Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Thursday July 12, 2007

I recall saying just this week that the more things change the more they remain the same. And now along comes the Pope and causes me to seem a prophet.

Please, this is not an attack on the Pope, but a bird's eye view on the idiocy of many Protestant/Baptist folks who should have known better. That the Roman Church claims to be the only bearer of the Cup of Salvation really shouldn't come as news to either Romans or others. This doctrine is firmly rooted and often obnoxiously taught from many pages in its literature. Most who can read know that the claims are spurious as the Roman church was brought into existence at the direct order of Constantine with the objective of bringing the warring sects of Christianity under one head and that of the headship of the state with a religious figure head, called then the Pope, who would in modern times be referred to in Russia as "Minister of Cults."

That there were many Christian groups operating from the time of Christ to the usurpation of power by Constantine is noted overwhelmingly by the history of the Church as recorded by the Early Fathers. The Popish legions have not been able to stamp out these "heretics" in the last two thousand years, thus failing to comfortably sustain the image of divine authority.

What does this have to do with you as you face the realities of life in the 21st Century? Everything, for you must come to grips with your personal responsibility to Christ. When all is said and done you are the one who will stand before God and give account. Billy Graham will not be by your side, nor will the Pope represent your case. One will represent you or you will leave the assize alone and that will not be good.

The "means of salvation" as the Pope stated it, are not in the church, the apostles, the water or the cup of communion, but in Christ alone.

During the years since Pope John's reformation, knowledgeable biblical oriented Christians have argued that the ecumenical drift of the Roman church was more illusion than substantive. Now the pronouncement by the Pope that he is the Vicar of Christ and salvation is available only through his group brings us full circle to the meanness of the last twenty centuries and gives enormous creditability to those who refused to buy into the illusion of major change at the highest levels of Rome.

Perhaps the Pope has realized that "his" truth is more important than the financial arrangement reached a number of years ago for Protestants to stop evangelizing Romans and vice versa.

Please understand I am not writing this missile with the idea of renewing religious war, but only to remind you that the Pope's statement aside, you must give account to God and you don't need the Pope, you need Jesus.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2007 Use with credit.

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