There Are Only Two Choices—God or the Devil

We are hearing a lot these days about the coming end of the world. I’m sure these warnings are upsetting many people. For the past couple months, Fr. Michel Rodrigue, a Catholic priest in Canada, has been warning us about the coming end times. He set a definite date, but that date has passed without incident. Sometimes God does predict a date, such as the date for the miracle of the Sun at Fatima on October 13, 1917, which always comes true.

In 1917, even though a date was set and the spectacular miracle of the sun did happen, most of the world refused to comply with Our Lady’s wishes, and, sadly, we all had to experience WWII and the rise of the Communist Empire.

In 2021, Fr. Rodrigue predicted a sign in the sky of the Resurrected Jesus on a cross blazing across the sky to appear on December 5, 2021. That would be the “sign” that was predicted earlier at Garabandal in 1965 and Medjugorje in 1982. Seeing Jesus in the sky on a cross would convince most people that this present apparition is authentic.

Six weeks for humans to contemplate

This predicted warning would be followed by six weeks for humans to ponder their fidelity to God. Then, he said, there would be “the great tribulation.”

The tribulation part of the priest’s message goes back to biblical times where Jesus told His apostles about the end of the world (Matthew 24:14). The tribulation will be marked by cataclysms in nature and wars as different nations vie for supremacy. Fr. Rodrigue predicts nuclear wars that will involve the U.S. and that one third of humankind will perish.

I have mixed opinions about this private revelation. I wonder if God really is going to end the wickedness of this world pretty much as Jesus described. The events in the world today certainly look like the human race is fast approaching a showdown with God who has always commanded that we love Him and obey Him.

The Church’s position

A big problem today is that there is no official pronouncement from Church authorities on these predictions. We all know that they have been made before. Catholic leaders have been very vocal on other concerns such as global warming, the plight of immigrants, and pollution. These concerns are valid and people should try to correct them, but they are different from direct action by God.

If someone claims God has spoken to him about coming chastisements, I think Church officials should do an investigation and have a well-thought out position on the authenticity of the predictions. Instead, the Church is mired in dealing with rogue priests, pedophiles, women priests, and disputes about which Mass is the authentic version.

When I was writing this article on March 26, 2022, Pope Francis had just consecrated Russia and Ukraine to the Virgin Mary. This is a big step in the right direction, and I applaud his decision.

Most people think Russia has been spun off from the old Soviet Union when the union dissolved in December of 1991, but Russia is still in control of much of what had been the old Soviet Union. Russia calls this new union with other nations the Russian Federation, which consists of close to 80 countries, tribes, and city states, with a grand total population of 146,510,064.

The tribulation

The tribulation will be wars among humans, all of whom will be fighting for what they want in life, none of them for what God wants. That is why the predicted tribulation is so devastating: humans want what they want, and devils are even worse. The only way for God to get what He wants is to punish the wicked as He has prophesied.

The events of the Fatima tribulation started in 1917 when the Blessed Mother spoke to the children at Fatima, warning of a godless society arising out of Russia. Today, in March 2022, we are suddenly confronted with a politically ambitious Russia. It’s the same struggle our previous generation had failed so miserably to act upon, when heeding the Blessed Mother would have led to the conversion of Russia and world peace.

It’s Russia versus God with worldly battles being fought among the strongest nations in this world: Russia (backed by China) and the US. The United States is already fatally compromised by the struggle between the progressive left and traditional Christian Americans. Make no mistake about this. It was always God versus the unrighteous, God versus the devil.

There is blatantly defiant hostility of the progressive left against fidelity to God in matters of abortion, sexuality, gender, pride distorted by feminism – you name it. These attitudes and others like them are already present in our country. This internal struggle has been going on for at least forty years within our government, beginning with Bill Clinton and continuing to the venom and hatred of the left against conservatives.

Who bears the burden of starting WWIII?

A case in point is Biden’s summit with Putin in February this year when Biden assured Putin that the US will not take military action against Russia if it invades Ukraine. Shortly after that, Russia invaded Ukraine (and continues to do so) with the most unjust and brutal ferocity imaginable, and Biden announced publicly that the US will not help Ukraine with military intervention.

I think Putin won the political showdown when Biden affirmed that the US would not get involved in military action in the event of an invasion. Biden was afraid to confront Putin because Putin has warned that he will use nuclear weapons if he felt he had to. Don’t get me wrong. I want to avoid a nuclear war as much as anybody, but if Putin chooses to launch nuclear weapons, it will be Putin not Biden who will have started a nuclear war.

Interestingly, secular writers also predict similar events. J. Michael Timothy Hays has written a series of five books entitled Rise of the New World Order warning Americans about the one world government and its agenda of bringing the whole world under the leadership of one central government. Hays describes it pretty much as the Antichrist trying to rule the world when God finally strikes him down and brings this present world to an abrupt end. He discusses many trends that I am concerned about and goes into a lot of depth as to who is behind it and how they plan to accomplish it.

Death isn’t as frightening as the unrighteous think it is

None of us want to see our loved ones die, especially innocent children. I’m close to the end of my life myself, and I have thought a lot about it. I used to be afraid of dying because it usually involves pain and, in my youth, I was worried about being condemned to hell. Now that I’m approaching death, I see that there is not much to be frightened about. Sure there is pain when the body finally separates from the soul, but after separation, there is no longer pain. There is no longer any lingering sickness, nothing that disturbs the body.

You are not only a body. Your individual person is a union of your spiritual soul and your physical body. All physical pain is gone after separation of the soul from the body. Your soul and spirit remain. They are immortal. Your body will also be immortal after the resurrection when it is cleansed and purified as befits a sovereign person created by the good God.

Innocent children, because they are innocent, are not punished by God. Instead, it is our hope that they enter directly into His heavenly kingdom and are taught by angels how to live the perfect Christian life. Many adults also pass into the heavenly kingdom after purification in purgatory. There are some who led wicked lives and refuse repentance who wind up in hell, but hopefully not many. Even that, however, is a mystery to us. We do know from scripture (2 Peter 3:9) that God wants no one to wind up in hell, wishing only that they choose to love and obey Him as He commands.

An apocalyptic scenario

My concern in 2022 is that Fr. Rodrigue did predict plagues and a war with Russia. Surprisingly, we are today very concerned with both. Coronavirus is still with us today after its initial appearance two years ago and other pandemics, like Ebola, MERS, Swine Flu, SARS, and HIV are also on the scene. Some of these may be as devastating as the Spanish Flu was 100 years ago. And Russia, following very bizarre circumstances, is now threatening us with a nuclear strike if they see our sanctions seriously weaken their country.

These events are so bizarre they seem like a story line in Action Comics instead of a real political standoff in the real world. This throws down the gauntlet again to Biden. He vowed not to get the US involved in fighting this war but now faces the dilemma of what he will have the US do if NATO and other nations think Putin must be stopped at all cost.

We are so close to WWIII that I do not know how to predict what will happen. I’m positive we need God’s intervention to save us from nuclear war. If a nuclear war does erupt as a result of this invasion, this is exactly what Fr. Rodrigue learned in his visions about a nuclear war and problems with pandemics.

It’s possible that sometime in the near future the Antichrist (possessed by Lucifer) will earn the confidence of all governments and the progressive left will take over the earth, kill opponents, which will lead to the ascent of the Antichrist and the murder of religiously-minded people who are submissive to God. And the final defiance: the Antichrist actually having this wicked human race elevate him (and Lucifer) as supreme authority on this planet.

God’s reaction to this will not take long. Suddenly the heavens will roll up like a scroll, the sun, stars and planets will disappear in a roar of flame and combustion, and a large number of human beings on earth will die. (Revelation 8 and 9 describe this vividly.)

In the end: sheep and goats

And when everything settles down, a new heaven with new stars and planets will replace the old heavens and a new earth will emerge. All human beings who have ever lived, perhaps eighty billion of them, will be present and will be sorted into two groups: the righteous and the wicked.

We may be surprised at how many people we know in this life who will be separated into the righteous side. They were always among us, but we didn’t recognize their righteousness. Don’t be surprised either by those you see among the wicked. They were always there ruining everything for others around them, but now God will no longer tolerate anybody’s deviation from His holy law. It will be a great day when God finally strengthens the righteous and punishes the wicked.

My prayer for you and for me is that both of us make use of whatever time is left to make sure that God counts us and our loved one among the righteous.