Posted on 09/12/2014 6:15:51 AM PDT by marshmallow
The Rev Ian Paisley, Protestant firebrand and former leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, has died at the age of 88.
The Rev Paisley served as First Minister of Northern Ireland for a year when power was first devolved in 2007.
His deputy, Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin, expressed sadness at the news of his death.
“Over a number of decades we were political opponents and held very different views on many, many issues but the one thing we were absolutely united on was the principle that our people were better able to govern themselves than any British government,” he said.
“I want to pay tribute to and comment on the work he did in the latter days of his political life in building agreement and leading unionism into a new accommodation with republicans and nationalists.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicherald.co.uk ...
Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west.
I looked it up because it looks wrong no matter how you spell it.
I hope Rev. Paisley is laid to rest without violence or undignified turmoil. I hadn’t thought of him in years: he was a figure from my grandparents’ generation!
This was at the height of "The Toubles" and when communists like Benadette Devlin were participant agitators in the "Bloody Sunday" uprising, and Gerry Adams was to be found lurking about the IRA with his fellow "knee-cappers."
I seem to recall Dr. Paisley telling us that his home had sandbags all around it at the time.
FReegards!
Same here, and I think it will happen that way.
I believe the institution of the papacy is antichrist, not any one pope. In other words, I believe the succession of popes are antichrist and that the Roman Catholic Church is mystery Babylon, the great harlot of Revelation 17. Perhaps there will be a final antichrist who will overshadow the rest, I don’t know. But I do believe the popular conception of antichrist is all wrong, likely by Satan’s design.
Let me be clear, I believe there are some true born again Christians who are members of the RCC, but I also believe Rome’s system is anti-Christian and that her way of salvation is an unbiblical perversion that cannot save. I believe she presents a damning false gospel.
Read that link and even if you don’t agree you will at least understand why I believe as I do. Read it and you will understand why John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, George Whitefield, John Newton, Charles Spurgeon, Martyn-Lloyd Jones and yes, Ian Paisley, believed as they did. That link is to a short paper that lays it out rather plainly. What he lays out was so widely believed for hundreds of years that it was simply known as the “Protestant View.” So yes, I hold to the traditional Protestant View.
I know many other Protestants/evangelicals disagree with me and I’m fine with that. It took me decades to come to these conclusions I don’t want to argue over the antichrist or about Romanism. In fact, I’m walking out the door and won’t be back for a while. So instead I will simply point you to the only gospel that can save your soul.
The Gospel Defined & Discerned
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=81901181950
Unmasking the False Gospel
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=1010665821
cool story!
They’d blow things up. Even in the Republic.
Do you think the disciple John was wrong when he wrote in the first century that there were, even at that time, "many antichrists" (1 John 2:18). Must there only one future anti-Christ?
Are you afraid to answer my question? Was John Paul II the antichrist, as Ian Paisley claimed?
Thank you for your post.
I went to your link and listened to Paisley’s sermon, “Why I Am a Protestant.” I have heard him in other sermons, always powerful, but this, on the hour of his death, is especially poignant. It deeply stirred me. These thought came to me:
I doubt there has been since the prophets of old, John the Baptist, Jesus in Matt. 23, Peter at Pentecost, has there been such a powerful and courageous voice raised! If one can’t discern Acts 1:8, “Ye shall receive POWER after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you,” in Paisley’s preaching there is something wrong with him.
The shrill voices of Popery we constantly hear on FR sound like a bunch of silly little nerds - lightweights compared to Paisley. The power of real Protestant preaching like Paisley’s, trumps all of them.
I am saddened by Paisley’s passing, it now falls on the rest of us to pick up the banner of truth and carry it on. In this sermon Paisley said: “The Romanists have Christ locked up in a box (literally as the wafer in a tabernacle), with only the priests the power to open and release Christ to the world (in the Roman mass),” he said. “Its the priests who need to be put in the box,” he said, while we with the truth release the power of Christ to the world!”
Amen and amen. God give us the kind of faith and courage Paisley had.
Fascinating! Your mother is dressed like Queen Elizabeth ;-).
Have you read 1 John before? See .45 Long Colt's excellent response, above regarding popes being "the" antichrist. And if you're really interested in learning how amillennial and postmillennial Presbyterians view the anti-Christ and prophecy, you could start with these threads:
Apocalypse Then?
Four Views on the Millennium
WCF Chapter 25: Of the Church
If you asked me the question, "Do you share Ian Paisley's view that Pope John Paul II was the anti-Christ?" - I could answer it with a simple "No" as it is a very uncomplicated question.
Either you believe he was the anti-Christ or you don't believe that. I don't understand where the difficulty is coming from.
Breathtakingly bad exegesis which ignores the clear words of Scripture in favor of a polemical position. As an example, Revelation 17 clearly talks about a "city," not a church or an "institution," and elsewhere in Rev, the city itself is identified (hint: it's not Rome; it's not even in Europe).
John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, George Whitefield, John Newton, Charles Spurgeon, Martyn-Lloyd Jones and yes, Ian Paisley
Bandwagon fallacy, and setting the words of fallible men over and above Scripture, something that Protestants endlessly accuse Catholics of doing.
Sadly, (for Paisley), he had become an anachronism in his own country and any "power" which was present in his preaching appeared to have largely evaporated. Protestantism in Northern Island is essentially moribund as indeed is religion in general in the UK, Islam aside. Orange parades still occur but they have nothing to do with religion and the message of salvation. They're largely a celebration of tradition and cultural Protestantism, not unlike Saint Patrick's Day parades.
As for Paisley's preaching, it never was a message to come to Jesus. It was a mixture of political activism tied to Westminster due to the historical Protestant roots of the Crown, mixed in with a generous measure of anti-Catholicism. As the British state gradually abandoned any pretense of religiosity and both Anglicanism and the monarchy fell into disrepute, the hollowness of his cause became obvious. Britain was no longer the flagship of Protestantism in the world but a pagan and apostate nation.
Perhaps as a result of this, Paisley himself mellowed significantly over the last couple of decades. The political Paisley began to work with the likes of McGuiness and Adams and the outbursts about Popery became fewer and less intense. The British no longer feel threatened by a Papist takeover of their country and are too busy making whoopee to take seriously the historical Paisley. In the end, it's not clear that the 2014 Paisley really believed the 1969 Paisley.
May God reward the good he did and be merciful to him in his sins.
RIP.
The difficulty for me comes from an unstated definition of what/who the anti-Christ is. Give me a description of what you think the anti-Christ is supposed to be/embody, and then re-ask your question. To answer "yes" to the question as stated would mean IMO that I believe that the Great Tribulation can end, and the Thousand-Year Reign can begin, all without the Second Coming of Jesus.
That question can be answered in considerably less than ten minutes.
It's due to the errors of individualism and subjectivism which underlie the Protestant approach to Scripture.
As for Paisley's preaching, it never was a message to come to Jesus. It was a mixture of political activism tied to Westminster due to the historical Protestant roots of the Crown, mixed in with a generous measure of anti-Catholicism. As the British state gradually abandoned any pretense of religiosity and both Anglicanism and the monarchy fell into disrepute, the hollowness of his cause became obvious. Britain was no longer the flagship of Protestantism in the world but a pagan and apostate nation.
Perhaps as a result of this, Paisley himself mellowed significantly over the last couple of decades. The political Paisley began to work with the likes of McGuiness and Adams and the outbursts about Popery became fewer and less intense. The British no longer feel threatened by a Papist takeover of their country and are too busy making whoopee to take seriously the historical Paisley. In the end, it's not clear that the 2014 Paisley really believed the 1969 Paisley.
May God reward the good he did and be merciful to him in his sins.
RIP.
IMO a fair and honest eulogy. Thank you for posting it.
She used to wear the "pill boxes" back during the Kennedy era and Jackie was setting the style in the early '60s'. Now that you mention it though I do see the QEII thing going on there.
What's funny is that when we kids were up to mischievous things (as kids that age typically are) we always had a "look-out."
This of course was to make sure that for what ever it was we were doing that we shouldn't be doing we'd make sure we wouldn't get "caught."
The code word for my mom was "The Hat."
FReegards!
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