The very brief age of American dominance as a singular superpower has ended. Books, journal and magazine articles theorizing on just what composition the currently emerging global order—the post-American world order—will take are increasingly common.

The most interesting aspect of these emerging analyses is how the scenarios presented by a number of well-known pundits parallel those Bible prophecies that speak of the state of the world as it will exist at the time immediately preceding the replacement of man’s historic but pitiful efforts at effective governance by a new global government.

To the staff of the Trumpet, as also to our longtime committed readership, there are no real surprises as we watch the rise of a reemerging multipolar world. The ultimate composition of the world order that is in process of replacing the age of the American superpower—even to the point of nominating which specific nations will form alliances with each other—has long been embedded in Bible prophecy. Indeed, we were writing on this subject even before the collapse of the Soviet Union gave overnight rise to America’s less-than-20-year status as the world’s only superpower.

There was one who was even far earlier than we were in applying Bible prophecy to current world events and declaring, far ahead of his time, the emerging composition of global powers that we see arising on the world stage today.

Way back even before the iron curtain descended across Europe in 1946, Herbert Armstrong was publishing and broadcasting, to a rapidly increasing audience, forecasts of the final composition of world powers that would obtain at the close of the civilization of man as we know it.

In the 1950s, both during and after the Korean War, Herbert Armstrong continued steadfastly broadcasting and publishing that same message. Before and after Europe, and specifically Germany, was divided by the Berlin Wall in 1961, Mr. Armstrong prophesied the current emerging tri-polar global order. He continued to do so throughout the Cold War era of bipolar dominance of international relations by Russia and the United States. His audience continued to grow internationally. Many listened and many were moved to support his message so that it continued to grow exponentially till all nations had either witnessed it by print, by broadcasting media or by his personal representation to their leaders.

Where is that audience now?

Upon Herbert Armstrong’s death, deliberate attempts by his enemies to destroy the great global work that had been painstakingly built under Herbert Armstrong’s administration wrecked it all within a few years.

Yet, multiple thousands remain around the world who heard Herbert Armstrong’s message. What do they think now when they see the prophecies that he declared—sometimes many decades before their fulfillment—suddenly coming to pass? Do they think about it at all, or have the attractions and cares of this world blinded them to reality?

One thing is for sure, we have reached a point where Herbert Armstrong’s detractors—at least the more honest of them—must eat their words. Once again, inerrant Bible prophecy that cannot be broken (2 Peter 1:19; John 10:35) is rapidly being fulfilled before our eyes, much of it just as Mr. Armstrong declared it would, often in the most finite detail.

Consider today’s world scene, and where it is prophesied to lead.

The U.S. is shifted from its perch as top dog in the world. This is proven by its impotence when faced with nuclear-empowered states, regardless of the size of the nuclear-armed nation. When the U.S., ostensibly the most powerful nation on Earth, is willing to kowtow to such pipsqueak nations as North Korea, it is simply demonstrating to the world it has entered the has-been category as a global power. By refusing to enforce any sanctions and apply no penalty to North Korea for its overt sharing of nuclear power with another pariah nation, Syria—an action that risked putting the flame to the touch tape of a nuclear inferno in the Middle East—the U.S. descended markedly down the scale of perceived power and prestige in the eyes of much of the world.

The U.S. is still the mightiest military power on Earth by far, yet without the political will to use that power, it is progressively reducing itself to a minnow in the eyes of nations which, given their history, possess a predilection to use such power once they possess it in sufficient quantity and once the occasion presents itself.

The U.S. is hocked up to its eyeballs, indebted beyond all reasonable comprehension to China, Japan, Germany and certain Middle Eastern nations. America is becoming a broken power—broken economically, financially, morally and in the process of becoming broken politically—yet it simply does not know it (Leviticus 26:19).

The European Union, up to now, has lacked the cohesion to speak with a single voice on the international stage. That is slated to change with the ratification of the EU constitution/Reform Treaty in 2009. Then the EU will have its own president, its own minister of foreign relations, and its own diplomatic corps. It’s now even touting for its own finance ministry.

The new centralizing powers embraced in the EU constitution/treaty will simply override the sovereign jurisdictions of the EU’s constituent states. This 27-nation monolith, under German political and economic domination, is quickly becoming the voice to be listened to on the world scene (Revelation 13:1, 7; 17:12).

Iran continues to thumb its nose to the world. No nation will succeed in closing down Iran’s nuclear program until the spread of pan-Islam and the prospect of a nuclear-powered Islamic crescent closing in on Europe motivates the European bloc to wipe it out.

The self-imposed impotency of the U.S. in dealing with Iran and its cohorts of terror will be the EU’s opportunity, and it will not pass that opportunity up. Yet the EU will continue to hold back its own overt military initiatives until it has drained the U.S. and Britain of all the military support it can suck out of them—for as long as Anglo-America is unwittingly prepared to continue contributing to the process of pursuing the EU’S own military and political goals. The Balkan wars and the EU refusal (in particular that of Germany) to lend further support in Afghanistan are two cases in point.

Meanwhile, Islam, under perpetual stimulation from the main contributor to the coffers of the Islamic terrorists, Iran, will continue to develop as a threat to world peace until its push against Europe becomes intolerable to the rising great northern power and it finally, and overwhelmingly, reacts (Daniel 11:40).

Asia is on a roll. The increasing ability of greater Asia to develop economically, politically and militarily as a counter to Western dominance is no longer in question. The combined nuclear armaments of Russia, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea would present a formidable power to any opposition should these nations ever form a pan-Asian military alliance. That such a bloc will arise to challenge the great northern power of Europe is deeply embedded in Bible prophecies for the times immediately ahead.

The development of these two blocs—pan-Islam and greater Asia—as a challenge to the West is patently in the making right now. The resurrection of the old European Imperium—molded, yet again, in the Teutonic/Roman tradition—as a global power of great significance will soon only lack the cohesive ideology and the consolidated military might it needs to empower its new status as a single, constitutionally imperial entity, a status that it will reach with ratification of the European Constitution/Reform Treaty in 2009.

Thus, as is becoming apparent to the most astute observers of the current world scene, America’s descent from superpower status is allowing the fracturing of the globe into three distinct blocs—the northern European bloc, the southern Islamic crescent, and the greater East Asian bloc.

These are the realities of international relations today. This is the direction in which the globe is currently heading, right on its prophesied course, even as Herbert Armstrong declared it over the almost six decades of his ministry.

No head-in-the-sand rhetoric will stay the hand of the inevitable. While little Israel, in an unbelievable give-away to enemies dedicated to its destruction, is besotted with the idea of throwing away much of the land it won amid the blood of battle, Anglo-Saxons fiddle with morally empty political correctness, the fiction of global warming and bend over backward to appease their enemies.

Yet, we should have known it would be so, if only we would have listened to the words of our Maker, if only we would have heeded the voice of His prophets, down through the ages. But no! Israel, the modern Anglo-Saxons and their Judaic brothers, would rather kill the prophets than heed the voice of their Creator! As Jesus Christ Himself declared, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matthew 23:37).

Of the Anglo-Saxon nations, the Prophet Isaiah declared that their descent from wealth into abject poverty would happen under administrations that had lost the power to truly lead (Isaiah 3:1-4).

For most of the 20th century, Herbert Armstrong, based on the more sure word of prophecy, declared the very order of nations that today is emerging on the world scene. Read the special edition of the Trumpet magazine titled “He Was Right!” It will really enlighten you on just how much Herbert Armstrong knew, way in advance of its happening, about the events that would take place in the world today and in the few years ahead.

Herbert Armstrong died over 20 years ago. So who listened to him? Perhaps you were one who heard, and now remembers, and can now see that you, right now, are living through that which he prophesied, for decades, so long ago. If you are, it’s time you did something about it! A great place to start would be by requesting your own copy, gratis, of the one book that represents between its covers the true legacy of the work of Herbert W. Armstrong, Mystery of the Ages. It’s the best beginning point for you to begin figuring out what this life is all about, just what is taking place, right now, on the world scene, and just what to expect in the very near future!