By Pastor Aubrey Duncan

The Futility of Man’s Ingenuity 

We are living in grand and awesome times. The United States has entered the primary season of the US Presidential elections. The initial lap on the road to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has all the hallmarks of being unusually contentious. Pundits are predicting that the results of this electoral cycle will have enormous, and perhaps devastating, consequences for America and the world.

The cauldrons of armed conflicts are boiling with increasing intensity in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and other parts of the world. Tens of thousands are being slaughtered, starved, and diseased as ‘diplomats’ traverse the globe in a futile search for an illusive peace.

The planet is being ravaged by man-imposed destruction of the environment. Efforts to reverse the trend are often sabotaged by the insatiable appetite for wealth and power by the very ones claiming a desire to fix the crisis. Natural disasters are becoming more frequent and intense. Pestilences and diseases are accepted as common staples of everyday life.

There is no shortage of research, analyses, and recommendations from the ‘experts’ on these and other phenomena that plague the human family. But the oldest and most accurate diagnosis and prognosis for man’s dilemma is found in an ancient masterpiece largely rejected by the majority of the earth’s inhabitants.

Here’s what its main character, Jesus Christ, has to say of the very time in which we live: “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:7-8).

Based upon the proven authenticity of the pronouncements of this oft-neglected and despised document, we may know that the worst is yet to come, just as it states. Not unlike a soon-to-be-delivered mother, humanity’s sorrows and pains will become more frequent and severe. Regardless of man’s attempts to mitigate the current crises, they will metastasize rapidly and inflict unbearable pain.

The ancient Jewish seer, Daniel, amplifies the predictions of Jesus Christ: “And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book” (Daniel 12:1).

This same Daniel, under the inspiration of the God of Creation, prophesied of the nations that would rule the world and have an impact on God’s plan of redemption for the human family. He foretold of those empires that would arise and fall from his time in Babylon to the second coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He is the Only One who can ransom and redeem His people from this doomed and dying world. With divine precision, infinitely more concise than a surgeon’s scalpel, and with undeniable exactitude beyond human imagination, those nations have arisen, played their prophetic role on the grand chessboard of salvation history, and have passed off the stage of the Drama of the Ages. They are, namely, Babylon, the empire from which Daniel wrote; Media Persia; Greece; and Imperial Rome.

Daniel’s vision, portraying those nations as ferocious beasts (Daniel 7:17), revealed that the Roman power would go through a metamorphosis, transforming itself from the world’s most powerful military machine to one of an ecclesiastical behemoth of apocalyptic proportions characterized by the universal amalgamation of church and state powers.

Historian Will Durant relates that transition in a most poignant fashion: ” When Christianity conquered Rome, the ecclesiastical structure of the pagan church, the title and vestments of the Pontifex Maximus, the worship of the Great Mother goddess and a multitude of comforting divinities … the joy and solemnity of old festivals, and the pageantry of immemorial ceremony, passed like maternal blood into the new religion, and captive Rome captured her conqueror.

The reigns and skills of government were handed down by a dying empire to a virile Papacy. The lost power of the broken sword was re-won by the magic of the consoling word. The armies of the state were replaced by the missionaries of the church, moving in all directions along the Roman roads, and the revolted provinces, accepting Christianity, again acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome. The church, with the shadow of the ancient authority behind it, was the only symbol left of imperial Rome. Its bishop, the pope of Rome, was the city’s only recourse for leadership and protection. The Roman Empire in Europe would be replaced by the spiritual empire, which came to be temporal as well, whose reigning seigneur was the bishop of Rome” (Caesar and Christ, page 672).

The Roman Empire’s transformation from a world military power into the world’s most dominant religion of its time is undeniable. John foretold the actions of the transformed colossus: “And he shall speak great words against the most High and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time”
(Daniel 7:25).

John the Revelator takes up the sacred baton of prophetic utterance and adds significantly more detail to Daniel’s predictions. He prophesied of this enormous church-state leviathan losing its position of almost universal dominance. However, he also foretold that it would emerge at the very end of earth’s history to forge a regime more sinister and ruthless than any the world has ever seen. John predicts that as it resurfaces, it will join forces with the most powerful military apparatus to advance its agenda of world domination: “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon … And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed…And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live…And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed…And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name” (Revelation 13:11-17).

Many Entities, One Agenda

Dr. John W. Robbins, a leading authority on Roman Catholicism, concurs and makes this eye-opening assertion: “Ayn Rand was right when she wrote in 1967: ‘The Catholic Church has never given up the hope to re-establish the medieval union of church and state with a global state and global theocracy as its ultimate goal’. The Roman church-state is a hybrid, a monster of ecclesiastical and political power. Its political thought is totalitarian, and whenever it has had the opportunity to apply its principles, the result has been bloody repression.

If during the last 30 years it has softened its assertions of full, supreme, and irresponsible power and has murdered fewer people than before, such changes of behavior are not due to a change in its ideas but to a change in circumstances … it is only when the Roman church/state faced public opinion that disapproved of church/state sanctioned murder, that it slowed its persecutions and attempted to speak with a voice less bloodthirsty. The Roman church/state in the 20th century, however, is an institution recovering from a deadly wound. If and when it regains its full power and authority, it will impose a regime more sinister than any the planet has ever seen” (John Robins, Ecclesiastical Megalomania, page 195).

Totally oblivious to most of the world, and not at all reported in the mainstream media, is Rome’s plotting for her rulership of the so-called New World Order. One nineteenth-century Bible commentator commented on the issue: “The Protestant churches are in great darkness, or they would discern the signs of the times. The Roman Church is far-reaching in her plans and modes of operation. She is employing every device to extend her influence and increase her power in preparation for a fierce and determined conflict to regain control of the world, to re-establish persecution, and to undo all that Protestantism has done” (Ellen G. White, Great Controversy, p. 565).

Recently, global leaders of every stripe and shade gathered at the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos. Their stated objective is to rebuild trust and foster global solidarity. As usual, in this 54th Annual Meeting, all the leading nations of the world, the top economic voices, premier non-governmental organizations, leading financial titans, and prominent religious leaders discuss their plans, ostensibly for solving humanity’s problems.

Of the more than 100 religious organizations connected with the World Economic Forum, the Roman Papacy holds the highest position and garners the most attention. As a world-wide political and religious operator, the Roman church/state enterprise takes the opportunity to promote its agenda for rescuing a planet on an irreversible course to a destructive destiny. Its head, Pope Francis I, sent a message to the auspicious gathering in Davos, Switzerland: “It is my hope,” he said, “that the participants in this year’s Forum will be mindful of the moral responsibility that each of us has in the fight against poverty, the attainment of an integral development for all our brothers and sisters, and the quest for a peaceful coexistence among peoples.”

To his mind, peaceful coexistence revolves around the entire world community coalescing with and accepting the leadership of his universal ecclesiastical establishment. His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, expressed the same concern: “The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization. They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations” (Caritas in Veritate, Sec. 67, June 29, 2009).

And here we are today. While most inhabitants of the world are spiritually inebriated, entranced by the Donald Trump reality show, distracted by wars in Israel and Ukraine, or just simply engrossed in the day-to-day activities of life, including mindless entertainment, this New World Order is being organized. John the Revelator long ago addressed its establishment, agenda, and ultimate demise: “And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth…And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful” (Revelation 17:9, 12-14).

However, the so-called gathering to establish world peace and unified coexistence has one enemy that must be eliminated. That enemy is referred to as fundamentalists and a plague, the very ones Creator God calls His people who believe unflinchingly in His word, the Holy Bible. Francis exhorts the clan: “For the sake of peace, please, in every religious tradition, let us defuse the temptation to fundamentalism and every tendency to view a brother or sister as an enemy.” John foretold: “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:17).

Glimpses of God’s New World Order

The new world order currently being engineered by Francis in conjunction with the powerful of the earth is destined for total destruction. It’s a train heading for perdition, with Francis as its conductor. John prophesied: “And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire … And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth” (Revelation 17:16,18).

But another Conductor is calling us to: “Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters” (Revelation 14:6-7). His New World Order boggles the mind and takes the imagination to flight, but He gives us a few glimpses:

• “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them … And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
• And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den … They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea … And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious” (Isaiah 11:6-10).
• And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more (Isaiah 2:3-4).
• For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind… And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them…They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands…They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them.
• And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord” (Isaiah 65:20-21, 24,25).
• Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness (2 Peter 3:13).Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat (Revelation 6:15-16).

Indeed, there will be two New World Orders. One temporary and lasting for a very short period of time. It will be characterized by tyranny, the elimination of individual liberties, the oppression of the masses by a few, and sustained by a brutal military apparatus. Happily, Creator God gives us a greater glimpse of the other, which will last throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. (Revelation 21:1-5).

Which one are you preparing for?

About: Follow Pastor Aubrey Duncan at his Unfolding Prophecy Page.