FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
August 9
THE GOSPEL OF CHRISTIANITY’S CHRIST VS THE ‘GOSPEL’ OF ROME’S ANTICHRIST – (Part 16)
Webster’s Dictionary, Student Edition, 1976, defines Papacy as:
“1. The position or authority of the Pope
- The period during which the Pope rules
- The line or succession of popes
- The government of the Roman Catholic Church headed by the pope.”
Edwardson says: “But Catholics deny that the Papacy is the Antichrist, for say they, Antichrist is to come in the last days.
To this we answer: It is true that both Paul and John speak of the activity of the Antichrist at the time of Christ’s second coming, but they [both apostles] ALSO speak of its already having BEGUN IN THEIR DAY (1 John 2:18; 2 Thess. 2: 7).
“There is a BEAUTIFUL HARMONY in this when we look at it in the light of Rev. 13: 3, 5, 10 and 17: 8, where it is stated that this power will ‘continue forty-two’ prophetic months or 1, 260 literal years [a day in prophetic time is a year of 360 days, Num. 14: 34; Eze. 4: 6; Gen. 7, 8], after which it is ‘wounded to death’ and lies dormant for a time till its ‘deadly wound is healed,’ and all the ‘world will follow it ‘in wonder and admiration,’ and finally will be destroyed at Christ’s second coming. [See Rev.. 19: 19,20; 20: 10. 11; the ‘beast’ of prophecy is another symbol of the Antichrist, as well as ‘Mystery Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and the abominations of the earth, the Woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.’ See Revelation 17, etc. ].
“So the Antichrist of the LAST DAYS is simply the Papacy RESTORED to power. See ‘Romanism and the Reformation,’ by H. Grattan Guinness, F.R.G.S., and ‘The Papacy,’ by Dr. J. A. Wylie.’ – Christian Edwardson, ‘Facts of Faith.’ Revised, pp. 209-10, Southern Publishing Asso. TN: 1943.
(To be continued). Bless all, NMF