Tuesday 23 September 2008

Why Rome, not Jerusalem? Why Italy, not Israel?

My friends, I have another question that I believe many of us also want to know the answer. Why the 'true' church laid in Rome 'The City of Seven Hills' not in Jerusalem 'The Holy City of God'? Should not the church of Christ be in Jerusalem since it is the center of the earth?

If you look at a map of the world and find the point just where Asia, Africa and Europe meet, you will see Israel. When God chose this location for the Holy Land, it just happened to be the very crossroads of the known world. Archaeologist indicate the city of Jerusalem is very ancient, perhaps as old as 3000 BC. The city is mentioned throughout the Bible, over 600 times in the Old Testament, somewhat less in the New Testament.

I believe that in Ezekiel's time, there is no world map ever been made, the scholars still thought that the world is flat. But again, Bible proves itself the Word of God.

Ezekiel 5:5 (KJV)

Thus said the Lord GOD; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the middle of the nations and countries that are round about her.

Ezekiel 38:12 (ESV)

the people who were gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell at the center of the earth.

Later a computer study proved that. Israel is the navel of the world, and Jerusalem is its center, and the Holy Temple is at the center of Jerusalem, and the Holy of Holies is at its center, and the Holy Ark is at the center of the Holy of Holies, and in front of it is the Foundation Stone on which the world was founded. That Foundation Stone is God Himself. He is the Rock, Ancient of the Day. God is the center of the universe.

Isaiah 44:8

Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.

So, my question is:

Why Vatican, not Jerusalem?

My friends, if you see the power and the wealth of Vatican, and also the political influence of the Pope that can make George Bush, Sarkozy, Putin, Merkel, Blair bow down before him. Can you imagine how easy for Vatican to gain control over Jerusalem? But why they never been able to be established there?

Ehud Olmert, Prime minister of Israel

Mahmoud Abbas, President of Palestine

With that kind of political diplomacy and supreme power of that papacy, why Israel or Palestine never give the Jerusalem to the Pope?

The only answer is: God wants them to always be in Rome "City of seven Hills". It also the fulfillment of Revelation 17:9 This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits.

It is the place where Janus (god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings and endings) has his throne. The same god that Catholic believe has the keys of kingdom of heaven and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. This mute and dead idol, Janus, has replaced Jesus, he deceived many Catholic believers to end up as idolaters, instead of believers. If you read the whole Revelation 17, you will astonish with what God has said. All are being fulfilled exactly the same.

Janus

It said "With her the kings of the earth committed adultery and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries" (Revelation 17:2) Which means many people were deceived by her. Can you imagine 1.3 billion of Catholics are the victim of this false religion.

You know what "intoxicated" means? It is like a man who is so drunk. He doesn't know who he is, where he lives, what he does, etc. If the normal person see there is a danger in front of him, this man can't see it. And he thinks that he is the only one who is right. He become self-righteous. He despise instruction and wisdom.

Proverbs 1:7

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

They worship idols and men and angels (Pope, Mary statues, rosary, saints, archangels). They said Pope is infallible, always correct, or in other word, he isn't under subject of anything, he is man of lawlessness. Do you think Satan can't do all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders? Don't be foolish, my friends. If you think that Satan can't do healing, miracles, etc, you already drunk with the wine of adulteries.

2 Thessalonians 2:9-12

The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceived those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

By keep doing that, you will perish in hell as idolaters, not believers. Come out of her, God's people. Don't share in her sins, don't receive any of her plagues. Open your eyes and see. Read your Bible. But if you insist to stay there, God probably has sent you a powerful delusion so that you will believe in lie. We speak in different language, you can't understand what I am trying to pass. If I were you, I would ask God, "Is this crazy man, Alvin, telling me the truth?" I will start to read my Bible and won't trust my eternity on people who you call "father", but he himself never know your name. Open your eyes and see, my dear friends.

My friends, please stop making excuse for yourself. You said these statues help you to pray more. You said you pray to God, not to the statues. What will you say to the people who pray in front of the rock, or tree? Will you not say that he commit idolatry? Go and ask them why they do that. They will answer the same like you. "I am not worshipping stone or tree, but God. Stones and trees are created by God, so by praying through them, I worship God who created them. I pray to God through His creations." My friends, if those people you call idolaters, why don't you call yourself idolaters too?

That's all about Rome "The City of Seven Hills" with Vatican state as headquarter of papacy.

Shouldn't they establish themselves in Jerusalem?

For your information, the Holy Temple has been built twice. First, built by Solomon. It was laid waste as Babylonians conquered Judah and Israel in 586 BC, many of Israelites died because of sword and famine, other went into exile. It was to fulfill the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel. Daniel was among those who were in exile. It was also prophecied by Jeremiah that Israel will experience 70 years in exile (Daniel 9:2). And also based on revelation God gave to Daniel through dream about 4 beasts, The Babylonian Empire (626 BC - 539 BC) was overpowered by Medo-Persia Empire (550 BC - 330 BC).

In 538 BC, after 50 years of Babylonian captivity, Persian King Cyrus the Great invited the Jews to return to Judah to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. Construction of the Second Temple was completed in 516 BC, during the reign of Darius the Great, 70 years after the destruction of the First Temple. Bible proves itself right again, it is exactly 70 years in exile, no more no less. Glory to God.

Because of Jerusalem's importancy; Babylonian, Medo Persia, Greek (Macedonia) and also Roman always want to conquer Jerusalem, and because of Israelites commited adultery with idols, God let it happened. Israel was totally devastated and if you know from the history, between prophet Malachi to Jesus' birth, there was a time gap about 400 years. God didn't speak to people, He didn't sent any prophets at all. It happened because people were so wicked. Jerusalem and all the world were under Satan's power.

Bur because of God's love, when He knew that no one was righteous, not even one, no one who understands, no one who seeks God, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:10-11, 23), In His Sovereignity, He did something that can't be comprehended by many people, but He still did it because of His love for the world.

God is God, He must stand in His Word, He can't take back what He has said before the beginning of the world, otherwise how can He judge the world? Because He knew that nobody was righteous and all of His creation will perish if He didn't do something then He chose to die in His Word. He sent His begotten Son to be atonement of world's sin. God sacrifice Himself to save His creations.

Do you know what it takes for us to reconcile with God? The blood of God, the blood of Jesus. If you saw the crucification in Golgota, there were 3 crosses there, 2 crosses were for sinners, wicked beings, but the one in the middle was sinless, without sins, you and me are supposed to be hang there, die in our iniquities, but Jesus died for us. God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Isaiah 42:21

Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief: when you shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

It pleased God to send His begotten Son to die on the cross so that we, His creations, can be reconciled with Him again. The Father loves us so much, He chose to give up His one and only Son for the world. Can you imagine the extend of the Love of God for you? Who are we that God chose to bruise His Son rather than to see us perish? Don't we are so tiny compare to sun, moon and stars? But why God see us so precious, why He treat us as apple of His eyes, He even knows the number of our hairs, we are fearfully and wonderfully made by Him.

Can you really understand His love for you? Can you really understand what it takes to bring us back to Him, to pay for our eternal condemnation? We should be doomed in hell, not have an eternal life. It is not because of our works, but it is the gift of God. Do you really understand the extend of His love for you? If you really do, you should love God, love His command, and His command is not burdensome. His command is to love your God and to love your neighbours. Is that difficult for you? If we love God, we wants to see Him be exalted, be glorified, be magnified. Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise --- the fruit of lips that confess his name (Hebrews 13:15).

This is serious, not joking, my friends. You should be grateful to God for He chose to die for us. But please listen carefully to what Bible said "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of jugdment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God (Hebrews 10:26-27). Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

You can choose to continue living in your sinful life even though you've already known that Jesus has died for you, and receive punishment from the living God. Or you can choose to repent and get saved. What you need to be saved is just repentance toward God and faith toward Jesus Christ. Surrender all to Him. Repent and live, my friends.

Why you choose to perish and eternally condemned in Hell? Why you choose to joke with the living God? Why you don't want to come back to your sense and ask mercy and forgiveness, invite Him to be your Saviour and King? What you need to do is just pray and talk with Him, pour out your burden, sinful life, everything to Him, He will listen to you, He will give you a new heart, a new life, and His Spirit. You are no longer His enemy, you are Children of God. And children will try to do anything to please their Father, right? And also Father will give anything that His children ask, will He not? Is it not good to have this kind of relationship, my friends?

That's the new covenant, new testament gospel, not by Law of Moses, but by grace of God.

Let's come back to talk about history of Jerusalem to answer why Vatican, not Jerusalem?

Jesus' coming changed everything. Satan lost his control over Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the place where Jesus was crucified, Jerusalem is the place where God poured His Holy Spirit on Pentacost. Jerusalem also known as the great city for Jewish since Holy Temple of Solomon and Herod was there. And for long, the Orthodox Jewish always resisted the Vatican to gain control there. Even when the Rome destroyed to Jewish Holy Temple in 70 AD to fulfill Jesus' prophecy in Matthew 24:2. Vatican still always failed to rule there, since Christian churches began to flourish and spread rapidly. It also support what Bible said that the true church is holding the secret power of lawlessness, and will do so until it is taken out of the way (1 Thessalonians 2:7).

For this reason, Vatican hates Bible believers and through Council of Trent, she condemned them. Vatican also hate the Jewish since it always resist her to gain control over Jerusalem. That's why Holocaust happened, that's why Iranian nuclear and genocide weapon developed right now, that's why Zionism happened. It is because many of our Catholic friends had been deceived by their institution. They love their church and sacred tradition more than Word of God, they love Mary more than Jesus. The love Pope (their Holy Father) more than Holy Father in heaven.

Catholic Church has a society, so called Jesuit Order, Society of Jesus, who will do anything to prevent anybody attack their belief, their church, their sacred teaching, their sacred tradition. The more you go deep into the teaching, the more you will be wicked being, the more you intoxicated with her wine of adultery.

For centuries, Roman Catholic church has tried their best to capture Jerusalem but always failed. I will talk about it in the different article. This is my answer why Vatican, not Jerusalem? It is because God has said so since about 2000 years ago and no matter how they tried, God is Mighty in the Battle, He will always win.

But another question arise. Since Jerusalem is center of the earth, Should Christian see Israel as a Holy City?

As three major religions have one thing in commons --- each has a holy place where they look for guidance. Roman Catholicism looks to the Vatican as the Holy City. The Jews look to the wailing wall in Jerusalem, and the Muslims look to Mecca as their Holy City. Each group believes that they receive certain types of blessings for the rest of their lives for visiting their holy place.

The answer is NOPE. That Zionism. If you support Zionism, you support the Catholic church's another method to capture Jerusalem.

Jesus declared "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:21-24).

Believe it or not, Roman Catholic Church is the one behind propaganda of Zionism. They said that the Holy Temple must be built before Jesus will come again. Is that so, my friends? Where that in the Bible? That's only appear in Judaism's teaching since they didn't acknowledge Jesus as Messiah, Holy Lamb of God, they need to sacrifice bulls and goats each year, and because Holy Temple has not been built, they do it in the Wailing Wall.

God never said about the Third Temple since we don't need any temple to worship Him. We ourselves are the temple of God.

1 Corinthians 3:16-17

Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.

Jesus is the High Priest, when He died, He sacrificed Himself as the Holy Lamb of God. In the day of Jesus' death, darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stop shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

It means that we don't need any temple to do any sacrifice each year, etc since Jesus was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people, and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him (Hebrews 9:28). We can directly go and ask forgiveness to God the Father, since we have Advocate, Jesus Christ, He will speak to the Father in our defence. He is the one who turns aside God's wrath, taking away our sins, and not only ours but also the sins of the world (1 John 2:1-2)

Do we need to support Israel? to support Zionism?

Of course not, right? Read your Bible, my friends. Jesus himself is the one who will established the new Jerusalem, new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21). New Jerusalem will come down from heaven gloriously. In his revelation, John didn't see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple (Revelation 21:22). So why people flocking to Israel to build the Third Temple? They are not preparing for Jesus to come, they are helping antichrist to reign, the man who exalted himself, he will set himself up in God's temple when he come.

2 Thessalonians 2:4

He will oppose and will exalted himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God

Should we pray for Israel so that God will help that country? Many preachers who support Zionism (many of the are Knight Templar members) used the verse where God said to Abram, that He will bless those who bless him, and He will curse those who curse him. But if you read the Bible very well, that promise was for Abram, not Israel. Was Israel = Abram? What I understand from my Bible is Israel = Jacob, not Abram (later became Abraham). So, what is the meaning of that promise?

That promise is for us, as Abraham's heirs. Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. We are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman (Galatians 29, 31). We are God's people, holy nation of God, the believers. We should not pray for Israel as a country, but we should pray for those believers, we should bless those believers, we should support those believers. We should bless our brethrens in Christ in all around the world, including those who are dwell in Israel.

1 Peter 2:9-10

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God, once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Jesus Himself prayed only for His disciples and for all believers, not for the world. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours (John 17:9). We should also pray for all believers in Israel, but not the Jews. We should preach to all of those who don't know about Jesus.

Many Christians are deceived, they are not Jews but they want to be like Jews. Do you know why Paul opposed Peter? It was because Peter forced the Gentiles to follow Jewish costums. Man is justified not by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.

But in our time, because of the influence of Zionism and Judaism, they condemned those who don't call God's name in Hebrew, etc. They urge people to visit the Holy Land as part of worship, to practice Sabbath day (Saturday worship), to hold religious festival, a New Moon celebration, to call God's name in Hebrew (even for the Gentile) and not to mention God's name in full because it is too sacred for them, etc.

That's Law of Moses, my friends. No one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law, rather, through the law we become concious of sin. For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:8-10).

Colossians 2:16-19

Therefore do let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come, the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

I know those who follow Sacred Name Movement or Judaism will not agree with me, that's your business, not mine. I just state what the Bible said. If you want to go to heaven, don't follow your tradition, don't follow your myth, but follow God, written in the Bible.

Or if you want to still follow your tradition even though you already known that Jesus is Messiah, tell me the reason why we need the Third Temple? Why Jesus also did miracles in Sabbath day or David and his companions ate concecrated bread in temple on Sabbath? Did Jesus Himself break the Ten Commandments?

If you want to keep doing the Law of Moses, tell me: Have you ever angry? That's already murder (Matthew 5:22). Have you ever looked at woman lustfully? That's already commit adultery (Matthew 5:28). And Bible said, For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it (James 2:10). Do you think that you will be declared righteous in your sight by observing the law?

This is the justice of God. All men are the same, all have lost the glory of God. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all (Romans 11:32). That's why everybody need Jesus. We need His mercy, His grace, not obtained by works, but it is Gift of God. And if you want to be declared righteous, repent from your sins and have faith in Jesus. For if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing (Galatians 2:21).

Many Israelites are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes (Romans 10:1-4).

The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord", and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved (Romans 10:9-10).

But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our message?" So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

To the Gentiles (non Jews): do not follow Jewish tradition, Judaism, Sacred Name Movement, Jehovah Witnesses, etc. And to Israelites / Jews: Accept the good news. You will never be declared righteous by observing the law. The righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

God bless you

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