I should NOT be in here! I have almost gotten the files ready to send to Anne, who is probably on pins and needles waiting for her email to ding! But I cannot stop thinking about something, and I am taking that as the Holy Spirit nagging my heart LOL. A characteristic of the Roman beast throughout the Middle Ages, has been, refusal to repent of their sins. This is mentioned more than once in Revelation and is discussed in the book.
Of course we have identified that characteristic as belonging to the Roman papacy, as have the vast majority of Reformers and Protestants up to the 20th century. But something I read recently has been nagging at me and I cannot shake it:
In 2015, after a historic visit to a Waldensian Temple in Turin, Pope Francis, in the name of Roman Catholic Church, asked Waldensian Christians for forgiveness for their persecution. The Pope apologized for the Church’s “un-Christian and even inhumane positions and actions.
Wikipedia, “Waldensians,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldensians
SO here’s my crazy thought. What if the Papacy is not destroyed violently, as is often thought among historicists, but is merely destroyed by a REPENTANCE of the Roman Church for its unbiblical expression, and accompanied by a stepping down of the pope at some point in the future, because of the Holy Spirit’s conviction to call no man on earth your father, a direct prophesy, I am thinking, from the Lord’s mouth, concerning the rise of this antichristian system?
This puts me in mind of a novel written by an Roman scholar and a Jesuit who has repented, Malachi Martin. I have his history book, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church, but not his novel, which name escapes me at the moment. It is about a hypothetical scenario in which, at a future time, the Vatican is unable to recommend a new pope, and what happens in the church and the world as a result. I haven’t read the novel, so I don’t know his conclusion! But I cannot stop thinking about this, and the possibility that the Papacy might just REPENT altogether, to cease being an expression of the Roman beast!
COMMENT UPDATE: So, the RCC would sort of “self destruct” from within? But in a good way?
CHRISTINE’S UPDATE: It might happen! I know so many are true Christians as far as devotion and love in their circumcised hearts toward God!
COMMENT UPDATE: Are the Waldensians the ones we were discussing, who were Torah keepers?
CHRISTINE’S UPDATE: Yes they were, and interestingly enough, the predecessors of the Baptists!