Presents

The Rise of Popery

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 7And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. 8And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

The Pale horse symbolizes death, and Hell here symbolizes the Catholic Church system.  At this time Papalism was fully developed and the Catholic hierarchy completely set up.

“Fisher Church History”

It was around 200 years after Constantine, the first supposed Christian emperor of the Roman Empire, that paganism vanished.  He reigned around A.D. 323-330.  If you add 200 years to 330 you get 530.”  At this time there was a settling down to the Catholic Orthodox doctrines.  They were being generally accepted and Catholicism ruled with a stern and rigid hand.  From A.D. 530 to A.D. 1530, the bibles were out of the common peoples hands, as they were chained to the pulpits.  Illiteracy was widespread.  As a rule only the priests were privileged to be educated.

The Papal powers ruling with their church and state combined made laws prohibiting the gospel from being preached during this Dark Age, other than promoting the doctrine and teaching of Papalism which was generally a state religion, and as the result of such false doctrine and such false teaching and deception the people were left in darkness.

If any opposed the Papist and the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, they were slaughtered.  Some historians placed the figure at about 50 to 60 million.  Thus far our history of persecution has been confined principally to the pagan world.  We come now to a period when persecution under the guise of Christianity, committed more enormities than ever disgraced the annals of Paganism.  Disregarding the maxims and the spirit of the gospel, the papal church, arming herself with the power sword, vexed the Church of God and wasted it for several centuries, a history termed the dark ages.

The pale horse is the color of a corpse, a mixture of black and white.  Its rider name was Death.  No justification was being preached, so souls captivated by this spirit were riding death, they were spiritually dead and slept a perpetual sleep.  Spirtual death always follow apostasy.

Power was given to kill with the  sword, deceiving with a false doctrine, substituting men’s opinions, that which was earthly.  Men’s souls were hungry – starving, consequently, they died spiritually.  They were killed by the beasts of the earth, which is referring to doctrines of an earthly ministry.  Paul spoke of the beast like spirits of men

TRAIL OF BLOOD

But throughout this period, Jesus Christ had His remnant people that have remained faithful to His Word and Spirit. Some were within these fallen structures of the worldly "church" and some "out in the desert" gathered in the movements and communities that were trying to stay loyal to God and His Truth. These groups of Christians holding to the original evangelical tenets of the Christian faith were spread around the medieval Europe. They were known by different names (Bogumils, Waldensians, etc.) given to them by their enemies who were relentlessly persecuting and outlawing them. While it is often hard to find details about their doctrines and practices (due to the fact that their writings were destroyed by their opponents who used to slender, malign and misrepresent them), we do know that they were separating themselves from the state-church on the account that it has fallen from the truth. The Remnant Church was trying to preserve the original, New Testament faith. And although persecuted, tortured and murdered through centuries these faithful servants of Christ, both young and old, women and men, kept the line of the true Church of God until the time of the Reformations.

ANABAPTIST REFORMATION

The torch of Truth and restoration have been taken by the Christians whom their enemies labeled as the Anabaptists (because they denied baptism of the infants for the sake of baptism of believers). They were spiritual descendents of the medieval remnants and their work is known as the Radical Reformation. The Anabaptists (or Mennonites as they were also known because of their leader Menno Simons) stood for believer's baptism, church of the regenerated people, faithfulness to the Bible in all details, effective church discipline, separation of the Church from the State and its carnal power. They were persecuted both by the Roman Catholics and the Protestants. After a while this persecution dumped the Anabaptists' fire for evangelism and have resulted in a certain spiritual and cultural isolation.

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