The Dark Ages

A few years ago, I came across a statement by Edward Cardinal Egan that generally agrees with both the Bible and simple, observable science regarding the pro-creation of each new human being. Egan was, at that time, Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York.¹ While Egan, as a “theologically orthodox” Catholic, misunderstands the mortal and undividable nature of the soul, he does an adequate job of defending every unborn soul’s civil-right to life. Egan’s statement, released August 26, 2008, reads as follows:

Like many other citizens of this nation, I was shocked to learn that the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America would make the kind of statements that were made to Mr. Tom Brokaw of NBC-TV on Sunday, August 24, 2008. What the Speaker had to say about theologians and their positions regarding abortion was not only misinformed; it was also, and especially, utterly incredible in this day and age.

We are blessed in the 21st century with crystal-clear photographs and action films of the living realities within their pregnant mothers. No one with the slightest measure of integrity or honor could fail to know what these marvelous beings manifestly, clearly, and obviously are, as they smile and wave into the world outside the womb. In simplest terms, they are human beings with an inalienable right to live, a right that the Speaker of the House of Representatives is bound to defend at all costs for the most basic of ethical reasons. They are not parts of their mothers, and what they are depends not at all upon the opinions of theologians of any faith. Anyone who dares to defend that they may be legitimately killed because another human being “chooses” to do so or for any other equally ridiculous reason should not be providing leadership in a civilized democracy worthy of the name.²

Egan states his moral premise very admirably. Frankly though, any Roman Catholic Cardinal who publicly moralizes about “integrity and honor” while criticizing those who are “misinformed” ought first to repudiate the huge morass of anti-Biblical superstitious teachings promoted by his own organization.

Chapters 12 through 17 in this series of Godspeak™ Bible guides are a shocking exposé of Roman Catholicism’s superstition-engendering mass of misinformation and the sordid history behind it.

Chapters 1 through 11 are a clear compelling Biblical presentation of truths related to the nature and destiny of the human soul that have been buried beneath the rubbish of gross pagan superstition by numerous traditions of Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Russian Orthodoxy. Protestantism inherited many of those false dogmas by default. Those outrageous teachings inexcusably remain embedded in most of 21^st Century evangelicalism and mainline Protestantism.

The great sixteenth century Protestant Reformer Martin Luther stated the obvious when he said, “Aristotle, a blind heathen, teaches and rules Christians more than does Christ.”³ Those words were truer than even Luther himself realized. Tragically, they are still true today when applied to traditional “orthodox” teachings on the nature and destiny of the soul and all related doctrines. How did this come about?

Late in the second century and early in the third, forceful men like Athenagorus and Tertullian ostensibly converted to Christianity from paganism and took leadership roles in the church (See chapter 15). They brought superstitious pagan notions about the soul with them and began dogmatically amalgamating errors with Christian doctrine.

Some others may have had “good” intentions, according to human wisdom, as they strayed from Scripture in their evangelical efforts, after all, they were ostensibly just trying to find a way to reach out to pagans and make them feel comfortable with Christianity. What better way, they thought, than to adopt pagan language to teach Christian doctrine. That flawed approach led first to distortions of Christian belief and eventually to the systematic blending of pagan superstition with Christian doctrines.

Emperor Constantine established an Imperial Church in the early fourth century. The Church at that time was not Roman Catholic per-sé; it was one church with both eastern Greek and western Latin elements. Constantine attempted to expand Christianity through fusion with paganism. But compromise was not the only way pagan superstition and practice became merged with Christian doctrines. Constantine used the sword against dissenting Christians who opposed the syncretizing of pagan traditions with Christianity. About a half century after Constantine, Theodosius I began to use coercion on a large scale.

From Theodosius to Justinian and onward throughout the Middle Ages, “Christian” kings and emperors fought so-called holy wars to expand their territory. Charlemagne, the Frankish king and “Holy Roman Emperor” is a classic example. Charlemagne carried out a “scorched earth” policy in some of his campaigns against pagan populations. He slashed and burned crops and homes, and slaughtered indiscriminately whole populations until the haggard remnants of these pagan groups acquiesced to become “converts” to Christianity.

These new “Christians” of course did not experience a true conversion of heart. Fear was the basis of their “loyalty” to a perverted Christianity. There was no deep love for true Christian principles. In fact, they didn’t even understand true Christian principles — how could they having never seen a demonstration of Genuine Christian love? The “Christians” had pillaged and slaughtered them in wholesale fashion. Therefore, they retained many of their old pagan superstitions, melding these into a strange concoction of Christianized paganism. These forced “conversions” of whole sub-cultures grossly diluted mainstream Christianity with ever-increasing elements of superstitious beliefs and rituals. This was true, not only in the west, but also in the eastern Byzantine region.

The dubbing of pagan notions onto Bible teachings had far-reaching consequences. It tended to weaken the preeminence of Scripture in the minds of Christians. This continued on step by downward step as Europe descended into the putrid slough of superstitious ignorance we call the Dark Ages. As a result of this degrading of Biblical primacy, Medieval Christianity progressively replaced Scripture with unfounded tradition.

The Dark Ages began soon after belief in universal soul immortality and eternal torment became unchallenged traditions of the western church. This was not merely a coincidence. The fusion of pagan superstitions with Christian teachings contributed to the mind-stunting nature of the Dark Ages. Darkness has been in the world since the fall of our first parents, but it should not have been increased by church teachings. If pagan superstitions had not been amalgamated with the gospel, the church would have been in a position to dispel the onset of the Dark Ages. Instead of dispelling darkness from the minds of the superstitious masses, the church deepened and entrenched that darkness for more than a thousand years.

The Dark Ages were looming on the horizon in A.D. 508 when the western branch of the imperial church began the final stage of morphing into the full-fledged Roman Catholic Church. “The imperial church of Constantine and his successors [had] actually tried to limit the power of the papacy, not to increase it.”⁴ Therefore “the ascendancy of the papacy “did not happen overnight; it required a few centuries.”⁵ The ascendancy of the papacy began in earnest in A.D. 476 when the western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, who ruled under the supreme emperor at Constantinople, was deposed.

From now on the Eastern emperors were unable to intervene in Italian affairs, except sporadically. All this was most advantageous to the bishop at Rome. He could control Catholicism without effective interference from the Byzantine Christian emperor, who himself insisted on being the head of the church and was therefore able to dominate the Eastern bishops whenever he chose to do so. In Italy, however, the pope could successfully aspire to the purple and become a secular king with a territory of his own, in addition to being the spiritual head of the Roman Church.⁶

The laws that were culminating in full, unholy matrimony between church and state developed over time, beginning with Constantine in the early 300’s and culminating with Clovis. The Frankish king Clovis was the first pagan king of the Roman world to embrace the Catholic Religion. Therefore, Roman Catholicism refers to Clovis as the “Eldest Son of the Church.”⁷ The New Catholic Encyclopedia describes the significance of what Clovis accomplished in 508.

Beyond encouraging individual bishops to play a vital role in his kingdom, Clovis sought to use their collective presence as a force to shape a “National” church that would serve under royal direction to institute a common religious life throughout his realm. . . . His entire religious policy played an important role in bringing the Christian establishment into support for the new regime. . . . At the same time Clovis played a significant role in establishing a political and religious order which provided a framework in which the Germanic and Roman worlds could join hands in shaping a new civilization in Western Europe.⁸

The consequences of what Clovis, the “Eldest Son of the Church,” accomplished was indeed a “new civilization in Europe,” which soon fully engulfed western Europe in a quagmire of superstition and mind-control, which we refer to today as the Dark Ages. By the time of the Third Synod at Orleans, A.D. 538, the church had become so empowered by emperor Justinian that it passed sweeping new laws that reached deep into the realm of the consciences of its citizens. Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis law code gave the Bishops full state-authorized power to enforce punishment on those who disobeyed church dogma — and they used it. Did they ever! Church and state had joined in unholy wedlock and had in effect become one.⁹

The seeds of magisterial control of the conscience and suppression of Biblical investigation were planted in western Christian thought by Tertullian near the beginning of the third century. (See chapter 16) Those diabolical principles steadily grew until they became the foundation of European civilization in the early 6^th century. The accession of the Roman church to power marked the beginning of the Dark Ages. As her power increased, the darkness deepened. Faith and allegiance were essentially transferred from Christ to the pope of Rome.

There is one other element that established A.D. 538 as the decisive landmark in history when the Dark Ages began. Three Germanic kingdoms stood in the way of the papacy’s desire to dominate in the West. These were the Herul, Vandal and Ostrogoth kingdoms. These formerly pagan peoples had converted to a form of Christianity, which was incompatible with Catholicism. Based on scant documentation they were possibly semi-Arian rather than wholly Arian. While Arianism (or semi-Arianism) is heretical, it is a relatively minor heresy compared to Catholicism’s syncretized amalgamation of paganism with Christianity. According to Kenneth Latourette, in his, A History of Christianity,

Arianism had been the form of Christianity, which had won a large proportion of the Germanic peoples who had settled in the Roman Empire. This was true of most of the Goths, including the Ostrogoths who ruled in much of Italy and the Visigoths who were dominant in Spain. . . . So were a large proportion of the Vandals who controlled North Africa. The Arians regarded themselves as the true Christians and their churches as the Catholic Church. However, the overwhelming majority of the Latinized Roman provincials over whom the invaders ruled were loyal to Nicea [the papacy].¹⁰(Bracketed text added)

Latourette’s understanding of these Germanic people’s form of Christianity is close, but not exactly precise. Edward de Kock presents a well-researched picture with a more nuanced understanding.

Rome accused the Ostrogoths of Arianism because of their religious beliefs, which differed from the dogmas of Rome. One of these concerned the Trinity. . . . Nowadays the word Arianism conjures up a vision of Jehovah’s Witnesses who maintain that before His incarnation Christ was a created being. Yet, as we have noted, that is not what the Germanic Christians believed; the Goths affirmed the Son had always existed and was therefore eternal, though they may have maintained the Father was greater than He — a possible reason why some have called them semi-Arians. But even this epithet is likely to be incorrect, and we will probably never know the truth; for the opponents who eliminated them vilified their memory and did not allow their writings to survive for the scrutiny of future generations.

Above all the Ostrogoths would not concede the right of Catholic clerics to tell them what to think and do. . . . Peaceful coexistence proved impossible, for since the time of Constantine the policy had been to exterminate heretics, not to tolerate them. The papacy was, moreover, structurally incapable of accommodating religious dissidents, being monarchic, strongly centralized, and theologically totalitarian. . . . Eventually Theodoric’s people [the Germanic Christian kingdoms] would be overthrown and successfully misrepresented to posterity as uncouth barbarians, as well as Arian heretics. . . . Apart from the Gothic Bible, their religious literature was soon to be destroyed.¹¹

So the three Germanic kingdoms in Rome’s backyard (Herul, Vandal, and Ostrogoth) refused to acquiesce to the domination of the papacy, an ally of the emperor at Constantinople, and therefore were eventually destroyed by the Imperial government.

The Ostrogoths, the last of the three Christianized Germanic kingdoms, which had opposed the papacy, was dealt a mortal wound in 537-538 that led to its rapid and complete demise a few years later. Actually, a fourth Christianized Germanic kingdom, the Visigoths, had been severely weakened by Clovis in 507. The Visigoths lost their position in the Italian peninsula and were pushed back to Hispaniola. This opened the way for the elimination of the last three. By 538, only the Ostrogoths remained. In March of that year, they were defeated and irreparably damaged when Justinian sent large reinforcements to help defend Rome against the Gothic army. This was the pivotal turning point in the history of Western Europe. But it wasn’t merely Justinian’s Imperial army that caused the Gothic defeat:

“The whole nation of the Ostrogoths had been assembled for the attack, and was almost consumed in the siege of Rome.”¹²They had cut the aquaducts to Rome to deprive it of water. This created marshy conditions, giving rise to diseases — especially malaria — that devastated the attackers.¹³

The Ostrogoths were so weakened by disease during their long siege (March 537 to March 538) and by the devastating defeat at Rome in 538, that their capitol Ravenna fell in the following year. Their general and king, “Vitiges agreed to become a Catholic, thereby turning his back on his ancestral church.”¹⁴ “Germanic Christianity was suppressed and all its churches handed over to the Catholics.”¹⁵ Some remaining Ostrogoths still managed to rally from time to time, and act as a thorn in the papacy’s flesh, but by the 550s, they were completely eliminated.

Imperial and papal victory over the Germanic Church in most of Italy and North Africa exacted a dreadful price. The intervention of Justinian’s armies destroyed the last chance of preventing the Dark Ages.¹⁶

Justinian’s military campaigns against the Ostrogoths on behalf of the papacy “exhausted the empire for 150 years.”¹⁷

Bubonic plague also played a major role in exhausting the empire’s resources.

In Rome and elsewhere on the Italian peninsula, the papacy had secured a territorial base to maintain itself. Politically the pontiffs were weak, as they have been in many periods of history, but their great religious opponent, the Germanic Church, had been liquidated in their immediate neighborhood — through the elimination of the Herul, Vandal, and Ostrogoth kingdoms. Three horns had fallen before the Little Horn.¹⁸

The mention of the “three horns” and the “Little Horn” are a reference to Daniel 7:8; 8:9 and Revelation 13:5. Those passages refer to a “little horn” power with a “mouth speaking great things.” That power would “speak [great] words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High.” The “little horn” power with a “mouth speaking great things” represents the rise of the papacy to religio-political power in the sixth century. (See chapter 18 The Future Foretold) The “little horn” papal power persecuted minority groups of dissenting Christians for 1,260 years until shortly before Napoleon’s armies interrupted its secular rule in 1798. (Daniel 7:25)

The grid of Bible prophecy in the Old Testament book of Daniel and the New Testament book of Revelation, written 2,600 and 2,000 years ago respectively, when laid out over the last two millenniums of European history, is an astonishingly perfect fit! (See especially Daniel 2, 7, 8, and Revelation 12-13.) This is one of the great proofs of the existence of an all-knowing God Who has a future of peace assured for civilization! (See chapter 18 The Future Foretold)

Revelation says that the little horn “opened his mouth in blasphemy against God.” (Revelation 13:6) One form of blasphemy toward God is to take His prerogatives upon oneself or to attempt to sit in His place. I don’t lightly accuse them of this — they brazenly claim it!

"We [the popes] hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty."¹⁹

"The pope is not only the representative of Jesus Christ, but he is Jesus Christ, Himself, hidden under the veil of flesh."²⁰

The papal office claims to sit as the vicar of the Son of God on earth. Each successive pope claims to speak vicariously in God’s place with the absolute authority of God. “He as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” (2^nd Thessalonians 2:4b) Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary of the English Language defines the word blaspheme as, among other things: “To arrogate the prerogatives of God.” Blasphemy is defined as “that which derogates from the prerogatives of God.” How dare they? Even in the face of straightforward, undeniable Bible prophecy!

21^st Century Protestantism and evangelicalism have been drinking the wine of Babylon. As a consequence, they are in a blind stupor, intoxicated with her doctrines on the nature and destiny of the human soul. Those false beliefs taint and distort virtually every other teaching of the Gospel. They have left a dead, stinking fly in the Gospel ointment!

The corrupted church of the Dark Ages taught the people to look to the priests as their mediators under the pope and to pray to dead saints who, as the Bible affirms, can neither hear nor see nor respond because they are dead! According to the Holy Bible, “The dead don’t know anything.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5 HCSB) When a person dies “his breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” (Psalm 146:4) The New English Bible (NEB) translates this passage in solid straightforward modern English: “He breathes his last breath, he returns to the dust; and in that same hour all his thinking ends.”

Please don’t misunderstand, though a thousand years may pass between the death of a believer and her bodily resurrection, it will seem to her that only a moment has passed. Death, from her perspective is just a matter of walking through a door from this dark world to the gloriously bright eternal world. When a true believer dies she doesn’t cease to exist, she merely ceases to think until resurrected with a new body at the return of Christ. From the moment of death to the moment of new life at the resurrection it seems but a split-second flash in her mind. Very comforting! Very encouraging! The Bible is unmistakably clear on this point. (See chapters 4-11)

The early period of the Dark Ages to about the 1,100’s bred a sort of blind entrenchment in the superstition-tainted teachings of philosophers and theologians like Tertullian, Chrysostom and Augustine. Some of what those men taught was truth but they terribly corrupted that truth by mixing it with a vast amount of human speculation. Let me illustrate the danger: A glass of fresh squeezed orange juice is not only delicious but also very nutritious. However, if a single drop of cyanide were added the whole glass of delicious life-promoting juice would become deadly toxic! Many of the writings of the above-mentioned “church fathers” contain deadly spiritual toxins because of their mixing of human speculation and superstition with Bible truth. Nevertheless, these were extremely gifted men with powerful personalities. As the common people followed their leadership, their writings began to take a position of authority above Scripture itself. A dead disease-laden fly was sinking deep into the precious Gospel ointment!

Tradition was taking the place of the Bible. “As time passed, the tradition hardened and the distance from Scripture increased.”²¹ The result was that the later part of the Dark Ages saw all kinds of fanciful suppositions in theology to the exclusion of Biblical teaching. A sort of baseless, nonsensical imaginativeness replaced the meager level of originality that had been present during the early Dark Ages.

The importance of the Bible was largely lost sight of during the Dark Ages and many of the priests were ignorant of its teachings. Imagine a Christian church in which many of the pastors are Biblically illiterate. Such was the environment of the tradition-oriented church in the later Dark Ages. In that climate, the doctrines of the second coming of Jesus and the Resurrection of the redeemed to life were largely ignored, while dead-saint worship and the biblically unfounded, highly emotional, superstition-reeking Mariology cult rose to the ascendancy.

There were glimmers of renaissance and moral improvement during the Dark Ages, but they were few and short-lived. Individuals and groups came on the scene from time-to-time seeking to bring reforms to the church. Most of these were squashed or driven into seclusion. Each time the suffocating darkness of superstition would once again almost fully engulf the western world. Even the rise of the universities (an invention of the Middle Ages) did not benefit the common people — the masses remained (were kept) as ignorant and superstitious as ever. In fact, the papacy “clamped down on the universities, which it thought had too much freedom of discussion.”²² According to Edwin de Kock, the twelfth century, especially, saw the agitated birth of a significant Reformation, but it was “snuffed out”²³ before it could mature.

Out of one side of their mouths, the church hierarchy would pontificate against “pagan superstition,” while out of the other side of their mouths they were the primary sponsors of superstition-tainted dogmas. This is especially true of teachings pertaining to the nature of the soul, purgatory, hell, salvation, and the like. The church hierarchy suppressed superstitious practices that they feared might weaken their power, and embraced superstitions they could use to strengthen their iron-grip over the minds of the ignorant masses.

I have already mentioned the great church Reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546) in previous chapters, but I want to mention him again here. As the father of the Protestant Reformation, Luther shined the first beam of light into the superstition-permeated darkness. Luther’s glorious work made the eighteenth-century enlightenment possible. Nevertheless, Luther was still approaching investigative thought largely from a medieval mindset.

The Enlightenment thinkers of the eighteenth century built upon Luther’s first-step example of “breaking-out-of-the-box” of Roman Catholic mind-dominance, and thinking for oneself. It’s too bad that most of them left God out of their equation for liberty and happiness. Nevertheless, they, along with Protestantism and great seventeenth century figures like the scientist-theologian Isaac Newton, developed the modern way of thinking that we take for granted.

The thinkers of the Enlightenment rightly saw the Roman Catholic Church as a hindrance to the progressive uncovering of truths in virtually every field of knowledge. Tragically, though, they wrongly equated the corrupted church’s false teachings and evil actions with God and the Bible. They vigorously threw out the baby (Biblical truth) with the bathwater (church-spawned and-promoted ignorance and superstition). The great foreknowing God nevertheless remained undaunted and unhindered. He is, in a sense, the undefeated “chess-Master” of the universe. He brilliantly used the God-marginalizing and God-rejecting thinkers of the Enlightenment to counter the mind-numbing superstitions entrenched within Roman Catholicism.

The thirteenth through fifteenth centuries in Europe was a dark superstition-permeated age. Elaborate Mystery Plays arose in the churches about the thirteenth century with the ostensible intent to

create an imagery, drawn from the Holy Scriptures, which would provide spiritual nourishment for the ignorant masses. . . . Gradually, more and more profane scenes were added to the mysteries to heighten the dramatic effect. As time passed, the mysteries gradually changed into a profane form of entertainment that the crowd came to see for relaxation and amusement. . . . [Nevertheless] they had also served as useful propaganda by putting the fear of “God” into the spectators. Hell played a prominent role in these plays with its shrieks of despair, its devils spitting fire, and the laments of the damned.²⁴

These profane, superstition-based scenes were sponsored in the churches while vice, immorality, debauchery, and luxurious living were rampant among a large proportion of the highest church authorities, including popes. Seen from this perspective, the entirety of medieval times are rightfully included within the superstition-permeated framework of the Dark Ages. How can an age that gave rise to such gross, organized sacrilege and profanity as The Feast of Fools, The Concert of Cats, The Feast of the Drunken Deacons, and The Donkey’s Festival be considered anything other than a dark age, at least from a moral perspective? These blasphemous, immoral orgies began around the thirteenth century. The riotous Mardi-Gras-like events often took place within the precincts of the church itself and with the lower clergy in attendance. The ignorant masses jested and partied in these vile, lewd exhibitions much to the chagrin of higher church leaders.

Clerics and priests danced, sang vulgar songs, and performed sacrilegious acts on the alter where Mass was celebrated. (Of course, from my perspective the Mass itself is a gross sacrilegious act. How dare any mortal man claim the power to command the immortal God to do anything! And how dare any sinful man claim the power to place a holy God in a wafer or cup! Ah well, those are issues I will deal more with in later chapters. For now, let’s get back to the primary issue under discussion.)

The clerics and priests wore masks and women’s clothes as they danced, sang their lewd songs and performed various sacrileges. They ran and jumped wildly through the church, their bodies writhing in strange contortions and screaming out blasphemies. The crowds reveled in uproarious laughter at these unrestrained scenes of debauchery and madness.

What was the cause of these violent explosions? First, speaking in general terms, feasts are, in a sense, a reaction against the moral discipline imposed on us by society. . . . As far as the Feast of Fools is concerned, this discipline . . . found expression in the Middle Ages in religious taboos. Respect for these taboos was not just a question of salvation or damnation; it was quite simply a matter of life or death. In those days, men were burned at the stake for trivial offences.

Thus, during festivities like the Feast of Fools, medieval people made a point of attacking the most sacred of these taboos. . . . They brazenly defied the sexual taboos with obscene songs and dances. . . The day after the Feast of Fools, the participants became good, pious Christians once again, without any regrets. They never dreamed of seriously questioning the structure of society.²⁵

Of course, no one participating in these decadent behaviors was a converted Christian. Their hearts were not renewed by Christian love and virtue so any “good” or “pious” behavior they might demonstrate the rest of the year was only a mask, a false façade, and evidence of self-deception. How tragic that the masses of medieval society were kept so ignorant, so frustrated and so deceived by the church.

The church hierarchy feared the unrestrained public displays of disrespect and debauchery because they saw them as a backlash against church authority and strict social regulation.

Many church leaders were concerned primarily about enriching themselves and retaining unquestioned and despotic power, which, as already noted, enabled them to live their luxurious and self-indulgent lifestyles.

Much of upper society in the late Dark Ages began developing lewd and adulterous masked balls, comedic shows, pleasure parlors, and gaming rooms where they indulged their baser lusts and passions in a “sophisticated” way.

The central basis of the Dark Ages was the Church’s authoritarian hold over the minds of the people. Pagan superstition, bred into the religio-social culture of the masses, was the great enabler that empowered the priests and prelates. This despotic rule over the human mind was deeply entrenched throughout that period of gross ignorance.

There was a constant power struggle between the church and state throughout most of the 1,260 years of the Dark Ages. (Most historians do not refer to the whole 1260-year period from 538-1798 as the Dark Ages. I am defining Dark Ages more from a Biblical perspective rather than secular.)The papacy itself had a political monarchy for only a few hundred years during that time. But the superstitious teachings of the papacy had such an iron grip on society that the minds of the people remained almost completely under its control until the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century.

One of the most effective tools of the papacy was the dogma of the so-called divine right of kings. This dogma in practice forged a symbiotic relationship between the papacy and secular rulers. The rulers needed papal validation for their rule and the papacy needed the strong policing arm of the states in its campaign of force. In other words, the church helped the secular rulers stay in power by giving them credibility in the minds of the superstitious masses, and the secular powers in turn did most of the papacy’s police work. Many of the secular rulers were themselves died-in-the-wool believers in church-taught superstitions about God and salvation. They used their military might to do the corrupt church’s bidding out of a sense of duty toward and fear of an angry avenging God.

It wasn’t until the late eighteenth century that the principles of the reformation finally led to the establishment of a “beautiful city on a hill,” called the United States of America. The United States was the first nation in world history to separate church and state power and to acknowledge the unalienable right of the individual to worship according to the dictates of his/her individual conscience. The Dark Ages had finally ended. Nevertheless, in a certain sense, the darkness of the medieval age still haunts civilization today through the heresies of soul immortality, eternal torment and other connected heresies.

It is a sad commentary on fallen human nature that the vast majority of Americans use their unalienable liberty of conscience to violate rather than ennoble the conscience. This has led to such a debauched state of society today that we are on the verge of a shocking pendulum swing back to the repressions of the Dark Ages.

Revelation 13-18 chillingly foretells a resurrection of the Dark Ages relationship between church and state. As troubles in our world grow to a fevered pitch church and state will unite in both Europe and the United States. This union will expand worldwide through coercive economic and military tactics. This may seem impossible now but Bible prophecy unmistakably foretells it. It will come as an overwhelming surprise!

The Bible indicates that extreme weather events, new and frightening diseases, geothermal related disasters, and religious and racial conflicts will inundate the world as we near the second coming of Christ. Society today is riding a wild roller coaster with economic, social, weather, and geothermal-related circumstances changing rapidly. The world will descend into deeper financial difficulties, which will precipitate tremendous social unrest involving labor union agitation, unprecedented crime, poverty, and hunger. (See Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21)

Attempts to cope with these rapidly expanding traumas will lead to a solidarity league between governments and major religious powers in an attempt to bring “everyone” (including God) on board with a universal solution to economic and societal problems. The prophetic book of Revelation refers to the head of this conglomeration of religions and governments as “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” (Revelation 17:5b See also Revelation 13-14)

Bite-a-Book™ chapter 18 The Future Foretold & 19 Satan’s Last Deception explain the outline of Bible prophecy on these momentous issues that will have such a profound effect on our lives in the near future.

The superstitious delusion that man remains conscious in death has had a domino effect on many doctrinal beliefs. The Biblical doctrines of the second coming, the resurrection, hell, and the millennium all become distorted when filtered through the false notion of natural soul immortality. The whole plan of Salvation through faith in Christ gets knocked out-of-alignment at numerous points.

Supposed communication with dead saints is another outgrowth of the belief in eternal soul consciousness apart from the body. This phenomenon of supposed communication from the dead is growing rapidly in Christian circles. Many misguided Christians, thinking that they are communicating with dead saints, or dead loved ones, are unwittingly communicating with demons (rebel angels) in disguise, which can lead to great deceptions in the Christian community.²⁶ Yes — there is a very nasty fly in the Gospel ointment! (See chapter 19 Satan’s Last Deception)

Worst of all, perverted Bible teachings have become the means of concealing the true character of God. Satan has masterfully led church philosophers and theologians to attribute to God the merciless character traits of a cold-blooded terrorist. Of course, these church leaders would never admit that they are equating God with terrorists. Nevertheless, they claim that God treats His enemies in a manner that would be considered terrorism if attributed to anyone else. It is Satan and not God who is the great terrorist of the universe. Does God really sustain the conscious existence of his lost children for all eternity while they suffer mental terror and insanity of the most horrible descriptions? Will the God of love never allow suffering to end? Surely, He has the power to do so. Doesn’t He? Of course, He does — He’s God!

Though the torments of hell will not go on for eternity they will nonetheless, be very real and very horrible. The realization of utter God forsakenness and hopelessness the sinner in hell will experience is beyond my ability to describe. I have experienced some excruciating torments in the past through the ominous threat of imminent death, abuse, grief, bereavement, abandonment, despair, remorse for sin and great emotional loss. I would not wish those gut-wrenching torments on anyone. By God’s grace, I would not even wish them on my worst human enemy unless the suffering could be the means of my adversary’s salvation. Nevertheless, God will serve justice on all who reject the merciful invitation of Jesus Christ to flee to Him and escape “the wrath to come.” (Matthew 3:7b)

Satan can deliver some powerful emotional “body blows” that can send you reeling in shock and dismay, because of their suddenness and totality of loss. (Read the saga of Job in the Bible.) God sometimes permits this onrushing flood of mental torment in order to bring us to understand what needs correcting in our life and character. These awful experiences can also help us understand how much God has suffered for us. God has suffered torment far beyond anything we can possibly suffer. He suffers in direct correlation to the infinite love of His divine nature. He loves you and suffers with you when you grieve and sorrow over a great loss. He suffers with you when you experience remorse for past failures.

Some of the greatest pain I have ever suffered came when looking into the faces of people I dearly love, people who once had seemed loving and now seeing stamped on their character the treacherous, heartless, lying attributes of Satan himself. “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” (Matthew 24:12) My body shakes and tears of sorrow flood my soul as I write this. Oh, the grief that the God of love surely has experienced billions of times over as He has witnessed children made in His own image corrupt themselves and become demonic in character. Ultimately He will perform “His work, His strange work; and bring to pass His act, His strange act.” (Isaiah 28:21b) Surely, He will weep as He destroys in the cleansing fires of hell all that are unfit for citizenship in His kingdom. He will destroy every person and angel that He cannot trust, every one that is not safe to save.

God willingly sacrificed His beloved Son that you could have an opportunity to be forgiven, cleansed of sin and fitted for eternal life in a world of peace, love and eternal bliss. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” (1^st Corinthians 2:9)

Do you hunger for a world in which there will never again be a broken or hurting heart? Do you hunger for a world in which sin, the root cause of all hurting hearts, will no longer exist? Look to Jesus — I cannot save you. I cannot convert your heart. But I can point you to Jesus. As you behold Him in his life example, and study His teachings, He will draw you like a powerful magnet. If you do not resist, He will convert your heart by His love and His supernatural power. “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name.” (John 1:12) How do you get the power? You receive Him — it’s a choice! It is not a matter of can or can’t. It is a matter of will or won’t. You choose. Jesus makes an invitation.

“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.”(Revelation 3:19-21)

Will you open the door? The latch is on the inside. There is no latch on the outside. In other words, He will not force an entrance into your heart. It is up to you to choose and to open the door and let Him in. Once you make the decision, He will give you power to become His son or daughter. “I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” (2^nd Corinthians 6:17b-18)

Dear friend, what a privilege you have to know the truth about God’s amazing love, while untold millions of people all around you reject God because misguided religious leaders have painted a false portrait of what He is like. Surely it must be exquisitely gratifying for Satan to see his own hideously sadistic characteristics attributed to the “God [who] is love” by none other than Christian ministers. (1^st John 4:8, 16)

Today, the majority of professing Christians hold the corrupt doctrine of universal soul immortality in common with Muslims, Mormons, Hindus, Buddhists, and most other pagan religions of the world including Voodooists and Satanists. Strange bedfellows indeed for professing Christians. Don’t you agree?

The heretical cult known as Jehovah’s Witnesses also believe in the existence of “invisible bodiless spirits.”²⁷ (See Bite-a-Book™ chapter 12) There is danger in such beliefs — much danger! We will see that danger clearly laid out in chapters 18 & 19. In chapter 18, we show from the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation that the papacy’s 1260-year reign of terror was clearly foretold in the Bible. And we show that the reestablishment of the papacy’s hegemony is definitely prophesied. It’s religio-political aspirations have never changed.

Most churches are not only doctrinally confused but also quite satisfied to remain so. This complacent satisfaction with false beliefs is perhaps the saddest reality that I meet in my contact with professed Christians. However, there are many good-hearted Christians residing within the doctrinally confused churches. This remnant of honest-hearted believers is seeking pure truth untainted by pagan philosophies. There are even some honest-hearted truth-seekers among the pagan religions. They will exchange their superstitions for God’s truth when an untainted portion of the fragrant Gospel ointment is offered to them.

Let no man deceive you by any means: for [that day shall not come], except there come a falling away first, and that

man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and

exalteth himself above all

that is called God, or

that is worshipped;

so that he as God

sitteth in the temple of God,

showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already

work: only he who now letteth

[will let], until he be taken

out of the way. And

then shall that Wicked

be revealed, whom the Lord

shall consume with the spirit

of his mouth, and shall destroy

with the brightness of his coming.

(2^ndThessalonians 2:3-8)

I know this,

that after my departing

shall grievous wolves enter in

among you, not sparing the flock.

Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space

of three years I ceased not

to warn every one night

and day with tears.

(Acts 20:29-31)

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