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It was John Knox's exposition
of Daniel chapter 7 that brought about the reformation in Scotland
or rather should I say brought it to a head in Scotland. And
what I propose tonight is just to give you an overview on it.
I've nothing new to say from it. What has been written has
already been written upon this great chapter by mighty men of
God and so I've just culled some of their thoughts and we trust
that they will encourage you. You might not necessarily agree
with me and with my interpretation of it, that's entirely your choice
but there have been plenty of those who have gone before who
have expounded this chapter as I give it to you tonight. Daniel
chapter 7 and verse 1. In the first year of Belshazzar
king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon
his bed. And he wrote the dream and told
the sum of the matters. Daniel spake and said, I saw
in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of the heaven
strove upon the great sea, and the four great beasts came up
from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a
lion and had eagle's wings. And I beheld till the wings thereof
were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand
upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it. And behold
another beast, a second like to a bear, and it raised up itself
on the one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it, between
the teeth of it and they said thus, Unto it arise, devour much
flesh. After this I beheld, and lo,
another like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four
wings of a fowl. The beast had also four heads,
and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night
visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible,
and strong exceedingly, and it had great iron teeth. It devoured
and broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of
it, and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it,
and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and behold,
there came up among them another little horn, before whom there
were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots. And
behold, in this horn were eyes, like the eyes of a man, and a
mouth speaking great things. And I beheld till the thrones
were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment
was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool,
His throne was like the fiery flame, and his quails as a burning
fire. A fiery stream issued and came
forth from before him. Thousand thousands ministered
unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The judgment was set, and the
books were opened. I beheld then because of the
voice of the great word which the horns speak. I beheld, even
till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given
to the burning flame. As concerning the rest of the
beasts, they had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were
prolonged for a season and time. I saw in the night visions, and
behold one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven,
and came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before
him. And there was given him dominion
and glory, and a kingdom that all people, nations, and languages
should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting
dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which
shall not be destroyed. I think now that the visit of
Pope Benedict is over, there is time for quiet reflection
amongst able believing Christians as to what has taken place. One
of the most disturbing aspects of the whole visit for me was
the accommodation that was given to him by those who take the
name of Protestant and even Reformed. Here in Northern Ireland, amongst
those who met the Pope at the formal reception in Holyrood
in Edinburgh, were representatives of the three main Protestant
churches, the Archbishop of Armagh, Alan Harper, the Reverend Dolan
Kerr, a former Methodist president and the Rev. Dr. Donald Watts
who is the Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church in Ireland. Of course the Presbyterian Moderator,
Dr. Hamilton, he made the news by explaining why he had refused
to meet the Pope in person and shake his hands. It all sounds
very good, doesn't it? But all he meant by that was
that in the official line-up that there was to meet the Pope,
at Westminster Abbey, he just refused to stand and, as it were,
shake his hands and to greet the Roman Pontiff. And yet I
thought it was very ironic that the General Assembly's Secretary,
Dr Watts, was shown just doing that exact same thing on the
news media and he seemed to have a very warm and hearty interchange
with the Roman pontiff. So if the moderator couldn't
do it, men and women, the clerk of the General Assembly had no
qualms whatsoever in doing it. But Dr Hamilton did attend the
ecumenical service, evening vespers or prayers as the Anglicans like
to call it, in Westminster Abbey. And there, although he didn't
shake hands with the Pope, he worshipped with the Pope. And to me it makes very little
difference whether he shook his hand or he didn't shake his hand
because in the exact same week in which the Pope came to visit
our once great nation Dr. Hamilton said that of course
as a Presbyterian he accepted the Roman Catholic Church as
a Christian Church and he accepted the Roman Pontiff
as a Christian leader. Well if he does, as I said to
you last week, if he accepts what the Pope of Rome teaches.
We're not just talking about one section. That is what I think
some would like us to narrow it down to in our confession
of faith and the chapter on the church where it states that the
Pope cannot be the head of the church but is that Antichrist
within the church. I think there are some people
would just like to say well that's the only bone of contention that
we have with the Roman church. But the whole way of salvation
that is taught within the Westminster Confession of Faith is at variance
with the way of salvation that is taught by the Church of Rome.
People say of course Rome doesn't believe in salvation. Of course
Rome believes in salvation. But Rome believes in salvation
through her sacraments and through her ordinances and not through
Christ and through him alone. So if the way of salvation as
is taught by the Roman Pontiff is right, then the way of salvation
that Dr Hamilton subscribed to when he subscribed his name to
the confession of faith is wrong because the two can't be one
and the same because they're a total variance one with the
other. So his symbolical gesture of
not shaking hands with the Roman Pontiff was nothing more than
just an empty symbolical gesture and it was just hollow in the
extreme. There were other, of course,
deeper gestures throughout the Pope's visit. Some of you may
have read of them and took note of them. Remember when he stopped
to pray at the spot where Sir Thomas Moore was put to death. We do well to remember who Sir
Thomas Moore actually was. Rome says he was one of their
martyrs. Well, he was a butcher. He was
the Lord Chancellor and as the Lord Chancellor he was one of
the main inquisitors of just Bible-believing people in England
and he was responsible for putting to death many of them. For what
crime? For treason? No. For murder? No. What was their crime? that
Thomas More put them to death for, for reading William Tyndale's
English New Testament. Nothing less, nothing more. So
when the Pope comes and talks about a great martyr, well we'll
have to just look a little deeper in the history books to find
out what this martyr really was. I was intrigued also to read
concerning the stole which he chose to wear on the first occasion
ever of a Roman pontiff to Westminster Abbey. that's his scarf, he looked
very grand in it. The scarf that he wore or that
long stole at the front, it belonged to Pope Leo XIII. I'm sure you don't know who Pope
Leo XIII is any more than I do but Pope Leo XIII, as we read
from the history books, cardinalised a Dr John Henry Newman. who was a convert in Victorian
times to the Roman Church. But more than that, he was the
author in 1896 of the Nolidity of Anglican Orders. And this
is an ironic thing, it's not just some obscure minor ecclesiastical
matter. In 1998 the then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
who as the Prefect for want of a better name of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, he issued a commentary which
listed Pope Leo XIII's declaration that Anglican orders are absolutely
null and utterly void as one of the teachings to which Roman
Catholics must give firm and definitive assent. It is not,
he avered, divinely revealed, but one of the truths connected
to revelation by historical necessity. And according to Ratzinger, it
is a necessity to believe, as a Roman Catholic, that the ordination
of all in the Anglican orders is absolutely null and void. That's the irony. Here he was
with Rowan Williams and Rowan Williams was embracing and welcoming
him as a fellow great leader of the Christian Church and all
the time the Pope was wearing the stole of a previous Pope
who declared that Anglican orders are null and void. And when Rome
and her co-patriots in the ecumenical movement come on the news media
they don't like to portray it do they? That they believe that
all other ordinations are null because they're outside of the
Roman Church. That's exactly the statement that the Roman
Pontiff carried into Westminster Abbey and which very, very few
in any of the news media wanted to pick up upon. One English
writer noted, Pope Benedict came to reclaim Westminster Abbey
for the Benedictine monks who were ejected by Elizabeth I While
twice verbally reminding the congregation that he is the successor
to St Peter, he symbolically reminded us that
only Roman orders have validity. In the symbolism of the stole
was the assertion that Pope Leo XIII was right and that Anglican
orders remain utterly null and absolutely void. And yet Rowan
Williams welcomed him. Yet Archbishop Harper went to
welcome him as did all the regional leaders of the main Protestant
and so-called reformed churches here in the British Isles. This is where we are men and
women. I said last week to you that
Ridley said Antichrist has come to this land and it's as if he
has bewitched the leadership of the land. And that's just
what it was to me as I looked on upon that very strange type
of scene. Here we have a man saying that
your ordinations are all null and void and the ones who he
is saying that to are welcoming him and embracing him with open
arms. Somebody has to be bewitched
for such a meeting to take place and for such a scenario even
to be put into place. We've looked in our past studies
with you at the historical testimony of the Church concerning Antichrist. We don't need to go over all
of that again. But I would refer you back to
it. Because today, Evangelical Protestants, Reformed Evangelical
Protestants, who hold that the Roman Antichrist is the Antichrist,
they are a minority within Reformed Evangelical numbers. But it wasn't
always so. and I give you a long list of
names in the weeks that have gone by and I said to you again,
if we're wrong on this one, well there's a lot of other people
wrong on it too. Well I would prefer to stand with them than
to stand with the neo-evangelicals of this day. Those who tell us
that we have to witness to the Pope and in order to witness
to him we have to worship with him. That's the argument of some
evangelicals today within Irish Presbyterianism. it's worth reminding
them that he was not named the son of perdition for nothing. Tonight we're going to come and
consider the scriptural evidence which teaches us that the papacy
is the antichrist. The protestant reformers that
we alluded to the Puritans that we referred you to, the great
evangelical leaders of the great awakenings in this land and right
across America, such as John Wesley, such as George Whitby,
all of these men, they did not merely identify the papacy as
the Antichrist out of some sectarian rant or just as some thing of
Protestantism of that day, they did it because they simply believed
that he was the great enemy of the gospel of Jesus Christ and
their bold claim, for bold it is, their bold claim was founded
upon the word of God. John Knox's exposition of the
little horn in Daniel chapter 7 was a sermon that God greatly
used to stir the religious conscience and soul of the land of Scotland. In Daniel chapter 7, if you turn
with me to it, we have a prophetical preview of the world's four ancient
empires and it's given in emblematic form. We have the lion in verse
4 and that represents the lion
and the eagle's wings represents Babylon. And then we have the
bear in verse 5 and that represents the Medo-Persian empire. And then we have the leopard
and the leopard of course was the emblem of ancient Greece,
that great civilisation that spanned all of known mankind.
And then there was a more terrible and a more dreadful beast appeared
and that was Imperial Rome. We read about it in verse 7.
And I saw in the night visions and behold a fourth beast, dreadful
and terrible and strong exceedingly and it had great iron teeth. The iron speaks of Rome. and
there was no empire ever known for its sternness, for its ferocity
and for how it stumped to pieces its enemies and took all before
it and it took no prisoners. Firstly it tells us that from
the head of the fourth beast this Roman Empire would emerge
the little horn. I consider it the horn, this
is the emblem of strength. In all ancient writings the horn
is still the emblem of strength and of power. and behold there
came up among them another little horn before whom there were three
of the first horns plucked up by the roots and behold in this
horn were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking
great things. Now if you take time to compare
the similarities between the little horn of Daniel 7 and that
of the papacy, there are some very startling resemblances that
we have to draw your attention to. And that was what intrigued
the likes of John Knox and the Protestant reformers. In verse
8 we are taught concerning the origin of the little horn. It
would come from Imperial Rome, the fourth great world empire. History teaches us that when
the Roman Empire collapsed in approximately 476 AD, its territory
was divided into ten lesser kingdoms. And history teaches us that from
this territory the papacy, the little horn, arose. And this
was a kingdom claiming not only temporal power but claiming spiritual
power. One whose power grew throughout
the Middle Ages to such an extent that the great emperors of Europe
they came trembling and knocking at the door of the Vatican when
the Pope dared to issue his bold and decrees of declamation against
the emperors of the great states of Europe. That was the power
that the Pope of Rome had. He could raise up armies from
one nation to go on to take over another nation and when that
decree was issued it was like a licence for some of his cohorts
or followers to take the sword in hand and to invade your country.
So it wasn't without significance that we read about this little
horn growing up that was going to have great power. It was the
fall of imperial Rome which gave rise to papal Rome. When the
emperors sat in Rome of course they wouldn't book any other
world power to sit in the same place. No two world powers were
going to sit in the same place. But the Roman Empire was divided
and when the western part collapsed what happened? The power was
moved and when the power was moved out of Rome, the city of
Rome, then the so-called Bishop of Rome stepped into the void
and he claimed, of course he claimed to have the spiritual
power, but now then he claimed to have the temporal power that
seemed to be vacated by the fall of the Roman Empire itself. Turn
with me over to 2 Thessalonians for a moment. This is Paul's
exposition in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 concerning the Antichrist. I was preaching on this chapter
on Sunday night in Annolone and in preparing for it because I
had alluded to the Puritans so much I thought well I will read
what Thomas Manton said on it. But Thomas Manton in volume 3
of his sermons has a whole set of sermons based on 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2 and if you want to really research it in depth and
you have plenty of time throughout the winter months well you can
read through it. But Manton expounded it verse
by verse nearly phrase by phrase and he left no stone unturned
in his exposition. If you look at verse 6 and verse
7, it says, Now ye know what withholdeth that he might be
revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth
already work. Now that was prior to this time,
Paul was saying. Only he who now letteth will
let, until he be taken out of the way. There are many Reformed
commentators who believe that what is referred to here, what
withholdeth, is the Roman Empire. and he who now let us will let
was the Roman Emperor. You may say well who would believe
that? Well the great Dr Gill believed it, the great Henry
Matthew believed it just to name a few that are on my shelves
at home in the study, just a few. I would be very happy to stand
where Matthew Henry stood on any issue. or where the great
Baptist commentator Dr Gilles did. In verse 8 note the symbolism.
In Daniel 7 in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man and
a mouth speaking great things. This little horn that was going
to arise it had eyes and a mouth which Knox believed were meant
to symbolise a man or a succession of men. And Knox recognised this
as being Papal Rome and he said it was a body or multitude of
people under a wicked head including a succession of persons occupying
the same situation. And the papacy as we know it
is centred on a man or a succession of men known as the papacy or
the Popes of Rome. And those who were at the first
visit of the Pope in 1982 to Scotland We all felt the irony
of it as the then moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland
received an welcome to Roman Antichrist under the statue of
John Knox, the very man who taught from Daniel chapter 7 that the
papacy and the Popes of Rome who occupied that throne in the
papacy were the line of Antichrist. He speaks of the pride of the
little horn. He speaks great things. Look
at verse 11, verse 20, verse 25. And papal Rome has always
made great claims and outrageous claims. The anti-biblical errors
of the papacy with the passing of the century, they have grown,
they have developed. They have grown from something
that was an error into something that is a blasphemy. Let me give
you some illustrations. In AD 788 the papacy introduced
that the relics of saints are to be worshipped. It was one
of the greatest money making rackets in Europe of its day
and bones and blood and relics of various saints were carried
all over Europe and brought to cathedrals and brought to churches
and the Jew people came and they paid their hard earned money
to see bones of what we don't know. to see liquefied blood
of what we don't know. But they came to see it and they
worshipped it and Rome sanctioned it. In 1079 priests were forbidden
to marry. In 1190 indulgences were introduced
and they were taught that they could shorten time in purgatory.
And of course in order to encourage bride people to go to the mosque
at Billy Houston Park in Glasgow. The church in Scotland was offering
indulgences. Of course it's all very high
tech nowadays. You went to the internet and
you downloaded it from the internet and if you went to the mosque
then your years in purgatory were shortened somewhat. Of course
if you go to the Bible you'll look from cover to cover and
find no reference to purgatory. It is an invention of man. Nothing
else. It's an awful reality, men and
women, that all our fellow Roman Catholic countrymen believe that
their loved ones go into this imaginary place where further
purging is necessary. And that's through the prayers
of the priest whom they pay and through the masses that will
be said by the priest whom they pay that their loved ones get
out of purgatory. Can you imagine what must go
through the mind of those dear Roman Catholic people and they
never know when those loved ones are going to get out of purgatory. In 1215 the communion bread and
wine became the mystical body and blood of Christ when the
Roman priest pronounces the words Hoc est corpus meum, this is
my body. You know, what a blasphemy. There
is nothing so blasphemous as the Mass. Knox said he feared
one Mass in Scotland more than he did before an army. When a
priest can call down the second person of the Trinity and transform
him in that little wafer into what he teaches is the very blood
and sinews and tissues of the humanity of Jesus Christ. Now
if that is not blasphemy we have lost the meaning of the word. I believe even for a protestant
who knows the Bible to be in the place where the Mass is offered
is an absolute disgrace. And there are many today of course
protestant people And they say, well we have to
show our respects, don't we? And they go to the mass, the
funeral mass. Well, of course we have to show our respects. And I wouldn't show any disrespect.
But I wouldn't go to the mass. Because then I would be showing
disrespect to Jesus Christ. And who is more important? In 1215 sins were to be confessed
to a priest in order to obtain forgiveness. These are just some
of the great claims of Rome. In 1220 the wafer, which is to
the Romanists the body of Christ, was to be adored. In 1508 the Ave Maria, the Hail
Mary, as a prayer was introduced for all the faithful. And yet
you know you'll hear this being asked for. on some sound secret
or songs of praise or whatever it will be and somebody will
put the request in, oh they want to hear the Ave Maria sung and
then some operatic singer will come and sing it in such a nice
way that everybody will just be taken away from it. But it's
an absolute blasphemy. The tradition of the church in
1545 was pronounced as of equal authority to the written scripture.
In 1546 the Apocrypha is decreed as a part of the Bible. In 1854 the Virgin Mary was pronounced
as being conceived as without sin, despite Romans 3 and 23
being in the Bible. We've forgotten these things
men and women. Our Protestant people have forgotten them, conveniently
forgotten. For Dr. Hamilton to say this
is a Christian church it is a lie, an absolute lie. In 1870 the Pope was made infallible
in his official pronouncements so when he sits in that chair
and what he states from that chair is supposed to be absolutely
infallible. In 1922, you see the blasphemy
is right up to date. Mary is a redeemer along with
Christ in 1950. Mary was taken to heaven without
dying. The pride of the little horn
is not lessened but the passing of the years and the representative
of that little horn and that whole system comes into the very
establishment of the church in England and in symbolic gesture
tells the church in England I don't recognise any of your ordination. They're all null and void except
they're within the Roman Church and duped and bewitched Anglicans
still believe that they're going to have unity with this man. I think this is nowhere better
illustrated than in the reason for the Pope going to beatify
Cardinal Neumann, make him a saint In order for the Pope to canonise
someone and make him a saint. Can you even think of that? We're
talking about that. Can you even think of that? The Pope of Rome
making anybody a saint. It's God who makes saints. Saints
are made at conversion and at regeneration. It's not the work
of a man, it is the work of God in the heart of man. But, this
is the teaching of Rome. In order for someone to be made
a saint, a miracle has to take place, in fact four miracles
has to take place in the name of that saint. And this current
Pope, he recognised the healing of Deacon Jack Sullivan in 2001
as a miracle resulting from the intercession of the venerable
servant of God John Henry Newman. Now the teaching of the Roman
Church is this, it believed that God works miracles through people
in heaven. And for someone to proclaim blessed
are his heavenly intercession to be accepted he must be judged
responsible for a miracle on earth which is always a physical
healing and thus we're speaking here about people who have died
John Henry Newman he's supposedly going to heaven and people here
on earth pray to John Henry Newman and then he intercedes and miracles
are performed as a result of his intercession. No there is
not one verse in the Bible to support such mumbo-jumbo And
yet this is the reason that Newman is being elevated to what is
called the Sainthood within the Roman Church. This is an absolute
attack on the mediatorship of the Lord Jesus Christ. There
is one man who intercedes between God and men and he's the man
Christ Jesus. And we recognise none other than
Christ as the sole mediator between God and men. Christ and Christ
alone. And that's what Protestantism
does. Protestantism takes away the priesthood. and takes away
that order of priests and puts Christ in its place. Protestantism
takes away the relics, takes away the shrines and puts Christ
in its place. Protestantism takes away purgatory,
Protestantism takes away the confessional and what does Protestantism
put in the place? Christ. With nothing to offer
the people other than Christ and Christ alone. In Daniel 7
21-25 references made to the continual conflict that the forces
of the little horn would have with the saints of God. Out beheld
in the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against
them. And he shall speak great words
against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most
High God, and think to change times and laws, and they shall
be given into his hand until a time and times, and the dividing
of times. This little horn was going to
do battle with the saints of God. And Rome has been responsible
for the wholesale slaughter of millions who have opposed her
down through the centuries. We would be very foolish, wouldn't
we, to say that the papacy is not
anti-Christ. There are other passages that
co-operate this Old Testament exposition by John Knox. There
are such passages as 2 Thessalonians 2, 3-12. John Calvin remarked on 2 Thessalonians
2 that a 10 year old boy should be able to see the papacy described
in 2 Thessalonians 2. So as you go down it you can
just judge how much you can see from it. Another portion of scripture
which our Protestant forefathers emphasised and we read that last
week but we never got to it, was Revelation chapter 17. Let's
just note a few verses. I just want to finish this tonight
with you and we'll not come back to it. Verse 3. It's interesting that Rome here
takes upon herself the title of Holy Mother Church. We read
in verse 3, He carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness
And he saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-coloured beast full of names of blasphemy,
having seven heads and ten horns. Verse 3 speaks of names full
of blasphemy. And you only need to stop to
look at the names that the Pope gives to himself. His Holiness,
the Chief Shepherd, the Holy Father, the Lord God the Pope. Now I want you to stop and think
on that for a minute. The Lord God the Pope. When the Roman Pontiff is introduced
these are his titles. You know when you go to official
occasions and official functions people are introduced and this
is Lord so and so and this is this and this and that and the
whole list of titles and names are given. This is how they would
introduce the Pope. The father of princes and kings.
The ruler of the world. The vicar of Christ on earth. What a tragedy that a Presbyterian
moderator would give credence to such claims of blasphemy that
the Pope of Rome is the Lord God, the Pope and the Vicar of
Christ, the representative of Christ on earth. Verse 3 refers to seven heads
and ten horns. Well, the Bible leaves us in
no doubt about this interpretation. In verse 9, Rome as a city is
situated on seven hills. Those Protestant reformers, they
didn't look for any other city when they saw Rome in Revelation
17. Verse 12, the ten horns are the
ten territories into which the Roman Empire was divided before
the papacy emerged. In verse 4, she is red in colours
of purple and scarlet, the very same colours that Pope Benedict
made so much of at his coronation so called. In verse 5 she's given
the title of Mystery Babylon. Well to find out what is meant
by Mystery Babylon you'll have to go back to the book of Genesis
chapter 11 and see what Mystery Babylon is and see how God judged
Mystery Babylon and all those Chaldean mysteries. The world
does not understand the true nature of Romanism. In truth
someone wrote about her, she is nothing more than baptised
paganism. Mystery Babylon, baptised paganism. Verse 6 tells us that she is
drunk with the blood of the martyrs. You don't need to read in Dr
Cook's book of the martyrdom of the five English bishops in
the reign of Bloody Mary. and how horrific a death those
men died. I heard old Bishop Daly a few
weeks ago saying that he found it hard to believe that a man
called to holy orders, his words, Father Chesney, could have been
involved in the Cloddy bombing which murdered nine innocent
people, Protestant and Roman Catholics. You know, reviewing
the pages of history, I don't find it hard to believe at all
that a Roman priest could be involved in such bloody deeds
because we read of the blood of the martyrs that Romans shed
in generations gone by. She was drunk with the blood
of the martyrs. We don't hold the papacy to be
anti-Christ out of any malice toward a Roman Catholic countryman. It's our duty and love to point
our Roman Catholic countrymen to the Lord Jesus Christ alone
as the way of God's salvation and alone as the way of God's
mercy. And as I have said to you, in uplifting Christ we'll
have to take down everybody who puts himself in the place of
Christ. And that's what is necessary in this age that we live in. say a practical word about the
practical challenges of our stand against the papacy. The view
that the papacy is the Antichrist is not some novel or ideological
view of Ian Harris. No. It's a historic view and
it has sound, I believe, biblical basis. And you and I in this
age of apostasy were called to reaffirm who we are. We're called
to reaffirm that we are for all that Christ is for and we are
against all that Christ is against. And we often sing that hymn,
who is on the Lord's side who will serve the King? And sadly
today there are many and they want to run away from the battle.
Or they say, well we'll just preach the gospel in this church.
Well we do. But we've got also to defend it. We've got to say
that we're for all that Christ is for, but we're also against
all that Christ is against. I add that we're not against
the right of Roman Catholics to worship or practice whatever
they believe to be right, even though we know it to be an error
in the light of God's word. We don't take religious liberties
away from others that we claim for ourselves. But apostate Protestantism which
welcomed this current Pope to our land will share in the doom
and the destruction that the papacy will share in itself.
That is a truth that is very unpalatable to a lot of evangelical
people today. Two great truths stand out in
the preaching that brought the Protestant Reformation. The just
shall live by faith. What a truth to proclaim. not
by the works of Romanism, not by the meritorious works that
men can do supposedly in the scheme of salvation that Rome
propounds, but the just shall live by faith. And two, that
the papacy was the antichrist of scripture. It was a message
for Christ, and we say amen to that, but it was also a message
against antichrist. To this historic school of thought
we could add a great cloud of witnessism. We could append their
names to it and they sealed that conviction, many of them, with
their own martyred blood. Stingly, the great Geneva reformer,
he wrote these words. The papacy has to be abolished
but it can no more thoroughly be righted than by the word of
God. Because as soon as the world receives this in the right way,
it will turn away from the Pope without compulsion. And we have
the weapon in our hand that can turn hearts away from the Pope
of Rome. It's not our Protestant rhetoric, it's the Word of God. Let's keep up the preaching of
the Word of God, that glad tidings of mercy to all men. May we live
to see in our own land what other countries have experienced even
in recent generations. We think of Latin America so
called because of its allegiance to the Latin Church turned around
through the preaching of the cross of Jesus Christ. Evangelical
Protestantism in its many various forms is growing faster there
than any other part of the world. God can do it here again in Europe.
God can stir the slumbering consciences of the multitudes, but it will
be done through the sword of the word of God and through none
other. We have no other weapon, but let us learn to use it. And
as Old Svingley said, as soon as the world receives it in the
right way, it will turn away from the Pope without compulsion. May the Lord hasten the day,
brethren and sisters. in which we'll see multitudes
of our fellow Roman Catholic countrymen and friends and neighbours
brought to faith in Christ through the Word of God, through the
preaching of the Word of God and turned away from the papacy
and all of the false doctrines of the Church of Rome and brought
to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And may we live to see
the day in which we'll see a revival of old-fashioned biblical Protestantism
in this land. and a day in which men and women
will gladly once again rededicate themselves to the cause that
our reformed forefathers stood for and stood to the death eventually
for.
Historical view of the Papacy Pt 2
| Sermon ID | 1211951165 |
| Duration | 45:52 |
| Date | |
| Category | Prayer Meeting |
| Bible Text | Revelation 17 |
| Language | English |
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