The Disappearing United States
Ezekiel 38:1-6, 13
And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal: and I will turn thee about, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great company with buckler and shield, all them handling swords; Persia, Cush, and Put with them with shield and helmet; Gomer, and all his hordes; the house of Togarmah in the uttermost parts of the north, and all his hordes; even many peoples with thee…Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thous come to take the spoil? hast thou assembled thy company to take the prey? to carry away silver and gold, and to take away cattle and goods, to take great spoil? (ASV)
No doubt you have heard the term, “the elephant in the living room.” It comes from 12 step recovery programs like AA. It means if there is an addiction issue in a family causing havoc (which it always does), that issue is the “elephant in the living room.” The addict gets furious if anyone tries to address the issue, so, everyone has to tip-toe around the problem and the gigantic mess it creates. Just like an elephant in your living room would.
However, I want to talk about an “elephant” that isn’t there. In Ezekiel 38:1-6,13, we read about a great future invasion of Israel that will have cataclysmic implications for the world and everything that happens afterward.
Here are the nations named and their current modern equivalents:
- Rosh, Meschech and Tubal – Russia and Moscow and Tubolsk
- Persia – Iran
- Cush – Ethiopia
- Put – Somalia
- Gomer – Germany
- Togarmah – Armenia
Protesting the invasion (and that’s all they do) is:
- Sheba and Dedan – countries in current northern Arabia
- Tarshich and the young lions thereof – Spain and the Spanish speaking world.
The point of the invasion is spelled out in Ezekiel 38: 12
“to take the spoil and to take the prey; to turn thy hand against the waste places that are now inhabited, and against the people that are gathered out of the nations, that have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the middle of the earth.”
Israel, it seems, will become massively wealthy, and at that time a worthy prize to invade and loot.
I know that all that needs a lot of exegetical proof (long winded theological/historical verification of all of the above), but just humor me. These identifications are based on solid scholarship.
So, who’s missing? The biggest player in the Middle East right now that’s who. It’s US – the good old USA. We aren’t in this prophecy – period.
Question? – Where’d we go?
The infallible, inerrant text doesn’t say, so the following are educated guesses.
One
The rapture of the church would hit the United States harder than any other nation on earth right now. If Jesus tarries another two or more decades, that may not be as big a factor, but now born again Christians make up a sizable minority of the culture. But the key thing to remember is they hold the nation together morally with a number key leaders in politics, business, and media, not to mention being the backbone of religion in the nation.
With real Christians gone this nation would rapidly descend into a looney tune leftist, socialistic mess and collapse economically, politically, and culturally.
Two
The cultural collapse we are currently experiencing just keeps going. We go bankrupt and can no longer finance a global military presence. The world will have no super power, and we’ll be doing good to handle our own problems.
It could be a combination of the two.
One thing is crystal clear:
Sometime in the future the United States will no longer be a dominate power in world affairs. The elephant will be gone.
This is not meant to discourage believers. It just shows how important we are to the greater scheme of things. Let’s keep at it, and be really conspicuous by our absence.
