Church of God News

Anthony Levandowski
(Kaxelrod photo via Wikipedia)

COGwriter

Notice something related to Hillary Clinton back in 2015:

Hillary Clinton: Religious Beliefs Must Be Changed to Achieve Social Justice

April 24, 2015

In a fiery speech Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton argues that deep seated religious beliefs must be changed so that everyone can enjoy full participation in every aspect of society.

Clinton, speaking in Manhattan on Thursday at the sixth annual Women in The World Summit, declared that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases” must be changed both in the U.S. and around the world in order to achieve social justice.

Clinton, after discussing the pressing social justice issues of domestic violence and women’s reproductive health, said:

Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.

As I have said and as I believe, the advancement of the full participation of women and girls in every aspect of their societies is the great unfinished business of the 21st century and not just for women but for everyone — and not just in far away countries but right here in the United States.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2015/04/hillary-clinton-religious-beliefs-must-be-changed-to-achieve-social-justice/#sthash.u8Q6OrVv.dpuf

Hillary Clinton wants religious views changed so that people will embrace abortion, homosexuality, and other immoral positions that Christians should condemn. She does not seem to be in full agreement of the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States on religious liberties–yet her name has been in the news again recently as a possible choice for the Democratic party’s presidential nominee.

Anyway, her statements related to changing religion were wrong and blasphemous.

However, others have also been working on making up religions, sometimes involving artificial intelligence.

ZeroHedge reported the following:

Former Google Engineer Pardoned By Trump Reboots ‘AI Church’

November 26, 2023

Anthony Levandowski, a name synonymous with the pioneering of self-driving technology and a figure shrouded in Silicon Valley controversy, has made headlines again. This time, it’s not about groundbreaking tech advancements or legal battles, but something far more unorthodox: the resurrection of his AI-centric church, “Way of the Future.”

The church was originally launched in 2015, while Levandowski, while working on Google’s self-driving project Waymo. It was an ambitious endeavor, aiming to merge technology and spirituality by fostering a “spiritual connection” with AI. Despite its closure a few years later, Levandowski’s renewed venture, as discussed on Bloomberg’s AI IRL podcast, has already attracted a “couple thousand people,” Bloomberg reports. …

According to Levandowski, more sophisticated AI systems could help guide humans with moral, ethical or existential questions.

“Here we’re actually creating things that can see everything, be everywhere, know everything, and maybe help us and guide us in a way that normally you would call God,” he said. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/former-google-engineer-pardoned-trump-reboots-ai-church

Like Hillary Clinton’s statements, Anthony Levandowski’s are wrong and blasphemous.

Here is something else about something claimed to be a techno-religion:

Joe Allen: Transhumanism as Techno-Religion

September 12, 2023

The promises of transhumanism are many and appealing. In reality, transhumanist reality would be hell on Earth, warns Joe Allen, author and transhumanist editor of War Room: Pandemic.

In this interview with The New American, Mr. Allen dives deep into the essence of transhumanism as a technocratic worldview that fills the vacuum that is left in the absence of traditional religions. That worldview, as illustrated, among others, by one of the most influential transhumanists, Ray Kurtzweil, regards technology as the highest power in the universe. In it, people’s salvation comes from technological manipulations in the realms of nanotechnology, robotics, and genomics that would peak in the emergence of the all-powerful “God” of artificial intelligence (AI). That essentially apocalyptic point that Kurzweil called the Singularity would wipe away the old world. In practical terms, transhumanism principally orients the soul towards technology and establishes a strict regime run by algorithms where people’s lives become automated, digitalized and stripped of free will. Notably, societies and individuals are already immersed in this regime to various degrees.

Transhumanism, said the editor, “is profound worldly power in direct opposition to God, to the source from which we come, and to our ultimate destination. And I see this as being probably a very painful moment in human history as we go forward.”  https://thenewamerican.com/video/joe-allen-transhumanism-as-techno-religion/

Well, globalists are basically against the God of the Bible and many of the so-called elite of this world want to make a god in their own image.

The Bible warns that before the Day of the Lord (Isaiah 2:11), the following will happen:

8 Their land is also full of idols;
They worship the work of their own hands,
That which their own fingers have made. (Isaiah 2:8)

The transhumanist agenda is consistent with the above prophecy.

Those of us who believe the Bible realize that Jesus:

9 … became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him. (Hebrews 5:9)

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

It is because of God’s love and Jesus’ sacrifice that we can have immortality–eternal life.

No man-made religion can provide that.

Yet, there is even a false AI Jesus. Related to that, we put out the following video:

14:48

AI Jesus? Artificial Intelligence God?

We are seeing more and more steps to incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) in with matters of religion. From a Protestant sermon via AI, to PETA blaspheming God by re-writing a false account of the Book of Genesis, to Yuval Noah Harari of the World Economic Form (WEF) calling for a new globalist religion and Bible to be produced by AI, things like ChatGPT are being used. There is also an AI thing called “ask Jesus” which has a false Messiah who does not always provide biblically-accurate statements. Many humans want to worship “the work of their hands.” Is that warned against in scripture? Where is this leading? Might the “image of the beast” be demonic and/or involve AI and the Antichrist? Do humans know the way that is right that does not lead to death? Dr. Thiel and Steve Dupuie address these matters.

Here is a link to our video: AI Jesus? Artificial Intelligence God?

In the past, the World Economic Forum (WEF) posted:

The central premise of transhumanism, then, is that biological evolution will eventually be overtaken by advances in genetic, wearable and implantable technologies that artificially expedite the evolutionary process. 04/10/2018 https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/04/transhumanism-advances-in-technology-could-already-put-evolution-into-hyperdrive-but-should-they/

Now, let’s look at the following report related to the founder of the WEF:

Globalist Klaus Schwab made it clear that transhumanism is an integral part of “The Great Reset” when he said that the fourth industrial revolution would “lead to a fusion of our physical, digital and biological identity,” which in his book he clarifies is implantable microchips that can read your thoughts. …

The agenda is primarily based around dismantling the current capitalist system in favor of greater centralized technocrat rule which will lead to lower living standards, less fuel consumption, fewer civil liberties and the accelerated automation of jobs. …

“What the fourth industrial revolution will lead to is a fusion of our physical, digital and biological identity,” Schwab told the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. …

“As capabilities in this area improve, the temptation for law enforcement agencies and courts to use techniques to determine the likelihood of criminal activity, assess guilt or even possibly retrieve memories directly from people’s brains will increase,” writes Schwab.

“Even crossing a national border might one day involve a detailed brain scan to assess an individual’s security risk.”

Schwab also waxes lyrical about the transhumanist utopian dream shared by all elitists which will ultimately lead to the creation of human cyborgs.

“Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies will not stop at becoming part of the physical world around us—they will become part of us,” writes Schwab.

“Indeed, some of us already feel that our smartphones have become an extension of ourselves.

“Today’s external devices — from wearable computers to virtual reality headsets — will almost certainly become implantable in our bodies and brains.” 11/17/20 https://humansbefree.com/2020/11/klaus-schwab-great-reset-implantable-microchips.html

SpaceX and Neuralink founder Elon Musk suggested that in order for humans to stay relevant in the age of AI, we must merge with machines. He’s not alone. … transhumanism, an idea proposed by World Economic Forum (WEF) founder Klaus Schwab in his book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution. In a 2021 interview with 60 Minutes, a prominent WEF member, Yuval Noah Harari, stated: “We will soon have the power to re-engineer our bodies and brains, whether it is with genetic engineering or by directly connecting brains to computers or by creating completely non-organic entities—artificial intelligence (AI)—which is not based at all on the organic body or the organic brain. And these technologies are developing at breakneck speed.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2022/09/09/communicating-futuristic-concepts-perception-is-everything/?sh=414563aa1e9b

Although the Vatican supports the WEF and many aspects of the transhumanist agenda, there are some Roman Catholic leaders with concerns about it.

Furthermore, there is even a Roman Catholic prophecy warning against it:

Anna-Katarina Emmerick (19th century): I saw again a new and odd-looking Church which they were trying to build. There was nothing holy about it… (Dupont Y. Catholic Prophecy: The Coming Chastisement. TAN Books, Rockford (IL), 1973, ,p. 116).

Yves Dupont {Roman Catholic writer interpreting A. Emmerick}: They wanted to make a new Church, a Church of human manufacture, but God had other designs…The Holy Father shall have to leave Rome, and he shall die a cruel death. An anti-pope shall be set up in Rome (Dupont, p. 116).

A while back, a reader sent me a link related to the following by Archbishop Carlo Maira Viganò:

July 28, 2021

Francis has once again disavowed the pious illusion of the hermeneutic of continuity, … there is a blatant difference in behavior, from which one can grasp the partiality and partisanship of Francis in favor of any ideology, thought, project, scientific, artistic or literary expression that is not Catholic. …

Not only does he not condemn abortionist politicians who proclaim themselves Catholics, but he intervenes to prevent the Episcopal Conference from pronouncing on this matter,  …

A duplicity that is a façade, of course, daily disavowed by positions that are anything but prudent in favor of a very specific group, which for the sake of brevity we can identify with the ideological Left, indeed with its most recent evolution in a globalist, ecologist, transhuman and LGBTQ key. …

I think that it has been understood that both civil society and the Church suffer from the same cancer that struck the former with the French Revolution and the latter with the Second Vatican Council: in both cases, Masonic thought is at the foundation of the systematic demolition of the institution and its replacement with a simulacrum that maintains its external appearances, hierarchical structure, and coercive force, but with purposes diametrically opposed to those it ought to have.  https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/5508-the-stones-cry-out-archbishop-vigano-on-traditionis-custodes/

The WEF, along with the Vatican and many of the Freemasons, wants to have Europe arise, dominate the world economically, and put in place its secularist technological agenda.

They believe that will result in peace.

However, the Bible teaches:

10 As it is written:

“There is none righteous, no, not one;
11 There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
12 They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.”
13 “Their throat is an open tomb;
With their tongues they have practiced deceit”;
“The poison of asps is under their lips”;
14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways;
17 And the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”  (Romans 3:10-18)

Those pushing artificial religion do not have a proper fear of God and do not know the way of peace.

The Bible further warns in Romans 1, “against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (verse 18) and those “Professing to be wise” who “became fools” (verse 22).

Related to the transhumanist agenda, we have the following related video:

14:48

Transhumanist Religion?

What is transhumanism? Have billionaires and globalists pushed for aspects of it? What about Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum? Is it a type of secular religion that wants to move pass limits of the human body and brain? What about the Vatican, Pope Francis, or the Freemasons? Is it a false religion? Did Archbishop Carlo Maira Viganò warn against it? Did Could it involve Artificial Intelligence? Did Ray Kurtzweil and Yuval Noah Harar promote it? Does the Bible warn about aspects of transhumanist or AI? Can transhumanism bring eternal life or is Jesus needed for that? Does the Bible point to world leaders using religion to promote a globalist agenda? Will Europe or Rome be involved? Could the Beast to come feign Roman Catholicism and help try to change it? Are his followers prophesied to betray the city of seven hills/mountains? Steve Dupuie and Dr.Thiel go over these matters.

Here is a link to our video: Transhumanist Religion?

Another thing the anti-true-God mob supports is re-writing the Bible–which is not something they can truly do, but they can pretend. Related to one of those attempts, we put together the following video:

Here is a link to our video: PETA’s Preposterous Preaching.

Many are working towards a world of digital controls with artificial religion that will not lead to liberty.

The good news, however, is that the world that the globalists and transhumanists are working on will be replaced by the coming Kingdom of God (cf. Revelation 17:14, 19:1-21).

Some items of related interest may include:

When Will the Great Tribulation Begin? 2023, 2024, or 2025? Can the Great Tribulation begin today? What happens before the Great Tribulation in the “beginning of sorrows”? What happens in the Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord? Is this the time of the Gentiles? When is the earliest that the Great Tribulation can begin? What is the Day of the Lord? Who are the 144,000? Here is a version of the article in the Spanish language: ¿Puede la Gran Tribulación comenzar en el 2020 o 2021? ¿Es el Tiempo de los Gentiles? A related video is: Great Tribulation: 2026 or 2027? A shorter video is: Can the Great Tribulation start in 2022 or 2023? Notice also: Can Jesus return in 2023 or 2024? Here is a video in the Spanish language: Es El 2021 el año  de La Gran Tribulación o el Grande Reseteo Financiero.
Is a Great Reset Coming? Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum has proposed a societal change that has been basically endorsed by the Vatican and many world leaders. Does the Bible prophesy a major reset? Here is a link to a related video: Will there be a “Great Reset”?
Beliefs of the Original Catholic Church: Could a remnant group have continuing apostolic succession? Did the original “catholic church” have doctrines held by the Continuing Church of God? Did Church of God leaders uses the term “catholic church” to ever describe the church they were part of? Here are links to related sermons: Original Catholic Church of God?, Original Catholic Doctrine: Creed, Liturgy, Baptism, Passover, What Type of Catholic was Polycarp of Smyrna?, Tradition, Holy Days, Salvation, Dress, & Celibacy, Early Heresies and Heretics, Doctrines: 3 Days, Abortion, Ecumenism, Meats, Tithes, Crosses, Destiny, and more, Saturday or Sunday?, The Godhead, Apostolic Laying on of Hands Succession, Church in the Wilderness Apostolic Succession List, Holy Mother Church and Heresies, and Lying Wonders and Original Beliefs. Here is a link to that book in the Spanish language: Creencias de la iglesia Católica original.
Freemasonry and the Destruction of Rome? What is Freemasonry? What about ties to the Illuminati? Could they be involved in the fulfillment of prophecy? Here is a link to a related sermon: Freemasonry, Armageddon, and Rome.
Will the Interfaith Movement Lead to Peace or Sudden Destruction? Is the interfaith movement going to lead to lasting peace or is it warned against? A video sermon of related interest is: Will the Interfaith Movement lead to World War III? and a video sermon is also available: Do You Know That Babylon is Forming?
Satan’s Plan Does Satan have a plan? What is it? Has it already been successful? Will it be successful in the future? Here are links to a two-part sermon series: What are Some of the Parts of Satan’s Plan? and Satan’s Plan is More Dramatic than Many Realize.
Mystery of Iniquity What is the mystery of iniquity? How did it start? How will it end? Two related sermons are also available: The Mystery of Iniquity and The Mystery of Lawlessness.
The ‘Peace Deal’ of Daniel 9:27 This prophecy could give up to 3 1/2 years advance notice of the coming Great Tribulation. Will most ignore or misunderstand its fulfillment? Here is a link to a related sermon video Daniel 9:27 and the Start of the Great Tribulation.
Beware: Protestants Going Towards Ecumenical Destruction! What is going on in the Protestant world? Are Protestants turning back to their ‘mother church’ in Rome? Does the Bible warn about this? What are Catholic plans and prophecies related to this? Is Protestantism doomed? See also World Council of Churches Peace Plan.
Hope of Salvation: How the Continuing Church of God Differs from Protestantism The CCOG is NOT Protestant. This free online book explains how the real Church of God differs from mainstream/traditional Protestants. Several sermons related to the free book are also available: Protestant, Baptist, and CCOG History; The First Protestant, God’s Command, Grace, & Character; The New Testament, Martin Luther, and the Canon; Eucharist, Passover, and Easter; Views of Jews, Lost Tribes, Warfare, & Baptism; Scripture vs. Tradition, Sabbath vs. Sunday; Church Services, Sunday, Heaven, and God’s Plan; Seventh Day Baptists/Adventists/Messianics: Protestant or COG?; Millennial Kingdom of God and God’s Plan of Salvation; Crosses, Trees, Tithes, and Unclean Meats; The Godhead and the Trinity; Fleeing or Rapture?; and Ecumenism, Rome, and CCOG Differences.
Lost Tribes and Prophecies: What will happen to Australia, the British Isles, Canada, Europe, New Zealand and the United States of America? Where did those people come from? Can you totally rely on DNA? What about other peoples? Do you really know what will happen to Europe and the English-speaking peoples? What about Africa, Asia, South America, and the Islands? This free online book provides scriptural, scientific, historical references, and commentary to address those matters. Here are links to related sermons: Lost tribes, the Bible, and DNA; Lost tribes, prophecies, and identifications; 11 Tribes, 144,000, and Multitudes; Israel, Jeremiah, Tea Tephi, and British Royalty; Gentile European Beast; Royal Succession, Samaria, and Prophecies; Asia, Islands, Latin America, Africa, and Armageddon;  When Will the End of the Age Come?;  Rise of the Prophesied King of the North; Christian Persecution from the Beast; WWIII and the Coming New World Order; and Woes, WWIV, and the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
What is the Unpardonable Sin? What is it? Can you repent of it? Do you know what it is and how to avoid it? Here is a link to a related sermon video The Unpardonable Sin and the Prodigal Son.
United Nations: Humankind’s Last Hope or New World Order? Is the UN the last hope for humanity? Or might its goals end up with sinister results? Two related videos include UN’s ‘New Universal Agenda’ is a False Gospel! and United Nations and Vatican Are Planning the New World Order.
What is the Origin of the Cross as a ‘Christian’ Symbol? Was the cross used as a venerated symbol by the early Church? Two related YouTube videos would be Beware of the ‘Ecumenical Cross’ and Origin of the Cross.
Laudato Si: Pope’s Agenda or Kingdom of God? Pope Francis’ 2nd encyclical is titled ‘Laudato Si.’ In it, he goes over his views related to environmental, economic, social, moral, agricultural, and spiritual issues. He advocates international cooperation to solve various problems he believes are affecting humanity. Is that Pope’s agenda the solution? What about the Kingdom of God? does the Bible teach? Two related articles include Laudato Si: Will Pope Francis’ economic actions match his words? and Laudato Si: A call for a one-world government?
The Gospel of the Kingdom of God This free online pdf booklet has answers many questions people have about the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and explains why it is the solution to the issues the world is facing. It is available in hundreds of languages at ccog.org. Here are links to four kingdom-related sermons:  The Fantastic Gospel of the Kingdom of God!, The World’s False Gospel, The Gospel of the Kingdom: From the New and Old Testaments, and The Kingdom of God is the Solution.

COGwriter

With Hamas’ brutal attack on October 7, 2023, and partially because of Israel’s responses, we have seen a rise in anti-semitism.

There is a long history of anti-semitism.

Israel365 News posted the following:

November 24, 2022

The recent surge in antisemitism from the black community regurgitates age-old tropes, namely that another group has replaced the Jews as God’s Chosen People.

When Christianity first broke off from Judaism 2,000 years ago, the younger religion claimed that their “New” Testament replaced the “Old” one, and that they were the New Israel.

Known as Replacement Theology, this hostile belief arrived on the shores of the New World with the Puritans and cast a dark shadow over the first Thanksgiving.

Kanye West caused an uproar a few weeks ago when he began publicly ranting about powerful Jews. He then defended his offensive remarks by claiming, “I can’t be antisemitic because Black people are actually Jewish” (sic) “also… When I say ‘Jew’ I mean the twelve lost tribes of Judah, the blood of Christ, who the people know as the race Black really are. This is who our people are. The blood of Christ. This, as a Christian, is my belief.”

NBA superstar Kyrie Irving followed Kanye by promoting a hateful Holocaust-denying book, Hebrews to Negroes and responded to criticism by echoing West’s argument that black people are the true Hebrews and so he can’t be antisemitic.

Kanye and Kyrie were merely repeating themes made four hundred years earlier, by the founders of Thanksgiving.

Upon fleeing Europe, the Pilgrims looked to the Bible for guidance as they saw themselves escaping religious oppression.

They viewed King James as the brutal Pharaoh and felt justified in casting off their yoke of bondage. They referred to their voyage on the Mayflower as passing through the Red Sea and when they arrived safely in their Promised Land, they offered prayers of thanksgiving.

There was no room for living Jews in their theology.

The Puritans’ love for the Bible did not lead to love toward the Jewish people, on the contrary. Since they believed they had replaced the Jews, there was no room for living Jews in their theology, or in their new world.

When the first group of Jews arrived in New Amsterdam in 1654, Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesent strongly objected to their settlement in his colony. Stuyvesant wrote to the Dutch West India Company, “we pray that the deceitful race – such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ – be not allowed to further infect and trouble this new colony.”

Connecticut colony’s 1662 royal charter considered Judaism a heresy and denied Jews the right to pray as a group, vote or hold public office. Decades later, New England’s leading public figure Cotton Mather was so convinced that the Puritans had replaced the Jews, that he began wearing a skullcap and calling himself a rabbi while writing a textbook on converting Jews to Christianity.

Since there were not that many actual Jews living in the New World at the time, other colonizing Europeans came up with a theory that the Native Americans were the Lost Tribes of Israel, prompting the Puritans to begin converting them with great zeal.

Many diverse groups from white Puritans to Black Hebrews have claimed to replace the Jewish People, so how should Jews respond? Thanksgiving reminds us not only of the historic dangers of Replacement Theology, but contains the anecdote to its cure.

After all, while the Puritans manipulated the message of the Bible, their influence gradually faded while the Jewish community came to thrive in the United States.

Jews have made peace with the cherished American holiday despite its hostile origins, thanks to the timeless biblical message that Thanksgiving provides. https://www.israel365news.com/360783/thanksgiving-pilgrims-antisemitism-inherited-by-kanye-kyrie/

Protestant replacement theology, like many aspects of Protestantism, is wrong. For more on end-time Hebrews, check out the free online book: Lost Tribes and Prophecies: What will happen to Australia, the British Isles, Canada, Europe, New Zealand and the United States of America? For more on the history and errors of Protestantism, check out the free online book: Hope of Salvation: How the Continuing Church of God Differs from Protestantism.

Anti-semitism has been a factor in the Greco-Roman Catholic as well as Protestant religions for a long time–even though the ORIGINAL catholic church was considered to basically be Jewish and was not anti-Semitic (for details, check out the free online book: Beliefs of the Original Catholic Church: Could a remnant group have continuing apostolic succession?).

But for those who were not truly converted, anti-semitism crept in. It is not that all Greco-Roman Catholics and Protestants are anti-Semitic, it is just that many of their important early leaders and influencers were.

Before getting to them, let me point out that the ideas that the Hebrews were black and the Jews are not really Jews are historically inaccurate.

Here is a link to an article with many photographs, scriptures, and historical references which has the truth about that: Were the Ancient Tribes of Israel Black? Was Jesus Black?

Furthermore, this is also covered, but with less detail, in our free online book: Lost Tribes and Prophecies: What will happen to Australia, the British Isles, Canada, Europe, New Zealand and the United States of America?

We covered that in two sermons. Here are links: Were Ancient Hebrews Black? What About Jesus? and Lost tribes, prophecies, and identifications.

If we start with the pagan, Roman emperor Constantine in the fourth century (who is considered as an Eastern Orthodox saint), we note that he stated:

Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Saviour a different way. (Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, Book III chapter 18)

The way that Jesus, who was Jewish, taught differently was love. Jesus never taught to have ‘nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd.’ Roman Catholics refer to Constantine as ‘Constantine the Great,’ but he obviously held anti-semitic views.

Around 332, Constantine issued what is known as the Edict Against the Heretics which included persecution against Christians who held to the original faith and had practices, such as observing the date of Passover on the same as the Jews (see also Persecutions by Church and State).

In 387, the Eastern Orthodox saint and bishop John Chrysostom preached the following:

The festivals of the pitiful and miserable Jews are soon to march upon us one after the other and in quick succession: the feast of Trumpets, the feast of Tabernacles, the fasts. There are many in our ranks who say they think as we do. Yet some of these are going to watch the festivals and others will join the Jews in keeping their feasts and observing their fasts. I wish to drive this perverse custom from the Church right now…If the Jewish ceremonies are venerable and great, ours are lies…Does God hate their festivals and do you share in them? He did not say this or that festival, but all of them together. (John Chrysostom. Homily I Against the Jews I:5;VI:5;VII:2. Preached at Antioch, Syria in the Fall of 387 AD. Medieval Sourcebook: Saint John Chrysostom (c.347-407) : Eight Homilies Against the Jews. Fordham University. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/chrysostom-jews6.html 12/10/05).

John Chrysostom preached the following in his Homily Against the Jews (of which there are at least eight anti-Semitic homilies):

But do not be surprised that I called the Jews pitiable. They really are pitiable and miserable (I:II:1).

So the godlessness of the Jews and the pagans is on a par. But the Jews practice a deceit which is more dangerous (I:VI:4).

Do you see that demons dwell in their souls and that these demons are more dangerous than the ones of old? (I:VI:7).

Since it is against the Jews that I wish to draw up my battle line, let me extend my instruction further. Let me show that, by fasting now, the Jews dishonor the law and trample underfoot God’s commands because they are always doing everything contrary to his decrees. When God wished them to fast, they got fat and flabby (VI:IV:2).

Indeed, the fasting of the Jews, which is more disgraceful than any drunkenness, is over and gone (VIII:I:5).

John Chrysostom is considered to be a major Roman Catholic saint. He is one of the four ‘doctors of the church’ who is shown supporting a large black chair that is called the Cathedra Petri (Chair of Peter) in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. The late Joseph Tkach of the old Worldwide Church of God once referred to this chair as Satan’s throne (see Might Satan’s throne be the ‘Cathedra Petri’?).

The improperly named Protestant publication Christianity Today once had a link titled, “Person of the Week: John Chrysostom” which went to an article titled: John Chrysostom Early church’s greatest preacher. So, many Protestants too, endorse an Antisemite. More on him can be found in the article John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople and Antisemite.

It perhaps should be pointed out that sometimes those in the true Church of God have been considered to secretly be Jews by some in Greco-Roman faiths:

In the Middle Ages, the Popes and the Councils were successful in destroying the Jewish revolutionary movements which appeared within Christianity in the form of false teaching and which were introduced by those who were Christians in appearance but Jews in secret. The latter then recruited upright and good Christians for the arising heretical movement by persuading the latter in a crafty way.

The secret Jews organised and controlled in secret manner the movements, which were the creative and driving force of wicked false teachings, such as those of the Iconoclasts, the Cathars, the Patarines, the Albigensians, the Hussites, the Alumbrados and others. (Pinay, Maurice. The Plot Against the Church, Part Four Chapter One. Translated from the German and Spanish editions of the same work. 1962)

The above book is still recommended by and for many Roman Catholics (though some others distance themselves from it). Hence, some of the Greco-Romans have considered some, of whom we in the Continuing Church of God include in our tracing of our spiritual ancestors (like some of the Cathars and Albigenses), to have been a secret Jewish group that only professed Christ.

As far as Protestant leaders themselves with anti-Semitic views, one can notice some of the teachings of Martin Luther, who wrote in the 16th century:

My heart is fuller of these thoughts than my tongue can tell. I have come to the conclusion that the Jews will always curse and blaspheme God as all the prophets have predicted. He who neither reads nor understands this, as yet knows no theology, in my opinion. And so I presume the men of Cologne cannot understand the Scripture, because it is necessary that such things take place to fulfill prophecy. If they are trying to stop the Jews blaspheming, they are working to prove the Bible and God liars (“Martin Luther’s to George Spalatin,” from Luther’s Correspondence and Other Contemporan, Letters, trans. by P. Smith (1913), Vol. 1, pp. 28-29).

Furthermore he wrote:

I had made up my mind to write no more either about the Jews or against them. But since I learned that those miserable and accursed people do not cease to lure to themselves even us, that is, the Christians, I have published this little book, so that I might be found among those who opposed such poisonous activities of the Jews and who warned the Christians to be on their guard against them…They are so blind and stupid that they see neither the words found in Genesis 17 nor the whole of Scripture, which mightily and explicitly condemns this lie…They are real liars and bloodhounds who have not only continually perverted and falsified all of Scripture with their mendacious glosses from the beginning until the present day. Their heart’s most ardent sighing and yearning and hoping is set on the day on which they can deal with us Gentiles as they did with the Gentiles in Persia at the time of Esther…The worse a Jew is, the more arrogant he is, solely because he is a Jew — that is, a person descended from Abraham’s seed, circumcised, and under the law of Moses. David and other pious Jews were not as conceited as the present-day, incorrigible Jews…I wanted to present this to us Germans so that we might see what rascals the blind Jews are and how powerfully the truth of God in our midst stands with us and against them (Medieval Sourcebook: Martin Luther (1483-1546): On the Jews and Their Lies, 1543)

Martin Luther advised his followers:

…to burn down Jewish schools and synagogues, and to throw pitch and sulphur into the flames; to destroy their homes; to confiscate their ready money in gold and silver; to take from them their sacred books, even the whole Bible; and if that did not help matters, to hunt them of the country like mad dogs (Luther’s Works, vol. Xx, pp. 2230-2632 as quoted in Stoddard JL. Rebuilding a Lost Faith, 1922, p.99).

Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal death. My advice, as I said earlier, is: First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss in sulphur and pitch (Martin Luther (1483-1546): On the Jews and Their Lies, 1543 as quoted from Luther’s Works, Volume 47: The Christian in Society IV, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971). pp 268­293).

The 16th century Protestant leader John Calvin stated about the Jews:

“Their rotten and unbending stiff-neckedness deserves that they be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end and that they die in their misery without the pity of anyone.” https://centerforisrael.com/article/is-there-unknown-anti-semitism-in-your-theology/ accessed 11/24/22

John Calvin also had people killed who held to various Church of God doctrines who were not Jewish (see Persecutions by Church and State).

Let me add that various Protestant Reformers and many popes and patriarchs were anti-Semitic.

Leaders esteemed by the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Protestants have all advocated horrible anti-semitism. They were NOT real Christians.

While people who were referred to as “Christians” have committed atrocities and anti-Semitic persecutions, no real Christian would have done that (or at least would have repented if he/she sinned that way). Instead many who have claimed Christ have caused “the way of truth” to be blasphemed (2 Peter 2:2).

The Apostle Paul makes the following statement about real and not real Christians:

9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. (Romans 8:9)

The anti-Semitic persecutors throughout history were NOT real Christians.

Many people hate others, and the Jews tend to be one of the more hated groups. But that is not how people are to live.

Notice something that God had Moses record:

8 You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:18)

It is not just Jews that are hated or will be in the future. Throughout history, true Christians have sometimes been called “Jews” and have been subject to persecution supposedly directed towards Jews. True Christians also had to suffer through the so-called Inquisition, which utilized torture against those that had Church of God beliefs–and more is expected in the future (see Persecutions by Church and State). Protestant leaders have also promoted anti-semitism and Church of God persecution (see The Similarities and Dissimilarities between Martin Luther and Herbert W. Armstrong) and Eastern Orthodox (see John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople and Antisemite).

It is not just physical, ethnic Jews that are at risk–spiritual ones are as well (cf. Romans 2:28-29; John 15:20; see also The Spanish Inquisition and Early Protestant Persecutions).

While some in the Greco-Roman Catholic and Protestant communities have public denounced anti-semitism (e.g. ‘Protestant, Catholic churches in Germany launch campaign against antisemitism’), it is not over.

More persecution will be coming from those who falsely claim to be Christian, and that will include persecution of true and real Christians.

Hopefully you will have God’s Spirit and the mindset of the persecuted, not the persecutors.

Some items of possibly related interest may include:

Were the Ancient Tribes of Israel Black? Was Jesus Black? Some claim this is so. But what do the Bible and ancient artifacts show? Here is a link to a related sermon video: Were Ancient Hebrews Black? What About Jesus?
God’s Grace is For All Is being Jewish a hindrance to salvation? What about not being a descendant of Israel? What does the Bible really teach? Here is a link to a related sermon titled Race and Grace; Do you view race as God does? Watch also Mystery of Race.
Lost Tribes and Prophecies: What will happen to Australia, the British Isles, Canada, Europe, New Zealand and the United States of America? Where did those people come from? Can you totally rely on DNA? Do you really know what will happen to Europe and the English-speaking peoples? What about the peoples of Africa, Asia, South America, and the islands? This free online book provides scriptural, scientific, historical references, and commentary to address those matters. Here are links to related sermons: Lost tribes, the Bible, and DNA; Lost tribes, prophecies, and identifications; 11 Tribes, 144,000, and Multitudes; Israel, Jeremiah, Tea Tephi, and British Royalty; Gentile European Beast; Royal Succession, Samaria, and Prophecies; Asia, Islands, Latin America, Africa, and Armageddon;  When Will the End of the Age Come?;  Rise of the Prophesied King of the North; Christian Persecution from the Beast; WWIII and the Coming New World Order; and Woes, WWIV, and the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
Hope of Salvation: How the Continuing Church of God Differs from Protestantism The CCOG is NOT Protestant. This free online book explains how the real Church of God differs from mainstream/traditional Protestants. Several sermons related to the free book are also available: Protestant, Baptist, and CCOG History; The First Protestant, God’s Command, Grace, & Character; The New Testament, Martin Luther, and the Canon; Eucharist, Passover, and Easter; Views of Jews, Lost Tribes, Warfare, & Baptism; Scripture vs. Tradition, Sabbath vs. Sunday; Church Services, Sunday, Heaven, and God’s Plan; Seventh Day Baptists/Adventists/Messianics: Protestant or COG?; Millennial Kingdom of God and God’s Plan of Salvation; Crosses, Trees, Tithes, and Unclean Meats; The Godhead and the Trinity; Fleeing or Rapture?; and Ecumenism, Rome, and CCOG Differences.
Beliefs of the Original Catholic Church: Could a remnant group have continuing apostolic succession? Did the original “catholic church” have doctrines held by the Continuing Church of God? Did Church of God leaders uses the term “catholic church” to ever describe the church they were part of? Here are links to related sermons: Original Catholic Church of God?, Original Catholic Doctrine: Creed, Liturgy, Baptism, Passover, What Type of Catholic was Polycarp of Smyrna?, Tradition, Holy Days, Salvation, Dress, & Celibacy, Early Heresies and Heretics, Doctrines: 3 Days, Abortion, Ecumenism, Meats, Tithes, Crosses, Destiny, and more, Saturday or Sunday?, The Godhead, Apostolic Laying on of Hands Succession, Church in the Wilderness Apostolic Succession List, Holy Mother Church and Heresies, and Lying Wonders and Original Beliefs. Here is a link to that book in the Spanish language: Creencias de la iglesia Católica original.
Christians: Ambassadors for the Kingdom of God, Biblical instructions on living as a Christian This is a scripture-filled booklet for those wishing to live as a real Christian. A related sermon is also available: Christians are Ambassadors for the Kingdom of God. Here is a video in Spanish: ¿Qué es un verdadero cristiano?
The Spanish Inquisition and Early Protestant Persecutions Was the Church of Rome really responsible for this? What happened? A video of related interest is titled: The Past and Future Inquisition.
Persecutions by Church and State This article documents some that have occurred against those associated with the COGs and some prophesied to occur. Will those with the cross be the persecutors or the persecuted–this article has the shocking answer. There are also three video sermons you can watch: Cancel Culture and Christian Persecution, The Coming Persecution of the Church, and Christian Persecution from the Beast. Here is information in the Spanish language: Persecuciones de la Iglesia y el Estado.

COGwriter

The Ecumenical News posted the following:

Before sharing lunch with 1,200 destitute people, Pope Francis decries scandal of material poverty

November 21, 2023

The Pope had lunch with people from Rome’s poor and economically disadvantaged for the World Day of the Poor on Nov. 19, 2023, Catholic News Agency reported.

The lunch was served in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall and preceded by the Angelus and a special Mass reported CNA.

“We are living in times that are not particularly sensitive to the needs of the poor. The pressure to adopt an affluent lifestyle increases, while the voices of those dwelling in poverty tend to go unheard,” said the pontiff in his sermon at the mass.

“We are inclined to neglect anything that varies from the model of life set before the younger generation, those who are most vulnerable to the cultural changes now taking place.” …

“The parable of the Good Samaritan (cf. Lk 10:25-37) is not simply a story from the past; it continues to challenge each of us in the here and now of our daily lives. It is easy to delegate charity to others, yet the calling of every Christian is to become personally involved,” said Pope Francis. https://www.ecumenicalnews.com/article/before-sharing-lunch-with-1200-destitute-people-pope-francis-decries-scandal-of-material-poverty/61030.htm

Throughout his pontificate, Pope Francis has told others to give their wealth to the poor (e.g. Laudato Si: Pope’s Agenda or Kingdom of God? and Pope tells United Nations to push wealth redistribution–a sign of Revelation 13 & 17?).

And while Christians should help the poor (cf. Galatians 2:10, 6:7-10; James 2:15-17), Francis has tended to hold on to the wealth of the Vatican.

This is despite something he said shortly after becoming pontiff:

“Oh, how I would like a poor Church, and for the poor.” http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/16/us-pope-poor-idUSBRE92F05P20130316

In his ten plus years as pontiff, the Vatican still retains its vast wealth and has not loosened its own purse strings significantly beyond what previous pontiffs did. The one-time feeding of 1200 is nice, but a “drop in the bucket” compared to the Vatican’s vast wealth.

While on the surface the Pope’s words are what a ‘lamb’ may say, could it be part of the speech of a dragon (Revelation 13:11)?

The Bible tells about an unfaithful harlot church that wallows in wealth (Revelation 17:1-9, 18:7). Having been to Vatican City numerous times, I have seen some of that wealth on display.

As far as Pope Francis himself, on March 22, 2013 he stated:

As you know, there are various reasons why I chose the name of Francis of Assisi, a familiar figure far beyond the borders of Italy and Europe, even among those who do not profess the Catholic faith. One of the first reasons was Francis’ love for the poor. How many poor people there still are in the world! And what great suffering they have to endure! After the example of Francis of Assisi, the Church in every corner of the globe has always tried to care for and look after those who suffer from want, and I think that in many of your countries you can attest to the generous activity of Christians who dedicate themselves to helping the sick, orphans, the homeless and all the marginalized, thus striving to make society more humane and more just. http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/francis-address-to-diplomatic-corps

Will he take specific steps, such as the wealth redistribution he advocates by emptying the Vatican’s coffers?

He has not yet.

Though he has repeatedly preached that others give more.

In English, there is an expression that one should, “Put your money where your mouth is.” So far, Pope Francis has not done this to any substantial degree in the years since his election to become pontiff.

Could that change?

What might happen if Pope Francis finally sells off some of the vast treasures (such as jewels and land) of the Vatican and/or gives significant amounts of money/land away to the poor?

Well, if he does that, it will likely greatly enhance the pedophile-damaged image of the Church of Rome for the media and many others around the world. This will enhance the appeal of the religion that Rome will promote. Even if it gives away only a quarter of its vast wealth.

The Bible warns that the whole world will profit financially from the final end time Babylon (Revelation 18:9, 15-19). And in addition to trade, giving away wealth and land–in conjunction with the final King of the North (Daniel 11:24, 39), that the final Antichrist will support–will be a factor in the temporal success of this condemned system.

Notice that financial pressures will be something that the Antichrist is associated with:

16 He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. (Revelation 13:16-17)

The “He” above is the two-horned beast (Revelation 13:11), also known as the False Prophet (Revelation 16:13), and Antichrist (1 John 4:1-3).

The Bible also says that the merchants of the world will have gotten wealthy from the system that the Antichrist will promote:

2 Babylon the great…has become a dwelling place of demons…a cage for every unclean and hated bird! 3…and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury. (Revelation 18:2a,b,d, 3c)

So, there are several biblical prophecies that tie the power that the Antichrist supports with a type of deceitful prosperity. Did you notice the connection to a cage of birds above? Well, then notice then also the following:

27 As a cage is full of birds,
So their houses are full of deceit.
Therefore they have become great and grown rich.
28 They have grown fat, they are sleek;
Yes, they surpass the deeds of the wicked;
They do not plead the cause,
The cause of the fatherless;
Yet they prosper,
And the right of the needy they do not defend.
29 Shall I not punish them for these things?’ says the Lord.
‘Shall I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?’

30 “An astonishing and horrible thing
Has been committed in the land:
31 The prophets prophesy falsely,
And the priests rule by their own power;
And My people love to have it so.
But what will you do in the end? (Jeremiah 5:27-31)

So, the supporters of the Beast and Antichrist/False Prophet will prosper for a time, then God will punish them.

Furthermore, notice three Roman Catholic writings/prophecies about the final Antichrist:

Saint Mechtilda (died 1299): Antichrist will, through base and false strategem, and with presents of gold and gems, attain influence over the worldly princes. They will look up to him as their Lord and God (Culleton, The Reign of Antichrist, pp. 133-134).

Saint Ephrem (died 375): Antichrist will use worldly goods as bait. He will entice many Christians with money and goods to apostatize…The devil will help him find all the hidden treasures of the world, even those at the bottom of the ocean. With those treasures he will attain greater success for the reign of Satan than at any other time in past centuries (Connor, pp.73.74).

Saint Jerome (died 420): Antichrist…will gain support with many gifts and money. He will sell himself to the devil…(Connor E. Prophecy for Today. Imprimatur + A.J. Willinger, Bishop of Monterey-Fresno; Reprint: Tan Books and Publishers, Rockford (IL), 1984, p. 74).

The Bible, by the way, does mention that the King of the North will end up with a lot of gold, silver, and precious stones (Daniel 11:38,43) and that a seven-hilled/mountain-based power will have “gold and precious stones and pearls” (Revelation 17:4).

But is it possible that before the Beast rises up that the Antichrist will use material items for bait?

Might the Antichrist use some of the wealth of the Vatican to support certain European nations/leaders?

Yes. And he may point to Pope Francis’ many statements (and, perhaps, his receipt of the ‘Charlemagne Prize’) as partial justification to use the Vatican’s wealth to support Europe.

Several years ago someone asked “Ask a Catholic” about that church’s wealth:

You said:

• I’m wondering why the Catholic Church has such a huge amount of wealth, as can be seen in the beautiful buildings and costly objects in them, when Jesus clearly encourages us to sell all of our possessions and give to the poor?

1. Because the historical riches it has going back to 33 A.D. are priceless and preserved for all Christendom
2. Because the faithful believe in the Church and give what they can to support the Church, following the wishes you mentioned and what the Lord has asked from us.
3. Because of the number of faithful that make up the Church are over 1.125 billion members worldwide, 65 million in the United States.

Nevertheless, the implication in your question is that the Church does not give to the poor and neither spreads the Gospel to those who have not heard it. This is a distortion of the great outreach and support work the Church has done worldwide for centuries. http://www.askacatholic.com/_WebPostings/Answers/2011_08AUG/2011AugWhyIsTheChurchSoWealthy.cfm

While the Church of Rome does some charitable works, it still has vast wealth and is not poor. We do not find that the Apostle Peter, who many erroneously claim founded the Church of Rome (even Catholic scholars realize that he did not, see What Do Roman Catholic Scholars Actually Teach About Early Church History?), accumulated wealth. Actually, Peter once stated:

6 “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” (Acts 3:6)

But this is not the case with the Church of Rome. In addition to historically receiving property and wealth from kings and emperors and the Crusades, the Church of Rome also gets a lot of bequeaths, which some believe is related to the belief that priests can help pray people out of a non-existent place called purgatory (Did the Early Church Teach Purgatory?). And yes, people have been told that the more they give to the Church of Rome the more priests will pray for them.

The Vatican does have vast wealth. Yet, whatever was accumulated in/by the Vatican since supposedly 33 A.D. was originally not anything biblical (see also What Did the Early Church Teach About Idols and Icons?).

I suspect the time will come when the Vatican will actually sell/give away/pledge some of its wealth to influence world events and affect communities. Pope Francis has been hinting at this for 5 years, so at some point in time, he probably intends to take action to match his rhetoric. This will increase his popularity with the media, European leaders, and others in the world.

If Pope Francis does not end up doing this, he, at a minimum, has made various statements that the final Antichrist and the Beast, can point to as justification for wealth distribution/asset pledging.

That said, there have long been Roman Catholics who have wondered if Francis could be some type of anti-pope.

Years back, we put out the following video on our Bible New Prophecy YouTube channel:

That the current Church hierarchy is working towards the realization of an anti-Church devoid of the Real Presence of Christ is also supported by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s prophecy regarding a future anti-church. Francis and his allies are already echoing predictions by Sheen, who foretold regarding this anti-church:

It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. There will be a mystical body of the antichrist, which will resemble in all its externals the Mystical Body of Christ.

Sheen also noted, “Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, [the antichrist] will deceive even the elect.”

[1] Johannes Maria Höcht, Die Große Botschaft von La Salette [The Great Message of La Salette], Stein am Rhein 2004 (8th ed.), p. 161.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/catholics-film-predicts-rome-will-suppress-the-holy-sacrifice-of-the-mass/?utm_source=most_recent&utm_campaign=usa

Yes, Pope Francis’ pushing the ecumenical and interfaith agendas, while watering down certain aspects of Roman Catholicism will make it that much easier for an antipope, who according to various Roman Catholic writings would be the final Antichrist, to rise up.

As far as an anti-pope goes, could the final Antichrist be an antipope?

Yes.

Well, what is an antipope/anti-pope? Here is a short definition from The Catholic Encyclopedia:

Antipope

A false claimant of the Holy See in  opposition to a pontiff canonically elected. (“Antipope.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907.   Nihil Obstat. March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York)

While historically most have considered that antipopes falsely claimed the Roman Bishopric when others had it, I would contend that it is reasonable to conclude that one who was elected under false pretenses would also be a false claimant and hence antipope. Or if a pope changed and became demonically-possessed, such as the situation involving the False Prophet of Revelation 16:13, would that not make him an antipope? Most Roman Catholics, at least now, would tend to agree that such a one would be a false claimant to the papal role. If so, that would seem to make him an antipope.

Although there have not been any recognized antipopes for several centuries, The Catholic Encyclopedia shows a list of thirty individuals that have been considered antipopes (Ibid). This is roughly one for every ten claimed “Bishops of Rome.”

” And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. ” ] He is speaking of the great and false prophet who is to do signs, and portents, and falsehoods before him in the presence of men (Victorinus–a Catholic Saint. Commentary on the Apocalypse. c. 290).

The Two Beasts (13:1-18)…

“And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and it had two horns…”…The beast and the false prophet (the beast of the earth) are seized…(Cited in Connor, Edward. Prophecy for Today. Imprimatur + A.J. Willinger, Bishop of Monterey-Fresno; Reprint: Tan Books and Publishers, Rockford (IL), 1984, p. 103,108).

The portions quoted above are consistent with the Bible and Church of God teachings and the Bible.

Notice the following unusual comment from Roman Catholic Cardinal Newman:

Antichrist must have some similarity to the Pope … (Cited in Mass A.J. Antichrist. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I. Copyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton Company. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight. Nihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York).

It appears likely that, too a degree, the Antichrist will be a demon-possessed (or at least demon-influenced) pope.

This would make the Antichrist an antipope according to Roman Catholic understanding–and while the Antichrist being an antipope is not a majority opinion within Roman Catholicism, it has been a position that some Greco-Roman Catholics have suggested throughout the ages. The final Antichrist will feign some version of Roman Catholicism for a time, yet later allow that faith to be betrayed.

Perhaps it should be mentioned that some Greco-Roman Catholic writers clearly have understood that the two-horned beast in Revelation 13 is likely to be an antipope and that a negative power will be established in Jerusalem:

Priest E. Sylvester Berry (published 1920): The two horns denote a twofold authority – spiritual and temporal. As indicated by the resemblance to a lamb, the prophet will probably set himself up in Rome as a sort of anti-pope . . . Antichrist will establish himself in Jerusalem . . . with his ‘lying wonders’ . . . (Berry ES. The Apocalypse of St. John, 1920. Quoted in Culleton RG. The Reign of Antichrist. Reprint 1974, TAN Books, Rockford (IL), pp. 199-200).

St. Martin (4th century): The Antichrist would first seize the empire of the East; he would have Jerusalem as his seat and imperial capital. (Culleton, The Reign of Antichrist, p. 115).

Notice the following admission from the Roman Catholic Cardinal Newman:

The defenders of the Papal-Antichrist theory…cite St. Bernard as identifying the Beast of the Apocalypse with the Pope, though St. Bernard speaks in the passage of the Antipope; they appeal to the Abbot Joachim as believing that Antichrist will be elevated to the Apostolic See, while the Abbot really believes that Antichrist will overthrow the Pope and usurp his See (Cited in Mass A.J. Antichrist. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I. Copyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton Company. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight. Nihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York).

Thus, similar to the genuine Church of God the Church of Rome seems to teach that the two horns represent the spiritual and secular authority of the false prophet. A pope certainly would be able to fulfill that. Notice what the late COG evangelist John Ogwyn wrote:

In prophecy, horns are used to represent rulership or authority, and this creature is pictured with two horns. Revelation 13:12 reveals that this second beast insists that all give their allegiance and loyalty to the Holy Roman Empire, the beast whose deadly wound was healed (v. 12). This second beast is described as performing great miracles, which will deceive humanity (vv. 13–14). In Matthew 24:24, Christ prophesied of “false Christs” who will deceive all but the very elect.

Historically, was there an institution claiming to represent Christ (“like a lamb,” v. 11) and holding sway over the populace by means of various “miracles” (v. 14)—an institution which taught the devil’s false message that God’s law was “done away” and which insisted that its adherents give their loyalty to the Holy Roman Empire? Throughout the medieval period, the Church of Rome did exactly this!

Why the two horns? The Church of Rome is both an ecclesiastical and a civil government. The pope is both a religious leader and a civil head of state. Bible prophecy shows that the church-state union of the Middle Ages was a forerunner of end-time events whose scale will be far grander (Ogwyn J. The Beast of Revelation: Myth, Metaphor or Soon-Coming Reality? Booklet).

It is also interesting to note that the Roman Catholic Church does believe that there are references in John’s writings to Rome, and that they are negative. Specifically, John warned about Babylon, which they acknowledge is a reference to Rome, throughout the Book of Revelation, called the Book of the Apocalypse in Roman Catholic writings.

Notice what an Greek Orthodox Catholic scholar observed:

Dr. H. Otto Tzima (20th century): The antipope – the Episcopal of the Beast, alias the false prophet (Tzima Otto, H. The Great Monarch and WWIII in Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Scriptural Prophecies. The Verenika Press, Rock Hill (SC), 2000, p. 138).

The final Antichrist will support the coming European Beast power (cf. Revelation 13:11-18), and according to various scriptures (cf. Revelation 17:15-18) allow the Church of Rome to be attacked.

Pope Francis, having a public lunch with 1200 poor, will not stop what is coming.

But, in fact, Francis has helped lay the foundation for the rise of the final Antichrist.

Some items of related interest may include:

Beliefs of the Original Catholic Church: Could a remnant group have continuing apostolic succession? Did the original “catholic church” have doctrines held by the Continuing Church of God? Did Church of God leaders uses the term “catholic church” to ever describe the church they were part of? Here are links to related sermons: Original Catholic Church of God?, Original Catholic Doctrine: Creed, Liturgy, Baptism, Passover, What Type of Catholic was Polycarp of Smyrna?, Tradition, Holy Days, Salvation, Dress, & Celibacy, Early Heresies and Heretics, Doctrines: 3 Days, Abortion, Ecumenism, Meats, Tithes, Crosses, Destiny, and more, Saturday or Sunday?, The Godhead, Apostolic Laying on of Hands Succession, Church in the Wilderness Apostolic Succession List, Holy Mother Church and Heresies, and Lying Wonders and Original Beliefs. Here is a link to that book in the Spanish language: Creencias de la iglesia Católica original.
Laudato Si: Pope’s Agenda or Kingdom of God? Pope Francis’ 2nd encyclical is titled ‘Laudato Si.’ In it, he goes over his views related to environmental, economic, social, moral, agricultural, and spiritual issues. He advocates international cooperation to solve various problems he
Do You Practice Mithraism? Many practices and doctrines that mainstream so-called Christian groups have are the same or similar to those of the sun-god Mithras. December 25th was celebrated as his birthday. Do you follow Mithraism combined with the Bible or original Christianity? A sermon video from Vatican City is titled Church of Rome, Mithras, and Isis?
What Did the Early Church Teach About Idols and Icons? Did Catholic and Orthodox “saints” endorse or condemn idols and icons for Christians? A related sermon is available: The Second Commandment, Idols, and Icons.
Freemasonry and the Destruction of Rome? What is Freemasonry? What about ties to the Illuminati? Could they be involved in the fulfillment of prophecy? Here is a link to a related sermon: Freemasonry, Armageddon, and Rome.
Some Doctrines of Antichrist Are there any doctrines taught outside the Churches of God which can be considered as doctrines of antichrist? This article suggests at least three. It also provides information on 666 and the identity of “the false prophet.” Plus it shows that several Roman Catholic writers seem to warn about an ecumenical antipope that will support heresy. You can also watch a video titled What Does the Bible teach about the Antichrist?
The Last Pope: Do Biblical and Catholic Prophecies Point to Pope Francis? Amazon Book What does the Bible say about a pope near this time? Is the final pope to be an antipope and antichrist? Does Catholic prophecy point to Pope Francis as being the dreaded “Peter the Roman”? This 186 page book provides information and answers.
The Last Pope: Do Biblical and Catholic Prophecies Point to Pope Francis? Kindle This electronic version of the printed book which is available for only US$2.99. And you do not need an actual Kindle device to read it. Why? Amazon will allow you to download it to almost any device: Please click HERE to download one of Amazon s Free Reader Apps. After you go to for your free Kindle reader and then go to The Last Pope: Do Biblical and Catholic Prophecies Point to Pope Francis? Kindle.

COGwriter

On November 21, Catholics of Rome honor their bishop and pontiff Gelasius I.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says the following about him:

Pope Gelasius I (died 19 November 496) was Pope from 1 March 492 to his death in 496…

Despite all the efforts of the otherwise orthodox patriarch, Euphemius of Constantinople, and the threats and wiles by which the Emperor Anastasius tried to obtain recognition from the Apostolic See, Gelasius, though hard-pressed by difficulties at home, would make no peace that compromised in the slightest degree the rights and honor of the Chair of Peter. The constancy with which he combated the pretensions, lay and ecclesiastical, of the New Rome; the resoluteness with which he refused to allow the civil or temporal pre-eminence of a city to determine its ecclesiastical rank; the unfailing courage with which he defended the rights of the “second” and the “third” sees, Alexandria and Antioch, are some of the most striking features of his pontificate. It has been well said that nowhere at this period can be found stronger arguments for the primacy of Peter’s See than in the works and writings of Gelasius…

As a writer Gelasius takes high rank for his period. His style is vigorous and elegant, though occasionally, obscure. Comparatively little of his literary work has come down to us, though he is said to have been the most prolific writer of all the pontiffs of the first five centuries. There are extant forty-two letters and fragments of forty-nine others, besides six treatises, of which three are concerned with the Acacian schism, one with the heresy of the Pelagians, another with the errors of Nestorius and Eutyches, while the sixth is directed against the senator Andromachus and the advocates of the Lupercalia. The best edition is that of Thiel.

The feast of St. Gelasius is kept on 21 Nov., the anniversary of his interment, though many writers give this as the day of his death. (Murphy, J.F.X. (1909). Pope St. Gelasius I. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved April 21, 2014 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06406a.htm)

The reason I reported about him is because he is believed to have been the first pontiff to be referred to as the “vicar of Christ” (_{Park H. The Roman Catholic Church – A Critical Appraisal. Xulon Press, 2008, pp. 37-38}). not because someone with my last name wrote the best edition about some heresy. However, I personally did write about early catholism in a documented way others have not (see Beliefs of the Original Catholic Church: Could a remnant group have continuing apostolic succession?).

That said, the word vicar comes from a Latin term:

vicar (n.)

early 14c., from Anglo-French vicare, Old French vicaire “deputy, second in command,” also in the ecclesiastical sense (12c.), from Latin vicarius “a substitute, deputy, proxy,” noun use of adjective vicarius “substituted, delegated,” from vicis “change, interchange, succession; a place, position” (see vicarious). The original notion is of “earthly representative of God or Christ;” but also used in sense of “person acting as parish priest in place of a real parson” (early 14c.). (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=vicar viewed 0421/14)

So “Vicar of Christ” means In Substitute of Christ or Instead of Christ.

So what does the expression “anti-Christ” mean?

In English, the word Anti-Christ clearly means one who is opposed or against Christ. And that is consistent with the meaning in the Greek.

But the Greek allows for another definition that seems to be applicable.

The Greek term translated as anti, such as in antichrist in 1 John 2:18, is Strong’s word 473.

NT:473 άντί

anti (an-tee’); a primary particle; opposite, i.e. instead or because of (rarely in addition to):

(Biblesoft’s New Exhaustive Strong’s Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2006 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.)

The Greek word for Christ, Strong’s word 5547, Christos, means Christ or Messiah.

So, the term Antichrist can mean Opposite of Christ or Instead of Christ.

After Emperor Constantine issued his Edict Against Heretics in 331 A.D., it began to become clearer to those associated with the true Church that perhaps a church proclaiming Christianity and tied into the Roman Empire should be identified with antichrist.

Notice what the Roman Catholic Cardinal Newman wrote about it in the 19th century:

Now, one of the first questions which it is natural to ask on entering upon the subject is, whereas the Pope is said to be Antichrist, sometimes from the fourth, sometimes from the seventh century, when was he first detected and denounced, and by whom?

On this point Dr. Todd supplies us with much information, from which it appears that the belief that the Pope was Antichrist was the conclusion gradually formed and matured out of the belief that the Church of Rome was Babylon, by three heretical bodies, between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries, in consequence of their being submitted to persecution for their opinions:

“In the middle of the eleventh century, numerous emigrants from Thrace and the East had established themselves in the north of Italy, and especially in the neighbourhood of Milan; and some, despising a fixed habitation, or unable to obtain one, itinerated throughout various parts of France and Germany. The doctrines of these sects exhibit various shades of extravagance and error, and appear to have had a close affinity with the Oriental Manichees or Paulicians, from whom they are historically descended…they despised all external religion, ridiculed the office and powers of the priesthood, the efficacy of the Sacraments, and especially the use of baptism.”—Pp. 28-30.

These were the Albigenses, the first of the three independent families of heresy above mentioned…It would appear from these that the Albigenses founded their opposition to the Church on a Manichæan principle, viz., that, as there was an evil deity, and he the author of the visible world, so was he author also of the visible Church, which in consequence was “the devil’s basilica and synagogue of Satan,” and, in the language of the Apocalypse, “the mother of fornications.” (Newman JH. The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. [British Critic, Oct. 1840]. Newman Reader — Works of John Henry Newman. Copyright © 2004 by The National Institute for Newman Studies. http://www.newmanreader.org/works/essays/volume2/antichrist1.html viewed 12/03/07).

What the Cardinal seems to be teaching is that beginning in the fourth-seventh centuries one or two groups apparently began to feel that the Pontifex Maximus was an antichrist and that one who calls himself Pontifex Maximus may be the final antichrist. The Roman bishops did not refer to themselves by the pagan title of Pontifex Maximus (literally meaning the “greatest bridge-builder” between mortals and the gods) until the late 4th century.

It is likely no coincidence that after bishops of Rome took the title Pontifex Maximus in the late 4th century and “vicar of Christ” in the 5th century that more started to believe that the Bishop of Rome represented the final Antichrist.

Many Greco-Roman Catholic prophecies suggest that it will be a pope, or more precisely an antipope, that will arise and perhaps be the final Antichrist:

Oba Prophecy. “It will come when the Church authorities issue directives to support a new cult, when priests are forbidden to celebrate in any other, when the highest positions in the Church are given to perjurers and hypocrites, when only the renegades are admitted to occupy those positions (Dupont Yves. Catholic Prophecy: The Coming Chastisement. TAN Books, Rockford (IL), p. 115).

Anna-Katarina Emmerick (19th century). “I saw again a new and odd-looking Church which they were trying to build. There was nothing holy about it…(Dupont, p. 116).

Yves Dupont (writer interpreting A. Emmerick), “They wanted to make a new Church, a Church of human manufacture, but God had other designs…An anti-pope shall be set up in Rome” (Dupont, p. 116).

The Prophecy of Premol (5th century) “…And I see the King of Rome and his Cross and his tiara, shaking the dust off of his shoes, and hastening his flight to other shores. Thy Church, O Lord, is torn apart by her own children. One camp is faithful to the fleeing Pontiff, the other is subject to the new government of Rome which has broken the tiara. But Almighty God will, in His mercy, put an end to this confusion and a new age will begin. Then, said the Spirit, this is the beginning of the End of Time.”

Comment: From this prophecy, it is clear that the true Church will be faithful to the Pope in exile; whereas the new Pope in Rome will be, in fact, an anti-pope…a large number of Catholics will be misled into accepting the leadership of the anti-pope. (Dupont, pp. 72-73). {Note the comment is from Dupont personally}.

Jeanne le Royer (d. 1978) I see that when the Second Coming of Christ approaches a bad priest will do much harm to the Church (Culligan, E. The Last World War and the End of Time. The book was blessed by Pope Paul VI, 1966. TAN Books, Rockford (IL), p. 128).

Yves Dupont {reader and collector of Catholic prophecies} “prophecies are quite explicit about the election of an anti-pope…Many prophecies predict an anti-pope and a schism” (Dupont, pp. 34,60-61).

Catholic priest and writer R. Gerald Culleton: “A schism of short duration is destined to break out…An antipope, of German origin, is to be set up, and finally Rome itself will be destroyed” (Culleton, R. Gerald. The Prophets and Our Times. Nihil Obstat: L. Arvin. Imprimatur: Philip G. Scher, Bishop of Monterey-Fresno, November 15, 1941. Reprint 1974, TAN Books, Rockford (IL), p. 42).

Cardinal John Henry Newman (died 1890): The defenders of the Papal-Antichrist theory… cite St. Bernard as identifying the Beast of the Apocalypse with the Pope, though St. Bernard speaks in the passage of the Antipope; they appeal to the Abbot Joachim as believing that Antichrist will be elevated to the Apostolic See, while the Abbot really believes that Antichrist will overthrow the Pope and usurp his See … Antichrist must have some similarity to the Pope… (Cited in Mass A.J. Antichrist. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I. Copyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton Company. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight. Nihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York).

Priest S. Berry (20th Century): Then the earth whence comes the second beast is a symbol of the Gentile nations in revolt against the Church. The two horns denote a twofold authority — spiritual and temporal….the prophet will probably set himself up in Rome as a sort of anti-pope…(From Interpretation of the Apocalypse, quoted in Culleton R. Gerald. The Reign of Antichrist, Reprint TAN Books, Rockford, IL, 1974, 199-200).

Frederick William Faber (died 1863)…Antichrist…Many believe in a demonical incarnation–this will not be so–but he will be utterly possessed…His doctrine as apparent contradiction of no religion, yet a new religion…He has an attending pontiff, so separating regal and prophetic office (Connor, Edward. Prophecy for Today. Imprimatur + A.J. Willinger, Bishop of Monterey-Fresno; Reprint: Tan Books and Publishers, Rockford (IL), 1984, p. 87).

Blessed Joachim (died 1202): “Towards the end of the world Antichrist will overthrow the Pope and usurp his See” (Connor, p. 76).

Merlin (7th century) “There will come a German Anti-Pope. Italy and Germany will be sorely troubled. A French King will restore the true Pope” (Culleton, p. 132).

St. Francis of Assisi (d. 1226) “There will be an uncanonically elected pope who will cause a great Schism, there will be divers thoughts preached which will cause many, even those in the different orders, to doubt, yea even agree with those heretics which will cause My order to divide, then will there be such universal dissentions and persecutions that if these days were not shortened even the elect would be lost” (Culleton, p. 130).

Catholic writer and priest P. Huchedé (19th century): “…the false prophet…will not be a king, nor a general of an army, but a clever apostate, fallen from episcopal dignity. From being an apostle of the Gospel he will become the first preacher of the false messiah…” (Huchedé, P. Translated by JBD. History of Antichrist. Imprimatur Edward Charles Fabre, Bishop of Montreal. English edition 1884, Reprint 1976. TAN Books, Rockford (IL), p. 24).

St. Gregory the Great, Pope (d. 604): In those days, near the end … an army of priest and two-thirds of the Christians will join the Schism (Culleton, R. Gerald. The Reign of Antichrist, p. 122)

Priest Herman Kramer This false prophet possibly at the behest of Antichrist usurps the papal supremacy…His assumed spiritual authority and supremacy over the Church would make him resemble the Bishop of Rome…He would be Pontifex Maximus, a title of pagan emperors, having spiritual and temporal authority. Assuming authority without having it makes him the False Prophet…Though he poses as a lamb, his doctrines betray him (Kramer H.B. L. The Book of Destiny. Nihil Obstat: J.S. Considine, O.P., Censor Deputatus. Imprimatur: +Joseph M. Mueller, Bishop of Sioux City, Iowa, January 26, 1956. Reprint TAN Books, Rockford (IL), p. 319).

Note: I want to make it clear that consistent with biblical and Greco-Roman Catholic prophecies, I believe that the final Antichrist will pretend to be a Roman Catholic and betray that church (cf. Revelation 17:15-18).

That being said, I do not believe that terms such as reverend (cf. Psalm 111:9, KJV), pontifex maximus (an old pagan title meaning bridge builder), or “vicar of Christ” should be used of leaders who claim to be Christian.

Some items of possibly related interest may include:

St Sophia’s Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine
(Photo by Paweł ‘pbm’ Szubert)

COGwriter

The Voice of America reported the following:

Orthodox Church Row Threatens US Aid to Ukraine

November 18, 2023

Washington — Pending legislation in Ukraine aimed at preventing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from becoming a conduit for Russian influence is attracting attention in the United States and is being used by some U.S. conservatives to paint Ukraine as hostile to religious freedom.

Ukrainian authorities insist the proposed law would not limit the activities of the church, which many believe maintains a relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church and has seen its membership plummet since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

They say it would simply authorize a relevant state agency to investigate the presence of connections between any religious organization and Russia and require it to remedy the situation if needed.

The actual text of the draft bill, which received preliminary approval in the Ukrainian parliament on Oct. 19, prohibits “activities of religious organizations that are affiliated with the centers of influence of a religious organization (association) whose management center (management) is located outside of Ukraine in a state that carries out armed aggression against Ukraine.”

Any such ban “is inexcusable, illegal, contrary to international law, and contrary to the interests of Ukraine,” argue lawyers Robert Amsterdam and William Burke-White, who are registered with the U.S. Department of Justice as representing the interests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

“And I think that’s what I find most frustrating,” Amsterdam said in a phone interview with VOA. “Somebody who supports Ukraine as I do, that this government would put in front of the Rada legislation that is so contrary to law and contrary to international practice. The Ukrainian government has got to go back to the rule of law.”

Perhaps more worrisome for the Ukrainian government, the issue has been taken up by some U.S. opinion influencers who argue against further U.S. military assistance to help Kyiv resist the Russian invasion of its territory launched last year.

During the third Republican presidential debate in Miami on Nov. 8, candidate Vivek Ramaswamy accused Ukraine of banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. “The parliament did that just last week, supported by our U.S. dollars,” he said.

Earlier, in a popular show on X, media personality Tucker Carlson accused the Ukrainian government of banning “an entire Christian denomination.” As of this week, the show had been viewed almost 55 million times. https://www.voanews.com/a/orthodox-church-row-threatens-us-aid-to-ukraine/7360438.html

Yes, Ukraine wants to ban the Russian Orthodox Church. And yes, some in the USA have brought that up as part of their rationale to question US aid to Ukraine.

Ukraine is not a bastion of religious freedom.

Notice also:

Two pieces of legislation now before the Ukrainian Rada (the national parliament) would effectively prohibit Ukrainian churches from associating with the Russian Orthodox Church. Rostyslav Povlenko, a Rada member from ex-president Petro Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party, supports a bill that would make affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church illegal and push its Ukrainian wing to reach terms of agreement with the OCU patriarch. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/09/01/letter-from-ukraine-orthodox-church-00113373

This attitude of Ukraine’s government towards religion is not a new one in 2023. Notice, for example, two reports from last December;

December 2, 2022

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine on Friday banned the activities of religious organizations “affiliated with centers of influence” in Russia and said it would examine the links between the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree enacting a National Security and Defense Council decision to impose personal sanctions against representatives of religious organizations associated with Russia, which invaded Ukraine more than nine months ago.

Zelenskyy’s decree additionally provided for examining the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, one of two Orthodox bodies in Ukraine following a schism that in 2019 resulted in the establishment of one with independence from the Russian church.  …

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Ukrainian authorities last week of “waging a war on the Russian Orthodox Church.” …

Orthodox Christians are the largest religious population in Ukraine. But they have been fractured along lines that echo political tensions over Ukraine’s defense of its independence and its Western orientation amid Russia’s continued claim to political and spiritual hegemony in the region — a concept sometimes called the “Russian world.” https://apnews.com/article/zelenskyy-kyiv-religion-europe-government-and-politics-7eaf9ac19b000a2147f0204877a0004e

December 12, 2022

Zelensky’s skill at public relations, which has led many to regard any criticism of him or his government as Russian propaganda.

Yet a closer look at life in Zelensky’s Ukraine reveals that it is not the paragon of democracy and Western values that everyone seems to think it is. Ukraine is a deeply corrupt country with wealthy oligarchs playing the same role there as they do in Putin’s Russia. Using the war as an excuse, Zelensky has banned his political opposition and shut down all media not controlled by his regime.

The latest example of his authoritarian style is even more egregious.

Zelensky’s attempt to bar Orthodox churches that answer to the Russian Orthodox Church ought to dispel any notion that Americans are supporting Western values of freedom in this war. …

The discovery of pro-Russia literature in some churches is being proclaimed as proof of treason. Others are dismissing the initial cries of outrage as misinformation. Zelensky hasn’t banned the Orthodox Church, his apologists say. Orthodox Christians are free to worship and attend services, but only in approved Ukrainian Orthodox churches that look to religious leaders in Kyiv rather than Moscow. …

This approach toward the Orthodox Church clearly contradicts those eager to portray this war as a clear-cut conflict between an authoritarian oppressor and a democratic underdog.

While Putin, in his quest to reassemble the old Tsarist and Soviet empires, should not be allowed to extinguish Ukraine’s right to self-determination, the reality on the ground is that many ethnic Russians and Russian speakers living in the country don’t identify with Ukrainian nationalism. So even churches that take no part in the conflict are seen by Zelensky and his cohorts as enemies. …

The apt comparison for Zelensky’s move against the Russian Orthodox Church here is not to democracies under siege but to communist China, which for decades limited Christian worship to only those Catholic or Protestant churches that pledged fealty to Beijing and the Communist Party and not to any independent religious authority. https://www.newsweek.com/zelensky-defender-democracy-opponent-religious-freedom-opinion-1766012

Volodymyr Zelensky  is a secular Jew. Yet, let me point out that it is not just the government of the Ukrainian President with that approach or attitude.

Back in 2018, shortly thereafter, leaders in Ukraine met to become independent of the Moscow patriarch. Here is a report:

15 December 2018

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has announced the creation of an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, marking a historic split from Russia.

He said national security depended on “spiritual independence” from Russia.

He was speaking at a special council of orthodox priests in Kiev, where a new leader of the Church was selected.

The Russian Orthodox Church cut ties with the spiritual authority of the world’s Orthodoxy after it recognised the Ukrainian Church’s independence.

Russia also fears that its churches in Ukraine could be seized. …

The special council was held in the ancient St Sophia’s Cathedral – one of Kiev’s best known landmarks.

Ukrainian clerics of different Orthodox denominations – including some bishops from the Moscow branch – elected Metropolitan Epifaniy as the leader of the new church.

“This day will go into history as a sacred day… the day of the final independence from Russia,” President Poroshenko told a crowd of thousands outside the cathedral. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46575548

The Russian church was concerned about this and asked for international assistance. And while the Vatican and the World Council of Churches were sympathetic to the Russia position, the Patriarch of Constantinople made a ruling in favor of the nationalistic Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

There was not some new doctrinal change in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) that caused Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople to recognize the Ukrainian Orthodox church as independent of the ROC.

Basically, that schism was due to politics.

Notice also the following about the split back in December 2018–one statement of which I bolded:

A council of Orthodox bishops has created a new Ukrainian church, marking an historic split from Russia which its leaders see as vital to the country’s security and independence.

The announcement on Saturday came after Ukrainian priests held a synod in capital Kiev’s 11th-century Saint Sophia Cathedral to establish an Orthodox church independent from Moscow. …

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced that 39-year-old Metropolitan Epifaniy of the Kiev Patriarchate church is the head of the new church. His secular name is Sergiy Dumenko. …

“Ukraine was not, is not, and will not be the canonical territory of the Russian church,” Poroshenko said, adding that an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church was now a “matter of national security”. …

In Moscow, the Russian Orthodox Church protested vigorously and dismissed the synod as uncanonical.

Vladimir Legoida, a spokesman for the Moscow church, told Russian state television that the Kiev synod had “no church, religious or evangelical meaning” and that it will have “no canonical consequences”.

Representatives of Ukraine’s three Orthodox Churches attended the synod, but only two from the branch loyal to Moscow showed up.

Russian bishop Metropolitan Hilarion in Volokolamsk on Saturday compared the two representatives of the Moscow-backed church to Judas. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/ukraine-creates-orthodox-church-independent-russia-181215171220016.html

Like the old Roman Emperors Constantine and Theodosius, rulers of Ukraine place their government over religion.

This is not new, but this has been a factor in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Back in December 2018, I also posted:

The schism between Constantinople and the ROC has the potential to cause Ukraine to split with part supporting Russia. (Thiel B. Ukrainian Orthodox meet to become separate: Russian Orthodox ask for the UN to intervene. COGwriter, December 15, 2018)

That has since happened. The Donbas region is in support of Russia, aligned with it, and last year was annexed by Russia.

That being said, yes politics plays a role in what is happening between Russia and Ukraine.

But religion is also involved as political leaders have long invoked it when it comes to military conflict.

While there will, at some point, be a temporary acceptance of the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches with each other (as there will be temporal success of the interfaith and ecumenical movements), the current situation has been a factor in the shedding of blood in Ukraine and territories it once controlled.

Pray to the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6) for God’s kingdom to come (Matthew 6:10).

Freemason brotherhood symbol

COGwriter

The Vatican has, again, come out against Roman Catholics becoming official members of the Freemasons:

Vatican officially bans Catholics from joining Freemasons

16 November 2023

THE Vatican has officially banned Catholics from becoming Freemasons, it has emerged.

A letter from the Vatican’s doctrinal office read: “Active membership in Freemasonry by a member of the faithful is prohibited, because of the irreconcilability between Catholic doctrine and Freemasonry.” …

The latest ban on Freemasons cited a 1983 declaration that had been signed by the late Pope Benedict XVI, that declared Catholics “in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.”

Normally only open to men, Masonic lodges are known for their secretive rituals and symbols … https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2023/11/16/news/vatican_bans_catholics_from_joining_freemasons-3776407/

The Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) released a document on Wednesday reaffirming that Catholics are forbidden from becoming Freemasons.

The new document signed by Pope Francis and DDF Prefect Cardinal Victor Fernández was written in response to a bishop from the Philippines who had expressed concern at the growing number of Catholics in his diocese who are taking part in Freemasonry and asked for suggestions for how to respond pastorally.

The dicastery’s response, dated Nov. 13, calls for “a coordinated strategy” involving all of the bishops in the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines to promote catechesis “in all parishes regarding the reasons for the irreconcilability between the Catholic faith and Freemasonry.”

The Freemasons are the largest worldwide oath-bound secret society. Freemasonry promotes ideas and rituals incompatible with the Catholic faith, including indifferentism, or the position that a person can be equally pleasing to God while remaining in any religion, and a deistic concept of a “Great Architect of the Universe.” 11/15/23 https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/256014/vatican-doctrine-office-reaffirms-that-catholics-cannot-be-freemasons

This is an interesting development for at least two reasons.

One of the reasons that this is interesting is that Pope Francis has had a mainly positive relationship with the Freemasons. And he has been repeatedly criticized for that (e.g., see Another Roman Catholic confirms papal tolerance of Freemasonry).

But, the other is that the wording of the Vatican’s letter does not prohibit cooperation with the Freemasons–and that is something that I believe the Vatican will, to a degree, continue to have–despite this latest letter. So, no this does NOT stop all future cooperation between the Vatican and the Freemasons.

Freemasonry, like the Vatican, is pushing a globalist agenda; hence cooperation, for a time, with the Church of Rome is expected, as both have some similar objectives.

The Freemasons have the word “Free” in their name as centuries ago masons were allowed to freely cross national borders in order to build massive buildings. While modern Freemasons are rarely builders of massive monuments anymore, they kept the term “Free,” which seems to imply they are free to learn more about the practices, etc. of masonry.

Here is some information from an actual Freemason website:

What is Freemasonry?

Freemasonry is the oldest, largest and most widely recognized fraternal organization in the world. Founded in London, England in 1717, its current worldwide membership totals 3.6 million members, 1.6 million of which are in North America. …

As a fraternal organization, Freemasonry unites men of good character who, though of different religious, ethnic, or social backgrounds, share a belief in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of mankind.

The traditions of Freemasonry are founded upon the building of King Solomon’s Temple, and its fraternal ceremonies use the working tools of the stonemasons to symbolize moral lessons and truths. For example, Masons are reminded at Lodge to “meet upon the level of equality, act by the plumb of uprightness, and part upon the square of virtue.” https://www.freemason.com/how-to-join/what-is-freemasonry/ access 08/25/18

Historically, there were some ties between the Freemasons and a group called the Illuminati in the 18th century. Some claim that the Freemasons are the Illuminati. Others believe that the Illuminati are like a subset of the Freemasons, whereas others feel that the Illuminati per se, no longer exist but that many of their ideas live on in Freemasonry.

Now notice some past comments from Freemasons related to Roman Catholicism and Pope Francis:

The fact: Freemasonry today is no more anti-Catholic than it is anti-vegetarian. … As an organization, however, Freemasonry takes no position whatsoever on any religion and in fact encourages toleration in all its members. http://www.masonicinfo.com/anticatholic.htm accessed 10/19/18)

On March 15, 2013, the website of the Virtual Grand Lodge of Italy, GLVDI, published a statement (though dated March 13, 2013) of Grand Master Luciano Nistri concerning the election of the new pope:

The Catholic Church has chosen as Pope the Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio who assumed the name of Francis. A clear-cut choice, away from the logic of the Roman Curia and of the temporal power. From the first moment on, Pope Francis, a man who comes “nearly from the end of the world,” rejecting the ermine robe and gold cross and replacing it with an iron cross, made his first tangible act. In his first words of greeting he fostered a desire for dialogue with the world and with mankind, nurturing the vivid hope for laymen and nonbelievers that change is underway. Maybe this is really what the world expects and what it expected. A new Church that knows how to reconnect love with truth in a confrontation among institutions not entrenched in the defense of their own power. It is that same hope for which the world — and especially Latin America, where the Masons Simon Bolivar, Salvador Allende and the same Giuseppe Garibaldi [especially while in Brazil] among the many who have given liberty to those peoples — has always longed for.

A message that Freemasonry itself perceives a sharp break with the past and one which is turned now to listening to the poor, the marginalized and the weakest. To the new Pontiff we send our best wishes for his good work for years to come. Luciano Nistri, Grand Master GLVDI.

On September 21, 2013, moreover, during the celebrations by the Freemasonry of the Grand Orient of Italy on the occasion of the recurrence of the 20th of September and of the Fall Equinox, the Grand Master Gustavo Raffi stated, inter alia:

Pope Francis launches messages of humanity that are in tune with what we have been saying for years. He also invites people to come out of the catacombs and not to withdraw but to witness among the different peoples to one’s own values [sic], in speaking to society. The reflections should not be limited to today but should build the future. This is a living Masonry, talking to people [in a dialogue].

In an interview published (but left undated) some time after his election in December 2013, Vincenzo Romano, 33°, the then-newly elected Deputy or Vicar Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Italy of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons — Piazza del Gesù — Palazzo Vitelleschi, pointed out that Freemasonry does not follow the [Catholic] tenets and complained that the Church does not accept the way of thinking of the Masons. He then answered to the following question:

“Pope Bergoglio has [already] made many openings; may there be something positive to be seen from him with regard to Freemasonry?”

The Mason replied:

“Pope Bergoglio thus far proved to be a great Pope, but I do not know if he has some prejudice against us. Let’s wait to see if there will be any reactions. We declare ourselves ready to embrace the Catholic world. (April 7, 2017 https://onepeterfive.com/freemasons-love-pope-francis/ accessed 08/25/18)

The Bible tells of a coming time of international cooperation and a highly monitored economy that Freemasons and others seem to be unknowingly moving towards:

1 Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name. 2 Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. 3 And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast. 4 So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?”

5 And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue for forty-two months. 6 Then he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, His tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven. 7 It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. 8 All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. (Revelation 13:1-8)

11 Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. 12 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. 13 He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. 14 And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. 15 He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. 16 He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

18 Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666. (Revelation 13:11-18)

A type of world government, that will come out of a warring power, will temporarily (42 months according to Revelation 13:5) have a lot of power and influence. It will try to have various economic plans but according to the Bible it will not be good nor end well (Revelation 18).

Not that the globalists are attempting to fulfill those prophecies or think that what they are doing will be that harmful. Since few people believe that the solution to the problems of humankind is the coming Kingdom of God, many look for various ‘solutions’ from ideas and government of human beings instead of God.

Here is something from my free online book Lost Tribes and Prophecies: What will happen to Australia, the British Isles, Canada, Europe, New Zealand and the United States of America?–note also the section that I bolded:

The World Worships the Beast

The Book of Revelation teaches:

⁸ All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. (Revelation 13:8)

The “him” above is the Babylonian European Beast.

The “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2) has worked to set the stage for this Beast to have secular and religious supporters of various types.

Secular organizations such as the World Economic Forum (WEF),[i] United Nations,[ii] and the Bilderberg Group[iii] all support a type of a somewhat ecumenical-interfaith-merged religion, allowing for certain differences, yet possibly writing their own holy book with artificial intelligence! [iv] They all promote what could be called a ‘globalist’ agenda, consistent with prophecies (e.g. Revelation 17:1-5).

The European Union does as well, however, its view is that Europe should lead a coming “new world order.”[v]

In May of 2022, World Economic Forum’s founder Klaus Schwab, who is German, said he wanted to make it “clear” — “the future is built by us.”[vi] And the WEF will work with others, like European politicians, to make that happen. WEF Chief Executive Philippe Donnet wrote related to global governance, “The world needs a leader. Europe should step up … Global leadership, especially in socioeconomic terms, could become the shared goal of European citizens.”[vii]

Furthermore, the WEF has wanted Roman Catholic involvement and Pope Francis has, at least twice, sent Klaus Schwab pro-WEF letters.[viii]

In 2020 Prince Charles, now king Charles III, endorsed the WEF’s globalist ‘Great Reset” agenda.[ix] There are prophecies about some of the UK (Ephraim) calling out to Germany (Assyria) after the start of the Great Tribulation (cf. Hosea 5:13). It is likely that at least one or more members of the British royal family will do this, though it will not turn out as they would have hoped (cf. Hosea 5:13b, 11:5).

Former German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who has pushed for more European integration, has personally spoken at a WEF meeting a decade ago[x] and was still listed as part of the WEF on its website in 2023.[xi] Herr Guttenberg also has directly called for Europe to reorganize.[xii]

The WEF has called its version of a reorganized world The Great Reset.[xiii] Many aspects of The Great Reset align with a future the Bible warns against. In 2021, the WEF announced it would work with Big Tech and governments to be able to control and censor the internet[xiv]—such control would seem to contribute to the coming “famine of the word” (Amos 8:11-12).

In 2022, Klaus Schwab told the G20 (a group of the most influential/powerful government leaders of the world) that he believed that “a deep systemic and structural restructuring of our world” was needed.[xv] While a deep European restructuring will occur (cf. Revelation 17:12-13), it is scripturally warned against. In 2023 in a keynote speech at the World Government Summit, Klaus Schwab stated, “I agree, artificial intelligence, but not only artificial intelligence, but also the metaverse, neospace technologies, and I could go on and on … And, who masters those technologies, in some way, will be the master of the world”[xvi]–and that is basically what he called for. Bible prophecy points to computer technologies to be used by the coming Beast power (cf. Revelation 13:16-18).

On the opening day of the WEF meeting in Davos, Switzerland in 2023, Klaus Schwab called for his supporters to “master the future,”[xvii] which looks to be directed towards globalist totalitarianism. On the closing day of that conference “Tanja Fajon, Slovenia’s minister of foreign affairs, complained about countries placing their own sovereignty over the interests of the ‘world order,’ “ [xviii] (the loss of national sovereignty will happen at least in Europe according to prophecies such as Revelation 17:12-13).

Another 2023 WEF Davos speaker, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari (Pakistan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs) stated shortly after Tanja Fajon, “Here at WEF…there’s a lot of discussion about what the new world order will be…” and he also stated that that they needed to continue working towards, “building this new world order.” [xix] Having watched the video clip of this, Bilawal Zardari also looked to be calling for something consistent with the final time of the Gentiles (Ezekiel 30:3). By not appreciating warnings contained in biblical prophecies, many are pushing in a direction that will end in death and destruction that the Bible says to flee from (cf. Revelation 18:2-19).

It needs to be pointed out that this book is not asserting that the United Nations, World Economic Forum, Freemasons, Bilderberg Group, etc. cannot do anything good. They do have many positive goals, yet also some goals that are opposed by scripture. Despite the good, the Bible warns:

¹ Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; (Psalm 127:1)

And, since these groups do not promote the supremacy of the God of the Bible, they, in that sense, labor in vain.

Related to goals of the New Age movement, consider the following:

A number of fundamental beliefs are held by many New Age followers…

• Universal Religion: Since all is God, then only one reality exists, and all religions are simply different paths to that ultimate reality. …
• New World Order As the Age of Aquariusunfolds, a New Age will develop. This will be a utopia in which there is world government, and end to wars, disease, hunger, pollution, and poverty. People’s allegiance to their tribe or nation will be replaced by a concern for the entire world and its people.[xx]

This also sounds consistent with what the Freemasons say they want:

What is the Mission of Freemasonry? To promote a way of life that binds like-minded men in a worldwide brotherhood that transcends all religious, ethnic, cultural, social and educational differences; by teaching the great principles of brotherly love, relief and truth; and, by the outward expression of these through its fellowship, to find ways in which to serve God, family, country, neighbors and self.[xxi]

There has, historically, been friction between the Freemasons and the Vatican, though this has lessened under Pope Francis.[xxii] However, Freemasons, and others without strong ties to the Church of the City of Seven Hills (Rome), are likely to be among those that will one day betray it after the Beast is more fully in power and an antipope is in place consistent with Revelation 17:16-18.

[i] Yanklowitz S. Global unity or chaos: Special report from the World Economic Forum! Jewish Journal, September 6, 2011

[ii] Secretary-General briefs Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question. United Nations, January 26, 2016

[iii] Richardson I, et al. Bilderberg People. Taylor & Francis, 2013

[iv] Global Agenda: Role of Faith in Systemic Global Challenges World Economic Forum, June 2016; Campbell M. WEF speaker suggests ‘New Bible’ written by AI. The Counter Signal, June 13, 2023

[v] Balázs P. ed. Europe’s Position in the New World Order. Center for EU Enlargement Studies, 2013

[vi] Klaus Schwab at World Economic Forum: ‘The future is built by us.’ World Tribune, May 23, 2022

[vii] Donnet P. The world needs a leader. Europe should step up. WEF, January 17, 2018

[viii] To Professor Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. From the Vatican, 12th January 2018; Franciscus PP. Message of His Holiness Pope Francis to Prof. Klaus Schwab. From the Vatican, 17 January 2014

[ix] Alessi C. ‘A golden opportunity’ – HRH the Prince of Wales and other leaders on the Forum’s Great Reset. WEF, June 3, 2020

[x] Stott M. German minister fears “infectious momentum” in Mideast. Reuters, January 28, 2011

[xi] Karl-Theodor Freiherr zu Guttenberg. World Economic Forum https://www.weforum.org/people/karl-theodor-zu-guttenberg accessed 01/21/23

[xii] Centrifugal Force An Interview with Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. Octavian Report, c. 2017; Octavian Report video on November 15, 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTL_CgBwmxo

[xiii] Scwab K, Malleret T. COVID-19: The Great Reset. Agentur Schweiz, 2020

[xiv] Hohmann L. World Economic Forum (WEF) Announces Creation of Orwellian ‘Global Coalition for Digital Safety’ Global Research, 1 July 2021

[xv] Florio G. World Economic Forum Chairman Klaus Schwab Announces His Plans For A “Deep Systemic And Structural Restructuring Of Our World” At The G20 Summit. Evie magazine, November 15, 2022

[xvi] Parker T. Klaus Schwab: Those who master new technologies “in some way, will be the master of the world.” Reclaim the Net, February 14, 2023

[xvii] Coglianese V. Editor Daily Rundown: Klaus Schwab Opens 2023 World Economic Forum With Call To ‘Master The Future’Daily Caller, January 17, 2023

[xviii] Dutton J. ‘New World Order’ Remarks at Davos Spark Flood of Conspiracy Theories. Newsweek, January 20, 2023

[xix] Dutton J. ‘New World Order’ Remarks at Davos Spark Flood of Conspiracy Theories. Newsweek, January 20, 2023

[xx] NEW AGE SPIRITUALITY a.k.a. Self-spirituality, New spirituality, Mind-body-spirit. Religious Tolerance.org http://www.religioustolerance.org/newage.htm viewed 07/29/22

[xxi] Reading Lodge No. 254 Free and Accepted Masons of the State of California. https://reddinglodge.org/mission-and-vision-of-freemasonry/ accessed 08/01/22

[xxii] Why do the Freemasons Love Pope Francis? OnePeter5, April 7, 2017

Despite what may be good intentions of many, including many Freemasons, the type of international ‘one-world’ government that many want is warned against in the Bible and will be replaced by Jesus, who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords:

11 Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. 12 His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. 13 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. 15 Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. 16 And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written:

KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

17 Then I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, “Come and gather together for the supper of the great God, 18 that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great.”

19 And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. 20 Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. 21 And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh. (Revelation 19:11-21)

Nearly all in the end will walk by sight and fall for the signs and lying wonders (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12). Yet, as scripture shows, those who support the Beast power in the end will not fare well.

Real Christians, however, are not to be ignorant of Satan’s devices (2 Corinthians 2:11) and are to “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7), even if it appears, for a time (cf. Daniel 9:27; see also The ‘Peace Deal’ of Daniel 9:27) that the globalist agenda is having success.

Satan will one day, in my opinion, also exploit the historical animosity between the Freemasons and the Vatican.

This latest letter from the Vatican will offend the Freemasons but I believe that they, and the coming anti-pope Antichrist, will work together. And yes, one day they will betray the Church of Rome, which would be consistent with the following:

9 Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits.  … 16 And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire. 17 For God has put it into their hearts to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. 18 And the woman whom you saw is that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth. (Revelation 17:9, 16-18)

While it will not only be Freemasons that would be expected to be involved in destroying the church of seven hills, they would seem to have at least some motivation to do so.

That said, a while back, the Continuing Church of God put out the following sermon on its ContinuingCOG channel:

1:16:04

Freemasonry, Armageddon, and Rome

What is Freemasonry? How long has it been around? Does Freemasonry point to cataclysms, such as Armageddon in 2022? Were many US founders and presidents Freemasons? Is there a difference between the USA/UK Freemasons and those in continental Europe? Can a biblical Christian be a Freemason? Are Roman Catholics allowed to be Freemasons? Do the Freemasons have a plan that includes an ecumenical Pope? Are Rotarians Freemasons? What about the Illuminati? Are many conspiracies about the Freemasons false? Could Freemasonry play a role in the rise of Europe and the destruction of the Church of Seven Hills?

Here is a link to the sermon: Freemasonry, Armageddon, and Rome.

Destruction will hit Rome, and the Freemasons in Europe may well be major supporters of that.

Some items of related interest may include:

Freemasonry and the Destruction of Rome? What is Freemasonry? What about ties to the Illuminati? Could they be involved in the fulfillment of prophecy? Here is a link to a related sermon: Freemasonry, Armageddon, and Rome.
Will the Interfaith Movement Lead to Peace or Sudden Destruction? Is the interfaith movement going to lead to lasting peace or is it warned against? A video sermon of related interest is: Will the Interfaith Movement lead to World War III? and a video sermon is also available: Do You Know That Babylon is Forming?
Armageddon Who is involved and when will this gathering happen? Here is also a video from Dr. Thiel, from Tel Megiddo in Israel: Armageddon. Another video is related to China’s One Belt, One Road Initiative (Silk Road project): watch Is China paving roads to Armageddon?
Satan’s Plan Does Satan have a plan? What is it? Has it already been successful? Will it be successful in the future? Here are links to a two-part sermon series: What are Some of the Parts of Satan’s Plan? and Satan’s Plan is More Dramatic than Many Realize.
Mystery of Iniquity What is the mystery of iniquity? How did it start? How will it end? Two related sermons are also available: The Mystery of Iniquity and The Mystery of Lawlessness.
Lost Tribes and Prophecies: What will happen to Australia, the British Isles, Canada, Europe, New Zealand and the United States of America? Where did those people come from? Can you totally rely on DNA? What about other peoples? Do you really know what will happen to Europe and the English-speaking peoples? What about Africa, Asia, South America, and the Islands? This free online book provides scriptural, scientific, historical references, and commentary to address those matters. Here are links to related sermons: Lost tribes, the Bible, and DNA; Lost tribes, prophecies, and identifications; 11 Tribes, 144,000, and Multitudes; Israel, Jeremiah, Tea Tephi, and British Royalty; Gentile European Beast; Royal Succession, Samaria, and Prophecies; Asia, Islands, Latin America, Africa, and Armageddon;  When Will the End of the Age Come?;  Rise of the Prophesied King of the North; Christian Persecution from the Beast; WWIII and the Coming New World Order; and Woes, WWIV, and the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
Beliefs of the Original Catholic Church: Could a remnant group have continuing apostolic succession? Did the original “catholic church” have doctrines held by the Continuing Church of God? Did Church of God leaders uses the term “catholic church” to ever describe the church they were part of? Here are links to related sermons: Original Catholic Church of God?, Original Catholic Doctrine: Creed, Liturgy, Baptism, Passover, What Type of Catholic was Polycarp of Smyrna?, Tradition, Holy Days, Salvation, Dress, & Celibacy, Early Heresies and Heretics, Doctrines: 3 Days, Abortion, Ecumenism, Meats, Tithes, Crosses, Destiny, and more, Saturday or Sunday?, The Godhead, Apostolic Laying on of Hands Succession, Church in the Wilderness Apostolic Succession List, Holy Mother Church and Heresies, and Lying Wonders and Original Beliefs. Here is a link to that book in the Spanish language: Creencias de la iglesia Católica original.

Temple Institute entrance
(Photo by Bob Thiel)

COGwriter

The Temple Institute had the following in a newsletter today:

“And Yitzchak was comforted”

(Genesis 24:67)

MarCheshvan 26, 5784/November 10, 2023

Avraham avinu (Abraham our father) was a man of chesed – a man of loving kindness. Wherever he went he spread the light of HaShem. He leapt up from a visit from HaShem in order to invite three wayfarers into his home and give them a meal. He argued with G-d like a man haggling in the market, for the sake of the righteous in Sodom. He did all he could for the betterment of his fellow man and he did all that G-d asked of him. And this included, of course, his final and greatest test – the akeida – the binding of Yitzchak. When all looked good, when the future looked so promising: at last the promised son has been born and has entered into the covenant. At last, Avraham and Sara have a son who will inherit their spiritual legacy. At last, HaShem’s promise of a great nation has gotten off to a sure start.

And then… “take your son, your only one, whom you love, yea, Yitzchak, and go away to the land of Moriah and bring him up there for a burnt offering on one of the mountains, of which I will tell you.” (Genesis 22:2) When the future was so bright and full of promise in one instant it all turned dark and full of despair. An entire life of devotion to HaShem is in danger! The world that Avraham has built with HaShem is in peril of crumbling into ruin. But the faith of Avraham prevailed. Without flinching he fulfilled G-d’s every demand. And in the end it all turned out well. The angel of HaShem stayed Avraham’s hand, Yitzchak was saved and a ram was placed on the altar in his stead. Avraham passed his final test in flying colors.

But this was only part one of Avraham’s final test. Yitzchak’s life was saved. But what about the future? Avraham realized that part two of his final test was to find for Yitzchak a bride. A new generation needed to come into being. And so in this week’s Torah reading, Chayei Sara, Avraham, after purchasing the Machpelah field and cave in Hevron for a burial site for his wife Sara, immediately sets out to find for Yitzchak a bride. Too elderly to set out on the journey himself, Avraham commissions his faithful servant and top student, Eliezer, to travel to the city of Nachor in Aram Naharaim, where Avraham’s ancestral family dwells, to find a bride for Yitzchak.

Eliezer takes up his mission with tremendous passion and imagination, setting out before HaShem the anticipated scenario that will confirm for Eliezer whether he has found the perfect bride or not. And, of course, as we all know, when “Rivkah, the daughter of Betuel the son of Milchah, the wife of Nachor, Avraham’s brother,” (ibid 24:15) appears at the well and draws water both for Eliezer and for his camels, Eliezer has succeeded in his mission. Yitzchak will have his bride, children will be born, a new generation will come into being, and the covenant between Avraham and HaShem will continue to grow and flourish through the march of time.

Sometimes life grows bleak. A sudden cloud can cast darkness on all we have lived for, on all we have accomplished, on all we hope for in the future. Avraham’s test of the akeida is a test that might be set before any one of us at any moment, out of the blue. All our accomplishments, all our preparations for the future are at once irrelevant. The great test before us needs to be taken up head on. We are armed with but one, essential asset to measure up to the challenge: our faith in HaShem.

By HaShem, the Temple Institute is referring to God. The Temple Institute, later in that newsletter, discussed its views (some of which we would not support) about Israel needing to be faithful since the attack it received from Hamas last month.

Anyway, getting back to Abraham, yes, Abraham was faithful:

1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”

2 But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!”

4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.” 5 Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”

6 And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.  (Genesis 15:1-6)

3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. (Romans 4:3)

Abraham believed God when the circumstances looked impossible–and physically they were.

Unlike many who claim Christianity, Abraham was willing to “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

The Bible reveals that Abraham continued to prove his belief through his actions:

5 … Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws. (Genesis 26:5)

8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; 10 for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (Hebrews 11:8-10)

Abraham believed, obeyed, and endured.

Now, notice something from the New Testament:

3 Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”

4 And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. 10 And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. 11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But he who endures to the end shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:3-14)

Jesus foretold the time that we are now in, which He called the beginning of sorrows. And He said we need to endure through it and that the end will come after the Gospel of the Kingdom of God is preached enough into all the world. You need to have the faith to endure, as well as you should be supporting the fulfillment of Jesus’ commission in Matthew 24:14.

Related to faith, Abraham, and enduring, here are some parts of our free online book, Faith for Those God has Called and Chosen:

Show Faith By Doing, Not Just Claiming to Believe

Paul wrote:

⁷ “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

In practical terms, this means that we live God’s way of life even when we have trials and temptations, when things seem almost hopeless, or when others try to deceive us. Paul also wrote:

³¹ “Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31).

Furthermore, James wrote:

¹⁷ Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. ¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. ¹⁹ You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe – and tremble! ²⁰ But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?  ²¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? ²² Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?  (James 2:17-22).

Thus faith goes beyond just believing. Living faith includes action that God approves – living as Jesus did and as He wanted His followers to do. Not only keeping the Sabbath or God’s Holy Days when it seems difficult, but to tithe, avoid pagan holidays like Christmas, and to be honest in a dishonest society. Also, to love those who do not love you (Matthew 5:44-48). Abraham’s faith was shown by obedience in works and how he lived his life, not in the manifestation of miracles from his prayers.  Abraham had living faith.  It takes faith to live God’s way in this world.

Jesus taught:

⁴⁸ Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)

We are not saved by works, but by faith:

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not of works, lest anyone should boast. ¹⁰ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Notice the Bible shows that although we are saved by grace, even that is the gift of God.Also notice that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works. …

We who are called and chosen need to remain faithful. We are not just to obey God, we need to have faith that His ways are best for us.

Notice two other passages of scripture:

¹⁸ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. ¹⁹ For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. (Romans 8:18-19)

²⁸ And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)

When things go wrong, we need faith to endure to the end. It sometimes takes faith to realize that all things work together for our good. …

Much of the Old Testament was Written for Our Example–What is the ‘Faith Chapter’ of the Bible?

The Bible says that much of the Old Testament was written for our example:

¹ Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, ² all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, ³ all ate the same spiritual food, ⁴ and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. ⁵ But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. ⁶ Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. ⁷ And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” ⁸ Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; ⁹ nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; ¹⁰ nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. ¹¹ Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. ¹² Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. (1 Corinthians 10:1-12)

Notice that in the Old Testament, many were walking by sight. But as Christians, we must have faith (2 Corinthians 5:7). In the New Testament, some of those examples are highlighted again.

Let’s go back to Hebrews 11, which is often called the ‘faith chapter’ in the Bible …:

¹ Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. ² For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.  ³ By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.

⁴ By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks. ⁵ By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God. ⁶ But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

⁷ By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

⁸ By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. ⁹ By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; ¹⁰ for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. …

¹⁷ By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, ¹⁸ of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” ¹⁹ concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense. …

[S]o notice what the Book of Hebrews teaches shortly after the ‘faith chapter’:

⁷ If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? ⁸ But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. ⁹ Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? ¹⁰ For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. ¹¹ Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

¹² Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, ¹³ and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. (Hebrews 12:7-13)

It takes faith to do that.

UPDATE 11/12/23: We just uploaded the following related video:

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Faith of Abraham in Troubling Times

What should Christians focus on during these troubling times that Jesus referred to as “the beginning of sorrows”? The Jews of the Temple Institute sent out a newsletter on November 10, 2023 promoting the faith of Abraham. How was Abraham faithful? What did Abram do? Did he believe, obey, and do work? Did he, as the Apostle Paul later admonished Christians, to “walk by faith, and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7)? Are Christians saved by faith for good works? Might Christians experience suffering? Can the example of the faith of Abraham be an example for Christians? Steve Dupuie and Dr. Thiel go over these matters.

Here is a link to our video: Faith of Abraham in Troubling Times.

More on faith can be found in our free online book, Faith for Those God has Called and Chosen.

Some items of related interest may include the following:

Faith for Those God has Called and Chosen What is faith? Can faith be increased? Are you saved by faith? What about works? Do Christians need to keep the Ten Commandments? What is the ‘faith chapter’? How do the just live by faith? Is faith one of the weightier matters of the law? How does faith come? Marque aquí para ver el pdf folleto: Fe para aquellos que Dios ha llamado y escogido. In German: Glaube für die von Gott Berufenen und Auserwählten. In French: La Foi pour ceux que Dieu a Appelés et Choisis. Here is a link to a related sermon titled: Faith for the Called and Chosen.and here is a link to another sermon Faith and Courage. Here is a link to shorter version of the written article in Mandarin Chinese 一篇关于信仰的小文章.
Prayer: What Does the Bible Teach? This free booklet contains 28 biblically-based tips on improving the effectiveness of your prayers. This is a pdf. A related two part sermon is available: What Does the Bible Teach About Prayer? and What does the Bible Teach About Prayer (& Healing)?
About Baptism Should you be baptized? Could baptism be necessary for salvation? Who should baptize and how should it be done? Here is a link to a related sermon: Let’s Talk About Baptism and Baptism, Infants, Fire, & the Second Death.
Is God Calling You? This booklet discusses topics including calling, election, and selection. If God is calling you, how will you respond? Here is are links to related sermons: Christian Election: Is God Calling YOU? and Predestination and Your Selection. A short animation is also available: Is God Calling You?
Christian Repentance Do you know what repentance is? Is it really necessary for salvation? Two related sermons about this are also available: Real Repentance and Real Christian Repentance.
The MYSTERY of GOD’s PLAN: Why Did God Create Anything? Why did God make you? This free online book helps answers some of the biggest questions that human have, including the biblical meaning of life. Here is a link to three related sermons: Mysteries of God’s Plan, Mysteries of Truth, Sin, Rest, Suffering, and God’s Plan, and The Mystery of YOU.
The Gospel of the Kingdom of God This free online pdf booklet has answers many questions people have about the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and explains why it is the solution to the issues the world is facing. It is available in hundreds of languages at ccog.org. Here are links to four kingdom-related sermons:  The Fantastic Gospel of the Kingdom of God!, The World’s False Gospel, The Gospel of the Kingdom: From the New and Old Testaments, and The Kingdom of God is the Solution.
Should the Church Still Try to Place its Top Priority on Proclaiming the Gospel or Did Herbert W. Armstrong Change that Priority for the Work? Some say the Church should mainly feed the flock now as that is what Herbert W. Armstrong reportedly said. Is that what he said? Is that what the Bible says? What did Paul and Herbert W. Armstrong expect from lower level leaders? Two related sermons are available The Work per HWA and the Bible and Priority of the Philadelphia Work.
Preparing for the ‘Short Work’ and The Famine of the Word What is the ‘short work’ of Romans 9:28? Who is preparing for it? Will Philadelphian Christians instruct many in the end times? Here is a link to a related video sermon titled: The Short Work. Here is a link to another: Preparing to Instruct Many.
The Final Phase of the Work What is the final phase of the work? Who will lead it? Do you have the courage to support it? Here are two related YouTube videos titled Final Phase of the Work: Need and Background and The Final Phase of the Work. The written article has been translated into Spanish La Fase Final de la Obra. And here is a link to a related Spanish language sermon: La obra corta y el Hambre de la Palabra de Dios.

Statue at Fatima Chapel and Image of What the Children in Fatima Said They Saw

COGwriter

November 8th is the day that the Roman Catholic Church claims is for ‘Holy Relics.’ Its followers partially cite the Council of Trent from the 16th century as proof this is acceptable:

Feast of the Holy Relics

Protestantism pretends to regard the veneration which the Church pays to the relics of the Saints as a sin, and contends that this pious practice is a remnant of paganism.

The Council of Trent, on the contrary, has decided that the bodies of the martyrs and other saints who were living members of Jesus Christ and temples of the Holy Ghost, are to be honored by the faithful. This decision was based upon the established usage of the earliest days of the Church, and upon the teaching of the Fathers and of the Councils. http://saints.sqpn.com/pictorial-lives-of-the-saints-the-feast-of-the-holy-relics/ viewed 11/06/13

Holy relics?

There are a few points to consider.

The first is that the Bible is opposed to the idea of ‘holy relics.’ Here is one admonition from the Apostle John:

21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols (1 John 5:21).

The second is that those that the Church of Rome consider to have been early ‘Fathers’ and saints were opposed to them as well.

After John died, his disciple Polycarp of Smyrna became perhaps the most well-known Christian leader in the second century.

Even though the Roman Catholics and Orthodox leaders consider that Polycarp was an important saint, note what Polycarp wrote in the mid-second century:

I exhort you, therefore, that ye abstain from covetousness, and that ye be chaste and truthful. “Abstain from every form of evil.” For if a man cannot govern himself in such matters, how shall he enjoin them on others ? If a man does not keep himself from covetousness, he shall be defiled by idolatry, and shall be judged as one of the heathen. But who of us are ignorant of the judgment of the Lord? (Polycarp. Letter to the Philippians, Chapter XI. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1as edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885).

Thus, Polycarp says that those who practice idolatry, even if they profess Christ, will be judged as a heathen!

In the early, mid-second century there was an apologist named Marcianus Aristides who wrote the following to the emperor:

But it is a marvel, O King, with regard to the Greeks, who surpass all other peoples in their manner of life and reasoning, how they have gone astray after dead idols and lifeless images. And yet they see their gods in the hands of their artificers being sawn out, and planed and docked, and hacked short, and charred, and ornamented, and being altered by them in every kind of way. And when they grow old, and are worn away through lapse of time, and when they are molten and crushed to powder, how, I wonder, did they not perceive concerning them, that they are not gods? And as for those who did not find deliverance for themselves, how can they serve the distress of men?

But even the writers and philosophers among them have wrongly alleged that the gods are such as are made in honour of God Almighty. And they err in seeking to liken (them) to God whom man has not at any time seen nor can see unto what He is like. Herein, too (they err) in asserting of deity that any such thing as deficiency can be present to it; as when they say that He receives sacrifice and requires burnt-offering and libation and immolations of men, and temples. But God is not in need, and none of these things is necessary to Him; and it is clear that men err in these things they imagine (Marcianus Aristides. TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK AND FROM THE SYRIAC VERSION BY D. M. KAY. Apology of Aristides the Philosopher, Chapter XIII. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9. Edited by Allan Menzies, D.D. American Edition, 1896 and 1897. Online Edition Copyright © 2005 by K. Knight).

It should be noted that Marcianus Aristides argued against the concept that it was acceptable to believe that the idols only represented God–he clearly taught that God was not to be worshiped with idols.

Melito also wrote against idols. Melito was a bishop of Sardis and is considered to be a saint by both the Catholics of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox.

Here is what Melito wrote around 170 A.D.:

We are not those who pay homage to stones, that are without sensation; but of the only God, who is before all and over all, and, moreover, we are worshippers of His Christ, who is veritably God the Word existing before all time (Melito. Translation by Roberts and Donaldson. From the apology addressed to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Online version copyright © 2001 Peter Kirby. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/melito.html 11/18/06).

For there are some men who are unable to rise from their mother earth, and therefore also do they make them gods. from the earth their mother; and they are condemned by the judgments of truth, forasmuch as they apply the name of Him who is unchangeable to those objects which are subject to change, and shrink not from calling those things gods which have been made by the hands of man, and dare to make an image of God whom they have not seen…

Who is this God? He who is Himself truth, and His word truth. And what is truth? That which is not fashioned, nor made, nor represented by art: that is, which has never been brought into existence, and is on that account called truth. If, therefore, a man worship that which is made with hands, it is not the truth that he worships, nor yet the word of truth…”

There are, however, persons who say: It is for the honour of God that we make the image: in order, that is, that we may worship the God who is concealed from our view. But they are unaware that God is in every country, and in every place, and is never absent, and that there is not anything done and He knoweth it not. Yet thou, despicable man! within whom He is, and without whom He is, and above whom He is, hast nevertheless gone and bought thee wood from the carpenter’s, and it is carved and made into an image insulting to God. To this thou offerest sacrifice, and knowest not that the all-seeing eye seeth thee, and that the word of truth reproves thee, and says to thee: How can the unseen God be sculptured? Nay, it is the likeness of thyself that thou makest and worshippest. Because the wood has been sculptured, hast thou not the insight to perceive that it is still wood, or that the stone is still stone? The gold also the workman: taketh according to its weight in the balance. And when thou hast had it made into an image, why dose thou weigh it? Therefore thou art a lover of gold, and not a lover of God…

Again, there are persons who say: Whatsoever our fathers have bequeathed to us, that we reverence. Therefore, of course, it is, that those whose fathers have bequeathed them poverty strive to become rich! and those whose fathers did not instruct them, desire to be instructed, and to learn that which their fathers knew not! And why, forsooth, do the children of the blind see, and the children of the lame walk? Nay, it is not well for a man to follow his predecessors, if they be those whose course was evil; but rather that we should turn from that path of theirs, lest that which befell our predecessors should bring disaster upon us also. Wherefore, inquire whether thy father’s course was good: and, if so, do thou also follow in his steps; but, if thy father’s course was very evil, let thine be good, and so let it be with thy children after thee. Be grieved also for thy father because his course is evil, so long as thy grief may avail to help him. But, as for thy children, speak to them thus: There is a God, the Father of all, who never came into being, neither was ever made, and by whose will all things subsist…

And then shall those who have not known God, and those who have made them idols, bemoan themselves, when they shall see those idols of theirs being burnt up, together with themselves, and nothing shall be found to help them (Melito. Translation by Roberts and Donaldson. A DISCOURSE WHICH WAS IN THE PRESENCE OF ANTONINUS CAESAR, AND HE EXHORTED THE SAID CAESAR TO ACQUAINT HIMSELF WITH GOD, AND SHOWED TO HIM THE WAY OF TRUTH. Online version copyright © 2001 Peter Kirby. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/melito.html 11/18/06).

Notice that Melito taught against the use of images/idols/icons AND then taught NOT to accept them even if it was handed down by fathers (in other words, do not rely on traditions that say that idols are correct). Since Melito is considered to be both a saint and a ‘father’ of the Church, by those Roman Catholics and Orthodox, then they should heed what he said as it is consistent with scripture.

About the same time that Melito was around, Theophilus also was a church writer. Theophilus of Antioch is not only considered to have been a saint by the Catholics and Orthodox, he also is in the Orthodox list of successors from the apostles. Here is a little bit of what he wrote about idols:

The divine law, then, not only forbids the worshipping of idols, but also of the heavenly bodies, the sun, the moon, or the other stars; yea, not heaven, nor earth, nor the sea, nor fountains, nor rivers, must be worshipped (Theophilus of Antioch. To Autolycus, Book 2, Chapter XXXV. Translated by Marcus Dods, A.M. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume II. Edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885. Online Edition Copyright © 2004 by K. Knight).

And concerning piety He says, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I am the LORD thy God” …Of this divine law, then, Moses, who also was God’s servant (Theophilus of Antioch. To Autolycus, Book III, Chapter IX. Translated by Marcus Dods, A.M. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2. Edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885. Online Edition Copyright © 2004 by K. Knight).

Other second century writers, though they were not in the true Church of God, such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Athenagoras, and Tertullian also wrote against idols.

Notice that Irenaeus actually wrote that when God was going to call Gentiles (basically quoting Isaiah 17:7-8), that they would no longer have or worship idols:

And that these promises the calling from among the Gentiles should inherit, to whom also the new testament was opened up, Isaiah says thus:

These things saith the God of Israel: In that day a man shall trust in his Maker, and his eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel: and they shall not trust in altars, nor in the work of their own hands, which their fingers have made. For very plainly this was said of such as have forsaken idols and believed in God our Maker through the Holy One of Israel. And the Holy One of Israel is Christ: and He became visible to men, and to Him we look eagerly and behold Him; and we trust not in altars, nor in the works of our hands.

(Irenaeus, St., Bishop of Lyon. Translated from the Armenian by Armitage Robinson. The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, Chapter 91. Wells, Somerset, Oct. 1879. As published in SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO, 1920).

The Catholic Encyclopedia calls Athenagoras a “Christian apologist of the second half of the second century”. Here is some of what he wrote:

Because the multitude, who cannot distinguish between matter and God, or see how great is the interval which lies between them, pray to idols made of matter, are we therefore, who do distinguish and separate the uncreated and the created, that which is and that which is not, that which is apprehended by the understanding and that which is perceived by the senses, and who give the fitting name to each of them—are we to come and worship images? If, indeed, matter and God are the same, two names for one thing, then certainly, in not regarding stocks and stones, gold and silver, as gods, we are guilty of impiety. But if they are at the greatest possible remove from one another— as far asunder as theartist and the materials of his art— why are we called to account? (Athenagoras the Athenian. A Plea for the Christians, Chapter 15. Translated by B.P. Pratten. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0205.htm>).

Notice some of what Tertullian wrote:

The principal crime of the human race, the highest guilt charged upon the world, the whole procuring cause of judgment, is idolatry…

God prohibits an idol as much to be made as to be worshipped. In so far as the making what may be worshipped is the prior act, so far is the prohibition to make (if the worship is unlawful) the prior prohibition. For this cause–the eradicating, namely, of the material of idolatry–the divine law proclaims, “Thou shall make no idol;”…All things, therefore, does human error worship, except the Founder of all Himself. The images of those things are idols; the consecration of the images is idolatry.

(Tertullian. On Idolatry, Chapters 1,4. Translated by S. Thelwall. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885. Online Edition Copyright © 2004 by K. Knight).

Furthermore, there is no evidence that any who professed Christ had idols/icons, such as what are seen in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, or even endorsed them in the second century. Thus, the early church was always against the use of idols and icons. Actually, the Roman Catholics clearly realize this as well as The Catholic Encyclopedia notes:

Long before the outbreak in the eighth century there were isolated cases of persons who feared the ever-growing cult of images and saw in it danger of a return to the old idolatry. We need hardly quote in this connection the invectives of the Apostolic Fathers against idols (Athenagoras “Legatio Pro Christ.”, xv-xvii; Theophilus, “Ad Autolycum” II; Minucius Felix, “Octavius”, xxvii; Arnobius, “Disp. adv. Gentes”; Tertullian, “De Idololatria”, I; Cyprian, “De idolorum vanitate”), in which they denounce not only the worship but even the manufacture and possession of such images. These texts all regard idols, that is, images made to be adored (Fortescue A. Transcribed by Tomas Hancil. Veneration of Images. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII. Copyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton Company. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight. Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York).

Furthermore, notice an accusation against those who professed Christ in the second/third century (date uncertain):

Why have they no altars, no temples, no acknowledged images? (Minucius. Octavius. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, Chapter 10. Edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885. Online Edition Copyright © 2004 by K. Knight).

It should be noted that no Christian prior to the late second or early third century is ever described as carrying an idol, having images in any worship services, or even wearing a cross (though some apostates started to advocate crosses in the second and third centuries).

The third point to mention is that it took councils of men to accept the relics for the Church of Rome.

It was not until the ninth century that the arguments over idols were resolved between the Roman Catholics and Orthodox (the Orthodox generally wanted them, but many Roman bishops/pontiffs up until that time fought against them). The Orthodox Church teaches this:

The Seventh Ecumenical Council (787 and 843) decreed the use of icons, following in the main the teaching of St. John of Damascus” (Litsas FK. A Dictionary of Orthodox Terminology – Part 2. http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article9152.asp 8/27/05) .

…within Christianity itself there had always existed a ‘puritan’ outlook, which condemned icons because it saw in all images a latent idolatry…The final victory of the Holy Images in 843 is known as ‘the Triumph of Orthodoxy’…One of the distinctive features of Orthodoxy is the place which it assigns to icons. An Orthodox church today is filled with them…An Orthodox prostrates himself before these icons, he kisses them and burns candles in front of them…Because icons are only symbols, Orthodox do not worship them, but reverence or venerate them…icons form a part of Holy Tradition…The Iconoclasts, by repudiating all representations of God, failed to take to full account the Incarnation” (Ware T. The Orthodox Church. Penguin Books, London, 1997, pp. 31-33).

Notice that the Orthodox call that acceptance of icons as “the victory of Orthodoxy” over those of anti-idol professing Christian faiths (the date appears to have been March 11, 843).

However, since the use of idols and icons was not the position of the first or even second century church, it is truly not orthodox to use idols and icons. (More information on the Orthodox Church can be found in the article Some Similarities and Differences Between the Orthodox Church and the Continuing Church of God.)

One Protestant scholar noted:

For the Jews and the early Christians, all attempts to create a likeness of God were prohibited…Gradually this reluctance faded, and at the beginning of the eighth century we find images in widespread use in the East; in the West they were less common (Brown HOJ. Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church. Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody (MA), 1988, p. 212).

But why did idols win for the Greco-Romans? It is my opinion that the Romans felt that they needed unity with the Orthodox in order to put up a united front against Islam. Islam was properly against idols, and apparently Rome felt that its sometimes historically-correct position against idols portrayed a divided “Christianity,” hence this was one additional major compromise for it.

The fourth point is that not only are the relics not holy, they often are not what people think.

At the beginning of this post are two statues. The first one is one normally in Fatima, Portugal, that Pope Francis had flown to Rome to bow and pray before. My wife and I saw this particular statue when we visited Fatima. While millions have bowed down before and/or prayed to this statue, I will mention again to all who will hear that the statue IS NOT DRESSED like what the three children at Fatima (Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta) claimed the ‘Lady of Fatima’ looked like in 1917. What they described was a young female with a short skirt as also shown at the beginning of this post. There is no possible way that Mary, the mother of Jesus, appeared in Fatima, Portugal before Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta in 1917. Suggesting that the first image, which is not even an approximate representation of what was seen in Fatima, was somehow holy is wrong. It should also be pointed out that the relics of the Apostle Peter are also not in the Vatican according to various Catholic-related sources.

The Bible shows that the use of images will be forced upon the world in the end:

11 Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. 12 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. 13 He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. 14 And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. 15 He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. (Revelation 13:11-15)

This will not end well for the Vatican (Revelation 17:15-17) nor for the rest of the world (Revelation 18).

The Bible does NOT endorse the ‘Feast of Holy Relics’ day.

For more information, please check out the following:

SECOND COMMANDMENT: What Did the Early Church Teach About Idols and Icons? Did the early Church use icons? What was the position of Christians about such things? A related sermon is available: The Second Commandment, Idols, and Icons.
Beliefs of the Original Catholic Church: Could a remnant group have continuing apostolic succession? Did the original “catholic church” have doctrines held by the Continuing Church of God? Did Church of God leaders uses the term “catholic church” to ever describe the church they were part of? Here are links to related sermons: Original Catholic Church of God?, Original Catholic Doctrine: Creed, Liturgy, Baptism, Passover, What Type of Catholic was Polycarp of Smyrna?, Tradition, Holy Days, Salvation, Dress, & Celibacy, Early Heresies and Heretics, Doctrines: 3 Days, Abortion, Ecumenism, Meats, Tithes, Crosses, Destiny, and more, Saturday or Sunday?, The Godhead, Apostolic Laying on of Hands Succession, Church in the Wilderness Apostolic Succession List, Holy Mother Church and Heresies, and Lying Wonders and Original Beliefs. Here is a link to that book in the Spanish language: Creencias de la iglesia Católica original.
What is the Origin of the Cross as a ‘Christian’ Symbol? Was the cross used as a venerated symbol by the early Church? Two related YouTube videos would be Beware of the ‘Ecumenical Cross’ and Origin of the Cross.
Fatima Shock! What the Vatican Does Not Want You to Know About Fatima, Dogmas of Mary, and Future Apparitions. Whether or not you believe anything happened at Fatima, if you live long enough, you will be affected by its ramifications (cf. Isaiah 47; Revelation 17). Fatima Shock! provides concerned Christians with enough Catholic-documented facts to effectively counter every false Marian argument.
Fatima Shock! YouTube Dr. Thiel highlights a few points of why no one would support Fatima, etc. as discussed in the documented book Fatima Shock!
Mary, the Mother of Jesus and the Apparitions Do you know much about Mary? Are the apparitions real? What might they mean for the rise of the ecumenical religion of Antichrist? Are Protestants moving towards Mary? How do the Orthodox view Mary? How might Mary view her adorers?
Pope Francis: Could this Marian Focused Pontiff be Fulfilling Prophecy? Pope Francis has taken many steps to turn people more towards his version of ‘Mary.’ Could this be consistent with biblical and Catholic prophecies? This article documents what has been happening. There is also a video version titled Pope Francis: Could this Marian Focused Pontiff be Fulfilling Prophecy?
Jesus: The Son of God and Saviour Who was Jesus? Why did He come to earth? What message did He bring? Is there evidence outside the Bible that He existed? Here is a YouTube sermon titled Jesus: Son of God and Saviour.
The Malachy Prophecies and “Peter the Roman” An Irish bishop allegedly predicted something about 112 popes in the 12th century. Pope Benedict XVI was number 111. Francis would be number 112–if he is that one–and if so, he is to reign until Rome is destroyed. May he be an antipope/final Antichrist? Here is a related YouTube video The Malachy Prophecies and “Peter the Roman”.
Could Pope Francis be the Last Pope and Antichrist? Former Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio is now Pope Francis. According to some interpretations of the prophecies of the popes by the Catholic saint and Bishop Malachy, Pope Francis is in the position of “Peter the Roman,” the pontiff who reigns during tribulations until around the time of the destruction of Rome. Do biblical prophecies warn of someone that sounds like Peter the Roman? This is a YouTube video.
Why Should American Roman Catholics Should Fear Unity with the Orthodox? Are the current ecumenical meetings a good thing or will they result in disaster? Is doctrinal compromise good?
Some Similarities and Differences Between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Continuing Church of God Both groups claim to be the original church, but both groups have differing ways to claim it. Both groups have some amazing similarities and some major differences. Do you know what they are?
Orthodox Must Reject Unity with the Roman Catholics Unity between these groups will put them in position to be part of the final end time Babylon that the Bible warns against as well as require improper compromise.
What Do Roman Catholic Scholars Actually Teach About Early Church History? Although most believe that the Roman Catholic Church history teaches an unbroken line of succession of bishops beginning with Peter, with stories about most of them, Roman Catholic scholars know the truth of this matter. Is telling the truth about the early church citing Catholic accepted sources anti-Catholic? This eye-opening article is a must-read for any who really wants to know what Roman Catholic history actually admits about the early church. There is also a YouTube sermon on the subject titled Church of God or Church of Rome: What Do Catholic Scholars Admit About Early Church History?
Which Is Faithful: The Roman Catholic Church or the Continuing Church of God? Do you know that both groups shared a lot of the earliest teachings? Do you know which church changed? Do you know which group is most faithful to the teachings of the apostolic church? Which group best represents true Christianity? This documented article answers those questions. [Português: Qual é fiel: A igreja católica romana ou a igreja do deus?]
Where is the True Christian Church Today? This free online pdf booklet answers that question and includes 18 proofs, clues, and signs to identify the true vs. false Christian church. Plus 7 proofs, clues, and signs to help identify Laodicean churches. A related sermon is also available: Where is the True Christian Church? Here is a link to the booklet in the Spanish language: ¿Dónde está la verdadera Iglesia cristiana de hoy? Here is a link in the German language: WO IST DIE WAHRE CHRISTLICHE KIRCHE HEUTE? Here is a link in the French language: Où est la vraie Église Chrétienne aujourd’hui?
Continuing History of the Church of God This pdf booklet is a historical overview of the true Church of God and some of its main opponents from Acts 2 to the 21st century. Related sermon links include Continuing History of the Church of God: c. 31 to c. 300 A.D. and Continuing History of the Church of God: 4th-16th Centuries and Continuing History of the Church of God: 17th-20th Centuries. The booklet is available in Spanish: Continuación de la Historia de la Iglesia de Dios, German: Kontinuierliche Geschichte der Kirche Gottes, French: L Histoire Continue de l Église de Dieu and Ekegusii Omogano Bw’ekanisa Ya Nyasae Egendererete.

Official English version of “A Synodal Church on Mission” the Synthesis Report of the First Session of @16SynodAssembly
🔗📑 https://t.co/K44KQqAlJY#Synodality #SacredSilence@ACBC1 @secam_sceam @CCCB_CECC @MediaCcee pic.twitter.com/qtafgVHQZW

— Synod.va (@Synod_va) October 31, 2023

COGwriter

Last month, the Vatican hosted its ‘Synod on Synodality.’  It was unique as since these synods began after Vatican II in the 1960s, they have basically been restricted to Roman Catholic bishops, all of whom are males. This ‘Synod on Synodality’ included women as voting members as well as lay Roman Catholics (those not ordained as priests or bishops). This week, Pope Francis praised the ‘Synod on Synodality’:

November 2, 2023

Pope Francis answered two questions about the Synod on Synodality … Asked about the synod assembly’s discussion of homosexuality, Pope Francis said: “When I say ‘everyone, everyone, everyone,’ [I’m speaking about] people. The Church receives people. Everyone. And it does not ask how you are. Then, inside, everyone grows, but from a Christian belonging.” …

Francis said the result of the first part of the Synod on Synodality, which met at the Vatican Oct. 4–29, “is positive.”

“Everything was talked about with total freedom — and that’s a good thing,” he said. The Pope also said the synthesis report issued at the end of the monthlong gathering “needs to be studied” before the next synod meeting in October 2024.

“I believe that we have arrived precisely at that exercise of synodality that St. Paul VI wanted at the end of the [Second Vatican] Council because he realized that the Western Church had lost the synodal dimension that the Eastern Church has instead,” Francis added. …

On the topic of priestly celibacy, the Pope reaffirmed that the discipline can be changed … https://www.ncregister.com/cna/pope-francis-talks-synod-on-synodality-and-homosexuality-in-new-interview

Pope Francis knows that priestly celibacy was not one of the beliefs of the original catholic church. I have long written that I believe that the Vatican was open to changing its celibacy rule to better appeal to other groups such as the Eastern Orthodox and the Protestants.

That said, a reader sent me a link to the following related to Pope Francis and the ‘Synod on Synodality’:

November 2, 2023

All of us recognize that the recently concluded Synod on Synodality is going to cause problems. Those at the Synod openly discussed alphabet issues, ordaining women to the priesthood, and abandoning the apostolic tradition of the Church – the latter two of which are impossible to do.

Joining me on this episode of The John-Henry Westen Show is Matt Gaspers, editor of Catholic Family News, to discuss what he thinks Catholics should do in the wake of the Synod.

From Gaspers’ perspective, it seems that Pope Francis is attempting to build a rival body to the Church, citing Francis’ announcement for the Synod two years ago in which he quoted Dominican theologian Yves Congar saying that what is needed is not a “new Church” but a “different Church.”

Citing the opinion of Church historian Roberto de Mattei, Gaspers also states that Francis is “the ripe fruit of the [Second Vatican Council] and really bringing things to a head, bringing everything to its awful fulfillment.” He suggests the same for the Synod itself, acknowledging that the Synod may attempt to foist “unprecedented errors” on the universal Church, just as they were discussed in the Synodal Hall. …

Gaspers also believes there could be a physical chastisement coming in light of the Third Secret of Fatima. While the future may be spiritually “challenging” for us, Gaspers contends it could also be materially challenging, and that people should be prepared. …

He also warns of the possibility that the Synod may act as a catalyst for a formal schism in the Church. …

“Even if the Pope says it’s okay, just because he says so doesn’t make it true,” he says. “Even he is bound by what … the Church has always believed and taught and … preached throughout the ages.”

Well, as pointed out in my free online book, Beliefs of the Original Catholic Church: Could a remnant group have continuing apostolic succession?, it is the Church of God, not the Church of Rome that has held to the original faith. That is a biblically and historically documented fact as that book clearly lays out. As far as Fatima goes, I also wrote a commercially available book on that and went into detail related to its “Third Secret”: Fatima Shock! What the Vatican Does Not Want You to Know About Fatima, Dogmas of Mary, and Future Apparitions.

That said, there are Greco-Roman Catholic writings that have predicted a schism and additional compromise by the Church of Rome.

For example, consider that it has been written that a change to the Vatican’s “Constitution” will come about after a council:

Venerable Anna Maria Taigi (died 1837): The Pope shall convoke a council. A new constitution of the Church shall be proclaimed in it. (Rossi, p. 65)

If that were to happen, when may that happen?

Well consider that in 325, the sun-worshiping Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicea. The Roman and Eastern Orthodox Catholics consider that to have been the “first ecumenical council.”

The Eastern Orthodox contend that there were seven ecumenical councils and that an eighth one will come.

The seventh one was the second Council of Nicea of 787.

In 2025, the Roman and Eastern Orthodox Catholics plan to have what has been called the third Council of Nicea to mark the 1700th anniversary of the first Council of Council.

Back in 2014, we put together the following video:

The Continuing Church of God is pleased to announce our latest video on our Bible New Prophecy YouTube channel:

10:44

3rd Council of Nicea in 2025?

The first ecumenical Council of Nicea was in 325 A.D. The Second Council of Nicea began in 787 A.D. The Roman Catholic Pope Francis and the Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople have called for a meeting between the Orthodox and the Vatican to take place in the year 2025. What was the result of the earlier councils? Does the Bible support this 2025 meeting? What are some of the dangers?

Written information on the first Council of Nicea is included in the post Ecumenical meeting in Nicea planned for 2025: What happened in 325 and what could happen in/by 2025?

It still looks like this third council will take place.

Notice an old Roman Catholic prediction:

Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser (Born in the 17th century, in Germany) …God will bind Satan for a number of years until the days of the Son of Perdition…there will be an ecumenical council which will be the greatest of all councils.  By the grace of God, by the power of the Great Monarch, and by the authority of the Holy Pontiff, and by the union of the most devout princes, atheism and every heresy will be banished from the earth.  The Council will define the true sense of Holy Scripture , and this will be believed and accepted by everyone (Dupont, Yves. Catholic Prophecy: The Coming Chastisement. TAN Books, Rockford (IL), 1973, p. 40).

The third Council of Nicea might be considered to be the eighth ecumenical council by the Eastern Orthodox. As it turns out, one of their saints put forth the following prediction:

Saint Nelios the Myrrh-Gusher (died 1592): During that time the Eighth and last Ecumenical Synod will take place, which will satisfy the contentions of the heretics…(Tzima Otto H. The Great Monarch and WWIII in Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Scriptural Prophecies. Verenika Press, Rock City (SC), 2000, p. 111)

By satisfying “heretics”, clearly this council compromises and changes the religion, which will be called “Catholic”.

Yet, some Eastern Orthodox look forward to this, but also expect an antipope near then:

Helen Tzima Otto (20^th century): We have been told time and time again through the prophets that the Great Monarch and Papa Angelorum … will convene the 8^th Ecumenical Council, which will reunify all Christians … The Emperor will spend three years waging wars against the non-Christian nations … {later will be} the end time schism of the Roman Catholic Church of the End Times and the rise of an antipope (Tzima Otto, pp. xxv, 103, 122).

Such unity will be dangerous for both the Church of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox. Signs and lying wonders may be a deceptive factor in this occurrence (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:9).

Notice that one Orthodox writer worries that strong ecumenical unity may come about because of apparitions claiming to be Mary:

Peter Jackson (20^th century): To which Mary are Muslims and Protestants being drawn?… Rome began to see her more and more as a “goddess,” a fourth Hypostasis of the Trinity…Today, as heterodox Christians become more and more ecumenist and work toward creating a “One World Church,” the search has begun for a Mary of universal recognition, one who will appeal not only to those who bear the name Christian, but apparently to Muslims and others as well, just as attempts are likewise being made to identify the “new Christ” with the Muslim concept of their coming Mahdi and with the Messiah still awaited by the Jews. This, of course, will be no Christ at all but the antichrist (Jackson P. ORTHODOX LIFE., No. I, 1997., Brotherhood of Saint Job of Pochaev at Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, N.Y. pp. 18-22).

Since the Bishop of Rome already has stated that the Vatican will compromise doctrinally in order to get the Orthodox to join (as I was told privately when I was at the office of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople back in May 2008), the Eastern Orthodox are justifiably concerned that such unity will take place.  Furthermore, Roman Catholics are right to be concerned that since the Vatican has already stated that it will compromise for the sake of unity with the Eastern Orthodox, that compromise will occur in Rome for such unity.

Notice what two Roman Catholic priests wrote:

Priest O’Connor (20^th century?): This final false prophet will be a bishop of the church and will lead all religions into becoming one…

Priest Paul Kramer (21^st century): The errors of Orthodoxy and of Protestantism will be embraced by that false church, it will be an ecumenical church because the Anti-Pope will be recognized by the world—not by the faithful, but by the world—by the secular world and the secular governments…

The Anti-Pope will be recognized as the legitimate Pope of the “church,” and the legitimate head of the Vatican State. That “church” will be united with all the false religions. They will be united together under the universality of the Masonic umbrella. In that motley ecumenical union will be the established religion of the so-called civilized world. This is how we will get into the time of great persecution such as the world has never seen (2012 and the Rise of the Secret Sect, pp. 171, 173).

Notice that both Roman and Eastern Orthodox sources are concerned that such unity will result in the rise of the final Antichrist.

The idea of an antipope being the Antichrist seems also to have pontifical backing:

Gregory VII’s rhetoric…his naming the “antipope” Guibert as “Antichrist and Arch-heretic”…(Hughes KL. Constructing antichrist: Paul, biblical commentary, and the development of doctrine in the early Middle Ages. CUA Press, 2005, p. 206)

Bishop of Lucca, under the title of Alexander II…was the first pontiff chosen by the cardinals, and they chose him without consulting the Emperor…German and Lombard prelates held a council at Berne and elected as Pope Cadalous, Bishop of Parma, under the name of Honorius II.; and for three years there was a scandalous contest between the two claimants, each calling the other antipope and Antichrist in the usual fashion. (Church WC. The Galaxy, Volume 14. Publisher W.C. and F.P. Church, 1872. Original from the University of Michigan, Digitized Nov 11, 2008, p. 491)

The “usual fashion” is meant to convey that in the Middle Ages it was not uncommon for a pope (and not just one of them) to suggest that an antipope is Antichrist. The term ‘antipope’ is specifically believed, of itself, to convey the concept of being an antichrist by Roman Catholics. Thus, the idea of an antipope being the final Antichrist seems consistent with certain papal pronouncements.

Here is a pronouncement from Pope “Gregory the Great” suggesting something similar:

St. Gregory says, “I confidently say that whoever doth call himself universal bishop, or desireth to be so called, doth, in his elation, forerun Antichrist, because he proudly doth set himself before the rest.”

We cannot but ask, What would Pope Gregory the Great have said to the titles now assumed by his successors, such as “the vicegerent of God,” “the vicar of Christ on earth,” whose “teachings should be received as if they were His own,” and whom the whole episcopate must be “subject to” on pain of being considered “a lawless and disorderly crowd”? (As in AN OPEN LETTER TO HIS HOLINESS LEO XIII. Cited in McKim RH.Romanism in the light of history. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1914, p. 54).

St. Gregory…”I do confidently say that whosoever called himself universal Bishop; or is desirous to be called so, in his pride, is the Forerunner of Anti-christ; because, in his pride, he prefers himself to the rest. And he is conducted to error, by a similar pride; for as the wicked One wishes to appear a god above all men; so whosoever he is, who desires to be called the only Bishop (solus sacerdos,) extols himself above all other Bishops.” Tom. ii. Regist. Epist. In. 15. Epist. 33. edit, of Paris, 1705. (Brownlee WC. Letters in the Roman Catholic controversy, 2nd edition. LETTER VIII. TO DRS. POWER AND VARELA, AND MR. LEVINS. Published by the author, 1834, p. 95)

Thus, Gregory seems to be warning that if there ever is a “universal Bishop” that one with this title may become the final Antichrist.

Additionally, some Roman Catholic writers clearly have understood that the two-horned beast in Revelation 13 is likely to be an antipope and that a negative power will be established in Jerusalem:

Priest E. Sylvester Berry (published 1920):  The two horns denote a twofold authority – spiritual and temporal.  As indicated by the resemblance to a lamb, the prophet will probably set himself up in Rome as a sort of anti-pope…Antichrist will establish himself in Jerusalem…with his ‘lying wonders’… (Berry ES.  The Apocalypse of St. John, 1920.  Quoted in Culleton RG.  The Reign of Antichrist.  Reprint 1974, TAN Books, Rockford (IL), pp. 199-200).

Much of the above teaching is consistent with certain scriptures. And although most in the Protestant world that watch prophecy, as well as perhaps most in the Catholic world, have confused who the Antichrist is (many modern Protestants think he is the Beast), various Greco-Roman Catholic sources have correctly declared that the False Prophet is (or likely is) the final Antichrist. This was also the position of the Greco-Roman Catholic saint Augustine (Augustine. City of God, Book XX, Chapter 14. Translated by Marcus Dods. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 2. Edited by Philip Schaff. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887;  Culleton, The Reign of Antichrist, p. 117).

Notice the following Roman Catholic translation of part of the Apocalypse:

3 He took me in spirit to a desert, and there I saw a woman riding a scarlet beast which had seven heads and ten horns and had blasphemous titles written all over it.

4 The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet and glittered with gold and jewels and pearls, and she was holding a gold winecup filled with the disgusting filth of her prostitution;

5 on her forehead was written a name, a cryptic name: ‘Babylon the Great, the mother of all the prostitutes and all the filthy practices on the earth.’ …

9 ‘This calls for shrewdness. The seven heads are the seven hills, on which the woman is sitting.

15 The angel continued, ‘The waters you saw, beside which the prostitute was sitting, are all the peoples, the populations, the nations and the languages.

16 But the ten horns and the beast will turn against the prostitute, and tear off her clothes and leave her stark naked; then they will eat her flesh and burn the remains in the fire.

17 In fact, God has influenced their minds to do what he intends, to agree together to put their royal powers at the beast’s disposal until the time when God’s words shall be fulfilled.

18 The woman you saw is the great city which has authority over all the rulers on earth.’ (Revelation 17:3-5,9,15-18)

According to Roman  Catholic scholars, the seven hills are a reference to Rome.

An antipope will support the destruction of the Church of Rome.

Matt Gaspers brought up the threat of a “formal schism.” Here are some ancient and more recent writings by Roman Catholic clergy and others expecting this:

G. Rossi (1873): It is not unlikely, but, on the contrary, a well-founded rumor warns us, that an attempt will be made at the first opportunity to thrust upon St. Peter’s throne an anti-pope, in order to create a schism in the Church Catholic. They have adopted the maxim: Division is weakness. Divide et impera. Divide to crush. (Rossi, G. THE CHRISTIAN TRUMPET, OR, Previsions and Predictions about Impending General Calamities, The Universal Triumph of the Church, The Coming of Antichrist, The Last Judgment, and The End of the World. Compiled by PELLEGRINO [Gaudentius Rossi], A Missionary Priest with Superior’s permission. Boston, THOS. B. NOONAND & CO., 1873, p.97)

Pope Gregory the Great (died 604): In those days, near the end, hardly a Bishop, but an army of priests and two-thirds of the Christians will join the Schism. (Culleton, R. Gerald. The Reign of Antichrist, Reprint TAN Books, Rockford, IL, 1974, p. 122)

St. Hildegard (d. 1179): …this cardinal will proclaim himself Anti-Pope, and two thirds of the Christians will go with him. He, also well as Antichrist, are descendants of Dan (Culleton, R. Gerald. The Reign of Antichrist, p. 128).

Oba Prophecy: It will come when the Church authorities issue directives to support a new cult, when priests are forbidden to celebrate in any other, when the highest positions in the Church are given to perjurers and hypocrites, when only the renegades are admitted to occupy those positions (Dupont, p. 115).

Anna-Katarina Emmerick (19th century): I saw again a new and odd-looking Church which they were trying to build. There was nothing holy about it…(Dupont, p. 116).

St. Francis of Assisi (died 1226): There will be an uncanonically elected pope who will cause a great Schism, there will be divers thoughts preached which will cause many, even those in the different orders to doubt, yea even agree with the heretics, which will cause my Order to divide. (Culleton, R. Gerald. The Reign of Antichrist, p. 130)

Ted and Maureen Flynn (readers and reporters Catholic prophecies): Catholic prophecy warns us of severe problems facing the papacy in these end times…chaos will be within our midst.  An Antipope will seize papal authority…It will be those who hold fast to the truths of the faith who will be labeled as the perpetrators of this horrible schism, according to some visionaries (Flynn Ted and Maureen. The Thunder of Justice. MaxKol Communications, Inc. Sterling (VA), 1993, p. 255).

As far as others Roman Catholics think will be involved in causing this schism, consider the following that mentions secret societies and a particular false religion would seem to specifically apply to those in the true Church of God:

JANE LE ROYER (d. 1798)
SISTER MARY OF THE NATIVITY

“Many precursors, false prophets, and members of infernal secret societies, worshippers of Satan, shall impugn the most sacred dogmas and doctrines of our holy religion, shall persecute the faithful, shall commit abominable actions; but THE REAL AND EXTREME ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION SHALL MORE FULLY BE ACCOMPLISHED DURING THE REIGN OF ANTICHRIST, which will last about three years and a half. …

“When the time of the reign of Antichrist is near, a false religion will appear which be opposed to the unity of God and His Church. This will cause the greatest schism the world has ever known. The nearer the time of the end, the more darkness of Satan will spread on Earth, the greater will be the number of children of corruption, and the number of Just will correspondingly diminish. (Culligan, E. The Last World War and the End of Time. The book was blessed by Pope Paul VI, 1966. TAN Books, Rockford (IL), pp.127,128)

Anna-Katarina Emmerick… “Once more I saw that the Church of Peter was undermined by a plan evolved by the secret sect, while storms were damaging it. But I saw also that help was coming when distress had reached its peak. I saw again the Blessed Virgin ascend on the Church and spread her mantle [over it]. I saw a Pope who was at once gentle, and very firm…I saw a great renewal, and the Church rose high in the sky.” … Sept. 12, 1820. “I saw a strange church being built against every rule … No angels were supervising the building operations. In that church, nothing came from high above … There was only division and chaos. … August to October 1820. … I saw the secret sect relentlessly undermining the great Church. … October 22, 1822. “Very bad times will come when non-Catholics will lead many people astray. (Dupont, pp. 60-62, 71)

Anne Catherine Emmerich: May 13, 1820…I saw again the present Pope and the dark church of his time in Rome. It seemed to be a large, old house like a town-hall with columns in front. I saw no altar in it, but only benches, and in the middle of it something like a pulpit. They had preaching and singing, but nothing else, and only very few attended it…The whole church was draped in black, and all that took place in it was shrouded in gloom…I saw the fatal consequences of this counterfeit church ; I saw it increase ; I saw heretics of all kinds flocking to the city. I saw the ever-increasing trepidity of the clergy , the circle of darkness ever widening…Again I saw in vision St. Peter’s undermined according to a plan devised by the secret sect whilst, at the same time, it was damaged by storms; but it was delivered at the moment of greatest distress. (Emmerich AC. The Life and Revelations of Anne Catherine Emmerich. Schmöger edition, Vol. II. Approbation: Bishop of Limbourg Peter Joseph. Reprint TAN Books, Rockford (IL), 1976, pp. 277,279-281).

Elizabeth Canori-Mora (died 1825): “All men shall rise one against the other, and they shall kill one another without pity. During this sanguinary conflict the avenging arm of God will strike the wicked, and in His mighty power He will punish their pride and presumption. God will employ the powers of {Hades} for the extermination of these impious and heretical persons who desire to overthrow the Church and destroy it to its very foundation. These presumptuous men in their mad impiety believe that they can overthrow God from His throne; but the Lord will despise these artifices, and through an effect of His Mighty Hand He will punish these impious blasphemers by giving permission to the infernal spirits to come out from Haydes. Innumerable legions of demons shall overrun the earth, and shall execute the orders of Divine Justice by causing terrible calamities and disaster; they shall attack everything; they shall devastate property and alimentary productions, cities and villages. Nothing on earth shall be spared. God will allow the demons to strike with death those impious men because they gave themselves up to the infernal powers and had formed with them a compact against the Catholic Church. (Connor, pp.22-23)

Now Jane Le Royer suggests that secret societies will impugn the most sacred dogmas and doctrines of the Roman Catholic religion, and before Jesus (who they sometimes seem to identify as the Antichrist, see Do Certain Catholic Prophecies About Antichrist Warn Against Jesus?) comes, a false religion will “appear” that is “opposed to the unity of God and His Church.” Note also that Elizabeth Canori-Mora asserted that persecution would come to such people.

What kind of group claiming Christianity denies the “unity of God”? Well, none. But the one that comes to mind would be one that denies the 381 A.D. definition of the unity of God that Emperor Theodosius insisted on.

In many Roman Catholic writings, it is the doctrine of the trinity that they adopted in 381 that is linked with the unity of God (e.g. Lebreton, Jules. “The Logos.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910; Joyce, George. “The Blessed Trinity.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912; Aquinas T. The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas Second and Revised Edition, 1920 Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province Online Edition Copyright © 2008 by Kevin Knight Nihil Obstat. F. Innocentius Apap, O.P., S.T.M., Censor. Theol. Imprimatur. Edus. Canonicus Surmont, Vicarius Generalis. Westmonasterii. APPROBATIO ORDINIS Nihil Obstat. F. Raphael Moss, O.P., S.T.L. and F. Leo Moore, O.P., S.T.L. Imprimatur. F. Beda Jarrett, O.P., S.T.L., A.M., Prior Provincialis Angliæ; Fourth Council of Lateran (1215), in Denzinger-Bannwart, “Enchiridion”, 428; Aiken, Charles Francis. “Monotheism.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 10. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911; Msgr. Charles M. Mangan, he currently works in Rome as a member of the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life. United in the Trinity. Sunday Homilies Feed Your Sou. Catholics United For the Faith, Sunday, May 18, 2008. http://www.cuf.org/homilies/archive/051808.asp viewed 02/10/09)

Of course, we in the true Church of God have long opposed the trinity of Theodosius’ Council of Constantinople. Hence the “false religion” of Jane Le Royer can only be referring to a groups like the Continuing Church of God (it should be noted that the CCOG does believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and holds a view of the Godhead more akin to that held by the Roman Bishop Liberius in the mid-4th century than to the Theodosius’ Council). And recall that we, according to Nun Jeanne le Royer, “appear” just before Antichrist.

Notice also:

Nursing Nun of Bellay (died 1820): “All these things shall come to pass once the wicked have succeeded in circulating large numbers of bad books.” (Dupont, p.51)

Trappistine Nun of Notre Dame des Gardes. “Chastisement will come when a very large number of bad books have been spread” (Dupont, p 114).

Abbe Voclin. “… Horrible books will be freely available. Intellectuals will argue fiercely among themselves. Then war will break out that will see the rise of the Great Monarch” (Dupont, p. 114).

While we in the Continuing Church of God are not the only ones who can write books that some Roman Catholics disapprove of as a false religion, as it gets closer to the end, I believe that our writings will be perceived as a serious threat to the changing Roman Catholic Church as we claim ties to the original apostles and have kept the faith of the original Christians without change. And our CCOG books are freely available, including
Beliefs of the Original Catholic Church: Could a remnant group have continuing apostolic succession? which documents our faithfulness over that of the Greco-Roman Catholic churches.

Furthermore, notice that the Roman Catholic saint Hildegard of Bingen wrote:

And fly from those who linger in caves and are cloistered supporters of the Devil. Woe to them, woe to them who remain thus! They are the Devil’s very viscera, and the advance guard of the son of perdition.

Therefore, O you My beloved children, avoid them with all devotion and with all the strength of your souls and bodies. For the ancient serpent feeds and clothes them by his arts, and they worship him as God and trust in his false deceptions. They are wicked murderers, killing those who join them in simplicity before they can turn back from their error; and they are wicked fornicators upon themselves, destroying their semen in an act of murder and offering it to the Devil. And they also invade My Church with their schisms in the fulness of vice; in their shameful plots they wickedly scoff at baptism, and the sacrament of My Son’s body and blood, and the other institutions of the Church. … they pretend to have sanctity; but they are deceived by the Devil …

And thus for certain the punishment of all the schisms shall fall upon you: (Hildegard of Bingen. Scivias. Paulist Press, Mahwah (NJ), pp. 301-302).

The above has long been interesting to me as it could be that Hildegard is warning end time Greco-Roman Catholics not to listen to people who look like Christians (as they appear to “have sanctity”) while they are protected in caves and are miraculously fed. That sounds a lot like those Philadelphians that God will protect in the wilderness (cf. Revelation 12:14-16; see also There is a Place of Safety for the Philadelphians. Why it May Be Near Petra).

There are many biblical and non-biblical writings seem to warn against a coming unity that seems to be being pushed by Pope Francis.

Such unity appears to be coming within a relatively few years and would seem to be prophesied to affect the whole world–and not in a positive way.

And it will lead to persecution to those of true saints (Daniel 7:25; Revelation 13:6-7), those in the Church of God (e.g. 2 Corinthians 1:1)

Some items of related interest may include:

Beliefs of the Original Catholic Church: Could a remnant group have continuing apostolic succession? Did the original “catholic church” have doctrines held by the Continuing Church of God? Did Church of God leaders uses the term “catholic church” to ever describe the church they were part of? Here are links to related sermons: Original Catholic Church of God?, Original Catholic Doctrine: Creed, Liturgy, Baptism, Passover, What Type of Catholic was Polycarp of Smyrna?, Tradition, Holy Days, Salvation, Dress, & Celibacy, Early Heresies and Heretics, Doctrines: 3 Days, Abortion, Ecumenism, Meats, Tithes, Crosses, Destiny, and more, Saturday or Sunday?, The Godhead, Apostolic Laying on of Hands Succession, Church in the Wilderness Apostolic Succession List, Holy Mother Church and Heresies, and Lying Wonders and Original Beliefs. Here is a link to that book in the Spanish language: Creencias de la iglesia Católica original.
The Great Monarch: Biblical and Greco-Roman Catholic Prophecies Is the ‘Great Monarch’ of Greco-Roman Catholic prophecies endorsed or condemned by the Bible? Two sermons of related interest are also available: Great Monarch: Messiah or False Christ? and Great Monarch in 50+ Beast Prophecies.
Beware: Protestants Going Towards Ecumenical Destruction! What is going on in the Protestant world? Are Protestants turning back to their ‘mother church’ in Rome? Does the Bible warn about this? What are Catholic plans and prophecies related to this? Is Protestantism doomed? See also World Council of Churches Peace Plan.
Hope of Salvation: How the Continuing Church of God Differs from Protestantism The CCOG is NOT Protestant. This free online book explains how the real Church of God differs from mainstream/traditional Protestants. Several sermons related to the free book are also available: Protestant, Baptist, and CCOG History; The First Protestant, God’s Command, Grace, & Character; The New Testament, Martin Luther, and the Canon; Eucharist, Passover, and Easter; Views of Jews, Lost Tribes, Warfare, & Baptism; Scripture vs. Tradition, Sabbath vs. Sunday; Church Services, Sunday, Heaven, and God’s Plan; Seventh Day Baptists/Adventists/Messianics: Protestant or COG?; Millennial Kingdom of God and God’s Plan of Salvation; Crosses, Trees, Tithes, and Unclean Meats; The Godhead and the Trinity; Fleeing or Rapture?; and Ecumenism, Rome, and CCOG Differences.
Will the Interfaith Movement Lead to Peace or Sudden Destruction? Is the interfaith movement going to lead to lasting peace or is it warned against? A video sermon of related interest is: Will the Interfaith Movement lead to World War III? and a video sermon is also available: Do You Know That Babylon is Forming?
Why Should American Roman Catholics Fear Unity with the Orthodox? Are the current ecumenical meetings a good thing or will they result in disaster? Is doctrinal compromise good? Here is a link to a related video Should you be concerned about the ecumenical movement?
Orthodox Must Reject Unity with the Roman Catholics Unity between these groups will put them in position to be part of the final end time Babylon that the Bible warns against as well as require improper compromise.
Some Similarities and Differences Between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Continuing Church of God Both groups claim to be the original church, but both groups have differing ways to claim it. Both groups have some amazing similarities and some major differences. Do you know what they are? Here is a link to a related sermon: Eastern Orthodox 40+ Similar Beliefs to the CCOG.
Persecutions by Church and State This article documents some that have occurred against those associated with the COGs and some prophesied to occur. Will those with the cross be the persecutors or the persecuted–this article has the shocking answer. There are also three video sermons you can watch: Cancel Culture and Christian Persecution, The Coming Persecution of the Church, and Christian Persecution from the Beast. Here is information in the Spanish language: Persecuciones de la Iglesia y el Estado.
Prophecies Showing Persecution of Sabbath Keepers Are Sabbath-keepers going to be persecuted in the 21st century? Are there biblical and non-biblical prophecies that point to this type of persecution?

‘ Day
Day of the Dead decorations
(Tomascastelazo)

COGwriter

Many Greco-Roman-Protestants plan to celebrate Halloween tonight.

It is not a biblical nor a Christian holiday.

Israel365 News made the following comments:

October 31, 2022

Halloween is seen by many as a child-oriented holiday with no religious connotations. But the truth is that it has roots in paganism and many religious Christians and Jews reject Halloween on this basis. …

Halloween has gained in popularity in South Korea in recent years with some of the more boisterous celebrations taking place in the Itaewon neighborhood of Seoul, an area known for its nightlife and trendy restaurants. On Saturday night, the festivities were interrupted by a crowd crush. 154 were confirmed dead and over 133 were injured. …

Halloween has become enormously popular but its pagan roots go very deep. With connections to necromancy, religious Jews do not participate in what most Americans see as a family-oriented holiday. …

There are many Christians today that look at Halloween as a pagan holiday during which the devil is worshiped and evil is glorified. A recent survey by Lifeway Research revealed that 78% of Americans are planning on celebrating Halloween this year. …

Despite its current secular manifestation, Haloween’s pagan origins proscribe Jewish participation. This is also due to the prohibition of copying the practices of other nations (Lev. 18:3).

Halloween began as Samhain (pronounced Sow-in), one of the four main pagan holidays celebrated by the Celtics, who lived in areas of Ireland, northern England, and France before Romans conquered the region in the first century CE. Samhain marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the “darker half” of the year.

Similar to modern Halloween, Celtic pagans dressed up in costumes on Samhain and lit bonfires. Samhain was seen as a liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the spirit world could more easily be crossed. As such, it was an auspicious time for summoning dark spirits to aid in necromancy, communicating with the dead to foretell the future, a practice explicitly prohibited in the Bible. …

n what is widely believed to be an effort to subsume the Celtic pagan holiday into the Christian religion, in 1000 C.E., the church declared November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day honoring the dead. The night before All Souls’ Day was re-adopted in the Celtic region, with the name changed from Samhain to All Hallows’ Eve. …

The Church of Satan, the first organized church in modern times to be devoted to the figure of Satan, perceives Halloween as an opportunity for the average American to indulge in secret Satanist fantasies. On its website, the church claims that Halloween is “the night when the mundane folk try to reach down inside and touch the ‘darkness’, which for Satanists is a daily mode of existence.” They claim that by dressing in costume, the average American is taking “a brief dip into the pool of the ‘shadow world.’” https://www.israel365news.com/276146/how-do-jewish-and-christian-traditions-view-halloween/

The truth is that those who really obey and believe the God of the Bible do not celebrate Halloween.

Yet, several years ago, actor Kirk Cameron put out a film called Saving Christmas. As it turns out, it was reported to be a box office flop (see Kirk Cameron’s Christmas movie flops).

The Continuing Church of God put together the following sermon related to Halloween on its ContinuingCOG channel:

1:15:14

Halloween, Protestants, and Scripture

Should Christians celebrate Halloween? It became an official holiday in the 9th century after a pronouncement by the Roman Catholic Pope Gregory IV. Protestants such Joy Wendling, Kirk Cameron, Hailey Bieber, and Alan Rudnick think Christians should keep it. But other Protestants have issues with that. What about the Church of God, which is not Protestant nor Roman Catholic? What about Martin Luther, the Apostle Jude, the original faith, and licentiousness? Does Halloween have its origins in a pagan Druid holiday which has many of the same features as modern Halloween celebrations? What do Satanists and those who practice Wicca (witchcraft) think of Halloween? Is Halloween the right time to be a Christian witness? What about lewd Halloween costumes? Did a Roman Catholic write, “Catholic feasts are in continuity and fulfill the meaning of the pagan ones”? What did the Apostle Paul say about combining biblical and demonic practices? Did early Christians endorse anything like Halloween or ‘All Saints Day’? What is the state of the dead? Should real Christians rely on the word of God or feelings some ascribe to the Holy Spirit? Dr. Thiel addresses these issues and more.

Here is a link to the sermon: Halloween, Protestants, and Scripture.

Some Protestants and many Roman Catholics will not only observe Halloween, they will observe All Saints’ Day on November 1st, with some Mexicans celebrating the ‘Day of the Dead’ until November 2nd.

I have noticed that mainstream secular sources have pushed the ‘Day of the Dead’ a lot in the past few years–they used to basically ignore it before.

Related to all three of these observances, the Continuing Church of God put together the following sermon on its ContinuingCOG channel: