The transition of Nelson Mandela from terrorist to most favored political prisoner, thence in 1994 to president of his country of birth, honored by heads of state worldwide, finally taking a seat of honor beside Queen Elizabeth as they rode through the cheering masses in London in July 1996, is one that has few parallels in modern history.

At the new president’s inauguration the world erupted into euphoria at the perceived triumph of the majority Black South African population winning government from its former Caucasian overseers of apartheid.

Was it a portent of things to come, that the introductory words to the presidential inauguration ceremony were changed from “in the presence of Almighty God” to “in the presence of those assembled here”? It seemed rather ironic that immediately following this inaugural declaration, several prayers were offered to the various “gods” of the principal religions of the main ethnic groups in multi-cultural South Africa—Hindu, Islam, Jewish and Christian. This was, indeed, a far cry from the imperial ceremony and religious rites surrounding the founding of the union of South Africa (later to become the republic of South Africa) in 1910 by the descendants of the largely British and Dutch communities. The previous rulers of South Africa could hardly have foreseen this transition of power from white minority to black majority rule that would take place eighty-four years later on that sunny morning in Cape Town, May 9, 1994.

South Africa and Bible Prophecy

South Africa is part of God’s chosen nation Israel, as explained in The United States and Britain in Prophecy, by Herbert Armstrong. He wrote, “God gave Abraham promises of physical race as well as spiritual grace.”

Mr. Armstrong was referring to God’s statement contained in Genesis 17:1-5: “And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.”

Abraham’s son, Isaac, passed on God’s promises when he prayed over his son Jacob: “Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine [Fenton’s translation: ‘increase and possession’]: Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee” (Gen. 27:28-29). These were promises of great material wealth, national in nature, given by the great God! God even gave promises that other people would serve Jacob’s descendants.

As Jacob reached old age, he in turn called his grandsons (the sons of Joseph) to his side and stated, “let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth” (Gen. 48:16). Again, Mr. Armstrong states in The United States and Britain in Prophecy: “Hence it is they—the descendants of Ephraim (the British) and Manasseh (America)—not the Jews, who are referred to in prophecy under the names of Jacob or Israel.” The promises to the older son, Manasseh, were that “he also shall become a people [nation], and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother [Ephraim] shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude [a company or commonwealth] of nations” (Gen. 48:19). This was prophesied to happen “in the last days” (Gen. 49:1). Those students of the Bible who allow God’s Spirit to reveal this knowledge to them know that Manasseh is the progenitor of the peoples who founded the United States of America and that Ephraim is the “father” of the British peoples.

Mr. Armstrong continued, “Beginning in 1800 these two little nations [the United Kingdom and the United States of America] began to sprout and to grow into vast national riches and power such as no people ever possessed. Soon Britain’s Empire spread around the world, until the sun never set upon her possessions. Canada, Australia, and South Africa were given dominion status—made free and independent nations, ruling themselves independent of England—a company, or commonwealth of nations joined together, not by legal government but solely by the throne of David!”

Thus the Bible reveals that South Africa’s considerable national blessings were the direct result of promises which God Almighty gave to the descendants of Abraham because of his obedience to God’s directions. (For a free copy of The United States and Britain in Prophecy, write to the mailing address nearest you on the final page of this booklet.)

Jealous Eyes Fixed Upon Wealth

South Africa was colonised and settled largely by people of Ephraimitish (British) stock, in addition to those of the tribe of Zebulon (Dutch), Reuben (French Hugenots) and a mixture from Assyria (Germany). This country has been particularly blessed with national riches resulting largely from the extraction, processing and export of vast mineral wealth—gold, diamonds and heavy metals. South Africa dominates the primary gold market and is among the top ten coal producers in the world. Only in recent years has her industrial diamond production been eclipsed by Australia, another country descended from Ephraim. Platinum, vanadium and chromate figure high in South Africa’s resource inventory. Indeed, it is on this vast mineral wealth, with which God has blessed South Africa, that for many decades the jealous eyes of the Soviet Union were fixed.

However, even as the republic of South Africa, until recent times, has enjoyed the best of the bounty which Western nations of the “new world” have reaped over the past two centuries, it cannot be denied that this richly blessed nation has endured a significant share of curses increasingly over the past three decades.

The United Nations

A well-orchestrated campaign of disinformation, propaganda and scurrilous slander has been waged against the South African nation by the combined forces of government officials (both within and without South Africa), the liberal press, leftist church authorities and the United Nations. The catch phrase used by all has been apartheid—the policy of separate development pursued by the South African government since 1948. What escapes most commentators’ attention is the reality that the whole world has been hoodwinked by this disinformation campaign. Most have expressed a great, global, emotive, self-righteous outcry against the imputed unfairness of the apartheid system. Many people are gullibly being led by the nose to endorse a power transfer that portends a future mineral and metals blackmail against the combined Western economies at least equivalent to that imposed by the opec oil cartel in a previous decade!

Joseph de Courcey, editor of the well-respected Gloucester UK-based Intelligence Digest, comments in his lead article in the December 3, 1993 edition: “A recurring nightmare of the Cold War for Western military strategists was the possibility that a revolutionary government in South Africa could combine with the Soviet Union to deprive the West of vital raw materials. It may now surprise some to learn that the Russian security services have been discussing this very possibility with the anc-South African Communist Party alliance on the eve of its likely victory in the first all-race South African elections….

“Russia and South Africa together possess over 90 percent of the world’s strategic minerals. The Russian security services believe that a Russian-South African metals and minerals cartel could wield enormous influence over the industrialised world and that this could be used to enable Russia to catch up with the West economically.

“Should such a cartel ever be established, the potential effect on the industrialised world cannot be exaggerated. South Africa is a geological freak of nature. It is the largest gold producer in the world; it also has the world’s largest known deposits of chrome, manganese, vanadium, fluorspar, andalusite and platinum.

“Talks with the ANC about future co-operation over the supply of strategic minerals and metals is very much a part of Kremlin understanding of where Russia’s future as a world power lies.”

Has South Africa Sold its Birthright for a Bowl of Pottage?

As some astute Western analysts have suggested, if an African National Congress (anc)-South African Communist Party (sacp)-dominated government in South Africa forges links with the Islamic-Arab crescent in consortium with Russia, only those who bow to radical Islam and a Communist-led anc may get their raw materials!

How could such a giant miscalculation have been perpetrated while seemingly aided and abetted by the governments of those nations who would stand to lose the most under such a horrific scenario? How could the nation of South Africa, inheritor of some of the greatest blessings ever bestowed by a benevolent God on the house of Israel, reach the unbelievable state of potentially handing her birthright on a silver platter to those who for decades were her sworn enemies?

Ezekiel the prophet was commissioned by God to go to the house of Israel (Ezek. 3:1-4). The prophecy that Ezekiel was inspired to record for Israel was a warning of dire events to befall them because of their gross abominations, greed, selfishness and great sins which they flaunt in the face of their Maker! And he prophesied that they, the Israelitish nations, would not listen. “But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not hearken unto me: for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted” (Ezek. 3:7).

Nevertheless, God describes their condition as it will be in these latter days: “Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence. Wherefore I will bring the worst of the heathen, and they shall possess their houses: I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease; and their holy places shall be defiled. [Remember the attack in South Africa on the multi-racial St. James Church of England during an evening worship service, February 25, 1993?] Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none. Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumour shall be upon rumour; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients. The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do unto them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am the Lord” (Ezek. 7:23-27). Disaster looms huge on the horizon of South Africa, as godless communism has its day bringing an anc-dominated government to power with the apparent full endorsement of Western society! Write for a free copy of our booklet, The Ezekiel Watchman, for further study on this subject.

“South Africa could be the first Black African democracy to go seriously wrong—not so much the dawn of freedom as of something uniquely horrible.” Peregrine Worsthorne’s words published in his weekly contribution to the London based Sunday Telegraph newspaper, May 1, 1994, sent a chill up the spine. This respected commentator speaks from a perspective of experience when airing his reaction to the “dawn of freedom” mentality, which swept the liberal politicians, public and press in reaction to the 1994 South African elections. He speaks with bitter words against Western liberals who could not face up to, nor admit, the truth about Russian communism in the 1920s and 30s, and who in the 1960s and 70s could not bear to admit the truth about African democracy.

Reflecting on the Ghana experience in the 1960s, Mr. Worsthorne states, “Ghana was the first newly independent black state to reject democracy. Since then every other black state has followed suit. Yet still Western liberals are obstinately determined to allow hope to triumph over experience.” The marvel of the liberal dream for the African continent is that their hopes for the “dawn of liberty” in South Africa ring so hollow against the backdrop of every “democratized” black state having followed suit in the wake of Ghana, one by one, rejecting democracy outright!

Liberals turn a blind eye to the thousands of blacks who died, mainly in the provinces of Natal and the Transvaal as the communist-inspired and Islamic-Russian funded anc pursued “democracy” in order to be elected to the seat of national power. The anc-sacp’s failure to gain control of the National Party which dominates the Western Cape and the Inkatha Freedom Party-led Kwa Zulu-Natal region will inevitably lead to increased socio-political tensions in South Africa.

Sea Gates Blessing

Millennia ago, God spoke to Abraham, the “father of the faithful,” and blessed him. In Genesis 22:17 it is recorded that God told Abraham, “thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.” When speaking to Rebekah, the future wife of Isaac, Rebekah’s mother and brother obviously knew of God’s promises to Abraham’s offspring. “And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them” (Gen. 24:60).

In his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, Herbert W. Armstrong stated, “Prior to World War ii, the American and British peoples had acquired more than two-thirds of the cultivated resources and wealth of the world. Yet, astonishing wonder though it be, we acquired nearly all of it rather suddenly, since the year 1800. Never in all history did anything like this occur. Never did any people or nation spread out and grow so suddenly and rapidly into such magnitude of national power.”

This was the result of the deliberate and timely fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham’s seed. Britain and America are the offspring of Joseph, Isaac’s grandson. Joseph produced two sons, Ephraim, from whom sprung the British peoples, and Manasseh, from whose descendants the American nation was born. Both these nations between them controlled the choicest parts of the world’s surface from the early 1800s to the mid-1940s, including the world’s major sea gates!

It is most significant that the new government in the republic of South Africa failed to win local control of the four principal harbors—the sea gates to this country! Those who control the sea gates will control the flow of sea trade! Durban and Richards Bay harbors in Natal account for nearly 80 percent of South Africa’s seaborne inflow and outflow of goods. Chief Buthelezi, of the Zulu-Inkatha party, holds control over these sea gates—a most powerful economic weapon.

At Africa’s southwestern tip lies the Cape of Good Hope. Administration of the Western Cape currently remains in the hands of the white-dominated National Party. Thus, control of the major merchant port of Table Bay and naval base, Simonstown (near Cape Town), is still vested in the hands of South Africa’s Israelitish minority. The Russian bosses of the sacp have not succeeded in their long-term aim of gaining control of South Africa’s rich mineral wealth only to have their plans to control the flow of minerals and metals exports frustrated at South African ports! Watch for potential strife that may lead to the seizure of these sea ports by the anc-sacp.

Blessings and Curses

After God’s merciful deliverance from Egypt, Moses reminded ancient Israel of the blessings which God promised to these descendants of Jacob through the obedience of Abraham, the father of the faithful. “And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God” (Deut. 28:1-2). There follows a listing of physical blessings—blessings of physical wealth and abundance as promised by God to Israel’s offspring.

In verse 7, God promises, “The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways.” In verses 9-10 it is made clear that the continuance of the fulfillment of these promises is conditional upon Israel’s obedience to their God! “The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways. And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord; and they shall be afraid of thee” (vv. 9-10).

In verse 13 God declares that Israel would lead other nations, if she obeyed her God: “And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them” (v. 13).

Biblical and secular history prove that ancient Israel did not remain in obedience to God for very long. God provided great motivators to Israel to encourage their obedience—the promise of wonderful, bountiful blessings for obedience to His law. However, curses would come as a result of disobedience! “But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee” (Deut. 28:15).

Daniel is an end-time book (Dan. 12:49). He said these prophecies were for the latter days (Dan. 9:13-14).

Israel waited 2520 years, in accordance with God’s prophetic timing, to receive those great blessings promised to Abraham and passed on to the house of Jacob. The United States and Britain in Prophecy gives a complete explanation of the withholding of the birthright promises to Israel.

Due to the gross disobedience to their God and His perfect law, God prophesied the captivity and scattering of the nations of Israel. In Leviticus 26:18, God promised Israel, “I will punish you seven times more for your sins.” As Mr. Armstrong proved in The United States and Britain in Prophecy, one day is as a year prophetically (Ezek. 4:4-6; Num. 14:34). A prophetic year is 360 days. Seven times 360 years is 2,520 years. In accordance with God’s impeccable timing, Israel went into captivity at the hands of the Assyrians in 721-718 b.c. (2 Kings 17:18, 23). It was not until 2,520 years later that the descendants of Israel sprung suddenly into history. Speaking of this incredible fact of history, Mr. Armstrong stated in the above-mentioned book (pp. 127-129): “But when that 2,520-year withholding of the birthright had expired, God was faithful to His unconditional promise to Abraham! Not because of any British or American goodness, superiority, or worthiness, but because of God’s faithfulness to His promise, beginning in 1800 these two birthright peoples suddenly burst forth as the greatest world powers in all history!…

“The most amazing fact of all history is the sudden skyrocketing from virtual obscurity of two nations to the most fabulous wealth and economic power ever possessed by any people. Britain became Great Britain—a gigantic, stupendously wealthy commonwealth of nations—the United States, the greatest nation of history.

“More amazing still are the unbelievably shocking facts of the present—of how—and why—we are losing it faster than it came!”

Great Britain and her vast commonwealth of nations, together with the United States, have enjoyed stupendous wealth and national blessings over the past two centuries. However, rapidly rising curses due to disobedience now plague these Israelitish nations, descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh, as they sink rapidly into a vortex of godless immorality, greed and corruption born of the same rebellious mind that their forefathers exhibited millennia ago.

Just as ancient Israel was destined to become captive to her enemies for rebelling against her Maker, so her modern-day descendants, the nations of Britain and America in particular, face the same fate in the very near future. Readers of The Philadelphia Trumpet magazine will know that the Philadelphia Church of God is charged with a commission to “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins” (Isa. 58:1).

We will not withdraw from this commission! Editor in chief of the Trumpet, Gerald Flurry, is powerfully declaring, in the pages of that magazine and many free booklets, numerous prophecies of the Bible which predict the soon-coming fall of Britain and America as they and the other nations of Israel stand on the brink of captivity and slavery at the hands of their traditional enemies! “But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee…. 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…. Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee” (Deut. 28:15, 43-44, 47-48).

Loss of Sea Gates

The imminence of this captivity has been accelerated over the past three decades by the progressive loss of the Israelitish nations’ prime sea gates! Speaking of the importance of the blessings bestowed by God on Israel through the gift of these international sea ports, Mr. Armstrong wrote: “…the nations who are Abraham’s racial descendants are to possess the gates of their enemies. A gate is a narrow passage of entrance or exit. When speaking national, a ‘gate’ would be such a pass as the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal, the Strait of Gibraltar. This promise is repeated in Genesis 24:60 to Abraham’s daughter-in-law: ‘Be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.’

“…We must look for a people forming more than one nation—yet all one people, children of Abraham—either now or in history who possess the sea gateways of the world, or we must deny the Word of God. It is a test of the inspiration of the Bible and of God’s power to rule this world!” (ibid, pp. 23‑24).

Due to Israel’s rebellion, God has declared prophetically in Deuteronomy 28:52, “And he [your enemies, see v. 48] shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.” Again, God states, “And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates” (v. 57).

There will come a time shortly, when the enemies of Ephraim and Manasseh (the British and American peoples) shall mount a siege against them and starve them by cutting off the flow of provisions as they close their former sea gates! God prophesies that some at that time will even turn to cannibalizing their own offspring in an effort to physically survive! This is but one outcome of horrible curses brought upon Israel to correct her for rebelling against the benevolent God who literally showered her with the choicest blessings of earth for almost 200 years in modern times!

Port Elizabeth, in the Southern Cape province of South Africa, is the only major sea gate presently under the control of the new anc-sacp government in South Africa. The Natal sea gates of Richards Bay and Durban remain very vulnerable, no longer under the control of Ephraim, but now controlled by the Zulu-Inkatha party of Chief Buthelezi who currently is favorably inclined toward the West (Britain and America). However, principal Russian-controlled strategist behind the anc-sacp success, communist boss, the late Joe Slovo (a former colonel in the Russian kgb), stated that Chief Buthelezi would become “a mere smell in history.” One would have to assume, at least as seen through the eyes of the late Joe Slovo, that it is only a matter of time before any resistance to communist aims in Natal is neutralized.

Government Appointments

Some believe that the initial appointment of Chief Buthelezi to the “Home Affairs” portfolio by the Mandela government reeked of a cynical strategy to place the chief in a no-win position. Chief Buthelezi must succeed in merging nine regional legislatures, speaking eleven different tongues, hailing from tribal backgrounds with a proven history of confirmed enmity. The chief would seem to be standing on very shaky ground in terms of political longevity.

It is also interesting to note the recent appointment in South Africa’s new government of Pik Botha, the former longest serving minister for foreign affairs in South Africa. As head of Foreign Affairs, it was Pik Botha who was the driving force behind the republic’s initiatives towards negotiations with the ANC and a coalition government of “national reconciliation.” The most astute commentators in South Africa have long suspected that Pik Botha was the prime strategist behind the United States-approved capitulation of the former government of F.W. DeKlerk to the communist dominated ANC-SACP coalition.

Don McAlvany, in his incisive analysis of the South African situation, stated in his April 1994 McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, “In all of these negotiations, Foreign Affairs has worked closely with the U.S. State Department—as if in joint venture.” McAlvany goes on to infer that a precedent was set for this “joint venture” when Mr. Botha, together with a representative of the U.S. State Department, “forged the ‘peace accords’ which delivered Namibia to communist domination and betrayed unita.” The primary goal of the communists in the South African takeover has been seizure of the vast mineral wealth of the country. Realising this, it becomes clear that the one selected to serve in the office of minister for mining would have to be a man the anc-sacp can trust. Pik Botha was chosen as the new minister for mining!

Great Betrayal

Once blessed mightily at the hand of God, South Africa has been betrayed by its leaders and by many of the prime beneficiaries of God’s lavish blessings. Today, South Africa is giving away to her traditional enemies that which God gave to them, undeservedly, due to the obedience of the progenitor of the nations from which many of these liberal leaders descended—Abraham! Speaking of this infamous phenomenon, Mr. McAlvany stated, “South Africa did not just fall into the abyss of revolution, upheaval, bloodshed and destruction. The country which was once the most beautiful, peaceful and prosperous in all of Africa (and perhaps in the whole world) was pushed over the edge…. It was pushed by leftists, pro-communists and globalists…globalists in the New World Order who see the communization of South Africa as a major stepping stone to their socialist dream of world government; and it was pushed by the global communist movement still headquartered in Moscow who see the capture of South Africa’s vast mineral wealth as a major stepping stone to their own version of world government under Communism.

“In this writer’s study of history from the ancient world to the present, he has never seen a more wicked, evil, duplicitous betrayal of a people by their leaders than the present sellout of the South African peoples of all races to communist slavery” (ibid, p. 28, emphasis mine).

Believe it or not, there has been a greater betrayal of universal consequence, perpetrated by no other institution than God’s own true Church! The Worldwide Church of God (wcg) once traced its tortuous history back to the original apostles and the founding of God’s own true Church on the day of Pentecost in a.d. 31. That Church once stood as a beacon, warning the nation of South Africa of its impending doom, unless it repented!

One of the WCG’s most astute commentators at that time was Gene Hogberg, who wrote the “Worldwatch” column for the Worldwide News, a bi-monthly newspaper produced by the wcg. On February 4, 1985, Mr. Hogberg wrote, “Nevertheless, in the United States, an emotionally charged ‘moral crusade’ has been launched. Municipal, state and university pension-fund operators, for example, are being pressured by protesters to ‘disinvest’ stocks of those companies doing business in South Africa. The aim is to force the corporations to leave the country.”

Quoting from columnist Patrick Buchanan, Mr. Hogberg went on to write, “the activists have declared economic war. They have chosen the path of confrontation rather than cooperation to effect the political aims they desire. If they are successful in their efforts, the most dire consequences could befall not only South Africa, but the United States even more so, since it is dependent upon South Africa for key minerals such as chromium, manganese, vanadium and others” (emphasis mine).

That was over twelve years ago! The Worldwide Church of God was then loudly warning the world of the consequences of its treatment of South Africa! Where is its voice today? It is a Church which has betrayed its commission. Today, WCG leaders say, “prophesy not.” They are guilty of a great betrayal of their God-given commission to warn this world of the consequences of its rebellion against its Maker and Sustainer, the God of this universe!

In the same article, Mr. Hogberg quoted the following from the British newsletter, Special Office Brief (May 17, 1984): “It should not be forgotten that the Soviet Union has never deviated from its stated objective of world domination. To achieve this it will have to gain control of the mineral-rich Southern Africa, and its strategy in gaining this control is to aggravate tensions and hamper the search for peaceful solutions.”

Mr. Hogberg sifted the world’s media intelligently and biblically while the wcg was under the administration of Mr. Armstrong, who was proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God to the world. Mr. Hogberg’s enlightened commentary discussed inevitable world events in light of Bible prophecy. In the August 5, 1985 Worldwide News, he wrote: “But, once again, why the revolutionary mentality now? The clearest answer came from a man whom I felt was the most eloquent of the parliamentarians I talked to, Salam Abram, a member of the Indian chamber, called the House of Delegates.

“‘There are,’ Mr. Abram said, ‘elements within our borders who do not want to see reform succeed.’ In other words, the pressure on South Africa, both from within and without, has come from the forces who fear that the country’s new governmental structures (gradually admitting Indians, ‘coloreds’ and eventually at least urban blacks into the process) could, as Mr. Abram said, have ‘an even chance of success.’ And success would keep South Africa tied to the Free World system.”

Mr. Hogberg continued along these same lines in the July 28, 1986 Worldwide News (emphasis mine): “…the fabric of South Africa is fragile and complex. It has the capacity to ‘fragment into a bloody chaos of warring factions,’ in the words of the Journal [Wall Street Journal, July 16, 1986].

“In a nutshell, it is one of these factions, the African National Congress (anc) that is pushing the worldwide sanctions drive and presenting itself as the only alternative political force. Unlike Chief Buthelezi, it is committed to exclusive political power. Being too weak to gain power on its own it needs the world’s help to isolate and bring down the South African economy.

“Its leaders concede that many lives may be lost in the process [and they have—over 13,000 alone since the anc was unbanned four years ago!]…

“Thus the Commonwealth, like the British Empire before it, appears doomed, yet another indication of Ephraim’s fading glory (Hosea 7:8-9; 13:3).”

That was written eleven years ago—well in advance of the handover of South Africa by the DeKlerk government to the anc-sacp. Back then (1986), the Worldwide Church of God was still trumpeting a warning to that nation and to the world of what would befall South Africa! Where is the voice of the wcg now? It is thunderous in its silence.

Speaking of this very time in which we are now living, Gerald Flurry, pastor general of the Philadelphia Church of God, wrote in his booklet, The Lion Has Roared (p. 3), “This is a time when God’s Church is growing lukewarm—in the same context of a famine of God’s word in the Great Tribulation. It is the same story as in Revelation 3:14-20.”

Amos 8:11 states, “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.” In this context, Mr. Flurry continued, “The WCG has always applied this directly to God’s Church. The famine follows immediately on the heels of a watering-down process in God’s Church! When you see the watering down, God thunders to us that ‘the end is come upon my people Israel’! (Amos 8:2; see also Ezek. 7:2-3).”

Gene Hogberg has been silenced! The Worldwide Church of God no longer understands prophecy as it relates to current and future world events. It is in a process of spiritual implosion! The Philadelphia Church of God is the sole remnant of that voice which once cried out in the wilderness, warning the nations of the mounting curses they are reaping due to breaking God’s laws, and the impending Great Tribulation coming upon the house of Israel for its rebellion against God (Matt. 24:21).

The nation of South Africa, once greatly blessed by a beneficent God whose promises cannot be broken, is rapidly on its way to experiencing Great Tribulation! They have fallen victim, as have the masses of this world’s society, to a gigantic lie! “The broad mass of a nation…will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one”—so spoke Adolf Hitler, master liar and murderer of millions.

As Mr. Flurry has written in a previous edition of the Trumpet, the Russian mind seems to have a peculiar proclivity to creating, publishing and accepting lies! The great lie that has been foisted off on society in relation to South Africa is the great deceit that the country has been liberated from apartheid, while actually it has fallen into the hands of Russian-influenced liberals who have since achieved their declared aim of destroying the former conservative government of South Africa.

Richard Nixon was more astute than to accept this lie. In his book The Real War, he wrote, “The Soviet leaders have their eyes on the economic underpinnings of modern society. Their aim is to pull the plug on the Western industrial machine. The Western industrial nations’ dependence on foreign sources of vital raw materials is one of our chief vulnerabilities….

“The Soviet Union seldom acts without a purpose, and its purposes are always strategic, never moral. Thus its persistent efforts to stir further the already troubled waters of southern Africa have to be viewed against the backdrop of the resources in that part of the world.

“The Soviets are not in Africa to liberate. They are there to dominate, control and exploit” (emphasis mine).

At the beginning of this chapter, we quoted British commentator, Peregrine Worsthorne. He incisively cuts through the liberal, socialist lie, to the core of the matter, fearing the possibility of “something uniquely horrible” emerging from the change of government in South Africa.

Notice the proximity of prose between Worsthorne’s summation and that of a once enlightened Gene Hogberg when he wrote in the June 30, 1986 Worldwide News: “One wonders if the ominous prediction issued by South Africa’s former Prime Minister John Vorster will come true. The alternative, he said in 1974, to peace and cooperation in the subcontinent of Africa is ‘too ghastly to contemplate.’”

You cannot afford to be blinded from the truth as so many have become today. You need to understand where world events such as those happening in South Africa are leading. These events will soon impact on your very life, if they do not already! Study God’s prophetic word! Remember, over one-third of your Bible is devoted to prophecy and most of that is happening now, in our time, or soon will be! You need to understand world events in the light of Bible prophecy. These are the times, as Jesus Christ admonished, to watch and pray! (Matt. 24:42-44; Luke 21:36). The events in South Africa are a dreadful warning to the American and British peoples and, indeed, to all of the descendants of Israel. Unless we repent, our future is “too ghastly to contemplate”!

In the previous two chapters we looked at God’s prophecies for the Israelitish nations (modern-day British Commonwealth and United States), with specific focus on South Africa. God gave South Africa to the descendants of Abraham as a great blessing! And now those descendants have given away their birthright. (See Gen. 22:15-18; 27:26-29; also refer to our free booklet, The United States and Britain in Prophecy, by Herbert W. Armstrong.) South African leaders have bowed to world opinion and the strategic maneuvers of Russian-based communism and have handed over this great nation to a communist-dominated, majority-black government. After almost 200 years of abundant blessings, poured out as prophesied upon the descendants of Joseph in the land of South Africa, this nation is now about to reap the whirlwind!

God prophesied that, following the outpouring of national blessings upon the descendants of Abraham, unless they ceased rebelling against Him and breaking His laws, they would be the recipients of great curses. These curses would culminate in their enemies mounting a siege against them and overrunning them—ending in their national enslavement! In Leviticus 26, God lists the national blessings given to Israel, the perpetuation of which was conditional—“IF ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them” (v. 3). Then follow the promised blessings listed in verses 4 to 13. However, God then issued a powerful warning to the Josephite nations: “But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments…I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass” (Lev. 26:14, 19). The all-wise, all-knowing God continues, “And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins…. Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins” (Lev. 26:21, 24). And remember, Daniel stated that these prophecies would be fulfilled in this end time (Dan. 9:13-14; 12:4, 9).

National Curses

The Creator of all nations gets very specific in His description of the curses to befall the Israelitish nations because of their refusal to obey God. These very specific curses are beginning to impact South Africa as a forerunner in the rapid slide of the nations of Israel, globally, toward a socio-economic collapse the extent of which this world has never seen in its entire history!

“For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matt. 24:21). So spoke Jesus Christ, the true Head of the true Church, when His disciples privately inquired of Him as to the conditions which would prevail at the end of this age (v. 3). In Matthew 24:37, Christ likened the latter days of this age to the time of Noah. “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” In Genesis 6, the conditions at the time of Noah are explained. Three specific conditions are mentioned: 1) Marrying according to their own choice, rather than subscribing to God’s laws in the choice of a mate; 2) Extreme corruption; and 3)Extreme violence.

Racial Intermarriage

Luke lends a little more to this account: “And as it was in the days of [Noah], so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that [Noah] entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:26-30).

An honoured guest of many of this world’s leaders, including South Africa’s, throughout his lifetime, God’s end-time Elijah, Herbert W. Armstrong, was used by Christ to restore God’s truth to His Church (Matt. 17:11). Mr. Armstrong wrote very strongly about these verses. He said, “The Bible speaks of three worlds: the ‘world that then was, overflowed by the Flood’; ‘this present evil world’; and ‘the world to come.’ At the close of that world, they were eating and drinking, and ‘marrying and giving in marriage’ (Matt. 24:38). Result? Destruction—the punishment for sin!” (Plain Truth, Oct. 1963, p. 26). Mr. Armstrong then asked, “What was the sin?” He continues in the same article: “Now go back to Genesis 6. Notice, these men looked lustfully at women, ‘and they took them wives of all which they chose’ (v. 2)—and as a result, the very next words: ‘And the Eternal said, My spirit shall not always strive with man….’ He was going to destroy them in punishment! Yes, in punishment for taking wrong wives—wives which they chose, contrary to God’s decrees and laws!

“God had decreed that the races should not intermarry, and pollute the blood stream! But Negro men were choosing white wives and white men choosing yellow wives—just as many are doing today! They did not marry wives as God chose and directed—but ‘of all which they chose.’

“The antediluvians were trying to integrate! They, like we today, had a racial problem. They tried to solve it by integration. They were going to do away with God’s varieties—His different, distinct races.”

In The Sunday Telegraph, June 12, 1994 edition, Fred Bridgeland comments (emphasis mine): “Sleeping with what used to be the enemy is one of the surest signs that apartheid has crumbled and that racial reconciliation has gone further in South Africa than mere polite cocktail party exchanges…. The barriers are being broken on the stage as well. The sexually explicit [for Johannesburg] musical Hair is wowing audiences at the Civic Theatre with a mixed cast…. With so many top government people marrying interracially, or having sex across the divide, it would hardly be surprising if more ordinary people were doing it.”

Bridgeland then quotes Dr. Dorianne Weil, a clinical psychologist in Johannesburg’s white northern suburbs: “Sex across the colour line will become more prevalent, partly for experimental reasons, but also because there will be more possibilities and people will develop as people…. I don’t think everyone [in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs] is saying they must experiment with a black lover—but as a result of the whole reform process, it will become more natural, more comfortable, not to have to focus on racial differences but on similarities, who you are, who you find interesting.”

Dr. Weil needs to say no more to identify herself as a rank liberal! Such anti-God themes are a precursor to confusion, division and strife! South Africa will reap the curses of correction imposed by an all-wise, all-loving Father who created mankind and set the racial bounds over which He commanded Israel not to cross! God commanded Israel when they entered the land which they were to take over from the Gentiles: “Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son” (Deut. 7:3).

Nehemiah was used by God to clean up the priesthood and to direct erring Israel back on track. He forcefully implemented God’s teachings on the wayward priests, stating, “In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin. Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?” (Neh. 13:23-27).

God lavished national blessings upon South Africa because a particular race was living within her borders. As pointed out previously in this series, the Caucasian nations which settled in, and were responsible for the development of South Africa were largely of Dutch, French and British heritage, with some German influence. The Dutch, French and British peoples can be traced to Israelitish origins (refer to The United States and Britain in Prophecy).

Israel was the name given by God to Jacob, who was the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham (Gen. 32:27-28). God made specific promises to Abraham which were to be bestowed upon his descendants (Gen. 17:1-8). Jacob (Israel) had twelve sons. Each became progenitor of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Joseph had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. In his book, The United States and Britain in Prophecy, Mr. Armstrong proved that Ephraim was the father of the English peoples and Manasseh that of the American people. Biblical research proves that the Dutch are of Zebulun and the French of the tribe of Reuben. God’s promises to these tribes are summarised in Genesis 49. We read of Zebulun (the Dutch): “Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for a haven of ships” (v. 13). It should not surprise any biblical scholar to find the Dutch, descendants of Zebulun, possessors of the greatest sea port in the world—Rotterdam. It is also not surprising to find that descendants of the Dutch settled in South Africa in 1652 and became the developers and guardians of South Africa’s major sea port at Cape Town.

In 1909, the union of South Africa, established by the South Africa Act of 1910, brought the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal under the executive power of a governor general representing the English crown. The British (Ephraimites) have since had considerable influence in the affairs of this country. Most recently this includes former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s staunch resistance to the international sanctions imposed on South Africa by the worldwide political forces of communist-inspired liberals.

Under British rule, South Africa reaped the blessings God passed on from Abraham to Ephraim, promises inherited because of their race. Now she increasingly reaps the curses in common with her fellow Israelitish nations as a consequence of rank rebellion against God! (Lev. 26:14-29). South Africa, as a nation, has forsaken her God!

It was the Eternal God, Creator of mankind, who separated the nations before the Flood (Deut. 32:8; Acts 17:26) and after the Flood (Gen. 11:5-8). It was the Eternal God who made the mind of man, who commanded Israel not to intermingle with and marry people of other nations. The Israelitish nations in South Africa are about to be profoundly corrected for crossing the racial boundaries set by their all-wise, all-loving, all-knowing Creator God!

Corruption

In noting Christ’s words that, in the latter days of this age, conditions would be “as in the days of Noah,” we see that “God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth” (Gen. 6:12). The Hebrew word for “corrupt” in this verse is shâchath. It means to decay, cause ruin, destroy, mar, perish, utterly waste.

A great plague is sweeping the African nations to the north of South Africa and is even now creeping with insidious relentlessness across its borders. This plague could prove devastatingly ruinous to South Africa! “Pornography, abortion, violence and gross immorality have all eased gradually and almost imperceptibly onto the scene in America over the past 20 years or so. Not so in South Africa. They have come in like a flood” (McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, April 1994).

Notice what The Economist magazine wrote in an article entitled, “AIDS in Zimbabwe—NO MYTH” (March 19, 1994): “If anybody doubts that Africa has a chronic aids problem, he should visit Zimbabwe. Suggest to the man in the street that aids in Africa is a myth, and he will look at you as if you are crazy….

“Zimbabwe is thought to have one of Africa’s highest rates of HIV infection…. Last year another 30,000 new cases of aids were reported. That is twice the entire total for 1987-92; even so, government officials estimate that the actual total for 1993 was 90,000. Extrapolating from periodic blood tests of selected groups, officials estimate that nearly 600,000 Zimbabweans are HIV-positive, out of a population of 10.5m….

“Aids is now the single main cause of death for children under five, as babies are born to HIV-positive mothers. Hospitals find it difficult to cope with the number of aids patients. Many treat them for their symptoms—of pneumonia, say—and then release them….

“Mortality statistics prove something strange is happening. Before 1985, employed men aged 40-44 died at a stable yearly rate of about 3.6 per thousand, according to figures compiled by a leading life-insurance company. By 1990, the figure was 4.3 per thousand; in 1992 it reached 7.5 per thousand.”

Zimbabwe shares a common border with South Africa! God declares to a rebellious house of Israel, “I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it” (Lev. 26:16). The Hebrew word for “consumption” is schachepheth, which means emaciation. Have you seen a person suffering from aids? They simply waste away. As the body’s total immune system is impacted—they become totally emaciated. aids is the product not of a healthy nation but of a decadent, immoral, corrupted, sin-sick society!

Joseph de Courcy states in the June 10, 1994 edition of Intelligence Digest, in an article captioned, “The AIDS Threat to South Africa”: “The last thing the new South Africa wants is a public-health crisis, but recent figures on the spread of the aids-causing HIV virus suggest that is exactly what it is going to get.

“The figures come from tests carried out on some 13,000 pregnant women in ante-natal clinics throughout South Africa. Extrapolating from those tests it is thought that at least 500,000 South Africans are already HIV positive. Current medical knowledge suggests that the number of HIV carriers doubles every 13 months.

“If these figures are correct, and medical experts consulted by Intelligence Digest in South Africa say that they might even be on the conservative side, then the country has brewing a public-health crisis of unimaginable proportions. It could kill millions within a relatively short time. It is estimated, for instance, that at the current rate of infection approximately 16m South Africans between the ages of 14 and 50 could be HIV positive within five years. To put this in perspective, the number of South Africans voting at the recent general election was approximately 20m.

“It is quite possible that the death-toll from aids-related illnesses could reach 5,000 a week within three years.”

South Africa currently treads a precarious path. Following Nelson Mandela’s electoral statement, which was full of promise to his multi-ethnic electorate, The Economist noted in their April 23, 1994 edition: “If Mr. Mandela is to deliver his plan, he needs economic growth.” Imagine the great tragedy if the hope for a future of peace and prosperity is undermined by South Africa being ravaged by a “social disease” of national proportions! The Intelligence Digest incisively reports in the above-mentioned issue: “South Africa represents the last hope for sub-Saharan Africa to rise from economic and social ruin, but a huge increase in aids would ruin the South African economy.

“Experts are of the opinion that once 20 percent of the sexually-active population is HIV positive then the social structure collapses, as has happened in Zambia, Uganda, and Zaire.

“Also to be taken into account is the potential effect of the epidemic on the new political leaders of South Africa. Many spent their most sexually-active years in exile or being trained for guerrilla warfare in Angola, Zambia, Uganda, and Tanzania, all states known for the high prevalence of aids.

“The mining industry will be particularly hard hit as the disease is especially high amongst mineworkers.

“Experts consulted by ID fear that even a major programme of health education would not be effective in stopping the spread of the disease because of the difficulties in overcoming traditional behaviour patterns. The evidence of similar programmes elsewhere in Africa is not encouraging.”

Violence

The third condition prevalent in society in the days of Noah was extreme violence! Remember, Jesus Christ stated that conditions at the end of this age would be “as in the days of Noah.” The nation of South Africa is no stranger to violence!

When God gave ancient Israel the law, the statutes and principles of living, obedience was mandatory in order to perpetuate His blessings on that nation. God also told them how to deal with those among them who were not of their nation—those of a different ethnic background! “One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you” (Exod. 12:49). Again, in the very midst of His law of love, defined by the Ten Commandments (I John 5:3), God stated to Moses, “But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates” (Exod. 20:10). God thus made it clear to ancient Israel that His law of love was binding on them and those strangers from other lands who lived among them. It is this law of love upon which God’s Kingdom, His government, will be founded at the soon-coming return of His Son to this earth!

God gave very precise, simple, straightforward instructions to the Israelites in the statutes and ordinances which flow from the Ten Commandments. Among these instructions He declares, “Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exod. 22:21). Israel knew what it was to be put to servitude, slavery and bondage under the heel of the Egyptians. She was admonished by God to remember that and treat the “stranger” well.

Again, God reinforces this vital principle in Exodus 23:9: “Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” God showered His blessings on the nations of Israel by allowing the British, Dutch and French to conquer South Africa. It cannot be denied that the British, Dutch and French descendants of Israel did not obey God in their dealings with the descendants of Ham, who comprise the majority population in South Africa. Maltreatment and cruelty toward the blacks by some whites has been deeply ingrained in South Africa’s history. The breaking of God’s law always exacts a penalty. Some of the black backlash in South Africa is due to their being on the receiving end of such harsh treatment.

However, let us put this situation into perspective. Gene Hogberg was, in his day, an astute commentator for the Worldwide Church of God on the South African situation. In the June 30, 1986 edition of the Worldwide News, he quoted Conor Cruise O’Brien, leading political columnist for The Observer, from an article published in the March 1986 Atlantic: “Afrikaners are neither the uniquely virtuous volk [people] of their own rhetoric…nor yet the moral monsters depicted by outside rhetoric. They are ordinary human beings, with the normal human quotas of greed, arrogance, and so forth, operating within a unique predicament, which they have inherited…. I suspect that some of the righteous who denounce them from afar might behave quite like them if they were caught in a similar predicament.

“The Afrikaners are indeed not uniquely evil. They have sinned, but no more so than other people (Rom. 3:23). Perhaps they would be justified in asking their detractors to cast the first stone (John 8:7).”

In a more recent, enlightened commentary on the lot of the black masses under the apartheid system, respected columnist Peregrine Worsthorne stated this year in the May 1 edition of the London-based Sunday Telegraph: “At least during the years of apartheid black victims of the system could take their case to ‘the bar of world opinion,’ as Peter Simple named it. At least during the years of apartheid some victims lived to tell the tale, as the Nelson Mandela story so triumphantly demonstrates. Of course these were small mercies. But even these small mercies are denied to the leaders of the opposition in most African democracies who usually disappear without trace. I cannot recall any such leader coming out of prison and going on to replace his persecuting predecessor in free and fair elections. Only by coups d’état do African democratic leaders get unseated.”

The liberal press and media, through selective reporting and prejudicial editing of video tape, have seen to it that the images portrayed of South Africa, during the years of apartheid, featured a disproportionate amount of violence resulting from white police interaction with blacks. The plain, historic, documented, undeniable, yet seldom publicised facts on South African violence indicate that violence, bloodshed and political murder within that country has largely been perpetrated by black against black! As we have previously pointed out, in the less than four years since the un-banning of the ANC, over 13,000 politically-motivated murders were perpetrated in South Africa largely by black against black. This is only part of a total slaughter of 60,000 people, primarily black moderates opposed to the republic of South Africa revolution, eliminated by the communists in that country since 1990, as Don McAlvany reported in the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor of April 1994.

There have been at least two assassination attempts against Zulu Inkatha leader, Chief Buthelezi.

“Both King Goodwill and Chief Buthelezi understand that if the Xosa-dominated ANC and their Communist cadres come to power over the Zulus, that they plan to perpetrate a mass genocide on the Zulus—indeed it has already begun…just over five million IBOs were exterminated in Nigeria over 20 years ago (and no one in the West even cared)…so the Communists, once in full power in South Africa, will move to exterminate their mortal enemies—the Zulu nation” (McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, April 1994).

Law and Order

What of future law and order in South Africa? The newly appointed defence minister, Joe Modise, is a former commander in the ANC’s guerrilla army. As Bruce W. Nelan reported in Time magazine’s May 9 feature on the RSA election, “The armed service became the South African National Defence Force, and will begin to absorb former enemies from guerrilla armies like the ANC’s Spear of the Nation [Umkhonto we Sizwe].”

The ANC also now commands the police portfolio. As the highly respected international news magazine The Economist mentioned in its May 14 edition, “The ANC has a left-wing pedigree. However well-intentioned, goes the fear, the new government will be run by activists more used to planning how to bring down power cables than hold down inflation.” Time magazine further commented in its May 9, 1994 edition: “This sort of situation highlights a critical weakness in the ANC leadership: accountability. The party’s by-laws bar convicted criminals from holding office. Nevertheless, before her demise, Winnie Mandela was allowed to take a prominent role. Oddly, Nelson Mandela defended the inconsistency by arguing that it was somehow only democratic to let her pursue her political career in spite of the rules. He and his colleagues have also gone easy on several ANC officials implicated in killing and torturing prisoners in the organisation’s detention camps in other African countries.”

“South Africa leads world for murder,” declared the headline in the World Bulletin column of the London based Daily Telegraph newspaper on October 19, 1996.

The article continued: “An average of 52 people were murdered each day in South Africa last year, giving it a murder rate more than 80 times that in Britain, and making South Africa the most violent country outside a war zone…. Someone is raped every 30 minutes, a car is stolen every 10 seconds and an armed robbery occurs every 11 minutes.”

Reporting from Johannesburg, Mary Braid, writing for the British newspaper, The Independent, declared, “Post-apartheid Johannesburg: If you haven’t been mugged or burgled or carjacked, you’re bound to know someone who has been” (The Independent, August 29, 1996).

Since the ANC/SACP combine took office, organised crime has escalated dramatically. “The opening of post-apartheid South Africa has turned the country into a trans-shipment point for drugs from Latin America and Asia, heading for the European market. Johannesburg’s sophisticated banks have become a target for money-launderers. Much of the car-hijacking in Johannesburg is linked to syndicates that run luxury cars north to nearby countries such as Zambia” (The Economist, October 12, 1996).

Police morale is at an all-time low. Corruption within the law enforcement agencies is taking its toll on police efficiency. “The National Police Commissioner, George Fivaz, has admitted that corruption is widespread. This week a policeman was shot while allegedly robbing a shopping centre and the head of a car-theft unit was held in connection with stolen vehicles. They are the latest in a long list of cases in which those charged with upholding the law have been caught breaking it. It is widely acknowledged that some officers are in the pay of crime syndicates operating throughout the country” (The Independent, August 31, 1996).

Contrasting with the government’s seeming inability to address South Africa’s currently escalating crime wave, much attention and publicity has been directed towards the “Truth Commission,” established by Mr. Mandela’s government. This commission was established to investigate the “sins of the past” in respect of human rights abuses occurring under the old apartheid system and was convened under the leadership of Bishop Desmond Tutu. Emotive images of the tearful bishop engaged in consoling commission witnesses have, at times, been beamed around the world via international news telecasts. By comparison, the greatest, most pressing current problem of rampant, uncontrollable crime in South Africa, is largely kept from international television audiences. Joseph de Courcy sounds a warning note concerning the one-sidedness of the commission’s brief: “There will be no parallel process to judge the past deeds of ANC-SACP operatives during the years of terror and anti-State activity” (Intelligence Digest, July 1, 1994).

The more pressing criminal rampage of the present tends weekly to compound itself, “…poorly paid policemen who accept bribes to drop charges; excessive bureaucracy; public mistrust; ineffective prosecutors; loose conditions for bail; and overcrowded prisons…. President Mandela has admitted that crime is ‘out of control,’ sending 500 soldiers to help the police in Johannesburg” (The Economist, October 12, 1996). With the ANC-SACP having significantly infiltrated the lower ranks of the South African Defence Force with personnel from the Pan African Congress and Umkhoto we Sizwe, what hope does such a force offer in assisting to combat crime?

Speaking of these latter days, just prior to God’s intervention in this world’s affairs, God prophesied through the prophet Isaiah, “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider” (Isa. 1:3). The prophecy for this end time continues, “For, behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water, the mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient, The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counseller, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator” (Isa. 3:1-5). “Tembisa township, outside Johannesburg, recently demonstrated against escalating crime, demanding not just the restoration of the death penalty but public necklacing…. If the rule of law and order goes, the public version of justice could prove horrific” (The Independent, August 29, 1996). Looking down through the ages, prophesying of these latter days, God declares, “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 even appoint over you terror…. And I will set my face against you…” (Lev. 26:14-17).

The Economy

Columnist Fred Bridgeland posed this question in his May 1, 1994 column in the Daily Telegraph: “What chance has a 75-year old [president] who has argued for mass nationalisation, advocates close co-operation with communists, wants voting rights for 14-year-olds and protects assassins within his movement from the police of turning his country into the Japan of Africa?”

In a pre-election report on business in South Africa, The Economist declared: “…until recently, even some white business leaders who considered themselves liberals dismissed the ANC as communist terrorists.

“The ANC returned the favour by treating white business as a demon to be exorcised from South Africa, when the time came, through nationalisation and redistribution.”

By contrast, in its April 23, 1994 edition, The Economist noted that “Mr. Slovo now preaches markets, not revolution.” Former SACP leader, Joe Slovo, danced to the tune of his Russian masters! It is conveniently fashionable for a failed ex-Soviet economy to preach markets with its hand out for Western aid. How many South Africans recall the 1955 “Freedom Charter,” the platform for ANC policy? This charter declares that ownership of “the mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industry” would be transferred to the people along with control of “all other industries and trade.” Whites comprise 14 percent of the total South African population—they own almost 90 percent of that nation’s land and about 90 percent of formal business.

Approximately half of South Africa’s gross domestic product ($114 billion in 1993) is produced by publicly listed companies—just six business groups control almost 90 percent of these companies. Any attempt at decentralising or nationalising this control will obviously be painful to the white business chiefs controlling these huge interests.

In today’s society, when the chips are down, the fundamental driving forces behind big business are fear and greed. It is these two prime traits of carnal human nature which drive the world’s stock markets. Fear of the future under a majority black government and greed underpinning a lust to control the major profit producers in South African business have led to a remarkable unity between big business and the new South African government. The Economist noted, “White businessmen wonder which Mr. Mandela they will face across the table when the honeymoon is over and troublesome issues including competition policy and affirmative action have to be addressed.” Will it be the revolutionary who was incarcerated as a threat to the State or will it be the populist politician of recent television imagery?” (ibid.).

In a recent political and social study of Zimbabwe, commentator Ruth Weiss noted the post-1980 phenomenon in that country of the White business elite combining with a Black political elite into a bi-racial elite, seeking the same common selfish ends—higher incomes, lower taxes, cheaper servants and exclusive watering holes. The results are a common folk who feel cheated, leading to social unrest and political instability.

Trevor Manual, the ANC’s economics spokesman, has stated, “In many ways, now that the Constitution is signed, our relationship with white business is more important than with white politicians.”

Yet, regardless of any cosy relationship between South African business and the government, neither can survive for long if investor confidence is undermined.

When the rand plummeted over 20 percent during April 1996, The Times of London headlined “ANC pays price for radical gestures as the rand slides…. The collapse of the South African rand is turning into a sort of economic morality fable as the African National Congress-led Government is taught some fairly tough lessons by the money markets” (The Times, April 26, 1996).

What happened to the rand in 1996 seemed an apt fulfillment of a prediction made two years earlier by Nedbank’s Quarterly Guide to Economy. Edward Osborn, chief economist for Nedbank, contended that ANC targets set to tackle the national debt are unrealistic, inferring that in addition to “heaping further charges on public debt, it is likely to entrench the country in a public debt trap of utmost seriousness….”

Speaking of the nation of Israel (modern-day British Commonwealth and United States), God states, “Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation” (Mal. 3:7-9).

South Africa has forgotten the mighty God who bestowed upon the descendants of Israel the great outpouring of blessings which they have reaped for two centuries. As a nation they will have to learn, in common with their sister Israelitish nations, that they have robbed their God by failing to give to Him of their increase. They are literally under a curse! They are about to see their wealth frittered away by a godless government (Hag. 1:5-6).

Horrific scenes are described in the end-time prophecies which God declares upon a rebellious house of Israel: “Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof: thine ass shall be violently taken away from before thy face, and shall not be restored to thee: thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies, and thou shalt have none to rescue them. Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day long: and there shall be no might in thine hand. The fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway” (Deut. 28:31-33).

The immediate future for South Africa is prophesied in Deuteronomy 28:16-17: “Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store.” The “basket” and “store” refer to the raw materials and natural resources of the land.

The result of this prophesied seizure of the wealth of a nation by a godless people is great national astonishment, depression and even madness (Deut. 28:28, 34). “…it is easy to believe the findings of a report by the Psychological Society of South Africa that the country is one of the most stressed in the world. Palesa Makhale-Mahlangu, a clinical psychologist, says most people—black and white—are living in a state of ‘hyper vigilance.’ The country’s suicide rate is up; one in five South Africans suffers from a mental disorder severe enough to affect his daily life and it is estimated that one in five students has considered suicide in the last year” (The Independent, August 29, 1996). So great will be the fall of South Africa and her sister Israelitish nations that God says they will become a scene of great astonishment, internationally (Deut. 28:37).

Land Grab

Among the promises of the new South African government is a pledge to redistribute 30 percent of the country’s arable land within five years. Yet, strangely, Mr. Mandela did not mention land in his first “State of the Nation” speech on May 24, 1994. Behind the scenes, former political prisoner, now land’s minister, Derek Hanekom has been busy drawing up plans for restitution of land to blacks from whom it was taken under previous government policy. Land has a special meaning for blacks. This is reflected in political slogans used by the ANC, such as Mayibuye i Africa! (come back Africa!) and the Pan African Congress’ Izwe Lethu! (the land is ours!).

Not prepared to wait for official approval, already many blacks have taken to squatting on land which they consider unused. Recently, near Johannesburg, a group of blacks moved onto a white farm.

Will South Africa follow the pattern of its near northern neighbor, Zimbabwe, where the principal beneficiaries of government promises to redistribute land are members and friends of the incumbent government? Zimbabwian President Mogabe is busy disenfranchising white farmers, who produce nearly half of Zimbabwe’s exports, from the land which God gave them in fulfillment of promises to their forefather, Abraham. Several of the most productive farms have been recently “designated” in Zimbabwe for confiscation by the government under the Land Acquisition Act of 1992. Watch for similar legislation to be enacted in South Africa. There will, of course, be those who have no need for legislation. These are such as described by The Economist as “Godless Reds, dressed up in ANC colours, of right-wingers worst nightmares” (The Economist, April 23, 1994). Minds conditioned to decades of insurrection, terror and political murder need no legislation in order to confiscate land.

Underlying the mantle of euphoria spread over the Mandela government’s election in South Africa is a fear that similar events will inevitably follow the destructive pattern established in every “democratized” African nation in this continent of pain. All South Africans should take note that of the 50 top ministers of parliament initially elected to the new parliament, 27 are current or former members of the South African Communist Party—“Godless Reds.”

Curses for Disobedience

God prophesied to the nations of Israel that if they rebelled against Him, He would bring great curses upon them to correct them—to turn them to Him!

The condition in which the descendants of Israel in South Africa suddenly find themselves (though many, at present, are loathe to admit it) is one of a fearful foreboding for their future! This is so prophetic! God declared over 3,000 years ago that the offspring of Abraham would be bountifully blessed solely because of Abraham’s obedience to his Creator. He declared at the same time that if the nations of Israel [Abraham’s descendants] rebelled against Him, He would withdraw those great national blessings and replace them with massive curses! “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” (Deut. 28:43-44).

God prophesied a latter-day role reversal in relation to Israel’s history of leading other nations: “Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee” (Deut. 28:47-48).

Prophesied Fall of Israel

What Don McAlvany describes as the “rape of South Africa” through “revolution, betrayal and resistance” is in reality a great curse that has brought about the fall of a once greatly blessed nation of the house of Israel. Ephraim once comprised a commonwealth and empire of nations upon which the sun never set. Britain, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand were the areas of prime settlement and governance of Ephraim. The United States became the inheritance of Manasseh.

All this was given in fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham, extended through his grandson Jacob (Israel), to Jacob’s grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh and their descendants: “…he [Manasseh] also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother [Ephraim] shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations” (Gen. 48:19). Beginning in the early 1800s, Manasseh quickly rose to become the greatest single nation on the face of the earth, and Ephraim the greatest empire (company of nations) this world has ever seen.

In their modern-day decline, due to rebellion against God and their refusal to acknowledge Him as the source of all blessings, Ephraim and Manasseh are witnessing the fall of South Africa as a prelude to the accelerating descent of the United States and of the once great British company of nations. South Africa is the first major domino to fall in what will become a free-fall into slavery of those once mightiest nations on earth!

Why would a loving God, who so lavished the greatest of physical blessings upon these nations, prophesy and bring about their rapid decline and descent into broken, wrecked economies, dominated by their traditional enemies? Mr. Armstrong, whom God used to found the Philadelphia era of His true Church, had the key to understand these prophecies (Rev. 3:7). In his book, The United States and Britain in Prophecy, Mr. Armstrong stated, “The prophecies do not stop with revealing the unprecedented multiplied intensity of punishment already beginning to descend upon America and Britain. The prophecies record also the result of that intensified punishment. The result will be a corrected people. The result will be an eye-opening realization of what we have done to ourselves. The supreme punishment will teach us, at last, our lesson! The punishment will break our spirit of rebellion! It will lift us up from the cesspool of rottenness and evil into which we have sunk. It will teach us the way to glorious peace, prosperity, abundant well-being!”

He continued, “punishment implies correction. Correction means a change of course. It means repentance—and repentance means turning around and going the other way!” (p. 165).

Good News

Beyond the present and immediate future application of God’s curses for disobedience, there is good news ahead for South Africa. There is good news ahead for all of Israel, and through them, all of the nations of this world. As Mr. Armstrong declared, “understand this: Although the nations as a whole are to be put through this unprecedented punishment, yet those individuals who yield to accept God’s correction without the punishment shall be protected from it! No one need suffer this intense tribulation!” (ibid., p. 165).

God prophesies through the prophet Isaiah, “Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah…. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God” (Isa. 1:9; 10:20-21).

There will be a remnant of physical Israel saved from the great conflagration which shall shortly engulf this whole world, because of its rebellion against its Maker. The physical remnant will be led by another tiny remnant—a remnant of spiritual Israel—God’s Church. “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace” (Rom. 11:5). This remnant has an unshakable, supreme confidence in their future because they know their God! They recognise that the fulfillment of the Matthew 17:10-11 prophecy of Jesus Christ has been fulfilled. A modern-day Elijah has come and restored all things to the Church. Elijah means “my God is god.” That leader of God’s Church, Herbert Armstrong, died on January 16, 1986, after serving God loyally for fifty-seven years. His replacement rebelled against God! These Philadelphians have been put to the test by serving God and remaining loyal to Him even though their former leadership surrendered to Satan, the very author of confusion. They have proven that they fear God the Father, more than mere man (Mal. 3:16). These are the Philadelphians of Revelation 3:7-13.

Because the Philadelphians have resisted error, held fast “the profession of [their] faith without wavering” (Heb. 10:23), they will be pillars, leaders of government in God’s Kingdom to come on earth. God’s government is destined to replace man’s corrupt form of government (Rev. 3:11-12). It will be the present day remnant of God’s spiritual nation Israel, together with the “dead in Christ,” who will lead and lovingly rule the physical remnant of the house of Israel. They will lead them back to the land of their beginnings, Palestine, from where they will be taught God’s way of governing. They will later return and rebuild the waste places in their former lands, as a testimony to the world that God’s way is a vastly better way of life than the way of man which brings death, destruction and misery as its end result (Ezek. 36:33-36). This is the future millennial rule of Jesus Christ on earth, depicted in graphic scriptural detail in Mr. Armstrong’s book, The Wonderful World Tomorrow. You can be part of that government—if you will just look, heed, remember and repent!

If you have been guilty of Laodicean blindness and can yet still see the truth of God in the pages of this booklet—then you know you have been warned. You urgently need to repent! If you are one who was taught through the publications and preaching of Herbert Armstrong, you need to remember! Remember the words of God’s Elijah. Remember the foundation of unchangeable doctrine upon which your faith once was founded. Remember and repent! Go to God on your knees and ask Him to show you where Christ is working and flee the spiritual fornication of the synagogue of Satan (Rev. 3:9). Remember God’s declaration in Malachi 3:6, “For I am the Lord, I change not.” If you are one who has been confused by those who try to distort and twist God’s truths, look for a Church that produces the works of Christ (John 14:10-12). That Church will be God’s true Church, busy doing His Work! You can have a part in that Work here and now—and in the future for all eternity—IF you will only repent of rebellion against your God and “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3).

World events, exemplified in the prophesied fall of South Africa, are rapidly closing in towards the climax at the close of this age (Matt. 24:13-14)—why delay? Christ prophesied that “the night comes, when no man can work.” Do not sleep until it is too late (Matt. 25:1-13) and find yourself waking up in the Tribulation! Write to the nearest regional office of the Philadelphia Church of God (see addresses on the last page of this booklet) and ask for Malachi’s Message to God’s Church Today. This powerful little book has awakened many to their present spiritual state. Come and share with God’s Philadelphia remnant the opportunity of eternal life—the opportunity to finish His Work of a final warning to a wayward Laodicean Church, to a rebellious house of Israel and to all nations on this earth.

The Philadelphia remnant of God’s Church has leadership loyal to the Eternal God our Father and Jesus Christ, our Head. Heed the words of Pastor General Gerald Flurry, in his booklet entitled, “The Little Book” (request your free copy): “It is God’s own Work we are honored to do. But we need to prove that Malachi’s Message is the centerpiece of God’s Work. We must ‘eat it up’ and believe what God says. Then we will be motivated to act! Just knowing these truths is not enough. We must act on God’s word in faith.”

“So you’re visiting South Africa! Been there before?” The desk clerk at the South African Airways check-in at London’s Heathrow airport was having a quiet time and was on for a chat. I explained that this was my fourth visit over the past fourteen months. She then proceeded to tell me of a distraught British couple to whom she had attended recently. They were flying to Johannesburg to be present at the funeral of a family member. He had driven home from work, got out of his automobile and was cut down by AK47 bullets ripping through his body, as a gang of black youths blandly took possession of his car in broad daylight. The clerk then continued to tell me that within two weeks of this incident, she found herself processing the flight tickets of another British couple, a husband, together with his wife in an emotional, partial state of collapse, who were traveling to Johannesburg to attend the funeral of the wife’s sister. She had been gunned down in a Johannesburg suburban backyard as she hung out her washing, again in broad daylight. The motive of yet another gang of black South African youths? Robbery of whatever they could lay their hands on!

With almost half a million people entering the job market in South Africa annually, unemployed black youths are on the rampage in the rainbow nation, murdering, pillaging and taking what they wish from whom they choose. Waiting at a set of traffic lights on a pleasant April morning at a street corner in Port Elizabeth, a knife attack by one black youth upon another took place before my very eyes. Later that year, two of our staff and our accountant witnessed the murderous result of a payroll robbery whilst waiting for service at a Johannesburg suburban bank. The new South Africa is a dangerous place! As Joseph de Courcy stated recently in a lead article entitled “South Africa’s employment time bomb,” “the already appalling level of serious crime is set to soar further still, leading to a general breakdown in law and order. This in turn could provoke a serious white backlash against the new political order, thus increasing what could become an uncontrollable spiral of violence” (Intelligence Digest, Feb. 2, 1996).

A South African correspondent for the British Sunday Telegraph newspaper recently reported, “Jo’burg is now considered as much the undisputed murder capital of the world as South Africa’s business centre. Near-anarchy prevails in city streets, townships and leafy suburbs as AK47-wielding criminals rampage with seeming impunity.”

The facts are, the optimistic claims made in 1994, at the birth of the new South Africa, that “the new multiracial state was uniquely placed in Africa to combine the fresh liberal pluralism with a sophisticated business environment of First World quality” (ibid.), ring very hollow as the new nation’s social and political order faces the prospect of collapse. The world financial markets have made their judgment on an economy faced with uncontrollable crime, a treasury now in the hands of a socialist ANC minister of finance (the two previous ministers having resigned during Mandela’s brief two-year term) and the important post of trade and industry firmly placed by Mandela in the hands of a declared communist.

True Colours

South Africa’s politically naive foreign ministry brashly called recently for the U.N. to lift its sanctions imposed on Libya for its connection with the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. This approach flies in the face of the Western stand against Libyan terrorism. Deeply disturbing to Western intelligence agencies are reports that South Africa has within its national precincts five Hezbollah training camps! All this points towards a South African government which is rapidly gravitating towards a collision course with the West. Its bedfellows are increasingly being revealed as historically and rabidly anti-Western! In his masterful work, The Triumph of the West, historian J. M. Roberts reveals that it is Islam that has, for much of its history, shaped the African continent.

In April 1996, Foreign Minister Alfred Nzo visited both Libya and Iran. As de Courcy comments, “the ANC has a fundamentally anti-democratic and anti-Western heart and…countries such as Iran and Libya are the natural allies of an ANC-ruled South Africa…. Our latest information…is that the deal signed last year between South Africa and Iran for the storage of 22.5m barrels of Iranian oil at Saldanha Bay on South Africa’s west coast is likely to go ahead despite American objections. Other co-operative deals in the oil, gas, and mines sectors are being negotiated. As far as Libya is concerned, Libyan leader Colonel Qadhafi has been invited to visit South Africa by Nelson Mandela as a follow up to Nzo’s visit” (Intelligence Digest, April 12, 1996).

Hard on the heels of Nzo’s visit to Libya and Iran, “representatives of the anti-Israeli Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, are expected in the country for an Islamic conference” (The Times, April 10, 1996).

The most startling signal of all, to the West, of South Africa’s current foreign policy trends, was the September 1996 visit by president Rafsanjani of Iran. President Mandela honoured this sponsor of international terrorism with a 21-gun salute!

Even more curious was the October visit to Cape Town by a four-ship naval task force. “‘The visit to South Africa highlights a beginning of military relations between our two countries, and military co-operation will be discussed,’ the German embassy said in a statement yesterday” (Cape Times, October 1, 1996).

One-Party Rule

The spectre which haunts those who see South Africa as the last domino to fall in what has been a succession of destructive takeovers of governmental power in former African colonies is—one-party rule!

Nigeria’s San Abacha, Zaire’s Mobutu, Liberia’s Charles Taylor, Kenya’s Daniel orap Moi, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Ghana’s Jerry Rawlings, the Sudan’s Brigadier Bashir, Zambia’s Kaunda—the list goes on of African despotic leaders who squelched opposition, curbed human rights and entrenched themselves in one-party states—often for life!

Did F. W. DeKlerk, hard on the heels of gifting his nation to those who were once “the enemy of the state,” perpetrate the greatest betrayal of all, by giving South Africa over to one-party rule by his withdrawal from Mandela’s government of national unity?

In true African fashion, the country’s new president was swift to reward his favourite ministers with abandoned National Party portfolios. Of as deep concern as the now extant one-party state in South Africa are clauses in its newly adopted constitution which ease the way for state infringement of human rights, restrictions on freedom of speech and limitations on employers rights in the event of industrial unrest. The constitution also ensures equal rights for homosexuals, underwriting the prospect of a moral slide into a state of Sodom and Gomorrah infamy.

Astute Africa-watchers experience a sense of deja vu as they watch South Africa merge rapidly into the pattern set by many a post-independence government in the decolonised continent of Africa. They have memories of all of this having happened before in an often repeated but now familiar and well documented process, as former colonial powers handed control of whole nations over to former terrorists and self-serving socialist rabble-rousers.

True to the tradition established decades ago by a long line of would-be African leaders, as former colonial powers divested themselves of first one nation, then another and then numerous others in Black Africa, the new president of South Africa, voiced greatly exaggerated promises of new material wealth that should be forthcoming to the average black national in this country. A year later, Mandela repeated and strengthened those promises as he addressed a howling audience of 2,500 gathered on the lawns in front of the Union Buildings in Johannesburg on Freedom Day in April 1995, being the first anniversary of the handover of the nation and most of its assets to the ANC/SACP.

Two years later, the promises of increased housing, education, employment and material wealth have an increasingly hollow ring. There are more unhoused blacks in South Africa today than at the time of Mandela’s inauguration. Crime runs hand-in-hand with unemployment at record levels. Johannesburg, once the bastion of governmental control and big business in South Africa, has become the murder and rape capital of the world! A brain-drain of skilled professionals fleeing to Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain and the United States accelerates. The country’s means of exchange, the rand, plummeted twenty-five percent in value during the first half of 1996.

However, the situation was significantly exacerbated by F. W. DeClerk’s complete capitulation to the dominant political force of the ANC/SACP. Ex-president F. W. DeClerk pulled out of the coalition government of national unity on June 30, 1996, thus handing total power to Nelson Mandela’s ANC/SACP combine! Many will say that all this action did was legitimise a situation which already existed. The coalition was in fact a sham from the beginning, with the Nationals virtually having been squelched and laughed out of parliament by the overwhelming vote of the ANC/SACP on many an issue which the Nationals regarded as crucial to the protection of business and minorities in South Africa.

“During the constitutional negotiations, the National Party pressed for provisions guaranteeing property rights, a clause giving employers and workers equal rights in industrial disputes…the right to retain single-language state schooling. It also sought guarantees of future power sharing. But in the end those demands were largely ignored” (Time, May 20, 1996).

In effect, what DeClerk has done is to bring on black majority rule in South Africa fully three years in advance of the date set originally in the country’s new constitution. The new constitution originally called for majority rule following the 1999 general election. The sell-out to a demonstrably incompetent majority ANC/SACP government has left thinking South Africans shaking in their boots at the prospect of their richly developed and once greatly-blessed nation rapidly descending into Third World status!

Post-Independence Legacy

The legacy of the domino effect of decolonization and the handover of well-developed African nations to petty despots and, even worse, to self-serving tyrants who have raped their own people, their land and precious resources to the advantage of self-gain and swollen Swiss bank accounts, is extremely well documented in post-colonial history.

“Africa is a painful part of the world for Westerners to come to grips with. We weep for it more out of pity than understanding. When the tears dry up, we find professionals to weep for us. Mostly, however, modern black Africa is just too depressing. It is a gloomy question mark, a part of the world where children have swollen bellies and sad eyes, where soldiers blast away at each other in endless wars for incomprehensible reasons” (Africa, Blaine Harden, p. 14).

In considering the world’s poorest continent, society will inevitably wake up too late to discover, soon, that the celebrated “rainbow nation” of 1994, will have perhaps fallen hardest and heaviest from its position as one of this world’s wealthiest nations to one of its poorest! The fall is inevitable as South African political scientist and socio-economic commentator, Arthur Kemp, clearly indicated in his factual summary in the July 1996 issue of The Philadelphia Trumpet. Consider the odds against South Africa’s ex-terrorist/communistic government succeeding in fulfilling its oft-stated dreams, in contrast with the failed experiments with similar governmental mixes in so many other African nations.

Modern African history is a chronicle of abject misery. As the 1980s decade of greed closed, African per capita income was less than it had been at the close of the 1950s when Western leadership and infrastructure were still largely in place in many a Black African nation. As we approach the end of the 20th century, seventy percent of the world’s most poverty-stricken nations are African. Commentators such as Blaine Harden of the Washington Post state that “the region is slipping out of the Third World into its own bleak category: the Nth World” (ibid., p. 15). Harden further documents that although Africa has been “the most successful producer of babies in recorded history,” it is the world’s least successful food producer! The world aids epidemic finds its epicenter in central and east Africa. “Aids is aggravating an already severe shortage of skilled manpower. It threatens to decapitate certain countries” (ibid.).

Desertification and erosion spread rapidly each year with the Sahara and Kalahara Deserts closing the gap between them by one hundred miles annually. The list of African curses seems endless—massive decline in export earnings in the 1980s; a foreign debt burden, relative to African continental income, the highest in the world; thirty percent of earned African income swallowed up in interest payments; a dependence on foreign aid more than any other part of the developed world; the panic flight of outside investment; an increasing irrelevance in the international economic arena, as the whole African continent now accounts for less than three percent of total American trade; rank failure of African nations, without Western expertise, to sustain long-term growth; failed “structural adjustment” initiatives, such as in Madagascar, where infant mortality was higher in 1985 than in 1960; coup upon coup. Bloody civil wars spawning “the world’s largest refugee population: one of every two hundred Africans was a homeless victim of war. The number of stable democracies could be counted on the fingers of one hand. The political norm was near-absolute power in the hands of a Big Man who tolerated no opposition, rigged elections, and regarded the revenues of the state as personal income” (ibid., p. 16).

Mr. Harden, well-traveled and experienced as a “voyeur amid such misery,” holds no hope for the African continent under its present systems of administration and government—“Africa’s problems, as pervasive and ghastly as they seem, are not the final scorecard on a doomed continent. They are preliminary readings from the world’s messiest experiment in cultural and political change” (ibid., emphasis mine).

Powerful Lessons

In this sin-sick, war-weary, sex-crazed, materialistic, self-seeking, anti-government society of the 20th century, the great Creator God is set to teach the whole of mankind a lesson that it will never forget! This world currently supports an exploding population which, by far, exceeds that of any previous generation on earth since the beginning of creation. Just one bad season in each hemisphere could bring famine, with resultant and huge disease epidemics, to this world on a scale of apocalyptic proportions! This scenario, prophesied by Almighty God, has been building for decades in the post-war years. As the colonising nations of Israel found themselves economically, politically and socially unable to justify, in their terms, retention of their colonial interests, many Black African nations were hurriedly handed over to inept, untrained and selfishly grasping, greedy, petty despots who rapidly became instrumental in bringing about modern-day curses pronounced by God on the rebellious house of Israel.

“All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it. The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries” (Lam. 2:16-17).

Colonies formerly governed by a few sterling characters schooled in the administration of a global empire, found themselves the victims of African presidents, most of whom were set to “buy and bully the loyalty that allows them to survive” (ibid., p. 19). Many of these new African leaders were the sworn enemies of the Israelitish colonial powers, of their systems of government and administration. Yet, if the present-day descendants of Abraham were to experience the financial curse of the draining of their wealth in the form of huge quantities of foreign aid to their former colonies, it seems that the greater curse is upon the new petty despots’ own subjects—their own people!

The Failure of African Independence

In a striking portrayal of the extreme nature of the perversion of just one African economy, Harden quotes a European diplomat as maintaining that, “At this point, corruption is absolutely essential to Zaire’s stability.” Corruption, by definition, bespeaks unethical or immoral behavior. The great shame is that, having reached such a point where its most stabilizing influence is the corruption of business and governmental processes, such a socio-economic system can then be perpetuated by “being rewarded by the West for being less crooked than it used to be”! The moral corruption of Western-based systems is revealed in just this one example. In the four years from 1983 to 1987, the world bank gave $602 million to Zaire. To compound the problem, the IMF, together with a collective of Western creditor governments, including the U.S., granted Zaire up to six years grace on its international debts and extending payment periods to this nation for up to fifteen years. One explanation for such ridiculous generosity is that the American CIA was at that time being granted by Mobutu free reign in the airlift of arms from Zaire to the anti-Communist rebels in Angola. This “tit-for-tat” deal just served to drive Zaire deeper into debt, with Zairians being reduced to greater individual poverty each year, real wages being reduced to ten percent of their pre-independence value.

The well-developed economy of the colonial Congo, once a net food exporter, possessing some of the richest mineral wealth in the world, has, since independence, been reduced to the status of eighth poorest country in the world, spending nearly a quarter of its foreign exchange on food imports. The hand-out mentality of the West, exploited to its fullest potential by the slavering greediness of Black African despots, has done more over the past forty years to destroy whole African nations than any misguided colonial government within Africa did in the previous 150 years! The reality is, African peoples were generally better fed and housed, educated, medically treated and more stable in their intertribal relationships under colonial rule, than under independence!

Why, given the history of so much misery imposed on nation upon nation in the great continent of Africa, have the South Africans been doomed to follow in their wake? “What experience and history teach is that people and governments never have learned anything from history or acted on principles from it” (Biography of History, Hegel). What Hegel did not know was that the Eternal God, who created man, declared that the human mind, of and by itself, is anti-God: “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7).

Further, through the inspired pen of the prophet Jeremiah, God states, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9).

In a powerful castigation against carnal mankind, God declares: “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good” (Ps. 53:1).

The outcome of this historically foolish mind and nature of man is expounded in the Psalms: “A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this. When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever: But thou, Lord, art most high for evermore” (Ps. 92:6-8).

The mind of man is innately selfish, self-seeking, vain, thinking of that which it can get for itself, alone, often at the expense of others. “A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself” (Prov. 18:2). “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14:12).

Man’s apparent incapacity to learn from his own historical mistakes, seemingly destined to repeat them over and over again, is succinctly and vividly portrayed by God: “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly” (Prov. 26:11).

End-Time Warning!

God declares through His unchangeable word, “Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:6-7).

The Eternal God prophesied the modern condition of loss of empire, loss of power, loss of the ability to effectively govern nations which is the present sad lot of the nations of biblical Israel. In a powerful chastisement of biblical Israel, and primarily Britain and America with their former dominions and possessions, God declares: “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: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria. When they shall go, 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).

South Africa is a former British possession settled largely of Israelitish stock—the Dutch (Zebulun and Issachar), the French (Reuben) and British (Ephraim). God is warning South Africa!

No power on earth can stop God warning the nations of Israel! The trumpet of alarm is being blown in South Africa and thousands are responding, requesting our literature! Under the apostleship of Herbert Armstrong, the latter-day Elijah, the good news of the coming Kingdom of God was powerfully preached and published within South Africa (Mat. 24:14). The day of reckoning is now at hand! Of all of the nations of Israel greatly blessed by a merciful God, South Africa has been the only country to gift her God-given birthright to those to whom it was not promised!

As this crazy world lurches towards the dawn of a new millennium, reality and common sense are increasingly sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. One of the greatest untruths thus perpetuated in society is that race has no bearing on the achievement levels of the various ethnic groups that abound in the melting pot of the earth’s teeming billions of mankind. Thus, a world ignorant to the great realities of the promises of race and grace, made to Abraham, father of the faithful, became delirious with surreal emotion at the handover of a whole nation, South Africa, by the offspring of its founding fathers, to its declared enemy, the ANC/SACP combine, in April 1994.

Notice, once again, in the book of Genesis the birthright promise conferred on Abraham and his seed: “And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice” (Gen. 22:16-18).

Notice what Herbert Armstrong says about this birthright promise: “A birthright is something which is one’s right, by birth. It has nothing to do with grace, which is unmerited pardon and a free gift which is not one’s right. It has to do with race, not grace. Birthright possessions are customarily passed down from father to eldest son” (The United States and Britain in Prophecy, 1980 edition, p. 29).

The Israelitish nations within South Africa have capitulated—given up—their birthright! That is a gigantic national sin!

“God warns us through prophecy that our sins are fast increasing. And now the day of reckoning is here!… Yes, we are God’s chosen people Israel! Think what that means! Chosen, not for favors while we defy our God, but chosen for service we have failed to perform” (ibid., p. 183).

Notice Hosea 4:17-19: “Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone. Their drink is sour: they have committed whoredom continually: her rulers with shame do love, Give ye. The wind hath bound her up in her wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.”

“This terrifyingly severe punishment is simply the correction our peoples have made necessary to bring them to the ways of living which cause desired blessings, instead of terrible curses. It is correction—for the peoples’ good!… As God lives, this punishment is soon to strike!” (ibid., p. 183).

Will South Africa heed? Will the Israelitish nations heed their God as this final warning is powerfully preached, published and broadcast increasingly around the world?

Let the Elijah have the final say! “But if you—you now reading this, you as an individual—will be corrected, voluntarily, before God lets this indescribably horrendous chastening strike; if you come to real repentance, realising how terribly wrong you have been; if you can see yourself as you really are—as a rebellious wrong, evil person; and if you can surrender to the loving, all-merciful, yet all-powerful God—and make it an unconditional surrender, coming to Almighty God through the living Jesus Christ as personal Savior—then no plague shall come near you! (Ps. 91:8-11), but you shall be accounted worthy to escape all these frightful things and to stand before Christ at His return (Luke 21:35-36).

“Those in the true Body of Christ shall be taken to a place of safety, until this Tribulation be over (Rev. 3:10-11, applying to those faithful in God’s Work now going to the world; Rev. 12:14; Isa. 26:20).

“But you must make your own decision—and to neglect doing so is to have made the wrong decision!…

“The decision is now yours!” (ibid., p. 184).