EndTime Issues ...

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Introduction
 
With anticipatory sensitivity, expositor White notes: “The agencies of evil are combining their forces and consolidating. They are strengthening for the last great crisis. Great changes are soon to take place in our world, and the final movements will be rapid ones.”[1]
 
“She [the papacy] is employing every device to extend her influence and increase her power in preparation for a fierce and determined conflict to regain control of the world.”[2]

• This suggests an end-time emergence of a geopolitical coalition with a papal head that will dominate the world.
• The evolution of that bond is Biblically foreseen and has been moving forward on two fronts: One, papal; two, through the United Nations, via its international organizations.

Papal Initiatives
 
Distinct plans to advance Rome’s agenda began shortly after Pope Pius XI’s stunning moves, under the Lateran Treaty of 1929, to re-establish its church and state geopolitical power. He retained psychoanalysts to lay the groundwork to bring about world supremacy. One Jesuit analyst, E. Boyd Barrett, summed up the Church’s feelings and objectives in the book Rome Stoops to Conquer (1935).[3] We quote:
 

 
Stunning?! That was only the beginning.
 
This “Roman agenda” to achieve world dominance had actually been outlined in the previous century.
 
Though denying any political bent, Roman Catholic “Social Doctrine” started with Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891), seeking to mold the world’s social and religious ideals. A succession of similar papal encyclicals has followed through to Pope Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium” (The Joy of the Gospel), all promoting a “Marxist praxis.”[4]
 
Even Rush Limbaugh was stunned as to how blatant Francis’ document was in support of this ideology.[5]
 
As the voice of Rome has been increasingly heard and even esteemed by world leaders (a Revelation 17 requirement to bring in the end), a new global order has presumptuously been materializing (a Revelation 13 requirement to bring in the end).[6]
 
Bursting on the World
 
In 1940, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published a document called “The New World Order.” It was a plan that was to bring global stability following WWII. Adopted by the U.S. State Department, it defined a geopolitical strategy to bring in permanent peace. The agenda demanded that the world be divided into a coalition of ten main regions (echoing the ten horns of Revelation 17:12-13).
 
Pennsylvania cartographer Maurice Gomberg developed a world map for those agencies. It had a narrative overlay which objectively outlined “moral ideals” for all nations! It was published on February 25, 1942.
 
Those geopolitical objectives were dubbed a “New Moral Order.”[7] Intriguingly, many of those ideals had been outlined by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 6, 1941, in his State of the Union speech.[8]
 
Then followed these reflections and developments.
 
Major “dictums” soon followed from world leaders:
 
James Warburg, international financier and political scientist, in 1950 testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “We shall have a world government, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether it will be achieved by consent or by conquest.”[9] The Senate committee passed Senate Resolution 66: “Whereas, in order to achieve universal peace and justice, the present Charter of the United Nations should be changed to provide a true world government constitution.”

Pope Paul VI, in a 1967 encyclical, Populorum Progresso, called for a world run by Marxist ideals. Ayn Rand, a brilliant sociologist, published a scathing report against this document:
 

Pope Benedict XVI flexed his muscle with another encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (2009): “World peace can be ours if we only submit to a one-world government that manages our lives and our finances.”
 
We recall again: “Prophecy foretells a restoration of her [papal] power….  To the very close of time he will carry forward the work of deception. And the revelator declares, also referring to the papacy: ‘All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life.’ Revelation 13:8.”[11]
 

“The Roman church–state … is an institution recovering from a mortal wound. If and when it regains its full power and authority it will impose a regime more sinister than any the planet has yet seen.”[13]
 
Major changes are taking place on planet earth that herald the approach of that time. The Bible not only reveals the acceleration of warring elements with associated global chaos, it also suggests a concomitant coalition of secular and religious powers that coerce mankind through a “process” called “fornication.”
 

 
Scripture further reveals that the papacy will unequivocally become that coalition head. Globally enamored, it further says, “all the world wondered after the beast” (Revelation 13:3). Her geopolitical control, however, won’t be achieved easily: She will employ “every device to extend her influence and increase her power in preparation for a fierce and determined conflict to regain control of the world.”[14] The papacy will have some competition, trying to be head of these world powers. But – world leaders will finally acquiesce and come to her side:
 

 
Fascinating Concerns
 
The much-publicized concept of a social “common good” has become a philosophical ideal to check geopolitical policies. This phrase was given moral status by Augustine of Hippo’s City of God, Book XIX, through a question and then answer: “Is human wellbeing found in the good of the whole society, the common good?” His answer was an emphatic “Yes.”[15]

• That phrase was branded as Catholic dogma, and then part of its “moral theology” in the extensive works of Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (written 1265–1274).
• The “common good” became an arresting ideal which was later incorporated into Catholic Social teaching, now increasingly mesmerizing Protestant and political leaders.

It claims “the human person cannot find fulfillment in himself, that is, apart from the fact that he exists with others and for others.”[16] The adherents of “common good” point out that this reflects the “community of others” found in Matthew 25:35-40. Serving the social matrix, however, takes precedence over the individual.

• This is a sinister concept with Marxism as its roots.
• It demands the centralization of a “moral authority” for the “common good.”
• It is drawing ecumenical interest from Protestant leaders who are unaware of its erosion of personal responsibility and loyalty to God.
• It will soon become a tool for georeligious coercion, bringing about a world crisis – perhaps mandating weekly worship.

Marxism and its “common good” ideals have never been fully implemented. It simply cannot work without oppression. Its adherents have always used force to try to create its utopian “collective good.” Centralizing of some power is currently being played out in a myriad of devastating global initiatives. The “Islamic” horrors of the Middle East reveal the emergence of “region seven” of the ten-regional map of the Club of Rome. It is to be one Islamic crescent. That is part of a new global order.
 
Most have noted with horror the death, abductions and torture of Christians. But – there has also been a “death of outrage” (borrowing a phrase from Bill Bennett’s book with that title) against these atrocities.[17]
 
Evangelist Franklin Graham, however, hasn’t been silent:
 

 
Under the guise of the “common good” a religious/political agenda is maturing and being implemented within the world community. No voice has been more articulate in its support than the liberal theologian Jim Wallis. Though a Protestant, he is a strong supporter of the Catholic Social Doctrine. Recently he laid out a geopolitical agenda under the title of “What Jesus would Do!”

1. Provide moral and political cover to politicians supporting immigration reform and the federal government’s move to bring in undocumented individuals as part of treating “the stranger” as the Bible suggests.
2. Revitalize “the common good” as loving our neighbor through support of economic changes, globalization, concerns for Muslims, gays, the poor and our immediate neighbors
3. Have gun control to decrease violence
4. Promote anticapitalism.[19]

Do you sense an intensity of thought where force to conform might be required?
 
Recently, Pope Francis celebrated a Sunday evening vespers with Protestant leaders. He laid out a formula for Christian unity by stating that the “gospel enables us to overcome proselytism and competition.” Do you see what he just said? This destructively strikes at the very root of Christ’s commission (Matthew 28:19-20) and urges Protestants to do “it” the Catholic way![20]
 
Tony Blair (Catholic convert) notes that:

• A trend is developing where the world must treat “religious extremism” as a bad political issue (referring to the “Christian Right” – conservative Christians).[21]
• Former president of Israel, Shimon Peres, met with Pope Francis in November of 2014. He later said:
  
  “What is needed is an Organization of United Religions, a U.N. of Religions.”[22] Peres envisaged a “top-down” authoritative organization, with Pope Francis as its head.[23]

The U.N. is Aligning with the Vatican on “World Governance”
 
April 19, 2013, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met Pope Francis at the Vatican for the first time. He noted:
 

 
What happens at the end of those one thousand days? The ideals for the “common good” of the world must be in place and activated.
 
The Millennium Development Goals were agreed upon by world leaders in 2000 and set for the international community the challenge of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, improving maternal health, and reducing child mortality, among other goals, by 2015.[25] The thousand day countdown began in early 2013.
 
Francis frequently lashes out at capitalism, trickle-down economics, economies of exclusions and the culture of death. The Secretary General and all the heads of major U.N. agencies later flew to Rome to meet with Francis on May 9, 2014, to deal with those global issues.

• The pope called for a “legitimate redistribution” of wealth to the poor by each “state.”
• Though he again denied Marxist thinking, the message was just that.[26]
• He decried secularization within the capitalist world.

Later, on August 13, 2014, Pope Francis wrote to Ban Ki-moon, urging him to:

• Forcefully respond to the dramatic events taking place in Northern Iraq, where Christians and other religious minorities are being persecuted.
• “The violent attacks that are sweeping across Northern Iraq,” wrote Pope Francis, “cannot but awaken the consciences of all men and women of goodwill to concrete acts of solidarity by protecting those affected or threatened by violence and assuring the necessary and urgent assistance for the many displaced people as well as their safe return to their cities and their homes.”[27]

The Pope’s leadership emphasis is metamorphosing from being a “moral and spiritual teacher” (even now admitting there are homosexuals at the Cardinal level) to one of social justice and world concern! He is appealing more and more to the secular culture and is propounding global moves such as:

1. Redistribution of wealth through the development of an international bank[28]
2. Excoriating free market ideologies
3. Touting the need for a healthy environment (EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy flew to Rome to help the Pope draft a “climate-related encyclical”)[29]
4. Develop a type of globalism (not unlike Marxism)
5. Equal pay for men and woman
6. Moving the geopolitical “voice” from the political “right” to the “progressive left”[30]
7. Declaring the influx of illegal aliens into the United States as a “beautiful gesture”[31]
8. Recently engineering a new relationship between the United States and Cuba[32]

Perhaps the most important geopolitical coalition, outside that of the Secretary General of the United Nations allying himself with Pope Francis, is the deepening bond between President Obama, the Democratic Party and the Vatican!

• “President Obama increasingly is finding a key policy ally in the Vatican, with Pope Francis standing virtually shoulder to shoulder with the White House on income inequality and a historic diplomatic reboot with communist Cuba. The pontiff next year also appears poised to offer greater support to the president on climate change initiatives and reportedly wants to be a leading voice at a U.N. global warming summit next year, where the American president will make perhaps his greatest pitch to date for more dramatic action on the environment.
  
  “For Mr. Obama and fellow Democrats, aligning with Francis offers clear benefits in the short term, as they are able to highlight agreement on controversial issues with one of the most respected figures on the planet [the pope]….
  
  “Mr. Obama said of the pontiff in an interview with ABC News this month. ‘The pope doesn’t wield armies. He can’t impose sanctions. But he can speak with great moral authority, and it makes a difference.’”[33]

“And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast” (Revelation 17:12-13). 
 
“It [the earth beast] exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed” (Revelation 13:12).
 

 
What about the Sabbath? Interesting question! The Catholic World Meeting of Families this fall in Philadelphia, PA, will likely highlight that as a necessary “family break” in the week’s routine for worship, family and rest. Before a similar meeting in 2012 in Milan, the Church published a “Preparatory Catecheses” for the Seventh World Meeting of Families. In that manual it noted:
 

 
Lest we complacently minimize where we are, Cardinal Peter Turkson, Head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, wrote:
 
“The economic and financial crisis which the world is going through summons everyone, as individuals and peoples, to examine in depth the principles and the cultural and moral values that underlie social coexistence….
 
“Recognizing the primacy of being over having and of eithics over the economy, the world’s peoples ought to adopt an ethic of solidarity to fuel their action. This implies abandoning all forms of petty selfishness and embracing the logic of the global common good which transcends merely passing and limited interests….
 
“In a world on its way to rapid globalization, orientation towards a world Authority becomes the only horizon compatible with the new realities of our time and the needs of humankind….
 
“Only a spirit of concord that rises above divisions and conflicts will allow humanity to be authentically one family and to conceive of a new world with the creation of a world public Authority at the service of the common good.”[36]
 
As this modern-day social evolution unfolds, a cry for a “spiritual common good” will come. Something, perhaps, to be concerned about.
 
The question: Who will be that “world Authority?” In those Catholic documents the “A” in authority is capitalized. It doesn’t refer to Christ. A deeper question perhaps: Who will be our Authority?