FRIDAY MORNING MANNA
May 15, 2015
Nathaniel Fajardo
Biblical Numerology: NUMBER THREE – Part VIII
THE THREE PERSONS OF THE GODHEAD (Continued)
The recent Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Misericordiae Vultus, declared a Holy Year by Pope Francis will open December 8, 2015 on “the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception” and concludes a year later “with the liturgical Solemnity of Christ the King on Nov, 20, 2016.” It says further, “On that dayas we seal the Holy Door, we shall be filled, above all, with a sense of gratitude and thanksgiving to the Most Holy Trinity for having granted us an extraordinary time of grace”. . . .“The granting of indulgences as a traditional theme of the Jubilee year is expressed in section No. 22. (For fuller details, see NEWS.VA Official Vatican Network. http://www.news.valen/news/summary-of-the-misericordiae-vultus-bul-of-indiction.
In this Bull, the first Jesuit Pope says that “mercy is the very foundation of the Church’s life.” Question: Which church is this? World and church historians as well as official Catholic literature and records categorically declare otherwise. The fifth mention of Biblical mercy (in the K.J.V.), and what it is directly associated with, is found in the second commandment which Jehovah Creator wrote with His own finger on two tables of stone after first declaring it with His own voice in trumpet tones.
Explicitly forbidding the “making of any graven image of any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above or in the earth beneath or that is in the waters underneath the earth” to bow down to and worship them,” it warns the transgressor: “Visiting the iniquity of the fathers unto the children, to the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me but showing MERCY unto thousands of them that love Me and keep MY commandments.” Exo. 20: 4-6; Deut. 5: 8-10.
This entire second commandment was expunged by the Roman Church from its own version of the Decalogue, splitting the tenth defining the sin of covetousness in all its forms, into two, rendering the altered appearance of ten. Jesus Christ, the Rock (1 Cor. 10: 4) upon whom His Church is built upon which is why “the gates of hell cannot prevail against it” (Matt. 16: 18), instructed His disciples and apostles to not only show mercy but to “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and do good to them that hate you, andpray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you; that you may be the children of your Father, who is in heaven.” Matt. 5: 44, 45. Apostle Paul echoes the same injunction to the Church. See Romans 12: 17-21.
From Pagan Rome to Papal Rome. Historians record that the Roman emperors took the title sol invictus(“unconquered, invincible sun”), and demanded worship as sun gods (A.K.A. as cult of Mithras, birthday,December 25). Emperor Aurelian made it an official Roman cult in 274 A.D. This transitioned into papal Rome when the Bishop of Rome received three prophesied things from imperial Rome, denoted as “the dragon,” namely: “his power, and his seat, and great authority.” Rev. 13: 12. This process began with the conversion Clovis, pagan king of the Franks, to Catholicism in 508 A.D. Church and state were uniting.
Thirty years later, by 538 A.D., three major events took place within that year, fulfilling the specifications of the prophecy of Daniel 7: 8 that “three horns” would first be “uprooted” after which “the little horn” would “wax exceeding great, toward the south [Egypt], and toward the east [Syria], and toward the pleasant land [Jerusalem], and it waxed great, even to the host of heaven, and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the Prince of the host [Christ), and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of His sanctuary cast down.” Verses 9-11. These three amazing historical events were:
- The Ostrogoths, last of the three Arian nations resisting the papal hierarchy ,
were finally totally “uprooted” by Belisarius, general of emperor Justinian through the instigation of Pope Silverius. Through “a tangled web of treachery and double-dealing”, Wittigis (or Vitigis), king of the Ostrogoths, was killed in cold blood at Ravenna, Italy.
- Roman Catholicism was made the state religion by Justinian’s edict,
forbidding all other religions. That year the Council of Orleans outlawed all labor during harvest time, punishable by death on third offense, which was allowed 217 earlier by Constantine in the very first Sunday law declared, 321 A.D. Historians wrote:
“Then occured a singular phenomenon,–the annihilation and disappearance of a great and powerful people from the world’s history.”- J. G. Sheppard, “Fall of Rome,” p. 306. London: 1892. Dr. N. Summerbell says: “The Dark Ages, introduced by the persecution of an enlightened Church in the sanguinary wars of Justinian to exalt the Catholics, continued up to the fourteenth century. It was a long, dark night, when ignorance, bigotry, and cruelty reigned, and truth, purity, and justices were crushed out.” – “History of the Christians Church, p. 342. /Facts of Faith, pp. 48, 49.
- The papacy was placed under protection of the state.
Then the Roman Church claimed absolute power and control over individual conscience and sovereignty over all civil and secular powers of the civilized world, basically Europe. The historian J.A. Wylie described it as “the noon of the papacy was the midnight of the world.”– “The History of Protestantism,” bk. 1, ch. 4). The Church entered into the Thyatira stage (Rev. 2: 18-29), the fourth of its seven stages since its birth after Pentecost, each illustrated by the outstanding characteristics of seven literal churches of Asia at the time of John. See Revelation chapters 2 and 3.
Papal Rome’s despotic rule ended in February 1798, with the capture of Pope Pius VI by Berthier, general of Napoleon’s French Republican army, marking the termination of the prophetic 1260 days or 1260 literal years of the Dark Ages. He died in France a year later. Most thought the papacy extinct then, failing to understand Revelation 13. Prophecy foretells that this “deadly wound” would be healed, and that the world once more, for a brief moment, would follow the papal power. Rev. 13: 3. This healing began in 1929 with the signing of the concordat with Italy, which restored “his dominion” over the Vatican City, a small section of the city of Rome.
Christ’s example and teaching of mercy was not practiced by the Roman Church towards those it defined as “heathen,” “pagan,” “Gentile,” “Jew,” or a “heretic.” These were “converted” by a redefinition of mercy—from whom, when, and on what grounds and cost it was to be dispensed—means and methods the Bible and Jesus never endorsed. Only our Father in heaven, whom Christ is the “express image” of, can dispense divine grace, grant forgiveness of sins, love and mercy to every and all penitent sinners exclusively through the merits, sacrifice, and ministry of Jesus Christ, mankind’s only Creator, Savior, and Mediator. Adam Clarke, British Methodist theologian and biblical scholar (1760-1832), commenting on the papacy, wrote:
“They have assumed infallibility, which belongs only to God. They profess to forgive sins, which belongs only to God. They profess to open and shut heaven, which belongs only to God. They profess to be higher than all the kings of the earth, which belongs only to God. And they go beyond God in pretending to loose whole nations from their oath of allegiance to their kings, when such kings do not please them. And they go against God when they give Indulgences for sin. This is the worst of all blasphemies.” – “Commentary on the Old Testament,” Vol. IV, p. 596, note on Daniel 7: 25 quoted in “Daniel and the Revelation,” Uriah Smith, p. 130.1944. Southern Publishing Assso.
History testifies that the Church was, in fact, merciless towards all who refused, based on conviction of conscience and loyalty to Biblical teaching to accept “Christianized” superstitions, pagan traditions, and man-made edicts and laws of the Church. Religious writers and secular historians alike point out that their evangelization method, during Christianity’s darkest times was “the cross or the sword.” Neither the Bible nor the third Person of the Godhead was relied upon to do their appointed work, according to the gospel of Jesus Christ who said that the Holy Spirit, not any man, would be His vicegerent on earth after His resurrection and ascension. His office and work were clearly described in the Gospel of John, who wrote: “He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said to you (John 14: 26); “He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: . . . He will guide you into all truth . . . . He will show you things to come.” John 16: 7-14, K.J.V.
“The story of medieval persecution is a frightful one, and we dread to dwell upon it in detail. Yet for a proper understanding of this passage [‘the little horn was to wear out the saints of the Most High,’ Daniel 7: 25], it is necessary that we recall some of the happenings of these unhappy times.”
Albert Barnes (1798-1870), “American theologian and ordained Presbyterian minister, eloquent speaker, his reputation resting chiefly on his works, which are said to have had larger circulation both in Europe and America than any others of their class” (Wikipedia), in his comment on this passage, remarks:
“Can anyone doubt that this is true of the papacy? The Inquisition, the ‘persecution of the Waldenses;’ the ravages of the Duke of Alva; the fires of the Smithfield; the tortures at Goa—indeed the whole history of the papacy may be appealed to in proof that this is applicable to that power. If anything could have ‘worn out the saints of the Most High’—could have cut them off from the earth so that the evangelical religion would have become extinct, it would have been the persecutions of the papal power.
In the year 1208, a crusade was proclaimed by Pope Innocent III against the Waldenses and Albigenses, in which a million men perished. From the beginning of the order of the Jesuits, in the year 1540, to 1580, nine hundred thousand were destroyed. One hundred and fifty thousand perished by the Inquisition in thirty years. In the Low Countries [Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg] fifty thousand persons were hanged, beheaded, burned, and buried alive, for the crime of heresy, within the space of thirty-eight years from the edict of Charles V against the Protestants, to the peace of Chateau Cambreses in 1559.
Eighteen thousand suffered by the hand of the executioner in the space of five years and a half during the administration of the Duke of Alva. Indeed, the slightest acquaintance with the history of the papacy will convince any one that what is here said of ‘making war with the saints’ (verse 21), and ‘wearing out of the saints of the Most High’ (verse 25), is strictly applicable to that power, and will accurately describe its history.” – “Notes on Daniel,” p. 328, comment on Daniel 7: 28, quoted in ”Daniel and the Revelation,” Uriah Smith, p. 130, 131,
These facts are confirmed by the testimony of the historian W.E.H. Lecky:
“That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind, will be questioned by no Protestant who has a complete knowledge of history. The memorials, indeed, of many of her persecutions are now so scanty that it is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite certain that no powers of imagination can adequately realize her sufferings . . . These atrocities were not perpetuated in the brief paroxysms of a reign of terror, or by the hand of obscure sectaries, but were inflicted by a triumphant church, with every circumstance of solemnity and deliberation.” – “History of the Rise and Influence of Spirit of Rationalism in Europe,” Vol. II, pp. 35, 37/ Ibid, 131.
According to Webster’s Unified Dictionary and Encyclopedia, 1960, the Inquisition is:
“A Roman Catholic tribunal for the investigation and punishment of heresy, first formed in 1210, St. Dominic being the first Inquisitor-Gen. In 1233 Pope Gregory IX set up in each parish a committee to search out and bring before bishops all those who were adjudged heretics. Such persons were examined, and if found guilty were excommunicated and handed over to the civil arm for physical punishment, which included torture and death by burning. Sicily received the Inquisition in 1224, Aragon in 1233, Venice in 1249, France in 1327.
The Spanish Inquisition, a civil tribunal, was formed in Castile in 1478. The Tribunal was erected in Sept. 1480, and commenced its operations at Seville, under the Inquisitor-Gen. Torquemada in 1481. It was firmly established in Spain in 1483; Portugal, 1526, and Mexico and Peru in 1571. The Inquisition was suppressed in France in 1598; Tuscany and Naples, 1782; Spain 1808, but revivals took place until c 1820 when the institution was finally abolished.”
Finally abolished? What does “the more sure word of prophecy” (1 Pet. 1: 19-21) reveal for the last days? In God We Trust for He will never leave us nor forsake us. See Hebrews 13: 5, 6.
(Continued next week).