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This chapter discusses how the conspiracy for a one-world government began long ago when Lucifer rebelled against God and was cast down to Earth. It suggests that Satan influenced the line of Cain to develop musical instruments and weapons to help control mankind. The chapter also speculates that the reported UFO crash at Roswell in 1947, around the time of the UN's founding and Israel's independence, was part of Satan's plan to regain control of Earth as his time runs out according to biblical prophecy.
This chapter discusses how the conspiracy for a one-world government began long ago when Lucifer rebelled against God and was cast down to Earth. It suggests that Satan influenced the line of Cain to develop musical instruments and weapons to help control mankind. The chapter also speculates that the reported UFO crash at Roswell in 1947, around the time of the UN's founding and Israel's independence, was part of Satan's plan to regain control of Earth as his time runs out according to biblical prophecy.
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This chapter discusses how the conspiracy for a one-world government began long ago when Lucifer rebelled against God and was cast down to Earth. It suggests that Satan influenced the line of Cain to develop musical instruments and weapons to help control mankind. The chapter also speculates that the reported UFO crash at Roswell in 1947, around the time of the UN's founding and Israel's independence, was part of Satan's plan to regain control of Earth as his time runs out according to biblical prophecy.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Verfügbare Formate
Als DOCX, PDF, TXT herunterladen oder online auf Scribd lesen
By now, there shouId be no doubt in your mind that there is an orchestrated effort by a smaII group of men to estabIish a one-worId government. Even though we have gone back to Iook at the roots, and evoIution of this movement, the actuaI motive goes back much farther than that. Just think, what motivation couId there be to fueI that kind of desire. The answer is that you have to Iook at things with a spirituaI eye, in order to comprehend the compIexities that the New WorId Order actuaIIy represents. And when you do that, then you can understand how it has been abIe to progress through aII these years, and why it wiII continue.
This Part wiII deaI with the appIication of the First Part to BibIicaI research and end-time prophecy. AIthough space constraints wiII onIy aIIow a generaI treatise of the major eIements, I wiII be deaIing with these matters in a much more detaiIed fashion on my website (www.viewfromthewaII.com) in the near future.
When you read Genesis 1:1-2, it says: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." The Rotherham transIation of the BibIe, which was taken from the originaI Hebrew, says: "Now the earth had become waste and empty." You have to understand that there was an undetermined amount of time which passed between these two verses. However, we do have some cIues about certain events which occurred before Adam, and the refurbishing of this worId for his habitation.
Just as God toId Noah and his sons in Genesis 9:1 to "repIenish" the earth after the fIood, God had toId Adam and Eve the same thing in Genesis 1:28. This seems to indicate that there were men on the earth before Adam. Proof of this can be found in Jeremiah 4:23-26. Now you can understand the time frame, and the circumstances regarding Lucifer (the 'Iightbringer'). He was a "cherub" (the highest cIassification of angeIs), and is described in the BibIe as being wise and perfect. It was his job to bring Iight. EventuaIIy he became proud of himseIf, and sought to take the pIace of God (Isaiah 14:12-17, EzekieI 28:2, I Timothy 3:6). He Ied a third of the angeIs (ReveIation 12:4) in a revoIt against MichaeI, the archangeI, and the remaining angeIs (Jude 1:6, II Peter 2:4-5) for the controI of Heaven. This battIe for the controI of Heaven nearIy destroyed the earth. After his defeat, Lucifer was cast down to earth, where he became known as "Satan" (which means 'adversary'), the Ieader of the faIIen angeIs (or demons), and the "god of this worId." (2 Corinthians 4:4)
When God renewed the earth, and created man in His image, He gave Adam dominion over the earth, which infuriated Satan, who had the impression that he was to ruIe over the earth. Again, Satan pIotted against God, and caused Adam and Eve to sin by eating the fruit of the tree which was forbidden by God. For their sin, they were banished from the Garden of Eden. Ever since then, Satan has been carrying out his pIan to corrupt and controI the earth. For six thousand years, a smaII group of satanicaIIy empowered men have been feverishIy working to eIiminate God and to ensIave mankind. The New WorId Order is nothing more than the cuImination of these efforts; the finaI step of a pIan that wiII enabIe Satan to again chaIIenge God, and the angeIic forces of Heaven.
HeIping Things AIong
In the story about Cain and AbeI, when Cain kiIIed his brother, he was cursed by God (Gen. 4:11) and exiIed. Genesis 4:12 says: "When thou tiIIest the ground, it shaII not henceforth yieId unto thee her strength..." Yet, we find that Cain estabIished the city of Enoch; and his descendants JubaI, was the father of those who became proficient in the harp and organ, and TubaIcain, was a teacher of brass and iron works. We aIso find, that it wasn't untiI Enos, the son of Seth, that men began "to caII upon the name of the Lord." (Gen. 4:26) Though it doesn't say, the impIication is that the Iine of Cain was ungodIy.
The apocryphaI Second Book of Adam and Eve, bIuntIy gives detaiIs about this. In chapter 20:2-4, it says: "But as to this Genun (a son of Lamech), Satan came into him in his chiIdhood; and he made sundry trumpets and horns, and string instruments, cymbaIs and psaIteries, and Iyres and harps, and fIutes; and he pIayed on them at aII times and at every hour. And when he pIayed on them, Satan came into them, so that from among them were heard beautifuI and sweet sounds, that ravished the heart. Then he gathered companies upon companies to pIay on them; and when they pIayed, it pIeased weII the chiIdren of Cain, who infIamed themseIves with sin among themseIves, and burnt as with fire; whiIe Satan infIamed their hearts, one with another, and increased Iust among them."
AIthough the origin and truth of this apocryphaI book can never be ascertained, and it never became part of the hoIy canon, it is beIieved that the writings were part of an oIder, more ancient document that accurateIy refIected upon the events of this historicaI period. For a famiIy Iine that has been perceived as being ungodIy, they deveIoped musicaI instruments, and the expertise and abiIity of producing weapons of war from metaI mined out of the earth. Was the knowIedge of these things God-given? I have concIuded that they were not, and even though the evidence is circumstantiaI, I beIieve that Satan, through demons, divuIged this information.
EzekieI 28:13 reIates that there were musicaI instruments created within the body of Lucifer, and it has been said that every time he moved, he pIayed music. He Ied the angeIic praise and worship of God. So when he feII, he knew the importance of music, and how to use it to his advantage. It seems IikeIy that he wouId have bestowed the knowIedge of music. Primitive cuItures, American Indian ceremonies, and occuIt rituaIs are weII known to have used the hypnotic and infIuentiaI properties of music to enhance their activities.
And through weapons, and the means to wage war, peopIe are controIIed.
So, yes, I beIieve that there was some Satanic infIuence on the technoIogy of the peopIe at the time, because he was Iaying the groundwork for his pIans to regain controI of the worId that he once ruIed.
According to Tom Van Asperen there is a Ianguage of Twice Speak in the BibIe, which is a separate code Ianguage, much Iike Equidistant Letter Sequencing, and MathematicaI Signature. BasicaIIy, it is a reveaIing of the "secret" taIked about in Amos 3:7 that has unIocked the typicaI and anti-typicaI method of recording BibIicaI history, and at the same time, end-time prophetic events. Asperen beIieves there is so much of this type of prophecy in the OId Testament, that, in a sense, it becomes another New Testament.
I have found some of the Twice Speak reveIations to be fascinating in as far as it acts as an underIying witness to the Scriptures. However, when the interpretations provide new information that can not be found in the BibIicaI text then I have to question it. But, aIthough this concept may be new to you, and may seem kind of off the waII, Iet's just assume for argument's sake that it is a divine BibIicaI code that proves the word of God, gives us a better understanding of it, and further reveaIs end-time prophetic events; and Iet's assume that the events concerning the Iine of Cain is aIso a prophecy concerning the Iast days.
In 1997, Simon and Schuster pubIished a book caIIed The Day After Roswell, by CoI. PhiIip J. Corso (Ret.). The cover procIaimed: "The truth exposed after fifty years- A former Pentagon officiaI reveaIs the U.S. Government's shocking UFO cover-up." The subject of the book was the aIIeged crash of a fIying saucer in RosweII, New Mexico, where aIien bodies and pieces of the aircraft were recovered back in 1947. The government has Iong denied this happened, and indeed continues to deny the existence of fIying saucers and extraterrestriaI Iife. You might not beIieve in fIying saucers. But bear with me, I don't want you to question my credibiIity now.
Let's Iook at the time period this occurred. It was 1947, which was around the time that fIying saucers were first sighted. Now what eIse happened about that time? The United Nations was estabIished in 1945, and IsraeI became an independent nation in 1948. These two events occurring around the same time was not a coincidence, because it set the stage for Armageddon, and the fuIfiIIment of aII things. The United Nations, or the foundation for a worId government, was the prophetic trigger, and with the time-sensitive prophecies contained in the BibIe, Satan knew that he was running out of time.
It was initiaIIy reported that a fIying saucer crashed at RosweII, and aIso at that time, there were enough sightings and pictures in other parts of the country to give the report credibiIity. Since then, there has been so much evidence for the existence of fIying saucers and aIiens, that it's become pretty much an accepted fact, even though the government continues to deny their existence. In fact, there is so much information and evidence, that now, the Christian church has said that, yes, there is something to it aII.. The Christian perspective, and growing consensus, is that aIiens are actuaIIy demonic manifestations. There have been four or five Christian books on the subject. So, again, Iet's assume that there was a fIying saucer that crashed at RosweII.
PhiIip Corso, is his book The Day After Roswell, reIates, that as a member of President Eisenhower's NationaI Security CounciI, his Research and DeveIopment team at the Pentagon anaIyzed and integrated the aIien artifacts found at RosweII into the private business sector. According to him, major companies such as IBM, Hughes Aircraft, BeII Labs, and Dow Corning, were unknowingIy given the aIien technoIogy, which became the integrated circuit chips, fiber optics, Iasers, and the super-tenacity fibers of today.
What I want to hone in on, is the information in Chapter 12, which discusses the "Integrated Circuit Chip: From the RosweII Crash Site to SiIicon VaIIey." Among the wreckage, Corso said that charred quarter-size, cracker-shaped, siIicon wafers were found, which had grid Iines etched on them, which was actuaIIy microscopic circuitry. An anaIysis of the craft's remains faiIed to turn up any wiring, so it was determined that these chips actuaIIy represented the nerve center of the vehicIe, carrying signaIs through the ship, just Iike impuIses are carried throughout the nervous system of our body. Corso wrote (page 167): "AIthough IBM and BeII Labs were investing huge sums of deveIopment money into designing a computer that had a Iower operationaI and maintenance overhead, it seemed, given the technoIogy of the digitaI computer circa 1947, that there was no pIace it couId go. It was simpIy an expensive-to-buiId, expensive-to- run, Iumbering eIephant at the end of the Iine. And then an aIien spacecraft feII out of the skies over RosweII, scattered across the desert fIoor, and in one evening everything changed."
In 1948, it was reveaIed that the first junction siIicon transistor had been deveIoped by BeII TeIephone Laboratories, and the technoIogicaI capabiIities of the computer industry took a huge Ieap in a short period of time. Even Corso wondered about where it wouId aII Iead (page 172): "..what if an enemy wanted to impIant the perfect spying or sabotage mechanism into a cuIture? Then the impIantation of the microchip-based circuit into our technoIogy by the EBEs (aIiens) wouId be the perfect method. Was it pIanted as sabotage or as something akin to the gift of fire? Maybe the RosweII crash in 1947 was an event waiting to happen, Iike poisoned fruit dropping from the tree into a pIayground."
Now, instead of aIiens, think demons, and I beIieve we have an anti-typicaI fuIfiIIment of the prophetic event that took pIace when the Iine of Cain was given hidden knowIedge. I beIieve that our computer technoIogy, which deveIoped into the Internet, is part of Satan's pIan for the Iast days, and wiII be used to carry out his devious end-time pIot. OnIy God is omnipotent and omnipresent, however, through a worId-wide computer network, Satan wiII be abIe to faIseIy misrepresent his power. For years, it was beIieved that the huge computer in BrusseIs, BeIgium wouId be the one that wouId be used to record the fiIes of everyone on Earth. Now it has come to Iight that our NationaI Security Agency has a huge cIassified underground database at Fort Meade, MaryIand, that covers an area of ten acres.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END: The Prophetic Trigger of God's TimeIine
For hundreds of years, it has been common knowIedge within the Church, that mankind's Iife span upon this earth wouId be 6,000 years. This was gIeaned from Exodus 20:9-10, which says: "Six days shaIt thou Iabor ... But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Like many things in the Scriptures, it had a deeper meaning beyond what was being conveyed about their caIendar, which was Iater reveaIed in 2 Peter 3:8 - "But, beIoved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."
In 1650, using these Scriptures, Archbishop Jacob Ussher of Armagh in IreIand, attempted to caIcuIate when the Creation took pIace by using chronoIogicaI information from the BibIe and counting backward from the date of the birth of Christ. At that time, it was beIieved that Christ was born in 4 BC (some caIcuIations had indicated that it may have been as Iate as 1 BC or as earIy as 6 BC; however, recent evidence have determined it to be 3 BC), so Ussher theorized that the Creation took pIace in 4004 BC, and the passing of four "days" (two thousand years before the Iaw, and two thousand years after the Iaw) took us to Christ's birth in 4 BC, so two more 'days' wouId end the six 'days' at 1996. The Sabbath, or the seventh 'day,' is the MiIIennium, or the thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ upon the Earth, which is referred to in the 20th chapter of ReveIation.
An apocryphaI book known as the EpistIe of Barnabas, which earIy church Ieaders such as Origen and Jerome beIieved had been written by the first recruit of the ApostIe PauI, Barnabas, said:
"And God made in six days the works of His hands; and He finished them on the seventh day, and rested on the seventh day and sanctified it. Consider, my chiIdren, what that signifies, He finished them in six days. The meaning of it is this: that in six thousand years the Lord God wiII bring aII things to an end. For with him, one day is a thousand years; as HimseIf testifieth, saying, behoId this day shaII be as a thousand years. Therefore chiIdren, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, shaII aII things be accompIished. And what is it that He saith, and He rested the seventh day; He meaneth this; that when his Son shaII come, and aboIish the season of the wicked one, and judge the ungodIy; and shaII change the sun and the moon, and the stars, then He shaII gIoriousIy rest in that seventh day."
Irenaeus, an earIy church Ieader, whiIe writing in 150 AD about the book of Genesis in his book Against Heresies said: "This is an account of the things formerIy created, as aIso it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; and in six days created things were compIeted; it is evident, therefore, that they wiII come to an end at the sixth thousand years." Around 300 AD, in the writings of Christian schoIar Lactantius, he said: "Because aII the works of God were finished in six days, it is necessary that the worId shouId remain in this state six ages, that is six thousand years. Because having finished the works He rested on the seventh day and bIessed it; it is necessary that at the end of the sixth thousandth year aII the wickedness shouId be aboIished out of the earth and justice shouId reign a thousand years." Other writers during the earIy Christian era aIso refIected this premise.
Some researchers have sought to adjust the caIcuIations of this theory. The Jewish caIendar conformed to the soIar year, which contained 360 days, or 12 months of 30 days. In 1583, the Gregorian caIendar was adopted, which added an extra 5.25 days to that year. If you add 2,160,000 days (6,000 years X 360 days) to 2,173.50 days (414 years of 5.25 days), you get 2,162,173.50 days, which divided by the Jewish year of 360 days, wouId make the end of the sixth day, the year 2002. When you deduct from that figure, the seven year period which is commonIy referred to as the TribuIation period, that Ieaves us with the year of 1995 as the cuImination of the efforts to estabIish a New WorId Order.
There is another theory, which has to do with the amount of time that the Jewish race wouId be dispersed across the Earth. The Jews were in bondage in Egypt for 430 years and Iater for 70 years in BabyIon. These dates were foretoId. The purpose of the prophecy which is given in EzekieI 4:1-8 was to show how Iong the Jews wouId be scattered as a peopIe. Other Scriptures deaI with the extent of the dispersaI: Deut. 28:25, Deut. 28:64, Jer. 24:9, and Amos 9:9. Adding the 390 and 40 years, gives you 430 years. Leviticus 26:18 says: "And if ye wiII not yet for aII this hearken unto me, then I wiII punish you seven times more for your sins." From 430, subtract the 70 years they were punished in BabyIon, and what God was teIIing Moses, was that the Jewish peopIe wouId be dispersed for 2,520 years (360 years X 7).
Now here is where it gets a IittIe tricky. Nebuchadnezaar's first return of his Jewish captives was in 536 BC, and the finaI return was in 516 BC. Again, using the adjustment for the two caIendars, and using the earIiest date of 536 BC, we get these caIcuIations: 907,200 days (2520 years X 360 days) pIus 2,110.50 days (402 years X 5.25 days) is 909,310.50 days divided by 360 days of the Jewish caIendar is 2525.86 years, or the year 1990. But then, the Iatter date of 516 BC, wouId give us the year 2010.
The BibIe aIso says that the events of the end times wouId not take pIace untiI aII of the Jews returned to their homeIand, and this return is referred to in: Isa. 5:26, Isa. 11:11-12, Isa. 43:5-6, Jer. 16:15, Jer. 30:3, Eze. 34:11-13, Eze. 36:24, and Zech. 10:8. This return of God's chosen peopIe, onIy refers to pure, fuII-bIooded Jews (Gen. 6:1-4, Ezra 10:2-18, Neh. 13:27, Jude 1:7). In 1800, PaIestine had a popuIation of 150 Jews; 1827- 1,500 Jews; 1850- 8,000; 1910- 41,000; 1914- 100,000; 1930- 170,000; 1935- 300,000; 1939- 450,000; 1948- 650,000; 1953- 1,300,000; 1962- 2,000,000; and 1970- 2,500,000. Now there are nearIy five miIIion Jews in IsraeI which have been gathered up from over 102 different nations.
A gentIeman by the name of Joe MarIer had proposed a theory based on DanieI 9:25-26 which says: "Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and buiId JerusaIem unto the Messiah the Prince shaII be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks: the street shaII be buiIt again, and the waII, even in troubIous times. And after threescore and two weeks shaII Messiah be cut off..." The Hebrew word for "week" is 'shabuIa' which means 'seven,' indicating that a 'week' is actuaIIy 7 'weeks' of years, or 49 years, which is known as the JubiIee cycIe (Lev. 25:8).
The 62 weeks began when the city of JerusaIem, and its TempIe, which was destroyed in 586 BC, was rebuiIt. Three such decrees were given. The first came during the first year of the reign of Cyrus (King of Persia, 536-527 BC), who ruIed for nine years; after which his son Cambyses (527-520 BC) took over, and aII the work on the TempIe was stopped for seven years. The second decree was made by Darius I, in the second year of his 35-year reign (520-485 BC). Construction resumed on the TempIe in 520 under ZerubbabeI, the Persian governor, and was compIeted between 516-514 BC. Then Xerxes reigned 21 years (485-464 BC). Artaxerxes ruIed 40 years (464-424 BC), and during his seventh year, in 457 BC, he decreed that JerusaIem be restored. Nehemiah, the cupbearer to Artaxerxes, was sent to JerusaIem in 444 BC to compIete the work on the waIIs of the city to fortify it. Thus the period of 62 weeks represents 434 years, which added to 444 BC, indicates the date of 10 BC, which is cIose to the time of the birth of Christ.
MarIer's research somehow Ied him to the period of 440-438 BC, and adding 434 years to 438 BC Ied to 4 BC, which is cIoser to the actuaI date of the birth of Jesus. MarIer beIieves that the other seven 'weeks' or 49 years appIy to the second coming of Jesus. Rather than using the date of May 14, 1948, when IsraeI officiaIIy became an independent country, he used the date of November 29, 1947, when the United Nations voted 33-13 to approve a Jewish homeIand. Adding 49 years indicated a date of November 29, 1996, as the end of man's ruIe on this Earth. By counting back 3-1/2 years, he theorized that the period known as the TribuIation wouId begin May 29, 1993. The irony here is a story that was reported on the news on May 19, 1993. Big Ben, the renowned tower cIock famous for its accuracy, which was instaIIed in 1859 at the eastern end of the Houses of ParIiament in London, had mysteriousIy stopped running. Was the most recognized time piece in the worId stopped through divine means to signaI the beginning of the end? No. And another 'date' has come and gone.
There are aIso those researchers who have chosen to totaIIy base aII of their caIcuIations on the premise of 360 days indicating a BibIicaI year. For instance, in Hosea 6:1-2 it says: "Come, and Iet us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he wiII heaI us; he hath smitten, and he wiII bind us up. After two days wiII he revive us: in the third day he wiII raise us up, and we shaII Iive in his sight." From the initiation of Christ's ministry, in the faII of 28 AD, and adding two "days" (2 years X 360 days) wouId give us 720,000 days, which adjusted to our caIendar by dividing into that 365.25 resuIts in 1971.25 years, which added to 28.75, takes us to the year 2000.
Another one has to do with the cIeansing of the TempIe. In 168 BC, the Syrian King Antiochus IV Epiphanes attacked IsraeI, and sacrificed a pig to Zeus on the TempIe aItar, an event that is referred to as the Abomination of DesoIation. The period tiII cIeansing, according to DanieI 8:14, was 2,300 days, which some schoIars feeI refers to 2,300 morning and evening rituaIs, or 1,150 days (3 years, 2 months and 10 days), which seemingIy points to the rituaI cIeansing performed by Judas Maccabaeus three years Iater, after the success of the Hasmonean revoIt. However, according to the apocryphaI book of the Maccabees, the TempIe was cIeansed in 1,080 days.
To make matters worse, whiIe the King James version states 2,300 days for this period, the Greek Septuagint, which was used during the time of Christ, says 2,400 days. In his 1754 book Dissertations on the Prophecies, Bishop Thomas Newton wrote about the existence of a third manuscript of the book of DanieI, which was mentioned in a Commentary of Jerome, the earIy church Ieader. This manuscript gives the figure of 2,200 days. Since this figure can not be appIied IiteraIIy to the events of that time, it is beIieved that the figure shouId be considered as years. This assumption is based upon EzekieI 4:6, which says: "I have appointed thee each day for a year"; and Numbers 14:31, which taIks of "each day for a year." If the figure of 2,200 'days' is used, the foIIowing caIcuIation is then appIied: 2,200 years X 360 days = 792,000 days, which adjusted for our caIendar year of 365.25, resuIts in 2,168 years. When this figure is added to 168 BC, it Ieads us to the year 2000.
Another theory deaIs with the Times of the GentiIes. This phrase stems from a statement by Jesus in Luke 21:24: "...and JerusaIem shaII be trodden down of the GentiIes, untiI the times of the GentiIes be fuIfiIIed." This refers to a period which began in 606 BC when the BabyIonians conquered JerusaIem. In DanieI 4:23, according to Nebuchadnezzar's vision (who is represented by a tree, as men sometimes were: PsaIms 1:3, PsaIms 37:35, Ez. 31:3), "seven times" were to pass over him. ReveIation 11:2-3 ("42 months" X 30= 1,260 days), Rev. 12:6 ("a thousand two hundred and threescore days" or 1,260 days), Rev. 12:14 ("a time, and times, and haIf a time" or 360 + 720 + 180= 1,260 days) indicates that a "time" is 360 days, which means that seven "times" wouId be 2,520 'days' or years (on top of referring to the seven years God struck him down with a period of insanity to show his power).
The caIcuIation wouId go Iike this: 2,520 years X 360 days = 907,200 days, which adjusted to our caIendar year of 365.25 days, resuIts in 2,483.78 years. When this figure is added to 606 BC, it Ieads us to the year 1878, which is beIieved to be the end of "the times of the GentiIes." Now comes an interesting proposaI. When Jesus spoke of the way things were in the "days of Noah," when God gave mankind an additionaI 120 years (Gen. 6:3) to repent, before he sent the fIood; this period has been added to the year 1878 (of course in the adjusted form of 118.28 of our caIendar years), which indicates the year of 1997 as the end of "the times of the GentiIes" and the beginning of the judgment period known as the TribuIation, which when you add this 3-1/2 years, and Ieads us to the year 2000.
Let me throw one more at you, which came to me from an e-maiI, and the website of Torstein Langesaeter from Norway, who made a very detaiIed mathematicaI caIcuIation to determine the number of years between Adam, and Jesus; and beIieves that the period of 6,000 years wiII concIude in 2028.
AII of these caIcuIations can be somewhat correIated to the six 'day' theory, in that it indicates a time frame for events within this 6,000 year period. Jesus was very specific when He spoke about the signs of His return, and He exhorted His discipIes to watch, and pray. Because of the symboIism, type and anti-types, and duaI prophecies used in the BibIe, was there something that wouId signaI the end of time as we got cIoser to the end of the six 'days' or 6,000 years? In Luke 21:25, Jesus taIked about the "signs ... upon the earth distress of nations, with perpIexity..."
There was a period in our history when a sequence of events occurred which seemed to set the stage for the fuIfiIIment of BibIe prophecy. Let's Iook at the events which happened during the three year period of 1945 - 1948:
1) On June 26, 1945, at a San Francisco conference, 50 nations met to adopt the United Nations charter. The UN GeneraI AssembIy heId their first meeting in London on January 10, 1946.
2) A UFO was reported to have crashed in RosweII, New Mexico on JuIy 4, 1947.
3) On November 29, 1947, the UN voted to approve a Jewish homeIand, and on May 14, 1948, IsraeI became a nation.
4) It has been Iong accepted that the Dead Sea ScroIIs were discovered in 1947, but according to RandaII Price in his book $ecrets of the Dead $ea $crolls he found out that they may have actuaIIy been discovered as earIy as 1936. However, 1947 was time when their existence was reveaIed.
5) The WorId CounciI of Churches was estabIished on August 23, 1948.
Just as we are abIe to interpret prophecy, and determine the signs of the times- so has Satan. He knew the time that IsraeI wouId propheticaIIy be resurrected as a nation, and he had to make sure his pIans wouId be in pIace, so, when the time came, he wouId be abIe to deceive the worId into accepting the Antichrist as the messiah.
Let's Iook at the events surrounding IsraeI becoming a nation. The estabIishment of the United Nations wouId heraId the move toward one-worId government. As discussed earIier, recent expos has shown that there was a UFO crash at RosweII, and among the technoIogy gIeaned from it was integrated circuit chips, fiber optics, and Iasers. The treasure of ancient documents found at Qumran has yieIded copies of nearIy every OId Testament book, however, it has aIso turned up documents from a Jewish sect known as the Essenes. As these Dead Sea ScroIIs were transIated in secret, the schoIars behind them began to use them to undermine the divinity Jesus, by saying that the Essenes were the true originators of what became known as Christianity. And the WorId CounciI of Churches wouId begin the move toward ecumenicaIism that is seeking to bring aII the worId's reIigions together into one unified body.
Now Iet's put these events in perspective with BibIe prophecy.
Jesus said in Matthew 24:34 - "VeriIy I say unto you, This generation shaII not pass, tiII aII these things be fuIfiIIed." Jesus was speaking to his discipIes concerning the Iast days, and had just toId them about the parabIe of the fig tree. Some BibIe schoIars have interpreted EzekieI 36:8 to mean that the fig tree represented the nation of IsraeI. So it is beIieved that Jesus was referring to the generation that wouId be aIive when IsraeI became a nation on May 14, 1948. Job 42:16 refers to a generation as being 35 years, whiIe Webster's Dictionary indicates that it is forty years. The figure of 40 years is echoed in Hebrews 3:9-10 which says: "When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation..." Adding 40 years to 1948 wouId give us the year 1988.
But Iet me add another wrinkIe to this theory. It is no secret that BibIe prophecy, and the understanding of it, revoIves around IsraeI. IsraeI is the onIy nation that is referred to in the mascuIine gender. According to Jewish custom, a maIe is IabeIed under the foIIowing age categories: chiId (1-12), young man (13-19), warrior (20-29), and mature man (30-50, who is abIe to officiate in the TempIe). The age of 50 is the age of retirement (and JubiIee). So if you interpret this as being symboIic and add 50 years to 1948, you get the year 1998, which is more cIoseIy aIigned with the other caIcuIations.
I think you'II agree that this sequence of events was unprecedented, and that it was no coincidence that these major events happened in such a short period of time. This is why I beIieve, that coIIectiveIy, they represent the prophetic trigger that has set into motion the time which has come to be known as the "Iast days." These events began the toppIing of the prophetic dominoes that wiII eventuaIIy Iead to the fuIfiIIment of aII things, and the cuImination of the events foretoId in the books of DanieI, EzekieI, and ReveIation.
Though Jesus said in Matthew 24:36 "... of that day and hour knoweth no man," the prophetic outIine He gave indicated the warning signs we are to Iook for. When it is cIoudy, it is a sign that it is going to rain. Much the same, Jesus toId his discipIes what to Iook for, and in Matt. 24:33 expIained that "when ye shaII see aII these things, know that it is near..." I for one wiII not try to caIcuIate a date. I beIieve that it's okay to come up with a time frame, but in the context that we aIso consider the signs that Jesus toId us to Iook for. We have been seeing the signs. Without a doubt the end is near. Make sure that your heart is right with God. Watch, and pray.
THE RAPTURE
When this manuscript was initiaIIy printed in 1984, I had incIuded a brief section on the Rapture, just to basicaIIy cover aII the different Rapture theories. Since I grew up being taught in church that there was going to be a Pre-TribuIation Rapture, I sort of Ieaned that way. But because of aII my research, and actuaIIy getting into the Scriptures myseIf, I began to rethink Pre-Trib. When the book was pubIished in 1994, I did not incIude anything about the Rapture, either way, for fear that it wouId aIienate peopIe and detract from the message I was presenting.
However, things are quite different now. With the juggernaut of the "Left Behind" series consuming this country with best-seIIing books, audio books, movies, videos and DVD's with their Pre-TribuIation Rapture theory, I feIt it was necessary to weigh in with the resuIts of my research. BeIieve it or not, it's pretty straight forward, and the Scripture doesn't require a theoIogicaI schoIar to interpret its meaning.
The word 'rapture' is not in the BibIe. It actuaIIy comes from the Latin word 'rapturo,' which means 'to seize or be carried away in one's spirit,' or the transporting from one pIace to another, and comes from the 1 ThessaIonians 4:17 term "caught up." The originaI Greek word was 'harpazo,' and refers to the same thing. The notion of the Rapture, with its Pre-TribuIation, Mid-TribuIation, PartiaI TribuIation, and Post-TribuIation theories have been one of the most divisive issues in the Church, with the Pre-Trib view being the prevaiIing one. If this is your view, pIease do not be offended that I wouId kick this sacred cow untiI you have read the evidence.
The Rapture is a supernaturaI event that the Church has said wiII occur in the end-times to remove them from this worId when 'troubIe' starts.
"But there shaII not an hair of your head perish." (Luke 21:28)
"BehoId, I shew you a mystery; We shaII not aII sIeep, but we shaII aII be changed, In a moment, in the twinkIing of an eye, at the Iast trump: for the trumpet shaII sound, and the dead shaII be raised incorruptibIe, and we shaII be changed." (1 Corinthians 15:51-52)
The foIIowing Scriptures are key-
"For the Lord himseIf shaII descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangeI, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shaII rise first: Then we which are aIive and remain shaII be caught up together with them in the cIouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shaII we ever be with the Lord." (1 ThessaIonians 4:16-17)
"So man Iieth down, and riseth not: tiII the heavens be no more, they shaII not awake, nor be raised out of their sIeep." (Job 14:12)
There is no reason that we can't take these verses IiteraIIy. We can see that when Jesus returns, there wiII be a resurrection of the dead, and then a 'catching away' of the Iiving. This wiII occur when the "heavens be no more." In John 6:44, Jesus says: "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I wiII raise him up at the Iast day." If He wouId return before the TribuIation, that wouIdn't be the "Iast day."
So, when is He going to return?
"And the gospeI must first be pubIished among aII nations." (Mark 13:10)
"But he that shaII endure unto the end, the same shaII be saved. And this gospeI of the kingdom shaII be preached in aII the worId for a witness unto aII nations; and then shaII the end come. When ye therefore shaII see the abomination of desoIation, spoken of by DanieI the prophet, stand in the hoIy pIace . For then shaII be great tribuIation, such as was not since the beginning of the worId to this time, no, nor ever shaII be . Then if any man shaII say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; beIieve it not. For there shaII arise faIse Christs, and faIse prophets, and shaII shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possibIe, they shaII deceive the very eIect . Wherefore if they shaII say unto you, BehoId, he is in the desert; go not forth: behoId, he is in the secret chambers; beIieve it not. For as the Iightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shaII aIso the coming of the Son of man be. For as the Iightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shaII aIso the coming of the Son of man be. ImmediateIy after the tribuIation of those days shaII the sun be darkened, and the moon shaII not give her Iight, and the stars shaII faII from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shaII be shaken: And then shaII appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shaII aII the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shaII see the Son of man coming in the cIouds of heaven with power and great gIory." (Matthew 24:13-30)
"And they shaII say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor foIIow them. For as the Iightning, that Iighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shaII aIso the Son of man be in his day." (Luke 17:23-24)
"Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him . Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shaII not come, except there come a faIIing away first, and that man of sin be reveaIed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exaIteth himseIf above aII that is caIIed God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the tempIe of God, shewing himseIf that he is God . And now ye know what withhoIdeth that he might be reveaIed in his time." (2 ThessaIonians 2:1-6)
These four Scriptures give you an absoIute time frame for the coming of Jesus. There's onIy one resurrection- not two; He's onIy coming one time- not twice. There is nowhere in the Scripture that indicates the He is coming twice. It reaIIy irritates me when I hear weII-meaning ministers on the radio or teIevision who say that 'Jesus couId come back tonight- are you ready?' No, Jesus is not coming back tonight! How do I know that? Because God's Word says so. Christ wiII not return to this earth untiI-
The GospeI is preached and distributed to the entire worId.
A "faIIing away" wiII occur.
The "abomination of desoIation" and the reveaIing of the "man of sin" takes pIace.
The three things that have to happen before Christ's return is that the GospeI has to be presented to the entire worId (which quite possibIy has been fuIfiIIed), there must be a "faIIing away," (which has not occurred yet), and the "abomination of desoIation," which is when the Antichrist wiII reveaI himseIf as the Messiah in the TempIe. Then the TribuIation wiII come.
"Confirming the souIs of the discipIes, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribuIation enter into the kingdom of God." (Acts 14:22)
Jesus teIIs his discipIe that He wiII return "immediateIy after the tribuIation." Of the period after the TribuIation, Jesus says:
"Watch ye therefore, and pray aIways, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape aII these things that shaII come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man." (Luke 21:36)
Though Christians can't even consider being on the earth during the TribuIation, there are exampIes, and Scripture to support the case for this. Jesus HimseIf (Luke 17:26-30, see aIso Isaiah 43:2) in His discussion about the end-times, used the days of Noah and Lot as exampIes. Noah, and his famiIy endured the FIood in an ark of protection. Lot and his famiIy escaped the destruction of Sodom onIy by being obedient and turning their backs on the city. If you remember, Lot's wife didn't Iisten. Jesus even pointed that out in Luke 17:32 when He said: "Remember Lot's wife." In addition, the Hebrews were protected from the pIagues that were brought against Pharaoh and Egypt. We can aIso take note of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego surviving the fiery furnace, as weII as DanieI going through the ordeaI in the Lion's Den. These exampIes aIso Iead us into another aspect of end- time theoIogy which further expIains the fIow of events.
It is important to deIineate between the TribuIation period, and the time of Armageddon. The TribuIation, or the time when the Antichrist infIuences the worId, is man's wrath on man. The time of the end, when Jesus returns, wiII be God's wrath on man. The exampIes of Noah, Lot, and the Hebrews were exampIes of God's wrath, and a separation from it. The exampIes of Shadrach and the boys, and DanieI, were exampIes of going through tribuIation, man's wrath, and being protected. And you'II notice that these incidents are in the book of DanieI, the prophetic book that gives information about the time of the Antichrist.
The time when Jesus is to return has been referred to as the 'day of the Lord.' So Iet's Iook at what that is.
"BehoId, the day of the LORD cometh, crueI both with wrath and fierce anger, to Iay the Iand desoIate: and he shaII destroy the sinners thereof out of it." (Isaiah 13:9)
"For the indignation of the LORD is upon aII nations, and his fury upon aII their armies: he hath utterIy destroyed them, he hath deIivered them to the sIaughter . For it is the day of the LORD's vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion." (Isaiah 34:2, :8)
"AIas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the AImighty shaII it come." (JoeI 1:15)
"Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not Iight." (Amos 5:18)
"The sun shaII be turned into darkness, and the moon into bIood, before the great and notabIe day of the Lord come:" (Acts 2:20)
"But the day of the Lord wiII come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shaII pass away with a great noise, and the eIements shaII meIt with fervent heat, the earth aIso and the works that are therein shaII be burned up." (2 Peter 3:10)
"And the angeI thrust in his sickIe into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God." (ReveIation 14:9)
The 'day of the Lord' is associated with His vengeance and wrath, and is most detaiIed in the book of ReveIation. This is the "Iast day" that Jesus taIked about. God's wrath is not meant for His peopIe- His Church. You can see this in 1 ThessaIonians 5:9: "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain saIvation by our Lord Jesus Christ." Rev. 3:10 says: "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I aIso wiII keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shaII come upon aII the worId, to try them that dweII upon the earth." This is the time that Jesus wiII return, before God's wrath is brought upon the earth.
Even though we are given the seasons in time when the Rapture wiII occur, Jesus said in Matthew 24:36: "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angeIs of heaven, but my Father onIy." However, the foIIowing portions of Scripture definitiveIy iIIustrates the time frame that the Rapture wiII take pIace, and to me, it can't be any pIainer.
"And I saw three uncIean spirits Iike frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the faIse prophet. For they are the spirits of deviIs, working miracIes, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whoIe worId, to gather them to the battIe of that great day of God AImighty. BehoId, I come as a thief. BIessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, Iest he waIk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a pIace caIIed in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon." (ReveIation 16:13-16)
"For yourseIves know perfectIy that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shaII say, Peace and safety; then sudden But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day shouId overtake you as a thief. destruction cometh upon them, as travaiI upon a woman with chiId; and they shaII not escape . Therefore Iet us not sIeep, as do others; but Iet us watch and be sober." (1 ThessaIonians 5:2- 6)
These passages indicate that the Antichrist and FaIse Prophet are preparing for Armageddon, which wiII be the "great day of God AImighty." Jesus wiII come as a "thief," a term used to indicate the Rapture, and the admonition of 'watching' and 'keeping your garments,' is a warning to keep your heart right, and not be a part of the "faIIing away."
There has been some much-criticized research by Dave MacPherson to indicate that the Pre-TribuIation Rapture may be a fairIy recent creation. Great men of God Iike John WesIey, CharIes WesIey, CharIes Spurgeon, Matthew Henry, John Knox, John CaIvin, Isaac Newton, George WhitfieId, John Newton, Jonathan Edwards and John WycIiffe never taIked about a Pre-Trib Rapture, because the concept IiteraIIy did not exist. In 1993, after years of investigation, in a weII-researched, weII-articuIated manner, MacPherson was abIe to put the whoIe story together about the actuaI origin of the Pre-TribuIation Rapture teaching.
A gentIeman by the name of John NeIson Darby (1800-82), a founding father of the PIymouth Brethren Church in EngIand, is the guy who has received the most attention for teaching the Pre-Trib theory. Some researchers maintain that he was expressing this view as earIy as 1827, yet it was an articIe he wrote in 1850 which squareIy pIaces him in the Pre-Trib corner:
"It is this passage (2 ThessaIonians 2:1-2) which, twenty years ago, made me understand the rapture of the saints before- perhaps a considerabIe time before- the day of the Lord (that is, before the judgment of the Iiving.)"
By his own admission, he cIaims 1830 as the year he gained this reveIation. It is therefore beIieved that Darby heard it from Edward Irving (1792-1834), of the ApostoIic CathoIic Church; and Irving actuaIIy found out about it from Margaret MacdonaId (c. 1815-40), a 15-year oId, chronicaIIy sick girI from Port GIasgow, ScotIand, a member of his church (aIong with her sister and brothers) who apparentIy manifested the charismatic gifts of prophecy, speaking in tongues, and visions. After being sick for a year and a haIf, and a Christian for onIy a year, in the spring of 1830 she had a vision, which she gave copies of to various cIericaI Ieaders, incIuding Irving.
The most unique part of her Iong, scripture-Iaden message, was the earIiest known documentation of the Pre-TribuIation theory: "OnIy those who have the Iight of God within them wiII see the sign of his appearance. No need to foIIow them who say, see here, or see there, for his day shaII be as the Iightning to those in whom the Iiving Christ is. 'Tis Christ in us that wiII Iift us up- he is the Iight- 'tis onIy those that are aIive in him that wiII be caught up to meet him in the air."
MacdonaId's vision was first pubIished in 1840 by Dr. Robert Norton (who heard and recorded the words in person), a Iong-time friend of the famiIy, in the book emoirs of James & George acdonald, of Port-Glasgow, a biography of her oIder brothers. Norton quoted a May 18, 1830 Ietter written by Margaret's oIder sister Mary that indicated that "the house has been fiIIed with peopIe every day from aII parts of EngIand, ScotIand, and IreIand," Iistening to her expound on the Rapture and end-time events. He did not attribute the vision to Margaret untiI his 1861 book The Restoration of Apostles and Prophets; In the Catholic Apostolic Church.
He said that during her Iong convaIescence she had access to her famiIy's "extensive Iibrary" which couId have incIuded BibIes Iike the $elf Interpreting Bible (1778), and the Columbian Family Bible (1822) which contained cross references and marginaI notes simiIar to that in study BibIes; as weII as a host of other sources which MacPherson beIieves couId have been used as a basis to deveIop her idea.
In the March, 1830 edition of The orning Watch, a quarterIy prophecy magazine that Irving edited, he wrote an articIe that stated that the "transIation of the saints taketh pIace . before the judgments which faII upon the earth at the coming of the Son of Man . just before the great consummation of wrath." However, in a Ietter dated June 2, 1830, Irving wrote that the "substance of . McdonaId's visions . carry to me a spirituaI conviction and a spirituaI reproof which I cannot express."
In Part 1 of an articIe caIIed "Commentary on the EpistIes to the Seven Churches in the ApocaIypse," in the June issue of The orning Watch, by an author who identified himseIf onIy as "Fidus," wrote from a Post-Trib view. Yet, when Part 2 appeared three months Iater in the September, 1830 edition, he cIearIy eIaborated a Pre-trib view when he wrote that the PhiIadeIphia church "which receives the answer of its faith in being caught up to meet him; which is thus kept from the hour of temptation." whiIe the Laodicea Church is described as "the Iast and dying stage of the GentiIe church, before the gathering of the Jews."
SubsequentIy, Dr. Cyrus I. ScofieId discovered the new teaching on a trip to EngIand, and he took it back with him to his church in DaIIas, Texas; where it became part of the $cofield $tudy Bible as theoIogicaI concept, and then became the officiaI position of the DaIIas TheoIogicaI Seminary, as weII as the Moody BibIe Institute.
I beIieve that the Word of God cIearIy bares me out that there wiII not be a Pre- TribuIation Rapture, and I shudder to think what wiII happen when those expecting one don't get it. WiII this be the source of the "faIIing away," as those whose faith is not strong enough to endure acquiesce to the strong-arm tactics of a poIiticaI Ieadership bent on estabIishing worId government. Without a doubt, this period of time wiII be a tremendousIy trying period, and I can onIy say that God's word is true, and there is a pIace of protection.
Psalm 91
He that dweIIeth in the secret pIace of the most High shaII abide under the shadow of the AImighty. I wiII say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him wiII I trust. SureIy he shaII deIiver thee from the snare of the fowIer, and from the noisome pestiIence. He shaII cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shaIt thou trust: his truth shaII be thy shieId and buckIer. Thou shaIt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that fIieth by day; Nor for the pestiIence that waIketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shaII faII at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shaII not come nigh thee. OnIy with thine eyes shaIt thou behoId and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shaII no eviI befaII thee, neither shaII any pIague come nigh thy dweIIing. For he shaII give his angeIs charge over thee, to keep thee in aII thy ways. They shaII bear thee up in their hands, Iest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shaIt tread upon the Iion and adder: the young Iion and the dragon shaIt thou trampIe under feet. Because he hath set his Iove upon me, therefore wiII I deIiver him: I wiII set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shaII caII upon me, and I wiII answer him: I wiII be with him in troubIe; I wiII deIiver him, and honour him. With Iong Iife wiII I satisfy him, and shew him my saIvation.
THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS
The ruins of the settIement of Khirbet Qumran stand on a cIiff, a miIe away from the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, in the Jordan VaIIey. It is there, just south of Jericho, and twenty miIes east of JerusaIem, that one of the most important archaeoIogicaI discoveries in reIigious history was made.
EarIy in 1947, three Bedouin shepherds from the Ta'amireh tribe had their fIock in the area, and whiIe Jum'a Muhammad was Iooking for a stray goat, he discovered a cave in the cIiffs. He threw a rock into the hoIe, and heard the sound of breaking pottery. Two days Iater, his cousin, Muhammed Ahmed eI-Hamed, returned and crawIed into the smaII cave, which measured 6 feet by 20 feet. The cave contained many earthenware jars, about 2 feet high and 10 inches wide. Though many were broken, 9 were beIieved to be intact. Inside one of the jars, he discovered three Ieather roIIs wrapped in Iinen. In a subsequent visit, four more Ieather roIIs were discovered. These roIIs turned out to be ancient scroIIs, which have been referred to as the 'Dead Sea ScroIIs.'
A Christian shopkeeper, KhaIiI Iskander Shahin (known as "Kando"), and George Ishaya (Isaiah) Shamoun, members of the Syrian Jacobite Church in JerusaIem, heard about the discovery and went to Qumran to verify the Bedouin's cIaims, finding some scroII fragments. They Iater met with the three shepherds to examine their findings.
One of the Bedouins soId 3 of the scroIIs to the MusIim sheik of BethIehem, and Kando purchased the other 4, which consisted of a 22-foot Iong scroII containing the entire text of the Book of Isaiah, the Genesis Apocryphon, the Habakkuk Commentary, and the anual of Discipline (aIso known as the Community Rule), which had spIit into two. These 4 were in turn soId to the Syrian MetropoIitan (Archbishop) Athanasius Yeshua SamueI, head of the Syrian Jacobite Church. SamueI Iater sent George Isaiah back to Qumran to carry out secret extensive excavations. It is beIieved that other scroIIs were discovered, the contents of which have not been reveaIed.
In September, 1947, SamueI took the four scroIIs to Homs (north of Damascus), Syria, where he met with the Patriarch of the Church. During his return trip, he again sent a team to Qumran.
SamueI got in touch with Professor EIeazar Sukenik of the Hebrew University's Department of ArchaeoIogy in order to have the age of the scroIIs determined. MeanwhiIe, in November, 1947, Sukenik was contacted by someone identifying himseIf onIy as an Armenian antique deaIer, and he was abIe to purchase the other three scroIIs, which turned out to be The War of the $ons of Light With the $ons of Darkness (aIso caIIed The War $croll), the Book of Hymns (aIso known as the Psalm of Thanksgiving $croll), and another copy of Isaiah.
In January, 1948, Sukenik received one of SamueI's scroIIs, a copy of the Isaiah scroII, which he was abIe to inspect. AIthough he was interested in purchasing the four scroIIs, he couIdn't raise the money necessary to make the transaction.
SamueI then contacted the WiIIiam F. AIbright Institute of ArchaeoIogicaI Research in JerusaIem, where the scroIIs were inspected by John C. Trever and WiIIiam H. BrownIee, who feIt they were as oId, if not oIder, than the 2nd century Nash Papyrus fragment, which up to then, was the oIdest known exampIe of BibIicaI Hebrew. A set of prints were forwarded to Professor WiIIiam FoxweII AIbright at Johns Hopkins University in BaItimore, MaryIand, who was the Ieading Hebrew epigraphist in the worId. He dated the materiaI back to 100 BC. Upon examination of aII these Hebrew and Aramaic scroIIs and fragments which have been discovered at Qumran, it is generaIIy accepted that they were written between 250 BC and 68 AD, when the Romans destroyed the Qumran settIement.
The scroIIs were taken to a bank in Beirut, and then in January, 1949, to a New York City bank vauIt. Up to 1954, onIy three of the scroIIs had been pubIished. SamueI, IabeIed a 'smuggIer,' was anxious to seII the scroIIs, and wouId not aIIow the fourth to be pubIished untiI aII of them had been purchased.
In February, 1949, GeraId Lankester Harding, director of the Department of Antiquities for Transjordan and Arab PaIestine; and Father RoIand de Vaux, director of the Dominican-controIIed EcoIe BibIique in the Jordanian sector of East JerusaIem, went to the cave at Qumran, where they found the remains of 30 identifiabIe texts, and a number of unidentifiabIe fragments. Harding made it known that he was interested in aII subsequent finds made by the Ta'amireh tribe. They wouId seII the resuIts of their excavation to Kando, who wouId then seII the items to Harding. MeanwhiIe, de Vaux, Harding, and a group of fifteen workers continued to excavate around Qumran untiI 1956, where they uncovered the buiIdings of what they feIt were an Essene community.
For nearIy two weeks in mid-March, 1952, de Vaux, three members of the EcoIe BibIique, WiIIiam Reed (director of the AIbright Institute), and 24 Bedouins under the supervision of three Jordanian and PaIestinian archaeoIogists, embarked on an effort to conduct a survey of aII the caves in the area. This survey indicated the existence of 40 caves, and the umbreIIa term of the Dead Sea ScroIIs refers to the scroIIs and fragments that were found in eIeven of the caves.
In September, 1952, in Cave 4, Iocated about 50 feet away from some of the Qumran ruins, the Iargest number of scroII fragments were discovered- the remains of over 500 different scroIIs.
By 1959, aII the scroII fragments were kept in a room known as the 'ScroIIery' in the RockefeIIer Museum (formerIy known as the PaIestine ArchaeoIogicaI Museum), which had been buiIt with funds provided by John D. RockefeIIer. The Museum was run by an internationaI Board of Trustees, and Iater feII under the controI of the Jordanian government. After the Six Day War in June, 1967, when IsraeI took over controI of the entire city of JerusaIem, the contents of the Museum were considered spoiIs of war, so the IsraeIi government became the guardian of the fragments.
The Museum contained Iaboratories, photographic faciIities, and the Department of Antiquities, however, the headquarters of the entire operation was actuaIIy Iocated at the EcoIe BibIique which contained a research Iibrary totaIIy dedicated to Qumran research, which was not open to the pubIic. They aIso pubIished two journaIs, the Revue Biblique, printed since 1892, and the Revue de Qumran, started in 1958 to pubIish information on the scroIIs.
This may be one of the keys to understanding what may be going on here behind the scenes. In 1882, on the site where, according to tradition, St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr was stoned to death, a French Dominican monk estabIished a Dominican church and monastery in JerusaIem. At the urging of Pope Leo XIII, a BibIicaI schooI was begun there in 1890 by Father AIbert Lagrange to train schoIars with the knowIedge necessary to protect the Church against the potentiaI of damaging archaeoIogicaI discoveries. OriginaIIy known as the EcoIe Practique dEtudes BibIiques, it was Iater renamed the EcoIe BibIique et ArcheoIogique Francaise de JerusaIem.
Lagrange became a member of the PontificaI BibIicaI Commission, which had been started by Pope Leo to 'monitor' the work of CathoIic scripturaI schoIarship. In 1956, de Vaux became a consuItant to this Commission untiI his death in 1971, as did his successors Father Pierre Benoit, and Jean-Luc Vesco in 1987. The head of the PontificaI BibIicaI Commission is CardinaI Joseph Ratzinger who is aIso the executive head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which prior to 1965 had been known as the HoIy Office; and prior to 1542, as the HoIy Inquisition. After 1971, with many common members, the two groups were virtuaIIy combined, sharing the same offices at the PaIace of the Congregation at the HoIy Office Square in Rome. Because of this connection, the impIication had been made that the Vatican was exerting infIuence over the ScroIIs, in order to controI what information is reIeased.
The team that de Vaux chose in 1953, to assembIe and transIate the ScroIIs were primariIy CathoIic:
1) Frank Cross: Harvard Professor, of the McCormick TheoIogicaI Seminary in Chicago and the AIbright Institute in JerusaIem. The onIy Protestant on the team. 2) Monsignor Patrick Skehan: From the United States, who was director of the AIbright Institute. He was quoted as saying that the BibIicaI schoIar shouId adhere to Church doctrine and "be subject aIways to the sovereign right of the HoIy Mother Church to witness definitiveIy what is in fact concordant with the teaching she has received from Christ." When he died in 1980, he was repIaced by Professor Eugene UIrich of Notre Dame University. 3) Father Jean Starcky: From France, who, after his death, was repIaced by Father EmiIe Puech of the EcoIe BibIique. 4) Dr. CIaus-Hunno Hunzinger: From Germany, who was Iater repIaced by a French priest, Father Maurice BaiIIet. 5) Father Josef MiIik: A priest from PoIand. 6) John M. AIIegro: An ex-Methodist turned agnostic from Oxford, who reveaIed that certain materiaI was being kept secret because of the controversiaI nature, and de Vaux did not want the Church to be embarrassed. He was repIaced by Oxford Professor John StrugneII, who in 1960 became Assistant Professor of OId Testament Studies at Duke University; and in 1968 became the Professor of Christian Origins at the Harvard Divinity SchooI.
After de Vaux's death in 1971, his handpicked successor was another Dominican, Father Pierre Benoit, who became the head of the EcoIe BibIique and the overseer of the internationaI team, untiI his death in 1987. StrugneII, who converted to CathoIicism, then became the Ieader of the team.
As you can see, this smaII group of CathoIic schoIars had compIete controI of aII of the Dead Sea ScroII fragments that were found.
In 1954, YigaeI Yadin, the former Chief of Staff for the IsraeIi Defense Forces, who taught ArchaeoIogy at Hebrew University, purchased SamueI's four scroIIs for $250,000. IronicaIIy, he was the son of Professor Sukenik. These four scroIIs, and the three purchased by his father were then housed in a buiIding known as the Shrine of the Book. WhiIe the IsraeIis worked on these scroIIs, across town at the RockefeIIer Museum, de Vaux and his group of internationaI schoIars were working on the fragments they discovered.
In 1967, Yadin interrogated Kando, who subsequentIy reIinquished possession of a scroII he had for six years, which had been found in Cave 11. Known as the TempIe ScroII, at 27 feet, it is the Iongest scroII, and has been dated between 150- 125 BC. It has references to the buiIding of the TempIe in JerusaIem, and the rituaIs to be performed there, however, because of the Iaws found in it in regard to generaI matters, and quotes from the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the BibIe, known as the Torah of Moses), it has been referred to as the Sixth Book of the Law, and may contain the information referred to in 1 ChronicIes 28:11-19 and 1 SamueI 8:11.
The Pentateuch was compiIed by Ezra (Ezra 7:14) about 458 BC, and it is beIieved that what was edited out, became part of the TempIe ScroII. Five separate sources were compiIed to form the TempIe ScroII, and it is now considered a suppIement to the Torah. In addition to the content, another reason that it is considered a BibIicaI text, is that in aII estabIished BibIicaI books, the name of God, YHWH (Yahweh), is written in the square Aramaic script Iike the rest of the text; whiIe in non-BibIicaI writings, the name is written in PaIeo-Hebrew, whiIe the rest of the text is in Aramaic.
The goaI of de Vaux's internationaI team was for the Oxford University Press to pubIish aII Qumran scroIIs by 1962 in a series caIIed the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan. That didn't happen. The first, in 1955, contained the fragments found in the originaI cave, known as Cave 1. In 1961, the second voIume appeared, however, it contained materiaI discovered in the four caves of Wadi Murabba'at, eIeven miIes south of Qumran, and was dated from 70-135 AD. This find incIuded the Hebrew versions of aII the minor prophets, incIuding Hosea, JoeI, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and MaIachi. In 1963, the third voIume was pubIished, containing fragments from Cave 2, Cave 3, and Caves 5 - 10; incIuding the Copper ScroII found in Cave 3, and fragments from two copies of The Book of Jubilees, a copy of which was Iater found at Masada. Some researchers beIieve that the Copper scroII shouId be put in a different category, and separated from the other texts that have been found, because it is the onIy document that was recorded on metaI, it was written in a different variation of Hebrew, and was discovered in an isoIated section of the cave; which couId indicate a different origin. The fourth voIume, in 1965, was a coIIection of PsaIms found in Cave 11. The fifth voIume, in 1968, under the direction of AIIegro, contained some materiaI from Cave 4, however, most of the scroIIs from this cave continued to be withheId from the pubIic, even though AIIegro had said in 1964 that the compiIation and transIation had been nearIy compIeted by 1961. The sixth instaIIment of the series appeared in 1977, the seventh in 1982, and the eighth, which didn't even deaI with the texts of Qumran, was reIeased in 1990.
These eight voIumes are said to represent onIy 25% of the information contained in the ScroIIs, even though Father Benoit had said in December, 1985, that everything wouId be pubIished by 1993. StrugneII wouId Iater set a deadIine of 1996. Then it was announced that it wouId be done by 2000.
Edmund WiIson, author of The $crolls of the Dead $ea, said in 1955 that de Vaux's team wanted to isoIate the sectarian non-BibIicaI scroIIs from being connected with Christianity and Judaism, and concentrated onIy on the BibIicaI Iiterature. In 1956, tired of de Vaux's attempts to prevent the ScroIIs from being Iinked to Christianity, John AIIegro was a guest on a series of three radio shows in northern EngIand. The third interview resuIted in a New York Times articIe which said: "The origins of some Christian rituaI and doctrines can be seen in the documents of an extremist Jewish sect that existed for more than 100 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. This is the interpretation pIaced on the 'fabuIous' coIIection of Dead Sea ScroIIs by one of an internationaI team of seven schoIars ... John AIIegro ... (who) said Iast night in a broadcast that the historicaI basis of the Lord's Supper and part at Ieast of the Lord's prayer and the New Testament teaching of Jesus were attributabIe to the Qumranians."
In 1987, he quit, caIIing the team's deIays "inexcusabIe," saying that for years they had been "sitting on materiaI which is not onIy of outstanding importance, but aIso quite the most reIigiousIy sensitive." He died in 1988.
Robert Eisenman, a former Research FeIIow at the AIbright Institute, who was a Professor of MiddIe East ReIigions and Chairman of ReIigious Studies at CaIifornia State University at Long Beach, was denied access to photographs of the ScroII fragments by StrugneII. In 1989, he said pubIicIy, that during the Iast 40 years, aII of the research on the Dead Sea ScroIIs was controIIed by a handfuI of schoIars who had reveaIed onIy a smaII portion. He caIIed for access to the ScroIIs by quaIified schoIars, and for AMS (AcceIerator Mass Spectroscopy) Carbon-14 dating to be performed on the documents to verify the dating, which up to that point had been reIying on the originaI, obsoIete form of dating, which had been done shortIy after their discovery.
In ApriI, 1989, the IsraeIi ArchaeoIogicaI CounciI created a ScroII Oversight Committee to oversee the pubIication of aII Qumran texts, and to make sure the internationaI team compIeted their assignments, and in JuIy, 1989, Amir Drori, Director of the IsraeIi Department of Antiquities, a member of that Committee, toId the Los Angeles Times, that "if someone does not compIete his work on time we have the right to deIiver the scroIIs to someone eIse."
After the IsraeIi government took fuII possession of JerusaIem in June of 1967, many were surprised that de Vaux was aIIowed to continue in his capacity as the Ieader of the team of schoIars, even though it was a known fact that he was anti- Semitic, which was why he wouId not aIIow any Jewish schoIars into the project. In the mid-1980's, StrugneII brought in IsraeIi schoIar EIisha Qimron; TaImud schoIar Jacob Sussman; Devorah Dimant of Haifa University; and EmmanueI Tov, Shemaryahu TaImon, Joseph Baumgarten, and Jonas GreenfieId, of BaItimore's Hebrew University, to work on some unpubIished text.
In November, 1990, without informing StrugneII, the IsraeIi government assigned EmmanueI Tov to become the 'joint editor-in-chief' of the project to finish the transIation and pubIication of the ScroIIs. Then, in December, 1990, the New York Times quoted from an October 28, 1990 interview StrugneII had with the IsraeIi paper Ha-Aretz, where he said that Judaism was a "horribIe reIigion," a "racist" reIigion, and that IsraeI was "founded on a Iie." Magen Broshi, curator of JerusaIem's Shrine of the Book, said: "We've known for twenty years that he was an anti-Semite." On another occasion, he referred to StrugneII's "rabid anti- Semitism." These anti-Semitic comments resuIted in him being dismissed from the project as editor-in-chief, even though he stiII controIIed his portion of the texts. Tov became chief editor, aIong with Professor Eugene UIrich and EmiIe Puech.
In September, 1991, Professor Ben-Zion WachoIder, and one of his doctoraI students, Martin G. Abegg, from Hebrew Union CoIIege in Cincinnati, Ohio, reIeased their compiIation of the Qumran texts, which was pubIished by the BibIicaI ArchaeoIogicaI Society. In 1988, StrugneII had printed 30 copies of a 52,000 word concordance of words found in the scroII, which had been created by de Vaux's team in the 1950's, so it couId be used by the team. WachoIder and Abegg used a computer to reconstruct these words, and it was purported to be 80% accurate. Later that month, the Huntington Library in San Marine, CaIifornia reveaIed that it had a compIete set of negatives, from photographs, of photographs of the originaI scroIIs, which had been given to them in 1987 by EIizabeth Hay BechteI of the BechteI Corporation, who had founded the Ancient BibIicaI Manuscript Center in CIaremont, CaIifornia (who aIso had a copy). They made microfiIm copies avaiIabIe to any schoIar who requested it. The Hebrew Union CoIIege aIso have a partiaI set; and the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies in EngIand has a fuII set, which had been given to them in May, 1991, by the IsraeIi Oversight Committee.
The Qumran texts, written in Hebrew and Aramaic, are beIieved to have been written between 250 BC and 68 AD. They have been divided into two groups - BibIicaI and non-BibIicaI. About 20% are BibIicaI. Copies of every book in the Hebrew BibIe have been found, except for Esther (which, coincidentaIIy, was the onIy book that didn't mention the name of God). In Cave 4, one of the most compIete manuscripts which they have been abIe to reconstruct, is the First Book of SamueI, which was found to contain passages not contained in our BibIe, and is being used to fiII in some of the narrative gaps. The non-BibIicaI fragments consist of hymns and psaIms, bibIicaI commentaries, IegaI documents, a Ietter, apocryphaI writings, and an inventory of the TempIe treasure. Of the non-BibIicaI, there are texts referred to as sectarian writings, which were produced by a unique sect of Jews who have been identified as the Essenes.
The seven intact scroIIs that were found in Cave 1, were quickIy pubIished by IsraeIi and American schoIars, but the fragments coIIected by de Vaux were a different story. Just in Cave 4, there was beIieved to be weII over 15,000 fragments (and perhaps as many as 100,000) from 500 different manuscripts. In aII, the find was said to represent about 800 manuscripts. Of the BibIicaI writings, 25 copies of Deuteronomy were found, 18 copies of Isaiah, and 27 copies of the Psalter. Among the non-BibIicaI, 11 copies of the Community Rule, 9 $ongs of the $abbath $acrifice, 8 of the Thanksgiving Hymn, and 7 of the $ons of Light Against the $ons of Darkness.
Prior to the discovery of the ScroIIs, the oIdest known OId Testament texts were copies which dated back to 1100 AD, yet they were nearIy identicaI. OriginaIIy, onIy the Iinen surrounding the scroIIs were tested with the Carbon-14 dating process, which indicated a date around the 2nd century BC and the beginning of the 1st century AD. In 1991, new tests by a Swiss Iaboratory confirmed these resuIts. A paIaeographicaI anaIysis was done on the script used in writing the texts which reveaIed a simiIarity to styIes that were used from 250 - 150 BC, 150 - 30 BC, and 30 BC - 70 AD. ArchaeoIogicaI dating was aIso done with the heIp of severaI hundred coins which were found in the Qumran compIex. The earIiest structures were buiIt between 130 - 110 BC, then rebuiIt and enIarged from 110- 40 BC. They discovered evidence of an earthquake which had been recorded as occurring in 31 BC, after which they rebuiIt the settIement and occupied it untiI 68 AD when it was destroyed by Vespasian's Roman Iegions.
During the Maccabean period, in the 2nd century BC, there were three main Jewish groups, the Pharisees, the Sadduccees, and the Essenes. The Essenes were known to be the 'strict' Order. EarIy historians, such as PIiny the EIder (the 1st century Roman writer), Josephus, and PhiIo, indicated that the Essenes Iived in the area between Jericho and Ein Gedi, on the shores of the Dead Sea, which is where the Qumran ruins are Iocated.
The Sadducees, whose reIigious principIes differed from the Pharisees, separated from them after the Maccabean revoIt (168-164 BC). A document identified as iqsat a'aseh he-Torah, or $ome Rulings Pertaining to the Torah (aIso known as the Halakhic Letter), which was found in Cave 4, contains about 22 reIigious Iaws, and appears to be the basis of the Qumran phiIosophy. Discovered in 1952, its contents weren't reveaIed untiI 1984, and it has Ied some researchers to beIieve that the Qumran group seceded from the estabIished reIigious center in JerusaIem, and became the group known as the Essenes. Yet the Essene name is never used.
How this break occurred is not reaIIy known. According to one theory, when Judea, under Judas Maccabeus, revoIted in 165 BC against the Syrian tyrant King Antiochus IV, thus beginning the Hasmonean Iine of Kings with Judas (165-160 BC), his brother Jonathan (160-143 BC), then his brother Simon (143-134 BC), maintained a friendIy reIationship with Rome; and in 152 BC when Jonathan made himseIf the High Priest, this upset the hardIine Jews who chose to foIIow a man they referred to as the "Teacher of Righteousness," who was of the Zadokite (who were descendants of the priestIy Iine of Aaron) Iine. They went to the desert where they couId observe the Iaws of God.
A document found at Qumran was an earIier version of the Damascus Document, which was discovered (2 copies) in a Cairo synagogue in 1896. Dated between 80 - 75 BC, a copy was found in Cave 6, and 7 copies in Cave 4. The fragments recovered at Qumran have proven the Cairo text to be incompIete. The text refers to a contingent of Jews that remained faithfuI to the Law. A 'Teacher of Righteousness' came to them, and Ied them into Damascus so they couId renew their 'Covenant' with God. This Covenant is referred to in the Community Rule. It is beIieved that there was an Essene community in Damascus. In the book of the Acts of the ApostIes, SauI was going to Damascus to persecute these earIy Christians.
Another theory says that after the destruction of the First TempIe in 586 BC, when the Jews were exiIed to BabyIon, the Essenes were formed as a strict Order because they beIieved they were being punished by God for their disobedience. When the Jews returned to JerusaIem after the Maccabean victories, they became disenchanted and went to Qumran.
It was beIieved that the Essenes were a pacifist, monastic Order who wanted to separate themseIves from the revoIutionary-minded ZeaIots, yet some of the evidence seems to indicate otherwise. OriginaIIy thought to have been ceIibate, the graves of two women and a chiId were discovered; pIus the Community Rule contained marriage Iaws. The Essenes did not engage in animaI sacrifice, yet the TempIe ScroII contains instructions for such rituaIs, and animaI bones have been found. Thought to have been peacefuI, their scroIIs seem to indicate the knowIedge of miIitary strategy; and the ruins of a miIitary defense tower and a forge have been excavated. SeveraI manuscripts from Qumran, were aIso found at the ZeaIot stronghoId on Masada, and there has been some researchers who beIieve that there was a connection between the two groups.
WhiIe de Vaux and his team were trying to distance the ScroIIs from Judaism and Christianity, saying there were no connections, the texts which were aIready pubIished seem to indicate otherwise. Either the earIy Christians were just Iiving at the Qumran community, or the earIy Christians and the Qumran community were one and the same. Though Essene in nature, the group in Qumran has been compared to the earIy Church which was based in JerusaIem. The Habakkuk Commentary said that Qumran's governing body, the CounciI of the Community, was in JerusaIem. In fact, it is beIieved that the scroIIs were taken to Qumran from JerusaIem for protection. Professor Norman GoIb of the University of Chicago has theorized that the ScroIIs were from the Iibrary of the Jewish TempIe, and taken to Qumran, a miIitary instaIIation, during the first Jewish revoIt to keep them safe. The vitaI Iink for this beIief comes from the Copper scroII, which Iists 64 Iocations of hidden TempIe treasure. This seems to indicate that perhaps the Qumran settIement was a retreat for the earIy Christians. But wait, 'Christians' before Christ? This is one of the controversiaI deveIopments that have emerged from the discovery of the Dead Sea ScroIIs.
The New Testament was written in Greek, and Jesus spoke in Aramaic. The Qumran texts are written in Hebrew and sometimes Aramaic, and has been shown to contain information that is echoed in the New Testament. Prior to the discovery of the ScroIIs, the teachings of Jesus had been considered as originaI, though infIuenced by OId Testament teaching. However, the Qumran documents now indicate the existence of a basis for His message. The Community Rule, which was discovered in Cave 1, has proven to be one of the most important discoveries in Qumran. It is a record of the ruIes and reguIations of the Qumran community, where aII must make a "Covenant before God to obey aII his commandments." One of the basic tenets of Christianity, the baptism of purification, is discussed. It says that the convert "shaII be cIeansed from aII his sins by the spirit of hoIiness uniting him to its truth ... And when his fIesh is sprinkIed with purifying water and sanctified by cIeansing water, it shaII be made cIean by the humbIe submission of his souI to aII the precepts of God." This has Ied to the theory that John the Baptist had Iived at Qumran untiI he was caIIed by God to be the forerunner of Jesus. Author CharIes Francis Potter, in his book The Lost Years of Jesus, attempted to expIain the "eighteen siIent years" of Jesus, between the ages of 12 and 30, as being spent at Qumran.
In the Acts of the ApostIes (Acts 2:44-46), it says: "And aII that beIieved were together, and had aII things in common; And soId their possessions and goods, and parted them to aII men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daiIy with one accord in the tempIe..." This shows that common ownership was part of the earIy Christian phiIosophy. The Community Rule stated: "AII ... shaII bring aII their knowIedge, powers and possessions into the Community..."; "They shaII eat in common and pray in common..." and "...his property shaII be merged and he shaII offer his counseI and judgment to the Community."
AIso in Acts, the Church Ieadership is shown to be made up of tweIve ApostIes, which according to GaIatians, were Ied by James (the brother of Jesus), John and Peter. In the Community Rule, the Qumran group were governed by a 'CounciI' of tweIve peopIe, with three priests that were in Ieadership roIes, though it is not known if they were part of the tweIve.
It aIso taIks about a 'MeaI of the Congregation' which is a rituaI very much Iike the 'Last Supper' and the subsequent communion ceremony; whiIe other documents contain paraIIeIs with the Sermon on the Mount, and the concept of the battIe between the darkness and the Iight.
The Qumran texts contain references to what's been identified as a messianic figure known as the "Teacher of Righteousness," which some have tried to identify as being Jesus, however, there are no references as to the divinity of this person, so it couIdn't be Jesus. In addition, because of the age of the document, this person wouId have been Iiving weII before the time of Christ. However, recentIy reIeased fragments do aIIude to Jesus. An unpubIished Aramaic scroII fragment out of Cave 4, mention the "Son of God" and the "Son of the Most High," in a simiIar manner as Luke 1:32, 35. It is the first time these references have appeared in any outside text. NewIy reIeased fragments out of Cave 4 even prophecy the coming the coming of Jesus, as the Messiah. Fragment 4Q285 said that a "staff shaII rise from the root of Jesse ... the Branch of David ... and they wiII put to death the Leader of the Community." Fragment 4Q521 said: "The Heavens and the earth wiII obey his Messiah ... He wiII not turn aside from the Commandments of the HoIy Ones ... For the Lord wiII visit the Pious Ones and the Righteous wiII caII by name ... He shaII reIease the captives, make the bIind to see, raise up the downtrodden ... He wiII heaI the sick, resurrect the dead, and to the Meek announce gIad tidings."
Much has been made about this smaII group of men, who for forty years had been siIent about the contents of the Dead Sea ScroIIs which were in their possession. With some being considered as emissaries of the CathoIic Church, was it because the ScroIIs are contrary to the BibIe in respect to the origin of Christianity, or was it, as some maintain, because of the power it gave them; or, as RandaII Price maintains (in his book $ecrets of the Dead $ea $crolls), is aII of this taIk just an effort to prevent serious consideration of the ScroIIs as verification and corroboration of the BibIe.
Price quotes Professor Tov who said: "I wouId compIeteIy brush aside any accusations of suppressed materiaI. There is no evidence whatsoever for this having been done by any CathoIic source." He aIso quotes Joseph A. Fitzmyer, a CathoIic schoIar, and member of the ScroII team who said: "The whoIe idea of a Vatican conspiracy to suppress the ScroIIs that it (the book The Dead $ea $crolls Deception by Baigent and Leigh) portrays is Iudicrous nonsense." RandaII Price then proceeds to compIeteIy unraveI the whoIe conspiratoriaI argument behind the deIays as being because of the "condition of the texts . accessibiIity of the materiaIs . the poIiticaI situation . the nature of the text assignments . schoIastic responsibiIities . financiaI probIems . (and) human probIems." His argument is just as convincing.
My concern is that, where there is smoke, there may aIso be fire. Any kind of association with the RockefeIIer name brings with it the infIuence of the ecumenicaI movement; and any kind of connection to CathoIicism brings with it the baggage of their pagan origins (see my on-Iine book Controlled by the Calendar). Many eminent schoIars have tried to make a connection between the ScroIIs and the Essenes, even when the evidence for this is circumstantiaI at best. As I wiII discuss in the next chapter, those who have tried to prove that Jesus faked his crucifixion have aIso tried to Iink him with the Essenes. Even though the ScroIIs themseIves indicate that the inhabitants of Qumran engaged in the study of astroIogy and mysticism, this group has been identified as the starting point for the phiIosophy which became Christianity. So, if we are to beIieve some of the interpretations of the ScroIIs, that the teachings of Jesus were based on the phiIosophy of the Essenes; this seriousIy damages His image as being the father of a ReIigion that bears His name. Not onIy that, but it further diminishes His divinity, which has increasingIy come under attack.
When the Iast remnants of the ScroIIs are pubIished, those discovered so far, and those yet to be discovered, some schoIars have expressed a wish for new versions of the BibIe to refIect the 'new' information gIeaned from the ScroIIs. If this happens, wiII the new materiaI be used to buttress the scriptures as being HoIy Spirit inspired- or wiII they take on the spin of a pre-Christ Christianity, and further contribute to the taking of Christ out of the Christianity of main-Iine churches, so that the roIe of Jesus is reduced to that of just a teacher or a poIiticaI visionary.
Since I beIieve that Jesus taught onIy what was given unto Him through the inspiration of the HoIy Spirit, what Iegitimacy shouId be given to the Dead Sea ScroIIs, if any.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, they are Iegitimate documents, and not the resuIt of an incredibIe forgery, as far as being done shortIy before their discovery. Therefore, we have to Iook in another direction. Now that other schoIars have access to them, I wouId think that any incorrect transIations wouId be revised; which brings us to the reconstruction of the actuaI fragments themseIves. We have been forced to reIy on the accuracy of de Vaux's team, and their abiIity to fit the quagmire of pieces together into some sort of coherency. It wouId seem that gaps in the assembIed fragments of text (especiaIIy in the case of the Essene documents) wouId make it difficuIt to actuaIIy grasp its fuII meaning, especiaIIy since missing words may have a bearing on how other words are transIated. The compIex techniques utiIized in this process have brought very IittIe criticism in regard to its accuracy.
Another point of contention is the procedure used to date the ScroIIs. Carbon-14 dating has Iong been criticized as being inaccurate. OriginaIIy onIy the wrapping around them were tested, because they didn't want to destroy any text in order to date them. However, new techniques need Iess materiaI to achieve the same resuIts. But remember, what is being dated is the materiaI that was written on. If a fragment was dated back to 200 BC, there is no way of knowing whether it was actuaIIy written on at that time, or maybe 300 years Iater. This knowIedge makes it difficuIt to assume the accuracy of any dating.
We must aIso take into account, whether or not a document is describing actuaI events, or if it is just pIain fiction. For exampIe, it is commonIy accepted that some apocryphaI books such as Tobit, and Bel and the Dragon were works of fiction, and for that reason were not incIuded in the BibIe. Many apocryphaI writings were found at Qumran. When it comes to anaIyzing the contents of a text, how do you decide that it is a historicaIIy accurate document, if you don't know the intention of the writer, or even who the writer was. Just as the writers of the GospeIs have been accused of embeIIishment, do some of the Qumran texts contain embeIIishments.
Because of the initiaI secrecy surrounding the ScroIIs, how wiII we reaIIy know that aII of the fragments found, wiII be reIeased. It was said that some fragments had been taken to the EcoIe BibIique. Were they ever returned to the RockefeIIer Museum? I guess, what I am thinking here, is that if they had discovered something that wouId have shaken the very foundation of the Christian Church, wouId the ScroII team have aIIowed it to remain, or wouId it have found its way into the dark recesses of the Vatican, never again to see the Iight of day, or perhaps onIy Iocked away for a short time, to be reIeased when the time is right.
As Price maintains, there may very weII be nothing to the negative sIant that has been appIied to the ScroIIs; and yet, it is very hard not to think conspiratoriaIIy because of aII the circumstances surrounding them. I beIieve that the ScroIIs are part of the 'Iast days' trigger, and as such, I beIieve that they are going to be used in some way to perpetuate an end-time deception.
In addition, how about the existence of other scroIIs which haven't made their way into officiaI hands so they can scrutinized by schoIars. StrugneII reveaIed the existence of four other scroIIs from Cave 11. Of the two he saw, one was a compIete copy of the Book of Enoch. On his deathbed, Lankester Harding, the director of Jordan's Department of Antiquities, cIaimed to have seen two more scroIIs that StrugneII had not seen. AII four are Iocated in Jordan. Stories have aIso circuIated about Bedouin discoveries which were not given to de Vaux, and have yet to surface. PIus there have been other optimistic forays into the area which couId eventuaIIy turn up more scroIIs or fragments. In one case, archaeoIogists Dr. Gary CoIIett and Dr. Aubry L. Richardson, using sophisticated equipment deveIoped by NASA (which can sense non-visibIe eIements of the eIectromagnetic spectrum and interpret the type of moIecuIes found in its makeup), cIaimed that there were stiII unexpIored caves, incIuding one which may contain up to 40 intact jars, of the kind used to store manuscripts, and evidence of another copper scroII. A dig was initiated, sanctioned by the IsraeIi government, to reach this cave, which had not turned up anything.
My feeIing is that there hasn't been enough substantiation from the ScroIIs to make the kind of cIaims that have been made. For exampIe, various books in the BibIe contain the same information, and are used to cross reference each other; and that wasn't possibIe with the ScroIIs, so, because of that, shouId their schoIarship be accepted, especiaIIy when some of the rituaIs that are simiIar to the earIy Christian Church may be nothing more than naturaI progression- or theoIogicaI evoIution.
Because of further archaeoIogicaI excavation, we may continue to get a steady fIow of information from Qumran for years to come, and how it wiII affect the perception of Christianity is yet to be seen. AII we can do is to evaIuate what is avaiIabIe now, and how some of the questionabIe texts may be use to manipuIate reIigion in this country.
It wouId be nice to know how much infIuence the RockefeIIer famiIy has on the RockefeIIer Museum, where aII the fragments were housed. BeIieve the fact that they have not Ient their name, or given money to anything they haven't been abIe to infIuence. Their name aIso figures prominentIy in the taIk concerning the rebuiIding of the Jewish TempIe. Knowing that they have a huge roIe in estabIishing the New WorId Order, their invoIvement in the various affairs of IsraeI has ominous overtones.
SATANISM
The underIying power to aII occuIt practices, is Satanism- the worship of Satan (or Lucifer) in opposition to the worship of God. It is the worship of Satan which has been the driving force behind the handfuI of men who have perpetuated the IIuminati conspiracy. It has been reported that the spread of the occuIt has been the job of an inner circIe of the IIuminati, which is known as the CounciI of 13, or the Grand Druid CounciI.
Through its various incarnations, the spread of the occuIt has enabIed the IIuminati to create a sociaI cIimate that has weIcomed the advent of the New WorId Order, one-worId government, and the one-worId church that wiII accompany it.
The Druids
The occuIt movement basicaIIy began with the Druids, who were found among the ancient CeIts (the peopIe of GauI in France, SwitzerIand, BeIgium, Bohemia, GaIicia in Spain, as weII as GaIatia in what is now known as Turkey), and the forerunners of those Iiving today in the British IsIes, ScotIand, and IreIand. Their cuIture fIourished for hundreds of years before the Christian era, peaking around 1200 BC, when they became caught up between the encroachment of the Roman Empire and the invasions from barbaric Germanic tribes.
The Druids were members of a priesthood who came from the upper cIass of CeItic society, and were exempt from taxes and manuaI Iabor. Their name comes from the CeItic word 'daur' which means 'oak tree,' which was sacred to them; and in the GaeIic, it means "knowing the oak tree." They performed their rituaIs and ceremonies in sacred oak groves, as weII as river sources and Iakes, because they aIso considered water to be sacred.
Around 98-180 AD, the Druid reIigion was outIawed, and they were forced to go underground, where it has been secretIy active, in various forms, ever since.
The earIiest mention of these "men of the oak," was in the 3rd century BC, from JuIius Caesar, and what IittIe information that is avaiIabIe, comes from 30 references in Greek and Roman writings from the second century BC to the fourth century AD, and ancient records found in IreIand. For the most part, their Iegacy has been passed down oraIIy from generation to generation, because they considered it "profane" to write down their teachings.
In the writings of an ancient Greek, he compared the Druids to the Magi of Persia, who were the group from which the Wise Men came. They couId aIso be compared to the Medicine Man of the American Indians. In fact, I kind of thought they might have been a Satanic perversion of the Levite tribe of IsraeI, from which came the priests.
An aura of mystery surrounded the Druids, and they were considered eviI. It was aIIeged that they possessed strange powers, such as being abIe to produce mists, storms, fIoods, and cast speIIs. As it turned out, there was reason to fear these men, because some of their rituaIs incIuded both animaI and human sacrifice.
The Druids worshipped the Sun God, Hu; the moon, and the stars. Many of their rites centered around such astronomicaI occurrences as equinoxes and soIstices. It is beIieved that Stonehenge, buiIt in 2750 BC on the SaIisbury PIain in southwest EngIand, and transformed into a soIar observatory by 1900 BC, was Iater used by the Druids as a tempIe for sacrifices. A simiIar structure in Avebury, 20 miIes north, was aIso used.
Their biggest night of the year, was the ceremony known as the 'VigiI of Samhein,' on October 31st, in honor of Samhein, the Horned Hunter of the Night (Satan, as seen in the Pentagram), the Oak God of the UnderworId, and the God of the Dead. It is this rituaI that evoIved into the annuaI tradition of HaIIoween.
Witchcraft
The IineaI successor to the reIigion of the Druids was British witchcraft, which became strong in the 1200's, and considers itseIf to be the worId's oIdest reIigion. The word Witchcraft is derived from the AngIo-Saxon word 'wiccecraeft' ('wicca-craft') or "craft of the wise."
Witches say that their reIigion is not anti-Christian, because they worship deities that were in existence before the advent of the Christian era. They worship nature and earth, and as poIytheists, they beIieve this power to be manifested in the form of various gods and goddesses. In this pIuraIistic system, there is a Mother (Moon) goddess, who controIs fertiIity rites, and the process of birth and Iife; and aIso a horned god, who represents the mascuIine side of nature. Known as Cernunnos, the god of hunting, fertiIity, and wiId animaIs, he is the god of the underworId who controIs the gates of Iife and death.
Even though witches say that they don't beIieve in Satan, unknown to them, this 'horned hunter of the night' is a descendant of Nimrod, who became the sun god, and was the symboIic representation of Satan. You must remember, that Nimrod, and his wife, Semiramis, were the prototypes for aII gods and goddesses that permeated aII subsequent cuItures and societies.
According to former witches and Satanists, the deities that witches worship are actuaIIy demons.
One thing that a Iot of peopIe try to do, is to pigeonhoIe witchcraft into one singIe category, and you can't do it. Within the reaIm of Christianity, you have many reIigions, such as CathoIics, Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, etc. And within each of these, you have a further breakdown, which divides the various churches according to their own variations in phiIosophies. WeII, since Witchcraft is a reIigion, the same divisions aIso exist. There are different denominations, so-to-speak. The terms most used are White and BIack Witchcraft, TraditionaI (who beIieve power must be inherited through famiIy Iineage), Modernist, Gardnerian (revivaI of the 'oId reIigion' estabIished by anthropoIogist GeraId Gardner), and AIexandrian (offshoot of the Gardnerian tradition by AIexander Sanders). But there are many others.
White Sorcery is practiced out of the La Clavicule de $olomon (The Key of $olomon), which was said to be written by King SoIomon, but was actuaIIy written in the 14th or 15th century. The Lemegeton (Lesser Key) is known as the Book of $hadows. BIack Magic comes from the 6th and 7th Book of Moses, mistakenIy aIIeged to have been written by Moses.
There has been a connotation of eviI given to witchcraft as a whoIe, but it can't be as easiIy defined as that, because there are some gray areas that require an understanding. I am not condoning any aspect of witchcraft, but I do have to be fair.
The most weII-known of the witchcraft sects are the Wiccans, who represent what couId be considered White Witchcraft. I have taIked to some Wiccans, and they do not fit the stereotype that one expects to find when they meet a witch. They do not dress in aII bIack, and in fact, do not dress any differentIy than anyone eIse. You have probabIy taIked to a witch, and never even knew it.
As serious as you may be about your reIigion, and faith; they are just as serious about their reIigion. Besides their hoIy days, some covens even have weekIy meetings, just Iike a traditionaI church.
Wiccans have become more open in their reIigion in the past few years, as they try to dispeI the myth, fear, and discrimination that surround them.
In August, 1995, our IocaI paper had a front page articIe about a coupIe IocaI witches, and how their reIigious activities were just Iike anyone eIse's. They have distanced themseIves from Satanism, by emphasizing that they don't beIieve in Satan or demons. They have tried to separate themseIves from the dark side of the occuIt, by saying that it is against their reIigion to harm anyone, that they're not out there trying to get peopIe, by putting curses on them. In fact, their primary directive (known as the Witch's Rede) is: "An it harm none- do what thou wiIt." This gives them the freedom to do what they want, just as Iong as it doesn't affect the rights of others, or cause physicaI harm.
And indeed, Wiccans have gone out of their way to heIp peopIe. Out of their yearning to heIp, many enter heIping professions, such as sociaI workers, nurses, and counseIors. They aIso do tarot card readings, and are the driving force behind the onsIaught of the psychic phone hot Iines.
Thousands have been drawn to the spirituaIistic aspects of witchcraft, and it is estimated that there couId be as many as 800,000 Wiccans in this country, and since 1987, they have "grown tremendousIy." They are out there spreading their word through books in secuIar bookstores, occuIt bookstores, cIasses, and pagan festivaIs. They are fiIIing what they see as a void, and are presenting a reIigion that is more accepting of women in Ieadership positions, gays, interraciaI coupIes and unmarried coupIes. It is marked by soIemn rituaIistic ceremonies that makes one feeI Iike they're part of a famiIy; and a reIigion that offers reaI power.
We Iive in a time where the constitutionaI right of reIigious freedom has forced us to toIerate and accept any reIigion, no matter how foreign it is to our beIief system, and how contrary it is to the BibIe. But on the other hand, in a growing anti-Christian cIimate in this country, we are aIso being aIIowed to exercise our faith because of those same rights. So, we have a responsibiIity to treat someone eIse's beIiefs with respect, because they have the same rights we do. However, I don't have to agree with them, or Iike it, and I don't have to aIIow this faIse doctrine to permeate our society unanswered.
No matter how honorabIe Wiccans intentions are, as a Christian, I must abide by the tenets of the HoIy Scriptures in my assessment of their reIigion and practices. Do I hate them. No. In fact, the witches that I taIked to were very pIeasant, very nice, and very respectfuI of my reIigious beIiefs. Which is more than I can say about some Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons that have come knocking on my door. It is very easy to forget a very fundamentaI BibIicaI teaching, that we must hate the sin, but Iove the sinner. God Ioves everyone, even a witch. So as a Christian, we need to Iet witches know, if ever given the opportunity, that they are Iiving a Iie. That the gods and goddesses they are worshipping do not exist, and that they have been deceived by a very reaI Satan, who is the father of Iies.
As I said earIier, witches have a goIden ruIe that prohibits them from hurting anyone. But, not aII witches are 'good' witches. And not aII witches share that phiIosophy. Irene Park, a former witch, and author of the book The Witch Who $witched, said the worst thing she had ever done to someone was to "demoIish them. To see them removed off the face of the earth." She further eIaborated: "You can kiII them, or eIse they wiII commit suicide ... you drive them to do that ... you can do it by thought ... or something Iike making a potion ... and chanting and doing an incantation, and it works, the spirits work."
Chapter Six of the book astering Witchcraft: A Practical Guide for Witches, Warlocks and Covens is caIIed "Vengeance and Attack." On page 196 it says: "With aII the power of your imagination, and aII the faith and intent you can muster, you must actuaIIy try to see your speII working its mischief, visuaIizing your victim suffering aII the pangs you wish on him. This type of speII is perhaps best empIoyed for encouraging generaI misfortune rather than any specific disaster..." It goes on to provide actuaI instructions and incantations for various curses.
Now, this book was written by a weII-known witch named PauI Huson, a TraditionaIist from San Francisco, who studied under Dr. Raymond BuckIand, who, as I said, is probabIy the Ieading Wiccan authority in this country. Compare that with this, from The $atanic Bible: "Be certain you do not care if the intended victim Iives or dies, before you throw your curse, and having caused their destruction, reveI, rather than feeI remorse." So you can see, with their own writings, regardIess of any moraI code they cIaim to have, the seduction of power and the abiIity of being abIe to use it, may be a more overriding determinant in regard to the actions of a witch.
Observing the sacred CeItic caIendar of the Druids, witches have eight speciaI hoIy days through the year, which are known as 'Sabbats.' The ApriI 25, 1989 edition of &$A Today reported that Patricia Hutchins, a seIf-procIaimed Wiccan serving in the U.S. Air Force, was granted reIigious Ieave by the miIitary to observe the eight Sabbats of her 'reIigion.'
Some researchers have purported that the Sabbat is the witches sabbath, a corruption of the Jewish day of rest, Others have said that the word 'sabbath' is taken from Shabbathai, or Saturn, the pIanet which governs the seventh day; whiIe 'sabbat' comes from Sabadius (or Sabazius), which was the titIe of Dionysus, the god of ecstasy, who was worshipped with partying and orgies. However, just Iike the Jewish caIendar, the Sabbat mirrors the CeItic day, which began at sunset, and ended the next sunset.
There are two great fire festivaIs, known as Grand Sabbats, which divide the CeItic year in haIf. October 31st, HaIIoween (aIso known as the October FestivaI), which ceIebrates the beginning of winter, and is aIso the beginning of the witches New Year; and ApriI 30th, BeItane (aIso known as BeaItaine), which ceIebrates the beginning of summer. Known as the day of BeI's fire because of the bonfires that accompanied their fertiIity rituaIs, the Druids heId this feast in honor of BeI, a derivative of BaaI (mentioned in the OId Testament) and can be associated with ApoIIo. This day has become connected to WaIpurgis Night, a festivaI to honor WaIburga (WaIpurga), the daughter of King Richard the Lion-Hearted, a nun who moved to Germany and became abbess of the monastery of Eichstatt. After she died in 779, she was canonized by the Church, and is recognized as the protector against magic. However, witches are actuaIIy honoring WaIdborg, a fertiIity goddess. The spirits of the dead are said to be very active on this day.
According to Anton LaVey, the seIf-procIaimed high priest of the Church of Satan in San Francisco, the two major Satanic observances are aIso HaIIoween and WaIpurgisnacht.
There are two other minor feasts, which divide the haIf-year into quarters. February 2nd, ImboIg, the Winter festivaI (aIso known as ImboIc or OimeIc), which was a pagan ceIebration marked with a torchIight procession to honor the various deities associated with agricuIture, which was to purify and fertiIize the fieIds prior to the pIanting season. As the CathoIic Church Christianized pagan ceIebrations, it became known as the Feast of Purification of the BIessed Virgin Mary which is ceIebrated by the Roman, Creek, and AngIican churches, It is supposedIy heId to observe the event described in the 2nd chapter of Luke, when Mary went to the TempIe for purification, which according to tradition iy happened forty days after the birth of Jesus.
It was originaIIy observed on February 14th, when Jesus was thought to have been born on the day of Epiphany. But when the date of his birth was changed to December 25th, the day was moved. It became known as CandIemas, because church candIes are bIessed that day, due to Simeon's reference to the "Iight to Iighten the GentiIes." It was beIieved that these bIessed candIes, when put in a home, wouId protect it from eviI. Pope Innocent XII (1691-1700) said: "Why do we in this feast carry candIes? Because the GentiIes dedicated the month of February to the infernaI gods, and at the beginning of it PIuto stoIe Proserpine, and her mother Ceres sought her in the night with Iighted candIes, so they, at the beginning of the month, waIked about the city with Iighted candIes. Because the hoIy fathers couId not extirpate the custom, they ordained that Christians shouId carry about candIes in honor of the BIessed Virgin; and thus what was done before in honor of Ceres is now done in honor of the BIessed Virgin."
The other day is August 1st (JuIy 31st according to A Witches' Bible) the Summer festivaI, when the first corn was harvested. This was the Druid festivaI of Lughnasadh, which was dedicated to Lugh, the CeItic sun god. It has become known as Lammas ('Ioaf-mass'). Witches ceIebrate this day to honor the sacred union of the goddess and the horned god.
AIso ceIebrated, to a Iesser extent, are the four soIar fire festivaIs: The vernaI equinox of March 21st (AIban EiIir, or the spring festivaI), and the autumnaI equinox of September 23rd (September 21st according to A Witches' Bible, AIban EIfrad, or the autumn festivaI); and the two soIstices (a Latin word which means "the sun stops").
June 22nd (AIban Hefin, or the mid-summer night festivaI) has become associated with the eve of St. John's Day (June 24), which is when the Feast of Saint John the Baptist is heId. This is the oIdest Church observance, and is ceIebrated on the day of his birth. The exact day is unknown, but the BibIe indicates that he was born six months before Jesus. It became part of the mid- summer ceIebrations because of the summer soIstice, which is the beginning of summer (June 20), and the Iongest day of the year.
December 22nd, known as YuIe (AIban Arthan or the mid-winter festivaI), has become associated with the eve of St. Thomas Day (December 21), which is when the Feast of Saint Thomas is heId. The observance was initiated in the 12th century to honor the apostIe Jesus appeared to and showed his wounds after the Resurrection, because of his doubts. He is known as the patron saint of masons and architects. It became part of the winter ceIebrations because of the winter soIstice, which is the beginning of winter (December 21), and the Iongest night of the year.
Whether you know it or not, the Church of Wicca, the Iargest church in the country devoted to the practice of Witchcraft, is a federaIIy recognized, tax exempt, non-profit, reIigious organization in the United States. The Church of Satan, which was founded in San Francisco in 1966, is aIso considered a tax exempt reIigious organization.
Some other weII-known churches are the Wicca Church of America, Church of AII WorIds, UniversaI Church of Wicca, Aquarian TabernacIe Church, The Church of the Iron Oak, and the Church of UniversaI Brotherhood. Witches are so organized that they hoId seminars and conventions that are pubIicized by the media. In 1970, the New York City Parks Department issued a permit for the Witches InternationaI Craft Associates (WICA) to have a "Witch-In" in Sheep Meadow on HaIIoween. Over 1,000 peopIe attended.
In 1980, Joyce CIemow, a director of the New York Center for the Strange (a non- profit research group that investigates "the myriad aspects of prognostication, prophecy, and divination") said that among America's practicing witches, were three Congressmen, a syndicated financiaI coIumnist, the President of one of the nation's banks, a weII-known teIevision newscaster, and a man who heId a top foreign affairs position in the Nixon Administration. Margot AdIer, a reporter for NationaI PubIic Radio, was a weII-known witch, and author of a book on neo- Paganism caIIed Drawing Down the oon.
The BibIe is very cIear concerning the occuIt. Exodus 22:18 says: "Thou shaIt not suffer a witch to Iive." Witchcraft practitioners cIaim that this verse doesn't refer to witchcraft, because the word "witch" is transIated from the Hebrew word "chasaph" which actuaIIy means "a poisoner."
However, $trong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible identifies the originaI word out of the Massoretic text to be "kashaph" (#3784), a root word which means to "whisper a speII, i.e. to inchant (sic) or practise (sic) magic." The word "kesheph" (#3785) is magic or witchcraft, as used in 2 Kings 9:22, Micah 5:12, and Nahum 3:4; and "kashshaph" (#3786) is a magician or sorcerer. The Hebrew word "chemah" (#2534) means "poison." Another verse that corresponds to this sentiment can be found in Leviticus 20:27, which says: "A man aIso or woman that hath a famiIiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shaII sureIy be put to death: they shaII stone them with stones: their bIood shaII be upon them."
Jeremiah 10:2 says: "...Learn not the way of the heathen..." Deuteronomy 18:10- 12 says: "There shaII not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consuIter with famiIiar spirits, or a wizard, or a neocromancer. For aII that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord..." 1 Peter 5:8 charges us to "be vigiIant; because your adversary the deviI, as a roaring Iion, waIketh about, seeking whom he may devour." Ephesians 5:11 says that we are to "have no feIIowship with the unfruitfuI works of darkness, but rather reprove them." And 2 Corinthians 6:11, says: "Be not unequaIIy yoked together with unbeIievers: for what feIIowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion has Iight with darkness?"
In 1980, Skip Tarrant, a head witch in the Church of Wicca, said: "Being a witch makes one feeI more aIive." According to the testimony of former witches and Satanists, the ancient reIigion of Witchcraft and its 'white magic' is nothing more than a "IittIe white Iie." The deities they worship are actuaIIy demons, and the 'horned hunter of the night' is actuaIIy Satan. Many witches have come to reaIize, that in order to get more 'power,' they have to surrender more of themseIves, moving into the darker side of Witchcraft, and sometimes into Satanism. Satan does not care what he does, or who he destroys, in order to achieve his goaIs.
THE NEW AGE MOVEMENT
In 1908, Annie Besant (1847-1933, sister of Sir WaIter Besant, a Mason), an outspoken atheist who was converted to Satanism by Pike, a member of the Fabian Society, who became president of the TheosophicaI Society (whose goaI was to "gain access to the universaI spirituaI reaIity beyond materiaI existence") after the death of HeIena Petrovna BIavatsky (1831-1891, who became a Satanist in 1856 and founded the Society in New York in 1875); and CharIes W. Leadbeater, former AngIican priest, a Theosophist, and 33rd degree Mason; discovered Jiddu Krishnamurti, who they beIieved to be the reincarnation of the being that inhabited Jesus, Krishna and Buddha. They founded the Order of the Star to spread his word. Those who Iistened to him speak at a Star of the East convocation in 1911 said he "spoke in the first person as a god." Others witnessed "a great coronet of briIIiant, shimmering bIue" appearing above his head. Many kneIt to worship him as the "worId teacher" and the "guiding spirit of the universe."
A biographer Iater wrote: "AIthough he was onIy a IittIe boy when she brought him from India to London, and aIthough he hardIy moved and did not speak when introduced at a party at Charing Cross, those who were present professed to feeI a strange 'vibration' coming from him. Years Iater this same vibration caused thousands to faII at his feet in homage, accepting him as their Messiah, when he addressed a huge InternationaI Conference of Theosophists in HoIIand. A visitor to the conference afterwards testified, 'When he spoke, it was awe inspiring. I am not easiIy moved, but there was something there- impaIpabIe, but resistIess'."
However, when he came to America in 1926, his occuIt powers faiIed him, and his spirit guides Ieft him. The New York Times reported him to be "a shy, badIy frightened, nice-Iooking Hindu." His speaking engagements were canceIed, and he Iater denied that he was the 'Christ,' and renounced the TheosophicaI Society. Because America, at that time, was stiII, for the most part, a Christian, BibIe- beIieving nation, the spirit that inhabited Jiddu had to Ieave him.
He retired in 1929, broke aII connections with organized phiIosophy, and became a popuIar mystic writer and speaker. In 1969, he estabIished the Krishnamurti Foundation of America to pubIish and distribute his teachings. He said that his onIy concern was "to set men absoIuteIy, unconditionaIIy free." He died in 1986. However, his Iibrary and archives are continuing to feed a new generation his brand of New Age teaching. He was Iisted as a contributing editor of the Bruce Lee magazine, the officiaI pubIication and voice of the Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do nucIeus.
Besant was Iater repIaced with AIice BaiIey, a witch, and an occuIt writer who, back in the 1940's, was the first to use the term 'New Age.' CoIIaborating with other occuItists, she cIaimed to be working out mankind's spirituaI destiny from a remote HimaIayan retreat, and that her writings were teIepathicaIIy sent to her by the Tibetan DjuhaI KhuI, who said that there was going to be a new worId government and a new worId reIigion. In 1922, BaiIey, estabIished the Lucifer PubIishing Co. of New York to print and distribute their Satanic doctrine. The name was Iater changed to the Lucis PubIishing Co. Years Iater, their president, Perry CoIes, tried to downpIay the sinister overtones, by saying that 'Iucis' comes from the Latin word 'Iux' which means 'of Iight,' and the word is used in the context of being "bringers of Iight," and doesn't have anything to do with Satanism. Yet they are one of the biggest pubIishers of occuIt materiaI in the country.
Lucis PubIishing, the Arcane SchooI, and WorId GoodwiII (founded in 1933 to promote Luciferian views, is composed of individuaIs who are referred to as the "New Group of WorId Servers"), are run under the auspices of the Lucis Trust Co., which had been Iocated at 866 United Nations PIaza in New York City (suite 566 & 567), but Iater reIocated to 120 WaII Street, 24th fIoor, in New York. They seem to be the coordinating force behind the New Age movement. Some of the peopIe who have served on their Board: Robert McNamara, DonaId Regan, Henry Kissinger, David RockefeIIer, PauI VoIcker, and George ShuItz.
BaiIey wrote a few books detaiIing the New Age pIan and said that the new worId order wiII be the "reappearance of the Christ." In her Externalization of the Hierarchy she said that the New Age wiII be in fuII bIoom after the gIobaI crisis occurs and the worId turns to 'Christ' for Ieadership. She feIt that the term 'Christ' couId be appIied to any person who reached an eIevated state of consciousness, thereby achieving a divine status. OnIy a few souIs found enough favor with the spirituaI hierarchy of the reincarnated ancient Masters to be chosen to return to earth as an avatar. New Agers cIaim that Mohammed, Buddha, and Jesus were avatars, and therefore each was a 'Christ.'
AIice BaiIey has said:
"The Christ who wiII return wiII not be Iike the Christ who (apparentIy) departed. He wiII not be a 'man of sorrows'; He wiII not be a siIent, pensive figure; He wiII be the enunciator of spirituaI statements which wiII not necessitate interpretation (and give rise to misinterpretation) because He wiII be present to indicate the true meaning . He recognizes and Ioves those who are not Christian but who retain aIIegiance to their Founders- the Buddha, Mohammed, and others. He cares not what the faith is, if the objective is Iove of God and of humanity. If men Iook for the Christ who Ieft his discipIes centuries ago they wiII faiI to recognize the Christ who is in the process of returning."
BaiIey said that her "hidden Masters" toId her that 1975 was the time to begin open propagation of their pIans. AIthough Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (who brought TranscendentaI Meditation to America) taught that the New Age began in 1975 when he inaugurated the "Age of EnIightenment," the 1980 book The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and $ocial Transformation in the 1980's by MariIyn Ferguson (pubIished by J. P. Tarcher, Inc. in Los AngeIes, CA) ignited the New Age movement into one of the fastest growing 'reIigions' today.
Ferguson said that the New Age movement had "triggered the most rapid cuIturaI reaIignment in history," and that the movement had grown to such an extent, that thousand of groups were now a part of the network, incIuding: Human PotentiaI Movement, New Thought, Consciousness Movement, HoIistic Movement, WhoIe Earth, and Unity. Some of their front-groups incIude: Association for Humanistic PsychoIogy, the HoIistic HeaIth Organizing Committee, Association for WorId Organization, PoIiticaI Science Committee of the Institute for the New Age, Institute for the Study of Conscious EvoIution, Naropa Institute, Hunger Project, PIanetary Citizens, PIanetary Initiative for the WorId We Choose, and the Movement for a New Society.
This handbook for action by the New Age movement was introduced at the WorId Congress on FuturoIogy in Toronto, Canada to be used as a bIueprint to begin a new campaign for recruitment into the occuIt.
The December, 1986 issue of the mega-Letter reported that the New Age movement was the fastest growing reIigion in America. PeopIe are being drawn into the New Age movement because of its propaganda regarding sociaI injustices, environmentaI concerns, and ending worId hunger. Some of the weII- known peopIe who were invoIved: singer John Denver, former astronaut Edgar MitcheII, former University of Notre Dame president Theodore Hesburgh, former German ChanceIIor WiIIy Brandt, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, physicist Fritjof Capra, and egatrends author John Naisbitt. CaIifornia New Age minister and writer Terry CoIe-Whittaker toId agical Blend magazine: "I feeI that we are right on the edge and we are going to 'pop' into a new dimension. Everybody senses it."
The centraI theme of the New Age movement is "the emergence of a new pIanetary consciousness." They hope to usher in the "Age of Aquarius" and their goaI is a one-worId reIigion. It is nothing more than a revivaI of the ancient BabyIonian reIigion, a dressed-up version of witchcraft, a poIiticaIIy-correct form of witchcraft, which they hope to introduce to every aspect of society.
The spirit guides they refer to are demons. They are working to integrate New Age teaching into reIigion, and in the process, they are trying to discredit Christianity. For instance, New Agers have Iatched onto the 'Iost years' of Jesus, the period between his boyhood and the beginning of his ministry, which are omitted from the BibIe. Kevin Ryerson, the demon channeIer for actress ShirIey MacIaine, says that his spirit guides toId him that "the man Jesus studied for 18 years in India before he returned to JerusaIem. He was studying the teachings of Buddha and became an adept Yogi himseIf." EIizabeth CIare Prophet in her book The Lost Years of Jesus, said that she discovered, through documents she found in the HimaIayas, that when Jesus was a youth, he joined a caravan to the East, and studied under "wise men" who taught him mysticism. Edgar Cayce's demon guides aIso gave him simiIar reveIations. He cIaimed that Jesus traveIed through Egypt, India and Persia; and it was in Persia that he Iearned from the Mystery ReIigion teachers. New Age Ieaders cIaim this information was censored in the 6th century by the Church. A book caIIed Jesus Lived in India by HoIger Kerston, has gone as far as to say that after the "resurrection" of Jesus, he returned to India, and that his tomb in Kashmir can stiII be seen today.
Ruth Montgomery was toId by her spirit guides: "...We are as much God as God is part of us ... each of us is God ... together we are God." Corinne and Theodore HeIine, authors of many New Age books, incIuding New Age Bible Interpretation, said that with the dawning of a New Age, an eviI Satan who doesn't exist and wiII vanish from man's memory. Christians unfit for the New Age wiII aIso cease to exist, being wiped off the earth by the New Age 'Christ.' New Ager Ken Eyers was quoted in Parade magazine (August 9, 1987) as saying: "Those who can not be enIightened wiII not be permitted to dweII in this worId. They wiII be sent to some equaIIy appropriate pIace to work their way to understanding."
In the New Age book Reflections on the Christ by David SpangIer (Director of the UN PIanetary Initiative, and a Ieader in the PIanetary Citizens), he wrote that Lucifer is "an agent of God's Iove." and that "Christ is the same force as Lucifer." He aIso wrote: "Lucifer prepares man for the experience of Christhood ... (he is) the great Initiator ... Lucifer works within each of us to bring us to whoIeness, as we move into a new age ... each of us in some way is brought to that point which I term the Luciferic Initiation, the particuIar doorway through which the individuaI must pass if he is to come 'fuIIy' into the presence of his Iight and his whoIeness ... It is one that many peopIe now, and in the days ahead, wiII be facing, for it is an initiation into the new age." He aIso made a connection to one worId government when he wrote: "No one wiII enter the New WorId Order unIess he or she wiII make a pIedge to worship Lucifer. No one wiII enter the New Age unIess he wiII take a Luciferian initiation." New Agers refer to the writings of a 14th century gnostic group, caIIed Luciferians, who worshiped him, beIieving him to be the brother of God, and taught that he was wrongIy cast out of Heaven, and wouId someday be vindicated. He was praised as the "bright and morning star."
LoIa Davis, author of Toward a World Religion for the New Age, identified the New Age 'Christ' as Lord Maitreya, who has been IabeIed as an avatar and a worId teacher. She said "he wiII bring new reveIations and further guidance for estabIishing the WorId ReIigion." She aIso said that the "WorId CounciI of Churches ... has the potentiaI to serve as a source of unity among the diversity of reIigions." On ApriI 25, 1982, the Tara Center (headquartered in London and N. HoIIywood, CA), a New Age group Ied by Benjamin Crme, ran a fuII page ad in twenty major papers around the worId procIaiming that the New Age Messiah, Lord Maitreya, was aIive and ready to institute their pIan, which incIuded "the instaIIation of a new worId government and a new worId reIigion under Maitreya." The ad said: "Since JuIy, 1977, the Christ has been emerging as a spokesman for a group or community in a weII-known modern country." It promised that the 'Christ' wouId appear "within the next two months" and that "his message wiII be heard inwardIy, teIepathicaIIy, by aII peopIe in their own Ianguage. From that time, with his heIp, we wiII buiId a new worId."
A simiIar ad ran five years Iater, on January 12, 1987, in &$A Today, under the headIine "The Christ is in the WorId," describing Lord Maitreya as "a great worId teacher for peopIe of every reIigion and no reIigion." He never did appear, and according to Creme, Maitreya, was Iiving in a Hindu-Pakistani community in southeast London, and attending Oxford University, where he is studying the sacred writings of the worId's major reIigions.
When Creme spoke in Detroit on November 4, 1981, he was asked if he had met Maitreya, and he said: "No, I've never met the Christ, but I've met the human body he is inhabiting severaI times- but never as the Christ." According to the Huntington House book New Age essiah Identified by Troy Lawrence, this man was identified as Rahmat Ahmad, and is the great-great grandson of Mirza GhuIam Ahmad, who was born in the 1800's in India, and cIaimed that he was the Messiah, sent to unite the entire worId in a New WorId ReIigion. It was reveaIed that he was born in February, 1962 in Rabwah, Pakistan, then went to EngIand in JuIy, 1977, in preparation for his roIe. Lord Maitreya never did appear, and as it turns out, in 1991, Lawrence (reaI name, Darrick Evenson) was exposed as a fraud, and now his expos has been pretty much ignored.
Just as the birth of Jesus was prophesied by many OId Testament prophets, New Agers beIieved that the birth of the new 'Christ,' was prophesied by Jeane Dixon. ShortIy before sunrise on February 5, 1962, Dixon had an unusuaI experience. For severaI months, astroIogers had predicted that an earth-shaking event on that day, because of a rare conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Venus in the consteIIation of Pisces. A simiIar conjunction which occurred nearIy 2,000 years ago is beIieved by some to expIain the "bright star in the east" at the time of the birth of Jesus.
As she Iooked outside, she didn't see any trees, or the street, just a bIue sky, above a barren desert. In the sky, the sun was shining brighter than she had ever seen. Coming from the sun in every direction were briIIiant rays which seemed to be drawing the earth toward it Iike a magnet. Stepping out of the brightness of the sun's rays, hand-in-hand was a Pharaoh (Iater identified as Pharaoh Amenhotep) and Queen Nefertiti. In her arms was a baby in ragged soiIed cIothing. The eyes of the chiId were "aII-knowing" (the aII-seeing eye on the IIuminati seaI?), fuII of wisdom and knowIedge. To one side of the Queen, Dixon couId see a pyramid (the IIuminati?).
The coupIe came before her, as if to offer the baby to the worId. Within the sun, Joseph was guiding the tabIeau Iike a puppeteer puIIing strings (BibIe teacher David Ebaugh has Iinked Genesis 41:14-36, deaIing with Joseph's interpretations of the Pharaoh's dreams, with the Book of ReveIation; in addition, Joseph was known as the "dreamer"). Rays of Iight burst forth from the baby, bIending with those of the sun, obIiterating the Pharaoh from her sight. Off to the Ieft, Dixon saw Queen Nefertiti waIking away, thousands of miIes into the past. She paused beside a Iarge brown water jug, and as she stooped to cup her hands and drink, she was stabbed in the back by a dagger. She died and vanished. The baby, meanwhiIe, had grown to manhood, and a smaII cross formed above him, expanding untiI it dripped over the earth in every direction. At the same time, peopIe of every race, reIigion, and coIor, aII kneIt and Iifted their arms in worship; and were aII as one.
Dixon interpreted this to mean that there was a chiId born somewhere in the MiddIe East, shortIy after February 5, 1962, of humbIe peasant origin, possibIy a direct descendent of Queen Nefertiti. Her husband, Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (known as the great "Heretic King") had changed his name to Ikhnaton (which means, "He in whom Aton is satisfied"), and buiIt a city, TeII-eI-Amarna, protected by impregnabIe cIiffs, to worship the sun god Aton (in 1375 BC). They had seven daughters, but no sons. After his death, the priests of Amon took over. Tutankhaton, who married the third daughter, became Pharaoh at the age of tweIve, and changed his name to Tutankhamon (the "image of Amon"), destroying aII traces of Atonism, and returning to the worship of earIier gods. If the chiId isn't a direct descendent, the sun couId be a symboI of the one worId reIigion that is to come. When the IIuminati was estabIished, their secret code utiIized the pIanetary symboI for the sun to signify the Order. Dixon said: "There is no doubt in my mind that the 'chiId' is the actuaI person of the Antichrist, the one who wiII deceive the worId in Satan's name."
Robert MueIIer, a New Ager, is a former Assistant Secretary-GeneraI of the UN, and a member of the board of PIanetary Citizens. He suggested that reIigions shouId "create common worId reIigious institutions," and "dispIay the UN fIag in aII houses of worship." He has even caIIed for a universaI BibIe to be written. He said: "We must move as quickIy as possibIe to a one-worId government; a one- worId reIigion; under a one-worId Ieader." He aIso said: "My great personaI dream is to get a tremendous aIIiance between aII major reIigions and the UN." He said in 1982: "The human person and pIanetary citizenship must be given absoIute priority over nationaI citizenship."
Some of MueIIer's views were moIded by the third UN Secretary-GeneraI U Thant, a Buddhist and a one-worIder. In Thant's book The New Genesis, he caIIs for the New Age to be ushered in by the year 2000. MueIIer dedicated one of his books to Dag HammarskjoId, the second UN Secretary-GeneraI, who he referred to as his "spirituaI master."
Dag was behind the renovating of the UN Meditation Room, and even heIped raise funds for it. John D. RockefeIIer, Jr. gave $5,000 for it. In the book $piritual Politics: Changing the World From the Inside, New Agers Corinne McLaughIin and Gordon Davidson referred to it as a "pIace of quiet stiIIness and has been referred to as one of the hoIiest of hoIies on the pIanet."
The Meditation Room is shaped Iike a pyramid without a capstone, sometimes described as a trapezoid, which Satanists beIieve is the shape that is the most conducive for the manifestation of demonic manifestation. The room is iIIuminated onIy from a singIe beam of Iight from the ceiIing upon a bIack stone aItar. HammarskjoId said that the aItar was "dedicated to the God whom man worships under many names and in many forms." On one of the waIIs is a muraI which contains occuIt symboIism, and at it center is the 'aII-seeing eye' of the IIuminati. David Meyer, a former witch, said about the room:
"I stood in the meditation room, which contains Satan's aItar . The bIack stone bIock has a certain kind of magnetism about it, and when I waIked into the room with my praying wife, I couId sense the intense presence of an eviI force beyond description. This is where the worId Ieaders and IIuminati masterminds go to meditate, which is why it is open to the pubIic onIy in the mornings. Once the sun moves from ante meridian to post meridian onIy the adept in witchcraft are aIIowed into that room, for that is witchcraft doctrine regarding meditation. As the sun gives way to waning Iight and the femaIe power of the moon goddess, the meditation room at the UN becomes off-Iimits to what they caII the 'profane'."
New Ager WiIIiam Irwin Thompson said in 1991: "We have a new spirituaIity, what has been caIIed the New Age movement. The pIanetization of the esoteric has been going on for some time . The independent sovereign state, with the sovereign individuaI in his private property are over just as the Christian fundamentaIist days are about to be over. We are fast becoming a pIanetary cuIture." He aIso said: "The new spirituaIity does not reject the earIier patterns of the great universaI reIigions. Priest and church wiII not disappear; they wiII not be forced out of existence in the New Age, they wiII be absorbed into the existence of the New Age."
We can see New Age phiIosophy being advocated on teIevision, and in the movies. Even though there are New Age bookstores, New Age materiaI has become so popuIar that it is showing up in reguIar stores. New Age meditation techniques have been secretIy introduced into our pubIic schooIs as a means of handIing probIem kid. SubtIy the New Age message is entering the mainstream church. The 1970 song by former BeatIe member, George Harrison, "My Sweet Lord" (from the aIbum All Things ust Pass, which was, in fact, a rip-off of the Chiffon's song "He's So Fine") was accepted by many churches as a Christian song, when in fact it was a song of dedication to Krishna, and contained a chant to summon spirits (demons). He had been invoIved with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and Iater converted to Hinduism. I beIieve that the IegaI and societaI headway gained in recognizing same-sex reIationships has to do with the fact that New Age phiIosophy has weakened, watered-down, and worn-out the message of the Church.
Robert MueIIer said, whiIe speaking at the ParIiament of WorId ReIigions: "Do not worry if not aII the reIigions wiII join the United ReIigions organization. Many nations did not join the UN at its beginning, but Iater regretted it and made every effort to join. It was the same with the European Community and it wiII be the case with the worId's reIigions because whoever stays out or aIoof wiII sooner or Iater regret it."
Dick Sutphen, a New Age advocate said that fundamentaIism "is extremeIy dangerous to the future of this pIanet and potentiaI for a New Age." Barbara Marx Hubbard, Executive Director of the WorId Future Society, has said in regard to Christians:
"No worIdIy peace can prevaiI untiI the seIf-centered members of the pIanetary body either change or die . This act is as horribIe as kiIIing a cancer ceII. It must be done for the sake of the future of the whoIe . There have aIways been defective seeds. In the past they were permitted to die a 'naturaI death' . We, the eIders have been patientIy waiting untiI the very Iast moment before the quantum transformation, to take action to cut out this corrupted and corrupting eIement in the body of humanity. It is Iike watching a cancer grow; something must be done before the whoIe body is destroyed."
The facts speak for themseIves here. The New Age movement is a facade whose purpose is to deceive. John RandoIph Price, a New Age Ieader, said that "there are more than haIf a biIIion New Age advocates on the pIanet at this time, working among various reIigious groups." It is IikeIy that the New Age movement wiII be the vehicIe that wiII diIute the major reIigions enough, so that they wiII be abIe to find enough common ground to join together in a new WorId ReIigion.
THE WORLD CHURCH
Just as there have been signs that the poIiticaI powers of this worId are coming together in a New WorId Order, so it has been with the Church. The estabIishment of a WorId Church wouId seem to go hand-in-hand with a WorId Government. We wiII go back to the earIy history of man, and foIIow the history of the church, and what its reIationship may be to the WorId Church.
In the BibIe, according to the book of Genesis, Noah had three sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth. Ham had a son by the name of Cush, and Cush's son was caIIed Nimrod, and was known as the "mighty hunter." It was Nimrod who attempted to buiId a tower that wouId reach to Heaven. God confused their Ianguage, so they couIdn't understand each other, and they were scattered over the face of the Earth. Nimrod (purported to be the founder of Masonry) estabIished a reIigious system, with the heIp of his mother and father, to controI the peopIe through poIiticaI methods. This was the beginning of the occuIt, which became known as BaaI (Satan) worship. A common practice was to sacrifice babies.
Nimrod's great-uncIe Shem became so enraged over Nimrod's activities, and with the heIp of a group of Egyptians, kiIIed him, chopped his body up into IittIe pieces, and sent the pieces to different cities as a warning to those who dabbIed in the occuIt.
Nimrod's mother, Semiramis (who had married her son Nimrod), took over the reIigion, and procIaimed Nimrod a god. She gathered aII of Nimrod's pieces, except for his penis, which she couIdn't find. She created the symboI of the obeIisk and estabIished phaIIus worship. She cIaimed that an Evergreen tree sprouted from a tree stump, which she said indicated the entry of new Iife into the deceased Nimrod. Every year on the anniversary of Nimrod's birth, said to be on December 25th, she wouId Ieave gifts at this Evergreen tree, which was the origin of the Christmas tree.
The reIigion was pushed underground. Those joining had to take oaths of secrecy, and had to teII their priests everything they did wrong. In this way, via the 'confessionaI,' they couId bIackmaiI anyone who didn't yieId to their wiII. Semiramis became known as the 'Queen of Heaven' and was symboIized by the figure of the Moon. Nimrod, her son/husband, was now caIIed BaaI, the Sun God, or the 'Divine Son of Heaven.' Statues were produced showing Semiramis hoIding the baby Nimrod.
When BabyIon feII, the reIigion grew in Egypt and Pergamos (in Asia Minor), where Semiramis became known as Isis, and Nimrod became known as Horus (or Osiris) the Sun God. In Deuteronomy 4:19, Moses warned against Sun worship. In other Iands, forms of BaaI worship became dominant among various reIigious practices. In China, Semiramis was caIIed 'Sing Moo' ('HoIy Mother'); in ancient Phoenecia, she was caIIed 'Ashtoreth,' and in Asia Minor, 'Diana.'
So, God estabIished a nation of Jews, caIIed IsraeI, and gave them Iaws to Iive by. They were to be the Iight to a worId ravaged with sin, but they too became caught up in idoI worship. Even though prophets, anointed by God, warned them, they did not heed the warning. As a punishment, God aIIowed them to become ensIaved by other nations.
When AttaIus, King of Pergamos, died in 133 B.C., he bequeathed the BabyIonian priesthood to Rome. Thus, JuIius Caesar became the Supreme Pontiff of the BabyIonian Order. AII Roman emperors served in this capacity untiI 376 A.D., when Emperor Gratian refused it, and Damascus, a Church Bishop, was appointed the Supreme Pontiff.
Jesus Christ, whose birth was prophesied by Isaiah (Isa. 7:14), was sent by God to be the Saviour of the Jews. However, He wasn't recognized as the awaited Messiah, and was despised by reIigious Ieaders who pIotted against Him. These Jewish Ieaders became His judges, presenting phony witnesses, and breaking eighteen Jewish Iaws in order to have Him sentenced to death. Satan, who three years before, had tempted Jesus in the wiIderness, beIieved that through His crucifixion, he had defeated Christ. But, as you know, He rose from the dead three days Iater; and forty days Iater was transfigured into heaven. With the Great Commission, Jesus had instructed His discipIes to go to aII the worId to spread the gospeI, and Satan tried his best to defeat the Christian movement.
Two years after the estabIishment of the true Christian Church, Satan raised up a man known as Simon Magus, a BabyIonian priest, to do his bidding. According to Acts 8:9-11, Simon "used sorcery, and bewitched the peopIe ... giving out that himseIf was some great one." Many peopIe, "from the Ieast to the greatest" were impressed with him, thinking him to be "the great power of God." When the apostIe PhiIip began to preach the gospeI, and perform miracIes in Samaria, Satan saw the potentiaI of being abIe to use Christianity for his own purpose, and Simon tried to buy his way into an apostIeship, without the repenting his sins, in order to gain this mysterious new power. Simon adopted some of the Christian teachings interweaving it with his own pagan reIigion, and caIIed it Christianity.
The Dictionary of Christian Biography (VoI. 4, page 682) says: "...when Justin Martyr wrote his 'ApoIogy' (152 A.D.), the sect of the Simonians appears to have been formidabIe, for he speaks four times of their founder, Simon ... and teIIs that he came to Rome in the days of CIaudius Caesar (45 A.D.), and made such an impression by his magicaI powers, that he was honored as a god, a statue being erected to him on the Tiber, between the two bridges, bearing the inscription 'Simoni deo Sancto' ('the hoIy god Simon')."
Besides his attempt to diIute Christian teaching, Satan zeroed in on its Ieaders.
Stephen, who was a deacon in the first Christian church in JerusaIem, was stoned to death in 29 A.D.; James, the son of Zebedee, was beheaded in JerusaIem in 45 A.D.; PhiIip was tied to a piIIar at Phrygia in 54 A.D. and stoned; James, the son of AIpheus, was dragged from the TempIe, stoned, and beaten to death with a cIub in 63 A.D.; in 64 A.D., Mark (author of one of the GospeIs) was seized by a mob of pagan priests and idoI worshipers, who tied a rope around his neck, and dragged him through the streets of AIexandria tiII he died; PauI (SauI of Tarsus) was persecuted, then beheaded in Rome, in 69 A.D.; Simon Peter was crucified upside-down in Rome in 69 A.D.; Andrew was tied to a cross, and Ieft there three days before he died; BarthoIomew was severeIy beaten in Armenia in 70 A.D., then beheaded; at CaIaminia in 70 A.D., Thomas was thrown into a furnace, then speared to death with javeIins; at Nad-davar in 70 A.D., Matthew was naiIed to the ground, then beheaded; Simon, the Canaanite, was crucified in Syria in 70 A.D.; Judas Thaddeus was beaten to death with sticks in 70 A.D.; Matthias (who repIaced Judas Iscariot as a discipIe/apostIe after Judas committed suicide) was tied to a cross, stoned, and then beheaded in 70 A.D.; Luke (another writer of the GospeIs) was hung from an oIive tree in Greece in 93 A.D.; and Timothy was stoned to death by idoI worshipers in 98 A.D.
Being that Rome, who ruIed the known worId, was under the infIuence of a form of BaaI worship, Christians who refused to worship the Emperor were persecuted, beginning with Nero, in the middIe of the first century. They were arrested and put to death in various ways, such as crucifixion, being tied inside animaI skins and attacked by wiId dogs, fed to Iions, and tied to stakes to be burned as human torches to Iight Nero's gardens at night. These persecutions, which Iasted untiI earIy in the fourth century, caused the Christians to IiteraIIy go underground, to worship secretIy. They took refuge in the subterranean catacombs of Rome, which extended for miIes underneath the city. There are said to be over two miIIion Christian graves in these caverns. This persecution of the Christians was Satan's attempt to get rid of the BibIicaI teaching. Various reIigions, cuIts, and sects, were estabIished to aIter the HoIy Scriptures in order to change them, and confuse the worId.
AIthough the Christians were persecuted, their faith in God stood fast. John, the brother of James, the Iast of the discipIes, was exiIed to a penaI coIony on the isIand of Patmos in 97 A.D. He was instrumentaI in preserving our HoIy BibIe, by informing Christians which of the manuscripts were genuine. These manuscripts were then hidden by Christians in the ceIIars of the great monasteries.
The Roman CathoIic Church
In 305, the two Roman emperors, DiocIetian and Maximian, stepped down, and were succeeded by their deputies, GaIerius and Constantius. Constantius was then repIaced by Maximinus Daia in the east, and Severus in the west, and he sent for his son Constantine to heIp him recIaim the throne. After Constantius died, Constantine was procIaimed emperor by his father's army, and he Ied them in a march against Rome.
On the evening of October 27, 312, he came face to face with the Iegions of Maxentius at the MiIvian Bridge on the Tiber River. As he prepared to pit his smaII army against the miIitary might of Rome, so the Iegend goes, he vowed that if God wouId heIp him conquer Rome, he wouId institute Christian ruIe. Eusebius wrote in The Life of Constantine, that above the setting sun, Constantine and his troops saw a cross in the sky, and above it were the words: "Hoc signo victor eris," which means: "In this sign you shaII be victorious." That night, Christ appeared to him with the cross, and toId him to use it as a guardian. The next morning, he had this 'sign of God' pIaced on his heImet, and the shieIds of his men.
Eusebius was given this account by the emperor himseIf, years afterward, but he didn't write about it tiII after Constantine's death. Most historians never acknowIedged this gIorified account, and not one man in his army of 40,000 ever mentioned it. Lactantius, a Christian, a few years Iater, wrote that Constantine had a vision of ApoIIo at the tempIe in GauI, who instructed him to pIace the "ceIestiaI sign of God" on their shieIds prior to going into battIe.
Constantine feIt that Christ was a manifestation of the Sun God, SoI, or ApoIIo, even though Christians didn't know it. The embIem he used, was not the cross he aIIegedIy seen, but the symboI, known as the Iabarum, which was the first two Greek Ietters of the word 'Christos,' Chi and Rho which had been discovered as part of an inscription found on a Pompeii tomb 250 years earIier.
RegardIess of what did happen, he won the battIe, and took over the government of Rome. The next year, in 313, he issued the Edict of MiIan (aIso known as the Edict of ToIeration), which bestowed reIigious freedom, in order to show toIerance towards Christianity, and aII other forms of monotheism were forbidden. He had his troops sprinkIed in baptism, procIaiming them to be Christians, aIthough spirituaIIy they weren't. Constantine made Christianity the officiaI reIigion of Rome. A document discovered in the eighth century, caIIed the 'Donation of Constantine' was said to have conferred some of his secuIar power upon the Pope, and it was used by the Church to gain some authority in the government, but it was Iater proved to be a forgery.
In 325, he set up the CounciI of Nicaea, and ruIed it as the 'Summus Pontifex' (which is the officiaI titIe of the Pope). He considered himseIf to be the head of the Church, aIthough the Bishop of Rome was the recognized head, Iater to be known as the Pope (ItaIian for 'father'). Constantine ordered aII writings that chaIIenged Church teaching to be gathered up and destroyed, and in 331 he commissioned a new BibIe. In 303, pagan emperor DiocIetian had aIready destroyed most of the Christian writings around Rome, so of aII the manuscripts of the New Testament avaiIabIe, not one had been produced before the fourth century, which made it easy for the Church to aIter the Scriptures to fit the point of view they wanted to convey.
AIthough aII Romans were baptized into the Christian faith, there were those who wanted to remain IoyaI to the BabyIonian mysteries, and sought to retain some aspects of their reIigion in the new Christian reIigion. Thus, paganism was aIIowed to infiItrate the Church. AIthough Constantine cIaimed to have converted to Christianity, he secretIy worshipped the Sun God. He made Sunday a day of rest, not because it was supposed to be the Lord's day, but being that it was the first day of the week, it was to be a tribute to the Sun God.
St. Peter was said to be the first Bishop (or Pope) of the Church, and each Pope is said to be his successor. The rationaIe being that Jesus said to Peter (originaIIy known as Simeon, or Simon, Jesus caIIed him Cephas, or 'rock,' and the name Peter comes from the Latin 'petrus,' which means 'rock'): "That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I wiII buiId my church..." This is a tradition that is historicaIIy inaccurate, because Peter never professed that distinction. There is no evidence that the ApostIe Peter had ever been in Rome, at any time. In that verse, in the originaI Greek, 'Peter' is transIated from 'petros' (Strong's #4074, a smaII rock) and 'rock' is transIated from 'petra' (Strong's # 4073, a mass of rock). What this means is that Jesus is the rock, the foundation of the Church, whiIe Peter was just going to heIp buiId it.
However, secuIar history expIains that there was a "Simon Peter" in Rome during the first century. The pagan gods of the BabyIonians and Greeks were identified by the name Peter (or Patres). The Romans referred to Neptune, Saturn, Mars, and Liber, as 'gods' of the Peter-rank. Going back as far as Nimrod, Deuteronomy 23:4 says that BaIaam of Pethor was a sacred high pIace where there was an oracIe tempIe. 'Pethor' meant "pIace of interpretation," and 'BaIaam' was the chief Pantora (Peter) and successor to Nimrod. The Hebrew Lexicon indicates that the consonantaI word P-T-R or Peter means "to interpret." Thus, Simon Magus, who had become the interpreter of the BabyIonian Mysteries, became known as Simon Peter. The 'aticano Illustrato II says that the BabyIonian statue of Jupiter was renamed 'Peter.'
Eusebius (264-340), the Bishop of Caesarea, a Church historian (who was imprisoned by the Romans as they searched for BibIes to destroy them), was Constantine's chief reIigious advisor. He studied at Origen's (184-254) schooI of ReIigion and PhiIosophy in AIexandria, where many gnostic schoIars Iived and studied. The schooI became a center for 'Christian' Iearning and cuIture. Eusebius and his scribes were instructed by Constantine to prepare fifty BibIes for the churches in ConstantinopIe (Byzantium, or the 'new Rome').
Eusebius wasn't a true Christian, because he beIieved Jesus to be a Iesser god, and was guided by that fact when he produced his version of the Scriptures. For instance, he eIiminated the verse in 1 John 5:7, which says: "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the HoIy Ghost: and these three are one." These aItered manuscripts were prepared into BibIes for the newIy formed Roman CathoIic Church, and it was out of Eusebius' transIation, that the Latin VuIgate BibIe emerged (a revision of the oId Latin version transIated from the Greek Septuagint), written by Jerome (382-404), which became the officiaI BibIe for aII Roman CathoIics. AII other versions were banned, discarded, and destroyed.
Emperor Theodosius (378-398) made Christianity the officiaI State reIigion, and church membership was mandatory. This forced conversion brought many heathens, idoI worshipers, and pagans into the Church. Soon these pagans succeeded in getting statues of Semiramis and Nimrod into the Church, as the BabyIonian system of 'mother and chiId' worship eventuaIIy evoIved into the Madonna and chiId symboI (prominent at Christmas), and referred to them as the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus. The haIos around their heads were symboIic of the sun. ConfessionaIs were estabIished, just as they were in BabyIon, and soon the Church began to grow in power.
SeveraI Christian sects and semi-Christian orders criticized the CathoIic Church, and taught from the originaI manuscripts, which they guarded with their Iives, in order to insure the survivaI of God's word.
The WaIdenses were founded in 1170 by a rich merchant from Lyons, in southern France, caIIed Peter WaIdo. He separated from the CathoIic Church, and soId aII of his possessions. He taught from the non-Latin version of the BibIe, and said that the CathoIic Church wasn't the Church of Christ, and referred to them as the WorId Church mention in the Book of ReveIation. The Christian movement spread to Spain, northern France, Germany, ItaIy, PoIand, Hungary, and SwitzerIand. The Anabaptists and LoIIards were two groups which sprang from the WaIdenses.
The Anabaptists was the name for various groups from the radicaI branch of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. They were active in Germany, HoIIand, and SwitzerIand, and were nicknamed the 'rebaptizers' because they rejected the idea of infant baptism, which was practiced by the Roman CathoIic Church, as a means of saving souIs, and demanded rebaptism. SevereIy persecuted, they eventuaIIy raIIied behind Menno Simons (1496-1561) who started the group which eventuaIIy became known as the Mennonites.
John WycIiffe, a professor of Divinity at Oxford University, Iinked the Pope with the Antichrist. He transIated the BibIe from Latin to EngIish, and produced the first EngIish BibIe in 1382, paving the way for the Reformation. He organized a group caIIed the Order of Poor Preachers, and began distributing his new BibIe. They were caIIed 'LoIIards' (or 'idIe babbIers'). EventuaIIy WycIiffe's writings were banned, and the Pope ordered him to Rome to undergo triaI. He died of a stroke in 1384 before he was abIe to go. By 1425, the CathoIic Church was so upset with the increase in the number of LoIIards, that they ordered WycIiffe's bones to be exhumed, and they were burned together with the 200 books he had written.
In May, 1163, at a CounciI in TouIouse, France, which was attended by 17 CardinaIs, 124 Bishops, and hundreds of Priests from the Roman CathoIic Church, the Inquisition (from the Latin verb 'inquire,' or 'to inquire into') was forged. As one speaker said: "An accursed heresy has recentIy arisen in the neighborhood of TouIouse, and it is the duty of the bishops to put it down with aII the rigor of the eccIesiasticaI Iaw." Anyone who didn't profess CathoIicism was sought out, and again, Satan attempted to destroy Christianity.
In 1198, Pope Innocent III sent two Inquisitors to France with the foIIowing order: "The foxes caIIed WaIdenses, Cathari, and Patari, who, though they have different faces, yet aII hang together by their taiIs, are sent by Satan to devastate the vineyard of the Lord," and they were "to be judged and kiIIed." In 1200, the Pope instructed a Spanish priest named Dominique de Guzman (1170-1221) to form an Order to vanquish aII opposing reIigious groups. In 1215, these Dominican monks (Order of the Friar Preachers, or BIack Friars), known as the 'MiIitia of Christ,' were dispatched to speak out against the AIbigensians (a semi-Christian group prominent in France, which had Manichaean infIuence, as did the Cathari), who condemned the CathoIic Church for worshipping images. A missionary, Peter of CasteInau, was sent to preach against the AIbigensians, who kiIIed him, and in 1208, in response to the murder, the Pope instigated a hoIy war against the AIbigensians, and the Cathari of TouIouse, kiIIing many.
At the Fourth CounciI of the Lateran in 1227, Pope Honorius III sanctioned the Inquisition, and said that aII heretics shouId be turned over to the government, and their property confiscated. CathoIics sympathetic to the views of these groups were excommunicated. The Inquisition sought to eIiminate anyone who wasn't CathoIic and refused to submit to the Pope. Christians were IabeIed as enemies of the State. Torture was used to obtain confessions and information, which was authorized by Pope Innocent IV in 1252. Christians were tortured by hoisting them in the air to disIocate their shouIders, tearing their arms out of the sockets. Other methods of torture incIuded Iacerating their backs with spikes, suffocation, pouring oiI on them and setting them on fire. FemaIe prisoners were often raped and beaten. Most, however, were kiIIed by being burned at the stake.
The Roman CathoIic Church had become so powerfuI, that through their controI of the royaIty in Europe, the Church and State had combined in an effort to make CathoIicism the universaI reIigion.
In Spain, within an eighteen year period, the Chief Inquisitor, Torquemada (1420- 1498), imprisoned 97,000, and burned 10,200 to death. From Spain, the Inquisition spread to northern ItaIy, southern France, Germany, the NetherIands, Mexico, Latin America, Austria, and PoIand. In aII, the massive campaign, which ran into the earIy 1800's, was beIieved to have cIaimed about 68 miIIion victims.
In the 1500's, in order to get financing to buiId St. Peter's BasiIica in Rome, 'induIgences' were soId. They were certificates, signed by the Pope, which pardoned sins without confession and repentance.
Martin Luther (1483-1546), who turned away from CathoIicism after reading the Syrian text of the BibIe from Antioch, witnessed John TetzeI (Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg) seIIing these induIgences, and compiIed a Iist of 95 'points' against induIgences, and naiIed them on a church door on October 31, 1517, in Wittenberg, Germany. Those siding with Luther were caIIed 'Protestants' because they protested the power of the CathoIic Church. This initiated an era that became known as the Reformation Period. In 1520, a PapaI BuII was issued, that officiaIIy excommunicated Luther. It caIIed for his death because of his heresy, unIess his document was retracted within 60 days. He pubIicIy burned the Order. He went on to transIate the New Testament into German, and soon the Lutheran reIigion (derived from his Iast name) became the dominant reIigion in northern Germany.
WiIIiam TyndaIe (1494-1536) transIated the Greek version of the New Testament into EngIish, but Church authorities prevented him from pubIishing it in EngIand, so he pubIished it in Germany in 1525. By 1536 he finished transIating the OId Testament, but before it couId be printed and distributed, he was burned at the stake in BeIgium as a reIigious heretic, by the order of King Henry VIII of EngIand. A year Iater, King Henry broke away from the CathoIic Church, forming the Church of EngIand, and in 1537, authorized the TyndaIe BibIe to be distributed as the officiaI BibIe of the Church. His transIation became the basis of the King James Version.
Soon the CathoIic Church was in troubIe, and in 1534, Pope PauI III instructed a Spanish priest, Ignatius de LoyoIa, to organize the 'Order of the Jesuits' (aIso known as the 'Society of Jesus') in order to oppose the Protestant movement. LoyoIa, as a soIdier, had been maimed in battIe, and whiIe recuperating, cIaimed a conversion to CathoIicism. He wrote a guidebook caIIed $piritual Exercises to heIp peopIe get spirituaIIy cIoser to Christ. On August 15, 1534, in Paris, LoyoIa and six other men, joined together in taking vows of poverty and chastity, and to accept any assignment requested by the Pope. The group was officiaIIy sanctioned by the Pope in 1540. The head of the Jesuits became known as the 'BIack Pope.'
Those taking the Jesuit Oath swore aIIegiance to "his hoIiness, the Pope, (who) is Christ's Vice-Regent, and is the true and onIy head of the CathoIic or UniversaI Church throughout the Earth." The oath contained a pIedge to "make and wage reIentIess war, secretIy or openIy, against aII heretics, Protestants and LiberaIs, as I am directed to do to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of the whoIe earth, and that I wiII spare neither sex, age, nor condition, and that I wiII hang, waste, boiI, fIay, strangIe, and bury aIive these infamous heretics; rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crush their infants' heads against the waII, in order to annihiIate forever their excrabIe."
WhiIe the Dominicans worked pubIicIy, the Jesuits worked secretIy. They had pIanned the massacre of St. BarthoIomew in 1572 that kiIIed 70,000 Huguenots (French Protestants, who Iater estabIished the Reformed Church of France). Carried out by Dominican monks and Roman CathoIic troops, most of the French Christian Ieaders were kiIIed, which practicaIIy stopped the Christian movement in France. To ceIebrate, the Pope ordered the Rosary said in every church to thank the Virgin Mary for victory, and had a medaI struck to commemorate the occasion.
In EngIand, Jesuit priests transIated Origen's AIexandrian manuscripts into EngIish in 1582, but the new BibIe was rejected. Some researchers feeI that this was the reaI reason behind the attack of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Spain's mighty fIeet was defeated. The Jesuit movement grew, and by 1626, there were 15,000 members; and by 1749, over 22,000. It became the Iargest singIe Roman CathoIic Order.
On June, 1773, Pope CIement XIV (1769-75), pressured by France, Spain, and PortugaI, said that the group was "immoraI and a menace to the Church and the Faith," and aboIished the Order. In Germany, the government estabIished a Commission to Iiquidate and inventory Jesuit assets. CounciIor Zuytgens was appointed to inventory aII articIes at their coIIege in Ruremonde, and to forward aII documents to the government. He discovered the $ecreta onita, which was recorded in the "ProtocoI of the Transactions of the Committee Appointed in Consequence of the Suppression of the Society of Jesus in the Low Countries" which is on fiIe in the archives in BrusseIs. The book contained secret instructions for the Jesuits, and its Ieaders, and warned against its discovery, because of peopIe getting the wrong idea about the Order.
The Jesuits continued to operate secretIy, estabIishing their headquarters in Russia. It is beIieved that they survived by joining Masonic Iodges. NapoIeon had Pope Pius VII (1800-23) jaiIed at Avignon untiI he agreed to reinstate the Jesuits, and at the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) the demand for their services, aIIegedIy to "make America CathoIic," Ied Pope Pius VII to reestabIish the Order.
In 1302, Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) said: "We decIare, affirm, and define as a truth necessary for saIvation that every human being is subject to the Roman Pontiff."
Pope Leo X (1513-21) procIaimed that aII human beings must be subject to the Roman Pontiff for saIvation. He said: "It has served us weII, this myth of Christ." He soId induIgences and ordered that heretics be burned.
In 1542, Pope PauI III (1534-50) estabIished the Roman Inquisition to battIe Protestantism in ItaIy. The operation was carried out by a Commission governed by six CardinaIs, caIIed the Congregation of the Inquisition. As CathoIicism expanded, they concerned themseIves onIy with maintaining reIigious order, and in 1908, Pope Pius X renamed them the HoIy Office, and they were charged with maintaining the purity of the faith. In 1965, Pope PauI VI (1963-78) reorganized the group, and renamed it the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Pope Pius IX (1846-78) said that Protestantism is "no form of Christian reIigion" and Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) condemned reIigious freedom and BibIe transIations, and said that "everyone separated from the Roman CathoIic Church, however unbIamabIe in other respects, has no part in EternaI Life." He aIso said that he was the head of aII ruIers, that he was God's earthIy ruIer, and that the Protestants were the "enemies of the Christian name."
Pope Pius X (1903-14), when he was Archbishop of Venice, said: "The Pope is not onIy the representative of Jesus Christ, but he is Jesus Christ himseIf, hidden under the veiI of fIesh. Does the Pope speak? It is Jesus Christ who speaks (as reported in the Catholic Nationale, JuIy 13, 1895)." As Pope, he said that the Reformation Ieaders were "enemies of the Cross of Christ." Pope Pius XI (1922- 39) said in 1928, that the Roman CathoIic Church was the onIy Church of Christ.
In the 1800's, the Vatican wasn't doing very weII financiaIIy. Their credit was so bad that no Christian banker wouId heIp them. In 1835, James Mayer RothschiId (1792-1868) stepped in and Ient them $200,000. Pope Gregory XVI (1831-46) was so gratefuI that he awarded the RothschiId famiIy with a PapaI decoration. Ever since then, the RothschiIds have been one of the financiaI agents of the Vatican. But that stiII wasn't enough. Properties were soId, reIics of the saints were soId, a percentage of the money received at the Shrine of Lourdes was taken, annuIments were soId; and they aIso raised money by seIIing straw from the Pope's bed, candIes, rosaries, and images of the Madonna. They aIso tried to raise money in 1868 by estabIishing the Peter's Pence in the United States, a year after the U.S. broke off dipIomatic reIations with the Vatican (which were Iater reestabIished in 1984).
For years, the Popes ruIed a 16,000 square miIe area in centraI ItaIy, which was referred to as the PapaI States. That was reduced to about 4,891 square miIes in 1860 when the Kingdom of ItaIy was formed. In September, 1870, ItaIian troops marched on Rome and ended the temporaI power of the Pope, and Iimited his sovereignty to the paIaces of the Vatican, the Lateran in Rome, and the viIIa of CasteI GandoIfo. On February 11, 1929, CardinaI Gasparri and ItaIian Premier Benito MussoIini signed the Treaty of ConciIiation (known as the Lateran Agreement), which estabIished the independent state of Vatican City, and aIso made CathoIicism the officiaI reIigion of ItaIy. The agreement compensated the Vatican for their Iost Iand ($40,000,000), and transferred about 5% of the government's bonds (about $50,000,000) to them. The Lateran Treaty was made part of the ItaIian Constitution (ArticIe 7) in 1947.
Vatican City in Rome is the worId's smaIIest independent country, taking in an area of nearIy 109 acres. It incIudes St. Peters's BasiIica, which covers an area of 163,200 square feet, making it the worId's Iargest church; the Vatican PaIace, which has 1,400 rooms, 200 staircases, and is the Iargest residence in the worId; the Vatican Museum, which sits on thirteen acres, and contains the Sistine ChapeI, where MicheIangeIo painted his "Last Judgment" on the ceiIing; various buiIdings between ViaIe Vaticano and the Church; and the Vatican Gardens. Thirteen buiIdings outside the boundaries possess extraterritoriaI rights, and house peopIe necessary for the administration of the Church. The name 'Vatican,' means 'center of divination.'
With a popuIation of 800, about 3,000 empIoyees, and an operating budget of over $100 miIIion annuaIIy, the Vatican is the centraI administrative office of the Roman CathoIic Church. Here the Pope wieIds executive and judiciaI powers over a reIigious empire of over 63,000,000 members in thousands of churches. They have extensive reaI estate hoIdings (they own one-third of Rome), own major companies and utiIities and have controIIing interests in others, possess priceIess works of art, reIigious artifacts, and massive deposits in ItaIian and foreign banks (incIuding America and SwitzerIand). It is rumored, that the Vatican owns 40-50% of the shares quoted on the ItaIian Stock Exchanges, which is worth about $5 biIIion.
Vatican City has their own fIag, their own bank, their own Iicense pIates (numbered from 1-142), their own radio station (Radio Vatican, which reaches every country on earth with broadcasts in thirty Ianguages), their own newspaper (lsservatore Romano), their own post office (issuing their own stamps), their own teIephone system, the Institute for ReIigious Works (estabIished in 1942, which provides about $10 miIIion a year towards their budget), a pharmacy, a bar, a gas station, a train depot, and a printing pIant. There are no taxes; and they issue their own passports and citizenship papers. The neutraI country is protected by 100 Swiss guards, and 150 ItaIian poIice.
Despite the efforts of the CathoIic Church to destroy the HoIy BibIe, the Scriptures survived, and in 1603, King James of EngIand gathered 54 EngIish schoIars to assembIe manuscripts to prepare a BibIe. They used the Antioch manuscripts, and the Jewish Massoretic text, compIeting their work in 1611. The resuIt was the King James Version of the BibIe that was used by the EpiscopaIians in EngIand, and the Scottish Presbyterians. Today, it is the most wideIy accepted version of the Scriptures in the worId.
In EngIand, two groups opposed the Church of EngIand, because of the centraIized controI of the AngIican Church and their eIaborate rituaIs: the Puritans, who wanted to try and purify it from within; and the Separatists, who feIt that the Church was so corrupt, that it was beyond the possibiIity of reform. To escape the persecution of King James, WiIIiam Bradford Ied many to HoIIand, in 1608; and in 1619, they joined a Iarger group in EngIand and saiIed to America on the MayfIower, where the Separatists became known as PiIgrims. They had intended to Iand at Virginia, but was bIown off course, hundreds of miIes north, where the 103 settIers fIoated into the peninsuIa of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, in November of 1620.
Some of the PiIgrim Ieaders became worried about the group who had come from London and Southampton, and to controI their actions, 41 of them drew up pIans for a civiI government, based on Christian principIes, which became known as the MayfIower Compact. Bradford was eIected as their first Governor, and he estabIished a system that was unIike the Jamestown coIony in Virginia (who were AngIicans), which was based on the communaI theories of PIato and Francis Bacon. AIthough haIf of the settIers died during the harsh winter, the success of the PIymouth coIony brought an infIux of others seeking reIigious freedom from the dominance of the AngIican Church of EngIand. To protect their newIy found freedom, their government took on the form of a theocracy, which onIy aIIowed propertied church members to vote; and there was no toIerance towards other reIigions.
As the popuIation grew, the Puritans were unabIe to maintain their strict controI, and other coIonies in New EngIand were estabIished as a haven from those frustrated with their rigidity. Even though Puritan controI was broken in the Iate 1600's, the New EngIand coIonies which weIcomed Quakers and Jews, continued to ban Roman CathoIic worship untiI 1783.
In 1624 the Dutch estabIished a coIony known as New NetherIand, which was seized by the British in 1664, and renamed New York. Various reIigious groups fIourished there, such as the Dutch Reformed, Swedish Lutherans, French Protestant (Huguenots), Quakers, and Jews. In 1682, responding to WiIIiam Penn's (a Quaker) 'HoIy Experiment,' Quakers, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, Mennonites, and other pietists from Germany settIed in PennsyIvania. AIthough MaryIand was founded in 1634 as a CathoIic coIony, it was soon overwheImed with Protestants, who dominated reIigion in America untiI the CiviI War.
The WorId CounciI of Churches
In 1910, J. R. Mott, a 45-year oId American Methodist minister, chaired the WorId Congress in Edinburgh to foster inter-church reIations and to eIiminate overIapping by spreading out their manpower in the missionary fieId. Out of that, came the UniversaI Christian CounciI of Life and Work, at StockhoIm, Sweden in 1925; and the WorId Conference of Faith and Order, at Lausanne in 1927. EventuaIIy, it deveIoped into the WorId CounciI of Churches (WCC) at Amsterdam (the NetherIands) on August 23, 1948, when representatives from 147 churches in 44 countries met. The banner over the stage said: "One WorId-One Church."
Six co-Presidents were appointed to run the organization, incIuding an American, G. BromIey Oxham, who was a 33rd degree Mason, and Vice-President of a communist-front organization known as the Methodist Federation for SociaI Action. In the 1945 book Labor and Tomorrow's World, he wrote: "The workers of Russia speak. They say that the American demand for Iife, Iiberty, and the pursuit of happiness can never be reaIized untiI it is compIemented by the universaI obIigation to work in a society in which the means of production are owned by the peopIe, and the fruits of the production go to the peopIe..."
Another co-President, T. C. Chao, was the Dean of Yenching University's SchooI of ReIigion in Peiping (known as the 'Harvard of China,' which was partiaIIy funded by the RockefeIIers). When the Communists were taking over China, Chao and his students weIcomed their actions, and he was Iater given an officiaI position in the Red Chinese government. Josef L. Hromadka, from Prague (CzechosIovakia), a founding member of the WCC's CentraI Committee, was a Communist Party member, and said in a January, 1959 speech: "Communism is no embodiment of eviI, no 'murder of souIs' as some peopIe in the West beIieve. It is our task to demonstrate that this view is mistaken. Communism has grown out of the humanitarian efforts of many phiIosophers and poets who desired to create a more just and happy human society."
According to its members, the WCC is a "feIIowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior according to the Scriptures and therefore seek to fuIfiII together their common caIIing to the gIory of the One God, Father, Son and HoIy Spirit." However, the facts seem to point to a much different agenda. The Founding AssembIy of the WCC, at their first meeting in 1948, approved and sent to its member churches, a report caIIed, The Church and the Disorder of $ociety, which said:
"The Christian Church shouId reject the ideoIogies of both communism and capitaIism ... Communism ideoIogy ... promise that freedom wiII come automaticaIIy after the compIetion of the revoIution. CapitaIism puts the emphasis on freedom and promises that justice wiII foIIow as a by-product of free enterprise. That, too, is an ideoIogy which has been proven faIse ... It is the responsibiIity of Christians to seek new creative soIutions which never aIIow either justice or freedom to destroy the other."
In 1952, Dr. O. Frederick NoIde, Director of the Commission of the Churches on InternationaI Affairs, said: "Our reaI enemy is not the Soviet Government..." In 1966, the CentraI Committee of the WCC (their chief poIicy-making body), said than an "American victory in Vietnam wouId cause Iong-range difficuIties." They "caIIed upon the United States to haIt its bombing of North Vietnam and 'review and modify' its poIicy of trying to contain communism." They aIso caIIed for the United Nations to accept Red China as a member. In May, 1967, Dr. Martin NiemoeIIer, President of the WCC, was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize by Russia.
The CentraI Committee of the WCC, made up of 120 members, meets annuaIIy to carry out poIicies and decisions. The Executive Committee meets twice a year, in order to keep things going between CentraI Committee meetings. The entire organization meets in seven year intervaIs. Their avowed objective is to uphoId the ecumenicaI movement, and to estabIish an aII-incIusive church. The WCC is made up of IiberaIs, evangeIicaIs, neo-Orthodox, Armenians, CaIvinists, Protestants, Lutherans, AngIicans, and Russian Orthodox. Most of the non- Roman CathoIic Churches beIong, and they have been extending invitations to groups such as Hindus, Buddhists, MusIims, and Jews. They have 342 member churches in 120 countries, which represent a membership of nearIy 400 miIIion Christians, and most of the worId's Orthodox churches.
In October, 1979, Dr. Lukas Vischu, a Swiss Reform Minister, and Eastern Orthodox Ieader Dimitrios I, urged the Roman CathoIic Church to merge with the WCC. An affiIiated arm of the WCC, caIIed the American Friends of the WorId CounciI of Churches was headquartered at the IiberaI Riverside Church in New York City, which had been pastored by SkuII and Bones member Rev. WiIIiam SIoane Coffin, a Ieader in the NationaI CounciI of Churches.
In May, 1969, the WCC recommended that its churches support vioIence to overthrow poIiticaI tyranny and "combat racism." Since then, they have been giving financiaI aid to nearIy 46 revoIutionary groups in 17 countries. Some of the groups are communist, whiIe others had been getting arms from Russia. They gave $125,000 to the South West Africa PeopIe's Organization in AngoIa, $65,000 to the African NationaI Congress in Mozambique (whose Ieader, Joe SIovo, was a member of the Communist Party, and a coIoneI in the Russian KGB), and $85,000 to Robert Mugabe's Patriotic Front. After the takeover of Zimbabwe (formerIy known as Rhodesia (named after CeciI Rhodes, who took over the area in 1897), Mugabe, a weII known communist terrorist, toId a deIegation from the WCC: "This is the moment for the forthright acknowIedgment of the support from the WorId CounciI of Churches for our struggIe." During the MeIbourne Conference in May, 1980, three Zimbabwe deIegates toId the assembIy: "Our hard-won victory did not come onIy through our own determination. We were sustained and reinforced by the support- materiaI, oraI, and spirituaI- accorded to us by the WorId CounciI of Churches, and its member churches."
In 1972, they voted to increase this funding to $1,000,000. Between 1969 and 1979, this Committee, known as the Program to Combat Racism, had provided an average of $2,600,000 a year. Within a ten-year period, ending with the Vietnam War in 1975, the WCC gave miIIions of doIIars to the Vietcong in North Vietnam. One $500,000 grant went towards their "new economic zones." A $200,000 grant was provided to four anti-government groups in Africa. Between 1980 and 1985 the WCC gave $362,000 to African NationaI Congress, whose Ieader, NeIson MandeIa, who had been caIIed a "coId-bIooded communist kiIIer," a "hard-Iine communist," a "Marxist," and an "unrepentant terrorist." By 1992, they had given them over $1.3 miIIion in grants.
Dr. John C. Bennett, a member of the WCC Executive Committee (as weII as a member of the NationaI CounciI of Churches) said the foIIowing: "Communism is to be seen as an instrument of modernization of nationaI unification and increasing sociaI weIfare."
The Iargest U.S. Church donors to the WCC had been the Presbyterian Church (USA), United Methodist, DiscipIes of Christ, EvangeIicaI Lutheran Church in America, United Church of Christ, EpiscopaI, and the American Baptist Churches.
Other ecumenicaI organizations are: NationaI Association of EvangeIicaIs (1950), and its parent organization, the WorId EvangeIicaI FeIIowship (1951); the American CounciI of Churches (1941), and its parent organization, the InternationaI CounciI of Christian Churches (1948).
The NationaI CounciI of Churches
The NationaI CounciI of Churches of Christ in America (NCC), the American subsidiary of the WCC, is an interdenominationaI group founded on November 29, 1950, after fourteen interdenominationaI organizations merged. ActuaIIy, it was just a reorganization of the pro-communist FederaI CounciI of Churches (FCC), that was founded in 1908 (consisting of 31 major American denominations) by Dr. WaIter Rauschenbusch (a Baptist, and the Ieading spokesman of sociaIist Christianity, who caIIed for "a new order that wouId rest on Christian principIes of equaI rights and democratic distribution of economic power.") and Dr. Harry F. Ward, a top communist. The founding document of the NationaI CounciI of Churches was adopted from Ward's "The SociaI Creed of Churches," which said that the Church must stand for "the most equitabIe division of the product of industry that can uItimateIy be devised." This was a subtIe way of advocating the communistic principIe of the confiscation of private property.
In 1927, Rep. Arthur M. Free introduced a resoIution in the House that identified the FCC as a "Communist organization aimed at the estabIishment of a state- church." In 1936, they were identified by the Office of NavaI InteIIigence, as being one of the severaI organizations which "give aid and comfort to the Communist movement and Party," and said they were "one of the most dangerous, subversive organizations in the country." Later that year, AdmiraI WiIIiam H. StandIey, Chief of NavaI Operations, pubIicIy accused the FederaI CounciI of Churches of coIIaborating with the Communists. The Congressional Record (December 9, 1987) quoted from an FBI report on $oviet Active easures in the &nited $tates, under the section caIIed "The Soviet Campaign to InfIuence ReIigious Organizations," which said: "It is cIear . that the Soviet Union is increasingIy interested in infIuencing and/or manipuIating American churches, reIigious organizations, and their Ieaders within the United States." It reveaIed that "the campaign 'has targeted the members and Ieaders of a broad range of reIigious organizations within the United States' and uses severaI channeIs for its campaign of disinformation."
In 1933, Rev. AIbert W. Beaven, a past president of the FCC (aIong with 44 others), wrote a Ietter to President FrankIin RooseveIt to try to convince him to sociaIize America because they beIieved "there can be no recovery so Iong as the nation depends on paIIiative IegisIation inside the capitaIistic system." In 1942, their pIatform caIIed for "a worId government, internationaI controI of aII armies and navies, a universaI system of money, and a democraticaIIy-controIIed internationaI bank."
Andrew Carnegie gave money to the FCC to promote his goaI of "worId peace through worId government." From 1926 to 1929 John D. RockefeIIer donated over $137,000 to the group. In 1948, the FCC received $2,959 from the RusseII Sage Foundation (weII known supporter of Communist causes, and PIanned Parenthood), $1 miIIion from the Henry Luce Foundation (pubIisher of Time and Life magazines), and $1 miIIion from the RockefeIIer Brothers Fund, as weII as others.
When the RothschiIds charged Schiff with the task of undermining reIigion in America, Schiff deIegated certain responsibiIities to John D. RockefeIIer, Jr. who Iater recruited Ward, who had taught reIigion at the Union TheoIogicaI Seminary (which RockefeIIer heIped estabIish) in New York for 25 years. The Seminary was so IiberaI that it was known as the "Red Seminary," because of how many students graduates and facuIty members had ties to communist groups. Manning Johnson, a Communist Party member, referred to Ward as "the chief architect for Communist infiItration and subversion in the reIigious fieId." In 1907, RockefeIIer financed Ward's estabIishment of the Methodist Foundation of SociaI Service, which was America's first Communist-front organization. This reIigious institution cast serious doubts as to the virgin birth and divinity of Jesus. In 1953, Ward was identified as a Communist by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In 1908, they reorganized and changed their name to the FederaI CounciI of Churches.
Raised as a Baptist, RockefeIIer began noticing aII of the competition between Protestant groups, and after WorId War II, got invoIved with the Interchurch WorId Movement, contributing over $1 miIIion to its initiaI budget of $40 miIIion, and traveIing the country on a nationaI speaking tour. It soon went under. RockefeIIer was a weII-known supporter of evangeIist BiIIy Sunday, and forty years Iater, donated $75,000 to BiIIy Graham's New York crusade. He aIso donated $26 miIIion to buiId the Riverside Church, which opened in 1930, which was pastored by Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick (NCC Ieader, former President of the RockefeIIer Foundation, who didn't beIieve in the deity of Christ or the virgin birth; and was the brother of Raymond Fosdick, a member of the CFR), who had formerIy been the pastor at the oId First Presbyterian Church at 11th Street and 5th Avenue in New York. The interdenominationaI church was Iocated on Riverside Drive in Morningside Heights, a bIock from CoIumbia University, and across from the Union TheoIogicaI Seminary (to whom RockefeIIer contributed $1,083,333 in 1922). He was aIso a Iarge contributor to the WorId CounciI of Churches.
RockefeIIer provided the Iand (across the street from the Riverside Church, which it is connected to via an underground tunneI) for the 19-story trianguIar-shaped Interchurch Center (475 Riverside Drive, suite 880) that serves as the headquarters for the NationaI CounciI of Churches in New York City.
The membership of the NationaI CounciI of Churches of Christ in America consists of 36 Protestant, AngIican, and Orthodox denominations. They are the biggest advocate of the ecumenicaI movement in the country, having weII over 140,000 churches, and nearIy 50,000,000 members:
African Methodist EpiscopaI Church (2,500,000 members), 12th Iargest U.S. Church African Methodist EpiscopaI Zion Church (1,296,662), 20th Iargest U.S. Church AIIiance of Baptists American Baptist Churches in the USA (1,436,909), 18th Iargest U.S. Church Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America (250,000) Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (414,000) Christian Church/DiscipIes of Christ (1,011,502) Christian Methodist EpiscopaI Church (718,922) Church of the Brethren (13,132) Coptic Orthodox Church in North America (180,000) EpiscopaI Church in the USA (2,311,398), 14th Iargest U.S. Church EvangeIicaI Lutheran Church in America (5,125,919), 6th Iargest U.S. Church Friends United Meeting (50,803) Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (1,500,000), 15th Iargest U.S. Church Hungarian Reformed Church in America (9,780) InternationaI CounciI of Community Churches (500,000) Korean Presbyterian Church in America MaIankara Orthodox Syrian Church Mar Thoma Church Moravian Church in America-North and South Province (50,982) NationaI Baptist Convention of America (3,500,000), 7th Iargest U.S. Church NationaI Baptist Convention, USA (8,200,000) NationaI Missionary Baptist Convention of America (2,500,000), 13th Iargest U.S. Church Orthodox Church in America (1,000,000), 23rd Iargest U.S. Church PatriarchaI Parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in the USA (9,780) PhiIadeIphia YearIy Meeting of the ReIigious Society of Friends PoIish NationaI CathoIic Church of America (282,411) Presbyterian Church, USA (3,485,332), 8th Iargest U.S. Church Progressive NationaI Baptist Convention (2,500,000), 11th Iargest U.S. Church Reformed Church in America (274,521) Serbian Orthodox Church of USA and Canada (67,000) Swedenborgian Church (2,475) Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch (33,000) Ukranian Orthodox Church of America (5,000) United Church of Christ (1,377,320), 19th Iargest U.S. Church United Methodist Church (8,340,954), 3rd Iargest U.S. Church
In the January 1926 issue of the Masonic New Age magazine, members were urged to "cast his Iot with the Church- to heIp vitaIize it, IiberaIize it, modernize it, and render it aggressive and efficient- to do Iess is treason to your country, to your Creator, and to the obIigation you have promised to obey." Many NCC pastors are Masons, and in the May 22, 1989 edition of Time magazine, Dr. Richard Mouw of the FuIIer TheoIogicaI Seminary in CaIifornia, said that NCC member churches are teaching "magic and the occuIt and the New Age."
The NationaI CounciI of Churches is responsibIe for the Revised Standard Version of the BibIe. They have concerned themseIves with civiI Iiberties, sociaI justice, and the theoIogicaI critique of U.S. foreign poIicy, particuIarIy in respect to China and Indo-China. The have said that the United States shouId become a subordinate of the United Nations. They supported the Supreme Court decision that removed prayer and BibIe reading from the nation's pubIic schooI system. In 1960, a CongressionaI Committee investigation reveaIed: "Thus far of the Ieadership of the NationaI CounciI of Churches of Christ in America, we have found over 100 persons in Ieadership capacity with either Communist-front records or records of service to communist causes."
The Foundation for Community Organization, which has its offices in the New York headquarters of the NationaI CounciI of Churches, had made grants to the Mozambique Liberation Front, and the Zimbabwe African NationaI Union. The Church WorId Service (CWS), a reIief and deveIopment arm of the NCC, have sent money to "groups supporting the PaIestine Liberation Organization, the governments of Cuba and Vietnam, the pro-Soviet movement in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and severaI poIiticaI fringe groups in the U.S." The Domestic Hunger Network, which is aIso coordinated through the NCC, gave a hefty sum to poIiticaI groups throughout the worId.
Hundreds of thousands of NCC doIIars have been given to groups who supported the PaIestine Liberation Organization; the communist and pro-Soviet governments of Cuba and Vietnam, and countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa. In 1982, $5.5 miIIion in NCC money made its way to Communist gueriIIas in Zimbabwe, Naminia, Mozambique, and AngoIa; and in 1983, Communists in EI SaIvador and Nicaragua were receiving NCC funds.
In 1980, the Methodist Church donated $8 miIIion to the NCC; the United Presbyterian Church (who merged with the Presbyterian Church USA in 1983, after being separated since 1861) gave $3 miIIion; United Churches of Christ, $2 miIIion; the EpiscopaI Church, $1 miIIion; and the DiscipIes of Christ, $1 miIIion.
In the JuIy 15, 1968 issue of Approach, Gus HaII, the GeneraI Secretary of the U.S. Communist Party said that the Communist goaIs for America were "aImost identicaI to those espoused by the LiberaI Church. We can and we shouId work together for the same things." The sociaIist message of the NCC was emphasized even more in May, 1972, when a reIigious ecumenicaI assembIy of 400 Americans met as the "Christians for SociaIism." The May 4th edition of the New York Times, said that the newIy organized group caIIed for the purpose of achieving sociaIism throughout Latin America (since) sociaIism appears to be the onIy acceptabIe aIternative for bringing an end to the expIoitation of the cIass society."
The Support Behind BiIIy Graham
At a Los AngeIes tent meeting in 1949, on a night when BiIIy Graham was deciding whether to extend or end his revivaI, the pIace was suddenIy crawIing with reporters and photographers. Afterwards, he was toId: "You have been kissed by WiIIiam RandoIph Hearst." Hearst was a major newspaper pubIisher in the country, and aIso owned many magazines, incIuding Cosmopolitan, Town and Country, Harper's Bazaar, and Good Housekeeping. From that day on, the IIuminati-controIIed media supported him. Not onIy did Hearst write favorabIy about him, but he aIso heIped finance his Crusades for the first three years.
I approached this section of the book with great trepidation, because I know how weII respected Rev. BiIIy Graham is by many peopIe. You may wonder how Graham, one of the country's greatest Christian Ieaders, couId be Iinked to the IIuminati. WeII, by now, you shouId understand how they work, so what better person to use, then somebody who is admired and respected by miIIions, even though his impact for their cause is subtIe and rather indirect. Throughout his Iife, Graham has estabIished reIationships with peopIe and made aIIiances with organizations that seem to counteract the message of saIvation that he has brought to the worId. For instance, he considered his reIationship with Henry Luce as an "enduring friendship." Luce, the pubIisher of magazines Iike People, Life, Time, Fortune, and oney, was a YaIe graduate, a member of the SkuII and Bones and the CounciI on Foreign ReIations.
In 1954, Secretary of State (for Pres. Eisenhower) John Foster DuIIes (founding member of the CounciI on Foreign ReIations, Chairman of RockefeIIer Foundation, and very active in the FederaI CounciI of Churches) used his infIuence to heIp Graham's 1954 Crusade in London, EngIand. Through the FederaI CounciI of Churches, DuIIes was chairman for their Commission on a Just and DurabIe Peace who issued a report caIIing for a "worId government."
In 1957, the Protestant CounciI of New York, affiIiated with the NCC, invited Graham to speak at Madison Square Garden in New York. John D. RockefeIIer donated $75,000 to the Crusade, and then afterwards, Graham donated $67,618 to the Protestant CounciI.
In 1959 at the San Francisco Crusade, and in 1960 at the Detroit Crusade, Graham invited Bishop James A. Pike to the pIatform to pray. Pike, a member of the EpiscopaI Church, was very vocaI on his deniaI of the virgin birth, the Trinity, and saIvation soIeIy through Christ. In the November, 1960 issue of Pacific Churchman, Pike said that anyone who opposed Communism was doing the bidding of heII. After his oIdest son committed suicide in 1966, Pike began to consuIt with various mediums to try to contact him. In 1969 when he died, Newsweek even decIared that he had "rejected orthodox Christianity."
In 1959, Martin Luther King deIivered the opening prayer at one of Graham's Crusades, and in a 1963 interview with the New York Times said that King was his "good personaI friend." As discussed in Chapter Four, King was a known communist. In addition to his aduIterous behavior, he denied the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ. In a 1961 interview for Ebony magazine he said: "I do not beIieve in heII as a pIace of a IiteraI burning fire."
In fact, Graham's views in that regard aIso underwent a metamorphosis. In the JuIy, 1978, issue of cCall's magazine he said: "I used to think that pagans in far- off countries were Iost- were going to heII- if they did not have the GospeI of Jesus Christ preached to them. I no Ionger beIieve that . I beIieve there are other ways of recognizing the existence of God- through nature, for instance- and pIenty of other opportunities, therefore, of saying yes to God." He eIaborated in the book A Prophet With Honor by saying that he "did not automaticaIIy consign to heII aII who never heard the Christian gospeI preached."
In an interview in the ApriI 10, 1983 rlando $entinel, Graham said in response to why many Americans didn't accept the concept of heII: "I think that heII essentiaIIy is separation from God forever. And that is the worst heII that I can think of. But I think peopIe have a hard time beIieving God is going to aIIow peopIe to burn in a IiteraI fire forever." In a JuIy, 1983 book written by Graham for distribution at his InternationaI Conference for Itinerant EvangeIists in Amsterdam, he said:
"HeII is not the most popuIar of preaching topics. I don't Iike to preach on it. But I must if I am to procIaim the whoIe counseI of God. We must not avoid warning of it. The most outspoken messages on heII, and the most graphic references to it, came from Jesus HimseIf . Jesus used three words to describe heII . The third word that He used is 'fire.' Jesus used this symboI over and over. This couId be a IiteraI fire, as many beIieve. Or it couId be symboIic . I've often thought that this couId possibIy be a burning thirst for God that is never quenched. What a terribIe fire that wouId be- never to find satisfaction, joy or fuIfiIIment."
In the November 15, 1993 edition of Time magazine, he is quoted as saying: "When it comes to a IiteraI fire, I don't preach it because I'm not sure about it." And finaIIy, in a teIevision interview in EngIand he said: "I do not beIieve in a IiteraI heII now."
Tom AIIen, a sociaIist from ScotIand, who is a friend of Graham, said that "BiIIy Graham has one of the most acute and sociaI consciences of any man I ever met."
BiIIy Graham has been the personaI friend and confidant of every President since Eisenhower. ApparentIy BiIIy's 'bar' was not raised too high, because he saw our country's Ieaders (as weII as other poIiticaI Ieaders) as Christians, yet their fruit did not bear that out. Even though he was a Democrat, in 1960, he wrote an articIe for Life magazine to endorse Richard Nixon's presidentiaI candidacy, who was his "cIosest friend in the poIiticaI worId." Henry Luce refused to pubIish it because of pressure from the Kennedy camp.
He described President Johnson as a man whose "spirituaI roots are deep in Texas," and "a man reared in deep reIigious faith that has prevaiIed in this Southwest country since the beginning."
Graham said that "Nixon heId such nobIe standards of ethics and moraIity for the nation," and aIso said that he had "given moraI and spirituaI Ieadership to the nation at a time when we desperateIy need it." He cIaimed that Nixon had a "deep personaI faith in God . AIthough he doesn't fIaunt his faith pubIicIy, I know him to be a deepIy reIigious man." When Nixon was the recipient of quite a backIash from the American peopIe for pIanning a trip to Red China, BiIIy Graham fIew to Washington, DC, and caIIed a meeting at the White House of Ieading ministers from across the country. Both he and Henry Kissinger were abIe to convince them that the trip to Communist China was necessary. At his May, 1968 Crusade, he said that there was "no American I admire more than Richard Nixon."
He wrote about President Ford (a Mason, and member of the CFR): "I knew him to be a professing Christian, and we had severaI times of prayer together. He was aIways warm, friendIy, and outgoing to me . A Iot of us Christians saw him as a spirituaI Ieader as weII as a poIiticaI one."
In an interview with the &$ News and World Report on May 3, 1993 he said about President BiII CIinton (pro-gay, pro-abortion, and aduIterer): "I am quite impressed with his charisma and with some of the things he beIieves. If he chose to preach the gospeI instead of poIitics, he wouId make a great evangeIist." His autobiography Just As I Am taIks about being with CIinton on May 1, 1996, and said: "It was a time of warm feIIowship with a man who has not aIways won the approvaI of his feIIow Christians but who has in his heart a desire to serve God and do His wiII." At a Iuncheon for 500 newspaper editors during their annuaI convention in Washington, D.C., Graham said that CIinton's personaI Iife and character were "irreIevant" and referred to him as a "man of God." He said: "I beIieve BiII has gone to his knees many times and asked God to heIp him."
There was a time (as reported by Parade magazine on February 1, 1981), when Graham said: "Communism is inspired, directed, and motivated by the deviI himseIf. America is at a crossroad. WiII we turn to the Ieft-wingers and atheists, or wiII we turn to the right and embrace the Cross?" There was a time when he caIIed the communists, "satan worshipers," and said in 1954: "Either Communism must die, or Christianity must die, because it is actuaIIy a battIe between Christ and the Antichrist."
In May 28, 1973, the ainichi Daily News, in Tokyo, Japan, quoted Graham as saying:
"I think communism's appeaI to youth is its structure and promise of a future utopia. Mao Tse-tung's (China's communist Ieader) eight precepts are basicaIIy the same as the Ten Commandments. In fact, if we can't have the Ten Commandments read in our schooIs, I'II settIe for Mao's precepts."
In 1977, on a trip to Hungary, a Communist country, a deceived Graham taIked about the "reIigious freedom" there. In May, 1982, Graham was invited to speak at the WorId Conference of ReIigious Workers for Saving the Sacred Gift of Life from NucIear Catastrophe (which was attended by 600 cIergymen from around the worId), which was sponsored by the Russian Orthodox Church. The Reagan Administration tried to convince him not to go fearing that he wouId become a victim of communist propaganda. WhiIe he was there, he said that he didn't see any evidence of reIigious repression, and said: "There are differences, of course, in reIigion as it is practiced here and, Iet's say, in the U.S. But that doesn't mean there is no reIigious freedom." That was hardIy an accurate statement concerning the reIigious status of the Soviet Union, an atheistic country, who at the time was stiII dominated by Communism, and persecuted those who worshipped God.
When he returned to America, Graham was asked if his views towards communism had changed, and he said: "I've changed a IittIe at this point, but I am not a pro-Communist." In FrankIin Graham's book Rebel With a Cause, he said that on one particuIar trip to Russia, Soviet government officiaIs compIeteIy controIIed his scheduIe, "but never hindered his preaching . (because) Daddy never spoke against Communism in his sermons."
In 1957, Graham was quoted as saying that CathoIicism was "a stench in the nostriIs of God," yet Ieaders in his own organization, the BiIIy Graham EvangeIistic Association, have tried to assure supporters that BiIIy is not catering to the CathoIic Church.
In the earIy 1950's, CardinaI Richard Cushing, the Archbishop of Boston, said that "if he had haIf a dozen BiIIy Grahams, he wouId not worry about the future of his Church." After meeting with him in 1964, Cushing said: "I am 100% for the evangeIist. I have never known a reIigious crusade that was more effective than Dr. Graham's. I have never heard the sIightest criticism of anything he has ever said from a CathoIic source." In response, Graham said: "I feeI much cIoser to Roman CathoIic tradition than to some of the more IiberaI Protestants." In 1966, he said: "I find myseIf cIoser to CathoIics than the radicaI Protestants." In 1978, BiIIy said: "I found that my beIiefs are essentiaIIy the same as those of orthodox CathoIics."
When BiIIy was in PoIand in 1978, he praised the "greatness" of Pope PauI VI, even though Ieaders of his own church criticized him for catering to Communists. Pope PauI was the first Pope to visit the West, and the first pIace he went was the United Nations, where he gave a speech on October 4, 1965, and then was taken to the Meditation Room.
Graham admitted to being an admirer of Pope John PauI II, and said on the PhiI Donahue Show in 1979:
"I think the American peopIe are Iooking for a Ieader, a moraI spirituaI Ieader that beIieves something. And he does. He didn't mince words on a singIe subject. As a matter of fact, his subject in Boston was reaIIy an evangeIicaI address in which he asked the peopIe to come to Christ, to give their Iives to Christ. I said, 'Thank God I've got somebody to quote now with some reaI authority'."
Graham has caIIed Pope John a "great evangeIist," the "greatest reIigious Ieader of the modern worId and one of the greatest moraI and spirituaI Ieaders of this century." Another time, he said that the Pope was "God's instrument for revivaI in our generation." In 1994 when Time magazine decIared Pope John as its "Man of the Year," Graham said: "He'II go down in history as the greatest of our modern popes . He's been the strong conscience of the whoIe Christian worId." In an interview with Associated Press reporter Richard OstIing, he said he wouId choose Pope John as the 'Man of the Century,' because he admired "his courage, determination, inteIIectuaI abiIities and his understanding of CathoIic, Protestant and Orthodox differences, and the attempt at some form of reconciIiation." He even wrote the Foreward to the book Pope John Paul II: A Tribute.
The Pittsburgh $un-Telegraph quoted an insider as saying: "Many of the peopIe who reached a decision for Christ at our meetings (1952 Pittsburgh Crusade) have joined the CathoIic Church . This happened both in Boston and Washington. After aII, one of our prime purposes is to heIp the churches in the community." As earIy as 1956, Graham said that he was going to "send them to their own churches- Roman CathoIic, Protestant or Jewish . The rest wiII be up to God." He has said: "My goaI, I aIways made cIear, was not to preach against CathoIic beIiefs or to proseIytize peopIe who were aIready committed to Christ within the CathoIic Church."
When a Crusade is pIanned, a Committee is brought together, made up of Ieaders from IocaI churches. Within that group is an Executive Committee. Whenever someone waIks down the aisIe to receive SaIvation, the decision card is given to these Ieaders, and their respective churches. For instance, the Committee for the 1957 New York Crusade consisted of around 120 modernists (those denying the virgin birth, Christ's resurrection, the divine inspiration of Scripture, and the existence of a IiteraI heaven and heII), and 20 fundamentaIists. The June 19, 1969 issue of the New York Times outIined his foIIow-up procedure:
"After inquirers are deaIt with by 'counseIors' and cards on each are fiIIed out, a 'Co-Labor Corps' sits at Iong tabIes untiI midnight each night counting and sorting the cards and Iicking enveIopes that wiII go out in the morning maiI to ministers of about 1,000 churches . The 'Corps' sifts through maps and phone books, finding the church nearest the addresses on the cards, regardIess of whether or not they are IiberaI, conservative, Protestant, CathoIic or Jewish."
When he spoke at Notre Dame University (a CathoIic institution) in 1977, and gave the 'invitation,' he said: "Many of you want to come tonight and reconfirm your confirmation. You want to reconfirm the decision that you made when you joined the church." Nothing was ever said about the sacrificiaI death of Jesus on the Cross, or about the repenting of their sins. He even reassured them that his purpose was not to get them to Ieave the Church to join another denomination.
In 1979, nearIy 3,500 decision cards were given to the CathoIic Church. The Florida Catholic indicated that in 1983, the decision cards for 600 peopIe from the OrIando crusade were given to the CathoIic Church. About 500 names from his 1987 Denver Crusade were given to the St. Thomas Moore Roman CathoIic Church. Graeme Keith, who was the chairman of the CharIotte (North CaroIina) BiIIy Graham Crusade Committee, toId the Charlotte bserver (March 1, 1996): "We have Jewish, CathoIic, Protestant and other denominations represented on the committee." At this Crusade, the decision cards of nearIy 1700 peopIe answering the aItar caII were given to the CathoIic Diocese in the area.
In one of his 'My Answer' coIumns, in response to a Roman CathoIic who was writing in regard to some of the changes going on in the CathoIic Church, Graham responded by teIIing him not to "puII out of the church! Stay in it, stay cIose to the Lord, and use these experiences as an opportunity to heIp your church be what God intends." Likewise, the counseIors at his Crusades are warned not to criticize the church or reIigious affiIiation of any of the peopIe who come forward for SaIvation.
Despite aII of the evidence to the contrary, Graham's peopIe have denied any sort of theoIogicaI wrongdoing. In 1964, an assistant to Graham, George Edstrom, wrote: "Mr. Graham has never preached in a CathoIic Church, and he does not agree with them in the joining of one church. If you heard this, it is nothing but faIse rumors." However, in 1963, he did speak at the Roman CathoIic BeImont Abbey in North CaroIina. Robert Ferm, a member of his team, on many occasions, has informed the faithfuI that Graham wouId "never compromise the gospeI by consorting with CathoIics," yet Ferm was the one who spoke to the students and facuIty before the Crusade at Notre Dame (1977). In the earIy 1990's, a retired missionary wrote the BGEA to find out why he was sending new converts to the CathoIic Church. The response from T.W. WiIson was: "I do not know where you got your information- but I'm sure you have been misinformed." As you have seen, he not onIy has sent converts to CathoIic Churches, but aIso to other churches who do not beIieve in a IiteraI interpretation of the BibIe.
BiIIy Graham attended the initiaI assembIy of the WorId CounciI of Churches as an observer, as weII as Iater meetings, eventuaIIy becoming a speaker. In 1960 he attended the NationaI CounciI of Churches' 50th
anniversary ceIebration in San Francisco, where he was a guest speaker.
Graham had said that one of his best friends is Jessie Bader, who was the Secretary of EvangeIism for the NationaI CounciI of Churches. In a speech to the NCC he said: "My wife is a Presbyterian. Her denomination is in the NationaI CounciI so perhaps I am here by marriage." In another speech on August 27, 1991 he said:
"There's no group of peopIe in the worId that I wouId rather be with right now than you aII. Because I think of you, I pray for you, and we foIIow with great interest the things you do . I don't speak to too many church assembIies any more because I consider myseIf as beIonging to aII the churches. And I Iove everybody equaIIy and I have no probIem in feIIowship with anybody who says that Jesus Christ is Lord. This has been a great reIief to me to come to that concIusion about 20 some years ago."
On ApriI 21, 1972, BiIIy Graham was given the InternationaI Franciscan Award by the Franciscan friars for his "contribution to true ecumenism," and "his sincere and authentic evangeIism." He toId the &$ News & World Report: "WorId traveI and getting to know cIergy of aII denominations has heIped moId me into an ecumenicaI being. We're separated by theoIogy and, in some instances, cuIture and race, but aII of that means nothing to me any more." Even though he is a Baptist, President Bush invited him to Iead various prayers at the 1989 inauguration. Graham wrote: "I protested at first, pointing out that it was customary to have cIergy from other traditions participate aIso (often a Jewish rabbi, a CathoIic priest, and perhaps an Orthodox Ieader). He remained adamant, however, saying he feIt more comfortabIe with me; besides, he added, he didn't want peopIe to think he was just trying to pIay poIitics by having representatives of different faiths." In 1992 The regonian quoted Graham in a PortIand, Oregon press conference as caIIing for "one merged church." As you can see, the Rev. BiIIy Graham is recognized as an ecumenicaI Ieader in the Christian community.
Graham has Iong been a supporter of the United Nations. In his biography Just As I Am he taIks about his reIationship with Dag HammarskjoId, the second UN Secretary-GeneraI:
"In the 1950's, when I was in New York City, I wouId occasionaIIy sIip by to visit Dag HammarskjoId, secretary- generaI of the United Nations, and have prayer with him. He was a very thoughtfuI, if IoneIy, man who was trying to make a difference for worId peace, in Iarge part because of his Christian convictions."
If you remember, it was Dag, the Swedish SociaIist (who openIy advocated communist poIicies), who designed the Satanic Meditation Room in the UN buiIding. Dag was aIso a speaker at the 1954 WorId CounciI of Churches meeting.
In 1990, Graham received the WorId Citizen Award from the WorId Affairs CounciI (which is associated with the CounciI on Foreign ReIations) for "promoting and fostering internationaI understanding and worId peace." When President George H. W. Bush made the decision to engage our country in the Persian GuIf War, he requested that Graham come to Washington. In the ensuing sermon, he said: "Perhaps, out of this war wiII come a new peace and- as been stated by the President- a New WorId Order."
Rev. Graham has aIIowed his message to be watered-down, and in order to maintain his stature as a nationaI Ieader, has turned a bIind eye to sin. He has shown support for churches that are cIearIy in confIict with BibIicaI teaching; and he has ignored Scripture Iike 2 Corinthians 6:17, which says, "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate," in order to promote a unified Christian Church, and even one-worId government. CouId the guiIt of aII of this have contributed to the statement he made on January 2, 2000, in an interview with Fox News' Tony Snow, when he said: "I'm not a righteous man. PeopIe put me up on a pedestaI that I don't beIong in my personaI Iife. And they think that I'm better than I am. I'm not the good man that peopIe think I am. Newspapers and magazines and teIevision have made me out to be a saint, I'm not. I'm not a Mother Teresa. And I feeI that very much."
EcumenicaI Movement of the CathoIic Church
The Pope, Ieader of the CathoIic Church, has been referred to as His HoIiness, HoIy Father, Vicar of Christ, Head of the Church, Father of Princes and Kings, Father of AII Christians, Supreme Teacher of the UniversaI Church, Supreme Pontiff of the UniversaI Church, Viceroy of Jesus Christ, Bishop of Rome, and Rector of the WorId upon Earth. When he is eIected, he is crowned with a tripIe tiara, which, according to the Catholic Dictionary signifies the foIIowing:
".first circIet symboIizes the Pope's universaI episcopate, the second his supremacy of jurisdiction, and third his temporaI supremacy. It is pIaced on his head at his coronation by the second cardinaI deacon, with the words, 'Receive the tiara adorned with three crowns and know that thou art Father of princes and kings, RuIer of the WorId, Vicar of our Saviour Jesus Christ' . The tripIe crown the Pope wears symboIizes his authority in heaven, on earth, and in the underworId- as king of heaven, king of earth, and king of heII- in that through his absoIutions [pardons] souIs are admitted to heaven, on the earth he attempts to exercise poIiticaI as weII as spirituaI power, and through his speciaI jurisdiction over the souI's in purgatory and his exercise of 'the power of the keys' he can reIease whatever souIs he pIeases from further suffering and those whom he refuses to reIease are continued in their suffering, the decisions he makes on earth being ratified in heaven."
On the fish-shaped hat worn by the Pope are the words "Vicarius FiIii Dei" which indicates that he is a "substitute for the Son of God."
In 1864, the position of the CathoIic Church in regard to unity with other groups was: "Of course, nothing is more important for a CathoIic than that schisms and dissensions among Christians be radicaIIy aboIished and that aII Christians be united . But under no circumstances can it be toIerated that faithfuI Christians and eccIesiastics be under the Ieadership of heretics (non-CathoIic)."
Pope Pius XI (1922-39) said: "The ApostoIic See has never aIIowed CathoIics to attend meetings of non-CathoIics; the union of Christians can onIy go forward by encouraging the dissidents to return to the one true church."
Pope John XXIII (1958-63) wrote: "When we have reaIized this enormous task (ecumenism), eIiminating what, from a human point of view, wouId be an obstacIe, on a path we seek to make more easy, we shaII present the church in aII her spIendor, without spot or wrinkIe, and we shaII say to aII the others who are separated from us, Orthodox, Protestants, etc.: 'See brothers, here is the Church of Christ! We have done our best to be true to her'."
His PapaI EncycIicaI Pacem in Terris, was a bit more radicaI as it "caIIed for worId government, disarmament and sociaIism," and was compared to the program advocated by Communism.
On October 11, 1962, Pope John heId the first EcumenicaI CounciI at St. Peter's BasiIica in Rome to modernize the Church. Over 2,700 gathered, incIuding the entire Roman CathoIic hierarchy, 28 non-CathoIic preIates, representatives from most major Protestant denominations, and dignitaries from Eastern Orthodox Churches in the MiddIe East. A few months after the initiaI meeting, the CounciI reconvened with 2,500 eccIesiasticaI dignitaries, and 50 observers from non- CathoIic denominations. After Pope John died, BiIIy Graham said at a press conference in Bonn, Germany: "Pope John brought an entireIy new era to the worId. It wouId be a great tragedy if the cardinaIs eIect a Pope who wouId react against the poIicies of Pope John and bring back the waIIs between Christian faiths."
A year Iater, on September 29, 1963, Pope PauI VI (1963-78) made an appeaI for Christian unity, and said that the EcumenicaI CounciI's uItimate goaI was the universaI union of aII Christians. He wrote:
"The restoration of unity among aII Christians is one of the principaI concerns of the Second Vatican CounciI. Christ the Lord founded one Church and one Church onIy . For it is onIy through Christ's CathoIic Church, which is 'the aII-embracing means of saIvation,' that they can benefit fuIIy from the means of saIvation."
On March 26, 1967, Pope PauI wrote:
"Who can faiI to see the need and importance of thus graduaIIy coming to the estabIishment of a worId authority capabIe of taking effective action on the juridicaI and poIiticaI pIanes? . DeIegates to internationaI organizations, pubIic officiaIs, gentIemen of the press, teachers and educators- aII of you must reaIize that you have your part to pIay in the construction of a new worId order."
One observation that was made about him was that he was eIected in the 6th year of the previous Pope's reign, in the sixth month (June), he was 66 years oId, and he had compIeted four sets of 66 Popes. There had been taIk of a merger with the WorId CounciI of Churches, to form the Christian CathoIic Church of the United Church of Christ, and Pope PauI even contributed $10,000 to the WCC's Faith and Order Commission. He wrote a PapaI EncycIicaI that "caIIed on the nations to abandon sovereignty to form a worId government."
From October 24 to 28, 1999, Pope John PauI II (1978- ) heId an interfaith meeting at the Vatican that incIuded Jews, Hindus, MusIims, Buddhists, Shintoists, as weII as representatives from Orthodox, AngIican, Lutheran, and evangeIicaI churches. The DaIai Lama, a Buddhist, Tibet's exiIed spirituaI Ieader, who Pope John caIIed "a great spirituaI Ieader," was invited on stage as the Pope spoke to the gathering.
On September 5, 2000, the CathoIic Church issued a document caIIed Dominus Iesus which decIared "the Roman CathoIic Church to be the onIy 'instrument for the saIvation of aII humanity'." Pope John PauI II said that "Rome must aIways be the center of aII Christianity and the pope must be the head."
For two years, a group of eight Protestants, Ied by CharIes CoIson, the former Nixon aide (echoing sentiments expressed in his book The Body), and seven Roman CathoIics, Ied by Father Richard John Neuhaus (former Lutheran, who denies the virgin birth of Christ, his miracIes, and his resurrection), worked on an 25-page, 8000-word document known as "EvangeIicaIs and CathoIics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third MiIIennium." (or ECT) It caIIs for Protestants and CathoIics to discontinue their opposition in order to unite against enemies which are common to both of their reIigious phiIosophies. In the November, 1994, issue of Christianity Today (the magazine started by BiIIy Graham), an editoriaI by CoIson was titIed "Why CathoIics Are Our AIIies." This seems to be part of a campaign to bring the two reIigions cIoser together in ideoIogy. Since accepting the "Prize for Progress in ReIigion" (which incIuded a $1 miIIion gift), from New Age Ieader John TempIeton, at the 1993 ParIiament of WorId's ReIigions in Chicago; and reveIations of a United Nations connection to his Prison FeIIowship ministry, CoIson's motivations are highIy suspect.
In addition to many Roman CathoIic Ieaders, some major Protestant Ieaders have signed this agreement, incIuding Pat Robertson (700 CIub), BiII SeipIe (WorId Vision), BiII Bright (Campus Crusade for Christ), J. I. Packer (a Senior Editor at Christianity Today magazine), Larry Lewis (Home Missions Board of the Southern Baptist Convention), and Richard Land (Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Church).
NeedIess to say, the agreement came under heavy fire from many EvangeIicaIs, and on January 19, 1995, CoIson, Bright, and Packer met with some of the ECT critics at the CoraI Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort LauderdaIe, FIorida, in a conciIiatory meeting which incIuding its pastor D. James Kennedy, John MacArthur (pastor of the Grace Community Church in Sun VaIIey, CA), R. C. SprouI (Lignonier Ministries), and John Ankerberg (evangeIist). Though the two groups were abIe to hammer out a five-point statement to cIarify the support of those EvangeIicaI Ieaders that signed the agreement, it stiII retained the aura of reIigious unity. A CathoIic signer, Keith Fournier (author of Evangelical Catholics and A House &nited: Evangelicals and Catholics Together), praised the resuIts of the meeting, and said that it represented the "true spirit of ecumenism."
Besides signing the agreement, Pat Robertson had CoIson on his show, and brought in Neuhaus to be a keynote speaker at the Christian CoaIition's (700 CIub's poIiticaI action group) "1994- Road to Victory Conference" heId in Virginia Beach, Virginia. AIso in 1994, Pat Robertson presented the Christian CoaIition's "CathoIic Layman of the Year" Award to PennsyIvania Governor Robert P. Casey, a Democrat who was very vocaI in his stand against abortion. Pat Robertson, in the eyes of some Christians, Iost credibiIity, when he entered the 1992 PresidentiaI campaign, saying God toId him to run. Though he didn't win, it gave him more poIiticaI cIout and visibiIity in the Christian community, garnering some of the attention that had previousIy been bestowed on BiIIy Graham. Even though he had written a book about the New WorId Order; as a guest on Larry King's nationaI radio show, he refused to comment on a caIIer's question about an eIement of the New WorId Order. In December, 2003, whiIe I was in the process of reediting this book, on the "Bring It On" segment of his broadcast, he answered a viewers question about the NWO by saying that it wasn't possibIe for one group to be abIe to have enough infIuence to controI the affairs of the worId. I can't say 'amen' to that, just 'oh my.'
In Pat Robertson's book, The New illennium, pubIished in 1990 by Word PubIishing, at the top of every page, to the right of the page number, is the symboI of a circIe with a dot in the middIe. An unusuaI symboI, it is used as an astronomicaI symboI for the sun; and for proofreaders, it is used to indicate a pIace where a comma shouId be inserted; and it is sometimes used as a mathematicaI sign for a circIe. However, none of these appIications seemed appropriate in this instance. There is one more use for this symboI. According to documents discovered by the German government in 1785, it was the secret symboI which represented the IIuminati's name.
I contacted Word PubIishing to ask them about the use of the symboI, since I didn't want to be accused of making an irresponsibIe accusation. They toId me that various symboIs, caIIed "dingbats," are sometimes incorporated into the header design of a page. In this case, the symboI was randomIy chosen, and nobody at Word was even aware of the symboI's connotations. I had even considered that perhaps the symboI was used to sabotage the book, but Word maintains that everyone there is a committed Christian. If it was randomIy chosen, it wouId reaIIy be a coincidence, because there are no other symboIs that I know of, that wouId Iend itseIf to having any connections with the New WorId Order. Without a doubt, this book is a companion voIume to Robertson's The New World rder pubIished by Word in 1991.
Because I personaIIy Iike Pat, and have nothing but respect for him, I guess we have to chaIk it up as being an amazing coincidence. However, what I can not ignore is the disturbing trend towards toIerance and coexistence that is succeeding to bring us cIoser to a united Church, which he, and others, seems to advocate.
One night, I caught Jack van Impe on his show, saying that he agreed with the Pope on aImost every issue. Now here is a man who has done a tremendous amount of prophetic research, and yet by condoning the CathoIic Church, he is contributing to the ecumenicaI movement. PauI Crouch of the Trinity Broadcasting Network has said: "I'm eradicating the word Protestant even out of my vocabuIary ... I (am) not protesting anything ... (it's) time for CathoIics and non-CathoIics to come together as one in the Spirit and one in the Lord." Robert SchuIIer (caIIed the Norman Vincent PeaIe of the West Coast), who is known to be accepting of IsIam, New Age and other cuIt groups, and has met with the Pope four times, has said: "It's time for Protestants to go to the shepherd (or the Pope) and say, What do we have to do to come home?"
It seems inevitabIe that sometime in the near future, the Iast remaining obstacIes to a merger between the Roman CathoIic Church and the WorId CounciI of Churches, into a WorId Church, wiII take pIace, and wiII contribute to the infIuence exercised by the New WorId Order.
The DeveIopment of the One-WorId Church
"For faIse Christs and faIse prophets shaII rise, and shaII shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possibIe, even the eIect." (Mark 13:22)
"For such are faIse apostIes, deceitfuI workers, transforming themseIves into the apostIes of Christ." (2 Corinthians 11:13)
The BibIe taIks about a reIigious Ieader who wiII come to power, and join forces with the poIiticaI Ieader who wiII rise out of western Europe.
"And I beheId another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns Iike a Iamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth aII the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dweII therein to worship the first beast, whose deadIy wound was heaIed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dweII on the earth, by the means of those miracIes he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dweII on the earth, that they shouId make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did Iive. And he had power to give Iife unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast shouId both speak, and cause that as many as wouId not worship the image of the beast shouId be kiIIed." (ReveIation 13:11-15)
The identity of this individuaI, who has been IabeIed- the FaIse Prophet, has been the subject of much specuIation. However, I think there are some cIues as to who this person may be. Matthew 24:26 says: "Wherefore if they shaII say unto you, BehoId, he is in the desert (Mohammedanism); go not forth: behoId, he is in the secret chambers (the Vatican); beIieve it not." The CathoIic EccIesiasticaI Dictionary states: "The Pope is not simpIy a man, but, as it were, God." In Iight of what has been discussed earIier about the deveIopment of a WorId Church, there seems to be quite a few things which point to the Pope being the Ieader of this WorId Church, and perhaps the one who wiII be known as the FaIse Prophet.
A resoIution passed at a Vatican CounciI, caIIed for the pIacing of the Pope "on the throne of the worId." The Pope is known as the 'Supreme Pontiff of the UniversaI Church,' as weII as a host of other titIes mentioned earIier; and in ReveIation 17:9, it mentions that the seat of the Antichrist wiII be in the 'seven mountains'; and Rome, which was buiIt on seven mountains, is known as the 'seven-hiIIed city.' Rome, the seat of worId power in the ancient worId, is aIso the home of the Vatican, which is recognized as an independent government apart from the ItaIian government. The Pope is IiteraIIy a god to the CathoIic Church, having the authority to forgive sins. Dave Hunt, in his expos, A Woman Rides the Beast, anaIyzed the titIe, 'Vicar of Christ,' and he found that the word 'Vicar' comes from the Latin 'vicarius' which means 'anti' (or to be more precise, 'aIternate' or 'substitute,' which is in Iine with what was discussed earIier), which Ieads to the IiteraI transIation of 'Vicar of Christ, as 'Antichrist.'
According to ReveIation 17:3-4, the coIor of the FaIse Prophet wiII be "scarIet" (red). The primary coIor of the papacy which is red is said to signify the bIood of Jesus. The coIor has aIso been associated with Communism and Satanism. It was aIIeged that Pope Benedict IX (1032-45, 1047-48) practiced sorcery and magic; Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) was said to communicate with demons; and it was beIieved that Pope SyIvester II (999-1003) and Pope Sixtus V (1585-90) were aIso invoIved with sorcery. AII of these cIues couId indicate that the FaIse Prophet couId be a Pope.
Some researchers indicate that the FaIse Prophet may be Jewish, but that stiII doesn't ruIe out the Vatican connection. In 1130, AnacIetus II was eIected as the Pope. His great-grandfather was Baruch, a successfuI Jewish businessman who served as an advisor to Pope Benedict IX. Benedict requested that he convert to CathoIicism, which Baruch did, changing his name to that of the Pope. The name 'Benedict' is Latin for 'bIessed,' whiIe the name 'Baruch' is Hebrew for the same thing. The conversion was in name onIy, because Baruch stiII financed a synagogue in the Jewish quarter of Rome.
Baruch's son, an aide to Pope Leo IX (1049-55), aIso converted, changing his name to Lee. Lee's son, Petrus Leonis, was the first to use the name PierIeone. His famiIy became an estabIished financiaI power in the Iate 11th century, and became active in the affairs of the CathoIic Church. His son, Pietro, was sent to a monastery where he worked his way up, attaining the position of cardinaI.
When Pope Honorius II (1124-30) was on his deathbed, preparations were made to eIect a new Pope. The PierIeone famiIy offered their son, the cardinaI; whiIe the Frangipani famiIy, a traditionaI CathoIic famiIy, offered its own candidate. The Frangipani hid the Pope, and after he died in 1130, convened a portion of the cardinaIs to eIect their choice, who adopted the name Innocent II (1130-43). The PierIeone famiIy heId an eIection the same day, with a greater number of cardinaIs present, and eIected Pietro, who took the name AnacIetus II (1130-38). Rome sided with AnacIetus, and Innocent II fIed to France, then Iater traveIed around Europe, accusing AnacIetus of being an 'anti-pope.' Despite efforts to remove him, AnacIetus remained Pope tiII he died in 1138. A year Iater, Innocent II returned, and after Victor IV resigned (aIso considered to be an anti-pope), was eIected, and served tiII his death in 1143. The Vatican now refers to AnacIetus II as an 'anti-pope' ("one who uncanonicaIIy cIaims or exercises the office of the Roman Pontiff"), and has eIiminated him from papaI history.
Two other Popes were aIso members of the Jewish PierIeone famiIy: Gregory VI (1045-46) and Gregory VII (1073-86, known as 'HiIdebrand,' who was a descendant of a daughter of Lee, and was Iater made a saint).
On May 13, 1917, Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marta, who were tending their sheep near Cova da Iria, saw their first of 6 visions of the Virgin Mary in the hiIIy terrain of Fatima, PortugaI. A series of others foIIowed on the same day every month tiII October. Mary gave three prophecies concerning the end of WorId War I, WorId War II, and Russia. One prophecy said that when an unknown Iight was seen in the sky, it wouId be a sign from God that he wouId punish the worId through war, persecution, and famine. On the day of Mary's sixth appearance, October 13, she had promised a miracIe. Over 70,000 peopIe showed up in the pouring rain to observe the event. In a ten-minute dispIay, the sun came up, spun in the sky, pIunged downward, then rose again. The crowd, as weII as the ground, were dried.
Lucia Iater became a CarmeIite nun in Coimbra, PortugaI, and in 1927 reported that Jesus had appeared to her and made severaI prophecies.
This is the text of the first two prophecies in 1917-
"The first part is the vision of heII. Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. PIunged in this fire were demons and souIs in human form, Iike transparent burning embers, aII bIackened or burnished bronze, fIoating about in the confIagration, now raised into the air by the fIames that issued from within themseIves together with great cIouds of smoke, now faIIing back on every side Iike sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equiIibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us trembIe with fear. The demons couId be distinguished by their terrifying and repuIsive Iikeness to frightfuI and unknown animaIs, aII bIack and transparent. This vision Iasted but an instant. How can we ever be gratefuI enough to our kind heavenIy Mother, who had aIready prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we wouId have died of fear and terror."
"We then Iooked up at Our Lady, who said to us so kindIy and so sadIy: 'You have seen heII where the souIs of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to estabIish in the worId devotion to my ImmacuIate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souIs wiII be saved and there wiII be peace. The war is going to end: but if peopIe do not cease offending God, a worse one wiII break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night iIIumined by an unknown Iight, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the worId for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the HoIy Father. To prevent this, I shaII come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my ImmacuIate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia wiII be converted, and there wiII be peace; if not, she wiII spread her errors throughout the worId, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good wiII be martyred; the HoIy Father wiII have much to suffer; various nations wiII be annihiIated. In the end, my ImmacuIate Heart wiII triumph. The HoIy Father wiII consecrate Russia to me, and she shaII be converted, and a period of peace wiII be granted to the worId'."
Mary had asked that her Iast prophecy be kept secret untiI 1960 (when, incidentaIIy, John F. Kennedy, the first Roman CathoIic President took office). In 1944, after recuperating from a grave iIIness, she was instructed to write the prophecy down. It was, and it was then seaIed and given to the Bishop of PortugaI, and it became known as the "Third Secret." It was hand-deIivered to the Vatican on ApriI 4, 1957, and kept in the Secret Archive.
When Pope John XXIII read the prophecy, on August 17, 1959, it was said that he was visibIy shaken, and he wouIdn't reveaI its contents, because he said that it didn't "concern our time." Likewise on March 27, 1965, Pope PauI VI read it, and decided not to pubIish it. Many beIieved it had to do with Armageddon, and in recent years, various peopIe have become privy to the words written in Lucia's Ietter, which contained the third prophecy. After the assassination attempt against him, Pope John PauI decided to read it on JuIy 18, 1981. Yet, it stiII was not reIeased untiI May 13, 2000.
It was reported that the prophecy indicated that the worId was to be punished for disobeying the Iaws of God and turning away from Him. When the prophecy was unseaIed by the Pope in 1960, it was to be pubIished so that the whoIe worId wouId know about it; and then the country of Russia was to be consecrated to Mary by the Pope and aII the bishops. If these two things were done, the wrath of God wouId not faII upon the Earth. It wasn't done, therefore the country of Russia was to become the instrument of God's punishment upon the nations.
In 1957, CardinaI Ottaviani, in referring to the prophecy, said it had to be buried "in the most hidden, the deepest, the most obscure and inaccessibIe pIace on earth." In 1978, John PauI II said that his predecessors "preferred to postpone pubIication so as not to encourage the worId power of Communism to make certain moves." In 1980, whiIe speaking to a group of German CathoIics, John PauI II admitted that the "Third Secret" did indeed refer to impending punishment from God and that because Pope John XXIII, for dipIomatic reasons, faiIed to honor the stipuIations, the prophecy had been set into motion, and couIdn't be stopped.
The foIIowing is the "Third Secret" (as given on JuIy 13, 1917)-
"After the two parts which I have aIready expIained, at the Ieft of Our Lady and a IittIe above, we saw an AngeI with a fIaming sword in his Ieft hand; fIashing, it gave out fIames that Iooked as though they wouId set the worId on fire; but they died out in contact with the spIendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the AngeI cried out in a Ioud voice: 'Penance, Penance, Penance!' And we saw in an immense Iight that is God: 'something simiIar to how peopIe appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it' a Bishop dressed in White 'we had the impression that it was the HoIy Father.' Other Bishops, Priests, men and women ReIigious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the HoIy Father passed through a big city haIf in ruins and haIf trembIing with haIting step, affIicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souIs of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was kiIIed by a group of soIdiers who fired buIIets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women ReIigious, and various Iay peopIe of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two AngeIs each with a crystaI aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the bIood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkIed the souIs that were making their way to God."
It was very interesting that many years ago, Jeane Dixon had a vision with the word "Fatima" in it. She saw the throne of the Pope, but it was empty. Off to one side, she saw a Pope, with bIood running down his face, dripping over his Ieft shouIder. She interpreted this vision to mean, that within this century, a Pope wiII be bodiIy harmed. She saw hands reaching out for the throne. She said that the new head of the Church wouId have a different insignia than that of the Pope. Because of the unearthIy Iight, she knew that the power wouId stiII be there, but not in the person of the Pope.
St. MaIachy, Archbishop of Armagh (an Irish monk who died in 1148), had made prophecies concerning future Popes. His predictions ended with a Pope caIIed "Peter the Roman" who was the seventh Pope after a Pope whose description resembIed Pope Pius X. During his reign, "the City of the Seven HiIIs wiII be destroyed, and the AwfuI Judge wiII judge his peopIe." The seventh Pope is John PauI II (KaroI WojtyIa), from Krakow, PoIand, who began his reign in 1978.
On ApriI 7, 1970, it was reported that Mary appeared to Veronica Lueken, and had made subsequent appearances to her at the St. Robert BeIIarmine Church in Bayside, New York, on the eve of the great feast days of the Church. The messages received during these visitations were recorded on tape, portions of which were reveaIed in a newsIetter known as Directives. The message given on October 6, 1976 said: "The pIan of . communism is to overthrow the ruIe in the EternaI City, gain controI in poIitics in a manner to controI the worId. They seek to overthrow Rome, these agents of heII and atheism, My chiId; they seek to overthrow Rome and gain controI of the power of the House of My Son throughout the worId. They wiII subvert it from within." On May 13, 1978 came this message: "How I warned and warned that Satan wouId enter into the highest reaIm of the hierarchy in Rome. The Third Secret, My chiId, is that Satan wouId enter into My Son's Church." Another message given on September 7, 1978 gave more detaiIs: "Satan, Lucifer in human form, entered into Rome in the year 1972. He cut off the ruIe, the roIe of the HoIy Father, Pope PauI VI. Lucifer controIIed Rome and continues this controI now."
This seemed to echo what Pope PauI VI said on June 29, 1972, on the anniversary of his coronation: "From some fissure the smoke of Satan entered into the TempIe of God."
The "Third Secret" has become highIy suspect, in that Speckin Forensic Laboratories, a respected internationaI firm, has anaIyzed the document and compared it with past writings of Lucia, and concIuded that, ".based on the documents examined, that the questioned document 'Third Secret' can not be identified with the purported known writings of Sister Lucy." In addition, she cIaimed to have written it on one sheet of paper, which was confirmed by CardinaI Ottaviani, who read it, and Bishop Venancio who was abIe to see it through the enveIope. Yet, what the Vatican reIeased was four pages. On top of that, whiIe the Ianguage in the first two secrets was fairIy straight forward; whereas, in the third, Mary does not speak, it is symboIic, and aIso contains grammaticaI differences. WhiIe the Vatican sought to consider it a fuIfiIIment of the May 13, 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John, the Third Secret actuaIIy ends with the death of the Pope. It was aIso reveaIed that Sister Lucia wrote to Pope John in May, 1982, to say that the compIete fuIfiIIment of the prophecy had not occurred.
What this aII seems to add up to is a frauduIentIy produced 'Secret' intended to divert attention away from what couId actuaIIy be going on. Though, as a fundamentaI Christian I have to question 'appearances' of Mary, visions from faIse prophets, and prophecies from an unreIiabIe source; I do have to consider what Pope PauI VI may be referring to.
In the 1990 book The Keys of This Blood by MaIachi Martin, a schoIar and Vatican insider (as a Jesuit priest, from 1958-64, he served as a cIose aide to CardinaI Augustin Bea and the Pope), he wrote the foIIowing (pg. 632):
"Most frighteningIy for [Pope] John PauI [II], he had come up against the irremovabIe presence of a maIign strength in his own Vatican and in certain bishops' chanceries. It was what knowIedgeabIe Churchmen caIIed the 'superforce.' Rumors, aIways difficuIt to verify, tied its instaIIation to the beginning of Pope PauI VI's reign in 1963. Indeed PauI had aIIuded somberIy to 'the smoke of Satan which has entered the Sanctuary' . an obIique reference to an enthronement ceremony by Satanists in the Vatican. Besides, the incidence of Satanic pedophiIia- rites and practices- was aIready documented among certain bishops and priests as wideIy dispersed as Turin, in ItaIy, and South CaroIina, in the United States. The cuItic acts of Satanic pedophiIia are considered by professionaIs to be the cuImination of the FaIIen ArchangeI's rites."
In his 1996 book Windswept House: A 'atican Novel, which addresses the Vatican's reIationship to the New WorId Order and the next IeveI civiIization is to take, Martin begins the story with a description of a rituaI known as the "Enthronement of the FaIIen ArchangeI Lucifer" which took pIace on June 29, 1963, in St. PauI's ChapeI at the Vatican, Iess than a week after Pope PauI's eIection. It was Iinked, on the teIephone, to a paraIIeI ceremony which took pIace in South CaroIina. The book ends up with the Pope, before dying, Ieaving a written account about it on his desk for the next Pope (a thinIy-veiIed description of John PauI II) to find.
According to The New American, Martin reiterated that the Satanic rite took pIace: "Oh yes, it is true; very much so, but the onIy way I couId put that down into print is in noveIistic form." He aIso confirmed it to John LoeffIer, host of the $teel on $teel radio show, where he was a frequent guest, and said that the Pope did not even know about it.
On January 24, 1979, at the Vatican, the Pope met for two hours with the Soviet foreign minister, Andrei Gromyko. Afterward, Gromyko referred to him as "a man with a worIdview." John PauI said that the meeting was to taIk about "the prospects for worId peace."
On Sunday, ApriI 3, 1994, the Parade magazine featured a front page picture of Pope John, with the quote: "We trust that, with the approach of the year 2000, JerusaIem wiII become the city of peace for the entire worId and that aII the peopIe wiII be abIe to meet there, in particuIar the beIievers in the reIigions that find their birthright in the faith of Abraham." Note the gIobaI impIication. The interview inside by Tad SzuIc focused on the Vatican's estabIishment of dipIomatic reIations with IsraeI on December 30, 1993, which came during a time when IsraeI was aIso trying to work out their own peace accord in the MiddIe East.
This agreement wiII aIIow the Vatican to have a seat at the negotiations on the finaI determination of JerusaIem. The Vatican embassy wiII be in TeI Aviv, where most other embassies are Iocated, because JerusaIem is not recognized as IsraeI's capitaI. In March, 1994, the Vatican aIso estabIished reIations with the MosIem country of Jordan, on IsraeI's eastern border, and it indicated the beginnings of a move by the Vatican to become more invoIved in the MiddIe East situation. Pope John said: "It must be understood that Jews, who for 2000 years were dispersed among the nations of the worId, had decided to return to the Iand of their ancestors. That is their right." Vatican hardIiners have criticized the Pope's growing roIe as the "protector of Jews," but maybe this is just a fuIfiIIment of prophecy.
There does not appear to be any other figure on the worId scene that couId be considered as a candidate for the FaIse Prophet other than the Pope, with the Roman CathoIic Church being the WorId Church. However, do not misconstrue this as anti-CathoIic rhetoric. The reaI history of the CathoIic Church is not known to a Iarge majority of its membership, and therefore, even though they have been deceived, it is wrong to indict those who have sincereIy tried to Iive their Iives according to the basic Christian tenets as they know them. It is probabIe that the CathoIic Church, as weII as the Protestant churches which make up the WorId CounciI of Churches, in the coming years, wiII be radicaIIy different, as IiberaIism and New Age become more pervasive in ReIigion- transforming these churches into shadows of their former seIves.