The Jeffrey Epstein scandal has forever shamed the British royal family. The scene of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the brother of King Charles iii, being arrested for misconduct in public office may have dealt a fatal blow to the monarchy’s survival.

Of all the elite and powerful who clearly had a scandalous friendship with Epstein, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been exposed the most. Photos of the former prince and duke of York with young girls in vulnerable positions, trips to Epstein’s island and condemning correspondence all leave no doubt of the monstrous crimes committed. King Charles has more or less banished Andrew from being a royal, and rightfully so, but the damage to the reputation of the royal family is irreversible.

The British royal family is still the most auspicious royalty in the world. For centuries, it has ruled over a world-girdling empire that included most of the human race. Maligned by narratives of colonialism and racism, the royal family is a shell of what it was. Now the Epstein scandal is ripping away what dignity it has left.

From majesty to pedophilia—the sun has set on the empire, and it is rapidly setting on the royal family.

How has the royal family come to such a crisis?

The truth is connected to vital history and inspiring Bible prophecies. Narratives about colonialism and racism are a distraction from the real sins at the heart of this crisis: ungodly family living. A strong Bible-based warning has been thundered for decades but has gone unheeded. Is it too late for the royal family to redeem itself?

Breathtaking Promises

At the end of the 18th century, Great Britain and the royal family seemed to be on a downward slide. The loss of the 13 colonies was a disastrous blow to prestige, Napoleon was becoming a threat on the Continent, and King George iii was descending into madness.

But at the dawn of the 19th century, everything changed. Britain was about to become the most powerful empire in history. Why? To fulfill astounding Bible prophecies. In The United States and Britain in Prophecy, the late Herbert W. Armstrong explained that the biblical tribe of Ephraim is the British people, prophesied to become a “company,” or commonwealth, of nations (Genesis 35:11).

The British royal family is actually the continuation of King David’s royal dynasty, which was founded by God millenniums before in Jerusalem. God said there would always be a ruler on David’s throne (Jeremiah 33:17), and He performed incredible miracles to keep that promise. Mr. Armstrong wrote:

In a.d. 1800 the United Kingdom and the United States were small and insignificant among the Earth’s nations. The United Kingdom consisted only of the British Isles, a very small part of India and of Canada and a few little islands. …

But beginning in 1800 these two little nations began to sprout and to grow into vast national riches and power such as no people ever possessed. Soon Britain’s empire spread around the world, until the sun never set upon her possessions. Canada, Australia, South Africa were given dominion status—made free and independent nations, ruling themselves independent of England—a company, or commonwealth, of nations joined together, not by legal government, but solely by the throne of David!

The British Empire ruled over a quarter of the human race, with countless religions, races and languages under one government. It was the throne of David, the British royal family, that united these peoples: It was a symbol of government, law, justice, civilization and fairness. It was not a perfect government, but as a constitutional monarchy, its detachment from the implementation of policy actually enabled a deeper respect from its subjects.

The throne was the glue of the empire. Above all, the royal family leads by example: The empire’s fate rests on its example of right family living.

“The foundational bulwark of any healthy, stable and permanent society is the family unit,” wrote Mr. Armstrong. The royal family was the bulwark of the British Empire: It was a protective institution against national decay. Its example should have preserved the well-being of its subjects.

However, when God bestowed the birthright blessings around 1800, the royal family was in deep disarray.

Redemption

God used Britain’s life-and-death struggle with Napoleon to catapult it to supreme world power. The emergence of Britannia ruling the waves, clawing French colonies away around the world, and a robust, industrialized economy prepared Britain for a worldwide empire. This clash was vital for Bible prophecy: Napoleon was the fifth resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire, and his defeat in 1814 and again at Waterloo in 1815 was the end of a 1,260-year period of empowerment for that empire that the Bible calls the beast (Revelation 13:4-5).

The defeat of the Holy Roman Empire through divine miracles created a geopolitical power vacuum. It also revealed a wealth of strong leaders fiercely devoted to the throne who defended and built the empire. Men like Adm. Horatio Nelson and the Duke of Wellington were instruments of military victory (amongst many others too numerous to list). It was the golden age of British military genius.

Through these glorious years, the royal family was on the brink of ending. King George iii had 15 children, seven of them sons. Yet only one, the prince of Wales, had a successor, his daughter Princess Charlotte, through his estranged wife. The rest of the sons only had illegitimate children through mistresses. Charlotte married Prince Leopold of Belgium and had a happy marriage: They were the perfect couple for a resurgent nation. Yet the unthinkable happened on Nov. 6, 1817. At age 21, Charlotte died in childbirth, and their son was stillborn.

The tragedy threw the monarchy into a crisis: The throne of David had no successor. Parliament summoned the King’s sons to procure an heir. This began a frantic year of marriages to German princesses and many births. Sadly, all of the children born from these marriages died or were infirm. Only one child survived: the duke of Kent’s daughter, Alexandrina Victoria, born on May 24, 1819.

“It was from this low ebb, both physical and moral, that his daughter rescued the royal line,” wrote Elizabeth Longford in Victoria R. I. “Victoria was their strong princess who replenished not only the nurseries of Windsor but also the thrones of Europe.” Almost like Princess Tephi, a “tender branch” God used to save the throne of David after the fall of Jerusalem in 585 b.c., this extraordinary woman, who assumed the throne at age 18, would rule over the greatest empire in history.

What is more miraculous was her character: She spurned the terrible qualities of her father and uncles, who were gamblers, adulterers and put pleasure above duty. The outstanding feature of Victoria’s reign was her example: She was the steady, resolute figure to whom the people looked through trials and tests. Her upright marriage with Prince Albert redeemed the monarchy from generations of evil examples.

Finally the British people had a strong, stable marriage on the throne of David. God supplied a strong monarchy, along with a strong military and political leadership, at the moment He gave the birthright blessings to Ephraim. According to historian Frederick Glover, Queen Victoria knew she was a descendant of King David.

Yet as the British Empire reached the zenith of its power, the seeds of destruction were already being planted.

The Long Decline

Edward, prince of Wales, was born on Nov. 9, 1841, the second of nine children. Despite his parents’ best efforts to craft him into the model of a constitutional monarch, Bertie, as he was known to the family, rebelled against the moral restraints of his parents. His father, Albert, died when he was 19 years old, and Bertie quickly became known as the “playboy prince.”

Queen Victoria gave him no official duties, and he chased after every form of pleasure. He was the first “modern monarch,” embracing the loose morals of the British aristocracy and normalizing them throughout the British Empire. He was a celebrity, and he invited the rich and powerful to his official functions, lowering the status of the monarchy. His extramarital lust knew no bounds. The prince was the trendsetter for a changing British society as it approached the end of the 19th century.

“While Queen Victoria … ruled the British Empire, the prince of Wales ruled British society,” write Gail Maccoll and Carol Wallace in To Marry an English Lord. “Society men copied the prince’s beard, his hats, his suits. … And when the trendsetting prince took up American heiresses, American heiresses became all the rage. Their spirit, irreverence and flirtatiousness appealed to him. They dressed well, and the prince took particular pleasure in pretty girls in pretty dresses.” He normalized the marriage of American women, who before would have been deemed unsuitable, to powerful Englishmen (for example, Rudolph Churchill and Jennie Jerome would not have gotten married without the influence of the prince of Wales).

In many ways, this was the beginning of the Isaiah 3 curses in the British Empire: “For, behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah … The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient, The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator. And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them” (verses 1-4). Beginning with the British royal family, strong male leadership and stable families were beginning to disappear.

The moral descent of the British royal family began with the decisions of this prince, later King Edward vii, who ignored his parents’ counsel and example: “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame” (Proverbs 29:15).

Ruling for only nine years (1901–1910), King Edward vii’s only surviving son became King George v. A much more austere and stable man, he was a strong king who led the nation through the First World War, a war that saw an entire generation of fathers and strong men killed.

Yet King George v’s oldest son continued in his grandfather’s path. King Edward viii was also a playboy and became infatuated with Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American and Nazi sympathizer. The shameful abdication crisis that followed in 1936 only further deepened the Isaiah 3 curses in the British Empire: another step toward complete family breakdown.

His brother, King George vi, was a gallant example to the nation in World War ii and forced himself to perform his duty. When he died on Feb. 6, 1952, his 26-year-old daughter became Queen Elizabeth ii. Miraculously, her first prime minister was Sir Winston Churchill, the last defender of the British Empire. He was her mentor on British law, government, politics and the duties of a monarch. He was a living connection to Queen Victoria.

Only days before the 1953 coronation, Churchill said in a speech to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association: “It is natural for parliaments to talk and for the crown to shine. Well, do we realize the burdens imposed by sacred duty upon the sovereign and her family? All round we see the proofs of the unifying sentiment which makes the crown the central link in all our modern changing life, and the one which above all others claims our allegiance to the death.”

Her 70-year reign was the longest of any British monarch, but it presided over the downfall and dissolution of the British Empire and the birthright blessings. The Queen and her husband were a strong personal example, but their children and grandchildren followed the same sinful path begun by the first “playboy prince” and continued by the abdicator.

It was during her reign that the British royal family ceased to be the bulwark of the empire and the throne of David. It became the Isaiah 3 monarchy, epitomizing the curses of weak leadership and family sins.

The New Throne

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth ii, Mr. Armstrong began his ministry of preaching the gospel around the world as the prophesied end-time Elijah (Malachi 4:5-6; Matthew 17:11; 24:14). Part of this ministry included restoring the true knowledge of the British royal family’s prophetic role, explained in The United States and Britain in Prophecy, and warning of God’s prophesied punishment for their sins. Prince Charles met with Mr. Armstrong on at least two occasions. God holds him accountable for that warning message.

In 1981, before the “storybook” marriage between Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, Mr. Armstrong warned it would be Britain’s “last gasp of joy and splendor” and that the marriage would not last. Indeed, there would be many unhappy days after that marriage.

Soon after, both Charles and Diana had affairs, and Prince Andrew became known as “the party prince.” The marriage ended in disaster, and tragedy struck again when Lady Diana died in a car crash on Aug. 31, 1997. Only 10 months earlier, the stone of Scone, Jacob’s pillar stone, was returned to Scotland. In 2003, the Queen went to Rome and kissed the pope’s ring. Meanwhile, as we now know, Prince Andrew was committing terrible evils with Jeffrey Epstein. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (another American wife) disowned the family and their duty for a celebrity lifestyle.

In the midst of this tragic decline and cesspool of sin, God once again intervened to save the throne of David. The British royal family lost the throne of David, as Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explains in The New Throne of David:

When God gave the revelation about the new stone on Jan. 16, 2017, the royal family of Britain was displaced as the royal family of David’s throne. That was a signal of terrible things to come upon Britain, as well as a sharp decline of America and Judah. It was also an indication that we would see a rapid decline in Britain’s royal family.

Isaiah 9:6-7 prophesy that Jesus Christ will return and rule the Kingdom of God from the throne of David. Could God return and rule from a throne associated with family breakdown and pedophilia? This long story of decline, the refusal to repent and heed God’s warning message, led God to make this inspiring change. In this hopeless world, the new throne of David is a beacon of hope. This change was a major step toward Jesus Christ’s return and the establishment of a government that will end the wickedness and violence of this world.

This is a message of hope we all need in our lives. Read The New Throne of David to understand this inspiring change.