Columbus, the Papacy, and Today

presentation, which is called theColumbus, the Papacy, and today.And immediately after that, we'll havejust a brief intermission, and thenafter that, I believe at 6:30 p.m.,we'll have a Q&A. Um the Q&A we will notlivestream, okay? Uh this is beinglivestreamed uh as well, so every singlepresentation that you've seen here todaystays archived in our Facebook page andour YouTube channel. So, uh let us goahead and get uh started with a word ofprayer.Father in heaven, thank you for thisbeautiful Sabbath day that we've hadtogether. Father, uh where we can uhjust listen to your word and learn moreabout you.

And Father, this uhconvicting message that we had thismorning aboutFather, the need to call sin for what itis. And Father, especially for us to berenewed and transformed in heart andmind, Father, so that we can serve you.Uh dear Jesus, you're giving us even tothe bitter end to change. So, let thatresonate in our minds and in our heartsof the importance, Father, of how weneed to be before you. Father, how arewe treating one another? Father, thelist goes on and on on and on.

Are wetruly reflecting your character? Father,right now as Pastor Vine takes thepodium, the pulpit once again, uh may heshare this very important message withus today. In the name of Jesus Christ,we pray. Amen.All right. So, good evening, everybody.Can you all hear me?Yes.

All right. So, um I hope you had awonderful potluck. It was deliciousfood, yes?And um this afternoon, or it's almostevening here, uh we're going to betalking about a topic called Columbus,the Papacy, and today.And they say that history repeatsitself.And uh so, I'm going to be talking todayabout what happened in Spain at the timeof Christopher Columbusand how that relates to us today. And sothey say history does repeat itself andthat institutions really don't changetheir nature over time.And so this isas I study these things it just occursto me that when we understand historyand we understand prophecy, we put thosethings together and it's not hard to seehow what we know from Spirit of Prophecyand our study of Revelation 12 and 13,how that's going to happen in the finaldays.And soas brother Danny's already offered aprayer for us, soI want to talk first of all aboutFerdinand and Isabella. So have youheard of Ferdinand and Isabella?Yes.There they are.

So we start out in thethe Muslim conquest of North Africa andSpainand so the the the Muslims they theyconquered all the way across NorthAfricaand then they marched up into Spain inthe 630sand they crossed a place calledGibraltar.Gibraltaris atransliterationof Jabal Tariq. Jabal is mountain ArabicTariq was the general that led theMuslims across the Straits of Gibraltaras it's now called. So Gibraltar is ananglicized version of Jabal Tariq. Thatwas the Muslim general that led theconquest of Spain. And of course theMuslims came up all the way throughSpain and then they came all the way upto Paris and just south of Paris inabout 730, 732 AD, they were turned backby a guy called Charles Martel.

Have youheard of Charles Martel?He was the grandfather of Charlemagneand he turned the Muslims back at theBattle of Tours and had he not won thatbattle, Europe would have been a Muslimcontinent and world history would wouldbeen very very different. So you seethere the map of the the Muslimconquest. And so, the the Spanishwere focused on what they called theReconquista.Now, I don't speak Spanish, but those ofyou who are here know Spanish.Reconquista, I'm not sure how it'sexactly pronounced, but the Spanishkings who were Catholic, they werefocused on the Reconquista of Spain.That is, they wanted to throw the thethe Muslimoccupants out, the invaders out, andhave Spain as a Catholic or a Christiannation rather than mostly being a Muslimnation. So, you see on the on the mapthere, the yellow bits, they werereconquered by the year 1000. And thenyou've got the the darker orange wasreconquered by 1250.

And at the bottom,around Granada or Granada, they werereconquered 1250-1492.That's where the story of El Cid comesin. Maybe you've seen the story of ElCid, the famous generalwho was conquering some of those Muslimcities.And by the time of the Middle Ages andand Isabella Isabellaand Ferdinand,by the mid-1400s, most of the Moors, theMuslims from North Africa, been drivenout of Spain, and there was just a smallgroup down at the bottom on theMediterranean coast near modern-dayMalaga, Gibraltar, and Cadiz.And so,there's a pictureof some of the Middle Ages of Ferdinandand Isabella. And at the time, Spain wasdivided into several competing kingdoms.There was Aragon, Navarre, Castile,Andalusia, and then the Moorish Moorishkingdom in the deep south. And there wasno guarantee that the Spanish peninsulawould ever be united, although everyChristian king considered his duty tocomplete the Reconquista of of Spain andto drive out the Muslims from the entireSpanish peninsula. And so, by the timeIsabellaFerdinand and Isabella came along, there- the reconquest of Spain had been awar going on and off for over 450 years.It was a long war.And every king that came along wanted tochip away at the Muslim dominated areasand to drive them further south and thenultimately to drive them back to NorthAfrica.And sowhen Ferdinand and Isabella married, itwas both a love match and it was apolitical match.

There was a prenuptialagreement which ensured that Isabellawould remain the dominant partnerin the joining of the royal houses ofAragon and Castile, but in practiceFerdinand intended to ignore thatprenuptial agreement.And when when Ferdinand and Isabellacame together, their focus was on how tounify Spain. As you see on the mapthere, there's a map of the IberianPeninsula or Spain back in the MiddleAges 1270 to 1492, you see that on theMediterranean coast on the west in thegreen, you've got Catalonia and you gotAragonin the century you have Castile and Leonup in the north there andyou also have Bilbao and Santander onthe northern coast on the Bay of Biscay.And so Spain was was a mixture ofcompeting kingdomsand at the very bottom, the the kingdomof Granada there, that was the Moorswhen Ferdinand and Isabella cametogether in marriage and they united theroyal houses of Aragon and Castile.And so they wanted to unify Spain. Nowtheir purpose was not merely political,it was also spiritual because in the1400s,um just before the Reformation, therewere lots of people were saying thatsomething has gone wrong with thechurch, that is the Roman CatholicChurch. Luther was not the first toraise his voice in protest what washappening. There were people before himsuch as Wycliffe in England.

AndFerdinand and Isabella wanted to uniteSpain spiritually as well aspolitically.And this was important because umIsabella viewed herself as the woman ofRevelation 12.She also viewed herself as theincarnation of the Virgin Mary, the purewoman of Revelation 12, and the bringerof the time of the end of Daniel 11 and12. And so Isabella in particular was astudent of prophecy.And she saw herself as having a key rolein the end of times. And so uh they hadthree strategies for preparing for theapocalypse. They believed that Christwould come when Spain was purified ofall infidels and all heretics.Um it's a bit like modern-day lastgeneration theology that Christ willcome when there is a pure sinlessgeneration, okay? Now, the Spanish hadtheir own version of this.

And uh theywanted to prepare Spain for the comingof Jesus. And the first was to completethe Reconquista. They were going todrive the infidel Moors out of Spain asthey called them. And the Moors weredivided into competing kings, theseMuslim kings. And Ferdinand played themoff one against the other prettyeffectively.

And year after year um heinvited um engineers from Italy andGermany firing cannons. They They usedto be called bombards then. That's wherewe get the word bombardier from. TheyThey would uh hire German mercenariesand Italian mercenaries, and they wouldreduce the Moorish cities and citadelsto rubble.And so eventually the kingdom of theMoors was destroyed and the center ofMuslim power in the Mediterraneanswitched from southern Spain to theOttomans inConstantinople, Istanbuluh in modern-day Turkey in the in theOttoman Empire. So the first thing theydid was they they drove the Moors out ofSpain.

That was the first step ofpurifying Spain for the coming of JesusChrist. Uh the second thing they did wasthey started the fires of theInquisition.And so we want to get rid of the Moorsbecause they're infidels, those areMuslims, but we also need to purify thechurchin preparation for the coming of Jesus,and so they they started up the fires ofthe Inquisition. So, this was uh for thepurification of the Catholics in Spainand for the elimination of all heretics.Now, the the rules of the Inquisitionwere a complete travesty of justice, andif you were accused, you were not ableto know who your accusers were, what theevidence against you was, and in somecases you were not able to know what thewhat the the charges were against you.But, the EU if you were accused in theInquisition, you were given what wasknown as the Edict of Mercy. That gaveyou 30 days to come forward to confessto an unknown charge.And if you didn't come forward andconfess, or if your evidence was judgedinsufficient, then you were threatenedwith torture, and then you were torturedeither on the rack or by waterboarding.Now, the reason they chose the rack orwaterboarding, as you see here, um orhanging people with weights in variousstress positions, um all these were welldocumented at the time. The reason theydid this was because they said that theclergy uh were not men of blood.

So, allthe torture had to be done and thekilling had to be done without thespilling of blood. That's why theInquisition had certain methods oftorture the way they did. So, when youput on the rack and you were kind ofstretched and stretched and stretched,your muscles were ripped apart and yourbones cracked apart within your body,but no blood was spilt. Very few peoplesurvived torture in the SpanishInquisition. Almost all of the victimshad their lands and property confiscatedby the state and it went into thecoffers of Ferdinand and Isabella,and the inquisitors themselves receiveda a substantial percentage of thetakings.

So, they were everybody was inon this. And if you were charged withsomething, it was almost guaranteedyou'd be found guilty, and if foundguilty, all your property andpossessions went to the inquisitors andto the state. So, greed mixed with falsepiety.Uh the the because of this, there wasterror, fear, and loathing swept Spain.Old enmities were settled with anonymousletters of denunciation to theInquisition. There was such was thehatred of the inquisitors that some ofthem were hacked or stabbed to death.Some were poisoned, and many of themdidn't didn't have a natural death. Umthere was one murdered inquisitor calledPedro Arbués.

He was the inquisitor ofAragon, and he was murdered in 1485.But, he was he was so effective aninquisitor, he was later beatified andturned into a saint by a pope. And so,this particular mass murderer is stillprayed to daily by many Catholics aroundthe world today as their patron saint,uh Pedro Arbués, who was the inquisitorof Aragon, who was assassinated in 1485.Now, fun money poured into the coffersof Ferdinand and Isabella, and also intothe coffers of the church. Many of thetargets were were people known asconversos, that is, people of Jewishancestry who'd converted to Catholicismin the 400 years before that time, orwho'd been forced to convert. They wereaccused of reverting to Judaism insecret, and therefore they were to bekilled.Now, as the Inquisitions um inquisitorswere so-called men of God, they were notallowed to spill blood.We already mentioned that's why theirvictims were either water-boarded orstretched on the rack.And they they had various euphemisms forthings. If you were to be tortured, theexpression was that they were going toput the question to you.Because they needed to question you.

So,to put the question meant you were to betortured, and no blood was spilt,technically speaking.As all condemned heretics were bound foreternal hellfire,they were ushered into the eternalhereafter by being burnt at the pyre orat the stake, which is another bloodlessway of persecution. The process wasbeing called relaxed by the church. So,if the church decided that you were tobe relaxed, that was a euphemism forsaying you were to be burnt at thestake. Um and there were otherhorrifying euphemisms employed by theInquisition.For those who confessed their imaginarysins, the church allowed you to bestrangled to death on the platformbefore you were burnt to death.And so, justice was routinely denied andtorture was the norm. Fear, widespreadterror, and mutual suspicion spreadacross Spain.

And ummany fled to the neighboring countries.Many were impoverished. Uh Ferdinand andIsabella became immensely wealthy withthe proceeds of confiscated land andproperty, which in turn was used tofinance the war against the Moors in thesouth. And the the Spanish Inquisitionburned for over 200 years before thosefires eventually burned out.So, the first thing they did was theycomplete the Reconquista of Spain.That's driving out the Muslims. Thesecond thing they did was theInquisition to purify the Catholics whowere in Spain. And the third thing theydid was they fanned the the the flamesof anti-Semitism.And so, the There were many Jews inSpain at the time.

They were wealthy,and many of them had actually becomeChristians.They were known as the conversos,um and uh it was alleged they had um uhproduced fake stories of conversion.And it was alleged that there was anational conspiracy to overthrow thegovernment of Spain by the Jewishpopulation.Now, the Sephardic Jews, they were thedescendants of Jewish princes and nobleswho lived in Spain for almost 1,500years.Uh the Ashkenazis are in Eastern Europe,the Sephardic Sephardic Jews in WesternEurope. And they had blessed Spain witha steady stream of philosophers,writers, thinkers, scientists, andpeople with business acumen.But such social and intellectual prowessbrought envy and hatred.And so, one day, there was a man calledGarcia. He was a converso, a Jew who'dhad to Catholicism, he went on aCatholic prince uh pilgrimage toSantiago de Compostela. I think you knowI know some of you here speak Spanish.You know how that's spelt pronounced abit better than I am, but Santiago deCompostela, people still go on thatpilgrimage today in Spain. And he gotdrunk one night at an inn he was stayingat in his journey, and out of hisknapsack fell some bread.Now, his Catholic companion saw this,and they dragged him off to a localambitious priest who immediately saw theopportunity for personal advancement.The poor man was then brutally torturedby the Inquisition for 5 days tellingthe truth, that he was not taking partin Jewish rituals, he was on a Catholicpilgrimage, but to no avail.

The greedand the ambition of the Inquisitor wouldnot be held back by the truth.Eventually, his body completely broken,this poor man Garcia confessed to havinglapsed into Jewish rituals and beingpart of a plot to murder all SpanishChristians and take their property andgive it to the Jews.That was what he confessed to after hisbody was broken on the rack.Others were accused, the circle ofsuspicion grew. Eventually, the chargewas made that a circle of Jews hadstolen and murdered a Christian boy in aritual murder that mocked thecrucifixion.This was theall the elements of real scandal. Therewasmurder, heresy, poison, blood, andsuperstition, the destruction ofChristianity, the arrival of Satanhimself.Nobody could find a grieving mother forthe alleged missing child, but the taleof the Holy Innocent of La Guardia wasspread by the Inquisitors across thenation.The case against Garcia was so weak andshaky shaky that the local Inquisitorshad to warn the population not to speakof the case. It was settled, the churchhad spoken, and that was that.This was, you might say, fake news.It was whipped up by the Inquisition tostir up anti-Semitism across Spain,and shortly thereafter in 1492,Ferdinand and Isabella,because they were concerned about Jewskilling and stealing and maybe eatingChristian children, expelled all theJews from Spain with a couple of weeksnotice.So, Ferdinand and Isabella, in theirpurification of Spain,ready for the coming of Jesus, um theyhad driven out the Muslims in the south.They started the Spanish Inquisition topurify the Spanish Catholics, and thenthey drove the Jews out of the countryas well. So, it was a three-prongedattack on Catholics, ChristianCatholics, Jews, and Muslims to prepareSpain Spain for the coming of JesusChrist.

Now, many Jews simply convertedto Catholic faith on the spot, but theywere forced to remain under thesuspicious eye of their greedyneighbors. But, many of them fled acrossthe Mediterranean basin. Many fled toPortugal. They were taxed on leavingSpain. They were taxed on entering intoPortugal and arrived penniless.

Othersfled to North Africa, others to Italyand elsewhere.And what happened to Spain when theydrove the Jews out was very similar toFrance when France drove out the theProtestant Huguenots in the 1600s.The Huguenots were the middle class ofFrance. They were the Protestants. Theywere the engineers, the doctors, thedentists, the accountants, the lawyers,the writers, the thinkers, the businessowners. When France drove out theHuguenots, France never recoveredsocially even to this day. Francestruggles to have a meaningful middleclass.

You have a few elites in Parisand everybody else is kind of workingclass in Paris, but you don't have amiddle class in Paris. They were drivenout with the Huguenots. And Spain,through the Inquisition, the driving outof the Muslims, and the expulsion of theJews, had a very similar experience. Andever since then, Spain has beencondemned to relative poverty for muchof its history.So, throughout these three parallelstrands of history, you have Christianand Muslim warfare leading to thedestruction of the Moors of southernSpain, the terror of the Inquisition,the persecution and the expulsion of theJews accompanied by fake news, theSpanish state grew in state strength.Ferdinand and Isabella's kingdom waswealthy, it was unified, it was acombination of church and state in afearsome machine of oppression.And wherever you link church with statetogether,you need to be very careful.Um somebody's going to suffer.You know, Jesus was killed by a union ofchurch and state,Roman governor and the Sanhedrin.And if you look throughout umlast 2,000 years, whenever the civilpower unites with a religious power,then there's going to be oppression ofminorities. Islam has no separation ofchurch and state.

You only have themosque and Sharia law. They don't havethat question in Islam cuz everything isgoverned by by Sharia law. But inChristianity as Protestants, we upholdthe separation of church and state afterthe writings of Roger Williams who cameas an and in New England uh in the 1640sand 50s because he recognized that themoment the religious power seeks the theenforcement arm of the state to touphold the beliefs of the religiousauthority, then the religious authoritytakes on kind of like a it becomes likea beast.And it's it's tempted by power and thedesire for wealth to destroy anyone whowould disagree with it.So this Spanish union of church andstate grew in its sense of Messianicfervor,identifying apocalyptic themes in Danieland Revelation that fed the nationalneed for Spain to be purified ofheretics, infidels, and Jews beforeJesus arrived.And it also meant that Isabella andFerdinand were intent on spreading theirpurified Catholic faith around the restof the world because they had to preparethe world for the coming of Jesus. Andhaving got rid of the Jews, the Muslims,and any Spanish heretics or Catholicheretics, now Spain was sufficiently umtheologically purefor Spain to start, um, its colonialadventures in the western western halfof of the Atlantic Ocean.So, now we have Christopher Columbus.So, there's an old woodcut there fromthe time, 1491,of that little child who was allegedlycrucified and stolen and eaten by theJews. It was all fake news.

But, theseare some of the woodcuts that circulatedaround Spain, uh, promoting this fakenews and the hatred of the Jews, leadingto the expulsion.So, the Spanish union of church andstate, it completed the Reconquista ofthe Moors of southern Spain, it launchedthe Inquisition, expelled the Jews fromSpain. The net result was a purifiedCatholic Spain ready for the apocalypse,and local prophets indicated that it wasthe Spanish who would lead the finalcharge, um, to purify the world beforethe coming of Jesus.And that's the background forChristopher Columbus coming along, okay?He didn't just happen in a vacuum. Uh,there was a lot of stuff going on inSpain.So, along comes Christopher Columb-Christopher Columbus,and there's a picture of him here. Now,uh, Christopher Columbus, his desire forlife and adventure and explorationmatched up with Isabella and Ferdinand'sdesire to spread, um, the purifiedCatholic faith around the world. He wasfrom Italy, and he pushed and lobbiedfor many years in the courts of Portugaland of Spain for royal sponsorship tosail west across the Atlantic and tofind a short sea passage to India.Now, the Portuguese had explored downthe coast of Africa around the Cape ofGood Hope and all the way across toIndia.And although a small nation, Portugalwas developing a worldwide tradingempire.But, Portuguese sailors had actuallyinadvertently landed in Brazil whileattempting to avoid some storms in theSouth Atlantic.

And after much lobbying,and it was a it was many years oflobbying, Columbus was given acommission by Ferdinand and Isabella tosail with small three small ships towest to lay the claim for land forSpain.And his lobbying played on theintertwined themes of the day.The Messianic dreams of Ferdinand andIsabella,the rise of a new purified Catholicunion of church and state, the need tobuild a new Jerusalem and a new world byforce if necessary, all led by the mostglorious and Catholic of monarchs,Ferdinand and Isabella.So, truly Ferdinand and Isabella werepreparing the world for aneschatological crisis that would usherin the reign of Christ. Now, it washoped that Columbus would sail west andhe would find Japan, China, and India,thus avoiding the long route down aroundthe Cape of Good Hope at the south ofAfrica. Columbus did in fact sail westand he discovered, because there werepeople got to the uh the Americas beforehe did, but he discovered modern-dayCuba in the first of his multiplevoyages. He eventually would discovermuch of the Caribbean and the CentralAmerican lands of today.What did he bring back to Spain? Hebrought back gold, slaves, tobacco,potato,corn, and he brought back syphilis,which killed multitudes in the cities ofSpain and Portugal.In turn, he brought a wide variety ofdiseases to the Caribbean that rapidlykilled off entire populations.So,then we ask ourselves, where did thePope come in?Well, Ferdinand and Isabella weredesperate to protect their discoveriesin the New World.And the world back in 1490 was dividedbetween two maritime superpowers, Spainand Portugal.Who would be the world's mediator?

Whowould mediate between the two dominantseafaring powers in the world, Spain andPortugal, and determine um who wherethey could go? Who alone could arbitrateand make decisions among competingnations and faiths in our world?Who had the wisdom to be the final judgeof what happened in a politicallyfast-changing world, the answerwas the Pope.The Pope at the time was Pope AlexanderVI.He was the first of the Borgias, aninfamous family to wear the papal tiara.He was about as dissolute and immoral asa man can be.And he was asked to judge between Spainand Portugal to decide who got whichparts of the world.So, in 1493,Alexander issued two papal bullsuh giving everything that was discoveredeast of a line in the mid-Atlantic toPortugal, and everything west of thatline he gave to Spain.So, he literally took a globe and hesaid that this is the Atlantic, and asyou're looking everything to the east ofthe Atlantic, that'll include Africa andround to India, that's going to be givento Portugal,and everything west of that line in theAtlantic, that's the Americas, is goingto be given to Spain. And that's how thePope simply divided up planet Earthbetween two competing powers.And their job was to go and make goodCatholics of these nations. Enslavementor death, if that was in the process, sobe it, but they were to be turned intogood Catholics wherever the Portuguesewent to the east, to the east, as you'relooking at or the Spanish went to thewest. Enslavement, death, disease wasimmaterial.

What mattered was making theworld Catholic.And on what basis did the Pope presumeto have such authority?As he claimed to be the vicar of JesusChrist on Earth, he had alleged dominionover the souls of all men, women, andchildren on planet Earth, and thereforeonly he could decide uh which nationwould bring the bring would bring thegood news to the Lord's separatedchildren, that is to the lost.And so, the Pope gave permission toSpain and Portugal to basically colonizethe entire world, and he did divide themdown the middle of the Atlantic, andSpain and Portugal went off and didprecisely that.So, with these papal bulls in his hand,Columbus set sailed on his second voyagefrom Spain in September 1494intent officiallyto bring the souls of the people of theAmericas into the tender embrace of theCatholic Church. That was the officialreason why he sailed. Unofficially, ifhe was going to get some gold, tobacco,or slaves in the process, that was anadded benefit.And so that's why Columbus sailed.Well,as I'm telling this story,you realize that not a lot has changedin our world, has it?The world then is remarkably similarto the world today.I hope you can see that on the screen.Yep, it's all there. The world then.Back then, Christians and Muslims werebusy killing each other.Their nations and societies werepolarized between rich elites andimpoverished masses.Nations were dividing against each otheron religious and cultural grounds.The alleged clash of civilizations thatscholars talk about happening today washappening back then.Anti-Semitism was virulent and violentacross much of Europe.Hatred on the streets of Europe was wasseen in the regular pogroms thatterrorized Jewish communities,particularly in Central and EasternEurope, in places like the Ukrainetoday.Jewish refugees were moving from countryto country across Europe, as wererefugees from Muslim wars in theBalkans.Political Political corruption andcynical manipulation were rampant.And maybe most importantly, they justinvented a printing press.And with the invention of the printingpress, you have mass communications forthe first time. There was an explosionin communication, and with the inventionof printing, different monarchs wereprinting their own versions of eventsand disseminating these own versions viathe printing presses.

That is, fake newswas already happening across Europe.And um poor, ignorant, uneducatedvillagers would receive the officialnews, and they'd believe it because itwas coming from that particular king.Political propaganda was increasing thenorm, including deliberate fake news,designed to whip up ethnic, racial, orreligious hatred, particularly on thepart of the Inquisition.Uhit was an era when knowledge wasexploding. There was rapid technologicalprogress and social exploration, betterknown today as the Renaissance. Humanismand secularism were on the rise,particularly among the scholarly elites.The individual states, such as Portugaland Spain,um on the Atlantic, and the Holy RomanEmpire based in German Germany, weredreaming of crusades, conquests, andconversions on a global scale.There were tensions with the Muslims, uhthe Ottomans of Turkey, over the floodof refugees floating across Europe andthe destruction of the Moorish kingdomsof Spain.Portugal assumed the rights to ownAfrica, India, and Brazil,and Spain ow- assumed the rights to owneverything else in the Americas. Andthey were printing maps very, veryrapidly, and so the world was shrinkingwith the with the introduction of theprinting presses and maps and glo- andpapal bulls that divided the world upamong different nations.And so, um the papacy assumed the rightto control the world politically andeconomically. That's the key point fortoday.The papacy assumed the right todetermine who gets to conquer who orwho.And where who's going to carry theCatholic faith to much of the world.Now, if any of this sounds like what'shappening today, it's cuz this isprecisely what's happening today.The world today.Our world, as in the era of Ferdinandand Isabella and Pope Alexander VI andChristopher Columbus,our world is fraying at the edgespolitically, spiritually, morally, andeconomically.As back then, we are now living in aglobal village, as they were then.With mass media and social mediaplatforms ensuring that a single event,speech, or an action is knowninstantaneously around the world.And that was happening back in the timeof Christopher Columbus.As back in the time of Columbus, we haveconflicts between Christians, Muslims,and Jews.

We see a rise in our worldtoday of anti-Semitism in gen- inparticular, and in general anintercommunal hatred and violence innations across our world.As in the time of Ferdinand Isabella andand Columbus, fake news dominates thepublic narrative, and the biggest sourceof fake news are the governments.As in the year of Ferdinand Isabella andColumbus, large corporations aredividing the world at will for personalprofit motives.And as in the time of Fer- FerdinandIsabella and Columbus,torture, rape, and the trafficking inhuman bodies abound globally.As back then, so today, new technologiesare changing and shrinking our world.Uh commercial and corporate voices thenand today are overwhelming individualvoices and individual rights.As then, so today, greedand a human uh greed and ambitionabound, as does lawlessness and a scantregard for basic human rights.Uh back then and uh today as then, we'reliving in an era of moral, political,and economic decay.So, we should not be surprised when weonce again see the papacy pushing fordominant global role as per theprophecies of Revelation 13.That's what we see in prophecy. That'swhat they did the last time we had thissit- situation in the world. And do wesee it happening today?And the answer is absolutely yes.So, let's come to the papacy.The modern-day papacy still claimsabsolute global power.During the Reformation, the principlesof religious liberty and liberty ofconscience were freed us from theauthority of the church-state unionknown as the Roman Catholic Church. Thatchurch-state union was bloodthirsty, itwas autocratic, and it was totalitarian.Nobody questioned the voice of the bi-of the Pope of Rome because he was Godon Earth.And the Reformation gave usProtestantism.Protestantism in turn gave us our humanand civil rights and capitalism. Andwithout Protestantism through andreligious liberty from the RomanCatholic dictatorship, we would not haveour Bill of Rights in America today.And it is no accident that the firstright in the Bill of Rights is thatCongress shall make no law regarding theestablishment of religion or the freeexercise thereof.

That's the first ofall the rights in the Bill of Rights.And the framers of the US Constitutionunderstood that the only way thatAmerica could remain a free country, andit wasn't free with slavery, weunderstand that, but at least the ideaof America that everybody is free,that can only be true if we are freefrom the autocratic claims of the RomanCatholic Church.And so that's why the freedom ofreligion is the first in the Bill ofRights.And so umthe papacy though claims the right todetermine the social economic courses ofevery nation on Earth. And Pope Pius XIwrote in 1931,now this this this um encyclical, thisis um him speaking ex cathedra, so whenthe Pope speaks ex cathedra, that's inhis official teaching role from hispulpit, you might say. When he speaks excathedra, this is God speaking, this isdogma, it can never be questioned. Andhe wrote he said this and now thisencyclical was literally a QuadragesimoAnno, it means 40th year in Italian, andit came after another encyclical in1891, which we'll cover in a minute,where the Pope essentially allied um thepapacy with Marxism.But in 1931, this is what Pope Pius XIsaid. He said, "We lay down theprinciples long since clearlyestablished by Leo the XIII, that it isour right, that is the papacy's rightand duty, to deal authoritatively withsocial and economic problems.Now,the Pope Pius was not speaking aboutsocial and economic problems withinVatican City in Rome.

You understandthat.The papacy is claiming the right, givenby God, to determine, um, all social andeconomic matters in all nations aroundplanet Earth. That's their dogma.They may not say it much today, but thisis all a matter of public record.After Vatican II, um, this, um, message,this this document was given, Gaudium etSpes, um, 1965,and the papacy stated this, "It is theright of public authority to preventanyone from misusing his privateproperty to the detriment of the commongood."And you may ask yourself, "Well, what isthe common good?"Well, in Catholic, um, theology, afterSt. Thomas Aquinas, you have divine law,which is, um, God and his will forhumanity. Then you have, um, naturallaw. That's how we participate in God'swill.

And then you have, um, like humanlaw. That's like the laws of America,laws of Belgium, laws of Jamaica. Andthen you have, at the bottom, you haveother laws, such as the TenCommandments. That's at the bottom oftheir hierarchy.And in Catholic theology, from the timeof St. Thomas Aquinas in the 1200s, heargued that it was God's purpose thatall property be held in common.That's natural law.Therefore, private property is only atemporary accommodation allowed for ineach given country, but that privateproperty can only be held by privateindividuals if they use it for thecommon good.You following this?This means that, um, the, uh, if youlook at economic systems in the worldtoday, communism states that the partycontrols all the means of production onbehalf of the people, the people areimpoverished, and the party ownseverything.

Capitalism says that samecapital in society is spread amongpeople in society according to how muchthey work or inherit. So if you workhard you get more of that capital foryourself and you can use it for your ownpurpose. And fascism is an economictheory that says you can have privateproperty but the public authority suchas Hitler's regime, they're the ones whodetermine how it must be used.And that's that middle house is exactlywhere the papacy sits today. Theybelieve yes you may have privateproperty but only in so far as you useit for what they determine to be thecommon good.So it really isn't your property. It'syours in name but not in reality.Soin this statement here Gaudium et Spes,the papacy asserts it is right to thepublic authority and by that they meanthemselves to prevent anyone frommisusing his private property to thedetriment of the common good whichcoincidentally has to be defined by thepapacy asAll rights whatsoever in 1967 includingthose of property and of free commerceare to be subordinated to this principlethat is the principle of the commongood.

That was Pope Paul the VI in hispopular and progressive 1967.So what he's saying here is that allyour rightsthat includes religious liberty.All your rights are subject to thecommon good.That is if your liberty of conscienceclashes with what the papacy says is inthe common good for society, you have noreligious liberty.So we understand why in the book ofRevelation so in the book of the bookGreat Controversy where it says therethat Satan will when he appears beforethe coming of Christ and he fakes theappearance of Jesus, he will be blamingthe natural disasters that Satan isbringing upon the world upon thecommandment keepers. You remember thatchapter? 588 589 Great Controversy. AndSatan will be saying through the papacythat uh these natural disasters arecoming upon the world because God isangry with the world because theseSabbath keepers are not honoring Sundayinstead of Sabbath, and their conscienceis overridden by the common good.So, the papacy declares it has the righttoauthoritatively deal with all social andeconomic matters in every nation.They're the ones who determine what isthe common good, and they say that allof your rights are subservient to whatthey determine to say is the commongood.Um this is abouta perfect and authoritarian system asyou could ever imagine.Like heads you win, tails you lose.You only have liberty of conscience ifthe papacy says you're allowed libertyof conscience in that area.And in the pandemic, our church says youdon't have liberty of conscience when itcomes to what you put in your body.It was a papal position we took.Let's be frank about that.Pope Paul VI, 1967.He arguedand this isUm if you heard about the Great Reset?Yeah.So, when Klaus Schwab wrote his book onthe Great Great Great Reset in 2020,he essentially said that every nationdeals with problems within that nation.But sometimes there are problems beyondthe scope of an individual nation thatare problems that affect the wholeworld, such as a global pandemic or whatsome people call climate change, allright?I'm not saying whether it's right orwrong. I'm just saying that's whatthat's what they argue.And therefore, because those problemsaffect all of humanity, it needs acommon world authority to determine theworld's collective response to thosecollective problems.

You following this?That's why we need a Great Reset. TheGreat Reset is this elimination ofdemocracy at a national level and thetranslation of power to to globaltechnocrats who now determine the commongood, and who determine what you can andcannot do with your property, with youreconomic life, and with your spirituallife.And so, this Pope, he speaks about this.He says, "This internationalcollaboration he was speaking about theGreat Reset before Klaus Schwab was on aworldwide scale requires institutionsthat will prepare, coordinate, anddirect it until finally there is anestablished order of justice which isrecognized universally. Who does not seethe necessity of thus establishingprogressively a world authority capableof acting effectively in thejurisdictional and political sectors?"He's talking about a global authoritythat overrides all of your civil andhuman and religious rights.Um in the Catechism of the RomanCatholic Church, somebody showed metheir Catechism today.Paragraph 2188 talks about the commongood in relation to Sunday observance."In respecting religious and the commongood of all, Christian should seekrecognition of Sundays and the Church'sholy days as legal holidays." And so, inthe Catholic Catechism, they're alreadyusing the language that the common goodfor humanity involves Sunday sacredness.This is not Adventists saying this, thisis the Catholic Church itself teachingthis to its new converts when they jointhe Church.And the Pope Francis issuedan encyclical just before the Parisclimate change treaty in 2015.And it was called Laudato Si, which isall praise be unto thee, talking aboutGod. And there were two paragraphs thatwe should note. Uh but one of oneparagraph I put up here.

It says, "OnSunday,this is a this is a a an encyclical onclimate change. He says, "So, on Sunday,our participation in the Eucharist hasspecial importance.A Sunday, like the Jewish Sabbath, ismeant to be day which heals ourrelationships with God, with ourselves,with others, and with the world. Sundayis the day of the resurrection, thefirst day of the new creation, whosefirst fruits are the Lord's risenhumanity, the pledge of the finaltransfiguration of all created reality.It also proclaims man's eternal rest inGod. Now,uh Pope Francis included two paragraphson the Sunday issue in that encyclicalLaudato Si, which officially is Godspeaking to man. That's what it is he'ssaying.

And he basically says twothings. One is the world needs to keepSunday sacred because that helps protectthe environment.And secondly, the world needs to keepSunday sacred so we can all celebratethe Eucharist.It's the heart of the Catholic worship,the mass, which is really a blasphemousprocesswhen the priest commands that bread andwine to become the body of Christ, whichis simply not true.So, umjust recently,a few months ago, two months ago, thePope issued another encyclical this timecalled Laudate Deum rather than LaudateSi, and it's an apostolic exhortation.You can look at it at vatican.va.I'd encourage you to download all ofthese things things are publiclyavailable documents. So, what we'retalking about is stuff that that the theThese are documents that didn't come outa thousand years ago. This is thecurrent thinking of the papacy.Okay, this isn't like five five hundredyears ago thinking, "Why is he talkingabout this?" This is current news.Laudato Si.And this is what he says, paragraph 35.Now, I've I've highlighted in red thestuff that's relevant to us.He's he's echoing the words of the greatreset of Klaus Schwab. He says, "It isnot helpful to confuse multilateralismwith a world authority concentrated inone person or in an elite with excessivepower.

When we talk about thepossibility of some form of worldauthority regulated by law, we need notnecessarily think of a personalauthority. We are speaking above all of,quote, more effective worldorganizations equipped with the power toprovide for the global common good.Goes on to say that the issue is thatthey must be endowed with realauthority. And who is the one inCatholic theology who determines thecommon good for humanity? The Pope. So,the Pope is calling for a globalauthority that has the power to providefor the global common good.

Or in otherway of saying, the Pope is looking forglobal authority to uphold thepriorities of the papacy.That's why this this climate changestuff is so significant for us today.Paragraph 42.You can download this on the internet.It's freely available.Our world has become so multipolar andat the same time so complex that adifferent framework for effectivecooperation is required.That means we no longer need nationaldemocracies. We need a globaltechnocracy.It is not enough to think only ofbalances of power, but also of the needto provide a response to new problemsand to react with the global mechanisms.Etc. Etc. He Again in red, it is amatter of establishing global andeffective rules that can permit uhproviding for this global safeguarding.So, then he goes on in paragraph 59.He says, "If there is sincere interestin making COP 28, which is happeningthis week, a historic event that honorsand ennobles us as human beings, thenone can only hope for binding forms ofenergy transition that meet threeconditions, that they be efficient,obligatory, and readily monitored."Obligatory.Remember,when you were to be tortured, thelanguage that was used by the SpanishInquisition was they would put to thequestion.When you were to be burned at the stake,you were to be relaxed.Augustine taughtthat when Jesus taught the parable ofthe king who had his son had a weddingbanquet, he sent out his servants intothe into the lanes and the byways toinvite people to come for the weddingfeast, that verb in uh anankazo inGreek, that verb there in Luke's gospelcan also mean compel.So, Augustine taught back in the 400s,he was the main the dominant figure inCatholic theology even to this day,along with Thomas Aquinas, Tom St.Augustine taught that the church has amoral duty to compel people to enter thechurch. Why?

Because only thus can yoube saved.So, if we have to torture you and killyou in the process, but you get eternallife in the in the deal, then the churchis it's a good thing to torture you andto burn you at the stake cuz that's howyour soul is purified and you gainentrance to eternal life.It's a strange theology, but this iswhat drove the torture of the MiddleAges. The idea that we can compel peopleagainst their conscience to enter thechurch because only thus can they besaved. So, if I'm torturing you andkilling you, I'm actually doing you aneternal favor.This is there's a perversion to thisthinking.It is true when you see in Revelation 13that the dragon gave his authority tothe beast.It's a satanic ideology that we seeperpetrated from the bishops of Rome.So, let's come back to what Pope Pius XIsaid. We lay down the principles longsince clearly established by Leo XIIIback in 1891 that it is our right andour duty to deal authoritatively withsocial and economic problems.Due to her economic dogmas such as theteachings of Thomas Aquinas on privateproperty being provisionally acceptableonly in positive rather than divine ornatural law the concept of the commongood determined by the papacy, otherwiseknown as universal destination of allgoods, the Roman Catholic Church isfundamentally opposed to privateproperty, free enterprise, andcapitalism. Instead Catholic dogmasupports Marxism, socialism, liberationtheology, the welfare state, andultimately fascism which preserves thefiction of private ownership, but allgoods are managed by the state for thecommon good, which is determined by thepapacy.Due to her political thinking, such asChrist's misinterpreted teachings toPeter that on the on Peter he wouldbuild the church and his successors, thedoctrine of the two swords, and whichsays thatthe the this this the this the priestuses this the sword of the spirit, andif the sword of the spirit isn't enoughto get you into the church, then the thethe civil authority can use the sword ofsteel to compel you into the church, isknown as the doctrine of two swords.And variousforgeries, such as the donation ofConstantine from the 7th century,the papacy asserts that it has the rightto supreme authority over every societyon planet Earth todaybecause the Pope himself is, quote, Godon Earth.The papacy claims the right to setrulers up and to take them downand to order all of humanity's social,economic, and political activities forthe common good.That's what the papacy says aboutitself.

So, when we talk about this asAdventists, we're not kind ofgoing off on a wild tangent here.You've only got to look at what thepapacy says about itself to realize thatwhen we talk about the papacy inRevelation 13 being the first beast,we're actually pretty calm and and kindin what we say.When you compare it what the papacy saysand what it's done in human history.No other institution has as much bloodon its hands as does the Pope Popes ofRome.But as we know from Revelation 13:3, thepapacy is a global institutionrecovering from a deadly wound of 1798.We know in prophecy Revelation 13:11-18that it will gain its global power via aunion with apostate Protestantism andthe United States of America.And we also know that at the end oftime, before Jesus comes again, thepapacy will impose a global regime ofcoercion, more sinister than anythingseen in human history, even moreterrible than the feared Inquisition,and one that will happen on a globallevel.And we often ask ourselves, and I askmyself as a missionary, how does thegospel get to the whole worldand then the end shall come when over40% of the planet today has not heardthe name of Jesus?How's that going to happen?Then I realized thatwhen the papacy imposes its views onplanet Earthand Sunday sacredness is imposed uponhumanitythe whole world will know about theSabbath automatically.Because the papacy will be trying tostamp out in every country those whodon't honor the Sabbath, don't keep theSunday.And just as in the pandemic, the wholeworld knew about those who refused to bevaccinated because the government had tobring in mandatesyou wouldn't need to bring in mandatesnecessarily people refusing to take theshots.And so because the government broughtout mandates, everybody heard that thereare some people choose not to take theshot, and people want to know why theydon't take the shot.So the very fact that you have globalmandates at the end of time means theissue of the Sabbath and salvationthrough faith in Jesus will come to theforefront of the entire globaldiscussion without us reallybringing it on ourselves. The very factthat there are mandates forces everybodyto decide on planet Earth where do theystand in relation to those mandates.And what happened in the last 3 yearswas society divided just like that overthe issue of those mandates. Is that notright?We We're not here tonight to do a um apostmortem into where we stood in thosematters. That's That's done. That's inthe history now.The fact of the matter is whengovernments bring out mandateseverybody has to choose where theystand, everybody knows where theirfamily members stand, everybody knowswhere their work colleagues stand, andeverybody knows where people in localcommunities stand.And so the whole world will have to makea decision for or against the law of Godor the laws of men.Mandates kind of bring it on.They force the issuein a way that nothing else does.Those who accept the authority of theAntichrist Roman Catholic power willreceive the mark of the beast either ontheir foreheads or on their hands.That's in the second half of Revelation13.Some will be convinced of those mandatesand some will accept it because they'recoerced into it, just as happened withthe COVID mandates.Those who wish to live under God'sauthority will receive the seal of God,which is indwelling of the Holy Spirit,expressed through a converted heart thatdelights in keeping all the commandmentsof God, including the fourthcommandment, despite the mandates tofalse worship from the end time globalunion of papacy and the United States.And if you don't think that we havegovernors and senatorsand national umpoliticians who yearn for autocraticdomineering power over their fellowcitizens, then you haven't been awakefor the last 3 years.Every local mayor discovered that inimposing a COVID emergency, they coulddo almost anything to the localpopulation and nobody would question it.And the more petty the official, thegreater the the dominion of power theywanted to exercise.And a lot of it made absolutely nosense, but we see in the governmentsaround the world today almost a yearningfor an emergency that gives thememergency powers over their fellowcitizens.We've just lived through it.And it's going to come again.So, my wife says I have a unique abilityto cheer people up.

I hope you're allsuited to be cheered this afternoon.Because the good news this morning inthe sermon was that the son of man iscoming again. And he's coming to gatherhis elect from the four ends of the theearth and the four winds of the heaven.So Jesus is coming again. So inconclusion today,I just want to say a few things.One, I want to encourage you to positionyour life so the corrupt powers of thisworld have as few pressure points on youas possible.You know, ask yourself, do you have anygods in your life that come between youand the true God?Would you go along with the futuremandates in order to keep your career?And if so, you need to change yourcareer.If you go If you think you're going togo along with mandates in the future tokeep your professional license,then you need to change your work.You think you're going to go along withfuture mandates cuz you want to pay themortgage, then downsize your home andlive in a paid-off home.You think you're going to go along withmandates in the future and you want tokeep your job in in corporate America,well, maybe it's time for us to get backto working in the trades and teachingour young people that being a carpenter,an electrician, a drywall hanger, thoseare honorable professions with yourhands that give you freedom ofconscience that you do not find incorporate America.So start this time to start thinking nowabout how we can position ourselves bestin the future.So position your lives so that thecorrupt powers of this world have as fewpressure points on you as possible.Prepare yourselves spiritually,emotionally, and financially.Um the first to go in persecution arethe pastors.So do you have elders who can lead yourchurch? If you do, praise the Lord. Andwhen the elders are taken, who's thengoing to lead the church?Are we training our people to lead homeBible fellowships?Are we training our people in how tolead Bible studies and gain decisionsfor Jesus Christ?Do our members know the fundamentalteachings of scripture?More and more,fewer More and more over time, more andmore of our members simply don't knowwhat our fundamental beliefs are andthey couldn't give you Bible study onhardly anything other than Sabbath andpotluck.That's the truth.Could you give a Bible study on thestate of the dead?Could you give a Bible study on the whatthe Bible teaches about the coming ofJesus?If not,praise the Lord you're here today andit's time to go home and turn off socialmedia and start studying the scriptureslike never before.Because we're going to have to give ananswer for our faith.And the questions that will come at youwill most likely be from formerAdventists and former Protestants whoknow exactly how Adventists think andthey're going to trap you with your ownthinking.Let me give an example of that.

I was ina Catholic church about 10 12 years agoand I walked in and there was a book ontype and anti-type in Catholic theology.I was stunnedbecause I didn't know that the Catholicshave type and anti-type in Catholictheology.And uh I read the first chapter. It wasby a former I think Lutheran pastorwho'd now become a Catholic priest anduh he said there thatthe Solomon is the son of David. Wouldyou agree with me?Yes? Solomon was the son of Davidliterally biologically.And when Solomon was enthroned on histhrone in what 2 Kings 2 I think it is,um he made a throne for Bathsheba hismother to sit at his right hand. Do youremember that?That is a type pointing forward to theheavenly anti-type where Jesus makes athrone for Mary beside his throne inheaven above.He used type and anti-type process tocome to Catholic theology.And I read this I thought that's amazingthat they're using that kind ofapproach.But the point isyou need to prepare yourself to give ananswer for your faith and not rely on ahandbook or on 28 fundamentals book oron the preachers or the pastors theelders of your church.We need to know the scriptures forourselves.Not my husband knowing it, not my wifeknowing it, myself.I need to know what I believe, why Ibelieve, and how I show that fromscripture.So, I would encourage youto make that a priority in life.

Knowyour Bibles.Know your Bibles.Invest in gospel work while you have thefreedom to do so.We are our dollar is dying in front ofus. I'm preaching in a few weeks atBerrien Springs Village. I'm going totalk about the dying dollar, what itmeans for religious liberty.I think the sermon will be called money,money, money, but um we'll see how thatworks out in the final editing.But, umwhen we enter the CBDCs, when the dollardies, we transition to digital dollar,we're basically in a digital dungeon.That will be a programmable currencywhere the government can say you can'tspend it on guns, ammos, or Bibles, orstraight controversy.Okay? I'm just using those as simpleexamples. Texans are unhappy with thefirst two, Adventists with the last twoin that list.They'll be programmable currencieswhere you cannot spend on anything otherthan what the government determines.What the government determines isn'talways in your best interests.For instance, that the food stamps thatcame out for many years, you could notspend it on on organic vegetables, butyou could spend it on Twinkies andCoca-Cola.That's food stamps.It's not in your best interest to eatTwinkies and Coca-Cola, but that's whatyou could spend your food stamps on,but not on organic vegetables.So,invest in gospel work where you have it.You know, Last Day Ministry that you'resaying this morning, brother,if the Holy Spirit moved upon you, startsupporting Last Day Ministry.If the Holy Spirit moved upon you thismorning, and support mission work inCentral Africa, please support um theanimists of Central Chad project, ummakes start becoming a supporter ofAdventist Frontier Missions.

But, investin gospel work while you can.And if you don't can't do anything else,buy literature.Because there's going to come a day whenwe're banned from social media, and theonly way of getting the gospel out isthrough the printed word.And you can give out literature, and andGoogle and Facebook and Apple can't doanything about it.So, invest in literature and give itout.Build relationships of trust with yourbrothers and sisters.So, almost the last thing here.Um in the last pandemic,you had to choose who you trusted,didn't you?You had to ask yourself, who do I trust?Who do I go to for advice?If I take a certain medication that thegovernment doesn't want me to take,where can I get it from? And do I trustthat they'll give it to me and not tellthe government?Or am I willing to give a certainmedication to somebody else, which isI'm not sure it's technically legal todo that,and trust they're not going to hand mein.It may save their life, but I may getinto a lot of trouble for that. Do youall understand what I'm talking abouthere?Okay, so who do you trust?So, if you look at this congregationhere,you all know each other by sight,but do you know where each other lives?Do you know what the struggles areeverybody goes through?Do you know what you they need prayersfor? And are we praying for each other?We don't just gather on Sabbath.We'd have fellowship during the week aswell.I want to encourage you to start knowingand loving your brothers and sisterslike never before, because in the finalcrisis, this church will be closed, theconference will be closed down, and it'syou and a few believers in Fort Worth orDallas, Texas, that's going to be yourunderstanding of the church and the bodyof Christ.And you need to know that you trustthem.And you need to know that they're notgoing to inform on you.And you need to know that they're alwaysgoing to stand by you.Now, I may sound apocalyptic inspeaking, but I lived for many yearsthrough the Soviet Union as it collapsedand for 10 years afterwards, and I sawthe reality of where Christians livingunder persecution by the KGB, or Kagabaas they called it out there,and when the church is under persecutionby secret police, it's really hard forthe church to survive unless you reallytrust people and know them and lovethem.So, love your brothers and your sisters,start to trust them, visit them in theirhomes, start small prayer groups, knowwhat's going on in their lives, pray forthem, you pray for them, they pray foryou, be vulnerable what you need prayersfor, and build up relationships oftrust, because before Jesus comes again,the GC, the division, the union, theconference mean absolutely nothing.Nothing.It'll be you and a few believers in FortWorth.So, start building yourself thoserelationships of trust at the locallevel.And finally,again, just in case you're reallydepressed, I hope you're not,choose hope and faith every morning.The blessed hope is that Jesus is comingagain.He's coming for his own.He knows his own. His own are scatteredacross the four ends of the earth andthe four winds of heaven, that means hisown belong to every nation, tribe,language, and people,and you may be in that group today.And if you know that Jesus is coming foryou,then you don't need to worry what thegovernments may do to you today.So, choose hope and faith every morning.And when men's hearts are failing themfor fear, as was read for us thismorning in our little thing on mentalhealth, for fear of what is coming uponthe world, and many people are terrifiedabout what is they think is happening toour world, and that's that fear isdriving much of the climate changeagenda.When people's hearts are failing themfor fear,we're to be people of hope.Because one day we know there'll be anew heavens and a new earth,and every tear will be wiped away andthe sea will give up her dead and deathand disease and suffering will be nomore and God will dwell with his peopleand we will dwell with him.And once you know the end of the storyyou can live through the interveningchapters.If you don't know the end of the story,those intervening chapters willoverwhelm you.So keep your eyes on the prize which isthe second coming of Jesus Christ.Keep that as your daily focus andwhatever this world does to you todayyou know that you have a home in heavenabove and that's where you'll walk onthe streets of gold and where all thisformer suffering that we go throughtoday will be no more.So choose hope and faith every morningand so I'd like to bring this session toa close.

I think I've talked for longenough here, 6:00 I've been going on foran hourand umI hope this has been educational andinformative andum it's just a reminder to us allthat it's not back to business as usual.That our business, like Jesus in thetemple, we must be about our father'sbusiness.That is building God's kingdom.Because the only thing that will last ofany of our work todayare souls won for eternity.Okay?If you build buildings, they're going toburn when Jesus comes again.You heal the sick, praise the Lord,they're still going to die.You know, you educate people, they'regoing to die.I sound really depressing. The one thingthat lasts are souls for eternity.Work for an eternal reward. Work for aneternal prize. May God bless you, may heguide you, may he keep you, may he leadyou as you shine for Jesus here inDallas, Texas.Let's close this with a word of prayer.Heavenly Fatherwe thank you for the privilege, the joywe've had of sharing these thoughtstoday during these Sabbath hours.Father, I thank you for the fellowshipwe've enjoyed.Father, I thank you that we've been ableto meditate on your word.And Lord, as we enter a new week, wedon't know what this week holds.We're just grateful we made it throughthis last week, Lord.And in this coming week, Father,I'm asking that whatever it brings,you'll give us the grace, the courage,and the strength to get through it.Father, give us the wisdom to perceiveyour will.Give us the grace to accept your will.And give us the courage to follow yourwill.This is our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.