Part 3: Clasping Hands

This incident, and other ecumenical gatherings like it, are a stunning and ominous development in the Protestant world. It is a fulfilment of Bible prophecy.

It is all too clear that the aims of Vatican II have been balefully successful. For Pentecostalism and the Charismatics, gone is the protest of Luther, forgotten are the lives of Huss, Jerome, and Wycliffe. Abandoned are the works of John Knox and John Bunyan. Forgotten are the martyrs who died by the rack and at the stake, killed by the papal power. Forgotten are the centuries of persecution, and the suffering of Pilgrims who fled Europe for America to escape the persecution of that worst of all evils, the combined rule of the church and the state. Forgotten are the warnings of Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Roger Williams and many others.

For many in what passes for Christianity today, the faith of their fathers is gone. Gone is sola scriptura. Instead, the paramountcy of the Bible has been replaced with the primacy of emotional ecstasy. The doctrines of salvation are supplanted, and dismissed as unimportant. Repetitive and trance-inducing rock music leads to an emotional high and what is seen by many charismatics as the worship’s climax: the ecstatic emotional utterances of congregants speaking in gibberish tongues.

Today, this worship experience is not only for Pentecostals. Its entrenchment is well advanced in
almost every major denomination in the world, including, as stated, in the ranks of over a
hundred million Catholics.iv

A clip of NAR Apostle, Lance Wallnau, teaching his followers to speak in tongues can be viewed here.v

Bible Prophecy and the Papal Power

The Bible revealed that the Roman papacy would be dominant for a period of 1260 years.vi

History demonstrates the truth of the infallible Word. From 538 AD, when civil power was assumed by the Bishop of Rome pursuant to the decree of Emperor Justinian, to 1798 and the capture of Pope Pius VI by Napolean’s general Berthier, the Papacy had tremendous authority and influence over western Europe. Kings knelt at the feet of the Pope for centuries, and did the bidding of the Roman pontiff.

Church and state in union brought incredible peril to the human family. The Dark Ages were marked by superstition, censorship and persecution. It was the age of the suppression of the Bible, of the Inquisition, and the burning of so-called heretics.

With the Protestant Reformation, the power of the papacy to control the state gradually weakened until the pope of that period, Pius VI, was taken captive and died in exile in France. The Bible had prophesied that at the conclusion of the 1260 years the papal power would receive a deadly wound, and so it did. To hear a detailed presentation on this subject, click here.vii

A beast in Bible prophecy symbolizes a kingdom.viii There are two beasts, or kingdoms, mentioned in Revelation 13. The Protestant Reformers knew and taught that the leopard beast of Revelation 13 was the papal power. They knew from the Bible that the papacy was predicted to persecute God’s people,ix and then one day receive a deadly wound.x They were aware that the book of Revelation also foretold the rise of another kingdom around the time the papacy was to lose its dominance. In 1752, the Reformer John Wesley correctly predicted that the lamb-like beast with the two horns of Revelation 13 was not far away.xi

History shows that only one nation was rising to global prominence at the time of the deadly wound to the papal power, and that nation was the United States of America.

America is the greatest nation the world has ever seen, and it was founded on an express rejection of papal teaching and authority. The papacy vehemently opposes the separation of church and state.xii The U.S. Constitution requires a separation of church and state in the First Amendment.xiii The Papacy is opposed to liberty of conscience.xiv The U.S. Constitution protects liberty of conscience and religious liberty as a God-given right.xv

The papacy is opposed to freedom of speech and freedom of the press,xvi and maintained a list of banned books for centuries.xvii  The U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and the Founding Fathers taught that without a free press liberty would perish.xviii
The papacy systematically trampled on the principles of due process both before and during the centuries of the Inquisition, torturing people to obtain a confession to so-called heresy.xix  The U.S. Constitution constitutionalizes due process, including a right to remain silent,xx and rejects torture.xxi

The Bible foretold that the Bride of Christ would flee into the wilderness to escape the dragon and from the power of the Roman papacy. Ultimately, Protestantism found its way to the New World, and one of the last great wilderness areas on the planet. How fitting that the lamb-like beast, the United States, comes up “out of the earth” – Revelation 13:11, as opposed to the point of origin of the other beasts in Daniel 7 and Revelation 13! Geographically, those other beasts come out of the water, and specifically find their geographic location around the Mediterranean, as noted in Daniel 7:2.xxii But America rose from the ground of the New World.

The Declaration of Independence repudiated the contentions of the church/state system and thus rejected the dominionist claims of the Pope. The Founders trumpeted that human rights come from God, not from the state. The Founders declared as “self-evident truth” “that all men are created equal, and endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

“Righteousness exalts a nation” – Proverbs 14:34. America’s protection of the rights and freedoms of humanity has brought it greatness. It’s secret strength, like Samson’s, has its source in the Almighty. America was raised by the Lord as a haven for the persecuted, and as a place where the Gospel and the light of the Scriptures could be proclaimed to all the world. Individual rights, constitutionalism, and the separation of church and state have made America great.

But like Samson, even the mighty may fall.

Samson, the mightiest man recorded in the Scriptures, fell through continued liaison with a harlot.xxiii Delilah wooed him and plied him with her charms until he violated the secret trust between himself and God and gave up the secret of his great strength. In liaison with the Philistine civil powers, Delilah cut his hair and took his power. His two eyes were put out, and his liberty was taken from him.

Sadly, the Bible predicts that America will fall the same way. The harlot who seeks America’s power is the papal harlot, described in Revelation 17.xxiv Long has she sought to bring America to its knees.

As discussed HERE and HERE, the NAR apostles also want political power. The Papacy is more than willing to ally with the NAR to accomplish her ends.

In 2016, NAR leaders met personally with Pope Francis to discuss their mutual interests. This is a photo of NAR Apostle Che Ahn and Pope Francis.

Further details of this meeting can be found here.

Conclusion

The Bible foretells that the Papacy’s deadly wound will be healed.xxv The Bible states that the world will wonder after the first beast, the Papal power, and it is. And the Bible states that America and the Papacy will work together to bring about the final events of Bible prophecy.

Today, both the New Apostolic Reformation and the Catholic Integralism of the Heritage Foundation, which openly advocates for a reunification of church and state, are within striking distance of their goal. This will be the subject of an upcoming installment in this series. For now, we conclude with words written nearly a hundred and thirty years ago regarding the events now taking place before our eyes:

Through the two great errors, the immortality of the soul and Sunday sacredness, Satan will bring the people under his deceptions. While the former lays the foundation of spiritualism, the latter creates a bond of sympathy with Rome. The Protestants of the United States will be foremost in stretching their hands across the gulf to grasp the hand of spiritualism; they will reach over the abyss to clasp hands with the Roman power; and under the influence of this threefold union, this country will follow in the steps of Rome in trampling on the rights of conscience.xxvi

^{i https://news.ag.org/en/article-repository/news/2016/04/what-azusa-had-and-we-need}

ii  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Charismatic_Renewal

iii Unitatis Redintegratio, the Decree on Ecumenism (1964, #1).

^iv https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLmMHdYjWGI

^v https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZi9F-5pXf8

^vi Revelation 13:5 – the time period of the 42 months is the same as the time period of the 1260 years mentioned in Daniel 7: . Using a Hebrew lunar month of 30 days, 42 months is 1260 days. The day for a year principle of prophetic interpretation is found in Ezekiel 4:6.

vii https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-OX2Fzr1IU

^viii See Daniel 7.

ix  Revelation 13:7

^x Revelation 13:3

xi  https://ccel.org/ccel/wesley/notes/notes.i.xxviii.xiv.html

xii Pope Pius X, Vehementer Nos, 1906: “That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error.” “Hence, mindful of Our Apostolic charge and conscious of the imperious duty incumbent upon Us of defending and preserving against all assaults the full and absolute integrity of the sacred and inviolable rights of the Church, We do, by virtue of the supreme authority which God has confided to Us, and on the grounds above set forth, reprove and condemn the law voted in France for the separation of Church and State, as deeply unjust to God whom it denies, and as laying down the principle that the Republic recognizes no cult. We reprove and condemn it as violating the natural law, the law of nations, and fidelity to treaties; as contrary to the Divine constitution of the Church, to her essential rights and to her liberty; as destroying justice and trampling underfoot the rights of property which the Church has acquired by many titles and, in addition, by virtue of the Concordat. We reprove and condemn it as gravely offensive to the dignity of this Apostolic See, to Our own person, to the Episcopacy, and to the clergy and all the Catholics of France. Therefore, We protest solemnly and with all Our strength against the introduction, the voting and the promulgation of this law, declaring that it can never be alleged against the imprescriptible rights of the Church.”

Also see – Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, 1832: “Nor can We predict happier times for religion and government from the plans of those who desire vehemently to separate the Church from the state, and to break the mutual concord between temporal authority and the priesthood. It is certain that that concord which always was favorable and beneficial for the sacred and the civil order is feared by the shameless lovers of liberty.”

xiii  First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

xiv  Pope Pius IX, in his Encyclical Letter of August 15, 1854, said: `The absurd and erroneous doctrines or ravings in defense of liberty of conscience are a most pestilential error—a pest, of all others, most to be dreaded in a state.’ Pius IX, in his Encyclical Letter of December 8, 1864, also anathematized `those who assert the liberty of conscience and of religious worship,’ also ‘all such as maintain that the church may not employ force.’

xv  First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

xvi Pope Pius IX, Mirari Vos, 1832: “This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. “But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error,” as Augustine was wont to say.[21] When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly “the bottomless pit”[22] is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws — in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty. https://rsf.org/en/dangerous-comments-pope-freedom-expression

^xvii https://www.britannica.com/topic/Index-Librorum-Prohibitorum

xviii  “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost” -Thomas Jefferson, 1786. “The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1787.

xix  https://www.ccel.org/f/foxe/martyrs/fox105.htm

xx  The Fifth Amendment states: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-5/

xxi  https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/constitutional-amendments-amendment-8-freedom-excessive-bail-fines-and-cruel-punishments

^xxii Danel 7:2 “Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.” The Great Sea of Danel’s vision is the Mediterranean. All of the beasts come up out of that sea, and all of the nations in the vision find their geographic location around the Mediterranean.

xxiii See Judges chapters 13-16.

xxiv  Revelation 17 will be examined in an upcoming segment.

xxv  Revelation 13:3 The healing of the papacy’s deadly wound will be covered in detail in an upcoming segment. It is the position of the author that the wound has been healed, and current events demonstrate the proof of this.

xxvi  Great Controversy, p. 588. https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/132.2635#2659