GEN ALPHA WILL BE THE LOST GENERATION

Can you imagine not being able to opt your kindergartener out of wholly inappropriate LGBTQ propaganda at school? This is a reality in Maryland’s largest school district where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decided parents have no say in whether their K-5-aged children must sit through classes and read books addressing LGBTQ sexuality and gender. 

Public schools are often the breeding ground for this radical ideology to be forced on minors. Whether it be boys in girls’ sports, “drag queen story hour” in the library, or forcing sexual themes on minors in the classroom, a war is being waged on our children in the name of LGBTQ activism that won’t stop until every parent, child, and educator surrenders to its demands. 

Annually in June, Pride Month brings a heightened onslaught of the LGBTQ agenda in the public square and reminds us of the No. 1 target of this perverse ideology: children.

Last June, LGBTQ activists chanted, “We’re here! We’re queer! We’re coming for your children!” in New York City’s annual drag march. And we’ll never forget when in 2021, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir sang “We’re Coming for Your Children,” with the chilling lyrics: “You think that we’ll corrupt your kids if our agenda goes unchecked. Funny, just this once, you’re correct. We’ll convert your children.” 

Impressionable, vulnerable children are the primary victims of radical LGBTQ ideology. Look no further than the state of public schools, where children are paying the price of this gruesome social experiment that affirms lies to pander to the LGBTQ lobby. The National Education Association, for example, helped draft and encouraged “sexual education standards” for teachers to discuss inappropriate topics like sexual orientation with children despite parental concerns.

In recent years, it’s been revealed that some school libraries offer sexually-charged and sometimes pornographic books on their shelves. And some schools have even socially “transitioned” students without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

In Maryland’s largest public school district, internal data from 2022 showed a 582% increase in just two years in students who identify as “gender nonconforming.” 

With the Biden administration’s redefinition of “sex” in Title IX, which will be enacted in August unless the courts intervene, I fear these stories will become even more common as schools that receive federal funds will be subjected to “affirming” a student who identifies as the opposite gender. This opens the door to a plethora of safety, privacy, and ethical concerns and would allow boys in girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports.

On top of this, government-run schools are failing to provide a quality education, as evidenced by adult literacy rates and declining test scores.

Biblical prophecy warns us that the reason why God is going to pour out His wrath upon the Earth is that Earth will be like it was during the time God poured out His wrath the first time with the flood of Noah’s day. Lawlessness will abound

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.Matthew 24:37-39

Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:9-14

The article is taken from ‘We’re Coming for Your Children’: LGBTQ Public School Agenda Should Concern Parents by Mat Stayer in The Washing Stand June 12th, 2024.

IS THE NUCLEAR VERSUS RENEWABLES A “MAY THE BEST MAN WIN” RACE?

This article is taken from the article “Peter Dutton’s nuclear policy gives renewables investors a shock” in The Australian Monday 24th June 2024.

If renewable energy was the cheapest electricity source and nuclear the most expensive, the green energy barons would have nothing to fear from a nuclear competitor. Yet the market reaction to Dutton’s intervention proved investors don’t buy the government’s spin. They know that in a competitive market, nuclear generation will eat renewables’ lunch, just as coal once did before wind and solar were showered with subsidies and the market rules were altered in renewables’ favour.

(AUSTRALIA OUT) An aerial of the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor site on 14 November 2005. SMH NEWS Picture by ROBERT PEARCE. (Photo by Fairfax Media via Getty Images/Fairfax Media via Getty Images via Getty Images)

However, the Clean Energy Investor Group is hardly a disinterested observer. It is the peak body for major renewable investors, including Macquarie, Blackrock, Neoen, and Tilt Energy. Together, they own 76 clean energy assets worth $38bn. The present value of those assets is now hostage to the electoral fortunes of Anthony Albanese (current Prime Minister), which is why cashed-up renewable energy investors are accumulating a war chest of hundreds of millions of dollars to keep Labor in power.

The influence of this powerful, crony-capitalist enterprise is one reason Dutton has only an outside chance of turning nuclear into an election-winning issue. However, polling on public support for nuclear has been trending Dutton’s way, and the evidence from around the world is stacked in his favour. Bearing in mind, Australia already has a Nuclear Reactor. The High Flux Reactor was Australia’s first nuclear reactor. It was built at the Australian Atomic Energy Commission Research Establishment at Lucas Heights, Sydney. The reactor was in operation between 1958 and 2007 without incident, when it was superseded by the Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor, also at Lucas Heights and it is still in operation today.

However, the history of bad ideas shows them to be most potent when entrepreneurs discover ways of making a buck out of them. The influence of the cashed-up renewable energy sector in global politics and cultural institutions has made the net-zero narrative all but impossible to dislodge.

Protecting the present value of trillions of dollars of global capital rests on maintaining the fiction that wind and solar power, backed up by numberless batteries yet to be built and pumped hydro yet to be installed, is the key to rescuing the planet. Trillions of dollars of capital have been misallocated to this purpose thanks to perverse incentives provided by politicians whose most pressing concern is not to save the planet but to survive the next election.

Australia is not the only country caught up in the exuberance of the 2019 Paris climate conference and promised more than it could possibly achieve. It is hard to find a single Western economy remotely on track to meet 2030 commitments, let alone the big one in 2050. I will shortly put up a post entitled “Germany Failed to Achieve Clean Energy Transition Without Nuclear”

In a report published last month by the Fraser Institute, Czech-Canadian scientist Vaclav Smil outlined the task ahead. More than 4 terawatts of electricity-generating capacity must be replaced, and almost 1.5 billion gasoline and diesel vehicle engines must be converted to electricity. Almost all the world’s agricultural and crop-processing machinery must be replaced, including 50 million tractors and more than 100 million irrigation pumps. New heat sources must be developed to smelt iron, manufacture cement and glass, process chemicals and preserve food. More than half a billion domestic, industrial, and institutional gas furnaces must be abandoned. Novel forms of motive power must be found for 120,000 merchant vessels, and we’ll need to develop a carbon-free way of keeping 25,000 jetliners in the air. Not to mention, the AI revolution is gobbling up power. AI, the Cloud, and decentralized currencies like Bitcoin require enormous energy at a time when the world is trying to transition to solar and wind which are totally unpredictable power sources.

For Vaclav Smil, the most disturbing thing about the net-zero fallacy is what it tells us about the economic, numerical, and scientific illiteracy of a generation that is, on paper, the most educated in history. As Smil told American author Robert Bryce in an email exchange, we live in a fully post-factual world.

The net-zero fallacy has taken root “because the soil is receptive: utterly brainless mass of mobile-bound individuals devoid of any historical perspective and any kindergarten commonsense understanding”.

The cartoonish reaction to Dutton’s nuclear announcement last week was evidence of Vaclav Smil’s point. If there is a solid argument against legalising nuclear power in Australia, Chris Bowen failed to produce it. Bearing in mind we have had a nuclear power plant operating safely in Sydney for decades. Until he does, Dutton can safely regard the debate as won.

Yet politicians are not rewarded for winning fact-based arguments. They are rewarded by winning elections. As Thomas Sowell points out, one of the differences between economics and politics is that politicians are not forced to pay attention to long-term consequences.

“An elected official whose policies keep the public happy up through election day stands a good chance of being voted another term in office, even if those policies will have ruinous consequences in later years,” Sowell wrote in Basic Economics.

Yet the test of Dutton’s policy is whether it will increase competition in the market, offering a credible alternative to the untrodden renewable-only path on which we are embarked.

The squeals from the renewable energy establishment last week suggest he is on the right track.

Nick Cater is a senior fellow at the Menzies Research Centre, a visiting fellow at the Danube Institute, and a columnist with The Australian. He is a former editor of The Weekend Australian and a former deputy editor of The Sunday Telegraph. He is the author of The Lucky Culture published by Harper Collins.

We are living in the Biblical prophesied end-times world: God and His laws have been jettisoned, many churches have compromised with the world on homosexuality, gay marriage, and even transgenderism. Government debt is not sustainable so people’s confidence in politicians is at an all-time low, anarchy is next as energy supplies fail. Other, prophesied end times signs such as earthquakes, pestilences, and famine are already evident. The fact that the major Biblical end-times prophecy was already fulfilled over 70 years ago: the re-establishment of Israel as a nation, should give every Christian confidence that Jesus’ prophesied return to Earth is near.

WHY YOU SHOULD BELIEVE THE BIBLE

All of the Old Testament prophets were given the end of the story for the nation God established for His purposes: ISRAEL. Even before Jesus first came to Earth as the “suffering servant” to provide the way of salvation:

But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.Isaiah 53:5-6

Isaiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel, these three prophets in particular were given a lot of detail on Israel’s prophesied Messiah, Jesus’ return to establish a Millennial Kingdom on this Earth before it would be destroyed and God created a new heaven and new Earth where only the righteous dwell.

Daniel chapter 12 is entirely on the time of the end. We are told that the Archangel Michael is the angel assigned to protect the nation Israel. The nation Israel has been subjected to much persecution down through the ages and at AD 70 it ceased to exist, and yet Daniel is told (600 BC) that it will exist at the time of the end when it will be subjected to great tribulation before God delivers the nation. The first of the major end-times prophecies were fulfilled in 1948 when Israel was miraculously re-established as a nation. As well, we are seeing the prophesied persecution increasing, with antisemitism rife across most Western nations. This is only the beginning of tribulation it will escalate to the prophesied invasion (Ezekiel 38 & 39). Back to Daniel chapter 12; read this Scripture written 600 BC, if you are not already convinced that the Bible is the inspired Word of God I hope this will make you reconsider it and where you stand before your Creator God.

The Time of the End

​ “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”
Then I, Daniel, looked, and behold, two others stood, one on this bank of the stream and one on that bank of the stream. And someone said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream, “How long shall it be till the end of these wonders?” And I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream; he raised his right hand and his left hand toward heaven and swore by him who lives forever that it would be for a time, times, and half a time, and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be finished. I heard, but I did not understand. Then I said, “O my lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?” He said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end. Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand. And from the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up, there shall be 1,290 days. Blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days. But go your way till the end. And you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.”
Daniel 12:1-13

SATAN’S END TIMES STRATEGY

This is the fifth and final post on knowing our enemy: the first was entitled SATAN – PRINCE OF THIS WORLD: WHO HE WAS AND NOW IS (26/05/2024). The second was WHEN DID SATAN REBEL AGAINST GOD? (27/05/2024) The third was ANCIENT SUMERIANS RECORDED THE DIVIDE OF HEAVEN AND EARTH IN ACCORD WITH THE BIBLE (03/06/2024). The fourth post was KNOWING HOW YOUR REAL ENEMY OPERATES (07/06/2024). If you have not read these I suggest you do. It is important we know our enemy.

God has revealed all we need to know in His Word, the Bible. Much is given about Satan’s last desperate efforts to maintain control of the Earth before Jesus returns to defeat him and his Antichrist in the battle of Armageddon. This post is about Satan’s end-times strategy. Doug Hamp’s latest book, Corrupting the Image, Vol. 3, Singularity, Superhumans and the Second Coming of Jesus brings our understanding of events in the days of the Beast leading up to the return of Jesus into focus. Doug carefully lays out a theological roadmap for understanding the heavenly and earthly battles yet to take place in the future.

 Mike Spaulding is pastor of Calvary Chapel of Lima and he hosts the Soaring Eagle Radio show. He sums up the end times scenario playing out in our time. “While the modern American church leads the way into global apostasy, Satan, the enemy of God, of His creation, and of His people, is gaining strength and assembling his forces for the coming great conflict. Satan is staging his assets for a blitzkrieg of shock and awe evil that will overwhelm the earth. UFO disclosure, Artificial Intelligence, genetic engineering, transhumanism, and the mad rush toward singularity are not disparate endeavours but are all part of the devil’s strategy of casting a dragnet to ensnare all of humanity in a great deception of faux hope and faux salvation“. This is part of Mike’s Foreword for Doug’s latest book.

Are you living your life knowing Jesus’ return is near and that God’s wrath is going to be poured out on an unrepentant world? God gives us a great deal of information about the Trumpet and Bowl judgements so we need to warn our unsaved family and friends of what is coming (Revelation 8-9 and 16).

THE WORLD IS ON AN UNSUSTAINABLE PATH

The world is on an unsustainable path,  Dr. Voddie Baucham, pastor and best-selling author points out. “People are at war with the God of the universe, and they will face his wrath. [They’re] running headlong toward a cliff, and the loving thing to do is to shout as loud as we can, put up as many signs and warnings as we can, and if necessary, grab people you know before they go over the cliff. That’s the loving thing to do, even when it doesn’t feel like it’s loving. … We’ve got to show people the car that’s about to run them over.”

When Family Research Council’s, Joseph Backholm asked Baucham how this movie ends, he shook his head. “It ends badly. We’ve seen this before [when] empires fall. And this culture is devolving.” But there’s still hope that the Lord will intervene, that there’s revival and awakening. “And that’s my prayer,” he said. “I’m not praying for the destruction of the West. I’m praying for revival.”

Christians have seen the impact they can have when they refuse to embrace the agenda that’s saturating our education system, marketplace, government, sports, entertainment, and so many other areas. We’ve watched the entire script flip on LGBT activism in board rooms we never thought would change just because we were determined to make our voices heard.

So what’s the mindset we should have now? “Two things,” Baucham insisted. “One, the Kingdom of God is undefeated. It has never lost, and it never will lose. And the second thing is that we have dual citizenship and that our heavenly citizenship trumps whatever other citizenship we hold. If we hold on to those two truths, we will take heart and we will be encouraged even during dark days.”

No matter what, we’re still in the world, he wanted people to know. “But not of the world.” In other words, “You can’t hide — so stop trying. Besides that, some people desperately need what we have — and we can’t give it to them if we run away from them.”

This article is taken from an article in The Washington Stand – A Christian Response to Pride Month, June 5th, 2024.  Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm interviews Dr. Voddie Baucham.

Fortunately, we know how the story ends. God has given us in His Word, the BIBLE, the entire story from start to end. We can use the end times prophecies to get people into the Kingdom. They prove the Bible is true and the loving but righteous God it portrays exists. If you would like to learn how to use apocalyptic evangelism can I suggest you go to Reggie Kelly’s website http://www.mysteryofisrael.org where you can join others to develop your skills to evangelise using end times Scriptures. The following quote is taken from his website.

We want to state, firstly, that you will not be regarded so much as students as “participants” in our mutual engagement and interaction over the material. You, the participant, will play a formative and influential role in the content and direction of the course. Your response and feedback is critical towards the final product that will take its character from the many. We desire to approximate as much as possible that organic and corporate involvement that so uniquely characterizes the body of Christ, hearing the Lord in one another, the supply that every member supplies, co-contributors towards that sacred last day’s prophetic task to make the vision “plain upon tables” that to read (with understanding) is to run (compare Hab 2:2-3Dan 12:4,9).

PASTOR BAUCHAM PREACHING END TIMES TRUTH

Pastor Voddie T. Baucham warned that the pervasive sexual sins of the prevailing culture are signs of divine judgment, but that the Gospel still offers hope and that American Christians should plead with God for revival while preparing for persecution.

Baucham, who is on leave in the U.S. from his position as Dean of Theology at African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia, preached from Romans 1 during an event last Saturday at Lamar Baptist Church outside Dallas.

Reiterating some of the points in his new book, It’s Not Like Being Black: How Sexual Activists Hijacked the Civil Rights Movement, which was released Tuesday, Baucham noted the irony that he was making his remarks on the first day of pride month, which he referred to as “pride goes before destruction month.”

Noting that the Apostle Paul ultimately spends much of the first chapter of Romans explaining how the wrath of God manifests in the world by giving mankind over to sexual depravity and “a debased mind,” Baucham also observed that Paul lays the foundation of his difficult arguments on the hope and reality of the Gospel.

Starting at Romans 1:16, Baucham read: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.'”

“That’s the foundation for all of this,” Baucham said. “That’s our foundation for thinking about all of these issues. We start there. We start with the reality of the Gospel and our need for the Gospel. We start with the reality that the righteous shall live by faith.”

“We are living in a time, in an era when there are people who are desperately wicked, and in desperate need of repentance and faith, in desperate need of the Gospel. And we’re being told that the wickedness is, in fact, the Gospel,” Baucham said.

Baucham noted that such a worldview is destructive because it not only calls good evil and evil good but also “alienates people from the only hope they have.”

Despite the culture’s clarion call for people to embrace the supposed freedom of sexual liberation, he said the evidence suggests that such behavior is enslaving even children at this point.

Lifting up his phone, Baucham added, “We’re giving them to 9- and 10-year-olds. Number one use of the internet is still pornography, and we’re giving unlimited, unfettered access to it to 9- and 10-year-olds in the palm of their hands.”

“So we’ve got a generation of people who’ve been raised with sexual material, who have been raised with libertine views towards sex, who are engaging in sex younger and younger, and we’ve got young people entering into marriage who can’t even enjoy sex anymore, because their ability to enjoy it has nearly been destroyed.”

Baucham further explained that a deeper layer of the destruction includes “willing Christians” who attempt to accommodate the idea of sexual sin as an identity by claiming the Bible failed to understand the complexity of sexual orientation and that dishonorable passions are not actually dishonorable.

Baucham said rampant transgenderism is another consequence of such depravity and went on to warn that the push for pedophilia “is just a matter of time.” He also urged Christians to steel themselves for the last stage of a culture under judgment, which involves the wicked attempting to suppress the truth of God by approving of those who are evil while condemning and trying to silence those who resist.

Baucham concluded his remarks by urging his listeners to pray for revival, but conceded that he cannot personally see any way out of the spiritual darkness into which the culture has plunged itself.

“We’re going to have to pray that God would send revival, because He’s already sent judgment,” Baucham concluded. The wrath of God is here; the judgment of God is here. Plead with Him for His mercy. Plead with Him that all would not be lost.”

Baucham failed to say that God has told us in advance that what is playing out in the world precedes Jesus’ return to restore righteousness. Incredible detail is given by the Old Testament prophets, Jesus in the Olivet Discourse, and Revelation of the events that precede Jesus’ return. The good news is our redemption is close so we need to make sure we like Jesus are saying to God not my will but yours be done each day. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, He has work for you to do if you are in prayer and attentive.

KNOW YOUR ENEMY: SATAN PERVERTS WHAT GOD HAS ORDAINED

The devil takes whatever God has ordained and perverts it so that it is totally corrupted from what was first intended. He perverts

  • Marriage—corrupting this from the true marriage of one man and woman to two men or two women or other perversions.
  • Sexuality—corrupting the created rightful place for sex within marriage for one man and one woman to whatever is right in one’s own eyes.
  • Gender—corrupting this from the created two genders, male and female, to however one wants to define gender.
  • Dominion—corrupting man’s created dominion over the creation to the creation having dominion over man, as seen in the modern climate-change religion.
  • Rainbow—corrupting this from the meaning of the rainbow given by God after the flood to instead be associated with the anti-biblical LGBTQ worldview and other perversions. The ultimate perversion is in the USA where June is celebrated as PRIDE month.
  • Church – churches and church leaders have adopted the devil’s perversion of the rainbow and support the sinful lifestyles of those who reject true marriage as God-created (one man and one woman) and reject God’s created genders for humans (only two: male and female). 

Jesus told us in the Olivet Discourse what the end times will be like before He returns to restore righteousness. His laws and commandments will be rejected, and lawlessness will abound. The USA now celebrates that they are proud of their sin. They are already under God’s judgement and it will only escalate.

Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away, betray and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.Matthew 24:9-12

HOW FOOLISH IT IS TO CURSE ISRAEL?

More powerful revelations from Jonathan Cahn – behind the world events of our time – The recent striking down of the Iranian President: could this be related to ancient prophecies? Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash just one month after he sent missiles into Israel. We know that God said that He will curse those who curse Israel. Are we seeing that happen in our time? What about the Turkish lawmaker who declared that Israel “will suffer the wrath of Allah” went into cardiac arrest and collapsed on the floor of Parliament mere moments after delivering the curse.

Jonathan Cahn is God’s prophet in our time. What he reveals in this video is Biblical end-times prophecy unfolding in our time. We are getting closer to the Jesus return. How exciting it is to live at this time.

I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.Genesis 12:3

Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you!Genesis 27:29

And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.” Zechariah 12;9

POPE FRANCIS CLAIMS HUMANS ARE FUNDAMENTALLY GOOD

Pope Francis drew scorn and accusations of heresy on social media Sunday for maintaining during his recent “60 Minutes” interview that the human heart is “fundamentally good.”

Pope Francis (front 3rd R) poses with religious leaders during a meeting at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican December 2, 2014. REUTERS/Osservatore Romano

Responding to interviewer Norah O’Donnell’s question regarding what gives him hope when he looks at the world, the pontiff said “everything,” and then continued to list examples of people doing good things as evidence of humanity’s essential goodness. “You see tragedies, but you also see so many beautiful things,” he said. “You see heroic mothers, heroic men, men, who have hopes and dreams, women who look to the future. That gives me a lot of hope. People want to live. People forge ahead. And people are fundamentally good. We are all fundamentally good. Yes, there are some rogues and sinners, but the heart itself is good.”

What does Pope Francis do with the following Scriptures and what world is he living in; when asked what gives him hope when he looks at the world – “Pope Francis said, everything“.

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it” Jeremiah 17:9

What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” Mark 7:20-23

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” Ephesians 2:1-3

And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.!” Mark 10:18

Pope Francis has put into practice the Church’s teaching—affirmed at the Second Vatican Council and echoed in the Catechism—that Muslims “together with us, adore the One, Merciful God.” Though there are certainly doctrinal differences between what Christians and Muslims profess about God, this does not preclude us from acknowledging the similarities we do have or from coming together (along with Jews and even others) to praise and petition our common God.

St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI also prayed publicly with Muslims in different capacities. In doing so, they all signal that Muslims’ prayers to God are valid and that they are directed to the same merciful God whom Catholics also strive to serve.

I often wonder who the False Prophet of Revelation will be. Could Pope Francis be a candidate? I believe his heretical views such as “the heart itself is good” and Muslims and Christians worship the same God make him a candidate but his age is a significant problem.

We are seeing Biblical prophesied end-times events increasing so we may not have long to wait to know the identity of both the False Prophet and the Antichrist.

THE BIBLE PROPHESIES PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS ESCALATES BEFORE JESUS RETURNS

Progressive Crusade to Bend Arc of History by Chris Uhlmann in The Weekend Australian 11th May, 2024

Uhlmann contends that what is at stake is whether the ascendant state morality will drive deeper into the ancient institutions of faith and force believers to submit to its temporal commandments. Nationally, the Australian Law Reform Commission’s final report on religious exemptions from anti-discrimination law is just another sortie in a long campaign over what the state will allow you to believe and how far it is prepared to go to force apostates to heel.

Queensland’s proposed anti-discrimination bill seeks to narrow the rights of the faithful. Alex Deagon, from the Queensland University of Technology, argues it will “significantly undermine the ability of religious organisations to employ persons following their faith”.

The ALRC admits one of its recommendations may limit “the freedom to manifest religion or belief in community with others, and the associated parental liberty to ensure the religious and moral education of one’s children in conformity with one’s own convictions”. This, it says, is balanced by the overall effect, which “would be to maximise the realisation of human rights”.

The ALRC wants section 38 of the Sex Discrimination Act, which allows religious schools to hire those whose lives and ideas accord “with the doctrines, tenets, beliefs or teachings of a particular religion or creed”, to be abolished.

When you lose the freedom to manifest your faith, abide by your beliefs and the liberty to ensure your children are educated in your creed, what is left? The commission is erasing the right of a religious school to organise around its own ethos.

This is an extreme form of laicism, driven by a fierce “progressive” crusade against Christianity. In a multifaith society that means all believers are on this battlefield, as the institutions of government are mobilised against them. Like many things dubbed progressive, it is the latest incarnation of the despotic tendencies of the Bureautoracy (n): the ubiquitous, unelected technocratic blob bent on imposing its notion of utopia on the mob. Its relentlessly mutating dogma has spread like Paterson’s curse through all the institutions.

In a profound irony, we are witnessing the final metamorphosis of Christianity as zealots torch the last idol: belief in a power that transcends the state.

The child has turned on a parent it does not recognise because the source code of this secular faith is the notion of universal human rights. That idea was born with the belief that each individual is valued by God, an avowedly Christian concept and part of a set of revolutionary beliefs that the early faithful simply called “The Way”.

Universal equality is captured in Paul’s letter to the Galatians: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Another epoch-changing idea rings from the first sentences of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the word (logos). And the word was with God. And the word was God.”

The New Testament was written in Greek and logos means both word and reason. So, in the Christian tradition, God is reason itself. Christianity is the singular encounter between Greek philosophy and Jewish mysticism, the marriage of reason and faith. The theology that evolved was a thoroughly different way of thinking. Let’s call it wisdom.

This wisdom elevated the poor, the meek, the righteous, the merciful, and peacemakers. Faith in God demands you “treat others as you would like them to treat you”, and not to act with reason is contrary to the nature of God.

Christianity was born in the East, informed by the West, and takes on its historically decisive character in Europe. Europe is defined by its faith and its faith is defined by reason. Faith and reason set Europe on the road to liberal democracy.

Through all its failures, and its many crimes, reason pushes the West forward and demands that it learn and evolve. And the excesses of both church and state always had to contend with its Christian conscience.

The savage colonisation of the Americas was fiercely denounced by Dominican friar Bartolome de Las Casas, and the evil of slavery collapsed when it confronted the faith of William Wilberforce. Despite often spectacularly failing to abide by its ideals, Christianity demanded the West slowly bend towards realising the radical demand of the central tenet of its faith. The new commandment to “love one another” excludes no one.

As historian Tom Holland demonstrates in his epic work Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind, “To live in a Western country is to live in a society that is utterly saturated by Christian concepts and assumptions.”

It is, of course, a heritage that the zealots of the New Way deny. To them, their belief system is self-evident because it just is. It is neutral. It is agnostic. That is a delusion. The New Way exhibits some of the best and all the worst features of a proselytising religion. It looks to uplift, to guide, to build a better, more just world. It is also deeply intolerant of dissent and has established the institutions of inquisition to police heresy, in state and federal human rights commissions.

It’s hard to criticise anti-discrimination laws but the growth of objective penalties for subjective crimes should trouble those who care about liberal democracy. Such penalties are how American journalist Robert Wargas defines totalitarianism.

What standards will be applied? The notion of transgender identity, for example, is a rapidly moving target. Even the Australian Human Rights Commission’s website admits the “terminology is strongly contested”.

So, this latest assault by the state on the faithful is a battle of competing theologies, as the disciples of Caesar seek to mount his image in every temple. And the insurgents know nothing of faith because, as anyone who has any dealings with religious schools knows, most have no desire to discriminate and are far more tolerant of difference than “progressives”.

What religious institutions don’t want is to be forced to submit to state diktats that deliberately undermine the ethos of their institution. Here let’s recall that the Labor Party pledge demands its members not be a part of any other organisation that is inimical to its ideals. Why shouldn’t religious schools enjoy the same rights?

The arc of history has bent out of shape. Those who claim the heritage of reason have discounted the role of faith in their enlightenment. They discriminate and call it equality. They unreasonably seek to force the faithful to heel. This is foolishness. Fortunately, Biblical prophecy reveals that this godless persecution of Christians precedes Jesus’ return to Earth first to rapture the Saints and then to pour out His wrath upon an unrepentant rebellious world. Christians need to heed Jesus warning that it will even get much worse.

Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:9-14