Divining the Future

As 2008 drew to a close, the U.S. National Intelligence Council (nic) released its report, “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World.”

The report is extremely comprehensive, containing 120 pages of predictions about future world trends representing the views of a range of academics, diplomats and other governmental leaders from around the globe.

But there’s a missing dimension in the nic report.

Predicting the future is a chancy profession unless you have biblical revelation as your foundation. Without the depth of biblical prophecy as one’s guide, one’s predictions about the future remain shallow at best.

That is the missing dimension in the nic report: biblical revelation!

Bible prophecy is a dimension of vital importance to understanding the future. Herbert Armstrong clearly saw this. He was unafraid to declare of the book which lays the future bare: “Here is a book—the Holy Bible—that dares to write out the future history of this world in advance—that dares to prophesy what is actually going to happen within 15 or 20 years to specific nations, including Russia, the British Commonwealth, China, the United States, Italy, Turkey, Ethiopia, and many others—most of the major nations of this world” (emphasis mine throughout).

“But would you believe it if I told you what this Book predicts?” he continued. “If I told you what it predicts about your nation? Would you believe it?

“You know, we have gotten away from believing that the Bible means what it says. We may not be atheists. We may not ridicule the Holy Bible. But we are living now in an age of skepticism. We are living in an age of doubt.

“Most highly educated people, and men of science, assume that the Bible is not the infallible revelation of a supernatural God, and they assume this without the scientific proof that they demand on material questions” (The Proof of the Bible).

There is a supreme intellect, the author of the universe, who declares, “I am God, and there is none else: I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Without the acknowledgment of biblical revelation, any attempt at predicting the future is a mere list of guesses based on observable trends.

The nic report maintains that “no single outcome seems preordained.” The reality is that major trends in world history are preordained! There simply exists no surer foundation from which to view the future than the “more sure word of prophecy”! (2 Peter 1:19).

The great reality is, God exists! His presence can be proven. He declares “the end from the beginning” (request free copies of Mr. Armstrong’s booklets Does God Exist? and The Proof of the Bible).

It is on this foundation that we offer the following observations on the nic report, “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World.” We will look only at those areas the report highlights as “Key Uncertainties” that have important geopolitical significance. By contrast with the nic’s uncertainty of the outcome of these trends, we shall see in each case that the revelation of biblical prophecy clearly demonstrates the very certainty of their outcome!

United States

One of the “relative certainties” put forward in the nic report is the prospect of the United States facing “[s]hrinking economic and military capabilities” that “may force the U.S. into a difficult set of trade-offs between domestic versus foreign-policy priorities.”

Let us be clear. According to inerrant Bible prophecy, there is nothing “relative” about the certainty that America faces shrinking economic and military capabilities! The Prophet Isaiah pointed to the time when God would take away from the Jewish and the Anglo-Saxon nations “The mighty man, and the man of war” (Isaiah 3:2-3).

The very challenge facing President Obama is just this. The rapid shrinking of America’s economic capabilities is forcing the nation to consider a dramatic reduction in the projection of its military power, inevitably leading to the “trade-offs” in foreign policy that the new administration is already wrestling with behind the scenes.

Simply put, under Barack Obama, U.S. foreign policy is bound to be subjugated to the mounting, soon-to-be overwhelming, domestic considerations posed by national economic, financial and social collapse! Societal disintegration will be hastened by the downward spiraling of national morale as the general populace soon realizes that the president simply cannot deliver on his vision of “hope”!

It is TIME! Time for the prophesied collapse of the Anglo-Saxon combine that has underpinned the global economy—and fought two world wars to retain a semblance of world peace—to be finally fulfilled! Read our editor in chief’s powerful expose of this reality in his free booklet Lamentations: The Point of No Return.

Anciently, at the fledgling nation of Israel’s founding, the Eternal God declared, “But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I also will do this unto you …. I will break the pride of your power” (Leviticus 26:14-16, 19). To prove that Israel was actually the progenitor of the Anglo-Saxon nations, and that this prophecy applies to these modern nations today, request our free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy.

That prophecy has been part of the very foundational Scripture upon which the whole of Judeo-Christian society has been constructed! Yet the very people who ask “God bless America,” who for generations in Britain and its dominions asked “God save the king,” are patently blinded to that prophecy’s meaning! And right now it is being fulfilled before their very eyes!

America’s Broken Economy

One glaring error in the nic report is its head-in-the-sand claim that “The United States will remain the single most powerful country.” Prophecy is adamant that it will not! Certainly not until 2025 as theorized in this report. Your Bible prophesies the very opposite will be the case!

Speaking of those foreign entities that have powerfully penetrated our economies over the past two decades, Almighty God declares: “The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low. He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail” (Deuteronomy 28:43-44).

That curse has already befallen the Anglo-Saxon nations! In fact, the U.S. has dramatically declined from the position of greatest lender to the tail-end of greatest net borrower—by far! Soon the new “head” will call for the “tail” to pay up. The plain fact is, the “tail” is flat broke and hocked to its eyeballs in debt. It just won’t be able to pay the piper—and then the piper will be calling the tune!

Just why has this decline of America from the heights of superpower barely 20 years ago to its present status of pariah debtor-nation-of-the-world happened with such breathtaking speed? Simply because when the U.S. was the “head,” it failed to acknowledge that it was the Eternal God who made it so! “Moreover all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee” (verse 45).

Economic Concerns

Great Power Confrontations

The nic report expresses uncertainty as to “Whether mercantilism stages a comeback and global markets recede.” The authors muse on the prospect of a reversion from the globalist business practices of the past 20 years to the world fracturing into competing power blocs that vie for control of trade. Mercantilism involves state intervention to promote a nation’s industry and to maximize its exports, together with applying protective tariffs to prevent imports and mounting overt efforts to create a trade surplus that will draw in wealth from competitors.

Should this situation arise, the nic foresees the globe “descending into a world of resource nationalism, increasing the risk of great power confrontations.”

About this being a realistic scenario for the future, the nic is uncertain. Let us remove the uncertainty.

The report declares, “We believe Europe by 2025 will have made slow progress toward achieving the vision of current leaders and elites: a cohesive, integrated and influential global actor able to employ independently a full spectrum of political, economic and military tools in support of European and Western interests and universal ideals.”

On this point the nic is patently wrong! It completely ignores the historical capacity of one dominant European nation to move powerfully and swiftly into high gear, politically, economically and militarily, when faced with the type of disorder that is today rippling across Europe as a result of the current economic crisis.

One nation has become the world’s major exporter: Germany. Its whole economy is export-driven. It has positioned itself over the years as a major investor within industry, globally. Germany’s capital investment in all quadrants of the globe—north, south, east and west—is substantial. In particular, its recapitalization of Russian industry has aided greatly in that nation’s revival.

Either through its own business and banking interests or via its proxy, the European Union, Germany has for some years been buying up nationally strategic industries in competitor nations: water, electricity, postal services and general infrastructure. This gives Germany powerful leverage in its relations with such countries.

A revival of imperial German mercantilism, combined with such leverage, is definitely prophesied to lead to “great power confrontations” (Revelation 13, 17, 18; request a free copy of Nahum: An End-Time Prophecy for Germany for more information).

Global Economy

Referring to global growth projections, the nic maintains that “the eight largest economies in 2025 will be, in descending order: the U.S., China, India, Japan, Germany, the UK, and France, and Russia.”

Given the present rate of the unraveling of the American economy, placing the U.S. at the top of the list is simply whistling in the dark. Biblical prophecy, as we have indicated, reveals that the U.S. and its fellow Anglo-Saxon nations are bound to be at the tail end of the economic scale. So which nation will be at the head in the near future? Prophecy indicates it won’t be China, India, Japan, the UK, France or Russia.

The nic misses by a mile the most powerful of indicators that the prophesied head of the whole global economy, in the foreseeable future, will be Germany—leading a union of nations. Your Bible mentions that this great northern combine will comprise 10 entities subject to one leading power (Revelation 17:12-13).

Those who fully understand the history of the Holy Roman Empire have written of their fear that what has been building since the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community back in 1952 is nothing more and nothing less than the resurrection of the old “Holy” Roman Germanic power in modern clothes (request our free booklet Germany and the Holy Roman Empire).

What biblical prophecy does indicate regarding China, India, Japan and Russia is that they will erect a formidable Eastern bloc that ultimately will challenge the great northern European power for global dominance.

In fact, the indications of current world events are that this scenario will occur far sooner than 2025!

China, Russia and Japan

The nic report is skeptical as to whether or not advances toward democracy will occur in China and Russia. We can allay its skepticism.

Prophecy for both these major powers proves they won’t!

Biblical revelation points to each becoming more nationalist in how it projects its politics internationally as it responds to the ongoing global economic crisis. In the meantime, prophecies reveal that Russia and China will increasingly cooperate in defense and security arrangements, eventually drawing greater Asia into a security bloc intent on competing aggressively for markets and resources against an assertive European Union (see our free booklet Russia and China in Prophecy). Africa and Latin America will continue to be wooed by both Russia and China in competition with the EU for strategic access to both raw materials and markets.

Japan’s situation is not dissimilar to that of Germany in its need to draw upon overseas sources of energy and raw materials to sustain its industrial economy. However, Germany has embedded itself as the key economy within the huge 27-nation EU, a massive captive market and labor force. Japan has no such luxury. That situation could feasibly lead Japan to remilitarize in order to assert its power to gain much-needed energy and raw materials, as well as markets for its finished goods. Bible prophecy reveals that Japan will join that great Sino-Russian East Asian combine (Ezekiel 38:1-6).

Already, the Shanghai Cooperative Organization (sco)—comprising China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, plus Mongolia, India, Pakistan and Iran as observer members—presents a developing bloc of significant powers rising to resist Western domination. Japan, on the other hand, stands relatively aloof from the sco, preferring to develop its historical interest in Southeast Asia.

Having displaced the U.S. as the largest provider of new business investment and economic aid in the region since the 1980s, Japan now seeks a more aggressive role in Southeast Asian politics. Undoubtedly, this will ultimately generate opportunities for greater deployment of Japan’s already robust defense and security forces in the region. Shades of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of World War ii infamy leap into perspective as this scenario develops.

Japan is the biblical “Togarmah” of Ezekiel 27 and 38, while the “Gomer, and all his bands” referred to in Ezekiel 38:6 comprise the peoples that today populate Southeast Asia. This prophecy clearly shows Japan in association with Southeast Asia in a future alliance with Russia and China (verses 1-3).

It is most apparent to scholars of Bible prophecy that these alliances are already quite advanced in their making. On this reality—this certainty in relation to impending world events—the nic report is silent.

Middle East

The report wonders “[w]hether regional fears about a nuclear-armed Iran [will] trigger an arms race and greater militarization” or “whether the greater Middle East becomes more stable, especially whether Iraq stabilizes, and whether the Arab-Israeli conflict is resolved peacefully” by 2025.

The Middle East is an area about which much is prophesied in your Bible. While there appears little doubt that the U.S. will withdraw from Iraq under a new U.S. administration, yielding to an inevitable takeover of Iraq by Iran, what our foreign-policy pundits do not realize is just how short will be the period during which Iran gloats over this American capitulation.

If only they understood Bible prophecy, they would realize that the pipsqueak nation of Iran—arrogant, terrorizing pest that its extremist political element is—is destined for a very short life as an influential power. The reason is that prophecies indicate that Iran, identified by our editor in chief as the biblical “king of the south” (request our free booklet of the same title), is leading the bulk of Islamic nations progressively toward a kamikaze push at the rising Europower. Prophecy confirms that Iran will be simply taken out of all contention as a nuclear power, or any other type of power of significance, by a literal blitzkrieg reaction to that “push” by the German-led European combine! (Daniel 11:40).

As to the nic report’s uncertainty over the future of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the scenario is already set, according to a powerful combination of biblical prophecies. Already one key prophecy has leaped into focus. Key EU personnel and even influential Jewish observers are calling for a multi-nation peacekeeping force to encircle Israel, providing “security” for both Palestinians and Jews. Though such a force has not yet been agreed to, the fact that it has been discussed over the past few years suggests its becoming a reality in the not-too-distant future (as explained in our free booklet Jerusalem in Prophecy).

What is so powerful about this biblical revelation is that it is prophesied to be a sign of the imminence of Christ’s return to the very city of Jerusalem! “And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

Global Powers, Multilateral Institutions

The final key uncertainty the nic report highlights is “Whether global powers [will] work with multilateral institutions to adapt their structure and performance to the transformed geopolitical landscape.” Looking at the increasing tendency for emerging powers to show little respect for institutions such as the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund, plus the decline of nato, the authors foresee the prospect of “traditional alliances weakening.”

The decline of the Anglo-Saxon powers, in particular America’s sudden descent from superpower status, leaves the world without a global policeman. Inevitably, new alliances will form in the wake of U.S. decline.

In fact, as we have outlined, Bible prophecy is clear that three power blocs will emerge: an Iran-led Islamic power, a globally dominant European power, and an Eastern conglomerate of powers incorporating Russia, China, Japan and greater Asia.

But the signs are that none of these power blocs will exist by the year 2025!

Each will be very short-lived.

The most dominant of all will be that great European bloc that will exist as a global superpower for barely three years (refer to our free booklet Daniel—Unsealed at Last!). The Islamic power will be of much shorter duration, with the bulk of its territory taken over by the Europower very early in its lifespan.

Finally, the great Sino-Russo pan-Asian bloc will overwhelm the European superpower.

This whole scenario will play out, believe it or not, in a period of just 3½ years!

The scenarios we have sketched in this article are not “best guesses.” These are actual events of global impact that have been embedded in prophetic Scripture for thousands of years—“the more sure word of prophecy”!

Go back and check the archive on the theTrumpet.com website. See how many prophecies for this day we have proven have already been fulfilled by the facts of documented history of the 20th and 21st centuries. See how the fulfillment of these prophecies has picked up rapidly since 1989! Check and see how fulfilled prophecy has accelerated since 2001, and then again spiked upward since July 2008. There are prophetic reasons why the trajectory of end-time world events has picked up at each of those points during the past 20 years. And it is guaranteed that the pace of world events fulfilling Bible prophecies for our time will only increase from now on!

Your Bible prophesies gigantic shifts in the “global landscape,” but not by “global powers working with multilateral institutions.” They will occur in direct fulfillment of biblical prophecy according the Creator’s master plan for the future of mankind!

This will be a revolution unlike any other, for it will come from the very top of government—the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Prince of peace. Even as the authority that supersedes all others declares: “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this” (Isaiah 9:7).

And that is a declaration not bound up in the uncertainty of the predictions of a mere collection of bright human minds. It’s better than an ironclad guarantee!

It’s as sure and as certain as is the unbreakable Word of Almighty God! It is the “more sure word of prophecy”!