Has the Pope Taken His First Steps into Last Days Apostasy?

Reuters and other news agencies are reporting that the Pope has capitulated on several issues such as homosexuality, abortion and contraception.

The Pope’s remarks were taken from a 12,000 word interview with the Jesuit periodical, Civilta Cattolica, (Catholic Civilization) the most prominent statement reaching news agencies is his declaration that the church needs to shake off its obsession with abortion and homosexuality.

The Pope has pleased the liberal factions of the Catholic Church and sickened and worried the conservative members of the church.

Few have reported on the prophetic implications of the Pope’s remarks and with some exceptions, such as those made by Evangelist Bill Keller, most protestant news outlets remain free of op-eds or theological treatment of the Pope’s interview, at the moment.

Hundreds of traditional or patristic teachings of Catholicism are either in direct conflict with the bible or do not exist in the scriptures at all.

The list of theological discrepancies has been addressed repeatedly for centuries and there would be little room to cover them all in one short article.

What we must point out is that on two very important levels, those who stand on scripture can’t ever recognize the authority of the Pope – it has never been a matter of whether they like him or not, nor is it a matter of personal choosing.

First, Because of the Greek rendering of Matthew 16: 18, “That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” Protestants believe that Christ was referring to himself as the Rock, not Peter. This is supported by other scriptural passages, to wit:

“For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (Mt 16: 18b)

Secondly, not one word in the bible speaks of ‘apostolic succession.’ It is a concoction of the Roman church, not a biblical teaching. It is very difficult even to support the teaching in view of the fact that there was no Catholic church for over 300 years after Christ came into the world. Most Catholics are totally unaware of this fact. They have been told they are the ‘first church,’ but true history betrays them.

Simply because these facts cannot keep the childlike faith of any Catholic from reaching the Savior does not justify or verify the truth of Catholicism’s origins. It is simply a matter of Catholics being saved or redeemed not because of their religion – but in spite of it!

The Real and Present Danger in the Discrepancies between the Papacy and the Bible

Gentle, but firm, is the only way to approach addressing the errors of Catholicism at the same time knowing that millions of Catholics are of the family of faith simply because Jesus said “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” (Jn 6: 37)

Yet, it is more than an item of curiosity or some minor theological difference; it is a dire sense of urgency and concern, especially in the last days, that causes anyone who knows scripture to make fair warning.

I have repeated this warning so often that I think my publishers may think I’ve run out of new things to say. I’ll take that chance, as opposed to risking a confrontation with my Savior for not making it as abundantly clear as possible, while there is still time.

Any religion, Catholic or other, that derives its ultimate authority from a man is subject to heresy, apostasy and error depending on the personality, the current state of mind or the evolvement of personal ideologies in that man.

Faith based solely on the scriptures, the written accounts of Christ’s teaching and his Apostles and biblical prophets cannot be altered, changed or disputed until the very last day of time. God intended this; it is his way of grounding us on a rock instead of the sinking sands of a changing and unstable world, to wit:

“Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.” (Mt 7: 24, 25)

Christ relegated his authority to his Apostles and their teachings too are on the same level as his. They were not mere scribes or interpreters of his will they were Holy Spirit inspired and authorized to speak as final authorities.

“He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me.” (Lk 10: 16)

Finally, since we will not be judged by what other men say – why would we waste time or risk being found in total error. Why not go to the source of truth and take Christ’s warning seriously?

“He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.” (Jn 12: 48)

So what did the Apostles really say about abortion, homosexuality and issues of the day?

The prophetic part of the bible contradicts the Pope’s assertion that believers are obsessed with homosexuality and abortion. In fact it warns that in the last days it is possession (demonic) that will fuel the slide into apostasy the world over.

Political correctness, floundering Pontiff’s and general acceptance of everything the bible condemns, is proof immutable, that the NWO, apostasy and the emergence of the Antichrist are well on track for the very near future. ‘Just don’t talk about it’ is the advice of fools. If the only choices are between obsession and possession it’s pretty much a no brainer.

Not only is homosexuality referred to as an abomination, to be noted, rebuked and refused as part of the church, but immoral behaviors were cause for people to be put out of the church and not allowed back in until they had fully repented. (1Co 5: 1-7) Should the perversion of same sex acts and marriage be an exception?

The idea of the Pope suggesting that we are over-talking the subject of abortions reaches to the heights of apostasy. The only voices the over two hundred million aborted babies worldwide have - is ours. Telling us to be silent is the moral equivalent of blasphemy.

After the Sandy Hook massacre of innocent children the liberals went after guns with a vengeance. Doesn’t it seem hypocritical that after 60,000,000 abortions in the U.S. and 160,000,000 abortions worldwide that telling us to pipe down is the only thing the Pope can think of to say? We will never be silent, or to borrow a phrase, you can pry my anti-abortion argument from my cold dead lips, but no other way.

Has the Pope taken his first steps into the last day’s (apostasy) falling away? We can only hope he has not, but if this is the beginning of it, it is also the end of everything as we have known it.

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” (2 Th 2: 3)

Thanks, Alamo-Girl, but these people are deaf, dumb, and blind.

They refuse to see that their whole way of thinking and believing is a precariously stacked house of cards that will come tumbling down right on top of them.

The phrase “none so blind as those who will not see” is so appropriate here!

Major prayer for spiritual blindness to be lifted is necessary.

God bless you,
jodyel

P.S. As an aside, my mother told me she witnessed the death of a friend’s mother, who was Roman Catholic, at her deathbed. She said it was a very hard death with much gasping and labored breathing and much fear. She said the fear in the room was palpable. She said right then she knew that the woman had never accepted Jesus as her Savior and was not going to be with Him.

Contrast that to the deaths of believers in Christ who die peacefully. My own grandmother told me a story of when her mother died. She said she and her sister were standing in front of the coffin weeping. Just above the coffin a voice spoke and said, “Don’t grieve for her. She is with Me now.”

And my father’s cousin, Charles, who died of colon cancer had been drifting in and out of consciousness for about three days before his death. My dad and another family member were sitting with him in the hospital room when he suddenly said, “Who is that man?” They looked at each other and there was only the two of them...they saw no other man and told him so. Charles then said, “That’s okay...it is Jesus.” And the next day he died peacefully.

So I say to all you Catholics out there who think you know it all and are saved, then you’d better rethink what you have been told and believed all these years because it is a lie straight from the pits of hell. And Satan won’t be behind you or anywhere else but right on top of you dragging you down with him.

And it serves me no purpose whatsoever to come here and lie to you. If I were lying, I would not even bother at all because frankly some of you are so obnoxious I’d rather not spend eternity with you. But personal feelings aside, I come because I love Christ and I must obey Him. So I say again, open your eyes and get out of this demonic religion called Catholicism and be born again into the true body of Christ, so that when you die your loved ones may also hear, “Do not grieve for them, they are with Me.”

http://www.gotquestions.org/difference-Rapture-Second-Coming.html

Question: “What is the difference between the Rapture and the Second Coming?”

Answer: The rapture and the second coming of Christ are often confused. Sometimes it is difficult to determine whether a scripture verse is referring to the rapture or the second coming. However, in studying end-times Bible prophecy, it is very important to differentiate between the two.

The rapture is when Jesus Christ returns to remove the church (all believers in Christ) from the earth. The rapture is described in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:50-54. Believers who have died will have their bodies resurrected and, along with believers who are still living, will meet the Lord in the air. This will all occur in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye. The second coming is when Jesus returns to defeat the Antichrist, destroy evil, and establish His millennial kingdom. The second coming is described in Revelation 19:11-16.

The important differences between the rapture and second coming are as follows:

1) At the rapture, believers meet the Lord in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:17). At the second coming, believers return with the Lord to the earth (Revelation 19:14).

2) The second coming occurs after the great and terrible tribulation (Revelation chapters 6–19). The rapture occurs before the tribulation (1 Thessalonians 5:9; Revelation 3:10).

3) The rapture is the removal of believers from the earth as an act of deliverance (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, 5:9). The second coming includes the removal of unbelievers as an act of judgment (Matthew 24:40-41).

4) The rapture will be secret and instant (1 Corinthians 15:50-54). The second coming will be visible to all (Revelation 1:7; Matthew 24:29-30).

5) The second coming of Christ will not occur until after certain other end-times events take place (2 Thessalonians 2:4; Matthew 24:15-30; Revelation chapters 6–18). The rapture is imminent; it could take place at any moment (Titus 2:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 Corinthians 15:50-54).

Why is it important to keep the rapture and the second coming distinct?

1) If the rapture and the second coming are the same event, believers will have to go through the tribulation (1 Thessalonians 5:9; Revelation 3:10).

2) If the rapture and the second coming are the same event, the return of Christ is not imminent—there are many things which must occur before He can return (Matthew 24:4-30).

3) In describing the tribulation period, Revelation chapters 6–19 nowhere mentions the church. During the tribulation—also called “the time of trouble for Jacob” (Jeremiah 30:7)—God will again turn His primary attention to Israel (Romans 11:17-31).

The rapture and second coming are similar but separate events. Both involve Jesus returning. Both are end-times events. However, it is crucially important to recognize the differences. In summary, the rapture is the return of Christ in the clouds to remove all believers from the earth before the time of God’s wrath. The second coming is the return of Christ to the earth to bring the tribulation to an end and to defeat the Antichrist and his evil world empire.

Recommended Resource: Three Views on the Rapture by Gleason L. Archer, Jr., ed..

“There are many others, but I submit that a Pope, being mortal, fleshly, is prone to the same sins as any other man. How many times did Jesus rebuke the Pharisees as hypocrites when they did one thing, yet instructed others not to do what they did? How then, can such Popes be ‘infallible’ in matters of ‘morals’?”

Own a really good dictionary? Open it up. Look up “impeccable” in regard to sin. Then look up “infallible” in regard to doctrine. See the difference?

Here, let me help you:

Impeccable: you’ll discover that a man who is impeccable in regard to sin can’t sin. No one claims the pope can’t sin.

Infallible: you’ll discover that a man, the pope, can be infallible in regard to doctrine, only under certain circumstances, and that it has nothing to do with impeccability at all.

here is something else to help you:

Infallibility versus Impeccability

One of the most commonly-leveled charges against the Catholic Church is based on a faulty understanding of the doctrine of papal infallibility. It is important to understand what this doctrine means, and what it does not.

Papal infallibility means that the pope, when pronouncing definitively and dogmatically on matters of faith and morals is protected from teaching errors. This protection comes from the Holy Spirit and was promised by Jesus Christ when He said that He would send the Holy Spirit to the Apostles to teach them all truth. The pope only enjoys this special protection when he is speaking in union with the other bishops (the successors of the Apostles) as the successor to Saint Peter (the leader of the Apostles).

This is what infallibility means, but there are many things which it does not mean, although a number of non-Catholics would like it to mean this – as these things are easy to argue against!

Firstly, infallibility is not the ability to always be right or know the correct answer to a matter of history, science or some academic discipline. Although the popes are generally very well-educated men their intellects are not perfect, and they are capable of having gaps in their knowledge or of making mistakes. Thus, if a pope were to say that two plus two is five this would not mean that, for Catholics, two plus two equals five. It would mean that the pope has to take some more math lessons! The pope is only infallible when he speaks on matters of faith or morals – he is not always right and the Holy Spirit does not “teach him all truth” when it comes to academic matters.

Secondly, infallibility is only conferred on papal pronouncements which are solemnly and dogmatically defined, and does not apply to remarks made by the pope as a private individual, or even as a priest, the bishop of Rome or the pope. Only when he speaks as the pope ex cathedra (literally “from the chair” - meaning that he is formally defining something as infallible) is infallibility invoked. Such instances are very rare indeed – far rarer than many non-Catholics think.

Thirdly, and most importantly, infallibility should not be confused with impeccability. Impeccability is best defined as being sinless, or never making a moral mistake – Jesus and Mary were impeccable, for example. As we read in Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans, all have sinned and fallen short of the grace of God. We read in the Gospels how Peter himself sinned by denying Christ, and in Acts how he fell short of his own teaching regarding eating with gentiles and had to be rebuked by Paul. But infallibility and impeccability are not the same thing, and Jesus never promised that the pope would be impeccable. The number of times Jesus speaks of there being sinners in the Church (such as the tares among the wheat, or the bad fish in the catch) should be enough to make this clear.

In point of fact, it is interesting to note that the bad popes stand out precisely because there are so few of them – out of over 250 popes, only a handful can be shown as being examples of “bad popes”. This, of course, does not prove infallibility, but is interesting as it shows that so few popes have been “bad”.

There are a number of specific cases which are cited where popes are shown to have disagreed with each other, or seem to have changed their minds or taught something else. Each and every one of these cases can be shown to be either a complete falsehood, or a misunderstanding of the doctrine of papal infallibility. Most of the time, the pope was not speaking on a matter of faith or morals, or was simply not solemnly defining something, but was simply speaking as a private individual rather than ex cathedra. There is no space to speak of each and every case here – but we will quote from Robert Knox in a letter to Arnold Lunn, speaking of the very few cases of “non-infallible” popes;

“Has it ever occurred to you how few are the alleged ‘failures of infallibility’? I mean, if somebody propounded in your presence the thesis that all the kings of England have been impeccable, you would not find yourself murmuring, ‘Oh, well, people said rather unpleasant things about Jane Shore . . . and the best historians seem to think that Charles II spent too much of his time with Nell Gwynn.’ Here have these popes been, fulminating anathema after anathema for centuries—certain in all human probability to contradict themselves or one another over again. Instead of which you get this measly crop of two or three alleged failures!”

Although this is hardly a totally solid argument, it should certainly give pause for thought. After 2000 years of the Catholic Church, there should be more than a few alleged failures which are not very clear cut at all!

The favorite argument of the non-Catholics is one which we will touch on briefly, and have in fact mentioned above. It concerns the first pope, Saint Peter, and his not eating with the gentile converts. This is mentioned in Galatians 2:11-14; Saint Paul says that he corrected and rebuked Peter. Surely, the argument goes, if Saint Peter were not infallible, then how could he be the first pope (if the pope is infallible) or, if Saint Peter were the first pope and was not infallible, how could all the other popes be infallible?

This argument is easy to refute by a close reading of the text. It is made very clear in the Scripture that Saint Peter did not in fact teach or solemnly define something which was wrong. In fact, quite the opposite – Saint Peter had argued that Jewish and Gentile Christians should eat together – but he just wasn’t living up to his own teaching! Saint Paul rebuked him not for an error in teaching, but rather for hypocrisy. This is a clear – and probably the first – example of infallibility versus impeccability.

Those people who deny papal infallibility often do so not out of a desire to understand it, but rather out of a belief that it is something it is not. This is called the “straw man” argument, as it involves setting up a false argument and then defeating that. The argument does not put up a fight and is, therefore, a “straw man”. Catholics do not believe the pope is omniscient or that he is impeccable. We believe he is, generally speaking, a wise man and a good man. But we also believe that he is infallible when it comes to matters of faith and morals which he solemnly pronounces.

This is entirely in accord with the Scriptures – as we read in the great Petrine defense of Matthew 16:18, the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church. The Church will last forever – but how can she last forever if her teaching is in danger of being corrupted and changed? Then she would not be Christ’s Church. If the Church is to endure forever, protection of her doctrines and teachings must be invested in something or someone. As Peter was the rock upon which Christ built His Church, it is clear this protection is invested in the pope, Saint Peter’s successors.
http://www.catholicbasictraining.com/apologetics/coursetexts/4i.htm

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.