I have a theory, newly formed. Israel is not full. God is going to drive the Jews there. I may be wrong, very wrong, but Isaiah says that the Jews who are called by the name of the LORD will be gathered, even at the cost of nations. One can see that the French Jews are being driven out of France because the fear for their lives: the fanatic Islamic Algerians believe it is a righteous act to kill them. (And Christians: they don’t make much of a distinction. And Pagans. And anyone who is not their brand of Muslim. The virtue cycle or holiness spiral in Dar es Islam is lethal).
The current Pope is quite converged but he can still see clear evil. He is forced to talk about more than climate change. However he does not go far enough.
The Argentine-born pontiff, 80, reserved his toughest words of condemnation for the wave of “fundamentalist-inspired terrorism” in 2016, listing attacks by Islamist militants in Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States.
“Sadly, we are conscious that even today, religious experience, rather than fostering openness to others, can be used at times as a pretext for rejection, marginalisation and violence,” he said in the Vatican’s Sala Regia.
“We are dealing with a homicidal madness which misuses God’s name in order to disseminate death, in a play for domination and power. Hence I appeal to all religious authorities to join in reaffirming unequivocally that one can never kill in God’s name,” he said.
Francis said religiously inspired violence “is the fruit of a profound spiritual poverty, and often is linked to significant social poverty. It can only be fully defeated with the joint contribution of religious and political leaders.”
He urged government leaders to enact “suitable social policies aimed at combating poverty” and invest in education and culture.
I will [1]. The Muslim has a soul heading for perdition. He must apostate: repent of his worship of that demon Allah and choose Christ. The spiritual poverty that Francis sees is a poverty of Christ. There is no other way to salvation. There is no other God. And those who claim there are many ways to heaven lie.
Isaiah 43:1-13
43:1 But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
3 For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.
4 Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you,
I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life.
5 Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you;6 I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth —
7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”8 Bring forth the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears!
9 Let all the nations gather together, and let the peoples assemble.
Who among them declared this, and foretold to us the former things?
Let them bring their witnesses to justify them, and let them hear and say, “It is true.”
10 You are my witnesses, says the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.
11 I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior.
12 I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you;
and you are my witnesses, says the LORD.
13 I am God, and also henceforth I am He; there is no one who can deliver from my hand;
I work and who can hinder it?Ephesians 3:14-21
14For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. 16I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, 17and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.
The riches of Christ are given to us by Christ. It is a free gift: we can do nothing to gain it, and Christ knows his own. He will draw them from all nations. Paul prays, as we should, that all people will know the power and glory of God. That all will choose him.
But we know that will not be. As Pharaoh had his heart hardened, many choose to worship this creation, or the people within it. They take what is licit: the love of one’s wife and children, of one’s county or nation, and turn it into an idol. We now have such in many homes, and many call this spirituality mindfulness and good. [2] Or we take our wish for a better world, and make it into an ideology, betraying our wife and children and neighbours to virtue signal.
As if the praise of men matters.
For as the Jews are driven out, expect that the Christians will find greater opposition, unless (as we also should pray) God has chosen in this generation that there will revival, so that many may find a saving faith. This may require that the generation who led the last moral crusade: those born during world war II, make account of heir lives after death, and that their pernicious teachings enter the grave with them.
In this life it is not about us. It is about others. By doing good we are witnesses for God.
Let us do our duty today. Let us repent. And let is proclaim that there is no way to salvation but Christ.
___________________
1. “I have a theory Newly formed” did come from the tango video.
2. I confess that I am guilty of using mindfulness as a control state in clinical trials. There are some good things about meditation, but one can never forget that spirtal disciplines and development do not save you. Many of those who have done great evil have been deemed righteous, and acted because of their ideoolgy.
Word is that visions of our Lord are being sent to those in Muslim areas that cannot be reached by Christians, and that souls are being saved in the most unlikely places. Praise the Lord.
Yep, God is working among Muslims in ways that fit them culturally – like dreams. In Europe they turn up at the places they have seen in dreams. Those places are consistently orthodox, conservative and Gospel preaching churches. The ministers seeing this are amazed because the Muslims do not appear to have been seeking Christ directly – they are directed to a building to seek truth rather than a church. That the former is also the latter is no coincidence.
Thousands of Christian USB sticks are circulating about in the Palestinian territories. Afghanistan and Iran are, allegedly, the fastest growing Evangelical churches in the world (I guess from a low base).
There is much to delight in.