Since 1992, each January 10 citizens of the Falklands have enjoyed the public holiday known as “Margaret Thatcher Day.” However, this year they have reason for concern.

On November 1 of last year, the Trumpet drew attention to increased tensions between Buenos Aires and London over the tiny islands located in the Atlantic Ocean, just off the South American country’s east coast.

Things are never really stable in hot-blooded Argentina. In October, Argentines reelected their incumbent President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her “Peronismo” Justicialist Party in a landslide vote. In December, the nation’s foreign commerce secretary, Ivan Heyn, was found dead, apparently taking his own life in Uruguay at regional Mercosur economic talks. At that same summit, Brazil and Uruguay formed an alliance with Argentina to impose a shipping blockade at their ports on vessels flying the British Falklands flag.

Argentina sees a window of opportunity, believing Britain is weakened domestically and laboring under economic pressure, and with the UK having lost international support after exercising its veto power at the recent euro crisis summit, refusing to join the EU fiscal pact. Argentina also observes Britain’s military drawdown, with its combined services strength far from what it was in the days of Prime Minister Thatcher. Argentina considers that under these circumstances, Britain few remaining Commonwealth possessions are vulnerable.

With the prospect of another attempt by Argentina to seize the Falklands in the wind, it is interesting to note that neither Argentina nor the Falklands have been left without witness and warning as to the ultimate outcome of recent events and tensions.

Herbert Armstrong began efforts to reach this region with God’s prophetic message as early as February 1949. Plans were then being laid for the work’s expansion by the creation of a network of international offices in London, Switzerland, Palestine, the Far East, Australia, Rio de Janairo, Santiago and Buenos Aires.

In January 1953, Mr. Armstrong purchased airtime on the principal broadcast medium of the day, sending the Matthew 24:14-commissioned gospel message via radio into the densely populated regions of Europe, China, India and Latin America. However, strict government controls on broadcasting in such nations proved in many instances an obstacle.

Argentine General Juan Peron initially gained power in 1946, then in 1951 and 1973. His brand of European fascism prevented the gospel message from being broadcast within Argentina. This forced God’s work to reach the nation via radio from the Falkland Islands, of which Britain has had firm possession since 1833, using that prosperous sea gate for trade and a vital base of operations during World War ii.

By late 1957, Mr. Armstrong had writers of the Plain Truth reporting from Buenos Aires on the postwar penetration of German companies and elites into Argentina. History has documented the infamous ratlines, which under the Vatican umbrella funneled Nazi elites through escape routes from Europe to safe havens in South America. This action was to help keep the flicker of Holy Roman Empirical flames alive, in hope of a future final resurrection.

As was so often the case, the door was opened to reaching the elite leadership of Argentina during one of Mr. Armstrong’s high-level meetings in India. Invitations to meetings at the home of the then secretary to the president, Dr. Singh, enabled Mr. Armstrong to meet the ambassador from Argentina in 1972. The ambassador then invited Mr. Armstrong to visit South America’s southernmost country. At that time, Alejandro Lanusse was president, and an ardent anti-Peronist.

By early 1973, a newsstand media blitz was under way in Britain, Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. The campaign included the Falkland Islands, which received travelers and tourists from its Argentine neighbor. “By this means 881,500 copies of the Plain Truth reached an estimated 2,500,000 people reading the Plain Truth for the first time,” Herbert Armstrong wrote co-workers on Jan. 28, 1973. The work was on the move toward his pending visit to Buenos Aires.

The following year, Mr. Armstrong arrived in Manila for special meetings, media appearances and campaigns at the invitation of President Ferdinand Marcos. At that time he interacted with Argentina’s highest emissary once more, this time at the Presidential Palace. “A very formal ceremony was due at that time—the new ambassador from Argentina presenting his credentials to the president,” Mr. Armstrong recounted to co-workers May 21, 1974. “Instead of waiting in an anteroom for our own meeting with the president, we were privileged to take part—standing, with many cabinet members, to one side, witnessing the ceremony.”

God’s work grew, with preliminary plans toward public appearance campaigns under way in Argentina’s capital and establishment of a regional office and church congregations serving areas surrounding Ezeisa, Bahai Blanca and Buenos Aires.

Once more, Juan Peron, following the death of his wife Isabel, had regained power, ousting his adversaries and returning the country to his fascist principles. This closed the door on Mr. Armstrong’s previously requested visit and campaign. Argentina reverted to government under the principles known as Peronismo, perpetuated by the Justicialist Party.

Mr. Armstrong’s mind was upon the survival of Argentina and the Falkland Islands four years before his death when he cited Argentina as having the “technological know-how and the capacity” to produce nuclear weapons.

“As I write, the greater part of the British fleet that once ‘ruled the waves’ of the whole world, in one vast armada is arriving just off the Falkland Islands, ready for war,” he recounted to co-workers on April 21, 1982. “The Argentines are poised ready for war. British possession of these islands has meant British control of one of the great sea gates of the world. One of the promises of God to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, directly repromised to Ephraim (Britain) and Manasseh (United States) in our day, was to possess these gates of enemy nations. These gates included the Suez Canal, Panama Canal, Cape of Good Hope, Gibraltar, Singapore, and these Falkland Islands. God prophesied that, because of disobedience, we should lose these islands in this end time. All have been lost except these Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Hong Kong and some other incidental islands.”

Britain’s 99-year lease ran out on Hong Kong in 1997, and its 28th governor moved out of his residence officially marking transfer of sovereignty to China. Prince Charles attended and spoke at the proceedings as Britain, which once ruled the world’s ocean waves, ceded Asia’s most vital sea gate. This left Gibraltar and the Falklands as Britain’s two remaining strategic sea gates.

In May 1982, Mr. Armstrong directed the attention of millions of his viewers, listeners and readers to Argentina and the Falklands in advance of the imminent British-Argentina clash over possession of the islands.

Penned and read by over 6 million worldwide, his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy foretold, “Abraham’s descendants would possess vital geographic passageways of their enemies—‘those which hate them.’” This was prophesied in Genesis 22:16-18. At the time, with inflation at 131 percent and unemployment at 15 percent, Argentina was desperate for a distraction.

As its founder and editor in chief, Mr. Armstrong directed the June-July 1982 edition of the worldwide mass circulation Plain Truth magazine to highlight on its cover the pride of the British Navy, the aircraft carrier hms Invincible, with Prince Andrew aboard, along with the feature article “Showdown in the South Atlantic.”

Buenos Aires did not expect such a strong military response from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who saw the defeat of Argentine aggression and preservation of the Falkland Islands as of paramount importance in maintaining British prestige. In April, Argentina’s military seized and occupied the islands. Argentine hold on the islands was but temporary, with surrender coming on June 14, following 74 days of conflict and the death of 649 Argentine and 255 British soldiers. Briefly, Britain, its Iron Lady and the politically conservative Tory government, rode the wave of adulation in the wake of these climactic events in the South Atlantic. Less than a month later, on July 23, Mr. Armstrong attended a private meeting with Prime Minister Thatcher at Number 10, Downing Street.

Today, as Isaiah 3 declares, there are no such leaders in Britain, no such will to defeat an adversary, amid the waning power to accomplish such a task. Britain and its South Atlantic possession, the Falkland Islands, have received the gospel message, including the prophetic warning that the day would come when He would “break the pride of your power” (Leviticus 26:19), and that their “strength shall be spent in vain” (verse 20).

As Herbert Armstrong noted of Argentina, God’s gospel was preached to that nation, over the airwaves across the Falkland Sound to the South American mainland. That message foretold that Argentina’s muscle flexing in the South Atlantic would be a direct result of Britain’s disobedience of God’s law (1 John 3:4; Exodus 20:1-17).

Watch for Britain to eventually yield up the Falklands sea gate to Argentina, based upon the inerrant prophecy that God will break the pride of Britain’s power as a result of the British people’s national disobedience of His immutable law (Leviticus 26:19; Deuteronomy 28:25).

Yet this great loss of Anglo-Saxon power is but the harbinger of the revival of the British peoples in a far, far better world to come!

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