Looking at Amazon for Chris Pinto's latest film The True Christian History of America, which isn't there yet, another film caught my eye, From Babylon to America, by some Prophecy group, Not knowing anything about it I did a search on it. Seventh Day Adventist. A cult, but usually pretty well grounded biblically in spite of that. Except for the seventh-day stuff of course. But I prayed about it and decided to watch it.
Needed a break about half an hour into it, hard to take the slow pace of the information, the incessant background music, some of the sound effects, and the narrator's accent. His narrative is very good but his accent grates on me. \ t's a very interesting film nevertheless and unless despite its veering into SDA heresy. .
I could tell he was going to identify the papacy as the little horn of the fourth beast in Daniel's vision, and he did. He does a great job of showing the connection, quotes Roman Catholic documents that make the case identifying the papacy with the prophetic descriptions. Nevertheless I have a couple of objections. Both in Daniel and in Revelation we are given a time period to be aware of in connection with the Antichrist: "A time, times and half a time" is interpreted to mean three and a half years, and this is confirmed by the synonymous use of "42 months" to refer to the same period of time, as well as "1260 days" also referring to the same time period. And he starts out agreeing with this. These are all clearly equivalent, and scripture seems to be treating this time period as extremely important for us to be aware of and to be able to trust to be exactly what it says it is. The Pretribulation Rapture eschatology puts the Tribulation period into Daniel's as-yet unfulfilled Seventieth Week of the prophecy of Seventy Weeks, 69 of which were fulfilled on the Sunday Jesus rode the donkey into Jerusalem to announce that He is the Messiah. After that there is no time period that fits that could finish the 70 weels. in Jesus' time or throughout the last 2000 years. The 70th week is a "week of years" or seven years, and three and a half years is of course half of seven. People who are going to experience this time of tribulation are being alerrted by scripture in a number of different places, in Daniel and in the book of Revelation, to hold onto this time period to help them get through the horrific events they are going to have to endure. The meaning of those events will probably become much clearer to those going through them than they are to us now. We have our interpretations to offer now for whatever help they may be, but they may be flawed.
But the narrator of this film takes an unwarranted turn and treats the 1260 days as that many years instead, using scripture reference to make the equation. But that can't work in this case because the 1260 days is clearly meant to be synonymous with the time, times and half a time as well as the 42 months. If it's equivalent to those times then it can't refer to years. Nevertheless he makes it fit by claiming that the papacy was established in 538 AD with a decree of Justinian, and if you count that many years from that year you arrive at 1798 AD when Napolean arrested the Pope and stripped the Vatican of its power. It's a dramatic point to make. The Vatican's power was reinstated later by Mussolini, don't remember that year, bso that it again possessed oth its civil power and its religious power. HOWEVER, I'm used to the Protestant Reformers' identification of the year 606 AD as the year the Bishop of Rome officially became Universal Bishop which made him Pope, by a decreee of the Byzantine emperor Phocas. That of course changes the timing, and I'm not sure if it can be determined which date is truly the correct one. But it certainly seems clear that the 1260 days is intended to be the equivalent of three and a half years as well as 42 months and doesn't refer to years s the SDA film maintains. .
Of course I also believe the papacy is the Antichrist so I'm on track with the film to that extent. I've pointed out in an earlier post here that a great many Christians down the centuries have made that identification, not just the Protestant Reformers. If the Pretribulation Rapture exchatology is correct then scripture is referring to a period of three and a half years during which the papacy will have power over the world at the very end of time, the last half of the seven-yar Tribulation period of the Book of Revelation.
Yes it's true that the Pope had that power through the Middle Ages also. The narrator also says it was a hundred million Christians the Church of Rome killed during the Dark Ages. I've accepted the number of fifty million and so far, about halfway through the film, he hasn't given his source for that number.
He also interprets the description of the Antichrist as "changng times and laws" to mean even changing the Law of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. But it wasn't the papacy that did that, it was the early Church that met on the first day of the week which is Sunday in commemoration of the Lord's resurrection. The Roman Church didn't yet exist at that time in anything like its current form although there was a Bishop of Rome. The Roman Church, however, DID change one of the Ten Commandments -- to eliminate the commandment against bowing down to graven images since they are big on graven images and worshiping them, although they try to get away with saying it's not worship, it's "veneration." Not much difference but it's also true that Catholics do worship the images. Some do, certainly, perhaps more in Europe or other parts of the world than in the US. They get down on their knees and even lie prostrate on the floor to worship them, especially images of Mary. At Medjugorje where there were apparitions of "Mary" women walked on their knees around a statue of her. So I'd agree with the SDA narrator that the RCC did tamper with the Law of God, but not in the way he has it.
So, two problems I have with this presentation of prophecy, but otherwises I'd say it's a very good study overall, especially of the images in the book of Daniel . I already agree with most of what he's said. That's why it tends to move slowly for me. But he's doing a good job of backing up his statements from scripture. (I will point out, however, that the claim that it's ENTIRELY based on scripture is not true, since in the early part of the film where he traces the paganisms of the Roman Church back to Babylon he is giving he same information I found in the book The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop.. He doesn't mention the book or any other source but the information about Nimrod and Semiramis and the birth of Tammuz are not in scripture. The mother-child imagery so prominent in Roman Catholicism is found in many pagan religions and comes down from the original in Babylon. None of this is in scripture. I don't object to this use of historical sources along with scripture, all I'm saying is that his interpretation isn't entirely based on scripture.
He does make the good point that the fourth beast of Daniel which is the Roman Empire is depicted in Nebuchadnezzar's statue is "divided" which i think he gets from its depiction as the two legs of the statue. And he identifies this division as the formation of the Eastern Empire of Byzantium, with the western part under the Bishop of Rome. But he doesn't go on to point out that Byzantium fell to Islam under Mohammed and has remained Islam ever since. This occurred soon after 606 AD when the Byzantine emperor declared the Bishop of Rome to be Universal Bishop, thus launching the Roman Church. That makes Rome and islam the two legs of the statue. So it's fair to expecdt that Islam is going to have a part to play in the Great Tribulation, and considering their jihadist bloodthirstiness to ehead everyon who won't bow to Allah their role is certain to add horror to horror for those who come to Christ during that period. Those are the "great multitude noone can count" referred to in Revelation 7. It will include a multitude of Jews as well as a multitude of former Muslims and former Catholics and former apostate Protestants and former Buddhists and former atheists who recognize the truth during this time of the greatest suffering ever endured on Earth. And since beheading is the chosen style of murder by Islam that probably explains the desription of the martyrs in Revelation 6 as beheaded. Chris Pinto has said that he thinks the current effort of Leftists to move many Muslims into the West, both into Europe and America, is prompted by the Catholic Church so make them the executors of their revived Inquisition. We've already seen murders in France and other parts of Europe by jihadis. It will no doubt eventually come to America too, if Biden is President, who would certainly continue that policy of Obama's, and after the true Church is Raptured.
So if nothing else is going to convince people to give themselves to Christ now before these horrors descend on the world, even an inkling that any of this could be true should be incentive enough to seek it with intense prayer.
The SDA film mentioned none of that though. It also doesn't mention the Seventieth Week of Daniel and its fulfilmment in the Great Tribulation. Perhaps that's because they accept a "Historicist" eschatology and reject the futurist system of the Pretribution Rapture. One thing he does mention is that in the effort to wash the Antichrist label off the papacy, a Catholic invented the futurist eschatology which interprets it all as future, and another Catholic the Preterist eschatology which interprets it all as past. It apparently worked because hardly any Christians teach that the papacy is the Antichrist although the Reformers made such a strong case for it, not to mention the hundreds of others before them who also made the equation, which I put in a blog post some time ago.
Although I accept the Pretribution view in general I also see the Pope as having already been identified as Antichrist, 1400 years ago.
The SDA film also identifies the ten kings represented by the ten toes of the statue in Daniel 2 as ten European kingdoms, and the three that the prophecy says are to be displaced by the rise of the Antichrist as the Visigoths, Ostrogoths and I think the Vandals (?), which don't seem to me to qualify as European Kingdoms but then maybe I'm deficient in history on that point. So I can't judge his interpretation on this point. He sees Europe as represented by the feet of the statue, made of both iron and clay, which is pretty much shared by the Pretribution people.
There are two beasts described in Revelation 13. The first beast rises up out of the sea and is clearly an amalgam of the beasts in Danie's vision, understood to represent the Roman empire and the Antichrist. It is that same beast the Harlot Church sits on in Revelation 17. The second beast that rises out of the Earth instead of the sea, has two little horns like a lamb but speaks like a dragon, The SDA narrator makes the case that this is the United States of America.
He makes a barely plausible logical case for this. The US is certainly not the only Christian country. After the Reformation the countries of Northern Europe declared themselves Christian. So did the UK. The claim that the country has to be in the western hemisphere is pretty weak. He has to juggle words too often to be convincing it seems to me but I'm not sure there's much point in going into that.
This beast with the horns of a lamb is understood in the Pretribulation framework to be the False Prophet who causes the world to worship the Antichrist.
He's interpreted the wound of one of the heads of the first beast, described in Revelation 13, to be Napoleon's putting an end to papal power in 1798, but the interpretation I'm most familiar with has the Reformation dealing that wound, which makes a much better argument it seems to me. Although Mussolini reinstated the civil power of the Vatican (I think the film identifies some other event as the healing of the wound but I forget what) and the Pope goes around acting like he's king of the world, he doesn't yet have anything like the power the Antichrist world leader is to have. That would restore the Holy Roman Empire in essence on a worldwide scale with the Pope as head, and it's probably coming soon, after the Rapture of the Protestants and other true Christians. That wound is certainly going to be healed by the time the Tribulation is uunder way. "All the world" is said to marvel at its recovery. Prpbably the triggering event will be the Rapture after which the rise of the Pope to world leadership over the revived Church-State Roman Empire should be pretty speectabularly marvelous..
So now he goes on to clai that God's seal, which He put in the foreheads of the 144,000 of Revelation 7, is.... the Sabbath Day. I didn't expect this study to be so aggressively Seventh-Day Adventist. Ah well. Oh yes and now he goes on to give quotes by various Roman Catholic leaders about how they changed Saturday to Sunday, and this is the mark of the beast. But it wasn't the Catholic Church that called the early believers to assemble on the Lord's Day, which is Sunday, the first day of the week, because the Catholic Church didn't yet exist. It was a day of worship by the Church. Acts 20:7 "when the Church came together to break bread." Sunday is the Lord's Day, it is a mark of the true Church if anything because it is the day the Lord rose from the dead. So, no, there is no Roman authority to change the Sabbath that is the Mark of the Beast. The RCC claims they changed it but it was actually the practice of the Church from the time of the Apostles. No, it was not started by Constantine later.
Whatever the Mark of the Beast is it will be soemthing that puts a person under the authority of the Roman Church, and it will cost those their lives who refuse to accept it.
Among other things he identifies Sunday as the day OF the Sun and sun worshippers. But by the same logic Saturday is the day of Saturn, a planet often taken to represent Satan, which somehow he overlooked. All the names of the days of the week refer to pagan gods or idols.
Well, that's enough of that.but I would add some thoughts about the role of the US in the last days. I think he's stretching things a great deal to equate the US with the beast from the land with the horns of a lamb but he makes a good general point about that beast and he's right that the US has been changing for the worse in a direction that unfortunately fits right in with the Antichrist world order.\
The beast with the horns of a lamb that speaks as a dragon suggests an apostate form of Christianity separate from that of the Roman Antichrist apostasy but of course since this fake lamb causes people to worship the Antichrist it's part of the system in that sense anyway.
APOSTATE PROTESTANTISM
There's no doubt that plenty of Protestant churches have deteriorated into apostasy in the last century starting with the Liberal movement and now the Charismatic movement and the Emergent Church. The acceptance of Social Justice and the BLM in some churches very recently is certainly part of it. Many of them regard the Church of Rome as a Christian denomination. I left a Charismatic parachurch organization because they prayed for the Pope as a Christian brother. The Charismatic Movement in general embraces Romanism and there are Roman Catholic Charismatics who claim the gifts of the Spirit. Some years ago I saw a video of some well known Charismatic Christian leaders visiting the Pope and even bowing down to him to kiss his ring. Some of them may have been from denominations other than the charismatic churches but I don't remember. In any case it's no small number of churches that have lost their way and accepted Rome.
Then we have the depressing phenomenon of George Washington's rumored conversion to Catholicism on his deathbed and his deification in the painting in the rotunda of Congress, painted by a Catholic, a theme about as far as you can get from Protestant thinking. And tanother depressing phenomenon in George W Bush's saying he sees "God" in the Pope. And then we have the Pope's visiting our Congress a few years ago at the invitation of Representatives Pelosi and Boehner who are Catholic. Wish my memory were better because now I'm remembering that Ronald Reagan made some official move or other that increased the favor of the Pope with the US. We have lots of Catholics on the conservative side of our politics and Protestants join with them on many political issues because of our shared commitment to such things as the pro-life movement among other conservative causes. We have many conservative Catholics on the Supreme Court as well as in Congress. According to Chris Pinto, President Trump is "surrounded by Jesuits." We have many major universities that are run by Jesuits. A few years ago one came out and suggested we do away with the Constitution. I think I have a post on that somewhere either on this blog or the America blog.
In other words, although America started out as a Protestant nation and maintained that identity for over a hundred years since the founding, the fact is that there is an enormous influence of Catholicism in the nation now. In America Catholics think more like Protestants, but as long as they acknowledge the Pope they represent an anti-Protestant mentality in the country. The Jesuits of course are formally dedicated to the destruction of Protestantism and Protestant nations historically. John Adams famously expressed dismay at the opening of nations to receive them again after they'd been banished, saying even that if any man deserved Hell it was Ignatius of Loyola who founded the order of the Jesuits. And John Adams was not an orthodox Christian, rather a Unitarian. Nevertheless like the other nonChristian founders he shared in the general cultural Protestant Christian mindset.
I've also pointed out in a blog post here the revelations Chris Pinto put together in one of his documentaries showing the Catholic influence in the artchitecture of Washington DC. Congress itself is housed in a replica of the basilica in Rome complete with obelisk in the form of the Washington monument. The Antichrist himself embodied in plain sight. Pinto also points out many Greco-Roman influences besides that. All that apparently got built while nobody was paying attention or recognized the symbolism. Satan already has his mark on America. So what the SDA film narrator said about America's being the fake lamb of Revelation 13 may not be the correct reference but there is nevertheless reason to identify the US as eventually coming under the power of Rome in the end despite our strong Protestant origins.
BEAST WITH LAMB'S HORNS WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES?
I've found that beast with the lamb's horns to be quite a puzzle, maybe just haven't heard what MacArthur had to say about it, not sure, but as I was thinking about it a few days ago it hit me that since it must represent an apostate Christianity how about the World Council of Churches? Aha! I already posted what my greatnephew talked about in one of his videos, that the Pope and the WCC have been working together. For the WCC to represent the False Prophet makes a lot of sense. That's my candidate for the role now.
All this leads me back to the Pretribulation Rapture scenario and the Great Tribulation. I was listening to Jan Markell's recent radio shows where as usual they talk about how close it all is but speak of the Antichrist as yet an unkown figure to be revealed after the Rapture of the Church. Prophecy Roundtable 8 – The Great Re-Set in Bible Prophecy - YouTube
I've veen taking the position of the Protestant Reformation and many of its precursors back to the declaration of the Bishop of Rome as Universal Bishop, that the Pope was revealed to be Antichrist upon that declaration, so his identity has been known for 1400 years already. And the Restrainer that prevented his being revealed until that point had to have been Caesar, since the Pope in a sense replaced the Caesars and became the head of the revived Church-State Roman Empire embodied in the Roman Church. The SDA film got a lot of that right in my opinion though they identified an earlier date and made other interpretations I can't agree with.
A SECONDARY FULFILLMENT OF THE REVELATION OF THE ANTICHRIST AND THE RESTRAINER?
What I'd say now is that although he's been revealed, and I think today's churches are very much in error that they rejected the Reformers' identification of the Pope as the Antichrist, mevertje;ess there may be justification for their view in that he won't be revealed to the world until after the Rapture, and that means that the Church IS in some sense the Restrainer that must be taken out of the way for him to be revealed. And it makes sense of course, that the true Christian Church would have to be "taken out of the way" because they'd object to the Pope's elevation over all Christiqanity.
No doubt in my mind , however, that the Pope IS the Antichrist and will be the leader of the World Church-State of the Great Tribulation period.
And now I'm thinking that the World Council of Churches or perhaps a particular leader of that body, will be the beast with the horns of a lamb, or the False Prophet who causes the world to worship the Pope.
It's going to look like a Christian world though it will be Satan running it all. Perhaps the scenario envisioned by one of the pastors on Jan Markell's shosw that I link above will characterize its politics, as the most diabolical form of Communism will reign.
GREAT COURAGE OF THE SAINTS TO RESIST IT
And those who are to be saved during that period will have to recognize that the Church of the true Christ is not on the Earth and put their trust in the true Christ even though it will cost them their lives. This is the "patience of the saints." Jesus said that "He who would save his life will lose it, but he who will lose his life for My sake will find it" and in losing this earthly life will gain eternal life." Those who refuse to worship the beast and to take his Mark will be put to death in numbers that will far overshadow those put to death by the Roman Church in the Middle Ages.
