vatican

demon possession, discernment, exorcism, priests, vatican

Vatican struggling to keep up with exorcism demand

Posted on April 18, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

“Traditionally there are certain signs that often accompany true cases of possession,” the priest said, “things that are difficult if not impossible to explain otherwise.” These signs include aversion for sacred objects, the sudden ability to speak languages that the person has never studied or had contact with, the movement of objects with no physical cause, sharp changes in mood that are not attributable to psychological reasons, and other such things, he told Breitbart.

And so begins a recent article titled Vatican Exorcism Course Draws 170 Students to Study Demonic Activity, where the Vatican reports an increase in demonic possession and the increasing need for ‘exorcists’. The article focused on the busting-at-the-seams demonic deliverance training classes now being held at the Vatican.

One concept to note in that quote, and there is much to discuss about this, is that the priest holding the demon-busting classes said that frequently a sign of possession is speaking in a language one has not learned. This is known as speaking in tongues.

Typically when a ‘miracle’ or ‘manifestation’ of something supernatural appears, witnesses usually ascribe it to Jesus or heaven. However, just because an event occurs which is obviously supernatural, it doesn’t mean it is sent from heaven. Usually it is NOT. In 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 we read that men masquerade as false apostles, satan appears as an angel of light, and demons disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.

Satan and his unholy angels have powers that allow them within limits to counterfeit miracles. Read Exodus 7:8-11,

Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 9“When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Prove yourselves by working a miracle,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.’” 10So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. 11Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts.

Getting even more specific, in discussing the particular gift of tongues, that was a gift given to the early church and the early church only. The gift of tongues is recorded in Acts 2:4-5.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. 5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.

A Roman Catholic Crucifix.

This is a sign gift, and the gift of tongues and other sign gifts were temporary. They ceased with the passing of the Apostles. People do not speak in tongues anymore. Not genuinely anyway. (For biblical reasons why this is true, go here )

As for the non-genuine ways people speak in tongues, you might be surprised to discover that speaking gibberish, jerking involuntarily, and falling down insensate is a sign that a person is possessed by a demon, not speaking a heavenly language or filled with a heavenly spirit.

You might be even more surprised to discover that those signs as they are manifested in a person are commonly manifested in false religions, such as Hinduism.

Now, this may be a little bit anticlimactic because this has already been discussed somewhat. But for those who may be tuning in on the Internet and haven’t been here at the conference, which theological group does the following: heretic jerking and shaking, uncontrollable laughter, being slain in the Spirit, they prophesy and they speak in tongues. Of course, most people would think of Charismatics/Word of Faith, it’s actually Hindus.

Hindus do all of these things as well and has already been mentioned in this conference, you can look at video clips of Hindus practicing this thing known as Kundalani(?), it’s a subset, a little discipline within Hinduism. You can look at clips of Hindu Kundalani, and look of clips of professing Charismatic Christians and they are absolutely indistinguishable. You cannot tell the difference, the exact same kind of behavior. And so that should give us really a lot of pause before we start to say, “Oh, well so-and-so is speaking in tongues, or so-and-so is being slain in the Spirit, that’s a sign of God’s hand on that person, that’s a sign of spirituality.” Absolutely not. There may be a spirit at work, but it is not the Holy Spirit…it is not the Holy Spirit. (Source)

The irony, sadly, is that the Catholic priests being trained to exorcise these demons are dividing their own kingdom. The Catholic Church and its priests and adherents are under the bondage of satan, not submitted to Christ. The RCC is the most satanically successful religious organization on earth, it is not of the true faith. Trained or not, its priests have no authority over satan but are sadly under his authority.

In this passage, when Jesus cast out a demon from a man, and healed his muteness and blindness, the Pharisees descended to a panic when the people began wondering if Jesus was the promised deliverer of Israel.

And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?” 24But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” 25Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. 26And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? 27And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges.

In his commentary, MacArthur says of this verse,

And it is further true that Satan often disguises himself as an angel of light, (2 Cor 11:14). In that role he may pretend to cast out a demon by restricting its power over the possessed person in order to give the impression of a cleansing. That sort of supposed exorcism has been common throughout the history of the church and is practiced today by various cults, false healers, and exorcists.

Sons of Sceva, Matthias Scheits (c.1630-1700)

Yes, satan is a real being and actively at work in this world sowing evil, lies, and despair. He is a destroyer. However the priests have no authority over any demon, and any one they cast out would be a false show, a lie, or an accident. Remember the Sons of Sceva?

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” 14Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. 15But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” 16And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. (Acts 19:13-17).

Matthew Henry says of trying to exorcise demons outside the authority of God,

It was common, especially among the Jews, for persons to profess or to try to cast out evil spirits. If we resist the devil by faith in Christ, he will flee from us; but if we think to resist him by the using of Christ’s name, or his works, as a spell or charm, Satan will prevail against us.

HuffPo via Washington Post and Getty Images

In one last quote from the article, Vatican Exorcism Course Draws 170 Students to Study Demonic Activity,

Pope Francis has spoken of the devil repeatedly, insisting that he is real and must be fought. This generation, the Pope said last October, “was led to believe that the devil was a myth, a picture, an idea, the idea of evil. But the devil exists, and we have to fight him.” Pope Francis has praised the work of exorcists, priests dedicated to the work of deliverance and casting out demons. According to the Pope, priests devoted to the ministry of exorcism “manifest the Church’s love and acceptance of those who suffer because of the devil’s works.”

Well we all suffer because of the devils’ works, the unsaved and the saved. But of course they are focusing on the exact wrong thing, satan, when we all should be focusing on Jesus. But RCC priests cannot focus on Jesus becuase they are an enemy to Him.

In general, if a person is not in Christ, he is a friend of satan. 1 John 2 outlines the dichotomy. If you love the world, you’re not a friend to Jesus, and vice versa. Satan can certain possess any person who is of this world because this world is temporarily his. (2 Cor 4:4). Satan dividing satan is not logical, as Jesus eloquently explained to the Pharisees.

Alternately, if you’re a Christian, you cannot be possessed. The Holy Spirit is sealed within us as a guarantee of the deposit of our inheritance (Ephesians 4:30, 1:13-14). No one can break that seal, only God, and God has said He will not. (James 1:18, John 10:28). Moreover we are called to resist the devil, (James 4:7) not take classes in demonic ninja and then go out to find him and fight him.

What fruit will it bear to keep our eyes on satan, when our eyes should be on Jesus? Chasing after demons brings nothing to Jesus but pride, arrogance, and wasted time. HE is our all in all, sufficient for all battles. (Judges 7:7).

Friends, do not let all this talk of increasing demonic activity pique your interest. The Catholics, Hindus, and other adherents to false religions may play at exorcism, may utter what they believe is heaven sent gibberish, may seek satan on the battleground, but we are to seek Christ-

Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually! (Psalm 105:4).

Our weapon is prayer. Do we believe we have the strength to overcome 5000 demons, the number that was reported inhabiting the man in the Gadarene tombs? (Luke 8:26-39). Our strength is puny compared to the heavenly power of even the unholy angels, whom we dare not blaspheme (2 Peter 2:12). We are to rely on His strength, and He will deliver us one way or another.

If someone comes to you with a report of supernatural activity such as tongues, demon deliverance by any other method except salvation, or any supernatural miracle, be skeptical. Very skeptical. Seek the Lord, who is Good; not satan, who is evil.

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No treaty with Rome! War!

Posted on October 18, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

As more and more formerly solid but now straying teachers, and other false brethren associate with and cuddle up to Rome, (I’m speaking of Beth Moore, Kirk Cameron, James Robson, Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland… and others) it becomes a concern. Amid their unbiblical calls for unity with Catholics and with Rome, we forget the blood that the Reformers shed to keep the Gospel alive and undiluted by Rome’s false doctrines. Here is Charles Spurgeon using plain language to state the truth. O, for such a one at a time like this to say the same.

It is all very well with that Church when it is separated from her heretical sons, and a great gulf fixed, but all that helps to bridge that gulf must mar her glory and destroy her power. We must have no truce, no treaty with Rome. War! war to the knife with her! Peace there cannot be. She cannot have peace with us—we cannot have peace with her. She hates the true Church, and we can only say that the hatred is reciprocated. We would not lay a hand upon her priests; we would not touch a hair of their heads. Let them be free; but their doctrine we would destroy from the face of the earth as the doctrine of devils. So let it perish, O God, and let that evil thing become as the fat of lambs. Into smoke let it consume: yea into smoke let it consume away.

War! War! War! A Sermon,
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 1st, 1859, by the
REV. C. H. Spurgeon
at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

Vatican City

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7 Questions God Asks, Losing Kirk Cameron trying Save Christmas, Doctrine, Mark Driscoll resigns, Hillsong & Vatican on gays

Posted on October 18, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Here are some dribs and drabs for you. Links, news, and thoughts.

Sermon Series: Alistair Begg: Seven Questions God Asks

Many of us are familiar with the questions that individuals regularly bring to God. Yet how many of us are aware of the questions that God brings to individuals? In this series, Alistair Begg examines seven conversations that begin with one of God’s disarming questions. From Adam and Eve in the Garden to the rich young ruler in Judea, the Lord engages these individuals with striking accuracy and exposes their mistaken notions about him.

These questions are as arresting to us today and are as able to penetrate our hearts as they were two-thousand years ago. In this study, we are invited to discover the truth of God’s nature and the reality of our condition as it is revealed in these surprising encounters.

Below is the entire series, click on the link above to get to all of them. Sermons range between 20-25 minutes. I listened to “Why Do You Call Me Good?” and “Where are You?” this morning and I loved them.

Where are You? Genesis 3:9
What is This You Have Done? Genesis 3:13
Why Do You Call Me Good? Mark 10:18
Who Do You Say I Am? Mark 8:29
Do You Think I Came to Bring Peace? Luke 12:51
What Will It Profit A Man …? Matthew 16:26
What is Your Life? James 4:14

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Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry reminds us of what doctrine is and why it’s important, And no, it’s not complicated. If you say “I’m a sinner” you just stated the Doctrine of Sin. Doctrine:

The word “doctrine” comes from the Greek word “didaskolos,” and it basically means “teaching.” It is used many times in the New Testament. Doctrine is extremely important in Christianity. By it we know who God is, what He has done, what the Trinity is, the deity of Christ, His resurrection, salvation, justification, etc. Doctrine is what defines the who’s and what’s of Christianity. In fact, you can’t be saved without doctrine.

It is a doctrinal statement that you are a sinner (Rom. 3:23). It is also doctrinally true that the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). In fact, the doctrine of salvation teaches us that Jesus bore our sin in His body on the cross (1 Pet. 2:24) so that we could be justified by faith (Rom. 5:1) and escape the righteous wrath of God (John 3:36). Doctrine. It is important. It is vital to our relationship with God and our salvation. Good doctrine is like an anchor that prevents us from drifting into teachings that are false.

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We’re losing Kirk Cameron…

You might be surprised to see a negative review of any of Kirk Cameron’s projects. Known as a child actor in the 1980s on secular television, and later as a Christian actor in the Kendrick Brothers’ Christian movies such as the excellent Fireproof, Cameron has been the Christian poster boy for atheist-turned-Christian boy done good.

However, there has been a noticeable slide in him over the last five years, with several indicators rising to the top and causing concern in the discerning people who notice these things. His movie Monumental was more secular than Christian, and further it was not biblically, theologically or even historically totally accurate. His partnerships with Mormon Glenn Beck, with a Catholic Priest Father Dwyer on the Busted Halo radio show, and now Cameron’s complete disaster of a movie “Saving Christmas,” have raised the alarm bells to strident proportions.

Just to show that even the secular people get it, here is a hilarious but on the nose review of Kirk’s movie Saving Christmas by AV Club

Kirk Cameron to make Christmas safe for Christians

After having bravely made America safe for Christians, Kirk Cameron’s newest movie, Saving Christmas, similarly promises to rescue the Christian holiday for Christians, delivering it from the continued terrorist assault by euphemisms. “Do you ever feel like Christmas has been hijacked by all the commercialism, and those who want to replace ‘Merry Christmas’ with ‘Happy Holidays’ or ‘Seasons Greetings’—whatever that means?” Cameron says. He remains baffled by these crazy atheist codes for wishing you happy holy days and seasonal hellos without specifically invoking Jesus—all while decrying commercialism, in the opening line of a trailer advertising a Christmas movie he wants you to pay to see.

On a more serious note though, there are many people, including myself, who are very sad to see his theological drift and his unholy partnering with Mormons and Catholics, even going so far as to call them brothers in the faith.

A critical mass of sorts has been reached. Michael John Beasley wrote an Open Letter to Cameron two weeks ago,

Open Letter and Appeal To Kirk Cameron, But Also to Glenn Beck, Father David Dwyer, and all Their Respective Employees and Listening Audiences

At Christianity Today, Sunny Shell gracefully and biblically reviewed the Saving Christmas movie, Kirk Cameron’s ‘Saving Christmas’ Belittles Christians. Here is an excerpt:

On Friday, November 14, 2014 Kirk Cameron’s “Saving Christmas” will be opening in select theaters across the country for only two weeks.

This movie is all about making fun of any Christian who doesn’t think like or agree with Kirk Cameron and his company. According to Kirk and friends, one of the main purposes of “Saving Christmas” is to dispel the beliefs that most of our traditional Christmas practices e.g., decorating Christmas trees, feasting, mistletoe, gift exchanges, etc., are from pagan origins or fabricated myths about actual people who lived during the fourth-century—namely Saint Nicholas of Lycia, commonly known in the United States as Santa Claus.

Here is the part about belittling Christians. Mrs Shell wrote,

To ensure I was clear regarding one of the main purposes of this film, Darren Doane who not only plays the lead character, but also scripted, produced and directed the movie, tweeted this to me the other day, “but the film does make fun of Wannabe Berean [sic] unimaginative Christians who need to lighten up.”

Source

By this we know that Doane and Cameron don’t take atheists to task, but take fellow Christians to task who are concerned about the excesses of Christmas consumerism and traditions, and bemoan the lost focus on Jesus, and they do so in a belittling, mocking way.

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. (Colossians 2:16)

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. (Romans 16:17)

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Appropos of nothing except I liked the quote (becuase it used to apply to me before I was saved)…speaking to University Students recently, Alistair Begg said of the sin-drenched mind,

“Human reason and intellectual capacity forms the basis for their unbounded confidence. I said to them, I’m not sure they liked it, “Do you realize your intellect is not a citadel that unaffected by sin? Do you realize you can’t think properly?”

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Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill Church

Yes I know the Mark Driscoll thing has been discussed to death. Driscoll resigned from Mars Hill as pastor, but the interesting thing to me was the circumstances of the resignation. His elders said he was not disqualified from ministry because he didn’t perform “heresy, immorality or criminal activity.” While the bible does list those as disqualifying events from ministry, those are not the ONLY disqualifying events. Sola Sisters explains at the following link.

Mars Hill Pastor Mark Driscoll Resigns, Claims He Is Not “Disqualified From Future Ministry”

As devastating as this is issue is to the Driscoll family, the Mars Hill congregants, to the faith and to God, the problem this indicates is much larger. It is my opinion that Western Christianity (and maybe all of Christianity) is undergoing a monumental collapse. The church has been inflated with so many tares that it has become bloated with false members. Like a helicopter trying to rise with too many hanging on, many are falling away (or sovereignly revealed to have been false all along).

Source

[True Christianity will never be overcome. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16:18]

For example, Hillsong Pastor Brian Houston said this week that he will not take a biblical stand on Homosexuality issues. He said “it is an ongoing conversation” and “we’re on a journey with it”. NY Times reported,

Brian and Bobbie Houston of Hillsong

Megachurch Pastor Signals Shift in Tone on Gay Marriage

The pastor of one of the more influential global megachurches has declared that his church is in “an ongoing conversation” about same-sex marriage — saying that it is appropriate to consider the words of the Bible alongside the changing culture and the experience of people in the pews.

This blogger stated it more specifically- Hillsong grooming its members to embrace Queerstianity? (Part 2)

And you know what? So is the Vatican.

Vatican stuns Catholic world with greater openness toward gays and lesbians

VATICAN CITY — The world’s Catholic bishops on Monday (Oct. 13) signaled a move toward greater tolerance of gays and lesbians, an about-face so unexpected that leaders of the church’s right wing called it a “betrayal.”

By no stretch of the imagination can Hillsong, Mars Hill or the Catholic Church be considered true churches. Not when the Mars Hill Pastor has failed the benchmarks for qualified ministry so repeatedly and so obviously. Not when the Mars Hill elders dispense with half the scriptures for pastoral qualifications- either demonstrating massive ignorance of scripture (in which case they themselves are disqualified from eldership) or by having willfully set them aside (again, an act which disqualifies them from eldership).

Not when Hillsong’s prosperity gospel infects the global church, and Hillsong conferences touting spiritual teaching and personal renewal include such rank heretics as TD Jakes, Kong Hee, Joel Osteen, Victoria Osteen, Judah Smith, Rick Warren, Jesus Culture, Steven Furtick, Louie Giglio, Christine Caine, Bethel Live, Bill Hybels, Louie Giglio, Joyce Meyer and Joseph Prince! Those names are poster children for heresy itself.

And of course the Catholic Church we already know is false.

Yet how large are just those three entities? Considered Christian by most of the world, their size and membership means their leaven is spoiling the entire loaf. The bread inflates with rank leaven.

A little leaven leavens the whole lump. (Galatians 5:9)

How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. (Matthew 16:11)

Catholic Church: 1.2 billion members worldwide. Vatican is the world’s sole absolute monarchy. One of the oldest hierarchical religious organizations in the world, and the longest successive monarchy.

“We must have no truce, no treaty with Rome.” Charles Spurgeon

Hillsong: 30,000 members in Australia; extension churches also in London, Cape Town, Paris, Kiev, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Copenhagen and New York, there are 680,000 Twitter followers of Hillsong music and more than 4 million Facebook fans. President of LifeWay Research Ed Stetzer, says of the Houstons’ impact, “I’d guess that globally, they’d be in the top 10 influential evangelicals in the English-speaking world.”

And this is the “church” that will NOT take a stand on homosexuality…

Mars Hill: a multi-site church based in Seattle, Washington with 15 locations in 5 U.S. states, 260,000 sermon views online every week, from 2004-2012 Outreach Magazine ranked Mars Hill #4 in overall “Top Churches to Watch in America”. In 2011, Preaching magazine named the founding pastor Mark Driscoll ‘one of the 25 most influential [English-speaking] pastors of the past 25 years.’ 10 Million views on Youtube and almost half a million followers for Mark Driscoll and another 63,000 for Mars Hill Church.

And this is the church whose elders say that plagiarism, twisting scriptures, lying, and bullying are not disqualifying events for its pastor.

Never fear. No matter what seems to be happening to the church is only happening to the false church and only happening because God is allowing it. Jesus keeps His sheep unspoiled. He will take His true church out of the world to be living bread for His name forever.

Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” 37He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. 38The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, 42and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. (Matthew 13:36-43)

allah, idols, ISIS, jesus, pope, vatican

ISIS threatens to conquer Rome and break the Vatican’s crosses

Posted on October 14, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

ISIS, also known as Islamic State, publishes a glossy, slick magazine each month called Dabiq. It is propaganda, of course, but it is a nice production. In this month’s issue, the Islamic State threatened to conquer Rome and break the Vatican’s crosses.

The Clarion Project explains the magazine’s name:

Dabiq is a place in Syria that is supposed to be the location for one of the final battles according to certain Muslim myths about a final apocalypse. Choosing such a name for the magazine highlights the Caliphate’s goals.

In their eschatology, Sunni Muslims believe they must ignite a holy war to prove to Muhammad that they are serious about worshiping Allah and serious in seeking for Muhammad to return in ‘the last hour.’

The magazine is full of exhortations from “Allah”. They call westerners who are opposed to them “Crusaders”, whether they are military or Christian. Here is one example of their latest rhetoric:

From magazine Dabiq, page 37, Issue 4, The Final Crusade

This certainty was echoed by Shaykh Abū Muham – mad al-’Adnānī (hafidhahullāh) in his last speech when he said, “And so we promise you [O crusaders] by Allah’s permission that this campaign will be your final campaign. It will be broken and defeated, just as all your previous campaigns were broken and defeated, except that this time we will raid you thereafter, and you will never raid us. We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women, by the permission of Allah, the Exalted. This is His promise to us; He is glorified and He does not fail in His promise. If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market” [Indeed Your Lord Is Ever Watchful].

In other sections, the authors of the magazine reiterate that after conquering the Vatican they will sell all the women they capture into slavery. The magazine is full of articles with titles like “The Revival of Slavery: Before the Hour”, and “In the Words of the Enemy” (US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel) and gruesome pictures of beheaded people and the slain ‘Crusaders’.

The cover photo of the current issue (October 2014) is of an image of the Vatican with a photoshopped ISIS flag atop the Vatican obelisk.

In May 2014, Pope Francis met with Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Hussein, and pointed to the fraternal dialogue and exchange between Christians and Muslims, this quote is from Vatican Radio Archives:

Dear brothers, dear friends, from this holy place I make a heartfelt plea to all people and to all communities who look to Abraham: may we respect and love one another as brothers and sisters! May we learn to understand the sufferings of others! May no one abuse the name of God through violence! May we work together for justice and peace! Salaam!

In September 2014, “Pope Francis Slams Extremists Who ‘Pervert Religion‘” saying,

“May no one use religion as a pretext for actions against human dignity and against the fundamental rights of every man and woman, above all to the right to life and the right of everyone to religious freedom,” he said. … Islamic State has declared a “caliphate” in the territories they control and have killed or driven out large numbers of Christians, Shi’ite Muslims and others who do not subscribe to their hardline version of Sunni Islam.

The acts of ISIL ARE Islam. They are the religious center, the non-violent Muslims are the extremists. Needless to say, the Pope’s entreaties are going ignored.

Islam is not a religion of peace. But God is using it to bring about His final peace, the Prince of Peace who will rule with a rod of iron, and minister justice to all the nations. He warned the ancient Ninevites (present day ISIL) against their unceasing evil, saying through Prophet Nahum,

An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh. God’s Wrath Against Nineveh 2The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. 3The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. (Nahum 1:1-3)

As long as a Muslim is praying to Allah, he has forsaken the only steadfast love there is. (Jonah 2:8). But as long as a Muslim draws breath, even one involved in an unholy war as the ISIS men are, he will receive mercy if he repents. (1 John 1:19).

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Vatican offers ‘time off purgatory’ to followers of Pope Francis tweets

Posted on July 17, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Indulgence in the Catholic context means selling forgiveness for money or via other means of gain or trade or action. (CCC 1471, 1498)

The Guardian UK reports today,

Vatican offers ‘time off purgatory’ to followers of Pope Francis tweets
“In its latest attempt to keep up with the times the Vatican has married one of its oldest traditions to the world of social media by offering “indulgences” to followers of Pope Francis’ tweets. The church’s granted indulgences reduce the time Catholics believe they will have to spend in purgatory after they have confessed and been absolved of their sins. The remissions got a bad name in the Middle Ages because unscrupulous churchmen sold them for large sums of money. But now indulgences are being applied to the 21st century.”

“But a senior Vatican official warned web-surfing Catholics that indulgences still required a dose of old-fashioned faith, and that paradise was not just a few mouse clicks away. “You can’t obtain indulgences like getting a coffee from a vending machine,” Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, head of the pontifical council for social communication, told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera. Indulgences these days are granted to those who carry out certain tasks – such as climbing the Sacred Steps, in Rome (reportedly brought from Pontius Pilate’s house after Jesus scaled them before his crucifixion), a feat that earns believers seven years off purgatory.”

“But attendance at events such as the Catholic World Youth Day, in Rio de Janeiro, a week-long event starting on 22 July, can also win an indulgence. Mindful of the faithful who cannot afford to fly to Brazil, the Vatican’s sacred apostolic penitentiary, a court which handles the forgiveness of sins, has also extended the privilege to those following the “rites and pious exercises” of the event on television, radio and through social media. “That includes following Twitter,” said a source at the penitentiary, referring to Pope Francis’ Twitter account, which has gathered seven million followers.”

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The Catholics believe in a mid-hell or waystation hell called purgatory. They think that you can buy your way out (indulgences) or be prayed out after your final purification in purgatory is accomplished, because Jesus’ sacrifice was not enough, obviously. Annihilationists believe that your body is just destroyed after death or after spending some time period in hell, because your sin was not eternal, obviously.

If the Catholic church is not the Great W-hore referred to in Revelation, or is not the foundation of it, I don’t know what is. Here is Revelation 17:1-6,

“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great w-hore who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.”
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The coming one world religion

Posted on June 8, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

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!!!

pope, resign, scandal, vatican

Pope Benedict’s resignation: the fallout continues & Vatican is furious

Posted on February 23, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

It has been interesting to see the number of potential reasons surface for Pope Benedict ‘s resignation.

Did the pope resign due to a Vatican gay sex scandal? USA Today reports, “The Italian media is reporting that Pope Benedict XVI resigned after receiving the results of an internal investigation, delivered in a 300-page, two-volume dossier, that laid bare a sordid tale of blackmail, corruption and gay sex at the Vatican. The respected Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported Friday that the report stamped “Pontifical Secret,” contained “an exact map of the mischief and the bad fish” inside the Holy See. The newspaper said the findings of the nine-month investigation, headed by Spanish cardinal, Julian Herranz, with the assistance of Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi, former archbishop of Palermo, and Slovak cardinal Jozef Tomko, was delivered to the pope on Dec. 17, 2012. “It was on that day, with those papers on his desk, that Benedict XVI took the decision he had mulled over for so long,” the newspaper said.”

No, no, of course there is not a gay lobby inside the Vatican, the Vatican asserts, denies, and in all ways refuses to discuss, said The Guardian

Was it because of illness? The Pope may be much sicker than we thought. Pope Benedict had a pacemaker. The news of its existence shocked the world. In another shocker, the Pope apparently hit his head hard enough to break the skin, and has had a few resulting issues since then. But the Vatican predictably denies that it led to his retirement.

Or how about a good old money laundering scandal? The Times Union reports, “the Vatican has been accused for decades of secrecy in its financial dealings. The most famous was the Banco Ambrosiano scandal in the 1980s, in which the Vatican’s private bank — formally known as the “Institute for Works of Religion” — was implicated in money-laundering for the Sicilian Mafia. Since 2010, the Vatican bank has once again been caught up in a series of financial scandals, including $29 million being seized by Italian authorities and being placed on the U.S. State Department’s list of countries that are home to money laundering. Even J.P. Morgan closed one of the bank’s accounts this past year when the Vatican could not provide information about the large sums of money moving in and out of its account. In an attempt to clean up its finances in order to bring them in line with European standards and to get ahead of any future scandals, the Vatican has hired outside advisers to address their adherence to financial regulations. However, in a series of released documents now known as “VatiLeaks,” it was exposed that elements within the Vatican have continued to try to sidestep financial money laundering regulations that might threaten its banking operations.”

The Vatican is situated in Vatican City, a sovereign nation located in Rome, Italy. It is “a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome. It has an area of approximately 110 acres, and a population of just over 800. This makes Vatican City the smallest independent state in the world by both area and population.”

You must understand that the pope is an absolute monarch. He is elected by the Cardinals, but once elected, he assumes absolute power for life. The only other absolute monarchies in the world today are Swaziland, Brunei, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates which is a federation of absolute monarchies.

The Pope is the only absolute monarch in Europe.

The Vatican is increasingly furious that the world’s attention is turning from the papal resignation to what caused the resignation- in other words, digging up the scandal.

Vatican denies swirling rumors as pope prepares to step down
“The Vatican sought Saturday to tamp down rumors involving sex, money and gay priests that have been swirling in the Italian media and have been linked by some to Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to resign. The strongly-worded denial came on the eve of the pope’s last Angelus blessing, expected to draw huge crowds of the faithful, before he stands down on Thursday. Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone said it was “deplorable” that as the time for the Roman Catholic cardinals to elect a new pope approaches, a rash of “often unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories” has appeared.”

“Last May Pope Benedict’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested and charged with stealing leaked papal correspondence that depicted the Vatican as a seething hotbed of intrigue and infighting.”

St. Peter’s Basilica

I want us all to understand something. The rumors of infighting, backbiting, betrayals and political jockeying are not unexpected. The cardinals who live in the micro-nation of Vatican city are living in a heated pot of intrigue, personal selfishness and depraved sin all within 110 little acres. How do I know this? They are not saved.

Picture “Survivor” on steroids, because the prize is an absolute monarchy in the wealthiest place on the planet. It is the world’s top prize. And competing for it are men who are whitewashed tombs, having an appearance of godliness but denying its power. (Matthew 23:28). If one is not under the grace of Jesus, one is under the control of satan, and these men are under satan’s influence. Of course there is a scandal, and of course men are willing to go to any length to obtain the prize. To think otherwise is to fail to understand sin.

The only higher prize than to be pope (in terms of unaccountability in power and living in immeasurable wealth) is the coming antichrist. The antichrist will have control of the entire planet, not just 1/7th of it.

One extreme of current speculation is that the pope would be a likely candidate for false prophet to the antichrist. (The Pope already IS a false prophet, but may morph into THE false prophet). The other extreme is that perhaps Catholicism all but disappears as the elements of Islam and Gnosticism and paganism dilute it so much into the one world religion (Revelation 17) that it is essentially gone. Who knows?

Pope Pius XII, in the papal mantum and wearing
the 1877 Papal Tiara, is carried through St. Peter’s Basilica
on a sedia gestatoria.

Whatever happens in the next three weeks will be interesting. Will the new pope be installed by Easter? He would have to be elected by March 17 and installed that day at latest, because installations only can occur on Sundays, and Holy week begins March 24 and concludes on Easter, March 31. On the other hand, the Lord may have in mind that there be no new pope, or something equally amazing. His works are mysterious and wondrous. I do not know what He will do in this situation but I know that it will be amazing, and perfect.

Keep watching this most interesting development.

dystopian, mark of the beast, oliver stone, orwellian, utopian, vatican

The Vatican wants to vacuum you dry. And other news

Posted on December 28, 2012 by elizabethprata

Here is some news I thought interesting.

Not a speck of dust! Sistine Chapel visitors to be vacuumed
“In a bid to protect one of Italy’s greatest historical sites that featured frescos by Michelangelo, Raphael and Botticelli the authorities of the Vatican are installing a hi-end vacuum cleaning system in the Sistine Chapel to clean visitors. The special equipment will be installed next year at the entrance to the Sistine Chapel, the hall that hosts the cardinals’ conclave when they elect the new Pope, Italian Corriere della Sera newspaper reports. The measure is being taken to preserve the 500-year-old Renaissance masterpiece from the dust, dirt, hair and fibers brought in by visitors. It is one of the most visited attractions inside Italy with four million tourists coming to the Chapel every year.”

“The vacuum cleaner will guarantee that all visitors will be clean of dust and other fibers and it will also take away excessive moisture such as sweat,” the director of the Vatican Museum Antonio Paolucci said. “It would involve a system along the final 100 meters before entering the Sistine Chapel which would suck up dust and other debris from people’s shoes,” he explained. “At the same time side vents would also draw in dust from clothes and also excessive humidity and dampness from people, in other words sweat, to keep them cool because all these factors combined can damage the frescoes. They are the biggest enemies of artworks,” Paolucci said.”

“At the last major cleaning at the Sistine Chapel “several kilos” of dust, hair and man-made fibers were removed from the priceless frescos.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EWWW! is all I can say. I have traveled to Italy numerous times. I saw the fresco degradation first hand. I was surprised to learn how delicate frescoes are, and how breath, humidity, fibers, and dirt stirred up from thousands of feet tramping through take a toll on the art. When I was there the first time, the Last Supper in Milan was covered by scaffolding, obscuring the great work by Da Vinci, because it was being cleaned. It had darkened almost totally.

Another time, I went to Rome and visited Vatican City. Though I was not saved yet, I was still sensitive to the influence of the demonic and the divine. God had put that into me and thus, I could ‘feel’ things. Yeah, I know, weird. Though we went to the Vatican itself and I skittishly enjoyed St. Peter’s Square for its architectural beauty and history, when my husband asked if I wanted to go inside, I refused. I desperately wanted to see the great art, but an external spirit wouldn’t let me enter that most deeply demonic place. I got the willies and I turned away.

Eesh, between TSA patting me down and the Vatican Guard vacuuming me dry, I don’t think I’ll be traveling for a while. Unless it’s to COME UP HERE!

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The LORD has regard for both the rich and the poor. “The rich and poor meet together: the LORD is the maker of them all.” (Proverbs 22:2). The rich and poor alike are appointed so, (1 Samuel 2:7).

However, sometimes poverty comes because of sloth on the part of the person, or drunkenness, (Proverbs 20:13, Proverbs 28:19). In any case, the bible says to work when we can (2 Thessalonians 3:10) and if your circumstances do require you to be on the dole, don’t languish there (1 Timothy 5:5-6).

It appears that in reading this next article that there may be many who are languishing there. I am sure that there are many hard-working people who need to receive government welfare, but loiterers on the dole were an issue in Jesus’ day and they are an issue in our day. People don’t change.

Takers exceeds workers in 11 states
“In 11 different U.S. states, the number of government dependents exceeds the number of private sector workers. This list of states includes some of the biggest states in the country: California, New York, Illinois, Ohio, Maine, Kentucky, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, New Mexico and Hawaii. … In California, there are 139 “takers” for every 100 private sector workers. If you can believe it, entitlements accounted for 62 percent of all federal spending in fiscal year 2012.”

This is not sustainable, of course. Which is the point. At a time in the future, a future growing closer each day, God will dismantle the world’s economy to make way for the antichrist’s infrastructure. The mark of the beast will follow.

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Speaking of future dystopian societies, movie director Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznik say that the ‘US has become an Orwellian state’.

An Owellian state is defined by Wikipedia as “the situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free and open society. It connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past, including the “unperson” — a person whose past existence is expunged from the public record and memory, practiced by modern repressive governments. Often, this includes the circumstances depicted in his novels, particularly Nineteen Eighty-Four.”

Huh. If that’s the definition of Orwellian state, without even reading the news article any further, I can wholeheartedly agree with Stone and Kuznik. But here’s the first sentence, and it’s a loaded one:

“Americans are living in an Orwellian state argue Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick, as they sit down with RT to discuss US foreign policy and the Obama administration’s disregard for the rule of law.”

LOL, I told you it was a loaded sentence. Now here’s the next one:

”Both argue that Obama is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and that people have forgiven him a lot because of the “nightmare of the Bush presidency that preceded him.” “

Interesting turn of phrase, ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’, that. Continuing in the article,

“It is an Orwellian state. It might not be oppressive on the surface, but there is no place to hide. Some part of you is going to end up in the database somewhere,” Stone said. According to Kuznick, American citizens live in a fish tank where their government intercepts more than 1.7 billion messages a day. “That is email, telephone calls, other forms of communication.” “

I was just thinking about this the other day, the fact that there is no place to hide. When my husband and I loaded up on our yacht and took off for live-aboard, blue water cruising, we were expecting freedom, invisibility from government scrutiny and interference, a vagabond devil-may-care kind of living. What we got was far from it. It was a rude awakening for both of us. Far from dropping out of government clutches, we dropped right into them.

Of course, you had to license your boat with the government, just as you do with a car. If you launch from a marina, that’s documented. And traveling down the Intracoastal Waterway meant that every bridge you passed under the bridgetender took down the name of your boat and time of passage. Same with passing through a lock.

If you go “outside” the Intracoastal and make a passage in the Atlantic, the US Coast Guard could spot you and approach at any time for any reason. They can and do board your boat for any reason, no permission needed. As a matter of fact, when they board, they hold captain and any crew in the cockpit whilst they search your boat. They are armed, so you don’t argue. In a car in the US the police need probable cause to enter your car or they are breaking the law if they do. Not so with a boat.

Weighing anchor in the Bahamas didn’t help either. There is a heavy US Coast Guard presence with permission and welcome from the Bahamian government.

We were mariners back in the 1990s so maybe things have changed…but at the time the US was looking for drugs and human trafficking smuggling from The Bahamas and Cuba and they had a long reach. It should be noted that we were two law-abiding citizens with all proper identification and were not nor did we intend to smuggle anything. We were two young yuppies living the husband’s dream to sail on the ocean on our own boat to view the sights of coastal America and live the life of minding our own business and seeing a few sunsets.

But I was thinking the other day that of a person wanted to ‘drop out’ of regular society for personal, law-abiding reasons like we did back in the ’90s, that it would be very hard to do so lawfully today. Of course, the criminals have an easier time of it. Which was the opposite point of the Patriot Act. But now we do have that aforementioned Orwellian society of Big Brother…like this:

California gets face scanners to spy on everyone at once
“In a single second, law enforcement agents can match a suspect against millions upon millions of profiles in vast detailed databases stored on the cloud. It’s all done using facial recognition, and in Southern California it’s already occurring. Imagine the police taking a picture: any picture of a person, anywhere, and matching it on the spot in less than a second to a personalized profile, scanning millions upon millions of entries from within vast, intricate databases stored on the cloud.”

This is pretty interesting. I like to think about the practicalities of the mark of the beast. Revelation 13:16-17 says

“Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.”

First, the part where the antichrist “causes all”. All means nearly 8 billion people, though that number will have been just about halved by the time Revelation 13 rolls around, due to the rapture taking millions of Christians from the earth, and Revelation 6’s plagues and wars. But still, how will the antichrist ’cause’ all from Greenland to Chile, from California to Mongolia, to do this thing? My contention is that the people who are unsaved will want to and the Christians who have become saved will try to hide but that they will know they’ll be hunted down. (Rev 13:10).

Secondly, how will the checkout person at the point of sale know? It will take a huge database to scan in a person’s mark to determine if they are genuinely within the commerce system. The database would need to be extremely rapid, also. However, quantum chips are here so no worries. So it seems the Orwellian nightmare of Big Brother is coming along just fine and its infrastructure to handle the prophesied events is just about in place.

It has been a rapid advance just in my own lifetime. I was born in 1960 and the 60s were a free living time of hippies dropping out and no Big Brother was around to track them. The first commercial bar code was not in use until 1974. Highway scanners weren’t invented, cameras on city streets, banks, and other places were not set up yet. In the 1970s, 80s, and 90s it was still fairly easy to travel under the radar from place to place and TSA wasn’t set up in the airports yet.

But by now, RFID, face scanners, fingerprinting at banks and other places (like schools), video surveillance, and intrusive monitoring everywhere like Oliver Stone was mentioning are part of a dystopian life. It makes me want to scream in frustration.

But I do not scream because I know the joy that is set before me. Here is the utopian life. Soon Jesus will call us up to heaven, and we will live in a place where we will know just as we are known. (1 Corinthians 13:12). There will be total government involvement in our lives. And it will be a good thing! Our place is called New Jerusalem and the church age saints, us, will live there. Jesus will be the head of the government (Isaiah 9:6). He is perfect and all He does to rule the nations will be perfect. There will be no sin in us because we will live in glorified bodies. We won’t have any reason to even want to drop out! We will not worry about scrutiny or wayward governments unjustly reaching into our lives. We will be part of a glorious fellowship of saints from all ages and all nations, melded by Jesus’ blood and God’s perfect plan into one united body of peoples. We will be His trophies of grace and it will all occur in a place called heaven.

You can be there too, if you believe on the name of Jesus as the resurrected lamb who was slain for our sins.

“Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord…” (Acts 3:19-20a)

end time, end time. prophecy, pope benedict, two-state solution, vatican

It’s come to this…Vatican says to Israel, stop using the bible as a basis

Posted on October 23, 2010May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

I am at a loss to decide whether the Muslim religion represents the false religious system of Revelation, or Roman Catholicism as expressed by the Vatican. I am not at a loss as to how or why the Vatican has gotten to the state of disbelieving the bible. Satan. Time will tell as to who or what amalgam of religious ideas or organizations form the basis for the False Prophet’s launch (Revelation 13:11-15; 16:13 and 19:20), but meanwhile, this just out in Israel’s Yedioth News simply astounds me:

Vatican body asks UN to ‘end Israeli occupation’
“Israel cannot use the Biblical concept of a promised land or a chosen people to justify new “settlements” in Jerusalem or territorial claims, a Vatican synod on the Middle East said on Saturday. … “We have meditated on the situation of the holy city of Jerusalem. We are anxious about the unilateral initiatives that threaten its composition and risk to change its demographic balance,” the message said. Recourse to theological and biblical positions which use the Word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable,” the document said.” [emphasis mine] Worse, they state: “We Christians cannot speak about the promised land for the Jewish people. There is no longer a chosen people. All men and women of all countries have become the chosen people.”

The document is an endorsement of the so-called “Two-State solution“, dividing Israel to carve out a Palestinian State in attempts to appease the Arabs. “The Holy City of Jerusalem will be able to acquire its proper status, which respects its particular character, its holiness and the religious patrimony of the three religions: Jewish, Christian and Muslim. We hope that the two-state-solution might become a reality and not a dream only.”

It cannot be said that the Vatican is even nominally Christian anymore. The Holy Bible tells us that apostasy shall abound in the latter days.

Matthew 24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

1 Timothy 4:1-3 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

Pray for Israel!
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