Recently Turkey completed the second bridge linking Europe to Asia. Prime Minister Turgut Ozal called this eight-lane suspension span "a monument symbolizing friendship between Turkey and Japan and Italy." Money and power from Japan and Italy are being used to form this link of the peoples to the north and west of Israel. Commercial energy is making marvelous advances in developments in the world. With great skill and activity it boasts and shows what it can do and pledges further what it means to do.
Surely the character of this present time already reveals the great powers that are destined to complete the action of the closing days of Christendom. There will be two great powers—the civil and the ecclesiastical.
Without stretching the imagination, the civil or federal power of the revived Roman Empire can now be pictured as rising by means of the efforts of the European Community. The old Roman Empire surrounded the Mediterranean Sea and included all of Turkey.
The ecclesiastical power is the strange woman, "Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth." It is religion without Christ. It is the false church—what is left of Christendom after the true Church is raptured to heaven.
Between these two powers, there is at times, confederacy, and then at times there is rivalry. The ecclesiastical, for a season, will prevail. The woman is to ride the "scarlet-colored beast" for a while. There are efforts even now to mount the saddle. The civil power will have to yield the supremacy to her for a short time, and then the civil power will take offense and remove her.
All at present seems quiet; things are advancing and prospering in a social life of prosperity and wealth with earthly comforts. Behind their fair show, the apostate powers of man are developing into their most abundant exhibition. Rivalry predominates now and the secular and the religious are far apart, but confederacy will succeed rivalry. The world, in order to gain its own ends, must adopt religion for a season and for that time the woman will ride the beast.
Another interesting development of power in our time is seen in France. President Francois Mitterrand's lopsided election victory has greatly increased his political influence. He intends to use it to push the twelve-nation European Community toward a federal system that will emerge as trade barriers are removed in 1992. Closer cooperation with West Germany adds to the coming change that some have likened to a United States of Europe.
As Christians who know from the prophetic Scriptures that there shall arise a false prophet who is the antichrist, and also a revived Roman Empire, we do not expect to see these things while we are yet on the earth. Above the confusion of things around us is our God who works all things after the counsel of His own will. The world is guilty of casting out His own Son; judgment is pronounced and pending, and will shortly come to pass. We need to keep our eyes and hearts heavenward. Beware of being drawn into earthly attractions and interests. Beyond the judgments is the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The promise in 2 Tim. 2:1212If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us: (2 Timothy 2:12) is, "If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him." Ed.