Just when you think you’ve heard all the 2012 prophecies, another emerges to be added to the Mayan calendar, the Aztec calendar, the Cherokee calendar, and other 2012 warnings. This one concerns the Pope of Rome.

So what does this prophecy say, and who said it?

A 12^th Century Archbishop, Saint Malachy, purportedly received a vision wherein he was given the description of 112 future Popes, then detailed it in a work entitled The Mysterious Prophecy of the Popes. The current Pope Benedict XVI is number 111^th, thus the very next Pope will be the 112^th.  Of this final Pope, Malachy says this: “In extreme persecution, the seat of the Holy Roman Church will be occupied by Peter the Roman, who will feed the sheep through many tribulations; when they are over, the City of Seven Hills will be destroyed, and the terrible or fearsome Judge will judge his people.”

This Pope is obviously the end-times Pope, the Pope who will oversee the Catholic Church during the seven-year tribulation just prior to the return of the “fearsome Judge” or Jesus, and during which time Rome will be destroyed. It also fingers this end-time Roman Catholic Church as “Mystery Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots”, the one that ushers in the great apostasy and sets the stage for a one world religion. Vatican II has already paved the way for that with its ecumenism as evidenced by Pope John Paul II in his 1982 Assisi prayer meeting, which included pagans and voodoo priests, and where he said that voodoo possessed “truth and good, seeds of the Word”.

Over the years several Jesuits have worked hard to debunk Saint Malachy’s prophecy as a forgery, then along came respected Belgium professor and Jesuit, Rene Thibaut (1883-1952), who not only asserted it was a valid prophecy but through elaborate computations put the date of 2012 as the time this final Pope will enter the world stage.

But is it possible? Can the 112^th Pope really usher in the end times? Worse yet, can he be the False Prophet of Revelation that Thibaut and others believe him to be?

According to Father Malachi Martin, the answer is “yes”. A Jesuit and eminent Catholic theologian, Martin was a personal friend of Pope Paul VI, and a member of the Vatican Advisory Council, as well as the personal secretary to the celebrated Jesuit Cardinal Augustin Bea. He was also the Vatican researcher on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and spoke seventeen languages. His startling claim is this: an Illuminate-Masonic group (Freemasons) has infiltrated the upper ranks of the Catholic Church and conspires to bring about a one world government. In his book, Windswept House, Martin talked about “prominent clerics who worship Satan” and that “networks . . . had been established between certain clerical homosexual groups and Satanist covens,” hence the world-wide cover-up of pedophile clerics by the church establishment. Martin also talked about a secret ceremony, the “enthronement of Satan”, that took place at the Vatican in 1963 in order to ensure two outcomes: 1) Satan’s control over Rome and 2) a demonically controlled end-time Pope. Martin died under “suspicious” circumstances in 1999 while working on another book connecting the Catholic Church with the New World Order.

If considering a Pope of Rome in the role of the future False Prophet or affiliated in any way with the end-time Antichrist is still unthinkable, let me assure you that Malachi Martin wasn’t the only one who believed it possible. The list is long, and includes such notables as Luther, Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, John Knox, John Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, George Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards. To learn more, read Petrus Romanus, The Final Pope is Here, by Thomas Horn and Cris Putnam. It’s guaranteed to frizzle your hair.

Let me end by saying I don’t believe the world is going to end in 2012 but I can’t and won’t discard the notion that perhaps something unprecedented will happen this year, something that shakes the spiritual realm. When you realize that 2012 is the year the Mayans and the Aztecs both believed their flying dragon god would return, and the year the Cherokees believed their flying rattlesnake god would return—all pictures of Satan as described in the Bible—and couple it with the prophecy that the final Pope will be an agent of Satan, then you have to wonder if negative spiritual forces are about to shake things up.   

On the other hand it could signal that the time of the rapture and return of Jesus is nearer than we think.

Until next time,

Sylvia

I’m a doer. Standing still is hard for me. That’s why I find scriptures like the one in 2 Chronicles 20:17 tough: “stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.” Or the one in Ephesians 6:13 “having done all, stand” Both are speaking of warfare, of times when the going gets tough and we’re in the thick of it.

But isn’t there more I can do? I always reason. No, sometimes there isn’t.

And it’s during those “sometimes” that one must leave it all in the Lord’s hands and wait.  Oh, how hard waiting is! Oh, how hard it is to just stand still. Yet, these can be some of our best times with the Lord. It’s during these times that He shows Himself strong in the face of our impotence. It’s when we see His awesome power in the face of our own inability.

If you’re in a tough place where there is nowhere to go, where there is no discernable solution, don’t be afraid to stand still and allow God to work things out. Even in the midst of the most terrible situation, God can show Himself wonderfully strong and able. And He can redeem and bring out of a negative circumstance something beautiful and amazing.

Until next time,

Sylvia

Several weeks ago the subject of slavery in the Bible came up in a conversation along with the inference that instead of being condemned outright by God it was treated too lightly.  The conversation made me want to look into the subject more closely, and here are my conclusions.

First, I suspect that what Jesus said about divorce in Matthew 19:8 could also be said about slavery: “Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.” In other words, slavery, too, is a product of the hardness of our hearts and not the will of God, nor did He intend this for mankind in the beginning.

And secondly, because slavery has existed from ancient times, God chose in His word to use it as an illustration of man’s condition. In John 8:34 (Amplified) Jesus says that “whoever commits and practices sin is the slave of sin.” But then two verses later He goes on to say, “So if the Son liberates you, makes you free men, then you are really and unquestionably free.”

Roman 6:16-20 confirms this by telling us pretty much the same thing; that we become slaves to whatever we yield ourselves to. If it’s to sin, then we become slaves to sin. Conversely, if it’s to Jesus, he frees us from the bondage to sin but then we become slaves to righteousness. So whether we want to admit it or not, we are all slaves.

Perhaps you find it offensive that Jesus has the right to call believers “slaves”. Even so, He does, for He purchased us with a great price—His very blood. But does He call us slaves? No. Instead, He calls us “friend”. In John 15:14-15a He says, “Ye are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants (slaves).” But it gets even better. Galatians 4:7 tells us that we are no longer slaves of sin but a son “and if a son then an heir of God through Christ.”

Friend, son, heir. What a far cry from slave! Unfortunately, there are still too many who are slaves of sin and to this world. If only they would leave their captivity for the wonderful world of freedom God offers! If only they understood how much He loved them! Oh, pray that their hearts and minds be opened!

Until next time,

Sylvia

I came across this great scripture last week. It really got me excited though it’s not the first time I’ve read it. As is often the case, I can read a thing several times before it clicks or, as now, actually seems to explode in me. The scripture: Deuteronomy 31:8. It’s at the end of Moses’ life and he has just turned things over to Joshua and commissioned him to take the Israelites into the Promised Land, and then Moses says this: “The Lord himself goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you, neither forsake you, fear not, neither be dismayed.”

Here the Israelites were finally going to enter into God’s promise. But much warfare was ahead of them; battles and hardships, dangers and privations, and on top of that they were going to lose their trusted leader, Moses, who was now to be replaced with his underling, and just when things were about to heat up.

But . . . and here’s the good part . . . they are left with this incredible promise that God Himself was going to go before them. It was God who would be preparing the way for them, softening up the enemy, setting the stage for victory. And if that were not enough, after He had finished all this preparatory work, God was also going to go with them. Yes, every step of the way He would be there to gird them up, encourage them, guide them, and strengthen them. And then, get this, God would not fail them. He could be counted on to bring the thing to its proper conclusion. And He wouldn’t leave them either when things got rough. He would stick with them all the way. In the face of this great promise how could the Israelites fear anything? Or become discourage no matter how long it took to realize victory?

If this was the only scripture in the Bible, aside from those about salvation in Jesus, it would be all we’d ever need. It would be enough to see us through any battle or trial. We need to remember no matter the circumstances, if we’ve committed our way to the Lord, He Himself will go before us, go with us, won’t fail us or forsake us. In the face of a God like that, what is there for us ever to fear?

Until next week,

Sylvia

When a good friend of mine and I first came to the Lord we use to go to every conference and church meeting we could find. Oh, how excited we were, and so on fire for God! We wanted to be like Christ. We wanted to know God’s word. We wanted to be all He desired us to be. We had learned that in order to accomplish this we needed to “die to self”. And when we tried putting it into practice all we succeeded in doing was to turn off those around us to the things of God. But that didn’t stop us. We were determined. Even our phone calls to each other were prefaced with the words, “are you dead yet?”

But being merciful, God began to open Zechariah 4:6b to us, “not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts”. This call to holiness, this dying to self was not to be a grit-your-teeth I’m-going-to-do-this-if-it-kills-me exercise but a work of God’s Holy Spirit. And so the real transformation began—the gentle changing from within. People and situations that once bothered us or could press our buttons, no longer did. We began to see things differently, feel differently, act differently. It seemed too easy! It couldn’t be real, could it? All we did was to completely rely on God, confess our sins as they occurred, put them under the blood, then ask God to change our attitudes, our actions; ask God to make us more like Him in a given situation.

But it was that easy because God was doing the work. Yet in another sense, it was hard, too, because we had to see ourselves for what we were, acknowledge our short comings, then be willing to allow God to change those things in us. And this could cause pain or disruption our lives, and, at times, even turn them upside down.

Now, when my friend and I talk we never ask each other if we’re “dead yet.” We know better. As long as there’s breath in our bodies we’ll need the Holy Spirit to continue His work for there will always be issues needing attention. But we can take heart because we are God’s workmanship, not ours, and He’ll never give up on us. Doesn’t Philippians 1:6 tell us that “being confident of this very thing, that he (Holy Spirit) which hath began a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ”?

It sure beats trying to do it on your own.

Until next week,

Sylvia

Wonder why God really destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah? It wasn’t because sodomy is the worst sin on the planet as some might think. It was because of the total rottenness of that society. When a nation or society throws off all restraint and flaunts its sins, no matter what those sins are, that nation or society not only loses the blessings of God but incurs His wrath as well. Genesis 19: 4-5 tells us that all the men of Sodom, both young and old, surrounded Lot’s house and demanded that Lot bring out his two guests—which they had no way of knowing were angels—so they could “know them” i.e. have carnal knowledge of them. Was every single man in Sodom planning to abuse Lot’s angelic guests? There’s no way of knowing for sure, but I doubt it. Still they stood with the others demanding their right to do so, or at least the right of their companions to do so. When a mob of men can surround a house like that and make demands like that, it suggests a total breakdown of society, a total lack of understanding of right and wrong, and a degeneration so deep that sin, as Sodom shows us, becomes pervasive, brazen, flaunted, and militant. What else could God do but utterly destroy the place?

Is this where we’re headed?  Look at the signs, then you tell me. Scripture says “Righteousness exalteth a nation” (Proverbs 14:34). Conversely, the opposite is true. Unrighteousness will tear down and destroy a nation.

As sinners of all stripes begin to openly flaunt their sins in society, unabashed and regardless of consequences; not fearing censure or God Himself, we can only be heading toward the edge of calamity. And make no mistake, my friends, the gag is about to tighten around those who desire to stand for righteousness and honor God’s word. The howl and roar of the world outside our door will only get louder as it demands we condone its immorality. And it will try to pressure into silence, those of us who do stand, demanding we conform to their way of thinking by calling us bigots, haters, extremist fringe, people void of compassion and the milk of human kindness, insensitive, or outdated Neanderthals. And when they do, remember their fight is not with us but with God. For they fight to throw off His statues, not ours. And no matter what heads of state, no matter the number of dignitaries or lawmakers or courts that tout or enact ungodliness, there is still the Just Judge, the Creator of the Universe, and He will have the last say because He makes the rules and we don’t.

We need to pray for our nation and the people around us. Isaiah 5:20 says, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness.” It carries the sobering reminder of what’s at stake.

Until next week,

Sylvia

Every sin first begins in the mind. One of Satan’s favorite tricks is to have us believe every thought we have is our own when they are not. Some thoughts are actually planted by him in order to derail us—and they can run the gamut from the unkind to the perverse. But they don’t actually become our thoughts until we entertain them, examine them, mull them over, and finally embrace them. If this were not so, then God wouldn’t have told us in His word to cast “down imaginations and every high thing that exaleth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5) Nor would He have told us “be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:2

If left unchecked our mind can take us down roads we don’t want to go. It could be as simple as telling us that when our head aches, it’s not a headache but a brain tumor; that when someone we know doesn’t say “hello” at the foodstore he/she is snubbing us rather than busy or preoccupied. It can tell us that we are any number of negative adjectives when we are actually made in the image and likeness of God. An unchecked mind can fester with thoughts of real or perceived injustices or injuries, stirring up feelings of envy, jealousy and hatred. It can steal our peace, make us feel unworthy, or fill us with fear or other destructive emotions as Satan tries to convince us that we are a loser, will never be or have anything, become poor or sick or friendless or . . . . You fill in the blank. And all are lies planted in our minds by the Father of Lies. There is no end to the negative power of an unchecked mind.

It’s interesting that science is finally catching up with the Bible and now tells us that negative emotions—often the product of faulty thinking—can make us sick, raising our blood pressure, affecting our heart, affecting, in fact, nearly every cell in our body. The Bible tells us that a “merry heart doeth good like a medicine” Proverbs 17:22. But our hearts can be merry only when our thinking is right.

Scripture tells us that as a man thinketh so is he (Proverbs 23:7). Our thoughts matter. And since that’s so, we need to renew our mind daily with God’s word which tells us not only that we are greatly love, that we are priests and kings, but that we are overcomers, as well. And then there’s this, one of my all-time favorites: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee (God)” Isaiah 26:3.

Make no mistake, it is a battle, but it’s a battle we can win if we fight with the proper weapons.

Until next week,

Sylvia

We all know the story of the Garden of Eden, the garden of disobedience where Adam and Eve violated God’s authority by wanting to become “as gods”. It took another garden, the Garden of Gethsemane, the garden of submission, and what followed, to correct the damage. It is the place where Jesus, on that fateful night, sweated blood and surrendered His will to that of the Father’s. “Not my will but thy will be done.” It is important to understand that without this surrender there would have been no crucifixion.    

Sadly, we Christians can spend too much of our lives living between these two gardens—vacillating between disobedience and submission. And what we find is that the garden of disobedience brings us no joy, while the garden of submission can often be a difficult and gut wrenching experience for this garden always leads to the third garden, the garden of death—death to self. John 19:41 tells us that “in the place he (Jesus) was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man laid.”  It was the place they buried Jesus after His submission in Gethsemane and subsequent trip to Golgotha.

It’s interesting to note that when Mary Magdalene saw Jesus for the first time as He stood near the empty tomb, John 20:15 tells us she thought He was the gardener.  And in a very real sense He was and still is. Words in the Bible are never wasted and often convey double meanings. Descriptions, too, are often types and shadows. In that context, Jesus is a gardener, planting and preparing His heavenly garden. Isaiah 61:1-3 is a prophecy of Jesus ministry and what He will accomplish. It’s this very scripture or part of it (Isaiah 61:1-2a) that Jesus read in the synagogue, declaring Himself the Messiah. But verse three tells us that His ministry was also to include making us “trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord.” I image that is why in Mark 8:24 when Jesus healed the blind man, this man saw with his spiritual eyes first before seeing with his physical eyes, and what he saw was “men as trees, walking”; and I imagine that’s why God takes such care in pruning us; why He does it so diligently and so often for it will lead us to the fourth garden.

The Song of Solomon—depicting, in types and shadows, Jesus as the bridegroom and the church as His bride—describes this garden very well. In chapter 4 verse 12 it calls the believer “a garden enclosed (it’s private and for His pleasure) is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.” It goes on in verse 13-16 to lavish praise on this garden talking about its pleasant fruits and sweet smelling spices. It is the garden we all hope to be planted in one day. It is the place where our beloved Jesus will come and enjoy his fruits (verse16) for we are all His workmanship, the product of His labors.

So, as we go through the hard trials of life, let us remember what God is trying to do. He’s trying to make something wonderful of us—a beautiful planting in His very own garden.

Until next week,

Sylvia

In the eternal sphere, something terrible happened in the heavens. A rebellion of unimaginable scope disrupted God’s perfect order. Things were obviously said about His nature and character, His motives, perhaps even His fitness and right to rule when one-third of the angles shook off His authority. Under the leadership of Satan, this horde struck out on their own with the intention of bringing down God’s rule because Satan obviously believed he could run things better. The Book of Enoch and Jubilees and Jasher all give a sense of just how old this ancient conflict between good and evil is.

So what was God to do? He could easily have struck down the rebels with a flick of a finger or clamped them in irons. After all, they were created beings. His created beings. But that would still leave the swirl of accusations, begun by the Accuser, to possibly foment another rebellion among those angels still loyal.

A definite predicament. How to, once and for all, extract justice for the crime perpetuated against Him and His kingdom, while at the same time illustrate His true loving character and lay rest all those lies and accusations circulating about Him? His plan was brilliant, magnanimous, and terrifying all at once. He would create time, a set span of minutes and hours in which he would unfold His plan and display His true nature, and thus repair the torn fabric of His kingdom. Indeed, we see in Genesis 1:1 where it states “In the beginning, God . . . .” In the beginning of what? Since eternity has no beginning, it obviously means the beginning of time, the beginning of the present age. And what did He do in this “beginning”? He created the heavens and earth for the first time, then recreated them again in Genesis 1:2 for the second time. Since God never creates anything that is void and without form, many Bible scholars believe there is a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, and that the first world was destroyed sometime after Satan’s rebellion. I think it’s a plausible scenario.

Then God created man, and gave him the charge to replenish the earth (Genesis 1:28) again alluding to the fact that this earth on which man now walked was a recreation. And God did all this while allowing Satan to continue fomenting rebellion, and while knowing that man, too, would sin and need a savior. And God did it all knowing that He Himself was to be the remedy and that it would come at a great cost. Revelation 13:8 talks about the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the earth,” showing God’s foreknowledge not only of man’s original sin but also of what God’s intended solution would be.

Thus, we are all living in a timeline, a timeline set by God, Himself, and one that will last only until His full plan is accomplished. So where are we on this timeline, now? According to the Bible, very little remains to be fulfilled. It seems that more and more commentary is coming out about it every day: the rapture of the church, the rise of the antichrist, the one world government and monetary system, the seven year tribulation, the return of Jesus.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that time is running out. It’s running out for Satan, for us, for the world systems.  And at its end, God will have put to rest all questions of His character, His nature, His love and kindness, His fairness, His patience and long suffering. No angel, no demon, no man, no woman will be able to cast doubts about Him again, for all He will have to do is point to the corridor of time as His witness.  And then there will be a clear divide between those who love Him and those who don’t. And that divide will remain forever as, once again, things revert back to eternity.

Until next week,

Sylvia

Rarely have I been so blown away by a series of CDs (seven in all) as I was after listening to Jonathan Cahn’s The Harbinger; so blown away, in fact, that I’d like to take my blog space this week and talk a bit about it. The CDs I got from sidroth.org, and while Amazon doesn’t carry them, they do carry Cahn’s book by the same title plus his, The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment which, together, should cover most of the material found in the CDs.

In essence, The Harbinger is a warning to America and deals with events from 9/11 to the present. It talks about the Nine Omens of Judgment, and let me tell you, it’s a stunner. Cahn takes you step by step, citing events and quotes from notable people to illustrate how the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is firmly in control. Cahn also gives a stunning preview of what lies in store for America if we don’t change course.

If you never read another book or listen to anther CD, I strongly suggest you read/listen to this one.

Until next week,

Sylvia