KEN SILVA OF APPRISING MINISTRIES
PASSES AWAY AFTER LONG ILLNESS
BY MANNY SILVA OF CONCERNED NAZARENES & STAND FOR TRUTH MINISTRIES:
"
He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it." Titus 1:9
I just learned of the passing of Pastor Ken Silva. The following was posted by our friends at Stand Up For The Truth website:
One of our dear comrades, Pastor Ken Silva, has passed away after a long illness.
Ken died last night in his New Hampshire home. A veteran researcher and reporter, Ken founded Apprising Ministries as well as Christian Research Network, two foundational apologetics sites where he wrote about trends in the church. Ken loved the Lord and loved sharing his faith. In recent years his degenerative illness worsened, and it became more difficult for Ken to write.
Ken has also been a pastor at Connecticut River Baptist Church in Claremont, New Hampshire, since 2003.
This past July, Ken reached out to many of us in “discernment ministries,” with word on what he was going through physically, financially and spiritually:
“…Our plan is for me to still try and battle through all of this because it truly does seem like, at its root, it’s a spiritual thing. Unfortunately though, I’m certainly not Job. We really need much prayer support to weather this.
As always we are very grateful for those of you who have been praying for, and financially supporting, AM these past nine years. That said, I must tell you that we are currently in the worst financial slump we’ve yet faced.”
Please pray for his many friends and family members, especially his wife Donna.
(read the rest here)
I got to know Pastor Ken about five years ago, first via emails, and then by phone contact. During the 2009 General Assembly, when Concerned Nazarenes worked hard to warn Nazarenes of the false teachings in the church, Pastor Ken took the time to call me and give me some advice and personal encouragement. Last year was the last time I spoke with him, as he asked for prayers for him, as his work was getting more difficult because of his condition.
As a friend said yesterday on his Facebook page, “Bro. Ken Silva was a definite stand up for the truth Christian!” Yes he was. My friend Dave Mosher, who has a discernment ministry website dedicated to warning Christians in his denomination and others as well, said this:
“And I pray there is someone to carry on the ministry at Apprising.org. With several Christians in ministry that I know of passing away recently, I've been thinking about our "legacy" and pondering how to train others to carry on our discernment ministries.”
And my friend Tim Wirth, who also has his own discernment website, said: “Ken wrote the forward to my book Pa$$ the Plate and Let us Prey. Ken was a good friend and brother in the Lord. He will be missed but we know where he is.”
Ken was not very well liked by those who he exposed for their falsehoods and phoney gospels, but then that is not unusual. Anyone who goes into a ministry dedicated to uncovering the lies of the most popular “Christian” leaders in the church is to expect nothing but hatred and vilification from them and their blind followers. Character assassination goes part and parcel when venturing into these waters.
And so we have lost one of those Christians willing to take on the lies of the prosperity gospel, or the lies of the social gospel, or of the signs and wonders crowd. We have lost someone who was willing to expose the compromise from Christian leaders who for years were uncompromising, but who have succumbed for whatever reason to popular culture. You see, it’s not easy when you see someone you have respected for years, all of a sudden start rubbing shoulders with false teachers, and to then call them out as well. It is very hard to remain disciplined and not let our personal like of someone get in the way of truth.
We need more Ken Silvas. We need men and women of courage who, if called for this kind of ministry, will do so without fear, and knowing that they have the responsibility to expose corruption, false teaching and compromise, no matter where and who the source is from.
May the Lord be with his family especially at this time.
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Pastor Ken Silva’s Last Post:
The Papacy Of the Roman Catholic Church
FROM MANNY SILVA:
As I mentioned on Monday, Pastor Ken Silva of Apprising Ministries passed away after a very serious illness. He fought hard, working almost to his last day.
Fellow defender of the faith James Sundquist sent me a note, with some thoughts on Pastor Ken:
“Almost to his last breath, Ken was fighting the good fight of the faith! He was a major resource pillar in my own discernment ministry as well as personal consultant. He gave me the resource of his article on Rick Warren just two days ago. His value is incalculable. He will be sorely missed. Thank you Ken for your tireless work in a thankless calling where you are mostly persecuted. Your brother in Christ and fellow warrior of the Most High God.” (James Sundquist)
We both also had a similar idea, and that was to re-post one of his articles, including his last one that he wrote only a few days before he went to be with the Lord. Again, I cannot state the importance of work that has been done by such warriors as Pastor Ken Silva. He sent a link to James recently that illustrates the undiscerning infatuation evangelicals have with Mother Teresa, including Rick Warren who is the subject of that post (http://apprising.org/2011/05/23/kay-warren-rick-warren-praising-mother-teresa/).
And so here is a re-post of Ken’s final work, which he wrote on Saturday. It focuses on a subject that is clearly a major problem in the evangelical church today, and that is the compromise going on with the Roman Catholic Church, an organization that has been correctly called apostate by Pastor Ken and many of us who are working to expose the lying compromises of so many false pastors today.
The Papacy Of the Roman Catholic Church(by Ken Silva, Pastor-teacher, on Sept. 27, 2014)
However, concerning Rick Warren’s compromised embrace of the Church of Rome, you can see it for yourself e.g. in Rick Warren Endorsing Catholics Come and Rick Warren on the Roman Catholic EWTN Network. The latter piece features a transcription of an interview conducted by Roman Catholic apologist Raymond Arroyo where Warren refers to Rome’s current Pope Francis as “our new pope.” Sadly, scores of people listening to leaders within Ecumenical Church of Deceit (ECoD) are now being led along the broad ecumenical road back to the Roman Catholic Church, the mother of this evil ECoD.
As it pertains to the Church of Rome’s papacy, for our purposes here, in that aforementioned Arroyo interview we find Rick Warren praising the late Pope John Paul II. Now let me bring you back to the Christianity Today article The Pope We Never Knew, which I first cited in The Deceivers of Roman Catholicism. CT author David Scott tells us that Pope “John Paul II’s biggest accomplishment was his ecumenism,” and further, that John Paul II:
is the same pope who called evangelicals in South America “rapacious wolves” for their evangelism of Catholics…
The pope who in his 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint invited input from non-Catholic Christians on the primacy of the office of Peter, is the same man whose Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1999 declared the primacy of Peter “immutable.” (source)
For your edification I have linked Ut Unam Sint right from the Vatican library itself. Now, as I’ve said before, anyone familiar with Vatican I could have told you that the Roman Catholic Church sees its Pontiff as the successor to Peter and that his office is never-changing, i.e. immutable. As we turn to Chapter 2 of Session 4 from the official record of the decrees of Vatican I we find that it begins with these words:
On the permanence of the primacy of blessed Peter in the Roman pontiffs.
(source, emphasis mine)
As such, it would certainly appear that John Paul II was acting as a hypocrite in 1999 and never had any intention of altering the supposed primacy of the Roman Catholic papacy–for Rome will never surrender this permanent man-made office–which is the very zenith of human pride! In our look at Rome’s official dogma concerning its papacy, let’s take a quick moment to consider the following from the Second Vatican Council held by the Church of Rome in the mid 1960’s.
This would be some 30 years before Pope John Paul II would have “invited input from non-Catholic Christians on the primacy of the office of Peter.” Please look very carefully at the following quote from Lumen Gentium – “Solemnly Promulgated By Holiness Pope Paul VI On November 21, 1964” where we’re told:
just as the office granted individually to Peter, the first among the apostles is permanent and is to be transmitted to his successors, so also the apostles’ office of nurturing the Church is permanent, and is to be exercised without interruption by the sacred order of bishops. (14*)
Therefore, the Sacred Council teaches that bishops by divine institution have succeeded to the place of the apostles, (15*) as shepherds of the Church, and he who hears them, hears Christ, and he who rejects them, rejects Christ and Him who sent Christ. (149)(16*) (source, emphasis mine).
We must ask ourselves an important question here: If – “the office granted individually to Peter, the first among the apostles is permanent and is to be transmitted to his successors” – then do we really think that Pope John Paul II had any actual intentions of changing this dogma, which is the very reason the Church of Rome exists–period? And do you seriously think that Pope Francis is going to relinquish this position in his quest for unity?
If you are of such a mind, then you are a dreamer. The fact is, the Roman Catholic Church cannot change that dogma because the teachings of its popes has always been considered infallible. Although the declaration of papal infallibility as such wasn’t made until 1870 at Vatican I, Rome has always seen her pontiffs as teaching with infallibility when it comes to faith and morals:
While the the First Vatican Council defined papal infallibility in 1870, you must understand that the date on which a doctrine is officially defined is not the date on which it becomes true. Rather, it was always true.
It’s just that different aspects of the Faith are challenged at different periods of history, and when a challenge occurs or a serious concern or question arises, then the Church will settle the difficulty by formally stating what the truth of the matter is — to end the confusion.
So papal infallibility has always been true, and, moreover, was accepted and practiced from the earliest times. (source)
It’s vital for you to understand that the Roman Catholic Church sees its Pope as the head of all Christian churches everywhere; and this regardless whether they would be considered Roman Catholic or Protestant. Again, from Vatican I Session 4, it now becomes clear beyond any reasonable doubt that the Church of Rome is telling us this office of Pope is not simply a designation within their own communion.
On the contrary–we are specifically being told in no uncertain terms that this office, the Bishop of Rome, i.e. the Roman Pontiff–or the Pope–is truly intended for the entire Christian community. The Roman Catholic Church decrees that their Pontiff is the final and absolute authority within all of Christendom and that his role was forever instituted when:
4… [Jesus] set blessed Peter over the rest of the apostles and instituted in him the permanent principle… 6. of the sacred and apostolic primacy, upon which…the whole Church depends. (source)
Next we are further instructed that:
- This doctrine is to be believed and held by all the faithful in accordance with the ancient and unchanging faith of the whole Church…
Chapter 1 On the institution of the apostolic primacy in blessed Peter
We–[the Church of Rome]–teach and declare that, according to the gospel evidence, a primacy of jurisdiction over the whole Church of God was immediately and directly promised to the blessed apostle Peter and conferred on him by Christ the lord. [sic] (source)
For such are the empty words of the deceitful spirits and their teachings of demons in apostate Roman Catholicism (cf. 1 Timothy 4:1). And remember, Jesus already told us about such as these – You will recognize them by their fruits (Matthew7:16). So, you really need to keep this information (from primary Roman Catholic sources) in mind as you consider that right now Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church is wooing his fellow charismaniacs into a supposed “unity.”
You need to know that he’s already making influential converts within evangelicalism, e.g. James Robison to Pope Francis“In Christ We are Brothers.” Now you have been properly positioned upon the battlefield from which to view the below message from Richard Bennett of Berean Beacon–himself a former Roman Catholic priest for 22 years–as he compares the Protestant Reformation to the papacy of the apostate Roman Catholic Church:
