Protestant history begins with Revelation 20. After “The Thousand Year Reign” of Catholicism over Christendom, the “dragon was released from the abyss”.
Luther, the first Franchise Operation Protestant (FOP), began by inventing a State-approved religion. It was designed to help his government get money that used to go to The Catholic Church. Greedy governments soon saw how much they could make made by replacing The Church Jesus Founded with state churches. “We need excuses to confiscate Catholic land and money! We want to take over Catholic hospitals, schools, universities, inns, and orphanages!”
Ambitious Protestants pretended to be theologians and jumped on the bandwagon. Calvin, Cranmer, Knox, Wesley, and countless others saw the opportunity. “The state will give us access to donations that would have gone to The Catholic Church. We meed excuses! Let’s start by inventing things wrong with Catholic Sacraments. Here’s a good one! Let’s tell the fools that Baptism must be by Total Immersion, face up, in running water, just like Jesus at the River Jordan!”
Such silliness provided reasons for competitors to emerge. Soon, Stand Alone Protestants split off from the Franchise Operation Protestants. They justified their first of 43,000 schisms by teaching, preaching, and pounding continuing ridiculousness from their pulpit, “Real Baptism has to be by Total Immersion, but face down! And, the water doesn’t have to be running.”
People took the thousands of variations of mindless hair-splitting somewhat seriously. They were reasonably content, satisfied by knowing “At least we aren’t Catholic.” Few realized that each Pastor Bob who’d developed his own Stand Alone Protestant group wanted to make the really big money by transitioning from Stand Alone Protestant (SAP) to Franchise Operation Protestant (FOP). In every nation and city, the raging Protestant War: SAP vs. FOP was fought as Stand Alone Protestants battled the Franchise Operation Protestants for market share.
That sums up the first four hundred years of Protestant theology.
Then, trains, and soon, trucks, let the Stand Alone Protestants moved into tents and go quickly from town to town. Soon, they metastasized into huge TV ministries. Suddenly, The Franchise Operation Protestants were playing second fiddle to the Stand Alone Protestants with TV and social media skills. SAP mega-churches soon spread staggeringly immense Stand Alone Protestantism over entire square blocks of America’s suburbs.
While the Protestant War: SAP vs. FOP continues to rage, The Only Church Jesus Founded kept plugging away. The importance of being Catholic still shines through the raging battles between FOP and SAP as the Franchise Operation Protestants lose market share to the nimble Pastor Bobs and their Stand Alone Protestant extravaganzas.
Four simple steps still help people escape the competing contradictions for the peace provided by The Only Church Jesus Founded:
1. Jesus said “If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood you do not have life in you.” Those who couldn’t believe such an outrageous statement bailed out, a primitive form prefiguring the FOP and SAP Protestants that followed.
2. Then, Jesus founded One Church, “Verily, verily, I say unto you Thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I give you The Keys to The Kingdom of Heaven.” Some realized that He Who Fulfilled the Prophecies had to be telling the truth, and became the first Catholics. Those whose vanity kept them from understanding just how superior He was to them did not become Catholics.
3. The Last Supper was The First Mass of His Church. That was when He transformed bread and wine into His Body and Blood. In order to allow future generations of obedient Christians to be saved, He instituted The Sacrament of Ordination, by which the Apostles could ordain successors with the same authority with which Jesus had ordained them.
4. In every age, many who are too stubborn to fully believe and obey become Protestants. Some join the older FOPs, comfortable among the Franchise Operation Protestants. Others, told they are “modern and up-to-date” join the media-savvy Pastor Bobs of the Stand Alone Protestants, and help them make millions in the mammoth mega-churches that are the pinnacle of the Stand Alone Protestants.
Those who knowingly refuse to do what is necessary to “have life in you” them take the most awful chance there is.
