It would appear that America’s enemies are gaining in strength. And there is no doubt that this is the case around the world. Those purporting to follow the teachings of Mohammed see the “West” as the great Satan, and they will not rest until the world is under the control of Islam. We need to keep a godly focus as we watch these things develop. Are America’s (and Britain’s) enemies gaining strength, or is America becoming weaker?
No doubt there is a combination of both, but we must view world affairs through the lens of what God reveals to us in advance. In other words, prophecies. God uses the prophets He raised up in the past to convey information to His Church today.
Jesus Christ, who was the God of the Old Testament, said very bluntly that He would remove from the modern-day descendants of Israel the central core strengths that uphold a secure society. In short, He said He will remove all the elements that amount to strong leadership.
We need to appreciate that this is not something He does in an instant. It is the result of a long progression. Israel turned their backs on God a very long time ago. They rejected the identifying sign He gave them of the Sabbath day. They truly are the “… lost sheep of the house of Israel,” just as Christ said. (Matthew 10:6).
The present-day political crisis began when Israel rejected the God-appointed priestly system of governance. (1 Samuel chapter 8). After telling them the negatives of wanting a king, God’s summary of the result was, “And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day (1 Samuel 8:18).
The prophet Isaiah reconfirmed what God told Israel would happen if they disobeyed Him. Israel would decay from the inside. (Isaiah chapter 3). For example, “The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart” (Deuteronomy 28:28).
In rejecting God’s governance over them, Israel adopted human forms of government that became increasingly secular. Today, the underlying tenet of government in the West is liberal – that is, rationalist. “Liberalism is committed to the truth and to the belief that truth is what is discovered by reason and the sciences … every man, according to liberalism, is entitled to his own opinion, and has the right to express it … truth in any specific scientific field is simply the present consensus of scientific opinion within that same field; and political and social truth is what is voted by a democratic majority.” Suicide of the West, pgs. 74-75.
America lost the war in Afghanistan not so much because the Taliban became so strong but because America’s leadership had become so weak. It is weakness that arises from a rejection of God. It was God who made Israel great. And it has been God’s faithfulness to His covenant with Abraham that has made the modern-day descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh great. According to the prophets, those days of greatness are in serious decline.
As Western civilization weakens, there is a response required by the Church that Christ raised up to stand in place of Israel as a witness to all nations. We are to be witnesses of the One true God.
“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy” (Colossians 1:9-11).
We must grow spiritually stronger in the face of our nations becoming weaker.
Brian Orchard
