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Compiled, Edited and
Arranged by
Dr. Michael L. Ford
Introduction
With the death of Pope John Paul II, some
people have started giving thought to what the Roman Catholic Church is
beyond
all the hype, which some have correctly referred to as “smoke and
mirrors,” a reference to how magicians
and
mediums have often sought to fool the public. It is a proper term to use
in relation to
Rome
and one you will see if you
learn
the truth about the Roman Catholic Church. That is a learning process I
hope to begin in you with this booklet.
The cover picture was taken off the
official website of Pope John Paul II. Since it is an official picture
they can
hardly object if I use the
picture as representative of them and their institution: There are two
things I would
like you to notice right away.
The first is the keys in the upper right hand portion
of the picture. They remind
of the claim that the Roman Church and
its leader claim direct authority from Peter, who they say was the first
Pope and has the keys to heaven
and hell. They claim this in spite of the fact that:
1. Peter
was the Apostle to the Jews; not Gentiles;
2. There
is no evidence he was ever in
Rome;
and
3. The
claim Peter holds the keys is based on Scripture twisting, a talent
Rome
has in abundance.
The second thing is that the staff held by the
dead Pope is no shepherd’s staff, but it does have
upon it the figure of Christ hanging on the cross. The religion of
Rome
seeks to make Christ a continuing
sacrifice
in spite of the fact Scripture teaches the Lord Jesus Christ sacrificed
but once. Both of these
claims
are not about their concern for the salvation of men, but about having
power over men.
The information presented in this booklet
is both gleaned from others and some portion is written
directly
by myself. I have not tried to separate what portion is what in the
booklet because even that which
comes
from others is heavily edited and because there is limited space on these
pages to record information.
I
considered it more important to make the information available to you
quickly than prepare tedious footnotes.
I have
tried to take the utmost care to be completely accurate in all that is
within these covers. My only
purpose
is to bring people to the truth.
The Importance of Pope John
Paul II
Dr Joseph Chambers addressed the importance
of this last Pope, perhaps more concisely than
any
other single person who understands the evils of
Rome
has managed to do. He produced a number
of
ways in which this Pope has played a role in setting things up for End
Time events, calling him
“The
Most Prophetic Pope of Catholic History.” Below is the list of the late
Pope’s accomplishments.
* Brought
Israel
within the circle of his embrace.
* Opened
the door for Muslims to be called a “religion of faith and peace.”
* Clearly
embraced all pagan religions of the world and made them acceptable to
Western mindset.
* Elevated
the religious world, “when united” to be seen as the only instrument of
peace. This pope has
made
“world peace” the gospel of the twenty-first century.
* He has
succeeded in preparing almost every political entity on the planet to pay
homage to him.
*
Rome
is suddenly the center of the universe, and will be for days to come and
for the soon coming
seven
years of hell on earth.
* The
mainline churches have totally succumbed to the Roman system of religion.
* The
Evangelicals are on the verge of complete collapse into the arms of the
Catholic embrace of death.
* The
Charismatics have long ago become a tool of
Rome.
No group has done more to bridge the chasm
of truth
and error.
* Pope
John Paul II has made Mary worship acceptable within the whole church
except Bible believing
fundamentalists.
* Images,
statues, icons, liturgical fanfare in worship, and other Catholic designs
were only acceptable in extremely
liberal
churches before this pope. Today Roman styles and designs have flooded the
church world.
* The
Catholic Church has from her beginning embraced other religious doctrines
and ideals, and
incorporated
them as a
means to reach into the world cultures. Bible believers have always
rejected such compromise
until the
last two or three decades.
2.
* Finally
this pope has deceived the church world to go back to the Bible of
Catholic design. The Alexandrian
texts
and manuscripts were Catholic from the beginning and have now become the
text of choice in almost
every
Christian college and university on the face of the earth. This is the
final accomplishment in making this
“Harlot”
the “Mother of Harlots.”
Joseph
Chambers has addressed, to substantiate, each of these claims at length.
This was published in
“The End Times and Victorious
Living” If you want to get the specifics of each of these, and we
recommend
that those who are serious students do,
you can contact Paw Creek Ministries, 5110 Tuckaseegee Road,
Charlotte, North Carolina, 28208, or
phone U.S.A. 704-391-0588. Their e-mail address is
pawcreek@pawcreek.org.
Ask for a copy of the March-April 2005
publication.
The claims of Dr. Chambers are
substantially accurate. We say “substantially” because many of the
things
he credits to the late pope were already a work in progress when he
ascended to the throne of the Popes,
and
because we actually consider that this list should be considered a short
list, not an exhaustive one. The Roman
Church
is working on a long term “game plan” to recover and extend its world
domination. We agree with Dr. Chambers
that
this last pope has a been a central figure in bringing the world closer to
the One World Religion the Antichrist will
need to
work his evil. The talents of Pope John Paul II were key to where the
world stands in relation to the coming
Great
Tribulation today.3.
Question:
Catholics teach Mary was eternally a virgin. Didn’t Jesus have brothers
and sisters (siblings)?"
Answer: The Bible never gives an exact count, but
Jesus siblings are mentioned in several Bible verses. Matthew 12:46,
Luke 8:19, and Mark 3:31
say that Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see Him. Jesus had four
brothers: James, Joseph,
Simon, and Judas
(Matthew
13:55). Jesus also had sisters
but they are not named or numbered (Matthew
13:55-56).
In John 7:1-10, His
brothers go on to the festival. In Acts
1:14, His brothers and mother
prayed to Him. Later in Galatians
1:19, it mentions that
James was Jesus’ brother. The most natural conclusion of these passages
is to interpret that Jesus had
actual blood
siblings. There is no Biblical reason to believe that these siblings are
not the actual children of Mary and Joseph.
They were
obviously born after Jesus, because Jesus was born of a virgin (Isaiah
7:14; Luke 1:26-38).
Question: Who
wrote the New Testament? Why not accept the Apocrypha, Gnostic Gospels, or
the Gospel
of Thomas?
Answer: There are solid reasons for trusting in
today's list of New Testament books and rejecting the Catholic
included apocryphal
books as well as other spurious books of antiquity.
The
Gospel writers Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were previously mentioned as
credible sources, two
of
them having been Jesus’ closest followers. The other New Testament authors
were considered
trustworthy as well: James and Jude (half-brothers of Jesus, who by the
way did not initially believe
in
Him), Peter (one of the 12 apostles), and Saul of Tarsus (whom Jesus made
an apostle after His death and resurrection).
The
church knew about these men and their relationship to Jesus. Moreover,
what they wrote was
consistent with what people had heard and seen themselves regarding Jesus,
and had passed on to their
children. When other books were written and appeared hundreds of years
later (e.g., the Gospel of Peter,
though Peter had long since died), it wasn't difficult for the church to
spot them as phonies, as forgeries.
Another example is the Gospel of Thomas (which
4.
Mohammed references in
the Koran). The Gospel of Thomas was written around 140 A.D., long after
Thomas
had died. Though
it bore some similarities to the New Testament's authentic Gospel of
Matthew, it also contained
wildly different
messages. The descriptions of Jesus did not fit anything the early church
knew to be true of Him.
Our examples, which show
the contrast between the New Testament Gospels and the Gospel of Thomas,
follow:
Throughout New Testament
Gospels, Jesus treats women with dignity atypical to Middle Eastern
culture. Jesus
taught women as
well as men, spoke against unfair divorce laws, was kind toward women of
even questionable
character, and
appeared first to women after his resurrection, entrusting them with the
message that he was alive.
Jesus’ respect
toward women cut against cultural norms, and was an issue that angered the
religious leaders.
Yet the Gospel of Thomas
contains a completely contradictory statement attributed to Jesus: "Let
Mary go
away from us, because
women are not worthy of life." And: "For every woman who makes herself
male will
enter into the
kingdom of heaven." Books like the Gospel of Thomas were written and
circulated among the
early church, it
was not difficult for people to discern the forgeries. Texts, like these
and the gnostic gospels,
attacked well known
teachings of Jesus as well as the Old Testament, often containing numerous
historical and
geographical errors.
An
official list of New Testament books became necessary for the following
reasons:
(1) As Christians were
being martyred books were being destroyed so there was a need to determine
which ones to protect;
(2) In translating the
books into Syriac and Old Latin, a listing of authoritative books was
important;
(3) False books and
false teachings were always challenging the church and leadership needed
to be clear.
In A.D. 367, Athanasius
formally listed the 27 New Testament books (the same list that we have
today). Soon after,
Jerome and Augustine
circulated this same list.
Roman Catholicism
adds apocrypha to their bible to promote false teachings beneficial to
them as a religious
power. These were not accepted by the faithful
church they persecuted.
5.
Question: Catholicism teaches praying to
Mary and Saints. Does the Bible say about doing this?
Answer: Here are some of the issues to consider
regarding this topic of praying to saints, angels, and Mary instead of to
God alone.
(1) We are told to pray to God the Father (Elohim) (Luke 11:1-2; Matthew
6:6-9; Philippians 4:6; Acts
8:22; Luke 10:2).
(2) There is only the
repeated example of two things in Scripture:
(a)
Prayer is made to the Lord alone (by righteous people)
(Romans 10:1; Romans
15:30; Acts 12:5; Acts 10:2;
Acts
8:24; Acts
1:24; Zechariah
8:21-22; Jonah 2:7; 4:2)
(b)
Requests for prayer are made only to the living
(1Thessalonians
5:25; 2Thessalonians 3:1;
Hebrews
13:18).
(3) We are never told to
communicate with the dead (even with prayer requests). When Saul tried to
communicate with
Samuel, it was deemed an
evil thing, not a good thing (those who support praying to the saints may
say it was only deemed
evil because of
the manner in which he sought to do it...through witchcraft). It is
interesting to note that Samuel told Saul
that if God wasn't
listening to him, there was nothing that he could do then either
(1 Samuel 28:16).
(4) We are never told to
pray to angels. When people had occasion to talk with any angel besides
the Angel of the
Lord and tried to
worship them, they were told to stop and worship God alone (Revelation
19:10; 22:9; Colossians
2:18).
(5) We are never told
that the dead know what is going on the earth (some think it is possible
based on one interpretation
of Hebrews 12:1).
(6) God alone is
omniscient and omnipresent. He alone can hear a multitude of prayers
simultaneously. He is the one who
commands angels
and sends them to do His bidding (Dan.
9:20-23).
(7) Angels (Daniel
9:20-23) and the spirits of the
dead remain finite (Luke 16:19f.), limited to one location at a time.
6.
(8) The Catholic’s
statement that they go to angels, saints, and Mary to ask for prayer is
not consistent with the normal
practice of asking for
prayer. For example, in the saying of the Rosary the large majority of the
time is spent in devotion to
Mary and then they
ask her to pray for them now and at the hour of their death (they pray
this same prayer 50 times).
Whereas, when I ask
someone to pray for me, I don't ask them over and over and over again
minute after minute. Rather,
I ask them to pray and
then should be spending my time on my knees before the Lord not before
them.
(9) God promised to hear
us when we ask anything according to His will (1John
5:14-15; 1 Peter
3:12). He entreats us to
come boldly unto the
throne of grace (His throne) that we may find grace and help in time of
need (Hebrews
4:14).
(10) God promised us
that the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us according to the will of
the Lord with groaning that
cannot be uttered
(Romans 8:26). Considering such truths, why do we need to go through a
saint, angel or Mary, especially
considering the fact
that neither the example of doing so, nor the command of doing it is ever
given in Scripture? The Catholic
Church cites the example
of the wedding feast (John 2) as an example of Mary getting Jesus to do
something for others and
uses that as a
proof text for prayer to her. It is ridiculous to use this example to
support such a doctrine when it flies in the
face of the many
other admonitions and examples of praying to God alone.
Therefore, not only is it contrary to Scriptural admonitions to pray to
God and Scriptural example to pray to Mary,
but
it is illogical to substitute praying to an all-loving, omniscient, and
omnipotent Father who invites us to come before
His
throne because He is completely acquainted with all of our doings
(Psalm 139) to pray to some saint
who can
only
listen to one conversation at a time (all the time not ever being sure if
the saints in heaven know what is taking
place
in our lives here on earth).
His
Word says that there is one Almighty and one Mediator between Him and man,
the Lord Jesus Christ (Messiah)
(1Timothy 2:5). Let us then come to
the Father through His work on the cross of
Calvary, not only for salvation,
but
also for our needs as well (Hebrews
4:14).
7.
Question: What
is the Immaculate Conception, which Roman Catholicism teaches?
Answer: Many people mistakenly believe the
“Immaculate Conception” refers to the conception of the Lord Jesus. Jesus’
conception was most
assuredly immaculate, but the Roman Catholic concept does not refer to
Jesus at all. The Immaculate
Conception is a
doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church in regards to Mary, the Man Jesus’
mother. An official statement
of the doctrine reads,
“…the blessed Virgin Mary to have been, from the first instant of her
conception, by a singular grace
and privilege of
Almighty God, in view of the merits of Adonai Yeshua the Savior of
Mankind, preserved free from all stain of
original sin.”
Essentially the Immaculate Conception is the belief that Mary was
protected from original sin, that Mary did not
have
a sin nature. Some go so far as to teach that Mary was, in fact, sinless.
The
problem with the doctrine of Immaculate Conception is that it is not
taught in the Bible. The Bible nowhere
describes Mary as anything but an ordinary human female whom God chose to
be the mother of the Lord Jesus.
Mary
was undoubtedly a godly woman (Luke
1:28).
Mary was surely a wonderful wife and mother. Jesus definitely
loved and cherished His mother (John
19:27).
But the Bible gives us no reason to believe Mary was sinless.
In
fact, the Bible gives us every reason to believe that Jesus is the only
Person who never committed a sin
(Ecclesiastes
7:20;
Romans 3:23; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:22; 1 John 3:5).
The
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception originated out of confusion over how
Jesus could be born sinless if He
was
conceived inside of a sinful human female. The thought is Jesus would have
inherited a sin nature from Mary
had
she been a sinner. In contrast to Immaculate Conception, the Biblical
solution to this problem is understanding
the
sin nature is inherited from the father, for in Adam all are sinners.
Therefore, Mary being sinless is neither
necessary nor Biblical.
So,
the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is neither Biblical nor
necessary. Jesus was miraculously conceived
inside Mary, who was a virgin at the time. That is the Biblical concept of
the virgin birth. The Bible does not even
hint
that there was
8.
anything significant
about Mary’s conception. If we examine this concept logically, Mary’s
mother would have to be
immaculately conceived
as well. Which is what the Roman Catholic Church sometimes teaches. How
could Mary
be conceived
without sin if her mother was sinful? But wouldn’t the same have to be
said of Mary’s grandmother,
great-grandmother, and
so on. You see how this error like any lie snowballs? So, in conclusion,
the Immaculate
Conception is not a
Biblical teaching. The Bible teaches the preplanned, prophesied miraculous
virginal conception
of Jesus, not the
Immaculate Conception of Mary.
Question: In a
Bible study with some friends they were quoting from books I had never
heard of.
They couldn’t
tell me why these books were in their American Bible but not in my King
James.
One of the books
was called First Maccabee. Do you know about this book?
Answer: The bible you’re referring to is the
well-known Catholic Bible. This bible contains the Apocrypha,
meaning hidden,
spurious.
In
modern times, some have deceptively referred to these books as "the Lost
Books of the Bible."
(They have also added other ancient manuscripts to the list.) But in
actuality these books had not
been
lost. Christians and Jews have always known about them. The name Apocrypha
was given to
certain ancient books, which found a place in the LXX. and Latin Vulgate
versions of the Old Testament
used
by Catholics today. They are not accepted as Scripture by most Protestants
or Jews, and certainly
not
by faithful Baptists. They were appended to all the great Bible
translations made from documents
in
the sixteenth century. However, they should not be regarded in any sense
as parts of the inspired Word.
The
King James translators certainly did not for they refused to apply the
same translation standard to
them
as they did to the true books of the Bible.
Why
are they not accepted? For one reason they are not once quoted by the New
Testament writers,
who
frequently quote from the LXX. Jesus and his disciples confirmed by their
authority the canon, which
was
the same as we have today. These books
9.
were written not in
Hebrew but in Greek, and during the "period of silence," from the time of
Malachi, after which
direct revelations
from God ceased till the Christian era. The contents of the books
themselves show that they are
not part of
Scripture.
In the Old Testament Apocrypha you will find fourteen books. Thy are the
following: the Books of the Maccabees,
the Books of Esdras, the
Book of Wisdom, the Book of Baruch, the Book of Esther, Ecclesiasticus,
Tobit, Judith, etc.
Others include: Bel and
the Dragon (addition to Daniel), Daniel and Susanna (addition to Daniel),
Additions to Esther,
Letter of Jeremiah,
Prayer of Azariah (addition to Daniel), The Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151,
Sirach, Tobit, and The
Wisdom of Solomon.
Ancient Jewish writers and rabbis did not accept them as Scripture and
neither should we.
There were over 300 books for the early church fathers to pick from when
they were canonizing the bible
we
have today. Many of those books are not in this list and might be read
with interest, but not taken as
from
God.
Question: I heard a
preacher say that the Great Whore in Revelation 17 was the Roman Catholic
Church.
I asked friends about
this and they said that this was known because the place called
Babylon in Revelation
is the city set
on seven hills. Is this true, and if so how do we know that it is?
Answer: There has
never been any difficulty on the part of enlightened believers in
identifying the woman sitting upon
the scarlet
colored beast with the Romish religion, anymore than there is difficulty
in identifying the city spoken of as
being that
Rome located in
Italy. Verse 9 of that chapter
seems to indicate that understanding is reserved for the mind
that has wisdom, which
explains why this simple truth is hidden from many.
Concerning the location of the woman, the matter is made plain for
there has never been any city more famous
than
Rome for its founding on seven hills. So
famed is this fact that other cities so situated have often taken the name
of the ancient city as
their own. Pagan poets and orators, who had no thought of supporting
Biblical prophecy have alike
characterized
Rome as the seven hilled city. The
ancient poet Virgil said “…Rome
has thus
10.
become the most
beautiful (city) in the world, and alone has surrounded for herself seven
heights with a wall.” Propertius
(50-16
B.C.) wrote a description supporting
the apocalyptic picture when he remarked that
Rome governed the whole
world. Roman citizens
habitually used reference to the “seven-hilled city” as a descriptive
substitute for the proper name.
The
philosopher/poet Horace (65-8 B.C.)
said, “The gods…(demonic beings worshipped
by pagans) have set their affections
on the seven hills.” You
will note that these preceded the time of Christ and that they affirmed
the interpretation that the
reference in
Revelation 17 is to
Rome,
Italy. Such
references have had a continuing survival down into even modern history
and though some
have tried to cloud the matter, the identification continues to this day.
It is also easy to show that the Church, which has its headquarters
in that place might also easily be called
Babylon
as well. Alexander
Hislop remarked “it is the chief seat of idolatry under the New Testament,
as the ancient
Babylon was the
chief seat of idolatry
under the Old.” Modern commentators have made much of the fact that first
century Christians were in the
habit of referring
to Rome as Babylon, but we are not knowledgeable with any certainty how
well they understood, apart from
the teaching of
the Holy Spirit, how well the paganism of ancient Babylon was to be
transposed into the religion whose seat
was in Rome.
Popery has been called baptized paganism, but from the very infancy
of modern archaeology it began to be abundantly
clear, especially with
discoveries in
Iraq that the paganism of
Rome had all the essentials of the
ancient literal
Babylon.
This is perhaps why
there have been so many occasions when the region has been closed to the
explorer into antiquities.
Satan himself may have
fought to see that not too much was revealed. But the language and symbols
of the Book of Revelation
should have
prepared us to not be amazed at the goodly amount we have been able to
learn.
I am not the first to observe that the name being written on her
forehead might indicate God intended for the matter
to be plain before
judgment would overtake her. How much more plain that might be is yet to
be seen.
11.
Question: I have
heard it said that the Roman Catholic Church was anti-Semitic, yet there
has been a lot of
reaching out to the
State of
Israel by the
Catholic Church during the last few years. Is Roman Catholicism
anti-Semitic, and if
so, what is going on?
Answer: The Roman
Church has been anti-Semitic since even before it became married to the
world in the fourth century.
The expression “Christ
killers” has been one they have trumpeted many times over the centuries.
No group suffered any
greater persecution
during the terrible years of the Inquisition than the Jewish people. The
reason there has been a reaching
out to the Jewish State
is because the popes down through history have longed to possess
Jerusalem as their own, and they
are getting ready
for the last great attempt to do so.
Rome has open theology and closed
theology. There is some theological positions that are proclaimed and then
there
are some beliefs that are held in
secret by those who know the true religion of the Roman Catholic Church.
Part of the open
theology of
Rome, that which has been taught and
continues to be taught is a belief called “Replacement Theology.”
Replacement theology is the doctrinal belief
that the true Christian Church has taken
Israel’s place forever and is
now the
recipients of all the promises once made to
the Nation of Israel.
Those who hold to Replacement Theology necessarily have to believe
that
Israel as a distinct people or
as a specific
nation has no longer a
place prophetically in God’s great scheme of things. In other words
Israel has no right to the
land,
especially
Jerusalem, and the Roman Church has
every right to all of that because they are, according to them, the one
true
church. As a
practical matter we can see how much the government of the Roman Catholic
Church might expand if it had
all the land God
promised
Israel and controlled
Jerusalem as well.
The ultimate end of Replacement Theology is hatred and contempt for
the Jewish people. To hold to this belief one
has to spiritualize or
allegorize the Scriptures instead of taking it literally. But, this belief
is insidious, having been held by a
number of deviant
groups from the true faith once delivered to the saints.
12.
The success of the late Pope John Paul II efforts to appeal Israel was displayed when the decision was made to name a Galilee park
after him. Israel’s desperation to have friends in this world was plain in the decision to honor Pope John Paul II for his friendship towards the
Jewish people by naming this park after him and by striking a postage stamp in his memory. This is an important event because it gives us a
view to how the false prophet and the Antichrist spoken of in prophecy might work together to deceive the Jewish people during the time of
Tribulation yet to come.
The park located at the Mount of Beatitudes in Galilee, where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount, soon to be dedicated to Pope
John Paul II at the time of this writing gives the Catholic Church a modern, and friendly, imprint on the land. In 2000, during his historic visit
to the Holy Land, the pontiff had celebrated Mass at the site overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Such a positive physical imprint is contrary to
most of the history of this land’s relationship with the Catholic Church and will serve them a continuing psychological purpose. During the
Crusades, Jews often found their treatment from the Catholic Crusaders, influenced by the warrior monks to be more cruel than the treatment
received from the Moslems they had been living among for centuries.
13.
Question: In
Revelation 17, the Great Whore of verse 1, presumed to be the Roman
Catholic Church, is called the Mother of Harlots. What would qualify
Rome as the Mother of Harlots?
Answer: A harlot
is a woman, who by definition, has prostituted herself for gain. Let us
look at how the Bible says this Great Whore has prostituted herself. Verse
two says she has committed fornication with the kings of the world and
made the inhabitants of the world drunk with the wine of her fornication.
Fornication is by definition any sort of impure sexual sin. Let us look at
Rome’s sin.
In
Rome’s case we are not talking about a
physical sexuality but a spiritual sexuality because God’s Church is
characterized as His Bride. To compromise on the teachings of Christ; to
make them a marketable commodity, salable for the right price; to get in
league with the kings of this world for nefarious purposes: all these and
more are ways that
Rome has made a whore out of herself.
These are facts of history that would take many pages in even a brief
telling. A good outline is to be found in any Halley’s Bible Handbook
published before the Billy Graham Association got control of it. (a story
in itself)
To
be the Mother of Harlots the church would have had to produce offspring
that has similar character to hers. This is in fact the case. Though there
might be many good people, some who even love the Lord, in the offspring
religious bodies of Rome, that came out of the Reformation, many of these
failed in not making their separation complete. Even the Anglican Church,
which separated from
Rome separately from the Reformation,
has the harlot character, being first tied to the British kings and queens
of
Great Britain.
Lutheranism never made its break complete and its decline is a good
example of how one continues to slip down when one does not fully purge
out the old leaven. In
Germany, the birthplace of the
Lutheran
Church, the State still
collects the tithe from Lutheran and Catholic Church members removing all
semblance of worship from the act of giving. This alone is spiritual
fornication denying God worship in tithes and offerings.
The
greatest way spiritual harlotry can take place is in the
14.
altering of the way of
salvation. This has been done by making salvation the province of the
church instead of God. It is the plain teaching of the Catholic Church
that there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church. But the offer
of salvation is made through submission to them instead of surrender to
the Lord Jesus Christ and the receiving of His salvation as a free gift.
Her harlot children have followed her lead in making their salvation
primarily a works based membership systems full of ritual observances just
like their parent.
Another way in which spiritual fornication is taking place in these
latter days is in giving credibility and acceptance to the religions of
this world. The Roman world started out incorporating the practices of
false religions into her system wherever she went and continues now in
these last days in trying to draw these worldly religions such as
Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam to her bosom. Some have included these
religions as being also the harlot daughters
Rome is mother of. If we consider that
Roman Catholicism is the continuation of the oldest false religion known
to man, the religion instituted by Nimrod’s wife, then they have a point.
So we see that Roman Catholicism is imminently qualified as the
Mother of Harlots historically, and even more so as we see the end of the
age approaching.
Question: I have
heard that some churches are coming to an agreement with Roman Catholicism
over the worship of Mary. The Anglican Church seems to be leading the way
in this. How can this be?
Answer: For their
to be a compromise of the Anglican Church with Rome over this issue after
nearly 500 hundred years of “intense” division means that someone has to
compromise their stand. Since the Church of Rome has been progressively
becoming more and more open about their secret theology of Mary as Queen
of Heaven, the Mother of God (not Jesus the Man), and Co-Mediatrix with
Christ it follows that the ones doing the compromising are the leaders of
the Anglican Church.
15.
The devotion of Catholicism to their “Blessed and Eternal Virgin,”
who is really not the mother of Jesus revealed in the Bible, is displayed
in the thousands of statues and shrines around the world. This devotion is
contrary to the teaching of Scripture and out of all proportion concerning
what the Scripture says about the lady. Not only that it is contrary to
the teaching of the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments, which teach
against the making of “other gods” (including goddesses) as well the
making of idols and idol worship. (See the Ten Commandments)
Just in the month of May, 2005, a new document titled “Mary: Grace
and Hope in Christ” was published which included the statement “We do not
consider the practice of asking Mary and the Saints to pray for us is
communion dividing…we believe that there is no continuing theological
reason for ecclesiastical division on these matters.” You might well ask
yourself three questions concerning this statement from a commission that
began working toward reunification in the 1960s:
1. If there is no
continuing theological reason for division, what has happened to make
there be no further reason for division?
The answer would be that
someone had abandoned or compromised on their original belief.
2. Why would it be that
a practice that was once communion dividing is no longer so?
Again it would be that
there are those who do not love their doctrine nearly so well as those who
have died for their faith in the past, so they are willing to surrender
it.
3. If the problem is so
easily resolved, why did it take the better part of half a century to
resolve it once they began talks?
The answer is it took
that long for the mystery of iniquity spoken of in the Scripture to get
them to the point of compromise.
The Roman Catholic Church has progressively become even more open
about its secret theology through the years. It was in 1854, a very short
time ago in the Catholic scheme of things that they formally declared Mary
as free from the stain of original sin from the moment of her conception.
And, more recently in 1950, officially declared her assumption, body and
soul, into heaven at the end of her life. Pope John Paul II would have
gone even farther had he not been restrained by the Cardinals to get this
compromise.
16.
Question: There seems
to be a lot of stories about Mary making appearances in various places
around the world. Someone told me these appearances were increasing, and
there were other miraculous events as well. Surely there must be something
to this.
Answer: There is
something to many of these appearances, which should more appropriately be
called apparitions. But that does not mean that what is going on is from
God, or that it is something God’s people should be involving themselves
with.
One
Catholic Internet site lists some 112 apparitions of Jesus and Mary since
1347 A.D. Newsweek said in 1997 that
there had been more than four hundred apparitions of Mary in the 20th
century, more than all the previous three centuries combined. The French
periodical Le Monde actually estimated that the number of apparitions
between 1976 and 1986 at 21,000. In fairness to the Roman Catholic
listing, we must disclose they lump continuing apparitions in one location
into one listing, even though they might happen again and again over a
number of years. But having said that we must consider that Roman Catholic
leadership does not want the critical thinker about these things to
realize how many, and how wide spread these visitations are.
The phenomenon is not taking place in predominantly Catholic
countries anymore but in places like
Japan,
Iraq,
Egypt, and
Syria.
France, which has become a
hotbed of occult practice, has 937 pilgrimage shrines. The message, of the
many Marian appearances, is not consistent with the Gospel message of the
Bible, but is accepting of all religions. The claim that she, “The Queen
of Heaven,” is going to usher in a new era of peace is not in keeping with
the expectation of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, but is consistent
with the belief in a false prophet who will be in league with the person
known as Antichrist.
Miracles seem to really occur along with these appearances. There
have not only been healings, which are not only documented in
Christianity, but are well known among occult practitioners; there have
been other kinds of miraculous events as well. One of the most famous
“miracles” of the 20th century was
17.
the one that occurred at
the Fatima Shrine on
13 October 1917. One
that day 70,000 eyewitnesses claimed they saw the sun fall toward the
earth and then return to its normal position in the sky. The symbolism of
this event should not be overlooked since the sun figures prominently in
much cultic and occultic worship. Since then the “Miracle of the Sun” has
occurred at a number of apparition sites. It happened before 100,000 in
Puerto Rico
23 April 1991, on the
38th anniversary of apparition there. Again on
5 March 1993 it
happened again in the
Philippines before 300,000.
According to sources it has occurred at least four times in the
United States. One even
happened in my home State in
Conyers,
Georgia. I do not
think all this is mass hysteria, neither do I think it comes from God.
The new Pope,
Benedict XVI, formerly known as Cardinal Ratzinger, while head of the
Roman Catholic Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF),
declared that, "one of the signs of our times is that the announcements of
‘Marian Apparitions’ are multiplying all over the world." In that position
he was the “enforcer” for Catholic doctrine. Since he has become Pope he
has dedicated his papacy to Mary. The Mary of the apparitions, not the
Mary who was the mother of Jesus, but the Mary who claims to be “Mother of
God, Queen of Heaven.”
What we have been talking about is the greatest display of
paranormal activity in human history. There are a great many people who
would like for us all to take these events as a matter of faith but the
Word of God teaches us to try the spirits to see whether they be of God,
1John 4:1. Messages derived from apparitions at sites approved by the
Catholic Church have been consistently contrary to the Word of God but in
keeping with
Rome’s true religion of worship for the
Queen of Heaven, a religion begun by Nimrod’s wife who is known sometimes
as Semiramis and at other times as Ashtarte.
18.
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