Hosea 4:6A, "My people are destroyed for lack of
knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee."
As we completed the last issue of "Thoughts From My Notebook That I Ponder??? . . .
Rapture, Truth Or Heresy?" we found that history tells us in 1826, the British
lawyer, Dr. Samuel Maitland wrote a book denouncing the Reformation. Maitland supported
the futurist theory of the Jesuit priest, Francisco Ribera, who had been commissioned by
the Pope to write a thesis supporting this theory.
This idea was picked up by Edward Irving, followed by John Nelson Darby. A Scottish lass,
Margaret Macdonald supported this theory when she had a vision of the graves opening and
people coming out and rising up to meet Jesus standing on a cloud.
Irving began to teach a two-stage coming of the Lord and seven years of tribulation.
Further teachings of Irving included a future anti-christ and the extension of the 70th
week of Daniel into the future.
Cyrus I. Schofield became a student of this teaching, confessing salvation and became the
protégé of the Rev. D.C. Goodell, pastor of the Pilgrim Congregational Church in St.
Louis, Missouri. This acquaintance occurred while Schofield was serving a prison sentence
in the St. Louis jail for several forgeries. It is believed that Schofield began writing
the footnotes for the now infamous Schofield Bible under the tutelage of Rev. Goodell.
These heresies of a rapture teaching, a future anti-christ and Daniel's 70th week being
extended to become the seven years of tribulation after a secret rapture - where did these
teachings come from and why, especially why?
Let us consider the writings and teachings of the patriarchs of the Reformation. We all
are familiar with Martin Luther and the 95 theses he nailed to the church door on October
31, 1517. Luther considered the pope to be the anti-christ of Revelation as many prior to
him had also believed.
As the power of the Caesars and the Roman Empire decreased, so did the persecution of
Christians. Then, the papal church under the popes began to emerge as the dominant
authority and armed herself with the sword. This began the period of what we know as
"the Dark Ages" and the church of God was wasted for several centuries as the
kings of the earth gave their powers to the "beast" who sat in the papal chair.
Peter Bruis, in approximately 1100, wrote a book about the popes under the title,
Antichrist. A gentleman by the name of Peter Waldo of Lyons became a strenuous opponent of
papacy and became known as a reformer. When Pope Alexander III was informed of this by the
Bishop of Lyons, he gave the commandment to exterminate them, if possible, from the face
of the earth; hence began the papal persecution or Inquisition of the church of Jesus
Christ. They were known as reformers but were called infidels by the Catholic Church and
for approximately five hundred years, we know it as the Dark Ages.
The Encyclopedia Britannica says that the "Inquisition" (an inquiry) is a name
given to a period of time knows as the "Dark Ages", when the detection and
punishment of heretics and all persons guilty of any offence against Catholic
Orthodoxy." The Christians - Heretics - were increasing faster than the
inquisitioners of the Catholic Church could burn them at the stake.
Many of the persuasion of the reformers began to teach that the pope was the anti-christ
of Revelation. In 1524, in Melden, France, John Clark nailed a statement to the church
door claiming that the pope was the anti-christ. For this, he was beaten and branded in
the forehead. Later, he went to Mentz and destroyed some images; for which he had his
right hand and nose cut off, the flesh on his arms and breast torn. After suffering these
cruelties, he had the amazing fortitude to sing the "One Hundredth and Fifteenth
Psalm," which forbids idolatry. He was then thrown into the fire and burned.
Martin Luther proved from the scripture that the papacy was the anti-christ of Revelation.
On August 20, 1520, Luther declared, "We here are of the conviction that the papacy
is the seat of the true and real anti-christ."
John Calvin said, "Some persons think us too severe and censorious when we call the
Roman pontiff anti-christ. I shall briefly show that (Paul's words in II Thessalonians 2)
are not capable of any other interpretation than that which applies them to the papacy.)
John Knox said, "that tyranny which the pope himself has for so many ages exercised
over the church."
Thomas Cranmer stated, "whereof it followeth Rome to be very anti-christ himself. I
could prove the same by many scriptures."
Roger Williams spoke of the pope as, "the pretended vicar of Christ on earth; who
sits as God over the temple of God, exalting himself not only above all that is called
God, but over the souls and consciences of all his vassals, yea over the Spirit of Christ,
over the Holy Spirit, yea and God himself speaking against the God of heaven thinking to
change times and laws; but he is the son of perdition."
Cotton Mather said, "the oracles of God foretold the rising of an anti-christ in the
Christian church; and in the pope of Rome, all the characteristics of that anti-christ are
so marvelously answered that if any who read the scriptures do not see it, there is a
marvelous blindness upon them."
John Wesley wrote, "He is in an emphatic sense, the man of sin, as he increases all
manner of sin above measure, and he is, too, properly styled the Son of Perdition."
Wycliff, Tyndale, Bunyan, translators of the King James Bible, the publishers of the
Westminster and Baptist Confessions of Faith, Sir Isaac Newton, Whitfield, Jonathan
Edwards, Spurgeon, Bishop Ryle, Dr. Lloyd-Jones, and countless others all saw the papacy
as the anti-christ.
In the eleventh century, the Man of Sin appeared to have attained the summit of arrogance
and blasphemy when Pope Gregory VII proclaimed that he was Universal Bishop, Sovereign
Pontiff, Christ's Vicar, Prince of the Apostles, God on earth, Lord God the Pope, His
Holiness, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Prince over all nations and kingdoms, the Most
Holy and Most Blessed, Master of the Universal World, Father of Kings, Light of the World,
Most High and Sovereign Bishop, and no pope, including the present pope has ever renounced
this, - - So, what does all this have to do with the rapture?
During the Council of Trent, (1545-1563) it was decided that to counteract the teaching
among the heretic Christians, that the pope was the anti-christ of Revelation, and to
bring the defectors back to the mother church, which the Inquisition and the torture had
not done. Could it be done through "theology by reinterpreting the prophecies about
the Man of Sin, the Little Horn, and the Beast?" This would counteract the teaching
that the pope was the anti-christ.
Two very intelligent Spanish Jesuit Priests rose to the challenge - the strategy was one
of division and re-application of the scriptures. Louis de Alcasar of Seville was to apply
the Bible's anti-christ prophecies to the "ancient past," and there are some who
still teach this theory today. Francisco Ribera was to apply these scriptures to the
far-distant future. And from this theory comes the Rapture that is taught today.
In 1590, the Spanish Jesuit, Francisco Ribera, finished publishing his futurist counter
interpretation, his assignment to fabricate a futurist interpretation of the Revelation
prophecies of "the little horn", the "man of sin", and "the
beast" and Daniels 70th weeks into the yet distant future. And that the anti-christ
would arise during this 70th week or 7 year period, thereby nullifying the teaching that
the popes are the anti-christ of Revelation, to a yet future time at the end of the ages.
His commentary was published and sent to the priests to teach. Mission accomplished. No,
it would be two hundred and fifty years before this diabolic teaching would be used by
satan to try and deceive God's elect and lull them into complacency by believing that they
are somebody special and will not have to endure the sufferings as those that have gone
before us, including seventy some million Chinese of the late 1960's and early 1970's, or
the several million on the continent of Africa have in the last ten years.
The "Late Great Planet Earth" and the "Left Behind" books are as much
a tool of satan as Ribera's commentary on the book of Revelation to try and prove that the
Popes are not the anti-christ, and that the Christians will be caught away to a place of
utopia while the world burns.
John 8:32, "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."
See other "Notebook"
articles.
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