Chapter 3: As it was in the days of Noah …
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.”