ARE YOU FOLLOWING JESUS OR THE VOICE OF SATAN?

THE REBEL HOUSE

The 1st Epistle of John was written sometime about 95-100 AD. It was in reaction to the heresies and schisms that were infecting members of the church universal (Ekklesia katholou Acts 9:31) or Catholic Church founded by Jesus and was being built through the works of his lead Apostles headed by St. Peter and the early disciples of mixed races, Jews and Gentiles. There were those who left the church very early to form and follow their own heretical beliefs and worst found their own sects churches. Some short-lived but their poison seeds have lived on till today.

Heresy comes the word heterodox which is the opposite of orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is fidelity to the tradition and teachings of Jesus as preached and taught by the Apostles. Heterodox are forms of Christian beliefs that deviated from orthodox teachings. They are called heretical teachings. Schism is departing from the church in view of obstinacy to heretical beliefs. Heresy, therefore, breeds rebellion that leads to schism from the Catholic Church to establish their own churches.

In chapter 2:18-23 it says  "Children, it is the last hour; and just as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But their departure made it clear that none of them belonged to us. You, however, have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.  I have not written to you because you lack knowledge of the truth, but because you have it, and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar, if it is not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son can have the Father; whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.

Since heresy is a deviation from the proclaimed truth of Christianity by the Catholic Church, they deny Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah. Although they still use the name Christian they are in effect and in truth no longer Christians but pseudo-Christians.

In his 1st Epistle St. John identifies one of the marks of the antiChrists that will make us be watchful and aware of who they are. They are the ones who left the true church because of doctrinal issues that are based on their own appreciation of the truth and not based on the teachings handed down by the Lord through the Apostles.

The rebels have lured other Christians to their teachings.  They have come out of the church and to them, the scripture is fulfilled. "Son of man, you live in the midst of the rebellious house, who have eyes to see but do not see, ears to hear but do not hear; for they are a rebellious house. (Ezekiel 12:2) Such rebellion did not stop with just a few but they multiplied in every generation, rebellion against the church continuous armed with their heretical beliefs even today.

ST. CYPRIAN's UNITY OF THE CHURCH

As the first century came to a close, the Apostles successors, the Bishops that were ordained as priests and ordained under authority passed on by the Apostles to their successors in the Catholic Church took up the cudgels from the Apostles in keeping the unity in the Catholic Church and upholding the holy traditions of the Apostles both in oral and written forms. They are called and known as the Fathers of the Church. One of these Fathers is the Bishop of Carthage, St. Cyprian.

Cyprian was born in the year 2000. He was a pagan public speaker and teacher from Carthage in North Africa but converted to Christianity around the year 246 AD. He immersed himself in the study of the Scripture and the writings and the writings of the first great Latin theologian from North Africa, Tertullian. By the grace of God, like St. Paul, he grew so rapidly in holiness and knowledge of the faith that he was appointed bishop of Carthage only two years later. However, a few months in his episcopate another persecution of Christians broke out again under Decius and the relative peace enjoyed by the church was short-lived that Cyprian was forced to flee his see or Office of Bishop. Peace once more returned and he came back to the episcopate only to be confronted with problems of those who lapsed in their faith under pressure from persecution coming back to reconcile with the church. After a few years of peace, persecution of the church once more began under Emperor Valerian. Cyprian was martyred in  Carthage on September 14, 258 but left behind many writings in defense of the Catholic Church particularly the epistle in Unity of the Catholic Church.

In the middle of 3rd Millenium St. Cyprian who was a public speaker and  prolific writer before he converted to Christianity wrote in 250 AD where he defended the UNITY OF THE CHURCH against heresy and schisms saying “He, Satan, has invented heresies and schisms, whereby he might subvert the faith, corrupt the truth, and divide the unity of the church.”

The Lord did not found churches of different doctrines and faith but only one united Catholic Church. while it is established in many nations and cities worldwide. The true church is united in one body with the Lord as the head. One Lord, one baptism, and one faith. He rebuked those who set up as Church Leaders to start their own churches. In modern times does it not the same as what the leaders of the Protestant churches using their heretical doctrines they have set up themselves as leaders to separate from the Catholic Church from which they rebelled and protested against.

THE VOICE OF SATAN

Paganism the kingdom of Satan is crumbling opposite the growth of the church even under sporadic persecution depending on who is the Emperor of Rome. Satan found a new way to deceive through heresies and schisms which according to the Fathers of the Church are the gates of hell. St. Cyprian said in Chapter III of the epistle:

“He [Satan] has invented heresies and schisms, whereby he might subvert the faith, might corrupt the truth, might divide the unity. Those whom he cannot keep in the darkness of the old way, he circumvents and deceives by the error of a new way.  He snatches men from the Church itself; and while they seem to themselves to have already approached to the light, and to have escaped the night of the world, he pours over them again, in their unconsciousness, new darkness.”

“So that, although they do not stand firm with the Gospel of Christ, and with the observation and law of Christ, they still call themselves Christians, and, walking in darkness, they think that they have the light, while the adversary is flattering and deceiving, who, according to the apostle’s word, transforms himself into an angel of light, and equips his ministers as if they were the ministers of righteousness, who maintain night instead of day, death for salvation, despair under the offer of hope, perfidy under the pretext of faith, antichrist under the name of Christ; so that, while they feign things like the truth, they make void the truth by their subtlety. This happens, beloved brethren, so long as we do not return to the source of truth, as we do not seek the head nor keep the teaching of the heavenly Master.”

Therefore those who call themselves Christians but leave the Catholic Church for a Christian sect is following the voice of Satan.

ST. CYPRIAN UPHOLDS LEADERSHIP OF PETER IN THE CHURCH

“There is easy proof for faith in a short summary of the truth. The Lord speaks to Peter, saying, “I say unto thee thou art Peter; and upon this rock, I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” And again to the same He says, after His resurrection, “Feed my sheep.”

Those today who have invented the lie that St. Peter is not the head of the church and the first Bishop of Rome and therefore the Pope, here St. Cyprian defended the See of Peter as the head of the Catholic Church and exercised Apostolic Authority overall the church from which authority emanates for all the Bishops and priests.

“And although to all the apostles, after His resurrection, He gives an equal power, and says, “As the Father hath sent me, even so, send I you: Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they shall be remitted unto him; and whose soever sins ye retain, they shall be retained;” yet, that He might set forth unity, He arranged by His authority the origin of that unity, as beginning from one. Assuredly the rest of the apostles were also the same as was Peter, endowed with a like partnership both of honor and power; but the beginning proceeds from unity.”

The See of St. Peter is the mark of the true Church that Jesus Christ founded and for St. Cyprian, his presence among the twelve holds together the ecclesial unity the Church. Where Peter is there is the Catholic Church of Christians. The words of the Lord is a prophesy where his church will be built upon the rock which is Peter. Today the main church of the Catholics worldwide, St. Peter's Basilica in Rome stands on top of his remains which is in an ossuary made up of "rock". On this rock I will build my church is the mark where the true church will be built.

Can any of the so-called Bible-believing "Christians" start a new church because the Protestants teach that they are all are called to priesthood? The answer is NO. Biblical evidence and historical facts affirmed that Jesus founded a structured apostolic and hierarchical church. It is therefore convenient for Protestantism to insist on their heretical teaching of Sola Scriptura which is open to free interpretation and not subject to the teaching authority of the church, the Magisterium. Breaking away from such has clothed their churches with legitimacy instead of what they truly are, schismatics heresy, a Rebel House. Such continuing heresy has produced thousands of churches of different denominations each having their own teaching authority that is solely rested on the founder and their successors that come from the same family as children. By rewriting biblical doctrines of the Catholic Church designed to serve and legitimize their rebellious action, they have now effectively cut off their members from the body of Christ that is the Catholic church.

Bro Manny OTFS Apologist

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