I know your works, and the love and the faith and the service and your patience, and your works: the last is greater than the first. But I have against you that you permit your woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and deceives My servants to fornicate and eat things sacrificed to idols (Revelation 2:19–20).
From AD 606 to 1520, Catholicism became the Church’s predominant condition. The works of this assembly are commendable and still impact the world today. The origin of hospitals, orphanages, and schools is rooted in the Church’s work. However, this assembly had a major issue with idolatry and spiritual fornication.
Through Catholicism, the worship of the saints and Mary became an entrenched teaching. These teachings are rooted in the prophetess Jezebel. The title Jezebel is taken from the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, who served Baal (1 Kings 16:31). When Ahab, the king of Israel, took Jezebel as his wife, she brought her idolatrous practices with her (1 Kings 16:32). Jezebel waged war against the prophets of the LORD, massacring them and setting 400 prophets of Baal and 450 prophets of Asherah in their place (1 Kings 18:4). Along with idolatry she manipulated the elders and nobles to manufacture false testimony against Nabor so that she could illegally obtain his land (1 Kings 21:10). This influence is displayed in the inquisition events: a series of judicial institutions and procedures supported by the secular monarchs used slay anyone who spoke against the Catholic church’s false doctrines.
Many pagan beliefs were brought into the Church through this assembly by mixing religious holidays. The timing of Christmas was set to the winter solstice, adopting the Yule tree, gift-giving, and winter worship. The Germanic goddess of spring still influences Easter celebrations through the worship of the Easter Bunny.
Christ gave this assembly time to change her mind, but she refused (Revelation 2:21). Therefore, she and her daughters will be cast into the Tribulation period (Revelation 2:22–23). This is not Christians going into the Tribulation, for all the saved are not appointed to any quality of God’s wrath, but to salvation (1 Thessalonians 5:9). Each of her daughters takes elements of her spiritual fornication and idolatry. Today, the Catholic church is still strong, but only a shadow of what it originally was. Idolatry is a predominant teaching still held and taught through the worship of saints and Mary.
True orthodoxy today is not Catholicism. It is seen in the assemblies that mirror the assembly of Philadelphia, who hold to God’s word and guard His commandments (Revelation 3:7–8). These are not the Ten Commandments of the law, for the Church is under a different covenant built upon better promises (Hebrews 8:6; John 13:34; 1 Corinthians 14:37). Although the ritualistic nature of the Catholic Church still attracts many, today its focus is on idolatry and spiritual fornication, not truth.
Those among her who are believers are instructed not to follow the harlot and her ways. They reject her idolatry and the knowledge of the deep things of Satan (Revelation 2:24). The overcomers are those who base their salvation on the death of Christ on behalf of our sins and resurrection three days later (1 Corinthians 15:3–4), not on penitence and the worship of the saints.
