Tag: apostasy

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Devotionals

APOSTASY: PREPARED THE WAY OF THE PAPACY FIRST, THEN THE IMAGE OF THE BEAST

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

APOSTASY: PREPARED THE WAY FOF THE PAPACY FIRST, THEN THE IMAGE OF THE BEAST

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come [Christ’s second advent], except there come a falling away [apostasy] first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” 2 Thess. 2:3, KJV.

“When the early church became corrupted by departing  from the simplicity of the gospel and accepting heathen rites and customs  [as we have been tracking in church and secular history] she LOST the Spirit and power of God; and in order to CONTROL the consciences of the people, she sought the support of the secular power. The result was the PAPACY, a CHURCH that CONTRoLLED the power of the STATE and employed it to further her own ends, especially the PUNISHMENT OF ‘HERESY.’

“Whenever [and wherever] the church has obtained secular power, she had employed it to punish DISSENT from HER doctrines. PROTESTANT CHURCHES [whether Evangelical, Pentecostal, or Apostolic, etc.] that have followed in the steps of Rome in forming alliance with WORLDLY POWERS have manifested a similar desire to RESTRICT LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. An example of this is given in the the long-continued persecution of dissenters in the CHURCH OF ENGLAND. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, THOUSANDS of nonconformist ministers were forced to FLEE from their churches, and many, both of pastors and people, were subjected to FINE, IMPRISONMENT, TORTURE, AND MARTYRDOM.

“It was apostasy that led the EARLY CHURCH to seek the aid of civil government, and this prepared for the development of the Papacy—-THE BEAST. Said Paul [2 Thess. 2:3 quoted]. So apostasy IN THE CHURCH will prepare the way for the IMAGE TO THE BEAST.

“Satan will work with all power and deceivableness of unrighteousness.’ 2 Thess. 2:9,10. His working is plainly revealed by the RAPIDLY increasing darkness, the MULTITUDINOUS errors, heresies, and delusions in these last days. Not only is Satan leading the WORLD captive, but his DECEPTIONS are leavening the PROFESSED CHURCHES of our Lord Jesus Christ. The GREAT APOSTASY [in these professed Christian churches] will develop into DARKNESS DEEP AS MIDNIGHT. To God’s [faithful and true] people it will be a night of trial, a night of weeping, a night of persecution for the TRUTH’S SAKE. But out of that night of darkness God’s LIGHT will shine!” – E. G. White, Maranatha, p. 165.

The time of test is rapidly approaching! “Quit ye like men and be strong” “in the Lord and in the power of His might.” Bless all, NMF 

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Devotionals

THE ROMAN CHURCH HAS LONG APOSTATIZED: WHAT ABOUT THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES?

December 4, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

THE ROMAN CHURCH HAS LONG APOSTATIZED: WHAT ABOUT THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES?

“Now, long after the Sabbath has been changed, Protestants are at a loss to find authority in the Bible for this change. They have rejected the authority of the Roman Church to LEGISLATE on Christian faith, and cannot accept TRADITION, therefore THEY NOT WHERE TO TURN.

“Professor George Sverdrup, a leading man in the Lutheran Church, gives expression to this predicament in the following words:

“For, when there could not be produced ONE solitary place in the Holy Scriptures which testified that either the Lord Himself or the apostles had ordered such a TRANSFER of the Sabbath to Sunday, then it was not easy to answer the question: WHO has transferred the Sabbath, and who has had the RIGHT to do it?’ – ‘Samlede Skrifter i Uvalg, Andrea Helland, Vol. 1, p. 342, 343. Minneapolis, Minn.: 1909.

Next week, we will read what the Vicar of Leeds said about the same predicament of the Sunday-keeping Protestant Christians way back in 1856. Bless all as we educate ourselves on the true philosophy of history regarding nations and kingdoms, as well as New Testament church history as revealed in Bible prophecy. Bless all, NMF.

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Devotionals

PAUL’S PROPHESIED ‘FALLING AWAY’ OR GREAT APOSTASY OF THE EARLY CHURCH

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK: 

PAUL’S PROPHESIED ‘FALLING AWAY’ OR GREAT APOSTASY OF THE EARLY CHURCH 

“Now brethren, concerning the (second) coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you to not too shaken in mind and troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come.

Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless THE FALLING AWAY comes first, and THE MAN OF SIN be revealed, THE SON OF PERDITION, who opposes and exalts himself ABOVE all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” 2 Thess. 2:1-4, NKJV (See verses 5-12).  

Apostle Paul was not only the quintessential apostle to the Gentiles; he was a prophet, too. He foretold of the great apostasy of the Church, described as the “falling away” and the earliest beginnings of the development of the Papacy.

The book of Hebrews was written first to the early Christians who expected Jesus to return soon in their time by revealing to them, and to our time as well, that Christ would not come before the papacy would have been fully exposed by the third angel’s message, and by providing the details of Christ’s penultimate office closing work in the heavenly sanctuary as the merciful High Priest, all-powerful Mediator, Advocate and Intercessor for His faithful followers on earth, and in closing, the righteous Judge of all the earth and mankind.

As Paul wrote in Romans, “For we shally stand before the judgment seat of Christ.”  “So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God.” Rom. 14:10,12. Paul here is echoing and re-emphasizing to the New Testament Christian what Solomon wrote in the Old Testament:   “Let us hear the CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER: Fear God and keep His commandments: for this is the WHOLE DUTY of man.

For God shall bring EVERY WORK INTO JUDGMENT, with every SECRET thing, whether if it be good or whether it be evil.” Eccl. 12:13,14, KJV.   Now, back to more recorded historical details of this great “falling away.”   “Speaking of this great immoral pagan feast [Sun worship] Cardinal Newman says: ‘It certainly is possible that the consciousness of the sanctifying power in Christianity may have acted as a TEMPTATION to sins, whether of DECEIT or VIOLENCE; as if the habit or state of GRACE destroyed the sinfulness of certain acts, or as if THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS.’-‘ Development of Christian Doctrine,’ p. 379. London: 1878.  

Here we see the seeds of the distortion and corruption of the meaning and purpose of ‘grace’ as is taught in the Christian mainstream today! Also, the Jesuit brainchild of “the end justifies the means” finds its earliest origins at time, as an eminent Roman Catholic author, Cardinal Newman, wrote in his book.  More tomorrow. God bless, NMF

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Devotionals

THE ENMITY IN GOD’S GRACE

September 2, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

THE ENMITY IN GOD’S GRACE

The apostle Paul declared: “For I am not ashamed of the GOSPEL of Christ; for it is the POWER unto salvation to everyone that believes…for therein is the righteousness of God revealed” by whom we have received GRACE and apostleship for OBEDIENCE to the faith among all nations, for His name.”  Rom. 1: 16, 17, 5, 6.

“I will put ENMITY between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, and thou shalt bruise his head.’ Gen. 3:15. The divine sentence pronounced against Satan after the fall of man, was also a prophecy, embracing all ages to the close of time, and FORESHADOWING the great conflict [or controversy] to engage ALL the races of men [not only black or white] who should live upon the earth.”

Continue reading “THE ENMITY IN GOD’S GRACE”
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Devotionals

GRACE OF HUMILITY: ANTIDOTE TO APOSTASY

July 8 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

GRACE OF HUMILITY: ANTIDOTE TO APOSTASY

“Draw nigh (near) unto God and He will draw nigh unto you. Cleanse your hands ye sinners [from the spiritual ‘coronavirus’]; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded.”

James 4:8, Authorized Version

“The nearer the Christian lives to God, the more he advances in divine illumination of mind. He has more distinct sense of his own littleness, discerns his defects of character, and sees his duty in the light in which God presents it.

“The more closely he draws to Jesus, the more he has a bear and clear sense of his defects which had before escaped his notice, and he sees the necessity of humbling himself under the mighty hand of God.

Continue reading “GRACE OF HUMILITY: ANTIDOTE TO APOSTASY”
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Devotionals

BEWARE OF OUR OLD SUPERSTITIONS & FEARS

June 5, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

BEWARE OF OUR OLD SUPERSTITIONS & FEARS

As the Israelites impatiently waited for Moses (reminding us of how impatiently the first king of Israel, Saul, waited for prophet Samuel, and committed his first apostasy), something happened that lead worst things:

“Feeling their HELPLESSNESS in the absence  of their leader, they RETURNED  to their OLD SUPERSTITIONS.

“The ‘mixed multitude’ had been the first to INDULGE murmurings and impatience, and they were the LEADERS in the APOSTASY that followed.

Continue reading “BEWARE OF OUR OLD SUPERSTITIONS & FEARS”
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FMM

Are We Preparing for the Latter Rain?– Part XXIV
A Victorious, Overcoming People (continued)

lonigonzalezvictorious chargecrop

Photo Credit by Flickr/loni gonzalez

More and more conscientious people everywhere are alarmed at the moral decadence and self-indulgence threatening the very of core of human society of this generation of boasted advancement in education, technology, and enlightenment. How soon we forget the revolting results of the French Revolution where Reason was worshipped over Deity, Jesus was called a “wretch,” and the Bible burned publicly.

Both human history and Bible prophecy testify how earth’s greatest kingdoms and empires crumbled away—when, at the height of earthly power and prosperity of their time, they succumbed to gross idolatry, unbridled self-indulgence, and apostasy. Thus they fell, starting with the first atheistic empire, Egypt, Neo-Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Greece (Macedonian), and the Roman pagan empire. Revelation 13’s predictive prophecy of divine foreknowledge clearly reveals that America, “the greatest and most favored nation upon the earth,” will not return to its original nature as refuge for the persecuted and oppressed that it once was. However, the coming final war “will not be between rival churches contending for the supremacy,” “but between the religion of the Bible and the religion of fable and tradition.” It will be “the last great conflict of the controversy between truth and error.” We are now entering into it.

However, until national apostasy results in national ruin, and rapidly becomes global for “the the final events will be rapid ones,” for now, just as it was in the time of Israel’s national apostasy: “Elijah had thought that he alone in Israel was a worshipper of the true God. But He who reads the

Continue reading “Are We Preparing for the Latter Rain?– Part XXIV
A Victorious, Overcoming People (continued)”