Planned Papal visit to the Holy Land
PLANS are afoot for a visit by the Pope to the Holy Land in the year 2000. He intends also to visit Iraq “to follow in the footsteps of Abraham”. But it is the visit to Israel and the West Bank that is to be the climax of his tour, said Cardinal Etchegaray, one of his closest aides, who heads the Vatican Committee for the Millennium.
Already, the present Pope’s papacy is the longest of the 20th century, but his hope is, say papal officials, to have it crowned by “a reconciliation of the three great monotheistic religions”, Judaism, Islam and Christianity (for Christianity read Romanism). It is a measure of the heretical character of Rome that it wishes to be reconciled to Islam, a religion which is the very antithesis of Christianity. Of course, each of these religions already is the enemy of Biblical Christianity. Although we cannot see reconciliation occurring between Islam and Judaism, we would be unwise to dismiss the possibility of Rome aligning with them in some way. But whatever powers may be shoulder to shoulder against the Church of Christ they will not prevail. It is His Kingdom that will yet prevail and prosper: it is His Kingdom that is represented by the stone of which we read in Daniel, chapter 2. “And the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.”
The National Prayer Breakfast in Edinburgh
ABOUT 500 people from the world of “commerce and Christianity”, many of whom would claim to be Evangelical, or Reformed, or Protestant, or all these together, gathered in Edinburgh early on Monday morning, 10th June, for a National Prayer Breakfast. Also present were Roman Catholics, both priests and laymen. It was reported that the gathering “focussed on the need to return to God in Parliament and in the business place”. Prominent among those who gathered (and appearing together in a press picture) were the Very Rev. Sandy MacDonald, a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Mr Jim Wallace, the Liberal Democrat MP, who was Chairman (and who two weeks later voted in the Commons for the lowering of the age of homosexual consent to 16), Lord MacKay of Clashfern, who was host, Mr Tom Farmer of Kwik-Fit, the recipient of a Papal knighthood and a guest speaker, and Roman Catholic Archbishop O’Brien.
What weight can we give to the claims of those who profess to be Evangelical, or Reformed, or Protestant, when they can go arm in arm with those who are the avowed enemies of the Reformed Faith and of Protestantism? None at all! Either they are ignorant of the true nature of both Protestantism and Romanism, or they have smothered their consciences.
And what blessing can such people expect from God when they have fellowship with the representatives of a soul destroying system against which there is the divine anathema? Returning to God includes obeying the call of God, “Come out from among them” and that necessarily includes coming away from fraternisation with Rome.
Return to Table of Contents for The Free Presbyterian Magazine – July 1998