Picking up from yesterday… (This study is very lengthy but soooo worth taking the time to read)
Dan 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: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
Rev 12:14 And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.
Rev. 12:6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days
This power would prevail over God's TRUE people 1260 days. That's only 3 1/2 years and if you read back through all this history you know for a fact this power has endure MUCH longer and… persecuted God's people, God's truth for many, many more years than 3 1/2. So…seriously we have to think about this carefully.
Let's look at prophecy, let's look at the Bible--
Is it possible that days could equal years in prophecy… is this a principle in the Bible- not a man made principle, but a Biblical one?
Ezekiel is a Biblical prophet without a doubt, and this is found there in the book of Ezekiel-
Eze 4:6 And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.
Forty days- each day for a year.
Now I'm not telling anyone that every time a day is mentioned in the Bible it means it's really a year, that would be just crazy. However, we read something like this- 'thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days' and we think…day… a 24 hour period of time, not a year. Yet it spells it right out there in Ezekiel- I have appointed thee each day for a year- and suddenly a day might not always mean just a day, right? Seriously. Forty days-I have appointed thee each a day for a year. Forty years. So why even say forty days if forty years is meant in the first place? I'll tell you what I think, that there would be prophecies that included this way of interpretation and to outright say that there would be a power that dominated over God's people for one thousand two hundred and sixty years would be a bit more than could be comprehended because seriously who really contemplates things in that vein? In thousands of years. What would it mean to those living in the time of the thighs or legs, or even to those living in the toes?
Daniel was told this very important fact and we CANNOT neglect to comprehend it--
Dan 12:4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
Shut up the words.
Seal the book
Even to the TIME of the END.
Many shall run to and for and
KNOWLEDGE shall be increased.
The book would be unsealed, the words would no longer be shut up at the time of the end when knowledge would increase. Understanding of these prophecies would only happen when it became necessary. Understanding would unfold when history had fulfilled so much of the prophecy there could be left NO DOUBT as to its validity. Once there is no doubt to the validity of these prophecies then the logical conclusion is this… the prophecy yet unfulfilled WILL BE FULFILLED! Nothing would stop the rest of the prophecy from coming to pass, not one single thing and there is no doubt in the slightest. God would have a people, a true people that would exist as His saints when Christ returns and these people will inherit the kingdom He has prepared for them- history proves this!
So we can see how important it is for us to look at this in light of history. Three and a half years after that little horn power ascended the saints were not suddenly through being persecuted and oppressed by any power. Three and a half years after that power ascended NOTHING occurred to indicate that the saints were no longer going to be caught under this new, different power. As a matter of fact the worst was yet to come. That little horn power of the Papacy fulfills the prophecy picture logically as NO other does.
Let's ask ourselves a questions about things people learn in school during history lessons.
Has the Papacy ever persecuted God's people?
According to them- not really. They made a few mistakes and such but they've never been in a position which warranted their being completely wrong . They've apologized but even today they believe they are God's only true people. But history tells us at great lengths about just how severe the papal punishments were for those who didn't believe as they did, for those who didn't accept their religion. You couldn't be a non-Catholic and NOT be persecuted at one point in history, to be anything but Catholic meant you were a pagan, a heretic, a heathen.
Tell me this- please- where did Jesus ever institute such a thing?! Where?! Where in our Bible did Jesus tell us to force people to believe in Him? Where in our Bibles did Jesus say to torture and kill those who dared to speak out against Him? I can't find it anywhere! Yet the Papacy killed many all in the name of Jesus!
Let's read a few facts…
'The first Inquisition was established in Languedoc (south of France) in 1184.
In the 13th century, Pope Gregory IX (reigned 1227–1241) assigned the duty of carrying out inquisitions to the Dominican Order. They used inquisitorial procedures, a legal practice common at that time. They judged heresy alone, using the local authorities to establish a tribunal and to prosecute heretics. After the end of the twelfth century, a Grand Inquisitor headed each Inquisition. Grand Inquisitions persisted until the 19th century.[8]
By the start of the 16th century the Catholic Church had reached an apparently dominant position as the established religious authority in western and central Europe dominating a faith-landscape in which Judaism, Waldensianism, Hussitism, Lollardry and the finally conquered Muslims al-Andalus (the Muslim-dominated Spain) hardly figured in terms of numbers or of influence.
When the institutions of the church felt themselves threatened by what they perceived as the heresy, and then schism of the Protestant Reformation, they reacted. Paul III (Pope from 1534 to 1549) established a system of tribunals, administered by the "Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition", and staffed by cardinals and other Church officials. This system would later become known as the Roman Inquisition. In 1908 Pope Saint Pius X renamed the organisation: it became the "Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office". This in its turn became the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith[9] in 1965, which name continues to this day[update].'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition
Now read this very MODERN news article and NOTE the date it was written (2004)-
'Vatican downgrades Inquisition toll
Report: Torture, burning at stake less common than thought
The Associated Press
updated 6/15/2004 6:35:20 PM ET
VATICAN CITY — Torture, burning at the stake and other punishment for the faithful condemned as witches or heretics by church tribunals during the Inquisition was not as widespread as commonly believed, the Vatican said Tuesday.
Pope John Paul II praised the research, recalling that in 2000, the church asked pardon for “errors committed in the service of the truth through recourse to non-evangelical methods.”
“In the opinion of the public, the image of the Inquisition represents almost the symbol ... of scandal,” the pontiff wrote in a letter about the research. “To what degree is this image faithful to reality?”
In 2000, John Paul apologized for the sins of Roman Catholics made in the name of their faith, including abuses during the Inquisition, a systematic crackdown by church officials to defend doctrinal orthodoxy.
Catholics suspected of being heretics, witches or others considered of dubious faith, including Muslims and Jews who had converted to Catholicism, were among the targets.
At a news conference to present a 783-page book on the findings, church officials and others involved in the project said statistics and other data demolished long-held clichés about the Inquisition.
“The recourse to torture and the death sentence weren’t so frequent as it long has been believed,” said Agostino Borromeo, a professor at Rome’s Sapienza University.
For some, the scholars’ conclusions had limited value.
‘Cannot excuse the work of the Inquisition’
“Vatican research findings are interesting, but they cannot excuse the work of the Inquisition that terrorized and led to the expulsion of thousands from their homes,” said David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee.
Borromeo, who oversaw the volume, said that while there were some 125,000 trials of suspected heretics in Spain, researchers found that about 1 percent of the defendants were executed.
In Portugal, 5.7 percent of the more than 13,000 people tried before church tribunals in the 16th and early 17th century were condemned to death, he said. In many cases, courts ordered mannequins to be burned when the condemned escaped capture.
Many of the executions during the centuries spanned by the Inquisition were carried out by non-church tribunals — including witch hunts in Protestant countries, Borromeo said.
The study grew out of a 1998 conference at the Vatican of 50 historians and other experts from Europe and North America.
Pope: ‘Before seeking pardon ... the facts’
“Before seeking pardon, it is necessary to have a precise knowledge of the facts,” John Paul wrote in his letter, expressing “strong appreciation” for the research. He said his 2000 prayer for pardon “was valid both for the dramas tied to the Inquisition as well as for the wounds of memory that are the consequence of it.”
The pontiff, who lived through the horrors of Nazism in his native Poland, has dedicated a good deal of his papacy to the theological question of asking forgiveness.
He has prayed for forgiveness for the wrongdoing of the faithful in slavery and the Holocaust, among other events. The Inquisition’s horrors are delicate for the church, since it was an ecclesiastical institution, ordered by popes.
Michael Marrus, a Holocaust historian at the University of Toronto, ventured that the Vatican’s promotion of the findings could reflect the opinions of those in the church hierarchy who don’t share the pope’s passion for apologies.
Leaving aside what he called the “numbers game” of Inquisition statistics, Marrus said: “While the pope is a great promoter of the apologies, not everyone in the curia, and certainly not everyone in church leadership, shares this disposition.”
Galileo ‘rehabilitated’
Among those the Inquisition went after was the scientist Galileo Galilei, who was “rehabilitated” by the Vatican during John Paul’s papacy. Theresa of Avila and Ignatius of Loyola, destined to become saints, were probed for heresy.
Among the targets were Waldensians, members of a pre-reformation religious sect that was later declared heretical. The group later joined the Protestant fold.
“If there are many or few cases, it doesn’t matter. What’s important is you don’t say, ‘I am right and you are wrong and I burn you,” said Thomas Noffke, a Waldensian pastor in Rome, where a Waldensian preacher was hanged and then burned in 1560.
John Paul said theologians should keep in mind “the dominant mentality in a determined era.”
Borromeo denied the Vatican was playing down the wrongs of the Inquisition. “I don’t want to say that the Inquisition was an ethical institution,” he told Associated Press Television News. “It doesn’t change the nature of the problem — people were tried for their religious beliefs. But for historians, numbers have a significance.”
Cardinal Georges Cottier, a Vatican theologian, stressed the need to have the facts before making judgments about history. “You can’t ask pardon for deeds which aren’t there,” he said.
But one of those at the 1998 conference, Italian Renaissance history professor and Inquisition expert Carlo Ginzburg had his doubts about using statistics to reach a judgment about the period.
“In many cases, we don’t have the evidence, the evidence has been lost,” said Ginzburg.'
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If you took the time to read that entire article you just found out that the Vatican was looking for PROPER statistics before asking pardon for the things they did. They KILLED! They TORTURED! They did this wielding the power of the papacy, thinking that gave them the authority to do this! They were supposed to be doing this with God's blessing. And you know what??? It didn't happen just once. It didn't happen just a few times. It didn't happen over the course of a couple years. It wasn't some mistake quickly repented of. That they are willing to apologize today for it- on their terms- means what? This power, this strange power different from others came up as a force mingling with governmental powers yet not being a government body but rather a religious power and it began to oppress those who did not follow it's rules and regulations, it's laws. Forget the laws that our Savior told us to follow, the papacy instituted its own laws, it's own very strange beliefs that are no where to be found in Scripture. The papacy mingled many of its beliefs with the pagan institutions creating something new out of that which our Savior abhorred, our God condemned.
This is history. This is fact.
So when we read that this little horn would oppress the saints for 1260 days, and using an established possibility of a day equating to a year and read it as the papacy oppressing the saints for 1260 years, what exactly are we understanding here? That there would be over a thousand years of oppression? Was there over a thousand years of oppression by the papacy? Beyond any historical doubt there has been.
Remember yesterday's study? Do you remember reading of any time when the Pope was overthrown, the Papacy taking a very serious blow, the government unseating the Papal authority? Go back and look at it if you want to. Here it is --
'1798: Pope Pius VI taken prisoner by the armies of Napoleon I, dies in captivity in France.'
'In 1796 French Republican troops under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy, defeated the papal troops and occupied Ancona and Loreto. Pius VI sued for peace. The price of persuading the French intruder to head north again, agreed in the Treaty of Tolentino, was a massive indemnity, the removal of many works of art from the Vatican collections and the surrender to France of Bologna, Ferrara and the Romagna.
However, on December 28 of that year, a popular French general was killed in a riot outside the French embassy in Rome, thus providing a new pretext furnished for invasion by the French. French army units marched to Rome, entered it unopposed on and, proclaiming a Roman Republic, demanded of the Pope the renunciation of his temporal authority. Upon his refusal to do so, Pius VI was taken prisoner, and on February 20 was ultimately brought to the citadel of Valence in France where he died.'
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'It would be several months before a new pope was elected and there was great political say so in that.
The Pope- the head of the Papacy was torn from power in 1798 and put in exile- where he died.
Pope Pius VII
Following the death of Pius VI, virtually France's prisoner, at Valence in August 1799, the conclave met on 30 November 1799 in the Benedictine monastery of San Giorgio, Venice. There were three main candidates, two of whom proved to be unacceptable to the Habsburgs, whose candidate, Alessandro Mattei, could not secure sufficient votes. After several months of stalemate, Chiaramonti was elected as a compromise candidate, certainly not the choice of the die-hard opponents of the French Revolution.[2] He was crowned Pope Pius VII at Venice on 21 March 1800 in a rather unusual ceremony, wearing a papier-mâché papal tiara, since the French had seized the original along with Pius VI, after which a barely seaworthy Austrian ship, the "Bellona", with no cooking facilities, took 12 days to carry him to Pesaro, from where he proceeded to Rome'
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'French Revolution
At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Pius VI witnessed the suppression of the old Gallican Church, the confiscation of pontifical and ecclesiastical possessions in France, and an effigy of himself burnt by the Parisians at the Palais Royal.
Deposition and death under NapoleonMain article: Napoleon and the Catholic Church
In 1796 French Republican troops under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy, defeated the papal troops and occupied Ancona and Loreto. Pius VI sued for peace, which was granted at Tolentino on 19 February 1797; but on 28 December of that year, in a riot blamed by papal forces on some Italian and French revolutionists, the popular brigadier-general Mathurin-Léonard Duphot, who had gone to Rome with Joseph Bonaparte as part of the French embassy, was killed and a new pretext was furnished for invasion. General Berthier marched to Rome, entered it unopposed on 10 February 1798, and, proclaiming a Roman Republic, demanded of the Pope the renunciation of his temporal authority.
Upon his refusal he was taken prisoner, and on 20 February was escorted from the Vatican to Siena, and thence to the Certosa near Florence. The French declaration of war against Tuscany led to his removal (he was escorted by the Spaniard Pedro Gómez Labrador, Marquis of Labrador) by way of Parma, Piacenza, Turin and Grenoble to the citadel of Valence, the chief town of Drôme where he died six weeks after his arrival, on 29 August 1799, having then reigned longer than any Pope (except possibly St Peter).
Pius VI elevated Romualdo Braschi-Onesti, the penultimate cardinal-nephew.Pius VI's body was embalmed, but was not buried until 30 January 1800 after Napoleon saw political advantage to burying the deceased Pope in efforts to bring the Catholic Church back into France. His entourage insisted for some time that his last wishes were to be buried in Rome, then behind the Austrian lines. They also prevented a Constitutional bishop from presiding at the burial, as the laws of France then required, so no burial service was held. This recrudescence of the investiture conflict was settled by the Concordat of 1801. Pius VI's body was removed from Valence on 24 December 1801 and buried at Rome 19 February 1802.
Pius VI has been accused of having led a futile and immoral life, of having neglected his duties and of having been bad-tempered and even brutal with his attendants. Allowance of course must be made for enmity and exaggeration, but there can be no doubt that the Pope resorted to low and crooked means of obtaining money, both to meet the demands of his insatiable family and the cost of his own extravagance. As a monarch he was isolated and ignored. When the French Revolution broke out, the population of Avignon and of the Comtat Venaissin turned out the papal officials and declared themselves French citizens. News of this event was received in Paris with a great show of rejoicing and the Pope's effigy was publicly burned in the gardens of the Palais Royal to the accompaniment of ribald jokes and songs." [3].
A long audience with Pius VI is one of the most extensive scenes in the Marquis de Sade's narrative Juliette, published in 1798. Juliette shows off her learning to the Pope (whom she most often addresses as "Braschi") with a verbal catalogue of alleged immoralities committed by his predecessors.
As a means of humiliation, Sylvain Maréchal's play Le Judgment dernier des rois forces the character of the pope to marry after a global revolution has dethroned him and other monarchs.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_VI
THIS next piece is a very LONG article but worth reading it for the information it contains--
'Spain, Portugal, and France had at first combined to prevent his election, because he was believed to be a friend of the Jesuits; he was well disposed towards the order, but he dared not revoke the Bull of their suppression.
Still he ordered the liberation of their general, Ricci, a prisoner in the Castle of Sant’ Angelo in Rome, but the general died before the decree of liberation arrived.
Upon the request of Frederick II of Prussia he permitted the Jesuits to retain their schools in Prussia; while in Russia, he permitted an uninterrupted continuation of the order.
Soon after his accession he took steps to root out the Gallican idea of papal supremacy which had been spread in Germany by Hontheim (see FEBRONIANISM. )
***Interjecting a definition of Febronianism-
The main propositions defended by Febronius were as follows. The constitution of the Church is not, by Christ's institution, monarchical, and the pope, though entitled to a certain primacy, is subordinate to the universal Church. Though as the centre of unity he may be regarded as the guardian and champion of the ecclesiastical law, and though he may propose laws, and send legates on the affairs of his primacy, his sovereignty (principatus) over the Church is not one of jurisdiction, but of order and collaboration (ordinis et consociationis). The Roman (ultramontane) doctrine of papal infallibility is not accepted by the other Catholic Churches and, moreover, has no practical utility. The Church is based on the one episcopacy common to all bishops, the pope being only first among equals.
It follows that the pope is subject to general councils, in which the bishops are his colleagues (conjudices), not merely his consultors; nor has he the exclusive right to summon such councils. The decrees of general councils need not be confirmed by the pope nor can they be altered by him; on the other hand, appeal may be made from papal decisions to a general council. As for the rights of the popes in such matters as appeals, reservations, the confirmation, translation and deposition of bishops, these belong properly to the bishops in provincial synods, and were usurped by the papacy gradually as the result of a variety of causes, notably of the False Decretals.
For the health of the Church it is therefore necessary to restore matters to their condition before the False Decretals, and to give to the episcopate its due authority. The main obstacle to this is not the pope himself, but the Curia, and this must be fought by all possible means, especially by thorough popular education (primum adversus abususn ecclesiasticae potestatis remedium), and by the assembling of national and provincial synods, the neglect of which is the main cause of the Church's woes. If the pope will not move in the matter, the princes, and notably the emperor, must act in co-operation with the bishops, summon national councils even against the popes will, defy his excommunication, and in the last resort refuse obedience in those matters over which the papacy has usurped jurisdiction.
***End interjection
Joseph II forbade the Austrian bishops to apply to Rome for faculties of any kind, and suppressed innumerable monasteries. Pius VI resolved to go to Vienna; he left Rome on 27 Feb., 1782, and arrived in Vienna on 22 March. The emperor received him respectfully, though the minister, Kaunitz, neglected even the ordinary rules of etiquette.
The pope remained at Vienna until 22 April, 1782. All that he obtained from the emperor was the promise that his ecclesiastical reforms would not contain any violation of Catholic dogmas, or compromise the dignity of the pope.
The emperor accompanied the pope on his return as far as the Monastery of Mariabrunn, and suppressed this monastery a few hours after the pope had left it.
Scarcely had the pope reached Rome when he again saw himself compelled to protest against the emperor's unjustifiable confiscation of ecclesiastical property.
But when Joseph II filled the vacant See of Milan of his own authority, Pius solemnly protested, and it was probably at this occasion that he threatened the emperor with excommunication.
On 23 Dec., 1783, the emperor unexpectedly came to Rome to return the papal visit. He was determined to continue his ecclesiastical reforms, and made known to the Spanish diplomat, Azara, his project of separating the German Church entirely from Rome.
The latter, however, dissuaded him from taking this fatal step. To avoid worse things, the pope granted him the right of nominating the bishops in the Duchies of Milan and Mantua, in a concordat dated 20 Jan., 1784 (see Nussi, "Conventiones de rebus ecclesiasticis et civilibus inter S. Sedem et civilem potestatem", Mainz, 1870, 138-9).
Joseph's example was followed in Tuscany by his brother, the Grand Duke Leopold II and Bishop Scipio Ricci of Pistoia.
Here the antipapal reforms culminated in the Synod of Pistoia in 1786, where the doctrines of Jansenius and Quesnel were sanctioned, and the papal supremacy was eliminated.
In his Bull "Auctorem fidei" of 28 Aug., 1794, the pope condemned the acts, and in particular eighty-five propositions of this synod.
In Germany the three ecclesiastical Electors of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne, and the Archbishop of Salzburg attempted to curtail the papal authority by convening a congress at Ems (q.v.).
With Portugal the papal relations became very friendly after the accession of Maria I in 1777, and a satisfactory concordat was concluded in 1778 (Nussi, loc. cit., 138-39). In Spain, Sardinia, and Venice the Governments to a great extent followed in the footsteps of Joseph II.
But the most sweeping anti-ecclesiastical reforms were carried out in the Two Sicilies. Ferdinand IV refused the exequatur to all papal briefs that were obtained without the royal permission, and claimed the right to nominate all ecclesiastical beneficiaries.
Pius VI refused to accept the bishops that were nominated by the king and, as a result, there were in 1784 thirty vacant sees in the Kingdom of Naples alone, which number had increased to sixty in 1798.
The king, moreover, refused to acknowledge the papal suzerainty which had existed for eight hundred years.
The pope repeatedly made overtures, but the king persisted in nominating to all the vacant sees. In April, 1791, when more than half the sees in the Kingdom of Naples were vacant, a temporary compromise was reached and in that year sixty-two vacant sees were filled (Rinieri, loc. cit., infra).
In response to the application of the clergy of the United States, the Bull of April, 1788, erected the See of Baltimore.
After the French Revolution, Pius rejected the "Constitution civile du clergé" on 13 March, 1791, suspended the priests that accepted it, provided as well as he could for the banished clergy and protested against the execution of Louis XVI.
France retaliated by annexing the small papal territories of Avignon and Venaissin.
The pope's co-operation with the Allies against the French Republic, and the murder of the French attaché, Basseville, at Rome, brought on by his own fault, led to Napoleon's attack on the Papal States.
At the Truce of Bologna (25 June, 1796) Napoleon dictated the terms: twenty-one million francs, the release of all political criminals, free access of French ships into the papal harbours, the occupation of the Romagna by French troops etc.
At the Peace of Tolentino (19 Feb., 1797) Pius VI was compelled to surrender Avignon, Venaissin, Ferrara, Bologna, and the Romagna; and to pay fifteen million francs and give up numerous costly works of art and manuscripts.
In an attempt to revolutionize Rome the French General Duphot was shot and killed, whereupon the French took Rome on 10 Feb., 1798, and proclaimed the Roman Republic on 15 Feb.
The pope refused to submit, he was forcibly taken from Rome on the night of 20 Feb., and brought first to Siena and then to Florence.
At the end of March, 1799, though seriously ill, he was hurried to Parma, Piacenza, Turin, then over the Alps to Briançon and Grenoble, and finally to Valence, where he succumbed to his sufferings before he could be brought further. He was first buried at Valence, but the remains were transferred to St. Peter's in Rome on 17 Feb., 1802 (see NAPOLEON I). His statue in a kneeling position by Canova was placed in the Basilica of St. Peter before the crypt of the Prince of the Apostles.'
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12131a.htm
If you've read all that then you know that this portion of history unlike any other- even the Protestant Revolution- was taking the Pope off his throne, was stripping the Pope of all the power he'd accumulated- even if it was being stripped temporarily. The fact that the Pope, the Papacy could be touched in this way opened up a world without that power. The Papacy has never again attained the full power it had. Yes, there were still inquisitions, there were many remnants of the authority, but ask yourself this… does the Papacy have that all controlling sense of power it had back then? No, not at all. The Papacy today can excommunicate anyone it wants to but to put the fear into people that they will be tortured and murdered is gone. The strike by the French against the Papacy was momentous. There had been 247 Pope's, 248 including Pius VI. 248! Today there have been 263 Popes. 248 Popes existed in some form for a long, long, long time and their history is full of corruption, full of horrors, and then one of them was taken from power by a government.
More on this tomorrow, by the grace of God. This is so much to take in, but we are discussing our future- because we are discussing our past in light of Biblical prophecy. We've discussed a lot today pointing to papal history and we're going to discuss more because it is necessary.
May God help us so much because to try and understand this without His guidance is pointless. We can create our own fables out of things and Satan will be right there encouraging us to do so. Please God help us not be deceived.
By His love! By His mercy and grace! Please, Lord, please help us with this. By your righteousness! Amen!!!
