2 Thessalonians 2:3-9
3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
5 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
6 And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
We see that Paul, in his second letter to the Thessalonians, foretold the great apostasy which would result in the establishment of AntiChrist power. He declared that before the return of Christ would, "come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who exalteth himself above all that is called God;" Even at that early date he saw, creeping into the church, errors in belief that would prepare the way for the false teachings to come in, and history confirmed how it happen.
Little by little, and then more openly as it increased in strength and gained control of believers, paganism and idol worship came into the church. Almost imperceptibly the traditions and customs of Pagan Rome found their way into the Christian church from the former center of the Empire and spread. It had been held back by the persecutions by the Roman Emperors, but as persecution ceased, and Christianity was accepted, the true church began to lay aside its humble beginnings and truth of Christ, for the rites, sacraments and pomp of ancient Rome and the practices of pagan priests and ancient heathen worship with its Babylonian/Greek/Roman gods inscribed with Christians names.
It crept in, then really gained momentum with Emperor Constantine, who tried to politically not to leave out or alienate those who practiced paganism after he claim to convert to Christianity. He declared the Bishop of Rome as the enforcer of truth and forced the merger of paganism into the church, and the heathen religion now cloaked with a 'christianized' cover, walked into the church. Paganism, while outwardly looking to like it was overcome by the church, became the one that vanquished. Pagan doctrines, ceremonies, and superstitions were incorporated into the faith and worship of the professed followers of Christ.
This compromise between paganism and Christianity resulted in the development of "the man of sin" foretold in prophecy as opposing and exalting himself above God. In the early church, the bishop of Rome, along with Alexandria and Antioch, was regarded as a Patriarchate, or an autonomous diocese. To this group was added the patriachates of Constantinople and Jerusalem in the fifth century. This group of five was regarded as leading the church as a whole. However, gaining political influence and claiming "historical events" saying the tradition that Peter and Paul had been martyred in Rome, the Bishop of Rome made himself first among equals. To secure worldly gains and honors, the church was led to seek the favor and support of the great men of earth; the church was forced to yield allegiance to the the bishop of Rome.
Many of the ancient people worshiped the sun and other pagan gods as they thought that their sun gods and fertility goddesses died at the winter solstice and regained life again at the spring equinox. Note what it says in Judges..
Judges 2:13
And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.
But history shows that Baal worship is sun worship, and Ashtoreth/Ishtar/Astarte is the queen of heaven. This is why there are so many sunburst images in Catholicism and why Mary is called the
'Queen of Heaven', the church at Rome incorporated them slowly in. It is the apostasy of idol worship of Baal and Ashtaroth that had started to come into the church.
History shows that long before Mary, pagans fashioned Madonna and child icons and placed them in sacred shrines. Many believe that with the rise of Christianity and papal power, the Goddess would slowly disappear from western culture and fade away. But they didnt, the names and the images of the Madonna and child have changed, and spread. For many pagan 'converts', the blending of their ancient goddesses with the Virgin Mary was a major part of what allowed them to keep their pagan gods but get in the church.
The Bible would have quickly shown they had turned away into false beliefs so its truths had to be concealed and suppressed. For hundreds of years the circulation of the Bible was prohibited by the papacy. The people were forbidden to read it or to have it in their houses, and the Bible having been removed, the papacy moved quickly. To afford converts from heathenism a substitute for the worship of idols, and thus to promote their nominal acceptance of Christianity, the adoration of images and relics was gradually introduced into the Christian worship. To hide what they had done, Rome presumed to expunge from the law of God the second commandment in their writings, forbidding image worship, and to divide the tenth commandment, in order to preserve the number.
Then they went after the fourth commandment also, and essayed to set aside the Sabbath, and put in the festival day observed by the heathen as "the venerable day of the sun." With great subtlety the papacy worked to bring about this change. That the attention of the people might be called to the Sunday, it was made a festival in honor of the resurrection of Christ. Religious services were held upon it; yet it was regarded as a day of recreation, the Sabbath being still sacredly observed.
In the early part of the fourth century the emperor Constantine as part his merging of paganism with the church had issued a decree making Sunday a public festival throughout the Roman Empire. It was the emperor's policy to unite the conflicting interests of heathenism and Christianity, and he was urged to do this by the bishops of the church, who perceived that if the same day was observed by both Christians and heathen, it would promote the nominal acceptance of Christianity by pagans and thus advance the power and glory of the church. Thus the minds of the people were turned away from God to fallible, corruptible men who claimed to lead the church, and the Pope who came to regard himself as supreme, with the elevation of false laws and corrupt traditions that always results from setting aside the law of God.
We must read the Bible and cleanse ourselves from any of the paganism and false worship especially the pagan festivals or "Holy Days" that have been spread into many churches beliefs. The Protestant churches that split from and began the Reformation because they saw the truth and fought so hard against the pagan Papal Roman church are now falling one by one to even worse beliefs in secularism and paganism. Slowly but surely they are giving up the true beliefs that were their foundation untlil they become nothing but secular social clubs with pagan traditions and festivals.
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