The United States and Britain in Prophecy

THE UNITED STATES AND BRITAIN IN PROPHECY
Chapter 12

By Herbert W. Armstrong
1954, 1967, 1972, 1975, 1980 edition

Introduction
Chapter One - The Lost Master Key Has Been Found!
Chapter Two - Prophecies Closed Until Now
Chapter Three - National Greatness Promised Israel
Chapter Four - The Separation of the Birthright and the Septre
Chapter Five - The Davidic Covenant
Chapter Six - Children of Israel Become Two Nations
Chapter Seven - Jeremiah's Mysterious Comission
Chapter Eight - The Mysterious Breach
Chapter Nine - Israel's New Land
Chapter Ten - Birthright Withheld 2520 Years!
Chapter Eleven - Why Israel Lost Identity
Chapter Twelve - The Birthright - At it's Zenith - And Now
Chapter Thirteen - And Now What - The Prophecies for the Immediate Future
Chapter Fourteen - What's Prophesied to happen Now - To America and Britain?

Chapter 12

THE BIRTHRIGHT -- AT ITS ZENITH -- AND NOW!

HOW GREAT, HOW POWERFUL, AND how wealthy did the British and American people become? And what is suddenly happening to us now? Why has Britain already lost most of her colonies -- her possessions- -her resources, wealth, power and influence in the world? Why is Britain no longer considered Great Britain -- a GREAT world power?

Why is the United States now discredited, despised, hated throughout so much of the world? Why could we not win the Korean War? Why couldn't the United States whip little North Vietnam?

First, realize just how great -- how rich and powerful -- the American and British people did become.

People are prone to take their status -- and that of their country -- for granted. Few realize what unprecedented affluence our countries enjoyed. We judge all things by comparison. The average Briton, Australian or Canadian has never traveled through the illiterate, poverty-stricken, disease-infested backward areas of China, India, the Middle East or black Africa. He has not observed the squalor, the stench, the poverty and wretchedness in which the largest part of mankind lives.

Nor has the average American visited those vast underprivileged areas, nor even the countries of Europe -- prosperous compared to the teeming illiterate masses, yet poor by comparison to American standards. No, our people generally have not realized. Nor have they been grateful. Nor have they given God thanks, nor accepted the responsibility that accompanies their lavish blessings.

Few realize that every desired, prized possession imposes with it the obligation of responsibility for its use. Does the eight- year-old boy who is given a shiny new bicycle by his parents feel a consciousness for the responsibility imposed on him -- unless the fact is impressed on him by his parents -- for the care of it, and the carefulness with which he must ride it to avoid injuring himself or others?

When God lavished on our peoples such wealth and power and economic possession as no peoples have ever before enjoyed, did we appreciate what we had or feel the commensurate sense of RESPONSIBILITY for its wise and proper use?

WE DID NOT! We didn't even recognize HOW GREAT was our blessing, let alone feel a sense of obligation for our custodianship before our Maker! Just HOW GREAT, then, was this birthright blessing?

The Birthright Wealth

Read again the prophetic promises of Genesis 22:17.

To Abraham God said: "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 again, the inspired prophetic parting blessing upon Rebekah, leaving her family to become the wife of Isaac: "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).

Earlier we quoted the correct Fenton translation: "... and your race shall possess the gates [plural] of its enemies." As explained there, the "gates" of enemy nations are the strategic SEA GATES of entrance to or exit from these nations. Although all wealth comes from the ground, prosperity and affluence on a national scale always have come also by industry and COMMERCE. And commerce between nations has been transacted almost altogether by the SEA- LANES of the world -- by SHIPS, and, within a continent, by railroads.

How significant, then, that Robert Fulton operated the first steamboat in 1803 -- precisely when Britain and America suddenly began to MULTIPLY in national wealth! And also that it was the nineteenth century that saw the development of the railroads!

As explained before, since the birthright pertains to NATIONS, the "GATE" of our enemies would be such passes as Gibraltar, Suez, Singapore, the Panama Canal, etc.

Britain and America came into possession of every such major "gate" in this world! So we MUST be modern Israel. World War II hinged on these "gates." They had become not only strategic passes, but the world's greatest fortifications. But today, we have lost most of them, most recently, the Panama Canal -- and it appears that soon Gibraltar, too, will be lost. Why?

Notice Genesis 39:2, 23: "The Eternal was with Joseph, and he was a PROSPEROUS man ....the Eternal was with him, and that which he did, the Eternal made it to PROSPER." And God did prosper Joseph's descendants, Britain and America, with the fabulous birthright promised Joseph's sons!

Consider Moses' dying prophetic blessing, foretelling what would happen to each of the tribes in these latter days.

"And of Joseph he said, Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, and for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, and for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills, and for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof ... let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph [Ephraim and Manasseh both] ....His glory is like the firstling [firstbornţbirthright holder] of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns [Great Britain's national seal today]: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh" (Deut. 33:13-17).

Whoever is Ephraim and Manasseh today must have been in possession of the earth's choicest agricultural, mineral, and other wealth -- the great gold and silver mines; iron, oil, and coal; timber and other resources.

What nations fulfill these prophecies? Why, only Great Britain and America!

More than half of all tillable, cultivatable, temperate zone lands of this earth came after A.D. 1800 into the possession of our two great powers alone! The rich agricultural lands of the Mississippi Valley; the vast wheat and grain fields of the Midwest, of Canada and Australia; the great forest lands of the Pacific Northwest and many other parts of the world; the gold fields of South Africa, Australia, Alaska and the United States; the great coal mines of the United States and British Isles; the natural waterfalls and means of power and consequent prosperous industrial and manufacturing districts of England and the eastern United States; the choicest fruit lands of our Pacific Coast and Florida. What other nations combined ever possessed such material wealth?

And nearly all this wealth came to us after A.D. 1800!

The Actual Statistics

Just to what extent has Almighty God fulfilled His promises in us to the descendants of Joseph in these latter years since A.D. 1800- -promises of "the precious fruits brought forth by the sun ... the chief things of the ancient mountains ... and the precious things of the earth"?

Said Charles M. Schwab, steel magnate, before the Massachusetts Bankers Association, January 5, 1921: "Our United States has been endowed by God with everything to make it and keep it the foremost industrial and commercial nation of the world."

World petroleum output in 1950 was almost 3,800 million barrels. Of this total the United States alone produced more than one-half -- nearly 52%. Together, the British Commonwealth and the United States produced 60% of the crude petroleum, not including our vast foreign investments. But by 1966 -- the fateful year in which the British Colonial Office in London closed its doors, marking the official death of the British Empire -- that 60% of all the world's crude petroleum output had been reduced to 32%.

Britain and America mined 1 1/2 times as much coal as all other nations combined. But by 1966 our portion had shrunk to less than one-third of the world production -- 30.9%!

Together, the British Commonwealth and America produced, in 1950, three-fourths of the world's steel -- the United States alone producing almost 60% or 105,200,000 short tons in 1951. We produced 1 1/3 times as much pig iron as all other nations combined.

By 1966, this basic index of wealth had skidded down to one- third (33.6%) of steel production and only 17.8% (one-sixth) of the pig iron.

We possessed nearly 95% of the world's nickel (chiefly from Canada); 80% of the world's aluminum; 75% of the zinc. But where did we rate in 1966? Only 3.6% of the world's nickel; 40.2% of its aluminum (aluminium); 12.4% of its zinc.

In 1950, the British Commonwealth completely dominated the production of chromite (from South Africa). Together Britain and America produced two-thirds of the world's rubber, and dominated the world's copper, lead, tin, bauxite and other precious metal outputs. But by 1966, we produced only 2.3% of the world's chromite, 23.4% of its copper, 9.9% of its lead, no tin, and 6.3% of its bauxite.

The British Commonwealth produced two-thirds of the world's gold -- about Ł 266,000,000 ($642 million) in 1950 -- while the United States had three times as much gold reserve as the total for the rest of the world. But by 1966 the U.S. gold supply had been drained so much that the dollar was in serious jeopardy.

We produced and utilized two-thirds of the world's output of electricity -- the United States producing 283 thousand million kilowatt-hours in 1948, and the United Kingdom and Canada outstripping Russia, Germany and France combined. But by 1966 we produced only 20.1%!

Great Britain and the United States did possess well over half of the world's merchant fleet tonnage. But by 1966 the figure was only 32.5%. The British Isles constructed more vessels than any other place on earth. But less than two decades later two or three Gentile nations had already outstripped Britain and America. In 1950, we also possessed about one-half of the world's railroad mileage. By 1966 our combined railway freight shipping was only 26% of the world total.

Whereas the United States alone once produced 73% of the automobiles, by 1966 the U.S. combined with the U.K. produced 55% -- 44% from the U.S. alone. Japan, Germany, France, and Italy are making huge gains.

How Did We Get It?

How did we come into possession of all this vast wealth of the earth? Did we acquire it through our own human wisdom, foresight, energy, ability and power?

Let Abraham Lincoln answer: "We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards fertility of soil, extent of territory, and salubrity of climate .... We ... find ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or the establishment of them."

Again, in his proclamation of April 30, 1863, for a nationwide day of fasting and prayer, this great President said: "It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God ... and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord .... We have been the recipients of the choicest blessings of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation ever has grown; BUT WE HAVE FORGOTTEN GOD! We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own."

And because Lincoln saw a nation who had forgotten God -- a nation drunk with a success not due to its own efforts -- a nation taking all the credit and glory to itself, this great president called upon the nation for a day of fasting and prayer to confess this national sin before God. The fate of the nation hung in the balance when he issued that proclamation. But God heard and answered that great national prayer offensive -- and the nation was then preserved!

But today the threat to our fate is a thousand times more seriously hanging in the balance. And today we do not have a president or a prime minister with the vision, understanding and courage to bring our nations to their knees!

Abraham Lincoln knew these great material blessings had not been earned, but had been given to our people by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel.

And we should face the facts today and know that we were given all this vast unprecedented material wealth because God promised it, unconditionally, to Abraham. And He promised it to Abraham because Abraham obeyed God, kept God's laws and commandments.

The birthright blessing was denied our forefathers after Moses' day because they REFUSED to live by God's laws.

And today God warns us, through many prophecies in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Micah, and many others, that unless we of this generation REPENT of our sins, and turn to Him with fasting, and with weeping, and earnest PRAYER, He will destroy our cities, all our fortresses, with the foreign sword; that He will punish us at the hand of a CRUEL ONE; that we shall be invaded, defeated, reduced to SLAVES! GOD HLEP US TO HEED THAT WARNING!

In conclusion, we ask: If we are not national Israel -- the so- called "lost" Ten Tribes -- prosperous Joseph-Israel -- birthright Israel -- actual inheritors of the birthright blessings which were to be bestowed beginning A.D. 1803, then who else can be? No other nation or combination of nations possessed these blessings of the birthright -- for we held more than two-thirds -- nearly three-fourths- -of all the raw materials, resources, and wealth of this entire round earth, and all other nations combined shared among them only a small part.

Do you know of stronger proof of the divine inspiration of the Holy Bible as the revealed Word of the living God? Could mortal men have written, without divine inspiration, those prophecies we have considered in this book; made those PROMISES to Joseph -- Israel; and, after a lapse of 2520 years, beginning the exact years of 1800-1803, have had power to bring them about in fulfillment? These are no small or trifling promises. They involve possession of the great wealth and vast natural resources of the whole earth.

Present these facts as a challenge to your atheistic and agnostic friends. Ask them to answer, if they can, whether any but the power of the Eternal Creator Himself could have made and had committed to writing such promises thousands of years ago, and, at precisely the promised time thousands of years later, brought about their fulfillment!

How any American -- any English-speaking inheritor of God's choicest material blessings -- can, in the face of such stupendous, overwhelming fulfillment of prophecy -- such awe-inspiring demonstration of the power and might and faithfulness of Almighty God -- accept and partake of these blessings, and then carelessly ignore God's WARNING that our sins today are INCREASING, or fail to get to his knees before the great Almighty, repent, and INTERCEDE in heartrending PRAYER for all Israelite nations, and HELP in every way he can to warn our people now of their impending PERIL, seems impossible to conceive.