Welcome to the Bible in the News. Our apologies to our regular listeners for missing last week’s edition.

This week we look to Germany at the heart of the European beast, and the question posed in the Economist, “Will Germany now take centre stage?” (See article “Germany’s Role in the world” in October 21^st Economist)  

Over the past few weeks developments have taken place which are of great interest to Bible students. When Napoleon plunged the “beast” of Europe into darkness, the scriptures predicted its latter day risein Revelation 17:8:

The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

·         “The beast that was” – equates with the Holy Roman Empire, begun by Charlemagne in 799, initially ruled from Aachen, Germany.

·         It “was not” when the Napoleonic wars swept across Europe and sent it into the “bottomless pit” or the abyss.

·         However, it “shall ascend out of the bottomless pit”

·         Eventually it will “go into perdition” – or destruction after it “shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome” (v14)

The Holy Roman Empire was the First Reich, and lasted approximately 1,000 years.

Germany was reunited under Otto Von Bismark, who brought in a unified currency, and was to serve as the first Chancellor. The Second Reich, or German Empire, lasted from 1871 to 1918 and was ruled by the Kaiser. ‘Kaiser’ is the German form of the world Caesar. Germany’s ambition of dominating Europe began and ended in the First World War. 

The Weimar republic was established following the end of the Second Reich. It ended with the democratic election of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party who immediately outlawed all political opposition and established the Third Reich in 1933.  Germany’s ambition of dominating Europe and the world began and ended in horors the Second World War. 

Germany: ready to move on from the past

Since WWII Germany has lived under the cloud of its Nazi past, including its ambitions of world domination and the final solution. However, the Economist article that drew our attention stated:

Germans have not forgotten that their country was the author of the horrors of the 1930s and 1940s but, says Renate Kocher of Allensbach, a polling firm, they want to “draw a line under the past”…. But Germans are no longer so ready to be put on the moral defensive or to view the Nazi era as the defining episode of their past. Even non-Germans seem willing to move on…  Germany still atones but now also preaches, usually on the evils of debt, the importance of nurturing industry and the superiority of long-term thinking in enterprise. Others are disposed to listen. “Everyone orients himself towards Germany,” says John Kornblum, a former American ambassador.

In summary, the Germans are willing to forget their past, and so are many others in the rest of the world. Ironically, we are approaching “Remembrance Day” in much of the Commonwealth, otherwise known as “Armistice Day” commemorating the end of WWI on November 11^th, 1918. One of the most famous poems celebrating this day was written by Canadian John McRae, and reads:

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow,
In Flanders fields.

 The irony cannot be lost in the words, “take up our quarrel with the foe… if ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep”. The sad fact is, all those who fell in Flanders Fields will sleep a perpetual sleep. What is perhaps a little more disconcerting is that they died in vain. Germany dominated Europe during the Holy Roman Empire, it was defeated by the French. Germany again tried to dominate Europe during WWI, it was defeated by the allies. Germany tried a third time to dominate Europe under Hitler, it was defeated by the allies. 

Now it is set to dominate Europe again – is everybody asleep? Or drunk?

The Economist article referenced above continues,

“The German question never dies. Instead, like a flu virus, it mutates. On the eve of unification some European leaders worried that it would resume killer form. “We’ve beaten the Germans twice and now they’re back,” said Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s prime minister.”

The writer dismisses Thatcher’s comments as “comical.” We wonder if those who lie in Flanders fields, those buried near the beaches of Normandy, and across Europe would find the present situation comical, knowing they died for nothing.  One thing is obvious; the author of this article is not a Bible prophecy student. 

Germany: The New King of the Hill

The fallout from the world economic crisis has created a different looking world. According to the same Economist article:

“The crisis has created a new pecking order, at least temporarily. Germany, with its high-competitiveness, low-debt economy, is on top. The rest are having to adjust, including France, traditionally a joint leader of the European project. This is unsettling. “You get an enormous sense of German self-righteousness, which is very difficult to take, especially when there are solid foundations for it,” says François Heisbourg of the International Institute for Strategic Studies”

As the “king of the hill” we can expect Germany to use its clout to turn things in the direction it would like. The Economist article went to state:

An American diplomat believes it [Germany] is still “trying to decide what its foreign policy in the 21st century should look like”. Germany is becoming more “normal”, meaning more willing to use its strength and to accept responsibilities that go along with it.

Germany’s goals and aspirations are becoming clearer:

Germany is claiming leading positions in EU institutions: Uwe Corsepius, Mrs Merkel’s European adviser, will become secretary-general of the European Council. Axel Weber, now head of the Bundesbank, is favoured to become the next president of the European Central Bank.

So with Germany as the “king of the hill” in Europe economically, and seizing control of the economic levers, what are we to expect?  Remember the golden rule: “He who has the gold makes the rules.”

The New Golden Rules

Well, what madness could these frog-spirit vomiting powers be upto?  That became apparent during the past week. Germany has convinced France to back it as it leads the way to re-open the Lisbon Treaty… to make a few “adjustments”. In the same October 21 Economist, under the headline, “Why the European Union is talking yet again of renegotiating its rulebook” the following was stated:

Brussels’s favourite game has been restarted by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. At their summit in the French resort of Deauville (where they also met Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev) this week, they declared that, in order to deal with future debt crises, “it is necessary to revise the treaty”.

Germany wants changes made to the Lisbon treaty to add more control, and remove more sovereignty from member nation-states, including loss of voting rights for those who “break the rules”.

Revelation 17:12-13 describes the member nations of the European Union as,

“ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast”

They give up their power and strength, which when you examine the meaning of the words includes their “power of wealth”, and “their power to govern”.

The European Union is also described in Daniel 2:41-43 when it details the last phase of Nebuchadnezzar’s images as:

“…the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay….”

It is of great interest to Bible students to read passages describing the kingdom being “partly strong and partly broken,” and then hear statements like this one, coming from the same Economist article:

“The EU’s members are part-integrated and part-sovereign, and the contradictions cause inevitable upheavals. Brussels’s instinctive response to the threat of disintegration is further integration. Europe may not be in a state of permanent revolution, but it is in permanent renegotiation.”

Not only that, echoing the words we read from Revelation 17, the insecurity of Germany is described in the following terms:

Despite… examples of leadership, Germany’s overall direction is obscure. It is torn, intrigued by its new possibilities but painfully aware that alone it does not count for much in the world. Its population is already shrinking. Europe will lose economic and demographic bulk relative to China, India and Brazil.

Remember the words of Revelation 17:12

“ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast”

Individually, they don’t account for much. The remedy? A collective union – give their power and strength to the beast.  The article continues:

…Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister who now leads the liberals in the European Parliament. “It shows we need one voice.” Fear of war launched the European project; he hopes that fear of irrelevance will drive it forward.

… Pressed for Germany’s vision of Europe, Werner Hoyer, an aide to the foreign minister, says it is to secure Europe’s “success in a globalised world”. That means “deepening economic integration”, dismantling remaining barriers to the single market and dealing with other powers through Brussels, not national capitals. “It is in our interest to convince them that the gateway to Europe is European institutions,” says Mr Hoyer. He thinks Europe must “globalise its foreign policy if we don’t want to be bystanders”.

These are indeed exciting statements coming out of the mouth of the Beast, and echoing the prophecies of scripture which in process of being fulfilled.

Don’t Forget the Rider of the Beast

In all this we cannot forget the rider of the beast:

So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. (Revelation 17:3-6)

We know this to be the Catholic church headed by the Pope. We are to expect his hand to be secretly directing the reigns of the European Beast. In his encyclical , CARITAS IN VERITATE, we see his hands maneuvering the leaders of Europe who are described as “committing fornication” with the harlot. He writes:

“Development, social well-being, the search for a satisfactory solution to the grave socio-economic problems besetting humanity, all need this truth. [Meaning his direction] …Without truth, without trust and love for what is true, there is no social conscience and responsibility, and social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power, resulting in social fragmentation, especially in a globalized society at difficult times like the present.”

So the Pope is calling for social conscience and responsibility being injected into the global economy, and the Germen Chancellor and French Prime minister are suggestion reopening the Lisbon Treaty to inject “responsibility” and “fiscal constraints”.

The Pope continues:

In an increasingly globalized society, the common good and the effort to obtain it cannot fail to assume the dimensions of the whole human family, that is to say, the community of peoples and nations, in such a way as to shape the earthly city in unity and peace, rendering it to some degree an anticipation and a prefiguration of the undivided city of God.

What is the Pope calling for? A global society with a “common good”, where peoples and nations are shaped into an earthy city which in his mind is the “kingdom of God” – a great city! Doesn’t the harlot reside in a “great city”? Was not the Holy Roman Empire called the “kingdom of God” – or Christ’s kingdom, commonly known as “Christendom”?

The Pope goes on:

In our own day, the State finds itself having to address the limitations to its sovereignty imposed by the new context of international trade and finance, which is characterized by increasing mobility both of financial capital and means of production, material and immaterial. This new context has altered the political power of States.

Today, as we take to heart the lessons of the current economic crisis, which sees the State's public authorities directly involved in correcting errors and malfunctions, it seems more realistic to re-evaluate their role and their powers, which need to be prudently reviewed and remodelled so as to enable them, perhaps through new forms of engagement, to address the challenges of today's world.

So the pope calls for public authorities to “re-evaluate their role and powers” and “remodel” them in a way which he can “engage” or control.

 The Pope composes the words, the leaders of the European Choir sings the song. It certainly sounds like they are singing out of the same hymn book… or perhaps it is simply the same frog spirits coming out of their mouths, croaking the same tune.

The Pope is riding the beast, holding the reigns and establishing himself as the European “moral” authority:

The Church's social doctrine has always maintained that justice must be applied to every phase of economic activity, because this is always concerned with man and his needs… Thus every economic decision has a moral consequence.

Obviously he sees his “justice” as the ruling authority that must be applied to every phase of economic activity. Why not, is he not in the saddle according to the scriptures?

As Germany re-emerges, and Europe agrees to re-open its treaty, as the Vatican dictates its version of responsible economics we are watching the players of Revelation 17 take their positions, preparing to make “war with the Lamb”.

We need to be putting every effort into preparing for the coming marriage of the Lamb, and “make ourselves ready” that we might be granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white” (Revelation 19:7-8). 

Tune in next week for another edition of the Bible in the News.