Saturday, June 1, 2013

10 By Any Other Name by Rev. Todd Virnoche

This may sound like a riddle, but what do you call two Popes and eight Cardinals?

“VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis named eight cardinals from around the globe Saturday to advise him on running the Catholic Church and reforming the Vatican bureaucracy, marking his first month as pope with a major initiative to reflect the universal nature of the church in key governing decisions.

The advisory panel includes only one current Vatican official. The rest are cardinals from North, Central and South America, Africa, Asia, Europe and Australia. Many have been outspoken in calling for a shake-up of the Vatican bureaucracy, which was last reformed 25 years ago, while others have tried to clean up the church from sexually abusive priests”

Without any fanfare the newly elected Pope in his first month as the “supreme commander of the Jesuits” and “the pauper pontiff” for the “Faithful” ushered in a new era without a peep from God’s elect. It has been more than 600 years since we have had two living Popes and the Catholics churches division of the globe by region. This new alliance within the hierarchy of the Roman empire; though missed by the masses, has not fallen by the wayside with this writer. The overlooked significance of Israel in the land, the regathering of the Jewish nation from the ends of the earth (Ezk.34:29), the movement to rebuild the temple – on temple mount (Dan. 9:27) and the massive departure from biblical truth and teaching (2 Tim. 3:1-9) has cauterized the conscience of most to a distant reckoning foretold by God in ages past. With worldwide tyranny on the rise and whole hearted applause for it in the press it is no stretch of imagination to connect a few dots and see the framework being assembled before our very eyes. I am no prophet nor am I particularly keen; but the writing has been on the wall much like in the day of Belshazzar in Babylon.

    “Then there will be a fourth kingdom, one strong like iron. Just like iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything, and as iron breaks in pieces all of these metals, so it will break in pieces and crush the others. In that you were seeing feet and toes partly of wet clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom. Some of the strength of iron will be in it, for you saw iron mixed with wet clay. In that the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, the latter stages of this kingdom will be partly strong and partly fragile. And in that you saw iron mixed with wet clay, so people will be mixed with one another without adhering to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay." (Dan 2:40-43 NET)

As dismal as this may seem to an average citizen; we need to look up (Luke 21:28). We are not destined for wrath (1 Thess. 5:9) and when the Great Day of the LORD arrives we will have been with Him (1Thess. 4:13-18) and we will arrive with Him (Rev. 19:6-21) and Israel will have peace and know it’s Messiah.

    “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will raise up an everlasting kingdom that will not be destroyed and a kingdom that will not be left to another people. It will break in pieces and bring about the demise of all these kingdoms. But it will stand forever." (Dan 2:44 NET)