I call this presentation The Response of the Papacy to the Reformation. It is part one of two addresses that I will give. The response was what is called the Counter-Reformation. It was a very strong movement against all the biblical principles that had come out at the time of the Reformation. And it was led principally by Ignatius of Loyola. He founded the Jesuits in 1530 and was recognized by the Pope Paul III ten years later. The Jesuits have been uncompromising and militant and they have led a movement to restore Roman Catholicism to the position that it had before the Reformation. And Ignatius' main effort was to lock both rulers and the ordinary people back into the Roman system and into full obedience to the Roman Catholic Church. His primary tactic was through education and he had men trained in many different skills and professions. And the principal aim was to bring the children of Bible believers to a Catholic education, whereby they would accept Catholic interpretation of how things should be seen. Many people were won to the Catholic Church as their children went to Catholic schools and later to Catholic universities. The intention was always to indoctrinate the population in things Catholic. It was to interpret things in light of how the Catholic Church saw them. So they were subtle enough often not to explicitly teach Catholic dogmas, but to give Catholicism in such a way as to turn and twist the minds of men and women. And this they did right across Europe. It is really sad when you study histories like Wiley's history and you see how it was successful in the different nations. It breaks your heart when I read about Poland, for example, and how far the Reformation faith had spread and then to see the Jesuit schools grow up and then to see princes and kings and brought back to the church through the Roman Catholic education or so-called education system. Ignatius also used a book that he had written called the Spiritual Exercises. This was to teach men and women's self-discipline and mastery over self and mysticism, union with God by experience. And when you know that people are superstitious by nature, many people like the trills of mysticism and it has been a successful tool since then. Jesuits continue to educate. I went to a Jesuit college myself. I was thoroughly educated in things Catholic at a Jesuit college, Belvedere College, the famous college in Dublin, Ireland, where James Joyce had been trained at one stage as well. But it's a tactic that still continues and they still continue their mysticism. Tony Jones, one of the main youth leaders of the emerging church movement that is sweeping this nation and many nations of the world, in one of his books, Lords, Ignatius' book, The Spiritual Exercises, and he wants people to get into the mystical ways as taught by Ignatius. So it was Ignatius and the Jesuit Order that was the principal means for the Counter-Reformation. But the Church was also going to try and reorganize itself. And the reorganization was done in different ways and it was principally under one Pope. He's usually known in history under the Latin or the Italian Latin name Pio Nono, Pius IX. He was famously one of the longest reigning popes in history. His rule as pope was from 1846 to 1878. He ruled during a time of nationalism that was sweeping Europe and Italy. Italy actually became a Republic in 1849, much against the wishes and the desires and the efforts of the Pope. He had neither territory nor civil power. The reason why is that the Catholic Church had lost their power when in In 1798, Napoleon's army removed the Pope Pius VI from his throne. It was then that it seemed that a mortal wound had hit the Catholic Church. They no longer had the Vatican States. They no longer had civil power. That was 1798. But now, in the time in the 19th century we have Pio Nono, we have Pius IX coming to power and he's intent even though he doesn't have civil power to reorganize and centralize the Catholic Church system. And he does so principally by calling a general council of the Catholic Church Vatican Council 1 in 1870. And the purpose was explicitly to bring in a dogma that Catholics would have to accept under pain of mortal sin, if they didn't accept it, that was papal infallibility. This was done even though it was an absurd Dogma, it was nonetheless, it was passed as official dogma of the Catholic Church in 1870. We had famous historians like Dollinger and Hassler write against this. How the Pope became infallible was a book by a German Hasler and it was to show that this was not only not scriptural, it was not even in tradition and there were heretical popes in the course of Catholic history. So how could you claim that the Pope was infallible? Nonetheless, it went through and it became the one of the major dogmas to centralize because the Catholics now have a man sitting in the temple of God calling himself infallible. It's an attribute of God. So it's a dogma that has become a central theme of Catholicism. A major part of the Catholics reorganizing was also by the one who followed Pius IX, Pius X. He reorganized the Catholic Church by its Canon Law. The Code of Canon Law was for the first time drawn up in 1917. This was generally for every single nation. Before this, different nations had different laws for different nations. Now, the Catholic Church centralized itself and became the power in the hands of one man, the Pope and his Courier, those agents that he has around him. And so this was a major step towards the Catholic Church reorganizing itself internally. A huge historical event occurred in 1929. It was the dictator Mussolini with a deal with the Pope at the time, Pope Pius XI, signed the Lateran Treaty. It gave territory, Vatican Hill and other parts of Rome as territory to the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church again became a civil state. It now was a civil power. The famous description in the book of Revelation, you're the woman rides the beast. spiritual power rides the civil power. The two things are knitted together. What the reformers and many others have seen throughout the centuries was again fulfilled. The Vatican again was back as a civil power. This together with the fact that we have Catholics in most nations who fear for their salvation, look to Mother Church, and they are willing to work together with the civil powers. Just like in the United States of America, it's not only a Supreme Court that has so many justices, you know, that are Catholic, but it is in Congress and in the Senate. We have Catholics who are willing to work together with the Vatican as a civil power. We will see more of this as we progress. But the Catholic Church made this deal and there will be many more concordas as we will see as we go on. Then there came a deal in England. This was part of the Catholic Church trying to bring down the nation of England. It had been a Protestant nation where the crown was Protestant, like Ireland, and it had held fairly strong to biblical faith since the time of the Reformation. The civil powers had outlawed the Jesuits. They had to remove their colleges and universities. They were no longer allowed civilly. But then there came a turnabout civilly. The Catholic Act of Emancipation in 1829 allowed the Jesuits back into the UK. And this was quickly acted upon. One of the evil fruits of that was the Oxford Movement and its main leader, John Henry Newman. John Henry Newman, an Anglican, had as his main purpose to make Anglicanism like unto Roman Catholicism. He produced many tracts the Tractarian movement came from the Oxford movement and they were twisting scripture to try and show ritualism instead of the gospel and trying to show that the historical interpretation of the Antichrist that had been through all the reformers and that the historical interpretation that had been held right through the Reformation was not correct. Looking to a future Antichrist to come and twisting scripture and dislodging it from history. This was Newman and the movement, the Oxford movement. It was one of the evil fruits of the Catholic Emancipation Act. the Catholic Church was now gaining because of this because Anglo the Anglo-Catholics as they were called became more and more like onto Catholicism and this is what Newman himself was desiring. He actually became a Roman Catholic and was made a Cardinal. He's on his way now, they're trying to make him into a Blessed and then into a Saint at the moment. So it's a, it has been announced recently. So it's a, it is a whole downward trend where Anglo-Catholicism has become so much like Roman Catholicism. Another huge turnaround was the advance of the Jesuit ideas that had come about in their schools. The Jesuits had built on Francisco Ribera and Robert Bellarmine's teaching of a future coming of the Antichrist. And a famous Jesuit in Chile, Manuel Lacunza, wrote about the Coming of the Messiah in Majesty and Glory. I have a copy of it at home. It is over 600 pages long. But this book was written not under his own name, Manuel Lacunza, but he wrote under the name Ben Yosefat Ezra, born again Jew. He pretended that he was a born-again Jew and this book was to have sinister effects. It looks to be one of the major things that influenced the Brethren. The Brethren movement was founded principally by John Nelson Darby, a former Catholic, and they had prophetic meetings south of Dublin in a castle called Powerscourt Castle. And they were trying to see just who the Antichrist was and the man of sin of 2 Thessalonians 2. And they were using, it seems, the book by Manuel LaCunza. Because there's such similarities between Manuel LaCunza's book and what is the futurism of the Brethren. And so the efforts of the Jesuits now began to have fruit as the Brethren began to give out many tracts and publish books and produce their theses about a future Antichrist to come. And this was one of the main ways that Catholicism increased because people were no longer looking at her as the woman rides the beast, as the man of sin, the son of perdition of 2 Thessalonians 2. They no longer looked at her colour scarlet and purple. They no longer looked upon her as the one who drank the blood of the saints for 605 years of the Inquisition. They were looking to a future Antichrist to come and so Rome was in the clear and the Brethren were really one of the main ways in which Catholicism was able to grow. Another huge thing took place here in the United States and it was the founding of Dallas Theological Seminary by Louis Barry Schaeffer and the introduction of a system of theology called Dispensationalism. Because Dispensationalism, when it comes to understanding the Antichrist, again it's futuristic. It puts it way in the future where you cannot verify it. It's unlocked from history. the way all the reformers had seen the Antichrist. There's no accountability whatsoever for Rome's drinking the blood of the saints. And Louis Barry Schaeffer and Dallas has had influence right across the United States of America. Europe is not affected as much by futurism as the United States, but this has had a huge effect. Another major factor in Rome's growing and increasing because eyes were offered was the Scofield Bible. This became part and parcel of most of the fundamentalist churches. They had their Scofield Bible and their Scofield notes. It was first published in 1909 and then 1917 and it has become a source book for many fundamentalist churches. The notes in the Scofield Bible were taking like they were the Bible text itself. If the Scofield Bible said that there was an Antichrist to come and gave you charts and diagrams and everything, how things were to happen, that's what you believed. It was like that was God's word. And so these movements inside what was evangelicalism had a major factor, were major factors in letting the Roman Catholic Church increase and particularly here in the United States but across Europe as well. The Catholic Church was also increasing as it brought in a lot of drama and a lot of adoration for Mary and a lot of worship towards her. Before papal infallibility had been portrayed as a dogma in 1870, in 1854 there was a famous dogma proclaimed by the Catholic Church, the Immaculate Conception. It claimed that Mary was full of grace from the moment of her conception. The Immaculate Conception is not dealing with the virgin birth. Some bi-believers say, well, we all believe in the Immaculate Conception, thinking that they're talking about the virgin birth. This is not talking about birth. It's talking about conception. It's Mary's conception in the womb of her mother. And to say that she was without stain of sin from the first moment, reading from the catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph 491. This is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses as Pius IX portrayed in 1854. The Most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God and by virtue of the mercy of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin. and then paragraph 493, by the grace of God may remain free from every personal sin her whole life long. And so we have somebody who was without original sin. And this became one of the main bases for many other dogmas that have come since then. It is the principle dogma that the Catholic Church fall back on. Of course, there's nothing in Scripture. Scripture says all of sin falls short of the glory of God. Nonetheless, the Catholic Church has this as one of its main dogmas. It has been reinforced by a dogma that was actually based on it in 1950. I remember at Jesuit school, 1950 was called the Marian year, the whole year. I remember the date that this was produced. It was drama in the highest. Mary is proclaimed to be assumed into heaven. Christ was ascended. Mary was assumed. Christ is King of Kings. Mary is Queen of Heaven. And so they paralleled Jesus' life, His ascension with Mary's assumption. and now he is king and she is queen. So this became a main dogma in the Catholic Church and it has been ever since one of the main dogmas of the Catholic Church turns back to. I read the official words from the Caddys of the Catholic Church, paragraph 966. Finally, the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up, body and soul, into heavenly glory, exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of Lords, the conqueror of sin and death. The assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her son's resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians. And then it finishes with a prayer to Mary herself. And so, she is exalted in this way in the Catholic Church. It is not only important to understand these dogmas, but to understand how they're lived in Roman Catholicism. How do Catholics live these? How do they see them? They see them principally through the drama of the apparitions, Mary appearing in nations right across the world, because she appears as the Queen of Heaven. She appears as the Immaculate Conception like she did at Lourdes and Fatima. She appears as the one who tells you that you have to suffer for your sins. I memorized when I was doing my sacrifices in the seminary, I memorized what Mary was supposed to have said at Fatima, that many souls go to hell because there's nobody to pray or do penance for them. I was a devout Catholic and because of that I took cold showers in the dead of winter and I flagellated myself, I beat myself with a little whip, you know, to feel pain, to pray that souls could get out of purgatory and that people would be good enough to die in the internal state of righteousness, what we call sanctifying grace. So this is how these dogmas are lived out. And these apparitions are big DVDs, videos and presentations in Catholic churches about what is happening. We have here in the States many apparition sites. Some of the most famous are Denver, Colorado, Conyers, Atlanta. just outside Atlanta, Georgia and Phoenix, Arizona are some of the more famous sites where Mary appears and continues to teach people to suffer for their sins so that they may reach God. The Catholic Church continues also in its adulation of Mary. It has reached a point in the New Catechism whereby they proclaim her as the All-Holy One. Now this is really horrendous and it's quite unbelievable that any church calling itself Christian could say this, but this is the exact words. Paragraph 2677, by asking Mary to pray for us, we acknowledge ourselves to be poor sinners and we address ourselves to the Mother of Mercy, the All-Holy One. She's not only said to be the All-Holy One in paragraph 2030, she's declared to be the model and source of holiness. from the Church. He, the Catholic, learns the example of holiness and recognizes model and source in the All-Holy Virgin Mary. So Mary is the source of a person's justification, sanctification, and finally, glorification. That is the source of how God shares holiness. In Scripture, of course, it's God so loved the world. There's no human creature as source of holiness. But this is why in Catholicism, Mary is prayed to more than anybody else. why we have the Rosary, why the Rosary finishes with the Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, Hail Our Life, Our Sweetness and Our Hope. The prayer that never does she refuse prayer, God may refuse prayer. We had a prayer, the Memorare, that she never refuses to answer prayer. And so Mary is exalted and the apparitions become part and parcel of everyday life as Catholicism is lived out. The Catholic Church had some territory going back to 1929, but before that they were still dealing with Mussolini in Italy from 1922 actually to 1943. They were in agreement with and actually made a concordat with Adolf Hitler in Germany. and his reign from 1933 to 1945, with Francisco, with Franco in Spain, where Spain became so Roman Catholic with the influence of the Catholic Church and the dictator there, with Antonio Salazar in Portugal, finally wiping out biblical faith in Portugal and in a similar way in Austria with Edelbert Dolfus and Kurt von Schischnik from 1932 to 1934. with Juan Peron in Argentina from 1946 to 1955. And possibly the most infamous and brutal of all was with Anton Pavelic in Croatia from 1941 to 1945. This shows you how the Catholic Church deals civilly and with dictators and it has been a huge success from the Catholic point of view. The money that still comes from the agreement made with Hitler to the Catholic Church directly from the state continues. The concordat that was made with Adolf Hitler When I was building a church in Trinidad, we got money from Germany. It was part of the agreement made under Hitler of the percentage that goes directly to the Catholic Church from the government. Hitler was recognized by the Pope and it was Pius XI and he was the first head of state, Pius XI, to recognize the Nazi regime in 1933. Hitler himself of course was Roman Catholic until the day of his suicide. It is really horrific to see these dictators and how they have to establish further across Europe the work of the Jesuits but now by civil authority. The worst of all was Anton Pavelic, head of the new national state of Croatia carved out of Yugoslavia during the Second World War. He had a relationship with, in his effort to wipe out the bi-believers in Croatia, or to wipe out the Orthodox, however genuine they were as bi-believers, the Catholics saw them as evil. That was Archbishop Alois Stepanik. And the policy was convert or die. 200,000 actually converted under fear of death. 700,000 choose to die. They were tortured, burnt, buried alive, shot. often digging their own graves. There's pictures of some of this on the internet and it's quite horrific. The Ustashi, worse than even the IRA in my own Ireland, were one of the main instruments that the Catholic Church used. But it was unlike the Inquisition where the Catholic Church used civil authorities and the burning of the stake and the tortures, Here it was the friars, the priests and the monks with dagger and hatchet that they came against the Orthodox in particular but there were also others who they tortured and then sometimes even buried alive. The horrific years under Anton Pavlik are still one of the most graphic and brutal part of the Second World War. Now what many people don't realize is that the 605 years of papal inquisition has stopped, but that the Catholic Church continues with her policy to civilly bring in Catholic laws into nations and to bring them under the heel of Roman Catholicism. The Roman continues to ride the beast and the Vatican as a civil power continues to have huge effect on nations of the world. Bible believers for the most part are totally ignorant of this. They do not even know the word concordat. put it into Google search engine and you'll see some of the Concordats that have been established and the definition of Concordat. Concordat is an international contract binding a nation with the Vatican nation called the Holy See, the official name for it. It defines the right of the Catholic Church to define Doctrine, education in many instances from a Catholic point of view as it touches Catholicism, education as it touches economics and the Catholics are quite socialistic in their trends and very vocal about property belonging to everybody. and denying private property. They negotiate the appointment of bishops and laws about marriage so that they take control over the marriage bed and how marriages are to be performed and what makes a marriage valid or invalid. This becomes part of civil law. Prior to 1989, the Holy See, as the Vatican is called as a civil power, had these legal agreements principally with Latin American and European nations. But from 1950 to 1999, there were 128 concordats between Rome and other civil states. And then in the course of nine years, we had 43 concordats with nations. Even nations in the Middle East, Asia and Africa have entered into civil agreements with Rome. At the moment, the Vatican has 174 nations where she has at least the recognition as a civil power with ambassadors sent back and forth. That's the beginning before a concordat is established. It is quite sad that It was President Reagan here in the United States on January the 10th, 1984, who re-established the legal relationship between the Vatican as a civil power and the U.S. government. Before, it had been broken off in 1865 because the Vatican, during the Civil War, had supported the Confederacy. And the US Congress decided that no longer will we have Vatican ambassadors coming. But Reagan in 1984, it was quite sad at that time, one congressman spoke against it. One congressman. If it went further, if there was to be a Concordat whereby in more detail, some civil laws are already accepted which the Catholics will tell you about under canon law if a concordat was to be established. I'm sure that nobody, not one congressman would bat an eyelid. It would not be on Fox News or on any of the newscasts. It would just pass unnoticed for the most part. It is really sad that people do not see how the Catholic Church is increasing in leaps and in bounds because of her agreements and because of the way in which she instigates these things and maintains them. The Vatican, desiring to maintain official diplomatic intercourse with all nations, woos Iran with Iran's threats on Israel. While she maintains diplomatic relationships with Israel, she has uninterrupted intercourse civilly with Cuba, which she boasts. She has great difficulties with China, Korea and Vietnam. And Islamic nations are now signing on. There was a huge turnaround on October the 11th, 2007, when 138 Grand Muftis from each different branch of Islam, the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Sufis. when they pronounced a call for peace between Islam and Christianity. This was a radical change. Islam was now reaching out to Christians. It is really sad to see like Yale University here in the States and the professors from the divinity sign on to this and apologize for the brutality done to Islam officially and to say all the so-called evangelicals who have endorsed Yale's letter. It is quite horrific. If you want to read details of that and the 67 to date so-called Christians who have endorsed this agreement between the Vatican And the Vatican is now part of this. The Vatican, Islam, and reaching out to other Christians. If you want to see that, it's acommonword.com is the webpage. And you will see the amount of so-called Christians. It's not just the Rick Warrens of the world, but there are many others that you would not expect who are agreeing that we should work together with Islam. The Vatican made a formal agreement with Islam on March the 5th, 2008, where they agreed to a New World Muslim-Catholic Forum, that's what they call it. and the Catholics are now working together with Islam. I have done on search engines, I have looked up different cities like Chicago, New York and some of the main cities in the United States and seen how this is being lived out now on a local level whereby we have Muftis meeting together with priests and bishops and they are studying how to, on local level, bring further dialogue between the Catholic Church and Islam. When we are talking of Islam, we are talking about one billion people. Quite similar to Catholicism, one billion plus. This is two billion people worldwide. And even if the union is just beginning to cement together, it is a frightening union. It is frightening, too, when the Catholic Church, like it does with other nations, cements it with civil agreements. when it becomes part of civil law, what your economic thought is, how marriages are to be performed, what property rights people are to have, how things are to be instigated civilly. It is quite sad. When you look at the nations of the world, it breaks your heart to see nations where the civil agreements have been instigated for years. I lived in Trinidad for 21 years. I could look out from one of my parish houses and see Venezuela. Venezuela, thoroughly Catholic, 1% evangelical. because Venezuela has for years and years had civil relationships with the Vatican, whereby education from a Christian point of view is forbidden, whereby Christian radio stations and other things cannot be established. It's the same in Spain and in Portugal. Where you say civil law is now... Catholic law has come into civil law. It was quite frightening for me when I was in Slovakia in the year 2000. I was with many Bible-believing pastors in small churches. Most of them had left Lutheranism, or they had left Roman Catholicism, or the Orthodox Church, and these pastors were sold out to the Lord. But in that year 2000, As I spoke to some of these pastors, as we met together in a particular resort, that they told me that on that year, the Vatican had a concordat with Slovakia. They said, now will be the time from this time onwards. It will not be that the Catholics are protesting at our churches, but that is the police will be coming to shut us down. People have no understanding of these things. It nearly broke my heart to hear from pastors in Slovakia, as they understood they had been following Concordats in other nations. They had been following how the Catholic Church increases by civil power. I have a DVD, a video online called the Vatican Controls Through Civil Power. It needs to be updated. It was made some years ago, but it does show you in more detail how the Catholic Church has increased in leaps and in bounds because of her civil agreements. The Catholic Church is indeed what it says in Revelation. The woman which thou sawest is that great city which ruleth over the kings of the earth. The city that rules over the kings of the earth, whose colors are scarlet and purple. I remember as a priest At Vatican II, I went out to the square. I saw the square flood with the cardinals coming out and the bishops. I was watching. This was not Hollywood. This was real before my eyes. And I was frightened because it was scarlet and purple. And I at least knew my I knew my Bible well enough to know that this was the colors portrayed in Revelation 17. At that stage, because I had been indoctrinated in Catholic history, I did not know how she had drank the blood of the saints, how she had been responsible for torture of over 50 million people right through the 605 years. how many of those bi-believers were actually burnt at the stake, the blood on her hands for all those many years. If you haven't seen our DVD on the Inquisition, it is quite professional and it is quite graphic. We show you the pictures of torture, the actual pictures as they are today. We give some dramatization from Bob Jones University of how some of these tortures were instigated and the actual burning at the stake. But it is history. Rome has drunk the blood of the saints. She still sits in the temple of God, calling herself God. Who is it that calls himself the Holy Father? The words that Christ Jesus used in John 17, it is the Pope of Rome calls himself the Holy Father, the Holy One. When you address him, you're supposed to call him His Holiness. He calls himself the Holy Father. He proclaims that he is infallible, an attribute of God. It is quite horrendous that the movement such as the Scofield Bible, Darwin's evolution of course comes in in a spiritual sense with mysticism has helped with the spiritual evolution has helped further the whole emerging church movement but that the whole movement in the futurism of the Schofield Bible, Dallas Theological College, that these things have, and the brethren, have really shaped American Bible-believing churches. so that people do not see Rome as the Bible believers thought of old. History has been forgotten and Roman Catholicism is free just to be another denomination. This is how we see things because Rome has increased. She has, through Ignatius from early on, right up through the centuries, she has increased and she has, in the 20th century and in the 21st century, continued to increase. And Bible believers have to get back to the Bible and see what the Scriptures actually say. The woman which thou sawest is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth. We will, in the second part of this presentation next week, deal with the papacy and the European Union. This has been a big part of the history of how the Catholic Church is having influence on the Catholic nations of Europe through the European Union. We will deal with the false ecumenism of Vatican Council 2, more successful even than Vatican Council 1 from 1962 to 65. We will deal with the critique called, the document called Evangelicals and Catholics Together, 1 and 2, endorsed by such as J.I. Packer, and it's had a horrendous effect in pulling down denominations. and changing the face of what had been Bible-believing churches in the United States. We will deal with that next week. And we will deal with the 1999, the 31st of October, Lutheran-Catholic Accord, whereby the Catholic Church officially and in a decree after 30 years of trying to work together with the Lutherans finally brought the Lutherans to heel. These are other parts of the advance of Roman Catholicism. Finally next week we will give an analysis of how how we really face and deal with this movement of the advance of Catholicism from the time of the Reformation. I thank you for this time to be able to address you on this and I ask not only that you study these things, but that we have a history section on our webpage where you can study it about details of some, not only of the early church history, but the Inquisition and things like this, but that you pray about it because this is a serious matter. People's eyes have to be open. We have to see the Vatican as a civil power, not just as a spiritual power, and we have to be able to deal with Catholicism as it is, which so few people understand, and that we will, as Bible believers, give a correct response, and that in our personal life and prayer and in our churches, we will see that the Word of God stands, and the prophetic Word of God stands, And the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe. May the Lord be praised. Father, we pray that as we have dealt with this very difficult response of Catholicism to the Reformation and seeing the advance of Catholicism, We pray that you would give us the wisdom how to deal with this as did the Bible believers, the Valois before the Reformation, the Albigensians, the Paulinists, all those at the time of the Reformation. that you would give us wisdom from on high, and that you would give us a love for the gospel and a love for prophetic truths in the scriptures, so that we are equipped to deal with the woman who rides the beast. Father, empower us, we pray, and give us a love and a compassion for those who are trapped in this system, that we may reach out in the truth and in the love of Christ Jesus himself with the power of the gospel. And we praise you, worship you, and thank you. In Jesus' glorious name. Amen.