Is the United States of America in Bible prophecy?

Concurrently with the re-appearance of Israel upon the platform of the world's politics there will be seen again many of the powers with which Israel had dealings in the past. Edom, Moab, Ammon, and the Philistines, among others, have quite a shoal of prophecies yet to be fulfilled in them. In Greece, Italy, and other prophetic powers the national spirit has markedly revived in recent years. It reminds us of the Lord's words in Luke 21:29: "Behold the fig tree, and all the trees." If the fig tree is Israel, "all the trees" represent the powers which have to do with her. All must take up their respective positions in order to play their allotted part in the last scenes. Europe, Asia and Africa will contribute the various actors required. America, so far as Scripture speaks, has no special place in the prophetic future.

So as to America, I conceive that the young giant power which has grown so fast will sink still faster, probably through intestine quarrel, but assuredly somehow before that day comes. They will break up into different fragments. Their prime object is to maintain political unity. This is their great ambition, and though it may appear to stand and advance, as everything ambitious is apt to prosper for a time, it will be all blown down before long. For it is a remarkable fact that there is no place in prophecy for a vast influential power, such as the American United States would naturally be, if it so long retained its cohesion. Is it conceivable that there should be such a power existing at that day without any mention of it? Can the omission be accounted for save by its dissolution? However, I particularly wish every one to understand that this is merely drawn from the general principles of the word of God.

England, like the rest of western Europe, will be under the apostate influence of Rome and the antichrist; for there is no power faithfully protesting against this iniquity. For similar reasons, if I might venture to give an opinion (and I never think of giving one's own thought as more than that), it is that the United States of America will be swamped into a political marsh; and as they have been hitherto a mere omnium gatherum or conglomerate from the rest of the world, especially from Europe, comprising no doubt a vast deal of skill, industry, and enterprise, but also not a little of the scum and refuse of all nations; so I believe they will break up into factions of noisy primitive elements; and, after going off in boastful vapouring, will at length burst as a bubble.

The comparison of Isa. 45:1, 13, ought to convince any unbiased thoughtful mind that Cyrus is really in view, but of course ultimately the foreshadowed triumph when Christ comes in His kingdom, putting all enemies under His feet instead of gathering souls out of the world in one body for heaven, as He is now doing by the Holy Ghost's power through the gospel. (Compare also Ezra 1:1-3) If the Babylonish captivity of Judah was the divine chastening of their idolatry by means of the chief patron of idols on earth, the fall of Babylon was a tremendous blow on its own idolatry, predicted as this was by the Jewish prophet long before either event. These were among the reasons which made the first success and the final ruin of Babylon so important in scripture. They were bound up with God's ways in His people. And hence the answer to the infidel sneer touching the silence of prophecy respecting America. What has the discovery or growth of the New World in the far west to do with Israel? From the New Testament again all such matters are excluded, because the rejected Messiah involves not only the disappearance of Israel and the kingdoms of the earth from the foreground, but the calling of the church for glory in the heavenly places as the body and bride of Christ, at least until the corruption of Christendom becomes morally unbearable. For the age ends in the judgement of apostate Jews and Gentiles under the Beast and the false prophet, when Christ and His glorified saints appear from heaven, and the godly remnant of Jews here below will become a strong nation, the earthly centre of His kingdom under the whole heaven.

But it seems plain that the American or the Australasian lands and races cannot find themselves under the Roman Beast. For it, as I understand, is exclusively western, and does not comprehend even Greece or Macedonia, still less the properly Medo-Persian or Babylonish empires. Hence in Dan. 2 the gold, the silver, and the brass, are seen at the end when judgment falls, no less than the iron and clay, the symbol of the Roman empire. Cp. also Dan. 7:12. It is an error to make the range of the Beast, and of his Jewish ally, the Anti-Christ, universal. We must leave room for a great adversary in the king of the north or the Assyrian, and for Gog, the chief of the Russian races, behind that king, and after him.

But it seems plain that the American or the Australasian lands and races cannot find themselves under the Roman Beast. For it, as I understand, is exclusively western, and does not comprehend even Greece or Macedonia, still less the properly Medo-Persian or Babylonish empires. Hence in Daniel 2 the gold, the silver, and the brass, are seen at the end when judgment falls, no less than the iron and clay, the symbol of the Roman empire. Compare also Daniel 7:12. It is an error to make the range of the Beast, and of his Jewish ally, the Anti-Christ, universal. We must leave room for a great adversary in the king of the north or the Assyrian, and for Gog, the chief of the Russian races, behind that king, and after him.

We can see today how this could happen. Millions of believers will be raptured out of the United States and Canada, probably a bigger percentage than with any other nation. Many people in high government offices will be gone. The country will no longer be bound together by the Christian community. The Holy Spirit will be gone (2 Thess. 2:7).

In recent years we have seen the United States fragment to where one is no longer simply "an American," but is a black American, a white American, an Arab American, a German American, a native American, a Spanish American, a male American, a female American, etc. Every little group wants its own power base. Our semi-open borders have brought in millions with no particular patriotic loyalty to the United States or Canada. Being a Christian is a negative to much of the press and academia. Islam is thriving. We have become a debtor nation, owing huge amounts of money to nations not necessarily friendly to us. These divisive forces (racial, economic, religious, sexual, political, geographical) currently are held somewhat in check by the cohesive power of the Christian community — especially the true Church — and the general restraint of the Holy Spirit (2 Thess. 2:6-7). Then comes the Rapture! That restraint is gone! The divisive forces erupt and the United States as a world power quickly ceases to exist and world-wide disruption results. The powerbase quickly shifts to Europe, where we know it will be before the middle of the Tribulation.

Fantasy? Some think so, because they interpret these verses as applying to the Western part of the Revived Roman Empire, but I see these verses going beyond that to the greatest Western nation, the United States. I only submit the above as a possible interpretation for your prayerful evaluation. We can thank God for the United States which has freed multi-millions from oppression, has caused the gospel to flow to billions and has had freedom unknown to much of the world. But God looks on to only one kingdom, that of the Lord Jesus Christ when He is "King over all the earth."

The great and powerful United States might be mentioned in prophecy once, but only as a passing remark, and there is very little agreement on the interpretation of the one passage we will look at in what follows. Revelation 8:8-9 says, "Something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. And a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed."

The setting of this portion of Revelation 8 is probably early in the first half of the Tribulation. A great nation or kingdom (a mountain — Dan. 2:35, 44; Jer. 51:24-25) erupts like a volcano, apparently destroyed from within, with great loss of life and disruption of world commerce. We have in our study already seen the fate of Europe, Russia, the Arab-Islamic powers and the Eastern powers. None of these in my opinion fit the description given here. By process of elimination, the only great nation or kingdom left is the USA or maybe North America.

It is true that some of these lands, as America, are not expressly named in prophecy. But this in no way hinders the application of general principles. The judgment of the habitable world will take all in. Nor is God mocked by an ocean. His hand will surely deal with those who despise Him, east or west. It is not always understood that, when Babylon is judged, she sits not only on the seven hills but upon many waters. These waters, I suppose, mean all the streams of professedly Christian doctrine that spring from Babylonish principles. They constitute the main corruption of Christianity. The apostacy follows, but is a much more open avowed hostility than any such corruption of Christianity, though apparently its reactionary result. It would seem to be more centralised than Babylon's influence, and to have a more circumscribed place. Then, after the beast's judgment as well as Babylon's, the confederacy of nations will cover again a larger sphere, because this is not necessarily professing Christendom at all. They may be heathen nations or not. I presume that the nations of central Asia will all succumb to Russia, and will perish most signally on the mountains of Israel. It is well known that, even to the Chinese and others, the eastern races are sinking under the control of Russia, not without resistance and checks, but sure in the end to fall under its steady never-abandoned policy. It is not more certain for the Porte than for Persia, or for central India; not all to be absorbed into the empire, but all to accept its leadership. Astonishing is the blindness of men to what is coming. Such will be the part played by the Assyrian, who appears to be the great north-eastern instrument of Russia's designs; but they will all come under the judgment of God. The fact is that in due time all the nations must be judged as such: only there will be different measures of judgment according to differences of privilege. The greater our favour from God, the more strict the account to be rendered. Every one can feel the righteousness of this, and in judgment it is a question of righteousness. But the portion of the Christian is of grace which reigns through righteousness: and hence therefore his place will be with Christ. They will be all taken away from the earth and its varied circumstances of sorrow here to meet the Lord Jesus and dwell with Him in the Father's house. This is not of course revealed in the Old Testament, but only in the New where the proper revelation of Christianity is given.

The British nation is identified as Ephraim, as Ephraim was the possessor of the birthright of Joseph, and stands in Scripture for the ten tribes oftentimes. Then the United States of America are identified as Manasseh. On the addition of Benjamin to the ten tribes Manasseh ceased to belong to Israel, so we are told, but again without any proof.