America’s Role

American president Woodrow Wilson is credited with inventing and promoting the formation of the League of Nations, which immediately gave Britain an international Mandate to rule Palestine after the First World War.  And the United States of America played a decisive role in defeating the Nazi government of Adolph Hitler in the Second World War, before it could finish its methodical extermination of the Jewish people in death camps created for that specific purpose.  The U.S. likewise played a key role in forming the United Nations organization at the end of that war, and in the U.N. plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.

Did the Bible prophesy that the United States would do all these things during the final days of this world? No, at least not explicitly. Of course, we might learn in retrospect, after all the apocalyptic the events of the book of Revelation unfold, that some of the cryptic language there contained hidden allusions to America.  But, there are certainly no clear references naming the U.S.A. in Bible prophecy.  Nevertheless, we may see prophetic shadows of an American role in the two-horned beast of Revelation chapter 13 that looks like a lamb and speaks like a dragon, and in the two wings of the eagle given to the woman of Revelation chapter 12, to save her (Israel) from destruction.

Moreover, there is plenty of biblical precedent for a Gentile super-power that would play the role America has been playing until now.

Bible history relates the major role that the Egyptian world power played in the origin of ancient Israel.  Joseph, the eleventh son of the man Jacob whom God renamed Israel, served for years as prime minister of Egypt.  As a gesture of favor toward his prime minister, Pharaoh king of Egypt invited Joseph’s father Israel and Joseph’s brothers, the heads of the future twelve tribes, to reside in Egyptian territory with their families and their flocks and herds. It was there during their hundreds of years of alien residence in Egypt, that the Jewish people grew in population to the size of a small nation. Then a later king of Egypt began to fear this growing nationality, and so enslaved them and became their oppressor.  The book of Exodus in the Bible relates the story of their liberation from Egypt by means of the mighty hand of God.

Will America similarly switch sides as Egypt did?  Will America cease being Israel's ally, and become its enemy instead?  Bible prophecy suggests that this will happen.

The ancient neo-Babylonian empire, like modern-day Iraq under its dictator Saddam Hussein, was Israel’s enemy. But, after conquering Israel and Judah, and deporting the Jewish population, the king of Babylon installed some bright young Jewish men in positions of power in his government.  In fact, the Hebrew prophet Daniel was given the position of prime minister in the Babylonian government.  Daniel’s Jewish friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were made governors over certain Babylonian territories. And it was due to his high position that Daniel was able to deliver God’s message personally to the king of Babylon—the message that led to our modern day expression “the handwriting on the wall”—when Babylon was about to fall to its arch enemy, the Medo-Persian empire.

Certain Jews later rose to high positions in that empire of Media and Persia that succeeded Babylon as the super-power dominating the Middle East. But there were also enemies in high places. The Bible book of Esther relates the story of the powerful Persian prime minister Haman who tried to exterminate the Jewish people more than two thousand years before Hitler’s attempt.  The Jews were rescued by means of King Ahasuerus’s Jewish wife, Queen Esther, whose uncle Mordecai became prime minister to replace Haman.

During the twentieth year of the reign of Persian emperor Artaxerxes, another Jewish man, Nehemiah, had the job of royal cup-bearer.  One day, when handing the monarch his glass of wine to drink, Nehemiah looked sad, and the king sympathetically asked him why.  The servant replied that he was sad over the condition of Jerusalem, and the king granted Nehemiah’s request to return to Jerusalem with imperial authority to rebuild the city and its temple.

Considering this long history of world powers that served as political allies of the Jewish state, or that came to the aid of Israel at one time or another, it should not surprise us that the British empire would be instrumental in the return of the Jews to the Promised Land in fulfillment of Bible prophecy.  This took the form of the Balfour declaration issued toward the end of the First World War, committing the British government to the establishment of a Jewish state. Nor should it be surprising that the British and American world powers would combine to defeat Adolph Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the Jewish people immediately prior to their return to the Promised Land.

In fact, viewed from a biblical perspective, the First World War was about that Balfour declaration and the transfer of the Promised Land from Muslim to British control.  And the Second World War was about preserving the Jews from annihilation.  If God were to use a modern-day prophet to write additional books to be added to the Bible cannon, that is certainly how the account would read in reference to the two world wars.

During recent years America has been Israel’s one and only powerful ally, but that will soon change.  The Bible foretells that, when Jerusalem becomes a problem for the whole world, all of the nations will share in attacking Israel.  So, America must, no doubt, be included in those nations arrayed against Israel at that time.

It should not be difficult to conceive of this happening.  As noted earlier in this book, different presidential administrations in Washington have taken different positions vis-a-vis Israel over the years. Some have attempted to play the role of mediator by maintaining official neutrality between the Jews and their Arab neighbors.  Others have presented themselves as staunch allies of the Jewish state.  A small swing in public opinion is all that it would take to allow an American president to side with the rest of the United Nations against Israel.

On June 8, 1967, during the Arab-Israeli Six Day War, a lightly-armed American warship that was engaged in intelligence gathering in international waters off the Sinai Peninsula was attacked by Israeli ships and aircraft, resulting in the deaths of thirty-four American military personnel and the wounding of a hundred seventy-one others. Israel claimed it was an accident—that the U.S.S. Liberty was mistaken for an Egyptian vessel—and U.S. President Lyndon Johnson accepted that explanation. The Israeli government quickly paid reparations to the injured and to the families of the sailors who had been killed. Since then, a number of writers have alleged that the attack was actually deliberate, launched because Israel was concerned that the intelligence gathered by the spy ship might be shared with some of its Arab enemies in that life-or-death struggle. (See www.USSLiberty.org for articles and links on this topic.)

Could a similar incident sway American opinion against Israel in a future confrontation?  Or perhaps an Israeli pre-emptive strike against Iran or some other enemy will wreak such destruction that American popular opinion will turn against Israel.  Or perhaps Israel will be the first to use nuclear weapons in a Middle East war, provoking an American reaction quite different from when their own atomic bombs wiped out the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

In any case, the reversal of America’s role towards Israel does not depend on our speculation.  Prophecy makes it plain that all of the nations of the world will turn against Israel and will unite for the final attack on Jerusalem.

Scripture does not state that the nations attacking Israel in this final act of rebellion against God will come in the form of United Nations forces wearing blue helmets. The prophet Zechariah indicates merely that Jerusalem will become a problem for the whole world, and that the nations will be united in their attack. “Jerusalem will be a heavy stone burdening the world,” and “all the nations of the earth unite in an attempt” to impose their solution. (Zechariah 12:3 LB) A formal “United Nations organization” is not actually cited by name in the Bible, just as the “United States of America” is not named.

Even if the attack does prove to be sponsored by the U.N. organization through Security Council and/or General Assembly resolutions, it may not consist of forces wearing the blue helmets common to international peacekeeping operations.  It could be a military force mobilized by a coalition of willing states, acting on a mandate from the Security Council, such as the one the United States had hoped to assemble to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, or similar to the U.S.-led United Nations force used in the Korean conflict of the 1950’s.

In any case, it will be a force of “united nations” in the generic sense, whether or not it turns out to be an official military action under the auspices of the United Nations organization as we know it today.

The purpose of this book is not to speculate on the exact nature of such an attack, nor how it will be organized politically. Rather, my aim in writing is to call attention to the fact that Jerusalem has become a problem for the whole world, as Zechariah foretold, and that political moves are afoot among the nations and specifically within the framework of the United Nations organization, to impose the will of the world in a final solution for the status of Jerusalem.

Although some may see that as a terrifying prospect, the Bible offers reason for hope.  The Hebrew prophets speak of a time of world peace to follow this international attack on Jerusalem. The New Testament speaks of the Jewish Messiah Jesus Christ ruling in peace “for a thousand years” following his victory in that battle. (Rev. 20:4) Jesus’ words recorded in Matthew chapter 24, Mark chapter 13 and Luke chapter 21 tell us the signs to look for, and Jesus concluded, “When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near . . .  when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.” (Luke 21:28-31 NIV)