It is a surreal scene. The headlines continue to scream out. In France, an 85 year old priest is stabbed to death by Muslims as he says Mass. ISIS claims the deed. In the Congo: “Muslim Armies Are Entering Christian Villages And Destroying The Entire Villages And Hacking Christians To Pieces With Machetes.”[i] Suicide bombers, lone-wolf stabbings, slaughters, boilings….these are all part of the landscape of Islamic violence. Yet Pope Francis takes a different view. “I think it is not right to identify Islam with terrorism. I think that in nearly all religions there is always a small fundamentalist group.”[ii] And the next headline tells of Iranian Islamic scholar, the Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi, thanking Pope Francis for his stated view of Islam.[iii] Yet the assembled Mullahs of Tehran continue to foment violence and the government there continues to support and finance terror activities – (newly reinforced by $400 million in ransom money received from the Obama administration, in apparent contravention of US law.) A grasp on reality seems not a requirement for heading up the largest and most powerful religious organization on the planet. The goal is to unite all the religions of the world under the aegis of the Roman Catholic Church. And the price of that unity is of little concern.
ANY PRICE UNITY
“He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:10-13)
Pope Francis has an obsession with unity. On the surface it sounds like a good thing. But the fact is, good Pope Francis is determined to purchase that unity at seemingly any price. Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth and the life.” (John 14:6) But just last year the Pontiff slammed even Catholics “who believe they possess the absolute truth.” In fact, he also painted Christian fundamentalists – who believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible – with the same brush as one would paint the terrorists of ISIS or al-Qaeda. “Fundamentalism is a sickness that is in all religions,” said he.[iv] These pronoucements were made around the same time that that he prayed at a mosque in Africa. [Interesting! Now isn’t it the Muslims who vehemently deny the sonship of Jesus the Christ, the very Son of God? Oh, perhaps he was praying for their conversion…Nah, I don’t think so.]
You see, this man who claims to be the Vicar of Christ doesn’t buy into the whole notion that knowing Jesus as Messiah, the bearer of the punishments for our sins, is necessary for salvation. It is quite the departure from the way the Bible teaches it. Scripture draws clear lines around Christ’s followers, the Church, and the rest of the world. 1John 2:22-23 reads: “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.” Seems like a pretty clear distinction to me. But to Pope Francis….maybe not so much. You see, the whole ‘Son of God’ thing is at the center of our Christian Faith. That’s who Jesus is! The Bible makes that clear. And any denial of that fact puts one squarely in the other camp. That verse in John 14 quoted above where Jesus claims to be the “way” and the “truth” finishes with “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” The Bible also records the words of Peter in Acts 4:12. “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Yet the Good Pope Francis seems to have had a bit of a hard time with that lesson of the exclusivity of the message of Christ.
Back in March of 2016, Francis put flesh on his beliefs when he washed and kissed the feet of 12 migrants to the EU. As the Washington Post reports: They came from many faiths. In his sermon that followed, he said: “All of us together, Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, Copts, Evangelical [Protestants] brothers and sisters — children of the same God — we want to live in peace, integrated.”[v] [Mmmmm, ‘children’ of the same God?] This was not the only time the Pontif expressed similar sentiments. In May of 2016 he met with a leading Sunni cleric and it was reported that he told him “our meeting is the message.” Michael Snyder fills us in on the significance of that meeting. “Mainstream news outlets all over the planet clearly understood what was being communicated. For example, the Daily Mail article about this meeting was entitled ‘Pope embraces grand imam at historic Vatican meeting in a bid to bring the Catholic and Muslim churches together.’” While speaking at St Patrick’s Cathedral in September of 2015, Pope Francis addressed his “Muslim brothers and sisters.”[vi] [It was on the occasion of one of those periodic prayer-accident-tragedies that plague Mecca from time to time.] Earlier – in 2014, when the former-terrorist and Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas visited the Vatican, Quranic readings and Muslim prayers were allowed to be intoned right on Church grounds there.[vii]
But perhaps the most egregious example of the flight from Christian doctrine came with the release of a Vatican sponsored video in January of 2016. The Pope was the ‘star’ of that video, but members of other religions were shown to make his prayer point: that all religions are paths to God. Here is an excerpt of the transcript of the Englsih subtitles from that video.
“POPE: “Most of the planet’s inhabitants declare themselves believers. This should lead to dialogue among religions. We should not stop praying for it and collaborating with those who think differently.”
LAMA: I have confidence in Buddah.
RABBI: I believe in God.
CATHOLIC PRIEST: I believe in Jesus Christ.
ISLAMIC LEADER: I believe in God, Allah.
POPE: “Many think differently, feel differently, seeking God or meeting God in different ways. In this crowd, in this range of religions, there is only one certainty we have for all: we are all children of God.”
(Shows many people of different faiths saying “I believe in love”)”[viii]
The teaching of the Catholic Church in this video is of course, a direct contradiction of scriputre. It is true that we are all creatures of the Creator. Yet we become His childrend only when we receive Him. Again: John 1:12: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”
Up until now we’ve just been reviewing old news. But there are some new developments that point to a marked accelertion of efforts to achiever global religious unity. We know that historically this pope has reached out to evangelicals; most famously Kenneth Copeland and James and Betty Robison. That outreach was orchestrated by Bishop Tony Palmer of the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches, a part of the Convergence Movement, which seeks to “combine evangelical Christianity with the liturgy and sacraments typical of Catholicism.” Bishop Palmer stated that convergence “is a precursor to full unity between the Protestant and Catholic Churches.”[ix]
The outreach to evangelicals made its most public manifestation with the Together Conference held on the National Mall in Washington DC in July of this year. Tens of thousands thronged to the event, which could be described as an Evangelical / Ecumenical Superfest with the likes of Nick Hall and Hillsong featured among the presenters. And the Pope was one of the stars, addressing the denominationally mixed crowds with a message of oneness. It is interesting, this outreach to Protestant-types. This proffered hand of union comes from the same man who denies one of the central themes of the Reformation, which broke up the monolith that was Catholicism in the 16th century. With Luther leading the way, the Reformers rediscovered the biblical truth that justification – and therefore salvation – comes through faith alone. Yes, it was necessary to be “born again” to “see the Kingdom of God.” (John 3:3) And what follows is a personal relationship with the very Son of God. [Yet again we refer to John 1:12. Those that receive Him become “children of God,” – and that through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. (See John 14:17) Yet even those these beliefs are central to biblically-based Protestantism, the Pope declared: “There are those who believe you can have a personal, direct and immediate relationship with Jesus Christ outside of the communion and mediation of the Church. These temptations are dangerous and harmful.” He went on to quote Pope Paul VI in calling them “absurd dichotomies.”[x] Yet here is this head of the Roman Church addressing a mall-full of ‘Born Agains,’ who believe those very things.
Something Darker Comes
But while the Together 2016 event may have been conceived in the right spirit – a drive for unity in Christ, it may actually have been coopted to an extent by the parallel unity movement that is driving all toward the One World Religion. That movement will find its fulfillment through the offices of the False Prophet of Revelation during the Tribulation that precedes Christ’s return. Critics have pointed to some interesting anomolies which were part of the gathering. We’ll start with this.
Nick Hall was the promoter of Together 2016. His website gives the purpose of the event. The “RESET Movement, began sharing the message of a ‘reset’ at events and gatherings. The term relates to technology, where a reset clears past errors and gets the system working toward its created purpose. In the same way, every person is created for a purpose—but we have downloaded the wrong files, corrupted the system, and fallen away from God’s best for our lives. Each of us needs a reset, and Jesus offers everyone a supernatural reset.”[xi] In promoting Together 2016, Hall adapted a curious symbol; something called the Ouroboros. Here are some examples.
Taken on the surface, it all seems to fit, a symbol of the renewal that is wanted on the church level as well as the national and personal scales. The whole thing is the Ouroboros has been used many times before – to symbolize a form of renewal. But we need look at these to undersand their import. In his video address to the assembled crowds there, Pope Francis holds up a t-shirt featuring the symbol. The Discernment Research Group offers this analysis.
“A careful examination of the Together 2016 T-shirt that the Pontiff displayed for his vast video audience reveals Nick Hall’s Reset/Together 2016 logo which is hidden-in-plain-sight in the word “TO-GE-TH-ER.” Note the letter ‘O’ in the T-shirt held by the Pope…. This ‘O’ is called an Ouroboros and it is the circular depiction of a serpent eating its own tail, symbolizing monistic oneness—and thus it is not true Christian unity.” Monism can be colloquially summarized with the phrase: “All is One, One is All, All is God.” It serves as the root of much of Hinduism and other related pagan faiths. [So just what is a symbol promoting that concept doing at a Christian event?]
[xii]Now the Ourorobos has served as a “general symbol of INFINITY in its dynamic function of inexhaustible recycling and reprocessing.”[xiii] In the ancient Greek and Egyptian religious beliefs, it represented a snake, “continually devouring itself and being reborn from itself. A Gnostic and alchemical symbol, Ouroboros expresses the unity of all things, material and spiritual, which never disappear but perpetually change form in an eternal cycle of destruction and re-creation.”[xiv]
The New Age website Token Rock tells us this about the Ourobors symbol. “The Ouroboros is a Greek word meaning ‘tail devourer,’ and is one of the oldest mystical symbols in the world. It can be perceived as enveloping itself, where the past (the tail) appears to disappear but really moves into an inner domain or reality, vanishing from view but still existing…. This symbolizes the cyclic Nature of the Universe: creation out of destruction, Life out of Death. The ouroboros eats its own tail to sustain its life, in an eternal cycle of renewal.” As such it serves as a platform for much of ancient paganism and New Age thought.[xv] A modern manifestation can be found in the Theosophical Society founded by Madame Blavatsky, who serves as the Mother of the New Age Movement.
Notice the Swastika perched at the top of the Theosophical Society’s Emblem. [Hitler had a weak spot for the philosophical writings of Madame Blavatsky, was steeped in the occult and in his formative years participated in bizaare sexual religious ceremonies – and once even had members of the Thule Society – (an occultic German secret society) – call for the spirit of Antichrist to possess him. It has even been reported that Hitler kept a copy of Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine by his bedside.[xvi]]
It doesn’t stop there. Documentary videographer C Ervana addressed an even deeper occutl connection in her work entitled: “POPE FRANCIS to PROCLAIM LUCIFER as God of One World Religion on September 23 2016?” Her conclusion may sound crazy – but her analysis is spot on. Here is part of what she had to say. “In July, Francis was the driving force behind a ceremony in the U.S. called Together, organized to bring all Christians in front of the …. obelisk, the phallus of Osiris, for worship. One of the major symbols we saw for the together 2016 event was the ouroboros, or the serpent eating it’s own tail. The earliest legend of the ouroboros is associated with Osiris and his son, Ra. The Ouroboros is a highly occult symbol signifying the end of an aeon, or the end of time. In occultism, the end of one aeon usually results in a reset brought about by some cataclysmic event. In this case, the ouroboros represents the return of Osiris to inhabit his Temple on earth. The fact that this symbol was put on full display throughout Francis together 2016 is very demonic.”[xvii] [This great pagan symbol of the obelisk is prominently placed in what some may consider two very unlikely places. In Washington, the world’s leading democratic republic and in the center of the Vatican.
All of this brings us to a story we began to cover a few weeks back. That is the 2016 Mekudeshet Festival that is to be held September 4-23. It is a gathering of the world’s leading monotheistic religions, in the city that unites – and divides them all: Jerusalem. In the first part of the event, Jews, Catholics and Muslims will worship together for several days in one of the longest inter-faith services. This will occur in a temporary combined house of worship in the Old City of Jerusalem. Then, as C Ervana explains, “leaders of this event, called Mekudeshet, will perform an 11 day consecration.” The dictionary tells us that a consecration is the act of dedicating something to the “service and worship of a deity.” [So one must ask: Which deity will be the object of their service and worship? Will it be Allah or the God of the Bible?] Ervana concludes that the completion of this event “may signal the beginning of the One World religion that Pope Francis has been working so hard to achieve in 2016.”[xviii]
The parallel with the New Age plan as enunciated by the New England Chapter of the Theosophical Society is uncanny. As part of something they called the New Jerusalem Covenant Project they determined that the Palestinian issue – and thereby the central tension that occupies the world – would be solved when Jerusalem becomes a truly international city, – for Jew, Christian & Muslim alike. This would coincide with a religious celebration for several religious traditions that would signal the establishment of the One World Religion. [xix] While C Ervana may fear that the time of this revealing is at hand – I respectfully doubt that we are quite that close, believing however that the groundwork is being set for that prophetic fulfillment. This Pope is driving events toward the establishment of a One World Religion directed from Rome. And a One World Religion is a part of the biblical template.
So there you have it: Catholics, Orthodox, increasingly some Protestants, Muslims, Hindus, Neo-Pagans and New Agers; – all coming together in acceptance and worship. [TRUTH will be the casualty of this exercise!] It is instructive that one of the most honored of Catholic saints, Francis of Assisi, warned of the final pope, who many scholars, – Catholics included, – believe may serve as the False Prophet of Revelation. Francis wrote that the last Bishop of Rome will be an “invalidly elected pope. He will cause great confusion…He will accept all religions on an equal basis…and he will deceive even the very elect if the last days are not shortened.” The late Bishop Sheen chimed in on the subject, saying that a final “False Church will be ecumenical, global and worldly.” That “final pope will have a religion without a cross…He will sell the mystical body to the Antichrist.”[xx] I don’t know if that is what we’re watching….but there sure is a lot of circumstantial evidence.
[i]Muslim Armies Are Entering Christian Villages And Destroying The Entire Villages And Hacking Christians To Pieces With
Machetes, Shoebat.com, August 19, 2016
[ii] Pope Francis defends Muslims and blasts ‘Islam is NOT terrorism’, Express (UK), August 2, 2016
[iii]Makarem-Shirazi thanks Pope for his stance on Islam, Tehran Times, August 20, 2016
[iv] Francis: World close to suicide over climate change, National Catholic, November 30, 2015
[v] Pope Francis washes the feet of Muslim migrants, says we are ‘children of the same God’, Washington Post, March 25, 2016
[vi] Michael Snyder, 12 Times Pope Francis Has Openly Promoted A One World Religion Or A New World Order, Waking Times,
August 26, 2016
[vii] Vatican makes history: Pope allows Islamic prayers, Koran readings, Washington Times, June 9, 2014
[viii] Pope Pushes One World Religion in Vatican Video, Revelation Report, February 3, 2016
[ix] “Pope” Francis advised Tony Palmer NOT to Convert, Novus Ordo Watch, August 10, 2014
[x] Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmjAjrlrE10
[xi] Reset website: https://reset2016.com/about-together2016/
[xii] Image from: CRYSTALLINKSLCOM, viewed September 1, 2016
[xiii] Betraying the Reformers – Betraying the Gospel, Herescope, The Discernment Research Group, August 16, 2016
[xiv] Encyclopedia Britannica online, “Ouroboros”; see:https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ouroboros
[xv] Ouroboros, Token Rock, viewed, September 1, 2016
[xvi] David Icke, Hitler and the “Secret Doctrine”, David Icke.com,
[xvii] C Ervana, POPE FRANCIS to PROCLAIM LUCIFER as God of One World Religion on September 23 2016?,
New Paradigm, August 21, 2016
[xviii] C Ervana, POPE FRANCIS to PROCLAIM LUCIFER as God of One World Religion on September 23 2016?,
New Paradigm, August 21, 2016
[xix] All quotes of Bill Lambert above are taken from: David Bay, Complete Notes from the House of Theosophy Seminar,
by Bill Lambert, entitled Possible and Probable Future Events, August 18, 1991
[xx] Perry Stone, The Pope, The Eagle And The Iron Sickle, Voice of Evangelism, 2006, pg 56
Mary Ksiezarczyk says
Love it , Rob did not read all but what I did it was spot on. I believe unity is important, but the one unifying us all is Jesus . If He does not exist in your belief ( othe religions) as God declared and pronounced, everything is but a waste. Even a mockery , at the very least!Jesus is the Cornerstone. YESTERDAY , TODAY , & FOREVER
AMEN
Tina says
Another great article! Thank you again Zew! Sorry I missed the Jesus Band by accident recently. I hope I am able to see it again soon!