Roman Catholicism, Unity, The Pope and End-times

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Rexella: Friends, if you watch our program, you know that we quote many, many sources. Our Protestant friends such as Billy Graham, who refers to the coming of the Lord frequently in his messages; our Jewish sources that say Messiah is coming very, very soon.

Today we'd like to be quoting some Catholic sources, primarily the Pope, who says that Jesus is coming very soon. But first I would like to refer to something where he makes a very compelling plea, and you see him there in deep prayer that this plea might be fulfilled. It's from the L'Osservatore Romano that I would like for you to see the plea that he is making. "We must overcome our differences." Again, "Credibility of our witness depends on Christian unity." And again, "From dynamic prayer flows love for others."

He has been referring to the coming of the Lord, but he's also been referring to the need to have love in the body of Christ, in Christianity. This is something that you've been referring to also, Jack.

Jack: Rexella, for years I was very bigoted and I knew every separatist text there was. Romans 16:17, "Avoid them," 2 Corinthians 6:14, "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers," 2 John, verse 8, "If there comes any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God's speed." And I attacked many wonderful Christians, many wonderful Catholic Christians, and those in other groups. But about 15, 16 years ago, the Holy Spirit broke my heart to show me how wrong this all was, that all Christians from all denominations, including our wonderful Catholic brothers and sisters are members of that one body, for by one Spirit are we all, all baptized into one body, 1 Corinthians 5:13; that we're all members of the bride of Christ, Revelation 19:7; and our God is not a polygamist, having two brides, two wives, Catholics and Protestants, but we are one. And I saw Psalm 133:1, "Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." And I saw the prayer of Jesus in John 17:21 where He said, "Father, I will that they all might be one, that the world might believe that You sent Me." And I saw the command of God, of God, in Ephesians 4:3-6, where it says we are to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, for there is one body and one Spirit. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all Who's above all and through all and in you all.

God started to change me. I remember our papers in my separatist movement, how they constantly attacked Billy Graham because of his love for Catholics. One time they tore him apart, because Billy said "the cross on the Catholic church is the same cross that I have on my Protestant church." And I said, "How can Billy Graham sleep at night." Oh, the bitterness that they heave out against this man.

But that man changed me and I saw that love. And then I appreciated the Southern Baptist Convention, because Billy was one of the members of their group, and they never once objected to his proclaiming love for Catholics and all of God's children. Thank you, Billy and the Southern Baptist Convention.

Rexella: Jack, you know what? People come to me now and they say "What denomination are you? What denomination is Jack?" You know what I like to say? "I'm a Christian."

Jack: Yeah, Acts 11:26, "The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch."

Rexella: So Protestants should love Protestants, we should love Catholics, Catholics should love Protestants, we should love the Greek Orthodox.

Jack: We're all members of the one body. All the different denominations represent these different fingers. But some folks won't let us do this: get together.

Rexella: Okay. Let's see how we get into that one body despite certain tendencies today to place ourselves in the position of saying "We are worthy outside of the Lord. We can enter heaven outside of the Lord."

Here's some beautiful sermon titles that Pope John Paul II gave in L'Osservatore Romano. "Jesus Christ the Source of Hope." Look at the next one. "Christ Makes the Cross a Tree of" - what? - "a Tree of Life." Again, "Put the Cross of Christ in Your Life." And then, "Be Men of Supernatural Faith and Royalty Through Christ."

And then at St. Peter's Basilica, December 12, 1997, the Pope had this to day: "I exhort the pastors of the American continent to proclaim ceaselessly the living Christ our sole salvation." Now he had a burden for some of the priests here in the United States that they continue preaching the only way of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord, and I think that was pretty important.

Jack: Oh, I have such respect for Pope John Paul II. I read every one of his sermons that bear witness with my spirit. I get stimulated, stirred, blessed, and he often uses John 14:6, that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and John 12:31, "If I," Jesus said, "be lifted up, I'll draw all men unto Me."

In the beginning of the 20th century a group of men got together from all denominations and said if anyone accepts these five fundamentals of the faith, he is a fundamentalist. So originally it was a wonderful term. And our Catholic brothers and sisters agree totally with us on these five points: That Jesus Christ was God from all eternity, 1 Timothy 3:16; that He came through the womb of the virgin Mary, Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23; that He died on the cross and was buried and rose again the third day for our sins, 1 Corinthians 15:3; and that it was through the shedding of his precious, efficacious blood that we're washed, Ephesians 1:7 and Revelation 1:5; and that He rose again the third day, 2 Timothy 2:8 and that He's coming again. For He said, "If I go away, I will come again and receive you unto Myself," John 14:3.

So we preach the same bible. I read the New Catechism, 1,800 points. I accept 99% of it. Why should we divide over 1%? A lot of Protestant groups, I have as much as 1% disagreement with, you know. So we need to love one another and put aside the secondary things and stick to the fundamentals of Jesus, Jesus, He death and resurrection and coming again.

Rexella: Well, we all have our distinctives in the different denominations, but, as you said, Jack, it's those five things that we can agree upon.

Well, from the magazine entitled The Challenge which comes out of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, they reported on an article from 1938 which had a prophecy in it by the Blessed Fastina. And it goes like this: "Out of Poland will come that spark that will prepare the world for the second coming of Christ."

Jack: That spark was Pope John Paul, and you know, he is the first Polish pope in history, and out of Poland he would arise to prepare the people for the second coming. That's why he believes in it with all of his heart.

Rexella: He's the first one in all history?

Jack: The first Polish pope.

Rexella: Out of Poland. Well, in his book, The Keys of This Blood, Malachi Martin indicates that the current pope believes the world is very close to witnessing unusual latter-day events. Now we have heard, I'm sure you have, of Hal Lindsey. He's a good friend of ours, best-selling author or The Late, Great Planet Earth, and a close friend of Malachi Martin. And he reports that Pope John Paul II expects the return of Christ in his lifetime. Now, Jack, he is an elderly man.

Jack: 78 years old.

Rexella: Yes, and he says that it could be in his lifetime. That's quite a statement!

Jack: Oh, it really is! Rexella, I read his Easter sermon in L'Osservatore Romano, and he's talking about the resurrection using John 5:28-29, "Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming in which all that are in the grave shall hear His voice and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation."

But he blessed my heart when he quoted Philippians 3, verses 20 and 21, "Out citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who, when He comes, will change our lowly bodies that they might be fashioned like His glorious body." And of course, in bible prophecy, that has to do with the rapture.

Now this may shock some of you: the rapture cannot be found in my King James bible, but it can be found in the Latin Vulgate translated by Jerome. He's the first one to ever use the term rapture, from rapturo[sp] in the Latin. And that's when He says, "Come up hither," Revelation 4:1. "And then the dead in Christ shall rise and we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we ever be with the Lord." That's 1 Thessalonians 4:17-18. And that will all happen in the twinkling of an eye, 1 Corinthians 15:52. And it's great to know that he's talking that way, but more so, he's talking about Christ's return to earth as we're going to see.

Rexella: Yes, well up front in the program I did mention that the pope is talking a great deal about the coming of the Lord, and certainly he prays for the coming of the Lord to be very, very near and here you see him. He's proclaiming this in the L'Osservatore Romano. Pope John Paul II in the closing ceremony of his twentieth anniversary prayed, "Come, Lord Jesus, to establish the Kingdom in the world, the Kingdom of Your Father and our Father, a Kingdom of life and salvation, a Kingdom of justice, love and peace."

Jack: He prayed that two months ago.

Rexella: Yes, he did. And then another article that he gave in the magazine The Vatican, he says, "Within the dimension of time the history of salvation unfolds, and its goal is the glorious return of the Son of God." Now, I know you will agree he is speaking frequently about the return of the Lord.

Jack: And Malachi Martin, that great Jesuit, states that much of this talk about Jubilee 2000 has in mind that the Lord could come at any time.

This glorious appearing of Christ is described in Matthew 24:27, "As the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth unto the west, so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be." And when He comes, His feet will touch down upon the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, Zachariah 14:4. And He will then come regally and royally on that white horse, Revelation 19:11, and the armies in heaven follow Him. That's those who were taken previously. "The Lord cometh with 10,000s of His saints," Jude 14. When He comes, He comes, and you've heard me say this week after week, as the King of kings and Lord of lords and He will rule and reign for 1000 years, Revelation 20:4. Rexella, this was the teaching of the Catholic church for the first 430 years of Christendom. In the year 325, 318 bishops of the church gathered from all over the world for the Council of Nicea and re-affirmed the doctrine of the 1000 year reign of Christ upon the earth, that great Millennium. Then, sorrowfully, error crept into Christendom later, and it's in all of our groups today, that when Christ comes, the world blows up, it's over. That's not what the church taught for 430 years. Let's go back to our foundation, our roots, and we'll see more about this in a moment.

....Rexella: Ted and Maureen Flynn have written a book titled The Thunder of Justice. There you see it. And I have chosen four of the prophecies that they have given out of here, and we're going to deal with them very, very quickly, go back and forth here, and the first one is that "the first sign of the spread of errors which leads to the lose of faith and apostasy." Now these errors are being propagated by false teachers, by renowned theologians, and they say even within "our church," which is the Roman Catholic church. Now, Jack, being Roman Catholics, this is a Catholic book, they're saying that some of their teachers are spreading some false errors.

Jack: Challenge Magazine, out of Canada, Inside the Vatican magazine, The New Oxford Review, all Catholic periodicals, say there is a real battle with the Cardinals and Bishops now. Some are for the pope, some are against, some believe what he's teaching, some don't. Some like what he says about the return of Christ. Others are doing everything they can to work against it. Why? Because 1 Timothy 4:1 says that in the latter days some shall depart from the faith. And in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 it says, "Let no man deceive you, for that day Christ's return shall not come except there come a falling away first," an apostasia in the Greek, an apostatizing, turning away from the truth. And Pope John Paul II is very alarmed, and he's even making the colleges toe the line now in the near future. They cannot be teaching there if they don't teach the truth.

Rexella: Great, Jack. Is that happening in some of our Protestant churches too?

Jack: We've had it since 1900. We've been way ahead of the Catholics in apostasy.

Rexella: The second sign that they dealt with in this book is the outbreak of wars. We see that everywhere.

Jack: That's Matthew 24:7-8, Mark 13:7-8, and, of course, the message of Fatima was, and it was sort of revealed in Germany when the pope spoke for Cardinal Rathsinger[sp] that that third secret has to be with Russia sending a plague across this world. That's when she marches against Israel, Ezekiel 38 and 39.

Rexella: The third sign is the blood persecution of those who have been faithful to Jesus and His gospel.

Jack: "You shall be hated of all nations for My name's sake," Matthew 24:9. "The time will come when whosoever kills you will think he's doing God a service," John 16:2. Of course, millions are slaughtered in Revelation 13:15 and Revelation 20:4. "I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for Jesus and for the Word of God."

Rexella: Mmmm, so very well said, Jack. And the fourth sign is the horrible sacrilege perpetrated by the antichrist.

Jack: This next statement will shock you! Malachi Martin, the great Jesuit scholar, who taught at the Vatican, who's a close friend of Pope John Paul II, said we will probably see the New World Order, a world government, by the year 2000 or shortly thereafter, but Pope John Paul II wants nothing to do with it, but he's afraid that his successor, the future pope, might.

Isn't that what the bible teaches? Do you know that under sacred tradition, and Bishop Sheen took his statement from sacred tradition, that the final pope is to defect from the faith. That is what the Catholic church has always taught and this pope is afraid that his successor might join in with the New World Order, a world government. That world government arises, Revelation 13:1, the revived Roman Empire, the European Union. And there's a religious leader in Revelation 13:11 who has the two horns of a lamb but speaks as a dragon. The two horns of a lamb identifies him with the Lamb of God, Jesus, John 1:29, but his speech as the speech of a dragon identifies him with the power of Satan, Revelation 20:4. Exactly what sacred theology teaches in the Catholic church. And the pope is afraid that this might happen very, very soon. But let's see why.

Rexella: Well, you know what, Jack, there have been many articles written on who might be the next pope, and here's the cover of U.S. News and World Report. "The Next Pope: The Surprising Steps John Paul II Has Taken to Shape the Choice of His Successor." He had this to say: "We are standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has ever experienced. We're now facing the final confrontation between the church and the antichurch." Very powerful statement.

Jack: He's speaking about Cardinals within the movement who are liberals, and he's afraid that one of them could be that next pope. Now, this is tremendous! In the book Thunder of Justice, and the book After the Darkness, it says there will only be three more popes after Pope John XXIII. Who were they? Pope Paul VI, number one, Pope John Paul I and Pope John Paul II, so the final one after that would be the defector. It was the archbishop of Ireland in 1133 called Malachi, later St. Malachi, who gave the predictions of all the popes, 111 of them, covering 850 years, and when he got to number 111, it was Pope John Paul II, and the one following him would probably be Peter Romano, the defector from Christianity, which would fit right in to Revelation 13:1, 13:11, when it is the tribulation hour defined in Revelation chapters 6 to 18, but Christ would soon appear after that, within months. That's how near it all is, folks, for His coming to the earth.

....Rexella: You know, friends, I think this program is one of the most needed programs we've had in a long time. I don't want to go home, seeing the Lord, hating anybody, Jack.

Jack: No, I don't know if we can go home that way, Rexella, because we know we've passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer, and no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. (Jack Van Impe Show, January 27, 1999)