Yesterday evening, two men stepped into a giant octagon erected on the South Lawn of the White House. One would leave the cage with extreme swelling around both eyes, blood pouring from his face, and a title lost in a technical knockout.

This was ufc Freedom 250: seven fights staged steps from the Oval Office as a centerpiece of the nation’s semiquincentennial, Flag Day and President Trump’s 80th birthday celebration.

A crowd of 4,300 people roared in approval when the ringside doctor ruled that battered mixed martial artist Ilia Topuria was unable to continue the fight. Tens of thousands more watched on giant screens at the nearby Ellipse, while millions tuned in worldwide to stream the spectacle.

As many have noted, the scene looked like something straight out of the pages of a history book about the last days of the Roman Empire.

“The ufc at the White House last night was incredible,” President Trump posted on Truth Social. “The White House has never looked more beautiful. The setting was unsurpassed! … Congratulations to Dana White and his unbelievable ufc. One of the most exciting days in the history of our fabled White House!”

Think about that statement for a moment. Men beating each other half-blind on the White House lawn, and President Trump calls it one of the most exciting days in the history of our fabled White House. Not many years ago, the idea of holding an Ultimate Fighting Championship event at the White House would have been unthinkable. In 1996, Sen. John McCain famously called such events “human cockfighting.” He sent letters to all 50 state governors urging them to ban the sport. His national campaign helped ban or restrict mixed martial arts in 36 states. Now such “human cockfights” are promoted in the greatest way imaginable.

ufc Freedom 250 illustrates how far American character has fallen from the days of our founding. In 1956, Herbert W. Armstrong wrote about five major vices that threatened to collapse the country: 1) the rapid increase in divorce, 2) the rapid increase in taxation, 3) the mad craze for pleasure, 4) rapid buildup in armaments, and 5) the decay of true religion. He did not come up with these vices on his own; he drew them from Edward Gibbon’s classic work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

“Sports became yearly more exciting, and more brutal,” Mr. Armstrong wrote. “We need to have this brought home to us so we really see it, really realize it, and really understand where it’s leading America today. Today, instead of participating in healthy games ourselves, we like to take our sports sitting down, while we pay others to amuse us and to excite us by playing the game for us. … Millions of Americans love to watch prizefights, to see men slug, pummel, and injure one another. The victor is the one who inflicts the greatest damage, who is the most destructive—NOT the one who helps the most, who serves the best ….”

What do you think Mr. Armstrong would say today? In his time, boxing matches were rising in popularity, yet a presidential-promoted mixed martial arts match at the White House would have been unthinkable.

And the mad craze for violent delights in America doesn’t end at the White House lawn. The New York Knicks won their first nba championship in 53 years on Saturday, beating the Spurs in San Antonio. Knicks fans watching in New York City poured into the streets to celebrate. Before that night was over, 63 people had been arrested, a 17-year-old was shot in the foot, four people were stabbed, five school buses were set on fire, and 10 police officers were injured.

The spirit motivating these Knicks fans to burn, stab and riot was the same spirit that moved the crowd at the White House to cheer in delight as Ilia Topuria was beaten to a pulp. It is the spirit the Apostle Paul described in 2 Timothy 3:1-5, which says, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”

Read that list again and tell me it doesn’t describe last weekend.

The Prophet Ezekiel describes end-time Israel’s sin as green corrosion—rust that clings to the people and will not come off. In Ezekiel 24, God says you cannot remove this corrosion unless you burn it off. “People can call their pollution freedom,” my father writes in Ezekiel—The End-Time Prophet, “but it is poisoning our nations as never before!”

You can call it Freedom 250. You can put it on the White House lawn. God’s verdict does not change. He sees the scum on the pot. The Roman Empire did not fall in a day; it rotted from within. The parallels with America today are telling—and ominous. Violence is no longer shocking. It not only saturates our society, but we literally revel in it.

America is the Roman Empire of today—drowning in pleasurable and violent escapism, even as the barbarians are at the gates. Herbert Armstrong was right. God is calling on us to do what ancient Israel refused to do: Repent and turn to Him before it is too late.