The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven (Revelation 13:5-6).

Daniel 7:25 tells us “He shall speak pompous words against the Most High…” 

These verses show us that the beast will be blasphemous. Rome has always been an ecclesiastical and secular power, combining church and state. When she wielded power during the Middle Ages, she claimed this:

The Church may by Divine Right confiscate the property of heretics, imprison their persons, and condemn them to the flames.

When, through the centuries, she has made laws concerning Sunday rest, (109) the Church has had in mind above all the work of servants and workers...In this matter, my predecessor Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum Novarum spoke of Sunday rest as a worker’s right which the State must guarantee…Therefore, also in the particular circumstances of our own time, Christians will naturally strive to ensure that civil legislation respects their duty to keep Sunday holy.ⁱ

In a further apostolic letter, the Pope used the term “heretic” for the first time since the healing of the wound, and warned disobedient members of the flock that they will be punished if they do not accept papal authority in matters of doctrine:

Whoever denies a truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or who calls into doubt, or who totally repudiates the Christian faith, and does not retract after having been legitimately warned, is to be punished as a heretic or an apostate with a major excommunication; a cleric moreover can be punished with other penalties, not excluding deposition.ⁱⁱ

It is interesting that while the Roman Catholic Church considers all other churches heretics and disobedient daughters that must accept papal authority in matters of doctrine, the Catholic Church is also seeking unity with other denominations through the setting aside of differences. But under Catholic thought, the only differences to set aside are those of other denominations, for all must concede to papal authority. This can be seen in the efforts of the Anglican Church to reunite with the Papacy on common ground, only to finally admit that there was no unity with the Papacy on any other terms but its own.

Through the efforts of Rome through the past years, we see that she is stealthily preparing to once again enforce her decrees, just as the Bible predicts. In the secret recesses of her grand buildings and in the legislative halls of the world's political powers the stage has been set for the final confrontation between those aligned with the prince of darkness and those who stand under the bloodstained banner of Prince Emmanuel.

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