1. I accepted Fatima as more or less true most of the decades of my life.
2. No, I did not see any percentage of Fatima being true as a wholesale affirmation of the whole Vatican Institution and all it's dogma etc. . . . to put it politely.
3. Because . . . God is incredibly merciful and often meets folks where they are in spite of our silly notions and practices. Sometimes, that may appear to affirm all manner of hideous hogwash when it does not, really. It's "just" God being incredibly merciful in this or that or a few ways--regardless.
4. Satan persistently mixes truth and half-truths with lies. In terms of the Scripture about Jesus being Lord--one Pastor I had taught that the verse meant that no one can say that Jesus is Lord of THEIR lives but by Holy Spirit.
And, we have:
16And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying: 17The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. 18And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.
6. It seems to me, that the verse you cited must mean that no human mortal can say that Jesus is Lord of their life except by Holy Spirit or that no human mortal can say that Jesus is THE LORD except Holy Spirit has convincingly affirmed them of that and they have joined Holy Spirit's confirmation of that with their faith to affirm it as a reality in their life and in the universe in general.
7. We know in another passage:
Some itinerant Jewish exorcists who happened to be in town at the time tried their hand at what they assumed to be Paul's "game." They pronounced the name of the Master Jesus over victims of evil spirits, saying, "I command you by the Jesus preached by Paul!" The seven sons of a certain Sceva, a Jewish high priest, were trying to do this on a man when the evil spirit talked back: "I know Jesus and I've heard of Paul, but who are you?" Then the possessed man went berserk—jumped the exorcists, beat them up, and tore off their clothes. Naked and bloody, they got away as best they could.
9. I think the bit about God putting the millstone around His own neck is . . . nonsense on the face of it. It is akin to atheists saying that since all things were created by God, God is the author of evil.
10. I have not examined the whole of the Fatima record in terms of EVERY DETAIL and what parts I'd take as authentic representations of fact and which I would not be so eager to do that on.
11. However, assuming that your initial quote was accurate, it is not beyond my understanding of Scripture for evil forces to use such an opening to begin a seduction of a populace in that era and that place. The higher priority for those forces would have been to be seen as kosher, Christian, Roman Catholic etc. Those forces would have had the LONG term goal in mind--particularly the goal of cementing millions of people to the notion that such forces dispensed Gospel truth--when they were actually deviating ONLY SUFFICIENTLY to result in a horrible trap many decades hence.
12. By telling a very RELIGIOUS, more or less Christian population what they already knew--namely that
13. Would quite likely convince that populace . . . and evidently millions besides . . . that the forces involved were Godly and spoke total truth. What better way to set a RELIGIOUS or spiritual populace up for subtle seduction--particularly over a considerable to lengthy period of time?
14. Again, Fatima being true had no real bearing, to me, on the validity of the whole Vatican Institution and still doesn't. As I've noted, GOD IS INCREDIBLY MERCIFUL in spite of a LOT of our silly notions and practices.
15. ACTUALLY, the messages of Fatima have paralleled a long list of such messages from UFO critters in varous formats, venues, charicterizations, details etc.
16. If one compiles a lot of them together, few of them agree on varying details of varying significance.
17. However, most of them speak of the world headed for chastisement; a NEW AGE; a NEW WORLD ORDER once the 'evil' has been expunged, dealt with, wiped clean, overcome, obliterated, buried under volcanic and other chaos etc. etc. etc.
18. Certainly Scripture agrees.
19. However, SCRIPTURE ALSO NOTES that the END TIMES DECEPTION WILL BE SO GREAT THAT IF IT WERE POSSIBLE, THE VERY ELECT OF GOD, BELIEVERS THEMSELVES WOULD BELIEVE THE LIE.
20. I think Christians of all stripes minimize that hazard out of their own pride . . . personal pride and pride in their own IN-GROUP and their reference IN-GROUP'S DOGMA.
21. ONE of the distortions--subtle to not so subtle--of Fatima is that MARY IS THE DEITY FIGURE GIVING INSTRUCTIONS, PROMISING TO SAVE THE WORLD--IF--IF--THE WORLD COMPLIES WITH HER INSTRUCTIONS, SHE IS THE MAJOR ACTING-IN-CHARGE-PERSONAGE ON THE SCENE--NOT JESUS. It's not even an obviously kosher angel from The Lord's Presence as occurs so much in the Old and New Testaments--speaking of JESUS being in charge and actively involved in Saving the world.
NO! It's this caricatured Mary personage and her drawing the world to focus on HER HEART.
22. It is MARY'S 'IMMACULATE HEART' that is an emphasis--NOT JESUS' BLOOD, NOR EVEN SCRIPTURE.
There is also an emphasis on RITUALS ASSOCIATED PRIMARILY WITH MARY.
The pseudo-REDEMPTIVE ELEMENT offered to the world is:
[ The Message ] I can't believe your fickleness—how easily you have turned traitor to him who called you by the grace of Christ by embracing a variant message! It is not a minor variation, you know; it is completely other, an alien message, a no-message, a lie about God. Those who are provoking this agitation among you are turning the Message of Christ on its head. Let me be blunt: If one of us—even if an angel from heaven!—were to preach something other than what we preached originally, let him be cursed. I said it once; I'll say it again: If anyone, regardless of reputation or credentials [REGARDLESS of related DRAMATIC SOUND & LIGHT SHOWS; MASS HYPNOSIS TECHNIQUES AND TECHNOLOGIES; regardless of the presence of a personage purporting to be Mary--IF ANYONE OR ANYTHING], preaches something other than what you received originally, let him be cursed.
May God have mercy on us and protect us from ANY deviation from our focus on CHRIST ALONE, CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED, THE REDEMPTIVE BLOOD OF JESUS.
Aren’t all the gloom and doom predictions long overdue? If it’s a prophecy let’s get it over with already