Tammy Patrick (aka roamin’ catholic), raised as a non-denominational, charismatic Christian, began searching for a Biblical church in 1997 after moving away from her hometown. She found the choices overwhelming and after searching the Gospels with a great desire to follow Christ more fully, she discovered the Catholic Church was the most Biblical church of all (very much to her surprise!). Tammy was welcomed to the Eucharistic Table in 1998.
Sophia Thornton is a former lifelong Protestant but upon hearing the call of the Lord, she found the fulfillment of her faith in the one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. Sophia was reconciled to the Church in 2007.
HI TAMMY!
GREAT WEBSITE GIVES CONCISE AND APPROPRIATE ANSWERS TO
PROPAGANDA SPEWED OUT BY GENDRON AND ALSO EX-PRIEST
RICHARD BENNETT. I AM ENCOURAGED TO SEE A PLETHORA OF
CATHOLIC APOLOGETIC WEBSITES CHALLENGING THE BIGOTRY AND DISTORTIONS OF THESE FUNDAMENTALISTS
Hi! I’m confused, maybe you can help me.
In the article about John McArthur, you quote “The Church does not, emphatically does not, threaten anyone with eternal damnation. … the Church’s use of the terms “anathema” and “excommunication.” Neither is a one-way ticket to hell”
But I was taught that to be outside the church was to be without hope of salvation and, thus, bound for hell. I must be mistaken but it sounds like you’re playing semantic games. Please explain. Thanks.
Great website – and thank you for writing about John MacArthur, the mis-informed knucklehead.
Keep up the great work.
Ralph, the ladies are right. The Church doesn’t condemn people to hell, people do it to themselves, but not by not being Catholic. That is why we call Protestants “Seperated bretheren”, because we have the Full Gospel and they have the partial Gospel. That is why they cannot receive Holy Communion. Nor can we receive their communion.
God bless,
I was a life long Protestant but, after a long process, was led to the Catholic Church. My Protestant family is scandalized. I get lots of tracts from them. My nephew sent me a tract from Mike Gerndron entitled “Oxymoron”. It is full of the usual anti-Catholice stuff. I think your blog has answered some of the points Mike tries to make. I wanted to know if there was a full response to that particular tract? I am working on something to answer it right now.
God Bless,
“‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven’” (Matt. 7:21).
Stumbled over your ‘website’ and being a ex-catholic now for about 11 years, born again and baptized as a bible believer, I will continue to pray for all of you that are being misguided by whatever means, you claim the bible led you to Catholisim. Funny, how 11 years ago, reading the Bible I was led ‘out’ of the Catholic system. Maybe some are meant to be saved and others aren’t.
Matt 7: 13-14, Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
“Few” will be there that find it, according to the Pope there are over a Billion Catholics in the world that does not seem like a few to me.
A lot of false religions read the bible. There is nothing new here. It is what you choose to believe of the Bible that makes a difference of life or death. This false religion called Catholisim is leading many people to destruction, and people like yourself proudly are going along for the ride.
May the true God of the Bible have mercy on your soul…
On July 11, 2008 at 9:14 pm Jan Arnold Said:
Stumbled over your ‘website’and being a ex-catholic now for about 11 years, born again and baptized as a bible believer, I will continue to pray for all of you that are being misguided by whatever means, you claim the bible led you to Catholisim. Funny, how 11 years ago, reading the Bible I was led ‘out’ of the Catholic system. Maybe some are meant to be saved and others aren’t.
Matt 7: 13-14, Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
“Few” will be there that find it, according to the Pope there are over a Billion Catholics in the world that does not seem like a few to me.
A lot of false religions read the bible. There is nothing new here. It is what you choose to believe of the Bible that makes a difference of life or death. This false religion called Catholisim is leading many people to destruction, and people like yourself proudly are going along for the ride.
May the true God of the Bible have mercy on your soul…
I’m Catholic, and I’m struggling with giving it all up. Period. Catholic, protestant, whatever. Nobody knows, there will be no reconciliation, and I suppose the gates of hell have prevailed.
As far as this ‘post’ (why the quotes? It is a real post, regardless of the content) goes.
Hey, post man, what does it feel like to be infallible?
How is it you can judge the state of someone’s soul, much less that of billions?
Please tell me your infallible interpretation of motes
and beams.
Regarding your prayers for those misguided, in the remote instance that it may be you, I hope you have the humility to accept it.
I’m going to crawl into a hole with my bible, pray, and hope that God is indeed merciful. Not sure I believe anymore, but hey, what else do I have left?
Maybe I’ll start a ‘website’ for the lost, clueless and sick at heart. I won’t be so arrogant as to start a real website, it will just look and function like one.
The arguments, bickering and sniping never end.
God help us all. I would turn myself into the church, but hey, I suppose that is meaningless.
I would pray for this ‘poster’ but, hey, he’s infallible and assured. I wonder why this perfected being’s prayers don’t seem more efficacious? I’m still maybe barely a pagan Catholic, I search the Bible and get more confused.
Guess I’m damned to the chubby gate.
Peace.
The above title became a source of controversy when I used it for a talk given at a recent prophecy conference. What I found curious about the commotion was that it came from Catholics (and some evangelicals) who had yet to hear my presentation. Furthermore, the title reflects the hope and prayers of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Rome has been tilling this “common ground” with Islam for decades, as evidenced by the 1994 Vatican publication, Recognize the Spiritual Bonds Which Unite Us: 16 Years of Christian-Muslim Dialogue. Why, therefore, would anyone be upset by my simply repeating what the Roman Catholic Church very much desires?
Actually, the real controversy stems from confusion created by the Church of Rome herself. In her zeal to be the spiritual voice of the world’s religions, she talks out of both sides of her ecumenical mouth. Regarding her relationship to Islam, not only has she made to those of the Muslim faith some theological overtures which contradict Christian orthodoxy, but even worse, there are ties between the two religions which go a lot deeper than most people realize. Let’s first consider some commonalities between the two faiths.
Starting with the number of adherents, Catholicism and Islam each exceed one billion, nearly all of whom enter their respective faiths as infants. More than 16 million babies are baptized into the Roman Catholic Church each year. It’s a family thing. My sisters and I were baptized as Catholics because our parents were Catholics, and they and their siblings were baptized into the Church because their parents were Catholics. That’s the primary way the faith is propagated.
Practically speaking, although baptism is not part of Islam, all children born into a Muslim family are Muslims. Their official “confirmation” follows as soon as they are able to confess the shahada (“There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger”). This baby-oriented process for increasing their ranks has been a motivating factor in the Vatican/Saudi-sponsored lobby against UN endeavors to introduce contraception and other methods of population control, especially in third-world countries.
Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world today; Catholicism is the largest religious body among those professing to be Christian. If the number of followers was a good measure for selecting a religion, then Islam and Catholicism would definitely be the way to go. However, the Bible has no such yardstick. Rather, Jesus said, “[W]ide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Mat 7:13-14).
Most people are aware of the veneration and even worship of Mary found among Roman Catholics, but not many know that much the same deference exists among Muslims. A chapter in the Qur’an is named after Mary (“Surah Maryam”). From the outskirts of Cairo to Bombay to Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina, hundreds of thousands of the Islamic faith have congregated wherever processions carry her statues and where her apparitions are said to have appeared. She is esteemed above the most revered women of the Muslim faith, including Muhammad’s two favorite wives, Khadija and Aisha, and his daughter Fatima. The hadith teaches that Muhammad selected Mary as his first wife upon entrance into Paradise (for more about Mary and Islam see “Mary Who?” in TBC Oct ’00 ). One of the most popular Catholic apparitions of Mary is referred to as Our Lady of Fatima.
Catholic and Islamic prayers have many similarities. For the Muslim, praying to Allah five times a day is altogether an act of obedience, and the prayers are always repetitive. As one former Muslim puts it, “It’s hardly intimate communication with Allah;…it’s done more to escape the punishment due to those who neglect prayer.” Most prayers prayed by Catholics are also rote and repetitive, saying the rosary being the best example. Repeating 16 “Our Father’s” and 153 “Hail Mary’s” is far from personal communication. Furthermore, when a Catholic goes to confession the priest assigns rosaries as severe punishment, or penance, for one’s sins.
Prayer beads were a part of Islamic devotion to Allah long before an apparition of the Blessed Lady taught St. Dominic to pray the rosary beads in the thirteenth century. Prayer beads, by the way, are a stock item in ancient and modern paganism. On an ironic note, Catholic Church historians credit the prayers of members of the Confraternity of the Rosary for a major naval victory over the Turks, which “saved Europe from the Mohammedan peril.”
Catholics and Muslims regard pilgrimages as a means of obtaining favor from God. The hadj, one of the five pillars of Islam, is a required (one-time) journey to Mecca. For Catholics, pilgrimages historically have been acts of religious purification, often induced by the promise of indulgences. Multi-millions of Catholics travel yearly to hundreds of shrines (nearly all dedicated to Mary) located throughout the world. The Crusades were indulgence-stimulated attempts to regain Jerusalem from the infidel Muslims in order to re-establish Catholic pilgrimages. Incidentally, the Church of Rome offered the crusaders full pardon from purgatory should they die trying to liberate the Holy Land. Similarly, Islam offers rewards in and assurance of Paradise to those who die in religious battles (jihad), including suicide bombings.
Roman Catholicism recognizes Allah as the God of the Bible. In 1985, Pope John Paul II declared to an enraptured audience of thousands of Muslim youths, “Christians and Muslims, we have many things in common as believers and as human beings….We believe in the same God, the one and only God, the living God….”
But how is that possible?
Historically, Allah was a pagan idol, supreme among many idols worshiped by Muhammad’s Quraish tribe long before he was born. Will Durant in his classic, The Story of Civilization, writes,
Within the Ka’aba, in pre-Moslem days, were several idols representing gods. One was called Allah; three others were Allah’s daughters, al-Uzza, al-Lat, and al-Manat. We may judge the antiquity of this Arab pantheon from the mention of Al-il-Lat (Al-Lat) by Herodotus [fifth century B.C. Greek historian] as a major Arabian deity. The Quraish paved the way for monotheism by worshiping Allah as chief god….
Archaeological evidence uncovered in Arabia is overwhelming in demonstrating that the dominant pre-Islamic religion was the worship of the moon god, Allah. Muhammad simply eliminated the other 300-some deities, including Allah’s daughters, making Allah supreme while retaining many of the pagan rituals and symbols associated with him. For example, the crescent moon was the symbol of the moon god from the time of the Sumerians and the Babylonians through the time of Christ and right up until Muhammad’s arrival. It’s hardly a coincidence that Ramadan, the Muslim time of fasting, begins and ends at the time of the crescent moon. Nearly all of the moon god rituals and other idolatrous practices, including kissing the Black Stone, praying toward Mecca, running around the temple and between the two hills of Safa and Marwa, were pre-Islamic rituals.
Catholicism’s zeal to relate to Islam makes one wonder how honest it is about its own perspective on God, based on the “Sacred Scripture.” God is referred to as Yahweh or Jehovah about 9,000 times in the Bible. Never is He thus referred to in the Qur’an. He reveals himself in the Scriptures as “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob/Israel.” He is the Father of the Jews, “the God of Israel.” In the Qur’an, Allah never refers to himself that way. God calls the Jews His “chosen people.” He gave them the land of Israel as a heritage “forever”: “And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever” (Eze 37:25). God’s covenant is with Isaac (Gen 17: 19-21), while Muslims believe Allah’s covenant is with Ishmael.
Allah has a completely different attitude toward the Jews than does the God of the Bible. Allah commands his followers to “Take not the Jews…for friends” (Sura 5:51). While the Jews are referred to in the Qur’an as “the people of the book” (i.e., the Bible), if they refuse to convert to Islam they must pay a tribute tax to their overlords and become subservient to them: “Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by his messenger, and follow not the religion of truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low” (Sura 9:29). According to the hadith, which most Muslims regard to be nearly as authoritative as the Qur’an, Muhammad is quoted as saying, “The last hour will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims kill them.” Again, the hadith says that, related to the Day of Judgment, Muslims will fight and kill Jews, who will hide behind trees that say, “Oh Muslim, Oh servant of Allah, here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here and kill him.” Catholicism has its own grievous and well-documented history of slaughtering the Jews.
Further comparisons between Jehovah and Allah demonstrate clearly that they cannot be one and the same. Jehovah has a Son: “And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world” (1 Jn 4:14). Allah has no son: “And say: Praise be to Allah, Who hath not taken unto Himself a son, and Who hath no partner in the Sovereignty…” (Sura 17:111); “Allah hath not chosen any son, nor is there any God along with him” (Sura 23:91). Whereas God the Father declared from heaven concerning Jesus, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mat 3:17), Allah of the Qur’an condemns such a belief: “…the Christians say: Messiah is the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouths. They imitate the saying of the disbelievers of old. Allah’s Curse be on them, how they are deluded away from the truth!” (Sura 9:30 – The Holy Qur’an http://www.orst.edu/groups/msa/index.phpl).
While there are both clear and critical differences between the biblical God and Allah, nevertheless, the Roman Catholic Church accepts them as one and the same God. The following quote is from Vatican II:
The Church has also a high regard for the Muslims. They worship God, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has also spoken to men. They strive to submit themselves without reserve to the hidden decrees of God, just as Abraham submitted himself to God’s plan, to whose faith Muslims eagerly link their own.
Although not acknowledging him as God, they venerate Jesus as a prophet, his virgin Mother they also honor, and even at times devoutly evoke. Further, they await the day of judgment and the reward of God following the resurrection of the dead. For this reason they highly esteem an upright life and worship God, especially by way of prayer, alms-deeds and fasting (Nostra Aetate, Vatican II).
Consider carefully the above quote (taken from what the Roman Catholic Church claims is an infallible council) and you will realize what truly binds Catholicism and Islam together: They both have a Jesus who cannot save their souls. The Qur’an teaches that Jesus did not die on the cross: “And because of [the Jews] saying, We slew the Messiah Jesus son of Mary, Allah’s messenger—They slew him not nor crucified, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain” (Sura 4:157). Vatican II may give Muslims credit for “venerating” Jesus, but in fact, it’s a bogus Jesus. Sadly, Catholicism also has a false Christ. It teaches that His death on the cross was not sufficient for our salvation. Not only must His sacrifice (which, according to the Scriptures, was offered only once to take away our sins completely [Heb 9:28]) be “re-presented” as a daily sacrifice for sins on altars around the world, but Catholics must expiate their own sins through sufferings here on earth and in purgatory.
Finally, Vatican II spells out clearly what Islam and Catholicism regard as their hope for salvation: “…they highly esteem an upright life and worship God, especially by way of prayer, alms-deeds and fasting.” This is works salvation. In Islam, a person is accountable for every thought, word, and deed. His or her life is to be lived according to what is pleasing to Allah as found in the Qur’an and the hadith. In addition, there is shari’a, which is the body of rules that attempts to cover the totality of Islamic religious, political, social and domestic life. Breaking such laws involves various forms of temporal punishment. At the Last Judgment Allah will determine one’s eternal destiny as He places one’s good and evil works on the divine scale: “Then those whose scales are heavy [with good deeds], they are the successful. And those whose scales are light are those who lose their souls, in hell abiding” (Sura 23:102,103). The hadith vividly describes the tortures of hell.
A friend of mine, James McCarthy, produced a video titled Catholicism: Crisis of Faith in which he interviews about a dozen people leaving Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. He simply asks them on what basis they expect to get to heaven. Only one made any reference to Jesus. The overwhelming response was that they felt they were pretty good people, and were fairly confident that their good deeds outweighed their bad ones. Although the Catholic Church states that it is only by God’s grace that one can enter heaven, it becomes very clear that what is meant is that grace is required to enable one to do the works which qualify one for heaven. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, they “obtain the joy of heaven, as God’s eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ” (par 1821) and they “can merit for [them]selves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life” (par 2027).
Pope John Paul II addressed a Catholic community in Turkey with these words: “I wonder if it is now urgent, precisely today when Christians and Muslims have entered a new period of history, to recognize and develop the spiritual bonds that unite us.” No! What is “urgent” is that Catholics and Muslims be set free from the spiritual bondage of attempting to qualify for heaven by their good deeds. Pray that their hearts would be open to receive the gift of eternal life (Rom 6:23). TBC
Martin Luther is remembered and widely honored today in much of the world—certainly throughout the West. The recent movie about his life was a Hollywood success that attracted large secular audiences in spite of its religious content. Luther stood up courageously against the false doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church despite Pope Leo X’s determination to arrest and burn him alive at the stake. He had been disillusioned while visiting the Vatican and seeing the hypocrisy and open immorality among the clergy from priest to pope. The final straw was Rome’s selling of indulgences for supposedly releasing one’s dead relatives from purgatory to enter heaven. The infamous sales pitch that raised millions of dollars promised, “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs.” The proceeds from this shameless scam paid for repairing and enlarging St. Peter’s Basilica. That awesome structure stands today as a monument to the false gospel that Church still regularly preaches!
Disillusioned and furious, Luther wrote his Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences (known as “The Ninety-five Theses”) and nailed it to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church. Copies were widely distributed in several European languages, shaking Europe, inciting heated debate, sparking the Reformation and the exodus of millions from the Roman Catholic Church—and hopefully bringing salvation to many of them.
Although Luther retained some of his Catholicism, his bold declaration before the Imperial Diet at Worms (in stark contrast to the attitude of so many Christians today) has inspired millions: “I am bound by the Scriptures…and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything…here I stand; may God help me.” That he really meant what he said is proved by the fact that it should have cost him his life had not some powerful German princes taken up his cause and protected him in protest against Rome—an event from which we get the designation “Protestant.”
Desperate to maintain the Church’s totalitarian authority, Catholic bishops and cardinals launched a counter-Reformation defining Church doctrines and demanding obedience thereto at the Council of Trent (1545-1563). Its Canons and Decrees (see Resources) denounced the sole authority of Scripture affirmed by Luther, denied salvation by faith in Christ without Church sacraments and good works, and basically rejected everything the Reformers asked the Church to accept in submission to God’s Word. Trent pronounced more than 100 anathemas (excommunication/damnation) against all who accepted any Reformation teaching. It was costly to stand for the truth of God’s Word in those days, and many thousands would not compromise their convictions in spite of torture and death.
We are in great need of a revival of such unwavering conviction today. It will not come, however, without an awakening of an individual hunger and thirst after righteousness (Mt 5:6) and deep passion for our Lord and for His Word. Sadly, the truth of God is not only neglected and compromised today but is actually undermined by many whom millions of Christians look up to as evangelical leaders. Tragically, multitudes are being prepared to follow the great delusion that will befall those who “received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thes 2:8-12).
Is the fifteenth-century Reformation and Rome’s opposition to it at that time merely interesting history with little relationship to the church and world today? Hardly! The battle continues and has reached a far deadlier phase. A growing delusion has deceived multitudes into embracing ecumenical compromise while imagining that they are still on the Lord’s side.
In 1962, at the opening of Vatican II in Rome, Pope John XXIII affirmed, “I do accept entirely all that has been decided and declared at the Council of Trent.” Vatican II itself “proposes again the decrees of the Council of Trent.” On 12/31/95, honoring the 450th anniversary of the opening of Trent, Pope John Paul II declared, “Its conclusions maintain all their value.”
Regardless of what a Catholic friend, a liberal priest, or a professor at a Catholic university may say, Trent remains the official teaching of Rome and has been reconfirmed many times since by the highest Church authority. Here are only a few of Trent’s anathemas, all of which were renewed by Vatican II, The Code of Canon Law, and the current Catechism of the Catholic Church, and which remain today as the official teaching of Roman Catholicism, sustaining the inflexible dogmas of that “infallible” Church, regardless of statements by anyone to the contrary:
* If anyone denies that by…baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted [or] denies that…[the] justice, sanctification and redemption…of Jesus Christ is applied both to adults and to infants by the sacrament of baptism…let him be anathema…. (Rome’s emphasis)
* If anyone says that the sacraments of the New Law [i.e., the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church] are not necessary for salvation…and that without them…men obtain from God through faith alone the grace of justification…let him be anathema….
* If anyone says that baptism is…not necessary for salvation, let him be anathema….
* If anyone says that after the reception of the grace of justification the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out…that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be discharged either in this world or in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema….
* If anyone says that the sacrifice of the mass…wherein that life-giving victim by which we are reconciled to the Father is daily immolated on the altar by priests…is a mere commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross but not a propitiatory one…offered for the living and the dead, for sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other necessities, let him be anathema.
No bolder nor clearer rejection of the Bible and the gospel of Jesus Christ could be declared. This brief sample presents the actual teaching of Roman Catholicism as it is taught to and practiced by hundreds of millions of Catholics today. There is no disputing the fact that this is a false gospel, which, sadly, holds Roman Catholics in bondage on their way to the flames—not of a “purgatory” invented by popes, but to the eternal Lake of Fire. How can those who profess to admire Luther and the Reformation defend Catholicism?
Given these indisputable facts, no evangelical could call Roman Catholics born-again Christians.The shameful irony is that so many evangelical leaders and their followers, while claiming to honor the Reformation and its gospel of salvation by faith alone in Jesus Christ, at the same time close their eyes to the truth and act as though the Reformation never occurred and as if Catholics believe the biblical gospel. Have we forgotten that those who do not believe the gospel are eternally lost? Will their endless doom be on our hands?
Shameful ironies abound. Although the Roman Catholic Church no longer burns opponents at the stake (a practice now repugnant even to the secular world), it still maintains every false teaching and practice opposed by Luther and his fellow Reformers, thereby deceiving countless millions. It still teaches salvation through baptism, good works, and the other sacraments mediated by Mary as the “doorway to Christ”; it still offers indulgences at a price for release from purgatory to heaven; and it still rejects the final authority of Scripture! All of the anathemas pronounced by Trent against Protestant beliefs remain in full force and effect. Yet many of Luther’s modern followers now embrace Roman Catholicism as the true gospel!
On 10/31/99, representatives of the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church signed a Joint Declaration (JDDJ) declaring that they had resolved the major differences that caused the Reformation. Not one doctrine or practice had changed in the Catholic Church. While Lutherans were congratulating themselves on this wonderful “agreement,” Pope John Paul II was offering special indulgences unto salvation for the year 2000. Had Martin Luther been alive, he would have denounced the traitors leading the church that bears his name and would have nailed his “Ninety-five Theses” to the door of the Lutheran World Federation headquarters! How can we explain the blindness leading to this unconscionable betrayal of the Reformation, and of Christ and His Word?
Five years earlier, no less shameful, evangelical leaders (Bill Bright, Charles Colson, Os Guinness, Richard Mouw [president of Fuller Theological Seminary], J.I. Packer, Pat Robertson, John White [former president of National Association of Evangelicals], et al.), had endorsed “Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium” (ECT). It calls for evangelicals to join Roman Catholics in evangelizing the world, and states, “We thank God for the discovery of one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.”
Nor was ECT anything new, but the culmination of a compromise of truth that had been growing within the evangelical movement for a long time. For at least 40 years prior to ECT, Billy Graham had been declaring that his beliefs were basically the same as those of orthodox Roman Catholics, and that he and the Pope agreed on almost everything, including the way of salvation! The same stance had long been adopted by evangelical universities such as Westmont and Wheaton, publications such as Christianity Today and Charisma, organizations such as Campus Crusade for Christ, Youth With A Mission, and World Vision, as well as by other evangelical institutions and leaders. Highlighting evangelicalism’s schizophrenia, Wheaton, which has a large Center and Museum honoring Billy Graham and which hires short-term Catholic professors, last year fired a popular professor for “converting to Catholicism,” while calling him “a gifted brother in Christ”!
Martin Luther and the other Reformers would have died at the stake rather than sign such documents as JDDJ and ECT! How do we explain today’s denial of all that the Reformation stood for by those who claim to honor it and to follow in the faith of the Reformers? Attempting to fathom such spiritual schizophrenia, The New York Times, in its March 30, 1994, announcement of ECT, had written:
They toiled together in the movements against abortion and pornography, and now leading Catholics and evangelicals are asking their flocks…to finally accept each other as Christians. In what’s being called a historic declaration, evangelicals…joined with conservative Roman Catholic leaders…[and] urged Catholics and evangelicals to stop aggressive proselytization of each other’s flocks. John White, president of Geneva College and former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, said the statement was a “triumphalistic moment” in American religious life after centuries of distrust….
The gospel of Jesus Christ, by which alone one is born again (1 Pt 1:22-25) is being denied. That is the issue, with the eternal destiny of souls hanging in the balance. While they did not personally sign ECT, Bill Hybels and Rick Warren, like so many other evangelical leaders, give the appearance of full cooperation and agreement with Rome. In violation of the clear command of Scripture to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), neither Hybels nor Warren nor most other evangelical leaders, including Billy Graham, will use their huge influence to bring any warning or correction—to Rome or to anyone else!
Even Islam is defended as a valid “faith” that Rick Warren cooperates with in working (through his P. E.A.C.E Plan) for what he calls a “New Reformation.” In its advancement, he says he “would trust any imam or priest or rabbi….” Do we no longer believe the gospel and that those who reject it are eternally lost?
John Paul II denounced everything the Reformation stood for, yet he, too, is highly honored by those who still praise Luther. How can we honor two diametrically opposed beliefs at the same time? Have “Christians” gone mad?! Words have changed their definitions, contradictory convictions are simultaneously professed, and truth is re-defined to suit anyone’s taste. We are adrift on an ocean of meaninglessness without rudder or compass—yet nearly everyone praises our “progress.” Exactly like the world, the church (“rich, and increased with goods” – Rv 3:17) willingly blurs the essential differences between God’s truth and Satan’s lies. Oh, yes, evangelical leaders still claim to affirm God’s Word, yet who stands up against the false doctrines made popular by today’s “Christian” radio and TV or against the “mother of harlots” (Rv 17:5) as did Luther?
Though lip service is still given to the Reformation, the deep convictions that birthed it have been compromised. The hour grows late and the evangelical church desperately needs to face some honest questions:
1. What was the purpose of the Reformation?
2. Was its uncompromising affirmation of biblical truth appropriate in Luther’s day but not now?
3. What did it stand for at that time, at the cost of so many martyrs and so much suffering, that should now be denied?
4. Have Jesus Christ and His gospel changed?
5. Has any belief or practice changed in the Catholic Church that would justify evangelicals embracing Catholicism as the biblical gospel?
While evangelicals are literally thumbing their noses at the Reformers, a powerful Reformation of Islam is gathering momentum in the Muslim world. Urgent calls go forth to abstain from the fleshly immorality of America, “the Great Satan.” After the stunning defeats by Israel in 1948 and 1967, imams began to preach that Allah was not happy and that Muslims must get back to the Qur’an and true Islam. The result has been a growing awakening of fundamentalist Islam with its accompanying terrorism.
At the same time, the “Christian” West sinks into ever-deepening depravity. As one example, Howard Stern’s foul mouth and glorification of immorality have made him the highest paid radio personality in the U.S. That movies, television, and radio shows continue to grow ever bolder in their mocking of biblical truth and promotion of homosexuality and other shameful perversions only reflects what the vast majority of Westerners, including Catholics and Protestants, want and enjoy.
The Bible hasn’t changed. God hasn’t changed. The gospel hasn’t changed. Has our hope changed? Instead of “looking for that blessed hope…the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Ti 2:13), are we looking instead to “Christian” politicians for salvation? The evangelical church today is in the mood of accommodation, unity, compromise. Are these the “perilous times” (2 Tm 3:1) ominously foretold in Scripture? TBC
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets,…how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! Luke 13:34
I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore…With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication….I saw a woman…And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT….[She was] drunken with the blood of the saints, and…of the martyrs of Jesus….[She] is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth [and is built on] seven hills [i.e., Rome]. Revelation 17:1-6,18
Jerusalem and Rome! How different and yet how similar are these ancient (and current) rivals for worldwide spiritual leadership! Both figured so largely in Christ’s crucifixion and the persecution of the early church. Both are destined by God also to play dominant roles in the final events prophesied in Scripture. Antichrist will rule the world from Rome’s fabled throne of the Caesars, revived as the seat of the new world order. This “Wicked [one]” (2 Thes 2:8) will be embraced by Israel as her Messiah (Jn 5:43) when he brings peace to the Middle East and allows the temple to be rebuilt. That the stage for these coming events is already set seemed apparent to the participants in last month’s videomaking tour of Israel and Rome.
The fate of Jerusalem has been inextricably intertwined with that of Rome ever since they joined in unholy alliance to reject and crucify the Lord of glory (Acts 2:23; 1 Cor 2:8). That uneasy partnership was shattered with Jerusalem’s destruction by Rome’s legions in A.D. 70, foretold both by Daniel (9:26) and Jesus (Mat 24:2). The Roman Empire must be revived, for one day its armies will belong to Daniel’s “prince that shall come”—i.e., Antichrist––and will seek to destroy Jerusalem again.
The woman in Revelation 17 can only be Rome/Vatican City. No other city built on seven hills wields such authority, exchanging ambassadors with nations. Nor does any other city claim to represent Christ, and thus no other could stand accused of spiritual fornication due to unholy alliances with earth’s rulers. Neither can any other city rival the blood of both Jews and Christians which pagan Rome and later the Vatican have shed. Thomas Hobbes perceptively said, “The Papacy is…the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.”
“In the midst of the [70th] week [seven-year tribulation]” (Dan 9:27), Antichrist will forbid further sacrifices, place his image in the temple and demand to be worshiped as God. Israel will object, bringing the armies of the entire world, under Antichrist, against her to effect a “final solution” to the Jewish problem. Accompanied by the saints of all ages in their resurrected and/or glorified bodies, Christ will intervene. Destroying Antichrist and his armies, Israel’s Messiah, at last recognized and accepted by her, will rule the world from David’s throne in Jerusalem.
Such prophecies remain hidden from Israel. The spiritual blindness of the vast majority in that land was both apparent and incomprehensible to those on our recent tour. How true is Christ’s sorrowful pronouncement: “this [rebellious (Ps 78:8), faithless and perverse (Mat 17:17), evil and adulterous (12:39, 16:4), etc.] generation [of vipers (12:34)] shall not pass, till all these things [i.e., all the prophesied signs] be fulfilled” (24:34). Only after all prophesied events have occurred (which must precede and foreshadow the Second Coming), and Christ comes visibly in power and glory to rescue her in the midst of Armageddon, will Israel at last believe (Zec 12:10). Then shall be fulfilled Christ’s words: “he that endureth to the end shall be saved” (Mat 10:22); and Paul’s: “all Israel [that have survived to the end] shall be saved” (Rom 11:26).
How astonishing it is that stubborn unbelief should persistently characterize the descendants of Abraham, the father of the faithful (Rom 4:11-16)! “[B]lindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles…” (Rom 11:25). More than 30 percent of Israel’s Jews are atheists. Although that figure is high compared with many other countries (10 percent in the USA and Ireland, 20 percent in Italy), it is even higher among kibbutz dwellers. This communal lifestyle of Marxist origins breeds atheism. We were told by our host on a visit to a kibbutz in Galilee that out of 300 kibbutzim throughout Israel only about 15 were “religious,” atheism being the faith of all of the others, including his own.
Politely but pointedly, I asked how Israel could assert any better claim to that land than the Arabs, if God did not give it to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for “an everlasting possession” (Gen 17:8; 48:4; Ex 6:8; Joel 3:2). He had no answer. I then reminded him that Israel’s children study their history from the Bible, and asked how that Book could be 100 percent accurate when it comes to ancient names, places and events and yet 100 percent wrong about the God who its authors claim inspired their writings. Again no answer.
Interviews in the streets for the videos we shot revealed that most Israelis (including even some atheists) do expect the Messiah. Yet they have no biblical understanding of who He might be––or that the prophets said Messiah would be “cut off [killed]” (Isa 53:8; Dan 9:26, etc.) and thereafter Jerusalem and the temple destroyed (9:26)! When asked how they would recognize the Messiah, nearly all responded, “He will bring peace.” What a setup for Antichrist, of whom it is said, “By peace shall [he] destroy many” (Dan 8:25)! Sadly, the worst destruction in Israel’s history, “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer 30:7), lies ahead.
Evidence of the conquering Roman presence from Christ’s day and from Crusader times is found everywhere. Ancient ruins, neglected and even destroyed when the Arabs were in control, are being expertly restored by the Jews. A Roman presence of another nature continues in Israel to this day: the Catholicized “holy” places, where events in Jesus’ life and death allegedly took place. Rome’s presence is seen and felt also in the throngs of Catholic pilgrims who come for the indulgences and special favors from God which they’ve been taught attach to physical places and relics. One has the impression that this land is still theirs. After all, didn’t the Crusaders conquer it for Holy Mother Church?
Each holy place is marked (and marred) by the inevitable church constructed upon it. In these shrines, candles (purchase price depending upon size) burn continuously. Robed priests appear periodically at altars to repeat incantations unknown to Christ and the apostles. Reverently the faithful cross themselves and join in ceremonies believed to convey special grace because performed at a sacred site. Israel needs the money the pilgrims bring. Yet one senses an uneasy truce between Jews, who disown their own who believe in Him, and Catholics, who come to see where Jesus was crucified by Jews, forgetting the Vatican’s long persecution and slaughter of Jesus’ Jewish brethren.
The Christian church, after being granted recognition and freedom by Constantine, soon became the persecutor of all those who did not submit to its doctrines. Like Islam a few centuries later, Christianity was imposed upon the entire populace of Europe under the threat of torture and death. Christ told His disciples that whosoever would be the greatest must be the servant of all. Instead, the popes aspired to be masters of the world. Church and state joined in adulterous partnership to expand the “Holy Roman Empire” by enforcing conversion with the sword.
Persecution of Jews commenced in earnest after the popes, taking advantage of the power vacuum left when the empire fell to the barbarians, began to rule not just as ecclesiastical leaders of the church but as secular kings. Papal armies fought to expand “the Kingdom of God.” The Jews’ plight––in the name of Jesus the Jew––soon became far more grievous under the alleged Christian church than it had ever been at the hands of pagan rulers. In Vicars of Christ, Jesuit historian Peter de Rosa writes of those early days:
[Catholicism] will become the most persecuting faith the world has ever seen. They will persecute the race from which Peter––and Jesus––sprang…[and] order in Christ’s name all those who disagree with them to be tortured, and sometimes crucified over fire. They will make an alliance between throne and altar; they will insist that…the throne (the state) impose the Christian [Roman Catholic] religion on all its subjects.
A major target of conquest became “the Holy Land,” which had already been claimed by “Saint” Helena. Constantine was the father of the new Church and Helena was honored as its mother. Even before it was conferred upon Mary, the title “Mother of God” was given to Helena as the Emperor’s mother. (Every Roman emperor was worshiped as God.) This “mother of the church” journeyed to the Holy Land to buy relics and to build churches upon alleged sites of key events involving our Lord.
The Roman Catholic Church began to believe it had replaced Israel as God’s chosen people. That land, promised by God to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, now belonged, for new and holier reasons, to “Christian” Rome, the new Zion. The pagan empire had become the Holy Roman Empire, the “Kingdom of God” on earth. The hope of its revival was the dream of all Europe during the Middle Ages––a goal which will be accomplished at last by Antichrist. The revived Roman Empire over which he will rule, with enthusiastic Vatican support as in the past, will encompass the entire world.
Without rancor we must face the facts concerning the Holy Roman Empire to understand what its revival will mean. Pagans had blamed every disaster upon Christians. Now the Church blamed all on the Jews. Accused of causing the Black Death, Jews were rounded up and hanged, burned and drowned by the thousands in revenge. Although now and then a pope sought to ameliorate their condition, there was no place for “Christ crucifiers” in God’s Holy Kingdom. More than 100 anti-Semitic documents were published by the Roman Catholic Church between the sixth and twentieth centuries. Anti-Semitism had become official Church doctrine. To this day, the Vatican has never conceded Israel’s right to exist and wants Jerusalem to be, not in Jewish hands, but under international control.
To raise an army for the First Crusade, Pope Urban II promised instant entrance into heaven without purgatory for all who fell in that great cause. The knights and knaves who responded with enthusiasm to that deceitful promise left a trail of plunder, mayhem, and murder on their way to Jerusalem, where they slaughtered all Arabs and Jews. One of their first acts after their triumphal entry into Jerusalem was to herd the Jews into the synagogue and set it ablaze. On their way to the Holy Land, the Crusaders gave the Jews the choice of baptism or death. De Rosa recounts:
In the year 1096 half of the Jews of Worms were slaughtered as the Crusaders passed through the town. The rest fled to the bishop’s residence for protection. He agreed to save them, on condition that they asked to be baptized. The Jews retired to consider their decision. When the doors of the audience chamber were opened, all 800 Jews inside were dead. Some were decapitated; fathers had killed their babes before turning their knives on their wives and themselves; a groom had slain his bride. The first century tragedy of Masada was repeated everywhere in Germany and, later, throughout France.
Sincere followers of Christ, too, were slain by the hundreds of thousands for attempting to follow the Bible instead of Rome. What these victims suffered from Holy Mother Church is a story sad beyond belief for both persecuted and persecutors. The Inquisitors were caught in a web from which there was no escape, for the papacy did indeed “reign over the kings of the earth.” No doubt many of the zealots who carried out papal decrees were sincere. The civil authorities, moreover, feared excommunication should they fail to fulfill the Inquisitors’ demands. The facts speak volumes.
Heretics (those who felt bound by conscience to follow God’s Word) were committed to the flames because the popes believed that the Bible forbade Christians to shed blood. Victims of the Inquisition exceeded by hundreds of thousands the number of Christians (and Jews) who had been martyred under pagan Roman emperors. Catholic apologists try in vain to absolve their Church of responsibility, arguing that the sentence of death was carried out by civil authorities. Yet this transference to the “secular arm” was required by the Church’s canon law, and at the tribunal where heretics were condemned the Inquisitor’s throne was higher than that of the magistrate. The prisoner was allowed to know neither the charge against him nor the identity of his accusers. No one was ever acquitted. Torture often made the pitiful victims willing to confess to anything. Will Durant reminds us of Pope Clement V’s rebuke of King Edward II’s leniency:
We hear that you forbid torture as contrary to the laws of your land. But no state law can override [the Church's] canon law, our law. Therefore I command you at once to submit those men to torture.
The medieval Inquisition had flourished for centuries when, in 1542, Pope Paul III 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––quite appropriate, inasmuch as public burnings were known as autos-da-fé, or acts of faith. The Office operates today from the Palace of the Inquisition adjacent to St. Peter’s. The Grand Inquisitor is Cardinal Ratzinger, who reports to Pope John Paul II.
Before he became Pope Paul IV in 1555, Inquisitor-General John Peter Carafa had converted a house at his own expense into a fully equipped torture chamber for eliciting confessions from the accused. He denounced any who tolerated heretics and declared, “If my own father were a heretic, I would personally gather the wood to burn him.” During his brief pontificate the population of Rome was decimated almost by half, with Jews the main victims. Under Paul IV, marriage between a Christian and a Jew was punishable by death. Hitler claimed only to be carrying out what the popes and Church councils had already decreed.
Paul IV forced Jews to sell their properties, confined them to ghettos, treated them as slaves and reduced them to the status of ragpickers. Pope Gregory XIII declared that the guilt of Jews in rejecting and crucifying Christ “only grows deeper with successive generations, entailing perpetual slavery.” Later popes, such as Benedict XIV, Pius VII, Leo XII, Pius VIII, Gregory XVI, Pius IX, et al., continued the persecution of Jews. Pope Pius XII knew very well that the Nazis were systematically exterminating Jews. Yet he never spoke a public word against the Holocaust, because to do so would have condemned his own Church. This silence, historians agree, encouraged Hitler and added to the unspeakable genocide.
Jerusalem has its Yad Vashem (Holocaust Museum) to keep ever before the world’s conscience the 6 million Jews killed by Hitler. By contrast, there is no memorial to the untold multitudes of both Jews and Christians murdered by Holy Mother Church and now forgotten. De Rosa reminds us that Pope John Paul II “knows the church was responsible for persecuting Jews, for the Inquisition, for slaughtering heretics by the thousands, for reintroducing torture into Europe as part of the judicial process. But he has to be careful [not to apologize]. The doctrines responsible for those terrible things still underpin his position.” (Emphasis added) The Vatican has never repented of these crimes against humanity and God. Of these indisputable facts many of today’s evangelical leaders seem willingly ignorant. TBC
And in the days of these [ten] kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed….
Daniel 2:44
After this I saw…a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible…and it had ten horns….And the ten horns…are ten kings….
Daniel 7:7,24
And…behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns….
Revelation 12:3
And I…saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns….
Revelation 13:1
I saw a woman sit[ting] upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns….And the ten horns…are ten kings….
Revelation 17:3, 12
Of all the prophecies in the Bible, Revelation 17 is the most astonishing. It culminates a series of visions of four world empires, the fourth to be revived in the “last days” and ruled by Antichrist through ten subordinate “kings”—a series of visions which began 600 years earlier in Daniel 2 with Nebuchadnezzar’s image. The image’s “head of gold” was the first world empire, the Babylonian; the “breast and arms of silver” pictured the succeeding Medo-Persian Empire; next was the Grecian represented by “belly and thighs of brass”; and finally the “legs of iron, and feet [with ten toes signifying ten kings] part of iron and part of clay” depicted the fourth world empire arising out of Rome.
Daniel’s prophecy (continued in Chapters 7-12) foretold accurate details of coming world empires which we can’t enumerate. Apropos of our subject, however, the image’s two legs foretold the Roman Empire’s division into East and West. And so it happened, first politically; centuries later, religiously. Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy (which in July again gained control of religion in Russia) remain divided to this day. They will, however, be reunited as the core of Antichrist’s new world religion.
In a second vision, the four world empires were seen as beasts. The fourth had ten horns, representing, like the ten toes on the image, “ten kings” (Dan 7:24) yet to arise. The ancient Roman Empire was never ruled by a coalition of ten kings; yet so it must be when “the God of heaven sets up [his] kingdom.” Thus the Roman Empire must be revived in that form.
God’s millennial kingdom will not (as many are teaching) result from a gradual takeover of the world by the church but through a sudden catastrophic intervention by Christ from heaven. He is the stone “cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet…the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold [were] broken to pieces…and the stone…became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (2:34-35). Christ’s sudden intervention at Armageddon is also presented by Paul: “And then shall that Wicked [Antichrist] be revealed, whom the Lord shall…destroy with the brightness of his coming” (2 Thes 2:8-10). The same event is found in Zechariah 12-14, Revelation 19 and elsewhere.
The Bible ignores other empires, some of which have been larger than the four above. Why? They won’t be revived. For centuries the seat of world power was Egypt. There were great dynasties in China, Genghis Khan’s far-ranging Mongolian empire, and vast Mayan and Aztec kingdoms in Central and South America. The Arabs once controlled most of North Africa, the Middle East and much of Europe. These empires will not rise again. The United States has been the dominant industrial and military force for 50 years, but that dominance cannot continue. The prophecies are clear: the Roman Empire will be revived, with Antichrist’s seat in Western Europe and the world religion’s headquarters in Rome.
In addition to the revived Roman Empire, the ten-horned beast also depicts Satan (the “great red dragon”) and a satanically empowered man (Rev 13:4-8)—the coming world ruler, or Antichrist. Yet it wasn’t so much the sight of this terrifying beast that took John’s breath away, but the woman who was riding him: “MYSTERY, BABYLON.” Babylon is not a country but a city (certainly not the United States). Nor is it the city Saddam is rebuilding in Iraq, for that historic Babylon, in ruins for 2,300 years, obviously does not meet the five criteria. Nor are there two Babylons (a spiritual one and a commercial one) shown in Revelation 17 and 18. They are one and the same.
Babylon was built around the ruins of the Tower of Babel, which, we noted in June, represented the false religion of human effort in opposition to salvation by grace through faith in Christ. It was the satanically inspired attempt to establish man as his own God. Babel’s antichrist paganism remained as the unifying factor linking the four successive world empires. And so it must be revived with the Roman Empire.
Like Nimrod at Babel, the Caesars presided over the pagan priesthood and were worshiped as God. All who refused to bow down before the emperor’s image in recognition of his deity were slain––a practice which will be reestablished under Antichrist (Rev 13:8,14-15). Most astonishing of all, “Christianity” must merge with Babel’s antichrist paganism to form the new world religion! That insight was a major reason for John’s amazement.
That a gorgeously clad woman was holding the reins astride such a terrifying, world-devouring beast was incredible. The woman’s identity, however, staggered John far more. Beneath the erotic attire, flashy jewelry and impudent gaze there was a haunting familiarity. It couldn’t be! How had Christ’s chaste bride become this brazen whore? What alchemy had transformed that small, despised flock of humble followers of the Lamb into this notorious prostitute toasting Satan with the blood of the martyrs in a golden cup! How could the church, hated and persecuted by the world, as Christ had said she would be––how could she have become this Machiavellian despot that reigned over the kings of the earth?
History authenticates John’s vision. The blood of the martyrs was the seed of a heavenly minded church without earthly ambition, a church whose members, increased to about 10 percent of the Roman Empire, were oppressed by the world and periodically slaughtered. Then, in AD 313, freedom from persecution came unexpectedly and suddenly under Constantine. Unfortunately, what seemed like a gift from God was a trap laid by Satan. It set the stage for an apostasy that would last more than a millennium––and is now gathering renewed momentum.
When he gave Christianity official status alongside paganism, Constantine, as emperor and “Pontifex Maximus” over the pagan priesthood known as the Pontifical College, became the de facto head of the Christian Church. As such he invented and took the title “Vicar of Christ.” Coming from the Latin vicarius, vicar means “in the place of.” Its Greek equivalent is anti. Thus the popes’ title, “Vicar of Christ,” literally means “Antichrist”—the one who pretends to be Christ.
For centuries, Protestant creeds identified the popes as antichrists. That label surely applies to the paganized Christianity over which the popes have presided as Constantine’s successors. Succeeding him also as head of Rome’s Pontifical College, the popes retain to this day the related pagan title “Pontifex Maximus.” Undoubtedly, however, the Antichrist will be the new Constantine—head of the new world order—with the Roman pontiff his right-hand man.
Constantine, the first “Vicar of Christ,” did indeed prove to be an antichrist. Not a genuine Christian, he had no concern for doctrine but only for religious unity in his empire. The original ecumenist, he convened the first Ecumenical Council, the Council of Nicea, in AD 325, set the agenda and presided over it as Charlemagne would over the Council of Chalon 500 years later during his attempt to revive the Roman Empire. Though all such attempts failed, the popes gave the Empire continuity in religion and wielded supreme secular authority as well. Historian R. W. Southern reminds us,
…there was in Rome a single spiritual and temporal authority [the papacy] exercising powers which in the end exceeded those that had ever lain within the grasp of a Roman Emperor.
To John’s utter amazement, he saw that the church Christ had founded would metamorphose into “that city…on seven hills…that rules over the kings of the earth”! Picture, for example, the humbled emperor Henry IV waiting barefoot in the snows at Canossa to make his peace with Pope Gregory VII in 1077! As noted last month, no other city in the world except Vatican City “rules over kings” and meets the other four criteria which identify the woman in Revelation 17. In the July 3, 1992 National Catholic Reporter (NCR) a Catholic priest confesses, “The church…was subverted by the ambitions of such men as [Popes] Gregory VII, Innocent III and Boniface VII [and many others] into a politico-ecclesiastical institution wielding totalitarian power in both sacred and secular fields.” Historian Walter James elaborates:
The Papacy controlled the gateway to heaven which all the faithful, including their rulers, hoped earnestly to enter….[I]t gave the Popes a moral authority which has never been wielded since. A Pope like Innocent III held all Europe in his net….
If that seven-headed beast with ten horns, the revived Roman Empire, is to appear, then the “woman” must hold the reins once again. While the Roman Catholic Church, since the Reformation, saw its supreme power challenged, it has regained much. The Vatican is a sovereign state like any nation. It exchanges ambassadors with the world’s nations and participates in international politics. The NCR boasts, “No other church has such privileged access” to top political gatherings.
John Paul II has emerged as the world’s most respected and influential leader. Though papal power is not wielded as overtly as during the Middle Ages, yet the Pope still “rules over the kings of the earth.” Presidents Bush and Gorbachev consulted with the Pope at least once a week. President Reagan solicited the Pope’s help against communism. Using Poland as a base, agents of the Vatican worked with the CIA to bring down communism and the Berlin Wall. These amazing events, Gorbachev later confessed, could not have occurred without John Paul II.
Ecumenism is essential in creating a “Christianity” which embraces all religions. Psychology plays a major ecumenical role by providing common faith, language and ritual for everyone from atheists, cultists and occultists to Roman Catholics and evangelicals. Today the Reformation is seen as a semantic misunderstanding, its vital issues blurred or ignored. There is a growing cooperation between the National Association of Evangelicals and Roman Catholics, according to Jack White, NAE president. Even leading cult experts whitewash Rome’s heresies. Chuck Colson’s (like Billy Graham’s) embrace of Catholicism and acceptance of the Templeton Prize is one more shocking example of the growing ecumenism among evangelical leaders which is preparing the way for Antichrist. (See “Q&A” for further clarification.) Nor could a more apt pope than John Paul II have arrived upon the scene at this crucial hour.
The centuries-long involvement of Roman Catholicism in pagan/occultic practices has led naturally to its present marriage to the New Age. Rome has made it clear that the disciplining of New Age priest Matthew Fox is for failure to submit to the hierarchy but not for his horrendous heresies (“News Alerts.”) Fox continues as a priest with a huge following among Catholics. The involvement in Eastern mysticism of tens of thousands of priests, nuns, and laity is condoned by the Vatican.
We have documented the accelerating secular acceptance of New Age “spirituality” such as Nancy Reagan’s obsession with astrology and President Reagan’s submission to astrological guidance and his own superstitions. Matters have only gotten worse with the new administration. Bill and Hillary Clinton’s and Al Gore’s commitment to an amoral, humanistic and New Age agenda is well known. That all three claim to be “Christians” fits the fact that the world religion will be an antichrist “Christianity.”
Time magazine recently had a picture of Hillary Clinton with eyes closed, head reverently bowed, as a North American Indian shaman performed a ritual over her. Concluding a recent speech, Hillary declared, “Let us be willing to remold society by redefining what it means to be a human being in the twentieth century, moving into a new millennium.” Yes, the Clintons intend to “remold society” and to “redefine what it means to be a human being”!
Part of that remolding involves promoting ungodly lifestyles. The consequences are devastating and worsening. Raw statistics condemn the Clintons’ encouragement of homosexuality. The median age of death for married heterosexual men is nearly twice that of homosexuals: 75 compared with 39. Only 1 percent of homosexuals live beyond age 65. The average age of death for married women is 79 compared with 45 for lesbians (Christian News, 1/13/92). Secular studies have demonstrated that living together before marriage increases the likelihood of divorce––exactly the opposite of what those who engage in “safe sex” imagine (The Baptist Challenge, 10/92).
Our world is fast ripening for God’s judgment. Consider a simple comparison between the seven leading problems in “Christian” America’s schools in the 1940s and the 1990s. Fifty years ago the worst problems faced by teachers and administrators were 1) talking in class, 2) chewing gum, 3) making noise, 4) running in halls, 5) cutting in line, 6) dress code violations, 7) littering. Today they are 1) drug abuse, 2) alcohol abuse, 3) pregnancy, 4) suicide, 5) rape, 6) robbery, 7) assault. How revealing!
Everywhere youth is bombarded not only with evil but with persuasively presented antichrist philosophies. A recent TV series began with Indiana Jones as a boy in India going to the Theosophical Society to meet founder Annie Besant. There he was introduced to Jidhu Krishnamurti, the “chosen world leader”; he then was taken to various Hindu and Buddhist temples. Christianity was degraded and Jesus was put on the level of all other “religious leaders.” Behold an even more insidious effort by George Lucas to indoctrinate the West into shamanism than even the Star Wars series of films!
Christians face two dangers: 1) becoming so immunized to apostasy that it seems normal and no longer alarming; 2) becoming discouraged and deciding that there is no use in standing up to such overwhelming evil. Yes, the stage is set for Antichrist. He will take over the world. False “Christianity” will deceive billions. The Bible says so. We will not save the world or even America. But we can rescue countless individuals through prayer, godly example and the proclamation of the gospel. Let us do so! TBC
P. Olufsen:
WHEW! Amen and amen!
Great summary.
Thanks for sharing the truth, and not being politically correct. May God bless your ministry.
Todd:
Don’t give up, my friend. I know it can be frustrating sometimes, but there is hope. Yes, many times there is a struggle, but anything of this magnitude (eternal life and souls at stake) is worth the struggle. And the gates of Hell will NOT prevail for those who keep the faith.
Todd, with all due respect, there are a number of Catholic teachings that don’t line up with Scripture, and this has to be taken into consideration when deciding who / what to follow. There is no perfect (or infallible) church, but you want to go where the Bible is faithfully held up as the standard of teaching.
I’m pretty sure the poster on which you commented was not implying that he/she was infallible; none of us are… Catholic, Protestant, or otherwise. But don’t give up searching the Bible. It was never meant to be confusing, but we must approach it with humility and pure motives (Luke 8:11-15). God is faithful to those who are honest about their weaknesses, and that seek Him through His revelation (the Bible) to us. Think of it this way… if you were a father (and you may be), would you purposely complicate instructions to your precious children in critical matters of life? No good father would, and God certainly does not.
And no, you don’t HAVE to be consigned to the “chubby gate.” God is faithful if we simply trust in Him and in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross for our salvation, and in that work alone. That is the simplicity of the gospel.