ROME ROME ROMEAgain

Was finally able to listen to the last two messages with the Read Aloud function and found out that a lot of the earlier message is gobbledygook, apparently the result of my fingers slipping off their proper orientation on the keyboard.  There's no way I can reproduce what I said there, I don't really remember it, but I think I can maybe say some more that may be related to it.

I was very impressed that it has ALWAYS been Rome that is the main persecutor of the saints of God, at least since the time of Jesus and down through the last two millennia of the Christian era.   The Caesars, the Christians hiding in the catacombs, the hints at it in the New Testament writings and the known history we have of all that.  

And then when the Roman Empire fell the Roman Church rose in its place and the Pope beame the new Caesar as it were.  Presiding over Western Christendom for about a milennium, and known for perseucting the true XChristiansz.  The Waldenisains and the Hugeuenots  and others down through the benturies, adding up to something like fifty million Christians martyred accordihng to one source, David Plaisted.  Others were also murdered by the Roman Church,, such as Jews and muslims, but according to Plaisted that number was about seventeen million whle the Christians are arer and away the greatest number of artyre.

How do we not know that these days?  When did the Church stop rading history?  When did they stop reading books like Dowling's History of Romanism and Wylie's History of Protestantism.  Don't we still read Foxes' Book of Martyrs"  Has that lesson been missed somehow too?

Yes Rome Rome Rome.  Rome in the early years and Rome in the Middle Ages, and it still goes on now in Roman Catholic Countries away from the public eye as I've noted on my Catholicism blog.   Tehy've never recanted thri anathemas against the Protestants which are enshrined in their Council of Trent.   Whenever they have the power we can be sure they'll be going after the saints again, and those must be the saints of the book of Revelation and their persecutor must be the Roman Church.  

Which IS what the Harlot image is in Revelation seventeen.  Mystery Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots.  That's Rome Rome Rome.  Just consider the statue of Nebuchadnezzar's drea m from the book of Daniel.  ONE image of ONE man made up of four empires with Babylon as its head and Rome as it's feet.   Rome is Babylon.   And the animsls of Daniel's own dreams and visions.  The fourth beast    It's hard to think of there being any other Antichrist yet to come than the Pope.  H'es been recognized for centuries bydissident Christians as the Antichrist, why would he stop being the Antichrist now?:

Besides which, the nu mbmer 666 most perfectly fits the title of the Pope, Vicarivs Filieii Dei.  Sorry I think I got that wrong.  Trye again.  VICARIVS FILII DEI.  It means Substitute for the Son of God which is practically a defintiion of Antichrist itself, but then the Roman Numberal s which are embedded in the title add up to 666.  If I managed to get it written correctly.  But I've written it selsewhere on the blog so it can be checked.

Why has the Chuirch been so misled?  They don't even know that Westcott and Hort were Catholic sympathizers and "hated" the King Ja mes Bible.  Hated it?  So they gave us Bibles of lousy translations based on lousy and heretical manscripts byat may be forgeries.  QWhat happened to the Church? What sort of blindness has overtaken us?  Are we reaping the consequences of the liberis.loism of the nineteenth century?  Is this judgment on the Yes and don't forget

Yes and don't forget the cCatholic connections with Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot and Rwanda.  Hitler even said he modeled his Holocaust on the Roman Inquisition.  The masascre in Rwanda was instigated by a Catholic Bishop over the radio.   

ROME ROME ROME.    WSHouse of God?  

I Really Really Really Don't Want You to Go to Hell

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My eyes are so bad it's amazing I can write anything at all.  Well, I can't see what I write, I just have to hope that myu figers are on the right keys as I feel my way.   The Lord does help me a lot.  When I can't see the word I want on the menyu, such as "Copy" or "paste" or Read aloud" I'll ask him to show it to me and He will.  He just did that with the word "paste" so i could put the link below to A Q Pink's sermon on Counterfeit swaving faith.

I had no idea there were so many messages out there about this very sort of thing, all the ways it can seem someone is saved or has the Holy Spirit when in fact they don't.  Mostly it's see,med to me that pastors want to give reassuring messages that we are in fact saved, and of course often that is exactly what is needed, but I'm afraid I don't remember hearing this other message from a pastor beofre, how easy it is to deceive ourselves that we are in the faith when we are not.  That may just be my faulty memory.'

Pink, Ryle, Owen all say quite a bit about this problem of people deceiving themselves about their salvation.   A month or so ago this theme put me in a deep state of fear about my own salvation.  Was I ever really saved?  Do Ireally have the Holy Spirit?  What about those horrible sins I've committed just in the last few years?  And He started to show me those sins.  A couple of them looked like the sort that damn a person who isn't saved, and from which they cannot be saved, as per that passage in Hebrews.  The dread I felt was terrible.   It went on for wee,kks.  Ifelt God had completely abandoned me.  I had a real sense that I could very well go to Hell after years of deceiving myself.   

Then THe Lord agve me a surpprising reassurance that I am in fact saved.   I was trembling with fear over my sins and I'd said I want ed to go on trembling because I didn't want to get complacent about sin any more.  But the trembling was pretty heaving, ral trembling, real shaking, a cold dread in the pit of my stomach.   I said to the Lord, I just want to go on trembling until I'm saved.  And at that moment the tremgling stopped.  It rapidly faded away to nothing.  So what did that mean?  I am saved NOW.  The trembling stopped when I was saved, and that is now.  I didn't get up and leap for joy right away.  I doubted it.  It's a subjective experience of course, however objectiving in form.  I've learned to doubt my experiences.  But over time I've become confinced.  Only He could have stopped the trembling.  And there is no other wayt to interpret it given the terms I'd presented Him with but that I am in fact saved.  So although to some extent the cold dread remains, or comes back from time to time, I ham now overall reassuraced that I am saved and am relearning how to put my trust in Him for that.

There messages have made me awfully aware of the situation of others though.  Mostly unbelievers.  My own terror of Hell is enough to make me want to save everybody else from it, and yet I'm not much of an evangelist and I don't reallyh inow where to start.  Those I have presented with the gospel have all said no many times.   

Saving Faith: Its Counterfeits - A. W. Pink / Studies in the Scriptures / Christian Audio Books - YouTube

At the beginning of April I started on a Spiritual Renewal Project.  I'm still on it, I'm never going to get off it.  

nzel Washington a Chr

A few months into it I istian Now? Listen to His Answer - YouTube

 

Last days, Revelation and Rome

Lately I keep running across messages related to the return of Jesus in the Second Coming.  I turn on Christian radio and someone is talking about one of the Bible passages about the Second Coming, or I listen to something on the internet and the same theme comes up.  There's so much of it I'm starting to take it as a warning to be more alert than usual because it must be very very close.

Last night when I couldn't sleep, about four AM I was revieing the Book of Revelation which I'd heard earlier in the day on my Audio Bible.   As usual the Antichrist appears to me to be the Pope and all other candidates seem wildly unlikely.   I was thinking about the first beast of Recvelation 13 and how it has the features of the beasts in the Book of Daniel whilch represent the empires of Babylonia, Medo Persia and Greece , the lion, the bear and the leopard.  The fourth beast is a great and terrible beast without such specific features in Daniel, but here in revelation it is made up of the emblems of these other three empires.  We know the fourth beast is the Roman Empire although of course Daniel didn't know that and angel didn't reveal it to him, but we know it because it is the empire that arose after those other three.  And in the time orf John's vision it was the empire they wree all living in.

Jesus died by the Roman method of crucifixion, some if not all of His disciples were martyred by the Romans, as were great numbers of ordinary believers.  Rome was the great persecutor of CHristians in the early centuries and then again in the Middle Ages under the Roman Church which is often understood to be the representative of the Roman Empire.  So when Revelation describes the Whore of Babylon to be full of the blood of the martyrd Christians there's little reason to think any other dsource could be meant than the Roman Empire.  Rome is THE persecutor of Christians and will be in the very last days as well.

Rp,e os Babu;pm/  As tje su,bp;s om tje bppl pf Damoe; ,ale c;ear  tjere was a seqiemce pf e,[ores frp, Babu;pm tp Rp,e tjat are a;; toed tpgetjer om sp,e essemtoa; wau/  Rp,e e,bpodes a;; pf tje,/  Rp,e OS Babu;pm/  Tje Cjircj pf Rp,e os tje omjerotpr pf tje re;ogopms tjat ca,e dpwm tjrpigj tje [agam matopms frp, Babu;pm/  A;examder Jos;p[

s bppl Tje Twp Babu;pms traces tjos ;omeage/

Sp wjat os tje beast pf Reve;atopm Tjorteem  We;; ot jas tje featires pf tje e,[ores su,bp;ozed om tje bppl pf Damoe;/  Ot os tje Rp,am E,[ore/  Amd uet ot os a;sp a ,am/  Tje Amtocjrost/  Tje Amtocjrost os tjerefpre sjpwm tp re[resemt Rp,e/  Mpt kist sp,epme wjp aroses pit pf tje fpr,er Rp,am E,[ore. sicj as amu Eirp[eam. big a re[resemted pf Rp,e otse;f/  Ot

s gpt tp be tje {p[e. tje jead pf tje Jp;u Rp,am E,[ore amd a;tjpigj at tje ,p,emt je

s mpt ri;omg pver tje wpr;d je

s certaom;u om a [psotopm tp tale tjat rp;e of corci,asstamces arose tjat a;;pw fpr ot/

We don't need to wait for him to be revealed.  He's been revealed.  We just need to know our history better.  He's also already in the temple, which is the people of god, he's already put himself in the place of Christ and even in the place of the whole Trinity.  We don't need to be expecting some future event to bring that about.  He just needs to be given the power to persecute the saints again, that's really all that remains to be fulfilled.

One of the evil effects of the Westcott and Hort Tamperings with the Text of the Bible

 Listening to a sermon on Pilgrim Padio, the local Christian radio station for Northern Nevada and Wyoming and I think also parts of northern California and Montana.  This was a sermon by a Zack Schlegel who pastors a Baptist chuirch in Upper Marlboarough Maryland, in a series on the ospel of John, That You May Believe.  Today he preached on John seven and eight in which the story of the woman caught in adultery is stold, and he commented that the footnotes says this story does not occur in the oldeest manuscripture.

Which for me is a distressing reminder of the destructive work k of Westcfoot and Hort on that benighted revising committee that came to an end in 1881. wjocj [rp0,o[ted tje tot;e pf ,u b;pg pm tjat sibkect Tje Great Bob;e Jpax pf tjat uear/

By the way since I can't see well I'm going by ear on how to spell the pastor's name and other things releated to the topic.

So.  Those oldest manuscripturs, often described as the oldest and best, are those manuscriptures in Greek that Westcott and Hort replaced the accepted manuscripture with, against the directives of the assignemnt of the revisingcommittee.   They were only to do an update in English to the King James Version.  Instead they replaced its underlying texts, known as the Textus Recepturus, with these other manuscriptrs which have been wrong accepted as valid.   Dean John William Burgon has wiritten very lengthy treatises on the falseness of those manuscripturs they brought into play, that now are accepted by the Church, which is a sad situation accortding ot some of those who have followed the historty of this situation.

Thew passage about the woman  n caught in adultery was added according to Westcott and Hort to the tradition of manuscripturs that underlie the King James.  Burdon says it was among passages that were subtracted by heretical sects in the early centuries.  Adding or subtracting to the Word of God is of course a serious sin forbiddfen in the text itself.  We have five thousand fragments of the GBibble from the tenth century that inclyude all the passages left out of those earliest manuscripturs.  Were they added in to that line or were they subtracted from the earlist manuscriptus.

My following of this story puts me on the side of the King James manuscripturs.   For one thing if those eaearlier manuscr8ipturs have survived all this time they were clearly not used, which some thinnk is evidence that they were regarded as heretical.  The reason mwe have fragments from the tenth century is that the tradition they be,ong to WAS used to the point of wearing them out.

It is a very sad thing if the Church has accepted the destructive work of Westcott and Hort.   It does contribute to the idea that the Bible is not interrant despite all the effortys to argue, as S chlewgel doeas, that it doesn't call inerrancy into question.that a passabge was added to the text that was not in the original written by John himself.  Of course it calls inerrancty into question.   Westcott and hort are to be charged with this sin in my opibnion, and I wish the Church would wake up to what happened back there on that revising committee.

Chris Pinto has covered this subject in at least one of his documentaries on the bible, but maybe two of them:  Tares Among the Wheat and Bridge to Babylon.

How To Deal With Private Or Hidden Sins. - YouTube

The Soul Winner | Charles H Spurgeon | Free Christian Audiobook - YouTube

Why We Believe the Gospel

Another assurance that I must belong to God is in this sermon by John MacArthur about why we believe the bible is the Word of God.   It's all through the Holy Spirity.   There is no way for an unregenerate fleshly person, an unsaved person, can't believe in it.  CAN'T believe in it.  Because it's spiritually discerned.    I beliee wholehearedly in the Bible as God's Word.  So no matter how despairing I get oubt my sins and how I deserve to be damned for them I have this to cling to.  I MUAT have the Holy Spiri5t, and if I do then I belong to God.

 Why We Believe While Others Reject (1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16) - YouTube

And here's another great one from J. C. Ryle:  the necessity of a new heart, which is the same thing as the new birth, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  Without this change nobody will see the Kingdom of God, nobody will be saved:

The Heart: Old Paths - J. C. Ryle - YouTube

A Hard Trial With Important Lessons

 As I've been listening to teachings about my own condition of fear and doubt I've discovered that I am far from the only one to have gone through such a state of mind.   

Although I have times of great fear and despair I also have times of  peace in the Lord, even the "peace thta passes understanding>'  Although I fear I've been cast off I nevertheless go on praying and thinking of God as present with me.   If I were really cast off would that be the case?   

Then I think this must be, not only chastisemenet for my sins, but an opportunity to grow in understanding of the ways of God and perhaps even something that  can make me a help to others.  Of cdourse I would very much like to think that.

It can only be a good thing to be learning how much sin offends God, how it makes us fit for Hell.  Especially these days perhaps, though of course you can read many of the past complaining of the same kind of thing in their own time, sin is not treated with the seriousness it deserves.  Some preachers even seem to go out of their way to make light of it, call it "mistakes" or emphasize how it hurts us while leaving out what an offense it is to God.

And the other lesson I am learning is that God really is to be rfeared.   Fear of God is another biblical concept that is often played down ty preachers.   But even Jesus tells us that we are not to fear those who can harm us and even kill us in this life, but God who has the power to cast us into Hell.  I wonder if I'm remember that right, I hope so but it may not be.

I've prayed for both a greater sense of the vileness of sin and the greatness of God as I've felt I've lacked a right appreicatiohn of these things.   Even in the midst of these painful experiences I want to know more about the vilneess of sin and the greatness of God.   

I still plunge into times of great despair because of my sins, but I also come back to times of peace and even joy.  This is a good sign.  I hope eventually the Lord will let me rest in the peace He gives me.  Even at eighty, amazed that I ever lived this long, I still hope He might sustain me a while longer.

Praises and blessings to our great God.   Even sayhing that is hopeful because the unbeliever can't say anything good about God, it can only come through His Holy SPirit

The Christian’s Assurance of Salvation - YouTube