Tom's Perspectives
Dr. Thomas Ice
About five years ago I was involved in a debate at the Oxford University Forum in England dealing with the question: “This house believes the end is nigh!” I was arguing in the affirmative. I made three major points to support my contention that the end is nigh. First, I noted the reestablishment of the nation of Israel. No other people in the history of the world have ever been removed from their homeland, scattered across the globe, maintained their ethnic identity, and then returned to their original homeland. No one has ever done this except Israel, God’s nation. Second, for the first time in history, we are seeing that Globalism is actually being implemented in our own day. The Bible predicts a global government during the tribulation. Third, the rise of the European Union appears to be a forerunner to a revived Roman Empire that Daniel and Revelation predict will be the center of the coming global government.
One of the students asked a question during the audience participation period of the debate. She wondered what I thought would be the impact on globalism since Obama has just been elected President of the United States. I told her that one of the major reasons why the global community did not like President George W. Bush was because he was willing to act unilaterally on behalf of American interests. Candidate Barack Hussein Obama announced to the world during his Berlin speech that he was a citizen of the world. I said that America was the last major holdout in the Western world that was willing to act as a nation instead of on behalf of international interests, now with Obama in the White House that would end. That was five years ago.
Today we see Obama implementing a global agenda for the United States. No longer does the United States look develop its policy on the basis of what is good for the American people. In fact, most of Obama’s policy is bad for the USA and are destructive to the interests of most Americans. The only thing that makes any sense is that Obama, as he said in Berlin, is acting as a citizen of the world. America is no longer an obstacle to global governance. In fact, the current administration is leading the way by surrendering so many aspects of American sovereignty.
Recently it was reported in the American media that Obama issued an executive order for his administration to move ahead full speed in implementing their global warming policy. I believe advocates of global warming or climate change are using this false scare for the purpose of putting into place a system of global government. Climate change is important for globalists since they see it as the best way to gain control of all nations under the guise of saving the planet. How noble!
We see the urge for globalism in at least the following areas: government, economics, religion, the environment, military, commerce and trade, manufacturing, banking, business, population control, education, management, publishing, entertainment, personal health and well-being, wealth redistribution, agriculture, law, science, medicine, sports, travel, music, electronics, the internet and information availability, and so many more areas. Some of the other areas that the Obama administration is bringing change to America in order to implement their goal of globalism is found in the following areas: universal healthcare, changing the role of the American military (Obama has fired about 250 generals and admirals who they deem as ones who would not go along with Obama’s new direction for the military). Attempts to implement gun control. Using government institutions like the IRS to control groups and organizations that resist the Obama agenda. Obama’s degradation of American institutions includes the fact that the mainstream media rarely criticizes Obama and almost always supports him in their handling of the news and using the NSA as his personal spy network. Obama’s apparent effort to bankrupt America through extreme spending on social programs such as welfare in order to restructure our nation within a global framework. At the rate we are going during the Obama administration America should be in great position for a future antichrist that will move into place after the rapture.
Globalism has come to make a lot of sense to an increasing number of people in the United States in the last few decades. Why is this the case? I believe the academic community has led the way. Academia in the United States is dominated by those who reject the Bible as God’s revelation to mankind. Therefore, they are left with only humanistic assumptions and theories about people and society like evolution. Man is alone in the universe and everything is billions of years old. Things are just evolving and life consists of meaningless cycles that lead nowhere. Social theorists reject the Genesis account of creation and therefore think that society has evolved from the individual to a family; from the family to tribes; from tribes to larger communities, from communities to cities; from cities to states; and finally from nationalism to globalism. They argue that nationalism produced a time of the greatest wars in the history of mankind (the twentieth century). This occurred because nations could not settle their disputes among them without wars. Thus, nationalism only produces wars that bring great destruction and famine on mankind. This is why we need to take the next step and move on to globalism so that we will be able to eliminate the basis for division among ourselves (i.e., nationalism). This means that only globalism, according to intellectuals, can be seen as the next logical step in the evolution of mankind.
If you oppose the globalization trend then you are a Neanderthal and can only want discord and personal prosperity instead of the great peace and harmony they believe global governance will produce. (Do you want to know a secret? Mankind will still be fallen and sinful and will never be able to get along with each other.) Since “everyone” who has a brain supports globalism in the educated world, then those in opposition are seen as unenlightened who need reprograming for the good of the whole. While globalism has been talked about for centuries in the past, it is only during the last 100 years that actual steps toward its implementation have been happening. Those of us who are informed by the Bible and God’s plan for history are viewed by the globalists as completely out of step with the current of history. In the short run, these globalists are right about current trends, history is moving toward global governance.
The Bible teaches that during the seven-year tribulation there will be a global government for at least the final three and a half years. Revelation 17—18 tells us that the Babylonian globalization will be built upon three major planks: false religion, economic trade, and centralized government. As noted above, this appears to be the very track that the Obama administration is currently pursuing. "'The process of globalization is being driven by the activities of private enterprise," says Rubens Ricpero, secretary general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development."[1]
Most Christians have at least some vague familiarity with the Tower of Babel incident shortly after the Flood, which lead to the splintering of the human race into factions. The traditional understanding of these events (Gen. 10:8-14, 31-31; 11:1-9) indicates that the erection of the Tower corresponds with Nimrod’s beginning of the kingdom of man at Babel (Gen. 10:10).[2] Thus, Nimrod is seen as the father of the kingdom of man as a vehicle of rebellion against God and His kingdom. It is at this point God judged the first United Nations building, confounded the single human language into many, and established the Divine Institution of “tribal diversity” to promote social stability.[3] Babylon will be restored as a city during the tribulation as the headquarters for the spread of globalism. The spirit of Babylon is alive and well today as evident in the fact that the European Union built its parliament building in the form of an unfinished tower of Babel. The implication is that the EU will finish what God prohibited in Genesis 11.
Obviously we do not yet live in the time of the coming seven-year tribulation. But we do live in a time where God is setting the stage for events that will take place after the Rapture, during the tribulation. Globalization is one of those things that will characterize the tribulation. We are seeing it develop daily, all around us. Contemporary development of the global trading is on the cutting edge of moving all of us in that direction. Even in our own day "globalization is happening a mouse-click trade and a takeover at a time."[4] It is currently believed that globalism is a force moving with such momentum that nothing anyone can do will stop its eventual success.
With Israel back in her land and the unification of Europe, God is moving history toward the time when the antichrist of the Revived Roman Empire will strike a treaty with Israel. This event will start the seven-year tribulation that will lead up to the second coming of Christ. Russia and her Arab allies are poised, readying a strike upon Israel. Israel's ancient enemies such as Egypt, Syria, Babylon (Iraq) and Persia (Iran) are also in place. All that is lacking is for that final individual who is destined to be a part of the body of Christ to be saved and the rapture will take place. With the restrainer having departed, the tribulation will spring upon a readied world. Are you ready for such events to go into fast-forward? Do you know Christ as your Savior? Are you living for Him today? Are you spreading to Gospel to all that you can? Maranatha!
[1] Patrick McDowell, "Nations Ponder Globalization," The Washington Post, Feb. 11, 2000, Internet edition http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000211/aponline040400_000.htm.
[2] Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, I, iv.
[3] I am indebted to Charles Clough for his teaching on this divine institution in Laying the Foundation (Lubbock, TX: privately printed by Lubbock Bible Church, [1973], 1977), pp. 83-84.
[4] Patrick McDowell, "Nations Ponder Globalization".