The European Union
The bible describes a latter-day Europe as a joining of nations formed together to make up a 10-nation union of power, a ten-nation confederacy.
The history of the EU is brief.
Allied countries created the union in 1945, to put an end to war in Europe, after the devastation caused by the second world war. Six European countries (France, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy and Germany) came together to form an alliance not only to keep the future of Europe at peace, but also to solve the economic problems that the war had created. The Treaty of Paris agreed on free trade of raw materials, the movement of coal and steel, the primary purpose. The European Coal and Steel Community (The ECSC), was up and running by 1952.
One idea stemming from this was to create a federal Europe where all the nations would pool together rather than create another war within Europe in the future. During the 1950s, they drew a European defence agreement up by the states to form a unified army. France rejected this, but remains a proposal still.
France didn’t include Britain in, and therefore Britain stayed out of the agreement.
In 1957, they signed a new treaty, known as The Treaty of Rome. This formed the EEC (The European Economic Community), which later morphed into what we know today as the EU (European Union). They bore the EU out of the Maastricht Treaty that came into being in 1993, a political and economic union of its member states.
In 1960, under a conservative government, Britain applied to join the EEC but France apposed in 1963 because the French parliament, led by President Charles DE Gaulle, was weary of the close relationship of Britain to the USA. Britain reapplied in 1973 and voted into the union, still known as the EEC.
In 1981, Greece was the tenth nation to join the EEC. Spain joined in 1986, further countries followed. In 2013, Croatia joined, this made 27.
A United States of Europe was a long-standing vision and as far back as 1849, Victor Hugo, the French writer, stated at the Paris Peace Congress as president, and expressed that vision:
“A day will come when your arms will fall from your hands! A day will come when war will seem as absurd between Paris and London, between Petersburg and Berlin, between Vienna and Turin, as it would today between Rouen and Amiens or between Boston and Philadelphia. A day will come when you — France, Russia, Italy, England, Germany — all your nations of the continent will merge, without losing your distinct qualities and your glorious individuality, in a close and higher unity to form a European brotherhood, just as Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Lorraine, Alsace, all our provinces are merged in France.”
“A day will come when the only fields of battle will be markets opening up to trade and minds opening up to ideas. A day will come when bullets and bombs will be replaced by votes, by universal suffrage of the peoples, by the venerable arbitration of a great sovereign senate which will be to Europe what Parliament is to England, what this diet is to Germany, what the Legislative Assembly is to France. A day will come when we will display cannon in museums just as we display instruments of torture today, amazed that such things could ever have been possible.”
“A day will come when we shall see those two immense groups, the United States of America and the United States of Europe, stretching out their hands across the sea, exchanging their products, their arts, their works of genius […] And to bring about that day will not take another 400 years, for we are living in a fast-moving age.”
Of course, this was over 170 years ago. Hugo could not even imagine today’s destructive weapons. He didn’t foresee what was coming upon Europe and the rest of the world, but his words do ring true for Europe after the wars, until now anyway.
The Ten-Nation Confederacy
The bible speaks of a ten-nation military formation that will rise out of a revived Roman Empire. An alliance comprising ten countries (UK, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Greece, Italy and Germany) joined in 1955, as the Western European Union to bring together a military alliance for the defence and security of Europe. They were also members of NATO. Power transferred to the EU in 2011 when the Western European Union disbanded.
The Revived Roman Empire
Rome had its first dictator and emperor in 54 BC. The empire ruled over Europe, including Britain (which was then known as Britannia), the middle East and Africa. The empire lasted until 476 AD, when it fell to the German Goths. During the empire, and to date, Europe and the western world have become steeped in Roman culture and influence. Constantine became emperor in 306 AD, and Christianity was the religion of Rome. In 380 AD, it became the sole religion of the empire. After the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD, the dark ages followed. The unity of Europe after the war was the formation of the revived Roman Empire, of which a leader will arise (The Antichrist) to rule over the empire as a dictator.
‘The Treaty of Rome’ signing took place in Rome on one of the seven hills, (we know Rome as the city of seven hills) known in Roman times as Capitolonium. Today it is Capitoline Hill, and they signed the treaty at the Plazzi de Campidoglio. Capitoline Hill has several temples upon it, the most important one being The Temple of Jupiter, built in 509 BC. This temple represented Rome. Jupiter was The Roman’s pagan god. The treaty signed at this location points to the revival of the Roman Empire.
The Book of Daniel
Daniel 2: 36-40
Verse 36: “This was the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation. 37: You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory, 38: and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all—you are the head of gold. 39: Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. 40: And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these. “
In Daniels interpretation above, the head of gold refers to King Nebuchadnezzar the ruler of the Babylonian Empire, the other kingdom after refers to the Medo-Persian Empire ruled by Darius the Mede, the third kingdom of bronze refers to the Greek Empire ruled by Alexander the Great and the Medoc fourth kingdom refers to the mighty Roman Empire, the greatest empire of the ancient world.
Daniel 2: 41-43
And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.
Daniel 7: 7-8
Verse 7: After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It differed from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. Verse 8: I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.
In Daniel’s vision above, he was referring to the great and powerful Roman Empire that was the mightiest empire to that date in history. Mightier than the three great world empires before it (Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece). The ten horns refer to ten future nations forming the revived Roman Empire. This differed from all the empires before it, it was mightier, conquered more of the ancient world and reigned for a longer period of history. It was also an empire that left behind a legacy to rise again out of the nations it conquered and left its cultural mark. The little horn refers to the Antichrist that will rise out of this reborn Roman Empire to rule a united European nation.
The Book of Revelation
Revelation 17:3 And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.
Here is a view of the revived Roman Empire. The beast is the symbol of ancient Europe (Europa), more on this later. The ten horns again are the ten nations of Europe, and the seven heads are seven kings of the ten nations. Three are overthrown for not conforming to the satanic ruler, The Antichrist.
The Symbols of the European Union
The Greek Goddess Europa, according to mythology, rode on the back of a white bull, which was Zeus in disguise. He took her away and threw her off his back and then raped her. The name ‘Europe’ resulted from being named after the Greek Goddess, Europa. Based on Greek mythology, the name Europe or Europa is synonymous with a woman riding a bull took from paganism. Several buildings of importance in the EU have this symbol as their emblem: The Parliament Building in Brussels; The Parliamentary Building in Strasbourg, France; The New Brussels Headquarters. They all have this pagan statue of a woman riding a bull.
The European flag of twelve gold stars on a blue background could also have a biblical significance. But what does the blue background and the gold stars mean?
Revelation 12:1. And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
Blue represents the sky or heaven, and the twelve gold stars represent the crown of the Virgin Mary referred to in the book of Revelation.
Twelve is the number of completeness and has several religious significances: the twelve apostles, of the New Testament, the twelve sons of Jacob who formed the twelve tribes of Israel in the Old Testament, in the Book of Revelation God’s kingdom has twelve gates guarded by twelve angels. There are twelve signs of the social and twelve months in a year. Many references to the number twelve are found in the bible.
Conclusion We’ve seen how biblical prophecy shows a European ten-nation confederacy run by a dictator (The Antichrist). But the EU is no longer a nation of ten states. There are now twenty-seven countries in the union. The EU absorbed the ten nation coalition of The Western Union. But the prophecy is about the future, and not about this present time. Some further developments will take place in order to recognize this ten-nation confederacy. One thing is certain, it will happen. Bible prophecy is never wrong
D. Marsden © 2020
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