Forecast for Hope

Blizzards, fires, floods, tornadoes -- disaster forecasts are looking mighty grim on the weather channel today. A terror-alert has just been announced for major cities in Europe between Christmas and the New Year. Life on this planet seems more fragile than ever.

Many have lost loved ones this year and no doubt that paints their emotions as this year comes to a close. If the LORD tarries - there is still the consolation that 100 years from now all of us will have departed from this life. 

It is hard to fathom how people can walk around thinking that there is no God and no life after death. How depressing is that? That's even sadder than the Christians who do not believe that Jesus is coming back to rule and reign on earth for a thousand years. Those Christians must despair as well as they watch the birth pangs increase and see no purpose to it.

What a disappointment life must be for Christians who think that we are now ruling and reigning in the place of Christ. It is hard to believe there are such believers -- but Post-Millennialists/Preterists have such a defeated worldview. 

And the signs and wonders followers -- how do they feel when the feathers stop falling and the gold glitter fades away? Where can they go to find the next spiritual high? From Toronto to Lakeland to Redding -- all of that is empty thrills and chills.

But we who wait for our Savior to come for us His church have the comfort of knowing His Word is being fulfilled before our very eyes. We have a Lifeline to hold onto while we wait and a Hope for rescue before God pours out His wrath upon those dwelling carelessly on the planet. His supernatural power makes the weak one strong.

We must keep lifting up Jesus to this hurting world and pull as many as we can from the fire. Time is short and the window of opportunity to turn to the LORD is closing.

I showed the film, The Nativity, to the women in the prison on Christmas and had the opportunity to share the Gospel with inmates I had not seen before. I told them that we might envy those who lived when Jesus came who got to see with their own eyes His miracles and touch the hem of His garment. There were those who looked for the coming of the Messiah 2,000 years ago, but we are living in the time that will most likely see His second coming. 

Monitoring the birth pangs, as we do in this class, we can anticipate His return and bring joy to a place that seems joyless. Please pray for Sunny, Starla, and Cindy -- that the LORD would give them good soil where the seed planted can grow.

Spread the hope, joy, and good news while there's still time.

“Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” -- John 12:31-32

"Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure." - 1 John 3:1-3

"It Is Written . . . "

This is certainly a time of famine for the hearing of the Word of God. Even in places where Scripture is being quoted, it is not being applied with spiritual understanding, but with mere human reasoning. Some preachers might get further in using quotes from Dickens or Aesop's Fables to make their sermon points.

Having been raised Catholic and hearing a bit of an Epistle or the Gospels read briefly at Mass every Sunday, I knew first-hand what it was like to hear God's Word while not really hearing it. The bulk of Catholic practice and theology is based upon human reasoning.
The idea of Limbo, for instance, was conceived when their belief that one must be baptized in order to get into heaven clashed with their idea that babies are pure but have Original Sin. The Bible never taught any such thing, but Limbo sounded sensible to them and resolved the conflict.

The Catholic dogmas of their priesthood, transubstantiation, baptizing babies, confession, penance, the papacy, mariology -- and more -- came about with unspiritual human reasoning.

Before I was born-again, I could read the Bible and appreciate its wisdom and ponder on its deep thoughts, but the words did not penetrate my unregenerate spirit. Immediately upon my repentance and being filled with His Holy Spirit, the Bible came alive to me. The blinders had been removed. For the first few months of my new life in Christ I could not read the Word without tears welling up in my eyes. The Spirit breathed life into every passage and gave deep understanding -- even from the same passages I thought I already knew.

I'm studying the Book of Nehemiah and read about how the people responded after Jerusalem was restored and the people gathered to rededicate themselves to the LORD. When Ezra the priest read Scriptures aloud, they reacted thusly, "For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the Law."

Today, I see many using their own human understanding to figure out the Bible. High Church goers justify the use of vestments and ritual since, after all, these things were done historically in the past 1,800 years and there are parallels in the Old Testament. Or, die-hard post-tribbers saying, 'well, the early martyrs suffered persecution so why should we not suffer under the antichrist, we're no better than them. Or Dominionists reasoning that believers are going to rule with Christ, so we need to take all seven mountains for Jesus now since He does rule from heaven.

We will see more and more human reasoning coming from professing believers who will find ways to get along with other religions under the human desire for tolerance, peace, and emotional stimulation. 

Our reaction must always be - "it is written . . ."

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths."
- Prov 3:5-6

"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." - 1 Cor 2:12-14

Rapture Wars

The Post-Trib Brigade is really on the rampage lately. And the Pre-Trib side is digging in their heels. All accuse the other of not having Scripture to back their views. The Pan-Trib view is looking at all the verses and determine that we cannot know the exact timing - we must be ready for every eventuality.

This snippet from Jim Bakker's program is a peek at those who have run to the mountains to hide themselves. They are accumulating stuff and everyone knows it, so when all hell breaks loose, the bad guys will know right where to go. Is Bakker building an arsenal needed to protect what they have stored? Quite the dilemma trusting in the arm of the flesh.

Here are some verses all must rectify - praying for spiritual understanding.

Fear side (Post-and Intraseal Tribbers) -

"Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet." - 1 Cor 15:51-52b

"Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed" - 2 Thes 2:3

"But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection." - Rev 20:5 (also used by A-and-Post-mills )

Hope side (Pre-and Pan-Tribbers)

“Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth." - Rev 3:10

"Come, my people, enter your chambers,
And shut your doors behind you;
Hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment,
Until the indignation is past.
For behold, the LORD comes out of His place
To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity;
The earth will also disclose her blood,
And will no more cover her slain.
Is 26:20-21

"For God has not destined us for wrath" - 1 Thes 5:9a

" I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." - Matt 16:18b

********************************************************************

I point this all out - not to cause more of a rift between believers -- but to exhort all of you to please stop fighting over this. I know how to argue every position - I've studied this for over 30 years -- so I know every position has some good arguments from Scripture. This guy here is trashing those who take a different position. I know of NO Pre-tribber who thinks they will never see persecution or war and all the birth pangs Jesus lists in Matt 24. We should ALL make provisions for our family in the case of any potential hardship. This sort of rhetoric -- demonizing those under the Hope banner -- does nothing to communicate his position - since it is a false accusation.

Keep your lamps burning - and oil in your flasks.

Mark 13: 33-37  -- "Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is... Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming--in the evening (Pre-Trib), at midnight (Mid-Trib), at the crowing of the rooster (Pre-Wrath), or in the morning (Post-Trib)-- lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!’"

We Are His Witnesses

We are His witnesses until He calls His Bride home. That is a comforting thought at a time like this when we see the birth pangs transition into heavy labor.

The recent terror attacks here and in Paris have left many people not wanting to leave their homes to go to any public place. But we must not forget the Great Commission -- don't let any threat of terror slow down your witness -- in fact, it should light a fire under you to get this Word of Salvation out to all the lost while there's still time.

Since we ARE His witnesses, and we know God always has a witness on this planet, we can have confidence that God doesn't need to replace us in our role as His ambassadors. So what does He need with 144,000 or the two witnesses in Jerusalem or an angel flying in mid-heaven while we're still around? They are raised up as His witnesses when our testimony is complete.

That is one of the best arguments for a Pre-Trib rapture -- once the Church is gone, God must have a witness to the Truth here to represent Him. He is faithful to always hold out a hand of mercy to humanity who were made in His image.

Persecution of believers is a historical certainty, and as things heat up, more and more professing Christians will fall by the wayside and reveal their true natures. The time of the mega-church will soon be over as congregating will become a gamble for one's livelihood. Persecution always helps separate the real from the fake. So be encouraged.

Pressing on to the Goal -

“Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel,

And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts:

‘I am the First and I am the Last;

Besides Me there is no God.

And who can proclaim as I do?

Then let him declare it and set it in order for Me,

Since I appointed the ancient people.

And the things that are coming and shall come,

Let them show these to them.

Do not fear, nor be afraid;

Have I not told you from that time, and declared it?

You are My witnesses.

Is there a God besides Me?

Indeed there is no other Rock;

I know not one.’ ”

-- Is 44:6-8

"At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen!" - 2 Tim 4:16-18

 

 https://dissidentprophet.bandcamp.com/track/fly-away

 

 

Planned Parenthood Shooter: Madman or Hero?

Planned Parenthood Shooter: Madman or Hero?

The recent shooting at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs that left three people dead, including a pro-life police officer, stunned everyone – pro-choicers and pro-lifers alike. People from both sides of the political issue have labeled Robert Lewis Dear a madman or an insane maniac.  But is he really?

If his motive was to put a stop to the killing of unborn babies, as the media is suggesting since he allegedly proclaimed,  “no more baby parts” while being arrested, then is that not a heroic act?

If staff in a Daycare facility were hacking up toddlers, would we label anyone a “madman” for running in guns blazing to prevent another toddler from being slaughtered? Of course not! He would be a hero and be rewarded with some sort of medal of honor.

Liberals are saying the shooting was politically motivated, some blaming Republicans and conservatives. But it sounds more emotionally motivated. If a person truly believes that these dismembered fetal body parts we're all seeing photos of is of human babies - this would be a very normal response.

Thanks to social media, the secret slaughter of the innocents is coming out of the closet. Can a person with a conscience look upon bloody photos of baby parts – disembodied heads, legs, arms, torsos – and turn a blind eye to it?

The pro-life lobby rightfully argues that life begins at conception. And the pro-choice activists say that life begins at birth and as long as a fetus is killed while still in the womb, no harm done. Yet there are many reports of aborted babies coming out alive and being finished off by the attending staff.

So is it unreasonable for someone to take the defense of the unborn to its logical conclusion? Is murder going on in those buildings every day? Are the lives of unborn babies just as human as the lives of 3-year-old toddlers? Is it rational to defend the lives of innocent babies?

If the answer is ‘yes,’ then who’s crazy now? It is sheer hypocrisy to insist that unborn babies are just as human as you or I, if you are not willing to back that up with action.

The New Holocaust

The modern-day holocaust of babies in the womb can be compared to the attempted genocide of Jews and homosexuals under the Hitler regime. The government approval of the “final solution” was the law of the dictator. Therefore, German citizens looked the other way as smoke rose up from the concentration camps. When the American military liberated Auschwitz and saw the remains of the carnage, they forced the local Germans to see things up close -- they were considered accomplices to the crime since they knew what was happening and did nothing to stop it. Civilized humanity was appalled at the German people for their complacency.

Christians are responding in horror to attacks on abortion clinics. They are appalled that they would be blamed for such acts of violence. If it is blamed on "fundamentalists" does that mean true "fundamentalists" would not want to be judged capable of going to such an extreme to save defenseless children? Would it be a shame to "fundamentalist" Christians that one of their own would shoot up a gas chamber and kill executioners? Would these same Christians condemn the Corrie ten Booms for defying the law by helping potential victims escape certain death?

We are all hypocrites who say the lives of unborn babies are equal to the lives of toddlers. We must stop saying we believe that when we really don't. Because if we did, we would applaud all abortion clinic bombers. We have to be honest with ourselves - we do not believe our own rhetoric. I include myself since I could never take up arms against Planned Parenthood.

So lets get real. We either treat these babies as victims of a holocaust and respond as humans, or we stop claiming fetuses are just as human as children - or people of any age for that matter.

Abortion is truly the national sin of America. We are all guilty for saying one thing and doing another. We have not gone so far as to shed our own blood to save the lives of innocent babies  -- so their blood is on our collective hands. We cannot turn our noses down at the German citizens of the 1940s, while we are guilty of the same sin of omission. 

The prophet Daniel in his prayers confessed his own sin and the sin of his people Israel. Should we not be doing the same in our prayers and confess our own sin and the sin of America?

--A fellow coward and hypocrite

Scandals of Christendom

I'm still a bit stunned from seeing the film Spotlight last night. It is the story of how a band of reporters at the Boston Globe exposed the coverup of the pedophile priest scandal in the Catholic Church. A conspiracy of silence, from the hierarchy to the family of the child victims to even the press, had all kept a cover on it for decades to preserve the facade of holiness in a truly corrupt system.

Even though I have followed the events over the past fifteen years and am very familiar with it, seeing it acted out left me with anger and tears. I was raised in the Catholic Church, and though I never observed sexual abuse, I did see physical abuse toward children close up. The system was corrupt from the get-go.

When I got saved as an adult and attended Bible-teaching churches, I assumed there was safety from such predators there. The PTL scandal of the 80s busted that bubble. From then on, there was one after another -- the Paul Crouch homosexual pay-off scandal, the Ted Haggard gay sex and drugs scandal, the Bob Coy adultery/womanizing scandal, and a plethora of others - some highly visible, some lesser known.

The mystery of iniquity is hard at work. And prophetically it's only going to get worse. Bad behavior and bad doctrine go together.
Yet we all must keep a guard over our own hearts. The devil is ramping up his attack and knows our weaknesses. We need to be on the alert and not get drawn away from abiding in Christ when we are tempted. The battle against sin must continue to be a battle -- we must not give in. 

While signs and wonders followers are seeking metaphysical power, we must rely on the LORD for His power over our sins. Don't be fooled by those who say we can sin all the more that grace may abound. The enemy that stumbles us is sin in our own hearts. Confess those things to Jesus whenever they come up. None of us is immune to temptation. 

Pray for one another. We're not in this battle alone.

"If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
- 1 John 1:6-9

“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;
Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes.
Cease to do evil, Learn to do good;
Seek justice,
Rebuke the oppressor;'
Defend the fatherless,
Plead for the widow.
Come now, and let us reason together,'
Says the LORD,
'Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be as wool.'"
-- Is 1:16-18

The King and Queen of the New Religious Order by Jackie Alnor

When the moon is in the seventh house
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
The age of Aquarius, Aquarius

Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the minds true liberation

From the 1960s musical production of “Hair”

When actress Shirley MacLaine wrote the book, Out on a Limb, and then turned it into a made-for-TV movie back in the 80s, much of the world thought she was out on a broken limb. She was the butt of jokes in Hollywood and fodder for late-night comedians such as David Letterman who made fun of her New Age beliefs. Who can forget the image of her standing on the beach repeating the mantra, “I am god”?

The world wasn’t quite ready for her yet. But now some three decades later, the stage has been set for a new television diva to fill MacLaine’s high-heel shoes and no one dare cross her. She did not make the claim to be god, but people insist she is a goddess. Billionaire Oprah Winfrey is a powerful force. Talk show hosts know it would be professional suicide to speak afoul of her. They don’t make jokes; they bow down before her.

Winfrey did not go away after she left her popular daytime TV program. She built the TV network OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) after her magazine ‘O’ (named after herself) began showing up at grocery store counters with her picture gracing the cover of every issue. Her latest endeavor, in conjunction with the Discovery Channel, is her new TV series, BELIEF, for which she is promoting among the talk-show circuit. 

As many as 14,000 conference-goers at the recent gathering in Salt Lake City of the Parliament of the World’s Religions were treated to a preview of BELIEF. She was unable to attend, but via video message hyped her new show as a tool for promoting peace among all religious belief systems. Oprah’s two-page ad in the conference program promised, “Spiritual practices, traditions, and beliefs from around the world will be illuminated, followed by a discussion on how BELIEF could impact the world and help us move again from fear and divisiveness and more towards compassion and healing.”

On a recent appearance on CBS This Morning, Oprah shared a clip from BELIEF featuring a young lady going to India seeking enlightenment. The clip shows her asking a group of gurus questions. “I have a good life and a good job. But I still feel as if something is missing. How do you get such belief?” The guru responds, “It’s all given by the Goddess. When she enters your heart you will sense it. Until she dwells inside you, faith won’t come.” Oprah and the CBS hosts all reacted with a collective, “aaaaaw.”

Unlike her predecessor, Shirley MacLaine, Oprah is a bit more subtle, although both messages are the same – we are all gods and the Creator is a pantheistic impersonal force we are all a part of. A spark of the divine is in every person and we just need to come to a self-realization of how great we are.

Her message of unifying all faiths, no matter how contradictory they are, is the bedrock of New Age religion, even though in its current incarnation they prefer to call it by terms such as Spiritual Enlightenment, Unity in Diversity, One Humanity, among other euphemisms.

While Oprah was addressing the UN General Assembly, a petition to the UN for the establishment of a religious arm of their global organization was making the rounds at the Parliament, accumulating thousands of signatures.

Pope Francis’ Crusade

The UN has certainly turned its attention to religious concerns lately, so the petition has a good chance of becoming a reality. Oprah’s address to the UN was just a few weeks after Pope Francis spoke to the UN delegates in New York during his visit to America. His talking points on climate change, open borders, and income inequality from a religious point of view mimic the UN’s political aspirations for global control, such as ‘Agenda 21’ and the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.’ If they can unite the world’s religions, creating a global government will be a cinch. As the late prophet of the New Age prophesied in song, the world will then be as one. 

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one--Imagine, by John Lennon

The Parliament gave everyone who registered a card with a photo of Pope Francis on one side and his interfaith prayer on the other side. It is called “A Prayer for Our Earth” and says in part, “

“All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe
and in the smallest of your creatures…
Bring healing to our lives,
that we may protect the world and not prey on it,
that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction…
Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,
to be filled with awe and contemplation,
to recognize that we are profoundly united
with every creature
as we journey towards your infinite light.”

The Jesuit pope, who rose to the “Chair of Peter” after the unprecedented retirement of his predecessor, has dazzled secular media with his audacious acts of public humility. He is one of the few religious leaders that is loved by the world and Christendom alike.

Not only has Francis won the respect of CNN and MSNBC, he has wooed many Protestant pastors and church leaders. Ecumenism with other Christian denominations is on the top of the pope’s to-do list.

Last year, with the assistance of Episcopal pastor Tony Palmer, Francis addressed a gathering at televangelist Kenneth Copeland’s Charismatic Evangelical Leadership Conference.  A personal friend of the pope’s, Palmer taped the greeting on his smart phone’s video camera to the eager crowd right in the heart of the Bible Belt. Then he used the same smart phone to deliver Copeland’s groveling response to the pope.

As a follow-up, Palmer arranged for Copeland to visit the Vatican, along with a contingent of other charismatic leaders that included John Arnott, Pastor of Catch the Fire church that is infamous for their holy laughter services known as the “Toronto Blessing” and James Robison, host of Life Today, who said when he “looks into the eyes of Pope Francis, he sees Jesus.” A picture of Robison giving the pope a high-five showed up all over social media.

Soon after Palmer announced that the protest of Luther is over, he was mysteriously killed in a motorcycle accident.

Joel Osteen, pastor of the largest church in America, has also met with the pope at the Holy See, and “America’s pastor,” Rick Warren, was a speaker at the Vatican-hosted Humanum Colloquium in Rome in November, 2014. Warren has made appearances on EWTN, the Catholic television network, showing gratitude to his Catholic host for their monastic orders that taught him about contemplative prayer and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, that includes the rosary, that Warren said he and his wife recite regularly.

The 700 Club’s Pat Robertson also caught papal-fever last year when he co-sponsored an ecumenical gathering at his Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He gave the opening remarks at this “Pastors, Leaders and Clergy Summit” that featured an equal amount of Protestant and Roman Catholic speakers. The theme was taken from the Gospel of John 17:21, the high priestly prayer of Jesus, when He prayed to the Father:

“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”

The speakers seemed to be in agreement that Evangelicals who would not acknowledge the pope as the rightful head of Christianity were in sin and needed to repent and return to Rome. James Robison headed up the roster of speakers, followed by Jack Hayford, Founder of King’s University, Vinson Synan, founder of the now defunct Congress on the Holy Spirit, and Tom Phillips, VP of the Billy Graham Association.

Vatican ecumenical talks with other arms of the church have gone into high gear under this pontificate with Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican and other mainline Protestant denominations. Unity in diversity with the Vatican at the center is step one. Step two is interfaith relations when all religions will cooperate under the supremacy of Rome.

Forerunner to the Antichrist?

For Christians who study Bible prophecy, interfaith and ecumenism are ominous signs of the nearness of the coming time of Great Tribulation spelled out in the last book of the Bible. This seven-year period will be a time of judgment on the earth when the Antichrist will rise to power allied with a global church the Apostle John identifies as the Mother of Harlots.

It is interesting that the Roman Catholic Church calls herself the “Mother Church.” The question needs to be asked, if she is a “Mother” then who are the “Harlots” she gave birth to?

The Antichrist, Bible prophecy tells us, is one Beast but the other Beast is referred to as “The False Prophet.” The Antichrist tries to counterfeit the true Christ and the False Prophet emulates the forerunner of Jesus, John the Baptist who prepared the way for His arrival and baptized Him and instructed all to follow Him.

Since that is the case, if the prophetic times are just around the corner as so many Scriptural signs of the times indicate, then the forerunner’s work should be in evidence preparing people to accept the coming world leader. S/he would show up first just as John the Baptist did who came in the spirit and power of Elijah the Old Testament prophet.

The false ideas that were evident at the Parliament create a worldview custom-made for the forerunner of the Antichrist to use to condition humanity to accept the global leader and put their faith in his campaign promises of peace, love, understanding, harmony, justice, and the end of hunger and poverty.

If people can be convinced that all religions are equal, all people are brothers and sisters, the Earth is sacred, and inclusiveness of all and any beliefs is honorable, then when the man speaking those swelling words arrives, he will be embraced. The only obstacles are Bible-believing Christians and Islamic suicide bombers. Those obstacles to progress have to go.

New Age and occult practitioners have spent decades working to create the paradigm shift needed to usher in their own man-made millennium of peace. Failed efforts in the past included Hands Across America in 1986 when “6.5 million people held hands in a human chain for fifteen minutes along a path across the continental United States.” Then in August 1987, the Harmonic Convergence began, with its theme song, “We are the World.”

These efforts were based upon a magical teaching called the “100^th Monkey,” a theory based on a man’s observance of monkeys in Japan. One monkey began to rinse his sweet potato in water before eating it. When the other monkeys saw that, they imitated him and washed their sweet potatoes before eating them too. By the time the 100^th monkey was doing the practice, it had reached critical mass and now all the monkeys around the world were doing the same ritual.

So New Age movers and shakers in the 1980s were trying that same experiment, although their critical mass of humanity thinking peace at the same time to make the rest of humanity peace-loving was going to take a much larger number than the monkeys. Obviously that was a big fail. Their efforts at creating a spiritual evolutionary leap landed in the lap of the Antichrist. A paradigm shift indeed happened, but it did not lead to peace, but to apostasy and social chaos.

The King and Queen of the Parliament, the man and woman whose names were on the lips of many participants of all the beliefs represented, were Pope Francis and Oprah Winfrey. Could one of them be the prophesied forerunner?

Although the forerunner Beast prophesied in the Bible is spoken of as a “he,” could this Beast actually possess a female? After all, it is a woman who rides the Beast. Oprah is calling for a feminine fierceness; for the feminine spirit to rise up and be heard.

During the Shirley MacLaine’s era, a woman named JZ Knight gained notoriety channeling a spirit called “Ramtha.” Her voice would be transformed into a deep male sounding snarl as the evil spirit spoke through her. So there is precedence.

One thing is for sure, Francis and Oprah are doing the work of the spirit of antichrist by convoluting the teaching of the Word of God, the Bible. Their message for change is an attack on Truth. Time will tell if Oprah is the one to set the stage or if Francis will be chosen as point man to herald the global leader, the man of sin, and cause all to follow after the Antichrist.

Jackie Alnor is a veteran Christian watchman, researcher, and journalist. She is the director of the Rapture Ready Radio network on BlogTalk Radio where she hosts a weekly show called The Scattered Sheep Report. She is the author of the book The Fleecing of Christianity that tracks the influence of the spirit of antichrist in the church via televangelism. Her years of taping Christian television and documenting deception on religious TV culminated in her 1999 video "The Great Apostasy: The Lost Sign.”

She co-founded the Christian Sentinel magazine that was in print in the 1990s and published online in the 2000s. Archives of some of her articles can be found on her "Apostasy Alert" website [www.apostasyalert.org]. Her blog is named after the title of her Blogtalk radio program, The Scattered Sheep Report, which she produces weekly on the Rapture Ready Radio network. [http://scatteredsheepreport.blogspot.com ]