The Day of Reckoning Is Here

Over 40 million copies of Herbert W. Armstrong’s books and booklets were distributed worldwide during the 20th century. His most popular title was The United States and Britain in Prophecy. Six million people requested the book from the mid-1930s to the late-1980s. Mr. Armstrong’s last version of the book was printed in 1980. Here is what he wrote nearly three decades ago about our once-mighty nations:

Between them the British and the American peoples had acquired more than two thirds—almost three fourths—of all the cultivated physical resources and wealth of the world. All other nations combined possessed barely more than a fourth. Britannia ruled the waves—and the world’s commerce was carried on by water. The sun never set on British possessions.Now think!Could the British and American peoples be ignored in prophecies of world conditions that fill a third of the entire Bible—when some 90 percent of all those prophecies pertain to national and international world happenings of our time, now?Staggering?Indeed it is. And yet, precisely as prophesied, Britain’s sun has now set. As these same prophecies that foretold Britain’s greatness revealed far in advance, Britain has already been reduced to a second-rate or third-rate power in the world.And the United States? Today America finds herself heir to just about all the international problems and headaches in this post-World War ii, chaotic, violent world. And the United States has won her last war—even little North Vietnam held her at bay. Many other nations sap America’s national strength, “and he knoweth it not,” as God long ago foretold!

At the outset of the Reagan-Thatcher era, those comments might have seemed like a stretch to some. But no one would call them an exaggeration today! As Anthony Browne wrote last weekend in the Daily Mail, “The global power shift from the West to the East is no longer just a matter of debate confined to learned journals and newspaper columns—it is a reality that is beginning to have a huge impact on our daily lives” (emphasis mine throughout).

In fact, Herbert Armstrong wrote about this massive shift in global power decades before the “debate” even made it into leading journals! “The handwriting is on the wall!” he cried in the 1967 version of The United States and Britain in Prophecy.

Forty years on, front-page headlines of major newspapers attest to the pinpoint accuracy of Mr. Armstrong’s decades-old prophetic warnings.

The American Century Has Ended

In his column, Anthony Browne said the West is now facing “the largest financial shock since the Great Depression, while the Asian economies are still powering ahead.” Yet, because we have drifted so far from God and are so obsessed with materialism, most—even today—seem unfazed by this dangerous transformation in global affairs.

We need to wake up to the fact that these now-regular reports of our demise are no longer prophecies for the future. They are happening now! “The desperately weakened American dollar,” Browne continued, “appears to be on the verge of losing its global dominance, in the same way as sterling lost it a lifetime ago.”

Mr. Armstrong, we should note, told us this would happen a lifetime ago. “You have seen that the U.S. dollar—long thought of as the stablest currency in the world—is in immediate jeopardy of being devalued!” He wrote that in a letter 40 years ago.

The UK possessed two thirds of the world’s gold supply in 1950 “while the United States had three times as much gold reserve as the total for the rest of the world,” Mr. Armstrong wrote in The United States and Britain in Prophecy. “But by 1966 the U.S. gold supply had been drained so much that the dollar was in serious jeopardy.” And if the dollar collapsed, he wrote in the above-mentioned letter, “it could well mean a repetition of the disastrous depression that strangled the economic world in 1929!”

As with Britain a lifetime before us, the sun is now setting on America’s reign as global economic superpower. Mr. Armstrong wrote in the 1980 version of The United States and Britain in Prophecy,

How great, how powerful, and how wealthy did the British and American people become? And what is suddenly happening to us now? Why has Britain already lost most of her colonies—her possessions—her resources, wealth, power and influence in the world? Why is Britain no longer considered Great Britain—a great world power?Why is the United States now discredited, despised, hated throughout so much of the world?

Way ahead of his time, Mr. Armstrong said in 1972 that the 1800s belonged to Britain while the 1900s belonged to America—but that its power, after reaching its zenith around 1950, had been in steady decline ever since.

Now compare that with what Anthony Browne wrote last weekend: “Just as the 19th century was the British century, and the 20th century was the American century, the 21st century is the Asian century,” he wrote. “But the handover of global power from the UK to the U.S. was trivial compared to what is happening now.”

Browne continued,

The U.S. was Britain’s offspring, based on the same values and the same language. It, too, was an Anglo-Saxon country, and passing the baton across the Atlantic ensured the continuation of the Anglo-Saxon world order, based on democracy, free trade and a belief in human rights, upheld through international institutions that both powers supported.But the world order we have grown used to—and comfortable with—over the last century is coming to an end.

Yes indeed! We are witnessing a staggering turn in world events. This new world order features a developing Asian superpower that, only 40 years ago, was an isolated, poverty-stricken nation, barely hovering above Third World status. Today, that same nation is a force to be reckoned with. Browne wrote, “Western governments have been in such awe of China’s looming power that their response has not been to challenge its abuses”—like its brutal suppression of Tibet or its cozying up to nations that sponsor terrorism.

We must know where this is leading because the stakes are much higher than simply losing some of the comforts and conveniences we grew accustomed to during the 20th century. The same prophecies that point to the demise of the Anglo-Saxon nations also warn that this world is about to explode! Bible prophecy says a massive Asian power bloc, led by a modernized Russia and China, will dramatically alter the course of human history. This conglomerate of peoples, comprising more than one fourth of the world’s population, will play a lead role in the climactic struggle for world dominance right at the end of mankind’s 6,000 years of self-rule!

Day of Reckoning

Today’s headlines confirm that the day of reckoning is here, to use a phrase Patrick Buchanan chose as the title for his most recent book. “It is the belief of the author and premise of this book,” Buchanan wrote last year, “that America is indeed coming apart, decomposing, and that the likelihood of her survival as one nation through mid-century is improbable—and impossible if America continues on her current course. For we are on a path to national suicide.”

Herbert W. Armstrong, however, wrote about our “day of reckoning” in all his editions of The United States and Britain in Prophecy. In 1980, he wrote, “God warns us through prophecy that our sins are fast increasing. And now the day of reckoning is here! The foreign sword always has attacked us.”

Sobering words indeed—and proclaimed for more than 50 years by Herbert W. Armstrong in The United States and Britain in Prophecy. You owe it to yourself to join 6 million others who read the 20th century’s most important book on Bible prophecy.

If you’ve ever wanted to truly understand why world events continue to worsen—and where these events are ultimately leading—this is your opportunity!