Can God Save the Queen?
To visit Westminster Abbey in London is a highlight for any tourist in Britain. It is the most famous sanctuary and ancient royal burial site in the country. Here the bodies of many of Britain’s kings and queens were laid to rest. Since its construction, it has also been the site for the coronation of the kings and queens of England. It is an especially rich historical location.
Early in 1994, some members of the Trumpet staff spent time within the Abbey. Something we were particularly interested in was King Edward’s coronation chair, the venerable old throne upon which Queen Elizabeth ii was crowned in June 1953.
At that time, the chair housed an ancient relic, a seemingly innocuous block of sandstone. The stone was contained within a portal specially made to house it by the craftsmen who constructed the chair at the beginning of the 14th century. Obviously this rock had special significance to the royalty crowned above it and the nation they were ordained to serve. Up to the time of great social change in Britain commencing in the 1960s, this old throne had a plaque attached to it announcing that the stone was “Jacob’s pillar stone” (Gen. 28:18), upon which the ancient kings of Israel had once been crowned.
As we prepared to leave, one of the Abbey priests who had served as our host quietly told us, “Many people today in Britain and even here in the Abbey do not believe that this ancient chair represents the royal throne of David and that the rock inserted into it is, in fact, Jacob’s pillar stone. This was once common knowledge, but is not now a popular point of view. I have a Jewish family ancestry, and I want you to know that I believe it is David’s throne and that the stone is Jacob’s pillar stone.”
Royal Scandal
If we were to believe the British tabloid press, always hungry for scandal, then today we would believe that the British royal family is on its last legs. Rocked by scandal both real and imagined, hounded by left-wing politicians and media, the royal House of Windsor has been subjected to a barrage of self-righteous scorn and criticism flung around the world by modern mass communication, such as none of their predecessors ever had to bear.
The result is inevitable.
When a nation unforgivingly attacks the singular institution which has bound it in unity since its inception, that nation is destined to fail. For the shame of it all is that it is not simply the Queen nor her family after whom the destroyers are baying for blood. It is in fact the regal and ancient institution of the throne of David which these minions are, wittingly or otherwise, lusting to tear down and grind into the dust of history.
The fickleness of public opinion has been demonstrated over the last 12 years in Britain. In 1990, it seemed that Britain’s royal family, especially Queen Elizabeth, rode the crest of a wave of popularity. But, by the early 1990s, cracks in the facades of the marriages of the Queen’s progeny were being seized upon by a voracious media and press as they chased ratings and competed for profits. Together these institutions, having cast off the restraint and personal accountability they possessed before the 1960s, worked at creating an ongoing real-life soap opera, using the royal family as unwitting pawns. Over time, the marriages of three of Queen Elizabeth’s and Prince Philip’s offspring failed, each situation shamelessly exploited by the media and milked for every dollar, pound, frank or mark it could yield. Both Britain’s image as a nation and the collective image of the royal family suffered great damage as a result.
Then came the year 2002 and 12 months of celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the reign of Queen Elizabeth ii, and one might have thought, amid the joy of such a milestone, surely now things will improve for Britain’s royal family. For a moment, it seemed they did. The press was forced to acknowledge, reluctantly in many instances, a huge gain in royal popularity as the year progressed.
Then a presence came back to haunt the nation. Real or imagined shenanigans by disloyal royal household staff were deliberately leaked to the press, resurrecting memories of scandals attached to the name of the late Princess Diana. Her butler went public, in exchange for a goodly sum and a brief flirtation with celebrity, reporting on real or imagined salacious goings on in the princess’s household. Others chimed in with this cheap and nasty publicity while there was a dollar to be made at the royal family’s expense. The resultant mayhem threatened to throw a murky mantel of scandal over all the positive gains the royals had made during the Queen’s jubilee year. It seems that the royal House of Windsor is doomed to be dogged by gossip, rumor and scandal for the rest of its days.
In the face of this constant barrage seeking to destroy these underpinnings of the British nation, can God really save the Queen? Will He even want to?
An Everlasting Throne
Many of our readers are aware that the very book which reveals the origins of that ancient coronation stone, once under Edward’s chair and since transferred to Edinburgh Castle in Scotland, has much to say about Britain’s royal household—its history and its future. But did you know that God’s irrefutable Word, the Bible, declares that this royal throne will continue forever?
Anciently, God made a binding agreement with King David about the future of this throne: “I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations” (Ps. 89:3-4).
God doesn’t leave the issue under any doubt. He reinforces it! “For thus saith the Lord; David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel” (Jer. 33:17). So binding is God’s agreement with David and his descendants that God goes as far as declaring, “… If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne …” (vv. 20-21).
This is an irrevocable declaration by Almighty God!
In his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, Herbert Armstrong underscored the importance of this dynamic revealed truth: “This is hard to believe! Yet God promised and unalterably guaranteed just that! There were no conditions. Nothing that would happen could prevent it. The sins of the people were not to change it. The promise stood immutable!” As long as there is day and night, as long as the Earth continues to spin on its axis, as long as the sun, moon and stars are up in the heavens, says God, the covenant with this throne will continue! Feeble man cannot and will not stop God’s royal purpose.
This is the rich and royal heritage of the throne on which Queen Elizabeth ii currently sits, which the British and their Commonwealth dominions have largely forgotten! And it is forgetting this grand heritage that is the prime reason for the curse this throne is presently under, a curse which soon will rain down powerfully on this venerable household and the nation that once held it in esteem!
Accursed Nation
As Britain has progressively lost touch with its royal heritage and, more importantly, forgotten the beneficent God who granted it such priceless heritage in the first place, curses are increasingly being enacted! “Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not. And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face: and they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this. Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart …. I will spread my net upon them; I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven; I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard” (Hos. 7:8-12). Britain is biblical Ephraim! (For proof of this key biblical fact, request your free copy of The United States and Britain in Prophecy).
The curses that are increasingly gnawing at the British vitals—mad cow disease, foot and mouth disease, farm suicides, London’s reputation as the abortion capital of the world, the Irish terror plague, the amendment of British law to legitimize anything from sodomy to bestiality, the dumbing down of education, rampant drug-soaked city crime, and the loss of so much that was once respected globally as British charm, elegance and manners—ultimately are all tied up with the loss of that identity!
Almighty God powerfully condemns this loss of knowledge! “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. As they were increased, so they sinned against me: therefore will I change their glory into shame” (Hos. 4:6-7).
God will continue to afflict them until He has their attention! Clearly, it will take more heartache than is felt at present to wake up Britain to the reason for its increasingly accursed state.
Yet even as God applies the pressure, He has prophesied that their national repentance from sin approaches!
King of Kings
Under Britain’s present government, the great institution of Parliament has been lowered to a status far below that of the parliaments of old—once powerful forums for leadership in the times of Britain’s greatness. Under the inevitable anti-democratic impositions of the European Union, while Britain retains its EU membership, Parliament will continue to lose its power.
But the British monarchy existed long before Parliament, long before the institution of Magna Carta. And this royal throne will actually outlive Parliament! Today British and Commonwealth citizens fail to understand the true origin and exhilarating destiny of the British throne.
Biblical Judah (known today as the modern State of Israel) was prophesied to be the tribe that would produce the kingly line in Israel (Gen. 49:10). “For Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler; but the birthright was Joseph’s” (i Chron. 5:2). The tribe of Judah is referred to as a lion, after Christ the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” (Rev. 5:5). The lion is one of the two symbols displayed on the coat of arms of the British royal family. The other is an ox, the tribal symbol, or standard, of Ephraim.
It has been supposed that King Zedekiah of Judah was the last descendant of David to sit upon that throne in Judah, since Zedekiah, along with his sons, died in Babylon (Jer. 39:1-7). Today the gravesite of the very prophet who penned those words is believed to exist in Northern Ireland. Tradition has it that Jeremiah brought that venerable old coronation stone from the ancient nation of Israel in its captivity to the shores of the Emerald Isle—along with one of the king’s daughters (Jer. 41:10). David’s royal line continued!
The present royal family, the House of Windsor, can trace its genealogy from England to Scotland and Ireland, all the way back to King David and his son Solomon, who were of the tribe of Judah. Queen Elizabeth ii is a Jewish descendant of the seed of King David.
This throne, rich in history, was overturned from Jerusalem to Ireland, then from Ireland to Scotland, and then from Scotland to England. Too many are ignorant of the fact that Jesus Christ was born to sit upon the throne of David—born to be King! “He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:32-33). “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 …” (Isa. 9:7).
Yes, God can save members of the royal family of Britain, but only after they first partake of the great national repentance that is prophesied for that nation once it has undergone horrific chastisement for its rebellion against the Most High God! As Hosea 14:8-9 predicts, “Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him … [T]he ways of the Lord are right ….” And that coming national repentance of Britain and its dominions, which will only occur under great tribulation (Matt. 24:21-22), will be a great sign of the imminence of the return of their Savior, Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, to take over the very throne upon which the British monarch sits to this day! It is Jesus Christ, of the House of God, who will very soon replace the ruling monarch of the House of Windsor to perpetuate that royal throne’s existence, ruling not only over Britain, but over all nations, under the divine, immutable law of love, forever!