David Rockefeller, Memoirs
To stabilize and regulate a truly global economy, we need some global system of political decision making. In short, we need a global society to support our global economy.
George Soros, socialist billionaire
If we can learn from our experience of turning unity of purpose into unity of action, we can together seize this moment of change in our world to create a truly global society.
Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister
THIRTY-THREE
“Chaos. Death. Destruction. Is that what you’re thinking?”
He paused. No one was moving.
“Is that what floods your mind when you think about the end of the world? Armageddon. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Whatever phrase you might want to use.
“When people imagine it, they visualize the horror. But let me challenge that idea. The God who controls the future is a merciful God. In the midst of catastrophe, He will still give us all the choice to be saved through His grace. In fact, I believe that the end of the world will in reality be the first chapter in a radical new kind of life. It isn’t just about the ravages of destruction. The future world that God has for us after the birth pains are finished here on planet Earth will really be all about life—and life abundantly. And life with Him for eternity.”
Pastor Paul Campbell was addressing a packed church from his position in the ornate pulpit of the Eternity Church in downtown Manhattan.
Sandwiched between his wife and daughter in the pew, Joshua Jordan was waiting for the minister to get to the point. He knew a little about Campbell’s background. He had checked out his credentials on the Internet. Ph.D. in philosophy, Th.D. in theology. Campbell had written two books, both of them about the Bible and end-times prophecy. And yes, Joshua had to agree, Campbell was a dynamic communicator. He had heard him a few times before at his wife’s urging.
But now Joshua was waiting for the punch line. Campbell’s message had been publicized—“Globalism—Three Signs of the End Times.” Frankly, Joshua had expected something else. He was getting antsy and regretted coming. Maybe he should have pushed back a little when Abby encouraged him to leave Colorado early just to attend the service.
When are we going to get to the dangers of globalism? That’s why I’m here.
Joshua’s mind started drifting. Back to their log mansion in Colorado. They had left their ranch in the Rockies at the crack of dawn that same day by private jet. Joshua was now smiling as he was thinking about the trail ride on horseback that he, Abby, and Debbie had taken the day before. Joshua had been scheduled to shoot some early golf with Rocky Bridger first, just after sunrise, but he found out from their housekeeper, Ronda, that Rocky had already left the ranch with his bags in hand while it was still dark. She said that Rocky had a concerned look on his face and said something about an “urgent family matter.”
Joshua had tried Rocky’s cell phone, but his friend wasn’t picking up. So he left a message. He wanted to know if everything was okay and whether there was anything he could do.
By late morning, Joshua still hadn’t heard from him. So he and Abby and Debbie mounted their horses and took the familiar trail that broke into a large meadow full of wild flowers. That’s when Joshua, without warning, decided to throw down the gauntlet. He playfully heeled the sides of his quarter horse, General Billy Mitchell, gave him a loud kiss, and lunged ahead, daring his wife to race him to the other side of the clearing. He beat his wife to the other side, but only by a nose. She playfully called him a cheater. Joshua smiled a little thinking back to that. Okay. So maybe I didn’t give her a fair shake. Come on Josh, admit it. She’s a better rider than you any day…
But then something brought Joshua’s mind back from the towering vistas of the Rocky Mountains. What was it? He was back again in the crowded sanctuary of the church. It was another comment by Campbell that had caught Joshua’s attention. A little like someone gently tapping him on the shoulder in a crowded room.
“To clearly understand what God intended for our future, we need to recognize that He has laid it all out for us in the Bible. The Bible contains God’s agenda for the future of planet Earth, and everybody who dwells here. All right, so how do we know that the Bible is true?”
Joshua clicked with that. Okay, let’s hear it. I’ve respected Abby’s “new relationship with Christ” that she talks about all the time. But the Bible as a predictor of the future? That’s a stretch…
Campbell said, “Besides being the inspired word of God, the Bible has proven itself over the centuries. Let’s focus first on just one major prophecy. It is, perhaps, the most astounding evidence of the fact that we are seeing the approach of the end times of the planet Earth and the coming of Jesus Christ to establish His new kingdom. And that proof comes in a single word. Israel.”
Campbell’s argument was simple. When Israel was recognized as being a sovereign state on May 14, 1948, by the United Nations, it was nothing less than a modern-day miracle. “That one fact—the rise of modern Israel as a nation—was a startlingly accurate fulfillment of the 2,500-year-old prophecy recorded in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, chapter thirty-seven. A prophecy that says:
“Behold I will take the sons of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel.
“Prophecy is defined,” Campbell continued, “as ‘history written in advance.’ Now anyone can ‘predict’ history once it’s already written. But only God can predict it before it happens and have it come to pass exactly as He says it’s going to occur. That’s how we know that the Bible comes from a divine origin. That it’s not just a bunch of writings that came from the minds of men. Most people are unaware that at least twenty-eight percent of the entire Bible was prophetic at the time it was first written down.”
With that Campbell clicked his remote, and screens on each side of the sanctuary lit up with a huge image of a black Bible. Emblazoned across the bottom of the Bible was a red arrow pointing to the word “prophecy.” He zoomed in on the arrow. Suddenly, the cover of the Bible disappeared and a parade of prophetic Scripture verses started appearing one after another, scrolling down the screen. Old Testament predictions of the terrible curse that would befall the man who would rebuild the city of Jericho, in the ninth century B.C. Prophetic warnings delivered to King David that as a result of his sin, “the sword would never depart from your house,” a fact later established beyond question. Verses containing precise predictions about the manner of death that would befall the evil king Ahab and his equally corrupt wife, Jezebel, all fulfilled down to minute detail. Six separate prophecies regarding the fate that would befall the ancient city of Tyre, each having occurred just as foretold.
“Over half of those events prophesied in the Bible,” Campbell said, his voice growing more intense, “were later fulfilled. The other half relate to what we call ‘end time events.’ But listen carefully…many of those events are being fulfilled in our very lifetime…which is why many of us believe we are living in the ‘time of the end’ that the disciples asked Jesus about in Matthew 24. Now speaking of fulfilled prophecy, God Himself used those many fulfillments to prove His very existence. Eight hundred years before Jesus Christ was born, in Isaiah 46:9-10, God used one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament to rebuke His chosen nation for worshiping idols. And then, speaking for God, the prophet Isaiah said, ‘I am God, declaring the end from the beginning…I have spoken it: I will also bring it to pass.’ What God is saying here is that one of the great proofs that He exists is the astonishingly precise fulfillment of His prophecies. Only God is able to do that.
“Dr. John Walvoord was one of the greatest prophecy scholars of the twentieth century—a prolific writer and president of Dallas Theological Seminary. He once described over a thousand prophecies in the Bible, more than half of which have already been fulfilled. Only G
od can write history in advance and have it come to pass. Those fulfilled prophecies prove to us beyond a shadow of a doubt that the end time prophecies of the Bible will also be fulfilled literally, just as over five hundred of God’s predictions have already occurred throughout the past ages. Some of those end time prophecies are unfolding even now, in our own generation.”
But then the pastor took a turn that caught Joshua by surprise. Campbell began to zero in on a single person in the Bible. Seconds later Joshua realized that he should have seen it coming.
Campbell was forging an argument about who Jesus was, based on His fulfillment of multiple prophecies.
“I’m convinced that fulfilled prophecy confirms that Jesus was truly the one and only Messiah who came to ‘seek and to save the lost.’ Just think about it for a minute—He fulfilled all 109 Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah when He came to this earth. No other human being even comes close, yet Jesus fulfills them all. From being born of a virgin in Bethlehem—predicted seven hundred years before—to being spirited away to Egypt as a young child, to healing every kind of disease, particularly restoring sight to the eyes of blind men…to being betrayed by ‘a familiar friend’ for thirty pieces of silver…to being hung on a cross between two thieves, to being resurrected on the third day after His crucifixion, as He predicted six times in the Gospels…and finally announced miraculously when the angels who rolled away the stone first told the women. Remember that? They came to the tomb on the first day of the week and were told, ‘He is not here. He is risen as He said.’ Obviously this Jesus of the Bible was one-of-a-kind. Unique in all of history. And here we are, two thousand years later, still talking about Him. Why? Because He rose from the dead, signaling that God Himself was satisfied with His sacrifice for our sin on the Cross. Christianity is the only religious faith in the world that is based on the resurrection of the founder. And the best evidence for the resurrection is not just the unanimous testimony of the twelve apostles, and not just the five hundred witnesses of Jesus who saw Him in the flesh after He rose, but it is also proven by the very existence of Christianity today. And remember, Christianity was birthed in the first century in the midst of a furnace of unimaginable persecution, yet people still believed in Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior. Such is His supernatural impact on those who receive Him. If Jesus’ resurrection were a fraud, do you think anyone would be here worshipping Him today? He and His followers have influenced this world more than anyone who ever lived. Friends, listen, today Christianity is the largest religious faith in the world. Why? Because Jesus is exactly who the Bible says He is.”
Joshua found Campbell’s comments interesting enough, but his mind was starting to wander. What about the title of the sermon? What about the rise of “globalism?” That was the threat that he and his fellow members of the Roundtable had recognized. An increasing loss of American sovereignty to a world order. That’s why he came to the church that night.
But Campbell seemed to beat him to the punch.
“So, now let’s look at prophecies about the future, the end times. While there are many important signs of the return of Jesus Christ and end of this age, signs that the disciples asked Jesus about, one of the most prominent in our current world is one we call ‘globalism.’ Previous government officials had called it a ‘one-world government.’ In fact, the world planners, whoever they might be, came up with the idea after World War I. So they called it the League of Nations. The Senate of the United States rejected the idea, and the notion wasn’t revived until 1945. That is when it was called the United Nations.
“Now you can look at the idea of a unified world system, what the Bible refers to as the future ‘Babylon,’ like a three-legged stool. Global Government, Global Economy, and Global Religion. In the Bible, each of those are prophesied to be world powers at the end of the age. And by the way, each of them will be destroyed by God according to biblical prophecy. You can read it for yourself in last book in the Bible, Revelation, chapters seventeen and eighteen.
“Ever since the seventeenth century there have been those who dreamed of a global government and used the slogan ‘global peace’ as the supposed goal. But what was behind it? Ultimately a craving for control over the lives of people through the iron grip of ever-expanding government. In recent times you can find countless leaders in media, education, and the government who have tirelessly supported the goal of a global economy. George Soros, one of the most influential and richest men in the world, has gone one step further, openly declaring that you can’t have a world economy unless you also have a world government.”
Campbell stepped away from the pulpit and put his hands behind his back. He stared silently at the audience for nearly thirty seconds. Then he continued.
“The rise of this kind of political Babylon, a global system of government, will be an integral element of the end times as predicted in the Word of God…and as I stand here today…and listen carefully to what I say next…this very day I believe we are seeing the stage-setting for the eventual rise of this new Babylon. For there must be, the Bible says, a global unification among the nations gathered around its grand capital. A political and legal coalition. It’s right there in chapters seventeen and eighteen of the last book of the Bible.”
Then Campbell put a capstone on it in a voice that cracked a bit and grew raspy with emotion. His words rose up, almost pleading, as he said, “Be honest with yourself…as you look around, don’t you see the beginning movement among the nations of this planet to work together to create a new world order?”
THIRTY-FOUR
Paul Campbell had captured Joshua’s attention. He was beginning to see the connecting points between the Bible prophecies that the pastor was describing and the issues that were consuming his Roundtable. The erosion of American sovereignty. The movement to force United States courts to embrace the international laws of the nations of the world. The mantra calling for a single global government.
For Joshua it was a little like being at Hawk’s Nest Ranch in the fall when the fog rolled in with a cold snap early in the morning. But when the sun broke through, the white blanket of fog would clear, and the imposing mountain peaks rising up all around would suddenly show themselves. Joshua wondered for just an instant whether his mission statement in founding the Roundtable might have been too small. So, I wanted to save America…but was that enough? What if all of this is bigger than just the United States?
Campbell moved to his second main point.
“So there will be a political Babylon, certainly. A unification of the powers of the nations of the planet. But there will also be a religious Babylon in the end times. Another leg of our three-legged stool. A merging of the religions of the world into one massive conglomerate of false spirituality. When will that happen? Ultimately not until the Church…and by that I mean the sum total of all true believers in Jesus Christ…until the Church is ‘raptured’…taken up instantaneously to God…and when that happens, with the restraining power of the Church gone from the earth, there will be nothing to stop this massive global merger of the world’s religions. And that is when there will be the hideous appearing…a false prophet will come and set in motion the blasphemous idol worship of the Antichrist exactly as predicted in the thirteenth chapter of Revelation.
“But in addition to the political and religious aspects, there will also be an economic Babylon. The apostle John, in Revelation, describes this future global financial center: ‘…the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.’
“When God finally vanquishes Babylon, as we are told that He will, who is going to mourn her great fall? We are told that ‘the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargoes anymore…’ What are the signs of this coming global economic Babylon? We are warned in the Bible that there will be a future international system of buying, selling, trading, and investing. Revelation chapter thirteen tells us that the Antichrist, the ‘beast,’ will eventually estab
lish a world financial and monetary system that will have the entire planet within its deadly grip:
And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name.
Campbell pulled a piece of paper out of his Bible. He said it was something he happened to stumble across on the Internet. A recent piece from a small web log called the Barn Door.
“I am holding up a short article that mentions a decision that apparently was made by lawmakers in Washington. A decision to convert American currency to the new international form of money being used widely among nations along with the euro, a new currency called the CReDO. Strangely, when I went back to follow up on this blogsite, it had disappeared. Why, I don’t know. But I will keep looking. And I would advise you to do the same. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees of His day for failing to recognize the signs of the times. Of course, some people will say that the Bible assures us that we can’t know the specific time that Christ will return to the earth. And that’s true. On the other hand, why would Jesus, as we are told in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, have given us an exhaustive list of the events that will precede His return if He didn’t want us to use that information? If He didn’t want us to watch the times and to discern them so we could recognize the signs of His coming soon? One of the great questions that has plagued philosophers over thousands of years is this one: how can I truly know that what I know is true? I have a suggestion for you. You can know for sure what you know by basing your knowledge on those things that God has chosen to reveal. And the only way you can do that is by relying on His Word, the Bible. His Word says that the world is heading toward a global, unified economic system. And that, my friends, is something you can definitely bank on…”