Clark's Corner"Mystery, Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots" (Rev. 17:5)
One of the most talked about men in all of world
history is a monk named Martin Luther. In 1517, this
courageous Roman Catholic professor nailed 95
comments (called "Theses") on the door of the chapel
in the castle at Wittenburg, Germany, concerning what
he considered to be important matters of faith. At the
time, in Western Civilization, the Roman Catholic
Church was the only choice Christianity gave to those
who wanted to be a Christian. In Eastern Europe and
parts of Asia, Christianity was mainly the Greek
Orthodox Church, but in the western part of the world, Roman
Catholicism was virtually all that Christianity offered - until Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the chapel door.
Martin Luther was trying to clean up some of the
excessive doctrinal claims and some of the wild
money-grabbing tactics of high-ranking ministers
within the "Mother Church"; he was not trying to start
a new brand of Christianity. In particular, Luther was
disgusted with the selling of pardons and "indulgences" by some church leaders. It was a
lucrative
business that had grown to absurd proportions in his
time. Some of these "hawkers of pardons", to use
Luther's phrase, persuaded souls to believe that "as
soon as the penny jingles into the money box, the soul
flies out [of purgatory]."
In his 95 Theses, it is clear that Martin Luther was
willing to be a loyal, obedient servant of Christianity
and of the Roman Catholic Pope and that he believed
that the Roman Catholic priesthood was the priesthood ordained by God for His people. Of the Pope,
Martin Luther wrote in Thesis #9, that ". . . the holy
Spirit in the Pope is kind to us. . . ." And in Thesis
#53, he insisted that those who were engaged in false
teaching were "enemies of Christ and the Pope".
In using such flattery, Martin Luther may have been
hoping merely to win the Pope to his theological
position on the sale of indulgences; still, if the Pope
had agreed with Martin Luther (which he decidedly
did not), it appears that Luther would have willingly
continued to submit himself to the Pope and Catholicism.
In his 95 Theses, Martin Luther endorsed wholehearted
the Catholic myth of "Purgatory". Purgatory, according to Catholic tradition, is the place
believers go when they die if they haven't done enough in this
world to prepare their souls to stand in the presence of
God. In Purgatory, according to Catholic doctrine,
imperfect believers are tormented, so as to be purged
from all sinfulness. (For a fee, some Catholic clergymen claimed to secure the release of
your dead loved
ones from that place!). This doctrine is nothing short
of lunacy, but Luther endorsed it. As I said, in writing
his 95 Theses, he was not rebelling against the basic
doctrines of Catholicism, nor against its claims to be
the true elect of God.
As matters developed, Luther's unyielding rejection
of some of the most repugnant of the claims of
Catholic priests in his day led to a division of Christianity in the West, a division that led
to other divisions whenever there arose doctrinal controversies of
sufficient gravity to seize upon the hearts of men. So,
today, we have Lutherans, Episcopalians,
Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals,
Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, and many, many
others. The Mother Church has produced many
"daughters", although she never intended to have any of
them and hated every one of them when they were
born. And the fact that all her daughters have historically hated their Mother does not
mean that they are
not her offspring. It means only that members of the
Christian family just do not love one
another very much.
The spirit of Christianity is the spirit of Catholicism; Catholicism is the original and
purest form of
the Christian religion. And that spirit of Catholicism
is the source of every Christian denomination, every
Christian organization, every "non-denominational" Christian congregation, and every Christian home
prayer meeting or Bible study group. Every Christian
sect in Western Civilization owes its existence to Roman Catholicism. Appropriately,
Roman Catholicism
is called the "Mother Church"; and because Protestant
sects are of their Mother's unclean spirit, they are
rightly called "harlots".
Martin Luther was instrumental in giving birth to
forms of Christianity other than Roman Catholicism;
therefore, I call him the "midwife" who first served the
Great Whore when she began to bear her ugly children.
The Mother is the Great Whore, and her daughters
are harlots. And even though at times there has been
much blood shed in their feuds with each other, there
is an undeniable bond that unites all the family of
Christian sects. But what is this mysterious bond they
have? What is this basic similarity between the
Mother and her daughters? In other words, what is the
underlying, fundamental harmony that exists between
the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox
Church, and all other Christian sects?
The answer is simple. Christians share an understanding of the meaning of body of Christ that is so fundamental to their faith that they cannot
deny it without
rejecting the entirety of the religion of Christianity.
The daughters received this belief from their Mother;
it is as precious to them as life itself. It is their life, in
fact, because without this doctrine, Christianity itself
would not have come to exist. This doctrine brought
it into existence and still sustains it.
This foundational doctrine of all Christianity, the
one unifying element of Catholicism (the Great
Whore) and of Protestant sects (her daughters) is their belief that
one can become a member of the body of Christ without
being baptized with the holy Ghost with the evidence
of speaking in tongues.
No one is born again until he is baptized with the holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues.Jesus said, "I am the door." In other words, Jesus alone can take someone into his body. "All that climb up some other way", said the Lord, "are thieves and robbers." Only Jesus has the power to make someone a member of his body. But how does the Lord do this? Paul told us. "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body" (1Cor. 12:13). Yes, the baptism of the holy Ghost that Jesus personally gives is the door to the real family of God. Christianity claims that it is the body of Christ. But I say that it is not. How then can YOU know whether multiplied millions of Christians are telling you the truth when they say that Christianity IS the body of Christ or whether I am telling you the truth when I say it is NOT? There is a simple test that will show whether or not Christianity is the body of Christ. To resolve the issue, one need answer only two questions: First, how does one become a member of Christianity? Second, how does one become a member of the body of Christ? If the answers to those two questions differ, then Christianity is not the body of Christ. Remember, Paul said that we are baptized into the body by the Spirit. So, when Jesus baptizes a person with the holy Ghost, does he baptize a person into Christianity? Of course not. One becomes a member of Christianity by his own will. He joins Christianity; he is not baptized into it by Jesus. Becoming a member of the religion of Christianity is of the will of men; it is not a work of the Spirit of God. But those who are baptized with the holy Ghost become members of the true body of Christ by the operation of God; they are born into God's family "not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." This simple truth exposes the claims of every Christian sect to be false when it claims to be the body of Christ. Jesus baptizes no one into any sect of Christianity. Therefore, Christianity is not his body of believers. The underlying, uniting foundation of all Christian sects is that one may become a member of the Christ's body by his own choice instead of simply repenting and being baptized by Jesus into God's holy family. My friend, how did you become a member of the congregation to which you belong? If you became a member of your congregation by joining it, you are in the wrong one. If you have joined any of the congregations of Christianity, then you have become a kinsman of the Great Whore, and the Pope is your father--even if you hate him. And many of his children do! Listen to me, my dear brother! If you are a Christian, the Pope is your father, whether you believe it or not. He is the head of Christianity. Historically, most conservative Christian groups have understood and taught that the Great Whore of the book of Revelation is Catholicism. I have heard that truth taught many times by a number of conservative Christian teachers. What these same Christian teachers have never been able to see, however, is that the daughters of the Great Whore are the Protestant denominations to which they themselves belong! When the Spirit cries out, "Come out of her, My people" (Rev.18), God is saying to come out of Christianity in its entirety. "HER" is not only the Great Whore; it is also her daughters. "HER" is the spirit of false religion in the name of Jesus. The Great Whore claims to be a queen (Rev. 18:7). But whom does she claim as her husband, the king? Jesus, the King of kings. She also claims that she "is no widow". That means that she teaches that her husband is still alive. Isn't this what one hears in Christian places of worship, that Jesus lives today? (The Whore must tell some truth; otherwise, she would deceive no one!) Moreover, she claims that she will "see no sorrow" because she, as the bride of Christ, will be spared from the coming wrath of God. But because she makes false claims in the name of the true Lord, her destruction shall come suddenly and without remedy (Rev. 18:8). No, my friends, the famed theologian Martin Luther did not provide an escape for God's children from the Great Whore. He merely helped deliver the first of her many daughters. That first daughter (and later, the others) angrily rejected some of the "Mother Church's" ways and doctrines, but none of them rejected the most wicked of all doctrines. The false claim to be the body of Christ is the foundational lie upon which all of Christianity is based. It is the most successful lie Satan has ever persuaded men to believe and to tell. All of the Great Whore's daughters have hated some of their Mother's ways and teachings, even as they followed her perverse example in offering to men the opportunity to join a congregation instead of teaching men to repent so that Jesus would baptize them into the true congregation. But the daughters must claim to be the true congregation because that is their inherited nature. In Christianity, it is the distinctive family trait to prod men with promises of eternal pleasures (they are harlots, remember) to join one of their congregations. No congregation that can be joined Is God's.Protestants speak in glowing terms of the man they esteem to be the original Protestant, Martin Luther, but those who walk after the Spirit are neither Protestant nor Catholic. They have NO part in Christianity. They take no sides in Christianity's family disputes. The wise "touch not the unclean thing". They keep themselves pure. Concerning Christian sects, the wise understand that THEY ARE ALL WRONG and that the only people who are right with God are the ones who are hearing and obeying His wonderful voice RIGHT NOW. My brother, my dear sister, do you know what the Spirit is saying to the called out ones RIGHT NOW? If not, get alone with God and seek Him and you will hear in the deepest recesses of your soul a still, small voice crying out in most earnest tones, "Come out of her, My people!" And when you hear it, obey. For more information on what it means to "come out of Christianity", you may want to view one or all of these very good articles:
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