“Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee” (Ezekiel 28:17).

Of course, we know that this passage of Scripture speaks of Lucifer, the most beautiful of all of God’s angels.  Why am I beginning this article with this Scripture? I want the reader to understand that “beauty” has led many down a road to destruction.

Beth Moore is a beautiful woman. She is a very charismatic person. She attracts people. She attracts Christian women who attend her seminars. But just as Satan spoke to Eve in the Garden, Beth Moore speaks to women all over the world, and like Satan, she is twisting the Word of God. Beth Moore is not rightly dividing the Word of Truth.  She is dangerous.

Contemplative Prayer

From gotquestions.org

What is Contemplative prayer?

Answer: It is important to first define “contemplative prayer.” Contemplative prayer is not just “contemplating while you pray.” The Bible instructs us to pray with our minds (1 Corinthians 14:15), so, clearly, prayer does involve contemplation. However, praying with your mind is not what “contemplative prayer” has come to mean. Contemplative prayer has slowly increased in practice and popularity along with the rise of the emerging church movement—a movement which embraces many unscriptural ideas and practices. Contemplative prayer is one such practice.

Contemplative prayer begins with “centering prayer,” a meditative practice where the practitioner focuses on a word and repeats that word over and over for the duration of the exercise. The purpose is to clear one’s mind of outside concerns so that God’s voice may be more easily heard. After the centering prayer, the practitioner is to sit still, listen for direct guidance from God, and feel His presence.

Although this might sound like an innocent exercise, this type of prayer has no scriptural support whatsoever. In fact, it is just the opposite of how prayer is defined in the Bible. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:6). “In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete” (John 16:23-24). These verses and others clearly portray prayer as being comprehendible communication with God, not an esoteric, mystical meditation.

Contemplative prayer, by design, focuses on having a mystical experience with God. Mysticism, however, is purely subjective, and does not rely upon truth or fact. Yet the Word of God has been given to us for the very purpose of basing our faith, and our lives, on Truth (2 Timothy 3:16-17). What we know about God is based on fact; trusting in experiential knowledge over the biblical record takes a person outside of the standard that is the Bible.

Contemplative prayer is no different than the meditative exercises used in Eastern religions and New Age cults. Its most vocal supporters embrace an open spirituality among adherents from all religions, promoting the idea that salvation is gained by many paths, even though Christ Himself stated that salvation comes only through Him (John 14:6). Contemplative prayer, as practiced in the modern prayer movement, is in opposition to biblical Christianity and should definitely be avoided. – source

Beth Moore teaches that Contemplative prayer is good and right. She is part of the Emergent Church movement.  This ungodly movement is filled with New Age beliefs and practices.  Contemplative prayer is encouraged in these churches. Watch Beth Moore as she leads people into this mystical practice:

Did you see how many thousands of people this woman is misleading?  The enemy of our souls is using Beth Moore to bring lies to the church; and many believe her lies to be truth.  She seldom uses Scripture, but when she does, she twists it to give credence to her words.

Did you see that Beth Moore recommends “Jesus Calling?”  I wrote an article about this New Age book which many believers rave over and recommend to their friends.

Article on New Age Roots of Jesus Calling

Watch Justin Peters speak about Jesus Calling and Beth Moore:

Beth Moore and her extra Biblical Visions

Beth Moore believes that God gave her a vision that all of Christendom will come together (that includes Roman Catholics)  She is pushing this ecumenical view more and more:

Roman Catholicism is a “works based” religion. It is NOT Christianity. There may be some in the Catholic church who have come into a relationship with Jesus and are born again – but their salvation could not have come from the teaching of their priests!  Those evangelicals who are returning to Rome are SO deceived!

Beth Moore also teaches that the churches which are rabidly anti-Israel i.e. Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian (and others)- are part of the body of Christ. It is her belief that ALL of the denominations are part of His body. This is outright heresy! She is deceived and she is deceiving millions of people!

I have come to trust Apprising Ministries for their discernment in exposing false teachers.  If you click on this link, it is filled with information on Beth Moore. They have marked her as a “false teacher.”

Apprising Ministries Exposes Beth Moore

Brethren, apostasy abounds and Beth Moore is a big part of it – especially for women in the church.  If you have been a follower of Beth Moore, I pray that this article has persuaded you to turn away from her teaching.

We MUST be like the Berean church. Everything we hear, we must compare to Scripture to see if it is true.  Do not believe extra Biblical visions or so-called words of knowledge. Everything we need to know from God is in His Holy Word!

“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Timothy 4:1-2)

MARANATHA!

 

There is an organization that we are hearing more and more about, called the United Religions Initiative. Pope Francis has close ties to many members and especially to its founder, William E. Swing, a former bishop of the Episcopal Church in San Francisco. When Pope Francis was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he invited Mr. Swing to celebrate the United Religions Initiative’s 10th anniversary in Latin America at his Cathedral.

“The URI is a United Nations project. It was heralded in June 1995 by Bishop Swing at the occult, earth-worshipping interfaith service he was invited to conduct for the UN, honoring the 50th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter. Attending the service in San Francisco’s Episcopal Grace Cathedral were political luminaries and representatives of all religions, including Britain’s Princess Margaret, Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Polish President Lech Walesa, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Archbishop Renato Martino (Vatican nuncio to the UN), and Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco.

The URI is meant to be for religions what the UN is for nations. Its purpose is to be the world religious authority, “a UN for religion” in order to foster peace. Delegates to its charter-writing summit in 1997 considered they had given birth to a “movement as well as a spiritual institution”. “Tell the people that there is a United Religions,” said Swing. It will shine “the light of the world’s spiritual traditions [paganism and occultism included] into a world desperately in need of light.” It aims to solve issues of environment, population, poverty and disease whilst building religious unity.” – source

See more about URI here: https//:uri.org

Taken from an “Interfaith” website about Pope Francis:

“Pope Francis’s openness to other faiths is part of a trend at the Vatican. A post today on the Wild Hunt noted that on a recent trip to Brazil, Pope Francis met with representatives of Candomble. The post asked:

“If the Pope embraces reconciliation with Candomble, with read, human, interface between leaders, why shouldn’t Catholics also embrace practitioners of Voodoo? Or indigenous African Religions? Or modern Paganism, for that matter?  Indeed, the Pope’s new attitude is needed more now than ever before. We live one a world where human beings, fueled by religious beliefs, are persecuting and killing on another in increasingly disturbing incidents. What better time for a Pope to emphatically embrace an interfaith mission?  A mission that had been blunted during the Papacy of Benedict, but now, hopefully, but now, hopefully, will bear new fruit.–  source

Brethren, is there any doubt that we are looking at the last Pope – very possibly the False Prophet, spoken of in God’s holy Word?

Pope Francis has now aligned himself with the global warming community, and  was a spokesman for that cause at the U.N. He is also in agreement that our planet is overpopulated, and that something needs to be done to rectify that.

He has brought representatives from every religion into the Vatican to pray. This man has taken ecumenicalism to a new level! It is so obvious that he is drawing the world into his web, and many are falling for it.

He is speaking of redistribution of wealth, and the evils of capitalism. Since when does a Pope become entangled in political issues of the world? We hardly hear anything about the Gospel of Jesus Christ from this man.

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” (Galatians 2:16)

Scriptures about justification by faith and not by works clearly separate us from the RCC. Catholicism is a cult. We as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ should not align ourselves with that apostate church — not for any reason, as noble as it might sound.

The Words and Beliefs of Pope Francis

He came onto the world stage much in the manner of President Obama. The left wing “Save mother earth” radicals are embracing him as their own. Funny, isn’t it? Wasn’t the job description of a Pope to lead the so-called faithful upon the earth — spiritually speaking? This speaks VOLUMES about the Vatican and RCC worldwide! The institution of Roman Catholicism is a CULT! I love the Catholic people, and because of this love — I must speak truth to them.

Where is Repentance and trusting the Lord Jesus Christ for Salvation in the Pope’s dialogues with the press? Did I miss it? I think not. Is this man saved? Does he know Jesus as Lord and Savior of his own life? If we look for fruit worthy of repentance in his life, it’s just not there.

What are his beliefs?

Well, let’s take a look at what Pope Francis deems important enough to give to the press: [1] – source

“Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is good… Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.”

Isaiah 5:20 – “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

“Since many of you do not belong to the Catholic Church and others are non-believers, from the bottom of my heart I give this silent blessing to each and every one of you, respecting the conscience of each one of you but knowing that each one of you is a child of God.”

John 1:12 – “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name:”

“From my point of view, God is the light that illuminates the darkness, even if it does not dissolve it, and a spark of divine light is within each of us.”

This is NOT what the Bible says. To say that there is a spark of divine light within each of us SMACKS of New Age teaching!

“A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person.”

Romans 1:24-27 – “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.”

“I am always wary of decisions made hastily. I am always wary of the first decision, that is, the first thing that comes to my mind if I have to make a decision. This is usually the wrong thing. I have to wait and assess, looking deep into myself, taking the necessary time.”

Proverbs 3:5-6 —“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

“If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge? We shouldn’t marginalize people for this. They must be integrated into society.”

Proverbs 14:6 — “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”

“There is a need for financial reform along ethical lines that would produce in its turn an economic reform to benefit everyone. This would nevertheless require a courageous change of attitude on the part of political leaders.”

Giving advice to political leaders and to the leaders of the financial market — this is for the Pope to do? I thought that bringing people to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is what the church should be about.

“The Jesuits have a vow to obey the pope, but if the pope is a Jesuit, maybe he should have a vow to obey the superior general… I feel like I’m still a Jesuit in terms of my spirituality, what I have in my heart.”

1 Corinthians 11:1 — “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.”

“Proselytism is solemn nonsense; it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.”

Matthew 28:19-20 — “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

“A church without women would be like the apostolic college without Mary. The Madonna is more important than the apostles, and the church herself is feminine, the spouse of Christ and a mother.”

WHERE in the Bible does it say that the mother of Jesus is more important than the Apostles??

“The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!”

Romans 10:9 — That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

“Right now, we don’t have a very good relation with creation.”

Can you say ‘WICCA’?

“My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative. I have never been a right-winger. It was my authoritarian way of making decisions that created problems.”

Oh, Pope Francis — we would NEVER call you a right-winger!

“God is not afraid of new things. That is why he is continuously surprising us, opening our hearts and guiding us in unexpected ways,”

This came from the Pope’s mouth, when asked about homosexuality. GOD is not afraid of new things?? He is Creator of the Universe and of each one of us!!! Guiding us in unexpected ways?? HIS WORD NEVER CHANGES!!

“Safeguard Creation,” he said. “Because if we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us! Never forget this!”

New Age, New Age, New Age……….

“But when we exploit Creation we destroy the sign of God’s love for us, in destroying Creation we are saying to God: ‘I don’t like it! This is not good!’ ‘So what do you like?’ ‘I like myself!’ – Here, this is sin! Do you see?”

No, Pope Francis – I do NOT see.

“Climate change, the loss of biodiversity and deforestation are already showing theirdevastating effects in the great cataclysms we witness.”

Now he is a scientist?

“Beauty of nature and the grandeur of the cosmos” is a Christian value, noting that failure to care for the planet risks apocalyptic consequences.”

Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”

Recently, this pope declared that the Cross of Christ was God’s failure:

Pope Declares the Cross to be God’s Failure

And just yesterday, on Good Friday, this pope told an atheist friend that “There is no hell.”

I believe that Pope Francis will be used by God in these last days to usher in the Antichrist. I also believe that he may be the last pope. The world is so blind to truth, because they reject the Truth!

John 14:6 — “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

MARANATHA!

 

 

If anyone doubts that this pope is satanically inspired or possessed, they need only to read his latest outrageous comparisons between Christianity and Islam.

From Breakingisraelinews.com

“Islam and Christianity share the “same idea of conquest”, and for that reason, Islam should not be viewed as a threat, said Pope Francis in a newspaper interview this week.

“It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam,” he conceded to the French Catholic newspaper La Croix. “However, it is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus sends his disciples to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest.”

Ostensibly, the Pope was drawing a parallel between the Islamic “conquest” known as jihad, a holy war or struggle waged against infidels, and Christian missionizing.

The comparison was part of a larger conversation about the increasingly desperate refugee crisis currently facing Europe. Pope Francis has been an outspoken voice on the issue of Arab refugees who seek asylum, encouraging governments to take in migrants and “integrate” them into western societies despite widespread concerns that the largely Muslim populations might harbor extremist or terrorist elements. – source

IS HE SERIOUS??

When is the last time anyone has seen a Christian missionary with a bomb strapped to him, walking through a crowded marketplace?  To compare jihad to evangelism is the most absurd thing that has proceeded from the mouth of Pope Francis – and he has uttered some doozies.  This one takes the cake.

Breakingisraelnews.com goes on:

Francis has repeatedly argued in favor of coexistence, peace, and tolerance in all areas of life but especially towards Muslims. He set his own powerful example last month when he brought a dozen refugees from the Greek island of Lesbos back to Rome with him after a diplomatic visit.

The Pontiff said that the Western attempt to “export” democracy to Arab countries is partly to blame for the collapse of central control and rise in Islamic extremism in Middle Eastern states.  – source  (Emphasis mine)

Coexistence – REALLY?

How can anyone coexist with terrorists?  That’s absolute crazy talk.  Jihadists want to take over your countries. They don’t want to assimilate. They want sharia law to supersede the existing government. They will kill you in a heartbeat.  You are an infidel to them.

Is this pope not thinking clearly, or is every word he speaks calculated?  Perhaps he is crazy like a fox?

More from Breakingisraelinews.com

“Ultimately, coexistence between Christians and Muslims is still possible,” the Pope insisted.

The key is integration, he stated. “The worst form of welcome is to ‘ghettoize’ [the migrants]. On the contrary, it’s necessary to integrate them,” he said. He pointed to the example of the perpetrators of Belgium’s horrific terror attack, saying that though they were naturalized Belgian citizens and children of migrants, they “grew up in a ghetto.” – source  (Emphasis mine)

Muslims do NOT want to integrate or assimilate into other societies. They want to take over. Sometimes they use violence, sometimes they take over by overtaking the population and then they have the votes needed to come into power. Then sharia law is instated.

Christianity and the Great Commission

The final words of Jesus Christ

 “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:  Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen” (Matthew 28:18-20).

How the pope can compare evangelism to jihad is beyond me.  Jesus taught to love our neighbors as ourselves. He taught his disciples to turn the other cheek. He commanded them to love even their enemies.

These comments by Pope Francis prove that the Catholic Church (Vatican) is as far from the Word of God as anyone can be.  Nothing that Pope Francis teaches even resembles the Words of our Lord and Savior.

Brethren, these days are so terribly wicked.  We pray that the Lord will come soon to rapture us, and take us to be with him forever.  We must keep focused on the Lord and His Word.  We should be immersed in the Word everyday until He comes.

“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18).

MARANATHA!!

People in general do not like to think of the Vatican as being anti Semitic. Irregardless of that which people choose to believe about the Vatican, it is clear that the Catholic faith holds Islam in higher regard than Judaism; so much so, that in the 2nd Vatican council in 1964, the Book of Catechism was amended:

From Answering-Islam.org

Added into the Book of Catechism in 1964:

“But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Moslems: these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one,merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.” – source

Taken from Israelnationalnews.com

Op-Ed: For the Pope, Israel Does Not Really Exist

For Pope Francis, who, it is said, plans to visit Jerusalem next year, the State of Israel doesn’t even exist.

This is how the Pope greeted the faithful at the end of the General Audience in Rome: “I ask you to pray for the peace in the Middle East: in Syria, in Iraq, in Egypt, in Lebanon and in the Holy Land, where the Prince of Peace is born”.

Where is Israel in the Pope’s statement?

A few days earlier, the Pope had visited St. Francis’ grave in Assisi. There, Papa Bergoglio said: “Let us listen to the cry of all those who are weeping, who are suffering and who are dying because of violence, terrorism or war, in the Holy Land, so dear to Saint Francis, in Syria, throughout the Middle East and everywhere in the world”.

No mention again of the Jewish State or of the two Israeli soldiers murdered by Muslim terrorists this month.

“Terra Sancta”, holy land, is the malignant expression used by the Vatican and the Catholic clergy in the Middle East to deny the very existence of the Jewish state and people. If it is their holy land, it cannot be Eretz Yisrael.

A few days ago Asia News, one of the most important Catholic Church foreign news media outlets, ran an article titled “The Costs of the Israeli Occupation and the Judaization of Jerusalem”.

The two countries which took pride in themselves as true Catholic States during the Second World War, were Slovakia and Croatia. There, more than anywhere else, strong condemnation of anti-Jewish measures could have been expected. But in May 1943, while the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka were turning Europe’s Jewry into ashes, the Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal, Luigi Maglione, in a document, listed a number of arguments to support the Pope’s refusal to help and rescue 2,000 Jewish children from Slovakia. – source

The devil’s stronghold over the Vatican is not hard to comprehend. I believe to the core of my being that the Vatican was either hijacked or was founded by none other than Satan himself. The rabid hatred for Jews is dead give away.

Israelinationalnews.com goes on:  (this piece was written in 2013)

Among these, Maglione mentioned the Vatican’s opposition to the Balfour Declaration and the plan to establish a Jewish homeland.

Various reasons were given to explain the Catholic Church’s refusal to recognize Israel for decades after the war. Among these were that Israel did not yet have “recognized borders,” while the Vatican maintains diplomatic ties with other countries without “recognized borders.” Democratic countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria.

But the Vatican’s denial would have existed even if Israel would have drawn its border in Herzliya. It is Israel’s very existence which makes the Vatican’s hierarchy nervous. They cannot even pronounce the name of “Israel”.

David Ben Gurion said it well: “The Catholic Church has a 2,000 years old reckoning with the Jews. The Vatican doesn’t want Israel to rule. There is a dogma (replacement theology, ed.) which has existed for 1,800 years and we gave it the coup de grace by establishing the State of Israel”.

From 1943 to 2013, nothing as really changed in the Vatican’s rejection of Israel’s territorial and religious sovereignty over the “holy land”.

Yesterday it was apathy about a Slovakian Jewish child. Today it is a little Israeli girl from Psagot. – source

Pope Francis has been extremely busy –  being a spokesperson for the U.N., especially for climate change and as he says “Caring for Mother Earth.”  This smacks of new age philosophy. I do believe that this pope is in the running for being the False Prophet, spoken of in God’s Word.

A little History about the Vatican and Hitler

From Americanmagazine.org

Seventy years ago a fateful meeting occurred in Rome. The Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII), and Germany’s vice chancellor, Franz von Papen, formally signed a concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich on July 20, 1933. This event ended negotiations that began after Adolf Hitler became Germany’s chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933. Among the witnesses to this event were Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini (the future Pope Paul VI) and Msgr. Ludwig Kaas, the leader of Germany’s Catholic Center Party. Neither Pope Pius XI nor Hitler attended the meeting; both had already approved of the concordat. The pope ratified the agreement two months later on Sept. 10. The Concordat of 1933 specified the church’s rights in the Third Reich.

The political significance of the signing of the Concordat of 1933 was, however, ambiguous in its day and still remains so. Hitler interpreted the concordat to mean that he had won the church’s approval, thereby gaining international recognition of his Nazi regime. At least some German Catholics took the signing of the treaty as an indication that church officials had softened their opposition to National Socialism. Some political commentators, journalists and historiansthen and now have viewed this event as a manifestation of Pope Pius XI’s and Cardinal Pacelli’s underlying motives, which allegedly included their preference for dictatorships over democracies, their readiness to use Nazi Germany as a bulwark against the spread into Europe of Stalin’s Communism and their disregard for German Jews. The pope and his secretary of state insisted, however, that they approved the agreement simply to protect the church. Cardinal Pacelli said as much in August 1933 to Ivone Kirkpatrick, the British minister to the Vatican: The spiritual welfare of 20 million Catholic souls in Germany was at stake, and that was the first and, indeed, only consideration in agreeing to the concordat. The Holy See had to choose between an agreement on [Nazi] lines and the virtual elimination of the Catholic Church in the Reich. – source

Brethren, it seems that Pope Francis has taken the anti-Israel position of the Vatican to a new level.

From Jpost.com

Pope Francis is aligning himself against Israel (an op-ed)

Israel and the Jewish people should protest this measure in the strongest possible terms and make sure that Pope Francis realizes the damage he has done.

In a treaty that was finalized in Rome last week, the Catholic Church fired the latest salvo in its 2,000-year-old struggle to disenfranchise the Jewish people. Meeting with Palestinian officials at the Vatican, church officials agreed to formally recognize the “State of Palestine” as part of a deal concerning Catholic activities in the Palestinian-controlled areas.

And just in case anyone failed to get the memo, Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi went to the trouble of going on record as saying, “Yes, it’s a recognition that the state exists.”

This outrageous step is a severe blow to Catholic- Jewish relations and it cannot go unanswered.

Israel and the Jewish people should protest this measure in the strongest possible terms and make sure that Pope Francis realizes the damage he has done.

In biblical terms, by recognizing a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, the Vatican is effectively seeking to deny the eternal covenant between God and the Jewish people, to whom this land was promised long ago. This is not only offensive and disrespectful, but disingenuous too. Indeed, one cannot help but wonder: what Bible is the Vatican reading? Whichever one it is, it must be missing some pages, as even a cursory glance at the Scriptures makes clear that God promised to give the Land of Israel to the Jewish people and nobody else. In fact, there are over 150 biblical verses ranging from Genesis to Joshua to Chronicles which state this and reaffirm that Israel would return from Exile to this holy soil.

Take, for example, Isaiah 14:1-2: “The Lord will have compassion on Jacob; once again He will choose Israel and will settle them in their own land.” Or how about Jeremiah 31:4, where God says: “You shall again plant vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria.” And there’s Genesis 48:3-4. And Judges 2:1, and Ezekiel 34: 11-13. And Hosea 3:4-5. And Amos 9:14-15. And Obadiah 1:17, Zephaniah 3:19-20 and Zechariah 8:7-8. -source

I love seeing my people from Israel using Biblical references to support the fact the God Himself gave the land to them!

Jpost.com goes on:

Moreover, the Bible stresses that these were not merely assurances, but a Divine oath, one that would never be broken.

“He remembers His covenant forever,” says 1 Chronicles 16:15-18, “the word He commanded for a thousand generations, the covenant He made with Abraham, the oath He swore to Isaac. He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant: ‘To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit.’” You get the point. But it seems that the Vatican does not.

In fact, my Christian friends tell me that the words “Palestine” and “Palestinians” do not appear anywhere in the New Testament. Hence, one could argue that Jesus himself would be mystified by the pope’s position.

After all, according to Christian belief, Jesus the Jew was born and raised in Bethlehem, which means there was a Jewish community there, with synagogues, ritual baths, rabbis and perhaps a kosher deli too, centuries before Islam was even founded.
So would the Catholic Church now deem Jesus to have been a “settler” or “occupier” of Palestinian land? For an institution that bills itself as “the Holy See” and which claims to uphold sacred values, the Vatican’s profane involvement in Middle Eastern politics is simply unbecoming.

And given its sordid history of anti-Semitism, book-burnings, forced conversions and Inquisitions, the Catholic Church should think a hundred times over before daring to step on Israel’s toes.

If anything, the pope should be down on his knees pleading for forgiveness from the Jewish people and atonement from the Creator for what the Vatican has wrought over the centuries.

The current attempt to undermine and deny Israel’s right to Judea and Samaria by recognizing Palestinian statehood smacks of “supersessionism,” or replacement theology, a doctrine according to which the Church replaced Israel as God’s chosen instrument nearly two millennia ago.

Over the past 50 years, since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church had slowly begun to acknowledge that the Jewish people are “a covenanted people,” thereby shifting away ever slightly from supersessionism.

But conferring legitimacy on a Palestinian state is akin to suggesting that the Palestinians have replaced Israel as the rightful owners of the land, a position that flies in the face of history, theology and common sense.

It is nothing less than supersessionism via diplomatic means, and a cruel insult to the generations of Jews who longed for Zion while enduring Catholic oppression and persecution.

Israel needs to respond to this affront forcefully. We cannot stand by and watch as our national integrity is called into question. A good place to start would be to withdraw our ambassador to the Holy See, curtail the number of visas granted to Vatican officials, and rule out any possibility of giving the Church the foothold it so sorely wants at the Tomb of King David on Mount Zion.

What a shame it is that after so much progress in Catholic- Jewish relations over the past few decades the Vatican would now betray all the headway that has been made.

But Pope Francis needs to realize that by recognizing the fictitious “State of Palestine” he is aligning himself against Israel, the Jewish people and the bible itself.

And that is something we cannot forgive, nor soon forget. – source

“Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it” (Zechariah 12:2-3)

Shalom b’Yeshua

MARANATHA