Where Will America Be at the End of Time?

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In his recent book Implosion: Can America Recover From Its Economic and Spiritual Challenges in Time? Rosenberg outlines several potential scenarios he believes could explain why the United States isn’t mentioned in Bible prophecy. (© Coutinho | Stock Free Images )

At World’s End in 2012 ... or 2013
This sense of anxiety and foreboding about the future also comes amid growing interest in ancient predictions by Christians, Jews, Muslims, Native Americans and other ethnic and religious groups. Among the most highly publicized of these has been the Mayan prophecy that purportedly predicts the end of the world on Dec. 21. Though the prediction yielded the $770 million sci-fi movie 2012 three years ago, the public’s fascination with the calendar date seems to have waned, especially since Mayan scholars say new evidence shows the Mesoamericans didn’t believe the end of their long-count calendar on Dec. 21 marked the world’s end. 

“The scholarly community doesn’t really take this too seriously,” says Stephen Houston, a Mayan scholar and a professor of social science at Brown University. “It’s really more of a cultural phenomenon. It’s likely to be seen as important today because people are of course concerned about our present age—current conditions, environmental problems and economic dislocations.”

This summer, Nouriel Roubini, a professor of economics and international business at New York University who anticipated the collapse of the U.S. housing market and the global recession, told Bloomberg TV that 2013 could be a “global perfect storm”—with policymakers running out of options to stimulate the economy and a potential war between Iran and Israel that could double gas prices, devastating the world economy.

“You could have a collapse of the Eurozone, a U.S. double-dip, hard-landing of China, hard-landing of emerging markets and a war in the Middle East,” Roubini told Bloomberg TV. “Next year could be a global perfect storm.”

But What About America?
With all the real-world concerns today, what some financial experts fear is the coming “greatest depression of all time” and a drought encompassing nearly two-thirds of the U.S., the public is increasingly intrigued by what the Bible may reveal about America’s future.

“It creates a kind of convergence of interest in the end times,” says Mark Hitchcock, pastor of Faith Bible Church in Edmond, Okla., and author of 2012, the Bible, and the End of the World and The Late Great United States. “You have this Mayan prediction out there. You could have Israel and Iran at war. I see how a lot of things could really come down at the end of the year and really cause a lot of people to wonder, ‘What does the future hold for the United States?’”

Most Bible prophecy scholars agree that God’s Word is mysteriously silent about the fate of the U.S. They say the Bible refers to at least 15 specific nations and regional alliances (e.g., Israel, Iran, Russia, China, Europe) that play roles in the end times. But America is not specifically named, although dozens of biblical passages refer to God’s final dealings with “all the nations.” In Haggai 2:7, for example, the Lord foretold through the Hebrew prophet that He would “shake all nations” in the last days.

“This is certainly coming true in the United States,” Rosenberg writes in Implosion. “We are being shaken physically, financially, socially, spiritually, politically and in numerous other ways, and we can expect this to accelerate and intensity in the years ahead.”

Evangelist Perry Stone, founder of Voice of Evangelism ministries and author of Nightmare Along Pennsylvania Avenue and many other books, believes—like Cahn—that Israel and America are “spiritually linked.”

“America is almost a reflection of Israel,” Perry says. “Israel crossed the Red Sea to get to the Promised Land. Our founders crossed the sea to get to America. Israel and America were both divided between the North and the South. Israel had 13 tribes; America had 13 colonies.”

Based on those parallels, Perry says he realized the same blessings promised to ancient Israel are promised to America if the nation obeys God’s Word. Likewise, the same curses Israel experienced for disobedience would also be experienced by America for not obeying God’s commands.

“The very first warning God gave Israel was, ‘If you disobey My Word, break My commandments and don’t hearken to My Word, I will appoint over you terror,’” Perry says. “When I realized in 2001 that there was an initiation of a ‘War on Terror,’ I started following those passages to see what else it indicated for America’s future.”

Some prophecy teachers say the Bible makes direct references to America and argue that the U.S., or perhaps New York City, is “Babylon the Great”—the “great prostitute who sits on many waters” that is destroyed in one hour, according to Revelation 17 and 18. In these chapters, the apostle John wrote that the “Mother of Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth” would be destroyed by fire, while the merchants of the earth who grew “rich through the abundance of her luxury” would “weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise anymore” (17:5; 18:3, 11).

Others have suggested the “merchants of Tarshish, and all their young lions” mentioned in Ezekiel 38:13 is a reference to the United Kingdom—whose Royal Coat of Arms includes a lion—and its offspring, America. Still others say the “great eagle” in Revelation 12:14 is America.

Rosenberg, LaHaye, Hitchcock, Perry and many other Bible prophecy teachers reject these arguments, however. And though Franklin Graham isn’t typically linked with these names, the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and international Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse agrees the Bible doesn’t specifically mention the U.S.

The logical conclusion, Graham says, is that the scenarios Rosenberg has proposed are “certainly viable.” Graham is especially concerned about the nation’s “moral spiral downward,” noting that President Obama’s support of same-sex marriage essentially amounts to “shaking his fist in God’s face.”

“Look at the spiritual decline of this nation and where we are today,” Graham says. “Unless we repent as a nation and reverse course, I think God is going to bring quick and swift judgment on this nation.”


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