Chapter 6: The Most Dangerous Lie in History

In 2015, the U.S. spearheaded an international effort to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran. When the agreement was concluded, many people were elated, but there should have been no celebration. What is at stake is nothing less than human survival. The world needed something that would have pulled us away from the brink of annihilation, but this deal did just the opposite.

If you doubt that it is about human survival, just talk to the Jewish nation Iran repeatedly says it wants to wipe off the map. Israel believes its survival rests on whether or not Iran gets a nuclear bomb!

Even during the nuclear talks, Iranian groups repeatedly chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” Iran’s leaders continued to call Israel “the little Satan” and America “the great Satan.” They have a history of hating America and wanting to wipe our influence off the Earth.

The whole nuclear agreement hinges on trust. Can Iran be trusted? This nation has broken its agreements with the United Nations over nuclear inspections around 20 times. The inspections never achieved anything. Iran just kept deceiving the UN, buying time to continue its nuclear activities—and the UN and the rest of the world played along. Do you think its behavior will change because of this agreement?

Since the Iranian Revolution, the majority of Americans have rightfully held an unfavorable view of Iran. Most politically aware Americans were well aware of the anti-American and anti-Semitic ranting of Iran’s mullahs. Many worried about the Islamic Republic’s development of nuclear weapons and how the mullahs would use them. So how did President Obama get the deal to go through? His methods reveal so much about his administration and about him personally!

For many months before the deal was made, a key member of Obama’s inner circle was working hard to lay people’s fears to rest. At a meeting with Democratic Party activists in 2014, Benjamin Rhodes, then deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, argued that a nuclear agreement with Tehran was “the best opportunity we’ve had to resolve the Iranian [nuclear] issue.” He said this deal was “probably the biggest thing President Obama will do in his second term on foreign policy.”

Unaware that the meeting was recorded, Rhodes confided to his guests that President Obama was planning to sideline Congress: “We’re already kind of thinking through, how do we structure a deal so we don’t necessarily require legislative action right away,” he said.

After the deal was implemented on January 16, 2016, Rhodes explained in a New York Times Magazine interview that if he wanted to get anyone other than those on the hard left to accept a deal with Tehran, he had to lie. He blatantly and willfully deceived what he considered a corrupt and inexperienced American media about all sorts of things. “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old,” Rhodes explained, “and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. … They literally know nothing” (emphasis mine throughout).

Rhodes admitted to fashioning a story about how the administration’s negotiations began. He told the press that a “thaw” in American-Iranian relations was made possible by the election of President Hassan Rouhani and other Iranian “moderates” in the summer of 2013. Yet he bluntly admitted that he wasn’t actually sure whether Rouhani was a “moderate” or not. Then he bragged about how easy it was to deceive journalists in order to get this deal passed without congressional approval.

What a spectacle America has become to the world! It is as if lawless children are in charge of America’s foreign policy!

Just days before the deal was signed, Iran’s president marched with a huge crowd of Iranians who were holding “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” signs. That reaction alone should be enough to trumpet the fact that the Western world—especially America—was humiliated through this deal. Here is another case where we must judge not by words, but by fruits. Iran’s fruits show it will violate this agreement. But this time, the stakes are much higher!

Here is what Charles Krauthammer said about the nuclear deal: “I think the real issue here is not the fact that we did ransom, because I think people know that we do it in a lot of disguised ways. … It’s that they lied and they lie shamelessly and they lie when the lie is uncovered. That’s what is so scary, and they lie about the entire Iran deal. This is the tip of the iceberg. … Every item on the Iran deal that we were promised, we would hold the line on X, Y and Z, we did this or we are getting inspections … they lied all the way through and that deal is shot through with denials, with all kinds of statements that are not so, and we are going to suffer. That’s going to be a lot worse than anything that comes out of this ransom payment” (Aug. 18, 2016).

The Cause of America’s Curses

The Bible has a lot to say about the state of America today. It explains the inspiring reason why this nation was so great, and why it has been so richly blessed.

The Bible also prophesies that these blessings will be removed in our day—replaced by terrible curses—because of the sins of the people. Yes, as a consequence of deep and multiplying materialism, selfishness, lust, immorality and idolatry among the American people, those prophesied curses are descending rapidly!

America’s problems are spiritual—and solving them requires spiritual solutions, starting with repentance! But Americans are too entrenched in their sin to do that. So the national curses are going to get far worse before the situation ever gets better.

When you understand this spiritual dimension, it becomes far easier to understand why President Obama did the things he did, and why the damage he caused will not be reversed by putting a different man into his office.

The damage President Obama wreaked is beyond repair by human beings! I hope what you have read in Great Again has helped you to see how his decisions and policies fulfilled significant Bible prophecies about America’s destruction!

But the Bible also explains God’s ultimate purpose for allowing these curses to descend on the U.S. Whenever God punishes, He does so to turn people back to Himself. Scripture prophesies that the curses America is experiencing today are actually a prelude to national revitalization and restoration!

America will, in fact, one day soon become great again!

Nuclear Warfare Prophesied!

The Obama administration’s handling of Syria and Iran was a monumental disaster. And I see little to show that the situation will change substantially under President Trump. The nation’s enemies shake their fists at us at every turn, and we let them get away with it. America’s credibility is in tatters.

In Leviticus 26:19, God warned that if our peoples descended into abject sin, He would break the pride of our power. And so He has! We have seen a complete collapse of will and power in America. What a terrible end to a superpower!

We live in exceedingly dangerous times. We are talking about nuclear bombs! That makes America’s weakness all the more alarming and disgraceful.

Many people—including high-profile academics and intellectuals in the U.S.—cheer the thought of America’s power coming to an end. But the same biblical prophecies that foretold America’s fall also reveal the nightmares that will unfold once other world powers take control.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Hitler and the Nazis kept pushing and pushing, yet Britain and America just hoped the problem would go away. They thought Hitler could be appeased with words and treaties. But that did not stop him. Only superior will and power stops a tyrant or madman.

No words will stop this king of terror. The Iranian leader believes that causing a nuclear cataclysm will hasten the coming of his messiah. No matter what happens, these religious zealots believe they are winners.

No other nuclear power thinks like that! It makes nuclear war inevitable!

Mr. Obama’s appeasement of and support for the Iranian regime cannot be explained logically. Such a catastrophic policy can only be understood in the context of the satanic deception that blankets this entire world (Revelation 12:9). Those efforts shoved the world closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation—and nothing could please the devil more! “[T]hat old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world” had his fingerprints all over those developments. He passionately hates mankind and loves causing the death of millions—even billions!

This explosive situation will result in nuclear war. Jesus Christ prophesied the outcome of these problems in Matthew 24:21-22. He said the coming “great tribulation” would be worse than any in mankind’s long, tragic history! He warned that unless these perilous days were shortened, no flesh would be saved alive! Passages like this and Daniel 12:1 describe a time of such catastrophic destruction that they could only apply to weapons of mass destruction. Isaiah 6:11, Jeremiah 2:15 and many other prophecies foretell cities without even one inhabitant. Only nuclear weapons could cause that.

Nuclear warfare is near! It is prophesied over 100 times in Bible prophecy! And you can prove it. But will you believe God? Or will you wait until it is too late physically to even respond to God? If not for divine intervention, the human race would face extinction! We live in a time of no more delay and are racing toward that prophetic fulfillment!

Meanwhile, Americans pick up the remote and flip channels to see who is playing on espn. As they distract themselves, this world is about to explode! Man is about to set the world on fire!

Can’t we see that there is no human solution to this crisis? Matthew 24:21-22 tell us exactly that. Without the return of Jesus Christ, mankind would war all the way to the point that there would not be a single human being left alive on Earth! This is talking about the nuclear world war just ahead of us!

But these verses also show that there is good news: Jesus Christ is going to stop us from destroying ourselves completely! He—not an Islamic Mahdi currently hiding in a well—is going to return to this Earth. Jesus Christ is going to return in all power from heaven and place His feet upon the Mount of Olives, and bring us the real, true and lasting peace that we all desire!

‘Because of Transgression’

Satan the devil is working to tear down the United States. That is his goal. He and the demons have been cast down to Earth; they know they have only a short time left, and they are full of wrath (Revelation 12:12).

A technique that the devil has used time and again throughout history is to empower a leader who is able to do his damage from within.

Why would God allow this to happen to the U.S.? God does not put the primary blame on a political leader, the way that so many commentators tend to do.

One of the Bible’s prophecies of this calamity explains the reason why this destructive leader is able to come to power. It is a prophecy of a time when this happened within the Church of God to destroy it from within, but the same principle applied to the United States in this end time. This prophecy in Daniel 8:12 reveals that this individual was empowered to do his destructive work “by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered.” This prophecy is explained in America Under Attack.

God allowed this attack “by reason of transgression”—because of the terrible sins of the people of America!

The U.S. has sinned and turned away from God about as far as it possibly could.

As explained in The United States and Britain in Prophecy, America has a history with God. It has received wonderful blessings from God. Yet look at how our nation is living today. God says we have become like wicked Sodom and Gomorrah! (Isaiah 1:10). He is disgusted with our morals and our spiritual lives! The nation’s conduct has gotten so bad that God says, Even when you lift up your hands and pray to me, I will not answer you! (verse 15). He is talking to America! He warns that our cities are going to burn with fire (verse 7), but if we wait until the last minute, when we ask for His help, He will refuse!

The superpower America is going to fall. It will drag down our closest allies, the British peoples (including Canada, Australia, New Zealand) and the Jewish nation.

All of this is happening because of transgression. When we are caught up in sin, God will not protect us against the devil—and we don’t stand a chance against him and his demons without God’s protection. Satan is simply too powerful.

Though in many ways it is the leaders who are drawing this nation to its death, the people deserve the blame most of all. God allows it to happen, and He blames—not one individual at the top—but the people who are transgressing.

We must see what is happening in America today as God does. We have to recognize the cause and see the spiritual dimension. Then we can look at Bible prophecy and see exactly where it is leading. It is far more serious than the vast majority of people recognize.

But in the end, these nation-destroying disasters are actually correction from God to help us see our sins and repent of them. The same Bible that prophesies of our cities burning shows that, ultimately, all the suffering will help bring this nation to its senses and prepare us to submit to God once Jesus Christ returns to this Earth. Thank God for that!

The only solution to our massive problems is repentance toward God (Ezekiel 33:11). God will protect nations or individuals who repent now—before the great and dreadful Day of the Lord.

Satan’s growing wrath against the nations of Israel as his time grows shorter will climax in the worst suffering in human history—a period the Bible calls the Great Tribulation. After 2½ years of tribulation, the Day of the Lord will begin, a full year of God’s punishment on the nations.

The good news, though, is revealed right there in the very same prophecies that explain these events to us. Right after the Day of the Lord, at last will come the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to solve all these problems forever! In Daniel 8:23‑25, when it speaks of the Satan-inspired political Antiochus leading the Holy Roman Empire, it gives this stirring conclusion: “[H]e shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes”—that is Jesus Christ! Inspired by the devil, this evil man will actually try to take on Christ Himself! And what will be the outcome? “[H]e shall be broken without hand”—that is, broken by the power of God!

The events we see unfolding are deeply sobering. But they should also fill us with hope—and anticipation of the great event they lead directly into: the Second Coming of Christ to this Earth!

Once Christ banishes the devil and takes His rightful place on the throne over the Earth, we will have joy and happiness and peace for the rest of eternity! Thank God for that!