Yet theTrumpet.com and its predecessor have been predicting Germany’s rise to power for over 80 years. While the nation lay flattened after World War II, physically divided between other countries, our founder, the late philanthropist and religious teacher Herbert W. Armstrong, declared in 1954 that “Germany inevitably [will] emerge as the leader of a united Europe.” In 1967, under his direction, the Plain Truth magazine (forerunner to the Trumpet magazine) forecast:
[There is] one thing you can count on. In fact, it is so sure you can bank on it: The cry of a political union in Europe will get louder, and before long, we will see the Common Market develop into a United States of Europe.
We now have a form of a United States of Europe in the European Union. Mr. Armstrong also specified that the union would require a common currency; just as predicted, the euro was launched in 1999, with EU countries adopting it in place of their own currencies in 2002.
In 1979, Mr. Armstrong wrote:
I have been proclaiming and writing, ever since 1935, that … the Holy Roman Empire is coming in our generation—a “United States of Europe,” combining 10 nations or groups of nations in Europe—with A UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE!
The nations of Europe have been striving to become reunited .… Yet, on a purely political basis, they have been totally UNABLE to unite. …
This new united Europe will be, militarily and economically, as strong, or even more powerful, than either the United States or the USSR. It will be a third gigantic world power!
The nations of Europe have been striving to become reunited .… Yet, on a purely political basis, they have been totally UNABLE to unite. …
This new united Europe will be, militarily and economically, as strong, or even more powerful, than either the United States or the USSR. It will be a third gigantic world power!
At the time of Mr. Armstrong’s forecast (a full decade before the Berlin Wall fell), a united Germany and Europe, MORE powerful than the United States or USSR, seemed ludicrous.
Fast-forward to 2012, and we see Germany’s leader—essentially Europe’s leader—ranked more powerful than Russia’s. Fast-forward to 2015, and she is ranked more powerful than that of the United States!
How could we know this would happen?
These declarations were based on Bible prophecy. Prophecies that speak of the “time of the end” describe a powerful union in Europe made up of 10 countries, joined ideologically with the Roman Catholic Church to create a final resurrected phase of the Holy Roman Empire. For the details of this prophesied German-led superpower, request our free book The Holy Roman Empire in Prophecy.
And the leader of Germany’s rise is not all that Mr. Armstrong—and now the Trumpet—has forecast. The Bible also contains prophecies about all the major nations represented by individuals within Forbes’s “Most Powerful” top five.
It declares an end-time alliance between superpowers Russia and China (among other Asian nations), led by a powerful man known as the “prince of Rosh.” Rosh is a biblical term for Russia. Request our free booklet The Prophesied ‘Prince of Russia’ for a full explanation.
The Bible further prophesies the decline in power of the United States, as well as Britain and the British Commonwealth. Forbes picked up on this decline with its ranking of America’s leadership tailing off in the last four years especially. And that once-great British Empire, which in living memory controlled about one third of the Earth’s landmass, these days only occasionally makes a peep near the bottom of Forbes’s top 10. Mr. Armstrong forecast all of this in his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy (request your free copy). He also specifically prophesied that Britain would either leave or be ejected from the European Union. The Brexit vote determining to leave the EU is now yesterday’s news.
Even other nations whose leaders are ranked highly by Forbes, such as Saudi Arabia, are not overlooked by end-time Bible prophecy (request your free copy of Gerald Flurry’s booklet The King of the South). The fact is that the Bible is not an “outdated” book. The accounts within its pages are not just legends written for “old times.” Its prophecies are not “vague.” The Bible is incredibly specific, and it is the most up-to-date book in the world! It is the reader’s responsibility to prove that for himself.
Mr. Armstrong certainly had his scoffers back in the late 1940s and ’50s, while he was writing and broadcasting that the smashed, divided Germany would rise again as head of a “United States of Europe” to be one of the most powerful blocs in the world. What was once ridiculed as outlandish prophecy is now being widely reported on as common news. And as Mr. Armstrong forecast, Europe will continue to grow even more powerful, consolidating into a group of the prophesied “10 kings” (or 10 nations) led by Germany in a modern, resurrected Holy Roman Empire.
The Forbes “Most Powerful People” list is an impressive appraisal of sheer individual—and by direct association national—power. Yet for this website, its assessment is entirely unsurprising. In many ways, it is “old news”—broadcast up to 80 years ago by our predecessor. Or further, as much as 2,500 years ago in the Bible. Forbes has simply highlighted the rising power of leaders and nations as they have been prophesied for decades.
One final note. Jesus Christ spoke to our terrifyingly destructive nuclear age today when He said in Matthew 24:21-22, 30:
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened. … And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
These nations whose leaders are featured on Forbes’s list are about to engage in the most brutal conflict of human history (see also Daniel 12:1; Jeremiah 30:7). We’ve already seen it on a smaller scale twice in the past century. There’s no doubt it can and will happen again. Yet there is coming a leader to end this conflict and finally take control of this embittered world. He will take the undisputed top spot of the “World’s Most Powerful” list. His name is Jesus Christ.
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