What are the consequences of God’s church embracing ecumenism?
Let’s continue pursuing the church at Pergamos and the many consequences of marrying God’s church to other religions.
Regarding religions: We are told throughout the Bible that religion is not of God, but man-made. Therefore, religion is a futile attempt to (a rather long list) invent, derail, sidetrack, obstruct, hide, disobey, alter, or worship something other than God. While His desire is for a personal relationship with all humanity.
It’s quite simple, really. God’s agape love, as our Creator, is extended to all mankind and should result in a return thereof.
Except it doesn’t. Instead, humans deny God and replace His relationship with something they’d rather have:
—Their own rules
—Their own likes and dislikes.
And then humans CLING to these made up rules like their lives depend upon them. Actually, it’s the other way around. Humans are FULLY dependent upon God’s relationship rules. We witness in the first Biblical instance of man-made religion, that Adam and Eve deny God and they have no trouble attempting to conceal their sins with veiled innocence.
Genesis 3:7—
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
The original couple thought they could hide their sin from the omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent Creator, using fig leaves. It would be comical if it wasn’t so serious. This Adam-religion didn’t go over well with God, and in response He cursed Satan, Eve, Adam and earth before killing innocent animals to provide ample clothing for the couple, and thus we have:
—The precursor to the Levitical Sacrifices.
—The precursor to the Lamb’s ultimate sacrifice to purchase mankind back from Satan.
Another example of religion: There is a crescent moon tonight (Wednesday, 18OCT23), and a host of people representing many religions across the earth will worship that crescent in ways I’m unwilling to discus. But God hung that gorgeous object in the night sky for many physical reasons, and one Spiritual purpose—for his beloved mankind to be reminded of Him and all He has done, and in thanks to Him we are to glory in His creation, and the wonder and beauty of it.
God’s entire creation is humanity’s reminder to give thanks, praise and worship!
Here’s something else…When this October moon is full, take a long hard look at it and notice how heavily pock-marked it is. Apparently, in days long past the skies above earth were filled with projectiles so huge they bombarded the surface of our planet’s moon creating craters we can see with the naked eye. Let that sink in…
Then understand this: There will come a day when the sky above earth will once again be filled with projectiles that are NOT of man, and it won’t be the moon that gets bombarded this time.
You see, when humanity denies God and chooses to rely upon worldly religions instead, there will be consequences.
Why?
Because all mankind BELONGS TO GOD.
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Two men have done a vast amount of research in the area of ecumenism—Dr. Chuck Missler and Dave Hunt, author of A Woman Rides the Beast. Much of the following is from their many works. (Side Note: both men [Dr. Missler passed 2018] identify themselves as ‘Christians’)
Understanding the problems with Ecumenism: Definition—the principle or aim of promoting unity among the world’s Christian churches.
Immediately, we must address the huge elephant in the room, because Christianity is a man-made religion that originated in Antioch after Paul and Barnabas converted too many people away from paganism, idolatry, Greek/Roman gods, and oral Jewish Law.
The Antioch religious leadership could not stem the flow of people vacating their temples and synagogues, so they gave their departing congregation members the derogatory name ‘little christs’…translated ‘Christian’ in the Greek. Unfortunately, this identifier caught on like wildfire and unaware believers have been suffering with the consequences ever since.
But understand this: The new Christian religion that spread out of Antioch incorporated sun, moon, planet, astrology, Greek and Roman god worship and idolatry, while flat out denying all of the Jewish days, feasts, and observances that Jesus and His disciples and apostles celebrated.
Today, there is an enormous world-wide push by the Pope toward ecumenism, and churches across the globe are enthusiastically jumping on the bandwagon. Meanwhile, the home churches, who formulate their teachings after the small church groups of the 1st century church, are steering clear and remaining faithful to what the Lord Jesus Christ taught his disciples.
There will come a day in the not-too-distant future when these home churches (worldwide) will go deep underground to avoid persecution for refusing involvement in the one world ecumenical church.
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Another element was brewing under the surface in the 1st century region of Jerusalem, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatria, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. More and more of the Jewish Pharisee and Sadducee (P and S) oral laws were infiltrating God’s church.
Jesus came to earth to re-establish God’s personal relationship with humanity. Yeshua came as Messiah to bring mankind back to YHWH, God the Father. Opposing this were the P and S oral laws, which allowed the Jewish priesthood to control their congregations—what the people learned, how they learned, what was important and what was not. The Pharisees and Sadducees did not want God’s Messiah to revoke their control over the laity.
The Pharisees and Sadducees thought they had squashed the teachings from the ‘false’ Messiah, but much to their dismay, Jesus’ followers of the Way vastly increased. To counter, the P and S set out to undermine those beliefs, and unfortunately Peter fell for the ruse, and this opened the door for another man-made religion to take advantage.
Meanwhile John, Phillip, Paul, Barnabas, Mark, Luke, and Timothy all strongly stood against the marriage of P and S oral law with Jesus’ teachings, but this problem and Christianity were blending into God’s church faster than the original disciples and apostles could counter the attack.
By AD 96 it had gotten so bad that all the original disciples and apostles, except John, had been martyred. Their attempts to keep Yeshua’s teachings pure, resulted in their deaths. Roman Emperor Domitian banished John to the Greek island of Patmos, removing John’s influence. But God had something grand and wonderful in mind for His beloved disciple—He sent His Son with a message—to bring humanity the knowledge, wisdom and discernment necessary to find their way back to Him. The seven letters to the seven churches in the Book of Revelation (chapters 1 through 3) is the result of that visitation, and they provide God’s much needed information to everyone.
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OK, something else must be clarified:
Throughout history, whenever one of Satan’s blatant attempts to stop Jesus fails, he reverts to a fallback plan, usually one less obvious and far more deceitful. For centuries Satan tried to obliterate God’s people, Israel and all believers:
—Starting in the Garden,
—Through the times of Noah which led to the flood,
—The poisoning of God’s promise to Abraham through Hagar,
—Sodom and Gomorrah, (too many to list)
—All the way up to the crucifixion.
The thing is, the more Satan tried to abolish the Son of God, the more Israel—and Jesus’ followers—multiplied. In AD 96 God had a two-fold front—His people Israel, and His fast-growing church of believers (made up of gentiles and Jews).
God’s church was growing so exponentially that Satan resorted to what he knows best—persecute with the intent of killing them all. But something strange happened. As Jesus’ believers became witnesses, standing firm in the Lord against the torture, suffering, slavery, and martyrdom of the Roman colosseums, the movement Satan was attempting to squash grew ever stronger. He had to find another—more subtle way to stop it. So he determined to marry all of his false man-made religions to God’s church—and he succeeded.
How?
Satan won a huge battle in this war of deception when the Antioch leadership identified God’s church as Christians. And through that device the blending of idolatry, paganism, and ‘little g’ god worship has successfully thrived for 2000+ years. But know this…Satan did his work as God intended him to do. Satan has successfully separated and elevated God’s church from other religions.
When the Romans shifted from overt idol and pagan worship to worshiping their Roman Emperors, it opened the door for the Caesars to demand that every Roman citizen call them god above all other gods. Roman citizens were forced to prove their allegiance in a yearly public ceremony. This practice began with Emperor Domitian in AD 96 and ran rampant all the way through to Emperor Diocletian until his death in 305. Anyone who refused was killed in the colosseums.
Throughout these persecutions, as people witnessed their fellow Romans martyred—most of them from God’s church—many chose against it, finding solace in the pagan/idol-blended Christian religion instead. And something else happened…those who adopted Christianity became quite vocal about God’s church being too rigid regarding any other religious beliefs. They demanded an ecumenical blending occur. Once again, Satan’s hand at work.
In 306, when Constantine became Caesar, his empire was in political and religious turmoil. Over the course of several years and to appease his constituents, Constantine became openly anti-Semitic. He obliterated many of the Jewish traditions.
While Constantine claimed to be a Christian he continued practicing his pagan rituals, further imbedding paganism into the new religion. He even painted crosses on his soldier’s shields. And then, on 7 March 321 in a brilliant political move, Constantine initiated legislation establishing the pagan Sol Invictus sun worship day to be the new sabbath, thus changing God’s sovereign sabbath from Saturday (the last day of the week in commemoration of Creation—Genesis 2:3) to the first day of the week.
“On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.” (Codex Justinianus, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3, 5th Edition, p. 380. New York, Scribner)
And Christians have been worshiping the Almighty God of Creation on a pagan ‘Sun’ day ever since.
Bear in mind another fact: Constantine did not halt Caesar worship. Oh no…Roman citizens still worshiped him, and so did the priesthood in Rome. The very same priesthood who had aligned themselves with the power and money that resulted from every conquering empire—starting with Babylon, all the way to Rome. The Roman priesthood did not worship God the Father as Jesus taught. Instead, the priesthood embraced Christianity (Satan’s religious melting pot) and used it as their excuse to worship men instead of God Almighty. Satan’s plan to marry all of the various idols and ‘little g’ gods from Asia, Persia, Greece, and Rome into one big ecumenical man-made religion, proved successful.
Over time, the Roman priesthood adopted the one disciple who had erred after Antioch—Peter—and he became their first Bishop—even though Peter never once claimed to be anything of the sort. It didn’t take long before one of the Roman Bishops had the audacity to declare himself ‘lead Bishop.’ And borrowing from the Roman Emperor Domitian, the first lead Bishop declared himself ‘Pope’ (“Papa” or god of all religions), and the Roman Catholic Church was born.
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What pagan practices did the Roman Emperors bring to the married church?
Here are but a few: Constantine replaced the Jewish feasts—observed by Jesus and the early church—with pagan holidays representing sun, moon, planet and fertility worship. Later Emperors changed Passover to Easter, and Jesus’ birthday on September 29th became Christmas on December 25th. Pagan symbols—an evergreen tree, a Yule log, Saint Nicholas, painted eggs and rabbits riddle modern day holidays.
To clarify once again…according to the Bible, prior to Jesus’ crucifixion, He never used the identifier ‘Christian’ for His followers. He used endearments for His beloved. When the Antioch leadership created the new ‘Christian’ religion after the crucifixion, the original disciples and apostles (with the exception of Peter) also never used that word to identify or describe themselves. They held firm to ‘Followers of the Way’, and ‘believers’.
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Here is a brief list from God—as taught by Jesus—that modern ecumenical Christian churches (most notably the RCC) want abolished:
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- There is only one true God, all others are false. (Isaiah 43:11 & 44:6, Deuteronomy 4:35, 1 Kings 8:60)
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- There is only one way to God, which is through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ—Who is the way, truth, and the life. (1 Timothy 2:5-6)
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- Jesus is the only Son of Almighty God. All other claims of additional sons are false—meaning, all other religions are man-made and not of God—Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, etc. God makes this clear under the Abrahamic Table of Nations—those nations who were formed from Ishmael versus God’s Nation Israel, which was formed through Isaac. (John 1:14, John 10:30)
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- Jesus is the Creator of everything, and therefore, everything—including man— rightfully belongs to Him. (1 Corinthians 8:6)
A list in which true believers will never participate…
Amen.