The calendar year of 2019 is looking more and more like it will be a year of upheaval. Nothing certain can be predicted, but there are indications that the world order as we have known it is changing.
An important focus is what is happening in the United Kingdom and in America. These are two nations are in turmoil and what happens to them will have major ramifications for the world at large.
As members of the Church we need to always keep the big picture in mind. We should not get locked into speculative determinations. The Bible provides an overview and does not allow for the setting of specific timing. This is a lesson we should have learned a long time ago.
The big picture involves a covenant that God made with Abraham and its implications for today’s world as God continues to fulfill His promises. Since around 1800, the world order has been set by God’s promise that Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, would become powerful, dominant influences. Ephraim was to become a company of nations and Manasseh a single great nation. Their power and influence were to peak in “the last days.”
We have witnessed the powerful effects of both the British Commonwealth and America throughout the last two centuries. Together they influenced a world order that we can rightly regards as “the West.” The scriptures indicate that the blessings promised by God would involve great natural resources, agricultural abundance, military superiority and world dominance. The 19th and 20th centuries were dominated by these peoples. However, equally clear are the contingencies upon which these blessings rest. The Abrahamic covenant included obedience. “And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not beneath, if you heed the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them” (Deuteronomy 28:13).
The nations which sprang from ancient Israel (Great Britain and America in particular) did not uphold the obedience part of the agreement. They failed to uphold God, His law and His way of life to the nations around them. While God had promised blessings for obedience, He also promised curses for disobedience. The blessings would be removed and their rank disobedience would result in curses. The power and prestige would disappear. “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you” (Deuteronomy 28:15). And in their place, a new world order would develop.
This new world order would despise the legacy of Israel and seek to pull down the culture built by God’s blessings. The intelligentsia abhors and despises the influence of the West and is actively seeking to destroy the civilization built in the 19th and 20th centuries. This has been going on for a long time. One of the main targets are our children. It is a mind version of “Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand” (Deuteronomy 28:32). Our children are subject to education which alters their thinking. They are being taught a revisionist history of Western Civilization. This has been a major tenant of postmodernism and what is known as deconstruction. The foundation for moral development has been based on postmodern philosophy, which means there is no foundation. Authority of all kinds is held in disregard. This is a legacy left by disobedient Israel.
Part of this process of deconstruction can be seen in a philosophical approach to Western Culture known as critical theory. This approach seeks to remove all restraints. It is humanistic and anti-God. A new world order is developing as the generations programmed by critical theory grow in age and in influence. Many of our current political movers and shakers come from an educational system heavily influenced by critical theory.
In our observations of where the world is heading in 2019, we must keep the big picture in mind. Israel’s conduct has opened the door to “curses” which God had promised. Our response must focus on God, His law and His way of life. As spiritual Israel, we must pick up the baton dropped by physical Israel. We are to be living witnesses to “…proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light … who are now the people of God” (1 Peter 2:9,10).
God is to be revealed to the world by His Church – the light of the world as Christ said. The Church is to be the real world order.
Next week we will look at some of the implications of what is happening in the United Kingdom and the difficult Brexit situation in light of this background.
Brian Orchard
