As has been explained on previous editions of Bible in the News, we expect that, at the time of Christ’s return, Britain will be not only separate from the EU, but also diplomatically opposing its actions, accusing it of invading the land of Israel with the motive of monetary gain. In Ezekiel 38:13 we read that Tarshish (Britain) asks the invading nations (which includes the EU) “Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?”.

So, we can see that Britain is diplomatically opposing what is being done by these nations, and making accusations that only an opponent might make, that those nations were starting a world war purely for money.

For nearly 50 years Britain has been a member of the EU, and has been very tightly entangled with its policies, economic structures and also security. Since joining the EU, politicians in the UK have been pro-EU by a large majority, indeed MPs voted to remain in the EU by a margin of 3:1, yet the UK voted to leave.

Because of this, after the EU referendum result, the prevailing opinion among the MPs was to keep as close to the EU as possible, while fulfilling the referendum result.

On Prime Minister Theresa May’s first visit to the European Council back in 2016, she made clear that she wanted to “cement Britain as a close partner of the EU”, and stressed that Britain and she wanted the EU and the UK to continue to be close friends and allies together.

She then went further in a speech in Florence to the EU where she said she didn’t want Britain to “stand in the way” of the EU but of course, this will be its future role, to stand up and against the EU at the time of Christ’s return. She said she wanted Britain to walk “hand in hand” with the EU, and this was her vision for the future relationship between the UK and the EU. Theresa May was so wedded to her vision of this close friendship between the EU and UK, that she attempted three times and even offered to give up her job to persuade MPs to accept it, despite it being defeated by record-breaking margins. Theresa May humiliated herself by extending the leaving date not once, but twice, in order to get this close relationship through parliament – but all to no avail. MPs who want Britain to remain in the EU or to have a closer relationship with it have forced votes on a range of all possible forms of Brexit that would leave Britain and the EU on good terms, each time being rejected, and each door being slammed shut on them, now leaving them with few other options than “no deal” or to revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU.

With Theresa May leaving office, the leadership election process is now well underway. To many candidates, ‘no deal’ would be a disaster, but to remain is unthinkable. Despite the EU consistently ruling out any changes to Theresa May’s deal, many of the candidates are still determined to have this close friendship with the EU after Brexit, and are intending to still continue to attempt to change the deal.

As we have seen, at the time of Christ’s return the UK and EU will not have a close friendship, nor will they be allies, they will be opposing each other diplomatically. And how we get to that situation we do not know, but it may be that what we are seeing is the UK being forced to leave on bad terms to prepare it for the role it has at the time of the return of Christ.

Some candidates, including the seeming run away front runner, Boris Johnson, have pledged to not pay the £39bn exit bill in the event of leaving without a deal. This angered the EU so much that the French came out and told Reuters in response that they would consider this as a “sovereign debt default whose consequences are well known”. Whether EU nations would take this extreme position is impossible to say, but this just begins to show how the EU might react to a “no deal” Brexit - a great rift would develop between the UK and EU. We cannot know whether this is how the negative relationship between the EU and UK will develop, but we know that it must have become negative by the time of the battle of Armageddon, as we read in Ezekiel 38.

Whoever becomes the new leader of the UK, it is likely they will continue to fight every step to leave the EU on good terms, to keep a close relationship with the EU, but we are already seeing events going out of their control – for it is the most high that rules in the kingdoms of men. This has been Paul Barnes with you this week.