The People's President

 That's what I got out of watching parts of the Republican convention on You Tube.  Ordinary Americans, not bureaucrats, not many politicians even, just a lot of ordinary Americans of all races telling their stories and speaking out for America and for Trump.  Very happy there were so many blacks in particular speaking for Trump, the charge of racism against him is so false.       

I did look at some of the Democratic convention and some of the media comments on the Republican convention and it made me feel sick.  Lies and hatred, lawlessness and destruction, Marxism and anti-Americanism.  I don't know if they can win but if they do it will be a disaster for everyone.  

All I can do is pray.  And speaking of that, I thinnk my favorite speaker of all those I've heard so far was Jack Brewer, who said he was a lifelong Democrat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MfIEEe2Nis

After doing a stellar job of defending the President and even the Republican party itself, he ended by quoting 2 Chronicles 7:14:  "If My people, who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land."

Amen.

End times ponderings

 "All things work together for good to those who love God and are the called according to His purposes."  Romans something :28, please forgive my memory problem (and my eyesight problem which overlooks too many typos and makes looking things up difficult.)   That scripture verse is very reassuring at times when I feel that nothing I do has any value, that all my writing here is a big waste of time.  Somehow it encourages me to keep doing it, maybe God has plans for it I don't know about.  My main daydream is that the Rapture will come soon and that many people I know will not be in it will nevertheless be able to use some of the information I've written here to become Christians during the ensuing time of Tribulation.   

I'm still persuaded of the eschatological scenario I've been sketching out here, 98% or so anyway.  If it's right I hope it will orient others to a useful idea of what to expect over the next seven years.   There are plenty of other sources that are more thorough that I also point to.   There are important points I haven't discussed, which I expected to get from John MacArthur's study of Revelation eventually , especially about the length of time that is clearly spelled out in the book of Daniel, but MacArhtur's study seems to have been taken down from Utube.  It's probably at his Grace to You website so if I can I'll listen and link.   

The daydream involves a few people who would probably eventually gravitate to my blogs, and if they turn out to be useful, drawing others to them as well.   The only reason they'd come here is that they know me though there are plenty of better sources of Christian truth.  I hope to point them to those, they aren't likely to go there first.  God could certainly lead them wherever He desires so I know my contribution isn't necessary, I just hope it's useful.   During the Tribulation who knows what internet sources of Christian teaching might remain, and for how long?  The Christians who maintain them will be gone after all, though I suppose there will be some who thought they were Christians and disovered they weren't who would repent and become keepers of such information.  And then there will also be the 144,000 Jewish evangelists who will reach out to everybody all over the world, if that interpretation of Revelation 7 is correct.  I pray for all of those I think of to be saved, and if there is any possible refuge for them during that time that God will provide it.  Above all they are going to need courage.

I wonder if anything of the political situation will continue into the Tribulation period.   Will America have become part of the global government, everybody under a Communist tyranny with the Antichrist presenting himself as the source of peace and safety?  At a price of course, such as taking the Mark of the Beast.  If the pandemic continues I hope and pray that HCQ will become available to any who get the virus.   But this of course assumes it's all coming very soon.  Yes I do believe that.  How soon?  A few years at most I'd suppose.   And of course I could be wrong.  

May add to this later.

Some of the Futurist Interpretation Has to Go, But the Main Outline of the Last Days Remains

 Richard Bennett is such a rich source of historical information and biblical understanding of the Antichrist and the Roman Church it can be a bit overwhelming.  

I've been hoping to find a discussion of how some elements of prophecy about the Antichrist have been fulfilled, including confirmation or disconfirmation of my speculation in the previous post about the meaning of the Antichrist's displacing of three "kings" of the Roman Empire in his rise to power.  So far I haven't found such a discussion either by Bennett or by Chris Pinto, the two of my sources most likely to cover such a topic.  

I mentioned but didn't name a well-known prophecy teacher in that post who sees this as yet future, as the whole understanding of the Antichrist is seen in the Pre-Trib eschatology.  But as I've been pursuing the identity of the Antichrist as Pope through the eyes of the Reformers, I'm finding that most of it is considered to have been fulfilled in the past, his civil power for instance having grown by stages in specific events down the centuries.    

Another question I have now as a result of rereading Daniel 11, has to do with the military movements of the Antichrist figure that are described starting in Daniel 11:36.  The prophecy teacher I mentioned sees this as yet-future too of course, leading up to the war of Armageddon.  But what I'm wondering in light of the Reformers' take on so many historical fulfillments of prophecy about the Antichrist,  is whether those movements can be located somewhere in history rather than in the future.  There were certainly military operations that engaged the Pope at various times.   But so far I don't know enough about these movements to speculate much myself.  Maybe something to do with Pepin the Short and Charlemagne, maybe something to do with the Crusades, but those are more or less wild speculations on my part.

I would nevertheless guess that a historical fulfillment is far more likely than a future fulfillment which would put it in the last three and a half years of the Tribulation peeriod.  So I am now taking much of the Book of Revelation to be about the identity of the Antichrist as already established in history, rather than about future events.  Not ALL of course if there is to be a final Antichrist-Pope who consolidates power in the world even greater than he had in the Middle Ages and makes even more martyrs of Bible believers than the Inquisition accomplished.  And this is still my working hypothesis.  Although Bennett and I think also Chris Pinto apparently see the historical fulfillment of so much prophecy about the Antichrist as a major argument against the whole Pre-Tribulation eschatology, I keep seeing it as simply telling us who this Antichrist is from historical facts, while there is still a final Pope-Antichrist to come.  Building on millennia of variations on this evil theme, he will be a satanically inspired terror to people who come to belief during the Tribulation period, but then finally killed when Christ returns at the end of the seven years.

At least I don't see anything yet that has required me to change my mind about the timing of the Rapture and the following seven-year Tribulation /Time of Jacob's Trouble when God finisihes His work with Israel, and the Day of the LORD when He judges the entire Earth.  Instead it seems to me that the Reformers have given us a very full understanding of the Mystery of Iniquity as embodied in the Roman Church and specifically the papacy.  The Last Act of the drama of Planet Earth will be Satan's Day as he possesses the final Pope and murders his enemies the followers of Jesus Christ with a bitter vengeance, before God pours out His wrath and destroys the whole evil system.  

I'm still listening to talks on this subject, by Bennett at the moment, and still not finding a full eschatology described that from what has been said should completely supplant the Pre-Trib scenario.  They do refer to the very end when Jesus returns, however, so maybe the idea is that history just continues until the end, perhaps with some signs as that end approaches, but that part is a guess.  

If that is the case there is no Seventieth Week of Daniel, no Great Tribulation, no Day of the LORD , and the Rapture must come at the moment Jesus returns.  That's a lot of prophecy that will go unfulfilled if so.  Also, the idea that the Rapture occurs when Jesus returns would make the idea of the Millennium impossible, understood as a thousand years when normal life plays out under the literal reign of Christ.  Maybe that makes them Amillennialists?  

All that requires stretching or throwing out a lot of scripture it seems to me.  The Book of Revelation pretty clearly describes a Millennium ruled by Christ, in which people live to be very old but are considered to be children still.  That's a picture of a restored Eden or Paradise on Earth, people living out normal lives, having children, etc., only under increasingly improving conditions, reversing the trend of life in this fallen world.  They will still be fallen people but under the reign of Christ, after the forces of evil were defeated at His coming, they are better able to pursue righteous living and it's a blessed and happy life in which death is put off and diseases and other sufferings minimized.  

There is no more papacy in that Millennium and Satan has been bound in chains and can't influence the people, until the very end when he is released and the fallen nature again asserts its ugly potentials.

It's a fitting scenario.  It completes many themes of the Biblical story that would otherwise be left open-ended.   

Likewise the Pre-Trib Rapture is fitting:  the Church escapes the Wrath of God as promised while the rebellious world is judged\.   There has to be a Day of the LORD.  It's been promised for millennia.  There has to be a Seventieth Week of Daniel when the story of Israel is brought to completion.  There has to be a specific Great Tribulation because Jesus prophesied it and nothing else qualifies that I know of.  Also, how do they explain the 144,000 of the twelve tribes of Israel?  Way too much has to be left o0ut if the entire futurist interpretation is scuttled.

And there is no reason to scuttle it.   I agree that it is hugely important to recognize the true nature of the Antichrist because the Church is in great danger since it's been abandoned, and the first order of business should be reintating this truth.  It is also needed to make sense of the end times picture;  we need the historical understanding of the papacy and the Mystery of Iniquity as the foundation for the Antichrist who brings evil to its perfect expression in the last days.  The Mystery of Iniquity is the same basic system that has existed throughout history, through all those empires we see in the Book of Daniel for instance, but also going back to Nimrod and the religion of Semiramis.  It doesn't just spring up during the Tribulation, it is a system of evil that reaches a pinnacle of perfection at the end but has always been in the world, going back to Babylon.  Even going back to the Fall in Eden, except the evil that grew from that point was rather rudely interrupted by the Flood so Satan started over in Babylon by inventing counterfeit Messiahs.  Now he's working to bring it all together as a global totalitarian system.

There is a fitting grandeur in this way of looking at it too..  

=================

A couple of references to historical discussions by Richard Bennett:

A Biblical Uncovering of the Pope and the Papacy 

.The Antichrist, Man of Sin, In our Midst.  Classic Reformed Eschatology

The Displacement of Three Seats of Power by the Antichrist as he Rises to Prominence.

Just heard a well=known pastor describe the Antichrist as understood in the popular current eschatological system,  by which he is an unknown personality who will appear in the future, remaining unknown until revealed just as he rises to power.  

How we need the truth about the Antichrist, known by the Protestant Reformers as well as many other Christians down the centuries as the Pope, to be reinstated in the thinking of the Church.  

But this pastor did remind me that part of the prophecy, which we get from the Book of Daniel, is that Antichrist rises up as a "little horn" from among the nations of the Roman Empire, displacing three of them at the very beginning of his career.  I think it was Richard Bennett in one of his Sermon Audio talks that I heard recently, who explained that the decree of Phocas that made the Bishop of Rome Universal Bishop over the whole Church, was done as the resolution of a conflict between four Bishops of the time: Rome, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem.  So the Bishop of Rome did literally defeat or displace three other Bishops in order to gain the seat of power over all of them.  

Not nations but seats of power within the Church which was about to replace the Roman Empire itself, eventually acquiringd most of its characteristics including both religious and civil power over nations.  It acquired the vestments, the title "Pontifex Maximus,"  many of the rituals and superstitions of the Roman pagan religions including the rosary, evemtually also elevating "Mary" above Christ, like the Mother Goddess of the pagan religions back to Semiramus; and then by stages and the forgery "The Donation of Constantine" acquired its civil power as well.  

If the displacement of three Bishops is the correct understanding of the prophecy, someone will have written about it somewhere, maybe even one of the Reformers, but at the moment it just seems to me to be a reasonable guess.

Being a Bossy Arrogant Know-It-All as Usual.

We have to understand who the Antichrist is.   True Christians down the centuries knew he was the Pope.  The Protestant Reformers came to the same knowledge.  This idea that he is some future personality yet to be revealed is a terrible deception.  He has been in the world for at least fifteen centuries.   Today's evangelical churches are weak because of embracing false ideas such as this one.  We need spiritual strength now more than ever and we don't have it.  If we want it restored we will have to repent of our errors and sins but we have to know what those errors and sins are in order to repent of them.  God will give us whatever knowledge we earnestly desire and pray for.  

The falseness of Catholicism, the falseness of the Charismatic Movement, the seductions of liberalism, and other forms of apostasy, need to be recognized as deceptions and given up.  Ask God to show us.  He will.  

I also have no question but that women need to resume covering our heads in church after some six or seven decades of abandoning it.  The idea that the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 was telling us that women must cover our heads in church just because one or more of the pagan cultures of his day did so approaches blasphemy it seems to me.    The logic is spurious by which we impute to Paul a teaching given to Jesus Christ' s people  based on the habits of mere culture, especially when he appealed to divine and natural truths as his arguments.   This I've come to believe is one the great deceptions of the Church which has contributed to our current weak condition, is probably a main reason God has not given us the revival we so yearn for, and since it is about God's Creation ordinance of the ordering of the roles of the sexes it has probably had a strong undermining influence in the development of all the sexual aberrations now being treated as normal in the culture.   I wish I could shout this through a megaphone to all the churches.  But they'd ignore me anyway, defend the capitulation to feminism, call me a legalist and so on.  

Another great deception is The Great Bible Hoax of 1881 as I titled my blog on the subject of the foisting of bogus Greek manuscripturs on the Church by two Catholic sympathizers who violated their charge to do a minimal revisiono of the Authorized Version by introducing "new" manuscripts already recognized as false.  This fostered the abandonment of Biblical inerrancy by raising questions about biblical reliability,  made it hard to discuss the truths of the Bible because of all the different and inferior readings of the plethora of Bible versions that resulted, got pastors and churchgoers alike preoccupied with trivial differences in the meaning of words, made it hard to memorize Bible passages when everybody was memorizing a different translation, and just generally interfered with the necessary learning of the Word of God.  A satanic masterpiece of sowing confusion and doubt among God's people.  

If I'm wrong about any of this I'd like to know it but I'm convinced of it after many years of pondering.  

So far I still think the Pre-Trib Rapture thinking is correct, except of coruse for the misidentification of the Antichrist.  

Lord please help us, lead us to the knowledge we need, lead us to repentance of our sins and doctrinal errors, bring us revival.

Here's John MacArthur on the Pope and the Papacy from 2005.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1HdVMvm8wuw" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> 

Don't know how to embed it so here's the URL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HdVMvm8wuw&t=74s

Brexit: Adjustments to the Prophetic Scenario Would be Necessary As We Close In on the Grand Finale

 Now I'm listening to Chris Pinto's radio show on February 7th titled "Brexit and Prophecy" in which he discusses the idea that Brexit throws a wrench into the Pre-Tribulation Rapture or the Dispensationalist eschatology.   I guess the idea is that the prophecy is so hard-wired it can't allow for any sort of deviation from it.  Supposedly the EU has to go forward without a glitch or the whole end times system fails.  

Clearly IT IS IN FACT GOING FORWARD.  The post I just up and in fact most of Richard Bennett's teachings, show that the EU is shaping up as the Holy Roman Empire (which in a sense never died anyway since it was carried by the RCC all along in spite of setbacks.)+

Pinto goes on to say he thinks the enormous influx of Muslims intto the west, which has been promoted by the Vatican, is designed to create an army of anti-Christian murderers to do the work of the Inquisition against Bible believers when the papal EU is fully in power.  Or as he put it, to be the agents of the next Holocaust.

There have been many setbacks to Rome's plots over the centuries, so there being another one in the form of Brexit doesn't to my mind call the final scenario into question.  They probably don't even need to reverse Brexit to bring about their plans.  Since when is national aw any kind of real obstacle to the power juggernaut of Rome?   

Pinto also mentions that  the late Irish preacher Ian Paisley, who called out Pope John Paul as the Antichrist in a session of the EU Parliament some years ago, and believed that the Parliamentary chair numbered 666 awaited the coming together of the finale according to the dispensationalist prophetic system I've also been supporting here.  he believed as I do that the Antichrist is the Pope and that didn't dissuade him from that end times scenario as so far it doesn't dissuade me either.

So Pinto is here laying out his eschatology in more detail, but it still doesn't amount to much more than throwing a wrnech into the Pre-Trib Rapture.  To my mind it doesn't undo it.  I've believed and have been growing in the belief, that the Pope is to be the final Antichrist within that very end times scenario.  I don't see how Brexit seriously unddermines that scenario, just as the identity of the Antichrist as Pope doesn't undermine it.  I continue to think that God gave us some special signs by which to mark Pope Francis for a special role in the line of Antichrists, and although because of his age it seems unlikely he'd be THE final Antichrist i still think it the most likely possibility.  The Popes have generally maintained an image of their right to rule in global affairs, and things are most certainly coming together in a way that legally favors papal rule over Europe, as I've been reporting.  The Day of the LORD has not yet come, there is still a Great Tribulation in our future, and the also-unfulfilled Seventieth Week of Daniel is its likely framework.  Global events with the occasional sidetrack like Brexit (there is still some sanity in the huiman race after all, among us weak vessels of clay)  still point to that Finale.  It looks very close it seems to me.   God said we aren't to know the time, that is in God's hand;  however we are always told to watch and wait and be ready which implies there will be signs we can watch for to give us at least the "season" to be ready for.  If any given idea urns out to be wrong then God will surely show us where we are wrong to correct our bearings, but to this point it looks like things are on track toward the Pre-Trib understanding of the Grand Finale, with the necessary adjustment that it is the Pope we should be expecting to fill the seat of the Antichrist.  He's already shown himself to be God in the templew of God according to the Reformers, so that part of the Pre-Trib scenario may also have to go, but there may be room for a literal second fulfillment.  Watch and wait.

I'm going to be listening to more of Pinto's radio shows and may come back to add my comments on them to this post.

It May Be Too Late But We Have to Try

 This is an extra post on the teaching I linked in the last one, Reformation History, Eschatology, WWII etc., because the churches so desperately need to know these things about the RCC that have so effectively been kept from us for at least a century.  My little blog can't reach anybody but I've got to write it here anyway and pray that God will spread it from whatever sources are available..  

https://www.sermonaudio.com/saplayer/playpopup.asp?SID=530111153203

Listen to the laws the RCC has in place that affect INDIVIDUALS, ALL OF US, everywhere, even in the United States where our own laws protect us from the kinds of encroachments on our liberty they intend to enforce when they get the power to do it.  And they already have a lot more power than we imagine, through their Concordats with various nations.  Even the US thanks to Reagan has diplomatic relations with the Vatican although they had been put to a stop because of their support of the Confederacy in the Civil War.  Reagan reinstated this relationship.  

Listen and weep, that's all I can say.  And besides weeping it may turn your stomach as it did mine to hear the power they already have over us, YOU AND ME.

American Christians are such a complacent bunch.  The wolves in sheeps' clothing are circulating among us and ready to pounce and we blithely accept them as sheep.  Listen to this talk please.  At least this one.  It's not really new to me I'm sorry to report, I just gave up on trying to talk about it and let it slip out of my mind.  You havew no idea, you have no idea, you have no idea.  

Lord please please give us revival, bring us back to the Reformation solas in all their power, and correct the many secondary deviations that have been crippling even the good churches so that You can bless us with a real outpouring of Your spirit before all this comes crashing down on this world.  Please grant us the knowledge we've been deprived of, and the zeal to change, and the repentance we need so that You will send us Your Spirit in power.  Please..  

European Union Shaping up as the Revived Holy Roman Empire and some Eschatological Implications of the Pope as Antichrist

 Window on Europe  is the title of a broadcast at Sermon Audio by Richard Bennett in 2003:  

In the first 25 minutes he talks about his personal experiences traveling in Europe with other evangelicals.  From 25 on he talks about the European Union, starting with its new Constitution,, bringing out its Catholic character, which was overtly recognized by the former Pope John, whom he quotes.  European Bible believers/ Protestants are worried about how this is shaping up because of course if the RCC ascends to its former power over the Holy Roman Empire of Europe, which it is believed is what is developing rapidly, they will be persecuted as they were throughout the Middle Ages.  Already the terms of the new Constitution are clearly totalitarian, far from incorporating the great liberalizations of European history.   The Vatican would wield both religious and civil power.

https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=117182031410

In other broadcast, this one in 2009, Papal Rome, The European Union, Antichrist, Prophecy, Jesuits  Pope John Paul is said to be preparing to be the Holy Rroman Emperor ruling over Europe from the Urals to the Atlantic.  \

Then there is  Reformation History, Eschatology, Prophecy, WWII, Facts About the Papacy (Antichrist) by Bennett and a guest speaker.  

https://www.sermonaudio.com/saplayer/playpopup.asp?SID=530111153203

It is not so much about Reformation History as Counterreformation history, meaning the work of the Jesuits in their neverending attempts to undo the Reformation, which include becoming teachers in Protestant colleges and tutors in royal families, where by interpreting everything through a Catholic lens they are able tu undermine the Protestant beliefs of the parents of the children in their charge.   The Jesuits have a reputation for being excellent scholars and teachers, so Protestant parents naively send their children to be educated under them, only to find them converting to Catholicism or just having their thinking so changed they no longer share their parents' belief.  

From there they go on to how it was the Catholic Oxford Movement in England that promoted the futurist eschatology that removed the idea of the Pope as Antichrist in modern thinking.  It is certainly true that most modern eschatology has dropped that Reformation understanding completely, now teaching an Antichrist who is to come who is as yet unknown but is expected to be revealed and to emerge into world prominence during the Tribulation period.  This is really a sad development, along with all the other ways the RCC has been getting a pass from evangelicalism in recent years. 

Also discussed in this audio sermon is the Vatican's involvement in Catholic nations during WW((, with Mussolini and Hitler and Franco and Salazar and Pavlik(?) in Croatia, supporting the persecutions and murders of nonCatholics.  In Croatia 700.000 Serbian Greek Orthodox believers were murdered.  So although the Inquisition is no longer in force its practices continue anyway, and if the global political situation continues in the current direction it will no doubt be openly reinstated.  It's been renamed, by the way, from The Office of the Inquisition, to The Congregation for the Doctrines of the Faith.  (I hope I got that right, my memory is good for about five minutes these days.) 

We definitely need a massive return among evangelical churches to the truths of the Reformation and the kowledge that it is the papacy scripture identifies as the Antichrist.  Bennett freequently mentions how we need revival in the churches based on a return to fundamental Protestant principles, especially the Protestant Gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

So far I haven't seen a complete eschatological system attempted by Bennett or others who recognize the Pope as the Antichrist.  Bennett objects to the futurist interpretation of the Antichrist but doesn't address other elements of futurist eschatology.  I don't recall if Chris Pinto does but I don't think so.  I think the general idea is that we have to do away with the whole system of thought  because the papacy is the Antichrist.

But as I've been arguing, there are certainly strong reasons to view the Book of Revelation in particular as describing future events.  The Antichrist most certainly IS to be a Pope, that Antichrist we see in the Book of Revelation, leader of the Harlot Church which is also clearly the Roman Church.  This figure will have civil and religious powers, WHICH THE PAPACY HAD THROUGH THE MIDDLE AGES over the Holy Roman Empire.  A Pope is the perfect fit.  Most of the necessary framework is already in place, and the European Union is shaping up only too well to fit right into the papal ambitions.  As I mention above, the Pope would function as Emperor over the revived Holy Roman Empire, pretty much the position he held during the Middle Ages.   After the Roman Empire fell and the Caesars were out of the way, then the Bishop of Rome ascended to essentially the position of Emperior.  They invented a document called "The Donation of Constantine" to take civil power to the papacy.  

In 1798 Napoleon took that civil power away from the Pope, which is understood to fulfill the biblical prophecy of the wound described in Revelation, that was healed, and it was healed in 1929 when Mussolini restored civil power to the papacy.   All they need now is for the European Union to fall into line under the Pope's rule and from what Bennett has been saying in these talks I'm linking, that's well underway.

SO the way I am now looking at all this, the Rapture is still future and most likely shown in Revelation 4, and the Tribulation period is also future, a seven-year period of the outpouring of God's wrath known throughout the Old Tstament as the Day of the LORD.  Paul reassures the Thessalonian Church that the Day of the LORD had not yet come, which had been rumored among them, and that it can't come until the Man of Sin be revealed, who can't be revealed until an unnamed Restrainer is out of the way.  Because of his cautious way of talking about this Restrainer it seems pretty clear he is talking about a temporal power that could punish him and the churches, which makes Caesar the Restrainer since there were no more Caesars when the empire moved to Byzantium.  So the Antichrist was revealed centuries before the Reformation, and even more centuries before our time, probably in 606 AD when the Byzantine emperor resxolved a dispute among the four Bishops of the Day by making the Bishop of Rome Universal Bishop.

So Paul says the Day of the LORD won't come until the Man of Sin is revealed.  If he was revealed in the 7th century then that Day could have come any time afterward, but clearly it hasn't.  It is yet future, it fits Jesus' description of great tribultion that God would have to shorten or nobody would survive it, and it fits the Seventieth Week of Daniel that is also as yet unfulfilled.  

It does seem to me that the arguments for a Pre-Tribulation Rapture are pretty solid, the many promises the LORD makes to the Church that we will not go through God's wrath, and the fact that the Church is not mentioned or even hinted at during the Tribulation period when the seals are opened and God's judgments are poured out.  Tribulation in the sense of persecution the Church endures, but not the wrath of God.  So that part of Pre=Trib eschatology remains intact in my mind

BUT I do have one unresolved question and that is how to think about the martyrs under the altar in Revelation 6 when the fifth seal is opened.  That is, there were tens of millions of martyrs under the papacy during the 600 years of their persecutions of "heretics," and I find it hard to separate those from some future group of martyrs during the Tribulation.  I suppose if I can accept the idea of two different sets of believers anyway, why not two different sets of martyrs?  But it nevertheless remains a question, and one that could potentially undo the whole Pre-Trib point of view.

Rampaging Evil and Questions about the End Game.

 Evil is winning.  Sometimes it overwhelms me, in fact I don't know how I manage any hope for the world at all, must be delusional if I do.  Did you know that Antifa trains in Syria with Islamic terrorists?  Chris Pinto is the source of that kind of information.  No wonder I stopped listening to him for so long, I always cry my eyes out after hearing one of his radio shows.  How can it be that the people of God who have a direct conduit to the omnipotent Power, are so helpless these days?  How did we get into this situation where so many churches aren't preaching the true gospel and we can't even get prayer for revival organized to any effect?  

Pinto's show today is titled "For Such a Time as This," which evokes the theme of the Book of Esther.  The problem is it suggests that we HAVE some kind of provision today for such as this time we are living through and we don't.  He makes a good point that Esthe, who is often understood to represent the Church, was not called to preach the gospel as so many think should be the exclusive engagement of the churches, she was called to save her people from an evil murdering man.  She was able to prevail upon the king and the evil was put down.  What resources do we have for dealing with today's evil when the Church has been so weakened and fragmented?\

I also listened to his show of a couple months ago, "The Curse of Liberalism."   That one makes me sad for the many nice liberals out there who have no clue what they are actually serving.  The powers of evil have certainly done their job at depriving us of the necessary knowledge to counter such an influence, knowledge of history, knowledge of the forces arrayed against us.  Pinto is very good at penetrating even beyond the level of Marxism and Communism to the influence of the Vatican and the Jesuits, an influence so effectively camouflaged nobody would suspect it these days, though even just a hundred years ago there were many who kept the knowledge alive and sounded the alarm from time to time.   What would anyone care who was not a Protestant though?  The few Protestants who are at all aware of it, and that is certainly very few.   The knowledge of the Protestant foundations of America is thoroughly discredited by these very influences that need to be exposed.  

Nice liberals have no clue.  They actually think their nice compassionate motives are the only good and the other side is Hitler, or that there is a Right and a Left and a pendulum that swings between them, when the reality is in our time that there is only good versus evil and the good is not liberalism and the good is hamstrung.

Well, it does no good to sit here and cry about it.   I can pray but we need an army praying.   I can write too, but to what purpose?

Both Chris Pinto and Richard Bennett object to the Pre-Tribulation Rapture scenario.  Pinto mentioned  that he objects to the timing of the Rapture but I couldn't find a discussion of his reasoning about it.  I suppose it's that he thinks the Rapture doesn't occur until Christ returns but I'm not sure.  John MacArthur did a fine job of arguing that one down.

It took me a long time to come around to the Pre-Trib point of view and I still find it persuasive, although at least its understanding of the Antichrist is historically ignorant.  Much of the portrait in the Book of Revelation surely refers to thei historical Roman Church as THE Antichrist force in the world since Christ came.  That can't refer only to a seven-year period of revived Inquisition.  And that raises a question about the martyrs under the altar whose voices are heard when the fifth seal is opened in Revelation 6.  If the Church is in heaven then all martyrs before the Day of the LORD would have been Raptured as part of the Church, tens of millions of them.  Why would there be a separate class of martyrs at the hand of the same evil entity that are murdered only during the Tribulation period?  Could the martyrs already in Heaven still be crying out for God's justice.  I guess that's a possibility but it's not terribly convincing. 

Although I still find the general outline of the Pre-Trib position to be persuasive, such questions do suggest another take on it.  What's most compelling is the fact that the Day of the LORD prophesied in scripture is apparently still unfulfilled, the Time of Jacob's Trouble, if not the Holocaust, is still unfulfilled, and the Seventieth Week of Daniel is still unfulfilled, as is the Great Tribulation Jesus spoke of unfulfilled.  All these prophecies appear to be different terms for one yet-future outpouring of God's wrath.   The timing in the Book of Daniel is too precise to be relegated to rough generalizations, and a tTribulation that God would have to shorten in His mercy simply has not yet happened. 

So there are still unanswered questions.

Richard Bennett gives us information the Church desperately needs

Here i'm posting a few of Richard Bennett's talks at Sermon Audio on subjects that Christians really need to know if there is any hope of reinstating the power of the Church that we should have but lost some time ago.

The false evangelical gospel that is taught in too many churches these days has supplanted the biblical gospel of the Reformers.  Bennett talks about how we need a Revival of the Reformation's five principles of salvation by Grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone based on Scripture alone for the Glory of God alone.   

 https://www.sermonaudio.com/saplayer/playpopup.asp?SID=1220182237362493

Here is Bennett discussing Pope Francis' Geopolitical ambitions and his duplicitous peacemaking in the Middle East.  Although Bennett doesn't support the futurist interpretation, who is more likely than the Pope to make the covenant with Israel that the Pre-Trib-Rapture scenario expects?

https://www.sermonaudio.com/saplayer/playpopup.asp?SID=81814121215

History of the Papacy -- this is history all of us should know, but there are probably very few Christians who do.   I've had a general knowledge of the history of Romanism for some time but Richard Bennett goes into much more of it.  For one thing he starts earlier than 606 AD when the Bishop of Rome was finally established as Universal Bishop, showing the stages by which the RCC acquired civil power and became the pagan religiopolitical behemoth that had murdered some 50 million "heretics"  by the time of Luther.  Anyone who wants the evidence should listen to this one at least.  He goes on to talk about how the Reformation started up in many different places simultaneously in reaction to the murderous enormities.  As he moves into modern times he discusses how the papacy aligned itself with Catholic dictators to bring about more murders.  

https://www.sermonaudio.com/saplayer/playpopup.asp?SID=116182115296

Bennett died last year at the age of 81 but his work is still online.  This is his website:

Berean Beacon    https://bereanbeacon.org/

Richard Bennett: Another Voice Identifying the Pope as the Antichrist and How We've Been Deceived by Futuristic Thinking

 When I first started my blog I had some topics in mind I knew I wanted to talk about, such as the head covering which I'd been studying for some time, and the Bible Versions controversy.  But while I was just getting started, while pursuing information on those and other topics, I kept sort of tripping over the topic of the Antichrist.  Eventually I got the message that God had that topic in mind for me to write about and I started listening to sermons at Sermon Audio on that subject.

The ex-Catholic priest Richard Bennett has done maybe the most thorough job of discussing the Pope as the Antichrist.  I was just now listening to this sermon of his:   https://www.sermonaudio.com/saplayer/playpopup.asp?SID=81703213440

Much of what he says confirms statements I've made here about how the Reformers interpreted scripture in identifying the Pope as the Antichrist.  It is Caesar they regarded as the Restrainer preventing the revelation of his identity, which today is thought to be the Holy Spirit.  Bennett nicely puts that one to rest.  He also mentions that his sitting in the temple was understood to be his position among the people of God who are the temple in the New Testament.

It's interesting that he traces the origin of the Pope as Anticrhist to a decree by the emperor Justinian in 538 AD instead of what I'd learned from Chris Pinto and the book "History of Romanism" of a decree by the emperor Phocas in 606 AD.  I suppose there must have been two decrees then.  The first according to Bennett established the title "Pope."   He didn't dwell on it but I want to note it because it's different from what I'd been saying.  He lists many down the centuries who were quite convinced from scripture of this identity of the Antichrist, starting with the Waldensians, John Wycliff, Jan Hus, the Protestant Reformers and continuing through many since then.   How the Church lost that once-well established knowledge is something that deserves thought.    

He objects strenuously to the last days scenario I've been pursuing here.  He is rightly angered that this futuristic scenario has prevented Christians from seeing the truth about the wolves in sheep's clothing that have already come, and the Great Apostasy that is the Roman Church itself.  \

The horrors depicted in Revelation are seen as ongoing throughout history, and there is no doubt that we can identify plenty of them, from murdering tyrants such as Nero down to Hitler to Rwanda (which was the work of the Catholic Church in killing 800,000). plus Jesuitical influence behind some modern tyrants and the doctrines of Communism, not to mention the Inquisition which was by no means limited to Spain but ongoing for centuries.  It is+ still ongoing in secret in some Catholic countries.   I think something along those lines is Chris Pinto's view too.  

It is understandable that he would reject today's futuristic eschatology because of how it has prevented us from seeing the biblical truths about the nature of the Antichrist and the "mystery of iniquity."  Nevertheless I still think the reasoning in support of the Pre-Trib prophetic view is good, but we have to give up the wrong ideas about Antichrist.   What we have then is a final Pope as THE Antichrist in a seven-year period which fulfills the many prophetic references in scripture to the Day of the LORD which is as yet unfulfilled.   Daniel's seventieth week is also unfulfilled and it fits right in.  Planet Earth had a definite beginning according to scripture, and it seems reasonable to suppose that it would also have a definite end, such as described in the Book of Revelation.   

I'd continue to defend the Pre-Trib interpretation of the Rapture, and the general outlines of Revelation as based largely on the symbolism in the Book of Daniel, including the appearance out of the Roman Empire of the little horn we take to be the Antichrist.   It is from Daniel that we get the idea that this figure is to strike a covenant with Israel that he will break in the middle of the seven years.   The historical view of the Antichrist as the papacy does bring into question the idea that there will be a rebuilt phyisical temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and the idea of an Abomination of Desolation yet to come as the Antichrist sits in the literal rebuilt temple proclaiming himself to be God.  Since the Popes put themselves in the place of God anyway this action is superfluous.  

However, there is another little horn in the Book of Daniel that sprouts up out of the previous empire, Greece under Alexander, and that little horn is understood to have been Antiochus Epiphanes who desecrated the temple with a pig and was defeated by the Maccabees.  A miracle in the form of candles that didn't go out was part of the triumph, and it is, a historical event the Jews still celebrate as Hanukkah.  

The point is that it could be right to look for a parallel event performed by the little horn of the Roman Empire, which could be the final Pope sitting in a literal rebuilt temple.  Although he is already defined as sitting in the true temple of the people of God it is possible there could be a literal replay of the sort anticipated in the Pre-Trib eschatology.  Double fulfillments of prophecy do occur.  The idea that there will be a rebuilt physical temple comes from the Book of Daniel where it is said the "prince of the people who will come" those people being the Romans who destroyed the temple in 70 AD, will cause the sacrifices to cease.  This did occur of coruse when the temple was destroyed by general Titus, so the question is whether another yet-future Roman prince who does this is to be expected.  Ongoing sacrifices could only occur in a literal physical rebuilt temple.    This is all open to reinterpretation, however, with the historical view of the papacy we get from the Reformers. even if the little horn of the Roman Empire is the final Pope.  

As I've mentioned before, Pope Francis arrived with some interesting signs attending his election, which to my mind marks him as special in the line of Antichrists.   Being a Jesuit adds to his specialness, along with his radical anti-Christian messages to the world which are even more radical than his predecessors'.   If he is the final Antichrist the Day of the LORD, preceded by the Rapture of the Church, must be very very close, because he is in his mid-eighties.  That along with many other signs pointing to a Grand Finale should keep us all on the alert.

How soon?  Years\?  Not many if these clues are right, but a few are possible.  Months, Weeks,  Days?  All possible.  

Maybe there is yet time for the churches to engage in fervent united prayer for revival.

A Call for United Prayer for Revival from Sermon Audio

 I just discovered that the host of Sermon Audio.com which has an enormous collection of sermons on every topic, put out a call to prayer for revival to begin in January of this year, and I hadn't known it until now.  In fact the way I came across it was so accidental it seems supernatural.  With my bad eyes I was poking around trying to fix some pages that were out of alignment and didn't fill the whole monitor, don't know how they got that way, but I didn't hit the right icon a few times and on one such miss this page from Sermon Audio came up on my screen:

A JOINT RESOLUTION OF UNITED PRAYER

FOR THE

REVIVAL OF RELIGION

AND THE

ADVANCEMENT OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM ON EARTH.

https://www.sermonaudio.com/unitedprayer.asp

It is very much worth listening to his talk on this subject.   He starts out with some quotes about some of the most evil things you'll have ever heard, of Facebook posters putting up pictures of cruelty to animals and small children, as well as some horror stories from other parts of the world, the point being that we don't hear about such extreme evil in the world becuase it is kept from us.  This is reason enough for the Church to be in constant prayer.

His journal of the weeks of prayer so far is inspiring.

Here's his 

Synopsis.

This resolution is based on An Humble Attempt, originally put forward by Jonathan Edwards in 1748. Its design is to encourage God's people in the duty of united extraordinary prayer; setting aside some time every Saturday, privately or publicly, to pray for the revival of His church and the advancement of Christ's kingdom in our homes, in our churches, in our nation, and in the world.

He is calling for a commitment to one prayer time every week, on Saturday, and he has 236 people who have signed up for it.  It is to go for the 52 weeks of 2020.  When he put out this call he didn't know about the pandemic or the rioting or any of that.   People somehow sign their names to the document and I don't see how that is done yet.  

I'm very glad to see this but at the same time I have my usual doubts.  Other prayers and calls to pryaer for revival over the last few decades have not produced revival and I've been speculating here about possible reasons why not.  My guess is we need to start with repentance, both individual and as churches and I gave some conjectures about that.  

I certainly understand why it would be limited to once a week, but I also wish at least some of us could manage more than that.  For it to be united, however, which is Jonathan Edwards' focus, we need agreement with each other.  

But I don't want to go too far beyond where Steven Lee of Sermon Audio goes.  I'd just like this message to be passed around among as many Christians as possible.

How to Seek Revival

 Rather surprised to find myself so avidly pursuing the possibility of revival, even with some optimism for a change.   Even if the Rapture is right around the corner and the Tribulation when the Wrath of God will fall on those remaining.  Surely this is the best thing we should be doing, to bring as many as possible into the Kingdom so they won't have to endure all that. 

The pessimism I've had about revival over the years has been due to the false revivals that have come through the Charismatic Movement, and the unwelcome idea that the same thing would happen if we started having real revivals.  Most revivals get some of the strange phenomena anyway but they don't usually take over the whole revival.  Real revival is a serious deepening of the love of God and the life of God in us, of conviction of sin that leads to repentance, of the practice of holiness, and its power is for that sort of purpose, not little supernatural tricks.   But with charismatics still believing they had real revivials that sort of fleshly and demonic interference would try to piggyback on the real thing,   Toronto, Brownsville, Lakeland, all bogus revivals.  For some reason it's not bothering me as much now, maybe we can pray it down.

But the pessimism is also due to the simple fact that when strong Christians like Leonard Ravenhill and Kay Arthur have fervently sought revival it hasn't come.  That is very discouraging.   I've thought it may be because of systemic sins in the churches that are unrecognized, so this time I'm aware of how seriously we need to ask God to show us such a possibility and seek reprentance for it.   The uncritical acceptance of the Charismatic Movement is one such possible systemic sin, also the uncritical acceptance of the Roman Catholic Church as just another Christian denomination.  And the rejection of Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 11 about the need for women to cover our heads in church.  

Forewarned about all that and reforming along those lines we should be able to seek a genuine revival.   That's what I'm personally praying for anyway.

Googling for some inspiration on the subject I found a blog by a pastor in Missouri -- How to Get the Unction (Power) of the Spirit, by Geoffrey R. Kirkland at Vassal of the King blog: *- http://vassaloftheking.com/home/180007755/180007755/Images/How%20to%20get%20the%20unction%20of%20the%20Spirit.pdf 

He writes about the necessity of Holy Spirit power for preaching the gospel.  He's talking to pastors about preaching, not about revival, but the principle applies to the purpose of revival too.  

I like many of his expressions, such as "mighty weakness" as what the preacher needs, a complete dependence on God for the supernatural result of his peaching.  It's not natural ability but this dependence that is necessary for the unction that establishes  the gospel in the souls of hearers for their salvation.  Good pastors know this anyway, but what I like most about this essay is his call to fervency and even desperation, a strong increase in the normal patterns.

To answer the question how one gets this unction he gives four ways.  The first is Earnest Prayer which he describes in another inspiring phrase:  "earnest, fervent, relentless, believing, and desperate prayers."   Living holy lives is another prerequisite for the unction. 

This is also what we need for revival.   Pastors must be above reproach but if I had to have a consistently holy life in order to seek revival I'd have to give up.  Repentance is the key for me and for most of us sinners if we want God to respond to us.  It's essential.  God won't give us revival if we are holding on to unrepented sins, and we should ask Him to reveal our sins to us since we may be unaware of them.

With repentance as our foundation, and it needs to keep being renewed, then what we need is that "earnest, fervent, relentless, believing and desperate prayer" that God would rend the heavens and come down to us in great power so that our Christian lives would be strengthened and purified, and the gospel preached in power, and a huge number of souls saved.  The more we pray the better, and the more of us who are praying the better.  

And fasting also helps.  Somehow fasting opens up the spirit to hear from God and receive spiritual strength.   It doesn't have to be a complete fast, just avoiding foods we particularly like while eating the simplest most unadorned fare is very effective.

Posting this much for now but may be back to continue it.

What We Need is a Great Plea Party Movement if God is to Heal Our Land

 So tempting to make like an ostrich and tune it all out.   The big problem is the feeling of helplessness.  No matter how bad it gets, it just goes on getting worse, there are so few in politics who even speak against it let alone have a plan to do something about it.   They seem intimidated.  They've copped out.

A Christian knows, or should know, the only real answer is a supernatural return to God, but we're about as far from that as we are from a political solution.  We need revival, or reformation first and then revival, but where is the will for that?  In isolated doctrinally sound churches led by a few bold pastors the right motives are there, the true gospel is preached, but clearly that's not enough to turn back the tide of evil we are seeing.   Well, really it doesn't have to take great numbers, as the story of Gideon is there to inform us, but surely it does take the right mindset and the right motives and a deep commitment to the purposes of God.  

If preaching the gospel is our weapon but we aren't having an impact what then?   If you tell people the gospel and nothing happens, they roll their eyes and change the subject, what then?   Since our citizenship is not of this world why spend any time concerned about the world anyway?   Is that our job?  Why don't we just sit still and let it roll over us, be content with a few converts here and there, and growing under good preaching?  We're called to persecution aren't we?  The ostrich reaction gets more appealing the more hopeless the situation looks.  But the consequences of doing nothing are pretty dire, for us, for family and friends, for the nation, even for the world.

We need to know from God what we aren't doing and what we need to do, if there is anything at all we can do.  What do we need to repent of?  If the church appears to be doctrinally sound and the gospel is preached, still isn't something missing, and what is it?   If we don't know then God needs to show us.  We can preach against worldly attempts to deal with what is a supernatural and spiritual problem, but if preaching the gospel isn't accomplishing much, and the culture is continuing to grow as this gigantic dunghill, we need God to tell us how to get the supernatural power which alone affects the human spirit and changes the world.   Maybe the doctrinally sound churches are too content with the status quo to look for more from God.

So again I come back to the need for reformation and revival, a supernatural work of God by which God Himself comes to us in unusual power, sends us falling on our faces in trembling fear as His holiness becomes palpable, with a heavy sense of our own sins and failures, and an acute awareness of His sovereign right to rule in the affairs of humanity.  When He comes and breaks us like that then He also comes and draws unbelievers into His Kingdom as the gospel is preached with power.  And that is the only hope for the culture.  

Seems to me the first thing we need is a deep yearning for such a visitation from God and a deep faith that it is possible.  If we're complacent and satisfied with our level of spirituality and doctrinal correctness we just won't be seeking more from God.  But it's more we need.  A great outpouring of Himself by which we would know how inadequate we are, that's where we need Him to start to revive us.   We can preach the gospel quite correctly but with such little Holy Spirit power it can't change people.  We need that Holy Spirit power and that's why we need revival.   In other words even if we preach the truth and preach it well we can be missing the spiritual power that drives it home to other souls.

There must be sins that impede us that we need to repent of, and there is certainly too little seeking of God.  How do we get that power we need?  By humbling ourselves and praying and seeking His face and turning from our wicked ways, as the most famous biblical formula for revival tells us.  Then He will answer from Heaven and heal our land.  Revivals have come from churches, or even just a group of individuals, getting together for frequent and protracted periods of prayer.   With a yearning for revival and faith that it is possible and a sense of our own inadequacy for the things of God, and the humility to know we may not be fully meeting his requirements of us, God may give it.  

Chris Pinto Finds the Jesuits Behind it All and Closer We Get Every Day.

 Long time since I listened to Chris Pinto's Noise of Thunder Radio Show.  It got so depressing hearing about so much evil brewing behind the scenes in this world that nobody is effectively putting down I had to stop listening.  But now everything is depressing in that same way anyway.  The rioting is just going on without any effective countermeasures.  BLM is still getting away with calling itself a civil rights movement for blacks when it is nothing of the sort, it's revolution to destroy America.  

Well I listened to one of Chris Pinto's latest shows and that's what he's saying.  Nice to know I'm on the same page with him in general although as usual he's collected tons of evidence for it.  The one I just heard is The Jesuits, the BLM and the Gunpowder Plot Against America;

Here's the link to the page:

http://www.noiseofthunderradio.com/show-downloads/2020/7/23/notr-jesuits-blm-the-american-gunpowder-plot-72320.html

And here's the link to the radio show:

http://s3.media.squarespace.com/production/827989/9727427/JESUITS.GUNPOWDER.PLOT_07.23.020.mp3?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIGASFZJDTI4L3CAA&Signature=YzEEt9PoJ2rQNHJNSHwGts%2FN4I4%3D&Expires=1596781034

What Chris Pinto brings to the fore that nobody else I know does is the role of the Jesuits and the Catholic Church in general behind Marxist movements like BLM.    The Marxist Plot to Overthrow America is another recent radio show.  That much I say myself, but he tracks it to the Jesuits.  I do have some posts on the Jesuits scattered through this blog and on the Catholicism blog but Pinto is the one to go to for the whole picture.  

It's all about the neverending plot to take down Protestantism and reinstate Catholic dominance in the world such as they had before the Reformation.  

I don't think he says anyhthing specifically related to the Pre-Tribulation Rapture scenario, in fact I think he rejects that idea.  He's called himself a historicist at times.  

UPDATE:   At the end of this paragraph I post a link to this page of recent Noise of Thunder programs covers quite a long ist and I see I have some catching-up to do.  Just reading through the program descriptions I see he's particularly up on the political implications of the Coronavirus and the idea of mass vaccinations.   I had to laugh when I saw that he identifies Fauci as educated by Jesuits -- because that's what he's so good at, that very sort of connection that isn't obvious on the surface or even reported in biographies.  Them Jesuits they got their fingers in every political and social and educational treason.   He also refers to the Pope as the Antichrist, based on the Reformers' biblical understanding, which he always does (I got that view from him as I've said), and he puts it all in the prophetic perspective, but nevertheless he doesn't seem to see it quite in the Pre-Tribulation framework as I've come to see it.  He's on top of the political meaning of the rioting as a Communist takeover, and earlier in the list he has a show all about the curse of Liberalism.  

http://www.noiseofthunderradio.com/   /UPDATE

Though I'm not sure how he sees the end times shaping up, i take his information as another confirmation and contribution to my own view that it's very very close, the Rapture followed by the Day of the LORD or the Great Tribulation by which God will judge the world, and that Pope Francis is to be the final Antichrist who presides over the global political and religious empire that will rise to power in that time, though it is already in nascent form.  Francis is already acting like the ruler of the world going around telling nations what to do and making agreements with them, the Vatican is a political entity, a nation state, and the Roman Catholic Church is spread throughout the world.  With the disappearance of the true Church it wouldn't take much for him to be elevated to world Potentate and for all the RCC dreams to come true.

Hello Inquisition on Steroids. 

--------------------------------------------

Later:  Listening to the one titled "The Radical Leftist Agenda.."  Oh you poor naive liberals.  What you don't know about the political position you hold. 

Here's the one titled The Marxist Takeover of America:

http://s3.media.squarespace.com/production/827989/9727427/MARXIST.TAKEOVER.AMERICA_07.09.2020.mp3?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIGASFZJDTI4L3CAA&Signature=HeiBI3hlVZ0fiyzWuscNn7WiXGQ%3D&Expires=1596886909

Another Gospel Post

I needed to hear this.  Periodically I need to hear this kind of message.  This is John MacArthur on the true gospel, the perseverance of the saints:

.

.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RZ_IfFyF_wk" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Don't know why it won't embed.  But here's the URL: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ_IfFyF_wk

Bringing it all Together for the Grand Finale of Planet Earth

Still enjoying Jay's rundown of world events in his July 20th Watchdog video I put up a couople of posts down.  My eyes are getting worse all the time and I can't read any of the information on the video screen, and he reads fast so it's sometimes hard to follow that too.  Also hard to read much I find online.   In order to read comfortably I seem to require a pretty strong contrast between the letters and the background and the right size:  if the letters are too big I can't read them any better than if they are too small, hard to explain, and I guess I'm sayhing all this as a sort of excuse, but that's why I'm particularly happy that Jay is covering the specifics involving the Pope.  That's all information that supports my arguments but I can't collect myself.  I did do a little research yesterday and found a Wikipedia account of the negotiations between the "Holy See" and Israel which looks interesting but it's not much about Francis, more a historical rundown.   And my own posts are getting hard to read.  If I make a typo even when I reread what I wrote I may miss it.  I can more or less get things typed, but rereading is becomming difficult.

I can't reread my last post for instance but I think I may have got something wrong about the Vatican's role in the peace plans for Israel.  Their plan in 1999 gave them custodianship of the part of Jerusalem with the Temple Mount, and that will probably be a part of any future plan but I don't think it's on the table at the moment.  Sorry, I just can't do more with this right now.

A little over an hour into the video Jay mentions ongoing Muslim persecutions and says it seems to him we're seeing "an awawkening of evil" in the world.  Nice phrase, seems to me to be the case too.  Certainly true here in the US.

I get the impression that Jay may be approaching the same view of things as my own but from a different angle.  I'm focusing on biblical prophecy and he's focusing on world events.  Or something like that.   I'm following the Reformers' view of the papacy which leads me to the idea of Francis' likely role as the final Antichrist, while Jay is following Francis around the globe and coming to a similar conclusion.  

He's also tracking the WCC's efforts toward a one-world religion through the UN and the aim of consolidating global power in a ew hands, and all these things are shared by the WCC, the Vatican and the UN..  

Interesting:  around 1:12: 00 he mentions  encountering internet censorship of some of his information he wants to send to a friend.  Facebook says he can't.  Nothing terribly controversial or so it seems to me:  just the fact that the WCC has a publication at the UN called "Voices of Faith" -- 

I already knew we were close but all this brings it closer still.  

I can't report on the whole video so I hope others will listen to it.  At least watch his finale from about 1:22:30.where he sums up the material he's covered in this video.   He's answering people who would say all this could only be believed by a tin foil hat wearer or a conspiracy theorist, and very amusingly says "to be fair I happen to be both" but his point is that he's based it all on actual reported facts.  And he has.  He sees this global religious and political behemoth coming together under the Pope and says we need to know about it.  We do.  

Watch.  Pray.  Stand.  

I'm beginning to think Francis' moves might tell us when the Rapture is about to happen

Continuing to listen to my great-nephew's podcast about the Pope and the World Council of Churches and happy am i to find him so consistently on the side of the angels.  My Millennial great-nephew, son of my Gen X nephew (who, by the way, is the one who almost thirty years ago first told me about the meaning of the "666" I've presented here many times), and grandson of my Boomer brother.   Fun stuff to find a family member whose study of world events helps me with my own view of what's happening and how it's all leading up to the Grand Finale.  A happy discovery but of course I hasten to say that the actual outcome of all these things is not going to be happy at all for those who have to go through it, it's just happy in the sense that it's thrilling to see prophecy fall into place and especially when it comes by unexpected connections such as this one.  .

I just got to the part of Jay's talk that's about Israel and how the WCC wants the EU to put sanctions on them for continuing to claim the land that is theirs.  (By the way, a few minutes later, about 49:40 he apparently misspoke, saying the WCC and the Vatican came out "against" sanctions, which was confusing.)_+_ Well, it's all in keeping with biblical prophecy but it's sad.  God will rescue Israel in the end but meanwhile one cringes at the thought of what they are going to have to go through, known as "the time of Jacob's trouble" or the Great Tribulation or The Day of the LORD, the seven-year period of Hell on Earth that's coming soon.     

Jay has shown that the WCC and the Vatican, and the UN as well, are linked in their global aspirations, the "unholy trinity" as he called them.   I have to see all this as confirming my own feeling that it's all so very close you can almost feel the breath of the Beast on the back of your neck.   And it gives strength to the view that the Roman Church is in fact the revived Roman Empire and the seat of the World Religion, sitting on the seven hills of Rome.  Francis is already acting as if he's king of the world, as the Popes do tend to do anyway, making speeches about peace, agreeing with the UN ceasefire resolution, making agreemens such as with China that put the Vatican over other religions (those who will take the Mark of the Beast in the end.  And the Mark of the Beast may be something that ties a person to the Roman Church.)  Then he's quoting the Bible as if he's on the right side when the reality is the opposite.   

So Francis is already doing what the first horseman of the Apocalypse is to do when Jesus removes the first seal of what John MacArthur calls "the Title Deed to the Earth."  All this begins in Revelation 6.  The first horseman rides a white horse carrying a bow without arrows, and is said to go out to conquer.    This would be the kind of conquest, perhaps, that Francis accomplished by making an agreement with China to give the RCC dominance over the other religions there.   And of coruse it would also be the kind of conquest that makes a covenant with Israel.  Jay goes on to talk about the power that would be gained by anyone who could bring peace to that region.  At about 44 on the video counter he first mentions the eschatalogical context of all of this, saying what power anyone would have who could bring about, say, the itnernationalization of jerusalem, the partitioning of the land, and the building of the third temple, which has been in the works behind the scenes for decades by now.  perhaps some or all of this would be in the covenant the Antichrist is to make with Israel, which will mark the official beginning of the Great Tribulation with the opening of the first seal.

What is going on between Francis and the WCC and the UN is all in line with biblical prophecy and especially the role of the Pope and the RCC that I've been arguing here.   The WCC's designs against Israel just pulls it all together.  

The WCC is a group of apostate Protestant Churches, mostly "liberal" and focused on this world more than the next, so that it makes sense for them to align with the RCC whose pagan doctrines the Reformers identified as the Great Apostasy itself.  The RC Church/ neo Roman Empire is both "iron and clay" one could say, in keeping with the description of the Roman Empire as represented by the feet of Nebuchadnezzar's statue in the Book of Daniel, because it also has members who are genuine followers of Jesus Christ -- the "clay" -- while the institution itself is not Christian but pagan and  political and in some important sense taking the place of the Roman Empire since 606 AD.  Various Roman Catholic kings of Europe called themselves "Caesar"  -- "Kaiser," "Czar" and Hitler put himself in charge of the third Roman Empire or the Third Reich.  This suggests it could be a political leader alone who would be the Antichrist.  BUT it must be remembered that the Vatican is also a sovereign political state so the Pope is both a political and religious leader in any case.  

Folloing on after 44 on the counter Jay gets into a Vatican document that shows just how involved the RCC already is in the peace negotiations with Israel.  There are similarities with former peace plans including the itnernationalization of part of Jerusalem, the part where the temple used to sit and where now the Muslim Dome of the Rock sits, and the peace proposition beting discussed would put that part of the city under the control of the Vatican.  Hm.    Rebuilt temple, abomination of desolation as the Antichrist presents himself in the place of God.   (The Reformers saw the claim to be vicar of Christ and the claim that makes the Pope "the head of the Church" as already usurping the seat of God in the temple, which the New Testament defines as the people of God, but there could still be a second fulfillment in a literal seating in a literal temple.  If so the Vatican is apparently setting the stage for such an event.   Be that as it may, it is certainly setting the stage for the making of a covenant of peace with Israel.   

Anyway...  When it looks like things are turning toward the actual signing of such an agreement between the Pope and Israel, maybe we can take that as our cue  to "look up for your redemption draws near."

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By the way, some draw a rather sharp distinction between the Rapture and the Second Coming, saying that the signs given in, say, the olivet discource of Matthew 24, are meant for the Second Coming and that there won't be any signs for the Rapture.  However, the seven years timing between the events does in some sense tie them together as a unit it seems to me.  Once the Rapture occurs the countdown to Jesus return begins with the Antichrist's coveant with Israel.  It makes sense to me that we are right now seeing many of the signs already in the world, the pestilence in the form of the COVID virus, wars and rumors of wars, the abounding of inquity or lawlessness, and now even the Pope's going around making agreements to consolidate the power of the RCC.  Although for believers the Rapture divides time into normal time and Tribulation time, those who go through the Tribulation will probably not notice any major changes.for a while.  For one thing it is to start with a false peace brought about my the rider of the first horse.  Otherwise, what is already going on will resume and then intensify with the opening of the seals and by the sixth seal they're going to know the Wrath of God has come.  But again, otherwise there's probably not going to be a dramatic change between pre-Rapture events and those that follow.  So if we are already seeing signs, they pertain to the Rapture as well as to the Second Coming, though they'll no doubt be a lot sharper toward the end of the Great Tribulation.  Just my, hopefully sanctified and biblically consistent, opinion.

The Pope and the WCC Coming Together

I'd sort of known one of my great-nephews was doing some videos at You Tube on Christian subjects, but I'm not in touch with him and don't really know much about his point of view.  My brother sent me a link to this one and the first few minutes of it are right in line with some of my own recent blogs so I thought I'd post it here.

Maybe I'll get to talk to him about these things eventually and see how far we may agree or disagree.  It looks like he's into doing a lot of research which is good since I'm not up to doing much research  myself with my bad eyes, and in this case he's discovered that the apostate World Council of Churches and Pope Francis are teaming up in interesting ways. 

The RCC alone could be the basis for the final One World Religion but it's got to be able to pull in all the other religions for the Grand Finale of the Tribulation period.  The Popes have been working on this for years, making all kinds of concessions to all the world's religions.  Pulling in apostate Protestantism must bring them close to filling up their collection.

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Added Later:  Oh I'm really enjoying this as I keep listening.  C Jay notes that the UN Secretary General is a Jesuit, as is Pope Francis, and that tghey seem to be operating in synch for peace among nations, which is exactly what the first horse of the Apocalypse represents, peace on earth, of course the peace that isn't a real peace.  And Jay goes on to identify the Jesuits as the "CounterReformation Arm of the RCC" which they are. 

 The Jesuits have been notorious for their efforts to undermine and topple Protestant nations over the centuries since the Reformation and if you look deeply enough you can often find them at the very root of many political uprisings.  It was a Jesuit who invented the term "Social Justice" for instance,  one Luigi Tapparelli.  I wouldn't be at all surprised to find them firmly ensconsed at the base of all the Marxist destruction we are seeing in America right now, but just getting across that it IS Marxist has been a big enough project for the moment.    It turns out there has been Jesuit influence behind many historic bad guys such as Marx himself, and Stalin and others.  Chris Pinto has looked into this and I should check out his recent messages.   I don't know if my greatnephie puts any of this in the context of the Last Days scenario I've been pursuing but maybe that can be my contribution to his thinking.   

Back to his very interesting video.

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Still later:  Great stuff Jay.  You've done your homework.  You're doing a great job of showing how the Vatican is already working hard to put together the One World Religion that must be in place during the period of the Great Tribulation, which you may not be studying yet so I'll just point that out to you.  I think it is very close.  The Rapture comes first and then the Tribulation over which the Antichrist reigns both politically and spiritually.  Which history shows they already did in the Middle Ages, which the Reformation took away from them.  They've been waiting all this time to reinstate the power they had then, only now over the entire world, not just Europe.   Separation of church and state by the way is a uniquely American concept which was a reaction to exactly what the RCC did in Europe.

Fascinating to hear that Francis has an agreement with China that gives the RCC power over all the other religions.  So very jesuitical of him, or maybe just papal.  According to the current understanding of end times biblical prophecy which I've come to accept, the first act of the false Messiah/ Antichrist will be to make a covenant with Israel for seven years, terms unspecified in scripture.  This comes from the Book of Daniel which is foundational to much that is to unfold during the Tribulation which is spelled out in Revelation 6 to 18.  Some may think the idea pretty far-fetched that Francis could be the final Antichrist, but the more I know the more sure I am of it, and your information gives a lot of support to the idea.

I'd quibble with your remark about Trump but I'll keep it brief:  I don't like his schmoozing with the dictators either, especially since he was schmoozing the Chinese when he should have been defending Hong Kong against them.  But I give him the benefit of the doubt that he thinks you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar as it were, and he thinks it better to treat people as friends for the purpose of getting their cooperation.    You could argue whether that is a good strategy or whether it is working, but don't suspect him of  bad motives.  Trump is a businessman and a sort of chess player.   He might lose the game, but it may not be quite the same game you seem to think he's playing.

More Convinced that women not covering our heads in church is a great offense to God

Keep thinking about 1 Corinthians 11 where Paul argues for women to cover our heads in church.  Along with the foisting of bogus Greek manuscripts on the Church this seems to me to be another terrible trick designed to undermine the moral and spiritual strength of God's people.   The one essay that had the most influence may have been the work of a godly man, but it was a deception nevertheless.  (I argue all this at some length in my blog Hidden Glory).

There is not one word of what Paul said in that passage to justify the idea that he was referring to a merely cultural practice of any of the different cultures represented in the Church at Corinth.  That has to be read into the passage.  It is not there.  Paul argues from Creation and from Nature and from Apostolic authority, and even from the presence of angels in the churches, and maybe even from common sense;  he says not one word to justify interpreting his meaning to be that it's just a cultural practice and therefore we don't have to take it to have anything to do with covering the head.  Some of those ancient cultures had such a practice but we don't, therefore we don't have to.  Very odd idea since the head is the entire focus of his teaching, both the necessity of covering the woman's head and of uncovering the man's.  As I say in a recent post below, we do require men to take off their hats in church based on this passage, so it makes no sense to interpret the instruction for women to have to do with anything but the head just as it does for men

I've speculated that this could be a reason God has not given us revival over the last sixty or so years.  Since it is a fundamental principle given by God that we are violating, and not the trivial thing some try to make of it, this is a very likely speculation.

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Later:  Speculating again.  Wondering how much the weakening of the headship principle in the churches by abandoning the head covering might even have contributed to the rampant moral breakdown in the culture.   Feminism, Sexual Freedom, easy Divorce, Cohabitation without marriage, Gay Rights, the LGBTQ movement, the legalization of pornography and so on.  All the Liberation of Sin movements of the Sixties.    The Church, after all, is supposed to be one of the bulwarks against moral corruption in the culture.  We've been falling down on the job for some time now, and of course there must be many causes, but this could be a big one.   Then of course what seems to have been an epidemic of sexual sin in the churches.  The natural weakness of the flesh of fallen humanity is enough of course, but this does seem to suggest a greater weakness than that, like the little Dutch boy took his finger out of the hole in the dike back there somewhere. 

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Scriptural Support for the Reformers' view of the Antichrist

Listening to a Prophecy Roundtable through Jan Markell's Understanding the Times ministry, and remembering some points of possible difference from my own thinking,  For instance I've been persuaded that the Antichrist, THE Antichrist, is best interpreted as the Protestant Reofrmers did, who understood him to be the Pope -- all Popes, the papacy itself, but the final Antichrist would therefore be the last Pope.  

Whether we are there now or not is a matter of conjecture, hopefully sanctified or biblically educated conjecture, but nevertheless conjectiure.  I've been pretty convinced that we are right on the threshold of the last week or seven years of the Seventy Weeks of Daniel, which is the Tribulation period that follows the Rapture, but of course I could be wrong.  Nevertheless such prophecy ministries as Jan Markell's have the same strong impression that it is right at the door, the recent events that are changing the world being taken as a major indicator, unprecedented events, the lockdown of whole nations for the COVID virus, and in America the rise of Marxist ideology in destructive riots under the guise of a civil rights movement.  

It took me a while to shake off some other interpretations of end times prophecy and come around to the Pre-Tribulation Rapture point of view, and Markell's ministry was one influence, though I think John MacArthur's teachings were a bigger influence.  In any case I'm persuaded.  Nevertheless there are some issues where I differ, and the identity of the Antichrist is one.   If it weren't for the odd signs that accompanied the election of this latest Pope, * however, I might not be as convinced as I am that he is likely to be THE final Pope and the Antichrist of the tribulation.  Those signs include thirteens  and a 666 in the timing of his election, a lightning bolt hitting the building where he was to be elected. and then the radical character of the Pope who has departed further from anything resembling Christian doctrine than even the most radical Popes that preceded him.  NEVERTHELESS even these things might be misleading.

 It was Chris Pinto who made me aware of the Reformers' view of the Antichrist and it is very compelling.  It was from one of his teachings that I came to see that there were many Christian teachers throughout the centuries who identified the papacy as Antichrist, not just the Protestant Reformers of Luther's time.**  And they derived their understanding of his identity from the Bible.

The timing of the revelation of the Antichrist is one place current thinking differs from the Reformers' view:

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;

Today this is usually interpreted to mean he has not yet been revealed though there is really nothing in the passage itself to make that the necessary interpretation.  All it is saying is that the Day of the LORD will not come UNTIL the falling away comes first and the man of sin is revealed.  The two are apparently connected in the verse.   But the Reformers considered him to have been revealed when the Bishop of Rome, i.e. the papacy, was elevated to the status of Universal Bishop in 606 AD.   And they understood the falling away, or the "great apostasy" as we sometimes call it, to be the corruption of doctrine of the Roman Church.  Paul explicitly warned against teaching to come concerning the forbidding of marriage and the eating of meats, both of which are RC doctrine, the celibacy requirement for priests and what became fish on Friday in our time.   If the Reformers' view is correct that the falling away came with the Roman Church and the Antichrist was revealed as the papacy, then the Day of the Lord could follow at any time.  

There is also some question about how to interpret 2 Thessalonians 2:7 

For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.

This is usually understood today to refer to the removal of the Holy Spirit with the Church at the Rapture, but the Reformers understood it to refer to Caesar.  Paul is being very cryptic here, apparently avoiding naming the restrainer.  He's being cautious and that was understood by the Reformers as necessary in the days of the Caesars when Paul was writing.  If he was referring to the Holy Spirit he shouldn't have needed to avoid saying so since such caution presumably wouldn't be necessary in that case.  The need to avoid alerting the Church's enemies of the day also explains the strange apocalyptic imagery to describe the heathen empires in the books of Daniel and Revelation.  That imagery even frustrated Luther so it should also flummox an unbeliever trying to decipher it.

After the fall of the Roman Empire and the end of the line of Caesars, in 606 AD the Byzantine Emperor Phocas made the Bishop of Rome Universal Bishop, which was identified by many as the creation of the Antichrist.   So  Caesar was taken out of the way and the new Caesar as it were, the Antichrist, now appears on the scene as the head of a new phase of the Roman Empire, as many also understood that, especially since it came to rule over the West in a political sense, with power over the kings, and it took on many of the rituals and emblems of the Roman pagan religions..  So in contrast to some current prophetic views within the Pre-Tribulation Rapture camp, the Roman Empire is already revived, and the Antichrist has already been revealed.  They're not hidden, they've been there all along, but it will take the absence of the true Church to bring them to the global prominence and power they've been waiting for.  

I also don't think it makes much sense to suppose that the Holy Spirit will actually be removed from the earth since a huge number of people are going to be saved during the Tribulation and that isn't just a matter of intellectual assent, the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit is necessary.  

So I still think the Man of Sin of the Tribulation period is most likely to be a Pope and most likely to be this current Pope.  Again perhaps I'm wrong.  in fact it's possible that calling this personality the "Antichrist" is wrong since scripture doesn't use that term for him.  However, again, wait and see.  The next thing on the prophetic timetable is the Rapture of the Church no matter who the Antichrist figure turns out to be.  Whoever it is will make a seven-year covenant with Israel and then those seven years will count down to the return of Christ.
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* https://watchpraystand.blogspot.com/2014/01/god-sends-seagull-and-crow-to-attack.html

** https://watchpraystand.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-antichrist-of-tribulation-day-of.html