'Century of evil' about to close

by Michael H. Brown

       Is it true that we have been through a special period given to the devil to test man? Was the twentieth century designed as Satan's century? And is this era of special evil about to end?

       We know that every century has its evil. There is always a certain degree of darkness. There was the Roman Empire. There was Genghis Khan. But many argue that none was more evil than the twentieth century -- from Hitler to abortion -- and it's about to end: the last year of the century was not 1999 but is the current year of 2000.

       Few believe that we can reduce prophecy to exact years -- God doesn't rule by our calendar -- but in general the century that is about to end was indeed a great battle. Its very onset was preceded by the rise precisely in 1900 of an occultist named Aleister Crowley -- whose own mother called him "The Beast" and who was part of esoteric organizations that sought to replace Christ with a "new age."

       "Thine hour is come," Crowley once railed at Christ during a satanic ceremony. "As I blot thee out from this earth, so surely shall the eclipse pass... Give thou place to me, O Jesus," said this deranged satanist from England. "Thine aeon is pass; the Age of Horus is arisen by the Magick of the Master."

       We can laugh at such pagan egoism but what's not laughable is the cursed period that followed. When we count the number of Christians who were killed for their faith during the twentieth century (under Lenin, Mao, and Stalin), it tallies to more than the combined total of all preceding 19 centuries. 

       As for war: more than forty million died during World War Two alone -- and that's not counting the horrors in the Soviet Union.     

       There was persecution. There were other wars. There was an explosion of worldliness. Electricity, chemicals, movies, television, automobiles, and medicines made man believe he could create utopia on earth and no longer needed God. Churches emptied, morality plummeted, and by the 1960s drugs, raucous music, and fornication -- sex before marriage -- became the norm. There were "gay rights." There was radical feminism. The first "church of Satan" rose in California in 1966 (check out that date!) and there was even a famous song called "Sympathy for the Devil."

       It had all been predicted. A seer at LaSalette in France had warned that Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, would be "unloosed from hell," while according to legend Pope Leo XIII envisioned a century during which Satan would be granted enhanced power. 

       At Fatima Sister Lucia dos Santos, the sole surviving visionary from the famous apparitions, described the era as a "decisive battle," and at Medjugorje an official letter in 1983 from the parish to the Vatican reporting on the apparitions quoted Mary as saying that "Satan exists. One day he appeared before the throne of God and asked permission to submit the Church to a period of trial. God gave him permission to try the Church for one century. This century is under the power of the devil."

       There has been controversy over that statement and once more let me emphasize: we can't hold God to precise dates. The year 2000 is a human term. The Virgin was speaking in a general manner, and this was confirmed when a priest interviewed one of the Medjugorje seers, Mirjana Dragicevic Soldo. "You said the twentieth century has been given over to the devil?" she was asked.

       "Yes." 

       "You mean the century until the year 2000, or generally speaking?" asked Father Tomislav Vlasic.

       "Generally, part of which is in the twentieth century, until the first secret is unfolded," explained Mirjana. "The devil will rule till then."

       She used the word "generally." It was not an exactly dated message. It doesn't mean that Satan's power will suddenly stop January 1 at the stroke of midnight. But there's no question that evil has reached what must be close to a crescendo and that by God's grace the new century will see a purification unfold.

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