For A Mess Of Pottage

Esau sold his future blessing for present gratification. Ever crave anything beyond reason? He, like, signed away his potential inheritance in exchange for current satisfaction—The sacred family birthright blessing, for a bowl of lentil soup.  Are we willing to swap freedom for the security of a contract? History is built upon the skeletons of the slaves of fear. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”[i] 

The prophet Daniel lays before us the events of the world before they happen. Chapter two of his book starts with Babylon as a head of gold on a prophetically symbolic statue.  “Thou (Nebuchadnezzar) art this head of gold.”[ii]   How did Babylon achieve world preeminence? Military power and strong leadership, Nebuchadnezzar took to the battlefield and conquered the competition. Next followed Medo-Persia—Darius conquered Babylon by military action. Greece follows taking world control under the leadership of Alexander the Great whose military prowess stunned the world. In the wake of the fall of the Grecian empire, Rome comes into prominence symbolized by ‘legs of iron’.  How? Did Rome have a Nebuchadnezzar, a Darius, or an Alexander the Great to conquer the nations? What famous battle heralded its rise to power?

Daniel is not silent on how Rome achieved world dominance. Daniel chapter eight describes the secret of Rome's growth. "Through his policy also he shall cause crafts to prosper in his hand . . . and by peace shall destroy many."[iii]   By leagues of friendship and peaceful alliances, Rome secured control of the richest provinces of the world.

Daniel tells of the league Israel made with Rome when they were threatened with annihilation by Antiochus Epiphanes in 161 B.C.. “He shall set his face to come with the strength of his whole kingdom, and he shall bring terms of peace (or alliance) and perform them.”[iv]  This is how Rome gained rulership of Israel, which it held in the time of Christ. The first book of Maccabees records the history of the event.  “So Judas chose Eupolemus son of John son of Accos, and Jason son of Eleazar, and sent them to Rome to establish friendship and alliance, and to free themselves from the yoke; for they saw that the kingdom of the Greeks was enslaving Israel completely. They went to Rome, a very long journey; and they entered the senate chamber and spoke as follows: ‘Judas, who is also called Maccabeus, and his brothers and the people of the Jews have sent us to you to establish alliance and peace with you, so that we may be enrolled as your allies and friends.’ The proposal pleased them,”[v]

The Jews did not have Isaiah among them to declare, "Say not a confederacy"[vi] They had forgotten the experience of Joshua with the Gibeonites. God had aptly warned Israel, “Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:”[vii] But Joshua had failed to comprehend the significance of such a warning, “And Joshua made peace with them, and made a league with them, to let them live: and the princes of the congregation sware unto them.”[viii]  

Rome grew from a small city-state to a world empire. “And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people. He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; …yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.”[ix] 

“During Rome's early period of expansion, from the fall of the monarchy in 510 B.C. until the mid-third century, she gradually spread her dominion over the peninsula of Italy, making treaties with all the states she conquered. Regardless of the type of treaty, all the treaty states had to provide soldiers and give up some of their land to Rome. The soldiers they provided were regular Roman soldiers.

In return for what the allies supplied the Romans, the Romans offered protection against attack. They were not allowed to have a foreign policy, since only Rome would deal with outsiders.”[x] 

It has been said that those who forget history are bound to repeat it. And the repeating of history is reinforced by the recurrence of events in Bible prophecy. “The prophecy in the eleventh chapter of Daniel has nearly reached its complete fulfillment. Much of the history that has taken place in fulfillment of this prophecy will be repeated.”[xi]  This repeating of history is especially true of, “And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully:…He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places…”[xii]  Rome grew from a city-state to an empire by making leagues with adjacent cities and nations, and then annexing them. The Roman Papacy, following in the footsteps of the Roman Empire repeats this tactic by: 1. Establishing diplomatic relations with nations, and 2. Signing agreement statements with churches or other religions.

In the late 1980s this occurred in the cold war.  Newspapers read, “Vatican Scores Successes in Ties With E. Bloc” “In 10 days in July the Vatican scored more successes in relations with the Communist East bloc than some Roman Catholic Church officials once thought they would see in their lifetime.” “Between July 17 and 26, diplomatic relations were established with Poland. Pope John Paul appointed one bishop in the Soviet Union and four in Czechoslovakia and, to top it off, he announced he would visit Hungary in two years.”[xiii]

TIME magazine’s Feb 24, 1992 cover reads, “Holy Alliance: How Reagan and the Pope conspired to assist Poland’s Solidarity movement and hasten the demise of Communism." Politics run on agreements. Diplomatic relations, such as the Papacy established with Poland are contracts or treaties. This technique of establishing treaties with nations is what the Catholic Church used in the October 1999 signing of an agreement on justification between the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).

At the time the Lutheran website read, “Justification, finally! Lutherans and Roman Catholics have reached a historical agreement on a divisive issue which dates back to the rift of the sixteenth century.” “The Joint Declaration was signed on 31 October 1999, on Reformation Day, the eve of All Saints Day. The ceremony took place in the German town of Augsburg, where the confession of the same name was introduced in 1530 as an attempt, without success, to overcome the conflict between the Lutheran reformation and the official Catholic Church. On the LWF side there were eight signatories. On the Roman Catholic side, the President and the Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity signed the Joint Declaration. This is the first time the Vatican is declaring that doctrinal condemnations by the Roman Catholic Church do not apply to points of teaching of a Protestant communion.”[xiv]

What Would Luther Say? “One of the principles most firmly maintained by Luther was that there should be no resort to secular power in support of the Reformation, and no appeal to arms for its defense. He rejoiced that the gospel was confessed by princes of the empire; but when they proposed to unite in a defensive league, he declared that ‘the doctrine of the gospel should be defended by God alone. . . . The less man meddled in the work, the more striking would be God's intervention in its behalf. All the politic precautions suggested were, in his view, attributable to unworthy fear and sinful mistrust.’”[xv]  “Again, at a later date, referring to the league contemplated by the reformed princes, Luther declared that the only weapon employed in this warfare should be ‘the sword of the Spirit.’ He wrote to the elector of Saxony: ‘We cannot on our conscience approve the proposed alliance.’”[xvi]

But the signing of an agreement with the Lutherans in 1999 was by no means the first use of diplomacy by the Catholic Church in dealing with Protestants.  After the Catholic Church secured the death of their leader, John Huss, the church went after his followers, the Hussites, in Bohemia (Czech Republic). “The pope now proclaimed a crusade against the Hussites, and again an immense force was precipitated upon Bohemia, but only to suffer terrible defeat.”[xvii]     

“The papal leaders, despairing of conquering by force, at last resorted to diplomacy. A compromise was entered into, that while professing to grant to the Bohemians freedom of conscience, really betrayed them into the power of Rome. The Bohemians had specified four points as the condition of peace with Rome: the free preaching of the Bible; the right of the whole church to both the bread and the wine in the communion, and the use of the mother tongue in divine worship; the exclusion of the clergy from all secular offices and authority; and, in cases of crime, the jurisdiction of the civil courts over clergy and laity alike. The papal authorities at last ‘agreed that the four articles of the Hussites should be accepted, but that the right of explaining them, that is, of determining their precise import, should belong to the council--in other words, to the pope and the emperor.’-- Wylie, b. 3, ch. 18. On this basis a treaty was entered into, and Rome gained by dissimulation and fraud what she had failed to gain by conflict; for, placing her own interpretation upon the Hussite articles, as upon the Bible, she could pervert their meaning to suit her own purposes.”[xviii]   

Lets bring it up to date: At the Peace Summit in Korea in 2014, given the acronym WARP (Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light hosts World Alliance of Religions) arranged by the Catholic Church, “Approximately, 2,000 leaders from 170 countries signed for agreement which contains supports and collaboration on ‘cessation of war and proposal of international law’ and ‘world alliance of religions’.” In essence the religions promised submission to the papacy’s proposed “international law” in the interest of the “cessation of war”.[xix] 

Let’s now move from looking at the signing of agreements with religions by the Catholic Church to their diplomatic work among the nations.

With their more than a passing interest in “climate change” one is forced to ask the question, “Has the Pope gone ‘green’?” We need to ask two questions, Why does Pope Francis’ encyclical, “Laudato Si’”, on climate change include a paragraph on Sunday observance?  And, why is Pope Francis’ encyclical endorsed by the President of the United States?

In Pope Francis’ climate change encyclical, paragraph 237, we read, “On Sunday, our participation in the Eucharist has special importance. Sunday, like the Jewish Sabbath, is meant to be a day which heals our relationships with God, with ourselves, with others and with the world. …And so the day of rest, centered on the Eucharist, sheds its light on the whole week, and motivates us to greater concern for nature and the poor.”[xx]

How did the United States respond to this Papal document? President Obama endorsed Pope Francis’s Encyclical, in a White House statement posted on their website.[xxi] Obama said, “I welcome His Holiness Pope Francis's encyclical, and deeply admire the Pope's decision to make the case - clearly, powerfully, and with the full moral authority of his position - for action on global climate change. … And as we prepare for global climate negotiations in Paris this December, it is my hope that all world leaders--and all God's children--will reflect on Pope Francis's call to come together to care for our common home.” Obama was looking forward to the Climate Change Summit in Paris and urging all nations to submit to the Climate Change initiatives. The United State’s role in the final events of this earths history are well described, the most salient of which is its backing of the Pope on global worship issues. “And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.”[xxii] 

Does this climate change agenda take precedence over national sovereignty? In Pope Francis’ climate change encyclical, paragraph 169, we read, “International negotiations cannot make significant progress due to positions taken by countries which place their national interests above the global common good.” Again, in Pope Francis’ climate change encyclical, paragraph 178, we read, “True statecraft is manifest when, in difficult times, we uphold high principles and think of the long-term common good.” In other words, these two paragraphs are stating that nations should surrender their national sovereignty. This word “statecraft” used by Francis should ring a bell. Here is the Pope, who can be understood to be churchcraft, seeking to establish “true statecraft”. “The mingling of churchcraft and statecraft is represented by the iron and the clay. This union is weakening all the power of the churches. This investing the church with the power of the state will bring evil results. Men have almost passed the point of God's forbearance. They have invested their strength in politics, and have united with the papacy. But the time will come when God will punish those who have made void His law, and their evil work will recoil upon themselves.”[xxiii] 

Do the world leaders know what is going on here?  Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, does. Before the climate change summit, the Pope was urging Merkel to fight for the climate deal.[xxiv]  The significance of the signing of the Paris climate change summit agreement did not escape Merkel, The Paris accords were “not just any old agreement, but a central agreement for shaping globalization,” she said.[xxv]

At the climate change summit all the nations of the world were asked to sign adherence to climate change initiatives, but the president of Nicaragua was not inclined to sign. “Nicaragua was upset that there was a mismatch between the aims of the agreement and what it said it would do about it. That, apparently, triggered a phone call from the pope himself to the Nicaraguan President to persuade him to approve the agreement.”[xxvi]  

The summit was touted as a historical success when 196 nations signed the climate change agreement! The question is, how does this affect their national sovereignty? Who’s wondering after whom here? “And all the world wondered after the beast.”[xxvii]

Back to the previous question, why does Pope Francis’ encyclical, “Laudato Si’” (on climate change) include a paragraph on Sunday observance?  In the book of Daniel, the Papacy is predicted to attempt overriding God’s authority as set forth in the fourth commandment which specifies the Sabbath as the seventh day of the week: the Papacy is predicted to “think to change times and laws:”[xxviii] Since the Sabbath commandment is the only law on time, this is the one he tries to change.

The Catholic Church states that Sunday observance is the “mark of her ecclesiastical power and authority.”[xxix]  In “THE  CONVERT’S  CATECHISM  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE”  (R.C.) P.50, it teaches: Question: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? Answer: Because the Catholic Church in the Council of Laodicea transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.”[xxx] 

The Catholic Church’s assumed authority and apparent success at changing the Christian worship day from God’s seventh day to the Popes first day is used by Pope Francis as a mark of authority in his encyclical Laudato Si’.  Thus Pope Francis appeals to Sunday, the church’s mark of authority, to validate his authority in climate change initiatives.

Jesus has made clear his view on these developments. He stated, “Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.”[xxxi]  And He also stated, “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”[xxxii]  Even Peter, whom the Catholic Church claims as the first pope, says, “We ought to obey God rather than men.”[xxxiii] 

Jesus has been Lord of the Sabbath since He finished creating our earth and sanctified the seventh day for Adam and Eve and all their children, for all time. He has given the Sabbath as a sign or mark of loyalty to Him, “Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign (or mark) between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you.”[xxxiv]  It’s a matter of kingdom loyalty. “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”[xxxv]  Either we worship Jesus the Creator—the Lord of the Seventh-day Sabbath, or we worship the Papacy—the creator of the first-day worship day, its the Seventh-day Sabbath, or the day of “Laudato Si’”—we either, by our loyalty, receive the mark of God’s authority, or we receive the mark of man’s authority—the mark of the beast. “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation;”[xxxvi]  “And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”[xxxvii]  God is calling the people of the earth back to loyalty to him.  To whom are you going to be loyal?

     In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast. "The earth mourneth and fadeth away," "the haughty people . . . do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant."[xxxviii]

     “And then the great deceiver will persuade men that those who serve God are causing these evils. The class that have provoked the displeasure of Heaven will charge all their troubles upon those whose obedience to God's commandments is a perpetual reproof to transgressors. It will be declared that men are offending God by the violation of the Sunday sabbath; that this sin has brought calamities which will not cease until Sunday observance shall be strictly enforced; and that those who present the claims of the fourth commandment, thus destroying reverence for Sunday, are troublers of the people, preventing their restoration to divine favor and temporal prosperity. Thus the accusation urged of old against the servant of God will be repeated and upon grounds equally well established: ‘And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim.’ 1 Kings 18:17, 18. As the wrath of the people shall be excited by false charges, they will pursue a course toward God's ambassadors very similar to that which apostate Israel pursued toward Elijah.”[xxxix]   

How will those who do not submit to climate change initiatives and show loyalty to Sunday be dealt with?

“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”[xl]  It’s a matter of economic boycott. And how can he achieve economic boycott? “But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.”[xli]   As we watch the news and see who has been to visit the Pope and get their picture taken with him, we discover that among other financial leaders, the heads of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have all been to the Vatican.  And what are these financial institutions doing to forward the Sunday loyalty agenda?

Headlines read: “Eurozone demands six-day week for Greece”, and the article states, “Government in Athens under pressure to introduce a six-day working week as part of the terms for a second bailout”, “Greece's eurozone creditors are demanding that the government in Athens introduce a six-day working week as part of the stiff terms for the country's second bailout.” And who is behind this demand? “the European commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund.”[xlii] 

Do you understand the significance of that?  They are not going to select the Seventh-day Sabbath as the country’s rest day rather, they will enforce work on God’s day.  This type of legislation would not just enforce Sunday as a free day but enforce the Seventh-day Sabbath as a workday.  This would be an anti-Sabbath law.  And what country of the world is not financially tied to one of these institutions?

On an individual level, what developments will make economic boycott easy to enforce?  The cashless society.[xliii]

Looking at the current brochure of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, dated 30 May 2017, entitled: Electronic Banking: Terms and Conditions. These terms and conditions determine your eligibility to benefit from these electronic banking financial services necessary for a cashless transaction.[xliv]   On page 4 under the heading: Legal Risk, it reads, “As Australia is a member state of the United Nations, we are obliged to implement United Nations Security Council sanctions. Consequently, the Bank may be prohibited from dealing with certain persons or entities.”

“This means that if the Bank is aware that you are a proscribed person or entity, then the Bank may be required to suspend, cancel or refuse you services or close or terminate any arrangement with you. We may also be required to freeze assets of yours. You could incur significant costs as a result of these actions.”

On Page 59 under the heading: Proscribed Person it reads, “A person who appears to us either:

(a)   to be a proscribed person or entity under the Charter of the United Nations act 1945 (Cth);

(b)  to be in breach of the laws of any jurisdiction relating to money laundering or counter-terrorism;

(c)   to appear in a list of persons with whom dealings are proscribed by the government or a regulatory authority of any jurisdiction; or

(d)  act on behalf, or for the benefit of, a person listed in subclasses (a)-(c).”

Current lists of Proscribed UN persons include many “fundamentalist” extremists from the Middle East. 

Did you check to make sure there was none of this kind of language in your computer software agreement before you pressed “I agree” just so you could quickly get on with the task your computer was holding you up on?

What if financial sanctions fail to get proscribed persons to submit?

“And he had power to…cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.”[xlv]

In his book “Hunted By The KGB” by Theodore Pawluk, he tells of the experience of the Jews in the Ukraine during the German invasion. The Jews were so profiled as to lay the groundwork for their extermination long before Hitler’s troops showed up. “The Church pounded home the point in their services and in the schools that Jesus was crucified by the Jews. The priest would describe all that Jesus suffered and then accuse the Jews alone of being responsible. My classmates hated the Jews. The church taught the people that they were doing God a favor by punishing the Jews for their sins. In the Ukraine and neighboring territories, no concentration camps were needed to conceal the Nazi’s cruelty against the Jews. The cruelty was welcomed.”

This profiling and swaying of public opinion is in operation today.

In a news article dated Feb 1, 2017 headlines read, “Pope accuses Christians of ‘cowardliness’ for overfocus on following ‘all’ 10 Commandments” and the article begins, “In another in a long stream of apparent attacks on his critics, Pope Francis gave a homily last week accusing Christians who avoid taking risks out of concern for the Ten Commandments as suffering from “cowardliness,” warning that such people become “paralyzed” and unable to “go forward.”[xlvi] 

“The great conflict is between the commandments of God and the requirements of the beast. It is because the saints are keeping all ten of the commandments that the dragon makes war upon them. If they will lower the standard and yield the peculiarities of their faith, the dragon will be at peace; but they excite his ire because they have dared to raise the standard and unfurl their banner in opposition to the Protestant world, who are worshiping the institution of papacy.”[xlvii]

“Don’t listen to the ‘prophets of doom,’” Pope Francis insists-- November 14, 2016. “Pope Francis on Sunday called for the faithful not to be driven by end-times curiosities or apocalyptic preachers, urging them to focus on what is truly important: ‘The Lord and our neighbor.’ Those who follow Jesus pay no heed to prophets of doom, the nonsense of horoscopes, or frightening sermons that distract from the truly important things,” Francis said. “It is important, he continued, to distinguish ‘the word of wisdom that God speaks to us each day’ from the shouting of those who use ‘God’s name to frighten, to nourish division and fear.’ Francis’s words came as he was celebrating Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, in Rome.[xlviii]

“The Mental Structure Of Fundamentalists Is Violence In The Name Of God”  “Pope Francis said a lot in his recent interview with Spanish-language magazine La Vanguardia. Here are 8 of the most powerful quotes: On fundamentalism: ‘A fundamentalist group, although it may not kill anyone, although it may not strike anyone, is violent. The mental structure of fundamentalists is violence in the name of God.’”[xlix]

“Pope Francis Declares That Christian Fundamentalism ‘Is A Sickness’”[l] “Is a belief in the strict, literal interpretation of the Bible ‘a sickness’?  Pope Francis appears to think so.  Just a few days ago, multiple reporters heard Francis describe fundamentalism as ‘a sickness that is in all religions’ – including Christianity.  But precisely what is fundamentalism?  If you go to Google, it is defined as ‘a form of a religion, especially Islam or Protestant Christianity, that upholds belief in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture.’  So does Pope Francis really intend to ‘combat’ those that believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible?”

“We shall soon see and shall feel what the purpose of the Roman element is. Whoever shall believe and obey the word of God will thereby incur reproach and persecution.”[li] 

God has declared that He will have a people who come out victorious in the conflict over loyalty.  “And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.”[lii]  

How can we be sure that we are among God’s loyal overcomers?  We need to make a league, not with man, but with God himself. “Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant (or league); Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.”[liii]  “Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant (or league).”[liv]

In Summary:

·      Rome, the Papal prototype, became an empire through the process of making leagues.

·      The Papacy continues this policy, making leagues with other religions and with nations through diplomatic relations and over social issues such as climate change.

·      Rome’s power is increasing as nations sign up to financial institutions such as IMF. These leagues can be used to force a nation to bow to Rome.

·      Fundamentalists are being profiled in preparation for the time of trouble.

·      Our league of loyalty needs to be with God.

Jesus wants to make a league of friendship and loyalty with you. Will you choose to be a loyal member of His Heavenly Kingdom?

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