North New South Wales Conference

Justin Torossian

Wars and Rumors of Wars

Is the War Bigger Than You Think?

Lyle Southwell

Is Peace Really Possible?

Is Christianity the Religion of War?

Revelation 16 has a fascinating prophecy in verse 13, the Bible says, and I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet. They are the spirits of bevels working miracles, which go forth to the Kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather the world together for the battle of the great day of God almighty notice that we have here, religious powers, drag and beast, false prophet, going out to political powers, the Kings of the world to gather the world together at the end of time, that indicates that what we have is religion behind the scenes driving politics. Or we could say we have prophesied a religious power that will work behind the scenes to incite the political leaders of the world to go to war. So we nice ask ourselves what has been the involvement of religion in war throughout history? Is this an accurate prophecy? And does it relate to our day Arm is being used by the church, goes back a very long way. Indeed. In 5 0 8 Clovis king of the Franks converted to Christianity during a desperate encounter on the battlefield. And then he bequeathed his army to the service of the church, using it to fight the theological enemies of the church. Specifically people who rejected the Godhead in 5 38, the Roman general Bella area drove the Ostrogoths from Rome deposed to depose the otro goth appointed Pope and replace him with one appointed by the Eastern Roman empire. The church in the wilderness, a term used to describe many groups of Bible believing peace, loving Christians in many parts of the world faced nearly a millennia of crusades before the period of the reformation rising in the sixth century, Islam proclaimed an Abrahamic religion free of idolatry. It went on to be an aggressive religion that also faced the great crusades brought upon it by the Western church in the 16th century, the great reformation produced Protestantism, and yet more crusades. In fact, some historians estimate that 150 million people died as a direct result of war and persecution instigated just by the Vatican during this era. But today let's talk about what we call the Northern crusades, a history less well known to us in the west than the crusades in the holy land. And to understand these conflicts, we must understand the history of Russia and Ukraine. When we think of the Vikings, we typically think of the north men from Scandinavia moving out across the sea in their powerful cl constructed Viking ships, either under the power of wind or banks of rowers. We think of them raid the coast of the United Kingdom, France, Spain, forming colonies. As far south as Italy. We remember their exploration and colonization of Iceland, Greenland and Canada. However, we don't always think of their Eastwood expansion. The Viking ship with its rows of awes and shallow draft was perfectly fitted for rating up the greatest rivers of Europe that now flow through modern day Russia. What red blooded golden head Viking would resist the opportunity to raid the wealth of the east. The north raid is in the east rather than being called Vikings by the Slavic population were called Russ, which means rowers or the men who row in 8 62, a Russ warrior by the name of Rurik became the leader of the most significant state in the region. At the time, the novel garage Republic, his son IVA oror rated further south and conquered Keve formed what became known as Kevan. Russ Kevan. Russ grew so much in power that at its height, it RD and even attempted to conquer both the Byzantine and Persian empires in 1988, a Viking by the name of Vladimir the great was ruling Kean Russ and decided that it was time to change his religion. Up until this point, the Eastern Vikings had served the Baltic SL God parent, who was essentially a Northern version of bail, Vladimir investigated the major religions of the day, Latin right Christians or Roman Catholicism, Greek, right? Christians, orthodoxy, Islam, and Judaism. He bypassed the local church and the wilderness already in existence within his own region as lacking in political influence. He was initially attracted to the 72 virgins of his land, but was not prepared to give up pork and alcohol Judaism placed great emphasis on their land, but had lost that land for many centuries so that it just didn't look right. Roman Catholicism made the boldest claims of being the only authoritative religion. It was far away an idolatrous with its many images. Greek orthodoxy was a larger denomination and was geographically close and made for a natural Alliance with Byzantium. The deal was sweetened with a marriage to the TW 27 year old sister of the Byzantine emperor as all the second. This was the first time a Byzantine Imperial princess had been married to a barbarian ruler, despite the strenuous efforts of Christian Kings in Germany, France, and other places being of Byzantine Imperial blood. She became the first or queen of Kivan Russ on the new couple's arrival back in Kiev Vladimir and Anna began a vigorous Christianization of the Russian people. This involved destroying the images and worship worship centers of parent and baptizing the entire population under the threat of making themselves enemies of the prince fire and sword followed through the land until the entire region had been baptized and accepted. The Orthodox faith. The rights of the church were translated and written using the CLIC characters, giving the church a distinctly SL favor, but not long after this in 10 54, the great schism shook the world with the Latin right church forming the Roman Catholic church and the Greek right church is breaking away and forming the larger Eastern Orthodox church. One of the main issues causing the divide was the issue of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome for the east. The primacy, the primary Bishop or patriarch was considered to be the first among equals. What's called a primacy of honor in the west, the Pope or the father was the representative of Christ on earth as such. He could claim nothing less than a primacy of authority. His word when spoke at exedra on issues of dogma was infallible, irre reformable and binding on all Christians. The bishops could only be appointed by him and gain their legitimacy only by their connection to the Pope. The Vatican was incensed that their primacy had been rejected and the schism began a war that has not stopped from that day to this and is central to the existing conflict. Today. When we think of the crusades, we typically think of the seven or eight wars fought to capture and hold Jerusalem for Christianity and entirely Northern Northern crusade to bring the Orthodox church back to Rome. This series of wars extended for a period of nearly 400 years and included attacks on pagans as well as Orthodox Christians relief finally came when the great Protestant reformation broke out and the attention of the church became focused closer to home with wars such as the Huai crusades, taking place in Bohemia. However, the division and the hatred caused by these wars only deepened the divide between Eastern and Westin Christian and Western Christianity in more modern times in 1853 war broke out between the two churches in what we call the crime war, Roman Catholics asserted, sovereign authority over all Christians, including those in Palestine. They were backed by France in the UK with the rights of the Orthodox Christians in that region being backed by Russia. The conflict quickly escalated to all out conflict between the great powers in crimee possibly. No war has been fought with greater confusion of purpose or more notoriously incompetent butchery, a little further along halfway through world war I. Another opportunity briefly appeared on the horizon. The Zas were fanatically Orthodox and had a long memory of the many attacks and abuses. Russia had suffered at the hands of Catholic nations, trying to defeat her for the church. However, by 1917, Rasha had become deeply divided and unstable. She was gridlocked with Germany and the bull SHS were rising to power. Len the leader of the bull SHS of course, was exiled trapped in Switzerland, but maybe if he could return, communism could be used to bring down the Orthodox church Len's journey in a sealed train through enemy Germany, a nation that had every motivation. If they caught him to execute him on the spot is one of the great conspiracies of all time. And its architect was none other than Diego VA Bergen German ambassador to the Vatican of all men. Diego Von Bergen was probably the most qualified for arranging the journey. He was a devout Roman Catholic trained in Jesuit schools, and he seems to have possessed an instinctive understanding of the revolutionary mind. One of his special functions in the foreign office was to study the possibilities of sabotage and some version and vast sums of money were made available to him for this purpose. He knew everything that there was to be known about Lenon and was only waiting to spring the trap on Russia within days of Len arriving in Russia and lighting the revolution on fire, new events were happening in Portugal to add weight to the overthrow of the Orthodox church on the 13th of May, 19 17, 3 children in Fatma, Portugal received visions. They believed to be from Mary, the mother of Jesus. And in one of those visions, Mary supposedly called for the consecration of Russia to her immaculate heart. If my requests are heated, Russia will be converted in the end. My imaculate heart will triumph. The holy Pope will consecrate Russia to me and she shall be converted. The timing was perfect, but fell flat when atheist Leonard decided he valued the gold, that could be supplied by the Orthodox church. More than the moral support of the Catholic church, his persecution of Catholicism was instantaneous brutal and without restraint, this was an insult. The Catholic church would not soon forget, but soon a new power began to rise in Europe. And the people NIO to Germany, Cardinal Patel was quick to realize its potential Adolph Hitler had Russia just as firmly in his sights as the Vatican. And when Hitler embarked on operation Barbara Rossa the invasion of Russia and act by the way, which resulted in the death of 20 million people, Cardinal patella now hope PAs, the 12th praised Hitler's move as high minded gallantry in defense of the foundations of Christian culture, a German Bishop enthusiastically called it a European crusade and a mission similar to that, of the, to Knight in the Northern crusades. And just in case you are wondering exactly what was meant by that. We didn't only look at what happened in Yugoslavia when Germany and Italy set up an access controlled puppet state separatists known as the Ushi under the leadership of an Pavlich, the, the Croatian Fuer embarked on a campaign of enforced conversion, deportation and mass extermination targeting a population of 2.2 million Orthodox Christians in a typical act of atrocity, a band of U STARI rounded up 331 Orthodox in a place called autotech. The victims were forced to dig their own graves before being hacked to death with axes, the local priest was forced to recite the prayers for the dying while his son was chopped to pieces before his eyes, then the priest was tortured. His hair in beard were torn off. His eyes were gouged out. Finally, he was skinned alive. The very next month boat PIAs, the 12 hosted Pavich at the Vatican in all nearly half a million Orthodox Christians were massacred. All the while a close relationship was maintained between the Aachi regime and the Catholic bishops with a constant flow of information about the Macers massacres being fed back to Pope P the 12th who continued to extend warm wishes to the USI leadership. An understanding of this centuries old conflict helps us to understand why that on learning of the death of Adolf Hitler, Archbishop Adolf, Bertram of Berlin ordered all the priests to these arch diocese to hold a solemn Requiem mass in memory of the Fuer. Truly history is dark with stories. We like to forget. Now we move on to the cold war and what is according to time magazine, the greatest conspiracy of the modern age, the Alliance between Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan to bring down communist Russia. The Vatican had long studied the Eastern block countries and recognized that if they could energize the population of a Catholic communist country like Poland, they could possibly light a spark that would white hand the entire system and bring it crashing down the 26th of August, 1978, Pope John Paul, I first was elected and then mysteriously died just 33 days later. The conclave met again. And then for the first time, since 1523, elected a non Italian Pope this time a Polish Pope from the Eastern block who became hope, John Paul II. Now John Paul II was dedicated to the worship of Mary and fully committed to the fulfillment of her aims in relation to Russia, as outlined in the Fatma visions. When Reagan came to power, he broke with entrenched us policy to form an Alliance with the Vatican. This policy had been in place since the late 18 hundreds. When Pope passed the ninth and Pope Leo, the 13th had both written errors and encyclicals against freedom of religion. As in front enshrined in the us constitution, the Reagan Vatican Alliance combined the information technology of the United States with the information gathering ability of the church to energize the population of communist countries and orchestrate the complete collapse of Soviet Russia. Since that time during what many have called the great peace, the acumenical movement has been extensively used to try and bring Orthodox Christianity back to the mother church, but as yet met with only modest success, but have people forgotten the abuses and injustices of the past and do these deeply held conflicts still exist? Do these religions still play a role in armed conflict? Well, to answer that question, all we need to do is to look at the more recent conflict that tore Yugoslavia apart. Simply ask yourself which side did the Vatican and other churches take in that conflict and why which brings us to the present conflict. Conflict is no secret. That Putin is deeply committed to the Orthodox church. Russia became militarily involved in Ukraine in 2014, in 2016, Putin unveiled the statue in Moscow of Saint Vladimir. The great remember he was the Viking ruler of Kiev who forced the Slavic people to convert to Christianity. Clearly this was a typically Putin ask provocative move as the Ukrainian claim, Saint Vladimir, as their patron, Saint and founder of their Ukrainian church, not the Russian church. And so in response in 2019, the Ukrainian Orthodox church broke away from the Russian Orthodox church and established full communion with the Roman Catholic church. And a couple of days ago with Russia, deep into its full scale invasion of the Ukraine. Pope Francis described Ukraine as a martyred nation and in a completely unprecedented mood dispatched to S to the country, as his personable, as his personal representatives. Now Pope choose their words very, very carefully when they make speeches. So what exactly does he mean by calling Ukraine a Marty nation? Well, a Marty is a person who gives their life for their faith. If the Ukraine is a Marty nation, then Francis has very clearly chosen and stated his side while claiming that Ukraine is a country that is being destroyed because of its faith because of its religion. In other words, he has called this a religious war. And if it is a religious war, what are the two sides? Once again, Roman Catholic and Orthodox a conflict that's a thousand years old and just refuses to go away. And so the wheel of history continues to evolve repeating itself over and over. And again, and while we refuse to learn from our mistakes, we have to ask ourselves is the Ukrainian war purely a religious war? Well, far from it, these issues are far too complex for that, but make no mistake, religion that has nothing to do with the religion of Jesus is a significant driving force. Once again, just as the Bible said, it would be, how is it that the followers of the prince of peace and the one who said my servants will not fight. And th out not kill seem to be unable to refrain from war surely nothing more clearly illustrates the utter brokenness of human nature than the senselessness of war in contrast to the peace of Jesus. Of course, Jesus saw all of this. He was not ignorant of what people would do Justin, as mentioned the prophecies that Jesus made of wars and rumors of wars in John 16 in verse two, Jesus goes further describing professed, Christians, killing other Christians and all in the name of Christ. Christians fighting Christians. Jesus saw it all. Thankfully, all of this will soon come to an end. Jesus will return and eradicate evil and establish a government of peace and love. The Bible tells us that evil will never return suffering pain and death will be gone. Forever. Families torn apart by conflict will be reunited together. Again, hearts and minds will be healed from the trauma that this world has produced. The Bible says the Wolf and the lamb shall feed together. The lion will straw like the bullet and dust will be the S meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain. There shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying. Neither shall there be any more pain for the former things have passed away. And the city, the new Jerusalem has no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it for the glory of God. And the lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of those which are saved shall walk in the light of it. And the Kings of the earth will bring their honor into it. And the gates shall not be shut at all for there shall be no night there and there shall in no way enter into it. Anything that defiles, neither, whatever makes abomination or a lie, but those which are in the lambs book of life, friend, don't you want to have your name written in the lambs book of life, the lamb who died for you as the prince of peace. I don't know about you, but the history of the Christian Church, the wars that have been fought, the persecutions that have gone out and the people who have stood for their faith is a history that I find both fascinating at times, horrifying and always inspiring. If you would like to know more about the history that we've just sort of scratched the surface off in this presentation, we would like to make a free offer to you. This book, the great controversy goes through the last 2000 years of Christian history. It talks about the great Protestant reformation, which broke out across Western Europe. It talks about the church in the wilderness that existed previous to that. It talks about the persecutions. It talks about the faith of the martyrs, and it brings us through the, to the triumph of the return of Jesus Christ. We would like to make this book available to you simply text the number on your screen, the word war, and you will receive your copy of the great controversy entirely for free.

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Wars and Rumors of Wars

Is Christianity the Religion of War?

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Is the War Bigger Than You Think?

Is Peace Really Possible?

Is Christianity the Religion of War?

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