This Is The Message
which we have heard of Him, and declare unto
you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
1John 1:5. This is
the condemnation:
that light is come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
John 3:19.
All the problems in our world have at their root a war between the light and the darkness in men’s hearts. Therefore, all the problems in the world are truly spiritual battles, yet men seem to think they can solve spiritual differences with political or traditional means, with a compromise between light and darkness.
But God asks the question: What communion has light with darkness? which He also answers: the light shines in darkness and the darkness comprehends it not. 2Cor.6:14, John 1:5.
There is absolutely no understanding of light in darkness, therefore there can be no compromise between light and darkness; it is an utter impossibility, and, yet, men continue trying to blend the two. They could just as easily bring the future and past together to make time stand still. This is why you hear over and over again around the world: “It is a problem that seemingly defies solution.”
However men try, the Rock of God cannot be dissolved, the Light of God cannot be darkened to fit men’s moods. The answer to life’s problems lie, not in the political or traditional realm, but in another. Natural men receive not the things of the Spirit of God...because they are spiritually discerned. 1Cor. 2:14. If all problems are, at their root, spiritual in nature, then they must be solved in the spiritual realm or never solved at all. Jesus always condemns as darkness the traditions of men that take the place of His Word. There is no light in these traditions of men. This is why Jesus so vehemently denounced such traditions of men:
You have made the Commandment of God
of none effect by your tradition.
In vain do they worship Me,
teaching for doctrines the
commandments of men.
Matthew 15:6,9.
[Note: Jesus vehemently denounced the Scribes and Pharisees and rulers of the Jewish church, not for being exacting in the Commandments of God, but for rigidly applying their own made up rules and regulations in place of God’s Commandments. Read Matt. 15:1-20 or Mark 7:1-23].
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. Heb. 13:8. Jesus is no less vehement in denouncing the love of tradition, the love of darkness in the churches of today.
Oct. 31, 1999 may well be the blackest day in the history of the Reformation. On this date the Lutheran World Federation announced the signing of an article of faith and agreement between the Lutheran church and the Roman Catholic church. They are calling it the Joint Declaration on Justification by Faith.
The strange and ironic thing about this agreement
is that just a month before the scheduled signing
of this document, Pope John Paul II, in an act
that not only mocked Protestant beliefs, but also this Joint Declaration,
revived the sale of indulgences to Catholics [in exchange for good works]
for the forgiveness of sins, which was one of the very things that led
Martin Luther to sever all connection with the papal church.
The beginning of the end of the dark ages came
about one day when Martin Luther, because of
an indulgence [the releasing from punishment
due for a sin] promised by the pope, was devoutly climbing ‘Pilate’s staircase’
thinking that by doing so he was earning a pardon for sin, when a
voice like thunder seem to say to him:
The
just shall live by faith.
Rom.1:17.
He sprang to his feet and hastened from the place in shame and horror. From that time on he saw clearly the delusion of trusting to human works for salvation, and the necessity of constant faith in the merits and example of Christ. His mind and his eyes had been opened to the delusions of the papal system:
“Luther saw clearly that the church of Rome was making merchandise of the Grace of God and that the tables of the money changers had been set up beside her altars. Indulgences for sin were being publicly offered for sale by the authority of the pope under the appeal of raising funds for the erection of St. Peter’s Church at Rome. This temple built for the worship of God was paid for by the price of sin and crime~~the cornerstone laid with the wages of church sanctioned lawlessness!”
“The official appointed to conduct the sale of indulgences in Germany, Tetzel by name, declared that by virtue of his certificates of pardon all the sins which the purchaser should afterward desire to commit would be forgiven him, and that not even repentance is necessary. Luther was filled with horror at the blasphemous assumptions of the indulgence mongers.”
“An occasion soon offered him an opportunity
to post his 95 propositions on the door of the
castle church of Wittenberg where great numbers
of people resorted during the festival of All Saints. These propositions
were read and reread and attracted universal attention. Luther showed
by these theses that the power to grant the pardon of sin, and to cancel
its penalty, had never been committed to the pope or to any other man.
The whole scheme was a sham, a pretext to extort money by preying upon
the superstitions of the people, a device of the enemy of souls to destroy
all those who should trust to its lying pretensions.”
*
In the early years of the Reformation, approximately
one thousand years after the beginning of the dark ages, the Roman Catholic
Church in 1545 convened the Council of Trent in Austria to answer the questions
raised by Luther and the Reformers. The Council of Trent lasted 17
years and debated what would be the final authority for their church, would
it be tradition or Scripture?
The answer came near the conclusion of the meetings:
“Finally, at the last opening on the eighteenth of January, 1562, all hesitancy was set aside. The archbishop of Reggio made a speech in which he openly declared that tradition stood above Scripture. The authority of the church could not be bound to the authority of the Scriptures.” *
This great and infamous declaration has created a great divide between men of faith and men clinging to the Roman church which no amount of bridge building can span as long as the Roman church holds to that declaration which, contrary to popular opinion, Vatican I and II never recanted or contradicted, but, in fact, reaffirmed.
Any competent historian or any diligent student of history will tell you that the Roman Catholic church is responsible for the greatest holocaust of this last millennium, if not of all recorded history, and partly, if not largely, responsible for the greatest holocaust of this century. It is calculated by reliable and competent historians that a minimum of 50 million to 100 million “heretics” [men and women of faith who refused to honour the traditions of the Catholic church above the Scriptures and their own conscience] were horribly tortured and murdered by the Roman Catholic church during the dark ages.
Because of these monstrous and beastly acts of cruelty and mass murders, because of Rome’s making merchandise of the Grace of God, and because of the church of Rome declaring tradition to be above the authority of the Scriptures [to name just a few reasons], all of the reformers, including Martin Luther, John Knox, Calvin, Huss and many others, all called the office of the Pope the office of the Antichrist, and all saw the sore need for men of true faith to separate themselves from such gross darkness and inhumanity systematically inculcated!
Which doctrines have been officially changed
in the Roman church since these faithful and courageous men, knowing the
fate of the millions before them who had refused to bow down to
the demands of the popes, took their stand on
the Scriptures knowing the same fate possibly and probably awaited them?
The answer is none of Rome’s major doctrines,
and especially those that led to the dark ages,
have been changed, and since that time, many
more dark and unGodly traditions have been added to the doctrines of the
church of Rome [Vatican I and II changed none of the major doctrines of
the church, but reaffirmed them and the more than 100 anathemas (damning
curses) pronounced by the Council of Trent on those opposing the church’s
doctrines, including their doctrine of Justification by Works. Vatican
I and II promoted the reading of the Scriptures, but reserved for the Roman
church the exclusive right to interpret the Scriptures in the light of
her own traditions in order
to justify those doctrines that do not harmonize
with the Scriptures.]
In 1998, the pope offered a brief and vague
apology for the Roman Catholic church’s
role in the dark ages, but four
days after this apology [an apology issued
in regards to the torture, murder and punishment
of millions of heretics, even though none
of them were ever mentioned], he issued an encyclical urging all Christians
everywhere to press for Sunday legislation in which a violator of Sunday
sacredness should “be
punished as a heretic”. Once again,
the pope made
this statement just
four days after his supposed apology.
I ask you, if a man for years beats up and kills one wife after another and abuses and molests and kills many of his children and then one day says he’s sorry, but warns his newest wife and children not to cross him again or they will be punished, do you think that man is really sorry and God has changed his life? The true nature of a church that almost says it’s sorry, but has changed none of its dark doctrines and murderous ways must not only be suspect, but be exposed for what it is:
“Many urge that it is unjust to judge the
Roman church of today, by the abominations and absurdities that marked
her reign during the centuries of ignorance and darkness. They excuse
her horrible cruelty as the result of the barbarism
of the times and plead that the influence of
modern civilization has changed her sentiments.
“Have these persons forgotten the claim of infallibility put forth for one thousand years by this haughty power? As long as Rome asserts that the "church never erred; nor will it, according to the Scriptures ever err" how can she renounce the principles which governed her course in past ages?
“The Roman church will never relinquish her claim to infallibility. All that she has done in her persecution of those who reject her dogmas she holds to be right; and would she not repeat the same acts, should the opportunity be presented? Let the restraints now imposed by secular governments be removed and Rome be reinstated in her former power, and there would speedily be a revival of her tyranny and persecution.
“There are many who are disposed to attribute any fear of Roman Catholicism in the United States to bigotry or childishness. Such see nothing in the character and attitude of Romanism that is hostile to our free institutions, or find nothing portentous in its growth. Let us, then, first compare some of the fundamental principles of our government with those of the Catholic church:
“The Constitution of the United States guarantees liberty of conscience. Nothing is dearer or more fundamental. Pope Pius IX, in an encyclical letter said: ‘The absurd and erroneous doctrines or ravings in defense of liberty of conscience are a most pestilential error~~a pest, of all others, most to be dreaded in a state.’ The same pope, in an another encyclical letter anathematized [a damning curse] ‘those who assert the liberty of conscience and the liberty of religious worship,’ and also ‘all such as maintain that the church may not employ force.’
“The conciliatory tone of Rome in the United States does not imply a change of heart. She is tolerant where she is helpless. Says Bishop O’Connor: "Religious liberty is merely endured until the opposite can be carried into effect without peril to the Catholic world." The archbishop of St. Louis once said: "Heresy and unbelief are crimes; and in Christian countries, as in Italy and Spain, for instance, where all the people are Catholics, and where the Catholic religion is an essential part of the law of the land, they are punished as other crimes."
Roman Catholicism as a system is no more in harmony with the gospel of Christ now than before Vatican I or II. "The Protestant churches are in great darkness, or they would discern the signs of the times. The Roman church is far-reaching in her plans and modes of operation. She is employing every device to extend her influence and increase her power in preparation for a fierce and determined conflict to regain control of the world, to re-establish persecution, and to undo all the progress that Protestantism has made." * Soon, it will be called ‘Treason’ to go against the dictates of the Roman church.
“Every cardinal, archbishop, and bishop in the Catholic church takes an oath of allegiance to the pope, in which occur the following words: ‘Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our lord [the pope], or his aforesaid successors, I will to my utmost persecute and oppose.’ ” *
In America, we are free to believer whatever
we want, but we shouldn’t call our beliefs ‘Christian’ if they are diametrically
opposed to Christ’s teachings. There are, nonetheless, many in the
Roman Catholic tradition who love Jesus as much as anyone else and are
serving Him with the best light they have while standing in the shadows
of the mountains of traditions the church has placed between them and the
Sun of Righteousness, Christ Jesus. There may be many who will never
come out from these shadows unless those who are standing in the light
of God’s presence reflect
in their lives the light of the Spirit and the
Truth as it is in Jesus.
‘Church’ is a Greek word, meaning ‘called out ones’. One cannot just “Go to church” to find God, one must be the Church; one must hear God’s call to come out of the darkness into His marvelous light. To hear that call, there must be one listening and there must be one, who has heard and heeded that call, calling out. God is calling those lost in the darkness, will we who hear Him, heed His voice and echo His call: To come out of her my people that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you not receive of her plagues [the seven last plagues of Revelation 8,15,21]? Rev.18: 4.
Some are saying the Reformation is over and we should return to the Mother church, but God’s people have the evidence of her dark traditions, of her dark history, and the evidence of Scripture where God calls that Mother church the Mother of Harlots and, it follows, then, that those who make covenants with her are adopted by her as harlot daughters for prostituting the Grace and Word of God along with her. See Rev. 17:1-6. There is one real Mother awaiting the exodus of God’s children from the bondage of dark systems, and that mother is not the Roman church, nor is it Mary, but it is New Jerusalem, which is above is free, and mother of us all. Gal. 4:26.
Yes, it is time for the Reformation to be
over, but instead of going backward into the dark ages,
to be born of fornication with the kings of this
earth, we need to have a new spiritual birth of freedom from above.
It is time for those who love the light to be highly resolved that those
who gave their lives warring against the darkness and for that great awakening
to the light of God, which was conceived in faith and which came to be
dedicated to the proposition that all men
are created free and equal by God, shall not
have died in vain, but that the path of the just shall continue to be as
the shining light that shines more and more unto the perfect day [Prov.
4:18], that to be on God’s side is to be on the side of light and love,
because darkness and force is on the side of the enemy of souls.
It is time to go beyond Reformation to Restoration,
to be restorers of paths to dwell in where shines that brighter shining
light coming from our true and only Priest and our only Mediator, Jesus
Christ in the heavenly Sanctuary. 1Tim. 2:5, Heb. 8:1,2.
Thy
way, O God, is in the Sanctuary:
Who is so great a God as our God?
Psalm
77:13
~ ~ ~
For we wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of
the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.Ephesians
6:12
*References provided upon request
To see how history is repeating itself read
"Pope's Call for Worship Welcomed" in the
July 7th, 1998 edition of the Detroit News.