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Lansing SDA Church

Wes Peppers

Popes, Prophecies, and the Sons of God

And I have a very special message that I need to share with you this morning.

I think it's very timely, and I'm going to ask very special prayers from you.

The message is, I'm hoping to get done in a suitable time, and we may have to slip past some of it, but you'll pray and it's a very serious message.

So I really hope that your hearts are open this morning And I really pray that for those of you who are with us that are not familiar with these things, I'm not going to be able to give a comprehensive understanding of them, but there is a beautiful foundation that I can lay for you.

And so if you walk in this morning and you're a little bit surprised at what you're hearing, there is something that comes before that.

So I want to encourage you to see me and I'll be happy to visit with you.

And so please join with me in prayer, and we're going to ask the Lord's blessing to be with us.

Father in heaven, we thank you so much this morning for the truth.

I am the way, the truth, and the life, He said.

And He said all your commandments are truth.

And this morning, Father, we need a special portion of your grace for the message that I'm going to share.

It's a message that I think every person on earth needs to hear.

And there's no more suitable place than to share it here and now.

Lord, the signs of the times are all around us.

And oh Lord, we pray today that our hearts would be awakened to what is happening in the world as every phase of prophecy is closing in and the things that we have been believing for many decades are coming to pass today.

So we ask Lord that you would draw near to us and that we would draw near to you and we ask for your blessing now And I ask you to anoint my lips and give me just the right words to speak in every moment.

Help me not to go too long or too short, but let everything be done according to your will today.

Scripture tells us in the book of 2 Peter chapter 1, you may turn there or you can read it off the screen, the Apostle Peter addresses the Church of God and he says these words, and so we have the prophetic word confirmed.

And he says, Which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

The apostle Peter told us that we have a prophetic word that we are to give heed to.

And Seventh-day Adventist Christians are adamant students of Bible prophecy.

And yet there's many people today that are beginning to emphasize or try to establish the idea that prophecy is not really that important.

That prophecy is not really that big of a deal.

And I find it very interesting that the people that proclaim that are proclaiming it in a time when prophecy is unraveling before our very eyes.

The very final moments of prophecy are upon us and now comes the cry of many, all these things are just as they always were, that's not really that big of a deal, nothing is really happening that serious.

In fact, as these things are unraveling, Many are saying we need to redefine our understanding, our interpretation of prophecy.

Now at the center of every prophecy is who?

And we would never want to preach prophecy without uplifting Jesus.

The Revelation tells us that it is the...

The book about itself says that it is the revelation of who?

All prophecy climaxes, all prophecy centers around, all prophecy is saturated with who?

How many of you would agree with that today?

And yet the Bible speaks about specific groups and specific systems of error that would exist in the last days.

And today people are becoming very bashful about preaching that message and I will not be among those.

I'm going to be your friend today, I'm going to preach that in love, but the Bible speaks about a system that would exist in the last days.

In the book of Daniel chapter 7, it speaks about an end time prophecy revealing a system that would exist upon the earth in the last days that would bring error to the world, contrary to Bible truth.

In Daniel chapter 7 verse 8, the Bible says, I was considering the horns.

Now, there's some background to this, and this is part of me not being able to have all the time I need to go through the whole thing, but I'm going to cut to the main points.

The Bible talks about some beasts in Daniel 7, and then it reveals a horn that would rise up, and that horn we're going to identify here.

The Bible says, I was considering the horns, and there was another horn, a little 1, coming up among them.

And there in his horns were the eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking pompous words." And in Daniel chapter 8 verse 12 it speaks about this horn and it says that he would cast truth to the ground and he did all of this and what?

Now in Daniel chapter 7, as it reveals this power that would exist in the last days, Bible scholars agree that this would be the Antichrist power of end-time prophecy.

Now there are 10 identifying points that reveal who that little horn power is.

We don't have time to go through all of those today.

But when you go through all 10 of those identifying points, you discover very quickly and historically that this power points to, or this prophecy points to, none other than the Roman Catholic Church or the papacy.

Now, This is not a new belief, this is not some idea that just came out of a hat, but this is an idea and a concept and an understanding of prophecy that Christians have had for hundreds of years.

In fact, every church a hundred plus years ago, whether it was Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, it doesn't matter who it was, every church a hundred plus years ago was preaching this message.

So when I say this, that we understand through prophecy and the points of identification of this power, that this power would be the end time Antichrist, we are not talking about Roman Catholic people.

Now let me say that again, just so everyone understands.

We are talking about a Roman Catholic system, not Roman Catholic what?

There are wonderful, godly, Christian people in every denomination, amen?

And then there are also rotten rascals in every Christian denomination, yes or no?

I mean you Look at the first church in the book of Acts before Jesus died.

I mean, you had a bunch of scoundrels, right?

Then you had 1 who was a really, really rotten apple, right?

So there are good and bad in every group.

We're talking about that the Bible identifies a system, not a people.

I just want to make sure we're clear on that.

Many of the great Christians of the Reformation and post-Reformation shared this view of prophetic truth and identified the Roman papacy as the Antichrist power.

And among those were the Waldenses, the Hussites, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Zwingli, Melanchthon, Walter Tyndale, Latimer, and Ridley.

I stood in England just about a year ago on the very place where Latimer, Ridley, and a gentleman named Thomas Cranor were burned at the stake for preaching against that church during the Dark Ages.

Martin Luther makes the statement, we are convinced that the papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist.

You should know that the Pope is the real, true, final Antichrist of whom the entire Scripture speaks, of whom the Lord is beginning to consume with the spirit of his mouth, and will very soon destroy and slay with the brightness of His coming, for which we are waiting." So Martin Luther held this belief.

John Calvin makes this statement, and I love it, because there are many people today who say, to preach such a message is too harsh.

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Popes, Prophecies, and the Sons of God

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