Awaken Bible Prophecy Update 8-30-23: Problematic Catholic Bookend Beliefs – Part 3

Today we’re embarking on Part 3 in this three-part series, in which we’re briefly examining Catholic theology based on a couple of small books by a Catholic priest.  These books by Albert Joseph Mary Shannon are titled Genesis – The Book of Origins and Apocalypse – The Book for Our Times.  It’s important to understand as I discuss what I read that these books have been determined by Catholic authorities as having no doctrinal errors.  They’re sanctioned in this way through the awarding of what are called the Nihil obstat and the Imprimatur.

The first book regarding Genesis that we completely covered in Part 1 of this series provides a Catholic view of Genesis.  On the positive side, the author of these books makes a number of good, solid doctrinal statements as I interpret them.  On the other hand, because they imbibe deeply, by definition, in Catholic doctrine, from my Biblical and prophetic perspective, I found many errors in the thinking.

In Part 2, we began looking at Vatican teaching presented in this little book – Apocalypse – The Book for Our Times – that discusses Revelation.  I believe it has serious issues which present a skewed understanding of this last book in the Bible

For today’s Part 3 we’ll endeavor to bring this study to a close as this book we’re examining deals with God’s Judgments in the Tribulation.

Transcript:

Today we’re embarking on Part 3 in this three-part series, in which we’re briefly examining Catholic theology based on a couple of small books by a Catholic priest.  These books by Albert Joseph Mary Shannon are titled Genesis – The Book of Origins and Apocalypse – The Book for Our Times.  It’s important to understand as I discuss what I read that these books have been determined by Catholic authorities as having no doctrinal errors.  They’re sanctioned in this way through the awarding of what are called the Nihil obstat and the Imprimatur.

The first book regarding Genesis that we completely covered in Part 1 of this series provides a Catholic view of Genesis.  On the positive side, the author of these books makes a number of good, solid doctrinal statements as I interpret them.  On the other hand, because they imbibe deeply, by definition, in Catholic doctrine, from my Biblical and prophetic perspective, I found many errors in the thinking.

In Part 2, we began looking at Vatican teaching presented in this little book – Apocalypse – The Book for Our Times – that discusses Revelation.  I believe it has serious issues which present a skewed understanding of this last book in the Bible

For today’s Part 3 we’ll endeavor to bring this study to a close as this book we’re examining deals with God’s Judgments in the Tribulation.

We’ll get right into this analysis as soon as we pray and read from God’s Word.

<PRAY>

Scripture

2 Peter 3:10-15

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

 Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation . . .

Problematic Catholic Bookend Beliefs – Part 3

• One of the major issues of Catholic thinking when it comes to the Bible is that it relegates much of God’s Word to symbolism
• Instead of taking that which should be considered literal as just that, it elevates the narrative symbolically
• This is likely a primary reason that Catholicism doesn’t have a Dispensational view of the various ages shown throughout the Bible – with our current era being the Church Age
• That inevitably leads to a misunderstanding of the historical narrative in the Bible as well as the future depicted in Revelation
• This being the case, the Catholic church doesn’t have a correct view of the 7-year Tribulation
• It especially doesn’t see the pre-Tribulation Rapture of the church
• In fact, because of its allegorical perspective on so much of Scripture, the Catholic church believes it will go through whatever it thinks is the Tribulation (the extent of which is probably minimized in their thinking)
• Also, from what I can glean, there’s quite a mish-mash of both historical and future events that are seen in many of the passages
• The author relates certain verses to things which have already occurred but also discusses some of them in a future tense
• Frankly, it’s somewhat confusing and hard to get a handle on what’s already happened in his view in contrast to what is still to come
• I think that by exegeting Revelation as symbolic only, that leads to this confusing understanding of what the Apostle John wrote
• Thus for today’s efforts, we start out with the Seal Judgments, but they’re presented as simply different periods of history
• Worse, they’re said to mean something different than what most of us believe
• In this case:
  • The white horse = war (i.e. not the revealing of the Antichrist)
  • The red horse = bloodshed (i.e. not necessarily war, however even including homelessness and drug addiction as to what it represents)
  • The black horse = famine (correctly)
  • The pale green horse = death (but death’s co-rider Hades isn’t mentioned)
• Inevitably, the author quotes the Marian apparition as part of the discussion
• Some of the things she says are certainly true
• But what seems to happen in these discourses is that the focus is taken off of Jesus – thus it’s her word that’s elevated over that of Scripture
• In moving to the 6^th Seal you can see what I mean by historical vs future confusion
• Revelation 6:12-17 reads:

When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

• I see this as a literal event in the course of the early part of the 7-year Tribulation
• All those kings and others who called down rocks upon themselves in thinking this was the end of the world are mistaken according to our author
• He describes what we read as:

“. . . the end of one era and the ushering in of another; the end of Roman paganism and the beginning of the Christian era.”

• It’s really no different in this perspective than the change from America as a backwater little nation before World War 1 & 2 to our becoming a global power
• Kind of takes some of the oomph out of the passage, doesn’t it?
• The angels of Revelation 7 and the 144,000 who are sealed come next
• In a footnote regarding angels, we’re told correctly many of their functions
• However, this little statement is made which should make us cringe:

“Angels love us dearly and stand ready to assist us with their powerful help.  Devotion to the angels, especially our guardian angels, must never be neglected.”

• Wait! What?
• Devotion to angels?
• Wouldn’t that be considered idolatry?
• Didn’t every angel in the Bible -which wasn’t the Angel of the Lord, i.e. Jesus – on its messenger mission to humans always tell them not to worship or bow down to them?
• But that’s the Catholic way
• I found a helpful website that instructs us how to increase our devotion to our guardian angels:

1. Pray to Your Angel Daily for You to Grow in Holiness
2. Ask Your Angel to Help You When You’re Lost
3. Ask Your Angel to Help You Combat Evil and Strengthen You
4. Ask Your Angel to Humble You Daily

• So, we’re to pray to angels and not to God, or at least in addition to God?
• Does anyone else think this might tend to lead the Catholic faithful in the wrong direction?
• Oh, BTW – this advice from the website I link to comes from a woman who describes herself as a Catholic spirituality writer and national speaker
• As to the 144,000 who are sealed by God, we’re told . . .
• This is the square of 12, i.e. Israel’s 12 tribes, multiplied by 1000
• . . . Which is symbolic of the new Israel that embraces every nation, race, people, and tongue
• That kind of sounds a little like Replacement Theology, doesn’t it?
• The comment is then made that the tribe of Dan is omitted from the list of 12 tribes because Jewish folklore suggests that the Antichrist will come from Dan
• That could possibly be so, but I get the sense that Catholicism doesn’t place much stock in the appearance of a literal Antichrist, so again we’ve got some contradictory interpretation going on
• In John’s vision of the many saints standing around the throne of heaven, we’re told that in the exchange between John and the elder that “these are the ones who have survived the time of great distress”, this refers to the fierce persecution by the Romans
• Obviously, the author sees this scene as only historic and perhaps even takes a preterist view in that all these events took place by the end of the 1^st century
• If that’s the case, then any reference he makes to future times must be in the context of symbolism only
• Actually, it’s like he takes both a preterist view and an anti-millennial perspective at the same time
• Making short work of the Trumpet Judgment, the author notes that Trumpets 1-4 denote the end of paganism
• Wow! – When did that happen?
• Trumpet 5 predicts diabolical attacks on the human race but skirts the issue of what these locust-demons will do – or did – to harm mankind in this manner
• Have they already done so?
• That’s an answer the author doesn’t tackle except to say that the locusts don’t attack anyone who has been sealed by the angel of God
• But we face this quandary again of whether we’re referring to past or future events and how they did, or might still, play out
• He definitely says regarding the 6^th Trumpet that it’s descriptive of the past event of the nation of Parthia which crossed the Euphrates River to attack Israel, which then led to a more ferocious enemy that punished godless Rome
• We come to Revelation 11 where John is told to measure the heavenly temple
• And what is this temple?
• Why, it’s the church!
• This act by John suggests that God will preserve a faithful remnant who remain true to Christ and which have found salvation in the Catholic church
• Outside the temple, i.e. this Catholic church, are the godless Gentiles which signify the persecution, as typified by Antiochus Epiphanes during the period of the Maccabees
• These pagans would persecute the Catholic church during the time of Nero, who is considered the beast from the bottomless pit
• Perhaps I missed something
• When did the Catholic church arise to become an institution?
• Here’s what one website says:

According to The Moody Handbook of Theology, the official beginning of the Roman Catholic church occurred in 590 CE, with Pope Gregory I. 

• Just for historical context, Nero reigned in Rome 54 AD – 68 AD
• Next up: The Two Witnesses are seen as various church martyrs through the ages
• Again, you can see that I have trouble pinning down time frames in all this
• Is the author speaking solely of times past?
• If so, why bother describing the symbolism for anything future?
• It’s very confusing eschatology
• The 7^th Trumpet blown by the 7^th angel signifies the ushering in of God’s kingdom in 313 AD by a degree known as the Edict of Toleration by Emperor Constantine
• This is a triumphant event
• However, it is perennial, meaning that it is repeated time and again as the church rises and falls, is crucified and buried, but comes back, resurrected such that the Gates of Hell don’t prevail
• Of course, we are speaking only about the Catholic church
• Let’s not forget that
• Speaking of the Church Triumphant, Revelation 12 discusses the vision of the woman in the sky with the crown of 12 stars who is identified as – wait for it . . . Mary, “Our Lady” of the Catholic church
• In fact, Mary spoke in an apparition and specifically said:

“I am the Woman clothed with the sun who has the task of fighting the Red Dragon and his powerful army, to conquer him, to bind him and drive him away into his kingdom of death, that Christ may reign over the world.”

• It’s astounding the power and authority God has given to Mary
• Who knew?
• Naturally the woman fleeing into the desert is the Catholic church protected by God for 1260 days
• What happened to Israel?
• God’s Chosen People and the Holy Land don’t seem to have much place in the Vatican’s future
• Good thing Mary is on the job and it’s her efforts that will bring us through
• The author says:

“Our Lady has begun the great battle and wills to wage it through her faithful children [i.e. those in the Catholic church] – who form her heel, the heel that will crush the head of ‘the serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan’.”

• He is obviously here referring to Genesis 3:15 where God is speaking to the serpent in what we know the Protoevangelium, i.e. the first Gospel:

I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”

• Note the discrepancy
• The Marian apparition who brought this promise concerning the great battle is seen as the one whose heel, which is comprised of Mary’s children, i.e. the church, crushes Satan
• But the Biblical text tells us that it is Jesus, as Mary’s offspring – her Seed – who will do the crushing
• Words mean things and context is important to rightly divide Scripture
• In the Vatican’s view, everything written in the Bible all eventually refers to the Catholic church – certainly not to the Church universal or to Israel where appropriate
• In this manner, we learn that there are 5 blasphemies that have been committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary
• They are:

1. Denial of Mary’s Immaculate Conception
2. Denial of her perpetual virginity
3. Denial of her divine maternity
4. The implanting of indifference in the hearts of children for her as their immaculate mother
5. The downgrading of her by removing her statues from churches

• Woe to us who don’t follow Catholic dogma, and in fact – reject it!
• I’ll just ask regarding the 5^th item about statues: What does the 2^nd of the Ten Commandments say in Exodus 20:4-5?

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God . . .

• Oh, but that’s from the Christian Bible
• The Catholic Ten Commandments seems to be missing that command, and actually says that Commandment #2 is:

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain

• They really and truly do just skip over and ignore that pesky thing about idols
• That being the case, how do they still get Ten Commandments?
• Our #10 reads:

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

• What Catholicism does is make this into two commandments:

#9 – You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife

#10 – You shall not covet your neighbor’s house

• Thus, from Mary’s perspective, since there is no Catholic injunction against carved images or a likeness representing anything in heaven or on the earth, it is a blasphemy for the Catholic church to rid itself of any statues of Mary
• Pretty convenient, huh?
• When we reach the Revelation 13 passage about the beast rising from the sea, this is understood to be the political Roman Empire of old
• The wounded head of the beast is Nero who comes back to life as Emperor Domitian
• With the rise of the beast from the land, that is interpreted as the religious arm of the Roman Empire
• The author describes it initially as pagan Rome in the past
• This morphed into and became the anti-Catholic infiltration of the Catholic church today
• Part of that he sees as the godless ideology of Freemasonry
• It’s good we can agree on that fact that the Masonic movement is truly anti-God
• It’s a shame that so many well-meaning people – Christians among them – are deceived by the Masonic practice of do-gooding
• As the lower levels of Masonry, some good deeds have certainly been accomplished over the years
• But when one gets to the advanced levels, it’s very clear that worship and service of another god is at play
• If you’ve never dived into understanding Freemasonry, this multipart, video exposé that I link to in the Transcript is lengthy but excellent, and you’ll learn a lot
• An observation that I’ve alluded to previously is that I find it quite interesting that the Marian apparition speaks of many things that are true about Christ and the world
• The irony – and the deceit behind it – is that these truths are being spoken by one who is false
• Satan inevitably mixes truth and lies so that those who don’t have discernment in these matters cannot distinguish good from evil
• As we near the end of the book, the author laments:

“With the Protestant Reformation, Tradition [with a capital T] was rejected and Scripture alone, privately interpreted [gasp!], was accepted as the sole rule of faith.  This led to the fragmentation of the [Catholic] church.”

• It’s hard to refrain from sarcasm when I come across things like this
• It was the Reformation, fueled by Martin Luther, who simply wanted to discuss with the Catholic church hierarchy what he perceived – rightly – as non-Biblical practices
• The Vatican would have none of it, and that led to others who actually read the Bible to understand it was Catholicism that was in error – and they broke away by necessity
• Heaven forbid that church tradition – determined by the imaginings of man and not God – would be rejected!
• Horrors that the common man might undertake to read the Bible and interpret it himself without a priestly authority guiding him!
• Worst of all, can you believe that anyone would think that faith alone by God’s grace alone could be the sole means of salvation?
• Who would even conceive of such a thing?
• Heretics! – All of you!
• Several more items and we’ll bring this to a close . . .
• The false prophet of Revelation is seen as “the satellite kings of [pagan] Rome” – obviously a highly symbolic reference to a past situation – certainly not a literal individual still to come
• The first resurrection that Jesus mentions in Revelation 20:5-6, according to the author, is those who have come to life through baptism
• Of course, the text says nothing about baptism – so this is presumably only those baptized into Catholicism
• More accurately, the first resurrection is all those who effectively died in Christ before He came to the earth, i.e. those who were in Paradise at Abraham’s bosom, and were released by Jesus when He set the captives in Hades free by taking them to heaven
• Those in the first resurrection would also be saints martyred in the Tribulation
• All others in Christ would have been previously Raptured – both dead and alive – and already walking around
• In the Catholic faith, we can also rejoice in the fact that the saints already in heaven help us “by their powerful assistance and intercession”
• So, all those already there are not only rooting for us but have some part in our making it there to join them
• “Houston, I think we have a problem in the space-time continuum.”
• Then, naturally, “we ought to pray for the souls in purgatory” since that shortens their stay in that place
• I’ll just whisper something to our Catholic friends . . .
• “You’re wasting your breath. There is no such place as purgatory.”
• Finally, we learn that “blessed are they who wash their robes by good deeds” because “they will have a right to the tree of life”
• Forget that salvation stuff in Christ alone
• You can only partake of this tree by doing good works

Summary

• Much written in this book concerning Revelation and the first book on Genesis we looked at shows much faith in Christ
• That’s good
• After all, I believe that God considers the Catholic church one of His own
• The problem is that like the church of Thyatira, it believes much false doctrine and has a Jezebel in its midst
• By revering Mary as Catholicism does, it listens to demonic utterances and follows them . . . away from true Biblical doctrine
• The significant reliance on messages by the Marian apparitions through the years has resulted in a lot of misplaced faith
• Catholicism falls back on the traditions of men, exactly what Jesus accused the Pharisees of doing
• Somebody in the Vatican must have missed that portion of Scripture
• Since the church emphasizes a works-based salvation, completely dismissing someone who believes in Ephesians 2:8-9, as anathema, i.e. cursed, this is really problematic
• It’s got a pride problem as well
• Catholicism is seen as the only true faith
• Anyone outside of it is effectively working against the Catholic church
• These days, with the intense ecumenical effort that’s underway to draw all religions under the Catholic umbrella, it is moving even further from true Biblical doctrine
• You simply can’t say that all religions lead to God and salvation and expect to be approved by God, who has a slightly different take on the matter
• It is through Christ alone that we are saved
• For Catholicism to embrace Islam, Hinduism, paganism, animism, and even atheism, and declare that followers of all of them are faithful brothers and sisters is sadly leading all straight to hell
• They will find that out the hard way in the Tribulation
• The pope himself for advocating this heresy will be first in line
• As I noted several times in my discourse, the eschatology of Catholicism is highly confusing because it relies so much on symbolism and yet tries to equate what it sees as past events with some – not all – events in the future
• I bet if you asked a Catholic to explain the book of Revelation to you and how it all plays out, you’d both wind up in a rather dizzy state
• I’ve said in the past that those snared by Catholicism are a harvest field
• I know of several individuals who have escaped this confining religion and become white hot believers in Biblical truth
• We all need to be that way
• As we wait in these final hours for Christ’s return for us in the air, there should be no hint of Laodicea (or Thyatira!) in any of us
• Our eyes must be on Christ
• Our senses should be tingling with anticipation
• Our hands should be busy about the Lord’s work until the very last moment