Does the Bible say the United Nations will have a role in the end times?

Other nations will doubtless come in, but the significant fact is, that Rome will be able to outvote the whole Protestant minority. Though the symbolical woman riding upon the scarlet coloured beast (Rev. 17), we believe, will embrace more than Roman Catholicism, yet we believe Roman Catholicism, shedding all its Christian dogmas and becoming apostate, allying itself with one vast religious scheme of an apostate nature, will be the leading feature in the fulfilment of this prophecy. Roman Catholicism, able to control the League of Nations through its voting powers, is a very disquieting feature, and certainly foreshadows what will take place in the future according to Scripture.

But out of all this awful carnage and destruction a real League of Nations will emerge, whose one purpose will be to fight against the Lamb, who is the King of kings. This League will be composed of ten kingdoms, not yet defined, whose kings when they do appear shall have one mind and shall give their power to the Beast (Rev. 17:12-13): a tyrannical autocrat, who will revive the Roman empire, claim to be God, laugh at the rights of men and impose his will upon the world. He will be inspired and empowered by the devil, and supported in his claim to deity and universal power by Antichrist, who is the false prophet (Rev. 13).

The world is characterized by chaos. Men conjure pictures of the Utopia in which all confusion and the strife of tongues will have ceased, and so [the United] Nations vainly operates in the midst of warring nations (or preparing for war as fast as their shattered resources will admit, notwithstanding the profession of peaceful aims). Scripture shows that the [United] Nations is a forlorn hope, destined to prove a disappointment and failure. The only sphere where peace is really known is where the Lordship of Christ is owned.

The fourth kingdom, as represented by the feet and toes, refers to the Roman empire in its last form, when it shall emerge out of the abyss (Rev. 17:8), and its end is to go into perdition, because as then established it is satanic, and beyond everything hitherto seen on earth idolatrous. In the League of Nations we see a foreshadowing of that coming empire. Men have no idea of the source and nature of the thing they are striving after in their efforts to bring wars to an end. If the Gospel of the grace of God were believed, if professing Christians had any liking for the truth, they would not be deluded by the insane notion that democracy, and a confederacy of nations, could be the hope of the world. But having torn the Bible to pieces and cast it on the rubbish heap, and degraded the Christ of God to the level of heathen philosophers—as the Philistines placed the ark of the covenant beside the idol in the temple of Dagon—the divine decree is that they shall be given up to a strong delusion, to believe a lie, that they all may be judged who obey not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness (2 Thess. 2). If men will not have the truth of God, they cannot complain if He does not preserve them from the devil’s lie.

How futile is men's scheme, however well meant, for a universal League of Nations! Scripture speaks of at least five Leagues, not one! First, there is the Latin League already referred to. It will include all those nations — Britain, Spain, France, etc. — that were governed by Rome long ago. For mutual advantage, driven doubtless by force of circumstances, they will draw together again, under the headship of "the Superman," whom they frankly confess they sorely need.

We have, then, in the dream and its interpretation, a complete forecast of the government of this world during the times of the Gentiles, leading to the setting up of the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Christ. It is an immense mercy that the Christian has a God-given outline of the course and end of the great world Empires during the times of the Gentiles. He can thus keep apart from the political movements of the day, content to go on in obscurity, awaiting the coming of the King of kings. He knows that all the political movements will end in a great confederation of the nations under the revived Roman Empire, in opposition to God and the Lamb, and he knows that all these efforts of man will be dealt with in judgment when Christ comes forth as the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He sees that the leagues, treaties and pacts amongst the nations are preparing the way for the final confederation against God and Christ, and he keeps apart from that which will end in open apostacy to God and overwhelming judgment at the appearing of Christ.

The Beast will arise out of the sea; the sea being a symbol of the nations in tumult, a state of things easily understood after the opening of the seals (Rev. 6). He will know no law but his own will, and will tread down all opposition, so that the nations will say, “Who is like the Beast? Who is able to make war with him?” He will unify ten kingdoms within the bounds of the old Roman Empire into one mighty kingdom. Three of these kingdoms will resist him for a while, but he will subdue them, He will pluck them up by the roots Daniel tells us. We cannot say which of the present kingdoms of Europe these ten kingdoms will be for the Scripture says, “The ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power as kings one hour with the beast” (Rev. 17:12). It is probable that all present dynasties will be swept away in the tumultuous condition of things out of which the Beast arises. Then there will emerge a league of nations in which there will be no dissentient voice, after the beast has shown his ruthless power: “They have one mind, and shall give their power and strength to the Beast” (Rev. 17).

All this is fulfilling prophecy in a most remarkable way. We have long noted the wonderful prophecy of Daniel 9:27, that the seventieth week of his prophecy would see the head of a revived Roman Empire (call it the United Nations of Europe, or by any other name), making a treaty with the Jew in the land of Israel. It is clear that Israel, if still a mandated territory, would not be in a position to make any treaty over the head of the country which held the mandate. But once it becomes a sovereign state, it would be in a position to make treaties with other powers.

In Revelation 17:7-13, the Roman Empire is spoken of as a kingdom that was, is not and is to come. Today (not true when the first edition of this book was published), there is an amazingly-united Western Europe called the European Union (EU) with NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) supporting it with military might, and with a common currency, the Euro. Many national borders are little more than lines in the sand. This EU seems to be the forerunner of the prophetic ten-nation Revived Roman Empire of the Tribulation. It will only be in its final form after the Rapture and when whittled down to ten nations. When God wants it to, things can happen literally overnight! Think of the forming of Israel in the Promised Land in 1948, virtually overnight! As I write this edition, other amazing things are going on in the Middle East!

Just as nothing would restrain the builders of the tower of Babel, so today ambitious leaders in the world will be restrained by no barriers. The nations want to share their technology so that they may out do every past generation in their advances in science and every other element of men's culture. They work hard to overcome all the difficulties of language barriers and of national prejudice, but God continues to work by these things in order to frustrate them. There is constant talk of a one world government, but the great tribulation will prove this to be mere folly. Nations will not co-operate with one another to make this possible. Only when the Lord Jesus takes His throne will this take place, when all shall submit to Him.