- Many souls are going to hell
because of sins of the flesh. We're living in a culture that
glamorizes sins of the flesh, calls them normal,
calls them human rights, and they're an
abominations of The Lord. Can't you just feel it? The conflict is becoming
apparent in our culture. It reminds me of those
words of John Paul II we're now living in
the final confrontation between the gospel
and the anti-gospel, between the church
and the anti-church, between Christ and
the anti-Christ. And if we don't choose
to know Gods word, to believe Gods word,
to follow Gods word, we're gonna be a sitting duck
for all kinds of confusion, all kinds of disorder, those
are really important choices that people have to make. - [Peter] And these
choices are difficult, who am I gonna marry? What kind of life
am I gonna live? How am I gonna raise my kids? What am I gonna do with my
time, my talent and my treasure? And I have to make
a choice today. Jesus says to each one of us, I came that you might have
life and have it to the full. The question is do we want it? - Hey, welcome to another
week of The Choices We Face. We're doing a three
part series right now. Last week we talked about
the initial visit of Mary and the angel to the
children of Fatima. Some of the amazing
things that were revealed. This week we're gonna
continue the story. - Very good this is again, this is taken from a really
good talk that you gave in Toronto at our annual
Lift Jesus Higher Rally, and there's thousands
of people there and something happened. I think everybody
got the message in a
deeper way that day. So I'm really glad
we're showing that here. - Yeah, that's great. Let's watch it and we'll
kinda comment on it. Then Mary opened her
hands and a great light came out from her hands. One light went up to heaven
and in that light Francisco and Jacinta were in that
light heading to heaven, and another light
went down to earth and Lucy was in that light. Mary told them "I will take
Jacinta and Francisco soon, but I want you to stay
here sometime longer." It turned out to
be 87 years longer. Jesus wishes to make use of
you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish
in the world devotion to my immaculate heart. Now what does that mean
devotion to my immaculate heart? It's extraordinary that
Jesus would send his mother as a special grace, as a
special, prophetic, evangelistic messenger to give us a
chance to turn back to God, to stop offending
him, to repent. What's the immaculate
heart of Mary like? It's a heart that's purely
devoted to the will of God. It's a heart that is
completely full with love and gratitude, and praise,
and adoration for the father, son and holy spirit. It's a heart that's completely
committed to obedience to the mission of
Jesus in the world. It's a heart that's fully
cooperating with the salvific purposes of God. It's willing to come as a
special messenger to give us greater grace and greater
opportunities for our salvation and for the
salvation of the world. On July 13th the third
apparition, Mary showed them a vision of hell which
was very significant for all of them and it's
very important for all of us to pay attention to. As our lady was finishing
the prayer Lucy wrote she opened her hands as she
had done in her two previous apparition, raised the light
once again came from her hands, but what the children saw,
this is farther apostle, was far different than what they had seen the
first two times. Here's Lucia's description
of the vision of hell. The raise of light
coming from Mary's hands seem to penetrate the
earth and we saw as it were a sea of fire, plunged
in this fire were demons and souls in human form like
transparent burning embers all blackened, floating
about in the conflagration, now raised in the air in
the flames that issued from within themselves
with great clouds of smoke falling back on every side
like sparks and huge fires. Amid shrieks and groans
of pain and despair which horrified us and
made us tremble with fear. The demons could
be distinguished
by their terrifying and hell likeness to
frightful and unknown animals. Black and transparent
like burning coals. Terrified as if the pleas for
help we looked up at our lady who said to us so
kindly and so sadly, you have seen hell where the
souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes
to establish in the world devotion to my immaculate heart. If what I say to you is done,
many souls will be saved and there will be peace. Witnesses at the time who
saw them after this vision said the children's face showed
signs of terror and shock. This obviously
deeply affected them, seeing so clearly
the reality of hell, the awfulness of sin, the
ugliness of the demonic. Right now, demons appear
as angels of light. Saying oh cool,
everybody's doing it, go ahead, go along with it. Oh, everybody is gonna be
saved, God's so merciful, nobody will be lost. You're tricking Mary
because God's so loving, we're all going to heaven. Big big satanic lies
trying to lead people to destruction and disaster. I think it's extremely
significant that
in the last hundred years the Lord has seen
fit to remind us twice in very special ways
of the reality of hell. First appeared to our
lady of Fatima but then not to many years later
through Saint Faustina in section 741 of her diary, it talks about how an angel
took her on a tour of hell. Very similar description as
what we find here from Lucia. Very similar description
what happened 600 years ago with Catherine of Siena
when the Lord showed her a vision of hell. Twice in the last 100
years the Lord has seen fit to remind us in a striking
special way of what Jesus himself talks about many
many times in the gospel! But a veil has been
placed over peoples eyes so they can't hear the
words of Jesus anymore and Mary's trying to
awaken us to the truth of divine revelation,
the truth of the gospels. The truth of the
teaching of Jesus, the truth about the broad
way and the narrow way. And to wake us up
from deception, and to enlist us in
the mission of Jesus which is to seek and to
save those who are lost. Jacinta was particularly
struck by the vision of hell and hardly a day went
by where she didn't ask Lucia and Francisco,
don't forget to offer a sacrifice for souls today. At another place the
angel told the children to consol the heart of Jesus and
that in a very special way struck Francisco, and when he
learned he was gonna die soon, he said you know what? Hey, I don't need to learn
how to read or write, so I'm not going to
school anymore. (chuckles) And he hung out almost every
day in the little village church in Fatima behind the
tabernacle consoling Jesus. Just being with Jesus,
just loving Jesus, just being with Jesus. Though Lucia of course had
a long life ahead of her where she had to learn
how to read and write and she suffered tremendously. She had to leave her
village because people were flocking to her, the
bishop took her to a place where nobody was suppose
to know who she was, but people found out, were
continually hounding her and pointing her out. Religious life sometimes is
filled with disappointments and unfair things, and she
suffered from those things. And to the day her mother died, her mother didn't know
what to think about what she was experiencing. Initially, her mother
used to beat her saying stop lying, you didn't see Mary. Stop lying, that
could never happen to somebody in our family. Stop lying. She was threatened by
the local government who was anti-Catholic
at the time. He said he was gonna
put the children in a pot of boiling oil and
kill them and they thought it was happening, they took
them out one at a time, and they thought that's
what was happening. Just terrible threats and
terrible terrible persecution, terrible rejection but isn't
this what Jesus promised for those who would follow him? That the servant would
not be above the master, and that somehow even though
it looks like a very bad thing, it's a privilege to not
only believe in Jesus, to be able to suffer
for him and with him. Because in some way sacrifice
is a measure of love, right? What price are you willing
to pay for the salvation of people that you care about? What skin are you willing
to put into the game for the salvation of souls? That's why Paul said I
make up in my own body what's lacking in the
sufferings of Christ. Nothings lacking in the
sufferings of Christ but in the wisdom of God,
he's giving us the incredible dignity, the incredible
privilege of our sufferings being able to have
a meaningful role in the salvation of souls. Many people ask the children
to inter-seed with Mary for healings, for
conversions, for good jobs, for troubled marriages
and the children, Lucy would present these
petitions to our lady and it's really what
her responses were. She said this person would
be healed within a year, this person would be
healed if they first repent and go to confession
and change their life. This person won't be healed, but what I took from
that is a little glimpse into the secrets of heaven. The very hairs of our
head are numbered. The Lord personally
knows each of our life's circumstances, personally knows
what would be most helpful for our salvation and
grants requests accordingly. And that this individual
personal love and attention paid to each soul when
we send up our petitions. And the answers are
in the wisdom of God and the mercy of God. Mary though after she
gave these answers, she said pray, pray, pray
very much and make sacrifices for sinners for many souls
go to hell because there are none to sacrifice themselves
and to pray for them. The children were so
beleaguered they said please, please, tell us
who you are and give us a sign so people will
believe what we're saying. Mary said when I
come on October 13th, I will reveal who I am
and I will give a sign that everybody will know
that this is from God. October 13th comes,
there's about 70,000 people within a 20 mile
radius that are there. It's raining, people
are wet and soggy, the mud is thick and
all of a sudden at noon, Lucy shouts out "Put down
your umbrellas, she's coming!" and she looked to the east and
Mary's coming from the east. Many many people saw a light. Many many people
saw the tree rustle. Many many people saw some
indication of Mary's presence there and for a while Mary
was showing the children things that nobody
else could see. She revealed herself as
our Lady of the Rosary, our Lady of Mount Carmel,
our Lady of Sorrows. Jesus appeared with Saint
Joseph blessing the people. Jesus blessed the
people himself. It was just like a
heavenly slideshow. It was like heaven was showing
itself in an amazing way, and people who have meditated
on what the children were seeing related to the
mysteries of the rosaries. The sorrowful mysteries,
the joyful mysteries, and the glorious mysteries. So it's just deep meaning
in all these things that have happened just like
with our Lady of Guadalupe, there's so much meaning in
the image that Mary left us. Then at a certain point the
sun began to spin in the sky and people were covered
with rays of colored light, blue, and red, and
green, and yellow, it was just like a kaleidoscope
people described it. And then at a certain point
the sun began to plunge towards the earth and
people began to feel like the end of the world was at
hand and they began to publicly confess their sins, they
began to ask God for mercy and forgiveness, they began
to shout out their sins. And then the sun went
back to its normal place and everybody was dry,
and Cardinal Medeiros used to be Archbishop of Boston
a couple of cardinals ago, wrote a book on Portugal, he
himself came from Portugal and knew Portuguese and talked to
all the people who were there, and he said after the
miracle of the sun, it's like after Pentecost. Heaven had revealed itself
and souls had been filled with faith, and hope,
and love, and joy and they went back with
a profound conviction of the truth of the gospel
message and the importance of repenting and
leading a holy life. Like a post Pentecostal Grace. Well, I want to end now
in 10 or 15 minutes. I got till 9:15, yes, 10:15
and I want to just share a few things that most
struct me that we can kinda take home with us. What most struck me reading
Lucy's memoirs and that's the most touching thing I've seen
on Fatima, her own words. We have copies out there
on the table where Lucy was asked by a bishop
to write down everything she could remember
about Jacinta, everything she could
remember about Francisco, everything she could remember
about the angel and about Mary and just hearing it first
hand has a power to it that people writing about
it, they add useful insight but it's not the same. So when I read that and
when my wife and myself were in Fatima this past
September and I visited the graze of the children, I just
felt like the Lord was saying Jacinta and Francisco are
important for the world today, and Lucy, just this last
year Pope Francis canonized Jacinta and Francisco
so now they're saints and that Lucy's cause of
canonization is underway, she just died 13 years ago
in 2005 at the age of 97. So, this is what struck
me about the children. First of all, Francisco. He devoted the rest of his life
to wanting to consol Jesus. People would come up to
him and ask him all kinds of questions like
Francisco what do you want to be when you grow up? We ask kids that
question a lot, right? Here's a lady talking
to him, she says "Do you want to be a carpenter?" "No ma'am" "A soldier?" "No ma'am." "Surely you'd like
to be a doctor?" "No, not that either." "I know what you'd
like to be, a priest. Then you can say
mass and preach." "No ma'am, I don't want
to be a priest either." "Well then what do
you want to be?" "I don't want to be anything. I want to die and go to heaven." When Francisco
developed the flu, the Spanish flu was sweeping
the world at the time. Millions and millions of
people died all over the world from this epidemic which
could reoccur at any time. Lucy said it seems like you're not feeling
well today Francisco. He said I have such a bad
headache, I feel as though I'm going to fall. Then don't come with
us, stay at home. I don't want to. I'd rather stay in the
church with the hidden Jesus while you go to school. And then one day
Lucy said Francisco, what's the favorite thing
from all of our experiences? And this is what he said. I loved seeing the angel and I love seeing
our lady even better, but what I liked best of
all was seeing our Lord in that light which our
lady put into our hearts. And this is the same
light of the holy spirit, this is the same light
of the grace of god that he puts into our hearts
and I'm praying that today the light would come
into our minds and hearts and we would see the Lord. We would see his love, we would
see the truth of his words, we would see the mercy
oh him sending Mary to us in a way that would
change our lives and make them count more for
the salvation's of souls. And then Francisco said
I love God so much, but he's so sad because
of all the sins. We mustn't commit
even the tiniest sin. So this is a call to repentance, to not give sin a
place in our soul. As Francisco's
illness intensified Lucy said are you suffering
a lot today Francisco? Quite a lot but nevermind I'm
suffering to consol our lord and afterwords within a short
time of going to heaven. Francisco very much wanted
to receive his first holy communion before he died, so he had to make
his first confession. Before he made his
first confession, he only had a day
or two to live. He said I want to go
to confession and tell, I talked to Lucia and Jacinta
and I want to ask them to tell me any sins that
they've seen me commit to make sure I cover everything. And they had a few
things to tell him. Remember when you told
a lie to that lady? Remember when you
took that apple? And he wanted to make a
good confession and he did, then he received communion
and then the next morning at 10 o'clock in the morning
Francisco said to his mother, mother look at that
lovely light by the door! It was a sign our
lady was coming to take Francisco to heaven. Jacinta, I told you something
about Jacinta's personality, but they wouldn't go by that
she wasn't terribly concerned about making
repatriation for sin and praying for the
conversion of sinners. She was so struck by
the vision of hell that her whole life was
devoted to not wanting anybody to go there. She's said, oh if people
could only see hell, they would never sin. If only people could
see sin, see hell, they would never
offend our lord. Well, she got this terrible
flu too and it turned into pleurisy and she had to
go to a regional hospital. While there they did a surgery
that wasn't successful, then she had to go to a
bigger hospital in Portugal. They had to take a couple
of ribs out to take care of some infection and she
was too weak for general anesthesia so they just
gave her a local anesthesia, which is extremely painful
and she was all by herself in the hospital but there
was an orphanage next door and the nun who ran the
orphanage would visit her often, and while she was
in the hospital, Mary would continue to
appear to her and told her some really important things. While she was in the
hospital Mary said "Words are punishment for sin. Pray the rosary every day." then she said many
souls are going to hell because of sins of the flesh. We're living in a culture that
glamorizes sins of the flesh, calls them normal,
calls them human rights, and they're an
abomination to the Lord. Lies are filling the
atmosphere telling us that it doesn't matter, sexual
morality doesn't matter, get with the times,
everybody's doing it. It does matter, First
Corinthians chapter six, Paul says don't let
anybody deceive you. The immoral will not
enter the Kingdom of God. The fornicator, the adulterer,
the person who engages in homosexual activity. The thief, the robber,
the sorcerer, the drunkard will not enter the
Kingdom of God. And this is in isolated text. Galatians chapter five; I
warn you as I warn you before that those who do these
things will not enter the Kingdom of God. Or Ephesians chapter
five, the impure man will have no inheritance in
the Kingdom of God and because of these sins the wrath of God
is breaking out on the world. We are fools if we believe
the lies of our culture, rather than the holy
word of God come into us in sacrad scripture and
being reminded to us in the merciful
sending of Mary to us, to remind us the truth
of the scripture. Mary also told Jacinta when
she was in the hospital that in the future fashions
will come and become very popular that will
very much offend the Lord. We're living in Sodom
and Gomorrah once again. We're living in a time of
corruption and devastation and we need to hold
fast to the word of God and to the light of God,
and the truth of God, and take seriously into our
hearts like these children did. The request that Mary is making
for the salvation of souls and for the peace of the world. Jacinta dies, she's buried,
eventually both their bodies are brought to Fatima and
buried in a church yard there. Then eventually they're
brought to Basilica in Fatima when Jacinta's tomb was open,
she was incorrupt and now they're all three there now
in the Basilica of Fatima. I think the lord wants us
to respond to the message of the gospel and the
message of Mary like these three children did, they got it. They got what's really
going on in the world. They got that it's all about
the salvation of souls. They got the merciful good
news that we can make a difference by offering the
suffering that comes our way for reparation for
sin and salvation, and the conversion of sinners, and that we can make
voluntary sacrifices, and we can pray the rosary
everyday and that makes a difference in the world, and it makes a difference
in peoples lives. Please join Jesus, please
respond to the message of Mary. For the sake of our countries,
for the sake of those we love and the salvation of the souls. You know Peter, last
week and this week, we just heard a lot of
stuff and I know we have a lot of things to say about it. So I think we gotta, next week, devote on unpacking what we
heard these last two weeks. So hey, come back next week. The Choices We Face,
same time, same place because there's a lot
of stuff we gotta unpack from what we just heard. - Yeah, there's just so much
that has been downloaded from heaven about the times
we live in and what God wants us to know about
what's really important. I'm very encouraged
by how simple God is. Let me put it this way, he's
profoundly beyond understanding but he relates to us with
such simplicity 'cause that's, we make things much more
complicated than they need to be is my point and Jesus is
saying it's so simple. A child can receive it and
Mary herself as we've talked about in the past was a
child herself when the most important significant moment
in the history of God's working in his creation
was taking place. He entrusted all
to a young girl. - Yeah, the whole planets
salvation was offered to a young teenager. Sorta just like what's
happening here in Fatima, young children are being asked, would you be willing
to let something unfold through your life that's
important for the world? We got a lot more to
talk about, Peter. I look forward to next week. Hey, I wrote the booklet
which of all things is called Mary's Mission, Our Response. And it's really important to
understand what her mission is and how's drawing us to
Jesus through repentance, through conversions, the
holiness, to evangelization, but it's also really
important to understand what our response should be. So we'd like to make this
booklet available to you. If you go to our website
renewalministries.net and click on free booklet,
we'll get it right off to you and you'll find lots of other
good stuff there as well. You can actually get a
video of what we just saw today and last week. You can get a wonderful
radio interview that Peter and I did on the
whole message of Fatima, there's all kinds
of resources there. So until next week, this
Ralph Martin and Peter Herbeck saying please be back because
we're just beginning to talk about the incredible
significance of
what we just seen and heard through
Mary at Fatima. At times we break crisis for
the church and for humanity. God has sent a very
special messenger, when the new world is not
responding to the gospel, he sent Mary at Guadalupe. When atheism was aggressively
growing in Europe, he sent Mary at Lourdes and the
living waters began to flow. When perhaps the greatest
crisis began to unfold, the domination of the world
by an atheistic materialism which is still growing,
he sent Mary at Fatima. The world is again in danger,
the church is again confused, and she is here
again to help us. I've written a booklet
about her and her role, and her mission today. We'd like to give it you at
no cost just for the asking. Go to our website
renewalministries.net and we'll send it
right off to you. ♪ Please pray to the heavens ♪ ♪ And my faithfulness ♪ ♪ My faithfulness
to the clouds ♪ ♪ He exhorted ♪ ♪ Whoa God ♪ ♪ Whoa ♪ ♪ My glory be yours ♪
