2 Thessalonians (5)

First Baptist Church Leominster

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2 Thessalonians (3)

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🎵Instrumental

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Music🎵 🎵Instrumental

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Music🎵 Time to 2 Thessalonians 2

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And here we read of the Apostle Paul Correcting wrong understanding on the part of this church

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Regarding the nature and timing of the second coming of Jesus Christ It's clear that one of the errors that they had embraced

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Was the belief in the imminent return of the Lord That his second coming would take place very very soon

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And Paul wrote them and said you're mistaken about this The Apostle wrote that they were not to believe this teaching

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Even if it had been taught to them by some person, false teacher probably Or some claimant that a spirit revealed it to them

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Or he says even if you have a letter that purports to have been written by me

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He says don't you believe it, I didn't write it He declared that the

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Lord's second coming At which time Christians would be gathered to him Would not take place until two events occurred first He's talking about the second coming, verse 1

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And our gathering to be with him Don't be shaken, don't be troubled

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That day has taken place or will soon take place, it won't He says that day won't take place until two events happen

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The first event was that a falling away from the faith would take place An apostasy, a falling away from Christendom, the

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Christian faith The second event that would take place before the second coming of Christ Was that the man of lawlessness would be revealed

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The man of sin as described in the New King James Or the

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Antichrist, he never calls him the Antichrist in this passage But we assume that that indeed is the case

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And this man of lawlessness will be destroyed at the second coming of Christ And last

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Lord's Day we began to trace through history Christian understanding of this man of lawlessness

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Now before we resume our study let me say a word About our rehearsing the belief about these matters played out in church history

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There's not a great deal of interest in history today And history is looked down upon or ignored or seen as outdated and irrelevant

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This was made evident to me yesterday We were at Ben's graduation at Fitchburg State And he was one of four that received a

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Bachelor of Arts degree in history 900 students, only four with history major On the other hand there were 16 graduates with Bachelor's degrees in computer gaming design

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It's a different world There's just a lack of appreciation and value for history

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And yet we should recognize that a proper understanding of history is critically important Important for the church, really important for the world

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We recognize that God works in and through history And that's one of the special unique things about Christianity by the way

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It is a record of God revealing himself and working in history Other religions aren't like that They're philosophical, they're not historically based

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Oh yes they might have arisen say like Islam within history

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But other religions are really religions void of history

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Whereas the Bible is a record of history The history of redemption, that's what we have God reveals himself through history

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And so it's extremely important that we understand That history is really a playing out, a working out of God's purposes that he decreed from eternity

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Luke recorded in the opening verses of the book of Acts That the Lord was working in history

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He dedicated his book to Theophilus He wrote first the Gospel of Luke and then the book of Acts And he wrote in Acts 1 verse 1

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The former account I made, the former treatise I gave Talking about the Gospel of Luke Of Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach

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Until the day he was taken up And when he says of what Jesus began both to do and to teach

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Referring to the Gospel He talks about what Jesus began to do And he's opening up the book of Acts And what he's implying is that Jesus continued to do and work in history

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And that's what you have in the book of Acts And we would of course argue

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That even after the New Testament canon closed That is the New Testament was fully written and embraced as scripture

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God has continued to work through history He didn't stop working when the

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Bible was completed For God is a God of history And we have a responsibility and the privilege to understand

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And interpret the works of God as we study And examine history in the light of God's word

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And so those who discredit history Or dismiss it as a stage upon which

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God reveals and manifests himself Will not know him very well And they will not serve him very well

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And it's amazing to me that a lot of these contemporary church ministry models Are completely devoid of any historic context

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It's like our Christianity began recently last year And it's here today

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And what happened 500 years ago, 1000 years ago Is irrelevant and deadening

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We don't have to concern ourselves with that And I would argue you cannot be a good

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Christian A well informed Christian If you don't have some understanding about Christian history

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Because God has been at work May our Lord help us as we attempt to see and perceive

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All the works that God has done He reveals himself through history Now let's again read

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Paul's description and depiction Of this man of lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians 2

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Verse 1 and following Now brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ And our gathering together to him

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We ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled Either by spirit or by word or by letter

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As if from us as though the day of Christ had come Let no one deceive you in any way

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For that day will not come Unless the rebellion comes first And that's literally apostasy

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It's not a rebellion against civil order It's a rebellion against the

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Christian faith Is what he's talking about And the man of lawlessness is revealed

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Now it's an assumption that we have But I think it's a legitimate assumption That the man of lawlessness emerges

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Due to the falling away From the truth of the Christian faith

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The man of lawlessness is revealed The son of destruction Who opposes and exalts himself

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Against every so -called god or object of worship So that he takes his seat in the temple of God Proclaiming himself to be

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God Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things

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And you know what is restraining him now So that he may be revealed in his time For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work

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Only he who now restrains it Will do so until he is taken out of the way And then the lawless one will be revealed

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Whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth And bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming

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The coming of the lawless one Is by the activity of Satan With all power False signs and wonders

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And with all wicked deception For those who are perishing Because they refused

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To love the truth And so be saved As we began to introduce last week

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There have been two major views Of the Antichrist That have been held through church history The first of these

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Has been held by most evangelicals Since the beginning of the 20th century It is a recent invention

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This may be called A futurist understanding Of the man of lawlessness Or better known as the

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Antichrist Those who espouse this view Advocate that the Antichrist Would be chiefly a political leader

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Yes he has some religious aspects But he is chiefly a political leader Even a worldwide dictator

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They say he will rule over the world During an end time seven year tribulation After the church is taken out of the world

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By the way But prior to this latter day view

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This futurist view Of the man of sin at the end of the church age For a brief period of time The predominant view

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That Christians have held Is different This can be called

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The fulfilled interpretation Of the man of sin And so based on the passage before us 2

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Thessalonians 2 And other passages Revelation 13

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Those are the three major ones This passage 2 Thessalonians 2 Daniel 7 Revelation 13

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Down through history They understood That this Antichrist Would be a powerful religious leader

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Who also would have political influence But primarily a religious leader

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Within Christendom Who would corrupt the faith Persecute the true people of God And he would even claim

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He would set himself up As God in the temple And they regarded the temple

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As the professing church And so these Christians For 1900 years

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Viewed the papacy Of the Roman Catholic Church That is the institution of the

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Popes To be the Antichrist This is history It cannot be denied

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And they believed and taught That the Pope of Rome Is the man of sin And again we began to Speak about this last week

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Now realize what we are saying here If you go away from here Thinking ill will

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Of Roman Catholics You have twisted What my intention is

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We are not talking about Roman Catholic people We have concern and compassion For Roman Catholic people

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We are talking about A system of belief That has been predominant

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And something that is Outside of people We are talking about the Pope And the papacy yes But we are not talking

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In any way A divisive way Or derision

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Of Roman Catholics themselves We are talking about A system of belief

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Now when the view of the Popes Of the Roman Catholic Church Is advocated

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That the realization That the

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Pope was the Antichrist We begin to discredit That position By saying it was the early Protestant reformers

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That put forth that view That the Pope was the Antichrist And their view was born

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In the context of their Great conflict with Rome During the early During the 16th century

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The early days of the Protestant Reformation Last week we showed That their position

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Dates back to the writings Of the early church fathers And we cited a number of those

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Last week They wrote long before the rise Of the Roman Catholic papacy

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And they taught that The one that was restraining The man of lawlessness

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From coming on the scene Rising within the church Rising within the temple Was the

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Roman Empire And the Roman Emperor Had been told that Thessalonians said

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You know who I'm talking about When I was with you We talked about these things It's like he was reluctant

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To say that the Roman Empire And Emperor was going to come to an end He would have immediately

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Brought difficulty upon himself And that church You know who it is That's restraining And when he's taken out of the way

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Then the man of sin Lord would maintain

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Keep the Roman Empire From collapsing Preserve the Roman Emperor For even though they persecute us terribly

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And they did Ten major persecutions Over two or three hundred years As bad as that was

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After the Roman Emperor goes It's going to be a whole lot worse When the man of lawlessness Rises in the church

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And so the early church fathers Including Justin Martyr All wrote

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And warning the church That when Rome falls The empire falls

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The man of lawlessness Is going to rise in the church What they were warning the church about Was a

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Pope -like figure That was going to rise in the church When the empire crumbled

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And they were all In agreement to this position This was the position of the early church

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As one wrote The early church The writings of the fathers Tells us what it knew upon the subject

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And with remarkable unanimity Affirms that this let Or hindrance

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Was the Roman Empire As governed by the Caesars That while the Caesars Held imperial power

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It was impossible For the predicted Antichrist to arise And that on the fall of the

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Caesars He would arise Well after the testimony

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It was thought that the papacy Was the Antichrist Were Roman Catholic leaders themselves It wasn't invented by Protestant reformers

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Who did not arise Until the 16th century This is the 500th year

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Of Martin Luther Nailing those 95 theses In Germany, Wittenberg On the church door But centuries before There were

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Roman Catholic leaders That were labeling As potentially

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Antichrist Or Antichrist If they stepped over the line Now There is a difference of opinion

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As to when the papacy Actually began Because the Bishop of Rome Gradually increased

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In authority and power Until he became Really the Pope Over the entire western church

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Catholicism claims of course Peter was the first Pope To advocate that I don't think the

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Eastern Orthodox Do, maybe they do Non -Roman

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Catholic historians Differ in their views When the papacy originated And it's difficult to determine

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But it was over the course of time 6th, 7th, 8th centuries And by the 900s

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The papacy that Had the power for centuries Was really in place

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However many assert that Gregory the Great In his 604

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Should really be regarded As the first Pope And so here is a description

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Of this man and his influence On the church of Rome Leo I Who was some decades before Had claimed that the

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Bishop of Rome Was first in authority He made that claim But after his death The papacy remained under The control of the emperors

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That would be the Roman emperors At this time

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And so Popes were appointed By the Roman Emperor The political leader And so that shows that the

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Pope Didn't have all authority As of yet They were still a Pope Appointed by Rome The Emperor Theodoric Appointed several

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Popes During his lifetime His son Theodatus Also appointed several Popes Demonstrating that the

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Emperor Of Rome was

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Gregory the Great For all intents and purposes He was probably the first man

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To achieve the position of Pope Although he refused To be looked upon As a papal claimant

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He didn't claim He didn't want to go by that title He was born in the year 541

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Gregory the Great Was the inventor of the Mass As a sacrifice

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Bloodless sacrifice And the Aaronis teaching You know that the

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Bread and wine Are turned literally Into the body and blood of Jesus It originated with him

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He was the originator Of the teaching of Purgatory Purgatory of course

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Is a period of purging Of sin Sins of people who have died

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Sins that have already Been forgiven But they need to nevertheless Be purged of the effects of sin

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The compiler of worthless tales About alleged miracles Which in most cases Were not only unbelievable

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But grossly absurd and magical Huyck, he was a historian Observed that Gregory Contributed mightily to the

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Erroneous dogmas of Rome He made the satisfaction Of the ancient church To depend on self -inflicted

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Temporal punishments By which everlasting punishment Was avoided In other words, if you sinned

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And you wanted to avoid Hell, you punished yourself That's what

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Luther did Whipped himself As an Augustinian monk Thinking that he was gaining

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Forgiveness of sins By self -inflicting himself Gregory started that So the power of the church

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Now is centered in its ability To convert eternal punishments Into temporal ones And to decrease or do away

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With temporal punishments Through masses Perform a mass And you don't have to go Through the physical punishment

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Or torment For either the living or the dead In other words, masses Could be performed on behalf

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Of dead people in purgatory The Eucharist was changed By Gregory from God's action

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To man's deed From sacrament to sacrifice The benefit received

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From the mass And Ambrose was the first one To use the term mass Was no longer merely

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The forgiveness of sins But bodily blessings Magically communicated Even the dead could be made

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Partakers of such blessing If the mass was offered for them And then this historian

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Reasons the mystery of iniquity Which is alluded to in 2 Thessalonians 2 Was already flourishing

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And everyone took a big turn With him And of course continued After him in that vein Well as time passed

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The popes themselves Grew increasingly brazen In their claims And in their acceptance Of lofty designations

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And accolades Paul declared the man of sin Would be one who opposes And exalts himself

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Against every so -called God Prior to the

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Reformation Their claims became more absurd We would argue And blasphemous we would argue

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In the centuries that unfolded And here is how one recorded Some of the claims

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Have the popes claimed to be Above all that is called God Have they claimed to be As God in the temple of God Have they attempted to show

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That they are divine Yes, they have claimed That if a man arose

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To be king of a European nation He had to go down to Rome And get the blessing of the pope

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And so the pope actually Was the one that seated kings He was regarded as king of kings They have claimed not only

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To rule on earth But of heaven and hell also They have claimed attributes And titles which can rightly

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Pertain only to God At the coronation of Pope Innocent X A cardinal who knelt before him

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A blessed father Head of the church Ruler of the world To whom the keys of the kingdom of heaven

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Are committed Whom the angels in heaven revere And the gates of hell fear And all the world adores

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We specially venerate and worship And adore thee Those are descriptions

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And ascriptions That should only be applied to God In our view In our understanding of the scripture

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The organ is God Seeing the pope is God And God is the pope He is the victor of Christ He is

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Christ on earth Everything he says Everything he does officially Dysia said the pope can do

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All things God can do Pope Leo XIII said of himself In 1890 This isn't all that long ago

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The supreme teacher of the church Is the Roman pontiff Union of minds therefore The church to the

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Roman pontiff As to God himself And in 1894

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He said we hold the place Of almighty God on earth Well you can understand How Protestants would react to that And those claims were in the 19th century

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You know centuries after The beginning of the Protestant Reformation Can you imagine what Martin Luther Calvin would have said to things like that On April 30th 1922

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We are in the 20th century The Vatican throne room Before a throng of cardinals Bishops, priests, nuns

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Who fell on their knees before him Pope Pius XI in haughty tone said You know that I am the

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Holy Father The representative of God on earth The victor of Christ Which means that I am

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God on earth Now Protestants have said That is exactly what Paul warned us about In 2 Thessalonians 2

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Man of lawlessness The pagan Caesar was called Our Lord and God The same title

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Our Lord and God On the arch raised in honor of Pope Borgia Were the words

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Rome was great under Caesar Now she is greater Alexander I reigns The former was a man

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This is a God Pope Pius X when Archbishop of Venice Said the

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Pope is not only The representative of Jesus Christ He is Jesus Christ himself Hidden under the veil of flesh

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Does the Pope speak And then the following is an extract

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From actual wording That has been used by Popes themselves The Roman Pontiff judges all men But is judged by no one

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We declare to be subject To the Roman Pontiff As to every creature altogether Necessary for salvation

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That which was spoken of Christ Thou hast subdued all things under his feet May well seem verified in me

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I have the authority of the king of kings I am all in all and above all

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I am able to do Wherefore if those things That I do be said not to be done

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Of man but of God What can you make me but God Wherefore no marvel if it be in my power

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To change time and times And that's a reference to Daniel's prophecy Of the man of sin

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To alter and abrogate laws To dispense all things Yea the precepts of Christ For where Christ bid

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Peter To put up his sword And admonishes his disciples Not to use any outward force Pope Nicholas Writing to the bishops of France Exhorts them to draw out

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Their material swords Wherefore as I began So I conclude Commanding, declaring, pronouncing

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To stand upon necessity of salvation For every creature is subject to me Those are lofty claims

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Now again some have sought to discredit And dismiss the teaching

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That the men of the papacy Or the realization of biblical prophecy Regarding the

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Antichrist And early reformers The ones who originated this teaching

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But the belief that the papacy Is the Antichrist Long preceded the Protestant reformers And again we've cited

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Early church fathers And we've described some of the popes That had assumed their authority

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Long before the Reformation But now let's consider the teaching Of the Protestant reformers themselves

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And some of this gets pretty pointed It can be easily documented

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That the direct assertion That the papacy was the Antichrist Was not new with the reformers

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But rather with those Who had formerly lived and suffered

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For the true Christian faith Had long charged Rome To be anti -Christian

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And so you have for example Eberhard II He was a Roman Catholic And all these ones

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That we are mentioning here Were Roman Catholics Within the church He was the

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Archbishop of Salzburg Austria About two and a half hours

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East of Munich Depending on the numbers of time Beautiful place Early in the 13th century

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In the 1200s At the Council of Regensburg Another beautiful city in southern Germany 1241 denounced

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Pope Gregory IX As that man of perdition Whom they call Antichrist Who in his extravagant boasting

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Says I am God I cannot err And so here is an Archbishop Within the Roman Catholic Church That is repudiating the

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Pope Who makes this claim Even in the Roman Catholic Church The leaders were objecting

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To what the Pope was claiming Eberhard taught That the

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Pope as Antichrist Would be in league with ten nations Including the Turks, Greeks, Egyptians Africans, Spaniards, French English, Germans, Sicilians He taught that the papacy

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Was the little horn of Daniel 7 and 8 Well, for Eberhard's teaching

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He was excommunicated by Rome By the Pope In 1245 John Wycliffe He was called the morning star

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Of the Reformation He was really outspoken Against the Pope as the Antichrist He wrote a book entitled

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The Mirror of Antichrist He lived back in the 14th century Ok, so we are 200 years

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Before the Reformation Wycliffe He taught the papacy

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Was the little horn of Daniel 7 He asked why is it necessary To look for another Antichrist He published the book

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The Power of the Papacy In 1379 He declared that the papacy Was an office instituted by man

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Not God He taught that no Pope's authority Could extend to secular government He followed

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Jesus Christ As the Antichrist And he regarded the confessional As the bondage of the

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Antichrist Lord Cobham One of the Lollards Lollards were the name

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Given to the followers of Wycliffe They numbered hundreds of thousands

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Was brought before King Henry V Commanded to submit to the Pope As an obedient child And Cobham responded

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As touching the Pope And his spirituality To say the

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Antichrist A son of perdition A direct reference to 2 Thessalonians 2

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Sir John Oldcastle Again at the end of the 14th century

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An English Christian Said to the Pope I know him by the scriptures To be the great Antichrist Son of perdition

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Rome is the very nest of Antichrist And out of that nest Come all the disciples of him

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For his bold enunciation He was sentenced to death John Huss Alan and Artie are going to Prague And that's where John Huss Lived and ministered

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They have a little museum there Of course it's all in the Czech language I couldn't understand it When I was looking at it

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But they rebuilt the sanctuary That Huss made An absolutely huge building

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Very tall, maybe 5 or 6 stories If I remember right There were no chairs in it whatsoever But just a huge auditorium

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And he was called on By the Pope of course To trial And he went to Constance, Switzerland Traveled from Prague Under safe conduct

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He first got the Pope To guarantee safe conduct To and from Constance And so he went to Constance And then was tried

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Found guilty as a heretic And was burned at the stake The Pope didn't release him

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He said because my word Was a mistake And he was 100 years

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Before Martin Luther He was influenced greatly By Wycliffe's writings And Huss repeatedly referred

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In his writing and preaching To the papacy as the Antichrist As the enemy of Christ's church He called the

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Pope A false confessor Of the name of Christ He actually built a town 60 miles from Prague Named Tabor Where Christ was

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Predominant Long before The Protestant reformers All of these men

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Were Roman Catholic By conviction And persuasion They were in the established church

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But they were anti -papal In their understanding

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Of the scriptures And so Really is it any wonder

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That the reformers About 100 years after them Declared the

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Pope To be the man of sin Called them the Antichrist They would arise in the temple of God The church of God And make blasphemous claims

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Even while they perpetrated Upon the professing people of God The sales of indulgences

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By which you can Buy the forgiveness of sins You could buy an indulgence

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From the church And shorten the term The purchasing of relics

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Prince Frederick In Germany Where Martin Luther lived Had an enormous number

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Of relics And if you have seen the movie Luther he comes to the place Where get rid of them

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Take them all out He had a fortune in relics I forget how many

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Hundreds of thousands of years Apparently if you did homage To each of these relics You would receive

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Or more so a body part From some saint Some note in prayers

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Who died in the past That had holiness Inherent in that thing And it is set up Often times in a glass vial

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In what looks like a trophy And it is a relic They believe that holiness Was embedded within That physical relic

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And so this is what Paid for The indulgences

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Which paid for the Building of St. Peter's In Rome during the 16th century

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The selling of indulgences Was a primary way Of raising money Toward that end And so this was a common teaching

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A common understanding And then for Rome also That worked so hard Against having the

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Bible It wasn't until 1966

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That there was an official list It is no longer published But the index

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Liborum Prohibitorum Was the index of forbidden books And most of those

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Are like Darwin's books And some philosophers books And Protestant books Luther's books

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But all translations of the Bible Into the vernacular language

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Of peoples was also On that list of forbidden books Roman Catholics were not allowed To read the Bible In their own language

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Until 1963 Vatican II And because when people

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Got the Bible That's what Wycliffe did Tyndale did When they got the Bible In their own language They would break off From Rome before long

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And begin to consider Some of the views Of the reformers And the Puritan leaders The testimony of our

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Reformed Puritan forebearers Is replete with assertions That the papacy Was the end of Christ And it's true

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Martin Luther When he started out He was an Augustinian monk He was loyal to Rome And he thought

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That Rome was Separated from the scriptures And so he had no intention Of separating from Rome Until it became inevitable

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And Rome of course Eventually The Pope excommunicated

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Luther With that papal bull Which he himself Once he received He burned it To show his repudiation

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Of Rome Which had been around About 50 years

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And everything Luther Printed or wrote Would end up being published And sent out all over Europe And they were concerned

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He wrote a letter And you can get these online I looked at them Last night online

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To the German nobility And he wrote to his friends

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Now that's the direct approach, and that's how Mount Martin Luther was. And then he wrote a book entitled,

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The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. You know how Israel was in Babylon, exiled to Babylon in the

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Old Testament, well he said when the church was captivated by the

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Roman papacy, it was like the Babylonian captivity of the church. And in that he was very direct.

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The kind of conflict that arose between Protestants and Catholics during this period. without end, its own laws, which were not only wicked and sacrilegious, but also most unlearned and barbarous.

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And the declaration that the papacy was an anti -Christ in scripture was a significant message that Luther proclaimed all his life.

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And so six years before his death, he wrote these words in 1540. He hung those theses in 1517.

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And so, you know, we're talking about 23 years later, O Christ my

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Lord, look down upon us and bring upon us the day of judgment. Destroy the brood of Satan at Rome.

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There sits the man of whom the Apostle Paul wrote that he would oppose and exalt himself above all that's called

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God. 2 Thessalonians 2 is what he's referring to. The man of sin, the son of perdition.

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What is the temple of God? Is it stones and wood? Modern -day dispensationalists think it is.

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It'll be a rebuilt temple in a future tribulation period. Nobody ever believed that until the 20th century.

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Did not Paul say the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are? That referenced the Corinthians. To sit, what is it?

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To reign, to teach, and to judge. Who from the beginning of the church has dared to call himself master of the whole church but the

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Pope alone? None of the saints, none of the heretics ever uttered so horrible a word of pride. He suppresses the law of God and exalts

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His commandments above the commandments of men. And you can imagine the preaching of the

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Protestants in these early years of the Reformation. There were masses of people turning away from Rome, especially in northern

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Europe, Switzerland, Germany, Scandinavia, England, all of Prague, Czech Republic, all over, people were turning away from Rome until Rome put forth a counter -Reformation in the 1550s and 60s, primarily through the

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Council of Trent. And then at that point the expansion of Protestantism stopped.

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And they became really fixed for centuries. Calvin in Geneva was very bold and frequent in his denunciation of the papacy.

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And all these men were Roman Catholics when they started out. To some we seem slanderous and petulant when we call the

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Roman Pontiff Antichrist, but those who think so perceive not that they are bringing a charge of intemperance against Paul, after whom we speak, nay, in whose very words we speak.

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But lest anyone object that Paul's words have a different meaning and are arrested by us against the Roman Pontiff, I will briefly show that they can only be understood of the papacy.

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Paul says that the Antichrist would sit in the Temple of God. There is our passage, 2 Thessalonians 2. In another passage, the

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Spirit, portraying him in the person of Antiochus, that was a Syrian general who persecuted

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Israel, says that his reign would be with great swelling words of vanity. Hence we infer that his tyranny is more over souls than bodies, a tyranny set up in opposition to the spiritual

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Kingdom of Christ, that his nature is such that he abolishes not the name either of Christ or the

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Church, but rather uses the name of Christ as a pretext, and lurks under the name of the Church as a mask.

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But though all the heresies and schisms which have existed from the beginning belong to the Kingdom of Antichrist, yet when

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Paul foretells that defection will come, he by the description intimates that that seed of abomination will be erected when a kind of universal defection comes upon the

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Church, see the apostasy, the rebellion. Though many members of the

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Church, scattered up and down, should continue in the true unity of the faith, and the Lord has always had his people, who believe the gospel, believe on Christ alone, through the centuries.

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But when he adds in his own time the mystery of iniquity, which was afterwards to be openly manifested, and begun to work in secret, we thereby understand that this calamity was neither to be introduced by one man, nor to terminate in one man.

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In other words, he is not just a single individual Antichrist, but rather it is an institution of the papacy, is what he is saying.

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And moreover, when the mark by which he distinguishes Antichrist is that he would rob God of his honor and take it to himself, he gives the leading feature which we ought to follow in searching out

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Antichrist, especially when pride of his description proceeds to the open devastation of the Church.

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Seeing then, it is certain that the Roman Pontiff has impudently transferred to himself the most peculiar properties of God and Christ.

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There cannot be a doubt that he is the leader and standard -bearer of an impious and abominable kingdom.

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Philip Melanchthon was a follower, not follower, he was kind of the second -hand, right -hand man of Martin Luther.

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He was the man who first began public school education in the

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Western world, in Germany, and he did so to teach the children how to read, so they could read the scriptures,

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Melanchthon and Wittenberg. He also drafted the Augsburg Confession, the main confession of the

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Lutheran Church, adopted it at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530. He was known as a very mild and meek and easy -going guy.

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In fact, Luther criticized him because he was too nice, basically. But he was a man of strong conviction.

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He wrote, Since it is certain that the Pontiffs and the monks have forbidden marriage, celibacy, most manifest and true without a doubt that the

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Roman Pontiff, with his whole order of kingdom, is very anti -Christ. And likewise, in 2

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Thessalonians 2, the passage we are considering, Paul clearly says that the man of sin will rule in the

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Church, exalting himself above the worship of God. John Owen, probably the greatest

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English theologian, denounced the papacy as the anti -Christ.

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Owen tied Rome into anti -Christ, anti -Christianity, the great historical apostasy, the rebellion.

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He observed that there are scriptural prophecies, predictions, warnings, especially in the book of Revelation, that would have been

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Revelation 13 probably, 2 Thessalonians, and that there would be a great apostasy or defection of the invisible

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Church from the faith, worship, holiness of the Gospel, in opposition to what was appointed by Christ.

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He also noted that in the place of the true Church would be the erection of a worldly anti -Christian Church state composed of tyranny, idolatry, and persecution.

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Francis Turretin was a Puritan who wrote a wonderful systematic theology, and he also published a work concerning our necessary secession from the

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Church of Rome and the impossibility of cooperation with her. Jonathan Edwards, here in Massachusetts, out in Northampton, declared the papacy.

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Popery is the deepest contrivance that ever Satan was the author to uphold his kingdom. Thomas Watson, my favorite

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Puritan as far as his writing style, wrote a sermon against the papacy based on 1 Corinthians 10 .14,

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wherefore my dearly beloved flee from idolatry. And he only gave a partial list of the errors and abuses perpetrated by Rome.

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And in the introduction to his sermon, among many others, there are 13 grand errors in popery that every good

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Christian must take off and flee. And at the head of this list of 13, Watson wrote,

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The first error is this, The papists do hold that the Pope is the head of the Church. This is diametrically and point -blank opposite to Scripture.

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Colossians 2 .9, Christ is there called the head of the Church. Now to make the

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Pope the head of the Church is to make the Church monstrous by rising out of the sea. That's an allusion to Revelation.

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By the beast there, interpreters understand the mystical Antichrist. In other words, the Pope. Now if the Pope be the beast there and elsewhere spoken of, how ridiculous, yea, how impious is it to make a beast the head of Christ's Church?

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Watson wrote that way in a very clear, direct way. And then we could, if we had time, we don't, and you probably don't have the patience for it, but we could cite, you know, the number of noted leaders of the

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Puritan era. Benjamin Keech was a Reformed Baptist, one of the greatest in our own history.

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George Whitefield, John Wesley, they were all in agreement with this position.

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Thomas Cranmer. I wish we had time to recite what he experienced.

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He was the Archbishop of the Church of England, and he was the one who wrote an early edition of the

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Book of Common Prayer held by the Anglican Church. And Foxe's Book of Martyrs has an extended treatment, and I included that in your notes.

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We're not going to read it. We don't have time, but I would urge you to read it. Basically, he was brought before the authorities, and he recanted, he denied the

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Protestant faith. He even signed a document saying he repudiated his Protestant beliefs.

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And then, of course, he was absolutely smitten in conscience and lamented and prayed all night and whatnot.

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They brought him to be burned at the stake, and the hand that signed that document, of course, would be burned first.

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And then he stood up and he gave a sermon just before they torched him. And he just came back and repudiated his repudiation and declared openly against the papacy to the shock of everybody watching him.

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But he had perished in that fire, but he gave forth a powerful witness for the cause of biblical

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Christianity. The fact is, most of history of Protestantism is a record of conflict and suffering because it stated belief that the

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Pope was the Antichrist. We're not talking about a secondary teaching. This is one of the major teachings of Protestantism, and it resulted in so much conflict.

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In fact, one wrote, there were two great truths that stood out in the preaching of the

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Protestant Reformation. First, the just shall live by faith. And second, the papacy was the

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Antichrist. These were the two major teachings of Protestantism. Well, how come nobody understands this today?

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How come nobody believes it today? Well, it was believed all the way until the end of the 19th century.

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The first one to ever propose, and I don't have time to go through our notes in detail, but you can read them later.

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The first one to propose that the Antichrist was not a religious figure, but an end -time political figure, was a

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Roman Catholic priest, who in the 16th century wrote a commentary on the book of Revelation.

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And he's the one who said, no, the Antichrist is a political figure, who will come to the forefront at the end of history.

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He was taking the heat off the Pope. No Protestants accepted that view.

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In fact, I've got a statement that I might read, if I can find it, maybe on the top of page 11.

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He declared of Rabir's teaching, this futurist interpretation with its personal

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Antichrist and a three and a half year tribulation did not take root in the Protestant Church until the early 19th century.

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The first Protestant to adopt it was S .R. Maitland. S .R. Maitland was a librarian for the

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Archbishop of Canterbury. He was a Protestant. And he's the first Protestant who came out and advocated, yes, there is an end time

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Antichrist, and he's a political figure. But no Protestants accepted that. A few groups did in the 19th century, the

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Plymouth Brethren, a few others. C .I. Schofield picked it up, put it in his

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Schofield Study Bible in the early 20th century, and it became the predominant view. And most evangelicals today understand that the

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Antichrist is to be an end time political figure, who will reign after the

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Church is raptured out of the world, they argue, and that he will reign as a dictator over the world for seven years.

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And so, really according to them, the whole message of the Antichrist or man of lawlessness has no issue for us because we're going to be out of here, they argue.

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But the history of the Church, 19 centuries have said otherwise.

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And I'll leave it with that, for you to consider the evidence, the arguments, the passage in the text, to determine which is more in line with Scripture.

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Let me close once again here. We have not said one ill word about a

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Roman Catholic person other than these ones who made these claims themselves.

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We're talking about a system of belief and a practice over the centuries.

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We have concern and compassion for our Roman Catholic friends and relatives.

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And well over half of our people, I suspect, were raised in Roman Catholic context.

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And we want people to understand the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ, that there is full forgiveness of sins in this life, and that assurance of salvation is possible for the one who believes in Jesus, and that the

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Scriptures alone are our authority in all matters of faith and practice. And we want to make that as clear as we possibly can because we care about people and want them to know the

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Lord. Let's pray. Thank you, our Father, for your work in history.

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And thank you, Father, for your word that's been recorded and for your people that have attempted to understand your word through history.

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And we pray that you would be gracious, Lord, to us as we seek to understand you and your ways.

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And so give us grace and help us, our Lord, to be able to proclaim the simplicity of Christ to a world that is so steeped in religiosity and tradition and doctrines that are foreign to your most holy word.