Ever so rarely do I bother getting a Sunday paper: maybe I was nudged into getting last Sunday’s just to read this exceptionally remarkable quotation by Christopher Booker.:

‘In the only two speeches I have made in this referendum campaign, I quoted that startling passage from Margaret Thatcher’s last book in 2003 where she wrote:

Lady Thatcher statue_credit Alamy

“That such an unnecessary and irrational project as building a European super-state was ever embarked on will seem in future years to be perhaps the greatest folly of the modern era. And that Britain, with her traditional strengths and global destiny, should ever have become part of it, will appear a political error of the first magnitude.”

‘Back in 1975, we may recall, when Mrs Thatcher had just become Tory leader, she played a very prominent role in the campaign to keep us in the Common Market. But after 11 years as prime minister, at “the heart of Europe”, she had completely reversed her view. This was because she had come to realise that everything she had originally been told about the real nature and purpose of the “European project” was wrong. (Emphases RB)

‘She had come to understand that its only real agenda in all it did was to work towards “ever-closer union”, under a form of governance like nothing the world had ever seen before.

‘The purpose was to weld all Europe together under a government that was “supranational”, never intended to be accountable or democratic and was based on gradually removing from member states any important power to govern themselves.’.

The phrase I’ve emboldened above in Christopher Brooker’s remarks could be his own perception of the late Lady’s opinion. Or perhaps it really was hers?

Nevertheless, it struck me as being closely similar to the description and explanation the OT prophet Daniel was given of an horrific beast seen in a night vision about the future and times just before Jesus Christ’s return.

Chapter 7 of his book recounts that dream of watching four beasts emerge from the sea (of peoples/nations) – first a lion, next a bear and then one like a leopard with four heads:

“After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast – terrifying and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, it had ten horns.” (Dan 7:7 NIV)

The dream continued by focusing on a horn that uprooted three of the others and began speaking blasphemously and waging war against and defeating the saints. The court of ‘The Ancient of Days’ was convened and judgement made against this horned beast and, unlike the others, it was slain and its body cast into ‘the blazing fire’. Then Daniel saw ‘one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven’ (ie: Yeshua Ha Messiach, Jesus Christ); verses 13-14 refer:

“…He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into His Presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and His Kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”

Readers will recall that Jesus referred to Himself as ‘Son of Man’ and to Daniel’s book when teaching upon the forthcoming fall of Jerusalem His return (Matt 24).

But the distinct peculiarity of that symbolic, spiritual ‘beast’ was stressed again by the one who was with him and whom Daniel asked what they were watching. I’m copying verse 23 from my old NIV Insight Bible along with my emphasis therein:

“…He gave me this explanation: ‘The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on the earth. It will be (NB:) different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it…”

This imagery is similar to the legs and feet of the statue in king Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, which Daniel interpreted as signifying and prophesying about his and later kingdoms (see chapter 2).

Both refer to a trampling and crushing of people in their subjugation by rulers or peoples. That description is also said to be the definition of the Arabic term for ISIS terrorists – ‘daesh’. (For an informed opinion read here.) So, some scholars and commentators offer the opinion that scripture may refer to and foresee the existence of ISIS, and that the personification of Anti-christ will thus be a Muslim. Without emphasising that Arabic term, authors Mark Davidson and Nelson Walters, for example, have produced some historical considerations that build upon Joel Richardson’s thesis about such an identity.

However, the more we learn about what is happening in Europe the more inclined I am to think there may be more merit to the older, yet relatively modern, theological ideas that the one or other of Revelation 13 beasts will come out of the revived Roman Empire – the EU. After all, the second one has power over buying and selling and people would be unable to do that without having been given that beast’s mark, the number of which is 666. One of my earliest email refers to this number in connection with the appointment of the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Policy & Security, as the investigator Herb Peters discovered about 25 years ago. (For more see two-part email Not Many People Know, April 2009)

Furthermore, couldn’t the open and veiled threats emanating from our government and those in the EU be similar to the ‘trampling and devouring’ prophesied in Daniel 7:7 ?

Of course there’s much more to a deeper consideration of these scripture, but I offer my thoughts on this specific similarity for what they may be worth.

NB: please note I’m no fan of that past prime minister in view of the way the department in which I worked was ‘privatised’.

PS: I was going to schedule this for later but hit ‘publish’ and a few seconds later my email pinged ‘incoming’. I thought it was alerting me to this new post; but no – it’s announcing Mark Davidson’s latest The Brexit and The Antichrist – HOW VERY COINCIDENTAL!