Despite this, I don't see where in the Bible it states that we will need a one world government. Also, why is a one world government necessarily a bad thing???
The
one world government Extreme Futurist doctrine, (visa vis, Tim Le Hay's popular Left Behind series of books and movies featuring a generic global geopolitical dictatorship), was first touted by the now almost entirely forgotten television personality "Herbert W. Armstrong" of the "World Tomorrow Television Program", who claimed nearly forty years ago the European Union (E.U.) was going to
conquer the world and establish a "one world government".
Compared to other eschatological beliefs, the whole
"one world government" theory, is a comparatively
recent belief established in modern times, (and as I pointed out in the previous post, is based on a completely erroneous assumption that since the Ancient Roman empire was a one world government, it naturally follows the "Resurrected" Roman Empire would also be a one world government as well). Of course, serious historians have always known, the Ancient Roman Empire was merely a "regional power" among many other independent empires, dynasties and kingdoms. Modern media, (television and motion pictures) have gone a long way towards perpetuating the popularity of the one world government "
myth".
In the interim years, between Armstrong and Le Hay the paranoia shifted over to the
UNITED NATIONS (visa vis, Hal Lindsey) who then became the "focus" of the
myth. I remember the hysteria created back in the mid 90's when a local Mississippi radio station started broadcasting U.N. armored personnel carriers were being
unloaded in Gulfport in preparation of a U.N. invasion of America. Since I only lived 80 miles away, I couldn't resist making the drive over to investigate. What I found was dozens of armored personnel carriers with U.N. markings contained in a fenced in area near the docks, awaiting shipment to Europe to be used in the U.N. effort against the fighting in Bosnia. The P.C.'s had been
manufactured in the United States. LOL. Even after the Mississippi radio station was advised of the hoax, they continued to broadcast the story for several days afterwards. Mississippi is a highly fundamentalist/religious audience, and ratings are very important to advertisers.
I've always found this theory
highly suspect, because the Revelation Prophecy and the corresponding prophecies of the Book of Daniel, only mention a Resurrected
"Roman-like" power consisting of only "
ten kingdoms",(Rev.17:12 and Dan.7:24). How anyone extrapolates these ten kingdoms into ten
"world wide" global, or regional governments is quite frankly a mystery to me.
I don't buy the "whole world" rulership interpretation of Daniel 7:23. If you do some in depth Bible research, you'll find many instances where the phrase "the whole earth" only refers to some particular
part of the earth, which does not constitute the
ENTIRE planet, as in (Jeremiah 4:27,28) where the whole earth is left desolate, and yet it is not
entirely consumed. In Genesis 11:1, the "whole earth" refers
only to its' inhabited portion, or the geographical
"region" or "
locale" where the descendants of
NOAH lived, not the
ENTIRE planet. Later, the same terminology is used to describe the extant Ancient Roman Empire. This more restricted interpretation is shared by Barnes' Notes and Commentary, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown and Gill's Bible Commentaries. So it's pretty established among conservative Bible scholars.
In other instances, the "whole earth" refers to the part of the earth inhabited by the Church extant. Won't bother with all those listings. Neither the early Hebrews, nor the Greeks had much of a scientific grasp of the concept of the earth representing an entire
planet. That concept came into being, long after the Old and the New Testaments were written.
So the idea the words, "whole earth" can
only refer to the
ENTIRE planet, is definitely a conclusion
open to some argument and can be challenged Scripturally.