HISTORY, THE POPE AND THE FUTURE

BY KAY ELEGBEDE

Dear Christains and Pastors,

In the Baptist Association Press article which attributed the alliance between evangelicals and the Catholics to Pope John Paul II, we have the following quote:

"In the end, evangelicals should be thankful for the personal virtues Pope John Paul II demonstrated, and for his advocacy on behalf of life, liberty and human dignity. Yet we cannot ignore the institution of the papacy itself, nor the complex of doctrines, truth claims and false doctrines that John Paul II taught, defended and promulgated," Mohler wrote, singling out the pope's teachings on salvation and his devotion to particular Catholic doctrines about Mary, the mother of Jesus, whom the pope labeled "co-redemptrix" with Christ" :
http://www.abpnews.com/news/news_detail.cfm?NEWS_ID=604

Recently, we also examined how the Pope prayed in his twenty six years as Pope from his book the "Rosary hour". We saw how references were made to Mary in the things that are biblically that of our Lord Jesus Christ. Again I must submit to you that Pope John Paul II did what most of the Popes were not very successful at doing and that is to disarm the evangelicals in a subtle manner while he continued with his false doctrines which he taught, defended and promulgated. To think some evangelicals called him a believer beats my imagination when he has all kinds of statements out there which prove to the contrary.

Apart from not speaking out for the poor catholics who are being lied to and being sent to hell everyday by the Roman catholics false doctrines, a movement towards the catholic church by the evangelicals is another damage done here because it is contrary to what the true believers of the past did and their history bears looking into at this perilous times. What was the attitude of the early christians towards the Pope and the catholic church? Let us take a moment to examine some of their works here.

John Wycliffe (1325-1384) challenged the teaching of the Roman Church by teaching against transubstantiation (the belief that the bread and wine turn into Christ’s body and blood during the mass). He made the proclamation that Christ is the head of the Church instead of the Pope and claimed the Bible as the sole authority for believers instead of the Church. It was the same John Wycliffe who translated the New Testament into English and made it available to the people so they could read the truth for themselves.

And of course we remember 1517, the year Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the church door in Wittenburg with the sole purpose of stating the scriptures were the sole authority for believers, not the Pope. The reaction was very swift with a lot of people coming to know the truth for themselves. They persecuted him but he prevailed and many souls got to know their true Lord and savior while they learnt they could live by faith and not by the lies of the Roman catholic church.

And What about the Puritans who claimed the Anglican Church was too close to the Catholic Church and wanted separation. They were called Puritans because they wanted to purify the Church of England. History has it that the Puritans sailed to Plymouth and were influential in the New World. They moved and separated themselves from the Catholic church and worshiped in truth and in freedom. They were simply following the scripture that says "COME OUT FROM AMONG THEM AND BE YE SEPARATE" 2 Cor.6:17, instead of letting the catholic church polute their teachings like it is been done today.

In fact the Freedom we enjoy today rest on the shoulders and the courage of the reformation movement leaders. It is widely believe that the religious individualism they fought for and got from the Catholic church led to individualism of other types. Popular education has been known to be the result of the new Christian desire to read the Bible for themselves instead of the catholic Church keeping them in the dark by offering their own false interpretations. The people of America and Europe became an educated workforce and electorate while Protestantism gave rise to capitalism and a strong work ethic. Moreover, Spiritual equality became political equality and democracies was born as a result of the enlightenment citizens had of themselves. Instead of the church thinking for the individuals, they were free from the bondage of the church, able to think for themselves and read the Bible on their own which is the gift of God to mankind.

Judging from history,it apears everyone who understood the Bible and the implications of compromising their faith with the Catholic institution took decisive actions by SEPARATING THEMSELVES from the catholic church. Today we have done exactly the opposite. We formed alliance with the catholic church instead of moving away from them. Pope John Paul II WAS CREDITED for orchestrating this plan with his many actions and popularity. While the evangelicals failed to recognize the danger in this, the Pope did his own job for the Roman catholic institution with excellence by wraping the evangelicals in so beautifully that it will take another RADICAL APROACH like Luther and Wycliffe did to move the evangelicals back to the right direction now. Just imagine how many preachers out there today refused to say anything about this subject.

And yet the Roman catholic institution is still the Whore of Revelation 17 and the DEVIL is still the chief force behind them as noted by early christians like John Wycliffe, Martin Luther and others. There is nothing controverisal about this because it is the truth. You either preach the truth or get out of the way altogether as a Preacher of the word. There may be a lot of repenting to do by so many chucrh leaders after they finally come to grips with this facts.

So where do we go from here? I say the next Pope will not be diffrent from the others. Its going to be more of the same or even worst. Don't wait around for the announcements of the next Pope. There is nothing exciting about that for us evangelicals. Instead of waiting around, we need to spread the word in our churches for the people of God to wake up. We need to sound the trumpet in Zion. One way to do this is by passing an article like this to others (you may not find many of this around). Let them wake up from their slumber of twenty six years of the charm of John Paul II to a new day and and let them repent for letting their guards down.

Do you know how many Roman Catholics died in their sin in the past twenty six years just because our church leaders were playing nice to the Pope by not really preaching the truth like John Wycliffe or Martin Luther did? They were busy embracing Rome's falsehood of having a believer Pope. The last Popes words on prayer alone and his many pronouncements which were contrary to the word of God made him a classical non beliver to me.

Just as Islam have more than one billion people trapped in lies and deceits , Catholicism's has over a billion souls being kept in the dark by the whore of revelation 17, who is none other than the Devil himself. It is those poor souls that we are fighting for just like the early Christians fought to free them from the grip of the catholic institution. We are at war with the devil all our lives so we might as well let the oppressed go free by opening the prison gate for them while we still can. Things may get really difficult with time in our histrory as predicted in the Bible with the persecution of the real preachers of the word.

In conclusion Brethren, Please pray for us, we have stirred the Devils nest by revealing his plans to the world and if God gives us strength we will do more. This is a very serious subject matter that demand a lot of prayer and help from the Holy Ghost. Forget about the media hype surounding the burial of the last Pope and the election of the next Pope. Help us get the word out to the people of God that it is time to wake up and Pray for the right kind of teachings on this subject.

COME LORD JESUS!


Source of Infomation on Church History: Gerry Berard: http://vtvt.essortment.com/historycatholic_rfxp.htm