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THE LAST POPE? THE ANTI-POPE AND PETER THE ROMAN
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 24, 2025 – I am what you might call an equal opportunity heretic – I denounce all forms of denominational Christianity as false prophets, showing no partiality for one sect over another. Still, and as I explained earlier, God permits the worldly church to exist mainly to serve as a hedge between the world and his genuine Church (the one founded by Jesus and peopled by us born-again believers) and to provide a resource for his children living in the Kingdom. The worldly church also serves as an incubator for some of his children until they’re spiritually sturdy enough to walk on their own. But none of the denominations are meant to be our life-long identities or permanent places of worship. We’re to pass through and out of the worldly church and to use it for our practical purposes only, like Jesus did. The “her” referenced in: “Come out of her, my people!” is the worldly church.
I mention this today because the largest of the worldly church’s false prophet sects, Roman Catholicism, is currently making headlines for all kinds of reasons, most of them negative, as usual. Just in the past year alone, four priests have come forward denouncing Bergoglio (code name: Francis) as the anti-pope, arguing that Ratzinger (code name: Benedict) didn’t renounce his entire papacy in 2013, just those aspects that required physical rigor. Benedict lived another ten years essentially as a prisoner within the Vatican, dying of natural causes or otherwise on New Year’s Eve, 2022. For pointing out that Francis is a usurper, the four priests were “automatically excommunicated”, but that hasn’t stopped them from continuing their campaign against the alleged anti-pope.
Meanwhile, Francis is on a swift decline health-wise, and whether he shuffles off his mortal coil over the next few days or weeks, he’s currently in no shape physically to continue his papal duties and likely won’t ever be again. And here’s where it gets interesting in a woo-woo kind of way. Nearly a millennia ago, a guy named Malachy allegedly wrote down a list of future popes. A few hundred years after it was published, the list was denounced as a forgery. However, people still sneak a peak at it every now and then, trying to jam square pegs into round holes. Some of the popes seem to be precisely as Malachy described them, while others are way off.
In any case, the list ends after pope #112: Benedict was #111. So, if you consider Francis to be legit, he’s the last pope (#112) according to Malachy’s prophecy. But if you side with the four excommunicated priests, the next pope will be #112 and therefore (allegedly) the last.
But wait – there’s more! Malachy prophesied that the final pope would be “Peter the Roman”. If Francis kicks the bucket in the near future, an Italian (Roman) named Pietro (Peter) is the front-runner to replace him. Couldn’t be more on-the-nose, but I’m still guessing that Peter will probably get the crown. And once he does, could this mean the end of Roman Catholicism?
GOSPEL OR GOSSIP?
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 22, 2025 – The Bible is our constant companion, or so it should be for us born-again believers. We should always have a Bible at hand and should be reading it every day. When I say we should be reading it, what I actually mean is that we should be letting God read us the Bible every day, because without God reading it to us, we’re not getting the intended message.
Anyone can read the Bible. Even the most committed atheists can pick up a Bible and make some sense of it. But because they’re not reading it through the power of God’s Holy Spirit, they’re only getting words, not context, not a deeper meaning or personal relevance or revelation that can only come from God.
How the Bible came to be is an interesting story in itself and goes a long way to explain why we need God reading us the Bible rather than reading it on our own steam. Particularly fascinating is how the Gospel came to us. God, through his Spirit, inspired Jesus to orally teach certain principles and truths to his disciples and followers, who memorized the teachings, whether verbatim or not. Some time after hearing the teachings (months? years? decades?), a few of the disciples wrote them down to the best of their recollection. Note that most of the writings were in Greek, though Jesus had given his teachings in Aramaic. As time passed, the Greek was translated into Latin in most cases (though not all) and then, centuries later, into English and other languages. These versions were then revised and re-revised as the languages evolved. And with each translation and revision, changes in nuance and context were introduced.
So, you see how the communication of God’s Word from the source (God) to the intended audience (us) via the Gospel is not unlike the game of gossip we used to play as kids. In that game, we’d sit in circle and someone we’d designate as “it” would whisper something to the person next to him, who in turn would whisper it to the person next to him, and so on and so on around the circle until it arrived back at the person just before the “it” person, who would then say out loud what had been whispered in his ear. The difference between the original message (e.g., “I love you”) and the final reported message (e.g., “Elephant shoes”) was usually so extreme, it was hilarious, which is the reason why we played the game in the first place, even knowing that some of the kids along the gossip line purposely changed the words to make it funnier.
Now imagine the gossip game happening to the words in the Gospel, because it actually has happened pretty much that way. No, the Gospel is not gossip, but it’s been handed down to us just as precariously and as prone to “mishearing” as gossip, and in some cases has even purposely and maliciously been changed to make it “juicier”, like gossip
Which is precisely why we born-again believers need God reading us the Bible. Without God reading it to us, we’re only getting words, not his Word.
THE FREEDOM NOT TO LIKE
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 21, 2025 – One of the most annoying assumptions many non-Christians have about Christians is that they like everyone. And I mean everyone, including and especially the people who go out of their way to make themselves unlikeable. Christians, according to non-Christians, are supposed to like everyone in every situation at all times, with zero exceptions.
But what does Jesus say about that?
Jesus taught us that we’re to love our enemies and to treat others as we’d want to be treated, but he didn’t say anything about liking everyone. And why is that? Because you can’t mandate liking someone. You can’t force people to feel affection toward a certain person or group. You can mandate specific behaviors (like loving your enemies via prayers and blessings), but you can’t mandate feelings. And genuinely liking someone and wanting to spend time with that person is feelings-based behavior that can’t be forced or expected, even from born-again believers. God allows us to dislike people as an honest expression of our feelings toward them, but he still expects us to treat them as we would want to be treated, which essentially means don’t be mean-spirited. Don’t bully them. But don’t pretend to like them if you don’t. God hates hypocrisy.
The same assumption that non-Christians have about Christians liking everyone has also bled into the worldly church, where it’s assumed that because we’re in a church building attending a church event, we’re all one big happy family and the best of friends. Anyone who’s spent any time at all in a worldly church event knows this is woefully untrue. Despite most pastors’ ongoing efforts to make their flocks feel at ease and at home, some sheep will still rub you the wrong way (even physically; pervy old greeters posted at the church door, take note!). I have never more than fleetingly felt “at home” in a worldly church setting, though I don’t blame the pastors for that. It’s baked into the scenario that you’re not going to like everyone and not everyone is going to like you. Even in a church.
And that’s OK.
The Bible says so.
Jesus’ disciples were well-known for not always getting along with each other, especially the men with the women. Jesus had to step in to keep the peace between them on more than one occasion. And after Jesus’ ascension, the early Church members had numerous run-ins with each other, most famously Paul vs Barnabas and Paul vs “the saints in Jerusalem”. Paul didn’t have to like the people he disagreed with any more than they had to like him. Nowhere in the Bible does it say we have to like everyone without exception. We’re to bless and pray for those who purposely oppose us, but like them?
Naaah.
God gives us the freedom to like and dislike whoever we choose. He doesn’t mandate like.
In Heaven, though – Heaven is a whole different ball game. We’ll not only love everyone in Heaven, we’ll like them, too, and we won’t have to be mandated to do so. But that’s Heaven. Here on Earth, it’s more important to God that we do his will than that we pretend to like someone we don’t.
A NOD AND A SMILE AND A MEETING OF THE EYES
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 21, 2025 – It’s better to be a stranger in a place where, by all metrics, you don’t belong, than to be treated worse than a stranger in the land where you were born and raised and lived most of your life. When you feel like a stranger among your own, that’s a special kind of hell.
Jesus lived that hell both in Nazareth and throughout most of Judeah, including and especially Jerusalem. I’m not sure how Mary and Joseph felt about their home country when they were fleeing with baby Jesus to save him from being slaughtered at the hands of their own king, but it was probably much the same feeling Mary felt standing at the foot of the cross. The one place you expect to feel safe is within the boundaries of your own nation and among your own people, but how quickly that guarantee of safety can shift to the left or the right, making you both the feared enemy and the hunted prey.
God knows how difficult it is to live in the Kingdom while simultaneously living in the world, which is why he gave us the Kingdom in the first place, along with the promise that he’ll never leave us or betray us. The world, on the other hand, makes a career out of leaving us and betraying us, as if its full-time job is to get us to bleed out and then stand back and watch us burn. Jesus well knew this, which is why he cut his ties with the world when he started his ministry work, including his ties with his family. None of this was easy for him, but it needed to be done. Anyone who wasn’t on board with his ministry work would only get in his way.
It’s a special kind of hell to live among those whose values you don’t share and who either secretly or openly despise you. Knowing this, God has given us his Kingdom as a shelter and spiritual safe space. We wouldn’t survive without it. He’s also given each of us a few like-minded souls to relate to on a human level and to take courage from, people who’ve suffered as we’re suffering and as Jesus suffered but who are still forging onward to the end. As much we need and rely on God for everything and are grateful for all he does, we can still use a nod and a smile and a meeting of the eyes on occasion, or a comforting word and a pat on the hand. We need to see our own people among the seething masses pressing in on us from all sides, like Jesus looking down from the cross saw John and Mary looking up.
God arranges this for us, this meeting of the eyes with those who are genuinely our own. We may be spiritual enemies with nearly everyone around us, but God will give us what we need when we need it most.
See? He gave you this today.
THEY HATE YOU
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 21, 2025 – If you turn from God and embrace demons, you get demonic activity as your reward. And no, I’m not talking the Hollywood version, with spinning heads and projectile vomiting, I mean demonic activity like an ice storm where all the driveways and sidewalks in your city are covered in three inches of solid ice, but there’s no road salt to be found at any store for any price because the “newcomers” got there first and bought it all and are now scalping it for $60 a bag (retail $5) online. I mean demonic activity like when there are no job openings because the same newcomers who’re hoarding and scalping the road salt have been installed in every available position, thanks to government subsidies paying nearly 100% of their wages. I mean demonic activity like Sodom-themed rainbows painted on municipal crosswalks and fluttering as flags on government buildings and plastered as ads on public transit, all of which should be free from ideological bent.
While the Lord moves in mysterious ways, the demons don’t bother to hide their disdain for you. They declare it openly. And why shouldn’t they? If you have them coming, you’ve brought them on yourselves, and it’s either you repent and sincerely turn back to God or you earn another seemingly endless stream of scheming newcomers and a posse of pride parades. And that’s just for starters.
The demons are betting that you won’t turn back (few do) and so are saving their best tricks for last. They’re betting that instead of rightfully blaming yourselves for your problems, you’ll blame God, who, in actuality, is the only one who can help you. And so the demons will rush to “help” you instead by arranging for the removal of all mention of God from your public spaces and schools and offices, because, well, “inclusion”. They’ll even go so far as to remove God from your prayers (or even from calling them prayers). And then they’ll burn down your places of worship, one after the other after the other, until over a hundred places of worship have been vandalized or burned to the ground and the authority over the authorities – the one who fueled the fires in the first place with the promotion of false claims – dismisses the destruction as “fully understandable”.
This is all demonic activity, though not one head was seen to spin.
The demons work openly and with utter disdain for you. I cannot stress enough how much demons hate you. God chose them to be the deliverers of bad rewards for just this reason. They have no capacity for love (it’s been removed), so if they sidle up to you with an offer they claim will be in your favor, you know it’s a lie. Not everything they say is a lie, but the important parts are. The hooks they use for bait are. They hate you with an impartiality that is divine, being God-ordained. The hate isn’t divine; the impartiality is. They are not programmed for mercy: All they want is for you to fall.
There is no hope but in God, and that solely through Jesus Christ, the one and only Messiah. If you remember nothing else, remember this.
TO MY AMERICAN READERS: I’M SORRY
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 18, 2025 – As a Canadian, I apologize on behalf of all Canadians everywhere who are currently exhibiting abominable behavior towards you, towards your fellow Americans, towards your president, and towards your country in general. Far too many of us have lost the plot. Our behavior is unCanadian in the extreme, and I have nothing to say except: I’m sorry.
Although our voices have been all but silenced by Canadian government-controlled media and online bullies like reddit, many Canadians do appreciate all that you’ve done for our country over the years, and we value all that you continue to do SIMPLY BY BEING OUR NEIGHBOR. We’re better as a nation because you live next door to us.
And if you still want to become more than a neighbor, you might be surprised at how many of us are open to having that discussion.
God bless you for reading this. Please take it to heart.
Sorry again.
And God bless America!
DRILL SERGEANT JESUS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 18, 2025 – When it starts, it will happen so suddenly, you won’t realize it’s started until after you catch your breath. You won’t want to be caught then with your spiritual pants down around your ankles, because the odds will not be in your favor if that happens. Which is why Jesus warned us always to watch and always to keep our loins girded. He means we should always be spiritually ready. If we’re spiritually ready, we won’t be caught with our pants down.
And we’ve all had that, as a teaser, as a tester, being caught unawares, in a moment of slackness, resting on our lees, taking our ease with our pants down around our ankles, and it wasn’t pretty. God puts us through our paces so we can experience how horrible that feels and learn to do whatever it takes not to let that happen again. Some of us had to go through those paces a few times and then a few times again before we finally learned what we needed to learn to God’s satisfaction. Because I guarantee you, you will not know when it starts that it has actually started, but you’ll still, by default – by training – need to respond at the top of your game.
When Jesus began his ministry work, he was like a kindergarten teacher corralling wayward children and trying his best to hold their attention with miracles and breathless stories. He handed out cures like lollipops and exorcisms like gold stars, and everyone who wanted one, got one. As his ministry progressed, he became more like a high school teacher, entrusting his best students with a small portion of his duties, sending them out two by two with strict instructions, all while keeping a close eye on the slackers lounging at the back cracking jokes. By the end of his ministry, Jesus had morphed into a full-blown drill sergeant. Even his finest recruits didn’t escape his wrath when it was called for. He needed them to fully internalize the blunt brutal seriousness of the work they were called to do, that it was an all-or-nothing situation, and that if they weren’t willing to give it their all, they had no place in his Kingdom.
We are now in the age of drill sergeant Jesus. The time for kindergarten Jesus and high school teacher Jesus is over. This is war we’re preparing for. We’ve already endured a few initial skirmishes, but the trumpet has yet to blow. We can still pray not to be here when the trumpet blows. But if it does and we’re here, we need to be ready, not just somewhat ready or good-enough ready or (my personal favorite) Jesus-will-take-care-of-everything ready, but special-ops-trained and loins-girded ready. Anything less, and we won’t make it.
You can’t run with your pants down around your ankles, and you’ll be doing lots of running in this war. You’ll be running towards the enemy as much as you’ll be running away, but there will be running. So you might as well settle in your mind now to be ready to run not at a moment’s notice, but at a millisecond’s.
ATTENNNNNN-CHUNN!
Chin up!
Chest out!
Gut in!
I said GUT IN!
Weapons ready!
Loins girded!
WATCH!
THE SILENCE OF JESUS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 14, 2025 – Jesus spent the three-plus years of his ministry preaching and teaching non-stop, nearly all of which was done by speaking. Even before that, when he was just 12 years old, he was eager to debate the temple elders. He wasn’t shy to speak in public, and in fact he was very good at it, perhaps the best there ever was. Keeping quiet didn’t come naturally to Jesus.
Which is why his silence before Pontius Pilate is that much more remarkable. Why didn’t he speak up for himself when given the chance? Why didn’t he explain what was going on, not necessarily to plead for his release, but to plead for the souls of those in attendance? Would that not have been a golden opportunity to preach God’s Word, given that the proceedings were being recorded for posterity?
We know from scripture that the Messiah had to remain silent before his accusers. His silence was non-negotiable because it was prophesied. This is the main reason why Jesus didn’t defend himself before Pilate. But at the same time, Jesus understood there was nothing he could have said to these people to make them understand what was going on. Even his own disciples had deserted him at that point, terrified that what was happening to him would also happen to them. Jesus well knew this was the hour of Satan’s power and that God had given that hour to Satan. So in addition to remaining silent to comply with scripture, Jesus remained silent in acknowledgement of the power of Satan, a power that God had given into his hands for a short time and a short time only.
Just before the world enters the tribulation years, there will be silence in Heaven. Like Jesus choosing to remain silent before his accusers, any believers who are still on Earth will likewise fall silent before the deaf ears of an unbelieving world. The time to plead for lost souls will have been passed and there will be no more conversions. This will be the official start of Satan’s short but brutal worldwide reign.
We’ve all had a foretaste of this phenomenon already, this need to remain silent in the face of resolute unbelief. Having thrown enough pearls before swine, we’ve learned not to do that anymore. We’ve learned to be eloquent in our silence, even as the voices of the world grow shriller and more intrusive. The more deafening the world’s din, the more silent we become in response. This, too, has been prophesied.
But we’ll continue to speak to each other and to God and Jesus. Even in the darkest hour of Satan’s power, communication between us and Heaven will not stop, just as it didn’t stop for Jesus when he was on the cross. I believe that Jesus was closer to his Father during his crucifixion than at any other time during his earthly years, and we’ll be closest to our Father during the tribulation, if we’re still here (though we should pray hard that we won’t be). The silence of Jesus will become our silence, in accordance with scripture, allowing us to turn away from Satan’s realm and focus fully on God.
SHELTERING UNDER NEW BABYLON
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 13, 2025 – God may, on occasion, have us go under the authority of ungodly people, not as a punishment but as a form of protection. Joseph under the Egyptians and Jeremiah under the Chaldeans are some examples that immediately spring to mind, but scripture also tells us how David sought refuge among his enemies for a time, and how Mary and Joseph fled with baby Jesus to Egypt. The Bible is full of examples of God’s people seeking sanctuary among heathens, having been sent there by God and so being fully protected by God while there.
Today, with spiritual conditions growing worse and worse across former Christendom, we may well one day soon be directed by God to seek shelter among unbelievers and remain under their authority for a time. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, was not an Israelite, but God used him not only to mete out the punishment due to the Israelites but also to shelter those who followed the prophet Jeremiah’s directives. In following those directives and putting themselves under the authority of the man who’d slaughtered their leaders and demolished their temple, they were actually putting themselves under God’s authority.
Our worldly leaders are not by any measure godly people, but God still uses them for his purposes, and some of them appear to be very much aware of that. In this regard, they’re not unlike Nebuchadnezzar, who saw himself as a ruler not of a country, but of an empire. Understanding the expansive role they’re playing on the world stage has made some leaders magnanimous towards those who support their vision or are at least not antagonistic towards them. Recall how Nebuchadnezzar was especially kind to Daniel, and how the Chaldeans, at the king’s orders, looked after Jeremiah and the rag-tag remnant that followed him out of besieged Jerusalem. The Israelites who humbled themselves under their victors were treated better by the heathens than by their own people. This is God’s doing and proof positive that he’ll never leave or betray us, as long as we do his will.
While I don’t anticipate that believers will flourish in the years to come, I do know they’ll be protected under certain leaders and even welcomed, particularly in places where leaders have stated publicly that religion is the only way to achieve happiness. Elsewhere in the world, however, including here in Canada, believers are being threatened into silence either by vaguely worded hate speech laws against religious expression or by pending legislation that outright prohibits the use of scripture as a justification for publicly stated opinions. For instance, if I state in this blog that a man can’t be woman or that a man can’t marry a man, I could in some not-too-distant future be imprisoned for publishing my scripture-based beliefs.
As born-again believers, we are first and foremost to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. In some cases, this might also include humbling ourselves even under the king of New Babylon for a time to take advantage of his God-designated protection and sanctuary. If God guides us there, God will protect us, as long as we continue to do his will.
HIDDEN
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 13, 2025 – From the gospels, we know a little bit about Jesus’ time on Earth, particularly the years around his birth and ministry. But we know next to nothing about Jesus after his resurrection and before his ascension. He was still here on Earth during those 40 days and nights, so what was he doing? Where did he go when he wasn’t manifesting to his disciples in his new, not-yet-glorified body?
This, to me, is a fascinating period in Jesus’ time on Earth, but very little is spoken or written about it, perhaps because it truly is Jesus’ “hidden” time. Theologians love to wax hypothetical over what they call Jesus’ hidden years between age 12 and 30 (“oh, he was in India”, “oh, he was in Egypt”), but there’s little to no speculation about Jesus in the days leading up to his ascension. What do we know from scripture about that time, and what can we know from inference or otherwise?
First of all, we know that Jesus’ post-resurrection pre-ascension body didn’t look like Jesus. In fact, Jesus looked so different, even his closest disciples didn’t recognize him. His changed physiognomy would have given Jesus the advantage of appearing anywhere to anyone at any time without them knowing it was him, much like God’s holy angels. Scripture also tells us that Jesus could appear and disappear seemingly at will, leading his disciples to believe initially that he was a ghost. And yet he was also physically solid and able to eat and drink, again much like God’s holy angels.
Not looking like a dead man and being able to appear and disappear at will would have allowed Jesus to go wherever he wanted during those 40 days and nights. He could have moved among the disciples in his invisible (to the human eye) form or he could have (and I hesitate to use the term) lurked even among his enemies, either visibly or invisibly.
We know that he knew where the disciples would be at any given time, since he met with some of them on the road to Emmaus and then later appeared at their meals and their fishing trip. Did Jesus know where they were because he was there with them in “hidden” form the whole time? He knew Thomas’s exact words of doubt and quoted them back to him during one of his physical manifestations. In scripture, Jesus tells us that wherever two or more are gathered in his name, there he is among us. We know this is God’s Truth, and being God’s Truth, does it explain where Jesus was during those final 40 days and nights?
I believe it does. I believe Jesus was exactly where he said he would be – wherever two or more were gathered in his name. Sometimes they saw him and sometimes they didn’t, but he was there.
Just as he’s here now, wherever we gather in his name.
So we shouldn’t wonder when Jesus is coming back, because he never really left. He’s been with his church since his resurrection. And while he no longer appears in physical form and won’t again until he comes in glory, we can be assured that he’s still here among us.
Why?
Because he said he would be.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 