Tom's Perspectives
Dr. Thomas Ice
The Bible teaches that during the seven-year tribulation there will be a global government for at least the final three and a half years. Revelation 17–18 indicates that the Babylonian globalization will be built upon three major planks: economic trade, false religion, and centralized government. Obviously we do not yet live in the time of the coming seven-year tribulation. But we do live in a time where God is setting the stage for events that will take place after the Rapture, during the tribulation. Globalization is one of those things that will characterize the tribulation. We are seeing it take place daily, all around us. Everywhere you look institutions, whether private or public, are moving toward globalism.
The intermediate steps that are now being taken appear to be along the lines of developing the world into regions such as we have seen during the last two decades in the European Union. Robert Congdon, who lives in Scotland, presented an excellent paper at the December 2005 Pre-Trib Study Group dealing with the European Union.[1] Congdon demonstrates that the ultimate goal of the EU is not just the unification of Europe, but to use that as a steppingstone for eventual global governance by the Europeans.
Publicly, the European Union describes itself as "a family of democratic European countries, committed to working together for peace and prosperity." Since its six-nation beginning, the European Union has increased to 25 countries. Based upon the European Union’s own expansion plans, they see the union growing in the near future to 80 countries with over 430 million people. Looking to the future, the Director of Foreign Policy at the Centre for European Reform projects the ultimate growth of the renamed "Union," to include 109 nations of the world- including both North and South America. Such a Union certainly fits Daniel’s description of "the whole earth" as seen in verse 23. [2]
The goal of the European Union is to unite all of Europe into one union that will also promote peace, harmony, and prosperity and prevent future world conflicts. This "European Dream," as it is often labeled, proposes a single government that will eliminate national rivalries and conflicts within Europe. Beginning with the Utopian dreamers of the 1920s, the European Union of today is an established government over 25 countries in Europe. Many within the government envision an eventual 109 nations under the umbrella of a renamed "Union." The instrument making this present 25-member union functional is its unique supra-national authority.[3]
Congdon noted that the EU model of gradualism and regionalism was the one that many others would follow in pursuing the path to eventual globalism. He says:
It is impossible to know if the European Union is the embryonic form of the government that will ally itself with a final global religion as described in Revelation 17. However, at the very least, it serves as a powerful example of just how such an alliance could develop. In order to understand how a global supra-government could form an alliance with a global supra-religion, one must first understand how the European Union evolved from the 1920s Utopian dream of a few men into its current position as a unique supra-national government seeking to unite 109 nations of the world.[4]
It is not farfetched when many prophecy teachers today speak of the Revived Roman Empire as the description to describe the first-phase of the antichrist’s kingdom during the first-half of the tribulation. Congdon notes that this is where the EU seems to be heading at the present time:
A study of the European Union’s "Neighborhood Policy" . . . reveals its goal to absorb the Middle East, Egypt, and North Africa (all of the nations that were once a part of the ancient Roman Empire). Added to this, is its embryonic work with Mercosur, the Southern Common Market created by four South American states in March of 1991. The European Union is fast moving to a modern-day, worldwide Roman Empire with "the emergence of a world of regions." By replacing nations with governed world regions, the globalist’s believe that national rivalries and conflicts will be avoided. This concept could be that described by Daniel in Daniel 7:24.[5]
One of the important contributors to the development of the current European Union was a Frenchman named Jean Monnet. Monnet became a banker in the 1930s and developed what came to be called the "Monnet method" or engrenage.
In this method, each new advance of supranationalism is "regarded as a means of gearing up for the next." Monnet’s method was to propose a seemingly minor treaty or agreement. Within that treaty was hidden a principal, which once made law, opened the door to a much larger application and expansion of the granted power. It is this ongoing method, utilized by the European Union, that will bring the EU to either success or failure in achieving the dream of becoming a global empire and possibly fulfilling two characteristics noted in Daniel’s prophesy of the final form of man’s fourth kingdom in Daniel 7:23.[6]
This form of gradualism can be applied to any institution, whether public or private, and contributes to the step-by-step process of regionalism that then contributes to globalism.
For the last 35 years as a student of Bible prophecy I have known from day one that during the tribulation there would be a one-world government under the antichrist. I have always known that in my lifetime things would move in the direction of globalism, as the pre-rapture world would become increasingly prepared for this eventuality. I have tended to think that these are things that would be going on over there, in Europe, but not so much here in America. I have tended to think that real developments in America would likely happen after the rapture, that American’s, especially the large number of evangelical Christians, would only give up their national sovereignty while kicking and screaming in opposition. Even though I still think we will put up some level of resistance to these developments, it appears that after 911 things are now on fast forward.
I cannot begin to chronicle all the developments toward globalism since 911, but recently Jerome R. Corsi, who is probably best known as one of the author’s of the book on behalf of the swift boat vets against John Kerry, has announced some startling revelations about attempts to merge the United States, Canada and Mexico into the North American Union. How many of you know about this? Corsi said, "Despite having no authorization from Congress, the Bush administration has launched extensive working-group activity to implement a trilateral agreement with Mexico and Canada." [7]
The merger is not just a proposal there has already been a signed agreement between governments. "The groups, working under the North American Free Trade Agreement office in the Department of Commerce, are to implement the Security and Prosperity Partnership[8] or SPP, signed by President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, on March 23, 2005," [9] reports Corsi. Anyone can go and examine for themselves what our own government is doing at the website of SPP at www.spp.gov.
I remember that the Clinton administration adopted the practice of not bringing multi-national treaties and proposals before the Senate, as the Constitution instructs, but simply implementing the details of the treaty, as if it had been ratified, through the administration’s bureaucracy. Now the Bush administration is doing the same thing within the Department of Commerce. "The SPP report to the heads of state of the U.S., Mexico and Canada,- released June 27, 2005,- lists some 20 different working groups spanning a wide variety of issues ranging from e-commerce, to aviation policy, to borders and immigration, involving the activity of multiple U.S. government agencies," [10] according to Corsi. Similar offices have also been set up with the Canadian and Mexican governments.
These kinds of bureaucracies are set up outside of Constitutional prescriptions and usually function to overrule legitimate state and local authorities on various matters. Thus, the trend is to set up these new kinds of jurisdictions that simply come in and overrule the elected governments that we have in place on things like environmental issues, land management, etc. All of these kinds of things undermine our traditional governmental structures and replace them with unelected bureaucrats. You can see how these things contribute toward regionalism and eventually globalism as they gradually bring in the new way of doing things that will gradually push out the old.
Corsi quotes the following from a Task Force document:
The Task Force is pleased to provide specific advice on how the partnership can be pursued and realized. To that end, the Task Force proposes the creation by 2010 of a North American community to enhance security, prosperity, and opportunity. We propose a community based on the principle affirmed in the March 2005 Joint Statement of the three leaders that "our security and prosperity are mutually dependent and complementary." Its boundaries will be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter within which the movement of people, products, and capital will be legal, orderly, and safe. Its goal will be to guarantee a free, secure, just, and prosperous North America.
They are even proposing a new currency by the year 2010 for North America called the Amero, like the Euro. When one learns of the North American Union it is not surprising to also learn that this is likely the reason why the Bush Administration is not worried about the illegal immigration "problem." It could all be a mute issue by 2010. We now see how regionalism is paving the way for globalism. Maranatha!
[1] Robert R. Congdon, "The European Union and The Supra-Religion," Paper presented to the 14th Annual Pre-Trib Study Group (Dallas, TX: Dec. 2005), https://www.pre-trib.org/articles/robert-congdon/message/the-european-union-and-the-supra-religion/read.
[2] Congdon, "The European Union," pp. 10-11.
[3] Congdon, "The European Union," p. 9.
[4] Congdon, "The European Union," p. 7.
[5] Congdon, "The European Union," p. 11.
[6] Congdon, "The European Union," p. 9.
[7] Jerome R. Corsi, "Bush sneaking North American super-state without oversight?" on the WorldNetDaily website, June 13, 2006, www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50618.
[8] You can read the U. S. government’s official announcement of this signing at the following web address: http://usinfo.state.gov/is/Archive/2005/Mar/23-209281.html.
[9] Corsi, "Bush sneaking."
[10] Corsi, "Bush sneaking."