In His last words recorded in the book of Matthew, Jesus Christ admonished his disciples, “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). That admonition is for all His followers throughout the ages. It’s called the Great Commission.

From the giving of that commission, almost two thousand years ago, the followers of Jesus have embraced His command and continue to spread the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the world. Beginning with the first evangelists to present day disciples, the admonition of Jesus have borne fruit which testifies to the power inherent in His words. As a result, millions have been brought to and continues to be drawn to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

One of the most famous followers of Jesus’ command, who appeared on the scene of salvation history in the sixteenth century AD, was a humble monk who found himself entrapped in the massive European Ecclesiastical Enterprise called Roman Catholicism. His name is Martin Luther and he discovered the fundamental truth that his salvation and that of others is available only in Jesus Christ and not through the tradition of the organization to which he belonged and loved dearly. Luther’s new found light led to what has become known as the Protestant Reformation. It became a world-wide movement in which kings and princes, prelates and ordinary parishioners exited the Catholic fold. They were determined to serve God based on His word and the dictates of their own consciences rather that the traditions of the church.

The church retaliated with its Counter Reformation. Established by the Council of Trent, the church’s deliberations designed to defeat Luther’s protest and its resultant effects, had a single purpose: to return the protesters back to the fold of the Roman church. It was spearheaded by soldier and mystical icon turned priest, Ignatius Loyola. He established the Jesuit Order which was charged with the responsibility of accomplishing the church’s objective of undoing all that Protestantism had done and establishing it to the governorship of the world.

It is now the 500th year now since Luther’s Protest and the church’s Counter. Jesuit Pope Francis has declared that the Protest is over. He celebrated the success of the Counter Reformation by ostensibly claiming to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Luther’s Protest. In the document which formed the basis for the Church of Rome’s Counter-Reformation celebration, entitled From Conflict to Communion, the church declared, “What happened in the past cannot be changed, but what is remembered of the past and how it is remembered can, with the passage of time, indeed change. Remembrance makes the past present. While the past itself is unalterable, the presence of the past in the present is alterable. In view of 2017, the point is not to tell a different history, but to tell that history differently the Reformation” (From Conflict to Communion, (Ch. 2, Sec 16). In plain language, Francis’ church has purposed to deceive the world about the true nature of the Protestant Reformation.

On the backdrop of his church’s success at bringing almost the whole world back to his church, Pope Francis has declared that the preaching of the Gospel, as Jesus commanded His followers (Matthew 27:18-20), is a sin. In a meeting with the leaders of the Lutheran church at the Vatican, Pope Francis warned, “It is not licit that you convince them of your faith; Proselytism is the strongest poison against the ecumenical path….you can tell the ‘why’ (of your faith) with much thoughtfulness. But without wanting to convince.” It is indeed not only very hypocritical, but patently blasphemous for the leader of a movement that has been doing nothing but proselytizing for the last 500 years, claiming to be God’s church on earth, to tell God’s people that they should cease to do what God has commanded them to do. Jesus says GO; but Francis says NO.

This is on top of what he had previously pronounced as to how salvation is obtained: “No one becomes Christian on his or her own! Is that clear? No one becomes Christian by him- or herself. Christians are not made in a laboratory. A Christian is part of a people who comes from afar. The Christian belongs to a people called the Church and this Church is what makes him or her Christian, on the day of Baptism, and then in the course of catechesis, and so on. But no one, no one becomes Christian on his or her own…There are those who believe they can maintain a personal, direct and immediate relationship with Jesus Christ outside the communion and the mediation of the Church. These are dangerous and harmful temptations” (Pope Francis’ address to audience at Vatican, June 25, 2014). He later declared that Jesus was a sinner and a failure. But Jesus, speaking to His disciples on the night before He was crucified, made the way of Salvation absolutely clear: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). The apostle Peter, to whom Francis claims be a successor, boldly objected to a directive to deny this truth. He emphatically proclaimed before the Jewish leaders, “Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Furthermore, Jesus’ counsels to all is to learn more about Him by the personal study of His word. His admonition is, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me” (John 5:39). The apostle Paul, following his Savior’s example, writes, “And that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:15-17).

But the Jesuit pope of Rome vehemently disagrees. He proclaims that the Bible is a very dangerous book. Further, he refers to those who follow the word of God as fundamentalists and terrorists. In an address to the leaders of the world’s largest religions in Assisi, he emphasized, “Fundamentalism is always a tragedy. It is not religious, it lacks God, it is idolatrous”. Essentially, he thinks that it is a disease to accept and practice what God has said in His word; except of course, if you believe and practice his interpretation of what God says.  He further asserted that people who rigidly follow the law of God are ‘sick’ and they should not be tolerated.

Following along his course of diverting men’s minds away from what Jesus and the other prophets taught, Pope Francis recently urged that the faithful should ‘not to be driven by end-times curiosities or apocalyptic preachers’. He exclaimed, “Those who follow Jesus pay no heed to prophets of doom, the nonsense of horoscopes, or frightening sermons that distract from the truly important things” (cruxnow.com, November 14, 2016). But who are those prophets of doom and apocalyptic preachers to whom Francis is referring? The answer is anyone who holds the Bible as their only source of faith, morals and practice. Because, by thus doing, they come to a knowledge of what Francis and his church truly are and what is their real position and purpose in these closing scenes of earth’s history.

And, what have some of the preachers of doom and apocalyptic prophets said that makes Francis so angry? The apostle Paul calls him the man of sin and the son of perdition who seeks to take the place of God in the world and in men’s hearts. (2 Thessalonians 2 3-4). The ancient seer Daniel forewarned of their blasphemous nature, persecuting character, and boastful claim to change God’s law (Daniel 7:25). Daniel further prophesied of the deceptive nature and fierce opposition of Francis’ organization to the person of Jesus Christ (Daniel 8:23-25). John the Revelator not only agrees with Daniel and Paul, but he reveals that Francis’ church is empowered by and is working on behalf of the devil, even as almost the whole world becomes mesmerized by him (Revelation 13:1-4).

Francis’ fear of and attack on his so-called preachers of doom and apocalyptic prophets are based upon the power of God’s word which would enlighten men and women to God’s truth and urge them to reject the diabolical deceptions he is peddling to the world (Revelation 14:6-12). His popular call for unity for the ‘common good’ is in fact a proposition to reject Jesus’ great commission and adopt the perilous traditions of his church. Ironically, he couches his malignant poisons in the name of Jesus. But you need not be deceived. Jesus says GO, Francis says NO. Choose Jesus.