A New Superpower to Emerge

An important biblical prophecy deals with the end-time revival of the Roman Empire, prophesied extensively in both Daniel and Revelation.

Daniel, interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a colossal human image, spoke of a series of "kingdoms" to arise on the world scene. The first of these, said Daniel, was the Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar himself (Daniel 2:28-38). It was to be followed by three other kingdoms (verses 39-40). Comparing history with other prophecies, we can understand that these four kingdoms were, in order, the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greco-Macedonian and Roman empires.

Speaking of the fourth and final kingdom, the Roman Empire, Daniel said it would be "strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others" (verse 40). Rome indeed proved to be more dominant and enduring than its predecessors, swallowing up their remnants in a reign that lasted for centuries.

However, Daniel also revealed fascinating prophetic details of this final kingdom. The Roman Empire was represented by the legs and feet of the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. The image had feet and toes composed "partly of potter's clay and partly of iron." This indicated that "the kingdom shall be divided" and "partly strong and partly fragile." Also, "just as iron does not mix with clay," the components of this kingdom would not adhere firmly together for long (verses 41-43).

Describing Jesus Christ's return and His overthrow of all human governments, Daniel says: "In the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed...it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever" (verse 44).

The Bible prophesies that a group of 10 "kings" or leaders, through alliances or other arrangements, will give rise to a union that will fulfill these end-time predictions. Daniel's prophecy indicates these leaders will preserve their cultures and languages, so it will not be one integrated group of states, such as the United States, but 10 individual political and cultural entities united for a common purpose. Some will be much stronger than others.

Notice that the book of Revelation gives more details: "The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful" (Revelation 17:12-14).

The current moves to expand and solidify the European Union appear to be a precursor to this prophesied power. It is interesting to let history reveal the roots of the movement to unify Europe.

In the Jan. 29, 1996, issue of Newsweek, Michael Elliot reported: "In January 1957, six nations signed a treaty on the site of the ancient Roman Capitol, and brought into being the European Economic Community...An aide to Paul-Henri Spaak, the then Belgian foreign minister, remembers that his boss said, 'Do you think that we have laid the first stone of a new Roman Empire?' Recalls the aide, 'We felt very strongly we were Romans that day.'"

Certainly the idea of establishing a new Roman Empire was on the minds of the founders of the current organization of European nations. It has continued to prosper as barriers to integration tumble and greater cooperation and unity in economic and military affairs come about. Time will tell where these trends will lead—and how quickly.

The EU: Still to Join the Heavyweights?

While Europe's endgame may not yet be clear in the minds of EU politicians, it is clearly depicted in Bible prophecy, where a ten-nation superpower known as "the Beast" is prophesied to arise out of European politics and religion.

"Europe fails to punch its weight" declared one British newspaper after the selection of two significant leaders of the European Union on November 19. Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy was chosen for the new position of president of the European Council, and Lady Catherine Ashton of the United Kingdom was named representative for foreign affairs.

If your reaction to these two names is "who?" you're not alone. Many British people couldn't even recognize the name of Lady Ashton, while a US official reportedly said "It is rather less than we were hoping for... We want to hear a strong voice from Europe."

Horse-trading over the two posts failed to produce high-profile leaders. Names such as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker eventually got passed over in favor of "consensus" figures of lower profile. Mr. Blair had support early on, but came to be regarded as too controversial because of his support of the Iraq war, and Britain's ambivalence concerning the EU.

An op-ed piece in the Financial Times of November 23 declared that the US was "underwhelmed by Brussels appointments." A stronger, less consensus-friendly voice was desired by Washington.

But the old saying is that we need to be careful of what we wish for. Europe is still in transition. While its endgame may not yet be clear in the minds of EU politicians, it is clearly depicted in Bible prophecy, where a ten-nation superpower known as "the Beast" is prophesied to arise out of European politics and religion. The book of Revelation tells us that when this takes place, "the inhabitants of the earth… will be astonished when they see the beast, because he once was, now is not, and yet will come" (Revelation 17:8, New International Version).

Europe won't always be punching below its weight. When that power arises, it will forcefully join the heavyweights, and push aside the Anglo-Saxon powers that have dominated the world for over a century. Those events will be a precursor to the greatest of all events in human history: the establishment of the rule of God Himself through Jesus Christ the Messiah.

In the meantime, let's keep our eyes on Europe. The story's not over yet.

Restoration: Discerning This Time

A number of events have occurred in recent weeks that bear on topics we cover in World News and Prophecy. It reminds me that the pace of our time seems to be speeding toward a culmination of prophecy. We need to watch and understand.

On Oct. 2 the European Union took another step toward a larger role in world affairs when Ireland ratified the Lisbon Treaty. Poland followed a few days later, leaving only the Czech Republic as the lone holdout on approving a plan that will create a potentially larger role for Europe. Then on Nov. 3 Czech Republic President Václav Klaus finally signed it. The treaty, when implemented, will create the post of a European president and give the EU the ability to create a unified foreign policy.

Europe has a long way to travel in becoming a power to rival anything like what the United States has been in recent decades. But it is clearly on the ascent, and Bible prophecy shows us Europe will play a key role in the events leading to the end of this age.

The second item of news also connects to Europe's rise. The talk about the decline of the dollar as the world's reserve currency continues. Rising levels of American debt have created fear among lender nations that their investment in dollars will one day collapse. Reports say that China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and others have begun laying the groundwork for a currency arrangement that would supplant the dollar as the key currency in trading. Should this occur, and many experts say it is inevitable, it would make it extremely difficult to finance the U.S. debt. America would have to borrow euros or another currency to buy oil from OPEC nations.

The decline of the dollar is a critical national security issue. It would cripple the nation's economic foundation and limit its military capability around the world. Like Great Britain in its days of imperial decline, the far-flung navies and armies would have to retreat, leaving a power vacuum that others would rush to fill. The result would be something far different from the Pax Americana of recent years. I find that many are blissfully unaware of the consequences of the decline of the dollar on world financial markets.

The third issue is the growing menace of a nuclear Iran in the Middle East. Time is running out, as many believe it is only a matter of months before Iran has a nuclear weapon and the ability to deliver it, with Israel as the likely target. Diplomacy has not worked to end Iran's development program, and so the talk of economic sanctions or a military strike continues.

Israel is the most likely nation to intervene militarily to destroy Iranian facilities; and should this occur, an all-out war of retaliation would be launched. Oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz would be disrupted and prices would skyrocket, creating another round of financial crisis. A nuclear arms race among other Middle Eastern countries would be ignited. A nuclear Iran would destabilize the entire region and have a worldwide impact.

These events remind us of Christ's warning to "discern this time" (Luke 12:56). Christ's insistence that His disciples watch and understand their time in history is rooted in a need to repent and believe in the gospel of the Kingdom of God lest we perish (Luke 13:5; Mark 1:14-15). Our world is changing before our eyes, and God is gracious to give us warning if we only have the eyes to see. It is time we turn to the Bible for the understanding that can convict us. It is time to awake and prepare our lives for what lies ahead.

How Long Will the NATO Alliance Last?

The 50th anniversary of the NATO alliance in 1999 was a celebration of the successful defense of the free world. Just 10 years later there are signs of serious trouble within the alliance.

One month before being officially nominated as the Democratic Party candidate for president in 2008, then Senator Barack Obama visited Berlin, Germany, and gave a speech to a crowd of some 200,000 Germans at the Victory Column, located 1 mile west of the Brandenburg Gate.

At the time, some opinion polls indicated that a number of Germans would rather have Obama as their own chancellor instead of Angela Merkel.

Obama's speech in Berlin on July 24, 2008, was well received by the enthusiastic crowd. However, the next day some commentators wondered whether people had really understood the implications of what Obama had said. He mentioned the threat of terrorism and emphasized that "no one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone," and he praised "Europe's role in our [America's] security and our future."

The portion of the speech that really got news analysts' attention was Obama's reference to Afghanistan: "In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more—not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security...

"The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, to develop their economy, and to help them rebuild their nation."

With his speech in Berlin, Obama had served notice that as president he would expect Germans—and America's other NATO partners—to contribute their fair share of the resources needed for NATO's mission in Afghanistan.

An increasingly unpopular war

America's NATO allies in Europe are confronted by the challenge of meeting their obligations to the alliance's mission in Afghanistan in the face of growing public discontent over the war.

Germany is no exception. According to public opinion polls, two thirds of the German people doubt that a military victory can be achieved in Afghanistan. The same percentage of Germans oppose a continuation of their country's military presence in Afghanistan.

When German troops were first sent to Afghanistan, the German government insisted that they be stationed in northern Afghanistan instead of the southern part of the country. Officials emphasized repeatedly that Germany's NATO troops were limited to the official NATO mission in Afghanistan, described as assisting "the Afghan Government in exercising and extending its authority and influence across the country, paving the way for reconstruction and effective governance" (quote from the NATO Web site).

By contrast, American troops in southern Afghanistan were also fighting terrorism by going after the Taliban.

In their early deployment to northern Afghanistan, German troops experienced only occasional direct resistance by Taliban fighters. In recent months, however, the number of German casualties has increased as the Taliban have begun to target German patrols. It seems as if the Taliban are now engaging America's NATO allies, like the Germans, in an attempt to influence public opinion back home.

If so, their tactic is working. Public outrage in Germany was intense during the first week of September after a German NATO commander called for American air support to recapture two hijacked fuel trucks.

The air strike reportedly killed as many as 70 civilians and prompted Afghan President Hamid Karzai to issue harsh criticism of the German commander: "What an error of judgment! More than 90 dead all because of a simple lorry that was, moreover, immobilised in a riverbed. Why didn't they send in ground troops to recover the fuel tank?" ("Rift Widens Between US and Germany Over Botched Afghanistan Air Strike," The Guardian, Sept. 7, 2009).

Aside from the backlash from incidents like this one, German participation in NATO missions outside the geographic boundaries of NATO member countries is a continual domestic challenge. Each military deployment requires the approval of the German parliament, the Bundestag, and approval has to be renewed at regular intervals.

Despite growing public opposition to the war in Afghanistan, it has not yet become a major political issue, largely because Germany's membership in the NATO alliance is supported by all major parties. However, an increase in German casualties will no doubt lead to greater public clamor for an end to Germany's involvement in Afghanistan. As the Vietnam War proved, public opinion can be a key factor in deciding whether to continue or curtail military deployment.

Other European countries involved in Afghanistan are also facing domestic pressure to withdraw. Just days after the botched air strike on the fuel trucks, Britain, France and Germany proposed a conference to discuss how the Afghan government could take on greater responsibility for its own security, thereby lessening the need for NATO troops in the country.

Who's the bad guy now?

When the NATO alliance was formed 60 years ago by the United States, Canada and European nations, it was clearly defensive in nature. NATO countries were obligated to support any member nation attacked by an aggressor. The potential aggressor was clearly the Soviet Union, and the alliance's purpose was to prevent westward expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence in Europe.

Of course, during the Cold War there was occasional friction among NATO members or between the United States and European NATO countries. However, the overriding goal of preserving Western Europe's freedom and economic system provided a common interest strong enough to override temporary differences of opinion.

The demise of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact alliance has changed all that. Europe is no longer threatened by an ideological "continental divide." Former Warsaw Pact countries have now joined the NATO alliance (and the European Union).

The defensive nature of the NATO alliance still exists on paper but not in practical application. Instead, the alliance has also assumed responsibility beyond its own borders in fulfilling United Nations peacekeeping missions.

Events of the last 10 years have shown that America and Europe—and even European nations among themselves—are not always unified in their assessment of strategic threats.

A prime example is former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's characterization of the "old" and "new" Europe during the crisis over Iraq and the Iraq war. Aside from some exceptions—most notably Britain—Western European nations ("old" Europe) were reluctant to support U.S. President George Bush's "coalition of the willing," in contrast to Eastern European nations ("new" Europe).

More recently, European NATO members disagree over how to deal with Russia. Dependent on natural gas deliveries from Russia, NATO members in Western Europe generally support a cautious, conciliatory approach. By contrast, Eastern European NATO members prefer a more confrontational style.

It was no surprise when Eastern European NATO members supported the Bush plan to install a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. In the summer of 2008 the United States signed a treaty with each country for the installation of a radar system in the Czech Republic and 10 missile silos in Poland.

President Obama's decision in September to stop the implementation of the project upset Eastern European allies. Their disappointment was best expressed by former Polish President Lech Walesa in a television interview: "The Americans are always concerned only about their own interests and just take advantage of everyone else."

Walesa urged Poland to reassess its relationship with the United States. Analysts now expect Eastern Europeans to see the need for better cooperation with Brussels on security issues. President Obama may have contributed to "new" and "old" Europe becoming more closely aligned.

Who pays the bill?

During the 1999 NATO bombing campaign to force Serbian troops out of Kosovo, then German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder voiced disappointment over America's reluctance to share spy satellite intelligence with its European allies. In his frustration Schroeder suggested that Europe should have its own spy satellites. He admitted, though, that America could do as it pleased since it was supplying over 90 percent of the equipment used for the Kosovo military intervention.

America's call for more equitable burden-sharing within the NATO alliance did not begin with Senator Obama's July 2008 speech in Berlin. With the Soviet threat gone, the unfulfilled desire to have Europe pay a larger share of its defense bill seems more futile now than at any time during the last 60 years when Europe enjoyed protection via America's nuclear shield.

Defense spending levels of NATO's main European members have declined in recent years, with a corresponding weakening of military capabilities. Germany, for example, today has 40 percent fewer soldiers and 50 percent fewer combat aircraft than it did at the end of the Cold War 20 years ago. Similar developments have taken place in key NATO nations like Spain and Italy.

The decay of European NATO military forces has reached the point that U.S. military officials are concerned that joint operations are becoming difficult and may well become impossible if the trend is not reversed.

Like the Kosovo intervention, the war in Afghanistan reflects unequal burden sharing, irritating even some European officials. In a speech last January, British Defense Secretary John Hutton had harsh criticism for European governments that fail to bear their fair share of the burden.

"Freeloading on the back of U.S. security is not an option if we wish to be equal partners in the transatlantic alliance," he warned in language less diplomatic than Obama's Berlin speech. "Anyone who wants to benefit from collective security must be prepared to share the ultimate price."

Hutton also appeared to question Germany's approach and that of other allies who believe that humanitarian and nation-building tasks are a fair substitute for combat duty. "It isn't good enough to always look to the U.S. for political, financial, and military cover. And this imbalance will not be addressed by parceling up NATO tasks—the 'hard' military ones for the U.S. and a few others (including Britain) and the 'soft' diplomatic ones for the majority of Europeans."

European NATO members would respond by saying that NATO's ISAF mission in Afghanistan is nation-building, not combat in support of Washington's "war on terror."

The beginning of the end?

American military commanders believe that the coming months will be crucial for the ultimate success or failure of the NATO mission in Afghanistan, which for them means a military victory over the resurgent Taliban. Likewise, the NATO mission in Afghanistan itself may well decide the future of the alliance itself.

If NATO cracks over Afghanistan, a short-sighted view would be that Europeans got tired of being pressured to do more fighting in America's war far from Europe and that America got tired of paying the lion's share of NATO's bills for European freeloaders. However, America did put up with the unequal burden-sharing within NATO during the Cold War because it was in America's own strategic interest to do so.

A realistic assessment would be that NATO is no longer a serious alliance with an overriding common strategic purpose as it was throughout the Cold War. Defending Western Europe against Soviet expansion served America's strategic purpose, and supporting America's efforts to do so was obviously in Europe's own best interests.

In the absence of a sustained response to an ongoing, common, immediate threat, NATO has become an alliance without a real purpose. Europe's strategic interests are no longer as closely aligned with those of the United States, as evidenced by the Iraq war, relations with Russia, and energy and environmental policies, to name just a few. History shows that the eventual demise of an alliance that has served its purpose can only be a question of time.

If Bible prophecy is our guide to understanding world events, the rift already evident within the NATO alliance can be viewed as a precursor to future events. Europe and the United States will eventually move in opposing strategic directions and become competitors instead of equal partners.

Out of Europe will arise a final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire, whereas America's destiny—and her future relationship with Europe—will be determined by her unknown heritage linked to the biblical patriarch Abraham.

An American Thanksgiving

Every year Americans gather on the fourth Thursday of November to give thanks for a land of plenty and a year of blessings. What if Americans truly gave thanks to God for their blessings? Could it make a difference for the future?

Last month my wife and I made a trip to Canada and spent a week with friends in Newfoundland. As we were leaving, Canada was about to celebrate its national day of Thanksgiving. Theirs falls a little more than a month before we celebrate ours in the United States. I felt like staying over another day just to celebrate with our friends, but home called me back.

I have always been in love with the American Thanksgiving. As the fall season comes to a close and a nation gathers for a celebratory meal with family and friends, the romantic within me is unleashed. For a day I can imagine a land and its people turning their faces to God—all in their own way acknowledging something larger, more expansive, than the narrow confines of daily life.

Sometime in my youth I saw an old Currier and Ives engraving of a New England farmhouse with smoke curling out of its chimney. Lights were on inside, and people were arriving in buggies all laden down with baskets of food. Was it a homecoming? Were children coming home to Grandma's house?

I would put myself into that picture and desire the same for my family. For a time in my youth we did go to Grandma's home on Thanksgiving and gather with our large family of cousins, aunts and uncles for a day of feasting. My wife and I have tried through the years to keep this tradition going in our growing family by gathering with our parents and bringing along the children and grandchildren. It gets harder as the years go by, but we make every effort to gather on this day.
History and hope

The origins of the day are well known. The first year in the new world for pilgrim settlers in New England was rough, and they gathered with Native Americans to have a meal and give thanks. Later, it became customary for nearly every U.S. president to call for an annual day of thanksgiving. The proclamations began with George Washington. But it was during Franklin Roosevelt's second term that the fourth Thursday in November was fixed as the national day of Thanksgiving.

Today Thanksgiving remains popular as a holiday of traditional foods, family gatherings and football. This marvelous day of collective family and national bonding hints of an underlying spirituality even though secularism is making inroads into the character of the people. Ironically, the popularity of the day is in part because it is a national rather than a religious day of Thanksgiving. This is not lost on many observers.

That the day is still so popular throughout the nation is a sign of hope. There is a remnant within the land who recognize there is something more to America than just being one large consumer for the world's goods. Materialism alone, some understand, does not satisfy the deepest human needs for meaning and purpose in life.

Reflecting on the year

It has been a tough year for the world's economy. In the United States, upwards of one third of the wealth has been wiped off the books. Housing prices have plummeted, the stock market has lost billions of dollars of value, and the retirement accounts of the aging baby boomers were turned upside down. And while the entire system did not collapse and the market did make some modest gains, there is a sense of unease about the future. Those who stop to consider have a sense that things will not be the same going forward, but they do not know just what to expect.

Like many of you, I look at my financial statements each month and see the erosion. It is as if I have put my money into bags with holes. It fell right through and has disappeared, never to be found again.

We are living a perfect example of God's words through the prophet Haggai: "You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes" (Haggai 1:6).

This Thanksgiving, like last, offers an opportunity to reflect that the good times may not last forever. The signs of the times tell us there are other nations and peoples who sense America has been weakened and are circling like predators desiring to seize the moment and wrestle her power, might and strength away for their own use.

Many say that great powers rise and fall and that America is declining along the natural way of nations. The time has come, they say, for America to exit the stage and give way for others on the ascent.

God's blessing

There is one thing wrong with this picture. The power and wealth America has held during its history is not something that was gained by its own exceptional abilities. The great national blessings celebrated each year at Thanksgiving were granted by God through a series of promises and blessings that stretch back in time to the biblical patriarch Abraham.

America's position in the world for more than 200 years is due more to the faithful promises of God than to anything done through its national experience. The wealth and power from God will not flow to others in the same way. It cannot be taken as the great nation stumbles.

The biblical details behind this key of understanding are told in our booklet The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy. It is worth reading, especially at this season of Thanksgiving. For those who want to open a window of revealed understanding, it offers another dimension to world history. Your love for God and for America will be magnified through this booklet.

America is exceptional because God made her so. It is wealthy beyond any other empire in history because God prepared this land in advance and gave it to the descendants of Abraham in fulfillment of His pledge.

Its liberty and freedom are rooted in a biblical ethic well understood by the founding fathers. Imbedded in a unique form of governance, it has spread this freedom to many places throughout the world. Where the American and British form of law and economics were planted, people prospered, more than under any previous system. When the day comes that this influence is removed from the world, a different form of power will arise. The results will not be the same.

How stands the land?

On this American Thanksgiving, what do we see as we look out across the broad land?

We see a people searching for a way forward during a time of growing doubt and uncertainty. In 10 years, will America still hold its present role as the guarantor of freedom for a growing global economy, or will other powers rise to eclipse this long-held role? Will Americans enjoy the world's highest standard of living, or will increasing national debt cripple the nation beyond recovery?

It is time we Americans consider our ways, bend our knees to the God of heaven and confess we need a new beginning and a new heart. It is time we take a fresh look at the Bible and seek a new national character forged in righteousness and humility. Before He completely removes His hand of blessing, it is time to seek God with our whole heart.

God will hear the prayer of one who is chastened and sincerely seeking Him. He can hear your prayer. He is closer than you think.

Use this year's Thanksgiving season to consider a new and better understanding of the God who has blessed this great land. Lift your hands and your heart in grateful thanks for what you have and ask this God to reveal Himself to you.

Thanksgiving, Pilgrims and Freedom

Our American day of Thanksgiving is coming up next week, and my thoughts are beginning to turn toward family gatherings, plenty of food and American football!

I was reading British historian Paul Johnson's excellent book A History of the American People, and his treatment of the Puritan settlers of Massachusetts put my mind to something more than the traditional Thanksgiving themes. The real reason we had a "first thanksgiving" on America's northeast shore had more to do with religious freedom than food, sports and family.

In 1620 freethinking English people sailed from the old world to the new seeking a place where they could worship God according to their conscience. Religious discrimination had built up in England, leaving these men and women no choice but to migrate. It is difficult today for us to imagine moving to another land, away from all that is familiar, to seek religious freedom. But that is what they did.

These men and women were "utopians"—they desired to create God's Kingdom on earth. They used all the biblical stories of the Exodus and pilgrims to describe their journey toward a just and equal society. They even used the term "a city set on a hill," taken from Christ's Sermon on the Mount, to describe what they hoped to build. It was all a great and noble effort.

A key event occurred when they reached the North American coast. They drew up an agreement called the Mayflower Compact, based upon the idea of a covenant between man and God. It was an agreement to build a society to provide "just and equal laws." This agreement represented a good faith effort among a group of sincere believers seeking a place where they could worship God in peace according to their conscience.

Time and events, along with a measure of human nature, led to a society somewhat different than they envisioned. But what did spring from their efforts contributed to a great single nation based on individual rights and freedoms. It has endured through the generations and continues to provide a beacon of hope for many who seek a new start, a "new birth" as Abraham Lincoln said, in life.

So this Thanksgiving I turn to a higher theme of religious freedom. It is easy for us to forget this God-given blessing if all we focus upon is our material abundance.

History turns on the actions of individuals. This season, as those of us in the United States look out on a land of great material wealth, let us not forget we enjoy these blessings in part because a group of pilgrims set sail for a new world, looking for a place to worship God.

Let us give thanks for the God-given freedom we've been given.

This is the Way... Peeking Into Eternity

All of us, at one time or another, have been asked the tantalizing question, "Do you want to take a peek?" We reply, "A peek at what?"

Well, here it comes again: "Do you want to take a peek?" I'm talking about something not too many people have dared to consider. I mean peeking into eternity.

It is not easy for the human mind to understand such a concept. Whenever I dare to consider eternity and what it must be like, that proverbial rubber band in my mind tends to snap with an exploding bang after just a few moments of pondering the mentally impossible. Perhaps you, too, have experienced the effect that painfully informs us we are still trapped in the world of time and space.

Well, join the crowd. The simple answer to our human frustration is that God intended for us to measure eternity not with our gray matter, but with our hearts.

Begin with the end in mind

Why speak of this subject in a magazine devoted to prophecy? Prophecy was not intended to solely be a mechanical exercise of putting scriptural equations together, but rather it is designed to prepare us for an existence beyond human comprehension.

The prophet Isaiah introduces us to the concept of eternity in association with God. His writing proclaims, "For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: 'I dwell in the high and holy place'" (Isaiah 57:15). Thus, when we consider the God who reveals prophecy, we begin with this end in mind.

While other scriptures may help us define eternity, it is only here that God discloses that which He considers home. The prophet Isaiah offers us deeper understanding regarding God and eternity. The Hebrew word denotes "duration or continuity." How do we measure something that is continuous?

The method of measurement is beyond anything caught in the world of time and space. It requires entering the stream of eternity that knows no spring and fills no ocean. Indeed, there is something beyond, and God asks us to take the time to think about it.

More beyond

In doing so, we share in the same dilemma as the Spanish Empire at the cusp of the Age of Discovery. They were equally perplexed by the reality that there was a whole new world before them. They created a story in stone as a reminder of this very fact.

In Valladolid, Spain, where Christopher Columbus died in 1506, there stands a monument commemorating the great discoverer. Perhaps the most interesting feature of the memorial is a statue of a lion destroying one of the Latin words that had been a part of Spain's motto for centuries.

Before Columbus made his historic voyages, the Spaniards thought they had reached the outer limits of earth. Thus their motto was "Ne Plus Ultra," which means "no more beyond." The word being torn away by the lion is "ne" or "no," making it read "Plus Ultra," for Columbus had proved that there was "more beyond."

There is a famous saying regarding the great explorer: "He couldn't tell anyone where he was going. He didn't know where he was when he got there, and he couldn't tell anyone else how to get there when he got back. And he did all of this on borrowed money."

Serious students of Scripture can derive amazing parallels and powerful lessons concerning eternity from both the dramatic inscription on the monument and that humorous saying.

Most importantly, for persons of faith, there is an even greater reality embedded in our minds and hearts than any earthly monument can depict. It is the reality of another lion, "the Lion of the tribe of Judah," none other than Jesus Christ (Revelation 5:5), forever tearing away and demolishing the word no to fill Christian lives with hope.

The book of Revelation additionally defines this Lion of Judah as "the First and the Last" and the One who holds the keys of the grave and death (Revelation 1:17-18). The powerful ramifications of a seamless world between life and death through Him and by Him are startling.

When have we arrived?

But how do we know when we have arrived at the eternal realm where Christ waits (John 14:2)? He said to "follow Me," but how far? When, where and how do we plant the flag? We don't want to make the same mistake as Columbus, who upon landing on shore called the indigenous population something they were not. After all, India was still half a globe away.

Unlike Columbus, God is able to offer us a description of what our destination is like. After all, He inhabits eternity! Christ came out of eternity into our finite world of time and space and has returned in fullness to that realm.

Crossing the threshold of eternity

We will know we have crossed the threshold of eternity when we discover a totally new environment never beheld by those whose origin is dust. Revelation 21:1 describes this as a "new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away."

This same verse says there is "no more sea." So often we focus on a new heaven and new earth, but why "no more sea"? Could this be alluding to the absence of the fear of eternity as well as speaking of a body of water?

Consider for a moment that in antiquity the oceans and seas were considered hostile forces. Sailors hugged the coast in their travels and rarely ventured into open waters. Seas were considered naturally fearsome and likewise created social gulfs between humans.

The prophesied eternal environment is totally opposite from anything cultivated by human nature. It will be sent from heaven by God, and there will be no apprehensive barriers between God and man or with any other citizen of this timeless society.

We will know we have crossed the threshold of eternity when we discover new emotions as described in Revelation 21:4-5. Here, God our Father gives us a completely different list of noes, not to discourage us or hem us in, but to encourage us and allow us to expand. The list is a rolodex of wonderment spilling out no after no—no more tears, no death, no sorrow and no pain.

The study of eternity continues in Revelation 22:3-5, which expands the list of noes to include no more curses and no more night (darkness).

What makes the difference?

Let's ask ourselves what makes the astounding difference between the world of time and space and that of eternity? How do we know we have arrived?

The key is discovered in Revelation 21:22. One more "no" is mentioned. There is no more temple! Verse 22 proclaims, "The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple."

This is the same revelation first hinted at in Ezekiel 48:35, which speaks of the eternal city of God. The book of Ezekiel ends with this resounding statement of cause and effect: "THE LORD IS THERE."

Revelation ends where God began in Genesis. God is again in place among His special creation. It has always been God's desire to be in the midst of His creation, walking and talking among His servants. His desire has always been for us to experience His love in one continual uninterrupted existence that never ends.

Do you know a little bit better where you are headed? Can you describe where you have been in Scripture, and can you show others the way? Can we come to appreciate how God through Jesus Christ has torn down every negative "no" to show us that there is much more beyond our world of limitations? Rather than "no more beyond" sculpted in stone, we can come to recognize that the end of what we presently know is but the beginning of what God has to share.

Is eternity coming a little easier to your mind? I hope so. I purposefully avoided overwhelming you with intricate numerical figures or theories to dazzle your mind. It is better to enlarge your heart, if but for a moment. When it is all said and done, it is not the size of the universe that counts, but the size of our surrendered heart that glorifies God.

Leave some things to God

I wish I could tell you more, but God hasn't chosen to tell us everything. The wisdom of Scripture is to simply leave some things for God. Allow Him to surprise us.

Perhaps the message of Isaiah 30:21 ("This is the way, walk in it") in regards to the subject of eternity is best summed up by something I recently heard: "We don't have all the answers, because we don't even know all the questions. If you think you do, just wait until the next time a child offers one up. But this we do know—God has all the answers!"

Europe and the Church, Part 13: And One Is Yet to Come

The book of Revelation shows there is to be one more revival of the Roman Empire immediately prior to Christ's return. Is the European Union the prophesied revival?

My wife and I have often passed through Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport traveling to or from Ghana. Sometimes, we have broken up the return journey to Michigan with a short stop in England to visit family. There is a direct flight from Amsterdam to my hometown airport in the United Kingdom. When we have taken that option, we go through "Passport Control" in England. We are simply "In Transit" through the Netherlands.

So I was trying to understand why this time we had to go through immigration in Amsterdam when we were not actually visiting the Netherlands. We were, instead, heading to Cologne, Germany, for a three-day visit to the United Church of God office there. We were planning on touring Aachen and Trier for the purpose of further researching the history of Europe and the church.

I assumed that the "Passport Control" requirement had something to do with the Schengen Treaty, which was signed in 1985 by five member countries of what was then the 10-member European Community. I was not sure how many countries are now members, so I asked the official checking our passports.

"Twenty-six," was his answer.

"Twenty-six?" I asked with some incredulity. As there are 27 countries in the European Union, that meant only one was not a signatory. That one would be the United Kingdom, which I knew for a fact was not in the agreement. But I was also fairly sure that Ireland wasn't a member either.

His response to that was that only Iceland and the United Kingdom were not in the "Union." Clearly, the passport official himself was not clear on the difference between the European Union and the Schengen Treaty! The United Kingdom is in the Union but not in the Schengen Treaty; Iceland is not yet a member of the EU but is a Schengen signatory. There are actually 25 members of Schengen, not all of whom are members of the EU.

Confusion about the EU

It was not surprising that an official at the airport did not understand. Few Europeans understand a great deal about the European Union, which has been slowly evolving since the Treaty of Rome was signed by the original six members in 1957. Those signatories pledged themselves to form "an ever closer union," which is exactly what has been happening since.

When you ask average citizens of the European Union what they think of the organization, often they will say it's too bureaucratic or too expensive. But most will agree that it has been successful in bringing the nations of Europe together, giving most of the continent over 60 years of unparalleled peace.

Whereas most people still identify themselves as British, French or German, they are also aware that they are now part of something much bigger, a group of nations that has achieved unprecedented prosperity. Indeed, following the financial upheavals of the last year, Europe today is the richest region of the world. Both BusinessWeek and The Wall Street Journal highlighted this new reality in September.

In fact, the United States now leads Europe in only one category—its military power. In every other respect, the EU is more powerful.

As Washington Post bureau chief T.R. Reid put it in his 2004 book The United States of Europe: "The new United States of Europe—to use Winston Churchill's phrase—has more people, more wealth, and more trade than the United States of America. The New Europe cannot match American military strength (and doesn't want to, for that matter). But it has more votes in every international organization than the United States, and it gives away far more money in development aid. The result is global economic and political clout that makes the European Union exactly what its leaders want it to be: a second superpower that can stand on equal footing with the United States" (p. 1).

Is it time for Europe to wake up?

Five years later, a cover on the British magazine The Economist showed a sleeping Europa (the female symbol of Europe), about to be awakened by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, with words that accurately sum up Europe's condition: "Eight wasted years. Two useless treaties. Three No votes. Ignored by China and America. But still the world's biggest economy. Will somebody please...Wake Europe Up!" (Oct. 10, 2009).

Tony Blair has been seen as a leading candidate to be the EU's first executive president, a position to be created now that all 27 member countries have signed the Lisbon Treaty. The treaty provides for a new, streamlined Europe, with its own president and foreign minister. It will also create a diplomatic service for the Union, giving it much greater clout around the world.

"The European project has spent too many of its first 50 years looking inwards: building the single market, sorting out institutions, arguing about money, endlessly negotiating treaties. In the next 50 years it should look outwards more. At present Europe is a weak actor on a stage dominated by America and China; India and Brazil are in the wings. Can this change?" ("Wake Up Europe!" The Economist, Oct. 10, 2009).

Perhaps a more important question is, Does the world want to see Europe rise again?

The final resurrection of the Roman Empire

Earlier articles in this series have shown the various revivals of the Roman Empire through the centuries and the church-state connection that has factored in all of them.

"Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains [seven powerful empires] on which the woman [the false religious system centered in Rome] sits. There are also seven kings [seven revivals of the ancient Roman Empire]. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time" (Revelation 17:9-10).

Justinian, Charlemagne, Otto the Great, Charles V, Napoleon and Hitler are the key leaders of the first six revivals of the Roman Empire. "And the other has not yet come." Verses 12-14 help us understand that the final revival is immediately before the second coming of the Messiah: "The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings."

The EU is not the final resurrection of the Roman Empire, but it will likely lead to it.

The European Union currently has 27 members. More are likely to join. The growth of the EU is one of its greatest success stories. It's an idea whose time has come. Its biggest problem is managing its potential growth as more nations try to join.

But the Bible clearly shows that the final prophesied Beast power is a union of "ten kings" (or leaders). This could mean that 10 of the present member nations will form a full military and political union, led by a supreme leader referred to in the Scriptures as "the beast."

It could also mean that Europe's political boundaries will be redrawn, creating 10 regions that will then choose their own leaders who, in turn, will choose the supreme leader over them all. A proposal along these lines was suggested a few years ago as an attempt to dampen ethnic and linguistic loyalties that have stalled the European project.

Another possibility is a repeat of the 1930s when democracies failed to solve the Great Depression and people turned to dictatorships.

There is a sense of urgency in this pivotal chapter of the book of Revelation, suggesting that the final European revival will come about as a matter of urgent necessity.

Daniel 11:40 prophesies a coming clash of civilizations between a revived "king of the North" and "king of the South," the latter likely an Islamic power, a successor to the ancient Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt. The "king of the North" was based north of Jerusalem in the third and second centuries B.C., and was finally taken over by Rome. Its future revival would be fulfilled by a revived Roman Empire whose tentacles reach into the Middle East.

Decline of the United States

It could also be that the urgent need for a fully united Europe comes about as a consequence of something bad befalling the United States, such as an economic collapse or a major terrorist attack.

It is clear that economic power, and thus political clout, is passing from the United States to Europe, China and other parts of the world. At the time of writing, one euro is worth about $1.50 and there is increasing speculation on the dollar's future as the world's reserve currency.

Robert Fisk wrote in The Independent of a plan by the Russians, Chinese and Mideast oil-producing countries to replace the dollar as the unit for pricing oil. The world is increasingly realizing that the United States is less than serious about living within its means, thereby slowly eroding the value of its currency.

"In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning—along with China, Russia, Japan and France—to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council" ("The Demise of the Dollar," Oct. 6, 2009).

Mr. Fisk added: "The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. 'One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations,' he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings...of the IMF and World Bank" (ibid.).

History meets prophecy

On our visit to Germany, we toured both Aachen, Charlemagne's ancient capital, and Trier, the oldest German settlement and former capital of the Northern Roman Empire. The first Catholic emperor of Rome, Constantine, lived there for a time, during which part of the cathedral was built. After Rome withdrew from the area in 400, a "Dark Age" descended upon it, which lasted until Charlemagne four centuries later. Meanwhile, the church kept the idea of Europe alive.

Europe was the major continent of the world for centuries during the colonial era until the end of World War II. Once again, it is set to revive, perhaps as a direct result of the current international financial crisis, which is leading to major changes across the globe.

Historically, economic power has always led to political and military power. As Europe is now the richest region of the world and the world's greatest trading power, it will not be long until this is translated into greater political and military power.

A final revival of the Roman Empire is all set to take place in the not too distant future.

Discerning This Time

On Oct. 2 the European Union took another step toward a larger role in world affairs when Ireland ratified the Lisbon Treaty. Poland followed a few days later leaving only the Czech Republic as the lone holdout on approving a plan that will create a potentially larger role for Europe. The treaty when implemented will create the post of a European president and give the EU the ability to create a unified foreign policy.

Europe has a long way to travel in becoming a power to rival anything like the United States has been in recent decades. But it is clearly on the ascent, and Bible prophecy shows us Europe will play a key role in the events leading to the end of this age.

The second item of news also connects to Europe's rise. The talk about the decline of the dollar as the world's reserve currency continues. Rising levels of American debt have created fear among lender nations that their investment in dollars will one day collapse. Reports say that China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and others have begun laying the groundwork for a currency arrangement that would supplant the dollar as the key currency in trading. Should this occur, and many experts say it is inevitable, it would make it extremely difficult to finance the U.S. debt. America would have to borrow euros or another currency to buy oil from OPEC nations.

The decline of the dollar is a critical national security issue. It would cripple the nation's economic foundation and limit its military capability around the world. Like Great Britain in its days of imperial decline, the far-flung navies and armies would have to retreat, leaving a power vacuum that others would rush to fill. The result would be something far different from the Pax Americana of recent years. I find that many are blissfully unaware of the consequences of the decline in the dollar on world financial markets.

The third issue of recent days is the growing menace of a nuclear Iran in the Middle East. Time is running out, as many believe it is only a matter of months before Iran has a nuclear weapon and the ability to deliver it, with Israel as the likely target. Diplomacy has not worked to end Iran's development program, and so the talk of economic sanctions or a military strike continues.

Israel is the most likely nation to intervene militarily to destroy Iranian facilities, and should this occur, an all-out war of retaliation would be launched. Oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz would be disrupted and prices would skyrocket, creating another round of financial crisis. A nuclear arms race among other Middle Eastern countries would be ignited. A nuclear Iran would destabilize the entire region and have a worldwide impact.

Events this month remind us of Christ's warning to "discern this time" (Luke 12:56). Our world is rapidly changing, and there is no guarantee things will continue as they are at present. Christ's insistence that His disciples watch and understand their time in history is rooted in a need to repent and believe in the gospel of the Kingdom of God lest we perish (Luke 13:5; Mark 1:14-15). Our world is changing before our eyes, and God is gracious to give us warning if we only have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. It is time we turn to the Bible for the understanding that can convict us it is time to awake and prepare our lives for what lies ahead.

Europe and the Church, Part 11: Germany's Dream of Conquest

At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the country of Germany did not even exist. But a century later it had risen to seriously challenge the greatest European empires and forever change the history of the world.

The year 1914 saw "the outbreak of war on a scale unknown and undreamed of in all history" (The Book of Knowledge, Vol. 7, 1954, p. 478).

Less than one 14th of the world's population escaped the greatest conflict in history.

Known as the Great War until, 25 years later, a second world war followed, the 1914-18 war saw the end of the old order. A world that had been dominated for four centuries by European empires witnessed the collapse of most of them. Only the British and French empires survived. These two powers were among the victors. But even they lost their empires in the aftermath of the second conflict that inevitably followed the first.

The central power that was their adversary was Germany, a country that did not even exist at the end of the Napoleonic period a century earlier.

At the Congress of Vienna, held after Napoleon was exiled to Elba, leaders of over 200 different sovereign European countries laid the foundation for a century of relative peace on the continent. This century coincided with the Pax Britannica, the century of British dominance that came about largely due to Britain's command of the seas. British dominions and colonies scattered the globe forming the "multitude of nations" that was promised to Joseph's son Ephraim in Genesis 48. It was also the period of American expansion westward as the United States fulfilled the birthright promise to Ephraim's brother Manasseh to become a great single nation (verse 19).

The Congress of Vienna met in 1814. In the following year, Napoleon was to return from exile and once again embark upon his military adventures. His final defeat came in June 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo. The fifth attempt at reviving the Roman Empire had ended. It was to be a century before another power would rise, set on uniting Europe by conquest.

Germany unites

Before Napoleon, there were 360 German states. These were not states like the American states. The United States is a federal republic. The 360 German states each had their own sovereign: a king, duke or prince. Many of them owed nominal allegiance to the Holy Roman emperor. Napoleon abolished the empire in 1806. A few years later, the Congress of Vienna established a German Confederation (or Deutscher Bund) under the presidency of Austria. The number of sovereign German states was reduced from 360 to 39. German unity remained elusive, leaving Austria as the dominant German-speaking power.

But Austrian ambitions were soon challenged by Prussia, the other powerful German nation. The Prussians, under King Frederick the Great (1740-86), had become a major rival to Austria for domination of the rest of Germany. In 1834 Prussia set up a German customs union called the Zollverein, effectively creating a free-trade area among all the German states. This also had the effect of undermining Austrian ambitions over the German lands. It was the first step on the road to German unification.

A little over a thousand years earlier, Charlemagne had united the French and the Germans in one kingdom, the second revival of the Roman Empire. After Charlemagne, France and Germany gradually developed their own separate identities, but, as neighbors, their destinies were set to be entwined.

In the aftermath of Napoleon, the French were to struggle through decades of political uncertainty. The dynasty overthrown in the Revolution of 1789 was restored to power in 1815, but remained unpopular and fell 15 years later. The new king, the duke of Orleans, was popular at first but was himself overthrown in 1848, when France's Second Republic was established.

Three years later, a coup led to the restoration of the empire under Napoleon III. In turn, he was also overthrown in 1871. Ironically, in view of the long conflict with England during the time of Napoleon, the three monarchs who lost their thrones in 1830, 1848 and 1871 all went into exile across the Channel.

Napoleon III had the misfortune to rule France when the German states united under Prussia, making Germany a formidable European power at the very center of the continent. Germany was to defeat France three times in 70 years. Some people lived to see German troops arrive in their country three times!

It was Otto von Bismarck who successfully and skillfully united the German territories under the Prussian dynasty of the Hohenzollerns. Bismarck was popularly known as the Iron Chancellor following a speech he gave at the outset of his premiership. He said, "The great questions of our day cannot be solved by speeches and majority votes, but by blood and iron."

Bismarck expanded Prussia's military in preparation for war with Austria. The Seven Weeks' War in the middle of 1866 saw the Austrian Habsburgs defeated, resulting in Prussian domination of Germany. Following Prussia's victory, the German states north of the Main River formed a confederation (the Norddeutscher Bund), with Berlin as the capital. Four large southern German states formed a separate confederation but were in alliance with Prussia.

In defeat, Austria's ruling dynasty established a dual monarchy, which encompassed the empire of Austria and the kingdom of Hungary under one hereditary sovereign. The two nations were independent of each other under the Habsburgs.

When a German prince was offered the vacant Spanish throne in 1870, France objected. Bismarck skillfully raised tensions between France and Germany, with France declaring war on July 19. The northern and the southern German states fought side by side against the French. The French were defeated at the Battle of Sedan on Sept. 1, 1870. Paris fell to the Prussians in January of the following year.

During this war a strong desire grew in the north and the south for a fully united Germany. On Jan. 18, 1871, just 10 days before German troops entered Paris, King William I of Prussia was proclaimed emperor (kaiser) of Germany in the Hall of Mirrors at the French palace of Versailles. After a peace treaty in which France lost territory to Germany, German troops withdrew back to their own borders.

In less than a century, dominance of Europe had passed from France, under the Bourbons and later Napoleon, to the Germans. The title of kaiser was derived from caesar. The kaisers of both Germany and Austria and the czar of Russia all followed in the traditions of imperial Rome. Bismarck became the reich chancellor of Germany's Second Reich, the successor to the First Reich abolished by Napoleon earlier in the century.

In 1871 Bismarck was given the title prince. Having united Germany, he was also appointed imperial chancellor the same year. He had been prime minister of Prussia from 1862 and remained in that office until 1890. He served under all three kaisers of the Second Reich.

World War I

Under Bismarck, Germany continued to get stronger and stronger. When Kaiser Wilhelm II came to the German throne in 1888, he was jealous of his chancellor and dismissed him from office. Wilhelm had great ambitions for Germany, wanting to see his German empire become as great as the empire of his grandmother Queen Victoria (the kaiser's mother was the eldest daughter of the British monarch). It was rather late for Germany to acquire many overseas possessions, as most had been taken, but building up the greatest army in Europe gave it opportunities closer to home.

War became inevitable and was finally triggered by a Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife on June 28, 1914. Within weeks Europe was at war. As most of the world was under European domination, the war was a world war. The United States entered the war in April 1917.

No war in history has ever seen so many casualties. By the end of the four-year conflict, the German, Austrian, Russian and Ottoman emperors had all lost their thrones. The old order had ended, and the world had now entered a totally different phase. Whereas, prior to 1914, many ethnic groups were united under one empire, in the aftermath of war many ethnic groups sought independence, a universal trend that continues down to this day.

It can also be said that, aside from minor conflicts in South America (one continent that was largely unaffected by World War I), every war in the world, wherever and whenever it has taken place, can be traced back to the war of 1914-18. Recent conflicts in the Persian Gulf, for example, owe their origin to the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Even the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a direct consequence of World War I.

The kaiser's abdication and the creation of a German republic in November 1918 did not bring closure. The Second Reich had fallen, but the Paris peace treaty resulted in a great deal of resentment among the German peoples. Reparations left the country much poorer with punitive damages having to be paid. Economic problems in the aftermath of the war continued on and off through the Great Depression of the 1930s.

By this time, many Germans had had enough of democracy and voted Adolf Hitler into power. Hitler restored Germany's economy and pride. His Third Reich was to last a thousand years. It collapsed in ruins after only 12!

Perversions of the Millennium

Hitler's planned thousand-year reich (empire) was intended to be the successor to the First Reich, the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, which lasted for a thousand years. Both were satanic perversions of the biblical Millennium, the prophesied period of rule by Jesus Christ, which will start at His second coming (Isaiah 9:6-7; Revelation 5:10; 20:6).

The First Reich was a union of church and state where the church was supposedly the Kingdom of God on earth. The emperor was considered the temporal authority appointed by God. In reality, between them, the temporal and spiritual authorities kept the people in ignorance and bondage.

Hitler's Third Reich was even worse. An estimated 20 million people died and 90 percent of Europe's heritage was destroyed by Hitler's military machine. The Jews were singled out in Hitler's "final solution," and 6 million died in concentration camps across Europe.

Like the Holy Roman Empire before it, the Third Reich was a revival of the Roman Empire. Hitler's ally, Italy's Benito Mussolini, leader of the Fascist Party, proclaimed the revival of the Roman Empire in 1922, prior to Italian invasions of other countries in pursuit of a global empire.

Their mad dream of universal conquest almost succeeded. Again, there was a spiritual element. The church was involved (which will be covered in the next installment), but, more importantly, Satan was behind this revival of the Roman Empire, as he was the other revivals. "The dragon [Satan] gave him his power, his throne, and great authority" (Revelation 13:2).

The three great powers that presided over their defeat were the British (who were in the Second World War from September 1939 until its European end in May 1945), the Soviet Union (June 1941 until the end) and the United States (December 1941 to the end). At the end of six years of conflict, Britain was broke and was soon forced to begin dismantling its empire.

With Germany's defeat and most of Europe in ruins, Europe's ascendancy was effectively over. The two great powers were now the United States and the Soviet Union. The latter, although partly in Europe, had always been out of the mainstream of European civilization. Under communism, the Soviet Union had cut itself off from the rest of Europe. At the end of World War II, Moscow had taken control of most of Eastern Europe, dividing the continent with what Winston Churchill described in 1946 as an "Iron Curtain."

But Europe soon rose from defeat. The sixth revival of the Roman Empire—these attempts by the central European powers led by Germany to achieve world conquest—may have ended, but a new chapter was beginning, with a totally different approach to achieving the elusive unity of the ancient continent.

Europe and the Church, Part 10: Napoleon's Dream of European Conquest

More books have been written on Napoleon than almost any other world leader. His period of glory is still remembered in his capital city of Paris, where the Arc de Triomphe commemorates the First Empire and Les Invalides is his final resting place. But Napoleon's dream of European unity failed as did those of others before him.

At the height of his power, he had 70 million subjects across the continent of Europe. "Not since the ancient Caesars had one man held so much power" (Napoleon, PBS).

He was the emperor of France, but "not a drop of French blood flowed through his veins" (The Book of Knowledge, Vol. V, The Rise and Fall of Napoleon, 1955, p. 318). His wife, the empress, wasn't French either. But 25 years after he died in exile thousands of miles away from France, the French wanted his remains returned to Paris where he was finally laid to rest in a grand mausoleum, Les Invalides.

Two centuries after his reign, Napoleon Bonaparte is remembered as one of the most significant men in history. More books have been written about him than almost any other historical figure.

Born in August 1769 on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, Napoleon as a young man was very anti-French. His home island had been conquered by France only one year before his birth, and he held nothing but contempt for France and its people.

However, his father was employed in French government service and adopted French manners and ways. Consequently, Napoleon was given a free military education in France. He was commissioned second lieutenant of artillery in 1785, just four years before the start of the French Revolution.

On the outbreak of the revolution in July 1789, Napoleon returned to his native Corsica to attempt to organize revolution there. "Coming into conflict with the monarchist faction on the island, he was forced to escape to France, with the rest of his family, in 1793" (ibid).

Napoleon came to prominence when he defended the republican government against a serious royalist uprising in Paris in October 1795. The government rewarded him by appointing him commander of the French army in Italy against the Austrians and their allies.

Two days before his departure for Italy he married Josephine, widow of a French general who had been executed during the terror that followed the revolution. Josephine originally came from the French Caribbean island of Martinique.

Military genius

Italy brought out Napoleon's great military genius and stirred a deep ambition in him. In 1796 he defeated the Sardinians five times in 11 days, forcing a peace on them. He followed this with battles against the Austrians. "He defeated them at Lodi on May 10th, and his bravery was shown when he forced his way across the bridge at Lodi—an exploit that won from his troops the affectionate nickname of 'Little Corporal'" (ibid.).

Following a number of victories over the Austrians, the Habsburgs sued for peace when Napoleon advanced to within 80 miles of the Austrian capital, Vienna.

Next, Bonaparte persuaded the French government to let him invade Egypt, thereby striking a devastating blow against France's traditional enemy, Great Britain, by opening a route to India.

Having taken control of Alexandria, Napoleon then fought the Battle of the Pyramids near Cairo, defeating the elite forces of the Ottoman Empire. The British hit back by sinking the French fleet, and Napoleon was stranded in Egypt, cut off from reinforcements.

After further conflict in Palestine and Egypt, bad news from France reached him, and he secretly left, evading British frigates, and landed in France on Oct. 9, 1799. It wasn't until 1802 that the last French troops in Egypt were defeated by British forces.

Napoleon's short period in Egypt left a lasting legacy throughout the Middle East, where many educated people still choose to speak French and embrace French culture. He also reorganized the legal and administrative systems, a prelude to what he would do later in France itself.

Meanwhile Austria, Russia and England had formed an alliance against France, inflicting a number of serious defeats on French forces. By the time Napoleon arrived, coalition forces had suffered some setbacks.

The main problem confronting him was instability in France itself. On Nov. 9 he joined a plot that overthrew the discredited government and replaced it with a government called the Consulate. Napoleon was the first of three consuls who held the real power. In 1802 he became first consul for life.

"He had now grasped political power and become master of France. His old ambition was realized; but already new ones were forming. He had failed to build up an eastern empire, but now aspired to restore the western one of Charlemagne" (ibid., p. 319).

Church-state connection

With Rome and Charlemagne as his inspiration, Napoleon set about restoring the unity of Europe and beyond. He rapidly annexed Piedmont, Parma and the island of Elba and planned the partition of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire and the foundation of a colonial empire that was to include parts of America, India, Egypt and Australia. He entered into a concordat with the Roman Catholic Church, reestablishing relations that had been broken at the time of the revolution. The concordat gave the French leader the power to nominate bishops.

Once again, the church of Rome was involved in the politics of Europe. The prophecy of Revelation 17:9 was once again proving true with "the woman" (the church) sitting on one of the "seven mountains" (seven great empires) that have been revivals of the Roman Empire.

Justinian was the first revival in the sixth century. Charlemagne was the second, crowned by the pope in 800. Otto the Great and the Holy Roman Empire in the 10th century were the third, and Charles V in the 16th made four. Napoleon was the fifth revival, a thousand years after his role model Charlemagne, showing a continuation of the desire to fulfill the dream of European unity.

On Dec. 2, 1804, following in Charlemagne's footsteps, Napoleon was crowned by the pope. The coronation took place in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Napoleon famously grabbed the crown from the pope and placed it on his own head, either from impatience or to make a point that the state was now over the papacy, reversing the respective roles of the Middle Ages.

At war again

The year before Napoleon's coronation, Great Britain declared war again, ending a one-year peace. Napoleon spent the years 1804 and 1805 planning an invasion of the British Isles that never took place. After suffering a serious naval defeat by the Royal Navy under Admiral Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Napoleon knew that he could never again think of invading England. His future conquests would be confined to the continent of Europe.

Several months before Trafalgar, the British, Russians and Austrians had formed an alliance against Napoleon. The French emperor did not wait for them to attack but marched his armies across France into Germany, rapidly conquering territory. He forced one Austrian army to surrender at Ulm, driving the Russians to the east.

In December 1805 he routed the bigger Austrian-Russian forces at Austerlitz. This was one of his greatest victories, and Austria made peace with Napoleon before the month was out.

After the Battle of Austerlitz, the British Prime Minister William Pitt exclaimed: "Roll up that map [of Europe]; it will not be wanted these ten years!" (ibid., p. 322).

"And for almost that period Napoleon changed the map at his will. His stepson Eugene was made viceroy of Italy. His brother Louis received the kingdom of Holland, and another, Joseph, became king first of Naples and then of Spain. General Murat, who had married Napoleon's sister, succeeded to the vacant throne of Naples. The shadowy Holy Roman Empire, an anachronism for many centuries, was dissolved in 1806" (ibid., p. 322).

A new alliance, formed in August 1806 between Britain, Prussia and Russia, led fairly quickly to the defeat of the Prussians and Napoleon's victorious entry into Berlin. Only Britain and Russia remained beyond his control. It wasn't until July 1809 that Napoleon was able to defeat the Russians.

Czar Alexander I sought peace with Napoleon. When they met, his first words to the French leader were: "Sir, I hate the English as much as you do!" Napoleon's reply was: "Then we have made peace!" He took no territory from the czar, but did insist that he join the continental trade blockade of Great Britain.

"At one time or another every state of continental Europe, except Turkey and Portugal, was forced into this commercial system. But all in vain" (ibid.).

At the end of the year, having defeated Austria yet again and entered Vienna, Napoleon focused on his desire for an heir to ensure stability in France and the continuity of his empire. He divorced Josephine, who had been unable to bear him an heir, and married the Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria, who gave him a son on March 20, 1811. The son was given the title "king of Rome."

"Paris was the glittering capital, and Rome the second city" (ibid.).

There had been no greater empire since the days of Rome—but it was not to last.

Napoleon's big mistakes

After repeated military successes, Napoleon made two major military blunders during this period as emperor.

Seeing himself as a liberator, Napoleon invaded Spain, but instead aroused nationalist patriotic feelings that led to vicious guerrilla war. When the British came to the aid of the Spanish, the six-year Peninsular War followed (1808-1814). "Napoleon lost interest in this war, and left it to his marshals. For the rest of his career it drained away men and materials, and little by little the French forces were pushed back beyond the Pyrenees" (ibid.).

The year 1812 marked the beginning of the end for Napoleon. Relations with Russia had deteriorated due to popular clamor for the czar to end the blockade against Great Britain. On June 22, Napoleon led an army of 610,000 men into Russia. Only 95,000 returned. Most of those who died were killed by the Russian winter.

Napoleon was unable to force the retreating Russians into a major battle. When he arrived on the outskirts of Moscow, the Russians set fire to the city, reducing 90 percent of it to ashes. One month later, on Oct. 19, his disastrous retreat from Moscow began. Three days later, the French "suffered a sharp defeat at Malo Yaroslavetz. Panic set in and the retreat soon became a disorderly flight, in which Napoleon lost his army. The crossing of the River Beresina was especially disastrous" (ibid.).

Napoleon's great military career was largely over. Although he had a few more minor victories, he also suffered great defeats as the various nations of Europe regrouped and formed an effective alliance against him. "Russians, Prussians, Austrians and Swedes closed on Napoleon, and in the four-day 'Battle of the Nations' at Leipzig (October 16-19, 1813) he was decisively defeated. He withdrew his remaining forces to France" (ibid.).

On the first day of the new year, allied forces entered France. Battles ensued all over the country. Allied forces entered Paris on March 31 and Napoleon was forced to abdicate 11 days later. He was allowed to retain the title emperor, reigning over the small island of Elba. The French restored the Bourbon monarchy, which remained largely unpopular until its final overthrow in 1830.

Napoleon wasn't finished, though. Many Frenchmen wanted his return. In March 1815 he slipped quietly away from Elba and landed in France. An army rallied to his support and for "One Hundred Days" he enjoyed the return of his former glory. He was finally defeated in Belgium at the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815. Exiled to the British island colony of St. Helena, 1,200 miles off the west coast of Africa, Napoleon died six years later.

Napoleon's attempt at reviving the Roman Empire was not nearly as long-lasting as some of the other revivals. There would be a century of "Pax Britannica" before any further attempt would be made to unify Europe.

Europe and the Church, Part 12: A Period of Change for the Papacy

In 1870 the First Vatican Council declared the pope infallible while solidifying his role as supreme spiritual and administrative head of the church. As Europe became embroiled in two World Wars, this decision laid the foundation for Pope Pius XII, whose influence in political events of the time has become a subject of investigation.

In my New King James Version of the Bible, Revelation chapter 17 carries the title: "The Scarlet Woman and the Scarlet Beast." The chapter is a prophecy about seven revivals of the Roman Empire that culminate in the second coming of the Messiah (verse 14).

"The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits" (verse 9). These are seven great empires that involve the church, the "woman" mentioned here.

The two women of Revelation

A woman is sometimes used to symbolize religion. In Ephesians 5 we see the analogy between marriage and the relationship Christ has with His Church. Just as the Church submits itself to Christ, so the wife should submit herself to the husband (Ephesians 5:22-25).

In Revelation chapter 12 we read an account of "a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars" (verse 1). This woman symbolizes God's people Israel, both the physical nation of Israel in the Old Testament and the spiritual nation of Israel, the true Church, in the New Testament. Satan hates the woman and goes to war with her and her offspring "who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (verse 17).

This Church is not to be confused with the false church that is described in chapter 17 as "the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication" (verses 1-2).

The apostle Paul warned in 2 Corinthians 11:14-15 that "Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness."

The false church, pictured as a harlot, a church that compromises, or sells itself for gain, was prophesied to commit "fornication" with the "kings of the earth." This is a political church. God's true Church stays out of politics, heeding the words of Jesus Christ that His Kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). Fornication, however, is not the same as marriage. In marriage there is commitment. Each partner tries to please the other in order to make the marriage successful.

In a relationship based on fornication, there is only "get." Each partner is trying to seek his or her own. This is the way it has been throughout the history of church and state. Each has used the other for self-centered gain, just as two people fornicating use each other.

The church in the 19th century

By the time of the French Revolution, after 15 centuries of the supremacy of the political church, there was a great deal of anticlerical feeling. The French Revolution was an anticlerical revolution. Napoleon learned later that it was better to use the church for his own ends—he was crowned by the pope in 1804. But the 19th century was a difficult time for the church in France, in Italy and elsewhere. The papacy had lost its landholdings (the Papal States) under Napoleon. These were restored by the Congress of Vienna, only to be lost again during the period of Italian unification in the 1860s.

"Ever since the Reformation, the papacy had been reluctantly readjusting to the realities of a fragmented Christendom amid the challenge of Enlightenment ideas and new ways of looking at the world. In response to the political and social changes that gathered pace in the aftermath of the French Revolution, the papacy had struggled to survive and exert an influence in a climate of liberalism, secularism, science, industrialization, and the evolving nation-state. The popes had been obliged to fight on two fronts—as primates of an embattled Church and as monarchs of a tottering papal kingdom. Caught in a bewildering series of confrontations with the new masters of Europe, the papacy had been attempting to protect the Church universal while defending the integrity of its collapsing temporal power" (John Cornwell, Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, 1999, pp. 4-5).

Within the church there was division between the centrists who believed in stronger papal power and those who argued for decentralization by giving more power to the bishops. "The triumph of the modern centrists...was sealed at the First Vatican Council of 1870 against the background of the Pope's loss of his dominions. At that Council, the Pope was declared infallible in matters of faith and morals as well as undisputed primate—supreme spiritual and administrative head of the Church" (ibid., pp. 5-6).

Pope Pius XII

In the century following the doctrine of papal infallibility, the most autocratic pope was Eugenio Pacelli, who became Pope Pius XII on the eve of World War II in 1939. He was and remains one of the most controversial popes in history, largely due to his failure to speak out against Hitler and the Holocaust. His career in the Vatican bureaucracy leading up to the papacy is very revealing of the political power and influence of the church when it comes to worldly politics, the very politics Jesus Christ told His disciples to stay out of.

"In his capacity as highly favored undersecretary, and as a coming figure in the world of international diplomacy and law, [Pacelli] now became involved in a series of negotiations that contributed significantly to the extreme tensions between Serbia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the period preceding the outbreak of the First World War...

"At precisely 11:30 on the morning of June 24, 1914, just four days before Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated at Sarajevo, representatives of the Holy See and the government of Serbia sat down in the salone of the Secretariat of State to put their signatures to a treaty known as the Serbian Concordat" (ibid., pp. 48-49).

The concordat between the Vatican and predominantly Orthodox Serbia came at the expense of Austria-Hungary, which had previously been the protector of Catholics in the region.

"Vienna reacted to news of the concordat with outrage. 'The Austrian press and people,' wrote the Italian ambassador from Vienna on June 25, 'consider the Serbian Concordat a major diplomatic defeat for their Government'" (ibid., p. 50).

Cornwell continues, "The result was a sharp increase in anti-Serbian rhetoric and calls for action. When the archduke was murdered in Sarajevo only days later, emotions were already volatile. The Serbian Concordat undoubtedly contributed to the uncompromising terms that the Austro-Hungarian Empire pressed on Serbia, making war inevitable" (ibid., p. 51).

World War II

Pacelli's contribution to global conflict did not end there.

He was papal nuncio (ambassador) to Bavaria from 1917-1929, during which time he became very knowledgeable on German affairs. Made a cardinal in 1929, he was appointed secretary of state the following year.

After Hitler came to power on Jan. 30, 1933, Pacelli on July 20 signed a concordat with the German diplomat Franz von Papen that gave the Catholic Church complete freedom within Germany, in exchange for which the Church would stay out of politics. This meant the end of the Catholic Center Party, the only party big enough to counteract Hitler. The treaty was seen as a major triumph for Hitler, who was now well on the way to turning Germany into a dictatorship.

It is interesting to observe that one man in the Vatican bureaucracy contributed to both world wars! As Pope Pius XII, he was the only man in fascist-controlled Europe who conceivably could have stood up to Hitler and condemned the Holocaust. Instead, he chose not to.

This is not surprising when the history of the church is taken into account. The roots of anti-Semitism lie within the church, which has always taught that the Jews killed Christ. Medieval Europe, dominated by the church, persecuted the Jews for centuries.

Foreshadowing the 1933 deal with Hitler, the Vatican had signed a pact with Mussolini in February 1929 that made Catholicism the only legal religion in Italy and gave the church the authority to impose the Code of Canon Law on the country. The Catholic Popular Party, which was similar to the Catholic Center Party in Germany, was disbanded and its leader went into exile. Members of the church were told to stay out of politics. Hitler welcomed the agreement, interpreting it as support for fascism.

The church's involvement in worldly politics is a direct fulfillment of the prophecy in Revelation 17 that speaks of false religion and secular political leaders in cahoots with one another.

Today, Pius XII is in the process of being canonized by the Catholic Church.

The Millennium: The Vision That Won't Die

What does the Bible really say about the Millennium, the prophesied 1,000-year reign of Jesus Christ? Is it a fantasy or a promise on which you can stake your future?

In 1972 President Richard Nixon stunned the world with his historic trip from Washington to China to meet with Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong. President Nixon observed, "The chairman's writings moved a nation and have changed the world." Chairman Mao more realistically replied: "I have not been able to change it. I have only been able to change a few places in the vicinity of Beijing."

This was the assessment of one of this century's most powerful rulers about the lasting effect of his ideas and reforms on the world's most populous nation.

In a later publication President Nixon's secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, reflected that Mao "could not escape the nightmare that shadowed his accomplishments and tormented his last years: that it might all prove ephemeral, that the exertions, the suffering, the Long March, the brutal leadership struggles would be but a brief incident in the triumphant, passive persistence of a millennial culture which had tamed all previous upheavals, leaving little more in their wake than the ripples of a stone falling into a pond."

What a commentary about one of the century's most influential political ideas. Communism, like so many others, has risen and fallen on the tides of time. Like many other movements, communism may yet see itself consigned to the dustbin of history. Another effort at creating a utopian world will have been tried and found wanting, joining the many other political and governmental systems that failed to last even a few centuries, much less 1,000 years or more.

Yet there is one idea, first put to writing a few thousand years ago but not born of human imagination (2 Peter 1:21), that promises a world of peace and prosperity for all. It is the biblical teaching of the 1,000-year reign of Jesus Christ on earth. We call it, appropriately enough, the Millennium.

This truth, which connects with some of the Bible's earliest statements and is abundantly expressed by the Hebrew prophets, continues to hold the imagination of many over the centuries, in spite of attempts to undermine and explain it away.

God's promise of a millennial kingdom stands as a symbol of hope for mankind. A study of the sayings of Scripture and a review of efforts to overturn this teaching can help us understand our world and the promised peace of the Kingdom of God.

The future foretold

In the book of Revelation the apostle John records that after the second coming of Jesus Christ the saints will reign with Him for 1,000 years.

"And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years...Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years" (Revelation 20:4, 6, emphasis added throughout).

These verses summarize the Bible's many references to the age to come. It is from this verse that we can define the initial period as the Millennium, which simply means "thousand years."

The book of Revelation provides a summary of other biblical descriptions and promises about the millennial age and beyond. God, through His servants, foretold this period time and time again. It was the hope of Israel's prophets throughout much of that nation's history, especially during the nation's downfall and captivity. This same hope was shared by the apostles as they questioned Christ about the restoration of Israel's ancient kingdom (Acts 1:6).

Isaiah, writing during the time of Israel's decline, offered a clear picture of this future when he wrote of a time when Israel would be reunited under one leader and the knowledge of God would fill the earth:

"There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord… The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

"The cow and the bear shall graze; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra's hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse, who shall stand as a banner to the people; for the Gentiles shall seek Him, and His resting place shall be glorious" (Isaiah 11:1-10).

Isaiah's stirring words remain unfulfilled. They have fired imaginations for centuries and crystallized the concept of the Millennium. Isaiah describes a complete change in the physical order. No part of the world we know will be left unchanged.

The nature of man will change to allow the building of a just world based on God's Word and His laws. The deception that has gripped the world will dissipate as the true knowledge of God's plan spreads to all humanity after Christ's return.

Confirmation from other prophets

Ancient Israel didn't live to experience this prophesied transformation of society. This dream, this vision, never materialized during the time it was a nation. Nor has it been fulfilled since.

From the bleakness of captivity and loss of Jewish national sovereignty, the prophet Daniel was given the promise of an enduring Kingdom that would replace the failed efforts of human rule:

"And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever" (Daniel 2:44).

In yet another vision Daniel saw the promise of a literal kingdom encompassing the earth: "Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed...Then the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him" (Daniel 7:14, 27).

In the midst of the Babylonian captivity, God showed the Jewish people that a kingdom would come on the earth under a divine ruler. There was no doubt this promise was of a literal, earthly kingdom. The Jews expected the Messiah to restore their kingdom and national greatness. But just as a fuller understanding of the words of Daniel's prophecies was for a future time, so would the coming of this everlasting Kingdom have to wait.

Christ's promise to fulfill prophecy

Centuries after Daniel's day, the angel Gabriel revealed to Mary that her Son Jesus would be the head of this Kingdom: "And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end" (Luke 1:33).

During His ministry Christ spoke clearly of His destiny to fulfill these scriptures. He showed that His followers would be among those who would reign in this Kingdom: "Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matthew 19:28).

The expectation of 2,000 years ago in the Holy Land was that a Messiah would overthrow Roman rule and restore an Israelite monarchy. Many who followed Jesus Christ, including His closest disciples, believed He was the One who would restore the Kingdom to Israel. But on the day of His death He said that His Kingdom was not of that day and age. "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here" (John 18:36).

The time for Christ's Kingdom to be established was not at hand—not during the age of man—in "this present evil age," as the apostle Paul put it (Galatians 1:4).

The early New Testament Church preached the gospel of the Kingdom of God extensively in the following decades. It was the central idea and hope for which the followers of Christ gave their lives in devoted service.

Persecution and heresy

Near the end of the first century the Church and the truth of God's Kingdom came under severe attack from both within and without. The integrity of Christ's teachings was subverted by heresy. The Roman government killed many Christians, including Christian leaders. The apostle John was exiled on the Aegean prison island of Patmos.

At the height of this crisis John received Christ's revelation that affirmed the truths of the triumphal establishment of the Kingdom of God. The knowledge of the Millennium gave the Church encouragement, as it always has done for those who look to God for their hope (1 Peter 1:3; 5:4).

During this tumultuous epoch the teaching of the literal Kingdom of God on earth became mixed with forms of heresy and in some circles was discredited. In the second, third and fourth centuries the concept of a literal earthly reign of Christ came under the most severe attack.

There were misguided attempts by some to predict the time of the return of Christ, contrary to His own teaching (Matthew 24:36, 44; 25:13; Acts 1:6-7). Montanus, a self-proclaimed prophet of the third century, founded a movement predicting the imminent second coming of Christ. Some gnostics also adopted a form of millennial teaching.

Origen, the third-century Alexandrian thinker, arrived at a radically different conclusion about the Kingdom of God. The focus of his view "was not upon the manifestation of the kingdom within this world but within the soul of the believer, a significant shift of interest away from the historical toward the metaphysical, or the spiritual" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, "Millennialism").

Because of the influence of Origen and similar thinkers, the Kingdom of God came to be viewed not as a literal future kingdom, but as a spiritual kingdom subject to varying interpretation. The scriptural references were to be understood as symbolism and allegory, not to be taken at face value.

Holding fast

In the midst of these heresies, many still held to faith in a coming Kingdom as it had been received from the apostles. "Bishop Papias of Hierapolis, a disciple of St. John, appeared as an advocate of millenarianism. He claimed to have received his doctrine from contemporaries of the Apostles, and Irenaeus narrates that other 'Presbyteri,' who had seen and heard the disciple John, learned from him the belief in millenarianism as part of the Lord's doctrine. According to Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., III, 39) Papias in his book asserted that the resurrection of the dead would be followed by one thousand years of a visible, glorious earthly kingdom of Christ, and according to Irenaeus (Adv. Haereses, V, 33), he taught that the saints too would enjoy a superabundance of earthly pleasures" (Catholic Encyclopedia, 1914 edition, "Millennium").

In these early centuries, among the last known proponents of the teaching of the 1,000-year earthly reign of Christ's Kingdom was a bishop of Laodicea named Apollinaris. By the fifth century the doctrine was largely overwhelmed by the views of Augustine, the most influential theologian of the Catholic church. His teaching that the church was the Kingdom of God on earth replaced the biblical teaching that God would intervene in history and establish a Kingdom that would never end.

In Augustine's view, God had already triumphed over Satan, and His Kingdom was a spiritual matter in the hearts of men, manifest in the role of the church on earth. "The millennium had become a spiritual state into which the church collectively had entered at Pentecost—the time of the reception of the Holy Spirit by Christ's disciples soon after his Resurrection—and which the individual Christian might already enjoy through mystical communion with God" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, "Millennialism").

This coincided with Roman Emperor Constantine's official adoption of Christianity as the religion of the empire. From this point there was no need for a literal belief in Christ's reign on earth. The church had become politically and spiritually wedded to the power of the empire.

What historian Edward Gibbon called "the ancient and popular doctrine" now became an appendage with little use or support. He writes: "But when the edifice of the church was almost completed, the temporary support was laid aside. The doctrine of Christ's reign upon earth was at first treated as a profound allegory, was considered by degrees as a doubtful and useless opinion, and was at length rejected as the absurd invention of heresy and fanaticism" (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Great Books edition, 1952, p. 188).

A dark age descends

Augustine's view became the accepted teaching of the church. Whatever remained of the belief in the literal rule of the Kingdom of God on earth went underground. It was virtually unheard of for approximately 1,000 years, until the period that followed the Protestant Reformation. It is interesting that this medieval period has been called the Dark Ages of Western civilization. It is as if the lights went out on learning and the advancement of culture on all fronts. Historian William Manchester describes the period as a "portrait...of incessant warfare, corruption, lawlessness, obsession with strange myths, and an almost impenetrable mindlessness" (A World Lit Only by Fire, 1992, p. 3)

A close look at this "medieval millennium" reveals a time during which religious authority took on the form of a literal, triumphant kingdom on earth. Manchester continues: "As aristocracies arose from the barbaric mire, kings and princes owed their legitimacy to divine authority, and squires became knights by praying all night at Christian altars. Sovereigns courting popularity led crusades to the Holy Land. To eat meat during Lent became a capital offense, sacrilege meant imprisonment, the Church became the wealthiest landowner on the Continent, and the life of every European, from baptism through matrimony to burial, was governed by popes, cardinals, prelates, monsignors, archbishops, bishops, and village priests. The clergy, it was believed, would also cast decisive votes in determining where each would spend the afterlife" (ibid., p. 11).

During this time the advancement of Western civilization had largely ground to a halt, and "nothing of real consequence had either improved or declined. Except for the introduction of waterwheels in the 800s and windmills in the late 1100s, there had been no inventions of significance. No startling new ideas had appeared, no new territories outside Europe had been explored. Everything was as it had been for as long as the oldest European could remember" (ibid., pp. 26-27).

Dawn of a new world

The Bible reveals that a world of light will result from the return of Jesus Christ. The social order effected by the establishment of God's Kingdom on earth will be far different from anything ever produced by human effort.

Nations will seek out the way of God. Fear will be banished from among the peoples of the earth as righteousness—obedience to God's law (Psalm 119:172)—guides international relations.

Endless conflicts will disappear, and the art of warfare will be forgotten. Families will grow stronger with each generation and produce a tightly knit society that will not come unraveled (Micah 4:1-5). When God's Kingdom arrives, there will be nothing to deny its long-held promise and hope of bringing peace on earth.

As we have seen, the teaching of the Millennium begins early in the Hebrew Scriptures and continues through the book of Revelation. Christ's last words on the subject are perhaps the clearest and plainest in the Bible. Jesus Christ, the true author of the book of Revelation (Revelation 1:1), says there will be a period of 1,000 years during which the resurrected saints will reign with Him in a just and benevolent Kingdom on this earth. Will we take Christ at His word and believe what He said?

Ideas are a powerful force in human affairs. They have sparked revolutions and toppled centuries-old dynasties. They can sometimes arise in the humblest of ways to create large followings. Mao Zedong took a relatively modern idea and with it ruled the most populous nation on earth. Yet by his own admission he failed to change a deeply rooted ancient culture.

The millennial rule of Jesus Christ, an idea that is older than time, will endure and ultimately transform the world.