils show the mystery of iniquity at work.
Capitulation of mind and will
Rome’s law demands submission of mind and will to the one “shewing himself that he is God.” The official law of the Roman Catholic Church, enunciates the necessity of submitting one’s highest faculties, that of mind and will, not to God Himself, but to the Roman Pontiff.
“A religious respect of intellect and will, even if not the assent of faith, is to be paid to the teaching which the Supreme Pontiff or the college of bishops enunciate on faith or morals when they exercise the authentic magisterium even if they do not intend to proclaim it with a definitive act; therefore the Christian faithful are to take care to avoid whatever is not in harmony with that teaching.”²⁷
Not only does Rome demand this, but also in Canon 1371 she decrees that the consequence for not obeying is punishment with a “just penalty”.²⁸
To presume to take the place of Christ Himself as Prophet, Priest, and King, and to presume to act as in His person is clearly tantamount to “sit[ting] as God in the temple of God, setting himself forth, that he is God.” Yet this is exactly the documented claim of Papal Rome. The teaching given in Rome’s Code of Canon Law puts teeth into its claim by exacting submission and promising punition for those who fail to obey.
The purpose and intent of Man of Sin
The Apostle Paul appears to use deliberately the terms that generally refer to Christ, “revealed,” “coming,” and “mystery,” to describe the performance of the Man of Sin. This indicates that Satan’s design is to replace Christ with his own man. The stated objective is given in verse 4, “Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” This, as has here been documented, is the claim and the law of Papal Rome. Verse 9 depicts how the aim of Satan is to be carried out, “Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders.” The Man of Sin was to come with all power and signs and lying wonders, “in all deceivableness of unrighteousness.”²⁹
Just as the Lord wrought miracles through the Apostles to confirm their position, so Satan would work with Antichrist, endorsing his alleged position with false miracles designed to overthrow the Gospel. The Man of Sin is both an attempted personification of Christ and a contrast to Him. He attempts to occupy His position, but is totally unlike Him, and in opposition to Him. He has usurped His place and His prerogatives, and far from truly representing Him, he represents His greatest enemy. As Christ acts for God, so the Man of Sin acts for Satan, who indeed uses him for this very purpose, so the text states that the Man of Sin’s coming is “after the working of Satan.”
The purpose and intent of the Man of Sin is given also in the second name, “son of perdition.” The reference is to Judas, who pretended to be a disciple of Christ even as he betrayed the Son of Man with a sign of love and loyalty. The Son of Perdition is a secret enemy while a seeming friend, a well-known confidant, yet a fatal foe who betrays with a kiss even while he says he serves the Lord and master. He is a Judas whose coming was to be “after the working of Satan,” with “lying wonders.” Those under him are under the influence of “strong delusion.” For their own part, they had “not received the love of the truth,” but rather took “pleasure in unrighteousness.” In a denial of the Gospel of Christ, on May 13th, 2000, the present Pope, John Paul II, endorsed the identity and origin of the vision of Mary of Fatima—a “lying wonder.” He proclaimed,
“According to the divine plan, ‘a woman clothed with the sun’ (Rev. 12:1) came down from heaven to this earth to visit the privileged children....She asks them to offer themselves as victims of reparation, saying that she was ready to lead them safely to God. And behold, they see a light shining from her maternal hands which penetrates them inwardly, so that they feel immersed in God...”³⁰
The final end of the Man of Sin
“And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.” (v 8) Verse 8 tells of the end of the Wicked one. He, who would be revealed when the power of imperial Rome was removed, will continue until the breath of Christ’s mouth and the brightness of His coming destroy him. This is a clear reference to the Second Coming. The Lord in this verse has foretold the destruction of the Man of Sin’s reign: the Word of the Lord will reduce it to nothing. He will be completely and in every respect destroyed on the final day.
In the meantime, the victory of the Gospel is also seen in this verse. The Apostle was repeating the truth of the Lord spoken of in Isaiah 11:4, “But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.” The Lord’s power has always been greatest in the day of utmost need, when He comes to the aid of those destitute and poor in spirit. The character of God in His gracious Gospel is “the spirit of his mouth.” All through history this verse has been understood and lived out in this sense. The Gospel is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.”³¹ Repeatedly throughout history the “Gospel of grace” has conquered the Man of Sin. The Vaudois, the Waldenses, the men of the Reformation, and all genuine revivals have seen the Lord smite with the rod of His mouth and with the breath of His lips. His power is seen when His graciousness is boldly proclaimed, every individual who is saved “being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”³²
Conclusion
None but God could have delineated beforehand the “mystery of iniquity,” which is clearly the Office of the Papacy of the Roman Catholic Church. Man could never have anticipated all this; only God foretells it. That a power claiming to act for God, to be “as God”, in the midst of the Christian Church, flouting His truth and mocking His own Holiness, defies imagination. Corruption, fraud, and false pretenses have ruled the world for ages from the very same seven-hilled city where the pagan Roman Empire once ruled by military force, and they are such that were they not clearly described by the Lord’s Word, and seen in past and recent history, they could never have been expected by man. The prophetic portrayal of the wickedness of the system built around the Antichrist is a demonstration of the divine inspiration of the Bible and the power and authority of our Lord God.
To reject the clear testimony of God’s Written Word on the fundamental office of the Antichrist, and to prefer a doctrine that can neither be verified by the text itself nor tested in time is a serious matter. It obscures the wisdom of Divine prophecy and denies the true character of the days in which we live. While futurism asserts the nearness of the Second Advent of Christ, it destroys the historical timeframe of His opposer, the Antichrist, which is essential to correctly understanding this fulfillment of prophecy. The historic playing-out of those predictions concerning the apostasy is an essential element of what the Lord foretold in His Word. Just as the Lord explained regarding Himself, “all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.” Likewise, the substance of what was written concerning the office of the one who opposes Him has been fulfilled. With the Vaudois, the Waldenses, Lollards, and the Bohemians, through the Inquisition and the Reformation, the truth of the Gospel and the Prophetic Word lifted nations from the depths of superstition and despotism to Biblical freedom and economic growth.³³ Much futurist teaching has been the work of sincere and dedicated men of God; nonetheless, by failing to expose the presence of Antichrist in our midst, the nations are being lured effectively into slavery once again. In the face of such failure, it is imperative to know as believers of old knew the presence of the True Seed, Christ Jesus, with them in spirit and in truth.
The historic interpretation has been embodied in the most solemn confessions of the Biblical world.³⁴ It forms a leading part in the testimony of martyrs and reformers. Like the prophets of old, these holy men bore a twofold testimony, a testimony for the truth of God, and a testimony against the Apostasy of those professing to be Christian. Their testimony was that Papal Rome is the Babylon of prophecy, “that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth,”³⁵ and that its head, the Roman pontiff, is the predicted “Man of Sin,” or Antichrist.
Notes
1. “The culminating moment of the Jubilee of Bishops was the Mass concelebrated by the Pope and Bishops in St Peter’s Square on Sunday morning, 8 October. Tens of thousands of the faithful gathered for the sacred liturgy, which concluded with the Act of Entrustment to Mary Most Holy.” L’Osservatore Romano Weekly edition in English 11 October 2000.
2. Henry Denzinger, “Unam Sanctum”, Nov. 18, 1302, The Source of Catholic Dogma, Tr. By Roy J. Deferrari, 30th ed. of Enchiridion Symbolorum, rev. by Karl Rahner, S. J. (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1957) #694. See also Catechism of the Catholic Church (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994) #882 & #936.
3. Dominus Iesus, Section 16 http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html
4. Romans 5:17.
5. Catechism, #1129. Bolding in any quotation indicates emphasis added in this paper.
6. Denzinger, #469.
7. Catechism, #1116 states, “Sacraments are ‘powers that come forth’ from the Body of Christ [i.e., The Roman Catholic Church] which is ever living and life-giving....”
8. John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (New York, NY 10014: Viking, 1999).
9. Denzinger, #649.
10. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Robert Broderick, ed. (Nashville, TN: Thos. Nelson Inc., 1976) p. 217.
11. 1 John 2:22.
12. Matthew 23:9.
13. Matthew 23:8.
14. Revelation 15:4.
15. John 14:30.
16. John 5:43.
17. 1 John 2:18. The Greek text says that the antichrist shall come.
18. LeRoy Edwin Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, 4 vols. (Washington DC: Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1978) Vol I, pp. 511-517.
19. Froom, Vol. I, pp. 257-258, pp. 443-444.
20. I Corinthians 3:17; cf Ephesians 2:21, II Corinthians 6:16.
21. Revelation 15: 4 , 1 Samuel 2:2.
22. Code of Canon Law, Latin-Eng. ed. (Washington, DC: Canon Law Society of America, 1983) Can. 749, Sect. 1. All canons are taken from this source unless otherwise stated.
23. The Greek word for “above” can mean “in a place of” or “as much as”. It seems to be this meaning that applies the text rather than superior to God, cf. Strong’s Hebrew-Greek Dictionary, # 1909.
24. Catechism, # 937.
25. Catechism, #882.
26. http://www.iconbusters.com/iconbusters/lechery/current-lechery1.htm That source links also to Roman Catholic sources that further show the mystery of iniquity at work.
27. Canon 752.
28. Canon 1371, Para. 1 “The following are to be punished with a just penalty: 1 a person who, apart from the case mentioned in canon 1364, 1, teaches a doctrine condemned by the Roman Pontiff, or by an Ecumenical Council, or obstinately rejects the teachings mentioned in canon 750, [Para.] 2 or in canon 752 and, when warned by the Apostolic See or by the Ordinary, does not retract;”
29. See Quite Contrary: A Biblical Reconsideration of the Apparitions of Mary by Timothy F. Kauffman (Huntsville, AL 35804: White Horse Publications, 1993). See also Graven Bread: The Papacy, the Apparitions of Mary, and the Worship of the Bread of the Altar by same author.
30. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_p.../hf_jp-ii_hom_20000513_beatification-fatima_en.htm 6/1/00. See on our web page our critique of the same in Fatima: JP II, RCC Contradict Gospel: Where Do Evangelical ECT Signatories Now Stand?
31. Romans 1:16.
32. Romans 3:24.
33. John W. Robbins, Ecclesiastical Megalomania: The Economic and Political Thought of the Roman Catholic Church, (ISBN 0-940931-52-4; USA: The Trinity Foundation, 1999) pp. 13-24.
34. See The Westminster Confession of Faith, 1646; The Baptist Confession of Faith, 1689; The Philadelphia Confession of Faith, Adopted by The Baptist Association, 1742; and others.
35. Revelation 17:18
Link to original article here.
Richard Bennett, a former Roman Catholic priest, is President and founder of Berean Beacon Ministries which proclaims the Good News of Salvation (the Gospel of Jesus Christ). A ministry of truth, love, and compassion to Roman Catholics, and plain Biblical truth to Evangelicals embracing a false ecumenism.
“[Martin] Luther proved, by the revelations of Daniel, and St. John, by the epistles of St. Paul, St. Peter,, and St. Jude, that the reign of Antichrist, predicted and described in the Bible, was the papacy”
-- History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, J.H. Merle D’Aubigné, (Book vi, Chapter xii, pg. 215).
“Some persons think us too severe and censorious when we call the Roman Pontiff, Antichrist. But those who are of that opinion do not consider that they bring the same charge of presumption against Paul himself after whom we speak and whose language we adopt. I will briefly show Paul’s words in 2nd Thessalonians 2 are not capable of any other interpretation than that which applies to the Papacy”
--Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin (1509-1564)
“The archetype from which the pope descends is that of the imperial Caesar ... while for the most part Italy wasn't even a unified state - unlike France, Spain, England, Russia - that unique supreme Christian authority, purely Italian, nevertheless continued to represent the universality descended from the emperors. It is not paradoxical to say that in Italy the monarchy has continued to exist despite the expulsion of the royal House of Savoy, because the monarchical authority of the pontiff has a charisma and a national power of attraction that no president of the republic has ever been able to claim.”
--Roberto Pazzi, Why the next pope needs to be Italian, The International Herald Tribune Online, Monday, January 12, 2004
“The papacy is but the ghost of the Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.”
—J. Gaskin (ed.), Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Oxford University Press, 1998):463.
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“The papacy is but the ghost of the Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.”
—J. Gaskin (ed.), Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Oxford University Press, 1998):463.
“For today Rome considers the Fascist regime the nearest to its dogmas and interest. We have not merely the Reverend (Jesuit) Father Coughlin praising Mussolini's Italy as ‘a Christian Democracy,’ but Civilita Cattolica, house organ of the Jesuits [official periodical of the Society of Loyola], SAYS QUITE FRANKLY
“Fascism is the regime that corresponds most closely to the concepts of the Church of Rome.”
—Pierre van Paassen, Days of our Years (New York: Hillman-Curl, 1939): 465.
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