THE recent Events in this our world should tell us many things if we will look up to the prophets of God. Prophets stand between God and man, they carry information from God to man and vice-versa. God never takes man by surprise; He is too caring, too big, too much for man to take him by surprise.
Even the wicked whose end must come suddenly, God warns them several times, offer them several chances and opportunities to repent, but their wickedness would never allow then to beat a U-turn.
A world without prophecy is dead in hell; prophecy edifies, directs, leads, encourages, keeps and sustains the life of a good Christian, and God’s Church. God’s prophecies never failed, but man may fail,thereby making prophecy appear unreal or postponed.
When about Six years ago today, Barak Obama, a black man, announced that he wanted to Lead America, many thought he was on a political suicide mission, but God said he would lead, and Obama became President. Last year against all odds, he again won tenure of four years because God said so!
On Wednesday the 6th of March 2013, the world got a new Pope for the Catholic Church, the largest church denomination in the world today. The Pope is more popular and perhaps stronger than the strongest President of the strongest nation with over 1.2 billion followers across the world.
We as Pentecostal Christians want to know who leads the Catholic Church because we are all involved as members of one body of Christ. Some of us pray regularly and often for our big and senior brother denominations; the Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists etc. With the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, the first since over 600 years ago, we prayed for a Black pope to emerge.
It would mean that God really was repositioning the black race in this time. We dreamt of a Pope that will cause the world reassess its offenses against the black race during slavery, just because the pope was black. When the descendants of Africa rule over America and the Vatican, it would bring a new release for the African race, etc., and for the fact that it would have been a Ghanaian, made me pray harder and harder.
But many like me did not know that God had through His Prophets in times long past told the world who the next Pope would be after Pope Benedict XVI.
The author who predicted Pope Benedict XVI would be the first pontiff in nearly 600 years to resign believes the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the 266th Roman Catholic pontiff lines up with a medieval prophecy that would make him the “final pope” before the End Times.Tom Horn, co-author with Cris Putman of the book Petrus Romanus: The Final Pope is Here,confirmed that it was a “fantastic fulfillment of prophecy.”
His book examines St. Malachy’s “Prophecy of the Popes,” said to be based on a prophetic vision of the 112 popes following Pope Celestine II, who died in 1144.
Malachy’s prophecies, first published in 1595, culminate with the “final pope,” “Petrus Romanus,” or “Peter the Roman,” whose reign ends with the destruction of Rome and the judgment of Christ.
Horn has said a pope of Italian descent would fulfill the prophecy, noting that Bergoglio is the son of Italian parents and a Jesuit.“Being a Jesuit is a very important aspect of the prediction .
The name “Petrus Romanus” in the prophecy “implies this pope will reaffirm the authority of the Roman Pontiff over the Church and will emphasise the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Faith and the Roman Catholic Church above all other religions and denominations, and its authority over all Christians and all peoples of the world.”.
THE Jesuits order was organised “to stop Protestantism from spreading and to preserve communion with Rome and the successor of Peter.” They also predicted in their book that Benedict would step down, making way for history’s “final pope”.
“Remarkably, more than 60 years ago a Belgian Jesuit theologian and academic named Rene Thibault came up with the date 2012 as the culmination of Malachy’s prophecies, Benedict made his decision to resign last year, (2012),before announcing it in February. Horn and Putnam translated the Belgian priest’s rare 1951 book, The Mysterious Prophecy of the Popes, into English.“
Adopting the methodology of a mystic as well as a scholar,” Thibaut “makes a compelling case that ‘‘The Prophecy of the Popes’ is a real supernatural prophecy.” Thibaut is among many Catholic leaders, including popes, cardinals and priests, who have affirmed Malachy’s work, which was kept in the Vatican archives for five centuries before it was first published.
Thibaut used a number of methods of cryptographic analysis to come up with the date 2012 in his book. “In other words,” Horn and Putnam wrote, “2012 was seen as an end-times ‘event horizon’ by at least one Jesuit priest before most readers were born.”
St. Malachy, an Irish saint and the archbishop of Armagh, who lived from 1094 to 1148, described the “final pope” this way: “In the extreme persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit Peter the Roman, who will nourish the sheep in many tribulations; when they are finished, the City of Seven Hills will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people.”,and he described the penultimate pope, which is believed to be Benedict, as “Gloria Olivae,” or “Glory of the Olive.” Benedict was not a Benedictine priest, yet he chose the name of the founder of the Order of Saint Benedict, which also is known as the Olivetans. The symbol of the Benedictine order includes an olive branch.
That Bergoglio–the final Pope on St. Malachy’s list and the one prophesied to reign over the church as it enters the Great Tribulation period–named himself after Saint Francis of Assisi is intriguing given that shortly before his death Assisi prophesied that at the time of the tribulation a man would “be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavour to draw many into error and death… Some preachers will keep silence about the truth, and others will trample it under foot and deny it…for in those days Jesus Christ will send them not a true Pastor, but a destroyer” [Works of the Seraphic Father St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226), Washbourne, 1882 AD, 248].
Furthermore, in naming himself after Assisi, Bergoglio branded himself after an Italian (Roman) priest whose original name was Francesco di Pietro (Peter) di Bernardone — literally, Peter the Roman. It would appear now, that we have Peter the Roman as the Pontiff. Premium Times recently published the following facts about Pope Francis 1;He was elected at the end of the conclave of 115 cardinals, 76-years-old,an Argentinean, the first Jesuit priest to become Pope, the first Latin American to become Pope, the runner-up during the last conclave that elected Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI,a conservative known for his strong anti-gay stance.
In 2010, he described homosexuality as a “destructive attack on God’s plan.” He was a fierce opponent of Argentina’s decision to legalise gay marriage in 2010, arguing that children need to have the right to be raised and educated by a father and a mother; though conservative, he has criticised priests who refuse to baptise babies born to single mothers, and also believes condom can be permissible to prevent disease. He is well known for his austere outlook to life.
He is famed for taking a bus to work every day in his native Argentina, giving up his driver and official limousine. His austere outlook towards life explains his choice of Francis as his papal name. Francis Assisi, who he is named after, is a popular Catholic saint who lived humbly and gave possession away to the poor.
When he was made a cardinal, he persuaded hundreds of Argentineans not to fly to Rome to celebrate with him but instead to give the money they would have spent on plane tickets to the poor. In 2001, during a visit to a hospice, he washed and kissed the feet of 12 AIDS patients, He is respected for his intellectual prowess. He is an anti-corruption crusader; he has also accused Argentina’s government of not doing enough to eradicate poverty. He has lived for more than 20 years with one functioning lung. His other lung was removed because of infection.
Our new Pope, has called for a meeting with Muslims to discuss world peace, and have just washed the feet of Prisoners. Prophecy has it that this is the last Pope before tribulation sets in. As the coming of Christ draws near, the Church of God must not relent in prayer for the power of the Holy Spirit, the only Power that can restrain the avalanche of tribulations coming!!
Let the saints in the body of Christ not forget the very prophecy of Saint Francis of Assisi that “at the time of the tribulation a man would be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavour to draw many into error and death…Some preachers will keep silence about the truth, and others will trample it under foot and deny it…for in those days Jesus Christ will send t hem not a true Pastor, but a destroyer”, and pray without ceasing that God will bless and be with the Pope.
No comments:
Post a Comment