Peter Herbeck - Recent Popes on the Signs of the Times

[Music] [Music] hello friends this is Peter Herbeck I hope you're at this video finds you at peace in Christ through these ongoing challenging times that we're living in I want to talk today about a themes that some themes that build on some of the videos Ralph Martin and I have been doing over the last few weeks Ralph did two videos on prophecies that father Michael Scanlon gave I did a video on one that prophecy that Ralph gave in 1975 at Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome at an international meeting that was attended by Pope Paul the sixth and both of them talked about a time of judgment battle between darkness and light and I don't want to review those again but I do want to talk about a key theme that under understanding the church's mind about the time we're living and having the big picture I think those prophecies kind of fit into the larger picture of how the church understands the times that we're living in and it's a time both of the spirit but it's also a time of great battle and trial a particular the work of the enemy it's still fear in human hearts and to lead us into deception and I want to talk a little bit about both that the role of the Holy Spirit and the battle for truth and the devil's strategy to lead us into deep deception start with the Catechism paragraph 670 so since the Ascension since the Ascension of Jesus God's plan has entered into its fulfillment we are already in the last hour the final age of the world is with us Christ's Kingdom already manifests itself its presence through the miraculous signs that attend its proclamation by the church so the the reality that Jesus has ascended to the right hand of the Father he's entered into glory the new creation has begun in him he's poured out the Holy Spirit the church is born and his kingdom power and life is manifested in many ways through the church and one of those the Catechism tells us is signs and wonders the workings of the Holy Spirit the presence and power of the Spirit paragraphs 672 it says according to the Lord the present time is the time of the Spirit and of witness it's the time of the Holy Spirit and a time of witness but it's also a time marked by distress and the trial of evil which does not spare the church and uh sure Zinn the struggles of the last days it is a time of waiting and watching there's a lot in that paragraph it's a time of the spirit that is the the Great Pentecost began really the the last hour then the the when Joel said the Holy Spirit will be poured out on all flesh and God's antidote God's solution to the human problem to the the battle is against the world of flesh and the devil even the battles of the last and the end times the skirt as the Catechism will even talk about here the ushering in those final trials God's solution is already given the victory has been won in Jesus Christ Jesus has been glorified humanity's future those who died in crisis absolutely assured and the Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead has been given to us now what the devil wants us to do is to lose hold of that lose sight of that and get us caught and trapped in deception being overwhelmed by the trials and the struggles and begin to conform to his world view instead of the Lord's narrative and what's meant to be in the hearts and minds of baptized Catholics and Christians who are alive in Christ right so Jesus says a lot I just want to mention something that Pope Benedict said is he well he was Pope read some of the signs of the times did pope john paul ii called it the we entered the final confrontation between the gospel the anti gospel between the church in the anti church st. john paul said and this battle lies in the plans of divine providence it's there and all of us now are called to enter into this battle i think that some of what we've been talking about we've been experiencing and the intensification of the battle between darkness and light in the culture i always thought this was very insightful i think in a previous video i touched on this a little bit open at the 16th said in our days when in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuels so the light of faith in significant parts is going out and how he describes that the the cause of that word comes from the root of it he said is the real problem at this moment in our history is that God is disappearing from the human horizon and with the dimming of the light which comes from God humanity is losing its bearings with increasingly evident and destructive effects so what he's saying is that I mean God isn't deciding to leave the scene God God ultimately never leaves but when humanity pushes God from the human horizon when man especially the kings of the earth and you know all the masters of the universe wanted to find reality and insist on a reality that makes no reference to God and and wants to put God in Eclipse as it will darkness comes on the human mind it's inevitable there's there's a the light of God and anybody who turns from God is gonna walk in darkness it's just reality though presently again the wise of the world deny that but it's true and Pope Benedict is pointing it out and he's saying as a result when the light of God goes out when humanity loses sight of who God is we lack a healthy on fear of God we lose sight of who we are we lose our identity we get confused and then we get into this place where we displace God we become masters we have to start creating all that right we have to create our own identity and self creation is the name of the game I'm my own master I'm my own God on the source of my own truth all those kinds of things which you we've all heard deep down in every human heart we know that's not enough because it's we know that if we made it up we might beat our chest and say I'm free and I can make all that up and no one's gonna tell me I can't and are quieter moments our conscience is helping us say look if you made it up it's make-believe and that's a thin rate to lean on it's not enough it's part of the suppression of the truth about God and God's Authority and the reign of his son and our create being created by him and living from him and through him and Pope Benedict goes on to describe at a retreat he gave kind of how this works I find this really amazing and this is important to see this is an enlightened and a renewed here he calls this suppression of the truth the constant kind of perversion that's in man to deny his own roots in the own sand the source of his own being so he can have thrown himself fall to the deception of the enemy that somehow I am my own Creator right so he says this general perversion extends to all fields of life once it's given freedom and there's no resistance from man living in the light of God it starts touching every area of life entertainment education politics all that he says then what is unnatural becomes normal the person who lives against the truth also lives against his own nature people's power of invention no longer serves what is good but the ingenuity and the refinement of evil so you start the person lives against truth associate lives against his own nature when our minds are darkened we begin to lose sight of our own nature God when we deny and suppress the truth about the designer we lose sight of the design the one who gave it purpose we lose the sense of its purpose and its order in its meeting that's the cost of suppressing the truth and being my own creator of it he said the relationship between man and wife between parents and children is dissolved and in this way the sources of life are blocked up it's no longer life that reigns but death a civilization of death has become established and I think we see that in many ways in our own culture he goes on truth itself is far distant it doesn't show its power but the opinion of men and women is there and it becomes dominant I think that characterizes our culture in many ways if the opinions of men every night every news station every opinion every social everybody's got the opinion and there you know there again beating their chests and asserting their opinion in their will and it becomes dominant so one begins to follow it instead of following the truth of God man fears the close at hand appearance of human opinion more than the distant powerless light of truth when we suppress the truth about God we lose the healthy really pure wonderful gift of the fear of God that orders us keeps us ordered to reality and gives us great courage to walk in it we then begin to fear men the the designer is the people of power and influence and with the loudest voices and he says the appearance of the power of human opinion we fear that more than we fear the power of the light of God's truth so people bow to the power of opinion and become its allies and its bearers that's happening everywhere so people bow to the power of opinion become its bearers and its allies and bearers they become the slaves of appearance once they've begun to become involved with it they must go on following it step by step this is a great line very insightful line right here this is a gun a renewed mind they can indeed no longer break from the net of shared pretense there's a shared pretense a a collective deceit believing all these lies suppressing the truth about God refusing to acknowledge his greatness in His Majesty marginalizing his word suppressing it and raising up a whole different worldview and a different truth centered in man himself opinion an untruth gains domination untruth human opinion will gain domination the entire life of a society political as well as personal decisions can in this way rest in a dictatorship of untruth we insist that you believe this if you don't believe this you're a hater you're a bigot and no one wants to have an argument a healthy argument and to discuss these things in a rational way it's all it's all the imposing of will I assert my truth and if you don't affirm my truth that means you're a hater and you're a bigot and you must be suppressed that's kind of what he's getting at here this dictatorship that dominates a dictatorship of how things are presented and reported instead of reality itself an entire society can thus fall from the truth into a shared deceit into a slavery of untruth that's right where we are friends it's a deception it's deceiving us to sit this to believe that our hope is in our own power to self create our own freedom my own total self mastery my radical autonomy from any kind of natural law any kind of revelation of God that's it that's the big deception in the line and the scripture talks about it Jesus talks about it especially at the end times that's gonna rise a great deal when the man of lawlessness arises when that time comes one of the things he's going to do is lead people into great deception of suppressing the truth they're gonna we're gonna give over the truth about God and that our dignity our good our happiness is found in following the commandments of God and we're gonna give in to the suppression of truth and fall to deception and find our life and seek our life and pleasure is what it said they exchanged the truth of God for a lie that whole thing that's really going on in a major way in our culture one of the reasons the judgment of God is here and this in a redemptive discipline is on the church is that the Lord exposes the emptiness of the idols that people are giving their whole heart soul and mind to so he brings them down and exposes their emptiness and in the church itself holding on to deceptions accommodating itself to the world he exposes all that emptiness - which is one of the reasons why the church is experiencing you know big financial class people leaving the church seeming like there's hardly any solutions and the rest of the - the problems the attempt to the attempts to accommodate to the world they're not working they're not working and the Lord is allowing us to experience the things that were the powerlessness of the things that the church herself is leaning on in many ways so here's that battle it's interesting Pope Francis even weighed in to this in some ways a while back when he talked about dialing it even more specifically to this kind of deception of untruth being forced to accept untruth he said today the whole world is at war trying to destroy marriage not with arms but with ideas the great enemy of marriage today is gender Theory certain ideologies that destroy marriage the deconstruction of marriage the deconstruction of human sexuality the deconstruction of human identity the definition of male and female it the cultures insisting on it and and now they find God more and more voices are rising they find God's way of thinking they are offended by it they can say put God in the dock and they stand in judgment over God's order in God's way he's not worthy of being followed his ways are not worthy he's not good or he doesn't even exist or it's a lie it's submit those are the battles and that's gonna keep increasing but the power of God is going to keep increasing in those who hear the Lord now when the Lord is in this time of Cobra remember we talked many times of this being a time of the Lord saying be still and know that I'm God come to me learn from me now I'm gentle and humble of heart I'm meek and humble of heart come and learn bare my yoke don't be afraid of anybody or anything because the power that was in me that's in me I'm giving to you you have nothing to be afraid of but be watchful be alert don't be surprised by the trial but come to me I'll strengthen you so listen to some of the things he says about the Holy Spirit he's telling the apostles this is the Last Supper discourse in John's Gospel he said and I will ask the Father so when he get when he's at the right hand of the Father in heaven he will give you another counselor to be with you for ever underline this friends he himself the Lord is going to give give us a counselor to be with us forever looks like my battery's going dead here I should have plugged it in I will not leave you desolate but he's going to send us the Holy Spirit he said let not your hearts be troubled neither let them be afraid don't let your hearts be troubled because he's given you the counselor chapter 16 he said that I will I will send a counselor to you and when he comes he will convince the world that it's sin and righteousness he'll bring the truth he's called the Spirit of Truth he's going to expose the ruler of this world and he's going to reveal the majesty and glory of Jesus to human hearts and when that happens you're not going to be afraid of anything the Lord wants you to start crying out for even right now he says in verse 12 when they're 13 when the spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all truth for he will not speak on his own authority but whatever he hears for me he will speak and he'll glorify Jesus in us so the enemy tries to deceive us and lead us away from truth Jesus has given us the Spirit of Truth and that spirit is going to give us the power the transformational grace to live through any kind of trial in peace walking and meekness and holiness confidence and courage that's what's here that's why the Catechism so clear this is a time of the Spirit so we can bear witness not to fear to draw back the enemy wants to deceive us to attack us to get us to give up to give in to surrender and the spirits within us if we listen this is why it's so important to come away with the Lord every day to abide in him and and come and hear the voice of the Spirit through God's Word to the teaching of the church through the grace of the sacraments through His presence in you you're a temple of God there's no greater power in the universe in the power that's in you and the Lord wants to give us a peace that cannot be taken away and a confidence and the courage and a capacity to live through and to lead and to be witnesses at this time nothing to fear friends he said it to us again and again but be of good cheer because he's overcome the world overcome all our enemies and he's given us the Spirit of Truth to lead us into truth we just simply need to obey the Spirit of God step by step and the Lord is gonna use us he's he's placed you here in this hour because he's appointed you to bear fruit and if you're in the spirit and abiding in him and fully living in the spirit of god you're gonna bear fruit and it's gonna echo into eternity forever god bless your friends have a great day [Music]

Channel: Renewal Ministries

Views: 14,681

Rating: 4.9808917 out of 5

Keywords: Christianity, Jesus, Christ, Evangelism, Mission, Spirituality, Evangelization, Religion, Catholic, Church, God, Trinity

Id: Yb-NPgakqYo

Length: 17min 55sec (1075 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 01 2020