Probably not today or even tomorrow, but the United States will fall. Maybe not because of war on the Korean peninsula, but there will be an end of our beloved nation. For one, only Israel, through the intervention of Jesus’ return will remain, but the Bible even makes clear who the players are on the international stage in the waning years before that ultimate end – and the United States is not on that list. Yes, we may still exist, but it will be in a diminished role. Therefore, if we are currently the world’s leading super power, something must give.
Honest and conservative Bible teachers have known this truth since the Constitution’s ratification, but it hasn’t had to be a big deal. What good is it to live day-in and day-out knowing that the nation you live in will one day cease to exist? That knowledge doesn’t help; it just leads to fatalism. But now it must be shouted from the rooftops and stamped upon our foreheads.
We, Americans, are arrogant, and that arrogance has blinded us to the elephant in the room – or, rather, the nuclear warhead aimed at our revered NFL shrines and favorite eateries. Each one of us, whether we realize it or not, are staring down the silo of an ICBM. Fortunately, we are able to laugh it away – making memes of failed launches and Kim Jong-un’s elite soldiers wearing knock-off Ray-Bans.
But even a successful pre-emptive strike on Pyongyang does not mean that we would be safe. There is little certainty about who Russia or China would back in a showdown. This intense stare-down is dangerous.
Reports show that others “get it,” as South Koreans lift the United States in prayer. They know the potential and how we are like Jonathan Edward’s proverbial dangling spider held by one leg over a fire. That’s us – America is that spider held by a thread. We have a mighty military, one of which we can be proud, but we are not invincible. Actually, as I have said, we do have an expiration date.
In 2011, tucked away in the back of the Boston Globe, scientist Samuel Arbesman wrote a short masterpiece on the rise and fall of empires, entitled, “How Long Will America Last: An Impossible Question, Answered with Math.” Analyzing the mathematical data from world empires throughout history, Arbesman concluded that the average lifetime of these powers was 215 years – which he followed by noting that the U.S. Constitution was ratified 223 years before 2011. This conclusion, in conjunction with the previous stated prophetic clarity from the Bible, should slap us across the face with reality.
But it was another point established in Arbesman’s piece that captured my thoughts. He concluded from all the empires in history that it was clear world powers are “memoryless.” This means that regardless how long an empire existed, how great its economy may have been, or how strong it was militarily – they all fell the same way. No level of strength, size, wealth, or might can save a world power from demise. Also, being “memoryless” means that the fall can happen at any moment.
Our nation, though great, will fall. And any one of our generations could have a front-row ticket to that crash.
So, fellow Americans, we need to look-up from Candy Crush and smell the gunpowder. We will fall. The cause may not be loaded in the queue yet, but it’s coming. And right now, warning lights are flashing all over our national dashboard – enormous debt, outsourced industry, internal conflict, terrorism, North Korea, Russia, China, Iran and more.
Bible teachers have kept this reality of America’s ultimate destiny in the small print, but it’s time we underline and bold it. It’s time we let truth pierce our arrogance and invincibility, to the point we care less about who wins “The Voice” and the NBA title, and begin to care about our existence. It’s time we follow suit with our South Korean brothers and sisters praying for God’s guidance, protection and mercy for our nation.
