Global SITREP C3-16: It Was Never About the EU, But All About NATO

24 June 2016: This is a special SITREP that I think is necessary because Bible prophecy teachers will be talking about it in their sermons this weekend.  So I see the need to tell you where I stand, and because I anticipate there are more than a few who will ask questions on this subject.

When it comes to Bible prophecy and 'last days' eschatology, I hold to the opinion that the EU was never the central theme of the fifth and final world empire. This final world empire has been discussed at length in many Eschatology Today posts over the past 7 years which have looked at the angel Gabriel's prophecies recorded in the Book of Daniel, chapters 2 and 8 through 12, as well as Revelation 13. In my view the central eschatological focus should never have been on the EU, but always should have been on NATO. And this is the bottom line on why I see the BREXIT vote as much ado about nothing. It is irrelevant when it comes to the eschatological 'big picture.'

Why? Because the EU is not a military force, NATO is. And the dominant theme in last days prophecy of the 70th Week is one of a final world-dominating empire of the Antichrist wielding overwhelming military power. Without NATO the Antichrist would be a great big nothing. The final dominating world empire is "Rome" in the 21st century, and this time "Rome" will include not only the United Kingdom and other European nations, but also the whole of North America and its peerless arsenal.

"And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation." 

Revelation 13:7b

Addendum 29 June 2016: So how does this relate to prophetic events just prior to the 70th Week (Ezekiel 38/39) and that week itself? What follows is my forward-looking view on how it plays out.

As discussed briefly above, the EU is not powerful; it never has been since 1958.  

NATO, on the other hand, is where the real power lies since right after the end of World War II. NATO was created by its member nations within 1 year of Israel's rebirth: Israel in 1948, and NATO in 1949. Given the type and duration of negotiations that occurred, the establishment of Israel and NATO were contemporaneous. 

NATO and its adjutant North Atlantic Council (NAC), established by Article 9 of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty (NAT), stand as the empowerment of Article 3 and Article 5 of the treaty. This is where the true power of "Rome" in the late 20th century and early 21st century AD abides. The North Atlantic Council has been in active session from 1952 to the present moment - that's 64 years in continuous session. This is where NATO's legal power to engage in warfighting in defense of the alliance's member nations and the Council's interests exists.

By definition, the North Atlantic Treaty (NAT) is a currently existent "covenant among many." (Reference: Global SITREP C2-16: Israel Takes a Big Step Towards the "Covenant Among Many")  In the near future, at the start of the 70th Week, this NAT (covenant among many) will be expanded to include Israel, and a few other nations. Most likely the post-Psalm 83 rump of modern day Jordan and other Sunni Arab states are among those nations. 

Antichrist will "confirm" this expansion of the NAT for a period of 7 years, and after which those nations would be extended full membership in the treaty organization. At the present, this legal mechanism is known as NATO's "Partnership For Peace." And as we know from Bible prophecy this extension of the NAT to Israel will be unilaterally abrogated halfway into the 70th Week. Antichrist's NATO forces would enter into Israel during the Daniel 12:40-45 war under the provision of NATO's Article 5. 

So, this 70th Week "covenant among many," just as its pre-70th Week version, will be crafted, maintained and enforced from a position of military strength, not weakness. These are core principles that have governed the politics of world empires from Nebuchadnezzar to the present. This is accordance with Ecclesiastes 1:9.

Has the UK withdrawn or threatened to withdraw from NATO? From the North Atlantic Council and the North Atlantic Treaty? No, and it never will. 

Consider this as i have mentioned previously on Eschatology Today: are these nations prior to the 70th Week truly dealing from a position of weakness as some interpret Ezekiel 38:13?  All should now be aware of my disagreement with that interpretation. I think the initial response of NATO to the sudden appearance of the Magog horde suddenly coming south towards Israel from the Crimean Peninsula and the Caucasus is one of incredulity ("Are you blankety-blank kidding me!?"), and that quickly shifts to a response of massive retaliation (warfighting) in support of Israel. This becomes a brief world war as seen in Ezekiel 39:6 and elsewhere in Ezekiel's prophecy.

The EU Army?

1 July 2016: With the UK's BREXIT vote still resonating around the globe the French and German foreign ministers jointly issued an obviously prepared in-advance dictum announcing the European Union's transformation into a "political union" that would include massive rearmament to enable future offensive military operations anywhere around the globe. 

The website German-Foreign-Policy.com (click link) published on 28 June its own report, entitled "The European War Union," which included the full text of the joint position paper written by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (a Social Democrat) and French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault (a Socialist). 

This dictum might well be seen as a whole lot more than the words of European socialist dreamers bent on creating a European Superstate. German Chancellor Angela Merkel very recently declared that Germany's defense budget would converge with that of the United States on the basis of Germany's GDP. Based upon World Bank GDP figures the 2014 German GDP was $3868.29 Billion, so the announced German defense spending increase would rise from the current $36.6 Billion to $131.5 Billion. France would be required to do the same, as would the other eight nations necessary to form the prophetic 10-nation confederacy, as would other attendant and necessary requirements for the establishment of a European Superstate. Such a thing would truly be unprecedented in world history and will be watched to see if the development of this "European Security Compact" truly matches or even exceeds the dream it is to be built upon.

UPDATE 5 July 2016: Something I've noticed that is sticking out like a sore thumb and which remains unmentioned by prophecy teachers in all of the discourse and sermon pronouncements since the UK vote to leave the EU late last month. That something is that neither The Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia were a part of the Roman Empire in 70 AD nor at its greatest extent in 116 AD. Neither were, of course, any North American nations. On the other-hand, there are other nations which were within the Roman Empire in ancient times but have no connection whatsoever to either NATO or the EU since their establishment after World War II.

This indicates to me that spending a lot of time looking at maps of ancient Rome should not be a key part of any exegesis regarding the geographical nature of the final beast empire; that the ten, reduced to seven, political entities represented by ten crowns on the heads of the beast do in fact symbolically represent something which simply did not exist in ancient times, but which does exist in these latter days. That something is an artificial global construct which symbolically would appear as dissimilar material being partly strong and partly weak, like iron and clay. Something which had its origins in and is based in the West, but has legal extraterritoriality as a primary feature. Is it from this recent man-made artificial "sea" of nations that the rise of 10 crowns have their origin?