Hi John,
Amy and I were talking tonight about some of the events surrounding the whole charade with today’s election of the Catholic pope, and I kept having this question: How is it that Christians can speak of the pope as being the “vicar of Christ”, when the Bible plainly teaches that it is the holy Spirit that is Christ’s vicar here on earth? As we were talking about this, Amy mentioned seeing a little girl on the TV news who was asked, “Who do you think the Pope is?”, to which she responded, “He’s the holy Spirit, in person.” As soon as I heard this, I felt like the Spirit impressed on me exactly what that means: the Pope is the visual representative of Christianity’s “third person of the Trinity” – that is, Satan. So then, it follows that the Pope is associated with being the vicar of Christ – Christianity’s “holy spirit” (to those who believe God’s Spirit is a person). How a conclave of Catholic bishops can be “led by the holy spirit” (as they say) to decide on a new pope somehow means that God puts anything up for a vote, is beyond me, however!
Wow, Satan really has taken for himself a “throne” in the hearts of over a billion people (1.2 billion Catholics are on earth today, reports say), and you could see it happening today as people crowded around to catch a glimpse of and worship Christ’s new “vicar”. All I could think of tonight after we talked about these things were the words to Darren’s song: “What About Me?” I am very thankful tonight that God has allowed us to see these things for what they are, and to be “lifted up above the shadows” tonight by the real holy Spirit of God. It felt really good. Praise God for His vicar! 🙂
Vince