For over a quarter of a century I have been weighing and reporting on significant occurrences that relate to Europe's destiny in light of Bible prophecy. My religious convictions have significantly shaped my worldview and my evaluations of the European scene.

Yet I am very much aware that all human observations are fragmentary and fleeting. They are mere snapshots in history captured by the camera of the eye. As soon as one analyzes a specific event of the present and puts pen to paper, history has passed him by and the focus of the world media has shifted to some other troubled arena on the earth.

Like all human observers, I share this limitation. Yet I am confident that my knowledge of biblical history and no-nonsense approach to biblical prophecy has given me a useful perspective!

Jesus Christ told the leaders of the religious establishment of His day that they understood regional weather patterns well enough, but could not perceive "the signs of the times" (Matthew 16:2-3). Those particular clerics had little sense of history, current affairs or prophecy.

That early first-century world, however, was a turning point in history—a momentous benchmark period in human affairs. It was the time when the divine Word came to this earth as the incarnate Christ—born into the world as a human being in order to redeem humanity from its sins (John 1:1-3, 14; 3:16).

In biblical history we clearly find unusual men and women who in some measure comprehended their place in history and understood the important principle of cause and effect well enough to know which direction to take in their day. In the time of Queen Esther, the Persian King Ahasuerus had some wise men in his ruling cabinet "who understood the times" (Esther 1:13, emphasis added throughout).

They advised the king during a royal marriage crisis involving his first wife Vashti. They grasped how the consequences of certain actions would affect the empire, how the Persian people as a whole would respond to a domestic event occurring in the royal house. During the days of King David of Israel, wisdom also was found in the "children of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do" (1 Chronicles 12:32).

Also, in more contemporary historical times, we have had such men. America's president Abraham Lincoln was a national hero with a global vision. He read widely and he saw and talked with many citizens. His thoughts not only ranged across oceans and continents, but also delved into the realm of the spiritual. Lincoln read his Bible and placed importance on what he found in its pages.

Lincoln scholar, Stephen Oates, tells us, "He [Lincoln] had an acute sense of history—an ability to identify himself with a historical turning point in his time ... He perceived the truth of his age and embodied it in his words and deeds." Lincoln understood that what menaced Americans also threatened the destinies of peoples everywhere.

Today terrorism has proven to be a very serious global threat. Clearly we live in a time when the very foundations of the world in which we live are beginning to shake in a strong symbolic sense. Severe mega-problems cut right across national boundaries. The Hebrew prophet Isaiah stated that "The foundations of the earth do shake ... under the weight of transgression the earth falls down" (Isaiah 24:18-20).

Such horrific visions of ancient biblical prophets are now well within the realm of physical possibility. They threaten to become historical reality.

Even the secular prophets of our modern world have spoken of these times in a similar manner. In some respects, their visions are not all that different from those of the ancient Hebrew seers and the New Testament apostles. Today's scientists register the shakings of the earth and proclaim that man's destructive way of life now threatens the delicate ecological systems that support life on this earth. And world leaders are working desperately to devise a credible defense against the lethal destructiveness of committed terrorists.