Special Series: Part Four: What's So Special About THIS Generation Anyway - and who is it? Part 3

We last left off with the Introduction and Reason One of "Six Reasons Why We Believe These Are the Last Days" from the Omega Letter. This time we are going to explore reason number two as to why we believe these are the last days. So...let's get started on Reason Two.
======================
Special Report: Reason Two - The Revived Roman Empire

The prophet Daniel was roused from his bed at the command of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Summoned before the king, Daniel was commanded to interpret a dream that troubled the monarch.

Daniel was given a two-fold task; before he could interpret the king's dream, he first had to tell him what it was. Nebuchadnezzar forgot the details -- he just knew it bothered him.

"But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these;" (Dan 2:28)

Daniel began by telling the king what the dream was, and that his dream was to be a vision of the 'latter days'. "As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass." (Dan 2:29)

"Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay." (Daniel 2:31-33)

Daniel himself interpreted the vision as four successive world kingdoms. Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon was the head of gold. History proved the chest and arms of silver to be the Medo-Persian empire, the belly and thighs of brass was the Greek empire of Alexander the Great and the two legs of iron became Rome.

Daniel's explanation of the successive empires specified how each would be overthrown and by whom, except for Rome. Daniel says that empire gives way to the empire represented by the feet and toes of the image. The Roman Empire grew too large to manage and was split into the Western and Eastern empires. The west was governed from Rome, the east from Constantinople. When the political empires collapsed, the spiritual empires of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Catholic Churches remained.

"And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay." Daniel 2:42

The 'iron mixed with miry clay' reference is interesting. Partly strong and partly weak. "And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay." (Daniel 2:43)

In the late 19th century, Otto Von Bismarck noted the change that was coming over the global power structure. "We live in a wondrous time in which the strong is weak because of his moral scruples and the weak grows strong because of his audacity."

Those 'moral scruples' of which von Bismarck spoke were the principles of democracy that were beginning to take hold in Europe. The days of kings wielding absolute power were gone -- war became too dangerous a practice to engage in frivolously.

The two wars that scarred the first half of the 20th century were the result of efforts to unite Europe by force.

The 1948 Benelux Treaty resulted in the establishment of the Western European Union (WEU). With the signing in Brussels of the Treaty of Mutual Assistance of the Western Union (United Kingdom, Benelux, France) Europe began to come together in the name of peace, not conquest. The 1948 Benelux Treaty led to the 1949 creation of the Council of Europe which in it's turn led to the expansion of the Belelux Treaty under the terms of the 1957 Treaty of Rome which led to the Western European Union.

Eventually, the Western European Union grew to ten nations. The Maastricht Treaty in 1993 created the European Union. The EU grew out of the original ten members of the Western European Union as associate members.

The original ten became known as Assembly of the Western European Union. Here's a thumbnail sketch of WEU history from their website.

"On the initiative of the Belgian and French Governments, a preliminary joint meeting of the Foreign and Defence Ministers within the WEU framework was held in Rome on 26 and 27 October 1984. It was marked by the adoption of the founding text of WEU’s reactivation: the "Rome Declaration". Work on the definition of a European security identity and the gradual harmonisation of its members’ defence policies were among the stated objectives. Ministers recognised the "continuing necessity to strengthen western security, and that better utilization of WEU would not only contribute to the security of Western Europe but also to an improvement in the common defence of all the countries of the Atlantic Alliance".

"The Rome Declaration reaffirmed that the WEU Council could – pursuant to Article VIII (3) of the modified Brussels Treaty – consider the implications for Europe of crises in other regions of the world."

"Pursuant to the decisions taken in Rome, the WEU Council was henceforth to hold two meetings a year at Ministerial level, in which Foreign and Defence Ministers were to sit at the same conference table." (http://www.weu.int/)

So we have the military arm of Europe -- the real power -- resting with the ten nation WEU, under the authority of the Rome Declaration.

Daniel says that the ten toes of iron and clay form the nucleus of the government of the antichrist. The antichrist is the 'prince' of Daniel 9:26. "...and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. . ." The 'city' [Jerusalem] and 'sanctuary' [Temple] were destroyed by Titus of Rome in AD 70 - hence the identification of the antichrist as a 'prince' or ruler of a revived Roman Empire.

Daniel 8:25 reveals the antichrist's method saying, "by peace [he] shall destroy many". This revived Roman empire that now covers all of Europe came into being by peaceful means after centuries of war aimed at accomplishing the same thing.

The revival of Europe as a global empire is Reason Two in in this part of the series, "Six Reasons Why We Believe These Are the Last Days."
=======================
Next time we will take a look at Reason Three: The Developing Global Government