THE POPES

THE POPES

Popularly, Pope is taken to mean Papa or Holy Father, but in reality, it means Pontifex Maximus, the ‘big bridge builder’ or ‘the bridge between God and man’. The Latin Cardinal means a ‘door hinge’ that opens the door to heaven. Being a vicar of Christ also means that he represents Christ on earth. When he speaks ex-cathedra, which means from the Throne as God and can even overrule the Scriptures, but the Sovereign God does not share his glory with anyone (Isaiah 42:8). The Pope is considered infallible, but history shows otherwise. They also falsely trace their succession to Apostle Peter, who, being an apostle to the Jews, never went to Gentile Rome. The last he was heard of was in Babylon, where he wrote his epistles (1 Peter 5:13). Peter was married, and Jesus healed his mother-in-law, so why celibacy? (Matthew 8:14 and Mark 1:30). The enormous marble statue of St Peter in the Vatican is the Greek god Jupiter, whose toes the pilgrims have been kissing for centuries.

The Catholic church is the most apostate church because of Mariolatry, Idolatry, Papiolatry, Santolatry, celibacy, and transubstantiation. Transubstantiation means that when the priest lifts the elements of the Eucharist, they become actual blood and flesh. He thus repeatedly offers the sacrifice of the Body of Jesus, which was offered once for all (Heb. 10:10). While only the bread is served to the people, the Priest drinks the wine himself as it is too holy for the common man.  Purgatory, the place of the dead, is another invention of the Catholic church where souls undergo purification before the judgement day. According to Catholic tradition, Pope Francis is there, but others believe that he had a VVIP welcome in heaven.  But God is no respecter of persons, and he is not impressed by titles and robes (Rom. 2:11; Acts 10:34). All great and small shall stand before His judgment Throne and if their name is in the Book of Life, they will spend eternity with Christ while others will be cast into lake of fire (Rev. 20:1215).

It also gives more importance to Traditions, as they say they came before the Scriptures. This is not true, as the early church was 100% Jewish, who kept the Sabbath, read the Torah and celebrated the Feasts. It was after Antioch (Acts 13:1-3; 15:20) that Gentilization slowly replaced the Jewish church. It was in AD 312 that Emperor Constantine of Rome institutionalised the church, which the Catholic church inherited and made it more apostate. It is also hierarchical and does not allow women in the religious order. Pope Francis added the blessing of LGBT unions, which the Catholic church had always considered a grave sin. We should not expect much from the new Pope. He will simply toe the line.   

Martin Luther, a devout Catholic scholar, went to Rome with a friend. They walked from Germany to Rome. When he saw Rome from afar, he walked the last 20 Km on his knees. In the three months that he spent there, he saw the Pope with his mistresses and children, every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity, envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. (Romans 1:28-31). He came back completely disillusioned and wrote the 95 Theses against the Catholic dogma. But for Prince Frederick of Germany, he would have been eliminated. According to Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), millions of believers were labelled as heretics and infidels and brutally tortured and killed by the Roman Catholic church, whose names are mentioned in the archives in the Vatican.

Luther emphasized ‘Sola Scriptura’ (Scriptures Only). He formed the first Lutheran Protestant church, which still carried a lot of Catholic baggage. Being a music lover, he introduced music for the first time in the church.

Many other reformations followed, like the Anabaptists (second baptism), Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, and later Pentecostals. They all had their brand of theology and went for religious church buildings and hierarchy. They completely missed the core agenda of the church, which was to make disciples of all nations and plant kingdom colonies where Christ is not named. Everything you do in the Sunday service is not in the Bible.  Even the Order of Worship you follow was designed by Pope Gregory as well as the modern Gregorian calendar.

Modern churches are happy-clappy, feel-good fashion parades and socializing clubs. However, the Church of Jesus is not a singing and dancing club but a discipling hub.

 The church is the Household of God (Eph. 2:19, 20). Households do not have pastors, reverends, bishops, etc., but parents and grandparents who nurture their children to maturity so they can start their households.  The church does not need preachers but practitioners who equip the saints for the work of the ministry. (Eph. 4:11-13)

For the first 300 years, there were only house churches with no reverends, where they broke bread and shared the gospel from house to house, in small groups, and the church grew exponentially. These reverend-free, noise-free, invisible churches provide the best protection against persecution. Today, as the noisy traditional churches dwindle, the house churches are again making a comeback globally and changing the spiritual tapestry of the nations. It is the fastest-growing church today, even in a hardcore Muslim country like Iran and a communist country like China.  They are manned almost entirely by first-generation Christians who are paying the price for it. However, we know that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Hundreds of them are either in jail or on bail with no help from the traditional churches, which are busy with their own programs.

When asked a church going, bible reading and praying sincere but deceived Christian what his next destination was, he replied six feet underground in a Christian cemetery so he can go to Paradise when the Rapture takes place. He does not know that we will not be known by our churchianity but by our fruitfulness, “You have not chosen but I have chosen you and ordained to bring forth, fruit (saved souls) that remains” (John 15:16). Both the one billion protestants and the one billion Catholics of the world need another Martin Luther to make them inheritors of the Kingdom.