Welcome to another edition of Bible in the News. This is Jonathan Bowen joining you. We apologize for the delay in this weeks “Bible in the News” caused by some technical difficulties with new equipment.

This week in the news we see the nations of the world exercising their military might:

• Israel has successfully tested a new and improved patriot anti-aircraft missile.

• The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force successfully flight tested its first Raytheon anti-ballistic interceptor missile in conjunction with the United States Navy.

• The Hindustan times reported that India test fired an interceptor class missile earlier this month.

• The Press Trust of India reported that Pakistan test fired a medium range nuclear capable cruise missile on December 17, which can hit targets within a 700 km range
  

• Novost reported that Russia conducted a successful test launch of a new generation intercontinental ballistic missile from a nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea in the Arctic on Tuesday. This missile has a range of 5500 miles and can carry 4 nuclear warheads

• Further more, Artuz Sheva, Israel’s channel 8 news reported on Wednesday, “Iranannounced Wednesday that Russia will provide Iran with the sophisticated and powerful S-300 anti-aircraft missile defense system, vastly improving the Islamic Republic’s ability to protect its nuclear development facilities.... The missiles can intercept targets at an altitude of up to 27 kilometers (90,000 feet) and at ranges of up to 150 kilometers (95 miles) from the launch point. They are effective against cruise missiles and ballistic warheads as well, and are equivalent to the PAC-3 Patriot missiles which Israel is considering purchasing.” (Arutz Sheva, December 26, 2007)

Add to this the political unrest that is reverberating around the world with political events such as the assignation of Pakistan’s former prime minister, and current Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto earlier today. If anyone is living under the grand delusion that world tensions are simmering down, they are sadly mistaken.

The words of the Lord about the end of the Jewish age are replaying at this the end of the gentile age:

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.  (Luke 21:25-26)

The increase in military buildup and political instability are the growing pains that nations are going through as they are being molded in to the form laid out for them by the Bible. The picture painted in Ezekiel is one of military might, or two “mountains of brass” (flesh) described in Zechariah 6:1. Ezekiel describes the northern horde coming, “all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords” (Ezekiel 38:4). This new arms race is the build-up heralding the coming conflict foretold by the Bible many years ago.

The growing ties between Russia and her biblically designated allies are destabilizing a “status quo” that existed during the Cold War. The Cold War was a tense period of time but the two power blocks created an uneasy status quo. However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, described scripturally as a “turning back” Ezekiel 38:4, created a power vacuum that the United States has tried to fill. It has been during this vacuum period that drastic changes in the Middle East have been made possible. Two Iraq wars and the Afghanistan operation against the Taliban have planted the United States into the Middle East.

It has also been during this lull that the group of hostile states in Europe have been able to set aside millennia of disputes to join the European Union. When we consider the history of Europe it has been a series of wars raging across the landscape that have pitted the nations involved against each other in a series of revolving strategic partnerships:

• Germany and Russia united with Britain against the French during the Napoleonic wars.  
• Russia and France united with Britain against the Germans and Turks in the First World War.  
• France and Britain united against German-Italian-Russian axis in the Second World War, only to have Russia change side once German attacked it.
• After the defeat of Germany the two superpowers, the United States of America (USA) and The United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) became the two powerbases holding the balance of power.

The collapse of the USSR saw the once rivaling nations of France and Germany uniting with the other smaller nations of Europe to form a much larger and robust European Union.

Tony Blair Goes Home to Rome

A thorn in the side of this new Union is the United Kingdom, brought into the headlines again this week with the expected conversion of former Prime Minister Tony Blair. The significance of the religion of head of the British nation escapes many people today who have long forgotten the protestant roots of the nation that was made great by its ties to the Bible. Many times during England’s history the Pope and his different legions have tried to regain what they call “Mary’s dowry”. Catholic tradition cites Henry V as consecrating England to Mary in 14th Century.

Since England’s break with the Roman Catholic Church during the period of the Reformation under Henry VIII there have been many attempts to re-unite England to the “mother church”.

These can be seen in the attempts by the Spanish to invade England under King Phillip II with his great Armada in 1588 which was crushed by Queen Elizabeth’s champion, Sir Francis Drake. Following this there was the failed assassination of King James, during Gunpowder Plot on November 5, 1605. The plot was designed by the Jesuits and carried by Guy Fawkes and his cronies. The failure of this attempt has been celebrated for hundreds of years in England by burning effigies of Guy Fawkes on bonfire night along with the famous poem,

Remember, remember the 5th of November,
Gunpowder treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder treason,
Should ever be forgot.

The problem today is that the history of Catholic treason, intrigue and plot has been forgotten… almost completely! For years British schoolchildren learned about the battles between the Catholic and Protestants that has formed much of England’s history, its civil and foreign wars. England’s involvement in the Second World War was also a battle against the forces of Catholicism as is explained in the last issue of the Bible Magazine. However, today, much of this has been forgotten, history rewritten, and the emphasis has moved away from the historical realities of what divided Britain and the western world from Catholic Europe to a chorus of cheerleaders hailing the benefits of union with Europe. One has to wonder what the Veterans of the Second World War think when they see their children and great grand children voluntarily giving up the freedoms they gave their lives to protect.

 Yet the headlines this week seem to have made little impression on the British public. The idea of a British Prime Minister being a closet Catholic during his years in power has to strike fear into the hearts of those within the British government who have any clue of Britain’s history. The struggle between the Papacy and the British crown has been going on since the beginning of the Reformation. It during the reign of the same James I,

“In May 1606, Parliament passed an act which could require any citizen to take an Oath of Allegiance, entailing a denial of the pope's authority over the king. James believed that the Oath was merely concerned with civil obedience, a secular transaction between king and subject; but it provoked opposition in Rome and in Catholic countries, where any denial of papal authority was deemed heretical.” (Wikipedia).

Tony Blair’s closet adherence to Catholicism, during his time as Prime Minister, attending mass with his Catholic wife and children, was crowned with his conversion this week, and casts a huge question mark on many of his pro-European, anti-Israel stands during his term as Prime Minister. British Prime Minister Gladstone stated,

“That the claims asserted by the Papacy are such as to place civil allegiance at his mercy; that the unhappy man who delivers his obedience to the potentate of the Vatican has no allegiance to offer the monarch of Great Britain.” (Rev. Canon O'Connor, The Political Claims and Social Aspirations of the Papacy, European Institute of Protestant Studies).

With this statement in mind, one has to ask who Tony Blair is serving in his new role as “peace envoy”? Truly, the words of Revelation ring true in describing the reaction of world leaders to the coming fall of Papal power throughout the world, “And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning” (Revelation 18:9). Tony Blair has now officially joined the Harlot’s family.

We can only pray that Britain will heed the words of Revelation before it is too late,

“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” (Revelation 18:4-5).

An Escape Clause for Britain?

Also of great interest to Bible students is the new constitution that has been brought into Europe under colour of a “treaty”. On December 17, 2007, Gordon Brown, Britain’s current Prime Minister, signed Britain on to the new treaty in Lisbon. This treaty will be ratified by a vote of the British parliament, and not a referendum as was previously promised.

The new treaty has changed voting rules to enable decision to be made by a majority instead of a unanimous vote. However, the new treaty also includes an “exit clause” that will enable countries to leave if they so desire, or perhaps be thrown out. While much of the constitution make the blood run cold as it moves Europe closer to fulfilling the words of Revelation 17:13 of “having one mind” and “giving their power and strength to the beast”, it also opens a hatch that Britain might soon be forced to take.

Bible students have long looked at the prophecies of Ezekiel 38 and Daniel 11 and noted that Britain forms part of the Tarshish power in Ezekiel, or King of the South in Daniel, and stands opposed to the forces of Europe and Russia, marshaled by the papacy against Israel.  John Thomas in his book, The Exposition of Daniel over 100 years ago wrote (p95),

Perhaps men like King Phillip of Spain, Guy Fawkes, and Tony Blair would like Britain to be Mary’s Dowry, but the finger of God has pointed out another mission. How the “escape clause” will be activated, remains to be seen. One thing we do know, even if this was originally written in a slightly different context,

“The finger of God has indicated a course to be pursued by Britain which cannot be evaded, and which her counsellors will not only be willing, but eager, to adopt when the crisis comes upon them. The decree has long since gone forth which calls upon the Lion of Tarshish to protect the Jews. Upwards of a thousand years before the British were a nation, the prophet addresses them as the power which at “evening-tide” should interest themselves in behalf of Israel.” John Thomas, Elpis Israel, 1848.

We continue to “watch” until we see the apocalypse of the son of God to rule this earth in righteousness and take up his rightful place on the throne of David.

Tune in next week for another edition of “the Bible in the News” at www.bibleinthenews.com.