400 years of Silence from God after Malachi

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The Jews dried up spiritually as they rejected the Word

Doctor Scofield placed the prophet Malachi at 397 BC.

Jesus was born in the year zero.

John the Baptist burst onto the scene in AD 29.

This was a time of almost 400 silent years.

Augustus, the best-known Roman Emperor, died in AD 14. Then the Senate declared Tiberius to be the next Emperor.

Julius Caesar's family were pretending that they were not kings. The son of a king automatically becomes king when his father dies.

To ensure the pretense that an Emperor was not a king, Tiberius had to wait until the Senate offered him the position of Emperor.

LUKE 3:1   Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,

:2   Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.

14 + 15 = 29

So in AD 29 John the Baptist began his ministry and towards the end of that year, he baptized Jesus.

LUKE 3:22   And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.

:23   And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age,

So, near the end of the year AD 29, Jesus was about 30.

Thereby John the Baptist washed Jesus as the burnt offering before He was offered up at Calvary.

II CHRONICLES 4:6   He made also ten lavers, and put five on the right hand, and five on the left, to wash in them: such things as they offered for the burnt offering they washed in them;

The approximately 400 years of silence refers to the time span where no new prophets were raised up after the prophet Malachi and God thus revealed nothing new to his people. Then God raised up John the Baptist who impressed the people but he was strongly opposed by the religious leaders as he threatened their position as heads of the Jewish religion. Church leaders today strongly oppose the revealed Scriptures as it threatens their position as heads of the church.

Thus, the Jews used that last approximately 400 years to dry up spiritually.

The Jews were given plenty of time to move away from Scripture and thereby come under the complete domination of their religious leaders.

Pharisees and Sadducees were unscriptural terms that never appeared in the Old Testament.

Yet they ruled the Jews.

Similarly, in the New Testament, a pastor was never put in charge of a church but today they rule the church.

ISAIAH 53:2   For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant,

and as a root out of a dry ground:

he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

The dry ground of man-made doctrines and traditions made it impossible for the Jews to serve God properly in their synagogues and money-making Temple. The true God was to be found most of the time outside the Temple.

In the last church age, Jesus is to be found outside the church door.

REVELATION 3:14   And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write;

REVELATION 3:20   Behold, I stand at the door, and knock:

The Gospel needed the Greek language and Roman roads

So, what else was God doing as the curtain came down on the Old Testament?

Did God go to work behind the scenes for 400 years to set the stage for the birth of Jesus at just the right time?

Yes, very much so.

Apostle Paul said in

GALATIANS 4:4  But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

The Bible year is 360 days long.

Daniel had allocated 490 of those Bible years to the Jews, starting from the year when Nehemiah got the command to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem.

God had to work precisely within those limits. God always sets limits and Satan is always breaking down any rules or limits.

Was God rearranging the world stage to be perfectly positioned to spread the message of grace, forgiveness, and the message of Jesus?  The world needed a common Greek language, a relatively peaceful Roman Empire where the fighting was mostly on the borders, and improved transportation systems with excellent Roman roads.

The Book of Acts is full of incidents of travel and the people speaking a common language in order to produce a widespread growth of local churches. None of which was possible at the time of Malachi.

Yes. God was setting the stage for the spread of the Gospel amongst the Gentiles by the apostles.

Satan learns slowly needing time to set up his system

Satan needed four Gentile kingdoms to rise and fall before he began to understand how religious deception could spread effectively.

These four kingdoms were represented in Daniel's Gentile image.

So the silent 400 years were because the Jews were not listening and because the Devil was learning the basics of the corruption of human leadership such as getting one man to rule a church system (white horse deception). The church was copying what political rulers do (red horse deception). Give him Big Money (black horse deception). Elevate the leader until he is the Voice of God. Then you will fool a lot of people.

God had to allow the Devil time to learn how to set up a system that could fool the world. Each Gentile kingdom would partially succeed and then collapse. But Satan is a slow learner compared to God and as such the Devil needed hundreds of years to discover what works and what does not work.

The main reason for the 400 years was the learning curve that the Devil needed.

So, as the Jews sunk into unbelief, pagan religious beliefs began to flourish that would be polished up with Greek philosophy. These pagan beliefs ended in pagan Rome and then rose up in the Roman Catholic church before spreading to the Protestants and then undermining the Message-groups.

Consequently, the Devil was far more educated and far more deceptive.

God has used the Devil to filter out all those who are not dedicated to being strictly Scriptural.

Few would find the Scriptural truth in the end.

MATTHEW 7:14   Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

MATTHEW 24:4   And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

The Babylonians had all the mysteries of Nimrod.

An unsolved mystery captivates people’s thinking.

This is the reason for the success of Trinity. Is it one or three? Nobody knows for sure.

So, it keeps the people’s interest as they keep guessing.

The Persians conquered and built the first worldwide empire. They learned how to develop a centralized ruthless rule over this vast area. To hold the Empire together they forced all these Eastern people to worship the Persian king as a god.

An Eastern dictator stood in the place of God and forced everyone to obey him.

Then the Greeks spread their language and their clever philosophy worldwide. In Egypt, Alexander thought that he was the son of god. In Afghanistan, Alexander the Great became the first Western man to demand that he be worshipped as god. But his life was spent in the East.

When he tried to return to the West he died in Babylon.

Daniel saw the goat moving from the west, not to the west. Alexander was thus only victorious when he went towards the East. No man can break God’s predestinated pattern.

Finally, the Romans built the roads for travel and then adopted Caesar worship. They ruled brutally with the sword and ruthlessly grasped the money of people with their greedy taxes. The Roman emperors were worshipped as gods. Worshipping a man as god had finally become accepted in the West.

Then the pagan Roman Empire would collapse and die after AD 476 due to Barbarian invasions and migrations. The Roman Catholic Church would then resurrect this brutal pagan spirit on the ruins of the Roman Empire.

The Pope would be elevated above the people until he regained the power over people that the Roman Emperor had lost.

The first title of the Pope is Bishop of Rome.

The second title of the Pope is Vicarius Christi which means “In the place of Christ”.

This promotes the Pope to the Godhead as he is called Infallible and claims that he can forgive sin.

So, Satan was scheming to elevate a man to the level of God.

Message-people fell for the same trick as they claimed that brother Branham was infallible as the Voice of God.

Then they promoted him to the Godhead as the Son of man. Clever religious deception.

Consider the time limits that Daniel set for the Jews

DANIEL 9:24

Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city,

to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

The “Most Holy” will be the Temple that is used in the Millennium which is the 1000 years of Peace where there is everlasting righteousness because the Devil is sealed up in a bottomless pit by a chain of circumstances. The Bride and the 144000 and the Old Testament saints will be in new immortal bodies that can travel like a thought. Jesus can tell them about any thoughts of evil that people may be thinking up. They can instantly appear there and confront the schemers and have the authority of a rod of iron to very strictly punish any offenders. Thus, Satan cannot get his schemes going.

The Jews were promised 70 weeks (490 days or Bible years) from the order to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem that was given in 446 BC.

Artaxerxes became king in 465 BC so his 20^th year would be 446 BC.

REVELATION 11:2   But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.

:3    And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.

If 42 months is 1260 days then one month is 30 days.

Bible years of 12 months are 12 x 30 = 360 days.

Our year is 365.24 days.

Every year we have 5.24 days longer than a Bible year, so in 69 years we have 69 x 5.24 = 361 days extra.

This is almost one Bible year extra.

Thus 70 Bible years is the same length as 69 of our longer years.

So, 70 Bible years will be 1 year shorter on our calendar.

490 Bible years = 70 x 7 will be 7 years shorter than our longer years.

So, the Jews had to wait 490 – 7= 483 of our years

483 – 446 years BC in the Old Testament = 37 years AD in the New Testament.

But the last 7 years were Messiah’s ministry of one week or 7 days that began around October AD 29 when Jesus was almost 30 years old.

LUKE 3:23   And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age …

If they accepted Jesus, the Millennium would start in AD 37 and the Jews would rule the world.

But 3 months at the end of AD 29 (October, November, December) and three months at the beginning of AD 33 (January, February, March) until it was the Passover near the start of April AD 33, gave Jesus 6 months.

Then 30 to 31 was a year. 31 to 32 was a year. 32 to 33 was a year. That was a ministry of 3.5 years.

So, the Jews just had to wait and get thoroughly used to the false leadership of the Pharisees and Sadducees that are never mentioned in the Old Testament. This idea started in captivity in Babylon and slowly took over the Jewish worship as the centuries went by.

In the same way, the modern churches have had about 500 years since Luther’s Reformation to get thoroughly used to the unscriptural one-man-leadership of a pastor.

The word ‘pastors’ is only mentioned once in the New Testament and thus gives a pastor no authority to be in charge of a local church that should be run by a group of elders.

Persia conquered 3 regions that believed in trinities

Babylon and Egypt believed in trinities.

Then the Babylonian priesthood fled from Cyrus to live in Pergamos.

But another reason for this long gap was God having to give the Devil time to develop an alternative religion that could fool the future church.

Nimrod’s beliefs were established as the Mysteries of Babylon. The High Priests of the Babylonian Mysteries formed a chain of Successors that could reach all the way back to Nimrod.

The Popes claim to be a chain or line of successors that are able to reach all the way back to Saint Peter.

The Persian Empire was vast. Most of it was in the East as it went all the way to Afghanistan and beyond to  Tajikistan as well as portions of Pakistan and India. These immense eastern areas provided most of the vast wealth and manpower resources for the Persian king.

Map of the Persian empire

But Daniel does not mention Persia (the ram) going east which is where the bulk of the Persian Empire was.

DANIEL 8:3   Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.

The grandfather of Cyrus the Persian conquered an area that became the kingdom of the Medes, which is shown in red on the above map. This was the lower horn of the ram.

Persia started as the small dark green area. Cyrus became king and first conquered his grandad who was king of the Medes. Then they ruled together, with Cyrus being the main king. Daniel was not really interested in the conquest of Medes as this did not involve the Mysteries of Babylon.

Then Cyrus expanded the Persian Empire far beyond what the Medes had done. So, the Persian horn of the Ram was higher than the horn of the Medes.

Cyrus then went further westward to conquer Pergamos which was part of the kingdom of Lydia.

Then he conquered much of the East and turned his attention to Babylon which is northward of the original Persia. Then the son of Cyrus, Cambyses, went south to conquer Egypt.

DANIEL 8:4   I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great.

When Cyrus conquered Babylon he was angered by the Babylonian priesthood who fled to Pergamos. Later the Persian king Xerxes (also part of the Persian Ram) went further West to burn Athens.

This was a bad mistake as Alexander the Great later used that as an excuse to get the Greeks to conquer Persia.

Strangely, Daniel is not interested in the East. Why?

Daniel wants to track down the Mysteries of Babylon which will corrupt the future church and turn her into Mystery Babylon. These mysteries went from Babylon to Pergamos and then to Rome and then into the Roman Catholic Church (an unscriptural name) and then into the Protestant churches (an unscriptural name) and then into the Message-groups (an unscriptural name).

So, what happened in the East of the Persian Empire did not affect the Mysteries of Babylon.

Pergamos was the city where the Babylonian priesthood was establishing itself.

They offered the god-king of the kingdom of Pergamum the position of Pontiff or high priest. He then protected the Babylonian priesthood.

The trinity develops

Egypt was important because they believed in a trinity of mother, father, and son.

Alexander’s empire included part of India that had a trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva.

In Pergamos, the trinity belief of Egypt (father, son, and mother) merged with the trinity of India which had three males in the godhead. The trinity concept was evolving.

The Egyptian picture of three persons in the godhead showed the godhead as a big throne with three people sitting on it. Isis, Horus, and Seb. This was an easier model for the western people to accept.

Greek philosophers just had to change the female Isis for a male god. That would come to its conclusion later at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 when they chose the Holy Spirit as the unscriptural "third Person of the Trinity".

In Pergamos, clever Greek philosophy would develop an unscriptural "three-in-one" belief where you saw three “realities” that later became Persons. There were three realities but somehow (nobody knows how) there was only one reality. To this day, nobody can explain the Trinity.

“Co-equal”,  and “of the same substance” were clever Greek inventions. One substance but three Persons. One-in-three.  The three-are-one. These were heady days for clever philosophical speculations. It all sounded so clever. Yet it was just smoke-and-mirrors that revealed nothing definite. But those mystery-ideas fascinated the religious thinkers, but it was just an illusion of knowledge.

“Father and Son are of the same essence”. Whatever that means.

A godhead draped in a veil of tantalizing mystery.

So Greek philosophers manipulated words in a brilliant smokescreen that appeared to reveal and yet left people confused with no clear picture of who their God was nor what His name was, or was it their name? Or was it their names? Do you refer to God as He or They?

Gender-neutral words have the same problem. If you are unsure whether to address someone who insists on being gender-neutral, but who looks like a man, as “he” or “they”, then you must just refer to them by their name. But you cannot do this to God because the Trinity God has got no name. You cannot find one name for three People. So, Trinity believers and gender-neutral people share a common problem as they are trapped uncertainly between “He” and “They” or maybe "Us".

Pagans, who believed in multiple gods, could easily embrace this slick propaganda that mysteriously sees One and then, somehow, Three.

The Babylon mystery religion got a boost in its importance by having the priest-king of the Pergamum kingdom as its Pontiff and figurehead. They were no longer hiding unnoticed in the city of Pergamos from the major Persian king Cyrus who had been angry with them. The minor god-king Attalus of the kingdom of Pergamum was now their protector and Pontiff.

The city of Pergamos was the capital of the Kingdom of Pergamum.

Alexander was the first western god-king. And the four generals who succeeded him also called themselves god-kings. One of the four, General Lysimachus ruled the area around Pergamos as a god-king. The Attalid line of god-kings at Pergamos continued this tradition. Then the Babylonian priesthood offered the position of High Priest of the Babylonian Mysteries to the god-king of Pergamos who was now called the Pontiff.

Of the 7 churches in Revelation, only Pergamos has a Greek ending. This is the third church after Ephesus and Smyrna. Thus, it represents the third church age where Greek philosophy developed the very clever and deceptive idea of the Trinity Godhead. The Bible then called Pergamos the Seat of Satan. Once a person believes Trinity, they are easily fooled into other unscriptural errors like Christmas, 25 December, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Lent, and Pope, or Pontiff.

After AD 250 Catholic scholars began to merge Greek philosophy and pagan traditions into the Christian faith to produce an astonishingly deceptive but deadly hybrid belief built around a Trinity God and a dictatorial and infallible Pope. Greek thinking played a vital role in the rise of Roman Catholic creeds and beliefs.

The three-in-one God was a product of Greek philosophy as it is not written in the Bible.

So, the Roman Catholic Church changed its beliefs to suit Greek philosophy, instead of changing its own beliefs to suit what is written in the Bible.

A man is elevated to stand in the place of God

DANIEL 8:5   And as I was considering, behold, an he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes.

The goat represented the Greek power that produced Alexander the Great as the notable horn.

Alexander was unbeatable as long as he went from the West towards the East. The Greeks were represented as a GOAT.

But when the Greek soldiers finally mutinied in India and demanded to go back home, then he broke Scripture and went in the opposite direction from East to West.

He died mysteriously in Babylon which he intended to build up as a glorious city.

God’s Word said Babylon would descend into forsaken ruins.

So, Alexander twice opposed the Scripture and the western world’s greatest general died.

The lesson to be learned is that we must never oppose Scripture.

In today’s sporting world GOAT means the Greatest Of All Time. Using Alexander as an example of an outstanding general.

Alexander the Greek set this standard with his incredibly rapid conquering of the Persian Empire (as if his feet never touched the ground while he flew across the Persian Empire). He had a number of brilliant generals but he outshone them so that they were not really noticed while he was alive.

Alexander was the noticeable horn or power. In Egypt he declared himself to be the son of god. In Afghanistan, after a brutal genocide conquered the country, he declared himself to be god.

A western man claiming to be god. This was a new idea that had previously only been accepted in the East, starting with Nimrod who was called “El Bar” which means “God the Son”.

“God the Son” is unscriptural.

The Roman Catholic church copied this “God the Son” from Nimrod to Jesus as they developed their unscriptural Trinity. Calling Jesus “God the Son”, which is what Trinitarians do, is a real heathen insult to Him. Copying the title of the great rebel who opposed God after the Flood.

So, a western man (Alexander) was finally standing in the place of God on earth, demanding to be worshipped. And the Babylonian Priesthood called their High Priest “Pontiff”  as the religious head as well as calling him a god-king as the political head.

Eventually, the Pope promoted Saint Peter to be the man who decided if you will get into Heaven or not. Jesus is the Door to Heaven but the Roman Catholics claim that Peter stands in the place of God because he alone has the keys to open the Door for whoever he wishes. And they say that Peter will only open the Door to Heaven if you are in submission to the Pope.

So, in AD 754 Pope Stephen II produced a document called the Donation of Constantine which said that Peter was “Vicarius Filii Dei” which means “In the Place of the Son of God”.

A man standing in the place of God. A man elevated to replace God.

DANIEL 8:6   And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power.

The first two battles against Persia saw the Persians standing behind a river. In both cases Alexander charged over the river and defeated them.

DANIEL 8:7   And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand.

The Persian Empire was quickly defeated. Alexander continued going East and was unbeaten as Scripture showed the goat going from the West to the East. In India, he made contact with the trinity doctrine of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva (3 males). This would merge with and modify the Egyptian trinity of 2 males and a female in the city of Pergamos.

The Greek language would dominate the world and would be the language of the New Testament.

The Hebrews rejected Jesus so God broke them off like a branch from a tree and would not even use their language anymore.

As the Father, God had many names in the Old testament. But when God stopped using Hebrew in the New Testament, He also stopped using all His Old Testament names. The Hebrew name of Jehovah that dominates the Old Testament is never used in the New Testament. The Jehovah of the Old Testament had become the Jesus of the New Testament.

The new name of Jesus entered and the old name of Jehovah was never used again. Similar to a married woman who takes on the new name of her husband and never refers back to her old name from her father.

The worldly events have a deeper spiritual meaning

Suddenly Daniel speaks of Heaven which shows that the real battle is fought in the spiritual realm.

DANIEL 8:8   Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up

four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven.

After fighting in India for a while, the Greek army grew homesick and mutinied. So, Alexander who was at the peak of his powers now moved away from the far East back to Babylon.

The Bible said he would go from the West to the East. But when he left India he was moving in the wrong direction. When you move against Scripture you die.

Alexander’s generals fought against each other for 20 years until the four best ones were left. They arranged that the Greek Empire was carved into four portions. Cassander in Macedon. Seleucus in Asia. Ptolemy in Egypt,

and Lysimachus in Thrace and Pergamum which had the city of Pergamos with the evil Babylonian priesthood.

Each of those rulers, like Alexander had done, called themselves a god-king too. These were the four wings of the fowl that were on the leopard.

They still regarded themselves as god-kings but the quality was declining. Fowls cannot fly as high as eagles.

The wings represented the four general's claims that they could fly up to heaven and hear the will of the gods.

But now the vision loses interest in the territorial ambitions of men, which did not interest Daniel, and he began to see the spiritual significance of the four winds of heaven.

The little horn of the Babylonian priesthood (that would finally emerge as Vatican City) grew out of one of the four Greek horns, the city of Pergamos ruled by Lysimachus.

The spiritual world, the four winds of heaven, is the scene of an intense struggle between God and Satan.

On earth, the only portion of Alexander’s Empire that was important was the city of Pergamos which sheltered the Babylonian mysteries that were merging with the trinity ideas of Egypt and India. General Lysimachus ruled here as a god-king. Years later the family of Attalid kings took over who also called themselves god-kings. The Babylonian priesthood offered the god-king Attalus the position of Pontifex.

The scene was being set. The Pontifex or Babylonian high priest was now also a god-king. A man who could be worshipped as a god. All he needed was a bigger following. But the Greek Empire was split in four and Pergamos was a small city in one of the four kingdoms.

The Vatican will rise to power

DANIEL 8:9   And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.

The little horn is the Vatican City which has 150 members with passports living there. It is less than one square kilometer in size. It is the end product of Satan's scheme to rule the world.

The East is the home of demonology as Cain went East taking his lying and murderous demons with him.

The child abuse accusations against the Catholic clergy demonstrate the demonology in the system.

The pleasant land is Israel. The final Pope will make a covenant with the Jews for their Stock Exchange money which will help finance his one-world government.

King of the north today is Russia. The dictator Putin rules by eliminating opposition. His brutal 2022 attack on Ukraine shows his nature which is to kill and destroy.

The queen of the South was the queen of Sheba who Jesus spoke highly of. That seems to refer to the churches.

MATTHEW 12:42   The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.

The Vatican City will undermine the Protestant churches and teach them the Catholic errors.

Pergamos. The smallest of the 4 Greek kingdoms produced the god-king Pontiff.

But Pergamos was a temporary place for the Pontiff. In 133 BC the god-king Attalus III offered his wealthy kingdom to Rome.

Babylonian error turns saints into intercessors

DANIEL 8:10   And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.

Julius Caesar bribed his way to become Pontiff in 63 BC.

Caesar became the most famous Roman. He destroyed the Roman Republic and established himself as a Dictator for life.

After his death, Pergamos began to worship Julius Caesar as a god.

His fame gave incredible prestige to the Babylonian priesthood of the Babylonian Mysteries because Caesar was their Pontiff.

Caesar had a sister and her grandson Augustus became the first Emperor of the Roman Empire.

Pergamos began to worship Augustus while he was still alive.

Caesar worship had arrived in the West.

This title stayed with the Roman Emperor until Emperor Theodosius in AD 382 refused, as a Christian, to be the pagan High Priest and gave this title to his uncle Damasus who was Bishop of Rome. Damasus killed about 300 of his rival’s supporters in order to become elected as the Bishop of Rome.

As Pontiff, Damasus welcomed the Babylonian priesthood into high positions in the Roman Catholic church. The Roman Catholics began praying to Mary and Peter and the dead saints.

This is spiritism, communicating with the dead, as it effectively pulled them down from Heaven and destroyed their reputations.

DANIEL 8:11   Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

As long as Jerusalem and the Temple stood that would always be the pre-eminent church for the early Christians. That way, Rome could not rise to be the pre-eminent church. So, God had to organize for pagan Rome to destroy Jerusalem and the Temple so that the Roman Catholic church could rise to be the main church.

The Pope called himself "Vicarius Christi" which means "in the place of Christ".

By claiming that the Pope could forgive sin, the Pope took over the ministry of Jesus.

Eventually, the Pope was selling indulgences whereby people could buy forgiveness for their sins. The Sistine Chapel and Saint Peters Church were built in the Vatican from the money collected from the sale of indulgences.

The Roman church changed the Scriptures and preferred to manufacture man-made beliefs made out of the pagan Roman traditions that were dressed up in Greek philosophy. The birthday of the pagan Roman sun god became the birthday of the Roman Catholic Son of God.

The pagan Roman General Titus destroyed the Temple or Sanctuary in AD 70 which ended the daily sacrifice that could only be offered up in the Temple. When the Temple was destroyed then there was no more daily sacrifice.

DANIEL 8:12   And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered.

In Pilate’s judgement hall all the Jews rejected Jesus and claimed Caesar as their king. The whole vast crowd was opposed to truth and preferred a murderer, Barabbas.

The pagan Roman traditions had a host of followers who replaced the Bible truths of the early church with pagan ideas. Christmas, 25 December, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Lent.

All the barbarian tribes happily joined the Roman Catholic church because the Catholic church had absorbed their pagan traditions.

Unscriptural beliefs entered the church through its one-man-is-the-head-of-the-church structure.

The pagan barbarians were impressed with the pagan mysteries in the church which made it easier for the pagans to join the church and swell their numbers.

Christianity became diluted with paganism

Greek philosophy was very clever and their subtle arguments took people away from Scripture. Today we see brother Branham called the Voice of God and this clever argument has taken people away from the beliefs of the first church age. The New Testament never promised that there would be the Voice of God, just the voice of the seventh angel. But Gentiles love unscriptural ideas.

Until the 200s Christians tended to be small groups scattered around. Then barbarians invaded, a pandemic went around, and Gaul (France) and Palmyrene (Syria) declared independence. There was famine and the economy collapsed. Christians stepped into the gap. They fed the poor, treated the sick, and alleviated poverty for decades. Then a military general called Aurelian restored order and as Emperor, he identified with Sol Invictus (the sun god) as his god. The emperor became a demi-god. For Romans all gods were real and monotheism was wrong as it also undermined the emperor’s power. Greeks had many gods. Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, Venus (many planets). But Sol Invictus was a single god. There is only one sun in the sky. This was a game-changer. People began to think about monotheism thanks to Aurelian. The birth of the sun god on 25 December, which was started by Aurelian in AD 274, helped focus on one god. Hence it was copied around AD 350 by Pope Julius 1 as Christmas, the birthday of the Son of God.

Pagan Roman Emperor Diocletian started a savage 10-year persecution between AD 302 – 312 but the Christians survived this dark night. Constantine stopped the killing and imposed a religion that honoured both Christ and Sol Invictus as he sought to unify the religion of the empire. Christianity became legitimate as this gave Constantine political gain. Constantine showered much wealth upon the church and Bishops. The Bishop of Rome was given the Lateran Palace on the Caelian Hill (one of the original 7 hills of Rome) as his seat of authority. The Lateran Palace still remains the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church today. Constantine's financial and political support allowed the Pope to rise up to power over the other churches.

REVELATION 13:1   And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

Seven heads. The seven hills that Rome was originally built on.

60-1208 THE  THYATIREAN  CHURCH  AGE

... and blasphemed his name. Took "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" instead of the "Lord Jesus Christ."

REVELATION 13:2   ... and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

Satan gave the Pope his seat when the Emperor Constantine gave the Lateran Palace to the Pope to be his headquarters and his seat of authority.

Christians adopted pagan customs by giving them Christian names. The church copied the date 25 December from the birthday of the pagan Roman sun god. They copied the decorated Christmas tree from the pagans.

Greek philosophers, to keep in with the pagans who had many gods, used clever Greek philosophy to develop a mysterious unexplainable three-in-one God. Three Persons Who are each God somehow combine to be one God. Three-in-one is a term from Greek philosophy. These three are of the same “essence” (whatever that means as “essence” is an unscriptural word that comes from Greek philosophy). Lent, the rosary, and woman worship followed with Mary-worship. Monday is named after the Moon-goddess. Friday is named after the woman goddess Freya. So, Calvary was changed from Thursday to Friday to honour Freya. Three nights in the tomb meant Jesus rose on a Monday (Moon goddess day). So, Easter Monday was introduced and is still believed today even though people know Jesus rose on Sunday and nothing important happened on the Monday.

Jesus had to die on Thursday in order for Him to spend three nights in the tomb before He rose from the dead on Sunday morning.

Thursday night. Friday night. Saturday night.

MATTHEW 12:40    For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The dilution of Christianity with paganism and the mysteries of Babylon turned the Roman church into Mystery Babylon. The Roman Catholic church had enough paganism to attract the barbarians and thus remained the only Roman institution that survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

When the pagan Roman Empire died in AD 476 when Odoacer of the Heruli tribe seized power, then the Roman Catholic Church resurrected up the pagan spirit of pagan Rome on the ruins of the seven hills of Rome. The Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline hill had been the headquarters of the pagan Roman Empire. It lost all power when the barbarians conquered the Roman Empire. Now the Lateran Palace on the Caelian Hill became the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church as the Pope rose to power.

Each of the 7 heads represented a hill.

REVELATION 13:3   And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

Thus the Roman Catholic church resurrected the cruel spirit of the pagan Roman Empire as it set out to conquer the world as a church.

Agricultural lands were given to the Roman church to avoid their confiscation by barbarians. Tax-free monasteries arose. The Roman Catholic priests became fat, lazy, monastic landlords. Error prospered.

Denominational errors spread throughout Europe in the Dark Ages.