Lux Lucet

Pope Francis in Ireland.

“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

    – Revelation 18:4

In part one of this series the point was made that the voice from heaven in Revelation 18:4 – the voice being most probably that of God the Father or perhaps of Christ, since it refers to “my people” – issued one command and two purposes. The command was to “come out of her” meaning to come out of the Mother of Harlots city, which we identified as Rome papal.

To this command, the Apostle John tells us that the voice from heaven appended two purposes. The first purpose, “that ye be not partakers of her sins,” we looked at last week in part 2 of this series. One way in which Roman Catholics sin is by associating themselves with, and lending support to, the corrupt and heretical teachers of the Roman Church-State (RCS). When men support that organization with their time and their money and receive her priests and bishops and popes as if they were Christian teachers, Roman Catholic laymen become guilty of their enormous sins by association (2 John 10). Since the impetus for this series on Rome was yet another Roman Catholic pedophile scandal, this time in Michigan, it was also mentioned that a second way in which Roman Catholics partake in the sins of Rome is by deliberately delivering their children into the hands of a group of known predators, I’m referring here to Roman Catholic priests, who of all have shown themselves the least trustworthy when it comes to care of children. Indeed, so far from being trustworthy are they, that one could reasonably assert that, of all classes of men, Romanist priests pose the greatest threat to children.

Given the shocking scale of the enormities visited by Roman Catholic priests upon the Church’s children – and this, at least for the moment, is leaving aside the Church’s many other abuse scandals, for example, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexual abuse of seminarians and the stories now surfacing about nuns who have committed sexual abuse of minors – one wonders how any conscientious parent could elect to leave his children alone with a priest even for a moment. Yet Roman Catholic parents routinely and willingly deliver their children into the arms of those who prey upon them. In doing this, they sin.

Turing now from a review of what we’ve already studied, let us look at the second purpose uttered by the voice from heaven in Revelation 18:4, “that ye receive not of her plagues.”

That ye receive not of her plagues

The rescuing of God’s elect from the wicked city marked for destruction is a repeated theme in Scripture. Take, for example, the grace God showed to Lot in preserving by him and his family from the utter destruction of Sodom. In Joshua, we see believing Rahab and her family rescued from Jericho. When Jerusalem fell under God’s judgment and was about to be sacked by the Babylonians, Jeremiah’s faithful scribe Baruch and the eunuch Ebed-Melech were promised deliverance from harm. Likewise, in the New Testament those who heeded Jesus warning to flee Jerusalem when they saw the city surrounded preserved their lives when Rome leveled the city once again in AD 70.

From all this, we see that our God is a gracious God, choosing to rescue even a remnant of those who abide in the wicked city marked for destruction. Since God has so acted in the past, it should come as no surprise that he would act this way even as he is about to bring final judgment upon the Roman Harlot. God has judged, is judging, and will judge the Woman Who Rides the Beast, but in his mercy, throughout his judgments he still has a remnant whom he calls out.

God judged the Harlot city in the past when he caused her to suffer a mortal wound at the time of the Reformation. The preaching of the Gospel of Justification by Belief Alone destroyed Rome’s influence in many nations formerly under her sway. But Rome is an institution recovering from a mortal wound and today is more formidable than perhaps it ever has been.

But for all that, Rome is a wicked city, one that even now finds itself under the active judgment of God. This truth ought to be readily discerned by all God’s people, but has instead been obscured, at least in part, by the efforts of Protestant teachers, who, at best are confused, and at worst are unbelieving men actively working to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

To properly understand the pedophilia scandals plaguing the RCS, one must, in the first place, understand them in the context of God’s judgment upon “that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth.” God is not mocked. And even though the Roman Harlot will not come into final judgment until the end times, God through his exposure of Rome’s wickedness, nevertheless is even now calling this institution to account. Just as both Samaria and Judah found themselves under God’s judgment, but nevertheless were allowed to continue for a time, so too is Rome under God’s judgment and is being allowed also to continue for a time. And one of the purposes in God’s delaying judgment upon Rome is that he still has an elect remnant within that wicked city which he will, in his own time, call out.

When looking back at the history of the Reformation, once is amazed at how God’s grace saved so many out of Romish darkness. It was not just Catholic laymen who came out of Rome, but God used many former priests, men who had previous celebrated the blasphemous mass, to instead proclaim the good news of salvation by faith in Christ alone. Lest we Protestants suppose that those currently within the RCS are beyond hope, it’s worth remembering that the Reformation was spearheaded by men who were former Roman Catholic priests.

As the Author of Hebrews confessed that time would fail him were he to tell of all the faithful saints who went before him, so too would I fail to recount all the heroics for the sake of the Gospel that were performed during the Reformation by those who were formerly enemies of Christ, sunk as they were in Romish darkness. To speak the names of men such as Luther and Calvin would just barely scratch the surface of those who obeyed God’s voice and came out of her.

Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley burned at the stake, October 16, 1555.  It was here that Latimer made his famous statement, “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

One of the great heroes of the English Reformation, and one of this author’s personal favorites, Hugh Latimer, was a man of like background to Luther and Calvin. Latimer was a Roman Catholic’s Roman Catholic in much the same way as Saul of Tarsus was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. As an ordained priest, he vigorously preached against the doctrines of the Reformation. When Luther’s teaching began to gain a foothold in England, and even at Cambridge University, of which Latimer was a graduate, he became incensed at the rising tide of “heresy.” Said Latimer, “Impiety [the doctrines of the Reformation] was gaining ground apace, and what lengths might not men be expected to run, when they began to question even the infallibility of the Pope?”

But this “obstinate papist” – what Latimer called himself many years later following his conversion – had his own Damascus Road experience when he was confronted with the Gospel by Thomas Bilney. Latimer came out of the wicked city marked for destruction and went on to become one of the greatest preachers of the Gospel England ever produced.

But the salvation of Roman Catholics is not something that stopped in the 16th century. Charles Chiniquy famously left the RCS in the 19th century. Even today God is calling his remnant out of the Mother of Harlots. Former Roman Catholic priest Richard Bennett has been preaching the Gospel for over thirty years through his ministry Berean Beacon. You may read his testimony here. His website has testimonies of many other former priests who came to know the Lord Jesus Christ here.

And it’s not just former priests who have “come out” of the Harlot City “that they may receive not of her plagues.” The Berean Beacon website has an entire page of testimonies of former Roman Catholic nuns. Berean Beacon also features a page with the testimonies of converted lay Catholics.

To bring this even closer to home, as this article by Joseph A Butta Jr. notes, “In the past 40 years, unlike anytime dating back to the 16th century, legions of folks who were raised Roman Catholic have decided to become Biblical/Evangelical Christians…the volume of those leaving Catholicism for Biblical/Evangelical Christianity has been to such an extent that many Evangelical Churches are comprised of up to 40% members who were raised in the Roman Catholic Church.” One of the reason the article gives for the mass exodus from Rome is the Church’s appalling sex scandals. “Undoubtedly the sexual scandals [and associated failed cover-ups, lawsuits and admissions of guilt] affecting the credibility of the priesthood alienated many Catholics.

The sheer number of sex abuse cases in the RCS is horrifying. According to Butta,

• A 2004 research study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops reports that 4,392 priests committed acts of molestation against 10,667 victims between 1950 and 2002.
  
• 81% of those victims were male and over 50% of those acts were committed against children 11-14 years old.
  
• The Associated Press estimated the settlements of sex abuse cases from 1950 to 2007 totaled more than $2 billion. Bishop Accountability puts the figure at more than $3 billion in 2012.
  

Since the 2004 study, countless new cases of sex abuse have been revealed. In just the past year in the US alone, there have been at least four major scandals involving sexual abuse by priests – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois and Cardinal McCarrick of New York.

As mentioned earlier, now news is coming out that nuns have been involved in abusing children as well. According to this NPR article, a nun gave a teenage Catholic girl “tea laced with intoxicants,” then took her to the bedroom where the sister sexually assaulted her.

Just as one of the prosecutors in the Michigan case remarked that the five charged priests was just the tip of the iceberg, it is not unreasonable to assume that the known cases of sexual abuse carried out by priests, nuns and cardinals – as stunning as these numbers are – is likewise just the tip of the iceberg.

The Treason of the Neo-Evangelicals

Despite the fact that many today are obeying the voice from heaven by coming out of Rome, the Neo-Evagelicals are determined to make sure they remain in the doomed city. Their words and actions are nothing short of treason to the Lord Jesus Christ.

In his 1995 book Evangelicals & Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission, Neo-Evangelical Charles Colson did his best to make sure that Evangelicals never tell Roman Catholics the Gospel of Justification by Belief Alone. According to Colson, “in view of the large number of non-Christians in the world and the enormous challenge of our common evangelistic task, it is neither theologically legitimate nor a prudent use of resources for one Christian community to proselytize among active adherent of another Christian community” (Evangelicals & Catholics Together, p.xxx).

The implied ideas in this passage, that Evangelicals and Roman Catholics belong to Christian communities, and that Evangelicals, therefore, should not proselytize Roman Catholics, is without question one of the most monstrously stupid, irresponsible and anti-Christian statements this author has ever heard.

Roman Catholics are not Christians. I say this not to be mean, but as an objective matter of fact. The Church of Rome has, in her official statements, damned and cursed the Gospel of Jesus Christ and all who believe it. There is no Gospel in the Roman Catholic Church. There is no light in the Roman Catholic Church. The is no hope in the Roman Catholic Church. All is darkness leading to eternal death.

Not only do fools and blind guides like Charles Colson provide cover for Antichrist and his minions, but those who are entering the kingdom of heaven, he attempts to send back to the Mother of Harlots in the name of cobelligerance! A greater sin than this is hard to imagine.

Closing Thoughts

The Lord Jesus Christ is openly judging the Roman Church-State. Even her advocates, men such as David French, recognize this. French, himself an Evangelical, lamented that the “Catholic Church is taking torpedoes left and right.”

Jesus told the Pharisees who ordered him to rebuke his disciples that if they remained silent, even the very stones would cry out in witness to him. In similar fashion, in our time Jesus Christ is using the secular authorities to judge the Antichrist Roman Church-State, while supposed Christian leaders, not only refuse to utter a word against Rome, but openly conspire with her representatives to portray the Babylonian Harlot as if she were the chaste Bride of Christ.

May the Lord have mercy on them and call them to repentance.

For those of us who know what Rome is, we have an obligation, not to remain in knowing silence, but to let our light shine before men. We must write, we must speak, we must preach to a generation that has forgotten, or more likely has never known, the identity of the Mother of Harlots and of Antichrist. May the Lord have mercy on us if we remain silent.

The sexual abuse cases pouring out of Rome represent a human tragedy on a scale rarely seen in history. But though the unbelieving men who have carried out, not only the sins and crimes themselves, but also those who have covered it up, meant it for evil, God, at least in some cases, has intended it for good. Many have left the RCS as a result of the enormous sins of the Roman Catholic clergy. As Christians, let us not refuse to point out these sins, as if pretending not to notice the appalling sins and crimes of Rome is somehow our Christian duty. Quite the opposite, it is our duty to reprove Rome’s unfruitful works of darkness.

But along with the reproving, let us also offer Roman Catholics the only hope any of us has, the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, the grace of God in Jesus Christ, which is received by belief alone. And let us pray that God would continue to call his people out of that doomed city, that they may not partake of her sins, and receive not of her plagues.