Posts Tagged ‘European Union’
Worshipping the Image of the Beast
Posted by: Joe Haynes in In the News on November 23rd, 2009
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Herman Von Rompuy has just been appointed the first ever permanent President of the European Union. It’s no wonder that this news causes a stir among a large segment of Christians in North America who subscribe to a view of the end of the world known as “Dispensationalism”, or, more commonly, the “pre-trib rapture view”. It’s even less surprising that when Von Rompuy, in his first big speech, made mention of “global government” and “global management of our planet”, certain Dispensationalist sensationalists saw all kinds of “red flags”, portens of the “one world government” they expect before the coming of the arch-enemy of the Church, the Antichrist. (Just so you know, I actually respect Jerome Corsi, the author mentioned in the above link. But I think his work on this topic is a misinterpretation of the Bible and that its sensationalistic flavour feeds certain extremist elements in the Christian Church.)
What did President Herman Von Rompuy actually say? Here’s the video:
Okay, so all he really said was that the current financial crisis was the occasion of the establishment of a G-20 response… what he called “global governance”… by which it seems he meant “global governance” of the financial crisis. Similarly, when he mentioned “global management of our planet”, it was in the context of talking about the Copenhagen Conference, and seems to be a reference to “global management of our planet” with respect to the environment.
I think both of those (global governance of the financial crisis and global management of the environment) are terrible ideas. They seem to undermine local national sovereignty (which I think is a great idea!). I want to be governed by a government that I elect, a government formed from my own countrymen, ruling with respect to the laws of the country I live in. I don’t want some European deciding how much fuel I can put in what kind of car so that I can commute to work and earn a foreign currency to spend however the EU or some foreign legislative body determines I should spend it. I’m Canadian. I like my flag with the maple leaf on it, thank you very much. I’m also Baptist in my heritage and convictions (Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, 1689), and I value local autonomy, for local churches and individual countries!
But Von Rompuy isn’t the Antichrist. The Westminster Confession of Faith identifies the Popes of Rome as the Antichrist–and I think those guys were correct. It makes better sense of the various Bible prophecies than expecting a single individual to be the arch-enemy of the Church. Especially an individual living so long after the Antichrist was due–at the demise of the Roman Empire and the rise of 10 European kingdoms that replaced it in the West.
And just because liberal elites like Von Rompuy and his socialist friends scheme and plan how to centralize international control of things like the environment and the global economy doesn’t mean that they are setting up an evil Antichristian Empire to usher in the end of days. All it means is that they are worshipping an ideology patterned after the Roman Empire. They are enamoured with fantasies of recreating the Imperial Senate of Rome.
In Revelation 13 & 17, as well as in Daniel 2 & 7, the Roman Empire is the fourth and final monolithic Empire to rule Western Europe. Upon its demise a ten-fold commonwealth of kingdoms is predicted to emerge, with a partly political and partly ecclesial kingdom rising to leadership among them. This occured when the Roman Empire fell, finally, in 476 AD and within a bit more than a century, the territory of Western Europe saw the emergence of 10 barbarian kingdoms–the precursors of the same number of nations that exist within those boundaries today. During much of their history–more or less the period sometimes called the “Dark Ages”–the City-State ruled by the Popes, dominated those ten kingdoms.
In Revelation 13 and 17 and in Daniel 7, the Empire of Rome is called “the beast”. When socialist elites today fantasize and scheme to recreate Rome’s glory through the establishment of the European Union, the G-20, the Copenhagen Conference, etc., etc., they are literally worshipping the picture, the form and shape and image of the Beast:
Revelation 13:14-15 by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain.
It’s an old cult, this worship of the image of the beast, the idolatry of Roman forms of government. Not new at all. And Christ has already conquered the beast, its worshippers, the Hell they will endure forever and the death their sins (and ours) have earned. So don’t fear the Antichrist, his government, or Obama. Fear God, worship His Son, Jesus, and put your trust in His death and resurrection as the Substitute for sinners.
The Islamic Antichrist?
Posted by: Joe Haynes in In the Bible on August 31st, 2009
In a World Net Daily article titled, “‘Evangelical’ Christians now thanking Allah” the author of The Islamic Antichrist, Joel Richardson, criticizes Emergent Church pastor, Brian MacLaren for encouraging believers to celebrate the Islamic holiday Ramadan. It amazes me that any Christian, especially a pastor like Brian MacLaren who should know better, would join with Muslims in celebrating the origins of the Quran (that’s what Ramadan is about). And so I’m with Richardson on this point. I firmly believe in showing hospitality to Muslims and developing warm friendships with those of all faiths. But for me to ask a Muslim to celebrate with me the true meaning of Easter (i.e., Passover) is to ask a Muslim to deny his faith. Likewise, for me to join in celebrating with a Muslim the true meaning of Ramadan is to ask me to deny my faith. It just so happens that the Christian faith is true and God-given while the Muslim faith is based on a demonic deception (hint: the spirit who revealed the Quran to Mohammed wasn’t actually Gabriel as he claimed–that spirit’s real name started with “S” and ended with “atan”). And so what Christians should be aiming at in extending hospitality to Muslims is the salvation of their souls through faith in Jesus Christ.
But this same article on WND goes on to promote Richardson’s book by quoting,
The Bible abounds with proofs that the Antichrist’s empire will consist only of nations that are, today, Islamic… Despite the numerous prevailing arguments for the emergence of a revived European Roman empire as the Antichrist’s power base, the specific nations the Bible identifies as comprising his empire are today all Muslim.
The article continues,
Richardson believes the key error of many previous prophecy scholars involves the misinterpretation of a prediction by Daniel to Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel describes the rise and fall of empires of the future, leading to the end times. Western Christians have viewed one of those empires as Rome, when, claims Richardson, Rome never actually conquered Babylon and was thus disqualified as a possibility.
According to the article, Richardson postulates that the Messianic figure expected by many Muslims called “the Mahdi” is one-and-the-same as the Bible’s predicted “Antichrist”. There are many reasons, from Scripture, why a Christian should reject this speculation. But the first reason springs from Richardson’s own assertion that since Rome never actually conquered Babylon, Rome could not therefore be the fourth empire predicted by Daniel in the interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2. However nothing in the text of Daniel 2 indicates that the fourth empire must conquer Babylon.
For instance, in verse 39, Daniel explains that “another kingdom inferior to [Babylon] shall arise after [the Babylonian empire].” The only qualifier is that the second empire would be “after,” and “inferior to,” the Babylonian. The rise of the the third empire is predicted next in verse 39: “…and yet a third kindom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth.” Here we could make an argument that to “rule over all the earth” it would also be necessary for this kingdom to have conquered Babylon. But the word for “earth” in the Hebrew Bible, “eretz” can also be translated “ground” as in dirt, or “land”. (This is much the same way as ”earth” has a range of meanings in English: the sentence, “the seed took root in the earth” does not have the concept of the whole globe in mind at all, but only a local patch of soil.) However, the qualifiers “…and yet a third” and “of bronze” point out that this empire would come after the second in order and have something characteristic of bronze about it (though the “bronze” may just indicate that it is inferior in quality to its “silver” predecessor). The next empire is predicted in verse 40: “And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these.” No mention about conquering Babylon directly. The most important qualifier here is that it shall be the “fourth” in order. Also it is said to be an empire “strong as iron”.
How should we understand the fulfillment of this prophecy? By reviewing a little history. Babylon, the first of these empires, ruled from about 603 to 538 BC. The next empire (the one that did actually conquer and overtake the Babylonian empire) was an empire of the Medes and the Persians combined–sometimes called Medo-Persia. It lasted from about 559 to 330 BC. The third empire, the one that replaced and overtook the Persian empire, was Greece. Under Alexander the Great, the Greek empire overthrew the Persian empire to become the third great empire in the fulfillment of this prophecy. The territory conquered by Alexander was so vast that the description of ruling “over all the earth” is appropriate. To identify the fourth empire we’ve seen that the main question must be, “What empire came next? And did this next empire overthrow not Babylon, but Greece?” The answer is Rome and yes it did overthrow Greece to rule as an empire from about 168 BC to 476 AD.
But Richardon’s other important assertion is that all of the countries identified with the Antichrist are today Islamic countries. Let’s see if this is right.
Daniel chapter seven contains a prophecy that is in many respects parallel to the one we’ve looked at in Daniel 2. Verses 1-12 detail a vision that the prophet Daniel had in which he saw four “beasts” rise up on the Earth, one after another, each one overthrowing the previous beast. In verse 12, after seeing the fourth beast destroyed, Daniel notes, “As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.” In verse 17, an angel explains the “beasts” to Daniel saying, “These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth.” And a little later in verse 23, the angel adds, “As for the fourth beast, there shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all the kingdoms…” So we see that these four “beasts” represent four kingdoms–just like the prophecy of empires in chapter 2. And the four kingdoms are, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome.
But as each “beast” / empire conquers the one before it, it doesn’t completely annhilate its predecessor. Verse 12 said that each of the first three beasts lose their “dominion” but continue alive. So what is actually happening in the prophecy is that the seat of ruling power is moving, from Babylon to Persia, to Greece and finally, to Rome. What’s so interesting about chapter 7′s prophecy is that the fourth beast, Rome, isn’t conquered like the others were. Instead Daniel foresees a new seat of power grow up out of the Roman Empire–it’s still Roman in essence but it is not unified like the original Roman Empire was. Daniel sees, in verse 7, that Rome, the fourth beast, “had ten horns…and behold, there came up among them another horn…” The same angel explains this to Daniel in verse 24 and following: “As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom (the fourth beast, the Roman Empire) ten kings shall arise, and another shall arise after them… He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High… and they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time.”
In short, this means that out of the Roman Empire 10 smaller kingdoms would emerge with an eleventh “kingdom”, “different from the former ones” (verse 24) taking leadership among them and persecuting “the saints of the Most High” for a period of time. This eleventh horn that persecutes the sainst is identified by many Christian commentators as “The Antichrist”. The real question here is how to identify these other ten horns. Are they Islamic countries like Richardson contends?
Well, first of all, where do they exist? To answer that we need to pay attention to one verse while keeping another one in mind. Notice that verse 24 says, “out of this kingdom (which we see is the Roman Empire) ten kings shall arise”. So the 10 kingdoms that are associated under the Antichrist’s leadership come “out of” the Roman Empire. Now the Roman Empire in its zenith was big. It stretched from England to Egypt and from Spain to Palestine. Richardson’s right: it never did conquer Babylon. So obviously we need to try and identify the “ten kingdoms” that come “out of” the Roman Empire by searching within the boundaries that the Roman Empire did include–not outside those boundaries. But actually, we have to narrow our search even more. We need to keep in mind verse 12 which ads the detail that the bodies of the other three beasts/empires are still around though they don’t dominate any more. So the ten horns cannot include any countries that were ever part of those first three empires: the horns cannot be found in the old territory that was ruled by Babylon, by Persia, or by Greece. This means that when we are looking to identify the ten kingdoms that rose up out of Rome, we have to confine our search to those countries West of Greece that were part of the Roman Empire. This leaves a fairly small territory–the area we call Western Europe. The boundaries of that part of the Roman Empire ran along the Mediterranean Sea on the South, the Atlantic Ocean on the West, through the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Austria on the North (since Rome never actually conquered Germany), and on the East along Italy’s border with Greece.
Today this territory includes, not by coincidence, TEN COUNTRIES. They are not Islamic countries (yet). They are post-Christian countries which at one time all fell under the leadership of the Pope who ruled from Rome after the fall of the Roman Empire (incidentally, this means that the Popes of Rome are the eleventh horn, which we call the “Antichrist”). These countries are Italy, Austria, Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Belgium, Spain and Portugal.
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