Tomorrow’s News Today

Good morning!

We call the Trumpet “tomorrow’s news today.” Quite often in our news watching, we see headlines that read like Trumpet articles from decades ago. That’s because the biblical prophecy that informs our analysis anticipates events and trends and helps us see the significance of things otherwise easily overlooked.

This morning, we present to you a few examples.

One, an Atlantic article, “The New German War Machine,” details the nation’s transformation since World War ii: from a chastened people living in a smoldering ruin to Europe’s leading military power. Meanwhile, America and other nations that once feared an armed Germany are now demanding its call to arms. Herbert W. Armstrong prophesied of this stunning about-face 70 years ago, in the ashes of World War ii. If only world leaders would now heed his warnings about the havoc this new German war machine is about to wreak.

Another, the latest Spectator issue, contains several articles about society’s dismantling of marriage and why we should give this venerable institution more respect. Mr. Armstrong’s 1968 booklet Why Marriage—Soon Obsolete? exposed the earliest stages of this trend and robustly defended marriage as nothing less than a gift from God.

Finally, a new study warns that smartphones are devastating to young people. The Trumpet has sounded this alarm for 15 years, and—this is truly avant-garde—for years even has encouraged a no-smartphone policy for our staff. How’s that for tomorrow’s news today?

Spectator laments marriage being ‘on the way out’: “Is marriage on the way out, after all these generations and centuries?” That is the introduction to Herbert W. Armstrong’s booklet Why Marriage—Soon Obsolete? “Is the home, and family life, to disappear from human society?”

Nearly 60 years after that was first published, last weekend’s Spectator gave a portrait of marriage “on the way out.”

2021 was a key milestone for that decline. Before 2021, most adults were married. Now marrieds are a minority. By 2050, that minority will shrink to only 30 percent.

The “new morality”—with widespread sex outside of marriage, freely available pornography and a hypersexualized culture—is killing relationships of all kinds.

“Singleness as a choice is more in vogue now than it has been since the dissolution of the monasteries,” states one article. “Britain’s young adults are among the least sexually active of all generations.”

Some on the right are turning against marriage, portraying it as a way that women strip men of their assets in unfair divorces. Those on the left have long bashed it as anti-feminist. The comment: “Why does having a boyfriend feel Republican?” recently went viral, as leftists increasingly turn against every kind of heterosexual relationship.

But perhaps, argues the Spectator, the biggest nail in marriage’s coffin is that we’re too selfish: “The sacrificial, community aspect of marriage is unappealing to many, but it’s one of the things that makes it most worthwhile. One day society might well rediscover that the only things that are really worth doing involve sacrifice of some kind, but by then it may be too late.”

Yet as these authors point out, we need marriage. Study after study shows how much better, in general, are the lives of children who grow up with stable, married parents.

Why does it work? That is where the Spectator fails. A third article supposedly lays out the “scientific case for marriage,” stating (with no evidence) that primitive humans evolved the tradition of marriage and concluding that “[t]he human family is the best social structure that evolution could contrive for raising children.”

Marriage is indeed the best way for human beings to live and to produce more human beings. But it is far too perfectly designed and far too beautiful to have evolved by chance. Marriage has a transcendent purpose that far excels anything in the minds of evolutionists and leads straight to the Creator of mankind. Mr. Armstrong explained this purpose in his short booklet Why Marriage—Soon Obsolete?

‘The new German war machine’: With this headline, the Atlantic has joined the growing number of publications astonished by Germany’s drastic military transformation. Previous headlines include:

• “Germany’s Army Is Rebuilding. What Could Go Wrong?” (Politico, August 29)
• “Germany Is Arming Itself to the Teeth to Transform Europe Again” (Telegraph, November 2)
• “Germany’s Rearmament Puts Britain to Shame” (Spectator, November 11)

Atlantic author Isaac Stanley-Becker wrote, “Listening to plans for rearmament in the old Wehrmacht headquarters, I wondered whether Germany could get power right this time.” Everywhere he looks, he is reminded of Germany’s past:

• The grandfather of new Inspector of the Army Lt. Gen. Christian Freuding served “in both world wars and was imprisoned by Allied forces in 1945.”
• Germany’s air force facility “was built by the Third Reich on the outskirts of Berlin.”
• Germany’s Defense Ministry facility was once the Wehrmacht headquarters.
• The West German military was “rebuilt from the ranks of former Nazis.”
• In 2020, a special forces unit was disbanded because it was infested with “right-wing fanaticism.”
• The last time Germany had a permanent armed presence in Lithuania was during the Nazi occupation. By the end of the war, Lithuania’s Jewish population had been slaughtered. Now German troops are back.

Germany plans to devote $538 billion to the Bundeswehr over the next four years and is advertising for recruitment everywhere, even on pizza boxes. This is because American diplomats and forces are leaving Europe to its own devices.

The Trumpet is not in the dark about whether “Germany could get power right this time.” The Bible prophesied this rising military power in Revelation 17 and many other Old Testament and New Testament passages. Based on this prophecy, the late Herbert W. Armstrong has warned since the end of World War ii that Germany will start a third world war.

IN OTHER NEWS

Pope prays at Beirut blast site: Pope Leo xiv will hold a mass at the site of the Beirut blast today, with more than 120,000 people registered to attend. The 2020 explosion that killed more than 160 people involved a large cache of ammonium nitrate owned by Hezbollah and called into question whether the terrorist group should continue to influence Lebanon’s future. Five years on, the Vatican is drawing attention to the tragedy because it has its own plans for the future of the entire Middle East.

Almost no one likes Merz: Olaf Scholz was once one of Germany’s most unpopular chancellors. His successor, Friedrich Merz, is now as unpopular as Scholz at his lowest point. Only 22 percent of Germans are currently satisfied with him, the worst rating Forsa has ever recorded for the rtl/ntv trend barometer. At the same time, the Federation of German Industries sees the economy “in its worst crisis since the founding of the Federal Republic,” and it claims “the federal government is not responding decisively enough.” Germany’s democratic system is failing, and the Bible prophesies that a modern form of authoritarian rule will take its place.

Did Georgia use a World War i chemical against protesters? The bbc reported that Georgia’s government used a “World War i-era” chemical to subdue pro-European Union protesters last year. Based on testimony of those affected, the bbc claims the government used camite, a substance that likely has long-lasting effects. This crackdown shows that the former Soviet nation is falling back toward Russia.

China continues censoring cybercontent: Xi Jinping stated he would “resolutely crack down” on web “misconduct” at a meeting of the Chinese Communist Party on Friday. “Governing the online ecosystem is an important task in building China into a cyberpower,” he said. This comes after Chinese regulators said they would “take action” against ByteDance for “displaying harmful content”—the same type of content that Western nations allow. China’s “great firewall” of Internet censorship blocks not only harmful content but also content that questions the world’s most powerful Communist dictatorship.

Cocaine prices up 30 to 45 percent after drug boat attacks: President Donald Trump’s military strikes on drug boats in the Caribbean Sea have reduced supply and raised drug dealers’ prices, Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terry Cole told cbs News on November 19. Cartels are paying more for vessels and manpower and are losing cargoes. President Trump is hoping to weaken cartels and foreign adversaries and to reduce the number of Americans who become addicted or die due to drugs. But America’s self-inflicted drug epidemic, which now claims roughly 100,000 lives each year, will continue. Cartels will find new ways to supply what so many Americans so tragically demand.

Smartphones hurt teens: A study released yesterday shows that smartphones are making our kids tired, fat and miserable. Led by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of California–Berkeley and Columbia University in New York, the study analyzed National Institutes of Health data from more than 10,500 youths between 2018 and 2020. It found that the younger a child is when getting a smartphone, the higher his risk for depression, obesity and sleeplessness, even “clinical-level psychopathology.” Though 95 percent of teens ages 13 to 17 have a smartphone, this is another clear warning to parents to buck that trend—and to all adults of the need for self-control. Phone-induced depression, obesity and poor sleep can be a problem at any age.