Predicting the future is a chancy profession unless you have biblical revelation as your foundation. Without the depth of Bible prophecy as one’s guide, one’s predictions about the future remain shallow at best.

The U.S. National Intelligence Council’s (nic’s) newly released report, “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World,” relies on input from a sizable collection of bright minds, each with his own particular view on the future, all of them having as their foundation this world’s system of education, and all possessing their own biases and human prejudices.

Mike McConnell, director of National Intelligence, explained that in the preparation of the nic report, “We invested time with academics, diplomats, and other governmental leaders around the globe to get their input and their observations.”

Thus, having views expressed by such a large cross section of persons either directly involved in or associated with the study of geopolitics, the report must be given some degree of credence, at least from a human perspective.

The trouble is, nowhere does the report recognize the ultimate reality that there exists an overarching, supreme Intelligence, who admonishes mankind—His very own creation—to “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else: I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:9-10).

That is the missing dimension in this report!

There is simply no acknowledgement in the nic report of the Creator of the universe, nor of the fact of His control over world events.

Unless any prediction of the future is built upon “the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20), a whole dimension of knowledge is missing from any attempt at predicting the future! The best we can achieve is a mere list of guesses based on observable trends.

As an example, the nic report contains the statement, “no single outcome seems preordained.” The reality is that the major trends in world history are preordained! The fact that they have been declared by Almighty God to be so, through the mouths of His prophets, is clearly documented in the pages of your Bible. We are without excuse if we ignore this reality that we have at our fingertips, for of a truth we do have available to us “the more sure word of prophecy” (2 Peter 1:19). There simply exists no surer foundation from which to view the future.

It is within the context of the great reality that there does exist a God—whose presence can be proven (read our booklet Does God Exist?), who declares “the end from the beginning” (study our booklet The Proof of the Bible)—that we offer the following brief observations on “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World.”

The nic report consists of 120 pages of text. Within the limits of this article we have chosen only one of the major geopolitical trends the report outlines around which to build our case that the report clearly lacks a vital dimension that could otherwise give it legitimate credence. It will take a larger article to point out the glaring differences between the perceptions about the next 17 years, as predicted in the nic report, and the more sure word of biblical prophecy.

To demonstrate our point, we shall deal with the one singular power that Bible prophecy indicates will soon dominate the globe: a great northern European power. The concept of the future of the European Union as outlined in this report contrasts glaringly with Bible prophecies even now unfolding, vitally involving the EU.

According to the nic report,

Europe by 2025 will have made slow progress toward achieving the vision of current leaders and elites: a cohesive, integrated, and influential global actor …. [C]ontinued failure to convince skeptical publics of the benefits of deeper economic, political and social integration … could leave the EU a hobbled giant distracted by internal bickering and competing national agendas, and less able to translate its economic clout into global influence. … Defense expenditures are likely to be cut further …. Divergent threat perceptions within Europe and the likelihood that defense spending will remain uncoordinated suggest the EU will not be a major military power by 2025.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

Even as the U.S. National Intelligence Council was putting the finishing touches to its report, the EU was dictating economic and financial policy to the G-20 nations gathered in Washington to seek a solution to the current global financial and economic crisis. At the same time, the Bertelsmann Foundation of Germany was depositing a shaft of demands on Washington’s doorstep that it expects the new Obama administration to follow. Thus, contrary to the nic report, the EU is already very active translating its “economic clout into global influence.”

The nic report seems oblivious to the fact that the German-dominated EU is definitely not a democratic institution. It imposes its will upon its member nations by edict from its headquarters in Brussels, issued and enforced by unelected representatives. When a referendum is held by a member nation to give its constituents a vote on a question of national importance, if the people return a vote that is unfavorable to the EU, that vote is rejected outright and a further referendum called to force a vote in favor of the EU will. That has happened twice in Ireland in recent times.

Thus, to imply that “continued failure to convince skeptical publics of the benefits of deeper economic, political, and social integration … could leave the EU a hobbled giant” simply ignores Brussels’s history of riding roughshod over the will of individual EU member nations. The nic report expresses extreme naivety on this point.

But it is in relation to the future of EU defense expenditure that the nic appears to reveal a glaring lack of astute intelligence. The report justifies the prediction that between now and 2025, “defense expenditures are likely to be cut further” by maintaining that “divergent threat perceptions within Europe … suggest the EU will not be a major military power by 2025.”

Just where have the men in trench coats and earpieces been focusing their attention over the past decade? Sure, we are all aware that the U.S. intelligence service was gutted by the Clinton administration. But surely any decent amateur observer could see by the statements coming out of Berlin, issued by responsible senior members of the German government, that there is a strong movement within the upper echelons of the German-dominated EU to justify the establishment of a cohesive, nuclear-armed European defense force to fill the gap that the collapse of the Atlantic alliance is creating.

What reason would the U.S. intelligence directorate give for the resurrection of the old German High Command that Britain, America and their allies vowed would never ever be permitted to happen, following World War ii, if it were not for Germany seeking yet once again to create a powerful force for its imperial aims?

The truth is that the United States has been played for a patsy by Germany for the past 60 years, ever since it handed over the denazification of Germany to Germany itself, shortly after World War ii. Germany will take nato for all it can get, then chew it up and spit it out when it is good and ready to do so. In the meantime, while ever it can get the U.S. to fight its wars by proxy, as it did in the Balkan Peninsula, it will.

No valid prediction about the future can be made unless one understands the biblical identity of the nations that dominate the global scene today. Our book The United States and Britain in Prophecy reveals that crucial knowledge. Read in conjunction with our booklets Nahum—An End-Time Prophecy for Germany and Daniel—Unsealed at Last!, a picture of the future of Europe and the world leaps into revelatory perspective exactly as your Bible prophesies that it shall be between now and the year 2025!

A more detailed analysis of the National Intelligence Council’s report, “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World,” as compared to Bible prophecies for these times, is planned for an upcoming edition of our monthly magazine, the Trumpet.