The Catholic Church Pt. 1

The Roman Catholic Church

The examination of the Catholic Church is the area of apologetics that I've spent the most time studying. The Roman Catholic Church has the greatest influence upon religion in our world today. Its origins go back to the Valley of Shinar and Babel. The information is extensive so I will break it up into two parts. These two lessons are from pre-revised excerpts from my, soon to be released book. These lessons offer an extensive view into the beliefs of the Catholic Church and how the bible describes it from God’s perspective. This information has been raked over by content reviewers who verified it to be true. It was not included in the published version of the book because it could hurt sale to Catholics according to the content reviewers:

This lesson regarding God’s judgement on the world religion which has deceived millions requires an in depth study. I suggest watching this video of Dave Hunt to help you get a head start clarifying this passage of scripture.

Revelation 17

1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:

2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

5 And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.

6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.

The description of the woman riding the beast should be viewed as symbolic. It is not literally possible for a woman to actually write a beast with a golden cup of filthiness and fornication. Nor is it possible for a woman to sit on many waters of the Earth, causing inhabitants of the earth to be drunk with the wine of her fornication. These descriptions are symbolic and follow the Old Testament description of the fornication of nations, which is idolatry. Jeremiah 16 Israel's harlotry when they began to follow other gods. The woman described here is a religion that began in the Valley of Shinar by Nimrod in Semiramis. All pagan religions have their roots and origins from the first one world government and Babel. The rites and rituals from the system have changed very little over 6000 years. These rites, rituals are found being performed in the Roman Catholic Church. A book written by Bishop Alexander Hislop “A tale of two Babylons” written in 1881, meticulously Chronicles. Each ceremony and ritual performed in the Catholic Church that came from Babel.

The Roman Catholic Church fits the description of the woman on the beast. Its history and even the city where it’s headquartered fit the description found here in chapter 17. “A woman drunk with the blood of Saints in the blood of martyrs”, describes the very acts of the Catholic Church throughout history. Purple and Scarlet are the official colors. The Catholic Church has adopted is also the wealthiest organization in the world. No government or singular organization has more wealth in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is the only nongovernmental body to have a representative at the UN.

The darkest time period in the history of Western Europe is known as the “dark ages”. The dark ages the time when the Catholic Church controlled Europe under the leadership of the Pope (the holy See). During this time the people were not permitted to read the Bible or interpret it for themselves. Only priests sanctioned by the Pope were allowed to read them teach Scriptures written in Latin in the same manner in which they read it today. Every man, woman and child was required to place their allegiance to “the Vicar of Christ” or “the holy See”. Failure to do so would result in loss of property or loss of life. During the dark ages the Catholic Church murdered more Christians in all the other governments, dictatorships, or religious regimes combined. A particular crusade against Protestants from 1540-1570, approximately 900,000 Waldenses were killed by order of the Pope. To St. Bartholomew's massacre of 1572, included 70,000 Huguenots were martyred. Pope Innocent III killed 60,000 Protestants as his first act of entering the papacy. The Spanish Inquisition was ordered by the Vatican during 17 and 1800s. The Pope condemned over 3 million Christians to be martyred. Approximately 300,000 of them were burned at the stake (“A Woman Rides the Beast”, Dave Hunt 1994). It's amazing to see how an organization who has the horrific of the Roman Catholic Church be equated with Christianity today.

At the very core, the popes and claims of the popes are unbiblical. The Roman Catholic Church claims that the popes are infallible and without sin. As Christians we know “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”, (Rom. 3:23). They also claim that Peter was the first pope, who was never married. They claim that Jesus was referring to Catholics when he said to Peter “upon this rock I will build my church”. They originally claimed that Peter was buried in St. Petersburg Square at the Vatican. The Scripture clearly tells us that Peter had a wife (Matt. 8:14). The “Rock” Jesus was referring to was himself Petra (Greek). Peter clarified this himself (1 Peter 2:7). History is well documented popes who have died from syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases. Pope Innocent III ordered the murder of thousands of Jews during the first Crusade to take Jerusalem. Catholic Church profited by acquiring wealth of those whom they martyred for hundreds of years. In some cases Dominican monks exhumed bodies of the dead to hold mock trials in order to steal the inheritance of those whom they called heretics. They truly have been dropped on the blood of martyrs.

Unfortunately, most Catholics who have accepted Jesus as their Savior don't know that they are in violation Roman Catholic law.

Council of Trent

Canon 13. If anyone says that in order to obtain the remission of sins it is necessary for every man to believe with certainty and without any hesitation arising from his own weakness and indisposition that his sins are forgiven him, let him be anathema.

Canon 14. If anyone says that man is absolved from his sins and justified because he firmly believes that he is absolved and justified,[118] or that no one is truly justified except him who believes himself justified, and that by this faith alone absolution and justification are effected, let him be anathema.

Canon 26. If anyone says that the just ought not for the good works done in God[127] to expect and hope for an eternal reward from God through His mercy and the merit of Jesus Christ, if by doing well and by keeping the divine commandments they persevere to the end,[128] let him be anathema.

Canon 30. 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 to every repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be discharged either in this world[131] or in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be opened,[132] let him be anathema.

The Catholic Church has a system of salvation based on works apart from the Biblical mandate. Within the Catholic Church a person can receive salvation through:

• Indulgences

• Brown scapula

• Purgatory

• Mary

• the Pope

• Penance

• Rosary

The canons established from the Council of Trent state that a person be anathema from the Catholic Church if he believes that he can be absolved completely from sin by faith in Jesus alone. Millions of souls are lost in this deadly system of works whereby people are taught we can achieve salvation through works without Jesus. The system was created by the devil. He had to come up with a system that looked and sounds like Christianity without the actual act that makes us Christians. God has placed in the Bible an entire chapter devoted to addressing this false religion, which is depicted as a woman on a beast. In the end, God will judge and destroy this false religion and the governmental beast on which it shares power.

8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.

A brief history of the identity of the “woman on the beast” is described by Dr. Clarence Larkin in his book “Dispensational Truth”:

"MYSTERY, Babylon the Great."

"Mystery! " Where have we heard that word before, and in what connection? Paul calls the Church a "Mystery" because it was not known to the Old Testament Patriarchs and Prophets. Eph. 3:1-3. That Christ was to have a "Bride" was first revealed to Paul (Eph. 5:23-25), and the "Mystery" that Antichrist is to have a "bride" was first revealed to John on the Isle of Patmos. The name of Antichrist's "bride" is "Babylon the Great." Some one may ask why give to a "bride" the name of a "City"? The answer is that it is not unusual in the Scriptures. When the same angel that showed John in this chapter "Mystery, Babylon the Great, " came to him in chapter 21:9-10 and said-"Come hither, I will shew thee the Bride-'The Lamb's Wife, "' he showed John, instead of a woman, that great City, the "Holy Jerusalem" descending out of Heaven from God. Here we see that a "city" is called a "bride" because its inhabitants, and not the city itself, are the bride."Mystery, Babylon the Great, " the "bride" of Antichrist, then, is not a literal city, but a "System, "a religious and apostate "System." As the Church, the Bride of Christ, is composed of regenerated followers of Christ, so "Mystery, Babylon the Great, " the bride of Antichrist, will be composed of the followers of all False Religions.

The river Euphrates, on which the city of Babylon was built, was one of the four branches into which the river that flowed through the Garden of Eden was divided, and Satan doubtless chose the site for Babylon as his headquarters from which to sally forth to tempt Adam and Eve. It was doubtless here that the Antediluvian Apostasy had its source that ended in the Flood. To this centre the "forces of Evil" gravitated after the Flood, and "Babel" was the result. This was the origin of nations, but the nations were not scattered abroad over the earth until Satan had implanted in them the "Virus" of a doctrine that has been the source of every false religion the world has ever known.

Babel, or Babylon, was built by Nimrod. Gen. 10:8-10. It was the seat of the first great Apostasy. Here the "Babylonian Cult" was invented, a system claiming to possess the highest wisdom and to reveal the divinest secrets. Before a member could be initiated he had to "confess" to the Priest. The Priest then had him in his power. This is the secret of the power of the Priests of the Roman Catholic Church today.

Once admitted into this order men were no longer Babylonians, Assyrians, or Egyptians, but members of a

Mystical Brotherhood,

over whom was placed a Pontiff or "High Priest, " whose word was law. The city of Babylon continued to be the seat of Satan until the fall of the Babylonian and Medo-Persian Empires, when he shifted his Capital to Pergamos in Asia Minor, where it was in John's day. Rev. 2:12-13.

When Attalus, the Pontiff and Kine- of Pergamos, died in B.C. 133, he bequeathed the Headship of the "Babylonian Priesthood" to Rome. When the Etruscans came to Italy from Lydia (the region of Pergamos), they brought with them the Babylonian religion and rites. They set up a Pontiff who was head of the Priesthood. Later the Romans accepted this Pontiff as their civil ruler. Julius Caesar was made Pontiff of the Etruscan Order in B.. C. 74. In B.C. 63 he was made "Supreme Pontiff" of the "Babylonian Order, " thus becoming heir to the rights and titles of Attalus, Pontiff of Pergamos, who had made Rome his heir by will. Thus the first Roman Emperor became the Head of the "Babylonian Priesthood, " and Rome the successor of Babylon. The Emperors of Rome continued to exercise the office of "Supreme Pontiff" until A. D. 376, when the Emperor Gratian, for Christian reasons, refused it. The Bishop of the Church at Rome, Damasus, was elected to the position. He had been Bishop 12 years, having been made Bishop in A. D. 366, through the influence of the monks of Mt. Carmel, a college of Babylonian religion originally founded by the priests of Jezebel. So in A. D. 378 the Head of the "Babylonian Order" became the Ruler of the "Roman Church." Thus Satan united

Rome and Babylon In One Religious System.

Soon after Damasus was made "Supreme Pontiff" the "rites" of Babylon began to come to the front. The worship of the Virgin Mary was set up in A. D. 381. All the outstanding festivals of the Roman Catholic Church are of Babylonian origin. Easter is not a Christian name. It means "Ishtar, " one of the titles of the Babylonian Queen of Heaven, whose worship by the Children of Israel was such an abomination in the sight of God. The decree for the observance of Easter and Lent was given in A. D. 519. The "Rosary" is of Pagan origin. There is no warrant in the Word of God for the use of the "Sign of the Cross." It had its origin in the mystic "Tau" of the Chaldeans and Egyptians. It came from the letter "T, " the initial name of "Tammuz, " and was used in the "Babylonian Mysteries" for the same magic purposes as the Romish Church now employs it. Celibacy, the Tonsure, and the Order of Monks and Nuns, have no warrant or authority from Scripture. The Nuns are nothing more than an imitation of the "Vestal Virgins" of Pagan Rome.

As to the word "Mystery, " the Papal Church has always shrouded herself in mystery. The mystery of "Baptismal Regeneration; " the mystery of "Miracle and Magic" whereby the simple memorials of the Lord's Supper are changed by the mysterious word "Transubstantiation, " from simple bread and wine into the literal Body and Blood of Christ; the mystery of the "Holy Water; " the mystery of "Lights on the Altar, " the "Mystery Plays, " and other superstitious rites and ceremonies mumbled in a language that tends to mystery, and tends to confusion which is the meaning of the word Babylon.

All this was a "Mystery" in John's day, because the "Papal Church" had not as yet developed; though the "Mystery of Iniquity" was already at work (2Thes. 2:7), but it is no longer a "Mystery" for it is now easy to identify the "Woman"-Mystery, Babylon the Great, " which John described as the "Papal Church."

In Rev. 17:4 we read that the "Woman" "was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a 'Golden Cup' in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornications."

Now who does not know that scarlet and purple are the colors of the Papacy? Of the different articles of attire specified for the Pope to wear when he is installed into office five are scarlet. A vest covered with pearls, and a mitre, adorned with gold and precious stones was also to be worn. How completely this answers the description of the Woman's dress as she sits upon the Scarlet Colored Beast.

We are also told that the Woman was "drunken with the blood of the Saints, and with the blood of the Martyrs of Jesus." While this refers more particularly to the martyrs of the time of Antichrist, yet who does not know, who has studied the history of the Christian Church for the past nineteen centuries, that this is true of the Papal Church during those centuries? One has only to read the history of the persecutions of the early Christians and more particularly the story of the "Inquisition" in Papal lands, to see that the Papal Church has been "drunk" with the blood of the Saints.

The fact that the Woman sits on a "Scarlet Colored Beast" reveals the fact that at that time the Beast (Antichrist) will support the Woman in her ecclesiastical pretensions, or in other words, the Woman, as a "State Church, " will control and rule the State, and her long dream of world-wide Ecclesiastical Supremacy will at last be realized, for John tells us that "the waters which thou sawest, where the 'Whore' sitteth, are Peoples, and Multitudes, and Nations and Tongues." That means that after the "True Church" (the Bride of Christ) is taken out of the world the "False" or "Papal Church" (the bride of Antichrist) will remain, and the professing body of Christians (having the "form of Godliness without the power") left behind, will largely enter the Papal Church, and it will become the Universal Church. But this will continue for only a short time for the "Ten Kings" of the "Federated Kingdom, " finding their power curtailed by the "Papal System" will "hate The Whore, " and strip her of her gorgeous apparel, confiscate her wealth (eat her flesh) and burn her churches and cathedrals with fire. Rev. 17:16.

This will occur at the time the worship of the Beast is set up, for Antichrist in his jealous hate will not permit any worship that does not centre in himself.

The Beast upon which the Woman sits is introduced to show from whom the Woman (the Papal Church) gets her power and support after the True Church has been "caught out, " and also to show that the Beast (Antichrist) and the Woman (the Papal Church) are not one and the same, but separate. Therefore the Papacy is not Antichrist. For a description of the "Scarlet Colored Beast" see the Chapter on The Antichrist.

From this foreview of the Papacy we see that the Papal Church is not a dying "System." That she is to be revived and become a "Universal Church, " and in doing so is to commit fornication with the kings of the earth, and that she shall again be "drunk with the blood" of the martyrs of the Tribulation Period. The meaning of chapter seventeen of the Book of Revelation is no longer a Mystery; the prophetic portrait of the Woman there given corresponds too closely with the history of the Papal Church to be a mere coincidence.

Book references about Revelation 17

Two Babylons, The Alexander Hislop 330 pages Paperback Modern Babylon (Rev. 17:5) is the Roman Catholic Church. Babylon Religion David W. Daniels 224 pages - Paperback Learn how a Babylonian goddess became the Virgin Mary.

Answers To My Catholic Friends Thomas F. Heinze 64 pages - A great little book to give Catholics.

References

Dispensational Truth By Clarence Larkin Copyrighted 1918--All rights reserved. Enlarged and Revised Edition Copyrighted 1920

A Woman Rides the Beast, By Dave Hunt Copyrighted 1994- Published by Harvest House Publishers

The Two Babylons, By Alexander Hislop 1881 – Chick Publications (Reedited)