Friday, October 2, 2015

CHRISTIAN NEWS NOTES

THE PAPACY'S FEARFUL LIES

Pope Francis heads up an institution founded on lies, so it is little surprise that his messages during the recent trip to America were filled with the same. Rome's lies include the papacy itself, the priesthood, the sacraments, Mariolatry, purgatory, and “holy relics”. There is not a hint in Scripture that Peter had “supremacy” over the apostles or that he was otherwise any kind of “pope”. It was a wretched lie from its inception. For hundreds of years, the popes used forgeries such as the Donation of Constantine, a shameless lie claiming that Constantine gave the bishop of Rome supremacy “over all the churches of God in the whole earth”, granting him a crown, and donating to him “the city of Rome, and all the provinces, places and cities of Italy and the western regions”. Pope Hadrian I (778) used this lie in his dealings with Charlemagne. It was used by other popes until it was publicly exposed as a lie during the Reformation. Then there were the Decretals of Isidore, used by Pope Francis' brother in scarlet, Nicholas I, to claim that popes “hold the place of God on earth”. These ancient lies have never been renounced by the papacy. By holding the office, regardless of how “humbly”, Francis agrees with its foundational lies, so it is no surprise that his messages are filled with more lies. Consider his message at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, September 25. First, there was his whitewash of the Catholic Church's “clergy sex abuse scandal”. Addressing his fellow priests, he said: “[Y]ou suffered greatly ... by having to bear the shame of some of your brothers who harmed and scandalized the Church in the most vulnerable of her members”. The “some” actually amounts to thousands of priests who used their positions of trust to commit filthy acts with children, mostly boys. A 2004 study by John Jay College found 11,757 allegations of sexual abuse involving 5,148 priests, and the report only pertained to about half of the priests in the U.S. By then, the Catholic Church had already spent $1 billion settling lawsuits and providing “treatment” for its filthy priests, and the report observed that “the end is nowhere in sight”. The pope also lied in his address at St. Patrick's by addressing Muslims as “brothers and sisters”. Muhammad blasphemously denied that Jesus is the Son of God who died for man's sins. The Quran says, “Warn those who say, 'Allah has fathered a son.' They do not have any proof about that and neither did their fathers. It is a terrible thing that comes from their mouths. They say nothing but lies” (Surah 18:4). Instead of calling Muhammad and his people brothers and sisters, the pope should rather state that the “proof” Muhammad demanded is the virgin birth, sinless and unique life, vicarious atonement, and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, all based on amazing prophecies written down before He was born. If Jesus Christ is not the Son of God, there is no such thing as evidence. But then, the pope doesn't believe the gospel of salvation by the free grace of Christ without works, so he has no truth with which to confront any false religion. Another lie that the pope spoke at St. Patrick's was the lie that Mary hears and answers prayer. He said, “Let us commend to our Lady the work we have been entrusted to do”. Its vain protestations aside, Rome's doctrine of Mary is a blasphemous usurpation of Christ as sole Saviour and Mediator, and this fact alone should impel every Bible-believing Christian to renounce the papacy in no uncertain terms. The very fact that plain speaking about the Roman Catholic Church is so rare among “evangelical” Protestants and Baptists is irrefutable proof of end-time apostasy and of the rapid building of the one-world “church”.

IS ROME THE HARLOT OF REVELATION 17?

For a thousand years and more, Baptists, Protestants, and fundamentalists identified Rome with the Harlot of Revelation 17. At the end of the NINTH CENTURY, “Tergandus, Bishop of Treves, called the Pope antichrist, yea, a wolf, and Rome, Babylon” (Martyrs Mirror, 5th English edition, p. 240). In THE ELEVENTH CENTURY, Berenger of Tours denounced Rome's dogmas and maintained that the Roman Church was the See of Satan (George Faber, The History of the Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses, 1838, p. 159). THE WALDENSIANS, throughout most of their long history, identified the pope as the Antichrist. The Waldensian treatise titled the Noble Lesson, dated 1100 AD, stated: “Antichrist, the predicted murderer of the Saints, hath already appeared in his true character, seated monarchally in the seven-hilled city”. In the 13th CENTURY, the BOHEMIAN BRETHREN held that “the Church of Rome is not the Church of Jesus Christ, but an assembly of wicked men, and the whore that sits upon the beast in the Revelation. ... They declare the pope to be the head and ringleader of all errors” (Peter Allix, Ancient Churches of Piedmont, pp. 242-259). English Bible translator WILLIAM TYNDALE identified the pope as the Antichrist in his treatise The Practice of Prelates and in the preface to the 1534 edition of his New Testament. All of the REFORMATION leaders considered the pope the antichrist, including John Huss, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and and their successors. The religious harlot of Revelation 17 is aligned with the antichrist (compare Rev. 17:3 - Rev. 13:1), and like the antichrist it has two aspects: historic and prophetic. In 1 John 2:18, the apostle said, “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time”. Though she does not fulfill this prophecy in its finality, every feature of the religious Harlot of Revelation 17 is found in the Roman Catholic Church. She has ridden through history upon the back of kings, is clothed in gorgeous robes of scarlet and purple and decked in expensive attire. She sits on seven hills, is full of abominations, and has a golden cup. She is drunk with the blood of the martyrs, and the inhabitants of the world are indeed drunk with the wine of her fornication, referring to the multitudes that blindly follow Rome's doctrines of devils.

U.S. NAVY FOUNDED TO PROTECT AMERICA FROM MUSLIM SLAVERS

Between 1801-1815, the newly formed United States of America fought the Barbary Wars against Muslim slavers based in Tripoli, Tunis, and Algeria. From the 16th to the 19th century, the slavers captured an estimated one to 1.25 MILLION white Europeans (Robert Davis, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean). The Muslim pirates had seized American merchant ships and enslaved the crews for ransom. Most of the men were pressed into hard labor and kept “in extremely poor conditions that exposed them to vermin and disease”. The Muslim Barbary states also demanded tribute from the American government in exchange for not attacking its ships. This piracy began immediately after America gained its independence from Britain in 1784. Two years later, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two of America's founding fathers, were sent to London to negotiate with Tripoli's ambassador, Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja. When asked why the Muslims attacked nations that “had done them no injury”, Adja replied, “It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth, which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once” (Thomas Jefferson Papers, Series 1 1651-1827, Library of Congress). Note that the Barbary pirates cited the Koran as their authority for attacking and enslaving anyone who is not submitted to Allah. In 1795, America paid $1 million for the release of 115 sailors, an amount that was one-sixth of the U.S. budget. The pirates demanded an annual payment of the same amount. When Thomas Jefferson was elected America's second president in 1801, he and his fellow citizens were of no mind to accept bullying and blackmail. The U.S. Navy was built to protect America against Muslim pirates. One of the most memorable acts of the Barbary War was in 1805 when a force of eight U.S. Marines and 400 Greek and Arab mercenaries, led by U.S. Navy Lieutenant William Eaton, traveled across 600 miles of desert from Alexandria, Egypt, to capture the city of Derne (or Derna) on the shores of Tripoli. This is memorialized in the U.S. Marine Hymn. By 1816, the Barbary states were forced to cease attacking American and British ships, and the deed was accomplished by force of arms.

ISLAMIC STATE HAS EXECUTED MORE THAN 10,000 PEOPLE

The following is excerpted from “ISIS has killed more than 10,000”, Breitbart.com, Sep. 25, 2015: “The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) has executed more than 10,000 people, including women and children, in Iraq and Syria since the jihadist group declared a 'global caliphate' in June 2014, reports Daily Mail Online. 'The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which has secret sources inside ISIS territory, said 3,207 have been killed in that war-torn country,' notes the article. 'Another 7,700 were executed in Iraq, according to the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights [IOHR], which tracks ISIS violations.' 'The soldiers and civilians who have been beheaded, shot dead, drowned, blown up, stoned to death and thrown off buildings for violating ISIS's twisted laws all contributed to this mammoth death toll,' it adds. 'The figure does not include the thousands more who have been killed in battle and suicide bombings--or the innocent people mown down by ISIS extremists as they tried to flee.' SOHR told Daily Mail Online that it keeps a tally of the terrorist group's executions after its activists have verified them from local sources on the ground. ... 'The slaughter of up to 1,700 cadets at Speicher army camp in Tikrit, Iraq, was not included in the overall death toll because it occurred on June 12, 2014, a few weeks before ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi declared the caliphate,' it adds. 'Neither was the massacre of 5,000 Yazidi people in Iraq's Sinjar province last August because they were shot down by ISIS fighters as they tried to escape.'

NOT SUCH BUMBLEBEES

The following is from CreationMoments.com, Dec. 30, 2014: “Scientists have long known that honeybees communicate the location of nectar sources to their nest mates. The language that many species use has even been deciphered. At the same time, it was long accepted that bumblebees did not communicate the location of food resources to their nest mates. After all, it is astonishing enough that a supposedly simple creature like the honeybee had mastered the advanced skill of communication, but can even simpler bees communicate? Research reveals that there are at least several species of bumblebees and other stingless bees that communicate among themselves. As might be expected, the languages differ from species to species. One species of bumblebee reports her find to her nest mates by running zigzag over the combs and bumping into her nest mates. This leads them to check out the quality of the nectar she just returned. If she has brought several good loads in, they join her in bringing in more. Other species lay scent trails to the food source. When a member of another species finds a good source, she communicates to her nest mates through a series of pulsing buzzes. As she communicates the height of the source by the speed of the pulses, she performs a circular dance that communicates the rest of the instructions. The Bible is accurate when it says that the entire creation can offer God praise. The languages may differ; the form of communication may not even look like communication to us. But now we know that since communication is a gift from God, even so called simple creatures can be given the gift by their Creator”.

DC