2) What means ‘antichrist’ or ‘he who exalts himself above all that is called God’s sitting as God in the temple of God?’
Before the Antichrist can sit as God in the temple of God, he must be in a position to do so. As always, it is easier to detect and uncover an enemy coming from outside. This has always been the case here in the world, and this is the case in the cosmic conflict that is raging around us. An example of this could be what happens before a war between two nations. We have an aggressive nation that wants to conquer a part of, or all of the neighbouring state. It is never difficult for the nation that is in danger of being conquered militarily to see who the enemy is, but if this aggressive enemy creates a group that, for example, infiltrates the other nation’s political bodies, it will be much more difficult to detect these spies before it is too late. In order to be able to detect such a group, the threatened nation must have an intelligence agency.
For Christians who are exposed to this type of infiltration from an enemy, the only body of intelligence we can get help from is the Word of God, the Bible, and it must be used diligently.
One who comes ‘from within‘ will be far more difficult to reveal, at least before it is too late. If we look at what John says in 1 John 2,19 again, we see that he emphasizes the fact that the Antichrist must come from the church that John and the other apostles founded in Jerusalem. John says that all those who are antichrist, who eventually give rise to the Antichrist, and who had already come in John’s time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would [no doubt] have continued with us: but [they went out], that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. John also says that because they left the early church, it could be obvious that they were not of the same spirit as John, Peter, James, Paul and the other founders of God’s church. However, in order for this relationship to be revealed to us, we must adhere to God’s pure and undefiled word.
Let us first look at the expression ‘sitting (down)’, or to sit. We use the term «to sit» in everyday speech about heads of state, priests and in many different ways. When the winner of an election has taken office, we say about the person in question, the sitting president, the sitting prime minister, the sitting government, etc., etc. «Sitting» in this context means having and exercising authority over something or someone. The Antichrist, in the definite singular and with a capital A, wants to have authority over the church of God, and he has usurped this authority with flatteries and deceit and with the help of Satan. Daniel 11,21 describes how this happened: And there shall stand up in his place* one despised, and the kingly honour shall not be given him: and he shall come privately, and shall obtain the kingdom by fraud, (Douay-Rheims Bible). * In his place: his = emperor’s, and place = the place the emperor ruled from. That is, the power Daniel 11,21 describes as one who is despised, usurped both the place and the power the emperor had earlier when he ruled from Rome. As we know, the emperor moved to Constantinople when the Western Roman Empire disintegrated. The power described as despised is represented by the bishop of Rome. What verse 21 in Daniel 11 describes happened around the transition from the fifth to the sixth century AD.
When Daniel wrote chapter 11 of the book of Daniel, Darius was king of Medo-Persia, and he reigned between 539 and 530 BC. The prophecy that Daniel gives us in chapter 11 is therefore written about 1000 years before it happened. Is it possible to give a more accurate description of the course of history? It is precisely in this way that the bishop of Rome came into position; he usurped the kingdom by flatteries. The bishop represented the Christian church in Rome, and the Christians were indeed despised throughout the Roman Empire.
The reason why Christianity and Christians were not valued by most people in Rome was the strong connection to Judaism the first Christians had. Ever since the church was established in Rome, they were simply despised and seen as bad people. They did not worship the sun god as «everyone else in the whole world did,» they worshiped instead the Creator of heaven and earth, a God of which they could not make images. They were also careful about what they could and could not eat, and they differed from the rest of Rome in every way. This was also the case in the middle of the fourth century when the Aryan tribes began to ravage the Roman Empire, and until the final fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476.
The church has never received, nor was ever given the kingdom, (read Roman Empire), but by flatteries and manipulation, the bishop of Rome, albeit with ‘the blessing’ of the Eastern Roman emperor, managed to fill the political vacuum that arose when the emperor moved to Constantinople, and the bishop took over the emperor’s old throne and title. Suddenly, the Catholic Church had seized all power in Rome. The bishop had seized the kingdom by flatteries.
When the papacy was established as we know it today, in the year 538, the papacy, or the Antichrist, had come into position to take the place he wanted to take. The pope now began seriously to prepare the ground for establishing himself as God in the temple of God.
The Church of Rome had already for several hundred years exalted the Sunday as a public holiday at the expense of God’s Sabbath – our Saturday. Here they received help from Emperor Constantine who became a ‘Christian’, and who introduced a Sunday law on February 7, 321. During the subsequent councils, Sunday was exalted more and more until God’s Sabbath was almost forgotten by all people. But there was a small remnant that kept the commandments of God and the Sabbath.
However, several changes had to be made – many changes – and it started with few and small ‘insignificant’ changes. When we came to the year 538 and the establishment of the Catholic Church as we know it today, many of the pagan customs and rituals that the pagan religions had brought to Rome had already been introduced and adopted. After 538, the church itself has made many new doctrines that are not based on the teachings of the Bible, and introduced more and more human traditions. Nevertheless, pagan customs and rituals can never become Christian customs and rituals only one dresses them in a Christian costume, or wrap them in a Christian disguise. Nor do human traditions become Christian just because the papacy claims to be so.
More than ten years ago, I participated in a discussion forum, and posted a message where I addressed exactly this phenomenon. Here is a small excerpt from the mentioned post: «If you are rude enough to call a shovel a shovel then you will quickly be hung out and stigmatized. You cannot come here and believe that you can say what you want! Think how ugly the person is who speaks straight out! This form of scribbling have to be gagged and preferably killed immediately, because it hurts a little in delicate and spoiled victims to hear that the truth appears differently from a different place than from the victim’s own little toe. No, no one should be able to come here to shake a biblical view, which is largely about shaping the scriptures at their own discretion, and take a navel-gazing worldview where everyone puts himself or herself in the centre and shapes the map according to the terrain they believe they see. … // … If you take a kilo of horse droppings and wrap it in the most colourful and beautiful tissue paper with bows and all kinds of stasis so it will be the world’s most beautiful package to look at on the outside, it will still just be horse droppings inside the nicely wrapped package. The packaging does not change the content of the package which is and will be horse droppings and nothing else».
The same goes for pagan customs, rituals, and human traditions. They can never become anything other than what they are just because someone chooses to make them ‘Christians’. Here are just a few things that the Catholic Church has introduced after the fifth century: Infant baptism in the 6th century. Sacrament of penance (so-called tariff penance) in the early 6th century. The doctrine of the eternal pain in hell 543. The purgatory 593. The Mass in the 7th century. The last oil in the 8th century. Holy water 850. Canonization of the dead 995. Celibacy for priests 1074. Relic and image worship (finally determined) in the 11th century. Rosary prayer in the 12th century. Sale of indulgences in the 12th century. Mary’s Immaculate Conception 1140. Worship of the host* (communion bread) 1217, and the immortality of the soul and the Inquisition.
Here there are both customs and rituals that originate from pagan religions, and human traditions that the church itself has invented. All these traditions, to call them that, are all wrapped in nicely wrapped packages, the most beautiful packages you can think of, but when you unpack these packages there is still only horse droppings inside the packages, the contents have not changed at all.
* The Egyptian temple priests practiced transubstantiation, believing that they had magical powers that allowed them to transform the great sun god into a round biscuit. In a religious ritual, which, incidentally, was the same as the Baal ceremony of the Babylonian religion, the people ate the sun biscuit. This biscuit was stamped with the letters IHS that stood for the trinity of the Egyptian religion ISIS, HORUS and SET. The Catholic Church continued the tradition as an imitation of the eucharist in which they use the round sun biscuit with the same letters as the Egyptians did; IHS. The Jesuits use this as their identification mark, but say for natural reasons that the letters now stand for the first three letters of Jesus’ name in Greek.
Later, a number of other ‘Christian interpretations‘ have seen the light of day, and the most common is Iesu Hominum Salvator, or Jesus the Saviour of man.
Briefly about these three deities.
Isis. According to the religion and mythology of ancient Egypt, Isis is a goddess who symbolized the royal power, which she had as Osiris’ spouse, and which she claimed as the mother of Horus. In this way, she connected the earthly with the realm of the dead, and was both a goddess of death and a mother goddess. Isis was depicted in human form and with either her name hieroglyph, which was the throne with the cow horn and the sun disk on his head. She was also often depicted as the mother of Horus, a deity with a falcon’s head associated with the king and the kingdom.
The name Isis had the meaning throne. She married her brother Osiris, and with him, she got Horus. Isis was involved in the resurrection of Osiris when he was killed by Set. Using her magical abilities, she restored his body after collecting his various body parts that had been thrown out over the earth by Set.
A popular motif wrapped in a Christian wrapper is Isis who breastfed her young son Horus. This is continued in the Christian context and then as the Virgin Mary who breastfeeds her new-born son Jesus.
Horus. Horus is one of the oldest and most significant deities in ancient Egypt. In the earliest records, Horus is depicted as the falcon who is the patron god of Nekhen in Upper Egypt, and who is known as the first national Egyptian god, especially associated with Pharaoh who in time came to be seen as a manifestation of Horus alive and as Osiris in death. Horus described the most common family relationship as the son of Isis and Osiris. Horus had many functions in the Egyptian deity world, the foremost being the god of heaven, the god of war and the god of protection.
There are two prominent versions of Horus in particular: the first was like a sun deity and the second was like Seth’s brother, Osiris and Isis’ second child. The name Horus is a Latin form of the Greek Hores which in turn comes from the Egyptian Hor (or Heru / Har). The origin of the name can come from the same root as the Egyptian word Heru, which means high, the distant and far away.
Set. Set or Seth is according to Egypt’s religion and mythology a god of chaos, and the god of the desert, storms, disorder, violence and foreigners, and is often described as the ruler of the desert and foreign lands. Set is not a god that can be overlooked or avoided. He was lord of the red land (the desert) where he was the counterpart to Horus’ role as lord of the black land (the fertile land).
Why has the Catholic Church chosen to continue the sun biscuit from the Egyptian sun cult? Why have they not chosen to continue the way Jesus instituted the sacrament, by breaking the sacramental bread, the sacramental bread that was baked with unleavened dough? We have seen that the Catholic Church has introduced and continues to introduce pagan customs and rituals, and is bringing more and more human traditions. This raises a well-founded question: Why do they do this?
As we have seen, the Catholic Church likes to wrap paganism in Christian clothing, but it does not necessarily become pure and spotless Christianity for that reason. Paganism is and will be paganism regardless of what kind of packaging paganism gets. The Roman Church, or Catholic Church, is the result of the accumulation that has taken place since the days of Babylon in Daniel’s day. Each of the kingdoms that came after Babylon took over partly or all of the pagan religion and philosophy of the conquered empire. This has been continued by Medo-Persia and Greece and until it was adopted by the Roman Empire / Roman Church. In other words; the Catholic Church has absorbed all paganism and handed down philosophy from the time of Nebuchadnezzar to the present day, and in addition the Catholic Church has come up with a myriad of doctrines and human traditions which this church calls christian, but which has no root in the Word of God, the Bible.
The reason the Antichrist does all this is that he wants to take the place in our hearts that God wants us to offer Him. That is why he advocates a different gospel, and we see more and more clearly every day that those who flock to the fallen church do not have to change their lifestyle or embrace the teachings of the Bible. The fallen church – the whole fallen church – advocates a doctrine that is not coherent with the Bible. The Bible says that man can be saved from his sin, while the fallen church preaches that man can be saved in his sin. This is something we sinful people love to hear. In the fallen church, man can find salvation without putting aside his sinful habits and inclinations. If there is something that itches well in the ear, it is such a gospel, but it does not lead to heaven. This way leads out on the broad road that leads to perdition.
What is really happening is that Satan’s alternative religion, the worship of the sun, which began only a few years after the flood, and which was continued through Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and the Roman Empire / Roman Church, will unite all the world’s religions and philosophical systems into one unit, the banner of the papacy before Jesus comes again. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast, Revelation 13,3. This verse from Revelation is about to be fulfilled to the point before our eyes, for even secular organizations have begun to kneel before the pope.
The papacy has decided that the word of God can be changed they even boast that they have the authority to do this. Here are a few thought-provoking statements from the Catholic Church, (see also; This is the Sabbath part 3).
Nowhere in the New Testament is it clearly stated that Christ changed the day of rest from Saturday to Sunday. Nevertheless, all Protestants keep Sunday, except Seventh-day Adventists. The Catholic Church, which goes all the way back to the apostles, made the change because it was necessary to emphasize the fact that the Old Testament was abolished. Furthermore, because our divine Saviour chose Sunday as the day of resurrection and as the time of the sending of the Holy Spirit to the church as its principle of life. When Protestants hold Sunday, they follow tradition. From the American Catholic Congregational Magazine Our Sunday Visitor June 11, 1950.
The representative of the Catholic Church says in his article that it was necessary to emphasize the fact that the Old Testament was abolished. However, we have Jesus’ words that this is not the case.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil … … Jesus said. What the whole fallen Church, Catholic and Protestant, is doing here is choosing to disregard what Jesus says and means, in order to defend such a choice of words that is expressed in what Our Sunday Visitor writes on June 11, 1950.
Ever since the days of the apostles, the Church, by the authority of Christ, has decreed that instead of the Sabbath, Christians should celebrate Sunday as the day of the Lord. From page 136 in Our Faith, Catholic Catechism published by the Oslo Catholic Diocese in 1961.
This is a truth with certain modifications. The apostles and the church in the time of the apostles kept the Lord’s day, the Sabbath, high. The observance of Sunday is something that was constructed over time by the forces that oppose God. When Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, none of the books of the New Testament had yet been written. Jesus constantly refers to the law and the prophets, that is, to the Old Testament, as he has done here: Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Matthew 5,17-18 Why would Jesus spend so much time talking about the law and the prophets if, as Our Sunday Visitor says, it has been abolished? Our Sunday Visitor truly says that it was necessary to emphasize the fact that the Old Testament was abolished.
The Manual of the Catholic Religion states: That the church has instituted Sunday as the day of the Lord instead of the Sabbath and set it as a day especially for worship, is a clear proof of its great power which it solemnly received from Christ.
Cardinal Gibbons’ answer to I. S. Snyder, whether the change of holiday was a sign or mark of the authority of the church. Of course, the Catholic Church claims that change is its own act. It could not be otherwise, as no one in those days would have dreamed of doing anything in spiritual and religious matters without it. And this act is a mark of the clerical power and of its authority in religious matters, (letter dated October 28, 1895).
Cardinal James Gibbon says in the book The Faith of Our fathers the following: One can read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, without finding a single line, which authorizes the observance of Sunday.
From Doctrinal Catechism we can include this:
Question: Can you in any other way prove that the church has the power to institute feast days by law?
Answer: If it did not have such power, it could not have done what all the professors of modern religion agree with it: it could not have introduced Sunday, the first day of the week, instead of the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no authority in scripture.
In The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (1977 edition) we find this:
Question: What day is the Sabbath?
Answer: Saturday is the Sabbath.
Question: Why do we keep Sunday holy instead of Saturday?
Answer: We keep Sunday holy instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church has transferred the holy day of Saturday to Sunday.
The Roman Catholic theologian John A. O’Brian says in The Faith of Millions the following: Since it is Saturday and not Sunday, which is mentioned in the Bible, it is not strange that people who are not Catholics, and who say they have not received their religion from the church, but directly from the Bible, keep Sunday instead of Saturday? Of course, it is inconsistent. Sunday observance is a reminder of the mother church, from which the non-Catholic sects have distinguished themselves.
Pieter Geiermann, CSSR: A Doctrinal Catechism, 1957 edition, p. 50.
We keep Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church has transferred Saturday’s holiness to Sunday.
The Catholic Press, Sydney, Australia, August 1900.
Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its demand for observance can only be defended on Catholic terms.
The Catholic Mirror, Dec. 23. 1893
Common sense requires that one accept one or the other of these alternatives: Either Protestantism and the observance of Saturday, or Catholicism and the observance of Sunday. A compromise is impossible.
From other sources this can be mentioned.
It is best to remind Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and all other Christians that the Bible does not give them any support in their Sunday observance. Sunday is an institution that comes from the Roman Catholic Church, and those who keep this day hold a commandment that belongs to the Roman Catholic Church.
Father Brandy in a speech, reproduced in the Elizabeth, N.J. News, March 18, 1903.
And where in Scripture are we told at all that we are to keep the first day? We are commanded to keep the seventh day, but nowhere are we commanded to keep the first day.
Isaac Williams, Anglican: Plain Sermons on the Catechism, pp. 334,336.
It is true that there is no specific order for infant baptism. Nor is there such an order to keep the first day of the week holy. Many believe that Christ changed the Sabbath. But from his own words we see that he did not come up with such a thing in mind. Those who believe that Jesus changed the Sabbath are based on pure assumption.
Amos Binney, Methodist: Theological Compendium, pp. 180-181.
It was, and still is, a commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy, but this Sabbath is not Sunday. It can be easily said, however, and with a certain overtone of triumph, that the Sabbath, with all its duties, privileges, and sanctions, was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week. When I sincerely wanted to get information on this subject I have studied for many years, I ask: Where can one find such a transfer written down? Not in the New Testament, certainly not. There is no biblical evidence that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh day to the first day of the week.
E.T. Hiscox, Baptist and author of the Baptist Handbook.
It is no wonder, then, that the word of God has changed over the years. Yes, we should not ignore the fact that the word of God change according to the seasons as well, perhaps the word of God even changes according to the days of the week and the mood of the individual. What do I know? Last year it was said so beautiful that we are living in 2021. This year, however, this is obsolete, and now it is said that we are living in 2022, and that means that much of what was true last year no longer holds true in any way. I agree that we write 2022 on the calendar, and have no difficulty either understanding or admitting that this statement is correct, that is not where the problem lies. The problem is that one thinks the Bible changes because the numbers on a calendar change. Does it have any influence on God’s Word that we write 2022? Or, is it simply because this power wants to change the Word of God into the unrecognizable? The sun still rises in the east, sets in the west, and night always follows day. Should it nevertheless be presumed that the word of God is subject to the change of the spirit of the times, we must rejoice that we have the Catholic Church which claims to have ‘power and authority‘ to correct God and his word. Then you will see that it is only nonsense and fantasy that it says that Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever (Hebrews 13,8). And that it is a lie that till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled, (Matthew 5,18).
It is precisely in this way that the Antichrist seeks to establish himself as God in the temple of God. Over the years, the papacy has tried to gain full control over the Christians by introducing all the customs, rituals and traditions that lead to the individual falling away from the pure faith and somehow being connected to the Catholic Church – either directly as a member of the Catholic Church or as a member of one of the ecumenical denominations that follow the mother church as she calls herself. It is not primarily the pure faith and the pure and undefiled word of God that matter in this connection, but the seduction the papacy engages in, to entice people to fall. One of the tools the church has used to establish itself as God in the temple of God is forced confession or tariff penance, which was introduced early in the sixth century. This means that the ordinary Christian was forced to go to his or her church on regular basis and confess his or her sins to a priest who is nothing but another sinful human being, who in turn can impose on the confessing sinner a suitable punishment and give the poor, deceitful sinner absolution – which is the forgiveness of one’s sins. It is just a problem. Only God can forgive man his sins and that through Jesus’ vicarious death on the cross.
Another aspect of this case is that the pope calls himself Vicarius Filii Dei, (vicar of Jesus Christ), and even considered himself god on earth, stating that it the pope, and his priesthood, bound or redeemed on earth , the God of heaven had to obey. In 1870 the dogma of the Pope’s infallibility was published, a dogma claiming that statements made by the Pope ex cathedra. Ex cathedra means from the pulpit (of St. Peter) and are protected by the Holy Spirit against error. In Pastor Aeternus, First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ, it is said that this is the highest form of authority ascribed to the pope, defined by the virtue of his ultimate apostolic authority and his office as pastor and teacher for all Christians. What an arrogance.
Many will surely accuse me of fabricating the various claims I make, but as usual, we can go to the source of this, the organs and partners of the Catholic Church to see what they write about the Pope. Here are some statements about the pope from these sources.
All names used in the Bible about Christ, the same names are given to the pope. This confirms that he is above the church.
(Bellarmine, on Authority and Councils, quoted by Breckenridge in Hughes-Breckenridge debate, page 58.)
The Pope demands complete submission and obedience, – as to God himself,
Great Encyclical Letters, page 193.
We (the Catholic Church) possess here on earth the authority of God Almighty,
Great Encyclical Letters, page 304.
Kissing the pope’s feet – is a sign of reverence expected of all faithful to the substitute of Jesus Christ,
Catholic Encyclopaedia. XII page 270. (This custom was all established in the 8th century.)
The Pope calls himself the Viceroy of God, the Judge of the living and the dead.
Catholicism against Itself, vol. I, page 277. (O.C. Lambert)
You are the shepherd, you are the doctor, you are the leader, you are the master – you are another God on earth,
(History of the Councils, Labbe and Gossarts. Volume 14, column 109)
Our Lord God the Pope
Extragavantes from Antweipen, column 153, Extragavantes in Paris, column 140.
The Roman pope is the only one in the universe who is righteous; That he can not be judged by anyone, and that is why the pope is crowned with a three-part crown – as king in heaven, on earth and in the realm of the dead,
(Proinpta Bibliotheca, Feraris, volume VI, 5 26.)
As a counter-argument against a faith shared by Protestants and a growing number of Catholics, Pope John Paul II declared on Tuesday that he was invalidating the common and popular idea that one can receive forgiveness directly from God. Furthermore, he advised Catholics to confess their sins more often to their priests.
Quote from Pope John Paul II, in an article on forgiveness of sins, (Los Angeles Times (12/94).
The strange thing is that it was prophesied by Daniel about 1000 years before the papacy saw the light of day all that this power was to do. Let’s look at some of the verses that deal with the papacy say:
Daniel 7,8 … there came up among them another little horn, and, behold, in this horn [were] eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
Daniel 7,20 … even [of] that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look [was] more stout than his fellows.
Daniel 7,21 … and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;
Daniel 7,22 Until the Ancient of days came, …
Daniel 7,25 And he shall speak [great] words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws. …
Daniel 8,11 Yea, he magnified [himself] even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily [sacrifice] was taken away. …
Daniel 8,23 And in the latter time of their kingdom … a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.
Daniel 8,24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise. …
Daniel 8,25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify [himself] in his heart … he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.