As much as people seek to discredit the Bible, certain prophecies have a chilling way of staying relevant.
One of those is the idea of a one-world government.
Simply put, many teachers and students of eschatology describe an end-times scenario in which, amidst global unrest and turmoil, a single ruler (the antichrist) will arise having power and great authority given to him by Satan (Revelation 13:2), he will be revered and receive worship from “all the world” (13:3-4), and possess authority over “every tribe, people, language and nation” (13:7). Part of his satanic sway will be accomplished by controlling all commerce, which is where the idea of a one-world currency comes in. Revelation 13:16-17 describes a mark that will be required in order to buy and sell. While there is much speculation about what this “mark” may be and who this coming leader is, it is rather fascinating — and scary — to see evidence of predictions foretold over 2,000 years ago, unfolding before our eyes.
That’s the feeling I had after reading this article at Huff Po yesterday: Are We Becoming a World Civilization? The author, Shastri Purushotma, describes our ‘advance” toward global unification as part of an evolutionary cycle:
Professor David Christian, who teaches “Big History” and started the “Big History Project” in collaboration with Bill Gates, notes in his course (one of the best I’ve taken) that you can see a clear trend, both in the evolution of the universe and of life on earth, towards ever greater levels of organization and complexity. Professor Christian notes that this evolution crosses major “thresholds” such as the formation of the first stars, chemical elements, planets, living cells etc. In the history of humanity, this evolution has likewise seen societies progress over many centuries in organization, from the level of tribes, to city-states, to nations. The past century has seen an unprecedented shift toward entirely new levels of organization at the global level, and this change seems only to be accelerating. Could we be crossing another major threshold in human evolution?
It is important to note that this shift toward a single “world civilization” is framed as “another major threshold in human evolution.” Please note that the aforementioned paradigm does not just isolate “sociological” or “governmental” evolution, but connects it with ” the evolution of the universe… the formation of the first stars, chemical elements, planets, living cells etc.” In this way, our advance toward a global community / one world government takes on eerily mystic overtones; it is seen as part of the very DNA of our species.
In fact, Shastri Purushotma takes the logical next step by connecting religion, consciousness, and world community.
Baha’u’llah, the Founder of the Baha’i Faith, wrote to the world’s leaders during the 1860s and 1870s about the need for them to convene a “vast, an all-embracing assemblage” that would “lay the foundations for the World’s Great Peace” for this next stage of human history. His recommendations were ignored at the time, but have gradually been only partially adopted over the past 150 years, sadly after the loss of scores of millions of lives in world wars and other conflicts. The Baha’i writings describe this gradual emergence of “a world community, the consciousness of world citizenship, the founding of a world civilization and culture” as “the highest stage in the stupendous evolution of man’s collective life on this planet.” (emphasis mine)
Back in 2008, at the forefront of our current / continued economic recession, the G7 met in Washington. Top finance ministers from around the world brainstormed about ways to fend off a complete economic meltdown. One of their solutions was “a global system” for managing the economy. In an article entitled, Pressure builds for a global economic strategy:
The way the current financial crisis spread around the world like a brush fire, outracing all efforts to contain it, underscored a painful reality: We have a global economy but nothing close to a global system for managing it. The world may be flat when it comes to the increasingly interconnected economies of the 21st century, but it still has borders — and conflicting national interests to go with them.
Now, as senior economic policymakers from the major developed nations meet here today, the question is whether the worst economic crisis since before World War II will open the door for a comprehensive, unified economic strategy. (emphasis mine)
These things should send chills down the spine of every prophecy watchdog.
Are we moving toward a one world government, a one world economy? Does our current global economic crisis play a part in that move? Are there really Cosmic “evolutionary” forces moving us in this direction? And could the hailing of such a move pave the way for allegiance to a world leader empowered by Satan himself?
Christians should be watchful, but not alarmist. Stock market crashes have come and gone. Antichrists have risen and fallen. However, given enough of them and we could wake up one morning to find ourselves knee-deep in the Apocalypse. So while I’m not one to jump on the over-crowded end-times bandwagon, I am growing increasingly convinced that the state of politics, technological advances, and globalization is pushing us closer and closer to the return of Jesus Christ.
But amidst all the pomp and paranoia, please don’t miss how such trends seem to validate the Bible. Skeptics can rail all they want against Christians and Scripture. But when we see things predicted long ago — like turmoil in the Middle East leading to one great final war, like Israel being at the center of this conflagration, like a one-world system and a charismatic leader to lead us — it’s hard not to look over your shoulder.
Apparently, there are certain Bible prophecies you just can’t escape.
As much as people seek to discredit the Bible, certain prophecies have a chilling way of staying relevant.
Excellent point! As a baby Christian, I feared the prophesy, but then it occurred to me that I’ve read the last chapter, no matter how bad things get- God wins.
Two things–
1) The reason horoscopes “work” is that they are intentionally written vaguely enough that anyone can read one and then take anything that happens to them during the day as “proof” that the horoscope was true.
I’m no expert on Revelations, but I have read it a couple of times and know that it’s loaded with symbolism and incredibly hard to interpret correctly. Christians need to be careful not to just assign special meaning to events just because they want to. Heck, Christians have been thinking that the US president is the Antichrist since Kennedy’s day, possibly even before.
2) And if we “wake up in the middle of the Apocolypse”–so what? Isn’t Jesus returning supposed to be something Christians *want* to happen?
Abby, wanting Christ to return doesn’t imply being gleeful of the events preceding it. Scripture tells us to be watchful of the signs and to not allow that day to surprise us like “a thief in the night.”
I guess what I’m confused about is what exactly we’re supposed to do to “prepare”? I mean, supposedly this is something that 1) can’t be predicted and 2) once begun, can’t really be stopped.
There seems to always be camps of Christians that seem like they’re trying to take steps to stop it–protesting the UN or anything resembling “one world government”, or not using credit cards because of the association with the “mark of the beast” or whatever–which makes no sense when it’s supposedly something that’ll just happen when God wants it to. Either that, or you have other Christians who take “being prepared” to mean going the doomsday-prepper route, which doesn’t seem like a real logical thing either.
And if “preparing” is supposed to mean “getting right with God” or “being saved” or whatever you want to call it–well, weren’t you supposed to have done that already, regardless of whether the “end times” are next week or not? So why obsess about it?
I saw “A Thief in the Night” as a kid and later (from conversations online) found out that I wasn’t the only kid to come home to an empty house and have moment of freaking out because I thought my family had been raptured without me. I can understand the desire to get one’s spiritual affairs in order, but carrying around that much fear is no way to live.
In a way, it’s kind of like death. You prepare by realizing this event can come in and shatter your life with little warning, fixing all the choices you’ve made in life and moving it on to the next phase. Depending on how you interpret the end-times, there’s a difference in that you can still repent, and can take steps to avoid the judgment that is to come, but both events remind us that we can’t be complacent in life; that things can happen to change it forever.
The “end-times as an evangelistic tool” approach I never got, personally, for the reasons you describe. It’s more something to console believers and remind them to be ready to give account, except that history itself will end, and not just a person’s life.
The mystical path seems to lead even Christian believers into embracing this world unification as a positive “evolutionary” step. This is why I don’t trust the mystical path. It’s hard to argue against world peace, thus the grand delusion.
If you haven’t checked out the Oneness movement (Oneness blessing; Oneness University; Oneness USA, etc), you should. You’d find the idea fascinating. I have a friend who’s deeply involved in this, and is a deeksha giver.
I’ll look into that, Ramona. Thanks!
Just checked it out myself. Not good. Not good at all. I’ll pray for your friend.
This oneness looks like the latest incarnation of the new age movement that was popular in the 90’s. I am glad you pointed it out.
Wasn’t Rome a one world government, civilization? With one world currency? And a contemporary to John?
Rome’s reign wasn’t global. Though some early believers saw Nero as the Antichrist, the apostle Paul cautioned against such speculation in the epistle to the Thessalonians.
One world means global?
Whether it meant global or not, Rome’s control didn’t extend to the entirety of the known world at that time. Even just considering that stipulation, there hasn’t been a one-world government in all of Biblical history, or in the history following.
It can seem contradictory at times, Christians professing faith while admittedly not looking forward to either death, or end-times.
I believe it gets down to faith. I’d be lying if I said neither of the above worries me. But I’m glad I’m a Christian.
Some Christians don’t see any near future prophecy of an alleged one-world government here that needs to be escaped. The whole premise of this essay assumes a futurist orientation common to much of Evangelical eschatology that often falls victim to failed date “suggesting” and “pin the tail on the anti-Christ.” However, there is a sound alternative to this, and that is a moderate preterist view. In this school of thought, greater attention is given to the biblical texts as they spoke to their original audience with relevance to their times, and not largely as pointers for us in the 21st century. From this perspective, texts like Jesus’ Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21, as well as Revelation, was geared toward a first century audience and concerns, and thus represent already fulfilled eschatological segments or documents. In the case of the Gospels, Jesus is understood as predicting the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman legions in AD 70, and Revelation is understood as referring to the persecution of the early church, with Nero and imperial Rome as the beast and religio-cultural context. For examples of articulations of these views as alternatives for Evangelical eschatologies, see Gary Demar, Last Days Madness: Obsession of the Modern Church; R. C. Sproul, The Last Days According to Jesus: When Did Jesus Say He Would Return?; and Kenneth L. Gentry, Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation.
John — The “futurist orientation” was held to by many in the early church. They looked for literal figures and events, as Jesus appealed to the prophecy of Daniel and the Apostle Paul referred to the revealing of the” man of lawlessness.” Of course, some make the mistake of setting timelines and such. But this does not invalidate a literalist interpretation, only point for the need to avoid extremes. This was the same caution Paul levied against the Thessalonicans who mistakenly saw Nero as the Antichrist and had stopped working because the end is near. There’s many different interpretations of the end of the age. Frankly I tend to be suspicious of views that deconstruct literal readings in favor of micro interpretations (it meant this to them, not us), especially when more concrete events, geography, and figures seem to apply. As, I think, they do here.
Revelation can’t have referred to the past, because of how it fits in the timeline shown in dreams and visions recorded in the book of Daniel.
In Daniel, in two different ways (Daniel 2:31-45 and Daniel 7), a succession of kingdoms in the area of Israel were listed in order, beginning with Babylon (the kingdom of that time). The one that followed was the Medo-Persian empire (a transition which Daniel lived through, and it was during this time that he saw the second prophesy about this succession), and after that was the Greeks, with Alexander the Great expanding his empire through violence. Following this was Rome, represented as iron or as a beast with four wings. After Rome was predicted another empire, one that was different than all the previous (the first prophesy about it describes it as being like a mixture of iron and clay) that would divide into ten kingdoms and, from those kingdoms, would rise a king who would rule them all and blaspheme God. After this would come God’s eternal kingdom.
The ten horns as ten kings are also directly referred to in Revelation 17, including another ruler to whom they would give power. That chapter also places John within a timeline, with those ten kings being in the future relative to his present.
So. What about now? Rome has fallen, that much is clear. But those ten kings/rulers? And the one who will rise from among them? Since God’s kingdom hasn’t come yet in the way these past prophesied kingdoms did, then those ten kingdoms are currently present in the area of Israel, and the one who will rise from them is in the (near?) future.
If you put together the timeline the Bible lays out leading up to the end, it’s very clear where we are. No, we don’t know the day or time for when Christ will return, or all the exact details of what comes next. But we can see the signs as time progresses of where we are heading, and we can also be at peace in the knowledge that God will make all things right in the end.
Paul makes it clear in 2 Thessalonians 2 that the destruction of the Anti-Christ is concurrent with the return of Christ. Therefore, a one-world government is yet future.
You have to be careful, though. There’s a long and sad history of Christians who have tried to discern the signs of the times, and there’s also a lack of perspective and history when they do. Mentioning Oneness above; we’ve had a more or less nonstop parade of various new thought religions across American History, and rather than usher in one-world government, they fade away. EST is one example.
Especially if you are a brother or sister with a mild obsessive bent, it’s best merely to trust in God and pray; trying to puzzle out dates and times can be a harmful experience.
Mike, that is a great picture of an hourglass. Would I be able to use it to educate my readers about Bible prophecy in my upcoming book? It’s in the editing phase now but we are looking at possible photos for our front and rear covers and plan to release it in Dec.