There used to be an army of men and women throwing an enormous spotlight on the dark, malignant ecclesiastical tyrant that is the Papacy.
They used to be called Protestants. They were called Protestant because they were publicly protesting.
What or whom were they protesting?
They were protesting the abuses, hypocrisies, and false teachings of the corrupt Catholic church.
How could they protest? The Church was The religious authority. On what authority could they challenge the Catholic Church?
The Protestants protest was a proclamation that the Church did not match the Word of God.
The Protestants authority was the Bible.
A Protestant used to stand on the foundation of God’s Word to debunk the gross superstitions and corruption of the Catholic Church, or any false teaching. Over hundreds of years, millions of brave souls scorned poverty, persecution and often a horrible death to open the pages of the the Scriptures to the public. To bring truth to the world, no matter what. Their sacrifice ushered in the Reformation, the great Spiritual enlightenment that in turn opened the door for the Renaissance.
What is that, I hear you say? The Reformation sparked the Renaissance?
Absolutely.
In a very real way, your modern lifestyle, your education, your literacy, your health, your hygiene, your travel, your personal library (either digital or paper) is a testimony to those souls who braved death to search the Bible for themselves and then risk their lives, over and over, to tell a world that was gripped in the darkness of the superstitious and hypocritical prison of the Roman Catholic Church that the Church was a liar. That it did not at all represent God – that in fact, it was against Christ. It was, and is still, anti-Christ.
Hard to believe? Chew on this: for 1600 years there was essentially no advance in human progress. Illiteracy. Squalor. Disease. Corruption. Superstition. That was the norm for 1600 years. Society regressed instead of progressed. What changed things was the Reformation.
If there had been no Reformation you’d almost certainly be illiterate, with a life expectancy of 40, dirty, backward and superstitious, just like your ancestors for 1600 years during the Dark Ages.
Where would the world be without the recognition that all men were created in the image of God, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, such as the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? You don’t think that’s a Catholic teaching, do you?
And if you are blessed today to live in a land that permits you, for a little while longer, to believe and worship as your conscience dictates, you should perhaps wonder how it is that this came to be.
There is absolutely nothing sadder today for humanity than that those Protestant watchmen have fallen silent.
Lutherans. Methodists. Evangelicals. All quiet. They have all, apparently, lost their Bibles. And so they have lost their bearings. They have sacrificed principle and the plain Word of Scripture to again grasp the bejeweled fingers of the Roman Pontiff, that man of sin who proudly proclaims the Papacy has never changed.
A quick glance shows this is true: It is still the haven and teacher of vice, idolatry, blasphemy, oppression, murder and lust that it has always been.
It is the protest that has changed. The cry that should be crescendoing today, right now! has tapered into a pathetic denial of the Risen Christ.
And instead of protests, there is a strange sound in the land – it is the sound of blessing, while supposedly protestant leaders bless the Roman Pontiff, forgetting somehow, that his teachings are no more sound today than they ever were.
Kenneth Copeland is only the most recent Judas Iscariot.
The silence of the Protestant Watchmen is not unnoticed today by Rome. Woe to the land! For the gate is unguarded.