Dec 4
The Pope’s Peacemaking Mission
Pope Benedict XVI made a fence-mending visit to Turkey. His trip was given much media attention because it was the first Muslim nation he’s journeyed to since making negative remarks about Islam in September.
He quoted Manuel II Palaeologus, a 14th-century Byzantine Christian emperor, who said: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
As soon Benedict made his remarks I knew there would be an embarrassing kiss up coming down the road. The world is rapidly headed towards the point where all religions will be part of what the Bible describes as the Harlot church.
“And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH” (Rev. 17:5).
In order for the harlot church to come into existence, the Catholic church needs to be onboard. The Pope has more political influence than any other religious leader on earth.
The Turkey visit gave several indications that Benedict is playing along with ecumenical program. The 79-year-old pontiff became the second pope in history -- after John Paul II in Damascus in 2001 -- to set foot in a Muslim house of worship. While visiting Istanbul's Blue Mosque, he turned toward Mecca and assumed the position of Muslim prayer.
Another conciliatory move was his support for Turkey being allowed membership in the European Union. While still Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, he noted the religious divide between Europe and Turkey, saying it would be "a grave error... against the tide of history" to let Turkey join the E.U.
I think it is impossible to understand the true course of world events without factoring in the liberal media role in setting the agenda. The god of this world has caused the press to ignore unspeakable horrors committed by Muslims, while at the same time calling for Christians to be more tolerant.
The devil’s influence over the media is the way I can example how events like 911 and the London terror bombings could quicky become non-issues. In a different world, any journalist with an ounce of integrity would have to say the pope quoting Manuel II Palaeologus was a fair call.
I think the key to understanding the evil nature of this interfaith lovefest is that fact that
christians are always the ones making the comprise. While the western world has made room for Muslims, the Islamic empires promise death to anyone who strays from the Islamic faith.
Since the theme of Pope Benedict’s Turkey trip was about reconciliation, maybe he should have asked his Islamic host about mass genocide against Armenian Christians during the World War I era.
The Bible is totally opposed to the idea that we should go around making peace with other faiths. Jesus said He was the only way to God, and you can’t to expect to make friends after broadcasting this unsettling truth.
I was reading a news blog the other day, and liked what one viewer wrote: “As a Christian I will treat a Jew or a Muslim exactly the way I treat anyone who denies the teachings of the New Testament. I will treat them as one who has an eternal soul that is in need of being redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Is that belief and behavior going to create an atmosphere that will 'settle conflict'? Not a chance; it will create conflict just as it did in Jesus' time. But if memory serves me, Jesus didn't fare so well in His lifetime by challenging the masses who were teaching contrary to the Word of God in His time.”
The day will eventually come when true Christians are as despised as the Lord Jesus. I think the pace of world events indicates that day may not be too far off.
--- Todd
Togarmah/Turkey Coming into Focus
(Part 1)
Russia has been shown of late to be moving back toward the old Soviet system. Russian President Vladimir Putin is reputed to be surreptitiously –and even not so surreptitiously—again employing KGB tactics, punitive and otherwise, like that diabolical agency used to use against its hapless citizenry and others during the era of the so-called “Cold War.”
A recent manifestation of Russia’s return to terror methodologies is believed by some within the clandestine spy-master community to be the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, the former spy and defector-turned-critic of Putin’s proclivity for offing his opposition. Litvinenko’s accusations seemed to take on considerable credence, when he was found to have been murdered over a number of days by polonium-210, a deadly radioactive substance used in the creation of nuclear weapons. Evidence that the plot to poison Litvinenko came from the Putin regime surfaced last Thursday, when it was learned that traces of the substance were found on Russian commercial aircraft in London. These flights apparently directly connect Moscow to London.
Putin’s return to a dictatorship, or at least his movement away from what some thought might become a democracy, makes many of us wonder if he might be a prototype/forerunner of the Russian leader Ezekiel the prophet termed Gog–or perhaps that he might, himself, be that future leader. His claims that his term will be up in 2008, and that he has no plans to run again for the position of president of Russia, seem somewhat suspect. Or, perhaps he is just being honest with us. Maybe he plans the democratic process in Russia to end, so that there will be no need for him to run again.
As potentially prophetic as Russia’s movement back toward totalitarianism appears to be, other just as dramatic things must shape up before all is in preparation for the Gog-Magog attack of Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39.
One of those things, of course, has been in process of development for quite some time. I refer to Iran’s coming to the forefront as a powerful player in the Middle East,whose president has openly declared before the world that he wants every Jew removed from the region or killed. Iran, of course, makes up a sizable portion of the area that was Persia in ancient times. Ezekiel prophesied that it would be one of the key people who would join Gog, chief prince of Rosh (Russia) in the latter-day attack on God’s chosen people, Israel.
Russia is, by most accounts, supplying Iran with all means necessary to produce atomic energy. And, Iran is using those means to produce nuclear weapons–with, some say, the help of Russian nuclear weapons scientists.
In another, even more spectacular arrangement of history, all of the Muslim world has coalesced in their hostility against God’s chosen people. The Muslim world, especially since the war in Lebanon, has come together in a way that could certainly provide the huge number of troops that would be required to fulfill the Gog-Magog attack of Ezekiel 38 and 39. To exacerbate matters, the international community, as represented by the nations of the UN, is in almost unanimous agreement that Israel is in the wrong –no matter what Israel does to try to placate the Islamics or the international community. Zachariah 12:1-3 is forming before our eyes and ears:
“The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.”
Those who watch developments in the Middle East from the standpoint of the literal interpretation of Bible prophecy have long wondered about one other part of the Gog-Magog puzzle. Exactly what is the place called “Togarmah,” in terms of today’s national geographic boundaries? And if it is Turkey, as many scholars believe, why has that nation seemed to not fit within the Ezekiel 38 and 39 scenario, so far as geopolitical arrangements are concerned in our time?
The Togarmah factor is found within the following:
“And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with
all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords: Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee” (Ezek. 38:4-6).
Again, Turkey is thought by many people who study such things to presently occupy much of the territory that comprised Togarmah. Turkey, however, although overwhelmingly Muslim in its religious bent, has stringently held to maintaining government that is strictly secular. This runs counter to Islamic states, as we know.
Turkey must undergo drastic change in order to fit the Gog-Magog puzzle for the “latter time,” the time of the Gog-Magog attack, if it is indeed part of the land called in biblical terminology Togarmah. (We will analyze what is happening in Turkey today, in next week’s Nearing Midnight)
--Terry
--Terry
