God’s redemptive plan

Dear editor:

As I watch the world go by, I’m both in awe of how God’s redemptive plan for man is coming to pass and very concerned that most of the world is going down to destruction. History teaches us that kingdoms have come and gone, such as Babylon, Medes and Persians, Alexander the Great, the Greek and Roman Empires. And in our day, according to prophecies in the Bible, there is a kingdom to come full of tribulation “such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time,” said Jesus in Matthew 24.

This coming kingdom is being formed by many political and religious leaders and will be known as the “New World Order,” led by one called “the Assyrian” (Isaiah 10) and the “Antichrist” (1 John

2). How ironic that Assyria (Syria) has been Israel’s nemesis for more than 2,500 years, and will make a gesture of a seven-year peace treaty that will last only

3 1/2 years! The Bible tells us that this world kingdom will have the support of a

10-nation confederacy (European Union) and the revived Roman Empire (Roman Catholic Church) led by the “False Prophet” (Revelation 13). Shortly before his death, Pope Paul said, “Satan is alive and well in the Vatican!”

The False Prophet is referred to as “another beast,” who is described as one who will come from meager beginnings and appear to be humble — “two horns like a lamb” (John the Baptist called Jesus the Lamb of God) — but this lamb will be one of evil because “he speaks like a dragon,” or teaches heresy. In March

2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis I, and is known as “a man of the people.”

Sandro Magister, an Italian journalist

and papal confidant, reported that the pope has abolished hell, purgatory and heaven where souls are supposed to go after death. He told the faithful that they had nothing to fear about the judgment because all will be saved, for “there is the merciful Jesus.” Then he seemed to do a complete turnaround by telling them to “avoid a personal, direct, immediate relationship with Jesus Christ at all costs because He made Himself to be the devil for us.” Jesus said, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.”

The Scriptures tell us that this beast will be able to call fire down from heaven and “give life” to the statue of the Antichrist. He will demand that they worship it as God and to receive his mark on their foreheads or back of the right hand. Anyone who do these things will be forever damned.

Jesus gives His warning to faithful Christians to “Watch and pray so that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21). Donald Cunningham Hot Springs