This year is a year of remembrance. Several pivotal milestones are converging in 2025:

• The 250-year anniversary of Lexington and Concord (April 19, 1775)
• The 100-year anniversary of Mein Kampf being published (July 18, 1925)
• The 80-year anniversary of Victory in Europe and Japan (May 8 and Aug. 15, 1945)
• The 50-year anniversary of the fall of Saigon (April 30, 1975)

These milestones should make us reflect on why America and Britain rose to greatness and why their direction has reversed. After the Revolutionary War, which began at Lexington and Concord, Britain and America quickly became the main world powers, culminating in their victory in World War ii. Since that high point, they have lost power, wars and morality. We can all see the direction, but few know what caused it.

One book explains this fascinating story: the rise, the fall and, most importantly, the cause.

It behooves us without delay to quickly review that history and open our eyes to divine promises and warnings almost wholly unrealized by our peoples. It is all connected with the generally ignored plain and simple Bible story that leads to knowledge of our incredible ancestry and modern prophetic identity. And it is the most amazing and fascinating story you ever read. Stranger than fiction—yet it is true!

The late Herbert W. Armstrong wrote those riveting words in The United States and Britain in Prophecy, one of his landmark works. Mr. Armstrong, who died on Jan. 16, 1986, was the most important televangelist, educator, philanthropist and theologian of the 20th century. His book, written 80 years ago, is even more relevant and important today.

The United States and Britain in Prophecy contains nation-saving truth from the Bible that our nations desperately need to hear and obey.

This copyright anniversary also reminds us that the incredible truth in this book was nearly blotted out—but miraculously saved for us today. The story of how it was written, nearly destroyed, and restored is stranger than fiction, but true.

The 80-Year Anniversary

In the autumn of 1926, Mr. Armstrong’s life took a dramatic turn. A successful businessman, all his endeavors were wiped out by events outside his control and he was faced with a dual challenge: the first from his wife about which day is the Christian Sabbath, the second from his sister-in-law about evolution vs. the existence of a Creator. This began a six-month, night-and-day study in the public library in Portland, Oregon, where God began to call Mr. Armstrong and open his mind to the truths of the Bible.

This was one of the most important developments in the 20th century, maybe in Western civilization. God was calling Mr. Armstrong to be the end-time Elijah, prophesied to restore all things to God’s Church before Jesus Christ’s return (Isaiah 40:3; Malachi 3:1; Matthew 17:10-11). These biblical truths had been lost by God’s true Church over the centuries of persecution, migration and spiritual lethargy. (Read our free book The True History of God’s True Church to understand this history.) Yet in the autumn of 1926, God began to intervene in the affairs of mankind in a special way.

These restored truths are life-saving knowledge. They explain God’s purpose for mankind, the path to eternal life, and how to save nations. God was planting the seeds of His civilization, the Kingdom of God, inside the one true Church before Jesus Christ’s Second Coming, when the Kingdom will be established. These truths can transform your life if you are willing to learn and apply them.

One of the truths restored through Mr. Armstrong was the identity of modern Israel. This is the master key that unlocks all of Bible prophecy, a third of the entire Bible. When you know who the modern descendants of nations are in the Bible, you can understand how the prophecies apply to our time today.

After this initial six-month study, which ended in early 1927, Mr. Armstrong began 3½ years of intense Bible study with his wife. Doctrine by doctrine, God revealed the truths of the Bible. During this time he began to prove the identity of modern Israel. At the same time, he was looking for the one true Church; in 1927, he discovered the Church of God based in Stanbury, Missouri.

“Early in this 3½-year period, between 1927 and 1930, I decided to try a dual test to help settle the question of whether this was, in actual fact, the true Church of God,” Mr. Armstrong wrote in his autobiography. “… A little later I tried the second test. After exhaustive study and research, I had found it proved that the so-called ‘lost 10 tribes’ of Israel had migrated to Western Europe, the British Isles and later the United States …. This truth was written in a lengthy manuscript of close to 300 typed pages and mailed to this editor and leader of this church. I explained that although this new truth seemed to be proved beyond doubt, yet I was still comparatively new in Christ and scriptural knowledge, and wished the judgment of one more mature and experienced in things biblical.”

In response to the manuscript, Andrew Dugger—leader of the Stanbury Sardis Church—said in a letter on July 28, 1929: “You are surely right, and while I cannot use it in the paper [the church publication] at the present, you may be assured that your labor has surely not been in vain.”

Shortly after writing the original manuscript, Mr. Armstrong was ordained into the ministry in June 1931. In the early years of Mr. Armstrong’s ministry, God was building the Philadelphia era of the Church, a work that was dynamically alive. In 1933, the Good News magazine was published; in January 1934, radio broadcasts began; and in February 1934, the first Plain Truth magazine was published. It slowly grew until a great turning point came in 1945.

That year, Mr. Armstrong opened Ambassador College, which provided the means by which the Church and work could grow in scope and size. That was also the year he copyrighted and published The United States and Britain in Prophecy.

In the 17 years since he had written the first 300-page manuscript, Mr. Armstrong had completed it and had sent thousands of copies to Plain Truth subscribers. It was revised three times before 1945.

“Mr. Armstrong considered the message presented in The United States and Britain in Prophecy to be the ‘strongest proof’ of God’s existence and the inspiration of the Holy Bible,” writes Trumpet executive editor Stephen Flurry in Raising the Ruins. “Written during the 1930s, this book probably did more to help build the Worldwide Church of God under Mr. Armstrong than anything else he ever published. During his lifetime, nearly 6 million people had obtained copies.”

This book is a loud trumpet blast to the Israelite nations to repent. It is the key to understanding prophecy. Yet this wonderful truth has been under attack ever since.

The War Over The United States and Britain in Prophecy

In 1967, Mr. Armstrong released an expanded version, writing to wcg members on June 21 of that year: “This book is one that I have been wanting to write for a long time. It is an enlargement—with much new material—many new chapters into a real book—of the abbreviated one which has been requested more than any we have ever published—The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy.” Only a short time after this expansion, the truth in the book came under fierce attack.

The 1970s was a liberal era in the wcg; worldly values and intellectualism began to seep in. Primarily led by Mr. Armstrong’s son Garner Ted, there was a push to gain accreditation for Ambassador College. This began the movement to replace God’s truth with philosophy and scholarship, all done behind Mr. Armstrong’s back. One of the primary targets of the liberal rebels was The United States and Britain in Prophecy.

Around the same time this book was first published, the idea of “post-colonial studies” was born. This was a new academic view of the world that believed all problems originated from colonialism or imperialism. In other words, the cause of the world’s ills was the white supremacy of Britain and America. This vain philosophy was formed to vilify the biblical truths explained in The United States and Britain in Prophecy.

The British Empire and the American superpower are a direct result of divine unconditional promises given to the patriarch Abraham because of his faith and obedience, not his skin color. The central themes are faith, obedience and family. Yet post-colonialism was used to justify dismantling The United States and Britain in Prophecy. The rebellious liberal scholars inside the wcg became embarrassed of the plain and powerful truths of the Bible. Mr. Armstrong later wrote: “[M]y son, assuming an authority never delegated to him, had this most important booklet cut down to almost nothing, then put out of circulation entirely!”

After Mr. Armstrong stopped this liberal rebellion, which came to a climax in 1979 when the rebels convinced the state of California to attack the wcg in an unprecedented breach of religious liberty, he reestablished the vital truths in this book and updated it in 1980, available as a hardcover edition.

Mr. Armstrong died on Jan. 16, 1986, and his successor continued the attack on The United States and Britain in Prophecy and all of God’s truths. In a shocking betrayal, the leaders of the wcg began a systematic and deceptive transformation of the Church’s doctrines. This prophesied “great falling away” is explained in our books Malachi’s Message to God’s Church Today and Raising the Ruins.

One of the primary targets of the conspirators, led by Joseph Tkach Sr. and Joseph Tkach Jr., was The United States and Britain in Prophecy. Once again using post-colonial studies as a guise for their Satan-led conspiracy, they began to make major edits to the book in 1986.

Another charge Tkach Jr. hurled at Mr. Armstrong and his book is that he plagiarized J. H. Allen’s 1902 book Judah’s Sceptre and Joseph’s Birthright. That is patently false. Mr. Armstrong did read Allen’s book during his exhaustive research but found most of it to be in error. This is easily proved by simply reading both books: The only similarity between the two is the subject matter, not the conclusions or prophetic accuracy. (A detailed explanation of this can be found in Chapter 4 of Raising the Ruins.)

In 1987, wcg editors slashed more than two thirds of the book, reducing it from 184 pages to 53. Citing rising mail costs, they lied to the Church membership about their true intentions. Stephen Flurry remarks in Raising the Ruins:

The following year, in mid-1988, even the 53-pager failed to survive the editor’s knife. After a tumultuous two years in print after the death of Mr. Armstrong, editors finally laid to rest The United States and Britain in Prophecy permanently, even though members would not find out the real reason for its removal until years later.

Tkach Jr.’s biggest beef with the book is how Mr. Armstrong’s teaching supposedly “worked to foster racial prejudice.” In Transformed by Truth, he wrote, “Within two years of Mr. Armstrong’s death, several church leaders began discussing Anglo-Israelism with my dad.”

He says within two years. In fact, by the time two years had passed, two thirds of the material had already been chopped out—and the entire book was buried a few months later. Significant changes to the text, as we have seen, were made immediately after Mr. Armstrong died. It was as if the destruction of this truth had been planned all along and that the only obstacle preventing it from happening was Mr. Armstrong being alive.

By 1988, The United States and Britain in Prophecy had been buried in a grave of treachery. The book that built God’s Church, one of the most effective warnings to the people of Britain and America, was no longer available. Yet the war for the truth wasn’t over. This set the stage for its most epic chapter.

Hold Fast to the Truth

Dec. 7, 1989, was another historic pivot point. In the office of Tkach Jr., two wcg ministers, Gerald Flurry and John Amos, were fired after refusing to accept the doctrinal changes. While most wcg ministers went along with those changes or were complicit in the conspiracy, Mr. Flurry and Mr. Amos refused to do so. They stood fast and held on to the traditions they were taught from the Bible by Mr. Armstrong. When leaving Mr. Tkach’s office, Mr. Flurry uttered a Churchillian warning: “This is the first sip of a very bitter cup you are going to have to drink.”

By December 20, the Philadelphia Church of God (pcg) was an incorporated entity, starting with only 12 people and dedicated to continuing the work of Mr. Armstrong.

Seven years later, on Dec. 20, 1996, the pcg printed Mystery of Ages, resurrecting Mr. Armstrong’s greatest work after the wcg had suppressed it just 32 months after it was published. This was a courageous decision based on faith, knowing there could be legal consequences. Within a few days, the wcg sent a cease-and-desist letter, followed by a lawsuit. In response, Mr. Flurry filed a counterclaim, demanding the rights for all of Mr. Armstrong’s major books, including The United States and Britain in Prophecy.

The battle lines were drawn for a six-year court battle over the truth. The wcg was using its copyright to suppress the truths of its founder, Mr. Armstrong. The pcg was fighting for its constitutional right and, more importantly, for the truth of God: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle” (2 Thessalonians 2:15).

The history of the wcg’s transformation and the court case is documented in Raising the Ruins.

Victory

On Jan. 16, 2003, exactly 17 years after Mr. Armstrong died, the wcg offered terms for a settlement to end the court case, selling the copyrights for 19 of Mr. Armstrong’s works, including Mystery of the Ages and The United States and Britain in Prophecy. It was a prophesied, miraculous victory that allowed this vital truth to be available to the world.

It has been 22 years since that miraculous victory—22 years closer to the return of Jesus Christ. How have you used those 22 years?

On this 80-year anniversary, it is important to recognize the miraculous path this book has taken to give you access to the truths of the Bible. The truth and warning it contains should change your life. Read this book again, or for the first time, and answer the challenge Mr. Armstrong concluded it with:

By God’s direction and authority, I have laid the truth before you! To neglect it will be tragic beyond imagination! To heed it will bring blessings, happiness and glory beyond description!

The decision is now yours!

Request your free copy of The United States and Britain in Prophecy.