The following is from the Trumpet Brief sent out yesterday. These daily e-mails contain personal messages from the Trumpet staff. Click here to join the over 20,000 members of our mailing list, so you don’t miss another message.

If you have followed us for awhile, you probably know about Herbert W. Armstrong’s long-time prophecy that Britain would not be part of the new united Europe.

However, Mr. Armstrong long believed that France would be part of the seventh and final resurrection of the prophesied Holy Roman Empire.

How did he know this? He used the Bible as his guide!

Many of the modern French descended from the patriarch Reuben. The blessings God promised to Abraham, to Abraham’s son Isaac, and to Isaac’s son Jacob were promised to Jacob’s firstborn son, Reuben. But Reuben lost his birthright because he “defiled his father’s bed” (1 Chronicles 5:1-2). The birthright blessings went instead to Joseph, the firstborn son of Jacob’s other wife, Rachel.

Joseph grew up in a family environment rife with sibling rivalries. His brothers resented him because he was Jacob’s favorite. Joseph told his brothers about his vivid dreams that indicated his descendants would “reign over” those of his brothers. This made his brothers hate him all the more.

They hated him so much that they conspired to murder him! They wanted to kill him, cast him in a pit, and then tell their father that Joseph had been devoured by a ferocious beast. Reuben intervened to say they should leave him in the pit to die, planning to fetch him later. But before he could, the brothers decided to sell Joseph into slavery.

This is how Joseph ended up enslaved in Egypt (see Genesis 37). His own brothers sold him to the Midianites. By trying to “rescue” him in a roundabout way and not boldly standing up to his murderous other brothers, Reuben the firstborn betrayed his younger brother Joseph.

Your Bible says Reuben’s modern descendants will again betray the latter-day descendants of Joseph—America and Britain! France will play “second fiddle” to Germany in the prophesied “beast” power of Revelation. But it will betray the natural allies it fought alongside in the first two world wars. Yes, the modern descendants of Reuben will play a treacherous role in “selling” their brother into captivity and slavery, just like Reuben himself did more than 3,700 years ago!

Now consider some of the headlines coming out of France in recent days. Last week, French President Emanuel Macron called for a “real European army.” The Times called it “his strongest language yet” for a military union. But that was far from the most provocative statement he made during the exchange with reporters. He said Europe needed a real army in order to protect itself from “China, Russia and even the United States of America” (emphasis added).

Even the United States? France needs to protect itself from Communist China, dictatorial Russia … and the democracy that crossed the Atlantic twice over the past century to rescue France from two world wars? U.S. President Donald Trump said the statement was an insult—and it was.

Last week, President Macron also heaped praise on Marshall Philippe Pétain, the World War i French general who later surrendered France to Adolf Hitler in 1940 and then collaborated with Hitler while presiding over the Vichy state. According to British historian Andrew Roberts, Pétain “participated enthusiastically in sending non-French Jews to the death camps—principally Auschwitz—in a way that the Germans simply did not have the manpower or local knowledge to achieve.”

Pétain was a “great soldier,” President Macron told reporters last week. “This is a reality.”

And then yesterday, in the presence of world leaders who gathered in Paris to commemorate the centenary anniversary of the armistice that ended World War i, Mr. Macron publicly rebuked President Trump for recently saying he was a nationalist who puts America first.

“Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism,” Macron said, in a sentence that appeared to be a direct contradiction of itself. He reasoned, “By saying ‘our interests first, who cares about the others,’ we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what makes it great, and what is essential—its moral values.”

Herbert Armstrong was right. Britain is on the way out of the beast power described in Revelation 17:12. But France is definitely in!

Last night in Columbus, Ohio, my father delivered a Personal Appearance Campaign lecture to about 275 Trumpet subscribers. We posted a video of part of the lecture to the front page of theTrumpet.com this morning. You’ll notice that my father started by emphasizing how important Macron’s remarks were, not just politically, but prophetically.

This really is big news. I devoted all 56 minutes of my Trumpet Daily Radio Show today to this subject: “French President Extols Nazi Collaborator, Calls for a European Army, and Slams Donald Trump.”

The centenary of Armistice Day, 1918, is really a monumental milestone. The most powerful leaders in the world attended yesterday’s remembrance near Paris. The French president’s remarks there were hugely significant. Did President Macron’s comments strike you when you first heard about them? What was your reaction?