Historically the Reformers of the great Protestant Reformation believed the office of the pope to be the Antichrist.The Bible doesn’t say anything exactly about where the Antichrist will come from. Many Bible scholars speculate that he will come from a confederacy of ten nations and/or a reborn Roman empire (Daniel 7:24-25; Revelation 17:7). Others see him as having to be a Jew in order to claim to be the Messiah. Some say he will be Muslim. It is all just speculation since the Bible does not specifically say where the Antichrist will come from or what ethnicity he will be. We can be sure that one day, the Antichrist will be revealed. Second Thessalonians 2:3-4 tells us how we will recognize the Antichrist: “don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.”
Revelation 13:5-8 says, “The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.”
I believe the Antichrist won’t be revealed until after the Rapture of the Church. He will be a charismatic figure, he’ll do many amazing things and bring about apparent world peace. But it’s all a deception.
MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546)
“We are convinced that the papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist.” Luther’s Werke, v. 2, p. 167
“We here are of the conviction that the papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist…personally I declare that I owe the Pope no other obedience than that to Antichrist.” L. Froom, Prophetic Faith of our Fathers Volume 2 (Washington D.C: Review and Herald, 1948): 121
“You should know that the pope is the real, true, final Antichrist, of whom the entire Scripture speaks, whom the Lord is beginning to consume with the spirit of His mouth and will very soon destroy and slay with the brightness of His coming.” Luther’s Werke, vol. 8, p. 554
“nothing else than the kingdom of Babylon and of very Antichrist…. For who is the man of sin and the son of perdition, but he who by his teaching and his ordinances increases the sin and perdition of souls in the church; while he yet sits in the church as if he were God? All these conditions have now for many ages been fulfilled by the papal tyranny.” Martin Luther, First Principles, pp. 196-197
“I am practically cornered, and can hardly doubt any more, that the Pope is really the Antichrist… because everything so exactly corresponds to the way of his life, actions, words and commandments.” Martin Luther, Schriften volume 21a, column 234, as translated in George Waddington, A History of the Reformation on the continent volume 1 (1841)
“Already I feel greater liberty in my heart; for at last I know that the pope is antichrist, and that his throne is that of Satan himself.” Martin Luther, as quoted in D’Aubigné, book 6 chapter 9
“We are not the first who interpret the Papacy as the kingdom of Antichrist…He (John Purvey in 1390 AD) rightly and truly pronounces the Pope “Antichrist” as he is…a witness indeed, foreordained by God to confirm our doctrine.” Martin Luther, Commentarius in Apocalypsin (reprint)
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564)
“Daniel and Paul had predicted that Anti-Christ would sit in the temple of God. The head of that cursed and abominable kingdom, in the Western church, we affirm to be the Pope.” Institutes of the Christian Religion, bk. 4, ch. 2, sec. 12
“Some persons think us too severe and censorious when we call the Roman pontiff Antichrist. But those who are of this opinion do not consider that they bring the same charge of presumption against Paul himself, after whom we speak and whose language we adopt…I shall briefly show that (Pauls words in 2 Thessalonians 2) are not capable of any other interpretation than that which applies them to the Papacy” John Calvin, Tracts, Vol. 1, pp. 219,220. John Calvin, Institutes
“I shall briefly show that (Paul’s words in II Thess. 2) are not capable of any other interpretation than that which applies them to the Papacy.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791)
“He is in an emphatical sense, the Man of Sin, as he increases all manner of sin above measure. And he is, too, properly styled the Son of Perdition, as he has caused the death of numberless multitudes, both of his opposers and followers… He it is…that exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped… claiming the highest power, and highest honor… claiming the prerogatives which belong to God alone.” Albert Close, Antichrist and His Ten Kingdoms, London: Thynne and Co., 1917, p. 110
KING JAMES (1566-1625) AUTHORIZED THE KING JAMES VERSION OF THE BIBLE
“The faithfull praiseth God for the Popes destruction, and their deliverance,” and for “the plagues which are to light on him and his followers.” “The Pope by his Pardons makes merchandise of the soules of men: Heaven and the Saints reioyce at his destruction, albiet the earth and the worldlings lament for the same” James I, Paraphrase, in Workes, pp. 47, 57
JOHN WYCLIF (1324-1384) COMPLETED THE 1ST ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE
“Why is it necessary in unbelief to look for another Antichrist? Hence in the seventh chapter of Daniel Antichrist is forcefully described by a horn arising in the time of the 4th kingdom. For it grew from [among] our powerful ones, more horrible, more cruel, and more greedy, because by reckoning the pagans and our Christians by name, a lesser [greater?] struggle for the temporals is not recorded in any preceding time. Therefore the ten horns are the whole of our temporal rulers, and the horn has arisen from the ten horns, having eyes and a mouth speaking great things against the Lofty One, and wearing out the saints of the Most High, and thinking that he is able to change times and laws.” (Daniel 7:8, 25 quoted) …”For so our clergy foresee the lord pope, as it is said of the eighth blaspheming little head.” Translated from Wyclif’s, De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae, vol. 3 pp. 262, 263
WILLIAM TYNDALE (1484-1536) 1ST TRANSLATOR OF THE BIBLE FROM THE GREEK
“The pope’s forbidding matrimony, and to eat of meats created of God for man’s use, which is devilish doctrine by Paul’s prophecy,… are tokens good enough that he is the right antichrist, and his doctrine sprung of the devil.” 1 Timothy 4:1-3 Tyndale, An Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue, in Works, vol. 3, p. 171
JOHN KNOX (1505-1572)
“He preached that Romish traditions and ceremonies should be abolished along with “that tyranny which the Pope himself has for so many ages exercised over the church” and that he should be acknowledged as “the son of perdition, of whom Paul speaks.” In a public challenge he declared: “As for your Roman Church, as it is now corrupted… I no more doubt but that it is the synagogue of Satan, and the head therof, called the Pope, to be the man of sin of whom the apostle speaketh.”” Knox, The Zurich Letters, p.199
PHILIPP MELANCHTHON (1497-1560)
“Since it is certain that the pontiffs and the monks have forbidden marriage, it is most manifest, and true without any doubt, that the Roman Pontiff, with his whole order and kingdom, is very Antichrist. Likewise in 2 Thess. II, Paul clearly says that the man of sin will rule in the church exalting himself above the worship of God, etc.” Translated from Melanchthon, Disputationes, No. 56, “De Matrimonio”, in Opera ‘Corpus Reformatorum’, vol. 12 col. 535
THOMAS CRANMER (1489 – 1556)
“Whereof it followeth Rome to be the seat of Antichrist, and the pope to be very antichrist himself. I could prove the same by many other scriptures, old writers, and strong reasons.” Works by Cranmer, vol.1, pp.6-7
HULDREICH ZWINGLI (1484-1531)
“I know that in it works the might and power of the Devil, that is, of the Antichrist… the Papacy has to be abolished… But by no other means can it be more thoroughly routed than by the word of God (2 Thessalonians 2), because as soon as the world receives this in the right way, it will turn away from the Pope without compulsion.” Principle Works of Zwingli, Vol. 7, p. 135
THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH (1646)
“There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ: nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalts himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God.” 1646 Westminster Confession of Faith
THE BAPTIST CONFESSION OF FAITH (1689)
“The Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of the church, in whom, by the appointment of the Father, all power for the calling, institution, order or government of the church, is invested in a supreme and sovereign manner; neither can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof, but is that antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the church against Christ.” 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith
CHARLES SPURGEON (1834 – 1892)
“Popery is contrary to Christ’s Gospel, and is the Antichrist, and we ought to pray against it. It should be the daily prayer of every believer that Antichrist might be hurled like a millstone into the flood and for Christ, because it wounds Christ, because it robs Christ of His glory, because it puts sacramental efficacy in the place of His atonement, and lifts a piece of bread into the place of the Saviour, and a few drops of water into the place of the Holy Ghost, and puts a mere fallible man like ourselves up as the vicar of Christ on earth; if we pray against it, because it is against Him, we shall love the persons though we hate their errors: we shall love their souls though we loath and detest their dogmas, and so the breath of our prayers will be sweetened, because we turn our faces towards Christ when we pray.” Michael de Semlyen, All Roads Lead to Rome
NICOLAUS VON AMSDORF (1483 – 1565)
“He (the antichrist) will be revealed and come to naught before the last day, so that every man shall comprehend and recognize that the pope is the real, true antichrist and not the vicar of Christ … Therefore those who consider the pope and his bishops as Christian shepherds and bishops are deeply in error, but even more are those who believe the the Turk (ISLAM) is the antichrist. Because the Turk (ISLAM) rules outside of the church and does not sit in the holy place, nor does he seek to bear the name of Christ, but is an open antagonist of Christ and His church. This does not need to be revealed, but it is clear and evident because he persecutes Christians openly and not as the pope does, secretly under the form of Godliness.” Nicolaus Von Amsdorf, Furnemliche und gewisse Zeichen, sig.A2r.,v.
FLACIUS (1570)
“The sixth and last reason for our separation from the pope and his followers be this; By many writings of our church, by the Divinely inspired Word, by prophecies concerning the future and by the special characteristics of the Papacy, it has been profusely and thoroughly proved that the pope with his prelates and clergy is the real true great antichrist, that his kingdom is the real Babylon, a never ceasing fountain and a mother of all abominable idolatry.” Flacius, Etliche Hochwichtige Ursachen und Grunde, warum das siche alle Christen von dem Antichrist … absondern sollen
ROGER WILLIAMS (1603 – 1683)
“Pastor Williams spoke of the Pope as “the pretended Vicar of Christ on earth, who sits as God over the Temple of God, exalting himself not only above all that is called God, but over the souls and consciences of all his vassals, yea over the Spirit of Christ, over the Holy Spirit, yea, and God himself…speaking against the God of heaven, thinking to change times and laws; but he is the son of perdition.”” The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers by Froom, Vol. 3, pg. 52
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JESUS CLAIMS HIS BIRTHDAY AND HIS VIA CRUSIS AND RESURECTION AT EASTER AMEN
The Crown of Thorns
“The Crown of Thorns Reveals to us the Evil of Venial Sin.” from Revelations or Effusions of the Heart of Jesus by Father Alexis LeFebvre.
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‘Plectentes coronam de spinis, posuerunt super caput ejus.’
‘And platting a crown of thorns, they put it upon His head’ (Matt. xxvii. 29).
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The crowning with thorns was one of the most cruel sufferings and bloody outrages endured by Jesus Christ on the day of His dolours and death. Both blood and tears were in the eyes of that meek Saviour when, with a reed in His hand, He silently and lovingly gazed on the soldiers and executioners, who, as they passed, bent the knee before Him, saying insultingly, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’
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But a crown of thorns around a heart! Can we conceive greater suffering, and what means this mystery of pain and love? I will give them a Heart to know Me. Let us repeat this touching text: ‘I will give them a Heart, My Heart, and they shall understand,’ We have already learned from the Cross of this Divine Heart what mortal sin is; the thorns of this crown are a figure of venial sin, those slight and numerous faults for which idle and cowardly souls forgive themselves, alas, but too readily, for they wound and tear the Heart of Jesus.
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This is, doubtless, a most important and necessary subject for those who will some day read this book. The habit of small faults is an immense danger, and causes the death of souls by that sad slow malady called tepidity, which is a most difficult subject to treat of. I tremble to say too much, lest any faithful, and at the same time fearful, souls, who may apply these words to themselves, should be alarmed or discouraged; but far more do I fear saying too little on this subject, and so leaving many others to sleep in death.
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O Sacred Heart of Jesus, thou hast promised to heal all hearts, even those that are tepid and lukewarm; be Thou our strength and light; we can never have greater need of thy grace, never have we more confidently invoked it! We shall, then,
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I. Examine the signs or symptoms of this malady.
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II. Study its character or nature. III. Point out the remedies.
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I. A few words will suffice to enlighten the welldisposed soul ; for there are certain signs by which the malady and its dangers are made evident; thus, the habit one has of committing venial sins ; the frequency of these slight faults, and above all an habitual contempt of little things—I mean small graces, or rather, small infidelities; habitual negligence in all that concerns the service of God, such as prayer and receiving the Sacraments; disgust, ennui, and routine in pious exercises; and above all when there is scarcely any resistance or struggle before committing a fault, and but little remorse or repentance afterwards. All these are alarming symptoms, and may well cause you to fear. If you are not already struck with this malady, you are certainly threatened with it; already have you plunged many of these thorns into the Heart of your God ; you have wounded Him by all these infidelities.
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But there is no thorn that tears this Heart more cruelly than a divided soul, which gives itself but partially, fighting continually against His love, refusing Him almost every sacrifice. As if it were possible to reconcile the Gospel with the world, or to mingle heaven and earth! Jesus could not endure a soul in such a state, and would not remain with it; it would disgust Him; He would soon reject it, and cast it out of His Heart. And mark this well : the more the graces received, the more alarming are the symptoms, and the more is death to be feared. Yet, again, do you understand what it is that makes this state so sad, and the contrast between the two hearts so horrible? The one burns with love, devoured by the flames of the most ardent charity ; the other is tepid and languid, what do I say? it is cold, and will soon be frozen in death! Dead from the very heart!
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II. Let us now study the characteristics of this sad malady, and at once declare it to be, not only a condition of pain, but replete with danger.
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These divided souls and weak hearts generally suffer much; for God is not pleased, nor can He be; then He complains, He often threatens, and sometimes strikes. He complains; and thenceforward there is not the same confiding intercourse. He is resisted, and can no longer give His peace. Who that resists Him can have peace? The soul withdraws from Him, and then His light becomes less, and finally disappears. He threatens: I will place, He says, thorns in all his paths; the malediction of the Lord is ready to fall upon him who fights his battles with cowardice, and who negligently performs the Lord’s work. ‘Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully’ (Jer. xlviii. 10). At last He strikes, and sometimes with heavy blows of justice; He makes His thunderbolts fall upon these ungrateful children to rouse them from their sleep of death, unless some day, fully disgusted, He holds His peace, and flees away, which is incomparably more fatal for the soul, which is thus left to die. All these, and the following verities, are of faith, reason, and experience. God has said, and you also know, dear reader, that you have never been really happy in the service of God, except when you have been faithful and generous.
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But it is time for us to enter upon the terrors of this subject, and to speak of the dangerous character of this sad malady of tepidity, which infallibly leads to the death of souls—yes, infallibly; but—and this is what appears to me so terrifying—it leads the soul very gently on to this fatal termination: Paulatim, by little and little, says the Holy Spirit, and so imperceptibly that a soul may be really dead, and yet preserve the appearance of life. Three kinds of paths or descents lead to this abyss, all so rapid and imperceptible, that the progress, or rather the fall, is scarcely observed. This explanation is necessary for the comprehension of two sentences which seem to contradict each other. God says, they shall fall little by little, very gently: ‘He that contemneth small things shall fall by little and little’ (Eccles. xix. 1). St. Bernard says, ‘They begin by small things, trifling faults, and soon are carried away,are precipitated into great ones, and then into crime, because the descent is gentle and rapid at the same time.’
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The path of illusion is one of the ways by which the soul goes to its death. Self-deception is so easy. What! when even the science of theology is not always sufficient for a priest to be able to pronounce whether the sin of which you accuse yourself is mortal or venial; and yet you do not fear to decide in your own favour! Nevertheless there is not a great distance between a thought negligently resisted and the commencement of complaisance, or even of guilty desire; not so great a distance as you may imagine between a look of imprudent curiosity and one of impurity. ‘Fear then: thou hast the name of being alive, and thou art dead’ (Apoc. iii. 1). Yes, perhaps even now you are dead, and at the bottom of the abyss!
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Another path is that by which the soul is drawn away. This fatal habit of easy indifference, this life of self-indulgence and concession, ends by overcoming the will. There is first a force which lessens the attraction to what is good, and an influence augmenting the attraction of evil; then a day comes when the measure of evil is full, and the soul is crushed under the weight of a thousand trifling faults, which, though considered to be but trifles, are sufficient by their frightful accumulation to destroy its life; there is no courage to resist the supreme effort of the perfidious enemy, who only waited for this day and hour to give battle and to triumph. You will understand I do not not say that venial sins will in the end become mortal; ordinarily this would not be true, though i
t is certain that in matters of justice they might in some cases impose an obligation sub gravi, and form a grave matter or crime, and consequently a mortal sin. I mean merely -to say that generally the soul enchained by the force of habit finds itself gently, but surely, conducted by this path of attraction to death—that is to say, to mortal sin. Finally, there is the road of divine justice or chastisement. Wounded and outraged by all these resistances to grace, wounded and outraged in His love by all these infidelities and faults, God is at last exhausted, even His Heart is filled with disgust. At first He is silent; He withdraws Himself, He abandons and even curses this soul; and then—the terrible word must be said—He rejects, and finally vomits it: ‘Because thou art lukewarm, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth’ (Apoc. iii. 16). O misery! Destiny a thousand times more sad in one sense than that of the sinner! Jesus wishes not for his death, but that he might return to life. Comprehend, then, my dear reader, the difference. If you are a sinner, Jesus Christ pities you; He opens His Heart to you, and will shed tears of compassion over you, and the treasure of His merciful pity. Weep, and He will pardon you ; but if you continue tepid, He cannot endure you; you disgust Him; He will vomit you forth out of His mouth. ‘I will begin to vomit thee;’ and perhaps this has already begun. ‘I would thou wert cold or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth’ (Apoc. iii. 16).
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To vomit! This is the terrible word which I cannot write without trembling, and which I had even rather not attempt to explain here, for fear of plunging some soul into despair. I will, then, merely ask when and how Jesus Christ could return, and take back this soul which He had once vomited forth with disgust? I wish to know if there is anything by which the soul can be roused from this death-sleep or restored to life. Would good reading effect this? We know that many sinners have been converted by reading good books—St. Augustine, Ignatius Loyola, and many others we could name; but have you ever seen or heard of this effect upon a tepid soul? Would confession be likely to rouse it? Alas, a tepid soul prepares itself without care, and approaches this Sacrament unconcernedly, not even understanding what the priest says! Would Holy Communion effect it? On the contrary, most certainly a tepid Communion would consummate the evil, and the soul would sink into an abyss of sin and death. Would, then, the Holy Scriptures, which are searching, efficacious, and penetrating, and by which God has often worked wonders, be the means of restoring this soul to life? Alas, it is rarely, indeed, that lukewarm souls are touched by the Holy Word, for they have ears and hear not.
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It may be truly said that nothing can arrest them when once they begin to descend into the abyss; nothing can raise them when once they have fallen; nothing restore them to life when they are dead. ‘I would thou wert cold!’
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Yet, further, mark the difference. I will suppose a fervent soul finds itself a prey to sudden and horrible temptation. If it yields and begins to fall, it is alarmed, and immediately asks whither it is going, and prays its guardian angel to arrest and protect it. Startled and aroused even by the shock of its fall, it sorrowfully asks where it is, and cries from the bottom of the abyss to God to have pity. ‘Out of the depths have I called to Thee, O Lord.’ But the tepid soul, on the contrary, which gradually, imperceptibly descends, never stops to inquire whither it is going, or where it is. The barren tree is fallen, is dead! Is there not every reason to fear that as it falls, so it will lie? But enough, O my God ; perhaps even too much for more than one soul; and how do I tremble lest in these words I may have written my own sentence! Let us, then, hasten to say there is yet a remedy, and that we must never cease to hope.
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III. Yes, you can be healed, if you wish, and I am about to point out two remedies, which are as infallible as they appear mild and easy. Do you really wish for them? Will you be made whole?
The first, then, is prayer; above all, prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He has promised to save and heal all who invoke Him with confidence, even tepid souls : a spark of love, or a tear shed over you, will recall you to life. Say to Him, then, ‘O my Jesus, he whom Thou lovest is sick’ (John xi. 3); ‘O my God, I die !’ and He will have pity on you, and will restore you the strength and joy of the years of your first fervour. Have confidence; cast yourself into this Divine Heart.
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The second remedy is even more simple, easy, and prompt: it is action, or sacrifice. You will try to conquer yourself, and will at once commence by a little sacrifice. You will gain a victory over yourself by restraining your lips even from one useless word, or by repressing the idle curiosity of a look in walking in the streets or in the church. You will make this sacrifice to-day in honour of the Heart of Jesus, and He will recompense you by the peace and joy of His love. To-morrow offer Him two sacrifices, two equally easy victories; then three, and four. Thus you will go on for several days, and there will be a proportionate increase of peace, love, and joy in your hearts. I assure you that not only will you be healed, but you will live joyfully for His glory, and you will live to die no more. Thus each day you will remove some of those thorns which wound His Heart, and this grateful and faithful God will daily bestow upon you a more abundant portion of life and grace. ‘That they may have it more abundantly’ (John x. 10).
1st Sunday of Lent, the temptation of Christ in the desert. From St. Augustine:
“Our pilgrimage on earth cannot be exempt from trial. We progress by means of trial. No one knows himself except through trial, or receives a crown except after victory, or strives except against an enemy or temptations. The one who cries from the ends of the earth is in anguish, but is not left on his own. Christ chose to foreshadow us, who are his body, by means of his body, in which he has died, risen and ascended into heaven, so that the members of his body may hope to follow where their head has gone before.”
https://fb.watch/bAeWZw9X0i/
Mario Keča
Vjerojatno bi trebalo promijeniti i Evanđelja, točnije, ono što nam je Krist govorio. Da nam govori danas, vjerojatno bi govorio potpuno drugačije. Pa, niti On nije mogao znati što će biti danas, zar ne? Biskupu bih preporučio da pročita “Braću Karamazove”, i to “Legendu o velikom inkvizitoru”! Ako se sam u njemu ne prepozna, recite mu daje to upravo njegova slika! Ako je i od jednog biskupa, previše je! Kao što naši ljudi kažu: “Što jedna budala može napraviti štete, sto pametnih ne može popraviti!” A, da je samo jedan:::!!!
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