pope francis – Page 2

In the Tribulation, the final 7-year period when the church is removed and Jesus rains down His wrath upon an unbelieving world, there will be one final religion. Revelation 18 describes the demise of it. Prior to its prophesied destruction, it had been an ongoing one-world-religion system.

Kev Walker

The antichrist co-opted religion in Revelation 13:15-17 by announcing himself as the head of it and causing all to take a mark of worship in allegiance to him. But before that happens at the midpoint of the Tribulation, it seems that religion without antichrist as the head of it will flourish as well.

Paul wrote to Timothy that in the last days people will have an appearance of Godliness but denying its power. (2 Timothy 3:5). It is going to be an apostate time but not one devoid of religions, the appearance of the final false religion in Revelation 18 shows us that.

As a matter of fact, in the verses preceding 2 Timothy 3:5 we read, “For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,” and those people could be described as adherents to any religion today that doesn’t have Jesus as its head.

Matthew 24:23-24 also shows that there will be a thriving religion business during the first part of the Tribulation. Jesus told the disciples, “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.”

Even though all of the above verses apply to the entire time of the last days- which are the ascension of Christ after Pentecost (Acts 1:9) and the descent of Christ at the battle of Armageddon (Zechariah 14:3-4, Revelation 19:15), they can be applied in force during the Tribulation because that is the culmination of all the foregoing years.

Think of the apostasy & false religions during the Tribulation as a tsunami wave. Out on the sea it is

Photo: NOAA

inches tall and hard to spot because the action is mostly under the surface. As it progresses along the ocean it nears the shore, and as it does, it becomes more ferocious, dangerous, and destructive. It deepens, rears up, and crashes down upon the land. That is the picture of apostasy in the last days, piling up as the Tribulation nears and reaches its destructive crescendo during the final 7 years.

After the rapture, the antichrist fools everyone at first by coming across as a man of peace-politically and spiritually. The prophecy in Daniel 9:27 says he confirms a covenant with many people, and the political and religious are bound in one sentence.

If true Christians are raptured, leaving Mormons, Catholics, Muslims, Hindi, etc, that still leaves a lot of people practicing some sort of faith (false faith.)

Though the table above lumps all Christians together, remember that “Christian” for statistical purposes is comprised of 1.2 billion Roman Catholics (false religion) the 300 million Eastern Orthodox Church, (false) and Protestant, (and many of Protestants will be left behind, having been shown to be false. Matthew 7:21-23 Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.) The actual size of the true church is really very small.

So all those billions will be left behind. A great many people practicing some sort of faith will be seeking answers to questions as to where the Born Again people went and why the world seems to be crumbling. Billions of people aren’t going to suddenly abandon their faith, but they will be seeking answers. After all, their gods will have been unable to cope with the devastating events happening. Initially, the antichrist will play on those fears and nerves by seeming to have the answers, and likely will use his verbal skills and intelligence to promote a faith that has elements of all religions in them, in order to salve the people’s fears and calm their seeking hearts. They’ll buy it.

This happened before. When Nero watched while Rome burned, people at first thought Nero had set the fire that destroyed their city, homes, and temples. They began to rise up. What Nero did was cleverly play on their fears by deliberately misdirecting them: he said the Christians did it.

Robert Hubert, Great Fire of Rome, 1795

After the fire, “The Romans were totally devastated. Their culture, in a sense, went down with the city. All the religious elements of their life were destroyed—their great temples, shrines, and even their household idols were burned up. This had great religious implications because it made them believe that their deities had been unable to deal with this conflagration and were also victims of it. The people were homeless and hopeless. Many had been killed. Their bitter resentment was severe, so Nero realized that he had to redirect the hostility.” (source)

The old adage goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. When events occur in the Tribulation similar to the ones that happened in Rome in 64AD (but on a global scale instead of a city-wide scale) religious divisions will be smoothed over. The antichrist will be blaming the Christians and/or Jews for the world’s faults, likely saying that is why they were taken away.

The antichrist will be a flatterer, will destroy by craft, will be a smooth talker, (Daniel 8:25, Daniel 11:32). It not too hard to see how he will be able to bamboozle the people into accepting that all their religions are really pretty close in doctrine, and they all need to pull together during this difficult time… he will be all things to all people and when the time comes at the mid-point of the Tribulation and the antichrist says, ‘worship me’, they will. On a smaller scale, think of how Obama appeared to be a messiah or a savior to large swathes of extremely different people who seemed to have nothing in common. In his second campaign, he turned from building large coalitions among disparate groups, to having a pointillist approach, micro-targeting individual demographics and playing them against each other. Either way, he won both times.

And that is because all the false religions ARE close in doctrine. Ice cream is ice cream, no matter if

you eat chocolate or strawberry. It’s still ice cream. Same with false religion. It is all headed up by satan, and all works-based, so it’s all the same, really. After all, don’t the three biggies even worship the same God? That is how they will see it, in my opinion.

Cut to today. I think the final religion already has begun. The seeming wide gaps between Islam and Judaism and Catholicism are shrinking. I see this shrinking enacted in the push for the “three main monotheistic religions” to get together, tolerate each other, find commonalities, and do works together. I think the second-to-final religion will be a combination of all of them. Other religions will suddenly find commonalities, and usefulness in doing works together. (Mormonism, Buddhism, etc).

At first this seems counterintuitive, as in, how can such two different religions such as RCC and Islam, combine to form one? But we keep hearing ‘we share one God’, Islam mentions Abraham and Jesus, Islam venerates Mary, the Pope has recently said that all people go to heaven and so the anathema thing for the last 1500 years of anyone but a Catholic going there (CCC 816) seems to be suddenly over … It’s happening now and it’s happening fast. Look at the following news-

Muslim envoy asks Pope Francis to take ‘step forward’
An envoy from Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning, Al-Azhar in Cairo, raised the prospect of restoring

ties with the Vatican on Friday but called on Pope Francis to take “a step forward” by declaring that Islam is a peaceful religion. “The problems that we had were not with the Vatican but with the former pope. Now the doors of Al-Azhar are open,” Mahmoud Abdel Gawad, diplomatic envoy to the grand imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed al-Tayyeb, told Italian daily Il Messaggero in Cairo. “Francis is a new pope. We are expecting a step forward from him. If in one of his addresses he were to declare that Islam is a peaceful religion, that Muslims are not looking for war or violence, that would be progress in itself,” he said. A ceremony in March in which Pope Francis washed the feet of young inmates in Rome, including a Muslim girl, was “a gesture that was very, very much appreciated” by Al-Azhar, Gawad said.”

Mohamed Ahmed el-Tayeb

The Vatican and Islam
“As the world focused on a pope’s election and the enthusiasm that immediately followed, another significant religious event escaped detection. Since Pope John Paul II’s tenure, the Catholic Church has refused to hold Muslim theologians and clergy accountable for the hatred and violence many of them preach. Instead, the Vatican promotes dialogue and mutual understanding at all costs – even at the cost of moral credibility.”

Pope Francis Plans On Visiting Israel
“Three months after succeeding Benedict XVI , Pope Francis has intimated he is planning a visit to Israel. … At the end of the meeting, the deputy foreign minister presented the Pope with a silver embossment of Jerusalem and invited him to visit Israel, to which he replied that he has every intention of doing so.

Large pushes such as the seminal 1994 document Evangelicals and Catholics Together, the 2009 Manhattan Declaration, 2012’s Rick Warren’s interfaith “King’s Way-Building Bridges to Muslims” project, and this month’s MEPI Interfaith Efforts Lauded by Religious, Civic Leaders in Jerusalem, are all examples of how hard satan is pushing to unite the religions.

Eventually he will be successful. And once that happens, it is but a small step for the satan-ruled antichrist to walk into the temple and declare himself God, (2 Thessalonians 2:4) something he has wanted since almost the beginning. (Isaiah 14:13-14).

Our lord Jesus Christ will not allow that to continue for one second longer than He has ordained. (Daniel 7:25, Revelation 12:6, Revelation 13:5). The following event is going to happen:

“Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.” (Revelation 19:11-16).

My favorite part, “he is called is The Word of God“.

The first time Jesus came He shed His blood for us (Revelation 1:5). The second time He comes, He’ll shed your blood for Him. (Revelation 14:20). Make sure your name is in His Lamb’s Book of Life and you will be raptured with the rest of the saints to glory when these things happen. You will come down with Him from above instead of being below and watching Him come for you.

Patrick Lawrence

Here is the Gospel. You need to know it!

Amen!!!

As the (misplaced) excitement at selecting a new pope dies down, we are left with the litter of conflicting notions of who rules the world, really. The pope claims to be a supreme and infallible authority over every Catholic on the planet and not coincidentally claims that the RCC is the only true church. Infallible means he cannot make mistakes and everything he says is pure gold. He is called ‘vicar of Christ’- A title of the pope implying his supreme and universal primacy, both of honour and of jurisdiction, over the Church of Christ. He is the supreme “another Christ” or alter christus. He is not subject to any government, organization or even to his own church. He is a king and more: he claims to be head of the church. (Only Jesus is head of the church, Colossians 1:18). (Above, the new Pope Francis)

The new pope, Francis, is said to be a humble man. This is incorrect. No man can be humble who thinks he is the head of the church, supplanting Jesus, the true head. No man can be humble who seeks and accepts an office where he is an “absolute monarch on earth, answerable to no temporal power, holding the highest administrative office in existence, and managing the largest non-governmental operation in the world. His power is absolutely unlimited save by divine law, and only death or his own will can remove him from office.” (Carol Balizet, The Last 7 Years)

No man can be humble who seeks and accepts ruling over “the wealthiest institution on earth and the most prosperous global institution on earth. The Catholic church is the biggest financial power, wealth accumulator and property owner in existence. She is a greater possessor of material riches than any other single institution, corporation, bank, giant trust, government or state of the whole globe. The pope, as the visible ruler of this immense amassment of wealth, is consequently the richest individual of the twentieth century. No one can realistically assess how much he is worth in terms of billions of dollars.” (Avro Manhattan, The Vatican Billions).

Pope is a word that comes from ‘papa.’ The problem comes when we attempt to address these august personalities. What do we call such a ‘holy’ and distinguished men among men? Father? Holy Father?

However, the bible says there is only one Holy Father and we are not to call anyone else father. “And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.” (Matthew 23:9).

The Jewish people had a hard time with this too. So they decided on apifyor.

“The Catholic Church has a new leader on the Chair of Saint Peter – Pope Francis. But in Hebrew we don’t call him “pope” or “papa,” but rather apifyor (api-FYOR). Until the 16th century, Jews called the pontiff as their Christian neighbors did: papa, a name that since the 12th century was reserved for the Bishop of Rome but before that referred to any high ranking church official. It derives from the Greek papas – a term of endearment a son gives his father. Apparently some creative soul back in the 16th century thought it was improper for Jews to refer to the pope with such deference and decided to come up with a new term instead. This anonymous Jewish scholar picked the obscure word apifyor from the Talmud and fit it to the task. By the 17th century the word “papa” had all but disappeared from Hebrew.”

Yes, there is so much confusion that results when men think they are God. There will be one who will come who WILL call himself God and cause all to worship him. His title is the Beast, or the antichrist. (2 Thessalonians 2:4). Meanwhile this current “holy papa” is an antichrist, a little forerunner to the one who will fulfill prophecy by becoming the man of sin. In the 1600s, Puritan Thomas Manton (1620-1677) preached three sermons about the coming man of sin. This excerpt is from the third sermon: (below, Rev. Thomas Manton)

“Now why did they call Antiochus the man of sin? Because he sought to alter the religion of the people, and by cruelty to introduce a change of worship and idolatry, and such laws as he would set up. Now, according to this pattern, Antichrist is a man of sin; that is, either a man given up to all sin eminently, a sinner addicted unto sin, and a ringleader of others unto sin, either by fraud and violence; or as he giveth encouragements and encitements to sin; or as a special kind of sinner, a usurper and invader of the empire of the Son of God. So was Antiochus. So was Antichrist. Now, how much open sin is practised, allowed, and maintained in the Papacy, I do not wish to proceed into; their own stories speak enough; — the sodomy, blasphemy, incest, adulteries, sorceries, murders, treasons, parricides, which they have authorised and countenanced. Histories witness that hardly hath the world yielded a more abominable sort of men, than have sat in that chair of pestilence. This I am sure of, that a man can sin nowhere at so cheap a rate as in Popery, where, what by dividing their sins into mortal and venial, and these expiated by a little penance, accompanied with a single attrition, and bare grief and trouble, because of the punishment; what by faculties, pardons, licenses, dispensations, indulgences, sin is distinguished out of the conscience.”

Thinking one’s self as king supreme always leads to destruction. We have a little king problem in the US right now, with Barack Obama.

Did you know that Obama has a cup-bearer?

In the bible a cup bearer is a personal taster to the king and his butler. Pharaoh had a cup-bearer we read in Genesis 40:2. That was the one who told his dream to the incarcerated Joseph. (Genesis 40:1). Nehemiah was a cup-bearer to the king of Persia. (Nehemiah 1:11). A cup-bearer, or a taster, had a duty to serve the drinks at the royal table. On account of the constant fear of plots and intrigues, a person must be regarded as thoroughly trustworthy to hold this position. He must guard against poison in the king’s cup, and was sometimes required to swallow some of the wine before serving it, or so says Wikipedia. Cup-bearers are mentioned further in 1 Kings 10:5; 2 Chronicles 9:4, where they, among other evidences of royal splendor, are stated to have impressed the Queen of Sheba with Solomon’s glory.

In keeping with this royal splendor, we read today that Obama refused to eat of the GOP luncheon because he didn’t have his ~~royal cup-bearer~~ taster with him.

Nehemiah the cup-bearer,
bible encyclopedia

Barack Obama agreed to meet with a group of GOP senators yesterday. But, he wouldn’t eat their food.
He didn’t bring along his royal taster. No joke. The Daily Caller reported:

President Obama was offered a feast of Maine treats, including University of Maine lobster salad and Wild Blueberry Pie when he visited Senate Republicans for a Capitol Hill luncheon on Thursday. But he didn’t touch a bite, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters following the 1:30 PM eat n’ greet. That’s because the President didn’t have a food “taster” with him, said Collins, who was responsible for the menu.

Sen. Collins said she told Obama that they were all eating the lobster and pie, and that if it was poisoned they’d all keel over, but Obama refused to bite. Now, to be fair, there does seem to be a regular call for the use of a taster for all US Presidents, or at least, some kind of security detail which monitors food and silverware when the President is off turf. But the image of cup-bearer to the one who has already been called pharaoh, was too much to resist remarking upon.

It is always a problem when kings and popes become too full of themselves. Fortunately we know to whom we owe allegiance as the real king. Though we are called to submit to earthly authorities because God has set them up, (1 Peter 2:13) we know our King is the Righteous One who comes in all glory. On the last day, He will reign supreme in all goodness and perfection.

It shall come to pass in the latter days

that the mountain of the house of the Lord

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

and shall be lifted up above the hills;

and all the nations shall flow to it,

and many peoples shall come, and say:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the house of the God of Jacob,

that he may teach us his ways

and that we may walk in his paths.” (Isaiah 1:2-3)

What a privilege it is to know the REAL Holy Father! The Real King! Our High Priest! Jesus

Category: pope francis

The coming one world religion

Of popes and kings: Is the pope humble? Does Obama have a cup-bearer?