“Where there is no vision the people perish …” (Proverbs 29:18).

Nowhere, it seems, is this lack of vision reflected within the circles of leadership in Anglo-Saxon countries more than in the sheer blindness they exhibit to the threat rapidly developing within the corridors of church and state in Brussels, Berlin and Rome.

There was a lone voice that did once cry out amid the babble of confusion produced by those who seek to make sense of complex world events. Herbert W. Armstrong cut through that confusion to strike at the very heart of the matter—the plain, unadulterated, unvarnished truth as revealed through inerrant Bible prophecy:

“[I]n London, the economic conference was on while we were there. That is the summit conference of the major powers. And I can tell you now that I learned things while in London that have alarmed me very greatly. And I can see now the event that is going to trigger the formation of the reunification in Europe, the resurrection of the medieval Holy Roman Empire that we’ve been looking forward to that is prophesied to come. … Well, now I think I can see what may be the very event that is going to trigger it, and that is the economic situation in the world” (recorded message, July 7, 1984).

Mr. Armstrong then focused on the international banking system, noting that “one nation has to deal with other nations and imports and exports. And so they have to have a means of transferring money from one nation to another. And so the banking structure is international and interwoven. … The banking system has become very complex.“

Twenty-five years later, on April 2, 2009, another summit of the world’s top 20 national economies convened once again in London. At the heart of the deliberations was the world’s banking system. In the wake of the massive failure of the global system of finance last September, the G-20 agreed to submit their national systems of banking and finance to a single regulatory authority to be known as the Financial Stability Board (fsb).

Here is where things get really interesting.

Remember, Herbert Armstrong connected the global economic situation with the final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire—centering his focus on the international banking system and connecting it directly to “the formation of the reunification of Europe.”

Now, 25 years after these prophetic statements, Dick Morris, an American ex-presidential aide, observed, “Literally from April 2 of this year … it’s a whole new world of financial regulation in which, essentially, all of the U.S. regulatory bodies and all U.S. companies are put under international regulation, international supervision. It really amounts to a global economic government” (Fox News, April 2; emphasis mine throughout).

That is a startling statement. Yet it has been given little publicity since Dick Morris made it just one month ago. Nevertheless, when you study the true implications of decisions taken at the most recent G-20 conference in London, it is a clear statement of fact!

Why has the global media ignored this momentous story? Simply because it is either grossly ignorant of the facts, entirely unwilling to expose it, or under restraint not to publicize it.

The reality is that, without a clear understanding of Bible prophecy for our times, very few of even the best observers of the world scene can comprehend the true import of this momentous change. It amounts to the forthcoming regulation of the global economy by a body originally created by the European Union, having a controlling majority vote held by the EU’s central bankers. This is destined to have powerful impact on future conditions governing the lives of the masses.

This is BIG NEWS!

It is, in fact, news of a momentous world event about which we have been warning our readers for over 50 years, initially under the leadership of Herbert W. Armstrong, and, for the past 20 years, of Gerald Flurry.

This is news that lay buried in the prophecies of your Bible till Herbert Armstrong saw its relevance to the “latter days” of the 20th century. He exposed its relevance to our day in his widely circulated booklet The Book of Revelation Unveiled at Last, published in 1959.

Our readers are aware that for decades we have monitored and reported on the rise of the European Union, from its inception as the European Coal and Steel Community to its most recent struggles for consolidation under the European reform treaty. We have consistently warned that the EU would eventually split into a 10-nation combine under a powerful politico/military leader and an influential religious authority who would lead this entity to global dominance.

All along, we have pointed to a prophecy in the book of Revelation that speaks of a future global power that gains regulatory control of the global economic and financial system to the point where it dictates trade, economic and financial policy from the international to the domestic level—globally!

That entity is now officially in place! Soon every household will feel its effects.

Why don’t you know about this phenomena that is set to affect your standard of living, ultimately to the point of dictating whether you live or you die?

Dick Morris laid his finger on the reason. “I’ve had a long experience in dealing with the European Union, and this is how they operate. All the [G-20] focus was on how much will there be in the stimulus package, $1.1 trillion. And did Obama win? Did Sarkozy win? And in the meantime, they slip this in under the radar, which is absolutely creating an international economic union” (ibid.).

Of course, numerous whistle-blowers have long sought to warn the world on the clandestine, anti-democratic nature of how the European Union operates by covertly slipping major policy issues, on which there would normally be a great outcry from the public, “under the radar.”

One exposé of this EU tendency was published back in 1995 by Bernard Connelly, former head of the European Monetary System’s National and Community Monetary Policies Unit of the European Commission. Connelly publicized his concerns about the European Union’s “distinctively German way of approaching monetary questions” amid “an environment hostile to thought” (The Rotten Heart of Europe).

Connelly was sacked by the European Commission for his trouble.

Other senior EU financial officers have been likewise dealt with for sounding off about the fraud and corruption that is endemic to the EU bureaucracy. Author John Laughlin declared that “European politics has resounded to a dull thud, repetitively: that of nails being driven into the coffin of democracy” (The Tainted Source). Similar to Connelly, Laughland notes the Teutonic tendency for standardization, regulation and control that is so deeply rooted in the EU culture. “According to the European ideology, multiplicity implies disorder, and order requires uniformity.”

It is in monetary policy that this innate drive toward centralizing Teutonic corporatism has found its most verdant pastures. Since 1979, when the European Council adopted the European Monetary System—consummating in the establishment of the European Central Bank (ecb) and subsequent launching of the single European currency, the euro, in 1999—the European central banking system has evolved as a powerful source of financial regulation and control.

Underpinning the European Monetary Union (emu), the ecb operates from Frankfurt, Germany. It sets monetary policy for the emu completely independent from the influence of any of the national governments or any other outside influence. The ecb combines with the central banks of all of the states in the European Union to form the European System of Central Banks (escb). The escb implements the monetary policy of the ecb.

Until the latest G-20 meeting in London, the EU regulatory authority charged with the task of establishing policy on stabilizing world financial markets was the Financial Stability Forum (fsf), a child of the EU central banking system established the same year that the euro was launched.

It is at this point in the evolution of the entity currently known as the European Union that its true globalist agenda for world domination begins to break the surface.

When EU monetary policy is linked with the EU drive for global financial regulatory power, the agenda of the EU elites is revealed at its most sinister, anti-Anglo-Saxon, anti-free-enterprise level. This becomes of even greater concern when objective historical research reveals that in Europe “there is a certain overlap between two currents of thought—Nazi and modern pro-Europeanism—whose … antecedents reach back in European intellectual and geopolitical history to well before the outbreak of the Second World War …” (ibid.).

Herbert W. Armstrong declared that following World War ii, the Nazis went underground to continue pursuing their agenda for world domination. The research of numerous authors has since verified this irrefutable fact. The first postwar German government, led by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, was stacked with old Nazis in every arm of its administration. They were most influential in shaping the minds of German technocrats who now hold down some of the most powerful positions within the EU administrative bodies.

Perhaps nowhere is that old Nazi vision so prevalent than in the European central banking system.

A consistent thread that runs from Brussels through Berlin to Rome has woven its web of covert banking intrigue from the post-World War i process of German reparations in 1918 to the most recent establishment of the new global finance and banking regulator, the fsb, in April 2009. This thread ties together the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, the powerful Bundesbank and the Vatican Bank with the global financial regulator, the Financial Stability Board. This web of financial intrigue will be the subject of a future article.

Meanwhile, the strong men of Germany will convene in Berlin on May 8 for what may well emerge as the most influential of political forums, just weeks away from the European parliamentary elections and the next EU summit.

“The 12th International wdr [West German Broadcasting] Europe Forum will revisit the themes of the debate on Europe’s future and provides an exchange of views with top politicians and media experts. The challenges of global financial and economic crisis for Germany and Europe will be debated along with the social consequences for Europe’s citizens” (wdr, April 28; our translation).

The line-up is impressive: president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering; president of the Bundestag, Norbet Lammert; president of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Franz Müntefering; the German federal minister of economics, Karl-Theodor Freiherr zu Guttenberg; chair of the Group Alliance 90/the Greens in the Bundestag, Renate Künast; head of the EU anti-bureaucracy group and Christian Social Union honorary chairman, Edmund Stoiber; chairman of the group Die Linke (the Left) in the German Bundestag, Gregor Gysi; chairman of the Social Democrat group in the European Parliament, Martin Schulz; deputy chairman of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the European Parliament, Silvana Koch-Mehrin.

In addition, Germany’s embattled chancellor, Angela Merkel, will be among many other high-profile EU representatives attending this vital forum. But the list of attendees, the agenda and the organs that will publicize the agreed message to the EU public are powerfully inclined to Germany.

The agenda of this crucial debate is simply electrifying to those attuned to Bible prophecy for our times: “More than ever is an active—and capable of acting—Europe necessary …. Warnings of rising unemployment and rising public debt are unsettling the people …. The call for a strong state is becoming loud …. Still missing is a viable renewed institutional structure of the European Union …. If the proposed EU reform succeeds, the Union starting in 2010 with strengthened capacity to act can participate in building a new global financial order. The aim is a new system with greater control of financial markets” (ibid.).

Tie that “aim” of these most powerful movers and shakers within the EU to Herbert Armstrong’s visionary prophecies of 25 years ago: “I can see now the event that is going to trigger the formation of the reunification in Europe, the resurrection of the medieval Holy Roman Empire that we’ve been looking forward to that is prophesied to come. … Well, now I think I can see what may be the very event that is going to trigger it, and that is the economic situation in the world.”

If you are truly attuned to that which is now exploding onto the political and economic scene in Europe, you are witnessing those prophecies being fulfilled before your very eyes as this tumultuous year progresses.

We plan to have our own reporter attend the wdr Europe Forum. Watch this site for his report.

While the press at large has its head buried in the sand, stay tuned to the Key of David television program, theTrumpet.com and our Trumpet magazine for the real news ahead of the news!

Watch the EU. Watch Germany. And watch the fsb as it evolves into the most powerful of regulatory bodies overseeing the global financial system, so powerful as to lead to the fulfillment of that mind-jarring prophecy: “And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name” (Revelation 13:16-17).

Once the power of that global regulatory body is felt, it will be time for those attuned to the signs of the times to heed that great admonition of HOPE given by Jesus Christ to His disciples: “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).