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.

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