“Deal or no deal?” It sounds more like a game than the most serious moment in the history of the United Kingdom since we joined the European Economic Community in January 1973. In 1973 the alternative name for the EEC was the ‘Common Market’, with the main focus being to build a trading partnership across Europe. We began our membership with economic prosperity in mind.

Now, after more than 30 years of a common market turning step-by-sinister-step into a European ‘Union’ united by so much more than trade, the main item on the UK’s agenda is, once more, trade. What sort of business deal can we negotiate before finally withdrawing on 29 March 2019, to ensure maximum future prosperity? We are back to where we were in 1973, with concerns about money overriding all else. We have still got our priorities wrong.

Many Diversions

As time runs out for negotiation, the news media has been full of ever-tenser debates on what sort of ‘deal’ we might get and what this might mean for the nation’s future. As usual, the media tends to dictate the terms and limits of our own personal debates, blinkering us from the bigger picture. At the same time, we hear every day of new campaigns and an ever-louder chorus of voices calling to halt and reverse the entire project. We also see political opportunists on every side seeking to use the chaos for their own gain.

We are back to where we were in 1973, with concerns about money overriding all else. We have still got our priorities wrong.

Personally, I find it enormously difficult to wade through all the arguments and come to a reasoned conclusion about whether the PM’s ‘Chequers deal’ is sound, or if it would leave us deeply dependent on the EU and quite possibly worse off than before. But then I read my Bible and realise that we have been beguiled into focusing on an important issue but by no means the most important issue.

Whether we get a trading deal or not, the key issue that no-one on the public stage is raising is the UK’s position before God.

The reason why we are even being given the opportunity to leave the EU is an act of God intended to make a way to bring us back to himself. In this sense, Brexit could form a preliminary stage of repentance. We were wrong before God to join the EEC. Our sin increased as we compromised with the humanistic worldview dominating Europe and accepted its ungodly codes of law and systems of governance. Now we must reverse what we have done wrong – that is what God requires of us, and why, miraculously, there has been granted us an opportunity to get out of an unholy alliance.

The Empire to Come

When we joined the EEC, many Christians turned to the Book of Revelation and wondered if we were joining what would eventually become the central power-house of the prophesied one-world system likened to ancient Babylon. As time has gone on it has indeed become clear that the goal was never just a common market but a merging of nations with ever-closer political, economic and religious ties, underlain by a philosophical and spiritual agenda for unity, peace and prosperity without reference to God.

When the draft constitution that eventually led to the Lisbon Treaty was eventually published in 2004, it was clear that the EEC, already re-named the European Union, was humanistic, atheistic and likely anti-Christian in the longer term. Legal changes began to consolidate across the EU which undermined and contravened the laws of God. Looking into the future one could increasingly envision an empire emerging fitting precisely what the Book of Revelation describes.

The reason why we are even being given the opportunity to leave the EU is an act of God intended to make a way to bring us back to himself.

And yet, astoundingly, an opportunity to come out of the EU has now been given to us by Almighty God. Even though our nation has betrayed its promise to honour him enshrined in Her Majesty the Queen’s Coronation Oath - from the politicians, through the law-makers, to the ordinary people - God is giving us an opportunity to turn back to him in full repentance.

That is the real reason why we are coming out of the EU. No wonder it has been and will continue to be an intense spiritual battle.

The Blessing of Returning

There is no promise before the Brexit negotiators like the promised blessings of returning to God. God’s character is to bless the repentant sinner. If we were to return to him, he would take care of our prosperity. Conversely, if we miss his call then the future will not be easy - whatever ‘deal or no deal’ comes out of the political wrangling. It may be that God permits the financial collapse that economists are increasingly forecasting, or worse.

We must conclude from this that the future prosperity (in its truest sense) of our nation does not depend on the negotiating table, or on who is in No 10, so much as on us. We, the Christian Church, are charged with declaring what God is saying to our nation at this crucial time in our history.

For how else will people believe and repent? How can anyone call on a God they have never heard about? “And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” (Rom 10:14-15).

Brexit must be all about a turning back to God, a preaching of the Gospel and a reversing of all the ungodly laws and attitudes we have inherited from the EU. Economic prosperity – even spiritual revival – could begin as we make even the first steps to put things right with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who has blessed us and kept us over hundreds of years up until now.