Pope's Push for a One World Religion
keep
the gospel pure, we are tolerating those who preach another gospel
(Gal. 1:6-9) be sanctified by the truth, they are joining hands with
unbelievers (John 17:17). hate everything false, they are tolerating
doctrines of demons and counterfeit gospels (Psalm 119:104, 128). expose
and name the agents of compromise, they are enduring them (Eph. 5:11, 2
Tim. 1-4).
The Church Must Be Warned
Amazingly,
we seldom hear warnings against apostasy from our pulpits. Rarely are
false teachers, who seductively lead people away from the true faith,
exposed. These apostates are appearing as ministers of righteousness and
are facing very little opposition. They successfully deceive the
undiscerning because pastors and church leaders are not speaking out
against them. Very few Christians are warning the church of these
ferocious wolves dressed in sheep's clothing. The twenty-first century
church needs strong leaders like the apostle Paul. He warned the early
church, "even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth
in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard!
Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night
and day with tears" (Acts 20:30-31). Throughout the Scriptures we are
exhorted to test every spirit, every teacher and every doctrine because
men are so easily deceived.
The Vatican's Strategy
It
is indeed disturbing to see so many evangelicals unaware of the
Vatican's strategy for bringing the world under the dominion of the
papacy. The Vatican has made a concerted effort since 1965 to bring
their "separated brothers' back home to "holy mother the church." In his
1995 encyclical Et Unum Sint, Pope John Paul II said he intends "to
promote every suitable initiative...to increase the unity of all
Christians until they reach full communion" and "to encourage the
efforts of all who work for the cause of unity." The pope's stated
desire is "to gather all people and all things into Christ, so as to be
for all-an inseparable sacrament of unity... expressed in the common
celebration of the Eucharist." During a week of prayer for Christian
unity Pope John Paul II said, "I gladly take this opportunity to call
the attention of all believers to the ecumenical commitment that marked
VC II. The council rightly defined the division among Christians as a
scandal. The council Fathers felt the need to beg pardon of God and of
their brethren for the sins committed against unity." He asked Catholics
"to cultivate an authentic spiritual ecumenism" through the Virgin
Mary [not through the Lord Jesus]. The success of the pope's push for
unity can be seen by the announcement made last year by the Archbishop
of Canterbury. He urged all Christians to recognize the Pope as the
supreme authority of a new global church (6/99 CRN News). In a document
called The Gift of Authority, he describes the Pope as a "gift to be
received by all the churches." It would do us all well to heed the
words of C.H. Spurgeon, "Ignorance has been one of the grand agents of
Popery ever since her establishment; by it, the eyes of men have been
so blinded that they can scarcely discern between good and evil, and
follow implicitly any guide even until they fall into the ditch of
perdition."
Catholic
priest Tom Forrest, who is head of Evangelization 2000 said, "Our job
is to make people as richly and as fully Christian as we can make them
by bringing them into the Catholic Church. So evangelization is never
fully successful, it's only partial until the convert is made a member
of Christ's body by being led into the Catholic Church."
The
Vatican's ecumenical movement goes beyond the unity of all professing
Christians. Their strategy is to bring all religions under the power
and influence of the papacy. Pope John Paul II has been traveling the
world to build bridges to all non-Christian religions. In a recent
speech he said, "Christians and Muslims, we meet one another in faith
in the one God...and strive to put into practice...the teaching of our
respective holy books. Today, dialogue between our two religions [Roman
Catholicism and Islam] is more necessary than ever. There remains a
spiritual bond which unites us and which we must strive to recognize
and develop." Even Mother Theresa had the ecumenical spirit as noted
from her book Servants of Love. She stated, "we went every day to pray
in some temple or church. The Archbishop gave us permission to do so.
We prayed with the Jews, the Armenians, the Anglicans, the Jains, the
Sikhs, the Buddhists, and the Hindus. It was extraordinary. All hearts
united in prayer to the one true God."
As
we watch the Vatican we can see a seductive strategy for uniting all
Christians. They masterfully and deliberately redefine biblical terms to
make them more vague, ambiguous and acceptable to both Catholics and
Protestants. An example of this is the 1999 Lutheran-Roman Catholic
"Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification." In the
declaration, Rome uses equivocal and indefinite words to affirm the
doctrine of "justification by faith alone" but, at the same time,
continues to affirm the anathema's that condemn all who believe this
doctrine. We must not be misled. Rome has not changed its position on
things that really matter! Instead they take advantage of professing
Christians who lack discernment or who are unwilling to contend for "the
faith."
Two Kinds of Unity
Tragically,
the evangelical community continues to move away from sound doctrine
for the cause of unity. This only fuels the fires of ecumenism. When
church leaders are willing to suppress doctrinal truth they are allowing
the walls that separate the church from the world to come down.
Doctrine is what divides believers from unbelievers. While unity and
brotherhood sound wonderful to a hostile world full of fighting and
killing, the Bible condemns any unity that is not founded in God's
truth. False unity is based upon man's ambitions and is independent of
God (Gen. 11:1-9). Religious unity is the false unity of the Antichrist
(Rev. 17-18) and should be resisted by God's people. Biblical unity is
based on apostolic truth (Eph. 4:3,13) and is a work of the Holy Spirit
(1 Cor. 12:13). Biblical unity is not man-made, but man is exhorted to
keep it. Biblical unity is impossible apart from the one true and
settled faith taught by the Apostles. God's people are called upon to
"earnestly contend for the faith once delivered unto the saints" (Jude
3). There is no spiritual unity whatsoever between those who believe the
Gospel and those who do not. True Christian unity is modeled when
believers are united together in mind, faith and purpose to serve the
Lord Jesus Christ, while submitting to the authority of His Word.
Contending for the Faith
As
the ecumenical movement gathers momentum, we must be strong and
continue to contend for the faith, no matter what others might do or
say. Let us pray for our evangelical leaders to return to the authority
of Scripture for every issue of faith. Let us use God's Word to
lovingly admonish any church leader who encourages unity with apostates
or unbelievers. And finally, let us resist the pressure to participate
in any activity or event that will deliberately suppress or compromise
biblical truth for the sake of unity. We must return to the
infallible, inerrant and inspired Word of God to heed its warnings and
obey its commands. The Bible exhorts us to test all teachers and
spirits (1 John 4:1,6). We are to expose false teachings and the evil
deeds of darkness (Eph. 5:11). Christians are to lovingly confront and
rebuke false teachers (Titus 1:9, 13). We are to separate from those
who persist in teaching error (Romans 16:17; Titus 3:10). If we ignore
these exhortations we may be disqualified for service (2 Timothy 2:20),
or worse yet, be identified with the false teachers themselves (2 John
10-11).
By Mike Gendron
Recent Pope's efforts: http://endtimeheadlines.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/pope-urges-all-religions-to-come-together-in-common-cause-peace1/
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