Is Britain About to Surrender One of Its Last Sea Gates?

Before World War ii, Britain and the United States came to control a great number of the world’s “sea gates.” These included the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Their control over these and more than a dozen other strategic sea gates played a major role in decades of relative global stability.

But in recent decades, America and Britain have surrendered control of many of these assets. And on February 25, the United Nations’ highest court ruled that the UK must now also give up the Chagos Islands.

“The UK has an obligation to bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible,” Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, president of the UN’s International Court of Justice, said in an official statement.

This is significant because Britain’s presence on these islands has been of great value not just for the UK but also for the U.S., which operates a joint military base with Britain on the Chagos Islands called Diego Garcia.

Strategic Analysis explained the value of this location in a 2012 report:

Diego Garcia … facilitates U.S. power projection through the prepositioning of army and marine corps brigade sets, long-range bomber operations, the replenishment of naval surface combatants, and the strike and special operations capabilities of guided-missile submarines that can call at the atoll’s wharf.

This location has been used as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for the U.S. during Operation Desert Storm, Operation Desert Fox, Operation Enduring Freedom and others.

But now this strategically important presence—which has contributed to global stability—may soon be coming to an end.

Britain may not immediately capitulate to the UN’s pressure, but Bible prophecy discusses “gates,” such as the Chagos Islands, and shows that Britain and the U.S. will likely soon lose their foothold there.

Genesis 22:17 records God’s promise to the Patriarch Abraham that his “descendants” would one day “take possession of the gates of their enemies” (International Standard Version).

Late world-renowned educator Herbert W. Armstrong wrote about this promise in his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, in which he proved that the modern U.S. and UK are the descendants who received this promised possession of foreign sea gates. “[T]hese descendants of [Abraham’s great-grandson] Joseph” came to “possess the ‘gates’ of enemy nations,” Mr. Armstrong wrote. “Britain and America came into possession of every such major ‘gate’ in this world!”

Mr. Armstrong showed that the fact that the UK and U.S. acquired all of these strategic oceanic locations proves that these countries are the descendants of Abraham. Referring to Abraham’s grandson, he wrote: “[W]e must be modern Israel.”

It is clear that the Bible prophesied that Abraham’s descendants, the UK and U.S., would come to possess all those foreign sea gates. And it also prophesied that these descendants would later lose possession of these gates.

Deuteronomy 28:52 records God’s warning to the descendants of Abraham that if they reject Him, then He would cause them to lose possession of those invaluable assets: “[H]e shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.”

Mr. Armstrong explained that this was a prophecy that the God-rejecting U.S. and UK would lose control of these sea gates. Throughout his career, Mr. Armstrong witnessed this fulfillment in Britain’s loss of the Suez Canal, Singapore, Malta, Cyprus, the Cape of Good Hope and others.

In 1980, Mr. Armstrong connected Deuteronomy 28:52 with Leviticus 26:19, which says God would “break the pride” of the “power” of the modern nations of ancient Israel to punish them for their rejection of Him. Based on these Bible passages, Mr. Armstrong prophesied that the trend of the UK and U.S. losing their foreign assets would continue: “As the ‘pride of our power’ continues to be broken, as the British continue to lose their foreign sea gates and possessions around the Earth, as America signs away ownership of the Panama Canal—control over this vital sea gate … this focal prophecy alone represents giant proof as to where the modern ‘remnant’ of the peoples of Israel resides today!”

At the time of Mr. Armstrong’s death on Jan. 16, 1986, the U.S. still controlled the Panama Canal, and Britain still controlled Hong Kong. But both have since then been surrendered.

At present, the UK still controls a handful of foreign sea gates, including the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar and the Chagos Archipelago. But the UN’s February 25 ruling shows that the pressure on Britain to surrender Chagos is intensifying. And the pressure could soon be expanded to include its few remaining sea gates.

Mr. Armstrong said that the trend of Britain and America losing control of foreign sea gates would lead to a time of unprecedented crisis for the UK and U.S.—and for all the world. But he emphasized that the suffering has a purpose, and that it will teach the world to love God’s way and His law. That time of suffering will be quickly followed by an epoch of unprecedented peace.

He wrote:

The prophecies do not stop with revealing the unprecedented multiplied intensity of punishment already beginning to descend upon America and Britain. The prophecies record also the result of that intensified punishment. The result will be a corrected people. The result will be an eye-opening realization of what we have done to ourselves. The supreme punishment will teach us, at last, our lesson! The punishment will break our spirit of rebellion! It will lift us up from the cesspool of rottenness and evil into which we have sunk. It will teach us the way to glorious peace, prosperity, abundant well-being!

On beyond the frightful national calamities now descending upon us will come a blessing inconceivably greater ….

To learn more about these Bible prophecies and the profound hope that is at the heart of them, order your free copy of The United States and Britain in Prophecy.